Point is, they may hypothetically be killers participating in crimes against humanity, but, with the fog of war in effect, testimony from people who were there is invaluable.
Obviously them too; we are talking about witnesses.
I mean to say that I would rather hear from someone actually or recently in the IDF about what they were ordered to do and what kinds of things they did than random opinions about them based on vibes, for instance, there was an Israeli poster in this thread whose interpretation (I hope I am not misconstruing anytthing) was that Israel was not committing genocide in Gaza.. then again, he was not there and, with all due respect, may not know what he is talking about. Or he may interpret the same facts differently, which is why documenting as many pieces of the puzzle as possible is important.
One has to assume Netanyahu finds their political support convenient.
The healthcare system has been destroyed in Gaza. I warned about it in November 2023. In the very thread you cited.
And here we are now. And you don’t even have the balls to admit you were wrong. There is no evidence that hospitals in Gaza were used as military bases of operations. They were never legitimate targets. The fact that Al Shifa is all you’ve fucking got. A handful of weapons. No proof of “chain of custody.”
Of course us and me too. What I know about Gaza is the same thing we all have access to, so it is… interesting how there seem to be such differences of opinion.
PS I heard horrible things about conditions in Gaza even long before the start of the current conflict, to the effect that between Hamas and Israeli restrictions there simply was a slim chance of having a “normal” life.
The fact that you dismiss Al Shifa as such when even the Palestinians admit (and have complained about) Hamas using it for military operations is what shows that you’re not a serious interlocutor. You make arguments to defend Hamas that even Hamas does not make. It’s pretty fucking pathetic.
You didn’t “warn me about it”, you claimed that “the last hospital in Gaza” was destroyed. You’ve claimed that “the last” hospital in Gaza was “destroyed” at least a dozen times since. It’s like you think everyone else is stupid.
One problem is that to do literally anything in Gaza, run a hospital, for example, a business, distribute food, whatever, you have to deal with Hamas, because they are the local authorities. Ideally one can do this openly (and not hire Hamas members to your staff). In any case no one thinks Hamas members never set foot in Gaza hospitals.
Because that’s the fucking point. I asked you for evidence. You pointed to a handful of weapons gathered for a photo op. If you are sitting on other alleged evidence, then where the fuck is it?
It’s called the Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian Law.
CIte please.
Cite please.
No. I just think YOU are stupid.
You’ve been avoiding the same question since that very same thread. Lets for the sake of debate pretend that Al Shifa WAS a military base.
You’ve previously granted that what Israel is doing would be genocide, aside from needing to have the intention. Multiple members of the Israeli government have said that they have the intention. If they want all of the Palestinians gotten rid of, and they’re actually getting rid of all of the Palestinians, then they’re getting what they want, and it’s genocide.
Be careful about idiom, here. He’s portraying them as violent people who want to kill people. But he’s not claiming that they’re literally thirsty for blood, which is what you’re accusing him of. That’s what the Blood Libel is. It’s not just saying that Jewish people aren’t very nice. It’s saying that they, literally, drink blood.
I mean, one dude killing one dude could be “genocide” by the legal definition if he has the dolus specialis.
But I don’t know that I did anything along the lines of what you describe above.
What Ben Gvir and Smotrich want is to annex Gaza and the West Bank, not make the Palestinians citizens, and either ignore them or drive them out over time. There are specific steps they want the government to take to facilitate this, that they’re constantly pushing for, and not getting anywhere with.
They’re not, though. The Palestinians are still in Gaza, aside from a handful of well connected and wealthy ones who are able to bribe their way through Egypt.
He’s never given an alternative explanation to why Israel would do the ludicrous things he says it does, or for why he’s so obsessed with the Israel-Palestine conflict while he completely ignores other, much larger scale slaughters and famines in places like Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine, etc.
At this point I am very comfortable calling him m Anti-Semitic.
I’m describing what they are doing. For example, they’ve systematically targeted the healthcare system in Gaza, targeting hospital after hospital, shutting many of them down, even destroying some of them. The IDF regularly raids different hospitals, puts them under siege, and over the last few months have cut off almost all supplies of medicine and fuel. And this week the World Food Kitchen, who were providing (very limited meals) to the doctors and nurses working in the hospital, ran out of food. So most of the people working in the hospitals haven’t eaten in days.
That’s an objective description of what they’ve done. The evidence overwhelmingly supports this.
Why they’ve done it? You tell me. But I don’t need to explain it in order to describe it.
Because my government and the US government and the UK government and many governments around the world are overwhelmingly supporting and funding this genocide. And if anyone speaks out about it they risk getting punished in ways that you won’t get punished if you speak out about Syria, Sudan, Yemen, Ukraine, etc.
@Banquet_Bear I second that you are doing excellent work here and it is greatly appreciated. I lived and worked in the West Bank and it is heartening to see someone speak so eloquently on behalf of the Palestinian people.
…I honestly didn’t know anything about this conflict before this “war” started. So for a few months it was a matter of working through SO much disinformation and my own, personal, troubling prejudices. I regret being ignorant for so long. Thank you.
People pushing for those things should have no place in a national government, period. Or really any level of government. Yet there they are. Pushing as hard as they can to move the Overton Window on that subject.
Um… this is a thread mostly about Israel and Gaza and not so much those other conflicts?
Start a thread about them and people will show up to discuss the matter. Or fling poo at each other over the matter.
I’m not. I think you’re conflating “criticism of the Israeli government and the IDF” with “hates all Jews everywhere”.
Then again, Netanyahu does exactly the same thing, so you’re not alone in that.
There’s a thread about Syria where BanquetBuddy steadfastly ignores all the jihadis massacring Alawites, Christians, and Druze. He’s welcome to post there about how horrible someone other than Israel is whenever he’d like; that’s just clearly not something he cares about at all.
I didn’t say he “hates all Jews everywhere”. Strawman a little harder, why don’t you?
“Antisemitic” does mean “hates all Jews”. Not just “hates the IDF” or “hates the Israeli government”.
So far as I’ve seen (and I’m reading the same threads you are) @Banquet_Bear is criticizing the Israeli government and the IDF, he’s not expressing hate or even criticism for all Jews.
If you were calling him “anti-Israeli” I’d say you’d have some basis to do so, but I see no indication he’s biased towards Jews as a whole, just to a specific sub-group of them and has given his reasons for doing so.
Because they haven’t finished yet. Would you claim that the Nazis didn’t commit genocide, because even at the end of the war, there were still some Jews in Germany?
No, I’m arguing that the idea that any significant numbers of Palestinians will leave Gaza is ludicrous.
How many Palestinians have lived in refugee camps in the surrounding Arab countries for literally decades? In case you haven’t noticed, literally no one is willing to take them in, because the world is pretty firmly dedicated to the cause of keeping them where they are.
Where are the Gazans going to go? Egypt? Jordan? Those countries would fire on the IDF before they’d allow Palestinian refugees to be brought into their country.
Even if Ben Gvir or Smotrich were kings rather than sidelined politicians, they wouldn’t be capable of evicting Gazans from Gaza in any real numbers.
The political will to enact the policies they desire simply isn’t there; but even if it was, the policy you’re talking about isn’t something that’s possible for Israel to implement even if it wanted to.