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Posted
12 hours ago, Captainant said:

There's no evidence in the daily wire reporting of this pediatrician's involvement with Hamas except for a goddamn twitter thread. Your link is a Hapsburg report that's eating its own shit and presenting twitter punditry as undeniable fact.

 

Quote

In five Arabic news articles, from four different articles, spanning from 2017 to 2021, Abu Safiya was referred to with his Hamas terrorist military rank of Colonel. These articles are published in Quds Net News Agency, Alray, Pal Times, and twice in Al Watan.

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A 2018 Facebook post by the Hamas-run Medical Services in Gaza refers to Abu Safiya as “Director of the Children’s Hospital, Colonel Hussam Abu Safiya.”

“It’s clear these news articles are using the word ‘aqeed’ to describe Hussam Abu Safiya which means military colonel,” Yigal Carmon, the president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) told The Daily Wire.

“This word would not be used to describe someone running a hospital as a civilian,” he added. “Besides, a few of the articles mention his role in the hospital in addition to using the word Colonel. Other doctors are mentioned too with military ranks and some doctors are mentioned just as doctors. They are distinguished.”

Quote

Dr. Baxtiyar Baram, a Kurdish physician who volunteered in Al-Awda hospital and Kamal Adwam hospital, accused Hamas of exploiting the hospital. 

“I saw that hospitals had been used for hiding Hamas leaders,” Baram said in an interview, reported the Jerusalem Post. He added that he believes Israel’s accusations of using human shields is correct because he has “seen it with my own eyes.”

Quote

Safiya’s social media history gave an insight into his beliefs before the Israel-Hamas war as well.

In 2020, Abu Safiya used a verse from the Quran about not allying with Christians or Jews to encourage against “normalizing with the enemy.” In 2021, he shared an image of terrorists with terrorist logos including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In a 2022 post, Abu Safiya called for the “beloved people of Palestine and Al-Aqsa Mosque” to be protected from “the injustice of the Jews and their aggression.”

“Nobody should be surprised that even doctors and hospital directors are part of Hamas,” Carmon said. “Hamas leaders are not uneducated thugs. They are the top of their society and highly-educated idealists, but their ideal is to annihilate the Jews.”

Abu Safiya has been especially outspoken on Instagram and Facebook as the IDF has waged a new offensive against Hamas in northern Gaza. The doctor told CNN he was briefly detained and interrogated in October.

 

Just because you can't read their language doesn't mean there's no evidence. It's been established, and well known for years, that terrorists use hospitals and civilians as shields. That's not going to fly anymore, and you need to get adjust to the new reality. No protests from naive idealistic westerners, no complaints from corrupt profiteering NGOs, no isolationist peaceniks bleating about "ending war", will stop the hunting down of the terrorists you so deeply advocate for. Get used to it.

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Posted
12 hours ago, MagicSoccerSpray said:

 

 

Just because you can't read their language doesn't mean there's no evidence. It's been established, and well known for years, that terrorists use hospitals and civilians as shields. That's not going to fly anymore, and you need to get adjust to the new reality. No protests from naive idealistic westerners, no complaints from corrupt profiteering NGOs, no isolationist peaceniks bleating about "ending war", will stop the hunting down of the terrorists you so deeply advocate for. Get used to it.

So to be clear, you're citing a Twitter post in which a communication referred to the leader of pediatrics in the hospital as a version of a colonel, and using that to say he's a member of Hamas? Not possibly a translation issue in which a military person refers to a civilian leader by a rank his peers would understand?

Idk man, you're really enthusiastic about claiming every one Ben Shapiro says is a terrorist is a terrorist. It's weird. I'd like to see more evidence than a Twitter thread before I go claiming a pediatrician is actually a terrorist. But don't let me get in the way of your outrage

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Posted

The fact that some cannot believe a doctor can be both is interesting. Add to that Hamas controls Gaza so anyone is power is probably affiliated.

And if anyone would have been witness to some of the shit Israel has done, might be a doctor.

 

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Posted (edited)
2 hours ago, Captainant said:

So to be clear, you're citing a Twitter post in which a communication referred to the leader of pediatrics in the hospital as a version of a colonel, and using that to say he's a member of Hamas? Not possibly a translation issue in which a military person refers to a civilian leader by a rank his peers would understand?

Idk man, you're really enthusiastic about claiming every one Ben Shapiro says is a terrorist is a terrorist. It's weird. I'd like to see more evidence than a Twitter thread before I go claiming a pediatrician is actually a terrorist. But don't let me get in the way of your outrage

 

It's not just a Twitter post, it's five separate articles in Arab language media specifically referencing him as a Hamas Colonel, not to mention his own social media espousing radical and terroristic ideals. But hey, he's been interviewed by sympathetic progressive media crying about the Jews while wearing a stethoscope, so he's obviously innocent, right?

Edited by MagicSoccerSpray
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Posted
28 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

It’s Fantana and Captain Ant, dude. I made a mistake in letting them out of the penalty box to start the year. Those guys are absolute assclowns. Fuck ‘em. 

in the club crying baby GIF by BBC First Australia

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Posted (edited)
20 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Israel literally immediately waiving all it's previous redlines as soon as the Trump admin is on the way in is the least surprising thing ever

Of course you would find this conflict ending as a way to trash something positive Trump has an influence on. You are the type that would see America fail so that you could point the finger at the President. You are queen faget.

Edited by WineGuy69
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Posted
7 minutes ago, WineGuy69 said:

Of course you would find this conflict ending as a way to trash something positive Trump has an influence on. You are the type that would see America fail so that you could point the finger at the President. You are queen faget.

I'm not trashing it, it's a good thing, I'm lamenting that this couldn't have been done months ago.

Maybe take some deep breaths.

Posted
47 minutes ago, WineGuy69 said:

Of course you would find this conflict ending as a way to trash something positive Trump has an influence on. You are the type that would see America fail so that you could point the finger at the President. You are queen faget.

How do you know what he would post being new here and all? And it is also interesting spelling. BTW, that is not the correct spelling for the Mig15 either.

 

Posted

Headline should read Israeli terrorists but whatever.

West Bank settlers attack Palestinian villages, angry about prisoner releases.

As three hostages were reunited with their families in Israel after 15 months of captivity in Gaza, settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank attacked at least three Palestinian villages, according to residents and the Israeli military.

Palestinian residents of the villages said that the attackers were masked and burned homes and vehicles, accounts that were backed up by video footage on social media verified by The New York Times. The Israeli military said in statements that the villages had been subject to “violent riots” and “violent confrontation” but did not mention arson attacks.

The military said that it had detained two suspects and handed them over to the Israeli police. The police did not respond to a request to confirm the episodes or the detentions.

Honenu, a legal organization that has represented settlers, on Monday issued a statement on behalf of one of its lawyers, Daniel Shimshilashvili, saying that two people accused by the police of setting fire to the homes of Palestinians in the West Bank had been released after a court hearing. It did not name the two.

The violence against Palestinians in the West Bank comes as many far-right Israelis have been protesting the cease-fire agreement between Hamas and Israel, hoping to disrupt implementation of the deal.

On Sunday, WhatsApp groups administered by Israeli settler groups were full of angry comments about the release of Palestinian prisoners to the West Bank and calls to block their entry with organized protests. Many users said that the released prisoners, some convicted of mass-casualty attacks on Israelis, posed a threat to citizens of Israel.

In Sinjil, a village south of Nablus, dozens of men, some carrying slingshots, rampaged through the village throwing stones and setting houses on fire, according to residents and videos verified by the Times. One clip showed vehicles burning in the village.

“People screamed as their homes were burning,” said Ayed Jafry, 45, a resident of Sinjil. He said that several people were injured, including an 86-year-old man.

On Sunday morning, a WhatsApp group for settlers posted a video of an Israeli man outside a shop with shattered glass, in Funduq, a Palestinian town.

“The next stage is destroying it,” he declared.

In a video taken from a CCTV camera in Turmus Aya, at least 20 masked men can be seen throwing stones and entering the village, as Israeli police cars appear in the distance. Villagers said the officers stayed clear of the violence and did not try to stop it.

Lafi Adeeb, the mayor of Turmus Aya, said that the police didn’t enter the village but that the military eventually dispersed the riot using tear gas. “I was shocked,” he said, because “this is the first time the army stopped the settlers here.”

Palestinian villagers in Turmus Aya and Sinjil, some of whom are U.S. citizens, alerted the American embassy in Israel about the attacks, and a senior U.S. diplomat called the office of Defense Minister Israel Katz to inform him, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic information.

 

 

Posted
20 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

The defiant stupidity of that guy. I’d send him the next iteration of a pager or walkie talkie. 

All in one communications boom box.

Made by the Badass Hebrew Company

Posted
5 minutes ago, bolverk said:

 

 

Love the sequence of posts -- masked Hamas shitbags surrounding a single Israeli female hostage.....followed by Israeli forces being fuckholes tearing apart a Palestinian civilian settlement.

A pox on both their houses indeed.  There is no moral high ground to be claimed here.  It's just an argument about who is worse, when both are pretty fucking terrible.  Fuck them all.

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Love the sequence of posts -- masked Hamas shitbags surrounding a single Israeli female hostage.....followed by Israeli forces being fuckholes tearing apart a Palestinian civilian settlement.

A pox on both their houses indeed.  There is no moral high ground to be claimed here.  It's just an argument about who is worse, when both are pretty fucking terrible.  Fuck them all.

No offense, but raping and torturing women hostages seems a little worse than destroying roads. 

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Hitch said:

No offense, but raping and torturing women hostages seems a little worse than destroying roads. 

You must've missed all the news about Palestinian hostages being sexually abused and tortured in Israeli prisons and hospitals.

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Posted

Israel’s Campaign in Syrian Border Area Prompts Fears It Plans to Stay
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s order for Israeli troops to “take over” a buffer zone with Syria upended decades of relative calm along the de facto border between the two countries.

Israeli soldiers have raided Syrian border villages, prompting nervous residents to huddle in their homes. They have captured the country’s highest peak, have set up roadblocks between Syrian towns and now overlook local villages from former Syrian military outposts.

The stunning downfall of Syria’s longtime leader, Bashar al-Assad, closed a chapter in the country’s decade-long civil war. But it also marked the start of an Israeli incursion into the border region, which Israel has called a temporary defensive move to protect its own security.

Thousands of Syrians now live in areas at least partly controlled by Israeli forces, leaving many anxious over how long the campaign will last. Israeli troops have detained some residents and opened fire during at least two protests against the raids, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent monitor.

At least some Syrians now say they fear the Israeli presence could become a prolonged military occupation.

“We’re the only part of the country that didn’t truly manage to celebrate the fall of the Assad regime — because even as the tyrant fell, the Israeli military came,” lamented Shaher al-Nuaimi, who lives in the border village of Khan Arnabeh, which has been raided by the Israeli military.

Israel and Syria have fought multiple conflicts, but for decades, the border separating the two has been largely quiet. They last went to war in 1973, when Syria and Egypt attacked Israel on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day. Afterward, both sides agreed to create a demilitarized buffer zone patrolled by United Nations peacekeepers that served as a de facto border.

But when Syrian rebels drove Mr. al-Assad from power on Dec. 8, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel ordered his country’s troops to “take over” the buffer zone, home to a number of Syrian villages. He called it a temporary move to “ensure that no hostile force embeds itself right next to the border with Israel” amid Syria’s internal upheaval and after the Hamas-led surprise attack from Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, that left some 1,200 people dead in Israel.

Israeli forces quickly seized the peak of Mount Hermon, the highest mountain in Syria, and advanced along the length of the buffer zone and beyond it. Around the same time, Israel said it conducted hundreds of airstrikes around the country targeting fighter jets, tanks, missiles and other weapons belonging to Mr. al-Assad’s government.

The continued military campaign, particularly the ground operation in the de facto border area, has prompted international accusations that Israel is violating the decades-old cease-fire. Several groups still hold territory in parts of the country in addition to the new Syrian government in Damascus, with Turkish forces in effect controlling areas along the northern border and a Kurdish autonomous region in the northeast.

The Israeli military is operating in the border area “now similarly to the West Bank, in that it can go in and go out anywhere it wants and arrest whomever it wants,” said Rami Abdulrahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in a phone interview.

Spoiler

Some Syrians said they hoped for good relations with Israel, citing their shared animosity toward Iran, which backed Mr. al-Assad’s regime. Israel also provided medical care to some Syrians inside Israeli-held territory during the decade-long Syrian civil war, including those from the border area.

“The medical treatment broke through some of the enmity that people felt,” said Dirar al-Bashir, a local leader in the border region of Quneitra.

But Mr. al-Bashir and others also said that if Israel’s operation became a protracted occupation, that would ignite further violence in a country exhausted by years of civil war. Israel already controls much of the Golan Heights, territory once held by Syria that Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war and subsequently annexed in a move not recognized by most of the international community.

“We want peace, but the decision makers in Israel seem to think that they will achieve everything by force,” said Arsan Arsan, a resident of a Syrian village outside the buffer zone who has helped coordinate between U.N. officials and local residents. “If they push people into a corner, things will explode, just as they did in Gaza.”

Israeli officers have also entered villages to meet with local leaders and demand that they gather up all of the weaponry in their towns and hand it over to the Israeli military, according to seven residents. The towns mostly complied with the order, leading Israeli soldiers to take out rifles by the truckload, they said.

Israel did not respond to requests for comment on specific accusations by local residents. But the Israeli military said on Wednesday that its forces have seized and destroyed weapons that formerly belonged to the Syrian army, including anti-tank missiles and explosive devices.

Syrian residents and local leaders in the border area also said that Israeli military vehicles have damaged water pipes and electrical cables around some villages, causing blackouts and water cuts.

Turki al-Mustafa, 62, said there had been no running water in his town, Hamidiyeh, since Israeli troops entered the buffer zone. He said that troops had allowed some water to be trucked in, but had set up roadblocks around the town, ordering residents to enter and leave only at designated hours.

Cellphone reception has also become spotty in the buffer zone since the Israeli incursion, according to Ahmad Khreiwish, 37, a resident of the town of Rafeed, making communication difficult.

“Everyone is now living with this dread about the Israeli military,” he said. “We don’t want things to escalate between us. We just want safety and security.”

Some Syrians have protested the Israeli military presence, organizing demonstrations in at least four villages. Two residents of the town of Sweisa said Israeli soldiers had opened fire and injured several people during a protest there on Dec. 25.

“They were unarmed and chanting slogans against Israel’s deployment in the area,” one of the residents, Ziyad al-Fuheili, 43, said of the protesters. “At first, the soldiers shot in the air, but when the crowd kept marching toward them, they fired at the demonstrators.”

Israel’s military said that its forces had fired “warning shots” in Sweisa and that it was looking into reports that civilians had been harmed.

Even before Mr. al-Assad’s fall, Israel worried about Iran-backed militias gaining a foothold along the Syrian border. Israeli warplanes regularly struck Iranian officials and their allies in Syria as part of the yearslong shadow war between the two sides.

The decision to send in troops reflects concerns about the prospect of surprise attacks on Israel, like the one that prompted the 1973 war, as well as the 2023 assault from Gaza. That prompted Israel’s wars with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, along with Israeli airstrikes on Iran-linked targets in Syria well before Mr. al-Assad’s ouster.

“Israel is closely monitoring the situation in Syria, and will not jeopardize its own security,” Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, said this month. “We will not allow another Oct. 7 on any front.”

Syria’s new leadership has criticized the Israeli military moves. Critics abroad, including several Arab states and France, have called Israel’s actions a violation of the decades-long truce and called on Israel to withdraw. Egypt accused Israel of “exploiting Syria’s current instability to expand its territorial control and impose a new reality on the ground.”

Israel’s officials say they will only withdraw after “new arrangements” are in place along the border. Given the chaotic internal situation in Syria, that could take months or even longer.

In Kodana, a small Syrian village just outside the buffer zone, Israeli armored vehicles arrived just a few days after Mr. al-Assad’s fall, according to the mayor, Maher al-Tahan. He said the Israeli troops told village leaders to broadcast a message over mosque loudspeakers ordering Kodana’s roughly 800 residents to turn over any weapons.

Since then, the Israeli military has brought generators and set up makeshift barracks in the hills overlooking Kodana, he said. But since most of Kodana’s wells sit on those hilltops, he and other residents said, they have turned to buying expensive trucked-in water rather than pumping it out of the ground.

“The Israeli military must leave as soon as possible,” Mr. al-Tahan said. “As long as they stay here, the problems on both sides will simply continue to grow.”

 

Posted

Israel Appears Poised to Keep Its Troops in Lebanon Beyond Deadline
Israel and Hezbollah agreed to withdraw from southern Lebanon, but Israel says that Hezbollah hasn’t upheld its promise and that the Lebanese Army isn’t ready to fill the void.

Israel is set to occupy parts of southern Lebanon after a deadline for its full military withdrawal lapses on Sunday, the Israeli government implied in a statement on Friday, amid Israeli concerns that Hezbollah remains active there and doubts about the Lebanese Army’s ability to stymie the militia’s resurgence.

Under the terms of a truce between Israel and Hezbollah in late November, Israeli troops were supposed to withdraw within 60 days from areas of Lebanon that they had recently wrested from the group’s control. Hezbollah was also required to withdraw from the region, allowing the Lebanese military to assert its control over an area where Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Shiite force and political movement, had long dominated.

Less than two days before the deadline, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, announced that Israel’s withdrawal was dependent on the Lebanese Army asserting its full control over the area, adding that the timeline was flexible and implying that Israeli troops would remain in Lebanon beyond the cutoff.

“Since the cease-fire agreement has not yet been fully enforced by Lebanon, the gradual withdrawal process will continue under full cooperation with the United States,” the statement from the Israeli prime minister’s office said.

Asked for clarification, the prime minister’s office declined to say if this meant that Israeli troops would definitely remain in Lebanon after the deadline. But Israeli leaders have told American and French mediators that they want to keep some soldiers in southern Lebanon beyond Sunday, according to three officials briefed on the negotiations.

There was no immediate response from the Lebanese government. In a brief message, Hezbollah’s media office said it was awaiting reaction from the countries overseeing the cease-fire, the United States and France. In a longer statement released on Thursday, Hezbollah said that any “breach” of the deal would not be tolerated, because it would be “a blatant violation of the agreement, an attack on Lebanese sovereignty and the beginning of a new chapter of occupation.”

Hezbollah officials did not respond to accusations that Hezbollah had failed to live up to its commitments and that the Lebanese military had not yet taken control of the territory in question. Its media relations office said the group was “committed” to the terms of the cease-fire deal but would not go into further detail.

Violations of the truce are monitored and investigated by a committee chaired by the United States and involving France. Hezbollah has called on those international monitors and the Lebanese government not to allow “any pretexts or excuses for prolonging the occupation,” but did not say what action it would take if Israeli troops remained.

After two months mostly without conflict, despite occasional violations, the specter of renewed fighting looms again, even if Hezbollah, battered and exhausted, no longer poses the same threat to Israel as it did at the start of the war nearly 16 months ago.

Spoiler

If Israeli troops do remain beyond the weekend without Lebanon’s blessing, Hezbollah will have to choose between accepting the status quo and losing face — or resuming battle and risking a large Israeli counterattack that would further damage both its decimated ranks and Lebanese civilian infrastructure. Should fighting restart, Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, has warned that Israeli strikes would no longer differentiate between Hezbollah and the Lebanese state.

“It’s a serious dilemma for Hezbollah. They are damned if they resist and damned if they don’t,” said Nicholas Blanford, a Beirut-based analyst for the Atlantic Council, an American research group. “Hezbollah’s supporters will not thank the party for resuming war when they are trying to return to their homes and begin rebuilding.”

Since November, Israel has transferred more than 100 military installations and villages to the Lebanese authorities, but still occupies roughly 70 percent of the areas that it captured after invading Lebanon last fall, according to Andrea Tenenti, a spokesman for UNIFIL, the United Nations peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.

Israeli officials say that the Lebanese Army has yet to signal its willingness to fill the void in those areas, all which are south of the Litani River. Mr. Tenenti said that the Lebanese military stood ready to do so but could not enter places that the Israeli military has yet to vacate.

Asked for comment, the Lebanese military referred to a public statement in which it said that it “maintains readiness to complete its deployment in the area south of the Litani River immediately after the Israeli enemy withdraws from it.”

In recent days, Israeli troops did not appear to be preparing for a complete evacuation, according to an official and an Israeli military officer who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely.

The deadline poses an early quandary for President Trump, who strongly backs Israel but campaigned on a promise of peace for Lebanon.

It is also a test for Lebanon’s new leaders. President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam, both selected this month, need a peaceful environment to rebuild Lebanon after years of war, political chaos and economic catastrophe. Their authority risks being undermined if they prove powerless to control their own territory and influence either Hezbollah or Israel.

The new Lebanese leadership “has yet to demonstrate adequately that it can be a confident leader in managing Hezbollah — a weakness that, of course, Israel is going to continue to exploit as justification for staying past the deadline,” said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East program at Chatham House, a London-based foreign affairs research group.

The current conflict began after Hezbollah’s ally Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostages. The next day, Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israeli military positions in solidarity with Hamas, and Israel fired back, leading to daily exchanges that displaced hundreds of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians and damaged towns on either side of the border.

The fighting escalated last summer, after a rocket from Lebanon killed a group of children and teenagers in an Israeli-controlled town. Israel assassinated most of Hezbollah’s top leadership, sharply increased its bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds and then launched a ground invasion into southern Lebanon.

The Israeli offensive destroyed whole neighborhoods, displaced more than a million people and killed several thousand, including many civilians.

The war also led to direct confrontations between Israel and Iran, Hezbollah’s main backer.

Bruised and distracted, Hezbollah and Iran were both powerless to prevent the collapse of a third member of their alliance, the Syrian government. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria was toppled by rebels in December, making it almost impossible for Iran to send arms to Hezbollah through Syrian territory. Within Lebanon, Hezbollah’s strength was diminished, leading to the rise of Mr. Aoun and Mr. Salam, who both promised to restore the cohesion and authority of the Lebanese state.

Israeli leaders privately say that a stronger Lebanese government is in Israel’s interests, because it could further curb the influence of Hezbollah, which opposes Israel’s existence. Hezbollah was founded in the 1980s, partly in response to a previous Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, which lasted until 2000. The militia’s weaponry gave it outsized influence over Lebanese affairs, with some comparing it to a state within a state. Now, the group is at its weakest ebb in decades.

But Israel is prepared to stay within Lebanon, denting the new Lebanese leadership’s authority, with its officials arguing that Hezbollah still retains the resources and the ambition to pose a threat to Israeli villages along the border.

Thousands of displaced Israelis have yet to return to their homes, fearful that Hezbollah will not adhere to the terms of the cease-fire and rebuild military infrastructure within firing range of Israeli communities.

Israeli officials complain that the Lebanese Army has yet to mobilize enough forces to replace Israeli troops in several key places, preventing the truce from being implemented in full. And they say that Hezbollah’s forces have yet to leave southern Lebanon, breaking the truce’s terms and forcing the Israeli military to remain in place.

The Lebanese Army has deployed to major towns and villages in southern Lebanon in recent weeks, mostly in places close to the Mediterranean Sea, in the southwest of the country. It has also deployed specialized units to remove rubble, dispose of unexploded ordinance and reconstruct roads that were destroyed. Army officials say they have operated in coordination with the international committee supervising the cease-fire.

But Lebanese soldiers have yet to take charge of the borderlands further to the east, with the exception of the area around Khiam, a town in southeast Lebanon that was the site of fierce fighting during the war.

An Israeli military officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity to speak more freely, said the Israeli Army had made no attempt to dismantle roughly half a dozen military bases built in recent months along a narrow strip, less than a mile wide, north of the Israel-Lebanon border.

The expectation among soldiers at the front, the officer said, was that they would remain in place for the foreseeable future to prevent Hezbollah’s return there.

 

Posted
21 minutes ago, bolverk said:

You must've missed all the news about Palestinian hostages being sexually abused and tortured in Israeli prisons and hospitals.

Yes, I saw the soldiers accused of that atrocity also be arrested. You’ll notice that doesn’t happen on the other side. In fact, they’re actually regarded as heroes. 

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Posted
31 minutes ago, Hitch said:

No offense, but raping and torturing women hostages seems a little worse than destroying roads. 

Yeah....way to entirely miss the point.  There are stacks of stories about how shitty Hamas is, the awful inhuman shit they've done, etc.  There are ALSO stacks of stories about how Israeli forces (and people acting under the protection of same) are committing atrocities, ethnic cleansing, and the like, against Palestinians (including in the West Bank).

Again...."their atrocities are worse than our atrocities" is the whole fucking problem here, and my entire point -- there's no moral high ground.  Just an argument that the "other guys" have fallen lower than we have.  Fucking hell.

Posted
5 minutes ago, Hitch said:

Yes, I saw the soldiers accused of that atrocity also be arrested.

Guess you missed the part where Israeli protestors, including multiple members of parliament stormed the army base where those accused soldiers were in custody, insisting that they be set free.

Again, more "see, their atrocities are worse than our atrocities" bullshit, while also not even seeing the actual full picture.  Perfection.  Couldn't capture this shitshow any better if I tried.

Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Yeah....way to entirely miss the point.  There are stacks of stories about how shitty Hamas is, the awful inhuman shit they've done, etc.  There are ALSO stacks of stories about how Israeli forces (and people acting under the protection of same) are committing atrocities, ethnic cleansing, and the like, against Palestinians (including in the West Bank).

Again...."their atrocities are worse than our atrocities" is the whole fucking problem here, and my entire point -- there's no moral high ground.  Just an argument that the "other guys" have fallen lower than we have.  Fucking hell.

I didn’t miss the point at all. It was just a silly comment. Their atrocities are far, far worse and I think it’s dangerous to lose sight of that. 

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

Guess you missed the part where Israeli protestors, including multiple members of parliament stormed the army base where those accused soldiers were in custody, insisting that they be set free.

Again, more "see, their atrocities are worse than our atrocities" bullshit, while also not even seeing the actual full picture.  Perfection.  Couldn't capture this shitshow any better if I tried.

Quoted above. Theirs are far worse and I will never conflate the two. That’s ridiculous. 

Edited by Hitch
Posted
Just now, Hitch said:

I didn’t miss the point at all. It was just a silly comment. Their atrocities are far, far worse and I think it’s dangerous to lose sight of that. 

Fucking.  FANTASTIC.

Now, sit down with some rational supporters of the Palestinian cause who can lay out pages and pages and pages of Israeli atrocities, violence, ethnic cleansing, and the like against Palestinians starting with the Nakba (as the Palestinians see it), and see how that scorecard looks.

"Hey, our atrocities are only -300 humanity points, theirs are -375 humanity points!" is a fucking horrific argument.  Yet that's the one you're making.  Which, again...makes my point with bullseye-precision.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, Hitch said:

Yes, I saw the soldiers accused of that atrocity also be arrested. You’ll notice that doesn’t happen on the other side. In fact, they’re actually regarded as heroes. 

Very very few Israeli soldiers ever actually get punished for abuse allegations. And, if they do, it's usually for only a month or two.

For example:

Between 2017 and 2021, the Israeli military received 1,260 cases of alleged offenses by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians, including 409 cases involving the killing of Palestinians, according to military data obtained by the group Yesh Din and released in December after a freedom of information request.

The Israeli military opened 248 criminal investigations into instances of possible misconduct in response to those complaints — just 21.4% of the total, Yesh Din said. Only 11 investigations during that five-year period have yielded indictments.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-soldiers-arrested-abuse-palestinians-be9a247497d7ede7d7b866f2e725fcfd

Take, for another example, the Israeli protestors who broke into a prison to free the soldiers accused of abuse.

Demonstrators also entered the Beit Lid military base in central Israel where the accused reservists were taken for questioning.

Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said the investigation into the soldiers’ conduct must be allowed to continue, adding “even in times of anger, the law applies to everyone”.

However some Israeli politicians have condemned the arrest of the reservists. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, called their detention “nothing less than shameful”.Since the 7 October Hamas attack, Israeli authorities have rounded up and held thousands of Palestinians, often without legal representation.

The BBC has previously spoken to medical workers at a field hospital set up in Sde Teiman, who alleged that detainees have been blindfolded, permanently shackled to their beds, and made to wear nappies rather than having access to a toilet.

Last month, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published allegations made by a doctor at Sde Teiman that leg amputations had been carried out on two prisoners, because of cuffing injuries. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.

Detainees there have told journalists and United Nations officials that they were beaten and attacked. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have denied systematic abuse.

Many Gazans detained by Israel’s army are released without charge after interrogation. Amnesty International this month called on Israel to end the indefinite detention of Gaza Palestinians and what it called "rampant torture" in its prisons.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2q07kd3ld6o

I, in no way, defend Hamas's actions -- we all know what they do is evil. But some of us apparently don't seem to apply the same standards to all parties.

You know: hypocrisy.

 

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Posted
Just now, Brisketexan said:

Fucking.  FANTASTIC.

Now, sit down with some rational supporters of the Palestinian cause who can lay out pages and pages and pages of Israeli atrocities, violence, ethnic cleansing, and the like against Palestinians starting with the Nakba (as the Palestinians see it), and see how that scorecard looks.

"Hey, our atrocities are only -300 humanity points, theirs are -375 humanity points!" is a fucking horrific argument.  Yet that's the one you're making.  Which, again...makes my point with bullseye-precision.

A proper accounting is crucial to understanding the situation. The scorecard is just not very close unfortunately. Maybe one day the Palestinian’s will hold their own rapists and murderers accountable and not hail them as heroes. Then those rational conversations can truly start. 

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Posted
2 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I, in no way, defend Hamas's actions -- we all know what they do is evil. But some of us apparently don't seem to apply the same standards to all parties.

You know: hypocrisy.

It's not even that.  It's arguing that "degree" really matters when both sides have gone well over the line of "horrific."

"You raped 50 women, that's far worse than me, I only raped 25 women, why, you raped TWICE as many as I did!"  Jesus fucking Christ.  "Degree" is relevant when you're arguing that party X raped women, and party Y ran a stop sign.  Once you cross into a world where both parties committed multiple felonies, then....fuck em both.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Very very few Israeli soldiers ever actually get punished for abuse allegations. And, if they do, it's usually for only a month or two.

For example:

Between 2017 and 2021, the Israeli military received 1,260 cases of alleged offenses by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians, including 409 cases involving the killing of Palestinians, according to military data obtained by the group Yesh Din and released in December after a freedom of information request.

The Israeli military opened 248 criminal investigations into instances of possible misconduct in response to those complaints — just 21.4% of the total, Yesh Din said. Only 11 investigations during that five-year period have yielded indictments.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-soldiers-arrested-abuse-palestinians-be9a247497d7ede7d7b866f2e725fcfd

Take, for another example, the Israeli protestors who broke into a prison to free the soldiers accused of abuse.

Demonstrators also entered the Beit Lid military base in central Israel where the accused reservists were taken for questioning.

Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said the investigation into the soldiers’ conduct must be allowed to continue, adding “even in times of anger, the law applies to everyone”.

However some Israeli politicians have condemned the arrest of the reservists. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, called their detention “nothing less than shameful”.Since the 7 October Hamas attack, Israeli authorities have rounded up and held thousands of Palestinians, often without legal representation.

The BBC has previously spoken to medical workers at a field hospital set up in Sde Teiman, who alleged that detainees have been blindfolded, permanently shackled to their beds, and made to wear nappies rather than having access to a toilet.

Last month, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper published allegations made by a doctor at Sde Teiman that leg amputations had been carried out on two prisoners, because of cuffing injuries. The BBC has not independently verified the claims.

Detainees there have told journalists and United Nations officials that they were beaten and attacked. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have denied systematic abuse.

Many Gazans detained by Israel’s army are released without charge after interrogation. Amnesty International this month called on Israel to end the indefinite detention of Gaza Palestinians and what it called "rampant torture" in its prisons.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2q07kd3ld6o

I, in no way, defend Hamas's actions -- we all know what they do is evil. But some of us apparently don't seem to apply the same standards to all parties.

You know: hypocrisy.

 

Again, there’s investigations and arrests. They’re not building statues of them. You just can’t compare the two unfortunately. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, Hitch said:

A proper accounting is crucial to understanding the situation. The scorecard is just not very close unfortunately. Maybe one day the Palestinian’s will hold their own rapists and murderers accountable and not hail them as heroes. Then those rational conversations can truly start. 

When an entire people have been crushed beneath the treads of a massive military apparatus for decades, and that gets no points on your "scorecard," then yeah....your scorecard is uber fucked.

Posted
1 minute ago, Hitch said:

A proper accounting is crucial to understanding the situation. The scorecard is just not very close unfortunately. Maybe one day the Palestinian’s will hold their own rapists and murderers accountable and not hail them as heroes. Then those rational conversations can truly start. 

Yes, a proper accounting for of actions by all war criminals is greatly needed.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges

Posted
1 minute ago, Hitch said:

They’re not building statues of them.

A mob of Israeli citizens, INCLUDING MPs, stormed army bases to free them.  There is a SIZEABLE movement in Israeli society that likes, celebrates, and wants more atrocities against Palestinians.  Sorry, putting the white hat on Israel makes you a fucking liar.

And again, I say this as someone who thinks that Hamas is evil, vile, giant pieces of shit.

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