Re tech, I'm amused by you putting "right-sizing/reorganizing" in scare quotes Rich, as I heard that Meta for example eliminated several mid-level manager jobs as those jobs were just not very integral and effective. So, do you now revere those lost jobs as common working man jobs axed by corporate greed?

I am surprised The Stranger isn't using this obvious poster child to revive their faltering, "No Youth Jail," campaign.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/girl-hurt-in-attack-that-killed-5-near-fall-city-released-from-hospital/

I am also certain there is a missed opportunity to support the surviving victim here. The girl would obviously feel far more secure if her alleged assailant could make bail, or if he was at least in a group home without locks, that would leave him free to return to her at his discretion, so the reconciliation process can begin for her.

Snark aside, I am legitimately curious as to what the No Youth Jail folks suggest should be done in a case like this, or with the four teens accused of 87 felonies, including robbery - a violent crime that threatens or perpetrates violence on other people - that are also currently being held.

I just googled “no youth jail” and found a bunch of sites explaining the rationale and proposed alternatives, including diversion programs, probation, and home-confinement. I found this much easier and more informative than whining in the comments to editors who will never respond to your endless bad-faith bitching because they have other things to do.

Does anyone have any explanation for the sudden metamorphosis a few months ago of this one commenter we see now @1, Phoebe in Wallingford? For ages, this commenter would post fairly infrequently and came across as someone with a moderate world view who was sincerely expressing those views and trying to be reasonable. Then suddenly, as if a switch was flipped, they became this ultra-aggressive right-wing concern troll who is determined to inundate these comment threads.

I can only speculate myself, and my speculation would hardly bear repeating.

The only thing I can feel confident about is this. There is no actual Phoebe who lives in Wallingford, and the decade-plus-old photo you see does not depict the actual person who is writing these comments. But perhaps that is so obvious as to not bear repeating.

So, I'm hijacking this SLOG to re-purpose the discussion. A few weeks ago, a guest contributor talked about how we need more mental health professionals in society. Well, in this ARS Technica article about a teenaged boy killing himself over losing access to a ChatBot, there was a very interesting comment about how maybe the government could pay to improve chatbots to the point where society could actually have enough therapists - human or chatbot - to deal with all the mental health issues in this country.

Article here: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/chatbots-posed-as-therapist-and-adult-lover-in-teen-suicide-case-lawsuit-says/?comments-page=3#comments

@4: Feel free to communicate with me directly.

@3, I have googled it.

They never answer what happens if the child won't go to a probation appointment, stay confined at home, participate in drug treatment, participate in diversion programs.

Those programs are great, but they never address the elephant in the room of what happens to the kid who refuses to participate in thier own rehabilitation or follow any court orders.

Incarceration should be the thing we go to last; but if alternatives don't work, then what do you do to protect the public without it?

They never answer that.

@7, What happens to anyone who violates the terms of their punishment? Here’s a clue: you’ve already answered your own question.

I found a document specifically for the King County zero youth jail proposal that says the detention should be the last resort when all else fails. Now you can shut up about this forever. Doesn’t that feel great?

https://cdn.kingcounty.gov/-/media/depts/community-human-services/MIDD/documents/Road_Map_Executive_Summary.ashx?la=en&hash=1EB2933C0A8919DA188357786F82F7E5

@8,

And yet the advocates for no youth jail refused to support alternatives with locks.

If the doors don't lock, they aren't incarcerated.

https://www.kuow.org/stories/group-homes-would-replace-jail-for-youth-in-king-county-under-plan-to-close-detention-center

With additional restrictions on use of force by staff to restrain a kid who wants to leave it's not incarceration.

So how is it detention as a last resort if the detained person isn't really detained, but is free to leave at will?

@9, The official zero youth jail executive summary I shared specifies “secure detention” as a last resort. The article you shared is about the debate over the details regarding security. Whether they rely on locks or guards is apparently still up for debate but it’s definitely not unanswered by the proposal as you keep insisting, even as you share reporting that discredits your own complaint.

You can keep pretending to not understand what they’re proposing if you’re so inclined but I don’t know what you get out of it. It’s really pathetic, man.

great reporting from Rich about Samidoun and the PFLP, who you might think was being unfairly branded a "terrorist organization" by the United States. What Rich didn't bother mentioning is that they have about 60 years of history of murdering civilians, hijacking airplanes, and assassinating politicians. So, yeah, terror group: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_Front_for_the_Liberation_of_Palestine#Armed_attacks_after_2000

@4 Oh boy... you obviously didn't have any family that watched All My Children in the 1980s and 90s.

Phoebe Tyler Wallingford was a character on ABC's All My Children back in the day (played by Ruth Warrick). The photo that appears for the commenter is Ruth Warrick in character as Phoebe Tyler Wallingford.

So, no, the commenter isn't displaying an actual picture of themself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Warrick

@10 Ha Ha..... "ZERO" youth jail but also "secure detention." So, they are not in jail but they are securely detained. Huh, I wonder if there is another term for secure detention? The far left is truly a piece of performance art at this point.

@13, You’re right, perhaps they should rebrand to “some youth jail but only as a last resort when less punitive interventions fail.” I think it needs work but it’s got legs. What do you think?

That Kelly fella is also accused of hanging several hand-painted political signs attacking Harris on Tuesday in Ahwatukee, an affluent, Democrat-leaning suburb of Phoenix. You could call that protected activity, except that the signs were lined with razor blades.

@11 Well, Rich also didn't mention that Israel has an even longer history of murdering and generally terrorizing Palestinian civilians so what people might think is "unfair" is the lopsided designation of who is a terrorist

TheTourGuide @12, thanks for the info. Frankly, I feel kinda stupid now, and a lack of "All My Children" knowledge is no excuse. When I said, "But perhaps (there's no real Phoebe) is so obvious as to not bear repeating." It really did bear no repeating!

“No youth jail” is the same kind of overly simplistic slogan as “defund the police.” Both suggest a more extreme position than what (most of) those espousing them actually want, and both are harmful to the real reforms being proposed.

@18 Good point but it's also right wing and media reframing of these slogans that have been harmful because it started as 'No NEW youth jail' to indicate of where funding should be invested as a matter of priority and 'defund the police' always meant that everything else being equal, some funding would have to be reallocated to more efficient non-policing forms of public safety.

Framing policy proposals in idealistic terms is how we do things, and it’s up to you to read past the title page. See also, “net zero carbon”, “universal health care”, or even “mass deportation NOW!” We are unlikely to achieve any of these without drastic interventions that would face public resistance and legal challenges, but accepting failure at step one is a loser move. You propose the thing you actually want and hammer out compromises with your critics. Your end product may not be your stated goal but it hopefully puts you on the right track.

@16/19 your revisionist history is always an amusing daily read. Here is what the activists actually said

https://www.cascadepbs.org/2020/02/king-countys-new-youth-jail-and-false-promise-zero-youth-detention

"At the end of the day, all of the bright colors, the murals and new fixtures are lipstick on a pig. They are a poor attempt to cover up the truth. Martin Luther King Jr. County government does not actually believe in zero youth detention."

Zero youth detention means just that. Take them at their word. It's ridiculous on its face and in no way feasible.

Just like TS's preferred candidate in the 43rd
https://www.cascadepbs.org/2020/06/time-abolish-seattle-police-was-yesterday.

Abolishing the police doesn't mean have police and alternatives it means having no police. Scott's own words "The time for police abolition was yesterday. The time for police abolition is now." I can't wait for Scott to get to Olympia and show his true colors.

You should be happy today, according to Hannah the 31st District Dems rescinded their endorsement of Adam Smith over his position on Israel lol

@12: Bingo! How we miss Ruth Warrick! Also fun to see her in reruns of Peyton Place and in 'Citizen Kane' she played the wife of Charles Foster Kane.

@17: I am a Phoebe and did once live in Wallingford, and at the time Phoebe's character on AMC was 'Phoebe Tyler Wallingford', so it fits.

Take them at their word but for the love of god do not read past the top line

@10, The problem is they never define secure in a way where the youth can't leave. The new facility would be closed. The replacement would be disbursed group homes with no locks. That is the "last resort" for incarceration if probation, home detention, community supervised custody, etc. fail, is not a secure facility.

If they do define it in a way that is truly secure, then you have a "youth jail," which is what they want none of. So which way is it? The youth will be confined so they can't leave, or they won't be?

They describe closing down the facility that is secure and then replacing it with facilities with no locks where kids are free to leave because there are no locks and the staff won't be allowed to physically detain them. All the staff will be allowed to do is notify the police and court that the kid left.

How many resources will police then dedicate to trying to track down the kids, to return the kid to a facility that the kid can immediately leave from? None.

@16: PFLP takes the position that Israel should not exist. It’s only fair for Israel to take the position that PFLP should not exist. Hopefully, PFLP will abide by the requirements of the law of armed conflict to segregate itself from the civilian population of Palestine. If not, well then, too bad for them.

So Harris embraces the "F" word in a recent townhall. This is to be considered newsworthy, but only because normally the slur is cast long after an election, not on the campaign trail.

Yet the F word had already become a kind of meme in the lexicon of leftish discourse by the 70s. Recall Rob Reiner's "Meathead" erupting with it during his rants in All in the Family. Tom Wolfe quipped "The dark night of fascism is always descending in the United States and yet lands only in Europe." With perhaps the exception Bush sr, no GOP president escaped being tarnished by the label.

I see the press has again wheeled out the venerable Robert Paxton, perhaps the last living giant on the topic of fascism. I had read his "Anatomy of Fascism" years ago and so sympathized with him during the 4 years of the orange man's rule as the press begged Mr. Paxton to render judgement on the F matter. He said Trump did not meet his definition, which was consistent of his understanding of fascism as a political phenomenon.

That was until the hubub of 2020. Paxton changed his mind, or felt sufficiently pressured to do so. Paxton betrayed his own writings a bit, but again, even he admitted that how a scholar formulates the parameters of defining fascism is half the game.

However, none of the banter over the F word really matters in the end. I cannot grasp the invocation of the term having any discernible impact on voters beyond those who are already steadfastly opposed to him. Trumps countless and much more easily described deficiencies and transgressions ought to be enough to make a solid case against him. His stance on Ukraine alone has me pulling the lever for Harris. I don't need to imagine Trump dancing around in Jack boots singing "Springtime for MAGA" to vote for Harris.

"During a trip to Beirut on Wednesday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock accused Hezbollah of using Lebanese civilians as human shields and affirmed Israel’s right to self-defense, according to her ministry.

'In Lebanon, people fear for their loved ones every single day. Here too, Hezbollah terrorists are irresponsibly hiding behind civilians and firing rockets at Israel every day. Israel must defend itself against these attacks,' Baerbock said."

CNN.com

So according to Germany, both Hezbollah and Hamas are violating international humanitarian law by using civilians and civilian facilities as shields, making it lawful for the IDF to attack those facilities.

@24 they are actively debating whether to secure them with locks or guards in the link you posted @9

Just to be clear, your first comment insinuates their proposal does not include detention. Your second comment doubles down while also proposing an answer to your own question: sometimes detention is necessary. Your third comment answers your question with more detail, even including a citation that clearly shows their proposal includes detention, yet you continue to act like it didn’t. Now you’re back to bickering over the title of the proposal over the substance.

Listen. There is plenty of room for disagreement here. I don’t have particularly strong opinions either way, but by even just a cursory review — not to mention common sense — I can see that the zero youth jail proponents have addressed the most obvious criticism of their proposal because that’s how the process works. You don’t make it to the stage where public officials are debating the finer points on the record without first clearing the basics.

It’s ok to say “I don’t like this” because everyone gets to have an opinion, but to keep arguing that no one has addressed the most obvious questions about their proposal is pointless and bizarre. Do you not have better things to do with your time?

Also from the Al Jazeera article:

“Just weeks into the Israeli military’s bombardment of Gaza late last year, Germany – a staunch ally of Israel – banned Samidoun after it said the group disseminated “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda” and “glorified” the Palestinian group Hamas.”

But sure, I’m sure they meant anti Zionist not anti Jew (everyone knows these groups love Jews)

@20- net zero carbon (as in no NET addition of carbon to the atmosphere) and universal health care (as in everyone has access to healthcare) ARE the actual goals of those movements. They are not negotiating positions. They may be difficult but they truly are the goals. Getting rid of the police is not generally the actual goal of the defund crowd, or at least that’s what they want us to believe.

@30, The goal of the 2008 health care debate was to achieve universal health care. Obama’s initial proposal included a public option, effectively making Medicare available for all US citizens regardless of age or means. Instead, we ended up with a purely market-driven system where people cannot be turned away for pre-existing conditions, because republicans and centrist democrats negotiated those changes. This has increased the rate of health care coverage -- which is great -- but it is not universal.

So… we started with a clearly defined ideal, and through the legislative process ended up with something watered down but serviceable. That is how nearly all policy gets implemented, because we live in a representative democracy where everyone gets to have input until enough people agree on a compromise to pass it. This is a feature not a bug.

@28, If they can leave at their discretion without busting a lock or overpowering staff with force then its not detention is it?

Jails and prisons have both attributes. Locks and people that must be overcome by force, if the person placed there by a court wants to leave.

By definition, people in a jail (youth or otherwise) don't voluntarily go and remain where they are ordered to go by a court. They don't voluntarily follow laws.

Yet the "No Youth Jail" crowd wants it both ways. The court would order these youth to be in certain places and do certain things to get back on track, and then make their going and remaining their SOLELY up to the youth.

If the youth aren't coercively compelled to be there with locks and guards its not detention and its not a jail. If they are, then they are detained and jailed.

You can't have it both ways.

The whole debate misses the point. What carrots can we give the youth to leave confinement? E.g. Complete drug treatment, get on grade in terms of academic performance, treat mental health, acknowledge wrongdoing, etc. What stick do we use if they won't? E.g. You can sit here doing nothing, locked and guarded, until your 21st birthday.

We don't do enough of the former and default to the latter. To do either requires, at least initially, and possibly until they turn 21, being forcibly detained and locked up.

We don't provide enough resources for them when they are detained. The answer is to provide that, not make following court orders voluntary.

So now locks don’t count because they can be broken. A couple of comments ago a lack of locks was the problem — specifically there were no locks at all and the guards aren’t allowed to touch anyone, even though the article that YOU SHARED describes no such limitations on security (direct quote: “The security level of the group homes would vary, with some higher security and others being “staff secured” — that is, relying on staff, not locked doors, to keep youth from leaving”).

Mind you this all started by arguing there was NO LOCKED DETENTION OF ANY KIND. I would ask where your imagination is going to take this next but I don’t fucking care.

My bad, I misread your first paragraph but the point still stands. Your own citations say there will be locks and there are no restrictions placed on the guards.

@32: Custody is a spectrum, not a binary. It’s not the case that the only two options are confinement in a locked and guarded cell or else no controls whatsoever other than the offender’s own conscience. In fact, only a minority of offenders in custody are in confinement. You simply do not know what you are talking about. You’re like the conservative version of Averagebob: a sustained commitment to wrongness across multiple aspects of a problem, lol!

@34, From the KUOW citation @9:

The advisory committee did not agree on whether the facility would be locked, and said further discussion was needed.The security level of the group homes would vary, with some higher security and others being “staff secured” — that is, relying on staff, not locked doors, to keep youth from leaving.

Those recommendations are not unanimous,” said King County Superior Court Judge Patrick Oishi, who represented the court on the advisory committee.

“We do not believe that these un-secure respite centers would be sufficient to ensure public safety for the community,” Oishi said.

END CITATION

They never did agree, with the "no youth jail" advocates on the committee arguing against locks and staff having the authority to use force.

That left compliance with court orders as completely voluntary.

The issue was never whether the County would retain the new central youth jail, but whether the disbursed group sites would be secure to prevent youth from leaving, or whether their remaining there would be voluntary.

@35, If you are "in custody," you are not free to leave. If you aren't in custody you are free to go. Custody is not a continuum.

The level of security to prevent someone from leaving varies depending on the risk that the person will leave custody, and the danger to the public if they do. Someone on work release is in custody. They are not free to go where they choose, when they choose. They can, and do walk away from work, fail to report back to jail at night, etc. which means they have escaped custody. The fact that they can, and do occasionally, walk away doesn't change the fact that they are not free to do so, and doing so will result in arrest warrants and additional time added to their custody.

The "no youth jail" folks essentially wanted youth in custody on paper, but de facto to disregard the court at will, since no secure custody would exist if they left custody. What is the punishment from leaving custody? Being returned to an unsecured facility to leave again if they choose, immediately upon return. The "no youth jail" folks continue, even now, to argue for it being "custody" on paper only.

@37: “Custody is not a spectrum,” ha ha ha! lol, you ought to go down to the King County courthouse and spend even twenty minutes observing a criminal calendar. You’d gain more of an education about custody in those twenty minutes than you would a lifetime of unsuccessfully doing your own research online! 😂

I am eagerly waiting for the day the Orange Turd finally keels over and dies.
Hopefully it has nothing but McDonald's industrial waste to eat rotting in Hell.

What does ‘defund the police’ mean and does it have merit?
Rashawn Ray
June 19, 2020

“Defund the police” means reallocating or redirecting funding away from the police department to other government agencies funded by the local municipality. That’s it. It’s that simple. Defund does not mean abolish policing. And, even some who say abolish, do not necessarily mean to do away with law enforcement altogether. Rather, they want to see the rotten trees of policing chopped down and fresh roots replanted anew.
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-does-defund-the-police-mean-and-does-it-have-merit/

@25 They want one state where Muslims and Jews have equal rights so de facto it excludes Israel and its apartheid

@29 The German government, like Thumpus the thug, conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Jews so who knows

Germany unconditionally supports Israel due to the WW2 holocaust and the post war reparation agreement which is still very much a present concern for Germany: "In 2009, Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz announced that he will demand a further €450 million to €1 billion in reparations from Germany on behalf of some 30,000 Israeli forced labor survivors.[19]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reparations_Agreement_between_Israel_and_the_Federal_Republic_of_Germany

@41: “They [PFLP] want one state where Muslims and Jews have equal rights so de facto it excludes Israel and its apartheid.”

Muslim Israelis and Jewish Israelis already enjoy equal rights in Israel. So that’s not actually what the PFLP is fighting for, is it AverageBob? 😉

It’s specifically the Jewish character of Israel, not the democratic character of Israel, that the PFLP is fighting against. Why, that’s the very same thing you object to, AverageBob! 😃 I’m not surprised in the least to see you’re sympathetic to the terrorists of the PFLP, lol!

Also @41: “The German government, like Thumpus the thug, conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Jews so who knows”

Not always the same thing in theory, but always the same thing in practice. In your case, absolutely the same thing, though like all anti-semites you’ll deny it when challenged! 😉 Even the PFLP denies it, ha ha ha!

@4: The account "Phoebe in Wallingford," was once shared with another account, "JackKay". (The latter claimed to reside in West Seattle, so that would have been one heck of a commute!) Both sets of comments shared your description, "...would post fairly infrequently and came across as someone with a moderate world view who was sincerely expressing those views and trying to be reasonable." JackKay was banned a few years ago, but Phoebe remains. Why Phoebe suddenly became an imitator of raindrop after the latter's banishment, I cannot say.

What's worse, the orange cheetoh dictator wishing for generals like Hitler or knowing that the orange cheetoh dictator is too stupid to know that those generals lost? Did he miss history class?

and to tensora, only zionists can't tell the difference between anti semitism and anti zionism. Or maybe they don't want to and use the opportunity to tar their opponents? (because they can't make an argument in defense of the current state of zionism, unless you think one religious/ethnic group has the right to expel another?)

@44: TBF to Germany's WWII generals, they didn't come up with brilliant ideas like wasting air power on a failed invasion of England, invading Russia without first concluding war with the UK, or -- the big one, which lost the war for them -- unilaterally declaring war upon the United States. All of that was inflicted upon them by the fool at the top, which of course is exactly the kind of lesson Trump has squandered a lifetime on carefully not learning.

I didn't write anything about "zionists" in this thread, but in my experience, I encounter the word only from persons who disagree with Israel's right to exist.

@44: Right, right. “I’m not an anti-semite, I just reject the idea of Jews, specifically, having their own state. Arab states, yes. Jewish states, no. There is nothing anti-semitic about me!” 😂😂😂

@43: Totally incorrect.

Think before you type, tensor, how can two avatars and usernames share the same email account?

@47, @48: The same person was posting comments via both accounts. Hence, they were shared by at least one person.

@42 There are literally dozens of anti-Arab discriminatory laws in Israel starting with the law of return for which any and only Jews and their offspring qualify, while the citizenship law denies the right of return to Palestinians Arab who fled for their lives during conflicts, and revokes the citizenship of those who acquired residency in neighboring Arab states. By law, over 93% of the land can only be transferred/leased by Jews. etc

By most reasonable definitions, Israel is not a democratic state and agreeing with these facts doesn't mean that one supports the violence that inevitably results from colonial oppression as much of 20th century global history shows.

You are defending the indefensible, which is the reason why you slander the critics of Israel by conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and call them terrorist sympathizers. You are a classic thug, and unfortunately your debasing of the meaning of words will make the job of racists that much easier.

@50: Arab Israelis have served in the Knesset, so your claim that Israel is "not a democratic state" shows you're relying on your own definition of "democratic," just as you have with "apartheid" and "genocide."

"...inevitably results from colonial oppression..."

That's hilarious, coming from someone who has cited the results of discriminatory imperial policies in the Palestine of centuries past as a justification for saying Jews have no right to live in what is now Israel.

@50: “literally dozens of anti-Arab discriminatory laws in Israel”

lol, false!

“law of return for which any and only Jews and their offspring qualify, while the citizenship law denies the right of return to Palestinians Arab who fled for their lives”

Israel is the homeland of the Jewish nation, not the homeland of the Arab nation. However, the Arabs who chose to remain in Israel under Jewish sovereignty enjoy the same rights as every other Israeli citizen. For the Arabs who chose not to remain in Israel under Jewish sovereignty, there may yet be a state for them, too, someday. One condition is that they will have to give up trying to conquer Israel by force of arms. Many non-Israeli Arabs are willing to accept this condition, but many others are not. (And you admire them for it, ha ha! ☺️)

“By law, over 93% of the land can only be transferred/leased by Jews. etc”

Ha ha ha! This one was such a whopper I had trouble figuring out what you were even talking about at first. 😂 I extended my usual charity toward you and presumed you were misunderstanding actual facts and laws instead of simply making them up whole cloth. With that charitable perspective in mind, I think maybe you are under the mistaken impression that the Israel Land Administration only leases land to Jews. That is false. It leases land to Israeli citizens and Jewish non-residents. But as anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the Middle East knows, Jews comprise fewer than three-quarters of the citizens of Israel. Non-Jewish Israeli citizens are free to lease land on exactly the same terms as Jewish ones.

I think what’s actually going on here is that you have such a unique and particular hatred for Israel that you eager to believe all sorts of untrue things about Israel. It really is anti-semitism, Averagebob, it is not just harmless and fair-minded criticism. 😀 But I suspect you knew that already! 😉

the Israel Land Administration is half controlled by the government and the other half by the Jewish National Fund, a Zionist organization established in 1901 to collect funds for the purpose of purchasing land for the exclusive benefit of the Jewish people
https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/533
https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/529
https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/538
https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/537

Israel: Discriminatory Land Policies Hem in Palestinians
Human Rights Watch

Decades of land confiscations and discriminatory planning policies have confined many Palestinian citizens to densely populated towns and villages that have little room to expand. Meanwhile, the Israeli government nurtures the growth and expansion of neighboring predominantly Jewish communities, many built on the ruins of Palestinian villages destroyed in 1948. Many small Jewish towns also have admissions committees that effectively bar Palestinians from living there.

“Israeli policy on both sides of the Green Line restricts Palestinians to dense population centers while maximizing the land available for Jewish communities,” said Eric Goldstein, acting Middle East executive director at Human Rights Watch. “These practices are well-known when it comes to the occupied West Bank, but Israeli authorities are also enforcing discriminatory land practices inside Israel.”
[..]
The Israeli state directly controls 93 percent of the land in the country, including occupied East Jerusalem. A government agency, the Israel Land Authority (ILA), manages and allocates these state lands. Almost half the members of its governing body belong to the Jewish National Fund (JNF), whose explicit mandate is to develop and lease land for Jews and not any other segment of the population. The fund owns 13 percent of Israel’s land, which the state is mandated to use “for the purpose of settling Jews.”

Beginning in 1948 and in subsequent decades, Israeli authorities seized hundreds of thousands of dunams of land from Palestinians (10 dunams equals 1 hectare). Much of the confiscation took place between 1949, when Israel placed most Palestinians in Israel under military rule, and 1966, when military rule ended. During this period, Israeli authorities confined Palestinians in Israel to dozens of enclaves and severely restricted their movement. They also used various military regulations and new laws to seize land belonging to Palestinians who had become refugees or Palestinian citizens who were internally displaced, including by declaring land to be “absentee property,” taking it over, and later converting it to state land. One historian estimates that of the 370 Jewish towns and villages established by the Israeli government between 1948 and 1953, 350 were built on land confiscated from Palestinians.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/israel-discriminatory-land-policies-hem-palestinians

"Land policies in more recent years have not only failed to reverse the earlier land seizures, but in many cases further restricted the land available for residential growth. Since 1948, the government has authorized the creation of more than 900 “Jewish localities” in Israel, but none for Palestinians except for a handful of government-planned townships and villages in the Negev and Galilee, created largely to concentrate previously dispersed Bedouin communities."
https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/12/israel-discriminatory-land-policies-hem-palestinians

ergo, Thumpus the thug is either extremely poor;y informed or a liar. I lean towards the later because I am generous.

@54: Wait, are you conflating localities with all possible land leases? And what happened to the claim that 93% of Israel’s land is reserved for Jews? Ha ha ha, what a mess, Average Bob!

55 Is that all you've got?

Anyone with an ounce of good faith would acknowledge that the law of return combined with the Absentees' property law, the land acquisition law and the Israel land administration law (links at 53) are the discriminatory legal framework for dispossessing and preventing Palestinian Arabs of their right to the land. It explains how Arab land ownership decreased by 94% within the green line since 1948. It's called colonial ethnic cleansing. Your weak posturing won't affect any of it.

@56: So, uh, that would be a no, then, on your earlier claim that 93% of Israel’s land base is reserved for Jews? 😂🤣😂🤣

@57: averagebob's revisionist zeal could make Winston Smith professionally jealous. My favorite recent examples, @50, are, "the citizenship law denies the right of return to Palestinians Arab who fled for their lives during conflicts," and, "revokes the citizenship of those who acquired residency in neighboring Arab states." The latter is actually standard practice in most countries, which is why bilateral dual citizenships of any kind are rare, and the former is easily corrected, simply by adding the words he omitted: "... who fled for their lives during conflicts THEY'D STARTED."

His obsession with Israeli land-use laws comes in the context of his repeatedly citing the results of anti-Jewish land use laws by prior empires as 'proof' the Jews should be considered aliens in what is now Israel.

from the Chris Hedges Report:

Genocidal Scorecard

The latest U.N. report chronicles Israel’s advances in its genocidal assault in Gaza. Israel is intent, the report warns, on expelling the Palestinians, recolonizing Gaza and turning on the West Bank.

A United Nations report, published on Monday,
https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/n24/279/68/pdf/n2427968.pdf

lays out in chilling detail the advances made by Israel in Gaza as it seeks to eradicate “the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine.” This genocidal project, the report ominously warns, “is now metastasizing to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

The Nakba or “catastrophe,” which in 1948 saw Zionist militias drive 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, carry out more than 70 massacres and seize 78 percent of historic Palestine, has returned on steroids. It is the next and, perhaps, final chapter in “a long-term intentional, systematic, State-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians.”

Francesca Albanese, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, who issued the report, titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” makes an urgent appeal to the international community to impose a full arms embargo and sanctions on Israel until the genocide of Palestinians is halted.

She calls on Israel to accept a permanent ceasefire. She demands that Israel, as required by international law and U.N. resolutions, withdraw its military and colonists from Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

At the very least, Israel, unchecked, should be formally recognized as an apartheid state and persistent violator of international law, Albanese states. The U.N. should reactivate the Special Committee Against Apartheid to address the situation in Palestine, and Israel’s membership in the U.N. should be suspended. Short of these interventions, Israel’s goal, Albanese warns, will likely come into fruition.

“This ongoing genocide is doubtlessly the consequence of the exceptional status and protracted impunity that has been afforded to Israel.” she writes. “Israel has systematically and flagrantly violated international law, including Security Council resolutions and [International Criminal Court] ICJ orders.

This has emboldened the hubris of Israel and its defiance of international law. As the ICC Prosecutor has warned, ‘if we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally, if it is seen as applied selectively, we will be creating the conditions of its complete collapse. This is the true risk we face at this perilous moment.’”

--by Chris Hedges; Oct 30, 2024

oodles More:
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/genocidal-scorecard

who ya gonna Believe?
tS's right-wing contingent
of Pro-Genocidal supporters
Or the former NYT Middle Eastern
Bureau Chief, who resigned rather
echo the nyt's full-throated Support
for the Cheney/bush Invasion of Iraq?

tough Choice,
eh?