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#7 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-07-21 08:29 PM
"UK has done significantly better economically "under Brexit" than EU"
- - - - - Rich people in UK, sure. Rich people are doing significantly better globally.

Don't know what this has to do specifically with the subject, but it's generally the case "globally" (including UK) that the "rich" usually do better than "not-rich", Brexit or no Brexit.


If you're a young person in UK, your job prospects are not what they used to be, because you can't go work in EU any more.

Not accurate, even in the article they say that they could work in EU, it would just cost them and they would have to jump through hoops for visa and permits.

Would it be nice for them and others, not affiliated with larger companies, to travel and work without the hassle and expenses? Sure.

But none of this requires or is a good reason for the world's fifth-largest economy to re-join EU and share dysfunctional EU's economic and political problems with UK's own.

These are really minor issues that could and should have been very easily resolved long time ago without undoing Brexit, if only EU stopped being so "Trumpy" towards UK, trying to "punish" them for dissing EU by making some unreasonable demands and/or stalling economic and cooperation agreements; it also didn't help that UK itself had many changes of government over this period.

Hence, movement toward some kind of "reset": FTA: The good news is that the U.K. and EU are starting to repair their broken relationship... Officials on both sides are also working toward closer integration on a range of issues, including trade, energy, security, and crucially, freedom of movement.

Both UK and EU economies would benefit if they embraced as much "free trade" as they could, and some of their politicians stopped feeding either "full integration" or "Britain First" nonsense to people.

Just like Canada doesn't have to be "51st state" to have great economic and social relationship with the USA... the vote to rejoin EU is not needed and is unlikely to be successful; it would only take time, resources and reopen old divisions and acrimony.
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Ten years after Brexit, many young voters in Britain think rejoining the European Union is a good idea.

"Many young voters" think spending beyond their means is a "good idea"... because YOLO and FOMO!

They think BNPL or maxing out and paying monthly minimum on their credit cards is a "good idea"... until they find themselves in financial trouble.

They think getting their knowledge on TikTok or Insta or other social media is a "good idea."

"Many young voters" think that what politicians promise is "for real" and a "good idea" because they are economically illiterate and don't know better... then, after an election or two, they grow up. Then again, some never grow out of "good ideas" and carry their fantasies into adult life despite those having been debunked and proved categorically wrong in the past, because they can't accept having been duped by politicians,.

Particularly in Britain, that just has proved that Labour has no "better ideas" on how to fix UK's recent social and economic problems than Tories, and flipping the government every couple of years didn't work, "many young voters" are now thinking that voting for a fascist party and giving them a chance to govern is also a "good idea."

One reason for this sad state of affairs is due to the stupidity of EU politicians, behaving like jilted lover/spouse, attempting to "punish UK" for Brexit and taking time to re-establish trading agreements, instead of fixing their own issues which created impetus for Brexit in the first place, at the cost to economies of both UK and, even more so, EU.

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#15 | Posted by Effeteposer at 2026-07-14 09:02 AM
Wall of Text... blah blah blah ... I know I never read any of your posts all the way through.

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#2 | Posted by oneironaut
Do you have any idea what it costs to live here? Pretty close to 10x elsewhere in the country.

- - - - - #11 | Posted by Derek_Wildstar at 2026-07-13 01:05 PM
- - - - - Isn't that capitalism?

Generally it would be, but it's also that the CA government in the last 20+ years was hell-bent on increasing the cost of living by constantly raising "minimum wage," taxes, and regulatory costs of mandates for "clean energy," emissions or almost anything - that's why cost of living under "capitalism" in e.g., TX, TN or GA is different from cost of living under "capitalism" in CA, NY, WA etc.

Unlike Vegas ("What happens here stays here"), just because capital currently flows into VCs in Menlo Park and Palo Alto in CA, it doesn't mean it's going to stay in CA - VCs are really just way stations, capital distribution points - exactly like Wall Street in NYC.

And while the "whales" Anthropic and OpenAI are HQ'd in CA / SFO area, their datacenters, R&D and other offices (which require capital) may well be located in other states and countries - see Oracle, SpaceX and many other companies either closing shop in CA or moving significant parts of their businesses elsewhere

Chasing businesses out with higher taxes and capricious regulatory burdens and mandates is not providing a healthy long-term economic climate. Look at "Hollywood" CA problems - you can't constantly raise costs of doing business in the state or city, and then try to "protect" the people in it from consequences - you can read any number of headlines about it, e.g., more recent:

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#15 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-07-12 10:02 PM
The question in my mind currently is...
Will AI's huge CapEx debt ever be recovered?

The same question you asked before?

Depends on who you ask. See #12


And then, debt aside, there are things like ...
Data centres account for almost a quarter of Irish electricity usage in 2025
So, aside from the increasing debt burden, then is also the operational cost burden.

Yes, it's called infrastucture and every company has operational costs. See #14.
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#13 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-07-12 09:16 PM
The cost of AI tokens (cost per transaction) has risen significantly.


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#11 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-07-12 08:16 PM
They currently seem to be losing money on every transaction, but hope to make up for it with volume ...

They are not necessarily losing money on every transaction because defining "transaction" in AI is very complex and involves many different, non-uniform costs.

However, they are losing a lot of money because the costs are huge, and they will definitely need a lot of subscription volume and high revenue growth to pay for their infrastructure, recurring expenses and continuous upgrades.

That's how it usually works in the early stages.


Will the revenue generated by AI catch up to the CapEx for the hyperscalers?

Depends on who you ask - early/mid-rounds investors, founders and companies accountants, sell-side analysts, buy-side analysts, critics of technology, critics of financial structure, competition, etc. - and answers may depend on knowledge and assumptions, but also on what their financial incentives are.
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#7 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-07-11 02:23 PM
If you think AI is just about automated office tasks then you haven't been paying attention.

Today's "AI" is, mostly automation.


AI's reach extends far beyond basic "office tasks" because it handles complex workflows, accelerates physical and digital problem-solving, and increases the overall speed of tasks with less human error.

Instead of just drafting emails or sorting data, advanced systems will coordinate projects, analyze deep patterns, and drive major operational shifts. There is even an AI running its own business in SF now.

"Luna / Andon Market: An autonomous AI agent given a budget and lease to run a real storefront in San Francisco."

That sounds like a really lovely marketing material template of almost any "AI" prospectus.

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lots of VC in AI right now

#6 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-07-12 12:20 PM
- - - - - The Vietcong are back and they're doing AI???

VC stands for "Venture Capital" - quite a lot of VC firms are in Silicon Valley.

If you read a little further in the article than the hype about SV you'll find this about "why" and concentration of capital in a specific industry within technology sector:


|------- ... To be sure, the surge in the size and number of monster deals could be overshadowing other money-raising efforts from smaller companies and investment by smaller funds, industry experts said.

Nearly 90% of invested dollars went to AI firms, up from last year, when around 65% of new funds were allocated to AI.

"If you're a tech company and you're not an AI company, you have a very, very difficult opportunity ahead of you to raise capital," Stanford said.

This concentration of capital in AI leaves smaller, middle-of-the-road venture funds without large AI holdings struggling to return capital to their investors.

Only the largest funds, such as Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital - which possess the war chest to back OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX - stand to gain from their initial public offerings of stock.

"It's going to concentrate the fundraising over the next few years as well into these already very large names," Stanford said.

Beyond the two potential blockbuster listings - Anthropic and OpenAI, each valued around $1 trillion - the IPO pipeline is thin.

"We don't really have a strong IPO market," Stanford said. "Obviously, SpaceX's IPO is great. OpenAI and Anthropic, if they go out this year, will be very large drivers of distribution. But a vast majority of investors do not have exposure to them, and so that money will not make it back to them." ...
-------|


Well, OpenAI delayed IPO because of fear that the current valuation is closer to $750B, which is far short of $1T and would be considered a "failed IPO"... Anthropic is watching for now, since it's in only slightly better position than OpenAI.

There are already doubts about when or if the ROI on AI will materialize, and the tremendous debt needed to be raised for capex, due to rising costs of datacenters, memory and quickly outdated processors and availability of energy and qualified AI personnel, as well as ongoing "brain drain" due to Trump's immigration and "China Initiative" policies.

If OpenAI and Anthropic IPOs "fail" it could spell the beginning of the bust of entire hugely overvalued market, e.g., SPCX has already given most initial gains from IPO price.

Concentration is not just in the US - TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix now make up more than 30% of the MSCI Emerging Markets Index - as much as the exposure of the "Mag 7" in the S&P 500. Overall, technology accounts for 45% of the emerging market index.

Some may remember the high concentrations in overvalued markets during dot-com bubble of 1999-2000 and financial bubble of 2006-2008.
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#26 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-07-10 01:53 PM
Pres Trump says that the US is in full control of the Strait...

As I have explained before, if a sentence starts with "Trump says..." you can safely ignore the rest of it.


Now Iran may be starting to realize that control of the Strait is a better way to get global attention than having a nuke.

Entirely different purposes and timelines:


1. Unlike Trump, Iran doesn't really want "attention" - they want real regional power - that's why until recently they waged terrorist war against Israel through multiple proxies, like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah (Lebanese and Syrian), Houthis et al, helped by Soviet Union / Russia.

Tenuous "control" of the Strait of Hormuz is, at best, a desperate short-term opportunity to "haggle" with Trump by making temporary inconvenience to our regional allies and Trump in an election year (and, most importantly for him, interrupting his numerous "concepts of plans" to enrich and ingratiate himself through various grifts while attempting to insulate himself and family from consequences).


There are plans and game's afoot already of countries in the region for alternatives, land-based bypass routes and/or pipelines, some of which may include Turkiye and Israel, e.g.:

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1. Musk in 2025: AI Will Take All Jobs - complete BS, as usual...

So far, there has been little, if any ROI on enterprise AI rollouts, and companies found they are blowing their budgets by token-maxxing, and that was even before deploying agentic AI, when they don't know how many tokens the model's agents will burn doing requested tasks, and then get surprised with the bill:

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#12 | Posted by ClownShack at 2026-07-05 05:18 AM
If America wasn't dependent on oil, the Middle East would be meaningless to us.

#13 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-07-05 11:43 AM
... to have your economy be so completely reliant on fossil fuels from the Middle East.


The US is not at all reliant on 'fossil' fuels from the ME - we are net exporter of oil, gas and coal... but most developed countries do: e.g., Japan just relaxed the rules - for a year (for now) - to increase the use of coal-fired power plants, despite increased coal prices, because they're very dependent on imported energy, partly because of shutting Fukushima nuclear reactors - they are importing LNG to meet 98% of gas demand, of which only 6% goes through Hormuz.

Outside of France - which has ~70% of domestic energy needs delivered by nuclear power, and is the world's largest net exporter of energy - large industrial countries in Europe and Asia are reliant on 'fossil' fuels, despite (or because of) heavy investments in renewable energy. EU even categorized NG as "green" energy and, with Hormuz closed, relaxed restrictions on methane emissions.

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#6 | Posted by sitzkrieg at 2026-07-04 09:12 AM
Otherwise any of these fatal autopilot accidents between 2021 and 2025 would make the list.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Tesla_Autopilot_crashes

#5: From 2021-2025 there have been 2,081 incidents involving autonomous vehicles (ADS only - so Tesla was not included).

Truly self-driving cars (not Tesla) have much lower rate of accidents, and fatal accidents in particular.

Happy Independence Day!
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#4 | Posted by moder8 at 2026-07-03 08:45 PM
LOL. Only suckers trust self-driving cars at this point. Just a shame innocent people are dying in the process.

Try Waymo taxis, especially new minivans; they are fun, safe and very polite on the road - have good driving etiquette and no road rage.

They have kinks sometimes, which make headlines, but they "learn" from their mistakes faster and better than human drivers.

Truly self-driving cars (not Tesla) have much lower rate of accidents, and fatal accidents in particular.

As often happens, especially with technology and politics, it's actual data and statistics vs perception and "influencers", particularly from those who may be negatively affected by technology.

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#8 | Posted by Hughmass at 2026-06-29 06:52 AM
If I were boss, America would simply walk away from the insane asylum called the Middle East, and let everyone know if we need their products we pay cash, but no more American blood will be spilt in those endless wars, Israel against Arab, Sunni against Shia...

Finally, a perfect description of "America First" policy.

But then, that is what Trump has said he would do...

Except people didn't expect that he would try to divorce NATO, trading partners in Europe, Asia, North and South Americas, "acquire" Greenland or any "51st state" anywhere - just to make his mark and "etch his name in history"...

Maybe "America First" and "MAGA" was just "misunderstood" or are they just meaningless slogans, meaning whatever Trump wanted it to mean - "I am MAGA"?

Of course, just because we may want to stay away from Middle East doesn't mean that Middle East will stay away from us.

And last time we tried to pacify terrorists or stay away from Middle East politics, they found us on September 11, 2001.

Times when Bill Clinton passed on killing Usama bin Laden:

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#23 | Posted by SomebodyElse at 2026-06-27 04:13 PM
"A nuclear power plant produces power for decades; the nuclear waste it leaves behind will remain lethal for 10,000 years. Put on a blackboard the year the EPA has determined these materials will be safe, 11,993."
Daniel Ellsberg, 1993.

This scaremongering from the usuals old "doomers" and fear of anything "nuclear" is the kind of thinking that left us decades behind China and some other countries in energy buildout that is necessary if we want to have enough relatively cheap energy for all the things that need to be or we want to be electric: EVs, datacenters (AI-centric or plain old "cloud" data storage and servers) and just increase in commercial and consumer electric demand, including portable and wearable devices.

For example, a single ChatGPT query consumes 10x the energy of a Google search.

If we stupidly demand to keep TikTok datacenters in America, then we need plenty of stable portable energy, like nuclear, gas, green/blue hydrogen.

China is energy-abundant, in part, because in the last 20+ years they were also investing in and building nuclear plants and other energy solutions, like hydro, gas and coal.

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#8 | Posted by Nixon at 2026-06-24 06:52 AM
That said, there are plenty of jobs being lost to foreigners who will come in with advanced degrees and do the work for pennies on the dollar while telecommuting from India, Pakistan, etc.

Every single year 1040 preparation work is sent overseas to foreign nations where a return that would cost $1000 in time here to prepare and review will be done for $200 and still billed out for $1700 to the client.

If only there was something to stop those damn "globalists" and advances in "cheaper better faster" technology!


The next step is already happening with letting a business return that can be billed for $4000 will be prepared for $100 by AI. I've seen both the good and the bad with AI used in tax law research.

Like with most technologies, there is good and bad... "bad" mostly relates to eliminating or completely changing the nature of certain jobs affected by technology.

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Exceptionalism Can Be Lonely -- Ask Britain

There is nothing about "exceptionalism" in the headline or the article - Britain of "Rule, Britannia!" has not been "exceptional" for centuries.

Article is "exceptionally" anti-Brexit biased - not surprisingly, reflecting NYT point of view - but, also not surprisingly, plays fast and lose with economic data.

Brexit was supposed to let Britain return to a time when it still counted as a global power.

BS, UK is world's fifth largest economy and on course of overtaking Japan in near future; Brexit was about independence from politics and taxes of "Brussels" and independence of their economy and currency (GBP) from EURo... just like Canada not wanting to be "51st state" of the USA.

Brexit still holds majority of mindshare in Britain: "There is now a mountain of evidence that support for rejoining the EU crumbles when the costs and conditions are revealed. We Brits still value our sovereignty and do not want to hand control back to Brussels."
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2216906/rejoin-eu-campaign-faces-nightmare - Rejoin EU campaign faces nightmare - 2026-10-13


Mr. Starmer was the sixth occupant of the office during the past decade. In the previous two decades, there had been just three prime ministers.

Again, sleight of hand comparison - Britain's current social problems wouldn't be any easier had they stayed in EU - EU had and still has their share of turnovers / "flipping" of failed "conservative" and "liberal/progressive" governments and deep divisions in the last decade (see Italy, Greece, France, Germany, Belgium etc.) - this actually coincides more with the issue of "immigrants" and arrival of destabilizing Trump on the political scene than anything to do with Britain or Brexit specifically.

For example, relatively more stable 4-year USA system had 3 two-term presidents (changes of party in power) in 24 years since 1993, and 3 one-term changes during the past 10 years.

Starmer/Labour, in particular, won last election with the lowest number of delegates in the history of UK.

Now, to the real economics of Brexit:

UK's predicted "economic collapse" due to Brexit didn't happen; in fact, their average growth rate since is higher than many in EU, Canada and Japan:

Real per capita compound annual GDP growth rate change - (2016-2025) delta (2007-2016) in USD (data from https://data-explorer.oecd.org/?lc=en):
............... PPP ... nominal
Germany : -5.9% ... -5.4%
Japan :.. +3.2% ... -0.8%
France :. +6.4% ... +4.5%
Canada :. +0.9% ... +7.2%
UK :.... +3.2% ... +9.0%
USA :... +12.1% ... +11.0%

In 2015 UK exports to EU members were only 42.3% of total exports, least of any other EU countries;

Second largest importer of UK exports was the USA, and since 2011, US GDP grew by 40.0%, almost 2x of EU's 20.5% growth rate, increasing nominal value of UK exports.

Sure, UK has problems, their taxes and costs are higher and regulations have not eased, "green energy" policies are hurting their economy, NHS is a wreck... but none of that would be remedied had they stayed in EU.

Brexit (and keeping the GBP) was not the economic disaster many predicted, rejoining is not the solution to internal problems.
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#11 | Posted by madbomber at 2026-06-19 10:28 AM
... it's just baffling to me that modern-day Repubs rate Trump higher than Reagan. Or higher than anyone for that matter.

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#11 | Posted by madbomber at 2026-06-19 10:28 AM
There was a poll conducted recently. ... Trump was voted the second-most popular president in the last 40 years. ... No harm, no foul, but it's just baffling to me that modern-day Repubs rate Trump higher than Reagan. Or higher than anyone for that matter.

#14 | Posted by donnerboy at 2026-06-20 10:18 AM
National polling shows a sharp divide on this topic, with different surveys reflecting varied results. In a Pew Research Center study examining which U.S. president over the last 40 years did the best job, Barack Obama ranked first (36%), followed by Ronald Reagan (21%), and Donald Trump (19%).

Close enough...


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#22 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-06-16 06:02 AM
Israel is Stern Gang and Levi, and nothing else?
Hahaha, Levi. You know what I mean.

No, I have no idea who/what you are referring to or WTH you mean... nor do I care.


"So, humanitarian aid is a "policy of propping up Hamas"?"
--- Giving money to a charity is propping up the people running said charity.

1. Hamas is not a "charity"
2. You just condemned the USA, EU and other donors for giving humanitarian aid intended for Gazans.


"Why Arabs Are Fed up With the Palestinians"
Did they get so fed up they killed 70,000 Palestinians, or was that somebody else?

According to your previous answer, Arabs countries engaged in "policy of starvation" of Palestinians - we don't know how many it killed.


Why is Netanyahu so adamant in maintaining Hamas as the Highest Governing Authority in Gaza?

Again, totally nonsensical "conspiracy theory" loopback because you didn't even try reading or understanding posts and links debunking the premise.

Hamas and Iran have been "maintaining" Hamas as "Highest Governing Authority" (that's what Gazans call Hamas) in Gaza, by brutal repressions and public executions of "Israel collaborators."


"How come there aren't any articles saying Netanyahu didn't support Hamas?"
--- "Because writing one would be stupid"
------ In the middle of writing that very article. Congratulations, you played yourself.

That's because I wasn't writing an "article" - I directly answered your illogical question.

So, congratulations... for "playing yourself"... and wasting even more of my time.


On that note, a couple of sincere suggestions that could make life easier for you, and anyone having to deal with your rambling, babbling posts and questions:

1. Lay off tequila or whatever else you're drinking these days, especially in the morning.
2. Ask your doctors to check you for ADD/ADHD - there are meds and therapies for that.
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#19 | Posted by C0RI0LANUS at 2026-06-15 06:04 PM
Red Alert! Red Alert! CutiePie hit-and-run attack!
40,000 pro-Israel online operatives target Americans 24/7 with PSYOP.


At least 100,000 anti-Israel online operatives target Americans 24/7 with PSYOP!!

There... "Play stupid games, win stupid prizes"

Funny that a prolific online operative who owns and operates a web site under a different nom de plume and is spamming a blog site with anti-Israel misinformation 24/7, is preemptively "warning" about ("insert huge number pulled out of the a$$ here") of phantom pro-Israel "operatives" here. Better skills than troll-bot Effeteposer - which is not a high bar - but same MO and messaging.
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#15 - #18 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-06-15
In the late 2010s and early 2020s, Israeli officials encouraged Qatar to support Hamas,[8] especially by approving the transfer of large sums of financial aid by Qatar to the organization.

I addressed that but you ignored it, as usual - it wasn't support of Hamas, it was humanitarian aid for Gaza via Qatar:

FTA: Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza...
Letting UN's Humanitarian Cash Assistance to Gaza program pass through Qatar has been a long-standing negotiated policy.

From 2014 to 2020, U.N. agencies spent nearly $4.5 billion in Gaza, including $600 million in 2020 alone... With Israel's approval, Qatar has provided over $1 billion in reconstruction funds and humanitarian aid for poor Palestinians in the Gaza Strip... **


So, humanitarian aid is a "policy of propping up Hamas"?

You've been peddling this nonsense here for years, despite clear rebuttals.


[9] Several Israeli intelligence officials have cited Qatari money as a contributing factor to the success of Hamas in leading the October 7 attacks in 2023;[10]
en.wikipedia.org

Money is fungible ("money is money"). Hamas, being the Highest Governing Authority in Gaza, was the receiver of any "humanitarian aid" from the USA and EU indirectly (because Hamas is a designated terrorist entity) through UNRWA and UN and was in position to [mis]use the money for any purpose...

Does that mean that USA and EU have a policy of "propping up Hamas" or "making Hamas stronger"? You understand now how ridiculous that line of thought is?

Unless your argument is that Gaza had to be deprived of all humanitarian aid because they are governed by Hamas (BTW, all Arab countries finally ended aid **), it still is absolutely contrary to "policy of making Hamas stronger" - anyone but you understands that.


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#13 | Posted by snoofy at 2026-06-15 08:41 AM
"Was "uniting" them a job of Netanyahu's or any other government of Israel?"
Why ask a rhetorical question so disconnected from history.

The question is not rhetorical if you know the history - I provided links and facts, you ignored them, because your entire worldview depends on "faith" in "alternative facts" on this subject.

Dividing Palestine politically was the policy choice that Netanyahu chose.

Again, ignoring the facts, because because they will shatter your "faith" in something.

You either didn't read the posts and links, which disprove this with facts, or just have to go with "faith" and this is your shibboleth - I understand that.