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i read the other day that we could be looking at the biggest shift in global power since the end of the Second World War - mad times
 
Israel has portrayed the movement as a terrorist ploy by Hamas, pointing out attempts to damage and breach the fence. The army said it had almost doubled the number of troops surrounding Gaza and in the occupied West Bank on Monday.

“The rioters are hurling firebombs and explosive devices towards the security fence and IDF forces, and are burning tires, throwing rocks and launching flaming objects in order to ignite fires in Israeli territory and harm IDF troops,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

Israel’s military said its troops had killed three “terrorists” attempting to place an explosive device adjacent to the fence in the southern area of the strip “under the cover of violent riots”.

It said a fighter jet had also struck five “terrorist targets” in what it described as a Hamas military training facility in Gaza. It added that the strike was “in response to the violent acts of the last few hours being carried out by Hamas along the security fence.”

Naftali Bennett, Israel’s education minister, told Israel Radio that anyone who approached the fence would be considered a terrorist. A foreign ministry spokesman labelled protesters “murderous rioters”.

No Israeli has been harmed since the protests began on 30 March.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...they-are-risking-lives-in-us-embassy-protests

imagine the reaction if iran machine gunned thousands of unarmed protestors down today. there'd already be cruise missiles in the air.

"hypocrites" is far too kind a word for these monsters.
 
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move along. nothing to see here. only a white house spokesperson referring to Gaza as "southern Israel"
 
Fucking Netanyahu & right-wing Israelis!

But please remember that there ARE Progressive Jews in America and Israel who are against this kind of violence from the IDF and right-wing policies!


I'm not Jewish but have known progressive Jews and rabbis.
Look up "J" Street the progressive Jewish Lobbying group. I know they are sickened by this! It's that right-wing Jews get the most attention here in the media! :angry: :(

Progressive Jews support 2 State solution many w East Jeruselam being the Palistine Capital, hate the expansion of the Settlements. And promote friendship w the Palistanians.
 
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i wonder how much overlap there is between the people who said about syrian refugees that "they should stay and fight for their country if it's so bad there" and those who are saying today about the palestinians that "they deserved to be shot for being near that fence and they should have stayed home and shut up if they didn't want to die". :hmm:
 
The Palestinians live in Bantustans. The only ones not willing to accept that as fact are right wing Israelis and right wing Americans along with the Evangelicals who generously want to give Israel to the Jews so to bring on the second coming where most Jews will die and a small number of lucky ones will convert. These are the honest brokers that Netanyahu works with.
 
Those preachers at the opening were fucking nutjobs. Even Mittens (!) called them bigots.

It’s all about provocation to excite the base so they show up in November and attempt to avert disaster.

Also, protestors are now “violence provokers.”
 
Irvine511 said:
Those preachers at the opening were fucking nutjobs. Even Mittens (!) called them bigots.

It’s all about provocation to excite the base so they show up in November and attempt to avert disaster.

Also, protestors are now “violence provokers.”
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Mitt's tweet brings up anitram's interesting point...

'Robert Jeffress says “you can’t be saved by being a Jew,“ and “Mormonism is a heresy from the pit of hell.” He’s said the same about Islam. Such a religious bigot should not be giving the prayer that opens the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.'

The relationship between the Christian Right and the Israeli State is super interesting, in light of the traditional Christian Doctrine of Hell. I suppose Mitt can avoid being a hypocrite here in that LDS hell doctrine is a good bit looser, depending on whom you talk to.

But it's also interesting when people who aren't conservative Christians accuse people of bigotry for making statements about non-Christians going to hell. On one hand, I really dislike the traditionalist Christian Doctrine of Hell (I say this as a progressive Christian who doesn't meaningfully believe in hell), and I do think it's a bigoted belief. On the other hand, it's probably held by like 50% of the US population, and so I struggle with just calling out high-profile examples of it as if it's just some small, vocal enemy that believes it. Hell doctrine - the view that non-Christians go to hell - is held by a very, very large swath of the American population, which most likely includes, say, Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate (though Ryan may have been nicer to the LDS Church in particular), and the vast majority of the people who voted for Romney/Ryan.

So yeah - I think that the Doctrine of Hell is a shitty view, but it's not like we can say "omg evil megachurch pastor" and wash our hands of it, because it's all over society.
 
These pastors also believe God sends hurricanes to destroy New Orleans because of gay pride parades, and part of the reason so many may believe in this “everyone goes to hell but me” doctrine is because people like this tell them it’s true.

I feel like 50% is pretty high tho.
 
Irvine511 said:
These pastors also believe God sends hurricanes to destroy New Orleans because of gay pride parades, and part of the reason so many may believe in this “everyone goes to hell but me” doctrine is because people like this tell them it’s true.

I feel like 50% is pretty high tho.
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True, there's real culpability there.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not trying to defend Jeffress at all. I think that comments about hurricanes hitting New Orleans because of gay rights are loathsome, and completely disagree with how the vast majority of the broader Christian church handles LGBTQ+ issues (i.e. by being anything less than affirming).

The only point I'm trying to make is that views that we deem as backwards and deeply, deeply harmful are held by an astonishingly large part of society. These sort of pastors help to spread it, for sure - but it's also back by hundreds of years of damaging theology and tradition that persists, and to an extent people like Jeffress are reflecting that. Criticize Jeffress away, Romney - I agree fully. But it's worth a recognition that we can't just blame "the evildoers" here; there's a really painful recognition that so much of American society believes this stuff, and I don't think it's just a matter of criticizing the spiritual leaders at the top. Romney could rightfully critique most of his voting base for believing the same thing. And for society to move away from this attitude would require changing a lot of minds.

50% may be high, I don't know - I live in Texas, and it's certainly high here. Certainly non-Christians aren't going to buy into traditionalist hell stuff; nor will many of the the large number of apathetic Christmas/Easter Christians in this country. But among practicing Christians, it's only fringe-ish heretics like myself (basically some Episcopalians and Methodists) who don't buy into traditional hell doctrine. In other words... the doctrine is pretty widespread.
 
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digitize said:
But it's also interesting when people who aren't conservative Christians accuse people of bigotry for making statements about non-Christians going to hell. On one hand, I really dislike the traditionalist Christian Doctrine of Hell (I say this as a progressive Christian who doesn't meaningfully believe in hell), and I do think it's a bigoted belief. On the other hand, it's probably held by like 50% of the US population, and so I struggle with just calling out high-profile examples of it as if it's just some small, vocal enemy that believes it. Hell doctrine - the view that non-Christians go to hell - is held by a very, very large swath of the American population, which most likely includes, say, Mitt Romney's vice presidential candidate (though Ryan may have been nicer to the LDS Church in particular), and the vast majority of the people who voted for Romney/Ryan.

So yeah - I think that the Doctrine of Hell is a shitty view, but it's not like we can say "omg evil megachurch pastor" and wash our hands of it, because it's all over society.
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have you seen the film "Come Sunday"? based on a true story - caught it the other day on netflix and highly recommend!
 
anitram said:
The Palestinians live in Bantustans. The only ones not willing to accept that as fact are right wing Israelis and right wing Americans along with the Evangelicals who generously want to give Israel to the Jews so to bring on the second coming where most Jews will die and a small number of lucky ones will convert. These are the honest brokers that Netanyahu works with.
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100% hit the nail on the head

out of all the evil in the world, these destructive evangelical crazies are the worst - and the biggest threat to peace
 
Danny Boy said:
North Korea is playing games again.

I'm going to laugh my ass off if they jerk the rug out from under Trump's only foreign policy achievement.
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This reminds me of the guy who said they would be enjoying a market crash more if they didn't have so much of their retirement invested and if it meant the "herd would turn on the orange one." Oh wait, that was you.

I get it, you hate President Trump, but when people make comments like this it really says more about the person saying them than anything else. I didn't vote for the guy either, but I will certainly not laugh my ass off if things don't go well with Korea, the stock market...etc.
 
Meh, if things don't go well with North Korea, then they never really were and they've just been stringing this administration along the whole time.

I'm going to laugh at all the people calling for Trump to get the Nobel Peace Prize when he hasn't even closed the deal. I wonder what the Nobel committee thinks of him being responsible for the murder of 60 Palestinians.
 
ImOuttaControl said:
This reminds me of the guy who said they would be enjoying a market crash more if they didn't have so much of their retirement invested and if it meant the "herd would turn on the orange one." Oh wait, that was you.

I get it, you hate President Trump, but when people make comments like this it really says more about the person saying them than anything else. I didn't vote for the guy either, but I will certainly not laugh my ass off if things don't go well with Korea, the stock market...etc.
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I'll have a hearty HAR HAR when North Korea tells Trump to fuck off.

What that says of me as a person is that I'm actually smart enough to know that a) Kim is full of shit, and they had zero ability to hit the US mainland, and b) Trump's an asshole so fuck him, and fuck anyone who still supports him.

North Korea is a distraction. His real foreign policy play is to turn the middle east into a blazing inferno. Again. This is one area where he's actually been successful. The only other area where he's ever been successful is at convincing dopes that he's a good businessman.
 
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Yeah, Trump’s preemptive spiking of the football on this deserves all the mocking and derision it will get if this falls through.

Obviously, a good outcome is preferred, but when you’ve reduced life and death politics to a team sport, this kind of “in your face, Flanders” is inevitable.
 
Trump is getting a hard lesson in deal making.

What exactly is the outcome of this summit ?

NK just came out and said there’s no point in talk if USA insists they give up their nukes.

after all the talk of how NK can never become a nuclear power, what leverage does Trump have now?

I feel like Trump would send our troops home if NK offered to finance one of his hotels
 
Rex Tillerson's address at VMI:

If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom.

...

A responsibility of every American citizen to each other is to preserve and protect our freedom by recognizing what truth is and is not, what a fact is and is not and begin by holding ourselves accountable to truthfulness and demand our pursuit of America's future be fact-based -- not based on wishful thinking, not hoped-for outcomes made in shallow promises, but with a clear-eyed view of the facts as they are, and guided by the truth that will set us free to seek solutions to our most daunting challenges.
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:up:
 
Amazing how honest these guys are when there's nothing on the line.

Real brave there, Rex. :down:
 
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