Capping off community wells is really criminal.
Hard to imagine how people let Israel get away with it?
Israel's War on Civilization
- Thread starter sear
- Start date
Capping off community wells is really criminal.
Hard to imagine how people let Israel get away with it?
Shiftless2
Well-known member
During a show in Cyprus, comedian Victor Patrascan cleverly countered an Israeli audience member who asked him to distinguish between Israelis and their government. His sharp retort was: “But you are the only democracy in the Middle East, sir.... you choose your government.”
Shiftless2
Well-known member
Alright.
Is this due to conscience-driven divestiture? Or authoritarian secrecy?
Shiftless2
Well-known member
{...
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s parliament is set to vote on a bill that would make the death penalty the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis.
The parliament began debate on Monday, days before its spring recess. The bill’s passage would mark the culmination of a yearslong push by Israel’s far-right to escalate punishment for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic offenses against Israelis — and victory for Israel’s firebrand minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the religious party that introduced the legislation.
Opponents of the legislation call it racist, draconian and unlikely to deter attacks by Palestinian militants. The legislation calls for the death penalty to go into effect within 30 days, though rights groups are expected to petition Israel’s Supreme Court against it.
In the lead-up to the vote, Ben Gvir has popularized the measure with a small noose pinned to his lapel — an overt reference to the bill’s execution method of choice.
“With God’s help, we will fully implement this law and kill our enemies,” he said after the bill received approval to be brought to a final vote, adding it was “the most important law” to be approved by parliament in recent years.
Ben Gvir’s party is crucial to the coalition helmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The bill instructs military courts to mete out the sentence to those convicted of murdering an Israeli “as an act of terror.” Such courts try only West Bank Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens. The bill says military courts can change the penalty to life imprisonment in “special circumstances.”
Israeli courts, which try Israeli citizens, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, can choose between life imprisonment or the death penalty in cases of murder aiming to harm Israeli citizens and residents or “with the intent of rejecting the existence of the state of Israel.”
Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, said this distinction is discriminatory.
“It will apply in territories with military courts, which are Palestinian courts. It will apply in Israeli courts, but only to terrorist activities that are motivated by the wish to undermine the existence of Israel. That means Jews will not be indicted under this law,” he said.
...}
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s parliament is set to vote on a bill that would make the death penalty the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of murdering Israelis.
The parliament began debate on Monday, days before its spring recess. The bill’s passage would mark the culmination of a yearslong push by Israel’s far-right to escalate punishment for Palestinians convicted of nationalistic offenses against Israelis — and victory for Israel’s firebrand minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the religious party that introduced the legislation.
Opponents of the legislation call it racist, draconian and unlikely to deter attacks by Palestinian militants. The legislation calls for the death penalty to go into effect within 30 days, though rights groups are expected to petition Israel’s Supreme Court against it.
In the lead-up to the vote, Ben Gvir has popularized the measure with a small noose pinned to his lapel — an overt reference to the bill’s execution method of choice.
“With God’s help, we will fully implement this law and kill our enemies,” he said after the bill received approval to be brought to a final vote, adding it was “the most important law” to be approved by parliament in recent years.
Ben Gvir’s party is crucial to the coalition helmed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
What's in the bill?
Critics include Israelis and Palestinians, international rights groups and the United Nations. They say that it establishes a hierarchy between Israeli court systems in a way that will confine the death penalty to Palestinians convicted of murdering Jewish citizens of Israel.The bill instructs military courts to mete out the sentence to those convicted of murdering an Israeli “as an act of terror.” Such courts try only West Bank Palestinians, who are not Israeli citizens. The bill says military courts can change the penalty to life imprisonment in “special circumstances.”
Israeli courts, which try Israeli citizens, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, can choose between life imprisonment or the death penalty in cases of murder aiming to harm Israeli citizens and residents or “with the intent of rejecting the existence of the state of Israel.”
Amichai Cohen, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute’s Center for Democratic Values and Institutions, said this distinction is discriminatory.
“It will apply in territories with military courts, which are Palestinian courts. It will apply in Israeli courts, but only to terrorist activities that are motivated by the wish to undermine the existence of Israel. That means Jews will not be indicted under this law,” he said.
...}
That's fine matt.
Problem is, the comforting pastel world of unambiguous right and wrong is fiction.
I'm not any more delighted about that than you are matt, just perhaps decades / generations inured to it.
It's more complicated than this, but partisan politics is enough to explain it.
Elected public servants with benefit of political party endorsement are required to pay a price for that political support.
The example you cite may well be one example where a congressman's vote does not reflect the politician's individual policy position,
but instead the party line.
Bottom line, when political party membership applies, until any individual has premier leadership authority, they cannot be counted on to adhere to their own standards.
There are rare exceptions. Minnesota's Governor Ventura squeaked into office with about a third of the vote in a 3 way race.
Ventura seemed like a sensible candidate. Problem is, as a 3rd party member he had no fellow party members to support him in the Minnesota legislature.
Jesse Ventura's tenure ended with a fizzle.
I sometimes think that the 2 party system we have is at fault.
It automatically causes unnecessary polarization.
Candidates are coerced to follow the party line on all subjects, even if the majority of the people would prefer something else.
I sometimes think a one party system might be better, because then all candidates and all views would all get an equal chance.
Regardless of how many candidates run, you could do voting where candidates are ranked, so you can avoid having to do a primary first.
Something has to be done to reduce the current hypocrisy, since general stance of the Republicans was supposed to be no war, balanced budgets, and restricting government growth.
Yet Trump has started 2 unnecessary wars, added the most to the national debt, and created a huge private army of ICE agents who are not even represented by a union.
"Sometimes"?
Steady.
You & I know what U.S. politics is like WITH partisanship.
We can only guess at what it would be like WITHOUT it. Out of the frying pan, into the fire?
It would CERTAINLY be different. Whether it would be an improvement or not, a separate issue.
I'm not sure mine is merely a semantic distinction / quibble here. How about a no party system? After all,
our members of congress (MOC) have sworn an oath of fidelity to the Constitution.
Problem is, time & again Republicans have demonstrated their partisanship is a higher priority to them than citizenship.
That might seem reason enough to reconsider political parties in the U.S.
In any case the GOP has been so horrendously disfigured, first by GWB, & now Trump,
the Republican party would be unrecognizable to Eisenhower, Goldwater, & perhaps Reagan.
Replacing it would be about as politically traumatic as attempting to resuscitate it.
To me the appeal of that is:
in primary elections candidates swing to the extreme, to get the most votes from their own party. BUT !
Then in the general election, they swing to the center, to get the most votes from the whole electorate.
It's politics.
I don't care for it.
... and retains substantial support from Republicans despite the price of oil $doubling in a month. And we're back to the partisanship trumps citizenship thing.
"Sometimes"?
Steady.
You & I know what U.S. politics is like WITH partisanship.
We can only guess at what it would be like WITHOUT it. Out of the frying pan, into the fire?
It would CERTAINLY be different. Whether it would be an improvement or not, a separate issue.
I'm not sure mine is merely a semantic distinction / quibble here. How about a no party system? After all,
our members of congress (MOC) have sworn an oath of fidelity to the Constitution.
Problem is, time & again Republicans have demonstrated their partisanship is a higher priority to them than citizenship.
That might seem reason enough to reconsider political parties in the U.S.
In any case the GOP has been so horrendously disfigured, first by GWB, & now Trump,
the Republican party would be unrecognizable to Eisenhower, Goldwater, & perhaps Reagan.
Replacing it would be about as politically traumatic as attempting to resuscitate it.
To me the appeal of that is:
in primary elections candidates swing to the extreme, to get the most votes from their own party. BUT !
Then in the general election, they swing to the center, to get the most votes from the whole electorate.
It's politics.
I don't care for it.
... and retains substantial support from Republicans despite the price of oil $doubling in a month. And we're back to the partisanship trumps citizenship thing.
But you have a good point in that a zero party system might be even better than 1 party?
Not sure.
I would need to see what current examples there are and how they worked out?
Me too.
My intended counterpoint is:
rather than being beholden (officially or not) to other co-workers,
demonstrate primary loyalty DIRECTLY to the Constitution.
There would likely be unforeseen / unintended consequences.
The question is, would they be worse than what we have now.
- - - -
It makes me feel like a wild-eyed radical. I remain absolutely dumbfounded that Trump was allowed on any political ballot in the U.S.
whether for Republican primary, or
for general presidential election.
BUT !
Despite Trump's conspicuous direct involvement in Jan. 6, he was still allowed to
- run again, &
- win.
insanity