Israel general discussion

[MaxQue]

The wedding news made news all around the world (I read it myself in Quebec news), so the government has to take the hardline position against them anyways.

[MaxQue]

Bibi is more and more insane, accusing Ban Ki-Moon of encouraging terrorism for saying that new settlements are throwing oil on the fire.

I suppose most Westerners are encouraging terrorism, then.

[MaxQue]

[M]ost young people in America (his base) are basically pro-Hamas.

Maybe if you define pro-Hamas as not seeing why America should prop up a successful first world country such as Israel.

Ignore Mortimer, he usually talks nonsense and he apparently didn't set foot in an university since long.

[MaxQue]

In other news the US and our "special relationship" screw us yet again. The cabinet decided to purchase 17 more F-35 AKA piece of flying garbage and one of the biggest white elephants of military history instead of buying the new F-15 who show much better stats (and can actually fly an operational mission).

But it's "stealth"!! so all the tabloid could have headlines explaining how high tech it is, never mind it can carry a load of 2 tonnes on low signature mode and only to short ranges.

I remember back in the days of my military service how the US ed us over several times on all sort of procurement deals, the joys of being a proxy state. 

We're not exactly happy about the F35 over here either.  Eventually it will be a decent bird, but they shouldn't have forced one airframe to do three different things.

The complaints are the same in the Netherlands, by the way.

In Canada, new government dropped the F35 orders and now wants to buy used SuperHornets, for some reason.

[MaxQue]

Not sure it's the right thread, but.

The leader of the ultra-orthodox cult Lev Tahor (qualified as dangerous and child abusers by an Israeli court), which was previously living on Quebec and Ontario (they fled to Guatemala, claiming they were persecuted (rather because authorities wanted to prosecute them for beating up kids, denying them education and making them stay in insalubrious conditions), they also make women wear integral veils) drowned during a purification ceremony in a river.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/leader-of-lev-tahor-cult-drowns-in-mexico-report/

[MaxQue]

Good riddance.

Yeah, should help lower antisemitism in Quebec if that weaken the sect (antisemitism is high because of them being used by populist politicians an the perfect example of "foreigners not integrating" and because they end in Quebec news a lot (probably half the time the Jewish faith is mentionned in news here is in relation to them, their abuses, their flights or the fight to rapatriate the Canadian born kids. Doesn't do anything about the other 30% about ultra-oxthodox illegal schools/illegal parking/traditions clashing with gender equality).

I wish it will help the families of the brainwashed to recover their family members.

[MaxQue]

Netanyahu's former CoS flipped and became a key witness for the prosecution in 2 criminal investigations (one of corruption), indictment is inbound. The glorious leader appears determined to refuse to go as the law (not a statute though but it doesn't matter as we are a common law country) requires. His political partners are lukewarm about playing the role of ushering him out, so we might be heading into quite a political and constitutional conundrum (some like myself will also predict some military conflict inbound)

Let's see if an indictment actually happens. I'm still doubtful it will. If it does, he needs to resign. But, until that day (if it ever comes), I still think a lot of this nonsense is unsubstantiated.

Israeli Police are an utter joke when it comes to political corruption and are, imo, much more corrupt than the politicians themselves.

It's pretty obvious that Netanyahu is corrupt to the bone, and there seems to be hard evidence. In fact, it's been obvious for a long time, just like it's obvious that Lieberman is corrupt in even worse ways.

He also tries to ban media critical of him.

[MaxQue]

Netanyahu's former CoS flipped and became a key witness for the prosecution in 2 criminal investigations (one of corruption), indictment is inbound. The glorious leader appears determined to refuse to go as the law (not a statute though but it doesn't matter as we are a common law country) requires. His political partners are lukewarm about playing the role of ushering him out, so we might be heading into quite a political and constitutional conundrum (some like myself will also predict some military conflict inbound)

Let's see if an indictment actually happens. I'm still doubtful it will. If it does, he needs to resign. But, until that day (if it ever comes), I still think a lot of this nonsense is unsubstantiated.

Israeli Police are an utter joke when it comes to political corruption and are, imo, much more corrupt than the politicians themselves.

It's pretty obvious that Netanyahu is corrupt to the bone, and there seems to be hard evidence. In fact, it's been obvious for a long time, just like it's obvious that Lieberman is corrupt in even worse ways.

He also tries to ban media critical of him.

If you are referring to Al Jazeera, that's complete B.S. He is not trying to shut them down because of criticism  but because of their sponsorship of terror.

So, the same baseless lie peddled by the real sponsor of terrorism, Saudi Arabia.

[MaxQue]

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.814579

Elor Azaria's sentence reduced to 14 months by IDF Chief of Staff.

Great news, though it remains a disgrace that he was sentenced for doing his job in the first place.

This is objectively false because it's not only not his job but also against the rules, but we shouldn't get into that.

I do not deny that it was against the rules of engagement, which reflects badly on these rules of engagement rather than on Azaria, but Israeli soldiers are there to neutralize (preferably once and for all) terrorist threats and keep Israel safe, and that's exactly what Azaria did. Gmar hatima tova.

That's nonsense and you know it.

[MaxQue]

Is she wrong?  Do American Jews not serve in the US military?  Does it even matter if she's right or not, should you not say truths that will inevitably piss some people off, or does it depend on the truth and the voting record of the pissed off people?

The issue is than she is claiming than, due to them not serving in the US military, they don't understand the Middle East.

[MaxQue]

It could have been an indelicate way to state that due to America's lack of a universal draft, the majority of American Jews never see military service. (Same as every group in America) But it couldn't have been said worse, if so.

In any case, whether USA has a draft or not, it's not the business of any foreign government.

[MaxQue]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-08/recording-of-netanyahu-son-outside-strip-club-aired-on-israel-tv

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Umm yeah, that happened.

So do the Haredi parties walk out now?

No, but they'll use that to force even more of their beliefs through government imposition.

[MaxQue]

The theocracy is inevitable as the Haredi are the only ones actually having kids

It's too bad that the secular right would rather be in bed with the ultraorthodox wing for their own goals rather than work with the centre/centre-left in order to maintain secularism.

Is the secular right actually that secular.? I thought a lot of Likud support came from non-ultraorthodox, but still religious Jews. Am I mistaken?

Well, they are secular in the sense than they don't want to grant more privileges to the ultraorthodox, privileges than other religious Jews don't have.

[MaxQue]

I don't know what the hell is going on in Israel, but I read that Netanyahu wants to retract the plan of deporting 37.000 illegal African immigrants to Rwanda and Uganda; instead, he now wants half of them to stay in Israel and half of them to be assigned a country through the UN refugee quota thing. For the latter category, Netanyahu apparently explicitly said that countries like Germany, Italy and Canada could take them, which is bafflingly stupid diplomatically, especially given how toxic this subject is. What's more, antisemites always say Israel/teh j00z want "diversity for thee, but not for me", which has always been easy for me to debunk; however, this action basically leaves me speechless when confronted with such accusations. If these people are not welcome in Israel (and they should not be welcome imo), why the hell does Netanyahu think Germany and Italy should take them in? Everything about this story seems to be outrageous, in addition to the fact that everyone involved here appears to be extremely incompetent, but I really hope the Dutch NRC Handelsblad has informed me wrongly, which tends to happen on issues regarding Israel. Could anybody explain to me why the original plan was cancelled? Who in the Knesset now stopped supporting it?

The African plan was rejected due to failing to finance the plan in the budget (obviously, the African countries want money to take back people) and now the European plan is suspended (because the most right elements of his coalition are against).

[MaxQue]

You say you are opposed to forced deportations and therefore support this deal. I am not sure what you think would happen to these 16k people who would be relocated through the UN deal. They would be forcefully deported from Israel too.

Meanwhile, is there anybody who could answer my initial question?

Somehow I think that the immigrants would happily agree to go to Canada or Germany without any need to use force The problem with sending them to African countries was that you couldn't guarantee their safety. The strategic argument has a point, but in my opinion the PR damage wouldn't be large enough to make this deal uncompelling.
As for the initial question, it's probably a combination of Netanyahu bending to the slightest of right-wing pressure and not actually talking to the leaders of the host countries before announcing, but I'm not 100% sure.

He did the talking, Canada confirmed we were talking with Israel since a month. However, not  much has happened except than people with private sponsors will be allowed to stay in Canada until their immigration demand is ruled on (when the usual process is for them to stay where they were before, i.e. Israel).

[MaxQue]

I don't know what the hell is going on in Israel, but I read that Netanyahu wants to retract the plan of deporting 37,000 illegal African immigrants to Rwanda and Uganda; instead, he now wants half of them to stay in Israel and half of them to be assigned a country through the UN refugee quota thing. For the latter category, Netanyahu apparently explicitly said that countries like Germany, Italy and Canada could take them, which is bafflingly stupid diplomatically, especially given how toxic this subject is. What's more, antisemites always say Israel/teh j00z want "diversity for thee, but not for me", which has always been easy for me to debunk; however, this action basically leaves me speechless when confronted with such accusations. If these people are not welcome in Israel (and they should not be welcome imo), why the hell does Netanyahu think Germany and Italy should take them in? Everything about this story seems to be outrageous, in addition to the fact that everyone involved here appears to be extremely incompetent, but I really hope the Dutch NRC Handelsblad has informed me wrongly, which tends to happen on issues regarding Israel. Could anybody explain to me why the original plan was cancelled? Who in the Knesset now stopped supporting it?

Bibi confirmed the original plan was cancelled because Rwanda pulled out.

[MaxQue]

Well, if Israel wants to kills cilivians, they're allowed to. However, don't dare ask for the West support in any measure.

[MaxQue]

I find Israel's universal conscription more justifiable than most due to the conditions it began under, but I also think its time has largely passed with the advent of a technology-driven military.

Despite being anti-conscription, given Israel is pretty much in a permanent war given its nieghbours, conscription is totally justifiable. The only issue is than it's not universal.