abff08f4813c

Hmm, but now they are denying it. I don’t know what to believe: https://www.rferl.org/a/afghanistan-polio-taliban-vaccination-deny-who/33122994.html

If they hadn’t denied it, then I would have imagined that the Taliban was so disorganized that they just discovered this - or at least, just realized the potential implications (just connected the dots). That might still be the case, and the denial is simply a false one with the purpose to not worsen their reputation on the world stage.

Still concerned that it’s fueling a lot of mistrust with the vaccination process though. One would hope that since it wasn’t through UN/WHO then any UN/WHO programs would remain trusted, but who knows?

That was Wagner, which at the time was technically separate from Russia’s regular military. (Think of it as being akin to a private military company.) And they were lead by the head of Wagner. I think the equivalent in the Russian military would be Putin himself - so I’m not sure if we can expect the same sort of thing nowadays, as a military leader below Putin wouldn’t be expected to command the same level of loyalty over Putin’s army that the head of Wagner did over the Wagner troops.

Shows how desperate the Russian side is if they’re willing to sacrifice such highly skilled individuals in a regular infantry assault. They are running out of manpower for their campaign.

The guy seems like a career specialist based on the article. Lots of regular conscripts have tried to surrender or run away but this guy fought in Russian proxy wars long before the Ukraine conflict. So he’s not the type to disobey an order like this.

This is outrageous. Wonder if there are any grounds for a lawsuit - if that route is possible, then I’d expect the union to get their *** handed to them at the end of it.

Didn’t the UK already reduce arms sales?

Maybe it’s time to reduce even more and for other countries to follow suit.

Seems to me that he’s trying to do the right thing, as per https://www.aa.com.tr/en/world/us-to-demand-access-to-israels-investigation-of-slain-turkish-american-activist/3331943?amp=1 he’s pushing for more access to the investigation - likely to prevent the IDF from covering it up (and based on the timing this started after reports came in contradicting the IDF’s line).

It’s difficult to understand, but I can see why hasn’t spoken out about it publicly yet - on the one-in-a-million off chance that it turns out the IDF was right about it being an accident all along (yeah right), he doesn’t want to have to apologize to them (and really can you blame anyone for not wanting to apologize to the IDF?).

A silver lining, we can view the US folks who gain access and review as being more independent than the IDF themselves.

This is worrysome. India’s neutral stance and continued relations with Russia allowed it to successfully push to save its own people.

But the article points out,

Earlier media reports revealed various schemes to lure people from third-party countries, including India, to Russia under promises of lucrative jobs or other opportunities only to pressure them into enlisting.

So not just India. Are folks from places like Nepal still trapped after having gotten illegally impressed into the Russian Army?

Yeah, I think it should have been broken up at least with commas like so (or the appropriate pauses when spoken outloud),

Moscow agreed to discharge Indian nationals, who were illegally inducted into the Russian Armed Forces, during a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in July.

Although a minor rewrite would be better,

During a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin in July, Moscow agreed to discharge Indian nationals who were illegally inducted into the Russian Armed Forces.

Amin Abed … in July … was attacked by Hamas security operatives, who covered his head and dragged him away before repeatedly striking him with hammers and metal bars.

Granted this might have been reported back in July when it happened and I missed it, but that was news to me.

And I think it’s important to spread the word on just how repressive and totalitarian the regime of Hamas has been, even to its own people - the ones that it purports to be protecting.

The problem is. Hamas wants nothing to do with that. They don’t want a two state solution
they won’t accept or recognize Israel at all.

Agree this is a problem. They caused Oct 7 and they need to be stopped.

The innocent Gazans unaffiliated with Hamas, and the PA and the folks living in the West Bank deserve to have their country and their rights respected, but none of that should read as saying Hamas should stay in power, or even be allowed to exist at all.

Then your problem is you blame their denial for a two state solution on Netanyahu.

This is a misreading of my argument. Hamas != State of Palestine

Or you expect him to give the terrorists sovereignty anyways.

Well, not to Hamas!

Why would he have complete supporte for their sovereignty given what his country has seen at their hand.

Again, not to Hamas! For the past twenty years the PA has kept peace with Israel - this is the model to follow.

The right answer to this is why do they need a military. They are surrounded by Muslim brothers.

Yeah… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_proxy_conflict

There are various countries today without a military force.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that magical wizards come in and fix everything. We end up with two states tied together by peace, with the violence behind them. (Model for this being the Troubles in Northern Ireland.) Or even a single Israel state with peace - for the sake of this argument, this detail doesn’t matter.

It’s a volatile area with lots of conflict between different countries, even if one excludes Hamas and related insurgents. Any country in that area would need a military just to defend its own existence.

The countries that don’t have any military forces - I imagine none of them are in this kind of situation.

I’m sure israel would offer their protection as well as allies near them.

In theory that could work. The problem in practice is that IDF has lost a lot of good will, and perhaps might be seen as occupiers instead of peacekeepers from a friendly allied country. Hence my suggestion for Malaysia to step in - Islamic troops from a far away neutral country - might be better perceived.

Heck, a lot of goodwill might be earned just by being fresh and new. Now that may not be entirely fair to the IDF, but politics is rarely fair.

Well, to be fair some folks might have moved in a time when there was a territory that went by the name of the British Mandate of Palestine. Anyways, semantics, mostly agreed.

I would agree on the bit regarding Hamas … but I think one shouldn’t conflate all Gazans and their beliefs with just Hamas. Remember that Hamas took power only after overthrowing a unity government that was under the Palestinian Authority (which does still support a two state solution).

Regarding Netanyahu, the article from CNN you cite kinda shows the problem. Netanyahu is not in favor of Palestinian sovereignty.

In fact, CNN makes it very clear,

Netanyahu has never been a full-throated supporter of a two-state solution

That said, the security concerns regarding Israel are indeed valid. I’m not sure what the right answer to that would be… perhaps in the beginning we’d need to have peacekeepers? But perhaps we could find a neutral islamic country (who? Perhaps Malaysia?) to fit that role. With fellow followers of Islam keeping the peace and IDF having withdrawn, perhaps then Israel can feel secure while a new Palestine is built?

She told the nonvoters to screw off at the DNC rally so I think it’s safe to assume she won’t be changing her stance any time soon.

Citation needed?

She’ll still probably win

Remember Al Gore and the kid from Cuba who made it to Florida? Sometimes one issue is enough to make or break it.

Kamala and the party holding him accountable for this shit and pushing for him to get out now if he’s really demented enough to still believe Israel, would really help nonvoters see the difference.

It’s a tough balancing act since being too hard on Israel could lose an otherwise reliable voting block (American Jews). On the flip side, Palestine origin US citizens, Turkish origin US citizens, and others are likely to be lost if this issue isn’t pressed hard enough

Show people who aren’t planning on voting that at least one option holds themselves accountable.

From the WP article itself, a small beacon …

“The U.S. government has had full access to Israel’s preliminary investigation, and expects continued access as the investigation continues, so that we can have confidence in the result,” Biden said Wednesday.

The most optimistic interpretation is that, behind the scenes they’re pushing Israel hard about this, even if they’re trying to play it cool in public.

Already Facebook owner Meta (META.O), has said it may block professional news content if it is forced to pay royalties

Well, they did exactly that in Canada because of C-18 (what’s C-18 about? see https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/understanding-bill-c-18-canada-s-online-news-act-and-its-proposed-rules-explained-1.6488532 )

It didn’t seem to affect much. If anything, it ended up as a boon - since we know legitimate news can’t be shared on FB now, any “news” that comes through must be fake.

About time.

They did…

In 1947 the UN voted to partition the region into separate Jewish and Arab states.

The UN includes Russia, China, lots of African countries, …

We could say that the UN helped to create Israel and call it a day. We could even say it was Western-led, with the UK having the Mandate and all prior to the UN taking it up. But to say that the West made it implies that the other countries who were members of the UN at the time had no involvement or responsibility here, which isn’t accurate.

Everyone that moved there prior to the creation of Israel was moving to Palestine…

Well, to the British Mandate of Palestine. Semantics, agreed.

That’s not true. No one was moving to “Palestine”. It was a somewhat dead area.

Perhaps it was but there was some movement. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Aliyah - but I think you alluded to this earlier when you mentioned what Russia and such did back in 1882.

As well there was never a country called Palestine. You don’t see it on any maps.

From what I can tell, this is correct. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine#Ottoman_period

the Palestine region within it was divided into the five sanjaks (provincial districts, also called liwa′ in Arabic) of Safad, Nablus, Jerusalem, Lajjun and Gaza.
In common usage from 1840 onward, “Palestine” was used either to describe … a region that extended in the north–south direction typically from Rafah (south-east of Gaza) to the Litani River (now in Lebanon). The western boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the poorly defined place where the Syrian desert began.

Countries - or even provinces - usually have well defined borders, so up to Ottoman control it wasn’t a single entity but a poorly defined grouping.

I guess one could make the case for it after the British Mandate of Palestine, but of course it still wasn’t an independent country when the British were running things.

From all the development in Israel brought a lot of Arab immigrants to Palestine area as well.

I don’t know too much about this but it sounds plausible.

There could have been a Palestine but they declined that partition plan and chose to lose a war. They continue to lose wars.

Well, Oct 7 really was a major setback. I would admit that Netanyahu seems like the last person to allow for Palestine or a two state solution, like, ever. But he was about to be handed a major setback in gov’t control back in Sept and Oct 2023 which one could kinda see as maybe paving the way for a new gov’t to take control, one more likely to offer a new olive branch to the Palestinians - until Oct 7 happened and everyone agreed to coalition and stand behind Netanyahu.

This is genocide apologia/victim blaming.

Hmm … so, there are a couple of quotes from figures serving in the IDF and such, which might be where you got that impression from.

Overall I didn’t sense this from the article - which is trying to bring to light crimes being committed in the West Bank against Palestinians in the wake of Oct 7.

I think it’s unacceptable that a kid going home from school is killed by a military sniper. It’s not the kids fault and not the fault of the community he lives in.

I think it’s worth drawing lines between these folks and the Hamas military/leadership, as well as the fighters from Hamas who participated in Oct 7.

Gaza resistance isn’t to blame for Israels being a genocidal apartheid towards Gaza

To quote myself,

It’s a bit ironic, from what I understood at the time Netanyahu was forced into a coalition and losing power. Then the Oct attack happened and suddenly a bunch of folks stepped out of Netanyahu’s way and gave him full control again.

Blame is a complicated concept involving responsibility and so forth. And it goes without saying that Netanyahu and his allies and enablers remain fully responsible for their choices and decisions and actions. I am just saying that Netanyahu regaining full power and control and being able to do the things that are now happening in Gaza and the West Bank are a direct consequence of Oct 7 - as otherwise Netanyahu wouldn’t have been able to go this far.

and doubly so for the seperate region of the West Bank which Hamas doesn’t even control.

Sadly, it turned out this didn’t matter. Once the chains folks were trying to put on Netanyahu got released in the wake of Oct 7, he and his forces came up with excuses to go dig in here as well.

for Israels being a genocidal apartheid towards Gaza and … the West Bank

Again worth quoting myself,

Today there are many Israelites - including family members of hostages - who think things are going too far and that Netanyahu should stop.

Just as all Gazans and West Bank folks are not part of Hamas, not all Israelites are part of the IDF or on Netanyahu’s side.

What happened on oct-7?

I think at this point, having read the article I sent, you’ve gotten the answer. But it’s worth restating this point - Israelites who were sympathetic to the plight of those living in the West Bank and in Gaza do exist, and even recently they tried to exert their influence to put an end to this, see for example https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israe-hamas-war-netanyahu-strike-protest-ceasefire-hostages-killed-hersh-goldberg-polin/

But from https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-parliament-approves-national-unity-government-2023-10-12/

Israel’s political landscape had been bitterly split for months over a hotly-contested push by Netanyahu’s government to overhaul the judiciary that drove a wedge between the prime minister’s religious nationalist supporters and more liberal, secular Israelis.
But the crisis has seen such differences buried [because of Oct 7]
“We will act, the enemy will hear,” Gantz said in parliament after being sworn in.

So Oct 7 was a turning point - the folks that had the power to restrain Netanyahu gave it up after that attack and seeing their friends and family members murdered or kidnapped, and even today folks like Harris are reluctant to put the full brakes on Israel because of that attack.

The PA understood this, and hence condemned what happened, see https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinian-president-says-he-rejects-killing-civilians-both-sides-conflict-2023-10-12/

Today there’s no elections and thus the same opportunities to rein Netanyahu in don’t exist.

But if they did, Israel would do it, see https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240913-poll-finds-netanyahus-coalition-would-lose-power-in-an-election/