Haha! Great joke, there.
“Free of semantic burdens”…
Hilarious!
Is this the Harun Al Rashid Street massacre at the food aid trucks, or a different one?
…yeah, that one. It was just developing when I posted.
So naturally the first thing Bibi did when the massacre is bring the opposition into the cabinet and exclude Smotrich and Ben-Gvir from it.
There are a lot of convolutions required to make such a proposition work out logically. More reasonable (but hardly as condemnatory toward Israel) is that the Israeli government would rather not have restored an Israeli presence in Gaza, and were happy for Gazan Palestinians to live their lives and willing to tolerate Hamas exercising control there as long as there was not a clear and present danger to Israelis from it, but 10/7/2023 has proven that Hamas’s continued existence will always make for a clear and present danger and there is no way to keep their citizens safe other than eradicating Hamas, despite the necessary collateral damage.
The IDF has actually reporting doing many such things, but many people knee-jerk disbelieve anything the IDF says, so it would not be very effective propaganda.
Speaking of convoluted, I am fascinated at the pretzel twisting going on in this thread whenever there is criticism of Israel. You asked why Israel is acting in this manner now when they haven’t previously. I’m not looking to create some conspiracy theory here - but I think there are two distinct reasons why Israel is doing things differently this time. 1. It is the biggest attack on Israeli civilians in fifty years, which in turn has generated their biggest military response. 2. Netanyahu is not above doing anything he has to in order to stay in power.
I’m not saying that Bibi was just waiting for a terror attack to unleash the IDF on Gaza. On the other hand, I wouldn’t put it past him to see which way the opinion polls were going in October and decide to ride that wave as long as he can. Similarly, I don’t think that Israel and the IDF have some master plan for eliminating Palestinians as much as they just place zero value on their lives. They take no consideration whatsoever in limiting casualties and treat civilians in the same way they would a tree or a bush a Hamas fighter was hiding behind, as a temporary obstacle to be eliminated.
… Israel has taken two competing stances on what happened during what some are calling the flour massacre this morning:
On the one hand, they admit they fired at the crowd because they “endangered” IDF soldiers. On the other, they claim the deaths were caused by a stampede and people being run over by trucks. Israeli Government Spokesman Eylon Levy says:
It is unclear at the moment who sent in the aid trucks as WHO and the UN have suspended all aid to the north. From this article, it seems they were private contractors coordinated by the IDF:
As a response to this incident, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir said this (google translate, may not be entirely accurate)
This incident once again makes further aid to the north untenable. The goal of Israel here is still to drive everyone out of northern Gaza. Reports that Gazans in the north received phone calls telling them once again to evacuate to the south, “ordering them to evacuate through Al Rasheed Streets”, (the area where this incident happened today) to Al-Mawasi (the barren strip of land with almost nothing there that Israel have been telling people to evacuate to for months) However there isn’t a corridor to the south any more, and anyone attempting that journey will risk getting shot.
In which case, you’re not disagreeing with me about the Israeli motive. And your reason # 1 in the prior paragraph makes sense when framed as a self-defense measure rather than as intentional expansionism, which is also the position I’d taken. However, others in this thread, notably @Crane, do seem to think those things.
…because at this point, the “motive” doesn’t really matter.
What matters are the actions. And the actions are genocidal in nature. Israeli leadership are on record making statements of genocidal intent.
The tactics and the strategy: destruction of the healthcare system, forced relocation of nearly 2 million people, destruction of over 80% of homes, starvation, these aren’t “self-defence” measures by any stretch of the imagination.
Its ethnic cleansing.
There might not be a “master plan” for eliminating Palestinians. But the plan they have undertaken will result in one of either three things:
- Palestinians forced to leave Gaza
- Those that remain will live under a brutal occupation
- They die
It’s the actions that matter here.
It does if that’s the point I’m responding to when I respond to a particular post.
I also disagree with most else of what you just wrote, but given that my perspective mostly comes from sources you have already dismissed as unreliable, I’m not going to engage.
If by motive you mean that the Israeli military actions in Gaza were triggered by the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks, then yes we are in agreement. But of course nothing is that simple when Israel and Palestine are involved. There are those in Israel, including some elected officials, who do want to eliminate the Palestinian holdings. And I’m certain that number grew following 10/7.
I am also much more cynical than you apparently about Bibi and his pals. There are probably 100 post across this site since 10/7 about how horrible Bibi is, and how he is going to get the boot as soon as the war is over. But any suggestion that he could be callous enough to keep the war going on for his political purposes gets tut tutted. The man was trying to overturn the entire Israeli judicial system, do you think he really cares if another 30/40/50,000 Palestinians are killed if he can stay in power?
…it doesn’t in the fuller context of the post that you responded to, but didn’t fully quote.
Try me. What sources do you have that contradict the statements of genocidal intent? I’ve literally just quoted the Minister of National Security who today called for stopping all humanitarian aid to Gaza.
So what sources do you have that Ben-Gvir didn’t say these things? Are you disputing that Israel shut down the Gaza healthcare system? That they aren’t using starvation as a weapon? That they didn’t force nearly 2 million people out of their homes, and now 1.5 million people are now concentrated in Rafah?
What exactly are you disagreeing with? I’m perfectly willing to read (and potentially dismantle) whatever your sources might have to say. But I’d have to know what they were first.
…this video gives important context, especially from the international editor Lindsay Hilsum from 4 minutes into the video:
In summary:
- humanitarian agencies haven’t been able to get aid trucks through to the north in a month
- because of that, malnutrition rates have skyrocketed, agencies have never seen rates climb so quickly before
- parents are absolutely desperate to get food
- Hamas are no longer effectively the government in the north any more
- The police have “melted away” because they are afraid of getting targeted
- This means there is no security for the trucks
“People that are desperate for food to feed their children, there’s noone to stop them doing this. Thats what anyone would do. That’s what you would do.”
The video shows people being taken to Kamal Adwan, so just to explain the different levels of healthcare available in Gaza at the moment.
There are hospitals that now operate effectively as first aid stations now. They can treat injuries. Patch them up as well as they can. But they can’t offer surgical procedures or any other level of care one would expect from a hospital. I suspect thats where Kamal Adwan is right now.
You’ve got hospitals like Al Shifa, that were previously occupied, then abandoned, and have been struggling to reestablish services, and can do a lot more than just basic first aid, are classified as “functional”, but really aren’t “fully functional” by any stretch of the imagination.
You’ve got hospitals like Nasser, which is effectively under occupation by IDF forces and is ‘out of service.’ They are trying to evacuate patients, those who remain report they have limited access to food and water, and conditions are appalling.
You have hospitals like the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital, which had to be abandoned in November when it ran out of full, then was demolished by IDF soldiers by bulldozers earlier this month.
And then you’ve got the “functional” hospitals, like the Mohammed Yousef El-Najar in Rafah, that are operating well over capacity.
The latest flash update still lists only 23 out of 36 hospitals as non-functional, so Kamal Adwan, Nasser and Al-Awda are still considered “functional” at the moment as per the last assessment of the healthcare system.
Found an article from reddit about how arbitrary and overly restrictive to the point of ridiculousness the Israeli process for vetting humanitarian aid is. It’s hard to imagine that a government organization that was genuinely trying to allow as much aid as possible in with reasonable restrictions would make it as hard to do as the article is alleging. Really if the article characterizes it accurately the only reasonable conclusion is that Israel wants “minimal aid” as Netanyahu says.
Reddit comment with some highlights, although the whole article is good.
Air and Space Forces magazine 01 Mar 2024
USAF Will Conduct Humanitarian Airdrops into Gaza
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President Joe Biden announced March 1 the U.S. will conduct humanitarian airdrops into Gaza. The U.S. Air Force will conduct those airdrops, Air & Space Forces Magazine understands.
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“The planning will be robust on this,” Kirby said. “I know that we will learn from the first airdrops, and this will be a part of a sustained effort. This isn’t going to be one and done.”
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The U.S. Air Force has previously flown C-17s filled with humanitarian aid into Egypt that was then delivered into Gaza in United Nations trucks via a land crossing. Kirby said the U.S. also hoped to deliver “large amounts” of aid by sea and expand land routes.
I think it would be better if they loose dropped the food like they did in Afghanistan. The current method of dropping pallets would allow Hamas to gain control of the food easier than individual packets spread out over a large area. It would also stop the slow distribution from the trucks to people lining up for it. They could be out foraging for it instead of a distribution choke point.
Ball’s in your court, Hamas.
Like the Oxfam guy said,
airdrops are good photo opportunities but a lousy way to deliver aid.
And even then, the Israelis don’t like it:
“Today, American and Jordanian planes dropped additional aid throughout the Strip. This is an effort that makes the fighting possible,”
Which tells you the actual Israeli attitude to any aid at all, and explains why they put so many stumbling blocks in the way of any aid that goes through them:
CNN has also reviewed documents compiled by major participants in the humanitarian operation that list the items most frequently rejected by the Israelis. These include anesthetics and anesthesia machines, oxygen cylinders, ventilators and water filtration systems.
Other items that have ended up in bureaucratic limbo include dates, sleeping bags, medicines to treat cancer, water purification tablets and maternity kits.
There’s a lot of air between “accepted” (the headline) and “more or less acepted” (the actual text of the article). Would be interesting to see the full deal on offer.
ETA: And it looks like this is the Hamas response:
That’s good.
File under not helping, some right wing Israelis broke into Gaza to build a new settlement.
Maybe we could lock these pant loads into a box with an equal number of Hamas soldiers to fight it out. And then dump the box into the Med while they are busy.