The UN secretary General hasn’t said its a genocide because it isnt a genocide. The ICC would have proof beyond a reasonable doubt to declare it a genocide if it was a genocide. You’ve told me many many times and I still don’t believe your hyperbole.
80% of the Herero were killed, less than 1% of the Gaza population have died, him saying the Palestinians are suffering Genocide is dishonest.
No it’s not because its cheapening the real devastating consequences of genocide in action against the Yazidis, and puts them in the same category as the Gazans, who suffered far less than their Yazidi counterparts, you don’t see Gazan women carted off to be sex slaves by the IDF, their children forcibly converted to Judaism or the male population killed off en masse.
Not necessarily, at least not in the same way. I see it more like Somalia, with Hamas as the reigning set of warlords. It’s more that they have the most guns and most trained killers. Any sort of polling in the midst of this carnage is as meaningless as asking a grieving parent if the suspect in their child’s murder deserves to be tortured to death.
That Hamas is a death cult and perpetrated mass rape and murder doesn’t give the IDF license to destroy Gaza, and especially not to do so with such incompetence, essentially strengthening Hamas, with absolutely no thought or plan for the future.
The question is what will happen once Hamas has been knocked down. The only way to knock it out is to replace it. Netanyahu doesn’t have a plan for this second stage; I hope his war cabinet either forces him to implement one or (at this point the preferable option) topples the government.
To me, this is the only real question. Sadly, I have little hope that there will be a substantive change in the Israeli government or policy to get to that next stage. And that is the origin of much of my protesting against Israel’s current actions in Gaza. If there is no practicable plan for what comes after defeating Hamas, then all of the current killing and destruction is truly meaningless. If the destruction of Hamas now only leads to the creation of Hamas 2.0, and the next round of fighting in a few years, then Israel may as well stop the killing now and save their ammo for the next war.
Well, if you want to bolster the right wing in Israel, I can’t think of a better way to do it than to show Israelis that people in the West support Hamas’ maximalist demands like “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea”.
Despite the college protestors’ best efforts, I remain hopeful that Netanyahu’s days in office are numbered.
They won the legislative elections in 2006 and since then consolidated their position, there is some ground of support for their hardliners Islamist government in Gaza.
As for Somalia example, no they’re not like some warlord with the most guns, they’re ideologues on a par with Al Shabab.
Hamas after October 7th has proven to be an intolerable threat to the Israeli population, maybe they should have thought about that before launching that attack, they’ve now given the Israeli government Carte Blanche to do what’s necessary to destroy them.
I certainly wouldn’t say that Israel has carte blanche to do as it wishes in Gaza. It should still do whatever it can to avoid civilian casualties.
What we should not do is pretend that it is possible to strike at Hamas without hitting civilians - Hamas operates in ways designed specifically to ensure that it isn’t - nor should we grant Hamas immunity from reprisal so long as they can find some civilians to hide behind.
OK, let’s say that Bibsy is out - who is next? Are they any better or worse than Netanyahu, and what is their plan for Palestine? I can see a world where Netanyahu is out, but there aren’t any real changes. Similar, I may add, to I can see a world where Trump is unelectable, but the Republican party continues to parrot his policies. Particularly as the population of ultra-orthodox, ultra conservative Israelis is growing.
I will also add that I appreciate that it takes both sides to make something work, but I am looking towards Israel to start that discussion.
But they’re not doing what’s necessary. They’re fumbling around like the Keystone Cops with high explosives, killing thousands and accomplishing virtually nothing positive.
Netanyahu’s most likely replacement by far is Benny Gantz.
Personally, I really like Yair Golan, who just smashed the Labor primary with 95% of the vote and who is trying to rally the Israeli left and make up for the losses in popularity they’ve suffered since peace talks failed and the Second Intifada blew up in their face.
I hope he can get enough of the vote that his party (Labor now, but he has been part of other Left leaning parties and brought some of them in with him, so this could be a sort of new Labor party that unifies a fractured left) is a major part of the next coalition, rather than being stuck in the opposition. Hoping for him to be Prime Minister as of the next election is probably too optimistic, though.
Regardless, both Gantz and Gallant (the two ministers in Netanyahu’s cabinet) are fracturing with Netanyahu specifically over what to do after the war.
Here’s what Gantz has demanded by June 8:
The emphasized bits tell you what Gantz wants: to cooperate with the American led plan, of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia while building a coalition of Arab and European forces to manage Gaza temporarily, with the end goal being the establishment of a civilian government.
No, not everyone. Just the people repeating Hamas buzzwords specifically chosen to invalidate the very idea of a Jewish state in Israel, like “settler colonialism” or “imperialism”.
Indeed. It’s deeply dishonest, and demonstrates that @Babale is fundamentally unwilling to understand what Israel’s critics are saying. We’re all either pro-Hamas, or useful idiots; there’s no room for principled, thoughtful condemnation of Israel’s military approach. On this subject, I’ve learned that Babale is not rational. I hope that changes.
Oh, good, another multi-decade peace keeping mission for the US to fail at. We just got out of Afghanistan after twenty years of not making any real difference, but I’m sure this time it’ll be different.
