So you’re protesting actions Sen. Murray has already taken, which cannot be ‘undone.’

silly Children!
don't they even
Know it CANNOT
be "genocide" unless

EVERYONE AGREES On The TERM?

only Then
can we Attempt
to put a STOP to This
Mass Murdering Genocidal Mania.

but, Seriously?
Well Done! it's
like a Breaking
Wave over USA

better Late
than Never.

Two things get you the title of President Pro Tempore: being in office a long time and doing what The Party tells you to do.
What makes you think she’d listen to you?

"On Tuesday, over two hundred of Senator Murray’s Jewish constituents and other people of conscience held a Passover seder in the streets in front of the Federal Building where Senator Patty Murray has offices."

So, the same little group of persons continues to say the same things. Senator Murray continues to ignore them. This is news because ... ?

Also, when referring to military aid to Israel, you might want to mention the recent Iranian missile attack upon Israel, which a coalition of American, British, French, and Israeli units defeated. (Unless you've decided to shove all such inconvenient facts down the Memory Hole...)

@2: Did Hamas commit "genocide" in Israel on 10/7?

Or, before you can try to answer, must you first receive unanimous assent from the relevant Board of Dictionarians?

@3

ever since
'Citizens United'
Billionaires've Written
the Script. What make you
think centrists Dems are any different?

Can't wait to see how these particular protestors are discredited as antisemitic. It's a real challenge when the protestors themselves are Jewish but the MIC and American global hegemony depend on it so I'm sure someone will find a way

@3

ever since
'Citizens United'
Billionaires've Written
the Script. What make you
think centrists Dems are any different?

@7
wtf?
apologies

you know what works? screaming "Zionist Warmonger" at American politicians. An Irish gal did that to Pelosi yesterday in Dublin and today she said Netanyahu should resign.

He hasn't, and it didn't stop the arms package, but it's a start.

@7
I don’t think they’re different.
My question though is why would the writers of this rant expect the senator, or anyone else, to be swayed by their little protests?
@9
It’s funny how folks are so hot on getting Netanyahu out of office, but have nothing to say about removing Hamas from power.

Tiffany Smiley would have handled this so much better.

@11 exactly what I was thinking. I wonder if they are out in the street holding their breath and stomping their feet as well.

@6 Are African Americans who vote for Trump supporting white supremacy?

nyt:
‘A Good Day
for World Peace’:
Biden Signs Aid Bill
for Ukraine and Israel

oops.
there goes
another 500
student Walkabouts.
This Thing is WAY BIGGER
than they ever couldda Imagined.

Sayonara,
Smokin’
Joe

Welcome
To the 1,000
Year trumpfy
Dynasty putting
The Nasty back where
it Belongs: in the Whitehouse

looks like
booboo’s gon-
na Hafta Go, too.

EXELLENTO

@10
HAMAS oughtta
be Gone -- & wouldn't
BE There were it not for BooBoo's
coddling of HAMAS; & then IGNORING
REPEATED WARNINGS of Terrorist 'activity'
and didn't even Up the border guards. where're
the Demands for bibi to Vacate the fucking Premises?

HAMAS IS a Terroris Organinzation
slightly maybe more concerned
with the Plight of Palestinians
than with Israelis but Damn
little daylight between
the two. they're FAR
from Helping the
now-Refugees
whose Homes
bibi's destroyed

their Rain of Terror has abated

Israel's
CONTINUES.

@13: “there goes
another 500
student Walkabouts.”

You’re aware that most high school students can’t vote, right?

11: Catalina, as usual, wins the thread. I really hope progressives watched and learned from last weekend’s state Republican convention on what happens when you put “purity” above all.

@15: there was a state republican convention last weekend?

speaking of
clueless authoritarian
Reactionaries - but I repeat myself

nyt:
‘Go Back to Class!’
[fascist] House Speaker (R)
Tells Columbia Students as Unrest Spreads

Speaker Mike Johnson invoked the possibility of bringing in the National Guard. The police arrested protesters at the University of Texas at Austin.

Police officers and university administrators continued to clash with pro-Palestinian protesters on Wednesday, arresting students, removing encampments and threatening academic consequences at a growing number of campuses from coast to coast.

Tense scenes continued to spread at American universities as House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared at Columbia,

Speaking for the first time about the protests at American universities, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday characterized them in a statement as “horrific” and reminiscent of events at German universities in the years before the Holocaust.

Mr. Johnson [speaker of the House] (R) said Jewish students at Columbia had told him of “heinous acts of bigotry,” and he called for Dr. Shafik to resign “if she cannot immediately bring order to the chaos.”

[who’s a widdle
Fascist?]

The speaker said there could be an appropriate time for the National Guard to be called in, and that Congress should consider revoke federal funding if universities can’t keep the protests under control.

--by Annie Karni, Jonathan Wolfe, David Goodman and Lola Fadulu

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/04/24/us/columbia-protests-mike-johnson

Reactionaries
will NOT Tolerate
‘spoilt children!’ Demanding
Accountability / Humanity from Lawmakers

powder keg
meet your
Maker

Jewish solidarity for Palestinian Liberation is a beautiful thing.

I don't disagree, xina dear.

But wouldn't it be great if we were free of all the nonsense that is the Abrahamic religions?

@19: Yeah, all two hundred of them. The same two hundred persons mentioned every other time the Stranger has given free ad space to this meaningless little group.

That’s a tiny number when compared to the Seattle area’s Jewish population. Compared to the state, it’s nothing, which is why Senator Murray continues to ignore them. As she has every other time the Stranger has given free ad space to this meaningless little group.

@20 indeed. A world with no religion would be the best world.

@21 There are 10 MILLION Christian Zionists in the United States. That is the more than the entire number of Jews in this country. Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. Zionism is just another apartheid, colonial, white supremacist, hate based, fantasy laden system of oppression and dehumanization.

@22: "There are 10 MILLION Christian Zionists in the United States."

So, your point is this little group, for whom the Stranger routinely provides free advertising space, is far less relevant than even their tiny numbers suggest?

"...apartheid, colonial, white supremacist, hate based, fantasy laden system of oppression and dehumanization."

(International Hard-Left Buzzword) Bingo!

Now, for the bonus round, please remember to include "imperialist," "undemocratic," and (for the double bonus), "revanchist."

“It makes no difference whatever whether they laugh at us or revile us … whether they represent us as clowns or criminals; the main thing is that they mention us, that they concern themselves with us again and again …”

When you go full Weimar, it matters not what the agenda is - you're still Weimar.

@24. You, like most of the other far right Republicans who are all falling in line with this purely ceremonial posturing towards Israel, are all merely projecting the public antisemitism they have espoused for years on the "Progressive" left, students and people of character who are exercising their fundamental rights as American to free speech, expression, and petition of their government. You cannot and will not wipe the slate by projecting on to the opposition your greatest sins.

The fact that you make such an awkward and tasteless display while using terms like House Jew makes it clear that you don't have anyone's interest in mind but those who are paying you to parrot the nonsense that the current Israeli administration in alliance with the global far right movement enhanced by the propaganda of Russia and those in league with Bannon and Roger Stone, is so blatantly transparent and disgusting to see. But I should expect no less from a weak minded coward with the character of a flea as yourself and the ilk that post here ad nauseum regularly to try to obfuscate their own hideous prejudice and likely the sins your very recent ancestors committed against the Jews, as did all Europeans, and the great stain of shame that you cannot escape from that legacy.

You fools are all trying to discredit these well meaning and inexorably Jewish protestors as all antisemitic and in league with Hamas, using the same exact playbook as the far right propagandist took against the well-meaning BLM movement which started with a very simple premise, to stop police brutality against black folks and minorities. To value all life at the same level. To treat people as you would be treated. Equal justice under the law. As Passover reminds us and are written in the halls of the Jefferson Memorial, commerce between master and slave is despotism in any form, and nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate that these people are to be free.

The claim is that protestors need to be jailed and are fascists, and for what? Surely there are extremists in league with the protestors who hate Jews and who have very well made university campuses unsafe for them, but these are not those folks. And by lobbing them all into the same group, by refusing to use your brain to think critically, you show yourself to fold in the slightest breeze to the fascist boots on your chest and to stomp on others who above all in good faith simply wish to stop permitting the most heinous abuses and travesties of human rights against any people, anywhere, 10/7 with the rape and murder of women and children, and beyond which continues today.

There is no victimization or singled out people who are given moral license to continually commit these errors and sins in our name, in their name, or to appropriate the great legacy of the Abrahamic religions throughout time by obscuring their fundamental truths. You cannot be a Christian by simply wearing it as a badge. Christ spoke against the authorities and had nowhere to lay his head, and his followers had to count the cost of such service by being prepared to do the same. And the current administration in Israel has used Hamas as a foil to divide and conquer the Palestinian opposition, and are guilty of cultivating this situation as much as any other actor. And all actors continue to beat the war drums and drop bombs and missiles and provoke a greater conflict that will leave no one of any race or religion unscarred from the aftereffects.

I commend my fellow Texans (TEXAS FIGHT!) whose eyes are all upon you. You hypocrites and weak minded cowards who stomp out free speech and liberty by castigating all as the bad apples. You cannot see the forest for the trees. Or you will not. But the mighty in spirit shall prevail and will remain unintimidated. It is the fear of losing power funded by billionaires to keep the trillions in arms flowing that will heat our planet for every salvo dropped and destroy our collective brethren, the foxes in their dens, and the albatrosses around our necks, as we ever more devalue life and invite our mutual destruction in the name of false righteousness. And the great flood will come and sweep away your ivory towers on your shores and bring you to your knees to beg for mercy when the great might of creation holds you accountable for your sins in this life and the next.

May God have mercy on you all. You know not what you do. But I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever. And for all those who cry out in fear in the night, who cannot find solace or comfort, whose trauma will bleed for generations, my heart breaks for you and I pray for us all to find wisdom and humanity in the days and months and years to come. We must be better than this, for we have all of history to see the consequences of repeating the same mistakes of the past and refusing to learn from them.

He who prayeth best, loveth best
All things both great and small
For the dear God who loveth us
He made loveth all

@VanGoethe I continue to be amazed at how people look at the protests and view them as fires to be extinguished rather than a sign of the problems with our foreign policy.

It has always been young people who have been the driving force for change against morally unjust policies.

From protests against Vietnam to South African Apartheid to gun violence, they have made their voices known and the world is better for it.

This generation is no different, and I respect them for it.
--Raj; Houston
April 24

more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/opinion/chicago-dnc-antiwar-protests.html#commentsContainer

@27
welcome back

speaking of
albatrosses

oh
and
Watchout
for wormmy
who'll baitchya
& baitchya & baitchya
till them Longhorns comealong Home

and then be baffled
(and Overjoyed)
when your
Wrath is
Finally
up.

@28: “It has always been young people who have been the driving force for change against morally unjust policies.”

Just ask “Mother” Jones!

@29: Thanks for the compliment! Yes, indeed you have failed miserably to answer my simple and obvious questions, e.g.:

Did Hamas commit “genocide” (by your definition, whatever it is) in Israel on 10/7? Yes or no?

If you cannot give a simple yes or no answer, why should we care what you say about genocide?

and
right
on Cue
the master
baiter returns

fuck off
tentsores
back to your
genocidal glee
for the Death of Palestine

[did I not use
the Term
well?]

@18 there it is! Saw you coming all the way back at #6. "House Jews" though, wow, that exceeded even my expectations.

@31: Aw, did your ‘clever’ attempt to inoculate yourself from well-earned criticism just suffer the exact same immediate fate as every other attempt you’ve ever made at being clever?

Why does this keep happening?

You just don’t understand.

“did I not use
the Term
well?”

No one can have any idea. You neither provide your definition, nor do you use it to answer simple and obvious questions, so it’s impossible for anyone to say.

Thanks for my (gleeful) laughs.

speaking of
your Gleefulness
during a Genocide:

“KILL ALL ARABS”:
THE FEDS ARE INVESTIGATING
UMASS AMHERST FOR ANTI-PALESTINIAN BIAS

The Department of Education is probing claims that the school discriminated against Palestinian and Arab students amid Israel’s war on Gaza.

THE DEPARTMENT OF Education’s Office for Civil Rights has opened an investigation into the University of Massachusetts Amherst in response to a complaint that alleges that the school took months to address the harassment of Palestinian and Arab students.

In the previously unreported civil rights complaint, 18 students said that they have “been the target of extreme anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab harassment and discrimination by fellow UMass students, including receiving racial slurs, death threats and in one instance, actually being assaulted.”

The result, the students said, was a hostile environment for all Arab and Palestinian students, those perceived to be Palestinian, and their allies on campus.

Among the most chilling allegations involves a student yelling “kill all Arabs” at fellow students protesting Israel’s war on Gaza.

more disturbingly
https://theintercept.com/2024/04/24/umass-amherst-palestine-protests-harassment/

gosh
are there
any tS readers
in proximity whom
might shout such horrific chants?

and speaking to
your continued Dedication
& Support for nutnyahoo's little War
on an Imprisoned, Starving, & Massacred populace

BIDEN’S
INDIFFERENCE
TO PALESTINIAN LIVES IS
SENDING THE MIDDLE EAST INTO THE ABYSS

The U.S.
dedication to
Israel’s war of annihilation has
created a tornado of instability and danger.

https://theintercept.com/2024/04/24/intercepted-biden-israel-middle-east-war/

WWIII's
right around
the Corner & its
Cheerleaders could
not BE any more Gleeful

and speaking to
your continued Dedication
& Support for nutnyahoo's little War
on an Imprisoned, Starving, & Massacred populace

BIDEN’S
INDIFFERENCE
TO PALESTINIAN LIVES IS
SENDING THE MIDDLE EAST INTO THE ABYSS

The U.S.
dedication to
Israel’s war of annihilation has
created a tornado of instability and danger.

https://theintercept.com/2024/04/24/intercepted-biden-israel-middle-east-war/

WWIII's
right around
the Corner & its
Cheerleaders could
not BE any more Gleeful

but
I repeat
myself. again.
apologies. again.

Um, misguided Jewish people can support antisemitic groups and policies just as easily as misguided Black people like Sen. Tim Scott can support racist groups and policies.

During the Passover seder, Jews express the yearning to return to Jerusalem. They have been doing this EVERY SINGLE YEAR since before Roman times. Celebrating Passover and believing that Israel is a "settler colonial project" are not compatible ideas. Believing that one can be "anti-Zionist" without being antisemitic also doesn't make any sense. And, finally, it includes acknowledging the death of tens of thousands of Egyptians in order to achieve liberation from slavery and oppression. So an understanding of Pesach means understanding and accepting—though certainly not liking or celebrating, which is clearly stated during the seder—death and loss that comes from war and liberation. Where exactly is the understanding of these things in the protests currently happening?

@34, etc.: The very personal, often combative nature of the pro-Palestinian protesters, especially in traditional Jewish places like New York City, has added another wrinkle to the right of dissent.

Abusing the word “genocide” adds heat but no light to this situation, which is just one of the reasons I’ve opposed abuse of that word. You’ve done everything you can here to abuse that word, to claim that anyone who disagrees with you supports genocide, massacre, etc. It’s behavior like yours which creates the very environment you’re now decrying.

(Do you think no one notices when you constantly throw your term “genocide” at Israel, whilst sneering at the actual, recognized definition — but then you can’t ever say whether Hamas committed genocide in Israel? Do that enough times, and you give credence to those who would dismiss you as an anti-Semite.)

I'd bet $100 that you didn't end your Seder by saying "Next year in Jerusalem".

(At the conclusion of every actual Seder are the words “Next year in Jerusalem").

@38 tensorna, if everyone would just ignore kristofarian's practically unreadable doggerel, it would finally go away. As soon as I see the looney toons line spacing and random capitalization that epitomizes one of its posts, I scroll by as fast as I can.

@40: I’m merely using kristo’ to exemplify the Stranger’s irresponsible abuses of the word “genocide,” the Stranger’s obsessive focus on certain events faraway from Seattle, and the Stranger’s refusal to admit these current events have a very long and complex history. He’s proven very useful to me in those ways.

and Jews can
and Do support
Genocide even if
it takes a Court 1/2
a War to Recognize

bibi's Gambit to keep
Outta Jail's been hard
on Jews everywhere &
the Protests'll only Grow
in Volume and miguided
attempts to quell what bibi

calls 'Horrific'
[my irony meter
just busted LOL]

and pointing
at ALL protests
as Anti-Israel when
in Fact they're Anti-Genocide

will only Serve
to Inflame the
conflagration

meanwhile bibi shields
himself Behind
Hamas*

*When Israel is saying, “International law does not apply to us because we have a well-founded military objective and military necessity,” they are pretending that this military necessity takes precedence over everything.

That is not the case.
That is not the case.

--Agnès Callamard, Amnesty
International’s secretary general

oodles More:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/4/25/agnes_callamard_gaza_war_israel_palestine

“and Jews can
and Do support
Genocide even if
it takes a Court 1/2
a War to Recognize”

What court has recognized this? (Amnesty International is not a court of law.)

Did Hamas commit genocide in Israel on 10/7? Yes or no? If you can’t be bothered to answer that question, why should anyone believe you care about genocide?

@43. Hamas obviously committed genocide on 10/7 in what they believed and justified as a military guerilla campaign because reasons. They were targeting Jews. Meanwhile, the IDF and Israeli response, mass graves and starving children and unchecked settler violence and land theft, had also been a continuous genocide, unquestionably, no matter how much you need to placate your cognitive dissonance with just war reasons. Why can't you admit that? It is the height of groupthink to hold the opposition to the highest standards of scrutiny and pedantry for the permissive acts of the ingroup. That's the point. And these are not the acts of a collective worldwide ethnic group, but an extremist element that has taken power unjustly, enabled the perpetrators to commit 10/7, and obfuscated their crimes with this copout of weaponized antisemitism. Their actions speak for themselves, no matter how picture perfect your apologism for fitting the square peg of their actions into the round hole of anything but genocide. The IDF is targeting innocent Gazans indiscriminately and because they feel moral license to do so. Aid convoys, anyone who moves, even aid drops are deadly. You have too much pride invested in this petty competition of right and wrong to see how transparent your double standard is and how quickly you flip the switch to sociopath when shown blatant evidence that challenges your dehumanizing lack of empathy. As if your pitifully sad tent comment didn't reveal your true character.

I used to get pissed at your comments tensor, but now I find you a pitiable person lost in your own shame. Hopefully you can give your kids the attention you clearly lacked from whoever raised you to seek out this perpetual spinning of your wheels in the mud of your own brain droppings. Peace out.

https://youtu.be/UZ3EDTYZTOU?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/2X-2d4COiKs?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/wjKQQpPVifY?feature=shared

There are four lights

https://youtu.be/rVHR0UPHERQ?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/7y2dBhj8sOM?feature=shared

https://youtu.be/77IT3owbpIA?feature=shared

And these are not the acts of a collective worldwide ethnic group, but an extremist element that has taken power unjustly

@37 "Believing that one can be "anti-Zionist" without being antisemitic also doesn't make any sense."

If, as you claim, perpetual occupation of the Holy Land, regardless of how this is accomplished or who is hurt in the process, is an indispensable core tenet of Judaism then everyone should be antisemitic. I don't believe that to be the case, however, much like I don't believe that conversion or death to infidels is an indispensable core tenet of Islam. Zealots within each religion give their fellow believers a bad name.

@27, @44, etc.: Well, Garb, so you have created another account. Given you were bounced from here after some exceptionally bitter personal attacks and taunting against your fellow commenters, you really shouldn’t start your return by lecturing others here on how to behave. Indeed, you probably shouldn’t have created a new account as quickly as you did; I really believe you need more time off from here. At least you’ve admitted Hamas’ actions in Israel met all the requirements for genocide given in the Genocide Convention, even though you balked at admitting why they did it, and refused to consider the implications thereof.

The protesters are actively making matters worse, by recklessly throwing the word “genocide” at Israel, by carefully refusing even to consider if Hamas committed genocide in Israel on 10/7, and by carefully refusing to consider what the long-term implications might be if Hamas did so. Their call for ceasefire is really just a demand for the non-solution of a return to status quo ante bellum, a state which, Hamas has assured everyone, will lead to another 10/7. Anyone who leads Israel’s government will reject this as unacceptable, and so the protesters have locked themselves into a dead-end position. I doubt they will experience anything they’ll enjoy.

Again, I strongly advocate you take a lot more time off from here, worry not about anyone else’s behavior here, but rather to consider your own past behavior here, and why it got you banned from here.

https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/100000009393031/aid-groups-gaza-israel.html?smid=url-share

@50. Take your own advice. You will never silence me.

Tensor, you don't care about my well being. You are a coward whose response to being challenged is to self victimize and censor words and truths and righteous anger that stems from injustice that you can't handle.

You think banning my account and censoring my free speech and silencing my artistic expression and all the thousands of posts and videos and songs and parts of myself I have shared with this community in good times and bad times will protect you from the truth? You think you actually care about me or anyone who is suffering by your feckless attempts to snuff out what you can't handle? Go ahead. You can't conquer my spirit or take away everything I have said and done. Your cowardice proves you have no place here other than to serve as a talking points android parroting propaganda and never challenging yourself to see beyond your own myopia.

I have never hidden who I am or what I stand for. And you will succeed it removing me from my community where I have established myself, warts and all. But I will be better. Still I rise.

https://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com/2024/04/25/laws-of-history/

Here's another from my favorite professor who I took classes from right there in Parlin where I saw kids get assaulted by police for exercising their constitutional rights to petition, assembly, and free speech in a peaceful protest.

@51: “Take your own advice.”

I haven’t ever been banned from here. (If ever I am, I won’t create another account.)

“You will never silence me.”

I had no part in getting you banned. I merely asked you to consider the implications of why you were banned.

@52: “I have never hidden who I am or what I stand for.”

You didn’t admit you’d created a new account here until after I’d called you on it.

@CD

I/we
Welcome
you back! whilst
wormmy's Anguish
at seeing you here is
Understandable, thanks to
your spot-On enlightenments

of his Condition.
thank you!

@54. What was there to admit? Lol, hey guys, it's Garb? If you could tell who I am by how I write, how was that hiding anything? Besides, my first account got banned here because I posted an essay by Ursula K. Le Guin in its entirety which I typed up, not claiming it as my own work, and that got my account banned for spamming.

Garb got banned because I admittedly was hurling verbal abuse at clouds while going through a hellride, but nothing that I haven't said before in even more vulgar or humerous tones. Whether that was some power play by God Emperor Rich Smith or whoever for irreverently calling Comitatus a sniveling little bitch or posting eat shit and die for like the 5th time over the years (not literally) and someone found that a clear and present danger...OH MY GOD! We're having a FIRE...sale, and decided to report me because sticks and stones, it is what it is.

Maybe you should watch my links. It might give you something to think about.

That's a negative, ghostwriter.

@55: So, do you agree with Garb @44?

“Hamas obviously committed genocide on 10/7 in what they believed and justified as a military guerilla campaign because reasons. They were targeting Jews.”

While it’s great that somebody here can actually decide in more than one case whether it’s genocide or not, my real concern is whether Garb’s commenting here does him more harm than good. Nothing he’s written since his return sounds very reassuring on that point.

But yes, I agree it’s good to have his take on whether or not “genocide” applies to Hamas’ actions in Israel on 10/7. Perhaps someday Slog can aspire to a world where every commenter here can answer that question.

Tensor, I am holding them both to the same standards of genocide. You are not. They are two sides of the same coin.

https://www.patriciarobertsmiller.com/characteristics-of-demagoguery/

@60: “I am holding them both to the same standards of genocide.”

Which standard? I use the definition in the Genocide Convention: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.1_Convention%20on%20the%20Prevention%20and%20Punishment%20of%20the%20Crime%20of%20Genocide.pdf

I know it when I see it.

In this case, the spirit of the law takes precedence over statute. But whenever the innocents of any ethnic group are collectively punished, slaughtered, and their human rights annihilated, that is genocide. As you said, a single act can be genocide. But an ongoing and unjust war that de facto slaughters one ethnic group, Palestinian Arabs of Gazan nationality, over six months with aid convoys from international organizations assured of their safety and then intentionally targeted to perpetuate famine, qualifies as genocide from anyone with a conscience. Perhaps you can pull the wool over your eyes with this Schroedinger's human shield and pretend that every innocent civilian and child is killed with kindness, but that doesn't take agency from those that pull the trigger. The de facto situation on the ground is a genocide that is wiping out an imprisoned populace because of who they are.

Just as everyone is lobbing in protestors together to justify their revocation of civil rights in the name of protecting Jewish students, they are doing the same with how they view their targets and justifying it after the fact with demagoguery and threats against the press and all our liberties, which make no one, Israeli, Palestinian, or American any safer.

As Maritza as Gul Darheel says, "What you call genocide, I call a day's work."

"As you said,
a single act can
be genocide. But
an ongoing and un-
just war that de facto
slaughters one ethnic
group, Palestinian Arabs
of Gazan nationality, over
six months with aid convoys
from international organizations
assured of their safety and then in-
tentionally targeted to perpetuate famine,
qualifies as genocide from anyone with a conscience."

so it'd
Seem.

well put.

@63: “I know it when I see it.”

Ah, so THAT’s the standard you accused me of applying inconsistently @60. Of course!

And, just in case anybody gets any ideas about, you know, maybe we should have courts and judges apply laws against crimes, you made it clear you were giving yourself license to ignore all of that, too: “In this case, the spirit of the law takes precedence over statute.”

Finally, as you’ve now utterly failed to understand through at least two accounts here, I didn’t cite Hamas’ well-documented use of civilians in Gaza for human shields to “pretend that every innocent civilian and child is killed with kindness,” but rather to show that Hamas bears some responsibility for their deaths as well. So if the IDF does indeed now commit genocide in Gaza, Hamas is (at the very least) complicit in it.

'So
if the IDF
does indeed now
commit genocide in Gaza'

oh my
lookit You
wormmy almost
catching up with the 98%.

a Big day
for you!

@66: Oh look, you almost quoted someone correctly! Here's the part from after your attention span failed:

"Hamas is (at the very least) complicit in it."

@67:

oh.

Tensor, laws as written - words - cannot fully encompass the essence of justice and are not monolithic in themselves. Every year we amend our laws and throw out bills ad infinitum. All in the pursuit of justice. The Holocaust, slavery, and Jim Crow were all codified in the high courts and tomes. But none can truly serve the cause of justice without constant revision and reinterpretation to best approximate all truths. If the official - letter of the law - definition of genocide does fully apply in this instance, it is because it is incomplete. And the spirit of our laws makes clear from what we see that it needs further revision to protect those being slaughtered en masse, 100,000 casualties, mostly women and children. There are not enough Hamas fighters to hide out in every home made foxhole that is blown to smithereens with a 1,000 lb. 2 mile kill zone radius bomb dropped in the one of the most densely populated places on earth.

Genocide is as genocide does.

Of course Hamas is willing to martyr their own people and has a long track record of doing do, I believe pioneering the suicide bombing terrorist strike. That is largely due to weaponized Islam and the false empowerment of arming desperate young men who are unable to compete economically and live thier whole lives in a cage of injustice and oppression from within and without, as well as the generational trauma and hate that few human beings born in such an environment could ever overcome without years of peace, security, and freedom. Like a caged and abused dog who is rescued and lashes out at those who mean to help them, having never known a better life, and trusting no one to protect them.

To defeat Hamas, innocent civilians must not be slain en masse. You can imagine the heartbreak, powerlessness, and indescribable rage and trauma and resentment that losing family in such a way has on other people because they are human beings who share in our physiology and emotions and need for love and all of Maslow's needs. Peaceful and kind people who are subject to this violence and survive will have nothing to lose and will be more easily seduced and manipulated by vengeance and rage to take up arms and punish those who hurt them. This is human nature and neither Gazans or Palestinians nor anyone is different. They will join the "reisistance" which is Hamas and will be manipulated into committing atrocities in kind. And every murder committed by any of them, every life taken by the IDF or Hamas, will haunt those that take them. Perhaps not now, but if they survive, in the horrors of their dreams and the violence they pass down through their scarred DNA and abuse of themselves and their families to silence horrors that will never be quieted.

It must end here. There are better ways.

Garb@27: “ Surely there are extremists in league with the protestors who hate Jews and who have very well made university campuses unsafe for them, but these are not those folks.”

As we discussed in the Slog AM thread, one of the student leaders of the pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University was banned from that campus, for repeatedly making statements about how he wanted to kill anyone who disagreed with him, specifically “Zionists.” So it appears your sweeping generalization has immediately failed, at the very campus where the current round of protests erupted.

Garb@63: “I know it when I see it.”

That’s nice. No one else is required to agree with your definition, let alone argue on the basis it is valid.

Garb@69: If you do not agree with the definition of “genocide” given in the United Nations’ Genocide Convention, then you are well within your rights, as a citizen of a member state, to appeal to the United Nations to update the definition. (Somehow, I doubt, “Garb knows it when he sees it,” will win approval as a replacement.)

Garb@70: Hamas exists because Qatar and Iran have lavishly funded it for decades. There’s been no evidence presented to show the majority of Hamas’ members were born in Gaza. So your claim Gaza has been a breeding-ground for terrorists remains unfounded.

Any time you want to have a reality-based dialog, please let me know. Until then, I leave you and kristo’ to agree with each other about the “truth” of the fictional / unsupported points you have made here.

My dude, you never digest the full premise, but respond to singled out quotes that miss the point while ignoring everything else in context.

And as is clear by the context of this post, "these folks" are the Jewish Voice for Peace that made the post. I guess your claim is that they have internalized antisemitism or something? That crazy "student leader" who wants to kill all Jews and Zionists is a bad apple, not the whole bunch! You are the one making a sweeping generalization because you found an outlier far removed from the bell curve of the millions of other folks standing up for human rights and against what they perceive as genocide. You don't have to agree with that, but you are projecting what you are doing in every instance of debate.

Then you merely restate your premises with circular reasoning without ever giving weight to other variables other than the ones you repeat again and again and again like a broken record. You are unable to perspective shift or entertain other perspectives in good faith.

You can't learn anything if you already know everything!

@72: 'And as is clear by the context of this post, "these folks" are the Jewish Voice for Peace that made the post.'

Your long and rambling comment @27 does not actually make that clear, but rather the reverse. I agree this insignificant little group probably does not have "internalized antisemitism." (Then again, had it not both "Jewish" in the title and support of the Stranger's position on Gaza, I doubt anyone here would ever have heard of them at all.)

'That crazy "student leader" who wants to kill all Jews and Zionists is a bad apple, not the whole bunch!'

Ah yes, the "bad apple" argument. As if criticism of Israel doesn't always immediately attract the very worst elements in our society. That does not mean the particular criticism in question isn't valid, but (as xina apparently exists here to prove) eventually you find Israel's right to exist implicitly questioned -- or even outright denied -- by those folks. It's an inherent hazard, which protesters against Israel never seem to take into account. (As I also called out in the Slog AM thread, the other student leaders of the protests at Columbia University maintained a very careful silence about their banned fellow. That's not a very good way to show their extremely vocal pro-Palestine protests are not actually anti-Israel or anti-jewish.)

Speaking of "miss[ing] the point," you (and the Stranger, and the protesters) seem utterly ignorant (or merely blithely uncaring) toward the idea of Jews and Israel constantly getting held to higher standards than anyone else, and then getting punished more harshly for allegedly missing them. I assure you Jews and supporters of Israel both know of this and expect it. Then you (and the Stranger, and the protesters) declare that if "genocide" -- itself one of the most fraught words in the entire vocabulary of Jews, Israelis, and their American gentile supporters! -- does not apply to the IDF in Gaza, well then, you will just unilaterally change it and change it and change it until it does, so there. George Orwell had a lot to say, all of it very eloquent and even more negative, about changing the well-established meanings of common words for short-term political expediency, and I suggest you acquaint yourself with (at least) some of what he wrote on that topic.

Also, if you do not want to admit just how long and hard Hamas has worked, and continues to work, to create the current humanitarian disaster in Gaza, then you simply won't, and nothing I nor anyone else can write will compel your admission. I'll just note Hamas' efforts are completely obvious to everyone who cares, and it's those persons you (and the Stranger, and the protesters) are alienating by primarily blaming the IDF for what's happening there now.

"You are the one making a sweeping generalization..."

Nice try.

"You can't learn anything if you already know everything!"

How about you try learning something from WW3 not having happened when you said it would, all of two weeks ago?

How about you learn something from getting banned here?

How about how about what about what about what about whataboutaboutabouta**bzz, ZAP, tssszz

Tensornabot offline, critical error!

@Cd --THNX
for making the
Effort and showing
to us the gargantuan Holes
in wormmy's circular (bingo!) arguments

if he's not part of
Pooty's army I'll
eat my gf's
Edible un-
dies. As
soon
as I
get
one.

speaking of Outliers, out-
and-out Liars, Outside
Agitators, 'enfant
terribles' and A-
gents Provoca-
teur :

What We Know
About the Protests
at Columbia University

Demonstrations outside the school gates
added to the upheaval, with protesters
who appear unconnected to
the university targeting
Jewish students.

[now There’s a
Bloody Surprise]

more
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/22/us/columbia-university-protests.html

Reich wing Oppression
Rears its ugly head
Elsewhere as well
nyt:

As Anger
Grows Over Gaza,
Arab Leaders Crack Down on Protests

The war has led to demonstrations across the Arab world. The numerous arrests suggest that governments are fearful of the outrage turning on them.

more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/world/middleeast/gaza-arab-protests-crackdown.html

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/29/zionism-jews-palestinians

Of course I hold the IDF to higher standards than war crimes and famine and collective punishment! And why is that? Because I expect the arms we sell them and their methods to follow the oh so stringent requirements they are currently under investigation in the Hague for breaking! Since you are so obsessed with the literal definition and due process for every violation but attribute every mass casualty as a Hamas human shield without evidence and merely apocraphal self-assured hearsay. That's about all the time I have for your wizzeaksauce hypocrisy.

Great article I linked.

@75, @78: Thanks for validating what I wrote @71: ‘I leave you and kristo’ to agree with each other about the “truth” of the fictional / unsupported points you have made here.’

@79 wot?

As Anger
Grows Over Gaza,
Arab Leaders Crack Down on Protests

The war has led to demonstrations across the Arab world. The numerous arrests suggest that governments are fearful of the outrage turning on them.

more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/world/middleeast/gaza-arab-protests-crackdown.html