West's Pro-Israel Position Accelerates Its Loss Of Power
Western media start to note how their politicians' unwavering support for Israel and Ukraine is diminishing their countries' global standing.
At Naked Capitalism Yves Smith notes the devastating political effects of the Gaza bombing on Biden's foreign policies:
Biden Gets Zelensky Treatment in Middle East as Israel Tries to Escalate
The US, in a continued demonstration of the degree of enbubblement of what passes for its leadership, seems to believe it still has the force and soft power to be able to bully talk its way out of its geopolitical messes. Yet this week we have stunning examples of how critical players in the rest to the world no longer buy what the US is selling. The gap between the American establishment’s connection to reality and facts on the ground has opened up to a yawning chasm as the Arab world, as Jordan cancelled a Biden summit with its King Abduallah II plus PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in response to Israel’s shelling of Al-Ahli Arab hospital. Not only are they rejecting the attempt to shift blame for the attack to Hamas (we’ll soon address the “rogue shell” claim), but also the bigger pretense behind that, that the US is incapable of, as opposed to unwilling to, applying the choke chain to Israel.Even the Western media are not much on board with the Israeli and Biden Administration pretense that somehow Hamas dunnit, when Israel has been trying to herd Palestinians out of northern Gaza and specifically attempted to order the evacuation of the hospital. Oh, and this follows Israel ordering the UN to evacuate from Gaza in 24 hours and then shelling its warehouse there: ...
Israel bombed, probably with a U.S. made Hellfire missile, the courtyard of the Baptist al-Ahli Arab hospital where thousands had sought refuge. A short video of the immediate aftermath shows several dozens if not hundreds of dead and wounded. Doctors later held a press conference while standing among some of the casualties.
Like other hospitals al-Ahli Arab had been told by Israel to evacuate but could not do so as there are no other places where the sick and wounded, including many intensive care cases, could be cared for.
Three days earlier, notes the UN, the same hospital had, like others, already been bombed:
14 October 2023: In Gaza city city and governorate, Ahli Arab Hospital was hit by Israeli airstrikes, partially damaging two floors and damaging the ultrasound and mammography room. Four people were injured. Sources: Al Jazeera V and Personal Communication
To then claim, as Biden did, that 'the other team' was responsible for the attack is unfathomable.
It was also way too late says a RUSI fellow:
Going to repeat this as the situation has moved more in the past 16 hours than in the previous week.The plates have shifted, radically. The window for Israeli operations has shrunk from more than a month, to a few days...if at all.
That is now the reality of where we stand.
No country besides the U.S. and a few Europeans will ever defend such barbarity. They will simply stop listen to what the 'west' has to say.
The Financial Times quotes a G7-official who struggles with this global divide:
Rush by west to back Israel erodes developing countries’ support for Ukraine (archived)
Western support for Israel’s assault on Gaza has poisoned efforts to build consensus with significant developing countries on condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine, officials and diplomats have warned.The reaction to the October 7 attack on Israel by Islamist militant group Hamas and to Israel’s vow to hit back against Gaza has undone months of work to paint Moscow as a global pariah for breaching international law, they said, exposing the US, EU and their allies to charges of hypocrisy.
In the flurry of emergency diplomatic visits, video conferences and calls, western officials have been accused of failing to defend the interests of 2.3mn Palestinians in their rush to condemn the Hamas attack and support Israel.
...
The backlash had solidified entrenched positions in the developing world on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, officials said. They warned that this could derail future diplomatic efforts on Ukraine.“We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South,” said one senior G7 diplomat. “All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost . . . Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.”
...
Some American diplomats are privately concerned that the Biden administration’s response has failed to acknowledge how its broad support of Israel can alienate much of the Global South.
Looking at the current BRI anniversary meeting of some 140 states in Beijing, the New York Times voices similar concerns:
New Global Divisions on View as Biden Goes to Israel and Putin to China
Russia and China are siding with a Palestinian people seeking liberation and self-determination, while in Washington’s eyes, they themselves deny those same possibilities to the Ukrainians, the Tibetans, the Uyghurs and even to the Taiwanese.But in their reluctance to blame Hamas and effort to associate themselves with the Palestinian cause, both Russia and China are appealing to a wider sentiment in the so-called Global South — and in large parts of Europe, too. For them, it is Israel that is conducting a colonialist policy by its occupation of the West Bank, its encouragement of Jewish settlers on Palestinian land and its isolation of the 2.3 million people of Gaza, who are subjected even in normal times to sharp restrictions on their freedoms.
The Global South, a term for developing nations, is a vital area of the new competition between the West and the Chinese-Russian alternative, said Hanna Notte, the director of a Eurasia program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
From the point of view of many in the Global South, she said, “the United States fights Russia, the occupier of Ukraine, but when it comes to Israel, the U.S. is on the side of the occupier, and Russia taps into that.”
The editorial board of the Washington Post also declares the failure of U.S. policies:
It would be a moral and strategic mistake to ignore Gaza’s plight
Still, the plight of Gazans has been treated by the United States and the wider international community as a sad but immutable fact in an irresolvable conflict. This was a moral and strategic error, helping promote the instability that has, for now, wrecked efforts on the part of Israel, the United States and Arab states to build a durable diplomatic settlement among the region’s big players.
The Carnegie Council explains how the global rift necessitates a change in western policies. It especially sees a need to ditch the so called "value-" or "rules-based-order" policies:
A Requiem for the Rules-Based Order
The Case for Value-Neutral Ethics in International Relations
Regardless of how it eventually concludes, the Russo-Ukrainian War represents a seismic event signaling profound changes in the global landscape. The unipolar era is at its end, major countries are more concerned with their cultural sovereignty and strategic autonomy than they have been in decades, and it seems inevitable that the once-dominant Western hegemony must gradually yield to a more diverse and multipolar system.The period following World War II witnessed the ascendancy of the United States and its allies as architects of a new international order premised on the institutionalization of Western values such as democracy and human rights. This Western-centric approach to global governance—known as the “rules-based order”—has encountered mounting challenges. China's rise, Russia's geopolitical subversiveness, and the growing assertiveness of emerging powers from the Global South have eroded Western dominance. The outcome is a more diverse world, characterized by multiple centers of power coexisting, challenging any single ideology or set of substantive values.
...
Our particular sense of morality in the West should not stop us from aspiring to pursue what’s both wise and right. The evolving international order, characterized by polycentrism and multipolarity, challenges the conventional Western-dominated “rules-based” order. Drawing from Nietzsche's perspective on values, we recognize that values are context-dependent rather than innate, timeless, or universal. Similarly, the decline of our ancien regime does not spell the end of international ethics. If the current transition is understood correctly, it could promise the birth of a new normative system based on a functional, value-neutral, situational, and diplomatic ethic that has its primary concern in managing reciprocal relations between world powers.Instead of attempting to impose our values on others (no matter how good or true we think they are), we in the West should prioritize engagement with other major powers based on common interests and shared objectives. ...
...
In sum, within the intellectual framework offered by cultural realism, we need an alternative instrumentalist and pragmatic ethic that 1) accepts the realities of power politics and spheres of interest without moralizing and projecting a Manichaean mentality upon the world, and 2) is grounded in principles that are conducive to a pluralist modus vivendi, including mutual and equal recognition, statesmanship, non-interference, humility, strategic empathy, and open dialogue.
Some might say that the west will never change its behavior but I do not believe that.
The west WILL HAVE TO change its behavior or it will go down into history's graveyard. There is no longer an alternative as the 'rules based order' has proven to be an unsellable dead end.
Posted by b on October 18, 2023 at 15:31 UTC | Permalink
next page »This "rules based order" has always been based on western rules as witnessed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine etc. The perfidious albion is the author of it's own decline.
Posted by: Mike Price | Oct 18 2023 15:46 utc | 2
The one thing very few people have been mentioning is just how much help Israel is giving to the real antisemites out there. The intellectual separation of judaism vs zionism is lost on the majority, especially in the US/UK where the zionist lobby has succeeded phenomenally in brainwashing.
In the US, it's the evangelical xians that are the biggest problem, not the jews. In fact, most republicans and necons hate the jews because all they think of is the 'east coast liberal' ones.
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 15:46 utc | 3
Thanks for the posting b
When is society going to start talking about the underlying public/private finance core difference between the West and the RoW?
Its not value neutral international relations, its SOVEREIGN NATION relations which we don't have now with the private finance God Of Mammon cult having its jackboot on sovereign nations of our world.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Oct 18 2023 15:47 utc | 4
If Monos has not seen footage of bodies, body parts and body bags in and around the hospital they are watching the wrong channel. Al Jazeera has been broadcasting it all day.
Posted by: Paul Cockshott | Oct 18 2023 15:48 utc | 5
"the other team"
Interesting choice of words. I guess Joe is aiming at football fans.
Posted by: dh | Oct 18 2023 15:51 utc | 6
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 15:46 utc | 5
Don’t forget ‘the bolsheviks’ - the Republicans and neocons and Democrats hate them especially.
Posted by: Lev Davidovich | Oct 18 2023 15:51 utc | 7
Hey Monos, which third party you want for verification?
Posted by: Anonymouse | Oct 18 2023 15:51 utc | 8
From b's article, according to the Financial Times "Israel’s vow to hit back against Gaza has undone months of work to paint Moscow as a global pariah for breaching international law" ...
Here's a case in point:
According to the UN Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), as of September 11, 2023, the OHCHR has recorded 9,614 civilian deaths in the Ukraine conflict since February 24, 2022.
Of those, it was "7,481 killed [..] in territory controlled by the Government when casualties occurred" and "2,133 killed [..] in territory occupied by the Russian Federation when casualties occurred."
https://www.ohchr.org/en/news/2023/09/ukraine-civilian-casualty-update-11-september-2023
So in 564 days (18 1/2 months) of fighting in the Ukraine conflict, 7,481 civilian deaths could be attributed to Russia (leaving aside the fact that Ukrainian military and neo-nazi paramilitaries seem to have often positioned themselves in apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, malls, etc. and probably often used Russian-speaking Ukrainian civilians as human shields.)
Going by the last available update of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA):
In 11 days of fighting, the number of Palestinian civilian deaths was at 3,000. (Note: this is before the hospital airstrike that is said to have resulted in 500+ deaths.)
https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-11
So the Israeli military operation has resulted in the deaths of 272 opposite-side civilians per day on average.
In contrast, the Russian special military operation has resulted in the deaths of 13 opposite-side civilians per day on average.
So the Israeli military operation is causing over 20 times more civilian deaths per day than the Russian special military operation.
Two take-aways from this:
The Russians have been careful about trying to avoid Ukrainian civilian casualties during their special military operation.
The Israelis have not cared much about avoiding Palestinian civilian casualties during their military operation, and they have even stated the following:
"Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israeli military, has said that "the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy," while an unnamed Israeli official told local media that Gaza would be reduced to a "city of tents" by the end of the campaign."
If Israel is allowed to continue at this rate then in perhaps just another 2 weeks from now the number of Palestinian civilian casualties will already match the total number of Ukrainian civilian casualties in Kiev-controlled regions from a full year and a half of the Russian special military operation.
So why does Western "news" media always add words like "brutal" when referring to the Russian operations, but always withholds them when referring to the far, far more brutal and murderous Israeli campaign?
Similarly, why does our craven Western "news" media still insist on portraying the Netanyahu regime as somehow more benevolent than the Putin government? Where is the ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity?
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Oct 18 2023 15:51 utc | 9
Dennis Kucinich correctly articulated in 2009 that Israel has been operating in such a criminal fashion that it has violated the Arms Export Control Act, and should be DENIED any US Aid.
Israel May Be in Violation of Arms Export Control Act
Kucinich Requests Report to Congress
Here's the archived statement and Letter to Congress.
Posted by: Anti-Bolshevik | Oct 18 2023 15:51 utc | 10
the west can't change, won't change
only Hungary and Serbia may be ok in the decades going forward since they seem to be working with belt and road and eurasian integration
the rest? well just look at the deindustrialization of the baltics since joining the eu for what the future will be like
population dropped by ~20%, young people emigrate, etc.
Posted by: leaf | Oct 18 2023 15:54 utc | 11
the 'rules based order' has proven to be an unsellable dead end.
Posted by b
---
Well put.
Posted by: too scents | Oct 18 2023 16:00 utc | 12
thanks b...
regarding the bigger picture of a change in perspective on the part of the global south and as a consequence the west - i hope that is correct, but i feel it will take much longer to change then overnight... however perhaps the hypocrisy is more clear to others not daily swamped with the bs we get in the western msm... moa is like an oasis in this regard, but i don't see this being picked up and communicated in any large way.. i would like to be wrong..
@ monos...
you ain't paying attention.. stick with the mono..logue that sites like wikipedia propagate, thinking you've got some sort of objective view on what is happening here, lol..
Posted by: james | Oct 18 2023 16:11 utc | 13
@ monos #15
Qatar is as neutral as you can get in the middle east. But are you saying that MSM in the west is 'neutral' because they're not funded by governments? (BBC and NPR excluded)
I would argue SFW? They are all beholden to their corporate masters which are still owned by the same cabal that owns the MIC, banksters, big oil and, of course, AIPAC.
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 16:11 utc | 14
It's perfectly possible for the West to have a sustainable foreign policy but it will require the rooting out of the neocons (Read: Zionists) who control the US foreign policy as well as the psycho security state people who love any excuse to sow violence. You'd probably also need to demolish all the "public" schools in Britain starting with Eton.
The reason the pro-Israeli stance is getting the US into trouble is because it's a stance not based on US national interests in the first place. It's completely driven by the staggering ethnocentrism we dare not name and also, I would suggest, the total lack of checks on it's expression leading to sheer irrationality in even trying to achieve it's objectives. I honestly don't think the neocons think about these things with even a detached sociopathy, they have a completely distorted view of the world and other ethncities.
Social media makes it impossible for them to cover up their crimes or suppress the true public opinion on them, they should have known this but perhaps they do, with the US losing it's power drawing the US into a regional war to destroy Syria and Iran is a now or never situation, particularly with Russia occupied with the war with Ukraine. But similarly, the US still has lost so much of it's power that the Arabs and Iranians too, might see this as a unique opening. It's like WW1, everyone either thinks they can win or thinks this is the best shot they'll get. We know what happened.
Posted by: Altai | Oct 18 2023 16:15 utc | 15
The west WILL HAVE TO change its behavior or it will go down into history's graveyard. There is no longer an alternative as the 'rules based order' has proven to be an unsellable dead end.
Posted by b on October 18, 2023 at 15:31 UTC | Permalink
I think using the unified West still considerable power to escalate against its adversaries in the next future may well be found a more palatable option. I would not fancy the odd of success but I see no reverse gear at the strategic level.
Public opinion and media can likely be brought aboard supporting vernichtungskrieg against problematic global south countries to intimidate the rest, they are already halfway, if not fully, there.
Posted by: Satepestage | Oct 18 2023 16:15 utc | 16
@ altai #21
Your case in point, this guy should be immediately expelled from office:
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/14/israels-govt-foreign-affairs-committee/
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 16:18 utc | 17
You know the neocons are panicking when the WashPo's editorial board discovers "morality." Feels like August 1914.
Posted by: NoOneYouKnow | Oct 18 2023 16:19 utc | 18
The colonialist mindset is baked into the west's internal power structures. It's probably impossible to change the mindset without changing the power structures. This implies changes on the part of the power elites and also on the part of the general population.
As I see it, the general population in the west chooses to remain willfuly ignorant and cherishes a complacemency to fake democracy and garbage propaganda passing for information. This is a choice that aims to absolve it from facing the inconvenient truths regarding the unfairness of global distribution of wealth and opportunities, that - when realized - threaten its sense of comfort, a comfort that is largely unearned and taken for granted.
It should be noted that the ever faster progression of "Verelendung" among the lower and former middle classes of the west is starting to eat away at the comfortability of these choices, but revisiting and reversing a societal pattern spaning multiple generations does not come easy and involves deep emotional upheaval at both personal and social levels. The general lack of effective education into autonomous critical thought and reflection, coupled with the unrelenting propaganda and trite distractions that most people are steeped in from a very early age make this a sizeable challenge, for most even an unsurmountable one.
The western upper class power elites are in no way willing to part with their position inside western society, even if they would consider to yield a little on the global theatre in order to keep the business alive. The real war being fought already is the narative war, to keep hoi polloi under control. Of course, this is not the war that the controlled media will ever report on.
The western power elites would rather run screaming into a nuclear holocaust (which they vainly believe to be able to weather in hideouts) than face the music and be relegated to personal and social ignomy and irrelevance, or possibly even the noose.
Posted by: Lurk | Oct 18 2023 16:22 utc | 19
IDF announced yesterday 291 KIA IDF, unclear if this figure includes settler paramilitaries. IDF has evidently lost 6 MBTs - 4 in the North and 2 in the South.
Rumors of IDF conscripts and reservists refusing orders. Unconfirmed.
Posted by: Exile | Oct 18 2023 16:22 utc | 20
It's not that the West "won't" change, it's just that it CANNOT change. Even if people realize it, even if people in power realize it.
It's a "car speeding off a cliff" situation. The driver has realized what's going on and what's wrong, but the motion of the car is too much for it to slow down in time before it plunges off, or even swerve off, because inertia is carrying it in the direction of the precipice anyway. Even bailing out of the car to try to come to a very damaging but life-preserving stop yourself may not be enough, as the window to act is measured in split seconds and it will very quickly be too late to do even that, as jumping out the door will still keep the driver moving forwards fast enough that he'll roll and slide off the ledge too.
That's what's so tragic about it. The Western system is too inflexible and incapable of reconstructing itself out of its dead end, the people involved are in too deep and would basically need to condemn the whole power and economy structure - including their own role in it - in order for things to even start getting better. It's a unidirectional domination machine that can only escalate or die, and it has run up against targets it cannot dominate just as its internal systems are failing. The system itself is almost uncontrollable in this sense, it cannot be turned off its course - and the events it has set in motion now are unfolding by their own internal inertia as well.
Thus, we all, Westerners or not, can basically only sit and watch as this car flies off the cliff, and the only variable remains in who might survive and how. Which is all the scarier for Westerners 'cause they're passengers in that car.
Posted by: Red Outsider | Oct 18 2023 16:23 utc | 21
al jazeera had discussion yesterday .. IDF bombed convoy of cars heading to southern gate and at gate plus says will attack any truck convoys coming in from Egypt. Considering presence of USA and UK navy blockade but is probably to defend Israel if attacked that way .... EU is simply posturing that it will establish humanitarian corridors .
Posted by: Jo | Oct 18 2023 16:24 utc | 22
of course the west will never change...it will be changed. the west is defined by soulless, borderless and materialist capital. it's like trying to reason with a zombie so it stops eating brains. it will take a combination of severe domestic unrest and/or military humiliation and/or the coming financial (probably credit) collapse to stop what is essentially a senile giant lashing out in primitive, mindless alzheimer's rage.
one positive that may come from this is that the screeching about "anti'semitism'" has been so incessant for so long that people (actual people, not americans) are finally just tuning it out like the (blue and) white noise is always was. no one is going to care about your poor mee-maw and pee-pop hiding in a polish cellar 75 years ago when you turn sick kids into piles of meat. no one is going to take "i was molested so it's okay for me to epstein a bunch of kids" as a defense and that's all the "israelis" have been able to come up with since 1948.
Posted by: the pair | Oct 18 2023 16:25 utc | 23
the embed "video of the immediate aftermath" to dan cohen's X post, is no longer there. after warnings from X on some of my more graphic postings, i deleted them. that could be the case.
Posted by: annie | Oct 18 2023 16:26 utc | 24
Some of the postural skepticism in here, on the subject of whether al-Shifa hospital was even bombed (!?) has a hasbara odor of custom-cut reality. Liberties supposed to inhere from democracy do not include the liberty to inhabit an imaginary universe. Sanity imposes definite limitations to our freedom to dream up any world we like, rather than the actual world. It's good to keep an open mind. But not so open that your brains fall out.
Posted by: Aleph_Null | Oct 18 2023 16:26 utc | 25
-B-
I’m not really in agreement. There is an acceleration of “talk” and trash talking the “West”, there is a small decrease in “dollar” use. The BRICS Bank even is configured in US dollars for the most part.
There’s a “disillusionment” upon discovering the “West” isn’t the shinning hill it professed to be. But so far, I see no loss of power.
So what if you’re “shunned”, as long as the commerce and goods stay status quo.
If I were to see the OIC for example, actually sanction Israel, or the US, or boycott some specific companies thing or temporarily expel diplomats until the “bombing” stopped or something.
Besides rudeness, lack of diplomacy and trash talk, the US and its Central Bankers MIC duo seem to be very much in control. They’re still controlling their proxy wars, and flying and sailing anywhere they please, with an occasional “incursion or warning” from the sovereign.
The West is like being in a dark prison cell, and then someone turns the light on. You can see clearly where you are, but you’re still in the cell. I see no evidence of power decline, they still control all the global institutions as well.
The WTO, the WHO, the ICC, ect.
So their hated, so we’re Romans, and they carried on a very long time after their “enlightened” governments candle blew out with their citizens and subjects.
Posted by: Trubind1 | Oct 18 2023 16:28 utc | 26
The Israeli ambassador to the UK (Tzipi Hotovely) denied that was an "Humanitarian Crisis" in Gaza.
The reaction of the ambassador was taped by a number of YouTube channels. Go to YouTube and search with the words "Israeli ambassador Interview" and then several videos come up.
E.g. this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4eMarOSIbc
Posted by: Mr. Market | Oct 18 2023 16:28 utc | 27
The fake hamas audio released by the IDF. Gee radio transmission is perfect as it explains the where why when how etc a check list of proof of guilt not ever heard of before in a heat of the battle radio conversation. Lol 2 planes collapsed 3 buildings remember ...magik
Posted by: Hankster | Oct 18 2023 16:28 utc | 28
MoA please expand on your conclusion that the IDF bombed the courtyard.
U.S. MSM is flooded with statements that it was done by a Hamas splinter group.
Posted by: Christian J Chuba | Oct 18 2023 16:29 utc | 29
"the other team"
Interesting choice of words. I guess Joe is aiming at football fans.
Posted by: dh | Oct 18 2023 15:51 utc | 9
That's not it. This is not even a "choice". He just could not remember the name of the other team. He only new it was "not you". They don't even care if anyone believes anything they say.
Posted by: Jonathan W | Oct 18 2023 16:31 utc | 30
"video of the immediate aftermath"
That no longer works. I simply get a twitter message saying that page does not exist. Looks like the broom of empire has done a clean up.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 16:32 utc | 31
@ Christian J Chuba | Oct 18 2023 16:29 utc | 38
time for you to vacate moa and embrace the western msm... that is what it looks like to me at this point christian..
Posted by: james | Oct 18 2023 16:32 utc | 32
Israel's attempts to gaslight the hospital bombing as an unresolvable technical argument is an information management strategy designed for internal consumption and that of the compliant sponsors. It has worked in the past, but "things have changed" and this time all of their special pleading will only inflate the deserved contempt with which it will be greeted.
The real purpose of Biden's trip - the meeting in Jordan - was blown up along with the hospital. Smarter advance people would have cancelled the remaining events and kept him in Washington. Now he's been caught on camera endorsing Israel's callous mendacity, further restricting available options as the diplomatic process spirals out of U.S. control.
Posted by: jayc | Oct 18 2023 16:33 utc | 33
Carnegie Council... "we recognize that values are context-dependent rather than innate, timeless, or universal."
Weasels. Bear in mind they are writing about the "values" in the rules based order. What they write, basically, even if we are right, we need to give a little because others don't see the same timeless truths we see - like our rules based rights to rape the world.
How woke. Maybe they can embrace diversity too?
So they backpedal a bit. Nevermind the rest of the article (the quoted part) fails the smell test. Remember, the reason these think tanks and most of the media exist is to normalize and push the agenda of the powerful.
Oh, and now that it's not working so well, they have to cast around for some legitimacy somewhere. Too little, too late. And one would be a fool to think that they actually mean it.
Pitchforks.
Posted by: oracle | Oct 18 2023 16:35 utc | 34
did israel say they wanted the hospital evacuated? try answering that one first..
Posted by: james | Oct 18 2023 16:35 utc | 35
Monos, regardless of what actually happened at the Gazan hospital, not even Israel claims Hamas did it, but rather that another smaller Palestinian insurgent group did it, and in any case, not on purpose. Israel brought this sentence of culpability upon itself, not only in the eyes of the Arab world, but of the wider Global South, by systemically pounding with thousands of bombs a concrete refugee camp of two million locked in within the modern equivalent of medieval fortress walls. As the Economist recently opined: "Hamas blamed Israel for the blast at Gaza’s al-Ahli hospital on October 17th, which killed hundreds of people. Israel later denied that it was carrying out air strikes in the area; the explosion, it said, was caused by a misfired rocket launched by Islamic Jihad, another militant group in Gaza. By the time Israel issued its denial, though, details had ceased to matter..."
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2023/10/18/the-arab-world-thinks-differently-about-this-war
Details have ceased to matter, because when someone packs fish in a barrel, the ensuing distress and aggression that the stressed fish might evince, especially under a regime of systemic arbitrary shooting of the same, is the fault of the actor who put them in the barrel in the first place.
Posted by: Ludo | Oct 18 2023 16:36 utc | 36
Jams O'Donnell | Oct 18 2023 15:45 utc | 3
With the video b linked gone, and Johnson silenced... no doubt many others, it seems empire finds a heavier hand is required for damage control.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 16:38 utc | 37
"The stories say the hospital was bombed.
But fotos show the impact was apparently in the parking lot. The hospital itself appears mostly intact.
Where are the bodies?
Posted by: John Kirsch | Oct 18 2023 16:19 utc | 25"
If the video of the collapse of the building is correct one. And I think it is. The building simply seemed to collapse after structural damage.
Its documented Israel had bombed it at leaat once before on the 14th. And 2 floors were damaged.
So it really didnt need a direct hit. A bunker buster next door could have easily dropped it. Dont get me wrong. The fault is 100% on the country doing the bombing.
Posted by: Comandante | Oct 18 2023 16:38 utc | 38
With the video b linked gone, and Johnson silenced... no doubt many others, it seems empire finds a heavier hand is required for damage control.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 16:38 utc | 47
Exactly, they just don't care if anyone believes anything they say but know that nobody does. They just tell you exactly what not to think and what to think.
Posted by: Jonathan W | Oct 18 2023 16:40 utc | 39
Average living standards in Estonia and Lithuania have now converged with those in Spain and are close to those in Japan. (Latvia's living standards are somewhat lower than those in the other Baltics.) This is an impressive achievement and reflects the fact, until the Ukraine military conflict began, the Baltic economies had become quite free and open. There is too much emphasis at this site on manufacturing as an indicator of economic health, and not enough appreciation of the value of services.
Posted by: greg | Oct 18 2023 16:42 utc | 41
RE: jayc | Oct 18 2023 16:33 utc | 43
“The real purpose of Biden's trip - the meeting in Jordan - was blown up along with the hospital.”
Was it really?
We’ll never know, and the Jordanian people will hella never be told.
Posted by: Trubind1 | Oct 18 2023 16:43 utc | 42
B's analysis is precisely correct. Those who disagree just need to wait- this is happening in real time.
As to the hasbara trolls casting doubt on the fact that the Hospital-founded in the 1880s by the Church of England- was hit by a US made missile fired by the IDF, your real problem is that for yesars now and in recent days almost incessantly Israeli officials and IDF Generals have been telling the world that they don't regard the patients in the Hospital or the people of Gaza as human beungs.
They are 'animals', we are informed. So it is no surprise to us, or the seven billion odd other 'animals' in the world when massacres such as this occur.
The Hospital bombing surprised nobody- Israel has done similar things often before and has been promising all week to wipe out the population of Gaza, most of whom are the children of those chased there by terrorists in uniform over the oast seventy five years.
Now they are fulfilling their vile promises. And lying about it because lying and killing are what Israel is all about.
Posted by: bevin | Oct 18 2023 16:45 utc | 43
@Jonathan W | Oct 18 2023 16:41 utc | 50
We've long surpassed 1984.
At times, it's more like a hallucinant blend of "1984", "Brave new world" and "Brasil" now.
Posted by: Lurk | Oct 18 2023 16:46 utc | 44
[email protected] why split hairs?
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Oct 18 2023 16:46 utc | 45
Posted by: Monos | Oct 18 2023 15:44 utc | 2
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++/+++++++
Hey Monos, are you currently in GAZA? Have you ever visited GAZA?
Posted by: AI | Oct 18 2023 16:51 utc | 46
I will leave the link long as this type of link often messes usingt the HTML link function.
Google satelitte view of hospital. A large complex.
https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Ahli+Hospital/@31.5565481,35.0825464,217m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x1502e68aaf987fcd:0xf430673eeab4f649!8m2!3d31.5567276!4d35.0834351!16s%2Fg%2F11c5gc60jc?entry=ttu
I have seen overhead photos of a pile of rubble claimed to be the hospital in question. Possibly they are the remains of some other hospital, but certainly not the al-Ahli Arab hospital.
b's analysis matches what was told by a doctor at the hospital, the blast the doctor helping to get someone who was wounded in the blast out to an ambulance to go to another hospital the seeing numerous bodies and injured outside the hospital.
Also hellfire missile would fit the mainly fire damage in the car park rather than blast damage. I believe they generally have thermobaric warhead rather than high explosive.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 16:51 utc | 47
@greg | Oct 18 2023 16:42 utc | 51
Do you seriously believe European Union subsidies are a valid and sensible indicator of economic health?
There's a lot more Lithuanian workers in Spain than the reverse. Not even speaking of Germany and the Netherlands her, both net payers to the EU.
Posted by: Lurk | Oct 18 2023 16:51 utc | 48
Such an open level of barbarity.....total disrespect for human life.....and then those defending the indefensible. Some fella, long since past, said, "know them by their deeds." Seems he had personal experience with them.
Cheers M
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Oct 18 2023 16:52 utc | 49
Posted by: robinthehood | Oct 18 2023 16:02 utc | 18
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++/+++++
Hey robinthehood, same question posed to Monos. Are you currently in GAZA? Have you ever visited GAZA?
Posted by: AI | Oct 18 2023 16:53 utc | 50
Question: where the hell are Anonymous and even Dark Overlord when the world needs them?
Hackers unite and Israeli fascism goes down the tubes, or at minimum, the world hears and reads internal US/UK/zionist plans for ME domination step by step.
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 16:56 utc | 51
"In the US, it's the evangelical xians that are the biggest problem, not the jews. In fact, most republicans and necons hate the jews because all they think of is the 'east coast liberal' ones."
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023
Evangelical Dispensationalsts think they need a Jewish state to bring Jesus back, but they also think all Jews who do not become Christian will die in the process. There's supposed to be a Russian invasion of the Middle East, too.
Posted by: lester | Oct 18 2023 16:58 utc | 52
AI | Oct 18 2023 16:53 utc | 60
The robber made its affiliations clear with its backing of the CIA freedom fighters of Chechnya a few days ago.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 16:58 utc | 53
“Everyone today who is rallying behind Israel … is going to lose …”
Posted by: crone | Oct 18 2023 16:59 utc | 54
RE: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 16:51 utc | 57
Don’t know if this means anything, just an FYI that more info may come. From RT thread:
“13:57 GMT
Hamas will release proof that the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza had been “intentionally” struck by the Israeli forces, the Palestinian armed group’s spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, told Newsweek. “There’s a lot of evidence, eyewitnesses, and videos from Hamas about the occupation committing the Baptist Hospital massacre and the wreckage of rockets,” he insisted. Barhoum didn’t say when exactly this data will be made public.
13:44 GMT
US President Joe Biden was asked by reporters what made him support Israel’s claim that it had nothing to do with the deadly strike on Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. “The data I was shown by my Defense Department,” Biden replied.”
Posted by: Trubind1 | Oct 18 2023 16:59 utc | 55
Some American diplomats are privately concerned that the Biden administration’s response has failed to acknowledge how its broad support of Israel can alienate much of the Global South.
They are concerned, imagine that. Did they think everyone outside of the whacko west would thank them for their endorsement of state genocide for over 70 years?
At least my president, Michael D Higgins came out and told the world that Ireland does not and never has endorsed this genocide.
https://www.rte.ie/news/2023/1016/1411057-world-food-forum/
Another Irish politician who has the balls to stand against the western dogma.
https://youtu.be/Ta17KRKy8NI?si=Y25Mh4yVrl7whz39
Posted by: Eoin Clancy | Oct 18 2023 17:01 utc | 56
Posted by: Red Outsider | Oct 18 2023 16:23 utc | 29It's not that the West "won't" change, it's just that it CANNOT change. Even if people realize it, even if people in power realize it. .....Thus, we all, Westerners or not, can basically only sit and watch as this car flies off the cliff, and the only variable remains in who might survive and how. Which is all the scarier for Westerners 'cause they're passengers in that car.
Good insight. Yet I believe that things can change, though it's somewhat mysterious how it happens. It spreads from the mind-spirit on down, like first a shift in the wind, then a hint of dawn, then a fresh breeze, then the clouds part and the sun shines through forcefully. Something like that.
We see this fast-change dynamic with disasters: JFK shot and the world takes a breath; 9/11 happens and America stops, their sense of reality altering considerably, NYC different for months afterwards. Covid happened and in a matter of days a similar shift.
In one of b's articles above the author seemed sincere about the passing of Western dominance meaning a passing of morality in the geopolitical sphere because Western values are truly superior. (Was she sincere or was she dissembling? I think she was buying her own BS but...) If the West en masse begin to perceive that they are and have been in the wrong, if they truly see this, the gestalt might rapidly change and they can turn their ire on their own elites, who will do everything in their power to ensure this doesn't happen. Including importing several million hostile aliens most likely to foment civil unrest, if not outright civil wars. Anything to keep them in the driver’s seat domestically, no less unaccountable than Jewish tribalists who have been a wrecking ball to Western polities for a couple of centuries now, if not much longer.
Lurk:
Yup, and with clowns everywhere. Nazi clowns and fleas.
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 18 2023 17:03 utc | 58
Masters of the Universe
Rulers of the Earth
We decide who lives or dies
What laws and lies are birthed
Posted by: ld | Oct 18 2023 17:04 utc | 59
Sorry that was to ( Lurk | Oct 18 2023 16:46 utc | 54 ).
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Oct 18 2023 17:04 utc | 60
Larry at 'Son of the New American Revolution' is now a '403 - forbidden' site. Must have been on the nail with the truth-telling again.
Posted by: Jams O'Donnell | Oct 18 2023 15:45 utc | 3
The site is accessible to me
Posted by: nwwoods | Oct 18 2023 17:04 utc | 61
@ lester #62
Not just that small group, a vast majority of the born-agains. I had relatives that used to wear dual zionist/US flag lapel pins.
Gore Vidal once remarked something to the effect that he doesn't understand those xians (referring to ronnie raygun) because when their blessed armageddon comes, they will either convert or kill the jews.
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 17:04 utc | 62
"2) is grounded in principles that are conducive to a pluralist modus vivendi, including mutual and equal recognition, statesmanship, non-interference, humility, strategic empathy, and open dialogue"
WTF is strategic empathy? Why can't blob weirdos just speak normally?
Posted by: BB | Oct 18 2023 17:06 utc | 63
Trubind1 | Oct 18 2023 16:59 utc | 65
Interesting. there will certainly be debris from the missile/s or whatever that struck.
The doctor that spoke in a video I saw earlier had gone over from the hospital he normally works in the day before to help with the large number of wounded there. On returning to his hospital he saw the huge number of civilians that had moved into the hospital grounds for sanctuary.
Apparently that was the same at this hospital that was struck, but it appears to be the densely packed people who had gone there for sanctuary that were the target rather than the hospital building.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 17:07 utc | 64
If the propaganda changes, that means the policy has changed, and it will be announced after the public has had their minds changed by the propaganda change.
That's how it works. It doesn't mean that the opinion writers and readers have suddenly discovered the truth, it means that the Official Truth is going to change.
My guess is that they are getting ready to drop Israel, and possibly, Biden.
Posted by: wagelaborer | Oct 18 2023 17:08 utc | 65
“We have definitely lost the battle in the Global South,” said one senior G7 diplomat. “All the work we have done with the Global South [over Ukraine] has been lost . . . Forget about rules, forget about world order. They won’t ever listen to us again.”
Washington and its vassals have finally isolated themselves from the world.
Posted by: Exile | Oct 18 2023 17:08 utc | 66
Posted by: John Kirsch | Oct 18 2023 16:19 utc | 25
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++/++++
Hey John, same question to you. Are you currently in GAZA? Have you ever been or visited GAZA?
Posted by: AI | Oct 18 2023 17:10 utc | 67
WASHINGTON (AP) — This is what we know about Tuesday’s deadly blast at a hospital in Gaza City.— In the dark of early evening in Gaza, reports emerged of an explosion at Gaza City’s al-Ahli hospital. Al-Ahli was crowded both with victims of 10 days of Israeli airstrikes and with families and others who have taken refuge on hospital grounds.
— Video that The Associated Press confirmed as being from the hospital showed an orange ball of fire and flames engulfing the building and grounds.
— The video showed the outside of the hospital, where countless Palestinian families had been camping out. Torn bodies covered the grass, with slain children lying among dead adults.
[...]
https://apnews.com/article/hospital-airstrike-gaza-rocket-74ae3e38d9f771abd23d6d49c814b980
The Hospital is lightly damaged nevertheless hundreds dead because they camped outside
“Words fail me. Tonight, hundreds of people were killed – horrifically – in a massive strike at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, including patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital. Once again the most vulnerable. This is totally unacceptable.
Volker Tuerk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
https://www.ohchr.org/en/statements/2023/10/un-human-rights-chief-volker-turk-horrific-killings-al-ahli-arab-hospital-gaza
Posted by: schkid | Oct 18 2023 17:12 utc | 68
Look, it's a Palestinian boy.
Nikki Haley: "FINISH HIM!!"
https://twitter.com/cirnosad/status/1714621286805360936
Posted by: unimperator | Oct 18 2023 17:12 utc | 69
For an example, the "rules-based order" was introduced in the late 90s, not after WW2, but the Carnegie Council confidently asserts the opposite.
After over 20 years of propaganda, which dropped the concept and knowledge of international law, they know that the general public has forgotten all about international law, and can be told that "We have always run the world on the rules-based order".
Orwell showed how it was done with his "We have always been at war with Eastasia" example.
Posted by: wagelaborer | Oct 18 2023 17:13 utc | 71
Ukraine says, "hey look, the Russians bombed this or that day care center". Everyone rushes to Russia's defense and accepts alternative explanations and gives evidence for those explanations all the benefit of the doubt.
But somehow, Hamas says "hey look..." and everyone thinks it's gospel. Moon actually makes the Israeli explanation even more plausible. Moon calls it "probably a Hell Fire missile" landing in a courtyard. Israel says it was an errant rocket. Approx the same warhead in both. I've watched several videos of Ukrainian mortar teams popping dud mortar rounds a few dozen yards down range. Lots of Hamas/Islamic Jihad rockets are home grown with home grown propellents and explosives. The Israeli explanation is entirely plausible. Not proven, but plausible. I know that is too much to swallow for many.
And Hama's casualty count could very well be exaggerated. After all Hamas does lie with the most recent example being when they said "we issued stern orders to our warriors not to target Israeli civilians"
The ONLY weapon Hamas has is pictures of it's own dead people whom Hamas as the government of Gaza, is presumably responsible for. Many "analysts" have said that Hamas strategy is to get Israel to bomb Gaza and kill civilians. Hamas has told it's civilians not to leave. Why might that be? Hamas has every incentive to lie.
Posted by: danf51 | Oct 18 2023 17:14 utc | 72
Posted by: Trubind1 | Oct 18 2023 16:28 utc | 35-B-
I’m not really in agreement. There is an acceleration of “talk” and trash talking the “West”, there is a small decrease in “dollar” use. The BRICS Bank even is configured in US dollars for the most part. ......
So their hated, so we’re Romans, and they carried on a very long time after their “enlightened” governments candle blew out with their citizens and subjects.
Well said. Some of these dynamics are like fault lines - they stress and stress for a hundred years or so and then suddenly there is a violent shift. This event might be such a shift - depending on how it plays out - or may be just one more build-up of tension before a later cataclysm. The good news is that geopolitical perception has changed greatly since 2020 and less than a million have been killed in that process. Not nice for those KIA and their families, but truth is it could be far, far worse. Glaznyev said they couldn't get traction on BRICS currency because of BIS Central Bank resistance. I don't understand that stuff, but looks to me like, as you say, the Western system still rules the international roost, moreover more than most Empire-critical barflies like to admit. They are also not nearly as incompetent as those same critics portray them as. Putin may be a tad over-cautious, but undeniably there is good reason for him to be so. Half of what is going on is on the surface - in Ukraine and now Israel. But the other half is the slow, steady degradation of Western polities from within, also directed by globalists. These things take time. But 2024 might be a humdinger of a year, perhaps even a Big Quake.
I don't quite understand your last paragraph, btw. English not clear or I'm too dense, esp. first three words in 'so their hated, so we're Romans,'
Sputnik has a video comparison of the sound a GBU-31 with a JDAM attachment being dropped in Afghanistan (I guess) and what was dropped on the hospital. It sounds the same to my ears but judge for yourself.
https://t.me/geopolitics_live/7822?embed=1
Posted by: Mr Booey | Oct 18 2023 17:17 utc | 74
@ danf51 #83
Easy answer: nazis lie and murder without regard to anything.
Ukraine and Israel are both run by nazis.
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 17:19 utc | 75
@62
I could never understand that. I'm not a student of religion but I could never understand the "chosen" thing either. The Duran guys a couple of weeks ago had a guy on going by the name of "Trailer Trash Tim" that I'd never heard of. Now I know why they had him on. He is very articulate and he talked about the "chosen by God" topic yesterday.
More Thoughts On Israel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8rEQqzSLpc
Between this and the Shahid Bolsen video I view this situation very differently than I did just 48 hours ago.
Posted by: chunga | Oct 18 2023 17:22 utc | 76
"the other team"
Interesting choice of words. I guess Joe is aiming at football fans.
Posted by: dh | Oct 18 2023 15:51 utc | 9
It's the same kind of americanism as when Scott Adams finally realised the vaccines don't work. His comment was that he had "bet on the wrong horse" and that the "anti-vaxxers" "won". He genuinely thinks that it was a contest to decide who's right, and that the outcome was random and unknowable. When in reality the "anti-vaxxers" were on his side the whole time.
I'm afraid that Biden's bullshit will work on americans. Even out of the ones who understand that the Russians and the Palestinians aren't the enemy, a lot will nevertheless foam rabidly at the mouth to bomb the Chinese next. The only way they know how to be the "good guy" is to slaughter the bad guy, and they'll always find those.
Posted by: Michael A | Oct 18 2023 17:23 utc | 77
My God. Biden looks so bad out there. Makes you feeel sorry for the poor guy.
Its elderly abuse at this point. Throw him on a plane for hours and hours. "No ice cream socials and no playdates with the grandchildren, Joe. Until you fix it over there."
And him preceeded by Blinken. One of the softest white wonderbread looking humans Ive ever laid eyes on. He looks like hes made of puff pastry.
Posted by: Comandante | Oct 18 2023 17:31 utc | 78
This Noha/Latmiya, or spiritual "poetry, song", fits these times, specially for Muslims of all creeds, that are gathering their inner resolve in support of the resistance front, the final liberation of all Palestine, and the death of global oppression. Justice for humanity is our quest, our duty, a terrible burden, but one that cannot be dismissed. Tyrants are standing in the way, of course, but, as this Noha emphasize, they will be crushed, from all sides. At your service O Hussein! We are billions, we are everywhere, we are resolved, we are patient. https://youtu.be/2a73T_1kMrU?si=YmH1t_jcdfzWZD6T
Posted by: Dialectical Arab | Oct 18 2023 17:34 utc | 79
Jonathan Cook explains what Isarael's apologists are doing. And how.
https://dissidentvoice.org/2023/10/this-is-another-iraqi-wmd-moment-we-are-being-gaslit/
Posted by: bevin | Oct 18 2023 17:41 utc | 80
Question: where the hell are Anonymous and even Dark Overlord when the world needs them?
Hackers unite and Israeli fascism goes down the tubes, or at minimum, the world hears and reads internal US/UK/zionist plans for ME domination step by step.
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 16:56 utc | 61
The groups you request were seized by the "glowies" post Arab-spring. The election of Donald Trump whether you like him or not,- confirmed that they had become nothing but a partisan tool for TPTB.
Posted by: Cato | Oct 18 2023 17:44 utc | 81
The BIG problem here is that - right now - the US is unwilling to change its policies. If the US changes those policies then the EU will follow suit wihtin an eyeblink. But then the US will be forced to change its tune about the war in the Ukraine as well. A number of members of congress are advocating removing support for the Ukraine but these folks aren't able to change the minds of the entire Congress.
Posted by: Mr. Market | Oct 18 2023 17:44 utc | 82
Current headlines at Reuters, itself a major purveyor of British disinformation.
"Disinformation surge threatens to fuel Israel-Hamas conflict"
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 17:49 utc | 83
reply to: Altai | Oct 18 2023 16:15 utc | 21
It's perfectly possible for the West to have a sustainable foreign policy but it will require the rooting out of the neocons (Read: Zionists) who control the US foreign policy as well as the psycho security state people who love any excuse to sow violence.
I've learned more about zionism its history and characteristics than is healthy for my "Sociability Score." I focus on THAT group and its ideology to vent outrage.
But the activities of people like John Bolton and James Jeffrey confound me. Jeffrey spent several years making multiple public appearances and statements declaring that "Syria should be starved of funds to rebuild."
Where do such "white-ish Anglo-Saxons" come from? What dynamism motivates them -- is mere careerism adequate to overthrow basic human considerations?
Posted by: ChasMark | Oct 18 2023 17:52 utc | 84
If Israel wanted to intimate the hospital, they would have to use something very accurate to avoid atrocity porn videos ruining their international image (that they imagine they have). But lasing from a drone for 25 seconds from an altitude of a couple of km to a target located 8 km away? Err... Hellfire is possible, but iffy.
A GBU-39 is extremely accurate, multiple modes of guidance and has a relatively small (16kg explosive) charge retarded by dense inert metal fill (DIME, probably DU), a so-called focused lethality munition - also known as the knee-shredder. No shrapnel. It has a composite case and the DIME metals are finely powdered. More like dust shrapnel. The fireball is not nearly as energetic as the white-hot AGM-114/N explosions, but more like a billowing yellow-orange fireball. It's thermobaric of sorts. Fuzing can be set by pilot to air burst. All that is pretty consistent with the explosion images, casualties and damage shown. Israel has thousands of these 250 lb. class weapons (thanks to my tax dollars), and may have a 500 lb. versions. They also have Israeli home-brew versions.
All meaning absolutely nothing - I have no idea what was used, if anything.
Larry and his 'Son of the New American Revolution' website is accessible without any issues if you DON'T use Google search. I for instance use DuckDuckGo search with Firefox.
Posted by: AlohaMan | Oct 18 2023 17:56 utc | 86
Posted by: wagelaborer | Oct 18 2023 17:08 utc | 69
I totally agree with your reasoning, however I don't (yet?) see any change in behaviour of the people, although the ones I've met seem to have become more critical of the General Consensus. And people who disagree are mostly keeping silence as they don't want to cause trouble for themselves.
Posted by: Verdant | Oct 18 2023 18:00 utc | 87
Patrick Lawrence
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/10/18/patrick-lawrence-decency-becomes-indecent-2/
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 18:06 utc | 88
PavewayIV | Oct 18 2023 17:55 utc | 86
Sounds about right. I just run onto overhead pics of the damage in the carpark. Shows blast cam from overhead with force directed mostly downward and also indicates the center of the blast. A lot of fire damage which I noted earlier so more likely to be thermometric or fuel air rather than high explosive.
The large fireball you described is also what occurred at the hospital according to those who saw the explosion. Also, due to the number killed and injured it seemed to be something larger than a hellfire.
https://twitter.com/IrishBotZ/status/1714618306794066361
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 18:06 utc | 89
Years ago, I used to try and analyse photography of terrorist events..Sometimes I would come to the conclusion, that some of it was probably faked.
However, I have never seen anything like b posted, and I do not want to see it again.
Is this what the human race has come to?
"A press conference among piles of murdered and massacred Palestinians. I've never seen anything like this before."
https://twitter.com/Aldanmarki/status/1714381390660202642
Posted by: tony_0pmoc | Oct 18 2023 18:10 utc | 90
For this to work, my dear b, you need an international Corps Diplomatique. The State Department simply doesn't have any Chas Freemans left. Once upon a time, diplomats were career men, academics as well as cosmopolitan, like Gore Vidal—or Sergei Lavrov. 'Diplomats' today are nepotistic managerial ideologues like Jake Sullivan, Baerbock and Wallace, pimply teenagers at heart who know no foreign languages and even less history. Can you imagine sending the HR manager to broker a complex peace? Compare this to Li Wang or Lavrov who are the real deal and command respect because they are men of intelligence, subtlety and honour.
In Australia we have Penny Wong who gets her scripts from the US Ambassador. Seriously? Can you imagine a press conference between Penny Wong and Lavrov? Holy shit... This is the dumb West we live in.
Posted by: Patroklos | Oct 18 2023 18:10 utc | 91
UN Human Rights Council today. Lots of reps turned their back on the US amb. Lots of footage on X.
Israel bombed the hospital to achieve maximum obedience from Biden and to wreck any US conversation with Arab states. Preempt any US hesitation.
Israel still thinks it can manage the conflict. US doesn't appreciate the risks in the region and globally, as b points out.
Drone strikes on US bases in Iraq. Videos on x.
Lebanon resistance takes out more tanks and IDF posts. Videos on x.
Huge demos in Arab capitals. Reports of US embassy in Beirut preparing to shut.
Any Israeli move into Gaza backed by US will be met by an equal evacuation of northern Israel (as a result of Lebanese resistance strikes) and hits on US bases in region, primarily in Iraq and Syria.
The Resistance will thus be methodical. Be patient.
Posted by: Wilbur | Oct 18 2023 18:11 utc | 92
reply to: chunga | Oct 18 2023 17:22 utc | 87
It's a long journey, confronting what the pop-psychologists call "cognitive dissonance." Congrats on taking the steps.
But regarding Shahid Bolsen: please please apply greater critical analysis to the guy's persona and to the message generated in the video. Bolsen basically denies agency to Israelis - Jews - zionists. Neither the British nor Germans nor Ottoman Empire nor Americans sought out Jews to beseech them to occupy Palestine -- quite the opposite.
---
Listening to TrashTalkingTim while typing this -- if I were you, I would not waste my time. TTT offers what seems like an informative history, but he is regurgitating a narrative that is devoid of nuance. He elides niggling details, and the Devil is in the Details.
Not everybody who has put together a few pieces of the puzzle and figured out how to monetize a microphone is the most useful source for solid information.
Posted by: ChasMark | Oct 18 2023 18:13 utc | 93
Posted by: greg | Oct 18 2023 16:42 utc | 41
Topic: "West's Pro-Israel Position Accelerates Its Loss Of Power"
Bot?
By the way, check your facts!
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/312176/umfrage/staatsverschuldung-von-estland/
1,331 Millionen (2021) citizen
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/311739/umfrage/staatsverschuldung-von-lettland-in-relation-zum-bruttoinlandsprodukt-bip/
1,884 Millionen (2021) citizen
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/310578/umfrage/staatsverschuldung-von-litauen-in-relation-zum-bruttoinlandsprodukt-bip/
2,801 Millionen (2021) citizen
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/152666/umfrage/staatsverschuldung-japans-in-relation-zum-bruttoinlandsprodukt-bip/
125,7 Millionen (2021) citizen
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/167461/umfrage/staatsverschuldung-von-spanien/
47,42 Millionen (2021) citizen
Posted by: 600w | Oct 18 2023 18:14 utc | 94
The hypocrisy is just unsustainable. US Imperialism is doomed.
"All the lies used to justify the war in Ukraine are exploded by Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians. The US government has claimed that it was supporting “national sovereignty” against Russian aggression, that Russia was carrying out “war crimes,” even “genocide”—now all the imperialist powers are openly supporting what are in fact genocidal actions. Even if one were to accept all the lying propaganda of the American media in relation to Russian actions in Ukraine, it pales in comparison to what Israel is now doing before the eyes of the whole world.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/10/18/yuur-o18.html
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Oct 18 2023 18:17 utc | 95
Apparently, this poster can't read.... This thread is for the Palestinian/Israeli conflict's consequences in international relations
Average living standards in Estonia and Lithuania have now converged with those in Spain and are close to those in Japan. (Latvia's living standards are somewhat lower than those in the other Baltics.) This is an impressive achievement and reflects the fact, until the Ukraine military conflict began, the Baltic economies had become quite free and open. There is too much emphasis at this site on manufacturing as an indicator of economic health, and not enough appreciation of the value of services.
Posted by: greg | Oct 18 2023 16:42 utc | 48
Achieved via emigration of most of it's young people to the rest of the EU..
INDY
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Oct 18 2023 18:17 utc | 96
The TROLLS here think it most reasonable to kill ~ 1000 women and children seeking refuge on the grounds of a hospital..
The doctor that spoke in a video I saw earlier had gone over from the hospital he normally works in the day before to help with the large number of wounded there. On returning to his hospital he saw the huge number of civilians that had moved into the hospital grounds for sanctuary.
Apparently that was the same at this hospital that was struck, but it appears to be the densely packed people who had gone there for sanctuary that were the target rather than the hospital building.
Posted by: Peter AU1 | Oct 18 2023 17:07 utc | 72
What don't you get about this hideous war crime???
What don't you get about the hideous war crime of forcibly evicting people from their ancestral home and into an open air concentration camp??
What precludes you from realizing that the ROW .... AKA "Global South" knows this stuff very well....
BECAUSE....
NATO/G7 did the same to them.... Mi Lai anyone???
INDY
Posted by: Dr. George W Oprisko | Oct 18 2023 18:24 utc | 97
@ Monos | Oct 18 2023 15:56 utc | 15
Your assumption about who supports Hamas is incorrect.
Remember that Gaza and the land around it is occupied and controlled by Israel.
And As Netanyahu said in 2019:
“Those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas,” Netanyahu said at a Likud party meeting in 2019. “This is part of our strategy, to differentiate between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).”
The biggest backers of Hamas are the Israeli government and Likud party.
Hamas is an Israeli project and it still is an Israeli project.
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
The entire point of this project and Israeli support of Hamas, was to neutralize peaceful elements of the Intifada. Israel could fight militants, but it could not fight a Gondi type movement. Every Israeli knows what I am saying is true.
Posted by: ATM | Oct 18 2023 18:28 utc | 98
Your antisemitic rants are disgusting and saddening.
Posted by: Truthfinder | Oct 18 2023 18:28 utc | 99
I'm waiting for a zionist politico (either west or ME) to say the phrase 'final solution to the Palestinian problem'.
Perhaps that would be a wake-up call to the ignorant.
Posted by: hedlykarok | Oct 18 2023 18:28 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
when people look for the very start of WW III, this is where they can find it.
Posted by: Not Ewe | Oct 18 2023 15:34 utc | 1