Crisis in Gaza

[Mike]

The Biden administration is continuing to take carefully small steps in the right direction while also trying to continue assisting Israel.

At the same time, Lindsey Graham said the following, out loud in front of cameras, on NBC news:

When we were faced with destruction as a nation after Pearl Harbour, fighting the Germans and the Japanese, we decided to end the war by bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear weapons. That was the right decision.

Give Israel the bombs they need to end the war they can’t afford to lose, and work with them to minimise casualties.

Why is it okay for America to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war? Why was it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay. So, Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state.

[Phoebe]

There are so many different stories happening all at once... This one caught my eye though:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-ea ... 024-05-28/

Apparently we're supposed to believe that bad weather caused this problem that just so happens to be interrupting a major flow of food aid right at the time the Rafah offensive has moved into full swing. Life is weird and bad coincidences do happen. The fact that it's realistic Israel could have sabotaged the food operation deliberately is just horrifying beyond belief. What the hell is going on with people?

[Phoebe]

Did anybody else get some kind of warning about significantly ramped up protest activity in the next month? I found that very strange and concerning. I figured protest would be going on pretty much as expected and as they had been. I don't know why all of a sudden we get a big warning about it... The implication was almost as if they anticipate that police will be needed to break up these protests and so people need to be warned off them. That just seems very inappropriate to me.

[Mike]

Roughly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli action so far in this conflict. That number is likely low, because the Palestinian Authority is only reporting confirmed dead and doesn't include the missing who are likely still buried in rubble.

According to a study in the Lancet, historically, conflicts like this tend to have an indirect death toll from lingering injuries, famine, malnutrition, lack of health care, lack of clean food and water, etc. They say that in the end, the indirect death toll is 3 to 15 times the size of the official death toll.

Let's assume the 40,000 number is accurate and doesn't go any higher. That means the final count of direct and indirect deaths will be between 160,000 and 640,000.

But Netanyahu just got a grand total of 3 and a half minutes of applause as he lectured a joint session of Congress about how Palestinians are all terrorists and Israel is the real victim and the Palestinians have brought this on themselves. So maybe we haven't reached the top yet

[Kyle]

Don't forget his emphatic statement that, except for one incident, there were no civilians killed in Rafah.