Israel - Hamas War XII

[kissdbyfire]

https://www.axios.com/2023/12/05/us-israeli-settler-west-bank-visa-ban-plan

Quote

The U.S. State Department on Tuesday announced it has imposed sanctions on several dozen Israeli settlers believed to be involved in attacks against Palestinians, banning them from traveling to the U.S.

 

[Kalbear]

Aw yeah that'll show 'em

[TrueMetis]

Strictly speaking I would say they're all involved in attacks on Palestinians, but it's a start.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, TrueMetis said:

Strictly speaking I would say they're all involved in attacks on Palestinians, but it's a start.

Yep. I also refuse to sleep with any of them. THAT GOT 'EM

[TrueMetis]

2 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Yep. I also refuse to sleep with any of them. THAT GOT 'EM

IDK, maybe I'm naive to hope this opens the door to actually substantive actions since most countries have basically ignored this even when the settlers in question are also citizens of their country.

[Altherion]

7 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Wait, this is the passage yall are objecting to - her referring to acrual experts about it?

Yes, how dare she reference...the UN and ISRAELI experts on genocide.

The problem is that the word is being used here for a conflict that, while awful as practically all wars are, is positively tame compared to contemporary conflicts. For some concrete examples, Russia routinely levels Ukrainian villages and towns with artillery (and I mean literally levels) without regard for the type of building or personally calling every phone number in the area to tell people to leave. Azerbaijan pretty much got away with outright ethnic cleansing in Nagorny Karabakh. Or, if you want to look in the Middle East, consider Yemen which was and is the site of a much more vicious conflict that actually has all of the things these experts are warning of (starvation, disease, etc.).

What is going on in Gaza is still a war, but it is a very strange type of war where one side (the Israelis) explicitly tries to avoid violating international law with varying degrees of success and the other (Hamas) has a strategy that is pretty much exclusively built on the fact that Israel will follow the rules. There is pretty much zero chance of genocide there unless something in Israel radically changes.

[Zorral]

Ah, just this morning -- I was reading about and looking at photos of an entire block of a refugee city razed, as IDF went after, they said, A SINGLE HAMAS MEMBER.  So, why yes, varying degrees of success.

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

(the Israelis) explicitly tries to avoid violating international law with varying degrees of success

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Zorral

[kissdbyfire]

4 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

IDK, maybe I'm naive to hope this opens the door to actually substantive actions since most countries have basically ignored this even when the settlers in question are also citizens of their country.

Yeah, that’s my take as well. By itself it may not mean much, but I just read that this is the first sanction the US has imposed on Israel since the 90s? Also these things don’t tend to go from zero to 1,000 in the blink of an eye, especially between steadfast allies. It feels like a warning shot maybe? I don’t know, a way of publicly saying decisions have consequences using a wee bit more than just words.

[kissdbyfire]

@TrueMetis, some good explanations and insights here:

 

[Hmmm]

BBC just published a long article regarding rape and mutiliation of women during Hamas' October 7 attacks. It is the most thorough investigate article on this subject that I have seen published so far.

(Warning for very upsetting content, of course):

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-67629181 

[SeanF]

On 12/2/2023 at 4:58 PM, Zorral said:

Tracing the Deep Roots of Ireland’s Support for Palestinians
In a country with its own history of a seemingly intractable conflict, the majority of people in Ireland are sympathetic to Palestinian civilians, while also condemning the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/02/world/europe/ireland-palestinians-support.html

 

Ireland has immense empathy towards the Palestinians. And almost no empathy towards the Israelis.

[Zorral]

14 minutes ago, SeanF said:

empathy towards the Palestinians.

And in Cuba, people in Havana would label Cubans who had come there from Oriente (the eastern end part of the island) as "Palestinos."  What that was supposed to mean, I'm uncertain. Also I don't know that this is still in use in Havana considering everything else Cubans deal with now all day and night every day and night.

Maybe all Cubans now feel like Palestinos in relationship to what the US has inflicted upon them. 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Zorral

[kissdbyfire]

28 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Ireland has immense empathy towards the Palestinians. And almost no empathy towards the Israelis.

Bit of a broad brush there to paint the whole population of a country with, no? I can't speak for a whole population but none of my Irish friends fit your description, for lack of a better word. And yes, there is a lot of support for Palestine in Ireland. I wonder why?

Quote

The Balfour Declaration’s purpose was to form a “little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism”, according to Ronald Storrs, “the first military governor of Palestine since Pontius Pilate” (his words)

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/winston-churchill-sent-the-black-and-tans-to-palestine-1.3089140

[Zorral]

8 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

I can't speak for a whole population but none of my Irish friends fit your description, for lack of a better word.

My experience as well.  Particularly among those who have married people of Jewish heritage.  But of our friends of Jewish heritage are appalled by what Israel BibiLikudWestBankSettlers etc. have been doing for decades and ever more so now that they are bombing and massacring the population of Gaza.

[Ran]

30 minutes ago, Zorral said:

What that was supposed to mean, I'm uncertain.

It's pejorative and discriminatory.

How it started, no one knows -- probably just a jocular reference that changed character over time -- but now it's basically indicative of Havanans looking down on people from Oriente, who are seen as backwards and impoverished, and many of whom come to Havana illegally (there's internal controls on where people can reside) for work and better economic opportunity (bizzare as that may seem) since the eastern provinces have been given little developmental priority over the years despite the historic importance of the region.

 

Edited December 5, 2023 by Ran

[SeanF]

14 minutes ago, kissdbyfire said:

Bit of a broad brush there to paint the whole population of a country with, no? I can't speak for a whole population but none of my Irish friends fit your description, for lack of a better word. And yes, there is a lot of support for Palestine in Ireland. I wonder why?

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/winston-churchill-sent-the-black-and-tans-to-palestine-1.3089140

It turned out that the Jews had no interest in doing as Storrs wanted.

The Irish view is Jews = colonisers, Palestinians = colonised.

[Kalbear]

41 minutes ago, Altherion said:

The problem is that the word is being used here for a conflict that, while awful as practically all wars are, is positively tame compared to contemporary conflicts. For some concrete examples, Russia routinely levels Ukrainian villages and towns with artillery (and I mean literally levels) without regard for the type of building or personally calling every phone number in the area to tell people to leave. Azerbaijan pretty much got away with outright ethnic cleansing in Nagorny Karabakh. Or, if you want to look in the Middle East, consider Yemen which was and is the site of a much more vicious conflict that actually has all of the things these experts are warning of (starvation, disease, etc.).

I'm pretty sure that genocide was leveled at Russia against Ukraine, especially since they're also doing things like abducting children and forcefully educating them in Russian. Yemen is also often cited as a horrible human rights problem. I won't speak to Azerbaijan as I don't know a ton about it. 

And even then Israel often looks worse. Russia tried to deny Ukraine power during the winter; Israel did do so. Russia didn't stop all food and water from entering Ukraine and was rightfully condemned for stopping shipments of grain out, but Israel did stop those things. And Yemen allows in a whole lot of supplies by comparison! 

I also don't think it's such a great argument that Israel is okay because they're behaving like Russia, the Houthis and Azerbaijan. I'm pretty sure all of those places have been heavily condemned for their actions. Are you suggestion that the international community - and especially the US - treat Israel like Russia? Sanction the entire country, cut off all economic trade, arm their opponents? 

41 minutes ago, Altherion said:

What is going on in Gaza is still a war, but it is a very strange type of war where one side (the Israelis) explicitly tries to avoid violating international law with varying degrees of success and the other (Hamas) has a strategy that is pretty much exclusively built on the fact that Israel will follow the rules. There is pretty much zero chance of genocide there unless something in Israel radically changes.

How many people have to die before it's called a genocide? Do you know the answer? 

[Kalbear]

Sorry, this headline of "several suffer anxiety attacks" literally made me laugh. I'm a very bad person.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/rocket-from-gaza-directly-hits-ashkelon-building-several-suffer-anxiety-attacks/

[Zorral]

Troops enter Khan Younis, where civilians were told it would be ‘safe’

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/12/06/israel-gaza-idf-khan-younis-rafah/

Quote

 

.... Dozens were killed in an Israeli strike on a school in the city Tuesday, witnesses told The Washington Post. Gaza Health Ministry officials said they were still tabulating the number of casualties from airstrikes there and other areas overnight, and that many of the dead remained buried under rubble. More than 16,000 Gazans have been killed since Israeli attacks began in response to a cross-border assault by Hamas on Oct. 7, they said.

International outrage continued to mount over the climbing civilian death toll, but Israeli officials gave no sign of letting up. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed aside criticism of Israel’s warfighting methods Tuesday, saying that “crushing force” would be deployed in pursuit of eliminating Hamas.

“We are on the right path,” he told reporters. Netanyahu also indicated that Israel was prepared to keep its military inside Gaza indefinitely after the war, disregarding suggestions from Washington and other powers that international or regional peacekeepers could step in.

“No international force can be responsible for this,” he said. “I’m not ready to close my eyes and accept any other arrangement.”

Israeli forces carried out ground and air assaults in the Jabalya area in northern Gaza, as well as in Shejaiya to the east of Gaza City. The Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday that Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the last remaining health facilities in the northern part of the enclave, has ceased to function following Israeli bombardments in the area. ....

....“The catastrophic situation we see unfolding in the Gaza Strip was entirely foreseeable and preventable,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Wednesday at a news conference. “My humanitarian colleagues have described the situation as apocalyptic.” ....

 

BTW, @JoannaL -- something else you neglected to consider when constructing that preposterous counterfactual of African Americans in the USA -- is the history of post War of the Rebellion African American communities literally destroyed by their white neighbors with violence of the most horrid sort -- including rape, torture, mutilation and murder --because these communities were prosperous, filled with professionals decently practicing their professions, having pulled themselves up by their very own USA adored own bootstraps.  So, you know, you might wish to consider a little more carefully the next time you wish to fabricate an alternative/counterfactual/hypothetical that compares African Americans in the USA with Palestine-Israel.

 

[Ran]

A strange framing from WaPo. It was safer to go there than stay in the north of Gaza, it was manifestly true, but the idea that telling people to go down there meant that it was safe in perpetuity is something the IDF never stated and I doubt most Gazans had illusions about it. Hard to think most Westerners had any illusions either, since from day one the IDF indicated its goal was to eliminate Hamas's capability in and control of Gaza

t was always clear that the campaign's intention was to systematically move through the entirety of Gaza, and the north was just the first stage of the operations. Eventually, Khan Younis would be next. Rafah, too, in time, I expect.