zazen

These terms are used strategically rather than universally as a matter of principle and definition. @Nivsch Kenway literally provided a clip with no propaganda and even wrote “Very little context, but again gives a very brief glimpse into the magnitude of the desperation as the food crisis deepens.” That’s as good faith as your gonna get. The links I provided 2 pages back were news interviews or outlets (non-Al Jazeera) and a clip from the UN. We can’t control what the comments or captions are gonna be.

Squatting deep with full range of motion. They should lunge back to their given territory and stop expanding jeez. Would be sad to see that land settled on after the world watched what massacre went on there and at what cost it came.

Understanding a point of view doesn't mean standing with it. I can get Israel's perspective - particularly the point of not allowing a state in West Bank due to security risks coming from the North which has a elevation and proximity to Tel Aviv that puts it right in the cross hairs for some attacks. The issue is Israel wants a majority Jewish population in a majority Arab land - that requires demographic engineering through laws and guns ie occupation and apartheid which will be resisted and that will demand a level of violence and oppression to uphold until it erupts like a volcano (October 7th). To maintain this structure in the modern world needs propaganda and a narrative of superiority and entitlement that allows Israeli citizens to be okay with their state doing what it has to do in the background of their lives and even participating in it when they have to via the IDF. If looked at honestly, both lands for the Palestinians remain controlled internally (West Bank) and externally (Gaza) by Israel effectively making it a single state with with two territories (districts) run by Palestinians with different laws and rights ie apartheid. The issue is it can't go on forever into the 21st century which isn't receptive to such a set up. It's just ill fitting for this era which is why the world has issue with it - especially since the label of democracy and Western values gets slapped onto Israel and proudly worn which brings with it expectations and standards in line with that - and when those aren't met (especially in how IDF conducts war and mocks Gazans on tik tok) it causes people to pause, take a look and possibly even reconsider their world view. What is democracy? Could it be half a democracy or its own version of it due to its unique situation? Hmm, can a woman be half pregnant? Well, she can be a few months pregnant and maybe thats Israel right now, its still a young nation on its way and hasn't fully caught up to where it should be according to its aspiration of being a democracy like the ones in the West it likes to affiliate itself with. As for stubbornness and entitlement it could be for a few reasons: past horrific traumas inflicted on the Jews which causes them to be hypersensitive to any threat, even if it isn't existential ie Hamas don't have a airforce, tanks, artillery, nuclear etc compared to a nation that has all of them including the backing of major powers. The impunity given to Israel by a superpower (the US) and a guilt laden coalition of Western allies who committed the worst atrocities to their ancestors. The fact that Israel has a political stranglehold over powerful nations of the West. Maybe also ancient scripture claiming them as the chosen ones and which works as a title deed to the land - as if the land is patented and trademarked solely for them by their God.

@Nivsch Despite you not agreeing with a lot of views here, you exposing yourself to them on a daily basis shows good intention - especially as you don’t personally insult anyone. What can be annoying is how stubborn your biases can be but it gives some insight into an Israeli point of view which is good to have. One thing people need to be aware of is not personalising criticism of their governments which isn’t always easy. This threads gonna be hot this weekend after the ICJ hearing tomorrow lol

Sisi who is on good terms with Israel to speaking out on aid obstruction due to Israel says a lot - not sure how accurate this is or just him saving his own skin due to Israel publicly throwing him under the bus on this issue at ICJ for the world to hear. Will be surprised to hear if the ICJ result comes in as no plausible case for genocide - it doesn’t have to be a final verdict, just plausible - which there seems to be sufficient evidence for by now.

9 year old interview of Mark Regev regarding a strike on a UN shelter with many civilian casualties. Same old.

A robot, ultra zionist and a cuck walk into a bar.. rude jokes aside I do find them to be interesting and with good points that at least open the mind and exercise it. Usually watch vids on 1.5x speed but their default speed is 1.5x so will be a a 2 hr watch *sigh* haha. Will get to it at some point.

The word democracy often confers an automatic moral superiority to Israel which further distinguishes it from its “backwards” neighbours. The assumption is that just because they are a democracy that is for the people and by the people that this translates to listening to the needs and wants of its citizens, who generally tend to reject war, misery and repression - but what is advertised isn't what is often practiced by the state as we can see from many war mongering democracies in modern times. Jim Crow United States was classified as a democracy at the time. If a state practicing untold injustice and repression against its own citizens let alone people abroad could maintain the moniker of democracy, then how can anyone claim that being a democracy automatically makes a state good or just? A system is no more moral or corrupt except by the agents within that system making it so. Democracy has become a form of inverted totalitarianism with a facade of nice sounding virtue signalling words. Where capital dictates policy rather than policy dictating capital - and capital and corporatism easily become amoral entities that turn members of society into numbers on a screen, gutting their souls and feasting on profits. In Democracies we have pimps of war who orchestrate militarism, interventionism, and imperialism. They migrate from administration to administration and between them they are intertwined in think tanks exerting control from afar. They con us into war after war with a noble savior complex narrative that we naively bite the bait of and embrace the flag of — two years ago it was blue and yellow, today it is blue and white — the masses become agents and cheerleaders of tyranny yet don't feel their democratic nations to be tyrannical because this tyranny is imposed beyond their borders and upon the globe they feel to entitled to. Though, maybe a democratic superpower circling the planet with 800 bases isn't enough for world peace, maybe another 200 to reach the nice rounded of number of 1000 will finally bring a new world order of peace and prosperity.

@kenway Continuous barbarity on display. The next 2 weeks should be critical as the result of the hearing comes in, the Houthis aren’t stopping which affects markets, and Israel seem to want to escalate with Hezbollah in the North. Pressure cooker moment. Interesting take from the white Malcom X:

That’s the thing - they always focus on the ‘number’ of proposals rejected without delving into the contents of the proposals because the states offered are ‘less than a state’ in the words of ex prime minister Rabin. Besides borders and land being agreed on (structure) other issues (content) aren’t which usually cripples any sense of sovereignty - such as resource access, full right of return (what state can’t control its own migration flows), inability to form agreements with other states without Israel’s approval, a few Israeli security checkpoints remaining and the right for Israel to come in if any security threat is detected which always remains vague, and for the state to be demilitarised - so Israel can have the right to its own security but Palestinians can’t? Is that a state or is it basically legalising, legitimising and cementing their own occupation which is already the case anyway so that the world can forget about it. Why would any people who’ve been bullied on their own land for decades sign up to those terms? Though I can see why now it’s become almost impossible for Israel to accept a state with 67 borders if it isn’t demilitarised simply due to geography which can’t be changed. The North of West Bank overlooks Israel’s Tel Aviv and main airport and population centres etc it’s elevated position and proximity can easily allow for snipers, rockets etc to target them.

Great synopsis. At its core its a foreign imposition thrust onto an existing Arab population and at their expense - this Zionist entity looks to establish a majority Jewish democracy on a majority Arab demography. The only way around this predicament is demographic engineering through laws and guns ie occupation, oppression and apartheid but not calling it as such because those parts of ‘Israel’ are ‘run’ by Palestinians yet are governed (controlled) by a higher power (Israel) the same way districts, states and counties are run but subservient to a master govern-ment. To normalise this status quo requires: the dehumanisation of Palestinians, the amplification and elevation of threats, the entitlement of ancient scripture claiming them as the chosen ones and as a title deed to the land, and absurd levels of impunity from a compromised superpower and a guilt laden coalition of Western allies who committed the worst atrocities to the Jewish people. To reinforce the above demands the masterful use of propaganda and narrative control to commit to a slow process of ethnic cleansing (rather than a single genocidal event) that goes under the radar of the world’s eyes. Before they drop bombs, they must drop narratives, before missile launches they must launch propaganda campaigns, before settlements expand they must shrink Palestinian resistance into the gaslit box labelled terrorism.

A state has its own laws, capital, border air and sea control, airports and ports, sovereignty in the fullest sense including to its own resources (water in West Bank and Gas off of Gaza). Why would the PLO who run their own 'independent state' allow settlement expansion? Palestinians may be governed under the pinky finger of Hamas and the PLO but both occupied territories are under the thumb of Israel, and the thumb is more dominant than the pinky - there's a reason people play thumb wars. If a jail guard exits a jail cell but still has the keys to that jail cell, is the prisoner really free or is he still occupied and controlled but this time from the outside.

Palestinians are 20% of Israels population. Pro-Israeli's talk about how they have a great life and no apartheid within Israel so how are you guys able to live side by side there? Are the Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza a different type of Palestinian. I struggle to see how this all ends. A issue with the two state solution is that from the West Bank there is a direct sight of Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion airport - the elevated position and proximity means direct attacks and snipers are within range. I can understand why Israel would be hesitant about this, especially after bringing so much bad blood between them and Palestinians. Then you have settlers already placed in West Bank who are more extreme and armed now which makes them impossible to move. Then with Gaza it has been made uninhabitable and is still 'too risky' for Israeli residents to be living near such a place in Israel's eyes. So the two state solution the world is calling for seems difficult to achieve and something that Israel won't even allow. What you will effectively have is a militarily controlled land where Palestinians live but who aren't part of Israeli democracy - that is basically occupation and apartheid, similar to what is already the situation but without Hamas and with military check points within Gaza similar to West Bank.

Good listen, I haven't seen the Hamas statement yet but going by the video and from listening to previous analysts that seems correct. The fact that Hamas welcomes investigation and Israel doesn't also doesn't bode well for Israel - they buried the cars for example. No doubt its plausible that some atrocities took place at the hands of Hamas, the problem lies in the false amplification of it to justify what came next. That rape was was done at mass scale and that the sole intent of their operation was genocide - that this extends as a threat to the Western world and that this fight against Hamas is a fight for the free world as President Herzog claimed at Davos this week. Hamas is such a threat to the world that majority of the world call for a ceasefire and not to rid them from the earth. Good article: https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-01-19/guardian-hamas-rape-sniff-test/ ''Did Hamas’ most disciplined elite fighters – training for years and knowing that this might be their only, brief moment to take on the Israeli army in a near-fair fight or drag hostages back to Gaza for a prisoner swap before the Israeli military used its air power to overwhelm them – really take time out to indulge in a sick game involving a woman’s breast? What we now know – from multiple credible Israeli sources – is that Israel killed lots of its own civilians on October 7. Ynet, Israel’s biggest media outlet, has just published an investigation in Hebrew showing that Hamas successfully took out Israel’s all-seeing drone “eyes” over Gaza that day, leaving the Israeli military blind about what was happening. Panicked, Israeli commanders invoked the Hannibal directive, allowing those in the field to order tanks and helicopters to fire at anything that moved. It was Israel that incinerated the hundreds of cars trying to flee the Nova festival, killing potentially hundreds of the 1,140 Israelis that died that day, as well as Hamas fighters. It was an Israeli tank that incinerated 13 Israeli civilians, and 40 Hamas fighters, holed up in a house in Kibbutz Be’eri by blasting a shell through its front wall.''

He's probably just taking a break. Like with covid or any conspiracy the question comes down to - was it created by the elites or opportunistically used by them. The two extremes are that every major event was conspired into creation or that no conspiracy is possible because the worlds too big and random + a world where a evil cabal exists is too scary to confront and fathom leading to learned helplessness. Truth lies somewhere in the middle - some events are conspired into existence and other times powerful people conspire around events already set in motion by the randomness of life. Countless hours can be spent discussing conspiracies but ultimately whichever the case - the weaponisation of something rather than the creation of it is bad enough to attribute some responsibility and ill intention which Nabd highlights and that people can often under appreciate. @Danioover9000 It's a bit more chill, that was just a Saturday night live over the weekend haha. Ken broke down current events well. Speaking of conspiracies and the grave digging in Gaza. There's been allegations and convictions of organ harvesting before including involved parties being Chabad in Brooklyn where they found tunnels recently - funny how that just got muted out of the media. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/21/israeli-pathologists-harvested-organs https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE56M3QU/ “Dozens of New Jersey politicians, officials and prominent rabbis were arrested on Thursday in a sweeping federal probe that uncovered political corruption, human organ sales and money laundering from New York to Israel, officials said.” Source: TrUsT mE bRo it’S nOt a CoNspiRacy

As long as it isn't a (WMD) weapon of mass distraction, distortion and deflection. Tackling antisemitism is important though as ignorant people mix the Jewish faith and people with hard line Zionism. I can imagine the headlines already 'light vs darkness' 'civilization vs barbarism' 'West is the best - a light unto the world from Plato to Nato'.

Could be a angered and delusional response to Bibi saying he wants to control all the land from the river to the sea just two days ago which is also a angered and delusional response to October 7th. Nonetheless, both parties are not good for peacemaking. The reason for Hamas's popularity is probably because they represent a warrior class / mentality - not as pacifist or weak spined like the party in West Bank which hasn't done anything to stop settlement expansion. When people are in oppressive situations they revert to the warrior types to stop that oppression before they can think about who is more competent at running and building a state. If someones being attacked the natural reflex is to focus on defending the attack before they can think about even shaking the hands of the attacker. The first priority is protection from oppression, nation building comes secondary. Israel won't get rid of Hamas or anything that takes its place until it gets rid of the conditions that inevitably lead to Hamas. The presence of Hamas is like the presence of sunscreen in Israel - a response to harsh environmental conditions. Hamas isn't some external alien entity imposed on Palestinians but naturally emerges as a result of conditions imposed on them within their homeland. Just as blood surely rises from a wound, resistance - even violent resistance arises from oppression and occupation. That's why a lot of criticism is directed at Israel more so than Palestinians because the root is the one causing the wound. Another issue with suffering and trauma is the victim hood weaponisation of it leads to entitlement. The suffering in Gaza can cause Hamas or Palestinians in general to become more entitled to the point of not being wiling to concede in any negotiations - the same way historical Jewish suffering has also caused Israeli's to become entitled. Both feel wronged to the point of stale mate negotiations that go no where - but Israel projects its feeling of being wronged by others (Europeans) in Jewish history onto the Palestinians who never committed such wrongs.

@Karmadhi Regarding what Leo said about Bibi being a serious politician and what Lina mentioned above ie Bibi not being a religious zealot but using them as a political base to garner/maintain power. This demonstrates political skill which is what Leo appreciates, not necessarily his soul.

People who are aware of history will claim up and down cycles are part of the game of life and that everything will go on - but miss the fact the cycle humans are now entering is one in which they possess the ability exterminate the players of the game itself. This is where spiritual ascension is needed - not in a detached manner ie the everything is fine bro all is maya anyway types but in a way that integrates and acknowledges human biology. What is overlooked for ‘progress’ is the limits of ancient instincts that when accompanied by modern technological tools wreak havoc and indulge the worst of those instincts which we can’t escape from. Biological evolution is way too slow for cultural and technological evolution - there exists a lag time that can prove deadly.

That’s a rude way of dismissing someone who’s poured their thoughts out at some length. In geopolitics, we need to consider the degrees and domains of a country's stance. A nation might adopt an isolationist approach in one domain while pursuing expansionism in another - if not driven by necessity it can be driven by greed and conquest. A country needs to expand in trade and political alliance to the degree it’s self sufficient. The more globalised the world, the more links in the chain exist for vulnerability, which means less sufficient nations need to secure those links whether diplomatically or violently - or through the paradoxical marriage of both ie war on terror being a guise for monopolising resources and inflated war profits. The problem is that regional wars of the past had less ripple effects in a less connected world of complex supply chains - the stakes are higher today. So you may not care what China or US do but it can definitely affect the things you do care about. When elephants (US/China) fight the ants get crushed.

No doubt Bibi is charismatic. This old clip of him when he was young shows this very well - strong voice, coherent and eloquent, well dressed, cares a lot for his nation - oozing charisma. But look at him today and he has dead eyes compared to the seemingly caring ones he had when younger. He’s still passionate, but passionate about his own success. Politics and the dirtiness of it has consumed him. It’s possible to appreciate competence without appreciating someone’s level of consciousness. Similar to sports athletes - you can appreciate the skillset and competence on display without liking their politics, personality or how they are in their personal lives - athletes who cheat or neglect family for example. You can appreciate someone’s skillset of leadership which has facets of cunning, shrewdness and manipulation - but not appreciate where exactly they’re leading to or how they go about it. Leadership is power - and power is its own allure and intoxication regardless of its morality. Just like the charismatic player who breaks hearts, political leaders lacking morality but possessing the skillset to lead often screw people over on their way to the top building a army of enemies behind them that could one day conspire their downfall. Often, these types of leaders will never know peace - their handshake means nothing and the cost of material success is that they sold their soul. The best and worst of men are cunning, shrewd and possess manipulative abilities - it’s how it’s used and to what end that matters. Do they use them benevolently or let it consume them like a malignant cancer.

Israel was established during a time when nationalism was popular but colonialism wasn’t. It was a humanitarian cause done on the back of European atrocities to the Jews culminating in the Holocaust - it was colonial power with the entitled colonial mindset which aided its establishment. British colonial interests married to a humanitarian interest. The right to self determination and national consciousness came into the world at that time, fine - but this doesn’t mean the right to self determination at the expense of dominating another group. The Palestinian locals were expected (without consultation) to give away a majority share of their land (56% in the partition plan) to a minority of recently arrived settlers who had been there at most 20 years and only made up a third of the population. If Israel’s creation had occurred this way a few decades/centuries earlier it would have encountered less global resistance and condemnation as it does in modern times as back then might was right. Any nations that remain from colonisation today (US, Australia etc) developed over a much larger span of time - multiple decades to centuries and during a time where strength was respected and accepted once it had established itself over weakness. Israel faces ongoing conflict and condemnation due to its perceived artificial creation and its ongoing occupation and subjugation of the inhabitants unlike states that organically evolve more naturally over time due to the geographic, political and cultural situation of the land and locals. Any remaining states that started as colonies do so by integrating the locals in a democracy. Israel wasn’t a grassroots movement so much as it was a top down implant by colonial power. People from elsewhere revived a dormant language (Hebrew) used mostly in the context of religion for their newly formed nation, claimed it as their native tongue and tied it to their ancestral land. This creation was not in harmony with the region's natural circumstances and naturally caused disruption as it was thrust on already existing people for which it had little context or receptivity. Maybe the project of Israel can be seen as a unnatural foreign imposition done in such a rapid space of time - in a time when colonialism was dying and in a world which now rejects any remains of it including the remaining colonial mindset that entitles one to take another's land and subjugate any locals resistance to this, which then gaslights this resistance as terrorism and any criticism as racist. The region still feels the shockwaves of Israel's inception and the locals are still undergoing oppressive dispossession till today.

Criticising a state doesn’t mean you want it to be erased. It’s being honest about how it came to be and how it currently is - Israel has to right its wrongs and stop committing more wrongs in the present. If Palestinians are completely free and sovereign why are they offered a state? Because they aren’t completely free or sovereign. The ‘number’ of offers is always talked about but never the nature of these offers - because they offer less than a state meeting the international standards for what a state is ie sovereign - words from Israel’s supposed best man for peace that is Rabin.

Seems pretty clear what’s being said - many pro Israelis will struggle to process it because the Israeli state has drip fed propaganda that’s slowly seeped in like microplastics from water. Or they privately agree but publicly deny this sentiment. Or maybe it’s just late where you are.

Palestinians can’t build a state if they don’t have one to begin with. Can anything guarantee that Israel will stop expanding settlements when they have power? Oh wait, they already do have that power and are doing exactly that - misusing it. That would go a long way in establishing more of a climate for peace. You left out this clip of Bibi from my post which I think deserves more attention. Keep in mind the definition of terrorism while watching the above: the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. Like your bio says: Never be afraid to sit a while and think 💭