You don’t get to respond to a tiny fragment of my post and pretend you addressed my point.
I didn’t dispute any of this:
But your allegation that Israel will never allow them to return is outlandish, as is your claim that Israel deliberately targeted their friends and family in order to drive them away.
Eta: not outlandish - Hamas propaganda.
How do you reconcile this being untrue propaganda with the settlements in the West Bank? Other than using bulldozers instead of bombing, it seems pretty much the same to me. The settlers (with the support of the Israeli government) are driving out the Palestinians and annexing the land.
…I’ve been pitted for quoting too much of other peoples posts. So now I only quote what’s relevant. But I have addressed your point.
I stand by what I said, not what you imagined I said.
Again: I’ll stand by what I said, and not your uncharitable interpretation.
I’ve repeatedly said that the settlements are a cancer on Israeli society, that they are one of the biggest dangers to the nation, and that we must evict the settlers as part of a peace process (and ideally as a necesaary step leading to that process rather than as a concession, though this is less realistic politically speaking).
The settlers represent a fringe political movement within Israel that does want to remove the Palestinians from their land. They are terrible people who pose an enormous threat to our national security, and some are straight up terrorists. One of Netanyahu’s many crimes has been pandering to this fringe group to maintain power, which as I’ve said contributed to the current crisis by weakening Israel’s security. And for this may he finally pay the ultimate political price and be driven out of office (and into jail) as soon as possible.
The settlers do not control the IDF or its targeting doctrine. Many of the people who do were, until recently, being accused by the settlers’ representatives of being traitorous bleeding heart lefties who have forgotten what it means to be Jewish and are destroying Israel (their words, not mine).
Then I stand by what I said. They believe this because of Hamas propaganda and because of fringe far right Israelis who irresponsibly echo those sentiments to stir up their anti-Arab base. I want to know why you present it as fact:
I know you feel this way about the settlers. And I agree that they aren’t representative of the larger Israeli population.
But they do exist, and they are being supported by the government. Their terrorism against Palestinians (and Christians) in the West Bank has ramped up in the last month, and there have been no repercussions. If the Israeli government wanted to stop the settlements, they could. Instead, settlements have continued to expand for years now.
So it’s not just Hamas propaganda that Israelis want to annex their land. It is happening now.
FWIW:
The White House’s national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said the U.S. has unspecified intelligence that Hamas and another Palestinian militants use Shifa and other hospitals and tunnels underneath them to support military operations and hold hostages.
The intelligence is based on multiple sources, and the U.S. independently collected the information, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
Kirby said the U.S. doesn’t support airstrikes on hospitals and does not want to see “a firefight in a hospital where innocent people” are trying to get care. - SOURCE
…they believe it because this is what they see is happening to them. They can’t go to work. They can’t earn a living. They are under siege. No power, no water, no food, no medicine, no hospital care. Forced to relocate.
What exactly do you think the endgame is here? Every time I’ve mentioned ending the siege to you here, you’ve said that they can’t, because that would mean rockets could get smuggled in.
So how does the siege end? When do we start to provide the basics of humanity again? You obviously don’t think now is the right time. When is the right time?
But we aren’t having that discussion here. For the last day it seems people have been talking casually about “bombing them into submission.” So what’s the endgame here? How do we go from “bombing them into submission” to letting the Gazans return home?
There is a logical disconnect here. There isn’t an immediate future that doesn’t involve a prolonged occupation of Gaza. And as horrible as life was under occupation before October the 7th, it will be infinitely more miserable now.
So whats the endgame here? For Palestinians to continue living in Gaza would either mean a more oppressive regime than the one they already live under, continued ongoing resistance, or they leave. There is no other option. I think, just like the 1948 displacement, hundreds of thousands of people will choose to leave.
I think that’s how it ends. This isn’t propaganda. It doesn’t matter if its a deliberate strategy by the IDF or not. The end result is going to be the same.
When what is happening on the ground matches what the “fringe far right” are saying, then who do you want the Palestinians to believe?
If you had a platform right now to the Palestinian people, what would you say to reassure them that they would be allowed to go home? What would you tell them the siege would be over? When could they safely return to the hospitals? When will they be able to return so they can dig through the rubble to pull out their family?
Palestinians are calling this the second Nakba is a fact.
I don’t see any reason why we should assume the IDF are acting in good faith. The siege breaks international law. The siege and attacks on the hospitals breach international law. I’ll judge them on their actions. And they’ve shown a total disregard to the Geneva Conventions and the rules of war.
It’s a peace platitude by starry-eyed pacifists who see an equivalency in all violence and therefore think of the victim hitting back at the initial aggressor as “revenge.” It’s not (at least, not in most cases, and certainly not in the case of Israel vs Hamas) revenge. It’s defense and deterrence. If the aggressor is not rendered incapable of continued acts of aggression, said aggressor will continue to victimize the original victim (if said victim had survived) and others. Inaction on the part of the original victim (or those who reasonably expect to become the next victims) does not serve the purpose of decreasing violence, it means that there will be more violence, and they will suffer its effects.
Anyone who can’t grasp this concept is a fool.
None of that relates to the concept of Nakba or to your blood libel claim that the IDF is hitting civilian targets with no Hamas presence just to kill civilians and drive Palestinians out of Gaza.
To be clear, aid is coming in; the pace and quantity should continue to increase as the IDF gains control over the Gaza strip.
I certainly haven’t, and perhaps I am wrong but afaik the posters who have aren’t Israeli. It’s part of the “let’s you and him fight” attitude towards the conflict I’ve called out on the American right. It certainly isn’t the attitude of the IDF.
Occupation of Gaza by Israel for some length of time will be necessary, but the goal should definitely not be a prolonged occupation of Gaza by Israel, which would be disastrous. The best case scenario for an interim government would be if it was run by a coalition of other Arab states, as I think this would help with legitimacy in the eyes of the Palestinian people, which is crucial here; but I also doubt that any Arab states would want to entangle themselves with this situation. But an Israeli occupation or an Israeli backed interim government is probably not practical because anything too closely associated with Israel will undoubtedly be rejected.
The longer term goal is an independent Palestinian state. That has to be the end goal.
There is absolutely no reason for an Israeli occupation or an interim government to be more oppressive than Hamas. Israel never withdrew from the West Bank, but for all their flaws the PA is certainly not more oppressive than Hamas.
That path means death, as surely as the path of doubling down on the settlements does for Israel.
Or they accept the existence of Israel and build a government that will pursue a two state solution instead.
I would tell them that our war is with Hamas and not with them, and urge them to get to safety, away from any buildings that Hamas is making use of; I would urge them to start thinking about the sort of Palestine they want to build when Hamas is gone.
I know. I am asking why you are making the claim that Palestinians will not be allowed to return, or that the IDF is purposefuly targeting civilians to drive them away. Not why Palestinians who are subjected to Hamas propaganda think so; why you are making that claim here.
Does “guilty until proven innocent” apply to all countries or just Israel?
…please withdraw this accusation.
…I will, as soon as you withdraw your blood libelous claims that the IDF is purposefully murdering civilians in an effort to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip. Until you do so, I will continue to describe blood libel as blood libel.
…I’m not going to withdraw something that I didn’t say.
You said:
You literally said that you believe Israel knows that there is no Hamas beneath these hospitals but that the IDF is bombing them anyways.
That’s blood libel.
And then when I called you out on it you said that this is just what Palestinians believe.
So I ask you again. Do YOU claim that Israel is bombing Palestinian homes and hospitals that have no Hamas presence in order to drive away the Palestinians, or do you admit that this is not happening even though some on the Palestinian side do believe it to be the case?
…just for the removal of all doubt:
From the International Red Cross:
The IDF have blatantly disregarded international humanitarian law. The siege continues to this day. And that’s just the siege. And as the recognized occupying power, Israel has additional obligations under the conventions.
For a hospital to lose its protected status the following needs to
The protections are explicit here. And given the opportunity to defend the actions taken against the hospitals in Gaza we’ve been given essentially a slide-show.
I have zero qualms calling what we’ve seen here war crimes. We don’t need to test the siege in international law to prove it. You effectively cut off power, fuel, water, food, to practically the entire population, you are engaging in collective punishment.
I posted above that US intelligence feels that Hamas is hiding in/below the hospitals (see post #1625).
It should not be surprising that Hamas is hiding in the very things the Red Cross says should not be attacked.
…US Intelligence ALSO thought Iraq had WMD’s.
And only yesterday a State Department spox refused to say anything about this, and referred reporters to the reporting.
“It should not be surprising” isn’t a sufficient standard to remove the protections under the laws of war.
EU too:
…and the lack of evidence in that statement is as loud and as clear as it is in every other statement.
Only Hamas can be trusted, haven’t you figured out?