Israel

[TwiceHorn 31539]

14 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The PLF, which was active within the PLO executive committee, hasn’t been delisted even as its activities have dwindled to almost nothing. It’s still been considered a small faction within the PLO.

It may be time to rewrite or repeal the law.  I am curious why an enterprising squad member hasn’t made the attempt to at least start the debate (maybe one has but I missed it.) 

Also, the practice of designating terrorist organizations and depriving them of certain "benefits" did not become a statutory requirement or possibility until amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act in 1996.  Thus commencement of the practice in 1997.

So, for better or worse, that 1990 legislation was in the same vein but not the same thing.

[Anastasis 23487]

There are congressional mandates, statutory laws, that prohibit military assistance to countries that are systematically violating human rights. But yeah, let’s talk in real serious tones about the one that pulls funding from the un over recognition of Palestine and act like any of these laws and congressional mandates matter. lol. 

[Sawbonz 27593]

On 5/9/2024 at 3:14 PM, Rex Kramer said:

Fundamentalists aren’t the same as evangelicals though they’re similar. 

That was true ten years ago. Fundis have co-opted the term

ETA also wrt small minorities driving policies — you literally have 8 lunatics holding the HOR hostage for the past 18 months. 

Edited May 11 by Sawbonz

[Sawbonz 27593]

17 hours ago, huge said:

And he's not so much a racist as he is a dumbass.

 

Whynotboth.gif

[RomaVicta 30027]

On 5/9/2024 at 8:28 AM, Chuckie Finster said:

Cue the "it's too late, still voting for the guy who wants to nuke Palestine" leftist replies...

 

 Correct call by Biden, IMO.

 

I feel for Biden. This is a tough situation. Our policy is mealy-mouthed in the face of a merciless displacement, killing, and starving 100s of 1000s. My opinion has been made clear enough. We're complicit.

I feel for Biden because he has to negotiate a complex problem in a US that wants a simple good-evil presentation. He's also got to worry about taking any stand that makes it any easier for Trump to assume the presidency and finish destroying republic. There is no way Biden loses my vote. No way.

I was driving and listening to NPR. A US government official, probably former, with the State Dept was to be interviewed. I rolled my eyes. As with many of my predictions, I was wrong.

He brought up a hard fact that altered my attitude somewhat toward support for Israel. He used the example of 30% of the missiles fired from Iran were intercepted by the US and allies. I was all for the defensive measures, but I hadn't really thought of the implications. 

One, keeping Israel from being done like Gaza is being done is unacceptable. As unacceptable as what Israel perpetrates this very day. Two, while I still think we should cut off supply of weapons being used in Gaza, I have a deeper understanding  feel for Isael's the Israeli people's dependence on the US to deter devastation. The Israeli goverment can all be kicked out of helicopters over the sea or over Gaza.

Our electorate's binary mindset about conflict, good-guy v bad guy, does not allow for anything but the most simplistic discourse. The GЯP's insistence on turning any issue into a pack of lies to be used as a dagger in the back of American interests makes Biden's position even tougher.

The same concern I have for the Gazans would be there for Israel pushed toward a similar situation. I wish we were not involved at all and that a Jewish State could have been set up somewhere in the West. Utah probably wouldn't work out, but somewhere they wouldn't have been immediately beset.

Another fucking novel. Sorry about that.

[RomaVicta 30027]

On 5/9/2024 at 2:18 PM, HenryJames said:

They're more the pawn in our idiotic political argument. They benefit from that as long as Americans care about Israel. A pawn can be tossed aside and should worry about that.

[RomaVicta 30027]

On 5/9/2024 at 3:16 PM, 956 Worldwide said:

Sorry, @TwiceHorn, this is a bit of a mishmash and it’s mostly because of the development of “Evangelical” into a near epithet. 
 

Evangelical is a theological definition and historic tradition that is defined by the centrality of evangelism (preaching and sharing the Gospel message), a belief in a personal conversion experience, and the authority of the Bible.  By any stretch almost all Methodism falls into this category, and John Wesley is universally recognized as a leading, foundational evangelical thinker.  There are conservative, liberal, and even progressive strains within evangelicalism. Independent congregetional church governance is  not core to evangelical theology in tradition or practice and plenty of more organized denominations fall into the broad evangelical tent.

Congregational church governance is organizational although it may have some theological groundings.  Most churches organized on these lines happen to fall within the evangelical big tent, but it’s not synonymous. Some groups like the churches of Christ will dispute that they are evangelical at all due to more sacramental understandings of baptism and communion although they developed in the general evangelical intellectual ferment.

Fundamentalism is a specific view of the Bible, with the “fundamental” being that the Bible is inspired, infallible, and inerrant. Most fundamentalist churches happen to be both evangelical and congregational but not all of them, there exist more formally organized fundamentalist groups as well as fundamentalist groups that co-exist within larger conservative but non-fundamentalist bodies.  Almost all the “let’s speed up the end times” folks DO fall into the “fundamentalist evangelical” group but the big evangelical tent is much, much broader. 

And persons I know that have been involved in the Methodist Church at the national level lament the hard anti-woman and anti-gay right wingers taking over. They couldn't be part of it, and left. It seems kind of like The Schism, but I'm not sure I know what that is.

As a non-believer, I liked the Methodist. If I were a devout believer, I'd aspire to being a Quaker. They seem to be the purest expression of faith in the ways of Jesus. 

I'm no expert. To the outsider, the difference between Catholic and Protestant is akin to that between baseball's National and American Leagues. You've got to get down to ground level to see the various follies of man.

[David Dennison 18948]

 

[chainsaw 9875]

Yeah I see why Alan Dershowitz loves these people so much

[WhatTheBuck 28801]

Bunch of Israeli terrorists. 

[The Original Greaser Bob 2850]

https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/366-urban-warfare-2-0

In retrospect:

1)Yeah, we should have given the Jews one of the states.  I would have chosen Mississippi.

2) We either jettison Isreal as allies or we quietly support their approach to destroying Hamas/getting hostages back.  And loudly loudly support humanitarian efforts that might help non-combatants.

[staboner 4988]

1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

 

we are a virus with shoes

 

[Anastasis 23487]

 

 

[Brian Fantana 6690]

It would feel pretty good knowing that I rightly called the settlers out for straight up being terrorists months ago, and it would feel great rubbing in every single one of you dipshits' faces who claimed that was antisemitic sentiment....if real people's lives weren't being affected and/or ended by their actions.

Again, fuck you, you all know who you are. Suck my whole cock.

Edited May 14 by Brian Fantana

[Hank_Hill 18896]

They’re all in the DT protest thread now

[JohnnyRage 1617]

CNN, so not hard hitting journalism. 4 days old, but didn't see posted. There have been some previous links to abuses of West Bank prisoners and Arab Israelis. This is more about removing Gazans into Israeli concentration camps for abusive interrogations. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation attempting to make that last sentence a crime.

 

 

[bolverk 29727]

12 hours ago, Hank_Hill said:

They’re all in the DT protest thread now

Based on their refusal to engage (hell, or even post) in the war thread now, it's obvious don't give a shit about it anymore. Their biggest concern is apparently that college kids or anyone else would have the audacity to call for a ceasefire or deign to suggest that Bibi's government isn't 100% right about everything all the time.

Now, they're complaining that I changed the thread title to "Worldwide Israel/Palestine War Protest thread" to expand its scope after they'd already started posting about shit not taking place on campuses or outside America. They especially don't like it when you bring up protests against the war taking place inside Israel. 

 

[bolverk 29727]

There's an enormous piece in the NYTimes Magazine that basically details Israel's descent into theocratic fascism. Below is the text of a separate article written simply to give a summary of the key takeaways. Shit sounds dystopian and familiar with how we're seeing the law is unequally enforced in Abbott's Texas.

Here's the gift link to the full piece. If you prefer to listen to it, there's also a 1:38:25 recording that's provided near the top of the article page.

 

Takeaways From the Times Investigation Into ‘The Unpunished’
Radical forces in Israeli society have moved from the fringes to the mainstream and put Israel’s democracy in peril. Here are the takeaways from our investigation.

For decades, most Israelis have considered Palestinian terrorism the country’s biggest security concern. But there is another threat that may be even more destabilizing for Israel’s future as a democracy: Jewish terrorism and violence, and the failure to enforce the law against it.

Our yearslong investigation reveals how violent factions within the Israeli settler movement, protected and sometimes abetted by the government, have come to pose a grave threat to Palestinians in the occupied territories and to the State of Israel itself. Piecing together new documents, videos and over 100 interviews, we found a government shaken by an internal war — burying reports it commissioned, neutering investigations it assigned and silencing whistle-blowers, some of them senior officials.

It is a blunt account, told in some cases for the first time by Israeli officials, of how the occupation came to threaten the integrity of the country’s democracy.

Settlers Pursuing a Theocratic State Have Become Lawmakers
Officials told us that once fringe, sometimes criminal groups of settlers bent on pursuing a theocratic state have been allowed for decades to operate with few restraints. Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government came to power in 2022, elements of that faction have taken power — driving the country’s policies, including in the war in Gaza.

The lawbreakers have become the law.

Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and the official in Netanyahu’s government with oversight over the West Bank, was arrested in 2005 by the Shin Bet domestic security service for plotting road blockages to halt the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. He was released with no charges. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, had been convicted multiple times for supporting terrorist organizations and, in front of television cameras in 1995, vaguely threatened the life of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered weeks later by an Israeli student.

Settler Violence Has Been Protected and Abetted for Decades
All West Bank settlers are in theory subject to the same military law that applies to Palestinian residents. But in practice, they are treated according to the civil law of the State of Israel, which formally applies only to territory within the state’s borders. This means that Shin Bet might probe two similar acts of terrorism in the West Bank — one committed by Jewish settlers and one committed by Palestinians — and use wholly different investigative tools.

The job of investigating Jewish terrorism falls to a division of Shin Bet known commonly as the Jewish Department. But it is dwarfed both in size and prestige by the Arab Department, the division charged mostly with combating Palestinian terrorism.

Jews involved in terror attacks against Arabs over the past decades have received substantial leniency, which has included reductions in prison time, anemic investigations and pardons. Most incidents of settler violence — torching vehicles, cutting down olive groves — fall under the jurisdiction of the police, who tend to ignore them. When the Jewish Department investigates more serious terrorist threats, it is often stymied from the outset, and even its successes have sometimes been undermined by judges and politicians sympathetic to the settler cause.

The two-tier situation has only become worse during the past year. We scrutinized a sample of three dozen cases from the West Bank since Oct. 7 that shows how much the legal system has decayed. In cases ranging from stealing livestock to arson to violent assault, not a single suspect was charged with a crime; in one case, a settler shot a Palestinian in the stomach while an Israel Defense Forces soldier looked on, yet the police questioned the shooter for only 20 minutes and never as a criminal suspect.

Ami Ayalon, the head of Shin Bet in the late 1990s, told us that government leaders “signal to the Shin Bet that if a Jew is killed, that’s terrible. If an Arab is killed, that’s not good, but it’s not the end of the world.”

But Jews have also been targets of ultranationalists. Prime Minister Rabin was murdered after rabbis passed what amounted to a death sentence on him for his support of the Oslo peace process.

Critics Have Been Silenced and Investigations Buried
In 1981, after a group of professors in Jerusalem raised concern about possible collusion between the settlers and the authorities and illegal “private policing activity” against Palestinians in the occupied territories, Judith Karp, then Israel’s deputy attorney general for special duties, was asked to lead a committee to look into the issue. Their report found case after case of trespassing, extortion, assault and murder, even as the military authorities and the police did nothing or performed notional investigations that went nowhere.

The minister of the interior at the time responded to their report with a scolding. “I understood that he wanted us to drop it,” Karp told us.

Another report two decades later met a similar fate. Talia Sasson, who was tapped to draw up a legal opinion on the “unauthorized outposts,” found that in a span of just over three years, the Construction and Housing Ministry had issued dozens of illegal contracts in the West Bank. In some cases, the ministry even paid for their construction.

Sasson and her Justice Ministry colleagues called the separate laws under which they saw the West Bank being administered “utterly insane.”

The report had little impact, powerless against the machine in place to expand settlements.

Security Officials Are Speaking Out in Alarm
In the West Bank, a new generation of ultranationalists has taken an even more radical turn against the very notion of a democratic Israeli state. Their objective is to tear down Israel’s institutions and to establish “Jewish rule”: anointing a king, building a temple in place of the Jerusalem mosques sacred to Muslims worldwide, imposing a religious regime on all Jews.

It was always clear, Lior Akerman, a former Shin Bet official, told us, “that those wild groups would move from bullying Arabs to damaging property and trees and eventually would murder people.”

This past October, according to a classified document we saw, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, the head of Israel’s Central Command responsible for the West Bank, wrote a letter to his boss, the chief of Israel’s military staff, saying that the surge of Jewish terrorism and violence carried out in revenge for the Oct. 7 attacks “could set the West Bank on fire.”

Another document describes a meeting in March, when Fox wrote that since Smotrich took office, the effort to clamp down on illegal settlement construction has dwindled “to the point where it has disappeared.”

Gaza has refocused the world’s attention on Israel’s long inability to address the question of Palestinian autonomy. But it is in the West Bank, in the hands of emboldened settlers, some of whom are now in power, that the corrosive effects of the occupation on both Palestinians and Israel’s rule of law are most apparent.

 

[bolverk 29727]

War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court sought arrest warrants Monday for leaders of Israel and Hamas, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over actions taken during their seven-month war.

While Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, do not face imminent arrest, the announcement by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor was a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza.

The court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.

A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.

Israel is not a member of the court, so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

 

Israel is not a member of the court is because this is included in the list of war crimes: "the action of transferring population into occupied territory." Of course, conservatives in the US have opposed the US becoming a member. Otherwise, W and his cronies knew they could be arrested for war crimes, so they pulled out of the treaty. The Trump administration was so hostile to the ICC that it threatened sanctions on ICC judges and staff.

Notably, the State of Palestine has been a member of the ICC since 2015.

 

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state

Specific charges against the Hamas leaders:

• Extermination as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(b) of the Rome Statute;
• Murder as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(a), and as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
• Taking hostages as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(iii);
• Rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(g), and also as war crimes pursuant to article 8(2)(e)(vi) in the context of captivity;
• Torture as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(f), and also as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity;
• Other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(l)(k), in the context of captivity;
• Cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity; and
• Outrages upon personal dignity as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(ii), in the context of captivity.

 

Specific charges against Netanyahu and Gallant:

• Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
• Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
• Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
• Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
• Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
• Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h);
• Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k).

 

Arrest warrants would mean no travel to the green countries:

green: State party

yellow: Signatory that has not ratified

purple: State party that subsequently withdrew its membership

orange: Signatory that subsequently withdrew its signature

red: Non-state party, non-signatory

Edited May 20 by bolverk

[RomaVicta 30027]

I love that the US and Russia signed and bailed. "What, you mean that's actually a crime? Shit, take our name off that shit!"

I was in the car a lot yesterday. I heard the outrage of Israel's spokespersons at being compared by even one iota with Hamas. In the particulars of the crimes against humanity carried out, Hamas' attack was like opening the doors of Hell for the victims. Hooray for Israel! They cleared that bar!

Sadly for Israel, pointing to more horrific crimes is generally not a defense for one's own crimes. 

I would also propose that the focus of the criminal charge is what was done to victims and, for nation states or stateless terrorist groups, who the victims are. In both of these attacks, extreme cruelty was imposed on civilians for no reason whatsoever.

Lastly, Israel's official denials and assurances come with zero transparency. They control the news, they shoot at dissenting reporters, they heavily restrict access to their slaughter campaign.

The big Israeli denier yesterday exclaimed something like, "We are a free democracy with a revered Supreme Court, how can you compare us to Hamas?"

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

It's your own acts, dickwad.

 

[wildcat09 29410]

Israeli soldiers and police tipping off groups that attack Gaza aid trucks:

Quote

Individual members of Israel’s security forces are tipping off far-right activists and settlers to the location of aid trucks delivering vital supplies to Gaza, enabling the groups to block and vandalise the convoys, according to multiple sources.

Settlers intercepting the vital humanitarian supplies to the strip are receiving information about the location of the aid trucks from members of the Israeli police and military, a spokesperson from the main Israeli activist group behind the blockades told the Guardian.

The claim of collusion by members of the security forces is supported by messages from internal internet chat groups reviewed by the Guardian as well as accounts from a number of witnesses and human rights activists.

Those blocking the vehicles say the aid they carry is being diverted by Hamas instead of being delivered to civilians in need, a claim relief agencies reject. US officials have also said that Israel has offered no evidence to support allegations that Hamas is diverting aid.

Rachel Touitou, a spokesperson for the Israeli group Tzav 9, said the group had been blocking trucks as they made their way through Israel since January, on the grounds that the aid they carried was “hijacked” by Hamas once it reached Gaza.

“When a policeman or soldier’s mission is supposed to protect Israelis and instead he is sent to protect humanitarian aid convoys – knowing it will end up in the hands of Hamas – we cannot blame them or civilians who notice the trucks passing by their towns for providing intel to groups trying to block that aid. Yes, some of our intel comes from individual members of Israeli forces,” Touitou added.

Videos last week showed aid convoys blocked and vandalised by Israeli settlers at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The incident, in which activists threw boxes of supplies to the ground, sparked outrage, with the White House condemning the attack as “completely and utterly unacceptable behaviour”.

Photographs from the scene showed piles of damaged aid packages and trails of rice and flour across the road. Photographs later circulated on social media showing the trucks on fire.

Touitou said: “It was not Tzav 9 that burned the trucks … this was not our action,” adding that other groups were responsible for the arson attack.

The settlers say they are blocking the aid trucks in order to stop supplies reaching Hamas and accuse the Israeli government of giving “gifts” to the Islamist group.

“Our purpose is to highlight that feeding your enemy, in this specific case Hamas, especially during a time of war, is immoral,” said Touitou. “Israel has been delivering this humanitarian aid without expecting anything in return. And 80% of the population agrees with our stance. Hamas is reselling this aid to civilians, which is meant to be distributed for free. We will continue to block this humanitarian aid until they can prove that it is reaching the civilians.”

Palestinian lorry drivers delivering aid to Gaza have described to the Guardian “barbaric” scenes” after their vehicles came under attack, claiming that Israeli soldiers escorting the convoy did nothing to intervene.

Yazid al-Zoubi, 26, a Palestinian lorry driver who was attacked by the protesters last week at Tarqumiya checkpoint, said: “There is full cooperation between the settlers and the army. We are shocked and surprised that the army did not provide us with any kind of protection. Even though they were present and watching what was happening. The army was at the service of the settlers.”

Two soldiers from Israel’s Home Front Command refused an order to evacuate protesters who blocked aid trucks in the Makhash area last week, according to the IDF. One of them was sentenced to 20 days in prison, Israel’s national broadcaster, Kan, reported.

An IDF spokesperson said: “A female reserve fighter refused to carry out a task to maintain order in an area that was defined as a closed military area and as a result she was brought to disciplinary proceedings accordingly. The fighter was convicted of the crime of refusing an order. This is an incident that is not consistent with what is expected of IDF soldiers while fulfilling their mission.”

Footage of the incident obtained by the Guardian appears to show Israeli soldiers escorting the convoy, taking no action against the settlers.

The same settlers and far-right activists often notify their members in advance about the times and locations that aid trucks are heading towards Gaza, citing that they receive this information from the Israeli police and military.

In one such message seen by the Guardian, far-right activists alerted members that they would “receive preliminary information about the planning of moving trucks, from border crossings’ soldiers and police”.

In another message in a settler WhatsApp group, a member wrote on Sunday: “I received information from an officer in the IDF that they bring the trucks in front of Ofra [a settlement] into Bitin [a Palestinian village].”

“When an emergency call about a convoy of trucks is received,” the first message says, “the group opens for discussions, and when this happens please only send messages related to the blockade, such as locations, photos, information and hitchhiking.”

Touitou said that most of the information they received came from civilians. “Often it is the same Israelis who report aid convoys passing by. After eight months into the war, Israelis are frustrated with how aid is being managed in Gaza. If it is soldiers, policemen, or civilians like me, you cannot expect us to accept that aid will end up in the hands of Hamas.”

Sapir Sluzker Amran, an Israeli human rights lawyer who last week visited the Tarqumiya checkpoint to document the settlers’ actions and to prevent the aid from being looted, said she was beaten and slapped by a settler and that Israeli security forces did nothing to stop the assault.

“The settlers had guns and knives,” Sapir said. “I asked the IDF soldiers to stop them as what they were doing was illegal, but they asked me to leave. At some point, as I was trying to prevent an aid truck from being vandalised, a settler slapped me very hard and went away. I filmed him and took photos of him. I went to the police and asked them that I needed their help as I wanted to press charge against the man. Again, they asked me to leave. The Israeli forces let the man who attacked me free to vandalise the trucks.”

Alleged collaboration between the army and the settlers has been denounced for years by Palestinians and human rights organisations. In 2016, the IDF corporal Elad Sela, a resident of the Bat Ayin settlement who served in the Etzion regional brigade, was sentenced to 45 months in jail for passing on classified information to extreme activists, allowing them to evade arrest and continue their activities.

In October 2022, Maj Gen Herzi Halevi, who lived in the West Bank settlement of Kfar HaOranim, was appointed as Israel’s military chief of staff, in a move that highlighted the army’s relationship with settlers.

The Israeli police and Cogat, an Israeli defence ministry agency, declined to comment on the allegations that members of the security forces were helping those blocking aid deliveries.

In a statement, Nir Dinar, the head of the IDF’s international press department, rejected the allegations as “a baseless claim that I am hearing for the first time”. Dinar said police were investigating incidents relating to the blocking and vandalisation of the convoys. “IDF is working to prevent these kind of events,” he added.

On Sunday, the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, suggested the government itself should be stopping aid trucks to Gaza instead of leaving it to groups of activists.

“We are in a democratic country and I am in favour of freedom of protest. They are allowed to demonstrate,” he said in an interview with Army Radio. “I am against them attacking and burning trucks … It’s the cabinet that should be stopping the trucks.”

 

[bolverk 29727]

34 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Israeli soldiers and police tipping off groups that attack Gaza aid trucks:

 

And apparently, the whole justification that Hamas is stealing the aid is largely a canard.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-envoy-says-israel-has-not-shown-evidence-that-hamas-is-diverting-un-aid-in-gaza

 

Moreover, we now have multiple examples of the IDF specifically targeting aid providers within Gaza. This goes far beyond the assassination of the seven World Central Kitchen workers. Are orders coming from the very top, or are rogue elements within the IDF pulling this shit independently?

I think those are serious questions to consider when the Minister of Defense (Gallant) is quoted as calling Palestinians "human animals" and saying that he had "ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed."

Then, you have Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security, stating on record his support for ethnically cleaning Gaza by saying that the war provides an opportunity to encourage the "voluntary migration" of Palestinians out of Gaza and that "We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing."

But, no, we mustn't question anything about the current Israeli government's intentions. Bibi and his allies deserve our unreserved support, always.

[RomaVicta 30027]

I'm sure the threat of not delivering more 2000 pound bombs will put an end to this.

[BrickHorn 18287]

7 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

I love that the US and Russia signed and bailed. "What, you mean that's actually a crime? Shit, take our name off that shit!"

I was in the car a lot yesterday. I heard the outrage of Israel's spokespersons at being compared by even one iota with Hamas. In the particulars of the crimes against humanity carried out, Hamas' attack was like opening the doors of Hell for the victims. Hooray for Israel! They cleared that bar!

Sadly for Israel, pointing to more horrific crimes is generally not a defense for one's own crimes. 

I would also propose that the focus of the criminal charge is what was done to victims and, for nation states or stateless terrorist groups, who the victims are. In both of these attacks, extreme cruelty was imposed on civilians for no reason whatsoever.

Lastly, Israel's official denials and assurances come with zero transparency. They control the news, they shoot at dissenting reporters, they heavily restrict access to their slaughter campaign.

The big Israeli denier yesterday exclaimed something like, "We are a free democracy with a revered Supreme Court, how can you compare us to Hamas?"

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

It's your own acts, dickwad.

 

[Anastasis 23487]

Matt Miller been putting in serious work lately. Total fucking clown. 

[bolverk 29727]

Spain, Norway, and Ireland will soon recognize the State of Palestine as an independent, sovereign nation, joining all these other nations in doing so. More Euro nations are expected to follow. In a bitch move, Smotrich decides he's going to withhold even more Palestinian tax revenue than he'd already been holding to further punish the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which notably is not Hamas in Gaza.

 

Israel Responds to Move to Recognize Palestinian State by Withholding Funds
The finance minister’s office signaled that the decision, which could worsen the Palestinians’ dire economic crisis, was a response to Spain, Norway and Ireland recognizing Palestinian statehood.

Israel will not transfer much-needed funds to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the decision by three European countries to recognize a Palestinian state, the country’s finance minister said on Wednesday, as its foreign minister denounced the European moves as giving “a gold medal to Hamas terrorists.”

The decision by the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right leader who opposes Palestinian sovereignty, threatened to push the Palestinian government into a deeper fiscal crisis. He said in a statement that he had informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would no longer send tax revenues to the authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank in close cooperation with Israel.

Mr. Smotrich’s office signaled that the decision was at least partly a response to Spain, Norway and Ireland recognizing Palestinian statehood, and that the Palestinian leadership bore responsibility for campaigning for the move.

“They are acting against Israel legally, diplomatically and for unilateral recognition,” said Eytan Fuld, a spokesman for Mr. Smotrich, referring to the authority. “When they act against the state of Israel, there must be a response.”

The Palestinian Authority did not immediately respond, but Palestinian officials have previously condemned Israel’s withholding of Palestinian tax revenues it collects as “piracy.”

Israel also recalled its ambassadors from Spain, Ireland and Norway for consultations on Wednesday morning. Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, said he had summoned the countries’ envoys to Israel for a “severe scolding” following “their governments’ decision to award a gold medal to Hamas terrorists.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Smotrich’s statement, nor did it immediately comment on the European countries’ announcements.

Under decades-old agreements, Israel collects customs and import taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. Those revenues constitute most of the Palestinian budget, particularly as international aid has declined. But Mr. Smotrich — who has labeled the Palestinian Authority “an enemy” — had already delayed transferring the latest tranche of funds before the announcements on Wednesday, said Mr. Fuld and a Palestinian official. The Palestinian official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority is already in a severe financial crisis following tightened Israeli restrictions on its funding and a depressed West Bank economy stemming from the war. This month, it managed to pay only 50 percent of the salaries of tens of thousands of civil servants.

Diplomats and analysts have warned that the Palestinian government’s deepening financial problems could lead to further unrest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, many in clashes with Israeli forces, since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry.

Palestinians have faced tightening Israeli restrictions since Oct. 7. Over 100,000 Palestinians who worked in Israel were barred from entering, creating mass unemployment overnight. Near-nightly raids, Israeli road closures, and stricter checkpoints have further choked the Palestinian economy.

The Palestinian Authority traditionally disburses some of the tax funds collected by Israel to Gaza. After the war broke out in October, Mr. Smotrich said he would withhold that part from the amount it transfers to the authority. Palestinian officials refused to accept the reduced payments at all in protest.

After a monthslong standoff over the issue, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to a deal stipulating that Norway would hold some of the revenues in trust until Israel agreed they could be sent to the Palestinians. The Palestinians agreed to receive the reduced payments in the meantime.

On Wednesday, Mr. Smotrich called for the government to immediately annul that agreement as well.

Top Israeli officials, including Mr. Netanyahu, have repeatedly excoriated international recognition of a Palestinian state as a “prize for terrorism” after the Oct. 7 attack.

Most of the current hard-line Israeli government rejects the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, practically ruling out peace talks to end Israel’s decades-long occupation.

President Biden and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken have said that after the war, Gaza should be unified with the West Bank under a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority. Israel has remained vehemently opposed to that idea. The authority in its current form is also unpopular among Palestinians, who view it as complicit in Israel’s occupation.

[Anastasis 23487]

lol at the audience clapping. 
 

 

 

[Hermanator 7177]

Religion will ultimately be the downfall of modern civilization. It's all shit

[RomaVicta 30027]

Maybe we should be more careful about about blowing up people and invading other countries. Maybe we should face our past of propping brutal, absolutely brutal, dictators and training their death squads.

Or, we could just use our enormous power to silence even the weakest apparatus created to stop such horrors.

Shame on any politician muddying the issue with outrage over the distortion that the International Criminal Court announcement was about equating Israel and Hamas as perpetrators of horrors. The fact is they're both slaughtering the innocent. 

But that's just way too complicated for discourse here in the land of the free where just about everybody gets 12 years of public education. Creating fine minds.

[Willfully Horn 8050]

On 5/20/2024 at 6:35 PM, bolverk said:

War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court sought arrest warrants Monday for leaders of Israel and Hamas, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over actions taken during their seven-month war.

While Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, do not face imminent arrest, the announcement by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor was a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza.

The court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.

A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.

Israel is not a member of the court, so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

 

Israel is not a member of the court is because this is included in the list of war crimes: "the action of transferring population into occupied territory." Of course, conservatives in the US have opposed the US becoming a member. Otherwise, W and his cronies knew they could be arrested for war crimes, so they pulled out of the treaty. The Trump administration was so hostile to the ICC that it threatened sanctions on ICC judges and staff.

Notably, the State of Palestine has been a member of the ICC since 2015.

 

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state

Specific charges against the Hamas leaders:

• Extermination as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(b) of the Rome Statute;
• Murder as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(a), and as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
• Taking hostages as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(iii);
• Rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(g), and also as war crimes pursuant to article 8(2)(e)(vi) in the context of captivity;
• Torture as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(f), and also as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity;
• Other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(l)(k), in the context of captivity;
• Cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity; and
• Outrages upon personal dignity as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(ii), in the context of captivity.

 

Specific charges against Netanyahu and Gallant:

• Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
• Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
• Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
• Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
• Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
• Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h);
• Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k).

 

Arrest warrants would mean no travel to the green countries:

green: State party

yellow: Signatory that has not ratified

purple: State party that subsequently withdrew its membership

orange: Signatory that subsequently withdrew its signature

red: Non-state party, non-signatory

Finally.

[Anastasis 23487]

12 hours ago, Hermanator said:

Religion will ultimately be the downfall of modern civilization. It's all shit

Deep thoughts. 

[HenryJames 66183]

Quote

Radical Israeli settlers have expanded their attacks on aid trucks passing through the West Bank this month, blocking food from reaching Gaza as humanitarian groups warn that the enclave is sinking deeper into famine.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/26/west-bank-aid-trucks-gaza-settlers/

Spoiler

Far-right Israeli settlers step up attacks on aid trucks bound for Gaza

The settler groups use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities.

Loveday Morris

TARQUMIYAH, West Bank — Radical Israeli settlers have expanded their attacks on aid trucks passing through the West Bank this month, blocking food from reaching Gaza as humanitarian groups warn that the enclave is sinking deeper into famine.

Groups of settler youth are tailing relief convoys, setting up checkpoints and interrogating drivers. In some cases, far-right attackers have ransacked and burned trucks and beaten Palestinian drivers, leaving at least two hospitalized.

The assailants use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities. Working off what they say are tips from Israeli soldiers and police, in addition to the public, members pore over photos to work out which vehicles might be carrying aid to Gaza and mobilize local supporters to block them.

An attack on Thursday showed the system in action: Users in one WhatsApp group with more than 800 members began posting about a flatbed truck loaded with sugar, sharing photos from the road as they followed it.

“The truck supplying Hamas stopped in front of Evyatar!” said 23-year-old Yosef de Bresser, referring to an Israeli outpost south of the Palestinian city of Nablus.

De Bresser is a leader in the “We Won’t Forget” movement, which set up protest camps at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza earlier this year and runs several of the WhatsApp groups targeting aid trucks.

“Come join the blockade!” he wrote. Others answered the call.

The flatbed was ransacked, its load strewn across the road, according to images posted later in the group — one of two sugar trucks vandalized by settlers that day. De Bresser said the waybills — which did not show a destination — proved that the truck was headed to Gaza.

Fahed Arar, who owned the cargo, said the 30-ton load of sugar was actually destined for Salfit, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. The driver escaped unharmed, he said, but the Israeli military wouldn’t let him reload the goods.

Instead, soldiers removed the sacks with a bulldozer and destroyed them, Arar said, putting his losses at $30,000.

The Israel Defense Forces said that troops arrived on the scene after the attack took place, dispersed civilians and “prevented further destruction.” It denied that soldiers stopped the driver from reloading. A message in the settler WhatsApp group said it was the police that removed the cargo.

The Israel Police, largely responsible for enforcing the law when crimes are committed by Israeli citizens, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The violence and vandalism, committed with near-total impunity, raises questions about the willingness of Israel’s security forces to restrain extremist settlers and protect Palestinians. It also challenges the Israeli government’s claim that it is doing all it can to ensure that aid flows to Gaza, where the humanitarian situation has deteriorated rapidly since IDF forces moved into the southern city of Rafah.

As bands of teenagers become the arbiters of who can and cannot pass along main roads in the West Bank, any trucks carrying food have become vulnerable to attack.

“The environment around us is fed by hate and revenge,” said Abdo Idrees, chairman of the Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce.

Under pressure from the United States, Israel opened the Tarqumiyah crossing in the West Bank earlier this month for aid trucks traveling to Gaza from Jordan and for Palestinian businesses exporting food. The routes to the crossing take them by Israeli hilltop outposts where settler violence against Palestinians has spikeddramatically in recent months.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has called the targeting of aid trucks “a total outrage,” and the Biden administration is considering imposing sanctions on people involved in the attacks, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Humanitarian groups say Gaza is in its darkest hour after nearly eight months of war. More than a million Palestinians have been displaced this month, the United Nations says, after Israel began its assault on Rafah and sealed the enclave’s most vital land crossing for aid. The northern part of the territory is already in a “full-blown famine,” the World Food Program said recently, and aid officials warn it is spreading south.

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said last week that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Both men have said the charges are outrageous and politically motivated.

The opening of the Tarqumiyah crossing on May 13 was part of an effort by the IDF to increase the flow of aid to Gaza. But one of the first convoys from Jordan was immediately set upon by Israeli protesters, who tossed boxes of food on the ground and stomped on them. Several trucks were torched.

We “never called on people to take the law into their own hands,” said Rachel Touitou, spokeswoman for Tzav 9, which boasts hundreds of members, including settlers and demobilized reservists, and has been active in blocking aid trucks since January.

The group put its activities on hold after the May 13 incident, but Touitou said the effort would continue because it is in “Tzav 9’s DNA.”

De Bresser denied that his group was responsible for burning trucks but said he could not condemn the violence.

“I’m happy for every truck that doesn’t enter Gaza, and I’m also happy to see it catch fire,” he said.

The We Won’t Forget movement supports “dismantling” trucks and sometimes takes action based on “inside” information, he said, including from transport workers, police officers and soldiers he says are against sending “supplies to Hamas.”

A recent incident illustrated the Israeli authorities’ hands-off approach to enforcement. In the early hours of May 17, about two dozen far-right youths set up a makeshift blockade at Tarqumiyah; soldiers and police officers drove past the group multiple times without stopping them.

At dawn, as the first truck approached, a 12-year-old boy with blond side curls picked up a brick and brandished it above his head, threatening to throw it at the vehicle if it moved any closer. The truck reversed. Other vehicles turned around at the sight of the group.

Police asked the demonstrators to take down the barricade after about an hour, but the demonstrators continued to mill around. A police officer joined them as they prayed in the road.

“It’s not our job to stop them, it’s our job to protect them,” said a female soldier of the young settlers. She declined to give her name.

In recent days, there have been more efforts to protect the trucks. Left-wing counterdemonstrators have created a “humanitarian guard” at the crossing, which has put pressure on the police to ensure it is functioning, said Alon-Lee Green, head of Standing Together, the group behind the campaign.

Some aid convoys from Jordan are now traveling under police escort. But other commercial trucks are afforded no security at all.

Ibrahim al-Razem, 35, was driving a load of Coca-Cola to Kafr Aqab on the outskirts of Jerusalem when he ran into a roadblock on the night of May 16.

“They asked me if I was going to Gaza,” Razem, a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem, said of the crowd of settlers that stopped him. He provided the group documentation showing the goods were headed somewhere else, he said.

But they weren’t satisfied. “Are you a Jew or Arab?” Razem recalled them asking right before they attacked.

“They really wanted to kill me,” he said, adding that military officers at the scene did little to control the crowd. Razem said he hid under an IDF vehicle to shield himself from the blows.

The IDF said two officers and a soldier were “slightly injured” when they tried to separate the attackers from the driver. “Dozens of Israeli citizens reacted violently towards the force,” the military said in a statement.

“If the army really wanted them to leave, they could have shot in the air,” said Razem, who suffered three fractured vertebrae, broken ribs and a broken nose.

The truck, which he had decorated with keepsakes from his sons, was set on fire after he was taken to the hospital.

“This was my source of income,” he said, estimating his losses at around $200,000. “I was broken.”

John Hudson in Washington and Alon Rom in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

 

Edited May 27 by HenryJames

[mdmost 43054]

Oh well, more dead Gaza civilians. Maybe we shouldn't point this out since we're anti-semites if we do. 

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

[UTEE97 3522]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/27/university-student-protests-gaza-right

[Satchel 6949]

How is it these unintentional, inadvertent “mistakes” keep happening?

[Fastbreak 3994]

How is it these unintentional, inadvertent “mistakes” keep happening?

Ooopsie!

[HenryJames 66183]

Yeah, we’re not even getting any ‘my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Hamas pass out at 31 Flavors in Rafah last night. I guess it's pretty terrorist.’

[bolverk 29727]

Reuters reports this morning the refugees were in a designated "humanitarian zone" and that they're still under Israeli fire.

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.
 

[mdmost 43054]

Exactly why Biden didn’t want Israel going into Rafah. But we’ll still sell these cunts more weapons.

[InkaUtexas 26141]

How many hostages have been rescued? This operation was never going to work if that was the goal. This is punishment.

[Brisketexan 105383]

Just now, InkaUtexas said:

How many hostages have been rescued? This operation was never going to work if that was the goal. This is punishment. ethnic cleansing, just like the hardliners said they were going to do.

FIF accuracy.

It continues to astound me that people scream that we are pro-Hamas and anti-semitic if we take what to me seems like the sane position of "Israel had and has every right to respond militarily to Hamas' Oct 7th attack, including operations to rescue hostages, but it does NOT have the right to purposefully target and terrorize Palestinian civilians, especially not with the goal of running them all out of the levant."  Israel can defend itself.  It can't commit a stack of war crimes in doing so.

And that makes me a "Hamas sympathizer" and "anti-semitic."  What a stupid fucking timeline.

[InkaUtexas 26141]

3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

FIF accuracy.

It continues to astound me that people scream that we are pro-Hamas and anti-semitic if we take what to me seems like the sane position of "Israel had and has every right to respond militarily to Hamas' Oct 7th attack, including operations to rescue hostages, but it does NOT have the right to purposefully target and terrorize Palestinian civilians, especially not with the goal of running them all out of the levant."  Israel can defend itself.  It can't commit a stack of war crimes in doing so.

And that makes me a "Hamas sympathizer" and "anti-semitic."  What a stupid fucking timeline.

Spoke with a few friends, including my dad, who did a lot of hostage type work. They said this mission was going to be harder than Iran for us. But, we never leveled the IRG. Instead we took our time, inserted assets (Dude named Dick Meadows is a legend) and had three plans ready. Meanwhile we played the diplomatic game. Our goal was keep the hostages alive until we could 1- rescue or 2- have them released. I do not think Bibi gives a flying fuck about the hostages and has written them off.

If the IDF's special forces went in, got 50% out and there were Palestinian casualties most would not like it but understand it. This type of operation is just BS. It is like the leveling of Warsaw to get the resistance. Grozny to get the Chechen leaders (who were already in the hills.)

 

[JohnnyRage 1617]

Would it be fair to generalize that historically Jews have seen more autonomy and religious freedom under Persian, Arab, and Ottoman rule rather than under Macedonian, Roman, and Christian occupation, and received some of the worst treatment while spread out in Europe? There were the obvious times where Joseph's tribe found the situation in Egypt untenable, and when Nebuchadnezzar conquered, exiled and enslaved the Judeans.

Were the original Philistines from the Mediterranean like the island Crete? 

That would make the argument that this current blood struggle between Jews and Arabs has been going on for thousands of years not make a whole lot of sense.

[Brisketexan 105383]

5 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

I do not think Bibi gives a flying fuck about the hostages and has written them off.

This is key.

It was never about rescuing the hostages.  And here's the thing...maybe it shouldn't have been.  Maybe the right, but hard answer should have been "we must presume the hostages are already dead or will be no matter what we do.  We will of course try to rescue any we can find, but we are in total war with an opposing military force, and we must focus all efforts on defeating that force."  That would have at least been honest.

Then, wage a methodical war to destroy Hamas as a military force.

That's not what's happening.  Not even close to it.

[JohnnyRage 1617]

15 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

That would have at least been honest.

To be honest would have been to say at best a new buffer zone of no occupation in the North is needed and that most likely will result in eventual Israeli settlement, and at worst turn the whole of Gaza into unoccupiable rubble forcing a humanitarian crisis resulting in a diaspora of the Gazan people and no need for an autonomous state separate from Israel.

 

 

 

Edited May 28 by JohnnyRage
'an'

[Fastbreak 3994]

It is nuts that a small group of literally crazy Christian evangelists seeking the end times have dictated our policy towards Israel and thus our participation in war crimes and genocide.

My entire life I have heard “remember the holocaust and never left it happen again!”. Welp, it’s fucking happening…I didn’t forget.

[BrickHorn 18287]

38 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

How many hostages have been rescued? This operation was never going to work if that was the goal. This is punishment.

Punishment? Maybe. But also with a little opportunism sprinkled in.

Edited May 28 by BrickHorn

[InkaUtexas 26141]

Perhaps. But what does israel get with this tactic? Hamas is destroyed and great, now we have a ghetto to rebuild and a few generations of really pissed of people.

No one is taking the Palestinians as refugees.

[wildcat09 29410]

8 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Perhaps. But what does israel get with this tactic? Hamas is destroyed and great, now we have a ghetto to rebuild and a few generations of really pissed of people.

No one is taking the Palestinians as refugees.

They get to slaughter Palestinians. That's its own reward to fascists. 

[InkaUtexas 26141]

Seems that way. Just another day. I guess you could say tank shells are "precise" munition. If so, that means the IDF is shooting at the tent areas.

CAIRO, May 28 (Reuters) - Israeli tanks shelled a tent camp in an evacuation area west of Rafah and killed at least 21 people on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said, while advancing to the heart 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 strip that Israel had advised civilians in Rafah to move to for safety.

 

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-forces-press-rafah-offensive-despite-global-outcry-2024-05-28/