Try browsing Reddit on this issue. Holy hell are bots gone all insane justifying that “Hamas needs to be crushed” on any civilian death. It’s a fascinating case study on how perceptions and narratives can be morphed and controlled.
Don’t have to go to reddit - you can just head on over to c/worldnews here on Lemmy to see the pro-Israeli hasbara narratives being allowed by the mods there.
Appeal to consensus is a fallacy. One that especially doesn’t work well on the internet, because platforms are generally quite able to be influenced by bots or by removal by moderation staff or platform owners.
If you exclude exclusively political lemmy instances like lemmygrad, lemmy is at most slightly more politically liberal than reddit, but without astroturfing racists being able to declare what makes it to the front page.
I don’t think it even breaks down to “liberal” or “conservative”. There’s an objective way of looking at what’s going on, the pro-Israel narrative is basically dependent on ignoring anything that happened before or after Oct. 7, omitting all other facts.
They did try. It was that there might be terrorist infrastructure there. They know there’s civilians there, but there might be infrastructure. They’re still looking into it, but they dropped that bomb, anyway.
I’m not convinced from that comment that the user they’re referring to is a tankie, but simply put, I’d describe a tankie as the alt-left equivalent of the alt-right.
They’re not quite as violent in my opinion, but they push pro-china/russia propoganda and misinformation, and are just as self-deluded and delusional as the alt-right. I’ve also seen tankies justify Hamas’ attack against Isreal, which I find inexcusable and morally reprehensible. The same can be said of the IDF’s genocide against innocent Palestinians.
Tankies are on the fringe and are just on the other end of the bell curve of the alt-right.
You forgot to mention IRGC propaganda and misinformation. The current Gaza conflict is, without a doubt, the biggest propaganda victory the IRGC has ever had. They’ve got the US left absolutely fractured. People were worried about 2024 elections? HAHAHAH just wait. We’re so fucked.
Sure, my point was that they didn't know. That they were just out here throwing out words they had no clue about and (in my and others opinion) doing it as an attempt to drive wedges in the community. That's literally the joke up the thread that the guy baited the moron in with. I've met some of these people in real life. They weren't violent. They absolutely we're deluded apologists, but outside of talking revolution in the streets (which I don't think is to imply violence either, Iceland for example) they we're very much passive folk that just got pulled into a lame MLM.
To your later point, personally I agree, that the attack Hamas carried out on people in Israel is inexcusable. I don't think that is ubiquitous on the left, nor should it be. It parallels quite clearly in the discussions we're all having as to the validity of attacks on civilian populations but to some it is also a question of self defense under the massively imbalanced power dynamic between the two countries. Not only are we talking about apartheid here, but what is clearly becoming erasure. The longer this madness goes on the more people are going to question the validity of that Oct 7 attack and as I see the atrocities carried out daily I wonder if that point will come for me as well.
That's the significance of this story. Wolf fucking Blitzer, is starting to question this shit. If you ever needed a warning that you are taking the lead in the "bad guy" race, this is a skull and bones in the tea leaves.
Not sure what tankies have to do with it, but I think everyone understands mocking text, and yes, there is a lot of pro-IDF astroturfing on all social media platforms currently.
I downvote that type of meme humor because I don’t find it adds to discussion. Even if I agree with the person, I downvote them every time.
Up/downvotes are meant for promoting relevant discussion and suppressing off-topic content, spam, trolls, and hate. They are not and were never intended to be dis/agreement buttons. People just misuse them.
“A short while ago, IDF fighter jets, acting on ISA intelligence, killed Ibrahim Biari, the Commander of Hamas’ Central Jabaliya Battalion. Biari was one of the leaders responsible for sending “Nukbha” terrorist operatives to Israel to carry out the murderous terror attack on October 7th. Numerous Hamas terrorists were hit in the strike.
Biari oversaw all military operations in the northern Gaza Strip since the IDF entered. He was also responsible for sending the terrorists who carried out the 2004 terrorist attack in the Ashdod Port in which 13 Israelis were murdered, and was responsible for directing rocket fire at Israel, and advancing numerous attacks against the IDF, over the last two decades.
His elimination was carried out as part of a wide-scale strike on terrorists and terror infrastructure belonging to the Central Jabaliya Battalion, which had taken control over civilian buildings in Gaza City. The strike damaged Hamas’ command and control in the area, as well as its ability to direct military activity against IDF soldiers operating throughout the Gaza Strip. As a result of the strike, a large number of terrorists who were with Biari were killed. Underground terror infrastructure embedded beneath the buildings, used by the terrorists, also collapsed after the strike.
The IDF reiterates its call to the residents of the area to move south for their safety.”an this?
The Pentagon is a genuine military target yes, however Al Qaeda are not a military, they are terrorists, and all terrorists are valid military targets (in this context, it's Hamas) if they threaten the security of your nation. So your strawman argument is really stupid. Try again.
Well Israel is bombing civilian targets, cutting off food and power as indiscriminate punishment. They’re terrorists. So it seems like the perfect analogy.
The point is, Hamas is fucking abhorrent and shouldn’t be an organization that exists, but, every single fucking thing Israel and the west have done in regards to Palestinians fully encourages their support of Hamas. Imagine living in a concentration camp and being expected to have sympathy for the people holding you there. If you can say you would, you’re a lying piece of shit.
the problem will be resolved in the correct and proper way within a few months. go get angry about something you have an actual chance of doing something about maybe?
Who decides which groups are terrorists? America says Hamas is terrorism. Erdogan says they’re liberation fighters. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. The African National Congress (while bombing and killing for their freedom) were designated terrorist. And then they weren’t terrorist. Now they are a political party.
The Department of Defense included the ANC in a 1988 report billed as profiles of “key regional terrorist groups” from around the world. Indeed, ANC actions during this period would include nighttime raids that destroyed fuel storage tanks and nearly two days of fires in 1980, a bombing at a bar in Durban that left three dead and more than 60 wounded, and a car bomb that killed 19 outside of the headquarters of the country’s Air Force in Pretoria in 1983.
ah, makes sense then - he was the leader of the ANC and the ANC actions included acts of terrorism. I guess he mellowed in old age? time/reflection will do that to a person.
You can put as much makeup as you want on a pig, it’s still a pig. Force people to move, and bombing civilians? Donning a Jew star in the UN? The whole country of Israel is a disgrace
Do you have any idea what that star was used for? Tip: it was not to mark people who was murdering kids. It’s spitting on those poor souls that was forced to wear the yellow star. These guys represent a country that bomb civilians and has nothing to do with holocaust.
This is an article about how veteran news man Wolf Blitzer found such logic disgusting. You think swooping in and doubling down is helping disprove that?
"My three kids are gone, my kids, no one is alive," one despondent man named Jabar could be heard saying as his friends tried to console him.
Dr. Atef Al-Kahlot, director of the nearby Indonesian Hospital, said the total number of people wounded and killed is about 400.
What a just and noble war the brave bombs of Israel wage. We can all learn a lot from this I think.
I hate to tell you this, we won’t learn a god damn thing. Humanity forgets it’s atrocities as quickly as a generation passes. We do not learn the lessons of our fathers anymore. All we see are repeats after the old have passed on.
Blitzer pressed Hecht on the logic involved in Israel’s decision to target the refugee camp.
“This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. We as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians who are not involved with Hamas, please move south.”
They’re saying that they consider all Palestinians to be terrorists.
Gee… it’s almost like “counter-terrorism” is just the politically correct term the propaganda-peddlers these days use so that they don’t have to call it colonialist warfare.
Greta Thunberg posed with a "Free Palestine" sign after the retaliation started. The IDF complained that she wasn't telling their side, that Israel had just been attached. Therefore, she was labeled a terrorist sympathizer. That really boils down their mentality.
BBC Verify has analysed the Israeli strike locations and found that they are indeed striking ‘safety zones’ where IDF instructed Gazaans to take shelter. www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67264703
Ah, got you. Thanks for clarification. Yes, I agree. Gawd almighty absolutely forbids using our own tax dollars for such ungodly things like feeding the hungry, healing the sick, clothing the naked or looking out for prisoners.
It’s sort of like a “Bruce Wayne v. Court of Owls” situation. Bruce Wayne has his philanthropy actively countered by a group that’s basically the Illuminati, this “Court of Owls” because, I’m guessing there’s an Eldritch horror that slumbers so long as Gotham suffers, but would awaken if the rich actually did anything to help the poor.
EDIT: Okay, so I found out this “Court of Owls” not only doesn’t care about the poor, they don’t care about the world in general. They serve an evil Bat-God named Barbatos who wants to use Bruce Wayne as a conduit to emerge in the world.
Bruce Wayne would definitely make it into Murica heaven. Superman might make it into Jesus heaven (which I would assume would be loving yourself, if the Kingdom of heaven is actually within us, which it is, in my experience).
Yes but you shouldn’t bring up hypocrisy here. Stopping killing now is worthwhile regardless of what various countries have done years and decades ago.
That’s generally good advice, but on a broad level it’s completely impossible. There’s no way that everyone can know all of history. We all have to learn little parts at different times in our lives, according to our own priorities and values. Also, quite obviously, forgetting the past does not always lead to repeats.
I saw this all the time on reddit. Some people seem to have the need to be involved in conversations but don’t have anything worthwhile, intelligent, or even just interesting or entertaining to say. They instead tend to pick an aspect of a comment, often take it out of context, then shit all over it but not in a way that’s constructive, helpful, or insightful whatsoever. They often don’t seem to really even have a point other than telling you you’re wrong. I’m pretty sure that’s what we’re seeing here.
I suggest at most calling them out on their behavior but otherwise just not engaging. They’re basically trolls, even if they don’t realize it themselves, so it’s not worth the trouble and there’s no way to ‘win’.
In this sense they absolutely are. No different than Iraqis, Afghans, Panamanians, Vietnamese… etc.
In every other way, no - Putin can end this war any damn time he feels like. But that doesn’t mean the US military-industrial complex isn’t going to milk this for all it’s worth.
Nah, you just framed the Russians as victims equivalent to the Palestinians and now you just did a 180 to pretend you meant to frame Russia as the aggressor when you actually didn’t. You know we can read your text, right?
Killing the palestinians (and russians) don’t matter to them it’s just another funnel from our effort into their pockets.
Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt with you shills, is it?
It’s not gonna work here, though. For all that Lemmy sucks ass, at least the users have a modicum of common sense. Good luck overcoming that. Dasvidaniya
To be fair, they were talking about war profiteering, not genocide. We are definitely happy with Ukraine being at war with Russia as far as war profiteering goes. And as much as Putin sucks, and any country may suck, it doesn’t mean their citizens should be killed endlessly. The people there are still human, even if their leaders are terrible. But rather than doing something to try and stop the war, the US would rather use it to funnel money to our arms dealers. Which is a problem, even if the enemy is bad, killing all the Russians should never be the goal. Stopping the war should.
I am not implying that at all obviously. No one is. In fact I don’t know a single pro-Ukraine person who can’t differentiate between Putin’s regime and the Russian people.
Hamas fires thousands of rockets at Israeli, if it didn’t have iron dome they’d have to prevent Gaza from firing the missiles, which means bombing Hamas and the civilians they hide behind
Unfortunately, until we get money out of politics, voting doesn’t really matter.
The ruling class can just funnel more money to the opposing side to get them elected. They’ve already got it down to a science so they don’t spend more than they need to.
They haven’t even scratched the surface of how much money they can spend to control elections. It’s all just the bare-minimum to them, like maximizing profit.
Taxes aren’t what’s stopping us from having health care. We already spend more taxes on health care per capita than countries with single payer health care. (Not that changes that we could be using our taxes better, but the myth that we would spend more taxes to get single payer needs to be dispelled.)
The claim doesn’t seem right. We do spend far more on healthcare than other nations overall and our taxed spending on healthcare seems comparable to other rich nations like Japan, though that’s only a fraction of our total spending - most is private cost. Quick back of napkin math says taxes directly spend ~4k a year/capita on healthcare expenses, mostly Medicare, and single-payer systems tend to cost about ~6k total. Data is a little old. Correct me if I’m reading wrong.
Hold on. I am in complete agreement that US healthcare spending is batshit crazy. I was just doubtful that our TAXED healthcare spending was more than other countries with single payer. All our spending is private.
Nope. It’s not. That money they hand Israel? Completely sucked out of their thumb - I literally use the massive handouts the US gives Israel as a way to debunk the “but printing money causes inflation!” crowd.
Btw, that is an actual example of a handout - ie, not the (alleged) “handouts” right-wing pundits start whining about whenever the issue of social services come up.
Of course, they could just as easily spend all that invented money to give you healthcare - but they won’t… that’s not how class warfare works.
Nope. Your taxes doesn’t even pay for the US military - it’s all just money they invent. Your taxes are spent by the state you live in - roads, hospitals… that kind of stuff.
When it comes to their precious military - and their precious neocolonialist shitfuckery they call “foreign policy” - they don’t rely on you.
ntg but can you point me in the direction of your sources for that? I’m kind of lazy and google/my google fu sucks for me recently. no big prob if you can’t though
Not “completely”. They spend into a deficit every year, which is partially financed with tax and partially financed with debt obligations. It’s more that any spending is paid for 50% tax and 50% “indirect inflation tax” later, or whatever the exact numbers are (I stopped keeping track).
Some of the mandatory budget and discretionary non-defense budget can be directly or indirectly linked to military purposes, but regardless, the majority of the budget is social programs.
i have some idea. do I know where every cent goes? no. the government, most governments, are these giant ponderous masses of interwoven bureaucracy, striving to complete many diverse goals. the various goals are often at odds with each other.
I have noticed a change in tone from the colonel. He was very much all fire and bluster before while explaining why it’s Palestinians’ fault they are dying. Now he comes across as far gentler while explaining why it’s Palestinians’ fault they are dying.
Have you ever seen a politician make the rounds on Sunday news shows? They, especially Republicans, sound extremely different on Fox News vs. the rest of media (Democrats sounds different on mainstream media vs. progressive independent media). This colonel is doing the exact same thing. He learned from the clip going viral and the way people are reacting to it to sound like he’s concerned and feels for the Palestinians rather than saying it’s their own fault like he was in the Blitzer clip.
I’m more interested in what the term is for folks who wear different masks for different audiences and in particular folks who react to criticism by putting on a mask later all while saying the same thing. It was astonishing seeing this guy on Erin Burnett’s show after seeing him on Wolf Blitzer’s show. It was like watching Lindsey Graham on the Daily Show or Meet the Press vs. seeing him on Fox News Sunday discussing the exact same stuff.
Edit: I’d only listened to the Burnett interview. They’re different people.
Yeah, the complex reality of Judaism, the Jewish people, Israel, and Israelis is fascinating. But it pales in comparison to the horror of what’s going on right now, and that needs to stop.
Israel’s excuse is pure political theater. This was a war crime. Regardless of who’s coming a war crime - Israel, Hamas, Russia, America, Isis, or anyone else, they should be held to account. But they won’t, which is just so fucked up. But much like politicians and cops, you can’t effectively punish the ones with all the power.
Israel is punching down so hard it’s insane. If they really knew where the Hamas leader was, they could absolutely send in a team or assassin to take him out without the collateral damage. It’s not like they don’t have spec ops or all the money and military resources they could need to do the job. Hell, the pro-Ukraine saboteurs in Russia have been able to destroy military assets and assassinated at least one oligarch, all without hitting a crowd of civilians no matter how anti-Ukraine said civilians might be. Israel has no goddamn excuse. Neither does Hamas. They’re both at fault and the individual persons responsible should be punished.
The mossad is famous for tracking down Nazis who had been in hiding multiple continents away for decades, and they can’t find some dude literally next door.
they could absolutely send in a team or assassin to take him out without the collateral damage.
The Rules of Engagement, especially when it comes to civilians, should be adhered to by Israel.
Israel should send their army in to go after Hamas, instead of trying to blow up Hamas by also blowing up the Palestinians via air bombardment.
Political concerns probably keeps that from happening, as when the Israeli body bags of their fallen soldiers start coming back the Israeli public, who are already upset at the current government for allowing this to happen, would be at a fever pitch to remove the Israeli government, and what that would mean for certain individuals who are facing legal issues.
Why must you add qualifiers? Hamas committing war crimes in attempt to end the genocide being perpetrated on them is not remotely the same thing as Israel committing them in service of said genocide.
Hamas’ excuse for hitting civilians with their rockets is that Israel has made it utterly impossible for them to produce high quality rockets, capable of being aimed. Israels tech superiority means the only way to attack them is via sheer quantity of rockets fired into Israel.
October 7th was not “oops, our weapons are just too imprecise to aim properly”. It was an up close and personal direct violent attack on civilians explicitly designed to avoid any police or military targets.
So it’s absolutely appropriate to shame Israeli falling to apply precision attacks and Hamas for quite deliberately targeting noncombatants.
The U.S. has a talking zombie for a leader. Victims of injustice have long memories, and so do their families. The world is not on the side of Israel. The Holocaust trump card that diverts any criticism of Israel’s behavior as anti-Semitism is expired, null, and void. They are backed by the U.S. unequivocally, to commit genocide rather than push for ceasefire and dialogue. The U.S. president, a talking zombie, has made his country less safe.
You admit then that the disproportionate retaliation is motivated by vengeance. Ten times the body count, ten times the misery. I don’t condone either side’s actions.
You got any proof of that beyond “The genocidal state attacking them said so”? And further, since Israel is attacking all refugees, wouldn’t they thus all be enemy combatants? In which case it’d be like the Nazis saying they’re justified having concentration camps because they are at war with the Jews.
This isn’t a war. A powerful and western-backed military state dropping chemical weapons on innocent civilians in response to a terrorist attack that those civilians had nothing to do with isn’t a war. It’s just a slaughter.
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