Dr. Gonzo

I don’t think it’s been used on Tehran, are you thinking Baghdad? Also that’s also absolute dogshit logic, by the way, you must recognise that? Who’s in charge of Iran and Syria now? The same people who’ve been in charge for decades? So your evidence of war crimes stopping indoctrinated killers is: use on two places where if they were used has done fuck all to stop indoctrinated killers. You know why the US and Israel get away with war crimes right? Same reason Russia does. If constant dehumanisation of a group of people hasn’t worked so far in bringing peace, I’m not sure upping the ante will work either.

You fucking love war crimes don’t you

Richard Keys is a bellend but it’s weird as fuck the league is calling in telling the media to stop talking about how useless the refs are when it’s one of the most interesting thing about the league.

It’s funny too because the error he got moved down to the championship for wasn’t even made by him, it was the VAR ref. So then they move this dickhead down to the championship and he gives the softest penalty in the universe… then gets moved back up to the top flight. I want the lads at PMGOL to give a presentation on what they think competence is, because I think it would be really funny to hear them explain the concept of competence.

https://x.com/HACKETTREF/status/1721791143950594106?s=20 Lol this league

The international community really demonstrating what it actually thinks of human rights with that sick joke.

That's 290 casualties - because the wounded still count as casualties I believe, which is still a lot for the IDF considering they haven't been in Gaza for too long. They use robots/drones to go into the tunnels first to clear out booby traps - so modern equipment absolutely helps. And yes, they send dogs down the tunnels to to root them out. Israel will absolutely defeat Hamas, and they've got the benefit of being able to hold back a bit and going back to airstrikes and artillery fire if the IDF gets bogged down. Just a question of how long it's going to take and what's going to happen next, really.

He's basically just been in paid retirement for the past few seasons in any case. By the time this ban's over... I can't imagine any side that's serious about football would want to take a punt on him. So he's ended his career as a top player... for the second time in his career!

I mean, I hate Ben Shapiro... but at the same time - in the rebuttal of the first point, calling the Hamas human shields claim "baseless" - it's not exactly baseless at all is it? Hamas has been pretty open about the fact they use civilians as human shields, they've said they don't see themselves as responsible for the civilians of Gaza. I think a better argument to be made is Israel knows full well that the vast majority of the casualties to their attacks on Hamas are going to be civilians - but they're willing to kill however many innocent Palestinians as it takes to get just one guilty Palestinian. I fully agree with the second point - saying "free Palestine" by itself is not a call to genocide. Saying "gas the Jews" is a call for genocide. Trying to equate the 2 is only possible because of so many bigots going to Palestinian rallies and chanting calls for genocide alongside calls for Palestinian freedom - this leads people in this era of absolute lack of nuance that social media has brought us to conflate all pro-Palestinians as anti-Jew. I agree on the 3rd point a bit. But tbh, Shapiro does have a point that Palestinian leadership hasn't been serious about wanting peace. He's absolutely ignoring that Israel since 1995 has also not been serious about wanting peace. The reality is that for the last 2 decades now, Israeli and Palestinian leadership have been stoking the flames of extremism for their own political benefit - at the cost of better lives for Israelis and Palestinians. The 4th point I think is trickier. When you've got groups like Houthis and Hamas that have explicitly stated their goal is to kill all the Jews, it's hard to say that the extremists - who do have quite a bit of power politically, as we can see, aren't looking at the idea of wiping out Jews and thinking it's a good idea. Hamas and the Houthis of Yemen explicitly say they want to kill Jews - not just Jews in Israel... but all Jews around the world. But he's not wrong that Ben Shapiro is a lazy propagandist that just throws out statements from better propagandists in order to try to get his wide base of people who aren't very good at thinking to just parrot back that propaganda whenever someone presses them. It blows my mind that people like and respect the guy, he's an absolute joke.

Pretty awful if true. A lot is said of Israel's response not being proportional, which is true. But part of the reason the Israeli death count is much lower than Hamas's is not for Hamas's lack of trying, but because Israeli anti-missile defenses against Hamas's makeshift rockets is fairly effective. When rockets get through it's usually because the Iron Dome is overwhelmed. If the dome is just raining down on civilians... I assume Hamas rockets are getting through too. If not fixed quickly, this could be devastating. It's a bit weird to see after the Russia-Ukraine war, where Russia looked woefully unprepared for an enemy like Ukraine despite being considered the 2nd best military power in the world. Or looking at how the recent conflict between Armenia & Azerbaijan was very much a war won by having superior firepower and equipment. Here we're seeing Israel, who have (at least on paper) one of the most impressive and technically advanced militaries. They're up against Hamas, a terror group that does have outside funding - but comparatively, not much funding, not much training, they're under blockade so their equipment is pretty basic in comparison. And despite the devastation of Israel's air campaign, it does sound like they're struggling a bit on the ground campaign despite having several advantages. And honestly, since 7/10, we've seen lots of examples of weird military failures. The attack by Hamas itself - Israel's military was completely unprepared. You see footage of Hamas fighters taking IDF soldiers captive and they're literally in their underpants when they're being taken prisoner. How were they unprepared and so overwhelmed by this attack? They've got these advanced tanks they've hyped up for their ability to detect and stop rockets. Turns out the way Hamas has figured to defeat these is to shoot 2 rockets at the same time and the tank will only stop one of them. IDF casualties have been pretty high in the ground invasion of Gaza. Now this footage of the Iron Dome failures, which tbh are catastrophic because that's protecting civilian life. And I think considering how much civilian life this conflict has already cost... it's just incredibly sad to see even more Arabs and Jews dying because a bunch of weirdos are too bigoted and stupid to want to make peace. That's not to say the IDF are struggling to meet their objectives though. They've destroyed a lot of tunnels beneath Gaza and they've cut Gaza city in 2 after fully encircling it. But I think I'm just a bit surprised how difficult it is for them compared to other recent instances of modern combat where the technologically advanced army tends to fare much better. I suppose it's also different when you've got an enemy that's got nowhere to run and sees only two possible outcomes: victory or martyrdom.

The weirdest thing about this attempt to instill discipline back into the club with this instance is… I think there’s a case Rashford turning up to training on time is an example of discipline. He had his party, he didn’t let it get in the way of his professional obligations. He’s not like Sancho routinely showing up late, which is fair enough to call out publicly. He’s demonstrated work-life balance. It’s weird to feel bad for a Man Utd player, but I feel for Rashford tbh. He’s got loads of potential that’s not really been given the opportunity to show the way it probably could at a more stable club. I don’t think going through 4-5 managers in however many years is great for a player’s development. And now he’s getting treated as though his birthday party has some kind of connection to Ten Hag’s United looking shit. Seems like Ten Hag liked Greenwood and will defend Antony (and even call him a fighter, lol), so maybe to get back on his good side he’s expecting Rashford to punch a woman.

If he turned up the next day still drunk from the night before or something, maybe I’d understand it more. But this just seems like a manager struggling and wanting to blame one of his players for “not being professional” even though he’s done something completely normal. Throwing a player under the bus for having a birthday party on their birthday is just being an arsehole. Rashford’s not the one trying to force out the CB that’s arguably been United’s best player this season, he’s not the one that’s signed Antony for about 5x what he’s worth. He’s not the one picking dogshit tactics or meant to be getting United to look like they’ve got some sort of identity or system they’re trying to work towards having & failing. I think when this guy gets the sack, a lot of United players are going to feel relieved.

Ten Hag giving Rashford shit for having a pre-planned birthday party that didn’t interfere with him showing up to training the next day after a loss is fucking ridiculous to me. What he’s supposed to cancel having a social life because of a loss? Ffs, it didn’t impact him turning up like he’s supposed to. United being subpar isn’t due to any one player.

I think the IDF would be capable of providing aid while simultaneously taking the fight to Hamas. There are enough sites outside of Gaza City where the IDF could set up safe camps for where people could go to receive aid. And the strong military presence there, as well as the 24/7 drone surveillance, would probably discourage Hamas from trying to fuck with those areas. I'm not suggesting Israel sends the UN/Red Crescent in with no supervision - I'm suggesting the IDF retains full control of any aid being brought in while they still hunt for Hamas, if UN/the Red Crescent/Red Cross want to go in and provide aid - I'd still think the IDF should retain control and be in charge of the security of the aid (and those that provide the aid). It's not safe, but war isn't safe. And this isn't a "normal" war between two states. This is a war between a state and a terrorist organisation. Israel is a small country, but they have a very advanced military. Also now that Hamas has thrown the status quo out the window and Israel is going to be forced to take a new approach, this is a good time to push for a new approach that lets the IDF take on Hamas head-on while at the same time making steps to demonstrate they can fight without dehumanising Palestinian civilians and do something to stem the tide of extremism in Gaza. I guarantee Gazans would be more inclined to work against Hamas and work with the IDF if they weren't all shit-scared the IDF won't just bomb or shoot them. And they're all shit scared of the IDF for a reason. And any Palestinians in Gaza that are unhappy with Hamas are also shit scared of Hamas because Hamas kills dissenting voices and targets their families. It's an absolute shit situation for innocents in Gaza, and it's particularly sad when you think about how roughly half of them are children that were just born into this hell. They've got good reason to think that Israelis don't give a shit about their lives, they've got good reason to think that Hamas just views them as cannon fodder to die for Hamas' own propaganda. I also think Israel, the US, UK, Germany, France, etc. can't ignore the role of Qatar and Iran in this destabilisation of the most unstable region in the world. Iran's already been largely cut off from the global economy - but Qatar enjoys a lot of benefits of being friendly with the west, while simultaneously sponsoring Hamas and providing their leadership with huge amounts of funding and safety. If blood is on Hamas's hands for all the dead Israelis and Palestinians since 7/10... that blood is also on Qatar's hands as much as it is on Iran's hands. Both countries should have to pay a heavy price. And Hamas leadership in Qatar should be fair game for Israelis in this war. And so should the members of Iran and Qatar's government that facilitated this attack, imo. The EU, UK, and Canada need to finally add Sepah/the revolutionary guard of Iran to their lists of terror organisations. Qatar needs to taste the same sort of economic isolation as Iran for being a sponsor of state terror. It is a failure of the West if they do not punish the state sponsors of terrorism that have thrown the region into (more) chaos.

I think that's just them stumbling over the fact there's a LOT of pressure from the international community calling for a ceasefire but also the US doesn't want to be seen as not being 100% on the same page as Israel with how Israel is going to approach the war. A pause in combat is a ceasefire that's agreed to by both sides, so it doesn't really matter how the administration tries to make it stick. But one area where I actually agree with Israel's government in their approach to the war is there should not be any ceasefire/pause/cessation in fighting with Hamas. The bombing campaign needs to be rethought because it is devestating the civilian population there. Now that the ground invasion has begun and that Gaza City is fully encircled, now would probably be a good time for the IDF to demonstrate they have more capacity for humanity than Hamas does. This is an advanced and powerful military - that includes strong logistics and also the capacity to provide aid. The IDF could go a long way in showing they care more about the life of the innocents in Gaza than Hamas does. It would be dangerous and risky, because of course at times Hamas would try to abuse the IDF demonstrating they aren't as inhumane as Hamas - but war is dangerous and risky. And Israel will never end extremism amongst Palestinians by bombing refugee camps trying to go after one person but kiling many more people who aren't Hamas fighters. It's not beyond the pale to ask the IDF to demonstrate basic humanity in their fight against terrorism. It's not like the UK bombed the absolute shit out of Ireland while the IRA were actively commiting terror attacks.

Long overdue. I still think England and Cook should be sacked, but demoting them would be an acceptable compromise since Howard Webb has tiny tiny balls and can't do the right thing.

See responses in bold. There's also the issue of Israeli settlers in the West Bank kicking off violence against Palestinians there yesterday, probably as a result of Hamas's attack on 7/10 - but the IDF isn't really doing anything to curb illegal settlements, nor to stop this violence. Perhaps most concerning is the news that IDF soldiers are filming themselves abuse Palestinians in the West Bank - https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-soldiers-film-themselves-abusing-humiliating-west-bank-palestinians/; this is going to do nothing to facilitate peace or a safer Israel. At worst, it's incitement to get the Palestinians of the West Bank to act out like Hamas has. At best, it's a bunch of bigoted kids in the IDF doing something stupid to make Israelis and Palestinians both have good reason to feel less safe.

https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=ceasefire

It's not that surprising tbh. Like I've said before, this conflict honestly goes on much longer than just the creation of Israel. Just look at this group Lehi: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group) - a militant group from the era of British Palestine that waged terror attacks on the British & Arabs in Palestine to try to force them out. They even sought out getting ties with the fucking Nazis. And simultaneously, Palestinian leadership was trying to do the same thing to oust the British and the Jews - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amin_al-Husseini - and honestly I'm surprised Lehi wanted the British out as the British pushed Zionism massively while they controlled the territory, whereas I can understand it a bit more with the Grand Mufti al-Husseini... he was a bigoted dickhead, but he was reacting to how massively British rule was different for Arabs in the region compared to when it was under Ottoman control. But the more you learn about this conflict, you can look and see it goes back further than the Holocaust... and it becomes a lot more complicated looking than the Israeli government, Palestinian leadership, and any of the people going around try to get the general public to take one side of the matter. But you couple the fact that there's historically a huge element of extremism and terrorism that have marked this conflict for the past fucking century and since the mid-90s both sides have acted in ways that are deliberately against forming any lasting peace... and it's not surprising you've got Israelis more radicalised than ever. It's also why the Palestinians of Gaza are more extremist than the Palestinians of the West Bank, tbh. When you have a constant cycle of violence and conflict, it breeds extremism (look at Afghanistan, with their history of centuries of warfare with only brief periods of relative peace to verify that). When you've got leadership on both sides feeding into that cycle of violence, you've got leaders that are committed to making the people they govern more extreme - so the conflict gets more genocidal. Neither party is blameless in this situation. Tbf Israel relented to international pressure to allow aid into Gaza. They've gotten pressure from Joe Biden and other Western leaders to consider a ceasefire. Whether you're pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian, though, if you're sane you'd want to see Hamas gone. They've done nothing for the people of Gaza but bring death and destruction. And to that end, I'm not sure a ceasefire will do anything meaningful - that's just not how Hamas operates. They always break ceasefires once they've built up enough rockets to resume the conflict. Their leadership, which isn't in harms way because they're holed up in a luxury penthouse in Qatar, has said it's not their responsibility to provide for the safety of civilians. Israel is committing war crimes because of their indescriminate bombing campaign, but Hamas is also committing war crimes by using civilian infrastructure for military purposes and using civilians as human shields. Israel is getting incredible amounts of flak for the bombing campaign - and I think quite rightly because they've shown a callus disregard for civilian life. But I don't think they can afford to let Hamas stick around otherwise there will be another terror attack like what happened on 7/10. So while I think airstrikes need to be pulled back pretty significantly and more targeted strikes and ground troop operations are more necessary... a ceasefire just isn't realistic for anyone up against a group like Hamas unless they release all hostages and fully surrender to Israel (which is also incredibly unrealistic). The bigger question is what world powers do next after Hamas has been pushed out of Gaza? Israel should probably not occupy it or set up their own government of it - I don't think that will do anything to cause the cycle that needs to be broken to be broken. I don't know if a UN peacekeeping mission is realistic when the UNSC is the way it is right now and with the divide from Russia & China v. western member nations of the UNSC so bitterly divided. Perhaps some sort of independent ruling coalition from Egypt, Jordan, and the US can begin rebuilding the infrastructure of Gaza and set up a temporary administrative government until Gaza gets to a point where it is stable enough to hold it's own elections. But of course an Israeli government led by Netanyahu would react by going full psycho to an attack from Hamas that can best be described as "full psycho" - and I'm sure that was by design. What Hamas did was of no benefit to any Palestinian, but it did throw a huge spanner in the works of the Arab world normalising ties with Israel.

Israel already has de facto control over these gas fields, though, so it's not as though they need to hold all of Gaza to profit from it.

@MUFC

Translation: Brazen and cynical: ELN says it did not know that they themselves had kidnapped Luis Díaz's father. They assure that they will ask for his release now. ELN: "Well done boys, good process."

Colombia is now saying that Diaz's father was kidnapped by ELN, the main active remaining guerilla group in Colombia.

The West Bank is still heavily occupied by Israel and has constant illegal settlements pop up with no real retaliation from the Israeli government while the IDF provides protection to the illegal settlements on what is internationally Palestinian land. Israel withdrew from Gaza, but once Hamas took control of Gaza - they did their usual terrorist bullshit and in response Israel began the blockade of Gaza. So rather than do anything to weaken Hamas's grip on Gaza, their actions played right into the propaganda of Hamas and created new generations of emotionally scarred kids easy to radicalise into giving their lives to fight for the revenge of their people. The Times of Israel wrote a pretty scathing article about what @Beelzebub cited much earlier in the thread: https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/ - propping up Hamas as a means of eroding public support for a 2 state solution has massively backfired. This is a real quote from their current PM: "whoever is against a Palestinian state should be for transferring funds to Gaza, because maintaining a separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza helps prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state." It's in reference to his government's support of resuming the practice of allowing Qatari cash to make it's way to Hamas in Gaza - which their last PM before their criminal PM, had put a brief stop to while his government was in charge for 18 months. Ben Gvir being Netanyahu's Minister of National Security is another example of how the current Israeli government is not demonstrating a desire for a meaningful and lasting peace. Two weeks before Rabin was assassinated, he stole Rabin's car's hood ornament and told cameras "Just like we got to this emblem, we could get to Rabin." That's a pretty direct example of the kind of stochastic terrorism Netanyahu and his followers used against Rabin for daring to try to pursue a 2 state solution to resolve the conflict. Ben Gvir, by the way, has 8 Israeli criminal convictions, including terrorism convictions and a conviction to incite anti-Arab racism. He was rejected from the IDF because he is a hateful extremist. He's now in charge of all Israeli police and Israel's national security. The current government of Israel and Hamas have very similar ideas on what should be done with Israel/Palestine - they just differ on how they want the land ethnically cleansed. Netanyahu belongs in an Israeli prison cell and Israel would be better off with leadership that is serious about resolving this conflict in a way that can bring about peace without trying to remove a group of people entirely from the land. Just like Gaza would be better off if they were not under the boot of Hamas.

Forcibly removing people from a region they're living in is ethnic cleansing. Genocide's not a gaslight term - there's a definition from UN from the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide. Population percentage has fuck all to do with what constitutes genocide - and that's a fact. Under international law, you've got genocide when: any of the following acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: a.) killing members of the group; b.) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c.) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d.) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e.) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. So just like Russia in Ukraine, both Hamas and Israel pretty clearly fit the definition of genocidal actors in the eyes of the UN. Honestly, historical title to the land means fuck all. The Canaanites and Phoenicians don't exist anymore. Both Arabs and Mizrahi Jews can claim Canaanite and Phoenician ancestry. History doesn't justify the Nakba or the erosion of Palestinian lands and rights. History doesn't justify Hamas's terrorism. It's very much a conflict of land, that is egged on by zealots in the region to turn it into something of a holy war. Israel hasn't made attempts at making a lasting meaningful peace since 1995 when Rabin was assassinated by an extremist Israeli. They aren't blameless in this. They're just as not serious about a peaceful resolution to the conflict as Palestinian leadership is. Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians are the victims of decades of leadership that's had no interest in creating peace. A lot of blood is on the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships hands.