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On 8/18/2019 at 7:52 AM, Dr. Tarrasque said:

It is just unfortunate that this feeds the "Deep State" garbage from Sean Hannity.

I find that very funny considering those that deeply believe in the deep state probably passionately support Trump who's also a big suspect. 

Its certainly possible the Clinton's did it but the Clinton's are over. Unlike Trump they aren't in the White House right now. 

Its possible the British royal family did it but Britain isn't nearly as powerful as it once was and they are probably rather busy with committing national suicide. 

But the big ''enemy'' of the ''deep state'' has both the motives and the means to do it. 

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Trump and the republican party using Jews and Israel as bargaining chips is getting worse each week. This shit is getting bizarre.

Trump is especially bad, as he can't seem to separate Jews and Israel. Dude just called 3/4 of American Jews stupid/disloyal. I think if you flat out asked him "What do American Jews gain from blindly supporting Israel", his head might legitimately explode.

Edited by Slumber
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Trump did tell Jews to think of Netanyahu (or "Netanfuckhu" as Palestinians don't call him) as "their prime minister".

And whilst one shouldn't overemphasize the difference between American and Israeli Jews, there is a significant divide between them. Both are committed to embracing Jewishness and fighting anti-Semitism, and having an Israel.

But their religio-cultural views on what it means to be Jewish can radically differ. A religious minority which needs inclusiveness to avoid being discriminated against by the larger society, and a hierarchy in-power that uses that power to exclude according to its dictates. 

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Its a funny trait of populists. They loudly insist that unlike all their peers they perceive the will as the people as holy. Yet as soon as the people have a different opinion than the populists they suddenly drop implications that there's something wrong with the people. Maybe they are tricked by that dastardly evil media, maybe they are part of a leftist plot, maybe they are idiots or perhaps they are traitors or naive gutmenchen. 

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Me:             "Nothing Trump can do would surprise me at this point"

Trump:       "Based on Denmark's comments that they have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be cancelling our meeting"

Me:              Image result for white guy blinking gif
 

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6 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

Me:             "Nothing Trump can do would surprise me at this point"

Trump:       "Based on Denmark's comments that they have no interest in discussing the purchase of Greenland, I will be cancelling our meeting"

Me:              Image result for white guy blinking gif
 

Hold my beer

and my lunch

The man is perpetually making this old tweet of his more relevant with each passing day.

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6 minutes ago, Life said:

Why don't y'all ask the Jewish Israeli who did army service in the West Bank for his opinion?

Good idea. What are your thoughts on sheep cheese and goat cheese. Better or worse than cow cheese? Or just a viable alternative?

For real though, I kind of get the gist of how Bibi feels about Trump. What do you(And regular Israelis to a greater extent) think about this whole deal?

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51 minutes ago, Slumber said:

Good idea. What are your thoughts on sheep cheese and goat. Better or worse than cow cheese? Or just a viable alternative?

For real though, I kind of get the gist of how Bibi feels about Trump. What do you(And regular Israelis) think about this whole deal?

Goat cheese is great, never had sheep cheese. Hard cheese from the big daddies is still the way to go though.

I'm going to split this into two parts: The Squad and Trump.

Regarding the Squad: I despise Omar and Tlaib at this point because it's self-evident that the pair only wanted to come to incite trouble. They couldn't be bothered to label their itinerary with even the name of the country they were visiting (because they both fundamentally don't believe that Israel should exist). They certainly aren't trying to represent American interests by coming here and refusing to meet with Israeli officials. And furthermore, Tlaib was given permission to enter solely to see her family and decided that her ideological position was more important.

It is also important to note that despite what you might read in the newspapers, neither Trump nor Bibi had any say in the decision. This was Aryeh Deri's decision alone and for the week leading up to last Thursday, Deri (the Interior Minister) was solid on his position that Tlaib and Omar should be subject to the BDS law, making them no different than any other foreign national regardless of status or position in any government. Tlaib and Omar's rejection to entry is actually the rule, not the exception. It was Ron Dermer (Israeli ambassador to the USA) who had promised the pair entry despite the fact that he was in no position to do so.

Deri, by the way, is not in Bibi's party (he is the leader of Shas, the party of the ultra-Orthodox Haredi leeches) and is not beholden to Bibi in any form. Bibi actually needs Deri to even have a chance at forming a government and we already know that if Bibi attempts to pressure Deri to do something he doesn't want, Deri is OK with dissolving the Knesset and calling new elections since the Haredi will always vote for Shas and they are the kingmakers here. We know this because it has already happened once this year over the draft law.

This is effectively most Israelis' opinions because we are tired of the West trying to impose Western moralization upon us, especially when it comes from the bourgeoise who don't have to go to military cemeteries on a yearly basis. In this part of the world, might makes right. We cannot deal diplomatically with neighbours who cannot accept the inevitability of the fact that we conquered the land and they will get it back when they take it from our cold dead hands. It really is frustrating to see the West does not understand that while we are the most civilized barbarians in the area, we are still barbarians. For us, that is a symbol of pride because the reality of never-ending war exists here.

We never really wanted Tlaib and Omar to come here in the beginning. Was it a political mistake to bar them? Personally, I say yes because I would have rather prefered some political theatre and force Tlaib to admit on foreign soil that she is not working in the interests of the people of Michigan who elected her but rather for her own ideological interests. Then I'd load her up onto a plane back to Washington. That's my personal opinion.


Trump: There are things I like about Trump that make me call him an idiot savant. This is not one of those things.

25% of the electorate voted Likud. I'm not one of them. But Bibi is my prime minister... because I am an Israeli citizen. Not because I am a Jew. It's the same fundamental problem I have with Israel's nation-state law. I don't give a shit about being a Jew. I care about the fact that I am Israeli. Me being a Jew should not entitle me to more rights at a fundamental level... but the state doesn't agree with me on that. I've personally questioned Yair Lapid on this matter and even he has stated that Israel should be Jewish first and a liberal democracy second. The man's left wing, by the way.

As a result, the majority of the country likes Trump. Trump will let us get away with some necessary evils but he ends up magnifying them in the process and putting us in a position where our issues with Gaza and the West Bank won't ever move forward simply because we're under the microscope even more than ever. Not to mention that we have to then justify ourselves to people who don't deserve even a second of our time.

I saw an Indian dude say recently that Israel is committing war crimes in Gaza. How am I the only one who sees a hypocrite? The Indian government takes over half of Kashmir by force? Ho hum. We retaliate after Gaza does this between March 2018 and June 2019 (16 months):
 

  • Eight killed
  • 282 wounded
  • 1,932 rockets/mortar bombs
  • 841 petrol bombs
  • 25 shootings
  • 128 IEDs
  • 2,155 fires ignited by arson kites/balloons (updated 2 July 2019)
  • 8,747 acres of land – farmland, forests, nature reserves – burned

    This is after considering that there is a guarded fence between the two areas. This should be enough damage to call for a war without having everyone cry over those poor little Arabs. But no, we're always the bad guys. Even to massive hypocrites.

    So when Trump comes out and puts us under the microscope like this, who is he helping? Not us. Not the Arabs. Luckily, his political opponents are incompetent so he's not helping them either. It just boggles my mind.

    EDIT: Regarding Gaza, if you care about the land, fire bombing it is the exact opposite of showing that. It's not that the Palestinians want to live peacefully in the area. It's that they want to live peacefully in the area... after the Jews are expelled from it or just massacred first. They don't care if they inherit rubble; their issue is that we are here at all. If you want contest this point, I strongly urge you to book a flight to Tel Aviv and I will personally take you to the fence myself to illustrate my point live and in colour.
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On 7/19/2019 at 5:20 PM, Shoblongoo said:

(PRO TIP:  Judge them by what they do. Not by what they say. The Statutes, Court Opinions, and Executive Orders from that era paint a much better picture of what fascism was and how it operated than something like the written works and public speeches of Mussolini, glowingly explaining why fascism is great and why everyone should be a fascist. You have missed something crucial if you have just read fascist literature and taken their self-professed statements of what they are at face value, without remembering that one of the core features of fascism is pervasive state propaganda)   

I also want to mention this (sorry for the double post) because I find this fascinating.

Why can't I just say "well, that wasn't REAL fascism" because it didn't produce the ultimate state utopia and ended up turning into one of the bloodiest meat grinders of all time?

This is a serious question.

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15 hours ago, Life said:


Why can't I just say "well, that wasn't REAL fascism" because it didn't produce the ultimate state utopia and ended up turning into one of the bloodiest meat grinders of all time?
 

You can say whatever you want to say.

...concerning the preceding post...

Israel needs to think long and hard about what it means for its future if it pivots from being an Ally of the United States of America to an Ally of the Republican Party. 

Because with the ban of two Democratic elected members of Congress at the urging of a Republican president, that is what it is being perceived here that Israel is doing. 

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1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

You can say whatever you want to say.

...concerning the preceding post...

Israel needs to think long and hard about what it means for its future if it pivots from being an Ally of the United States of America to an Ally of the Republican Party. 

Because with the ban of two Democratic elected members of Congress at the urging of a Republican president, that is what it is being perceived here that Israel is doing. 

I'm sorry, I'm going to take Maher's side and call BDS a bullshit purity test, just like he has. Maher makes the exact same case I do but does it far more eloquently. As he pointed out, 93% of the Democratic Party voted against the BDS bill that the Squad put forward. Now who's the one really out of touch and making enemies for no particular reason?

 

Tell me, what is your understanding of Middle Eastern history from the 1920's onwards? I'm not trying to be condecending; I simply don't know where the gaps in your knowledge base exist and I can probably help fill them in due to me living in the area.

 

EDIT: For the record, as I explained prior, both Trump and Bibi had no influence on Deri's decision to ban the Squad... because Deri was publicly saying that he'd uphold the BDS law a week before. You didn't read what I posted and so decided that it must be Trump and Bibi... because why not?

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42 minutes ago, Life said:

I'm sorry, I'm going to take Maher's side and call BDS a bullshit purity test, just like he has. Maher makes the exact same case I do but does it far more eloquently.

 

Tell me, what is your understanding of Middle Eastern history from the 1920's onwards? I'm not trying to be condecending; I simply don't know where the gaps in your knowledge base exist and I can probably help fill them in due to me living in the area.

I know the history. I know Arab antisemitism predates the creation of the Israeli nation-state, and that the Palestinian issue is (in large part) mere pretext for those whose true belief is that the State of Israel never should have been created to begin with. 

And I know Israelis get an enormous amount of undeserved flak for that issue when, in truth, the thawing of Egyptian-Israeli relations in The Sinai provides clear and guiding precedent for how the Palestinian separatists could have a lasting peace, if ever they were to renounce the Intifada and come to the negotiating table in good faith.    

...now that being said...

Israel needs to be aware that its security situation is a political one; not just militaristic. 

And that they have the leeway they have to conduct the military operations that they conduct largely because the USA runs cover for them on the international stage.

And that we do this because we perceive in Israel an allied social democracy that shares our interests and our commitments.

This perception is damaged when Israel is seen as being partisan, rather a than true ally.

The Republicans are not going to be in control of American foreign policy forever. 

The next time a Democrat is in the White House--and in a position to decide the extent to which America will back Israel's military efforts or oppose them--what do you think it will mean for Israeli security if the president's thinking is: "The Israelis are not our friends. The Israelis are an instrumentality of the nationalist right, and one of the political forces working to take this country backwards. Treat them as such." 

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40 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

I know the history. I know Arab antisemitism predates the creation of the Israeli nation-state, and that the Palestinian issue is (in large part) mere pretext for those whose true belief is that the State of Israel never should have been created to begin with. 

And I know Israelis get an enormous amount of undeserved flak for that issue when, in truth, the thawing of Egyptian-Israeli relations in The Sinai provides clear and guiding precedent for how the Palestinian separatists could have a lasting peace, if ever they were to renounce the Intifada and come to the negotiating table in good faith.    

...now that being said...

Israel needs to be aware that its security situation is a political one; not just militaristic. 

And that they have the leeway they have to conduct the military operations that they conduct largely because the USA runs cover for them on the international stage.

And that we do this because we perceive in Israel an allied social democracy that shares our interests and our commitments.

This perception is damaged when Israel is seen as being partisans, rather than true allies.

The Republicans are not going to be in control of American foreign policy forever. 

The next time a Democrat is in the White House--and in a position to decide the extent to which America will back Israel's military efforts or oppose them--what do you think it will mean for Israeli security if the president's thinking is: "The Israelis are not our friends. The Israelis are an instrumentality of the nationalist right, and one of the political forces working to take this country backwards. Treat them as such." 

Then explain why two US congresswomen who were flying to Israel could not even name it as such on their manifesto and were not planning to meet with any Israeli officials.

As I understand it, it's the Squad that does not perceive Israel to be an American ally and has attempted to embarrass us for ideological purposes.

And remember, 93% of Democrats in Congress oppose the Squad on BDS. You have congresswomen who are actively attempting to hurt our economy. What do you expect us to do, just smile and take it like all the rockets we've taken over the years? How is this anything other than an attack on us?

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5 minutes ago, Life said:

Then explain why two US congresswomen who were flying to Israel could not even name it as such on their manifesto and were not planning to meet with any Israeli officials.

Their districts represent a minority view of US-Israeli relations, but thats beside the point. 

They are elected members of Congress. They're in a high-profile political beef with Trump. And you guys didn't ban when you learned about their itineraries or when you first heard their positions; you banned them when Trump sent out a tweet saying that they shouldn't be allowed to go to Israel + should be banned from entry by the Israeli government.  

And I can tell you that isn't playing well over here. 

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5 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Their districts represent a minority view of US-Israeli relations, but thats beside the point. 

They are elected members of Congress. They're in a high-profile political beef with Trump. And you guys didn't ban them after you learned about their itineraries or their positions; you banned them after Trump sent out a tweet saying that they shouldn't be allowed in Israel.  

And I can tell you that isn't playing well over here. 

This is incorrect as I have explained twice.

Deri was planning to ban them from the start. I heard about this a week before the news actually broke. It was Ron Dermer (Israeli ambassador to the US) who believed that Omar and Tlaib would be the exceptions to the 2017 BDS law.

EDIT: This is in case you missed that point the first time.

It is also important to note that despite what you might read in the newspapers, neither Trump nor Bibi had any say in the decision. This was Aryeh Deri's decision alone and for the week leading up to last Thursday, Deri (the Interior Minister) was solid on his position that Tlaib and Omar should be subject to the BDS law, making them no different than any other foreign national regardless of status or position in any government. Tlaib and Omar's rejection to entry is actually the rule, not the exception. It was Ron Dermer (Israeli ambassador to the USA) who had promised the pair entry despite the fact that he was in no position to do so.



Deri, by the way, is not in Bibi's party (he is the leader of Shas, the party of the ultra-Orthodox Haredi leeches) and is not beholden to Bibi in any form. Bibi actually needs Deri to even have a chance at forming a government and we already know that if Bibi attempts to pressure Deri to do something he doesn't want, Deri is OK with dissolving the Knesset and calling new elections since the Haredi will always vote for Shas and they are the kingmakers here. We know this because it has already happened once this year over the draft law.

Edited by Life
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14 minutes ago, Life said:

This is incorrect as I have explained twice.

Deri was planning to ban them from the start. I heard about this a week before the news actually broke. It was Ron Dermer (Israeli ambassador to the US) who believed that Omar and Tlaib would be the exceptions to the 2017 BDS law.

EDIT: This is in case you missed that point the first time.
 

 

Whatever they were purportedly considering or not considering beforehand; they made and announced the final decision to ban within hours of Trump tweeting:

 Image result for trump tweet israel ban


Proximity-in-time colors perception that this was a political move, made in support of Trump and in opposition to his top critics in Congress.

Again--not a good look for you. 

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28 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Whatever they were purportedly considering or not considering beforehand; they made and announced the final decision to ban within hours of Trump tweeting:

 Image result for trump tweet israel ban


Proximity-in-time colors perception that this was a political move, made in support of Trump and in opposition to his top critics in Congress.

Again--not a good look for you. 

I'm not sure you understand this.

By saying Trump had a hand in this (which I have to repeatedly say over and over that he didn't), you are helping spread a false narrative. Now, it just seems to be on purpose because you won't say "you know what, you clearly know more about this situation than I do because you live in the area so I will stop trying to push a debunked narrative that has been explained to me over and over why I am incorrect".

I don't care what Trump says on Twitter. Both he and Bibi had no hand in the matter and cannot even influence the Interior Minister to do or not do anything since Deri is only beholden to the Ultra-Orthodox here and takes that job seriously. I don't care how the optics look, you are simply telling me that you refuse to acknowledge that the Israeli government does not work the way you wish it would to support your narrative.

The optics do not reflect the reality of the situation. Trump was not involved. Bibi was not involved. Whatever they wanted politically is irrelevant because neither actually held the cards here. Accept it. Stop assuming causation because of correlation.

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4 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

Clearly.

And therein lies the problem 

Yes. That's the point.

The optics are based on a LIE. And the lie is that Trump and/or Bibi had anything to do with the banning of Tlaib and Omar (Tlaib was actually not banned outright, she was given permission to visit her family if she didn't push her political positions).

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3 hours ago, Life said:

You have congresswomen who are actively attempting to hurt our economy. What do you expect us to do, just smile and take it like all the rockets we've taken over the years? How is this anything other than an attack on us?

I have a feeling you wouldn't say anything about certain policies hurting Iran's economy, no?

Or is that too ideological for you?

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3 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

I have a feeling you wouldn't say anything about certain policies hurting Iran's economy, no?

Or is that too ideological for you?

Israel and Iran aren't allies in any sense of the word?

It's not that I have an issue with attacking someone's economy. I have an issue attacking an ally's economy for your own personal ideology (never mind the fact that these women are gender/race communists).

Let me put it this way. We (Israel) aren't calling for sanctions on India's economy despite their actions in Kashmir.

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The US sees one as an ally and the other as not.

They are also allied with Saudi Arabia. The concept of being an ally to the west is arbitrary and based on strategic location, blood money and resources more so than any actual principles.

I would have no problem with... not being allies with Saudi Arabia anymore because of ethical reasons. They bomb school buses and open air markets in Yemen.

This sort of geopolitical foreign policy is the ideology of neoconservatives and neoliberals that ruined parts of the world.

Edited by Tryhard
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3 minutes ago, Tryhard said:

The US sees one as an ally and the other as not.

They are also allied with Saudi Arabia. The concept of being an ally to the west is arbitrary and based on strategic location, blood money and resources more so than any actual principles.

I would have no problem with... not being allies with Saudi Arabia anymore because of ethical reasons. They bomb school buses and open air markets in Yemen.

Geopolitical foreign policy is the ideology of neoconservatives and neoliberals that ruined parts of the world.

I would also prefer not to be friends with the Saudis. But the reality of the situation means that I have to deal with a nation that has legalized slavery. I don't bitch and complain about that... because I prefer not going back to war (I really hope that I'm not the only person here who has actually done military service).

Also, geopolitical foreign policy didn't ruin the Middle East. This area hasn't been stable since... well, go back to Sumeria, I suppose.

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