Well I’m glad to hear more people stating the obvious. Well done Bern.
A refreshing take for sure, and even though Bernie is Jewish he sees this cruel regime for what it really is. There are no excuses for harming innocent civilians, ever!
A lot of jewish actually call this out as a genocide, its just the world leader playing their politics while the people are getting murdered on the ground.
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Yes I’m aware. I also know many Israeli citizens condemn the actions of their government. I just think that as an American Jewish politician, Bernie has an incentive not to criticize the Israeli government but he still does, and that takes some courage.
Jews != Zionists
Problem is, at least where I live, the majority of the Jewish community fervently supports Israel.
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I think it’s more pointing out how many politicians (and people in general), especially Republicans, who won’t criticize them, and even say criticizing them is anti-semitic. Him being Jewish means he has more cultural connection to them than they do, yet he still points it out. He also can’t reliably be called anti-semitic because he is a semite (at least the modern meaning of the word. I’m not sure if he speaks Hebrew or other Semitic languages).
This is exactly what I meant. I have no prejudice against Jewish people whatsoever, I’m simply admiring the balls it takes to be an American Jewish politician and taking a stance against the Israeli government. He’s risking losing a part of his supporters but he still stands for what’s right.
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It’s different because it’s Israel and Israel has a stranglehold over US politics.
Moreover, the idea that Israel somehow represents Jewish people as a whole is simply Israeli propaganda that promotes Israel’s interests at the expense of non-Israeli Jews.
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Religion has not done a lot of good in the world lately. Turns out the “my way or the highway” approach creates nothing but death and violence.
Religion, and British imperialism
The Roman empire’s spawn. Western imperialism and christianity/islam.
Curious, What good would you attribute to religion?
Traditionally, churches and other religious institutions, have been good at building community and programs that benefit the less fortunate among us. You know, the whole “love your neighbor as yourself” thing.
More and more, though, it has devolved into not much more than political extremism and often hateful rhetoric and even calls to physical violence.
I don’t think that is new. It’s true that it helps. But religions have always been involved in war. Up until 200 years ago the Pope was the most powerful person on the planet for at least 1000 years.
Right. Religious institutions have definitely never been all good.
Don’t forget the crusades.
In all seriousness, community is the biggest benefit of religion, and the reason I’m ok with it existing in modern society. The idealized church (and these do still exist in smaller churches) is a safe place for people to come, not be judged, and find acceptance and support.
A friend of mine goes to a church like this, and honestly sometimes I’m jealous. I’m as atheist as they come in my personal beliefs, but hearing all the actually cool stuff they do to support their members is really cool. I don’t agree with their religion, but they’re practicing it right as far as I’m concerned.
Religion should absolutely be either personal or small community, though. As soon as you have states using it as justification for violence, that religion has stopped being useful or acceptable.
Agreed, it’s mostly community as far as personal benefits. We had a friend group through it that fell apart recently and my wife wants to go back to church only for the community.
Outreach is mostly a guise in my opinion, a show that’s put on to make the congregation think their money is being used wisely. I have a lot of disdain for organized religion though, having grown up in it and painfully “deconstructing” a couple years ago. I can’t step foot in a church ever again (minus a wedding).
Yeah, for sure there’s some scummy stuff churches can do with money. Again, that’s not EVERY church, and the bigger it gets, the more likely the preacher has a supercar. Some have actual accountability, and actually spend the money helping congregation, but it can take some looking to find them, and unfortunately they’re overshadowed by the Joel Olstein style mega churches.
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Pope hats are kinda cool.
It gives some people a lot of comfort.
Religion is a plague. It’s the reason we’re going to destroy ourselves. How many of the people who deny climate change (and every other batshit insane position taken by lunatics) are religious right-wingers? By far, most.
the communist elite in china don’t give AF about climate change and they’re nothing close to “right wing” or religious. you’re just cherry picking to make a (very weak) point.
It’s not religion, but it is strict adherence to an ideology and refusing to acknowledge facts that contradict the ideology or make it inconvenient
true, and in that sense the CCP is sort of like a religion
Religion or not, it sure would be nice if we could not killing civilians and not genocide.
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Shh, Bernie, corporate America might blacklist you from ever working for them.
I (a non-US) watched Hillary in a documentary about her saying Bernie has never worked (in corporate/professional settings) all his life. If that’s true, I don’t think it matters to him.
Yeah, you’re right. My comment was a weak attempt a humor.
I think that fact makes your joke even stronger.
it’s not weak actually. I don’t get it as don’t realize it’s a common knowledge there.
And a reference to the Harvard debacle, I’m guessing?
Egh, just some minor untrue propaganda. My bad.
It’s a joke. They are saying Bernie will never be a paid off tool of the corporations. Which he would never want to be anyway. And that’s why he lost the nomination.
Hillary is a very transparent corporate goon. She’s never done anything out of the currently accepted status quo. She’s entirely interested in what benefits her political career.
Bernie being on the right side of history as usual.
It’s genocide. It’s hate for hates sake. All for the benefit of a few rich old men.
Either Jews suck at genociding or you’re a dumbass.
In case you are just uneducated and not a troll:
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
So, yes, what Israel is doing is genocide.
It’s a very bad physical destruction when there’s now 5 times more than 60 years ago. When I destroy something whole or in part there’s usually less afterwards. See Jewish population in Europe before and after ww2.
So the medieval-style siege (only done 'in retaliation" ofc, as is tradition for Israel) does not intent to destroy the population in the Gaza Strip just because the bad sand people didn’t die yet? The definition clearly states that it’s about intent.
In any case, 45% of the population in Gaza is 14 years or younger, so the mental harm bit of the genocide definition also applies. What Israel is doing and did in the past centuries is horrific and that constant backup they get from the West has to stop.
For clarity, I’m not arguing that Hamas are the good guys, everyone knows they are jihadists that like to pretend they fight for their people but in reality only use them as shields. I argue that Israel is a nationalist, ultra-right state led by an insane nutcase that openly admits to be a proponent of zionism and unironically thinks Hitler got the idea for the Holocaust from a Palestinian Grand Mufti. Israel is not worthy of getting military support.
I’m not arguing for Israel being the good guy, just for genocide to be melodramatic. They treat them like enemies, which with a support of 60%+ for hamas which declared goal is to drive all Jews (not only the rightwing asshats) into the sea.
Hamas and many Palestinians celebrate the deaths of Jewish civilians. Since even before Israel existed there have been multiple attempts to bring all sides together. There were offers where Palestine would’ve been its own nation with the capital being in eastern Jerusalem. They refused every single time. You want intent? The clear intent of hamas is the extermination of every single Jew in the region without exception. Both sides are bad and the Israeli government is far from innocent. But I only see one group celebrating when civilians get killed. And I only see one group thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough.
I’m not arguing for Israel being the good guy, just for genocide to be melodramatic.
It’s not melodrama, it fits the UN definition of a genocide, but if you think “ethnic cleansing” is more appropriate, I’m willing to compromise.
They treat them like enemies, which with a support of 60%+ for hamas which declared goal is to drive all Jews (not only the rightwing asshats) into the sea.
Palestinians support Hamas not because of their ideals, but because they are the only one’s that pretend to fight for them. Israel’s kill count is orders of magnitude higher than Hamas’. How many Palestinians would vote for Hamas if there were fair, anonymous elections in Palestine is impossible to tell. You are extrapolating Hamas’ extremism to the general population and basing it on surveys from a prison camp.
Since even before Israel existed there have been multiple attempts to bring all sides together. There were offers where Palestine would’ve been its own nation with the capital being in eastern Jerusalem. They refused every single time.
True, because their Holy Scripture tells them it’s their land which is ironically the same reasoning Israel uses to stake a claim on the region.
The clear intent of hamas is the extermination of every single Jew in the region without exception.
Yes, and the clear intent of Israel is to exterminate every single Palestinian. That’s why they are huddled up in Gaza and the West Bank, guarded by the IDF. They are not allowed to enter Israel and Egypt refuses to let them enter their territory as well.
And I only see one group thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough.
The only group I see thinking the Holocaust didn’t go far enough is the West by continuing to give military support to Israel so they can continue with theirs.
Hamas and many Palestinians celebrate the deaths of Jewish civilians.
But I only see one group celebrating when civilians get killed
I’m gonna address this last because those are loaded points, but they seem very important for your opinion on the conflict.
Palestinians live in a world, devoid of any hope or future. They have no way of sustaining themselves, they have no way to escape, they have no way to fulfill what they think is their destiny (living under their God in Palestine). Israel on the other hand got their destiny with wide support from predominantly the US and the UK, but also the Western world as a whole.
I understand and empathize with the desperation of the Palestinian civilians and cheering on the deaths of your obvious enemy is not something exclusive to them, I’ve seen that happening many times, even from more privileged positions. What I mean by this is that US citizens cheer for their military successes, so do their opponent. People even do that by proxy in conflicts they have no personal interest in. At this point, I would just call it a human trait when being confronted with a shit situation, the deep end of the human soul so to speak.
The extermination of Palestinians clearly isn’t their goal. Allowing the population of Palestinians to grow from 1 million to 5 million would otherwise look pretty foolish.
But why is Egypt refusing to let them in? Maybe because they don’t want to deal with Hamas either?
A population growing to 5 times the size it was before clearly does not fit the definition of genocide. Am I agreeing with how Palestinians are treated? No. But calling it a genocide when the population has been growing and growing is ridiculous.
The comment about the west I’ll ignore because it makes you look like a tanky.
You do know that this same argument is used by holocaust deniers, right?
Then holocaust deniers can’t read stats. As it took the Jewish population in Germany until 2018 to grow back to 1/5 of what it was in 1933.
Is the Israeli government being dickheads about Gaza? Definitely. But calling it a genocide seems melodramatic seeing as there’s now 5 times the amount of people there was 60 years ago.
And honestly, if what being done in Gaza qualifies as genocide, where’s the hate for Egypt? They keep the border closed too. But for some reason only Israel gets blamed. Why isn’t Egypt stepping up supplying aid?
And honestly, if what being done in Gaza qualifies as genocide, where’s the hate for Egypt? They keep the border closed too. But for some reason only Israel gets blamed. Why isn’t Egypt stepping up supplying aid?
And get targeted by USrael?
Because they seemed to care about that during any of the wars they fought against Israel.
The real reason (according to everything I found) Egypt keeps the border closed is because they don’t seem to want to deal with Hamas and not because Israel is telling them to.
You joking mate?
At least someone has common sense
I mean, Bernie Sanders always had that. That’s a good part of why people liked him.
See him arguing against various wars where he stood among few against the many and was so far right on these takes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_om-x323Em0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZo97nFS9GU
One of the comments under the videos puts it well:
For every wrong move america has made in the last 40 years, there is a video of Bernie arguing against it.
I’m glad to hear him break back away from the Dem establishment orthodoxy. He’s been mostly toeing the corporatist establishment line since Biden secured the nomination.
Though, maybe that means I need to get defederated now.
I just got done watching PBS News hour Brooks and Capehart segment and, wow… Talk about completely one-sided. As though viewing this event in isolation without recognition to the broader historical context. Basically drooling over Netanyahu.
When will people learn that radicalization doesn’t just manifest out of thin air…?
exactly. israel has been killing palestinian as for decades. because they want their land. bibi is taking israeli citizens down a dark, dark road. if israel had treated the palestinians as full humans with the same rights as themselves, hamas wouldn’t even exist.
I just got done watching PBS News hour Brooks and Capehart segment and, wow… Talk about completely one-sided.
I just watched it myself, and didn’t see that.
How was it one-sided, in your opinion?
Did either of them give historical context to why Palestinians are blaming Israel and not Hamas in this instance? Did either of them address the creeping territorial seizure of Arab land? Did they give any mourning to the many more Palestinian civilian deaths both in this acute conflict, or in the past decades? (reminder there has been roughly 10x the number of Palestinian civilian deaths from Israeli forces than there has Israelis by Palestinian groups).
The way they spoke made it seem like this attack just manifested out of thin-air and that Israel is innocent.
That neither Capehart nor Brooks who raised their own race/ethnicity could relate to confining people into slums and ghettos, and imposing economic blockades as they victim-blame them for the number of civilian deaths is to me as shocking as it is ironic.
It’s called “Manufactured Consent”
There’s so much emotion in your response that I’m lothe to reply, but at the very least, did you honestly expect them to have to hash out the whole history of the region every time they’re on air?
At some point I think it’s okay to assume that people know the basics of what happened before, and that they’re discussing the latest events that are going on.
Frankly, I see more emotion in your reply.
I’m just eating breakfast, but I guess emotion is in the eye of the beholder.
to briefly outline the full picture would take five minutes, maybe ten. just an yes, it’s perfectly realistic. i’d say most of the viewers have only a hazy idea of the origins, if that.theres no reason to skip a brief history of this. zero.
to briefly outline the full picture would take five minutes
Their segment on the show is ten minutes already, without the exposition that you want. You’re not being realistic.
If a law carries no punishment, is it even a law?
Seems like more a set of guidelines that people are free to ignore whenever it suits them.
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All religions are poisonous.
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Which religion isn’t poisonous?
The flying spaghetti monster perhaps
Praise his name. Ramen.
It’s too on the nose when religions claim they are coming in the name of peace yet they continue to leave a bloody trail. Yes, I condemn Hamas just as much as I condemn the killing of innocent Palestinians in the name of religion.
Innocent Palestinians are being killed by an ethno state so let’s make sure we call it what it is. It’s colonial sentiments and Jewish supremacy that are behind this.
Is it in the name of religion? How so?
How come nobody is mentioning how President George Bush is the guy who fucked up Gaza?
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-day-that-bush-took-gaza/
The Day That Bush Took Gaza
April 25, 2004
President Bush’s embrace of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for unilateral Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip is going to turn out to be more than a mere gesture. Sharon’s radical initiative would evacuate all Israeli settlements and military positions, unilaterally, within the next 18 months…de facto responsibility for what happens in Gaza once Israel withdraws will fall to the United States. That’s the hidden meaning in the president’s letter of assurance to Sharon saying that the United States will lead an international effort to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism and prevent the areas from which Israel withdraws from posing a threat.
One wonders whether Bush really appreciates what he is getting himself and the United States into. Having trumpeted his support for an independent Palestinian state, he is now taking on responsibility for ensuring that the Gaza mini-state created by Israel’s withdrawal does not turn into a failed terrorist state.
I don’t agree with this guy’s hot take on things. He’s arguing that because Bush supported the Israeli Prime Minister’s idea of pulling out of Gaza, Bush is somehow taking full responsibility for Palestine and has all the blame for Hamas winning the majority vote in Gaza in 2007.
Sharon was going to let the Palestinian Authority (who rules the west bank) run Gaza. Bush is the guy who pushed for democratic elections. That’s why he’s the one who is most responsible. Of course the Gaza residents over 40 who voted for Hamas (perhaps around 20% of the current population) also share the blame. This is also something the news media doesn’t talk about. The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.
The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.
Still civilians though. And, not all of them did. All in all it’s madness to equate the entire Gaza population with the perpetrators the way that Israel is currently doing.
What was the voting age at the time of that election in Gaza? I’ve heard that the average age of Palestinians is 18, although that might only be a recent statistic. If the voting age of that population is so young, you might imagine the ignorance that population would have towards issues, or the potential that population might have for manipulation.
Did that 2007 election take place like US ones, where only like 2/3rds of people even vote at all?
Questions like this really make you wonder if it was even possible for the election results that put Hamas into power to be representative of the general population.
So, all of this is to say that I agree with you.
I wrote this on Reddit to argue against someone who suggested that Israel’s response is justified, given that Hamas won an election. Here’s what I responded:
There are several significant issues with your reasoning:
- Voting has never implied being responsible for the crimes of your government.
- There have not been elections since 2006. The Gaza Strip does not have a democratic system. This further challenges the argument that the population should pay some kind of price.
- Hamas won the elections by taking 74 of the 132 seats in parliament. This means that 60 seats were for non-hamas participants of these elections. Consequently, many people who are trapped in Gaza and want nothing to do with Hamas are being punished/killed.
- About 50% of the Gaza population is under 15 years of age. Attacking Gaza in this way should never have been on the table given these demographics.
In other words, the average voting age isn’t too relevant.
Right, because voting doesn’t matter. Got it.
Sorry maybe I sounded a bit harsh. I think we’re on line here, but to be sure. I mean that the average voting age in 2006 could be an interesting detail when doing an analysis of the origins the current situation. So would other themes that played a role in the campaign before the election. I remember reading about this that the corruption of the alternative parties was an issue for voters too.
But when it comes to justifying huge numbers of civilian casualties, it’s a pretty well established principle that civilians can never directly be held accountable with violence for the actions of their government. So that means that we don’t need to engage with arguments about whether voters knew what they were getting into or any specifics about the election. Because doing so would be giving in to your opponent (in a hypothetical debate) and you’d be undermining your own position.
Maybe my points have the same problem. But since people who support the bombings don’t seem to care about international law, I felt like these were a good second line of defence.
Gaza was fucked way backed in 1948 by the UN and especially the UK. What follows were 75 years of genocide/terrorism.
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Fuck him; call things by their names, GENOCIDE.
I guess Israel had enough of Hamas’ shit.
War crimes are war crimes even if you feel like you have a good reason (hint: there’s no good reason to cut off the watersupply to an entire population.)
Best get to releasing those prisoners then.
Or maybe let the Palestinians take care of their own security because it seems the only palestinians with guns do so illegally and fall in with Hamas. How do we expect a peace treaty work otherwise? Do we expect to make sociopaths like Hamas docile with peace?
That’s just it. Hamas does not want peace with Israel. They want to see 100% total eradication of the Israeli state. There is no reasoning with extremists. I’m surprised so many people here are pro-Hamas.
Watch out Bibi, the international police are going to come and arrest you! Blah blah blah.
Well, he already literally removed the ability for Israel’s Supreme Court to stop him from doing whatever the fuck he wants. Regardless of how anyone feels about Israel, their political system is in shambles.
What a lucky time for a war for Bibi.
that was my immediate first thought after hearing hamas attacked. and so lucky for him that israeli intelligence somehow missed everything, so there was no warning.
