zazen

As warrants may be coming out for Israeli officials its a good time to note a US law called the "Hague Invasion Act." This law authorizes the US president to use force, including invading the Netherlands where the ICC is based, to release any individual detained by the ICC. This includes not only US personnel but also personnel from allied countries, including Israel. Coercion wrapped in geopolitics. The US has a history of hostility toward the ICC, including sanctions imposed on ICC employees investigating potential war crimes by US allies in Afghanistan. "Rules Based Order'' but uncle Sam don't give a damn. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members'_Protection_Act#:~:text=This authorization led to the,or rescue them from custody.

The point about balance between state and market gets over looked as the often uninformed Western perspective clings to the notion of China being strictly communist and authoritarian and communism = failure = bad. The reality is more nuanced: China operates under a mixed economy paradigm that is almost its own thing and is beyond capitalism or socialism. Local governments play a big role to the point a political scientist terms their hybrid economy the 'mayor economy.'

Good use of dark humor to hit the nail on the head lol apple pie. How about 'walking my dog' genocide:

That's true. Their has to be a reasonable use of words and terms - neither inflating them to apply to everything but also not stopping from using it when a situation seems to fit closely enough within the spectrum of the definition. Israel only want the most extreme case of the definition to apply or be used (ie Genocide only being Holocaust) to avoid accountability, condemnation and consequences. Destroying hospitals, food crops and blocking aid comes close enough to the definition of destroying a group - if genocide is too strong a term then it definitely is collective punishment - and that alone warrants global protest and action. Just for comparison, in the 1990s the mass graves found in Srebrenica led to a genocide ruling against Bosnian Serbs - by the same world court now saying that Israel is committing a plausible genocide. Recently the mass graves found at Gazan hospitals are already out the news cycle almost as if the world has become numb to the atrocities - or distracted by the campus protests which pro-Zionist provocatuers and agents have been smearing. Inflation and cheapening of the word genocide would be like when pro-Palestinian protests take place and some Jewish people think this is genocidal or a prelude to the Holocaust (as Netenyahu said recently) regarding the campus protests. This is inflation to a absurd degree. Sure, their can be genocidal remarks by individuals and they should be addressed but overall no sane person can claim Jewish lives are at a mass level of threat because of these protests when Jewish groups are the best organised within these same protests.

Thanks for the information man. There is a spectrum to definitions and words. Genocide isn’t just mass extermination of a group (like the Holocaust was), it can be the destruction of a group in whole or in part. Ethnic cleansing involves forcibly displacing an ethnic group, either by relocating them to another country or moving them within the same territory but off their land. This can happen without changing the overall population, like when Palestinians are moved from one part of the West Bank to another to make way for settlements. The total population of Palestinians hasn’t changed in West Bank, yet ethnic cleansing has occurred via displacement. Both can be true at the same time. That’s been going on for decades without much prosecution from Israel and is instead tacitly facilitated by it when the IDF just stand by and watch settlers do what they do. Israel won’t acknowledge the statehood of 5 million Palestinians in Gaza or West Bank but will still control them externally (Gaza) or internally (West Bank). Israel can’t afford to absorb both areas into a larger Israeli state because Jews will become a minority - they instead let both territories remain in limbo for who knows how long. The 10 billion dollar smart fence surrounds Gaza. Even the word used is fence rather than border - because border usually means between two sovereign states. France ‘surrounds’ Monaco like Italy ‘surrounds’ the Vatican - except those are borders shared by two sovereigns not one sovereign nation (Israel) fencing in a unrecognised territory under siege. They don’t want anything to do with Gaza but won’t allow Gaza to do anything they want either and restrict them from the world.

The Zionist narrative is melting faster than sugar in tea. Their defence of the indefensible and countless justifications for every despicable act is getting as dry as the desert they want to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians to.

It's good Israel became powerful , whats not good is how that power was used. Zionists overlook their own actions that actually threaten their survival, and claim those very actions are in fact for their survival. Settlement expansion is survival, suffocation of Palestinian rights and statehood is survival, military check points is survival, the subversion of US politics and smacking both sides of their political ass cheeks is survival - everything is survival, and everything resisting that 'survival' is 'Hamas' or 'anti-semitic' or Iran. Israel insulates itself from accountability under the false pretence of security and survival.

True, until it couldn't as much anymore due to social media. Propaganda can also be as subtle as titling headlines as 'X number of killed Israeli's' vs 'X number of Palestinians just died' its the subtle, persistent use of language that seeps into the hackable brains of the populace. The response to IDF crimes being brought up to Washington is simply - we have urged our ally to investigate the matter. Since when is the accused asked to investigate itself? Washington holding a position that every accusation of Israeli criminality in Gaza just means Israel needs to investigate itself is exactly the same as having a position that Israel can commit any crime it wants with no consequences whatsoever. The West get to redefine the word hypocrisy, and exemplify the use of selective principles. Zionists make the most noise per capita - and as you mentioned very few people are actual Zionists.

There comes a point where securing a people through such extreme actions leads to their very insecurity. Did Israel feel secure when Iran attacked in retaliation? What level of security is needed when being a regional power with nukes, having neighbours who are friendly (Jordan, Egypt, the Gulf), having the backing of the West and the worlds super power isn't enough? Due to re-traumatising themselves as a people by re-living memories of the past a lot of Zionists hyper inflate threats and act irrationally which only continue to actually endanger themselves. The excess which deserves criticism is what world protests and now the campus protests are about. Of course, some very angered individuals will call for the end of Israel and the like which should be scrutinised and checked - but to conflate all protests or the main cause as one of anti-semitism and the prelude to the holocaust is utter BS.

Conflation olympics If the US saw what the US is doing in the US, the US would invade the US to liberate the US from the tyranny of the US - Anonymous

Wonder if this whole Campus situation in America has anything to do with the Rafah operation which I assume is going ahead ? Deflection, distraction, then destruction.

Each groups narrative of home and heritage fuels a cycle of conflict. Words are imbued with the power of the histories they carry, and the word Zionism for the Jews symbolises hope but for the Palestinians is one loaded with the weight of the Nakba and continuous displacement adding to that load till today. That’s why people react to it negatively - not because of what it envisaged or started but because of how it started and what is done in its name till today. What is sanctuary to one is stolen soil to another. Israelis have to face the fact that the safe haven they constructed for themselves out of necessity is neither safe nor a haven as long as it exiles the natives in the process. The process of their return is engineered top down with the help of colonial powers at the time (and maintained by their help today) - rather than a grassroots movement that comes more organically and naturally to the local habitat. The implementation of Zionism has evolved into an imposition, a structure forcibly embedded rather than naturally emerging within the local environment it seeks to inhabit. This imposition destroys Palestinian life at its worst and disrupts daily life for Palestinians at its best by making the mundane tasks of life into the militant. When traveling to work, visiting family and farming ancestral land is consistently militarized with checkpoints and surveillance, the response from those under it naturally escalates against this humiliation. Militant conditions can expect militant reactions.

@Bobby_2021 Good analysis. A narrative you’ll never hear in the West lol. Iran can produce these missiles like cigars. They penetrated Israel’s two most sensitive and highly defended air bases and sites. Westerners and ultra-Zionists can keep thinking the escalatory actions of their states make them ‘safer’ if they wish. This wasn’t intended to be destructive by Iran but demonstrative - yet it’s spun as an Israeli victory, the same way Ukraine was led down its path by hubristic blindness on part of the vested interests.

@Nivsch Romanism = The aspiration to establish a Roman state in the land they had sovereignty in the past (Israel /Palestine for 400 years) Ottomanism = The aspiration to establish a Ottoman state in the land they had sovereignty in the past (also Israel/Palestine for 400 years) Its not just the value of something by itself, but the cost of it that matters. We can value aspirations, and they may be fine and good as they stand alone - but when the cost of these nationalistic aspirations means the extermination of another groups identity, expulsion of them from the land, and occupation and subjugation of those that remain - that is a cost too high. That cost includes backlash and 'resistance' which includes terroristic elements, Israel is paying this cost till today including the cost of alienating itself from the world. Saying Zionism is noble and good and any critique of it is bad or misunderstood can miss the point and fine line where Zionism becomes Ultra-Zionism - a more extremist fundamentalist version of itself. Because the lines are blurred, many Zionists have and hold Ultra-Zionist talking points and positions without realising it. 'Normal' Israeli's criticise Netanyahu while remaining unified in their governments support for unleashing Hiroshima-level destructive force on Gaza. The polls show majority of Israelis didn't think Israel went hard enough on Gaza - after dropping multiple Hiroshimas worth of bombs on a strip of land a 3rd of the size, and much more populated. They exclaim to care for the hostages (which they use like a smoke screen for their ulterior agenda) - yet rain down dumb bombs on exactly where their beloved hostages are held. Defending Ultra-Zionism is like defending a workplace bully who's aspiration is to climb the corporate ladder at any cost. He cuts lines, takes credit for others work, shoves children and steals seats on the bus from the elderly on his way to work so he can suck up to his boss and get brownie points. Its one thing to have aspirations, it's another to execute them at any cost.

The point of using the term zionist is in fact to differentiate between the different shades of Jewish people ie apply nuance to complexity. Not every Jewish person is a zionist or a ultra-zionist. Imagine discussing Islamic terrorism and addressing terrorists as 'da muslims be crazy' implying that every muslim is a Islamist. Ardent zionists seem to be incapable of self-awareness and applying their same line of logic to the very people they harm in their obsession with themselves. Case in point:

Same can be said for Palestinians. The Western narrative only wants to look at the latest scene ie October 7th and overlooks the context of the situation. I wonder why most of the world looks at the West in contempt with regards to its handling of this situation. The US doesn't support a two-state solution, the US only supports saying the US supports a two-state solution. It only supports its freedom to noble speech and virtue signalling, but not any tangible action in line with that speech.

Makes one question who is the more rational actor or not. Saw this interesting comment on Twitter: “The IDF openly says several (i.e., more than one) Iranian missiles hit Nevatim. They say that 5-7 missiles hit the base and gloat at Irans failure. Iran was not seeking a knockout blow, but rather a demonstration of capability. Nevatim was defended by the world’s most advanced integrated anti-missile defense shield which incorporated Arrow 2, David’s Sling, THAAD, and Patriot 3 with the AN/TPY-2 X-band surveillance and targeting radar. This system was designed to exclusively defend against the Iranian medium-range ballistic missile threat. And yet…5-7 missiles hit Nevatim. The Israelis have acknowledged 2 runways and three warehouse structures hit. Not a knockout blow—it wasn’t intended as such. But any BDA expert would note that the point of impact was center mass, a clear indication of precision guidance. 5-7 missiles hit the world’s most heavily defended location, defeating an integrated ABM defense that was custom built to defeat the missiles it failed to shoot down. The point of this exercise is to note that if Iran had send 30 missiles at Nevatim, the base would be inoperable. Israel knows this. So does the U.S. Army. Which is why Iran has achieved strategic deterrence over Israel without a single loss of life compared to Israel’s. Which was the whole point of the operation. Were Israel to retaliate in a tit for tat and escalate from this point it would indicate an irrational leadership in Israel with a deadly arrogance that blinds them. Iran also seized a ship of the wealthiest families in Israel (Ofers) and the worlds largest shipping company to demonstrate their control of the strait of Hormuz and the capability of shattering the energy markets and global financial system were their existence to be threatened. Who is the more rational, restrained actor in the region?” They seek deterrence through demonstration rather than devastation.

Worrying escalation if true - hard to tell these days with how viral false news can be but major outlets now talking about it. Iran usually gesture symbolically and attack via aiding proxies but this time things seem different and more direct.

“Russia is already at war with us.” ''We used the CIA to funnel money and weapons to Chechen rebels to help foment violence intended to break up Russia into component parts. We used the CIA to create a malignant political “opposition” designed to undermine the Russian government. We continued to push for the expansion of NATO to include Ukraine even though a sitting U.S. Ambassador warned it could lead to war. We facilitated a violent coup in Ukraine for the purpose of installing an anti-Russian ultra-nationalist government. We allowed the CIA to build 12 bases inside Ukraine for the purpose of carrying operations targeting Russia. We built a Ukrainian military designed for the sole purpose of fighting Russians. We facilitated the genocide of Russians in the Donbas by supporting Ukrainian/German/French non-compliance with the Minsk accords. We ignored all efforts by Russia to resolve the Ukrainian issue peacefully. We supplied tens of billions of dollars in military assistance to Ukraine in order to sustain a conflict we hoped would lead to the strategic defeat of Russia. You have a warped understanding of the world, General. Russia isn’t at war with us. We’re at war with Russia.'' Source:

Good and valid points from everyone including OP. Here is a interesting video with quite a bit of depth as to modern dating dynamics and the problems being faced:

While it may be true that 2 million Palestinians live well alongside Jews in Israel, it overlooks the underlying tensions that exist. I know Palestinians living in Tel Aviv and Nazareth who barely share anything on social media regarding the situation or even like/comment on things to avoid any possible issues with the authorities. It also fails to account for the 5 million other Palestinians, of which 2 million reside in the besieged Gaza Strip, and the 3 million living under military occupation in the West Bank. This is the reality that most refer to when they speak of apartheid in the Israel. "Pinkwashing" is when a country uses its relatively progressive LGBTQ+ rights policies and representation as a way to distract from or deflect criticism from its human rights abuses. The argument is that Israel purposefully highlights its inclusive policies towards the LGBTQ+ community as a way to portray itself as a tolerant, modern democracy, while simultaneously perpetuating human rights abuses and an occupation of Palestinian territories. While no one denies LGBTQ+ rights progress in Israel, it shouldn't be used as a political tool. This becomes a 'human rights industrial complex' which co-opts the very movements it claims to champion, using them as tools of oppression rather than instruments of freedom.

What wasn’t new to many on this forum but is now becoming news to many of Israelis allies: Shapiro’s comedic response.

You can't un-need needs, communities are formed around facilitating those needs and/or as cathartic echo chambers for those unable to meet them and to release negative emotions within - anger, shame, frustration, bitterness. These communities can turn into men pretending they don't need women all the whilst operating in a manosphere bubble driven by their sexual needs for women being unmet. Women are consistently warned about the potential dangers posed by men throughout their lives. They're advised to navigate cautiously and be mindful of manipulation. But who extends a warning to men about the intricacies of women? Usually no one. Most men stumble upon this wisdom through the harsh teacher of pain through experience. Natures trick on men is the maternal mirage - the deep, unconditional love men receive from their mothers becomes the model they expect from all women. They believe the same vessel that inflated their esteem is incapable of deflating them through rejection. As these men unearth un-flattering truths, the response is to dismiss them as embittered and having chosen the wrong partner. They're gas lighted and brushed aside. Pain, while an essential checkpoint on the journey to enlightenment, is also the birthplace of hatred. Hate, in essence, is the residue of love disappointed by unmet expectations, leading to suffering. It's the natural reaction to the demise of a cherished falsehood. Men, once blinded by unconditional love for women, perceiving them as universally benevolent and the embodiment of positive femininty, now view the feminine as the exclusive source of their anguish and the destroyer of their innocence. This births misogynists. This skewed perception, painting women as purer and kind, eventually drives men to extremes—either becoming simps or evolving into outright misogynists, just as women who have been hurt typically become misandrists and fan the flames of radical feminism. Yet, this is a transient phase, a coping mechanism to grapple with pain by rejecting and vilifying those who caused it. The journey begins as a fool, blindly trusting and loving, only to transform into a different kind of fool—one who blindly distrusts and hates. The error lies in perceiving them as entirely good or entirely bad. True evolution occurs when it is recognised that people are not categorically good or bad, pure or tainted, selflessly loving or selfishly lustful, but that they are a blend of both. Ignorance makes you love blindly and resentment makes you hate blindly which only prolongs the suffering longer than needed. The operative word in both is ignorance - which is what society should look to rid itself of.

The question with conspiracies is this - was it created by a cabal of elites or opportunistically used by them. In other words, was it a conspired into existence or a natural consequence of life that was later conspired around to take advantage of it. The two extremes are that every major event was conspired into creation or that no conspiracy is possible because the worlds too big and random + a world where a evil cabal exists is too scary to confront and fathom leading to learned helplessness. Truth lies somewhere in the middle - some events are conspired into existence and other times powerful people conspire around events already set in motion by the randomness of life. Countless hours can be spent discussing conspiracies but ultimately whichever the case - the weaponisation of something rather than the creation of it is bad enough to attribute some responsibility and ill intention and put a spotlight on.