Good morning: Hey, Seattle. You can expect more of the same weather today. This morning, temperatures will stay in the low 50s and you may see some showers. In the afternoon, things will dry up, the sun will poke out of the clouds a little, and temperatures will peak at about 56 degrees. 

Leave Maya Henry alone: One Direction band member Liam Payne died yesterday after falling from his hotel balcony in Argentina. His ghoulish fans have launched a hate campaign against his ex-fiancée, Maya Henry, blaming her for his death because she recently sent him a cease-and-desist letter, accusing him of obsessive and harassing behavior. You freaks better leave her alone. This is not her fault, and blaming her will only scare women into silence about abuse. 

Secret Service sucks ass: An independent, bipartisan review panel released a scathing report about the Secret Service’s failure to interrupt the near-miss assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump this summer. The panel called the Secret Service “bureaucratic, complacent, and static,” arguing that without reform such an attack can and will happen again. 

Archdiocese says sorry: The Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to pay a historic settlement of $880 million to more than 1,300 victims of clergy sexual abuse. And they deserve every penny!

Let’s fucking go:

A moment of clarity: In the city council’s select budget committee meeting today, Council Member Cathy Moore made an important point while discussing the future of the City’s JumpStart payroll expense tax. The mayor proposed stealing from the tax’s fund to backfill a deficit in the 2025-2026 budget, disregarding its legal obligation to pay for affordable housing, Green New Deal initiatives, and a few other select priorities. But that plan would still leave a deficit for 2027. Moore said in the meeting that if the City wants to fix the deficit long-term, then the mayor’s plan won’t cut it. The City must either cut spending or find new revenue, she said. So, next time the mayor brags about balancing a budget in the face of a huge deficit without raising taxes, remember he just punted the problem two years at the expense of more than $200 million in affordable housing. 

This is your sign to answer unsaved numbers: You may just get a call from the Mayor of Seattle.

Ashley has something to say!

Federal oversight of Seattle cops continues: Yesterday, US District Court Judge James L. Robart checked in with the City and the Seattle Police Department (SPD) on their progress in meeting the goals of a federal settlement established about 12 years ago to curb biased policing, among other things. The City argued that they’re very nearly in compliance with everything in the settlement agreement except for crowd control management policy. The City claimed they made progress in that area and had recently sent a new policy to the city council for approval, which the court would have a chance to approve at a later date.

One major change that doesn’t seem so good: The new crowd control policy allows other local law enforcement agencies that SPD calls for backup—who don’t have special training—to use “less lethal crowd control tools,” such as blast balls or pepper spray, on protesters. Kinda of defeats the purpose of what Robart wanted to see in the policy, which included intensive training for SPD officers to avoid mass disproportional force against crowds. I will have more on that and the hearing later.

Now over to Vivian. Team effort on the Slog this morning!

So much for supporting teachers and students: After student bullies on Instagram, right-wingers on Facebook, and conservative commentator Brandi Kruse ran English teacher K. Wayne out of Peninsula School District over their drag persona, Jack King Goff, students testified to the school board that the departure was just the latest example of out-of-control online bullying in the district. Then the Superintendent published a letter addressing the rise of harmful online bullying, promising to add it to the district’s ongoing review of belonging policy. So how did the school board, which includes Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction candidate David Olson, respond? It passed a version of a policy from the Washington State School Directors Association to restrict the way staff can express themselves online, which makes clear they can be disciplined or fired for this sort of thing in the future.

In a statement, Board President Natalie Wimberley said that while she understood concerns about ambiguity, lawyers “thoroughly vetted” the policy, which is meant to balance staff expression with the district’s responsibility to maintain an orderly learning environment. They’re not trying to infringe on anyone’s rights, she said. “Our governance must remain thoughtful and prudent, not tied emotionally to any particular moment or group, but focused on what will best serve our students and staff now and in the future.” Their lack of consideration for “particular” groups is clear. She did not give an answer for why the board has not substantively responded to months of complaints about anti-Black and anti-gay bullying. The Stranger reminded her that she is a public official and it is her job to answer such questions. The local teacher’s union did not respond to a request for comment. The district says similar policies have been implemented in other districts.

Would you look at that: You know all those unhinged campaign videos that State House candidate Andrea Suarez has been posting on Twitter? The ones where she calls her opponent, Shaun Scott, a communist, despite the fact that literally every Democratic org and basically the whole Seattle delegation in Olympia supports him? Turns out, fallen KOMO reporter Jonathan Choe filmed some of them! A previous version of this blurb incorrectly stated that Suarez paid him. Choe kindly pointed out that filmed as an “in-kind” donation, giving his labor for free because he believes in her so much. Choe went from splicing together gushing montages of the Proud Boys to playing campaign videographer for Suarez. Huge career shift!

Beirut: Yesterday, Israel launched new strikes on the capital of Lebanon. Lebanese officials report Israel has killed at least 2,350 people and wounded almost 11,000 others in the last month. 

Yemen: The US sent B-2 stealth bombers to strike the Houthis’ underground weapons facilities in Yemen on Wednesday. I could not find how many people the US killed in the strikes. US defense officials told CNN that these five facilities stored advanced conventional weapons used to target military and civilian vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Houthis have targeted more than 80 merchant vessels in the last year, claiming to attack ships linked to Israel as a way to pressure the country into stopping its genocide in Gaza. However, Houthis have attacked many ships with seemingly little to no connection to Israel, according to the AP. 

ICYMI: We dropped our endorsement package this week for the upcoming election. Rip open that ballot and do as we say!

Good old-fashioned election denial: Republican nominee Donald Trump’s freaky lil VP pick, JD Vance, finally admitted yesterday that he does not believe Trump lost the 2020 election. He told a reporter, “No, I think there are serious problems in 2020. So did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words that I would use.” Vance usually redirects questions about who won the 2020 election. Most famously, in a debate earlier this month, Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’s VP pick Tim Walz asked Vance if Trump lost in 2020 and Vance said, “Tim, I’m focused on the future.” Walz called that a “damning non-answer.” 

For your ears: My friend recommended this song because I cannot be bothered to think of a song every week. I don’t have good taste!

Hannah Krieg is a staff writer at The Stranger covering everything that goes down at Seattle City Hall. Importantly, she is a Libra. She is also The Stranger's resident Gen Z writer, with an affinity for...

85 replies on “Slog AM: Jonathan Choe Films Andrea Suarez’s Unhinged Campaign Ads, Secret Service Gets Roasted for Trump Assassination Attempt, One Direction’s Liam Payne Died”

  1. Nothing about Kamala? She did a pretty good job and laid some zingers in her interview with Fox News Bret Baier. Now that she got her feet wet, she should do a Fox News show each week till election day.

  4. “The panel called the Secret Service ‘bureaucratic, complacent, and static,’ arguing that without reform such an attack can and will happen again.”

    Oh no.

  6. it was hardly

    ‘an interview.’ it was

    brett baier standing if for

    the donold, getting his Ass hand-

    ed to him, and then begging for some

    faint Praise from his fellow assholes @ FOX

    and nervously awaiting The Call

    from the Main Fascist who’ll

    spare no Vitriol in trying to

    shame the Unshamable

    and Demanding some-

    one Smarter next time.

    as If.

    eltrumpfster’s Losing It

    Knows its and’s

    facing some

    Serious

    Prison

    time.

    Well-Played

    Kamala. now

    get Out there

    & tear some whole

    new Assholes in the

    MAGAttyverse. kudos

  8. @6

    Harris has never suffered from a lack of spunk.

    She’s worse about answering questions with long rambling piles of unrelated nonsense than Trump.

    That’s saying quite a bit.

  12. @2, Yeah the IDF is bad that way. So inconsiderate of The Stranger’s deadlines.

    Perhaps averagebob, greenwoodbob, CDKathes, et. al. can add that to their list of complaints about the IDF.

  13. 8: I know, I call it her platitude lasagna instead of the overused word salad. Nevertheless, at least we know who is her marionettist: the DNC and large corporations. Whoever is the marionettist for Donald is unclear, but we have our suspicions and it’s very scary.

  17. 16, I don’t believe you but if you just troll for Trump for the thrill of it that’s almost as pathetic as being a Trump supporter who doesn’t have the courage to admit it

  20. This Slog reads as if it was written by a 12-year-old… it’s that juvenile. I guess that fits the whole publication at this point.

    There used to be a time when The Stranger was just the quirky, alt-left paper that had some decent takes and some decent entertainment. And you at least knew it was written by adults.

    Now, the Stranger just a privileged Zoomer white girl whine-fest.

  21. @8 No, she’s not. But idiots will believe what they want to believe no matter the truth. That’s how you get forty-some percent of the voting public pulling the lever for an imbecile like Trump.

  22. 19, Yes I know. If intellectual honesty mattered to you, you wouldn’t be hiding behind multiple sock puppets, but I actually value my personal time. If you’re just going to bullshit me the most you’ll get in return is scorn and ridicule.

  23. @12 sorry but my IDF complaint form is already full, from genocidal to war criminal and apartheid enforcing all the boxes are already checked.

    On the other hand, you and your friend Thumpus the thug must have mixed feelings: on the plus side it’s one more Hamas leader”schwacked”, while on the down side you are running out of excuses for the continuing mass murder and starvation of Palestinians

  24. @17

    Believe me or don’t. Doesn’t change the fact that it’s true.

    I admit to getting a kick out of poking the bear here, but I do the same to the folks on the right on other sites.

    Is it so hard to believe that both candidates are shit or that both parties hold positions on issues that are deal breakers for me?

    Blind faith in a political party and it’s Candidate has pretty much never worked out well.

  25. The world is deeply wounded in spirit. Too many bloodthirsty idiots who think they have divine favor to murder each other are empowered by meek and complacent fools who enable the smallest minds to hold us all in thrall to their whims.

  27. @24. You’re a through and through Republican in all your talking points. Just cause you apparently didn’t vote for Trump doesn’t make your talking points any less sane and repugnant.

  29. 24 it might be believable if you ever expressed a single opinion that shows you think both parties suck but instead any case thanks for clarifying that you’re completely full of shit

  30. @23, I’ll agree with you that Sinwar getting wacked limits Nutanyahuu’s justifications for continuing the war.

    Israel has not thought about what “victory” looks like. They haven’t thought through the strategy for longterm security and coexistence looks like.

    BTW, The opposition in Israel is calling on the IDF to hit Iranian Oil production after Nutanyahooo has agreed with the US that they won’t. I.e. Retaliation for the last Iranian missile attack. Ironically its the opposition in Israel that wants to do the escalatory thing.

  31. @23: As the ICJ already considered the charge of “apartheid,” only to decline finding Israel guilty of it, I’m guessing if the ICJ does not find Israel guilty of “genocide,” your accusations of that will also continue regardless?

    @30: Nope. Bibi said the purpose of attacking Hamas in Gaza was to destroy Hamas’ ability to launch another 10/7 attack upon Israel. Full stop. His thinking was short-term and tactical, not long-term and strategical.

    While I sincerely hope Israel does not aim at any of Iran’s civilian infrastructure — sites related to nuclear weapons will do just fine, thank you — knowing they’ll be loudly accused of “genocide,” no matter what they do, probably does not help with the whole restraint thing.

  32. @23: lol, sorry for your loss! You’ll doubtless appreciate this beautifully-written biography on Al Jazeera’s Arabic-language website, all about the many glorious accomplishments of Yahya Sinwar, ha ha. (Al Jazeera English is notably blander and more circumspect when it comes to Hamas. For the good stuff, you need the Arabic version.)

    https://www.aljazeera.net/politics/longform/2024/5/6/خاوة-العالم-كما-يراه-يحيى-السنوار

  33. International Court of Justice

    Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem

    [..]

    The Court observes that Israel’s legislation and measures impose and serve to maintain a

    near-complete separation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem between the settler and Palestinian

    communities. For this reason, the Court considers that Israel’s legislation and measures constitute a

    breach of Article 3 of CERD.

    Article 3 of CERD provides as follows: “States Parties particularly condemn racial

    segregation and apartheid and undertake to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature

    in territories under their jurisdiction.” This provision refers to two particularly severe forms of racial

    discrimination: racial segregation and apartheid

    [..]

    https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/186/186-20240719-adv-01-00-en.pdf

  34. @33, With a credible army to enforce its edicts, the IJC might be relevant. Without one, they are safely ignored.

    If they had an army to enforce their edicts, they would be protested against for causing civilian slaughter to get through the shield put up to protect the targets if their enforcement.

  35. @33: Yes, bob, you continue in failing to understand how Article 3 of CERD describes two crimes, racial segregation and apartheid, and the ICJ found Israel guilty of one of them. The other one is apartheid. The ICJ’s ruling even specifically describes and explains this:

    ‘224. A number of participants have argued that Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied

    Palestinian Territory amount to segregation or apartheid, in breach of Article 3 of CERD.

    ‘225. Article 3 of CERD provides as follows: “States Parties particularly condemn racial

    segregation and apartheid and undertake to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature

    in territories under their jurisdiction.” This provision refers to two particularly severe forms of racial

    discrimination: racial segregation and apartheid.’

    After a few paragraphs describing Israel’s practice, the ICJ concludes:

    “229. The Court observes that Israel’s legislation and measures impose and serve to maintain a

    near-complete separation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem between the settler and Palestinian

    communities. For this reason, the Court considers that Israel’s legislation and measures constitute a

    breach of Article 3 of CERD”

    Note the lack of “apartheid” in 229. If the ICJ had wanted to find Israel guilty of apartheid, that was the place to do it. They did not. So no, the ICJ did not find Israel guilty of “apartheid.”

  36. @34 First, we need an army of commenters to counter the continuous stream of lies put out by tensor the word torturer and thumper the thug

  37. “the ICJ found Israel guilty of one of them”

    Liar. The court find Israel guilty of violating article 3, which amounts to racial discrimination AND apartheid

    The court mentions that ‘A number of participants have argued’ because it is answering questions from participants and it did answer them: guilty

  38. @37: Ha ha ha, not this again. This is yet another example of bad propositional logic in the comments. Average Bob has mistaken a disjunction for a conjunction.

    If the rule prohibits both A and B, and you commit either A or B or both, then you are in violation of the rule. However, that does not mean that the commission of A is also the commission of B.

    Here, the ICJ has found a violation of a treaty that prohibits both segregation and apartheid. Average Bob has concluded, illogically, that means the court must have found a violation of both segregation and apartheid. That is not the case.

    The clearest holding on this point is in Judge Brant’s separate declaration, paragraph 10. He notes the ICJ’s opinion means at least a finding of segregation, and notes that the ICJ did not reach the concept of apartheid. Judge Nolte explicitly notes, in a separate opinion, that the evidence could not have supporting a finding of apartheid. Judge Iwasawa also notes specifically that the ICJ opinion is not a finding of apartheid. All but two of the other judges are silent on the question of apartheid.

    Judge Salam writes that he WOULD have found apartheid. Judge Tladi writes that the ICJ holding DID find apartheid. Both gentlemen are outvoted on that point by the other judges, as noted above.

    As a matter of formal logic, as a matter of the plain text of the ICJ opinion, and as a simple matter of counting judicial noses, Averagebob is mistaken. Now thank Professor Thumpus yet another learned lecture in international law! 😁

  40. “mistaken a disjunction for a conjunction”

    In English, a logical disjunction is noted by ‘or’, not by ‘and’ that is called a conjunction as in article 3, which states “racial segregation AND apartheid”, professor incompetent (already last time you postured as a “professor” you were lying about Mossadegh)

    As for the judges’ declarations: some of them dissent with the court but not President Salam who makes it very clear that he agrees with the court’s decision including its finding about Israeli “discriminatory policies and practices tantamount to apartheid”

    https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/186/186-20240719-adv-01-01-en.pdf

  42. @40: The disjunction is that the commission of segregation OR apartheid OR both will create a violation of the convention. You wrongly believe that ONLY the commission of BOTH segregation AND apartheid wil create a violation. Thus I say you can’t tell a disjunction from a conjunction! 😀 I think maybe Judge Tladi reads it the same way you do, but none of the other 15 judges read it that way, not even Judge Salam.

    Two out of 15 judges agree with you on apartheid. Thirteen out of 15 judges do not.

    Three out of the 13 explicitly say yes segregation but no apartheid. Four out of the 13 say there is no unlawfulness of any kind in the occupation, which is an implicit finding of no segregation and no apartheid (either of which would have been unlawful). The remaining six are silent altogether on the subject of apartheid but find other instances of unlawfulness unrelated to the apartheid question.

    I think what’s going on here is that the word “apartheid” gives you such a delicious frisson that you are unwilling to let it go. “Racial segregation” sounds like something a school district or a zoning board would do. It doesn’t throw quite the same rhetorical punch that “apartheid” does. 😀 But that’s what we’ve got, so I don’t know, just deal with it? 😁

  43. The court, whatever it has concluded, continually demonstrates its irrelevance.

    Maybe Synwar, or an innocent Gazan, can use the printed ruling to stop a tank shell.

    Maybe a Lebanese child can use the printed rulings to roof the family bomb shelter.

    Maybe Israel can use the printed court filings and rulings to build a missile defense dome.

    People keep dying as the international courts and the U.N. continue to opine.

    So how many lives are international courts and the U.N. saving with libraries full of words?

    How many divisions of troops are they deploying to shield noncombatants?

  45. @42 “you can’t tell a disjunction from a conjunction!”

    You’ll have to do better than repeat gratuitous accusations

    A disjunction is expressed by ‘or’ which doesn’t appear in article 3. A conjunction is expressed by ‘and’ which appears in article 3. You can try to twist meaning as much as you want but the bottom line is Israel is guilty of “racial segregation AND apartheid” as said by the court.

    As for your ‘interpretation’ of the judges opinions, it’s clearly false. Anyone can read president Salam’s opinion to confirm that your take is opposite what it should be: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/186/186-20240719-adv-01-01-en.pdf

  46. from Democracy Now:

    Medical Workers Demand

    a Ceasefire in Gaza

    Palestinians in Gaza have endured

    more than a year of Israel’s constant

    bombardment, ground assaults with tanks

    and troops, sniper fire, displacement and starvation.

    Armed drones constantly buzz overhead, a reminder that no place in Gaza is safe, and that death could come at any moment. Over 42,000 Gazans have been killed already.

    Prior to Hamas’s raid on Israel on October 7th, 2023, the Gaza Strip was considered the world’s largest open-air prison, with its impoverished population of 2.3 million walled in by the Israeli military since 2006.

    Half of the population

    of Gaza is under the age of 18,

    [do THEY “have

    it Coming”?]

    born under siege, raised while denied

    adequate access to clean water, education,

    employment, nutrition, and freedom of movement.

    The scale of the violence that Israel, with full US support, is raining on Palestinians in Gaza is without precedent, and is widely considered an ongoing genocide. One of Israel’s stated goals has been to kill Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, which it claims to have done in Rafah on Wednesday.

    Will Israel now accept a ceasefire,

    and will the hostages in Gaza

    come home? Apparently not.

    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

    says the war will go on [and bibi keeps

    outta jail]. The protests in Tel Aviv

    against Netanyahu, led by the

    families of hostages, continue.

    News of the situation in Gaza

    is hard to obtain, as Israel

    has barred foreign

    journalists from

    entering.

    Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been doing remarkable reporting, but Israel has killed well over 120 of them in the past year.

    Some of the best, first-hand accounts of the horrors have come from foreign medical workers. This week, the New York Times published an opinion piece titled, “65 Doctors, Nurses and Paramedics: What We Saw in Gaza,” written by Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, who volunteered for two weeks at the European Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza. Sidhwa wrote,

    “I worked as a trauma surgeon in Gaza from March 25 to April 8…Nearly every day I was there, I saw a new young child who had been shot in the head or the chest, virtually all of whom went on to die. Thirteen in total.”

    The article included three X-ray images showing the upper body of different Palestinian children. Each showed a bullet lodged in the head or neck.

    “It’s pretty clear that when there’s a pattern — every time any international has been around, for an entire year, on a daily basis, a child has been shot in the head in a place of 2 million people, it seems unlikely to me that that’s an accident,” Dr. Sidhwa said on the Democracy Now! news hour.

    Rajaa Musleh is a Palestinian nurse who grew up in Gaza. She worked in Gaza City, trapped at one point in the Al-Shifa Hospital for over 40 days.

    “We received a huge number of injured persons coming to the emergency department, and the majority of the cases, unfortunately, women and children,” Musleh said on Democracy Now!

    “Many children come without legs,

    without arms…I witnessed a father

    holding his children in two bags.”

    She described the guilt she felt when compelled to leave a dying ten-year-old girl, in order to attend to others who had a chance of living:

    “Ninety percent of her body was burned. She asked me to stay beside her and hold her hand.

    I will never, ever forget her burned skin in my hands. I feel guilty because I did not stay beside her in the bed…I feel guilty when she asked me about her mother and father and sister, brothers, and I didn’t respond because the whole family had been killed during the bombing of her house.”

    Rajaa Musleh continued, “I will never forget the dogs, eating a dead body inside Al-Shifa Hospital at the front of the emergency department.”

    Netanyahu and his war cabinet are agitating for a wider war, promising an imminent attack on Iran as the United States has sent Israel a high-tech missile defense battery and 100 US troops to operate it.

    The US also used B2 Stealth

    bombers to strike Yemen

    this week.

    Forgotten amidst the geopolitics, beneath the warplanes and the uninterrupted flow of arms from the US to Israel, are both the Palestinian civilians, trapped with no place safe in Gaza, and the remaining Israeli hostages, seemingly sacrificed by Netanyahu as just another cost of his endless war.

    Meanwhile, trauma surgeon Feroze Sidhwa will continue telling the world what he saw in Gaza: “I personally wish that Americans could see more of what it looks like when a child is shot in the head, when a child is flayed open by bombs, it would make us think a little bit more about what we do in the world.”

    –by Amy Goodman & Denis

    Moynihan; October 17, 2024

    Oodles if you’ve

    the belly for it

    https://www.democracynow.org/2024/10/17/medical_workers_demand_a_ceasefire_in

    “Netanyahu and his war cabinet are agitating for a wider war, promising an imminent attack on Iran as the United States has sent Israel a high-tech missile defense battery and 100 US troops to operate it.”

    dammit joe

    what the fucking

    fucking fucking Fuck?

    your fealty to Israel

    this’s gonna cost Jews

    planet-wide exorbitantly

    joe

    you’ve

    Lost your

    Muchness.

  47. “I think what’s going on here is that the word “apartheid” gives you such a delicious frisson”

    says the self proclaimed “professor” who has been making an ass of himself for hours on end by twisting the meaning of “and” in order to convince you that Israel hasn’t been found guilty of “racial segregation AND apartheid” as indicated by the ICJ

  48. @45: “Anyone can read president Salam’s opinion to confirm that your take is opposite what it should be.”

    Ha ha ha! Salam is writing for himself in a separate declaration, not the court as a whole! 😂 If the court had said everything he wanted it to, he wouldn’t have needed to file a declaration. God help us if you ever try reading a Supreme Court decision, you’ll be citing each dissent as if it were the law of the land! 😂😂😂

    Here’s an exercise for you, the purpose of which is to help you distinguish between the opinion of the court and the opinion of an individual judge who sits on the court: Read every opinion of every judge in the Palestine case, and write down the paragraph or paragraphs of that judge’s opinion in which he or she says Israel committed apartheid.

    If you perform this exercise, you will learn that it’s Salam and Tlabi and no one else. Two judges out of a 15-judge panel. 😀

    Reading the judges’ opinions will also help you correct your erroneous and illogical belief that any violation of the convention against segregation and apartheid necessarily means the violator has committed BOTH segregation AND apartheid. Judge Nolte is particularly eloquent on the point that EITHER segregation OR apartheid may be a violation; a violation does not require BOTH segregation AND apartheid.

    Even Judge Salam, whose individual opinion you seem to assign extraordinary weight (perhaps because you are unclear on the nature of his role as president of the tribunal?) writes that a violation of the convention will occur if there is either segregation OR apartheid, a disjunction rather than a conjunction. (Salam goes on to write that Israel has committed both segregation and apartheid, but he and Tlabi stand alone on this point, as you will discover for yourself if you perform the little exercise I prescribed you.)

    Now here’s a Barney-style pocket example to further speed you in your understanding:

    Imagine a law that says murder and theft are both crimes. A person commits a murder but not any theft. Has that person broken the law? Yes.

    A person commits a theft but not any murder. Has that person broken the law? Yes.

    A person commits a murder and a theft. Has that person broken the law? Yes.

    A person commits no murder and no theft. Has that person broken the law? No.

    Now work it backwards. You meet a person who is in jail. You don’t know what this prisoner is in for, you just know that they’ve broken the law in some fashion.

    Has that prisoner committed a murder? Maybe, but necessarily.

    Has that prisoner committed a theft? Maybe but not necessarily.

    Has that prison committed either a murder or a theft? Yes.

    Work through this string of scenarios a couple times, and you’ll find yourself fluent in disjunctions and conjunctions before you know it! 😁

    Phew, that was a pretty thick fog of confusion you were lost in! Luckily, all it needed was a good strong gust of thumpus to blow it all away! 😁

  49. @40: This might be easier for you to understand if you’d read the material you’d quoted: “discriminatory policies and practices tantamount to apartheid”. Please note his phrasing: “tantamount to apartheid”. That’s not actually “apartheid,” which is why he qualified it. If he could honestly have said the ICJ found Israel guilty of apartheid, he would not have qualified it.

    Further down in that same document, we read, ‘The Court concludes that the “separation” implemented by Israel in the West Bank between the Palestinian population and settlers constitutes a breach of Article 3 of CERD, without qualifying it as apartheid.’ Again, as has already been explained to you ad nauseam, it’s entirely possible for a state to violate Article 3 of CERD, but without committing apartheid.

    Your performance here provides a good laugh. Over and over, the ICJ’s ruling excoriates Israel for acting illegally in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, but stops short of finding Israel guilty of apartheid. One might think any critic of Israel would be very happy indeed with the damning document the Court produced, but nooooooooo, you just had to say “apartheid.” So, instead of the conversation focusing on how best to address Israel’s illegal acts in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, you instead make it about your false accusation against Israel. Did you intend to make Israel appear sympathetic, and to avoid any dialog on Israel’s illegal acts? You’ve behaved exactly as if those were indeed your intentions.

  50. Why are we arguing about a court ruling, that no matter what it says, does nothing to protect Gazans or Israelis?

    What are they gonna do with the ruling? Catch mortars with the paper? Stop rockets with the paper?

Comments are closed.