It’s a half-pun about actual piracy. Not sure if illegal fishing is actually considered piracy, but that’s the idea.

Why did they even do that?

Apparently it’s the former. Their prosecution rate is 8% apparently according to Wikipedia, because they’re too understaffed to deal with cases that can go either way. They also have a false confession problem, but that’s not what’s getting them to that rate.

So of course in the end it should come down to what you want to do and where you see yourself living a happier life, and not what people on the internet think you should do. However, purely from a “making the world a better place” perspective, I’d recommend not returning. I get the idea of trying to change society from within, but frankly I think Israel in its current state is beyond saving. The sense of invincibility, among other issues, is too much for simple activism to fix; the country as a whole needs the Nazi Germay treatment (the de-Nazification part, not the war part). At least by not being in Israel you make sure your tax money and children aren’t used in genocide.

I repeat, do what you feel is best for you, but to directly answer your question your absence does more to weaken the Israeli Apartheid apparatus than your presence. Do vote though; definitely vote.

Amazing. Depressing, but amazing.

Pretty sure nobody cares, but man as a third world country guy it feels weird as fuck to see these reasonable-looking numbers only to multiply by 50 and get a heart attack.

I mean yes but it’s diminishing returns. The rule kind of falls apart at these numbers.

I’ve never used a Mac but my experience with iPhones and iPads (not mine) has convinced me to never touch anything Apple makes. The requirement of iTunes to send files between an iPhone and a PC is, for example, just ridiculous.

I mean no, but the people with meteorology degrees are probably not gonna be working a job where the number one requirement is to be hot (and not, y’know, have a meteorology degree).

Yeah. The protests aren’t because Bibi’s actions are too right-wing; they’re because even as a far-right leader he’s doing a shit job. Him being a genocidal far right leader isn’t, as a rule, an issue with the general Israeli public. You can look at this if you wanna lose some faith in humanity.

There are protests against Bibi because of his disregard for the hostages’ lives and attempt to destroy Israeli democracy. His party isn’t losing support AFAIK, and the right wing is actually growing.

I mean yes but at least in the US the latter two are overwhelmingly more common.

Even Germany is selling weapons to Israel and I can’t blame anyone for wanting nothing to do with that, but getting back to the US: In order to get into a position where they can influence national decisions, the random communist literature student will have to be a major part of the US war machine. Now remember that the US has been involved in two genocides in the past 10 years. I see your point but the kind of person who will actually steer the country towards peace will never be allowed to reach such a position in the first place unless they become another cog in the war machine.

Okay I entered this thinking “ugh, more shilling for proto-fascism” but you know what? I’m convinced. Take my upvote or whatever we call those here.

Well, part of the reason is certainly because leftist social circles straight up bully anyone in their own ranks who would consider joining.

I mean it’s very understandable that people don’t wanna get involved in supporting America’s settler colonialism project, among other things.

We do, an infinitely small amount. Remember you gotta divide by c².

Mostly because that’s impossible. Ideally you want small inflation so it’s a bad idea to just leave money around, but either way 0% inflation is about as impossible as 0.4999% inflation.

Uh… There’s a reason Israel hates BDS’s guts and that’s not because it doesn’t work.

Man’s forgetting the second law of thermodynamics: The house entropy always wins.

So this turned into a bit of a rant and while it’s likely nobody cares I’ll post it anyway.

I don’t know about Christianity but at least in Islam this isn’t how it works. So there’s a hadith that says that death is the worst of what comes before it and the easiest of what comes after it, because the day of judgement is just that bad. There’s another that says that in the day of judgement it will be so hard that people will want Allah to start it even if they go to hell. No matter how much you think you’ve been a good person it’s not at all something to look forward to. And that’s not counting how even as a Muslim depending on what you did in your life, you could go to hell, spend a certain time there according to your sins in life and then go to heaven. Again not something most people want to find out, especially because Islam teaches that with the exception of prophets everyone sins and that we all need Allah’s forgiveness and mercy to go to heaven. The kind of arrogance it’d take to actually hope for death because you’re confident you’re going to heaven can in fact be the reason you go to hell. A devout Muslim will never think “oh I’ve been really good in life I can’t wait to die and go to heaven”.

Then we get into how in the day of judgement people will have mountains of good deeds and mountains of bad deeds and people’s (temporary; again all Muslims will eventually go to heaven) fate will be decided over a single good or bad deed. Most people thinking seriously about the afterlife will want to live as long as possible to do good deeds and beg god for forgiveness for their bad deeds. Again, no sane Muslim will think “yep, I’m doing alright, death please”.