Israel-Hamas war thread

[bolverk 29486]

Man, that's just some really shitty reporting. This is not some giant bombshell or conspiracy like they're trying to make it out to be. They either don't have a great grasp on how to read/interpret data (DUMB), or they're intentionally trying to mislead their readers (PROPAGANDA).

First, Elliott Abrams misstates that these are UN estimates and, therefore, UN revisions. No, they come from the Ministry of Health (MoH). He also apparently doesn't understand that they are NOT revisions at all. The discrepancy is only in what had been an assumed ratio (70% women/children) vs. the current (and previously unpublished) count of identified dead. Therefore, this giant headline is a total lie.

 

The grand total of estimated deaths (~35,000) remains the same, but now they have released the identification of (~25,000), meaning ~10,000 remain outstanding.

Between the afternoons of 9 and 13 May, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Gaza, 187 Palestinians were killed and 323 were injured. Between 7 October 2023 and 12 May 2024, at least 35,091 Palestinians were killed and 78,827 were injured in Gaza, according to MoH in Gaza. Moreover, according to the Gaza Government Media Office (GMO) and Palestinian Civil Defense, there are some 10,000 people reportedly missing or under rubble in Gaza. GMO also reports that overall fatality figures purportedly include more than 14,000 children and 9,000 women. The MoH documents the full identification details of casualties and has recently published the breakdown of 24,686 out of 34,622 fatalities for whom full details have been collected by MoH as of 30 April 2024; according to MoH, these reportedly include 7,797 children, 4,959 women, 1,924 elderly, and 10,006 men. The documentation process is ongoing by the MoH. The United Nations teams on the ground in Gaza have been carrying out, where conditions permit, their own independent verification of fatality figures; this process is ongoing.

https://www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-165

 

Screenshots from the Jerusalem Post article he based the blog post on:

 

Of the ~25,000 bodies that have been counted by the Ministry of Health (MoH) and identified so far:

• ~7,800 children (32%)
• ~5,000 women (20%)
• ~10,000 men (40%)
• ~1,900 elderly men & women (8%)

So, the body count ratio of women/children goes from 70% to probably around 56-57% (if you include elderly women). Sure, that's a significant difference, but it doesn't change the fact that the majority of dead bodies that have been counted so far are still women and children.

Then, you have the Jerusalem Post disingenuously mentioning the previously debunked piece by that Wharton guy. You know, the one that appeared in The Tablet we took apart here fairly easily. They're saying, based on this totally bogus statistical analysis by a guy whose other work was proven false in a climate change lawsuit, nothing the MoH says about the dead can be trusted (even though they've been verified as accurate in all previous wars, including by the IDF).

Well, now, we've got an actual count of identified bodies, and they are still counting, so hat's going to take a while.

That says nothing about the fact that two months ago, the IDF had estimated they'd killed between 10-12,000 Hamas fighters. So, if you assume their numbers are right and that every dead man is Hamas, their estimate is off too. And, by the logic presented by both Elliott Abrams and the Jerusalem Post, nothing the IDF says about the dead can be trusted either.

Jesus, the previous numbers we've seen have been estimates. Now, we have a released count, which is somewhat of a miracle given that bombs are still falling and the hospitals are in shambles.

What's especially galling is that this is a fucking war zone where thousands have undoubtedly been killed, and these types of specious arguments are being made to downplay the number of dead people. I guess some folks must have a guilty conscience or are in denial.

[Rex Kramer 1311]

53 minutes ago, bolverk said:

They either don't have a great grasp on how to read/interpret data (DUMB), or they're intentionally trying to mislead their readers (PROPAGANDA).

Funny, this is precisely how I felt about the initial numbers being reported. Anyone should question numbers by the GMO. 

[bolverk 29486]

Hamas has its own Stasi.

Secret Hamas Files Show How It Spied on Everyday Palestinians
Hamas monitored political activity, online posts, and apparently even love lives. Palestinians were stuck between an Israeli blockade and a repressive security force.

The Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has for years overseen a secret police force in Gaza that conducted surveillance on everyday Palestinians and built files on young people, journalists and those who questioned the government, according to intelligence officials and a trove of internal documents reviewed by The New York Times.

The unit, known as the General Security Service, relied on a network of Gaza informants, some of whom reported their own neighbors to the police. People landed in security files for attending protests or publicly criticizing Hamas. In some cases, the records suggest that the authorities followed people to determine if they were carrying on romantic relationships outside marriage.

Hamas has long run an oppressive system of governance in Gaza, and many Palestinians there know that security officials watch them closely. But a 62-slide presentation on the activities of the General Security Service, delivered only weeks before the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, reveals the degree to which the largely unknown unit penetrated the lives of Palestinians.

The documents show that Hamas leaders, despite claiming to represent the people of Gaza, would not tolerate even a whiff of dissent. Security officials trailed journalists and people they suspected of immoral behavior. Agents got criticism removed from social media and discussed ways to defame political adversaries. Political protests were viewed as threats to be undermined.

Everyday Gazans were stuck — behind the wall of Israel’s crippling blockade and under the thumb and constant watch of a security force. That dilemma continues today, with the added threat of Israeli ground troops and airstrikes.

“We’re facing bombardment by the occupation and thuggery by the local authorities,” Ehab Fasfous, a journalist in the Gaza Strip who appeared in the files of the General Security Service, said in a phone interview from Gaza.

Mr. Fasfous, 51, is labeled in one report as among “the major haters of the Hamas movement.”

The documents were provided to The Times by officials in Israel’s military intelligence directorate, who said they had been seized in raids in Gaza.

cont'd

Spoiler

Reporters then interviewed people who were named in the files. Those people recounted key events, confirmed biographical information and, in Mr. Fasfous’s case, described interactions with the authorities that aligned with the secret files. The documents reviewed by The Times include seven intelligence files ranging from October 2016 to August 2023. The military intelligence directorate said it was aware of files containing information on at least 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

The General Security Service is formally part of the Hamas political party but functions like part of the government. One Palestinian individual familiar with the inner workings of Hamas, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, confirmed that the service was one of three powerful internal security bodies in Gaza. The others were Military Intelligence, which typically focuses on Israel, and the Internal Security Service, an arm of the Interior Ministry.

Basem Naim, a spokesman for Hamas, said the people responsible for the General Security Service were unreachable during the war.

With monthly expenses of $120,000 before the war with Israel, the unit comprised 856 people, records show. Of those, more than 160 were paid to spread Hamas propaganda and launch online attacks against opponents at home and abroad. The status of the unit today is unknown because Israel has dealt a significant blow to Hamas’s military and governing abilities.

The Israeli intelligence authorities believe that Mr. Sinwar directly oversaw the General Security Service, according to three Israeli intelligence officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. They said the slide show was prepared for Mr. Sinwar personally, though they did not say how they knew that.

The presentation said that the General Security Service works to protect Hamas’s people, property and information, and to support its leadership’s decision-making.

Some slides focused on the personal security of Hamas leaders. Others discussed ways to stamp out protests, including the “We Want to Live” demonstrations last year that criticized power shortages and the cost of living. Security officials also tracked operatives from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an ideologically aligned militant group that often partners with Hamas.

Some tactics, like amplifying Hamas’s own message, appeared to be routine politicking. In other instances, officials suggested using intelligence to undermine opponents and distort their reputations, though the files were vague about how that was to be done.

“Undertaking a number of offensive and defensive media campaigns to confuse and influence adversaries by using private and exclusive information,” the document read.

Security officers stopped Mr. Fasfous on his way to a protest last August, seized his phone and ordered him to leave, a report says. Mr. Fasfous confirmed that two plainclothes officers had approached him. The authorities searched his recent calls, and wrote that he was communicating with “suspicious people” in Israel.

“We advise that closing in on him is necessary because he’s a negative person who is full of hatred, and only brings forth the Strip’s shortcomings,” the document said.

The most frustrating thing, Mr. Fasfous said, was that the officers used his phone to send flirtatious messages to a colleague. “They wanted to pin a moral violation on me,” he said.

The report does not include that detail but does describe ways to “deal with” Mr. Fasfous. “Defame him,” the report said.

“If you’re not with them, you become an atheist, an infidel and a sinner,” Mr. Fasfous said. He acknowledged supporting protests and criticizing Hamas online, but said the people he was in touch with in Israel were Palestinians who owned food and clothing companies. He said he helped run their social media accounts.

The General Security Service’s goals are similar to those of security services in countries like Syria that have used secret units to quell dissent. The files of the General Security Service, though, mention tactics like censorship, intimidation and surveillance rather than physical violence.

“This General Security Service is just like the Stasi of East Germany,” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer specializing in Palestinian affairs. “You always have an eye on the street.”

Palestinians in Gaza live in fear and hesitate to express dissent, analysts said.

“There are a lot of people practicing self-censorship,” said Mkhaimar Abusada, a professor of political science from Gaza City. “They just don’t want problems with the Hamas government.”

That view clashes with the most strident comments of Israel’s leaders, like President Isaac Herzog, who blamed Gazans for not toppling Hamas before the Oct. 7 attacks.

“There’s an entire nation that is responsible,” he said. “This rhetoric about civilians were not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up.”

The General Security Service, the files show, also tried to enforce a conservative social order.

In December 2017, for example, the authorities investigated a tip that a woman was acting immorally with a man who owned a clothing shop. A security report noted that she visited the shop for an hour on one day, then more than two hours the next. The report presented no evidence of wrongdoing, but proposed that “relevant parties” address the matter.

An October 2016 report described young men and women performing unspecified “immoral acts” at a Palestine Liberation Organization office in Khan Younis at night. Hamas sees the Palestine Liberation Organization as a compromised entity, whose leader too often favors Israeli interests. The report offered no evidence of misdeeds but recommended summoning a man who claimed to be in possession of videos and pictures.

The files also show that Hamas was suspicious of foreign organizations and journalists.

When Monique van Hoogstraten, a Dutch reporter, visited a protest encampment along the border with Israel in April 2018, the authorities noted the most banal of details. They noted the make and model of her car and her license plate number. They said she took pictures of children and tried to interview an elderly woman. Ms. van Hoogstraten confirmed the reporting trip in an interview with The Times.

The file recommended further “reconnaissance” on journalists.

None of the files reviewed by The Times were dated after the start of the war. But Mr. Fasfous said the government remained interested in him.

Early in the war, he said he took images of security forces hitting people who fought over spots in line outside a bakery. The authorities confiscated his camera.

Mr. Fasfous complained to a government official in Khan Younis, who told him to stop reporting and “destabilizing the internal front,” Mr. Fasfous recalled.

“I told him I was reporting on the truth and that the truth won’t hurt him, but that fell on deaf ears,” he said. “We can’t have a life here as long as these criminals remain in control.”

 

[bolverk 29486]

US says Israel’s use of US arms likely violated international law, but evidence is incomplete

The finding of “reasonable” evidence to conclude that the U.S. ally had breached international law protecting civilians in the way it conducted its war against Hamas was the strongest statement that the Biden administration has yet made on the matter. It was released in a summary of a report being delivered to Congress on Friday.

But the caveat that the administration wasn’t able to link specific U.S. weapons to individual attacks by Israeli forces in Gaza could give the administration leeway in any future decision on whether to restrict provisions of offensive weapons to Israel.

The first-of-its-kind assessment, which was compelled by President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats in Congress, comes after seven months of airstrikes, ground fighting and aid restrictions that have claimed the lives of nearly 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

While U.S. officials were unable to gather all the information they needed on specific strikes, the report said that given Israel’s “significant reliance” on U.S.-made weapons, it was “reasonable to assess” that they had been used by Israel’s security forces in instances “inconsistent” with its obligations under international humanitarian law “or with best practices for mitigating civilian harm.”

*****

The presidential directive that led to the review, agreed to in February, obligated the Defense and State departments to conduct “an assessment of any credible reports or allegations that such defense articles and, as appropriate, defense services, have been used in a manner not consistent with international law, including international humanitarian law.”

Nothing in the presidential directive would have triggered any cutoff of arms if the administration had more definitively ruled that Israel’s conduct had violated international law.

The agreement also obligated the State and Defense departments to tell Congress whether they deemed that Israel has acted to “arbitrarily to deny, restrict, or otherwise impede, directly or indirectly,” delivery of any U.S.-supported humanitarian aid into Gaza for starving civilians there.

On this question, the report cited “deep concerns” that Israel played a significant role in preventing adequate aid from reaching starving Palestinians. However, it said Israel had recently taken some positive steps, although still inadequate, and the U.S. government did not currently find Israel restricting aid deliveries in a way that violated U.S. law governing foreign militaries that receive U.S. military aid.

[bolverk 29486]

‘Total outrage’: White House condemns Israeli settlers’ attack on Gaza aid trucks
Protesters block convoy, throw food into road and set fire to vehicles at Tarqumiya checkpoint near Hebron

The White House has condemned an attack on an aid convoy heading to Gaza by Israeli settlers who threw packages of food into the road and set fire to the vehicles.

Video of the incident on Monday at Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, showed settlers blocking the trucks and throwing boxes of much-needed supplies on the ground. Photographs from the scene showed piles of damaged aid packages and drifts of rice and flour across the road.

Late on Monday, photos began circulating on social media showing the trucks on fire.

Israel has faced heavy international pressure to step up the flow of aid into Gaza, where international organisations have warned of a severe humanitarian crisis threatening a population of more than 2 million people.

“It is a total outrage that there are people who are attacking and looting these convoys coming from Jordan, going to Gaza to deliver humanitarian assistance,” US national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.

“We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this,” he added. “We are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government and it’s something that we make no bones about – this is completely and utterly unacceptable behaviour.”

Referring to a US report issued on Friday on Israeli compliance with international humanitarian law, Sullivan said that the Israeli state had hindered aid deliveries in the recent past but had improved the flow sufficiently, so as not to be subject to restrictions on military aid that might have been required under US law.

“We believe that there were periods over the last few weeks where there were restrictions that had to be worked through,” Sullivan said. “But at the time we put that report forward, we felt that there was sufficient work being done by the Israeli government with respect to the facilitation of humanitarian aid, that we did not make a judgment that anything had to be done in terms of US assistance.”

Police do not appear to have intervened to stop the looting, though four people including a minor were later reported to have been arrested.

This is not the first time that settlers have tried to stop the flow of aid to Gaza, which is already only a fraction of that needed by the population of the embattled territory.

Last week, Israeli demonstrators blocked a road near the desert town of Mitzpe Ramon to protest against the delivery of aid trucks into the strip. The protesters – who say the aid is helping Hamas and want to block its passage until all Israeli hostages are freed – formed a sit-in protest as they scattered rocks across the road to prevent vehicles from passing, creating standstill traffic.

Israel’s siege of Gaza has created what aid officials are referring to as “man-made starvation”, with the territory facing the threat of mass deaths from famine with children already dying from hunger.

In March, the international court of justice ordered Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, where sections of the population are facing imminent starvation.

Aid efforts have been further complicated by the temporary closure of the headquarters of the main channel for humanitarian support for Palestinians after weeks of violent protests and arson attacks by Israeli right-wingers.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees announced it was closing its East Jerusalem headquarters on Thursday after a fresh attack by what Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the agency, described as “Israeli extremists”.

[bolverk 29486]

More info on the UN switch over to using newly published counts of identified bodies by the Ministry of Health instead of the previously estimated ratio. So, yeah, it's not the nefarious plot that Elliott Abrams and The Jerusalem Post implied, but I suppose they can be forgiven for not understanding how to read and interpret data, assuming they weren't intentionally trying to deceive their readers. But that says nothing about the stats guy who wrote the discredited hit piece in The Tablet that keeps getting cited.

 

How Many of Gaza’s Dead Are Women and Children? For 10,000, It’s Unclear.

The United Nations has begun citing a much lower death toll for women and children in Gaza, acknowledging that it has incomplete information about many of the people killed during Israel’s military offensive in the territory.

As recently as May 6, the U.N’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its regularly updated online report that at least 9,500 women and 14,500 children were among the dead, out of an overall death toll of 34,735.

Two days later, the U.N. said in another online update that 4,959 women, 7,797 children and 10,006 men had been killed. While the total number of deaths remained roughly the same, a U.N. official said that it was awaiting more identifying information from officials in Gaza for about 10,000 of the dead, so they were not included in the new breakdown of women, men and children.

The change in the U.N.’s numbers — and the confusion over the discrepancy — has added fuel to a debate over the credibility of the Gazan authorities’ tallies of fatalities in the war. The deaths of women and children are seen as an important, if incomplete, indication of how many civilians have been killed, a question that lies at the heart of the criticism of Israel’s conduct of the war.

The change came because the United Nations switched to citing a more conservative source for its numbers — the Gazan Ministry of Health — rather than using Gaza’s Government Media Office, as it had in recent weeks. Both offices are part of the Hamas-run government in the enclave.

Many international officials and experts familiar with the way the health ministry verifies deaths in Gaza — drawing from morgues and hospitals across the territory — say its numbers are generally reliable.

The health ministry says its count of women and children killed is based on the total number of people whose identities it can fully verify — 24,840 individuals in all as of May 13.

More than 10,000 other people have also been killed, the health ministry says, but it does not have their full names, official ID numbers or other information it needs to be certain of their identities. That is why they are not included in the breakdown of women and children killed which is now being cited by the U.N., officials said.

“There’s about another 10,000-plus bodies who still have to be fully identified,” Farhan Haq, a spokesman for the U.N., said on Monday. He added: “The details of those — which of those are children, which of those are women — that will be reestablished once the full identification process is complete.”

Mr. Haq said the United Nations was relying on the data coming out of the health ministry, as it has “in all previous conflicts.”

He added that the U.N. had started using figures from Gaza’s media office because there had been a pause in reporting from the health ministry. But now that the ministry’s casualty reporting was back on line, he said, the U.N. had returned to using its information.

What do Israel and other critics say?
Israeli officials say they are suspicious of the Gazan health ministry’s count. A spokesman for the Israeli military, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, noted that the health ministry does not distinguish in its numbers between combatants and civilians. He also said that Israel sees every civilian death as a tragedy.

After the United Nations issued a lower documented death toll for women and children, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, called the new numbers “the miraculous resurrection of the dead in Gaza,” saying the United Nations had relied on “fake data from a terrorist organization.”

Elliott Abrams, a veteran American conservative, said in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations on Sunday that it has become “increasingly clear that these numbers represent Hamas propaganda.”

But figures cited by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are not drastically different from those used by the United Nations. He said last week that Israeli forces had killed about 14,000 Hamas combatants and 16,000 civilians, for a total of around 30,000, without elaborating on the source for those numbers.

Are the new casualty numbers viewed as credible?
In a sign that the U.S. government views casualty figures supplied by the Gaza health authorities as reliable, President Biden cited their overall death toll in his State of the Union speech in March. The United Nations publishes the health ministry’s figures on a website and U.N. leaders refer to them frequently.

A few weeks ago, the health ministry released its latest list detailing the identities of the dead that it had fully documented. It has also released a series of detailed reports explaining how it compiles casualty figures.

Early in the war, when its figures were called into question, the health ministry released a list of names, ages and identification numbers of the dead. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed that data, in a report published in November in The Lancet, and found “no obvious reason to doubt the validity of the data.”

Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, has matched the names of those reported killed with lists of names released by the health ministry. The vast majority of names match up, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director. Airwars also analyzed a ministry of health list of names issued earlier in the conflict and found that the proportion of children, women and men reported by the ministry roughly aligned with its own data collection, she said.

Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Oxford University and the founder of the Costs of War project, which examines the consequences of the post 9/11 wars, argued that the figures appeared to have been produced to professional standards.

How are casualty numbers compiled?
International experts who have worked with health officials in Gaza during this and other wars say that hospitals and morgues in the enclave gather and report the names, ID numbers and other details of people who have been killed in the territory.

The detailed count excludes thousands of people reported at hospitals as missing but believed to be buried under rubble; they are counted as dead only when their bodies are found.

That Gaza media office has consistently provided an overall death toll similar to the one given by the ministry of health, but different and often higher figures for the number of women and children killed.

Ismail Al Thawabateh, the office’s director general, said in an interview that the health ministry listed and categorized an individual as dead only when all of their details had been documented and verified by a next of kin. He did not explain why his office used a breakdown of women and children based on the overall death toll.

“The remaining 10,000 are bodies that have entered the hospitals but until this moment, the next of kin have not been reached yet to verify how they were martyred and completing their information,” he said.

When reached, Ashraf al-Qudra, the Gaza health ministry’s spokesman referred questions to the Ministry of Health’s latest report from May 13.

[bolverk 29486]

Nothing wrong with Gaza death toll figures, WHO says

GENEVA, May 14 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization voiced full confidence in Gaza Ministry of Health death toll figures on Tuesday, saying they were actually getting closer to confirming the scale of losses after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.

Gaza's health ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of around 35,000 since Oct. 7, saying that about 25,000 of those have so far been fully identified, of whom more than half were women and children.

This sparked allegations from Israel of inaccuracy since Palestinian authorities had previously estimated that more than 70% of those killed were women and children. U.N. agencies have republished the Palestinian figures, which have since risen above 35,000 dead, citing the source.

"Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same," said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing in response to questions about the toll. "The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward," he added.

Based on his own extrapolation of the latest Palestinian data, he said that around 60% of victims were women and children, but many bodies buried beneath rubble were likely to fall into these categories when they were eventually identified.

He added that it was "normal" for death tolls to shift in conflicts, recalling that Israel had revised down its own death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to 1,200 after checks.

"We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?" Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the same briefing. "And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are 1,000s missing under the rubble."
 

[rage-a-holic 4312]

25 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Nothing wrong with Gaza death toll figures, WHO says

GENEVA, May 14 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization voiced full confidence in Gaza Ministry of Health death toll figures on Tuesday, saying they were actually getting closer to confirming the scale of losses after Israel questioned a change in the numbers.

Gaza's health ministry last week updated its breakdown of the total fatalities of around 35,000 since Oct. 7, saying that about 25,000 of those have so far been fully identified, of whom more than half were women and children.

This sparked allegations from Israel of inaccuracy since Palestinian authorities had previously estimated that more than 70% of those killed were women and children. U.N. agencies have republished the Palestinian figures, which have since risen above 35,000 dead, citing the source.

"Nothing wrong with the data, the overall data (more than 35,000) are still the same," said WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier at a Geneva press briefing in response to questions about the toll. "The fact we now have 25,000 identified people is a step forward," he added.

Based on his own extrapolation of the latest Palestinian data, he said that around 60% of victims were women and children, but many bodies buried beneath rubble were likely to fall into these categories when they were eventually identified.

He added that it was "normal" for death tolls to shift in conflicts, recalling that Israel had revised down its own death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks to 1,200 after checks.

"We're basically talking about 35,000 people who are dead, and really every life matters, doesn't it?" Liz Throssel, spokesperson for the U.N. human rights office, said at the same briefing. "And we know that many and many of those are women and children and there are 1,000s missing under the rubble."
 

The WHO said those numbers are legit? Well shit, that's all you needed to say. Everyone knows you can trust the WHO.

 

[bolverk 29486]

38 minutes ago, rage-a-holic said:

The WHO said those numbers are legit? Well shit, that's all you needed to say. Everyone knows you can trust the WHO.

 

Not just the WHO.

Early in the war, when its figures were called into question, the health ministry released a list of names, ages and identification numbers of the dead. Researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed that data, in a report published in November in The Lancet, and found “no obvious reason to doubt the validity of the data.”

Airwars, a British organization that assesses claims of civilian harm in conflicts, has matched the names of those reported killed with lists of names released by the health ministry. The vast majority of names match up, said Emily Tripp, the group’s director. Airwars also analyzed a ministry of health list of names issued earlier in the conflict and found that the proportion of children, women and men reported by the ministry roughly aligned with its own data collection, she said.

Neta Crawford, a professor of political science at Oxford University and the founder of the Costs of War project, which examines the consequences of the post 9/11 wars, argued that the figures appeared to have been produced to professional standards.

Hell, even Bibi says it's at least 30,000.

But figures cited by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are not drastically different from those used by the United Nations. He said last week that Israeli forces had killed about 14,000 Hamas combatants and 16,000 civilians, for a total of around 30,000, without elaborating on the source for those numbers.

 

If you've seen photos of the destruction in Gaza and still think the numbers are wildly inflated, you're living in denial.

[bolverk 29486]

@statsman Have you got something to say?

They've counted and identified 25,000 bodies with an estimated 10,000 more to go. There are also an estimated 7-10,000 additional bodies thought to be under the rubble.

The MoH, which you assume to be lying, estimates 35,000 known dead. Benjamin Netanyahu, who you assume to be telling the truth, estimates 30,000 known dead. 

I don't see what's funny.

[Hank_Hill 18624]

Yea idk even if those numbers were completely fudged and the total number of women and children slaughtered was only like 5000 I don’t think I’d fell any better about that. But that’s just me. 

[CHIEF 5072]

This is a pretty good read:

https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Expeditions-with-MCUP-digital-journal/Escaping-Atonement-in-Sunni-Islam/

The Palestinians are Sunni. It's sad to say, but this looks exactly what the Palestinians prefer. Death by Jihad gets you to the front of the line for Paradise and your 72 virgins.

The Quran states: 

"And if you are killed in the cause of Allah or you die, the forgiveness and mercy of Allah are better than all that you amass."18 

"Surely those who believe and those who leave their homes and fight in the way of Allah, may hope for his benevolence for Allah is forgiving and kind."19

"Do you think that you will get away before Allah knows who among you fought and did not take anyone but Allah, His Apostle and the faithful as their friends? Allah is cognizant of all that you do."20

"But (to) those who were victimized and left their homes and then fought and endured patiently, your Lord will surely be forgiving and kind."21

"He who strives (jihad) does so for himself. Verily Allah is independent of the creatures of the world."22 

"Those who fear Allah and follow the straight path will surely be in gardens and in bliss, Rejoicing at what their Lord has given them; and their Lord will preserve them from the torment of Hell. 'Eat and drink with relish,' (they will be told), (as recompense) for what you have done."23 

"Reclining there on carpets lined with brocade, fruits of the garden hanging low within reach. How many favors of your Lord will then both of you deny? In them maidens with averted glances, undeflowered by man or by jinn before them."24 

"If you give alms openly, it is well, and if you hide it and give it to the poor, it is better for you; and this will do away with some of your evil deeds; and Allah is aware of what you do."25

"And keep up prayer in the two parts of the day and in the first hours of the night; surely good deeds take away evil deeds."26

 

Palestinians will gladly go to their deaths for Allah, just as the early Christians were happily martyred in the Roman Colosseum. This is a religious war that can only end with genocide, one way or the other, or the Palestinians are going to have to be disobedient to Quaranic verses, which would obviously be a serious sin, possibly leading to eternal damnation. Hamas and the Palestinians started this, and are the only ones that can stop it.

You cannot look at this through secular eyes, but through religious understanding. If you have no faith, no religion, no understanding of their fear of hell, it's all just platitudes based in ignorance of Islamic doctrine. 

This is the view they have of themselves, every man, woman, and child, and with their beliefs, who could blame them:

CHIEF

[Brian Fantana 6672]

2 hours ago, Hank_Hill said:

Yea idk even if those numbers were completely fudged and the total number of women and children slaughtered was only like 5000 I don’t think I’d fell any better about that. But that’s just me. 

The whole argument is gross, akin to how much quibbling their was about the "real numbers" during the Holocaust.

[bolverk 29486]

Some good news

Aid for Gaza will soon flow from pier project just finished by US military, Pentagon says

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon said Thursday that humanitarian aid will soon begin flowing onto the Gaza shore through the new pier that was anchored to the beach and will begin reaching those in need almost immediately.

Sabrina Singh, Pentagon spokeswoman, told reporters that the U.S. believes there will be no backups in the distribution of the aid, which is being coordinated by the United Nations.

The U.N., however, said fuel imports have all but stopped and this will make it extremely difficult to deliver the aid to Gaza’s people, all 2.3 million of whom are in acute need of food and other supplies after seven months of intense fighting between Israel and Hamas.

“We desperately need fuel,” U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said. “It doesn’t matter how the aid comes, whether it’s by sea or whether by land, without fuel, aid won’t get to the people.”

Singh said the issue of fuel deliveries comes up in all conversations with the Israelis.

The U.S. military finished installing a floating pier off the Gaza Strip early Thursday, and officials were making final checks before trucks begin driving onto the shore to deliver pallets of aid.

The pier project, expected to cost $320 million, was ordered more than two months ago by U.S. President Joe Biden to help starving Palestinians as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting hinder food and other supplies from making it into Gaza.

Fraught with logistical, weather and security challenges, the pier project is not considered a substitute for far cheaper deliveries by land that aid agencies say are much more sustainable.

The boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.

U.S. officials said Thursday as much as 500 tons of food will begin arriving on the Gaza shore within days and that the U.S. has closely coordinated with Israel on how to protect the ships and personnel working on the beach.

But there are still questions on how aid groups will safely operate in Gaza to distribute food to those who need it most, said Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which is helping with logistics.

Spoiler

“There is a very insecure operating environment” and aid groups are still struggling to get clearance for their planned movements in Gaza, Korde said. Those talks with the Israeli military “need to get to a place where humanitarian aid workers feel safe and secure and able to operate safely. And I don’t think we’re there yet.”

Fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of the southern city of Rafah as well as Israel restarting combat operations in parts of northern Gaza have displaced some 700,000 people, U.N. officials say. Israel recently seized the key Rafah border crossing in its push against Hamas.

Pentagon officials say the fighting isn’t threatening the new shoreline aid distribution area, but they have made it clear that security conditions will be monitored closely and could prompt a shutdown of the maritime route, even just temporarily.

Already, the site has been targeted by mortar fire during its construction, and Hamas has threatened to target any foreign forces who “occupy” the Gaza Strip.

The “protection of U.S. forces participating is a top priority. And as such, in the last several weeks, the United States and Israel have developed an integrated security plan to protect all the personnel,” said Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, a deputy commander at the U.S. military’s Central Command. “We are confident in the ability of this security arrangement to protect those involved.”

Central Command stressed that none of its forces entered the Gaza Strip to secure the pier and would not during its operations. It said trucks with aid would move ashore in the coming days and “the United Nations will receive the aid and coordinate its distribution into Gaza.”

The World Food Program will be the U.N. agency handling the aid, officials said.

Israeli forces will be in charge of security on shore, but there are also two U.S. Navy warships nearby, the USS Arleigh Burke and the USS Paul Ignatius. Both are destroyers equipped with a wide range of weapons and capabilities to protect American troops offshore and allies on the beach.

Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani confirmed that the pier had been attached and that Israeli engineering units had flattened ground around the area and surfaced roads for trucks.

“We have been working for months on full cooperation with (the U.S. military) on this project, facilitating it, supporting it in any way possible,” Shoshani said. “It’s a top priority in our operation.”

The U.N., U.S. and international aid groups say Israel is allowing only a fraction of the normal pre-war deliveries of food and other supplies into Gaza since Hamas’ attacks on Israel launched the war in October. Aid agencies say they are running out of food in southern Gaza and fuel is dwindling, while USAID and the World Food Program say famine has taken hold in Gaza’s north.

Israel says it places no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and blames the U.N. for delays in distributing goods entering Gaza. The U.N. says fighting, Israeli fire and chaotic security conditions have hindered delivery. Under pressure from the U.S., Israel has in recent weeks opened a pair of crossings to deliver aid into hard-hit northern Gaza and said that a series of Hamas attacks on the main crossing, Kerem Shalom, have disrupted the flow of goods.

The first cargo ship loaded with food left Cyprus last week and the cargo was transferred to a U.S. military ship, the Roy P. Benavidez, off the coast of Gaza.

Military leaders have said the deliveries of aid will begin slowly to ensure the system works. They will start with about 90 truckloads of aid a day through the sea route, and that number will quickly grow to about 150 a day. Aid agencies say that isn’t enough and must be just one part of a broader Israeli effort to open land corridors.

Because land crossings could bring in all the needed aid if Israeli officials allowed it, the U.S.-built pier-and-sea route “is a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist,” said Scott Paul, an associate director of the Oxfam humanitarian organization.

Under the new sea route, humanitarian aid is dropped off in Cyprus where it will undergo inspection and security checks at Larnaca port. It is then loaded onto ships and taken about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to the large floating pier built by the U.S. military off the Gaza coast.

There, the pallets are transferred onto trucks, driven onto smaller Army boats and then shuttled several miles (kilometers) to the causeway anchored to the beach. The trucks, which are being driven by personnel from another country, will go down the causeway into a secure area on land where they will drop off the aid and immediately turn around and return to the boats.

Aid groups will collect the supplies for distribution.

 

[Bevo 13534]

Does anyone have a list of the remaining hostages, their ages, and where they are from? I think there are still American hostages being held and a bunch of hostages from all over the world.

[bolverk 29486]

1 hour ago, Bevo said:

Does anyone have a list of the remaining hostages, their ages, and where they are from? I think there are still American hostages being held and a bunch of hostages from all over the world.

This is the first thing that came up for me, but it's just a list of names:

https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/6140595/jewish/Names-of-the-Hostages-in-Gaza-for-Prayer.htm

 

The BBC also has this list, which has much more information about each of them individually.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67053011

 

[Parliament 14156]

The temporary pier was anchored to a Gaza beach last Thursday as Israel comes under growing global pressure to allow more supplies into the besieged coastal enclave, where it is at war with Palestinian militants Hamas and a famine looms.

Operations began on Friday and 10 aid trucks were driven by UN contractors to a World Food Programme warehouse in Deir El Balah in Gaza. But on Saturday, only five trucks made it to the warehouse after 11 others were intercepted.

"Crowds had stopped the trucks at various points along the way. There was ... what I think I would refer to as self-distribution," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York on Tuesday. 

https://www.tbsnews.net/hamas-israel-war/new-routes-planned-halted-gaza-aid-us-built-pier-857726

[bolverk 29486]

 

Responding here since it's more war-related than protest shit.

The evacuation zone is roughly 15 sq. mi., as far as I can tell, assuming that's where the IDF's current operations are concentrated. From there, I can only assume they'll work their way NxNW to the coast. According to Reuters, about 800,000 of the 1.15 million refugees have evacuated, which leaves roughly 350,000 civilians. 

While Brisket's point that Bibi is stalling for political reasons might be valid, I'd also argue that the IDF is taking much more care than previously in protecting civilian lives, as is their legal obligation. While there might be shelling and bombing, it doesn't appear to be the mass, indiscriminate aerial campaign that we'd seen earlier. I guess international pressure is working to some degree in that regard.

On average, a little over 200 Palestinians have been killed per day since the start of the conflict (according to Ministry of Health figures). Still, even with this new campaign, only 62 Palestinians were reportedly killed yesterday in the last update, so that would argue they're being more careful about not killing innocent civilians. 

https://acleddata.com/2024/05/14/mapping-israels-latest-push-into-gazas-rafah-acled-brief/

 

 

 

[Hermanator 7000]

According to game theory both Hamas and Israel fucked up here but Israel is continuing to fuck up much in the same way the US fucked up after 9/11. They've made their retaliation now they need to pull back and repair their global image or it will continue to get worse for them. 

 

[GopherRock 1765]

The chief of the IDF already loudly proclaimed that Bibi has no strategic goals for the Gaza fiasco. Cleaning out Hamas in an area, then not having anything to replace them with so Hamas shows back up. 

As I said earlier, this whole fiasco must be viewed through the lens of Bibi holding onto power. And unfortunately, there aren't enough votes in the Knesset to force an early election.

[mdmost 42953]

Another bang up job by the IDF.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-israel-pm-netanyahu-accepts-32903636

[CHIEF 5072]

Hamas just keeps poking the bear. They shot rockets into Israel yesterday. They don't give a shit about gaining sympathy, but they keep getting it in spades.

CHIEF

[Rex Kramer 1311]

28 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

Hamas just keeps poking the bear. They shot rockets into Israel yesterday. They don't give a shit about gaining sympathy, but they keep getting it in spades.

CHIEF

People like to ignore this. Israel is not allowed to win a war after it’s been attacked and has been continuously for 75 years.

[Hank_Hill 18624]

3 hours ago, mdmost said:

Another bang up job by the IDF.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/breaking-israel-pm-netanyahu-accepts-32903636

Lol wut. His official statement is “oopsie”

[F250 28732]

On 5/14/2024 at 9:29 PM, CHIEF said:

This is a pretty good read:

https://www.usmcu.edu/Outreach/Marine-Corps-University-Press/Expeditions-with-MCUP-digital-journal/Escaping-Atonement-in-Sunni-Islam/

The Palestinians are Sunni. It's sad to say, but this looks exactly what the Palestinians prefer. Death by Jihad gets you to the front of the line for Paradise and your 72 virgins.

The Quran states: 

"And if you are killed in the cause of Allah or you die, the forgiveness and mercy of Allah are better than all that you amass."18 

"Surely those who believe and those who leave their homes and fight in the way of Allah, may hope for his benevolence for Allah is forgiving and kind."19

"Do you think that you will get away before Allah knows who among you fought and did not take anyone but Allah, His Apostle and the faithful as their friends? Allah is cognizant of all that you do."20

"But (to) those who were victimized and left their homes and then fought and endured patiently, your Lord will surely be forgiving and kind."21

"He who strives (jihad) does so for himself. Verily Allah is independent of the creatures of the world."22 

"Those who fear Allah and follow the straight path will surely be in gardens and in bliss, Rejoicing at what their Lord has given them; and their Lord will preserve them from the torment of Hell. 'Eat and drink with relish,' (they will be told), (as recompense) for what you have done."23 

"Reclining there on carpets lined with brocade, fruits of the garden hanging low within reach. How many favors of your Lord will then both of you deny? In them maidens with averted glances, undeflowered by man or by jinn before them."24 

"If you give alms openly, it is well, and if you hide it and give it to the poor, it is better for you; and this will do away with some of your evil deeds; and Allah is aware of what you do."25

"And keep up prayer in the two parts of the day and in the first hours of the night; surely good deeds take away evil deeds."26

 

Palestinians will gladly go to their deaths for Allah, just as the early Christians were happily martyred in the Roman Colosseum. This is a religious war that can only end with genocide, one way or the other, or the Palestinians are going to have to be disobedient to Quaranic verses, which would obviously be a serious sin, possibly leading to eternal damnation. Hamas and the Palestinians started this, and are the only ones that can stop it.

You cannot look at this through secular eyes, but through religious understanding. If you have no faith, no religion, no understanding of their fear of hell, it's all just platitudes based in ignorance of Islamic doctrine. 

This is the view they have of themselves, every man, woman, and child, and with their beliefs, who could blame them:

CHIEF

I don't think you understand any of the material you linked. lol

This is an ethnic conflict over power, land and resources and like other problems in the M.E. this started after the dismantling of the Ottoman empire.

While unrelated the link was interesting and like Christian soteriology certain soteriological positions can really warp someone's view. I would also add that Christian eschatology probably has way too much influence on this conflict.

[Anastasis 23404]

4 minutes ago, F250 said:

This is an ethnic conflict over power, land and resources and like other problems in the M.E.

It’s really this straight forward. Once you recognize that the primary ethnicities in conflict are European Ashkenazi and Middle Eastern Arabs it’s all pretty fucking obvious what the century long play has been. 

Edited May 27 by Anastasis

[Rex Kramer 1311]

2 hours ago, Anastasis said:

It’s really this straight forward. Once you recognize that the primary ethnicities in conflict are European Ashkenazi and Middle Eastern Arabs it’s all pretty fucking obvious what the century long play has been. 

The Ashkenazi that’ve been expelled from country to country for 5,000 years before they returned to their roots, where they were originally expelled?  So tell me why Jews can’t have a country, in their ancestral homeland, when they’re surrounded by Arab countries?  And can’t be free to wage war against entities that wage war on them continuously for 75 years, including shooting rockets at them nonstop for like 35 years?

[Hank_Hill 18624]

They’re free to wage war against Hamas without committing blatant war crimes against innocent people, sure.

[F250 28732]

7 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

The Ashkenazi that’ve been expelled from country to country for 5,000 years before they returned to their roots, where they were originally expelled?  So tell me why Jews can’t have a country, in their ancestral homeland, when they’re surrounded by Arab countries?  And can’t be free to wage war against entities that wage war on them continuously for 75 years, including shooting rockets at them nonstop for like 35 years?

This seems incorrect. Your history seems to be really off here. It's almost as if you don't know what you are talking about.

[Anastasis 23404]

14 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

The Ashkenazi that’ve been expelled from country to country for 5,000 years before they returned to their roots, where they were originally expelled?

Show your work. In particular the so called roots and expulsion from the Middle East. What are you even talking about? 5,000 years. lol. Just obvious absurdity. 

[Hank_Hill 18624]

7 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Show your work. In particular the so called roots and expulsion from the Middle East. What are you even talking about? 5,000 years. lol. Just obvious absurdity. 

The Ashkenazi built the pyramids. I’m shocked people are even debating this point.

Edited May 28 by Hank_Hill

[Anastasis 23404]

4 minutes ago, Hank_Hill said:

The Ashkenazi built the pyramids. I’m shocked people are even debating this point.

 

[Brian Fantana 6672]

21 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Show your work. In particular the so called roots and expulsion from the Middle East. What are you even talking about? 5,000 years. lol. Just obvious absurdity. 

Your average 6th grader today has a better understanding of history.

I legit cannot fathom how some people come to these conclusions.

Edited May 28 by Brian Fantana

[bolverk 29486]

Reuters reports this morning that the refugees who were blown to bits were in a designated "humanitarian zone" and that they're still under Israeli fire. Since the bombing of the refugee camp, an additional 26 Palestinians have been killed.

Global leaders voiced horror at the fire in a designated "humanitarian zone" where families uprooted by fighting elsewhere in Gaza had sought shelter, and urged the implementation of a World Court order for a halt to Israel's assault.

*****

Residents said Rafah's Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood, the scene of Sunday's night-time strike in which tents and shelters were set ablaze as families settled down to sleep, was still being bombarded.

"Tank shells are falling everywhere in Tel Al-Sultan. Many families have fled their houses in western Rafah under fire throughout the night," one resident told Reuters via a chat app.

[bolverk 29486]

Reuters is now reporting yet another attack on refugees in a humanitarian zone, killing at least 21.

CAIRO, May 28 (Reuters) - Israeli strikes on a tent camp in an evacuation area west of Rafah killed at least 21 on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said, and tanks advanced to the centre of the southern Gaza city for the first time after a night of heavy bombardment.

Two days after an Israeli airstrike on another camp stirred global condemnation, Gaza emergency services said four tank shells hit a cluster of tents in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area that Israel had advised civilians in Rafah to move to for safety.

At least 12 of the dead were women, according to medical officials in the Hamas militant-run Palestinian enclave. An Israeli military spokesperson said: "As of this time, we are not aware of this incident."

In central Rafah, tanks and armoured vehicles mounted with machineguns were spotted near Al-Awda mosque, witnesses told Reuters. The Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the Rafah area, without commenting on reported advances into the city centre.

International unease over Israel's three-week-old Rafah offensive has turned to outrage after an attack on Sunday set off a blaze in a tent camp in a western district of the city, killing at least 45 people. Israel said it had targeted Hamas commanders and had not intended to cause civilian casualties.

Global leaders voiced horror at the fire in a designated "humanitarian zone" of Rafah where families uprooted by fighting elsewhere had sought shelter, and urged the implementation of a World Court order last week for a halt to Israel's assault.

Tuesday's attack occurred in an area designated by Israel as an expanded humanitarian zone, to which it had called on civilians in Rafah to evacuate for their own safety when it launched its incursion in early May.

[Brisketexan 104786]

Reuters is now reporting yet another attack on refugees in a humanitarian zone, killing at least 21.

CAIRO, May 28 (Reuters) - Israeli strikes on a tent camp in an evacuation area west of Rafah killed at least 21 on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said, and tanks advanced to the centre of the southern Gaza city for the first time after a night of heavy bombardment.

Two days after an Israeli airstrike on another camp stirred global condemnation, Gaza emergency services said four tank shells hit a cluster of tents in Al-Mawasi, a coastal area that Israel had advised civilians in Rafah to move to for safety.

At least 12 of the dead were women, according to medical officials in the Hamas militant-run Palestinian enclave. An Israeli military spokesperson said: "As of this time, we are not aware of this incident."

In central Rafah, tanks and armoured vehicles mounted with machineguns were spotted near Al-Awda mosque, witnesses told Reuters. The Israeli military said its forces continued to operate in the Rafah area, without commenting on reported advances into the city centre.

International unease over Israel's three-week-old Rafah offensive has turned to outrage after an attack on Sunday set off a blaze in a tent camp in a western district of the city, killing at least 45 people. Israel said it had targeted Hamas commanders and had not intended to cause civilian casualties.

Global leaders voiced horror at the fire in a designated "humanitarian zone" of Rafah where families uprooted by fighting elsewhere had sought shelter, and urged the implementation of a World Court order last week for a halt to Israel's assault.

Tuesday's attack occurred in an area designated by Israel as an expanded humanitarian zone, to which it had called on civilians in Rafah to evacuate for their own safety when it launched its incursion in early May.

You need to stop being so anti-Semitic.

[Hank_Hill 18624]

Israel has the right to protect itself by preemptively burning children in tents before they become a threat. The Ashkenazis mysteriously disappeared crumbling the Mayan empire and you’re going to try to take that away from them?

[Rex Kramer 1311]

16 hours ago, F250 said:

This seems incorrect. Your history seems to be really off here. It's almost as if you don't know what you are talking about.

My history is one hundo. I went a little biblical after drinking and the historicity can be debated. What cannot be debated is Jews have spent a huge chunk of the last 2,000 years being displaced and persecuted and murdered for being Jewish by the millions. 

The liberal tone is that Israel has done everything wrong over the last 75 years, when they’ve been continuously attacked in that time.  The arrogance to think some leftist here knows better how to react today given all that has occurred is laughable.  That they can’t have their country in their ancestral homeland, surrounded by Arab countries, because today’s liberal won’t permit them to win.

15 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

Your average 6th grader today has a better understanding of history.

I legit cannot fathom how some people come to these conclusions.

Bolverk does a decent job masking his propaganda. I mean, I still know where he stands with his constant barrage of anti-Israel posts. You are a step shy of being an overt Hamas supporter. My history is unassailable.

Edited May 28 by Rex Kramer

[Brian Fantana 6672]

[InkaUtexas 25599]

Not sure how posting an article about tanks shooting into a safe zone is propaganda.

[Rex Kramer 1311]

14 minutes ago, Hank_Hill said:

Israel has the right to protect itself by preemptively burning children in tents before they become a threat. The Ashkenazis mysteriously disappeared crumbling the Mayan empire and you’re going to try to take that away from them?

Preemptively?  lol. 

And what are you on about?

4 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Not sure how posting an article about tanks shooting into a safe zone is propaganda.

I hadn’t read that post yet. That’s a horrible deal. 

[Hank_Hill 18624]

2000 years, 5000 years, what’s the difference?? History on one hundo. Unassailable.

[Hank_Hill 18624]

3 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

Preemptively?  lol. 

How else would you describe burning children in tents in a humanitarian zone? Self defense? 

[F250 28732]

9 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

My history is one hundo. I went a little biblical after drinking and the historicity can be debated. What cannot be debated is Jews have spent a huge chunk of the last 2,000 years being displaced and persecuted and murdered for being Jewish by the millions. 

Your understanding of the topic is rooted in ignorance.

The discussion was on the current conflict which is a modern conflict and as Anastasis pointed out, it's a conflict that originated with the migration of Europeans to Palestine.

The Ashkenazi emerged in Europe during the middle ages, Yiddish is some kind of German dialect, they are white Europeans, and imported European culture to Palestine. These are not the ancient Israelites from biblical times. Like every other place Europeans settled that had an existing population, conflict between the settlers and locals occurred.

[Gengs1 2583]

 

[Brisketexan 104786]

3 minutes ago, Gengs1 said:

 

Man, why are you being so anti-semitic? 

[bolverk 29486]

8 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

Bolverk does a decent job masking his propaganda. I mean, I still know where he stands with his constant barrage of anti-Israel posts. You are a step shy of being an overt Hamas supporter. My history is unassailable.

There goes the little chihuahua yapping again.

My stance is clear:

Both Israelis and Palestinians have the right to their own sovereign states within the internationally recognized borders of 1967. This "right" is justified by more recent modern history (based on the pragmatic recognition of the existing populations: 7 million Jews, 7 million Palestinians) and deeper ancient history (indigenous population claims).

If you want to get technical about the history stuff, research shows the modern-day Jewish and Arab populations living in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza have about 50% of their DNA that can be traced to the same genetic pool that occupied the region 2,000 years ago. For Israeli Jews, the other 50% is from intermingling with Europeans (Ashkenazi and Sephardic). For the Palestinians, the other 50% is from intermingling with Arabs. Basically, the Jews who left the region during the Roman Empire retained their religion. Those who stayed converted to Christianity under the Romans and then later to Islam.

Since these two groups can't seem to get along, the best option, both morally and ethically, is to have two states side by side, again, within the internationally recognized borders from 1967.

Yes, Israel certainly has the right to defend itself from attacks, but it doesn't have the right to kill Palestinian non-combatants. Yes, Israel has the duty to go after Hamas, but it does not have the right to flatten Gaza in the process. In fact, they have a duty, under international law, to protect the civilian population. I haven't wavered from these opinions and consistently made the same arguments from the beginning of this entire mess.

Any claim that I "support Hamas" is simply a flat-out lie. Hamas is a terrorist organization that has no interest in serving the greater good of the people living in Gaza. If you know anything about my posting history, you'll know I'm not a fan of religious extremists of any stripe, whether they're Islamic, Christian, or Jewish, because they all spell trouble for everyone around them.

[InkaUtexas 25599]

Dammit. The one avenue Israel could not block.

US Gaza pier knocked out of action by heavy seas

A temporary pier built by the US military to deliver aid to Gaza has been damaged by heavy seas and will take at least a week to be repaired, according to US officials.

US forces began building the floating pier - which is attached to Gaza's shoreline by a temporary causeway - several weeks ago.

The causeway portion of the project has now reportedly broken off and will have to be repaired before being returned to its position.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c033m529ry0o

[Brisketexan 104786]

9 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Dammit. The one avenue Israel could not block.

US Gaza pier knocked out of action by heavy seas

A temporary pier built by the US military to deliver aid to Gaza has been damaged by heavy seas and will take at least a week to be repaired, according to US officials.

US forces began building the floating pier - which is attached to Gaza's shoreline by a temporary causeway - several weeks ago.

The causeway portion of the project has now reportedly broken off and will have to be repaired before being returned to its position.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c033m529ry0o

You know who wouldn'ta let that happen?

JOHN FUCKING WAYNE, THAT'S WHO.

[Armybrat 40759]

6 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You know who wouldn'ta let that happen?

JOHN FUCKING WAYNE, THAT'S WHO.

He talked the talk, but William Frawley did all the actual work.