Just so we are clear about this, Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza. True friends of israel cannot let this pass without acknowledgement. I class John Mearsheimer as a true friend of Israel for speaking out.
To paraphrase Noel Annans observation regarding anti semitism made in his eulogy on Isiah Berlin, genocide besmirches those who try it. There can be no justification. If Israel is to have a future, any future, the war in Gaza needs to stop right now.
I believe our founder would agree with Mearsheimer. Read the linked work, it has copius references in the footnotes.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
“I do not believe that anything I say about what is happening in Gaza will affect Israeli or American policy in that conflict. But I want to be on record so that when historians look back on this moral calamity, they will see that some Americans were on the right side of history.
What Israel is doing in Gaza to the Palestinian civilian population – with the support of the Biden administration – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. As J-Street, an important organization in the Israel lobby, puts it, “The scope of the unfolding humanitarian disaster and civilian casualties is nearly unfathomable.”[1]”
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/death-and-destruction-in-gaza
A nice 30 minute interview between Scott Ritter and Judge Andrew Napolitano which is an entertaining and instructive adjunct for this thread.
Scott Ritter: Israeli Slaughter Serves No Purpose.
https://www.youtube.com/live/LQiUuX3ZM5c
Now that Ritter has been busted – twice!- for soliciting sex with underage girls, he has a lot of time on his hands to appear on these fringe shows and exact his revenge on the establishment.
I remember a very experienced intel officer saying – many times, indeed – that when you are presented with intel then you evaluate the information and the source separately.
As in: the most despicable person can provide the most priceless of information. Conversely, the most convincing character can tell you absolute nonsense.
Your attempt to dismiss Ritter’s opinions based entirely on character assassination suggests to me that you read, but you do not learn.
I question his judgment. Given an enticement from the US’ enemies, he might just go for it; just as he’d go for a teenage girl who’s really cop acting as bait. That’s my assessment.
Anyhow, I don’t summarily dismiss the man. I have listened to Ritter’s spiel. Sometimes he has useful things to say and mostly he is shill for causes that seek to embarrass the US. He’s unreliable and driven by emotions. He’s only been correct about Russia prevailing in Ukraine because the pro-Ukraine crowd are desperate info-operators working with so little that their desperation and lack of substance is obvious.
Btw, I remember a very experienced intel officer (or two) saying – many times indeed, that Russia was going to collapse any day now (a couple years ago) because having reached its “culmination point” (cue war college Clausewitz blather, etc. etc,) run out of ammo, etc. So it must be true to a pro-Ukrainian like you, right? Any day now Ukraine emerges victorious is that your prediction because a former intel guy said so?
Yeah, I didn’t think so.
Eric, with respect, eveery single one of us, including you, is “unreliable and driven by emotions.”
Yur further comment: suggests to me that you are in denial: ” He’s only been correct about Russia prevailing in Ukraine because the pro-Ukraine crowd are desperate info-operators working with so little that their desperation and lack of substance is obvious.” I don’t think this is the case at all…..
As far as I can tell, from the images provided by BOTH sides, :
(1) Russia is acting with great restraint, otherwise the images we see of Kiev would look like the ones Israel posts of Gaza – a broken mass of twisted concrete – biblical destruction, populated with starving skeletons.
(2) Last time I looked, Russia was not retreating. Furthermore, indications seem to be that Ukraine is running out of troops by fighting a futile war of attrition against a superior enemy. “Big Push”. “Spring counter attack” baloney.
Walrus,
No argument re; Ukraine. I agree with you.
“Yeah Right’s” point was that Col Lang – the experienced intel guy – said something about separating sources from info. I was merely committing the heresy that Col Lang could be wrong from time to time and, as evidence of that reality, said that Russia was failing miserably in Ukraine. Ditto some other experienced intel guys.
I know that “Yeah Right” doesn’t believe that Russia is failing. My idea was that “experienced intel guys” say all kinds of things, sometimes repeating what they say frequently, are fallible and sometimes delivering misinformation. So using their words as a debate wining proclamation is silly and a non-starter if one is debating with me.
Uncritically believing what an intel guy has to say is a fool’s safe harbor. Intel guys are as likely to be misdirecting as not unless you are an insider on a need to know basis.
Such a whine.From a “Friends of israel”.
Hamas are not terrorists or a militia or whatever.They are criminals.Anyone who supports them are no better.It is you who have no morals.
Every single person from gaza who took part in the 7 October attack will be arrested and jailed.Once the civilian population turn them in to face justice in court,israel will retreat.
They are counting on social media support that qatar paid for,hoping that they could get away with the attack.
Today hamas leadership have been told to leave qatar and move to Algeria.
mcohen,
You’re making the same error as those Palestinian supporters who equate all Jews with Netanyahu and his fascist cabal. You’re equating all Palestinians, or at least all Gazans, with the Hamas terrorists. Very sloppy. If there’s any equating to do it should be lumping the Hamas terrorists with Netanyahu and his crew. They’re all despicable war criminals.
Ttg.no sloppy hoppy
What i said is those that took part in the attack .
Nothing about all Arabs.Only those that committed crimes.
War criminals.That is something else.I will leave that to Reacher
Does that mean that every single Israeli has no morals seeing that their government is an apartheid regime that has been subjugating the Palestinians since 1947.
Hi Gordon.
One of the Arabs’ best-kept secrets, skillfully obscured over the years, is the true reason behind their refusal of the 1947 UN partition plan: For those less familiar, here’s a quick summary: After WWII, the British, looking to exit the complicated situation they found themselves in in the Middle East, planned to hand back the mandate they had received from the UN. The UN dispatched the UNSCOP committee to determine the region’s future. The committee proposed several plans, with the well-known Partition Plan eventually being accepted by the majority of its members. The Jewish community accepted this plan, and a majority of UN members voted in favor of it. However, the Arabs rejected it, similarly to their earlier refusal of the Peel Commission’s recommendations (a topic for another post). So, why then did the Arabs reject the partition proposal? Primarily, they were confident in their ability to swiftly defeat the Jews, eliminate them, and seize the entire territory. This conviction also had a significant contribution to the Nakba as it led them to advise many Arabs to temporarily vacate their homes during the conflicts, expecting to return post-victory – a victory that, of course, never materialized. Yet, this is not the core reason. Pay close attention now: The primary reason Arab leaders rejected the UN’s partition proposal was their own disbelief in the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination. In fact, they were opposed to it! Indeed, that’s exactly as it sounds. Arab leaders never recognized Palestinians as an ethnic group with self-determination rights, but rather as a part of the larger Arab nation. As those knowledgeable in history (and not propaganda) understand, there were originally no ‘Palestinians’, only Arabs. The Arabs’ national goal was to create Greater Syria, covering today’s Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Israel, a vision outlined in the McMahon-Hussein correspondence of 1915-1916. Therefore, they rejected any proposal that independently defined the Palestinians, as such a distinction simply did not exist. (Interestingly, this truth is widely recognized in the Arab world. While not often acknowledged publicly, it occasionally surfaces, as seen in a video I’ll share in the comments) So next time Palestinian history, culture, or their right to self-determination is discussed, remember that while the world, Jews included, were willing to acknowledge this, the refusal came from the Arabs themselves, who recognized the idea of a Palestinian nation as a UN fabrication
mcohen,
Thank you. Agree on the history you presented. I believe the late great Col Lang would have to agree as well as he not infrequently discussed pan-Arabism, the illusion of Arab countries pre-1945 as well as the concept of the Ummah. The pro-Palestinian mythology that is repeated here, there and everywhere in the western world – on top of being historically incorrect – rounds out the completeness of its fabrication by being based on the projection of western concepts and ideals onto a region where they do not apply.
I would add that another contribution to the “Nakba” (boo hoo poor little Arabs) was that in ’48 Arab countries expelled the Jews living in those countries (+seized their homes, land, etc.) and those displaced Jews – 750,000 to 850,000 0f them – sought refuge in Israel – where else could they go?. So Arabs displaced Jews who, in turn, displaced Arabs. Karma.
Our puffed-up virtue signaling antisemites don’t want to hear history contrary to their mythology, of course.
Eric,
If you were burning up in flames across the street from me then, not only wouldn’t I cross the road to piss on you or give you the sweat off my balls in a nebulizer, I wouldn’t even say or think “boo hoo.”
You’re not even an animal, animals don’t mock at vast human tragedy in the way you do. Here’s exactly what you are – a participant in the My Lai massacre and in your dreams one of the officer subhumans who ordered and directed it. I was going to call you a big stupid murder happy American but TTG doesn’t allow ad hominems.
Your attempt to speak for Col Lang is preposterous and outrageous.
F&L,
Colonel Lang did freely acknowledge the shortcomings of the Arab world including the pan-Arabic movement.
TTG
He also freely registered in words his disgust with things he saw the Israelis do to the Palestinian residents of the West Bank & Gaza. I think he said that he himself had seen many things over the course of a long career but that their summary rapid fire brutality was to his mind and in his experience cruel and unusual.
mcohen – problem is, most accounts of the conflict start with 47/48. In fact the future of Palestine was set in stone during the Mandate period. The British suppression on the Arab Revolt in the late ’30’s knocked on the head any possibility of effective Palestinian resistance to dispossession.
Bringing it up to date, today’s “political Zionists” are dead right. As ever. Israel as they would like to see it cannot survive unless it kills or expels the remaining Palestinians. Jabotinsky understood that. So did Ben Gurion. So does Netanyahu.
That’s a difficult operation to conduct these days, especially when the eyes of the world are on you.
We should feel sorry for Arabs that didn’t like their new neighbors and so decided to kill them? The British did wrong by putting a temporary stop to such bloody savagery?
What is wrong with everyone making excuses for the Arabs and hating on Israelis? Otherwise intelligent people suddenly become a-historical, morally bankrupt, pretzel logic acrobats.
Yes, if savages want to kill you because you bought up some real estate in their neighborhood, then you are correct to conclude that it is necessary to defend yourself against the savages, up to and including killing them first.
You can’t pick a side in this mess without becoming an advocate for murder. Why anyone choses the Arabs – people who would merrily cut your sympathetic head off – escapes me entirely.
Eric Newhill,
There is a lot of hating on Israelis and even hating on Jews as a whole. None of that makes sense. I don’t see that here. It’s hating on what the Israeli government is doing. They are using their quest to destroy Hamas, a legitimate and proper quest, as cover for committing genocide against the Gazan Palestinians.
TTG,
“It’s hating on what the Israeli government is doing. They are using their quest to destroy Hamas, a legitimate and proper quest, as cover for committing genocide against the Gazan Palestinians.”
I think the use of the term “genocide” is hyperbolic. What war has ever been fought where there were not civilian casualties inflicted by all sides’ combatants? Sometimes huge numbers as in Korea, Vietnam, WW2, Iraq, the US Civil War, Chechnya, Various revolutions south of the border, Ukraine, etc. etc. etc.
The Israelis are giving warnings of impending attacks so civilians can get out of the way. That hardly seems “genocidal”. If the Israelis really wanted to go full on Dresden on Gaza, there’d already be a million dead Arabs. But there aren’t.
“From the river to the sea” isn’t at least as genocidal? Why are Arabs held to a lower standard of behavior? Hint, it starts with ‘M’, contains an ‘a’, an ‘r’ and an ‘x’ and ends with ‘ist ideology’ – like I said, “boohoo poor little Arabs”. straight-up victims of oppressors, without agency, without responsibility and not held to standards.
As for the civilians (assuming there even are very many given polls showing 31% to 65% support of Hamas, depending on poll) – same theory as Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima – or perhaps, a nuanced, but similar theory applied to South Vietnamese civilians, by the North, especially during Tet, in places like Hue.
Lots of Jane Fonda’s running around. What did Jane think about all those teachers, nuns and intellectuals murdered in Hue, by her commie friends? Did she think at all? Just an emotional confused female?
Eric Newhill,
“From the river to the sea” was a PLO rally cry. It was meant to call for a state where Palestinians would live freely. It did not call for expulsion of the Jews living there. Arafat and the PLO even accepted the two state solution. Hamas later took the phrase and probably do mean to throw the Jews out of Palestine. Hamas acted on those genocidal aspirations on 7 October. The Netanyahu government is doing the same now.
A look at the history of the region from early on. It’s long, but even so difficult to get it all in in the space of one video:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ55JmOlSdg
In particular the British motivation for settling Jews in Palestine is multi-faceted. Setting up Jewish settlements in the region ticked a lot of boxes at the time. Some not covered in Khalidi’s introduction.
We underestimate the force of what would now be called Christian Zionism in the UK from quite early on in the nineteenth century. As far as I know that’s pretty well dead in England now as a political force but it wasn’t at the time. Many politicians were of that belief including, later, Balfour himself.
In addition the question of Jewish immigration to the UK in the late nineteenth century is not covered. The extent of that immigration, the result of persecution in Russia and anti-semitism in other parts of Europe, looks minor these days but was unparalleled in England at the time with the exception of earlier waves of Irish immigration.. It caused much resentment, sometimes violently expressed, as that took work away from local workers and took over areas in the big cities.
A somewhat fraudulent solution to or easement of that popular discontent was to block Jewish immigration to the UK by sending them elsewhere – Palestine. Somewhat fraudulent because not that many got to Palestine in the mandate period so it was more of a get-out than a solution.
Then there’s “the oil”. A few years back there was an extensive debate on this subject on Colonel Langs site and there the oil came in. A German geologist had discovered signs of oil in what is mow Northern Iraq. Although it wasn’t exploited for some time it was known to be there and a pipeline through to Haifa was another item on the wish list. The British Navy had changed from coal to oil and a supply in the Med was desirable.
So those considerations were there in addition to or amplifying the considerations mentioned by Khalidi. That against the background of the then almost universally held attitude to “the natives” in that period of European colonisation. The indigenous inhabitants of the various regions colonised by the Europeans were very much the lesser breeds without the law and could be and often were treated as so much livestock. Turfing the natives out of, say, the White Highlands in Kenya to enable European settlement was regarded as quite normal right up to the 1950’s and ’60’s.
So was shifting the natives around to suit colonial administrations. Or killing them wholesale when they were reluctant to submit to European domination. Against that background the dispossession of Palestinian Arabs to make room for European settlers didn’t look as odd as it would today. We’d now call it racism, I suppose. But back then it was the White Man’s Burden.
So that’s how substantial numbers of Jews were settled in Palestine in the first place. Khalidi runs the story on from there. My view, often expressed but not held by that many I must admit, is that even today both the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine are victims of that past colonial solution that ticked so many boxes, or so we in England thought, for the early twentieth century British Empire.
………………….
Another thing Khalidi doesn’t touch on is that British policy in the Mandate period has to be considered against the background of the intense rivalry in that region with the French. The colonial powers didn’t just hammer “the natives” when they saw fit. They hammered each other to a quite surprising extent too. But that was also covered in that old debate on the Colonel’s site so maybe better leave it at that this time round.
There were Arabs living in what was then called Palestine, Muslim Arabs, Christian Arabs, some Jewish Arabs as well as some Orthodox Jews but the Jews were a small minority. The Zionists( mostly European) wanted Palestine and they took it by force from the indigenous Arabs expelling most of them into the West Bank, Syria, Jordan, Gaza and Lebanon. the Zionists were foreigners and they took the land from the people that lived there.
Gordon Reed,
Actually, the Ottomans took control of “Palestine” (a name given to the region by the Romans, who also seized it by force). The Ottomans sold the best land to Jews in the late 19th and early 20th century. Most of Palestine was undeveloped. How do you not know this?
Then, after the Ottomans were gone, more Jews showed up and fairly purchased land from the Arabs themselves. At that point, underling Arabs who worked the land for the wealthier owners (who sold it) were dispossessed of farms. How do you not know this?
Then the Arabs decided to kill the Jews (1930s). They got their asses kicked and the Jews/Israelis/Zionists decided, with good reason, that they needed to buffer themselves more from the murderous Arabs.
Then in 1947/48 the Arabs attacked again and, again, got their asses kicked and Israel declared itself a sovereign nation. At the same time, Arab nations threw out between 750,000 and 850,000 Jews and those Jews moved to Israel and displaced Arabs – like I said, Karma.
Then the Arabs waged war in 1967 and 1972 and committed terrorist attacks on a regular basis (yes, the PLO did that contrary to revisionist history that is bandied about these days about a kind an reasonable PLO). Each violent event aimed at the Israelis resulted in more kicked Arab ass and the loss of more Arab land to Israel. Does it not make sense to create buffers between one’s own and murderous maniacs hell bent on killing one’s own? Why would one want such a population within within one’s own borders? And yet, Israel does permit civilized Arabs to live and work (even in government) within the country.
This is history that cannot be ignored in a honest and mature discussion.
Eric, I hear your POV.
Let me ask a question.
Why, in your opinion,
were Jews treated so badly in so many parts of Europe (Russia, Germany, e.g.)?
Note that Zionism originated in Europe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl
All mental illness and jealousy?
“So, why then did the Arabs reject the partition proposal?”
They didn’t think it was fair and equitable, perhaps?
Or perhaps they weren’t even asked?
“Primarily, they were confident in their ability to swiftly defeat the Jews, eliminate them, and seize the entire territory.”
Oh, OK, who knew, heh?
Remind me again who “they” are in that sentence?
Are “they” the Arabs of Palestine, or are “they” the surrounding Arab countries and member states of the UN?
“This conviction also had a significant contribution to the Nakba as it led them to advise many Arabs to temporarily vacate their homes during the conflicts, expecting to return post-victory”
Yeah, I keep reading about that self-evident truth.
But what I have never heard is a scratchy recording of radio broadcasts where Arab spokesmen urge Palestinian to “temporarily vacate their homes”
Nor have I ever seen a single yellowing post-Mandate-era posters wherein Arab notables urge the great unwashed of Palestine to go on vacate before returning as victors.
Wasn’t anyone in the Palmach collecting these to bolster their claims? Wouldn’t that seem to be an important bit of intelligence-gathering?
Apparently not.
Or maybe the Arab leadership was going door-to-door giving verbal assurances that it was perfectly OK to flee because the homeowner is certain to return soon as victors.
Seems an inefficient way to go about things but, well, how else to explain the lack of evidence for what is, after all, a rather remarkable claim.
Keith,
I think Jews have been treated so badly by host countries over the centuries because they are different, they are outsiders living within. Human nature is clannish and in times of stress we look to blame and release tension on available targets. The Jews provide that target.
That European and American Jews tend to be successful makes them an even juicier scapegoat. Like, “Those damn Jews come here and run the banks and media and take all of our money” kind of thinking.
It’s just stupid “burn the witch” type monkey brained mentality.
“They are criminals.”
You wage war against criminals? I thought you used law enforcement against criminals, you wage war against militias.
Apparently not. I learn something new every day.
“Every single person from gaza who took part in the 7 October attack will be arrested and jailed.”
That’s not what Israel is doing, mcohen, and you know it. You insult everyone’s intelligence by pretending otherwise.
Yeah, Right,
How would a law enforcement approach work? I’d like someone to explain that because I keep hearing it.
There’s a blurred line between fully tactical antiterrorism law enforcement teams and military units.
What if Hamas people don’t want to be arrested?
“How would a law enforcement approach work?”
It wouldn’t.
“I’d like someone to explain that because I keep hearing it.”
Me to.
What I am pointing out is that these claims from mcohen:
“Hamas are not terrorists or a militia or whatever.They are criminals.”
and
“Every single person from gaza who took part in the 7 October attack will be arrested and jailed.”
and
“Once the civilian population turn them in to face justice in court,israel will retreat.”
are all so removed from reality that he can not seriously expect anyone to believe them.
Israel is not waging a “police action” on the Gaza Strip.
Israel is not attempting to “arrest” Hamas
Israel is not attempting to rescue the hostages.
Israel is not attempting to convince the civilians popln of the Gaza Strip to turn on Hamas and turn them over to Israeli law enforcement.
Anyone who honestly believes that is deluded, and everyone else who advances that claim is lying.
Israel is indulging in genocide. Nothing more. No less.
Netanyahu has zero interest in seeing a single Hamas perpetrator see the inside of an Israeli court room.
Netanyahu wants the Gaza Strip completely emptied of PALESTINIANS. He’d prefer that the strip become emptied because the IDF has terrified everyone into fleeing into Egypt, but he is perfectly OK with the idea that anyone who refuses to flee will be killed by IDF bombs or otherwise meet their doom at the hands of IDF actions.
That’s what he wants, and that’s what he is attempting to achieve.
I have no time whatsoever for mcohen’s smug assumption about the nobility of Israel’s actions in this sordid scene. His claims are an insult to everyone’s intelligence.
Yeah Right,
Agree 100% with what you wrote (except the genocide part – there are plenty of Arabs living happily in Israel). I also agree with Netanyahu. Killing Hamas and supporters is the right move. Unfortunately there really is no way to that surgically. Also no way to know who is with Hamas. So the whole place needs to be taken down. Let those that want to live flee to their Arab brothers.
Oh yeah, no one else wants them. Well, then – the Arab brothers are complicit in the fait of the Gaza residents.
Your reply is the dictionary-definition of “genocide”.
And, no, Egypt’s refusal to be complicit in genocide does not make them complicit in genocide.
That is, without doubt, the most morally bankrupt example of attempting to pass the buck that I have seen in this entire very-lamentable thread.
Yeah Right,
“Your reply is the dictionary-definition of “genocide”.”
IMO, you are hung up on words and labels and moral judgments society has attached to them. It’s a short cut to thinking.
There is no genocide happening. That’s ridiculous. There are gazillions of Arabs and there will be next year and ten years from now, regardless of what happens in Gaza.
You are watching typical history being made and you can’t emotionally handle it because history in the making is ugly and not academic.
“There is no genocide happening.”
There is genocide happening.
The IDF is attempting to bomb all the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to flee into Egypt.
Failing that they are happy to kill any Palestinian who refuses to flee.
That’s genocide.
“That’s ridiculous. ”
No, that’s genocide.
“There are gazillions of Arabs and there will be next year and ten years from now, regardless of what happens in Gaza.”
Ahem. Nice sleight of hand there.
Substitute the correct word – Palestinian – for your weasel-word “Arabs” and it becomes obvious that this is a dictionary-case of genocide.
Yours is equivalent of removing the word “Tutsi” and replacing it with the word “Africans” and then declaring that there was no genocide in Rwanda.
Even though there was genocide in Rwanda.
Yeah right.
See those long lines of arab prisoners in Gaza captured by the idf.
They are being processed to come before Israeli courts.
See those drug cartels in Mexico.They are no different.
One group exports jihad ideology,the other drugs.
They are criminals.
Their actions on 7/10 speak for themselves.
Raping and killing young people at music festival.Taking hostages.Israel is not france
Sound familiar
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_2015_Paris_attacks
“See those long lines of arab prisoners in Gaza captured by the idf.”
No, I don’t. I do see lines of Palestinian protected persons being paraded in front of cameras in a humiliating display that violates any number of articles of International Humanitarian Law.
That is not at all the same thing as your claim.
“They are being processed to come before Israeli courts.”
Pig’s F**king Arse they are.
“See those drug cartels in Mexico.They are no different.”
They are very, very, very different.
They are criminals. The protected persons being paraded in front of the cameras by the IDF are not.
“One group exports jihad ideology,the other drugs.”
You. Are. Deluded.
“Their actions on 7/10 speak for themselves.”
THEIR actions? Who are THEY, mcohen?
Because what I am seeing on my TV screen are civilians being paraded in front of the cameras by a grotesque parody of a disciplined army.
Thugs with guns, mcohen, and they are humiliating those men for no other reason that they can, and they get their jollies by getting away with it.
Yeah Right,
You seem very worked up over Gaza and the poor “innocent” Palestinians.
You can always go join Hamas and inflict some “justice” on Israel.
Not just the poor innocent Palestinians, Eric.
I also get worked up when the IDF spots three unarmed, shirtless men who are waving a white flag, and then shoot them all stone, cold dead.
There are 2.5million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Even Netanyahu admits that the number of armed Hamas amounts to no more than 50,000. Tops.
According to my trusty calculator that means the IDF is inflicting war crimes against 2,450,000 civilians.
So, yeah, I can see why that is no biggie for you, but it is actually a big deal for me.
“You can always go join Hamas and inflict some “justice” on Israel.”
That is the crudest straw man argument I have ever seen on this web site. And I have witnessed many.
Eric, baby, I have no issue with Israel targeting those 50,000 Hamas militants.
None at all.
It is their determination to inflict misery on the other 2,450,000 inhabitants of the Gaza Strip that I am worked up about.
You really are a poster-child for everything that is wrong with unconditional support for Israel.
Russia seems to be lining its ducks in a row, in order to have an R2P intervention, under UN Resolution 377 – “Uniting for Peace”.
United Nations General Assembly resolution 377 A, the “Uniting for Peace” resolution, states that in any cases where the Security Council, because of a lack of unanimity among its five permanent members, fails to act as required to maintain international security and peace, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately and may issue appropriate recommendations to UN members for collective measures, including the use of armed force when necessary, in order to maintain or restore international security and peace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVeU1gM31Jk&t=2s
Peter Williams,
A good and reasonable speech, but I didn’t hear any willingness to bring about a ceasefire by Russian military force. I’m not sure what they can do in this regard. Could they mount an operation to put the Israeli Air Force out of action? What they could do is support a Syrian/Hezbollah attack, lend EW and A2/AD support to southern Lebanon.
TTG,
Perhaps the Russians are waiting for the political situation within Ukraine to shift before proposing anything. Right now, Putin may believe any Ukrainian leader who proposes a compromise, the trading of the occupied lands for peace, would be gone or worse before the sun set that day, and he might be right about that. Proposing peace to a people who seem to believe they are bulldozing the Russians and victory is inevitable could be perceived as confirming evidence of such, thus counterproductive.
Unlikely Putin still thinks he can end Ukraine as a nation. Judging from the rhetoric of 2022 and the structure of their initial attack, Putin BSed himself into believing that within every Ukrainian there’s a Russian waiting to be liberated. A delusion difficult to picture as still existing. May be it’s about saving face, along with rationalizations on the dangers of appearing weak. I’ve heard some folks say there’s no overestimating Russian paranoia.
F&L,
What in God’s name are trying to say in your last comment? I’m not quite sure who you’re blaming for the plight of the world or rather who you’re not blaming. I’m saving it in case you want to edit.
TTG,
Yes it was rather salty. Thanks for saving it, (and possibly my butt) but I copied it and can edit and resubmit at a later time. The gist boils down to this: don’t expect anything too positive as a consequence of turning over vast powers and wealth to the auspices of a minority group or groups who have been downtrodden if not enslaved and brutalized for centuries. (In fact – expect cruel revenge). My examples were the Jews and American blacks. I tried to close with the observation that the truly powerful wisely prefer to remain unseen, and cleverly instrumentalize groups who were pariahs, knowing that these minority groups will be the ones blamed if and when things go south which of course they do eventually by the very nature of things. The spectacle of mass murder and obviously premeditated and planned genocide, (more than sufficiently documented by John Mearsheimer and others) somewhat got the better of me and my hatred and disgust was clearly on display.
The friends of Israel have shown their true values – which is support for genocide. That is what policy decisions are – your true values. You can’t stand with Israel and not support their policies. As Desmond Tutu said with his “the elephant versus the mouse analogy” – you have to actively fight what Israel has created and is doing else you support them. You cannot be a friend of people acting like that.
I’m just waiting for the much larger death toll coming from disease among the civilian population in Gaza. With ca two million peoples being squeezed into an area the size of Heathrow with no functioning sewage systems or anything else that is a classic recipe for mass deaths from epidemics caused by no possibility of maintaining hygienic conditions and a total lack of hospitals plus anything else that could stop an outbreak of disease. We could be talking 100,000’s of deaths among the weakest population groups – children and old people .
Just think of the death toll from British concentration camps in South Africa when they crushed the Boer rebellion in the 1899-1902. The Boer civilians and their black servants died like flies from disease in those camps.
Well said. I despise them so much that our host didn’t print my first post. They intend to full well kill and expel all the Palestinians in Gaza and very likely move on to the west bank where brutal fighting has been ongoing but hardly reported here. The disease etc is premeditated and officials have said as much. The thing is, our press and electronic media is Jewish owned and controlled for a long time now, so people will be watching football. I can’t see why anyone should be ashamed to be labeled an antisemite now as long as it refers to opposition and dislike unto revulsion with the Jews. If they’re going to define antizionism as being antisemitism, then good for them, it’s all the better. No one deserves to have to clarify for the 20 thousandth time that “ok I’m actually opposed to Zionist policy since 1948, not all Jews, oh no ..” I’m not going to stand on my head for murderers and censorers, especially while they are actively butchering tens of thousands in a way designed and intended to kill millions.
F&L,
You forget all the Jews here and even in Israel who are speaking out against Israeli actions and are marching against Netanyahu in the streets of Tel Aviv. Please don’t fall into the “all Jews are evil” trap.
Step right up ladies and gentlemen.
On this side, weighing 115 pounds, wearing the pastel pink and blue polka dot trunks, the collected YouTube college dropouts and failed comedians who squeak and write something somewhere on substack and maybe in one of 720 million daily Twitter Tweets. And also Scott Ritter, Col Macgregor, Judge Andrew Napolitano, Geoffrey Sachs, John Mearsheimer and very few others.
And on this side, weight unknown because it breaks our scales, wearing blood soaked black robes and executioner’s hoods, the nuclear armed, multiple aircraft carrier battle group protected, armed to the teeth, white phosphorus dropping and mass media conglomerate owning, hedge fund speculating, stock and option market manipulating, US Congress and Executive branch occupying and purchasing Jewish American Establishment (or ZOG if you prefer – Israel President Herzog’s name ends in ZOG and in fact means “Heart of ZOG.”)
Step right up and place your bets.
No, there are MANY Jews who are VERY vocal about the genocide that is being carried out. Some, who are real journalists, have even been the ones to uncover some of the more egregious lies, exaggerations, and misdirection attempts by the Israelis, which are then trumpeted ad nauseum through the mainstream media.
I’m thinking about people like Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Norman Finkelstein, Ilan Pappe, Avi Shlaim, Ron Unz, etc. These people are pointing out the ethnic cleansing in a rational, logical way, pretty much without excess emotion. Some of the conclusions are unwelcome to many Americans, because as US citizens we are complicit in this genocide. As the Israeli politicians have recently pointed out, without continued shipment of US weapons, Israel would not be able to continue this attack against the Palestinian residents of the concentrations camp that they have created. The US has put no limits or restrictions on how Israel used US-provided weapons in its turkey shoot against the civilians in Gaza.
Finally, it’s interesting to see so many Jews, like Eric Newhill on this site, formerly more balanced and rational, suddenly get blood lust and display their true feelings for Arabs, which to me means gentiles as a whole. Referring to the Nakba and writing “boo hoo poor little Arabs”, blaming Israel’s massacre of civilians in Gaza on Hamas, always focusing on 10/7 (a military action in my mind) and ignoring the subsequent attacks on non-military targets, concocting or repeating the disproven lies about 40 headless babies, repeated rapes, oven-cooked babies, etc. It just gets more and more ridiculous, and less and less persuasive. I call it “going Dershowitz”.
Eric, you might want to go back and examine the context in which Jews have been treated so badly by host countries over the centuries. You might just find that there was some horrible behavior by Jews in those host countries, usury, control and exploitation of markets, degradation of the traditional culture. I know, I know, to you, the Jewish soul is always pure, and there’s no way we should discuss this or point out how much malfeasance in the US today, from Epstein to Weinstein, to Madoff, to Ron Jeremy, to Scam Bankrupt Fraud (Sam) and the outsized percentage of financial criminals are carried out by people who happen to be Jewish. See Brown University study on financial crime. And that goes without mentioning the wealthy donors who have pushed CRT, open borders, anti-Christian, anti-traditional narratives. These same donors suddenly become radicalized when Student for Justice for Palestine march or assemble on US campuses, writing threatening letters about stopping their donations.
I know: they are outsiders living within. Human nature is clannish and in times of stress we look to blame and release tension on available targets.
To that argument, I must borrow the handle of one of the commenters on this site: Yeah, Right!
frankie p,
For the record, I am not Jewish. Not one tiny drop. I don’t even have any particular affinity Jews or their culture, but I do get where the Israelis are coming from; especially the Zionists.
So you think Hitler and Hamas had a point because of Ron Jeremy and Bernie Madoff? Really?
“The right side of history”
Where have we heard this tired old tripe before?
The dog (no one on the internet knows you are a dog.) not barking says:
What Hamas is doing in Israel to the Israeli civilian population – with the support of the whom (?) – is a crime against humanity that serves no meaningful military purpose. (Oct 7th only, one wonders why)
UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, said that “We are witnessing a killing of civilians that is unparalleled and unprecedented in any conflict since his appointment in 2017, was not said in reference to the Hamas killings of Israelis in October of 2023. Though he did say: ” I do not think that a UN protectorate in Gaza is a solution. I think we need a multi-stakeholder approach in which different countries, different entities, will cooperate. ”
(ruff ruff! translation: Different countries, just not the UN! LOL)
In this moral catastrophe I will say, the Hamasbara are beating Hasbara decisively. On the battlefield, well…. Other un-barked questions: Where are those Americans who were kidnapped and why aren’t Joe Biden and the Good professor doing anything about it with the fine people in Qatar or elsewhere who invest so much in Gaza, none of which was diverted to tunnels, rockets or luxury living for Gaza leaders actually not in Gaza.
Fred –
You: “The right side of history”
Where have we heard this tired old tripe before?
Answer: Two weeks before learning “where have we heard this tired old tripe before.”
Hasabara read backwards is Arabs sa..
Western values died in Gaza.
Hamas values were on full display October 7th. How are the kidnapping victims doing BTW?
How are the childrens ( 136 ) some of them under 12 detained in israel prison ?
Western values died in Israel.
Nobody cares about Hamas values.
The world cares about what a state, israel, the “lighthouse of Western values” in the Middle East, is doing.
The lighthouse is off.
Yes. And were tortured repeatedly at great length on TV and the Net. Western values that never existed in the first place. We have to have our own values, not the ones lied about on TV, in churches, synagogues, the movies etc. The west knows the price of everything and the value of nothing, someone said and they were right.
Liberace died in perry como
This all didn’t start on October 07.
Since 1948 israel has killed 70,000 palestinians mostly civilians.
Israel is a terrorist state.
Off topic. From a Ru Telegram channel. It speaks to an old and bitter pet peeve of mine – that the British still consider us their colony. Are the UK of sound mind? Do they actually think a configuration exists in which the two US parties could possibly be more divided? Maybe they are angling (they would) for actual all out violence and complete chaos and break down such as Civil war. A movie starring Kirsten Durst titled Civil War is set for release in April 2024 (100 days). Coincidence?
————————————–
https://t.me/nonetutto/1501
London is trying to take control of the negotiation process between Israel and Hamas.
The head of MI6, R. Moore, has arrived in Ankara, where Hamas leaders who have fled Qatar will be waiting for him tomorrow.
London wants to seize the initiative from the United States (State Department and CIA) and create an even greater split between Democrats and Republicans.
D. Biden is not threatened with impeachment until the end of his term; tomorrow’s hearings and the blocking of assistance to Ukraine with the flaring migration crisis deal a blow to the Democrats and play into the hands of D. Trump and the Republicans.
R. Sunak sent an invitation to D. Trump to a Christmas reception, the court on Monday will consider the possibility of releasing Trump to this event, as well as for a visit to Israel.
@ mcohen
Everything you’ve written here has only one purpose: to justify the spirit of revenge. This will lead Israel to its ruin.
Israel’s leaders should calm down. Long-lasting anger leads nowhere. Only cleverness can get Israel out of its quagmire. The Israeli majority is capable of understanding and taking a new political point of view, I’m sure. Incidentally, I don’t believe in the two-state thing. Pakistan (east and west) or Danzig, or Armenia/Azerbaijan are good examples of the impracticality of these psedo-solutions. Which will require even more talent on the part of Israeli leaders.
The process, with its successes and failures and pains, will take time. For now, the important thing is to initiate it.
Let us pray…
Maybe the Palestinians should calm down. The Armenian situation is because the Turks genocided the Armenians – and got away with it Scott free. The Armenians are analogous to the Palestinians (only smarter and more civilized, better work ethic and superior morals). Pre-1915, they lived in communities throughout the Levant, mostly in what is now Turkey, albeit enduring pogroms by the turks and Kurds, slavery by the Arabs and other despicable horrors perpetrated by Muslims. Then in 1915, the Turks killed 1.5 million of them, drove about the same number into a global diaspora – and a few remained in what is now known as Armenia under Russian protection. Yet the Armenians do not suicide bomb or otherwise commit violence against Turks. They got on with life and became successful in communities throughout the world. Today the Turk’s cousins in Azerbaijan are trying to finish the job started in 1915 because MUSLIMS DO NOT MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS, being what they are, which is the opposite of Armenians and Jews. Israel has its work cut out for it alright.
You are right.
Good neighbors are rare species.
My (bad) examples show that a unitary state split into two entities is not stable, either partition or reunification.
This is the case of azerbaidjan and nakitchvan. Coming soon?
d74,
You’re right too. A split usually want to reunite. Like what we are seeing in Ukraine. Ukraine should have always remained part of Russia
Eric: “Yet the Armenians do not suicide bomb or otherwise commit violence against Turks. ”
Oh yes they do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_Turkish_consulate_bombing_in_Melbourne
Extremely rare event organized by a non-representative group of knuckleheads. Not state nor church sponsored like Islamic terrorism.
It is not convincing to argue by outliers.
My take is to apply the Israeli principles of revenge here to the Palestinians and determine how many Israelis now need to be killed for the carnage to stop. Fair is fair. And the idea of hoisting the cruelest liars and bastards on earth by their own petard has great appeal to me.
The results of my calculations show that when the Palestinians have killed, from this point going forward, 2 million Israelis, we can justifiably call it a day. First, I take the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians on Oct 7 to be 200 at best and not the ludicrous 1200 number ballyhooed in the lying and Jewish owned mass media. That’s because most of the Israeli deaths were due to IDF strafing and heavy arms fire – onto columns of motor vehicles and places of temporary redoubt. So, given 200 deaths of Israelis, how many deaths of Palestinians so far and what is the proper revenge ratio – 2 to 1, 5 to 1, 10 or 20 or 30 to 1?
Because, you see, approximate 20,000 Palestinians at least have been destroyed (killed) by Israeli retaliation, and very probably for more given the estimated 7,000 trapped under rubble or otherwise comprising the count of missing persons. The ratio or proportions of 20,000 to 200 is 100 to 1. The Israeli not only think this is fair and proper but are clearly aiming for a much more lopsided ratio. But we’ll modestly accept 100 to 1, for now.
So for Israeli style justice to apply, we need to multiply 20,000 by 100 for the total number of Israelis who now at least have to be killed – how many dwellings and how much infrastructure in Israel must also be obliterated for proportionate revenge to apply is an interesting question but will have to wait for now, it seems reasonable though to expect that at least 50% and more probably 80% of Israeli dwellings must go down the tubes.
20,000 x 100 equals 2,000,000 or 2 million.
So possibly 5,000,000 Israelis can remain above ground or unburned, assuming that 7 million is the total number now of their population.
“MUSLIMS DO NOT MAKE GOOD NEIGHBORS”.
Coming from someone in the US, a country built upon the genocide of the Natives, by Christians who often thought they were doing God’s work. How many countries has the US, UK and western Europe invaded and colonised in the last 500 years? How many millions died directly because of those invasions, occupations and colonies? The number is in the 10s of millions, conservatively. But Muslims do not make good neighbours.
Come on, a quick reading of history will show that Christian nations have directly and indirectly killed FAR more people than the Muslim nations. How many Natives in North and South American died post contact with Europeans? Whether by disease or physical force the number is in the tens of millions. We can talk about colonialism in places like the Belgian Congo…..the British colonial project in the Indian Sub Continent. These numbers add tens of millions more.
I am not saying the Muslim world would not have done worse if they could have. They just didnt have the wealth and opportunity. Of course this is just what Christians have done to others. Lets remember what Christians have done to each other. The town I was born in Germany suffered greatly in the various religious wars that raged through Europe. 25% plus of the civilian populace was killed by Protestants and Catholics who both felt they were doing “God’s work”. Killing women and children, in the name of Jesus. I just got back from England. There they took to burning each other alive and torturing their religious foes to death. In the tens of thousands. All in the name of Jesus.
Are western Christians good neighbours? Historically it a resounding “HELL NO!”
Stefan,
Unlike you, I don’t hate my own race and culture. In fact, my race and culture has made life on earth materially superior for everyone; vastly superior.
As a Caucasian Christian, Muslims are my enemy. When they see what they believe is an opportunity, they will attack. Being of 50% Armenian blood, that fact is even more salient.
Yes, the are small pockets of Christians living in Muslim countries, like Armenians in Iran. However, those Armenians must pay the jizya and keep their heads down. If the Muslim hosts ever saw the Christians becoming too powerful, they’d attack them and purge them. The Jewish experience is the same.
Eric, my father, born jewish, was sheltered and hidden from the Japanese during WWII by a muslim village in the Southern Phillipines at the risk of their lives.
Muslims have some very good traditions of hospitality and charity. They also know how to have a party as anyone who has participated at the end of Ramadan festivities would know.
Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam comes in many flavors, some bitter and twisted, others not so much. I have no qualms about Islam itself, but that does not extend to some of the criminals who practice it. What you are doing is eqivalent to conflating the IRA with the Catholic Church.
Walrus,
Nah – from Turkey to Palestine to Pakistan to Indonesia Muslims have exhibited anti-non Muslim laws and violence *at the state policy level*. That is different from a fringe group or rogue faction.
Islam originally attempted to to take over and convert the world, including Europe, by the sword. Then Islam failed to progress and they now lack the technology and organization to accomplish what they’d like to.
I dont hate my race and culture. I am just history conversant and dont hold different standards when I am talking European/American history. You give a pass to the historic actions of Europeans and Americans that you do not give to others. I grew up with a father like you who glorified all things European, loved Israel and hated Arabs and Muslims. It is a common attitude with older generations.
I love my culture, I can quote Goethe and Schiller, in German. I grew up wearing Loderhosen and going on Volksmarschen. My kids enjoy Steiff and Weihnachtsmarkt whilst I drink Glühwein. I recently visited Westminster Abbey, first time although I lived in England for years and was married to a British citizen. First place I went was “Poets Corner”. I have a thing for English poets. But none of it negates history.
There were LARGE communities of Christians living in Syria before the western backed civil war began when the west was in full support of Muslim extremists and head choppers. The US was instrumental in the war in Syria and the dismantling of what was a VERY diverse Muslim country with many different ethnic and religious minorities that lived good lives there. I have spent a lot of time in places like Egypt and Lebanon where they are large Christian community. They pay the same taxes as everyone else.
Your problem is that you view the Muslim and Arab world as a monolithic block where everyone, and everything, is the same. Your other problem is that you think the West has the absolute right to do whatever they want and condemn anyone else, especially Muslims and Arabs, who even come close to the historical misdeeds of the West.
I point it out the faults in all communities in an honest fashion and dont cut any slack to my community and where I come from. It isnt hate, it is honesty. You conflate the two.
Stefan –
Those Christkindlmarkets are an awesome tradition. I’ve been to the one in Chicago’s Old Town and have also visited the ones in Heidelberg and Strasbourg. We should have one in every American city IMO.
But you can have your horrid tasting Glühwein. That foul stuff should be banned, or at least forced to post warnings to unsuspecting members of the public with refined palates.
Stefan,
“You give a pass to the historic actions of Europeans and Americans that you do not give to others”
Nope. You seem incapable of understanding the paradigm from which I operate. I will try one last time….
1. ALL cultures have conquered, displaced weaker groups, committed genocide or something approaching it. That is what humans do. It’s a dog eat dog world. Therefore, I am not interested in social justice morality plays. To me, that’s all artificial squishy nonsense that no culture lives by except subgroups of spoiled, over-protected, virtue signalers on the internet and in colleges – in other words, people who aren’t in the game and have too much time on their hands, heckling from the sidelines.
2.The Muslims are culturally anachronistic stupid flunkies when compared to Europeans and Israel. Sharia law sucks and none of the college students, you or Walrus would want to live under it. Sharia violates just about every modern value you hold. Muslims are losers too in that every war they start against Israel ends in disaster for them. Yet, they continue to futilely provoke Israel and the US instead of cutting a deal and settling into building a peaceful life somewhere with whatever they have. Thus proving that they may be totally crazy on top of being stupid.
People like you and Walrus and a bunch of stupid college kids apparently think it’s justified and wonderful that the Arabs “resist” Israel, the US or whoever. Well, you, who have no skin in the game, are merely encouraging them to get killed and lose more land. Then you wring your hands, piss and moan when they are, indeed, killed and lose more land.
As for Syria, it is somewhat of an exception in the Muslim world. I have said that a couple times already. I suspect that exceptional status is due to Al Assad’s heretical Alawi background. I have [somewhat distant] Christian relatives living there. That said, if Christians ever became a serious political power block rivaling the Muslims’ control, the Muslims would probably purge the Christians.
All those natives genocided? I sure am glad a bunch of my ancestors got missed. Thanks for the attempted collective guilt trip, feel free to shove it.
“Lets remember what Christians have done to each other. The town I was born in Germany ….”
Yes, let’s remember America having to come to Germany and kick their ass in two world wars. I wonder why? Then we rebuilt that place and defended it from the other half of Germany and their Soviet allies. How Christian of us.
“Are western Christians good neighbours? Historically it a resounding “HELL NO!”
Spread the word! Especially on the Southern border, those new conquerors need to be told. Especially about all those Christian lands in South and Central America….
Took the best part of three continents to do that, Eric. Even then it wasn’t a walkover. Just been reading about part of the end stage.
The Last Effort: Germany’s Final Battle in the West
The History of Battle: Maneuver, Part 18
https://bigserge.substack.com/p/the-last-effort-germanys-final-battle
Pretty impressive, given the Russians were pressing hard at the same time.
And the rebuilding started with the Trümmerfrauen and was mostly the result of a huge national effort. I doubt any other country could have pulled back so fast.
Back to today. Some bureaucrat type amassing information on war crimes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qI2mQD4YFkc
And what it’s been like on the ground for the past nine years. I’ve always kept an eye on Gorlovka. You remember the Gorlovka Madonna? Still going on. One of the reasons I wish Putin would stop slow-walking the SMO. Terrible translation but not difficult to get the gist of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiQGC5btArw&t=437s
The article above focuses on the attempted ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Wrong and should stop. Same thing attempted in the Donbass but on slow burn. Why Putin finally got his act together and went in to stop it. Doesn’t look the Gazans will be so lucky.
Briefing by MFA Ambassador Rodion Miroshnik on the crimes committed by the Kiev regime
English,
I’m not Eric. Three continents? Without the US both England and USSR would have been toast.
The only reason Germany did not win was the relatively small populace compared to the people it was fighting and a lack of natural resources. If Germany had anything close to comparative numbers you’d be speaking German right now.
Without USSR men, in the tens of millions, the outcome of the war would have been in doubt. If the allies did win it would have required maybe 10 times the amount of dead US service men to do so. There is no single ingredient that caused the Nazis to be defeated.
Apologies Fred. That’s the second time I’ve made such a mistake and I shan’t again. Particularly because your and Eric’s views are sometimes different and I am aware of the difference.
Australia. They and the Canadians and the New Zealanders provided some of the best, as in WWI. Used to meet Australians who’d say, “Yes, we did, didn’t we. And then you bloody ditched us.” Never had an answer to that because there wasn’t one.
India. Though we never asked them whether they wanted to pitch in. They did though. Wiki:-
“The 4th, 5th and 10th Indian Divisions took part in the North African theatre against Rommel’s Afrika Korps. In addition, the 18th Brigade of the 8th Indian Division fought at Alamein. Earlier, the 4th and 5th Indian Divisions took part in the East African campaign against the Italians in Somaliland, Eritrea and Abyssinia capturing the mountain fortress of Keren.”
SA, the then Rhodesia, Kenya. Poles, the Free French, quite a few from Europe one way or another. The Russians seemed to be in it somehow. I had a relative who captained one of the Murmansk ships and he told me that. I think the Americans sent a few people too but I’d have to check.
That was three or four continents, I suppose, who made a modest contribution to the British war effort in WWII. So I’m not saying we could have done it all by ourselves, though I expect we could have if we’d been put to it.
Some other relatives served on the other side. Well, someone had to provide the opposition. We’d have looked a bit silly fighting nobody.
Stefan,
Agree. The Germans had the best weapons and the best generals for the first three or four years of the war. They lost for the reasons you state – and because Hitler was off his rocker and interfered with the decision making of his excellent Generals. Attacking Russia was a massive blunder that doomed the Third Reich.
Without American equipment the USSR would have lost millions more men due to logistics just as poor as Germany’s; and the English not succeed in North Africa. Germans invade North America? Fat chance on that.
It’s too bad jledell is no longer around (?) to provide commentary on the IDF.
Yes indeed.
Ambush indeed.Yes seems there comms are compromised.Must be devices embedded in the street connected to root nodes.Very clever periscope.Best boys are being kept for last.Deadly
As the cannibal said….
God save the Queen,for last
mcohen,
What are you referring to? I was referring to a long time commenter close to Col. Lang’s age.
This is a really interesting article:
https://sonar21.com/dinner-with-the-oligarchs/
A sample:
Any of you care to comment?
It’s an interesting topic. The main thing that jumps off at me though is – how in the F did a drunken fool like Yeltsin come to find himself at the helm of the largest nation on earth geographically, and the one possessing tens of thousands of nuclear weapons? If you’re an American of my generation it makes you think of the star of Father Knows Best being in fact an alcoholic, which for many years he in fact was. Or Donna Reed being a crack addicted prostitute, which she certainly wasn’t. It’s not shocking though if you remember Slick Willy and Donald Trump. Don’t forget Al Gore, who invented the internet. Only yesterday we got rid of that George Santos criminal from Congress. Funny thing is – holy roller Mike Johnson – prim, proper and sober as a doornail, is quite possibly worse than all of them put together. Religious delusional psychosis is not pretty.
Regarding a country governed by delusional bribe takers such as the US Congress, who endorse genocide, abandon all hope. Yes that’s the sign above the entrance to hell as described by Dante. Many preposterous bills have been entered into the congressional record including one which resolved to make pi equal to three. (circumference divided by diameter). It would not have been pretty ugly watching all the catastrophes resulting from engineers forced to do that. But this is actually equivalent as it polices education in the same manner as the bloody Inquisition. When do the witch burnings start?
———————————
In bipartisan 303-126 vote Wednesday evening, the US House of Representatives passed a McCarthyite resolution calling on the presidents of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to resign, based on the false claim that they are fostering antisemitism on their campuses.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/15/thfv-d15.html
I forgot to include this excerpt from the article cited a few more earlier. When this Gaza catastrophe finally results in the killing of vastly more so-called Jews than those killed by the IDF on oct 7 – due to the destruction of the state of Israel, which these events hasten to bring to fruition – the racist antisemite republicans and far right will dance in the streets. Although as a rule I despise those people, if I live to see it I will be sorely tempted join them in spirit. No people on earth, let it be said, are more racist and right wing than the so called Jews now governing Israel, a pattern set in stone by Ezra and Nehemiah after they were freed by the Persian Emperor.
———————————–
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/12/15/thfv-d15.html
As the World Socialist Web Site has previously reported, of the roughly 1,000 people killed in October 7 attack, it appears a significant number were gunned down by Israeli helicopter pilots or blown up by Merkava tanks. Furthermore, on Tuesday, Electronic Intifada, citing Israel outlet Ynet, reported that Israeli military officials admitted that an “immense and complex quantity” of “friendly fire” incidents occurred on October 7.
The Ynet article, written by Yoaz Zitun, reads: “Casualties fell as a result of friendly fire on October 7, but the IDF believes that… it would not be morally sound to investigate them.”
Israel, America, American Jews, and American politicial leadership:
That is a volatile, to some, combination of concepts and terms.
That combination is discussed explicitly, and I believe honestly and accurately, by America’s 37th president, Richard Nixon, in this 2m25s video:
Nixon Answers: Is There Pressure from The Jewish Lobby In The U.S.?
https://youtu.be/LEpPk1BBFP8
Of course, there will be those who disparage Nixon as “Tricky Dick”.
But I wonder how many other politicians could be so disparaged.
I should qualify my comment above concerning Richard Nixon and “American Jews”.
Of course American Jews are not homogeneous.
There are many issues on which they passionately disagree.
Norman Finkelstein gives an example.
But there is a Jewish mainstream.
Which reaches agreement in issues that interest them.
And lobbies for what they think is needed.
I would suggest that the ADL exemplifies that Jewish mainstream.
And, for example, it advocates explicitly for certain policies with regard to Israel, Ukraine, and transgenderism.
So when I used the phrase “American Jews” above,
it referred only to that Jewish mainstream,
certainly not to ALL American Jews.
I should have been more careful.
My apology.
Most of the people here crying about labels like “genocide”, demand Christain values from the Israelis, yet most of these same people mock religion and Christianity. They would say that Darwinism is true, yet get all upset when they see Darwinism in action (Darwinism = genocide).
I truly hope Israel remains uninfluenced by the phony cry baby faction that exists like a loud cancer in the western world.
Dear Eric,
I think you should update your Darwinism concept. It does not equate at all to ‘genocide’ (of competing species).
Darwinian natural selection is generally defined by; More babies born per generation than can survive, hereditable variation exists among individuals and individuals with heritable traits better suited to the environment will survive.
You can score-card Israel and Palestine on these tenants if you wish and you might get some idea what will happen in the future with this unfortunate land.
I can only add my personal beliefs; Palestinians will not ‘go-away’ and their birth rate will exceed Israels (tot fertility 2023 -3.4 v 2.9) even though a large portion of their mothers have been killed, in my opinion deliberately.
On a more sociological version of Darwinism, Palestinian fighters will adapt to new combat conditions, Israels world standing (as an Apartheid state) will diminish and its enemies increase. Israel as a pastoral state of the USA is extremely prone to the latter withholding support and this support is by no means for perpetuity.
rw
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. – wiki
“Compete and survive” are components of Darwinism.
If Israel cleans out Gaza then Hamas has neither successfully competed nor survived.
Israel has to destroy Hamas; but can’t destroy the Arab population of Gaza, as that would be politically untenable.
Netanyahu has been a steady hamd of the tiller; but he will likely be out with the next elections like Meir was after the Yom Kippur War in 1974.
The Red Sea appears to be an unsafe zone due to the war, the last thing global commerce needs in the aftermath of COVID.
Not a great situation, all told.
@F&L,
“Eric,
If you were burning up in flames across the street from me then, not only wouldn’t I cross the road to piss on you or give you the sweat off my balls in a nebulizer, I wouldn’t even say or think “boo hoo.”
You’re not even an animal, animals don’t mock at vast human tragedy in the way you do. Here’s exactly what you are – a participant in the My Lai massacre and in your dreams one of the officer subhumans who ordered and directed it. I was going to call you a big stupid murder happy American but TTG doesn’t allow ad hominems.
Your attempt to speak for Col Lang is preposterous and outrageous.”
Thank you for saying that. I had a good laugh at “not only wouldn’t I cross the road to piss on you or give you the sweat off my balls in a nebulizer, ” 🙂
@Eric Newhill,
“They would say that Darwinism is true, yet get all upset when they see Darwinism in action (Darwinism = genocide).”
Your ignorance about Darwinism, and your hatre for “the others” are at a highest level possible.
TonyL,
Amazing, Israel is supposed to act compassionately towards Gaza after all the terrorism aimed at them from there, yet you want someone to burn to death because of some mere words you disagree with.
Self awareness is not a super power of the of so caring liberal crowd.
GENOCIDE IS GENOCIDE. This does not bode well for the future. We watch it on our screens. It is affecting everyone. So in the END, we will be desensitized for future genocides.
1) Bipartisan vote: is a blueprint for global war, targeting China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, AND expanding US support for Israel’s war against the Palestinians.
2) McCarthy-like hearings: A witch hunt against anyone who does not fully endorse the US-backed Israeli genocide, US House passes resolution calling on Harvard and MIT presidents to resign. If you watch the hearings they truly resemble McCarthy hearings!!!
3) US corporations launch holiday jobs bloodbath: Thousands of jobs are being axed in the auto industry, the retail sector and railroads.
GAZA is just part and partial of the continued wealth accumulation for the 1% For those ruling the world (corporatists and politicians) Pro-Palestinian sentiments imply the possible rise of resistance (left-wing) and must be crushed!!! Only the Maga-crowd, the right-wing will do, as they will be the ‘shock troops’ duped into believing they are fighting for a brighter future, when all they’re doing is fighting for the 1%.
Why is anyone fighting? Things are getting worse! That much we all understand.
footnote:
https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_0.185%2C$multiply_0.7725%2C$ratio_1.5%2C$width_756%2C$x_0%2C$y_25/t_crop_custom/q_86%2Cf_auto/3242391a6daa7392157f07fc532e10c64cfa0c90
Have each side given up their rights to their elected government’s yet?
Hamas has shown significant military capability,
but a question has been
how much popular support does it have in Gaza?
Here is a poll of Gazans which purports to answer that:
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2023/12/13/wartime-palestinian-poll-shows-surge-hamas-support-close-90-want-us-backed-abbas-resign.html
Sorry sorry sorry to insert myself herein – and normally I wouldn’t dare except that, except that …
Oh heck I’m needing either Fred or [W]illem[?] to provide a post for me to compare my thoughts/conclusions with/against.
Yeah I’m aware turcopolier – in these latter days – is mostly concerned *we bump our grocery prices stratospherically in order to satisfy Ukraine’s public sector *pension *obligations but be that as it may …
Anyway – I’m lately not spending appreciable time online so “my appreciation” of what the Colorado’s Supreme Court’s recent achievement actually – in all its ramifications – means; Well suffice to say in an earlier day I’d expected this site to provide a forum in which we might discuss.
There’s a Federal statute against Insurrection available (as well due process & etc etc but Colorado sees fit apparently &c etc.
https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/12/23SA300.pdf
As y’all will recall, I ain’t no lawyer but I have done ‘some reading’ – But I having a turrible time comprehending why – among other things – a State Court took such action when no charge of Insurrection had been laid in any of the various jurisdictions as might’ve been imagined : [municipal] local – where the specific act of insurrection took place – then the Feds taking over leading to : Federal charges.
But in no event any State[s] charge?