naraburns nihil supernum
7mo ago
(text post)
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
No electricity, water, or fuel for Gaza until hostages freed - Israel
Israel's Energy Minister Israel Katz says the siege of Gaza will not end until Israeli hostages are released.
In a social media post, Israel Katz said no "electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter" until the "abductees" are free.
I think this is a smart move. Even if the hostages being released remains very unlikely, it puts more of the moral burden for the siege on the Gazans, who do (broadly) support Hamas.
At this point the optics don't matter. I genuinely believe that Israel could detonate some tactical nuclear weapons in Gaza, killing everybody there, including the prisoners, and would suffer almost no negative consequences for it.
Israel, and by extension the Jewish diaspora, has an absolute grasp on western media and government. During the American house speaker recall debate, one of the congresswomen gave a speech explaining that we should keep McCarthy as speaker because he has done the most to bring other congressmen to Israel. Major American policy debates center around support for Israel, a small foreign country.[1]
The Palestinian terror attacks were a type of brutality I don't think anybody in the modern western world has ever seen before. They were uniquely horrific, and I think this will be remembered as a turning point in modern history the same way that 9/11 was.
Israel is out for blood, and nobody in the west with any real power is going to stop them.
And by the way: good for them. I, a Catholic American, am jealous (although jealous is the wrong word since that sortof implies an animosity, which I have none of) of the power that the Jewish people have. Much of my criticism of The Church centers around not behaving more like The Jews. Why no Catholic equivalent to "Birthright Israel"? Why not make Catholics learn latin anymore? These are good things that people should do.
(Although I don't think they should be nuking Palestine.)
And by the way: good for them. I, a Catholic American, am jealous (although jealous is the wrong word since that sortof implies an animosity, which I have none of) of the power that the Jewish people have.
For this, you would need to invent some "secular Catholic" identity and community, where someone who never went to Church, who does not obey and does not care about any of Catholic religious laws, someone who does not know transubstantiation from transmission, someone whose only connection to Catholicism is that some of his ancestors were sprinkled with water by priest hundreds years ago, would still identify as proud Catholic.
Aren't there some lingering-even-now vestiges of the Reformation that resemble this description? Ireland is the example that comes to mind, although I can't speak to church attendance among the parties in the Troubles. In the US, sentiment against Italian and Irish (and more recently, Latin American) immigrants was at least partly driven by the Catholic-Protestant divide. I think the history of the Dutch Flemish-speaking parts of Belgium would suggest that distinction is similar vis-a-vis The Netherlands.
Ireland is the example that comes to mind, although I can't speak to church attendance among the parties in the Troubles.
It depends.
The Unionists took their religion seriously, with leaders like Ian Paisley.
The Republicans (IRA and various splinter groups of splinter groups) were "catholic" only in the sense that "I never go to church, and the church I do not go to is Catholic church).
It is no accident that the Irish Republicans gained sympathy and support worldwide while the Unionists had no allies, even in mainland Britain few were sympathetic to their struggle, most Brits saw Northern Ireland as nothing than millstone on their neck they should be better off without.
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Notes -
No electricity, water, or fuel for Gaza until hostages freed - Israel
[From the BBC news live tracker]
I think this is a smart move. Even if the hostages being released remains very unlikely, it puts more of the moral burden for the siege on the Gazans, who do (broadly) support Hamas.
At this point the optics don't matter. I genuinely believe that Israel could detonate some tactical nuclear weapons in Gaza, killing everybody there, including the prisoners, and would suffer almost no negative consequences for it.
Israel, and by extension the Jewish diaspora, has an absolute grasp on western media and government. During the American house speaker recall debate, one of the congresswomen gave a speech explaining that we should keep McCarthy as speaker because he has done the most to bring other congressmen to Israel. Major American policy debates center around support for Israel, a small foreign country.[1]
The Palestinian terror attacks were a type of brutality I don't think anybody in the modern western world has ever seen before. They were uniquely horrific, and I think this will be remembered as a turning point in modern history the same way that 9/11 was.
Israel is out for blood, and nobody in the west with any real power is going to stop them.
And by the way: good for them. I, a Catholic American, am jealous (although jealous is the wrong word since that sortof implies an animosity, which I have none of) of the power that the Jewish people have. Much of my criticism of The Church centers around not behaving more like The Jews. Why no Catholic equivalent to "Birthright Israel"? Why not make Catholics learn latin anymore? These are good things that people should do.
(Although I don't think they should be nuking Palestine.)
For this, you would need to invent some "secular Catholic" identity and community, where someone who never went to Church, who does not obey and does not care about any of Catholic religious laws, someone who does not know transubstantiation from transmission, someone whose only connection to Catholicism is that some of his ancestors were sprinkled with water by priest hundreds years ago, would still identify as proud Catholic.
Aren't there some lingering-even-now vestiges of the Reformation that resemble this description? Ireland is the example that comes to mind, although I can't speak to church attendance among the parties in the Troubles. In the US, sentiment against Italian and Irish (and more recently, Latin American) immigrants was at least partly driven by the Catholic-Protestant divide. I think the history of the
DutchFlemish-speaking parts of Belgium would suggest that distinction is similar vis-a-vis The Netherlands.It depends.
The Unionists took their religion seriously, with leaders like Ian Paisley.
The Republicans (IRA and various splinter groups of splinter groups) were "catholic" only in the sense that "I never go to church, and the church I do not go to is Catholic church).
It is no accident that the Irish Republicans gained sympathy and support worldwide while the Unionists had no allies, even in mainland Britain few were sympathetic to their struggle, most Brits saw Northern Ireland as nothing than millstone on their neck they should be better off without.
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