Israel-Gaza war

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

I really don't think "Don't post unapologetic far-right Nazis as part of your case against Israel" is a particularly hard bar to reach.

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Where exactly have the allegations against the UNRWA been proven? Israel's made the accusation. Burden of proof is on them to provide irrefutable evidence and so far, they have not. Not even Germany's been convinced of it. Demanding that the UNRWA provide proof that they didn't support terrorists is insane because first, your demanding that they prove their own innocence, and second, because you wouldn't believe them even if they did.

Innocent until proven guilty, and so far, the UNRWA had not been proven guilty.

Israel has provided eyewitness testimony of hostages who were held and abused by UNRWA employees. The defense that would make the most sense for UNRWA is that they were not capable of policing the conduct of every single employee they have on the ground. It's the equivalent of how a Disney employee committing a murder in their off time isn't grounds for a boycott of Disney. I believe they've claimed complete innocence and now levied their own accusations against Israel.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Where exactly have the allegations against the UNRWA been proven? Israel's made the accusation. Burden of proof is on them to provide irrefutable evidence and so far, they have not. Not even Germany's been convinced of it. Demanding that the UNRWA provide proof that they didn't support terrorists is insane because first, your demanding that they prove their own innocence, and second, because you wouldn't believe them even if they did.

Innocent until proven guilty, and so far, the UNRWA had not been proven guilty.

Israel has provided eyewitness testimony of hostages who were held and abused by UNRWA employees. The defense that would make the most sense for UNRWA is that they were not capable of policing the conduct of every single employee they have on the ground. It's the equivalent of how a Disney employee committing a murder in their off time isn't grounds for a boycott of Disney. I believe they've claimed complete innocence and now levied their own accusations against Israel.

And yet, not even Germany is convinced that the evidence provided is beyond doubt.

With no evidence besides hostage testimony and it being very difficult if not impossible to investigate fully on the ground in Gaza, I'm not surprised. The suspension of support to UNRWA was a procedural decision and not a legal one. The odds are UNRWA made some quiet guarantees to get them back on board - the important detail here is that Germany has not commented on the substance of Israel's accusations either way, so the other people claiming that it was proven Israel was lying upthread are, in fact, lying.

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The likes in this thread have gotten really illuminating!

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The likes in this thread have gotten really illuminating!

Stop. I only said innocent until proven guilty. I've been skeptical of some of these reports about Israel torturing people because I want to see conclusive evidence.

If you're going to tell UNRWA is a terrorist organisation, then give me conclusive evidence. As pointed out above, UNRWA themselves didn't conclude they had no part in it, but an independent review did. Evidently, what they found was not conclusive enough to the German government to halt funding entirely.

My dude, you are definitely not who I am referring to, as you have not liked any posts defending the use of a holocaust-denying Neo-Nazi as an anti-Israel source. We were having a perfectly respectable conversation about the UNRWA issue.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The likes in this thread have gotten really illuminating!

Stop. I only said innocent until proven guilty. I've been skeptical of some of these reports about Israel torturing people because I want to see conclusive evidence.

If you're going to tell UNRWA is a terrorist organisation, then give me conclusive evidence. As pointed out above, UNRWA themselves didn't conclude they had no part in it, but an independent review did. Evidently, what they found was not conclusive enough to the German government to halt funding entirely.

My dude, you are definitely not who I am referring to, as you have not liked any posts defending the use of a holocaust-denying Neo-Nazi as an anti-Israel source. We were having a perfectly respectable conversation about the UNRWA issue.

The 5(!) links that MBD provided about the IDF torturing people are all valid sources that have nothing to do with Jake Shields, but you haven't responded to them either.

I could easily point out the many issues with those links, including the accusations against some of the sources or the fact that they all rely on similar sources for their accusations, but I would be dancing for an audience of people who think it's okay to post a Holocaust denier if he's saying the right things, so *shrug*

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Out of curiosity, if M.B.D. had posted that clip from literally any other person on Twitter, would you guys actually take the substance of it seriously, or just because the clip was posted by some jackass online automatically invalidates it?

It's not "some jackass", it's an infamous Holocaust denier. I would be willing to engage with it to find out how reliable it was, at least. When a Holocaust denier posts something, my fair assumption is that they are simply trying to incite more anti-Jewish murder.

And if there were other sources for the specific claim by Shields, I'm certain that someone would have found them. There's a reason MBD pivoted immediately to more general accusations.

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https://twitter.com/humeyra_pamuk/status/1784307386523451478?t=9E42DVj6LYs4wbbH6...

Can’t wait for GMac to say Reuters is lying about this

Why would he claim Reuters is lying? It's well-known that State Department non-appointed employees have a strong pro-Palestinian bent compared to the leadership and the administration.

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https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1781736713720565847?t=0AhANB3Fs_eT397r-x56...

I guess the revelation that Blinken had done nothing under similar circumstances, despite being advised to do so, has prompted him to finally take action...

This is from eight days ago and has already been walked back, apparently. It seems like threatening negative steps and then walking them back is how the administration gets Netanyahu to back off certain things.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1785011634857185639?s=46&t=ygf3c6rCnWXj0V1...

Excellent. This court has no authority over the Israeli government, which does not recognize it, and they're courting disaster by planning to kidnap Israeli sitting government officials. The US has the power to intimidate them before a disaster ensues.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Netanhayu has made it pretty clear from day 1 that the only choices in the negotiations are either Gaza gets leveled now or it gets leveled after the hostages are released. Meanwhile, Hamas has said with slightly less force that any negotiations must leave them in power or at least safe after hostages are released.

This is why I dont put much faith in any of the negotiations that we keep hearing about.

I think if he was to try to go for total war in Rafah after getting the hostages back, that would probably jeopardize US support and thus lead to his government getting toppled. So that factors in a lot.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

https://twitter.com/JordanUhl/status/1786418458768634164

There's a deal on the table that would avoid this.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

This is all the more reason to not attack Gaza.

Of course this isn’t really about Hamas or the hostages, it’s about reversing what Israel did in 2005 and going even further.

Well, Israel wouldn't have attacked Gaza, if Hamas hadn't decided to start a war on 10/7.

Palestine doesn't get immunity from the consequences of their attacks just because they're weak and vulnerable.  Being so terrible at protecting your own people that any war you start will inevitably result in lots of them dying is not the invincibility star from super mario bros.

So Palestinian civilians deserve to die because of Hamas?

I mean, that's basically what happens in literally ever war started by a barbaric, sadistic government that is willing to sacrifice its people.

The best chance to avoid this catastrophe was a multi-national coalition to invade Gaza and depose Hamasd on day one. Sadly, that window has passed.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Bibi continues to insult America after we just gave him tens of billions.

If you look in the tweet replies, it seems like Ian Bremmer messed this up and he's digging in because that's what professional journalists on social media do these days.  Netanyahu was telling a story about what someone else said to him and Bremmer stripped it of context to make it sound like this was Netanyahu saying this.  Furthermore people are saying (I have no clue either way) that the Hebrew Bibi used actually refers to "the nations" rather than "the gentiles" and Bremmer apparently based his tweet solely on the YouTube translated transcript.

Yeah, and given that the context is about the Holocaust, it's absolutely right.

Israel can appreciate the aid it gets from its allies without ever allowing itself to fully rely on them. Remember that if Trump had gotten his way in the 2020 primary, it likely would have been Sanders choosing how to assist Israel during this war, potentially with Secretary of State Tlaib whispering in his ear.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

This is all the more reason to not attack Gaza.

Of course this isn’t really about Hamas or the hostages, it’s about reversing what Israel did in 2005 and going even further.

Well, Israel wouldn't have attacked Gaza, if Hamas hadn't decided to start a war on 10/7.

Palestine doesn't get immunity from the consequences of their attacks just because they're weak and vulnerable.  Being so terrible at protecting your own people that any war you start will inevitably result in lots of them dying is not the invincibility star from super mario bros.

So Palestinian civilians deserve to die because of Hamas?

I mean, that's basically what happens in literally ever war started by a barbaric, sadistic government that is willing to sacrifice its people.

The best chance to avoid this catastrophe was a multi-national coalition to invade Gaza and depose Hamasd on day one. Sadly, that window has passed.

If Bibi actually cared about Hamas and avoiding any catastrophe, he would have bombed their Qatar mansions out of orbit. But he's said - out loud - that there can be no election during a war. So he wants to prolong it, and his rule, as long and inefficiently as possible and doesn't care how many people get killed.
Bibi and Hamas have a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.

I think that would have been a genuine red line for the Americans - for some reason, we have an overly close relationship with the absolute worst Emirate.

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"Hamas says it accepts Gaza truce deal, as Israel readies Rafah operation"

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-middle-east-68963839?src_origin=BBCS_BBC

"The Hamas leadership says it has accepted the terms of a ceasefire deal in Gaza.

In a statement, the group says it has informed Qatari and Egyptian mediators of its decision.

The finer details are yet to be announced, including how long it will last and what this means for hostages being held in Gaza.

Stay tuned for live updates from us here in London, and analysis from our colleagues in Jerusalem."

Great news. Hamas only understands one thing and Israel delivers it. I'm all in favor of Israel giving them whatever temporary peace they want in exchange for the hostages, because Hamas will break the cease-fire eventually and Israel will be ready.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Can GMac or Ray explain where the Palestinians in Rafah are supposed to go? Egypt isn’t taking them, and Rafah is the southernmost town.

I mean, you basically just summed up the problem here. The people who ostensibly should be advocating for them are fine with them dying.

If you'll look carefully at what Israel is doing, they're going sector by sector rather than trying to take the whole city at once with overwhelming force. I think they're far more interested in dismantling Hamas infrastructure than anything else right now, and that essentially allows the civilians to evacuate to other areas of Rafah, shuttling them around as needed.

It's far from the ideal solution that could happen if Palestinian civilians actually had any friends in the Arab world, but what's unfolding is far from the worst-case scenario either.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Thomas Friedman, who is definitely in the Biden orbit, wrote about a week ago that Israel can either choose Rafah or Riyadh. They've chosen Rafah and they will face the inevitable isolation which comes with that.

No one except Jared Kusher (and apparently Thomas Friedman, very much a washes up has been that never was) cares whether Saudi Arabia and Israel normalize relations

Yep. While I might not go that far, Israel absolutely cares about neutralizing Hamas and ending the war more than they do about relations with Saudi Arabia.

And again, for those who aren't paying attention or ignoring it, Israel just had several of its longtime enemies contribute to its air defense against Iran. It's less isolated than it's ever been!

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Russia hasn't even revoked visa-free access for Israel. Back in the day, the USSR was selling weapons to Egypt and Jordan.

Russia is in a very odd place in this war, as it has semi-decent relations with Netanyahu and needs him to not start aiding Ukraine.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The explosion of antisemitism in Europe over Eurovision of all things (that repulsive statement from genocide extraordinaires Belgium, Greta (who has apparently declared mission accomplished on climate change) leading a lynch mob, singers from other countries being forced to publicly apologize for being friendly to the Israeli contestant, etc) has been really eye opening. Hopefully the poor Israeli girl wins and shows this is just an ugly, loud minority.

"Lynch mob" "Genocide extraordinaires"

Imagine if I used this sort of language to refer to Jewish people.

If a mob of Jewish people were acting this like this toward a Palestinian contestant, you would be absolutely correct to do so. This mob also isn't remotely ethnically uniform - I would say it's actually being led by European activists.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Yeah, the Holocaust played no role in the Allies going to war with Nazi Germany, and all three of the main Allies did very little to help the victims (with the US being the least egregious offender).

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The first international declaration that a Holocaust was occurring was made by the United Nations on December 17 1942. What the Allies could 'do' was very much tied in with the overall military response to the conflict.

They could’ve bombed the railways.  They didn’t because, to put it bluntly, they couldn’t care less about dead Jews.

F-ck sake man. Utterly crass.

I’m sorry you feel that way, but it doesn’t make it any less true.  It wouldn’t have magically solved everything, but it would’ve helped.  Then you have the immigration/asylum restrictions, the post-conviction pardons/huge reductions in the sentences of most Nazis convicted at the subsequent Nuremberg trials to appease Adenauer, the way the British government at best willfully ignored reports about aspects of the Holocaust prior to the liberation of the camps at the end of the war, etc.  Respectfully, the governments and many regular folks in the countries simply didn’t care about dead Jews.  

It’s not crass to say so even if my bluntness offended your personal sensibilities, I’m just being brutally honest.  If Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor then the US never would’ve gotten involved, if Germany hadn’t attacked the USSR then the latter never would’ve gotten involved (and Stalin was a vicious anti-Semite himself), and if Germany had stopped after Czechoslovakia, then Britain and France never would’ve gotten involved (and re: France: that’s without even getting into Vichy).  Every single Jew in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia could’ve been gassed and the allied governments wouldn’t have lifted a finger.  They might’ve made disapproving statements, but little more than that.  To pretend otherwise is extremely naive at best.

Instead of complaining about how not enough was being done to prevent the holocaust or how people were even lucky the US and USSR got into a war with the nazi's to end the bloodshed, it would be good for you to start care about genocides occuring today.

You complain not being done enough to prevent and stop the holocaust, and that not enough was done and that nobody would even lift a finger.

But do you lift a finger while a genocide today is ongoing. No, you don't care either. You think it's justified.

And unlike the Holocaust, we can do something about this and stop it.

That's exactly what Israel is doing - destroying those who would repeat the Holocaust piece by piece. But we all know you were going for Holocaust inversion here.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The first international declaration that a Holocaust was occurring was made by the United Nations on December 17 1942. What the Allies could 'do' was very much tied in with the overall military response to the conflict.

They could’ve bombed the railways.  They didn’t because, to put it bluntly, they couldn’t care less about dead Jews.

F-ck sake man. Utterly crass.

I’m sorry you feel that way, but it doesn’t make it any less true.  It wouldn’t have magically solved everything, but it would’ve helped.  Then you have the immigration/asylum restrictions, the post-conviction pardons/huge reductions in the sentences of most Nazis convicted at the subsequent Nuremberg trials to appease Adenauer, the way the British government at best willfully ignored reports about aspects of the Holocaust prior to the liberation of the camps at the end of the war, etc.  Respectfully, the governments and many regular folks in the countries simply didn’t care about dead Jews.  

It’s not crass to say so even if my bluntness offended your personal sensibilities, I’m just being brutally honest.  If Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor then the US never would’ve gotten involved, if Germany hadn’t attacked the USSR then the latter never would’ve gotten involved (and Stalin was a vicious anti-Semite himself), and if Germany had stopped after Czechoslovakia, then Britain and France never would’ve gotten involved (and re: France: that’s without even getting into Vichy).  Every single Jew in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia could’ve been gassed and the allied governments wouldn’t have lifted a finger.  They might’ve made disapproving statements, but little more than that.  To pretend otherwise is extremely naive at best.

Instead of complaining about how not enough was being done to prevent the holocaust or how people were even lucky the US and USSR got into a war with the nazi's to end the bloodshed, it would be good for you to start care about genocides occuring today.

You complain not being done enough to prevent and stop the holocaust, and that not enough was done and that nobody would even lift a finger.

But do you lift a finger while a genocide today is ongoing. No, you don't care either. You think it's justified.

And unlike the Holocaust, we can do something about this and stop it.

That's exactly what Israel is doing - destroying those who would repeat the Holocaust piece by piece. But we all know you were going for Holocaust inversion here.

Stop denying genocide!

Again, we all saw you defending the actual act of genocide on 10/7. We don't have goldfish memories. You can't gaslight us.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Was reading about this conflict yesterday combined with Russia-Ukraine from a geopolitical perspective and what this does to "rules-based order". Here's my amateur armchair geopolitical take on what Netanyahu's grand goal in this is:

Netanyahu has stated complete elimination of Hamas is his goal, that cannot be achieved in my opinion for the same reasons the U.S. discovered carrying out the Afghan and Iraq wars against their own asymmetrical opponents. Therefore, Netanyahu's real goal in my opinion is to keep the conflict going until November. If the war is still going in November, it's a salient issue and Biden is put into a tough spot of any hard position he takes will be opposed by people that should be voting for him. In the event of a Trump victory, a new Trump administration would probably agree to Israel setting up a buffer zone in northern Gaza manned by Israeli military a la the Golan Heights with Syria. The buffer zone would be large enough to prevent Hamas incursions into Israel via underground tunnels or tube artillery. This would be almost universally condemned everywhere else, but Israel have clearly made the calculation that as long as the U.S. has their backs, no one else matters.

The future with a Biden victory in November is less clear, but I see Biden's clear both sides-ism he's displaying currently completely disappearing once the election is over, probably to drive harder bargains with Netanyahu. However, pro-Israel post-November will still have a clear majority in Congress regardless of election results, and I think that drives some of Netanyahu's calculus in U.S. relations is he knows Biden is outvoted by Congress, could maybe even override a veto, if a near 50/50 body you only need a third of Democrats to override a potential Biden veto.

I honestly think that one of the reasons he's dragging this out is because it hurts Biden politically. Once Trump wins, he will have free licence to do what he wants, no limits.

Netanyahu doesn’t care who wins in 2024, he just wants to keep power and stay out of prison.  Everything he does should be viewed through that lens.

Yeah, I also don't think he particularly trusts Trump, nor should he. Trump apparently holds a grudge against him over him refusing to acknowledge the fake election results.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

https://twitter.com/_ZachFoster/status/1753050356106330471

60% of Israelis hold the opinion that Israel should conduct itself in the manner of just about every war in human history. But the Israeli government is going further to deliver aid.

Also, Foster might not be as bad as posting Corbyn or Waters, but he's up there - infamously playing the "Jews are a privileged overclass" to dismiss antisemitism concerns.