It’s the final Pillaging stage of a society which is almost entirely structured to maximize rent-seeking of the Owner class.

The snake is eating itself.

Yeah, humans might have a lot of Technologial evolution but we have nowhere as much Social evolution and even less Psychological evolution.

My theory of the United States Of America being a vassal state of Israel just keeps getting stronger…

Which will be followed by Macron making a sad face, telling everybody “This was totally unexpected” and “There’s nothing we can do about it”, and carrying on refusing to sanction Israel and allowing Netanyahu to fly over French Airspace whenever he feels like without detaining him and sending him to the ICC.

This shit is all performative - yet another delaying action disguised as “doing something” in a long line of delaying actions disguised as “doing something”.

Early on Zelensky supported Israel (I remember because I was very dissapointed).

Later on he just shut up about it, which I take it as the pragmatical position of not wanting to lose support of two large very pro-Israel allies - the US and Germany - by voicing criticism of Israel whilst at the same time not wanting to actually support Israel after it was clear they were commiting a Genocide.

As we remember from the whole “did you even thank us” circus at the White Wouse, he is a person who has had to endure a ton of bullshit for the sake of his nation.

I vaguelly remembers reading that in the latest polls about half of Jews in the US do not support the actions of Israel, tough the ones who are actually against the existence of Israel are much less (I think it was less than 20%, but am not sure anymore).

I’m in Europe and a lot of the Press here is a lot more open about the actions of Israel and less prone to the Manufacturing ConsentI spin on stories about the actions of Israel, so I suspect that in average the views of Jews here towards Israel are more negative than for those in the US (though I suppose that depends on the country: I wouldn’t be surprised if hard-core Zionist beliefs were more common in the UK and Germany than in the rest of Europe). This would be consistent with the view of Israel amongst the population in general in Europe being a lot more negative than in the US.

Independently of that, were exactly do you set the “these guys represent you and everybody like you even if you disagree” boundary? In other words, how many Jews must believe that “Israel does not represent me” for it to be false that Israel to represent the Jewish People? Also, if the numbers fall below that at one point, does that mean that Israel doesn’t represent the Jewish People anymore or is it a sticky representation whether people want to or not?

The whole domain of anything or anybody representing an entire ethnicity without even a Democratic election is a massive minefield of Prejudicial and even Racist presumptions.

Beyond that, the entire subject of Zionism and Israel representing an entire etnicity (the Jewish People) carries the very same strong stink as NAZIsm and NAZI Germany representing an entire etnicity (the Arian Race).

The Israelis don’t call it “The Final Solution for the Palestinian Problem” for nothing.

Zionism is as much representative of Judaism as NAZIsm is representative of all Germanic people.

Just because these ethno-Fascist White Supremacist groups claim they represent a specific ethnicity doesn’t mean they do.

Granted, Zionism has lasted a lot longer and there is a lot more parroting of the whole equating Judaism with Zionism in countries with a captured Press and/or Fascists traditions, so it’s understandable that many will actually believe that idea as pushed by Zionists, but there are plenty of Jewish voices saying that’s not so (curiously one which is called Jewish Voices For Peace and has just been deemed by a German Court an “Extremist Organization” for their criticism of Israel, which is interesting given the parallels between NAZIsm and Zionism).

Anyways, there is no such thing as a politican ideology or a country which represents an entire ethnicity - that would logically require that all people of a ethnicity are the same (i.e. “they’re all the same”) which is a foundational stone of Racism. I guess most people who believe the equivalence between Israel/Zionism and the Jewish People seem to have just accepted it a face value and never have really analysed it it down to its component parts and thus did not realize that such equation of one and the other relies on pure ethnic prejudice about people based on ethnicity.

Well, this is the country which had demonstrations defending their right to rape those of “vermin” etnicities and have even celebrated some such rapists in national television.

Israeli spy services were also deeply involved with Epstein.

Looks a lot like Israel is a country with a broad culture of rape.

Wow, thank you for taking the time to explain all that!

Linking this to the points made by others, it’s “interesting” that he chooses to “slam” the kind of problem that individuals can easily avoid (since going there is entirely a choice) and which is outside his remit, but not at all the kind of problems which people cannot avoid and ARE in his remit, like the working poor in Britain or a foreign state murdering children with weapons he sends them.

One might even think he’s being a little, tiny, minuscule bit hypocrite in waving his left hand whilst shouting “look there” at the same time as his right hand repeatedly sticks knives in people’s backs.

In his defense, doing that is such a standard of British politics that nowadays there’s little else to it than that this kind of scam.

Correctly if I’m wrong, but I don’t think a “slamming” from Keir Starmer has any influence outside the UK.

Not that he’s wrong - it is to be expected that the broken clock of British politics is actually right once in a while.

I don’t think that a country of rapists not wanting to have anything to do with you is quite the flex this country of rapists thinks it is.

But it is not an obligation according to international law.

That’s just a variant of the “Law equals Moral” argument beloved by Fascists.

As for your example, it makes my point way more than it makes yours - hundreds of thousands of Gaza civilians dead at the hands of Israel, far more murdered Journalists every year than in the rest of the World put together, Europeans kidnapped from international waters and tortured and now the invasion of Lebanon, and all that France and Sweden do is the smallest least impactful restrictions on Trade with Israel imaginable.

In light of what they were willing to do against Russia, doing such minimalist and symbolic “action” stinks of the modern Western political scam of taking the smallest possible step to look like you’re doing something, so as to delay pressure from the Public for much larger steps, de facto delaying effective action rather than truly trying to address the situation.

Maybe you’ve not ever been involved in Politics in Europe, but I have and in two different countries, and the actions that the Politicians in power are taking on this are so obviously the typical Delaying Actions meant to go against the wishes of the European Public and avoid putting pressure in Israel thus actually opposing “movement forward”, that it hurts.

If you genuinely believe that’s really them trying to “move forward”, then you’re spectacularly politically naive or have been sleeping under a rock for the last 20 years and still believe in 1970s-style ideological politics.

You see, Europe (in the sense of the European Public) are not to blame for this shit - as the information pilled up on what was going on in Gaza the European Public turned against Israel and it’s actions, and that happened months ago in most of Europe, even in Germany and Britain it’s already happened.

It’s the politicians in power in most of Europe who are desperately trying to protect Israel by doing all they can to NOT abide by the wishes of most people in their countries when it comes to Israel by repeatedly doing lots of talkie-talkie plus a handful of symbolic near-zero-impact actions, until the Press have moved on and the Public has become distracted with something else at which point even those things are reversed, all of which is an extremely common strategy in Western Politics in the last 2 or 3 decades.

Europe is not to blame. European politicians in power are the ones to blame, and amongst other things this massive chasm between what the Public wants and what their elected representatives actually do is an indication of a huge Democratic Deficit in most of present day Europe.

Some of Europe absolutely and without a doubt still stand on the side of Israel, most notably Germany and Britain as well as at least part of the EU Commission, but I’ll grant you that for some or the rest it’s unclear if they’re on the side of Israel or holding a more neutral (we don’t stand by any principles but at least we aren’t giving weapons to Israel) position, whilst a tiny handful are in fact doing something to try and stop the Genocide (though very little).

Of course, how neutral is “neutral” has changed ever since the reaction of European nations to the Russian invasion of Ukraine since that has shown that Europe is perfectly capable of pushing back hard against an nation who is the aggressor in a War Of Aggression - which is the point I’m making: if the reasons given to the public then were truthful, then they would apply just as much now.

Clearly they were not, which would indicate that those maintaining neutral positions are being dishonest.

Ultimately your position seems to differ from others here by you not thinking there is a Duty Of Help - in your eyes if somebody is being beaten to death in the middle of the street and a passerby who can help does not, then that’s just fine and not a form of complicity - whilst others DO think that in such a situation not stopping what’s going on is a form of complicity.

That said, your argument of “Opposing nations can trade” is very much the Sociopath’s Rationale of “There is no such thing as Principles when there’s Money to be made”.

I mean, you do you, just don’t expect normal human beings not high in the Sociopath scale to look at that “Let’s not let mass murdering babies get in the way of Trading” way of thinking and agree with it.

Except Israel is not a Democracy, since about 30% of the people living there don’t get to vote because being born in the territory of Israel does not grant Israeli Citizenship (not to be confused with Israeli Nationality, which is different, grants more rights and only a Jewish Person can have) to a person unless they are Jewish, even when that person’s parents and grandparents have lived all their lives there.

The rest is all mainly main cheery picking and understating things, or applicable at the very start of the Israeli Genocide before it was recognized as a Genocide, but not anymore.

For example, you’re comparing something which multiple organizations including the UN have declared is a Genocide with a Blockade, which is like comparing mass murder with theft.

By the 3rd month of the Israeli Genocide in Gaza, just the list of babies, 1 year old or younger, killed in Gaza was 17 pages long.

It’s understandable that European reaction in the beginning, influenced by decades of Israeli propaganda and their very careful shaping of what came out early on about the events of 9 October to portray Israel as a pure victim, would be one of supporting Israel’s invasion of Gaza, it’s certainly not understandable by the time the list of duly identified Palestinian babies killed in Gaza by Israeli attacks had reached 17 pages long and mass graves with Hospital personnel killed by Israeli military were being found, European politicians were still proclaiming “unwavering support of the Jewish State” and sending Israel more weapons.

It’s even less understandable that by the time Israel is also invading Lebanon whilst at the same time starving Gazans to death, a large number of European governments still keep sending them weapons.

Now, maybe you’re making the point that European politicians in power are mainly cold callous sociopaths with no principles whatsoever, which I totally agree with, however that’s not the point you WERE making before and which I countered - you claimed that the EU and European countries were doing something about it and I pointed out that de facto they’re refraining from doing anything about it with any real impact and instead are just finger wagging and making zero impact loud proclamations, and I used the example of their reaction to the Russia invasion of Ukraine to show that they could have already for months done something about it with real impact if they wanted to because they have already done it in the recent past, thus one can only conclude that they do not want to do it now.

All your talkie-talkie in this post is just listing reasons that somebody who doesn’t care about mass murdering of babies could possibly give to justify keeping on letting the mass murders keep on mass murdering - totally logical stuff for sociopaths, but maybe we shouldn’t have sociopaths in positions of power in Europe.

Well, the other alternative explanation for just how deeply US Politics cares for and serves the interests of Israel is that the US is a vassal state of Israel.

That would indeed not be an alliance and be consistent with the point you’re making.

Now compare that with what has actually been done towards Russia when they invaded Ukraine.

That shit is hypocrite talkie-talkie done purelly with the objective of relieving the pressure of a public opinion who want Israel to actually be punished, not just be the recipients of a bit of frowning. De facto that loud stern finger wagging is a way to avoid or at least delay punishing measures towards Israel, the very opposite of what it says on the box.

Such bollocks would be believable before we all saw with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine what the EU and European countries can and will do against a murderous invading nation. After seeing that, this kind of performative stuff is about as believable as, after Iraq, America claiming a Middle Eastern country has WMDs to attack them.

Nah, the only nations in Europe genuinelly acting towards Israel according to the same Principles they used to support how they acted towards Russia are Spain, and the Republic Of Ireland. The rest are either active accomplices of Israel and their Genocide (literally still sending them the weapons used to murder Palestinian and Libanese children) or still dragging their feet way beyond their feet dragging just after Russia invaded Ukraine.

The asshole who headed the Dutch government then and most of the time since is the one currently busy licking Trump’s ass in his position as head of NATO.

He made sure the interests of America and its one real ally - Israel - were taken care of and later got that cosy NATO sinecure.

Great way to get American citizens exposed to Ebola travelling to the US to not inform anybody about it.