Australian Atheists Forum

pipbarber wrote: ↑Tue Oct 10, 2023 5:58 pmTrump's nescient stupidity on foreign affairs, i might hesitantly suggest, is a magnified reflection of the last 75 years of US foreign policy. Trump is US foreign policy brought home, and by that reckoning, the orange fool is the president America deserves. Unfortunately, as is the case in Israel and Palestine, he's not the leader the people deserve.

Never thought I'd see the day I regard Reagan's presidency as just a practice run in that regard.

It's weird and horrible to contemplate, but Guy Debord's Society of Spectacle appears to be intensifying. A few troll factories can achieve a bigger victory for Putin than all his nukes: he gets Trump into power and Fox news saying what a great anti-woke Christian nation he leads just by flooding the zone with shit. It's easy and cheap. A parallel symptom of our sickly global society is that terrorism is not as effective as it used to be, because the market for outrage is much more crowded. So instead of a single Israeli soldier taken hostage, or a few rockets landing in border villages, Hamas needs a bigger show to get the same attention it used to.

Not sure if that theory holds water, it was just my train of thought when contemplating the way the global context for middle east conflict has changed

Al Jazeera reports 140 Palestinian children killed in the bombardment so far. That does not deny how horrible it is for Israeli civilians to be murdered as hundreds of Israeli citizens and others were, but the same applies for Palestinian children and civilians too.

The shrill statements scream about the about the attack on the Jewish state, that is to say, racial state. Frankly having a racially defined state is the cause of the situation of blockade which made the attack all but inevitable.

The question will come more and more not only for Israel but for the entire west and indeed industrialised behemoths, how much are they prepared to slaughter in the name of progress.

I left making a comment for a few days perhaps shamefully, so that when I spoke there was also a both sideism element.

One cannot but think it was inevitable for a country that elected Ariel Sharon to Prime Minister again and again on the basis not only that he was the master of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, which far exceeded in scale the massacres inflicted by Hamas on Saturday, but he was also prepared to dance on the grave of children when he bombed whole extended families in order to effect assassinations.

It is not out of character for the international community that there was no call for vengeance from the international community for the Sabra and Shatilla massacres. Not even for justice. Not even for memory, not even for shame. That of course does not justify murder of civilians and the people of Gaza will now pay a terrible price also, with much greater tolls of murder by Israel.

Havibg said that the difference between Australia and Israel was that Australia conducted so effective a genocide that when it deemed to onclude indigenous not as first nations but as Australians in a one state solution, we patted ourselves on the back for it.

Being in Gaza right now...very very bad place to be.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... -and-homes

“This time it really is a catastrophe for the entire Gaza population – more than 2 million people are under fire and affected by this war and the escalation because of a full siege,” said Hamdouna, predicting a sharp rise in the number of internally displaced people, despite a lack of shelter.

Israel is saying they will enforce a total siege, but what does that mean? No water or food getting in? There won't be any electricity by tomorrow, according to the above report.

The western powers have clearly given Israel the green light to react how they see fit, but surely someone in the room has mentioned limitations. As in, no you can't wipe out 2 million people?

Eloquently Poped.

I feel for the poor buggers caught in the spokes.

I mentioned yesterday that Hezbollah had joined in, well that has continued and Syria have now been firing morters too, and Israel is returning fire into both Syria and Lebanon.

Everyone needs to calm the fuck down.. But that won't happen any time soon..

Strangely enough for me when these tragedies started to unfold I started to turn to RT.com to get some other perspective. Also Ukrinform has some useful distinguishing information.
When the numbers of Palestinians killed are reported by the health ministry many including me were confused as to whether armed combatants would have been included in those figures.
Well it turns out that Israeli defence force claims to have killed 1500 militants inside Israel so that can't be included in the 950 reported from Gaza itself.
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/37 ... o-950.html
That means the civilian deaths within Gaza from this war alone are now comparable to those of Israel.

wadaye wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 8:49 pmWell it turns out that Israeli defence force claims to have killed 1500 militants inside Israel so that can't be included in the 950 reported from Gaza itself.

wadaye wrote: ↑Wed Oct 11, 2023 8:49 pmThat means the civilian deaths within Gaza from this war alone are now comparable to those of Israel.

Whilst I have no doubt that will probably be the result, or worse, just because the 1500 militants who were killed in israel are not included in the deaths in gaza number, that does not mean the deaths in Gaza are 100% civilian..

Not arguing that the tragedy you are assuming will not occur, but that just doesn't logically track.

Lots of people are getting killed. Most of them are not combatants, and the supposed rules of combat aren't getting a look in here.

And while I'm ranting, fuck those christians who are gleefully rubbing their hands and just thinking of the day their white Jeebus takes them to heaven after all this armageddon shit.