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Everything posted by placeholder

  1. Given the way that Israel has crippled the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, allow me to doubt that it would allow strong economic development in Gaza. Especially given the hostility that the locals feel towards Israel.
  2. What don't you understand about the fact that Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza?
  3. You've tried this dodge on before. It's not incumbent upon me to go to the time and trouble to paraphrase information that is readily available via a link. This calls to mind an old saying in a modified form: "You can lead a horse to water but you cannot make it think."
  4. Where does this nonsense of yours come from? EU and UNICEF mark the completion of the final phase of the expansion of the Southern Gaza Seawater Desalination plant Today, representatives of the United Nations, the European Union, and the Palestinian Authority officially marked the finalization of the Gaza Strip desalination plant expansion. With this milestone, water production capacity of the Southern Gaza Seawater Desalination Plant is substantially increased, reaching 175,000 more people. The event was attended by the Minister of the Palestinian Water Authority, the Representative of the European Union, Representatives from European countries, the Special Representative of UNICEF in the State of Palestine, representatives from the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU), Youth and local stakeholders. https://www.unicef.org/sop/press-releases/eu-and-unicef-mark-completion-final-phase-expansion-southern-gaza-seawater
  5. Really, instead of building tunnels what could they have done with those funds? I know you are aware that Israel has imposed a blockade on the territory since 2007 after Hamas gained power. (actually in 2005-2006 too). What do you think a blockade entails?
  6. Smuggling contraband is one thing. Not much in the way of volume. But the volumes and variety of material required to building a modern economy imported via tunnels? That's laughable. As for the West Bank "Areas A and B are subdivided into 166 islands with no contiguity and surrounded by Area C, which is the only contiguous part of the West Bank. Area C is largely inaccessible to Palestinian producers, although it is the largest area and has the most valuable natural resources, such as fertile land, minerals, stone, tourist attractions and ingredients for cosmetic products. The wall, together with the settlements, deepens the economic, physical, administrative and legal fragmentation of the occupied Palestinian territory (figure I). 10. In 1967, Israel began establishing settlements in the occupied West Bank, with the growth of settlements in recent years bringing 70 per cent of Area C within the boundaries of their regional councils and rendering that chunk off limits for Palestinian use and development (figure II). Palestinian access to the remainder of Area C is heavily restricted. The present report estimates the economic cost of the additional restrictions on Palestinian economic activity in the remaining 30 per cent of Area C. Those restrictions facilitate the establishment of settlements and their expansion, they foster the setting aside of land and natural resources for settlers and create a difficult environment which forces the Palestinian population to leave Area C." https://unctad.org/system/files/official-document/a77d295_en.pdf There's a lot more in that report.
  7. Israel has blockaded Gaza since Hamas came to power 16 years ago. That has made economic development virtually impossible. As for the West Bank, it's laughable that you can describe the situation for Palestinians there as self-rule given all the restrictions that Israel has imposed.
  8. Given that this dissatisfaction, if such a tepid word is adequate, has nothing to do with the settlement policy, or the rest of Israel's generally abusive policy towards the Palestinians, we can expect to see more of the same in the future. And since the rising generations of Israelis are far more harshly disposed towards the Palestinians and Arab Israelis than are their elders, if anything, Israeli policy towards Palestinians is more likely to be more severe.
  9. From Lewis Carroll's great nonsense poem, The Hunting of the Snark "Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care; Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair. "Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true." https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/The_Hunting_of_the_Snark
  10. All of this partisan infighting is stalling our agenda.
  11. I'm going to go out on a limb here and and guess that this "Look, you don't Jew's, that's up to you" is an accusation of anti-semitism. If I'm right, then most likely what I'm seeing here is a case of doublethink. When Jewish people in the diaspora are murdered as a way of showing hatred for Israel, such actions are quite rightly denounced. After all, Israel is a country, not a religion, and just because a person happens to be Jewish in no way means that they are responsible for Israeli policy. Israel does not speak for all Jews. But when Israel is criticized for its policies, that is somehow anti-Semitic. Try to keep in mind that Israel is a country, not a religion, and just because its leaders and most of its populace are Jewish, that doesn't mean that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. Mort Sahl once told a joke about an actor with politically unpopular views that it was possible to dislike her for herself. It's equally possible to dislike Israeli policy for itself. As for the terrorist bit. we heard the same judgements pronounced against various ethnic groups that revolted against oppressive regimes. And it's true. Members of those communities committed horrible acts. That doesn't excuse what they did but denying that the various regimes didn't create the toxic conditions for such people to flourish is just self-righteous denialism.
  12. This from David Remnick who reports from Israel: "After many conversations in recent days with Israelis and Palestinians, after visiting the sites of the October 7th massacre, I find it difficult to convey the over-all sense of dread and rage, the intensity of the demands for vengeance. The atmosphere here is, in certain ways, reminiscent of the atmosphere in the United States in the days after 9/11. The urge not just to mourn, to protect, to defend, and to strike back but to “eradicate,” to “flatten,” to “end them” is, on the most primal level, almost inevitable. But it must be resisted." https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/bidens-middle-east-burden Good luck with that resistance. As polls show, the younger an Israeli is, the harsher their view of the Palestinians. Frontline troops tend to skew younger. Combine that with a desire for vengeance, and I don't see how a bloodbath can be avoided.
  13. Well you must be a mind reader if you don't speak Spanish yet knew Chomper Higgott meant "balls" when he wrote "cojones". And your grasp of English also seems to be imperfect since you don't understand the idiomatic use of either "cojones" or "balls" in this context.
  14. Actually it was "cojones" and you took that literally, did you? More evidence of obsession.
  15. "Influence peddling"? Really. What do you think an abundance of ex officials do when they leave office? One or way another, they use their connections to advance the interests of those who hire them. Even if Biden did put in a good word for someone and was paid for it, and there's no evidence of him doing anything, is that unusual for ex-politicians?
  16. To start with, while the headline of the article trumpets "mud and grass huts" there actually is no mention of them in the UN report. Which was to be expected considering that this came from wattsupwiththat.com, one of the leading online sources of human-caused climate change denialism.
  17. I thought Mike Pence was the vice-President in 2018. Was it really Joe Biden? Is this a QAnon thing?
  18. Isn't this a state trial, not a federal one?
  19. Well, Powell certainly could afford a defense: Sidney Powell’s nonprofit raised $16 million as she spread election falsehoods https://archive.ph/eDnxC I haven't been able to find anything about Chesebro's funding. But I did find this:' "But friends said his politics seemed to shift after he reaped sizable returns from his investments in cryptocurrency in the past half-decade. He began to stake out more-libertarian positions in legal briefs, especially in his home state of Wisconsin, where he started donating to Republicans and working with a former judge, Jim Troupis, who Chesebro would later testify under oath had brought him into Trump’s orbit." https://archive.ph/XY5YX So maybe money wasn't the reason. And a big reason that the Feds have such a high conviction rate is that they don't like to bring a case except if they have extremely strong evidence. (It's a strong indication of how politically inspired John Durham was that the 2 cases he developed both failed miserably in court.)
  20. Here's a direct link to the study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629623003365?dgcid=author
  21. Plummeting prices for solar power and storage make global climate transition cheaper than expected In just the past ten years, the cost of electricity from solar has fallen by 87 percent, and the cost of battery storage by 85 percent. Wind power, heat pumps and other fossil-free technologies are also experiencing a sharp drop in prices. A study now compares the corresponding findings from innovation reports with the standard model-based scenarios on climate transition. It shows that, although the fight against global heating remains an enormous political challenge, new, cheaper pathways are opening up. The study was led by the Berlin-based climate research institute MCC (Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change) and published in the renowned journal Energy Research & Social Science. https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/news/information/information-detail/article/plummeting-prices-for-solar-power-and-storage-make-global-climate-transition-cheaper-than-expected.html
  22. So, is this good news or bad news for Trump? To resolve that question I turned to my infallible test. Does it appear on the Foxnews.com home page? And the answer is no. Of course, Trump fans might claim that there just wasn't room for it on their home page. Not when there's important stuff like the following to share with the world: Former McDonald's chef says Walmart sells product 'almost identical' to iconic Big Mac sauce https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/former-mcdonalds-chef-says-walmart-sells-product-almost-identical-iconic-big-mac-sauce
  23. Judge Threatens Trump With Jail "On October 3d, in one of his more manifestly stupid acts, Trump doxxed on his Truth Social site a clerk in the NY court where he is on trial for civil fraud and falsely claimed that she was Chuck Schumer's girlfriend. The post was also used in millions of fund raising emails sent to Trump followers. The furious judge quickly ordered the post deleted and imposed a gag order against Trump commenting on members of the court staff." https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/20/2200559/-Judge-Threatens-Trump-With-Jail?utm_campaign=recent I would have substituted "vicious" for stupid or maybe have written "vicious and stupid, but the point is clear enough.
  24. Still, Hamas hardly poes an existential threat to Israel whereas Russia clearly does to Ukraine.
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