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jarfil, to news in China ‘world’s biggest debt collector’ as poorer nations struggle with its loans

As with everything concerning international law: it depends on the weapons and strategic alliances of each entity.

There are several reasons why China is ramping up ICBM production, the possibility of a country in debt “switching sides” in order to avoid payment, is likely one of them.

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

Indeed, the UN expected a sort of conjoined two-state arrangement.

The problem with the Declaration of Independence, is that, not only it was signed before getting written, rising the question of whether should the notes, the speech, or the document crafted after the fact to be considered the “official” one… but also Israel still lacks a proper Constitution; it has a set of Basic Laws, the last one of which got approved in 2018, but it’s expected more should follow, so it can still be seen as a “not fully established” state, making stuff up on the go.

Are you also researching as we go

Some of this stuff I’ve double checked, but most had already looked up before. One thing it would be interesting to know more about, are the nuances in the Hebrew text of the Declaration of Independence… but my knowledge of Hebrew barely goes as far as realizing that the English version is not a word for word translation.

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

Both words were made by the same people, claiming a racial difference between those descending from semitic cultures and those who were not (this was already debunked by the 1920s). “Semitism” was intended as a pejorative, with “Antisemitism” being the idea of “cleansing” the society from the negative influence of “semitism”.

It’s a made up Boogeyman used as an excuse to have something to push back against… and of course you can unite people around those ideas.


As a freakishly recent example, right now I’ve been watching the news on TV here in Spain. There is a problem around choosing a president, with the opposition using every strategy they can to discredit the incumbent.

One of the arguments they just decided to get up in arms about, is the incumbent just revealed agreed to forgive 15B€ of fiscal debt from one of the regions, which the representative of another region was being shown Live heavily criticizing, going on about how it should be all regions negotiating together, yadda yadda… and just then a news ticker goes by, stating that the incumbent has also agreed to forgive another 12B€ to the region of the guy just speaking Live. So much for “negotiating all together”!

Boogeyman created, and debunked Live. Wish I had recorded it. 😄

But wait, there’s more!

Just then, they switched to the speaker for the opposition party, also Live, who started criticizing the incumbent for trying to agree on which days are going to be holidays and which work days, to fit in the voting calendar… news ticker goes by: opposition party, with majority in the Senate, tries to urgently pass a law change to delay the votes so they fall on holidays and the incumbent runs out of time.

Seriously!? Two in the span of less than 10 minutes! 🔔🔔

jarfil, to news in Will Israel shut down Al Jazeera?

For all the obvious propaganda on Al Jazeera, they’ve been surprisingly “fair” in their reporting, both in their choice of guest speakers (although they might cut some mid sentence), and in the footage they release, that for a keen observer sometimes contradicts the propaganda.

It’s one of the best “complementary sources” of information about the conflict right now.

Compare it with RT, which is so state controlled, that it has to use exaggeration “ad absurdum” to convey even a hint of dissent (an interesting exercise for the observer to spot out, but quickly tiring).

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

There is a funny tidbit on the Wikipedia page:

Although Ben-Gurion had told the audience that he was reading from the scroll of independence, he was actually reading from handwritten notes because only the bottom part of the scroll had been finished by artist and calligrapher Otte Wallish by the time of the declaration (he did not complete the entire document until June)

…gov.il/…/the-declaration-of-independence/

Because there was no time to spare, the Declaration was read from a mimeographed sheet, and the 37 signatories – members of the Provisional Council of State – signed their names to a blank parchment sheet. The official copy of the Declaration was later inscribed by an artist.


As for borders, by following the Declaration of Independence itself:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL is prepared to cooperate with the agencies and representatives of the United Nations in implementing the resolution of the General Assembly of the 29th November, 1947, and will take steps to bring about the economic union of the whole of Eretz-Israel.

The UN resolution called for an economic union of “Israel and Palestine”, which would imply that “Eretz-Israel” was supposed to mean the whole land of the “Mandatory Palestine”.

Prior to that:

ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE’S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.

The British mandate was over the whole “Mandatory Palestine”… but the declaration talks about the State of Israel being “in Eretz-Israel”, without specifying any explicit borders.

The “spirit” of the text can be interpreted as intended to follow the borders of the UN resolution… maybe.

Since the resolution clearly was not accepted by the Arab states, it would require some further analysis whether that means Israel is supposed to prioritize establishing an economic union of the whole land, or strictly follow the resolution.

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

I used to resent that Jews had a special word just for them: “antisemitism”

“Antisemitism” is technically a BS word, just like the “Semitism” word it comes from. It was invented in the 1800s by some proto-Nazis, adopted in the 1900s by Nazis after the concept was already debunked, and continued in the 2000s by neo-Nazis. Nothing to be either jealous or proud of.

Jews who are said to secretly run the world

Somewhat ironically, not so secretly, and not a conspiracy.

Since 70CE, all Jews have been required to both read and understand the Torah, while other religions relied on priests “interpreting” the sacred texts for uneducated peasants, leading to Jewish literacy levels of 70% or more in countries with otherwise a 3% or less during the Middle Ages. At the same time, both Christians and Muslims were forbidden from “usury”, or charging interest on loans (Muslim banking still is), but guess who wasn’t: Jews. And who’d guess it, the Diaspora meant there was one or a dozen Jews pretty much in every city. As commerce grew all over the world, merchants used to go to literate Jews, like the ones sitting on the bench (“banca”) in Florence, asking for loans and generally to do what nobody else was either capable or allowed to do, like letting them carry bank notes instead of coffers full of gold, redeemable at other “branches”. Big surprise, some centuries later, you can trace most of the financial world back to Jews, both the concepts and ownership.

Also not a coincidence there have been so many famous Jewish artists, scientists or inventors. Anyone who’s got a problem with that, can thank their own religious ancestry for the cultural suicide.

dog-whistle for Nazis (to mean Jews)

…but of course it’s easier to blame the guys who got it right, while spreading further conspiranoic BS to dig an even deeper hole for one’s own culture. 🤦

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

Hm… can you give an example?

Off the top of my head, all I can come up with associated with “freedom fighters”, is using both guerrilla tactics and terrorism to fight against some superior enemy. The next closest thing, are non-terrorist “freedom movements” like Gandhi’s (which comes with a separate can of worms).

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

What vote?

https://cdn.britannica.com/55/3355-050-C17CAACC/UN-partition-plan-Palestine-1947.jpg

Timeline:

  • 1947 - The resolution was voted on by the UN
  • Arab countries didn’t accept it
  • Civil war between Zionists and non-Zionists
  • 1948 - A day before Britain’s retreat, Israel claims all the land
  • A day later, Arab countries attack Israel in order to "push the Jews into the sea"
  • Israel wins most of the land, except Gaza and Cisjordania

Jews were given the land

Well… kind of, but not really, not exactly that land, and the result wasn’t truly agreed upon by anyone.

the 6 day war

That’s in 1967. Israel wasn’t “given” any land there, it used a provocation by Egypt in order to claim all of it (and have Egypt give thanks for not claiming all of Sinai too… for now).

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

Tons of neo-lib shit takes in this comment section.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

Could you elaborate about which economic takes you’d want to criticize in this comment section, or did you mean to use a different term?

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

A problem with Lemmy (and a bigger one with Reddit) is that conversations can include context and nuance, while mods don’t always can or want to take them into account, so you better make each comment stand on its own, or you can get the boot “out of the blue”.

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

Lower Paleolithic is as far as some will go when dating first clashes over that same patch of land, or about 200,000 years ago.

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

After the Nazi shit and the reluctance of the West to accept refugees

Zionism starts in the 1800s, well before the Nazi shit. The 1940’s One Million Plan actually got amended after the Holocaust by stirring up a civil war so more Jews from Arab countries would flee in fear of prosecution in order to meet the Zionist numbers, precisely because “too many” Western countries were accepting (or got forced to accept) Holocaust refugees, who were nowhere as many as previously expected (by the Zionists).

Nazi Germany could really happen again

Not exactly. Genocides have been going on all the time, just the countries and ethnicities have been changing. So you could say it’s been happening all along… while the chance of the same exact combination repeating, is quite low.

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

glass the “holy land.” Nuke it all so no one can live there for 200+ years.

Maybe by then […]

Not long enough.

Conflict in the area has been going on for anywhere between 4000 and 200,000 years (lower paleolithic). Since the invention of writing, people of different origins have been able to transmit their religious claims to the region for thousands of years.

200 years would barely put a dent on it.

jarfil, to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

I’m perfectly capable of thinking that they’re both terrorists and freedom fighters.

It’s not just that they “can” be both, it’s more that they “have to” be both.

“Freedom fighter” is a term reserved for the underdog, the one who can’t use sheer military power to terrorize a whole region (like a couple US Carrier Strike Groups with nukes) or some surrounding countries (like a US funded Israeli military with some nukes of their own). Established democracies and recognized states, can use their “military” to terrorize a whole population by just threatening to bomb the living shit out of the civilians, while “freedom fighters” can only terrorize through surprise attacks and extreme brutality… aka, by being “terrorists”.

Bottom line: all “freedom fighters” need to be “terrorists”, otherwise they’d be called “a military”.

somebody who goes to “freedom fighter” as their first noun for them, that’s kind of a red flag.

That’s a bit harsh, what if they understand the two are synonyms? 🤷

jarfil, (edited ) to news in Don’t fall into the trap of ‘picking sides’ over Gaza: Hamas’s attacks were unconscionable, razing Gaza to the ground would be abhorrent. In both cases, basic humanity is at stake --- [Opinion]

Wait until you hear about Macron’s travel to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to sign economic agreements… just like the EU did with Ukraine right before 2014… only this time, next week there’s going to be a new sanctions package against Russia.

Did I mention Kazakhstan borders with both Russia and China, Russia already has a recent history of “helping” a pro-Russia government stay in power by sending in troops to shoot against civilians, and China would love to build a railway through Kazakhstan and Ukraine right to the EU… with just a tiny bit of Russia lying in the way north of Georgia?

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