Trump just lost the election

[LDSGator]

31 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

there are literally Democrats who refuse to believe that these people even exist,

True, but I can tell you with 100% certainty that @Phoenix_person isn’ one of them. Neither is my friend who I make my yearly baseball bet with. Both guys are very leftwing (not pejorative, descriptive) and are appalled by this.  

[LDSGator]

I don’t blame them for left wing violence anymore than I’d blame @mirkwood or @Vort for right wing violence. If the tables were turned and MAGA supporter slapped around a old leftist, both men would be mortified. 

[Suzie]

10 hours ago, Manners Matter said:

First, Joe didn't 'step aside'. Second, 'swimming in momentum' is laughable. At her recent NC event, the official crowd size was 109 participants *including media*. A picture's worth a thousand words.

It wasn't a rally. Just look around and you will see it wasn't meant for that purpose but you know this already.

[Suzie]

"A couple of pictures have emerged showing "crowds" that weren't actually crowds. This includes one where the crowd doesn't show up on a reflective surface and another where the faces in the crowd are badly mangled as if an AI tried to generate the scene. "

There are tons of video footage of that rally (in case of doubt) so the crowd was indeed as large as everyone saw it.

 

[NeuroTypical]

I would say that the most immediate impact of the AI revolution, is it's now the wisest, safest course of action to just plain assume everything everyone claims on the internet is false, unless it comes with a link to a reputable source.  

"Pix or it didn't happen" doesn't result in the persuasive force it once did.  All you need is the ability to write in English, and a filter-free image generator. 

Prompt: "Give me a photorealistic picture of Thomas S. Monson drinking a beer."

Edited August 18, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[Jedi_Nephite]

21 hours ago, LDSGator said:

With all due respect, and I say this as gently as possible, that’s an excuse I’ve heard the democrats say in 2000. In 2004. The Republicans in 2012. The democrats in 2016…and I’m 100% sure the losers in 2024 will say, blame a conspiracy, etc. It’s tiresome-people have short memories and are predictable.  

It’s very, very very rare for the losers in politics to say “you know what? We lost fair because the other side had more votes than us.” 

It’s always interesting when someone/a side can’t look inward and take accountability for a loss. And it’s never a good sign. How do you grow and evolve without doing so?

It’s true that both sides have claimed the other has cheated during elections.  Well, sort of.  Usually, those accusations are made by the left every time they lose.  Rarely do you hear that by the right, with only a few exceptions.  However, that’s a weak argument to use against the claims that the 2020 election was stolen.  There’s just too much evidence and too many witnesses, not to mention the math just doesn’t add up.  To ignore all that is to turn a blind eye simply because you want to appear reasonable.

[person0]

To the OP.  Partisanship aside, I really doubt this matters much at all.  Everyone knows at this point that Trump's stream-of-consciousness style of speaking means he often says off-putting and/or inaccurate things that shift based on context.  He would just as likely say the exact opposite had he been speaking about someone in the audience who received the Medal of Honor.  Those who choose to vote for him (even while 'holding their nose') are unlikely to be sufficiently offput by these remarks to change their decision.  Therefore, I declare this analysis a nothing-burger.

[LDSGator]

2 hours ago, Jedi_Nephite said:

you want to appear reasonable.

Why is trying to appear reasonable bad? If it is, guilty as charged. 

Edited August 18, 2024 by LDSGator

[Phoenix_person]

On 8/17/2024 at 7:16 PM, Phoenix_person said:

 

If there's a group on the left that's least likely to vote for a former AG and (as they see it) current accomplice in the Palestinian genocide, it's antifa folks. So I'm afraid I'm unclear on the point you're trying to make, aside from pointing out the fact that there are violent extremists on both sides, which I thought was already common knowledge.

Unsurprisingly, pro-Palestine protests have already started in Chicago. Lots of overlap between these protestors and people who consider themselves antifa, I'd imagine.

[Ironhold]

16 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

Unsurprisingly, pro-Palestine protests have already started in Chicago. Lots of overlap between these protestors and people who consider themselves antifa, I'd imagine.

Most of your modern-day "antifa" types are actually anarcho-communists who see anyone to the right of Karl Marx as being "fascist" by default. 

Anarcho-communists believe that violence is a necessary part of breaking down the existing order in order to establish their ideal utopian existence, and so each antifa member you see on the streets is a would-be revolutionary who truly thinks that they are somehow working to overthrow the system and replace it with an utterly fantastic version of communism. It legitimately doesn't register with them that most of these individuals would have themselves been lined up against the wall back during the Russian Revolution or otherwise "dealt with" for being blights on society per the concepts of the Soviet-style communism that they champion. 

That being said, a lot of your pro-Palestine types are similarly ignorant, such as the "LGBT individuals for Palestine" crowd who don't understand that Hamas and other Islamic radical groups have a history of summarily executing people who are homosexual. 

[Phoenix_person]

21 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

That being said, a lot of your pro-Palestine types are similarly ignorant, such as the "LGBT individuals for Palestine" crowd who don't understand that Hamas and other Islamic radical groups have a history of summarily executing people who are homosexual. 

So they deserve to be bombed into extermination because they don't accept gay people? It's possible to fight for the survival of someone who wants you dead based on nothing more than the idea that mass murder is bad. How many black soldiers fought in WWII and Vietnam for a country that largely viewed them as second class citizens?

Edited August 19, 2024 by Phoenix_person

[NeuroTypical]

3 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

So they deserve to be bombed into extermination because they don't accept gay people? It's possible to fight for the survival of someone who wants you dead based on nothing more than the idea that mass murder is bad.

Yeah, claims of 'bombing into extermination', 'fighting for [the Gazan people's] survival' and 'mass murder' are nonserious accusations against Israel.  The accusations don't hold up in civil debate.  They lose validity after an hour of study of the history of warfare.   You simply can't compare Israel's actions in Gaza with other invasions in terms of protecting civilian populations, providing aid, and following the rules of engagement laid out in the Geneva convention, and continue to use those politically charged agenda driven misapplied words.  At least you can't and be taken seriously.

We humans know what genocide/extermination bombing/mass murder looks like.  If that was Israel's goal, they would have done it by now.   You don't ship food aid and tents and 2 million polio vaccines to a people you're trying to wipe off the face of the map.  

Hamas combatants, who have been trained for decades to attack Israel out of hospitals, mosques, schools, UN facilities, and homes, are being exterminated.  Israel is doing a better job than the allied forces in WWII at avoiding civilian casualties, and helping the impacted Gazans.  

If Hamas wanted the killing to stop, they could surrender and release the hostages. 

If Israel wanted the killing to stop, they have to stop existing.  The word genocide is absolutely applicable to use, in context of what Israel would have to endure in order to get their enemies to stop killing them.  "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" = Israel can't exist.  Calls for intifada?  Y'ever googled intifada?   Particularly troubling to Jews not even living in Israel, is how easy it is to find calls to "Globalize the Intifada".  Meaning, "gotta end them everywhere on Earth".  

 

Edited August 19, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[Ironhold]

22 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

So they deserve to be bombed into extermination because they don't accept gay people? It's possible to fight for the survival of someone who wants you dead based on nothing more than the idea that mass murder is bad. How many black soldiers fought in WWII and Vietnam for a country that largely viewed them as second class citizens?

I was talking about people who weren't entirely informed of the causes for which they're trying to champion trying to make those causes part of their identities. 

In this case, we have a group of individuals making a big spectacle out of something that would likely get them killed if they actually tried it *in* Palestine. 

[Ironhold]

21 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Hamas combatants, who have been trained for decades to attack Israel out of hospitals, mosques, schools, UN facilities, and homes, are being exterminated.  Israel is doing a better job than the allied forces in WWII at avoiding civilian casualties, and helping the impacted Gazans.  

This is something the international mainstream media needs to do a better job of. Instead of asking why Israel is targeting these facilities, they need to ask why Hamas is setting up their soldiers in these facilities. 

As it is, there's reason to believe that Israel is a de facto nuclear power, and that their Dimona nuclear reactor was in fact established to give them access to the nuclear materials they needed. If this is indeed the case, they will *not* hesitate to light someone up if Israel's survival as a nation is in credible danger. 

[Phoenix_person]

25 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

I was talking about people who weren't entirely informed of the causes for which they're trying to champion trying to make those causes part of their identities. 

You think the Muslim view on homesexuality is a secret that leftists aren't privy to? We know. And we know the tactical difficulty of fighting an enemy that uses civilian populations as human shields. We reject the idea that there is an acceptable amount of collateral damage in the pursuit of Hamas. THAT'S the key difference between pro-Israel folks and the pro-Palestine movement. The tactical difficulties of this conflict are well known. What isn't as visible to the general public is the scope of the devastation that Gaza has been subjected to over the course of the last 10 months. 

I'm not new to this. I've been part of an occupying military force. I saw Najaf and Fallujah with my own eyes (what was left of them, anyway). It wasn't a mystery to me why we were greeted with rocks instead of grateful smiles. When you attack a civilian population in the pursuit of terrorists, you usually create more terrorists than you kill.

[LDSGator]

1 minute ago, Phoenix_person said:

 

. When you attack a civilian population in the pursuit of terrorists, you usually create more terrorists than you kill.

I totally agree with you that you‘ll create more terrorists. 
 

Having said that, you can’t let Hamas openly and freely kill Israelis while you do nothing about it. You need to have a balance between punishment/consequences and doing exactly what you said.  

[Ironhold]

5 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

I totally agree with you that you‘ll create more terrorists. 
 

Having said that, you can’t let Hamas openly and freely kill Israelis while you do nothing about it. You need to have a balance between punishment/consequences and doing exactly what you said.  

People miss the fact that the chant "from the river to the sea" means "the people chanting that phrase quite literally want to see Israel forcibly wiped off the map and the people slaughtered or driven into the water". 

Hamas won't stop until either every last Israeli is dead or every last Hamas member is dead, and the international community is doing its best to pretend that they don't understand this. 

[LDSGator]

6 minutes ago, Ironhold said:

People miss the fact that the chant "from the river to the sea" means "the people chanting that phrase quite literally want to see Israel forcibly wiped off the map and the people slaughtered or driven into the water". 

 

No one misses that. We all see it and know that Hamas wants Israel eradicated. Ironically, Israel creating more terrorists will help Hamas in the long run,  not Israel.  

[NeuroTypical]

2 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

When you attack a civilian population in the pursuit of terrorists, you usually create more terrorists than you kill.

I appreciate and respect your experience.  That said, theories and perspectives coming from the last 30 years of war in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, are hardly the only perspectives.  And Hamas, while absolutely a terrorist organization and using terrorist tactics, is also the ruling government in Gaza, complete with organized military units tied in to the political rulers. 

More apt analogies when thinking about civilian casualties similar to the Israel/Gaza situation might be stuff like:

- Imperial Japan with all the firebombing and nuking, and not executing the emperor and all that, resulted in a friendly people who accepted defeat and turned into some of the US' strongest allies.  Different culture, but once the emperor was seen as a human and not a god, the soundly defeated Japanese folks stayed soundly defeated.  I'd note that our military presence remains there to this day. https://militarybases.com/overseas/japan/
- Nzi Germany with the absolute devastation of entire cities and 1-3 million civilians dead and all that, resulted in an almost immediate alliance against the USSR, with former enemies set aside their differences so quickly everyone's head spun.  The German people stopped liking their rulers 2 years into the war, and were more joyful than the allied troops to see them ended.

My dad was in WWII, and I've spent my entire life listening to his entire generation poo-poo today's wars, starting with Korea, as "not real wars", because everything since WWII has left undefeated enemies and ideology.  (Please understand I'm not poo-pooing your experiences or knowledge.)   I suppose it comes down to if Israel will have the will and courage to end Hamas permanently and break the Gazan will to fight so badly that they finally stay defeated.  If Israel stops or is stopped before the job is done, there's a chance you'll end up being correct, because the ideology will not have been defeated.  I have hope for Israel.  The state who's main promise is "never again", and it happened again on O7.  That's a different mandate than regime change or limiting the spread of communism or fighting half a world away.

Edited August 20, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[Carborendum]

2 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

You think the Muslim view on homesexuality is a secret that leftists aren't privy to? We know. And we know the tactical difficulty of fighting an enemy that uses civilian populations as human shields.

I'm certain that there are a certain percentage of leftist who are informed, but (like you) have decided to focus on other things than what conservatives focus on.  But my experience with the leftists who make the most noise truly have no idea that their antics would get them killed if they tried it in Palestine.  They (Hamas) only cheer it on because they know that those same people whom they hate are also trying to tear down the historical American way (which they also hate).

2 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

We reject the idea that there is an acceptable amount of collateral damage in the pursuit of Hamas. THAT'S the key difference between pro-Israel folks and the pro-Palestine movement.

Then what would you suggest?  If they are literally using hospitals (the people therein) as human shields, then that's it?  No way to attack them?

By way of analogy, are you familiar with what our policing system refers to as "exigent circumstances"?  Do you understand why?

2 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

The tactical difficulties of this conflict are well known. What isn't as visible to the general public is the scope of the devastation that Gaza has been subjected to over the course of the last 10 months. 

Again, general public is all about the protests who support people who would want the protesters killed if they had their way.

And I don't see why there is a problem with the "scope of devastation."  It is an all-out war that was started without reasonable provocation.  We can argue all year about pointing fingers. But there are two points I'd really like to hear a leftist admit to:

• If Palestinians never had any weapons, there would be no war and both peoples would live in peace.
• If Israel had no weapons, they'd be wiped off the face of the map and Palestinians (along with most of the Middle East) would rejoice and throw a party for weeks.

The fact that I've never heard a leftist in the public eye admit to this speaks to the level of denial of historical facts.  If you don't believe these two points, then I'd ask the following:

• What would it take for Palestine to admit defeat and just make peace with Israel?  Would it ever happen? 
• What would Israel have to do? 
• What would Palestine have to do? 
• What would Hamas have to do?

2 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:

When you attack a civilian population in the pursuit of terrorists, you usually create more terrorists than you kill.

Why do you think that is? Near the end of WWII, we bombed Germany as if it were a land of pyrotechnical experimentation.  MANY human deaths were absolutely unnecessary.   But we didn't see a whole lot of Germans come after the war and justify becoming terrorists against the former Allied powers.  The fact is that we made peace with all the Axis powers after tremendous devastation.  We are the only nation who ever dropped the bomb on another nation.  And yet, they are now one of our closest trading partners and allies.

Why does that never happen in the Middle East?

Edited August 20, 2024 by Carborendum

[NeuroTypical]

 

28 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

• If Palestinians never had any weapons, there would be no war and both peoples would live in peace.
• If Israel had no weapons, they'd be wiped off the face of the map and Palestinians (and most of the Middle East would rejoice and throw a party for weeks.

In my experience, once someone internalizes and accepts this state of affairs, they usually become a supporter of Israel's post O7 actions, or at least drop out of the debate.

There are always excesses and war crimes in war.  I'm in favor of exposing and punishing any individual or groups of individuals fighting for Israel who has committed war crimes.  I'm not opposed to execution for war criminals once the crimes reach a certain point. 

I'm also constantly lost in sadness for the plight of the random citizen of Gaza just trying to exist.  So many people there have lost friends, family, children, homes.  Tenuous refugee conditions where polio can take root?  Ouch. 

I'd love to see a popular uprising of Gazans against their rulers, speaking openly about how it's not fair for Hamas combatants to operate out of homes and schools and mosques and hospitals.  While unbiased reporting is impossible, the reports I see from the streets paint similar pictures that Gazans support Hamas.  Many don't believe Hamas took hostages or harmed Israeli civilians.  Some are under the impression that they've been occupied, even though Israel left in 2005.  You can't find anyone to say "I'm against my Hamas leaders but I'm afraid to speak out because they'll end me and my family", but it seems plausible that an awful lot of Gazans fall into that camp.

Edited August 20, 2024 by NeuroTypical

[LDSGator]

8 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

love to see a popular uprising of Gazans against their rulers, speaking openly about how it's not fair for Hamas combatants to operate out of homes and schools and mosques and hospitals. 

Couldn’t agree more. 

[Carborendum]

22 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

I'd love to see a popular uprising of Gazans against their rulers, speaking openly about how it's not fair for Hamas combatants to operate out of homes and schools and mosques and hospitals.  While unbiased reporting is impossible, the reports I see from the streets paint similar pictures that Gazans support Hamas.  Many don't believe Hamas took hostages or harmed Israeli civilians.  Some are under the impression that they've been occupied, even though Israel left in 2005.  You can't find anyone to say "I'm against my Hamas leaders but I'm afraid to speak out because they'll end me and my family", but it seems plausible that an awful lot of Gazans fall into that camp.

I hear you.

A while back I read up on the "Doctors without Borders" website.  They devoted a considerable amount of text to the conditions in Gaza.

Not a single sentence even mentioned the initial attack by Palestinians against Israel.  Not a single mention of the causes of the war.  Not a single mention of those Israeli civilians KIDNAPPED by Palestine.  They only touched lightly on the treatments they were giving the Palestinian patients.

The great majority of the website was devoted to saying how unfair it was that Israel was invading, attacking, occupying, etc.  And all that was making the doctors' work much more difficult.  Not a single mention of how the military would set up in hospitals.  No mentions of how they would leave with all the vehicles and supplies when Israel warned about pending bombs. 

The lack of mention also implies that Hamas never helped the civilians evacuate.  They simply took everything and left the staff and patients to fend for themselves against the attack that was about to happen.  And the website certainly made mention of that.

Does this make any sense?  They expressed how they had no means to evacuate.  And they mention that the attacks came.  But the make no mention of how the military forces abandoned them to the attack.  They blame it all on Israel.

This kind of mentality is what assures that there will never be an uprising against Hamas.  They've been brainwashed.  Hamas can do no wrong.  Israel can do no right.

Edited August 20, 2024 by Carborendum

[Phoenix_person]

 

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

And Hamas, while absolutely a terrorist organization and using terrorist tactics, is also the ruling government in Gaza, complete with organized military units tied in to the political rulers. 

Yep, that definitely makes the situation in the region more complicated.

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

More apt analogies when thinking about civilian casualties similar to the Israel/Gaza situation might be stuff like:

- Imperial Japan with all the firebombing and nuking, and not executing the emperor and all that, resulted in a friendly people who accepted defeat and turned into some of the US' strongest allies.  Different culture, but once the emperor was seen as a human and not a god, the soundly defeated Japanese folks stayed soundly defeated. 

I'm not entirely sure about Japan, but I know a lot of German civilians had no idea the full extents the Nazis went to in their extermination of Jews. There were even multiple attempts from inside the regime to assassinate Hitler. They knew they were the baddies. On some level, the Japanese probably knew as well. The Palestinians view their cause as just. They're not fighting to save an empire. They're fighting for their right to exist, something that's been the focus of dispute since 1948 (and realistically, much longer than that). The West got involved and threw gasoline on a region that was already smoldering. I condemn the violent tactics and practices of Hamas, but I also understand the conditions that led to their rise.

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

I'd note that our military presence remains there to this day. https://militarybases.com/overseas/japan/

I've been to several of those bases. My dad was stationed at Kadena twice during his time in the Air Force. I was born at Camp Lester Navy Hospital, as was my youngest brother 11 years later. During the second tour, I remember regularly seeing local civilians* outside the gate protesting US presence.

*The local dynamic is interesting in Okinawa. There's a lot of Japanese nationals, but also a lot of native Okinawans. The Okinawans view both us and the Japanese the way indigenous Hawaiians view the US.

3 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

My dad was in WWII, and I've spent my entire life listening to his entire generation poo-poo today's wars, starting with Korea, as "not real wars", because everything since WWII has left undefeated enemies and ideology.  (Please understand I'm not making the case or poo-pooing your experiences or knowledge.)   I suppose it comes down to if Israel will have the will and courage to end Hamas permanently and break the Gazan will to fight so badly that they finally stay defeated.  If Israel stops or is stopped before the job is done, there's a chance you'll end up being correct, because the ideology will not have been defeated.  I have hope for Israel.  The state who's main promise is "never again", and it happened again on O7.  That's a different mandate than regime change or limiting the spread of communism or fighting half a world away.

There's a reason why total destruction of the enemy fell out of fashion in modern warfare: television. How different would public opinion have been if the American public of the time had access to hours of footage from the trenches of WWI or the beaches of Normandy? It's not a coincidence that the first truly unpopular war that was fought on foreign soil was also the first major war in the television era. Israel's support is failing on the American left because we can pull a "TV" out of our pocket and see a Palestinian child with it's head crushed by the building that just fell on it after being struck by an American-made weapon. It's very hard to defend images like that with "But hey, we killed a couple of Hamas lieutenants too".

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Then what would you suggest?  If they are literally using hospitals (the people therein) as human shields, then that's it?  No way to attack them?

It's possible to kill someone in a building without destroying the entire building. More difficult, sure, but possible. I find it hard to believe that Mossad doesn't have the resources to conduct covert strikes in their own backyard.

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

By way of analogy, are you familiar with what our policing system refers to as "exigent circumstances"?  Do you understand why?

Yes. Executing a police raid is a slightly different operation in comparison to launching a missile strike.

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

Again, general public is all about the protests who support people who would want the protesters killed if they had their way.

Again, that's not a reason to not advocate for their survival, especially for those who call themselves "Christian". I understand that there are Christian reasons to support Israel too. The one constant truth about this conflict is that it has never been morally black-and-white. With that being the case, my morality dictates that I advocate for the preservation of human life as much as possible. That is why I strongly condemn both the attacks by Hamas and the scope of Israel's military response. 

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

And I don't see why there is a problem with the "scope of devastation."  It is an all-out war that was started without reasonable provocation.  We can argue all year about pointing fingers. But there are two points I'd really like to hear a leftist admit to:

• If Palestinians never had any weapons, there would be no war and both peoples would live in peace.

Palestinians being out-gunned is what led to their mass displacement in the first place. 

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

• If Israel had no weapons, they'd be wiped off the face of the map and Palestinians (and most of the Middle East would rejoice and throw a party for weeks.

Which is why disarmament isn't what's being requested, it's a cease-fire.

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

What would it take for Palestine to admit defeat and just make peace with Israel? 

Not bombs, clearly. In all honesty, I don't know. Anyone who thinks they have an answer other than "the eradication of the Palestinian people" is lying. There's no easy solution, other than total military dominance, and the amount of death that that would require should be out of the question, just as it should have been out of the question in 1945.

 

2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

• Why do you think that is? Near the end of WWII, we bombed Germany as if it were a land of pyrotechnical experimentation.  MANY human deaths were absolutely unnecessary.   But we didn't see a whole lot of Germans come after the war and justify becoming terrorists against the former Allied powers.  The fact is that we made peace with all the Axis powers after tremendous devastation.  We are the only nation who ever dropped the bomb on another nation.  And yet, they are now one of our closest trading partners and allies.

Why does that never happen in the Middle East?

Germany is an interesting example. They were occupied for 44 years by two very different occupiers. The stark contrast was made clear early on by the Berlin Blockade, to which the US responded with airdrops of food and medicine. Yeah, I can see why the Germans didn't have beef with us.

Japan had an empire, and we destroyed it. Their culture is very pragmatic. They made the most of what we left for them and flourished. We best them, but they refused to stay beaten, in their own way.

The Middle East has been a chessboard for Western powers for centuries. Displacing 700,000 Palestinians to create an Israeli state was a huge slap in the face to the Arab world. Over a million Palestinians are still living in refugee camps to this day, most lacking the means to start over elsewhere. This affects not only Palestinians, but the people and governments of their Arab neighbors as well. Germany and Japan don't have that problem.

[NeuroTypical]

Good post Phoenix. I'd just add:

7 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

The Middle East has been a chessboard for Western powers for centuries. Displacing 700,000 Palestinians to create an Israeli state was a huge slap in the face to the Arab world. Over a million Palestinians are still living in refugee camps to this day, most lacking the means to start over elsewhere. This affects not only Palestinians, but the people and governments of their Arab neighbors as well.

You need two to play chess.  The more I look at the history of displaced populations and see what happens to them, the more I realize the plight of the Palestinians stopped being Israel's fault 60 years ago.  It's a combination of the neighbors, and the Palestinians themselves.   Have you done any reading on the history of neighboring countries allowing Palestinian immigration, and the results?  There's a good reason why the border between Gaza and Egypt looks like this.  I mean, it's hard to blame the people stuck as pawns for so long, but the old saying has been true for the 3 decades I've been paying attention: The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Makes me sad.  During COVID, I was desperate for good global news, and was thrilled when the news kept breaking that nation after nation was granting recognition to the state of Israel.   In the week prior to O7, there was a tiny little news snippet about the first Israeli government official to ever land in Saudi Arabia - some agricultural cooperation or some such.  Such things are how peace happens.   But nope, too many powers don't want Israel to live peacefully with it's neighbors.