All things Politics

Remove this Banner Ad

Status
Not open for further replies.
Reader mode
sr36 said:
Unless it is incorrectly translated in that video as well, the subject of that sentence is "the places where Hamas is deployed." That's what he is going to turn into rubble, he clarifies that it's not just army barracks - it's "the wicked city." And it wasn't just an intial emotive response; he's been a man of his word in this regard.
Click to expand...

This is how it reads, translations are not perfect;

"All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble."

He is talking about destroying Hamas infrastructure. Also I'm not sure if you aware, Gaza is not a really friendly place.

I also didn't define terrorism.

If you want to call Israel terrorists go ahead. If you want to manipulate words to try and win an internet argument go ahead.
 
ZEV said:
This is how it reads, translations are not perfect;

"All of the places which Hamas is deployed, hiding and operating in that wicked city, we will turn them into rubble."

He is talking about destroying Hamas infrastructure. Also I'm not sure if you aware, Gaza is not a really friendly place.

I also didn't define terrorism.

If you want to call Israel terrorists go ahead. If you want to manipulate words to try and win an internet argument go ahead.
Click to expand...
i'm saying it's semantics.

Whether the categorisation of terrorism is applied just depends on whether it is a recognised government committing an action. If an Iranian proxy bombs Tel Aviv it's a terrorist strike. If Tehran bombs Tel Aviv it's a military strike. The bombs will probably come from the same factory and they won't kill any differently or be despatched for any different reason, despite the different names given to the strikes.

I'm not calling Israeli's terrorists, but I am suggesting that Israel's military action would be categorised as terrorism if they weren't a recognised government and Hamas's wouldn't be if they were a recognised government. That's not weighing up which actions are more horrendous - that's just the reality of how the term terrorism is used. ANC were a terrorist group before they became the government of South Africa - then whatever violent military action they chose couldn't be classified as terrorism.

So you can make a big deal about whether someone calls what Hamas did military action or terrorism, or Israeli action military or terrorism, but when heaps of civilians are dying as a result of acitons without imminent threat to the group doing the killing - they both mean the same to me, regardless of the connotations.
 
Last edited:

Log in to remove this ad.

ZEV said:
You keep pretending that it is because you hate Jews.

Remember the old Alex Waislitz days...
Click to expand...

yes i remember alex as a vice president who found ways not to attend board meetings. I'm sure he still tells the world that he's vice president of the club.....evidently the current board is a little more "engaged" and dont rely on promises of donations.

as for your first comment, it's been a while. you keep pretending that you dont hate palestinians but the evidence is there for all to see. god bless you, zevie. i firmly believe that you and alex are on your way to your promised land....
 
As part of the humanitarian attentiveness of this thread, let's focus on the civil war of Sudan:

The New York Review of Books wrote, 'As its civil war rages on, Sudan is facing the largest famine the world has seen for at least forty years.'

Internal displacement may already be over 10 million

Deaths from violence may be over 50,000

We may recall that in Rwanda, in 100 days in 1994, more than 800,000 people died in a genocide against the Tutsi.

Black African lives receive little coverage.
 
WalterBlaknWhte said:
As part of the humanitarian attentiveness of this thread, let's focus on the civil war of Sudan:

The New York Review of Books wrote, 'As its civil war rages on, Sudan is facing the largest famine the world has seen for at least forty years.'

Internal displacement may already be over 10 million

Deaths from violence may be over 50,000

We may recall that in Rwanda, in 100 days in 1994, more than 800,000 people died in a genocide against the Tutsi.

Black African lives receive little coverage.
Click to expand...

I think it's more about knowledge than anything else. We're more likely to read, watch or listen to things we already have a base knowledge about - so that's what the media and our algorithms feed us, which becomes a self fulfilling spiral with major focus and more empathy towards the suffering of one gorup than another.
 
sr36 said:
I think it's more about knowledge than anything else. We're more likely to read, watch or listen to things we already have a base knowledge about - so that's what the media and our algorithms feed us, which becomes a self fulfilling spiral with major focus and more empathy towards the suffering of one gorup than another.
Click to expand...

Maybe

We have more agency than that

This selective attenuation existed before social media

Social media has exacerbated it
 
WalterBlaknWhte said:
Maybe

We have more agency than that

This selective attenuation existed before social media

Social media has exacerbated it
Click to expand...
I wasn't saying just social media or that it's a recent thing. I was including the media.

Not many know anything about Sudan or South Sudan. It doesn't get reported on because it doesn't sell and it doesn't sell because it doesn't get reported on. That's the financial reality of the information market. Jeez Banking Bro, don't go into your capitalist rocks stories and then whinge about the ugly realities of the capitalist media market which makes us more empathic about some groups than others. That's capitalism - you're not meant to have empathy at all - unless you can sell it.
 
Netinyahoo finally confirmed what most people knew all along...that the israelis want gaza destroyed and re-established with a palestinian leadership willing to live in a jail. I dont think the israelis want gaza. From my understanding, it isnt part of the promised land and the settlers who want to reestablish settlements there seem to want it for the ocean views. The West Bank is the prize. I almost feel sorry for Antony Blinking at the moment. Maybe Netty can get him to roll over and put his legs up in the air.

It's good that netty has set the agenda. Now the Congress can give him a standing ovation and turn their backs on their own president. Who knows, Joe might be there to cheer along.
 
The attention given to Israel-Gaza is itself worth some attention.

Social media has been a positive force over the past 8-9 months. Standard media has often kept distant from what happens in Gaza. Palestinian media in Gaza have been killed. Social media helps to connect Gaza to the world and to keep a check on Israel misinformation.

Many people in Australia are connected to what's happening through friends and family, which makes events in Gaza more immediate.

Israel is a longstanding friend of Australia. It means 'we' implicitly support Israel and what it does, unless we condemn it. This is one reason many people in countries like Australia, Britain, Germany and the US are constantly horrified by the current conflict: it is done in their name.

Israel's very special relationship with the US will always be a source of particular attention. Whatever that plucky little democracy of the ME does, it does with the unending support of the US.

One implication of this is that all of the rules and laws of the international order which are broken by Israel are, by extension, broken by the US. That structure has always been flimsy, because mechanisms to enforce the rules are few. But the US was central to the establishment of the order of things, and its consent is vital to broader consensus, which means that people pay attention when it trashes what it put in place.

Unlike most civil wars or invasions, it is the innocents of Gaza who've been directly impacted by Israel's campaign. The complexion and density of the population guaranteed that any bombing campaign would slaughter women and children.

A lot of people have a problem with that sort of thing, especially when their own government seems mostly okay with it.

----------------------------------------------------------

There are other reasons to be concerned by events, just as valid.

Social media isn't one thing. It has its problems, but its virtues are powerful and important.
 
JB1975 said:
Unlike most civil wars or invasions, it is the innocents of Gaza who've been directly impacted by Israel's campaign. The complexion and density of the population guaranteed that any bombing campaign would slaughter women and children.
Click to expand...

Not sure this assertion holds


Syria civil war looks like it may have killed up to 350,000 civilians (Iraq and Yemen also terrible numbers)

Urban warfare has, sadly, a massive civilian to military fatality ratio: estimated to be as high as 9:1

As horrible as Gaza deaths are, looks like this conflict has a much lower ratio
 
"Israel’s military is killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day which exceeds the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years, Oxfam said today, as the escalation of hostilities nears its 100th day.

Using publicly available data, Oxfam calculated that number of average deaths per day for Gaza is significantly higher than any recent major armed conflict including Syria (96.5 deaths per day), Sudan (51.6), Iraq (50.8), Ukraine (43.9) Afghanistan (23.8) and Yemen (15.8)."

media.oxfam.org.au

Daily death rate in Gaza higher than any other major 21st Century conflict – Oxfam | Media Oxfam Australia

media.oxfam.org.au

These figures were done by oxfam in early 2024. Granted that oxfam is an anti-semitic organisation like all western aid agencies and the death rate through bombing etc has fallen recently, as Israel transitions to a death by starvation strategy.

I must admit that i took 20 seconds to research these figures....
 

(Log in to remove this ad.)

ZEV said:
You keep pretending that it is because you hate Jews.

Remember the old Alex Waislitz days...
Click to expand...

actually your mentioning of alex sparked an interest in seeing what he was doing since we dumped him.

as a magpie supporter? you must have been happy, as I was, that we dumped him and the other board members who were basically rubber stamping everything that eddie decided. Alex was particularly useless and I think he just took the position because he was mates with eddie. His ambivalence to the position was probably demonstrated by the fact that he had a pretty ordinary attendance rate in the last few years, as per the annual report. As I said, I dont blame him for bad decisions because I dont think he made any, but his slackness is really a good look for the staff and the players.

You're probably a mate of his so you might be able to confirm this....
 
Markfs said:
"Israel’s military is killing Palestinians at an average rate of 250 people a day which exceeds the daily death toll of any other major conflict of recent years, Oxfam said today, as the escalation of hostilities nears its 100th day.

Using publicly available data, Oxfam calculated that number of average deaths per day for Gaza is significantly higher than any recent major armed conflict including Syria (96.5 deaths per day), Sudan (51.6), Iraq (50.8), Ukraine (43.9) Afghanistan (23.8) and Yemen (15.8)."

media.oxfam.org.au

Daily death rate in Gaza higher than any other major 21st Century conflict – Oxfam | Media Oxfam Australia

media.oxfam.org.au

These figures were done by oxfam in early 2024. Granted that oxfam is an anti-semitic organisation like all western aid agencies and the death rate through bombing etc has fallen recently, as Israel transitions to a death by starvation strategy.

I must admit that i took 20 seconds to research these figures....
Click to expand...

The number of Palestinian civilian deaths and permanent injuries is terrible

Excessive Israeli force, not least of all dumb bombs, has been terrible

These deaths have been welcomed by Hamas' leader Sinwar to galvanise support

And these deaths have been orchestrated/exacerbated by Sinwar and other Hamas leaders positioning bases and defence materiel beneath sensitive civilian infrastructure and gatherings

Enforced martyrdom has driven these average daily numbers much higher



(the Oxfam average deaths also looks too low at least for Ukraine war and Syrian war; data starts at Year 2000 so misses earlier conflicts with higher daily deaths, and compares longer conflicts where average daily deaths fall as conflicts become frozen. All this skews Israel to look 'the worst' and justify more coverage than any other conflict possibly since the Vietnam War)
 
WalterBlaknWhte said:
Not sure this assertion holds


Syria civil war looks like it may have killed up to 350,000 civilians (Iraq and Yemen also terrible numbers)

Urban warfare has, sadly, a massive civilian to military fatality ratio: estimated to be as high as 9:1

As horrible as Gaza deaths are, looks like this conflict has a much lower ratio
Click to expand...

My assertion was actually just a general proposition, which contained its own qualification. Civil wars can certainly be a nasty exception given that they often involve a bit of ethnic cleansing (e.g. Sudan).

If I looked at the numbers across different conflicts more closely, maybe there is a higher proportion of civilian deaths than I first considered.

But I'm not overly interested in the bigger story of combatant-civilian ratios.

The thrust of my point (and my concern) is that Gaza has one of the most dense populations in the world, as well as one of the youngest. A bombing campaign was guaranteed to slaughter women and children in their thousands.

Taken together with the policy of starvation, in which children are the most vulnerable target, it all adds up to something rather barbaric.
 
The conflict in Gaza hasn't actually been very visible in standard media.

The tendency to erase the experience of Palestinians in mainstream media has been common, as has the habit of 'softening' Israel's actions through the use of passive language.

I'd certainly say that the coverage of standard media has played little or no role in fostering opposition to Israel's campaign.

-------------------------------------------------------

People continue to question that opposition. Some have implied that it must be antisemitic, because what about all of those other conflicts and hey look over there, while others have been less subtle.

The use of antisemitism in this way is repugnant and intimidatory.
 
WalterBlaknWhte said:
The number of Palestinian civilian deaths and permanent injuries is terrible

Excessive Israeli force, not least of all dumb bombs, has been terrible

These deaths have been welcomed by Hamas' leader Sinwar to galvanise support

And these deaths have been orchestrated/exacerbated by Sinwar and other Hamas leaders positioning bases and defence materiel beneath sensitive civilian infrastructure and gatherings

Enforced martyrdom has driven these average daily numbers much higher



(the Oxfam average deaths also looks too low at least for Ukraine war and Syrian war; data starts at Year 2000 so misses earlier conflicts with higher daily deaths, and compares longer conflicts where average daily deaths fall as conflicts become frozen. All this skews Israel to look 'the worst' and justify more coverage than any other conflict possibly since the Vietnam War)
Click to expand...
What do you think the Israeli end game is here.

Hamas are not currently a military threat. The leadership aren't even in Gaza. Kill a heap of fighters, destroy infrastructure- not worrying about the civilian body count, get rid of a heap of arms. But what next? The fighters and arms will just come back unless they go absolutely draconian in their occupation and domination of the strip. When do they stop and what's the post war look like.
 
sr36 said:
What do you think the Israeli end game is here.

Hamas are not currently a military threat. The leadership aren't even in Gaza. Kill a heap of fighters, destroy infrastructure- not worrying about the civilian body count, get rid of a heap of arms. But what next? The fighters and arms will just come back unless they go absolutely draconian in their occupation and domination of the strip. When do they stop and what's the post war look like.
Click to expand...

Sinwar, the strategist behind October 7, by consensus, and intercepted communications, is alive in Gaza

He is the hero for Hamas, not the expats with comfortable beds in Qatar

Most Israelis want to kill Sinwar

He has already had one brain tumour, maybe his days are numbered anyway


There are desired Israeli end games for Gaza

These vary depending upon both ideology and pragmatism


From here, I think:

* Netanyahu loses the next election

* The new Israeli government is more moderate but Gaza conflict is largely frozen if Hamas has strong influence

* If little Hamas influence, then Saudis / UAE / Europe / US / Japan money can rebuild Gaza within 5 years

* Saudis will be doing more biz with Israel as quick as they can

* Major Israeli war with Hezbollah slows everything down


What do you think Savvy?
 
WalterBlaknWhte said:
Sinwar, the strategist behind October 7, by consensus, and intercepted communications, is alive in Gaza

He is the hero for Hamas, not the expats with comfortable beds in Qatar

Most Israelis want to kill Sinwar

He has already had one brain tumour, maybe his days are numbered anyway


There are desired Israeli end games for Gaza

These vary depending upon both ideology and pragmatism


From here, I think:

* Netanyahu loses the next election

* The new Israeli government is more moderate but Gaza conflict is largely frozen if Hamas has strong influence

* If little Hamas influence, then Saudis / UAE / Europe / US / Japan money can rebuild Gaza within 5 years

* Saudis will be doing more biz with Israel as quick as they can

* Major Israeli war with Hezbollah slows everything down


What do you think Savvy?
Click to expand...

No idea.

I think it's most likely a bloke trying hard to hold onto power and a couple of lunatics by his side without a plan other than war. They've really got to change their voting system away from primary only, delivering coalitions where lunatic parties with a tiny percentage of the vote can hold so much power.

I think bloody hatred will be so high that there isn't a decent end game. Just what was before with the foot on the threat having to push harder to pacify the fury of the people of Gaza.
 
JB1975 said:
-------------------------------------------------------

People continue to question that opposition. Some have implied that it must be antisemitic, because what about all of those other conflicts and hey look over there, while others have been less subtle.

The use of antisemitism in this way is repugnant and intimidatory.
Click to expand...

Think it is easy for us to agree the current Far Right displays antisemitism in a number of ways



Are you saying though that anti-semitism has been irrelevant in the protests of the Left?
 
WalterBlaknWhte said:
Think it is easy for us to agree the current Far Right displays antisemitism in a number of ways



Are you saying though that anti-semitism has been irrelevant in the protests of the Left?
Click to expand...

I'm addressing the way in which criticism of Israel's actions in Gaza has been implicitly and explicitly labelled as antisemitic.
 
Reader mode
Status
Not open for further replies.

Remove this Banner Ad

Similar threads

Markfs
  • Locked
Australian politics
2
Replies
44
Views
1K
Chief
Chief

Remove this Banner Ad

Back
Top