Biden supports the IDF:
“Hamas tried to sneak its fighters out of the Gaza Strip in ambulances that evacuated dozens of wounded Palestinians to Egypt earlier this week, a senior Biden administration official said Friday.”
The two paragraphs that follow the one you quoted paint a different picture:
Then Biden can show the evidence.
Also, “sneaking off to Egypt” was not the narrative the IDF was pushing when it said
An IDF aircraft struck an ambulance that was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone
The clear intention there being to imply those Hamas fighters were about to engage the encircling forces.
If you read the actual article, it seems like it was wounded Hamas fighters that were going to be transported to Egypt, not active combatants. That’s all the US admin is saying.
Wounded Hamas fighters would be subject to proper treatment under the Conventions, and would not be considered legitimate targets for attack. If the IDF blew up the ambulance because it had Hamas wounded on it, that would be a clear war crime.
That’s an example of the US army screwing up, looking internally, deciding it screwed up, and apologizing for it. Israel does that plenty. For example they just did it the other day when an artillery strike on Hezbollah forces killed a Reuters journalist (a photographer IIRC?). Israel apologized for that mistake, just like the US apologized in your link.
You think the IDF doesn’t review its own actions just like the US Army does?
If the bombing of Jabalia was not justified then sure you might expect Israel to say “sorry. That was our bad” just like the US did in your link. In the situation that it was justified, I am not expecting Israel to give the public a full intelligence briefing to prove it.
And by the way, the case described in your link isn’t all peaches and unicorns either:
I absolutely agree that the IDF should continue to review its own actions, and continue to step up and admit mistakes it makes, especially if they cost lives. Nothing is beyond review.
Presuming that those people can get to a spot from which they can fire at Hamas without killing a whole shitload of people on the way.
Your suggested course is to find some way of humanely fixing this mess when, as you acknowledge, trained people have been trying to do so for decades, but failing. – I tried to quote that, but this thread went wonky on me again.
I would love to have magical aliens appear who could sort through everybody in the region, while hurting none of them; remove all the ones on all sides who are determined to murder the others; and set them all on some magical alternative planet where they could just murder each other – or on a dozen alternative planets where they could all live separately and peace might last until, inevitably, they started to schism. But those aliens aren’t going to show up. And a magical solution that gets rid of Hamas while not killing anybody else isn’t going to magically appear, either.
– Between the frustration of this conversation, and the frustration of trying to deal with the software glitch repeatedly making it impossible for me to reply in this thread, I’m out.
No, just going by the general lethality of the two methods. The only way guns are going to match bombs is if the IFD deliberately targeted a lot of civilians with them.
I think you have your posters confused.
Holy excluded middle-man of straw, Batman!
No-one, but no-one, thinks or has said it can be done “while not killing anybody else”.
Don’t Do War Crimes =/= Absolutely Zero Civilian Casualties.
As i see it, the US initially lied about that airstrike, then changed its lie, and finally apologized. It did that because a lot of people pointed fingers and said “that looks wrong”.
The people pointing fingers are an important part of the process. I don’t believe for a minute that the US would have admitted error and apologized if not for those finger-pointers.
I agree, but if commentators expect to have any influence on IDF tactics, the finger-pointing must be framed in a context of acknowledging that no nation on earth would tolerate the continued existence of Hamas next door, that the continued existence of Hamas and its ilk is the greatest threat to the long term well being of the Palestinian people, and that what we’re discussing is a better way of getting rid of the Hamas regime that causes less harm to Palestinian civilians.
If the finger pointing at Israel is framed as though the fundamental problem is that Israelis are all genocidal maniacs and that if Israel just stopped the suffering would end, Israel are simply going to ignore you.
And I have no problem with that. The Israeli press, especially more left wing publications, is certainly not afraid to criticize Netanyahu, his government, the emergency Unity government, or the IDF.
Because I support the IDF, I strongly support this process because when it functions correctly it eliminates bad actors within the army and strengthens the IDF’s ability to defend Israel.
What I do take issue with is the Hamas-driven narrative that Israel is practicing indiscriminate terror bombing. Comparing Israeli bombing in Gaza to WW2’s strategic bombing campaigns or even more ludicrously, the atomic bombs, is absolutely laughable, and demonstrates one of three possibilities: a complete lack of understanding of the IDF’s behavior in Gaza, a complete lack of understanding of strategic bombing, or dishonest pro-Hamas propaganda.
Exactly this.
Not sure if this was posted upthread, but the NYT/Yahoo reports that a lot of liberal American Jews now find themselves strangely watching Fox News more than other outlets because of a more pro-Israel stance.
I just feel so sick. Politically, I’ve always been quite liberal. But I have a LOT of Israeli friends and relatives, and I can’t help but think primarily of their safety.
It’s awful.
Two of my friends on Facebook are both union leaders that I’ve worked closely with. One is an American Jew, and the other is a Muslim married to a Palestinian man. They’ve both posted heartbreaking stories, and both are calling for a ceasefire, precisely because of their worries for safety.
I know there are people hellbent on revenge, and motivated by hatred and rage. These people exist in the pro-Israel and the anti-Israel camps. There are also people motivated by a desire to see the bloodshed end but who think that violence now is necessary to lasting peace; these people exist in both camps. And there are people who just want peace and who think that the current level of violence isn’t the path toward peace. I don’t think such people exist in the anti-Israel camp–but in the anti-Israel camp there are people who think that current peace will lead to a greater chance for an anti-Israel bloody outcome eventually.
I think the only dim light at the end of the tunnel is that this is so awful, with more immediate publicity of every aspect of the tragedy through modern media, that there’s a slim chance that it might finally create the impetus on all sides to push toward (and accept) a two-state solution after Hamas are removed. But I don’t know what we do about the rest of the death cult who are determined to avoid peace at all costs.
They’re not supervillains; their primary power is in their ability to persuade others to join their cult. We gotta make the alternatives to their cult look much better.
Mercy, and not vengeance, will be the means to do that. The more that folks focus on vengeance, the easier the cultists will find recruitment.
Here’s the way I think about it:
Israel knows that civilian deaths are Hamas’ primary weapon. The playbook has been in place for decades: Commit atrocities in Israel, then prepare to flood the world with anti-Semitic propaganda and horrific images of dead children and babies to turn world opinion against Israel when the inevitable counterattack comes.
They have done this repeatedly in the past, because it works. They are taking advantage of the widespread antisemitism that still exists in many parts of the world.
Israel knows this. They know that civilian casualties work against their goals. But Hamas knows that Israel knows this, so they force Israel’s hand by launching attacks from civilian areas, building command structures inside hospitals and schools, refusing to let civilians leave, etc. This is ALL on them.
I will point out that a ‘cease fire’ now is a huge win for Hamas, and a validation of the strategy of weaker powers using civilians as shields against stronger powers - at least ones that live by western morals. It sure didn’t stop the destruction of Grozny, Aleppo, Mariupol, or many other civilian areas in the modern era, and the ‘peace’ movement was surprisingly silent over most of those.
It’s only when Jews do it that the world seems to become enraged. But if you want to see civilians as human shields become a common wartime tactic, by all means advocate for a cease fire. Because if Hamas wins this round, expect to see a lot more of these tactics. Israel needs to destroy Hamas completely to invalidate this tactic, or civilians will be at risk wherever there is anymmetric conflict.
I don’t think anyone is claiming that Israelis are all genocidal maniacs, but a subset may be.
No one in the thread has attempted to explain a couple of the Israeli Prime Minister’s actions, which could be interpreted as genocidal.
Firstly, “The New Middle East” map, with no Palestinian West Bank or Gaza Strip, which are instead shown as being part of Israel.
Secondly, Netanyahu’s invocation of the nation of Amalek.
Three of the 613 commandments in the Torah relate to the people called the Amalekites.
In the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible), Shmuel I (I Samuel) - Chapter 15, it says:
So the Amalekites are a people that Jews are commanded by God to commit genocide against, slaying “both man and woman, infant and suckling”.
What did Netanyahu intend to convey when he invoked Amalek as Israeli troops prepared to enter Gaza?
This is an example of pure propaganda. Stores and family businesses and families are wiped out in EVERY war. It’s nearly unavoidable, and totally unavoidable if the fighting is ocurring in civilian areas.
So this photo teaches us nothing. It tells us nothing about how Israel is carrying out the war, other than that there IS a war going on. These stories are intended to elicit emotional responses against Israel, and that’s all.
I don’t know who you think you’re arguing with. I have detected zero sympathy for Netanyahu or the Israeli right in this thread, so nobody here is going to “explain” what Netanyahu meant any more than we’re going to explain what Trump meant in his last vitriolic racist tweet. If it makes you happy, start a poll where the two options are “Fuck Netanyahu” and “Other”.
I am curious why famas expects a cease fire when they are still holding hostages.
Perhaps I should rephrase that. I am curious why some people expect Israel to agree to a cease fire while hostages are still being held by hamas.