The Israel Palestine problem solving thread
really clueless?
that's all you've got...
it's like being back in the covid days
don't you study objectivity - and the lack of it - and stuff?
clueless wanker... living in his very own chose your own adventure book...
southernraw wrote:indo-dreaming wrote:sypkan wrote:harrycoopr wrote:And btw sikpan u mental dwarf, if South Africa call it genocide it's probably genocide. Jeez yr a fukn dope, honestly.
south africa....
bahahahahahahaahahaha
ever heard of brics?
anongst other things...
ya fucken mental dwarf
wanker
Ha ha "South Africa" i really couldn't believe he wrote this comment, i think im the biggest cockhead, but still this guy.
.
Indo you're a genius! Cutting and pasting and editing peoples posts is sooo much fun!!
Actually i cant take credit, i actually learnt it from AndyM just leave out the bit of a comment you dont like to change it's context to what you want
Wouldn't make a habit of it though, dont think admin would be cool with it other than a one off taking the piss thing.
sypkan wrote:really clueless?
that's all you've got...
it's like being back in the covid days
don't you study objectivity - and the lack of it - and stuff?
clueless wanker... living in his very own chose your own adventure book...
Yr such a kook
'wouldn't make a habit of it though, don't think admin would be cool with it other than a one off taking the piss thing".
fHahahahaha!!!
Wot the?
Back to your hilarious best.
Aye aye General of the threads and mastermind of military operations.
As you were.
southernraw wrote:indo-dreaming wrote:southernraw wrote:Indo. I was at work so didn't get to round out my comment to you.
Your posts have been brilliant. Keep it up. Remember if those you dont respect dont like you, you must be doing something right. You're a treasure!
Thank's bro, i 100% agree, great to see you come around.
Wow! I should give you a little credit. You do know how to edit, cut and paste a post for a bit of a laugh.
A stupid person couldn't do that so well done.
Still reckon it's the swellnet boys with too much time on their hands.
Well played fellas.
You're onto something southern... noone can be so devoid of personality as info. He sounds like a conglomerate of the SN team's sick fantasies...
As for dikpan, he, unfortunately, is all too real... all too pathetically and dangerously real.
bonza wrote:Thanks Adam.
Very thorough and impressive but when you break it all down to plain English - it comes down to the ruling that the court cannot make a final determination right now on whether Israel is guilty of genocide. So thus any accusation of genocide is wrong.
Your interpretation is simply an opinion - and while I see it has merit - I think your interpretation is flawed despite your obvious elevated intelligence compared to me. But I'm not here to convince you adam.
So until or if that decision is made, in favour of South Africa's accusation - I'll continue to call out where appropriate situations when the genocide accusation is thrown around. Especially when it's done to demonise Israel and the Jewish people. Which in most cases is exactly the intent or result. If you don't understand that link then it is you who doesn't know your history.
You can respond how you like as is your right.
My allegations about the bias of the UN GA and ICJ are based on evidence which I provided and are far from childish or resemble trumpism. Whatever that means. I provided a solid reasoning to back my allegations. It doesn’t prove I am right on this - but a reasonable person can see the argument has merit. You disagree fine. That's your right. I think you are wrong.
Ok good chat. Handbags at 10 paces. Go well Adam. Remember it's just the internet mate
Ok Bonza,
I do know my history, particularly WW2 and the Holocaust, and my opinion on the issue of genocide is not based in any antisemitic sentiment, just my knowledge of that history, and the law, particularly International Law that I took many units in and at one point in my life was intending to practice. Yes it is just my opinion, but as i said, it was shared by the World Court who are the one's whose opinion will ultimately be the one recorded by history.
Don't wish to relitigate any of this but can't let this go by without a response, "it comes down to the ruling that the court cannot make a final determination right now on whether Israel is guilty of genocide. So thus any accusation of genocide is wrong."
No, that does not make the accusation wrong at this stage at all, in fact what they found is that the accusation has plausible merit worthy of a final determination. If the accusation was wrong, the South African case would have been dismissed then and there. But let's not go over it again more than that.
What I do hope is that you remember your position on this when the World Court does make it's definitive position, which can take a long time, something that I believe is the only legitimate criticism one can make of the World Court and the process. I hope you remember me and what I have said to you in these past couple of days and if and when the genocide finding is made maybe think to yourself "That obnoxious thin skinned prick/bully on SN was actually right".
I promise that if I am proved wrong and am still around I will look up this thread, and/or you if you are still around and admit I was wrong. I am supremely confident that I won't have to do that. Not arrogantly confident, but a confidence that comes from many, many hours of "doing my homework" and sitting and passing very difficult and challenging examinations on these matters and the law that applies to them. I have had these documents, like the Genocide Conventions in my hands, read them and studied them and applied them, been examined on them, to other situations and wars long before this current one, long before Hamas even existed or Netanyahu came to power in Israel.
It has been a saddening experience for me personally to not only be witness to what is happening over there, but to come to the conclusions at law that I have. I have a genuine love and respect for many Jews I have come across in my life who have at times been so generous and wonderful to me and also my family. I don't feel I am betraying them or that generosity, just saddens me that in this instance it involves the Jewish homeland and Israel and what Zionism could have meant for both the Jews and the rest of the world but doesn't.
It is not something I take lightly however it may appear in my responses to some of the posters here.
But I know what I know and feel I am just being truthful to this thread and also myself, however badly I may express that truth at times.
It is certainly an ugly thing that is happening, and some of the ugliness on display here, and I include myself in that, probably reflects what is happening all over the world. I don't have any answer for that. We all take sides and have opinions based on lived experience, human nature. And there is enough information, or misinformation out there to back up any position you wish to take.
Anyway, I know your position and you know mine and I'm happy to leave it at that and let history make the final decision.
There are a few things above that I skimmed before making this post that I could comment on but don't feel inclined and really just want to forget all this for the rest of today, maybe some other time.
Yeah good (if that's the right word, I dunno) chat and hope you can see that I can be polite and respectful when I am taking someone seriously who I believe deserves that.
Adam you’re a smart bloke and your opinion makes sense. I have taken it on board. I’m wrong all the time so if we’re still here in this middle age safe space for white men in the years to come I’ll own it. Udo will have it clocked so there’s no escape. FWIW I don’t think you are antisemitic and never meant for it to come across as that. I was addressing the statement. If you have seen my previous interactions with other posters you’ll see I am careful with how I use that word when addressing one’s comments. I appreciate your passion and input. All the best Adam.
Interlude
?si=YlpzCDsKpEHYMkKs Israel’s war on Hamas is the least deadly conflict in region
(February 5, 2024 / Gatestone Institute)
The Associated Press recently made headlines by falsely claiming that the Israeli campaign against Hamas “sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history” and was even worse than “the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II.”
The Washington Post argued that “Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars in Gaza,” while The Wall Street Journal contended that it was “generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.”
That’s all the more impressive since, even accepting the Hamas casualty figures (tainted and inflated numbers in which there are no terrorists, only civilians, and fighting age men are really children) as the media does, this is still probably one of the least violent conflicts in the region.
In 2016, the Washington Post described the Syrian Civil War, with a possible 250,000 deaths, as “the most destructive conflict in the region.” In 2020, the United Nations called the Yemeni Civil War, with 150,000 deaths, “the most destructive conflict since the end of the Cold War.”
And then there’s the current phase of the war in Sudan (which the media is currently uninterested in) in which 15,000 people have been killed over the course of last year, as part of a larger conflict that may have claimed as many as 2 million lives.
The Tigray War in Ethiopia over the last three years (which you may have missed because the media chose not to hysterically cover every single bomb dropped and protesters stayed home knitting instead of blocking traffic) may have cost the lives of between 80,000 to 600,000 people.
(El Pais, Spain’s newspaper, which did report on Ethiopia’s civil war, described it as “the deadliest of the 21st century” and then had to pivot to argue later that Israel was worse in “25,000 deaths in Gaza: Why the destruction of this war exceeds that of other major conflicts.”)
In reality, every significant war and civil war in the region has had a much higher death toll than the Israel-Hamas war, including the Iraq-Iran War with an estimated 500,000 to 2 million deaths. And in nearby Africa, the Congo War has been blamed for 6 million deaths since 1996.
How does the media justify arguing that 25,000 is more than 2 million?
There are plenty of statistical gimmicks available to anyone who wants to argue that two plus two is really five. Media “analyses” that claim that Israel’s campaign against Hamas is the deadliest and most destructive, and might even be worse than WWII, adjust their claims accordingly.
That much is true.
The Times cites its own claim that “numbering the dead correctly is virtually impossible.”
That’s why the death toll for everything from the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars to the mass deaths in Sudan and the Iran-Iraq War are broad estimates with vast differences between them.
Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, warned that truth is the first casualty of war. And accurate casualty counts are the first and final casualty of every conflict.As the author of every dubious research study knows, to get the results you want, you manipulate your parameters. Media analyses selectively compare Israel’s campaign to battles, rather than wars, narrowly focus on very specific timetables, attempt to estimate per capita rather than gross figures. But drawing a circle around a particular area and going per capita works both ways; The Hamas attack of Oct. 7 killed 10% of the population of Kibbutz Be’eri, making it far worse per capita than anything in Israel’s response to those atrocities.
But statistical fudging is all in where the line is drawn to achieve a particular agenda.
For example, The New York Times declares that, “Gaza Deaths Surpass Any Arab Loss in Wars With Israel in Past 40 Years.” Of course, the last major Arab-Israeli war took place 50 years ago.
The 40-year figure is based on the Lebanon War, but the actual numbers for that war vary wildly, from the thousands according to Israel, 10,000 according to the CIA, 18,000 according to Lebanon and 30,000 according to Arafat and the PLO.
While the media at the time emphasized the highest estimates, in order to criticize the Israeli campaign against the PLO, they now use lower estimates to attack the Gaza campaign.
Similarly, AP cites its own claim that battles against Islamic State in the Iraqi city of Mosul “killed around 10,000 civilians” to indict Israel. Some Iraqi estimates however peg it as high as 40,000. PBS headlined its coverage by warning that “the human toll of the battle for Mosul may never be known.”
The New York Times, after using the shaky Lebanon numbers to prop up the shaky Gaza numbers, admits that “as in Gaza today, researchers say the number killed in Lebanon may never be known with confidence because of the fog of war, even four decades later.”
The Lancet, the British medical journal, once courted controversy with its claims first that the Iraq War had killed 98,000 Iraqis and then over half a million, or 2.5% of the country. By 2007, a British data company claimed that 1 million Iraqis had been killed. These claims were quickly debunked and the claims are in the rearview mirror now that the debate over the war is over.
During the Iraq War it was politically convenient to inflate the death toll, just as it’s now politically convenient to deflate the death toll while unthinkingly accepting casualty figures from a terrorist group whose main hope of survival lies in inflating civilian deaths while minimizing its own casualties.
The most troubling thing about the universal acceptance of the Hamas numbers is just that.
Estimated death tolls in the Syrian Civil War have varied wildly from the low six figures to over 600,000. Different organizations with different agendas have produced very different sets of numbers. And while many of those may be unreliable, there is at least a healthy debate.
When it comes to Gaza, the media cites no figures other than those of Hamas. And it insists at the same time that most of Gaza has been destroyed, its medical centers pulverized and its government shattered, and that this same system can not only be trusted, but is also somehow capable of producing infallible statistics that don’t exist in any other regional conflict.
The numbers for the Iran-Iraq War vary by 1.5 million, those of the Syrian Civil War and Tigray War by half a million, and yet somehow Gaza is the place where the numbers never vary and where a terrorist group got it just right. That’s something even America can’t do.
On Sept. 11, 2023, DNA testing identified two more victims of the original 9/11 attacks. After 20 years, 1,000 human remains are still unknown. The exact number of deaths from when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017 is still being debated and it took months to nail down the death toll from the Maui wildfires. And yet somehow the medical experts at Hamas can produce better numbers in a shorter timespan in a war zone than we can while at peace.
Casualty figures have always been the subject of propaganda, and the most obvious symptom of propaganda is the lack of meaningful debate. Why does every regional war, including the Iraq War, have a wide range of estimated deaths, but not in Gaza? Because there is no dissent.
There is no dissent in Gaza or in the media which publishes absurd claims that a few months of fighting have somehow been more brutal than WWII or regional conflicts which claimed millions.
How many died in Gaza? The real answer is that, like the other wars, nobody knows.
After the fighting there will be studies that will pump up the estimated total even higher by using excess-death statistics. Surveys of empty houses, heat maps or satellite images will be used to estimate even higher losses without regard as to whether they reflect deaths or evacuations. Local research based on anecdotal accounts and statistical legerdemain will be used to bake a variety of faulty figures into a far more grandiose number than the current 25,000. Expect claims that will go as high as the low six figures to be reported on and treated as fact and history.
Techniques like these account for the wide range of reported deaths from other conflicts. And then we can expect debates over the X curve
and the correct readings of genealogical records. The end results will be deeply dubious but there will at least be some room for debate. There is little point in even debating the current numbers coming out of an arm of a terrorist organization.
But what the debates will reveal is that, agenda or no agenda, we don’t really know. Wars and natural disasters are messy. People disappear, some uproot themselves and some it will turn out never existed but were a mistake in the records of an unreliable part of the world.
Palestinian Authority and Hamas numbers, including population figures and birth rates, have reflected political agendas, rather than reality. As have those of UNRWA, the U.N. agency dedicated to serving the “Palestinians” but locally staffed by Hamas, so there will be plenty of bad numbers to drown out the good ones.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics,” Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once reportedly quipped. The media’s coverage has offered plenty of all three.
But numbers in war mainly matter when it comes to outcomes of victory or defeat. The obsession with numbers in conflicts is an unhealthy distraction from the real issues.
The moral calculus between the Allies and the Nazis in WWII did not change based on how many German civilians were killed in the bombings and artillery shelling on the road to Berlin. The morality of the American Civil War was not measured in civilian deaths, and neither is any other.
A nation is actively evil when it sets out to exterminate a civilian population. Whether it is WWII or the Hamas war, only one of the two sides was engaged in a war of extermination.
The morality of a war is not measured in civilian casualties, but in deliberate civilian killings.
On Oct. 7 and in the months since, Hamas has engaged in the deliberate killings of civilians. Israel has not. The number games are meant to be a distraction from that simple fact.
Morality is defined by intent, not statistics.
Daniel Greenfield Originally published by The Gatestone Institute.
Good to see some reasoned, relatively civil and deep discussion and debate.
The only reasoned, evidence based perspective in the interests of truth, decency, balance and fairness that one can take on the issue is the extreme elements of both sides of the conflict, and many other “outside” players and competing interests, are equally complicit in a horrific ordeal that is well over 100 years old and with drivers going back thousands of years.
Arguing any other case, taking one side over the other, or focusing criticism on only one side and ignoring the other, is either just plain ignorant or pushing an agenda, whether political, ideological, religious, racial, etc.
All wars and conflicts are fought out not just with guns on the battlefield but also politically, economically, informationally, and legally, etc. Each side will try to damage the other in any way they can. It’s standard practice for one side to try to get the other on legal technicalities in international courts.
Any legal decision whether for or against the immediate current response by Israel is partly just a distraction form the bigger, 100+ year old, very complex picture of the overall situation, its causes and drivers, and the long-term sustainable solution the international community needs to come up with if we are to avoid global escalation and more long-term suffering.
Also in the interests of fairness and balance, Hamas should also be subject to the same amount of legal scrutiny in international courts as Israel.
gsco mkII wrote:Good to see some reasoned, relatively civil and deep discussion and debate.
The only reasoned, evidence based perspective in the interests of truth, decency, balance and fairness that one can take on the issue is the extreme elements of both sides of the conflict, and many other “outside” players and competing interests, are equally complicit in a horrific ordeal that is well over 100 years old and with drivers going back thousands of years.
Arguing any other case, taking one side over the other, or focusing criticism on only one side and ignoring the other, is either just plain ignorant or pushing an agenda, whether political, ideological, religious, racial, etc.
All wars and conflicts are fought out not just with guns on the battlefield but also politically, economically, informationally, and legally, etc. Each side will try to damage the other in any way they can. It’s standard practice for one side to try to get the other on legal technicalities in international courts.
Any legal decision whether for or against the immediate current response by Israel is partly just a distraction form the bigger, 100+ year old, very complex picture of the overall situation, its causes and drivers, and the long-term sustainable solution the international community needs to come up with if we are to avoid global escalation and more long-term suffering.
Also in the interests of fairness and balance, Hamas should also be subject to the same amount of legal scrutiny in international courts as Israel.
Speaking sense there GSCO...
"A nation is actively evil when it sets out to exterminate a civilian population. Whether it is WWII or the Hamas war, only one of the two sides was engaged in a war of extermination." Mr Personality non grata info
Please learn your history, in this case Israel's crimes against the Palestinian farmers, even wiping out whole villages you complete moron
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre#:~:text=The%20Deir%....
"On Oct. 7 and in the months since, Hamas has engaged in the deliberate killings of civilians. Israel has not. " Daniel Greenstone.
I'm not going to post any, they are too gruesome, but I have many dozens of videos bookmarked from twitter that show this comment is untrue. Totally untrue.
The truth is that both sides in this conflict have engaged in deliberate civilian killing.
The ICJ interim decision acknowledges this fact. The reason Israel has an interim finding of genocide against it and other orders handed down last month is because it has breached it's right of self defence by targeting and killing civilian non combatants. The video footage doesn't lie. The Israeli government and the IDF do, and so has Mr Greenfield of the Gatestone Intitute in making that assertion.
gsco "Also in the interests of fairness and balance, Hamas should also be subject to the same amount of legal scrutiny in international courts as Israel."
So here is an interesting point. What many here may not realise is that just like Israel has the right of self defence under International Law and is bound by it, the Palestinians also have the legal right of armed resistance under International Law whilst they are under occupation by a foreign force and denied the right of self determination.
The difference is that Israel is a State actor and is therefore subject to sanction and scruitiny by International Courts and jurisprudence, but in denying Statehood and self determination to the Palestinians, it is in fact Israel that prevents them, and their armed resistors like Hamas, from being subject to those laws and sanctions.
Hamas committed war crimes on Oct 7. Both sides are under the legal obligation to not cause civilian casualties, Israel in it's exercise of self defence, and the Palestinians in their legal exercise of their right to armed resistance, but without Statehood and self determination for Palestine, it is only possible for Israel to be subject to and sanctioned by International Courts and law.
If Palestine was a State, any actions like Oct 7 could be "punished" by that law.
So it is Israel itself which is the one standing in the way of "fairness and balance" and Hamas or the Palestinians being "subject to the same amount of legal scrutiny in international courts as Israel."
Bit of a Catch 22 the Israelis have created for themselves.
indo-dreaming wrote:Israel’s war on Hamas is the least deadly conflict in region
(February 5, 2024 / Gatestone Institute)
The Associated Press recently made headlines by falsely claiming that the Israeli campaign against Hamas “sits among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history” and was even worse than “the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II.”The Washington Post argued that “Israel has waged one of this century’s most destructive wars in Gaza,” while The Wall Street Journal contended that it was “generating destruction comparable in scale to the most devastating urban warfare in the modern record.”
That’s all the more impressive since, even accepting the Hamas casualty figures (tainted and inflated numbers in which there are no terrorists, only civilians, and fighting age men are really children) as the media does, this is still probably one of the least violent conflicts in the region.
In 2016, the Washington Post described the Syrian Civil War, with a possible 250,000 deaths, as “the most destructive conflict in the region.” In 2020, the United Nations called the Yemeni Civil War, with 150,000 deaths, “the most destructive conflict since the end of the Cold War.”
And then there’s the current phase of the war in Sudan (which the media is currently uninterested in) in which 15,000 people have been killed over the course of last year, as part of a larger conflict that may have claimed as many as 2 million lives.
The Tigray War in Ethiopia over the last three years (which you may have missed because the media chose not to hysterically cover every single bomb dropped and protesters stayed home knitting instead of blocking traffic) may have cost the lives of between 80,000 to 600,000 people.
(El Pais, Spain’s newspaper, which did report on Ethiopia’s civil war, described it as “the deadliest of the 21st century” and then had to pivot to argue later that Israel was worse in “25,000 deaths in Gaza: Why the destruction of this war exceeds that of other major conflicts.”)
In reality, every significant war and civil war in the region has had a much higher death toll than the Israel-Hamas war, including the Iraq-Iran War with an estimated 500,000 to 2 million deaths. And in nearby Africa, the Congo War has been blamed for 6 million deaths since 1996.
How does the media justify arguing that 25,000 is more than 2 million?
There are plenty of statistical gimmicks available to anyone who wants to argue that two plus two is really five. Media “analyses” that claim that Israel’s campaign against Hamas is the deadliest and most destructive, and might even be worse than WWII, adjust their claims accordingly.
That much is true.
The Times cites its own claim that “numbering the dead correctly is virtually impossible.”
That’s why the death toll for everything from the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars to the mass deaths in Sudan and the Iran-Iraq War are broad estimates with vast differences between them.
Aeschylus, the Greek playwright, warned that truth is the first casualty of war. And accurate casualty counts are the first and final casualty of every conflict.As the author of every dubious research study knows, to get the results you want, you manipulate your parameters. Media analyses selectively compare Israel’s campaign to battles, rather than wars, narrowly focus on very specific timetables, attempt to estimate per capita rather than gross figures. But drawing a circle around a particular area and going per capita works both ways; The Hamas attack of Oct. 7 killed 10% of the population of Kibbutz Be’eri, making it far worse per capita than anything in Israel’s response to those atrocities.
But statistical fudging is all in where the line is drawn to achieve a particular agenda.
For example, The New York Times declares that, “Gaza Deaths Surpass Any Arab Loss in Wars With Israel in Past 40 Years.” Of course, the last major Arab-Israeli war took place 50 years ago.
The 40-year figure is based on the Lebanon War, but the actual numbers for that war vary wildly, from the thousands according to Israel, 10,000 according to the CIA, 18,000 according to Lebanon and 30,000 according to Arafat and the PLO.
While the media at the time emphasized the highest estimates, in order to criticize the Israeli campaign against the PLO, they now use lower estimates to attack the Gaza campaign.
Similarly, AP cites its own claim that battles against Islamic State in the Iraqi city of Mosul “killed around 10,000 civilians” to indict Israel. Some Iraqi estimates however peg it as high as 40,000. PBS headlined its coverage by warning that “the human toll of the battle for Mosul may never be known.”
The New York Times, after using the shaky Lebanon numbers to prop up the shaky Gaza numbers, admits that “as in Gaza today, researchers say the number killed in Lebanon may never be known with confidence because of the fog of war, even four decades later.”
The Lancet, the British medical journal, once courted controversy with its claims first that the Iraq War had killed 98,000 Iraqis and then over half a million, or 2.5% of the country. By 2007, a British data company claimed that 1 million Iraqis had been killed. These claims were quickly debunked and the claims are in the rearview mirror now that the debate over the war is over.
During the Iraq War it was politically convenient to inflate the death toll, just as it’s now politically convenient to deflate the death toll while unthinkingly accepting casualty figures from a terrorist group whose main hope of survival lies in inflating civilian deaths while minimizing its own casualties.
The most troubling thing about the universal acceptance of the Hamas numbers is just that.
Estimated death tolls in the Syrian Civil War have varied wildly from the low six figures to over 600,000. Different organizations with different agendas have produced very different sets of numbers. And while many of those may be unreliable, there is at least a healthy debate.When it comes to Gaza, the media cites no figures other than those of Hamas. And it insists at the same time that most of Gaza has been destroyed, its medical centers pulverized and its government shattered, and that this same system can not only be trusted, but is also somehow capable of producing infallible statistics that don’t exist in any other regional conflict.
The numbers for the Iran-Iraq War vary by 1.5 million, those of the Syrian Civil War and Tigray War by half a million, and yet somehow Gaza is the place where the numbers never vary and where a terrorist group got it just right. That’s something even America can’t do.
On Sept. 11, 2023, DNA testing identified two more victims of the original 9/11 attacks. After 20 years, 1,000 human remains are still unknown. The exact number of deaths from when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017 is still being debated and it took months to nail down the death toll from the Maui wildfires. And yet somehow the medical experts at Hamas can produce better numbers in a shorter timespan in a war zone than we can while at peace.
Casualty figures have always been the subject of propaganda, and the most obvious symptom of propaganda is the lack of meaningful debate. Why does every regional war, including the Iraq War, have a wide range of estimated deaths, but not in Gaza? Because there is no dissent.
There is no dissent in Gaza or in the media which publishes absurd claims that a few months of fighting have somehow been more brutal than WWII or regional conflicts which claimed millions.
How many died in Gaza? The real answer is that, like the other wars, nobody knows.
After the fighting there will be studies that will pump up the estimated total even higher by using excess-death statistics. Surveys of empty houses, heat maps or satellite images will be used to estimate even higher losses without regard as to whether they reflect deaths or evacuations. Local research based on anecdotal accounts and statistical legerdemain will be used to bake a variety of faulty figures into a far more grandiose number than the current 25,000. Expect claims that will go as high as the low six figures to be reported on and treated as fact and history.Techniques like these account for the wide range of reported deaths from other conflicts. And then we can expect debates over the X curve
and the correct readings of genealogical records. The end results will be deeply dubious but there will at least be some room for debate. There is little point in even debating the current numbers coming out of an arm of a terrorist organization.
But what the debates will reveal is that, agenda or no agenda, we don’t really know. Wars and natural disasters are messy. People disappear, some uproot themselves and some it will turn out never existed but were a mistake in the records of an unreliable part of the world.
Palestinian Authority and Hamas numbers, including population figures and birth rates, have reflected political agendas, rather than reality. As have those of UNRWA, the U.N. agency dedicated to serving the “Palestinians” but locally staffed by Hamas, so there will be plenty of bad numbers to drown out the good ones.
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics,” Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli once reportedly quipped. The media’s coverage has offered plenty of all three.
But numbers in war mainly matter when it comes to outcomes of victory or defeat. The obsession with numbers in conflicts is an unhealthy distraction from the real issues.
The moral calculus between the Allies and the Nazis in WWII did not change based on how many German civilians were killed in the bombings and artillery shelling on the road to Berlin. The morality of the American Civil War was not measured in civilian deaths, and neither is any other.
A nation is actively evil when it sets out to exterminate a civilian population. Whether it is WWII or the Hamas war, only one of the two sides was engaged in a war of extermination.
The morality of a war is not measured in civilian casualties, but in deliberate civilian killings.
On Oct. 7 and in the months since, Hamas has engaged in the deliberate killings of civilians. Israel has not. The number games are meant to be a distraction from that simple fact.
Morality is defined by intent, not statistics.
Daniel Greenfield Originally published by The Gatestone Institute.
Great article, Indo. Many in here are trying as hard as possible to ignore it…but that is because
“ Morality is defined by intent, not statistics.”
“That’s all the more impressive since, even accepting the Hamas casualty figures (tainted and inflated numbers in which there are no terrorists, only civilians, and fighting age men are really children) as the media does, this is still probably one of the least violent conflicts in the region.”
“ In 2016, the Washington Post described the Syrian Civil War, with a possible 250,000 deaths, as “the most destructive conflict in the region.” In 2020, the United Nations called the Yemeni Civil War, with 150,000 deaths, “the most destructive conflict since the end of the Cold War.”
And then there’s the current phase of the war in Sudan (which the media is currently uninterested in) in which 15,000 people have been killed over the course of last year, as part of a larger conflict that may have claimed as many as 2 million lives.
The Tigray War in Ethiopia over the last three years (which you may have missed because the media chose not to hysterically cover every single bomb dropped and protesters stayed home knitting instead of blocking traffic) may have cost the lives of between 80,000 to 600,000 people.”
If only Syria, Sudan and Ethiopia had a few Hamas terrorists involved, noideaGuy, adam, jellybrain, soggybiscuit et al would then give a few but but buts and care.
Who really give a shit about Syrian children, Sudanese children and Ethiopian children? shit, there was probably a few aged only 6… but still no one cares
Too busy being outraged over Hamas etc etc being destroyed after starting the current conflict. It’s a peculiar world.
Ooops, sorry all. I mistakenly called Hamas, terrorists.
I obviously meant, Hamas freedom fighters.
@Roadkill, you should go and look up Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions.
Palestine has a legal right of armed resistance.
They don't have the right to kill civilians.
Nor does Israel.
Maybe google "Palestinian right to resist" and have a read.
Learn something about 'freedom fighting'.
adam12 wrote:@Roadkill, you should go and look up Protocol 1 of the Geneva Conventions.
Palestine has a legal right of armed resistance.
They don't have the right to kill civilians.
Nor does Israel.
Maybe google "Palestinian right to resist" and have a read.
Learn something about 'freedom fighting'.
I note your empathy for Sudan, Syria and Ethiopia.
https://m.
&pp=ygUHdGFudHVyYQ%3D%3Dhttps://m.
&pp=ygUHdGFudHVyYQ%3D%3D Oops sorry all, another mistake. I mistakenly attributed empathy and concern for Sudan, Syria and Ethiopia from Adam.
When all he did was but but but and made excuse for Terrorists.
southernraw wrote:Haha. Nah doubt that one harry. Not burlz.
Love your work though.
Roady and i may not see eye to eye on this particular issue, but in the balance of fairness, gotta back him up on the non racist aspect of his positions.
Been enjoying reading yours and others input. Good to see ya back.
Thx for the words, SR. Admirable that you did this.
Roadkill, I have plenty of empathy for any innocent victim in any conflict no matter what country or continent or conflict.
I think I have consistently displayed my personal empathy on these pages for victims of war and terror over my time here.
There is a lot of conflict and injustice in the world, are we going to broaden the scope of this thread to include all of it?
Last night I was feeling empathy for Navalny and his family and Russians living under Putin's dictatorship and Ukranians and conscripted Russians fighting and dying in that conflict.
I actually read about and follow what is happening in many parts of the world that are worse or just as bad as Gaza, including in Africa and Syria.
But this is actually a thread about Gaza.
And I have never made any excuse for terrorists, quite the opposite if you are talking about Hamas.
I was simply trying to broaden your understanding of what the law says about Palestine, and "freedom fighting".
But I forgot how much of a Goose you are.
So my apologies.
adam12 wrote:Roadkill, I have plenty of empathy for any innocent victim in any conflict no matter what country or continent or conflict.
I think I have consistently displayed my personal empathy on these pages for victims of war and terror over my time here.
There is a lot of conflict and injustice in the world, are we going to broaden the scope of this thread to include all of it?
Last night I was feeling empathy for Navalny and his family and Russians living under Putin's dictatorship and Ukranians and conscripted Russians fighting and dying in that conflict.
I actually read about and follow what is happening in many parts of the world that are worse or just as bad as Gaza, including in Africa and Syria.
But this is actually a thread about Gaza.
And I have never made any excuse for terrorists, quite the opposite if you are talking about Hamas.
I was simply trying to broaden your understanding of what the law says about Palestine, and "freedom fighting".
But I forgot how much of a Goose you are.
So my apologies.
What is happening in the area is far greater than just Gaza, and Israel. This is more western world vs Islam. Hamas and Gaza are small players in a far larger game…that you can’t see. And your support is clearly on the wrong side…you make this clear day after day.
“And I have never made any excuse for terrorists, quite the opposite if you are talking about Hamas.” Oh, yes you have.
Actions show proof.
Just telling us you have empathy without ever showing it means nothing. It’s just like you continuously telling everyone you have Jewish mates thus you can’t be antisemitic. Words are cheap.
Fark, even Bernie Sanders acknowledges that Hamas started this current conflict…then he goes on about what he thinks needs done.
Something you can’t bring yourself to acknowledge, you just but but but daily.
Roadkill wrote:adam12 wrote:Roadkill, I have plenty of empathy for any innocent victim in any conflict no matter what country or continent or conflict.
I think I have consistently displayed my personal empathy on these pages for victims of war and terror over my time here.
There is a lot of conflict and injustice in the world, are we going to broaden the scope of this thread to include all of it?
Last night I was feeling empathy for Navalny and his family and Russians living under Putin's dictatorship and Ukranians and conscripted Russians fighting and dying in that conflict.
I actually read about and follow what is happening in many parts of the world that are worse or just as bad as Gaza, including in Africa and Syria.
But this is actually a thread about Gaza.
And I have never made any excuse for terrorists, quite the opposite if you are talking about Hamas.
I was simply trying to broaden your understanding of what the law says about Palestine, and "freedom fighting".
But I forgot how much of a Goose you are.
So my apologies.What is happening in the area is far greater than just Gaza, and Israel. This is more western world vs Islam. Hamas and Gaza are small players in a far larger game…that you can’t see. And your support is clearly on the wrong side…you make this clear day after day.
“And I have never made any excuse for terrorists, quite the opposite if you are talking about Hamas.” Oh, yes you have.
Actions show proof.
Just telling us you have empathy without ever showing it means nothing. It’s just like you continuously telling everyone you have Jewish mates thus you can’t be antisemitic. Words are cheap.
"What is happening in the area is far greater than just Gaza, and Israel. This is more western world vs Islam. Hamas and Gaza are small players in a far larger game…that you can’t see. And your support is clearly on the wrong side…you make this clear day after day."
100% like i said they are like Chickens rallying for more KFC stores.
It's so self destructive, even more so when people are suppose to be a progressive.
Two thoughts about this conflict that have been buzzing around in my head for a couple of weeks now ….
I’ve heard it said (can’t remember where) that it is generally understood in the corridors of power and the military in the US that they (the US) grossly overacted after 9/11 with wars in the ME and Afghanistan. On the surface a reasonable proposition on cold reflection.
…. so the question is whether Israel will one day also conclude that the government overreacted creating more problems than solving?
The second buzzing question which doesn’t really bare thinking about given its gravity … is the aim of Israel’s military campaign twofold? First, to destroy Hamas but second to destroy the existing infrastructure in Gaza to such a point that it renders living there almost impossible afterwards! I’m not saying it’s the case as it’s a horrific proposition but the level of destruction that has occurred seems extreme and disproportionate
Anyway that’s that
…and spreading the clap ;)
https://m.
GuySmiley wrote:Two thoughts about this conflict that have been buzzing around in my head for a couple of weeks now ….
I’ve heard it said (can’t remember where) that it is generally understood in the corridors of power and the military in the US that they (the US) grossly overacted after 9/11 with wars in the ME and Afghanistan. On the surface a reasonable proposition on cold reflection.
…. so the question is whether Israel will one day also conclude that the government overreacted creating more problems than solving?
The second buzzing question which doesn’t really bare thinking about given its gravity … is the aim of Israel’s military campaign twofold? First, to destroy Hamas but second to destroy the existing infrastructure in Gaza to such a point that it renders living there almost impossible afterwards! I’m not saying it’s the case as it’s a horrific proposition the level of destruction that has occurred seems extreme and disproportionate
Anyway that’s that
Israel's biggest problem is it's under reaction in the past to being attacked and allowing an enemy to prosper, they have taken a defensive approach for way to long and done the most ridicules/stupid things like handing over a whole state and getting nothing in return.
Now they are paying the price for handing over control of Gaza to Hamas and for not nipping things in the bud when they should have, and at some stage they will also have to go to war proper with Hezbollah (some say they should now, rather than latter)
No way on earth will Israel ever regret doing their best to get rid of Hamas, if they didn't nothing would change and they would always regret not trying, and its super important that they finish the job they started, hence why Rafia is so important.
As for damage to infrastructure, that's kind of what happens when you mix your military infrastructure in with civilian infrastructure, nothing is disproportionate if tunnels still remain or rockets can still be fired.
BTW. If you want to look for conspiracy theories on why YOU might believe more is being taken out than needed, the better one is, if for some reason Hamas survive as a government or a similar group takes over, if the money doesn't go into rebuilding for the people and instead goes into rebuilding tunnels and rockets like before, you would hope to hell that the people would revolt against the government and not let themselves be taken over by a war mongering terrorist group again.
Too easy @roady.
Gday @info
Below is my artists’ tonal scale I created as part of my oil painting tuition. Note that there are nine grades in the scale from pure white to pure black. Please take this image as a pictorial illustration of what you miss out on in any and all debates in your nuance free only black and white world. It’s my pleasure
GuySmiley wrote:Gday @info
Below is my artists’ tonal scale I created as part of my oil painting tuition. Note that there are nine grades in the scale from pure white to pure black. Please take this image as a pictorial illustration of what you miss out on in any and all debates in your nuance free only black and white world. It’s my pleasure
GuySmiley. Nice mate, like it. Who needs colour in this world with a palette like that.
I was hoping for 50 more shades of grey, if ya know my drift. AW
AlfredWallace wrote:GuySmiley wrote:Gday @info
Below is my artists’ tonal scale I created as part of my oil painting tuition. Note that there are nine grades in the scale from pure white to pure black. Please take this image as a pictorial illustration of what you miss out on in any and all debates in your nuance free only black and white world. It’s my pleasure
GuySmiley. Nice mate, like it. Who needs colour in this world with a palette like that.
I was hoping for 50 more shades of grey, if ya know my drift. AW
G’day AW, are you being naughty? Hahaha
The tonal scale was created as a first step to painting this …..
Hello Smiley
I love it .
Great shadow effects through all the colours .
No idea how U created the ridges and the valley depths ( shadows ) .
Frame it in a big , off white piece of Ply and hang it either diagonally or vertically , imho .
Howard Taylor like :)
Very impressed !
G’day Pops, my interpretation of a Penleigh Boyd painting he did over 100 years ago, it’s past Lorne on the GOR. I framed the colour version I did after ^^^
GuySmiley wrote:AlfredWallace wrote:GuySmiley wrote:Gday @info
Below is my artists’ tonal scale I created as part of my oil painting tuition. Note that there are nine grades in the scale from pure white to pure black. Please take this image as a pictorial illustration of what you miss out on in any and all debates in your nuance free only black and white world. It’s my pleasure
GuySmiley. Nice mate, like it. Who needs colour in this world with a palette like that.
I was hoping for 50 more shades of grey, if ya know my drift. AW
G’day AW, are you being naughty? Hahaha
The tonal scale was created as a first step to painting this …..
Honestly this is your best post in forever, you are generally so cagey, but it's great to see the artistic side of yourself, i know there is talent and good in everyone.
GuySmiley wrote:AlfredWallace wrote:GuySmiley wrote:Gday @info
Below is my artists’ tonal scale I created as part of my oil painting tuition. Note that there are nine grades in the scale from pure white to pure black. Please take this image as a pictorial illustration of what you miss out on in any and all debates in your nuance free only black and white world. It’s my pleasure
GuySmiley. Nice mate, like it. Who needs colour in this world with a palette like that.
I was hoping for 50 more shades of grey, if ya know my drift. AW
G’day AW, are you being naughty? Hahaha
The tonal scale was created as a first step to painting this …..
Great painting...
Cool piece with lots of light to grab my attention and depth to fall into a horizon .
It makes my eyes wonder and work .
Something I can look at again and again :)
GuySmiley wrote:AlfredWallace wrote:GuySmiley wrote:Gday @info
Below is my artists’ tonal scale I created as part of my oil painting tuition. Note that there are nine grades in the scale from pure white to pure black. Please take this image as a pictorial illustration of what you miss out on in any and all debates in your nuance free only black and white world. It’s my pleasure
GuySmiley. Nice mate, like it. Who needs colour in this world with a palette like that.
I was hoping for 50 more shades of grey, if ya know my drift. AW
G’day AW, are you being naughty? Hahaha
The tonal scale was created as a first step to painting this …..
GuySmiley. Beautiful mate, I love it. It’s probably the only time I will agree with Indo (except if we are talking plants)
Before I read the replies before this post, was guessing the GOR, have spent most of my life driving that road for work and pleasure. Those hills just past Lorne with their distinctive topographic relief are etched in my memory.
Again, well done, please post more of your work if you feel comfortable to do so.
You’ve got a permanent audience at my end. And, yes, I can be a very naughty boy at times, in all contexts. AW
@Roadkill and @Indo
"What is happening in the area is far greater than just Gaza, and Israel. This is more western world vs Islam. Hamas and Gaza are small players in a far larger game…that you can’t see. And your support is clearly on the wrong side…you make this clear day after day."
100% like i said they are like Chickens rallying for more KFC stores.
It's so self destructive, even more so when people are suppose to be a progressive."
"The Western world verses Islam."
So are we going to war with Indonesia next?
The largest Muslim population on Earth
So why are the Saudis a Western ally?
Is the West going to war with them too?
Is the West going to war with the whole 2 billion of the Muslims on Earth because they are Muslims.
Are the whole two billion of them at war with the West?
Or just the one's you two don't like.
There are more Muslims in the Asia Pacific region than the Middle East, 62% of them there. Will AUKUS be saving us from that?
There are over 50 majority Muslim countries in the world, are the West at war with all of them?
Or just the one's you two punch down artists declare are the enemy that need their "buds" nipped.
The problem with you two is that you are both incapable of objective thought and analysis, incapable of anything but hate for those you see as the "enemy". Incapable of learning anything that doesn't align with your little twisted world view. Punch down artists the pair of you. Google Geopoliticians.
What is "happening" over there that is causing the problem is that the State of Israel is refusing self determination to Palestine, is an illegal occupying force and is killing far too many innocent people in it's effort to wipe out Hamas.
Why are Western leaders telling them to back off Rafah if this holy war of wars is going on, and we are at war with an entire religion?
Why are we buying Subs to counter the Chinese if it's Islam we are at war with?
Israel's neighbors would tolerate them, the 'wars' would probably stop altogether if Israel would just abide by International Law and UN Resolutions and let Palestinians have self determination and statehood, like the West itself, the US, the UK and the rest have been telling them to do for decades.
So is the West at war with itself too?
There are plenty of Muslims in the West, should we be wiping them out now? You know, like Indo says, "nipping them in the bud" now?
I did think you were a bit smarter than @Indo Roady, which wouldn't be hard, but I'm even doubting that now with broad generalised paranoid delusionary comments like that.
And the Muslim world picked a pretty shit little army in Hamas to go waging war with the West, they've got much better equipped armies than that to go waging war with.
Now accuse me of not really understanding the insight you have on these things, please, or of supporting our "real enemies" again, I like a good laugh and you have been a bit droll and not funny enough of late. @Indo's KFC analogy got a bit of a chuckle but I want a real laugh out loud lot of bullshit to start off my night.
So please, fire up cnt, Tell me all about the "larger game", maybe get gsco and the commies involved, not just the Muslims.
“ The problem with you two is that you are both incapable of objective thought and analysis, incapable of anything but hate for those you see as the "enemy". Incapable of learning anything that doesn't align with your little twisted world view”
only your way, hey NoideaGuy. You are the only one here that knows.
Knows some Jews so isn’t antisemitic….lol.
Epic painting @G.S.
So good.
And having spent many months in Lorne in the dead of winter, i can say, this is how it feels cruising along the G.O road on those freezing cold wet, dark winter mornings. Many shades of grey.
Beautiful.
indo-dreaming wrote:GuySmiley wrote:AlfredWallace wrote:GuySmiley wrote:Gday @info
Below is my artists’ tonal scale I created as part of my oil painting tuition. Note that there are nine grades in the scale from pure white to pure black. Please take this image as a pictorial illustration of what you miss out on in any and all debates in your nuance free only black and white world. It’s my pleasure
GuySmiley. Nice mate, like it. Who needs colour in this world with a palette like that.
I was hoping for 50 more shades of grey, if ya know my drift. AW
G’day AW, are you being naughty? Hahaha
The tonal scale was created as a first step to painting this …..
Honestly this is your best post in forever, you are generally so cagey, but it's great to see the artistic side of yourself, i know there is talent and good in everyone.
very evocative @Guy, love it! Is that an in-the-room shadow cast over the right side of the paining?
How was Dinosaur Jr @indo? (Interesting they did 2 sold-out shows at Northcote Theater, rather than 1 at the Forum. Gives them 1000 more ticket sales, but 2x getting on stage, and costs. Good space to see them?)
Thanks guys; not sure what is base6, if you zoom in it’s a deliberate part of the sky, that shadow could have been a result of taking a screenshot :()
You have a talent Guy. I like the tone and the depth. I like those kind of paintings you step into and out of.
Cheers zen
Roadkill wrote:“ The problem with you two is that you are both incapable of objective thought and analysis, incapable of anything but hate for those you see as the "enemy". Incapable of learning anything that doesn't align with your little twisted world view”
only your way, hey NoideaGuy. You are the only one here that knows.
Knows some Jews so isn’t antisemitic….lol.
Oh Roady, jeez, no no no. Fuck you can be disappointing.
Is that it?
Really?
Do you want me to write some material for you?
Something with a bit of zing.
Oh well, back to watching Jason Bourne again on TV.
Really disappointed in you, again.
And by the way, I'm not antisemitic because I'm not antisemitic. My friends' religion doesn't really matter to me, I like to just take people as they are, their religion is really a matter for them. As long as they don't try converting me, I'm fine, believe in what you want.
But keep on with the 'antisemitic' go to catch all, it's working wonders for you and the dribbler from P.I.
Which one of you is Uncle Leo?
@Guy, pretty impressive work there, didn't recognise it straight away but think I know where you sat to do that.
Got any more?
adam12 wrote:What is "happening" over there that is causing the problem is that the State of Israel is refusing self determination to Palestine, is an illegal occupying force
No shades of grey there
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