Was it Trump?

They should recall it for a faulty design.

1. My cat
2. Tough one, but probably my cat.
3. Not only do I love my cats, taking care of your pets if your responsibility as a pet owner. I have no love or relationship to a stranger, they don’t care about me and I don’t care about them, and It’s also not my responsibility to protect other people. An animal that I raised from near-birth, and who has always shown me basically unconditional love and affection seriously means as much to me as a child. My pets are there for me when I have a bad day, and they’re with me when I’m having a great day too. They bring so much joy and comfort into my life and they are so innocent and kind. Even after a lifetime of interactions I never have a single bad or negative moment with my pets. I don’t hate people and I wouldn’t like to have to decide in a fucked up scenario like you’re describing here. But to be honest, I’m probably saving my pet. Sorry.

(a) Their “offers” are unacceptable because the involve returning the hostages over the span of months, not days. (b) the last time Hamas and Israel had a ceasefire, Hamas broke the ceasefire by attacking Isreal on October 7th. © Hamas are losing this war, very badly, and are not in a position to dictate their terms on Israel.

If you want a ceasefire, and you should, stop defending Hamas and start realizing that they are the ones who need to surrender and release the damn hostages. God damn.

If you’re going to embarrassingly try to argue literal semantics, then you should at least know that Persians (“Iranians”) speak Persian, not Arabic. 🤦

Iran has repeatedly called for the complete and total destruction (see: actual genocide) or Israel and its people over multiple decades. Iran funds and supports Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthi’s and many other extremist groups in the region.

Being “quite vocal” is purely politics. Actions speak louder than words, and you know that.

It’s not the same thing as disarming our closest ally in the Middle East, which again, is something that NO U.S. President would do. Not Joe Biden, Not Donald Trump, Not Bernie Sanders, Not Ted fuckin’ Cruz or whatever asshole the Republicans will come up with next. Israel is too important to America culturally and strategically, and they are under too many active threats from their neighbors.

America will continue to support Israel unless Netanyahu really takes the gloves off and starts indiscriminately waging genocide. Unless Trump is reelected, in which case he’ll probably directly help “clean up” Gaza and the West Bank, and then you’ll really have something to be angry about. I guess we’ll see…

“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such [snip…]

The part you’re not bolding is perhaps the most important part.

“killing members of a group” is obviously not genocide or every war in history would be considered genocide; “killing members of a group” with intent to destroy that group is what specifically elevates war into genocide.

In other words, intent, context and the details really matter here.

We already know Hamas’ intent is genocide of all Israeli Jews, as was laid out in clear worlds in their founding 1988 charter. And when people say that “Palestine should be free from the river to the sea.”, they seem to be calling for some kind of genocidal one state solution that erases Israel from the map and implies nothing good for the Israeli Jews who currently live there and whose ancestors have lived their for thousands of years. On top of that, many of Hamas’ actions on October 7th (violence targeted exclusively at civilians, rape, theft of civilian property, kidnapping, hiding behind their own civilians as a human shield, etc.) are war crimes.

Does Netenyahu’s government want genocide? It’s debatable. Some of the rhetoric of Israeli ministers has been at least inappropriate and at worst borderline genocidal. But If they only wanted to kill all Palestinians, they wouldn’t only be fighting in Gaza and they would likely have killed many more civilians indiscriminately (there are 2 million people living in Gaza after all). But more important than those are the fact that Israel seems to be following the international wartime rules of “proportionality”, and seems to be able to justify their use of force in the vast majority of cases. They do, in fact, have a right to defend themselves from terrorist threats and wage a military campaign in the hopes of eliminating those threats and saving the hostages (who have been held in captivity for almost HALF A YEAR now.) This is exactly why the International Court of Justice fell short of accusing Israel of genocide.

All that said, the war is horrible and the suffering of civilians is an unspeakable tragedy. The only real solution for peace is a two-state solution under which Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arab Muslims can coexist and live together in a land that they have shared for centuries, or really, millennia. Hamas should release the hostages and accept the ceasefire deal so that the world can move on from this ugly and tragic war.

If you’re going to go back 100 years, why stop there?

Why not blame the Ottoman Empire, the Rashidun Islamic Caliphate, the Byzantine Empire of Eastern Rome, etc.

The fact is that Palestine and Israel as countries were created at roughly the same time. Israeli Jews have existed there for thousands of years. The tribe called the Philistines have been there possibly just as long, and supposedly the were often at war with the Judah and Israelites. Though the Philistines were neither arabs nor muslims, who came in around 500 years ago during the Rashidun Islamic Caliphate (still a long time, longer than America has existed).

There has never in thousands of years of history been a free, self-governed, single state of Palestine. Both the Israelis and Palestinians have cultural and historic claims over the region going back hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This suggests to me that the only real and viable solution for peace is a two-state solution in which both sides lay down arms and learn to coexist peacefully. Neither Netanyahu nor Hamas are truly interested in a two-state solution, and as such I consider them both to be enemies of peace.

(And before you spend to much time defending Hamas, please know that disproportionate violence targeted directly at civilians, sexual violence against civilians, kidnapping of civilians, hiding militants behind a civilian human shield, etc., are ALL actual war crimes, and that Hamas has openly supported genocide against Israeli Jews since their founding charter in 1988.)

Despite my best instincts, I’ll bite… When did Biden “promise support for genocide”?

• Biden is not in any way responsible for the October 7th terror attacks and war crimes (targeted killing of civilians, sexual violence and kidnapping, to name a few) that started this whole mess, Hamas (who are the ruling party of Gaza and have been for over a decade) are.
• Biden is also no in any way responsible for the Israeli response, nor is he in any control of the tactics used by the IDF in achieving their goals. Like every US President, real or imaginary, Biden will continue to support Israel because they are (a) our closest ally in the region (b) a home to many US citizens and a cultural site to many US jews, christians and muslims and © under constant threat of attack from every angle by enemies who in some cases have vowed to “wipe Israel of the map” (to name a few, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iran).
• Despite what lemmy-think might have one believe, neither the UN, the ICJ, or any reputable organization have been able to show evidence that escalates what we’re seeing in Gaza to any kind of war crime, let alone “genocide”. There are 2 million people living in Gaza, and if Israel’s goal was genocide we’d be seeing a lot more death and destruction than we are today. (Help elect Trump and I guess we might get a closer look at it.)
• The Biden administration has been much more effective at delivering aid (by air and now by sea) to Gazans than the UN, Hamas or anyone else.

Biden doesn’t want to see innocent civilians killed, be they Israeli Jews or Palestinian Arabs. Why would he?

Unlike Netanyahu and Hamas, Biden gains literally zero political benefit from the war. His life and his job would objectively be much easier if there was peace in the middle east. You know that as well as I do. In fact, I’d say it’s plainly obvious to anyone with half a brain. This war is a drain and a distraction from the US’s resources ability to defend Ukraine from Russia, it makes the region (and thus, the world) less safe, and it is nothing but a political vulnerability to Biden. And still, there is not a serious politician in this country that would even consider removing support of Israel in the wake of the October 7th attacks, especially given a hostage crisis that is now entering its 6th fucking month.

In other words, while you’re entitled to your subjective opinion that what’s happening in Gaza amounts to a genocide or other war crimes, you can’t seriously blame Biden for any of it.

If you’re looking for someone to blame here, look no further than Netanyahu’s government and Hamas–two entities that have repeatedly propped each other up as boogeymen in order to push their communities into the political fringe for the sake of power. Netanyahu literally funded and boosted Hamas, and Hamas has done everything to maximize civilian casualties (also a war crime, btw) on both sides of the conflict.

There have now been multiple reasonable ceasefire negotiations that the Biden administration has helped negotiate which Hamas has unilaterally rejected. The world is only waiting for Hamas to do what they should have done months ago: return the hostages, lay down their weapons, and turn over the war criminals and terrorists who made it their mission to rape, kill and pillage Israel on October 7th. The ball in unquestionably in their court, and it has been for months.

Cute way of admitting that nothing Biden can do can do will please you I guess.

Isn’t this you, just yesterday, complaining that Biden was enabling the Israeli/Netanyahu government to stop aid from coming into Gaza “at all”:

Just so everyone is clear, the Israeli governments reaction to this massacre is that they now need tostop aid from coming into Gaza at all because this incident proves starving people receiving aide is a danger to the Israeli military.

These are the people Biden is sending millions of dollars in weapons to. These are the people Biden directs the US ambassador to veto a widely supported cease fire resolution to give international cover to. Fuck, these are the people Biden chooses to lock arms with even as he loses 100k votes in Michigan in protest.

Today Biden has directed the US military to personally deliver aid to Gaza, in the most effective way that they can. (The US certainly isn’t going to put boots on the ground to deliver aid in extremely hostile and dangerous territory where hostages are being kept potentially anywhere.) They are getting aid to the people of Gaza, while the UN is failing to.

It’s possible that the UN could deliver aid more effectively by driving it into Gaza, but (a) it’s very likely that they can’t, because we’ve seen aid trucks hijacked by Hamas and aid stolen from innocent civilians and (b) the connections between UNRWA and Hamas have almost completely ruined the trust relationship with Israel. The UN has become severely compromised by their lack of ability to vet the people that work for them, because as the old saying goes “a bad apple can spoil the bunch”, and innocent people are suffering because of it. That one isn’t on Biden.

To say that Biden could “end this all with a phone call” is pure fiction, whether it’s in an op-ed or not–the only two parties who can agree to a ceasefire are Netanyahu’s government and Hamas. No US president, real or imaginary, is going to disarm Israel when they are our biggest ally in the region and under constant threat from Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and others. No US president, real or imaginary, will call for Israel to unilaterally ceasefire against Hamas as Hamas continues to hold their people hostage and wage their own counterattacks. If a ceasefire should happen, and it should, it’ll only happen because both sides of this conflict agree to the terms.

Anyway, I really hope you don’t realize that you’re moving the goal posts here, because I want to give you the benefit of the doubt… Anything else makes the complaints seem political and not genuinely pragmatic or even idealistic. Set the goalposts somewhere reasonable, and just keep them there.

Nobody is saying that Biden deserves a fuckin’ peace prize for this, but he’s doing a good thing here (something that just yesterday you seemingly wanted to see too) and he should be given at least due credit for that.

I can agree with that. I think that’s a valid and convincing point. There should be conditions on the military equipment that we send to Israel just like their is with the stuff that we send to Ukraine. I’m not sure exactly what those conditions should be (beyond the obvious stuff like “follow international laws surrounding war crimes”), but I certainly think it’s only reasonable that we should have a say in how our weapons are used if we are sending them over.

Would that be enough to satisfy critics at home and abroad? Would that appease the people who are saying that Biden is somehow complicit in “genocide”? I’m not so sure about that, but I think it would at least send the appropriate message that there are red lines that must not be crossed, even if that is mostly a symbolic gesture. At best people are very vague about what they want Biden to do, and at worst they’re calling for a one-state solution (either that Israel should annex Gaza and the West Bank from the extreme right, or that Palestine should control the territory “from the river to the sea” from the extreme left–both of these being more representative of genocide than even what we’re seeing today).

The only reasonable, non-genocidal (as in not involving mass murder or displacement of either people) solution is for Israelis and Palestinians to coexist, hopefully peacefully, and maybe even one day (dare to dream) cooperatively.

One thing is for sure, Israel (and the US, by extension) are not going to be satisfied with any conclusion to this chapter in the [decades long] conflict that doesn’t return the hostages, strip Hamas of power and remove any chance of a future attack coming out of Gaza.

As long as Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc., continue to suggest that Israel should be wiped off the map (not to mention act accordingly) then America will continue supplying Israel with the necessary tools to defend themselves against militant threats. Hamas and Hezbollah have fired missiles nonstop at heavily populated Isreali cities, and the only thing stopping massive destruction and loss of life to our Isreali allies are iron dome missile defense systems that the US has spent >$3,000,000,000 funding. If not for the US, we would be counting bodies in the hundreds of thousands across both Israel and Palestine.

On top of that, all of this ignores the fact that there was YET ANOTHER viable ceasefire agreement that was rejected by Hamas today. At what point do we stop blaming the US for all of the world’s problems? The only people with the agency to stop the current fighting in Gaza are Hamas and Netenyahu’s government, and you all damn well know that.

Considering it was Hamas who just today rejected a ceasefire agreement that could have gone into effect by the end of the week, maybe people should start voting “uncommitted” against them instead of Biden.

This entire fucking fiasco is between Palestine and Israel, who have been fighting constantly since Biden was born and will probably continue to fight long after Biden is dead and gone. Neither side is going magically “go away” and nor should they. Both groups of people have a legitimate historical and cultural claim to live in this land and the choice was made to split this land long before most any of them were even born. The Israeli Jew and the Palestinian Arab Muslims simply have to learn to coexist peacefully and reject extremism or there will only ever be more war and violence.

There is a “simple” solution: free the hostages immediately, turn over people who committed war crimes (on either side) for prosecution, return borders to 1949, create an internationally enforced DMZ, stop illegal settlements, and stop the damn fighting. NONE of that is on Biden, nor is it the singular responsibility of the United States to manage.

Even if you cynically believe that all of this is just some kind of America-backed proxy war (which, if you look at the history of the region spanning thousands of years, it clear is not), then you should at least apply that same logic to the European countries that back Israel as well as Iran, Russia, and the other countries that have backed Hamas and called for violence in the region.

Funny how all of these social media platforms that were so happy to describe themselves as “the public town square of the internet” or whatever are now claiming that they own everything that everyone ever posted. So, which is it? Because it obviously cannot be both.

Yeah. Sorry about that. I think Kbin was lagging the hell out when I posted originally, I don’t know how that resulted in 3 posts but it wasn’t my intention. lol shrug

Sure, I get you, but I don’t know how we even begin to solve that when the US Republican Party have made it their mission to be staunchly antagonistic to anything that the Democrats advocate.

Take climate change policy, for example. One would think that every reputable scientist on Earth saying that our actions over the last few centuries are directly contributing to existentially damaging effects to our environment (on top of a clear and dangerous increase in natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires) would be enough to convince every American that we need to do at least the bare minimum to reduce our impact on the climate. But clearly it’s not, so why?

Because the American right (which includes the Republican Party, the right-wing media, and the global billionaire class of oil tycoons and corporate execs that funds them) has decided that they’d rather turn it into yet another issue in the “culture war” that they can use to recruit the stupidest and angriest among us to be their useful idiots.

And it’s not just climate change, it’s fucking everything. The left supports LGBTQ rights, the right (including people who call themselve libertarians, somehow) are against it. The Democrats want to support Ukraine against Putin’s imperialism, the Republicans suddenly love Putin and don’t give a fuck what happens to the people that he kills. The entirety of the American right’s ideology is anti-“woke”, which just happens to mean that they’re just blindly against anything that the left happens to be for.

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Ranked choice voting is just a primary with fewer steps

This is wrong. It is a multi-stage runoff election with fewer steps (hence why it’s called “instant runoff”), and that’s a good thing because it means that people are much less likely to invalidate their ballot by voting for a first-preference candidate with no chance of winning.

Ranked choice gives you the most moderate candidate and weeds out the others

Ranked Choice Voting gives you (more often than not*)the most broadly popular candidate. Which is what you should want if you believe in democracy or the concept of a republic.

I feel like this should go without saying, but the goal of democratic reform is not to put the person you like in power, it’s to put the people back in power.

If the most popular candidate happens to be too “moderate” for your tastes, then it’s up to you to advocate for your positions in a way that will change hearts and minds in order to get more people on your side. If you can’t do that, then you really have no business winning a truly democratic election, right?

• There are some statistically possible scenarios in which the most broadly popular does not win a RCV election, but they are far less likely than any version of our current first-past-the-post plurality voting system.