Senate Israel/Palestine

Think I'll continue it over in this thread.

To use the Syria analogy again, Assad deliberately focused his attacks on the moderate opposition and ignored ISIS as a cynical strategy because he knew the moderates could win over a majority of Syrians to overthrow him. And we've also seen Netanyahu do something similar, he undermined the PA and allowed Hamas to thrive instead, because the PA could have reached across to Israeli moderates to thwart his pro-settler agenda. So yeah, I'd argue that Israel had a lot more agency than the Palestinians...and it used that agency for ill.

 

You’re using the motte and bailey approach here. I never said that Israel doesn’t have more power within the situation. I said that saying that Netenyahu is 100% to blame for all of the deaths is a gross oversimplification of the whole situation.

 

The Biden administration only cares about federal law when it can maximize harm.

 

This is cap. Which is enraging because why even say it.

 

Ehhhh, okay...so we're nitpicking over technicality and exact wording. Technically Germany wasn't responsible for all the deaths in the war. The Western Allies sometimes went to excesses like bombing Dresden, and Soviets were incredibly brutal in their treatment of the Germans. But the fact still stands that Germany was predominantly responsible for starting the war and Germany was the first to start committing atrocities against its victims.

Bob's point was that Hamas was predominantly responsible for the war and is analogous to Germany, my counterpoint is that no they're not, Israel is analogous to Germany.

 

Harm Reduction candidate threatens to starve planet

 

So what’s this about Ireland, Spain, and Norway recognizing a Palestinian state and Israel immediately recalling their ambassadors to watch Hamas videos from October 7th?

 

I just read about that on Yahoo News. It will be formally announced on 28 May.

 

The harm reduction candidate is also fine with sanctions against the ICC and the prosecutor who filed for arrest warrants.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp66e6ppzd0o

But I need to vote for him because it's his opponent who does bad things like this.

 

yeah this administration seems intent on topping the likes of Cheney and Rice, in terms of committing human rights violations

 

Nothing says respecting “rules based international order” like threatening the ICC because your buddies got tagged for war crimes.

 

At least his opponent is honest about what he plans to do.

 

We really really really need the loudest voices against antisemitism to not be this ****.

 

The ICJ is ordering Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah.

"As a reminder, while ICJ rulings are legally binding, in practice they are unenforceable by the court." -BBC

Edit: The orders:

• halt military operation in Rafah
• open the Rafah border crossing with Egypt for the entry of humanitarian aid at scale
• ensure access to Gaza for investigators and fact-finding missions
• report to the court within a month on its progress in applying these measures

 

It seems to me that politicians in Western countries are right now either 1) extremely stupid or 2) think we're extremely stupid. After the prosecutor for the ICC submitted the paperwork for arrest warrants of Netanyahu and Sinwar, we have had several leaders of Western countries along with countless other Western politicians denounce the warrants by repeating a phrase "there is no equivalence between Hamas and Israel."

Biden: "No equivalent between Israel and Hamas."

France says there's no comparison between Israel and Hamas

British Prime Minister says International Criminal Court's move is 'deeply unhelpful' and flirts with 'moral equivalence' between Israel and Hamas.

And on, and on, and on. I could fill this post with countless tweets from American and other Western politicians saying the same thing. Which is completely baffling. As DarthPhilosopher will remind us, this has nothing to do with morals; it has to do with legality. The legality is if both people broke the law, then they must be held legally accountable. Which is what an arrest warrant begins to do. Making two arrest warrants does not imply that the crimes are the same crimes or any kind of "moral" claims. If a city in the US puts out an arrest warrant for a serial rapist and also for a petty shoplifter, is the US legal system saying that rape and petty thievery are morally equivalent? Obviously not. The creation of arrest warrants only means that the two people committed crimes. This is not a system where the worse one gets arrested while the less bad one does. This is obviously AIPAC brainrot reasoning because these people have genuinely run out of good arguments to make.

 

I struggle to see in what domains we can honestly make the case that the Netanyahu goverment and their allies are better than Hamas.
It's something that western media and politicians somehow give for granted, but I'm yet to see actual arguments in support of such a thesis.

 

I've been so busy that I forgot who said that the International court was designed to impose things on Africa. They may have been from Israel, but don't quote me on that. I keep hearing that from Emma V. when I drove to volunteer. But that pretty much makes sense in a twisted way. The international court system is used by the U.S. to impose judgments against the Global South. The fact that Israel's leaders were charged for these crimes is a step in the right direction. Nonetheless, I believe the Republicans invited BN to speak in our Congress. It's doubtful that he'll be arrested. Maybe some of our good protesters would try to apprehend him, but it's not like they could transport him to Europe for trial.

I'm glad that Hamas' leaders were charged, as well. There's an argument that they are the Palestinians' military. Well...ya know...if they were only attacking Israeli military targets, I could accept that. But they attack civilians. So, they do make things worse. Having said all that, none of this would go down without the Zionist policy. It's interesting how early Zionists were pretty secular. But Zionism, unfortunately, now mirrors the ultranationalist ideology that persecuted Ashkenazi Jews to begin with. History is filled with cycles, reactions, repeats, and all this nonsense. But we can all agree that it's never a good idea to emulate Hitler's gang in any fashion.

 

Let’s be clear what the ICC is; it was made with good intentions, not by the United States, to streamline the international criminal process after the tribunals which were formed after the crimes in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, etc. The issue is that there were good reasons why we used to convene ad hoc international tribunals - it allows international consensus, after a state became defunct, to try the perpetrators, which is ultimately provided legitimacy to the Court, which is what you when you’re trying stuff like this where there is no actual global government. This avoids what we are seeing - states not party to the ICC being asked to surrender their leaders, effectively delegitimising the Court because it can’t actually enforce its warrants and making the whole thing a farce.

The effect of the ICC not being accepted by the United States, Russia, China or India is that you have a Court which is perceived as only being against Africa (because those are the only party states left which have these sort of massive crimes being perpetrated) and it also has the affect of making African dictators cling to power because they know they’ll be off to The Hague. It’s a neat narrative thing which you can play, as if the ICC was designed just to be against Africa, but it’s actually just a result of it not actually being accepted by the big states. It exists, and it’s good when it’s able to bring justice, but it’s not really the nefarious western neo-imperialist baton it’s made out to be.

It’s probably because outlining a thesis of moral comparisons between various brutal acts is never going to be a good look. But, for as reactionary and terrible Netenyahu is, I don’t really think it’s that difficult to make the case that on a moral level Hamas as a worse group, in various ways.

For starters Hamas are an Islamic fundamentalist group, so you’ve got everything that entails from purely a domestic policy perspective. As much as Netenyahu has terrible right wing policies, I don’t really think he can be said to be as bad as literal Islamic fundamentals. Not to mention, even for someone personally indicted for corruption, Netenyahu’s is not as egregious as the systematic corruption amongst the Hamas leaders.

With respect to their conduct in war, I again don’t really think there is much of a moral equivalence. Israel is accused of being callous with civilian casualties in the war and cutting off supplies and humanitarian aid to varying degrees, which some have characterised as genocide. Stuff like the Flour Massacre are clearly instances at the very least of individual units committing war crimes, and likely Israeli leadership being very lenient on consequences to be essentially condoning such behaviour. But I’m not really sure that is the equivalent of Israel ordering going into civilian villages with no Hamas operatives and killing families in the manner which Hamas did. Israel’s conduct can be bad without being the moral equivalent of October 7.

 

It's really hard for me to believe you're saying this in good faith and actually keeping in mind Israel's conduct. Either that or you're just not paying any attention. Hamas killed about 1,400 people on October 7th; Israel has likely killed hundreds of thousands of Gazans. The official death count has nearly stopped since about December or January because hospitals traditionally report casualties, and Israel has intentionally destroyed nearly every hospital in the strip. With regards to the West Bank, deaths of children at the hands of Israelis were at record levels in 2023 before October 7th. Hamas took a couple hundred hostages; Israel routinely keeps thousands of Palestinians in "administrative detention" and systematically starves and tortures prisoners. Hamas destroyed a Kibbutz; Israel has rendered the majority of buildings in all of Gaza uninhabitable. Israel has cut off water and electricity supplies to civilian areas; they not only block aid from coming in at any crossing, they let fascist mobs attack the aid trucks waiting to cross. It's insane to say Hamas is worse.

 

At least based on the footage I've seen, I do think there's a moral equivalence between Hamas and the IDF. But that has nothing to do with the ICC and the ICC has made no claim about moral equivalences. Which means these politicians' arguments is with me, not the ICC. However, we all know that a bunch of leftists on a star wars messageboard thinking there's a moral equivalence has no affect on Israel, but the ICC's actions do, which is why these politicians have to make it seem like the ICC is making such a claim.

 

I agree. Hamas is reactionary; Israel's government is the cause. Hamas is no different than any insurgent group that lashes out in any direction. Frankly, when I was in middle school, I wondered if the Israel-Palestine conflict was comparable to some of the conflicts in Southeastern Europe. But by the ninth grade, I realized that the Zionist segregational system and their military had formed a settler colonialist project. And I totally agree. The official death toll is saddening. I can't pay too much attention to the videos on YouTube. At the same time, numbers are humans, not statistics. If one hasn't shed a literal or figurative tear for these poor people, I don't know what to say. It makes me wish the United Nations had teeth to end wars of this nature.

The best we can do is protest at every university and in the streets. As long as the protests remain nonviolent, the cause continues. I'm just tired of how stubborn Biden is. If Bush acted like he swallowed soap, Biden acts as though he placed soap in his ears.

 

I would want to bring myself to being pro Hamas because I don't want to be pro a group that would use my head as a soccer ball. I happen to quite like where my head is currently

 

Interesting. Heh. Well, some people will say, "Hamas is their military." But the joke of comparing Hamas to a soccer team is a bit much. Maybe try American football or floor hockey. Soccer is a bit too beautiful for that.

From my understanding, many protests in Palestine start off as peaceful. It's the desperation that leads to their reactions. And Palestinian terrorists are more prone to the old 1990s stereotype of a suicide bomber who's depressed, hates women and others, and has no future. That's not exactly accurate. The bombings are acts of desperation to end an occupation. There is an economic incentive to it. Life expectancy is lower in Palestine than in Israel. The list goes on. That's why there are leftist groups in Palestine. I get the sense that the Islamist influence is basically an anchor for one who really, really wants to end the occupation/apartheid. There's no way that one can generalize it, however. When you push people to the brink, some of them will react like Mohammad Atta. Others, however, engage in peaceful protest in the manner of historical figures. The corporate news tends to under-report the activists who want to find common ground.

Sad truth is that it's hard to accomplish that when the Zionist regime has become so ultranationalist. Ilhan Pappe is right that Israeli society needs to change because more Israelis need to sympathize with the Palestinians. Some do, but more should. Any chance of finding common ground depends on the moderates on both sides. Frankly, though, this situation should be pretty easy for those on the fence to comprehend. Children are children. Nobody should endure this type of pandemonium and violence.

 

It's not about being "pro-Hamas." Hamas is a radical Islamist organization. But Hamas is fighting Israel and it's the largest and most organized fighting force against Israel. This isn't like Ukraine and the Nazi Azov Battalion, where people have a choice to join Azov or to join the legitimate Ukrainian military. If you're a Palestinian in Gaza who wants to fight against the IDF and the State of Israel, the entity that is literally oppressing and killing your people, you can choose between a variety of smaller, ineffective organizations or Hamas. This is by design by the State of Israel, by the way. Israel destroyed most secular resistance while leaving Hamas around, so that the only resistance available would be Hamas. This was all part of Israel's way of showing to the West that it's them vs barbarism. Israel has given the people its oppressing (whom, I must remind you, has a median age in the teenage years) a choice: do nothing and accept living their entire lives in oppression or join Hamas. What would you do?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/

The question you and everyone else must answer is this: Do Palestinians have a moral, intellectual right to fight (using violence) against the State of Israel? If your answer is no, that they don't have a right to fight against Israel, then we have a fundamental disagreement that cannot be reconciled. If the answer is yes, then I ask how you, if you were someone who grew up in Gaza, would change the situation so that these people, whose only interaction with Israelis is being oppressed by them, would be willing to join a less radicalized and more socially acceptable rebellion.

 

Labeling anyone as "pro-Hamas" is a diversion tactic. The simple fact is that vengeance leads to cycles of further violence, as the Sisters said in Gargoyles. What I want to ask is how long with Netanyahu last? I think this extremist government could go on without him.

Regardless, the Zionist experiment is being questioned around the world. If it had remained secular and inclusive of Jews and others equally, we wouldn't be here, of course.

I do agree with your point, Vivec, but joining Hamas is not understood by everyone in the West. They perceive them the way we would Gaspard Ulliel's Hannibal Lecter. Thus, pretty nasty. I agree with you that the cause/problem is the Israeli government. The issue, though, is that people who are perceived to be supporting Hamas are perceived the same way folks would look at those who openly supported North Vietnam back in the day. That's why the focus should be on civilians. As a criminal justice master's student, most of my focuses are on domestic concerns like white nationalists, prison reform, rehabilitation, and so on. But the international court should focus on Israel first and Hamas' leadership second. The Hamas leaders haven't done their own people any favors. If Hamas stuck to charity, that would help. The best way to discredit the Zionist settler colonial project is to focus on the crimes of Netanyahu's government. Killing Israeli civilians helps nothing. Personally, I don't care how rich or bigoted some of them may be. They're human beings, too. Now, a military force resisting police and invaders is another matter. I never gave a damn about any Taliban members that were killed in combat, but I wasn't happy when Afghan civilians were hurt or killed. But that war, while different than this one, illustrates the futility of war. War is theft. It is the very essence of imperious thinking.

I wish that Israel would extend its universal healthcare to the Palestinians. But that's not going to happen. To force the issue, pacifist anarchism or peaceful protest must be used when dealing with occupying civilians. But resisting the occupying army, on the other hand, is justifiable. Of course, one should be careful and apply situational ethics. Self-defense from settler violence is more than understandable.