[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

[PseudoStupidity]

It looks like he's going to Israel specifically to tell them that no matter how many hospitals they bomb and civilians they kill the United States will support Israel no matter what. I mean, we already do so it's no surprise, but holy shit. This is full bore genocide and Biden is going there to give the bastards carrying it out his approval in person.

[Kaelik]

I'm seeing alternative estimates of up to 500 dead from the bombing of the hospital.

[MGuy]

The hospitals by the way that can barely if at all function at this point due to all the cutoffs and the horrific amount of dead. Much of the media here is still trying to both sides this thing even as the death toll shoots up every day.

[MGuy]

Israel is trying to put the hospital bombing on Hamas. Pentagon is defending Israel's actions still. 500 was an early estimate. The estimate has risen since the initial reports.

[Kaelik]

Israel is trying to put the hospital bombing on Hamas. Pentagon is defending Israel's actions still. 500 was an early estimate. The estimate has risen since the initial reports.

It's some real lessons in shamelessness for Israel to 1) announce that all staff and patients must evacuate a hospital because hamas might have tunnels under it (obviously bullshit). 2) drop a bomb on it. 3) say that it was actually hamas that bombed the hospital. 4) immediately make new demands for Palestinians to evacuate several other hospitals.

[Kaelik]

Biden just saying that hamas bombed the hospital that Israel repeatedly threatened to bomb and the was leveled by an explosion bugger then any hamas has ever produced.

Problem solved. It's actually hamas bombing Gaza so we can keep giving israel big bombs to definitely not drop on Gaza.

Fuckign hate genocidal us president.

Edit: as someone pointed out to me, I fact israel even bragged about killing many terrorists in a hamas base in a hospital immediately after they bombed the hospital they ordered to evacuate so they could bomb it and then deleted the statement and started lying about it being Islamic jihad who blew up the hospital.

Just fucking tired of genocidal US constantly supporting genocides around the world.

[PseudoStupidity]

I have quite possibly the most ridiculous series of emails all in a row in my personal email inbox. The headlines and timing are the following:

1. "Breaking news: Israeli strike on hospital kills hundreds, Palestinian officials say" - 2:33pm EST

2. "Breaking news: Israel and Palestinians blame each other for Gaza hospital blast" - 5:04pm EST

3. "The Evening: A blast killed hundreds at a Gaza hospital" - 6:01pm EST

Motherfuckers had it right the first time and walked it back within 3 hours, then doubled down on the "controversy" less than an hour later. There is so much evidence that Israel both intended to bomb the hospital and actually did bomb the hospital. There is no evidence that Hamas wanted to or did bomb the hospital. There is also the question of "does Hamas even have weapons that carry such a large payload?"

And all of this with the fucked up backdrop of "we should all feel for and donate money to Israel, the victim!" The US is disgusting.

[Kaelik]

People have now moved fully around to saying it was definitely Hamas in the media, and Israel now claims that it was a Hamas rocket but ALSO that no one died and the casualties are made up.

Anyway, in unrelated news, one of the hospitals that Israel called and threatened they would bomb several days before that hospital was bombed and then again right after it was bombed is currently having a bunch of Israel missiles hit everywhere around it but so far not directly on it. It sure seems like Israel really wants the people of Gaza to know they will bomb hopsitals, regardless of what they tell the US.

[MGuy]

We've got a reported near 1000 Palestines killed in a single act and yet the world wide solidarity that followed immediately in the aftermath of the attack in Israeli territory just isn't here. Over and over and over again it repeats. When people in "certain" countries with a certain skin tone due is a tragedy but when those tragedies are maliciously inflicted on other populations then it's just Tuesday.

This is such bullshit made even worse by the fact that there's no opting out because both of the parties in this damn country are eager to give full support to the continuation of the genocide.

[Kaelik]

The Biden admin is still extremely pro genocide, two weeks later, and just openly responding to questions about "isn't it bad if civilians die" with "look sometimes you have to kill all the dirty browns because you are in a racial war against the Palestinian people."

Also crazed mobs of settlers have been roaming the West Bank murdering and seizing homes more aggressively then normal because the official position of the genocidial Israeli state is that all Palestinians share collective guilt for like 600 dead civilians killed by 1300 Hamas fighters who were all killed in the first two days, and so they are going to kill every single Palestinian.

[Kaelik]

Joe Biden accused the Gazan Health Ministry of lying about death numbers, because he decided to wake up and do some genocide denial of the genocide he supports. This despite that every two fucking years we get actual evidence that the Gazan Health Ministry is very accurate with death dumbers, since they were accurate after action during Operation Hot Winter and Operation Cast Lead and Operation Returing Echo and Operation Pillar Defense and Operation Protective Edge and Operation Black Belt. They are extremely accurate, mostly because they are not in fact white americans and europeans, so an accurate death toll of thousands of fucking people is actually already enough for them to realize what a tradgedy it is that they probably don't realize that when Joe Biden sees thousands of dead Palestinians he says "well if it's just 4 digits of dead, since they are Palestinian I don't give a fuck."

Anyway, no worries, Israel has successfully taken out the last of the Gaza telecommunications infastructure since their previous plan of targetted bombings of journalist families didn't silence Palestinians enough. Aslo they announced their plan to bomb the Ministry of Health headquarters where all the records of deaths are kept, so soon enough no one will be able to dispute Joe Bidens claims that actually 12 Palestinians died and everyone else is hunky dory.

[MGuy]

Thousands of Palestinians dead. Over a million displaced. Local and international doctors, journalists, likely a number of the hostages all killed during this campaign. Biden and a disturbing number of people in the media decide to quibble over whether or not the numbers are exactly right. All while not seeking material means to stop more civilians from dying. If they were 'really' concerned about whether the numbers were accurate to find out they'd still need a damned ceasefire so they could send international agencies in to check.

Thousands have died because the IDF have launched an intentionally genocidal attack on Gaza. They intend to reduce it to rubble. Even if they cared about the safety and security of Israeli state it's evident at this point that these acts will have dire consequences when the blowback inevitably manifests. That's not too mention that tension between the neighboring states have increased. Iran, I heard, has already made statements and attacked. So whether they care about Palestinians (they don't) or security of Israel the Biden administration needs to end the now.

[Kaelik]

With all communications finally blown up, Israel has resumed in mass its use if white phosphorous weapons on Gaza.

At the start of their genocide campaign they briefly fired a few just to test it out but got more backlash then they expected. Now they are using them in such mass that the clouds can be seen from far away, but at least since they blew up all the cables and towers no one in Gaza will be able to show video or photos of what it does and the US president will just say "I think those are hamas white phosphorus weapons."

White House NSC spokesperson says "no red lines" for Israel.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

This is genuinely insane. A week ago I couldnt guess what the hell the plan was for western politicians fully supporting this when a week passed and it was clear that it was an unprecedented atrocity.

Now its already clear and I cant help but wonder what the fucking hell the plan is when the smoke clears and Gaza, and Pallestinians, just aren't there anymore.

Are they going to shrug their shoulders and say "oh gee I guess they just went somewhere else"?

This is not a crime the USA just walks away from. I don't think the fucking octogenarians in charge noticed, but the Iraq atrocity had very real impact on their political capital in both international relations and domestic politics which is arguably THE defining burden on the USA and politicians that participated in it to this day.

This is bigger. And additive.

And not just for the USA. Its the one thing that could prevent Labour from winning in the UK, its the one thing that right now is tearing Ireland apart from the EU. Its destroying the Labor base in Australia. Its like they decided to throw a new Iraq war, only on behalf of the single most hated and openly genocidal nation on earth.

You could not imagine a less popular atrocity to attach your political futures to.

Worse. You compare it to the alternative. I know the wisdom of the boomers is that you can never fail to support Israel. But Biden for instance could turn on Israel right now and win the next presidential so hard people will want to give his fleshless skeleton two more terms.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

Oh and I want to add. Various Western governments may be going for this Media before Reality strategy.

But even that is flawed on its own terms because they do not in actual fact control the corporate media and it has instincts beyond self preservation and towing the war hawk party line.

The media loves putting the boot in on whichever party is slightly to the left and isn't above betraying their pro empire stance to do so. If Biden looks weak enough they WILL hang this on him, same for other Western leaders that aren't Tory or Conservative.

And the media loves the ratings of drama and tragedy. Once it is clear enough (and it will take a lot, but the tipping point is I think pretty close) they will notice public opinion on this and chase it for ratings and party line on forever war atrocities and conventional wisdom be damned.

[Kaelik]

Dick Durbin has become the first Senator to call for a ceasefire. Not first Democratic Senator (which is sometimes used when Sanders has been right on something for a while) but literally first Senator. Meanwhile, Sanders and Warren are still calling for a "humanitarian pause" which is the thing the Israeli lobbying orgs are pushing which has no meaning and no one knows what it is.

Absolutely baffling such a normally god awful senator ended up being the first. Here's to hoping that it opens the floodgates to people not being the dumbest pieces of shit and actually calling for an end to this genocidal bombing campaign.

[Kaelik]

Israel bombed a UN run refugee camp with 7-8 missiles causing massive devesation, and then said "look it was good because there was one Hamas guy we were trying to hit who was either in the camp and we got him, or in secret terror tunnels under the camp and we did notthing we refuse to be clear." They have since bombed that same camp three more times.

Also, that hospital that the IDF bombed and then tried to pin on Hamas for a week until the NYT provided basically conclusive proof that it wasn't the Islamic Jihad rocket that the US and Israel was pretending it was, today they were transporting critical care patients from that hospital to a field hospital in Egypt. The Red Cross was managing the transport, and as always, they informed Israel exactly where and when they would do the transport.

Israel blew up the whole convoy in the hospital parking lot.

Anyway, The Biden Admin has responded by asking for the next 14 billion in arms given to Israel to be secret aid where he doesn't have to report it to congress so that no one can know what bombs he gives to Israel.

[MGuy]

The official who talked to Wolf Blitzer about the refugee bombing also didn't seem certain who they killed and if they killed them and said something to the effect of "We won't know everything until we go in and look". So skipping over the fact that the media is uncritically passing on whatever these people's excuses for their genocide, it is getting real hard for them to ignore the targeting of places where they know civilians (many of whom are children) lethally.

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

They eventually made up a name for the guy they said they targeted in that refugee camp, then even claimed they probably killed him successfully. Most likely because, "there was a Hammas guy, you wouldn't know him he goes to school in Canada" didn't seem to be working as a good excuse.

Even Blitzer was looking horrified on air, though probably only because he felt a dreadful sinking feeling in his personal reputation for trying to humor the officials bloodthirst on live TV.

Then they bombed the camp again.

Then they bombed the camp again.

No further excuses were given they aren't even claiming to be trying to kill non-specific Hammas guys anymore.

I think part of the whole point of their lazy non-excuses for slaughter are that they WANT you to know they don't even give enough of a shit to even try an adequate fig leaf of an excuse. It is MEANT to be in your face atrocity without excuse, that's how acts of terror against a community are intended to work.

[Thaluikhain]

I think part of the whole point of their lazy non-excuses for slaughter are that they WANT you to know they don't even give enough of a shit to even try an adequate fig leaf of an excuse. It is MEANT to be in your face atrocity without excuse, that's how acts of terror against a community are intended to work.

Dunno, it seems even a thin veneer of denial is popular, it gives the apologists something to work with and those in denial can stay that way.

OTOH, wasn't that the way they dealt with their nuclear capability? Not saying they had one, but letting everyone know they did?

[Omegonthesane]

Israel certainly used to be coy about its nuclear weapons program. 'course, its broad existence was always known. or at least that's my excuse for not instantly understanding how serious it is that uhhh googles Amichai Eliyahu casually suggested nuking Gaza in a radio interview.

'cause at first you're like "my god that's a genocidal atrocity how could anyone even suggest it" but then you're like "oh my god he's admitting Israel actually definitely has nuclear weapons"

As for implausible deniability - yes, people generally prefer to have a lie that they can pretend to believe as a test of loyalty, rather than demanding you confess to all the evil you're buying into with the defence that it's Good Actually.

[Kaelik]

Israel's iron dome missiles have started.... misfiring? A few of them have done corkscrews and then slammed into the ground in Israel and some have hit targets in Gaza.

Maybe they were trying to use the iron dome missiles to target Gaza and this change caused the fuck ups because they really arent designed for that or maybe its just a general fuck up with the targeting system.

But yeah Netanyahu announced that Israel would not be using its nukes on Gaza, which besides being obvious because their plan is to take Gaza and settle it, is weirdly the first official recognition of the thing everyone has known since the 80s when they tested a nuke, that Israel has nukes.

[Stahlseele]

You don't shit where you eat.
You don't nuke where you live.
The only reason the US nuked Japan was that it was WAAYY over there!
Nobody wants to deal with the QUITE LITERAL Fallout from that nonsense.
People still remember Chernobyl. People still remember AND PANIC about
fukushima and its emissions especially in the water on the coasts and the
fishing grounds around that area . .

Also:
@MGuy
"Wolf Blitzer"
Tell me that is a made up name . .

[Neo Phonelobster Prime]

...

I'm not really able to engage with poetry, I've never really bothered to learn enough so I can't even tell whether that was haiku, lymeric, iambic pentameter, slam or what.

[MGuy]

Don't really into poetry myself or anything. What I'm getting out of that is that dropping a nuke would be bad for Israel which, yeah. I think it would be.

Wolf Blitzer is a big name among American journalists.