Is there a country that doesn't do this?
[deleted]
Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
511–520 of 807 posts
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#512Earlier quoted context omitted.
At no point did Filipinos have the ability to vote for Senators, Congressmen, or the President. Same for Puerto Ricans. US has other territories too, by the way, with the same restrictions. You have no problem calling the US a democracy, but when the same rules are applied elsewhere you have a problem?
The people of PR voted against becoming a State.
And if they hadn't, would that make the US less of a democratic republic? Not relevant.
Also, see Guam, US Virgin Islands, etc who didn't vote for anything.
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#513Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is it? Pragmatically speaking, who is going to make it end in tears? Nobody in the region really wants a war with Israel: the Arab countries got their fill of it and Iran sure doesn't want to get into an actual war. And if anyone gets any big ideas, there's always Uncle Sam (and Uncle Sam's Western allies; who, btw, include Turkey). I understand that people want to see things put right, but we must understand what wo…
> There are three great powers, the US, China and Russia, and Israel has a um special relation with one of them, whereas none of its enemies do. Things keep going the way they're going, and that special relationship has got twenty years left on the clock, max. I don't think that American support should be taken for granted -- and it's not like Israel is cozying up to the Russians or Chinese. They may well end up like…
I disagree. It is very obvious, as Levitz points out above, that Israel can just cozy up to the Chinese or the Russians if Uncle Sam washes its hands of it, China and Russia who would jump at the chance to gain a foothold in the Middle East, right next door to all those industrial juice springs. If I may.
But even if that were not the case 20 years is plenty of time to cleanse Gaza, and the West Bank with it, of every last Palestinian. I'd say at the current rate it would take hardly a couple years.
Edit: to be fair, I don't know how to compare SA and Israel. Maybe you have a point, but I don't think it's that simple to impose any kind of, essentially, sanctions to Israel as long as Uncle Sam's got its back. That special relation is a pretty big trump card there. And, btw, we're still at a Democratic president. Can you imagine the Republicans letting Israel suffer arms bans and trade embargoes?
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#514Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a very interesting thing, it demonstrates something uncomfortable & scary to me as a goy Zionist, who hangs out in a private, predominantly Jewish, space. Note the biggest word in the cloud: UNRWA. All my confirmation bias was in one direction in October. The oddly dissonant and desperate messaging you'd see made things extremely difficult to maintain that, like, you have to be of a very specific mindset to see…
Out of idle curiosity, how did you arrive at Zionism from a non-jewish and leftist background? That has to be one of the rarest identities to simultaneously associate with.
Thank you for asking, it's sublime to see that you're unique in others eyes, very hard to see yourself
Let me really blow your mind: also, raised very conservative Catholic, didn't do Confirmation, then was Muslim for about 6 years
It's all a long story. Catholic, LGBTQ stuff rubbed me the wrong way and in some of the deepest grace I've seen, my religious educator encourage it.
Muslim, I was essentially on my own once I turned 15 (abusive and absentee parents) and transferred from Catholic school to public school (save $$), and the most welcoming people were foreign, the rest had been in the same classes for a decade. They didn't prostelyize, it was fun going there on Friday nights to play dodge ball, it was little incremental work to show up earlier and it felt good.
Zionist...I swear to God there wasn't a single negative word about Jews or Israel or other religions at either of the 2 mosques I went to. There was a quiet understanding that Palestinians were hurt and that it was a bit melodramatic at times, given they had structural issues on their own side.
In general, I'm an inveterate both sides er, and I'm guessing knowing a lot of avowed older Zionist as well as Muslims makes me feel secure in "ugh there's some extremists / ignorant people in group X" rather than "wow group X is inherently evil"
And now you're making me think maybe the parents have more to do with it than I realize. It took a lot to finally say...wait, no...what they're doing is wrong and I don't owe them anything. As long as I'm thinking things out and rational, I'm doing my best. Adds to the comfort with tendatiousness/both sides and confidence in holding to it.
(Ran out of posts on main, so this is from my old backup when I was gainfully employed at FAANG)
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#515[flagged]
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#516Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think if you read the guide that dang linked to, it is clear that the account is breaking the rules for flamebait.
I have read the guide, although i appreciate reaffirming it as the source of truth. What’s hard is from a glance at the posters history their comments don’t seem to break the guidelines, but instead fall into the camp of spirited (albeit strongly so) opinions. Are there specific comments made that weren’t in the spirit of the guidelines? It feels “primarily for ideological purposes” is hard to counter in a discussion…
[deleted]
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#517Earlier quoted context omitted.
But Israel was not the one that rejected two state solutions offered by UN in 1948, USA in 2000, and by Israel in 1990s, 2008 etc. It was Arab countries, and Palestinian leaders. Why was Palestine not a state before 1967 with Gaza and West bank as territory? How many times have Palestinians offered to recognize and make permanent peace with Israel? Responding to your edit >> If after an independent Palestinian state…
It's questionable that the Western dominated UN of 1948 had any authority to make such a proposal and that it was fair in terms of how the territory was to be divided. > Why was Palestine not a state before 1967 with Gaza and West bank as territory? Because it was occupied by Egypt and Jordan and before then by the Brits and before then by the Ottomans.... Are you making an argument that the Palestinians were occupie…
I will be actually inquisitive now. This is certainly new knowledge for me.
What in the deal made it "less than a state"?
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#518Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Texas enacted a law in May 2017 prohibiting state agencies from signing contracts with companies that boycott Israel.” I’m not particularly happy about that law or similar ones in other states, but what you said is inaccurate.
There's nothing inaccurate about what he said. These laws make it illegal for Americans from boycotting Israel. As an American state employee, organizing a boycott against Israel will get you fired or arrested because allowing it would be breaking the law.
Nope, being illegal means something else. Nobody is going to be fined or go to jail for openly boycotting Israel. An amusement park can boycott Israel, they can say so in big bold letters on their commercials etc, and the state isn’t going to do anything.
Therefore All companies ARE allowed to “boycott energy companies, discriminate against firearm entities or associations, or boycott Israel” https://texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/images/...
Not doing business is something else. States regularly prohibit companies over 500 employees from signing specific contracts, that doesn’t make it illegal to be a company with over 500 employees.
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#519Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Whether or not those people are "threats" shall remain to be seen, but Israel is going to lose (is, already, losing) the hearts and minds of everybody on the planet under age 40 At this point, I think these are not the real power dynamics. I used to think Israel needed western support to exist. I don't do anymore. Now I believe that Israel needs any support, and they are perfectly fine with the idea of allying with…
Take my upvotes. Take them! Guidelines schmidelines! (OK, I only got one).
Take this unsubstantive garbage back to reddit, please.
Re: Israel reportedly used fake social accounts to garner support from US lawmakers
#520Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's fair, i maybe overinterpreted. I can understand why Israelis might be suspicious of the UN. The relationship between UN and Israel seems kind of fraught in a way that isn't true of pretty much any other country. The not allowing israel to fully vote until 2010 (edit: 2014), the (arguably) unequal focus only Israel's human rights record relative to other countries, and the whole UNRWA being totally different wi…
> the (arguably) unequal focus only Israel's human rights record relative to other countries Two thoughts on this: Firstly, every time a country is getting criticized for it's human rights abuses it, like clockwork, raises the spectre of being "unjustly singled out" about it's human rights abuses. To be clear, I would very much like every country on earth that engages in human rights abuses prosecuted for it, includi…
> Firstly, every time a country is getting criticized for it's human rights abuses it, like clockwork, raises the spectre of being "unjustly singled out" about it's human rights abuses.
My favorite one of these is when South Africa would say that the only reason people were angry about Apartheid was their obvious "anti-Boer prejudice." Which sounds stupid, until you remember that the British rounded up Boers and put them into concentration camps. It's still stupid, but if you accept the premise that being abused gives you the right to abuse, it's a claim as legitimate as any other of that type.
> My point is that Israel's existence, in entirety, is violence perpetrated against every country it borders with, it wars with, and who's land it sits upon.
They could have just torn down the walls, and still can. Israelis can call the resulting country Israel, and Palestinians can call it Palestine. It only requires both groups to give up any dreams of theocracy. What made the PLO and Arafat so distasteful to Israeli power players was the fact that they were secular, reasonable, and making moral arguments, not theological ones. People whose goal was to wipe out the Palestinians vastly preferred Hamas.