401–410 of 586 posts
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This is what I ask everyone who thinks October 7 was an attack launched by Hamas of its own volition. Anyone who's been to and seen the Gaza border knows how impossible it is to cross - unless of course there was some inside permittance.
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In part it's because they have the best intelligence apparatus in the world. I'm very impressed at how far above their weight they're punching.
If you can see enough of what an intelligence apparatus is doing to be impressed I'd say they're not doing a very good job. What they seem to be most unique in is the impunity of their operations, like when they assassinated a completely innocent guy in Norway, of all places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
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> Everybody within the actual borders can vote Unless you're a Palestinian in illegally annexed Jerusalem... Then you don't have citizenship and have to keep proving that you live and work in Jerusalem to avoid losing the residency rights.
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And if we go back further: If Abraham existed, then like 99.9% of all living humans are descendants of Abraham. Do they all have claim to Israel's land then?
It doesn't make sense to look back that far.
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>But let’s not be under any illusion as to what the Iran regime was and still is - an authoritarian theocracy that backs numerous proxy terrorist groups across Asia. And let’s not be under any illusion as to what the Isaeli regime was and still is - an authoritarian theocracy that has slaughtered more women and children in the last year than all of the terrorist groups in the world combined.
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These threads are always fun. The mental gymnastics of the Israeli "splainers" will never fail to amaze me. Israelsplainers perhaps. I want to say that it's just Netanyahu who needs to go away but it's actually much, much more than just him. The tide is shifting methinks and rightly so (and finally).
> Israelsplainers perhaps The Israeli wumao: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbara Hasbara has no direct English translation, but roughly means "explaining". It is a communicative strategy that "seeks to explain actions, whether or not they are justified". [...] In its 2025 budget, Israel planned to spend $150 million on hasbara, a 20-fold increase. In the 2026 budget, NIS 2.35 billion (about $730 million) has been a…
That page is probably the most perfect demonstration of any concept which exists on Wikipedia
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> liberal democracy With a big honking caveat-asterisk that it only applies if you're on the right side of the apartheid.
Well, on the right side of the border. Everybody within the actual borders can vote, regardless of race, religion, etc. In a lot of ways it's a more democratic system than the US has, with multiple functioning parties. The "apartheid" part is the people in the West Bank and Gaza, who are not Israeli but also not their own country.
> A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., said in a statement that it is “completely false” that Israel spies on the U.S. “Israel does not gather intelligence on American entities, let alone US government officials,” the spokesperson said. “Israel intelligence collection efforts are aimed at its enemies, not its allies. Any claims to the contrary are either misinformed or politically motivated.” N…
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This is what I ask everyone who thinks October 7 was an attack launched by Hamas of its own volition. Anyone who's been to and seen the Gaza border knows how impossible it is to cross - unless of course there was some inside permittance.
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Reminder:
* The last parlimentary election held in Palestine was 2006 [1].
* The median age in Palestine as of 2023 was 19.8 [2].
* The voting age in Palestine is 21 [1].
In other words, the majority of the population today were born after the last major election, and they aren't voting age now, let alone at the time of the last election. When you account for people who were voting age in the last elections, the number of people still around today is a rather small minority. It shrinks even further when you consider that Hamas only got 44% of the votes for Parliament (alas, due to how district votes are handled, that gave Hamas 74 of 132 seats).
Given that, I'm a little less sure about holding the current population of Palestine responsible for Hamas. You could argue they should be doing more to displace Hamas, but perhaps that can wait until after they're done worrying about starving to death or being shot by IDF snipers while accepting food from aid workers.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Palestine
2. https://ourworldindata.org/profile/population-demography/pal...
See also: https://www.snopes.com/news/2023/11/01/majority-palestinians...
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In part it's because they have the best intelligence apparatus in the world. I'm very impressed at how far above their weight they're punching.
The best intelligence apparatus in the world missed the Oct 7 planning which Egyptian intelligence noticed, told the Israelis about directly, and still went ignored?
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They seem to be heading towards control of the strait, and the tolls from that could be a pretty good pickup for whatever new government forms?
Not sure how the gulf states on the other side of the strait are going to feel about that.