So while Israel is relentlessly attacking Lebanon, Lebanon should help attack itself and “make peace” with tze country that is bullying it, invading it and committing massacres there since 50 years?

And while all this happens it is also getting fucked economically time and time again, and because of the way it was carved out no political faction wants a strong army in fear it could become one sided. So building a strong national army is an extremely challenging task.

Israel and its allies are majorly responsible that Lebanon could never establish itself to the extent of being able to drive out Hezbollah.

It is like telling someone to “stop punsh himself” while forcing his arm and then also punshing with your own free arm too.

Israels economy is also tanking heavily. They have lost some 80 billion over the past year. Their “reverse migration” is stronger than ever.

Unless the West destroys the ICC, Israeli politicians and soldiers could face a trial that will make Nuremberg look like district court, especially as IDF proudly films and shares their war crimes online.

Israel has dived down the deep fascist end. This means political violence and murder will skyrocket. Someone who is used to getting away with murdering women and children and gettin praised for it instead of punished, will slaughter his wife and kids too if they dont obey. You know how femicide and domestic violence are rampant among cops? And only few of them have killed someone.

Once societies go down such a route there is no stopping them until they fall apart. Question is if it will meam genocide to thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions.

Things are much more complicated than “all friends of Russia”

Russia and Iran are competing over influence in Syria. This is why Russia let Israel bomb Iran affiliated groups in Syria. In return Israel sent drones to Russia, didnt join Russian sanctions, and demanded Ukraine to surrender when Russia started the full blown invasion.

Israel is closely allied with Azerbaidschan, having provided much of the drones that were used to fuck Armenia and ethnically cleanse Berkarabach. In return they get most of their Oil from Azerbaidschan and offered it to exploit the Gas fields in front of Gaza that Israel wants to steal.

However Azerbaidschan is also a close ally of Turkey, which is pushed to end its complicity with Israel while the rethoric is much harsher already. Turkey is invading northern Syria, which neither Iran nor Russia like, but Russia also needs Turkey for trade, while Turkey is in NATO…

And that is just beginning to scratch the surface.

You could work to dismantle the system. Heck, if people had joined the uncommitted movement instead of attacking it for their establishment overlords, the Democratic party could have been pushed to offer a candidate against genocide and for genuine social policies.

But people let themselves get gaslighted and happily rallied around their party leaders, despite getting fucked by them.

Problem is you need to price it into the taxes. So the alternative is a mandatory insurance that is done indirectly through taxation.

Now who gets to pay these taxes and who manages to dwindle out of it, using deliberately planted loopholes?

For insurance it is normal that your rate corresponds to your risk. For taxes or social insurance that is not the case. Why should i pay for other people enjoying living dangerously near the sea, in river flooding areas or the like? If i move to such a place, why should others pay for me? What about houses that are built improperly or where protective measures have been neglected?

It is certainly possible to create some sort of public weather insurance. But it has to go along with forcing people to properly build and maintain their houses as well as driving them out of areas, impossible to maintain housing in under climate change. This too will be deeply unpopular.

I think properly regulating insurance businesses is the more frutiful way of going about this.

The US understands very well the different religious factions. The way the West Asia region was carved into countries by the colonial powers is identical to what they did in Africa. Deliberately creating countries with internal conflicts that can be exploited for destabilizing them.

However it is easy to tell apart Siberian ethnicities from Koreans. You can also tell apart Eastern Europeans from Western Europeans, leave alone the fact that Korean is an entirely different language from Russian or the languages of the region.

Edit: regarding the languages. In Buryat people speak dialects of Mongolian. Mongolian has a shared ancestry with Turk languages.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolic_languages

“Lebanon is Hezbollah”. The newest hit single by the IDF known for songs like “UN is Hamas” and “elementary school girl is Hamas”

I have commented this under the article in europe

Regarding sanctions on “individuals”, we have the example of Russia after the 2014 Crimea invasion and annexation.

They dont work.

Also for a country that is considered democratic, government ministers are not some rouge individuals. They also represent the government as a whole, which in turn represent its peoples political will at the time of the election.

For sanctions to be meaningful, they must address the problematic actions of the government as a whole. So cutting diplomatic ties, pulling out of economic agreements, stopping trade in certain parts of the economy, arms embargos and so on.

When and where did they say that?

Israel has announced its intent to starve Gaza on 09. October 2023.

They have only relented slightly when they felt they went too fast for the western allies to ease into the concept. They have reiterated their intent multiple times since, including a minister stating that Israel would starve all 2 million people in Gaza to death, but the west wouldnt let it.

Still we dont see any substantial aid. If you need 500 trucks a day to maintain the most basic needs of people, sending in 50 trucks still means worsening the situation and depriving 90% of the people their needs.

Even the US demanded 350 trucks a day are still below the necessar minimum, so still intended at making things unlivable in the long run.

Blinken is making this decisions and statements in accordance with the rest of the administration, in particular presiden Biden and Vice President, up for President election Kamala Harris.

An anti missile missile is still a missile. If it has a rocket engine, a payload and some sort of guidance system (as opposed to rockets) it is called a missile. And generally if it knows where it is by knowing where it isn’t you have a modern missile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZe5J8SVCYQ

As someone who has fasted for Ramadan the first time this year i can assure you, that nobody was controlling me except myself. While i also felt it to help me physically, it helped me a lot mentally.

I learned to appreciate the abundance of food and water we have and to have more compassion for people lacking it.

I also learned to have more control over my body and differentiate between actual needs and mere wants.

Ramadan does not have rules about what to eat. The rules are when to eat and quie straightforward. During Ramadan you fast from Dawn till sunset, unless fasting poses a risk to your health (sick, children, elderly, pregnant…)

Problem is that without political consequences, the politicians have no interest in addressing the problems.

They fear losing AIPAC money. They dont fear people who say that they will vote them no matter what, because they think they are the lesser of the two evils or something like that.

They dont care who you are or what you want. They dont care if you are doing well or getting fucked royally by their policies. They only care if you vote for them or not.

These are not rules of Islam though. On the contrary Islam made many rules of Judaism obsolete, taking away complication in religion. Islam also provided a much clearer theology than Christianity and specifically rejects the “trinity”, “holy people” and other concepts contrary to the oneness of god.

What the Taliban and other Salafi/Wahabi people do, is quite fringe and it is infuriating that the Brits and later the Americans helped the Saudis to seize power in Arabia and furthered these extremist interpretations.

I fail to get the distinction. Disagreeing/agreeing and disrespecting/respecting are two different concepts to me.

Since this was an employment tribunal i would assume the ruling also applies to all sorts of employments under labor protection laws. I don’t care if my boss agrees with me politically or not. But he better damn not be disrespecting/persecuting me for my political beliefs.

Obviously the “democratic society” is integral to it anyways. E.g. there is no need or expectation for pluralism under an authoritarian regime. Meanwhile democratic societies can and should impose certain limits, like when it comes to dehumanization and calls for crimes against people based on their ethnicity, religion, gender…

Obligatory recommendation of the “Hypernormalisation” documentary by Adam Curtis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr7T07WfIhM

The term was coined by a Russian novelist during the last years of the Sowjet Union, when the disparity between the lies of normality and the reality of people became so strong, that the fake normality became “Hypernormal”. Curtis explores the applicability of this term in regards to global politics, that increasingly went from shaping reality, to managing it.

Defense officials who were asked to respond to the Eiland plan pointed out that it violated international law and that the chances of the United States and the international community supporting it were virtually zero. They said it would further undermine the legitimacy of Israel’s entire Gaza offensive.

Well, it is almost two weeks now that northern Gaza is under total siege, Ambulances and Hospitals are out of fuel, Children are being massacred with drones, and the US announced sending troops to Israel and Germany annoujced to continue arms shipments…

While somewhat sane countries are demanding arms embargos and sanctions on Israel, its lap-dogs remain steadfast in supporting it, no matter how much they get beaten and pissed on by their master.

Yeah, this is what is confusing me. Every article i found spoke of a murder conviction, which in Germany should always be “lebenslang”