Karmadhi

I was scrolling through your Stage Yellow megathread to find good examples of stage yellow for my own personal development and I noticed that you had put Elon Musk there. The post was made in 2019. Do you still stand by the statement that Musk is yellow, given all the stuff that has happened since? He seems to have a ton of orange and some blue in him, given who he allies with and endorses. A yellow person would not post on Twitter how himself, Tate and Trump are saving humanity.

To be frank, I have a friend in Saint Petersburg and he works in academia for a top university. He told me in daily life you do not feel much the corruption, like cops are fair, hospitals, education etc are not much worse or different than the West. I feel like the mafia elements of it are felt more on a high business or governmental level, they do not affect your average person as much. Hence people do not care about it.

Dude, I am talking about the bombing of Yugoslavia to stop the Kosovo genocide unfolding. They had already killed over 9000 civilians in Kosovo and raped 20.000 women. Kicked out 750.000 of them to Albania. It was pure ethnic cleansing which could have led to a full on genocide if NATO had not intervened. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War Lastly, to bring up the current war in Gaza, it is not a war against Hamas, it is a war against the ENTIRE Gazan population. Because when you have at its peak 250 children dying a day, a rate higher than that of Auschwitz concentration camp, then of course people will be angry about it. Especially when their phone is filled with videos or pictures of hurt or dead kids. People are sensitive when it comes to that. In Yugoslavia NATO barely killed any children. In Gaza it is close to 17.000 now. That is true, but Israel is not an emotional child, it has responsibility to act professionally and maturely. Please stop with this biased cringe. Nobody in the right mind would say such a thing. It is hard for me to take you seriously anymore if you think that the UN is racist and biased against Isarel.

Me, Raze and others send here dozens of credible articles, testimonies etc to provide such information. Lastly, would you say the UN is biased against Israel? I keep seeing this in forums, comments and even Israeli top politicans.

There was also a huge power difference between NATO and Serbia during the Kosovo war. Also between US and Iraq. Yet you had no near close these numbers. Iraq may have resulted in a lot of deaths but those came after the war was initially over. The actual invasion costed around 4000 civilians (not small but no near the 30.000 or so we have in Gaza). NATO meanwhile in Serbia killed around 500 civilians in their bombing campaign. Israel can show restraint, just because they "can" does not mean they have to. Firstly, Russia considers Ukraine basically part of Russia, they do not respect Ukraine sovereignty. They also see Ukraine government and army as basically Neo Nazis, so to them they are not much different Hamas is to Israel. Secondly, when the majority of people you have killed are women, childreen, elderly, then you cannot call it a war on terrorists anymore. It is a war on civilians. That is true. But it also means that the pool of people you can kill is way larger. Severity is also measured as % of population killed where in Gaza it is much higher than Ukraine. How come then there is case in the international court saying there is plausability that genocide has being going on in Gaza. How come the ICC wanted to issue an arrest warrant against Bibi and the Defense Minister of Israel accusing them of war crimes, intentional bombing of civilians, crimes against humanity, starvation as method of war etc (decision still not finalized). How come every human rights organization is calling out what Israel is doing as cruel and unecessary. If Israel had no other way to conduct this war than how it is conducting it, none of these issues would have been raised. So they are all wrong?

How come the war in Ukraine is so much more restrained and soft compared to Gaza? Civilian casualties in proportion of the population are like 40 times less. And Russia is not even a soft country when it comes to war, they are quite brutal. In Gaza the rate of killing at points was the highest since the Rwandan genocide. When your reference is a genocide, it is not just a war. I would call it a semi genocide. But if you want to use the word "war", then it is a war on women on children since they are the main people that are dying. They have probability had a worse civilian to soldier ratio than Hamas did. If you think it is a standard war, what sources are you using that make you think that? Because every UN and Human rights agency have called it more than a standard war. Not to mention all the doctors that went there and said it was anything they had seen in other conflicts. Ideally in discussions regarding this matter it is good to send sources from trustworthy places, otherwise it is just empty speculation and propaganda parroting. I feel like you are being quite soft on how Israel is doing this war and mostly focus on their propaganda and other stuff when it comes to criticizing which is obviously problematic but a small fish in comparison. The whole outrage regarding Israel (including top world leaders), came from how they are doing this war (and previous wars for that matter), not because they buy off some medias here and there and flood the internet with bots. Just because they have not nuked gaza (but have dropped the equivalence of multiple atomic bombs of it in explosives), does not mean that they cannot do crimes against humanity in other ways. UN official deems kill rates in Gaza highest in the world since Rwandan genocide – Middle East Monitor

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/9/6/uk-doctor-80-of-gaza-victims-i-treated-were As I have said before, this is clearly a war on childreen, not Hamas. Intention is irrelevant, what matters is results.

What proportion of Israelis society you think would call a soldier who is accused of raping a Palestinian prisoner as a "hero"?

I saw a debate of Israelis where a lawyer (I think was lawyer) said that ANYTHING is legit to be done to enemies of Israel, including sticking a stick up their ass (sodomy). Basically saying torture and rape is fine. Then there were tons of people demonstrate and legit tried to break into a prison where the guy who did the act was being held. Then some people starting calling him a hero, invited him on a tv show where the dude took off his mask. These people are borderline red to me. A society that glorifies rape and torture is red to me. I am not saying most Israel is like this, but these people exist. What do you think about what I said?

If that is the case, who will monitor and occupy the West Bank? Also, who will be the "ally" of the West. Judea to me seems almost a fanatical religious state, not much different from Iran. The liberal Israel I think would get FAR less hate from the rest of the world if it happens. I think most of the hate and criticism comes from the Judea side.

There is an insane amount of propaganda from the Palestinian side as well Nivsch. The thing that trumps all is direct footage. So when Israel bombs a school and you see footage of countless dead or maimed children, that is what gets people so angry and frustrated. I can assure you, if Gaza did not have this insane number of injured/dead children footage running amok then the protests would have been 10x lower. People tend to be very very sensitive when it comes to children compared to grown men. The number of dead kids I have seen personally (and tons of my friends) has made us basically immune to it. And we are chilling in other side of the world. Imagine being there. I have seen many interviews of foreign doctors that went to Gaza and then they did interviews explaining what they say. It is absolutely horrific to listen to them. And these are usually foreigners from US/UK etc, so I do trust their testimonies. Piers Morgan invited 2 times them. Regarding medias, BBC to me (outside some questionable headlines) tend to be relatively objective. Guardian less so. CNN even less so. Fox News is pure bullshit. So if you follow Western news regarding the war, use BBC (my advice). Watch these with an open mind.

I find it quite hard to understand where you stand on this conflict Leo. On one side you seem to be very critical of Israel, calling them out countless times and discussing it with the Israelis here. On the other side you seem to brush off their action and calling it "some sloppy bombing or some war crimes here and there".

I notice that the support for Israel in the US is MUCH bigger even among your average citizen compared to Europe (exception of Germany maybe). It is ironic considering it is Europe the one that treated Jews bad through history, yet they seem more aware of their devilry and tend to be more critical. Where I live it is hard to find a local under 30 that supports Israel these days.

I made a threat about this a while ago and a lot of people gave their reasoning including Leo. Here you go

Fair. And how exactly does shooting a 5 year old child aid the war effort? A precise sniper shot which actually is perfectly aimed according to doctor testimonies. I fail to understand how that aids a military. It is not 1 case where a child was perceived to be potentially dangerous or human errors which can indeed happen in a war. It is a whole policy with dozens of recorded cases. https://www.facebook.com/IrelandPSC/videos/devastating-testimony-from-a-surgeon-who-was-in-gaza-toddlers-shot-by-israeli-sn/473472438661359/ very informative video from a foreign doctor who was there being interviewed.

From foreign doctors testimonies that were in Gazans hospitals, most of those shots were sniper shots with clear aim at childreen. Not mistakes.

You mean in general or about specific actor?

You can see death toll, civilian to soldier death toll, war crimes being done, destruction etc. A brutal military makes itself obvious by the results. War is pragmatic and result oriented. These days you can just open your phone and see since people stuck in war zones film what goes on. I saw the other day a Gazan child whose half head was blown off by a bullet, that is close to direct experience. So does Russia to be honest. They are very crafty in justifying their invasion of Ukraine and blaming all of it on the West. I feel like even serious scholars like Jeffery Sachs have been influenced by it. I have followed both conflicts and to me Russia excels in doing propaganda via online sources like Tik Tok, Instagram and Telegram. That is their thing. Israel excels in doing propaganda by using the medias like Fox News, CNN and some talk show hosts.

I thought it was PLO that used to be more violent then calmed down. But from what I saw Hamas is not strong there, it is mostly PLO that governs it. But I do not know much about that part so cannot say much. By the way, I saw this video about the hostage deal. Would love your thoughts. He is against a hostage deal it seems but also extremely pro Israel and pro Zionist. Interesting take.

And how exactly were the actual people LIVING there consulted about this? You mentioned every actor except those who would actually have to share that space and be governed by another. That is my fundamental issue here. Way I see this is that Palestinians were forced to endure the consequences of European evil towards Jews. Why didnt they make Bavaria a Jewish state? That would be fitting. Germany had lost the war and was the primary responsible for the Holocaust. Why involve people that had nothing to do with any of this. I agree with you on this, personally I am all for negotiations and swallow your pride. But Israel seems to keep doing illegal expansions so it is not just the acceptance of the status quo. That status quo moves every year. Totally agreed. I feel the same way about Ukraine and the war going on there. I saw Gazans tried to do a peaceful protest some years ago and they were massacred. If they do relatively peaceful protest they get killed (46 childreen killed too). If they do violence and terrorism they get genocied. What can they do? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018–2019_Gaza_border_protests They tried doing it peacefully and look what happened. When I read this then the October attack made more sense since they tried a peaceful route and failed badly. This is how a dictatorship treats massive protests, not a "democracy". "Five former IDF snipers, assisted by Breaking the Silence, published a letter expressing "shame and sorrow" for the killings and stating, "instructing snipers to shoot to kill unarmed demonstrators who pose no danger to human life is another product of the occupation and military rule over millions of Palestinian people, as well as of our country's callous leadership, and derailed moral path". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre#Death_toll

Israel now has killed around 40 times more civilians than Hamas did. If it was 10 it would not be as bad.

It is clear as day that Israel is not just trying to wipe out Hamas but also do a huge collective punishment campaign on the entire Gaza population. Mearsheimer said it best here. If IDF would really want, the civilian death toll would be far lower and the destruction far less than it is. Not to mention the entire famine. I struggle to understand how people on this forum including Leo sometimes can call it anything else than terrorization of an entire population and punishment. "Just because they have not nuked Gaza" does not mean you cannot mass murder civilians in other ways.

To be honest Leo brought it up this time, not me. If there is clear evidence then ok. Still, I find the idea ridiculous to take land because it was yours 3000 years ago. Or better said, I find it ridiculous to do that and then act like you are moral and stuff. To justify it basically. Just say "We need land so we took it, no choice". Then it would be your typical conquest which happened all the time in history. Nothing new there.

Would you say there is a difference in breaking international law and lying in general between Russia and Israel? People say Israel is a democracy and hence is more trustworthy and "moral" than Russia, but isnt a democracy just a way to elect people? I always thought that respecting human rights is independent of the method that you choose to elect those in power. I say this because I notice that Russia makes the same claims as Israel (we bomb schools because Ukranians troops hide there etc), yet nobody believes them. Meanwhile when Israel says the same thing, people trust it. When it comes to rule of law which is indeed stronger in a democracy, I have rarely seen IDF soldiers be tried for war crimes or go to jail. Recently there was the scandal with the IDF guy that raped Palestinians in prison and filmed it and the guy was released and now is shown in tv shows as a celebrity. So how exactly is being a democracy a benefit for Israel when it comes to being moral army or trustworthy?

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240507-unlike-anything-we-have-studied-gaza-s-destruction-in-numbers https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/immense-scale-gaza-killings-amount-crime-against-humanity-un-inquiry-says-2024-06-12/ https://apnews.com/article/biden-israel-hamas-oct-7-44c4229d4c1270d9cfa484b664a22071 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/18/systematic-torture-to-be-palestinian-in-an-israeli-prison https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-horrifying-cases-of-torture-and-degrading-treatment-of-palestinian-detainees-amid-spike-in-arbitrary-arrests/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-rights-group-says-palestinian-prisoners-subject-systematic-abuse-2024-08-05/ https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/08/30/732353/10,300-West-Bank-Palestinians-arrested-by-Israel-since-Gaza-war-onset--Rights-group https://theintercept.com/2024/08/09/israel-prison-sde-teiman-palestinian-abuse-torture/ I sent sources to prove that I am not making anything up nor exaggerating. There are countless reports showing it. In the West Bank where there is no Hamas they do countless times raids on middle of night and abduct randomy civilians and terrorize their homes. I seen interviews from ex IDF personnel saying they did raids on houses which they knew were not involved with anything dodgy just to keep them in line (aka terrorize them). Skip to third minute. I saw they have close to 8000 Palestinians in jails at the moment, more than half without charges nor trials. What are them but hostages? I am not saying IDF are Nazis or Mongols, but by far the most brutal and inhumane army among first world countries, on par with countries like Russia. And even if Hamas is worse, does that mean Israel is also not awful? We can agree both are depraved enough to the point where they go to terrorism. You can have 2 terrorists fighting each other. If 1 side is more terrorist than the other is irrelevant once both cross a certain line. My point has never been that Israel is worse than Hamas, but that Israel in its own right is horrible. Nothing more. Just like Stalin was slightly better than Hitler but still awful on his own right, and they fought agaisnt each other.