40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

[truthpaste]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Whilst my feelings are aligned and equally disaheartend, I am surprised that people are surprised. As you say the Arab-Jew problem is perennial. But the new causes of tension have taken on added complexity, with Russia and China assisting Iran’s agitations.........

The only difference in this decade is that China and Russia are providing military, financial and political influence to it, as it suits their long term strategic agenda of also removing Western influence in the region, and grabbing the oil and minerals for themselves at knock-down, off-market prices.

Radio 5 callers just see “another war” and humanitarian issues, which is reasonable. They cannot seem to see the big picture, or are willfully ignoring it as it is a hard pill to swallow. Many simplistic or well-meaning people don’t want to believe that national political actors can be so cold, strategic, calculating and ruthless, and arguably inhumane.

The Middle East has been a geo-political chessboard for several centuries now. If people can switch on their awareness to this they will form a more realistic assessment of how messy it is, and likely always will be.

Indeed, and it's been interesting to see here that most people in this discussion share that "Radio 5 callers" perspective.
Thanks for also sharing the deeper picture including Iran, China & Russia, which also explains a lot of what is to come.

[Gofer Blue]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

While I share your desire to see him live it in his everyday life to prove he is truly serving Christ, the emphasis on baptism will potentially be misleading to many. As I mentioned yesterday, religious ceremonies have no direct impact on a persons eternal destiny, and can only point (as baptism after repentance does) to a commitment that has already taken place; the Bible says, 'believe and be baptised', because it's faith in Christ that saves, and not any religious act or man-made ceremony.

I understand what you mean by baptism sometimes being misleading. Baptism is the outward sign to others that a person has already accepted Christ rather than the act of being baptised somehow makes a person an instant Christian! Only Russell Brand himself can know that in his heart.

[Gofer Blue]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

So much for the ceasefire as the IDF take over control of the Rafah crossing and prepare for the main assault there. If the news is to be believed three Hamas tunnels have apparently been discovered there this morning.

[Taunton Blue Genie]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

I understand what you mean by baptism sometimes being misleading. Baptism is the outward sign to others that a person has already accepted Christ rather than the act of being baptised somehow makes a person an instant Christian! Only Russell Brand himself can know that in his heart.

I am trying not to get involved with the fruitless religious debates on here but as far as Russell Brand is concerned: he used to be a drug addict, a Buddhist, a sex addict, a bulimic, a porn addict, a self-harmer. He suffers from ADHD and is now accused of numerous sexual misdemenours. It's tempting to think that anything he gets involved with may be intense but ephemeral.

[truthpaste]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

I am trying not to get involved with the fruitless religious debates on here but as far as Russell Brand is concerned: he used to be a drug addict, a Buddhist, a sex addict, a bulimic, a porn addict, a self-harmer. He suffers from ADHD and is now accused of numerous sexual misdemenours. It's tempting to think that anything he gets involved with may be intense but ephemeral.

Many people have an intense spiritual experience but that is no guarantee of becoming a genuine Christian?
It's about a total transformation from within which is endorsed and permanently sealed by God, not a flash in the pan. This means that if it is the real thing, his countless 'misdemenours' will have no impact on what has happened to him now.

Saul (Paul) was a murderer of Christians, his life was turned upside down after he met with Christ.

We shall all be watching.

[Gofer Blue]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

I am trying not to get involved with the fruitless religious debates on here but as far as Russell Brand is concerned: he used to be a drug addict, a Buddhist, a sex addict, a bulimic, a porn addict, a self-harmer. He suffers from ADHD and is now accused of numerous sexual misdemenours. It's tempting to think that anything he gets involved with may be intense but ephemeral.

Apart from that, just a regular guy then?

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

We shall all be watching.

No we all won’t.

[truthpaste]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Apart from that, just a regular guy then?

Fair point.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68984999

[stevo]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders

About time too.

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Hamas leaders

About time too.

Long overdue.

Shows the amount of pressure on them from the USA and parts of Europe.

When it came to Russia-Ukraine the ICC moved much more quickly.

[the other bob wilson]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Biden calls the decision “outrageous”, somehow I don’t think he was talking about.the Hamas part of it.

[JamesWales]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Not withstanding the serious issue at play here, there is one of the oddest videos I've ever seen. It's like something from Armando Iannucci.

What the hell are the two people in the background doing?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3ggpe3qj6wo

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Biden calls the decision “outrageous”, somehow I don’t think he was talking about.the Hamas part of it.

There is a very good chance Biden was not complicit in any Hamas crimes.

It is absolutely certain he is complicit and has enabled the crimes of Netanyahu, Gallant and the other members of the Israeli War Cabinet not named (yet).

No wonder he's 'outraged'. How dare the upholders of international law point the finger at a US ally. That should only happen to the other lot!

[jon1959]

Re: 40 Killed In Hamas Attacks In Israel

Biden calls the decision “outrageous”, somehow I don’t think he was talking about.the Hamas part of it.

It looks as if Biden will pay a price in the election. Well written opinion piece here:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/21/biden-gaza-2024-election

Biden is in no way guaranteed re-election, and all available information suggests that the contest will be close. Donald Trump has been narrowly but consistently ahead in national polls. A new dataset released by the New York Times on 13 May found that Biden was trailing in five key swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania – and suffering from disillusionment among young voters as well as Black and Latino ones.

-

What’s driving this discontent among young voters and voters of color – those cornerstones of Biden’s coalition that were so key to his 2020 victory over Trump in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania? There are several factors, but one issue remains consistent in these voters’ accounts of their dissatisfaction with Biden: his handling of Israel’s assault on Gaza.

The indiscriminate bombing and civilian massacres that have accompanied Israel’s assault on Palestinians are a moral catastrophe that has shaken many Americans’ souls. The United Nations now estimates that more than 35,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the start of the fighting. Since many human bodies are buried beneath the rubble of Gaza’s bombed homes, schools and hospitals, that number is likely to be a significant undercount. The dead are mostly women and children; those men who have died are also overwhelmingly non-combatants. More than 1,000 children in Gaza have lost limbs to Israel’s war of revenge.

If that figure cannot shake you into moral recognition, consider that many of those children have endured their amputations without anesthesia, since medicine – like food – has largely been prohibited from being delivered to Gaza by Israeli authorities. More than 75% of Gaza’s population is now displaced, according to the UN; they have left homes, worlds, entire lives that they will never be able to retrieve. More than 1.5 million people are now sheltering in Rafah, the strip’s southernmost city, which Israel is currently bombing and is poised to invade. Many human rights advocates and experts in international law have described Israel’s actions against Gazans as genocide. The death toll will keep climbing.

Many voters believe, with good reason, that none of this would have happened without Biden’s assent. Biden has continued to speak of Israel’s attack on Palestinian civilians using the absurd language of “self-defense”. He has insulted Jewish Americans and the memory of the Holocaust by invoking them to justify the slaughter. And though his White House repeatedly leaks that he is “privately” dismayed by Israel’s conduct of the war, he has done little to stop the flow of US money and guns that support it.

-

Biden’s supporters are quick to point out that the alternative to Biden’s re-election will be dramatically worse, both for Americans domestically, and for those Palestinians who suffer as a result of US policy. And they are right. Biden supporters are right, too, that voting is a binary choice, between the options available. And they are right that abstaining from voting hastens a statistically likely Trump victory.

But these lesser-of-two-evils argument do not lessen the tax on the conscience that many anti-war Americans will feel when they consider whether to vote for Biden in spite of his support for the genocide in Gaza. And they are certainly not justifications for Biden’s continued aid to Israel’s war project. Rather, the extreme dangers of a second Trump presidency are all the more cause for Biden to abandon this support, and to align himself with the moral cause championed by the voters he needs.