Pro Palestinians' and Cult Mentality
I will readily admit that I did not understand much about the Israeli Palestinian conflict prior to three weeks ago. Like many people, I sort of stayed out if it and believed a lot is the buzz terms that were thrown around over the years.
However one thing I would say I'm well read on is cults and cult mentality. Here are a few observations I've made based on arguments and reading comments.
A quick note here, this is not to say everyone who supports Palestinians and their cause is in a cult. I personally support Palestinian rights tremendously. I am referring to the 'pro Palestinians' who share certain common traits.
Cult members and leaders will not concede even small or seemingly irrelevant points.
For example, David Koresh (Waco) admitted lied that he ever played in a band when he was younger and recorded albums. Jim Jones would not accept that he had a drug dependency problem even though he required and took drugs every day. They won't concede or accept any truth on any issues if they believe it sheds bad light on them.
Sound familiar? Many 'pro Palestinians' will not accept that there is antisemitism in the world or that it is a wider problem in Palestine. They won't accept that Hamas lied about the hospital - even though it doesn't really affect the pro Palestinian cause.
2. Invalidate all contrary facts as a conspiracy and hype 'fringe' sources.
Cult members from Scientology to Heavens Gate have done this for years.
Anytime someone brings in scientific or historic evidence from mainstream sources, the default tactic is to attack the sources. Scientologists, when presented with lab tested evidence to show their ometers were bogus, immediately went on the attack to discredit the scientific community. There was a conspiracy to destroy them, and that the mainstream was oppressing the real voice. Again - this is typically of many pro Palestinians. When faced with real evidence from multiple sources that have no motive to lie, they immediately attack the source and assume their is a Jewish lobbying conspiracy. At the same time, they will cute sources with dubious and unverifiable 'facts' such as witness accounts not backed by evidence.
3. Disengagement.
This one is the most tragic. When faced with such extreme cognitive dissonance (two contrasting facts don't line up) cult members will disengage from further discussion, and flock to the people who validate their arguments. NXIVM members moved away from family, cut off communications, and saw themselves as living a separate enlightened life outside the 'norm'. Anytime facts or reason became too real, they would simply cut themselves off. They then brigade and are then accepted into the safe community that believes and validates them.
4. Failure to accept responsibility.
This one is the most terrifying since it's the reason cults do horrific things. When people in jonestown started poisoning children and their loved ones it was all because of the government conspiracy to oppress them. When the Proudboys instigate and then use violence, it's not the individual's responsibility. They are acting as part of a justifyable 'resistance movement'.
How many lawyers, doctors, or politicians who've never even been to Palestine have said the most hateful, antisemetic rhetoric over the past two weeks? When asked about their own personal responsibility for those statements it's the same excuse. I was justifiedband not responsible because I'm part of something bigger.
5. Recoding language.
All cults have their own created internal lingo. These redefined terms to deprogram to suit the needs of the ideology. Heavens gate members weren't taking poison to kill themselves, they were 'transporting'. Children of God sexually abused children as part of 'freeing' them.
So you can see in the pro palestinian movement certain words have been twisted from their common meaning. 'genocide' is not like Bosnia, or the holocaust, it is about oppression and land disputes. 'War crimes' are not about the written laws in the Geneva convention, but about bombing military targets, killing any civilian. Apartheid is not about south Africa, it's about a border checkpoint.
6. Complete faith in their leaders and vilifying of 'enemies'.
Cult members cannot accept their leaders are fallable. They are often seen as inhuman, and impervious to human vices. There's no greed, ignorance, vanity, or deceit. Contrarily, their 'enemies' have no bounds to the evil schemes. Every one of their actions is motivated by the evil.
This is why pro Palestinians have such a hard time accepting or critiquing things like rocket attacks on innocent civilians over the years were a stupid idea that made things worse. Or that Hamas leaders are filthy rich from stolen money. Or that UNRWA taught children antisemitic rhetoric in Gaza for a decade. It's also why pro Palestinians see Israel as pure evil motivated by racism, globalism, and pure hatred.
As a final note - anyone is susceptible to cult followings. There are Jewish people in pro Palestinian, intelligent well educated people, and people who have never even stepped foot outside a western country.
It's also not trying to undermine the many hard working groups that do support Palestinians and their liberties. There are many groups that are furious with Palestinian leaders, see Israel as an ally in their cause, and desparetly want to open up relationships to create lasting peace and liberties for palestinians. They have no problem debating, accepting past errors, compromising, and showing empathy while still advocating for their rights.
Cool, now do the Zionism cult.
Someone on the reddit plost asked does criticizing this phenomenon trigger cognitive dissonance causing you to change the subject, start with ad hominem attacks, or disengage?
You chose option #1, changing the subject.
Next you will choose #2 and call me a disgusting evil zionist who doesn't care about babies.
No, I think it’s cool and I agree that anyone who is pro-Palestinian demonstrates cult-like behavior. I also think those same behaviors are present in the pro-Zionism camp.
Since I already agree with the Reddit “plost”, let’s talk about the pro-Zionism cult.
Your conjecture about Zionism and cult like behavior doesn't pan out. Just because people are not falling for what you say doesn't mean that they are also engaging in cult like behavior. Also, theorectically, advocates for a cause can be totally in the wrong, doesn't mean by default they are engaging in cult like behavior. You just want to engage in both sidesism, meaning you really do not agree with the Reddit post.
That’s a very, very convenient interpretation for you, of course. However, pro-Zionism supporters are card carrying members of the least rational cult of all.
There is literally nothing that Israel has done, or could possibly do, that would justify scrutiny of any kind to the pro-Zionist cult. Any dissent must be crushed, any questioning must be denounced, ridiculed, or attacked over the head with the anti-semitism 2x4.
It’s not conjecture. It’s reality. Welcome to it.
Ok if you think anti Semitism is a joke that tells us all we need to know.
You are confusing cult tactics with "I don't agree with you" type posts. Analyze the tactics in the rhetoric, not if you agree with what is being said or not.
Actual anti-semitism is abhorrent.
Unfortunately, probably 3-5% or less of what’s been fervently labeled anti-semitic in this 3-part DCUM series has actually been anti-semitic. That’s why the accusation is treated as a joke. The offending words are nearly always so far short of being anti-semitic, bewildered laughter is the only coping mechanism to maintain one’s sanity.
Shulamit Aloni described anti-semitism as a trick:
“Well, it’s a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country people are criticizing Israel, then they are anti-Semitic. And the organization is strong, and has a lot of money, and the ties between Israel and the American Jewish establishment are very strong and they are strong in this country, as you know. And they have power, which is okay. They are talented people and they have power and money, and the media and other things, and their attitude is “Israel, my country right or wrong,” identification. And they are not ready to hear criticism. And it’s very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic, and to bring up the Holocaust, and the suffering of the Jewish people, and that is to justify everything we do to the Palestinians.”
She was honest and principled, and we need more like her.
Palestinians bring up the Holocaust more than Jews. Palestinians talk about Jews more than any other group or even Jews themselves. Jews are out here just living their lives, yes some in Israel.
We're talking here about Zionism rather than true Judaism. Zionism is a culturally narcissistic, ethno-nationalistic, fascist cult. Judaism is a religion of compassion and peace.
If you feel that way just disassociate with them. Don't think about them or talk about them. Let then live in Israel and they won’t need to be around others to impose their horribleness on others. Problem solved.
Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.
Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”
It’s certifiable
It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?
It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.
This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."
I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.
DP
Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.
Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.
That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.
Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.
Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.
Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?
The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.
DP
The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).
I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.
You just did call everyone involved a liar.
I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.
DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.
Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.
In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.
Exactly how mental are you???
The person used these exact words “I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense.“ and “ I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.”
And from those two statements you walked away with an argument that the accounts “must be lies”? Must be lies? Are you literally deranged?
Right on. Carefully qualified statements from one poster. Complete misrepresentation of her position from the other.
Repeated misrepresentation. Brazenly going so far as to quote the actual words multiple times and, what, I guess hope that their shitty Jedi mind trick would prevent people from actually reading the goddamned words? The words couldn’t be more clear in establishing that the poster was NOT stating that the reporting MUST be based on lies, but I’m sure we’ll now hear from the “word salad” specialist and the “I’ll tell you what you REALLY mean!” thought crime experts to straighten all of this out. The “what do you want to do about your feelings?” poster from Ukraine or Poland or wherever is already on duty.
This is insane. The pro-Zionism part of this equation is absolutely, clinically deranged. And it should be lost on no one that this is an outcome that is perfectly acceptable to them. Show your deranged true colors, get people to throw their hands up and give up, and get the desired result of stopping the exchange of ideas that threatens to topple the status quo.
Absolutely disgusting human beings. And yes, I mean every last person who lies like these lunatics in furtherance of their desperate defense of Zionism. Still love anyone else Jewish or otherwise who recognizes the toxic insanity of Zionism.
you can present your ideas over and over, but people can still say "well, no thanks" over and over. Some might be ok with status quo. You are frustrating yourself by making changing the status quo a good or evil thing.
Feeling person, we get it.
I want a cessation of violence on both sides, consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence, and a good faith plan to establish a two-state plan that guarantees the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, which will require compromise from both sides. And I want any further aid to the region conditioned upon the successful achievement of these goals. As far as I’m concerned, if Israel and the Palestinians can get across the finish lines, I’m supportive of INCREASING aid to both groups for a certain timeframe to position both states for long term success. I’d love to see them both flourish without the constant conflict, which both sides have earnestly contributed to.
That’s what I want. Is that clear enough for you?
Do you want Hamas gone? Because you didn’t mention that.
Yeah, of course Hamas being dismantled and being brought to justice is a necessity.
That’s why “consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence” was the second aim. Hamas is one such party, but there are also others. Other militant groups on the Palestinian side, the militant settlers and certain Likud officials on the Israeli side, and any IDF personnel who have engaged in conduct that violates the law of armed conflict.
All of the above should be brought to swift and unrelenting justice as part of that second aim.
If you want every wrong thing in the world addressed, what about goings on in Saudi Arabia? Syria? Belarus? South Africa? Indonesia? Why are you soooo focused on Israel?
Because the only 75+ year refugee group involved in any of those countries is in Israel. Because the U.S. provides more financial aid and U.N. interference for Israel than any of those countries. And because there is no end in sight to this conflict.
Why are you soooo focused on ensuring the status quo on Israel?
Palestinians shouldn't be considered refugees.
There isn't wrong with the U.S. providing aid to Israel. Palestinian's not liking it is not a problem. Palestinians are not our gods, we don't have to check every decision with them.
Status quo doesn't have to be changed.
You make things imperatives that actually are not.
“Status quo doesn’t have to be changed”.
Not PP but of course not. However, how well has status quo worked so far? To me the escalating violence back and forth is unsustainable.
It isn't a back and forth however. Palestinians are not happy that they are not getting what they want. We don't always get what we want and doesn't require a change of the status quo. They can keep on fighting for the next 200 years and keep on being pushed back, getting nothing, if they so desire. Life choices, we all make them.
This is a very callous take on the aspirations of millions of people who have been ethnically cleansed. I remember white South Africans saying the same about people of color -- their coldness, their absolute belief in their own racial superiority, their smugness. Whites had all the power for years, but you can't repress people indefinitely. The arc of the world is toward equality.
Who has talked about racial superiority? You are turning a land battle into a bunch of things thst is not. You want a piece of land for you and your family, can't have it, and are calling people racist for it.
Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it's been nearly 3 months and, despite it's 500, 000 K armed soldiers, Billions of free Bombs being given to them by USA, ammo, an Air Force and a Navy " Cereal " still hasn't managed to get control of Gaza- a very small territory only 2 X the size of DC .
Imagine if NW DC were managing to hold off the entire US military for 3 months despite every row house and mansion in Wards 1, 2, 3 having been levelled. Is this an Army ?
Perhaps it's because that while Cereal claims that it is surrounded by hostile enemies intent on destroying it at all times, Cereal knows that it is really just using its army to harass , demoralize and try to force emigration of an occupied/ captive Palestinian population.
It's " soldiers" have been trained on a routine on how to brutalize and terrorize Palestinian civilians who are unarmed- not fight actual trained militants
The IDF is undisciplined, incompetent, and out of control, probably because it has absorbed the ethos of its unprincipled and fascist leaders. Israel as a whole is in decline and losing respect. Every aspect of the country appears to be disintegrating. Its once-vaunted intelligence services massively failed to thwart the 10/7 attack, and Israeli authorities responded incompetently, killing many of their own people. Americans, seeing the carnage in Gaza, don't want to subsidize this rogue state. Corruption, autocracy, and human rights violations go hand in hand. If Israeli voters can't get the situation under control, Israel will become a banana republic.
+ 100
Too late. Thanks to decades of Bibiism, it's been firmly established as a banana Republic, flushed with cash from its American sponsor.
If you don't like Israel why do you talk about it so much? Are you seeking to perform a civic duty and reform it?
Pro Palestinians' and Cult Mentality
I will readily admit that I did not understand much about the Israeli Palestinian conflict prior to three weeks ago. Like many people, I sort of stayed out if it and believed a lot is the buzz terms that were thrown around over the years.
However one thing I would say I'm well read on is cults and cult mentality. Here are a few observations I've made based on arguments and reading comments.
A quick note here, this is not to say everyone who supports Palestinians and their cause is in a cult. I personally support Palestinian rights tremendously. I am referring to the 'pro Palestinians' who share certain common traits.
Cult members and leaders will not concede even small or seemingly irrelevant points.
For example, David Koresh (Waco) admitted lied that he ever played in a band when he was younger and recorded albums. Jim Jones would not accept that he had a drug dependency problem even though he required and took drugs every day. They won't concede or accept any truth on any issues if they believe it sheds bad light on them.
Sound familiar? Many 'pro Palestinians' will not accept that there is antisemitism in the world or that it is a wider problem in Palestine. They won't accept that Hamas lied about the hospital - even though it doesn't really affect the pro Palestinian cause.
2. Invalidate all contrary facts as a conspiracy and hype 'fringe' sources.
Cult members from Scientology to Heavens Gate have done this for years.
Anytime someone brings in scientific or historic evidence from mainstream sources, the default tactic is to attack the sources. Scientologists, when presented with lab tested evidence to show their ometers were bogus, immediately went on the attack to discredit the scientific community. There was a conspiracy to destroy them, and that the mainstream was oppressing the real voice. Again - this is typically of many pro Palestinians. When faced with real evidence from multiple sources that have no motive to lie, they immediately attack the source and assume their is a Jewish lobbying conspiracy. At the same time, they will cute sources with dubious and unverifiable 'facts' such as witness accounts not backed by evidence.
3. Disengagement.
This one is the most tragic. When faced with such extreme cognitive dissonance (two contrasting facts don't line up) cult members will disengage from further discussion, and flock to the people who validate their arguments. NXIVM members moved away from family, cut off communications, and saw themselves as living a separate enlightened life outside the 'norm'. Anytime facts or reason became too real, they would simply cut themselves off. They then brigade and are then accepted into the safe community that believes and validates them.
4. Failure to accept responsibility.
This one is the most terrifying since it's the reason cults do horrific things. When people in jonestown started poisoning children and their loved ones it was all because of the government conspiracy to oppress them. When the Proudboys instigate and then use violence, it's not the individual's responsibility. They are acting as part of a justifyable 'resistance movement'.
How many lawyers, doctors, or politicians who've never even been to Palestine have said the most hateful, antisemetic rhetoric over the past two weeks? When asked about their own personal responsibility for those statements it's the same excuse. I was justifiedband not responsible because I'm part of something bigger.
5. Recoding language.
All cults have their own created internal lingo. These redefined terms to deprogram to suit the needs of the ideology. Heavens gate members weren't taking poison to kill themselves, they were 'transporting'. Children of God sexually abused children as part of 'freeing' them.
So you can see in the pro palestinian movement certain words have been twisted from their common meaning. 'genocide' is not like Bosnia, or the holocaust, it is about oppression and land disputes. 'War crimes' are not about the written laws in the Geneva convention, but about bombing military targets, killing any civilian. Apartheid is not about south Africa, it's about a border checkpoint.
6. Complete faith in their leaders and vilifying of 'enemies'.
Cult members cannot accept their leaders are fallable. They are often seen as inhuman, and impervious to human vices. There's no greed, ignorance, vanity, or deceit. Contrarily, their 'enemies' have no bounds to the evil schemes. Every one of their actions is motivated by the evil.
This is why pro Palestinians have such a hard time accepting or critiquing things like rocket attacks on innocent civilians over the years were a stupid idea that made things worse. Or that Hamas leaders are filthy rich from stolen money. Or that UNRWA taught children antisemitic rhetoric in Gaza for a decade. It's also why pro Palestinians see Israel as pure evil motivated by racism, globalism, and pure hatred.
As a final note - anyone is susceptible to cult followings. There are Jewish people in pro Palestinian, intelligent well educated people, and people who have never even stepped foot outside a western country.
It's also not trying to undermine the many hard working groups that do support Palestinians and their liberties. There are many groups that are furious with Palestinian leaders, see Israel as an ally in their cause, and desparetly want to open up relationships to create lasting peace and liberties for palestinians. They have no problem debating, accepting past errors, compromising, and showing empathy while still advocating for their rights.
Cool, now do the Zionism cult.
Someone on the reddit plost asked does criticizing this phenomenon trigger cognitive dissonance causing you to change the subject, start with ad hominem attacks, or disengage?
You chose option #1, changing the subject.
Next you will choose #2 and call me a disgusting evil zionist who doesn't care about babies.
No, I think it’s cool and I agree that anyone who is pro-Palestinian demonstrates cult-like behavior. I also think those same behaviors are present in the pro-Zionism camp.
Since I already agree with the Reddit “plost”, let’s talk about the pro-Zionism cult.
Your conjecture about Zionism and cult like behavior doesn't pan out. Just because people are not falling for what you say doesn't mean that they are also engaging in cult like behavior. Also, theorectically, advocates for a cause can be totally in the wrong, doesn't mean by default they are engaging in cult like behavior. You just want to engage in both sidesism, meaning you really do not agree with the Reddit post.
That’s a very, very convenient interpretation for you, of course. However, pro-Zionism supporters are card carrying members of the least rational cult of all.
There is literally nothing that Israel has done, or could possibly do, that would justify scrutiny of any kind to the pro-Zionist cult. Any dissent must be crushed, any questioning must be denounced, ridiculed, or attacked over the head with the anti-semitism 2x4.
It’s not conjecture. It’s reality. Welcome to it.
Ok if you think anti Semitism is a joke that tells us all we need to know.
You are confusing cult tactics with "I don't agree with you" type posts. Analyze the tactics in the rhetoric, not if you agree with what is being said or not.
Actual anti-semitism is abhorrent.
Unfortunately, probably 3-5% or less of what’s been fervently labeled anti-semitic in this 3-part DCUM series has actually been anti-semitic. That’s why the accusation is treated as a joke. The offending words are nearly always so far short of being anti-semitic, bewildered laughter is the only coping mechanism to maintain one’s sanity.
Shulamit Aloni described anti-semitism as a trick:
“Well, it’s a trick, we always use it. When from Europe somebody is criticizing Israel, then we bring up the Holocaust. When in this country people are criticizing Israel, then they are anti-Semitic. And the organization is strong, and has a lot of money, and the ties between Israel and the American Jewish establishment are very strong and they are strong in this country, as you know. And they have power, which is okay. They are talented people and they have power and money, and the media and other things, and their attitude is “Israel, my country right or wrong,” identification. And they are not ready to hear criticism. And it’s very easy to blame people who criticize certain acts of the Israeli government as anti-Semitic, and to bring up the Holocaust, and the suffering of the Jewish people, and that is to justify everything we do to the Palestinians.”
She was honest and principled, and we need more like her.
Palestinians bring up the Holocaust more than Jews. Palestinians talk about Jews more than any other group or even Jews themselves. Jews are out here just living their lives, yes some in Israel.
We're talking here about Zionism rather than true Judaism. Zionism is a culturally narcissistic, ethno-nationalistic, fascist cult. Judaism is a religion of compassion and peace.
If you feel that way just disassociate with them. Don't think about them or talk about them. Let then live in Israel and they won’t need to be around others to impose their horribleness on others. Problem solved.
So we should just let them ethnically cleanse Gaza and the West Bank and continue to impose their horribleness on innocent Palestinian children?
And if they're going to be left alone to live their own lives, America needs to stop propping them up militarily and financially.
Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.
Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”
It’s certifiable
It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?
It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.
This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."
I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.
DP
Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.
Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.
That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.
Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.
Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.
Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?
The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.
DP
The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).
I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.
You just did call everyone involved a liar.
I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.
DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.
Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.
In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.
Exactly how mental are you???
The person used these exact words “I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense.“ and “ I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.”
And from those two statements you walked away with an argument that the accounts “must be lies”? Must be lies? Are you literally deranged?
Right on. Carefully qualified statements from one poster. Complete misrepresentation of her position from the other.
Repeated misrepresentation. Brazenly going so far as to quote the actual words multiple times and, what, I guess hope that their shitty Jedi mind trick would prevent people from actually reading the goddamned words? The words couldn’t be more clear in establishing that the poster was NOT stating that the reporting MUST be based on lies, but I’m sure we’ll now hear from the “word salad” specialist and the “I’ll tell you what you REALLY mean!” thought crime experts to straighten all of this out. The “what do you want to do about your feelings?” poster from Ukraine or Poland or wherever is already on duty.
This is insane. The pro-Zionism part of this equation is absolutely, clinically deranged. And it should be lost on no one that this is an outcome that is perfectly acceptable to them. Show your deranged true colors, get people to throw their hands up and give up, and get the desired result of stopping the exchange of ideas that threatens to topple the status quo.
Absolutely disgusting human beings. And yes, I mean every last person who lies like these lunatics in furtherance of their desperate defense of Zionism. Still love anyone else Jewish or otherwise who recognizes the toxic insanity of Zionism.
you can present your ideas over and over, but people can still say "well, no thanks" over and over. Some might be ok with status quo. You are frustrating yourself by making changing the status quo a good or evil thing.
Feeling person, we get it.
I want a cessation of violence on both sides, consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence, and a good faith plan to establish a two-state plan that guarantees the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, which will require compromise from both sides. And I want any further aid to the region conditioned upon the successful achievement of these goals. As far as I’m concerned, if Israel and the Palestinians can get across the finish lines, I’m supportive of INCREASING aid to both groups for a certain timeframe to position both states for long term success. I’d love to see them both flourish without the constant conflict, which both sides have earnestly contributed to.
That’s what I want. Is that clear enough for you?
Do you want Hamas gone? Because you didn’t mention that.
Yeah, of course Hamas being dismantled and being brought to justice is a necessity.
That’s why “consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence” was the second aim. Hamas is one such party, but there are also others. Other militant groups on the Palestinian side, the militant settlers and certain Likud officials on the Israeli side, and any IDF personnel who have engaged in conduct that violates the law of armed conflict.
All of the above should be brought to swift and unrelenting justice as part of that second aim.
If you want every wrong thing in the world addressed, what about goings on in Saudi Arabia? Syria? Belarus? South Africa? Indonesia? Why are you soooo focused on Israel?
Because the only 75+ year refugee group involved in any of those countries is in Israel. Because the U.S. provides more financial aid and U.N. interference for Israel than any of those countries. And because there is no end in sight to this conflict.
Why are you soooo focused on ensuring the status quo on Israel?
Palestinians shouldn't be considered refugees.
There isn't wrong with the U.S. providing aid to Israel. Palestinian's not liking it is not a problem. Palestinians are not our gods, we don't have to check every decision with them.
Status quo doesn't have to be changed.
You make things imperatives that actually are not.
“Status quo doesn’t have to be changed”.
Not PP but of course not. However, how well has status quo worked so far? To me the escalating violence back and forth is unsustainable.
It isn't a back and forth however. Palestinians are not happy that they are not getting what they want. We don't always get what we want and doesn't require a change of the status quo. They can keep on fighting for the next 200 years and keep on being pushed back, getting nothing, if they so desire. Life choices, we all make them.
This is a very callous take on the aspirations of millions of people who have been ethnically cleansed. I remember white South Africans saying the same about people of color -- their coldness, their absolute belief in their own racial superiority, their smugness. Whites had all the power for years, but you can't repress people indefinitely. The arc of the world is toward equality.
Who has talked about racial superiority? You are turning a land battle into a bunch of things thst is not. You want a piece of land for you and your family, can't have it, and are calling people racist for it.
Racism, used here to encompass "ethnicism," is central to the conflict. The Knesset is full of pro-apartheid politicians like Itamar Ben-Gvir (who was convicted of membership in a terrorist group). Settler violence, with its attacks on Palestinians, is intensely racist. Palestinians are routinely attacked, harassed, murdered, and driven from their homes and land, and Zionist gangs vandalize their churches, mosques, and homes.
The Zionist movement will eventually go the way of white rule in South Africa. Apartheid South Africa and Israel both began in 1948 with the election of the Nationalist Party in South Africa and the creation of the state of Israel. The world has moved on from 1948. Colonialism and apartheid are much more difficult to defend now. We will move on from 2023. We're still a primitive species. It wasn't so long ago that people were practicing human sacrifice. Now, people increasingly want to offer others a place at the table rather than killing them or driving them away. The Catholic Church just became a little more welcoming to gays (clergy can bless same sex unions). We're progressing too slowly, but the direction is clear. Slavery was taken for granted in the States until just 200 years ago. Now it's widely considered a diabolical practice. Israelis and Palestinians will eventually get to the point where hurting one another would horrify most of them. It may take another hundred years, but this is the direction of cultural revolution.
Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it's been nearly 3 months and, despite it's 500, 000 K armed soldiers, Billions of free Bombs being given to them by USA, ammo, an Air Force and a Navy " Cereal " still hasn't managed to get control of Gaza- a very small territory only 2 X the size of DC .
Imagine if NW DC were managing to hold off the entire US military for 3 months despite every row house and mansion in Wards 1, 2, 3 having been levelled. Is this an Army ?
Perhaps it's because that while Cereal claims that it is surrounded by hostile enemies intent on destroying it at all times, Cereal knows that it is really just using its army to harass , demoralize and try to force emigration of an occupied/ captive Palestinian population.
It's " soldiers" have been trained on a routine on how to brutalize and terrorize Palestinian civilians who are unarmed- not fight actual trained militants
The IDF is undisciplined, incompetent, and out of control, probably because it has absorbed the ethos of its unprincipled and fascist leaders. Israel as a whole is in decline and losing respect. Every aspect of the country appears to be disintegrating. Its once-vaunted intelligence services massively failed to thwart the 10/7 attack, and Israeli authorities responded incompetently, killing many of their own people. Americans, seeing the carnage in Gaza, don't want to subsidize this rogue state. Corruption, autocracy, and human rights violations go hand in hand. If Israeli voters can't get the situation under control, Israel will become a banana republic.
+ 100
Too late. Thanks to decades of Bibiism, it's been firmly established as a banana Republic, flushed with cash from its American sponsor.
If you don't like Israel why do you talk about it so much? Are you seeking to perform a civic duty and reform it?
DP. Why should people who are funding Israeli acts of aggression and ethnic cleansing not have a say in how their tax dollars are diverted to a foreign country that is a pariah in most of the world?
Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it's been nearly 3 months and, despite it's 500, 000 K armed soldiers, Billions of free Bombs being given to them by USA, ammo, an Air Force and a Navy " Cereal " still hasn't managed to get control of Gaza- a very small territory only 2 X the size of DC .
Imagine if NW DC were managing to hold off the entire US military for 3 months despite every row house and mansion in Wards 1, 2, 3 having been levelled. Is this an Army ?
Perhaps it's because that while Cereal claims that it is surrounded by hostile enemies intent on destroying it at all times, Cereal knows that it is really just using its army to harass , demoralize and try to force emigration of an occupied/ captive Palestinian population.
It's " soldiers" have been trained on a routine on how to brutalize and terrorize Palestinian civilians who are unarmed- not fight actual trained militants
The IDF is undisciplined, incompetent, and out of control, probably because it has absorbed the ethos of its unprincipled and fascist leaders. Israel as a whole is in decline and losing respect. Every aspect of the country appears to be disintegrating. Its once-vaunted intelligence services massively failed to thwart the 10/7 attack, and Israeli authorities responded incompetently, killing many of their own people. Americans, seeing the carnage in Gaza, don't want to subsidize this rogue state. Corruption, autocracy, and human rights violations go hand in hand. If Israeli voters can't get the situation under control, Israel will become a banana republic.
+ 100
Too late. Thanks to decades of Bibiism, it's been firmly established as a banana Republic, flushed with cash from its American sponsor.
If you don't like Israel why do you talk about it so much? Are you seeking to perform a civic duty and reform it?
DP. Why should people who are funding Israeli acts of aggression and ethnic cleansing not have a say in how their tax dollars are diverted to a foreign country that is a pariah in most of the world?
Loud and proud anti-Israel, are we? Still at it, days later, arguing over Israel and Palestine and glossing over Hamas?
I have to admit I’m sad for you. I wish you the best and that you get over this fixation. There’s better things to do with your time than argue about this on DCUM if you’re half as smart as you think you are.
Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.
Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”
It’s certifiable
It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?
It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.
This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."
I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.
DP
Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.
Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.
That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.
Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.
Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.
Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?
The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.
DP
The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).
I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.
You just did call everyone involved a liar.
I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.
DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.
Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.
In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.
Exactly how mental are you???
The person used these exact words “I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense.“ and “ I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.”
And from those two statements you walked away with an argument that the accounts “must be lies”? Must be lies? Are you literally deranged?
Right on. Carefully qualified statements from one poster. Complete misrepresentation of her position from the other.
Repeated misrepresentation. Brazenly going so far as to quote the actual words multiple times and, what, I guess hope that their shitty Jedi mind trick would prevent people from actually reading the goddamned words? The words couldn’t be more clear in establishing that the poster was NOT stating that the reporting MUST be based on lies, but I’m sure we’ll now hear from the “word salad” specialist and the “I’ll tell you what you REALLY mean!” thought crime experts to straighten all of this out. The “what do you want to do about your feelings?” poster from Ukraine or Poland or wherever is already on duty.
This is insane. The pro-Zionism part of this equation is absolutely, clinically deranged. And it should be lost on no one that this is an outcome that is perfectly acceptable to them. Show your deranged true colors, get people to throw their hands up and give up, and get the desired result of stopping the exchange of ideas that threatens to topple the status quo.
Absolutely disgusting human beings. And yes, I mean every last person who lies like these lunatics in furtherance of their desperate defense of Zionism. Still love anyone else Jewish or otherwise who recognizes the toxic insanity of Zionism.
you can present your ideas over and over, but people can still say "well, no thanks" over and over. Some might be ok with status quo. You are frustrating yourself by making changing the status quo a good or evil thing.
Feeling person, we get it.
I want a cessation of violence on both sides, consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence, and a good faith plan to establish a two-state plan that guarantees the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, which will require compromise from both sides. And I want any further aid to the region conditioned upon the successful achievement of these goals. As far as I’m concerned, if Israel and the Palestinians can get across the finish lines, I’m supportive of INCREASING aid to both groups for a certain timeframe to position both states for long term success. I’d love to see them both flourish without the constant conflict, which both sides have earnestly contributed to.
That’s what I want. Is that clear enough for you?
Do you want Hamas gone? Because you didn’t mention that.
Yeah, of course Hamas being dismantled and being brought to justice is a necessity.
That’s why “consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence” was the second aim. Hamas is one such party, but there are also others. Other militant groups on the Palestinian side, the militant settlers and certain Likud officials on the Israeli side, and any IDF personnel who have engaged in conduct that violates the law of armed conflict.
All of the above should be brought to swift and unrelenting justice as part of that second aim.
If you want every wrong thing in the world addressed, what about goings on in Saudi Arabia? Syria? Belarus? South Africa? Indonesia? Why are you soooo focused on Israel?
Because the only 75+ year refugee group involved in any of those countries is in Israel. Because the U.S. provides more financial aid and U.N. interference for Israel than any of those countries. And because there is no end in sight to this conflict.
Why are you soooo focused on ensuring the status quo on Israel?
Palestinians shouldn't be considered refugees.
There isn't wrong with the U.S. providing aid to Israel. Palestinian's not liking it is not a problem. Palestinians are not our gods, we don't have to check every decision with them.
Status quo doesn't have to be changed.
You make things imperatives that actually are not.
“Status quo doesn’t have to be changed”.
Not PP but of course not. However, how well has status quo worked so far? To me the escalating violence back and forth is unsustainable.
It isn't a back and forth however. Palestinians are not happy that they are not getting what they want. We don't always get what we want and doesn't require a change of the status quo. They can keep on fighting for the next 200 years and keep on being pushed back, getting nothing, if they so desire. Life choices, we all make them.
This is a very callous take on the aspirations of millions of people who have been ethnically cleansed. I remember white South Africans saying the same about people of color -- their coldness, their absolute belief in their own racial superiority, their smugness. Whites had all the power for years, but you can't repress people indefinitely. The arc of the world is toward equality.
Who has talked about racial superiority? You are turning a land battle into a bunch of things thst is not. You want a piece of land for you and your family, can't have it, and are calling people racist for it.
The “I’m not even Jewish” and “your feelings are not even real things so what do you want us to do about it?” person, whose entire schtick involves shrugging off other posts now hundreds of times with a blasé defense of the status quo, reporting for 24/7 duty.
Doing their noble part to ensure that no progress is made in this never ending conflict because the status quo is their primary aim, followed by further land grabs for Israel. So if everyone who is reasonable and civilized and capable of compassion can just shut the F up and allow this person to go to sleep after 12 straight weeks of spirited defense of racism, state-sponsored Zionist terrorism and apartheid statecraft, that would be kindly appreciated. /s
Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.
Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”
It’s certifiable
It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?
It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.
This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."
I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.
DP
Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.
Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.
That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.
Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.
Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.
Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?
The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.
DP
The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).
I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.
You just did call everyone involved a liar.
I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.
DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.
Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.
In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.
Exactly how mental are you???
The person used these exact words “I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense.“ and “ I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.”
And from those two statements you walked away with an argument that the accounts “must be lies”? Must be lies? Are you literally deranged?
Right on. Carefully qualified statements from one poster. Complete misrepresentation of her position from the other.
Repeated misrepresentation. Brazenly going so far as to quote the actual words multiple times and, what, I guess hope that their shitty Jedi mind trick would prevent people from actually reading the goddamned words? The words couldn’t be more clear in establishing that the poster was NOT stating that the reporting MUST be based on lies, but I’m sure we’ll now hear from the “word salad” specialist and the “I’ll tell you what you REALLY mean!” thought crime experts to straighten all of this out. The “what do you want to do about your feelings?” poster from Ukraine or Poland or wherever is already on duty.
This is insane. The pro-Zionism part of this equation is absolutely, clinically deranged. And it should be lost on no one that this is an outcome that is perfectly acceptable to them. Show your deranged true colors, get people to throw their hands up and give up, and get the desired result of stopping the exchange of ideas that threatens to topple the status quo.
Absolutely disgusting human beings. And yes, I mean every last person who lies like these lunatics in furtherance of their desperate defense of Zionism. Still love anyone else Jewish or otherwise who recognizes the toxic insanity of Zionism.
you can present your ideas over and over, but people can still say "well, no thanks" over and over. Some might be ok with status quo. You are frustrating yourself by making changing the status quo a good or evil thing.
Feeling person, we get it.
I want a cessation of violence on both sides, consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence, and a good faith plan to establish a two-state plan that guarantees the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, which will require compromise from both sides. And I want any further aid to the region conditioned upon the successful achievement of these goals. As far as I’m concerned, if Israel and the Palestinians can get across the finish lines, I’m supportive of INCREASING aid to both groups for a certain timeframe to position both states for long term success. I’d love to see them both flourish without the constant conflict, which both sides have earnestly contributed to.
That’s what I want. Is that clear enough for you?
Do you want Hamas gone? Because you didn’t mention that.
Yeah, of course Hamas being dismantled and being brought to justice is a necessity.
That’s why “consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence” was the second aim. Hamas is one such party, but there are also others. Other militant groups on the Palestinian side, the militant settlers and certain Likud officials on the Israeli side, and any IDF personnel who have engaged in conduct that violates the law of armed conflict.
All of the above should be brought to swift and unrelenting justice as part of that second aim.
If you want every wrong thing in the world addressed, what about goings on in Saudi Arabia? Syria? Belarus? South Africa? Indonesia? Why are you soooo focused on Israel?
Because the only 75+ year refugee group involved in any of those countries is in Israel. Because the U.S. provides more financial aid and U.N. interference for Israel than any of those countries. And because there is no end in sight to this conflict.
Why are you soooo focused on ensuring the status quo on Israel?
Palestinians shouldn't be considered refugees.
There isn't wrong with the U.S. providing aid to Israel. Palestinian's not liking it is not a problem. Palestinians are not our gods, we don't have to check every decision with them.
Status quo doesn't have to be changed.
You make things imperatives that actually are not.
“Status quo doesn’t have to be changed”.
Not PP but of course not. However, how well has status quo worked so far? To me the escalating violence back and forth is unsustainable.
It isn't a back and forth however. Palestinians are not happy that they are not getting what they want. We don't always get what we want and doesn't require a change of the status quo. They can keep on fighting for the next 200 years and keep on being pushed back, getting nothing, if they so desire. Life choices, we all make them.
This is a very callous take on the aspirations of millions of people who have been ethnically cleansed. I remember white South Africans saying the same about people of color -- their coldness, their absolute belief in their own racial superiority, their smugness. Whites had all the power for years, but you can't repress people indefinitely. The arc of the world is toward equality.
Who has talked about racial superiority? You are turning a land battle into a bunch of things thst is not. You want a piece of land for you and your family, can't have it, and are calling people racist for it.
The “I’m not even Jewish” and “your feelings are not even real things so what do you want us to do about it?” person, whose entire schtick involves shrugging off other posts now hundreds of times with a blasé defense of the status quo, reporting for 24/7 duty.
Doing their noble part to ensure that no progress is made in this never ending conflict because the status quo is their primary aim, followed by further land grabs for Israel. So if everyone who is reasonable and civilized and capable of compassion can just shut the F up and allow this person to go to sleep after 12 straight weeks of spirited defense of racism, state-sponsored Zionist terrorism and apartheid statecraft, that would be kindly appreciated. /s
Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it's been nearly 3 months and, despite it's 500, 000 K armed soldiers, Billions of free Bombs being given to them by USA, ammo, an Air Force and a Navy " Cereal " still hasn't managed to get control of Gaza- a very small territory only 2 X the size of DC .
Imagine if NW DC were managing to hold off the entire US military for 3 months despite every row house and mansion in Wards 1, 2, 3 having been levelled. Is this an Army ?
Perhaps it's because that while Cereal claims that it is surrounded by hostile enemies intent on destroying it at all times, Cereal knows that it is really just using its army to harass , demoralize and try to force emigration of an occupied/ captive Palestinian population.
It's " soldiers" have been trained on a routine on how to brutalize and terrorize Palestinian civilians who are unarmed- not fight actual trained militants
The IDF is undisciplined, incompetent, and out of control, probably because it has absorbed the ethos of its unprincipled and fascist leaders. Israel as a whole is in decline and losing respect. Every aspect of the country appears to be disintegrating. Its once-vaunted intelligence services massively failed to thwart the 10/7 attack, and Israeli authorities responded incompetently, killing many of their own people. Americans, seeing the carnage in Gaza, don't want to subsidize this rogue state. Corruption, autocracy, and human rights violations go hand in hand. If Israeli voters can't get the situation under control, Israel will become a banana republic.
+ 100
Too late. Thanks to decades of Bibiism, it's been firmly established as a banana Republic, flushed with cash from its American sponsor.
If you don't like Israel why do you talk about it so much? Are you seeking to perform a civic duty and reform it?
DP. Why should people who are funding Israeli acts of aggression and ethnic cleansing not have a say in how their tax dollars are diverted to a foreign country that is a pariah in most of the world?
Loud and proud anti-Israel, are we? Still at it, days later, arguing over Israel and Palestine and glossing over Hamas?
I have to admit I’m sad for you. I wish you the best and that you get over this fixation. There’s better things to do with your time than argue about this on DCUM if you’re half as smart as you think you are.
You used a lot of words to simply acknowledge that Israel subsists and enjoys unchallenged regional hegemony for no other reason than U.S. financial welfare and U.S. interference at the U.N.
I’m sad for you that you cannot recognize that the criticism of Israel doesn’t endorse the actions of other bad actors (Hamas, etc.) in the region. Hamas and other terrorist groups should be dismantled forever as part of a peace process in the region. But at least you’re sticking to the handbook by trying to get everyone to STFU so the status quo can persist and expand without scrutiny,
Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.
Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”
It’s certifiable
It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?
It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.
This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."
I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.
DP
Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.
Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.
That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.
Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.
Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.
Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?
The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.
DP
The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).
I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.
You just did call everyone involved a liar.
I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.
DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.
Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.
In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.
Exactly how mental are you???
The person used these exact words “I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense.“ and “ I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.”
And from those two statements you walked away with an argument that the accounts “must be lies”? Must be lies? Are you literally deranged?
Right on. Carefully qualified statements from one poster. Complete misrepresentation of her position from the other.
Repeated misrepresentation. Brazenly going so far as to quote the actual words multiple times and, what, I guess hope that their shitty Jedi mind trick would prevent people from actually reading the goddamned words? The words couldn’t be more clear in establishing that the poster was NOT stating that the reporting MUST be based on lies, but I’m sure we’ll now hear from the “word salad” specialist and the “I’ll tell you what you REALLY mean!” thought crime experts to straighten all of this out. The “what do you want to do about your feelings?” poster from Ukraine or Poland or wherever is already on duty.
This is insane. The pro-Zionism part of this equation is absolutely, clinically deranged. And it should be lost on no one that this is an outcome that is perfectly acceptable to them. Show your deranged true colors, get people to throw their hands up and give up, and get the desired result of stopping the exchange of ideas that threatens to topple the status quo.
Absolutely disgusting human beings. And yes, I mean every last person who lies like these lunatics in furtherance of their desperate defense of Zionism. Still love anyone else Jewish or otherwise who recognizes the toxic insanity of Zionism.
you can present your ideas over and over, but people can still say "well, no thanks" over and over. Some might be ok with status quo. You are frustrating yourself by making changing the status quo a good or evil thing.
Feeling person, we get it.
I want a cessation of violence on both sides, consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence, and a good faith plan to establish a two-state plan that guarantees the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, which will require compromise from both sides. And I want any further aid to the region conditioned upon the successful achievement of these goals. As far as I’m concerned, if Israel and the Palestinians can get across the finish lines, I’m supportive of INCREASING aid to both groups for a certain timeframe to position both states for long term success. I’d love to see them both flourish without the constant conflict, which both sides have earnestly contributed to.
That’s what I want. Is that clear enough for you?
Do you want Hamas gone? Because you didn’t mention that.
Yeah, of course Hamas being dismantled and being brought to justice is a necessity.
That’s why “consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence” was the second aim. Hamas is one such party, but there are also others. Other militant groups on the Palestinian side, the militant settlers and certain Likud officials on the Israeli side, and any IDF personnel who have engaged in conduct that violates the law of armed conflict.
All of the above should be brought to swift and unrelenting justice as part of that second aim.
If you want every wrong thing in the world addressed, what about goings on in Saudi Arabia? Syria? Belarus? South Africa? Indonesia? Why are you soooo focused on Israel?
Because the only 75+ year refugee group involved in any of those countries is in Israel. Because the U.S. provides more financial aid and U.N. interference for Israel than any of those countries. And because there is no end in sight to this conflict.
Why are you soooo focused on ensuring the status quo on Israel?
Palestinians shouldn't be considered refugees.
There isn't wrong with the U.S. providing aid to Israel. Palestinian's not liking it is not a problem. Palestinians are not our gods, we don't have to check every decision with them.
Status quo doesn't have to be changed.
You make things imperatives that actually are not.
“Status quo doesn’t have to be changed”.
Not PP but of course not. However, how well has status quo worked so far? To me the escalating violence back and forth is unsustainable.
It isn't a back and forth however. Palestinians are not happy that they are not getting what they want. We don't always get what we want and doesn't require a change of the status quo. They can keep on fighting for the next 200 years and keep on being pushed back, getting nothing, if they so desire. Life choices, we all make them.
This is a very callous take on the aspirations of millions of people who have been ethnically cleansed. I remember white South Africans saying the same about people of color -- their coldness, their absolute belief in their own racial superiority, their smugness. Whites had all the power for years, but you can't repress people indefinitely. The arc of the world is toward equality.
Who has talked about racial superiority? You are turning a land battle into a bunch of things thst is not. You want a piece of land for you and your family, can't have it, and are calling people racist for it.
The “I’m not even Jewish” and “your feelings are not even real things so what do you want us to do about it?” person, whose entire schtick involves shrugging off other posts now hundreds of times with a blasé defense of the status quo, reporting for 24/7 duty.
Doing their noble part to ensure that no progress is made in this never ending conflict because the status quo is their primary aim, followed by further land grabs for Israel. So if everyone who is reasonable and civilized and capable of compassion can just shut the F up and allow this person to go to sleep after 12 straight weeks of spirited defense of racism, state-sponsored Zionist terrorism and apartheid statecraft, that would be kindly appreciated. /s
What are your feelings on Islamic terrorism?
Loathe all forms of terrorism (including state-sponsored and settler driven) and believe all such forms should be eradicated.
Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it's been nearly 3 months and, despite it's 500, 000 K armed soldiers, Billions of free Bombs being given to them by USA, ammo, an Air Force and a Navy " Cereal " still hasn't managed to get control of Gaza- a very small territory only 2 X the size of DC .
Imagine if NW DC were managing to hold off the entire US military for 3 months despite every row house and mansion in Wards 1, 2, 3 having been levelled. Is this an Army ?
Perhaps it's because that while Cereal claims that it is surrounded by hostile enemies intent on destroying it at all times, Cereal knows that it is really just using its army to harass , demoralize and try to force emigration of an occupied/ captive Palestinian population.
It's " soldiers" have been trained on a routine on how to brutalize and terrorize Palestinian civilians who are unarmed- not fight actual trained militants
The IDF is undisciplined, incompetent, and out of control, probably because it has absorbed the ethos of its unprincipled and fascist leaders. Israel as a whole is in decline and losing respect. Every aspect of the country appears to be disintegrating. Its once-vaunted intelligence services massively failed to thwart the 10/7 attack, and Israeli authorities responded incompetently, killing many of their own people. Americans, seeing the carnage in Gaza, don't want to subsidize this rogue state. Corruption, autocracy, and human rights violations go hand in hand. If Israeli voters can't get the situation under control, Israel will become a banana republic.
+ 100
Too late. Thanks to decades of Bibiism, it's been firmly established as a banana Republic, flushed with cash from its American sponsor.
If you don't like Israel why do you talk about it so much? Are you seeking to perform a civic duty and reform it?
DP. Why should people who are funding Israeli acts of aggression and ethnic cleansing not have a say in how their tax dollars are diverted to a foreign country that is a pariah in most of the world?
Loud and proud anti-Israel, are we? Still at it, days later, arguing over Israel and Palestine and glossing over Hamas?
I have to admit I’m sad for you. I wish you the best and that you get over this fixation. There’s better things to do with your time than argue about this on DCUM if you’re half as smart as you think you are.
You used a lot of words to simply acknowledge that Israel subsists and enjoys unchallenged regional hegemony for no other reason than U.S. financial welfare and U.S. interference at the U.N.
I’m sad for you that you cannot recognize that the criticism of Israel doesn’t endorse the actions of other bad actors (Hamas, etc.) in the region. Hamas and other terrorist groups should be dismantled forever as part of a peace process in the region. But at least you’re sticking to the handbook by trying to get everyone to STFU so the status quo can persist and expand without scrutiny,
No, I didn’t admit that Israel depends on US aid. The article I linked proves the opposite.
Anonymous wrote:Yeah, it's been nearly 3 months and, despite it's 500, 000 K armed soldiers, Billions of free Bombs being given to them by USA, ammo, an Air Force and a Navy " Cereal " still hasn't managed to get control of Gaza- a very small territory only 2 X the size of DC .
Imagine if NW DC were managing to hold off the entire US military for 3 months despite every row house and mansion in Wards 1, 2, 3 having been levelled. Is this an Army ?
Perhaps it's because that while Cereal claims that it is surrounded by hostile enemies intent on destroying it at all times, Cereal knows that it is really just using its army to harass , demoralize and try to force emigration of an occupied/ captive Palestinian population.
It's " soldiers" have been trained on a routine on how to brutalize and terrorize Palestinian civilians who are unarmed- not fight actual trained militants
The IDF is undisciplined, incompetent, and out of control, probably because it has absorbed the ethos of its unprincipled and fascist leaders. Israel as a whole is in decline and losing respect. Every aspect of the country appears to be disintegrating. Its once-vaunted intelligence services massively failed to thwart the 10/7 attack, and Israeli authorities responded incompetently, killing many of their own people. Americans, seeing the carnage in Gaza, don't want to subsidize this rogue state. Corruption, autocracy, and human rights violations go hand in hand. If Israeli voters can't get the situation under control, Israel will become a banana republic.
+ 100
Too late. Thanks to decades of Bibiism, it's been firmly established as a banana Republic, flushed with cash from its American sponsor.
If you don't like Israel why do you talk about it so much? Are you seeking to perform a civic duty and reform it?
DP. Why should people who are funding Israeli acts of aggression and ethnic cleansing not have a say in how their tax dollars are diverted to a foreign country that is a pariah in most of the world?
Loud and proud anti-Israel, are we? Still at it, days later, arguing over Israel and Palestine and glossing over Hamas?
I have to admit I’m sad for you. I wish you the best and that you get over this fixation. There’s better things to do with your time than argue about this on DCUM if you’re half as smart as you think you are.
You used a lot of words to simply acknowledge that Israel subsists and enjoys unchallenged regional hegemony for no other reason than U.S. financial welfare and U.S. interference at the U.N.
I’m sad for you that you cannot recognize that the criticism of Israel doesn’t endorse the actions of other bad actors (Hamas, etc.) in the region. Hamas and other terrorist groups should be dismantled forever as part of a peace process in the region. But at least you’re sticking to the handbook by trying to get everyone to STFU so the status quo can persist and expand without scrutiny,
No, I didn’t admit that Israel depends on US aid. The article I linked proves the opposite.
Of course you didn’t. You actually made the suggestion that there are some Zionists (clueless ones, I guess) who would prefer to reject U.S. aid.
What you glossed over is the fact that there are Zionists in control who are aware of the vital nature of that U.S. aid and would never knowingly allow that to happen. Without U.S. financial aid, armament supplies, and U.N. interference, Israel would have no choice but to reform and find a pathway to peaceful coexistence with its neighbors.
That pathway will be bumpy and require significant compromise from all sides (including Israel; actually, especially Israel since Israel has been enabled by France in the early days and now especially the U.S. over the past 50 years to create tremendous damage within the other regional states), but it’s achievable if Israel isn’t able to use U.S. cover to smash any rival into oblivion before diplomatic relations ever become a necessity.
Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.
Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”
It’s certifiable
It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?
It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.
This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."
I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.
DP
Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.
Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.
That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.
Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.
Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.
Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?
The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.
DP
The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).
I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.
You just did call everyone involved a liar.
I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.
DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.
Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.
In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.
Exactly how mental are you???
The person used these exact words “I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense.“ and “ I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.”
And from those two statements you walked away with an argument that the accounts “must be lies”? Must be lies? Are you literally deranged?
Right on. Carefully qualified statements from one poster. Complete misrepresentation of her position from the other.
Repeated misrepresentation. Brazenly going so far as to quote the actual words multiple times and, what, I guess hope that their shitty Jedi mind trick would prevent people from actually reading the goddamned words? The words couldn’t be more clear in establishing that the poster was NOT stating that the reporting MUST be based on lies, but I’m sure we’ll now hear from the “word salad” specialist and the “I’ll tell you what you REALLY mean!” thought crime experts to straighten all of this out. The “what do you want to do about your feelings?” poster from Ukraine or Poland or wherever is already on duty.
This is insane. The pro-Zionism part of this equation is absolutely, clinically deranged. And it should be lost on no one that this is an outcome that is perfectly acceptable to them. Show your deranged true colors, get people to throw their hands up and give up, and get the desired result of stopping the exchange of ideas that threatens to topple the status quo.
Absolutely disgusting human beings. And yes, I mean every last person who lies like these lunatics in furtherance of their desperate defense of Zionism. Still love anyone else Jewish or otherwise who recognizes the toxic insanity of Zionism.
you can present your ideas over and over, but people can still say "well, no thanks" over and over. Some might be ok with status quo. You are frustrating yourself by making changing the status quo a good or evil thing.
Feeling person, we get it.
I want a cessation of violence on both sides, consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence, and a good faith plan to establish a two-state plan that guarantees the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, which will require compromise from both sides. And I want any further aid to the region conditioned upon the successful achievement of these goals. As far as I’m concerned, if Israel and the Palestinians can get across the finish lines, I’m supportive of INCREASING aid to both groups for a certain timeframe to position both states for long term success. I’d love to see them both flourish without the constant conflict, which both sides have earnestly contributed to.
That’s what I want. Is that clear enough for you?
Do you want Hamas gone? Because you didn’t mention that.
Yeah, of course Hamas being dismantled and being brought to justice is a necessity.
That’s why “consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence” was the second aim. Hamas is one such party, but there are also others. Other militant groups on the Palestinian side, the militant settlers and certain Likud officials on the Israeli side, and any IDF personnel who have engaged in conduct that violates the law of armed conflict.
All of the above should be brought to swift and unrelenting justice as part of that second aim.
If you want every wrong thing in the world addressed, what about goings on in Saudi Arabia? Syria? Belarus? South Africa? Indonesia? Why are you soooo focused on Israel?
Because the only 75+ year refugee group involved in any of those countries is in Israel. Because the U.S. provides more financial aid and U.N. interference for Israel than any of those countries. And because there is no end in sight to this conflict.
Why are you soooo focused on ensuring the status quo on Israel?
Palestinians shouldn't be considered refugees.
There isn't wrong with the U.S. providing aid to Israel. Palestinian's not liking it is not a problem. Palestinians are not our gods, we don't have to check every decision with them.
Status quo doesn't have to be changed.
You make things imperatives that actually are not.
“Status quo doesn’t have to be changed”.
Not PP but of course not. However, how well has status quo worked so far? To me the escalating violence back and forth is unsustainable.
It isn't a back and forth however. Palestinians are not happy that they are not getting what they want. We don't always get what we want and doesn't require a change of the status quo. They can keep on fighting for the next 200 years and keep on being pushed back, getting nothing, if they so desire. Life choices, we all make them.
This is a very callous take on the aspirations of millions of people who have been ethnically cleansed. I remember white South Africans saying the same about people of color -- their coldness, their absolute belief in their own racial superiority, their smugness. Whites had all the power for years, but you can't repress people indefinitely. The arc of the world is toward equality.
Who has talked about racial superiority? You are turning a land battle into a bunch of things thst is not. You want a piece of land for you and your family, can't have it, and are calling people racist for it.
The “I’m not even Jewish” and “your feelings are not even real things so what do you want us to do about it?” person, whose entire schtick involves shrugging off other posts now hundreds of times with a blasé defense of the status quo, reporting for 24/7 duty.
Doing their noble part to ensure that no progress is made in this never ending conflict because the status quo is their primary aim, followed by further land grabs for Israel. So if everyone who is reasonable and civilized and capable of compassion can just shut the F up and allow this person to go to sleep after 12 straight weeks of spirited defense of racism, state-sponsored Zionist terrorism and apartheid statecraft, that would be kindly appreciated. /s
What are your feelings on Islamic terrorism?
Loathe all forms of terrorism (including state-sponsored and settler driven) and believe all such forms should be eradicated.
Anonymous wrote:The victim mentality is really beyond what I even imagined.
Literally murdering thousands of kids and still screaming “everyone hates us for no reason!!”
It’s certifiable
It is certifiable that so many people hate Israelis and Jews, no?
It that every Jew is responsible for what Israeli policy is. Must mean every Muslim is pro Hamas / pro terrorist.
This is a good point. "If you don't support Hamas and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an Islamophobe who wants to genocide all Muslims" makes as much sense as "If you don't support Israel and believe everything it says unconditionally, you must be an antisemite who wants to genocide all Jews."
I suspect the previous poster(s) understands this, but they're backed into a corner and can only spew a smokescreen of insults. Which is a very dishonest practice.
DP
Everyone here is 100.00% anti-Hamas. What about that fact don't you get? Stop trying to gin up a defense for what Israel is doing by arguing that those opposed to those actions are supportive of Hamas. It's pathetic. Even you can do better.
Perhaps my post wasn't sufficiently clear? Of course everyone here is anti-Hamas and, more specifically, opposes its actions on 10/7. I was making a comparison between absurd conclusions. Nobody believes that opposing Hamas means you're a genocidal Islamophobe who hates Muslims. Similarly, nobody believes that opposing Israel means you're a genocidal antisemite who hates Jews. Well, almost nobody in both cases. Some people are deliberately obtuse or deceitful or too fanatical to think straight, and my post was aimed at these folk. I don't support either statement, which is ... kind of why I put them both in quotes.
That's objectively false. Can't be anti-Hamas and yet be their direct mouthpiece repeating their false claims and conspiracy theories.
Which I have done ... where, exactly? Another straw man. Sorry, but this is getting very boring.
Don't know if it was you or who, as posts are anonymous, but I'm definitely not the only one here who keeps seeing Hamas propaganda and false talking points popping up over and over again.
Which makes your role here what...? A confused person who doesn't know what's going on? Someone who is naive and lacks critical thinking skills? Clearly not, since you are also hyperfocused on rhetorical devices, like "ad hominem" and "strawman" which tells me you are here specifically to argue. Yet if that's the case, then why are you ignoring the instances where Hamas talking points are being used? Perhaps you overestimate the notion of plausible deniability?
The PP keeps throwing around the terms “ad hominem” and “strawman” as an attempt to discredit the detailed NYT reporting. She’s using those terms (incorrectly but whatever) to distract from the objectively horrific and meticulously detailed description of the vicious sexual torture used by Hamas on 10/7. If she can get people to mentally associate that detailed reporting with cheap rhetorical devices, it helps her cause. It’s a classic propagandist move, albeit an easily identifiable one. She’s a propagandist, just not a very skilled one.
DP
The NY Times account is horrifying. It would be impossible to look into the eyes of those parents and not feel tremendous sadness for them (and for the world, frankly, since what happened to their daughter is just horrific for our shared sense of humanity).
I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense. I don't think I have ever come across reporting related to severe trauma (and this reported trauma is probably as severe as one can imagine) where the eyewitness accounts are even 10% as vivid and detailed as the ones featured in the Times. I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.
You just did call everyone involved a liar.
I look forward to watching you say the same thing about the NYT’s meticulous reporting about the child deaths in Gaza and how those babies were killed and what their parents said they saw when their kids died in front of them. Are those parents, with their horrific details of watching their children bleed out and die in front them, also lying? Please do go on and tell me how the Palestinian parents who watched their children die in front of them are also lying.
DP. There is a mix of lies and truths. Yes, some Palestinian children have died, but there are also lies about how many died (such as the grossly exaggerated death count from Baptist Hospital). There are also lies about whose hands they died at. Yes, IDF killed some, but Hamas is also killing Palestinians, like when Hamas was trying to steal humanitarian aid for themselves rather than distribute it and they shot and killed hungry Palestinians who complained about it. Or when Hamas was trying to stop people from trying to evacuate. Or when civilians died because they were placed in harm's way by Hamas as human shields, or were killed because their home or shelter collapsed into Hamas tunnels when Hamas complexes were bombed.
Sure, but that’s not the point. The PP who is saying that the detailed eyewitness accounts of sexual torture must be lies because the shock and trauma should have prevented the creation of vivid and detailed memories of that torture needs to also then come out and say that the Palestinian parents who described watching their child bleed out in front of them in vivid detail are also lying because that level of shock and trauma should have prevented those parents from forming those memories. If she’s taking the position that the stories of sexual torture can’t be true because of “shock and trauma” then she needs to be consistent in how that theory is applied. Unless, of course, she’s taking the position that only Jewish women have this peculiar inability to remember unspeakable horrors, which is what I suspect she’s really getting at.
In any case, I look forward to reading her statements that the Palestinian parents who described the horrific and slow deaths of their dying children in front of their own eyes are also lying when they describe those deaths in excruciating and awful detail.
Exactly how mental are you???
The person used these exact words “I can't take the position that I'm sure the reporting is not true, but there is something about this reporting that doesn't seem to make much sense.“ and “ I'm not prepared to call anyone involved a liar, but I would just gently point out that shock and trauma, at least in my experience, just does not lend itself to a very vivid and detailed memory of the events in question - for most people, anyway.”
And from those two statements you walked away with an argument that the accounts “must be lies”? Must be lies? Are you literally deranged?
Right on. Carefully qualified statements from one poster. Complete misrepresentation of her position from the other.
Repeated misrepresentation. Brazenly going so far as to quote the actual words multiple times and, what, I guess hope that their shitty Jedi mind trick would prevent people from actually reading the goddamned words? The words couldn’t be more clear in establishing that the poster was NOT stating that the reporting MUST be based on lies, but I’m sure we’ll now hear from the “word salad” specialist and the “I’ll tell you what you REALLY mean!” thought crime experts to straighten all of this out. The “what do you want to do about your feelings?” poster from Ukraine or Poland or wherever is already on duty.
This is insane. The pro-Zionism part of this equation is absolutely, clinically deranged. And it should be lost on no one that this is an outcome that is perfectly acceptable to them. Show your deranged true colors, get people to throw their hands up and give up, and get the desired result of stopping the exchange of ideas that threatens to topple the status quo.
Absolutely disgusting human beings. And yes, I mean every last person who lies like these lunatics in furtherance of their desperate defense of Zionism. Still love anyone else Jewish or otherwise who recognizes the toxic insanity of Zionism.
you can present your ideas over and over, but people can still say "well, no thanks" over and over. Some might be ok with status quo. You are frustrating yourself by making changing the status quo a good or evil thing.
Feeling person, we get it.
I want a cessation of violence on both sides, consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence, and a good faith plan to establish a two-state plan that guarantees the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace, which will require compromise from both sides. And I want any further aid to the region conditioned upon the successful achievement of these goals. As far as I’m concerned, if Israel and the Palestinians can get across the finish lines, I’m supportive of INCREASING aid to both groups for a certain timeframe to position both states for long term success. I’d love to see them both flourish without the constant conflict, which both sides have earnestly contributed to.
That’s what I want. Is that clear enough for you?
Do you want Hamas gone? Because you didn’t mention that.
Yeah, of course Hamas being dismantled and being brought to justice is a necessity.
That’s why “consequences for parties that have previously engaged in violence” was the second aim. Hamas is one such party, but there are also others. Other militant groups on the Palestinian side, the militant settlers and certain Likud officials on the Israeli side, and any IDF personnel who have engaged in conduct that violates the law of armed conflict.
All of the above should be brought to swift and unrelenting justice as part of that second aim.
If you want every wrong thing in the world addressed, what about goings on in Saudi Arabia? Syria? Belarus? South Africa? Indonesia? Why are you soooo focused on Israel?
Because the only 75+ year refugee group involved in any of those countries is in Israel. Because the U.S. provides more financial aid and U.N. interference for Israel than any of those countries. And because there is no end in sight to this conflict.
Why are you soooo focused on ensuring the status quo on Israel?
Palestinians shouldn't be considered refugees.
There isn't wrong with the U.S. providing aid to Israel. Palestinian's not liking it is not a problem. Palestinians are not our gods, we don't have to check every decision with them.
Status quo doesn't have to be changed.
You make things imperatives that actually are not.
“Status quo doesn’t have to be changed”.
Not PP but of course not. However, how well has status quo worked so far? To me the escalating violence back and forth is unsustainable.
It isn't a back and forth however. Palestinians are not happy that they are not getting what they want. We don't always get what we want and doesn't require a change of the status quo. They can keep on fighting for the next 200 years and keep on being pushed back, getting nothing, if they so desire. Life choices, we all make them.
This is a very callous take on the aspirations of millions of people who have been ethnically cleansed. I remember white South Africans saying the same about people of color -- their coldness, their absolute belief in their own racial superiority, their smugness. Whites had all the power for years, but you can't repress people indefinitely. The arc of the world is toward equality.
Who has talked about racial superiority? You are turning a land battle into a bunch of things thst is not. You want a piece of land for you and your family, can't have it, and are calling people racist for it.
The “I’m not even Jewish” and “your feelings are not even real things so what do you want us to do about it?” person, whose entire schtick involves shrugging off other posts now hundreds of times with a blasé defense of the status quo, reporting for 24/7 duty.
Doing their noble part to ensure that no progress is made in this never ending conflict because the status quo is their primary aim, followed by further land grabs for Israel. So if everyone who is reasonable and civilized and capable of compassion can just shut the F up and allow this person to go to sleep after 12 straight weeks of spirited defense of racism, state-sponsored Zionist terrorism and apartheid statecraft, that would be kindly appreciated. /s
What are your feelings on Islamic terrorism?
Loathe all forms of terrorism (including state-sponsored and settler driven) and believe all such forms should be eradicated.
It’s interesting though that you can go on very long, very specific tirades about Zionism, but when asked about Islamic terrorism you do not mention it by name nor can you speak about without bringing it back to Israel. Very telling.
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