Israel - Hamas War V

[JoannaL]

6 minutes ago, dbergkvist said:

According to Article III of the UN convention ( https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide-convention.shtml ), "attempt to commit genocide" and "conspiracy to commit genocide" is criminalized under the same stature, so if somebody else intervenes and the genocide is thus averted, wouldn't the people who attempted to achieve this massive loss of life via deprivation, still be liable?

If this is true then all of Hamas and all "from the river to the sea" supporters would also already be liable, wouldn't they?

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

If this is true then all of Hamas and all "from the river to the sea" supporters would also already be liable, wouldn't they?

...yes? I didn't think that was being debated.

[dbergkvist]

6 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

If this is true then all of Hamas and all "from the river to the sea" supporters would also already be liable, wouldn't they?

People who chant "from the river to the sea" are not sealing off all food and water from Israel, thereby causing acute conditions which will lead to a massive loss of life, unless they are stopped by the US government.

Edited October 22, 2023 by dbergkvist

[Rippounet]

10 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

If this is true then all of Hamas and all "from the river to the sea" supporters would also already be liable, wouldn't they?

I do believe the means are required to constitute an attempt. Intent alone is not enough.
A lawyer might be able to confirm, but in anglo-saxon law, you need the combination of the mens rea (the guilty mind, or intent) and actus reus (the action itself) to constitute a crime.
When it comes to chanting "from the river to the sea," the act itself would be hate speech, not genocide. Which is in fact illegal in some countries, and why some demonstrations of support for Palestinians are now being forbidden, because support for Hamas constitutes a combination of hate speech (anti-semitism, as a rule) and apology of terrorism (which can be a crime in several Western countries).

Edited October 22, 2023 by Rippounet

[Relic]

3 hours ago, Ran said:

How is repeating unverifiable casualty figures by a Hamas-led organ that has in previous conflicts been found to overstate and misclassify casualties for propagandistic reasons, including clearly having done so now with regards to Al-Ahli, helping innocent civilians?

 

You and Fox News are the only people saying that the numbers might be wildly inflated. But let's give you the benefit of doubt here, and agree with it might be true. Even if they were inflated by say, 20 percent, what does it matter?

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

You and Fox News are the only people saying that the numbers might be wildly inflated. But let's give you the benefit of doubt here, and agree with it might be true. Even if they were inflated by say, 20 percent, what does it matter?

Because the truth should matter. And in the case of the hospital the inflation would be closer to 1000%.

[JoannaL]

19 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I do believe the means are required to constitute an attempt. Intent alone is not enough.
A lawyer might be able to confirm, but in anglo-saxon law, you need the combination of the mens rea (the guilty mind, or intent) and actus reus (the action itself) to constitute a crime.
When it comes to chanting "from the river to the sea," the act itself would be hate speech, not genocide. Which is in fact illegal in some countries, and why some demonstrations of support for Palestinians are now being forbidden, because support for Hamas constitutes a combination of hate speech (anti-semitism, as a rule) and apology of terrorism (which can be a crime in several Western countries).

Yes, thank you, actually I agree, chanting "from the river to the sea " is hate speech not genocide. but I was responding to a post , that by UN-law Conspiracy to commit genocide constitutes liablity.

[Relic]

6 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Because the truth should matter. And in the case of the hospital the inflation would be closer to 1000%.

Of course the truth matters. But in this case it's more a desire to silence people talking about civilian casualties than anything else.  Next time I post about it I'll include the same disclaimer used by media outlets. Bottom line, Palestinian kids are dying to Israeli bombardment.

As for the hospital, how? US assessment places the dead between 100 and 300

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/us-intelligence-assessment-gaza-hospital-blast/index.html

Edited October 22, 2023 by Relic

[Ran]

And yet I've never denied deaths are happening or told people not to talk about them. But when you act as if the numbers you are given are actually accurate, when you know they likely aren't -- consider that the current total includes the wildly inflated Al-Ahli number, so every repetition of it is an inflation -- rather than just a reminder that people are dying, well, I'm going to point out the issue.

Hopefully Hamas will surrender and ends its deliberate terror attacks on the civilian population of Israel, and spares the people of Gaza further war. 

[Werthead]

It's very clear that Hamas will not surrender, although they are very clearly rattled, and far more rattled than I've seen them before. Giving back 2 hostages without any preconditions, agreeing to release the rest in return for just a ceasefire (as opposed to 5 years of negotiations in peacetime to give back 1 dude), the sheer number of senior leadership killed and the apparent willingness of Israel and the US to go far beyond what Hamas were expecting as a reprisal (though their attack was probably much more wildly successful, by their metrics, than they were expecting) are all signs that Hamas may be under existential pressure.

Hamas being utterly destroyed is a prospect that Iran and Hezbollah are now grappling with. Hezbollah is far more important to Iran than Hamas, and Hamas is a bit of a liability at times. However, they are a useful thorn in Israel's side and their control of Gaza prevents the peace process from moving forwards, which is exactly what Iran doesn't want to happen.

To save Hamas, Hezbollah would need to launch massive strikes on Israel, but that would simply lead to Hezbollah positions inside Lebanon being utterly destroyed by Israel and the US very quickly. US combat power in the region means that far more attacks can be launched on Hezbollah than Israel can manage, and Hezbollah's offensive power would be lost almost instantly. The US would also directly intervene if Iranian-backed proxies in Syria attacked. There's probably a maximalist Israeli/US view that they can manipulate the situation into wiping out Hezbollah and Iran-backed Syrian forces in the same campaign, backed by US ground forces already operating in Syria. The Iranians will then be shitting themselves at the total loss of their influence in western Asia (probably to Turkey's ultimate advantage). But if Iran tries to enter the war directly, its options are limited to sending ground forces through Iraq (triggering US intervention) or launching direct ballistic missile strikes on Israel, which would severely risk an Israeli nuclear response. Also, Israel and the US may take advantage of the situation to eliminate both Iran's resupply ability for drones meant for Russia and its nuclear programme. Saudi Arabia's view on the situation would be unclear, but they'd probably stay out of it and hope to sweep up influence afterwards with (overt) US and (covert) Israeli backing.

That kind of conflict would be a bloodbath, though, and would be huge enough that it could well trigger WWIII, either directly (Russia judges the loss of its forces in Syria and a major military backer in Iran to be worth directly intervening) or indirectly (China takes advantage of the chaos and probably more US losses than in the entirety of the Afghan and Iraq wars to invade Taiwan).

From a more sane viewpoint, if Israel limits its ground incursion to northern Gaza only and leaves afterwards, if Hamas does survive but is just severely weakened (and could rebuild within a few years), then that escalation may not happen. The US and even Israel are also looking at the internal opposition to the Iranian government and know that could explode almost at any moment into a movement large enough to topple the Iranian regime from within, whilst they know attacking Iran directly, pre-emptively would start marshalling the population behind the regime, and a key opportunity would be lost.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Werthead

[Werthead]

Fuel trucks have arrived at the Egypt-Gaza border and there is hope they will be able to cross to resupply the various hospitals' generators.

An Israeli tank accidentally fired across the border into Egypt. Israel has apologised to the Egyptian government.

Iran continuing to push up the rhetoric, declaring that "anything can happen at any moment." Netanyahu has threatened Hezbollah with being hit with "a force they cannot imagine" if they enter the war in force.

Some Israeli officials have denied that their plan is to even invade Gaza in force, but that cross-border raids have been undertaken and will continue.

Some of Israel's closest allies are apparently exerting major pressure to not launch a ground operation until all the hostages have been accounted for.

[kissdbyfire]

Jeezus @Werthead… even the “more sane” scenario sounds batshit for me.

I think need a few drinks now. 

[Zorral]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/retaliation

Quote

 

According to Israeli media reports, the Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel’s international and domestic intelligence agencies) have created a new unit with the Hebrew acronym Nili, to track down and kill all the Hamas fighters who participated in the October 7th incursion into southern Israel which left more than 1,400 Israelis dead, mostly civilians.

According to Israel the attack was carried out by the Nukhba (elite) Force, a naval commando unit of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassem Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.

Press reports suggest the attack was carried out by roughly 2,500 Nukhba fighters.

 

 

[Tywin et al.]

5 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

When the Ukrainian war kicked off, countries were throwing their doors open to take in those fleeing from Russia's bombing and invasion. There were those who cried foul not because they had a problem with taking in refugees, but rather because of how readily white refugees are taken in vs brown and black refugees. Now the opportunity has been presented to these governments  to prove us wrong and to throw open their arms to take in the people who are fleeing an ethnic cleansing and merciless bombing campaign, and people like the British Immigration Minister out here saying it's premature to talk about accepting refugees.

Why do you keep posting when you clearing don't care about the nuance of the situation. Some countries welcomed Ukrainians, others did so begrudgingly with the expectation of aid. But they were mostly European countries help another European country that got attacked.

Now ask yourself why MENA countries don't want to take in Palestinians and never really have wanted to when they needed help in the past. A few have done a lot to help. Jordan probably more than anyone, but most states with great means in the region specifically don't want to help. Placing the blame on Europe is totally misguided. 

Edited October 22, 2023 by Tywin et al.

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, JoannaL said:

Yes, thank you, actually I agree, chanting "from the river to the sea " is hate speech not genocide. but I was responding to a post , that by UN-law Conspiracy to commit genocide constitutes liablity.

Eh, that get's dicey. Many saying this literally want to kill every Jewish person in Israel. That's genocide. 

[fionwe1987]

2 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Now ask yourself why MENA countries don't want to take in Palestinians and never really have wanted to when they needed help in the past. A few have done a lot to help. Jordan probably more than anyone, but most states with great means in the region specifically don't want to help. Placing the blame on Europe is totally misguided. 

Of course it isn't totally misguided. The UK, especially, having been the colonial power who help create this powder keg, has little excuse to NOT take Palestinian refugees in this situation. If they disagree, they can measure their illegal colonial profits from the time they ruled this region, add interest, and transfer that wealth back to the region. If they won't do that (and I'm 99.99% sure they won't), they at least have an obligation to the civilians caught in the crossfire.

[kissdbyfire]

7 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Of course it isn't totally misguided. The UK, especially, having been the colonial power who help create this powder keg, has little excuse to NOT take Palestinian refugees in this situation. If they disagree, they can measure their illegal colonial profits from the time they ruled this region, add interest, and transfer that wealth back to the region. If they won't do that (and I'm 99.99% sure they won't), they at least have an obligation to the civilians caught in the crossfire.

Not just the UK...

[Bael's Bastard]

22 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Why do you keep posting when you clearing don't care about the nuance of the situation. Some countries welcomed Ukrainians, others did so begrudgingly with the expectation of aid. But they were mostly European countries help another European country that got attacked.

Now ask yourself why MENA countries don't want to take in Palestinians and never really have wanted to when they needed help in the past. A few have done a lot to help. Jordan probably more than anyone, but most states with great means in the region specifically don't want to help. Placing the blame on Europe is totally misguided. 

The situation with Jordan is also complicated. After the 47-49 war, WB Palestinians declared Transjordan's king their king and asked them to annex Palestine (as in the the West Bank of the Jordan river). See the Jericho Conference. Transjordan agreed, annexed the WB, and extended citizenship to WB Palestinians, which is why today it is called Jordan (as in "both sides of the Jordan") rather than Transjordan (referring to just the East side of the Jordan), because between 1950-1988 it was a united monarchy claiming both East and West banks of the Jordan at the behest of WB Palestinians. For all intents and purposes, it was the Palestinian state between 1950-1967 (sans Gaza, which was ruled by Egypt) and continued to lay claim to such until 1988 when it passed the baton of Palestine/the WB to the PLO. It is part of why such a large part (perhaps even a significant majority) of Jordan's population is Palestinian.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Bael's Bastard

[Tywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I think need a few drinks now. 

Because sometimes you need to laugh:

 

[Hmmm]

21 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Of course it isn't totally misguided. The UK, especially, having been the colonial power who help create this powder keg, has little excuse to NOT take Palestinian refugees in this situation. If they disagree, they can measure their illegal colonial profits from the time they ruled this region, add interest, and transfer that wealth back to the region. If they won't do that (and I'm 99.99% sure they won't), they at least have an obligation to the civilians caught in the crossfire.

Someone who has done more research on that topic could well correct me, but I would guess that amount would be a net negative. Modern day Israel, Palestine and Jordan had few natural resources and small populations during the 30 years Britain controlled them. They also had quite annoying insurgencies that Britain had to devote troops and money to fight. It was not uncommon that colonies during the age of imperialism cost significantly more money to maintain than what they generated. Of course, for particular groups of people, like colonial elites and business magnates, even those colonies could be incredibly valuable. But I don't know if Britain even had so much of that for this region in question?

Edited October 22, 2023 by Hmmm