zazen

You may not have to show mercy to the perpetrators but don't go after the many out of frustration for not being able to successfully get at the few who hurt you. Thinking this level of collateral damage and destruction is justified isn't such a moderate take by a moderator lol. Because Jewish history is one of being expelled from place to place one can understand why Jews don't trust anyone to have their interest at heart but it still doesn't justify doing it to people who never did it to you in the first place. Israel needs to learn to trust at leas its own allies. The wider context which gets missed in all this as people get lost in discussion of civilian:combatant kill ratios etc is the underlying cause being occupation of land. If we allow ancient claims to land to justify present injustice, we're opening a pandoras box to endless war which no country would be safe from because history and 'countries' are shifting sands. If ancient claims are part of Zionist logic that would justify Americans and Australians being kicked out or giving land back to the indigenous.

Karmadhis point was to provide context to different situations. The rightwing pipe dream is being translated into reality as we speak by what the states actions are in Gaza - to the point Israel has been summoned to the world court, condemned globally, and criticised and threatened with arms withdrawals even from its own allies. Israel can't just carry out what it wants as it wishes because it depends heavily on the support of the West. This is why no plan for the day after has been set and isn't by Bibi - obscurity is there because the real intention can't be spoken, but the smokescreen of 'bring back the hostages' keeps being fed to the people to help them justify what their state is doing in Gaza. Israel couldn't defend itself against Iranian missiles that Iran can produce as fast and as cheaply as Cuba can make cigars. Multiple countries stepped in to help intercept them. This is why Israel can't just do as it pleases and needs to balance its far right motivations with global consensus and what their allies will put up with. Even then, Israel defies international law and their allies warnings - but they still need to manage their own domestic affairs and the impact of isolationism and economic hardship from boycotts, trade ties being cut etc. Democracy and far right aren't mutually exclusive. Its like me saying slavery isn’t possible under a democracy - but it happened in recent history. The banner of democracy associates itself with the will of the people - demos. But what if the will of the people is moving to the right and so the leaders simply represent the electorate. When Israeli's say that the average Israeli is moderate they may be speaking from the more liberal parts or the capital where they are surrounded by the more moderate minded - but the demographic which is the fasting growing are the settler demographic who hold much more far right views and so politics will lean to cater to them as Bibi has done. Demographics is destiny - and the current trend is that the more right wing viewpoints are spawning the most yearly births which is pulling the countries political centre of gravity right and will continue to into the future.

If you can see that Israel has been pushed to its limit to act this way, you can surely see how Hamas are pushed to their limit to act how they did on October 7th. If Israeli settlers one day killed 1'000 Palestinians would that justify making 2 million Israeli's homeless and restricting aid to them? If you speak of context and symmetry there is a clear asymmetry in who has more power in this situation and what they choose to do with that power. Israeli's are given all the context they need to justify this war, but Palestinians aren't from the Zionist side - as if Hamas's sole reason for existence is to kill as many Israeli Jews as possible - as if their existence isn't fuelled by the context of occupation and oppression of Palestinians.

If a big portion of Israelis support Bibi or voted his government in would that justify collective punishment? Should the many suffer for what the few do? This is the logic used to justify what Israel does in Gaza because of Hamas. Even if not a single person died, I think we forget just what it means to lose not only your home but your entire neighbourhood or town. People feel violated when they lose an item or get robbed, imagine your home - neighbourhood - town. A lot of these people were already refugees now made refugees twice in a life time. That is a crime and stain against humanity regardless of the deaths. To top it off Israel denies these people appropriate aid access or as we’ve seen in one of the most militarized countries the IDF stands by or doesn’t prosecute settlers blocking / destroying aid. To make a place of 2 million people homeless and inhabitable through crop destruction, restrict aid to these same people and then make them run around like a mouse in a maze by initiating new operations to wherever they move to for safety (Rafah) is despicable and is why the world is mad at Israel - before we even get to deaths. But hardcore Zionists (not you in particular) will claim the death count being half or the numbers from Hamas not accurate as if it’s a victory - it’s not the win they think it is and only makes them come across worse in fact.

The ministries figures have been found to be generally accurate as the UN has said in past counts. It seems their basically dancing between identified vs verified counts. It's not like 8'000 kids dead (half the estimates) automatically makes them the most moral army but secondly even if true, the question of why aren't they able to identify the other casualties only indicates the horror of the situation even further. With such chaos there its a nightmare to go through the process. Firstly who is going to identify them when entire families have been killed and extended family members if still alive displaced? Who's gonna count the dead when they are entombed in the wreckage and rubble. Maybe bodies have been so mangled that fatalities become un-identifiable. Seems to me more like linguistic manipulation to have the world soften towards Israel rather than a attempt to be accurate.

A phrase I've heard before is that we are prisoners of geography. I think what this means is that geography (just like genetics) has a certain constraint and influence on what humans can do. Analogous to hardware / software = software operates within the constraints of the hardware it runs on. The structure / hardware dictates to a extent what software / state of mind is possible. It’s the conciousness (software) that maximizes but is limited to the constraints of the hardware (geography, genetics) it is housed within. As a example Middle East is at a cross roads between continents and civilizations which meant there was a flow of trade and ideas compared to say Australia at the edge of the world and only accessible once naval technology took off. Similarly from a military perspective countries with mountains around it or the sea become much less likely to be invaded due to their difficulty - nature provides a moat. India for example has the himalayas to its north and is surrounded by sea - obviously these were overcome with technological advancements. But compare this to more flat land regions where invasions are much more easier and likely where tribes/clans/groups clash like Europe or the flats Middle East. The span and scope of Islam and its geographic location allowing it to become a hub between regions counters the OP's claim of Islam being a cult - although I can understand where they come from. But in general, a cult isolates itself and its followers from the world whilst religions insulate/integrate themselves in the world - this is a spectrum where some integrate less than others. A cult is usually small and centralized around a specific leader so is the wrong term to apply to a major world religion with over a billion followers with different sects etc.

Shocking statements still being spoken despite talks of arrest warrants and Israel’s ally halting arms. The arrogance. Threats from the US to the ICC when they were considering arrest warrants of Israeli officials. Talk like a “democratic rule based order” but walk like a mafia. This is why Israel is above the law.

Looks like a bill is being passed for that

Demographics is destiny, geography is opportunity, genetics is potential. Analogous to hardware / software = software operates within the constraints of the hardware it runs on. Similarly it’s the conciousness (software) that maximises but is limited to the constraints of the hardware (geography, genetics) it is housed within. Reminds me of the Sadhguru thread where everyone was debating a yogi can or should over come a physical illness = elevating software to think it can transcend hardware. The opposite end is the geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan who elevates hardware and has been calling China’s collapse due to its poor geography - but has high hopes for Argentina becoming a power due to its geography, or America staying top dog due to its superior geography. He overlooks the human element - the human conciousness (software) at work with the material it has (hardware).

To add nuance to above regarding past wrongs and tearing down of statues: it would probably more productive to self actualise from past history, rather than become self loathing about it. Historic symbols can be reminders - cautionary tales or lessons not to be repeated as well as the good to be repeated and built upon. Understandably younger generations want to tell a new story in their time and dissociation from ‘negative’ old ones - but negating the negative can mean it’s repeated. It would also be wise to not learn history in a way that elevates what is rightfully seen as immoral in today’s time, or learn it in a way that re-traumatises groups and sows more division.

Shahid Bolsen: "I said it before, they should have seen the writing on the wall in 2020 when this same generation was going around knocking down statues of slave owners and colonizers. They let you know then how they feel about that, what their stance is about that. They want nothing to do with colonization; they want to disavow that history. So if they want to distance themselves and disown colonization in their history, what makes you think that they'd be fine with being associated with colonization that's going on today? This generation didn't have a chance to oppose slavery and colonization a century ago or two centuries ago, so they just pulled down all the icons of slavery and colonization, everything that they could find, they tore it down. But right now, today, they have the opportunity to actively oppose and fight against present-day colonization in Palestine, and that's what they're doing. I mean, seriously, how could you not see this coming. Were they subtle in 2020? Of course, this generation is going to fight you; of course, they're going to reject Zionism; of course, they're going to oppose genocidal colonization. This is their chance. This is their chance to prove that their anger and their guilt about America's crimes in the past, that their anger was genuine. This is their chance to prove to you, to themselves, and to the world that they meant it in 2020 when they knocked down all those statues. This is their chance to manifest the virtue that they were signaling four years ago, and that's what they're doing. And the knee-jerk reaction of your so-called civilization, your so-called culture that's so addicted to colonization and so addicted to brutality—their knee-jerk reflex response is to turn vicious, to turn ugly, to turn oppressive and violent against anyone who's trying to cure them of that addiction. But this time, you're attacking your own future leaders; you're attacking your own precious babies of the elite, and this is just how wild and incurable your addiction is. This is just how morally bankrupt and how corrupt your so-called society, your so-called civilization is. You're willing to sacrifice your own young, your own heirs to power, your own successors to the imperial throne because of your insatiable thirst for the blood of the colonized. You're too drunk on the blood of your victims to know that you are too drunk to lead anymore. These students are trying to tell you that friends don't let friends commit genocide, but then you just turn your blind fury against them. I'm telling you, your power structure is cannibalistic; we're witnessing an American meltdown in real time. It's a tectonic shift; the epicenter is in Gaza, but the shock waves are shaking the foundation of American power. Every time the Israelis launch a missile, I'm telling you, it lands in the United States, and if things keep going the way they're going, before too long, there isn't going to be anything left standing in that country."

As warrants may be coming out for Israeli officials its a good time to note a US law called the "Hague Invasion Act." This law authorizes the US president to use force, including invading the Netherlands where the ICC is based, to release any individual detained by the ICC. This includes not only US personnel but also personnel from allied countries, including Israel. Coercion wrapped in geopolitics. The US has a history of hostility toward the ICC, including sanctions imposed on ICC employees investigating potential war crimes by US allies in Afghanistan. "Rules Based Order'' but uncle Sam don't give a damn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Protection_Act#:~:text=This authorization led to the,or rescue them from custody.

The point about balance between state and market gets over looked as the often uninformed Western perspective clings to the notion of China being strictly communist and authoritarian and communism = failure = bad. The reality is more nuanced: China operates under a mixed economy paradigm that is almost its own thing and is beyond capitalism or socialism. Local governments play a big role to the point a political scientist terms their hybrid economy the 'mayor economy.'

Good use of dark humor to hit the nail on the head lol apple pie. How about 'walking my dog' genocide:

That's true. Their has to be a reasonable use of words and terms - neither inflating them to apply to everything but also not stopping from using it when a situation seems to fit closely enough within the spectrum of the definition. Israel only want the most extreme case of the definition to apply or be used (ie Genocide only being Holocaust) to avoid accountability, condemnation and consequences. Destroying hospitals, food crops and blocking aid comes close enough to the definition of destroying a group - if genocide is too strong a term then it definitely is collective punishment - and that alone warrants global protest and action. Just for comparison, in the 1990s the mass graves found in Srebrenica led to a genocide ruling against Bosnian Serbs - by the same world court now saying that Israel is committing a plausible genocide. Recently the mass graves found at Gazan hospitals are already out the news cycle almost as if the world has become numb to the atrocities - or distracted by the campus protests which pro-Zionist provocatuers and agents have been smearing. Inflation and cheapening of the word genocide would be like when pro-Palestinian protests take place and some Jewish people think this is genocidal or a prelude to the Holocaust (as Netenyahu said recently) regarding the campus protests. This is inflation to a absurd degree. Sure, their can be genocidal remarks by individuals and they should be addressed but overall no sane person can claim Jewish lives are at a mass level of threat because of these protests when Jewish groups are the best organised within these same protests.

Thanks for the information man. There is a spectrum to definitions and words. Genocide isn’t just mass extermination of a group (like the Holocaust was), it can be the destruction of a group in whole or in part. Ethnic cleansing involves forcibly displacing an ethnic group, either by relocating them to another country or moving them within the same territory but off their land. This can happen without changing the overall population, like when Palestinians are moved from one part of the West Bank to another to make way for settlements. The total population of Palestinians hasn’t changed in West Bank, yet ethnic cleansing has occurred via displacement. Both can be true at the same time. That’s been going on for decades without much prosecution from Israel and is instead tacitly facilitated by it when the IDF just stand by and watch settlers do what they do. Israel won’t acknowledge the statehood of 5 million Palestinians in Gaza or West Bank but will still control them externally (Gaza) or internally (West Bank). Israel can’t afford to absorb both areas into a larger Israeli state because Jews will become a minority - they instead let both territories remain in limbo for who knows how long. The 10 billion dollar smart fence surrounds Gaza. Even the word used is fence rather than border - because border usually means between two sovereign states. France ‘surrounds’ Monaco like Italy ‘surrounds’ the Vatican - except those are borders shared by two sovereigns not one sovereign nation (Israel) fencing in a unrecognised territory under siege. They don’t want anything to do with Gaza but won’t allow Gaza to do anything they want either and restrict them from the world.

The Zionist narrative is melting faster than sugar in tea. Their defence of the indefensible and countless justifications for every despicable act is getting as dry as the desert they want to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians to.

It's good Israel became powerful , whats not good is how that power was used. Zionists overlook their own actions that actually threaten their survival, and claim those very actions are in fact for their survival. Settlement expansion is survival, suffocation of Palestinian rights and statehood is survival, military check points is survival, the subversion of US politics and smacking both sides of their political ass cheeks is survival - everything is survival, and everything resisting that 'survival' is 'Hamas' or 'anti-semitic' or Iran. Israel insulates itself from accountability under the false pretence of security and survival.

True, until it couldn't as much anymore due to social media. Propaganda can also be as subtle as titling headlines as 'X number of killed Israeli's' vs 'X number of Palestinians just died' its the subtle, persistent use of language that seeps into the hackable brains of the populace. The response to IDF crimes being brought up to Washington is simply - we have urged our ally to investigate the matter. Since when is the accused asked to investigate itself? Washington holding a position that every accusation of Israeli criminality in Gaza just means Israel needs to investigate itself is exactly the same as having a position that Israel can commit any crime it wants with no consequences whatsoever. The West get to redefine the word hypocrisy, and exemplify the use of selective principles. Zionists make the most noise per capita - and as you mentioned very few people are actual Zionists.

There comes a point where securing a people through such extreme actions leads to their very insecurity. Did Israel feel secure when Iran attacked in retaliation? What level of security is needed when being a regional power with nukes, having neighbours who are friendly (Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf), having the backing of the West and the worlds super power isn't enough? Due to re-traumatising themselves as a people by re-living memories of the past a lot of Zionists hyper inflate threats and act irrationally which only continue to actually endanger themselves. The excess which deserves criticism is what world protests and now the campus protests are about. Of course, some very angered individuals will call for the end of Israel and the like which should be scrutinised and checked - but to conflate all protests or the main cause as one of anti-semitism and the prelude to the holocaust is utter BS.

Conflation olympics If the US saw what the US is doing in the US, the US would invade the US to liberate the US from the tyranny of the US - Anonymous

Wonder if this whole Campus situation in America has anything to do with the Rafah operation which I assume is going ahead ? Deflection, distraction, then destruction.

Each groups narrative of home and heritage fuels a cycle of conflict. Words are imbued with the power of the histories they carry, and the word Zionism for the Jews symbolises hope but for the Palestinians is one loaded with the weight of the Nakba and continuous displacement adding to that load till today. That’s why people react to it negatively - not because of what it envisaged or started but because of how it started and what is done in its name till today. What is sanctuary to one is stolen soil to another. Israelis have to face the fact that the safe haven they constructed for themselves out of necessity is neither safe nor a haven as long as it exiles the natives in the process. The process of their return is engineered top down with the help of colonial powers at the time (and maintained by their help today) - rather than a grassroots movement that comes more organically and naturally to the local habitat. The implementation of Zionism has evolved into an imposition, a structure forcibly embedded rather than naturally emerging within the local environment it seeks to inhabit. This imposition destroys Palestinian life at its worst and disrupts daily life for Palestinians at its best by making the mundane tasks of life into the militant. When traveling to work, visiting family and farming ancestral land is consistently militarized with checkpoints and surveillance, the response from those under it naturally escalates against this humiliation. Militant conditions can expect militant reactions.

@Bobby_2021 Good analysis. A narrative you’ll never hear in the West lol. Iran can produce these missiles like cigars. They penetrated Israel’s two most sensitive and highly defended air bases and sites. Westerners and ultra-Zionists can keep thinking the escalatory actions of their states make them ‘safer’ if they wish. This wasn’t intended to be destructive by Iran but demonstrative - yet it’s spun as an Israeli victory, the same way Ukraine was led down its path by hubristic blindness on part of the vested interests.