341–350 of 370 posts
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> And the vast majority of democratic countries are run by people who have a decent appreciation of the rule of law Remarkable claims need remarkable evidence. Where is this democratic country that is run by people who appreciate rule of law?
Agreed. I was so innocent before. The power of states must be reduced at this point.
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Yes, that's the first sentence. Reading more of the article, here is the "Naval Blockade" section: > The Israeli Navy enforces a maritime blockade of the Port of Gaza and the coastline. and the "Control of Gazan airspace" section: > The Oslo Accords interim peace agreements expressly give Israel security control over Gazan airspace and coastal waters. Also, Egypt being complicit in depriving Gaza of resources (to a M…
> Also, Egypt being complicit in depriving Gaza of resources (to a MUCH lesser extent than Israel, to be fair) does in no way prove that Hamas is the problem, Yeah it does... Oh, how much it does...
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> Yes, absolutely. Conditions have been much much better before Hamas came to power. In fact Israelis and Gazans used to visit each other freely in the 80s and lots of Gazans worked in Israel. Those are some spectacular rose tinted goggles. Gaza was a refugee camp entirely under Israeli control, and Palestinians were almost entirely doing unskilled labor in Israel. Israel decided where and if new housing could be bui…
> The only option that remains, and what seems most likely to happen, is that Israel will continue to demoralize, kill, and harass the people of Gaza and the West Bank until such a time as the remaining Arab population will be small enough compared to the Jewish population of Israel, and then it will annex these territories into a single Israeli state with a minority ( Many options remain: peace, Palestinian refugees…
These two are dependent on one another, and every evidence so far suggests that the Gaza strip and West Bank simply aren't big enough and don't have enough resources (water and arable land especially) to sustain their population. This could work with massive resource commitments from Israel, Jordan and Egypt, but that doesn't seem to me like a realistic stable possibility for the long term.
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Again, these are not the "smoking gun" examples you make them out to be. Item [3] in particular is a widely accepted opinion - you will find it expressed enthusiastically by such "tankies" as Bill Gates [0] and The Economist [1]. For item [4], his opinion seems rather complex. Here he is praising a thread that condemns China's treatment of Uyghurs in no uncertain terms [2]. Here he is again mentioning the U(i/y)ghur…
Yeah.. you are being dishonest right now. He clearly said in my [3] image it doesn't qualify as genocide since the economist said so. And the thread he endorse is so bizarre. Because the USA hurt Muslim before they need to keep silent now when other do it? Who would say that other than people who doesn't care.. if it isn't the best giveaway of all. So I gave you a clear proof that a person, a cofounder of a big left…
So parroting the line of the Economist and US state department makes you a tankie?
> Because the USA hurt Muslim before they need to keep silent now when other do it?
The thread doesn't say they should keep silent, it says they should not apply sanctions (and obviously should not use military force) against China.
> So I gave you a clear proof that a person, a cofounder of a big left alternative media, is clearly a inconsistent tankie who endorse China fully while criticize Israel.
I still don't see him as endorsing China.
Anyway, I concede that the people he attracted in his comments are indeed examples of tankies, and I also found this Gray Media site that fulfills the description you gave.
Still, I will not concede that this is in any way a mainstream opinion in leftist circles. It is a fringe position, and the vast majority of Leftists in Europe and the Americas are generally against all oppressive regimes, including China and Israel occupation of Palestine. Most are much more vocal against human rights abuses than industrialists and billionaires, who could care less as long as their pockets are secure.
The only exception is global warming, where the left realistically sees that China is doing about as well as most industrial countries, and much, much better than the USA. To be fair, I think Israel is also decent on this front, but that is much easier for such a tiny country.
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> If there is no war, what were the Oslo Accords for? To formalize terms of a post-war occupation? But then when was the war? Who surrendered? I explained my perspective on this: after the six-day war, Israel conquered the lands currently forming today's Palestinian territories and occupied them. As with any occupying force anywhere in the world, the occupied people started resisting this occupation. The Oslo accords…
You're missing a factor: 3) The Palestinians, both officially and according to opinion polls, want the land inside the Green Line, and refuse to end their "irregular militancy" (aka: war but you want to pretend their hands are clean) until they get it. This issue becomes more urgent after Israel withdrew all its forces and civilians unilaterally from Gaza in 2005, with a plan to do the same in the West Bank, and gets…
The withdrawal from Gaza was also not some gesture of autonomy towards Palestine as you make it out to be. It was a demographic calculation, again going back to the problem of the Jewish state - the balance of Jewish people and Arabs in Israel was getting too low, so the leadership at the time decided it was more important to stop the colonization effort and bring the Jewish population back into Israel. This was widely reported and the official public reason given at the time.
This policy has also been illegally reversed recently, so new illegal Israeli colonies are again popping up, though I believe mostly in the West Bank.
So, by all possible measures, even if they do not have permanently stationed troops there anymore, Israel is occupying Gaza.
Imagine if China were flying fighter jets over Taiwan, refusing entry to any ships they didn't inspect, refusing to allow concrete or food to be delivered, and had a tight grip on water resources. Further imagine if Chinese troops were freely entering Taiwan and arresting people the regime deemed "terrorists" or simply "problematic", and they were regularly bombing Taiwanese buildings in retaliation for terrorist acts, or just in response to democratic choices they didn't like. Would you not say that China was occupying Taiwan, or at least doing something very very close to it?
It's also important to note that Israel itself does not recognize Palestine as a state, so it is very hard to see by what measure Israel could claim that it is at war with Palestine.
In Poland there was a sort of similar story. Politicians from the opposition, lawyers, “difficult” prosecutors have been spied. A few days ago a special commission started investigation but it consists only from opposition politicians. The ruling far-right party pretends this topic does not exist. It’s a farce.
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> dare criticize it anyhow, you are quickly marked either a) antisemitic I don't think this is a good representation of anti-anti-Israel debate. The opposite of antisemitism is equality, where there is no "special" treatment of either Jews or Israel. Anyone can criticize Israel for its policies, provided they also criticize other states that have similar policies and not "single out" Israel as such. If only Israel is…
Israel gets singled out because it's a (very) close US ally and therefore should be under more criticism than the average country.
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But isn't that just a roundabout way of describing whataboutism?
Any claim to fair and equal treatment can be dismissed with "whataboutism". "Why I [female/transgender/black/etc.] receive half of what that straight white dude gets?" — "That's whataboutism."
"Why do that woman receive half of what that straight white dude gets?" - "Why are you asking? Why aren't you asking about the black dude get only a quarter?"
THAT is whataboutism. Implying you shouldn't make remarks (about a woman's wage, about Israel, ...) without also taking other cases (transgenders, blacks, China) into account is whataboutism: using a claim to fair and equal treatment as a way to avoid having to answer an isolated question.
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Its a bit easier for Israel - if you are an outsider (99.9% of mankind) and dare criticize it anyhow, you are quickly marked either a) antisemitic or b) supporting islamic terrorism, or some mix of those. Nobody wants to touch that with 10 foot pole in woke era.
Oh yeah its so hard to criticize Israel, never read something bad about Israel. It's all praise and compliments in the media. Did you know most religious Jews around the world are afraid to walk with religious clothes because they're afraid to get beat up? They don't wanna be called child killers or dirty jews or something of that sort. This is happening now even in very woke cities like NY or London.
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And anyone who thinks their own country isnt doing the same is deluded! The Security Services has to protect a country which means getting involved in everything, organised crime as well as business, and then when they feel things need to change direction, the security services have the tools aka blackmail information to make that change happen... in most cases!
I'm only aware of one case where the US government, without warrant, actively hacked its own citizens using a 0day, which was when the FBI exploited a 0day to compromise users of TOR who, as I recall, were looking to access CSAM. Even when going after a bunch of pedophiles I think there was a good bit of controversy there. I think there may actually have been a warrant for some part of the access, idk. I'm not saying…
Emphasis mine.