Roughly $1.4 billion a year as opposed to Israel’s $4B per year just from the US alone, and $310B since its inception. But everything is equal, eh?
No it’s not equal. That is my point. Has not been for a long time. But let’s protest in a country that gives us a billion plus each year. Dumb.
Or let’s misrepresent facts.
Yes, let’s protest US tax dollars contributing to genocide. Want to make things equal? Give Palestine a well armed military so it can defend itself and $4B in aid per year. The hypocrisy is astounding.
Do not hate the players, hate the game. It seems to me that there were many years of peace in that region. What changed? How do you expect the Israelis to respond? One of the toughest armies in the world. Right because that is hypocrisy and genocide. It is not like they are protecting what they believe is theirs just as the Palestinians are fighting for what they believe is theirs. The problem is that most of the world favors Israel over Palestine. I am not sure that is an accident.
Tell us what the “defeat of Hamas” looks like and what comes after.
Defenders of Israel act as if the nation of Israel has done nothing wrong to the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza and that they’re truly innocent in every thing. Just minding their business, treating Palestinians as equals, not seizing land or homes, imprisoning thousands without charge, restricting movement and committing acts of not only war crimes but genocide. While Palestinians chant “river to the sea” , Israel quietly goes about making it happen. Let’s not pretend these are not truths and let’s not lie about them occurring.
To achieve peace, both sides must be considered part of humanity. I acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Can you say the same for Palestine?
as long as they are run by a terrorist organization that conducts kamikaze style attacks to kill women and children, how can they exist peacefully? It’s an absurd question.
This current argument has been ongoing for two years for one reason and one reason alone, Palestine initiated an attack because it was not happy with Israel forwarding another peace deal in the region. This time with Saudi Arabia
And if people wanna throw out the ridiculous fake attacks of genocide, defend that baseless attack with why there are not 100 million Jews living in that region right now.
It’s a one-word answer. Why don’t you give it a try
and Hamas speaks for all Palestinians now?
OH THATS RIGHT. ALL PALESTINIANS ARE HAMAS. I forgot. my bad.
WHATABOUTISM, has NOTHING to do with Palestine, because it occurred before that was a thing
It’s a one word answer, give honesty a try.
"Palestine initiated an attack "
YOUR statement.
And here I thought Hamas perpetrated that horrific attack. Not those kids subsequently killed by the government of Israel. But it was the whole of Palestine according to you who did this batbaric thing. Thanks for the correction.
was it the political wing of hamas or the terrorist wing?
I was recognizing them as a country. My bad, I’ll do my best to not make that mistake again. “Palestinian leadership initiated.” There ya go.
you didn’t answer the question. Why are there not 100 million Jews living in the region? Hint, it’s a one word answer.
failure to answer will be assessed as bias.
Given you've called out others for calling the States (not the leadership of the States) a shitshow, I would've expected more precision from you.
Another bullseye. The hypocrisy is astounding.
What a terrific SJW commenter you are. Celebrating a completely irrelevant point, to avoid answering the question.
you don’t think for a second I didn’t consider that? Since the uninformed Canadians did it, I can’t? We need someone to negotiate a peace treaty, let’s have the people over there do and enforce that. Pure genius.
So how about it, why aren’t there 100 million Jews living in that region right now?
hint, it’s a one word answer.
given your ardent defense if that goverment, I assume you are jewish.
so why aren't you a citizen and living in that land?
Holy F. That’s bias. Again. It’s amazing. “Must be a Jew to support THAT country.” Let’s call in Matt. That’s right on the border my friend.
Allow me to clarify. Again. I believe woke politics is destroying the Democratic Party’s ability to win elections.
i am an American supporting who democrats have for decades before they were compromised by woke politics. I do not have any connections to that country, I want peace. I am the only AMT commenter stating that repeatedly.
so lets answer your never ending question. How do we give the Palestinian people peace and prosperity, which I support, with an extreme government and a culture that supports bias against everyone not in their religion?
THIS is the question never answered either directly as asked or indirectly.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Roughly $1.4 billion a year as opposed to Israel’s $4B per year just from the US alone, and $310B since its inception. But everything is equal, eh?
No it’s not equal. That is my point. Has not been for a long time. But let’s protest in a country that gives us a billion plus each year. Dumb.
Or let’s misrepresent facts.
Yes, let’s protest US tax dollars contributing to genocide. Want to make things equal? Give Palestine a well armed military so it can defend itself and $4B in aid per year. The hypocrisy is astounding.
Do not hate the players, hate the game. It seems to me that there were many years of peace in that region. What changed? How do you expect the Israelis to respond? One of the toughest armies in the world. Right because that is hypocrisy and genocide. It is not like they are protecting what they believe is theirs just as the Palestinians are fighting for what they believe is theirs. The problem is that most of the world favors Israel over Palestine. I am not sure that is an accident.
Tell us what the “defeat of Hamas” looks like and what comes after.
Defenders of Israel act as if the nation of Israel has done nothing wrong to the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza and that they’re truly innocent in every thing. Just minding their business, treating Palestinians as equals, not seizing land or homes, imprisoning thousands without charge, restricting movement and committing acts of not only war crimes but genocide. While Palestinians chant “river to the sea” , Israel quietly goes about making it happen. Let’s not pretend these are not truths and let’s not lie about them occurring.
To achieve peace, both sides must be considered part of humanity. I acknowledge Israel’s right to exist. Can you say the same for Palestine?
as long as they are run by a terrorist organization that conducts kamikaze style attacks to kill women and children, how can they exist peacefully? It’s an absurd question.
This current argument has been ongoing for two years for one reason and one reason alone, Palestine initiated an attack because it was not happy with Israel forwarding another peace deal in the region. This time with Saudi Arabia
And if people wanna throw out the ridiculous fake attacks of genocide, defend that baseless attack with why there are not 100 million Jews living in that region right now.
It’s a one-word answer. Why don’t you give it a try
and Hamas speaks for all Palestinians now?
OH THATS RIGHT. ALL PALESTINIANS ARE HAMAS. I forgot. my bad.
WHATABOUTISM, has NOTHING to do with Palestine, because it occurred before that was a thing
It’s a one word answer, give honesty a try.
"Palestine initiated an attack "
YOUR statement.
And here I thought Hamas perpetrated that horrific attack. Not those kids subsequently killed by the government of Israel. But it was the whole of Palestine according to you who did this batbaric thing. Thanks for the correction.
was it the political wing of hamas or the terrorist wing?
I was recognizing them as a country. My bad, I’ll do my best to not make that mistake again. “Palestinian leadership initiated.” There ya go.
you didn’t answer the question. Why are there not 100 million Jews living in the region? Hint, it’s a one word answer.
failure to answer will be assessed as bias.
Given you've called out others for calling the States (not the leadership of the States) a shitshow, I would've expected more precision from you.
Another bullseye. The hypocrisy is astounding.
What a terrific SJW commenter you are. Celebrating a completely irrelevant point, to avoid answering the question.
you don’t think for a second I didn’t consider that? Since the uninformed Canadians did it, I can’t? We need someone to negotiate a peace treaty, let’s have the people over there do and enforce that. Pure genius.
So how about it, why aren’t there 100 million Jews living in that region right now?
hint, it’s a one word answer.
given your ardent defense if that goverment, I assume you are jewish.
so why aren't you a citizen and living in that land?
Holy F. That’s bias. Again. It’s amazing. “Must be a Jew to support THAT country.” Let’s call in Matt. That’s right on the border my friend.
Allow me to clarify. Again. I believe woke politics is destroying the Democratic Party’s ability to win elections.
i am an American supporting who democrats have for decades before they were compromised by woke politics. I do not have any connections to that country, I want peace. I am the only AMT commenter stating that repeatedly.
so lets answer your never ending question. How do we give the Palestinian people peace and prosperity, which I support, with an extreme government and a culture that supports bias against everyone not in their religion?
The actions of the country are hard to fathom as a Jew, so I can only imagine how hard they are to fathom as a non-Jew. I would've made the same assumption, just wouldn't have asked it as directly. So sue me.
The hatred towards Israelis by Palestinians at this point, is warranted. The hatred towards Palestinians by Israelis, at this point, is also warranted. For most that live in either locale, they have only known conflict with the other, or have known conflict for the vast majority of their lives. They have also inherited conflict from their ancestors - again, on both sides. They have seen the worst of each other, and have been told and taught the worst of each other.
I don't expect any resolution to this in my lifetime, I also don't expect criticism of Israeli actions to stop, because the world loves an underdog story, and Israeli actions have solidified Palestinians as the underdogs in the territory.
I agree with one exception. That as we progress, we should strive for being better at ending conflict. The picking sides and picking the underdog by the extreme left makes the problem worse. Giving billions for aid to help “Palestinians” will only end up getting more billions to Hamas and more war. All aid should be tied to efforts towards peace. Let the SJWs on here chew on that.
Perfect example on Morning Joe this AM. Chris Matthews, an old time, pre woke, democrat was on, and a Jewish journalist, Molly Jung Fast, a new age (underdog defender) was defending Khalil and the Columbia protesters.
After her “as a Jew I am denying AS by the schools” Matthews (probably Irish) gave her an earful, forcefully saying it was 100% anti semitism, and parents should have every expectation that classes, testing and graduation occur, no matter what. He didn’t even mention the part that Jewish kids had to barricade and call 911. The denialism of that last part on this forum is insane. I felt bad for Molly. She was shaking. As an old school democrat, we are seeing many dems fall deeper and deeper into the woke abyss. Even after losing to trump.
Literally Today someone here said something like I support Israel I must be Jewish. Is that AS? Just because I want a peace treaty and don’t see how that is possible with Hamas in control? Can I call every Palestinian supporter a Muslim? Every African American supporter, can I call them black?
Is Chris Matthew’s a Jew? That’s the level on this forum.
I love the claims of wanting peace and expecting only one side to concede to achieve it. What will Israel give up or change to achieve peace? Further, there appears to be only “one truth” and it apparently occurred in a vacuum with blame for only one side. One side is a nuclear power. One side is not. One side has a fully functioning government in one geographical space with a standing army, airforce and navy. One side does not. Let’s not pretend that “all things are equal” nor that Israeli leadership didn’t contribute to where we are today. Speaking of the “truth.”
WHY BENJAMIN NETANYAHU IS GOING BACK TO WAR
The public’s fears for the fate of the ceasefire and the hostages have become a struggle over the rule of law.
By Bernard Avishai March 28, 2025
As if the Israeli people’s losses from October 7th are not grievous enough, their fears for the hostages not haunting enough, and the miseries of the Gazans not shaming enough, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bringing his country back to war. He’s also exacerbating its divisions, pitting orthodoxy and coercion against the rule of secular law. “Netanyahu’s true objective appears increasingly clear,” Haaretz’s senior defense analyst Amos Harel wrote, “a gradual slide toward an authoritarian-style regime, whose survival he will try to secure through perpetual war on multiple fronts.”
On March 18th, with the Trump Administration’s approval, Israeli aircraft renewed the bombing of Gaza. Raids killed at least five senior Hamas officials. They also killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, some four hundred people, more than two-thirds of whom were women and children. Since then, both Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen have resumed firing rockets and missiles at Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in the center of the country; and Israeli ground forces have pushed into the Netzarim Corridor, once again cutting Gaza in half. Rockets were also fired from Lebanon at the northern Israeli town of Metula. It’s hard now to see what will stop the escalation.
Netanyahu’s office said that the strikes were necessary because Hamas had rejected proposals—advanced by the Trump Administration’s envoy, Steve Witkoff—to extend the ceasefire agreement, which had been in place since January 19th, by negotiating the release of more hostages. “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the Prime Minister’s office said in a statement. From now on. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing almost all the families of the remaining hostages, was having none of it. It called for mass demonstrations and issued a statement accusing Netanyahu of “abandoning” their loved ones while engaging in “complete deception.”
On Saturday night, more than a hundred thousand people joined those demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Two major opposition leaders, the Democrats’ Yair Golan and Yair Lapid, of the centrist party Yesh Atid, each called for civil disobedience: a mass refusal to pay taxes and a general strike. On Channel 12, a third, center-right party leader, National Unity’s usually circumspect Gadi Eisenkot, endorsed their stand. The three pledged to form a single democratic bloc to bring down the government. “We are stopping the economy, the ports, transportation, the schools, academia, businesses and the streets,” Golan, who was shoved to the ground by police at a recent demonstration, said. “We are stopping the country—to save it.”
The ceasefire agreement consisted of two phases, the first of which ended at the beginning of March. Hamas (and Islamic Jihad) released thirty-three hostages (and the bodies of eight more) in return for nearly two thousand Palestinian prisoners. The second phase, which should have been under negotiation by now, was meant to arrange for the return of the remaining living hostages, believed to be twenty-four people, in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza—and a change of government there. Notionally, Hamas would be replaced by a new regionally supported Palestinian administration. Once it was in place, the Saudis were expected to join in the underwriting of Gazan reconstruction and in normalizing relations with Israel.
But, from the start of the war, Netanyahu has obstructed any effort to set up a new Palestinian governing structure, because that would inevitably engage the Palestinian Authority, and would thus be a step toward eventual Palestinian independence. Harel told me that Netanyahu’s government is now not only authoritarian in style but also “brazenly theocratic,” aiming for, among other things, incorporating into Israel “Judea and Samaria”—the occupied West Bank. An alternative administration for Gaza is not, though, entirely hypothetical. Earlier this month, Western-aligned Arab states assembled in Cairo, where they detailed plans for a government of Palestinian “technocrats”—adjacent to and legitimatized, but not chosen, by the P.A., which controls parts of the West Bank, under the auspices of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Egypt and Jordan pledged to offer security support. Some fifty-three billion dollars, presumably in large part from the Gulf states, would be funnelled into reconstruction. Hamas would consent to an interim administration, though it was left unclear what would be done about its armed units.
“All Palestinian parties see the P.L.O. as the unifying umbrella for the struggle against occupation,” Samir Hulileh, the former C.E.O. of the huge Palestinian conglomerate padico (and a potential candidate “technocrat” for a new government), told me. “Hamas could be integrated into the P.L.O., once it agrees on its charter and past agreements with Israel.” It would then be “a political party, not a militia, and even compete in future elections.” Its guns would be handed over to a Palestinian police force to be established in Gaza and commanded by the P.A., which, in turn, could recruit police officers from Hamas and, crucially, pay their salaries. The business community in the West Bank as a whole is mobilized, in despair over mounting violence by settlers and the Israeli military in that territory, in addition to the violence in Gaza. (padico has invested more than three hundred and fifty million dollars in real estate in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The company’s chairman, Bashar Masri, independently built Rawabi, a one-and-a-half-billion-dollar planned city, near Ramallah, designed to accommodate forty thousand residents.) And for Egypt there is urgency in advancing the regional alliance that rebuilding Gaza requires. Houthi attacks have caused the diversion of most shipping from the Red Sea to a route around South Africa. This has, among other losses, reduced Egyptian revenue from the Suez Canal by about eight hundred million dollars a month.
Witkoff, however, was offering not a Phase Two but a sort of Phase One-lite: half the remaining hostages in exchange for a fifty-day truce. At that point—the hostages’ families might reasonably fear—Netanyahu could proceed to reoccupy Gaza, potentially “abandoning” the remaining hostages. (His populist and messianic coalition partners are already enthusing over Trump’s fantastical plan for U.S. custodianship of—and the Gazans’ removal from—the Strip.) In other words, Phase Two has evaporated. Netanyahu claims that Hamas has rejected all compromise—a point that Witkoff, curiously, seemed to cast doubt on in an interview with Tucker Carlson on March 21st. Meanwhile, with so many enraged youth in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have reportedly recruited new fighters—not enough to threaten Israel but more than enough to intimidate Gazans. By Netanyahu’s logic, the bombing must continue until Hamas simply capitulates but, illogically, releases the hostages first.
Netanyahu’s justification for renewed war is a deception, also, because it is his culminating move in a political struggle that will determine whether Israel remains an open society; and the rival camps in this contest map closely onto those who fought over his government’s so-called judicial reform, in 2023. That gambit aimed to curtail the Supreme Court’s ability to set constitutional limits on the Netanyahu government’s actions. And, in both cases, the Netanyahu coalition’s transparent concern is an old one: to advance annexation and sustain theocracy—and to preëmpt, respectively, Palestinian independence and Israeli liberalism.“Establishing a religious autocracy on the ruins of Israel’s already battered democracy has always been and remains the government’s primary mission,” the Haaretz editor Aluf Benn wrote, earlier this month. The government is now “approaching this task anew,” but, this time, it is “facing less protest and a weaker opposition.”
On the surface, Benn’s assessment may be too gloomy. According to a recent survey from the Israel Democracy Institute, some seventy per cent of Israelis believe that Netanyahu should take responsibility for October 7th and resign. Some seventy per cent also want a comprehensive deal to end the war and bring the hostages home. And polls consistently show Netanyahu falling short of another majority in the Knesset. But seventy per cent also oppose a Palestinian state. And one poll found that eighty per cent like the sound of Trump’s proposal to have Jordan, say, take in the residents of Gaza to help “clean out” the Strip, although any such move would severely undermine Jordan’s Hashemite regime.
Netanyahu, in short, is not as popular as his antipathies. So he is playing for time and letting them fester. The Guardian reports that the Prime Minister has threatened to “finish the job” of preventing an Iranian bomb—and is hoping to gain the Trump Administration’s support for an attack. He need not face the voters until the end of 2026, now that his far-right coalition partners passed a budget earlier this week—despite his government’s fiscal predations. The economy, the Hebrew University economist Joseph Zeira says, is in severe recession—a twenty-per-cent decline in over-all investment, whose impact on unemployment is temporarily offset by a high number of reservists who have been called up for service. More than eighty thousand Israelis left the country in 2024. Yet the government is proposing to cut the salaries of teachers and civil servants, while steering more than one and a quarter billion dollars to ultra-Orthodox parties and schools and West Bank settlements.
Netanyahu may remain electorally vulnerable, then, but the electorate will be vulnerable to the appeal of hard-liners. (The former leader of the Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett, is waiting in the wings.) Besides, Netanyahu is making collateral moves that, Yair Golan fears, portend “unfair elections.” Netanyahu has renewed efforts to hand the Knesset the power to supersede Supreme Court rulings; on Thursday, he pushed through a law giving the government control over appointments to the Court. He has moved to shift power over the elections commission from the courts to the Knesset, in order to facilitate the suppression of Arab-Israeli political parties. And he has threatened the closure of the independent public broadcaster, Kan. Much like Donald Trump, Netanyahu is flooding the zone, maneuvering the public into a diplomatic trap that engenders a sense of unravelling and, over time, makes effective political dissent difficult.
Shortly after the war started, when Netanyahu looked finished, over forty per cent of Israelis showed clinical level symptoms of depression and anxiety,” the psychologist Yoav Groweiss told me. (He is part of a team at the Ruppin Academic Center which has been conducting a nationwide study of public health since October 7th.) “Those numbers slowly declined, but, simultaneously, people began reporting much higher levels of concern about existential threats regarding national security and economic stability. Try finding a couples therapist or child psychologist with an open slot today.” Netanyahu “makes these many-sided threats seem endemic to the region,” Groweiss said, “endemic to Jewish history and liturgy—not the consequence of his use of power but, if anything, the justification of his power.”
Indeed, Hamas has been largely defeated by the I.D.F., is increasingly discredited among ordinary Gazans (in recent days, anti-Hamas demonstrations have broken out in multiple locations), and is all but isolated owing to the military collapse of Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria. Yet Israelis so object to the prospect of Hamas exercising residual control in Gaza that Netanyahu’s messaging plays. Golan, for his part, was the I.D.F.’s deputy chief of staff from 2014 to 2017. On the morning of October 7th, he drove toward the site of the Nova Music Festival, to rescue people who had fled the Hamas attack there. He does not want Hamas in any position of control, either, but the question he asks is whether apprehension justifies resuming the war.
“I say, the hostages first,” he told me earlier this week, and if Hamas ever again represents a threat, “we can fight again.” But why fight before trying diplomacy? Netanyahu has “made no attempt to turn military successes into a replacement for Hamas, or any larger diplomatic move,” Golan said. “This is shameful.” Israel, he said, starting in enclaves near Rafah and Gaza City, could “introduce security forces from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordanians. Expand the U.S.-backed multinational force monitoring the Sinai north into Gaza. New P.A. battalions can be trained.” Meanwhile, investment would begin. “The new forces would secure civilian contractors. Young people could then vote with their feet. What do you want to do? Go to war? Or go to work, for ten times the salary?”
Netanyahu, instead of making “diplomatic moves,” is bent on installing loyalists in the military and the security services. Both the I.D.F. and the security service, Shin Bet, released internal performance reviews, revealing operational inertia and the botched use of available intelligence. Both had apparently assumed, prior to October 7th, that Hamas could be deterred by periodic eruptions of overwhelming violence, or else be bought off by cash from Qatar. The heads of the groups—the I.D.F chief of staff, Herzl Halevi, and the Shin Bet commander, Ronen Bar—announced that they accepted responsibility for institutional failures and that they intended to resign.
Yet the real problem, they say, was strategic complacency that flowed from the top. Since 2009, Netanyahu had pushed the idea that Hamas’s rule in Gaza was a kind of strategic asset—it debased the P.A. and kept the Palestinians divided. Halevi and Bar have called for a state commission of inquiry, which would almost certainly implicate Netanyahu and demand that he accept his responsibility.
Instead, Netanyahu complained of a “deep state,” and replaced Halevi with Eyal Zamir, a gruff former armored-division commander—and former military secretary to Netanyahu—who has acted to undermine any potential state commission and is managing the renewed attack on Hamas and the settler-friendly occupation force in the West Bank. (On Monday, the co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” Hamdan Ballal, was beaten by a settler—while soldiers stood back—during an attack on the village of Susiya, where Ballal lives; he was detained and then turned over to the police, who arrested him.)
As for Bar, who had become a key hostage negotiator, he was fired on March 20th, before his intended resignation date. The Shin Bet had begun investigating highly placed members of Netanyahu’s staff regarding a recent leak of purloined Hamas negotiating documents, a supposed effort to enhance Netanyahu’s image, and for taking payments for public-relations work from Qatar—including in 2022, while it was funding Hamas. Netanyahu, ignoring the clear conflict of interest, simply claimed that Bar had been too “soft” in negotiations with Hamas. Gali Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, stepped in, and insisted on examining “the factual and legal basis” underlying the dismissal. The Supreme Court concurred with the attorney general; now Netanyahu’s government is proceeding to fire Baharav-Miara, too. Overnight, demonstrations against the war and for the hostages morphed into a renewed civil action to enshrine due process and democratic norms. Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, fears a breakdown. “What level of madness can we reach as a nation?” he said.
In this context, Netanyahu’s tightening control over the parts of the military seems ominous. “When the state was created, Ben-Gurion had to force ideologically strident militias into a single professional, secular army,” the military historian Yoram Peri told me. Bibi, he said, seems to be re-creating a split. About forty per cent of the graduates of the Army’s infantry officer schools, Peri notes, come from the dati leumi, or nationalist Orthodox minority, many of them extremist yeshiva students and supporters of settlements. “Zamir,” the new I.D.F. chief, “is their kind of commander,” Peri said. “A professionalized, secular army is not their goal. Neither is a secular democratic society.” ♦︎
Hint… Hal. I don’t believe Israel is 100% right. Not even close. They need to make significant concessions to achieve peace. As does the other side.
Now you and Mick and the SJW admit the same for Palestine.
Then enter into an honest discussion. Start by answering questions when posed. Here’s one for you, what significant concessions will Israel have to make to achieve peace?
and in what ways will they support the average Palestinian in standing up to Hamas? PA already seems to be the cooperative lapdog in West Bank. When will the colonization stop and be dismantled?
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Here’s some truth. Now, you can respond to the points being made with your own words, or post a YouTube video, or complain about the lack of comments regarding the governor’s mansion in Pennsylvania. Choice and ability is yours.
Top UK barrister: Israel is carrying out 'destruction of humanity' in Gaza
Michael Mansfield, a human rights lawyer, talks to Al Jazeera about a war crimes case he and others recently filed.
Al Jazeera: Do you classify what’s happening in Gaza as a genocide?
I do, yes, no question.
In this particular instance, if you’re attacked personally in the domestic sense or in any other, you’re entitled to defend yourself but only up to a point.
If you’re attacked with somebody holding a wooden spoon, you can’t use a machinegun to kill them. … This has gone far beyond self-defence.
Of course, they [aggressors, in this case Israel] will always justify it and say that it’s self-defence, but you only have to see what they’ve done.
A lot of the victims are women and babies and children and doctors and journalists. … They are protected individuals under the law.
In my view, it’s clearly a genocide because they’ve [Israeli officials] made it very clear in various statements. They’re talking about a bigger Israel. There’s a political ambition that lies behind the whole thing, not for all, you know, members of the [Israeli military] and so on, but I think a sizeable proportion.
[They] obviously are adhering to that principle that they want to see Gaza wiped off the map, and yes, they would like it reinstated as a Riviera resort of the Trump empire.
It’s gone beyond plausible.
[Note: The International Court of Justice said in January 2024 that it was plausible that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.]
Al Jazeera: How would you summarise the ongoing atrocities?
Mansfield: I would describe it as a mass assault and destruction of humanity. It doesn’t get worse than that.
Hint… Hal. I don’t believe Israel is 100% right. Not even close. They need to make significant concessions to achieve peace. As does the other side.
Now you and Mick and the SJW admit the same for Palestine.
Then enter into an honest discussion. Start by answering questions when posed. Here’s one for you, what significant concessions will Israel have to make to achieve peace?
they have offered, some say up to 93% of West Bank territory with the PA, which stated its all or none. That’s Aggression by Palestine
Israel has physical connections to the West Bank that are undeniable. The Old Testament says eleven thousand years. Physical evidence says four thousand years. To reject that out of hand is another form of aggression.
so considering that, I’ll ask yet again, why are there not one hundred million Israelis or Jews living in the region?
HINT, it begins with a G. And a word you like to throw around. Without the aggregate proof represented here.
Why aren’t there 100 million Israelis living in the region? It a one word answer. And it’s in your comment.
And? What’s the point of this repeated deflection?
Who do you think began this deflection, why do you think Palestinians are the most vocal making this claim? So Israel can’t? They aren’t making these claims in Syria, not in china, nowhere else Muslims are getting murdered, but in Palestine.
On the heels of nazi germany, the Assyrians, the ottomans and on and on…why aren’t there 100 million Jews there? Just answer the question
when people with limited knowledge of a terrible and complex issue claim they know who and only who deserves sympathy and foreign intervention, that’s picking winners and losers. Pure SJW.
Palestine supporters here get to endlessly make the genocide accusation, but when it’s pointed out there is significant evidence the Israelis are the victim of that, it’s a “diversion.”
It’s nuts that this extreme bias is not obvious.
If you believe the Bible and supporting documents on this point, Israel had a thriving population eleven thousand years ago. If that’s not good enough, scientific evidence proves it from four thousand years ago. What would a few million population thousands of years ago translate to today. Victims of genocide.
And of all that’s not good enough, had the nazis not done their damage, there’d be close to fifty million.
There’s countless recent wars and many have Muslim victims unfortunately. But only one country gets the genocide accusation? Only to prevent sjws from seeing the truth in this region.
Palestine supporters here get to endlessly make the genocide accusation, but when it’s pointed out there is significant evidence the Israelis are the victim of that, it’s a “diversion.”
It’s nuts that this extreme bias is not obvious.
If you believe the Bible and supporting documents on this point, Israel had a thriving population eleven thousand years ago. If that’s not good enough, scientific evidence proves it from four thousand years ago. What would a few million population thousands of years ago translate to today. Victims of genocide.
And of all that’s not good enough, had the nazis not done their damage, there’d be close to fifty million.
There’s countless recent wars and many have Muslim victims unfortunately. But only one country gets the genocide accusation? Only to prevent sjws from seeing the truth in this region.
Well, there’s the root of the issue, “if you believe the bible.”
Guess you never heard of Mao? Or Stalin? Or Pol Pot? Or the Hutus and Armenians? Or Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina? Or the Rohingya?
You are creating delusional arguments no one else is making to deflect from the atrocities being inflicted on the Palestinian people.
It’s gross.
Which is more offensive? The Israeli actions or the actions of the US to deport people?
Let me know when you guys are interested in serious discussion without using human atrocities as some kind of perverse pissing contest.
“No one else is making.” I know, only the dude that happens to be the most powerful in the world. But a commenter with a track record of low effort posting wouldn’t know that. Your comments continually disregard facts and then present a defense like this which is 100% bullsh!t and isn’t even a tangible thought. Like something a 15 yo high schooler would make. That’s what the intellect that this forum has become.
Of course when one side can’t source with wiki or any media article that may cite ADL, while you can make allegations completely absent of any support, that bias beyond belief.
It’s a war ffs. Your comments continually ignore facts and provide zero support for the absurd position that it takes one side to start and continue a war.
you have no interest in supporting solutions to solve problems. These comments only care about expressing hate thru sarcasm and condescension and blaming one side for a two sided problem.
you have zero complaints about the “atrocities” against Muslims in many other countries, such as China and Syria. Wonder why.
Comments
yes or no.
previous statements leave a strong impression.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Perfect example on Morning Joe this AM. Chris Matthews, an old time, pre woke, democrat was on, and a Jewish journalist, Molly Jung Fast, a new age (underdog defender) was defending Khalil and the Columbia protesters.
After her “as a Jew I am denying AS by the schools” Matthews (probably Irish) gave her an earful, forcefully saying it was 100% anti semitism, and parents should have every expectation that classes, testing and graduation occur, no matter what. He didn’t even mention the part that Jewish kids had to barricade and call 911. The denialism of that last part on this forum is insane. I felt bad for Molly. She was shaking. As an old school democrat, we are seeing many dems fall deeper and deeper into the woke abyss. Even after losing to trump.
Literally Today someone here said something like I support Israel I must be Jewish. Is that AS? Just because I want a peace treaty and don’t see how that is possible with Hamas in control? Can I call every Palestinian supporter a Muslim? Every African American supporter, can I call them black?
WHY BENJAMIN NETANYAHU IS GOING BACK TO WAR
The public’s fears for the fate of the ceasefire and the hostages have become a struggle over the rule of law.
March 28, 2025
As if the Israeli people’s losses from October 7th are not grievous enough, their fears for the hostages not haunting enough, and the miseries of the Gazans not shaming enough, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is bringing his country back to war. He’s also exacerbating its divisions, pitting orthodoxy and coercion against the rule of secular law. “Netanyahu’s true objective appears increasingly clear,” Haaretz’s senior defense analyst Amos Harel wrote, “a gradual slide toward an authoritarian-style regime, whose survival he will try to secure through perpetual war on multiple fronts.”
On March 18th, with the Trump Administration’s approval, Israeli aircraft renewed the bombing of Gaza. Raids killed at least five senior Hamas officials. They also killed, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, some four hundred people, more than two-thirds of whom were women and children. Since then, both Hamas and the Houthis in Yemen have resumed firing rockets and missiles at Israel, setting off air-raid sirens in the center of the country; and Israeli ground forces have pushed into the Netzarim Corridor, once again cutting Gaza in half. Rockets were also fired from Lebanon at the northern Israeli town of Metula. It’s hard now to see what will stop the escalation.
Netanyahu’s office said that the strikes were necessary because Hamas had rejected proposals—advanced by the Trump Administration’s envoy, Steve Witkoff—to extend the ceasefire agreement, which had been in place since January 19th, by negotiating the release of more hostages. “Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the Prime Minister’s office said in a statement. From now on. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing almost all the families of the remaining hostages, was having none of it. It called for mass demonstrations and issued a statement accusing Netanyahu of “abandoning” their loved ones while engaging in “complete deception.”
On Saturday night, more than a hundred thousand people joined those demonstrations in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Two major opposition leaders, the Democrats’ Yair Golan and Yair Lapid, of the centrist party Yesh Atid, each called for civil disobedience: a mass refusal to pay taxes and a general strike. On Channel 12, a third, center-right party leader, National Unity’s usually circumspect Gadi Eisenkot, endorsed their stand. The three pledged to form a single democratic bloc to bring down the government. “We are stopping the economy, the ports, transportation, the schools, academia, businesses and the streets,” Golan, who was shoved to the ground by police at a recent demonstration, said. “We are stopping the country—to save it.”
The ceasefire agreement consisted of two phases, the first of which ended at the beginning of March. Hamas (and Islamic Jihad) released thirty-three hostages (and the bodies of eight more) in return for nearly two thousand Palestinian prisoners. The second phase, which should have been under negotiation by now, was meant to arrange for the return of the remaining living hostages, believed to be twenty-four people, in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza—and a change of government there. Notionally, Hamas would be replaced by a new regionally supported Palestinian administration. Once it was in place, the Saudis were expected to join in the underwriting of Gazan reconstruction and in normalizing relations with Israel.
But, from the start of the war, Netanyahu has obstructed any effort to set up a new Palestinian governing structure, because that would inevitably engage the Palestinian Authority, and would thus be a step toward eventual Palestinian independence. Harel told me that Netanyahu’s government is now not only authoritarian in style but also “brazenly theocratic,” aiming for, among other things, incorporating into Israel “Judea and Samaria”—the occupied West Bank. An alternative administration for Gaza is not, though, entirely hypothetical. Earlier this month, Western-aligned Arab states assembled in Cairo, where they detailed plans for a government of Palestinian “technocrats”—adjacent to and legitimatized, but not chosen, by the P.A., which controls parts of the West Bank, under the auspices of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Egypt and Jordan pledged to offer security support. Some fifty-three billion dollars, presumably in large part from the Gulf states, would be funnelled into reconstruction. Hamas would consent to an interim administration, though it was left unclear what would be done about its armed units.
“All Palestinian parties see the P.L.O. as the unifying umbrella for the struggle against occupation,” Samir Hulileh, the former C.E.O. of the huge Palestinian conglomerate padico (and a potential candidate “technocrat” for a new government), told me. “Hamas could be integrated into the P.L.O., once it agrees on its charter and past agreements with Israel.” It would then be “a political party, not a militia, and even compete in future elections.” Its guns would be handed over to a Palestinian police force to be established in Gaza and commanded by the P.A., which, in turn, could recruit police officers from Hamas and, crucially, pay their salaries. The business community in the West Bank as a whole is mobilized, in despair over mounting violence by settlers and the Israeli military in that territory, in addition to the violence in Gaza. (padico has invested more than three hundred and fifty million dollars in real estate in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The company’s chairman, Bashar Masri, independently built Rawabi, a one-and-a-half-billion-dollar planned city, near Ramallah, designed to accommodate forty thousand residents.) And for Egypt there is urgency in advancing the regional alliance that rebuilding Gaza requires. Houthi attacks have caused the diversion of most shipping from the Red Sea to a route around South Africa. This has, among other losses, reduced Egyptian revenue from the Suez Canal by about eight hundred million dollars a month.
Witkoff, however, was offering not a Phase Two but a sort of Phase One-lite: half the remaining hostages in exchange for a fifty-day truce. At that point—the hostages’ families might reasonably fear—Netanyahu could proceed to reoccupy Gaza, potentially “abandoning” the remaining hostages. (His populist and messianic coalition partners are already enthusing over Trump’s fantastical plan for U.S. custodianship of—and the Gazans’ removal from—the Strip.) In other words, Phase Two has evaporated. Netanyahu claims that Hamas has rejected all compromise—a point that Witkoff, curiously, seemed to cast doubt on in an interview with Tucker Carlson on March 21st. Meanwhile, with so many enraged youth in Gaza, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have reportedly recruited new fighters—not enough to threaten Israel but more than enough to intimidate Gazans. By Netanyahu’s logic, the bombing must continue until Hamas simply capitulates but, illogically, releases the hostages first.
Netanyahu’s justification for renewed war is a deception, also, because it is his culminating move in a political struggle that will determine whether Israel remains an open society; and the rival camps in this contest map closely onto those who fought over his government’s so-called judicial reform, in 2023. That gambit aimed to curtail the Supreme Court’s ability to set constitutional limits on the Netanyahu government’s actions. And, in both cases, the Netanyahu coalition’s transparent concern is an old one: to advance annexation and sustain theocracy—and to preëmpt, respectively, Palestinian independence and Israeli liberalism.“Establishing a religious autocracy on the ruins of Israel’s already battered democracy has always been and remains the government’s primary mission,” the Haaretz editor Aluf Benn wrote, earlier this month. The government is now “approaching this task anew,” but, this time, it is “facing less protest and a weaker opposition.”
Continues next post
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On the surface, Benn’s assessment may be too gloomy. According to a recent survey from the Israel Democracy Institute, some seventy per cent of Israelis believe that Netanyahu should take responsibility for October 7th and resign. Some seventy per cent also want a comprehensive deal to end the war and bring the hostages home. And polls consistently show Netanyahu falling short of another majority in the Knesset. But seventy per cent also oppose a Palestinian state. And one poll found that eighty per cent like the sound of Trump’s proposal to have Jordan, say, take in the residents of Gaza to help “clean out” the Strip, although any such move would severely undermine Jordan’s Hashemite regime.
Netanyahu, in short, is not as popular as his antipathies. So he is playing for time and letting them fester. The Guardian reports that the Prime Minister has threatened to “finish the job” of preventing an Iranian bomb—and is hoping to gain the Trump Administration’s support for an attack. He need not face the voters until the end of 2026, now that his far-right coalition partners passed a budget earlier this week—despite his government’s fiscal predations. The economy, the Hebrew University economist Joseph Zeira says, is in severe recession—a twenty-per-cent decline in over-all investment, whose impact on unemployment is temporarily offset by a high number of reservists who have been called up for service. More than eighty thousand Israelis left the country in 2024. Yet the government is proposing to cut the salaries of teachers and civil servants, while steering more than one and a quarter billion dollars to ultra-Orthodox parties and schools and West Bank settlements.
Netanyahu may remain electorally vulnerable, then, but the electorate will be vulnerable to the appeal of hard-liners. (The former leader of the Jewish Home party, Naftali Bennett, is waiting in the wings.) Besides, Netanyahu is making collateral moves that, Yair Golan fears, portend “unfair elections.” Netanyahu has renewed efforts to hand the Knesset the power to supersede Supreme Court rulings; on Thursday, he pushed through a law giving the government control over appointments to the Court. He has moved to shift power over the elections commission from the courts to the Knesset, in order to facilitate the suppression of Arab-Israeli political parties. And he has threatened the closure of the independent public broadcaster, Kan. Much like Donald Trump, Netanyahu is flooding the zone, maneuvering the public into a diplomatic trap that engenders a sense of unravelling and, over time, makes effective political dissent difficult.
Shortly after the war started, when Netanyahu looked finished, over forty per cent of Israelis showed clinical level symptoms of depression and anxiety,” the psychologist Yoav Groweiss told me. (He is part of a team at the Ruppin Academic Center which has been conducting a nationwide study of public health since October 7th.) “Those numbers slowly declined, but, simultaneously, people began reporting much higher levels of concern about existential threats regarding national security and economic stability. Try finding a couples therapist or child psychologist with an open slot today.” Netanyahu “makes these many-sided threats seem endemic to the region,” Groweiss said, “endemic to Jewish history and liturgy—not the consequence of his use of power but, if anything, the justification of his power.”
Indeed, Hamas has been largely defeated by the I.D.F., is increasingly discredited among ordinary Gazans (in recent days, anti-Hamas demonstrations have broken out in multiple locations), and is all but isolated owing to the military collapse of Hezbollah and the Assad regime in Syria. Yet Israelis so object to the prospect of Hamas exercising residual control in Gaza that Netanyahu’s messaging plays. Golan, for his part, was the I.D.F.’s deputy chief of staff from 2014 to 2017. On the morning of October 7th, he drove toward the site of the Nova Music Festival, to rescue people who had fled the Hamas attack there. He does not want Hamas in any position of control, either, but the question he asks is whether apprehension justifies resuming the war.
“I say, the hostages first,” he told me earlier this week, and if Hamas ever again represents a threat, “we can fight again.” But why fight before trying diplomacy? Netanyahu has “made no attempt to turn military successes into a replacement for Hamas, or any larger diplomatic move,” Golan said. “This is shameful.” Israel, he said, starting in enclaves near Rafah and Gaza City, could “introduce security forces from the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Jordanians. Expand the U.S.-backed multinational force monitoring the Sinai north into Gaza. New P.A. battalions can be trained.” Meanwhile, investment would begin. “The new forces would secure civilian contractors. Young people could then vote with their feet. What do you want to do? Go to war? Or go to work, for ten times the salary?”
Netanyahu, instead of making “diplomatic moves,” is bent on installing loyalists in the military and the security services. Both the I.D.F. and the security service, Shin Bet, released internal performance reviews, revealing operational inertia and the botched use of available intelligence. Both had apparently assumed, prior to October 7th, that Hamas could be deterred by periodic eruptions of overwhelming violence, or else be bought off by cash from Qatar. The heads of the groups—the I.D.F chief of staff, Herzl Halevi, and the Shin Bet commander, Ronen Bar—announced that they accepted responsibility for institutional failures and that they intended to resign.
Yet the real problem, they say, was strategic complacency that flowed from the top. Since 2009, Netanyahu had pushed the idea that Hamas’s rule in Gaza was a kind of strategic asset—it debased the P.A. and kept the Palestinians divided. Halevi and Bar have called for a state commission of inquiry, which would almost certainly implicate Netanyahu and demand that he accept his responsibility.
Instead, Netanyahu complained of a “deep state,” and replaced Halevi with Eyal Zamir, a gruff former armored-division commander—and former military secretary to Netanyahu—who has acted to undermine any potential state commission and is managing the renewed attack on Hamas and the settler-friendly occupation force in the West Bank. (On Monday, the co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” Hamdan Ballal, was beaten by a settler—while soldiers stood back—during an attack on the village of Susiya, where Ballal lives; he was detained and then turned over to the police, who arrested him.)
As for Bar, who had become a key hostage negotiator, he was fired on March 20th, before his intended resignation date. The Shin Bet had begun investigating highly placed members of Netanyahu’s staff regarding a recent leak of purloined Hamas negotiating documents, a supposed effort to enhance Netanyahu’s image, and for taking payments for public-relations work from Qatar—including in 2022, while it was funding Hamas. Netanyahu, ignoring the clear conflict of interest, simply claimed that Bar had been too “soft” in negotiations with Hamas. Gali Baharav-Miara, the attorney general, stepped in, and insisted on examining “the factual and legal basis” underlying the dismissal. The Supreme Court concurred with the attorney general; now Netanyahu’s government is proceeding to fire Baharav-Miara, too. Overnight, demonstrations against the war and for the hostages morphed into a renewed civil action to enshrine due process and democratic norms. Israel’s President, Isaac Herzog, fears a breakdown. “What level of madness can we reach as a nation?” he said.
In this context, Netanyahu’s tightening control over the parts of the military seems ominous. “When the state was created, Ben-Gurion had to force ideologically strident militias into a single professional, secular army,” the military historian Yoram Peri told me. Bibi, he said, seems to be re-creating a split. About forty per cent of the graduates of the Army’s infantry officer schools, Peri notes, come from the dati leumi, or nationalist Orthodox minority, many of them extremist yeshiva students and supporters of settlements. “Zamir,” the new I.D.F. chief, “is their kind of commander,” Peri said. “A professionalized, secular army is not their goal. Neither is a secular democratic society.” ♦︎
Why Benjamin Netanyahu Is Going Back to War
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/why-benjamin-netanyahu-is-going-back-to-war
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Now you and Mick and the SJW admit the same for Palestine.
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Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Top UK barrister: Israel is carrying out 'destruction of humanity' in Gaza
Michael Mansfield, a human rights lawyer, talks to Al Jazeera about a war crimes case he and others recently filed.
Al Jazeera: Do you classify what’s happening in Gaza as a genocide?
I do, yes, no question.
In this particular instance, if you’re attacked personally in the domestic sense or in any other, you’re entitled to defend yourself but only up to a point.
If you’re attacked with somebody holding a wooden spoon, you can’t use a machinegun to kill them. … This has gone far beyond self-defence.
Of course, they [aggressors, in this case Israel] will always justify it and say that it’s self-defence, but you only have to see what they’ve done.
A lot of the victims are women and babies and children and doctors and journalists. … They are protected individuals under the law.
In my view, it’s clearly a genocide because they’ve [Israeli officials] made it very clear in various statements. They’re talking about a bigger Israel. There’s a political ambition that lies behind the whole thing, not for all, you know, members of the [Israeli military] and so on, but I think a sizeable proportion.
[They] obviously are adhering to that principle that they want to see Gaza wiped off the map, and yes, they would like it reinstated as a Riviera resort of the Trump empire.
It’s gone beyond plausible.
[Note: The International Court of Justice said in January 2024 that it was plausible that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.]
Al Jazeera: How would you summarise the ongoing atrocities?
Mansfield: I would describe it as a mass assault and destruction of humanity. It doesn’t get worse than that.
https://apple.news/AsxKmgvMCSxGe8ISbJ31PSQ
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they have offered, some say up to 93% of West Bank territory with the PA, which stated its all or none. That’s Aggression by Palestine
so considering that, I’ll ask yet again, why are there not one hundred million Israelis or Jews living in the region?
HINT, it begins with a G. And a word you like to throw around. Without the aggregate proof represented here.
On the heels of nazi germany, the Assyrians, the ottomans and on and on…why aren’t there 100 million Jews there? Just answer the question
when people with limited knowledge of a terrible and complex issue claim they know who and only who deserves sympathy and foreign intervention, that’s picking winners and losers. Pure SJW.
Palestine supporters here get to endlessly make the genocide accusation, but when it’s pointed out there is significant evidence the Israelis are the victim of that, it’s a “diversion.”
It’s nuts that this extreme bias is not obvious.
If you believe the Bible and supporting documents on this point, Israel had a thriving population eleven thousand years ago. If that’s not good enough, scientific evidence proves it from four thousand years ago. What would a few million population thousands of years ago translate to today. Victims of genocide.
And of all that’s not good enough, had the nazis not done their damage, there’d be close to fifty million.
There’s countless recent wars and many have Muslim victims unfortunately. But only one country gets the genocide accusation? Only to prevent sjws from seeing the truth in this region.
Which is more offensive? The Israeli actions or the actions of the US to deport people?
Guess you never heard of Mao? Or Stalin? Or Pol Pot? Or the Hutus and Armenians? Or Bosnia, Serbia and Herzegovina? Or the Rohingya?
Do unto others as has been done to you, eh?
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you have no interest in supporting solutions to solve problems. These comments only care about expressing hate thru sarcasm and condescension and blaming one side for a two sided problem.
you have zero complaints about the “atrocities” against Muslims in many other countries, such as China and Syria. Wonder why.
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Scary stuff.