[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Mentalist, on 03 November 2023 - 05:55 PM, said:

Azath Vitr (D, on 03 November 2023 - 05:33 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 03 November 2023 - 05:20 PM, said:

Azath Vitr (D, on 03 November 2023 - 05:15 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 03 November 2023 - 03:42 PM, said:

An ideal solution for Gaza would be elimination of Hamas and establishment of a normal government- either the PLO or some sort of provisional one administered by the Arab League, for example. Whether they'd want to function as an exclave of Palestine, or become an independent city-state should be up to them. At the very least those people deserve a government that would care about its people and not divert majority of the aid it gets to build missiles.
Ideally, IDF wouldn't be the ones trying to accomplish this, either. But for all the rioting in the streets, none of the Arab states (who mostly all recognized Israel's 1967 borders, btw) are keen on making any proposals for how to actually deal with the situation.

Quote

apparently, [the Israeli government] still hopes to then withdraw, passing local authority to … somebody else. But this scenario is a fantasy. No third party is plausibly willing or able to police and rebuild Gaza on behalf of, and in coordination with, Israel.

One common proposal suggests that an expeditionary or police force, drawn from stable Arab countries[...] Egypt would have to be a central player in any such effort. But the Egyptians have made a foreign-policy priority of not getting sucked back into Gaza [...] They are not about to change their mind.

Another frequently suggested candidate is the Palestinian Authority. But the regime that Mahmoud Abbas leads [...] has nothing to gain from reentering Gaza in the aftermath of Israeli devastation. [...] Abbas rejected numerous Egyptian proposals to have the PA take over government ministries in Gaza, or supply security on the Palestinian side of crossings into the Strip. [...]

If the PA was afraid of returning to Gaza back then, it will hardly be enthusiastic about stepping in behind Israeli forces after a devastating ground war. Gaza's needs would be immense, and riding into power on the backs of Israeli tanks would mark the PA with a political kiss of death among Palestinians. Maybe, if a third party were to secure Gaza for a time after Israel withdraws, the PA might be willing to come in to replace it. But then we are back at square one[...]

[...] If the Israelis skedaddle, Hamas won't simply abandon the planned insurgency. It will carry out the plan against whatever power appears to be representing Israel's interests, whether Arab, UN, or even Palestinian.

No third party is going to step into Gaza to fight the insurgency planned for Israeli troops, rebuild the infrastructure and society shattered by war, and solve the long-standing problem of governance that Hamas's armed presence has ensured will endure.

Israel's Dangerous Delusion (msn.com)

You'd think all those filthy rich Gulf states could pool together a bunch of oil money to hire an impartial expert team to govern Gaza for the betterment of the lives of "their Muslim brothers and sisters".........

Guess they could travel through (and channel supplies through) Israel instead of Egypt, if the author is correct about the Egyptian government not being willing to get involved in any such effort?...

Gaza is a coastal city. It could get everything it needs by sea.

Israel had issues with shipping while HAMAS was in charge (due to the whole "Israel should not exist" bit in their founding charter), and so they insisted on inspecting ships coming into Gaza. HAMAS did not consent to this, so they created a unilateral blocade.

With a bunch of people in charge who do not have destruction of Israel as their mission statement, it's quite possible there might be more room for compromise.

Everything they'd need for massive construction (rebuilding Gaza) as well as military policing (against the expected insurgency)? I'd assume the former at least would require lots of heavy equipment, building materials, etc. While it could be done by boat in theory (more easily than by plane (a zeppelin would probably be a bad idea...)), it seems like it would be immensely time-consuming as well as costly.

[Edit: on second thought it might be easier to transport heavy machinery and building materials by boat? But there's still the loading and unloading....]

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 03 November 2023 - 06:20 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Hmm, I guess transporting heavy machinery by sea would actually be easier, though loading/unloading is still an issue and transit time might take longer (but with more potential offloading points relative to just using the Rafah crossing from Egypt):

Quote

Slow but (mostly) steady, cargo ships are ideal for those shipping larger products that need a little flexibility. Unlike other methods of transportation, you'll face fewer restrictions and be able to ship a variety of items that couldn't easily be shipped otherwise, like vehicles and heavy machinery. Much like land freight, your products will either utilize a full container or be grouped with other cargo depending on how much you're sending out.

Air, Land, or Sea: Which Freight Option Is Right for Me? | ShipMonk

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 03 November 2023 - 06:34 PM

[worry]

QuickTidal, on 06 November 2023 - 02:32 PM, said:

worry, on 03 November 2023 - 04:44 PM, said:

But I'm not trying to be pessimistic, there's different kinds of power that are all at play, but it'd definitely take overcoming what seems to be the current status quo.

I'm going to be really interested in what happens should Israel succeed in ethnically cleansing the Palestinians out of their land, first with Gaza and then in the West Bank (Cause yeah, that's coming next)....do we all think Israel would just sit back and stop expansion? LOL.

I mean...


Not saying that's the prevailing plan, but I wouldn't call it an isolated position either.

[Lady Bliss]

Sadly Trump will likely win the election with all of this. I’m already hearing that if Biden still runs a lot of people just won’t vote.

[worry]

JVP doing very blessed work over and over again.

[worry]

Linktree of various actions one can take to support a call for ceasefire (U.S. focused at the top, international stuff lower down): https://ceasefiretoday.com/


One of the easier things for Canadians in particular: https://petitions.ou...ion/Sign/e-4649

And for U.S. in particular: https://fcnl.quorum.us/campaign/51886/ and https://actionnetwor...-ceasefire-now/ are both quick direct ways to contact your Senators/Representatives.

[Maark Abbott]

Someone I follow who is much more clued up than me noted that the IEF (the E stands for Extermination, because fuck if this is any sort of 'Defense') posted a picture of an Apache loaded with a thermobaric payload and quickly retracted it, but not quickly enough for it to be missed.

Now, I've not seen it myself and I'm always leery as to veracity in a situation like this - but at the same time I absolutely would not put it past the IEF to use thermobaric weaponry on civilians. The person I follow is also someone I would generally trust on this subject, so...

[Maark Abbott]

QuickTidal, on 07 November 2023 - 02:56 PM, said:

Maark Abbott, on 07 November 2023 - 02:53 PM, said:

Someone I follow who is much more clued up than me noted that the IEF (the E stands for Extermination, because fuck if this is any sort of 'Defense') posted a picture of an Apache loaded with a thermobaric payload and quickly retracted it, but not quickly enough for it to be missed.

Yep, that got seen and screenshotted before they took it down. The IOF/IEF are dumb fucks when it comes to posting the wrong shit to social media.

Maark Abbott, on 07 November 2023 - 02:53 PM, said:

Now, I've not seen it myself and I'm always leery as to veracity in a situation like this - but at the same time I absolutely would not put it past the IEF to use thermobaric weaponry on civilians. The person I follow is also someone I would generally trust on this subject, so...

I saw it. It exists and was posted by them. It's been making the rounds on TikTok under the #FreePalestine hashtag.

Christ alive. I've said it before, but of all the countries that absolutely should not put a population behind walls and systemically exterminate them...

[Lady Bliss]

I don’t understand why the house is going after Tlaib. All I can find is that she’s called for a ceasefire and chanted “from the river to the sea”. Is there something that I’ve missed?

[Tiste Simeon]

I'm fairly sure an MP in the labour party got fired or reprimanded or something for tweeting about getting a ceasefire and used that phrase, everyone kicked off about it.

[Abyss]

I've seen "From the river to the sea" being used in different contexts by different groups. No clue what it was intended to mean in the above example.

[worry]

The UK Labour MP said "We will not rest until we have justice. Until all people, Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the sea, can live in peaceful liberty." and for that was suspended -- by Labour.

In the U.S., the censure vote hasn't happened yet, but a procedural thing did and only one Dem sided with Republicans in allowing tomorrow's vote to proceed (which is still one too many, but he specifically is owned by AIPAC).
And Rep. Tlaib was able to have her own say today.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Abyss, on 07 November 2023 - 08:21 PM, said:

I've seen "From the river to the sea" being used in different contexts by different groups. No clue what it was intended to mean in the above example.

Are there any examples of it clearly being used to mean genocide?

Quote

The insurgents wouldn’t shoot at us as we approached but rather would wait until the first Marine entered. The insurgent behind the machine gun would fire a burst into the Marine, causing him to fall forward through the door. The two insurgents by the door, operating as a snatch team, would drag that Marine into the house, away from his comrades, who wouldn’t know at that point whether he was alive or dead. The insurgents, knowing that we wouldn’t leave a fallen comrade behind, had effectively taken a hostage. This forced us to engage in the costly close-quarters battle that we had sought to avoid but that benefited our enemy, whose objective had never been to escape the house but rather to exchange their lives for as many American lives as possible.

The members of al-Qaeda whom we fought in Fallujah had little to no intention of leaving that battle alive. [...] Theirs had become a death cult, fixated on martyrdom, paradise in the afterlife, and death to nonbeliever infidels, including many of their fellow Muslims. To maximize American losses, they were willing to take hostages. In the hell houses, those hostages were fallen Marines. [...]

[...] Like al-Qaeda in Iraq, Hamas is a death cult, whose charter quotes a hadith that states, “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

A Knife Fight in a Phone Booth - What Al-Qaeda Did to Fallujah, Hamas Did to Gaza - The Atlantic

That quotation has been interpreted as a supposedly clear indication of genocidal intent. But the full quote from the (translated) charter continues:

Quote

Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.

The Avalon Project : Hamas Covenant 1988 (yale.edu)

[amphibian]

In local elections, a Republican wave came into my city of about 55k people. It was driven in part by incongruous and incessant gun violence in a particular area of the city, a police officer smashing into a delivery driver while going 90 mph and killing him, and the Democrats running on a non confrontational tone.

My theory is that the average voter in my city wants to feel that there's someone with a healthy set of emotions in power rather than simple competence. So they elected a person I have loathed since high school (20+ years) as mayor. She raised a kid I went to school with from 1st grade onwards and he turned into a bigot who would harass an albino kid for years even with suspensions and counseling involved. The albino kid finally snapped and beat him up in front of the entire high school. The bigot's mother is now my mayor.

I'm fed up with this. There was low turnout and that allowed the Republicans to come in despite a significant Democratic majority.

[worry]

That suuuuuuucks. California didn't have elections yesterday, but in my town we don't even select the mayor. We vote for town council, and the council chooses the mayor.


On another note, I take back a little of what I said in previous post -- when the actual censure vote came up, 22 scumbag Dems ultimately sided with R's to do the censure.

[HoosierDaddy]

I can beat that! Our lovely city elected a woman mayor who refused to denounce Moms for Liberty. It's the best school district in the state. Sorry, WAS the best school district in the state.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

HoosierDaddy, on 08 November 2023 - 03:12 PM, said:

I can beat that! Our lovely city elected a woman mayor who refused to denounce Moms for Liberty. It's the best school district in the state. Sorry, WAS the best school district in the state.

I was reading about M4L yesterday, and they are terrifying. https://twitter.com/...879698733109248

[Tiste Simeon]

Crikey that's not a fun thread to read through...

[Abyss]

QuickTidal, on 08 November 2023 - 12:53 PM, said:

Azath Vitr (D, on 07 November 2023 - 11:24 PM, said:

Abyss, on 07 November 2023 - 08:21 PM, said:

I've seen "From the river to the sea" being used in different contexts by different groups. No clue what it was intended to mean in the above example.

Are there any examples of it clearly being used to mean genocide?

There are not. It's a Zionist propaganda to try to take even a simple sentence meaning their freedom away from Palestinians. I'm sad to see it being proposed as such in this community.

what are you accusing me of, exactly?

[worry]

Aw man. QT, I can't say I've disagreed with you on mostly anything so far, but I'd ask you to please be a little more 'benefit of the doubt' here, even in disagreement (which so far tends to be in matters of degree, or finer details, rather than overall gist). Plenty of people deserve your ire (and worse) about this topic, and I'd never tell you to hold back on them, but by and large it's not the folks here.

More topically: I know this ain't the U.S. politics thread, but as horrible as the Moms for Liberty ghouls are, they did routinely lose in most of their endorsed candidates last night. Small mercies!

And back to closer to topic, something really lovely to see: