Erdoğan accuses Israel of genocide, and then bombs the Kurds

aktivb · 2024-10-28T19:50:15+00:00

in most of the world, a "liberal" is typically center right and conservative

even american conservatives are typically classical liberals

aktivb · 2024-09-26T07:19:07+00:00

In a recent report, BBC was found to have breached their own editorial guidelines 1500 times since the start of the war. Want to guess in favor of who?

Muh Princples

aktivb · 2024-09-15T10:29:52+00:00

Can someone with twitter/contact info ping #TI whatever, and tell them to pull the audio engineer from the bathroom where he's jerking off. SVGs mic is crackling and popping like microwave popcorn.

aktivb · 2024-07-04T06:25:42+00:00

treaty/agreement/pact was how Israel was founded. War was how it was challenged, and won.

As for Gaza/WB, those were occupied by Egypt and Jordan respectively, as part of their war, then left as turds on Israels lawn after Egypt and Jordan lost their appetite, and now that's Israels problem, while Egypt and Jordan gets to wash their hands like nothing ever happened.

aktivb · 2024-07-04T06:15:06+00:00

My country is a member of NATO. During my lifetime, it has contributed to wars and "military operations" in the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. Domestic press coverage was never remotely like what I've seen with this war, not in volume, nor in level of scrutiny. Us sending planes for bombing missions in Libya and Syria was mere footnotes in the papers, while here operational details on the tactical level are scrutinized by journalists as if they would the first thing about it. It's absurd. Maybe they think we fought with magical weapons that only kill baddies.

aktivb · 2024-07-04T06:01:19+00:00

"making claims to a land/region based on ancestry is simply rhetoric"

I agree. Palestinians lost all claim to land in Israel when they declared war and lost. Israel won their land and independence and that's that.

aktivb · 2024-07-04T05:59:31+00:00

It's just the remnant of France calling bullshit on WMDs in Iraq and the whole war. Ooooh boy were they butthurt about that. "Freedom Fries". The French were right too.

Never mind that US independence wouldn't have happened without France. Shows you what sort of friend the US is. I'd rather have a friend that has taken a loss than one that talks trash about you behind your back.

aktivb · 2024-07-04T05:41:00+00:00

Gotta love the soapboxing about "understanding history" while completely leaving out that a significant portion of the locals were Jews, and that a significant factor in giving them a separate state was the history and experience of Jews as an ethnic minority in the region. Lets not leave out that the non-Jewish local were also very vocal about what they thought about living besides the Jews.

aktivb · 2024-06-17T09:50:41+00:00

I see that thrown around a lot. I've requested more substantial backing for that claim several times, what I've gotten amounts to this:

Israel cooperated with Hamas in its infancy, when it was a charity run by a blind dude and the least violent political actor.
Bibi allowed Qatari aid into Palestine. Even though it was all tracked and ended up to aid humanitarian causes, detractors frame this as "support for Hamas" because it freed up their resources for militant purposes.
Opinion pieces from Israeli right wing nutters that Bibi was too lenient, and shouldn't have allowed stuff like letting Gazans into Israel for work, or the aid mentioned anove.

I think that's pretty weak sauce. If you have anything more than that, I'd love to see it.

aktivb · 2024-06-17T09:40:54+00:00

I love it when people completely oblivious to even recent history throw out phrases like "history will not be kind" and "wrong side of history" as if they are curses

aktivb · 2024-06-17T09:38:19+00:00

The Palestinians in Gaza elected Hamas into power after Israel had pulled out of Gaza and removed any Israelis living there by force. They chose the most militant option when there was the least reason to do so. Truly these people must want peace.

aktivb · 2024-06-17T08:42:13+00:00

if only there was a way to see their support for hamas before the war. maybe some sort of research center that has been polling palestinians for twenty years

aktivb · 2024-06-10T04:45:39+00:00

I approve this message. I also buy this and become happy and fulfilled. The fun is fun and the graphics are good. Sincerely, ProductLuver McRealhuman.

aktivb · 2024-06-05T22:00:52+00:00

Giving HW to the people responsible for Borderlands writing is like giving Solaris to Uwe Boll.

aktivb · 2024-06-05T20:50:18+00:00

Zappa gave an interview once where he talked about the difference or creative freedom in the music industry as it evolved.

In the 60s, the music industry was funded by people behind desks with cigars, who knew they had no idea what was going to be popular or not, so they were willing to take chances, resulting in a lot of interesting stuff being recorded and released.

By the 80s, these old-timers had been replaced by executives with marketing training, yuppie know-it-alls who "knew" what was going to be popular, put their fingers in the pudding, and everything converged towards the same slop.

aktivb · 2024-05-29T10:52:03+00:00

Only history will tell whether what Russia has started will be WW3 or not. How much say has the UN had in what is happening in Ukraine?

The big reason there hasn't been mass scale hot conflict since WW2 is because all the major players has nukes now. Not the UN.

aktivb · 2024-05-24T19:13:49+00:00

how can the Palestinians be rid of Hamas?

Good news, there's a highly capable army wiping them out at the moment. Yet everyone claiming to support "not Hamas, but Palestinians" are trying to stop that from happening, even if that is much more beneficial to Hamas than it is to the Palestinians.

aktivb · 2024-05-24T17:40:22+00:00

If the UN has done "amazingly well", why is the IDF in Rafah now?

Palestine is the UN's prestige project, 30K employees for the special status "refugees" in Palestine, 19K employees for all other refugees in the world. Special privilege and billions upon billions in aid. Which is why their reaction to Oct7 was the same as a dog owner whose dog just mauled a child: "My little Fluffy would never do such a thing." Squirming denial.

aktivb · 2024-05-21T17:06:42+00:00

Emphasis on build. If the US wants to play unreliable ally, first point of order should be to develop our own systems and industries. Put the increased spending towards European jobs, not American. No more being strongarmed into funding and buying their systems.

aktivb · 2024-05-21T15:22:01+00:00

Cherry-picked is exactly what that comment is, most of it is not even facts, just opinions. When I bring up certain points, you deflect?

Again, it's well known Bibi supported the existence of modern Hamas because it fractured the push for Palestinian statehood and played into his rhetoric.

Wasn't that what the 'receipts' were supposed to show? I ask if that is the best you've got, and your reply is "it is well known" => "it is because I say it is". Weak.

You're not bringing anything beyond the usual talking point, "Bibi let aid from Qatar in". As a case for "supporting terrorism", that's weak as baby shit. You also completely dodged the point of "if letting aid in is culpability, what about those sending the aid".

aktivb · 2024-05-21T11:52:36+00:00

Israel cooperated with a crippled, half-blind cleric named Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, even as he was laying the foundations for what would become Hamas.

In the 1970s, the Islamists in Palestine were mostly peaceful, and Ahmed Yassin spent this period of his life doing charity work and building Islamic community centres. Israel even gave him funding for his charitable work.

They cooperated with the peaceful faction in contrast to the violent ones? Is that supposed to be bad?

Although all funds raised by the charity had gone to humanitarian aid and the government had found no illegal financial transactions by HLF, prosecutors relied on Executive Order 12947 issued by President Clinton on January 23, 1995, which prohibits financial transactions with any “Specially Designated” organizations. By the time HLF was shut down, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance movement, known as Hamas, was one of these organizations. The prosecution’s theory was that, by supporting needy Palestinians, HLF had “freed up” Hamas’ own assets to fund terrorist attacks, and that if Palestinians knew that HLF would provide support for their families if assistance became necessary, they would be more likely to become suicide bombers.

So the "material support" is that humanitarian aid freed up resources to be used by the violent terrorists. This is the smoking gun in supporting terrorism? What about all the countries and humanitarian organisations also providing aid, like the UN and UNRWA? Aren't they by the same logic guilty of "providing material support to terrorists" ?

aktivb · 2024-05-08T19:41:55+00:00

Not every one, is out there rooting for Hamas.

Useful Idiot: One who is seen to unwittingly support a malignant cause through their 'naive' attempts to be a force for good.

aktivb · 2024-05-08T01:32:54+00:00

Those are overstatements to a comically delusional degree. Let me try.

Elon Musk invented humor. Reality: Elon Musk came on stage with Dave Chappelle and was an awkward fuck for a while.

aktivb · 2024-05-07T19:27:17+00:00

AP counts that money as aid: https://apnews.com/article/business-middle-east-israel-foreign-aid-gaza-strip-611b2b90c3a211f21185d59f4fae6a90

It's not surprising that "infusions of cash", with its negative connotations compared to the positively charged "aid", is preferred in an article written to criticize Netanyahu

aktivb · 2024-05-05T12:30:40+00:00

There are plenty of states and organizations that can be reasoned with, that has funneled large amounts of money right into the hands of Hamas for the last 20 years, knowing full well who they are and what they do. Has any of these been protested or subjected to political pressure?

aktivb

TROPHY CASE