This is a hijacks tolerated thread (per mod recommendation).
The intention for this thread is a wide ranging discussion of the conflict without the vitriol of the Pit.
Latest news I saw - a US Congressman was detained (kidnapped) by Israeli settlers (terrorists IMO).
Right now, Israel is not a friend of the US, IMO. Maybe a friend of the GOP and MAGA, but not the USA, IMO. Friends of the USA don’t let terrorists, in territory they control, kidnap congress critters without serious punishment.
I largely stay out of Israel/Gaza/West bank discussions because I have lots of family in Israel, so I have to work hard to filter my own bias, but the settlers are absolutely a massive part of the problem. They seek to make everything a fait accompli convinced that the Right Wing Nationalists in power will back them up, or give them comparative slaps on the wrist at most.
And it’s been working for them, mostly, at least internally.
And they’ll keep pushing until there are real consequences, not just for them, but for Israel, the region, and possibly the world.
I’d say though that both factions of the divide (Israel/Settlers and MAGA/GOP) consider each other useful idiots. These are the sorts that don’t make friends - they have allies of the moment to further their own goals.
But for MAGA/GOP/Trump… letting bad things happen to their enemies, which absolutely includes any Congresscritters with a (D) appended to their names, is something they can and will tolerate IMHO.
I forsee a lot of language involving phrases like “provocation”, “he was asking for it”, “What do you expect” to be coming from Fox News and the like. And that crowd, as always, will eat it up, sadly for the rest of us.
He was detained for one whole hour. Not kidnapped, and those werent “terrorists” either.
Weak sauce. But a solid cite.
…by what standard are settlers allowed to just randomly detain people for an hour at gunpoint?
Can I just detain an American congressman at gunpoint without causing a diplomatic incident? Without getting arrested and locked up for a very long time? Would “detained” be an accurate description of what I just did?
He was kidnapped by thugs with guns - likely the same thugs who routinely terrorize and brutalize Palestinian civilians and vandalize or steal their property. If someone with guns grabs you without the authority to do so, they’ve kidnapped you. Even if they let you go in an hour.
If these are the same people that keep surfacing in the news, some of them are terrorists, belong to or are associated to banned terrorist organizations, and rack up terrorism-related charges in Israel. However, there are enough far-right elements in the Israeli government currently that they have not been dealt with decisively.
I do not know if the U.S. representative was aware of the nature of the area he was touring, but realistically he should have been travelling with an armed security detail (to the extent that is possible in a foreign country).
…the IDF turn a blind eye to these groups much of the time. And it’s occupied land as well. If all Palestinians needed to do to protect themselves from settler attacks was to travel with armed details, they would have done that long ago.
But that kind of misses the point. This is just an American learning firsthand what living under occupation is like.
Israel has been holding a Gazan pediatrician without charge for over 18 months, and his lawyers report he has been tortured, his health is deteriorating, and he is likely to die behind bars.
This is what Israel does nowadays. It’s not even widely reported. Just routine torture and medical neglect of Gazan civilians. Even pediatricians.
…I’ve posted about Dr Hussam Abu Safiya a few times here on these boards. Israel claims that he is a “colonel in Hamas.” They claim that in his time as director at Kamal Adwan he “exploited his position to divert humanitarian resources towards terroristic purposes.” They claim he enabled Hamas Terrorist activity during IDF operations in Gaza.
There is of course, no evidence to support those claims. He is being held subject to “administrative review and judicial oversight.” Which is a fancy way of saying that they can detain him for however long they like for whatever reason at all. Just like thousands of other Palestinians being held under administrative detention, both after AND before October 7th, 2023.
Dr Safiya is a pediatrician and neonatologist. He was director of Kamal Adwan Hospital as it was put under siege and attacked by the IDF multiple times. He was arrested once, and while in detention, the IDF murdered his son. If he were such a threat, they would never have released him the first time they detained him. But sometimes cruelty is the point.
Isreal had a deliberate strategy of targeting hospitals and medical centres. Almost every hospital in Gaza was put under siege at some point. Many of them multiple times. Several are now out of action. There were massacres at Al Shifa. The Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital was taken over by IDF soldiers, used as a military outpost, and then destroyed. We still don’t know why they destroyed it. In a separate incident, they murdered 15 paramedics and tried to cover it up. They killed another two while they tried to rescue Hind Rajab. In one of the most horrific incidents, Al-Nasr Children’s Hospital was forcibly evacuated; five newborns were left behind in their incubators because they couldn’t be safely transported, the occupying soldiers were informed, but they were left to die.
Dr Safiya should be freed immediately.
That’s because Palestinian militant organizations want Israel to target hospitals and medical centers since it is good for their international relations agenda, so they fire rockets from hospitals and medical centers.
I get the impression that you guys still don’t understand how Hamas propaganda operates. Palestinian militant groups want life to be a living hell for the Palestinian people, and they want Israel to be seen bombing schools, medical centers, refugee camps, etc because that is good for their political narrative. So they set up militants and weapons caches in these locations, hoping Israel will fire at them, so they can put that info on social media. This is also why Hamas steals food aid.
It would be like if the Nazis realized all they had to do was to put women and children near all the munitions factories, then when the allies bombed them, they would flood social media in the US and UK with images of allied planes bombing German women and children in the hopes that the public in the US and UK would stop supporting the war against Germany.
I feel like many of you guys still haven’t figured out how this works.
Also the goal of many Palestinians is a racially/religiously pure ethnostate. It isn’t peaceful coexistence. Palestinians are basically whites in Mississippi who have to live with a black person who moved into their neighborhood. They want them out since they want to live in a racially pure neighborhood, but the black guy refuses to leave no matter how much violence is directed at him.
There is a reason the chant is ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be arab’ in arabic, but they had to change it to ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ to make it palatable to westerners. By pretending it is about ‘freedom’ and not about a racially/religiously pure ethnostate, they make the cause more palatable to westerners.
Also if you could snap your fingers and get rid of the Jews and Israel from the middle east, the entire levant would just collapse into other forms of tribalism based on sunni/shia divides, or ethnicity, or something else. It would still be miserable.
The fact that Israel has to deal with so much hostility and their human rights records really aren’t that bad compared to many other nations facing far less serious threats says a lot about them. Many other nations would’ve done much much worse by now. Syria, Iraq, Egypt, etc have far far worse human rights while dealing with far far less serious internal and external threats.
There is a term for how anti-semitism changes to match the cultural values of the culture in question, so that the Jews are seen as the ultimate evil in each particular culture. I can’t remember the name of the term, but I’ll post it if I find it.
EDIT: I found the term, its ‘protean antisemitism’
But in cultures where Christianity is the ultimate moral value, Jews are seen as christ killers and christ rejectors
In cultures where capitalism is seen as the ultimate evil, Jews are seen as globalist bankers
In cultures where communism is seen as the ultimate evil, Jews are seen as the power behind communism.
In cultures where ‘white purity’ and national identity is the highest moral, Jews are seen as globalists behind mass immigration and racial integration.
And in modern western society where white western colonialism and imperialism is seen as the ultimate evil, Jews are seen as the face of white western colonialism and imperialism.
AIPAC spends far less on lobbying than the dairy industry, but nobody says politicians secretly work for the dairy industry. Thailand has a bigger economy than Israel, and nobody said Thailand secretly controls the US government.
And the proper response is to ensure there are no hospitals and medical centers? Collective guilt of all Palestinians because of minority “Palestinian militant organizations” (your words).
the Gazans democratically elected Hamas to run Gaza in 2006.
72% of Palestinians supported the October 7th attacks.
When do the Palestinians take responsibility for their own decisions?
~10% of Germany’s population died in WW2. But many of the German voters democratically elected the Nazis in 1932 and 1933. When does the ‘genocide against Germany’ start getting blamed on the Germans who elected and supported the Nazis, and not the allies for bombing Germany?
…prove it.
I don’t get my information from Hamas.
Here’s the problem with what you’ve said.
Outside of propaganda produced by Israel or its allies, you’ve got absolutely zero proof that this happens. Even the “steal food aid” claim.
You won’t be able to back it up. Because it wasn’t happening. Not remotely at the scale that would justify the destruction we have seen in Gaza.
You won’t ever be able to actually address what actually happened in Gaza. You won’t be able to explain why Hind Rajab had to die. Why Refaat Alareer was targeted and killed. Why the Turkish Palestinian Friendship Hospital was destroyed. Why the Flour Massacres Happened. What the hell the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation was all about. Why those fifteen paramedics were slaughtered and why they tried to hide the evidence. Why over 200 Palestinian journalists have been targeted and killed.
You won’t ever be able to explain why there is an arrest warrant out for Mr Benjamin Netanyahu for being “responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”
Because none of this is propaganda. We’ve got the facts on our side. What have you got? What actual facts did you bring to the table in your post?
We’ve seen the evidence. And the evidence is overwhelming. Almost single humanitarian agency are in agreement: what Israel is doing to Gaza is an atrocity.
None of this is correct. And even if it were, that doesn’t excuse atrocities and warcrimes.
I’m probably wrong here, but I get the impression that a whole lot of Israelis don’t grasp how serious the consequences of losing the global PR war will be. They’re correct that kinetic force is ultimately what decides the battleground in Gaza (or anywhere else Israel uses force,) but there is an entire generation or two of young people growing up worldwide that are being exposed to a steady diet of Israel-negative media. These folks are going to grow up quickly and one day will hold power in elected office, media, business and diplomacy. Think an entire generation of Greta Thunbergs. When that day comes, Israel is going to find itself increasingly sanctioned and hemmed in.
Making matters worse for Israel, its reliable evangelical Christian support in the USA is dwindling. MAGA Christianity is not at all the same as Pat Robertson/Dobson/Israel-friendly 1990s Christianity.
The proper response is for Hamas to not use hospitals and medical centers as staging areas, which invalidates their protections under the laws of war and makes them legitimate targets.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/02/us/politics/gaza-hospital-hamas.html
However theft by Hamas itself may have been misinformation, my mistake.
I don’t deny that abuses have happened. I’m saying that considering the level of threat Israel is under, and considering that their opponents want as many civilian casualties as possible, their human rights are much better than most other nations would do in the same situation.
The idea that Israel has to be perfect and mistake free in a highly complex situation, while no other nation is held to anywhere near the same standard, is not a persuasive argument to me. Israel is not a perfect nation. It doesn’t change the fact that in the war between Israel and Palestine, that the Israelis are far, far more moral.
The idea that the Israelis are held to perfect morals, while the Palestinians are held to zero morals, is not a good argument for being pro-Palestine to me.
When 9/11 happened, Palestinians were celebrating. The idea that they have 0 moral standards but Israel has near impossible moral standards that no real nation can fulfill doesn’t persuade me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_the_September_11_attacks#Palestinian_reaction
Yup. I just don’t see any real solution though. Islamist groups are extremely good at PR while Israel is terrible at it. All they have to do is attack Israel, wait for Israel to fight back, then Islamic extremists put as many civilians, hospitals, schools, refugees camps, etc in harms way as possible. Then they just wait for the international community to turn against Israel.
Israel seems to be moving towards military alliances with India and South Korea, since they know they can’t rely on the west.
Also Netanyahu should be in prison. He is keeping this war going as long as possible to stay out of prison for all his corruption crimes.
There are a lot of variations on that phrase. It was not concocted by Hamas, nor for Western consumption.
…I asked for a cite that “they fire rockets from hospitals and medical centers.” The New York Times cite is paywalled. The cite from NGO Monitor (an organisation specifically targets what is called “anti-Israel NGOs” like Jewish Voices for Peace) doesn’t say anything about rockets at all.
The cite from NGO Monitor was written in 2025, 2 years into the “war.” Yet it cites documents written before 2020. It’s basically cherry-picking and lacks context. And one has to ask how, after two years of war, where Israel had already attacked, laid siege, evacuated, and occupied multiple hospitals in Gaza, they still had to rely on a few cherry-picked sentences made over five years before.
If the hospitals were targeted because they were “firing rockets,” then that should be a slam dunk. You can go read the original threads if you like. I documented multiple attacks on hospitals. from initial sieges to occupation. There was only ever a single case I’ve seen that came close to resembling the accusations and in-depth examination showed that the Isreali case is unlikely to be true.
So I’ll ask again: what hospitals lost their protections because they were being used to fire rockets? Let’s keep it to the current conflict to make it easier.
The evidence strongly suggests the food was being stolen by gangs “armed and protected by the Israeli government.”
You’ve just cited noted propagandist John Spencer. He opens with a revisionist take on the slaughters that happened during the Al Shifa raids. The “doctors accompanying them to help Palestinian patients” was a nice touch. I couldn’t bring myself to read the rest. I consider Spencer to be a vile man with vile opinions.
Here are how others described what happened at Al Shifa.
The standard hasn’t changed. We are all using the same standard. These aren’t “mistakes.” You don’t accidentally kill over 200 journalists in separate discrete targeted attacks. You don’t accidentally kill 15 paramedics, try to hide the evidence, and then lie about it.
https://www.btselem.org/publications/202507_our_genocide
I’ll believe any one of these organisations over John Spencer any day of the week.
What does this mean? Because some people celebrate, that gives us license to commit atrocities?
I’d like a clear yes or no here. Because otherwise I don’t understand why you would post it. People celebrated when America and Isreal killed almost the entire Iranian leadership. They celebrated when Isreal murdered Iranian scientists in their sleep. When they blew up the cellphones that killed and wounded many civilians.
Does “celebrating” change the equation? Does that mean open season on those that celebrate? I don’t think it should. I can’t see how that’s relevant.
…reality doesn’t need propaganda. What’s changed is that people can now live stream what is happening to them. I watched the carnage unfold with my own eyes. Millions of people did. That’s why the tide is shifting against Israel, no matter how much they spend trying to stop it.
That isn’t what happened. Israel’s government chose to attack hospitals, schools, refugees camps, Mosques, churches, universities; they chose to target and kill journalists and police and academics and paramedics and aid workers. Israel’s government chose to use food as a weapon. Nobody forced them to do it.