From the anti-Democracy Partay
(see: eltrumpfster and the
“Stolen Elections!”
Contingent):

‘[King County Elections Director Julie Wise] did not ensure that voter information transmitted over the app had adequate privacy and security protections because the tool is operated by a private company’ so: don’t count ‘em!

Seems like they couldda done this
BEFORE the Election.
Sour grapes,
gop.

"And we have got to bolster security at our schools. We've got to bolster security so if a psycho wants to walk through the front door and
kill a bunch of children they're not able." --VD Jance, eltrumpfster, jr's choice for Number Two, a most-fitting title

if we cannot Harden our Schools
into impenetrable fortresses,
we cannot have all these
damn guns, readily and
freely available to the
Psychopathic.

oh and Military Grade
killing machines should
NOT be available to your
Average Joe -- there Is a War
here in the USA, but (so far) it's
just a War on Women, on Justice,
the Environment & Rational Thought.

God, Disney adults are so weird.

Mass shootings anyplace people congregate are a fact of life now. We’re just focusing on schools because that’s where the most recent one took place, but we can’t increase security everywhere. Not like security does anything anyway. If the police won’t do anything to stop a shooter why would anyone expect some minimum wage worker to risk their life.

Not a word about the American murdered by Israelis in Palestine? Disney adults, though, get lots of words.

Bummer about BAM

Bad Honey good 🤘

Xina,

When are you moving back to Europe? After all, you live in colonized land.

It's debatable that Israelis are colonizers. They have been in Israel since the days of Abraham.

It's not debatable that Europeans colonized North and South America.

As far as the rest of the planet, how far are we to carry on this exercise of determining who are the descendants of the original people to walk onto a particular piece of real estate for the first time? What are we to do with those that are from any group, and their descendants, that took possession of that piece of dirt later? Look around the world today and almost every piece of dirt currently occupied was taken from someone else at some point in history.

A golf course owner from Gilbert. Why didn't I guess that?

bro wait until reptilians emerge from the inner earth to call upon the old ones reclaim their legacy

@1 That weirdo is completely out of touch with the lives of normal people. The solution is not to turn our schools into maximum security prisons, but to ban the possession of all semi-automatic rifles, including private purchases by police and military people. No other 1st world nation has school shootings like America does.

@4- the Andersons are far beyond “weird.” They appear to be “morons.”

If Upthegrove was winning by 51 votes BEFORE the ballot-chasing software was used, then how can use of the ballot-chasing software have flipped the election in his favor, as this lawsuit claims? Republicans are such demented sick fucks!

man, the air is shit out there today.

@6: lead story on the 9 am NPR top of the hour news. happy now?

real missed opportunity when Paul Allen died - he could have donated his artwork to BAM and they'd have had a permanent collection worth the trip. instead it went to auction; it was just another investment.

@13 the obvious solution to school shootings is to solve the problem upstream by eliminating children

@15, What you call "ballot chasing-software" has been in perpetual use since election day. So of the 2,000 or so ballots cured in King County using the app, maybe hundreds a day have been cured and added to each day's revised tally between election night and certification of the results. They weren't dumped in all at once after a gap of 51 votes was tallied amongst ballots that had issues when first examined by King County Elections. So the margin of 49 or 51 has had those cured ballots in it all along.

BTW, a former member of our household, who hasn't been eligible to vote in Washington for three years, still gets a ballot mailed here. To vote the ballot, trace the signature of the person who left, from one of the many signatures floating around from when they still lived here, would not be difficult or easily detectable by the people examining millions of signatures. Does that prove there is widespread fraud and election insecurity? Hardly. There is no proof that this happens on any significant scale, and to the extent it does, such acts in Republican areas are likely offset by similar acts in Democratic ones.

The fact remains that the more we rely on tech, automation, etc. that can be hacked or manipulated, and move away from the old-school practice of verifying voters one at a time, in person, at polling places, the easier it will become for fraud to become widespread and materially significant (I don't think it is yet), at the hands of domestic and international election hijackers. The more we rely on algorithms to decide what the order of search results are about candidates and information in elections, the more voters, and the people consuming information for other purposes, will be manipulated. How to ascertain if a fact is in fact a fact, is becoming more and more difficult with tech, not less so.

Mail in elections and the internet have broadened voter participation. That is a good thing. Now we get to discover the downside cost, whatever that may be. I will be curious to see where this lawsuit goes. Probably nowhere, since the burden of proof on the Plaintiff is that the vote curing was manipulated. It isn't that the curing wasn't secure and could have been manipulated. That leaves us the problem of we can't know what we don't know.

@18- universal Norplant at puberty would solve a number of social problems.

I tried to find the prior use of a term that came to mind last night in considering the land of the free and home of the brave's action on the gun problem. I couldn't find it being used before but I swear it was out there before. If anyone knows where it was utilized before then please help... The term is "perverted negligence". Thank you... Happy Friday :-)

The decrease in self-identifying Republicans is not surprising. Decent people want nothing to do with the GOP, and the party base is not getting any younger. It's basically just an enclave for conmen, bible-addled nitwits, religious neurotics, and the victims of dementia.

@10 "It's debatable that Israelis are colonizers. They have been in Israel since the days of Abraham. "

No, it's not really debatable. The immense majority of Israeli Jews are immigrants who are distantly related to people who lived in Palestine more than 40 generations ago. In other words, their claim to the land is bunk for all intent and purpose precisely because as you put it what are we to do with the people who took ownership of the land later (although some have lived there as long as the Bronze age according to genetic studies)

@19 Signatures on ballots are verified by human beings at King County Elections. Also, your relative can contact King County and get taken off the voter rolls.

There is a fairness issue with ballot curing when it's not universally applied. At the state level, counties vary in the resources they can allocate to outreach, staff, or 3rd parties--an advantage to big Democratic-led westside counties. Likewise with Initiative sponsors--an advantage to whichever side is better funded. I totally support giving people a chance to avoid disenfranchisement, but if one side has the money to cure ballots and the other doesn't, that feels like election interference. So far it's worked in my favor, politically speaking, but it's still wrong. Why am I wrong?

Welcome to Costco.
I love you.

@2 and @3 kristofarian and @22 Catalina Vel-DuRay: +3 for the WIN!!!
We need a global ban of RepubliKKKans. All MAGAts are anymore are obstructive and dangerously stupid sock puppets of the Orange Turd, itself the favorite marionette of Vladimir Putin.
That, and, as always, RepubliKKKans are world champs at being sore losers.

@15 gripe: +1 BINGO. And thank you. I rest my case.
No further questions, Your Honor.

@24: We’ve been over this before. The reason there were so few Jews resident in Palestine at the end of the Ottoman Empire was that Empire’s policies of anti-Jewish repression in Palestine. This was done not to benefit Palestinian Arabs, but to ensure continued Ottoman imperial control over Palestine.

Centuries before that, at the end of the Jewish War, the Roman Empire destroyed most of the Jews’ Temple in Jerusalem, and scattered the Jewish population.

When you use the low population of Jews in the Palestine of 100+ years ago in your argument, you’re justifying multiple imperial anti-Jewish policies there over centuries. Not a good look, especially for someone who wants to be taken seriously on the topic of who “belongs” on the land there.

I don’t know about everyone else but my underlying ruminating evangelizes peace all the time. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told.

@25, And how accurate are those human beings, looking at thousands of signatures in a short amount of time?

It would be very difficult, without detailed forensic examination, to detect a traced, or machine replicated, signature produced from a valid sample. With new tech happening all the time, it will soon be possible to replicate any signature quickly, easily, and at scale. Hacking all those signatures captured on signature pads everywhere will provide illicit databases of signatures. For that matter, counterfeit checks are cake walk with today's tech, so why not counterfeit ballots?

With such high stakes for Russia, Iran, non-state actors such as Hamas, etc. in who wins a U.S. election, not to mention domestic fascists stake in an election outcome, its only a matter of time. Hasn't happened yet, but it will. Will we be able to detect it if it does?

Election integrity concerns have been a lot of hot air up to this point, but I don't think that will be the case much longer.

The answer at that point, likely isn't more tech but reversion to old school, in person voting. That is much harder to game, when someone has to show up, perhaps produce I.D. (as they do everywhere in Europe), sign the voter book in-person, etc.

What's the fastest way for Russia to win in Ukraine? Elect Donald Trump. What is the fastest way for China to suffer much more adversely verses the United States? Elect Donald Trump. How does the IDF get even more of a blank check vs. Hamas? Elect Donald Trump. That makes our elections a major target of all those actors, and more. It makes them a national and domestic security issue.

Arguably DJT would never have been President, but for Russian interference in the 2016 Election via social media. Why wouldn't they take the next step and go after ballots directly?

@31 So, your argument is that since the Ottoman banned Jewish immigration, Jews are entitled to Palestine irrespective of who owned the land when they showed up? This clearly wouldn't hold up in a court of law and It'd be laughable if it weren't so tragic. I am not even sure why I answer your made up excuses for genocide

@35, How far back do you take that rationale? The reasons the Jews were trying to return inder the Ottomans, was because they had been forced out by prior conquerors.

Every piece of land on the planet is occupied by sone group, nation, or tribe that took it from some prior occupant.

Are we to somehow to try and figure out who the first indigenous inhabitants were to every piece of dirt on earth was and restore it to thier offspring?

@36 Huh? YOU want to take things back over 2500 years and you are asking me how far back I want to take things? You aren't making any sense. I am saying that that land was occupied when Jewish immigrants showed up, whatever were the reasons for their not showing up before the late 19th century. One may think it wasn't fair of the Ottomans to ban Jewish immigration but it doesn't change the fact the land was already occupied when they immigrated, so they don't have a right to that land.

@32 you should try making excuses for colonial ethnic cleansing, @27 somehow appears to think it fosters peace and that it is in very good taste too.

No, it's not debatable that Israelis are colonizers. Palestine existed long before Britain gifted it Jews after the Holocaust as and named it Israel. No matter how many times you say it, no matter how many ways you way it, nothing will ever, in any way, in any context, make it true.

When Israel was created it was made of stolen land, gifted to people who had no right for it to be gifted to them. Israel then ghettoized Palestinians, created apartheid, and have been attempting to eradicate Palestinians ever since so they can just have it all.

Europe is as anti-immigrant (if not more so) than the United States, so it's doubtful I would be able to move to Europe even if I wanted to or could. I would happily live in a "United States" thoroughly and completely "owned" and run by Native Americans.

Or if you want to use Israel as an analogy, I guess you would be just fine with every white person in the United States being corralled into an apartheid state and ruled by violence and dehumanization like Israelis and their sick, sadistic, violent, psychotic, deranged treatment of the Palestinians? And let's sweeten the pot by legislating that Black people to own white people as slaves and murder them as they pleased. It would only be fair, am I right?

You can rationalize Israel's illegal existence and the genocide they are executing while the world watches all you want. Denying reality does not make it cease to exist.

@37: ".... whatever were the reasons for their not showing up before the late 19th century."

Hahahahahaha -- their "reasons" were an ever-tighter series of restrictions placed upon their entry, visitation, and land ownership, promulgated and enforced by a foreign imperial power, solely to strengthen that foreign imperial power's control over Palestine. (And if you believe for an instant the Ottomans cared so much as one tiny bit about the Arabs they also ruled -- in Palestine or elsewhere -- you can read T.E. Lawrence 'of Arabia,' on that point.)

Oh, and BTW, the reason Zionism became a movement? Because the European Imperial Powers under which many Jews lived ALSO began promulgating and enforcing greater restrictions upon Jews.

For a leftie, you sure don't seem to mind discriminatory imperial edicts upon local peoples very much -- except, of course, in the one case when the foreign imperial power's edicts didn't disfavor Jews. That imperialism you absolutely oppose.

(Don't worry -- if anyone suggests all of this means you have some kind of problem with Jews, I'll happily explain your imperial nonchalance actually exists to validate Horseshoe Theory.)

bravissima
xina. hat's
off.

@40 As if Ottoman restriction on immigration were the only reasons for Jews not settling in Palestine before the late 19th century when the Zionist movement was in its infancy. You are certainly not one for nuances.

I clearly stated that my rejection of your stupid argument was based on who occupied the land first not however one felt about Jews immigrating to Palestine or about Ottoman policies, which we cannot do anything about.

Horseshoe "theory"? No wonder you sound like a crackpot

it's 'Horseshit' theory
he's been prefecting
it ever since the be-
ginning of the Gen-
ocide which Isreal
Still Cannot Be
doing because
Reasons. and
Lots of 'em.

forty
thousand
known Dead
tens of Thousands
buried under the rubble

& how many
of them
Child-
ren.

did
They
'have it
Coming'?

but
Hamas.

but
but
but
bibi's
gotta
keep outta
Prison. at All Costs.

The same Ottoman rules are invoked by the Israelis to confiscate land they consider unused in the occupied West Bank. First they deny the legal and rightful owners access roads (which Palestinians can't use) or simple aggression. Then they declare the land vacant or unused. One of their early ministers dug up some old Ottoman (read: Imperial) rule that stated the empire could use the Ottoman equivalent of eminent domain to take unused land.
Again, another example of the duplicitous practices of the Israelis and the low energy efforts of those defending the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.

and the American that was shot and killed by the Israelis was a University of Washington recent graduate.

The denial chain will now start:
1. She was an agitator and was armed
Evidence will show she wasn't
2. She shouldn't have been there
3. We Israelis didn't shoot her
witnesses will testify otherwise, but Israelis won't listen.
4. We Israelis will investigate
No one else will be allowed to see the evidence
5. We Israelis decide we are innocent
Other nations complain and gather evidence
6. Might have been an error that wasn't our fault
Don't shoot at protestors?
7. The Druze did it
The Israelis hire the druze to do their dirty work
8. It was unavoidable and no one can really be blamed
Yes, someone can be blamed
9. It was war
Actually, the West Bank is at peace with Israel and they and their client Fatah completely control the region. The only requirement to work with the Israelis is incompetence and corruption. Without those two, the people of Palestine might actually be able to work towards a fair peaceful settlement with the Israelis.

Hey, that is such old news, why are you digging up such old things?

@39 xina: +1 for the WIN!!!!

@41 kristofarian: +1 Agreed and seconded.

@42: "As if Ottoman restriction on immigration were the only reasons for Jews not settling in Palestine before the late 19th century..."

You've tediously made Palestine's low population of Jews 100+ years ago as the basis of your argument against Jews living there now. The proximate cause of that low population of Jews was the Ottoman Empire's ever-more-restrictive discrimination against Jews. Therefore, Ottoman imperial discrimination against Jews forms the basis of your argument against Jews residing there now. You can whine about it all you want, but no amount of your hand-waving denial can change those historical facts. Your application of 'settler-colonialist' theory got destroyed by the reality of imperialism. (Nice irony there, dont'cha think?)

(BTW, for how long should a dead empire's self-serving discriminatory edicts continue to bind persons who were not even alive back then? Hundreds of years? Thousands? This is your idea of justice?)

While the Western press regurgitates Israeli propaganda, ethnic cleansing is going on in the West Bank:

"Israeli army destroyed about 70% of the streets and infrastructure in Jenin city in northern West Bank during its ongoing military offensive for the fourth consecutive day, local municipality said on Saturday, Anadolu reports.

“The occupying (Israeli) forces have demolished more than 70% of the city’s streets completely (…) to a depth of approximately one to one-and-half meters, which has led to the destruction of water and sewage networks, as well as communication and electricity cables, in the areas that were demolished, initially estimated to cover 20 kilometers,” the Palestine news agency Wafa reported, citing Bashir Matahen, the director of Public Relations and Media at the Jenin Municipality.

He noted that “water has been cut off from 80% of the city and the entire camp due to the destruction of networks and the inability of technical teams to reach these networks to redirect them to other areas.”

Matahen continued: “The municipality teams are unable to access the damaged network areas despite their attempts, during which they were subjected to gunfire from the occupying (Israeli) forces.”

He also pointed out that the Israeli forces “have burned parts of the central vegetable market in the city, and initial estimates of the damage to the market and its commercial shops indicate that they have suffered severe damage, in addition to the destruction of hundreds of homes and vehicles.”

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240901-israel-destroyed-70-of-jenins-streets-infrastructure-says-municipality/

speaking of "While the Western press
regurgitates Israeli propaganda,
ethnic cleansing is going on
in the West Bank"* and
reichwing influencers:

nyt:

Russia
Secretly
Worms Its Way
Into America’s Conservative Media

Federal prosecutors say Russia paid an American media company to push pro-Kremlin messages from social media influencers including Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and Dave Rubin.

insidiously, More:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/07/business/media/russia-tenet-media-tim-pool.html

but
Why would
Russia worm its
way SOLELY into Con-
servative media outlets?

*Thank you,
avaragebob.

@39, "When Israel was created ..." You mean in the 13th Century BCE? Or do you mean in the 18th Century BCE at the time of Abraham?

BTW, When are you going back to Europe? Unless you are a descendant of the people who came across the Siberian land bridge to North American, your ancestors weren't here first. You are a colonizer.

@37, Israel was fully occupied by Israel prior to the sixth century BCE. They were then conquered and forcibly relocated to Babylon and Israel became part of the Babylonian nation.

Looking beyond the Levant, Finland has been variously Swedish and Russian Territory. Perhaps we need to revert back to the pre-1917 status of Finland and make it Russian again.

Look prior to that and every piece of territory in Finland has been conquered, reconquered, and occupied involuntarily by one tribe taking given land from another. How are we to determine the original, first migrants of any given piece of dirt, and evict current occupants who aren't their descendants? Under your argument, only the original occupant's descendants have legitimacy on a given piece of dirt. Let the mass, global forced, re-location begin to restore every piece of dirt on the planet to the descendants of the people group that first human occupants of any given piece of dirt.

That is what I am getting at when you cite prior precedent for who owned the land. Which precedent and how far back in history do you look?

@43: While your usual height of cultured dialog continues to amaze others here, I will say that "Horseshoe Theory" does now seem a bit out-of-date. "Circle Theory" probably works better, given the 'argument' against Jews living in Palestine given here now depends upon respecting the edicts not merely of an empire foreign to Palestine, but of an empire which was forcibly dismembered over a hundred years ago. Now THAT is a dedication to foreign imperial rule, which even the most reactionary of hard right-wingers would find seriously challenging to emulate. Not only were the local victims of imperialism back then told to just lick the Ottoman boot, everyone alive now is also hearing that message -- and from the "progressive" left here, no less!

How sad about the loss of the Bellevue Art Museum.

And a big rant about all the haze from wildfire smoke, and those who just sit and let it happen, saying, 'This is the new norm'. Tell that to someone with asthma, emphysema, or other respiratory illness! This was preventable when we had cooler, rainy weather in June. These devastating fires could have been extinguished!
The fossil fuel industry must be held criminally accountable for knowingly destroying the global climate all for their own selfish corporate gain. They quietly conducted an environmental impact study 40 FUCKING YEARS AGO, and KNEW that this would be the result. Instead oil, gas, & coal execs chose profits over people in their destructive race to the bottom.
I feel sorry for communities lost to forest fires. So much for 'Drill, baby, drill'.
How many have already forgotten about oil train derailment in Lac-Megantic, Alberta, Canada on July 6, 2013 that took the lives of 47 people? The Canadian communities of Banff, British Columbia and Jasper, Alberta are gone.

@50 kristofarian: RepubliKKKans seriously need cleansing as well as castration, if not rabies shots.

Gen Zs and future generations: What a shame you will never have what your elders did growing up. You have been robbed by corporate billionaires. All they want is to become trillionaires and own everyone and everything in their gluttonous self-serving race to the bottom.
For those of you registered and eligible to vote, remember that it is the RepubliKKKan Party of Turd, a convicted felon of 34 crimes, that is responsible for your loss of democracy, body autonomy, health and environmental protections, social safety nets, and constitutional rights.

@53
so you've
'Evolved' from
Horseshit Theory
to Circlejerk Theory?
what's Next, Wormtongue?

Sure.
I’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.”

https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/5/headlines/israels_genocide_in_gaza_continues_as_new_leak_details_how_netanyahu_torpedoed_ceasefire_deals

meanwhile
the Massacre
Continues unabated:

OUR Tax
Dollar$ Oh
so Hard @Work?

Put the NO in-
to Genocide.

It's pathetic how these protestors keep working from the same dreary, ragged, playbook. Westlake. What's there? Empty storefronts, two dying (or dead) malls, and Nordstrom. Why not go to Bell Square or Southcenter or Alderwood (especially now that there's night rail)? The Seattle Center is just a few blocks away, as is the waterfront and is South Lake Union, which is where the activity center of downtown has shifted over the last few years. That's where the people are.

But no, they go to Westlake, because that's all they know. They love a good echo chamber.

@60 They don't go to Bellevue Square because they would be arrested.

@60 There are no gathering public spaces in most malls beside the surrounding sidewalks where a large gathering could impede pedestrian traffic.

So what you are saying, Swiftress and averagebob, is that that they're just phoning it in.

But we still have the waterfront, Seattle Center and South Lake Union. What's the excuse for not going to those?

@59: Your total dedication to junior-high levels of discourse continues to amaze adults. (And not in a good way.) We understand your helpless, impotent rage at persons who can actually use words, but that's really not anyone's problem but your own.

But in a way -- a way you didn't intend, of course -- you're right. The Stranger and you supportive commenters have been relentlessly jacking each other off to "genocide!" fantasies for almost a year now. What has it accomplished? Everyone who wants to can see Hamas' created this situation, is responsible for almost all of the civilian deaths in Gaza, intentionally kills hostages, and actively works to cause even more civilian casualties in Gaza. Your bitter refusal to recognize all of that dismal reality remains your problem, not anyone else's. All together now, "Gaza Isn't Driving Votes."

(Also, Hamas torpedoed the previous ceasefire deal, by killing Israelis in Tel Aviv. Not a peep of protest out of you, when Hamas murdered yet more innocent civilians. But you've got documents! From Democracy Now! Oooh, that'll finally get votes moving!)

While sick puppy at 64 continues his dancing on the corpses of innocent civilians let's remember the inexorable truth:

Francesca Albanese was speaking at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, where she presented her latest report, entitled ‘Anatomy of a Genocide’, during an interactive dialogue with Member States.

“Following nearly six months of unrelenting Israeli assault on occupied Gaza, it is my solemn duty to report on the worst of what humanity is capable of, and to present my findings,” she said.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”

https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976

@66: Did you just condemn Hamas' murderous scuttling of the cease-fire & hostage recovery? That would be some very serious progress, for you. Please keep up the hard work; eventually, you might get there on the whole, "Jews are human beings, too," thing.

"Special Rapporteurs and independent experts like Ms. Albanese receive their mandates from the UN Human Rights Council. They are not UN staff and do not receive payment for their work."

Also, it appears her section on "human shields" hasn't been updated with Sinwar's statements, specifically that Hamas, as a matter of standing policy, intentionally pursues actions which will increase the civilian body count in Gaza. Do you know when she'll get to that?

@67 You keep claiming it's not a genocide and rejoicing in our failure to impose a ceasefire,. I point out there are reports by UN human rights specialists that say it is a genocide so according to your odd but predictable logic, I must be hating Jews. Sick puppy needs to get help.

@60 and @63 Catalina Vel-DuRay: +2 I like your thinking.
I admittedly haven't been to Seattle in years, but I agree; it seems like Westlake Center is dead.
Seattle Center and the waterfront do sound like logical places to hold peaceful protests.
I would be concerned though about the SPD, and their abysmal track record with pedestrians---
the late Jaahnavi Kandula in particular.
While I find The Seattle Times FYI Guy Gene Balk's recent report that Seattle is turning even bluer encouraging, I sadly feel like I just don't know my native city anymore. The number of high rises mushrooming up doesn't seem to be showing any signs of slowing, and it's clearly not helping the homelessness problem in the PNW.

@63 What I'm saying is that the Bellevue Police Department is not phoning it in. Block traffic, shoplift, or steal and you will be arrested.

@68: "I point out there are reports by UN human rights specialists that say it is a genocide..."

And I pointed out the report you cited may be out of date. As that report recounts, international law does not anticipate a situation where a military force of irregulars actively tries to get their host population killed on a grand scale: "International law does not permit the blanket claim that an opposing force is using the
entire population as human shields en bloc." But what if the opposing force (Hamas) is, in fact, using the entire local population -- or large swathes of it -- "as human shields en bloc"? What if the opposing force actually wants larger numbers of dead civilians? Then current international law would be inadequate to address the current situation in Gaza, and the report you cite would need updating. (It was released in March.)

"...rejoicing in our failure to impose a ceasefire."

What evidence shows "we" have the power to "impose a ceasefire"?

Everyone wants a ceasefire; they just want it on different terms. Hamas wants a ceasefire so it can re-arm and strike Israel again, as leaders of Hamas have made clear. I want a ceasefire where Hamas surrenders and liberates the remaining hostages. Because I do not tolerate terrorism or hostage-taking.

"...so according to your odd but predictable logic, I must be hating Jews."

My estimate of your attitude towards the Jews comes not from that report, but from your own careful refusal to condemn imperial policies which disfavored Jews (Roman and Ottoman) whilst condemning an imperial policy which favored Jews (British). All three policies contributed to Palestine having a rising number of Jews during the British Mandate, which remains your "proof" Jews have no right to the land there. Humans evolved in sub-Saharan Africa, and many migrated elsewhere, in many movements, over many tens of thousands of years. Trying to show which sub-group of humans has any kind of natural "right" to any given piece of dirt is a fool's errand at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst.

Ah yes the
Wormtongue
Lecturing the
Commentariat on
‘Intellectual Honesty.’

Do you also
Give lessons
On Empathy?

this from the
RealNews
Network:

Canada
is ending
Jewish National
Fund’s charitable status

The Canada Revenue Agency has officially revoked the charitable status of the Jewish National Fund, a committed supporter of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The move marks a significant victory for Palestine solidarity activists.

The recent revocation of the Jewish National Fund’s (JNF) charitable status may be the most important Palestine solidarity victory in Canadian history.

The grassroots win is a boost to the global Stop the JNF campaign and efforts to disrupt Canadian charity assistance to Israel.

On August 10, the federal government officially revoked the charitable status of an organization that’s has hosted events attended by many prime ministers, ministers, and senators. Just days before the revocation, former prime minister Stephen Harper headlined JNF fundraisers in Windsor and London, Ontario.

The organization’s galas, held across the country, draw thousands of well-healed and connected individuals each year.

Since 2003, JNF Canada has partnered with provincial governments and raised over a quarter billion CAD.

After fifty-seven years of making all Canadians subsidize its controversial activities, including support for West Bank colonies and the Israeli military, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has finally revoked the JNF’s ability to issue tax receipts to its donors, which often cover half (or more) of all donations received.

The organization now has one year to wind up its charitable operations and dispose of its $30 million in assets.

https://therealnews.com/canada-is-ending-jewish-national-funds-charitable-status

Excellent.

even
Canada
Cannot stomach nutn-
yahoo’s Massacre cum Madness

the
World
Weeps
for Palestine

And some
Even Dance
on Their Corpses.

"What I'm saying is that the Bellevue Police Department is not phoning it in. Block traffic, shoplift, or steal and you will be arrested."

Exactly, Swiftress dear. If you are going to lay it on the line, then lay it on the line. And I say that as someone who was arrested for protesting, back in my tender years. They might as well go occupy a parking lot at what is left at Northgate. It's just a few Link stops away.

@71 "your attitude towards the Jews"

Liar. I have nothing but respect for Jewish culture. No matter how many times you conflate criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinian Arabs and its colonial expansionism with being anti-Jew, it will not be true.

"Trying to show which sub-group of humans has any kind of natural "right" to any given piece of dirt is a fool's errand at best, and intellectually dishonest at worst."

An apologist for colonial land grabs would say something very similar. I have grown accustomed to the idea fact that you'll say just about anything but denying the existence of property rights over land is astonishing even for an unprincipled opportunist like you.

@74: Again, you chose to criticize imperialism when it was favorable to the Jews, and you carefully avoided criticizing imperialisms which had been unfavorable (to say the least) toward the Jews. Your readers are free to draw their own conclusions from your choices.

Also, we were not talking about "Jewish culture," but the right of Jews to live upon certain land -- a right they had been explicitly denied by the very imperialisms you chose not to mention, let alone criticize. Your belief in the right of indigenous peoples against colonial powers doesn't seem very strong when those indigenous peoples are Jews, as they were when the Roman Empire forcibly displaced them, and forbid their return. Again, the reader is free to draw conclusions from your choices.

Finally, if you're not in the least bit concerned about imperial policies in Palestine -- at least, you're not concerned about those imperial policies which had intentionally denied Jews' ability to live in Palestine -- then why do you believe the term "colonial land grab" has any meaning when you use it? Strange.

nyt:
Middle East Crisis
Violence Grows in West
Bank, in Parallel With War in Gaza

A deadly shooting
at a border crossing
highlights worsening unrest
in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

In the shadow of the war in Gaza, a parallel conflict in the Israeli-occupied West Bank has intensified as Arab attackers carry out more sophisticated assaults and the Israeli military increases the scope of its raids on Palestinian cities.

The escalation comes as Israel struggles to contain wider battles not only in Gaza but also with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, as well as with their benefactor, Iran.

To Palestinians, the Israeli raids — which the United Nations says have killed more than 600 people since last October, a figure that includes both militants and civilians — only increase Palestinian animosity toward the Israeli occupation, and have done little to temper the militants’ abilities.

Israeli operations “may be able to reduce the number of gunmen here and there,” Mr. Dalalsha said. “But the truth is that, under the current circumstances, I don’t think that could lead to de-escalation.

In fact,
I think the worst
is yet to come, unless
we have an end to the war in Gaza.”

--Patrick Kingsley, reporting from Jerusalem

more as per usual:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/09/world/israel-hamas-gaza-war

as bibi’s keep-outta-Prison
gambit continues its insidious
escalations; as Genicide Supporters
continue their full-throated Support for
Israel’s madness to continue, gotta Wonder:

Is bibi struggling for
Armageddon? too many
People’d like nothing better.

@76 edit:

as bibi’s keep-outta-Prison
cum Israel's Land Grabbing
Gambit continues its insidious
escalations; as Genocide Supporters
continue their full-throated Support for
Israel’s madness to continue, gotta Wonder:

Is bibi struggling for
Armageddon? too many
People’d like nothing Better.

@75 Taking land away from its inhabitants and pushing them out to form a colony is called colonialism. Opposing colonialism is not pro-imperialist, despite your stupid claim to the opposite. I am not pro-Ottoman empire but as it turns out it opposed the Zionist project of colonizing Palestine, yet it allowed Jewish immigration to other part of the Ottoman empire at the same time.

@78: I never wrote, “Opposing colonialism is not pro-imperialist,” but rather, your lack of concern for imperial policies which were explicitly anti-Jewish doesn’t seem to comport with your stated anti-colonialist stance.

“I am not pro-Ottoman empire but as it turns out it opposed the Zionist project of colonizing Palestine,”

The Ottoman Empire’s anti-Jewish policies in Palestine applied to all Jews, Zionist or not; these policies applied to them owning land, applied to their visiting Jerusalem as religious pilgrims, or really to Jews visiting Palestine for any reason. The stated reason for these anti-Jewish policies was to maintain Ottoman imperial control over Palestine. (Had there been a political movement by Palestinian Arabs to bring more Arabs into Palestine, then the Ottoman Empire would have pursued exactly the same discriminatory policies against Arabs.) If you want anyone to believe you’re anti-imperialist, approving discriminatory imperial policies just isn’t a way of doing that.

@79 Of course you never wrote “Opposing colonialism is NOT pro-imperialist,”. What you wrote boils down to “Opposing colonialism is pro-imperialist,” (if I were you I'd add "thank you playing" and pretend I won the argument)

As I said a number of times already: whatever one think of Ottoman policies, immigrant Jews had no right to take possession of Palestinians land against their will (called colonialism). Two wrongs have NEVER made a right whether one of the wrong is the holocaust or Ottoman policy to prevent Zionism to take a foothold in Palestine, and it doesn't make one an imperialist to think so in spite of your stupid insistance that it does.

that a brilliant rhetorician
can be so dang insipidly stu-
pid otherwise is testament to
the weirdness of the human brain
and the so-called luck of the draw.

@80: “…immigrant Jews had no right to take possession of Palestinians land against their will…”

The British Mandate retained most (not all) of the Ottoman restrictions on land sales to Jews, and relaxed the restrictions upon Jewish immigration into Palestine. So, some Jews legally bought some land, and legally moved to Palestine to live on it. The Palestinian Arabs violently revolted against even this much liberalization of imperial policy, and lost, thus strengthening British support of the Jews. (There seems to be a persistent lesson about choosing war here…)

Your ‘argument’ thus remains: the British Empire should have been every bit as discriminatory as the Ottoman Empire had been. Good luck on that getting you traction with modern Americans.