That’s like saying 99% of Hindu comedians are based on self-hate.
Comedy based on racial-ethnic stereotypes is a thing. I don’t like most of it as I feel it’s lazy writing. But that doesn’t equate to self-hate.
Sanders is spot on.
In 2016 I felt the Bern. He had such a compelling campaign, and a vision for a better America. I remember the Simon and Garfunkel song, America, as the music for one key ad in particular. Had he been elected Trump would never have happened, and a raft of policies would have shifted the country to a more moderate place, giving the bulk of the population a better life - especially with health and education, while curtailing the excesses of the billionaire class to at least have to pay some taxes.
Hillary Clinton won the fight with Bernie. I don’t remember all the details, but it seemed like some dirty tricks and old favors being called in at the Dem convention. Bernie got a three minute standing ovation when he got up to speak. He was clearly the one that the people wanted, and from memory, there were so many younger voters and college age kids who were being mobilized, politically.
It felt like a political breath of fresh air that I have not seen on these shores since I moved here in 2009.
Hillary won. Clever, talented, but a schemer too. Massively preferable to Trump, but she lost to him, and the country veered even further to the right, in an authoritarian way, post-truth, more violent, less fair, a joke internationally, and so on and so forth.
Anyway, Bernie Sanders is spot on about Israel, and seeing the clip above made me lament what might have been, had he prevailed in 2016.
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The EU has said it will resume funding the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA) next week, after the two parties came to an agreement to allow EU-appointed experts to audit the way it screens staff to identify extremists.
This could have been done without suspending the aids to appease a murderous regime.
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That Sanders-Clinton campaign was nasty from both sides, though it was much more so at an organizational level than personal. But the effect was a lot of Sanders supporters appear to have simply tuned out in November. I am not sure Sanders would have been electable nationally though, his best performances were in states that Democrats always win anyway.
It is becoming brutally clear that one of the assumptions made here, that Israel cannot actually win militarily, may not in fact be true. Hamas’ resistance is weakening steadily, at least some of their organizations have collapsed. The number of missiles fired into Israel has dwindled to almost nothing. It is hard not to suspect that incidents like the tank-shelling are the hardliners trying to ensure that ceasefire talks go nowhere.
If you erase an entire country’s infrastructure, kill tens of thousands civilians, children and women through bombing, and then provoke a collective mass dying through epidemy and famine, of course you’ll eventually win militarily. But at which price? I’m afraid that people in Israel will find out later down the road.
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https://www.rte.ie/news/middle-east/2024/0229/1435211-white-phosphorus-israel/
The Israeli Defence Forces have been using the chemical to burn away thick vegetation used by Hezbollah fighters as cover to launch rocket attacks from South Lebanon into Israel.
White phosphorus ignites instantly upon contact with oxygen, it burns at 800C and is very difficult to extinguish.
The smoke from burning phosphorus is also toxic, harming the eyes and respiratory tract due to the presence of phosphoric acid.
How can you not love this lot 
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Sure. Except that it is impossible to wipe away organizations like the Hamas with military power. When hatred becomes entrenched within the population , the support for Hamas just doesn’t disappear when you level the entire city to the ground. Hamas will continue in some form or the other.
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Absolutely true as far as the repercussions for Israel are concerned. They’ll have to live with the consequences down the road.
I do hope that Hamas is held partially responsible by the Palestinians for the situation being as fucked as it is too. The Palestinians have to realize that they cannot be dictated to by a callous regime which thinks nothing of their lives and are willing to sacrifice their lives in a war.
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I am not sure that there is any more hatred in Gaza now than there clearly was before, based on those mob scenes we saw in the immediate aftermath. The logic dominating Israel now, even nominall moderates, is collective punishment plain and simple - make the Gazans too afraid to do something like that again for a decade or so.
It is jarring to see Israeli reports that they have killed 12,000 terrorists since October.
Possibly. I wonder if Israel’s response would have been much more muted had it been only Hamas fighters who took part in the tragedy. The fact that there was a strong mob who participated alongside Hamas possibly led Israel to go for collective punishment.
Gaza?..maybe…
moderates (not just Muslims) around the world…id imagine theres a quite a few…
i've seen Israel humiliate previous US administrations, but aside from murderous 1967 Israeli airstrike against US navy ship Liberty, now forcing USA to do airdrops of aid to Gaza as if USA is no better than Egypt & Jordan is Israel's worst humiliation of USA i've ever seen.
— Robert Ford (@fordrs58) March 1, 2024
Robert Ford is a former US ambassador to Algeria and Syria.
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Poignant piece here about the struggles of many US soldiers who feel they are fighting for evil:
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The National Security Council (NSC) has reportedly decided to stop sending representatives to weekly security briefings held by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir due to flagrant violations of confidentiality protocols and unprofessional conduct.
Horrific scenes and news keep coming out of Gaza 
That child is so obviously a member of Hamas.
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Hamas is unable to provide the list of captives.
One of the sticking points for the negotiations is that Hamas is spread in so many different places and it cannot give Israel the list of captives’ names that it has demanded. This has become logistically a nightmare because it takes Hamas weeks to confirm if captives have been killed or are still alive, and some are being kept by other groups including the Islamic Jihad.
It’s not clear whether Hamas is actually able to provide this list.
All the whole whole Palestine continues burning and people keep dying.
https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2024/0305/1436060-bohemians-to-play-palestine-in-dalymount-park/
Bohemians and the Palestinian Football Association have confirmed they will play a friendly match in Dalymount Park.
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