[News] Around The Rest of World

A posting place for news from places around the globe, outside of the US/Europe.

Prederick wrote:

I feel like this subject deserves its own thread that gets locked after two replies.

Can't even get a follow-up post even after the IDF destroyed a building housing the AP and Al-Jazeera or the US casting the sole veto in the UN to call for a ceasefire.

Rat Boy wrote:
Prederick wrote:

I feel like this subject deserves its own thread that gets locked after two replies.

Can't even get a follow-up post even after the IDF destroyed a building housing the AP and Al-Jazeera or the US casting the sole veto in the UN to call for a ceasefire.

1/2

It's all going to go the same way it always does.

Yup. And anybody who even gives off a whiff of "taking Palestine's side" will be accused of anti-semitism by someone eventually.

I hate that we have to watch this sh*t play out over and over and our government keeps backing the same side over and over. Though much smarter minds than mine haven't been able to succeed at building a lasting peace and equity for the region, so it's not as if I can make a difference.

The throughline on all my views of... pretty much anything, anymore, is despair.

Farscry wrote:

Though much smarter minds than mine haven't been able to succeed at building a lasting peace and equity for the region...

Give yourself some credit; your mind is WAY smarter than Jared Kushner’s.

Farscry wrote:

And anybody who even gives off a whiff of "taking Palestine's side" will be accused of anti-semitism by someone eventually.

On a possibly related note, IGN takes down article and tweet sharing Palestinian aid groups. So too did Game Informer.

Other than the whole thing being the least unexpected thing ever, which is probably a reason it isn't getting much attention (other than the reason Farscry mentions), I have to say, it must be the best development Netanyahu could ever hope for, in his attempt to stay in power/avoid legal consequences.

Funny how conflicts always escalate around desperate leaders benefitting from conflict.

f*cking hell, just saw that in the current situation Israel not only shelled the only lab in Gaza processing Covid-19 tests, but they also shelled a Doctors Without Borders clinic.

No surprise. And the Palestinians can’t aim their rockets with any accuracy, either. There’s blame on both sides, but the more powerful side needs to show restraint, as a general rule. That applies in times of peace, too.

Robear wrote:

No surprise. And the Palestinians can’t aim their rockets with any accuracy, either. There’s blame on both sides, but the more powerful side needs to show restraint, as a general rule. That applies in times of peace, too.

That 'either' is carrying a lot of weight it shouldn't be. There's no such thing as a true precisian bomb, but the munitions Israel does have do fall under the normal usage of that term. Those strikes can't be considered accidents. They are either intentional, or negligent.

Agreed. And Hamas is a corrupt government holding on to power by using indiscriminate terror. For me, the biggest weight on the balance is the policy of using settlements to expand Israel and remove the possibility of a functional Palestinian state. Neither country occupies the moral high ground in all this (and by rights, Israel should, by respecting it’s own people’s history of struggle and acknowledging and dealing humanely with the overall problem). Israel’s actions have worked to destabilize Palestinian governments, which has resulted in terrorist governments and just made things worse all around.

thrawn82 wrote:

That 'either' is carrying a lot of weight it shouldn't be. There's no such thing as a true precisian bomb, but the munitions Israel does have do fall under the normal usage of that term. Those strikes can't be considered accidents. They are either intentional, or negligent.

It's intentional.

Quintin_Stone wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

That 'either' is carrying a lot of weight it shouldn't be. There's no such thing as a true precisian bomb, but the munitions Israel does have do fall under the normal usage of that term. Those strikes can't be considered accidents. They are either intentional, or negligent.

It's intentional.

That's my leaning as well, but I'm willing to leave room for the possibility they just actively don't care what infrastructure they destroy. The key point is they absolutely could be avoiding hitting things like that if they wanted to.

thrawn82 wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:
thrawn82 wrote:

That 'either' is carrying a lot of weight it shouldn't be. There's no such thing as a true precisian bomb, but the munitions Israel does have do fall under the normal usage of that term. Those strikes can't be considered accidents. They are either intentional, or negligent.

It's intentional.

That's my leaning as well, but I'm willing to leave room for the possibility they just actively don't care what infrastructure they destroy. The key point is they absolutely could be avoiding hitting things like that if they wanted to.

Hamas intentionally puts its people in and resources in places like that explicitly to generate this reaction. Israel tries to defend its actions by talking about how they tell people to clear out of their target buildings a few minutes before they attack. Which is nice, but it doesn't excuse Israel's behavior that fuels Hamas in the first place.
Even if Israel gave in to all Palestinian demands, they know that it would take years for Hamas's support to die down and for them to stop their attacks. Israel won't want to just sit and wait out a dying terrorist organization, so the cycle continues with neither side seeing a realistic way out. There's too much history for both sides to simultaneously forgive and forget.

Mixolyde wrote:

Even if Israel gave in to all Palestinian demands, they know that it would take years for Hamas's support to die down and for them to stop their attacks. Israel won't want to just sit and wait out a dying terrorist organization, so the cycle continues with neither side seeing a realistic way out. There's too much history for both sides to simultaneously forgive and forget.

Israel could stop allowing religious fanatics "settlers" from blatantly stealing Palestinian homes and land in clear violation of international agreements and using the IDF as a sort of Pinkerton guards to make sure the Palestinians don't get too uppity as they're being robbed in the daylight.

That would have prevented this outbreak of violence.

Exactly. The concessions must come from the more powerful side - just like with American police reform - or there will be no changes.

Israeli air raid kills Palestinian journalist in his Gaza house

Probably Hamas hiding under the floorboards.

OG_slinger wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

Even if Israel gave in to all Palestinian demands, they know that it would take years for Hamas's support to die down and for them to stop their attacks. Israel won't want to just sit and wait out a dying terrorist organization, so the cycle continues with neither side seeing a realistic way out. There's too much history for both sides to simultaneously forgive and forget.

Israel could stop allowing religious fanatics "settlers" from blatantly stealing Palestinian homes and land in clear violation of international agreements and using the IDF as a sort of Pinkerton guards to make sure the Palestinians don't get too uppity as they're being robbed in the daylight.

That would have prevented this outbreak of violence.

This particular attack? Maybe. But there is so much history, it's hard to say the settlements are the only thing that provoked them.

Even if Israel stopped, which they should, attacks won't instantly stop, and Israel will respond. Even if Hamas said they would stop their attacks, they can't control every single Palestinian, the attacks won't stop, and Israel will respond.

Yes, Israel should stop their aggression and defend and tolerate attacks until the support for them dies down. But they can't or won't. We are stuck with this for a very long time.

Agreed, Mixolyde. My thought, though, is that Israel has the ability and resources take the first step without serious harm. The failure to accept that is a moral one.

Robear wrote:

Agreed, Mixolyde. My thought, though, is that Israel has the ability and resources take the first step without serious harm. The failure to accept that is a moral one.

Sure, but they don't care.

To paraphrase the hypocritical pro-lifers, "The only moral genocide is my genocide."

Yup, the current Israeli doctrine of ‘a city block for an eye’ is going to feed the Hamas pipeline for another few generations at least, and I can’t help feeling that’s the planned outcome. Ongoing survival as a pretext for genocide is probably just enough to avoid international accountability as long as no western powers need to overtly commit blood and treasure to the effort.

Shadout wrote:

Other than the whole thing being the least unexpected thing ever, which is probably a reason it isn't getting much attention (other than the reason Farscry mentions), I have to say, it must be the best development Netanyahu could ever hope for, in his attempt to stay in power/avoid legal consequences.

Funny how conflicts always escalate around desperate leaders benefitting from conflict.

The Arab parties and the rest of the opposition were in negotiations to form a coalition government. Shockingly those negotiations fell apart with the most recent outbreak of hostilities. Which started with a raid on the Temple Mount near the end of Ramadan.

Totally unrelated I’m sure.

Belarusian fighters force Ryanair flight to land in Minsk in order to arrest opposition activist.

(CNN)A leading Belarusian opposition activist has been arrested in Belarus after President Alexander Lukashenko ordered a fighter jet to escort his Ryanair plane to Minsk, according to Pull Pervogo, Belarusian state broadcaster.

Raman Pratasevich, in exile and a vocal critic of President Alexander Lukashenko's regime, was detained at Minsk airport, the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs said on Sunday.
The original flight route was Athens, Greece, to Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital.
Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda has demanded Belarus releases Pratasevich. Nauseda called the incident "abhorrent" and an "unprecedented event" in a tweet. He said a "civilian passenger plane flying to Vilnius was forcibly landed in Minsk."

God I wish that guy had flown El Al.

Why?

maverickz wrote:

Why?

The timing is bad to point this out, but Israel is perfectly happy to seek retribution of violations of their sovereignty by violating the sovereignty of others. I don't think Ireland will take any steps beyond the (very) diplomatic.

H.P. Lovesauce wrote:
maverickz wrote:

Why?

The timing is bad to point this out, but Israel is perfectly happy to seek retribution of violations of their sovereignty by violating the sovereignty of others. I don't think Ireland will take any steps beyond the (very) diplomatic.

I doubt Belarus would have pulled this sh*t in the first place if it had been El Al.

This is a plane registered in Poland flying between two EU capitals on the east side of Europe with zero Irish people on the plane. Ireland's involvement is minimal beyond company ownership which the state isn't part. And if Lukashenko is that unconcerned about how the EU reacts to this he could care less about any Israeli action.

EU seals off airspace to Belarusian planes after jet seizure

I'd be very interested to hear how Orban was handled. I wonder were the new rules around access to funds based upon up holding the rule of law a factor. We'll see.

This crap is simply indefensible. Slobodan Milosevic dies in prison for this sort of thing.

Call it what it is: Ethnic cleansing.

Axon wrote:

I'd be very interested to hear how Orban was handled. I wonder were the new rules around access to funds based upon up holding the rule of law a factor. We'll see.

What I have seen on Twitter suggested that Poland put Orban on notice that a robust response was required. Orban avoids censure on the rest of his shenanigans through the veto from Poland and the only people the Polish government hate more than the gays are Russians.