Sorry to disappoint, JVP, but Hamas isn't releasing their hostages en masse unless Israel turns over 1,000s of Palestinian prisoners. They took them for leverage.
Who should we believe, some protestors in the US or Hamas themselves who stated pretty definitively they will not stop until the nation of Israel has been abolished. If Hamas wants a ceasefire (and let's be clear they don't care about their own people) than they can release the hostages unconditionally, lay down their arms and admit Israel has a right to exist. That of course will never happen so these protestors can continue to advocate for a genocidal, terrorist regime and demonstrate that the progressive left in America is filled with clowns and should not be taken seriously.
D2, when you are filling out your ballet please remember that Morlaes is a member of DSA, the same organization that has led many of these pro Hamas rallies celebrating the murder of 1400 innocent people.
FYI, the Senate will not entertain the $14.3 billion Israel funding package because it cuts funding from the IRS (“to pay for it”), not because it doesn’t fund aid for Ukraine (but keep carrying water for the right wing, progressives).
@11: Since you’ve remained utterly ignorant about the last 75 years of Middle East history, let me clue you into a subtle pattern which has repeated many times there. No amount of talking about the suffering of Palestinians ever brings any meaningful action. After Jordan’s 1950 occupation of the West Bank, it made no effort to create an independent Palestinian state there; instead, it annexed the territory outright, and made the Palestinians Jordanian citizens. Even today, other states in the region are flatly refusing to accept any Palestinian refugees from the war zone Hamas created when it dragged Israeli citizens into the Gaza territory at gunpoint. So no, there will be no war over this.
The Palestinian cause makes for a very convenient club with which to beat Israel, and states in the region (Iran, Qatar) use that cause as an excuse to fund terrorism. The Palestinians themselves have always been treated as completely disposable, just like Hamas treats the Palestinian children it uses for human shields.
“reich wing
facists: whatchya
gonna fucking DO?”
I imagine such persons will continue to swallow and regurgitate propaganda manufactured by a violent, state-sponsored practitioner of terror, one which holds reactionary views on the status of women, punishes homosexuality by death, and seeks to eradicate Jews from any territory it may hold or conquer.
I always find it amusing when there are protests outside of (on 2nd Ave) the Federal Building. The employees only want to get away from JFB as fast as they possibly can once it’s 4:30 pm. The idea of them spending even an extra millisecond there is laughable!
thnx
as per
Usual tentsores
for the loverly Lecture
which
sadly I
didn't bo-
ther Reading
as per Usually.
why do You
Want the Middle
East to be the Catalyst
that sets off WWIII the Last
Really BIG one? I'll take my Answer
to this Rehetorical Query off the Air.
I am impressed how dense so many of these responses are.
IF you mentally take the position that, you are in charge of a middle east group, and the only way you can maintain power is violence, then every incident could be exploited as an existential crisis and a reason for you to cling tighter to your Office, delay elections, and mobilize your armed forces. Every single motor vehicle accident could be the start of a war. To 'back down' or giving a shadow of a doubt is tantamount to being 'primaried,' in U.S. political parlance. Every act of kindness to the 'other side' may be political suicide.
Internal politics like this require blood letting. I am not saying I agree with it, in fact, I don't. And, the outrages are on both sides. If you take a long hard look at UN Resolution 181, and the history that evolved (devolved) since, you might get the feeling that: this was a botched job. Gross understatement there, but, as fucked as any of the British Empire's fuck ups.
The hard truth is, neither side is willing to move, and both sides are willing to die for what they believe in. Both sides take hard-line immutable positions, and both sides suffer for each position every time they take one. Every current issue is precluded by all that has gone on before. The only benefit of time, is there are more issues to preclude (prevent) future solutions that might work.
"Calling" for something so far outside your sphere of influence is such a lame-ass maneuver, I find it sad and disappointing, but it sells newspapers and generates advertising revenue.
Both militaries will do what it wants and the politicians are unable to (much less be shown themselves trying to...) stop it. The continuous 'one-ups' in outrageous behavior has its' latest crescendo of at this latest travesty.
If you are asking yourself if it was the murder of 'innocents,' or the bombing of 'refugee camps,' then, you ought to realize it is all of it since 1948. So much of the rhetoric is misleading. I mean, how does a camp have 20 story buildings? I get that this was the first such settlement, from the first Palestinian diaspora, but it has long stopped being a camp. So much of the headlines are written in a way to get attention, not to educate, clarify, or defuse tension. So, on top of the heightened concerns of the folks doing the killing and dying, the media is making bank on it.
Another episode of how the middle east sausage is made. If you don't want to know about it, don't look. If you DO look, please use an intelligent eye and read waay between the media headlines with a huge dose of skepticism.
This will get bloodier and more unfortunate before anything gets what either side might refer to as 'better,' and even then, only better than the current dose of senseless violence. I am hoping for peace, but am afraid it will come only after the IDF cuts off Gaza City, chokes it for a month or three, and ends up using half the bunker busters in their arsenal, destroy 2/3 of Gaza City.
I am hoping that in this, I am wrong.
“Another episode of how the middle east sausage is made. If you don't want to know about it, don't look. If you DO look, please use an intelligent eye and read waay between the media headlines with a huge dose of skepticism.”
Thank you. Both the Stranger and some sympathetic commenters here have been simply repeating claims from Hamas, especially numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza, as if those claims have been checked independently. They’ve also been repeating those claims with no context, apparently unaware of Hamas’ long history of using civilians in Gaza as human shields.
Based on available information Hannah's reporting regarding the numbers here is objectively and indisputably accurate. Why you would choose to side with and defend that stupid, sexist fuck @6 (you do see where he called Hannah a "bimbo" yes?) is beyond me. You're better than this, Raindrop.
And honestly, I'm still not even sure what you're saying there in @20. I mean the statement, "close to 200 people had filled the plaza on Second Avenue leading into the building" very clearly suggests that those people were there blocking the entrance and protesting. I suppose there could have been some "onlookers" among them, but it certainly wouldn't make much sense from any sort of logical perspective. Yeesh.
nyt:
Gaza War
Enters New Phase
As Israel Faces Pressure Over Civilian Deaths
Fears are rising that the conflict could spread to the occupied West Bank, where tensions are soaring among Palestinians angered over deadly Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
Favorite comment
On this article:
“’Over civilian deaths'? Let me re-phrase that for you - over war crimes of targeting unarmed civilians indiscriminately.
It's not that these are casualties from Israel trying to attack Hamas positions - these are women and children indiscriminately killed in schools, hospitals and refugee camps. There are no massive weapon caches there. No tunnels. No tanks. Israel is driving the population out of parts of Gaza, probably with the hope of never giving it back. It's called mass displacement and its a war crime.
They are blockading the entry of water, food and medical supplies into the territory. Thousands of lives are being lost unnecessarily due to a blockade of the international organizations and NGOs. Hungry children with no water are not terrorists - they are not responsible. They should not be suffering the effects of whatever you want to call this military invasion.
The New York Times is not known for its objective stance on the Israeli issue, but by god, do a little better. What is going on is war crimes. When it was Russia at the helm - you guys had no problem blasting it on every page and commentary article. Now that it's a friendly state, the silence is almost deafening. Do better.
For those reading, call your local and state representatives. Call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire. This is not a question of religion or politics. It's a question of dead women and children who will be on our collective conscience.”
@18: You have no need to remind anyone that you comment out of complete ignorance of your subject, nor that you could so easily have remedied your ignorance before commenting. (You’ll just have to trust me on this.)
I was hoping a tiny history lesson might halt your panic, but if you want to live in fear borne of ignorance, then there’s nothing anyone else can do to help you. (Do try not to flood your mattress.)
@26: “…war crimes of targeting unarmed civilians indiscriminately.”
So, Hamas should release the hundreds of civilians it has dragged into Gaza at gunpoint? Hamas should stop having their terrorists hide behind Palestinian children? To save the lives of civilians in Gaza, exactly which brutal terrorist tactic should Hamas abandon first?
@23, @24, @25, &c.: Whether this demonstration had twenty, or two hundred, or two thousand, or twenty thousand persons in attendance, Seattle’s population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and Washington state’s population in the millions. Whatever number you choose, it’s tiny compared the number of voters. Those voters have expressed little appetite for rewarding Hamas’ terrorism with a cease-fire.
(It’s exceptionally silly for supporters of that cease-fire to crow about how they were barely able to push the number of demonstrators into the multiple hundreds, when multiple thousands of persons reside and/or work within walking distance of the protest site.)
"Trump
leads in Five
Critical States as
Voters Blast Biden,
Times/Siena Poll Finds”
appeasing
BiBi el nutanyahoo
having the World see
You – and US – as co-Sponsors
of a Genocide with OUR fighter jets
AND our Bombs –not nukular as many Right
(here!) had Hoped – is Ceding the next Election*
to el trumpfster
and quite Likely
creating the Perfect
Storm for Global Nukular
Glassification of Earth. have
You not seen Cormac McKarthy’s
Brilliant The Road? Call it Biden’s Road?
do our War Machines say “Merry Xmas from the USOFA!”
right on ‘em? or just Boeing Raytheon ad absurdity
cuz we Armchair Generals and Ambassadors
are just DYING to Know
not like the Children
in Gaza ‘dying’
but I’d say
Curious.
*what is the Last Thing
the tens of Thousands
of Gazan murdered
children see?
Made in the usa?
Can you (somehow!) explain
to me and US how spending our
Precious tax Dollars on furthering
A fucking Genocide is Making US Safer?
& the Jews have Socialized Medicine which WE
Cannot fucking Afford. can We send our Sick over There?
Personally I’d prefer NOT to have My Name on
Your Genocidal WMDs even though YOU
call it Certain Justice. Perhaps when
these Children become of Age
and’re seeking Retribution
I’ll point your Comments
Out to them. just as I’m
Confident You’ll do for
Me when Biden gives
to El trumpfster our
Next Election.*
*even Worse than Kshama!
right, tenstey? Or might
You call that a Statis-
tical Tie? Kinda like
Viet Nam?
“I've been in meetings over the years, and I've had a member of Congress say to me, ‘Well, you know, land without a people for a people without a land.’ Or they've quoted back to me something like, ‘Well, listen, Israel can't make peace so long as the Palestinians hate Jews more than they love their children.’
That kind of stuff. I mean, it's just this basic language, which at a fundamental level dehumanizes Palestinians in such a way that you don't have to question whether what Israel is doing is right or wrong.
There are no innocent civilians because they're all somehow in their DNA, virulently, viciously anti-Semitic, and full of hate and full of terrorism.
And, once you've established that as a baseline, deep racism, deep dehumanization, it's extremely effective.
Because then anything goes.
We know that there was a period of time when the Israeli military literally calculated the number of calories it needed to allow entry into Gaza to prevent the population from starving. And that was all they were letting in.
We're in the most bizarre place where we have almost 10,000 Palestinians dead on the ground in Gaza. And the narrative that is being pushed out by the Israeli government and its supporters here, including in the US administration, is that to talk about ceasefire is repugnant.
It's just utterly surreal.
If people still believe that you can defeat an ideology by killing a lot of people and essentially taking a whole generation and killing their parents and injuring them, and they think that's going to defeat an ideology, then they've learned nothing.
They've learned nothing from the horrible experiences of the past few decades of the U.S. experience in the war on terror, and the know nothing about human nature.”
-- Lara Friedman
Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. She is a leading authority on the Middle East, with particular expertise on U.S. foreign policy in the region, on Israel/Palestine, and on the way Middle East and Israel/Palestine-related issues play out in Congress and in U.S. domestic politics.
Ms. Friedman is a former officer in the U.S. Foreign Service, with diplomatic postings in Jerusalem, Washington, Tunis and Beirut. She also served previously as the Director of Policy and Government Relations at Americans for Peace Now.
tonnes More at
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/ceasefire-now?r=k7ee3#details
@31, @32: After asking me a question and then quoting what I’ve written, aren’t you supposed to throw in an affected sneer about how you don’t care what I think, and so you don’t read what I’ve written?
“creating the Perfect
Storm for Global Nukular
Glassification of Earth”
If that means we’ll never again read your (ever-more-violently) unhinged rantings, then you just might get (even more than) a few “likes” for that from readers here.
Listen
to this Article:
"Israel’s Final Solution for the Palestinians"
when Jewish extremists,
fanatic Zionists, religious zealots,
ultranationalists and crypto-fascists in
the apartheid state of Israel say they want
to wipe Gaza off the face of the earth, believe them:
@37 the moment you realize the progressive left has more in common with far right conspiracy theorists than the mainstream Dems can be disconcerting. It’s like taking the red pill in the Matrix. Welcome to the real world Garb.
@39 I’m going to believe the leaders of Hamas who said they won’t stop until Israel is wiped from the map. Feel free to provide a direct quote of an official in the Israeli government saying something similar instead of a reporter conjecturing.
I'm shocked by the amount of extremely negative comments about this Jewish Peace group. Speaking out and protesting is a valued American act, and they have every right to be down at the Federal Building. People all over the globe, in major cities, came forward in the last two days to demand a cease-fire in Israel.
PBS had a report on Friday evening from a Jewish civil rights activist in Israel, who discussed the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, that are going on simultaneously with the war, and are not well reported on. He frankly called the Israeli settlers racists, and they are running very vulnerable herding Bedouin herding communities out of their small homes or tents, and attacking their families.
Israel is no longer governed by people who believe in democracy, but far right factions who want a ONE state solution. The fact that the U.S. is still standing beside Israel is nauseating.
@47: Hundreds of Israeli citizens were kidnapped in Hamas’ 10/7 attacks, and most of them have not been released/rescued. The government of Israel has explicitly stated Hamas’ release of all these hostages is a necessary precondition for any cease-fire. (https://www.npr.org/2023/11/05/1210641727/israel-war-hamas-latest-updates) Yet, Hamas does not release these hostages, knowing full well the civilian death toll in Gaza will continue to increase as a result.
And you’re simply ignoring all of that, so you can make the false claim this is all about Israel being crazily hell-bent on revenge, and to justify the continued abuse and degradation of the word “genocide.” Meanwhile, Hamas’ policy toward Israel and the Jews is actually genocidal, but somehow that just doesn’t matter.
You can stop using the terrorists’ messaging any time you want.
@55: I have written nothing about “legitimate criticism of the IDF”. I have written about your use of Hamas’ messaging, by ignoring Hamas’ hostage-taking, and by ignoring Hamas’ genocidal intent, which you instead falsely attribute to Israel. Instead of addressing your use of terrorist messaging, you instead tell me to “shut the fuck up,” when your words are the problem here. This shows how little you care for honest dialog.
Again, please stop using Hamas’ terrorist messaging. It is part of the problem, not part of any good solution.
@59: “…to take my words and spin them as Hamas terrorist messaging.”
Then don’t claim the Israeli military action is in the service of revenge or genocide, which exactly and obviously the messaging Hamas wants. It’s not as if Hamas’ genocidal intent against Israel, or Hamas’ use of civilians in Gaza for human shields, is any kind of news. If you honestly don’t know any of the above, then you shouldn’t be commenting about this issue.
“… So having 240 hostages means that Israel can continue to bomb civilians,”
Hamas’ kidnapping of Israeli civilians, and continued holding of them in Gaza, ensures many Israeli military incursions into Gaza, which, due to Hamas’ abuse of the civilian population there for human shields, increases the number of civilians killed. Therefore, to protect the civilian populations of Gaza, release of the hostages is the very first thing which should happen. It’s mind-boggling that you don’t understand this at all, and sadly unsurprising that you find in it just another way to blame Israel somehow.
@61: “…you attribute every single action taken by the IDF as that of Hamas. It's like the IDF has zero agency or responsibility for its actions.”
Of course the IDF, and the elected government of Israel which commands it, has responsibility for what they are doing. They are pursuing Hamas, which is responsible for (at the very least) mass murder, mass kidnapping, and holding hostages. There is nothing even remotely unjust about that pursuit. By abusing the civilian population of Gaza as human shields, Hamas has created and maintained the humanitarian disaster you’re decrying. Demand that they put a stop to it, first by releasing the hostages to secure a cease-fire, and then handing over the killers and kidnappers.
You very clearly stated @47 the purpose of the IDF military action in Gaza is revenge and nothing but revenge. That was a filthy lie, you have provided nothing to support it, and you have used that lie to justify your continued abuse of the word “genocide” to describe not Hamas, which clearly wants to commit genocide in Israel, but Israel, which simply wants Hamas to stop murdering and kidnapping civilians. The moral equivalence needed to abuse the word “genocide” in this manner is truly sickening. Again, stop doing Hamas’ work for it.
And, since you didn’t answer @63 and @65, what do you think a cease-fire, one implemented without release of hostages, would accomplish?
US
Says
It's Power-
less To Stop
The Genocide
That It Is Directly
Funding And Supplying
In a bizarre new article titled “White House frustrated by Israel’s onslaught but sees few options,” the Washington Post reports that the Biden administration believes Israel has gone too far and is killing too many civilians in its assault on Gaza, but are powerless to do anything about it.
The Post’s Yasmeen Abutaleb writes the following, citing anonymous US officials:
“As Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza escalates, the Biden administration finds itself in a precarious position: Administration officials say Israel’s counterattack against Hamas has been too severe, too costly in civilian casualties, and lacking a coherent endgame, but they are unable to exert significant influence on America’s closest ally in the Middle East to change its course.
“U.S. efforts to get Israel to scale back its counterattack in response to the Oct. 7 killings by Hamas that left at least 1,400 Israelis dead have failed or fallen short.
The Biden administration urged Israel against a ground invasion, privately asked it to consider proportionality in its attacks, advocated a higher priority on avoiding civilian deaths, and called for a humanitarian pause — only for Israeli officials to dismiss or reject all those suggestions.
speaking of
Palestine's
West Bank
and Ethnic
Cleansing:
U.S. Officials Fear Guns
Ordered by Israel Could
Fuel West Bank Violence
After a request for assault rifles,
some officials worry the weapons
might be given to settlers and civilians
trying to force Palestinians from the West Bank.
Israel wants
24,000 assault rifles.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right
minister overseeing the police,
has given rifles to civilians and is
forming “security squads.”
@73: Israel now tries to prevent Hamas from making more attacks upon civilians, and is trying to apprehend the persons responsible for the 10/7 attacks. You keep assuming vengeance forms the basis for official Israeli policy, when there’s no evidence it does. Your reasons for making this assumption seem to originate in your own family history, not in the Middle East. While I’m sorry your family’s patriarch abused all of you, it really has no bearing here, and your assumption about vengeance adds nothing but distraction to this dialog.
You’ve made it very clear you will not participate in dialog on this issue, so you’ve simply wasted your time with your attempts to taunt me into responding. Have a good time as a willing mouthpiece for the right-wing, authoritarian, and genocidal terrorist organization known as Hamas.
if
our
views
overlap
perhaps
the terrorists
are not always
100% incorrect.
is Bombing children
Relentlessly INHUMANELY
something we can All agree's
flat out fucking Wrong? You're
able to "justify" it to No end. that
makes you Wormtongue a terrorist
sympathizer.
fuck off both
you and your
vile projectionisms
"Humanitarian Pause" is a prequel to a Ceasefire.
Sorry to disappoint, JVP, but Hamas isn't releasing their hostages en masse unless Israel turns over 1,000s of Palestinian prisoners. They took them for leverage.
You probably know that already, though.
@1 and she doesn't care.
“The protesters insist that ceasefire, and further, an end to Israel’s occupation, represents the only solution to the conflict.”
Because before starting into any proposed negotiations, it’s important to remove all but one option from the dialog.
My six-year-old knows more about how the real world actually works.
Who should we believe, some protestors in the US or Hamas themselves who stated pretty definitively they will not stop until the nation of Israel has been abolished. If Hamas wants a ceasefire (and let's be clear they don't care about their own people) than they can release the hostages unconditionally, lay down their arms and admit Israel has a right to exist. That of course will never happen so these protestors can continue to advocate for a genocidal, terrorist regime and demonstrate that the progressive left in America is filled with clowns and should not be taken seriously.
D2, when you are filling out your ballet please remember that Morlaes is a member of DSA, the same organization that has led many of these pro Hamas rallies celebrating the murder of 1400 innocent people.
FYI, the Senate will not entertain the $14.3 billion Israel funding package because it cuts funding from the IRS (“to pay for it”), not because it doesn’t fund aid for Ukraine (but keep carrying water for the right wing, progressives).
I for one
cannot Wait
til nutnyahoo's
Keep-outta-Prison
Plan Backfires & Ignites
WWIII: the BIG One
reich wing
facists: whatchya
gonna fucking DO?
@11: Since you’ve remained utterly ignorant about the last 75 years of Middle East history, let me clue you into a subtle pattern which has repeated many times there. No amount of talking about the suffering of Palestinians ever brings any meaningful action. After Jordan’s 1950 occupation of the West Bank, it made no effort to create an independent Palestinian state there; instead, it annexed the territory outright, and made the Palestinians Jordanian citizens. Even today, other states in the region are flatly refusing to accept any Palestinian refugees from the war zone Hamas created when it dragged Israeli citizens into the Gaza territory at gunpoint. So no, there will be no war over this.
The Palestinian cause makes for a very convenient club with which to beat Israel, and states in the region (Iran, Qatar) use that cause as an excuse to fund terrorism. The Palestinians themselves have always been treated as completely disposable, just like Hamas treats the Palestinian children it uses for human shields.
“reich wing
facists: whatchya
gonna fucking DO?”
I imagine such persons will continue to swallow and regurgitate propaganda manufactured by a violent, state-sponsored practitioner of terror, one which holds reactionary views on the status of women, punishes homosexuality by death, and seeks to eradicate Jews from any territory it may hold or conquer.
I always find it amusing when there are protests outside of (on 2nd Ave) the Federal Building. The employees only want to get away from JFB as fast as they possibly can once it’s 4:30 pm. The idea of them spending even an extra millisecond there is laughable!
@6,
"...because I've looked at those pictures and I don't see a hundred JVP protestors, much less "hundreds" of them."
It took me two seconds to verify that hundreds of people attended the rally, dumbass.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/demonstrators-calling-ceasefire-gaza-blocking-entrances-seattle-federal-building/AYXJQJNY3ZHEPFKZNDGAU6GVEI/
thnx
as per
Usual tentsores
for the loverly Lecture
which
sadly I
didn't bo-
ther Reading
as per Usually.
why do You
Want the Middle
East to be the Catalyst
that sets off WWIII the Last
Really BIG one? I'll take my Answer
to this Rehetorical Query off the Air.
see
You
post-
Incineration
@17,
What the fuck are you talking about? The first three lines of the linked story read verbatim...
SEATTLE — "Demonstrators calling for a ceasefire in Gaza blocked the doors at the downtown Seattle Federal Building Friday morning.
They gathered at around 8 a.m. and put themselves in front of doors at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building, at 915 Second Avenue.
When our news crew arrived, close to 200 people had filled the plaza on Second Avenue leading into the building."
I am impressed how dense so many of these responses are.
IF you mentally take the position that, you are in charge of a middle east group, and the only way you can maintain power is violence, then every incident could be exploited as an existential crisis and a reason for you to cling tighter to your Office, delay elections, and mobilize your armed forces. Every single motor vehicle accident could be the start of a war. To 'back down' or giving a shadow of a doubt is tantamount to being 'primaried,' in U.S. political parlance. Every act of kindness to the 'other side' may be political suicide.
Internal politics like this require blood letting. I am not saying I agree with it, in fact, I don't. And, the outrages are on both sides. If you take a long hard look at UN Resolution 181, and the history that evolved (devolved) since, you might get the feeling that: this was a botched job. Gross understatement there, but, as fucked as any of the British Empire's fuck ups.
The hard truth is, neither side is willing to move, and both sides are willing to die for what they believe in. Both sides take hard-line immutable positions, and both sides suffer for each position every time they take one. Every current issue is precluded by all that has gone on before. The only benefit of time, is there are more issues to preclude (prevent) future solutions that might work.
"Calling" for something so far outside your sphere of influence is such a lame-ass maneuver, I find it sad and disappointing, but it sells newspapers and generates advertising revenue.
Both militaries will do what it wants and the politicians are unable to (much less be shown themselves trying to...) stop it. The continuous 'one-ups' in outrageous behavior has its' latest crescendo of at this latest travesty.
If you are asking yourself if it was the murder of 'innocents,' or the bombing of 'refugee camps,' then, you ought to realize it is all of it since 1948. So much of the rhetoric is misleading. I mean, how does a camp have 20 story buildings? I get that this was the first such settlement, from the first Palestinian diaspora, but it has long stopped being a camp. So much of the headlines are written in a way to get attention, not to educate, clarify, or defuse tension. So, on top of the heightened concerns of the folks doing the killing and dying, the media is making bank on it.
Another episode of how the middle east sausage is made. If you don't want to know about it, don't look. If you DO look, please use an intelligent eye and read waay between the media headlines with a huge dose of skepticism.
This will get bloodier and more unfortunate before anything gets what either side might refer to as 'better,' and even then, only better than the current dose of senseless violence. I am hoping for peace, but am afraid it will come only after the IDF cuts off Gaza City, chokes it for a month or three, and ends up using half the bunker busters in their arsenal, destroy 2/3 of Gaza City.
I am hoping that in this, I am wrong.
“Another episode of how the middle east sausage is made. If you don't want to know about it, don't look. If you DO look, please use an intelligent eye and read waay between the media headlines with a huge dose of skepticism.”
Thank you. Both the Stranger and some sympathetic commenters here have been simply repeating claims from Hamas, especially numbers of civilian deaths in Gaza, as if those claims have been checked independently. They’ve also been repeating those claims with no context, apparently unaware of Hamas’ long history of using civilians in Gaza as human shields.
@20,
Based on available information Hannah's reporting regarding the numbers here is objectively and indisputably accurate. Why you would choose to side with and defend that stupid, sexist fuck @6 (you do see where he called Hannah a "bimbo" yes?) is beyond me. You're better than this, Raindrop.
And honestly, I'm still not even sure what you're saying there in @20. I mean the statement, "close to 200 people had filled the plaza on Second Avenue leading into the building" very clearly suggests that those people were there blocking the entrance and protesting. I suppose there could have been some "onlookers" among them, but it certainly wouldn't make much sense from any sort of logical perspective. Yeesh.
nyt:
Gaza War
Enters New Phase
As Israel Faces Pressure Over Civilian Deaths
Fears are rising that the conflict could spread to the occupied West Bank, where tensions are soaring among Palestinians angered over deadly Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
Favorite comment
On this article:
“’Over civilian deaths'? Let me re-phrase that for you - over war crimes of targeting unarmed civilians indiscriminately.
It's not that these are casualties from Israel trying to attack Hamas positions - these are women and children indiscriminately killed in schools, hospitals and refugee camps. There are no massive weapon caches there. No tunnels. No tanks. Israel is driving the population out of parts of Gaza, probably with the hope of never giving it back. It's called mass displacement and its a war crime.
They are blockading the entry of water, food and medical supplies into the territory. Thousands of lives are being lost unnecessarily due to a blockade of the international organizations and NGOs. Hungry children with no water are not terrorists - they are not responsible. They should not be suffering the effects of whatever you want to call this military invasion.
The New York Times is not known for its objective stance on the Israeli issue, but by god, do a little better. What is going on is war crimes. When it was Russia at the helm - you guys had no problem blasting it on every page and commentary article. Now that it's a friendly state, the silence is almost deafening. Do better.
For those reading, call your local and state representatives. Call for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire. This is not a question of religion or politics. It's a question of dead women and children who will be on our collective conscience.”
--Nyx123; NYC
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/world/middleeast/israel-invasion-gaza-hamas.html#commentsContainer
nuttyahoo
gonna take
Everybody Down
in His Final Solution
just to keep his sad ass
outta Prison for Corruption
corrupt as Fuck
what does He
care what
happens
to This
Planet
& it’s
Occupants?
there’s Plenty More
where This one
came from
right?
@18: You have no need to remind anyone that you comment out of complete ignorance of your subject, nor that you could so easily have remedied your ignorance before commenting. (You’ll just have to trust me on this.)
I was hoping a tiny history lesson might halt your panic, but if you want to live in fear borne of ignorance, then there’s nothing anyone else can do to help you. (Do try not to flood your mattress.)
@26: “…war crimes of targeting unarmed civilians indiscriminately.”
So, Hamas should release the hundreds of civilians it has dragged into Gaza at gunpoint? Hamas should stop having their terrorists hide behind Palestinian children? To save the lives of civilians in Gaza, exactly which brutal terrorist tactic should Hamas abandon first?
“Good Morning, Sen. Patty Murray. We’re at Your Office!”
Did they even bother to verify that Sen. Murray was at this office? She has several… including one three thousand miles away…
@23, @24, @25, &c.: Whether this demonstration had twenty, or two hundred, or two thousand, or twenty thousand persons in attendance, Seattle’s population numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and Washington state’s population in the millions. Whatever number you choose, it’s tiny compared the number of voters. Those voters have expressed little appetite for rewarding Hamas’ terrorism with a cease-fire.
(It’s exceptionally silly for supporters of that cease-fire to crow about how they were barely able to push the number of demonstrators into the multiple hundreds, when multiple thousands of persons reside and/or work within walking distance of the protest site.)
Happy Daylight
Savings Time
everyone!
nyt
Top
Headline:
"Trump
leads in Five
Critical States as
Voters Blast Biden,
Times/Siena Poll Finds”
appeasing
BiBi el nutanyahoo
having the World see
You – and US – as co-Sponsors
of a Genocide with OUR fighter jets
AND our Bombs –not nukular as many Right
(here!) had Hoped – is Ceding the next Election*
to el trumpfster
and quite Likely
creating the Perfect
Storm for Global Nukular
Glassification of Earth. have
You not seen Cormac McKarthy’s
Brilliant The Road? Call it Biden’s Road?
do our War Machines say “Merry Xmas from the USOFA!”
right on ‘em? or just Boeing Raytheon ad absurdity
cuz we Armchair Generals and Ambassadors
are just DYING to Know
not like the Children
in Gaza ‘dying’
but I’d say
Curious.
*what is the Last Thing
the tens of Thousands
of Gazan murdered
children see?
Made in the usa?
Can you (somehow!) explain
to me and US how spending our
Precious tax Dollars on furthering
A fucking Genocide is Making US Safer?
& the Jews have Socialized Medicine which WE
Cannot fucking Afford. can We send our Sick over There?
Personally I’d prefer NOT to have My Name on
Your Genocidal WMDs even though YOU
call it Certain Justice. Perhaps when
these Children become of Age
and’re seeking Retribution
I’ll point your Comments
Out to them. just as I’m
Confident You’ll do for
Me when Biden gives
to El trumpfster our
Next Election.*
*even Worse than Kshama!
right, tenstey? Or might
You call that a Statis-
tical Tie? Kinda like
Viet Nam?
"Those voters have expressed little appetite for rewarding Hamas’ terrorism with a cease-fire."
otoh
WE're
gonna
Reward
BiBi Nutnyahoo
with an Ethnic Cleansing
of Gaza? how tF does That poll
you may ask?
see @31.
WWIII
is BiBi's
Keep-out-
ta-Prison card
and
OUR
Adiosa
Planetosa.
thanks
for Playing.
“I've been in meetings over the years, and I've had a member of Congress say to me, ‘Well, you know, land without a people for a people without a land.’ Or they've quoted back to me something like, ‘Well, listen, Israel can't make peace so long as the Palestinians hate Jews more than they love their children.’
That kind of stuff. I mean, it's just this basic language, which at a fundamental level dehumanizes Palestinians in such a way that you don't have to question whether what Israel is doing is right or wrong.
There are no innocent civilians because they're all somehow in their DNA, virulently, viciously anti-Semitic, and full of hate and full of terrorism.
And, once you've established that as a baseline, deep racism, deep dehumanization, it's extremely effective.
Because then anything goes.
We know that there was a period of time when the Israeli military literally calculated the number of calories it needed to allow entry into Gaza to prevent the population from starving. And that was all they were letting in.
We're in the most bizarre place where we have almost 10,000 Palestinians dead on the ground in Gaza. And the narrative that is being pushed out by the Israeli government and its supporters here, including in the US administration, is that to talk about ceasefire is repugnant.
It's just utterly surreal.
If people still believe that you can defeat an ideology by killing a lot of people and essentially taking a whole generation and killing their parents and injuring them, and they think that's going to defeat an ideology, then they've learned nothing.
They've learned nothing from the horrible experiences of the past few decades of the U.S. experience in the war on terror, and the know nothing about human nature.”
-- Lara Friedman
Lara Friedman is the President of the Foundation for Middle East Peace. She is a leading authority on the Middle East, with particular expertise on U.S. foreign policy in the region, on Israel/Palestine, and on the way Middle East and Israel/Palestine-related issues play out in Congress and in U.S. domestic politics.
Ms. Friedman is a former officer in the U.S. Foreign Service, with diplomatic postings in Jerusalem, Washington, Tunis and Beirut. She also served previously as the Director of Policy and Government Relations at Americans for Peace Now.
tonnes More at
https://www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/p/ceasefire-now?r=k7ee3#details
Damn
I LOVE
This guy.
@31, @32: After asking me a question and then quoting what I’ve written, aren’t you supposed to throw in an affected sneer about how you don’t care what I think, and so you don’t read what I’ve written?
“creating the Perfect
Storm for Global Nukular
Glassification of Earth”
If that means we’ll never again read your (ever-more-violently) unhinged rantings, then you just might get (even more than) a few “likes” for that from readers here.
Listen
to this Article:
"Israel’s Final Solution for the Palestinians"
when Jewish extremists,
fanatic Zionists, religious zealots,
ultranationalists and crypto-fascists in
the apartheid state of Israel say they want
to wipe Gaza off the face of the earth, believe them:
Tonnes More:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/listen-to-this-article-israels-final?r=k7ee3#details
who ya gonna Believe?
Tentsey or the NYT’s
Middle Eastern
Bureau Chief
for over 10
Years?
Also: my
“ever-more-violently
unhinged rantings”?
rich, considering
tentsey’s Support For Leveling
Gaza and DISPLACING 2.3 MILLION Palestinians
And HOW MANY Dead can YOU Live with? ALL of ‘em?
Speaking of “ever-more-violently unhinged”
WAR CRIMES. and Now, back
to You tentsy:
@37 the moment you realize the progressive left has more in common with far right conspiracy theorists than the mainstream Dems can be disconcerting. It’s like taking the red pill in the Matrix. Welcome to the real world Garb.
@39 I’m going to believe the leaders of Hamas who said they won’t stop until Israel is wiped from the map. Feel free to provide a direct quote of an official in the Israeli government saying something similar instead of a reporter conjecturing.
MY 'Left'
Wants PEACE.
your "Right"
wants TOTAL
DOMINATION.
so
yeah
d13r
I can
See
how
you're
"a little"
Confused.
BINGO
Dewey!
and the Palestinians
have no Love for
the Terrorists.
Precisely
the POINT.
so
must Every
Gazan DIE to be
Rid of Hostage Takers?
is that Actually how
WE wanna BE?
and it's Gonna
Cost US the
Presidency.
Sayonara,
Democracy!
we Barely
Knew ya.
@naive little
Fifty:
Nuttyyahoo'll
Def pull a Catch-22*
he's gonna Level Gaza
dewey.
or Worse.
*aka pull a Lucy:
the Football
Magically
Disapp-
ears?
you've
Seen this
Before, I M Certain.
I'm shocked by the amount of extremely negative comments about this Jewish Peace group. Speaking out and protesting is a valued American act, and they have every right to be down at the Federal Building. People all over the globe, in major cities, came forward in the last two days to demand a cease-fire in Israel.
PBS had a report on Friday evening from a Jewish civil rights activist in Israel, who discussed the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, that are going on simultaneously with the war, and are not well reported on. He frankly called the Israeli settlers racists, and they are running very vulnerable herding Bedouin herding communities out of their small homes or tents, and attacking their families.
Israel is no longer governed by people who believe in democracy, but far right factions who want a ONE state solution. The fact that the U.S. is still standing beside Israel is nauseating.
@47: Hundreds of Israeli citizens were kidnapped in Hamas’ 10/7 attacks, and most of them have not been released/rescued. The government of Israel has explicitly stated Hamas’ release of all these hostages is a necessary precondition for any cease-fire. (https://www.npr.org/2023/11/05/1210641727/israel-war-hamas-latest-updates) Yet, Hamas does not release these hostages, knowing full well the civilian death toll in Gaza will continue to increase as a result.
And you’re simply ignoring all of that, so you can make the false claim this is all about Israel being crazily hell-bent on revenge, and to justify the continued abuse and degradation of the word “genocide.” Meanwhile, Hamas’ policy toward Israel and the Jews is actually genocidal, but somehow that just doesn’t matter.
You can stop using the terrorists’ messaging any time you want.
@53
welcome
to wormton-
gue's derr Schlog.
@55: I have written nothing about “legitimate criticism of the IDF”. I have written about your use of Hamas’ messaging, by ignoring Hamas’ hostage-taking, and by ignoring Hamas’ genocidal intent, which you instead falsely attribute to Israel. Instead of addressing your use of terrorist messaging, you instead tell me to “shut the fuck up,” when your words are the problem here. This shows how little you care for honest dialog.
Again, please stop using Hamas’ terrorist messaging. It is part of the problem, not part of any good solution.
@59: “…to take my words and spin them as Hamas terrorist messaging.”
Then don’t claim the Israeli military action is in the service of revenge or genocide, which exactly and obviously the messaging Hamas wants. It’s not as if Hamas’ genocidal intent against Israel, or Hamas’ use of civilians in Gaza for human shields, is any kind of news. If you honestly don’t know any of the above, then you shouldn’t be commenting about this issue.
“… So having 240 hostages means that Israel can continue to bomb civilians,”
Hamas’ kidnapping of Israeli civilians, and continued holding of them in Gaza, ensures many Israeli military incursions into Gaza, which, due to Hamas’ abuse of the civilian population there for human shields, increases the number of civilians killed. Therefore, to protect the civilian populations of Gaza, release of the hostages is the very first thing which should happen. It’s mind-boggling that you don’t understand this at all, and sadly unsurprising that you find in it just another way to blame Israel somehow.
@61 honest question since you are so passionate about this. What do you think a ceasefire will accomplish?
I’m not watching a you tube clip. Use your own words.
@61: “…you attribute every single action taken by the IDF as that of Hamas. It's like the IDF has zero agency or responsibility for its actions.”
Of course the IDF, and the elected government of Israel which commands it, has responsibility for what they are doing. They are pursuing Hamas, which is responsible for (at the very least) mass murder, mass kidnapping, and holding hostages. There is nothing even remotely unjust about that pursuit. By abusing the civilian population of Gaza as human shields, Hamas has created and maintained the humanitarian disaster you’re decrying. Demand that they put a stop to it, first by releasing the hostages to secure a cease-fire, and then handing over the killers and kidnappers.
You very clearly stated @47 the purpose of the IDF military action in Gaza is revenge and nothing but revenge. That was a filthy lie, you have provided nothing to support it, and you have used that lie to justify your continued abuse of the word “genocide” to describe not Hamas, which clearly wants to commit genocide in Israel, but Israel, which simply wants Hamas to stop murdering and kidnapping civilians. The moral equivalence needed to abuse the word “genocide” in this manner is truly sickening. Again, stop doing Hamas’ work for it.
And, since you didn’t answer @63 and @65, what do you think a cease-fire, one implemented without release of hostages, would accomplish?
from someone
Dewey calls
Goebbels:
US
Says
It's Power-
less To Stop
The Genocide
That It Is Directly
Funding And Supplying
In a bizarre new article titled “White House frustrated by Israel’s onslaught but sees few options,” the Washington Post reports that the Biden administration believes Israel has gone too far and is killing too many civilians in its assault on Gaza, but are powerless to do anything about it.
The Post’s Yasmeen Abutaleb writes the following, citing anonymous US officials:
“As Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza escalates, the Biden administration finds itself in a precarious position: Administration officials say Israel’s counterattack against Hamas has been too severe, too costly in civilian casualties, and lacking a coherent endgame, but they are unable to exert significant influence on America’s closest ally in the Middle East to change its course.
“U.S. efforts to get Israel to scale back its counterattack in response to the Oct. 7 killings by Hamas that left at least 1,400 Israelis dead have failed or fallen short.
The Biden administration urged Israel against a ground invasion, privately asked it to consider proportionality in its attacks, advocated a higher priority on avoiding civilian deaths, and called for a humanitarian pause — only for Israeli officials to dismiss or reject all those suggestions.
--Caitlin Johnstone; Nov 6, 2023
tonnes MORE:
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/us-says-its-powerless-to-stop-the?
how tF you gonna Win
in ’24 if you look
Weak mr Pres-
ident?
bust some
fucking
BALLS
Sir.
You HAVE
The Authority.
Hell dick CHENEY
Had the Power &
HE was fucking V.P.
SEIZE THE FUCKING
DAY Mr. President
End the Ethnic
Cleansing of
Gaza & the
West Bank.
BEFORE
WWIII.
speaking of
Palestine's
West Bank
and Ethnic
Cleansing:
U.S. Officials Fear Guns
Ordered by Israel Could
Fuel West Bank Violence
After a request for assault rifles,
some officials worry the weapons
might be given to settlers and civilians
trying to force Palestinians from the West Bank.
Israel wants
24,000 assault rifles.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right
minister overseeing the police,
has given rifles to civilians and is
forming “security squads.”
more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/us/politics/israel-us-weapons-west-bank.html
they’re gonna
Ethnically Cleanse
Palestine of ALL Palestinians
and WE’re
Paying for it.
FUCK
THAT.
Don't send 'em
twenty-four THOUSAND
ASSAULT RIFLES -- unless You
want their blood on your hands
mr President
like gee dubya
bush & CHENEY.
@73: Israel now tries to prevent Hamas from making more attacks upon civilians, and is trying to apprehend the persons responsible for the 10/7 attacks. You keep assuming vengeance forms the basis for official Israeli policy, when there’s no evidence it does. Your reasons for making this assumption seem to originate in your own family history, not in the Middle East. While I’m sorry your family’s patriarch abused all of you, it really has no bearing here, and your assumption about vengeance adds nothing but distraction to this dialog.
Vengeance
is the Fuel for
Israel's Ethnic Cleansing
& You don't
gotta Believe it but
that don't Make it Incorrect.
were it about
Justice a Kill Ratio
of 2 or 3-1 oughtta
Suffice dontchya Think?
@79, et cetera ad nauseum:
You’ve made it very clear you will not participate in dialog on this issue, so you’ve simply wasted your time with your attempts to taunt me into responding. Have a good time as a willing mouthpiece for the right-wing, authoritarian, and genocidal terrorist organization known as Hamas.
"Have a good time as a willing mouthpiece for the right-wing, authoritarian, and genocidal terrorist organization known as Hamas."
my consicience's
Clean your Lies
show us where
Wormtongue
fits you so
Nicely.
adiosa
wormtoungue
you and your Insid-
ious Lies Shan't be missed.
@81: “my consicience's
Clean”
If you want to claim you’re not just a duped mouthpiece for religious terrorists, then perhaps you shouldn’t say exactly the same things they’d say?
if
our
views
overlap
perhaps
the terrorists
are not always
100% incorrect.
is Bombing children
Relentlessly INHUMANELY
something we can All agree's
flat out fucking Wrong? You're
able to "justify" it to No end. that
makes you Wormtongue a terrorist
sympathizer.
fuck off both
you and your
vile projectionisms