Discussion for the Israel-Hamas War: A thread in the Pit

[RickJay]

@Pleonast

The real danger to Israel is not Hamas, which can’t do anything more than cause bloodshed

Well, I mean, that’s dangerous. “All they can do is murder Israelis” isn’t a small matter.

[Pleonast]

@RickJay

@Pleonast

The real danger to Israel is not Hamas, which can’t do anything more than cause bloodshed

Well, I mean, that’s dangerous. “All they can do is murder Israelis” isn’t a small matter.  

True. I was talking more about existential threats to Israel. Hamas simply doesn’t have the means to destroy Israel. But Israel could transform itself into something unrecognizable to its founders. And that would be a terrible loss.

It’s similar to the dangers that the U.S. faces. The only thing that threatens our existence is our own internal politics.

[puzzlegal]

@RickJay

It’s this sort of “it’s ours because God said so / here is a thing that happened centuries ago” nonsense that kills people.

It is, but it’s just the “right of return” writ large.

We had some thread recently about taking land (or getting an easement) via adverse possession. And the time frame for that was 18 years. That seems like a reasonable time frame. Maybe 50 years. Or a lifespan. But “my ancestors lived there so i have an inviable right to return there” is a fundamentally problematic idea.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Tweet from the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator at the United Nations:

Martin Griffiths

The Guardian:

The Israeli military has reported a sharp increase in operations against militants in the West Bank since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October.

Last week, the UN rights office warned of “alarming” conditions in the territory, saying that Israeli forces were increasingly using military tactics and weapons in law enforcement operations while settler violence against Palestinian inhabitants, which was already at record levels, had “escalated dramatically”.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Thread from Breaking the Silence, an Israeli veterans’ organization, which discusses the Dahiya Doctrine:

Everyone’s blood is boiling. We all know someone who was murdered, kidnapped, who is still missing. Many are talking about revenge, about erasing Gaza, referring to its residents as “2.5M terrorists,” discussing forcible transfer.

But what’s actually happening on the ground?

Gaza has been under an unprecedented bombardment for a month now. In the first two weeks alone, the Israeli Air Force dropped more bombs on Gaza than the US dropped on Afghanistan in an entire year. One explanation is Israel’s genuine need to remove threats to ground forces, but this doesn’t fully explain the scope of the bombings or their targets.

Our work is based on testimonies given by soldiers. Collecting and verifying these testimonies is a long and complex process, and it will be quite some time before we get a full and accurate picture of what’s happening on the ground. Still, statements made by senior Israeli officials and the extent of the destruction already raise suspicions that the army is following the same doctrine it used in previous operations: The Dahiya Doctrine.

The Dahiya Doctrine was formulated around the 2006 Lebanon War. Its main tenet was: disproportionate attacks, including against civilian structures and infrastructure.

If the doctrine is indeed in play here as it appears to be, then the massive bombings on Gaza in recent weeks are deliberately aimed at damaging infrastructure and property belonging to innocent civilians.

The heavy bombings in the 2006 Lebanon War did not wipe out Hezbollah or neutralize its military capabilities, nor were they supposed to. They were meant to create deterrence. Since then, Hezbollah has grown stronger and is now firing at civilians in northern Israel daily.

In Lebanon, too, we wreaked massive destruction on civilians to buy temporary calm and nothing more.

Israel also used this doctrine during the last ground invasion of Gaza in 2014. Following the war, Gaza residents returned to neighborhoods that were razed to the ground.

Journalists and soldiers who took part in the operation described the enormous damage. Politicians and members of the security establishment waxed victorious, claiming we’d “seared the Palestinian conscience”, meaning every Palestinian will remember exactly who’s in charge, and won’t dare to resist. The last month has proved, once again, that this approach has brought us zero security.

This doctrine is based on the idea of “rounds” of fighting, as they’re referred to in Israel. It’s not meant to be decisive, but to postpone and deter the next, inevitable, round. It looks like our government is choosing to repeat, albeit with greater intensity, what it has unsuccessfully done in previous rounds. The IDF Spokesperson said himself: “The emphasis [during this operation] is on damage and not accuracy.”

This doctrine is also immoral, because “searing consciousness” is achieved through widespread civilian destruction. Tens of thousands of homes in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged. Entire neighborhoods have been erased from the map.

Because under the Dahiya Doctrine, the method is simple: firepower must be used disproportionately; and that’s why the result is always the same – pushing the long-term security farther out of reach in favor of a short-term sense of calm.

Israel went to war because of a criminal, horrific massacre. If we stick to mass civilian destruction in response; if we keep harming a population that has done nothing wrong, a population more than 40% of which is under the age of 15, our only achievement will be perpetuating the cycle of violence and bloodshed. The number of victims is horrifying - more than 1,400 Israelis and over 10,000 Palestinians. Hasn’t enough blood been spilled?

And still, the question remains: what will the day after the war look like? How will our government guarantee us all safety and security? Astoundingly, our Cabinet has decided “not to discuss the fate of the Gaza Strip.” That’s a luxury we can’t afford.

One thing is certain: the answer must take into account a free and safe future for everyone - citizens of Israel, residents of Gaza, and yes, residents of the West Bank too. Otherwise, the next war is only a matter of time.

Breaking the Silence

The Dahiya doctrine, or Dahya doctrine, is a military strategy of asymmetric warfare, outlined by former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of General Staff Gadi Eizenkot, which encompasses the destruction of the civilian infrastructure of regimes deemed to be hostile as a measure calculated to deny combatants the use of that infrastructure and endorses the employment of “disproportionate force” to secure that end.

…

2006 Lebanon War

The first public announcement of the doctrine was made by general Gadi Eizenkot, commander of the IDF’s northern front, in October 2008. He said that what happened in the Dahya (also transliterated as Dahiyeh and Dahieh) quarter of Beirut in 2006 would, “happen in every village from which shots were fired in the direction of Israel. We will wield disproportionate power against [them] and cause immense damage and destruction. From our perspective, these are military bases. […] This isn’t a suggestion. It’s a plan that has already been authorized. […] Harming the population is the only means of restraining Nasrallah.”

According to analyst Gabi Siboni at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies:

“With an outbreak of hostilities [with Hezbollah], the IDF will need to act immediately, decisively, and with force that is disproportionate to the enemy’s actions and the threat it poses.”

Dahiya doctrine

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Whack-a-Mole

(Camp David Accords?..I forget)

I think it was the Oslo Peace Accords I am thinking of.

Israel prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli as a result of that effort.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Fistfights break out in bread lines. Residents wait hours for a gallon of brackish water that makes them sick. Scabies, diarrhea and respiratory infections rip through overcrowded shelters. And some families have to choose who eats.

…

Over half a million displaced people have crammed into hospitals and U.N. schools-turned-shelters in the south. The schools — overcrowded, strewn with trash, swarmed by flies — have become a breeding ground for infectious diseases.

…

“I cannot recognize my own son,” said Fadi Ihjazi. The 3-year-old has lost 5 kilograms (11 pounds) in just two weeks, she said, and has been diagnosed with a chronic intestinal infection.

“Before the war he had the sweetest baby face,” Ihjazi said, but now his lips are chapped, his face yellowish, his eyes sunken.

At shelters, the lack of water makes it hard to maintain even basic hygiene, said Dr. Ali al-Uhisi, who treats patients at one in Deir al-Balah. Lice and chicken pox have spread, he said, and on Wednesday morning alone he treated four cases of meningitis. This week, he’s also seen 20 cases of the liver infection hepatitis A.

…

Sadeia Abu Harbeid, 44, said she missed a chemotherapy treatment for her breast cancer during the second week of the war and can’t find painkillers. Without regular treatments, she says, her chances of survival dim.

She hardly eats, choosing to give most of the little food she has to her 2-year-old. “This existence is a humiliation,” she said.

Fights in bread lines, despair in shelters: War threatens to unravel Gaza's...

[Whack-a-Mole]

Getting weird…

Fights erupt outside Museum of Tolerance after screening of film on Hamas

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Ehud Barak is the joint-most highly decorated soldier in Israel’s history.

Mehdi Hasan

Mehdi Hasan

[Walken_After_Midnight]

(From CNN)

U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken:

“Far too many Palestinians have been killed. Far too many have suffered these past weeks,

“We want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them.

“To that end, we’ll be continuing to discuss with Israel the concrete steps to be taken to advance these objectives.”

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres:

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres has described the situation in Gaza as “a never-ending humanitarian nightmare for civilians”

“Their neighborhoods wiped out. Their loved ones killed. Bombs raining down, while being denied life’s very basics: food, water, medicine, electricity,”

Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights:

“At the moment, nowhere in Gaza is safe, as bombardments are being reported in all parts of the Strip.

…

“The solution to this situation is the end of the occupation, and full respect for the right to self-determination for Palestinians. As I have said time and again, for the violence to end, the occupation needs to end. Member States need to invest all the effort that is necessary into finding a sustainable peace for all Palestinians and Israelis.”

The Biden administration has received stark warnings from American diplomats in the Arab world that its strong support for Israel’s destructive and deadly military campaign in Gaza “is losing us Arab publics for a generation,” according to a diplomatic cable obtained by CNN.

…

“We are losing badly on the messaging battlespace,” reads a Wednesday cable from the US Embassy in Oman, citing conversations with “a wide range of trusted and sober-minded contacts.”

The robust US support for Israel’s actions is being seen, the cable warns, “as material and moral culpability in what they consider to be possible war crimes.”

…

Another cable obtained by CNN from the American embassy in Cairo relayed back to Washington the commentary in a state-run Egyptian newspaper that “President Biden’s cruelty and disregard for Palestinians exceeded all previous US presidents.”

[Walken_After_Midnight]

Arwa Damon

Jamil Dakwar

[Walken_After_Midnight]

The Wall Street Journal reports:

Andrew Restuccia

[Banquet_Bear]

…after a day of attacks by the IDF on hospitals all over Gaza, I’ve been reading credible reports from Al-Shifa that the power has been out for a few hours, that medical staff have been performing manual artificial respiration on some of the premature babies for the last three hours, one has already died, and elsewhere in the hospital a fire has broken out.

Sounds like those who considered Al-Shifa a legitimate target are finally getting what they wanted.

[Dinsdale]

@Pleonast

True. I was talking more about existential threats to Israel. Hamas simply doesn’t have the means to destroy Israel. But Israel could transform itself into something unrecognizable to its founders. And that would be a terrible loss.

It’s similar to the dangers that the U.S. faces. The only thing that threatens our existence is our own internal politics.

Thanks. This sums up my impression as well.

[Walken_After_Midnight]

More statements from Israeli government ministers.

Murtaza Hussain

Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي💙

Hanno Hauenstein

The Nakba:

The Nakba (Arabic: النكبة, romanized: an-Nakbah, lit. ‘the catastrophe’) was the violent displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, and the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The term is used to describe both the events of 1948, as well as the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories (the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) and persecution and displacement of Palestinians throughout the region.

Nakba

In other news…

UN breakdown of casualties - over 8,000 of the Gazan dead are children, women and the elderly:

Nathan Thrall

In London, 300,000 pro-Palestinian protesters marched to call for a ceasefire:

Aaron Bastani

French President Macron calls for ceasefire:

Macron says there is “no justification” for Israel’s current military strategy in Gaza.

“De facto - today, civilians are bombed - de facto. These babies, these ladies, these old people are bombed and killed. So there is no reason for that and no legitimacy. So we do urge Israel to stop."

Yashar Ali 🐘

The story of one Gazan:

Elad Nehorai

Thread

The following is a translation of Israeli activist Ariel Bernstein’s words on the passing of his friend Khalil Abu Yahia, who was killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike along with his wife and daughters. Shared with permission:

“These days, when someone dies, you first have to declare which side of the wall they belong to before being granted permission to be sad.

But on Monday, an exceptionally rare man — who caused no harm to anyone — was killed.

I never met him in person, yet I am saddened by his passing, despite him not being “from our side.”

Khalil was born in Gaza City and has spent his entire life there. His favorite thing in the world was to read, and indeed he was a nonstop reader.

He earned his bachelor’s degree in English literature. He had many dreams, which he was eager to share: dreams of traveling the world, continuing his studies at a university in England where he’d been accepted, and visiting friends from Israel.

More than anything, he dreamed of being free, of breaking free from the visible and invisible fences that entrapped him in Gaza.

When he spoke of freedom, his eyes would light up with a hypnotizing sparkle.

I met him through the ‘Achvat Amim (Solidarity of Nations)’ group, where I spoke about the fighting in Gaza.

I had no idea he’d be a participant; I hadn’t met him.

I spoke of my experience as a combatant in Gaza, and then he joined us via Zoom to share the story of his life as a civilian and peace activist in Gaza.

A life under the Israeli siege and under the Hamas rule.

He described the incomparable difficulties of daily life, the fear of every plane passing overhead & the gaping hole in his heart caused by the death of his friends with each round of combat.

I was astonished by his beaming optimism & charisma, radiating even through the screen.

Afterwards, we stayed in touch via Whatsapp, and I was surprised that he was interested in speaking with me despite my years as a soldier fighting in Gaza.

I was very curious to finally meet a real person who lives there, in that dark and terrifying place.

We started to be friends through messages, I asked how he was, and he how I was. He said that one day we would sit together and drink coffee.

We organized an event together a few months ago at House of Solidarity, and spoke to an audience of about 50 people about life in Gaza.

He was glad that Israelis were interested in hearing his story and learning about Gaza. He spoke with a calm, warm smile and emanated a message of hope.

Throughout the war, we texted constantly.

I was worried about him because I knew he had fled the bombings to the south of the strip, where it was supposed to be safe.

However, Khalil was killed by IDF airstrikes in the Gaza Strip’s south on Monday night, October 30th.

Now that Khalil is gone, it appears that hope has gone with him. But his bright eyes keep shining in my memory.

Two days before he was killed, he wrote to me from his refuge that he hoped we would meet in person one day, and I assured him we will.

We won’t now.

Rest in peace dear friend, you deserved better.”

[Eric1]

Since I don’t know anyone who lives in Israel or the West Bank, I end up trying to imagine what it’s like there. I live a hundred miles from LA so try to picture what it would be like there, if civic emergencies were clustered together and factions got out of control so the military would have to intervene. I guess if a hypothetical LA situation involved most of the buildings obliterated and people homeless it could be maybe about equivalent to the Israel-Hamas war. I could see how solutions would be nonexistent for Israel and Gaza.

[Dorjan]

The IDF is actually in Al-Shifa now, so we shall find out soon enough the extant Hamas was using it (or not, as claimed by some). Posting in here since the MPSIMS thread was closed.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

It does not matter what evidence is found. These days, people are immune to evidence. 36. % of Americans believe in ghosts. More than a quarter believe the positions of stars and planets influences their lives. Homeopathy. Flat earthers. Moon landing deniers. Antivax loons. Etc.

We are in the minority. The reality based community.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Dorjan

The IDF is actually in Al-Shifa now, so we shall find out soon enough the extant Hamas was using it (or not, as claimed by some).

As someone who thinks the jury’s out, I am really wondering what the next 24 hours will bring.

Given the international pressure on Israel to justify this attack on a hospital, I see a few possible outcomes:

1. If Hamas is truly using Shifa or the space under it as HQ, the next 24 hours will bring huge amounts of evidence: videos of weapon stockpiles, arrested/killed Hamas leaders, videos of command centers, seized hard drives, and the like.
2. If Hamas is only using Shifa a little bit, we’ll see small evidence made big: small piles of weapons, a narrow tunnel, killed/arrested Hamas footsoldiers.
3. If Hamas isn’t using Shifa at all, there’ll be very little coming out of IDF about the issue.

It’s possible that something else will happen, but this is what I’m expecting.

@Euphonious_Polemic

36. % of Americans believe in ghosts. More than a quarter believe the positions of stars and planets influences their lives.
    …
    We are in the minority.

Unless you believe in ghosts and astrology, that’s not how percentages work.

[Dorjan]

The BBC has apologised for reporting that Israeli troops were targeting medics and Arab speakers during a raid at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital.

The broadcaster clarified it should have stated that medical teams and translators were assisting the IDF in the operation, a mistake it said was rectified on air minutes later.

No ceasefire or hostage exchange in Gaza 'before Friday'