It is not a false dichotomy. It is the electoral reality of a two-party state. The rest of your comment and your expressed intentions don’t matter when the net effect of what you are doing is to undermine Biden. The really ironic part is that by underming Biden, and thereby supporting Trump, if Trump wins you will have helped make Israel less accountable.

Ad hominem. No assumption you make about my motives changes the effect of what you are doing.

No. There are only two choices in the American election. When there are only two choices, it is a zero sum game. Undermining one means supporting the other. Ergo, your undermining of Biden at this critical time means you are supporting Trump.

You are defined by your actions, not your intentions or rhetoric. You are supporting Trump.

You should stop supporting Trump.

In addition to the other answers here, the mode doesn’t work with continuous variables.

It could be the overly popular and ambitious general scenario, or it could be the scenario of the meddling politician who is incompetent in military matters causing major losses of men and materiel. History has examples of both.

Unfortunately, the lack of progress in the war naturally leads to internal frustration and conflict. The West could certainly help if we would stop using Ukraine military aid as a political football.

If you believe Ryan Evans from War on the Rocks quoting confidential sources, a rivalry has developed between Zelensky and Zaluzhny. Apparently, Zelensky fears that Zaluzhniy may challenge him for the presidency. Also, military analysts think that some of Ukraine’s poor military decisions have come from Zelensky, not Zaluzhny, which is bound to create some tension.

Starts at about 17:45: https://open.spotify.com/episode/12e2WYSgm9smWYgSZN1UwT?si=0YBQ32UgS6W2776dXggN9Q

Deoodorant is the gift you give to those around you. So, if someone needs deodorant so bad that they need to steal it…I’m thinking you should just let them have it.

Got caught smoking a joint? Slavery for you.

Pissed off a cop? Slavery for you, too.

I don’t think slavery being the punishment for crime is the defense you think you think it is. It’s fucking barbaric.

Oh yeah, and don’t try organizing for better conditions either. The leaders of the 2018 prison strike in the US were tortured via indefinite solitary confinement.

It’s war. Both sides constantly use propaganda to their advantage. Propaganda is just story-telling. The best propaganda is fact-based, but framed in a particular way that is favorable to the propagandist. I would suggest that Hamas is particularly good at propaganda nowadays.

Israel, on the other hand, relies primarily on established sympathy among older people who formed their positive opinions about Israel back in 70s, 80s, and 90s. Israel was the “little engine that could”: a tiny country surrounded by genocidal autocratic countries determined to exterminate it. Israel was like the Athenians successfully battling the Persian Empire with their small but plucky citizen militia. Believe it or not, Israel was seen as the underdog in those days.

Young people today only know Israel as the right-wing, corrupt shithole is has become under Netanyahu. And Israel isn’t trying very hard to convince them otherwise. The sooner Netanyahu and his religious zealots are gone, the better for everyone.

Yeah, I guess roof-knocking isn’t feasible during this phase of the war. Hamas certainly is creating moral dilemmas by hiding among civilians.

When you step back and look at it objectively, one has to admit that Iran and the various Islamist groups they sponsor, like Hamas, have quite a brilliant strategy. Just as Hamas cannot defeat the IDF militarily, no one can topple the US and the broader West through conventional military means. The only way to win against the West is to exploit the divisions in our society by creating moral dilemmas. Events like 9/11 and October 7 are calculated to goad us into over-reaction, which generates moral dilemmas, and over-extension, which drains our coffers and our will. The US is particularly vulnerable to this strategy because Americans see themselves as exceptional and less susceptible to the forces of history that affect other nations. This is foolish, of course.

It is not a “fact” that Israel “created” Hamas. Providing some funding 20 years after their founding is not creating. Perhaps calling that a “conspiracy theory” was not the best choice of words. Clarifying what I meant with further conversation is not “bs”. Questioning my integrity rather than engaging with the argument is an ad hominem attack.

I must say that I don’t understand why people like yourself always jump to questioning people’s motives and honesty rather than engaging directly with the argument. It is basically an ad hominem attack.

How nice of you to tell me what I should have said to make you believe me. Charming.

I don’t disagree that Netanyahu and his right wing coalition were complicit with Hamas, and that regime change is needed. I’ve said that in other comments in this thread.

I push back against the simplistic statement that “Israel created Hamas”. It is way more complicated than that. Hamas was founded in 1987 as a splinter group of the Muslim Brotherhood. Also, Hamas was elected by the Palestinian people, not the Israeli government. And, they are part of a wider radical Islamist movement, along with ISIS and the Houthis, that are sponsored by Iran. You could just as well say that Hamas was “created” by Iran.

I also push back because simply saying that Israel “created” Hamas, as if it were Israel’s fault alone, implies a lack of agency on the part of Hamas. Even if Netanyahu and his nutty right wing coalition provided some funding for Hamas, it was Hamas itself that carried out the raping and murdering on October 7. They own that atrocity, even if many other actors are complicit in it.

Okay, you’re right. I didn’t read the comment that way the first time around, but I see what you’re saying. The settlements in the West Bank could, arguably, be seen as evidence of creeping genocide. I think there is a better explanation for the situation in Gaza, though.

That’s a conspiracy theory.

Yes, you are right. If Netanyahu funded Hamas as a cynical way to make peace LESS likely, he is a bastard. I mean, he’s a bastard anyway for lots of reasons, but I agree with you. Netanyahu and his crazy right wing regime need to go. We definitely need regime change in both Israel and Gaza, preferably at the ballot box.

Yes, definitely. The laws of war hinge on the difference. Bombs and artillery do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, which is why there are always civilians killed in war. And yet, the use of bombs and artillery is not a war crime.

Now, the principle of proportionality is important here. In the laws of war, the degree of destruction and civilian casualties has to be reasonably proportional to the military objective. For example, to take an extreme example, it would not be generally considered reasonable to knock down a high rise full of civilians just to take out one sniper. That’s why Israel does that roof-knocking thing they do. Each military action has to be evaluated on its merits to determine if it is a war crime. Many of Hamas’s actions have been war crimes (e.g. the use of rape as a weapon of war, hiding combatants among civilians, etc), and I have no doubt that Israel has committed war crimes as well in particular situations. But specific instances of war crimes does not automatically mean they are committing genocide.