Israel's response and publicly stated intents are obscene, there is no reasonable pro-Israeli argument left at this point, because even if you think their response is proportional it will never justify the monstrosities that are happening simultaneously in the West Bank. 

Still nothing on the school attack, in the 'safe' zone.

And this is as far as CNN will go

"Israel has come under growing pressure to provide more evidence for its claims, as the humanitarian crisis inside the hospital deepens. CNN analysis of video suggests the IDF may have rearranged weaponry at Al-Shifa prior to international news crews arriving to document their findings this week."

Israeli military responds: The IDF told CNN the discrepancy between the military’s own video and the BBC footage was “due to the fact that more weaponry and terrorist assets were discovered throughout the day.” 

“Suggestions that the IDF is manipulating the media are incorrect,” it added. “We are acting with full transparency whilst maintaining the safety of our troops and operational readiness.”

NVM that a couple weapons is far from a military command center / arsenal, and even if it was, a couple left behind weapons are still no legal reason to storm a hospital in times of war. There was no imminent threat from the hospital complex at all, it's a war crime, plain and simple. But Western media will not call that out.


Does Biden not see the hypocrisy of holding 2.3 million people hostage and letting them starve unless

US President Joe Biden’s main adviser on the Middle East says there will be a “significant pause” in the Gaza war if hostages held by Hamas are freed.

“The surge in humanitarian relief, the surge in fuel, the pause … will come when hostages are released,” Brett McGurk told a security conference in Bahrain.

What does it take for the ICC to wake up.



Ahh CNN caught up on the UN-run Fakhura School and added another

Another school hit: Saturday’s incident was the second time in 24 hours an UNRWA school in northern Gaza had been hit, the agency said.

A school in Zaitoun — which was being used by 4,000 people as a shelter — had been struck multiple times on Friday, Touma told CNN. She said ambulances had reportedly been unable to get to the school, which she said was most likely due to the fighting and the communications blackout.

Lazzarini posted that dozens of people were believed to have been killed in the Friday incident.

Directly under that

US President Joe Biden has rejected the mounting calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying in an op-ed published Saturday that it would not achieve peace.

Bombing schools will achieve peace instead? What does it take for Biden to open his eyes.

They shouldn't skip, they should field a better candidate instead.

The first past the post / winner takes all system pretty much prevents that. We have more than 2 parties in Canada but it's the same problem for any new candidate / party to get any significant representation. The percentage of voters for each party is no reflected in parliament. In the US it's even harder with more states and a 2 party system. Any new candidate needs to beat both entranced parties in multiple states to make any impact at all.

The primaries are all over the place, fielding a better candidate for an existing party, you need a lot of money and influence basically.
https://www.usa.gov/primaries-caucuses

It's a problem here as well, vote for the green party for example or pick the non worst option of those much more likely to pass the post in your voting district.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-canadas-election-laws-have-sidelined-green-voters-for-far-too-long/
Last election the support for the green party collapsed as there's just no point voting for them :(

The most seats it has ever won in the House of Commons (in 2019) was three, even though the popular vote, of which the Greens commanded 6.5 per cent, demonstrated they should have been awarded at least 20 of Parliament’s 338 seats.

Not surprisingly, after such a long record of dismal results, many supporters have given up on the Greens. In the 2021 election, their support dropped to less than 3 per cent.

It's not surprising many people rather cast a protest vote by not voting than 'legitimizing' the election by casting a vote that doesn't count. Or vote for a party you don't really agree with at all :/

Let's face it, we don't really live in a democracy, only by name.

Can you vote for someone that's actively being prosecuted??
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/nbc-news-poll-nearly-70-gop-voters-stand-trump-indictment-investigatio-rcna80917

A whopping two-thirds of Republican primary voters say they stand behind former President Donald Trump and dismiss concerns about his electability, despite his recent criminal arrest and other legal investigations into his past conduct, a new national NBC News poll finds.

That — along with his double-digit lead over his nearest potential GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — makes Trump the clear front-runner in the early race for the Republican presidential nomination.



Biden is losing it
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/poll-bidens-standing-hits-new-lows-israel-hamas-war-rcna125251

President Joe Biden’s approval rating has declined to the lowest level of his presidency — 40% — as strong majorities of all voters disapprove of his handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll.

What’s more, the poll finds Biden behind former President Donald Trump for the first time in a hypothetical general-election matchup

The erosion for Biden is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza, and among voters ages 18 to 34, with a whopping 70% of them disapproving of Biden’s handling of the war.

Biden sucks, yet Trump back? Does not compute.



What is needed for electoral reforms and get rid of the two party system?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/01/break-up-two-party-system/

Putting a proportional system in place in the United States would not require a constitutional amendment, but it would need the support of a majority of members of Congress.

Voting to give power away, when pigs fly?

It's still a democracy, though a deeply outdated and flawed one, and on the fast lane to become a oligarchy/corporatocracy.

My suggestion is to vote third party in states that are "safe" for either party. It won't affect the election's result due to winner takes all, but would denote some serious problems underneath that are cooking up if the sheer number of third party votes is high enough country-wide. Not wanting to risk their safe states, the main parties could thus get pushed to do something that they couldn't get bothered to do otherwise.

The IDF has moved on to the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza City
https://www.timesnownews.com/world/indonesia-condemns-israeli-airstrikes-on-gaza-hospital-as-israel-hamas-war-rages-on-article-105359039
https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/live-blog-israel-shells-indonesian-hospital-in-northern-gaza-kills-many-15900300

Amnesty is asking the ICC to investigate war crimes in Gaza with evidence of 2 more specific cases
https://thefridaytimes.com/21-Oct-2023/amnesty-probe-reveals-damning-evidence-of-war-crimes-by-israel-in-gaza
https://www.dawn.com/news/1790974/amnesty-urges-icc-to-probe-2-israeli-attacks-in-gaza-as-war-crimes

Livestock in Gaza is starting to die off due to lack of food and water, as well as abandoned crops.
“Across Gaza, farmers have begun slaughtering their animals due to the immediate need for food and the lack of fodder. This practice poses an additional threat to food security as it leads to the depletion of productive assets,”

The Israeli Knesset approved draft legislation banning the consumption of what it called “terrorist publications”, viewing anything that it deems terrorist publications can lead to 1 year jail sentence. And they want to introduce the death penalty for Palestinian fighters.

More than 13,000 people, including 5,500 children have been killed so far (that we know of, many still missing under rubble)
https://turkiye.un.org/en/251952-guterres-%E2%80%9Cgaza-becoming-graveyard-children%E2%80%9D
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/child-casualties-gaza-growing-stain-our-collective-conscience

https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/11/1143762

‘This must stop,’ UN chief says as deaths, displacement ripple across Gaza

Since 7 October, at least 176 people sheltering in the agency’s schools were reported killed and 800 wounded during Israeli bombardments, Mr. Lazzarini said.

“The large number of UNRWA facilities hit and the number of civilians killed cannot just be ‘collateral damage’,” he said, adding that the UN agency routinely shares the buildings’ coordinates with parties to the conflict.

“This vicious war is reaching a point of no return when all rules are disrespected, in overt disregard for civilian lives,” he said, calling and appealing “once again for humanity to prevail and for a humanitarian ceasefire right now."



How much longer can the US keep backing Israel???
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/jbiden-resists-ceasefire-israel-gaza-washington-post-oped
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/majority-americans-back-ceasefire-gaza-204424998.html

Paid for by American tax dollars
https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/4271322-stop-american-weapons-from-killing-civilians-in-gaza/
https://usafacts.org/articles/how-much-military-aid-does-the-us-give-to-israel/

The United States committed over $3.3 billion in foreign assistance to Israel in 2022, the most recent year for which data exists.^[1] About $8.8 million of that went toward the country's economy, while 99.7% of the aid went to the Israeli military.

Adjusting for inflation, US aid to Israel from 1951 to 2022 totaled $317.9 billion, making it the largest recipient of American foreign aid since World War II.




The situation in the West Bank keeps getting worse as well, here is some insight in how the ISF terrorizes the West bank
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/14/1212836719/ex-idf-soldier-calls-for-international-intervention-to-stop-settler-violence

On the relationship between settlers and the Israeli military

I joined to be a combat soldier because I wanted to protect my country, my friends and my family. When I see the military that I joined used as an employee of the settler movement, this process is terrifying for me. It's already devastating for the security of Israel itself.

You don't have the order to stop violent settlers. What you do have orders for is to protect the Jewish community. We don't have orders as soldiers to protect everyone in the area. We have hundreds of testifiers. None of them said that they received an order to detain a settler attacking a Palestinian, even though it's the most simple order.

On how Israeli soldiers show Palestinians "who's the boss"

Occupying millions of people for decades means you control their everyday life. The first command I received as a soldier in the West Bank was to make all of the Palestinians feel like they cannot lift their heads up. We have to make sure that they know who's the boss. How do we do that? We make sure that all of the Palestinians cannot pass a day without understanding who is controlling them.

For example, one of the missions is called a mock arrest. A mock arrest is when a group of soldiers invades a Palestinian home in the middle of the night, arrests one of the family members. It can be a few minutes, sometimes it's a few hours. They choose, with intelligence, the home of a family that is not violent; they arrest the father, usually, and then bring them back because they're just training for a future mission. Imagine the impact of this mission to the kids, to the wife, to the family.

On settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank

The violence is not new. It didn't start during this war. It started in 1967 from the first day of the occupation. But today, what we're seeing in the West Bank is the peak of this violence. To understand the violence we have to understand what's behind it. Violent settlers understand that by attacking a Palestinian community in a rural village, if they do it with enough persistence and with enough interruption they can make them move away.

The US and Israel are burning down everything accomplished in the past decades. US politics couldn't be more morally bankrupt. Nothing was learned from the Iraq war, Afghanistan, 9-11. The only things learned have been how to better manipulate public opinion and keep people distracted. Divide and conquer.

There is nothing to learn because no politician is in it to "learn" or represent the people. American politicians are harlots for the highest bidder, mostly representing global powers and mega-corportations. Please watch this recent segment to understand who's dictating the current stance of western democracies:

This story is infinitely more scandalous than the Russian hacking (lol) of the 2016 elections. Rachel Meadow and MSM, where are you from this? Crickets. I can't wait for your fake outrage next year over some twitter bots. 

Great work by Kyle, Krystal and Ryan. 

EDIT: not that there is anything wrong with being a harlot and I apologise if this comparison offended anyone, harlots spread peace, not genocides, after all. 

It's not just politics, Hollywood is just as complicit and used to shape public opinion. Susan Sarandon and Melissa Berrara were dropped last week for daring to speak out. https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/film/fans-vow-to-boycott-scream-vii-after-melissa-barrera-is-dropped-over-israel-hamas-war-post-3547271

Canada just seems to follow the US, don't want to make any waves. The influence wherever it;s coming from is deeply rooted as well. The University of Manitba just suspended https://www.harvestmanitoba.ca/harvest-star/arij-al-khafagi-2/ https://www.cjpme.org/reinstate_arij It's not even in the news here, no hits apart from this blurb https://www.dawn.com/news/1792058/student-of-canadian-university-suspended-for-voicing-support-for-palestinians-ngo

All her media posts have been scrubbed yet I did some digging on Reddit and what she did is basically saying Isreal should look in the mirror, suggesting with a caricature sketch that the oppressed have become the oppressors.

Caricature sketches were a staple of the newspapers when I grew up and this one hits the nail on the head. But she got blamed for antisemitism and suspended.

Same as many others that get censured or suspended for daring to have a critical voice or just stating the facts of what's happening.

And yes that segment makes total sense
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/22/donor-20-million-tlaib-primary-00128443

A Michigan businessman called Democratic Senate candidate Hill Harper to offer $20 million in campaign contributions if he agreed to drop out and instead mount a primary challenge to Rep. Rashida Tlaib, according to a source with direct knowledge of the call.

the episode illustrates the intensity of the blowback toward Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, in response to her outspoken criticism of the Israeli government since its war with Hamas began. More than 20 Democrats joined Republicans in voting to censure Tlaib earlier this month after she invoked a pro-Palestinian slogan that’s widely seen as calling for the eradication of Israel, and pro-Israel Democrats are still searching for a candidate to primary her.

Here in Ontario Sarah Jama is still fighting her censure and essentially getting kicked out of the NPR (after being used as a 'diversity' trophy
https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/university-of-alberta-sexual-assault-centre-signs-jamas-letter-denying-jewish-rapes
Fighting against the dehumanization of Palestinions

You can't say anything that leads to thinking Palestinians are human too. The people that handled the return of the 85 year old first hostage that was released have been reprimanded for this debacle

Ms. Lifshitz said that she and others were relatively well taken care of, given medicine and the same food as their captors. Fearing disease, her captors worked to sanitize the area, she said, and doctors would visit sporadically to check on them. “They treated us gently and fulfilled all of our needs,” she said.

Sharon Lifshitz: “My mom is speaking about the time there. She’s telling us about sharing food with the people, that the people, when she first arrived, they told them that they are Muslims and they’re not going to hurt them, and that they shared — they ate the same food that the Hamas was eating.”

Hence the now released hostages are taken in by the military first for debriefing, kept away from the media if possible...

Of course all the attention is on the hostages now, yet who is going to put question marks about the freed Palestinian 'prisoners' as young as 14 years old, put in jail for throwing stones (up to 20 year jail sentence) or simply administrative detention. (people held without knowing the charges against them, and without any legal process)

Or the treatment of Palestinian prisoners. Several have died in detention since October 7, thousands more have been put under administrative detention. Stories of beatings in jail, no or little medical treatment for getting shot.

What was striking was, in response to a question as to whether the Israeli government should extend the truce, Biden, in a very hesitant manner, sort of gave the green light for Israel to continue.

That’s in keeping with the leaks we’ve been hearing from the White House over the last few days, that the US is still giving Israel that green light.

There was no mention of the Palestinian women and children being released from Israeli captivity. No mention of the Palestinian dead, only obliquely as a result of a question asked of him.

And that was also, perhaps unwittingly, in keeping with the leaks we were getting from the White House, because it was clear that when the Palestinian dead were being discussed by the crisis teams at the White House, it was mainly in terms of the optics, as to whether the US should ask Israel to bombard a little less or a bit more carefully, because it looks so bad.



It hurts to see Canada stand behind all this, just after we finally got to a stage of admitting our own dark past.

https://uwaterloo.ca/indigenous/knowledge-building/territorial-acknowledgement
https://www.toronto.ca/city-government/accessibility-human-rights/indigenous-affairs-office/land-acknowledgement/

Reconciliation for killing over 6,000 indigenous children in residential schools trying to convert them. Exactly what Netanyahu wants to do next, subvert the Palestinian population by controlling what children get taught in school.

https://www.usw.ca/theres-no-denying-it-indigenous-children-suffered-and-died-at-residential-schools/

Between the late 1800s and 1996, more than 150,000 First Nations, Métis and Inuit children attended Indian residential schools, as a policy of the federal government. Separated from families and communities, they were forbidden from speaking their languages or practising their cultures. Many were poorly nourished and experienced physical and sexual abuse. Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that more than 6,000 children died while at residential schools.

History repeating itself. Drive the Palestinians into smaller and smaller reserves and extinguish their culture.


But what can you expect from countries that all became great for doing exactly the same and getting away with it. The difference today is that it can't be done out of view anymore. Yet that still doesn't seem to be enough to stop genocide or ethnic cleansing.



Meanwhile on day 2 of the ceasefire
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/israeli-army-raids-jenin-city-besieges-2-hospitals-in-west-bank/3064880

I do not vote and proud of it. Nobody will ever change my mind because i am one happy cat!