Check your homonyms. It's "sow cultural divisions."

“Maybe if he focused less on conquering land [and] more on genuine negotiation, he’d have better luck with those hostages.”

It’s not “conquering land,” it’s preventing smuggling of weapons:

“Israel says Hamas used a vast network of tunnels beneath the border to import arms, allowing it to build up the military machine it deployed on Oct. 7. The military says it has found and destroyed dozens of tunnels since seizing the corridor.”

(https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-egypt-philadelphi-corridor-cd15c27cecffe70322becd933cf38909)

As that linked story recounts in detail, this claim is very much under dispute even within Israel, and Egypt says flatly it is false. Still, the reasons the Israelis seized it was to stop arms smuggling, not to “conquer land.” It would be great if the Stranger actually understood the context of what it complains about.

(Also, Israel would have “better luck with those hostages,” if Hamas hadn’t kidnapped them in the first place, and hadn’t just slaughtered a bunch of them.)

Not that it much matters, but the huckleberries in the Waltz extended family photograph are second cousins. I don't think he's ever met them. In the meantime, Russians are using right-wing assets to inject strychnine into the American political bloodstream. So from the MAGA perspective, it's essential to focus on the rubes to divert attention from the rubles.

bibi nutnyahoo's
SOLE path to Freedom
in Ensuring Israel has Carte
Blanche in executing its War on
Gazans* at Least til eltrumpfster can
Steal his way into Our Whitehouse in Nov.
where eltrumpfster will encourage bibi to Nuke 'em.

he doesn't
Give a Fuck about
the Hostages as he's
proven over and over and over
again. they're the crucialest part of
his Keep Outta Prison Gambit but don't
tell the pro-Genocide crowd -- they believe

nutnyahoo's got Israeli Interests at heart.
he don't. he Never Did or he wouldda
kept his Eye on Israel's Gazan border
which he Didn't, ensuring on 10/7
free access or nearly so to Israelis
for Hamas' terrorist act.

it's a Twofer:
a Land Grab
cum Keep
outta Jail!

for BIBI.

*AND on
West Bank
Palestinians

Uh-oh wormmy:

“Never-Trump Republicans had
plenty of air time at the Democratic convention
unlike the anti-genocide contingent of Harris’s own party.”

there goes your Hated Paper, tS,
Ignoring your incessant and insidious
Pleas to call Israel’s Genocide “genocide
LITE” when it’s a Massacre – supported by
OUR TAX DOLLARS! that may Not be Classified
as Genocide by a two/thirds Majority Vote somewhere!

Something!
Something!

Maybe it's also time to examine the requirement that emotionally troubled kids with anti-social and violent tendencies belong in a public school setting. This kid was on the radar of authorities but they were unable to do anything until he acted. I'm guessing the staff at the school were well aware he had issues and he had a pattern of disruption. Wouldn't it be better for both the individual and the greater community if they could receive individualized attention at a separate campus? Public schools are not equipped to be social service centers.

@6 There is a much more simple and reliable solution to the problem: ban all private ownership of semiautomatic center-fire rifles, and any such rifle capable of firing a cartridge more powerful that .22 Long Rifle.

The superfluous apostrophes are on-brand for midwestern Repuke dumbasses.

Walzes? Walzs? Walz?

@6, 7: neither of those proposals are feasible.

the more realistic proposal is to do nothing whatsoever - America's really good at that.

@7 I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but a .22 rifle can cause just as much damage as an AR. See the Thurston High shooting in '98 for reference. @6 is right: the kind of kids with that level of mental and emotional issues doesn't belong in a traditional school setting. That's exactly what alternative schools are for, and they work better for the kids that are placed there.

@7 that won't stop what is happening. If this kid couldn't get an AR he would have come to school with a pistol. Just look at the kid who was shot at Garfield earlier this year. Beyond that these kids with these complex emotional issues take up a lot of school resources and disrupt the primary mission of the school which is to educate. It's a tough issue because generally kids do better if they are surrounded by their peers but when you know a kid has violent tendencies and severe issues I think its better if there was a separate place where they could continue their education and also receive more intensive counseling.

@9 sadly you are prob right. Republicans offer thoughts and prayers while progressives march around demanding gun control. Both accomplish the same thing.

@5: Yes, you and the Stranger have spent the past eleven months insisting that you alone own the word “genocide,” that you therefore completely control its meaning and application, and that you will immediately label as “pro-genocide” anyone who dares question your claimed sole ownership. How’s that working out for you?

“Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”

Oh well. You tried. Better luck in the twelfth month, perhaps?

Speaking of
OUR Tax Dollar$
Aiding and Abetting
Our co-Genocidal Massacre:

nyt:

Israeli Raids
Paralyze Daily Life
for Many in the West Bank

As an Israeli offensive against Palestinian
militant groups stretched to a 10th day,
residents said many people were
trapped in their homes
out of fear.

Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, reported the deaths, in the town of Far’a. They added to the toll of an already devastating military offensive, with at least 39 people killed in the raids and 145 others injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

Such raids have become a near-daily reality for the nearly three million Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation in the West Bank

“But this is the first time we see this kind of brutality,” said Mr. Abu Sarur, a father of seven, in an interview Thursday. “There is no humanity. They uprooted the trees, broke the buildings. The sewer mains meters under the ground, they ripped them up. The electricity, the water — they didn’t leave anything untouched.”

oodles More on
the Genocide
that ‘ISN’T!’
(Quite!)
[yet?]:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/05/world/middleeast/israel-raids-west-bank-palestinians.html

You know what helps enact gun control? Spray painting ceramic tiles.

@7, Yes its a very simple political process to ban such weapons.

Get 2/3 of both houses of Congress to propose an Amendment to that end.

Get 38 states to adopt it.

Get 2 million US troops to take away those firearms from 100 million armed, non-consenting Americans. The same military that couldn't disarm 42 million Afgans.

A very achievable and practical solution.

What else you got?

Georgia doesn't have a red flag law. If it did, when the FBI warned local police about the 14-year-old shooter's social media threats, they could have and should have confiscated all the firearms in the household and not returned them until a mental health professional deemed the young lad no longer a threat, which could be never as long as he lived at that house. Too bad, dad. It doesn't matter what kind of firearms dad possessed, ARs, revolvers, .22s, they're all deadly in the hands of a psycho. We need federal gun access laws, like universal background checks and mandatory reporting to the NICS database from medical, mental health and education professionals. Keeping all guns out of the hands of some people works a helluva lot better at stopping firearms violence than trying to keep some guns out of the hands of all people.

"Never-Trump Republicans had plenty of air time at the Democratic convention unlike the anti-genocide contingent of Harris’s own party." I can't decide if being rhetorically obtuse on this is worse than not knowing that the convention's "air time" is a sales pitch to the electorate for the the Dems, their candidates, and policies. There's very much a reason that "backroom negotiations" is a term, and putting dropping cluster munitions like that (beyond platitudes like "Israel is our ally" and "genocide is wrong") on their own parade would be, at best, self harm.

"The highest justification for fighting a war, besides survival, is to prevent its repetition."

Bret Stephens, NYT. https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-hostage-deal-is-a-poison-pill-for-israel/

But for the tunnels under the Philadelphia Corridor Hamas would not have had enough weapons to perpetrate 10/7.

@16
and That's
a Giant bingo.

@12

"Yes,
you and
the Stranger
have spent the past
eleven months insisting that
you alone own the word “genocide” ..."

nonsense
Wormtongue.
only You have been
Israel's most Fervent
Supporter of bibi's little
War on Palestinians begin-
ning with your utter Refusal
to see what Most of the Rest

of the Planet CAN see -- or
Could See, if Only Israel
hadn't MURDERED
More Than 150
Journalists
in Gaza.

so Far.

"How’s that working out for you?"

for ME?
your delusional
Projections make it
crystal clear it's gotta
be all about YOU and
your reich-wing Agenda

the Reptilican
brainstem's
what's de-
Stroying
this wee
Little
Plan-
et.

@ tensorna

"It’s not “conquering land,” it’s preventing smuggling of weapons"

Why are there armed insurgents in Palestinian land that has been occupied, annexed and subject to apartheid for decades in violation of international law? and no, a bunch of reactionary Islamists being in control of the main armed group has little to do with it.

Holding the southern border crossing with Egypt is also to prevent Palestinians from traveling abroad and importing basic goods denied to them by Israel's embargo.

"insisting that you alone own the word “genocide,”"

It has been your choice given you have kept busy denying that there is a genocide going on in Gaza, despite the overwhelming majority of global people, international institutions and human rights organizations saying it likely was a genocide

“Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”

It just needs to drive a fraction of 1% of votes in swing states for it to be very damaging to Democrats thanks to people like you who'll say anything to shield Israel from being held accountable for war crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid and likely genocide

"But for the tunnels under the Philadelphia Corridor Hamas would not have had enough weapons to perpetrate 10/7." --@16

all
but for
bibi nutnyahoo's
full-throated Support
of Hamas - for Ages - Hamas'd
be but a wee little Footnote in History.

he helped Create this
Debacle. his Ending it'd
mean his Immediate con-
frontation will Israel's Justice
System on charges of Corruption
and, likely, Malfeasance for October 7th.

bibi
Cannot
AFFORD to
have his genocidal
Massacre of Palestinians end.

ever.

how
America
can Afford
to $upport this
is Unfathomable.

I asked an LLM to translate @5 into coherent English. Here's what it came up with:

"The Democratic convention gave airtime to Never-Trump Republicans, but not to party members critical of Israel's actions in Gaza. This ignores calls to acknowledge the severity of the situation, which is supported by U.S. tax dollars."

14: Thank you

@12

Sure.
It’s NOT
A Genocide.
Convince Yourself.

from Democracy Now:

Israel’s
Genocide
in Gaza Continues
as New Leak Details How
Netanyahu Torpedoed Ceasefire Deals

… newly published documents show how Netanyahu and Israeli negotiators purposefully prolonged Israel’s assault on Gaza by making new demands during ceasefire talks.

The documents published by the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth also reveal that three of the six hostages found dead in Gaza last weekend were due for release under a ceasefire agreement drafted in May.”

More,
Disturbingly:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/5/headlines/israels_genocide_in_gaza_continues_as_new_leak_details_how_netanyahu_torpedoed_ceasefire_deals?

@22

whythatsCoolcap'nblinky!
I So Gotta get Me
oneathemtoo!

till Then,
then.

Things the author found worthy of eyerolls and lols this morning, an incomplete list
1. "Probable cause" (scare-quotes mandatory)
2. People who fail to capitulate to hostage-takers' demands quickly enough to prevent their murders.

Product placements:
Katie Perry, diet Coke, diet Pepsi

It's horrifying watching these so-called leaders literally lead to the total and complete destruction of the entities they are leading. This country has been destroyed by Donald Trump (and will never recover, not with the judges he put in power and the destruction of the USPS and that's just two things) and Netanyahu is bringing about the end of Israel. There will be no Israel and Israelis will only have Netanyahu to blame. Humanity is literally destroying itself in every possible way and almost everyone just walks around like everything that's happening is totally normal. Nothing to see hear! This is fine.

@20: “It just needs to drive a fraction of 1% of votes in swing states for it to be very damaging to Democrats…”

Ok, let’s try that again: “Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.” What actual evidence have you to contradict this, even to the level of “a fraction of 1% of votes in swing states”? (Another poll paid for by a misleadingly-named pro-Palestinian group?) You guys have spent almost an entire year screaming “genocide,” at Israel, whilst showing absolutely zero interest in whether Hamas committed genocide in Israel on 10/7 and after (e.g. launching rockets into Israel from Rafah). What have you accomplished?

“Why are there armed insurgents in Palestinian land that has been occupied, annexed and subject to apartheid for decades in violation of international law?”

That’s easy: they failed to learn their lesson from 1948. Back then, they chose war instead of the UN’s partition plan, and so they chose the consequences of that war. Compare what land they have now against the UN COP map. What have they accomplished?

@20 is your thesis that if Israel were to pull back, tear down their defensive positions and give the Palestinians free and open borders that they would lay their arms and live in peace and not try to literally murder every Jew they come across? This really is a chicken and egg question. Is Hamas doing what they are doing because Israel is repressing them or is Israel's actions dictated by a decades long attempt to murder them? I'm really curious what you think the answer to that is.

@27 Israel has no right to Palestine. If Europe (or the Middle East or even the United States) wants to give up some land and call it Israel, great.

Palestine was stolen and the brutality of the Nakba in 1948 and all subsequent attempts at wiping Palestinians off of the face of the earth has ABSOLUTELY led to Hamas (and don't forget, Israel chose Hamas over the PLA because they preferred "terrorists" to people demanding freedom from apartheid and everything that apartheid entailed).

And again, in your statement stating they will try to murder every Jew they come across denies the reality that not all Jews are Zionists (all Israelis are Zionists and all Zionists in Israel may be Jews but not all Jews are Zionists or Israelis).

Palestine existed before Britain stole a huge portion of it and "created" Israel. Most Zionists worldwide are not Jews, they are Christians. Israelis and Zionists are responsible for the slaughter of Palestinians since they took Palestine and claimed it was theirs. There are no chosen people by god. There is no god. Religion and deep seated racist hate (of the Jews by the Nazis and other anti-Semites worldwide) led to the Holocaust and the "creation" of Israel, in order to make sure the Jews were corralled in one place.

The thing is, there were already people there (Christians, Muslims, and Jews) and it was an existing country, so they had no right to do what was done. Would Hamas murder every Israeli/Zionist in the effort to take back their own land and live free in their own country? Probably. And many believe they have a right to do so.

Imagine a world where all colonized lands were taken back from their colonizers. Certainly would put this country in awkward situation now wouldn't it?

And finally, why are American taxpayers so supportive of their money being used (to the tune of over $300 BILLION so far) to fund Israel? Israelis get subsidized everything - housing, health care, education, on money from American taxpayers. Why? Why if Israel is full of god's chosen people does it need the rest of the world to subsidize its existence?

There would be no genocide in Palestine if the United States stopped paying for Israel's existence (along with so many other countries). Israel is incapable of managing itself and refuses to listen to the world or follow international law, telling the entire world to go fuck itself it's going to do what it wants to do (and anyone who refuses to keep paying them so they can exist and do whatever they want to do is an anti-Semite).

It's total fucking insanity and outright dehumanization of Palestinians and their right to exist in their own country because white people worldwide say so.

Israelis fear Palestinians the way white people in the United States fear Black people. They know what they have done and the decades (Israel) and the centuries (the United States) of harm done and they are so scared that the people they have done the most horrific and evil things to will turn around and do the same things to them if given the chance. If the world were just and fair, they would, and it would put an end to white supremacist bullshit immediately.

Middah k'neged Middah. It's the Jewish version of karma.
Measure by Measure.
What you have done to others will be done to you.

And while we're at it, it's time for women to turn the tables in men and do to them what they have done to women since the beginning of time.

I say bring it on.

@28 Palestine was not a sovereign state, it was part of the Ottoman Empire (and the Byzantine and Roman Empires and Judea and the Kingdom of Israel long before that). There was this major event called World War I that saw the Ottoman Empire defeated and carved up, with the Palestinian area surrendered to the British with a mandate to create it into a state for the Jewish people under the Treaty of Sevres. Palestine wasn’t “taken,” it was never a sovereign country and its territory was lost in a war and ceded in a postwar Treaty under international law. That’s what happens in war and has since the dawn of human history.

@28, How many times was Israel stolen from the Israelis by Palestinians, Ottomans, Syrians, Babylonians, and Persians prior to 1948? How far back do you go?

By your rationale everyone who isn't Native American should be relocated back to Europe from North and South America. You should just give up all the equity in your house on the Oregon Coast and get on airplane back to wherever your European ancestors came from, and start over. If your rationale applies to the Jews in Palestine, it applies to you in Oregon, unless you are over 50% Native American.

@20, Has there ever been an attack that killed the over 1,000 in a day from the West Bank? Nope. Over a hundred in a day? Nope. Why? Has their ever been 10,000 rockets, in weeks, launched from the West Bank into Israel, in large enough barrages to overcome the Iron Dom anti-artillery and rocket system? Nope.

Why? Because Israel has access to the West Bank when they need it. The PLO takes some measures to police their own and stop some terrorist attacks on their neighbor. So your West Bank example actually shows how effective Israel being able to put boots on the ground at will is, in minimizing attacks on Israel and loss of Israeli lives.

I wish it wasn't necessary for Israel (and Egypt) to isolate Gaza, for their own defense. (Hamas is just another version of the Muslim Brotherhood which wants to overthrow Egypt). If Palestinians are willing to police themselves and go after genocidal, martyr, terrorist groups, on their own territory, than the Israel won't have a leg to stand on to invade or interfere in the West Bank or Gaza.

"If Palestinians are willing to police themselves and go after genocidal, martyr, terrorist groups, on their own territory... "
--@NotMyopic

sure.
Hamas'd
probably give
'em Equal Time
at the Ballot Box

prolly not Easy to Over-
throw your Terrorist Oppressor
in the Middle of a fucking Genocide

perhaps
they're merely
lacking Instruction

“Yesterday’s weather,
while beautiful, sort-
a pissed me off.”
--@HK

getting Angry with
the Weather Gods is
like getting Angry @ Alexa
or whatever your Spyware is

perhaps One day
they’ll be the
very same
Entity.

@33, 50,000 Hamas fighters (original number, who knows how many are left, likely less than <10k) can't overcome 2 million Palestinians even with a mismatch in access to arms, anymore than 2 million members of the U.S. Armed Forces can disarm 100 million armed Americans. Hell they couldn't even disarm 46 million Afghans. Enough mass of numbers overcomes superior arms, every time.

Ask the British how easy it was to stop Ghandi and his followers, who came after the armed British, unarmed. The Brits gave up and left, after concluding they would run out of bullets and men, before Ghandi ran out of Indians. Even if they didn't, the remaining Indians wouldn't work and ship goods to England anymore. Something about bad morale amongst the workforce after all that.

Or the Gazans could do like the Palestinian Authority (aka former PLO, current Fatah) does in the West Bank. Communicate quietly to the IDF that, "the terrorists are hiding over there," and for political reasons, you never heard it from us, and we can't go after them for those same reasons.

I love how Tensora and the pro apartheid crowd have a single UN action they worship (48, the partition of Palestine without the participation of muslim Palestinians) and then reject every other UN action after that points out, for example, any settlements outside of those original boundaries (yes, disputed) are illegal and have to be abandoned and returned to the original inhabitants they were acquired from.
It's like they want special treatement or something...

@28 xina: I hear you. The only way to bring the batshit crazy Trump Reich Party of Turd to heel is castration of all RepubliKKKan males. The GOP would finally become as helpless as kittens. The Orange Turd and its fellow rapists can't forcibly impregnate without their toxic 'shrooms. Let the MAGA dick chopping begin!
Then let's ship all the severed MAGA dicks to Vladimir Putin With Love. The Russians could use some fungi.
The sooner this is done the better our chances of restoring democracy and saving what's left of the world.

@30: The Orange Turd and its enablers are to blame for this apocalyptic mess we're in, raindrop dear.
May this finally be the end of the GOP.

@35: Look, you chose the end of Ottoman imperial rule over Palestine as your starting point, without giving any reason; I chose the UN COP and UN General Assembly vote in 1948 as mine, because the UN is the closest thing to a world legal authority we have.

Whether you like it or not, the Palestinian Arabs, allied with other Arab countries which then illegally invaded Palestine, chose war. They didn't choose war to get larger allotment of land in Palestine, they chose war to take all of Palestine, to "drive the Jews into the sea." They therefore chose the consequences of that war, and the results we have today are, or result from, the consequences of their choice.

That they have learned absolutely nothing from their 75 years of resultant suffering was something they were very eager to tell everyone:

'The protesters made their demands clear in their rallying chants: ... “There is only one solution, intifada revolution,” and, “We don’t want two states, we want 1948,” ...'

(https://www.thestranger.com/news/2023/10/16/79212000/as-a-ground-invasion-looms-thousands-in-seattle-protest-for-a-free-palestine)

So, if you have a problem with invocation of 1948, you can take it to them.

@6, 7, 8. 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 25 & 36:

speaking of Chaos
Too Many Guns &
far reich wing
narratives:
nyt:

Georgia Suspect’s Family
Faced Eviction and Other
Turmoil Before Shooting

Court and law enforcement records
lay out the turbulence in the
teenager’s family in
recent years.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/06/us/georgia-school-shooter-family-problems.html

one reader’s comments ex-
ceedingly-well-worth
the nyt’s $4/mo:

Americans: Take care of your fellow American citizens
and you won’t end up murdering one another.

It takes a safety net: financial, medical (mental and dental included), support for parents in difficulty, educational, etc.

You want a nice garden: you tend to it in all corners. That includes weaker members of your society. Not doing so is your fault line.

You can NOT escape this necessity. Look at your elders in Western Europe. We don’t murder one another the way you do.

People carrying guns is CULTURAL MADNESS.

--@Someone Sleeping; Under Pine Trees, Sept. 6

Well
Rock
My Boat.

@MH -- Hi. Thanks. I would respect the Republic[an] stand point if it was not pure and simple ridiculously, arrogantly, stupid, propaganda.

Western Europe is not driven by "socialism". We have uber (indecently) wealthy too. Bernard Arnault is the richest man on Earth (that is: when Elon musk is not making a stupid mistake). Arnault is French and own those luxury brands :

Louis Vuitton and Moët Hennessy, LVMH's portfolio includes Tiffany, Dior, Fendi, Givenchy, Marc Jacobs, Stella McCartney, Loewe, Loro Piana, Kenzo, Celine, Sephora, Princess Yachts, TAG Heuer, and Bulgari.

So poor Americans fantasizing about becoming insanely rich can - in theory - also achieve this in a "socialist" country.

In the meantime, which could prove long [fucking brilliant], they would have (essentially) FREE access to peaceful public spaces, FREE access any hospital care, and FREE access to education (law and medical studies included), and so from conception (ah, yeah, you need to survive this one because if mother does not want a child: she can decide so under reasonable circumstances) to death (usually not by gunshot).

[you Can Mock Us
we def got it
coming.]

And free insuline and antipsychotics or antidepressant (if not free very close to, and paid for if too poor), and even maybe psychoterapy (or low cost or free if poor).

And governmental help for a single parent, a students. etc.

At least, Americans should know this way of life does exist.

[NOT according to tS’s
commentariati of neo-
libs and cons]

However, I still LOVE you guys because you gave me Bob Dylan and obscure coastal Maine nooks. And kicked out Nazis.

--@Someone Sleeping;

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/06/us/georgia-school-shooter-family-problems.html

yeah &
Ironically
We got Us a
Nazi Prob now

excellent comments
--@Someone Sleeping
seems like you're Awake.