British women are now cutting their hair in response to Israel’s action in the Gaza Strip. That’s a type of protest that we remember from the worldwide Mahsa Amini protests in October 2022:





Something completely stupid is happening there. Qatari’s are dropping aid with parachutes, The US Military has invented a special beach boarding system that will allow them to send humanitarian aid via the beach, Spaniards are managing to deliver aid through Cyprus and now the UK has built a whole field hospital in Gaza:

 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/uk-funded-fie...16194.html
 
So that’s one aspect of who we are. The other aspect is what we all see every day since October. Fundamentalist Jews (who speak perfect French and English) blocking aid trucks so that Arabs end up killing one another in orther to get a minimum amount of food.



The picture above dates from sometime in the 2000’s. Israelis are making their children sign the bombs that are going to be dropped on Arabs. Right now they even have kids singing songs that are praising the IDF for the mass destruction it is creating in Gaza.

 
So in my view, there is some sort of regime in Israel. So much that I don’t think I would want to live in that country as an Israeli citizen. And people have had it with this endless conflict.

Quote:British women are now cutting their hair in response to Israel’s action in the Gaza Strip. 

Yeah, that'll help.

Boru

Admittedly, some of the things Leo Mentioned in the OP remind me of stuff that America was doing during WW2.





Then again, there is one key difference in the two scenarios here: namely, that, in spite of the fiery rhetoric Red Foley was spouting, the US' actions during WW2 weren't plausibly genocidal.

The main difference with WWII is that this cancer has already metastasized. It’s no longer something you can surgically remove like a Mussolini or a Saddam Hussein for instance. It’s all over the place. 2/3’s of Israelis believe that humanitarian aid should not be allowed into Gaza.
 
Now I am reading that 3 in 4 Muslims in the UK do not define the actions of Hamas as terrorism and are supportive of the group:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/only-one-four...19340.html
 
So something is not working here. I even know people who became deists than became atheists because they have had it with all this nonsense. 40 years ago I would have said that something is wrong with religious leaders in both communities. But I am past that now. To me it shows than anyone who has spiritual aspirations within himself / herself has the duty to be vigilant about all sorts of spiritual approaches on the market and maintain a critical mindset toward anything that’s happening around us.  
 
If there is something that is not working as it should all over the planet to me it means that we have to look inside in trying to find a permanent solution 

Not to worry - once Netanyahu learns about bald British women more than 2000 miles away, I'm sure he'll see the error of his ways.

Boru

I wrote greetings on bombs -- "here's a big kiss from the G-man" and so on.

Weird that civilians would do that, though. Who let them on the flight-line -- or are they touring bombs for this shit?

(April 8, 2024 at 8:46 pm)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: I wrote greetings on bombs -- "here's a big kiss from the G-man" and so on.

Weird that civilians would do that, though. Who let them on the flight-line -- or are they touring bombs for this shit?

I suspect the fact that, unlike most of America's bombing campaigns, the enemy is pretty close to home, geographically, it's probably easier for the civilians to get there. And especially given that Israel has a pretty extreme conscription law (Jewish, Druze, and Circassian males must serve 2 2/3 years in the IDF, and Jewish women must serve 2 years), it's likely that, if the bigger girl in the photo is actually a grown woman, this probably wouldn't be her first time in a military setting. And if they're kids, it probably won't be their last.

At any rate, it's become abundantly clear that, as far as the military forces in this conflict are concerned, the line between civilians and combatants has been pretty bloody thin. Hamas started this particular round off by massacring a trance music festival and openly declaring that, to them, a bunch of Israelis dancing like pricks to EDM are functionally the same as enemy combatants. Israel returned the favour by bombing the shit out of civilian targets in Gaza and claiming that Hamas was using them even when they plainly weren't. And given that most citizens of Israel either are, were, or will be a part of IDF, it's not too hard to imagine that this also applies to the in-group as well as the out-group.

(April 8, 2024 at 9:11 pm)Rev. Rye Wrote: I suspect the fact that, unlike most of America's bombing campaigns, the enemy is pretty close to home, geographically, it's probably easier for the civilians to get there.

I can't speak about IDF, but in USAF protocol, civilian visitors never got close to live ordnance, no matter where the enemy is. I'm betting this is a photo-op with dummy munitions. If IAF is letting civilians onto working bases to approach live weapons, they're stupid.

Looking at the story of the specific photograph, apparently, the bombs were real, and the army just happened to be in the area (a town directly on the Lebanese-Israeli border). So, evidently, they just were stupid.

(March 24, 2024 at 9:09 am)Leonardo17 Wrote: British women are now cutting their hair in response to Israel’s action in the Gaza Strip. That’s a type of protest that we remember from the worldwide Mahsa Amini protests in October 2022:





Something completely stupid is happening there. Qatari’s are dropping aid with parachutes, The US Military has invented a special beach boarding system that will allow them to send humanitarian aid via the beach, Spaniards are managing to deliver aid through Cyprus and now the UK has built a whole field hospital in Gaza:

 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/uk-funded-fie...16194.html
 
So that’s one aspect of who we are. The other aspect is what we all see every day since October. Fundamentalist Jews (who speak perfect French and English) blocking aid trucks so that Arabs end up killing one another in orther to get a minimum amount of food.



The picture above dates from sometime in the 2000’s. Israelis are making their children sign the bombs that are going to be dropped on Arabs. Right now they even have kids singing songs that are praising the IDF for the mass destruction it is creating in Gaza.

 
So in my view, there is some sort of regime in Israel. So much that I don’t think I would want to live in that country as an Israeli citizen. And people have had it with this endless conflict.

Bibi is fucked in Israel. He pulled a Trump. All this shit he is doing now was to avoid legal prosecution for the corruption charges. Israelis deserve better than Bibi. 

None of what Bibi is doing, as barbaric as it is, changes the fact that Hamas is a Islamic terrorist organization. On October 7th they slaughtered unarmed concert goers, unarmed women and children, butchering entire families in their homes. Hamas charter is not a human right's document. It's only goal is to defend Allah/Mohammed and spread Islam. It has no interest in protecting religious or political pluralism. If one is Christian living in Palestine they cannot question Hamas, and must live in silence. If one is LGBTQ in Palestine they to must live in silence or risk death. If you are an atheist living in Palestine, you also have to live in silence and risk death. 

You cannot rid the world of any religion. But all forms of religious fundamentalism must be met with strong condemnation. Be it the barbarism of Hamas, the theocracy of Iran who backs them, or the illegal expansions of orthodox Jews. Most Israelis have always condemned the illegal expansion, but because Islam is still stuck in a theocratic past, will attack out of religious aggression and that cannot be called self defense. 

The worst part of this bullshit sky daddy war are that the kids are the victims, having to live in fear of death, both in Palestine and in Israel. And the hate for the other is passed down to the youth on both sides by intolerant fundamentalists. 

I have been a long time supporter of Israel, but have always hated Bibi. And this time Bibi has really overplayed his hand, in the same way Bush invaded both Afghanistan and Iraq causing hundreds of thousands of needless deaths when a simple un announced surgical drone strike could have taken Bin Laden out weeks after or months after the attack. 

Israelis were already concerned with Bibi's authoritarian bent in trying to neuter their Supreme Court's ability to be a check on Parliament power. And Bibi's popularity is tanking because of his ham fisted carpet bombing. It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to justify what was initially reaction to October 7th. 

Humans in general need to give up on this bullshit response of trying to beat the other out of existence. It won't work for Israel and it won't work for Islam. 

But it will not be fundamentalism that will become introspective on it's own. It is up to all humans of good will, to call out any side that is constantly sabotage peaceful discourse. 

The western Jews I know personally can make that distinction between self defense and blatant religious fanatics. Israelis that care about peace will be willing to give territory up for a peaceful resolution. But that cannot come at the cost of that territory to be constantly be used as a retaliation base to repeat the cycle of attack, falsely play victim, and spread. And that truly is unfortunately, the political goal of fundamentalist Islam. In much the same way Trump bullies people then when called out falsely plays victim. 

If your attitude in Islam is that only one God can rule over government law, and everyone else is a house guest at best, that is not democracy, that is theocracy. I don't like it when Islam does it in the same way our MAGA republicans here are willing to use public law to take away the rights of female body autonomy, attack the human dignity of Hispanics, blacks and LGBTQ. 

And also, having talked to insiders, people who have lived in oppressive Islamic states, they can tell you, those majorities don't just attack western White Christians, they will marginalize and vilify even Muslim minorities, and other non-Christians, such as Asians and Buddhists. Basically anyone who is not an Arab Sunni or a Persian Shiite, and vice versa. 

And at the core of this endless conflict is this archaic idea that an invisible man in the sky, be it Allah, Yahweh or Jesus gave those respective clubs the deed to the fertile crescent and Mesopotamia. Which fails to take into account that polytheism occupied that same land long before any of those three religions existed. 

I am in my late 50s. I have been painfully aware of this conflict since I was a teen and I am exhausted by it. I don't want to become indifferent to human suffering. I want kids in Palestine and kids in Israel to grow up without fear of the other, and without the petty hate passed down of the other by adults who should know better. At some point tribalism has to become less important than accepting that we are all the same species. The alternative is nuclear war and nobody wins in that context. 

Liberals are going to solve this, liberal Jews, liberal Muslims. We cannot hope for the sudden introspection of the assholes who think the planet revolves around their sky hero(insert one of the 3 here).