Israel 4 Last

[Emil El Zapato]

Here's an illustration: You saw Fred's post earlier of the screaming meemie. Fifty years ago he would have been screaming to kill the Jews. Has he changed for the better? Has he improved through his enlightenment? Has society changed for the better or improved through right-wing enlightenment? I submit the answer to that is no. As Sigmund Freud said, psychotherapy is necessary for change otherwise any changes are superficial and the individual will later manifest the same psychopathies but under a different flag.

[Aragorn]

The U.S. has veto power but my real point was, "Just how hard did the other nations plead their case to the U.S. to change their position?"

I would wager "all of them".

I didn't hear any outrage coming from the other players, but if that wasn't heard through the media that would be a legitimate example of ALL media playing to power.

Yes, they do, but it's a little more elaborate than that. Due to the repeated vetoing by the Empire, the other nations know that there's nothing they can do on the ground without it being interpreted as a declaration of war against the USA and/or NATO.

Many countries — even NATO members, like for instance Belgium — are loudly protesting what's happening in Gaza. First and foremost, the people in the streets are protesting, and there's an occasional action by a small group, such as for instance a seemingly impromptu waving of Palestinian flags during a meeting of the Flemish parliament. But the people themselves can do no more than that.

On the other hand, politicians and diplomats are constantly trying to pressure Israel behind the scenes, but — as was of course to be expected — all to no avail, because Israel knows that it can carry on doing what it's doing with impunity due to the Empire having its back.

And thus, once again, short of declaring an open war on Israel — and by implication, on the United States — there is nothing any nation state can do under the current bureaucracy. And that's exactly why the Houthis are now attacking supply ships destined for Israel. Likewise for the occasional attacks on Israel from Hezbollah. Nations cannot do it, and so the rebels are doing it instead, even if those rebels are themselves fundamentalist Islamists.

Realities and contingencies are all cold and cruel and decisions have to be made.

Those decisions should be justified. Inaction at this point is complicity in genocide. It really is that black and white now.

---

Here's an illustration: You saw Fred's post earlier of the screaming meemie. Fifty years ago he would have been screaming to kill the Jews. Has he changed for the better? Has he improved through his enlightenment? Has society changed for the better or improved through right-wing enlightenment? I submit the answer to that is no. As Sigmund Freud said, psychotherapy is necessary for change otherwise any changes are superficial and the individual will later manifest the same psychopathies but under a different flag.

Cut it out with the ad hominems on Fred, or I'll ban you from this thread too.

[Fred Steeves]

May all the piss in the world descend upon their ugly heads.

Right Uncle Sid. But still, unfortunately I'm thinking us Americans in general will be inheriting some of that piss, fair or not. Like we'll never know how many Germans might have protested the holocaust had they been aware and/or were allowed, but none the less, they still bear a general shame to this day for what their people did. I've been there, they told me that themselves.

It's my people directly facilitating this, and god knows how long it will take for the world to not think "what the Americans did". Just like today even all these decades later, we still think "what the Germans did"...

Pay attention, everyone, so you can tell your children. It doesn't happen every day that an entire population is being systematically wiped out.

I would imaging children of the world will be learning about this in history class for a very long time. Especially as US influence and hegemony fades off into the sunset, and the story can be told honestly, without fears of repercussions.

And not only that story, but the story of the US Empire as a whole, from start to finish. Just that I reckon this current story, along with its companion story in Ukraine, will likely be the part of the overall story where it all began to rapidly unravel. How the empire unwittingly facilitated its own downfall.

If Joe Biden, as the Emperor of the United States of America, were to put down his fist and call off the Empire's unconditional support for Israel, then the genocide would be over in just a couple of days, when the IDF's ammunition and jet fuel runs out.

Yep, 100%.

The Israeli government doesn't give a flying fuck about those hostages. Hell, they even shot three of them on sight, remember?
They're only using the fact that hostages have been taken as an excuse for carrying on with the genocide.

Again, exactly right. That, and the excuse of needing to wipe out Hamas.

9/11 allowed for America's reason - 10/7 allowed for Israel's reason.

[Fred Steeves]

Here's an illustration: You saw Fred's post earlier of the screaming meemie. Fifty years ago he would have been screaming to kill the Jews. Has he changed for the better? Has he improved through his enlightenment? Has society changed for the better or improved through right-wing enlightenment? I submit the answer to that is no. As Sigmund Freud said, psychotherapy is necessary for change otherwise any changes are superficial and the individual will later manifest the same psychopathies but under a different flag.

Cut it out with the ad hominems on Fred, or I'll ban you from this thread too.

Huh, that's wild, I understood it that he was referring to the congressman that Code Pink was chasing around.

[Emil El Zapato]

I would wager "all of them".



Yes, they do, but it's a little more elaborate than that. Due to the repeated vetoing by the Empire, the other nations know that there's nothing they can do on the ground without it being interpreted as a declaration of war against the USA and/or NATO.

Many countries — even NATO members, like for instance Belgium — are loudly protesting what's happening in Gaza. First and foremost, the people in the streets are protesting, and there's an occasional action by a small group, such as for instance a seemingly impromptu waving of Palestinian flags during a meeting of the Flemish parliament. But the people themselves can do no more than that.

On the other hand, politicians and diplomats are constantly trying to pressure Israel behind the scenes, but — as was of course to be expected — all to no avail, because Israel knows that it can carry on doing what it's doing with impunity due to the Empire having its back.

And thus, once again, short of declaring an open war on Israel — and by implication, on the United States — there is nothing any nation state can do under the current bureaucracy. And that's exactly why the Houthis are now attacking supply ships destined for Israel. Likewise for the occasional attacks on Israel from Hezbollah. Nations cannot do it, and so the rebels are doing it instead, even if those rebels are themselves fundamentalist Islamists.



Those decisions should be justified. Inaction at this point is complicity in genocide. It really is that black and white now.

---

Cut it out with the ad hominems on Fred, or I'll ban you from this thread too.

You didn't watch the video because you don't know who I was referring to? I'd say most of my comments regarding Fred in the last few weeks have been more observations than ad hominies...I never liked hominy just between you and I.

[Aragorn]

You didn't watch the video because you don't know who I was referring to?

I did watch the video of that Zionist Republican, yes.

[Fred Steeves]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux4x9BBl52Y

[Emil El Zapato]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux4x9BBl52Y

I'm not sure that all this is that relevant but there is nothing wrong either. People have had a target on her and her family for years, one should consider her perspective and she is about done in any case.

One should wonder if humanity doesn't realize against all indications that this life is nothing more than an illusion.

"According to a December 2023 Pew Research Center poll, 73% of Republicans and 62% of Democrats believe Hamas has a lot of responsibility for the Israel-Hamas war. However, 50% of Democrats believe the Israeli government has a lot of responsibility, compared to 21% of Republicans."

[Emil El Zapato]

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Israel and Hamas are negotiating a possible swap of prisoners and hostages and a cease-fire. For now, the fighting rages on. And one thing that is hard to gauge is how much fighting strength Hamas has left. NPR's Greg Myre in Tel Aviv has been looking into this. Hi, Greg.

GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.

SHAPIRO: What can you tell us about the setbacks Hamas has suffered so far?

MYRE: Well, Israel says about 9,000 Hamas fighters have been killed and perhaps a similar number wounded, and various Israeli estimates put the Hamas fighting force at the beginning of the war at around 30,000 or so, give or take. But these are just Israeli estimates that NPR can't independently verify. We don't have hard numbers because Hamas refuses to provide figures. We've asked in the past and again for this story and received no numbers. Israel says it's killed many Hamas commanders, and the militants are no longer fighting really as cohesive units, but Hamas is still very much attacking, mostly guerrilla style in smaller numbers. And the heaviest fighting is around Khan Younis in southern Gaza, which is the main Hamas stronghold at this point. And Hamas is also waging renewed attacks in northern Gaza, where Israel recently said it was in full control. So Hamas has been weakened, but it still has the ability to strike.

SHAPIRO: So that's the urban combat in Gaza. But what about Hamas rocket fire from Gaza into Israel? How frequent is that?

MYRE: This has really dropped off dramatically, though it hasn't stopped entirely. Hamas fired about a dozen rockets at Tel Aviv on Monday, and Israel's Iron Dome shot them down as they approached the city. It was the first such attack in weeks. In the early days of the fighting back in October, Hamas rockets were a constant threat in Tel Aviv and other cities. Israel says that Hamas has fired more than 14,000 of these rockets overall. Today, it's not clear whether Hamas is running out of the rockets or whether it's just too difficult to fire them with Israeli forces all over Gaza. Whatever the reason, this threat has diminished considerably.

SHAPIRO: Well, if Hamas has lost some of its military strength, how might that influence these negotiations on a cease-fire?

MYRE: Right. So Hamas political leaders, like the military wing, they operate very much in secret, so it's impossible to know with any certainty. But Hamas leaders have been clear about one thing. They want a permanent cease-fire and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza. So Hamas is looking for a way to halt the fighting on terms it can accept and portray as a win. And I spoke about this with a former Israeli military officer Yohanan Tzoreff. He's now at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies.

YOHANAN TZOREFF: We are talking about organizations like Hamas. The idea is how to prevent the victory from the other side. It doesn't matter if you lost 20,000 or 30 or 100,000 people. The most important issue is to stay in your territory, not to be crushed.

MYRE: So he thinks Hamas will claim victory as long as it can remain in Gaza and say it survived a war with Israel, the strongest military in the Middle East.

SHAPIRO: Well, on the Israeli side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu still says his goal is the total destruction of Hamas. Is that a real possibility?

MYRE: Ari, I think in the near term, this doesn't appear realistic. Israel has steadily advanced in Gaza from north to south. Hamas now appears limited to relatively small-scale skirmishes, but analysts say the Israeli military is still looking at a very protracted fight, lasting many months or longer, if it hopes to completely root out Hamas. And there just aren't any guarantees. And even if Israel succeeds, it would have to maintain a presence in Gaza to keep Hamas from re-emerging. And we've just been discussing the military side. The Hamas political leadership remains very much intact. So this war is nearing the four-month mark, and we've seen some very clear trends emerge, but the final outcome is still far from certain.

[Emil El Zapato]

With the U.S. (Biden) as one of the entities leading the effort: (With its docking port facility)



‘Gaza’s Ark’ to break blockade, this time from within

A new initiative will strive to export produce from Gaza rather than bring supplies in
By ELHANAN MILLER

A group of Palestinian and international activists are gearing up for a new attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. But unlike previous flotillas that attempted to reach Gaza, organizers hope to get a boat out of the Strip and into international waters.

Titled “Gaza’s Ark” and initiated by local organizations and international solidarity groups including the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the initiative seeks to highlight the plight of Gaza’s exporters who have been banned from delivering their produce via the sea. The initiative is also intended as a protest against Israel’s restrictions on Gaza’s fishermen, who are only permitted to fish three nautical miles from the shore (reduced from six miles after last week’s rocket fire into southern Israel).

The organizers are in the process of raising funds to refurbish a boat in Gaza and stock it with Palestinian products, an endeavor estimated to cost $400,000. A number of local and international solidarity activists are to sail on the boat, although its destination is as yet unknown.

According to its website, supporters of the initiative include American linguist Noam Chomsky, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and six Nobel peace laureates.

“Gaza’s Ark is not an aid project. It is a peaceful action to challenge the blockade, which Israel unilaterally and unreasonably enforces on Gaza,” reads the mission statement on the group’s website.

Mahfouz Kabariti, head of Gaza’s fishing and marine sport association and the initiative’s local spokesman, told The Times of Israel that Gaza’s Ark is a new attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade in favor of Gaza’s neglected farmers and manufacturers who are forced to use Israel’s Ashdod port to export their produce.

“Why should we use an Israeli port and be subjected to the political moods of Israel’s leadership, which can shut us off at will?” Kabariti asked.

“Israel always claimed that the blockade was meant to prevent the smuggling of illegal weapons into Gaza. In that case, it should have no problem with a boat leaving the Gaza Strip,” he said.

Kabariti claimed that most of the funds for refurbishing the ship have already been secured, adding that an official announcement regarding the initiative will take place within weeks.

But Sari Bashi, head of Israeli NGO Gisha, which deals with Palestinian freedom-of-movement issues, said that exporting produce overseas was the least of Gaza’s problems.

According to Bashi, export from Gaza has diminished to 2 percent of what it was before the intensification of Israel’s blockade in June 2007, with a current average of two truckloads per day. However, the main markets for Gaza’s exports — which include furniture, clothing and packaged food products — are Israel and the West Bank, not Europe.

“Prior to June 2007, more than 85% of Gaza’s goods were being sold in Israel and the West Bank,” Bashi told The Times of Israel, stating that Israel had relied heavily on sweatshops in Gaza for the manufacturing of clothes and on Gaza farmers for labor-intensive agriculture such as cucumbers and citrus crops.

“Israel and the West Bank remain the realistic and lucrative markets for farmers and manufacturers in Gaza,” Bashi added.

Israel banned all export from Gaza to Israel and the West Bank upon Hamas’s violent takeover of the Strip in the summer of 2007, although trucks leaving the Strip for Israeli ports or for Jordan — where export is permitted — undergo Israeli security checks at the Erez crossing.

Israel officially declared its naval blockade on Gaza in January 2009 during Operation Cast Lead, but has effectively prevented all international naval traffic to and from the Gaza Strip since capturing it from Egypt in the Six-Day War of June 1967. Israel says it maintains the blockade to prevent Hamas from importing weaponry to use against Israel, and says the blockade meets international legal provisions.

Numerous flotillas have attempted to break the Israeli naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2008, with at least one being allowed to dock in 2008.

In May 2010, Israeli commando forces raided a Turkish vessel, the Mavi Marmara, which was part of a larger flotilla organized by the Free Gaza Movement and the Islamist Turkish charity IHH. The Israeli soldiers were attacked by activists on board, leading to violent clashes and the deaths of nine Turkish nationals and the injury of seven Israeli soldiers.

[Emil El Zapato]

Biden says to Netanyahu: "We will have a come to Jesus meeting!" And with the support of the American right, he laughs in his face.

[Emil El Zapato]

Pelosi Misses Out On Millions After Selling Nvidia Stake To Avoid 'Misinformation' Last July

Jun 30, 2023,11:40am EDT
TOPLINE Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her financier husband intentionally sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia at a loss last July to avoid public scrutiny, leaving behind millions of dollars in unrealized profit had they held onto the chipmaker stock amid its meteoric rise this year.

The Pelosis' ill-fated Nvidia sale last summer was no accident.

KEY FACTS
Paul Pelosi sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia at a share price of $165.05 on July 26, 2022, his politician wife disclosed in a regulatory filing at the time, taking a $341,365 loss on a stake worth $4.1 million.

That same position was worth $10.5 million Friday, when Nvidia traded at $422 per share, meaning Pelosi left more than $6 million on the table by closing his position on the chipmaker when he did.

But the ill-timed trade was intentional: Drew Hammill, Nancy Pelosi’s then-deputy chief of staff, told Forbes last year that Paul Pelosi “decided to sell the shares at a loss rather than allow the misinformation in the press regarding this trade to continue,” alluding to the sale coming shortly before the Senate’s passage of legislation aimed at boosted domestic chipmakers like Nvidia.

Nvidia shares are up about 155% since Pelosi’s trade, making it by far the best-performing stock on the S&P 500, according to FactSet data, riding the artificial intelligence boom to by far the highest share price in the company’s 24-year trading history.


KEY BACKGROUND
The Pelosis still own between $15 million and $75 million worth of American tech giants Alphabet, Amazon and Apple despite holding no Nvidia, according to their annual financial disclosure. Paul Pelosi exercised $2.6 million worth of stock options in Apple and Microsoft last week. Headquartered just south of Pelosi’s congressional district in Santa Clara, Nvidia became the seventh $1 trillion company earlier this year after beating Wall Street’s expectations for recent sales and sharing “cosmological” profit forecasts due largely to its generative AI segment.

[Wind]

The holy month of Ramadan starts tomorrow. The Israeli government must be under demonic influence.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN87KA-rGGo

[Emil El Zapato]

The holy month of Ramadan starts tomorrow. The Israeli government must be under demonic influence.


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN87KA-rGGo

yup, Netanyahu and his underlings...with aid from the Djinn no doubt...

[Wind]

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYgwKhzHeGc