invalidname

I would think that a 2000 of the devices are sitting in a warehouse as spares or waiting for distribution. These are relatively new devices.

> And why wouldn't they use these pagers? Doctors use pagers all of the time.

These devices were specifically ordered by Hezbollah. An army buys its own equipment not in order to hand it out to the civilian populace. They don't hand out guns to doctors who carry. Why would they hand out their internal communication device?

> Even if the doctors were all Hezbollah that doesn't make them all part of the militia wing of the party

It doesn't make them a great target but it does put them in the valid line of fire. The fact that someone works as a civilian doctor isn't relevant. If they have a Hezbollah beeper they are probably an army medic.

Hezbollah put the entire populace of Lebanon at risk without a second thought, people acting as their "beard" trying to legitimize a terrorist organization (that killed many Americans/French too) are part of it. This is a military communication device, the only case where a civilian has access to it is if they took it from a combatant.

The fact is that if there were significant civilian victims they would have been paraded in front of cameras repeatedly. There were some probably, but not many.

Hezbollah is not a mobile device distribution organization. From my understanding they bought these to avoid Israeli tracking for their own people. No civilian doctor would use these pagers but there are medics working for Hezbollah like any militia/army.

Due to the nature of the devices I doubt it's physically possible to verify every explosion. Just like you can't verify it with a bomb or even a bullet. It's tragic that civilians are hurt but that would happen in any case when there's a war.

Hezbollah themselves bootstrapped a phone in the past. They also recently fired on a football field and killed 12 children. Then they hide in tunnels while leaving the general populace of Lebanon to deal with the wrath of the war that they started while they keep shelling the northern part of Israel. These parts of Israel and Lebanon are abandoned now because of their war. For once, they actually got some consequences for their own actions.

Was it 100% perfect and surgical?

Hell no. Nothing ever is, that's fantasy land. But it's about the closest thing that you can get to an ideal attack in these specific circumstances. The fact that the attack produced less than 1% in casualties shows the concern for collateral damage in this situation.

These were devices purchased by Hezbollah for their internal communications. There are cell phones in Lebanon and they are cheap, people use these devices to avoid Israeli tracking. Otherwise you would use a cell phone. Explosions were very localized so in terms of civilian casualties this was probably very low.

Normally I would agree with you, but in this case I think it's using a weapon against a similar weapon. HR automation tools are the worst. I was recently searching for a job, my resume is pretty fantastic. I have amazing experience and it was reviewed by many friends, it's great.

Despite that I got rejected from a job whose top duties included subjects on which I literally published books. Literally wrote books with subject matter in the title, got published by publishers (not self published) and yet I got an email saying I didn't fit the job. Got very few callbacks which isn't a normal thing, I'm pretty sure most jobs didn't even let an engineer see my resume.

Why is it OK to waste out time with these postings and automated filtering?

How is that not spam?

I think it's a DoS attack against a firewall posing as a front door.

Hasidic Jews pull similar "tricks" in Israel as well. They vote as a bloc and are the reason Netanyahu is in power. The vast majority don't serve in the army and get government financial aid, their contribution to the GDP is negative due to their larger families.

This has created a lot of tension with them and it's boiling over. The concern is that in a couple of decades they will be 25% of the population. They also play the racism card in Israel when confronted over their antics.

It says that in the next paragraph, guess it's a mistake.

I can see how that can be misinterpreted, that was not my intention. This isn't about race. It's about their social structure and partially about the depth of religion in their society. Also, I think it's a current state. I believe there is hope but it would require a major social shift, for that you need to put external pressure on them to change.

Right now all their leaders and wishful leaders are current/former terrorists. To climb to the top you have to prove yourself as a mass murderer. That doesn't yield good leadership skills.

But that's only a part of it. The main problem is their Hamula (extended family) structure. Their social order is to a large part dictated by major families that place their allegiance with individual militia. This is problematic, a leader needs to instill fear in the families and yet gain enough support by promising favors for each. The result is deep, rooted, inescapable corruption that tanked the Palestinian authority. Hamas has also robbed billions from the people of Gaza.

This sort of environment doesn't allow for compromise. The people who get to the top will be literally murdered by these families if they compromise. Anyone who shows statesmanship and willingness to work is quickly kicked out of the way by this cast system.

Don't get me wrong, individual Palestinians do want a proper democracy. But they can't really have it because the power of these forces is too big.

Nonsesnse. Palestinians had the continuous land and had the ability to renegotiate. However in their history when faced with adversary they made a choice toward violence as the only solution in their dealings. They formed militias early on as Jews started buying land and resettling, this formed Jews to organize militias too.

The same was true here, their leaders made bad populist decisions (attacked, supported the enemy etc.). Instead of negotiating they just wanted to kill the enemy and saw it as their only choice. You're justifying violence when it's from the Palestinians yet condemning it when it was in self defense.

The history of the Palestinians is that exact cycle with one exception: Oslo. Even then they couldn't get out of their head and rejected two attempts for a Palestinian state that included Jerusalem. The reason: YOU. People egging them on and claiming they deserve more. They need to compromise.

Had the Palestinian won the Jews living in Israel would have been dead. There would be no story, nothing remotely close.

> Let's say the events in its entirety, not the handpicked hasbara talking points.

You're picking an extremist on the right as a representative of Israel. Hagana literally shot and killed right wing Jewish terrorists to gain control during those days. The reason the Bernadotte plan didn't happen had little to do with the assassination, notice that the territories the Palestinians were given were not entirely under Israeli control. It's because Jordan and Egypt took them.

They could have formed a Palestinian state just like the Ottomans could. They didn't. The Palestinians chose violence and got screwed by surrounding countries. They got used again, but Israel is easier to blame.

Now your usage of the word hasbara shows exactly who you are. Hasbara literally means "explain". Zionizem literally means the desire to return to Israel. Yet you pick these words and redefine them with sinister connotations because obviously Jews are evil and plotting.

The fact that Jews or Israelis are repeating something doesn't make it wrong either. I suggest you take a long look in the mirror and give some thought about your inherent biases and skewed outlook.

EDIT: also I completely neglected to mention about the right of return nonsense. Jews lost their homes in Muslim countries due to the war. My ancestors left homes in Muslim countries with all their property behind and fled. That's how these things are unfortunately, you start a war there are consequences.

Sure. Whatever you say. It's really hard to tell who's lying and who isn't with all the misinformation and also the sheer volume of facts.

It's also hard to find the "good guys" because both sides did some pretty awful things. Which again muddies the waters.

But the thing is that you chose to sweep the deck and call everything I said a lie with no nuance or thought. This brings me back to a different debate I had with someone I think here... I mentioned that Israel has gay rights and one of the most advanced human rights laws, civil rights, religious freedom etc. It's essentially a super liberal country in most regards (our labor laws will make California blush).

On the flip side I mentioned gays get executed in Gaza and wife beating isn't a crime under Hamas law. Honor killings are normal occurrences (if you don't know what it is you should seriously read up about it). I was accused of "pink washing".

Pink washing is when a corporation tries to hide bad behavior with a sham gay gesture. Israel has been pro-gay for decades, pro women and human rights. That's not something tucked on.

But the accusation reminded me of you. It accused me of stating a bad verifiable fact about Hamas while saying something verifiably good about Israel. How dare I state such inconvenient facts to assault your sensitive preconceived notions of whose "good" and whose "bad" in this narrative. I've clearly gone too far.

All joking aside. Why do you think those are lies?

Why do you choose to not believe a flawed democracy over a terrorist organization that murdered people for decades?

A terrorist organization backed by an Iran, Russia block... A terrorist organization that is killing its own people. If any of these facts seem wrong to you, I suggest furthering your research on that. I think you were deeply mislead. Israel is very flawed and did indeed mistreat the Palestinians a lot (especially in the West bank) but you need nuance. Palestinians vary Hamas is evil, the Palestinian authority is "complicated". Israel is also nuanced, it has the worst government in its history right now, but that's an anomaly. It did have more liberal governments over the years.

Unfortunately, Hamas and lack of nuance from the west help strengthen the bad players within Israel and move it further to the right.

Have you ever lost someone close?

I have friends of all religions although I'm personally an atheist. Religion has very little to do with this deep sorrow. It's not about them, it's about the personal loss. It's about the suffering prior to death. It's a deep visceral human emotion that separates out psychopaths.

Based on that logic Hamas should welcome Israeli bombs and consider that a favor. But they sacrifice others rather than themselves. Their terrorists hide in tunnels away from bombings and send child couriers to do the dirty work for them. They find the poor suicidal soles and instead of getting them help, put them in a suicide vest and send them to kill innocent people. That's insanity.

This isn't a contest of volumes and it's a very false equivalency. Hamas attacked Israel knowing the cost in lives and chose to attack anyway because they don't value human life. Even that of their own people.

Israel takes prisoners not hostages and has due process albeit flawed. Everyone arrested is arrested due to something they did. Not taken out of their home or a party. Not raped and murdered. These are not civilians, they are typically criminals.

Minors taken by Israel are 16+ unless they did something serious. E.g. two teen girls stabbed a person who they thought was an elderly Jew. Was actually an old Palestinian guy. Obviously Hamas asked to release that murderer. Israel is asking for the release of innocent people while Hamas is asking for the release of mass murderers.

Nope.

> 695 Israeli civilians, 71 foreign nationals, and 373 security forces.[165] This data was published in December 2023, using social security data. There are additionally five people classed as missing, including four Israelis.[165] The deaths included 36 children, of whom 20 were under 15 years old and the youngest was a 10-month-old baby.

Notice that when you say "security forces" western people don't count them in the same way. We do. Israel has a draft law. These are 18 year old kids that were killed in a surprise attack and we see them in the same way as every civilian murdered.

This doesn't include people killed by rocket fire after the 7th or by attacks from Hezbollah.

This also ignores the intention, the severity and the cruelty. It ignores the fact that hostages (including women and babies) are still kept in Gaza.

Again, I already said these things. Are you looking for an argument? To say the last word? What's your point? Why link for an article from 2011?

Power is out in specific areas because Hamas was in control of all civil offices and they're gone. So while the grid is back up, there's no engineers to connect the destroyed relays.

The trucks are back in. The problem is on the other side of the fence https://www.npr.org/2024/04/09/1243752564/hundreds-of-aid-tr...

You can blame that problem on Israel too although this isn't something Israel can fix.

You're using a typical western POV which is severely broken and damaging to the people of Gaza. E.g.

"Hamas Leader Reacts to 3 Sons Being Killed: 'Thank God'" https://www.newsweek.com/hamas-leader-reacts-3-sons-killed-t...

There's a picture of him smiling as he brings the news to his wife where you also see her smiling. I can't imagine losing a child, just thinking about him losing a child makes me tear up. It's unimaginable. Yet Hamas leaders consider the death and suffering of their own children in the Jihad as a blessing.

That is fanatic religious insanity. But they understand that the West doesn't see it that way. So they use Palestinian children in the most heinous ways possible, as couriers between their tunnels and bait. An accidental death of a child is propaganda and they live on that. Recently they published a video of an Israeli army dog attacking an old woman. They literally kidnapped that dog and used it to stage an attack for propaganda.

I'm not saying that horrible things aren't happening there due to Israeli actions. On the contrary, they are. But they are happening there for the most part because Hamas is an enemy of the Palestinian people as much as it is an enemy of Israel. It is using Hospitals, Schools and Mosques as bases. They placed a huge weapons cache under a refuge sanction, then when it exploded it was easy to blame Israel and for 24-48 hours the media reported that it was Israel.

Western ignorant good intentions are prolonging the war and making it worse because they're giving Hamas false hope.

People use the word "ages" to indicate a significant amount of time. In the context of this war it's correct. This obviously didn't refer to the literal meaning of ages when discussing a 9 month war.

It seems to me you're trying to nitpick on a minor choice of words instead of the substance of what I said.

The whole war has been going for 9 months. Things change fast. It was a stupid statement by a stupid/evil government, but facts have changed quite a while back in relative terms.

The fact that Israel is saying something doesn't mean it's a lie and neither does the fact that Al Jazeera said it. Notice I specifically did not say Israel was innocent in that, so it's very much not the Israeli "talking point". Some things are just bad and don't have any good or convenient solution.

You're repeating a false narrative of picking a side in a problematic situation where two zero sum players are trying to engage and escalate. I'm a liberal Israeli. I have friends in Gaza too. I don't want them hurt and I'm sure they don't want to hurt me. Unfortunately, we're both stuck in a situation where people frame this as a Palestinian vs. Israeli conflict. That's wrong. It's a conflict between two zero sum players who have been pumping each other up for 30 years and sabotaging repeated attempts for peace.

Al Jazeera is run by Qatar who also host Hamas. They are a very bad actor in many cases and in line with a zero sum player in this narrative.

It has R&D centers and local business centers. Skype is not in Israel and there's no reason for a VoIP solution to route through a country local facility. The "complete siege" ended ages ago. Israel provides power, food etc.

I've known this story for years and was told about it by an aviation expert. Heard it later from multiple sources. Pretty surprised this was made up.

How is it different from: https://rife2.com/bld

Do you mean that modern societies/families no longer take care of their elders within the family?

Wow. My mother was born in 47 and is now wheelchair bound. Barely functioning. It's probably that clean farm life that keeps your father vital at that age.

I 100% agree with you but the main problem is retirement which is what they're seeing in Japan and China. The younger generation is too small and can't sustain the older generation. When you pay social security it isn't actually saved, it goes to pay for the current older generation. The assumption is that when you grow old the same will happen too...

This is further complicated by modern medical science which is prolonging the life expectancy of people and making the overall cost even heavier. That's why countries are trying to raise the retirement age.

The solution should be a major leap in productivity coupled with a more progressive taxation system. Neither one of these seem to be happening right now, I hope this changes.

No idea why this is downvoted. It's pushing a bowling ball through a narrow opening, it's REALLY painful. You sh*t yourself, bleed for ages, risk your life, seriously harm your body, you become a milk supplier... Then you need to become a mommy. If a woman isn't 100% with her children then there's constant judgement towards her as a "bad mother".

The reward is motherhood which is a 24x7 thankless job filled with dread about your kids. I'm obviously exaggerating and am happy with my kids, but I 100% get the people who choose not to have any. It isn't a bad choice.

Up until recently, many women felt they have no choice and the clock is ticking. The "you'll regret it when you're older" stuff, can be partially solved by freezing eggs (I know a lot of older mothers and we only started at 32).

Furthermore, in recent years there are many inspirational childless women who show it's perfectly acceptable to not go through that.

These types of articles/posts are why children in Gaza starve. Hamas weaponized the suffering/life of Gazan children as part of its war against Israel. The Israeli government enabled that by destroying Hamas civilian capabilities without setting up new ones instead. They send truckloads of food and brag about the large numbers as a "counterpoint" (more than pre-war shipments) and then those get raided once they're inside Gaza.

This is a war that is still ongoing for "likes". Hamas refuses to make a hostage deal which could end everything because of this type of reporting. Social media activism is once again killing people in the real world.

But wouldn't patients see deficiency in blood tests and get extra supplements for those two?

This seems odd, as someone who has no medical knowledge. If it's just adding B vitamins, then a lot of people take vitamins. Especially when diagnosed with something as terrible as Parkinson's. I would expect to hear some anecdotal evidence on that for a diseases that is so common.

Edit: Very informative replies. Thanks!

That isn't true for the case of Israel. Almost half of the current government didn't serve in the required army duty. Some were rejected by the army for their extremist views which in the past would have also banned them from elected office.

I wonder if people will actually bother learning about the subject and history of a place before forming an opinion and posting online...

Hasidim don't care about anything related to this. They don't want to be in the army because they want to study Torah and because they could get away with it.

Israelis have a draft law. Many have died in Gaza, Lebanon etc. Everyone in Israel is related or knows someone related to someone who died recently in this conflict.

Finally, that stupidity of "skin in the game" is astounding to me. The more people die the longer the war takes because "they couldn't have died for nothing". It becomes more brutal too because we can't risk our children fighting over there.

Photopea is fantastic. I've paid Adobe thousands over the years because my spouse uses Photoshop and can't stop (I use Sketch when I need something).

I had enough with Adobe mostly due to cost. It's robbery to pay those prices for a tool she uses 3 times a year. I tried installing Krita for her and she struggled with everything. Couldn't find anything and just complained all the time. It occurred to me to try something else and Photopea is absolutely amazing. Wish I knew about it sooner.

E.g. source for the JDKs Java classes shipped with the JDK well before the open sourcing of the JDK. It had the click through download license.

I know it was meant as a joke but FYI:

Israel is pretty stable and has better life expectancy than the US. Thanks to its technology Israel can be at war and be mostly unscathed.

Intel has been building in Israel since the 70s and has huge infrastructure here. A lot of its most innovative work originates from Israel. This isn't unique, pretty much every global company has major R&D in Israel.