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Feral Finster's avatar

The West's dehumanization of Arabs is unforgivable. No argument from me.

Arabs also should look to their own leaders' craven abject slavishness towards their American Master and be ashamed.

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Nick Douglas's avatar

For the past 70 years it is Arabs and Palestinians in particular. How many hundreds Hollywood (garbage) movies were made portraying all Arabs as low life, villains, criminals, thieves, etc. How many MSM articles dehumanizing Palestinians. Probably millions. Have you ever seen a jewish or israeli evil character in any Hollywood movie? Of course not. Fascist anti-human West always commits genocides and theft. Before that it was Native Americans (which colonizers called "savages"), African Slaves, Latin American natives, Africans, Asians, Australian and NZ natives, etc. Tomorrow (already is) Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and whoever is in their path of world domination, brutal oppression, and theft. The problem is in the capitalism, but I think even more so in the supremacist western "culture" which is the lowest and most despicable, unjust, violent, and brutal social form that ever existed. Don't forget that west invented genocides, fascism, Zionism, Nazism, colonialism, imperialism, etc. What more proof does one need?

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Aamir Razak's avatar

very well stated Mr. Douglas! It's all about the "us vs them" mentality, the dehumanization of the "other" (which can be applied to whoever stands in the way of imperialist hegemony and conquest), the "civilized, enlightened" vs "the backwards savage" etc.

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Davina's avatar

True, the Scots were the supposed savages when England wanted our country even though we were trading with many other countries for long before England ever did. The mud huts were a fantasy because it made the Scots seem less than the invading English. The Romans didn't beat us, so they used that slur, and the southerners used it too. One would think the world would be mire aware of that tactics by now and look further to find the truth.

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Aamir Razak's avatar

Agreed Davina, it's the same old story throughout history. The names and places change, but it's the same tactic. Dehumanize the "other" who looks different or has a different language or different faith, call them all manner of horrible things, reduce them to ignorant and inaccurate stereotypes. All these tactics are used to "justify" violence and disenfranchisement of that group by the powers that be.

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Davina's avatar

And who has the money and the media in both news(?)and films, who has accumulated the money(and how did they manage to accumulate it? Jews have always been in the money business, they were thrown out of the temples by Jesus for that, and look what happened to Him).

The thing people forget, and Jews want you to, is that it was an Arab in Ur, Iraq who was the first jew! (Was islam too soft for him, with its respect for women and others-I'm talking about the real islam practiced by Palestinians through the centuries, the Islam that Hamas resistance fighters treated their POWs with). Is that why they hate Arabs so much because the one man who was the founder was kicked out, with his family and followers-the eternal victims-of every country they tried to own.

Judaism is not as long as it likes to make out it is. It was started towards the finish of the building of the ziggurat in Ur.

Probably why the zionists settled on Jews as the scapegoats, while they actually used them as the frontmen as they make their bid for world domination, so many Jews see themselves as superior and zionists are happy to let them believe that until such time as they are no longer needed or useful.

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gypsy33's avatar

Nick! 👏👏👏👏👏

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علي's avatar

arabs will look to their leaders once westerners look at theirs. our leaders are not the ones carrying out genocide, they’re the onlookers. the onus isn’t on us. besides, westerners supposedly elect those genocidal lunatics as leaders, we don’t.

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currer's avatar
5dEdited

It is not "westerners" as a social group, but a tiny number of deep state appointed politicians and financiers working with the military industrial complex who carry out these atrocities. Any progressive European politician since WW2 who opposed US hegemony had a very short political career and if he did not shut up was assassinated. Remember Olaf Palme.

European culture has been deliberately degraded over seventy years and any enlightened growth snuffed out.

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Nick Douglas's avatar

Agree ali. Actually, many Arab countries/nations/people tried to get rid of their despotic imposed rulers, but it was always the western judeo-nazis that interfered and rescued the rulers from the angry and oppressed people. The western "democracy" and "human rights" you know.

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Coatlicue's avatar

Even MBS made a statement about his people rising up against him. Arab/Muslim leaders know, even as they kiss Western ass, that their handle on their people is tenuous at best. They should also know that the West will not protect them from anything, especially izrl. "Greater izrl" includes Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and parts of Egypt. They're Arabs, first and foremost, and thus expendable.

These pig shit leaders have traded the ummah for money and power. They will pay someday. They should all end up swinging like Mussolini.

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Feral Finster's avatar

They all know this full well, which is why their security services are staffed exclusively by trusted members of their respective tribes, why their jets (flown by US or uk pilots) are always fueled up and ready to leave at all times at a moment's notice, why they buy western properties as boltholes and stash their loot offshore in places like the Caymans, Panama and Switzerland.

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Feral Finster's avatar

Oh, I wrote not a word of praise of the west or its rulers.

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Aamir Razak's avatar

agreed Feral. The complicity of some of those leaders and their kowtowing to imperialist powers, while disenfranchising their own people is shameful. I think that part of that is, no doubt because said imperialists installed those leaders as their proxies in those countries to serve their own interests.

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Feral Finster's avatar

The West likes weak and dependent puppet regimes.

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Aamir Razak's avatar

spot on Feral, totally agreed.

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Marten's avatar

Spot-on and they're gonna start bombing Venezuela in the name of "Peace" and the cancer on this planet is "Israhell", ...Period

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ScreamingFister's avatar

The Muslim world's continued trade, diplomatic and in many cases military ties with Israel is unforgivable. The Western world at least has the excuse of cynicism or indifference or shared religious fanaticism but the Muslim world has no such excuses. I'm not saying the West isn't villananous, it is, but the Muslim world would rather watch FIFA than take a stand against the mass murder of their women and children. And the Shia / Sunni stuff is despicable - where's your solidarity Muslims. Someone once said that the only people that hate Muslims more than Israelis is other Muslims. I can't say they're wrong.

I sincerely pray for the Muslim world to completely cut ALL ties with Israel - EVERYTHING. You can't demand the Western world do the same when Muslim nations are still accepting Israeli tourists - RIDICULOUS

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Coatlicue's avatar

I was in Morocco in March and when leaving, I was on a plane with a bunch of Jewish/Israeli tourists. Ugh. Morocco really had a welcome mat for them. I did not see that many, if any, in Istanbul, Egypt or Jordan.

Arab/Muslim leaders know, even as they kiss Western ass, that their handle on their people is tenuous at best. They should also know that the West will not protect them from anything, especially izrl. "Greater izrl" includes Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and parts of Egypt. They're Arabs, first and foremost, and thus expendable.

These pig shit leaders have traded the ummah for money and power. They will pay someday. They should all end up swinging like Mussolini.

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Feral Finster's avatar

They know, which is one reason they buy trophy properties abroad and they stash their money offshore.

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Feral Finster's avatar

They crave American carrot and fear American stick.

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Laith 🔻🇵🇸's avatar

Your comment helped me to write this note, cheers

It’s funny how the Jews are out completely out of story in occupied Palestine. Apparently they have nothing to do with Israel.

Jews has nothing to do in Hollywood, to promote Jews and dehumanising Arab in almost every movie they could.

Nor they don’t own almost every big media.

Nor the social media, they don’t spread hasbara there. They don’t own most of it, no.

Or they control big tech company like Microsoft Google to spread anti Arabs ads no, no, absolutely wrong.

They don’t run the biggest sex child trafficking.

They had nothing to do with Epstein island , they don’t buy, bribe or blackmail most of the western politicians. It’s all antisemitism and Jews hate

It’s completely free speech to criticize them when they commit a Holocaust in Gaza. When you want to know who truly rules your country, look at the one you cannot criticize—like Putin in Russia or the Chinese Communist Party in China. In the same way you can critise the Jews in the West.This is just a side note for you btw

I even read in the comments sections that some blame the Arabs, which is true—Arabs are cowardly for allowing these puppet rulers to mess things up. And I agree with that.

But it’s still very strange that Jews are left out of the story. They are completely out of it

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serafino bueti's avatar

Don't forget organ harvesting.

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martin's avatar

one has to have a lot of money to own all that stuff and keep unsavoury things under the radar. sure it ain't the rich, or at least the rich jews?

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gypsy33's avatar

Perfectly stated Brother Laith! 🇵🇸🇵🇸🇵🇸

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Laith 🔻🇵🇸's avatar

I hope all is good with you sister ✌️

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gypsy33's avatar

Thanks Brother. I wish the same for you . 👍

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Feral Finster's avatar

If you follow Russian news, the Russian press has been almost hostile towards Putin and his timidity of late.

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Helga Fellay's avatar

It's far more complex than you make it out to be. America along with its master Israel, pose a danger so great that Arabs' hesitation to confront it is understandable. It's the "American master" who should be ashamed to to even want to control and dominate Arabs on the other side of the world.

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Feral Finster's avatar

I never said that America should feel anything other than shame.

For their part, the Arab rulers sold their brethren out for a handful of trinkets.

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Helga Fellay's avatar

Let me repeat what Ali said:ali

"arabs will look to their leaders once westerners look at theirs. our leaders are not the ones carrying out genocide, they’re the onlookers. the onus isn’t on us. besides, westerners supposedly elect those genocidal lunatics as leaders, we don’t."

Allow me to add that another consideration is that what amounts to merely "a handful of trinkets" to the arrogant West might amount to far more than THEIR own treasury has for them.

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Feral Finster's avatar

Note that the Arab princes, sheiks, and whatnot are already rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

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Feral Finster's avatar

If the Arabs do not like the leaders foisted on them (and I am certain that they do not), then change them or put the fear of God into them. Staring at one's proverbial shoes will do no good.

As an aside, if the Americans were smarter, they'd offer Ansarallah leaders a few carrots. Basically copy Spanish strategy in the Chichimec War.

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Helen Trainor's avatar

Couldn't agree more... 👍

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martin's avatar

most of those leaders are pretty rich.

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Barry Banks's avatar

Now you’re beginning to understand, capitalism, whenever you have an imperial power, you get genocide, as they say, socialism or barbarism, we get to choose

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Ronald McElroy's avatar

Extreme wealth almost always rots the human soul of compassion and humanity. The capitalists SEEK this... that is the problem. Just look at Epstein and his collection of wealthy perverts that governments are STILL protecting. Billary is the perfect example!

This concept is not new... just look at the historical religious acknowledgment: "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God". Imagine how dangerous this will get when AI allows only a few billionaires to own all of us and everything in sight. Most humans will be expendable... just look at how Zionists (supremacists) are treating the humans they consider expendable.

The "kingdom" of God is the now, here and within. Seems the reality of greed is driving the headline: "Israel has attacked six countries in the past 72 hours

In just three days, Israel has carried out strikes in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Tunisia, Qatar and Yemen." And USA Zionists are now attacking Venezuela!

Add this to your list of reasons why Zionists historically opposed and fought the messages of Jesus. I suspect that all Christian nations are still seen as the true enemy of Zionism, Jewish supremacy.

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Truth Seeking Missile's avatar

It has nothing to with wealth per se, just the natural accumulation of capital by capitalists until the society reaches the monopolist imperial stage, which is where we are at. Lenin wrote presciently about this dialectic evolution.

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Barry Banks's avatar

Just say no to capitalism, and any capitalist political party or candidate

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Carolyn L Zaremba's avatar

I already do. I only vote for the Socialist Equality Party, the party of the Fourth International founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938. We carry on the true socialist movement.

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Ian Brown's avatar

I'm pretty sure she understands...

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Occam's avatar

It's quite striking the number of people completely okay with the slaughter of innocent Palestinians.

They deserve it because of Hamas, or Iran, or something.

Despicable.

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Coatlicue's avatar

I've seen people posting that it's so bad here in the US now, and if we had voted for KH, we wouldn't be here. Voting for one issue is stupid they say.

Basing a vote on genocide is "stupid." This is what we've become.

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gypsy33's avatar
4dEdited

Agree Coatlicue. Some dumbfuck hammered me for not voting for Scamala even though he admitted she was “dreadful”. Explain to me how anyone should waste their vote on a “dreadful” (and genocidal) candidate.

Any Amerikkkan who didn’t vote JILL STEIN should be kicked in their collective asses.

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Aamir Razak's avatar

Very well said as always, Ms. Johnstone. The demonization and dehumanization of the other (whether they be Arabs, Muslims or any other group) by the West is despicable and wrong. Reducing people to "the other" and thinking of them as somehow less worthy of compassion or human dignity because of the color of their skin or religion or where they came from is vile, and only serves as justification for some of the worst crimes against humanity, including the unconscionable genocide we have witnessed live for the last 2 years.

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gypsy33's avatar

Hi Aamir

We saw this during Vietnam, when the people there were referred to as “gooks”.

Amerikkkans seem to consistently require an object of hatred in order to distract ourselves from our own shortcomings.

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Aamir Razak's avatar

Well said Gypsy, and great example. It's the same story of dehumanization and demonization that is used to "justify" horrific violence and bloodshed. Yeah, pretty sad that there must always be a "bogeyman" to fight in order to avoid looking in the mirror and taking accountability for one's faults.

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Steven Marriott's avatar

Tonto was always subservient to the Lone Ranger.

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Pamela Curr's avatar

So tragically true.

Zionist bleating is sickening- the media representation of return of the Israeli “hostages”

Contrasts with enforced silence of Palestinian returns. The silence on the continued killing of Palestinians post ceasefire beyond belief.

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Nick Douglas's avatar

But it was so predictable.

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The Revolution Continues's avatar

Sadly, too predictable.

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Diana van Eyk's avatar

This attitudes dehumanizes those who hold it as well. Is that really what people want? It's unforgivable, and it's a kind of sickness no one should aspire to.

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Levi Tate's avatar

Here is a headline from 2003, before we invaded Iraq:

Demonizing the Enemy a Hallmark of War

---

https://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=79071

“For most human beings, it takes an awful lot to allow them to kill another human being,” said Anthony Pratkanis, a psychology professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “The only way to do it is to justify the killing, to make the enemy look as evil as possible.”

Propaganda, both by governments and the private media, has evolved over the years as media has evolved. But, some say, the principle remains the same.

“The secret in propaganda is that when you demonize, you dehumanize,” said James Forsher, a film historian and documentary filmmaker who has studied propaganda films, and who is an assistant professor of mass communications at California State University, Hayward.

“When you dehumanize, it allows you to kill your enemy and no longer feel guilty about it,” he said. “That is why during World War II, a lot of caricatures became animals. … You can kill a monkey a lot more easily than you can kill a neighbor.”

Tales of atrocities also can dehumanize, as readers of William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers learned when they got whipped up for the Spanish-American war with fake stories and sketches of Spanish atrocities that probably never happened. Arguably, it set a pattern for phony or embellished American wartime propaganda that would last at least through the Gulf War.

---

But you knew this, everyone should know this. So why does it still work?

The Oct 15th main headline (and subtext) at Reuters was this:

How the Houthis rule in Yemen: prisons, a personality cult, and pilfered food aid

[subtext:]

Yemenis who fled Houthi areas of this divided country paint a grim picture of life under the militant group. People are forced to attend rallies and chant death to America and Israel, pay crippling taxes and hand children over to be soldiers, they say.

The central photo on Reuter’s front page is of a damaged building with a collapsing roof. Is it a photo of one of the buildings demolished by the Gangster Empire? No, unsurprisingly it is more demonization, with a text under the photo that reads:

People walk past a building that locals say had been targeted during the civil war. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

So……..what is this demonization of the Houthis for?

A prelude to more attacks upon Yemen in support of Genocide?

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Luke's avatar

Can someone please help me out? My friend keeps reminding me about how happy the Palestinians are since the ceasefire. He sends me videos after video of the signing and dancing.

I for one do not buy it. I have warned him repeatedly that it is probably bullshit. We do not know who or where those people in the video are even located (highly doubt Gaza). Everything in there seems to have been turned to rubble. Also reminded him that there is a full blown Israeli propaganda push going on right now.

Anyhow am wondering if there’s anything I can tell him about those videos if that makes sense?

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Caitlin Johnstone's avatar

Of course they're happy, it's the most hope they've had in two years. That doesn't mean it's going to last, or that Israel isn't going to keep killing and abusing Palestinians and trying to complete its land grab.

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Luke's avatar

Thanks am just getting to the news this morning. Late last night I saw on X that they were back to bombing Lebanon.

If this is accurate (so much BS out there) these were massive bombs. The Arab Lady reporting it seems to be reliable. Sorry can’t think of her name.

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Ebr975's avatar

If you don't already, go to Electronic Intifada on You Tube every Thursday noon EST. Go To Free Palestine TV with Laith Marouf on You Tube; he mostly reports on and from Lebanon. Go to the Grayzone on Youtube (you can also find all of them on the 'net). All top notch journalists. They are accurate.

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Nammy's avatar

Yes Caitlin! Agreed! We need redemption, for our soul to be saved. What has been going on is the furtherest thing that the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, is about. All of it is pure evil, it is not the Jesus way, it is not the humanity way. I am so grateful for your writing and being so clear and so strong in bringing attention to this horribleness. Thank you!

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Samdav7's avatar

She doesn't have anything to do with Jesus.

But good for you.

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Jennifer Akdemir's avatar

Particularly since Jesus was a man from the Arabs' part of the world.....

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Alan's avatar

We commit genocide and then wonder why they hate us? 🤡

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Nick Douglas's avatar

That is also what judeo-nazi perverts want. So, they can say "they hate us because we are better and chosen".

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Alan's avatar

🤡💩God wouln’t choose idiot genociders.

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Caspar Hall's avatar

this is the best piece of writing about the conflict that i have seen since october seventh 2023. perhaps i should explain, i am a privileged white male and my wife is a brown palestinian.

since she first put foot in the 'west', my civilisation has crumbled before our eyes, friends and family have been lost, all of my history lessons and schooling have been hollowed out.

everything that you say here and more, it is no consolation to point the finger at arab leaders or non believers: western civilisation has been built upon colonialism and its brutal footsoldier white privilege.

i hope that before long we can all bury western civilisation and recover the words of the holy and the wise.

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Mo Mast's avatar

western civilization???????? there is no such thing. or as Gandhi said when asked what he thought about western civilization "I think it would be a good idea

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David Latin's avatar

The Palestinians too have enemies in their own midst, such as the PA that serves Israel as a Puppet Government. And all the corrupt Arab leaders in the region, easily tempted by US$.

No acknowledgement that the World has no useful need for the existence of Israel, after their proven history of the last 80 years!

And soon expanding to a Greater Israel.

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MM's avatar

Oh, but the West DOES have a need for Israel!

Where else can they sell all their weapons (that are then used on Palestinians) and in return get advanced spy technology (that have been perfected on Palestinians)?

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William Zannoni's avatar

More: the rich and powerful don't give the slightest fuck about anyone but themselves (and their filthy interests), not only Arabs. To believe anything else is to facilitate their filthy game. One proof of this among many, if you need: israel killing hundreds of its own people on 10-7-23.

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Ron Stockton's avatar

"These last two years have shown us that western civilization doesn’t need protection, it needs redemption. It needs to save its soul." Caitlin, I'm about at the point where I think western "civilization" cannot be redeemed because it was born without a soul. Perhaps, like Naziism and Zionism, western "civilization" needs to be ended.

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Ebr975's avatar

Yep, if it has a "soul", it's the soul of a dominator and we don't need that

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Francis/Clare's avatar

All religions teach the Golden Rule, which amounts to Empathy, but too few follow it, preferring to fight and hate and kill and steal endlessly.

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