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We could save a lot of money if we killed fewer people, just saying.
@freemo The domestic politics is horribly conflicted. The Israel lobby remains very powerful, but the Democrats are catching hell from the Left over Palestine. So they are trying to please two masters, and will end up earning the wrath of both.
Which might just hand the Presidency over to Trump.
@mike805 Thats more or less how I see it. The number of **staunch** democrats I have heard refusing to be willing to vote for Biden is amazing and unexpected (to an extent). Most of them dont seem to like the idea of voting for Trump either. But it very well may make an otherwise close election a win for Trump yea.
@mike805 I agree with that. While I certainly cant justify the actions that took place on that day from an objective standpoint it appears to be having the effect that was wanted.
@freemo @mike805 indeed. As it is unsurprising South Africa are leading the world in calling for justice. Israel is an apartheid state and with lack of rights and suppression it was inevitable that tinderbox would alight. Remember Mandela was once considered a terrorist. What Hamas did was deplorable but the response is beyond acceptable.
@Lassielmr @freemo Mandela was a terrorist. He was caught with a bunch of bomb making material and plans to use it. Hamas are also terrorists.
And both the old South Africa and present day Israel use police state terror tactics to keep their minority populations under control.
This is inevitable when you have incompatible populations forced into conflict. The more powerful one will use police state measures. The oppressed side will use terrorism. The hatreds will sustain each other.
@mike805 @Lassielmr @freemo he was indeed. Every single freedom fighter in history has been called a terrorist by those they are trying to break away from. Their actions may be abhorrent to us not involved, but when that freedom is eventually achieved and history looks back there is a trail of evidence that it was never once sided. My own maternal grandparents fought for Irish Independence. My father a German Jewish holocaust survivor. Oppression runs deep in my family.
While I wouldnt say the ends justify the means to me I would rather look at it as a seperation between the response one should expect (due to human nature) vs the response that is civil and follows the "rules".
The terrorist attack in OCt from Palestine cant morally be justified in isolation, neither can the genocide inflicted on them in the years leading up to this. But while their legitimately terroristic response was morally wrong, it is exactly the response one should expect when you carry out genocide on a population. That doesnt make it excusable, but it makes it understandable.
Much like how if you abuse a person enough and they eventually snap and misbehave. Their misbehavior is still wrong, and its fine to hold them accountable to it. But the abuser should have expected the response and doesnt get to play the victim now either.
@Lassielmr @freemo The American revolutionaries were called terrorists. The British generals had a bad habit of sitting on their horses 200 yards away to watch and direct a battle.
Against Americans with long rifles, that was not far enough! In one battle two of them got picked off. The Americans could care less about noble status, and to the Brits that made them terrorists.
@freemo The Oct 7 attack is looking like a strategic victory for Hamas in one sense.
Israel's response has destroyed the Holocaust-survivor shield that has made Israel untouchable all these years.
If Israel loses international support, it is a small country surrounded by more angry young men than it has bullets.
Hamas "attacked the enemy's strategy" as Sun Tzu advises. Israel did exactly what Hamas wanted them to do in response.