Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday gave one of his most direct condemnations of the civilian death toll in Gaza and said more needs to be done to “minimize harm to Palestinian civilians.”
Although Blinken commended Israel for its announcement of daily military pauses in areas of Northern Gaza and two evacuation corridors, he said that “there is more that can and should be done to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians.”
The top US diplomat has subtly shifted his messaging in the days since he departed the Middle East earlier this week to more directly voice condemnation of the civilian toll in Gaza and the US’ expectations for the Israeli government. However, he still has not condemned the Israeli government offensive and has continually voiced support for its right to defend itself.
“now here’s more bomb money.”
Military Industrial Problem: These bombs are killing too many civilians, it’s bad for PR.
Military Industrial Solution: Here, let us sell you some GPS kits to make your bombs more accurate.Which Israel uses to accurately kill civilians.
I mean not to sound pedantic, but it seems like such a waste even bothering with guided weapons with what they’re accomplishing. Bibi could literally save money and just uses regular old toss/dive bombing considering Gaza has zero air defense.
It’s like how they used an aim-9x for the Chinese balloon. its so overkill.
it seems like such a waste even bothering with guided weapons with what they’re accomplishing. Bibi could literally save money and just uses regular old toss/dive bombing considering Gaza has zero air defense.
The reason they aren’t doing that is to reduce civilian casualties despite Hamas using human shields. If genocide were Israel’s goal I suspect they would be using such tactics, that they aren’t, that they are instead spending lots of money to increase accuracy and reduce collateral damage, is telling.
10k deaths of which 60% are women and children is not reduced collateral though lol. That’s my point. Its not carpet bomb genocide, but they have no regard for civilian (or hostage) life.
You can still aim unguided bombs very accurately, especially if you’re just targeting large structures and don’t have to worry about surface to airs or another air force. I’m pretty sure the IDF already has and is doing so.
The only reason we know they’re using guided munitions is because many of the videos of the airstrikes show an incoming AGM with a very prominent flare showing.
My dumb point is that if they’re not targeting moving targets, no point in ordering guided munitions. A regular Mk bomb will hit a building just fine the same way.
10k deaths of which 60% are women and children is not reduced collateral though lol. That’s my point. Its not carpet bomb genocide, but they have no regard for civilian (or hostage) life.
Just because that number is big doesn’t mean it isn’t reduced; if they used the tactics you floated, indiscriminate attacks with big, dumb bombs, it would undoubtedly be higher. Doing so would be cheaper and take less effort and coordination than the lengths they currently go to.
I suspect the high casualties are due to Hamas hiding among civilians and in/under civilian structures (citation above.) The available alternatives which would reduce collateral damage are, 1) Israel lets Hamas operate with impunity because of these human shields, or 2) IDF goes in to depose Hamas without air support and suffers massive casualties. Either of these strengthen Hamas at the expense of Israel and leaves them less safe. Non starters, considering that for them this operation is reportedly about safety.
You can still aim unguided bombs very accurately, especially if you’re just targeting large structures and don’t have to worry about surface to airs or another air force. I’m pretty sure the IDF already has and is doing so. … My dumb point is that if they’re not targeting moving targets, no point in ordering guided munitions. A regular Mk bomb will hit a building just fine the same way.
For leveling buildings I suspect you’re right, I think the major issue is that Hamas targets surround themselves with civilians and I imagine in many of these circumstances better targeting could reduce collateral casualties. For example, the Hamas commanders in the tunnel network under the refugee camp that got Israel a lot of international criticism when they bombed it, (twice.) Perhaps more precision could have reduced civilian deaths there.
At very least this demonstrates that they are willing to spend resources to minimize civilian casualties, how it will play out I can’t say.
This human shields line. If it was true why don’t Hamas stick their hostages in every hospital?
Under them likely. I literally provided a link with evidence of them using human shields and using protected civilian targets to hide their assets. Maybe read it.
Was there an acceptable number?
0 is a number
Was there an acceptable number?
0 is a number
“I’m sorry, retaliating against the slaughter of your people is unacceptable. Please patiently await the next nightmarish orgy of mass murder, kidnapping, violence, and rape that will be visited upon you.”
Seems to sum up Lemmy’s take on this conflict.
Get off their land .
Said lands were annexed by a foe they declared war on and lost to, repeatedly. It’s clearly not theirs anymore. They do not have the means to occupy or control the lands they are claiming rights to.
The 1967 war that Israel started?
Did you know annexation of land is illegal in both offensive and defensive wars, too?
The 1967 war that Israel started?
My understanding is that this was a preemptive strike against Egyptian forces that were staging invasion along the Sinai border and blockading Israel.
On 26 May Nasser declared, “The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waiting_period_(Six-Day_War)Who started this war, again?
Did you know annexation of land is illegal in both offensive and defensive wars, too?
And yet they still happen. Expecting lands and access to them to be granted to an enemy while they remain belligerent is absurd.
Well, first off, apologies for writing an essay in this comment, but I did a deep dive checking all my facts here.
On 26 May Nasser declared, “The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel.”
So, right off the bat, simply pointing to a seemingly offensive intent does not enter a “preemptive war” into a legal grey area under international law. The UN Charter (Article 2 (4)) simply prohibits the initiation of armed conflict, absent a UN Security Council resolution authorizing an enforcement action.
Second, this is naturally a huge oversimplification to portray the origins of the conflict as “preemptive defensive attack”. As you’ll typically find with this kind of “let’s destroy Israel for no reason!” rationale being painted over Arab countries.
The actual origin of the conflict goes back to the mid 1950s, with the Suez Crisis. Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956, prompting Western powers to try to find a way to unseat Nasser. Israel invaded the Sinai on Oct 29 1956 - the UN Security Council convened the next day, US submitted a draft resolution calling for Israel to withdraw behind the 1949 armistice lines, which Britain and France vetoed and then sent in an air attack the next day. Security Council passed resolution 119, which called for an emergency special session of the UN GA, which passed resolution 997 (ES-I), calling for an immediate ceasefire, withdrawal of all forces behind the 1949 armistice lines, arms embargo, and the reopening of the Suez Canal. Soon after, they passed resolution 1001, establishing the UNEF force to perform peacekeeping throughout the Sinai, prompting the withdrawal of British and French forces by the end of the year, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces by March 1957. This was the source of the general tension prior to the 1967 war - the “tripartite conspiracy” between Britain, France and Israel, to coerce control of the Suez Canal via an invasion of the Sinai.
Going into the 1960s - the first key event is Israel invading Jordan in the Samu Incident, on Nov 13 1966 (and, as usual, they destroyed everyone’s houses in the village of Samu). Yitzhak Rabin, then the Chief of General Staff in Israel, declared “the moment is coming when we will march on Damascus to overthrow the Syrian government” in response to the Ba’ath party coming into power in Syria and sponsoring guerilla Palestinian groups attacking Israel. Israel shot down 6 MIG-21s from the Syrian Air Force on April 7th. Moshe Dayan, Israeli Defense Minister, attested to a reporter that they were purposefully instigating clashes on the Syrian border basically by having a tractor cross territorial lines until troops on the other side became aggravated. An apparently false report was delivered on May 13 to Nasser from the USSR, that Israel had been amassing its army on the Syrian border, and the next day he ordered the troop movement into the Sinai, on May 13/14. All these things indicated a sense that Israel was escalating hostilities and prompted a defensive troop movement from Egypt, and Nasser’s vice president requested the UNEF peacekeeping force evacuate in the case of hostilities breaking out. Israeli planes, soon after (May 17/18), had fired warning shots and “buzzed” a UNEF plane to attempt to force it to land inside Israel, claiming it had violated Israel’s air space (despite that it was flying within Egyptian territory, from El Arish to Gaza). At this point, on May 23, Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran on its eastern border to Israeli ships, a contentious closure that the U.S. maintained was illegal, but predicated on agreements (namely this) Egypt was not yet a party to (see also this re: the legality) - and Nasser suggested adjudicating the issue in the ICC. Egyptian radio was publicly announcing during this general period whole period that they were on “maximum alert” for an Israeli attack. The “Waiting period”, the article you linked, describes exactly that - Egypt moved its troops into a defensive position and waited for three weeks in anticipation of an Israeli attack, which materialized as Operation Focus, a surprise attack on the air forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, the first clear act of hostilities.
To provide some key quotes to this point:
In another 1972 interview, Mordechai Bentov, a former member of the Israeli ruling coalition during the June war, stated: “This whole story about the threat of extermination was totally contrived and then elaborated on afterwards to justify the annexation of new Arab territories.”
Despite these moves by Nasser, Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban wrote in his autobiography “Nasser did not want war; he wanted victory without war”. James Reston of the New York Times wrote from Cairo on June 4th that: “Cairo does not want war and it is certainly not ready for war.” In 1968 Yitzak Rabin said: “I do not think Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent to the Sinai in May [1967] would not have been sufficient to launch an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.” In 1982, Israeli Prime Minister Begin admitted: “In June, 1967, we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” Reinforcing the position that Egypt was not prepared for war with Israel, Egypt then had 50,000 of its crack troops tied down in Yemen.
Some sources: https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-six-day-war-and-a-possible-resolution/
https://web.stanford.edu/group/tomzgroup/pmwiki/uploads/0345-1967-06-KS-a-EYJ.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy56Q1a0Flc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn3RUZsaPmg&t=1s
And yet they still happen. Expecting lands and access to them to be granted to an enemy while they remain belligerent is absurd.
I say again, annexation of land is a violation of international law, either in an offensive or defensive war. It is not a “grant”, it’s that state’s land to begin with.
Retaliation à la “well do a nightmarish orgy of mass murder, kidnapping, violence, and rape to get back at the nightmarish orgy of mass murder, kidnapping, violence, and rape” is truly fucked up.
Seeking justice is one thing, but going to war doesn’t end wars and terror doesn’t end terror.
Retaliation à la “well do a nightmarish orgy of mass murder, kidnapping, violence, and rape to get back at the nightmarish orgy of mass murder, kidnapping, violence, and rape” is truly fucked up.
Seeking justice is one thing, but going to war doesn’t end wars and terror doesn’t end terror.What makes you dispute that this conflict is, as Israel claims, about self-defense and not inflicting terror? According to the IDF, they are supposedly targeting valid military targets with less concern for collateral damage than Hamas would like, thereby devaluing their human shield tactics. Intentionally targeting civilians in mass terror attacks is something done by only one side in this conflict, and Hamas owns it and celebrates it. Israel at least ostensibly holds itself to higher standards.
Osama Hamdan, another Hamas leader, reiterated that the group had no regrets for attacking Israel.
Asked whether Hamas, with the benefit of hindsight, would carry out such an attack again, Hamdan said the question was hypothetical but “the answer is ‘yes.’” sourceaccording to the IDF
Opinion discarded
Opinion discarded
Based.
according to the IDF
Opinion discarded
Guess you know their intentions better than they do, random internet stranger. Is your dismissal based on some evidence you can share with us, or just a gut feeling?
You can’t take terrorists words at face value. The IDF has a long history of lying about their intentions, especially when it comes to their military conquests and expansionism.
I’ll just pick the easy one today: Self defense ends where a non related human dies.
But even disregarding what history created the terrorist attack feels dirty.
If one truly wants a moral high ground, it should be preeetty unwavering. Now it’s just silly to say one thing and do another. Well more sad because people are dying.
Self defense ends where a non related human dies.
If that’s your standard you’ve made retaliation impossible, there’s always collateral damage in war. Interesting limitation to impose on Israel, considering the initial attack that caused said retaliation was all about slaughtering and kidnapping non-related human civilians.
what history created the terrorist attack feels dirty.
A repeatedly vanquished foe who constantly starts wars and loses, resulting in more and more land and freedoms taken from them each time, yet still refuses to sue for viable peace after 70+ years of this? The various Palestinian factions have remained belligerent while launching terrorist attacks and insisting on genocide against a foe they cannot defeat, and with each failed attempt they lose more. This reality hasn’t deterred them, and a refusal to accept these consequences has made groups like Hamas popular. Yeah this situation sucks but what caused this was a nation ignoring the realpolitik of their situation and poking the bear rather than trying to achieve peace, choosing pride over pragmatism. They are the ones who can end this conflict any time they want but it will mean giving up on some of their unattainable goals and laying down arms. Israel has all the cards and going all in against them, reality be damned, will yield tragic but predictable results.
retaliation impossible, there’s always collateral damage in war. Interesting limitation to impose on Israel, considering the initial attack that caused said retaliation was all about slaughtering and kidnapping non-related human civilians.
Sure. Principles go all ways
Israel has all the cards and going all in against them, reality be damned, will yield tragic but predictable results.
Yes. The pretend of defense has been passed. It’s a tragedy which seems to just be escalating
Whatever the number was before it became unacceptable or when polling showed they were on the wrong side of public opinion.
Yes, they exceeded Ukraine civilian casualties now. /s
Shame on every leader who stood there doing nothing but support killing of civilians.
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Any number that doesn’t lead to Biden losing votes
So we’re doing imaginary numbers now?
Then don’t endorse and finance their genocide motherfucker!
Right? We strongly condem Israel for Palestinian lives.
Also, here’s billions more to keep it going.
Was listening to a Canadian retired politician earlier this week. The problem is that 50 billion a year in aide to Israel is a roundabout subsidization of the American military complex. The vast majority of that money is then used to buy American made weapons. It’s an elaborate system to steal money from American taxpayers and put it in the pocket of the elite few.
Good luck turning off that tap.
Either gotta sweep the elections completely, or just put a new system in place. Biggest obstacle is these dumbass Biden voters, collectively going “we can’t vote for another party because it might fracture the vote”.
I’d argue the “dumbass Biden voters” are the only ones keeping America from truly turning into a regressive theocratic state.
And no party is fixing the Military Industrial Complex. It owns all the politicians.
Do you not see the contradiction in claiming that the “military industrial complex” owns the pool of all the politicians, but then refusing to vote outside that pool?
Dems ran Hillary Clinton in '16 - a horrifying, war mongering two-face, basically. What was the reaction of the GOP? Elect Trump. He seemed reasonable to them compared to her. They think it’s “lesser of two evils” too. I would argue that the horrible candidates across the aisle guarantee our slide towards fascism and even the theocracy the GOP is pushing.
Both parties are in on the military industrial complex. Only one party is actively working to remove rights from women and anyone not white.
Sanctions when?
Should have been sanctions decades ago for ethnic cleansing and Jewish settlements.
Illegal settlements. The UN has called Israel on this bullshit for decades.
You know damn well the Palestinians that are leaving to escape the bombing are not going to have homes to go back to but we aren’t supposed to talk about that.
That’s true. There are now half a million extremist settlers in the West Bank who were allowed to build homes there in violation of international law. The US did nothing even though this has made the idea of a Palestinian state effectively impossible. That was Netanyahu’s plan to create “facts on the ground”
Strange how the right to self defense doesn’t extend to Palestinians being ethnically cleansed out of the West Bank.
Talk about too little too fucking late!
There’s still about 2 million civilians in Gaza, about 10,000 have been killed if you believe the Hamas numbers. It is nowhere near too late.
The US administration, still providing diplomatic coverage to the Fascists that rule Israel, hence the mild “finger wagging only” criticism and even that immediatelly diluted by commending them for doing the element of their military plan they already wanted to do.
Those bloody hypocrites are trying to thread the needle between de facto “unwaivering support” of the Israeli Fascist regime even as they really go no-holes-barred in their inhuman treatment of those they see as subhuman, and not losing too many votes in America or too much support from allies around the World.
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What’s needed is genuine Humanist and Democratic values, not Performative Politics that go nowhere because they were never meant to actually make any difference, only to use Divide et Impera to dissipate any real pressure for change.
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What’s needed is genuine Humanist and Democratic values
Humanist Values
As in, abandoning theocracy and religion? I agree. I’ve often said that peace will be achieved there when both parties can sit down and share a ham sandwich, only half joking because doing so would mean they have both abandoned their religious dogma.Regarding a secular government, neither party has one but Israel seems a hell of a lot more secular than Gaza, whose government appears to be enforcing something like Sharia Law on the people there:
Following Hamas’ victory in the 2006 Palestinian elections and a conflict with supporters of the rival Fatah party, Hamas took complete control of the Gaza Strip, and declared the “end of secularism and heresy in the Gaza Strip”
Ismael Haniyeh officially denied accusations that Hamas intended to establish an Islamic emirate. However, Jonathan Schanzer wrote that in two years following the 2007 coup, the Gaza Strip had exhibited the characteristics of Talibanization, a process whereby the Hamas government had imposed strict rules on women, discouraged activities commonly associated with Western culture, oppressed non-Muslim minorities, imposed sharia law, and deployed religious police to enforce these laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamism_in_the_Gaza_StripAnd then there’s the religious dogma. Islam is very intolerant to those who wish to become secular/leave the religion, as per their rules regarding apostates:
classical Islamic jurisprudence calls for the death penalty of those who refuse to repent of apostasy from Islam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_IslamBoth of these are major barriers to ending this conflict via shared humanist values.
Democratic values
They won’t help end this conflict unless popular opinion changes. At present it seems this war and belligerence is popular in both nations.According to polling, the majority of Palestinians want to:
- Destroy Israel (70%)
- Deny Jews equal rights in their one-state solution (76%)
- Continue violent resistance, reject peaceful solutions (52%)
- Employ guerilla/terrorist strategies to do so (58%)
- Israeli Jews do not support peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority (fell from 47.6% in favor in September to just 24.5% in favor in late Oct 2023.)
- Israeli Jews said that they believed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were using too little firepower in Gaza (57.5%)
- Israeli Jews do not support a two-state solution (dropping from 37.5% in favor of a two-state solution in September to 28.6% at time of poll)
It say a lot how much effort you put into the racist generalisation that All Islam = Hamas and how without that equality between both that can only be constructed using the racist axiom of “they’re all the same”, you have no humanist or democratic justification for the mass killing of Palestinian civilians by Israel.
Also there is no Humanist principle that says that “Evildoing by some morally justifies evildoing by others” so even if being a Muslim was indeed the same a being Hamas, that wall of text of yours rests on something which is not a Humanist principle but rather a Sociopathic excuse for murder and one that, given the proportions of death so far (10 to 1), already is way beyond even the “mere” “an eye for an eye”.
- My post was about barriers to Democratic and humanist approaches to peace. You seem to have read into it many associations and conclusions that I did not make.
- All Islamic people are not Hamas, but as far as I’m aware, all Hamas are Islamic. Islam is hostile to secularism/humanism. This is a barrier to peace through humanism.
- Peaceful compromise is unpopular by both sides of this conflict. This is a barrier to peace through democracy.
- Self-defense, not humanism, is what motivates and justifies Israel’s actions. War is inherently inhumane.
Israel has been playing the social media manipulation game for a long time. That is why calling someone an antisemite has been so effective. I think getting Antifa to support Palestinians would put them into an existential crisis.
The Israeli one? By and large, in Berlin.
Fascism is when you defend yourself against people who are trying to genocide you? Israel is a modern democracy.
The US isn’t going to interfere with Israel making itself safe and bind their hands until they ensure that such an attack cannot occur again. Said, “finger wagging,” is trying to minimize the political blowback from this. It’s evident that many people have sympathy for the underdog, even when said underdog is explicitly genocidal, violent, dangerous, provocative, and uncompromising.
If only the IDF had kept the civilian murders to a more reasonable number, it would have made the US look less bad.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen and read Blinken talk about “concrete plans” for the past couple of weeks already. Where are these plans? Where are the discussions around formalizing them with UN’s backing?
Most importantly, what sort of “concrete plan” does not involve a ceasefire and a hostage exchange with Israel on board? Let’s start there.
Actions talk and bullshit walks. They talk about “pressure” and “negotiations” but they’re trying to ram through a $14 billion arms package.
These statements are a bit wild to me.
Whenever I hear this I always wonder what the “right” amount of Palestinians that should have been killed is.
War is brutal. There is an acceptable amount of civilian casualties, and according to him, Israel has exceeded that number.
Let’s tell a story… Imagine for a moment, if you will, the United States in the present day.
Imagine a bill reaches the US House of Representatives called “America the nation state of white people”.
In its basic principles it states “the right to exercise National self-determination in the United States is unique to white people”.
Further down a clause for White Settlement “the state views the development of White Settlement as a national value and will act to encourage and promote its establishment and consolidation”.Outraged a coalition led by the Congressional Black Caucus initiates a challenge to the bill and proposes a bill of their own where it calls the United States “a country for all its citizens” but the speaker of the house unilaterally disqualifies the bill before it’s allowed to even be debated.
The House General Counsel explains in a statement the bill includes several articles that are meant to “alter the character of the United States from the nation state of white people to a state in which there is equal status from the point of view of nationality for whites and people of color” the bill is dead.
“America the nation state of white people” passes through both chambers of Congress unchallenged it’s then signed into law.
US President Joe Biden would invoke the law in a tweet a year later saying “America is not a state of all its citizens according to the nation state law we passed America is the nation state of white people and not anyone else”
As one Rights group put it “there is no Democratic constitution in the world that designates the Constitutional identity of the state on racial grounds as serving one ethnic group”.
There is now, this disconcerting scenario is anything imaginary. It’s completely real and happened just a few years ago to little coverage and little condemnation in Israel.
Next we’ll be hearing about how it was just some “bad apples” in the IDF that did the genocide and after these two corporals get resigned to desk jobs everything will be ok.
US Cops and IDF run from the same playbook.
Then move away that carrier group. Words mean nothing.
Oh, have we gotten to the phase where the US tells Israel “We have to start making some statements to mollify the domestic uproar, but just ignore it, we’ll be sending you a few B in weapons next week.” ?
A few was ok, though, right?
wow
And they send weapons with whom Israel would kill even more civilians. Oh the double standards.
