Oddbean

https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/oct-04-2024-united-states-announces-humanitarian-assistance-support-populations-impacted-conflict-lebanon Lebanon isn't a cohesive country with a single government. Southern Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah, and (mostly) populated by Shiite Muslims. Northern Lebanon is mostly populated by Christians (about 40% of the total population), with a mostly separate government. The Christians have been trying to prevent Hezbollah and their supporters from fleeing north. The US isn't necessarily "funding both sides" by sending a small amount of humanitarian aid to one group, and a much larger amount (10x) of weapons to another (though even then, most of the funding is going to anti-air defense). If you want to make that argument, you need to drill down to exactly where that money to Lebanon is actually going. This isn't Gaza; with Gaza it's much easier to make the claim that the US was funding both sides as Gaza has (had?) a cohesive singular government: Hamas.

When nerds talks about politics as if they know .. LEARN MORE *mate*; [1] Also the CIA were *weirdly* false when they estimated the Shiits percentage to be around 41% (in 1985) it makes no sense because they also estimated the whole muslims percentage to be less than 50% (that should include all types of moslems) which anyone who have the slightest knowledge about Lebanon would know it cannot be true. [2] Ugh! people with Zionist agendas can't stop pushing their fake news narrative! a little spoiler: the far-far south (i.e. the border line) has more Christians than Shiits! and keep listen to IsHell propaganda to justify their genocide (and close your eyes on the hundreds of Christians dying between Palestine and Lebanon also Syria and Iraq by multiple powers and groups mostly IsHell). 1- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebanese_Shia_Muslims#Demographics 2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Lebanon#Population_by_religious_affiliation https://nostr.download/9c9569a259b33875146a0f071bae346524e5512bf02abf9d05fdb97c8a844ac9.mp4

This reply is mostly good but Hamas has nothing to do with the US controlling both sides in Gaza. Walling 2 million people into an open-air prison and terrorizing them is enough to make them act like 2 million people being terrorized in an open-air prison. Walling those 2 million people in is done by funding Israel, not Hamas. Any funding given to Hamas is just to stir the pot a bit extra, while the flame of the stove (under the stirred pot) is in funding Israel.

Gaza wasn't an open air prison. If it was, over 1000 Israeli's wouldn't have been murdered by Hamas and other Gazans on Oct 7th. If anything, it's a really good argument to seal up Gaza for good and actually make it into an open air prison. Because allowing goods to flow freely into Gaza, and Gazans to travel in and out of Gaza, is stupidly dangerous. The unfortunate reality is most Gazans (and many other Muslims) want Jews dead for b.s. religious reasons. That's not going to change no matter how nice Israel is to them. They're evil people with evil beliefs, and on average they're quite a bit less smart and successful than Israeli Jews. It's a recipe for violence that can't easily be changed. This also shows how as much as you can rightfully say what the settler movement is doing is unethical, the settlers forcing Palestinians out of the West Bank has also saved the lives of a lot of Jews. Oct 7th helped legitimize the settler movement.