But the submission is well documented, well argued, well sourced, shows a clear pattern that has existed for decades, and contains multiple statements from Israeli leadership that clearly shows intent.
And on the other hand, we’ve got a two-word-rebuttal, that doesn’t address the submission at all.
…yet another journalist killed today. I think that was three so far in the last 24 hours.
Nermin Haboush.
Jaber Abu Hadrous
Ahmad Khair al-Din
That’s (at least) 108 journalists killed so far. All three of the latest deaths happened in their family homes (like most of the other deaths) , along with members of their family.
I didn’t realize that there was a new modern twist on the blood libel canard. I get it, it’s really just a matter of increased scale and the use modern techniques.
I dunno. I think when you’ve killed 1% of the population, herded the rest into smaller and smaller territories, destroyed most of the homes and infrastructure of the entire region, and created conditions where outright famine is just around the corner, it’s not “libel” to say that it looks like you are committing ethnic cleansing. Even if that’s not the goal, it sure looks like that’s what is actually happening.
Japan was an actual nation state that declared war on us. Gaza is not and did not. That’s one big difference. Another is that the Axis powers were potentially an existential threat to the US and other allied powers. Gaza and even Hamas are certainly not for Israel.
The real existential threat to Israel is the horrendous mismanagement by their government, up to and likely including this war. I don’t buy that the extreme right has zero influence in how the IDF runs and how it performs in war - the government has been lead by the extreme right for many years, and it’s not credible that the IDF has not been impacted at all by this long term leadership. Skepticism is more than warranted IMO.
For sure it has; that is not the claim I made. That’s not the claim being made. If you want examples of ways that the right hurts the IDF both in effectiveness and morality, there’s a great example of that from upthread. The guy you brought up earlier, who shot a civilian who had shot a terrorist - he was originally rejected by the IDF for being one of these “hilltop youth” we’ve mentioned, just like years ago Ben Gvir was rejected for being too much of a fanatic to serve in the IDF.
But unlike back when Ben Gvir was a young boy dreaming of killing Arabs, nowadays there are fanatics like Ben Gvir in Parliament, and through their odious influence programs like the one that recruited Aviad Frija came about. To my understanding, he isn’t a normal soldier - as a “hilltop youth” he isn’t eligible to be one.
Instead, he was recruited as part of a program where the IDF brings in external commanders and then recruits units of these fanatic settlers to use as scouts (since they know the West Bank very well). In theory, this is meant to be a way to “rehabilitate” them, but in practice, they tend to continue acting like terrorists while wearing the uniform. They’re an unmitigated disaster, and one of many examples of ways that the political right has managed to poison the IDF.
These facts don’t make the war to destroy Hamas in Gaza Bibi’s war, or a right wing war, or a genocidal war.
I agree. But these facts make success in this war (and the aftermath) much, much harder, and mean that greater scrutiny is warranted. How much of the IDF’s leadership, and how many of their mid-level commanders, share some of these extreme right-wing views? I’m sure it’s not zero percent. And it makes me wonder if this IDF is even capable of justly prosecuting this just war. An extreme example to compare would be a southern police force during Jim Crow investigating serious crimes that may have been perpetrated by Black Americans within the local community. Even if the crimes were real and terrible, there’s little chance that the police force’s investigation would proceed without bias (and likely without serious abuses). The IDF probably isn’t quite that compromised, but how compromised is it? I don’t know. We may not know for months or longer. But I don’t think it’s credible that none of the numerous tragic incidents involving ordinary Gazans aren’t impacted by these sorts of elements. Hopefully it’s very few. But it might be very many, and I don’t think you’d know it.
Also, separately, I think Bibi wants to make this his war, and a right-wing war, and a war to keep him in power. Hopefully he won’t succeed, but he’s (unfortunately) a very skilled politician.
…an article by Prof Devi Sridhar, the chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, on some of the potential long-term affects of the siege:
From the SA submission to the International Court:
The sheer scale of the deliberate destruction of the cultural legacy of the Palestinian people is astounding. There is no rebuilding this.
And immediately after reading this, I saw this video that was filmed, edited, and uploaded by IDF soldiers that showed them blowing up a Mosque: (Link to a reshare on Twitter)
And I’m like, if you are going to be filming your warcrimes, do you really want one of the videos presented to the International Criminal Court be one of you mugging for the camera while pulling down your pants and pretending to take a shit?
Hamas faced one election over a decade ago and has since been propped up by numerous other powers including the Netanyahu-led Israeli government. The claim to Gaza by Gazans is self explanatory, and if you don’t accept it, it’s not worth discussing with you.
Any “claim” to any land that any country on Earth claims is complete and utter horseshit. If you needed a “claim” to have a country that’streated as sovereign by the international community, there certainly wouldn’t be a United States, or a Canada, or an Australia, or a New Zealand, or…
And does any country on Earth answer the question of “which China is China” based on a sober assessment of which country has the more legitimate historical “claim”, as opposed to geopolitical concerns?
Like everything else, possession is 9/10ths of the law. There are Palestinians in Gaza; at the moment they are suffering the same fate that every other stateless people suffers, to one extent or another. The people of Gaza need a government for the same reason anyone else does: to provide basic services, to protect them from external threats, and to police bad actors within. And they’re people who live in Gaza, so that’s where that government should be (along with the West Bank).
Even if Hamas is out of the picture fanatics like Ben Gvir and Smotrich will still do everything they can to prevent the Gazans from exercising any of their rights.
The people propping up Hamas militarily is Iran. Netanyahu and the Israeli government were not doing this. The blockade by Egypt and Israel was because of this.
It’s an absurd claim to say Israel was propping up their enemy. And the idea that Hamas is some outside group separate from Palestinians is too simplistic. They came from and are a part of the people of Gaza. To the extent they can be separated out remains to be seen.