Sorry, but before Cynical sees it…
Like a razor
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Worse.
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Wtf will this do? Useless tokenism
That’ll show them; The extremists will have many sleepless nights now.
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US Vice President Kamala Harris made what appeared on its face to be some very unfriendly remarks towards Israel , albeit in the wake of her meeting in Dubai with the leaders of Israel , Jordan , UAE and Qatar.
Her statement afterwards read ; “The vice president reiterated that under no circumstances will the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank."
And went on to say that ; "the United States would not permit the redrawing of the borders of Gaza.” (This seemingly in response to Israeli officials now openly talking about some kind of security buffer zone.)
Pretty stern comments from the Vice President but I can’t help thinking they are making themselves a hostage to fortune.
At the end of the day , the Israelis are going to prosecute this war just how they see fit until /unless the yanks actually threaten to stop supplying them with the munitions that make it possible.
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America needs to stop funding the Israelis. They are artificially inflated, and wield outsized military power in their region. I think the world is safest when there is some balance. At present there is no balance to Israel, in the region.
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without sympathisising too much with America, its a situation that has gotten out of control…i understand the reasoning for supporting the isreal military from an historical and theoretical stance…otherwise theyd be annihilated within minutes and the west would have to(maybe not have to) get involved militariily
whats happened is a bit like having a guard dog be let loose in a junkyard and not even the owners can recall the thing.
the analogy is not meant to cause offence, im just trying to explain my angle.
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Israel hasn’t faced any significant, let alone existential, threat since 1973. But in that 50 years, it invaded Lebanon 
, stepped-up the colonization of West Bank and East Jerusalem, blockaded Gaza, and carried out unprovoked attacks on Tunisia 
, Syria 
, and Iraq 
.
US 
& EU 
knew how Israel is going to conduct the war 
. They just expected it to be over in weeks and they would be able to brush all the atrocities under the carpet. Their unconditional support at the beginning of the war have only made Israel more deranged. US & EU They know Israel is out of control and they can’t/won’t admit it.
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Incredibly , the civil war in Syria has been raging now for twelve years. For the last eight of those Russia (and Hezbollah) have been propping up the regime by carrying out atrocities that make the IDF look almost humane.
A timely reminder here (considering Assad’s recent rehabilitation) of another seemingly never-ending tragedy.
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This Gazan boy’s official acronyme is WCNSF: wounded child, no surviving family. He lost his legs, and his whole family.
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-67605703
Medics working in the Gaza Strip are using a specific phrase to describe a particular kind of war victim, the BBC has been told.
“There’s an acronym that’s unique to the Gaza Strip, it’s WCNSF - wounded child, no surviving family - and it’s not used infrequently,” says Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, who works with the charity Doctors Without Borders.
Ahmed Shabat is one of those children who was described with the acronym, when he arrived injured and crying at the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza. The three-year-old survived an airstrike on his home in Beit Hanoun, in mid November. But his father, mother and older brother were killed.
Miraculously he had only minor injuries. Later it was revealed his younger brother Omar, aged two, had also survived the strike. Their uncle Ibrahim Abu Amsha decided to look after the two orphans, along with his own family.
He initially took them to Sheikh Radwan city but said they left after Ahmed was hit by glass fragments from an explosion.
They then went to Nuseirat camp to stay in a UN-affiliated school. But even in their new location, they were hit again, with devastating consequences for Ahmed.
“I ran out of the school’s door and saw Ahmed in front of me on the ground, both legs gone,” said Abu Amsha. “He was crawling towards me, opening his arms, seeking help.”
A family member, who was with Ahmed at the time of the blast, was killed.
This is probably true, but I think, even ignoring the perspective that lots in the west believe their self-interest is in supporting isreal, I think a lot of what you see is the psychological response that comes once you’ve picked sides. It creates a framing that makes everything gets viewed through that lens
A “white” guy sets off a bomb and he’s a deranged lone wolf. A brown guy does it and we question his beliefs and how others who look like him must now be suspiciously looked at and made to denounce the terrorism before they are allowed to say anything.
I suspect there was a lot of Holocausts guilt over support for Israel in the 40s, and lots of rational support for them in the early decades giving them what they needed for legitimate self-defense. Since then though its been a case of identifying them as the good guys in the conflict and that shapes that way you view every piece of information about the issue that you encounter. Look at the language used by mainstream news - Israeli citizens are “murdered” or “executed” in acts of terrorism. Palestinians are “found dead”. This is both a consequence of this picking sides, but also perpetuates it among those who encounter the stories. This is what was being spoken about in the conversation about the guy at the BBC pointing out there being no other Muslims in the room on his BBC news show.
And that is before you get into the weirdo evangelical idea that Israel needs to be in control of the holy land to usher in the prophecy of His return and rapture that brings
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From the BBC:
Gaza displaced numbers have nearly doubled in recent weeks.
We’ve just told you about the experience of Gaza resident Mohamed Nasser Al Rashid and his family, who have been displaced four times since the attacks started on 7 October.
The latest figures suggest their experience is far from unique.
According to the United Nations, the number of displaced people in Gaza has risen rapidly - almost doubling in less than three weeks.
There are now 1.9 million who have fled their homes since 7 October - that is more than 85% of the population of Gaza.
Infographic showing how the number of people forced to leave their homes in Gaza since 7 October.
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How is it in any way controversial to describe this as ethnic cleansing?
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Because that is a war crime and , as we all know , the IDF is the most moral army in the world.
which is my point…the funding is a deterent…we can understand why it takes place…im not justifying anything, im just pointing out that funding the Isreali Military has probably stop the west being dragged into a shitshow over there…
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The way I see it, the funding is the incitement and it’s the reason The West is dragged into this quagmire. The unconditional support, both moral and material, has skewed the balance so much to favor of Israel that it has become totally unhinged.
After the fall of USSR, The West has missed a golden opportunity for a fair and permanent solution of the Palestine issue. They could have forced and sponsor both the sides to negotiate a fair and permanent solution. Instead, they supported Israel while it kept renegading on the basic premise of a fair and permanent solution.
The West should have taken a lesson from the First and the Second Intifada. They didn’t and Hamas came into being. All the while, they got entangled in Iraq, Afghanistan, ISIS, and West Africa.
Take this War , for example. The legitimacy and the effectiveness of the Palestinian Authority is beyond any doubt and debate, it has neither. It didn’t have either for ages now. The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) has a tenure of four years and the last election was held in 2006. The Palestinian President too has a tenure of four years and the last election was held in 2005 when the present president, Mahmoud Abbas, was elected. In the absence of a legitimate, unified, and robust leadership, the Palestinian voice and presence has become fractured, feeble, and fringe even during one of the greatest disasters in their history. Palestinian presence was barely noticeable in the flurry of diplomatic activities by the global and regional leaders.
Weeks ago, USA floated the the idea of a revitalized PA taking charge of Gaza after the war ends. Weeks later, there’s no sign of any attempt to revitalize the PA. While Israel keeps pounding Gaza to eradicate Hamas, the Hamas leaders are frolicking in Qatar and UAE.
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I agree with this, but to be fair, any attempt to conciliate the two sides has fallen on deaf ears on Israel’s side since a long time. After Rabin’s assassination by a Jewish extremist, and the failure of the Oslo agreement, people in Israel started to vote almost exclusively for Likoud, who have never been the party looking for peace, rather the one promising security against the Palestinians.
So, the West and especially the US are to blame for not having put more pressure on Israel after the failure of the Oslo agreement, but it was a generally difficult situation because of the unwillingness on one side to reach any kind of genuine peace. These people (the extremist settlers and the party representing them) were and still are so obsessed with grabbing land which doesn’t belong to them, that they’ll happily sacrifice as much Palestinians lives as is needed in order to achieve their goal.
Of course, Hamas emerged as the Palestinian counterpart of so much intolerance, and was even openly encouraged by Netanyahou’s government over the decades, as we have seen. That’s the key of the problem. As long as there is no willingness on both sides to live in peace together, war will go on.
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