Trump

[Brookie1973]

The lefts own Bill Maher telling it like it is. Absolutely spot on.

 

[h27272727]

The lefts own Bill Maher telling it like it is. Absolutely spot on.

I agree most on the left (amongst US citizens) tend to be pro-Palestine. Not so much the politicians.

I suppose that besides political leaders - who themselves all tend to carry differing opinions on topics - there's no actual spokesperson for the left. Bill Maher has expressed similar views for a while now, so what I can take from that is that Bill Maher thinks wxy on topic z.

I must've touched on this a fair few times before but as fun as it may be politics is not sport. There should be no 'winning', 'losing', just as the thoughts or actions of one person should not be conflated with the thoughts of his 'team'. Like with same sex / trans / abortion, people have different views for a variety of reasons; religious, cultural, political, social and even economical.

Economical is a huge factor in US politics. From the 2024 election cycle, the American Israel Public Affairs Cmte (AIPAC) is the 18th largest contributor (out of 40,455). They pay / contribute to 135 house democrats and 200 house republicans. $24 million was given to democrat house politicians (avg $178,000 each), while $18 million went to the republicans ($90,000 each). What's amazing is that back in 2016, the average AIPAC contribution to house members was $1160 and $500, respectively. Devil is in the details. money aside the US has been aggressively pro-Israel since about the 1960's.

In the 2024 cycle, I suspect the reason the 135 democrat house politicians received significantly more (on average) is because Israel likely feel it costs more to buy their opinions on this topic.

The large shift in US citizen perspectives on the Israel/Palestine conflict has only occurred recently in spite of Israel efforts to control the narrative. A big factor for this is that the genocide is essentially being 'livestreamed' by Palestinian reporters (many since murdered) and civilians.

The reason western countries such as Australia, the UK, France etc have begun standing against the carte blanche US position is because the US has lost almost all of its credibility and soft power under Trump. Without the same level of political influence and propaganda, non-US countries aren't so ideologically challenged when confronted with indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

As for Bill Maher's thoughts, well I think they're in poor taste.
First of all, Bill Maher's comments demonstrate a classic case of whataboutism to try discredit the situation in Palestine. Second of all, even if the conversation got defelcted onto the Nigerian case, the death rate and US culpability is substantially lower when compared to the genocide in Gaza.

As a starter, Israel isn't even letting foreign reporters into Gaza.

Without anyone being able to actually investigate the extent of destruction, people currently can only estimate the amount of civilian deaths in Gaza. The currently discussed count of direct deaths from bombing, shooting etc. is 66,000. One thing's for sure is that they aren't in a positiion to clear up the rubble and count every death.

From the Journal of the British Medical Association: "In recent conflicts, … indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths.". The below is from an article which documents the estimates of researchers that applied this rule of thumb to the current death count, as well as their own estimates of the death count:

Using that same very conservative multiple of four indirect deaths to every direct death, the current death toll now in Gaza would be at least 252,000.​

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Ralph Nader estimated that by June last year the Palestinian death toll was at least 200,000. “The undercount is staggering,” said Nader, …. “The US and Israel want a low number. Instead of themselves estimating — which they don’t want to do — they cling to Hamas’ [figures], and Hamas doesn’t want a realistic number because they don’t want to be seen as unable to protect their own people. So, they developed these criteria: to be counted, the dead must first be certified by hospitals and morgues [which barely exist]. “ The whole thing is one death camp now. It’s easily 200,000 deaths in Gaza,” wrote Joshua Frank.​

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Adam Rzepka, a researcher at Montclair State University and a co-founder of Montclair States Chapter of the Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine commented:​

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“The minimum scientifically plausible number of traumatic deaths only — immediate deaths from bullets, bombs, and demolished buildings — in the Gaza genocide is currently more than 115,000.​

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“The minimum scientifically plausible number of deaths attributable to the genocide overall is more than 460,000.​