OSG

Incredible quotes in the deleted Telegraph article about the Lebanese Christians supporting Hezbollah. I wonder why they didn’t want their audience to read this 🤔

I continue to see influential accounts on here insist that this war is not primarily driven by Israeli foreign policy goals. It's possible to argue against this by sifting through media reports about who called who in the lead up to the war, and this is the tack most people take. But I'd like to build a case for Israeli strategic primacy through a different route. Place yourself in the shoes of an Israeli strategic planner, and assume that your principal strategic goal is Israeli hegemony over the Middle East. It should be uncontroversial to assert that eliminating Iran is a necessary (and perhaps the most important) component of this goal, so I'll skip over justifying that. How can this be accomplished? The IDF consists of 170k active duty personnel, and is suffering recruitment and retention issues. The IAF packs an outsized punch considering Israel's size, but it's ultimately a mid-tier air force with ~250 fighter airframes (most of which are F-16s and F-15s), no bombers, and only 11 refueling tankers. The Israeli Navy is a souped-up coastal defense force and can't be expected to operate in the Persian Gulf. Compare this to Iran, which has a manpower pool an order of magnitude larger, tens of thousands of drones and thousands of ballistic missiles, an asymmetric naval force focused on area denial, extensive proxy forces, and hugely favorable terrain for defensive operations. There's no chance of deploying an IDF ground component onto Iranian soil. It's an impossible prospect on a political level for any other state in the region to support this, and Iraq and Syria stand between Israel and Iran. Even if the Iranians didn't outnumber the IDF by a huge margin, sustaining some kind of invasion simply isn't on the table. The best you can do in terms of direct offensive operations is the following: • Launch a short campaign (remember you're limited by refueling aircraft) of aerial attacks using standoff munitions like ALBMs • Insert agents into Iran and have them launch drones from within the country • Try to arm and support proxy forces within Iran, or organize multiple small invasions • Orchestrate political violence, protests, terrorist attacks, etc The Israelis have attempted all of these, and so far none of them have seemed to fundamentally shift the strategic picture. This leaves one option on the table: get the United States to fight Iran for you. Considering this has been an Israeli goal for decades, and one administration after another has balked at the prospect, it's not an easy task. You'll draw vast sums of money out of a network of American Zionist billionaires to influence an election. You'll need the closest possible connections to US leadership, ideally agents within the executive's own family. You'll want to have your people involved in the US foreign policy apparatus, putting them in between the US government and Iran, so you can control negotiations. You'll need people within the Department of War, though having an agent as Secretary of War would draw too much attention. Once all of this is achieved, you'll stand a chance of orchestrating events to suck the US gradually into direct combat with Iran. You start off by provoking the Iranians into attacking you. Hit some embassies, assassinate IRGC personnel, launch airstrikes on Tehran. Keep pushing about the dangers of an Iranian nuclear weapon, make sure the US treats it like a red line. Pressure the administration into participating in a limited strike. Bide your time when necessary, then suddenly escalate again. When it seems like an off-ramp might be coming up, find a red line and cross it. Keep going until American hegemony itself is on the line. The sunk cost fallacy will ensure events unfold in your favor until American boots hit the ground. This is, of course, exactly what we're seeing. You can make a case that this war is really about China, or energy markets, or defense industry profits. There are sound arguments that some US interests overlap with Israeli goals. But it is *very* hard to make a case that this war isn't significantly the result of decades of Israeli soft power, influence operations, and espionage.

Correct on both counts. Easter is predominantly a secular holiday now, but for traditional Christians it's the most important "holyday" of the year. And it's well-attested that Christian missionaries "baptized" some pre-existing traditions. It's just that it's often overemphasized to a silly degree.

@_5397_ @JuanIgn04826747 @megievalist Yes, I see that. If people were celebrating around that time of year, it might have made the transition easier for them, though. For a largely non-Christian contemporary British population, it seems to have drifted back to being some kind of generic Spring-related celebration.

Cadbury egg discourse prompts me to remind everyone that there is much more historical evidence for the death and resurrection of Christ than there is for Eoster worship of any kind.

@oh__zeno @JuanIgn04826747 @megievalist I think the reason Christians get exasperated over the Eostre thing is that there's literally no ambiguity over the date of Easter: it's literally the Jewish Passover. And the word "Easter" is only used in English and German; everywhere else it's some variety of "Pascha".

@JuanIgn04826747 @_5397_ @megievalist I don't think the pre-existence of some pagan celebration around the vernal equinox means that Christians are being pagans - that would be silly.

@realDaveCias @NickB1154 @megievalist I was being arch.

@_5397_ @NickB1154 @megievalist *mildly*?!

@JuanIgn04826747 @oh__zeno @megievalist I don't think most Internet pagans have read Hislop, but silly ideas do travel.

@_5397_ @oh__zeno @megievalist Because this began to accuse Catholics of paganism, in Alexander Hislop's The Two Babylons

Our regime closed down all our refineries, cancelled all the energy security programs then handed all the money to "green energy" scammers as part of "net zero". Oh yeah and they demolished numerous thermal power plants "for the environment". Australia is run by the dumbest f**king ret*rds the world has ever seen, they're puppets of the most evil people alive who want to see us all dead.

@Steve_Sailer Here's the first page of Dahl's original essay that started all this. There is nothing remotely antisemitic about it. I suggest everyone read it, because the clear message of this controversy is: If you ever criticize Israel, you will be branded an antisemite forever.

@NickB1154 @megievalist Yes, that's why it was mildly notable that he did.

@megievalist I have no doubt that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate. That appears to be an attested historical fact. But I reject any claim that he rose from the dead for the simple reason that people do not rise from the dead. Dead people do not come back to life after three days.

I'm not accusing Bede of anything. He wrote history, some aspects of his history may have been incorrect. You'd be better off asking the lady who wrote the initial post. Regardless, Easter has nothing to do with Eostre worship. The date is tied to the Jewish Passover, which is why it's called some variety of "Pascha" in almost every other European country.

@_5397_ @oh__zeno @megievalist Are you accusing Bede of lying about Eostre? Are you denying the philological and comparative case for Eostre's existence? The case for Eostre has nothing to do with eggs and rabbits.

@fred_fishin @Myleftnutt1 @cirnosad Once Australians realize how useless solar and wind are in a gas shortage, they'll demand new coal and nuclear plants at knifepoint. But a diesel shortage is another beast entirely, and a far more dangerous one.

@Myleftnutt1 @cirnosad Ahh solar and wind is panicking because no fuel… got it

We're almost completely screwed in Australia. Our entire food supply chain depends on plentiful access to diesel. So do all our heavy industries. The regime has one option: Pick up the phone and call Russia groveling, Vladivostok has diesel. and its not far from Australia. We already purchase oil from Russian indirectly, through India (paying much more in the process) in order to satisfy our parasitic "friend" the USA. The fuel can arrive in Australia in around 15-20 days. We have about 24 days left of diesel. It will soon be too late. Will our cowardly PM do what's right for Australia, or continue to serve the parasites who are destroying this country from the inside?

The scriptures say, “Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fury will fail (Proverbs 22:8). War is not always murder, and *can* be just. But what has happened in Gaza isn’t a war. It’s a culling, with a civilian death total of genocidal proportions. When they cite Amalek, they aren’t kidding. Israel has murdered more than 30k kids since 2023, and that’s the low estimate. Toughly 70% of the dead are children, meaning that the rate of child victims in Gaza is the highest of any conflict in modern history, despite the IDF having access to the most accurate targeting systems known to man. The IDF child death rate in Gaza is higher than in WWII. Higher than Vietnam and Korea. Higher than the Rwandan Genocide. In fact, it’s DOUBLE that of the Rwandan Genocide at its PEAK. Israel has sown injustice. And now, it’s reaping calamity. And it’s very unfortunate they spent so much money and energy lobbying to start this war. I pray that one day Israel will worship the Prince of Peace instead of persecute Him. But for now, Israel isn’t the slightest interested in peace, or its Prince. “For the day of the Lord is near upon all the nations. As you have done, it shall be done to you; your deeds shall return on your own head” (Obadiah 1:15).

@oh__zeno @megievalist > makes up nonsense stories about Easter being a retooled pagan festival > Catholics point out numerous errors with thesis > wow why are Christians so touchy

@megievalist Why are Christians so insistent about this? Insecure, much?

This claim that Christian Zionism is 2000 years old is absurd. Embarrassingly so, for many reasons. Let's go on a ride together: For starters, Christianity diverged from Judaism in 70AD. That's the date that any Bible commentary, church history book, or historical timeline places the moment when, in the eyes of practitioners, being a Jew and being a Christian became contradictory things. Why was that? It's because when Titus sent his warriors to destroy the Temple and dismantle the Jewish ethnostate, the Christians fled across the Jordan, because Jesus had told them to (Luke 21:20-21). The Christians had absolutely no desire whatever to defend a Jewish nation. Their religion had nothing to do with the Temple, which was the epicenter of Jewish nationhood. When it was destroyed, along with the genealogies inside, it was the equivalent of a foreign power storming Washington D.C. and torching its citizens' passports, birth certificates, and naturalization paperwork. The Jews held this against them bitterly, angry that the Jewish followers of Jesus didn't care about their nation being dismantled. The Christians had absolutely no desire to contend for Jewish nationhood whatsoever. Their religion had nothing to do with a Jewish nation. Had Christianity been Zionist, this would not have been their course of action. Either that, or they were the worst Zionsits EVER. Christian Zionism as a theology did not exist until Darby, because it requires the Dispensational framework to image a sharp distinction between Israel and the Church. It's historically absurd to claim that this existed before 1821. All of Darby's contemporaries had the same, uniform hot-take when encountering for the first time, basically, "Wow. This is new, and this is weird." In fact, Spurgeon himself said, “Until Mr. Darby advanced this astounding doctrine, I am not aware that the notion was ever before even hinted at.” Dabney said, "These NEW theories of a Jewish millennium are repugnant to the whole genius of the Gospel." Nathaniel West, a 19th-century historian, said Darby's teaching, "had no standing in the historic Church..." Alexander Reese, a contemporary of Darby said, "it is wholly unknown in the Church until the nineteenth century." You won't find serious Christian theologians - even on your side of the aisle - make the claim you just made. It was new. Novel. Inventive. And without a belief in that artifically hard division between the church and Israel, there's no argument for a Jewish ethnostate. I assume you'll claim that premillennialists existed prior. And that's true, for Historic Premillennialism. But Historic Premillennialism doesn't argue the heart of the Zionist claim (that Christians should support the establishment of a Jewish ethnostate) like Dispensational Premillennialists like Darby or you do, because we (I am one) don't believe that Jews currently retain any Covenant blessings or promises outside of faith in Christ. Justin Martyr, Ireneaeus, Origen, Chrysostom etc believed God would - in the future - do impressive things with and for the Jewish people, NONE of them would believe that Jews currently - today - in their current unbelief have the right to any of God's promises without faith in Christ. And without faith in Christ, none would have (none did) argue that Christians have a responsibility to support or help establish a Jewish body politic. Had you told any of those saints of old that Jews are currently "the chosen people," they'd have put you in a straitjacket, put you in a cage, and charged a shiny nickel to let people poke you with a stick, because you'd be a side show attraction. That would have gotten you laughed out of the sanctuary. Justin Martyr said, "We are the true, spiritual Israel, and the descendants of Judah, Jacob, Isaac and Abraham." The Epistle of Barnabas reads, ""Beware lest any one say that the covenant is both theirs and ours. It is ours: but in this way did they finally lose it." Chrystostom said, "The synagogue is not only a brothel and a theater; it also is a den of robbers and a lodging for wild beasts... when God forsakes a people, what hope of salvation is left? When God forsakes a place, that place becomes the dwelling of demons." Clearly, these are not people who wanted to give them their own nation, to reject Christ in their very law. It's absurd to claim that Christians before Darby would have seriously argued that Christians have to support the establishment of a nation that denies Christ in its national charter. It's silly to act as though believers throughout the ages would have helped establish a nation for people whose entire identity is found in rejecting Jesus as Lord. Consider for a moment: In order for Israel to maintain a Jewish ethnostate, its laws require the actual rejection of Christianity. In 2018, the Knesset passed, "Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People" and reiterated its ban on Christian Jews from migrating to Israel or becoming citizens. Of course, the Right of Return never allowed it to begin with. Ethnic Jews who believe in Jesus - no matter their bloodline - cannot return to Israel. By virtue of believing in Christ, they're excluded. That's because you can't maintain a Jewish ethnostate while importing Christians. In Israel, it's illegal to share Christ publicly with Jews. It's illegal to share Christ with minors, no matter what. They pull the broadcast license for TV and radio stations that share the gospel with Jews who are listening. Their laws routinely discriminate against Christians. And when Christians are mistreated, they have virtually no recourse under the law. Heck, Mike Huckabee had to threaten bringing the hammer down if they didn't stop mistreating Christians in the visa process for Christian aid workers (which they regularly do). The Israeli Ministry of Tourism had to put out PSAs asking them to please stop spitting on the Christian tourists, when the head of the National Security Minister said it wouldn't be prosecuted because "it's an ancient Jewish practice." That's what you support when you're a Christian Zionist. It's not merely believing a bizarre 19th-century End Times doctrine thought up in an Irish basement, to be actualized by God at some point in the future when they come to faith. It's supporting the establishment of a nation-state that has hard-wired into its identity the rejection of Jesus Christ, founded upon laws that discriminate against God's chosen people, the Christian Church. And that's bizarre. Thankfully, until 1821, it was unheard of. Stop saying stupid things.

If you listen to Israel-First politicians like Ted Cruz, Christian Zionists like @pastorlocke, Neo-Judaizers like John Hagee, or NeoCon War-Pigs like James Lindsay, they cite what's called the Abrahamic Promise, "I will bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse Israel." In fact, the entire argument of the Israel Lobby presumes this promise is for modern Israel. But every time someone cites Genesis 12:3 to argue for this supposed blessing for the ethnic ancestors of Abraham, it does savage violence to the Bible. We usually focus on the first half of the verse, pointing out that it doesn't say "Israel," but Abraham. And we point out that Galatians 3 explains the "Seed of Abraham" is Christ, and St. Paul explicitly says it's not conferred to Jews and that only Christians are "heirs of the promise". But we've really beaten that argument like a dead horse. What's often missed is the second half of the verse: "I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse...AND IN YOU ALL THE FAMILIES OF THE EARTH SHALL BE BLESSED." No matter what you do with the first half of the verse, it logically follows that it must accomplish the second half of the verse. The blessing given to Abraham must, by necessity, lead to the entire earth being blessed. For the Covenant Theologian holding traditional Christian beliefs (which they wrongly call Replacement Theology), the answer is simple: Because the promise isn't about Jews but about Jesus, the entire earth is blessed because salvation has been made obtainable because of Christ. But the Dispensational Zionist must interpret the second half of Genesis 12:3 differently, because the promise is not fulfilled by Jesus, but by Jews. So what do they do with it? Get a load of this: They argue that the blessing flows to the world through the Jewish people as a nation and through Israel's existence and prosperity as a political state. Can you imagine someone believing that the earth is being blessed by the Nation of Israel? Let's look at the facts: For starters, the reason why Europe got behind the Zionist project in the 20th century is that it had grown exhausted by the drama that had followed the Jews to every nation where they sojourned. We have their reasoning, written down for posterity, and they were eager to be relieved of the Jews' presence, and along with their presence, the problems that inevitably followed them. Today, the entire world sits on edge, wondering if this is the day that Israel begins WWIII. And this isn't a new anxiety. Since 1948, the world has been repeatedly held captive by the chaos that Israel invokes not only in its region but throughout the whole Earth. With roving brownouts in Asia and their inability to heat their homes, provide essential services, and power their factories, do they feel blessed by Israel right now? With the impending international economic crisis due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, is the global supply chain blessed right now? With the crushing price at the pump and grocery prices going up 18% in the last three weeks, is your family budget blessed right now? With the U.S. having to prioritize its military and munitions supplies to help Netanyahu accomplish his 40-year goal to attack Iran, does Ukraine feel blessed right now? Putin feels blessed today, but does anyone else? What about the Arab world, in a state of constant warfare for the last 75 years, does it feel blessed? , Imagine Europe's blessing. They supported the Zionist project to export Jews and their constant controversies, and in return, they got the mass importation of Muslim refugees escaping the dystopian hellscape brought about by 75 years of constant warfare in the Middle East. No one feels "blessed" by Israel. In fact, the entire world feels the burden and stress it delivers to us daily as countries like the United States put our domestic problems on the back burner to deal with the never-ending needs of the Israelis, having to subsidize their existence and underwrite their defense. Are our children blessed by Israel, when it is constantly writing checks that Americans have to cash by financing wars out of our paychecks and by borrowing from our children's inheritance? Surely not. I'd ask a Christian Zionist to make a list of all the ways that the world is blessed by Israel. It would be a pretty small list, if anything could be listed at all. The only coherent way that the entire earth could be blessed by the Seed of Abraham is that the Seed of Abraham is Jesus Christ, just as Paul explained in Galatians 3. The world is blessed by Spiritual Israel, the true Children of Abraham, the real Heirs of the Promise, the Christian Church, who preaches to the world that Christ came to die for our sins and rise again from the dead. I'm asking my friend @pastorlocke to come to Texas, sit down in the NXR Studios, and talk about this very issue. How is Genesis 12:3 fulfilled by the modern nation-state of Israel? Why preach "I will bless those who bless Israel, and curse those who curse Israel" when that's actually not what the Bible says? Why do some claim the promise is given to Jews, when the New Testament emphatically denies it, and says that it's a promise received only by Christians? I've never known @pastorlocke to be afraid of anything. Surely he's not timid about sitting down over an open Bible and talking out his theolgical claims. Right?

@ArieYerushalmi @ZoomerHistorian Relying on the evidence of my own eyes.

@_5397_ @ZoomerHistorian 'knowing jews' = relying exclusively on your prejudice

Blocking ambulances is quite the opposite of ‘Western’ values. We uniquely have rules regarding civilians and prisoners of war and we created organisations like the Red Cross. Jews don’t view war that way nor can they comprehend our ‘rules’ for war, they want it finished as quickly and brutally as possible, civilian casualties on both sides are irrelevant as long as the job gets done.

@L8rG8r007 @AcademicAgent_X You can actually watch and read statements by Jews describing their rationale. They want multiculturalism because they think that will make them safer. They regard Muslims and blacks as easily controllable tools.

@AcademicAgent_X Not sure why a Jewish controlled country would import a gorillion browns , da jooz is just a calling card for the djinn brained right

The relevent context is: 1. Israel has been doing everything possible to get Britain involved in this war (why? Dunno, but they have) 2. After claiming Iran hit Cyrpus and Diego Garcia, we now get this. It is *not* insane to be suspicious about this.

Israel bombed a family in Irkay, South Lebanon without warning and killed four sisters CNN actually covered their funeral, showing the victims of Tel Aviv's child extermination policy Israel has killed over 1,029 people and wounded 2,786 since March 2 in Lebanon

@ArieYerushalmi @ZoomerHistorian Knowing Jews, I expect "combatants" is defined as pretty much anyone who finds themselves on the wrong end of an Israeli barrel. You are justly hated, and the entire world is seeing you for what you are.

@ZoomerHistorian This is pure fiction. Especially if you've been paying attention to the unprecedentedly low civilians to combatants ratio achieved in the recent Gaza conflict. What the hell are you talking about?