Taha Masud
@TahaMasud
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Islamabad
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Having got caught up in many arguments on Israel/Palestine online, I thought it might be useful to put together a thread of common pro-Israel talking points and what I think the appropriate rebuttals to them are.
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Maryam is an Afghan child who lives next to my local markaz - I give her a little money whenever I go by on my walks and we chat for a few minutes. Today, Maryam let me know that her and her family were about to leave for Afghanistan before the police began to hurt them and make
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1) Both sides are bad/condemn everyone.
Yes, I think this is a pro-Israel talking point. The reason for this is because it draws a terrible false equivalence between the actions of Israel and Hamas. No such equivalence exists.
On the one hand, you have a modern nation-state,
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armed to the teeth with Western funding and the latest technology, administering the world's largest concentration camp, and with the defensive capabilities to shrug off whatever little missiles their enemy chucks their way. The life of an Israeli is, by and large, UNAFFECTED by
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the people living in the Gaza strip. They live full and happy lives.
On the other hand, you have a population that has known nothing but brutalization and terror at the hands of their prison wardens. They live at the mercy of the Israelis and they are repeatedly made aware of it
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Their water is toxic. Their economy is non-existent. Food, clothing, medicine - all has to be brought in through aid. Every attempt at peaceful protest (the Great March of Return) has been met with violence and bombing. Generations of people have lived and died in this world.
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1) It's not morally equivalent to Israel's for the context highlighted above.
2) Quantitatively, it's killed far fewer people.
3) It's a relatively isolated incident.
4) It's violence when all else has failed.
5) It's similar to the frenzied violence of a slave revolt
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Therefore, "both-sides"-ing liberals are serving the Israeli cause by pretending that the violence of Hamas is remotely comparable to it. They diminish the practical reality that Israel is doing far worse (laying waste to Gaza) and the moral reality of oppressor vs oppressed.
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1) "The Jews" were not there first. Semitic peoples were. Their descendants INCLUDE the Jews, but the Palestinians who inhabit the land are just as indigeneous to it as they are.
2) Palestinians and their descendants don't have some vague conceptual historical link to the land
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Hamas and its actions cannot be separated from this context. What happened on 07/10 is the result of 1500 people who've lived in a camp their entire life breaking free and letting loose an orgy of violence on their oppressor. Several points to note about this violence.
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2) Israel conveniently defines any anti-Israel action as antisemitism. This sleight of hand allows the events of 07/10 (and indeed, ANY Hamas attack) to be seen as an attack on Jewish people rather than an attack on a colonial oppressor. Fun fact : by this logic, the bombardment
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2) But Hamas is antisemitic!
Several responses once more:
1) Hamas WAS officially antisemitic in its founding charter, but has since renounced that charter. Its new charter makes no mention of anti-semitism, and is specifically focused on the issue of Zionism.
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of Gaza is Islamophobic. Not so fun when the shoe if on the other foot, hm?
3) What antisemitism exists in Hamas today is likely a direct response to decades of Israeli oppression. It's not the same as the antisemitism of the Holocaust, and bears more resemblance to anti-white
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but a real and ACTIVE one. Their grandparents lived there. They still have their old deeds. The Israeli settlers do not have anything such. They invoke their heritage more as a rhetorical cudgel than as an actual meaningful link to the land.
3) The first wave of Jewish settlers
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right to return. They can't tolerate the notion that the Jewish population of the country might be outnumbered. The exclusion was the *point*.
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were welcomed by locals. It was only at the point that they began forceful occupation and attempted to create an ethnostate that locals were inflamed against them. There was plenty of room for everyone - but Israel couldn't stand it. This is also why they deny Palestinians the
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sentiment in black slaves. Another case of convenient equivocation.
3) It doesn't matter that the Zionists displaced the Palestinians. The Jews were there first, as early as 2000 years ago.
This is another particularly pernicious piece of historical propaganda. Several issues.
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them leave. Fifty or more Afghans have left my small little markaz already. Maryam's family first came here about a decade and a half ago, fleeing war. Maryam herself was born here - she can't be more than 9 or 10. And they're all going to be chased out and sent to a place
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which most of them hardly remember and some of them have never seen.
This is, in and of itself, morally abhorrent. But there's more! There's so so much more.
1) In spite of the government claiming that this is an attempt to kick out "illegal immigrants", many many Afghans who
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have proofs of registration are reporting harassment and have been slowly driven out of their homes and to the border. Many children who were born in Pakistan, which by all rights, should make them Pakistani, are still classified as illegal and being shunted away.
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Here we are. Mask off. It's being said out loud - this was never about illegal immigration. It's about a rancid, festering hatred of Afghans. Hope all the supporters of the policy find themselves a nice tall cliff to jump off at the earliest convenience.
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2) There are numerous reports of Afghans being unable to take whatever wealth they have as they flee the country. Their possessions - cattle, minor assets, even cash - are being stripped from them. Once again - the govt pretends these things are not happening, while likely
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3) Pakistan has been receiving aid for the rehabilitation and resettlement of Afghan refugees for many years. We have failed to put it to any use. Afghans remain disproportionately poor, disproportionately homeless, and disproportionately unemployed. We have profited off their
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What is the point of all these fancy global climate change agreements if they don't come with clauses about compulsory aid to countries who are being ravaged by it? Pakistan shouldn't have to be begging the IMF for scraps right now - we should be recipients of international aid.
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tacitly supporting them. After all - we've been getting rich off of Afghans for decades. Why stop now?
(Note here that the Afghans have not developed whatever little wealth they have because of us, but in *spite* of a pervasive atmosphere of state sanctioned anti-Afghan racism)
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misery and are now tossing them back to Afghanistan.
4) many of these Afghans are *refugees* from the Taliban. They will be received as criminals back home. The women and girls being sent back are particularly vulnerable - Pakistan is sending them into the hands of one of the
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The same people who raise their voices against Palestinian dispossession gleefully try to argue that Afghans are illegal, criminal elements. Suddenly - the law is moral and beyond reproach. Suddenly - our government is a paragon of virtue, and all accounts of looting and
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the refugees, all the way back from the first Afghan war.
We broke their country, we took money for hosting them, we let them live in misery and poverty, and now we loot them and send them to a country many of them have never seen. It's a shameful time to be a Pakistani.
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most misogynistic governments in the world - no schooling, no access to public spaces, no freedom. This is the fate that they're being abandoned to.
And what makes this all the more absurd and tragic is that Pakistanis, for the most part, don't seem to care.
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harassment are vile, anti-state lies.
We are asked to believe that Afghans have been making hundreds of well armed criminal gangs and holding common Pakistanis hostage. I would note in response to this that these well armed criminals are acquiescing to their forced deportation
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the homes that they'd dug out for themselves.
And, of course, not to beat a dead horse - but Pakistan played a critical role in destabilising and breaking Afghan govt and society over the past four decades, plunging it into an orgy of war and violence. We are *responsible* for
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with remarkable timidity and meekness. There are no accounts of large clashes between Afghans and the state. It would have been better for the Afghans if they *had* been well armed and organized - perhaps then they'd have had a fighting chance at holding their own and staying in
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"Stop encouraging begging" say the signs scattered across Islamabad, as though begging happens because some guy tells his friend "bro you REALLY have to try this begging stuff it's CRAZY."
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@bornposting
Also a very good moment for Aragorn. He feels the loss of Gandalf more keenly than any of the Fellowship, but he knows that he NEEDS to get them out of there before he can allow himself to feel his grief.
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My controversial opinion is that mental health awareness has not so much led to better mental health outcomes as it has terrible people learning how to therapy-speak their awful behaviour as a way to justify it. That + justifying their own callousness/laziness.
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Nawaz sounds like he knows full well that he's won off rigging lol. This is the most apologetic sounding victory speech ever - "let's all be friends and work together ahaha"
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Maryam Nawaz has arguably the worst optics of any major political leader. She has absolutely nothing going for her except her name - and she doesn't seem likely to improve on it. Genuinely just among the biggest middle fingers to the electorate out there.
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In the past few days Imran Khan has been lauded for being
- Middle class
- Secular and liberal
- A revolutionary with mass support
Up is down; left is right; the sun rises in the west and sets in the east.
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The more I read about the Bengal famine of the 1940s the more I realize that Churchill and the rest of the British government ought to have been burned slowly and agonizingly to death. Instead, they're revered today as heroes, and men like Castro are made into devils. Save us.
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I'm sorry Greta I've been doing you wrong all these years by assuming you're a milquetoast climate lib
Greta Thunberg chants "Krossa Sionismen" (Crush Zionism!) with the crowd at a pro-Palestinian rally in Stockholm.
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Key difference between Chinese and Western investment - the Chinese aren't trying to keep you locked into exporting primary resources.
Bolivia wins massive $450 million Chinese loan to build country's first zinc refinery
Presiden Arce: "It was the dream of many Bolivians... to stop exporting raw materials and finally have our own zinc refinery plant."
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Meanwhile on Reddit...
I know we'd like to believe the issue is just a political/economic/journalistic elite but the rot in the imperial core runs deep.
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Support for any of the major political parties of Pakistan should be cynical and pragmatic in nature. Their track records and the nature of their membership and leadership speak for themselves. PTI is no exception - though its supporterbase certainly doesn't realize this.
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The biggest threat to the Israeli hostages at this point is literally Israel. Hamas agreed to release them in exchange for ceasefire. Israel decided to bomb them instead.
They're are FROTHING for war.
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Chile: We won't return to normality because normality was the problem.
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World has really gone insane today. Violent crackdown on protests, mass layoffs in companies, ticking time bomb of the petrol subsidy still hanging over us, school shooting over in the US - just one of those days where having hope is an act of either privilege or courage.
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I love the LUMS campus and the faculty which taught me, but I really really hate being part of the LUMS student body : you won't find a similarly two-faced, entitled, and bratty assemblage of people elsewhere. Morals are worth literally nothing. Self interest reigns supreme.
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has the obvious joke about the Soviet national anthem being a commie taraana been made yet or...
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Finkelstein notes in his book on Gaza that this is an intentional part of Israel's strategy : destroy anything the Gazans have that makes them less dependent on aid (independent food production is a key example) so that Israel's control of aid entry makes the Gazans weaker.
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To the people calling for "legal action" - own up to what you're really here for. Lynching. You know full well that that's the likeliest outcome of registering blasphemy cases against someone in PK. Don't hide behind your little legal fictions. Be proud of your bloodlust.
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Greta I have already apologized once to you but here is a second apology for having thought you were just a flavour of the month liberal 🙏
Climate justice activists all over the world stand in solidarity with
@MahrangBaloch_
and other peaceful protesters who have been detained, tortured and disrupted by Islamabad police for protesting against human rights abuses in Balochistan.
#MarchAgainstBalochGenocide
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Why liberal academia is nonsense - Exhibit A
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@nkulw
Finkelstein's current answer is that they're afraid. He points to other Israeli invasions in the 21st century and notes that they're basically just short photo ops to prove that they went in before calling on the US to negotiate a ceasefire/settlement.
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had a nightmare that I was back in an Islamic Studies class at LUMS with twin demons whispering "hermeneutics" and "exegesis" into my ears in Asif Iftikhar's deep throaty fashion.
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I maintain my position that Zardari is a moustache twirling cartoon villain who's so openly evil that it's actually funny
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freshman year before Careem took over
God bless
@leaveamnalone
for being kind to me 6 yrs ago during freshman year 😂😂❤️
(There was no space in the common room and a hoe couldn’t survive without the AC)
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This portion sticks out and rings increasingly true.
I’ve been seeing a few people saying they’re not sure what I’m about politically. As a reader-supported writer I try to be transparent about such things to let any would-be patrons know what they’re getting into, so here’s my position on a bunch of different issues if anyone’s…
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I think Palestine is less a blind spot and more a feature of how absolutely morally bankrupt liberal ideology is. It is window-dressing for power, and has been nothing more for centuries now.
Edward Said once wrote how many important intellectuals including Foucault, Derrida, & Sartre, ignored Palestine. They saw power operating in texts, movies, & everyday relations but failed to see Israel's brutal colonial occupation.
Palestine is a blind spot in Western ideology.
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PKR 60,000 needed for surgery for a poor working woman who has been in an accident and cannot afford to raise the funds. Please DM me if you're willing to contribute.
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Oh God we have people in this country uncritically taking politician's emotive speeches at face value. This is the same Khan who accused Hazara protestors of blackmail, the same Khan who stands against Ahmedis, the same Khan who blames assault victims - koi imaan nahi hai.
Last night, IK said "hamesha se imaan tha" and then immediately corrected himself, ke nahin, hamesha se nahin, shuru mein imaan nahin tha, baad mein aya hai. – that felt so refreshing, almost sinful of a confession.
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Dramatic cope - the majority of what's being discussed is architectural renovation... At worst your argument here can be that they're attempting to sinicize Islam.
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People often argue that the problem with Pakistan is incompetence. I'd argue that, while incompetence is certainly present and a problem, this is actually to forgiving and naive a view to take of the country. It isn't stupidity that causes leadership to take harmful, destructive
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wondering if this man realized Australia was settled by a bunch of prisoners. Settler colonialism doesn't mean you have to be rich and well-to-do. It means you have to settle and colonize.
🧵The ‘settler colonialism’ paradigm erases everything one needs to know to properly understand the I-P conflict. It misses everything that distinguishes the Jewish return to Palestine from White European Settler Colonialism. Here are the four key differences. (1/10)
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How many lives could be saved if we raised better, kinder men?
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I think the worst thing every government in Pakistan does is the demolition of katchi abaadis and slums. They force people violently out of their homes, and the middle and upper classes gleefully cheer them on. It shows no signs of stopping and is accepted throughout the board.
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Bhai do you really think Pakistani schools teach about sexuality? I was in a private Islamabadi school and the chapter on human sexuality was literally ripped out of my 8th grade science textbook. Nobody's discussing LGBT folks in school settings here.
@naheinyaar
That workplace feeds off our zakat (charity) money & indoctrinates children with LGBT & liberal agenda
& That's why they're getting the bad reviews
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@OmerAzhar96
This is a deeply irresponsible tweet. There are many people who are likely only going to donate because IK asked them to. Like him or hate him, he is a popular leader who can mobilize many. Sowing doubt here is likelier than not to affect the total volume of donations.
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Ben "I am very smart Shapiro" thinks Gaza is full of vast expanse of unbombed land for civilians to evacuate to at leisure
Destroying a Hamas command center after warning all civilians in the area to get out is correct. Hamas hides behind civilians. Should this grant them immunity? If so, you have created a massive incentive for them to hide behind civilians. Many MORE civilians will die over time.
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How interesting that everyone who spoke against Zainab Tariq has suddenly retracted their statements and said that they're terrible people. I'm sure this is all very natural and that the decisions are based entirely on these people's moral compasses.
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@aishaismad
@NathanJRobinson
The brutality of the early Bolsheviks can't be seen without looking at the context of the inhumane excesses of Tsarist Russia. Lenin's aggressive rhetoric matched the world he was seeking to destroy - he was hardly going to be preaching about rainbows and flowers.
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Israel is a legitimate state”
"Allah assigned the land to them (Jewish)”
Follow
@PakYouth4Israel
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Don't follow Turkish politics but I'm confused and intrigued as an outsider by how the liberals are virulently anti-refugee and the supposed conservative strongman is pro-refugee.
Anyone want to shed some quick light?
Erdogan maintains his pro-refugee policy.
“Germany and America take Syrian refugees in. They also took our Meskhetian Turks. Are we such an ordinary country that we cannot open our doors to such migrants as America, Germany, France do?”
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Why does Bilawal get so much credit for being "young" and "well spoken" and "good at interviews"? Those aren't the issues that we needed fixing for. Bilawal was complicit in PDM's awful government, has not called out interference in the recent elections, and his party hosts
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PTI tech team simply doesn't quit holy shit. Every other party is living fifty years in the past.
((This also confirms the old ML adage - party organisation matters! You can't sit on your laurels. The best organized and most effective forces win!))
PTI, you’re phenomenal. You’re a case study for future generations.
Message your constituency to Imran Khan’s official Facebook page to know the elections results compiled as per form-45.
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Will is still at the point where Hamas is the main problem and the IDF/Israel are a moral afterthought.
There is a real world out there beyond Twitter, and in that real world Hamas is a genuine force for evil, even if the IDF is too. Joking-but-not-really lefty internet fandom for Hamas is frankly repulsive; you’re no better than the people you hate. Sorry for being a dull grownup
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Uyghur genocide believers provide proof of slaughter of a massive ethnic community in a heavily toured area without relying on grainy satellite footage challenge : difficulty level impossible
tankies really were like "I have never payed attention to Uyghur testimonies and evidence, or looked at all at the very public statements of Chinese government officials and leaked Chinese government documents, so there must be no evidence of the Uyghur genocide"
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People still want to pretend the state is doing the right thing?
This Afghan refugee is showing his POR cards to the local journalist and saying “These all are original card issued by Nadra, we are not leaving voluntarily we are forced to leave. Police raided our house I sold my house on the half price.”
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This is by far Corbyn's greatest failing - he keeps expecting that people will treat with him in good faith and won't run him into the ground. His conciliatory approach towards his political/ideological opponents cost him in his leadership and still costs him now
🇵🇸🇮🇱 What was the point of
@jeremycorbyn
even going on to
@PiersUncensored
show if he’s not going to let him speak without interrupting him?
All
@piersmorgan
did was show us what a bully he is & took advantage of JC’s kindness to try get the soundbites he was desperately after.
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@whstancil
No. I'm saying that parroting claims of people being beheaded and burned alive while playing cover for Israeli war crimes is a clear double standard. Hope that helps.
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Everyone is very mad at the Shehzad Ghias interview with the JI chief. I think the critique specifically levelled at the discussion of a national hijab policy is fair, but the idea that he's somehow "platforming" the JI chief (an immensely popular politician) is ridiculous and
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I know PTI has a terrible track record of compromising with other mainstream parties but I swear I'm living in a simulation when people pretend as though there wasn't/isn't a clear and obvious attempt by the establishment to rig the election against them
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Genuinely speaking, the British have gotten off INCREDIBLY light in terms of PR for what was one of the ugliest and most brutalizing empires in modern human history. It is astounding that they continue to openly posture about what is right and moral in the world with their past.
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1) China has rolled over many loans
2) China has given Pakistan more loans at a time when they are critical to securing IMF funding
3) The general concept of the Chinese debt trap as something specifically Chinese and specifically nefarious is a proven lie (...)
Sadly facts speaking louder than words"Pak-China friendship NOT higher than Himalayas" Again Completely indifferent to precarious state of Pak economy, China demanding immediate payment 1.5 billion$ to IPPs. China doesn't care if its CPEC debt trap pushes Pakistan to insolvency.
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@AneesHassanKhan
Modern European empires are qualitatively very distinct from empires in the pre-modern era. Saying "an empire is an empire" collapses the distinction between societies that were still vibrant and growing, and colonial extraction chambers.
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@Minesbastos
Pakistan can feasibly consume a lot more fossil fuels before it comes near any of the climate protection limits which would proscribe it. Coal included 🤷♂️
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@abey_yaar_
I have no proof for this but I suspect part of it is not being surrounded by the poor and wretched of the earth anymore/allowing themselves to evade the constant moral ache of knowing that people around you are suffering on a level you couldn't comprehend. Escapism.
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Not an American but if your overriding moral imperative is helping Palestinians and options a and b (trump and Biden) both signal favour for genocide and option c (not voting) signals disfavour then the right choice is relatively obvious.
If you claim your overriding moral imperative is helping Palestinians, but when asked to consider the consequences of a second Trump term for Palestinians, you say "That's a problem for Biden, not me," I think your overriding moral imperative is not actually helping Palestinians
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Look at him. He lives in an M&Ms packet and probably had access to high quality chocolate. Despite being an anthropomorphised piece of candy, he had fallen prey to anti-Baloch propaganda.
What is the problem here?
Look at him. He lives in Islamabad and probably had the privilege to study in good educational institutes. Despite his education and privilege, he has fallen prey to separatist and anti-state propaganda.
What is the problem here?
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Please let me live long enough to see the collapse of the US/Europe led imperial system 🙏
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Nonsense - Pindi has been a much greater force for destabilization and pro-imperial politics in the region than Tehran has.
Pakistanis try to keep your heads out of your asses. We've been a US proxy for decades. Iran has funded Hamas and Hezbollah against Israel. No comparison.
And, if you are siding with Iran on this (or obfuscating in their favor - for whatever reasons of ideology, politics and beef with Pindi), you are not thinking straight.
Pindi may not be perfect. But compared to the crazy Ayatullahs, it is not that difficult a choice.
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Everything about this being intellectually lazy and silly aside - Idk if he's read Marx... His writing is full of incredible optimism and love for humanity.
"Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat, what he really wanted was the unhappiness of the bourgeois"
- Bertrand Russell
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Many people don't want to leave behind their friends, families, and the world they grew up in. Not hard to understand. People have willingly stayed in situations far more unliveable throughout human history.
Unless you are extremely privileged, you are likely trying to find ways to escape from Pakistan. Why would you not? But to continue to live in such a place is profoundly unsettling.
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@Yousafzais_
In a stunning twist I have somehow managed to have many friends of the opposite gender without conceiving or murdering any babies. Shocking, I know.
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GCU winning the LUMS IV is the happiest possible ending. Heart is very full after seeing speakers young and old have such a rousing final.
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