Palestine v Israel.

[aufbahrung]

Obviously they've gone a bit Kurtz in the jungle at high command level. I know you think I'm partisan in this situation, but as I've always said - it's the middle east. It was like this thousands of years ago and it is the same now. If it isn't one side committing atrocities then it is the other. Maybe Trump is right. Knock it all down and build las vegas there...might be the bread and circuses the region needs...

[Brian Peacock]

Eleven-minute race for food: how aid points in Gaza became ‘death traps’ – a visual story

[aufbahrung]

Eleven-minute race for food: how aid points in Gaza became ‘death traps’ – a visual story

English did worse with India and Ireland

[Brian Peacock]

So fucking what?

[L'Emmerdeur]

Not to mention that it's ridiculously framed. Assume for the sake of discussion that the Victorian Britain was responsible for the Great Famine in Ireland and wartime Britain responsible for the Bengal famine. Agreed that mass starvation via (arguably in the case of Ireland malicious) neglect isn't excusable.

The assertion that those historical famines laid at the feet of Britain are 'worse' than a policy of starving civilians then gunning them down as they attempt to get food is a particularly brutal example of dark humor, in my opinion. If that is the intent then well done.

[Brian Peacock]

I believe the contention goes beyond the historical, speaking to the horrors that past peoples have visited upon others as representing a natural condition of humans - particularly the humans of the Middle East. The point, such that it is, is that taking a strong position on similar contemporary horrors -- or in the case of the articles, simply documenting the horrors for the public record -- is a fruitless waste of energy, like shouting at the wind for blowing or the tides for coming in and going out again. More than that, it's unnecessarily bothersome to the sensibilities of people who, sitting well-off and well-fed in peaceful security elsewhere, would rather avoid thinking about the living conditions and life experience of those in less ...erm... comfortable circumstances.

[aufbahrung]

Depends on how you view the nature of time. If times past are always present, maybe as a part of the universal hologram or whatever the true nature of reality is, then the suffering in the past - the bulk being pre-historic is as relevant as what is happening now...if the past is always there, the present no matter its drama is almost banal in comparison

[aufbahrung]

They did kick the thing off...could have gone along with the Abraham Accords which was quite a reasonable deal....instead had to kill the dj and kidnap/rape/eat the audience on the other side of the garden fence. I don't condone what Israel is doing, but I understand it...and it'll take just one disaster someplace else and those TV cameras will be gone and so will every last Palestinian...most likely

[L'Emmerdeur]

I believe the contention goes beyond the historical, speaking to the horrors that past peoples have visited upon others as representing a natural condition of humans - particularly the humans of the Middle East. The point, such that it is, is that taking a strong position on similar contemporary horrors -- or in the case of the articles, simply documenting the horrors for the public record -- is a fruitless waste of energy, like shouting at the wind for blowing or the tides for coming in and going out again. More than that, it's unnecessarily bothersome to the sensibilities of people who, sitting well-off and well-fed in peaceful security elsewhere, would rather avoid thinking about the living conditions and life experience of those in less ...erm... comfortable circumstances.

Apparently with the proper perspective it's not particularly bothersome.

[Svartalf]

if perfectionnists like the Germans ever did something of the kind, it has to be okay to imitate them.

[Brian Peacock]

Jewish people in Israel exposed as racist antisemites...

Israel committing genocide in Gaza, say Israel-based human rights groups

Israeli public figures call for ‘crippling sanctions’ on Israel over Gaza

[pErvinalia]

I wonder how history will recall this event. If the West is still dominant via the US, does the US write the history - with Israel seen as the victim?

[Brian Peacock]

Because of the access to information that social media has given us I think we're beyond "history is written by the victors" now.

We've all seen the airial flattening of Gaza and the headless corpses of children in our feeds - much of which has come from gleeful IDF soldiers. And we've all heard the rhetoric of the Israeli leadership, whether that's the Israeli president stating "There are no innocent civilians in Gaza", or Yoav Gallant, announcing "a complete siege on Gaza: no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel" because "we are fighting human animals and we act accordingly", or Ghassan Alian declaring that 'the citizens of Gaza are human beasts' and therefore will suffer "a total blockade on Gaza, no electricity, no water, just damage. You wanted hell, you will get hell", or Netanyahu telling the world "we will not allow humanitarian assistance in the form of food and medicines from our territory to the Gaza Strip" etc. The rhetoric has been clear from the outset and those words, and the actions that followed &/or were justified by them, can no longer be whitewashed away as peaceful, righteously defensive, or morally supportable by the 'winners'.

The current leadership of Israel may still succeed in their declared project to eradicate the Palestinian population in Israel, but they will never be able to excise their crimes from the history books.

I mean, they must be really bad if even Strontium Dog has stopped defending them, eh?

[pErvinalia]

Well we're obviously antisemites, so SD doesn't need to defend anything.

[aufbahrung]

History will recall this event as just one more atrocity in the same way it recalls other atrocities. A relic of the past. If millions of irish and indians can be starved by a nation and it never says sorry, and it is still considered a leading nation in the field of human rights. A few hundred thousand in the pre-holodeck era is neither here nor there