Israel-Gaza war

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

I've been a bit too horrified by all that's been going on thus far to comment until now, but I think I've finally gathered my thoughts sufficiently. All of these points are important, so I'm ordering them based on immediate relevancy to the current crisis, with the most immediate first.

1. The massacres of civilians committed by Hamas are absolutely reprehensible and unjustifiable. The Israeli people do not deserve to be facing such violence, and those responsible deserve to be jailed or executed. This is a simple point that requires no nuance, in my view.

2. I am very, very alarmed by the statements coming out of the Netanyahu government about cutting off all food and electricity in Gaza, and by the calls by some on the Israeli far right for a second Nakba. With fringe lunatics like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir in the government, I am terrified by the prospect of large-scale war crimes being committed by the Israeli military against the civilian population of Gaza, who are not responsible for the atrocities committed by Hamas.

3. Hamas is not engaged in anything resembling a just struggle for national liberation and does not give a damn about the well-being of the Palestinian people, and it's important that everyone recognize that. While sometimes armed resistance is justifiable in the face of human rights abuses, any such resistance must - absolutely *must* - be targeted at the government committing such abuses. The model I always keep in mind when discussing this is the MK in Apartheid-era South Africa, which focused on sabotage operations primarily against South Africa's military and policing forces. The statements coming out of PSL and some of the state level DSA groups - though importantly not the national DSA organization - trying to conflate Hamas' civilian massacres with legitimate armed resistance like the MK is at best delusional and at worst outright collaborationist.

4. The violent attacks by Hamas on civilian targets do not change *in any way* the fundamental truth that the Israeli government has routinely abused the Palestinian population for decades, denying basic human rights and setting up a military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza that is at minimum alarmingly and increasingly similar to Apartheid, even if it is not identical to the historical Apartheid regime in South Africa. This abusive regime is wrong and it must be brought to an end. Additionally, by delegitimizing and undermining the mainstream voices in the Palestinian National Authority and Fatah, the Israeli government created a power vacuum in Gaza that allowed Hamas to establish dominance by force. And while I must repeat with maximum emphasis that the actions of Hamas are entirely unjustified, it remains true that the Israeli governments policies of refusing any discussions of a just settlement with the Palestinian Authority, and of continued and growing abuses against Palestinian civilians, makes violence like this all the more likely.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

About 5 hours ago, I told my co-worker that Egypt was involved.  There simply wasn't a way for the Gazans to pull-off this attack without help along the Egyptian border, and I wouldn't be surprised if soldiers from other countries were sent along with the weapons.  My co-worker thought I was crazy when I suggested it, and then he thought I'd lost my mind when I said Israel needed to push into the Sinai Peninsula.  Now he's onboard with an invasion of Egypt, even though I'm not really sure of it myself.  LOL.  

This is why we can't have nice things.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

Insane stuff from Channel 14, the Israeli equivalent of GB News
https://twitter.com/davidsheen/status/1718393088824000737
They have a running tally of bombs dropped, Gazans killed (written as terrorists eliminated) and wounded, along with the number of buildings destroyed.
https://special.now14.co.il/israel-wins/

I just came here to post this myself. Counting dead infants and toddlers as "terrorists" is one of the most horrifically sociopathic things I have ever seen in my life.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1719398822521024721

https://twitter.com/NiallStanage/status/1719407436241469538

So this is 100% a war crime under any sane definition.

My worst fears about how Netanyahu would carry out this war are being confirmed.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1719450227537498329

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jul/23/israel2

If George W. Bush could condemn an Israeli air strike on a Hamas commander in 2002 that killed seven children as a "heavy-handed action that does not contribute to peace" then we should really not even be treating as slightly credible those who will defend a strike that has killed *hundreds* of civilians as acceptable.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

God bless Jimmy Carter.

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1719419239025488311?t=-mF1ASi76DpBiUnow2gJGw&...

I believe Carter was the first to call Israel an Apartheid state, sometime in the 2000s.

He specifically considered the situations in the West Bank and Gaza to be apartheid, yes.

Carter definitely was not the first person overall to make the comparison - the Palestinians themselves were making that comparison by the 1970s - but it is absolutely fair to say he was the first person of prominence to refer to it that way in the United States.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1719861865386238226

I am not happy with how Biden has addressed humanitarian concerns thus far in this war, but he has at least been moving in the right direction, so I'll give him credit for this.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

This is a great description of the coverage of this conflict.



I say this as an atheist who has zero connection to either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

If Hamas was targeting their attacks at the Israeli military and police forces, I would consider them to be a legitimate resistance movement, like the MK under Mandela.

Of course, they're very obviously not that and never have been. Civilians have always been their primary target, and that makes them a morally reprehensible group.

And I say that as someone who is horrified by how Israel is conducting this war.

[Darthpi – Anti-Florida Activist]

MSNBC News and ABC Australia cannot help themselves. Every news title is anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian.

"Years ago, Netanyahu made a major mistake".

"Fifty years on, Benjamin Netanyahu is blamed by many Israelis for the failures that contributed to the horrors of October 7. "

"People are united in their rage against Benjamin Netanyahu"

"Israeli's facing a new threat"

"UN Experts say Jabalia strikes a war crime"

"The tunnels will give Hamas the upper hand."

"Settlers killing Palestinians in the West Bank"

"Jewish Protestor in Sherman Oaks knocks his head."

It suggests that the journalists in these organisations were strongly pro-Palestinian before this war broke out.

They will wait for the news of the rapes, child beheadings, torture and kidnappings of October 7 to subside before restoring their prior bias in full.

I'm not getting into all of this, but if being anti-Netanyahu is somehow anti-Israel then at least half the population of Israel is anti-Israel.