# What were you THINKING? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 13, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532 "2023-10-13T19:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 406
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8492 "2026-11-05T16:08:48Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > AES was not vocally anti-Israel. He absolutely was. Like Alessan said, he’s allowed to be, but it’s hardly surprising when the group that lobbies for positive Israeli-American relations would not be a fan of that. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8493 "2026-11-05T16:08:53Z")
That was actually a rhetorical question. The correct answer was “They’re going to fucking hate Israel, obviously”. Not sure why you guys think making voters hate you is a good plan. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8494 "2026-11-05T16:09:35Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > I don’t think that’s a good tell. There are lots of good reasons to dislike AIPAC. On its own maybe not, but in this case, it’s paired with the insistence that Israel needs to be wiped off the map. Not that it needs to stop committing atrocities (which I’d heartily agree with) but that it should be forcibly removed. **That** is certainly a huge tell. (I also realize that I’m preaching to the choir because you brought up that concern before I did.) 😆 ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8495 "2026-11-05T16:10:26Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > That was actually a rhetorical question. The correct answer was “They’re going to fucking hate Israel, obviously”. We’re not the ones telling them that Israel is more important than any of their issues. If they didn’t talk about Israel, we wouldn’t be talking about them (unless it was positively about their economic platform). > [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Not sure why you guys think making voters hate you is a good plan. I have no confusion at all about why populists think that making their supporters hate us is a good plan, which is why they won’t shut up about us. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8496 "2026-11-05T16:11:38Z")
Is this thread going to turn into the 5,000th “Israel vs Palestine” thread on this board?! I guess we’ll find out after the next 200 posts that are going to show up within the hour. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8497 "2026-11-05T16:17:59Z")
But this is kind of a sidetrack because AES, at least, is actually an non-Zionist. AIPAC also attacks Zionists, including Jewish ones like Brad Lander, who are insufficiently supportive of Netanyahu. In 2022, AIPAC endorsed 120 sitting Congressmembers for re-election, including 37 who had voted not to certify Joe Biden’s election. Why would any American support a group who thinks that a particular foreign policy stance is more important than _American democracy itself??_ ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8498 "2026-11-05T16:21:02Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > Is this thread going to turn into the 5,000th “Israel vs Palestine” thread on this board?! I guess we’ll find out after the next 200 posts that are going to show up within the hour. Thank you! There are plenty of other threads on this board for all that. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8499 "2026-11-05T16:22:50Z")
You can take it to another thread if you want. All I wanted to do is call out the _obvious_ falsehood that AES was not vocally anti-Israel. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8500 "2026-11-05T16:24:26Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > Is this thread going to turn into the 5,000th “Israel vs Palestine” thread on this board?! It would be nice if you could have called out the obvious antisemite (who, to get the thread back on track, is now advocating for ethnically cleansing Israelis to Brazil of all places) without someone needing to jump in with “actually, he has a point about a small aspect of what he’s saying”; but it is what it is. ---
**Author:** ![wguy123](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wguy123/32/3161_2.png) [@wguy123](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wguy123)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8501 "2026-11-05T16:25:49Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Thank you! There are plenty of other threads on this board for all that. DITTO! ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8502 "2026-11-05T16:27:19Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > > [@puzzlegal](#): > > > > He’s not the only one on the “AIPAC is uniquely bad because they lobby the US govt” hobby horse. And yes, i consider it a “tell” for antisemitism. > > I don’t think that’s a good tell. There are lots of good reasons to dislike AIPAC. They don’t advocate for Israel’s national interests, they advocate for an extreme right-wing interpretation of Israel’s national interests, such as when they opposed Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran. I do. I happen to dislike AIPAC , too. And they have a catchier name (or at least, a more visible name) than whatever groups lobby the US government to keep drug prices ridiculously high. But when you focus on AIPAC as a uniquely bad group, and as the only lobbyist that is problematic… I do think that’s a tell for antisemitism. Even without the “and we need to drive out all the Israelis” bit. Which is just a call for genocide. That’s not just a “tell”, that’s a shout. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8503 "2026-11-05T16:28:28Z")
Oops, sorry, i replied without reading all the rest of the thread. But i wanted to focus on our latest… Um, person who should probably have his own thread, and not be in this one, actually. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8504 "2026-11-05T16:30:27Z")
[Here’s Abdul’s Senate campaign homepage.](https://abdulforsenate.com/about/) Literally not a single word about Israel. Lots of stuff about fighting Musk and Trump, affordability, all his accomplishments as Wayne County Health Director, how he literally wrote a book on single-payer health care and was appointed to Biden’s health policy taskforce, how he captained his high school football team and played lacrosse for the University of Michigan, and oh yeah, the whole Rhodes Scholar thing. Now let’s all watch Babale pivot from “He kept relentlessly attacking Israel” to “He’s concealing his anti-Israel views because he is a sneaky antisemite”. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8505 "2026-11-05T16:31:34Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > It would be nice if you could have called out the obvious antisemite (who, to get the thread back on track, is now advocating for ethnically cleansing Israelis to Brazil of all places) without someone needing to jump in with “actually, he has a point about a small aspect of what he’s saying”; but it is what it is. It’s P&E. You can’t call out a person’s antisemitism there which is why we’re doing it here. And yeah, “it is what it is” is absolutely correct. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8506 "2026-11-05T16:33:03Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Oops, sorry, i replied without reading all the rest of the thread. But i wanted to focus on our latest… Um, person who should probably have his own thread, and not be in this one, actually. Yeah, he really should. That’s one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen on this board, and I was here before Shodan got banned. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8507 "2026-11-05T16:33:42Z")
> [@Thing.Fish](#): > > Literally not a single word about Israel. Lots of stuff about fighting Musk and Trump, affordability, all his accomplishments as Wayne County Health Director, how he literally wrote a book on single-payer health care and was appointed to Biden’s health policy taskforce, how he captained his high school football team and played lacrosse for the University of Michigan, and oh yeah, the whole Rhodes Scholar thing. > > Now let’s all watch Babale pivot from “He kept relentlessly attacking Israel” to “He’s concealing his anti-Israel views because he is a sneaky antisemite”. Open a thread about it in P&E if you want to have a good faith discussion about this or fuck off and stop trying to bait out yet another fight in yet another unrelated thread. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8508 "2026-11-05T16:35:28Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > It’s P&E. You can’t call out a person’s antisemitism there which is why we’re doing it here. Nothing wrong with you calling him out. It’s just tedious that we need to have someone defending the obvious antisemite’s AIPAC take even while they admit that they’re obviously antisemitic. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8509 "2026-11-05T16:41:37Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I suppose this is the wrong thread for a serious response, but having seen lobbying from the other side (in the insurance industry) I’ve come to understand why it has good features, and isn’t just an unmitigated evil. If anyone starts a thread on that topic, please let me join and I’ll discuss at more length. I forgot to add that I’d love such a discussion and I’d be very curious to see it from the other side. I don’t doubt that there is good done by lobbyists; not all special interest groups are bad. It was probably a mistake to try to steer that thread into a general lobbying direction. With what I knew of the OP that should have been fruitless, and I didn’t think it was a hijack because really, that’s ultimately what the thread was purported to be about (albeit a bit more narrowly), but that thread really probably had no chance to ever be a productive discussion. Trying to sift poison out of the well is stupid and I should have known better. ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8510 "2026-11-05T16:47:57Z")
Hilariously understated moderation in the antisemitic fuck’s thread from What Exit: **Moderating** : Both #Politics & Elections and #Great Debates have been operating under rules you might not be aware of since early 2020. [New Rules for Politics and Elections – January 2020](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/new-rules-for-politics-and-elections-january-2020/845727) _chef’s kiss_ ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532/8511 "2026-11-05T16:55:53Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > On its own maybe not, but in this case, it’s paired with the insistence that Israel needs to be wiped off the map. Not that it needs to stop committing atrocities (which I’d heartily agree with) but that it should be forcibly removed. **That** is certainly a huge tell. I’ve seen folks who believe this state it’s not antisemitic because (1) genocide and (2) because Israel is a colonial power, and these folks are the type who’d ideally boot all white people out of North America too. Among other things, at least. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=405) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-you-thinking/991532.md?page=407)