I hope I’m wrong, but I expect the difference being going from a small handful of aid trucks a day to zero aid trucks a day. That would be a big difference to the people of Gaza.

There are over a million Gazans still alive. That is a very large number of people barely hanging on from starvation that can still be mercilessly wiped out. You really sure about that 5% figure?

Doesn’t his Sec of Defense nominee have a Deus Vult tattoo? Yeah, that doesn’t bode well…

Excellent. I wonder if we’ll finally hit a critical mass over there.

Was wondering how long it would take to roll something like this out. Bout time.

Yes, I think we can.

But remember, during WW2 the USSR and the US were able to cooperate to defeat fascism. We cannot be too picky when it comes to alliances when there’s bigger fish to fry. Ideological purity is not our friend, never has been. Even if that makes everything a confusing pain in the ass, which it does, that diversity of opinion is necessary if we are going to robustly pursue our goals and not get too stuck up our own asses and blinded.

I’m ultimately glad, he was giving democrats a bad name. We could afford that a decade ago, but we no longer can.

There’s a mild reshuffling of the parties happening, with the Tulsi Gabbards switching to red and the Adam Kinzingers switching to blue, and I’m fine with it. It’s about priorities. Which parts of your platform and beliefs are more important than the other parts?

So, if I authentically offer to kick his nuts up into his stomach that’ll be enough for him to him to like me? He has literally zero opinions on what actually might be a good or bad idea for the country, just so long as I say it with gusto?

I do get it, but I find it pretty outlandish. If he was born in Mad Max Fury Road, would he just be perfectly happy being one of those pole guys? They seem very authentic, look like they’re having a blast too. “Witness me!”? When I see drug cartels and their quest for money and power, they seem very authentic about it. Very authentically killing everyone who crosses them.

Not gonna lie, that’s a problematic value system.

Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in the 2020 Democratic primary and then voted libertarian

…wat?

Actually that was a JD Vance quote. Harris kept it more classy.

Either way, he’s more of a Mussolini type. Less vision, more opportunism.

I think this is less “sports fans destroy own city” and more “existing criminals take advantage of chaos to get away with crimes”.

Personally I believe there is some responsibility on the massed, drunk sports fans to beat up and deter looters from taking advantage of their celebrations.

If someone is only active in rabble rousing and not in supporting any affirmative ideas or actions around solutions to problems, then I tend to have a bit of suspicion that we’re simply dealing with a rabble rouser, and not someone interested in any actual improvements. It doesn’t really matter, to a rabble rouser, what the rousing is towards, since chaos is the goal. Any nebulous direction works, so long as the push is towards chaos.

If your goal is to watch the world burn, you do need an excuse for that. You can’t just be like “well, I like the idea of collapse, suffering and death. don’t you? c’mon, it’ll be fun.”

Most leftists have actual policy discussions, proposals, specifics that they’d like to see implemented. They’ll actually applaud movement in a positive direction. Not all, though.

Their interactions with .grad would be priceless. lol Not that they wouldn’t instantly defed each other.

We should all pitch in some cash to buy them and use them to start posting pro-Fediverse, pro-FOSS and privacy-related stuff.

Yeah, it might bring in some crazies, but the Fediverse can handle that better than most places.

I am not focusing on birth rate, I did not mention the birth rate. I speak of total population figures, which takes both births and deaths into account. Gaza was growing in total population, not diminishing, until very recently. You mischaracterize yet again.

Regardless of the goals of the Oslo Accords, they were a peace agreement agreed upon by the representatives of both sides. No, they did not concede every Palestinian demand, right of return is a very notable one. It illustrates your extremist views though, that you see this compromise proposal agreed to by Arafat, as intended to destroy the Palestinian people. Perhaps you lean more Hamas than Fatah? Are you only willing to see a two-state solution if it is at the 1967 borders, also known as the Green Line?

If the peace wasn’t real, then why were some settlements being dismantled? Why was land being given back to the Palestinians? What is this footage of Israeli settlers being dragged away by Israeli soldiers?

https://youtu.be/x3oS2aIG_nw

You know, I never claimed your sources were propaganda. The propaganda is coming from you, and how you cherry pick and otherwise deny all perspectives asides those coming from a small selection of sources.

I’ve already discussed Ilan Pappe’s Post-Modernism, and how even in his own defense that you shared he acknowledged some of the claims against him. Yet you just go right back to him. This is your faith at work.

edit: Your goal as a propagandist is clearly indicated by your automatic downvoting of everything I say that disagrees with you, incidentally. You act as a holy arbiter of truth, but really you’re just another political activist willing to do “whatever it takes”, aren’t you? Uninterested in any form of perspective that does not glorify hamas and demonize Israel, as you conveniently duck every criticism I level at them while trying to redirect all attention to Israeli atrocities.

The self-righteousness of people like you will be the doom of what you are trying to save. The truth, even the harder parts of it, can save them though. Acknowledging even the ugliest parts of the truth allows us to grow out of the grievances in our hearts, for the sake of future generations.

You’re shifting your goalpost. The discussion was about the eradication of Palestinians, it was about genocide. Apartheid and genocide are not the same. Genocide is happening now, apartheid was happening previously. That’s an escalation.

The Oslo Accords were not agreements to return to the 1967 borders. Thus Rabin saying there would be no return to the 1967 borders and building infrastructure within the West Bank was in compliance with the agreement between the Israelis and the PLO, that allowed certain settlements to remain and made others illegal.

Following that killing of 29 Palestinians, hamas took responsibility for two suicide bombings. They themselves claimed those bombings were intended to disrupt the peace process.

Source: Abufarha, Nasser (2009). The making of a human bomb: an ethnography of Palestinian resistance. The cultures and practice of violence series. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. p. 68.

While I understand that you have strong political leanings, in a discussion on history, cite reputable history sources, not political organizations. History is a tool often misused by political movements, anything written about it from a Political Science background is very problematic.

This paragraph does not even support your thesis, it supports mine:

Even decolonization that’s allegedly “bloodless” really isn’t. India’s independence in 1947 from Great Britain is held up as an example of the power of nonviolent protest, but there were years of violent struggles leading up to Gandhi’s campaign. Revolutionaries planned assassinations and bombings. In 1919, British troops killed at least 379 unarmed pro-independence protesters (which included children) in Amritsar. One way or another, violence is always part of decolonization.

This indicates that Britain was setting the level of violence very high, but the actual result involved very little. Why? The Indians.

Your incremental genocide still ignores the growing population in Gaza.

You have a very clear political agenda. I support and agree with it. But I’m a history guy, I won’t simply let you twist history to your own ends as been done so often in the past. Argue in an academically honest way, acknowledging what the Oslo Accords actually were along with counterexamples for your historical assertions.

I do acknowledge that the Nakba was not perpetuated solely by the right, but we’re discussing modern Zionism, not historical Zionism.

While the far right currently in control of Israel does seem to agree with you, it is far from settled that Israeli Zionism requires the eradication of Palestinians. Otherwise, Rabin would not have been dismantling illegal settlements in pursuit of the two state solution as agreed on at Oslo. You should be recognizing that this is debated, instead of applying the views of the most extreme Zionists, including some of its founders, to all modern Zionists.

At a practical level, eradication was not occuring before Oct 7th. The population of Gaza was growing at 2-3% annually, with the population largely composed of young people. This is apartheid, not eradication. The resistance you now claim to be to eradication, was not to eradication, was it?

I absolutely expect that wise leaders will not use counterproductive methods to pursue their goals. You may like “by any means possible”, I prefer positive results. Some methods accomplish that, some methods don’t. We are seeing this right now.

The colonialist force sets the level of violence. That has been the case for every colonialist conflict.

This is another historically false statement. The level of violence is influenced by both sides, not just one. I would point to the American Revolution and Britain’s eventual caving to almost all revolutionary demands prior to the outbreak of hostilities as evidence of this.

Thank you for providing his defense of his work. I’ll note though, on many points he (perhaps rightfully) criticizes Morris, but does not actually counter Morris’ claims. He himself touches on the potential unreliability of his sources, admits own bias (very good) and admits to errors.

Such work should be consumed alongside opposing viewpoints, doing so is very important to arriving at a fuller picture. I applaud his willingness to be forthright about these things, but this does not in any way absolve him into being a fully reliable source. It is a strongly biased source, and thus requires critical reading as opposed to blanket faith.

From his wiki page, I see no defense for this:

the lack of sources for Pappé’s various claims, the most prominent of which is the latter’s claim that “rape took place in every village,” without citing a source, while ignoring publications that contradict this claim

Strong claims without evidence are not indicative of quality historiography.

Ah, so it is not justified then? Perhaps you agree that hamas violence is an unjustified harm that does nothing to further goals of the preservation of Palestinian lives and culture?

A quick googling of Ilan Pappe critique will show you that he is not as well regarded as Masalha. So, criticism is justified. Here are just some, going into claims he makes without evidence.

https://newrepublic.com/article/85344/ilan-pappe-sloppy-dishonest-historian

You should not simply take such things on faith. You’ll note, I personally have the power to consume source material without agreeing with every conclusion contained within. I have my own perspectives, informed by my own education and experience. I do not agree with everything your sources claim.

At what point have I ignored their underlying cause? While I do not focus solely on them to the exclusion of all else, at no point have I disputed your assessments of Zionism. To the contrary, I’ve mentioned illegal settling several times through our conversation. My responses have been around courses of action to take in response to illegal settlement; which are beneficial, which are harmful? Yes?

You don’t like what I’m saying because I am challenging the way you think, not because I have behaved in any sort of unethical way or misrepresented anything. You, unfortunately, alongside at least one of your sources, have engaged in whitewashing of hamas activities, though I understand you do it from a desire to help. I do not think it helps our goals of the preservation of Palestinian people, however. You do more harm than good when you do this, as idealists are occasionally prone to do.

Calling it blowback does not somehow magically justify it and make it a wise strategy for the preservation of the Palestinian people. That’s the path to self-destruction, not the path to peace, as we can very clearly see right now. You cannot say you are dealing with those acts when none of your quoting or your personal discussion, until right now, involves it.

I have dealt fairly with discussion of Israeli atrocities, justifying none of them, nor Palestinian. You cannot say the same.

I am discrediting one of your sources, Pappe specifically. I praised Nur Masalha as you recall.

Though frankly, you should be able to have your own discussions based on logic and reason, instead of relying solely on sourced material as if it is some form of gospel.

Then explain the atrocities committed against Israeli civilians. Not just on Oct 7th, but over the entire century before. You have reams of evidence of Israeli atrocities, this is good, but you are completely silent on Arab atrocities. I assure you there were many, which I won’t link to because I am not a propagandist. You’re educated, though, you know how to find the examples. Explain the bombings during and after the negotiations over the Oslo Accords. Explain the continued fueling of the fear that Netanyahu leverages to maintain his power.

This is an attempt to whitewash the past with a new progressive interpretation, but much like how the “river to the sea” slogan has several different variations in Arabic, we should remember that a new, re-worded variation does not eliminate the historical existence of previous variations, like “min el-mayeh lil-mayeh, Falastin Arabiyeh”. This whitewashing is one of the dangers of Post-Modernist historical work, and why such historians do not deserve their credentials.

There is no inherent difference between colonialism and resistance to colonialism. There are structural differences applied by our ideologies, but functionally they are all humans of one singular species living on land. While people are actively invading, resistance can be justified, if battle has a reasonable chance of success. Once the invaders have settled, though, they are no longer invaders, they are neighbors. This was incredibly common through the European Middle Ages, the Vikings did it up and down the Eastern Atlantic, as just one singular example. Human history over the whole globe is full of these movements of people, continuing even into the modern day, though usually much more nonviolently.

Settlements and Occupation are antithetical to peace, that has been the entire point.

This statement is historically false. It should not be taken with blanket faith, but should be critically examined. Not to excuse the furthering of illegal settlements into the modern day, but simply to point out that just because settlement happened at some point in the past does not mean violence is necessary forever into the future. Doing so will inevitably result in the extermination of the weaker group, based on historical precedent. This is not necessary, however. The Anglo-Saxons and Norse co-existed very peacefully after a time, despite one being Christian and the other Pagan, just to continue on my earlier example.

Ultimately, you should consider what sorts of actions will empower and strengthen Netanyahu’s hand, making his strategies more likely to succeed by allowing him a firmer grip on his own people, and what sorts of actions will weaken him, and make him more likely to fail. These practical considerations are what the survival of the Palestinian people hinges on. Not justice, rights or dignity. Remember too, that starvation of every last Palestinian man, woman and child does not require any foreign aid from any power for his country, and just how many genocides have succeeded throughout global history. How rare it is for a genocidal regime to actually be stopped by the international community. SE Asia, Central Africa, the Balkans, the Kurds, the Azerbaijanis, the Ukrainians, our own Native Americans.

That’s what we’re up against, and your one-sided, propagandized vision of hamas is playing right into Netanyahu’s hands, as you excuse the dangers his own people experience, giving further fuel to their fear. You know what afraid people are capable of? Genocide. Instead, consider acknowledging a more nuanced understanding of the conflict, one less reliant on capitalized vocabulary words and systemic structures and more on natural human physiological and emotional reactions to certain sorts of stimulus.

Not even to speak of hamas’ oppression of their own people, an entirely separate topic altogether.