In a recent lecture at the Imperial War Museums, the prominent lawyer and author Philippe Sands makes several problematic and surprising claims concerning South Africa v. Israel, the genocide case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Sands, who represents Palestine in the ICJ case on the legality of the occupation, claims in this lecture that he no longer thinks that genocide is a useful concept anymore. What is problematic about Sands’ claims is their inaccuracy as well as their misleading effect on reporting on the case. They are surprising because they would undermine his own advocacy on behalf of The Gambia in the case pending before the ICJ against Myanmar.
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IDK about the source here (wikipedia condems it as disinfo, after all, and we know it’s always objective /s), but wow.
It is reasonably well-sourced and pretty clear on how things work in the US/Israeli government(s).
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mintpress news
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In case anyone else hits a paywall:
This line stood out to me:
Although many in the government, including Netanyahu, have spoken of the possibility of a mass expulsion from Gaza, they stress this would happen by sea and that Palestinians would leave for Europe.
Do they think that the same fucking Europeans who are now demanding their governments end asylum for people from africa, the middle east and asia are all of a sudden going to open their “loving” arms to Palestinians… It’s fucking absurd.
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Yeah, that whole “US govt is banning TikTok because of Israel!” thing shows how some people are so obsessed over one issue they end up connecting everything to it, even if there is no connection. (That, plus antisemitism.)
The real reason for the TikTok ban is some mix of sinophobia and anti-Chinese racism; genuine data security concerns: American social media companies wanting to get rid of a competitor that’s better at it than they are; genuine concerns about algorithmic social media being bad for users, with TikTok being especially bad because it does the algorithmic content-pushing better than its competitors; politicians’ desire to look like they’re Doing Something; and more.
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My point is simply that the link posted goes to a sus website. I said nothing at all on that particular topic.
But the argument seems to be that the justification for the ban is vague in general, invoking “national security” which is what makes it similar to the attack on Al-Jazeera. Pretty much every single social media site has the exact same problem with regards to data. NONE of our data is in safe hands. The entire internet is one big compromised zone. And to think that social media sites that are headquartered in the US are somehow better with regards to their relationship to china is just patently absurd about how the world is functioning right now.
Congress should address this issue holistically, rather than throwing a bunch of sinophobia at the wall to see what they can get away with.
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Guardian editorial (no onebox because of a bug):
The Guardian view on hope and despair in Gaza: attacking Rafah will compound this disaster
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Yeah, but that bit they’ll always get away with.
Doing the slightest little thing to American billionaires who break the law all around the world and particularly cause extreme harm to children… that they don’t get away with.
Silicon Valley is absolutely out of control and run by extremists with too much, far too much, money and power.
They need to be turned into losers by being forced to actually compete. And follow the law.
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We’re well past the need for some very strong regulations aimed at silicon valley. But of course, the recent tik-tok law isn’t that at all. As long as tik-tok gets sold to an American, they can keep on doing as they like… No one gets to exploit the data of Americans (and everyone else) except AMURICANzZ!!!
I hate this timeline. 
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I don’t think it’s fair to say there is no connection. There’s no doubt that the pro-Israel lobby was pushing very hard at US lawmakers to have Tiktok banned, because they claimed it promoted antisemitism. The ADL was pushing for banning Tiktok, as was the Jewish Federations.
Nikki Haily was constantly pushing it, with ridiculous statistics that every hour someone watched Tiktok they got x% more antisemitic.
Actually, a whole bunch of lawmakers cited the whole “tiktok causes antisemitism” as their reason for pushing the ban:
In the past week, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, asked the Biden administration to outlaw TikTok for its “ubiquity” of anti-Israel content. Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin said the app was “brainwashing” American youth into sympathizing with Hamas. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida accused Beijing officials of using TikTok, whose parent company is based in China, to spread propaganda to Americans.
I’m not saying it wasn’t also sinophobia, and I don’t know how big a factor this was, but it seems to have been undoubtedly a factor.
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And, of course, the only way to accomplish that is to eliminate Palestinians as a people. It’s the only solution. A final solution, you might say, you might. The fact that a Jewish state cannot see the parallels here is ridiculous.
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Except now they’re saying they’ll get on boats and go to Europe… because Europe is so welcoming of refugees lately… /s
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It seems “will not” would be more appropriate for them and anyone who has been/is continuing to enable this or seems to be willing to let it go until it costs them something.
Statements from Tel Aviv, Washington, and Berlin have been willfully obtuse since October 7th. Some of the clips of USG State Dept officials are painful to watch, just like Tim Scott refusing to say “yes” or “no” to whether he’d accept the results of the next election if he runs for VP.
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… since mass expulsion by train car is considered a bad look these days 
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