Merged Gaza just launched an unprovoked attack on Israel

[TomC]

"demographic shifts mean the Labour Ashkenazi old guard is less politically important than Sephardim and Mizrahim who were expelled from Arab states in living memory and are therefore very hardline on the Palestinian issue. This is incidentally part of the problem with the Settler movement; it's now overwhelmingly Mizrahi. Ben Gvir, for instance, is Iraqi. So both the "settler colonialist" accusation starts to wither because these are people who never left the Middle East, and there are immediate family histories of being expelled from Arab states."

This was written by a poster on another forum.

He is a non-practicing Jew in California. His family was forced out of Europe roughly the 30s. They moved to a village of similar Jewish people in Mexico where he was born, his parents moved to the USA when he was little.
He's generally even handed about the situation, but very well informed. He doesn't think Bibi ouster would result in a noticeable difference in Israeli security policy.
Tom

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

It appears that a ceasefire is very close to happening:

Blinken Turns Up Pressure on Hamas to Accept Gaza Cease-Fire Deal

“The time is now,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken declared, urging Hamas to accept the terms of a proposed truce. He also made clear that he expected more from Israel.

www.nytimes.com

Seems to be in Hamas's court.

This was posted to the thread earlier:

Netanyahu vows to follow through with Rafah attack - BBC News

The Israeli prime minister says the invasion will proceed "with or without" a truce with Hamas.

www.bbc.com

Would you say that this type of communication is conducive to a ceasefire?

I want to be optimistic, but I don't know what is going to happen here.

It looks to me like Netanyahu is trying to derail talk of a ceasefire, which he has come out against repeatedly in the past. Biden appears to be feeding him with the impression that nothing he says or does will change US policy, effectively undercutting any influence that the US could have on the man's behavior.

The whole thing is hard to follow and surreal. Take a look at this recent article from The Times of Israel:

Israel said to give Hamas week ultimatum to choose between hostage deal, Rafah invasion

* * *

www.timesofisrael.com

They are the Times of Israel, but they are quoting the WSJ who is quoting the US who is relaying Israel's alleged position.

Communication pathway:
Israel --> US --> WSJ --> Times of Israel --> Israelis

Probably the most serious negotiations on the planet right now are being impacted by a game of telephone.

 

[barbos]

So, ICC is trying to arrest Netanyahu. Compare White House reaction to that with their reaction to ICC warrant for Putin.

 

[TomC]

Even before 7/10 Gaza was unstable and people lived in grinding poverty. Any wealth came from political connections. This was a pattern set by PLO under Yassir Arrafat.

The problem isn't that the Palestinians are idiots. The problem is that they are smart. But what is good for the individual Palestinian isn't what is good for the Palestinian people. Only wealthy and secure people have the luxury to vote based on higher ideas

I totally agree. Palestinians are not idiots.
But they have been in a really bad way for generations. Under circumstances that most of the people here can hardly imagine.

I'd say it's more like brainwashed or something. Assuming someone needs to be at least 5 to understand what is going on outside their own family, only people older than 23 even remember life before Hamas and have little experience with a world that doesn't include the barrage of meddling from outsiders.
Tom
ETA ~I remember, from shortly after his death, finding out that Arafat was mega rich. You'd never guess it from his folksy pretentious behavior, but he was close to a billionaire. It was reported by various newspapers in France when the heirs started court battles over the estate. ~

 

[Arctish]

Residents accuse Israeli forces of executions during West Bank raid

NUR SHAMS, West Bank — When Israeli soldiers arrived at Mohamad Abu Sweilem’s door and summoned his son during a raid on this Palestinian refugee camp, he pleaded with the soldiers to take him instead.
He could not fathom why the Israelis wanted Rajai, a 39-year-old father of four who worked at the family hardware store and was not a militant, he said. The soldiers, who had been in the camp for days, did not seem to know who his son was, or care much: They never asked for identification, his family said. Still, they led him away.

Less than a minute later, Mohamed heard gunshots, and his son’s voice crying out in pain, he said. The family found Rajai’s body hours later, after the soldiers had withdrawn. They suspect soldiers used him as a human shield to confront militants in a downstairs apartment and then shot him, a claim the Israeli military denies.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Thousands of Israelis take to streets of Tel Aviv to demand cease-fire and PM's resignation

Protesters are demanding the government reach a deal to bring the hostages back from Gaza, for new elections and the resignation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstration took place as a delegation of the Palestinian militant group Hamas was in Cairo for cease-fire talks...

www.yahoo.com

 

[Swammerdami]

So Netanyahu responds to complaints from the ICC by vowing to escalate his massacres? That's what a fascist would do.

I posted the following to the wrong thread:

But with the history, I don't think it's even possible to have the same circumstances.
Tom

Here is how that comes across: when people I don't like do it, it's a war crime, but when people I like do it, well, those are different circumstances. What I expect instead: here are my a priori, objective rules for when it's a war crime and when it's not, completely independent of having looked up circumstances of when which people did what and based completely reasonably on logic.

It was the  My Lai massacre and the company officers who perpetrated it that became the "go-to" example of war crime during the Vietnam war. (But focus on the hundreds killed by Lt. Calley et al was in part to deflect attention from the hundreds of thousands killed by the malfeasance of Johnson and Kissinger et al.)

There are rumors that Israeli soldiers have committed atrocities. Any efforts by government to investigate such charges?

How about you respond to the part about war crimes perps if that’s what you really want to discuss:

I have.
Over and over.
People keep hand waving away war crimes when they are committed by Muslims.
Where is the international outrage concerning Muslim war crimes?
Tom

"Muslim ... Muslim." This seems to pit one religion against another and is NOT helpful. Is the My Lai massacre best described as committed "by Christians"? And unlike the "spin" placed on the conflict in Gaza by Netanyahu's defenders, I do NOT hear protestors blaming Israel's war crimes "on the Jews."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Thirty-five years ago, all around the world dozens of countries changed their systems from (relatively benign) totalitarianism to democracy. It was a breath-taking change in world politics and some proclaimed "the End of History"! A few years later came the Arab Spring and optimism increased further. But . . .

. . . now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Prattle about "the End of History" is just a sad memory now. Countries around the world are turning to fascism. Democracy is dying.

Even now, Benjamin Netanyahu faces several criminal charges and is probably grateful for the distraction of a war. This sort of personal connection is one of the hallmarks of Fascism.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

So Netanyahu responds to complaints from the ICC by vowing to escalate his massacres? That's what a fascist would do.

I posted the following to the wrong thread:

But with the history, I don't think it's even possible to have the same circumstances.
Tom

Here is how that comes across: when people I don't like do it, it's a war crime, but when people I like do it, well, those are different circumstances. What I expect instead: here are my a priori, objective rules for when it's a war crime and when it's not, completely independent of having looked up circumstances of when which people did what and based completely reasonably on logic.

It was the  My Lai massacre and the company officers who perpetrated it that became the "go-to" example of war crime during the Vietnam war. (But focus on the hundreds killed by Lt. Calley et al was in part to deflect attention from the hundreds of thousands killed by the malfeasance of Johnson and Kissinger et al.)

There are rumors that Israeli soldiers have committed atrocities. Any efforts by government to investigate such charges?

I'm just going to guess that the answer is very little. I base this on complaints of long-standing abuses by IDF and the little that has been done. I don't want to come across as saying the IDF is evil, but it is one-sided in a sense and the diversity among soldiers allows some VERY extreme people to do things and go unchecked by a right-wing govt. I wouldn't know where to look up such things. Are they shrouded in secrecy?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/05/middleeast/israel-al-jazeera-closure-intl/index.html

Israel to close Al Jazeera news network in the country​

CNN —
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the operations of Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera will be closed in the country.

Netanyahu said in a post on X: “The government headed by me unanimously decided: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel.”

Ofir Gendelman, the prime minister’s spokesperson to the Arab world, said Sunday that the decision would be “implemented immediately.”

 

[Elixir]

A true sign of authoritarianism:

“me unanimously decided”

 

[TV and credit cards]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/05/middleeast/israel-al-jazeera-closure-intl/index.html

Israel to close Al Jazeera news network in the country​

CNN —
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the operations of Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera will be closed in the country.

Netanyahu said in a post on X: “The government headed by me unanimously decided: the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel.”

Ofir Gendelman, the prime minister’s spokesperson to the Arab world, said Sunday that the decision would be “implemented immediately.”

Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of the truth.

Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war - Committee to Protect Journalists

Editor’s notes: The list below is CPJ’s most recent and preliminary account of journalist deaths in the war. Our database will not include all of these casualties until we have completed further investigations into the circumstances surrounding them. For more information, read our FAQ. The...

cpj.org

Assault, imprison, threaten, and censor.

Attacks, arrests, threats, censorship: The high risks of reporting the Israel-Gaza war - Committee to Protect Journalists

Since the Israel-Gaza war began on October 7, journalists and media across the region have faced a hostile environment that has made reporting on the war exceptionally challenging. In addition to documenting the growing tally of journalists killed and injured, CPJ’s research has found multiple...

cpj.org

 

[Derec]

Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of the truth.

There have been a lot of local journalists who have died. I wonder how many of them had journalism as a day job, but were also fighters for Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

Speaking of the latter:
IDF says strike in Rafah killed Islamic Jihad commander who helped lead Oct. 7 attack

 

[Derec]

Hamas attacked the Kerem Shalom crossing, through which most of the aid is crossing.
I bet the Hamas useful idiots at Columbia and elsewhere will still blame Israel for slowdown in aid.

Israel-Gaza war: Three soldiers killed in Kerem Shalom rocket attack

It is very obvious that Hamas battalions and leadership in Rafah must be crushed. Biden needs to drop his opposition to the Rafah operation instead of trying to appease the "Death to America" crowd in Dearborn or "We are all Hamas" crowd in Columbia.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Each time a journalist dies or is injured, we lose a fragment of the truth.

There have been a lot of local journalists who have died. I wonder how many of them had journalism as a day job, but were also fighters for Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

Speaking of the latter:
IDF says strike in Rafah killed Islamic Jihad commander who helped lead Oct. 7 attack

The journalists or the military doing all they can to silence them, who knows where the truth lies?

 

[TomC]

So Netanyahu responds to complaints from the ICC by vowing to escalate his massacres? That's what a fascist would do.

The irony in your post burns.

"Muslim ... Muslim." This seems to pit one religion against another and is NOT helpful.

You think that the people protecting Jews from violent enemies are fascist.

But then you complain that pointing out the consistent factor amongst those enemies, Muslims, "is NOT helpful".

Do you realize what fascists were doing back in the mid 20th century?
They were doing what modern Muslims are doing.

Sorry if the religious cultural aspect of the problem is inconvenient to your ideology, but it's not going away just because you don't want to talk about it.
Bibi

 

[Swammerdami]

So Netanyahu responds to complaints from the ICC by vowing to escalate his massacres? That's what a fascist would do.

The irony in your post burns.

"Muslim ... Muslim." This seems to pit one religion against another and is NOT helpful.

You think that the people protecting Jews from violent enemies are fascist.

But then you complain that pointing out the consistent factor amongst those enemies, Muslims, "is NOT helpful".

Do you realize what fascists were doing back in the mid 20th century?
They were doing what modern Muslims are doing.

Sorry if the religious cultural aspect of the problem is inconvenient to your ideology, but it's not going away just because you don't want to talk about it.
Bibi

There are Muslims in Indonesia, Muslims in India, Muslims (barely surviving) in China, Muslims in Malaysia, Muslims all over the World. Or, as you might write "Muslims, Muslims, Muslims"? Are they all guilty?


ETA: And I have no idea where you see "irony", but I find it ironic that you blames MUSLIMS for this horrid war where both sides commit atrocities; yet at the same time leap to the conclusion that anyone complaining about militant Zionism is "anti-Semitic" (attacking Jews in general).

Vladimir Putin is a Russian Orthodox Christian. Yet I don't hear anyone declaring that the atrocities in Ukraine are committed by Christians.

 

[DrZoidberg]

So Netanyahu responds to complaints from the ICC by vowing to escalate his massacres? That's what a fascist would do.

The irony in your post burns.

"Muslim ... Muslim." This seems to pit one religion against another and is NOT helpful.

You think that the people protecting Jews from violent enemies are fascist.

But then you complain that pointing out the consistent factor amongst those enemies, Muslims, "is NOT helpful".

Do you realize what fascists were doing back in the mid 20th century?
They were doing what modern Muslims are doing.

Sorry if the religious cultural aspect of the problem is inconvenient to your ideology, but it's not going away just because you don't want to talk about it.
Bibi

There are Muslims in Indonesia, Muslims in India, Muslims (barely surviving) in China, Muslims in Malaysia, Muslims all over the World. Or, as you might write "Muslims, Muslims, Muslims"? Are they all guilty?

Unfortunately, they are. Collectively. Within Islam they have a thing called "Zakat", a duty to give to charity. It's one of the main pillars of Islam. And they're only allowed to give to explicitly Islamic organisations. That makes it a bit complicated for nominally secular organisations to operate in Islamic countries. Since it's Haram to give money to them. Technically, it's haram for a Muslim to even pay taxes to a country that isn't officially Muslim. But... never mind that detail. Anyhoo... money pours into Gaza through Islamic organisations. This is why Hammas and Islamic Jihad is swimming in money.

I'm convinced, money pouring into Islamic terror groups, wasn't the intention of zakat. But that's what has happened in the modern world.

No, it's not because Muslims are evil. And it's not even because Islam an unusually militant religion. It's just a weird quirk of Islam that the result is that a tiny little marginal group in the corner of the world, Palestine, can have such an outside punching force.

ETA: And I have no idea where you see "irony", but I find it ironic that you blames MUSLIMS for this horrid war where both sides commit atrocities; yet at the same time leap to the conclusion that anyone complaining about militant Zionism is "anti-Semitic" (attacking Jews in general).

Vladimir Putin is a Russian Orthodox Christian. Yet I don't hear anyone declaring that the atrocities in Ukraine are committed by Christians.

People who complain about Zionism tends to be antisemitic. Zionism is one of those things where most commonly believed things about it are false. It's often based on the faulty conclusion that Judaism is just as intolerant as Christianity or Islam (it's not). Jews don't go on and on about that you need to believe the right thing. The Jewish God doesn't care about what you believe. It cares about what you do. Which , btw, doesn't include taking back the holy land.

 

[TomC]

There are Muslims in Indonesia, Muslims in India, Muslims (barely surviving) in China, Muslims in Malaysia, Muslims all over the World. Or, as you might write "Muslims, Muslims, Muslims"? Are they all guilty?

Of course not. But Muslim is what Israel's mortal enemies, like Iran and Syria and Palestinians have in common. And frankly, the Islamic world is the source of nearly all the threats to Israeli people.

ETA: And I have no idea where you see "irony",

I explained that, but I will expand.
At the moment, Likud and Netanyahu are defending Jews against the worst threat to their existence since Hitler and the fascists. You might not like how they are doing it, but the fact remains that it's Hamas and their supporters in the Muslim world who are behaving like fascists. All Netanyahu did was flip off Pearl Clutchers International.

, but I find it ironic that you blames MUSLIMS for this horrid war where both sides commit atrocities; yet at the same time leap to the conclusion that anyone complaining about militant Zionism is "anti-Semitic" (attacking Jews in general).

For what it's worth, I try to avoid misusing the word anti-Semitic. The Palestinians are also a Semitic people. Lots of people who have deep roots in the region are semitic. There is anti-jewish, anti-zionist, and anti-semitic. They are different things. Keeping this disaster going is bad for everyone, therefore anti-semitic.

Vladimir Putin is a Russian Orthodox Christian. Yet I don't hear anyone declaring that the atrocities in Ukraine are committed by Christians.

I don't think that the invaders refer to themselves that way, but I am not the only person to harshly criticize the Russian Church for staunchly supporting the Ukrainian invasion. At least when the US was launching the invasion of Iraq, the Roman Pope was unequivocally opposed, calling it a "crime against humanity". Even Bush' own church, the Baptist Church, denounced it. Kirill supported Putin very publicly.
Tom

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

ETA: And I have no idea where you see "irony", but I find it ironic that you blames MUSLIMS for this horrid war where both sides commit atrocities; yet at the same time leap to the conclusion that anyone complaining about militant Zionism is "anti-Semitic" (attacking Jews in general).

Vladimir Putin is a Russian Orthodox Christian. Yet I don't hear anyone declaring that the atrocities in Ukraine are committed by Christians.

People who complain about Zionism tends to be antisemitic. ...

*FULL stop*

Read the comment again by Swammerdami: "... yet at the same time leap to the conclusion that anyone complaining about militant Zionism is 'anti-Semitic' (attacking Jews in general)."

Emphasis added. If you interpret that as all Zionism is militant, then that is a reading comprehension failure. It clearly is a qualifier to particular strains of Zionism. Specifically, the context of the posts were about Netanyahu and allegations of war crimes of the Israeli govt under Netanyahu's coalition of parties. And so one would have to look at those slices of Zionism and their beliefs and/or actions as opposed to trying to make correlations with different people and then make other correlations with anti-Semites to use a veiled ad hominem to try to target Swammerdami.

Zionism is one of those things where most commonly believed things about it are false. It's often based on the faulty conclusion that Judaism is just as intolerant as Christianity or Islam (it's not). Jews don't go on and on about that you need to believe the right thing. The Jewish God doesn't care about what you believe. It cares about what you do. Which , btw, doesn't include taking back the holy land.

There are things about Zionism that are believed that are false and there are things that are believed about Judaism that are false, about Christianity, about Islam, about atheism, about Buddhism, about Hinduism, etc. None of those false beliefs are relevant to the specific actions of Netanyahu and his government being discussed at the moment.

I will restate some of my positions in some different ways from the other thread, the campus protests thread: Hamas is not my ally. The Palestinian Authority is not my ally. The right-wing in Israel in which Netanyahu is a leader is not my ally. Some on the left in Israel are likely my allies. The Palestinian Authority, while not my ally, is at least better than Hamas.

Expressed as a ranking:
Hamas and some extreme members of Israel's right-wing < Palestinian Authority and some other members of Israel's right-wing < some strains of Israel's left-wing

To put it another way, my enemies are tyranny, murder, and slaughter.

This is why neither Hamas nor Netanyahu are my allies.

War crimes are war crimes are war crimes.

 

[TomC]

A true sign of authoritarianism:

“me unanimously decided”

You really don't see the difference between that and "the government headed by me unanimously decided"?
Tom