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‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

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Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#621

Post by giardini »

abirch wrote: post #455
BigHatLogan wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really well said. I would even go further and say that the "smart people with expertise" even disagree on matters like this and are operating on imperfect, vague information. Knowing that, it seems even more ridiculous to ask passersby about their opinion on this. Of course you can have an opinion, but keep in mind you're likely operating in 99% fog. Just my two cents.

I love Tetlock's "Super Forecasting" Basically experts only do slightly better than random on predicting in their area of expertise.

What does Tetlock say about the utility of expert forecasting?

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#622

Post by tome »

ben_w wrote: post #596
tome wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect most Israelis think differently. Even if "the arabs in the region are bad at fighting" they still outnumber the Israeli population by something like 20 to 40 times, depending on how you count. About one Israeli was killed for every three Hamas fighters on Oct 7, and it's not an exact comparison for many reasons, but hopefully it provides some perspective. EDIT: There are a couple of axes that helped me get…

> About one Israeli was killed for every three Hamas fighters on Oct 7, and it's not an exact comparison for many reasons, but hopefully it provides some perspective. During a surprise attack. The conflict that was started by Oct 7, according to Wikipedia, has seen 81,526+ dead on the Palestinian and associated side*, vs. 2,053 on the Israeli side. That said, from the point of view of your edit: the ratio is irreleva…

> During a surprise attack.

Yes indeed, I'm talking about the surprise attack phase. (Israel has experienced a surprise attack before that has put its continued existence in question: the Yom Kippur war.) And in fact, looking at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_7_attacks

it seems as though the ratio was closer to 3:2.

In any case, Israel is surrounded by a hostile population of hundreds of millions (yes, still hostile despite the cold peace treaty it has with Egypt and the lukewarm one it has with Jordan), and it itself numbers about 10 million. So it is outnumbered by double figures to one.

I certainly don't see Israel's continued existence as guaranteed despite "nukes" and despite "American support" and despite having the "nth most powerful army in the world". And that point of view has helped me to understand the conflict like no other explanation.

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#623

Post by lelanthran »

fahhem wrote: post #554
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #492

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They shouldn't but the harsh reality is that we all suffer for the mistakes of our leaders. Put bad people in power (Hamas) and everyone pays.

Under 7% of Palestinians in Gaza (before losing 1-3% of their population in this genocide) voted for Hamas. The rest either didn't vote for them, or are too young to have voted. Should the US be nuked because ~51% voted for Trump (or Bush, Obama, Clinton, pick the one you hate)?

> Should the US be nuked because ~51% voted for Trump (or Bush, Obama, Clinton, pick the one you hate)?

During a declared wartime? It happens. I mean, what can you do? It's war!

The allies didn't care that there were non-nazis when they carpet-bombed Dresden, nor did the US care that Hiroshima and Nagasaki possibly had large numbers of people against the Japanese rulers.

So, yeah, should the US enter a hot war against a sovereign government that can strike back, that government will not care that only 51% of the population voted for the current US government.

That's how war works, and that's why no one (short of actually insane blood-thirsty killers who are in it only to see corpses) wants to escalate a cold war to a hot war. If a population collectively elects leaders who provoke an escalation into a hot war, they can't very well be surprised at the response.

OTOH, the US voting population has not had first-hand experience with a hot boots-on-the-ground-invasion war, hence they can be so cavalier about their choice of rulers. They haven't seen first-hand the result of engaging in war.

The Palestinians and Israelis, however, have plenty of first-hand experience of the horrors of war, so those bastards have no excuse for supporting pro-war leaders.

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#624

Post by ohdeargodno »

streptomycin wrote: post #447
istjohn wrote: post #428

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the "Jewish" in Jewish state that lies at the root of the conflict, isn't it? There aren't many options to maintain a dominant ethnic identity in a democracy when the land the nation was founded on was already inhabited by people who don't share in that identity. The only option is to either cede that ethnic identity or to engage in mass displacement and disenfranchisement. It's exceedingly subtle the way ethno-…

There are currently about 40 countries that have a higher Muslim percentage than Israel's Jewish percentage. Many of them much higher. Many of them kicked out all their Jews in recent history.

Just as a confirmation, how many of those muslim countries are actively in the process of murdering, starving, dehumanising and destroying every single building the jews living in an open air prison ?

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#625

Post by ben_w »

tome wrote: post #574
fahhem wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who de-escalated the 12 day war? Iran did, the "Ayatollahs". Who has a religious decree against nuclear weapons since they cannot be used without massacring civilians? Iran, the Ayatollah, not Israel and it's 3 digits of nukes that it threatens to use all the time.

> Who has a religious decree against nuclear weapons since they cannot be used without massacring civilians? Did Iran kill any civilians when they bombarded Israel with ballistic missiles a few weeks ago? > Israel and it's 3 digits of nukes that it threatens to use all the time. When did Israel threaten to use nukes?

I don't trust the Iranian government, not for any deeply researched reason but because basically everyone I meet who talks about them says that government is not trustworthy. Some of those people are themselves Iranians, and one told me that the Iranian government is speaking literally when describing the USA as "the Great Satan" (and Israel as the little satan).

But: there is a big difference between "we killed some people while targeting actual military assets" and "this city we levelled, it was full of civilians as well as a handful of valid military assets, and now it doesn't exist".

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#626

Post by tome »

PontifexMinimus wrote: post #578
tome wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe Israel's continued existence is assured?

No, because of their own behaviour. Israel might well lose the support of the USA and Europe, and if that happened the continued existence of their state would be far from certain.

Do you think Israel is acting against its own survival?

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#627

Post by giardini »

bluecheese452 wrote: post #502
brentm wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here though is what will ever give Israel confidence that Oct 7 will never happen again? We know that going after terrorists for years and killing them just creates more terrorists (Iraq, Afghanistan). The young children who do not end up dying of starvation will be men in 20 years, still in Gaza with no options to leave and resent Israel who they will consider to be effectively their jailer. The situatio…

We don’t know this. There are several wealthy nations that have produced many terrorists and several poor nations that have produced none. The most famous terrorist in history was a wealthy man from a wealthy nation.

Whom do you refer to as "the most famous terrorist in history"?

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#628

Post by cm2012 »

steinvakt2 wrote: post #462
cm2012 wrote: post #425

I am in full support of Israel's actions in Gaza, but think Israel is completely out of line and breaking the law with their settlers actions in the West Bank.

As a Norwegian, it is absolutely baffling how someone can seriously utter the words "I am in full support of Israel's actions in Gaza". Is the media coverage that different in USA than in Europe? How is it possible?

I try very hard to find credible primary and secondary sources of what's true on the ground. For Gaza, but also for Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, I am basically a nerd about conflict zones. From all of my research, I believe the IDF gets a bad rap but is no worse in Gaza than any Western army would be in the same situation. And indeed we can see that in dug in cities like the coalition forces vs ISIS in Mosul, civilian casulaties happened at quite similar rates to Gaza.

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#629

Post by halflife »

kjkjadksj wrote: post #609
halflife wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

As unfortunate as it is, genocides and persecution based on ethnicity or religious orientation are not unique to the Jewish experience. In either case the solution is to target these actions and these policies. The existence of the state of Israel does nothing to further action against these efforts, if what you allege about entire cities in Europe is indeed true. Israel seems to not protect the European Jew at all,…

I presume you misunderstand the purpose of the Jewish state. It’s not to protect Jews living in europe from persecution, it’s to provide a safe haven from persecution. Without site they have no where to go when things get bad. And things to bad many times for Jews in the past 2500 years since their exile.

Thinking that the world isn’t tribal is naive, most of it is. Not living as a jew probably doesn’t give you the same perspective, we get daily articles about antisemitism around the world. Be it synagogue firebombs in Australia or Canada, Jewish schools getting shot at in USA, a Jew was refused service in a restaurant in Italy, another Jew had his ear torn off by a Syrian refugee in Athens, and there’s plenty more accounts. If you’re not exposed to that you have no idea how it feels. But I guess that Jews are “white” and can’t be discriminated against, or if they do, they deserve it.

Re: ‘No Other Land’ consultant Awdah Hathaleen killed by Israeli settler

#630

Post by ivape »

homefree wrote: post #595
swat535 wrote: post #205

Can someone living in Israel help me understand what is going on right now? What does the political climate look like in Israel? Do majority of people support what is happening, if so why? if not, how is the government executing this? Further, has this had any impact on the overall relationship between Jewish people worldwide and those residing in Israel? if so, how? I know that the media is all over the place and it…

Basically nothing portrayed by the main stream media / international press on this issue is accurately represented. Most of it is either wildly ignorant or actively hostile (or both). The Free Press, Call Me Back (podcast), and Breaking Israeli History (podcast) do a good job. Also we will dance again and October 8 (films). I'd also recommend Douglas Murray's On Democracies and Death Cults to get some perspective if…

Okay, you figured it out. Explain this one to me:

https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-gaza-destruction...

We would consider someone fucking uneducated if in 2025 they tried to justify the Iraq/Afghanistan war. The same will be true for everything you wrote as time goes on.

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