Israel / Palestine

[Superbone]

^ Didn't know Oliver had tackled the Israel/Palestine/Gaza/Hamas situation yet. I will watch that for sure tonight after my kids are in bed. Thanks.

I love Oliver and think he does a pretty decent job tackling difficult stuff. Just too bad this is his last season and hope he finds a new gig. My dream would be John Oliver and John Stewart team up and do something together. I appreciate their work and ability to bring critical issues to people with trying to put a comedic spin on stuff; most always at the expense of politicians.

I didn't know it's his last season.

[Kryptonic]

I saw something a while back about how his contract ends after this season and hasn't been renewed. As much smack as he talks about his employer, I wouldn't be surprised At least he pulls no punches and acknowledges the irony in some of his story's and Warner Bros/Discovery... Seems to keep it honest.

[Nodack]

I watch him all the time. Where Racheal Maddow comes across as a moderate Dem to me, Oliver comes across as more committed to the left and sometimes loses me.

[Mori Chu]

I watched the John Oliver episode. I thought he did a great job. Very fair and even-handed. Thanks for posting that.

[Mori Chu]

Israeli leadership announces that, oops, that hospital they bombed actually *isn't* the headquarters of Hamas after all! It's somewhere else. Oh well.

[Cap]

A single unverified off-the-record comment to Shona Murray is not an “announcement,” and Ehud Olmert is not “Israeli leadership.”

LukeSkywalkerAmazing.gif

[Mori Chu]

It looks like Olmert is the former Prime Minister of Israel. So you're right that he is not current Israeli leadership. I don't know if he has any current role in their government. My apologies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehud_Olmert

[JeremyG]

So now they have to tell everyone to evacuate back to the north? Hamas is obviously going to keep evacuating themselves.

[Mori Chu]

This isn't 100% Israel/Palestine related, but it is about the broader topic of the Middle East conflict. I've been seeing that recently there was a viral Tiktok topic about Osama bin Laden writing a "Letter to America." Some young Americans were basically saying that Osama had a point and that maybe he was right to attack America. This seems really stupid and wrong. I don't know who these people are, but hopefully they are not representative of much of young America today. Pretty embarrassing for any American to sympathize with bin Laden.

[JeremyG]

What these Gen Z'ers need to do is not say "Bin Laden was right to attack America" (and I don't think all of them necessarily are) but to listen to Ron Paul who has said for years that Bin Laden had legitimate grievances against the US for their actions but that this does not condone attacks on civilians (such as 9/11). Recognizing the reality that America has done wrong things which has caused "blowback" does not have to therefore mean that Bin Laden was in the right.

Here is an insightful video from the 2012 Presidential campaign, with Noam Chomsky weighing in (who turns 95 next month and is still a professor at the University of Arizona by the way!):

[Mori Chu]

There seems to be a tentative agreement on a ceasefire. That sounds like a very good thing.

[Nodack]

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said it would announce within a day when the clock will start ticking on the truce, during which 50 hostages will be released in stages in exchange for what Hamas said would be 150 Palestinians prisoners held by Israel. Those freed by both sides will be women and children.

Israel has at least 150 women and children prisoners?

[Cap]

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said it would announce within a day when the clock will start ticking on the truce, during which 50 hostages will be released in stages in exchange for what Hamas said would be 150 Palestinians prisoners held by Israel. Those freed by both sides will be women and children.

Israel has at least 150 women and children prisoners?

America has about a quarter million.

[AmareIsGod]

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said it would announce within a day when the clock will start ticking on the truce, during which 50 hostages will be released in stages in exchange for what Hamas said would be 150 Palestinians prisoners held by Israel. Those freed by both sides will be women and children.

Israel has at least 150 women and children prisoners?

America has about a quarter million.

Also, it seems we hear of 150 or more women and children, elderly, etc., that get killed with every targeted strike by Israel.

[Mori Chu]

Why does he need to do this? Does Israel not have enough weapons? Aren't they already dropping thousands of bombs? Is the problem here really that Israel doesn't have the weapons it needs to beat Hamas?

[Mori Chu]

Again, why exactly does this need to happen? Are all of these women and children terrorists?

[Mori Chu]

Unhinged.

[Nodack]

I get the outrage of civilian casualties. I have no idea how Israel is targeting Hamas or whether they are targeting civilians. Nobody here has offered a different solution that ends the endless cycle of attacks. Just saying they should get together and solve their issues peacefully absolutely means nothing. Everyone on planet earth knows that isn’t going to happen.

I guess the only solution acceptable is to just keep the cycle of violence going forever and to just pretend to be shocked when the next Hamas attack comes and for Israel to just ignore them and not respond.

[Shabazz]

Unhinged.

Civilian casualties are awful. Full stop. But I think people need to take casualty counts coming out of Gaza with a massive grain of salt. They are typically coming from the Gaza Health Ministry, which is ostensibly a Hamas mouthpiece. Case in point when the "explosion" happened at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, the GHM immediately blamed Israel and said there were 500 dead, which they "calculated" in a matter of minutes (for reference, it took Isreal nearly 2 months to get an accurate-ish count of how many were massacred on 10/7). Once it became clear that the explosion was caused by a misfire from a Palestinian Jihad rocket, the death count was lowered to a few dozen, and in fact, the rocket only hit a parking lot.

Israel is in an impossible position here. Hamas is still holding 150+ hostages, including women, children and the elderly and, they've made clear their intentions to continue to attack Israel until nothing remains - "from the river to the sea." They're not interested in peace. It's in their charter. They're also deeply imbedded in civilian infrastructure. Just today, a report came out that one of the released hostages was hidden in a UNRWA teacher's attic and another at a Gazan doctor's house (the doctor didn't provide care for the hostage, if you're curious). The only option is to eradicate Hamas, but it's impossible to do without some horrible unintended consequences.

[Mori Chu]

US vetoes UN Israel/Gaza cease-fire resolution.