zazen

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  1. @Nivsch True, even if people expect more of Israel as they are more developed the point is under international law all parties are equal subjects to the law. Even by international law - a occupying power has more obligations to those it occupies. When someone has more resources and rights than another group that usually comes with more responsibility and expectation - international law attempts to equalise that to an extent. Forced expulsion, displacement and creating uninhabitable conditions for a group in their homeland can all constitute "deliberately inflicting conditions calculated to destroy the group" under the genocide definition from the UN Geneva convention. Its one thing to go after Hamas, but the entirety of Gaza is being levelled to the ground and food crops and plants being grazed and uprooted - which means it is uninhabitable. Collective punishment can tend to sound like a casual slap on the wrist for being naughty but when it becomes the intentional eradication or expulsion of a people it starts to fall under the banner of genocide. Also, genocide doesn't have to be written in state policy for it to be true - of course it won't be. Check the video below: The argument that warning civilians before destroying their home makes a nation moral is also false. Whilst that definitely minimises loss of physical life, that home was part of someones life. People get upset when they lose or damage their belongings - imagine them losing their homes with no insurance to re-home them. Being warned their about to lose their home is like a robber warning someone he's about to rob them - it doesn't make it any better and in fact is traumatising.
  2. ''Human Rights Groups: Israel is committing grave Human Rights violations US: We don’t think they are Experts in International Law: Israel is breaking International Law, including International Humanitarian Law US: We don’t think they are The ICJ: Israel is plausibly committing genocide, stop arming them now or you will be complicit US: We don’t think they are The UN: This ceasefire motion is binding for all UN members US: We don’t think it is When ignorant US politicians reject the world’s experts on everything they claim to stand for, simply to facilitate war crimes on behalf of a colonial outpost, how can anyone with even a tiny shred of morality or intellectual integrity support these charlatans and this festering, blood-soaked charade?''
  3. Immigration crises really means assimilation crises. If theres no wider vision or values that allows different cultures or peoples to transcend their differences for the common good theres bound to be issues. Often marginalisation leads to radicalisation. Immigration isn't bad but excessive unchecked immigration which can't integrate with the host country in a timely manner is - especially if the host countries natives are being sidelined in favour of the migrants and the migrants are viewed as competition for the states resources.
  4. Ideology shouldn't trump humanity. People can accept Zionism if it means statehood and safety for Jewish people but not ultra-Zionism if it means a Jewish ethno-state at the expense of indigenous people. Ultra-Zionists hijack the suffering of the Holocaust for their own ends. They nationalise and racialise Judaism as Islamists wish to globalize Islam and religionize every aspect of their society - economics, politics, social customs. Israel claims their approach to be security-centric but just see it like this: If a house or shop gets robbed and the people in it are massacred in the process, fortifying security means installing locks, cameras and security guards - security is about being defensive and not going on the offensive. Justice involves going after the violent perpetrators - not destroying, blockading and starving the entire town in pursuit of them and claiming every innocent life lost as collateral damage or a human shield.
  5. The ICJ ruled that it’s a plausible case for genocide - will take years for the final verdict if it ever comes. Collective punishment is very clear and evident though. Genocide spans a broad spectrum. At its mildest interpretation, it could be fears of cultural or demographic displacement, as seen in some reactions to immigration. At its most stark its the outright and deliberate extermination of an entire group of people. It’s not always a single sudden event but can be a lengthy process in the making. The worlds watching tracks being laid out for a disaster train, with a starving, trapped population and IDF gearing up for their Rafah operation. That's why even Israel’s own allies are straightening their backs and discourse now - even big names among the American right like Joe Rogan, Alex Jones and Candace Owen are calling it as such which will impact the collectives view on the conflict. Maybe it’s just the trajectory of what’s coming and what’s occurring that is getting clearer - and people don’t want to be seen as being on the wrong side of history.
  6. The problem often is that religion loses its breath and essence when it dances with dogma. Its own followers inflict damage skeptics never could. Also, when people use the term religion what are they usually referring to exactly. Traditions and societal customs or practices are often conflated with religion which is of the spiritual domain, not of the operational domain of how a society should best function. They become like scaffolding built around the raw, pulsing truth of essential religion and become one and the same that when you critique tradition people take it as a attack on religion. I guess for the awakened one, religion isn't just superstition, but eternal truth colorized through mythic story. They can discern whats literal to what may be metaphorically pointing to the transcendental. Historic descriptions of the past aren't taken as prescriptions for the future - records of history aren't always taken as road maps. That doesn't mean we can't extract timeless wisdom, but that societies can age out of certain practices and that tradition becomes a guide and not a jailer. The predicament of the debate between the atheists vs the theists is that their both coming at the same reality from different vantage points yet think they are talking about different realities. Atheist materialists see existence as a clock, ticking without a clockmaker. Religious theists see the clockmaker in every tick and tock like a divine hand orchestrating everything. Atheists can reduce God and existence to a mechanical self-sustaining machine whilst theists can personify God and existence. Both hold fragments of truth which is why discussions can be frustrating. Science questions the operations and how of existence whilst religion is a quest for the one operating behind existence- the one steering, infusing, and expressing itself through existence. Found this video interesting. From 14:07 speaks on why societies always seem to have a religious impulse however that may be manifest.
  7. This isn’t news but analysis related to the recent news of the resolution: From the tweet: “So never before have we been able to see in such an obvious way the immense contrast between the rules-based order and international law. And there's no going back, the curtain was pulled: if they hadn't noticed before, the world now knows for sure that the US (and Israel of course) is quite literally a rogue state, operating outside international laws and norms, and outside the most fundamental moral principles. There's no overstating how consequential this is for the integrity of international relations. By doing so, the US effectively destroys the world order it largely created after WW2 because it effectively tells everyone that the set of institutions, rules and norms that underpin it are meaningless. We're effectively now in a world system where everyone realizes the police, the government, the basic set of beliefs, have become completely corrupted. This changes everything.”
  8. Maybe this source is okay: https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-793420 IDF Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi: A US State Department official claimed that Israel "systematically" sexually abuses Palestinian women. If Israel’s own allies are questioning Israel to this extent you know things have gone too far.
  9. Yoga can orient and guide your body's existing systems and structures toward a state of bliss, but it doesn't reconstruct or re-engineer those systems and structures. It doesn't grant immunity from the world. The focus shouldn't be on magnifying such assertions to the point they hinder practitioners. Especially if many of them already harbor superstitions, belief in miracles, and a mythic interpretation of religion.
  10. Providing dots doesn't mean connecting them in a way that suits a narrative. I haven't commented, just provided some links to provide food for thought. Whats your take on the situation so far? Who benefits from this and what purpose could it serve?
  11. Even the right wing are dividing as they can't remain silent any longer or be seen to be 'on the wrong side of history' in retrospect as Israel continues and defies the worlds condemnation. The US initially plays the role of an accomplice, only to later paint a target among their ally as the protagonist villain. By scapegoating Netanyahu, they conveniently sidestep scrutiny of their own institutions and elites that facilitate his regime's actions. This just shields these institutions from accountability and evades the need to change them and disrupt invested interests. Ultimately, it shifts the burden of guilt onto others while protecting their own interests.
  12. Haven’t gotten into it yet but from the comments this seems to be a good back and forth.