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Norway28554 Posts
On August 04 2014 02:44 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an "army of bloggers," to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in "anti-Zionist blogs" in English, French, Spanish and German.
The program's first volunteer was Sandrine Pitousi, 31, from Kfar Maimon, situated five kilometers from Gaza. "I heard about the project over the radio and decided to join because I'm living in the middle of the conflict," she said.
Before hanging up the phone prematurely following a Color Red rocket alert, Pitousi, who immigrated to Israel from France in 1993, said she had some experience with public relations from managing a production company.
"During the war, we looked for a way to contribute to the effort," the ministry's director general, Erez Halfon, told Haaretz. "We turned to this enormous reservoir of more than a million people with a second mother tongue." Other languages in which bloggers are sought include Russian and Portuguese.
Halfon said volunteers who send the Absorption Ministry their contact details by e-mail, at media@moia.gov.il, will be registered according to language, and then passed on to the Foreign Ministry's media department, whose personnel will direct the volunteers to Web sites deemed "problematic."
Within 30 minutes of announcing the program, which was approved by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, five volunteers were already in touch, Halfon said Could mods clarify whether this would be banworthy on TL?
It's obviously not ban-worthy to discuss these topics with a pro-Israeli slant, and I don't think it's possible to identify people who are part of the 'propaganda program' or whatever from people that are not. I'll say this thought - there was one post earlier, which to me kinda looked like a copy-pasted standard defense of the invasion, with links and sources and everything, and then I googled phrases from it to see whether it was stolen from anywhere, but it didn't seem to be the case.
If someone a poster was proven to be here solely to argue the Israel-Palestine conflict and only doing so through spouting semi-lies and catchphrases then yeah, I'd be inclined to ban that person.. But overall, the Israeli perspective is one of the most valuable ones here, either when Bulugulu gives first-hand information on Israeli media compared to the population as a whole, or when Noam asks a question which fills me with rage..
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On August 04 2014 02:44 hypercube wrote:Show nested quote +The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an "army of bloggers," to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in "anti-Zionist blogs" in English, French, Spanish and German.
The program's first volunteer was Sandrine Pitousi, 31, from Kfar Maimon, situated five kilometers from Gaza. "I heard about the project over the radio and decided to join because I'm living in the middle of the conflict," she said.
Before hanging up the phone prematurely following a Color Red rocket alert, Pitousi, who immigrated to Israel from France in 1993, said she had some experience with public relations from managing a production company.
"During the war, we looked for a way to contribute to the effort," the ministry's director general, Erez Halfon, told Haaretz. "We turned to this enormous reservoir of more than a million people with a second mother tongue." Other languages in which bloggers are sought include Russian and Portuguese.
Halfon said volunteers who send the Absorption Ministry their contact details by e-mail, at media@moia.gov.il, will be registered according to language, and then passed on to the Foreign Ministry's media department, whose personnel will direct the volunteers to Web sites deemed "problematic."
Within 30 minutes of announcing the program, which was approved by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, five volunteers were already in touch, Halfon said Could mods clarify whether this would be banworthy on TL?
I do not know if this is true or not. But it is very likely that Israel influences social media with the help of professional image and media companies doing several posts. The Israel military media/propaganda branch alone is likely to have more money then the whole military arm of the Hamas.
I mean who is talking about the KFC Tunnels anymore they are now terror tunnels and this articla is from march 2013 so Israel knew about tunnels and the gaza subway actually it was GAZA KFC not Gaza subway for years and just now decided to invade?
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I definitely value people expressing their own opinion, even when I disagree. I'm sure everyone else feels the same, even as they call their discussion partner brainwashed sheep with no moral compass 
I just think copying from a playbook is a whole different category, whether you do it for money or just as a volunteer.
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On August 04 2014 02:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 02:17 Sermokala wrote:On August 04 2014 01:40 xM(Z wrote: i'll just assume that was a rhetorical question ... Its not There isn't any Isreal propaganda here and you have no way of knowing that there is any. You're just assumeing that there is beacuse the nation disagrees with your nation about it. which would logically indicate that there's a huge divide regarding the information about the war. Either that, or there's simply something about American culture/history that makes them more likely to side with a colonial power's exploitation and dehumanizing treatment of another people than what the case is for Europe. Which, historically, does not make sense. There's no doubt about there being pro-Israel propaganda in the US. Just like there's no doubt about there being pro-palestine propaganda in Europe. Well, basically there's pro-both sides propaganda everywhere, but the pro-Israel side has a foothold in American media whereas the pro-Palestine side has a foothold in Europe. Personally, I don't know who or what to trust regarding what is happening right now, but civilian death counts don't seem to be contested even by the Israeli side and frankly they tell me everything I need to know to know who to sympathize with, and virtually every Norwegian I've talked to who has actually been to Israel describes it as an apartheid regime, meaning that I have information I trust in that regard as well.  I'd suggest reading The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt, two of the leading IR scholars in the world. You can find the working paper here. The paper describes the methods and ways in which the israel lobby in the US influences the decision making processes and how any criticism of the israeli state gets equivocated to anti-semitism. Unsurprisingly the authors themselves then got tagged for being anti-semites for writing the paper itself.
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On August 04 2014 03:54 Derez wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 02:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:On August 04 2014 02:17 Sermokala wrote:On August 04 2014 01:40 xM(Z wrote: i'll just assume that was a rhetorical question ... Its not There isn't any Isreal propaganda here and you have no way of knowing that there is any. You're just assumeing that there is beacuse the nation disagrees with your nation about it. which would logically indicate that there's a huge divide regarding the information about the war. Either that, or there's simply something about American culture/history that makes them more likely to side with a colonial power's exploitation and dehumanizing treatment of another people than what the case is for Europe. Which, historically, does not make sense. There's no doubt about there being pro-Israel propaganda in the US. Just like there's no doubt about there being pro-palestine propaganda in Europe. Well, basically there's pro-both sides propaganda everywhere, but the pro-Israel side has a foothold in American media whereas the pro-Palestine side has a foothold in Europe. Personally, I don't know who or what to trust regarding what is happening right now, but civilian death counts don't seem to be contested even by the Israeli side and frankly they tell me everything I need to know to know who to sympathize with, and virtually every Norwegian I've talked to who has actually been to Israel describes it as an apartheid regime, meaning that I have information I trust in that regard as well.  I'd suggest reading The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt, two of the leading IR scholars in the world. You can find the working paper here. The paper describes the methods and ways in which the israel lobby in the US influences the decision making processes and how any criticism of the israeli state gets equivocated to anti-semitism. Unsurprisingly the authors themselves then got tagged for being anti-semites for writing the paper itself.
It's not like AIPAC is subtle about its influence. Or folks like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Adelson, the 8th richest person in the world, who has Republican hopefuls grovel to compete for "most pro-Israel."
Also, for clarification, equivocate is the opposite of what you mean. To equivocate is to use ambiguous wording to hide your real intent.
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On August 04 2014 02:57 nunez wrote: hahaha. lol how in the world did you know someone was talking about you?
On August 04 2014 03:03 Liquid`Drone wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 02:44 hypercube wrote:The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an "army of bloggers," to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in "anti-Zionist blogs" in English, French, Spanish and German.
The program's first volunteer was Sandrine Pitousi, 31, from Kfar Maimon, situated five kilometers from Gaza. "I heard about the project over the radio and decided to join because I'm living in the middle of the conflict," she said.
Before hanging up the phone prematurely following a Color Red rocket alert, Pitousi, who immigrated to Israel from France in 1993, said she had some experience with public relations from managing a production company.
"During the war, we looked for a way to contribute to the effort," the ministry's director general, Erez Halfon, told Haaretz. "We turned to this enormous reservoir of more than a million people with a second mother tongue." Other languages in which bloggers are sought include Russian and Portuguese.
Halfon said volunteers who send the Absorption Ministry their contact details by e-mail, at media@moia.gov.il, will be registered according to language, and then passed on to the Foreign Ministry's media department, whose personnel will direct the volunteers to Web sites deemed "problematic."
Within 30 minutes of announcing the program, which was approved by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, five volunteers were already in touch, Halfon said Could mods clarify whether this would be banworthy on TL? It's obviously not ban-worthy to discuss these topics with a pro-Israeli slant, and I don't think it's possible to identify people who are part of the 'propaganda program' or whatever from people that are not. I'll say this thought - there was one post earlier, which to me kinda looked like a copy-pasted standard defense of the invasion, with links and sources and everything, and then I googled phrases from it to see whether it was stolen from anywhere, but it didn't seem to be the case. If someone a poster was proven to be here solely to argue the Israel-Palestine conflict and only doing so through spouting semi-lies and catchphrases then yeah, I'd be inclined to ban that person.. But overall, the Israeli perspective is one of the most valuable ones here, either when Bulugulu gives first-hand information on Israeli media compared to the population as a whole, or when Noam asks a question which fills me with rage.. Not sure where it is, but I distinctly remember someone getting banned for promoting a new smartphone, where he had a massive post that was word-for-word copied to multiple other websites. In any event, once I'm arguing one side, heck, I may as well get paid for it, right? :D + Show Spoiler +
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On August 04 2014 03:12 Holy_AT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 02:44 hypercube wrote:The Immigrant Absorption Ministry announced on Sunday it was setting up an "army of bloggers," to be made up of Israelis who speak a second language, to represent Israel in "anti-Zionist blogs" in English, French, Spanish and German.
The program's first volunteer was Sandrine Pitousi, 31, from Kfar Maimon, situated five kilometers from Gaza. "I heard about the project over the radio and decided to join because I'm living in the middle of the conflict," she said.
Before hanging up the phone prematurely following a Color Red rocket alert, Pitousi, who immigrated to Israel from France in 1993, said she had some experience with public relations from managing a production company.
"During the war, we looked for a way to contribute to the effort," the ministry's director general, Erez Halfon, told Haaretz. "We turned to this enormous reservoir of more than a million people with a second mother tongue." Other languages in which bloggers are sought include Russian and Portuguese.
Halfon said volunteers who send the Absorption Ministry their contact details by e-mail, at media@moia.gov.il, will be registered according to language, and then passed on to the Foreign Ministry's media department, whose personnel will direct the volunteers to Web sites deemed "problematic."
Within 30 minutes of announcing the program, which was approved by the Foreign Ministry on Sunday, five volunteers were already in touch, Halfon said Could mods clarify whether this would be banworthy on TL? I do not know if this is true or not. But it is very likely that Israel influences social media with the help of professional image and media companies doing several posts. The Israel military media/propaganda branch alone is likely to have more money then the whole military arm of the Hamas. I mean who is talking about the KFC Tunnels anymore they are now terror tunnels and this articla is from march 2013 so Israel knew about tunnels and the gaza subway actually it was GAZA KFC not Gaza subway for years and just now decided to invade?
The Gaza-Egypt tunnels were for smuggling in stuff to Gaza from the outside world. The Israelis are saying that that Gaza-Israel tunnels are for smuggling things into Israel (mainly people and weapons). I also read an article that Israel knew of them but not the scale/extent.
The "KFC" tunnels are different to the "terror" because they are to different countries, and one is an in (KFC) and one is an out ("terror").
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On August 04 2014 04:07 Yoav wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 03:54 Derez wrote:On August 04 2014 02:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:On August 04 2014 02:17 Sermokala wrote:On August 04 2014 01:40 xM(Z wrote: i'll just assume that was a rhetorical question ... Its not There isn't any Isreal propaganda here and you have no way of knowing that there is any. You're just assumeing that there is beacuse the nation disagrees with your nation about it. which would logically indicate that there's a huge divide regarding the information about the war. Either that, or there's simply something about American culture/history that makes them more likely to side with a colonial power's exploitation and dehumanizing treatment of another people than what the case is for Europe. Which, historically, does not make sense. There's no doubt about there being pro-Israel propaganda in the US. Just like there's no doubt about there being pro-palestine propaganda in Europe. Well, basically there's pro-both sides propaganda everywhere, but the pro-Israel side has a foothold in American media whereas the pro-Palestine side has a foothold in Europe. Personally, I don't know who or what to trust regarding what is happening right now, but civilian death counts don't seem to be contested even by the Israeli side and frankly they tell me everything I need to know to know who to sympathize with, and virtually every Norwegian I've talked to who has actually been to Israel describes it as an apartheid regime, meaning that I have information I trust in that regard as well.  I'd suggest reading The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt, two of the leading IR scholars in the world. You can find the working paper here. The paper describes the methods and ways in which the israel lobby in the US influences the decision making processes and how any criticism of the israeli state gets equivocated to anti-semitism. Unsurprisingly the authors themselves then got tagged for being anti-semites for writing the paper itself. It's not like AIPAC is subtle about its influence. Or folks like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Adelson, the 8th richest person in the world, who has Republican hopefuls grovel to compete for "most pro-Israel." Also, for clarification, equivocate is the opposite of what you mean. To equivocate is to use ambiguous wording to hide your real intent. Oops, wrong word.
That said, part of the strength of the jewish lobby in the US does not come from jewish people in the US (although they are a factor), it comes from the (largely republican) evangelicals who support israel's rights no matter what happens. Long term Israel is shooting itself in its foot anyway, the state only exists because of the foreign support it receives and every war erodes foreign support.
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All those in this thread who take everything Hamas and pro-Hamas media and organizations says at face-value should realize that they also engage in propaganda including disguising combatant deaths as civilian:
We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The media and international organizations tended to side with the Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad enumerated Hamas fatalities at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of 709 and about three times higher than the figure of 236 combatants provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on, Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.
http://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casualties/
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On August 04 2014 04:29 tomatriedes wrote:All those in this thread who take everything Hamas and pro-Hamas media and organizations says at face-value should realize that they also engage in propaganda including disguising combatant deaths as civilian: Show nested quote +We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The media and international organizations tended to side with the Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad enumerated Hamas fatalities at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of 709 and about three times higher than the figure of 236 combatants provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on, Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.
http://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casualties/ The 70-80 % civilian does not come from Hammas but from the UN (but at the beginning of the attack, things changed since the ground attack, with a higher number of hamas militant killed and less civilians), and hospitals in gaza says that 40 to 50 % people admitted are women and children. Everybody knows the Hamas number are skewed, just like the Israeli numbers (who count in all police officers as hamas militant).
By the way, the Goldstone report came to the conclusion that Israel (and Hamas, but less) made several things that are considered as war crime during the previous operation (like using human shield). Because of his harsh critics to Israel, and because he is a zionist jew (Goldstone) he received a lot of criticism (and insult) to the point where he retracted the report. I'm saying this because quoting the report now as a source of unbiased knowledge regarding Hamas' numbers is funny considering the report is considered "controversal" and even "false" for many people because of his harsh criticism of Israel.
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On August 04 2014 04:48 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 04:29 tomatriedes wrote:All those in this thread who take everything Hamas and pro-Hamas media and organizations says at face-value should realize that they also engage in propaganda including disguising combatant deaths as civilian: We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The media and international organizations tended to side with the Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad enumerated Hamas fatalities at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of 709 and about three times higher than the figure of 236 combatants provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on, Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.
http://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casualties/ The 70-80 % civilian does not come from Hammas but from the UN, and hospitals says that 40 to 50 % people admitted are women and child. Everybody knows the Hamas number are skewed, just like the Israeli numbers (who count in all police officers as hamas militant). If I would venture to guess, I would say Hamas overestimates civilian death, Israel underestimates it, and the truth is somewhere in between (if there is such thing as "truth", because everyone might just be working with different definitions of militants. I don't know if, even within Hamas themselves, it's always clear who would be considered a terrorist and who would not be).
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On August 04 2014 04:29 tomatriedes wrote:All those in this thread who take everything Hamas and pro-Hamas media and organizations says at face-value should realize that they also engage in propaganda including disguising combatant deaths as civilian: Show nested quote +We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The media and international organizations tended to side with the Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad enumerated Hamas fatalities at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of 709 and about three times higher than the figure of 236 combatants provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on, Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.
http://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casualties/ Are you fucking serious? You're telling us, who are using such 'pro-Hamas' media as the United Nations reports, Israeli media, that we're wrong because an Israeli propagandist wrote an opinion article on Time?
The man is a paid shill. He is the author of such gems as this piece detailing how Harvard is refuge for people who hate jews. Which would seemingly be contradicted by the large jewish population, the fact that they employed Alan Dershowitz for 50 years, and the fact that my sister is getting her MD there. But yeah, that guy's probably right. Just look at him conveying useful information such as
Children, here defined as those under age 17, represented 194 of fatalities, 20% of the total. Any child fatality is a tragedy, but it is important to note that children make up over half the population of Gaza. Which can be paraphrased as "Guys we killed a bunch of kids but don't worry, there's more of the little bastards!" or "Guys we killed a bunch of kids but it in our defense there are a lot of children under our bombs."
Yeah no. Most people in this thread are posting things which are readily admitted by Israeli media. The worst 'Pro-Hamas' stuffthat you see in this thread is the occasional al-jazeera article and that one RT.com article I posted to make fun of some similarly stupid source Nyxisto used. Meanwhile there are a bunch of people parroting things directly from the IDF twitter and Netanyahu such as the whole alleged dropping of brochures and warning calls.
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Although i'm aware of the modern rhetoric especially at west that blindly baptize every type of struggle to terrorism, seems there is a certain profile built about palestinians in Gaza where there are the "apathetic" civilians who are just trying to get out of the way and the terrorists and supposedly the civilians are just a source to fuel terrorism (like it's some short of virus that spreads).
I'd like to know if people recognize armed resistance against an oppressive force.
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On August 04 2014 04:27 Derez wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 04:07 Yoav wrote:On August 04 2014 03:54 Derez wrote:On August 04 2014 02:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:On August 04 2014 02:17 Sermokala wrote:On August 04 2014 01:40 xM(Z wrote: i'll just assume that was a rhetorical question ... Its not There isn't any Isreal propaganda here and you have no way of knowing that there is any. You're just assumeing that there is beacuse the nation disagrees with your nation about it. which would logically indicate that there's a huge divide regarding the information about the war. Either that, or there's simply something about American culture/history that makes them more likely to side with a colonial power's exploitation and dehumanizing treatment of another people than what the case is for Europe. Which, historically, does not make sense. There's no doubt about there being pro-Israel propaganda in the US. Just like there's no doubt about there being pro-palestine propaganda in Europe. Well, basically there's pro-both sides propaganda everywhere, but the pro-Israel side has a foothold in American media whereas the pro-Palestine side has a foothold in Europe. Personally, I don't know who or what to trust regarding what is happening right now, but civilian death counts don't seem to be contested even by the Israeli side and frankly they tell me everything I need to know to know who to sympathize with, and virtually every Norwegian I've talked to who has actually been to Israel describes it as an apartheid regime, meaning that I have information I trust in that regard as well.  I'd suggest reading The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy by Mearsheimer and Walt, two of the leading IR scholars in the world. You can find the working paper here. The paper describes the methods and ways in which the israel lobby in the US influences the decision making processes and how any criticism of the israeli state gets equivocated to anti-semitism. Unsurprisingly the authors themselves then got tagged for being anti-semites for writing the paper itself. It's not like AIPAC is subtle about its influence. Or folks like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheldon_Adelson, the 8th richest person in the world, who has Republican hopefuls grovel to compete for "most pro-Israel." Also, for clarification, equivocate is the opposite of what you mean. To equivocate is to use ambiguous wording to hide your real intent. Oops, wrong word. That said, part of the strength of the pro-Likkud lobby in the US does not come from jewish people in the US (although they are a factor), it comes from the (largely republican) evangelicals who support israel's rights no matter what happens. Long term Israel is shooting itself in its foot anyway, the state only exists because of the foreign support it receives and every war erodes foreign support.
Well, the debate-silencing level of upper-level consensus on this issue is a complicated issue. The Evangelical thing gets talked about a lot, but it's one of many factors (mainstream churches tend to be pro-Palestine). There is a huge difference in youth and adult opinions on Israel in the US. And what state is both disproportionately old and disproportionately Jewish? Florida, the largest swing state.
But the fact is that unconditional US support for Israel is a generational phenomenon, probably related to historical proximity to the holocaust and Cold War. But there is a movement away from the party-line-Likkud consensus. It's incomplete, as the rejection of J-Street recently showed, but as the generations change so will the US opinion on this issue.
Israel, by contrast, as far as I can see seems to be radicalizing.
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On August 04 2014 05:22 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 04:29 tomatriedes wrote:All those in this thread who take everything Hamas and pro-Hamas media and organizations says at face-value should realize that they also engage in propaganda including disguising combatant deaths as civilian: We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The media and international organizations tended to side with the Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad enumerated Hamas fatalities at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of 709 and about three times higher than the figure of 236 combatants provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on, Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.
http://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casualties/ Are you fucking serious? You're telling us, who are using such 'pro-Hamas' media as the United Nations reports, Israeli media, that we're wrong because an Israeli propagandist wrote an opinion article on Time? The man is a paid shill. He is the author of such gems as this piece detailing how Harvard is refuge for people who hate jews. Which would seemingly be contradicted by the large jewish population, the fact that they employed Alan Dershowitz for 50 years, and the fact that my sister is getting her MD there. But yeah, that guy's probably right. Just look at him conveying useful information such as Show nested quote +Children, here defined as those under age 17, represented 194 of fatalities, 20% of the total. Any child fatality is a tragedy, but it is important to note that children make up over half the population of Gaza. Which can be paraphrased as "Guys we killed a bunch of kids but don't worry, there's more of the little bastards!" or "Guys we killed a bunch of kids but it in our defense there are a lot of children under our bombs." Nobody is claiming anyone is right or wrong. In response to the accusation that there may be pro-Israel shills here, he said that both sides engage in propaganda. It's not such a novel accusation that enemies engaged in war use propaganda.
And what's wrong with the kids quote. It is perfectly relevant context. He's not excusing the killing of kids, but he's saying that the 20% may be misinterpreted as saying Israel is attacking with less care than they really are. So he's clarifying the context. Nothing wrong with that.
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On August 04 2014 05:32 soon.Cloak wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 05:22 Jormundr wrote:On August 04 2014 04:29 tomatriedes wrote:All those in this thread who take everything Hamas and pro-Hamas media and organizations says at face-value should realize that they also engage in propaganda including disguising combatant deaths as civilian: We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The media and international organizations tended to side with the Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad enumerated Hamas fatalities at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of 709 and about three times higher than the figure of 236 combatants provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on, Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.
http://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casualties/ Are you fucking serious? You're telling us, who are using such 'pro-Hamas' media as the United Nations reports, Israeli media, that we're wrong because an Israeli propagandist wrote an opinion article on Time? The man is a paid shill. He is the author of such gems as this piece detailing how Harvard is refuge for people who hate jews. Which would seemingly be contradicted by the large jewish population, the fact that they employed Alan Dershowitz for 50 years, and the fact that my sister is getting her MD there. But yeah, that guy's probably right. Just look at him conveying useful information such as Children, here defined as those under age 17, represented 194 of fatalities, 20% of the total. Any child fatality is a tragedy, but it is important to note that children make up over half the population of Gaza. Which can be paraphrased as "Guys we killed a bunch of kids but don't worry, there's more of the little bastards!" or "Guys we killed a bunch of kids but it in our defense there are a lot of children under our bombs." Nobody is claiming anyone is right or wrong. In response to the accusation that there may be pro-Israel shills here, he said that both sides engage in propaganda. It's not such a novel accusation that enemies engaged in war use propaganda. And what's wrong with the kids quote. It is perfectly relevant context. He's not excusing the killing of kids, but he's saying that the 20% may be misinterpreted as saying Israel is attacking with less care than they really are. So he's clarifying the context. Nothing wrong with that. It's not relevant. That's like defending Hitler by saying that Stalin was worse. You do not contextualize the circumstances of rape from the rapist's point of view, and you do not contextualize the murders of children by saying that you arguably showed restraint by not killing more of them.
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On August 04 2014 05:41 Jormundr wrote:Show nested quote +On August 04 2014 05:32 soon.Cloak wrote:On August 04 2014 05:22 Jormundr wrote:On August 04 2014 04:29 tomatriedes wrote:All those in this thread who take everything Hamas and pro-Hamas media and organizations says at face-value should realize that they also engage in propaganda including disguising combatant deaths as civilian: We have seen this before. A similar dispute over casualty figures occurred during Israel’s “Operation Cast Lead” in the Gaza Strip in January 2009. The Israelis contended that the majority of the fatalities were combatants; the Palestinians claimed they were civilians. The media and international organizations tended to side with the Palestinians. The UN’s own investigatory commission headed by Richard Goldstone, which produced the Goldstone Report, cited PCHR’s figures along with other Palestinian groups providing similar figures. Over a year later, after the news media had moved on, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hammad enumerated Hamas fatalities at 600 to 700, a figure close to the Israeli estimate of 709 and about three times higher than the figure of 236 combatants provided by PCHR in 2009 and cited in the Goldstone Report. Initially, playing to the international audience, it was important for Hamas to reinforce the image of Israel’s military action as indiscriminate and disproportionate by emphasizing the high number of civilians and low number of Hamas combatants among the fatalities. However, later on, Hamas had to deal with the flip side of the issue: that Hamas’s own constituency, the Gazan population, felt they had been abandoned by the Hamas government, which had made no effort to shelter them.
http://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casualties/ Are you fucking serious? You're telling us, who are using such 'pro-Hamas' media as the United Nations reports, Israeli media, that we're wrong because an Israeli propagandist wrote an opinion article on Time? The man is a paid shill. He is the author of such gems as this piece detailing how Harvard is refuge for people who hate jews. Which would seemingly be contradicted by the large jewish population, the fact that they employed Alan Dershowitz for 50 years, and the fact that my sister is getting her MD there. But yeah, that guy's probably right. Just look at him conveying useful information such as Children, here defined as those under age 17, represented 194 of fatalities, 20% of the total. Any child fatality is a tragedy, but it is important to note that children make up over half the population of Gaza. Which can be paraphrased as "Guys we killed a bunch of kids but don't worry, there's more of the little bastards!" or "Guys we killed a bunch of kids but it in our defense there are a lot of children under our bombs." Nobody is claiming anyone is right or wrong. In response to the accusation that there may be pro-Israel shills here, he said that both sides engage in propaganda. It's not such a novel accusation that enemies engaged in war use propaganda. And what's wrong with the kids quote. It is perfectly relevant context. He's not excusing the killing of kids, but he's saying that the 20% may be misinterpreted as saying Israel is attacking with less care than they really are. So he's clarifying the context. Nothing wrong with that. It's not relevant. That's defending like Hitler by saying that Stalin was worse. You do not contextualize the circumstances of rape from the rapist's point of view, and you do not contextualize the murders of children by saying that you arguably showed restraint by not killing more of them. Just the opposite. If Israel killed 80% children, then I would agree that saying "Well we could have done 90%" is wrong. But if it was 20%, while the population had 50%, that shows there was significant effort put into minimizing needless death of children. Or, I'll put it this way. Multiple people earlier in this thread have argued that Israel is just as indiscriminate, or close to as indiscriminate, as Hamas. This is a valuable statistic that shows the opposite is true.
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If one child or one civilian dies it is too much. This is not a numbers game of percentages, there are real lives literally at stake and every one of them is valuable.
It can not be justified, it must not be justified.
I'd like you to go into the hospital and tell the parents who have lost their child that, Israel is doing nothing wrong and that they are showing restraint. You would not tell them because it is a lie and when you see the suffering and pain you would know that in your guts that what is happening there is wrong. This is no computer game with numbers and a body count this is real life and some here seem really detached from it.
Another time I was at a hospital dealing with 180 casualties who came in. A Palestinian doctor there was in tears, sobbing uncontrollably. He told me he had been called over from another hospital in the middle of the night because of an attack. One of the casualties was a girl, about 19 or 20, who had lost her baby and sister. This surgeon amputated her right leg, performed a vascular bypass graft, shortened her femur, and fixed up her abdomen. He was crying because she was his sister.
This can not be justified. Israel has to withdraw and a peaceful solution must be found. The killing has to stop.
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