General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsliberalmuse
(18,881 posts)People think they have to choose a side in everything. Hes said much of what many of us have been feeling.
KPN
(17,379 posts)Humans.
onecaliberal
(36,594 posts)I thought republicans were the ones who didnt do nuance. I have learned this week that I was assuming wrong.
crim son
(27,552 posts)And even here, if you do not agree with the majority, you will feel it.
lapucelle
(21,066 posts)https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/us/john-cusack-anti-semitic-meme-trnd/index.html

ananda
(35,179 posts)I really hate these wars!
Kennah
(14,578 posts)roamer65
(37,962 posts)Xavier Breath
(6,644 posts)BigmanPigman
(55,182 posts)Don't forget the GQP supports terrorists in the US...Proud Boys, etc.
LenaBaby61
(6,991 posts)MayReasonRule
(4,099 posts)Those that support the same are the same.
Mosby
(19,491 posts)Like claiming than Gaza is an open air prison. Nothing even remotely nuanced about a ridiculous claim like that.
prodigitalson
(3,193 posts)inthewind21
(4,616 posts)Maybe Ted can get them a plane!
AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)I'm going with Human Rights Watch on this.
Probably not the best look to be on the opposite side of them, just saying.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/06/14/gaza-israels-open-air-prison-15]

Mosby
(19,491 posts)AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)HRW is "hopelessly biased against Israel" or maybe perhaps they're biased against the policies of Netanyahu who's a far right corrupt fascist & is the middle east Trump.
How about NRC?
https://www.nrc.no/news/2018/april/gaza-the-worlds-largest-open-air-prison/]

How about ActionAid! https://actionaid.org/opinions/2021/fourteen-years-blockade-has-left-two-million-gazans-living-open-air-prison]

How about War Child
https://www.warchildholland.org/stories-of-children/rami/]

Now given that human rights & aid groups are all saying this, don't you think you may wish to reconsider your position? I've provided you several links to read & I hope you'll take the time to do that 👍🏼
JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)Hmmmm.

FoxNewsSucks
(11,724 posts)bank robbers, conmen, and murderers often subject those who investigate them to criticism.
lapucelle
(21,066 posts)https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/us/john-cusack-anti-semitic-meme-trnd/index.html

lapucelle
(21,066 posts)
malaise
(296,213 posts)Celerity
(54,450 posts)Celerity
(54,450 posts)NGO Monitor (Non-governmental Organization Monitor) is a right-wing non-governmental organization based in Jerusalem that reports on international NGO activity from a pro-Israel perspective. The organization was founded in 2001 by Gerald M. Steinberg under the auspices of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, before becoming a legally and financially independent organization in 2007.
NGO Monitor has been criticized by academic figures, diplomats, and journalists for allowing its research and conclusions to be driven by politics, for not examining right-wing NGOs, and for putting out misleading information. NGO Monitor's stated mission is to "end the practice used by certain self-declared 'humanitarian NGOs' of exploiting the label 'universal human rights values' to promote politically and ideologically motivated agendas". A number of academics have written that NGO Monitor's aims and activities are political in nature.
snip
Editing Wikipedia
NGO Monitor's online communications editor, Arnie Draiman, was indefinitely banned from editing Wikipedia articles about the Israeli-Arab conflict due to biased editing, concealing his place of work and using a second account in a way forbidden by Wikipedia policy. Draiman was a major contributor to the articles on NGO Monitor and Gerald Steinberg, and performed hundreds of edits on articles about human rights organizations, such as B'Tselem, the New Israel Fund, Human Rights Watch, and many others that Steinberg opposes.
snip
Political research conducted at Lund University in 2019 rated NGO Monitor highly for "counter-democratic activities" and found that the organization was "heavily involved in [the] denunciation" of human rights NGOs by depicting them as "unprofessional and biased". In all of NGO Monitor's reports, it was found to criticize NGOs that "had a perspective of promoting Palestinian human rights and/or taking a critical stance toward Israeli Government policies vis-à-vis Palestinians". The research also found that NGO Monitor appeared to "be promoting pro-Israel views regarding the conflict in a partisan way" and that, organizationally, NGO Monitor "might be less independent" and "tied to strong political interests and actors".
snip
Ilan Baruch, Israel's former ambassador to South Africa, said in a September 2018 report by the Policy Working Group (PWG) that NGO Monitor "disseminates misleading and tendentious information, which it presents as factual in-depth research". NGO Monitor's efforts are designed to "defend and sustain [Israeli] government policies that help uphold Israel's occupation of ...the Palestinian territories". The Dutch government has also criticised NGO Monitor, singling out the unreliability of its accusations against human rights defenders. Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok said "the government is familiar with the accusations by NGO Monitor against a broad group of Israeli and Palestinian human rights organisations, as well as with criticism of the conduct of NGO Monitor itself", citing the PWG report. "This research shows that many of NGO Monitor's accusations are based on selective citations, half-facts and insinuations, but not necessarily on hard evidence", Blok added.
http://policyworkinggroup.org.il/
NGO Monitor International advisory board
This board includes key figures identified with the neoconservative establishment under the Trump, Bush Sr. and Jr. and Reagan administrations. The most high-ranking among them is John Bolton, whom Trump appointed national security advisor amid condemnations by liberal Jewish-American groups due to his vehement opposition to the two-state solution and Palestinian self-determination and to his close links to prominent Islamophobes. Others include former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, American lawyer Alan Dershowitz..............
redqueen
(115,186 posts)lapucelle
(21,066 posts)Magoo48
(6,721 posts)Its a prison, an intentional ghetto, and a horror show of cruelty.
RocRizzo55
(980 posts)The president is a professor at an Israeli university.
The vice president is the winner of a prize from the American Jewish Community.
One of the members of the Board of Directors is a member of the Israeli Supreme Court.
How can this be unbiased?
lapucelle
(21,066 posts)Have you seen this John Cusack tweet?

SoFlaBro
(3,792 posts)n/t
lapucelle
(21,066 posts)that was on brand and on message.
It's a different iteration of "thoughts and prayers."
SoFlaBro
(3,792 posts)n/t
lapucelle
(21,066 posts)that was on brand and on message.
It's a different iteration of 'thoughts and prayers.'"
-------------------------------------------------------
If you have any further questions, sea below.
SoFlaBro
(3,792 posts)Show contrition and don't repeat the behavior. If we are going to beat someone over the head for ANY misstep, you won't get productive conversation out of anyone.
lapucelle
(21,066 posts)Sea below.
lapucelle
(21,066 posts)
KPN
(17,379 posts)FoxNewsSucks
(11,724 posts)please tell me how they are free AND ABLE to leave. Or why they would need to if the living conditions weren't so horrendous.
LymphocyteLover
(9,858 posts)ms liberty
(11,245 posts)Skittles
(171,745 posts)I'm fed up with "BOTH SIDES"
Stuart G
(38,726 posts)Skittles
(171,745 posts)SICK of it
CrispyQ
(40,974 posts)So many fine & outstanding individuals, but as a collective, we suck. It's time for us to pull our collective head out of our collective ass & stop bickering over stupid shit like skin color & religion & address the very serious issues facing our species like climate change & over population. Alas, I fear we've reached our pinnacle & it's all downhill from here.
Deuxcents
(26,966 posts)lapucelle
(21,066 posts)Hamas violates International Humanitarian Law (IHL) rules, as codified in Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions,Hamas violated including:
2. Article 51(4): Prohibiting indiscriminate attacks such as where the method or means of
combat cannot be directed at a specific military objective.
3. Article 51(7): Civilians should not be used to render certain points or areas immune
from military operations, in particular attempts to shield military objectives
4. Article 52: Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives.
5. Article 58: Parties should avoid locating military objectives within or near densely
populated areas.
Alexander Of Assyria
(7,839 posts)Last edited Fri Oct 13, 2023, 01:19 PM - Edit history (1)
Should be lots of evidence of that
600 children killed means must be deploying thousands of little shields
what revealing nonsense.
Do folks even want to think?
and use logic anymore?
or has dehumanization of the wrong kind of people and their equally complicit children taken hold, like a mental sickness?
Give your heads a shake, clear the propaganda cobwebs cluttering up your ability to use logic.
Arazi
(8,887 posts)You were saying about Palestinian children
Alexander Of Assyria
(7,839 posts)1.2 million people
move only south through the rubble or we kill you all!
Hypocrisy is the only friend of evil, along with not needing to think.
lapucelle
(21,066 posts)https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/us/john-cusack-anti-semitic-meme-trnd/index.html

lapucelle
(21,066 posts)The first logical step in clearing the cobwebs is probably actually knowing what is meant by a "human shield".
Human shields are legally protected personseither protected civilians or prisoners of warwho are either coerced or volunteer to deter attacks by occupying the space between a belligerent and a legitimate military target. The use of human shields is forbidden by Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions. It is also a specific intent war crime as codified in the Rome Statute, which was adopted in 1998. The language of the Rome Statute prohibits "utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas, or military forces immune from military operation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_shield_(law)#cite_note-33
==================================================
International Humanitarian Law (IHL) rules, as codified in Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions:
from military operations, in particular attempts to shield military objectives
=========================================
Hamas is an Islamist militant group based in the Gaza Strip, which has been designated by the US, the EU andother countries as a terrorist group. Hamas has been using human shields in conflicts with Israel since 2007.
Although the definition of human shields is not consistent among states and inter-governmental organisations,the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) states the war crime of using human shields encompasses utilizing the presence of a civilian or other protected person to render certain points, areas, or military forces
immune from military operations.
Hamas relies on the Israeli governments aim to minimise collateral damage, and is also aware of the West's sensitivity towards civilian casualties. Hamas use of human shields is therefore likely aimed at minimising their own vulnerabilities by limiting the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) freedom of action. It is also aimed at gaining
diplomatic and public opinion-related leverage, by presenting Israel and the IDF as an aggressor that indiscriminately strikes civilians.
Hamas most common uses of human shields include:
- Firing rockets, artillery, and mortars from or in proximity to heavily populated civilian areas, often from or near facilities which should be protected according to the Geneva Convention (e.g. schools, hospitals,
or mosques).
- Locating military or security-related infrastructures such as HQs, bases, armouries, access routes, lathes, or defensive positions within or in proximity to civilian areas.
-Protecting terrorists houses and military facilities, or rescuing terrorists who were besieged or
warned by the IDF.
-Combating the IDF from or in proximity to residential and commercial areas, including using civilians for intelligence gathering missions.
https://stratcomcoe.org/cuploads/pfiles/hamas_human_shields.pdf
===================================================
The contention that Hamas dehumanizes the "wrong kind of people" (Jews) to the extent that children are are equally complicit is valid. What else could explain the savage, deliberate, calculated, hands-on butchering of children?
And of course, Hamas's willingness to sacrifice the lives of the people of Gaza - including the children - in a genocidal, theocratic crusade is further evidence of their dehumanizing the "expendable" and symptomatic of both mental illness and a deep moral rot.
Alexander Of Assyria
(7,839 posts)lapucelle
(21,066 posts)RockRaven
(19,406 posts)Everyone seems to want to pin people down to a this-side-that-side designation. I don't see the point of that. And I reject that such a stance necessarily entails bothsiderism.
redqueen
(115,186 posts)SoFlaBro
(3,792 posts)shit
onenote
(46,148 posts)should be done.
NH Ethylene
(31,352 posts)When you have one state that takes all it can get and keeps the other state under the thumb of oppression, uprisings are inevitable. I abhor the killings of innocent civilians in Israel, just as I abhor the killing of innocents in attacks on Gaza now and in past conflicts.
onenote
(46,148 posts)which is dedicated to the destruction of Israel? And how does Israel deal with Hamas terror attacks against Israeli civilians?
RocRizzo55
(980 posts)are what should be done, and both sides must agree to a solution to this mess. No more violence. No more bloodshed. No more open air prisons. No more rockets fired. And get the US out of the way of these parties coming to an equitable settlement.
onenote
(46,148 posts)It takes two to negotiate and Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, which makes negotiations impossible.
marybourg
(13,642 posts)were saying?
Quixote1818
(31,156 posts)Mosby
(19,491 posts)John Cusack has apologised after coming under fire for an antisemitic tweet.
Cusack retweeted a quotation, accompanied by a Star of David image, popular among the far right: To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. It is often misattributed to Voltaire but is in fact a reworking of a quotation from American neo-nazi Kevin Alfred Strom. Cusack then added: Follow the money. He has since deleted the tweet.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jun/18/john-cusack-antisemitic-tweet
AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)Mosby
(19,491 posts)Just shows how easy it is to get sucked into conspiracy theories.
JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)was anti-Jewish
uponit7771
(93,532 posts)Demobrat
(10,300 posts)I dont consider myself knowledgeable enough to be entitled to an opinion, other than that.
So far, I have not contributed to any thread about Israel/Gaza/Hamas partly because of this.
And partly because I don't want to be attacked for my opinion or lack thereof. It has happened before right here on DU.
ExWhoDoesntCare
(4,741 posts)No matter what you say, the knives are out.
pazzyanne
(6,760 posts)Bettie
(19,712 posts)he's right.
Uncle Joe
(65,163 posts)Thanks for the thread AntivaxHunters
AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)lapucelle
(21,066 posts)https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/18/us/john-cusack-anti-semitic-meme-trnd/index.html

Stuart G
(38,726 posts)Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)"I don't know... oh hell, of course I am! Isn't it self-evident?"
AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)I don't understand your logic or rational here.
Care to explain for all of us please?
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)The "open prison" reference is a ridiculous analogy that can only refer to Gaza. It is ridiculous because... well I don't want to insult your intelligence, but there are obvious differences relating to the presence of well-armed terrorists running things and keeping hostages, for instance, that would fit rather poorly into this analogy. Gaza resembles a giant missile launching pad more than it does a prison. This analogy, far more accurate than an open-air-prison, escaped Mr Cusack consideration for some inexplicable reason.
AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)Saying that same exact thing & call it that?
Now I'm not Einstein but if you have major orgs calling it that then you may be on the wrong side of the issue.
Just something to think about.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)Their status does not change a single element of this analogy being ridiculous on its face.
AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)So exactly why are you demeaning human rights & aid orgs who work on the ground to help people?
Ya, I'm not understanding that at all.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)To paraphrase Groucho Marx, who am I going to believe, credible sources or my own eyes?
AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)I'm sticking with aid orgs & human rights groups
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)but I prefer to be unstuck. I don't need any reputable sources to tell me what I see or what to think.
AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)lapucelle
(21,066 posts)
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)Any instances of Cusack quoting the Protocols of Zionist Elders?
JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)When Bill Clinton left office, there was a blue print for a mideast peace deal, which was quickly thrown away when bush became President.
When trump became President, he destroyed the in roads the Obama administration made with Iran, alienated most of our allies, reversed positive foreign policy achievements, weakened NATO and the Obama administration policies on the environment, etc.
So it is nice to hear that Mr. Cusack is against civilians getting killed, and injustice, but it sure would have been nice if the supposed progressives like John Cusack, Nina Turner, Susan Sarandon, etc. weren't out there telling people not to vote because Hillary because she is just like Trump.
That did help contribute to the world situation we have today, and definitely the Supreme Court we have which seeks to destroy our rights, and make sure every violent person can have a weapon,
BootinUp
(51,335 posts)isn't really about politics, its above politics, thats why it works. nt
BootinUp
(51,335 posts)JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)worse, while every Democratic administration has not only tried to make it better, but tried to undo the damage the preceding republican administrations have done.
At least that is my narrow view
BootinUp
(51,335 posts)calculation and yes, Carter, Clinton, and Obama have a far superior record than their opposites. Although, I think the Obama years were the hardest. Fucking Putin.
JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)and his unwise poly of nation building
BootinUp
(51,335 posts)betsuni
(29,082 posts)AntivaxHunters
(3,234 posts)And that has absolutely nothing to do with the situation at hand.
Please keep in mind that Netanyahu is a corrupt far right fascist & was first elected in 1996. His ideology is one of apartheid against the Palestinian people & always has been.
Response to AntivaxHunters (Reply #57)
JohnSJ This message was self-deleted by its author.
BlueMTexpat
(15,690 posts)twodogsbarking
(18,817 posts)NNadir
(38,089 posts)TheRickles
(3,398 posts)Longish, but worth a read as he describes how we're so easily triggered by being forced to take sides, when a higher vision like Cusack's is what we need.
https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/hamas-israel-and-the-devil-on-my?utm_source=substack&publication_id=427455&post_id=137914034&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=5hvu6
Sympthsical
(10,972 posts)*criticize Israel*
*treacly platitudes*
*criticize Israel*
*treacly platitudes*
*criticize Israel*
*treacly platitudes*
*criticize Israel*
No one wants any innocents to die.
Except Hamas. They're actively aiming for that to happen. But that has to get obfuscated in the equivalence festival.
Did anyone tell Hamas they can't hug with nuclear arms yet?
Maybe we should send them Twitter memes. I feel like it hasn't even been tried, ya know?
JudyM
(29,785 posts)the world will never see. Yet thats the false equivalence thats being bantered here under the guise of humanitarianism.
Lunabell
(7,309 posts)And I am pro not filling the coffers of the mega rich arms dealers and military industrial complex.
pansypoo53219
(23,034 posts)title 1st. i still remember transferance + sublumation.
pansypoo53219
(23,034 posts)title 1st. i still remember transference + sublumation.
EarnestPutz
(2,843 posts)czarjak
(13,643 posts)Blue Owl
(59,132 posts)housecat
(3,138 posts)I say declare war and you put on the uniform and carry weapons, with or without bone spurs
WarGamer
(18,620 posts)Oneironaut
(6,301 posts)There have been so many yucky opinions lately. This sums up what I feel everyone should agree with. We need to find a way to peace.
Stop the killing, no matter who killed who before. Israel and Palestine are locked in an endless revenge cycle.
marybourg
(13,642 posts)Because we rape, steal, kill, make war, and do lots of awful things. You just havent had any of those things happen to you, personally. In part because the generations before you stood up to many of these things, at the cost of their lives, leaving you free to sing your self-congratulatory song about how peaceful and loving you are. I bet you wouldnt be so peaceful and loving if it were your daughter snatched out of her crib by a band of terrorists.
inthewind21
(4,616 posts)Same as you'd be ok if it were your daughter bombed and blown up in her stroller while you were attempting to flee attempting to flee. Just sayin..
