Jewishness is also an ethnicity. So, a person can be ethnically Jewish and still be an atheist.

@snytiger6 you're so full.of shit. DNA proves there is no such thing. You're just a communist trash monkey bitch

@Communistbitch Ethnicity is not just biological, but cultural as well. The Jewish people, according to anthropologists, were originally made up of persons who were outcast(s) from other area. So, their genetic makeup in origin is greatly varied, as their ancestors did not come from just one geographical area. Also, there are Jewish settlements far from Israel, where Jewish persons married into th elocal populations, which totally change their ethnic genetics. For example, there is Jewish colony in China, and they all look to be completely Chinese. However, culturally/ethnically they are Jewish in the traditions they abide by.

@snytiger6 what the fuck does being a gay atheist communist have to do with being jewish you idiot? The cultures do not align at all!!!!!!

@Communistbitch As an insider, can you tell me about the term "Florida Man" is it gender, geographic, cultural or can it be assigned to any dumb-assed yank troll?

@273kelvin Florida man would be a derogatory term. If you were in Florida, you'd be beat down by hordes of black people , well deservingly.

@Communistbitch But what if the terms "Florida Man" or "dumb-assed Yank troll" are accurate? ... and I thankfully do not live in Florida

@273kelvin you'd be mistaken for a possum, you'll probably be fine

@Communistbitch But can you please clarify "Florida Man"? Does one have to be born in Florida + asshole, can you emigrate to Florida + asshole behaviour or can you merely visit the state and exhibit sufficient assholary to gain the honorary title?
For example, I am sure that you have come across terms like "Irish Catholic" or "WASP" and never needed to ascribe a belief in a deity to accept them at face value. Similarly, I am sure you know that the nazis required no such religious adherence to gift any suspected Jews a free ride in a cattle truck. Yet for reasons I can only ascribe to deliberate obtuse stupidity, you go out of your way to display wanton ignorance. This leads me to conclude that you must be very proud to be a "Florida Man" considering how much you court the title.

@273kelvin another dumb faggot

@Communistbitch Oh such cutting repartee. How can I possibly compete?
Keep shooting at those hurricanes

@273kelvin enjoy your communist cage faggot

@Communistbitch And he keeps digging lol

It is bullshit.

Religion is all about obscuring the truth. Otherwise, you'd see at least one religion embracing the findings of science.

Extreme interpretations are extreme interpretations of any religion. They all have extreme elements but thankfully, usually in a minority and not in power.

That the claim is made that the Talmud prohibits murder & rape of non Jews is belied by the fact that the Israeli government is allowing its military & non military citizens to murder, rape, pillage & commit other crimes against humanity including genocide & apartheid whilst publicly advocating & bragging about it.

Criticisms of Israel in itself may not be anti-Semitic, but I think much criticism of Israel is based on pre-existing anti-Semitic views. The country was attacked without warning, and the targets of the attacks contained many woman and children. Considering the history of what the Jewish people experienced, I can understand if their counter attacks are overly aggressive, as they wish to discourage future attacks as well as attempt at extermination of Jews. Set in the middle of the Middle East, they are surrounded on all sides by Muslims whose extremists hate them.

Of course, I see the root cause of the war as beign religious extremism, on both sides. I don't believe there has yet been a war fought in the name of atheism.

@snytiger6 Israel was not attacked. What happened is the resistance rose up. Why do I call it a resistance? Because there are a group of people there who live under apartheid and military occupation. They have a right to resist.
Do you have "settlements" in your country? Australia doesn't, nor does any other country I know of. Why is that? Could it be because you don't build "settlements" in your own country? That you build "settlements" in new colonies? If it's your own country, you call them towns and villages.
If you are an occupying force and you are attacked it is not classed as self defense in a legal sense. It is classed as defending an occupation. There is no Israel "defending itself" in Palestine, that is a blatant lie.

So what did Hamas do exactly Oct 7th? They attacked military establishments, they attacked settlements and they took hostages. Why did they want hostages? To attempt to free the thousands of Palestinians held by the IDF with no due process. The only nation to apply military law to children. From when Hamas broke through the wall of Gaza, it took the IDF 6 Hrs to respond effectively, it was chaos that day. The IDF also employed the "Hannibal directive", meaning it is better to kill their own rather than allow them to be taken hostage to be used as bargaining chips.
Israel still hasn't released firm figures but at least 400 Israeli's killed that day were in uniform on duty. 100's more were the inhabitants of "settlements". They knew there was an armed resistance so zero sympathy for these folk ie legit military targets for those resisting occupation. That families were used as human shields in the illegal settlements and died is so sad, too bad. They bought it upon themselves.

Besides that, cannot condone much of Hamas's actions that day but like the IDF say when they blow up refugee camps, shit happens in war.

Get religion out of your mind. It is a war of colonisation before anything else. An attempt to genocide thus erase the indigenous population by the new arrivals. An old story the world has seen before. In the case of Zionists, these fucktards think they are the master race, "God's chosen ones".

@snytiger6 I hate to have to inform you that you are suffering from the psychiatric ailment commonly known as folie à deux (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folie_%C3%A0_deux) - I prefer to call it folie en masse as it it is many millions in this instance who have succumbed to the gaslighting & propaganda that makes people enjoin in the psychiatric disorder.
Ping @Puff

@FrayedBear Or could it be you are projecting onto others what you fear you may be suffering from yourself, and projecting onto others is a form of denial.

I would not venture to diagnose a person based solely on text posted on the internet. Any ethical professional who deal in mental illness and/or disorders would say so. Text loses a lot of context, as you can't see facial expressions or hear vocal intonations, and without those it would be pointless to try to armchair diagnose anyone, especially if you are not a mental health professional with the proper background and licensing.

Where I used "you may be", you use "you are". There is a difference, and with the limited access to my life and world and the limited tools at your disposal, you are way too sure in your conclusion(s).

I studied Sociology in college and tend to step back and try to take a larger view or perspective of the entirety of a situation, especially when trying to form views about events which don't really directly affect me, as it is easier to remain mostly unbiased.

I have given Israel the benefit of a doubt, even if I don't approve of everything they are doing, for two primary reasons. The first is, I am not there and only get a filtered view of what's going on. The second reason is that they did not start the war, but they can understandably want to win it in order to discourage other from attacking them and starting future wars.

So, I myself may not do things in the same way they are doing them, or fight the kind of war they are fighting, but I am not there. I have never been to war, and I doubt I have a full picture of what things are like there, as here in the U.S. we only get a highly filtered version of events.

Most of the sources criticizing Israel, are not there, have never been there, and have never fought in a war themselves. Many of them had also espoused anti-Semitic views before the (latest) war ever started. When I hear views that criticize, I try to step back and consider the source and the history of the network or person espousing the views.

@snytiger6 That's the way to do it. I would just advise you need to step back a bit further.

The Ukraine war did not start in 2022, it probably started in 2008 when GWB stated that an aim of NATO was to absorb Ukraine and Georgia and the Russian Federation made it very very clear that was a red line and would cause conflict. Great defense pact is NATO.
And the Israeli war probably started before Israel was even formed, when Zionist Jews (not all jews) as the original ones to employ terror tactics, gave the British hell. It did not start Oct 7th last year.

@snytiger6 FFS what bad dope or delusion are you on? @Puff & many authorities identify the start not of a war but a deliberate genocide to drive everyone but the psychopathic Jews out the land they have stolen or been given occupation to by those who had no legal right to make the illegality.

Your bleating that this is a war is obscene by anyone's standard . . . probably even Pol Pot! FFS, The so called Nakba occurred in in 1948, Oct 7th, 2023 saw resistance action by Palestinians at many of the sites decimated in the Nakba. The simple definition in Wikipedia is "The Nakba (Arabic: النَّكْبَة, romanized: an-Nakba, lit. 'the catastrophe' is the ethnic cleansing[1] of Palestinians through their violent displacement and dispossession of land, property, and belongings, along with the destruction of their society and the suppression of their culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations.[2] The term is used to describe the events of the 1948 Palestine war in Mandatory Palestine as well as the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel.[3] As a whole, it covers the fracturing of Palestinian society and the long-running rejection of the right of return for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.[4][5] Whether you live there or not how can you describe it as a war?
You do realise that the Palestinians & Jews are all part of the ancient Canaanites who are all Semites. Therefore how can Palestinians be anti-Semitic unless into fraticide like Cain another psychopathic Jew. Zionist or pretend Jews however can be very anti-Semitic as is being seen by the current 10's of thousands of genocidal murders of Palestinian infants, children, women & men in Gaza. . . All funded & supported by you "stay at home Americans" living your protective delusion that this is a war. Yes it's now a war as to whether these so called Jewish people have any right to life other than after being lobotomised & turned into perambulating cabbages that cannot hurt humanity any more. . . The big mistake made at Nuremberg with the fascist genocidal monsters was to hang them or imprison them. They should have all been lobotomised & returned to the care of the German people to be paraded twice a year to ensure that they were being kept in good health & remind everyone of the consequence of such behaviour.

@FrayedBear Granted the religious conflict is ancient. However there have also been periods of peace. When said "war", I was referring to the latest outbreak of violence which started with an attack on Israel. The last major conflict attacked Israel and resulted in Palestine losing the Gaza strip territory to Israel as a result, and despite Palestinians initiating that conflict as well, they never fully reconciled to the lost territory. And, some misguided extremists decided to attack again, and it is likely they will lose yet even more territory as a result as well as thousands if not tens of thousands beign killed as a result.

If Israel attacked unprovoked, I'd say that yes, their actions could indeed look like a genocide. However, the original attackers, Hamas, as not backing down, and are continuing to attack. Is Israel just supposed to sit back and let them? Or, should they defend themselves and their country's sovereignty?

After the 9-11 attacks, the U.S. going into Iraq based on the lies about weapons of mass desttruction could be framed as a genocidal attack as well. Afghanistan was understandable as they were hiding Bin Laden at the time, but Iraq? That was not really justifiable, so they just used really bad intel, which they knew was bad intel and dressed it up to justify the attack. George W. even once generally stated he was after revenge for their having attempted to assassinate his father.

War is messy and the reasons for most was are not justifiable, and in retrospect often seem pretty stupid and really bad ideas. Hamas was very stupid to restart a hot conflict when Israel had a superior righting force and superior weaponry, but they thought Allah was on their side. Evidently, they thought wrongly, as Allah doesn't actually exist.

@snytiger6 "Is Israel just supposed to sit back and let them? Or, should they defend themselves and their country's sovereignty?"

This is the whole point. Israel is racist and refuse to recognise Palestine, Palestinians, their history, culture and identity as a people. This was recently confirmed by their parliament. They do not defend themselves, they defend their occupation. If there was no occupation, there would be no Hamas eg 4 million Palestinians reside in Jordan, but they don't attack the Jordanian government/ King.

The root cause is the occupation of and land grab in Palestine. There would have been a forced ceasefire long ago in this most recent conflict if only the US did not abuse their power of veto at the UN. The UN security council does have the ability to form an international police force and force a peace to enforce US resolutions. But the US constantly, and has for decades, covers Israel's arse diplomatically at the UN and elsewhere.

NB When you hear of Americans over there, the vast majority are duel passport holders as a great number of Israeli's hold duel passports eg Netanyahu's family hails from Poland so he also holds a Polish passport or may apply for one.

Now the deal with duel passports is whatever passport you use to enter the country, that is the citizen you are eg my ex holds two passports; Thai and Australian. If she enters Thailand on her Thai passport, which she does, she is not eligible for any consular assistance from Australia in Thailand as whilst there, she is a Thai citizen. That's the way it works. So when you hear of "American hostages", I strongly suspect they are dual passport holders and entered Israel using their Israeli passport.