DirtyWaterHotDog
No bio...
User ID: 625
I too am convinced that that many 3rd parties reporting on Israel are lying (outright or by omission). However, the information blackout from Israel makes it hard to defend them.
Hamas has lost. Israel's existential threat comes from Iran, which has temporarily been rendered sterile. There is no plausible reason for fighting a war with medieval siege tactics. Not anymore. Sure, many who're accusing them of genocide are antisemitic. But, it should not be that hard to refute it. The burden of proof is on Israel. There's little indication that the majority of Israelis want a final solution to the Gaza problem. Israelis haven't so much as articulated an endgame, let along enacted it. In this framing, Israel's current actions don't make sense, unless viewed as Netanyahu's actions.
IMO, Netanyahu's interests and Israel's interests stopped coinciding after the attacks on Iran's nuclear sites. Hamas's leaders were dead. Iran's nukes were gone. Hezbollah was over. Gazan supply lines were wiped. Israel was safe. So what's next for Netanyahu ? He's a dead man walking. He was thought to be on the way out in 2020. He swindled (all is fair in love and war) Benny Gantz into a 1 sided coalition and through morbid luck got a national emergency handed to him. His approval ratings are on a slow decline in 2025 after a post-tragedy resurgence. Democracies have a track record of ousting wartime leaders as soon as the war is over. Netanyahu won't be an exception.*
Netanyahu wants his problems to be Israel's problems. As long as the conflict remains, he can keep finding exceptions to stay in power. Global anti-semitism pushes Israel to the right, strengthening him**. He is the only one who benefits from a protracted conflict. Even today, there is sufficient internal pushback against Netanyahu within Israel.
Yet, the loudest detractors steer the conversation towards the existence of the state of Israel instead of Netanyahu as the leader who oversaw this response. To me, that's the difference between credible detractors (Tech elite, European centrists, American Jews) and antisemites. (Progressive left, Muslim leaders). Antisemites are tempted by maximalist claims and their hate makes up for the lack of due diligence. "All Israelis are evil, always have been. All Gazans are being killed. All kids are being shot in the dick. No one is getting food." No nuance. Only hate.
Either way, their detractors have served. The ball is now in Israel's court. Sympathies are wearing thin. Netanyahu better show proof refuting it, or his time might be up. Hopefully, the Israel's people are able to pin the stink of genocide onto him. Otherwise, this will cement the end of Israel's post-holocaust sympathy.
* famous last words. There always seems to be a Netanyahu exception. Slimy bastard that man
** and Bennett, but that's besides the point
DirtyWaterHotDog
5d ago
The starvation claimed by the linked urls and a starvation where 'Israel starves all Gazans to death' are not the same thing. My contention is with the slippery slope framing of it. I don't believe the OP was implying mass famine either.
The standoff between Israel, UN and Hamas is technically causing starvation, but there is a big difference between undernourishment and deadly famine. I am uniquely heartless having grown up in the 3rd world. Stunting & wasting is commonplace. Deadly famines killed millions until the 1980s. I could have more sympathy. I'll try.
That being said, the article I linked is worth reading. The linked author seems legitimate enough. Biased, yes. But, not an activist. He also posts on substack, but the article was pay walled there.
This Substack is about Defense, the Middle East, and the psychology of disinformation, from a former soldier. I served for 16 years in the British Army (2005-21), leaving the Parachute Regiment with the rank of Major. I completed three tours in Afghanistan including one attached to US Army Special Forces, and further tours of Bosnia, Northern Ireland and the Middle East.
I was a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, teaching in the War Studies and Behavioral Science departments, teaching military theory and leadership to officer cadets in training. I am currently a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society.
In 2024, I visited Gaza twice and captured Hezbollah tunnels in Lebanon. I am a regular Middle East commentator on national media.
a general shift against Judaism among the public
Antisemitism isn't a monolith. Thinking of it as a monolith is unproductive and misleading. There are at least 4 distinct groups that plausibly hate jews: Muslims, Leftists, Incels and Bandwagoners.
Muslims hatred for Jews runs deep. This is proper bigotry. Proper antisemitism. Modern muslims may articulate a rationale for their hatred of Israel, and there are many good reasons. But, the hatred precedes those reasons.
Leftists hate Jews for being perceived as right-wing (economically and socially) oppressors.
Incels hate Jews because they are smart and rich. It's hatred rooted in jealousy and resentment. Here, an incel is a standin-term for a chronically online man who believes in a binary alpha male / beta male characterization of the world. They aren't necessarily sexless. Many black men (famously Kanye) and poor whites fit this bill.
Bandwagoners only care about optics. Optics tell them that Israel is bad and worth hating so they hate them. bandwagoners are most vulnerable to visible displays of cruelty. This is the largest group.
In Europe, rising antisemitism has to do with a rising Muslim population. Similarly, in NYC, it has to do with the rise of a Muslim-coded leftist as mayoral candidate. On college campuses, the rise in antisemitism is because of bandwagoners who can't afford to be seen as uncool in university. University leftists were always antisemitic, so there isn't much scope for rise there. On the internet and especially X, it is fueled by incel tears.
The reason I make this distinction, is because leftists and bandwagoners channel their hatred through Netanyahu. If he goes, Israel may get a period of relief from these 2 groups. As jews continue to lose face in public, incels are already losing motivation. If the new Israeli leader lacks big-dick-energy, the incels will mark him as effeminate and move over to their next source of resentment.
That leaves us with the Muslims. I don't have an answer here. Muslims seem to genuinely hate Jews and Israel. I don't know if anything can be done about it. As the population of devout muslims rises through the 1st world, antisemitism will rise in lockstep. Maybe they'll become irreligious as they integrate. But, the results in Europe aren't encouraging.
DirtyWaterHotDog
5d ago
We're talking past each other, and I'm at fault.
When I say starvation, I imagine a famine where people are dying in droves. Deadly famines were a part of life in the Indian Subcontinent until the 1980s. Today, chronic wasting and stunting remain commonplace.
On further reflection, I'm being plain heartless. Years of walking past beggars under the bridge has stripped me of humanity. Just because starvation is common in the subcontinent, doesn't mean I should withhold my sympathy for the Gazans. It's true that the world only cares when Europeans(ish) are dying. I'm sour about it, no doubt. But, sympathies aren't zero sum.
Are Gazans starving ? Not yet at least
I'm still right going by my definition of starvation. But, it's a moot definition. Shouldn't have to wait for the situation to turn into a biblical locust-plague before it can be called starvation.
DirtyWaterHotDog
6d ago
Are Gazans starving ? Not yet at least. Not in the way we understand starving. At 5.8%, that would put it alongside stable middle-economy nations like Mexico, Thailand and Brazil. Most of Africa & the Indian Subcontinent are doing twice as worse. Gaza's tragedies, like Ukraine over-reported in comparison to mundane everyday evil that kills more people everywhere else.
how much Israel can torture the civilians before there is sufficient moral pressure to make them stop
What's left? To viewers on social media, Israel is already conducting a holocaust-esque genocide. Facts be damned. I imagine Israel can keep going for much longer, because Hamas has milked social media sympathy for all its worth. The only pressure that matters comes from the State department or Israel's population. A change of heart of either group will come from a frustration with the ineffectiveness of how the war is run, rather than any moral calculus.
DirtyWaterHotDog
6d ago
Claude Desktop
Do you mean Claude Code ? If you're running a mcp/code setup then claude code will perform noticeably better. In absence of Claude code, I'd try to use Cursor's agent mode.
manipulating a big chunk of json
Yeah, large jsons cause context rot
For any transformation, it's always good to write a strategy document and define a few unit-tasks that the model can orchestrate together. For building houses, asking it to write a blueprint or put foundational blocks on first, may work better. If you can break down your primitives further, that's always good. They don't need to be explicit MCP/tool-calls. A simple prompt stuffed reference will do.
Lastly, creating typed intermediate structures with better semantic flow helps. Json schemas are wonky, I like pydantic (java probably has something similar) for creating large structured schemas that can be validated in real time. Pydantic captures the semantics better than json. It also allows the model to make edits deep into a nested dataclass, without fear of a breaking change else where. This way you build out the entire house in the intermediate structure. And then relegate the intermediate representation -> projection task to a post processing step.
As long as we're talking about data structures, please use dataclasses for storing data and raw functions as transformations. We are in the year of the lord 2025, and OOP should not be used.
not all that experienced with Java
Don't know your familiarity with coding, but Java isn't a good place to start. I would recommend python, but most times it's good to just go out there and do things. Getting stuck choosing between tools is never productive. So, maybe ignore me.
DirtyWaterHotDog
6d ago
The distinction matters for promotion patterns.
An aristocracy propagates through blood ties. As a consequence, it develops a from-birth racial identity. Here, power is innate. Additionally, elites maintain power by not-fixing-whats-not-broken. So, rivals arent purged with the same fervor. Send them out as lords of border states, not gulags.
Fascist states revolve around a king-like central individual. But this individual draws power from commitment to some loudly expressed cause that's already taken root among foot soldiers. Blood relatives and visually identical individual arent entitled to power. A lowly commoner who has risen through the ranks will have a better claim to power than the child of the dictator. Additionally, totalitarism and paranoia mean that the new fuhrer will likely purge all rivals with a kind of harshness that aristocracies rarely employ.
In a fascist state, the 2 worst things you can be are 'the othered' and a rival to the eventual winner.
DirtyWaterHotDog
6d ago
aristocracy
Weren't fascist movements a reaction to erstwhile aristocracy ? They're started by revolutionaries who borrow their power from military and/or church. Both institutions reject blood relations in favor of loyalty to the cause.
Disagreeable people with public platforms are the first go. This guy would've whacked on day 2.
Is there an example of a near-fascist state with significant ethnic diversity that's succeeded ?
P.S: OP deleted their comment, so I'm going off the quote.
DirtyWaterHotDog
18d ago
don't know why some women are so stupid
Society shelters them too much. Women are raised as 'sweet princesses'. Men are dropped into the deep end and expected to figure it out. This has always been true, but now women can vote. With great power comes great responsibility.
It's not just women. It's a rift between idealists and pragmatists. Let idealists wield soft power. Men of the arts & academia. Idealists shape culture. John Lennon imagines. But hard power should be left to the pragmatists.
DirtyWaterHotDog
22d ago
Everything is scarier in the dark. Can imagine the panic felt by young girls in the middle of a once-a-century flood.
DirtyWaterHotDog
22d ago
The East Coast and West Coast follow different trends.
Seattle, Portland and SF had their progressive experiments together starting the mid-2010s. They're now facing whiplash together as well.
Boston & NYC were run by competent moderates during the 2010s. The most progressive of the East Coast (Michelle Wu) was no where near the crazies seen on the west coast. Zohran is the first east-coast progressive to win. I dislike him (as my numerous posts about him make clear), but his rhetoric is no where near as radical as what was seen on the west coast. Zohran / AOC are no where close to the insanity of Kshama Sawant / Chesa Boudin. (Different roles, I know, but for comparison)
DirtyWaterHotDog
22d ago
RIP to the child. No parent should have to see their child pass away before them.
From my experience, camping near riverbeds is universally discouraged. Given the region's 'flash Flood Alley' title, I'd have expected precautions that mitigate these sort of freak accidents.
Unlike levee breaks, hurricanes, or tsunamis, rainfall based flash floods should be human escapable no ?
So what ? Why is it so bad if Hamas gets food ? Blockading food supplies is considered a war crime in the post-war world.
Assuming Gaza has no food reserves, Israel should allow the passage of food-aid for 2 million people. Share the distribution logs and nations should step off their neck. Logistically, they should be able to check the food for smuggling. Hawaii checks all agricultural imports and exports before they trade with the mainland. It's not unheard of. The UNRWA may be biased. But, it's not like they can smuggle in weapons. UNRWA may report false atrocities, but that's already happening. Israel's public perception is in the dumps. Can't get much worse than that.
More options
Context Copy link