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It’s a total shock that the intelligence services that lied repeatedly about Russia would fail at their actual duties.
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Biden administration like to throw billions around. As if money will solve all of humanity problems. 6 billion held in some bank only to be dispersed for humane purposes is the most naive and plain stupid thing. "Don't bargain with terrorists" is a far better policy.Comment
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The Palenstinians want nothing to do with the two-state solution and have rejected it at every turn. Further, Israel itself is made up of 20% Arabs, all of whom have the same rights as Jews. It's, you know, in line with Western democracy/republics. Meanwhile:
The idea that Gaza is some sort of "open air prison" is just such a fucking goddamn Yassir Arafat talking point lie. But, I tell you what -- it's gonna be.As for Gaza, Israel ended its occupation nearly 20 years ago. It wanted to wash its hands of the place as much as possible, an understandable impulse but one that has proved unsustainable. Hamas won legislative elections in 2006 and then expelled the rival Palestinian group Fatah in a factional war. In total control, Hamas proceeded to make Gaza a base for conducting armed operations against Israel.
Israel’s failing here wasn’t so much heavy-handedness — although it took measures to protect itself from the threat in Gaza, as did Egypt — but the naïve belief that it could reach a de facto accommodation with a Hamas that would misrule Gaza for its own ends while not becoming too dire a threat to Israel.
Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.Comment
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Again, the real fundamental problem is pretending that Islam and the Jihadists it produces and puts in power share Western values. They do not. Their values are very much not Western. To cast them, as the Progs do, in their standard "oppressor/oppressed" paradigm fails entirely to understand what they are. It assumes that by somehow reducing the alleged "oppression" that you can rationally manage and affect behavior. But, alleged "oppression" is not what motivates them. Full motherfucking stop. Religion motivates them. And the destruction of Israel motivates them. That's it. That is ONLY way you pacify the Palestinians. That's it.
If people want to pretend that the reality is that the Palenstinians are only reacting to Israeli treatment then they will continue to be shocked when Palenstinians reject every sensible overture toward an actual geopolitical solution. It's blinding stupid. It willfully and ignorantly misunderstands the Palestinians and Islam.
If only they were led by Ron DeSantis passing some law saying public school isn't the place to teach first graders how to take it in the ass. Then maybe they'd get it. Instead, they cast relgious fantatics as the oppressed even though, you know, if you'e gay in one of those places they ain't just removing some book from a library.Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.Comment
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I copied and pasted this pay-walled editorial because it does a pretty good job of identifying the complexity of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that has raged for decades with sporadic wars springing up that tend to inflame both sides, driving them further apart, wrecking any chance for peace. There are positions in this article I don't agree with, some positions I do agree with. Keep in mind that south FL is a haven for a large Jewish community that is highly supportive of Israel. I'll be interested in keeping up with submissions from this community that will attack this editorial as overly sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
SUN SENTINEL EDITORIAL
Nothing in the long, tortured history of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians could remotely justify the savagery that Hamas has committed in its attack on the Jewish state.
Intentional, indiscriminate massacres and the hostage-taking of civilians, including children, is not legitimate warfare. It is criminal terrorism.
Just as inconceivable, however, would be to explain away the most abject intelligence and security failure in Israel’s history. Hamas staged a massive coordinated invasion by land, sea and air, with paragliders and some 3,000 rockets launched. It caught Israeli forces asleep and flat-footed. Hamas prepared in plain sight for as long as two years, according to a Reuters report attributed to Israeli and Hamas sources. Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist and a Middle East expert, wrote that Israeli intelligence was aware of the preparations but dismissed them as merely psychological warfare. The calendar alone should have justified a high alert. The eve of the attack last Friday was the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War that also caught Israel off guard in 1973. More than 800 Israelis have already paid with their lives for their government’s ineptitude, with thousands injured and more than 150 hostages exposed to abuse and death inside Gaza. More Palestinians will likely die, the innocent and the guilty, under Israel’s retribution.
First things first. In due time, the right-wing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have to answer for the disaster. His resignation is in order. In the near term, Israel must get serious about peace with the larger community of Palestinians. But first things first. The only option is war. A nervous world has little faith that innocent civilians in Gaza can be spared. Israel has a moral duty, at least, to try. The problem is that Hamas, unlike a nation-state, cares nothing about causing carnage. It is devoted to death — the death of Israel in particular — and is not a plausible negotiating partner.
Israeli extremists are a liability too. The fanatic religious and right-wing parties that prop up Netanyahu’s coalition are expected to oppose the prisoner exchange that Hamas will demand as the price for a cease fire. Israeli holds some 4,500 Palestinian prisoners. Twelve years ago, it exchanged 1,027 convicts for one Israeli soldier whom Hamas had held for five years. This time, Hamas holds elderly civilians and little children.
America is in no sense a passive spectator. As usual, nothing about the Middle East is simple, and the crisis finds our government partly paralyzed by the chaos in the U.S. House. It isn’t far-fetched that Hamas and its geopolitical patrons were counting on a U.S. government shutdown. Anybody in Congress who’s plotting one in November is the witless helper of Hamas, Iran and Russia. Republicans who pin the Hamas attack on the Biden administration practice despicably cynical politics. “Not a dollar” has been released so far out of the $6 billion of Iran’s own oil money that the U.S. agreed to unfreeze in exchange for five Americans held in Iran, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday. The money is reserved for humanitarian purposes to be released only under U.S. supervision.
A Ukraine connection. Hamas has admitted that Iran directly supported the attack. Iran is Russia’s client and Hamas is Iran’s proxy. Russia’s motive is to distract the U.S. from helping Ukraine.
Iran’s purpose is to disrupt negotiations for a peace treaty between Israel and Saudi Arabia that would be underwritten by U.S. military guarantees. Another key element would be American assistance to what the Saudis describe as a peaceful nuclear energy program. The Saudis and Iran are undeclared enemies, for religious and political reasons. A treaty with the Saudis would be a game-changing diplomatic victory for Israel. Twenty Democratic senators wrote to President Biden last week expressing guarded support for the proposed treaty, but they insisted, rightly so, that it include “meaningful” provisions to preserve the option of a two-state solution to the 75-year-old strife between Israel and the Palestinians.
The two-state solution, with a Palestinian government in the West Bank that Israel now occupies and controls, is settled U.S. policy. In the Oslo accords of 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization both agreed, although fulfillment has halted. It is still the right policy and the only one that holds any promise of peace. For years, Israel has been planting suburban communities, called settlements, in the West Bank in ways calculated to preclude any lands-for-peace exchange. Most are as permanent as the South Florida condos they resemble.
The Netanyahu government aims to annex the entire West Bank. It has been indifferent to Palestinians who have been driven from their homes or farms to make room for settlements that almost all the world but the U.S. and Israel calls illegal.
Israel will never have peace unless there’s an accommodation with the Palestinians that allows them to have their own sovereign state. For Israel’s part, that means a halt to its creeping annexation of the West Bank. It means protecting the West Bank Palestinians from Israeli fanatics. It means that Americans who subsidize the settler movement should stop.
It can be argued that the Palestinian Authority, which has limited authority in parts of the West Bank and none in Gaza, is not a reliable or sincere partner for peace and corrupt, too. But for a negotiating partner, the Authority is all there is.
Every nation that sincerely wants a just and lasting peace has no more compelling duty than to bend every effort toward that goal. Anyone who believes Hamas has the moral high ground is lying to the world, and to themselves.Mission to CFB's National Championship accomplished. But the shine on the NC Trophy is embarrassingly wearing off. It's M B-Ball ..... or hockey or volley ball or name your college sport favorite time ...... until next year.Comment
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Israel would give them their own sovereign state tomorrow. Fuck, man -- Gaza has been self-governed for 20 years. Israel pulled out of their in 2005. They elected Hamas.
The problem is that the Palestinians won't accept a two-state solution. That's it. There is not other point. And if one doesn't understand how Jerusalem fits into that equation then you're hopeless.
Israel could do a two-state solution tomorrow and they'd still face the same fucking problems. The people who do not understand this -- again -- they fail miserably to understand the motivations of the people serving Palestinian "interests." That's it.
Again, casting this as "oppressor/oppressed" assumes that if the oppression eases tensions ease and everyone gets along. It's woefully ignorant UNLESS you say the "oppression" is the "existence of Israel" -- then it at least correctly susses out the situation.Dan Patrick: What was your reaction to [Urban Meyer being hired]?
Brady Hoke: You know.....not....good.Comment
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Gas pipeline and a data cable under the Baltic between Finland and Estonia reportedly sabotaged. Finland supposed to be having a presser about it soon.Comment
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The Wisconsin GOP, drunk on power, is toying with the idea of impeaching the most recently elected Supreme Court judge because they expect to lose an upcoming redistricting case that will blow up their supermajority.
They hired a former Republican justice to provide legal advice and even he says it's a bad idea.
Former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice advises Republican leader against impeachment | AP NewsComment
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"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, .. I'd worn them for weeks, and they needed the air"Comment
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Oh there's all sorts of student group statements floating around that are pathetic, utterly idiotic, and divorced from reality. I question how many people most of them are really speaking for though.
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Jew haters are crawling out beneath their rocks now.Comment
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Would be great to have a functioning House of Representatives right now but hey...when you elect vainglorious idiots whose solitary purpose is to sabotage DC, this is what you get.Comment
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Disgusting vermin.Shut the fuck up Donny!Comment
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