Trump told Benjamin Netanyahu in one call this month, “Do what you have to do,” according to six people familiar with the conversation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive and confidential information. Trump has said publicly that the two have spoken at least twice in October, with one call as recently as Oct. 19.

“He didn’t tell him what to do militarily, but he expressed that he was impressed by the pagers,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), who was on a call this month with Trump and Netanyahu, referring to the Israeli operation that killed Hezbollah leaders with explosive batteries inside pagers. “He expressed his awe for their military operations and what they have done.”

Graham added: “He told them, do what you have to do to defend yourself, but we’re openly talking about a new Mideast. Trump understands that very much there has to be change with the corrupt Palestinian state.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    I’ve actually heard on two occasions now from the ‘don’t vote for Kamala’ people that more genocide does not make things worse because you can’t get worse than what is happening now.

    Which- yes you absolutely can.

    (Then again, I saw someone a few days ago say that Israel is worse than the Nazis by the reasoning that the Nazis were orderly about their genocide.)

    • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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      20 hours ago

      The absolutely trash argument I’ve gotten is usually… “Less genocide is still genocide.” and then them advocating for taking an action that’s likely to cause more genocide.

      This is one topic where people taking a “principled stand” are just fucking idiots.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        20 hours ago

        Yep. I’ve seen that one too. “Less genocide is still genocide.” Which implies that an additional two genocides of brown and queer people don’t deserve to be counted.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      They don’t usually write it so literally, that’s rare. They usually just pretend than any amount of evil is equally evil.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        18 hours ago

        It was rare. They’re getting more brazen because they are realizing the “vote third party but it doesn’t matter which candidate to teach them a lesson” concept isn’t especially compelling.