hundreth

https://nypost.com/2024/08/05/world-news/un-admits-nine-unrwa-staffers-may-have-been-involved-in-oct-7-attack-on-israel/ “For us, any participation in the attacks is a tremendous betrayal of the sort of work that we are supposed to be doing on behalf of the Palestinian people,” Haq said. The suspected terror collaborators, all men, will be fired, the agency said — without identifying the suspects or detailing what atrocities they may have participated in. Embattled UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini, who previously slammed the US and other nations who halted donations to the humanitarian group after the allegations against its employees, agreed to boot the nine employees cited in the UN report. “I have decided that in the case of these remaining nine staff members, they cannot work for UNRWA,” Lazzarini said in a statement.

The issue with your deterministic view of the Palestinian response is that you apply it selectively only to them. It seems environment, upbringing and surroundings don't apply to Israelis - so it's fine to moralize their actions. You aren't allowed to judge anything Palestinians do though, they are the only ones who lack free will. I don't know if you literally wanted to apply impoverishment to this situation, but given there are many surrounding wealthy nations who promote similar extremist views and philosophies I don't think wealth is main factor here.

Someone has been binging Norman Finkelstein content and regurgitating his talking points.

Yes, I would.

A couple of things: 1.) Do you really believe that Hamas doesn't promote extremely harmful and anti-semitic views about Jews as a whole? You only need to look at what they teach their youth to disavow you from that. Re: the updated charter, if you're going to point out Israeli government dishonesty, you should be able to do the same for Hamas.They updated their text, yet teach exactly the same rhetoric to their youth, and behave in exactly the same ways - it doesn't mean anything. 2.) The Israelis have their responsibility in terms of allowing the attack to happen, but that doesn't absolve Hamas. So if Hamas attempted Oct 7th and were thwarted, does that absolve them? This is silly. 3.) Re: Number 1 priority - the return of the hostage is NOT the number one priority. You keep ignoring Leo's main point about future security. There may be more attacks in the future, but one thing is clear now: If you give the green light to an operation like Oct 7th, you've signed your death certificate. If you're ok with that, go ahead.

I did not do a deep dive but I did watch the video and commentary about snipers shooting children. Obviously, if an Israeli soldier intentionally shot a child in the head who was not a threat. That would be a war crime. Has some blood crazed Israeli soldier done such a thing? Of course, I have to believe they're out there. But I think the larger question is if this is a systemic policy put forward. Because the implication is that it is. We don't know for all of the instances what happened before the bullet left the chamber. Was this child armed? Was this a stray? Was this child in the middle of an active combat skirmish between IDF and Hamas? You'd have to look into each situation, and it's extremely hard to do so. I think if it comes out that commanders instructed soldiers to behave this way, we have a serious problem. Otherwise, it's going to be a messy affair trying to sort out what is what. The end result is equally tragic.

I believe this is half true. For one, we often speak of the Palestinian response as purely deterministic - with literally no other option for how to proceed. We give the Palestinians zero agency. I don't believe this to be the case. Hamas is not just a product of Israel, but a distinct entity with it's own agenda which harms both Israelis and Palestinians. It's philosophies and motives are consistent with other extremist movements in the region. At some point we also need to recognize the role of Islamic extremism. You can't simply bury your head in the sand and pretend this is 100% on Israel. Second, history has shown that the Palestinians have not and will not be satisfied with any arrangement that does not see 100% of the region returned to them. This is the overarching motive for both Hamas and Hezbollah. It is also the major reason why the peace talks faltered and did not continue. It is easy to blame the entire failure on Israel's security demands, but throughout negotiations you need to continue pushing. You need both sides present. Now, as a result of those failures Israelis have shifted towards the same 100% expectations. It seems Israel is now content with a split Palestinian leadership, settlement expansion, and a slow deterioration of the Palestinian movement. It is really sad, and I think we both recognize how irreconcilable the situation is. I just don't see it quite as black and white as you do.

I was speaking about Israel letting up, not Hamas. I agree with you otherwise. Neither side has real incentive for the war to end. The ceasefire talks are mostly political theater.

Israel's goal from the start has never been de-escalation and a ceasefire, it was the elimination of Hamas. From that lens, everything checks out. The only ceasefires Israel has been serious about are either temporary, or with the full release of the hostages and no other conditions. This will never happen. The only remaining question is how many more Hamas leaders will Israel take out before it decides it's time to let up.

Yes, Iran and all of it's proxies including Hezbollah are for the destruction of Israel. This whole idea that Hezbollah and other proxies could take out Tel Aviv, but are showing restraint is comical. If Iran or any of it's proxies had the means to destroy Israel tomorrow, they would push the button immediately. Having x number of missiles is meaningless. Iran especially embarrassed itself with it's last missile attempt. They blew their entire load to make a spectacle, and achieved nothing. Meanwhile, Israel has known exactly where the Hamas / Hezbollah leaders have been and waited until confrontation / strategic moments to strike.

This is super interesting... and a stark contrast to what you see represented all the time regarding Israeli society.

It's just the reality. If Hezbollah wanted to truly harm Israel they would have to leave their caves. Nasrallah has already made it clear he doesn't want to do that. In fact, he's probably shitting bricks right now after seeing his right hand man get wacked.

We've been hearing this song and dance for months. How super strong Hezbollah is going to wake up and overpower Israel. No one is scared. Hezbollah is strong within Lebanon because they have networks of tunnels and caves they can conduct guerrilla warfare from. They aren't capable of a real offensive front on Israel. Though they can certainly pester northern Israel indefinitely.

Killing Hamas' leader isn't an escalation, it's what Israel has been saying it's objective was since the beginning. It's just the narrative over time has become that Israel only cares about slaughtering children, so when one of their goals actually comes to fruition months later it seems crazy. Today was a good day.

I think if you can get JP to speak with you, you absolutely should. Let's be real, he has a huge platform, is an intelligent guy, and there's a lot you can discuss with him. If you do go on with him, it wouldn't be prudent to go straight into your overarching infinite consciousness, alien consciousness, non duality stuff. You wouldn't sound very different from Terrence Howard spewing off his theories. You'd have to spend time grounding yourself within his frameworks - speaking about society, politics, conventional theology, etc. Once you relate that you understand the basics, you can make some headway into some of your more interesting conversational topics.

I would love to see it. That said, I don't think he's capable of speaking about spiritual topics anymore without relating them back to politics. Everything now has to be tied back to politics, so be prepared for that.

Trump's entire presidency is based on overt displays of bigotry. What are you talking about?

A black woman and a gay man combo is literally the worst strategy to beat Trump. People are voting for Trump because they're scared. They see all of the public discourse being about identity politics, gender fluidity pushed in schools, DEI corporate initiatives, etc etc. Now your strategy is to validate all of their fears by putting forward these two Hilary esque "food groups." Even if these candidates may be qualified, it comes across as Disney movie casting bullshit. All people want is some semblance of normality. You can only move as fast as society allows you to. They weren't ready for Hilary. They might be ready for Harris, but you at the very least need someone cookie cutter to pair her with.

I suggested this needed to happen weeks ago. He wasted crucial time. Now it seems we're locked into Kamala. Maybe that was part of the plan, who knows... but I don't think she's our best candidate.

I actually believe the opposite. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/07/15/powell-indicates-fed-wont-wait-until-inflation-is-down-to-2percent-before-cutting-rates.html https://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/traders-see-favorable-odds-fed-rate-cut-september-rcna162141?ref=biztoc.com This is what is driving the current bull market. Investors know that the Fed is going to cut interest rates no matter what, flushing cash into our already inflated economy. Is this the right thing to do? No... But they are doing it anyways. Why are they doing it? It is political. September cuts drive the economy and stocks higher just before the elections in an attempt to keep Biden in office. What happens if Trump gets elected? More of the same. Trump said he would fire the Fed chair to put a new one in place that will lower rates for him. Why? Because Trump only cares about the short term. He wants to see those Dow Jones numbers pop. Is this all ultimately good for the economy? NO. What will happen? More wealth will be transferred to the already wealthy. When will the markets actually begin to crash and correct for this? Probably some time mid way through Trump's next term... but it isn't going to be now. We just went through a couple of years of high interest rates. This WAS the recession. A still highly inflationary period which will only be ramped up now.

You're really making my point for me. Because of the babies claim you've moved the goalposts so far away that now you can minimize what Hamas did. If you watched those live streams and don't believe what you saw was barbaric and crossing a line, I don't know what to tell you.

Unfortunately it was paywalled for me, but I came across this article: https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-says-12000-hamas-fighters-killed-in-gaza-war-double-the-terror-groups-claim/ That's from February. It would seem likely that number went up since then to that 14K figure. Unless they've significantly revised them down.

43% of 38 thousand is somewhere about 16,000. It seems unlikely that 14 out of 16 adult Gazan males are combatants. Also, there is surely some percentage of combatants who are under 18. I don't know the breakdown but it's likely the 14K number is overcounted if we're going by the GHM's data. To what extent is unclear, I wouldn't feel comfortable pushing that number down more than 15-20% or so at most.

You are correct. I wasn't sure which was the case but wanted to at least understand where his ratio came from. I think in general some of the Hamas militants killed numbers will be contested, as some of the civilian wounded numbers will be contested. But at the end of the day including wounded is kind of apples and oranges. There's no way to compare those ratios to anything else because wounded isn't used. Killed militants vs civilians is what is used. If we're going by IDF numbers that's 14K to 24K which is a 1 : 1.7 as you said. With the deaths of those trapped under the rubble, that is an unknown that needs to be contended with. But then you also need to assume some percentage of those trapped are also militants. Is that ratio going to be the same? Hard to say and a lot of guesswork all the way around. The ratio could likely be anywhere from 1 : 1.5 to 1: 2.5 depending on the interpretations of data. The biggest criticism I've heard regarding the IDF's combatant killed numbers is that the number is close to the number of adult males killed, and therefore they must be overcounted as militia. Though I haven't checked the numbers myself to see if there's any validity to that.

Ahh, the 89K doesn't include killed. Thanks for clarifying.