• 0 Posts
  • 67 Comments
Joined 3M ago
cake
Cake day: Aug 17, 2024

help-circle
rss

So I just answered my own question. I was confused by this,

If those crossing claim asylum, the RCMP cannot send them back to the United States.

Because I thought the Safe Third Country Agreement allowed them to be sent back with no right to be heard for asylum (unless they stuck in and evaded detection for 14 days).

However, according to https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/safe-third-country-agreement-expansion-causes-asylum-seekers-explore-new-routes

Asylum seekers are arriving at airports with tourist visas and petitioning for asylum at immigration offices after their arrival. The number of asylum applications made at airports in Montreal and Toronto have tripled since the beginning of 2023.
Overall, the expansion decreased the flow of asylum seekers coming from the United States directly but has not worked to decrease the flow of asylum seekers into Canada.

So I guess to get into Canada they’d leave the US and fly in from another country somehow.


I guess they back either other up. Like archive.is is able to take archives from archive.org but the saved page reflects the original URL and the original archiving time from the wayback machine (though it also notes the URL used from wayback itself plus the time they got archived it from wayback).


While this would almost certainly work, it would be nice if the root cause can be discovered and either fixed or worked around. Having to reinstall everytime one needs to free up disk space is … less than ideal.


Alas, NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization - the A doesn’t mean American. That’s why Canada and the UK are members but Australia and New Zealand aren’t.

Likewise, EU membership requires being a European country. There is precedent for this, as Morocco was denied when it applied to join for that very reason: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-07-21-mn-5339-story.html / https://archive.is/hlOdB

Still, maybe Canada will luck out and that Europe thing will turn out to not actually be a requirement for joining Schengen or to join the EFTA. One can dream.


Without naming them explicitly, the article is trying to draw up sympathy for Gaza over the occupation by Israel. It makes some very good points.


Hmm you are right, but AFAIK all of them are EFTA members and theoretically eligible to join the EU if they wanted. That is, based in Europe.

I’ve love for Canada to join Schengen but as Canada isn’t eligible to join the EU…


I love that idea too - but how would this work? Can Canada be a member of Schengen without also being part of the EU?


Yep, but this reminds me of the “They’re the same picture” meme: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/theyre-the-same-picture



Assuming there even is one - remember that the President elect has stated he’d want to run again a third time.


This is actually very easy. You can copy the files from the container, even while it’s not running, onto your host system to edit there, and then copy them back afterwards.

See the top answer on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22907231/how-to-copy-files-from-host-to-docker-container for step by step instructions on how to do this.


Wow, was surprised to learn that the US - which lacks not only single payer but even universal healthcare, has a One Health plan.



I suppose it’s possible to have the best of both worlds - from the fediverse side.

https://lemmit.online/c/onguardforthee


“Imagine if there was an organization in Canada that was recruiting volunteers for the Russian army — they would go there and they would wear Russian military uniforms, they’d live on Russian bases, they would repair Russian weapons, clean Russian tanks,” he said.

I’d be against that because I’d be against what the Russian Federation’s position in the Ukraine war means.

But change the above to Ukraine instead of Russia, and it’d have my full support.

“While there is a connection between the volunteer and the IDF, there is no evidence of a formal relationship.”

That sounds like very clever lawyering.


Yeah, at least mandating all gov’t employees to work from home who can work from home, alone would be a very good start!


Wow, I hope the full story comes out and they figure out how to avoid this happening again.

Dang, that’s really terrible.

Why even have commercial ovens that big? They should be small enough that a person couldn’t fit, and tilted so a person would fall out if they fell unconcious.


Thanks, but do you have a more specific reference to the podcast episode?

I tried to find it, but my searches - https://www.ecosia.org/search?method=index&q=Einat+Wilf+podcast+Abraham+Accords+were+signed - turned up a lot, but I don’t think I found the specific one you were referencing.


Thanks! I do recall well the frustration back then w.r.t. promotions and pay raise bargaining (or rather, complete lack thereof). Once here, unless there’s a way to convert to an open permit, it’s very tough to find a new employer willing to sponsor under the system. At least that was my experience - when I finally got out of that restriction it was like a compete reversal.

I sometimes wonder if Canada needs something like the 491 visa that Australia has. Under this visa, you get rated the same as you would for PR, but you need fewer points to qualify, and once you get it, it is an open permit.

It also promotes regionalism as you’re tied to a specific province, but it’s otherwise open in that you can work for anyone you want. (Actually, it’s even more open than that, as there’s also no restrictions on studying etc that you’d have on a Canadian work permit.)


Yes, wasn’t allowed to change to a new employer without starting the process over again and getting a new work permit (which might have needed a new LMIA to be applied for and all that hassle).



This is really disappointing to hear about. I’m glad that things worked out in the end for Cresencio, and hopefully there’s a way for Pailan and the others to appeal administratively or get a new review done that lead them down the same path.


Ah, no worries and no rush. If you ever do find it, would appreciate a link to the podcast here (and if you know the minute or time marker that’d be even better!), but no big deal if it doesn’t appear right away or in the near future, either.


I mean Palestinians who are willing to coexist peacefully with Israel. It isn’t just about whether they like Hamas or not, it’s about their ultimate goals.

Ah, good point. Got your meaning now.

The CSM article gives me some hope

🤞

I find it very odd that the mainstream media doesn’t seem interested in the story.

There are occasional mentions. For example, here’s a slightly more mainstream article, https://www.thedailybeast.com/robbed-silenced-and-betrayed-why-gazans-turned-away-from-hamas/

I think overall it just gets fewer clicks and views than the articles that bring up bombs and shootings and deaths. Sorta why we also don’t see as much coverage about Israel abandoning the hunt for the hostages, e.g. https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/october-7-anniversary-hostages-betrayal-netanyahu-hamas-hezbollah-20241006.html

the NYT responded, “Nah, we’re not interested.” Almost as if Western liberal media is suppressing those stories to promote a particular decolonization narrative of the conflict…

Time will tell, I suppose. In any case, like all the publishers who turned down Harry Potter, I suspect they’re likely to come to deeply regret this (turning the story down).

Bari Weiss (I think it was her) recently told a story about approaching the New York Times

Would love to read more about this if you have a reference or link!


Good luck to the Laval workers (what a great name for a city btw!)

I stand with them.



I don’t doubt that there are some out there, all I’m saying is that I haven’t seen anything to suggest they’re not a small minority.

Some ambiguity here - did you mean folks disliking Hamas (which I provided the survey showing it’s at 52%) or folks who like Israel (using folks who dislike the US as a proxy, suggests less than half).

Oppressed people have protested publicly in many other countries but we don’t hear anything from the Palestinians against Hamas

I think this is answered by the C.S.M. article,

“People now are very angry with Hamas, but at the same time they are afraid to express the anger inside them by protesting or holding sit-ins,” notes Wael Mohammad, a civil engineer and longtime Hamas critic in Gaza.
Despite the rising anger, fear persists amid occasional reports of mosque imams or civil society organizers being dragged off and “disappeared” by Hamas for voicing public criticism.

Also,

Why don’t we hear anything about underground Palestinian peace movements?

I mean, we do. From the same C.S.M. article,

Protesters gathering in northern Gaza were shot at by armed men.

Finally,

Where are the videos of people denouncing Hamas?

Maybe an infrastructure issue, they’re not able to take videos because of a lack of electrical power - or can’t upload them due to a lack of internet connectivity? Not sure. But reporters on the ground are saying that this is indeed happening.

why aren’t people taking to the streets to celebrate?

Aren’t they too busy evacuating? As per the orders of the IDF? Except for those in an area with a strong Hamas presence still - those would be too afraid to go out.

Which comes back to my earlier question, even if it really is just a small minority,

I’m not clear on how would even a pro-Israeli Zionist who lives in Gaza and is ethnically Palestinian could get registered as a friend to pro-Israeli forces.


Here’s one thing I can say with absolute certainty: If there was a magical way to eliminate the genocidal threats facing Israel and bring about peace in the Middle East without a single civilian death, Israel would take that option

It is my hope that you are right.

such as Gazans and Palestinians who just want to sit this one out and live their lives
I will be honest, though. I’m not sure how many of them would fit in this category.

I don’t have exact numbers either, but they do exist, as shown by groups like https://nypost.com/2024/10/14/us-news/jewish-anti-israel-protestors-arrested-after-storming-new-york-stock-exchange/

Also, see https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/opinions/israel-hamas-gaza-palestinians-oppose-terror-mohammed/index.html and https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2024/0314/Hamas-gambled-with-our-lives-Gazans-are-now-daring-to-speak-out

While not quite answering this question, this survey is still informative, https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2023/12/palestinians-views-oct-7

It shows a majority of Palestinians want a two state solution and a majority do not support Hamas, for example.

the best opportunity the people of Gaza have since Israel’s withdrawal in 2005. Will they choose a different future for themselves, one that focuses on hope and peace? Or will they choose to continue the cycle of violence?

How will they do that? I mean, what are the practical mechanics here for these folks to register their choice? What, even, are the specific options being presented to them?

I don’t recall them being asked to vote in a referendum or something similar. Mostly I just see things like this, https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/08/middleeast/gaza-jabalya-idf-shooting-intl/index.html - which suggests a complete absence of choice altogether. I’m not clear on how would even a pro-Israeli Zionist who lives in Gaza and is ethnically Palestinian could get registered as a friend to pro-Israeli forces.

Palestinian people who are interested in peaceful coexistence. Quite the opposite, actually.

Where are you seeing that?


But that wasn’t what I have in mind when people say things like “Israel is committing war crimes.” That has a much different connotation to it.

It does have a different connotation to it - as if the gov’t of Israel was officially allowing and condoning such “reprehensible behavior” as you put it. However, even if it’s against official policy, if the majority of troops are ignoring the laws of their own country’s gov’t and rules of their own country’s military to commit this “reprehensible behavior”, then a lot of folks will think that country should be accountable. But this can easily morph to the former statement if one isn’t careful about nuance.

I actually meant to say ‘prosecute’ rather than ‘perpetrate’. My bad.

Ah, no worries. Though that word is potentially even more confusing - you must mean in the sense of “pursue until finished” as per https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prosecute but it also has the meaning of bringing legal action about. Which would imply that the war is legal, which could be stretched further to imply that it’s just. Of course, I’d hesitate to go that far on either point (legal or just).

They think this war is just, as you suggest, retaliation for 10/7. But it isn’t. If it were, it would have been more like 2014 - quick, a couple thousand dead, move on.

I thought the same, actually. I could go as far as agreeing that a simple retaliation is legal and just, but since this is not that…

Many people also don’t understand the big picture.

Clearly I’m still not getting it.

That’s pretty standard in war.

That’s kind of the problem, though, isn’t it?

They think they are experts on warfare and can make a judgment about the morality of the war

Well though, if not the people, then who can make these judgement? Who is empowered to decide this?

Sinwar decided to pull off this attack when he did because he wanted to put a stop to the Abraham Accords.

Agreed. The evidence I’ve seen so far agrees with this.

Israel sees an opportunity here to seriously weaken the Iranian regime, which will allow the Accords to proceed.

I support the Accords. But I still worry about innocent civilians - such as Gazans and Palestinians who just want to sit this one out and live their lives, or the hostages taken on 10/7. And if the beef was just with Iran, why are these folks getting caught in the middle? (Of course it’s not just Iran, Hamas is based in Gaza, but if one can easily confuse the Iranian regime with Hamas, then perhaps it’s easier to confuse Hamas with people from Gaza more generally, which leads to innocent civilians being wrongly treated like hostile military opponents.)

Israel has decided they can’t be tolerated anymore.

And no doubt Israel will win this, but I worry about the human sacrifice required from the innocent.


Thanks for acknowledging this simple reality, that the IDF broke the law.
I was acknowledging that they are accountable for their behavior.

Well, thank you for at least acknowledging that.

I have no idea if any of their actions have broken the law.

In that case, allow me to provide some sources on this matter,

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-10-15/ty-article/.premium/idf-soldiers-attacked-military-police-at-gunpoint-for-arresting-comrades-at-sde-teiman/00000192-904d-d2db-ab97-dddd31dd0000

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-08-04/ty-article/.premium/prosecution-seeks-extended-custody-of-five-israeli-soldiers-suspected-of-sde-teiman-abuse/00000191-1caf-db97-a7df-fcffecc00000

https://thehill.com/policy/international/4630363-us-israeli-military-violated-human-rights/ (though this last one is about accusations that predate the current conflict)

Yeah, so no country should ask its military to perpetrate a war. And by that I mean no country should be starting a war
It’s figure of speech. In this context I was using it as a synonym for “carry out.”

Ok, clear on your meaning now.

But if you’re implying that Israel started this war, that just has no basis in reality.

No, got confused from the ambiguity above. I think we are agreed, that Hamas clearly started it first. The question in my mind now is, in retaliating against Hamas in self defense, if the IDF is going too fast and too hard - with the result that they’re failing to minimize civilian casualties to the fullest extend possible.


Nice, thank you for the reference - the BBC article is really helpful.

But the IDF is accountable for its own actions, and some of these seem to break both international and Israeli law
Yes, that is true.

And unfortunate. Thanks for acknowledging this simple reality, that the IDF broke the law.

no military can perpetrate a war without killing civilians

Yeah, so no country should ask its military to perpetrate a war. And by that I mean no country should be starting a war. (As per https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perpetrate - perpetrate means to produce or bring about.) In fact I feel a major reason why Israel got away with so much nearer in time to Oct 2023 was because it was correctly and widely seen as the victim, rather than the perpetrator.

The fact that civilians have been killed in Gaza is not evidence of genocide,

Agree that the bar is higher. Will watch the SA case at the ICJ with interest.

nor does it establish that Israel is morally wrong in their actions.

I mean, strictly speaking, breaking the law doesn’t establish that either. Otherwise, Martin Luther King would have been morally wrong for his civil disobedience in participating in sit-in protests against racism? So just because - as we both agree - the IDF broke the law, it does not follow that they’re morally in the wrong?

Logically that’s correct. But that just means we need to turn to another basis for arguing that some of the actions taken are morally wrong. Perhaps along the lines of failing to “take reasonable steps to minimize civilian casualties.”

Israelis don’t want war.

When I see the headlines from articles like https://time.com/7016741/israel-protests-netanyahu-six-hostages-deaths/ - yes, I can easily believe that.


This is false. The former chair of the ICJ herself clarified the ruling.

Citation needed.

They only ruled that … the ICJ has jurisdiction to hear the case.

That, ironically, is quite plausible. That sounds exactly like the sort of thing a court would say.

They only ruled that it is plausible that the rights of the Palestinian people under the Geneva Convention are at risk,

Meaning that they might not actually be at risk, just that it plausibly looks like so and so a deeper look is needed to indeed confirm that this is the case?

They only ruled that it is plausible that the rights of the Palestinian people under the Geneva Convention are at risk, which is a fancy way of saying the ICJ has jurisdiction to hear the case.

This seems a little too fancy. Why not just plainly say that “we find the ICJ has jurisdiction to hear the case because these allegations fall under our jurisdiction?” I wouldn’t normally associate “Geneva violations” language with “court has jurisdiction” verbiage.

Anyways, assuming for the case of argument that all of the above is indeed correct and accurate (happy to give you the benefit of the doubt while you pull out the relevant source or citation) - it seems to me that even then the ICJ saw that there was a risk of irreparable harm to Palestinians, and it also found that Israel’s interpretation of “wholly unfounded” and “morally repugnant” “false claims” was lacking or at least uncertain and unclear enough to warrant further investigation (instead of dismissing it outright). I.e. not a frivolous court case.

And those horrors you refer to were all brought about by Iranian terror proxies who declared war on Israel.

I mean, true in the sense that it sounded like there was almost a grand peace deal that would have made the Palestine Authority and Israel both happy, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/09/israel-gaza-war-biden-netanyahu-peace-negotiations/679581/ until Hamas ruined it with their terrorist attack.

But the IDF is accountable for its own actions, and some of these seem to break both international and Israeli law. E.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-military-human-shields.html

While this might not have happened this year if Hamas hadn’t done what it did last year, that doesn’t absolve accountability on behalf of the IDF.

In fact, thinking this through leads to a ridiculous result. If Iran is directly accountable for when the IDF violates laws and human rights, that means Iran is responsible when the IDF violates laws and human rights. Which in turn means that Iran needs to stop the IDF from violating laws and human rights… Which means making Iran powerful enough to stop the IDF. Which leads to the concept of arming Iran militarily until it’s strong enough to plausibly defeat the IDF. Which I suspect would lead to Israelis suffering significantly more human rights violations themselves. (Which I think we can all agree is really bad).

No, the IDF has to be held accountable for the actions that the IDF takes.

Unfortunately civilians suffer the most in war.

On this, I think we’re in complete agreement.


That might be a tad harsh - I’m sure that now progressive lawmakers have been made aware of the loophole by the news article that they are working on laws to fix it (previously they may have assumed that companies would just act in good faith in doing the right thing here, or failing that, that the US wouldn’t send arms over to a country found to have plausibly committed genocide).

Alas, that process is quite slow, so I am currently putting my hopes on the lawsuit mentioned in your article. Hopefully the courts will decide to apply the brakes until a legislative fix can be made.

I hope I’m not being too optimistic here.


I guess should have said “mostly suspended” - but wow, that’s quite a glaring loophole.

In particular, there’s no reporting requirements - so it’s not even possible to tell how much of what got moved under the loophole, so we don’t know if it was just a $60 drop in the bucket or if say the vast majority of arms exports are moving via the loophole now.


I guess because they aren’t bringing the terror here?

But Israel/IDF has indeed been found to probably have committed genocide. By agencies and systems in the UN. At this point it’s kinda pedantic if it’s called terrorism or not, because it’s genocide.

And it wouldn’t be quite accurate to say that Canada didn’t do anything about this. There was suspension of arms sales after all, https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/joly-suspensions-analysis-1.7320990

Edit: It’s totally reasonable to call for more action on top of this. Stopping arms exports is just a drop in the bucket compared to the horrors that are happening half a world away. But at least it’s a start, however small.


Well, the financial aspect,

accused it of being a fundraiser for the Popular Front

Which has been designated a terrorist organization for decades.

It’s not necessary “that fundraising constitutes a significant part” here, just that some did happen and some money did flow, to provide a legitimate reason for the brakes to get applied.

Also, the article tries to draw a false equivalence here,

the HESEG Foundation, a Canadian organization with charitable tax status, awards cash scholarships to former Israel Defence Force (IDF) soldiers.

But awarding scholarships to even former soldiers is totally different from directly funding armed forces. There’s no accusation being made that the HESEG Foundation directly sends money to the IDF, which would be necessary to prove actual equivalence.

Somehow, I also don’t think that the HESEG Foundation encouraged chants of “death to Canada”. Now, the word death can mean many things, especially if used as a metaphor, and protection of free speech is rightfully very strong, so that alone wouldn’t be a cause for the above (unless maybe there was reason to believe that this was a call for or would be followed by physical harm to people in Canada). However, that sort of thing also doesn’t really feel like the way to win over the hearts and minds of Canadians.


Sorta like lame ducks who can do the right thing by their conscience as they are no longer burdened by popular mandates or seeing re-election.


From the article it feels like a worse variation of "I’ll do it but not because I have to”.

More like, “I’ll do some of it, at my own pace, because doing all of it now is too expensive.” Of course that wouldn’t trump the fundamental human rights that are at issue here - but if you win on the claim that there aren’t any such rights applicable, then the above is much easier to win …

Of course I might just be being a tad too cynical here.


“a matter of good governance rather than legal duty.”

You know what? Good Governance should be a legal duty. What the heck is this argument? Do folks who live in Toronto have to worry about not getting clean water because Canada has no legal obligation to provide it to them either?