JWayn596

This is an old thread, but I thought I'd give my thoughts.

I absolutely love the Android Open Source Project. The amount of things you can do with Android are spectacular. Pixels especially are wonderful devices.

However, it's come to my attention that I think iPhones make better "Phones" than any other device.

Apple is in a unique position of having fast and sleek operating systems and software, and wonderful integration.

Homestly if you're not running privacy focused stuff, like your own homeserver, or a custom OS, or anything. Apple is the best for your privacy.

The reason I believe this is due to their implementation of their Apple TV Box. Google's TV stuff is designed first and foremost to give you advertisements, even on the home screen, and Apple does no such thing. Needless to say, I switched TV Boxes. Upon researching what Apple does with your data, I'm becoming convinced that the Apple ecosystem has become a better option for consumerist services, like social media, news, streaming, and banking.

It's not enough to make me get rid of my Android Pixel, but I've been heavily considering getting an iPhone, iPad, Watch, Mac Mini.

Powerful math tools, diagnostic tools, chatroom apps, forum apps, Signal, games, emulation, privacy tools, all mostly open source software, they'd all go on an Android Pixel running a custom OS still.

Okay I'll answer you. It's wrong for Israel to cut power to civilians. It's right for Israel to cut power to military targets.

If military targets embed their infrastructure with civilian infrastructure. Oopsies. Civilians are now military targets.

Palestinians MAYBE shouldn't have Hamas in power if they're going to power their military operations with civilian power. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Every world power knows that, that's why most have pretty much gotten behind Israel, regardless of any apartheid Israel has done.

The US did the same thing when 9/11 happened. The US did the same thing in Operation Desert Storm along with other NATO countries who joined the US in operations in the middle east.

Nobody in the west complained then, and nobody's complaining now, because Hamas did the dumb dumb.

I'm not justifying anything that Israel has done in the past. The main point of my comment is that Hamas made a really poor decision here on behalf of the Palestinians. There is absolutely no doubt.

There is no moralizing or whataboutism.

The fact of the matter is that this caused a divided Israel to unite in anger. And support for Palestine has been cut by all European nations and Australia. Palestinian sympathizers and charity leaders have been among the victims.

The question you should be asking is if you support the Palestinian people is...

What the actual hell is this bonehead decision-making by Hamas? There is no scenario of success in this endeavor unless the Western world decided to withdraw all support from Israel and give it to Hamas.

Was that going to happen? No. Hamas never tried to establish good diplomatic relations with anyone.

The world stage is a democratic club, and Hamas rejected it all. Hamas burned every single bridge with other countries no matter how many citizens of those governments complain.

Depends on who you ask, there's 50 Senators and 221 House Representatives on the Republican party.

Despite the substantial erosion of decorem on the right, there are still some who operate with civility and reason, though they are not as vocal as they should be.

Before you respond with semi-justified cynicism, it's not an assumption. Republicans know they'd align mostly with Democrats on Israel.

I mean it's very politically divided, but in terms of securing Israel, most opposition leaders called 9ff protests and united behind Netanyahu since there are still Hamas militants in Israel.

Let's not forget that the act of using civilians as shields is a warcrime in the first place to prevent this kind of situation from occurring.

If Israel tells Palestinian civilians to evacuate because there's Hamas military targets in that building, and Hamas troops tell them no. Then they die, and Hamas can cry wolf.

It would be Israel who is following international decorem and Hamas making it difficult for any country to support them.

Just now, Austria cut off aid to the Gaza region. Is that Israel's fault? Nope.

Hamas had good PR going and they fucked it up by escalating with brutality.

I wouldn't give it that much attention. It's probably yogurt and greenfield or whatever those weirdos are named.

Morally, it's a complicated situation.

Geopolitically, Israel probably has the support of most Western nations simply due to the fact that they engage in diplomacy and have proper decorem, with a government system that is a relatively modern system despite political leanings.

Additionally, Israel has a better human rights record DOMESTICALLY than Palestine and the Gaza region. It's still dominated by religion, terrorist leaders, and its own population's semi-justified bitterness. Freedom of expression and freedom of press is heavily restricted, just like any other Islamic religious state in the middle east.

The sole responsibility of the escalation and subsequent destabilization of the region lies with Hamas. The sole responsibility of the withdrawal of Palestinian aid from countries like Austria, lies with Hamas.

And with all the videos popping up over the treatment and killing of Israeli civilians, it's hard for the Western world, and especially Western governments to garner the sympathy for the Palestinian people that they had 1 week ago.

Both sidesing isn't correct, whataboutism isn't correct, blindly supporting either side isn't correct, supporting efforts to contain the conflict is correct. The best way to do that is to monitor Israel's progress in containing Hamas.

We know that Hamas hides in schools and civilian buildings, using their own civilians as a shield. That's a warcrime it itself. So it's going to be messy as hell.

The US sent the USS Gerald Ford into the Mediterranean as a deterrent. If any country starts to try to 3rd party the conflict, oh shit oh fuck WW1 vibes. That's how tender this situation is.

And with 1 other active conflict in the world, this is shaky ground.

I don't think this is gonna help Russia. Republicans are gonna look dumb for looking hypocritical when they demand aid be sent to Israel.

Democrats can conveniently package Israel-Ukraine aid to make Republicans, who while resistant to Ukraine aid, see it as the easiest option to satisfy their base.

It's already happening too. Check the politics sub here.

On the bright side, this means that Republicans may have to stop playing hardball with Ukraine, in order to not appear hypocritical.

Most support Ukrainian support, and most Western countries need Israel as a foothold in the middle east.