a load of text to pretend you think deeply about this issue when your analysis doesn't even begin to scratch the surface. It's ridiculous.

:100:

You keep looking at this as if Israel is the victim. They're not. It's both aggressor and oppressor. A coloniser. It would sooner be the other away around, where the leg is land the Palestinians should have owned.

Nobody in this thread.

Edit: in any case, as long as Israel refuses to negotiate Hamas' goal will be the total liberation of Palestine yes. But they have already offered to negotiate on the basis of the 1967 boundaries. So really, your point isn't even accurate.

That's just an exaggeration. There's no existential threat. Nobody in his right mind is demanding the dismantling of the Israeli state. The extent of its borders and its relations with the Palestinians, its war crimes, its apartheid regime, etc. are an issue.

I'm sorry if you think Jewish autonomy in Palestine is unjust — BitconnectCarlos

That's not even close to what I said though. Israel is there to stay. That's not the problem at all.

It comes down to control/power/hegemony over the holy land. It is the existence of Israel (i.e. an independent Jewish polity) that is the crime. — BitconnectCarlos

The crime, in their eyes, is that such land was taken from them by a coloniser (the British) to be promised to another coloniser (zionist Jews, later Israël). The 1948 partition plan was once again enforced by external parties and therefore inherently unjust. Thereafter, Israel has acted as a coloniser by taking even more. Sometimes under the pretense of security but most often simply because they could, without addressing the underlying causes of insecurity (injustice) but instead doubling down on injustice through oppression and apartheid. Various Palestinian groups, including Hamas since 2017, have signalled a willingness to negotiate along the 1967 border, which is a huge concession already over the 1948 internationally recognised borders in favour of Israel. Yet it is insane murderous scum like Bibi that refuse to negotiate because they will ensure from the river to the sea it will be Jewish. The very slogan you complain about is policy for Likud and before that Herut. But only when it's spoken in favour of Palestinians is ie immediately condemned as genocidal intent.

Meanwhile, 700 attacks in the West Bank against Palestinians since 7 oct, half of which the IDF looks at or even participates in. Whatever "significant" attacks you think existed or exist, they pale in comparison both in number of attacks and number of victims the IDF and illegal Jewish settlers cause. All the while being the oppressors. There is no defence for such policy and no respect for those who still support it.

Quite obviously there are limits to how resistance can be executed. 7 Oct was over the line. But as pointed out before: Be prepared for it to happen again and again and again until the underlying reasons for such attacks are dealt with. And the underlying reasons are Israeli crimes. Hamas and PLO didn't exist before the Israeli occupation. They are reactionary.

You're an idiot as usual. If it's not that simple then why is every western country blindly supporting Israel?

But of course it is simple. Don't oppress people. Don't collectively punish people. Don't run an apartheid state. Don't commit war crimes. All these things are very well established. It only turns complex for people who think the Israelis are the good guys and confronted with the cognitive dissonance that in fact they're not, they turn into the verbal equivalent of a contortionist. Painful to watch.

Palestinian kills Jew = Resistance. Jew kills Palestinian = war crime. — BitconnectCarlos

That's how it works when one party is oppressed and the other is oppressor. That has nothing to do with identity.

That would make no sense. The treaty involved Spain, which by itself was already a modern nation-State, but there was Portugal before it, and also Georgia before it dissolved. France was also established as a nation-State before Westphalia. Regardless of when the political ideas around nation-States were developed. — Lionino

Prior to the treaty of Westphalia sovereignty over territory wasn't mutually recognised. So while you may have consistent borders due to the facts on the ground (like Portugal), they were not recognised by other countries. The treaty of westphalia changed this, resulting in a system of nation-states who had sovereignty over their territory and people. This is also the main difference in understanding nation-states and countries. Just read up on the treaty of Westphalia if you're really interested.

The first dictionary definition for country tells me "a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory", which is a nation-State. If you are using a different definition of country, I am willing to grant your point. — Lionino

In common usage people will us the terms interchangeably. In legal theory and history we don't.

Hardly so, nations have "always" existed. Countries are much younger but not that young. The oldest nation-State (aka country) with unbroken continuity is perhaps Portugal, formed in 1139. — Lionino

Not as it's understood in political history. A country is definitely not a nation-state. Earliest nation-states are usually linked to the treaty of Westphalia although there were a few proto-nations.

You're an atheist who doesn't believe in anything. Reminds me of a quote. — BitconnectCarlos

False dichotomy. It's not either you believe in God or you believe in nothing. But then if you place religious idiocy above common decency you kind of have to go all in I suppose to make it work in your own mind.

Yet you continue to moralize, hate, and judge -- especially the Jews. Why do you even care how a group defines itself? You need a therapist who you can talk with about the Jews who are apparently the worst of all religions, the source of all religious evil. — BitconnectCarlos

I don't hate Jews. I hate some of them for their actions as baby murdering scum. Bibi is on that relatively short list along with some other Israeli politicians. Then there are Jews like you I feel mostly sorry for for having been brainwashed to the point where you have no moral backbone to stand up to the scum amongst your midst. But nice try trying to make this personal and misrepresenting what I said so you can pretend I'm just another bigoted antisemite.

Your emotional responses are at least a sign of cognitive dissonance so I'm obviously doing something right.

Saying Judaism is a "fucking dumb" religion is a ridiculous statement. Maybe it's that monotheism is stupid? Or all theisms in general are stupid? Then just say that. :roll: — BitconnectCarlos

Yes they're all dumb but Judaism is obviously dumber. Maybe you didn't get the note on divine dispensation not being an excuse for war crimes. Or claiming you'd be indigenous because some asshat with twirly hair several millenia ago made up you're automatically a Jew when your mother was one. The level of retardness is an insult to actual retards.

Your beliefs are irrelevant when contradicted by facts. But I'm glad I'm getting a knee jerk emotional response about beliefs instead of an argument and facts as it underscores you don't have either.

Yes, so what you need is tip top relationships with the Netherlands because of ASML. The rest is all secondary. :joke:

Except of course subsidies are terrible and should only be used where it concerns critical infrastructure or services.

Trump has also talked about imposing more tarriffs, including 60% on imports from China, and 10% on all others. This will increase the costs of many things, and likely lead to a trade war. — Relativist

This is the only thing he's right on. Western dependence on Chinese production that undercuts our own industries because of Chinese subsidies, lack of environmental protections and labour conditions is ridiculous. If human rights would actually matter, we wouldn't be buying Chinese products to begin with. We're basically funding a fascist state in its ability to oppress its own people.

Not due to religious claims. It's due to history. The Arab muslims built their buildings on the ruins of Jewish civilization. Jews are the older strata.

Judaism - as a religion, as an ethnic identity, as a national identity (and yes it is all 3) -- forms in the land of Israel. Archaeology supports it. Anthropology supports it. Linguistic evidence supports it. I don't need to invoke God in this discussion.

Jews were expelled from their homeland under the Romans yet Jewish tradition has never abandoned its ties to it. Take the Shema -- a prayer ushered morning and night by observant Jews in Hebrew (a language formed in Israel) derived from the words of Deuteronomy (a text formed in Judea under King Josiah in the 7th century BC.) It's maintained all this time.

Not trying to be offensive, but where is the Palestinian history? Or they just assumed to be the original inhabitants? It's in the name, after all, guess it has to be true. /s — BitconnectCarlos

Judaism - as a religion, as an ethnic identity, as a national identity (and yes it is all 3) -- forms in the land of Israel. Archaeology supports it. Anthropology supports it. Linguistic evidence supports it. I don't need to invoke God in this discussion. — BitconnectCarlos

I see you're confused about facts. You're less than 1024th a descendent from an original Israelite. You have more historical claim to other areas of the world than Israel proper. And Judaism is abused as a national identity only recently, certainly since nations are a recent invention. It's also not an ethnicity because there are at least 4 different identified ethnicities within the religious group of Jews, namely Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Mizrahi and Ethiopian.

It is religious rules making you think there's a straight line from you down to those Israelites from the first diaspora. It's bullshit.

Judaism predates modern notions of religion. Judaism is an evolving civilization. Its basis is in practice, not creed.

It's funny you say this while in the same post citing Ruth and Boaz as well as Joseph (!). You call it bullshit yet rely on Scripture to make your argument... — BitconnectCarlos

Anyway, Judaism is a religion and nothing more. You can convert to it and the Israeli supreme court has determined as much where it concerns rights under Israeli laws. A Jew that converted to christianity is no longer a Jew.

And Judaism is a fucking dumb religion at that, basically waging a religious war in the region. It's devolving and clearly uncivilised when the likes of you think it excuses current Israeli crimes.

Which is fine. There are Jews from all over. Judaism is not a race. Genetic testing does bear out certain common markers among Jews. You can convert to Judaism. But could you become a Palestinian, Benkei? — BitconnectCarlos

I could if they would have a fucking state now wouldn't I? I wonder why they don't. Oh yes, warmongering assholes like you rather have them blown up.

Did you read the books?

I was blown away with one concept in the books that had me recommending it to everyone I knew. Hasn't been introduced in the first season yet though.

Bullshit. Some jews were indigenous when they relocated recently (eg. before starting a fucking war about it) peacefully to what they believe is their ancestral home due to religious claims but most left centuries ago and married locally or you would have the most inbred, retarded people today that would've gone extinct several centuries ago. What you are - what every person on earth is - is mixed race, who based on religious rules extends jewishness to descendants of female jews. And since religion is made up bullshit, the claim is bullshit and certainly not a claim I have to entertain as a non-jew because I reject the made up reference frame of dumb fucking relligions.

It's been 99 generations since the first diaspora. What assumption do you fancy? Currently 40% intermarries outside of Israel. Let's say this was less throughout the ages, so maybe 1 in 10 married a non-Jew, that means current Jews are only 1/1024th indigenous Jew, so 1023th part is non-indigenous blood. And yet, we get the insance claim you're indigenous when you're more not an original Israelite than anything else. This is equally ridiculous as Warren's claim to being native American and purely a religious claim.

But this is the game Jews like to play all the time: then it's ethnicity, then it's religion and then it's national identity. Being a Jew is politicized by (mostly right-wing) Jews to further whatever political agenda they have - in your case, justifying the war crimes and stealing land from actual indigenous people in the area. It's bloody insulting to Jews who actually have a moral compass and don't want anything to do with these insane claims and defences.

EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, that 10% intermarriage is probably too low since it already started with intermarriage with Joseph to Asenath and Ruth to Boaz. It was fairly common especially since converting to jewishness resolves the issue of intermarriage the xenophobic rabbis still hold today.

Indigenous my ass. That's a convenient excuse for forcibly removing millions of people from their actual homes and denying their return. If Jews have a right to return then obviously Palestinians do as well. At least Begin was honest about it: there's no Israeli village that hasn't been build on an Arab ruin.

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/palestinians-west-bank-2023-was-deadliest-year-record

I wonder what 2024 will bring.

So Israelis displace, kill, take the land and oppress Palestinians for 75 years, with record numbers of coloniser violence in 2023 in the West Bank and you focus on one poor boy who shouldn't have been on illegally stolen land. Got it.

Behold the *Jihad of Estrogen* — 180 Proof

:rofl:

The current situation is more or less the same. Most pension funds are trading IRS via clearing systems now and the depth of repurchasing agreement is sufficient at the time. Nobody sees it as a problem because they are not looking at the issue from a stressed market perspective. The beauty of the setup is that under stressed markets the flight to safety will cause high quality liquid assets to rise in value, causing the ETF values to increase as well, which means pension funds will need less ETFs to meet their variation margin obligations dampening the effect of out-of-the-money price swings of their IRS as a result of stressed markets.

So basically what your idea is that this ETF would work better in that situation? — ssu

Yes, if you set up the fund to allow designated pension schemes to create and redeem baskets they can always create more ETF shares since they already hold the underlying bonds as part of their investment portfolio.

Who will manage this and what are their incentives in picking "high-quality bonds" or determines what "high-quality bonds" are in the first place? Especially if such as large investors as pension funds have to use the ETF? Would this be a way to dump some toxic Greek debt to the pension funds as just paint lipstick on it and call it high-quality bonds? — ssu

Pick any fund manager and they will probably be prepared to murder the competition manage this fund as just the European market is estimated to need around 250 billion EUR to manage a 100 bps interest rate swing, meaning in a steady-state as part of a mix of other liquid assets pension schemes will hold, the ETF fund will be a few billions at any given time with serious spikes possible depending on market circumstances. A regular ETF management fee will be more than enough. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust is slightly more than half a billion. Such a fund would always be massive.

Trumpism is an authoritarian[a] political movement that follows the political ideologies associated with Donald Trump and his political base[32][33] incorporating ideologies such as right-wing populism, national conservatism, neo-nationalism, and neo-fascism.b] Trumpist rhetoric heavily features anti-immigrant,[43] xenophobic,[44] nativist,[45] and racist attacks against minority groups.[46][47] Other identified aspects include conspiracist,[48][49] isolationist,[45][50] Christian nationalist,[51] protectionist,[52][53] anti-feminist,[17][13] and anti-LGBT[54] beliefs. Trumpists and Trumpians are terms that refer to individuals exhibiting its characteristics.

What's not the like? The problem isn't a gag-order, the problem is Trump and his voter base who like to pretend it's about corruption when it's about the above. Just a ball of a lot of hate courtesy of decades of neoliberalism.

:up:

No chance in hell I'm posting a picture nowadays. Deep fakes and all the other nonsense makes it no fun.

He didn't lose anything unless he was holding shares.

Many of these circumstances applied when Hillary ran and she lost. Most Americans vote whoever they like best to go have a drink with not on policy or anything else substantive. So excuse me for not sharing your optimism when my gut feeling is on the fence (not a good sign historically).

There was a good piece (in Dutch) how neoliberalism gets you fuckheads like Trump and all the other racist scum floating to power in the EU. https://www.reddit.com/r/thenetherlands/comments/1btc0fh/het_neoliberalisme_heeft_de_solidariteit/

Somehow I picture him coming upon a large consignment of misprinted bibles about to be discarded and he just has the cover glued on.

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session55/advance-versions/a-hrc-55-73-auv.pdf

"But October 7th!" ... doesn't excuse genocide.

Nope, not the beginning, but a boundary that when crossed took all prior matters off the table until this one settled. As with a rabid dog or a medical emergency, you do what is necessary first. In the present case hostages and criminals. — tim wood

Boundaries were crossed by both sides repeatedly well before that and more often and egregiously by Israel. So once again, it's dumb and they are quite horrible and racist generalisations about Arabs. Nice going. I hope your racist ass chokes on a peanut or something.

Well done, Benkei. You need to take a break.

My point being that if you stick your thumb in someone's eye and he in turn takes you by the throat, it is only decent, if you're asking him to remove his hands from your throat, for you to take your thumb out of his eye. That the thumb is hostages makes everything very serious.

Were Hamas just a gang in Gaza I'd mostly agree with you. But Hamas is not just a gang in Gaza. Imo Hamas and their kind are a cancer that should have been removed a very long time ago, but that has been allowed to metastasize to where it will kill its host. By "kill" I mean I expect Gaza soon enough to be a very different place than it is now or has been. — tim wood

Dumb shit as usual. What Hamas did or didn't do is entirely irrelevant as to the humanitarian laws and treaties Israel and its Western supporting states signed up to. There's no excuse to collectively punish, through starvation, a civilian population for the crimes of a terrorist organisation in their mids, or indeed, their government. This is obvious to even my 5-year old, who realises hitting another kid than the one that hit you has nothing to do with justice. And in this case, it also has nothing to do with their communicated goal of saving the hostages, for which entirely different solutions are available (try negotiating). So well done for regressing beyond the level of a 5-year old where it comes to understanding justice and fairness, I suppose.

Your point being? Or is that your defense to continue to defend Israel? Starve 2,2 million to save a few hundred (who are probably starving as well!)? If so, my point stands, go fuck yourself.

Money talks. Immediate sanctions and stop selling weaponry. They will change course before they can say "vi shreklekh".

go fuck yourself doubly for misrepresenting my position.

For those still defending Israel here, go fuck yourself.

And if your young, imagine a time when talking to a new generation of Americans decades from now, when they sincerely ask you: "Trump? Who was Trump?" — ssu

Can't wait...

guilt by association fallacy. The erroneous comparisons with WW2 have already been extensively dealt with in this thread. That you persist in them is entirely wrong but also uninteresting.

So you're fine with them being destroyed if they don't change their beliefs. As also demonstrated by your continued support for war crimes. What the Palestinians think is irrelevant. It doesn't mean they have any less right to security and safety. The fact you think they do is frankly disgusting. Either human rights are universal and they apply to everybody or they're not and then they are no justification to treat Palestinians differently if they don't hold them in the same regard as you.

The fact you thought your reply improves your position is further evidence you've stopped thinking where it concerns this subject. It's rife with inconsistencies and fallacies.

I've had my share of insane toxicity again so will be ignoring this thread as I value my mental health more than discussing this.