Sure, and Israel frequently attempts to shut down media criticism of its behavior by tossing out the phrase “antisemitism” willy-nilly.
I am quoting this post in its entirety because it is well reasoned, thoughtful, and absolutely correct. A must read for both those who think that Israel is beyond reproach and needs to treat this like a World War, as well as those who think Israel is the evuls.
“I use children as human shields because dead kids play well with the international press” is significantly worse than “I throw around the antisemitism card prematurely”; YMMV
But you will never find me defending the government who attacked Iraq and killed those civilians. I will happily call them fucking assholes from every rooftop. I will gladly admit to the world that they were fucking maniacs who wanted people who were different from them dead. They were effectively terrorists with a hall-pass, who made the term “collateral damage” puke inducing. Sure, a majority of voters in my country gave them that power, but it doesn’t mean they weren’t the cesspool of evil that I will gladly label them.
How would you describe Netanyahu?
Yeah, some of the very worst actors historically in this conflict have been Arab states and extending out from there, Iran as well, they have frequently used the plight of the Palestinians for domestic political needs in their own country and at points further in the past, if the broader Arab club of countries had been on board with solving this we could have resolved it 45+ years ago.
Netanyahu isn’t the one huddling in a bomb shelter. The point being people need to not ignore the fact that Israeli civilians aren’t the ones firing missiles either. It’s one thing to look at the broader poltiical/strategic situation, for which Israel bears blame for some things, versus the immediate situation of a terrorist group deliberately targeting and killing citizens as a specific goal versus a formal military using pinpoint advanced weaponry to do everything possible to avoid killing civilians. If you can’t recognize the asymmetry in morality there I think that’s a problem.
This requires a level of cynicism about Israel’s motives that I simply do not share nor know of a compelling reason to accept. But I’m willing to hear you out if you want to propose your hypothesis.
A few things I’m very unclear about:
(1) I’ve read that the current conflict was kicked off by two things: (a) a court case in Israel that is going to evict some Arabs from somewhere, and (b) some violence near a mosque. Can anyone (particularly someone who is on the more pro-Israeli side) give a little context here? What actually happened? How justified was it?
(2) One of the thornier issues is clearly Israeli “settlers” in the West Bank. How does that work? What’s their legal status? Do a bunch of Israeli civilians with heavy weaponry just show up on a patch of ground in the West Bank, violently chase off anyone currently living there, build a big wall, and start a community? Or is there more to it than that?
(3) I’ve read a lot about the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip. Like, Israel is stopping anything from getting in/out of it. Doesn’t it have another border, with Egypt? What’s Egypt doing? Is Egpyt also blockading? Or letting Israel blockade that side?
(4) On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver (who I genuinely really respect for doing his research and not just talking out of his ass) came right out and said that what Israel is doing is a war crime. Which, as I understand it, has a pretty specifically defined international legal meaning. So… is it? Would the answer be different if Israel and Palestine were nation states engaged in a legally declared war?
thanks
If Netanyahu wanted peace, the first thing he’d do is dismantle and outlaw the settlements. Start there, and then we’ll talk.
I’m a big fan of the Jewish people, but find current day settlement fanatics little better than the confederate south.
If Hamas rocket attacks on Israel was unique to the Netanyahu administration, I’d be more inclined to agree that this is largely Israel’s fault. Which is not to say that I’m a supporter of Netanyahu.
I agree. I have no love for these extremists either. Fuck their messianic asses.
Caveat: Under recognized international boundaries, East Jerusalem is not part of Israel and from an international perspective Israel occupying it or administering it is seen as legally invalid.
For (a), yes there has been a process of legally evicting Palestinians from residences in East Jerusalem. I want to clarify I am using the term legally to refer to the process, not whether it is “legitimate” or not. What typically happens is there are residences in East Jerusalem that often have murky ownership records or absentee owners, and there are for lack of a better term “Zionist” type organizations that aggressively buy properties to resettle Jewish residents into them. Often the Palestinians who are resident do not have any real legal title to the land, but obviously are not happy at being evicted. For (b), the Al Aqsa Mosque is a Mosque on top of the Temple Mount, also known as the “Dome of the Rock”, I believe it’s considered the third most holy site in Islam. It is also the location where the Jewish second temple was built, in a sense the most holy place in the ancient, Temple form of Judaism practiced in antiquity. It is also important as a historical pilgrimage site for Christians in previous eras, but less fundamental to Christianity. Prayer at the Al Aqsa mosque is historically granted to Muslims, but with tight controls by Israelis. During times of rising sectarian violence Israeli security forces regularly close the location to Muslim visitors or will restrict it only to women and men over age 50. The violence in question was an Israeli police raid of the Mosque to remove some people from it.
Settlers have no legal standing internationally, they have lots of de facto support from Israel, but often the settlements are not in compliance with Israeli law either.
Under Ariel Sharon, Israel pursued a policy of “one-sided disengagement” to try to find a way out of the conflict. One step of that was a full withdrawal from Gaza, that means Israeli security forces withdrew from regular occupation of Gaza, all Israeli settlers were forcibly evicted. Shortly after there were Palestinian elections and Hamas won those elections in the strip. This caused an immediate collapse in any relationship between Israel and Palestine as Israel views Hamas purely as a terrorist group (which they are a terrorist group.) Hamas has built large networks of tunnels in Gaza and fills them with rockets, and then periodically when violence flares up they launch thousands of those rockets into Israel. Israel maintains control of commerce and shipments of any cargo into or out of Gaza, in collaboration with the Egyptians (Egypt shares a border with Gaza and assists Israel with controlling the flow of goods into it.) The rest of Gaza either borders the Mediterranean or Israel (separated by walls.) There is no real seaport for goods to enter Gaza, and the airport was destroyed years ago. So all goods basically flow through chokepoints the Israelis control.
This is one reason Gaza is sometimes referred to as the “world’s largest open air prison”, because Israel tightly controls what can and cannot go in. The Israeli claim is that they restrict anything that can be used to make weapons like rockets that are then used against Israel. Gaza claims this has the effect of preventing desperately needed humanitarian material into Gaza. There’s elements of truth to both claims there, but I’m not intimately familiar with the mechanics of the blockade at present.
I would need to know what he is specifically claiming is a war crime. I’ve mentioned this in a great many threads–but war crimes basically mean acts that violate the established, via treaty, laws of war. It is, in my opinion, very common for left of center and liberal pundits in the West to consider any military action in which a civilian dies, a war crime. This is a commonly held view among regular people of that political persuasion as well. However from a legalist perspective, where war crime isn’t just a vague moral denunciation (which is how I really think most people use it), but has specific textual definitions–the death of civilians does not make something a war crime. It is instead the deliberate targeting of civilians.
An example I point to is if I’m at war and I drop a 500 lb bomb at an enemy Command & Control Center, and my bomb’s guidance system is poor and it veers off target and slams into a combined Children’s Hospital and Orphanage, burning 1500 children alive, that is not actually a war crime because I was targeting a valid military target. It is a horrific humanitarian tragedy, but not a war crime under the laws of war.
Then you and I are likely on the same side here. I’m just having a hard time finding other people who are willing to call them out without sugarcoating it. I don’t think your average man on the street thinks a dead Palestinian toddler is a good thing, but then you have the Israeli equivalent of the 2003 Americans who wanted to nuke Iraq until it was a sheet of glass. I’m pretty sure they think the only good Palestinian is a dead one. Much like here in the US, the crazies have too much (any is too much) power there.
Yeah, many of the settlers adhere to extremist forms of Judaism that…frankly I don’t think is helpful we have around in the modern world. I feel absolutely identically about extremist Christians, who we have plenty of in the United States, just so people don’t think I have a special distaste for extremist Jews. Religious fanaticism in my mind is a blight on mankind, and it’s a shame it still exists to such a huge degree all over the world.
Two more things that ARE war crimes include launching rockets at civilians, and taking shelter among civilians to ensure that any retaliation hits them as well. Those are both war crimes that don’t get much mention.
I’m curious if you’ve actually read through this thread, it’s been one of the most balanced discussions on Israel/Palestine I’ve ever seen on these forums. I don’t think it’s fair to say that no one but you is willing to criticize Israel, there are hundreds of posts in this threat presenting quite reasonable criticisms of Israel’s actions.
I can only find a handful of posters in this thread who HAVEN’T called out the settlers as useless assholes who only make things worse.
I agree, that’s something in that Atlantic article that was shared by me upthread. The West’s journalists are all but wholly silent on war crimes by Hamas. It’s not that they don’t report on the fact that Hamas is firing rockets and such, but the personalities and the think piece writers kinda just skim over them like they’re background noise or a natural disaster like a tornado. For some reason there is a frequent blinder for highlighting the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah commit demonstrable, intentional war crimes as part of their baseline strategy in every conflict they’ve ever been involved in.
I think that’s because you expect terrorist organizations to commit war crimes. Calling out Hamas’s war crimes is a dog bites man story. I don’t know if Israel has committed war crimes, but if it has, it’s a bigger news story for a legitimate government to commit war crimes than a terrorist group.
I want to add to the thanks to you, @Martin_Hyde, and others who have kept this thread balanced and on the rails and to you specifically for the really fine job laying out the facts and circumstances.
Imagine what could get done without the parties of god standing in the way of peace.
I don’t care if it was Saddam’s lost arsenal of WMD.
If they bomb schools/hospitals they have lost any claim of a moral high ground. They ARE the terrorists.
Even Hamas thought the Israelis wouldn’t sink that deep. Let that sink in. Israelis are behaving worse than Hamas thought.
There are no good guys in this conflict, but the Israelis are completely callous and not closing in on their stated goals. Page one in “how to make a generation of suicide bombers” is: blow up their school.