I disagree with you on the "Zionists are all squatters" and related bits, but on the whole you've characterized alot of what is happening correctly. I can not accept though that 1930s and 40s Jewish Europeans seeking refuge amongst an existing community of Jewish Palestinians was the 'invasion' that Arab narratives claim it as.


That's also largely academic in the sense of what will happen. Israel is NOT so dominant that they can easily defeat Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran, Jordan or Saudi Arabia individually, let alone should they join forces. Perhaps more importantly, regardless of what the true comparison of military strength is, the neighbouring nations mentioned are NOT convinced. Al Jazeera spent the first two weeks after the attack crowing about how this proved how weak and ineffective Israel truly is and harolded the beginning of the end for them.

My two predictions:
1. Israel will continue to do anything they deem necessary to ensure the attack in October is viewed by Iran and the Arab world as another Naqba, rather than a victory.
2. Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Iran and to lesser degrees Jordan and Saudi will continue channeling weapons and support to any and all militant groups near Israel(mostly Palestine) to encourage and ensure they continue launching attacks into Israeli territory in the same continuous effort they have for the last decades.

The worst losers in it, as have been for the last decades you've noted, will continue to be the Palestinian people. Angry young Palestinians will be armed , trained and recruited with foreign money to attack the Israeli 'aggressor'. Thus leading to Israeli reprisal, more dead Palestinians and more angry young recruits.


I think my biggest point of difference with you is I'm not content to ignore the absolutely enormous role of other nations than Israel in the plight of the Palestinian people.

Al Jazeera has a terrific visualisation of the Saudi war in Jemen:
https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2018/Saudi-Arabia-air-raids-on-Yemen/index.html

And to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq, the supreme crime for which none of those reponsible have been hanged yet, Jeremy Scahill outlines how the US have been piling up Iraqi corpses for 55 years:
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/21/us-war-iraq-legacy-of-blood/

I think what you do is (in the US, varies by region): You watch PBS/NPR (they try, but they do have a leftward bias--but relatively minimal corporate bias), MSNBC (obvious leftward bias), FOX News (obvious rightward bias).

Then for international news: BBC World Service and Al-Jazeera. For an asian source, I dunno. Anything coming out of China is no good, so you may as well get that second hand with interpretation.

That's a lot of work. I get my news from the Daily Show.

This video doesn't even begin to address the many advantages of wearing a tin foil hat to block out the harmful effects of mainstream media that it talks about. Not good enough Al Jazeera!

This is seriously Al Jazeera? wtf are they thinking?

For all I know, the Syrian secessionists (if that's what the original local revolutionists should be called) are all gone and the fighters of today are nearly all foreign invaders

Given that both the government and ISIS armies both specifically targeted them first they likely are all gone. If you go back to Al Jazeera's coverage of the early Russian offensives, their airstrikes and attacks were ignoring the ISIS held territory and only hitting the moderate/legitimate rebels. Similarly, pretty much all reports of the ISIS foreign fighters coming in were that they never pretended to support the rebels, but merely replaced them demanding obedience or death.

@radx

The foreign element is fighting both sides of the war. The strongest fighting force on the 'rebel' side is ISIS and the strongest fighting force overall is the Russians fighting for Assad. If foreign support makes the rebels illegitimate doesn't it do the same for Assad?

@newtboy
can you show me where hedges promoted russian propaganda?
i ask this sincerely,because i have not seen any evidence of what you are accusing him of.

i get that we disagree,but hedges has earned my respect for his journalistic veracity.

you have earned my respect for being a decent human being,who i happen to agree with more often than not,but in this case i will not simply disregard hedges stellar work because you accuse him of being a propagandist.

i have read his books.
watched his lectures.
and sifted through his sources.

you have openly admitted you have done none of these things,yet..you have formed an opinion on his work by the venue he has chosen.you have even gone as far as to presume his intent on WHY he is on that venue.

now..you are free to speculate all you wish in regards to hedges motivations,and even be skeptical of his work due to him being on RT atm (he was also on Telesur,and al jazeera english).


i do not find this skepticism unwarranted nor unreasonable.i understand why you may feel this way.

but i am the captain of my own ship.
i do consider hedges respectable and worthy of consideration,because i have considered his words,read his books and watched his lectures.

i have considered his works and found them informative and reflective of our current situation.

just as i have found:howard zinn,noam chomsky,amy goodman,jeremy scahill,laura poitrus,glenn greenwald,paul jay,richard d wolffe.

does this equate to everything that they postulate the unerring word of GOD?

of course not.
i can disagree with someone and still respect them for their views.

example:@bcglorf

i really do not see an issue here.
i also do not understand why i am being put in a position to defend why i may respect a reporter/journalist for the good works they have produced.

i am sure there are authors/journalists/academics that you admire and trust their work,because they have earned that trust by being consistent with their methodology.

so i do not see a rub at all.
i see you making conflations and comparisons based loosely on associations,and not tangible and concrete evidence.

if you have evidence,and i am simply being biased and residing in my own bubble.then by all means..pop that bubble...i am human after all,and just as prone to confirmation bias as the next person.

Anyone who listens to RT about tax dodging is a complete moron. RT is owned by RIA Novosti and run by oligarchs who have been siphoning billions out of Russia over the last 20 years.

What's next? Al Jazeera giving the west tips on how to better treat women?

If it's not news about Russia, it's some of the least biased news you can get hold of. Al Jazeera English is also good.

As I see it, if you truly want unbiased news (in English, from an American perspective), you need to consume everything on Fox News, MSNBC, NPR/PBS, the BBC World Service, and Al Jazeera, and then make up your own mind based on all those sources. You could probably throw in a few more, but since that's all too much anyways, I concede that there is actually no unbiased news available. Of course, Fox and MSNBC are blatantly biased, and at least NPR, the BBC and Al Jazeera try not to be.

Oh god, it's 31 minutes long? Fuck that noise. I'm just going to assume it's "blah blah god blah blah those awful gays blah blah climate change is fake something something obama"

@newtboy, apparently he squeaks in on a technicalit
y.

Between being Canadian and being an idiot, you would hope it's the idiot part that disqualifies him. That, and he stole his campaign logo from Al Jazeera

Systemic corruption will bring this planet to its knees.

And we're all to blame. Unless we're willing to be actively involved in the democratic process, unless we're willing to use our overwhelming manpower to DEMAND justice and fairness, unless we drill into our children how important it is to be just and fair and involved, we will be exploited. And it IS happening on a grand scale.

It doesn't have to be like this, with the corruption in banking, politics, the tax loop-holes for the super rich and the toxic policies introduced for the benefit of corporations. All we have to do is decide to stand up together, for each other, and show them by our actions that we will not take it anymore.

My government won't even prosecute HSBC for illegal activity starving this country (and yours, probably) of untold billions in tax revenue, yet on a daily basis they stand in front of the cameras and tell us how lazy benefits claimants have bled our country dry. They have personally stolen millions from us, standing there in a suit confidently telling us they're going to crack down on cash-in-hand builders and the like. I suspect if we start down that particular rabbit hole, we will be left in awe of just how deep it goes - right to the very top of probably every single developed nation's government, possibly for decades. They have been fostering this environment for a long time, steering us to a point where they hold all the cards.

I hate to think i've become a tinfoil hatter, but just look at what's going on.... How can they say that they'll pursue benefits claimants and VAT-dodges to the end of the earth, but not say a single word about HSBC helping millionaires and billionaires not to pay tax? How can i possibly not see that as a conspiracy? They don't go after HSBC because they are DONORS and FRIENDS.

This isn't stuff i'm making up. It's true, it's real and it's a fucking scary Orwellian nightmare. The guy who leaked the HSBC stuff very recently announced that there are a lot more devastating revelations to come!! (which i read courtesy of al jazeera)

Duh...I am real slow sometimes. I just noticed the "HuffPost". Anyway do you need to know anymore about what position they take? Like just about every other media they should just go ahead and add an "Al Jazeera" to their names and mastheads.

(no sarcasm)

It's not just airtime given to Israeli officials, it's the manner in which these interviews are conducted. Channel 4's Jon Snow didn't have any representative for the Palestinian point of view either, just Mark Regev, Netanyahu's spokesman. But he confronted him on the bullshit he was spewing, he put the atrocities right in his face.

US media, on the other hand, gives them free reign to promote their own point of view without any challenge. What about the intentional attacks on hospitals, schools and mosques? What about the bombings of UNWRA schools? What about the bombing run in Khan Younis that reportedly killed 19 children from the Abu Jami’ family? What about the attacks on Al Jazeera?

Plenty of material to challenge the Israelis on, yet they decide to be a one-sided mouthpiece instead.

So apparently there's a great Al Jazeera documentary out there about abortion rights! Rachel Maddow likes it! Boy, I sure would like to see that!

...

Oh, yeah, here it is... http://videosift.com/video/The-Abortion-War