Nobody in Western liberalism believes in Lebanese sovereignty and you can tell because none of then propose giving Lebanon parity in terns of air power or ground forces or so on to its neighbor which is literally occupying it right now.

Remember when people were slobbering praise all over Macron for sending half a dozen APCs to the Lebanese Army and just that for the express purpose of posing no threat to Israel but enough of a threat to Lebanese citizens lol

This is what a so called “ceasefire” with Israel looks like when the United States continues to illegally provide endless amounts of weapons to this apartheid state. A real ceasefire is only possible with an arms embargo.

"If we keep telling people to vote based on what is viable we won't change our system" is a correct thing to say about policy positions and an absolutely insane thing to say about zero-sum electoral math at 10% in the polls

This is primarily a narrow objection to the way things are framed though. I don't like the idea of partition but am not opposed to it as a rule provided there are complementary elements that provide justice, but I am fine with the idea of a "Palestinian state" which is a state of all its citizens.

Yeah I think something that got lost in the weeds yesterday is that my original objection is simply to this idea of a state that is owned by one national group. I don't consider it normal and I also genuinely do not think we Palestinians are entitled to one.

A good way for ppl to think of this is to also remember that for all their talk about how love the "Israeli Arabs" (who are just Palestinians with citizenship) so much, those Arabs do not support the idea of a Jewish and democratic state, they support the idea of a democratic state of all citizens.

I object to the Israeli Law of Return and the Absentee Property Law and the Citizenship Law and the Basic Law On the Nation State because they're racist laws and I would object to these on that basis if we did them.

Yes and I think there is ultimately a degree of just exasperation for my objection to this on the basis that Jews just "deserve" to own their state as the property of the Jewish people, but I don't agree as a principle and I don't think the genocide in Gaza entitles me to owning a state either.

To caveat this of course, I actually think the genocide in Gaza of course makes partition likelier than ever, not less likely, but this means it will have to be a real partition and not the soft and fake kind that the West has long promoted in which there'd be a bantustan called a state.

The French minister of trade says that "we cannot accept any import of products from illegally occupied territories." and calls a ban on the import of settlement goods "normal". Yet, France has not yet introduced its own ban and is instead awaiting an EU Commission proposal, which will be vetoed.

they were always gonna lose but the real question is can the electorate learn a less for more than 2 seconds?

I harp on it often because it is just true. The vast majority of these people say they oppose settlements, apartheid, genocide, etcetera, they're for two states, they support Palestinian freedom, and then in practice their parties support trading with settlement goods, support sending weapons, etc.

It is also not exclusive to the United States at all, this is how Canadian and British and French and German and Italian and so on do it too.

The worst kind of liberal is the person who says they oppose something and then they do nothing in practice to corroborate it. It is hardly every kind of liberal and it is not the case on every issue or even most issues, but this is most liberals on Israel.

I don't trust them partially because of the expediency factor and partially because I don't think it is even necessary to Sephiroth post but these people are doing it because they find it suddenly the way the wind blows.

Kind of person who only says the expedient thing isn't worthy of trust.

There are people on here who were giving me every possible excuse in the world as to why Biden wasn't, couldn't, and even shouldn't do a single thing to hold Israel accountable two years ago, but are now Sephiroth posting about Israel themselves. Low key I don't believe them at all.

AIPAC's support is toxic to anyone who wants to win a Democratic primary. That's why they're hiding their spending behind these loopholes. Candidates should remember that the vast majority of Democratic voters oppose Israeli apartheid and genocide, and they're ready to reject politicians who don't.

This is pretty brutal

Stevens has found herself in an interesting situation where she needs money to run this campaign, she is not raising that much, therefore her best option money-wise is to tout her AIPAC ties, but this is a net-negative politically, so she avoids direct AIPAC spending but tries to get it this way.

A really fascinating op-ed that claims Israel can turn its international image and growing isolation around with a new government, but it doesn't mention by name any of the parties or candidates who are running because none of them have any intention of doing any of the things the author recommends.

This is like the ur-example of imagining a country's politics that does not exist.

Doesn't even bother to mention the non-Zionist parties as a fig leaf hahahahaha.

This author doesn't mention a single Israeli politician or political party. That really makes you think.

I suppose this is tautologically true, a more rational Israel could maintain its systems of apartheid over Palestinians and other Arabs if they were just a bit smarter and a bit more willing to reach particular agreements advantageous to them, but they're not because they're too irrational.

Laughably untrue but certainly something liberal Zionists believe.

No self-defined Zionist party in Israel is opposed to settlements, settlers, settler violence, annexation, or the occupation. Sorry that's just the facts. Yair Golan is pro-occupation, Yair Lapid is pro-occupation. Benny Gantz is openly pro-annexation. Bennett is a proud apartheidist one-stater.

You get into an exhausting loop with these things; "Israel is an apartheid state" -> "No its not! They could implement all these policies!" -> "Ok but they haven't" -> "Well, they don't have the votes" -> "Ok, so the people support it being an apartheid state" -> "No! They could implement reforms!"

My favorite EU5 loading screen The bird.

And oh my god, people, please stop doing the, "uh, actually, Patagonia is the name of a region. They don't own the name!" thing. They own a trademark when it comes to the specific industry they work in. No one is trying to stop this drag queen from using that name, just from selling clothes with it.

The whole "They're trying to silence me!" routine is weak. No, they're not. You had an informal agreement with them, but then you tried to file a trademark to get into the exact same industry as the company you're parodying.

Like, sorry, but you can't still stuff like this, try to"file a trademark application in September to use the brand Pattie Gonia to sell clothing and promote environmental activism," and expect the clothing and environmental activism company to be like, "That's cool."

Think I've got to side with Patagonia here.

"I will be cautious when using the plagiarism-based, electricity-eating, water-guzzling, sludge-producing software no one likes."

Me when I'm using the 50 bazillion dollar slop machine that all of the biggest tech companies are heavily pushing into everything: im the one driving 🙂

The Israelis of course don't care because they prefer a weak neighbour that sometimes lobs rockets to a strong one that does not. That is the objectively revealed policy preference.

If Western countries were remotely interested in peace, they would go to the Lebanese government and say: what do you need to bring the Lebanese Army up to scratch, so it could meaningfully defend the country? That would put Hezbollah out of a job in hours.

The funny (not funny at all) thing about the general Western consensus that Lebanon has to put up with regular Israeli invasions is that in actual fact the best way to ensure that no rockets land in Israel is if Lebanon did in fact have a strong army with a monopoly on the use of force.

this by the way is a thing with a lot of israeli public discourse. i actually very much do know what they say internally, i just think it's completely nuts and detached from any sober assessment of how human beings actually behave in the real world

Anyway, if anyone wants to talk to me about how this is the surest sign that 4chan has won the culture war, happy to make myself available.

it's so good, normally someone owning a horse and have it described as a force of nature or a demon would elicit pride but Gentil's owner saw that and went "you are all so fucking mean, and for what, here, she has a pink hat now, do you think this sweet creature is a demon? you fucker"

Hewwo!! Let's go! #umamusume

oh god help something went horribly wrong

hands you small bakushin

It’s nice that the Pope is yelling at AI techbros and warmongers. But, please remember that he also thinks banning trans healthcare across an entire country is fine and thinks abortion is the enemy of peace.

We are also all marketing and sales people to some degree, because a resume and a cover letter are marketing documents.

For cis people; an explanation about how Labour’s Toilet Ban came into being and the way far-right transphobes have changed our laws and overtaken governmental agencies. This is the blueprint for other nasty stuff coming up, like ending the right to safe & legal abortions and equal marriage.

Far-Right Candidate Who Wants to Deport 100 Million People Wins GOP Runoff for Texas Oil Regulator talkingpointsmemo.com/news/far-rig...