• Welcome to the new Internet Infidels Discussion Board, formerly Talk Freethought.

Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

To denote when two or more threads have been merged
It is too much to say "all", but certainly a large majority are.

Btw, a Palestinian medicine professor got placed at Emory University because of a tweet glorifying the Hamas massacre.
Atlanta cancer doctor put on leave after post celebrating Hamas’ ‘glory’

RdS is correct that it is not in the interest of US (or Europe) to take in thousands of immigrants with these attitudes.
 
A siege is not terrorism. What Israel announced was a classical siege.

Here is your formula: "Get a dictionary. Understand what "siege" actually means."

Well, I'll step up to that. A lot of the definitions I have found mentioned surrounding a fortified building or place, but Gaza can hardly be considered either. Here is a lengthier description of a  siege from Wikipedia:

Failing a military outcome, sieges can often be decided by starvation, thirst, or disease, which can afflict either the attacker or defender. This form of siege, though, can take many months or even years, depending upon the size of the stores of food the fortified position holds. The attacking force can circumvallate the besieged place, which is to build a line of earth-works, consisting of a rampart and trench, surrounding it. During the process of circumvallation, the attacking force can be set upon by another force, an ally of the besieged place, due to the lengthy amount of time required to force it to capitulate. A defensive ring of forts outside the ring of circumvallated forts, called contravallation, is also sometimes used to defend the attackers from outside.

Israel, is not conducting a siege in any conventional sense of the word. It has amassed an invasion force, which is poised to attack, not sit outside of a fortified location to wait them out for a formal surrender. Cutting off water to Gaza was done to punish all Palestinians living in Gaza, not just Hamas. Maybe the idea was that Hamas would somehow sympathize with all of those Palestinians who were not part of Hamas or its attack? Was the idea to appeal to the sympathy and humanity of Hamas to surrender? After all, the Palestinian population of Gaza didn't vote Hamas into power. They just live in that huge open-air concentration camp called Gaza that has been under blockade from Israel since 2007. Palestinian civilians in Gaza are not combatants. They just have to put up with having their water cut off, their food rations disappear, medical supplies run out, and being ordered to flee their homes within 24 hours and go south without any concern by Israel for what will happen to them. 80% unemployment. So lots of young people hanging around with nothing to do but look for the best opportunity to survive their confinement to a prison state run by terrorists that don't care what happens to them.
Note that your own source lists "thirst" as a reason a siege may be decided. Thus you are proving my point--this is a siege.

All of the problems you mention have been inflicted by Hamas, yet you blame Israel for them.

But "thirst" is not a definitive part of the meaning of "siege". Cutting off water and food of surrounding a fortified location is, but Gaza is not a fortified location. It is a quarantined location. Gaza exists to concentrate and isolate a Palestinian Arab population that has become subjugated by a terrorist organization. That population is as much a victim and a hostage of Hamas as are the recently captured hostages from Israel. And their long captivity has been ignored by an Israeli government that is, at best, indifferent to their fate, if not hostile. So I do blame Israel for that. For its lack of humanity and compassion when it comes to Palestinian Arabs quarantined and condemned to live in Gaza under the thumb of Hamas. The Israeli government created that quarantined population and allowed it to fester for almost a full generation, thinking that it could always just keep them locked up and cut off. And Israelis, unlike Gazans, were able to choose their government. Not all Israelis chose these policies, but the majority were always at least complicit in it. Don't blame the Gazans for complicity in a government that they did not elect. Nobody outside of Gaza intervened to make sure that they could have fair elections, and the Israeli government never cared enough to do anything about their predicament in the past.



Palestinian civilians do not have the option to surrender. In theory, Hamas could, but why should they? They're fanatical terrorists, and using the Palestinian population as human sacrificial martyrs serves their overall strategy. I wouldn't be surprised if they deliberately blew up that hospital, planning to blame it on Israel and torpedo Biden's trip to the Middle East.
Yeah, they don't have the ability to surrender because Hamas denies it. Not Israel. Quit blaming Israel for the actions of the Palestinians.

Wait a minute. You claim Hamas denies Palestinians the ability to surrender, but they--the Palestinians--somehow had the ability to resist Hamas when it decided to launch a brutal terrorist attack on Israel. They apparently have no power to control Hamas until they do in your mind, and I think that this is the basic contradiction I've seen in so many minds of so many Israelis and their supporters. Palestinians are somehow to blame, as if they chose to confine themselves to Gaza and be ruled by a terrorist organization that has not dared to allow any rivals to challenge their grip on power. You want to have it both ways--Palestinians can't choose to surrender, but they can choose to stop a terrorist attack.


And you can safely assume all hospitals have plenty of Hamas stuff. I haven't caught up with things to know what hospital you are talking about but a Palestinian hospital suddenly going boom isn't exactly shocking given that plenty of other buildings there have spontaneously (mistakes with handling explosives) gone boom over the years.

Well, that kind of paranoid assumption is exactly what leads so many outside observers to fall for the claim that Israel, not Hamas, saw that hospital as a military target that could legitimately been taken out. I honestly believe that, if anyone deliberately targeted the hospital, it was Hamas rather than the Israeli government. However, I think it more reasonable to assume that one of the two sides firing ballistic missiles around indiscriminately may have made a miscalculation or mistake that resulted in a horrific atrocity. At least, I would rather believe that, but I honestly think that either side could have done it. This is what happens in blood feuds between warring tribes.
 
Sorry about the delay, real life, yada yada.

And, incidentally, what makes the Arabs "indigenous"? Their ancestors haven't lived there for thousands of years. Their ancestors came from Arabia 1400 years ago and seized it from the Byzantines, i.e., the Romans, whose ancestors seized it from the Jews, whose ancestors seized it from the Canaanites, whose ancestors seized it from the [many seizures skipped], whose ancestors seized it from the descendants of the first H. sapiens sapiens to live there, who seized it from the Neanderthals. "Indigenous" is a word that means whoever the speaker wants it to mean.]
That is factually incorrect on nearly all counts...
Good argument.

both Arab and Jewish Palestinians have ancient ancestral ties to the land, that's a major reason for the present vicious conflict.
Is that you stipulating that the Israelis are just as "indigenous" as the Palestinian Arabs so Arctish's explanation for why it's the Palestinian Arabs' land doesn't work?
I did not say Israelis, I said Jews.

There are, and have been, Jews in Palestine for thousands of years. At the beginning of the 20th century, Jews made up approximately 10% of the population the area. I have not seen numbers for the descendants of Jews who converted to other religions but it is known that the 'Arabs' of the Negev are the descendants of Jews who were forced at gunpoint to pay lip service to Islam by the Mamluks.

European Jews (Ashkenazi and Sephardic) have thousands of years of European heritage, European cultures, they speak European languages, and most individuals have a significant amount of European ancestry. So even though they have a lot of Middle Eastern ancestry and a religion that originated in the area around Jerusalem, they aren't indigenous.


by the imposition of an entirely artificial state on their land ever since it happened.
Why is it "their" land? Because the robbers they succeeded to it from were the 37th nation that stole it rather than the 38th?

Because indigenous people have a Right to call the place where they and their ancestors have lived for thousands of years "their" homeland.
... If you mean it is their land by right because it's the place where they and their ancestors have lived for thousands of years, then that sounds like you're answering "Yes." to my question -- it's because the robbers they're successors to were the 37th nation that stole it rather than the 38th. If that sounds to you like a knock-down moral endorsement of the justice of their claim, feel free to explain your peculiar theory of justice.

[And, incidentally, what makes the Arabs "indigenous"? Their ancestors haven't lived there for thousands of years. Their ancestors came from Arabia 1400 years ago and seized it from the Byzantines, i.e., the Romans, whose ancestors seized it from the Jews, whose ancestors seized it from the Canaanites, whose ancestors seized it from the [many seizures skipped], whose ancestors seized it from the descendants of the first H. sapiens sapiens to live there, who seized it from the Neanderthals. "Indigenous" is a word that means whoever the speaker wants it to mean.]

At least they do in modern societies. Some folks that still hold to the 'might makes right' way of thinking believe if you can take land from people unable to fight you off, you get to keep it
:consternation2: Isn't that exactly your justification for claiming it's the Arabs' land? That they took it from Byzantines unable to fight them off so they get to keep it?

Or do you mean it wasn't they who took it from the Byzantines -- that was their ancestors in 637 AD? The 1948 Palestinians got it honestly, from their parents?
You are confusing governments with people.

The Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans, etc., ruled the indigenous people of Palestine. They did not replace them with people from Italy or Greece or Turkey,
You are confusing governments with ruling committees of the Enlightenment-era and later, committees who mostly give a hoot about human rights or at least about appearing to. For thousands of years before the modern era it was common practice for conquering armies to slaughter the men and sell the women and children into slavery.

According to Wikipedia,

"... The military defeats of the Jews in Judaea in 70 CE and again in 135 CE, with large numbers of Jewish captives from Judea sold into slavery and an increase in voluntary Jewish emigration from Judea as a result of the wars, meant a drop in Palestine's Jewish population was balanced by a rise in diaspora numbers. Jewish prisoners sold as slaves in the diaspora and their children were eventually manumitted and joined local free communities.[67] It has been argued that the archaeological evidence is suggestive of a Roman genocide taking place during the Second revolt.[68] A significant movement of gentiles and Samaritans into villages formerly with a Jewish majority appears to have taken place thereafter. ...​
... In the 5th century, the collapse of the Western Roman Empire resulted in Christian migration into Palestine and the development of a firm Christian majority. ... The 7th century saw the Jewish revolt against Heraclius, which broke out in 614 during the Byzantine–Sasanian War. ... Jewish rebels aided the Persians in capturing Jerusalem, where the Jews were permitted autonomous rule until 617, when the Persians reneged on their alliance. After Byzantine Emperor Heraclius promised to restore Jewish rights, the Jews aided him in ousting the Persians. Heraclius subsequently went back on his word and ordered a general massacre of the Jewish population, devastating the Jewish communities of Jerusalem and the Galilee. As a result, many Jews fled to Egypt. ...​
... In 638, Palestine came under Muslim rule with the Muslim conquest of the Levant. ... The land gradually came to have an Arab majority as Arab tribes migrated there. Jewish communities initially grew and flourished. Umar allowed and encouraged Jews to settle in Jerusalem. It was the first time in about 500 years that Jews were allowed to freely enter and worship in their holiest city. In 717, new restrictions were imposed against non-Muslims that negatively affected the Jews. Heavy taxes on agricultural land forced many Jews to migrate from rural areas to towns. Social and economic discrimination caused significant Jewish emigration from Palestine, and Muslim civil wars in the 8th and 9th centuries pushed many Jews out of the country. ...​
... During the First Crusade, Jews in Palestine, along with Muslims, were indiscriminately massacred and sold into slavery by the Crusaders. The majority of Jerusalem's Jewish population was killed during the Crusader Siege of Jerusalem and the few thousand survivors were sold into slavery. Some of the Jews sold into slavery later had their freedom bought by Jewish communities in Italy and Egypt, and the redeemed slaves were taken to Egypt. ...​
... The Mamluks severely oppressed the Jews and greatly mismanaged the economy, resulting in a period of great social and economic decline. The result was large-scale migration from Palestine, and the population declined. The Jewish population shrunk especially heavily, as did the Christian population. ..."​

That's history. The cumulative effect on populations can be read off of modern DNA sequences.

"The authors also found a strong correlation between religion and apparent ancestry in the Levant:​
all Jews (Sephardi and Ashkenazi) cluster in one branch; Druze from Mount Lebanon and Druze from Mount Carmel are depicted on a private branch; and Lebanese Christians form a private branch with the Christian populations of Armenia and Cyprus placing the Lebanese Muslims as an outer group. The predominantly Muslim populations of Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians cluster on branches with other Muslim populations as distant as Morocco and Yemen."​

I have seen those studies. The people most closely related to Jews whose ancestors never left the region are Muslims and Christians whose ancestors also never left the region. In other words, Palestinian Jews are more closely related to other Palestinians than they are to any other population of Jews. Yemeni Jews are a close second. The Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are distinctly different.

So yes, to a large extent the Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Europeans, Ottomans, etc., did replace the locals with people from all over the place. The Palestinians are descendants primarily of immigrants more recent than the Jewish-Roman Wars, same as the Israelis.

unlike the founders of the State of Israel who did replace the Palestinians with immigrants unless they were Jewish.
Oh please. There are 1.7 million Muslim Israelis, mostly Palestinian Arabs. The degree of population replacement is nowhere near what the Romans et al. did to the Jews.

Do you have evidence of the depopulation of towns and villages by the Romans et al. , or are you just asserting it took place?

Yes, the Romans forced people into slavery and transported them out of the region. They did not empty the countryside and bring in boatloads of Roman farmers and shepherds to tend the fields and flocks, they subjugated the people they didn't carry off and forced them to pay taxes.

Likewise, when people in the region accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior, or when they came to believe there was One True God and Mohammed was His Prophet, they did not suddenly become non-indigenous. They weren't Jews anymore (if they had been Jews; not everyone from there followed the Jewish faith) but the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea was still their ancestral homeland.
That's a rose-tinted view of the past. History is bloodier than people like to think about. If conversion were the primary mechanism by which Palestine's dominant religion changed from Judaism to Christianity to Islam then modern Palestinians would speak Aramaic and their genes would cluster with Jews' genes.

They do.

https://rense.com/general48/palestinians.pdf





your link said:
Understanding the term “indigenous”
Considering the diversity of indigenous peoples, an official definition of “indigenous” has not been adopted by
any UN-system body. Instead the system has developed a modern understanding of this term based on the
following:
• Self- identification as indigenous peoples at the individual level and accepted by the community as their
member.
I.e., it means whoever the speaker wants it to mean.

• Historical continuity with pre-colonial and/or pre-settler societies
There is no such thing as a pre-colonial pre-settler society. Everybody's ancestors colonized and settled.

• Strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources
Everybody who won't agree to be kicked out of his country evidently has a strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources.

• Distinct social, economic or political systems
• Distinct language, culture and beliefs
Is this one of those "Swedes have no culture" things?

• Form non-dominant groups of society
So we can all agree that African-Americans are indigenous here, then?

• Resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and
communities.
Looks like the Israelis have that one in spades...

*sigh*

Not all Israelis are Jews and not all Jews are Israelis.

Not all Jews and not all Israelis are primarily descended from the ancient Canaanites.

If you don't understand those two points, you'll never unravel the mystery of why people who worship Ahura Mazda can claim the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as their ancestral homeland and Steven Spielberg's wife can't.
 
MSNBC denies report it sidelined Muslim anchors
noting
Inside MSNBC’s Middle East conflict | Semafor
MSNBC has quietly taken three of its Muslim broadcasters out of the anchor’s chair since Hamas’s attack on Israel last Saturday amid America’s wave of sympathy for Israeli terror victims.

Jayapal, Casar, Lee, McGovern, Castro, Escobar, García Release Statement Calling for Ceasefire - Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal
U.S. Representatives Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Greg Casar (TX-35), Barbara Lee (CA-12), James P. McGovern (MA-02), Joaquin Castro (TX-20), Veronica Escobar (TX-16), and Jesús G. “Chuy” García (IL-04) are releasing the following statement calling for an immediate ceasefire, or at minimum, a temporary cessation of all hostilities in Israel and Gaza to save civilian lives:

...
“A cessation of hostilities will allow for the negotiation of the immediate and safe return of all hostages, including Americans, and the delivery of essential humanitarian aid under international auspices. Hamas can and must be stopped and the security of Israel must be guaranteed without the killing of thousands more Palestinian and Israeli civilians. There is a different path. In this devastating time, the United States must lead the way forward.”

Comparing to Reps. Bush, Tlaib, Carson, Lee, Ramirez Lead Colleagues in Call for Immediate Ceasefire mentioning
Representatives Cori Bush (MO-01), Rashida Tlaib (MI-12), André Carson (IN-07), Summer Lee (PA-12), and Delia C. Ramirez (IL-03), alongside Representatives Jamaal Bowman (NY-16), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ-12), Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04), Jonathan Jackson (IL-01), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY-14), Ilhan Omar (MN-05), Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), and Nydia Velázquez (NY-07)
as supporters. Jesús “Chuy” García (IL-04) supported both statements.
 
Mehdi Hasan on X: "Taking hostages ..." / X
Taking hostages is a clear and undeniable war crime. Taking kids as hostages is particularly abhorrent. Hamas, for moral and not just strategic reasons, must release the hostages.

And while we are on the subject of kids in conflicts, according to human rights group, every year Israel detains and jails (and often abuses) hundreds of Palestinian kids, some as young as 12. They deserve justice and our attention.
Palestinian children suffer inhumane treatment in Israeli prisons
Children in the Israeli military detention system face inhumane treatment such as beatings, strip searches, psychological abuse, weeks in solitary confinement, and being denied access to a lawyer during interrogations, new research by Save the Children found.

The charity consulted more than 470 children from across the West Bank who have been detained over the past ten years. It found that most children were taken from their homes at night, blindfolded, with their hands painfully bound behind their backs. Many of the respondents said they were not told why they were being arrested or where they were being taken.

...
After their arrest, children are transferred to interrogation centres, where they report being forced to lie face-down on the metal floor of military vehicles, denied bathroom breaks, deprived of food and water, and physically assaulted.

...
Save the Children’s consultation showed that:
  • 81% endured physical beatings and 89% suffered verbal abuse.
  • 52% were threatened with harm to their families.
  • 86% were subjected to strip searches, leaving them humiliated and ashamed.
  • 88% did not receive adequate and timely healthcare, even when explicitly requested.
  • Almost half (47%) were denied contact with a lawyer.
 
Jacob Magid on X: "🧵Qatar is working ..." / X
🧵Qatar is working to coax Hamas to release the women, children and elderly hostages that the terror group is currently holding in Gaza after taking them captive during last week's onslaught in southern Israel, a diplomatic official tells @TimesofIsrael (1/4)

Hamas -- being represented in the talks by its leader abroad Ismail Haniyeh -- initially told Qatar that it was prepared to return those hostages in exchange for Israel releasing 36 female and teenage Palestinian security prisoners currently in Israeli prisons. (2/4)

The diplomatic source the offer was not entertained by Israel, which is primarily focused on advancing its military campaign to eradicate Hamas. Despite the Israeli rejection, Qatar-brokered talks are ongoing, the diplomatic official says. (3/4)

A second source familiar with the negotiations tells @TimesofIsrael that some in Hamas recognize that taking women, children and elderly people hostage has given Israel more international legitimacy to massively expand its military campaign against the terror group. (4/4)
At least they are trying. They could also try to broker a deal where they send some ships to pick up the Hamas militiamen. Israeli officials can then gloat "We drove them into the sea!"
 
ETA ~What was the point to EuroChristian society creating the State of Israel?
I'm confident that I know. But I'm asking you.~

BTW ~ Zionism & Guilt (VIA the Holocaust). Euro-Christian's were just used as the tool like they've always been to support the efforts rooted in a plethora of historical, political, and ideological factors. Your move.

Edit: It was nationalism & greed on the part of the white folks with toilet paper in hand. Euro-Christians were duped like the dopey asses they've always been.
WTF are you talking about?

I provided a simplified response due to the specific and focused nature of TomC's question.

It is an established historical fact that the Holocaust profoundly influenced the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state. The atrocities of the Holocaust (rightfully) elicited international sympathy for the Jewish people and played a significant role in garnering support for the Zionist movement. While it's true that the degree to which guilt influenced this support can be debated, as various nations backed the creation of Israel for diverse reasons, mainly geopolitical interests, it cannot be denied that guilt served as a potent motivational factor across the spectrum.

By nationalism and greed I mean to say some individuals or entities had economic or strategic interests in supporting the establishment of Israel. It's obvious Brittan wanted control of strategic territories and constantly sought to expand its economic influence in territories held by the Ottoman Empire, including access to markets and resources. The establishment of Israel was a side project to that end & Arab interests were simply obstacles needing to be navigated around. Could Britain as a nation and Jews as a people have thrived without those territories? Undoubtedly. Thus, I attribute it to a combination of greed and nationalism on Brittan's part.

Regarding the characterization of Euro-Christians, my use of the term 'dopiness' may be hyperbolic. However, throughout history, Euro-Christians , like many groups, have been swayed (in this case by guilt) to support policies or actions that can be deemed misguided. The establishment of the state of Israel, in the manner it occurred, does not exempt them from scrutiny in this regard.

Lastly, what kind of person would withhold support for the people of Israel? When I speak of guilt, I am referring to a situation where expressing any form of disagreement with the actions taken on behalf of the people of Israel leads to an unjust accusation of not supporting them in spite of the holocausts. This leads to things like the current geocide of Palestinians we're witnessing today, because support for the Palestinian people is being discouraged out of guilt. Support for Palestinians is support for Hamas. History repeating itself.

That's what the fuck I'm talking about.
 
If Hamas has a goal of provoking a disproportional response by Israel that derails Arab normalization with Israel, it appears to be working. Mass demonstrations around the Mid Easr.

Biden is acting like he is the savior of Israel. It was hard to watch his speech. He predictably brought up the Holocaust, but ignores that Israel is sleeping in the bed it has made for itself.

Israel gets a pass for its policies on Palestinians from the USA because of the Holocaust?

Israel will now never chge its policy on militray occupation and colonization of the West Bank.
 
In what other nation does a civil war start and the American president flies out there the same week, in person, to do propaganda appearances for one side? We really do treat Israel more like a colony than an allied nation.
 
If one carefully listens to Biden's speech, it appears to be more geared towards appeasing far-right Republicans rather than effectively addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It almost seems as though he and his team focused on the question of 'How can we prevent Republicans from using this attack against Democrats?' rather than 'How can we address the conflict, which has been created by the US and our European allies, in a way that ensures the safety and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians caught in the crossfire?'
 
If one carefully listens to Biden's speech, it appears to be more geared towards appeasing far-right Republicans rather than effectively addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It almost seems as though he and his team focused on the question of 'How can we prevent Republicans from using this attack against Democrats?' rather than 'How can we address the conflict, which has been created by the US and our European allies, in a way that ensures the safety and well-being of both Israelis and Palestinians caught in the crossfire?'
You understand politics. It was clearly a campaign speech.
 
Biden said the other “team,” meaning Hamas, blew up the hospital. How does he know? Does he have evidence? If so, please produce it. It’s entirely possible that Hamas did blow up the hospital, inadvertently or even intentionally, with the hope that Israel would be blamed. But until we have more information, it’s also possible that Israel blew it up, inadvertenlty or intentionally. In any case, I wasn’t aware that this was a sporting event. Is Netanyahu the “coach” of his “team,” or what?

It’s stomach-churning to see Biden visiting the Mideast and rah-rahing Team Israel while Team Israel is committing blatant fouls war crimes. Where’s the penalty flag?
 
Biden said the other “team,” meaning Hamas, blew up the hospital. How does he know? Does he have evidence? If so, please produce it. It’s entirely possible that Hamas did blow up the hospital, inadvertently or even intentionally, with the hope that Israel would be blamed. But until we have more information, it’s also possible that Israel blew it up, inadvertenlty or intentionally. In any case, I wasn’t aware that this was a sporting event. Is Netanyahu the “coach” of his “team,” or what?

It’s stomach-churning to see Biden visiting the Mideast and rah-rahing Team Israel while Team Israel is committing blatant fouls war crimes. Where’s the penalty flag?
Apparently the proof is in our "Intelligence". Because if there's one thing Americans are known for internationally, it's our Intelligence.
 
I did not like the use of the word team.

Another example of 'Biden speak'. He tries to appear as if he is one of masses and speaks with jocularity. Reducing the conflict to a college football game.

He spoke without much movement in a monotone staring at a teleprompter. He was probably strongly cautioned about staying on script and abdomen making one of his off the cuff gaffes.

He said he made a conclusion about the hospital catastrophe based on what US intelligent told him. Somehow I do not believe him.
 
Biden said the other “team,” meaning Hamas, blew up the hospital. How does he know? Does he have evidence? If so, please produce it. It’s entirely possible that Hamas did blow up the hospital, inadvertently or even intentionally, with the hope that Israel would be blamed. But until we have more information, it’s also possible that Israel blew it up, inadvertenlty or intentionally. In any case, I wasn’t aware that this was a sporting event. Is Netanyahu the “coach” of his “team,” or what?

It’s stomach-churning to see Biden visiting the Mideast and rah-rahing Team Israel while Team Israel is committing blatant fouls war crimes. Where’s the penalty flag?
Apparently the proof is in our "Intelligence". Because if there's one thing Americans are known for internationally, it's our Intelligence.

I think that Biden is probably taking the Israeli intelligence claims at face value. Here is a Jerusalem Post story that explains the Israeli side:

IDF tells world: This is how Islamic Jihad destroyed the Gaza hospital


The Israelis make a plausible case the Islamic Jihad, not Israel, was using an area near the hospital from which to fire rockets into Israel. Their evidence claims to show where the missiles were fired from and includes audio that allegedly has Islamic Jihad fighters admitting that their side caused the explosion at the hospital. When they discovered this, they then concocted an immediate campaign to blame Israel, not themselves, for the explosion, according to the IDF.

Of course, one has to trust the IDF not to be doctoring the evidence or concocting their own campaign to blame "the other team", to use Biden's simplistic description. Israel obviously had surveillance intelligence that showed rocket launchers in that location. Hence, they could have launched a missile attack on that location in which one of their own missiles went astray and hit the hospital or an adjacent ammo stockpile (which was also said to have blown up and caused some of the damage). There isn't any explicit evidence of a missile hitting the hospital from any direction, AFAICT. The IDF claims that they fired no missiles at the area from land, sea, or air.
 
I did not like the use of the word team.

Another example of 'Biden speak'. He tries to appear as if he is one of masses and speaks with jocularity. Reducing the conflict to a college football game.

He spoke without much movement in a monotone staring at a teleprompter. He was probably strongly cautioned about staying on script and abdomen making one of his off the cuff gaffes.

He said he made a conclusion about the hospital catastrophe based on what US intelligent told him. Somehow I do not believe him.
If they wanted him to stay on script and not make a gaffe, the word “team” in the script is a gaffe. Guess the old duffer needs a new script. And note I’m not one who thinks he’s senile or anything of the sort.
 
He might not be senile but he damn sure isn't lucid. He's somewhere in-between with the scales constantly tilting towards the former.
 
He might not be senile but he damn sure isn't lucid. He's somewhere in-between with the scales constantly tilting towards the former.

I think he’s completely lucid. It’s just that he has never been much of a speaker and he has always been prone to gaffes.
 
I have to go with Gospel on Biden.

His speech is stiff as if he has to concentrate hard to stay on track. There is nothing natural about his speech and the way he walks and moves as well.
 
He might not be senile but he damn sure isn't lucid. He's somewhere in-between with the scales constantly tilting towards the former.

He was never a top orator. But he's been an extremely competent administrator for decades.

His stuttering was always an issue. Going off script can be a huge problem. But pretending that Biden is not lucid is ridiculous. Especially given the other choices.
Tom
 
Back
Top Bottom