Has anyone changed their opinion or viewpoint regarding Israel/Gaza/Palestine and the west Bank?
The sheer availability of different media sources, social media, alternative media, 24 hr news channel availability, has completely enlightened me to the real situation there.
For us here despite being over 40 and somewhat of a newshound I was never really educated on what was going on in that region. Israel was always depicted as democratic peaceful victims of some random terrorist group occasionally shelling them. And truth be told I never knew why, it was just something that happened and as a western style nation (America's ally) we just assumed that the white guys were the good guys.
The shit I've learned since October the 7th is somewhat mind blowing. And also the difference between what the (and I hate this phrase) "mainstream media" shows you, how they frame everything and the agenda they push, becomes so obvious when you can see the reality of things yourself online.
It breaks my heart when I see some videos of the devastation in Gaza and some of the horrific crimes going on in the west bank.
I of course abhor what Hamas did too. I've always been someone who just wants people to get along, for me it's easy, it's just my personality, it takes no effort from me.
But when I try and put myself in the shoes of someone whose house has been stolen by extremists, backed up by armour clad-machine gun wielding goons.
Or people who have had their entire families dismembered and buried under the weight of a casually fired Israeli missile, I'm not sure how I'd change as a person.
You know what's sad is that I've had to delete half my post, before even posting it. Despite it being clearly evident and based on facts, I feel like you'll be jumped on and called an antisemite or something just for pointing out some fact based realities of the way Israel treats non-jews there.
Foolz said:There hasn't been much good news in here lately (if ever?), so let me be the first to announce that Henry Kissinger is dead.
Again I was told by news media that he was some kind of noble genius. Only to learn, after his death (thanks youtube) that he was a horrific war criminal.
He and Nixon dropped more bombs on Cambodia than the entire allied forces dropped over the entirety of WW2. He was also responsible in downing socialist governments, putting dictators into power who killed and tortured millions of people worldwide.
gamingeek said:Has anyone changed their opinion or viewpoint regarding Israel/Gaza/Palestine and the west Bank?
This is the one political sphere I give myself a break from. The only input I like to provide is that in the US, the obsession with Israel is driven by Evangelical Christians who see a thriving Israel as a necessary part of Biblical prophesy to bring about the end times. So when you look at the American right, which is in every other way perpetually antisemitic, being hyper-defensive of Israel, that's why.
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Tell me to get back to rewriting this site so it's not horrible on mobile
One thing is for sure; War fucking sucks for many reasons, least of all it's not effective.
I don't see why any side of the political spectrum could be for any war.
To be honest, Israel-Palestine has always struck me as one of the simplest post-WWI vanity projects.
gamingeek said:Again I was told by news media that he was some kind of noble genius. Only to learn, after his death (thanks youtube) that he was a horrific war criminal.
He and Nixon dropped more bombs on Cambodia than the entire allied forces dropped over the entirety of WW2. He was also responsible in downing socialist governments, putting dictators into power who killed and tortured millions of people worldwide.
To be fair to the guy, his project of dumping bombs on Cambodia was of great benefit to the socialist Khmer Rouge! 
He probably got his best obituaries in China, too.
aspro said:One thing is for sure; War fucking sucks for many reasons, least of all it's not effective.
I don't see why any side of the political spectrum could be for any war.
I'd argue it depends on who you are, and your definition of success.
robio said:Depending on who you talk to, this is about 70 years of oppression, or several thousand years of oppression.
What strikes me most about all this is how the Jews of all people feel so little remorse about inflicting such harm upon a minority group. They should know better. Of course it's not all Jews, those that flocked to Israël were of course the diehard zionists, so it comes as no surprise that a democratic regime there would lead to a hard stance on Palestine and a total disregard of the agreements made in the aftermath of the second world war. Add to that the West who still doesn't know how to handle Israël and turns a blind eye due to some idiotic form of historic shame.
Personally I think that Israël doesn't care about civilian casualties. They say they try to avoid them, but the only instance I've seen of actions that I'd classify as such is when troops invaded that hospital room by room to see if Hamas was there. And they only did that because they knew that if they actively bombed a hospital the whole world would have dropped their support. Now they've got this system with QR codes to warn people where they'll bomb. How are people supposed to read QR codes if they're being cut off from electricity? First they tell everyone to flee to the south, then they're told they can't stay there because they'll be bombing there as well. Where are these people supposed to flee to then? All borders are closed.
It's a humanitarian crisis and Israël doesn't care. I bet they feel like 10.000 Palesitens less is 10.000 less headaches. They're keeping international aid out, cutting off water and electricity. Do they hope Palestines will keep Hamas accountable? They're just planting the seeds for a whole new generation of even more radical terrorists.
What Hamas did was an act of terrorism and war, but Israël has themselves to blame because of their poor treatment of Palestines over the last 70 years.
Foolz said:To be honest, Israel-Palestine has always struck me as one of the simplest post-WWI vanity projects.
gamingeek said:Again I was told by news media that he was some kind of noble genius. Only to learn, after his death (thanks youtube) that he was a horrific war criminal.
He and Nixon dropped more bombs on Cambodia than the entire allied forces dropped over the entirety of WW2. He was also responsible in downing socialist governments, putting dictators into power who killed and tortured millions of people worldwide.
To be fair to the guy, his project of dumping bombs on Cambodia was of great benefit to the socialist Khmer Rouge!
aspro said:One thing is for sure; War fucking sucks for many reasons, least of all it's not effective.
I don't see why any side of the political spectrum could be for any war.
I'd argue it depends on who you are, and your definition of success.
If you are an arms dealer, then war is a success. If you are in power and war further extends your power then war is a success. Goes without saying, but perhaps not.
aspro said:
If you are an arms dealer, then war is a success. If you are in power and war further extends your power then war is a success. Goes without saying, but perhaps not.
Well, one side of the political spectrum is in power...and tends to have a lot of money going in and out with arms dealers, so it makes sense why they'd be for many wars?
Ellyoda said:This is the one political sphere I give myself a break from. The only input I like to provide is that in the US, the obsession with Israel is driven by Evangelical Christians who see a thriving Israel as a necessary part of Biblical prophesy to bring about the end times. So when you look at the American right, which is in every other way perpetually antisemitic, being hyper-defensive of Israel, that's why.
I heard about that shit. They want Jewish people there so it will enable the end of days where the Apocalypse happens.
robio said:It's just so damn complex that it's hard to really come to a conclusion. Depending on who you talk to, this is about 70 years of oppression, or several thousand years of oppression. That's a clash in perspective that's not difficult to grasp, and probably impossible to resolve. Anyway I'm kind of with Elle. There's so much history, so many moving parts, and so many interfering parties that it's hard to feel like you've got the right opinion.
It's not complicated though. I used to feel the same way as you. It was all so complicated that I didn't really feel compentent to comment on it. It's really simple actually.
Bear in mind that I'm no history professor, so some dates or locations may be off but the general gist of it is:
Palestine was an existing country with existing people, there was steady immigration by Jewish people to Palestine from roughly the turn of the century to 1948.
Encouraged by a Zionist movement to establish a Jewish homeland. So in Palestine in 1948 roughly 10% of the population were Jewish, 90% were Arabs made up of different religions. The zionist movement, backed by America, declared that -hey bitches - this is Israel now. Jewish militias forcibly moved over 700'000 people from their homes and Jewish militias massacred various villages. Then burned, destroyed and in some cases planted trees over them and renamed everything to Jewish names.
The new U.N made this plan to split Palestine between Jewish people and Palestinians. The Palestinians didn't accept this as the Jewish population was given a disproportionately large portion of lands the existing population already lived in.
Arab countries tried to move in, in a war to stop this. They lost, partly because the Israelis were better funded and equipped by western governments.
Then later in the 60s Israel, under the pretense of a pre-emptive strike invaded and occupied more territory, the Golan heights, the West bank, Gaza. The part of Egypt, then later gave back.
They have occupied the other parts from then to this day
Sadly I've had to edit the rest of my post so some Psycho doesn't give me shit about facts.
Hahaha. Giuliani, get fucked! Too bad he will declare bankruptcy.
travo said:Hahaha. Giuliani, get fucked! Too bad he will declare bankruptcy.
I'm sure Trump will cover it. He and Rudy are buddies.
Giuliani sure is a nut job alright. That guy definitely went all in on riding the Trump train.
Ravenprose said:I'm sure Trump will cover it. He and Rudy are buddies.
yeah, I doubt that. He didn't contribute to his defense fund. I think maybe through a dinner fundraiser for him, but that was the extent of it. Guliani is on his own with this bill.
Not politics per se, but this rant isn't worthy of a seperate thread.
A couple of years ago, a kid died during very humiliating tests to enter a fraternity club of advocacy students. After that, the members who were in charge tried to minimize their responsabilities. After a long trial, they got off the hook with civil service work sentence, which won't show on their permanent record. There was a lot of upheaval about this in society, the feeling being that justice wasn't equal for all and that they would have received much worse punishment if they hadn't been come from wealthy families. So far, so predictable.
After the facts, some rather big shot local influencer made public the names of these students in one of his video's, resulting in a lot of harrasment to the families of the students. One of those families sued this influencer and today was the day of his trial. After declining a civil service sentence, he received a small fine, 3 months of suspended prison and he needs to pay up €20k for damages to the restaurant of one of the families. Of course he's now going to blow this up and milk it for all it's worth, pretending to be the little guy who got punished much worse for a much smaller crime.
This sickens me. I'd be willing to bet that he didn't settle for a civil service just so he could moan about how unfair the system is. I can also believe that he just didn't want to do any actual work. He'll now get many more clicks and thus earn much more money on many more video's of how outrageous this all must be for poor little him. He looks like just the kind of type who, in differrent circumstances, could also have been part of said fraternity and who probably would have done the exact same thing. Blech.
So the guy that exposed the guys who killed the other guy, you think is worse than the guys that killed the guy who got away with very little punishment? Sorry if I am getting this wrong, I've been up for a while with a headache 
I think the guys responsible for the death of guy #1 are bigger douchebags than the guy exposing them. I'm only going off the fact you relayed. I don't support any abuse of the families of the guys that killed the guys though. If the guy who exposed the douchebags doxed the families, then that's not endorsed by Aspro Enterprises Pty. Ltd.
I will say that profiting from this sad situation, beyond covering his legal costs makes the exposer a douche as well, any funds in excess of the legal costs should be given to the family of the victim, or if they don't want it a charity that supports anti-bullying. In general, it is very sad that a young man lost his life. Very sad.
But I take umbrage at the influencer who doxed them probably thinking it'd boost his views. He could have questionned the working of the judicary system, but he went the populist route and is now acting as if he's some kind of martyr. His petty crowdfunding has already raised over 100k, while he most likelt has the funds to pay fir the expenses himself. In the end he's profiting from this from all angles while crying 'poor me'.
It sickens me.
Not to stir things up, and looking at only the horse race component of this, and not ideology:
Trump-Biden rematch. I've been watching this trainwreck in slow motion for over a year now, and here we are at the result which is somehow both inevitable and unimaginable.
I've been secretly hoping Biden would resign for his own good and they could put in a better candidate than Harris (and that Trump would just go away for the sake of calming things down for the betterment of the country).
Maybe voter turnout will be, what, 30% with Trump winning?
It could be spun into bad news: Scumbag lives incredibly long life.