Because they dont have first hand statements, they are just using different israeli sources that independently verified it. Hence the quotes and the “allegedly”.
Contacted by the Guardian, a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister’s office said: “The questions forwarded to us are replete with many false and unfounded allegations meant to hurt the state of Israel.” Cohen did not respond to a request for comment. Bensouda declined to comment.
Abu-Sittah has been accused by some groups in the UK of promoting terrorism and spreading antisemitism.
Abu-Sittah spoke at a ceremony for the one-year anniversary of the death of Maher Al-Yamani, the co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 2020.[22][23] A video showing Abu-Sittah appear to cry while delivering a eulogy at the event that includes the language “This is our only comfort: that even when Maher leaves, the Israelis will be afraid of Maher” is published on The Jewish Chronicle’s website.[18]
In March 2024, the British NGO, UK Lawyers for Israel (A UK-based, pro-Israel legal lobbying group) sent an open letter to Glasgow University which included a review of Abu-Sittah’s public social media comments. The letter accused Abu-Sittah of reposting “an image commemorating a leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Nasser Abu Hamid, the day after he died, holding a machine gun, dripping with blood.”[24] He also wrote an article grieving for Abu Hamid, who had been convicted of multiple murders.[22]
The Times reported that Abu Sittah had compared Israeli leadership to “the psychosis of the Germans in the 30s and the 40s." The UK Lawyers for Israel letter also accused Abu-Sittah of re-posting “an antisemitic image featuring Hitler on one side and Israeli prime minister Netanyahu on the other side, both images smeared with blood, comparing Israel to the Nazis. The image was headed “Free Palestine (Palestinian Flag), Israel is a Nazi State”. The image compared the average pace of child killing of Hitler, at 127 children per day, to that of Netanyahu, which it put at 178 per day.”[24] Both of these instances have been interpreted by UK Lawyers for Israel as Antisemitism according to Example 10 of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of Antisemitism which proscribes "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Since receiving UK Lawyers for Israel’s letter, Glasgow University has launched an investigation into Abu-Sittah.
From wikipedia.
ISIS exists because Saddam was toppled, replaced by, a mostly shia government and the old iraqi military was disbanded. That created a power vacuum and left a lot of military trained guys unemployed, who felt betrayed. They basically said “fuck this world order, we will make our own, with blackjack jihad and hookers sharia law”.
Over time, they became more and more religious radicals, split off Al Qaeda and now they are fighting everyone everywhere. ISIS-K(the one in Afghanistan) seems to be the main one organizing terrorist attacks now. They are fighting the Taliban, Iran and Pakistan too. Most of ISIS’ victims are muslims, sometimes shia but often sunni(but not the right sunni).
They are a very attractive proposition for poor and desperate people around the world, who feel they got screwed. They are basically resentment manifest.
Now you might say “thats because of western imperialism” and you wouldnt be wrong. But do you know what was the most common ethnicity for foreign ISIS fighters? Russian. And no, it wasnt random russians fighting against american imperialism, it was muslim russians who simply could not fight in Russia’s Dagestan and Chechnya. Russia bombed the shit out of ISIS too, partially because of this reason.
While understanding what lead us to our current situation is important, ultimately we must face the present. Whether a military solution is the best way, is debatable. But it is easier to convince your parliament to spend x amounts of money on your own military, rather than use that funds on developing other countries.
One is not relevant to the other. The billions that Europe is spending is orders of magnitude less than they did for most of european history.
Do you think that Europe should not fight against ISIS? Are you referring to the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions? French interventions in Africa? Not all wars are the same. Take a stance instead of using vague expressions.
The fact that wars have mostly stopped in Europe is something worth celebrating and maintaining. And Russia is threatening the status quo in the european continent.
I mentioned the yugoslav wars in the post before that. The argument still stands, Europe has been mostly peaceful for the first time ever. Do you intend to actually answer any of the points of my post?
There havent been wars in Europe, unlike literally any other period in history, for almost 80 years. Dont you think that is an impressive achievement? An achievement that the invasion of Ukraine has endangered? How would you feel if you were a baltic state like Latvia? A country that has been very prosperous since the end of the Cold War?
What does your rhetoric offer to a latvian? What tangible measures should someone in Latvia take, in order to protect their way of living from someone like Russia? Should they just ignore it and focus on class warfare? What class warfare currently exists within Russia? Or can exist within an authoritarian state like Russia? Do you think Russia is communist? Or wants to become communist?
I am trying to understand, what is your argument. What do you suggest the people of a country do when some other country invades them. Even if you think that countries are obsolete artificial constructs that need to be demolished, you surely understand there is a difference when a leader from another country takes over your country. Do you think Putin is a communist?
Militarism is bad, thats why Europe had a shitty military ever since the end of the Cold War. Because every euro spent on tanks and planes, is a euro that isnt spent on healthcare and education. Europe could finally benefit from the peace dividend.
And then Russia decided one day to walk in and grab parts of Ukraine(Crimea and parts of Donbas). That started some alarms but Europe kept sleepwalking. Surely Putin wont go any further. But just like Hitler who conquered Czechoslovakia(and didnt stop there), Putin decided “why the hell dont i take the entirety of Ukraine, it isnt as if anyone will stop me, those european soycucks dont have the balls to do anything but write stern letters”.
And he almost succeeded. So after 3 decades of having basically 0 investment in military, Europe is now rushing to catch up. Because it doesnt matter how peaceful you are, it is basic game theory. If you are military weakened enough, at some point, someone, somewhere will come to power who will want to take advantage of that “weakness”.
Class warfare is irrelevant if people are not class conscious enough to stop war from both sides. Ok, i will use my magic wand and make everyone in Europe class conscious. But if russians arent class conscious enough to refuse the orders to invade a country, someone will need to stop them.
Again, imagine using the same arguments against nazi Germany. Imagine pleading german soldiers to not invade you and that class warfare is the real war. Do you think that would work?
Some people only respect power and think words are a sign of weakness.
Thats like having your house on fire and saying “this is fine” meme. Do you think that war is never an option? That giving up and letting invaders take what they want is preferable because it “reduces” human suffering?
Would you advocate the same during WW2 and Germany/Italy’s invasions? Should the countries that got invaded not resist and should the UK/US not help those countries? Imagine if you were an american in WW2 and your government was giving hundreds of billions worth of equipment to the russians, in order for Russia to fight the nazis. Would you still say “why are we sending hundreds of billions to the corrupt nation of Russia, when that money could have been used in America instead”?
The isolationist rhetoric benefits the invaders, who can easily take out individual countries(or regions of countries), one piece at a time, while placating the rest.
So your argument is that since the public in these countries is brainwashed, they arent capable for voting for their leadership, therefore there is no democracy, only the illusion of democracy. Thus an invasion and imposing a new government through violence, maybe one that aligns better with your worldview, is an acceptable thing?
I dont know, i think this is a very slippery slope. I think brainwashed people deserved to be ruled by whoever they vote, thats what democracy is and has always been. Even in ancient Athens, you had demagogues and sophists(even if we ignore that women and slaves couldnt vote). And money could get you a better sophist, to teach you how to debate and manipulate people.
So is democracy a fake system that can never be achieved? And your alternative suggestion is what?
Do people in your country oppose those bases? Do you have democracy? If the majority of people opposed those bases, they could vote for some other government. Do you understand the difference between an invasion and hosting allied troops?
If a country elects a “fascist” government and then gets invaded, do they not deserve help? So i assume you also supported the invasion of Iraq and the toppling of Saddam? They didnt even have democracy there, unlike Ukraine.
Obviously.
That’s 20 billion per year. The EU’s alone defense spending for 2023 was 270bil. This is not a lot of money.
If someone invaded your country, would you still have the same opinion? If Trump invaded your country(assuming you are not an american), would you still say “why are we spending billions to fight Trump, when we could have spent them on education and housing?”.
Just the first google results i got
https://www.equaldex.com/surveys/acceptance-of-homosexuality-arab-barometer
According to this poll, only 5-26%(varies a lot by country) of people living in arab states think that homosexuality is an acceptable practice(the rest is no/unsure/did not answer, which might be unfair to lump them all together but still)
And according to this
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/06/25/global-divide-on-homosexuality-persists/
49% of hungarians accept homosexuality
Are you saying that these polls are misleading and that most people in arab countries support lgbtq people/relations/rights? Do you have any polls that support your position?
Do you think that Hungary and Turkey are more conservative than your average arab nation? If lgbtq is an issue for these countries, dont you think it is safe to assume that this will be an issue for most arab countries?
Hungary left because it was too gay.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungary_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest
while no official reason for the withdrawal was given by the broadcaster, an inside source speaking with the website Index.hu speculated that the contest was considered “too gay” for MTVA to participate
Turkey left because they didnt like the scoring system and because of lgbtq “In August 2018, İbrahim Eren, the Director-General of TRT, stated that TRT does not plan to return to the contest and break the boycott for various reasons, citing Conchita Wurst’s participation and eventual victory in 2014.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkey_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_in_the_Eurovision_Song_Contest
Lebanon almost joined but didnt due to Lebanon’s laws banning the broadcast of Israeli content. Qatar, is outside of EBU, but kinda wanted to join but things seem to not have progressed since then. Tunisia tried to join but eventually withdrew because of Israel. Morocco participated once in the past, didnt do well and left. They also have issues with Israel.
Generally their main issue is Israel but do you honestly think they would be ok with a song like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaolVEJEjV4
It is just that their Israel issue supersedes their issues with lgbtq. But if somehow everyone in Middle East loved Israel tomorrow, most of them would still abstain from Eurovision because of the lgbtq. In many of these countries, women arent even allowed to wear a miniskirt, do you think they would be willing to show Eurovision uncensored?
PS Turkey even won Eurovision in 2003, and had plenty of top 5 finishes in the following years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest
If you scroll down to the participation section, you will notice that all of northern Africa and some of middle east is eligible to participate(it has to do with old Telegraph networks). And some of them are participating or participated in the past.
Most dont participate because Eurovision is gay as fuck and these countries dont like that. And because of Israel’s participation.
Nowadays pretty much anyone can join. Even China was about to join but because they censored the broadcast(because one country had a gay singer and another had a tattooed one) the EBU kicked them out
As a result, the EBU terminated its partnership with Mango TV, citing that censorship “is not in line with the EBU’s values of universality and inclusivity and its proud tradition of celebrating diversity through music,”
You’re also giving an outdated historic example that doesn’t make sense in the modern world where WMD are everywhere. Those numbers don’t mean anything in case those weapons play a role.
Most countries, including Germany, dont have WMDs or even want to have WMDs. Also WMDs are super expensive to acquire and maintain. And then you just need to keep making more and more.
And you have no escalation capability, you either nuke or you dont. So do you use a nuke if someone grabs 100sqm of your land? Especially since they can retaliate with their own nukes? Would you risk getting your entire country nuked for 100sqm?
Or what if 1000 green men just walk into your governmental buildings and occupy them. And they have guns. Do you nuke them? Do you send the police?
Aside from that, there’s also plenty of historic examples where a smaller army won over (much) bigger one.
And for every one of those examples, there are 100000 examples where the numerically superior army won. One of the main reasons that those early ukrainian breakthroughs were possible was because Russia didnt have enough soldiers. Once Russia conscripted more soldiers, they managed to stabilize the situation and build defenses.
One of the reasons Ukraine hasnt won is because instead of being given thousands of tanks and airplanes, they are given a couple dozen.
All in all, a person should have full control over his own choices in life.
So should a person also have the choice of not paying taxes? How about wearing a seatbelt while driving a car? Or wearing clothes when outside. Or wearing a mask.
Protecting your state is one of the most fundamental things you need to adopt, if you have any interest in living in it. And giving some basic education on how to use and maintain a rifle or do some basic guard duty is useful.
With a globalized world (and more and more cosmopolitans), the choice to disconnect yourself from a country and move to another one and start a new life is also easier as ever.
So your argument is “just leave lol”? Even if we ignore reality(people have houses, jobs, friends, environments, societies that they love and no money to move), what will happen if that strongman comes after to where you run? You keep running? Till you run out of space and neohitler has conquered the entire planet?
The main reason that Putin invaded Ukraine was because he thought your attitude was prevalent in the West. Conscription and helping Ukraine are 2 big signals that show to Putin that he was wrong.
So what is the alternative? Let any authoritarian asshole who has managed to convince many boot lickers to join him, take over your country?
Cyrillic is literally greek+glagolitic and it was partly a diplomatic creation of the Eastern Roman Empire(aka Byzantine Empire), in order to bring the slavs culturally closer to them.
Russians have nothing to do with it, other than them claiming they are the continuation of Eastern Roman Empire, something which is kinda laughable but whatever dont let your dreams be dreams.