Pandering

I was trying to stay away from that Gary, Islamophobia or just blatant racism, but I reckon that that hits the nail on the head. It's the only reason why 1 would support Adolf Benji and his fascist mob of butchers and thieves while denying that decades of Israel's policies led up to Oct.7.

Anyhow a new vote is held.

United Nations General Assembly votes to demand Israel end Palestinian occupation, Australia abstains.

The vote in the 193-member world body was 124-14, with Australia one of 43 members states to abstain.

And the reason we abstained was.

.....Mr Larsen said Australia had wanted to vote for a resolution that "directly reflected" a recent advisory ruling from the World Court, which said Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories was unlawful.

Australia also wanted a resolution that "clearly offered the Palestinian people a path to self-determination and gave the world a path to a two-state solution", the Australian ambassador said.

He told the general assembly that Australia was already doing a lot of what the resolution called for. It had not supplied weapons to Israel in at least five years, was sanctioning extremist Israeli settlers, and had doubled funding to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, he said......

I can't find the reason yet why Germany did the same.

[edit] I'll also throw this in.

Tennis players, poisoned toothpaste and explosive phones: Israel's long history of assassination plots.

I was trying to stay away from that Gary, Islamophobia or just blatant racism, but I reckon that that hits the nail on the head.

I understand, but one of the two people defending Benji here is from that place and I wanted him to consider that much of his news sources may be contaminated by such rhetoric.

Tennis players, poisoned toothpaste and explosive phones: Israel's long history of assassination plots.

Seems they studied Mother Russia very well.

Pandering

An American researcher of Arab descent identifies a rampant Islamophobia in Germany from his office in Washington D.C. He knows nothing about Germany, the current situation or political mood. He publishes on Al Jazeera, the beacon of independent, neutral journalism.

German Muslim population is growing, as are the numbers of Muslim cultural centers and mosques all over the country. Muslims pray publicly in their hundreds at street events in major cities or in their tens of thousands at summer gatherings. But what is no longer possible for the few German Jewish citizens is to wear a kippah or a Star of David on a necklace in public and walk around Berlin or other large cities, or even dare to ride a crowded subway. These are the facts.

Islamophobia is the projection of an unutterable anti-Semitism.

Arab muslims are of semitic descent, which why the German Nazi population hates them... This diverts attention from the main perpetrators of antisemitism in DE.

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution [...] warns: “Islamists aim to completely or partially abolish the free democratic basic order of the Federal Republic of Germany by invoking their religion”

This Office is headed by leftists, not right-wing. Our government got repeated warnings from moderate Arab countries (e.g. UAE) [1], to monitor islamist preachers. We have lost control of radicalization in a couple of mosque communities; or cultural institutions; many of whom are financed by Mullahs or Saudi Arabia.

[1] Emirates warn Merkel about radical preachers (In German); Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2017-05-01.

Framing our left-green government's approach to Islamism as Islamophobia is grotesque:

The leader of the Green Party [...] Katharina Dröge, went as far as claiming [...] that “the poison of Islam reaches people’s minds also here, not just abroad”; later correcting herself [...] “Islamism” instead of “Islam.”

Dröge is one of the strongest advocates for the interests of Muslims in Germany; a staunch supporter of Muslim immigration. Quoting her 'slip' as evidence of Islamophobia is... ridiculous.

It is nothing more than hastily googled, superficial, uninformed propaganda what Farid Hafez wrote. I'd like to ask you not to consume biased media. I avoid Israeli media and our "Jüdische Allgemeine" in these war times. [all-off topic, I refrain from further replies].

Australia also wanted a resolution that "clearly offered the Palestinian people a path to self-determination and gave the world a path to a two-state solution", the Australian ambassador said.

A pragmatic consideration and touches on the core issue: two-state-solution vs. "liberate Palestine", which is not the same. Still too many one-sided, fundamentalist convictions in non-western UN member states; obstacles for peace.

He told the general assembly that Australia was already doing a lot of what the resolution called for. It had not supplied weapons to Israel in at least five years, was sanctioning extremist Israeli settlers, and had doubled funding to the UN's Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, he said......

I can't find the reason yet why Germany did the same.

Simple: government coalition of fanatic pro-Palestine Greens; pragmatic and cautious social democrats, and sceptical liberals. Sum it up and you get: 'abstain'.

If you tried to insinuate my government is clear-sighted, and I'm not... Nope.
Approval for this coalition dropped to 0% recently. Not ten, or two... zero. It's independent of Gaza, but to a great extent the Green's uncompromising fanatism has to be blamed; also the Green's Foreign minister who separates world governments into the morally & ethically high (of course: Palestinians) and the dirty rest (Benji!!!), with whom you avoid to meet.

Germany supports the common EU foreign policy with sanctions on West Bank settlers [1].
DE stopped financing UNRWA in Jan 2024 following serious allegations, UNRWA staff took part in Oct 7th attacks.
DE resumed financing in April [2] after UN's publication of the Colonna report [3].
DE spent € 200M in 2023 for UNRWA [2].
DE supported Israels defense with €326M (in 2023); supplied military trucks, bulletproof glass, mil comms, diesel engines, submarine(s), anti-air corvettes (ships); a small fraction, €20M (in 2023), was ammunition for small arms and rifles, HEAT RPGs. [4].

[1] Politico: Germany on board with EU sanctions against Israeli settlers [...], 2024-02-06.
[2] Tagesschau: Germany resumes UNRWA grants (in German), German public broadcasting, evening news. 2024-04-24.
[3] United Nations, Allegations against UNRWA staff; Final Report Release - Independent Review Group on UNRWA
[4] Tagesschau: What does Germany supplies to Israel? (in German), 2024-05-10.

My personal opinion: UNRWA should be dissolved and replaced by UNHCR, the UN org that supports refugees in all other places on earth, except Palestinians in Middle East.

Australia (26M inhabitants) spent $52.2 for Gaza [5] until March 2024 (found no more up-to-date news).
DE (85M inh.) spent €360M [6] for Palestinians since Oct 7th.

[5] ABC news: Australia to resume funding to UN Palestinian aid agency UNRWA, 2024-03-15
[6] German Foreign Ministry: Humanitarian disaster in Gaza - Germany is providing assistance (in English), 2024-09-10.

Difficult to compare funding reports... but I think Germany's current policy on Gaza isn't different than other western nations.

And yet you're still looking through a 1 way window only relying on western written history that ignores 1 side of the story by not mentioning what act of greedy stupidity that the Israeli government has done to trigger attacks against them and ignoring those blindly as you do doesn't speak well of your human morality.

Then there's Al Jazeera that you take the Israeli view again yet none of their stories are being disputed by mainstream U.K., French, German, Canadian, U.S. or my own country's news sites that I hit up every morning.

Video from the occupied West Bank town of Qabatiya shows Israeli soldiers pushing dead bodies off a roof in a raid that killed at least five Palestinians. The Israeli military also opened fire on a group of journalists filming the raid from a nearby building.

Quite frankly on this subject I find your 1 sided view totally appalling and your ethics greatly lacking any sense of real humanity all by your unwavering support of a greedy terrorist government that is likely to trigger WWIII now through it's own thieving greed, its blatant racism, murderous stupidity and its continuous blatant lies. Every action has a reaction and yet you keep on spinning both about to suit your own personal bias views.

Plus your own country only started taking action against Israel when word was handed down that legal action was to be started against it (and others) along with pressure from other countries.

Germany has stopped approving war weapons exports to Israel.

Now until you grow up and start looking at this situation from both sides of the story I will ignoring your 1 sided views that are fully defending/supporting a genocidal government and your lack of humanity that borders on Islamophobia as it just continues this mess that I'm in my 7th decade of putting up with.

The present generation of children in Gaza have experienced nothing of the history of what you imagine.

Hence, does not that make them Modern Gazans rather than some mythical Palestinian?

Which history do you dream?...

Undo the Ottoman Empire, WWI, WWII, and the modern day string of proxy wars across that area?

What date backwards do you choose?


Or can politics move forwards, in peace?

All in our deadly political world...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Or can politics move forwards, in peace?

We can only hope, but I bet that Adolf Benji will continue to keep on going on with his genocidal actions up until the U.S. elections and if delusional Donny somehow gets back in then WWIII will certainly be on the cards as he'll just step up his actions further while if Kamala gets in he'll be off to the judges and very likely jail soon afterwards (oh that sounds just like Donny doesn't it).

Which history do you dream?...

Undo the Ottoman Empire, WWI, WWII, and the modern day string of proxy wars across that area?

What date backwards do you choose?

I'm pretty sure that for the Jewish peoples, it would be the Romans, and by that, I mean both the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church.

State sponsored propaganda on a constant diet, confirmation bias, why is it exactly what populists use to seize power. Step back, WAY back. Tit - Tat is never over. Each has to top the other, just because they are right/good and the other is wrong/evil. The arms brokers will never allow a win. Win's cease orders. Orders are profit. Profit is greed. Greed is life.

Speaking of greed seizing land is greed. A greed that elsewhere in the world is looked down upon. Sudetenland. Hong Kong. Taiwan. South Ossetia. Georgia. Ukraine. West Bank. Golan Heights. Tibet. and many others. But the racist hate, so easy to manipulate, allows one to reverse the truth.

Which history do you dream?...

Undo the Ottoman Empire, WWI, WWII, and the modern day string of proxy wars across that area?

What date backwards do you choose?

I'm pretty sure that for the Jewish peoples, it would be the Romans, and by that, I mean both the Roman Empire and the Roman Catholic Church.

Both of which were/are well known for their barbarous ways as well and the later for a very lot longer than the former. Both also fed/feed on greed, ambition, and forcing their ways onto others that just wanted to live their lives in peace instead of upheavals and oppression, though the 2nd still continues on in many ways today.

Gee that also describes the country that has the self same features of both in spades and that's the same sad disgusting features that this thread was created to highlight for in the first place.

This manipulative and murderous crap that Adolf Benji and his type promote has got to stop as well as the blindly abetting of it by some others or it'll just get worse, most likely faster than some might think if it's left to continue any longer.

Israel's governments (over its many successive forms that have learnt how to successfully lie to get away with far too much), with the help of blind support from others (re: gullible), have made their bed and quite frankly I reckon that it's about time that they should be made to lay in it without any support of any kind from others if it does want to continue (and let's not wait until the U.S. elections are done).

I try to refute claims from (in my view) one-sided positions with facts and arguments. We have different opinions, and that will probably not change. I say, it is normal that there is a spectrum of opinions. As a result, I am addressed ad hominem and dismissed as immoral and unethical. I am only pointing out that your view focuses solely on the suffering of the Palestinians (yes, they suffer unconceivably!) and denies the situation in Israel, as well as facts such as international law; the right to defend against aggression wars. I am not accusing you of immoral ethics for ignoring the Israeli victims of terror or the Israeli political situation (the will of Israel's citizens). I accept your differing view. But opinions should be open to discussion and debate.

If you see it that way, you opened this thread to spread your worldview, to point out the things you find unacceptable, but do not want to be contradicted, then so be it. Finally, I would just like to point out that a large part of the division in societies that can be observed everywhere in the West is caused by partisan, biased media and, to the worst, the social media mechnisms with its self-reinforcing opinion bubbles through prioritizing algorithms.

This affects all political discourses. It scares me a lot. Putin controls his own media, and so do the Mullahs. What about us?

one last example:

Germany has stopped approving war weapons exports to Israel

A clear statement in the headline. If you read the linked article, you will find:

"There is no German arms export boycott against Israel," government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit said.

Hebestreit is THE government speaker, permanent secretary, chief of Bundespresseamt (press & information agency).

The speaker of the German (Green led) economics ministry expressed on Sep 19 [1] (in German):

"Es gibt keinen Genehmigungsstopp für Rüstungsexporte nach Israel, und es wird auch keinen Stopp geben."
(There is no ban on arms exports to Israel, and there will not be a ban".

What I tried to point out is, Al Jazeera is a biased media outlet which has a political conviction and aligns its reporting accordingly, mainly through selective but at times also misleading reporting. (example above and in my previous post)

Then there's Al Jazeera that you take the Israeli view again yet none of their stories are being disputed by mainstream U.K., French, German, Canadian, U.S. or my own country's news sites that I hit up every morning.

'not disputed'... People, officials, government don't care about Al Jazeera here; they don't spend the time to look into their, as you said "stories", because "stories" aren't reports. They are not the result of journalistic work based on journalistic principles. You are right, these "stories" aren't wrong (even not Gary's post about heating up mood in Germany), but biased, one-sided, often intentionally misleading, following a political aim, thus propaganda. We respect British media (BBC, major newspapers) and influential American ones; in which also a growing number of younger, activist journalists started to mix-up their personal convictions with facts and the truth, which is, as I observed, also a topic in the domestic political disputes in the US.

I stop debating my reprehensible ethical beliefs now, my lacking sense in real humanity that borders to Islamophobia. I don't want to upset anybody.

Here is an on-the-ground update on the state of things in Lebanon:

... humiliate Hezbollah into submission

Note:

A fractured society in perpetual war, in war amongst themselves and all others all around, of which Israel is merely a small part of the forever wars.

Is Israel more a scapegoat rather than protagonist?

Note also how one of the injured from the exploding secret pagers was the Ambassador to Iran... Is that not a rather intimate immediate connection?...

Hezbollah have forcibly driven out 85000 people from their homes. They happen to be Israelis...


And as part of my bad puns, note how the word "scapegoat" has reversed its meaning since Biblical times...

Compared to the Old Testament Biblical way of things in that area, and the matching irreconcilable rhetoric, Hezbollah enjoy a very merciful lack of loss of life despite their 'Old Testament Biblical' ways... How can that be?


All in a very deadly political world...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

May I point to the Lebanon/Hezbollah thread I once created. I do not claim any 'thread ownership'. Not everything going on in the Middle East (btw. we call Lebanon "Naher Osten" (Near East) in German) has to do with "pandering Israel's government". But I admit that is just my interpretation.

Hezbollah enjoy a very merciful lack of loss of life despite

I wouldn't have dared to write that because every life is precious. Isn't that how the Christian faith sees it?

The frightening thing is this conflict in Lebanon has an unknown potential for escalation, because it exposes the weakness of the last (formerly credible) deterrence which the Mullah's placed near Israel. That's what Hezbollah and Hamas people never grasped: they were never meant to form a real threat to Israel; only a deterrence. Now the power balance is disturbed. I am afraid of Mullahs who feel their strategic influence waning.

I would also like to remind you that not everyone enjoyed religious education; the 'scapegoat' is actually familiar to me as a meaningless phrase. I'll google it.

Israel calls Iran's bluff in the Iranian proxy war:

... Israeli air strike in Beirut


... Note the singular attack...

Does anyone get to claim the bounty money?...


All in the very deadly political world...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Just more evidence for my Message 2140469, that Israeli air strikes are accurate and that any civilian deaths in Gaza are the responsibility for them lies with Hamas. Who fail to ensure their active locations do not put civilians at risk. Geneva Convention, Part 3.

Just more evidence for my Message 2140469, that Israeli air strikes are accurate and that any civilian deaths in Gaza are the responsibility for them lies with Hamas. Who fail to ensure their active locations do not put civilians at risk. Geneva Convention, Part 3.

Yes Adolf Benji is on the kill everyone to just 1 or 2 while maiming many more is the path to outright war.

Just more evidence for my Message 2140469, that Israeli air strikes are accurate and that any civilian deaths in Gaza are the responsibility for them lies with Hamas. Who fail to ensure their active locations do not put civilians at risk. Geneva Convention, Part 3.

Yes Adolf Benji is on the kill everyone to just 1 or 2 while maiming many more is the path to outright war.

And what of Iran "fanning the flames"?...

How many times must Israel suffer being kicked around by the mad Ayatollahs of Iran?...

Note that it is Iran that is very much fueling and fanning the flames of hate and weaponry and war in the Holy Lands...

What do we do about Iran?



All in our deadly political world...
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Martin the only 1 fanning the flames ATM is Adolf Benji as he could've just signed the U.S.'s peace deal that everyone else was happy with, even the hundreds of thousands of his own protesting people want him to sign as well, but he just keeps on throwing roadblocks into that doesn't he.

Surely his own people can't be wrong can they?

Nope,

And nope.


There are other players, other than "Benji", both outside and inside Israel, who are very much part of the play in and around that area.

'Things' don't happen singularly, or in isolation...


Note also that a unilateral 'peace deal' is called either victory or appeasement. Israel has tried appeasement multiple times across the decades. All appeasements have lead to further death and strife. Every time.

Is this present time somehow different?


Instead, can all sides and all factions instead be genuinely cooperative and Excellent to All Others?


Ongoing forever deadly Biblical politics?

Or...

Be Excellent to one another and to All!
Martin

---

See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)