He's right.
Shame on the companies that have pulled out, especially the likes of Stripe who should know better.
Web Summit CEO's comments on Israeli conflict 'war crimes' sparks boycott
Meta and Stripe have joined Google, Intel, and Siemens in a growing boycott of next month's Web Summit in Lisbon after the event's chief executive compared Israel's actions in response to attacks by Hamas as "war crimes." The comments, made by Web Summit CEO Paddy Cosgrave earlier this week on social media, criticized the …
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Monday 23rd October 2023 06:21 GMT FeepingCreature
Freedom = Freedom from consequences
Free speech has of course always meant freedom from certain consequences. The term "freedom" is worthless if it doesn't include consequences - by that metric, China and Russia have free speech. You just have to deal with the consequences, which may include torture and murder.
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Friday 20th October 2023 21:57 GMT Tron
There should be no free pass for killing civilians. Not for anyone.
'War crimes are war crimes even when committed by allies'. 100% agreement.
Anybody who kills civilians, directly or by denying them food, water or medical aid, deserves to be condemned and charged with crimes against humanity. It is not an acceptable response.
An acceptable response to the murder of your civilians is to target those responsible and take only them out. Even if it is difficult, costs money and takes time. Being angry is not an excuse.
The tech companies are running scared of governments and politicians have no ethics at all.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 09:08 GMT amanfromMars 1
Removing the head avoids collateral damage/saves the body from suffering pain. Lesson #1
Anybody who kills civilians, directly or by denying them food, water or medical aid, deserves to be condemned and charged with crimes against humanity. It is not an acceptable response.
An acceptable response to the murder of your civilians is to target those responsible and take only them out. Even if it is difficult, costs money and takes time. Being angry is not an excuse. ..... Tron
The nationalised offer of unconditional moral support and additional foreign military allied aid to regimes committing war crimes surely has those national leaderships and Prime Ministers and Secretaries of State for Defence etc., responsible for the committing of prime primed foreign allied assets, actively complicit in the crime and therefore legitimate accurate targets for appropriate attention/sanction/prosecution/persecution/disdain ‽ .
Surely such persons of interest cannot be imagining themselves to be unworthy and immune from punitive repercussions whenever they be such obvious cheerleaders/rabble rousers/quislings?
Whenever things are complex to solve, such a keeping of things simple is surely a viable and suitably unpleasant and discouraging response to troublemakers, both enthusiastic and otherwise.
Methinks though differently, Tron, regarding the first half of .....
The tech companies are running scared of governments and politicians have no ethics at all.
....... with the true ACTive state of present and future affairs being governments and politicians running scared and being terrified of and petrified by the unknown possibilities freely available to/from absolutely fabulous tech wielding companies.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 17:20 GMT Dacarlo
Re: Removing the head avoids collateral damage/saves the body from suffering pain. Lesson #1
UK Gov. PLC is/has flogged hundreds of millions of £££ of arms to Israel. This goes a long way to explain why they're so big on supporting the committing of said heinous acts.
https://caat.org.uk/news/statement-on-uk-arms-exports-to-israel/
Money talks.
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Monday 23rd October 2023 12:05 GMT Jedit
"Nagasaki? Hiroshima? Dresden?"
Were all war crimes. Especially the second nuke on Japan - for the first one at least there was the argument that they were trying to force Japan to surrender without an invasion of the Home Islands which would have had a far higher death toll on both sides than the mere loss of one city. The second one was used after Japan was already planning to surrender, purely to hurry them up and to show that America could destroy anyone they wanted.
As the first commenter on this article said: war crimes don't stop being war crimes just because the winner committed them. But only losers are prosecuted for them.
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Monday 23rd October 2023 20:01 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: "Nagasaki? Hiroshima? Dresden?"
The second one was used after Japan was already planning to surrender, purely to hurry them up and to show that America could destroy anyone they wanted.
This is false, as confirmed by Japanese military and diplomatic archival materials that were decrypted by the US during the war but only released to the public in the 1990s. See Frank's Downfall for a comprehensive discussion, with citations.
That does not necessarily justify the Nagasaki bombing, or the Hiroshima one for that matter; but the common complaint that "Japan was already preparing to surrender" is not supported by the preponderance of available evidence.
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Monday 30th October 2023 11:31 GMT Mooseman
"Nagasaki? Hiroshima? Dresden?"
You could argue about the rights and wrongs of nuking Japan all day, although it's not a coincidence that Russia was eyeing up chunks of Japan and needed to be shown who was boss...
Dresden of course is a case of everyone still using the faked figures produced by Goebbels in 1945 - the Germans' own official figures were roughly 25000 killed, which while dreadful were no worse than any one of a dozen similar attacks at that time, but the propaganda multiplied if by a factor of 10, and that's the figure everyone still quotes.
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Tuesday 7th November 2023 17:48 GMT GNU SedGawk
They share the ideology, methodology and personnel as the people who perpetrated the Deir Yassin atrocity. [2]
Ezra Yachin, who was involved in the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre, tells troops 'these animals can no longer live', referring to Palestinians [1]
[1] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-veteran-ezra-yachin-soldiers-erase-children
[2] https://www.deiryassin.org/
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Tuesday 7th November 2023 17:48 GMT GNU SedGawk
Vengeance for stealing the dream that Zionists could live in safety while occupying people.
The dehumanization of Palestinians and the softening up of the public to accept genocide and ethic cleansing is heartbreaking.
There is no going back now, the world saw a people define their own narrative, the world is seeing a government saying children deserve death because of their ethnicity, 4,000 unarmed Palestinian men, women and children have been slaughtered indiscriminately. 1,600 Palestinian children including babies are dead. Over 50 entire families have been wiped from the population register.
As the Zionist enemy declares 2 million people in Gaza, half of them children, to be "human animals," cuts off food and water to all of them and openly massacres them ... the whole rotten Western elite, endorses this savagery"
The last hospital they bombed: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/20/what-have-open-source-videos-revealed-about-the-gaza-hospital-explosion
The one they are threatening: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-ehud-barak-warns-gaza-shifa-hospital-target
I hope that a end to the fighting is called, with all people being give equal rights in a democratic Free Palestine.
Sadly I think this is going to results in the Zionist State Terrorist group murdering so many people that other countries will get involved.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 08:23 GMT Dan 55
Looking forward to US big tech sector leaving Ireland
After all, it's exactly the same position that the Irish government has.
You've got to wonder how most politicians can keep up the cognitive dissonance, just compare and contrast their response to this with their response to Ukraine.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 11:48 GMT demon driver
While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
..., his position completely ignores the factual differences between both sides and thus trivialises Hamas' attacks and demonises Israel's defence. While Hamas wantonly and maliciously targets civilians, Israel targets Hamas facilities and hideouts and warns civilians in the area about the bombings. The death of every single person is terrible. However, to ask Israel not to bomb Hamas even though civilians in their vicinity have been warned is to ask Israel to stop defending itself.
So the reactions to Cosgrave's comments are perfectly in order. And it is bewildering how widespread such factually pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel opinions are, based entirely on *not* applying the same standards to both sides, whether out of malice or lack of information.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 12:16 GMT Dan 55
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
Congratulations, it seems you're the first who dared.
Perhaps neighbourhoods in Ireland should have been bombed in air strikes because of the IRA or people in the Basque Country because of ETA? With a two hour warning first as it's only fair.
And even that doesn't capture the how much of a war crime it is because Gaza is a confined area with nowhere for civilians to escape to.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 12:51 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
"Perhaps neighbourhoods in Ireland should have been bombed in air strikes because of the IRA or people in the Basque Country because of ETA? With a two hour warning first as it's only fair."
Both in Ireland and Spain, the terrorists were a small and fragmented rabble, setting off a few bombs and carrying out a few murders that in the bigger scheme of things amounted to nothing. Admittedly they kept at it over a long period of time, but at no point did they pose a major threat to Spain or the UK. So your logic doesn't hold up.
Hamas on the other hand are a small army, and carried out a mass attack on Israel, killed 1,300 people mostly civilians in two days, kidnapped a couple of hundred hostages, and have fired something of the order of 6,000 rockets into Israel and continue to do so. I've no love for Israel, but Hamas set out to provoke Israel, they succeeded, and now they have got a proportionate reaction.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 16:37 GMT martinusher
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
>because Gaza is a confined area with nowhere for civilians to escape to.
The correct term for this is "ghetto" but you'll find that open use of this term will get you into trouble. (BTW -- I'm in the US, I'm an insignificant person and I'm retired so I can say what I want without my career being threatened......)
(Incidentally, been in Europe recently and I was somewhat taken back by the level of censorship there. There wasn't even any attempt to disguise it.)
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Saturday 21st October 2023 18:55 GMT Dan 55
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
(Incidentally, been in Europe recently and I was somewhat taken back by the level of censorship there. There wasn't even any attempt to disguise it.)
I must congratulate you on your advanced knowledge of 30 different languages that meant you were able to understand the press to such a level that you were able to see where all the censorship was.
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 07:17 GMT well meaning but ultimately self defeating
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
Correct term is not ghetto. It’s a standalone region with borders.
The reason there is a blockade is because they keep bringing in weapons to stack Israeli. Hamas are not like this because they are trapped in Gaza, they are trapped in Gaza because they are like this.
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 11:22 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
《The correct term for this is "ghetto" 》
Oddly I was thinking of parallels with Warsaw which should get one canceled into oblivion.
As far as I am concerned the whole of the Levant, and middle east in general, is an utter obscenity with basically no redeeming features. How any of the parties involved can begin to imagine facing their creator on judgment day is totally beyond me.
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 15:34 GMT amanfromMars 1
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
Oddly I was thinking of parallels with Warsaw which should get one canceled into oblivion. .... Anonymous Coward
When/If the parallels of the Warsaw ghetto with its historically well documented trials and tribulations, starvations and hardships and imprisonments are more valid than not, is Israel then to deny and not realise it is become an unwelcome and barbaric pariah fascist state ..... a Third Reich-like clone apparently intent, at great cost to everybody and the dogs of war on the planet, on expanding its empire and influence on power and energy whilst expropriating land and raw field and rare earth assets with catastrophic bloodlettings and organised chaos dispensing and exercising madness and mayhem?
What else would they see themselves as being extremely similar to as would make no difference to anyone with a titter of wit and load of pure common sense about them?
And those are the sorts of very awkward questions all the leaderships of Israel's presently supportive allies need to be asked and asking of themselves, methinks, lest they be easily able to be charged and prosecuted and persecuted as wilful co-conspirators in a joint criminal enterprise and war crimes venture.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 12:40 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
Israel targets Hamas facilities and hideouts and warns civilians in the area about the bombings
Nope. Israel announced it was switching to no-knock bombings and has been levelling city blocks in Gaza. Sure, there may have been Hamas soldiers or weapons in some of those buildings, but an awful lot of collateral damage as well.
Problem is one of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance. Only a few days prior, a cafe with allegedly 300 people sitting down to mourn a dead soldier was all over the news as a heinous 'war crime'. The building didn't look big enough to seat 300, there were almost certainly military personnel there, and we don't know for certain who caused the explosion. Then there was the hospital bombing. 500 claimed dead, which seems.. excessive for a small car park. We don't know who caused the explosion there either.
But there's also been smaller war crimes committed. There's been video of Israeli soldiers on a patrol boat shooting swimmers in the water after a Hamas boat was blown up, or executing Hamas soldiers that were surrendering. There was also video of Hamas soldiers executing some IDF personnel hiding under a desk. All are arguably war crimes, but the reactions differ. The danger is unless we consider all war crime equally, our enemies will just point at the hypocrisy and double standards. And yet we're supposed to be the force for good in the world, upholding the Western ideals of democracy, freedom and justice.
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Saturday 21st October 2023 18:44 GMT demon driver
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
As I said, Cosgrave is formally correct, I never claimed there were no war crimes committed by IDF, and I never claimed that they shouldn't be called out for what they are if there are any.
There is no such thing as truth in Palestine, though, not in whatever might count as peace and even less in war, and reports around the world are mostly biased. For example, official continental European news channels were eager to cite those hundreds dead in an allegedly Israeli hospital bombing, while it indeed seems excessive for a small car park, and evidence rather points to a terrorist rocket that failed and broke in two above that hospital. But you won't ever hear any Palestinian voice admitting that.
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 12:03 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
There is no such thing as truth in Palestine
There's no such thing as truth in war, or politics. This is the problem.
...while it indeed seems excessive for a small car park, and evidence rather points to a terrorist rocket that failed and broke in two above that hospital. But you won't ever hear any Palestinian voice admitting that.
Or Ukraine, which is the danger. You assume it was a terrorist rocket that failed, broke in two and did the damage. There's some video of an erratic missile that exploded, possibly over the hospital. Most of the missiles fired from Gaza have both small propellant and payloads, so would those create the damage seen in the videos and photos? Or, did the missile explode in the air as a result of an intercept from an Iron Dome or Patriot interceptor? If so, the terrorist's missile may still have had a viable warhead, the interceptor wouldn't, but there'd still be debris from both missiles obeying gravity.
Israel knows this through experience, ie trying to define 'safe' intercept zones where failed intercepts minimise damage. In Ukraine though, every errant missile or debris from an intercept is reported as a 'war crime' rather than physics. It's also the same with reporting, ie an explosion near a market when Blinken visited Ukraine was a Russian war crime, even though it turned out the missile was Ukrainian. These things happen.
It's also whether the existing definitions of war crimes are fit for purpose. So there's two kind of conflicting requirements. Beligerents must minimise civilian casualties, and must not use human shields. But in a very densely populated place like Gaza, how do you avoid both? Should the laws of war be updated to clarify the kinds of armed conflicts we're seeing now, especially with the weapons being used? But by not applying those laws equally, we just risk perpetuating the violence. Hamas knew very well what Israel's reaction would be, and Israel has delivered. Hamas and extemists are now using images of the devastation to recruit. We condemn and sanction Russia when it bombs apartment buildings, we support and arm Israel when it does the same thing. Extremists use that apparent hypocrisy to recruit because the West doesn't care about Arabs.
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 13:56 GMT M.V. Lipvig
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
When a criminal commits a crime, unintentional damage or damage caused by the response is on the criminal, not the responder. Any war crime committed in Russia/Ukraine is a Russian war crime as it would not have happened had Russia not attacked. Same with Hamas/Israel, any war crime committed is a war crime committed by Hamas. Hamas can end this today by surrendering, and they could see improvement in their situation by accepting that Israel isn't going anywhere.
What prople seem to forget is Hamas, Palestinians and Muslims in general have publicly stated for years that Israel has no right to exist, and all Jews must be exterminated. They have performed/funded/cheered actions that work towards this goal. Israel has had to live with Palestinians setting off bombs and lobbing mortars for decades, to the point that 2-3 explosions in a day no longer makes the news outside local. Quite frankly, I'm surprised at the restraint they've shown to date, as by now I would have expected them to clean Gaza out to the last Palestinian by either killing or forcibly deporting them.
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 14:48 GMT amanfromMars 1
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'... @L.V.Lipvig
When a criminal commits a crime, unintentional damage or damage caused by the response is on the criminal, not the responder. Any war crime committed in Russia/Ukraine is a Russian war crime as it would not have happened had Russia not attacked. Same with Hamas/Israel, any war crime committed is a war crime committed by Hamas. Hamas can end this today by surrendering, and they could see improvement in their situation by accepting that Israel isn't going anywhere. ..... M.V.Lipvig
Are you really being serious and truly believe what you have said there, M.V. Lipvig, believing that there be others too who would find that perfectly acceptable and just and supportive of that...... well, surely no one could viably argue it is not a radical fundamentalist view ?
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 19:12 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
When a criminal commits a crime, unintentional damage or damage caused by the response is on the criminal, not the responder. Any war crime committed in Russia/Ukraine is a Russian war crime as it would not have happened had Russia not attacked.
That's an interesting interpretation of the law, which you probably shouldn't try to rely on in court. The Laws of War don't really make any distinctions like that, only to try to impose a lawful code of conduct on beligerants, and protections for non-combatants.
What prople seem to forget is Hamas, Palestinians and Muslims in general have publicly stated for years that Israel has no right to exist, and all Jews must be exterminated.
Extremists are everywhere. One just talked about how there would be a 'New World Order'.. Which will have conspiracy theorists heads exploding. Oh, and people yelling that we must nuke Iran because Iran is evil. Despite having a modest population of Jews who live there quite happily.
Quite frankly, I'm surprised at the restraint they've shown to date, as by now I would have expected them to clean Gaza out to the last Palestinian by either killing or forcibly deporting them.
Give them time. Some Israelis want this because they want the land and to develop new beach front properties, and exploit the offshore oil & gas. But forcibly deporting Palestinians would be ethnic cleansing, and a crime against humanity in itself. And this situation happened because once upon a time, there was a state called Palestine, which has steadily been shrinking. Once upon a time, there was a state called Ukraine, which is now 20% smaller than it was in 1991? Why is it lawful for one state to seize territory, but not another? And of course if you go back further in time, there was thing called Exodus, which many Israelis, and some Jews seem determined to recreate with 'forcible deportations', concentration camps and ghettos.
Not all Israelis and Jews believe in this idea, and many think a peaceful solution would be better. But that's just one of Israel's problems. Bibi the Bomber is back in business, and doing what he does best.. creating 'martyrs' and helping breed the next generation of extremists and terrorists.
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 19:16 GMT Roland6
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
> What prople seem to forget is…
The zionists who founded the modern state of Israel and their hard line followers have similar no shades of grey views over what the extent of modern Israel will be and who gets to live there.
If the current residents of Gaza leave and cross the border into Egypt, expect Israel to block their return and occupy Gaza in the same way they have occupied the West Bank…
The only real way forward is to neuter the firebrands and rabble raises, who are predominantly men, on both sides…
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 23:33 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
The only real way forward is to neuter the firebrands and rabble raises, who are predominantly men, on both sides…
A bit sexist, but broadly true. One obvious solution would be war crimes tribunals, but Israel ignores the ICC as do the US and Russia. Sanctions could work, but they haven't against Russia, Iran, DPRK and can also be illegal under anti-BDS legislation. But again this is the problem. If war crimes aren't prosecuted, then there's no real incentive to stop committing them. Short of a coup in Israel, they can't do anything either because Israel has declared war, so Bibi's existing legal problems, as well as any future ones are currently on hold.
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Monday 23rd October 2023 06:25 GMT Zolko
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
I would have expected them to clean Gaza out to the last Palestinian by either killing or forcibly deporting them
so you acknowledge that you think that Israel is the same type of criminal state ready for mass murdering as the Nazis were ? You should be careful, such discourse can land you in uncomfortable places
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Monday 23rd October 2023 07:06 GMT amanfromMars 1
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
so you acknowledge that you think that Israel is the same type of criminal state ready for mass murdering as the Nazis were ? You should be careful, such discourse can land you in uncomfortable places ....... Zolko
Who would venture that such actions are not worthy of an uncomfortable place, Zolko?
Here’s some not entirely to be unexpected news of some possibly quite devastating collateral damage with Great Game changing possibilities/opportunities to boot and praise or lament giving life and revolutionary zeal to ......... https://www.zerohedge.com/political/i-will-never-vote-biden-michigan-muslims-betrayed-blank-check-backing-israel ..... if one is content with the obvious creative failures of the current status quo .
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 19:03 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
> While Hamas wantonly and maliciously targets civilians
One of the purposes of having Reservists and National Service is to permit military personnel (both present and future) to hide in the civilian population.
It is notable that Israel isn’t disclosing how many of its “civilian” casulties are military personnel hiding behind the fig leaf of civilian life…
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Sunday 22nd October 2023 23:27 GMT Jellied Eel
Re: While Cosgrave is, of course, formally 'right'...
It is notable that Israel isn’t disclosing how many of its “civilian” casulties are military personnel hiding behind the fig leaf of civilian life…
That isn't really relevant. They were mostly non-combatants, and if they weren't active duty, they count as civilians. There were also other war crimes committed, ie 'perfidy', or Hamas terrorists dressing up as IDF troops. It's one of those smaller details that's routinely ignored. So again in Ukraine, international volunteers have been wearing their national flags on their uniforms, which is contrary to the laws of war given flags on uniforms identify the nationality of the beligerants.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
