The March of Return is one of those cargo cult things where someone engages in an act of protest that they copied from somewhere else and are shocked that it didn't lead to the result they ostensibly wanted. Why would the March of Return convince anyone of anything. The Israelis know you want to leave Gaza - that's not the issue. The issue is they think if they let you out you will murder them in their beds. If you want them to let you out you have to convince them that you're not going to do that.
"Mostly, on this blog, I take a dump on Zionists, which is both right, and my right, but it does have the unfortunate effect of picking up undesirables from the other team."
Have you considered that those "undesirables from the other team" (as you refer to them) actually make up the majority of your readership here?
Yes, it's a brand, it's contrarian posturing, and it's kinda annoying, but I read him anyway once in a while because sometimes he has insights amidst all the shitposting. And I don't think he's giving that much aid and comfort to bad trends in I-P discourse, in the grand scheme of things.
I certainly agree with this in spirit but a couple points:
I always thought the “March of Return” was in the West Bank, not Gaza, and my line was always “What did you think civil disobedience against an occupying military would involve? Did you ever see the march on the salt works scene in Gandhi? You’ll have to do that like 50 times.”
On the one hand because Gaza as open-air prison under abetted Hamas rule has been such a uniquely depraved human experiment I can’t necessarily make the same kinds of judgements. But on the other hand the premise in the name “March of Return” that makes it about the events of 1948 and not the realities of the present is self-defeating for all the reasons you say (and I’m not sure BDS was/is so much a cult as just totally unserious). As much as I’ve come to loath retarded hasbara talk about collective Palestinian pathologies like segregationists once talked about blacks, all that still very much needs to be said.
Finally, seriously, you have take the claims about the “March of Return” and the origins of the plan for 10/7 with a large grain of salt, and I say that in purely objective terms.
Wondering about why you call yourself a nonzionist. I’m a Haaretz reading shitlib and I call myself Zionist and we have roughly the same opinions. In my book any Israeli Jew who is against the return of the 1948 refugees is a Zionist.
What do you think the Palestinians should have done? This seems like a reasonable question and the obvious counterpart to asking a Palestinian what Israel should have done after 10/7.
1) Work to solve Gaza's biggest problem, namely urban squalor and overcrowding, through a comprehensive family planning programme, castrating convicts and hoodlums, higher education for women etc.
2) Respond to the Israeli government's policy of easing the siege and allowing more work permits by overtly signalling good behaviour and petitioning for more.
3) Take advantage of opportunities provided by the Israeli political system, specifically by
(a) reaching out to the Israel Left, newly energised by the judicial reform controversy
(b) take advantage of Netanyahu's desire to avoid war by petititoning for more concessions.
(4) Have a big sit down and produce a memo to the world saying 'we thought it over and it turns out Palestinian nationalism is dumb, Islamism is dumb, and we want to work it out with Israel'. Produce a list of actual grievances that they want addressed. Make 'Righteous Victims' by Benny Morris mandatory reading in all Palestinian schools so that Palestinians can have a realistic view of the conflict and stop believing crazy, insane things.
Literally anything else that didn't involve murdering civilians?
Like, even if we assume that the plan has to necessarily involve physically breaking free of Gaza and running loose in Israel they had much better options. Imagine if instead of killing and kidnapping civilians they had gone to the beach? Gone to the Knesset to petition for a lifting of the blockade? Led the IDF on a merry chase through the country while playing yakety sax in the background? Imagine how good and how reasonable their demands would have seemed in comparison to Israel's lame protestations that any Palestinian state would be a terror state?
But no, instead of doing any of that they decided to shoot up a music festival, go door to door in kibbutzim murdering and kidnapping civilians, and shooting up bus stops. And subsequently validated every single argument against Palestinian statehood in the most eloquent way possible.
I think that’s a fair point. 10/7 but without the deliberate killing of civilians. But lol at them going to the Knesset. I’m sure that would make a difference.
At the end of the day, "we're willing to make a permanent peace agreement, and we won't murder you in your beds if you take your boot off our necks" is the pitch they have to make to the Israeli government, and if I were them credibly making that pitch is what I would put 100% of my tactics into.
The fact that they obviously won't do that kinda gives the game away.
Of course it wouldn’t have made a difference, but it would have had symbolic importance.
Like the other commenter said, with nonviolent protest against an occupying military, you can’t just be like “we tried it once, didn’t work, back to violence now”
As far as 10/7 goes, literally doing nothing was Gaza's best option. Days before the attack, Israel's plan to contain Hamas (while Israel focused on Iran) was economic integration with and success for the Gaza strip. None of that will be in the Israeli debate again for at minimum 20 years.
I think this conversation is confusing two meanings of “gotten,” “got a lot.” The whole point is that by conventional standards, almost anything would have gotten them more than 10/7, the March, or BDS. But from the Pal perspective in which negotiating with, recognizing, legitimating Israel loses everything, then joining the Abraham Accords, continuing the status quo of increasing economic benefits, loses everything for them. And that’s why the original post argues that they’re…er… not smart.
Agree to a state during the UN partition, getting it confirmed in November 1947, just like Israel. Then turning into a shithole dictatorship like every other Arab country, and dropping in GDP per capita while Israel eclipsed its former UK colonial masters at the same time - you know, “liberation”.
How hard is it to grasp the Palestinians are retarded warmongers who always prefer to attempt a genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jews over a state, only to lose the wars they start with massacres?
What Time Machine? It also was offered them twice in 2000 and another time in 2008. Are all supporters of Palestinian terrorism unable to notice they’ve always been genocidal buffoons? Their first massacre of Jews was in 1920 a mere two years into the British Mandate. Then 1921, 1929, 1936-1939, all long before the state.
They’re still the same savages and still 80% in support of October 7. I know 105 years isn’t enough time for some people to adjust their attitude, so probably will take a few more decades, more massacres instigated by your Pals, more military defeats.
Serious question - why is it Israel’s job to solve the murderous religious fanaticism of the Palestinians? Ask the Palestinians. They have agency, they’re not children. They’re just violent and retarded.
Realistically Hezbollah is getting disarmed by the dickless Lebanese state, courtesy of the ass kicking Israel gave it. Realistically, Iran’s asset the Assad regime is gone because of said ass kicking. Realistically, Iran had its ballistic missile and nuclear programs shaved back quite a bit. Those are the real outcomes of the Palestinians starting yet another war.
Also realistically, Gaza will remain unreconstructed for quite a while due to Hamas sticking around. Israel will trade Palestinian sociopaths from its jails to Gaza, for its abducted citizens, enhancing the already lovely disposition of Hamastan Gazans. You seem to think Hamas sticking around is a win for the Pals, when it’s part of their punishment. Israel continues with the aggressive posture toward Hamas, same as Hezbollah, telling Europe to go fuck itself.
In lieu of actual war people remember they don’t give a shit about the Palestinians, they just hate Jews, and restart their polarized domestic infighting, accelerated by Islamism. The progressive left loses more elections because of their taking moral cues from Marxists and Islamists.
They should have done the only thing that would lead to a lasting peace: recognise Israel as a Jewish state, waive any claim to a “right of return”, and show evidence they have the nutjobs on their side on a short leash, all in exchange of a Palestinian state.
Peace requires that both parties give credible guarantees to the other that eradication and extermination is not longer a long term goal. Palestinians, and especially their international backers, have consistently refused to give such guarantees to Israel. Arafat’s refusal to concede the above is actually why the Oslo accords failed.
What about a reasonable alternative to BDS? As in, selective boycott until (i) settlement expansion and settler violence ends and (ii) famine addressed?
You always have the option to leave the Golan Heights, go back to antizionist Europe, rather than be a sniveling loser under the literal protection of Israeli Jews, Druze, Muslims and Christians defending the border you live near. Go back. You’re a net burden on the country. Take the Satmers with you, welfare leaches and Jew-hating garbage that they are.
I think they get especiallly angry at criticism of Israel whe it's not possible to write off the critic as a leftist or an Islamist symapathiser or an anti-semite etc. because their whole self image is based upon all critics being one of these categories. Fortunately for them, most critics of Israel take pleasure in being deranged and imbecilic so the dance can continue forever.
The guy’s home and life is subsidized by Israeli taxpayers and the blood of Israeli citizens serving their military duty. That’s not a man, that’s a child. Dumping on Zionists while requiring years of their service and buckets of blood to prevent his children and wife raped and murdered by Islamist savages a few miles away is pathetic, no different than some Woke asshole demanding to defund the police, then being outraged they aren’t there to do their job (Macklemore comes to mind).
His criticisms of this war have mainly been that bombing Gazans is bad for long term Israeli interests. A better analogy would be someone calls for the police to be reformed so they can handle crime better and then complains they are doing a bad job of dealing with crime. You people aren't serious and have a victim complex.
Seriously, it’s been his retarded armchair quarterbacking from the start. The guy has zero military experience, and his idea is to go into Gaza without bombing Hamas? And that’s what is happening - Israel is bombing Hamas, not civilians, it’s just that unfortunately the Pals are savages who use homes, schools, mosques and hospitals as ammunition depots, entrances and exits from military tunnels, and firing positions. The same exact thing happened in every urban warfare scene, ones Turkey is involved in now, ones NATO and the US have been involved in recently.
Like that ingrate cares about Israel or Israelis. LOL.
As I said, you people aren't serious and have a victim complex.
He's never claimed they shouldn't bomb Gaza. He's saying the amount of civilian death occurring now means the war is no longer in Israel's long term interests. "Israel is bombing Hamas, not civilians" The civilian death toll is at least 4 to 1. For a conflict of this size, that's unprecedented. Find me a war Nato has been in where the death toll is both this one sided, large and the civilian portion is this high. His argument has always been they should do to Hamas what they did to Hezbollah. Infiltrate the group and then destroy them years later. Hamas is presumably not as competent as Hezbollah. If they could do it to Hezbollah, their is no reason why they can't do it to Hamas.
"Like that ingrate cares about Israel or Israelis. "
You people really are insufferable and impossible to talk to. Just keep on bombing Gazans and make the west, including Americans, hate you. I'm sure that will be good for your country long term.
Again, so much incorrect information and misstatements. Israel didn’t “infiltrate Hezbollah for years”. It only started cross-border infiltration after Hezbollah joined on October 8, under cover of heavy bombardments. Hezbollah in Lebanon had nothing near the underground complexes that Hamas created in Gaza since it took over the strip in a violent coup. In past years, Israel’s attempts to infiltrate the Gaza Strip caused a lot of casualties to both sides, but I’m sure you don’t read Israeli news to track such details.
The 4:1 ratio is pulled out of yet another idiotic +972 magazine smear piece, carried by anti-Israel propagandists the Guardian. The US in service of Iranian militias bombed the shit out of Raqaa, Mosul, just the same, with far less reason. The actual ratio is 2:1.
Yes, Israel is defeated in the propaganda war because Bibi is incompetent and legacy media is infested with the Free Palestine cult. That doesn’t make Hamas narratives and numbers true. Anyone suggesting ground operations without close air support is a retard who hasn’t served in combat. What Israel needs to do is be done with Bibi ASAP and rebuild a professional spokesperson organization to deal with legacy media propaganda.
Hitchens: “Can anyone think of a siege in human history, from Syracuse to Leningrad, where the shops of the besieged city have been full of Snickers bars and Chinese motorbikes, and where European Union and other foreign aid projects pour streams of cash (often yours) into the pockets of thousands?”
There's another place, which I couldn't find when preparing this article, where Hitchens writes about a pervasive sense of pointlessness he felt in Gaza. On the one hand, Israel genuinely was stranglign economic activity (whether on legitimate security grounds one can debate), but they couldn't/wouldn't actually let the Gazans really go hungry, so they allowed do gooders to give them stuff for free. All the typical dysfunctions we know about from 60 years of the welfare state resulted.
I'm reluctant to call myself a Zionist mainly because I wish the British Empire had avoided collapse and continued to rule the region. Still, I rarely if ever feel dumped on by this blog.
The March of Return is one of those cargo cult things where someone engages in an act of protest that they copied from somewhere else and are shocked that it didn't lead to the result they ostensibly wanted. Why would the March of Return convince anyone of anything. The Israelis know you want to leave Gaza - that's not the issue. The issue is they think if they let you out you will murder them in their beds. If you want them to let you out you have to convince them that you're not going to do that.
"Mostly, on this blog, I take a dump on Zionists, which is both right, and my right, but it does have the unfortunate effect of picking up undesirables from the other team."
Have you considered that those "undesirables from the other team" (as you refer to them) actually make up the majority of your readership here?
Nah, many Zionists love reading Maskil. I live in the Judean Hills and Maskil's perspectives and insights are super informative.
Yes, it's a brand, it's contrarian posturing, and it's kinda annoying, but I read him anyway once in a while because sometimes he has insights amidst all the shitposting. And I don't think he's giving that much aid and comfort to bad trends in I-P discourse, in the grand scheme of things.
Baseless and irrelevant claim.
Pointless and ineffective response
I certainly agree with this in spirit but a couple points:
I always thought the “March of Return” was in the West Bank, not Gaza, and my line was always “What did you think civil disobedience against an occupying military would involve? Did you ever see the march on the salt works scene in Gandhi? You’ll have to do that like 50 times.”
On the one hand because Gaza as open-air prison under abetted Hamas rule has been such a uniquely depraved human experiment I can’t necessarily make the same kinds of judgements. But on the other hand the premise in the name “March of Return” that makes it about the events of 1948 and not the realities of the present is self-defeating for all the reasons you say (and I’m not sure BDS was/is so much a cult as just totally unserious). As much as I’ve come to loath retarded hasbara talk about collective Palestinian pathologies like segregationists once talked about blacks, all that still very much needs to be said.
Finally, seriously, you have take the claims about the “March of Return” and the origins of the plan for 10/7 with a large grain of salt, and I say that in purely objective terms.
Wondering about why you call yourself a nonzionist. I’m a Haaretz reading shitlib and I call myself Zionist and we have roughly the same opinions. In my book any Israeli Jew who is against the return of the 1948 refugees is a Zionist.
No real shitlib calls himself a shitlib.
What do you think the Palestinians should have done? This seems like a reasonable question and the obvious counterpart to asking a Palestinian what Israel should have done after 10/7.
I think they should have done the following:
1) Work to solve Gaza's biggest problem, namely urban squalor and overcrowding, through a comprehensive family planning programme, castrating convicts and hoodlums, higher education for women etc.
2) Respond to the Israeli government's policy of easing the siege and allowing more work permits by overtly signalling good behaviour and petitioning for more.
3) Take advantage of opportunities provided by the Israeli political system, specifically by
(a) reaching out to the Israel Left, newly energised by the judicial reform controversy
(b) take advantage of Netanyahu's desire to avoid war by petititoning for more concessions.
(4) Have a big sit down and produce a memo to the world saying 'we thought it over and it turns out Palestinian nationalism is dumb, Islamism is dumb, and we want to work it out with Israel'. Produce a list of actual grievances that they want addressed. Make 'Righteous Victims' by Benny Morris mandatory reading in all Palestinian schools so that Palestinians can have a realistic view of the conflict and stop believing crazy, insane things.
Literally anything else that didn't involve murdering civilians?
Like, even if we assume that the plan has to necessarily involve physically breaking free of Gaza and running loose in Israel they had much better options. Imagine if instead of killing and kidnapping civilians they had gone to the beach? Gone to the Knesset to petition for a lifting of the blockade? Led the IDF on a merry chase through the country while playing yakety sax in the background? Imagine how good and how reasonable their demands would have seemed in comparison to Israel's lame protestations that any Palestinian state would be a terror state?
But no, instead of doing any of that they decided to shoot up a music festival, go door to door in kibbutzim murdering and kidnapping civilians, and shooting up bus stops. And subsequently validated every single argument against Palestinian statehood in the most eloquent way possible.
I think that’s a fair point. 10/7 but without the deliberate killing of civilians. But lol at them going to the Knesset. I’m sure that would make a difference.
At the end of the day, "we're willing to make a permanent peace agreement, and we won't murder you in your beds if you take your boot off our necks" is the pitch they have to make to the Israeli government, and if I were them credibly making that pitch is what I would put 100% of my tactics into.
The fact that they obviously won't do that kinda gives the game away.
Of course it wouldn’t have made a difference, but it would have had symbolic importance.
Like the other commenter said, with nonviolent protest against an occupying military, you can’t just be like “we tried it once, didn’t work, back to violence now”
https://old.reddit.com/r/Israel/comments/1mz7z3l/protocols_of_meetings_held_by_senior_israeli/
As far as 10/7 goes, literally doing nothing was Gaza's best option. Days before the attack, Israel's plan to contain Hamas (while Israel focused on Iran) was economic integration with and success for the Gaza strip. None of that will be in the Israeli debate again for at minimum 20 years.
Begged to join the Abraham Accords. Begged to revive any of the past deals they had rejected. Those were options.
I don’t think the AA would have given them much.
I think the questions we’re discussing are: would it have gotten them more than 10/7? More than the March of Return? More than BDS?
The latter two, probably? They didn’t get anything from those.
On 10/7, I think they will get a lot. But more indirectly as a result of Israeli overreach.
I think this conversation is confusing two meanings of “gotten,” “got a lot.” The whole point is that by conventional standards, almost anything would have gotten them more than 10/7, the March, or BDS. But from the Pal perspective in which negotiating with, recognizing, legitimating Israel loses everything, then joining the Abraham Accords, continuing the status quo of increasing economic benefits, loses everything for them. And that’s why the original post argues that they’re…er… not smart.
Agree to a state during the UN partition, getting it confirmed in November 1947, just like Israel. Then turning into a shithole dictatorship like every other Arab country, and dropping in GDP per capita while Israel eclipsed its former UK colonial masters at the same time - you know, “liberation”.
How hard is it to grasp the Palestinians are retarded warmongers who always prefer to attempt a genocide and ethnic cleansing of Jews over a state, only to lose the wars they start with massacres?
Ok - what's the answer that doesn't involve a time machine? Everyone seems to be ignoring the fact that there's no going back in time here.
What Time Machine? It also was offered them twice in 2000 and another time in 2008. Are all supporters of Palestinian terrorism unable to notice they’ve always been genocidal buffoons? Their first massacre of Jews was in 1920 a mere two years into the British Mandate. Then 1921, 1929, 1936-1939, all long before the state.
They’re still the same savages and still 80% in support of October 7. I know 105 years isn’t enough time for some people to adjust their attitude, so probably will take a few more decades, more massacres instigated by your Pals, more military defeats.
Serious question - why is it Israel’s job to solve the murderous religious fanaticism of the Palestinians? Ask the Palestinians. They have agency, they’re not children. They’re just violent and retarded.
It’s 2025. Realistically it’s A) BDS, B) Hamas, C) PA (i.e., do nothing), or D) ???. What am I missing?
Realistically Hezbollah is getting disarmed by the dickless Lebanese state, courtesy of the ass kicking Israel gave it. Realistically, Iran’s asset the Assad regime is gone because of said ass kicking. Realistically, Iran had its ballistic missile and nuclear programs shaved back quite a bit. Those are the real outcomes of the Palestinians starting yet another war.
Also realistically, Gaza will remain unreconstructed for quite a while due to Hamas sticking around. Israel will trade Palestinian sociopaths from its jails to Gaza, for its abducted citizens, enhancing the already lovely disposition of Hamastan Gazans. You seem to think Hamas sticking around is a win for the Pals, when it’s part of their punishment. Israel continues with the aggressive posture toward Hamas, same as Hezbollah, telling Europe to go fuck itself.
In lieu of actual war people remember they don’t give a shit about the Palestinians, they just hate Jews, and restart their polarized domestic infighting, accelerated by Islamism. The progressive left loses more elections because of their taking moral cues from Marxists and Islamists.
I still don’t think you’ve answered the core question. Someone above suggested 10/7 without killing ravers. That’s an answer.
They should have done the only thing that would lead to a lasting peace: recognise Israel as a Jewish state, waive any claim to a “right of return”, and show evidence they have the nutjobs on their side on a short leash, all in exchange of a Palestinian state.
Peace requires that both parties give credible guarantees to the other that eradication and extermination is not longer a long term goal. Palestinians, and especially their international backers, have consistently refused to give such guarantees to Israel. Arafat’s refusal to concede the above is actually why the Oslo accords failed.
What about a reasonable alternative to BDS? As in, selective boycott until (i) settlement expansion and settler violence ends and (ii) famine addressed?
You are the other team.
You always have the option to leave the Golan Heights, go back to antizionist Europe, rather than be a sniveling loser under the literal protection of Israeli Jews, Druze, Muslims and Christians defending the border you live near. Go back. You’re a net burden on the country. Take the Satmers with you, welfare leaches and Jew-hating garbage that they are.
The guy takes a 2000-word dump on Palestinian nationalism and its western apologists and that’s your take-away? Geez. Tough room.
I think they get especiallly angry at criticism of Israel whe it's not possible to write off the critic as a leftist or an Islamist symapathiser or an anti-semite etc. because their whole self image is based upon all critics being one of these categories. Fortunately for them, most critics of Israel take pleasure in being deranged and imbecilic so the dance can continue forever.
The guy’s home and life is subsidized by Israeli taxpayers and the blood of Israeli citizens serving their military duty. That’s not a man, that’s a child. Dumping on Zionists while requiring years of their service and buckets of blood to prevent his children and wife raped and murdered by Islamist savages a few miles away is pathetic, no different than some Woke asshole demanding to defund the police, then being outraged they aren’t there to do their job (Macklemore comes to mind).
His criticisms of this war have mainly been that bombing Gazans is bad for long term Israeli interests. A better analogy would be someone calls for the police to be reformed so they can handle crime better and then complains they are doing a bad job of dealing with crime. You people aren't serious and have a victim complex.
Seriously, it’s been his retarded armchair quarterbacking from the start. The guy has zero military experience, and his idea is to go into Gaza without bombing Hamas? And that’s what is happening - Israel is bombing Hamas, not civilians, it’s just that unfortunately the Pals are savages who use homes, schools, mosques and hospitals as ammunition depots, entrances and exits from military tunnels, and firing positions. The same exact thing happened in every urban warfare scene, ones Turkey is involved in now, ones NATO and the US have been involved in recently.
Like that ingrate cares about Israel or Israelis. LOL.
As I said, you people aren't serious and have a victim complex.
He's never claimed they shouldn't bomb Gaza. He's saying the amount of civilian death occurring now means the war is no longer in Israel's long term interests. "Israel is bombing Hamas, not civilians" The civilian death toll is at least 4 to 1. For a conflict of this size, that's unprecedented. Find me a war Nato has been in where the death toll is both this one sided, large and the civilian portion is this high. His argument has always been they should do to Hamas what they did to Hezbollah. Infiltrate the group and then destroy them years later. Hamas is presumably not as competent as Hezbollah. If they could do it to Hezbollah, their is no reason why they can't do it to Hamas.
"Like that ingrate cares about Israel or Israelis. "
You people really are insufferable and impossible to talk to. Just keep on bombing Gazans and make the west, including Americans, hate you. I'm sure that will be good for your country long term.
Again, so much incorrect information and misstatements. Israel didn’t “infiltrate Hezbollah for years”. It only started cross-border infiltration after Hezbollah joined on October 8, under cover of heavy bombardments. Hezbollah in Lebanon had nothing near the underground complexes that Hamas created in Gaza since it took over the strip in a violent coup. In past years, Israel’s attempts to infiltrate the Gaza Strip caused a lot of casualties to both sides, but I’m sure you don’t read Israeli news to track such details.
The 4:1 ratio is pulled out of yet another idiotic +972 magazine smear piece, carried by anti-Israel propagandists the Guardian. The US in service of Iranian militias bombed the shit out of Raqaa, Mosul, just the same, with far less reason. The actual ratio is 2:1.
https://substack.com/@mrandrewfox/note/c-147807696
Yes, Israel is defeated in the propaganda war because Bibi is incompetent and legacy media is infested with the Free Palestine cult. That doesn’t make Hamas narratives and numbers true. Anyone suggesting ground operations without close air support is a retard who hasn’t served in combat. What Israel needs to do is be done with Bibi ASAP and rebuild a professional spokesperson organization to deal with legacy media propaganda.
Hitchens: “Can anyone think of a siege in human history, from Syracuse to Leningrad, where the shops of the besieged city have been full of Snickers bars and Chinese motorbikes, and where European Union and other foreign aid projects pour streams of cash (often yours) into the pockets of thousands?”
Give me a sec…nope.
There's another place, which I couldn't find when preparing this article, where Hitchens writes about a pervasive sense of pointlessness he felt in Gaza. On the one hand, Israel genuinely was stranglign economic activity (whether on legitimate security grounds one can debate), but they couldn't/wouldn't actually let the Gazans really go hungry, so they allowed do gooders to give them stuff for free. All the typical dysfunctions we know about from 60 years of the welfare state resulted.
I'm reluctant to call myself a Zionist mainly because I wish the British Empire had avoided collapse and continued to rule the region. Still, I rarely if ever feel dumped on by this blog.