Israel vs Hamas (2 Viewers)

[GrandAdmiral]

Looks like the fight is on with Israeli soldiers and civilians amongst the dead already. Question becomes, how long before we get dragged into this?

Netanyahu says Israel is ‘at war’ after Hamas launches surprise attack, takes hostages | CNN

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the country was “at war” on Saturday, after Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a deadly barrage of rockets and sent gunmen into Israeli territory in a major escalation of the long running conflict between the two sides.

www.cnn.com

 

[MT15]

Please. HAMAS is a terrorist organization whose goals are reprehensible. Why would would ask what you have after reading this: "HAMAS may in the end fail in any goals we see now through the fog of war, but it's main goal(s)? Time will tell. Many wars that have been won, had a history of battles lost along the way." is troubling.

Could you explain how your question(s) relate to my comment?

You seemed to talk about Hamas’ goals as if they were attainable, and you said they “may” fail.

I have seen a lot of people lately acting as if Hamas are “freedom fighters” and somehow not culpable for what they have done and what they say they will do.

Just trying to clarify where you are coming from, that’s all.

 

[Virgil]

You seemed to talk about Hamas’ goals as if they were attainable, and you said they “may” fail.

I have seen a lot of people lately acting as if Hamas are “freedom fighters” and somehow not culpable for what they have done and what they say they will do.

Just trying to clarify where you are coming from, that’s all.

HAMAS' goals as an organization and those of the recent attack. There are strategy and tactics.

Anyone who sees HAMAS as freedom fighters are seriously ignorant, willfully blind, and intellectually incapable of distinctions. Yet I see the same with supporters of the Kahane-types, the ultra-crazed Settlers, the ones who see it all as Biblical. People supporting one of the two sides of an evil coin. The HAMAS and the Kahane-types, the ultra-crazed Settlers have seriously evil agendas -- wiping out a whole population from the face of the area.

 

[MT15]

HAMAS' goals as an organization and those of the recent attack. There are strategy and tactics.

Anyone who sees HAMAS as freedom fighters are seriously ignorant, willfully blind, and intellectually incapable of distinctions. Yet I see the same with supporters of the Kahane-types, the ultra-crazed Settlers, the ones who see it all as Biblical. People supporting one of the two sides of an evil coin. The HAMAS and the Kahane-types, the ultra-crazed Settlers have seriously evil agendas -- wiping out a whole population from the face of the area.

I agree completely.

 

[Virgil]

I agree completely.

I would hope so. I believe I'm a very rational person.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

This is what you get when radicals are allowed in your government:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suspended far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu on Sunday after he suggested dropping an atomic bomb on Gaza was a possible way to deal with the threat from Hamas...

...“There’s no such thing as innocents in Gaza.”

Netanyahu sharply rebuked the comment, saying they were “not based in reality” and stressing Israel’s commitment to abide by international law and avoid unnecessary deaths.

...Opposition Leader Yair Lapid called on Netanyahu to fire Eliyahu in a Sunday morning statement on X, calling the remarks “shocking and crazy” and saying his extremist position “endangers” Israeli society and the way its viewed across the world.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/4294715-netanyahu-suspends-minister-who-suggested-dropping-nuclear-bomb-on-gaza/

The opposition leader is right, dude should have been fired but Netanyahu only suspends him.

 

[RobF]

What is missing is a fact check on if there were any HAMAS fighters hiding amongst the Palestinian civilian population. Nay times often under the population, in the tunnels. I ask this, not because I am a fan of the Israeli campaign, but because of past history. HAMAS uses civilians as shields. It's a strategy that often helps their fighters at the expense of innocent Palestinian lives and factual truths.

I'm not sure it's accurate to describe Hamas as using civilians as shields at this point. Shields would imply that they protect them, because their opposition refused to attack them if it risked harming the civilians. But that's not what's happening. E.g. from that article:

"An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, brought in after the strike."

When the civilians just get blown up with them, assuming there were Hamas fighters hiding there, that's not protection, is it. That's not a shield. That's a sacrifice.

 

[MT15]

I'm not sure it's accurate to describe Hamas as using civilians as shields at this point. Shields would imply that they protect them, because their opposition refused to attack them if it risked harming the civilians. But that's not what's happening. E.g. from that article:

"An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, brought in after the strike."

When the civilians just get blown up with them, assuming there were Hamas fighters hiding there, that's not protection, is it. That's not a shield. That's a sacrifice.

Yes. They may have been hoping they would be shields, but they are happy to sacrifice them. They know that every dead Palestinian child is a boon for them. And because Israel saw fit to put a right wing government into power, they are obliging Hamas by providing them what they want.

There isn’t any good side in this. What I cannot understand is someone who is supposedly on the left looking at what is going on in Israel, and saying yeah, I’m not going to vote for Biden, even if that means that the US will get someone even worse than Netanyahu.

There will never be a perfect candidate that gives you everything you want. You have to go with the best of the two, otherwise we will get the worst, and we have already seen how bad that can be.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

I think the Israelis have it wrong. People are not protesting to support Hamas. They are protesting to support the innocent victims caught in the crossfire. And they definitely need to protest Netanyahu.

The world is turning against Israel’s war in Gaza – and many Israelis don’t understand why | CNN

Yoav Peled says he has started wondering if the world has gone mad.

www.cnn.com

 

[UriUT]

Terrific Interview. Explains the forced expulsion narrative from both sides.

 

[Taurus]

Terrific Interview. Explains the forced expulsion narrative from both sides.

I can't listen at work right now, but is this the one where the Hamas rep says they've never forced anyone to stay, nor interfered with evacuating Palestinians. What they've done is remind them that every time a Palestinian leaves his home, he's never allowed to return.

 

[UriUT]

I can't listen at work right now, but is this the one where the Hamas rep says they've never forced anyone to stay, nor interfered with evacuating Palestinians. What they're done is remind them that every time a Palestinian leaves his home, he's never allowed to return.

No. This is an interview of a NY times bureau chief, shipler, long ago detailing the relevance of that 1948 war. Israel claims they didn't forcefully expel palestinians, rather the process was simply a part of war. Well, that isn't completely correct as the Israeli did partially do it, and had even carried out mass killing of whole villages similarly to the Vietnam war's my lai massacre. And the Palestinian narrative isn't entirely correct as some Palestinians were allowed to return. But yes, a good number weren't allowed to return.

 

[Heathen]

I think the Israelis have it wrong. People are not protesting to support Hamas. They are protesting to support the innocent victims caught in the crossfire. And they definitely need to protest Netanyahu.

The world is turning against Israel’s war in Gaza – and many Israelis don’t understand why | CNN

Yoav Peled says he has started wondering if the world has gone mad.

www.cnn.com

This is what it always has been, at scale.

I think some who have certain viewpoints challenged wish to demonize the other side. It's a tactic but not a very honest one.

 

[SaintForLife]

So the contract with the UAE is very specific. Did you read it?

Does it bother you that your sources are categorically lying about Rothkopf? His group that has a contract with UAE does NOT lobby for UAE. Yet he labels him a lobbyist. It’s totally dishonest and it’s not the first time this has happened with your sources.

Does it not bother you that you are reading a bunch of people and taking their word about other people that they are constantly trying to discredit without doing any reading at all to see if what they say is actually true? Ask yourself this: what kind of person tries to convince people that everyone else is lying and they are the only source of truth?

Yet, you take whatever your sources say at face value. It should be noted that whatever Rothkopf’s company does for UAE, which I will show you in a minute, doesn’t affect his personal opinion on the war. That you would even introduce this is just exceedingly tangential. It has nothing to do with anything he posted in that thread that I am sure you didn’t even read.

Here is what the contract that TRG has with UAE covers, this is from their government filing:


Here is exactly what they do for UAE:

The FARA document you posted is from 2021. His initial FARA document was from 2018 and it didn't say what the document you posted listed. Here is the one from 2018:

https://efile.fara.gov/docs/6596-Exhibit-AB-20180927-1.pdf

This was a good part from the 2018 article:

But – unbelievably – Rothkopf has the audacity to criticize Trump for having “repeatedly shown great fondness for foreign leaders—even despots and known murderers, human rights abusers and criminals”, while Rothkopf himself is literally a paid agent working to disseminate propaganda for one of the most repressive regimes on the planet, one that does much of the Saudis’ dirty work for it in Washington. And the fact that the Daily Beast makes no disclosure of any of this is what makes this practice – having paid lobbyists and consultants for foreign regimes and corporations masquerade as objective and neutral analysts of the news – such a massive journalistic scandal and fraud.

As the Intercept has extensively reported by obtaining his emails, the UAE ambassador who agreed to pay Rothkopf, Yousef al-Otaiba, is one of the most sinister influence-peddlers in Washington. If Daily Beast readers had been told who Rothkopf really is and how he makes large amounts of money, they would have known that he’s one of the least credible people on the planet to sanctimoniously denounce those who harbor “great fondness for foreign leaders—even despots and known murderers, human rights abusers and criminals.” But because Rothkopf’s work for UAE tyrants was concealed by the Daily Beast, readers would have no way of knowing that.

MSNBC and Daily Beast Feature UAE Lobbyist David Rothkopf With No Disclosure: a Scandalous Media-Wide Practice

This is as extreme a perversion of journalism as can be imagined, yet it pervades the nation's largest corporate media outlets.

theintercept.com

From Rothkopf to CSIS to the Atlantic Council, one simple way those worried about "democratic backsliding" can fight authoritarianism is to stop cashing checks from authoritarians.

Rothkopf’s role is particularly damaging because the UAE is invested in representing itself as one of the more tolerant and progressive Gulf monarchies, when it is anything but. The country is known for unjustly imprisoning human rights activists and dissidents, holding them for long stretches of time in squalid conditions, subjecting them to torture and isolation (abuse that is also prevalent in the U.S.), and denying prisoners treatment for HIV and AIDS. Among those detained is rights activist Ahmed Mansoor, who was arrested in 2017 for publishing “false information that harms national unity” on social media. The UAE is also known for its abusive treatment of migrant workers, who comprise more than four fifths of the population, including widespread wage theft and binding workers to their employers. Women have few rights and protections, and LGBTQ people, as well as people who have sex outside of their marriage—or are merely suspected of this—face dire punishment and criminalization.

Rothkopf has addressed this blatant hypocrisy one time before, in Oct 2018, after close UAE ally Saudi Arabia murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, prompting criticism of Rothkopf from then-Intercept columnist Glenn Greenwald. Rothkopf insisted in his cursory Twitter thread that his taking over $800,000 a year from the Gulf monarchy didn’t affect his “independence,” as if this was the problem. Rothkopf was cheerleading Trump’s cynical UAE-Israel “peace agreement” last year and has soft-pedalled the UAE Yemen siege, but even if he didn’t, the issue of “influence” is a non sequitur. Everyone who takes large checks from suspect sources—whether weapons makers, dictatorships, or billionaires—claim they are, in fact, rogue independents unaffected by the money.

The charge isn’t that Rothkopf is secretly being paid to pepper his commentary with pro-UAE talking points. It’s that he openly works doing PR for a horrific regime. This is bad in and of itself. In addition to wildly overcharging to make a podcast no one listens to for the UAE foreign minister, one of Rothkopf’s tasks over the past few years was helping the UAE map out the P.R. for their “50th anniversary celebration,” while UAE-supported Saudi bombing campaigns continued to level Yemeni school buses.

David Rothkopf Continues To Promote Himself as a “Democracy” Advocate While Taking Millions From Oppressive Gulf Dictatorship

From Rothkopf to CSIS to the Atlantic Council, one simple way those worried about "democratic backsliding" can fight authoritarianism is to stop cashing checks from authoritarians.

www.columnblog.com

It's hilarious that you think that the money he gets from the UAE doesn't affect his opinion.

You guys claim that Greenwald is paid by Russia while you are posting tweets from a literal foreign agent of a repressive regime.

 

[MT15]

What part of his statement that his agency does not and never have lobbied for UAE is that you don’t get? They produce some podcasts about UAE, that’s it. They don’t lobby. But even if the agency did, what part of the thread I posted shows that he is being influenced by UAE? You didn’t even read what he said, did you? You just attack for some reason, maybe even just because I posted it.

As usual you will give the people you like a complete pass, even when they post actual propaganda straight from the Kremlin. And condemn this guy without any substance whatsoever.

 

[Virgil]

I'm not sure it's accurate to describe Hamas as using civilians as shields at this point. Shields would imply that they protect them, because their opposition refused to attack them if it risked harming the civilians. But that's not what's happening. E.g. from that article:

"An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, brought in after the strike."

When the civilians just get blown up with them, assuming there were Hamas fighters hiding there, that's not protection, is it. That's not a shield. That's a sacrifice.

Civilian population is protecting the HAMAS fighters. The fighters are not going out to meet their enemy.

The HAMAS fighters had no problem going out to meet unarmed civilians though. and the 'children' 'babies' bs is nauseating. Everyone seems to be using the victims for political/ideological cheap points.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Right move or wrong move, especially for the 22 Democrats who voted with the Republicans?

Tlaib again faces censure resolutions over Israel comments | CNN Politics

Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib is again facing Republican-led efforts to censure her over comments critical of Israel and in support of Palestinians amid Israel’s war against Hamas.

www.cnn.com

 

[RobF]

Civilian population is protecting the HAMAS fighters. The fighters are not going out to meet their enemy.

The HAMAS fighters had no problem going out to meet unarmed civilians though.

The use of a wildly inappropriate crying-laughing emoji speaks volumes here.

The point was the civilian population isn't offering any protection. Because they're just being killed too. Which is bad.

But you seem to be suggesting that it's not wrong to kill innocent people, as long as you think you're killing some guilty people at the same time. Is that accurate?

and the 'children' 'babies' bs is nauseating. Everyone seems to be using the victims for political/ideological cheap points.

The reference to children and babies here was a direct, pertinent, quote from the article:

"An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, brought in after the strike."

It's confirmation that innocent people, who were not Hamas fighters, were killed. Unless you think perhaps all the children, including the baby, were Hamas fighters.

So perhaps you could explain why, exactly, you think that is 'bs'.

Because the only reason I can see is that you want to dismiss the fact and significance of that happening. For political/ideological reasons.

And that really is nauseating.

 

[Virgil]

The use of a wildly inappropriate crying-laughing emoji speaks volumes here.

The point was the civilian population isn't offering any protection. Because they're just being killed too. Which is bad.

But you seem to be suggesting that it's not wrong to kill innocent people, as long as you think you're killing some guilty people at the same time. Is that accurate?


The reference to children and babies here was a direct, pertinent, quote from the article:

"An AP reporter at a nearby hospital saw eight dead children, including a baby, brought in after the strike."

It's confirmation that innocent people, who were not Hamas fighters, were killed. Unless you think perhaps all the children, including the baby, were Hamas fighters.

So perhaps you could explain why, exactly, you think that is 'bs'.

Because the only reason I can see is that you want to dismiss the fact and significance of that happening. For political/ideological reasons.

And that really is nauseating.

I suggest no such thing.

The reporter and others are selling ads by playing on 'children' 'babies' and it sux. The reporter themself may also have an agenda, as opposed to a bias. Your Nausea is amusing. Why? You keep imagining you've taken some high road and are using straw men to mount a personal attack on me. For what? I don't know. But you come across as emotionally unstable here. Hope I'm wrong.