How dare Israel do this immediately after receiving a strongly worded letter from the US administration about letting aid into Gaza? Don't they realize they're on track to get another stern warning, or maybe even a disapproving phone call?

I don't know about getting them to build vehicles, but one thing Trump's children are good at is treating their charity like a personal line of credit and pretending to run it while actually doing nothing. Or at least they were until NY Attorney General Letitia James forced them to own up, dissolve the organization, and agree to restrictions on future charity work + training.

Who knows? Maybe they'd all find something actually honest to be good at if they spent some time on an assembly line.

Strawman much? Care to explain how you arrived at that accusation of dehumanization based on what was written about the technical details of missiles?

Nowhere did I say it was offensive. If you skipped the article and assumed, that's on you. Yes you are being pedantic because you're trying to discredit me on a technicality that does not have any merit to anyone who spends even 30 seconds reading the details I explicitly provide. By any reasonable definition it's a multi-billion dollar set of batteries that use missiles, and no one who reads the article thinks it's being used for offense.

Edit: I see that you changed the post to say it screams bias/agenda. My bias is against huge amounts of funding enabling the slaughter and starvation of some of the poorest and most desparate people in the world. Given that US military aid is at 17.9 billion since Oct. 7th, and the conservative death toll is over 42k + starvation, abuse, etc. that's not even hyperbole. My agenda with that post is to point out the escalation of US involvement which this deployment definitely is, and how it's happening simultaneous to the strongly worded letter. I'm fully willing to own both.

I'm not a weapons expert, the article I linked identifies what it's meant for by the 2nd paragraph, and if you want to be pedantic THAADs exclusively fire missiles. Unit cost: $1.25 billion per battery $12.6 million per missile. Same page has diagrams detailing the "THAAD missiles".

Also: "Although the actual figures are classified, THAAD missiles have an estimated range of 125 miles (200 km), and can reach an altitude of 93 miles (150 km). A THAAD battery consists of at least six launcher vehicles, each equipped with eight missiles..."

On the same week they moved a multi-billion dollar set of missile systems into Israel along with putting US troops on the ground there for the first time. The Biden administration and Congress in general have been issuing warnings and "expressing concerns" for almost a year now. Stories about blocked aid and US demands to fix it go back for months. Actions speak louder than words, and by now all credibility has been squeezed out of responses like this.

Biden is a self-proclaimed unshakable Zionist, the politically potent arms manufacturers are having a field day, and the US has been ignoring both international law and their own laws like Leahy for a while now. I'll believe this letter is more than just election season pageantry when the arms and money actually stops, not before (and I don't think I'm alone in that regard).

P.S. Don't let either party or relevant PACs off the hook, don't stop pointing out this BS, but if you're American still vote to keep Trump out of office for many obvious reasons.

I have zero proof of this so take it for the musing it is, but the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine can be used to view articles that have been taken offline (sometimes for political reasons). The IA is a very accessible way to prove that once something is on the Internet, it's out there forever. I used it in a recent post to show an Israeli newspaper article that argued Israel had a right to not just Palestine, but Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and other territories. It was taken off the newspaper's website a few days later, but IA had it.

This may explain why no one is taking credit, and there are no demands. Or it could very well be another reason, including people just being assholes.

Yeah, and what kind of psychos would want to restrict public access to books in libraries?!?! I'm not on the conspiracy train until there's proof and I agree with your post. Just saw a bit of irony there since a lot of North Americans are currently in the process of dismantling libraries.

I find some irony in corporate Reddit unilaterally bullying mods when the reason that I'm here on Lemmy is because so many mods acted like petty tyrants to me and other users. Reddit is full of institutionalized bullying and sorting users into echo chambers of whatever brand of hate and slurs the sub mods are into. It pains me to see so many users still on that site and I hope most of them are bots because Reddit was not good for my mental health at least.

Here's the Internet Wayback Machine archived version to once again prove that once something's on the internet it's never really deleted. The author talks about conquering and claiming Lebanon as land promised to "Greater Israel" and a lot more:

"This term refers to the concept of the biblical boundaries of the Land of Israel as promised to the Jewish people in various parts of the Torah. It is often associated with the land described in the Covenant with Avraham (Brit Bein HaBetarim), which stretches from the "River of Egypt" (interpreted by some as the Nile or a smaller river in Sinai) to the Perat River. This expansive region includes parts of modern-day Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq."

The article finishes by saying:

"War and Conquest: The concept of milchemet mitzvah (a commanded war) includes conquering certain territories that were promised in the Torah. If new land is identified as part of the biblical borders, there may be halachic discussions about the obligation to conquer and settle it.

The River Perat, commonly identified with the Euphrates River, is situated in the Middle East. It flows through several countries, including Turkey, Syria, and Iraq, before emptying into the Persian Gulf. In biblical contexts, the Euphrates River is often mentioned as a significant boundary in the promises made to the Jewish people regarding the Land of Israel.

If one looks at a map, they will be astounded by how far north this river extends and how vast the Land of Israel truly is. While we may not be able to reclaim all of it in our time, Hashem will surely return it to us soon."

That sounds like the perfect beverage to keep my reactions razor sharp while I enjoy the split-second thrills of playing League of Legends with my attractive, ethnically diverse friends.

Oops, my mistake. I think I read that she represents Georgia and mistook that to mean more than is actually the case. I'll edit that and thanks for correcting me! At least that makes it a bit better if not exactly great.

I have no idea how/why some people decided that she's the exemplar that should be representing them.

Just to get it out of the way at the start - Hamas is terrible. They are violent fundamentalists and do not deserve support. Neither Israel nor Hamas are "good" and the only side that deserves support and recognition are the civilians, Israeli or Palestinian, suffering because of/under their evil regimes. Now on to the rebuttal.

Israel needs no "baiting" to kill or otherwise abuse Palestinians - it's their policy and has been for a long time. From the Nakba until today, the history of Israeli human rights violations, violence, lies, etc. is well-established. "Look at what you made me do" is such a typical excuse used by abusers that it's almost a trope. Moreover, Netanyahu's government deliberately kept Hamas in power as a useful bogeyman and an way to divide/foil Palestinian statehood. There is ample evidence that Israel has directly supported Hamas and other extremists for decades.

"Hamas, for its part, is alleged to have emerged out of the Israeli-financed Islamist movement in Gaza, Israel’s then-military governor in that territory, Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, disclosing in 1981 that he had been given a budget for funding Palestinian Islamists to counter the rising power of Palestinian secularists."

"In a 1994 book, “The Other Side of Deception,” Mossad whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky contended that aiding Hamas meshed with “Mossad’s general plan” for an Arab world “run by fundamentalists” that would reject “any negotiations with the West,” thereby leaving Israel as “the only democratic, rational country in the region.” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official involved in Gaza for over two decades, told a newspaper interviewer in 2009 that, “Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation.”

As far as the nature of the demands: "one-sided deals" is a matter of opinion, but "we need guarantees you'll actually leave, stop killing/injuring many tens of thousands of civilians, destroying hospitals/schools/aid, etc." seems like a pretty standard request at peace negotiations. Especially since Israel has repeatedly promised to continue to prosecute the war and establish long-term armed forces in Gaza.

If he can follow up on even a portion of what he promises, a 2nd Trump presidency will bring the USA to a halt at multiple levels like a car hitting a reinforced wall. The best version of a Trump presidency is him raging daily as he's blocked constantly by legal challenges and bureaucratic measures thus getting nothing done. The worst version is that he succeeds in his goals, reforms the USA into a right-wing autocracy and destroys things like checks/balances and separation of church and state.

There's nothing damning after the "but" though. What part specifically of "but unfortunately they are the folks bargaining for Gazans" do you take issue with? That's the provable reality of the negotiations. I even call it unfortunate.

Israel has repeatedly stated their intent to continue the war in Gaza regardless of international approval. Netanyahu, among others, has stated intent to establish a long-term/permanent security presence in Gaza.

Since Oct. 7th the Israeli military has either directly killed or provided protection to lethal settler attacks in the West Bank, resulting in over 500 deaths in a section of Occupied Palestinian Territory that theoretically isn't at war. So there's Israeli military presence, violence, and oppression of Palestinians even where Hamas isn't in control.

Hamas are not good guys by any stretch, but unfortunately they are the folks bargaining for Gazans. In the face of continued Israeli aggression, disregard for international approval/law, and stated plans it's no wonder they're demanding that any deals have rock-solid guarantees on an enforceable timetable.

No. You said "Biden is great". I said, "I acknowledge he's done some good, I still disagree, and here's a concise list of reasons why. In spite of that, I'm willing to get on board to fight Trump". You replied (and this is an exact quote): "I talk about how Biden’s done great, and you talk about how he’s not Trump", completely disregarding that I directly addressed why I don't think Biden is great. I did NOT just talk about how he's not Trump.

How am I arguing in bad faith? That is the sequence of events, and it's easily confirmed. I'm also not calling you out just because you didn't watch the video. I'm saying you didn't watch AND disregarded that I explicitly gave you the video as a source for my disagreement with you to instead say I focus on "not Trump". Now you've doubled down with a response that paints me as arguing in bad faith and linking that to insults/abuse. I never insulted you. Disagreeing is not inherently a slur or abusive, nor is pointing out the holes in an rebuttal. If you don't have time to watch the vid that's understandable but wait to respond until you do or at least don't say I only focused on "not Trump" when that's provably not the case.

So you won't spend 90 seconds to watch the criticisms laid out, but you'll take the time to tell me they are all either nonexistent or invalid?

Biden has done some good things. I disagree that he's great. If you want specifics, the first 90 seconds of that Sanders video is him detailing several grievances I agree with in a clear, concise and fairly complete list. However, to quote Sanders: "But while we may have our disagreements with Biden, it's important to take a minute to think about what a Trump presidency would mean to our country, and in fact the world."

I know what needs to be done which is why I stopped encouraging/supporting 3rd party or undecided voting months ago. I could go on a lot longer, but that's the bottom line. I'll join the effort to stop Trump - just don't ask me to agree that my concerns are invalid or have been adequately addressed.