rattlesnake

Is that supposed to be funny?

Valid point.

Just for context, about the Israeli population. According to this poll from last November, Netanyahu is unpopular, but there is strong support (over 90%) for the IDF and its actions: New opinion polls just released from Israel Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University's Peace Index indicate that Israeli attitudes towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are more hawkish than at any point in recent memory. [...] Poll results were also hawkish when it came to the use of force in Gaza: 57.5% of Israeli Jews said that they believed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were using too little firepower in Gaza, 36.6% said the IDF was using an appropriate amount of firepower, while just 1.8% said they believed the IDF was using too much fire power, while 4.2% said they weren’t sure whether it was using too much or too little firepower. [...] Nevertheless, despite the distrust in Netanyahu, trust in the IDF remains high. In Israeli Voice Index Polls conducted between Oct. 24-26, 49.5% of respondents said that they trusted the IDF more than Prime Minister Netanyahu, while just 7.3% said they trusted Netanyahu more than the IDF. https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/

Unfortunately, the reality is quite different, and lots of media outlets (which were traditionally rather Israel-friendly) have covered it, such as in this MSNBC article from last November: Immediately there were signs that Israel viewed its military operation as not just an operation for self-defense, but for inflicting excruciating pain on Gazans. As Netanyahu vowed “mighty vengeance” that would be felt for “generations,” Israel’s defense minister announced a siege, cutting off food, water, fuel, electricity and medicine to the entire Gaza Strip as part of its bid to fight those he called “human animals.” As Israel began aerial bombardment, an IDF spokesman said that “the emphasis is on damage, and not on accuracy,” and Israel’s president insinuated that no Gazan had the rights of a civilian as he bellowed that “it is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/israel-target-civilians-gaza-fetterman-rcna123890

To answer properly, I would have to go way off topic so I will stop here. The links I posted earlier lead to resources which are quite unequivocal regarding how Israel sees and treats African ethnicities, which was what I was referring to initially.

Nonsensical question given Gaza is probably the worst place in the world. You do say some dubious things sometimes, Nick, such as here where you claimed that something drastic needed to happen to solve the problem (in response to my post on Daniella Weiss advocating for cleansing Gaza of Arabs):

They are refugees according to international law, which Israel is theoretically bound by.

The fact that the government implements policies to deport refugees back to where they came from, as well as the fact that watchdog organisations have repeatedly observed discriminatory practices by the authorities and population.

Agree this is not 100% on topic and I will not expand on it, but in these examples we are talking about discriminatory policies implemented by the government, as well as widespread racist behaviour by the auhorities and population.

Anti-Black Racism among Jewish Israelis [and Recent Asylum-Seekers] Over the past few decades, anti-Black racism in Israel has been primarily directed towards Ethiopian Israelis, part of the Jewish Beta Israel community, who number about 155,300 people in Israel (1.7% of Israel’s population), and non-Jewish asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan who constitute less than 1% of the population. Experiences of anti-Black racism are well documented, in both research journals and the media, and consist of police violence and racial profiling of males, overrepresentation in military and civilian prison, discrimination in employment and housing, and everyday interpersonal discrimination. https://www.theracialequityinitiative.org/anti-black-racism-in-israel/ Israel: Deportation of African asylum-seekers is a cruel and misguided abandonment of responsibility “How can the Israeli government possibly describe this as a way of deporting asylum-seekers ‘voluntarily’ when the alternatives are returning to persecution or indefinite detention? This is not a choice anyone should have to make,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Research and Advocacy Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “The forced – and illegal – deportation of Eritrean and Sudanese asylum-seekers is a reckless abandonment of responsibility.” [...] “The Israeli authorities need to know that the world is watching with outrage at their brazen disregard for human life, dignity and responsibility to the wider global community.” https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/03/israel-deportation-of-african-asylum-seekers-is-a-cruel-and-misguided-abandonment-of-responsibility/ Chief rabbi calls black people ‘monkeys’ In footage aired by the Ynet news site, Yosef could be seen referring to black people by the word “kushi,” which in modern Hebrew has pejorative connotations, and then going on to term a black person a “monkey.” His office told Ynet that the comparison was a quote from the Talmud. [...] Non-Jews, Yosef said, are in Israel only to serve Jews. https://www.timesofisrael.com/chief-rabbi-compares-african-americans-to-monkeys/

I was clarifying the issue as I see lots of arguing on this page about figures and it seems there is confusion between buildings and homes. So yes, in November, already 70% of Palestinian homes had been wiped out, it is sufficiently serious to be repeated once. "so why are you doing the same thing yet again?" What do you mean by that?

I posted a link yesterday from November, which says that 70% of Palestinian homes (not buildings) had been destroyed. Current estimates of buildings as a whole stand at 35%, which is massive in any case.

You forgot the bit where Israel has always claimed the whole Palestinian territory was its God-given right, that it considers Palestinians to be inferior beings and that it helped create, fund and bolster Hamas to sabotage the two-State solution.

Have there been insights on how long this bump in cases and severity could last?

The real issue is the notion of total ceasefire, which has been too ambiguously addressed according to the countries who vetoed the resolution. Still from this article: Another resolution has been drafted by elected members of the council with a direct demand for a ceasefire, but Thomas-Greenfield warned that the US would veto that text if it was presented for a vote, on the grounds that it did not support negotiations under way in Doha on a deal which would establish a ceasefire in return for Hamas freeing its hostages." [...] The alternative resolution was reported to be on hold on Friday morning, while council members held consultations. Sherine Tadros, the head of the New York office of Amnesty International described the US resolution as “an attempt by the US to absolve themselves of the abysmal record Biden has had so far on Gaza, and submit a resolution that is not going to end the war”.

And the explanation for the veto: Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, also speaking before the vote, called on members not to vote in favor of the resolution. He said the resolution was “exceedingly politicized” and contained an effective green light for Israel to mount a military operation in Rafah, a city on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip where more than half of its 2.3 million residents have been sheltering in makeshift tents to escape the Israeli assault farther north. “This would free the hands of Israel and it would result in all of Gaza and its entire population having to face destruction, devastation or expulsion,” Nebenzia told the meeting. https://www.timesofisrael.com/russia-china-veto-us-resolution-at-un-calling-for-gaza-ceasefire-tied-to-hostage-deal/

Incorrect. I do not intend to go off topic, but will make one statement for the sake of clarity: There are plenty of antisemites in the world, including Ashkenazi Jews who consider Semites (which include Arabs and Sephardic Jews) as inferior. A contradiction worth noting as it is those same Ashkenazi Jews who are often very active in fighting "antisemitism" in the Western world. On the one hand there is the signifier, i.e. what a word actually means, and then there is the signified, i.e. what it is used to refer to for various purposes. "Antisemitism" is often – though not always – used as a political means to quell or discredit criticism of Israel. Another notable contradiction in the notion of racism. Israel is an institutionally racist country (just look at the way blacks are discriminated there), yet the Ashkenazi Jews who often have dual nationality (Israel and a Western country) will typically support antiracist policies in their other country, while supporting racist policies in Israel. This "rules for thee but not for me" tendency, which includes the notion of antisemitism and everything it entails, is worth mentioning.

Indeed, and I have often noted that the antisemites, in the strict sense of the term, are often Ashkenazi Jews (ethnically from Eastern Europe and actively involved in the establishment and development of Israel), who tend to look down on the Sephardic Jews (ethnically from the Middle East).

Not my intention and I am genuinely interested in reading people's takes and opinions on the matter.

"Respitory Infections seem to be more extreme since the whole Covid thing." I agree. Do you have any idea of what the cause of this is?

People have never been so sick.

"In almost everyone of those villages there is a girl that has married the Thai traditional way at an age between 12-14 years." I think that's a stereotype. Never seen or heard of that in real life, apart from in sordid news stories. The teenage girls in my wife's village essentially stay home with their parents, who are very protective (far more than in Europe).

The media reported at the time that 70% of homes, not buildings, had been destroyed: Israel-Hamas war: 70% of Gaza homes destroyed in fighting, WSJ claims The Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday that 70% of all Gaza homes and about half of all its buildings have been either damaged or destroyed due to Israeli airstrikes during its war with the Hamas terror organization. The report states that Gaza contained about 439,000 homes. [...] Around the time the report came out, N12 cited an estimate by aid organizations that it would take at least a year after the war to clear the rubble, and it would take approximately seven to ten years to rebuild destroyed houses, with the overall cost of restoring Gaza estimated at $3.5 billion. https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-780086

And this type of (often intentional) fallacy does not work anymore.

Interesting testimony. A lot of people have experienced a similar shift in awareness lately.