Israel

[956 Worldwide 34715]

24 minutes ago, 'stache said:

Fair point on the deli harassment, I chalk that up more to naïveté from dumb students than anti-Semetism. Way different ballpark from the tiki torch crowd.

Sorry, but it isn’t just deli harassment. It’s targeting of individual students, of Jewish organizations, demonstrating and targeting Jewish and not Israeli organizations.  
 

It won’t do to say “the people on my side are just confused kids, the ones on the other side are evil and really it’s my political opponents fault .” We’ve heard that from the right long enough, that these are just people who feel alienated and condescended to by the democratic elite. It’s just the classic reframing of “maybe (my erstwhile allies) are wrong but it’s not their fault. 

[hobbes2702 13047]

9 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s an easy call to say “calling for a genocide of Jews or any other people is a violation of our code of conduct for students.” 

I see you’re a fan of cheap politics and rhetoric.

[wildcat09 29355]

11 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s an easy call to say “calling for a genocide of Jews or any other people is a violation of our code of conduct for students.” 

About that:

 

She certainly could've framed her answer better, but saying anything other than some variation of "it depends" would probably not have been true.

[wildcat09 29355]

37 minutes ago, Nivek said:

The left contains a lot of stupidity and ignorance. It hasnt ever pushed me to become an anti-democratic fascist (republican).

We generally do a better job of marginalizing the nuts. The right is now the party of nut jobs.

Same here, but it will happen to some, because there's a lot of stupid people in this country. Many people who ended up joining the alt-right really entered their political lives as supporters of the occupy Wall Street movement, then became disillusioned when that fizzled out. Most people's politics, but especially young people's, are more incoherent and therefore more malleable than I think we really understand. There is some number of people who lean left right now who will get frustrated with what they feel are social pressures against them voicing a reasonable opinion (e.g. "it's pretty fucked up how many children Israel is killing right now and I wish they wouldn't") and end up falling for the far-right explanation for why that is (a Jewish conspiracy).

You can see a similar spiral from many older feminists (especially in the UK) who objected to growing social acceptance of trans people and have ended up organizing with "mens rights" activists and actual nazis.  

[RDCanecutter 26453]

Am I the only person bothered by the term "Anti-Semite?" We're not talking about people who just hate Ephraimites. Should clearly be "Anti-Shemite."

[Anastasis 23475]

Posted without comment

 

 

Edited December 6, 2023 by Anastasis

[wildcat09 29355]

9 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Posted without comment

 

 

I have never hit the neg button faster.

['stache 21821]

How's their football team?

[Anastasis 23475]

43 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I have never hit the neg button faster.

But wait, there's more.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-17/university-of-austin-uatx-draws-donors-as-israel-backlash-hits-harvard-upenn

Ivy League Backlash Draws Money, Students to Upstart University in Texas

The University of Austin sees a surge in attention as Mideast conflict roils elite campuses

Spoiler

It seemed ambitious, verging on grandiose, when journalist Bari Weiss used her Substack newsletter in 2021 to reveal plans for a new university in Austin, Texas.

The project — to address the “gaping chasm between the promise and the reality of higher education” — was backed by prominent people in academia and finance, including the historian Niall Ferguson, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale.

But it was hard to envisage how exactly the University of Austin would get off the ground. There was no leafy campus, a glaring lack of accreditation and, of course, no network of notable alumni to entice new students. The idea of the little upstart being able to compete with Ivy League institutions to enroll the nation’s best and brightest seemed far fetched.

Two years on, UATX, as it's known, is having a moment.

Pano Kanelos, the institution’s president, said it's seeing a surge in interest from donors horrified by the response at top-tier universities to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, including what some saw as a failure to directly condemn terrorism and attacks on Jewish students. To Weiss and other backers of UATX who had previously decried cancel culture and diversity programs they perceive as having run amok, the response represented the culmination of the far-left takeover of elite education. For them, it showed how out of touch university administrators had become and proved the need for an institution that rejected “illiberalism,” like the University of Austin.

Pano Kanelos during an UATX event at the Capital Factory in Austin, on Nov. 13.Photographer: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg

People “who have been supporting institutions with significant donations for a long time have been shaken up by the events that are happening on campus, whatever their politics are,” Kanelos, who previously led Annapolis, Maryland-based liberal arts school St. John's College, said in an interview. “So donors are looking for institutions that I think are trying to find solutions to our political conflicts and complexity.”

UATX got its license to operate in Texas last month and is preparing to enroll its first undergraduate class — hoping to bring on 100 students in the fall of 2024. The school has held more than 60 events over the past two years and has already raised nearly $200 million. This week, seeking to keep the momentum and checks flowing, supporters met at startup accelerator Capital Factory's headquarters in downtown Austin — a telling backdrop for a school that fashions itself like a Silicon Valley upstart. There was a line out the door for the happy hour, though no sign of Weiss, Ferguson or Lonsdale at the event.

Teri Andresen, who sits on the board of trustees for UATX, was there after pledging $10 million to the school in 2022 along with her husband, Headlands Technologies co-founder Matt Andresen. They had been drawn to the idea of starting a new college as they became disillusioned with higher education, particularly after Teri’s alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, allowed a transgender woman to compete on the women’s swim team. The universities’ responses to the attack in Israel has deepened their commitment.

“So whereby Penn and Harvard and Columbia, and whatever institution you can think of, made statements about certain incidents, but then didn't make an equal statement about the atrocities in Israel — that is where the problem was,” Teri Andresen said.

The gap between college students and faculty who are far to the left of many universities’ biggest donors on cultural and social issues had been apparent for several years, but took on new prominence in campus newspapers, alumni networks and social media since the attacks in Israel and its response in Gaza.

Harvard has been among the schools at the epicenter of the blowback. Current head Claudine Gay has been criticized by investor Bill Ackman and Summers, a former Harvard president who is on the board of advisers of UATX. Penn has also been rattled by calls from alumni, including Apollo Global Management Inc. head Marc Rowan, to change its leadership. At Stanford University, more than 1,400 students, faculty, parents and alumni signed an open letter criticizing the university's failure to clearly condemn Hamas.

Civil Discourse

In many ways, it seems the University of Austin was founded for these times.

Supporters say the college is needed as an alternative to the liberal atmosphere that pervades much of higher education and, they maintain, encourages mindless groupthink. UATX fashions itself as an apolitical university that values “sustained civil discourse” and “intellectual risk-taking.” While many of its backers lean conservative, others identify as liberals who feel like they’ve been left behind by far-left politics.

Weiss resigned from the New York Times in 2020, saying she was bullied by liberal colleagues. She then founded her own media company, the Free Press, which has gotten a surge of attention for its coverage in the aftermath of the attacks on Israel.

Ferguson, a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, is a prolific historian who has written 16 books and taught at Harvard, the London School of Economics and New York University. As a vocal critic of higher education institutions who he says have created a “chilling” atmosphere around freedom of speech, he met with Kanelos, Weiss and Lonsdale in Austin in May 2021, where the idea for UATX was formed.

Among the recent donors that have backed UATX’s vision of higher education is Paul Hobby, the founder of Houston-based private equity firm Genesis Park. He first heard about the school when his son, who is pursuing an MBA at the University of Texas, enrolled in UATX’s part-time fellowship program. He said he made up his mind to donate this summer and in October sent a six-figure donation to UATX — he declined to specify the exact amount — enough to make him what the university calls a “founding donor.”

“There is a moment here where we can profit from the lostness of the Ivy League institutions and the faculty that want to flee that environment,” Hobby said in an interview. “UATX can create talent and recruit talent.”

Still, it’s yet to be seen if the critiques of the Ivy League and other established universities will actually dissuade students from attending. Elite institutions have seen record undergraduate applications in recent years. And their endowments — Harvard’s is $50.7 billion and Penn’s is $21 billion, for example — provide a buttress against changes in donor sentiment.

Not Oxford Yet

UATX’s classrooms, on the third floor of the historic Scarborough building in downtown Austin, are still under construction with plans to finish in December. When students are done for the day, they’ll be able to head down to ground level to pick up dinner at Velvet Taco or a gigantic bowl of booze at Punch Bowl Social. For now, the UATX staff works out of an office about 20 minutes from downtown Austin, which Kanelos described as more “Dunder Mifflin than Oxford University.” At this week’s tours of the new campus, visitors were handed UATX branded hard hats once they reached the third floor.

While the first cohort of students will attend UATX tuition free, they will still have to pay for their housing and living expenses, Kanelos said. After the first class tuition will be around $32,500 a year. To be sure, starting a school from the ground up is no easy feat, and UATX is still figuring out the details around key parts of campus life like housing. Other small, private colleges have struggled financially across the US due to declining enrollment.

UATX is under construction with plans of opening in December.Photographer: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg

So far, the University of Austin has held seminars for more than 500 students. Its “Forbidden Courses” summer program included an appearance by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and delved into “science and religion, race, gender politics, Anglo-American grand strategy, our moral judgments, debates within conservatism, and the state of evolutionary biology,” according to the university’s website.

Gunnar Michelsen attended this week’s event with his younger brother, a senior in high school interested in joining UATX's founding class. Michelsen, a University of Chicago graduate who participated in the Forbidden Courses program, said that enrolling in UATX is an opportunity for students to do something different.

"It's just a very non-traditional school approach," he said. “It was just awesome being there and being able to get informed perspectives from every angle.”

 

[statsman 5472]

To be clear, Hamas is an anti-Semitic group, to their core. It is their rason d’etre. They live to hate Jews, all Jews, not pausing to differentiate between Jews that are actually pro-Palestinian. Hamas is more anti-Semitic than the Nazis were; the Nazis lived to kill Jews, too, but realized they needed to kind of hide their activities. Hamas blasted their crimes out on social media in real time. 
 
Any western group that acts in congress with or in alignment with Hamas goals is going to be (at least) splashed in anti-Semitism. That’s the ocean they’re swimming in. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by statsman

[wildcat09 29355]

You really do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to the Nazis.

[Brisketexan 105158]

4 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

You really do not, under any circumstances, gotta hand it to the Nazis.

"I like this Hugo Boss, he cuts a nice suit."

[956 Worldwide 34715]

3 hours ago, Nivek said:

The left contains a lot of stupidity and ignorance. It hasnt ever pushed me to become an anti-democratic fascist (republican).

We generally do a better job of marginalizing the nuts. The right is now the party of nut jobs.

It’s almost like there’s a pattern out there of how excusing leads to tolerating leads to coddling leads to accepting leads to party capture and that loons need to be policed and excluded. Not excused.

It’s also almost like for extreme edge-lords, it’s the extremism and the anger that’s the draw and not the politics and they will go where they can get that fix. 

[Blotto 23559]

1 hour ago, 'stache said:

How's their football team?

Quote

Teri Andresen, who sits on the board of trustees for UATX, was there after pledging $10 million to the school in 2022 along with her husband, Headlands Technologies co-founder Matt Andresen. They had been drawn to the idea of starting a new college as they became disillusioned with higher education, particularly after Teri’s alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, allowed a transgender woman to compete on the women’s swim team. 

Hard to say, but all signs are trending towards female cheerleaders (TradCheer) setting up a fierce rivalry with their friends on the Brazos. 

[Brisketexan 105158]

Just now, Blotto said:

Hard to say, but all signs are trending towards female cheerleaders (TradCheer) setting up a fierce rivalry with their friends on the Brazos. 

Notice the thing that super-duper upset them about Penn State, and caused them to become "disillusioned" with the university (allowing a trans woman to compete in swimming).....compared to the thing that clearly had not caused them to become "disillusioned" with the university (years upon years of child rape, covered up by senior university officials).  In case you were wondering about the moral standing of these lovely folks.

Rape kids and cover it up in order to keep winning football games?  The "disillusioned" needle doesn't even budge.

Let a trans woman swim?  "I AM DISILLUSIONED!"

The day I listen to anyone affiliated with the new fake university on the subject of "morality" and "enough is enough" is....well, it ain't gonna come before the heat death of the universe.

[Blotto 23559]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Notice the thing that super-duper upset them about Penn State, and caused them to become "disillusioned" with the university (allowing a trans woman to compete in swimming).....compared to the thing that clearly had not caused them to become "disillusioned" with the university (years upon years of child rape, covered up by senior university officials).  In case you were wondering about the moral standing of these lovely folks.

Rape kids and cover it up in order to keep winning football games?  The "disillusioned" needle doesn't even budge.

Let a trans woman swim?  "I AM DISILLUSIONED!"

The day I listen to anyone affiliated with the new fake university on the subject of "morality" and "enough is enough" is....well, it ain't gonna come before the heat death of the universe.

Penn, not Penn St.

[Brisketexan 105158]

11 minutes ago, Blotto said:

Penn, not Penn St.

Oh.

 

Well.

 

 

[wildcat09 29355]

1 hour ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s almost like there’s a pattern out there of how excusing leads to tolerating leads to coddling leads to accepting leads to party capture and that loons need to be policed and excluded. Not excused.

It’s also almost like for extreme edge-lords, it’s the extremism and the anger that’s the draw and not the politics and they will go where they can get that fix. 

Can't argue with you there.

[wildcat09 29355]

46 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Oh.

 

Well.

 

 

Don't worry, your impression of the morality of the people associated with the new fake scam school is still 100% accurate.

[Anastasis 23475]

"Cancel culture on elite liberal campuses is undermining academic freedom and exchange"

"These universities need to be cancelled cause they won't suppress all forms of pro-palestinian speech and label it genocide"

Try to hold these two thoughts simultaneously in your mind and see how much it hurts.  

[Chuckie Finster 22701]

I can acknowledge that this was essentially a “gotcha” question asked by a ghoul of a human being not in good faith. I can also acknowledge that, under oath, it may be difficult to give an unequivocal response that satisfies both the politicians and the University rules. I can acknowledge that their answer does not necessarily make them antisemitic.

But if it’s not antisemitism, then it’s incompetence. If they were not able to prepare for this exact question and develop an answer that does not basically sound like “lol who gives a fuck about the Jews” then they are not fit to hold their current office.

They walked into a hearing that was begging for a Fox News headline, and were unprepared enough that they ended up giving an answer that I’ve seen ALL over the internet today - even from non-political folks. Inexcusable from individuals tasked with leading higher education in this country.

[Anastasis 23475]

2 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

I’ve seen ALL over the internet today - even from non-political folks.

Yeah, that particular clip is getting some play. Just shows you how fucking stupid and garbage-brained a substantial number of people are. 

[Anastasis 23475]

LOL, this lady can't pull off sincerity at any level, but esp when reading off a prompter. They are just going to drag themselves through the cringe. 

 

 

 

[Brian Fantana 6689]

14 hours ago, 'stache said:

The question is meant to equate all support for Palestinians with calling for genocide of the Jews.

Yeah, I mean, that's what 956 believes. He agrees with her, he's not hiding it at all. It's why he posts more in the DT thread now, where his pro-Palestinian genocidal views are less likely to be challenged. He's not worth engaging on this topic. He's just going try to gaslight you in the same way Stefanik does.

[GW Hayduke 1953]

9 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s almost like there’s a pattern out there of how excusing leads to tolerating leads to coddling leads to accepting leads to party capture and that loons need to be policed and excluded. Not excused.

Now apply this line of thinking to those who continue to support Israel. 

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestinians-have-died-gaza-war-how-will-counting-continue-2023-12-06/

Quote

 Israeli forces unleashed an aerial and ground blitz against Hamas in Gaza after a cross-border rampage by the enclave's ruling Islamist group on Oct. 7. At least 16,015 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to Gaza Health Ministry figures, while 1,200 people were killed in Hamas' incursion into Israel, according to Israeli tallies.

 

[statsman 5472]

There is a photo, and I hope I don’t have to copy it here. It is from October 7, and it was taken by Hamas affiliated photographers. It shows a young woman, nabbed from the music festival. She was near naked, bleeding from her groin (she had been raped by many “men”, and the blood was either from brutal intrusions or-and one hates to mention this kind of detail, but it happened often- from knife thrusts into her vagina). Her right leg was formed into several unnatural angles; it is difficult to imagine the process(es) by which it had been broken so often and severely. 
 
She was in the back of a pickup truck heading to Gaza; the intent seems to have been to keep her as a hostage. Evidently, at some point, they realized how impractical that was- the effort to keep her alive after those injuries and the problems coming as a survivor relating her horrors- so they killed her and dumped her along the way. She was found with her head severed, and no one can say whether the decapitation was the coup de grace, or some post death ritual debasement. 
 
These acts, committed on this young woman, and many others, were not the results of chaos, anger and opportunity. They were the plan. the Hamas leaders are and were proud of them and freely admit plans for more of the same. 
 
Israel could negotiate with Hamas. That would be a reward for October 7, and so there will be more October 7’s. 
  
Israel could just have a limited military engagement, get a tit for tat, maybe a little more, and call it good, leaving Hamas and its Iranian funders intact. Again, there will be more October 7’s. 
 
Israel decided, instead, to slay the monsters, along with many of the innocents that the monsters hide among. That is tragic, but, for the life of me, I can’t think of a better option. 

Edited December 7, 2023 by statsman

[Bateshorn 9928]

13 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

I can acknowledge that this was essentially a “gotcha” question asked by a ghoul of a human being not in good faith. I can also acknowledge that, under oath, it may be difficult to give an unequivocal response that satisfies both the politicians and the University rules. I can acknowledge that their answer does not necessarily make them antisemitic.

But if it’s not antisemitism, then it’s incompetence. If they were not able to prepare for this exact question and develop an answer that does not basically sound like “lol who gives a fuck about the Jews” then they are not fit to hold their current office.

They walked into a hearing that was begging for a Fox News headline, and were unprepared enough that they ended up giving an answer that I’ve seen ALL over the internet today - even from non-political folks. Inexcusable from individuals tasked with leading higher education in this country.

This.  Did their lobbyists not murder board them before the hearing?  And I personally know the MIT lobbyist.  They should all be unemployed this morning. 

Once again, we are having a version of the "Freedom of Speech does not mean freedom from consequences" debate. 

[956 Worldwide 34715]

23 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

This.  Did their lobbyists not murder board them before the hearing?  And I personally know the MIT lobbyist.  They should all be unemployed this morning. 

Once again, we are having a version of the "Freedom of Speech does not mean freedom from consequences" debate. 

I have no doubt that Stefanik had a bunch of garbage gotcha questions lurking farther down in her paper.  But instead all of them walked into the doorframe so there was no need for the bucket of slime to crash down, she just sat there and watched them bonk into it again and again.

[wildcat09 29355]

8 hours ago, statsman said:

There is a photo, and I hope I don’t have to copy it here. It is from October 7, and it was taken by Hamas affiliated photographers. It shows a young woman, nabbed from the music festival. She was near naked, bleeding from her groin (she had been raped by many “men”, and the blood was either from brutal intrusions or-and one hates to mention this kind of detail, but it happened often- from knife thrusts into her vagina). Her right leg was formed into several unnatural angles; it is difficult to imagine the process(es) by which it had been broken so often and severely. 
 
She was in the back of a pickup truck heading to Gaza; the intent seems to have been to keep her as a hostage. Evidently, at some point, they realized how impractical that was- the effort to keep her alive after those injuries and the problems coming as a survivor relating her horrors- so they killed her and dumped her along the way. She was found with her head severed, and no one can say whether the decapitation was the coup de grace, or some post death ritual debasement. 
 
These acts, committed on this young woman, and many others, were not the results of chaos, anger and opportunity. They were the plan. the Hamas leaders are and were proud of them and freely admit plans for more of the same. 
 
Israel could negotiate with Hamas. That would be a reward for October 7, and so there will be more October 7’s. 
  
Israel could just have a limited military engagement, get a tit for tat, maybe a little more, and call it good, leaving Hamas and its Iranian funders intact. Again, there will be more October 7’s. 
 
Israel decided, instead, to slay the monsters, along with many of the innocents that the monsters hide among. That is tragic, but, for the life of me, I can’t think of a better option. 

Somewhere someone online is typing up an incredibly similar post about all of the dead children Israel has bombed and ranting about how peace with Israel is not possible because they're inhuman monsters. 

This is not to defend Hamas or downplay the horrors of what they did on 10/7 or the horrors they've inflicted upon the Palestinian people for whom they're supposedly responsible.  It's a fact of war.  Humans have and will always inflict what seems like unimaginable cruelty on others during war.  Hamas isn't unique in that regard and they're certainly not worse than the nazis were (saying that they are arguably gets pretty close to a form of holocaust denial).  You can read similar stories about atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinans, by Japanese soldiers against Koreans and Chinese in WW2, by American soldiers against Vietnamese people, hell by American police against American children.

Every person on this planet from every ethnic and religious background is capable of doing great good and of committing horrible acts. That's the human condition. Every person on this planet has the urge you're demonstrating here: to excuse cruelty against innocent people because of the perceived inhumanity of the enemy. That only results in more cruelty in response.

There's an unfortunate calculus involved when determining the "collateral damage" that is morally "acceptable" to inflict when going after a group like Hamas or ISIS who needs to be destroyed by military force.  It's not possible to do that without killing innocent people too. But when you start thinking "fuck it, it doesn't matter how many innocent people I kill because they started it so it's entirely their fault" you take a big fucking step down the road to becoming as bad as them.  How do you think they got to thinking the same about Israeli civilians?

Edited December 7, 2023 by wildcat09

[956 Worldwide 34715]

20 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

 

This is not to defend Hamas or downplay the horrors of what they did on 10/7 or the horrors they've inflicted upon the Palestinian people for whom they're supposedly responsible.  It's a fact of war.  Humans have and will always inflict what seems like unimaginable cruelty on others during war.  Hamas isn't unique in that regard and they're certainly not worse than the nazis were (saying that they are arguably gets pretty close to a form of holocaust denial).  You can read similar stories about atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinans, by Japanese soldiers against Koreans and Chinese in WW2, by American soldiers against Vietnamese people, hell by American police against American children.

 

I don’t think we are ever going to get anywhere so long as we insist in treating October 7 as an awful and unfortunate side effect of war and not as the end-goal.   We keep going around in circles on this even though there’s a a substantial body of international law dedicated to exactly this. 
 

Parsing out your examples: 

- SS: Committing atrocities is their raison d’être; it is both sanctioned and directed by political leadership because leadership viewed the extermination of undesirable groups as a strategic aim. 
 

- Wehrmacht and IJA: Committing atrocities is an integral part of their strategy while pursuing a military aim.  Political and strategic leadership directed and sanctioned the atrocities as a means to pacify a civilian population and bring it under full control.  Perpetrators are celebrated and promoted. 
 

- U.S. Armed Forces in Vietnam: Atrocities are committed during the pursuit of a military aim.  Leadership does not direct and sanction the atrocities on a political or strategic level but may do so at the operational or lower level; perpetrators are subject to a spectrum of discipline.  Atrocities are not a central aim nor critical to the military mission. 
 

There’s an argument to be had as to where Hamas and IDF fall on that spectrum (I’d say Hamas trends towards the SS end and the IDF to the U.S. end) but it’s a grave mistake to wipe away the spectrum completely. 
 

 

[GW Hayduke 1953]

43 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Somewhere someone online is typing up an incredibly similar post about all of the dead children Israel has bombed and ranting about how peace with Israel is not possible because they're inhuman monsters. 

This is not to defend Hamas or downplay the horrors of what they did on 10/7 or the horrors they've inflicted upon the Palestinian people for whom they're supposedly responsible.  It's a fact of war.  Humans have and will always inflict what seems like unimaginable cruelty on others during war.  Hamas isn't unique in that regard and they're certainly not worse than the nazis were (saying that they are arguably gets pretty close to a form of holocaust denial).  You can read similar stories about atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinans, by Japanese soldiers against Koreans and Chinese in WW2, by American soldiers against Vietnamese people, hell by American police against American children.

Every person on this planet from every ethnic and religious background is capable of doing great good and of committing horrible acts. That's the human condition. Every person on this planet has the urge you're demonstrating here: to excuse cruelty against innocent people because of the perceived inhumanity of the enemy. That only results in more cruelty in response.

There's an unfortunate calculus involved when determining the "collateral damage" that is morally "acceptable" to inflict when going after a group like Hamas or ISIS who needs to be destroyed by military force.  It's not possible to do that without killing innocent people to. But when you start thinking "fuck it, it doesn't matter how many innocent people I kill because they started it so it's entirely their fault" you take a big fucking step down the road to becoming as bad as them.  How do you think they got to thinking the same about Israeli civilians?

But if you ignore all of that, it becomes much easier to use atrocity porn to dehumanize the other side and justify military action against a civilian population

[statsman 5472]

43 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Somewhere someone online is typing up an incredibly similar post about all of the dead children Israel has bombed and ranting about how peace with Israel is not possible because they're inhuman monsters. 

This is not to defend Hamas or downplay the horrors of what they did on 10/7 or the horrors they've inflicted upon the Palestinian people for whom they're supposedly responsible.  It's a fact of war.  Humans have and will always inflict what seems like unimaginable cruelty on others during war.  Hamas isn't unique in that regard and they're certainly not worse than the nazis were (saying that they are arguably gets pretty close to a form of holocaust denial).  You can read similar stories about atrocities committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinans, by Japanese soldiers against Koreans and Chinese in WW2, by American soldiers against Vietnamese people, hell by American police against American children.

Every person on this planet from every ethnic and religious background is capable of doing great good and of committing horrible acts. That's the human condition. Every person on this planet has the urge you're demonstrating here: to excuse cruelty against innocent people because of the perceived inhumanity of the enemy. That only results in more cruelty in response.

There's an unfortunate calculus involved when determining the "collateral damage" that is morally "acceptable" to inflict when going after a group like Hamas or ISIS who needs to be destroyed by military force.  It's not possible to do that without killing innocent people to. But when you start thinking "fuck it, it doesn't matter how many innocent people I kill because they started it so it's entirely their fault" you take a big fucking step down the road to becoming as bad as them.  How do you think they got to thinking the same about Israeli civilians?

I explained why I believed Israel had to respond to the threat of Hamas, and why their choice, lethal as it is to the civilians Hamas shelters among, is their best (least worst) option. 
 
Do you disagree that the government of Israel, which has to stand for popular elections) has to respond?

Do you think there is a better option for them?

[statsman 5472]

1 minute ago, GW Hayduke said:

But if you ignore all of that, it becomes much easier to use atrocity porn to dehumanize the other side and justify military action against a civilian population

No. Not de-humanize. What Hamas did/does is all too human. I was very careful in my choice of words. 
 
Hamas are monsters. From the beginning of humanity, society has to eliminate monsters. 

[wildcat09 29355]

7 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I don’t think we are ever going to get anywhere so long as we insist in treating October 7 as an awful and unfortunate side effect of war and not as the end-goal.   We keep going around in circles on this even though there’s a a substantial body of international law dedicated to exactly this. 
 

Parsing out your examples: 

- SS: Committing atrocities is their raison d’être; it is both sanctioned and directed by political leadership because leadership viewed the extermination of undesirable groups as a strategic aim. 
 

- Wehrmacht and IJA: Committing atrocities is an integral part of their strategy while pursuing a military aim.  Political and strategic leadership directed and sanctioned the atrocities as a means to pacify a civilian population and bring it under full control.  Perpetrators are celebrated and promoted. 
 

- U.S. Armed Forces in Vietnam: Atrocities are committed during the pursuit of a military aim.  Leadership does not direct and sanction the atrocities on a political or strategic level but may do so at the operational or lower level; perpetrators are subject to a spectrum of discipline.  Atrocities are not a central aim nor critical to the military mission. 
 

There’s an argument to be had as to where Hamas and IDF fall on that spectrum (I’d say Hamas trends towards the SS end and the IDF to the U.S. end) but it’s a grave mistake to wipe away the spectrum completely. 
 

 

I don't think anything I said could be reasonably read as trying to wipe away that spectrum. The point of my comments wasn't on where Hamas falls on that spectrum, but on the disregard for the humanity of Palestinian people based on acts carried out by Hamas.

I do think it's wrong to say that US leadership during Vietnam did not direct or sanction atrocities. Kissinger himself micromanaged bombings in Cambodia and Laos himself and often picked civilian villages with no enemy combatants as targets, pretty much for shits and giggles. He really fucking loved being the one making those decisions. We, and the IDF, have often not clearly been morally better than our enemies. Those instances when we've failed to be result from exactly the reactive, emotional mindset I cautioned against in my prior post.  When we are better, it's not because of some innate goodness that others simply lack the capacity for, but because we listen to that caution (and have built protocols and institutions that require us to do so) and don't give in to our emotional need for revenge.   

[statsman 5472]

I don’t think it’s “revenge” that is the motivation to eliminate Hamas. It’s common sense. You either eliminate Hamas, or you pack up and move (Iran is fine with both, although they reserve the right to pursue their final solution globally). 

Edited December 7, 2023 by statsman

[956 Worldwide 34715]

1 hour ago, wildcat09 said:

I don't think anything I said could be reasonably read as trying to wipe away that spectrum. The point of my comments wasn't on where Hamas falls on that spectrum, but on the disregard for the humanity of Palestinian people based on acts carried out by Hamas.

I do think it's wrong to say that US leadership during Vietnam did not direct or sanction atrocities. Kissinger himself micromanaged bombings in Cambodia and Laos himself and often picked civilian villages with no enemy combatants as targets, pretty much for shits and giggles. He really fucking loved being the one making those decisions. We, and the IDF, have often not clearly been morally better than our enemies. Those instances when we've failed to be result from exactly the reactive, emotional mindset I cautioned against in my prior post.  When we are better, it's not because of some innate goodness that others simply lack the capacity for, but because we listen to that caution (and have built protocols and institutions that require us to do so) and don't give in to our emotional need for revenge.   

I think that you can have a robust debate on bombing campaigns, my understanding is that we were focusing on the “on the ground” type stuff like My Lai or the IJA and Wehrmacht everywhere. You’d also want to talk about Bomber Harris and the European strategic campaigns. 
 

Agree with @statsman that eliminating Hamas isn’t about “revenge.” 

Edited December 7, 2023 by 956 Worldwide

[statsman 5472]

On 12/6/2023 at 5:10 PM, Anastasis said:

"Cancel culture on elite liberal campuses is undermining academic freedom and exchange"

"These universities need to be cancelled cause they won't suppress all forms of pro-palestinian speech and label it genocide"

Try to hold these two thoughts simultaneously in your mind and see how much it hurts.  

My preference would be for college campuses to be like UT in the ‘80s- a broad and expansive field for debate, even offensive debate. 
 
But that’s not common among the most popular universities. FIRE ranks campuses for tolerance for free speech- Harvard ranks last and Penn second to last. They are comfortable codifying the boundaries of allowed speech. Which, they are allowed to do. 
 
So, when asked about incidences of tolerated speech that is offensive and even threatening to Jewish students, they start talking up free speech, sounding like Voltaire. That is disingenuous (just as, you noted, these former proponents of free speech ante now calling for regulating), and that’s what they’re being called out for. 

Edited December 9, 2023 by statsman

[956 Worldwide 34715]

On 12/5/2023 at 8:04 PM, Boss Hogg said:

Young people are fucking stupid, and loud. And taught by idiots like this.  

 

Evidence for the “Young People are Stupid” crowd, one in five think the Holocaust is a myth.

https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/12/07/one-in-five-young-americans-think-the-holocaust-is-a-myth

 

[Anastasis 23475]

Full cross tabs. 
 

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_tT4jyzG.pdf

 

 

[Anastasis 23475]

 

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-un-resolution-ceasefire-humanitarian-6d3bfd31d6c25168e828274d96b85cf8

BY EDITH M. LEDERER

Updated 6:13 PM CST, December 8, 2023

Share

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United States vetoed a United Nations resolution Friday backed by almost all other Security Council members and dozens of other nations demanding an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in Gaza. Supporters called it a terrible day and warned of more civilian deaths and destruction as the war goes into its third month.

The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the United Kingdom abstaining. The United States’ isolated stand reflected a growing fracture between Washington and some of its closest allies over Israel’s monthslong bombardment of Gaza. France and Japan were among those supporting the call for a cease-fire.

 

 

It's easier to accept if you just close your eyes and whisper things like "decency" and "we the people" to yourself.

 

 

Edited December 9, 2023 by Anastasis

[statsman 5472]

The UN is an illiberal democracy. 

[statsman 5472]

I went back and read the resolution. I didn’t see any calls for Hamas to cease military actions nor any concerns about Israeli civilians. 
 
There are two war zones in the world. The UN resolution calling for Russia to cease its invasion was voted against by many nations calling for Israel to cease its attack on Hamas. 
 
Fascinating

[HRSchenker 2271]

 

[Thetexashammer 1062]

 

I really want to know why Magill is smiling the whole time. Either way, these are revolting people.

To Anastasis's point, I like freedom of speech so I don't think a chant constitutes "harassment". But the presidents are completely blind to the fact that a large portion of their student body, and even their faculty, supports terrorism. And these assholes aggressively censor speech on a minute to minute basis. Fuck them all, they are evil personified and the enemy of reasoned academic discourse

The academy cannot be saved.

 

[Brisketexan 105158]

 
I really want to know why Magill is smiling the whole time. Either way, these are revolting people.
To Anastasis's point, I like freedom of speech so I don't think a chant constitutes "harassment". But the presidents are completely blind to the fact that a large portion of their student body, and even their faculty, supports terrorism. And these assholes aggressively censor speech on a minute to minute basis. Fuck them all, they are evil personified and the enemy of reasoned academic discourse
The academy cannot be saved.
 

Says a man who supports a party that couldn’t even agree not to associate with avowed Nazis.

[mchookem 16337]

[Anastasis 23475]

On 12/7/2023 at 8:54 AM, Bateshorn said:

This.  Did their lobbyists not murder board them before the hearing?  And I personally know the MIT lobbyist.  They should all be unemployed this morning. 

Once again, we are having a version of the "Freedom of Speech does not mean freedom from consequences" debate. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/08/business/dealbook/wilmerhale-penn-harvard-mit-antisemitism-hearing.html

 

One Law Firm Prepared Both Penn and Harvard for Hearing on Antisemitism

The presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and M.I.T. came under fire after dodging questions about their policies.

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Anastasis

[bolverk 29691]

I legitimately don't know if responding to you with the below in the DT thread would be considered too political, so apologies for quoting you to reply here.

Anyway, Bibi was all too happy to allow Qataris to bring suitcases full of cash and as has been outlined previously, the Israeli far-right has long supported Hamas as its partner in Gaza to undermine the Palestinian Authority.

The NYTimes had a much more detailed article about all this in yesterday's paper.

No paywall link to the full article: ‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas

Some excerpts:

Quote

 

During his meetings in September [just before the attacks] with the Qatari officials, according to several people familiar with the secret discussions, the Mossad chief, David Barnea, was asked a question that had not been on the agenda: Did Israel want the payments to continue?

Mr. Netanyahu’s government had recently decided to continue the policy, so Mr. Barnea said yes. The Israeli government still welcomed the money from Doha.

Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza, the eventual launching point of the Oct. 7 attacks, and keep Hamas focused on governing, not fighting.

 

 

Quote

Even as the Israeli military obtained battle plans for a Hamas invasion and analysts observed significant terrorism exercises just over the border in Gaza, the payments continued. For years, Israeli intelligence officers even escorted a Qatari official into Gaza, where he doled out money from suitcases filled with millions of dollars.

 

Quote

As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.

 

Quote

Qatar’s work in Gaza during this period was blessed by the Israeli government. And Mr. Netanyahu even lobbied Washington on Qatar’s behalf. In 2017, as Republicans pushed to impose financial sanctions on Qatar over its support for Hamas, he dispatched senior defense officials to Washington. The Israelis told American lawmakers that Qatar had played a positive role in the Gaza Strip, according to three people familiar with the trip.

 

Quote

 

Among the team of Mossad agents that tracked terrorism financing, some came to believe that — even beyond the money from Qatar — Mr. Netanyahu was not very concerned about stopping money going to Hamas.

Uzi Shaya, for example, made several trips to China to try to shut down what Israeli intelligence had assessed was a money-laundering operation for Hamas run through the Bank of China.

 

 

Quote

 

Shlomo Brom, a retired general and former deputy to Israel’s national security adviser, said an empowered Hamas helped Mr. Netanyahu avoid negotiating over a Palestinian state.

“One effective way to prevent a two-state solution is to divide between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank,” he said in an interview. The division gives Mr. Netanyahu an excuse to disengage from peace talks, Mr. Brom said, adding that he can say, “I have no partner.”

Mr. Netanyahu did not articulate this strategy publicly, but some on the Israeli political right had no such hesitation.

Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who is now Mr. Netanyahu’s finance minister, put it bluntly in 2015, the year he was elected to Parliament.

“The Palestinian Authority is a burden,” he said. “Hamas is an asset.”

 

Quote

 

Each month, Israeli security officials met Mohammed al-Emadi, a Qatari diplomat, at the border between Israel and Jordan. From there, they drove him to the Kerem Shalom border crossing and into Gaza.

At first, Mr. Emadi brought with him $15 million to distribute, with $100 handed out at designated locations to each family approved by the Israeli government, according to former Israeli and American officials.

The funds were intended to pay salaries and other expenses, but one senior Western diplomat who was based in Israel until last year said that Western governments had long assessed that Hamas was skimming from the cash disbursements.

“Money is fungible,” said Chip Usher, a senior Middle East analyst at the C.I.A. until his retirement this year. “Anything that Hamas didn’t have to use out of its own budget freed up money for other things.”

 

 

Quote

 

It was hard to stop these military payments, he said, when Israel had become so reliant on Qatar.

Yossi Cohen, who managed the Qatari file for many years as the Mossad chief, came to question Israel’s policy toward the Gaza money. During his final year running the spy service, he believed there was little oversight over where the money was going.

In June 2021, Mr. Cohen gave his first public speech after retiring from the spy service. He said that the Qatari money to the Gaza Strip had gotten “out of control.”

 

 

[tx 3 putt 77092]

[YGIFS 19452]

That's fucking awesome.  is he dead or is he getting a heart transplant from an orthodox jew?