211 karma · joined June 23, 2026
It's not exactly the most compelling example of a political motivated assassination, is it. Given I can pull out literally dozens of people killed by right wing extremists with overwhelming evidence and convicted in a court of law.
I'm a centrist, and I'm not even American. Your argument holds less weight than a wet paper bag.
What you have given is a bunch of claims about 2 crimes, only one of which even has a suspect. There have been numerous reports, and frankly, American news media is inherently partisan, a lot of it is inherently unreliable and it is not a credible basis upon which to claim facts.
Let me give you an decent (factual) example of people killed by extremism:
Joyce Fienberg, Richard Gottfried, Rose Mallinger, Jerry Rabinowitz, Cecil Rosenthal, David Rosenthal, Bernice Simon, Sylvan Simon, Daniel Stein, Melvin Wax, Irving Younger
Who were all killed by Robert Bowers. The attack was motivated by violent antisemitism, according to the evidence presented at trial.
The trial showed he espoused white-supremacist and antisemitic beliefs, promoted anti-immigrant conspiracy theories and opposed refugee resettlement.
His online activity included Holocaust-denial and pro-Nazi statements, according to evidence presented in his federal case.
In June 2023, a federal jury found Bowers guilty on all 63 federal counts, including hate-crime charges.
I know he hasn't been convicted, and unless I'm wrong, federal investigators have found no confirmed ties to organised left wing groups.
Antonio Mays Jr's killing is still unsolved.
Check the data, it's not a secret.
The extreme right massively outperforms the left, which I'm sure is in part due to the right wing obsession with owning as much stuff as possible to kill people with as you can.
Except that it's by far the largest in the US based on the data.
He was ruthless, manipulative and lacking empathy - like Musk.
Or maybe "was" is more accurate.
If he isn't stuffing his pockets, he's leveraging the populist playbook. In this case, 'scapegoating'.
But let's be honest, he likely has a huge amount of debt. Before he came into office he almost certainly fixed the interest on that debt knowing he could blow inflation through the roof and inflate it away.
Shocking really.
I think it's motivated entirely by schemes to stuff his pockets with money.
No, it's a claim.
Common sense is the ability to make practical, reasonable judgments in ordinary situations using basic experience. Basic experience would be establishing this happens first.
>No, I'm just saying you can't always expect using international observers/journalists to get to the truth to be a realistic strategy depending on the situation.
Okay, so whose statements are you trusting more on what's going on with the Ughurs? <The Chinese government> or <anyone who is not the Chinese government>.
I think it's fairly apparent that you aren't British (except by passport), and it's likely you are digesting largely US news sources. When you said you were British, I assumed you were claiming that what you identified as, but perhaps that itself is a British colloquialism.
I'm going to stop responding here. I'm sure you're a decent person, and you think you think you are seeing the other side.
Honestly, based on this conversation, to be blunt, you either aren't capable of understanding the perspective of the other side, or it's not a good faith discussion.
It's the old hearing versus listening issue.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
I'm simply challenging obvious bullshit with back of the fag packet numbers.
Please note, you have said nothing about the bullshit claim, you instead are going after me challenging the bullshit by using actual data.
You can argue about how it's used, but it's absolutely sufficient to demonstrate the claim is nonsense.
If you want to evidence the unsupported (out of thin air) claim, please by all means go ahead. I encourage people to connect their claims to reality.
>It's kind of a moot point regardless because even if Israel didn't impede international observers/journalists from operating in Gaza, they still couldn't operate freely due to Hamas.
Interestingly, that's another claim for which you have provided no evidence.
>What countries asks reporters unimpeded/ uncontrolled access to war zones?
Why don't you research this question yourself, and see where Gaza pops up in the list.
>I'm just pointing out that allowing international observers isn't some magic bullet for getting to the truth.
Based on your reasoning, I'm guessing you're satisfied with everything China has to say about the situation of the Uyghars and how it treats them.
I'm starting to find it difficult to take things you say in good faith.
But the way, the British spell words you've used like "analyzing", "organization" and "de-radicalizing" with an 's' not a 'z'. But you know this because, as you claimed, you are British, right?
Sounds unlikely to me without the caveat "within this particular brand of politics and socioeconomics".
I understand what point you think you are making, but I think it illustrates your enormous disconnect.
Let's say you are an Israeli Jew, maybe you know someone killed in a terror attack and maybe 3 people injured serving in the IDF. The same Palestinian (based on ratios or relative deaths and injuries) knows 50 people killed and 150 people injured. And the age profile of Palestinians is massively slanted towards the young, the people you see killed and injured are much more likely to be younger rather than older people.
Add to that the stress and perceived safety of these two groups on a day to day basis couldn't be more different: One lives in a war zone without security of the basics of existence and the other lives in a nice western country where atheists can happily go out for a meal, then watch some football then go clubbing.
Look at the way Israel reacted after the terror attack, it was hardly calm and measured, it acted a lot more like Hamas - and that was a one-off shock event. That's not a coincidence. People are people.
Now Palestinians are people who, from their perspective, are being asked to negotiate with the people who not only killed/injured these people, but also who took their homes and land in the first place.
And the context of the negotiation is that they are being offered land whilst it is currently being settled on.
Meanwhile, your concern is Israeli's need to be convinced that the Palestinians actually want to end the war and make a peace deal.
It's just fundamentally disconnected from reality. I think all it really illustrates is just how well Israel has managed to isolate elements of news media from the enormous suffering of Palestinians.
> Palestinians have agency, there are different paths they can go down and Israel has a history of making peace deals with Arabs.
I mean, again, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt in you believing what you are saying, but Palestinians have tried different paths - e.g. peaceful demonstration - countless times. One example which jumps to mind (because the late Sir Gerald Kaufman - a British jew - explicitly raised the issue in the house of commons) occurred at Nabi Saleh, a Palestinian village where regular demonstrations against the occupation and settlements took place. He said that peaceful demonstration involving Palestinians and Israelis, including women and children, had been attacked with gas, sound grenades and rubber bullets, and a vehicle that hurled sewage at them.
Israel also hasn't been particularly bothered in the past with international demonstrators being killed demonstrating against things like home demolitions. My take, it's a deterrent.
Based on its actions, I find it difficult to believe Israel explicitly doesn't want peaceful demonstration, especially peaceful demonstration that the world can see. It needs to encourage violence for its strategy to work.
>The side that isn't ready for a peace deal yet is the side that refuses to negotiate in good faith.
They haven't been offered a negotiation in good faith. You basically conceded this earlier. I think even if they were offered a negotiation that looked to be in good faith its likely it wouldn't actually be in good faith because some significant proportion of actors in the Israeli administration would prevent it. This is putting aside the issue of non administration actions (like presidential assassinations).
Israel absolutely isn't ready for a peace deal and from my point of view, it's extremely difficult to look at it's actions and believe it actually wants one. I'm sure many do, but the direction of travel seems to be, "pretend, continue to maintain American support via whatever means necessary, slowly cook the frog".
>Russia follows that same pattern with Ukraine because like the Palestinians they think they need to continue the fight to get a better outcome.
I think it's questionable whether "Russia" is even trying to take Ukraine at this point. The Kremlin/putin is probably just trying to break Ukraine away from the Russian diaspora. You can't have a free, rich successful country next to Russia, which Russians have connections to and can see is a much better place to live and expect to maintain a dictatorship on the same terms you have to date in the long term.
And Ukrainians have an even longer history with the Russ, well before the Holdomor. It's not exactly a surprise they continue to resist.
>Well, they kind of tried that...
They kind of tried that?
Anyone that cannot walk in the shoes of a normal Palestinian has zero chance of resolving this. I don't think Israel can continue to obscure and cover up the reality of the lives Palestinians actually live in the long term, so this looks life a zero-sum game to me, at present.
>I mean, you can say the same about most countries in that region which have far worse ethical issues in general.
Yes you can, but as you know, you're trying to side step ethics with a convenient slight of hand not related to the issue at hand, not me.
Look, it's always good to talk, but I don't think we are getting anywhere at this point. I just would prefer to stop seeing so many kids dying and Jews outside Israel (who are hugely opposed to Israels actions) ironically having to suffer biogtry by association.
Have a good one.
In terms of my statement about intenational observers / journalists- I don't think it's contentious to suggest that the overwhelming reason they can't operate in Gaza is because Israel won't allow them into Gaza.
If Israel let them in and they were impeded or detained or killed by Hamas, then those would be possible outcomes.
The UN Human Rights Office described the restriction as lasting more than 18 months by June 2025, with only a few IDF-controlled visits.
The list of countries that grant chaperoned journalistic access to places includes: North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Myanmar, Eritrea for starters.
This isn't exactly a hall of fame...
It's very ironic that you are telling me that I need to be careful about information and at the same time that Hamas is the one openly stating things.
So, do you think Hamas could be lying?
Israel's approach to information is reflected in its access for journalists, UN investigators, human-rights monitors, diplomats, aid workers, and foreign activists.
This entire discussion is taking place in a post about a think tank that Israel created to poison the information well.
>To be fair they didn't do that for entirely no reason either, Britain prevented Jewish refugees from entering mandatory Palestine while the Nazi's were genociding them in Europe.
I'm pretty sure all terrorism happens for reasons which can be served up as a justification.
Growing up in the UK, outside of Ireland, but occasionally having the threat of an IRA attack (like Manchester) I lived a low stress life. Meanwhile, those living in parts of Northern Ireland were living a life of constant stress. Kids constantly surrounded by soldiers with guns, controlling their movement and choices on a day to day basis. Violence was always, on some level, a daily threat.
Northern Ireland was a lot less violent that Gaza though. It's not surprising that people living lives under dramatically different levels of stress and with dramatically different life chances/outcomes and life history have different outlooks. Comparing these two groups like they are the same really illustrates how you seem completely unable to actually see the issue at hand.
Now you are asking the group that lost everything, and is living under constant stress with no prospects, and with no power, to engage with another group that holds all the power and won't create a good faith environment for any negotiation.
It's like expecting a Good Friday agreement to be possible whilst London is running a policy of subsidising English resettlement in Northern Ireland and making statements on national TV about how many Irish nationalists they planned to kill each night. It's just a bonkers position. The side that holds the power breaks extremism by clearing its own side of the house and by making concessions that clearly demonstrate good will, repeatedly, over a long period of time. It is sensitive to deaths on both sides - if 50 nationalists were dying for each brit, the whole thing would still be going now, or we would have just pulled out completely.
Regarding your second point, Israel isn't closest to my actual ethical beliefs in practice. It's an expansionist ethnostate that hugely intefers in Western politics and the information space. You don't advance ethics by surrendering your ethics.
That said, if someone is going to make a contentious claim, referencing the evidence or using some data to work up a basic attempt to substantiate the claim is the only to look like you aren't just making up claims.
If data just on deaths is varying by a whole factor of 10, I can't see how you could possibly get anywhere near any meaningful figure for 'combatant to civilian death ratios' in Iraq. You're adding another layer ontop of data that you already recognise is hugely flawed.
Add to that the issue that, in Gaza, Israel has completely sealed off the area from international observers, so credible data on "combatant to civilian death ratios" just won't exist.
All I can say is that based on the data, the claim made is absolutely not supported by the evidence. [Edit - even if the million figure were credible, it's still at least double, and actually indicating the opposite of what was claimed]
Iraq had well over 10 times the population (26-27 million) and the war lasted about 10 years.
"Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation"[pubmed] put the figure at about 132,000 war related deaths. "Iraq body count" was about 158,000. Taking the highest figure that's about 0.6% of the population over the 10 years.
I think the estimates for Gaza, with a population of about 2.2 million, are between 70 to 75,000. That's over 3% of the population over 2 years.
So on a 'per year' basis for % of population - that's 0.06% for Iraq versus 1.6% for Gaza.
That's over 25 times higher in Gaza than Iraq.
I don't think there is a chance in hell of that working unless Israeli deradicalisation happens first.
>If you had to choose somewhere in the middle east to live where would it be?
My ethics aren't fungible based on the tribe someone belongs to...
There are elements of the American right that are antisemitic but it definitely has bigger problems with Muslims, and a large slice of the American right view Jews favourably (arguably very favourably).
Pew data is one example of data that shows this. Plus, in terms of Israel specifically, if you look at current support for the Iran war (which the Trump admin has repeatedly framed as important for Israels security) it's almost exclusively on the political right.
Now he's been pursued by the press to comment, and he's the guy that sold that thing for $X for the rest of his life. I bought that from him too.
If I paid the market price, that doesn't happen.
So what did I really buy?