As I see it, UN at least is documenting everything as it happens to its members. Hopefully it can be kept unbiased for a long time. If you start kicking left and right, there will be no UN to overlook events.
Maybe without a UN, we would already be having a WWIII. It is impossible to weight its influence, but I very much doubt it is having any nefarious effect.
No need to sledgehammer the world until it gets better
Too much faith/credit in the UN. With the security council, not much has or can happen. Beyond that there’s also incompetence. Look up jadotville or Dag Hammarskjöld (suspected to have been assasinated)
In 1986, then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden said, “Supporting Israel is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”
Israel is a satellite state of the US in all but name. You'd have a better shot at dissolving the UN entirely than suspending Israel.
What ive always wondered is why the US hasn't put Israel on the security council, considering it is a nuclear armed state.
> Israel is a satellite state of the US in all but name.
The US is more reflexively pro-Israel than Israel is pro-US in international policy, the opposite of what you’d expect if Israel was a US vassal.
> What ive always wondered is why the US hasn't put Israel on the security council
There are lots of reasons, but one that renders all the others secondary is that the US can’t add permanent Security Council members.
> considering it is a nuclear armed state.
India, Pakistan, North Korea, and, when it was a nuclear-armed state, South Africa also are (and were) not permanent UNSC members, a set whuch hasn't expanded, though two seats have switched hands, since the UN was founded.
Russia is there because they wouldn’t even come to the table otherwise, and it’s more valuable to have a hobbled organization than one that doesn’t include significant powers. The others don’t have permanent slots because they joined when they had less power, or they never gained enough power to bargain.
We can discuss American misadventures and horrible decisions in the aftermath of 9/11, but equating the U.S. military to Russia, which effectively has rape and torture as part of its doctrine, is more than a stretch.
To be clear, I totally expected a comment like that, but I can guarantee you 1000% that no Ukrainians will be hanging on to Russian cargo plane wheels once they are booted out.
It goes on and on. Escalating conflict in the ME, such as with Israel and Lebanon, regardless of who is at fault, is not in the interest of the US. The administration feels attempts to deescalate are falling on deaf ears, but is in a politically precarious situation.
This is often repeated but is historically VERY incorrect. Yes, Israel does lobbying in the states and does influence (like every other country). The current Israeli government is indeed terrible and blatant at that.
However, Israel left Gaza in 2005 with no deal as part of US pressure (which led to the current situation). Israel offered a Palestinians a country which included east Jerusalem twice based on US pressure. Israel left Lebanon alone due to such pressure.
Israel didn't attack Lebanon for a year and tried to settle due to US pressure despite an average of 25 rockets per day towards civilian population.
Imagine a country being attacked and fired on for nearly 20 years (by Hamas) and keeping reposes "moderate". That's US pressure and influence right there. Israel delayed going into Rafah due to US pressure, it turns out Sinwar and quite a few hostages were there...
The reason it seems that US pressure isn't working is mostly because no one knows what to do exactly. Hostages are still held by Hamas. Hezbollah is still firing rockets/drones even now. I'm 100% for a hostage exchange but right now there's no deal, part of that is because of Netanyahu (who is terrible) but not all of it. The US can't fire Netanyahu (I wish they could...), and that's a problem. They want to strengthen anti-Netanyahu forces within Israel while still moderating its actions, that's a very tight rope to walk on.
Israel never left Gaza. They surrounded it. They controlled the entire land border and didn't let ships sail or planes take off from Gaza. It's as if, after a prison riot, all of the guards just said fuck 'em and decamped to a perimeter around the prison with machine guns with orders to shoot to kill. Gaza is way too small and densely populated to be remotely self-sufficient.
Now, just to short-circuit the reply chain, you're going to say that Hamas would have just used the borders to move in weapons. Sure, that's true. In fact, they dug a bunch of tunnels under the Israeli controlled border crossings and smuggled in a bunch of weapons. Normal stuff like food and medicine though were constantly blocked or delayed.
By the way, I don't know how to solve this problem well at this point. Both sides have done enough evil shit to each other that they will want to kill each other for generations. Israel though, has never withdrawn from Gaza, and Israel has never agreed to abide by the terms of UN Resolution 242 that obligates them to withdraw from the 1967 occupied territories. What I expect to happen based on the ground reality and statements from members of the Israeli government is that the Palestinians in Gaza will either die or have their lives be made so intolerable that they leave, and then Israel will annex the land, just as they have in Jerusalem and many areas of the West Bank.
Israel didn't "surround Gaza". It exists around Gaza. Gaza also has a border with Egypt who controlled it in the past and didn't want it back. In fact they used that border to smuggle weapons and sex slaves (not an exaggeration). Israel supplied Gaza with water, electricity and everything necessary.
It's as if Israel gave Gaza a chance to prove itself and it immediately elected Hamas, started building war tunnels and rockets. Peace requires proof and unfortunately Hamas proved the opposite. You're assuming that if Israel would have relaxed its defenses things would have been better, Israel relaxed its defenses before October 7th.
Hamas is the organization that sent suicide bombers into the middle of Tel Aviv. It blew up busses full of civilians in order to stop the peace process and prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state. Their slogan in Arabic is "from the river to the sea Palestine will be Arab", the river and the sea are the borders of Israel and its tantamount to "kill all the Jews".
Israel elected Liberals who tried to create a peace process and give back almost everything. Hamas blew that up and triggered the rise of the Israeli right-wing. I think there's only way out of this mess and its through. As long as Hamas exists in a functioning form there can be no peace. It's horrible and tragic but I don't see any other way out of this mess. Hopefully, Israel will be able to recover after that and return to its liberal/humane roots.
Israel does not exist around Gaza. It exists on two sides of Gaza. On the Egyptian border, Israel has made an agreement with Egypt to prevent imports and exports, and on the Mediterranean, they prevent access to the sea by force.
Israel has long prevented the import of all sorts of goods. They do not provide "everything necessary." Israel also has prevented the export of almost all goods, so that the Palestinians will have no money and be completely dependent on Israel to provide for basic needs.
I'm sure you're right that if the border were opened up that Hamas would import weapons and attack Israel, which is why Israel surrounded Gaza, as I said.
As you say, "peace requires proof", but that goes both ways, and ever since Camp David collapsed, Israel has likewise proved that it does not intend to make peace by further expanding the settlements, and generally making the lives of the Palestinians intolerable, often in capricious ways that do not enhance Israeli security.
The very obvious long-term goal of Israel is to drive the Palestinians out of the occupied territories and annex them for Israeli use.
Their slogan in Arabic is "from the river to the sea Palestine will be Arab", the river and the sea are the borders of Israel and its tantamount to "kill all the Jews".
There are many variants of the slogan of course, but for some reason you're picking one of the more uncommon (and more virulent) versions. However, he "official" versions (for example from the PLO) use the phrase to call for a single democratic state for Arabs and Jews, that would replace Israel, and from which nobody will be expelled.
This is of course also in line (albeit in somewhat simplified form) with the version one sees almost uniformly on the streets these days, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", and if you ask people what they mean by that, most of them will tell you something equivalent to the PLO version.
Meanwhile since 1977 Likud has used essentially the same slogan, but in reverse, minus any aspirations of democratic equality, and with racial supremacy baked in: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
> However, he "official" versions (for example from the PLO)
The PLO recognizes that Israel has a right to exist and has abandoned official "armed resistance" approaches. They understand that this never worked and ultimately only hurt the Palestinian people.
I'm explicitly talking about Hamas and making a clear distinction between them and the Palestinian people at large.
> use the phrase to call for a single democratic state for Arabs and Jews
That was suggested in the past and has gone back in vogue for some extreme liberals but it's probably not what any side wants. I don't think it's something that's workable. See Lebanon as a case in point where three different conflicting cultures are constantly violently clashing.
> This is of course also in line (albeit in somewhat simplified form) with the version one sees almost uniformly on the streets these days, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", and if you ask people what they mean by that, most of them will tell you something equivalent to the PLO version.
Well... What *some* people mean doesn't really mean anything. There was a Nordic Journalist who recorded pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the Arabic slogans people yelled were VERY different.
But even without that. Hamas is looking at these protests and seeing them as Israel losing support. So they keep fighting, keep holding hostages and keep sending children as carriers. Netanyahu points at these demonstrations as how the world is turning anti-semetic so Israelis MUST fight for their home. And yes, Israelis 100% hear "Palestine will be free of Jews". Trump is pointing at them as a failure of the liberals...
These protests are only helping bad people and increasing strife. If they were indeed pro-Palestinian they would carry both flags in support of a two state solution. They would also support the cause of returning the hostages. They are now for peace, they are anti-Israel protests.
> Meanwhile since 1977 Likud has used essentially the same slogan, but in reverse, minus any aspirations of democratic equality, and with racial supremacy baked in: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
That was not an official slogan but yes people on the more extreme right did sing it. People still do and also say worse things. There are several big problems with whataboutism... Palestinians are the weaker part of this situation, violence will always end up worse for them. That's why the PLO abandoned that approach (at least officially excluding lynch mobs), it doesn't help Palestinians to keep that rhetoric.
Also the Likud was the party that voted to leave Gaza. That included Netanyhau who signed that law. A PM who originated from the Likud offered a Palestinian state in 2008.
I'm aware of just one "official" Hamas formulation of the slogan, via the 2017 charter as quoted below. Can you point to any others? We do have that quote from Khaled Meshaal as well, but one doesn't hear it so often.
Hamas’ 2017 charter states that in principle, it “rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.” In a 2012 speech, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said, “Palestine is ours from the river to the sea and from the south to the north. There will be no concession on any inch of the land.”
Regarding the nicer-sounding variants that "nobody wants / aren't workable": That may be, but it is significant that the variant that most folks in their camp at least pretend to believe in (as an "aspiration") is at least nominally non-genocidal. And that the genuinely genocidal variants -- just aren't on display that often.
(Might get back to the other stuff you wrote later)
من المية للمية / فلسطين عربية, "from the water to the water / Palestine is Arab"
Notice that this is nitpicking since the intention is clear to Israelis/Palestinians even in the moderate version of the slogan.
This hurts Palestinians because it discourages their leaders from compromises that might have ended this conflict (see the 2000 and 2008 statehood rejections). It also strengthens the sense within Israelis that there's no partner for peace on the other side.
It's like using the N-word. Once you said that you have that label and feeling, nothing you say will matter to any side.
> As long as Hamas exists in a functioning form there can be no peace.
I think the big problem with this approach is that actions taken now, which lead to deaths, lead to the friends & family of said people becoming more radicalised and thus to more terror attacks/wars in the future.
I read recently in the FT that 60% of current Hamas fighters have lost family to previous conflicts, suggesting that this isn't going to end.
And more generally, it's basically impossible for conventional armies to defeat guerilla fighters who have the support of the population (c.f. Irish/English conflicts, Iraq, Afghanisation (multiple times) etc).
Like, fundamentally the only way this can end is through either extermination or negotiation. Given the relative power imbalances, it'll be extermination of the Palestinians, which would be terrible (and incredibly depressing given that a lot of Israeli citizens are descended from survivors of the Holocausts and the various pogroms in European history).
I used to be of that mindset and no longer am. Hamas killed more people in a single day than the IRA killed in its entire existence. The Irish conflict which is more similar to the conflict Israel has in the west bank, is mostly a territorial conflict.
If it were true that violence breeds violence then Jews would have blown up post war Germany with suicide vests. It was still filled with Nazis and their collaborators.
Hamas is a different story, there's no amount of negotiations or compromise that will placate a fanatic. They will probably keep doing these things forever just like Isis didn't fully go away. But once the leadership got cut down Isis found it much harder to pull off the same level of terror.
I agree that this needs to be a dual motion. Young frustrated people are kindle for these organizations and this won't work without a peace process that would give hope to the people. That's why I don't have any faith in the current Israeli government. I hope it can be replaced so there would be a parallel process that would help rebuild and pave a way for peace again.
I agree that the Irish conflict is more like the West Bank (but that's super super bad and has been for a long time) and that October 7th was much more destructive than anything in the Troubles.
Like, it's worth noting that the core of the nationalist and unionist terrorists still live in Ireland and engage in a bunch of criminality. These organizations don't disband, they just die off/become politicians.
The big problem with Israel making peace is that it appears a solid majority don't want that, which depresses the hell out of me.
A solid majority is for peace and has been for a while. Oct 7th might have screwed the numbers, but they will bounce back. The Oslo accords wouldn't have happened with out a solid majority. Netanyahu himself had to make a speech where he specifically supported the idea of a Palestinian state in order to get elected (see the Bar Ilan Speech).
There are many peace activists on both sides but also a lot of fatigue and disillusionment. Don't let that get you down too. I think once the dust settles things could change. The pendulum always swings to the other side, we just need patience and to set an environment receptive for that. If Trump wins this election things will probably get much worse before they get better. But I think that they will get better even in that worst case scenario.
Israel did withdraw from Lebanon though, this wasn't effective at all at promoting peace as we're now seeing, and same thing has happened in Gaza; Israel did uproot all the settlers from Gaza and there was no single Israeli soldier left in Gaza - you can say the Gaza withdrawal was incomplete but saying it never happened at all is incorrect.
Unfortunately Israelis only learned that withdrawals from enemies who have sworn to destroy you only make things worse for them.
>What ive always wondered is why the US hasn't put Israel on the security council, considering it is a nuclear armed state.
That isn't the criteria for being a council member, if it were they'd need to allow India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Plus, pretty sure the US does not officially recognize Israel as a nuclear power, it's one of those open secret things
Besides that, how would the US benefit from another country being able to veto anything they want to do in the UN? Sure, they'd probably agree with far more things than Russia or China, but the US wouldn't gain anything from them being there.
Excellent point. But assuming you're not being facetious, the Security Council is largely a historical artifact: all five permanent members were the victors of WWII. (Why occupied France was included is something I never understood.)
While it's true nuclear proliferation began with the five permanent members, at the time the UN and Security Council were founded in 1945, only the US had the bomb.
The USSR didn't test one until 1949, the UK in 1952, France in 1960, and China (as you mentioned) in 1964. The Soviet Union had an early start because of their spies in the Manhattan Project, while the UK contributed to it during the War. 15 years would pass before another permanent member caught up.
And Russia took the USSR's seat just as China did Taiwan's.
The thing is, Israel doesn’t protect U.S. interests in the middle east. All the U.S. has really ever wanted there is oil, and because of U.S. support for Israel, we’ve been the subject of two oil embargoes.
Israel provides us zero military bases, even when Arab countries provide us dozens. Despite all of the support we give them and have given them, they have repeatedly escalated conflicts when the U.S. asked them to stop. Today, we are unable to ship goods through the Red Sea because the Houthis are upset over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Has the US asked for a base? They do have Site 512, not a typical base but still a base.
In many ways Israel does the US' dirty work, like crippling Hezbollah which is responsible for numerous attacks against US (and other Western) personnel.
The Houthis are squarely to blame for the disruption of Red Sea shipping; Israel's military operation in a different country isn't a legitimate reason to attack (almost) random ships.
I think you’re missing the point here. The only reason the U.S. cares about Hezbollah is because they attack Israel. The only reason Hezbollah exists is because of Israel. The reason the Houthis are attacking shipping is because the U.S. supports Israel. Being an ally to Israel has imposed huge costs on the U.S. and virtually no benefits.
Many in the U.S. feel that protecting Israel is a moral cause, but it is undeniably a strategic albatross for us.
> The only reason the U.S. cares about Hezbollah is because they attack Israel. The only reason Hezbollah exists is because of Israel
You can't know that. The Iranian Islamic revolution happened not because of Israel. Iran would have probably tried to gain influence through proxies and destabilize the Middle East regardless of Israel. It would have joined forces with Russia and China. It would have probably tried acquiring nuclear weapons and it would have hated the U.S (which it calls Big Satan to this day).
In short Iran would have been a huge headache and security risk for the U.S and the West even if Israel didn't exist imo.
The U.S is definitely strong enough to deal with Iran without Israel, but its helpful to have allies in a very very unstable neighborhood.
Now go back a few years and take into account the US meddling with Iran. You'll notice some cause -> effect with our intended consequences coming back to bite us for decades.
This is exactly what people are saying when they are referring to 'zionists', everything else is just a red herring. Unfortunately even well intentioned people are ignorant of this.
There’s plenty of non Jewish Zionists in the US as well. And I don’t think anyone is really being secretive here. The US is taking actions that benefit Israel to the detriment of America.
For example, it's hard to comprehend how a country like Russia is not suspended?
A country which signed the Charter, and is member of the security council, is trying to annex a country of 40 million people, claiming they and their culture don't exist.
They don't even hide the genocide intent, and yet Guterres is visiting the BRICS conference in Russia legitimizing the regime. Despicable.
HN posts about this used to be 99% Pro-Zionist. There’s been a marked shift in opinion (or less bots) and I’m very, very glad that people are recognising the extent of war crimes being committed by Israel.
Worth considering that in terms of relative size, Israel has a population of 10 million, Jews in the world number ~14 million.
Whereas the Arab world, which tends to be relatively anti-Israel, numbers ~220 million. And Muslims, which tend to be anti-Israel as well, number 1.2 billion.
So just in terms of number of voices, the natural pro-Israel voices [1] are vastly outnumbered by the natural anti-Israel voices.
Think about how this impacts what you hear, how this impacts the votes in the UN (which is not democratic but votes are by country), how this impacts economic reactions (number of consumers), etc.
[1] This is a sweeping generalization, but it is statistically true that Jews are usually pro-Israel and Arabs and Muslims are usually anti-Israel. With other religions/ethnicities it's more complicated.
Though global populations show a larger anti-Israel sentiment, Western media and internet forums don't reflect this balance.
Western media often aligns with Israeli perspectives due to strategic alliances, lobbying influence, and media ownership dynamics, framing Israel’s actions as defensive while sidelining broader Arab or Palestinian views.
Online, pro-Israel narratives are reinforced by organized digital campaigns and moderation practices that shape public discourse. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian voices lack comparable resources and organization in Western spaces, limiting their visibility. This creates a media and digital environment where Western audiences are exposed to narratives that don’t fully represent the global spectrum of perspectives.
> Though global populations show a larger anti-Israel sentiment, Western media and internet forums don't reflect this balance.
I'm not sure you're right. Isn't this a bit hard to judge without first deciding what is true and what constitutes bias? I'm fairly certain we don't agree with on either of these.
Most Israelis consider things like the BBC and the NYT to be biased against Israel. Are you sure they're wrong?
This very post would seem to belie that. In fact, the only times Israel ever rises to the front page is when the article is biased and critical, as is this one.
The only posts labeled "flagged" here are those who are nuanced about Israel at all with the exception of one overtly anti-Semitic post.
"Israel has also said that UN forces are being used as a human shield by Hizbollah fighters, which it is fighting near several Unifil posts along the border. It has demanded the UN evacuate its peacekeepers from southern Lebanon for their own safety. Unifil, and the 50 countries that contribute troops to its ranks, have unanimously refused."
Why aren't the UN troops keeping the peace? Did they let Hezbollah fire rockets into Israel unimpeded? What is the point of the troops being there?
Unifil has been there since the '70s, apparently. Their role was to monitor Israel's withdrawal and to assist the Lebanese government, to patrol the Blue Line and various humanitarian tasks. They're not a counterinsurgency force or an occupying army - as I understand it, they're a tripwire for treaty enforcement.
Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields. It's still immoral to kill noncombatants, just as it's immoral to hide behind noncombatants. You don't gain moral high ground, you're just sinking to the level of the enemy.
What seems more relevant today is that UNIFIL was supposed to support the implementation of UNSC 1701, which was a complete failure, with Hezbollah ignoring it outright and the Lebanese army not doing much to stop them.
> Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields.
I am not saying it’s morally correct but from a war crime standpoint, I think you actually do. As longs as it’s proportional, you can attack combatants hiding under civilians, even if you kill civilians by doing that. At least that’s my understanding.
“You don’t get to shoot through human shields.” I don’t have a POV w.r.t. this conflict, but I’d like to understand what you mean by this statement generally. In the extreme it seems to imply, “if you have a human shield you are invincible.”
It’s a messed-up calculus to have to make but I feel like there must be some middle ground.
My view is the ethnicity of the human shields in question shouldn't factor into your decision making. You shouldn't shoot through an Egyptian aid worker or Lebanese child if you wouldn't have shot through an Israeli hostage in their place.
> you wouldn't have shot through an Israeli hostage in their place
Well actually, to give Israel some kind of credit, they have also done that, as hostages have indeed been killed in their attacks. In general they have shown a similar disregard of human life towards their own people who have been hostages, so there's that.
I suppose you're suggesting that one shouldn't value "us" over "them". Is a logical extension of this that you shouldn't shoot someone else if you wouldn't shoot yourself?
I mean, you can also just value all human life equally, and not shoot at soldiers unless there's a really good reason to do so. You really shouldn't target civilians, almost ever, cause there's never a good reason to do so by definition.
Take a step back and observe you've erected a mental block for yourself. We've got a false dichotomy here - either we shoot through human shields or we do nothing.
If there are insurgents among civilians, they either have logistics and communication networks to conduct operations, or they're unable to operate effectively. Weapons do not materialize from nowhere, they must be smuggled into the country and distributed. Operations do not materialize from nowhere, they must be coordinated.
If they have logistics, we can leverage that against them. We saw this when Israel expected their pager attack. They've already proven that they can exercise their creativity to conduct effective attacks with great precision.
If they lack logistics and communication networks - then they can't conduct effective operations against us. There's little to fear and no reason to shoot through human shields.
This is some armchair strategy a nonexpert came up with on the spot. Consider that real military strategists and intelligence agencies are better at coming up with ways to find and kill their enemies than we are.
Do not accept that these people cannot solve these problems without bulldozing through human shields. Do not accept the notion that a powerful military and intelligence apparatus is helpless. They could prosecute this war differently. They have made a choice not to.
> Take a step back and observe you've erected a mental block for yourself. We've got a false dichotomy here - either we shoot through human shields or we do nothing.
No, you're the one making imaginary false dichotomies. See your last paragraph:
> Do not accept that these people cannot solve these problems without bulldozing through human shields. Do not accept the notion that a powerful military and intelligence apparatus is helpless. They could prosecute this war differently. They have made a choice not to.
You're now making a false dichotomy - Israel can choose to prosecute the war differently, but it doesn't, implying that they are choosing to kill human shields on purpose.
The reality is that you're coming up on the spot with a dozen ways to defeat an insurgency, without taking into account that they are just as smart and just as motivated as you, and planned for years to make them impossible to hit without significant civilian casualties. This is incredibly well documented.
Sure, you can pretend there is always a secret third option - and there sometimes is. And there sometimes isn't. And the more you let militants using civilians as human shields deter you, the more the militants are incentivized to use human shields, so even in a best case scenario, you're kicking the can down the road.
None of this is to say that Israel's actions are perfect or even good - that's a separate argument. But imagining that Israel has a magic way to do what it wants to do and eliminate Hamas - which many people support it doing and agree it has a right to do - imagining there is some magic way this could get done without hurting civilians is, frankly, incorrect.
> the israeli "human shields" narrative is pure hasbara and israeli projection anyway
Saying this is, frankly, ridiculous. There is massive, extensive documentation of the vast tunnel networks and terrorist infrastructure hiding beneath and as part of civilian areas in Gaza (and in Lebanon, now). There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Hamas cynically using actions that are bound to hurt civilians.
You don't have to like Israel or how it's acting, and you disagree with the legitimacy of the war or how it is conducted, but you should at least be grounded in reality. If you're just wholesale denying the well-documented evidence of how Hamas acts, you're not really criticizing the IDF, because you're not connecting with reality. You're criticizing an imaginary IDF fighting an imaginary Hamas that acts completely differently to how it's acting, and that makes your criticisms meaningless.
(And for the record, the cases of the IDF using human shields in the manner you linked above are pretty well documented too, as far as I can say, and I personally think they should be condemned and the IDF has to answer for that. I do try to be centered in reality and see things as they really are.)
> There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Hamas cynically using actions that are bound to hurt civilians.
Correct, this is how guerrilla forces have always worked. Either their fighters get protection, or the colonial/occupying (from their perspective) power gets loads of bad PR.
I mean, when you look at the relative arms strength of the two forces, they'd be crazy not to do this.
Is this moral? 100% not. Is it understandable? Strategically, again 100%. yes.
Don't you just love how the brave soldiers of the IDF fight all their wars remotely. 2000lb bombs dropped from the skies, Lavender AI to remove accountability. The kids in the IDF go directly from video games at school to a real war turned into another virtual reality. Without their US-funded military superiority those IDF zombies wouldn't stand a chance in one-on-one combat with a Palestinian resistance fighter.
The straightforward thing with UNFIL would be to negotiate change at the UN
It's unlikely that Israel decided just now to go attack Hezbollah, and even if they did, it's not like there's been any big status quo change, so they could go to the UN first, if they think the UN is in the way
> Tons of Israeli military bases and weapons manufacturing his placed directly under or very close to civilian domiciles.
This is nonsense propaganda that keeps getting repeated.
Israel has some army bases in or close to civilian areas, as do most countries - e.g. the Pentagon. The reason is that some army bases are used for intelligence, software development or other administrative tasks, which usually involves older officers and many civilians, so it makes sense to have these be in cities.
But note key differences between this and what Hamas is accused of doing:
1. These are administrative buildings. These are not weapons storage facilities, combat factilities, etc. And it's especially not where missile launch sites or things of a similar nature are located.
Shooting missiles from within houses, as e.g. Hezbollah does, or from under refugee camps, as Hamas does, is a different thing entirely - because to stop the actual rockets being shot at Israel, Israel has to shoot at them, which kills civilians. That is not what Israel does with those bases.
2. Israeli bases are not built under civilian buildings. Yes, the same army HQ or intelligence etc bases that are built in cities have sections underground, for obvious reasons - but under the bases, not under people's houses!
you think that's the narrative Israel and its allies would go with? Never.
Israel and its allies would cry and whine as if a second holocaust occurred. They would pretend like they haven't done something similar thousands of times before to their enemies and that this retaliation on the Mossad HQ is some sort of uniquely evil and unprecedented event in human history.
Israelis always prefer using the most absurd victim narratives possible. Only Israel can be the biggest bully while also roleplaying as the biggest victim, but it's not surprising considering that even the mossad's motto[0] is "By way of deception you shall engage in war."
I don’t think speculating on how you think Israel would react is helpful or productive.
Of course Israel would “cry and whine.” I agree with you.
Obviously, Palestine also “cries and whines” — they have a narrative when their military operations are hit, too, and it’s not “fair play.”
War is an ugly, awful thing. I wouldn’t expect anybody involved to treat it so rationally. Hopefully we can view things more objectively and fairly given our distance.
> Is it? Hamas and Hezbollah deliberately place their military infrastructure among civilians.
I'm not eager to defend Hamas or Hezbollah, but for Gaza, is there a lot of free space?
Using human shields anyhow, does NOT mean it's the other's fault if you bomb then.
It's entirely your own decision, if you know that they're there.
Do you really think there was no other way, to deal with the problem?
Personally, for me the most absurd aspect of the situation is that you're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas' of the future.
However good a person is, and however quiet by nature, they wouldn't be human if a percentage of them wouldn't look for revenge, after having all their relatives killed, endured surgeries without anesthetics, and seen there was no good justification for that.
Which is what some Israeli politicians would probably like, anyhow, to give them arguments for the future elections.
Nothing will be solved. Unless you kill them all? Well, I think there would be a lot of Arabs who'd seek revenge for them, if so.
By the way, with using shields the Israeli might well just mean mean having a tunnel passing under a condo, or that an Hamas member sleeps there rather than, where? Hamas barracks? Along with your family, forever, with a target on your back?
CNN [1] today said:
> There is ample evidence for it: weapons located inside homes, tunnels dug beneath residential neighborhoods and rockets fired from those same neighborhoods in the densely packed territory.
I don't think that's what people think about, when hearing about human hostages.
Furthermore, the IDF seems to wait for the targets to be at home, just because there they're easier to target [2] .
> for me the most absurd aspect of the situation is that you're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas' of the future.
This has become a very common argument, and is indeed true, but it's also hypocritically incomplete.
You're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas of the future and they will be right in fighting you. Exactly as the current Hamas members are right in fighting you today.
> “Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields.”
When the human shields are serving willingly as human shields, I will say that yes, you get to shoot through them and keep your moral high ground.
Not only those UN troops have no reason to be there, but there are numerous reports that several of their members are working together and aiding Hezbolah.
Israel has lied repeatedly countless times, like the tunnels under hospitals that never show up, or when they say the didn't kill the journalists they did end up admitting to. Or the claims of rape and beheaded babies that were all fake. You can not take anything they say as serious.
Then thre's the time a former Israeli PM admitted they build the "bunker" under Al Shifa. Whoops. If anyone had been paying attention or properly reporting on that, it might have looked bad.
Not disputing general truthfulness of Israeli government, but specifically as to the latter two examples you listed:
A) There is no direct evidence that Israeli government publicly stated that babies were beheaded. That claim came from a single journalist, spread like wildfire on social media (as did tons of videos and footage of the attacks), and was exacerbated by a statement Biden made.
Just wanted to point that out, because regardless of the moral standing of either side, I think the facts do matter if there is ever going to be a resolution. Obviously the actions committed by Hamas do not absolve Israel from following ethical rules of war, and there are plenty of issues with how Israel is waging war in the current conflict as well; for example using machine learning algorithms to track targets with what appears to be a reckless disregard for non-combatants: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
The bigger problem is that these lies spread “like wildfire” via Western media outlets - with zero fact checking or confirmation. These images were then used to justify the rampage in Gaza.
As far as I am aware, not a single Western media rag has issued an apology for this. In many of our eyes, never again will they be able to claim credibility or professionalism in their reporting.
In addition, Western rags took Israeli statements as gospel, platformed way more guests from the Israeli side, and intensively questioned all pro-Palestine guests on their position on Oct 7 (while treating Israeli guests with more respect than necessary for a media interview).
It’s better now - but that’s easy to do after a year of atrocities and 100k+ deaths. In the US at least, there still is a clear bias against inviting Palestinians on primetime slots, or allowing Palestinians to operate freely within news organizations.
I think they could start with not destroying hospitals and schools and doing better than “at least 1/3 of the 40k people killed were militants.” Israel , the most moral army in the world /s, thinks that two citizens killed for every militant killed is an acceptable ratio, it’s not.
What's the acceptable ratio?
I'm not claiming this reality isn't horrific I'm just not seeing many examples of wars fought better. Did the U.S do it better in Vietnam or Iraq? The U.S wasn't even fighting for its survival, it was fighting to "defeat communism" or to keep oil prices low because of the invasion of Kuweit or 9-11 etc etc. None of these reasons were as strong as what happened to Israel.
Vietnam and Iraq are two nation states and had populations between 25-30m at the time US waged war in those countries. Gaza is a narrow strip of 139 square miles of land with 2mn people packed together like sardines, who have no sovereignty, have been under an economic blockade since 2007, and whose rulers Hamas have no conventional military to speak of. These two are not comparable, I don't know why people keep pointing to the destruction of Nazi Germany and Japan as the benchmark of whats acceptable in Gaza, its quite insane tbh.
Why does the land area matter? Israel is also a tiny and crowded country and is threatened from all fronts. What was the threat against the U.S again , was Vietnam about to invade? was Iraq?
Hamas had enough weapons to kill 1200 Israelis in one day so it's not some helpless entity. It was armed to its teeth. It's only after almost 800 additional dead Israeli soldiers and a very bloody war that Hamas lost most of its power.
I think many people also forget the second intifada suicide bombings, and numerous rocket barrages over the proceeding decades after, to which Hamas was a major belligerent. Despite the more primitive designs of these rockets, without modern defense systems there would likely be more Israeli civilian deaths. I see this context missing from a lot of the discussions of the current iteration of this conflict. Israeli civilians have faced decades of risk (which I think also benefits the right wing of Israeli politics), and this is not a new conflict. October 7th comes on the heels of many other direct and indirect attacks on Israeli civilians. I cant help but think that the current military response might fall under a “never let a crisis go to waste” strategy by Netanyahu’s coalition, which had recently been receiving less support.
What is deranged, is you trying pretend Israel is waging a war against a peer foe by grossly exaggerating the threat of Hamas.
Your government created Hamas. Literally. [1] They were considered an 'asset' right up until Hamas decided they wanted to be more than being Netanyahu's good little prisoners whose only purpose was to serve as a spoiler for genuine Palestinian aspirations.
Feel free to share your objections to what I wrote.
Unfortunately, it is hard to discern legitimate interest vs. someone wanting to engage in a debate for the sake of it. And I am not interested in wasting my time figuring out which is the case.
I did not say or imply that I have objections to what you wrote.
Your comment strongly implied that you think that Israel overreacted to Oct 7. So I am curious what you think their response should have been.
> Unfortunately, it is hard to discern legitimate interest vs. someone wanting to engage in a debate for the sake of it. And I am not interested in wasting my time figuring out which is the case.
Israel has not overreacted to Oct 7, they have just applied the same policy that they have used for many decades "at least ten of theirs for each one of ours".
This policy is an effective deterrent against enemies, but it should be obvious that with such a policy it will never be possible to end any conflict unless absolutely all enemies and all their relatives or friends are killed.
There have been times when the relations between the parties in this conflict had improved a lot and there was some hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Nevertheless on both sides, but especially in Israel, there are people who benefit a lot from the existence of the conflict, so any opponents have been removed by any means possible, including assassination, until the mutual relationships have become as bad as today, when no hope for any kind of peace remains.
Most people in Israel are quite nice, but they are deeply scared by the thought that that at any time someone coming from the neighbors of Israel could come and cut their throats, so they work continuously very hard at their jobs, believing that they must provide thus their individual contributions so that Israel will maintain its military and economic dominance over their enemies, in order to ensure their safety. The workers of Israel have worked all the time since WWII pretty much as hard as those of USA during its short participation to WWII.
Workers from other countries would be very unlikely to work willingly so hard as those of Israel. This is very profitable for the upper class of Israel, for whom an end of the conflict would have caused serious losses, when the workers could not have been motivated any more by patriotic slogans.
I would expect any response to (among other things):
a) adhere to international law (which we now know is a complete farce thanks UNSC veto)
b) not involve ethnic cleansing/forced displacement of Palestinians for a 3rd time in the last 75 years - the only reason it didn’t work this time is because the Egyptians strongly pushed back
c) not involve the deliberate targeting of civilians, the mass punishment of a civilian population, and the denial of access to aid to a civilian population (under occupation no less)
d) not result in the highest proportion of children fatalities and injuries of any modern war - and not involve redefining or rewriting the meaning of the word “child” to give themselves some wiggle room
e) not involve the deliberate targeting of journalists, academics, aid workers, and hospital staff - even if the Israelis claim to have “proof” of them being Hamas members (imagine immediately defunding a UN organization because the Israelis claim a few dozen employees were Hamas members)
f) adhere to Israel’s responsibilities under IHL as an occupying force
Fighting a war against guerillas in an urban context is challenging. Mass & targeted bombing of a densely populated occupied territory containing an enemy with no air force and no air defenses is not only genocidal, but also outright cowardly behavior.
But beheaded babies and babies in ovens portrays a different level of atrocities being committed. This kind of fictional atrocity dissemination is very similar to the approach used during the Gulf War[1].
More importantly, the point is that Western media outlets - who have always proclaimed to be arbiters of truth, objectivity & journalistic integrity - neither did the absolute basic fact checking required before publishing such information, nor apologized later for doing so once the dust settled.
I'm not going to disagree with you about the media sucking, but for what it's worth, I think every side thinks that. I am pro-Israel and have the same feelings about other stories that were rushed, not vetted, wrong, and never apologized for.
Just one thing: you mentioned the "girls" (in fact soldiers) with "bloody pants" in your previous comment. It's quite a stretch to go from bloody pants to "victim of rape".
Shows what appears to be the famous "bloody pants" soldier sitting on the floor close to other presumably injured soldiers after some sort of combat. Isn't that the most obvious way of getting "bloody pants"? Why the leap from those to unfounded rape accusations?
> there is very credible evidence that rape did occur
> FIRST ACCOUNT PANTS PULLED DOWN
>But it turns out that what Otmazgin thought had occurred in the home at the kibbutz hadn’t happened.
> SECOND ACCOUNT: EVERYTHING WAS CHARRED
> Yossi Landau, a longtime ZAKA volunteer, was also working in Be’eri when he entered a home that would produce the second debunked story
I urge people to read the article rather than take the parents claim that it presents evidence of rape on October 7th at face value. It presents no evidence for such a claim through the entire article. It covers debunked claims of sexual violence on October 7th, it does contain a reference to one hostage who was sexually assaulted during her kidnapping who was since thankfully successfully released
“The United Nations and other organizations have presented credible evidence that Hamas militants committed sexual assault during their rampage. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said Monday he had reason to believe that three key Hamas leaders bore responsibility for “rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity.”
I’m not going to dig up and post links to videos showing Hamas parading female captives with blood on their pants, or partially disrobed bodies. Videos which were filmed by Hamas members themselves I might add. Here is an article instead from BBC with testimony from survivors:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181.amp
I don’t want to assume that you are arguing in bad faith, but there are numerous reputable sources showing that other atrocities occurred beyond the murder of civilians. It’s bad enough that Hamas directly targeted and killed over 700 civilians.
That article you linked does not support your claims at all. The UN was pressured by Israel to send a delegation, but they would not cooperate fully and refused a full investigation.
From the UN report [1]:
>In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified.
>The mission team examined several allegations of sexual violence. It must be noted that
witnesses and sources with whom the mission team engaged adopted over time an increasingly
cautious and circumspect approach regarding past accounts, including in some cases retracting
statements made previously. Some also stated to the mission team that they no longer felt
confident in their recollections of other assertions that had appeared in the media.
>It was determined by the mission team that the
crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad and the bodies moved, explaining the separation of the body of the girl from the rest of her family. Allegations of objects found inserted in female genital organs also could not be verified by the mission team due in large part to the limited availability and low quality of imagery.
How does any of this information from the report lead you to believe that the allegations of mass rape are 'very credible'?
See this interview from Pramila Patten who is the special representative that wrote this report [2]
>“May I just ask, why not put the responsibility and blame the atrocities quite simply on the perpetrators and say, ‘it was Hamas who did it?’” the host demanded.
>Patten replied that the mission of her visit to Israel was “only for the purpose of gathering and analyzing information,” not for attributing alleged crimes to any perpetrator.
>“It is pretty clear who did it, after talking to survivors who returned – it wasn’t the Belgians who did it,” chortled the host.
>“I think it’s up to your government to give access, and that was one of my first recommendations,” Patten responded.
I would suggest you stop peddling these baseless allegations as these lies are being used to justify civilian massacres to this day.
You are cherry picking text out of the report, and removing it from the overall context. The UN investigators visited multiple locations, some of which did not contain evidence, and some of which did. See sections 58/60/61/66/68.
The conclusion of the report itself reads:
“Overall, based on the totality of information gathered from multiple and independent sources at the different locations, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred at several locations across the Gaza periphery, including in the form of rape and gang rape, during the 7 October 2023 attacks. Credible circumstantial information, which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, was also gathered.”
At this point I don’t see any further point in discussing this subject. I’m only replying in case someone reads these comments, and doesn’t dig deeper into the report. I find it concerning that you glossed over those sections and the conclusion of the report, while only presenting text that supports your viewpoint. It’s bad enough that ~700-800 civilians were murdered in the first place, and it’s horrible that civilians continue to die in Gaza through the present. Please have a good day.
Nope, Iran does not really prop up Palestinians. Maybe Saudi Arabia and their donations sure but Iran does not fund more than military assets, and mostly in Lebanon
There's absolutely no evidence of UN forces being used as human shields. There's clear evidence, including that cited in the article, of the situation being very different from the claims/report of the IDF.
The most credible reason for Israel wanting Unfil to vacate is less impartial observers.
The most credible reason for Israel to want UNIFIL to vacate is that UNIFIL’s mission is to help keep unauthorized military forces out of South Lebanon, and Israel’s invasion force is decidedly unauthorized.
Given they targeted observation posts and monitoring cameras first, I suspect they don't want witnesses observing war crimes. Local witnesses are outright killed or smeared with accusations of belonging to militant groups, as it's being done to journalists in Gaza. They just put targets on the backs of the few surviving journalists that are still documenting the siege of northern Gaza. See: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2024/10/24/wh...
That trick is harder to pull when the witnesses are external UN observers.
Well, UNIFIL for the last twenty years pretty much ignored the other unauthorized military force in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah, so why they should care about IDF?
Hezbollah is part of the elected government within the in internationally recognized borders of Lebanon. It might be illegal for them to fire at Israel, but it's not illegal for them to be present. It is illegal for Israel to be present within Lebanon's borders.
Hezbollah's presence might not be illegal under Lebanese law, but it is illegal under UNSC 1701.
Israel's current presence might technically also be illegal under UNSC 1701, but Israel has a very strong casus belli from self-defense, having been bombarded for the past year.
They care about Israel Bulldozing UN's bases (walls and towers)
Israel is being openly threatening UNIFIL, and they aren't retailating in any way. I am 100% sure the white hats have never had any capacity to do anything beside being witness. Hezbollah was ok with that, Israel is not ok with that.
I would think that a people that was close to extinction through genocide only 80 years ago, cares little about what other people authorizes them to do in order to protect themselves.
They were attacked from Lebanon, they retaliate. It’s quite simple.
I have been flagged in this thread by merely re-iterating points mentioned in the Financial Times article. @dang — I doubt you’ll see this, but I would appreciate some help. This is pretty sad.
Me too, for giving context that the article elided. Flagging is supposed to mean "breaks guidelines" not "disagrees with my outlook". Strange that this is the only topic that inspires such zeal.
Hezbollah has launched over 10,000 rockets at Israel since Oct 7 last year. While under the watch of the UN. But apparently Israel is supposed to just do nothing about it and accept it going on for as long as Hezbollah likes. Absolutely no other country on this planet would. So many people seem to have a special set of double standards they apply to Israel for some reason.
Which came first in your mind? Are you trying to go back to 1948 here? I mean why stop there we could say this is all stems from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand leading to the invasion of and break up of the Ottomon empire. But we have to live in the reality we have today.
In this reality Hezbollah started attacking Israel after Oct 7 in support of Hamas’s attack on Israel. But for that happening Israel would not be invading southern Lebanon to try and put and end to these attacks now.
There is nothing at all wrong with criticizing Israel, I am deeply annoyed with a lot they do, the right wing element and the West Bank settlers are really ruining the ability to reach a two state solution. (Palestinian leaders also share blame in not reaching this outcome too sadly.)
The problem is that people so often have double standards and expectations of Israelis they would never apply to anyone else. And they definitely never seem to have similar expectations for Hezbollah or Hamas. This isn’t constructive and gets kind of antisemitic after a while (Jews are different, hence unrealistic expectations, they should just take the rocket fire and never respond). It’s a weird lack of empathizing with Israelis as also being real humans behaving as real humans anywhere would. This really doesn’t help bring about any kind of peace.
Just because other countries started by brutally colonizing the natives does not mean we should let Israel continue doing it. A true solution requires some admission of guilt on their end for the past century of death and destruction and a path forward that creates a state that is not tied to Jewish identity. Much like other western nations, they will have to learn to deal with a diverse population by abandoning their previous culture and religion.
Israel is simply not going to decide to cease to exist. People living in Israel are not going to up and leave. They’re not going to say “sure take my house” any more than you would. This kind of thing is entirely magical thinking that can only happen because you aren’t able to generate any kind of empathy for people living in Israel.
Kids born in the West Bank or Gaza today are not helped to have a better future by this kind of thinking you’re pushing here.
The parent is suggesting a single state solution and giving this is the context of Hezbollah, the right of return. (Hezbollah is not in Palestine.)
Nobody on this planet would make that deal with groups who have the goal of destroying your country. If Hamas had been a peaceful group, democracy had taken hold in Gaza, it had existed peacefully with Israel, had never had the aim of destroying Israel, then yeah, you might be able to imagine a future where the two merge and live harmoniously. But that is not reality today.
You're projecting more into the commenter's words than is actually to be found in them, it seems.
It's quite cleare Hamas needs to be marginalized and taken out of the picture (along with its spiritual companions in the 37th Government) before anything can move forward, but that's a separate issue.
What are they saying then? I am interpreting them in the context of this discussion which is on Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel and Israel’s response.
You seem to imply they are pointing to internal matters to Israel, not Hezbollahs aims. In which case it’s a total non sequitur comment. Or are you or they, suggesting Hezbollahs aims (given Hezbollah is what we are discussing) simply to reform internal issues within Israel and that is their reason for launching 10,000 rockets at them? I think you know that’s not the case.
> Which attack came first? Who is responding to who? It just doesn't matter any more.
As a fellow taxpayer, fuck no. As the initiator, Hezbollah can stop shooting the rockets at any moment, give up the Oct 2023 attackers and everyone actively involved. I don't see why that wouldn't stop Israel from going further.
This can not work for Israel, because they are responsible for bringing these fucks to justice.
>As the initiator, Hezbollah can stop shooting the rockets at any moment, give up the Oct 2023 attackers and everyone actively involved.
I don't think Hezbollah has any of the Oct 2023 attackers. Those attackers all came from Gaza, and were in Hamas. Hezbollah just decided to join in on the side of Hamas by shooting rockets, but they weren't the ones who did the Oct 2023 attack.
No, I didn't: your assertion still doesn't make sense. No Oct 2023 attackers came from Lebanon (it's quite a long distance away from southern Israel after all), so how exactly are they supposed to "give them up"? They're all in Gaza. Hezbollah doesn't control Gaza.
I suppose; I'm simply addressing the part about "giving up" the Oct 2023 attackers. They aren't in Lebanon anywhere, so there's no way to "give them up".
Probably not, at this point. Israel left it to the UN, which failed to maintain peace and order. I imagine the intent would be to smash Hezbollah like Hamas.
There is a staggering amount of ignorance present in the other comments here.
I was ignorant too. But I spent a good amount of time educating myself this year. I hope others do the same so they can make completely informed assessments. I worry about tribalism and politics driving too much of the thinking.
Every reaction from the international community is vetoed by the United States of America. A veto power it has used on behalf of Israel to protect it from international scrutiny more than it has for literally any other country on earth. Over half of all US vetoes in the Security Council have been on behalf of Israel.
> The U.S. has vetoed resolutions critical of Israel more than any other council member – 45 times as of December 18, 2023, according to an analysis by Blue Marble. The U.S. has vetoed 89 Security Council resolutions in total since 1945, meaning slightly over half of its vetoes have been used on resolutions critical of Israel. Of the vetoed resolutions, 33 pertained to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories or the country’s treatment of the Palestinian people.
> The first time the U.S. used its veto to support Israel was in September of 1972, when it vetoed a resolution that called on Israel to cease its aggression in Lebanon.
There's a mechanism for bypassing the Security Council by the GA during deadlocks caused by vetoes (Emergency Special Sessions convened under Uniting for Peace—5 of the 11 convened so far have concerned the Arab/Israeli conflict, including one of the two that is currently open, which is now on its 27th year), but no combination of countries otherwise willing to act to constrain the conflict has the capacity to effectively act against both Iran and its proxies and the Israel (directly) backed by the US.
There is the same enforcement power as there is for Security Council resolutions, the coordinated action of member states.
UNEF, the first UN peacekeeping mission, was deployed under a GA resolution passed under Uniting for Peace in an Emergency Special Session called due to British and French vetoes creating a deadlock over the Suez Crisis.
Did what action actually happen? Those reported in the article? If so, clearly yes. They've been widely reported and confirmed repeatedly. The initial international outrage appears to have subsided. I'd guess partly mainly due to the obvious support of the US, who gave up on being outraged when it became obvious there was no one listening on the Israeli side.
And why they keep closing blind eye on the largest terrorist army in the world violating UN’s own agreements?
Also I wonder who benefits from them intentionally not moving out of harms ways and preventing israel from doing _their_ job of eliminating terrorists?
Is that the same UN that has its secretary-general António Guterres shaking hands with Putin and Lukashenko this week?
Let's be honest, UN is one of the most useless organization in the world (and been for a while, look at history of their Africa operations). By now their presense on ground with inability to actually do anything or help anybody is a liability (eg can't stop Hezbollah from launching rockets and using them as a shield)
The biggest issue we are facing now, it is that the same has happened ot the previous organization, League of Nations Union, which became useless to prevent WW II, UN was born after the war with the goal to be a better organisation than it predecessor.
And here we are, at the edge of WW III, with an useless UN.
First of all, one whose army is actually useful, there are plenty of examples of genocides where UN troops were present and nothing was done to prevent that.
A weapon only works as dissuasion if the agressor isn't sure it might be used, otherwise they might as well be holding paper sticks.
They being there has been informative. We know of israel attacking UN bases. We are yet to see Hezbolla militants holding white hats at gunpoint. Or at least hiding in a tunnel under a UN base
There have been thousands rockets fired from southern Lebanon into Israel. So, Israel doesn't need permission from the UN or the international community or the US to invade and take out Hezbollah. Certainly not UNIFIL, who have been entirely useless as peace keepers.
Thanks for the links. Unfortunately, the telegraph is not a serious source of information (visit the frontpage anytime for proof). The other video is even worse.
I personally wait until CNN publishes such information. It is the only Israel biased news source I deem above fakenews.
If you think of CNN as pro-Israel, no wonder you're so anti-Israel. Bypass the middle men altogether! Listen to Hamas directly! Listen to Israeli officials directly! Listen to everyone you can without preconceptions. Each party says very clearly exactly what they believe and what they are doing and what they want and how they plan to achieve it. Look for consistency and straight-forward statements of fact. Watch out when something affirms your preconceptions because that's when you are most vulnerable to being manipulated. When you listen to a Westerner, especially an American journalist, explain what Hamas, Palestine, Israel, Hezbollah or Iran is doing, they are filtering it through their own biases and preconceptions and are almost certainly flat-out incorrect.
Although you rightly condemn the IDF's terrorist origins, you fall into the trap of labelling genuine resistance movements as terrorist. Was the French Resistance a terrorist organisation? Or the Polish Resistance? Given the brutal occupation executed by Israel in Palestine why is armed resistance, in your eyes, taboo? This is not a football match between two equal sides. This is, and always has been, asymetric warfare where one side is armed to the teeth by the west. Where is Hezbollah's air force? Or its tanks?
You have it precisely inverted. Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are not "freedom fighters". They are a supremacist, revanchist, Islamist movement hiding behind the notion of "occupation", funded by the government of Iran. The French and Polish resistance movements in WWII aimed to liberate their countries from Nazi occupation and restore legitimate governments, operating with support from the Allied forces as part of a recognized war effort. Their tactics targeted military objectives, respecting international humanitarian laws. In contrast, Hezbollah and Hamas have broader ideological goals, including regional control and, for Hamas, the eradication of Israel, using tactics such as rocket attacks and civilian-targeted violence, which violate international law. Unlike WWII resistance fighters who returned to civilian life post-conflict, Hezbollah and Hamas retain military power within their political structures, acting as armed entities beyond immediate defense. Hezbollah and Hamas are internationally designated as terrorist organizations, unlike the WWII resistance movements, which had legitimate standing under international law.
>...and therefore they deserve to be shot at, maimed or killed?
You quoted the wrong part. Here, let me fix that for you.
>> If true, this is not only a clear, systemic failure of their mission, but such an egregious failure that their presence is actually dangerous to civilians.
>...and therefore they deserve to be shot at, maimed or killed?
There. That's better. Now I can properly answer.
In my opinion, no, of course not. However, in light of their failure to accomplish their mission, and actually hindering peace, Israel asked them to leave. They did not. They have chosen to remain in an active war zone. So, "deserve" doesn't really come into play.
> However, in light of their failure to accomplish their mission, and actually hindering peace, Israel asked them to leave.
Asked them to leave a whole other country, that is not Israel or Israeli territory. Would this be reasonable to you if it were Ethiopia asking UN troops to leave Eritrean territory for failure to keep the peace, while there are active skirmishes between the 2 countries? This is an astounding ask for any country, and an affront to any semblence of a "rules-based order"
You're not addressing the most difficult point. The UN has failed spectacularly in their one single mission while giving cover to terrorists. You might disagree with Israel's response, but the scandal is with the UN. How is it possible that Hezbollah operated unimpeded for decades (e.g that Hezbollah dug a bunker tunnel mere 100 meters from a UN observation post)?
Frankly, I think Israel's reaction is way overdue. 40 years of Hezbollah firing rockets while the "peace keepers" sit on their thumbs. Facilitate terrorism, get the stick.
I suppose, by the same measure, that you approve of Israel's recent directive to the residents of northern Gaza to leave, for the nth time, or be considered a target?
https://archive.ph/o7atF
At this point the country should be suspended from UN, like Apartheid SA was before, in 1974. See https://www.nytimes.com/1974/11/13/archives/south-africa-is-...
I’m fine with that as long as numerous other countries get kicked for similar acts, it has to be a package deal tho
As I see it, UN at least is documenting everything as it happens to its members. Hopefully it can be kept unbiased for a long time. If you start kicking left and right, there will be no UN to overlook events.
Maybe without a UN, we would already be having a WWIII. It is impossible to weight its influence, but I very much doubt it is having any nefarious effect.
No need to sledgehammer the world until it gets better
Too much faith/credit in the UN. With the security council, not much has or can happen. Beyond that there’s also incompetence. Look up jadotville or Dag Hammarskjöld (suspected to have been assasinated)
In 1986, then-U.S. Sen. Joe Biden said, “Supporting Israel is the best $3 billion investment we make. Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”
Israel is a satellite state of the US in all but name. You'd have a better shot at dissolving the UN entirely than suspending Israel.
What ive always wondered is why the US hasn't put Israel on the security council, considering it is a nuclear armed state.
> Israel is a satellite state of the US in all but name.
The US is more reflexively pro-Israel than Israel is pro-US in international policy, the opposite of what you’d expect if Israel was a US vassal.
> What ive always wondered is why the US hasn't put Israel on the security council
There are lots of reasons, but one that renders all the others secondary is that the US can’t add permanent Security Council members.
> considering it is a nuclear armed state.
India, Pakistan, North Korea, and, when it was a nuclear-armed state, South Africa also are (and were) not permanent UNSC members, a set whuch hasn't expanded, though two seats have switched hands, since the UN was founded.
Yet Russia, a country the leader of which is wanted for war crimes - is on the permanent Security Council.
The whole organization needs to be uprooted and rebuilt. It's become a farce.
Russia is there because they wouldn’t even come to the table otherwise, and it’s more valuable to have a hobbled organization than one that doesn’t include significant powers. The others don’t have permanent slots because they joined when they had less power, or they never gained enough power to bargain.
Multiple recent American presidents also committed war crimes
We can discuss American misadventures and horrible decisions in the aftermath of 9/11, but equating the U.S. military to Russia, which effectively has rape and torture as part of its doctrine, is more than a stretch.
To be clear, I totally expected a comment like that, but I can guarantee you 1000% that no Ukrainians will be hanging on to Russian cargo plane wheels once they are booted out.
The set of American presidents who haven't would be more easily enumerable/null.
the permanent seats on the security counsel are the winners of WW2.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres just bowed to putin yesterday https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/world/3201518/brics-...
[flagged]
Israel has far more influence in the US than the US does in Israel.
It is very clear that the current administration is backed into a corner and trying to make the best of the situation.
FWIW: This is not a knock against the current administration.
> It is very clear that the current administration is backed into a corner and trying to make the best of the situation.
This does not seem clear at all. What has led you to think so?
A slow and steady drumbeat of stories like these over the years:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/08/politics/joe-biden-interview-...
https://m.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-822306
It goes on and on. Escalating conflict in the ME, such as with Israel and Lebanon, regardless of who is at fault, is not in the interest of the US. The administration feels attempts to deescalate are falling on deaf ears, but is in a politically precarious situation.
There are two points here. The first is due to AIPAC. I would say the second is debatable.
That’s fair.
This is often repeated but is historically VERY incorrect. Yes, Israel does lobbying in the states and does influence (like every other country). The current Israeli government is indeed terrible and blatant at that.
However, Israel left Gaza in 2005 with no deal as part of US pressure (which led to the current situation). Israel offered a Palestinians a country which included east Jerusalem twice based on US pressure. Israel left Lebanon alone due to such pressure.
Israel didn't attack Lebanon for a year and tried to settle due to US pressure despite an average of 25 rockets per day towards civilian population.
Imagine a country being attacked and fired on for nearly 20 years (by Hamas) and keeping reposes "moderate". That's US pressure and influence right there. Israel delayed going into Rafah due to US pressure, it turns out Sinwar and quite a few hostages were there...
The reason it seems that US pressure isn't working is mostly because no one knows what to do exactly. Hostages are still held by Hamas. Hezbollah is still firing rockets/drones even now. I'm 100% for a hostage exchange but right now there's no deal, part of that is because of Netanyahu (who is terrible) but not all of it. The US can't fire Netanyahu (I wish they could...), and that's a problem. They want to strengthen anti-Netanyahu forces within Israel while still moderating its actions, that's a very tight rope to walk on.
Israel never left Gaza. They surrounded it. They controlled the entire land border and didn't let ships sail or planes take off from Gaza. It's as if, after a prison riot, all of the guards just said fuck 'em and decamped to a perimeter around the prison with machine guns with orders to shoot to kill. Gaza is way too small and densely populated to be remotely self-sufficient.
Now, just to short-circuit the reply chain, you're going to say that Hamas would have just used the borders to move in weapons. Sure, that's true. In fact, they dug a bunch of tunnels under the Israeli controlled border crossings and smuggled in a bunch of weapons. Normal stuff like food and medicine though were constantly blocked or delayed.
By the way, I don't know how to solve this problem well at this point. Both sides have done enough evil shit to each other that they will want to kill each other for generations. Israel though, has never withdrawn from Gaza, and Israel has never agreed to abide by the terms of UN Resolution 242 that obligates them to withdraw from the 1967 occupied territories. What I expect to happen based on the ground reality and statements from members of the Israeli government is that the Palestinians in Gaza will either die or have their lives be made so intolerable that they leave, and then Israel will annex the land, just as they have in Jerusalem and many areas of the West Bank.
Israel didn't "surround Gaza". It exists around Gaza. Gaza also has a border with Egypt who controlled it in the past and didn't want it back. In fact they used that border to smuggle weapons and sex slaves (not an exaggeration). Israel supplied Gaza with water, electricity and everything necessary.
It's as if Israel gave Gaza a chance to prove itself and it immediately elected Hamas, started building war tunnels and rockets. Peace requires proof and unfortunately Hamas proved the opposite. You're assuming that if Israel would have relaxed its defenses things would have been better, Israel relaxed its defenses before October 7th.
Hamas is the organization that sent suicide bombers into the middle of Tel Aviv. It blew up busses full of civilians in order to stop the peace process and prevent the prospect of a Palestinian state. Their slogan in Arabic is "from the river to the sea Palestine will be Arab", the river and the sea are the borders of Israel and its tantamount to "kill all the Jews".
Israel elected Liberals who tried to create a peace process and give back almost everything. Hamas blew that up and triggered the rise of the Israeli right-wing. I think there's only way out of this mess and its through. As long as Hamas exists in a functioning form there can be no peace. It's horrible and tragic but I don't see any other way out of this mess. Hopefully, Israel will be able to recover after that and return to its liberal/humane roots.
Israel does not exist around Gaza. It exists on two sides of Gaza. On the Egyptian border, Israel has made an agreement with Egypt to prevent imports and exports, and on the Mediterranean, they prevent access to the sea by force.
Israel has long prevented the import of all sorts of goods. They do not provide "everything necessary." Israel also has prevented the export of almost all goods, so that the Palestinians will have no money and be completely dependent on Israel to provide for basic needs.
I'm sure you're right that if the border were opened up that Hamas would import weapons and attack Israel, which is why Israel surrounded Gaza, as I said.
As you say, "peace requires proof", but that goes both ways, and ever since Camp David collapsed, Israel has likewise proved that it does not intend to make peace by further expanding the settlements, and generally making the lives of the Palestinians intolerable, often in capricious ways that do not enhance Israeli security.
The very obvious long-term goal of Israel is to drive the Palestinians out of the occupied territories and annex them for Israeli use.
Their slogan in Arabic is "from the river to the sea Palestine will be Arab", the river and the sea are the borders of Israel and its tantamount to "kill all the Jews".
There are many variants of the slogan of course, but for some reason you're picking one of the more uncommon (and more virulent) versions. However, he "official" versions (for example from the PLO) use the phrase to call for a single democratic state for Arabs and Jews, that would replace Israel, and from which nobody will be expelled.
This is of course also in line (albeit in somewhat simplified form) with the version one sees almost uniformly on the streets these days, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", and if you ask people what they mean by that, most of them will tell you something equivalent to the PLO version.
Meanwhile since 1977 Likud has used essentially the same slogan, but in reverse, minus any aspirations of democratic equality, and with racial supremacy baked in: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
> However, he "official" versions (for example from the PLO)
The PLO recognizes that Israel has a right to exist and has abandoned official "armed resistance" approaches. They understand that this never worked and ultimately only hurt the Palestinian people.
I'm explicitly talking about Hamas and making a clear distinction between them and the Palestinian people at large.
> use the phrase to call for a single democratic state for Arabs and Jews
That was suggested in the past and has gone back in vogue for some extreme liberals but it's probably not what any side wants. I don't think it's something that's workable. See Lebanon as a case in point where three different conflicting cultures are constantly violently clashing.
> This is of course also in line (albeit in somewhat simplified form) with the version one sees almost uniformly on the streets these days, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free", and if you ask people what they mean by that, most of them will tell you something equivalent to the PLO version.
Well... What *some* people mean doesn't really mean anything. There was a Nordic Journalist who recorded pro-Palestinian demonstrations and the Arabic slogans people yelled were VERY different.
But even without that. Hamas is looking at these protests and seeing them as Israel losing support. So they keep fighting, keep holding hostages and keep sending children as carriers. Netanyahu points at these demonstrations as how the world is turning anti-semetic so Israelis MUST fight for their home. And yes, Israelis 100% hear "Palestine will be free of Jews". Trump is pointing at them as a failure of the liberals...
These protests are only helping bad people and increasing strife. If they were indeed pro-Palestinian they would carry both flags in support of a two state solution. They would also support the cause of returning the hostages. They are now for peace, they are anti-Israel protests.
> Meanwhile since 1977 Likud has used essentially the same slogan, but in reverse, minus any aspirations of democratic equality, and with racial supremacy baked in: "Between the sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty."
That was not an official slogan but yes people on the more extreme right did sing it. People still do and also say worse things. There are several big problems with whataboutism... Palestinians are the weaker part of this situation, violence will always end up worse for them. That's why the PLO abandoned that approach (at least officially excluding lynch mobs), it doesn't help Palestinians to keep that rhetoric.
Also the Likud was the party that voted to leave Gaza. That included Netanyhau who signed that law. A PM who originated from the Likud offered a Palestinian state in 2008.
I'm aware of just one "official" Hamas formulation of the slogan, via the 2017 charter as quoted below. Can you point to any others? We do have that quote from Khaled Meshaal as well, but one doesn't hear it so often.
https://forward.com/fast-forward/568788/from-the-river-to-th...Regarding the nicer-sounding variants that "nobody wants / aren't workable": That may be, but it is significant that the variant that most folks in their camp at least pretend to believe in (as an "aspiration") is at least nominally non-genocidal. And that the genuinely genocidal variants -- just aren't on display that often.
(Might get back to the other stuff you wrote later)
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea
من المية للمية / فلسطين عربية, "from the water to the water / Palestine is Arab"
Notice that this is nitpicking since the intention is clear to Israelis/Palestinians even in the moderate version of the slogan.
This hurts Palestinians because it discourages their leaders from compromises that might have ended this conflict (see the 2000 and 2008 statehood rejections). It also strengthens the sense within Israelis that there's no partner for peace on the other side.
It's like using the N-word. Once you said that you have that label and feeling, nothing you say will matter to any side.
> As long as Hamas exists in a functioning form there can be no peace.
I think the big problem with this approach is that actions taken now, which lead to deaths, lead to the friends & family of said people becoming more radicalised and thus to more terror attacks/wars in the future.
I read recently in the FT that 60% of current Hamas fighters have lost family to previous conflicts, suggesting that this isn't going to end.
And more generally, it's basically impossible for conventional armies to defeat guerilla fighters who have the support of the population (c.f. Irish/English conflicts, Iraq, Afghanisation (multiple times) etc).
Like, fundamentally the only way this can end is through either extermination or negotiation. Given the relative power imbalances, it'll be extermination of the Palestinians, which would be terrible (and incredibly depressing given that a lot of Israeli citizens are descended from survivors of the Holocausts and the various pogroms in European history).
I used to be of that mindset and no longer am. Hamas killed more people in a single day than the IRA killed in its entire existence. The Irish conflict which is more similar to the conflict Israel has in the west bank, is mostly a territorial conflict.
If it were true that violence breeds violence then Jews would have blown up post war Germany with suicide vests. It was still filled with Nazis and their collaborators.
Hamas is a different story, there's no amount of negotiations or compromise that will placate a fanatic. They will probably keep doing these things forever just like Isis didn't fully go away. But once the leadership got cut down Isis found it much harder to pull off the same level of terror.
I agree that this needs to be a dual motion. Young frustrated people are kindle for these organizations and this won't work without a peace process that would give hope to the people. That's why I don't have any faith in the current Israeli government. I hope it can be replaced so there would be a parallel process that would help rebuild and pave a way for peace again.
I agree that the Irish conflict is more like the West Bank (but that's super super bad and has been for a long time) and that October 7th was much more destructive than anything in the Troubles.
Like, it's worth noting that the core of the nationalist and unionist terrorists still live in Ireland and engage in a bunch of criminality. These organizations don't disband, they just die off/become politicians.
The big problem with Israel making peace is that it appears a solid majority don't want that, which depresses the hell out of me.
A solid majority is for peace and has been for a while. Oct 7th might have screwed the numbers, but they will bounce back. The Oslo accords wouldn't have happened with out a solid majority. Netanyahu himself had to make a speech where he specifically supported the idea of a Palestinian state in order to get elected (see the Bar Ilan Speech).
There are many peace activists on both sides but also a lot of fatigue and disillusionment. Don't let that get you down too. I think once the dust settles things could change. The pendulum always swings to the other side, we just need patience and to set an environment receptive for that. If Trump wins this election things will probably get much worse before they get better. But I think that they will get better even in that worst case scenario.
Israel did withdraw from Lebanon though, this wasn't effective at all at promoting peace as we're now seeing, and same thing has happened in Gaza; Israel did uproot all the settlers from Gaza and there was no single Israeli soldier left in Gaza - you can say the Gaza withdrawal was incomplete but saying it never happened at all is incorrect. Unfortunately Israelis only learned that withdrawals from enemies who have sworn to destroy you only make things worse for them.
Israel offered a Palestinians a country which included east Jerusalem twice based on US pressure.
On which occasions?
There were two separate offers made by Barak to Arafat in 2000 and by Olmert to Abu Mazen in 2008.
>What ive always wondered is why the US hasn't put Israel on the security council, considering it is a nuclear armed state.
That isn't the criteria for being a council member, if it were they'd need to allow India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Plus, pretty sure the US does not officially recognize Israel as a nuclear power, it's one of those open secret things
Besides that, how would the US benefit from another country being able to veto anything they want to do in the UN? Sure, they'd probably agree with far more things than Russia or China, but the US wouldn't gain anything from them being there.
Excellent point. But assuming you're not being facetious, the Security Council is largely a historical artifact: all five permanent members were the victors of WWII. (Why occupied France was included is something I never understood.)
Council came first for some, but they were also the first 5 nuclear powers.
In one case, Mainland China got the bomb in '64 and replaced Taiwan on the security council within a decade.
While it's true nuclear proliferation began with the five permanent members, at the time the UN and Security Council were founded in 1945, only the US had the bomb.
The USSR didn't test one until 1949, the UK in 1952, France in 1960, and China (as you mentioned) in 1964. The Soviet Union had an early start because of their spies in the Manhattan Project, while the UK contributed to it during the War. 15 years would pass before another permanent member caught up.
And Russia took the USSR's seat just as China did Taiwan's.
The thing is, Israel doesn’t protect U.S. interests in the middle east. All the U.S. has really ever wanted there is oil, and because of U.S. support for Israel, we’ve been the subject of two oil embargoes.
Israel provides us zero military bases, even when Arab countries provide us dozens. Despite all of the support we give them and have given them, they have repeatedly escalated conflicts when the U.S. asked them to stop. Today, we are unable to ship goods through the Red Sea because the Houthis are upset over Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Has the US asked for a base? They do have Site 512, not a typical base but still a base.
In many ways Israel does the US' dirty work, like crippling Hezbollah which is responsible for numerous attacks against US (and other Western) personnel.
The Houthis are squarely to blame for the disruption of Red Sea shipping; Israel's military operation in a different country isn't a legitimate reason to attack (almost) random ships.
I think you’re missing the point here. The only reason the U.S. cares about Hezbollah is because they attack Israel. The only reason Hezbollah exists is because of Israel. The reason the Houthis are attacking shipping is because the U.S. supports Israel. Being an ally to Israel has imposed huge costs on the U.S. and virtually no benefits.
Many in the U.S. feel that protecting Israel is a moral cause, but it is undeniably a strategic albatross for us.
> The only reason the U.S. cares about Hezbollah is because they attack Israel. The only reason Hezbollah exists is because of Israel
You can't know that. The Iranian Islamic revolution happened not because of Israel. Iran would have probably tried to gain influence through proxies and destabilize the Middle East regardless of Israel. It would have joined forces with Russia and China. It would have probably tried acquiring nuclear weapons and it would have hated the U.S (which it calls Big Satan to this day). In short Iran would have been a huge headache and security risk for the U.S and the West even if Israel didn't exist imo. The U.S is definitely strong enough to deal with Iran without Israel, but its helpful to have allies in a very very unstable neighborhood.
> The only reason the U.S. cares about Hezbollah is because they attack Israel.
No, another is that they are proxies of Iran, which the US has problems with that go beyond attacking Israel.
Now go back a few years and take into account the US meddling with Iran. You'll notice some cause -> effect with our intended consequences coming back to bite us for decades.
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There are no Israelis in the cabinet as far as I know. Are you saying that Jewish Americans are secretly agents for Israel?
This is exactly what people are saying when they are referring to 'zionists', everything else is just a red herring. Unfortunately even well intentioned people are ignorant of this.
There’s plenty of non Jewish Zionists in the US as well. And I don’t think anyone is really being secretive here. The US is taking actions that benefit Israel to the detriment of America.
Blinken’s gf was an early supporter of Israel: https://www.nytimes.com/1986/07/15/obituaries/maurice-blinke....
Biden’s current “envoy” to Lebanon and Israel, Amos Hochstein, is a former IDF soldier born and raised in Jerusalem.
The UN is in need of serious reform.
For example, it's hard to comprehend how a country like Russia is not suspended?
A country which signed the Charter, and is member of the security council, is trying to annex a country of 40 million people, claiming they and their culture don't exist.
They don't even hide the genocide intent, and yet Guterres is visiting the BRICS conference in Russia legitimizing the regime. Despicable.
https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1849582050191266182
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Whatever Russia is doing pales in comparison with what Israel has done for the past 70 years.
And if you compare what Russia has done in the same time frame?
Israel is has killed more innocent civilians in a year than the entire Russia Ukraine war fwiw
What is the point of this victim Olympics?
Both things could be bad at the same time.
So you're dismissing Ukrainian soldiers, who have no choice but to defend themselves, their country, and their families from genocide?
No I was comparing the deliberate targeting of civilians.
Would you consider medical facilities civilian targets? Hospitals, Maternities?
Because Russia has struck more than 1.500 medical facilities, including a Maternity and a Children's Hospital.
By the way, this is also a common tactic, which was recurrently used in Chechnya.
I'm comparing the number of people killed. I'm not here defending Russia.
One of these we have 0 control over (Russia). The other one (Israel) we're funding, supporting, aiding, and abetting.
you are perfectly correct, you are being downvoted because zionists hate facts that poke holes in their false narratives.
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Oh well. We certainly didn't help it doing it or gave it diplomatic support, in any case.
Besides, ethnic cleansing and genocide are their own special kind of evil- I'm not sure Russia is guilty also of that.
Try again.
You may find the following links very informative.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gulag_Archipelago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Sov...
Putin’s Russia is quite literally guilty of ethnic cleansing, and not only with Ukrainians.
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FYI I'm Catholic.
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HN posts about this used to be 99% Pro-Zionist. There’s been a marked shift in opinion (or less bots) and I’m very, very glad that people are recognising the extent of war crimes being committed by Israel.
Maybe it's because social media has relayed the truth and Israel can no longer use its grip on western media to conceal its atrocities.
Maybe.
Worth considering that in terms of relative size, Israel has a population of 10 million, Jews in the world number ~14 million.
Whereas the Arab world, which tends to be relatively anti-Israel, numbers ~220 million. And Muslims, which tend to be anti-Israel as well, number 1.2 billion.
So just in terms of number of voices, the natural pro-Israel voices [1] are vastly outnumbered by the natural anti-Israel voices.
Think about how this impacts what you hear, how this impacts the votes in the UN (which is not democratic but votes are by country), how this impacts economic reactions (number of consumers), etc.
[1] This is a sweeping generalization, but it is statistically true that Jews are usually pro-Israel and Arabs and Muslims are usually anti-Israel. With other religions/ethnicities it's more complicated.
But Zionists have AIPAC and its equivalent in Europe and Australia.
Though global populations show a larger anti-Israel sentiment, Western media and internet forums don't reflect this balance.
Western media often aligns with Israeli perspectives due to strategic alliances, lobbying influence, and media ownership dynamics, framing Israel’s actions as defensive while sidelining broader Arab or Palestinian views.
Online, pro-Israel narratives are reinforced by organized digital campaigns and moderation practices that shape public discourse. Meanwhile, pro-Palestinian voices lack comparable resources and organization in Western spaces, limiting their visibility. This creates a media and digital environment where Western audiences are exposed to narratives that don’t fully represent the global spectrum of perspectives.
> Though global populations show a larger anti-Israel sentiment, Western media and internet forums don't reflect this balance.
I'm not sure you're right. Isn't this a bit hard to judge without first deciding what is true and what constitutes bias? I'm fairly certain we don't agree with on either of these.
Most Israelis consider things like the BBC and the NYT to be biased against Israel. Are you sure they're wrong?
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That is not what most Israelis think.
The fact that you so easily think this badly of an entire country speaks a lot about your own biased views.
Yeah those monsters that you're imagining are a brainchild of your echo chamber.
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Isn't it too shameless to create a fake named zionistshill?
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Unlikely, I sampled the hn users in this discussion. Most are a few years old, and have karma.
Hn is not important enough to warrant a multi year psyops, so these are probably actual humans.
That’s not what I was suggesting.
Just as well as it could be “less bots” promoting one side, to “more bots” promoting the other. What types of war would you not consider a crime?
99% pro Zionist ...can you show me even one example of such a post? I don't think you can.
Here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=weatherlite&next=417...
Anything critical of Israel is usually flagged by users and removed from the front page.
This very post would seem to belie that. In fact, the only times Israel ever rises to the front page is when the article is biased and critical, as is this one.
The only posts labeled "flagged" here are those who are nuanced about Israel at all with the exception of one overtly anti-Semitic post.
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I find it curious that your only engagement on HackerNews is defending Israel and never engaging on other technical topics.
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You are posting on a forum for technical discussion.
Something tells me its my being pro Israeli that actually bothers you and not my ratio of tech to non tech engagement...
Also - genuinely curious what made you click on this article? And then engage me in it? If you're here only for tech news that is.
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Is there actual evidence than hearsay?
Cameras are everywhere. It should be trivial to prove these claims.
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"Israel has also said that UN forces are being used as a human shield by Hizbollah fighters, which it is fighting near several Unifil posts along the border. It has demanded the UN evacuate its peacekeepers from southern Lebanon for their own safety. Unifil, and the 50 countries that contribute troops to its ranks, have unanimously refused."
Why aren't the UN troops keeping the peace? Did they let Hezbollah fire rockets into Israel unimpeded? What is the point of the troops being there?
Unifil has been there since the '70s, apparently. Their role was to monitor Israel's withdrawal and to assist the Lebanese government, to patrol the Blue Line and various humanitarian tasks. They're not a counterinsurgency force or an occupying army - as I understand it, they're a tripwire for treaty enforcement.
Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields. It's still immoral to kill noncombatants, just as it's immoral to hide behind noncombatants. You don't gain moral high ground, you're just sinking to the level of the enemy.
What seems more relevant today is that UNIFIL was supposed to support the implementation of UNSC 1701, which was a complete failure, with Hezbollah ignoring it outright and the Lebanese army not doing much to stop them.
> Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields.
I am not saying it’s morally correct but from a war crime standpoint, I think you actually do. As longs as it’s proportional, you can attack combatants hiding under civilians, even if you kill civilians by doing that. At least that’s my understanding.
Yes, that seems correct: "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." - https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule97
In war, you care more about losing/winning than a moral high ground - an imaginary prize for the “superior” nation who chooses to appear weak.
“You don’t get to shoot through human shields.” I don’t have a POV w.r.t. this conflict, but I’d like to understand what you mean by this statement generally. In the extreme it seems to imply, “if you have a human shield you are invincible.”
It’s a messed-up calculus to have to make but I feel like there must be some middle ground.
My view is the ethnicity of the human shields in question shouldn't factor into your decision making. You shouldn't shoot through an Egyptian aid worker or Lebanese child if you wouldn't have shot through an Israeli hostage in their place.
> you wouldn't have shot through an Israeli hostage in their place
Well actually, to give Israel some kind of credit, they have also done that, as hostages have indeed been killed in their attacks. In general they have shown a similar disregard of human life towards their own people who have been hostages, so there's that.
I suppose you're suggesting that one shouldn't value "us" over "them". Is a logical extension of this that you shouldn't shoot someone else if you wouldn't shoot yourself?
I'm suggesting we should value civilian casualties equally. You're free to shoot at soldiers.
I mean, you can also just value all human life equally, and not shoot at soldiers unless there's a really good reason to do so. You really shouldn't target civilians, almost ever, cause there's never a good reason to do so by definition.
Take a step back and observe you've erected a mental block for yourself. We've got a false dichotomy here - either we shoot through human shields or we do nothing.
If there are insurgents among civilians, they either have logistics and communication networks to conduct operations, or they're unable to operate effectively. Weapons do not materialize from nowhere, they must be smuggled into the country and distributed. Operations do not materialize from nowhere, they must be coordinated.
If they have logistics, we can leverage that against them. We saw this when Israel expected their pager attack. They've already proven that they can exercise their creativity to conduct effective attacks with great precision.
If they lack logistics and communication networks - then they can't conduct effective operations against us. There's little to fear and no reason to shoot through human shields.
This is some armchair strategy a nonexpert came up with on the spot. Consider that real military strategists and intelligence agencies are better at coming up with ways to find and kill their enemies than we are.
Do not accept that these people cannot solve these problems without bulldozing through human shields. Do not accept the notion that a powerful military and intelligence apparatus is helpless. They could prosecute this war differently. They have made a choice not to.
> Take a step back and observe you've erected a mental block for yourself. We've got a false dichotomy here - either we shoot through human shields or we do nothing.
No, you're the one making imaginary false dichotomies. See your last paragraph:
> Do not accept that these people cannot solve these problems without bulldozing through human shields. Do not accept the notion that a powerful military and intelligence apparatus is helpless. They could prosecute this war differently. They have made a choice not to.
You're now making a false dichotomy - Israel can choose to prosecute the war differently, but it doesn't, implying that they are choosing to kill human shields on purpose.
The reality is that you're coming up on the spot with a dozen ways to defeat an insurgency, without taking into account that they are just as smart and just as motivated as you, and planned for years to make them impossible to hit without significant civilian casualties. This is incredibly well documented.
Sure, you can pretend there is always a secret third option - and there sometimes is. And there sometimes isn't. And the more you let militants using civilians as human shields deter you, the more the militants are incentivized to use human shields, so even in a best case scenario, you're kicking the can down the road.
None of this is to say that Israel's actions are perfect or even good - that's a separate argument. But imagining that Israel has a magic way to do what it wants to do and eliminate Hamas - which many people support it doing and agree it has a right to do - imagining there is some magic way this could get done without hurting civilians is, frankly, incorrect.
the israeli "human shields" narrative is pure hasbara and israeli projection anyway
"The Israeli military has used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza, soldier and former detainees say" [https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-h...]
"Over the years, the israeli military practiced an official policy of using Palestinians as human shields" [https://www.btselem.org/topic/human_shields]
"Israel has taken human shields to a whole new criminal level" [https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/10/20/israel-has-tak...]
> the israeli "human shields" narrative is pure hasbara and israeli projection anyway
Saying this is, frankly, ridiculous. There is massive, extensive documentation of the vast tunnel networks and terrorist infrastructure hiding beneath and as part of civilian areas in Gaza (and in Lebanon, now). There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Hamas cynically using actions that are bound to hurt civilians.
You don't have to like Israel or how it's acting, and you disagree with the legitimacy of the war or how it is conducted, but you should at least be grounded in reality. If you're just wholesale denying the well-documented evidence of how Hamas acts, you're not really criticizing the IDF, because you're not connecting with reality. You're criticizing an imaginary IDF fighting an imaginary Hamas that acts completely differently to how it's acting, and that makes your criticisms meaningless.
(And for the record, the cases of the IDF using human shields in the manner you linked above are pretty well documented too, as far as I can say, and I personally think they should be condemned and the IDF has to answer for that. I do try to be centered in reality and see things as they really are.)
> There are hundreds if not thousands of examples of Hamas cynically using actions that are bound to hurt civilians.
Correct, this is how guerrilla forces have always worked. Either their fighters get protection, or the colonial/occupying (from their perspective) power gets loads of bad PR.
I mean, when you look at the relative arms strength of the two forces, they'd be crazy not to do this.
Is this moral? 100% not. Is it understandable? Strategically, again 100%. yes.
In extreme situations it might be acceptable to involve innocents, but that's a very far cry from what has been happening
Don't you just love how the brave soldiers of the IDF fight all their wars remotely. 2000lb bombs dropped from the skies, Lavender AI to remove accountability. The kids in the IDF go directly from video games at school to a real war turned into another virtual reality. Without their US-funded military superiority those IDF zombies wouldn't stand a chance in one-on-one combat with a Palestinian resistance fighter.
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The straightforward thing with UNFIL would be to negotiate change at the UN
It's unlikely that Israel decided just now to go attack Hezbollah, and even if they did, it's not like there's been any big status quo change, so they could go to the UN first, if they think the UN is in the way
Israel is always accusing people of what Israel itself does already.
Tons of Israeli military bases and weapons manufacturing his placed directly under or very close to civilian domiciles.
Close to? Yes, to some extent that's unavoidable in countries as small as Israel.
But under? Do you have a source for that?
> Tons of Israeli military bases and weapons manufacturing his placed directly under or very close to civilian domiciles.
This is nonsense propaganda that keeps getting repeated.
Israel has some army bases in or close to civilian areas, as do most countries - e.g. the Pentagon. The reason is that some army bases are used for intelligence, software development or other administrative tasks, which usually involves older officers and many civilians, so it makes sense to have these be in cities.
But note key differences between this and what Hamas is accused of doing:
1. These are administrative buildings. These are not weapons storage facilities, combat factilities, etc. And it's especially not where missile launch sites or things of a similar nature are located.
Shooting missiles from within houses, as e.g. Hezbollah does, or from under refugee camps, as Hamas does, is a different thing entirely - because to stop the actual rockets being shot at Israel, Israel has to shoot at them, which kills civilians. That is not what Israel does with those bases.
2. Israeli bases are not built under civilian buildings. Yes, the same army HQ or intelligence etc bases that are built in cities have sections underground, for obvious reasons - but under the bases, not under people's houses!
Wait till you find out where the mossad HQ is located!
It's a fair target to hit then — on both sides, military operations are fair to hit. It just hasn't happened to the Mossad HQ, despite attempts.
you think that's the narrative Israel and its allies would go with? Never.
Israel and its allies would cry and whine as if a second holocaust occurred. They would pretend like they haven't done something similar thousands of times before to their enemies and that this retaliation on the Mossad HQ is some sort of uniquely evil and unprecedented event in human history.
Israelis always prefer using the most absurd victim narratives possible. Only Israel can be the biggest bully while also roleplaying as the biggest victim, but it's not surprising considering that even the mossad's motto[0] is "By way of deception you shall engage in war."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_Way_of_Deception
I don’t think speculating on how you think Israel would react is helpful or productive.
Of course Israel would “cry and whine.” I agree with you.
Obviously, Palestine also “cries and whines” — they have a narrative when their military operations are hit, too, and it’s not “fair play.”
War is an ugly, awful thing. I wouldn’t expect anybody involved to treat it so rationally. Hopefully we can view things more objectively and fairly given our distance.
> Is it? Hamas and Hezbollah deliberately place their military infrastructure among civilians.
I'm not eager to defend Hamas or Hezbollah, but for Gaza, is there a lot of free space?
Using human shields anyhow, does NOT mean it's the other's fault if you bomb then.
It's entirely your own decision, if you know that they're there.
Do you really think there was no other way, to deal with the problem?
Personally, for me the most absurd aspect of the situation is that you're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas' of the future.
However good a person is, and however quiet by nature, they wouldn't be human if a percentage of them wouldn't look for revenge, after having all their relatives killed, endured surgeries without anesthetics, and seen there was no good justification for that.
Which is what some Israeli politicians would probably like, anyhow, to give them arguments for the future elections.
Nothing will be solved. Unless you kill them all? Well, I think there would be a lot of Arabs who'd seek revenge for them, if so.
By the way, with using shields the Israeli might well just mean mean having a tunnel passing under a condo, or that an Hamas member sleeps there rather than, where? Hamas barracks? Along with your family, forever, with a target on your back?
CNN [1] today said:
> There is ample evidence for it: weapons located inside homes, tunnels dug beneath residential neighborhoods and rockets fired from those same neighborhoods in the densely packed territory.
I don't think that's what people think about, when hearing about human hostages.
Furthermore, the IDF seems to wait for the targets to be at home, just because there they're easier to target [2] .
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-h... [2] https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
> for me the most absurd aspect of the situation is that you're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas' of the future.
This has become a very common argument, and is indeed true, but it's also hypocritically incomplete.
You're creating an enormous amount of members for the Hamas of the future and they will be right in fighting you. Exactly as the current Hamas members are right in fighting you today.
> I don't think that's what people think about, when hearing about human hostages.
Indeed, they think more about something like this: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/6/23/israeli...
> “Also, you don't get to shoot through human shields.”
When the human shields are serving willingly as human shields, I will say that yes, you get to shoot through them and keep your moral high ground.
Not only those UN troops have no reason to be there, but there are numerous reports that several of their members are working together and aiding Hezbolah.
Israel has lied repeatedly countless times, like the tunnels under hospitals that never show up, or when they say the didn't kill the journalists they did end up admitting to. Or the claims of rape and beheaded babies that were all fake. You can not take anything they say as serious.
Don't forget that it's been extensively documented that Israel uses human shields:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/24/middleeast/palestinians-human...
https://www.btselem.org/topic/human_shields
Even the NYT took time away from repeating Israel's lies to report on it! https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/world/middleeast/israel-g...
I love how their rationale for blowing up a hospital is that there were tunnels underneath it. As if that’s justification for blowing up a hospital.
Israel hasn't blown up a hospital.
Then thre's the time a former Israeli PM admitted they build the "bunker" under Al Shifa. Whoops. If anyone had been paying attention or properly reporting on that, it might have looked bad.
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-built-bunker-shifa-hospital-...
Not disputing general truthfulness of Israeli government, but specifically as to the latter two examples you listed: A) There is no direct evidence that Israeli government publicly stated that babies were beheaded. That claim came from a single journalist, spread like wildfire on social media (as did tons of videos and footage of the attacks), and was exacerbated by a statement Biden made.
B) there is very credible evidence that rape did occur as part of the atrocities Hamas committed on Oct. 7th attack. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-sexual-violence-...
Just wanted to point that out, because regardless of the moral standing of either side, I think the facts do matter if there is ever going to be a resolution. Obviously the actions committed by Hamas do not absolve Israel from following ethical rules of war, and there are plenty of issues with how Israel is waging war in the current conflict as well; for example using machine learning algorithms to track targets with what appears to be a reckless disregard for non-combatants: https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
The bigger problem is that these lies spread “like wildfire” via Western media outlets - with zero fact checking or confirmation. These images were then used to justify the rampage in Gaza.
As far as I am aware, not a single Western media rag has issued an apology for this. In many of our eyes, never again will they be able to claim credibility or professionalism in their reporting.
In addition, Western rags took Israeli statements as gospel, platformed way more guests from the Israeli side, and intensively questioned all pro-Palestine guests on their position on Oct 7 (while treating Israeli guests with more respect than necessary for a media interview).
It’s better now - but that’s easy to do after a year of atrocities and 100k+ deaths. In the US at least, there still is a clear bias against inviting Palestinians on primetime slots, or allowing Palestinians to operate freely within news organizations.
What do you think the Israeli response to Oct 7 should have been?
I think they could start with not destroying hospitals and schools and doing better than “at least 1/3 of the 40k people killed were militants.” Israel , the most moral army in the world /s, thinks that two citizens killed for every militant killed is an acceptable ratio, it’s not.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-m...
What's the acceptable ratio? I'm not claiming this reality isn't horrific I'm just not seeing many examples of wars fought better. Did the U.S do it better in Vietnam or Iraq? The U.S wasn't even fighting for its survival, it was fighting to "defeat communism" or to keep oil prices low because of the invasion of Kuweit or 9-11 etc etc. None of these reasons were as strong as what happened to Israel.
Vietnam and Iraq are two nation states and had populations between 25-30m at the time US waged war in those countries. Gaza is a narrow strip of 139 square miles of land with 2mn people packed together like sardines, who have no sovereignty, have been under an economic blockade since 2007, and whose rulers Hamas have no conventional military to speak of. These two are not comparable, I don't know why people keep pointing to the destruction of Nazi Germany and Japan as the benchmark of whats acceptable in Gaza, its quite insane tbh.
Why does the land area matter? Israel is also a tiny and crowded country and is threatened from all fronts. What was the threat against the U.S again , was Vietnam about to invade? was Iraq?
Hamas had enough weapons to kill 1200 Israelis in one day so it's not some helpless entity. It was armed to its teeth. It's only after almost 800 additional dead Israeli soldiers and a very bloody war that Hamas lost most of its power.
I think many people also forget the second intifada suicide bombings, and numerous rocket barrages over the proceeding decades after, to which Hamas was a major belligerent. Despite the more primitive designs of these rockets, without modern defense systems there would likely be more Israeli civilian deaths. I see this context missing from a lot of the discussions of the current iteration of this conflict. Israeli civilians have faced decades of risk (which I think also benefits the right wing of Israeli politics), and this is not a new conflict. October 7th comes on the heels of many other direct and indirect attacks on Israeli civilians. I cant help but think that the current military response might fall under a “never let a crisis go to waste” strategy by Netanyahu’s coalition, which had recently been receiving less support.
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What is deranged, is you trying pretend Israel is waging a war against a peer foe by grossly exaggerating the threat of Hamas.
Your government created Hamas. Literally. [1] They were considered an 'asset' right up until Hamas decided they wanted to be more than being Netanyahu's good little prisoners whose only purpose was to serve as a spoiler for genuine Palestinian aspirations.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eus-borrell-says-israel...
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Feel free to share your objections to what I wrote.
Unfortunately, it is hard to discern legitimate interest vs. someone wanting to engage in a debate for the sake of it. And I am not interested in wasting my time figuring out which is the case.
I did not say or imply that I have objections to what you wrote.
Your comment strongly implied that you think that Israel overreacted to Oct 7. So I am curious what you think their response should have been.
> Unfortunately, it is hard to discern legitimate interest vs. someone wanting to engage in a debate for the sake of it. And I am not interested in wasting my time figuring out which is the case.
Is curiosity "legitimate interest"?
Israel has not overreacted to Oct 7, they have just applied the same policy that they have used for many decades "at least ten of theirs for each one of ours".
This policy is an effective deterrent against enemies, but it should be obvious that with such a policy it will never be possible to end any conflict unless absolutely all enemies and all their relatives or friends are killed.
There have been times when the relations between the parties in this conflict had improved a lot and there was some hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict. Nevertheless on both sides, but especially in Israel, there are people who benefit a lot from the existence of the conflict, so any opponents have been removed by any means possible, including assassination, until the mutual relationships have become as bad as today, when no hope for any kind of peace remains.
Most people in Israel are quite nice, but they are deeply scared by the thought that that at any time someone coming from the neighbors of Israel could come and cut their throats, so they work continuously very hard at their jobs, believing that they must provide thus their individual contributions so that Israel will maintain its military and economic dominance over their enemies, in order to ensure their safety. The workers of Israel have worked all the time since WWII pretty much as hard as those of USA during its short participation to WWII.
Workers from other countries would be very unlikely to work willingly so hard as those of Israel. This is very profitable for the upper class of Israel, for whom an end of the conflict would have caused serious losses, when the workers could not have been motivated any more by patriotic slogans.
>This policy is an effective deterrent against enemies, but
Why do you consider this an effective strategy, when the same strategy has been used for decades yet the violence keeps getting worse?
I would expect any response to (among other things):
a) adhere to international law (which we now know is a complete farce thanks UNSC veto)
b) not involve ethnic cleansing/forced displacement of Palestinians for a 3rd time in the last 75 years - the only reason it didn’t work this time is because the Egyptians strongly pushed back
c) not involve the deliberate targeting of civilians, the mass punishment of a civilian population, and the denial of access to aid to a civilian population (under occupation no less)
d) not result in the highest proportion of children fatalities and injuries of any modern war - and not involve redefining or rewriting the meaning of the word “child” to give themselves some wiggle room
e) not involve the deliberate targeting of journalists, academics, aid workers, and hospital staff - even if the Israelis claim to have “proof” of them being Hamas members (imagine immediately defunding a UN organization because the Israelis claim a few dozen employees were Hamas members)
f) adhere to Israel’s responsibilities under IHL as an occupying force
Fighting a war against guerillas in an urban context is challenging. Mass & targeted bombing of a densely populated occupied territory containing an enemy with no air force and no air defenses is not only genocidal, but also outright cowardly behavior.
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But beheaded babies and babies in ovens portrays a different level of atrocities being committed. This kind of fictional atrocity dissemination is very similar to the approach used during the Gulf War[1].
More importantly, the point is that Western media outlets - who have always proclaimed to be arbiters of truth, objectivity & journalistic integrity - neither did the absolute basic fact checking required before publishing such information, nor apologized later for doing so once the dust settled.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony
I'm not going to disagree with you about the media sucking, but for what it's worth, I think every side thinks that. I am pro-Israel and have the same feelings about other stories that were rushed, not vetted, wrong, and never apologized for.
Just one thing: you mentioned the "girls" (in fact soldiers) with "bloody pants" in your previous comment. It's quite a stretch to go from bloody pants to "victim of rape".
Indeed, this picture came out much later:
https://www.instagram.com/israelmfa/p/C7Q1v38tKql/
Shows what appears to be the famous "bloody pants" soldier sitting on the floor close to other presumably injured soldiers after some sort of combat. Isn't that the most obvious way of getting "bloody pants"? Why the leap from those to unfounded rape accusations?
https://www.oct7factcheck.com/index
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> there is very credible evidence that rape did occur
> FIRST ACCOUNT PANTS PULLED DOWN
>But it turns out that what Otmazgin thought had occurred in the home at the kibbutz hadn’t happened.
> SECOND ACCOUNT: EVERYTHING WAS CHARRED
> Yossi Landau, a longtime ZAKA volunteer, was also working in Be’eri when he entered a home that would produce the second debunked story
I urge people to read the article rather than take the parents claim that it presents evidence of rape on October 7th at face value. It presents no evidence for such a claim through the entire article. It covers debunked claims of sexual violence on October 7th, it does contain a reference to one hostage who was sexually assaulted during her kidnapping who was since thankfully successfully released
From the article:
“The United Nations and other organizations have presented credible evidence that Hamas militants committed sexual assault during their rampage. The prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, said Monday he had reason to believe that three key Hamas leaders bore responsibility for “rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity.”
I’m not going to dig up and post links to videos showing Hamas parading female captives with blood on their pants, or partially disrobed bodies. Videos which were filmed by Hamas members themselves I might add. Here is an article instead from BBC with testimony from survivors: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181.amp
I don’t want to assume that you are arguing in bad faith, but there are numerous reputable sources showing that other atrocities occurred beyond the murder of civilians. It’s bad enough that Hamas directly targeted and killed over 700 civilians.
That article you linked does not support your claims at all. The UN was pressured by Israel to send a delegation, but they would not cooperate fully and refused a full investigation.
From the UN report [1]:
>In the medicolegal assessment of available photos and videos, no tangible indications of rape could be identified.
>The mission team examined several allegations of sexual violence. It must be noted that witnesses and sources with whom the mission team engaged adopted over time an increasingly cautious and circumspect approach regarding past accounts, including in some cases retracting statements made previously. Some also stated to the mission team that they no longer felt confident in their recollections of other assertions that had appeared in the media.
>It was determined by the mission team that the crime scene had been altered by a bomb squad and the bodies moved, explaining the separation of the body of the girl from the rest of her family. Allegations of objects found inserted in female genital organs also could not be verified by the mission team due in large part to the limited availability and low quality of imagery.
How does any of this information from the report lead you to believe that the allegations of mass rape are 'very credible'?
See this interview from Pramila Patten who is the special representative that wrote this report [2]
>“May I just ask, why not put the responsibility and blame the atrocities quite simply on the perpetrators and say, ‘it was Hamas who did it?’” the host demanded.
>Patten replied that the mission of her visit to Israel was “only for the purpose of gathering and analyzing information,” not for attributing alleged crimes to any perpetrator.
>“It is pretty clear who did it, after talking to survivors who returned – it wasn’t the Belgians who did it,” chortled the host.
>“I think it’s up to your government to give access, and that was one of my first recommendations,” Patten responded.
I would suggest you stop peddling these baseless allegations as these lies are being used to justify civilian massacres to this day.
[1] https://tinyurl.com/2px6tp6v
[2] https://tinyurl.com/bddbu29s
You are cherry picking text out of the report, and removing it from the overall context. The UN investigators visited multiple locations, some of which did not contain evidence, and some of which did. See sections 58/60/61/66/68.
The conclusion of the report itself reads: “Overall, based on the totality of information gathered from multiple and independent sources at the different locations, there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred at several locations across the Gaza periphery, including in the form of rape and gang rape, during the 7 October 2023 attacks. Credible circumstantial information, which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualized torture, or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, was also gathered.”
At this point I don’t see any further point in discussing this subject. I’m only replying in case someone reads these comments, and doesn’t dig deeper into the report. I find it concerning that you glossed over those sections and the conclusion of the report, while only presenting text that supports your viewpoint. It’s bad enough that ~700-800 civilians were murdered in the first place, and it’s horrible that civilians continue to die in Gaza through the present. Please have a good day.
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>And what oil money exactly?
He's probably referring to how Iran props up these places, and Iran's main source of funding is oil.
Nope, Iran does not really prop up Palestinians. Maybe Saudi Arabia and their donations sure but Iran does not fund more than military assets, and mostly in Lebanon
> Why aren't the UN troops keeping the peace?
They're basically observers when there are any other armed troops present. They have small arms, everybody else has rockets, missiles, or tanks.
UN peacekeeper should be treated as civilians - even when armed.
Why are they there then? Seems they are willingly serving as human shields to prevent Israel from retaliating against Hezbollah attacks.
It's all on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Interim_Force_i...
There's absolutely no evidence of UN forces being used as human shields. There's clear evidence, including that cited in the article, of the situation being very different from the claims/report of the IDF.
The most credible reason for Israel wanting Unfil to vacate is less impartial observers.
The most credible reason for Israel to want UNIFIL to vacate is that UNIFIL’s mission is to help keep unauthorized military forces out of South Lebanon, and Israel’s invasion force is decidedly unauthorized.
Given they targeted observation posts and monitoring cameras first, I suspect they don't want witnesses observing war crimes. Local witnesses are outright killed or smeared with accusations of belonging to militant groups, as it's being done to journalists in Gaza. They just put targets on the backs of the few surviving journalists that are still documenting the siege of northern Gaza. See: https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2024/10/24/wh...
That trick is harder to pull when the witnesses are external UN observers.
Well, UNIFIL for the last twenty years pretty much ignored the other unauthorized military force in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah, so why they should care about IDF?
Hezbollah is part of the elected government within the in internationally recognized borders of Lebanon. It might be illegal for them to fire at Israel, but it's not illegal for them to be present. It is illegal for Israel to be present within Lebanon's borders.
Hezbollah's presence might not be illegal under Lebanese law, but it is illegal under UNSC 1701.
Israel's current presence might technically also be illegal under UNSC 1701, but Israel has a very strong casus belli from self-defense, having been bombarded for the past year.
Being part of the government doesn’t usually grant you the right to maintain your own army. Imagine if every political party had an army.
They care about Israel Bulldozing UN's bases (walls and towers)
Israel is being openly threatening UNIFIL, and they aren't retailating in any way. I am 100% sure the white hats have never had any capacity to do anything beside being witness. Hezbollah was ok with that, Israel is not ok with that.
So Hamas is authorized?
I would think that a people that was close to extinction through genocide only 80 years ago, cares little about what other people authorizes them to do in order to protect themselves.
They were attacked from Lebanon, they retaliate. It’s quite simple.
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> What is the point of the troops being there?
Let's assume they are completely useless at peacekeeping - does this justify them being attacked?
> Why aren't the UN troops keeping the peace?
They’re outnumbered by 10:1.
"Israel has also said.."
Come on..!?
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I have been flagged in this thread by merely re-iterating points mentioned in the Financial Times article. @dang — I doubt you’ll see this, but I would appreciate some help. This is pretty sad.
Me too, for giving context that the article elided. Flagging is supposed to mean "breaks guidelines" not "disagrees with my outlook". Strange that this is the only topic that inspires such zeal.
Not sure what ware you writing about in this thread. But this does happen in other topics as well.
Part of the story here, really, is that the UN has been co-opted by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Another part of the story is: where was the UN when Hezbollah launched rockets from Lebanon this week?
Unless the UN starts doing serious counter-terrorism, Israel is not going to particularly care about their presence in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has launched over 10,000 rockets at Israel since Oct 7 last year. While under the watch of the UN. But apparently Israel is supposed to just do nothing about it and accept it going on for as long as Hezbollah likes. Absolutely no other country on this planet would. So many people seem to have a special set of double standards they apply to Israel for some reason.
Which attack came first? Who is responding to who? It just doesn't matter any more. Hezbollah and Israel need to calm the fuck down.
And one more thing. I get to criticize the living fuck out of Israel because as an American I am paying for most of it's weapons.
Which came first in your mind? Are you trying to go back to 1948 here? I mean why stop there we could say this is all stems from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand leading to the invasion of and break up of the Ottomon empire. But we have to live in the reality we have today.
In this reality Hezbollah started attacking Israel after Oct 7 in support of Hamas’s attack on Israel. But for that happening Israel would not be invading southern Lebanon to try and put and end to these attacks now.
There is nothing at all wrong with criticizing Israel, I am deeply annoyed with a lot they do, the right wing element and the West Bank settlers are really ruining the ability to reach a two state solution. (Palestinian leaders also share blame in not reaching this outcome too sadly.)
The problem is that people so often have double standards and expectations of Israelis they would never apply to anyone else. And they definitely never seem to have similar expectations for Hezbollah or Hamas. This isn’t constructive and gets kind of antisemitic after a while (Jews are different, hence unrealistic expectations, they should just take the rocket fire and never respond). It’s a weird lack of empathizing with Israelis as also being real humans behaving as real humans anywhere would. This really doesn’t help bring about any kind of peace.
Just because other countries started by brutally colonizing the natives does not mean we should let Israel continue doing it. A true solution requires some admission of guilt on their end for the past century of death and destruction and a path forward that creates a state that is not tied to Jewish identity. Much like other western nations, they will have to learn to deal with a diverse population by abandoning their previous culture and religion.
Israel is simply not going to decide to cease to exist. People living in Israel are not going to up and leave. They’re not going to say “sure take my house” any more than you would. This kind of thing is entirely magical thinking that can only happen because you aren’t able to generate any kind of empathy for people living in Israel.
Kids born in the West Bank or Gaza today are not helped to have a better future by this kind of thinking you’re pushing here.
People living in Israel are not going to up and leave.
Which is fine, because the parent isn't suggesting that they do anything of the sort.
The parent is suggesting a single state solution and giving this is the context of Hezbollah, the right of return. (Hezbollah is not in Palestine.)
Nobody on this planet would make that deal with groups who have the goal of destroying your country. If Hamas had been a peaceful group, democracy had taken hold in Gaza, it had existed peacefully with Israel, had never had the aim of destroying Israel, then yeah, you might be able to imagine a future where the two merge and live harmoniously. But that is not reality today.
You're projecting more into the commenter's words than is actually to be found in them, it seems.
It's quite cleare Hamas needs to be marginalized and taken out of the picture (along with its spiritual companions in the 37th Government) before anything can move forward, but that's a separate issue.
What are they saying then? I am interpreting them in the context of this discussion which is on Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel and Israel’s response.
You seem to imply they are pointing to internal matters to Israel, not Hezbollahs aims. In which case it’s a total non sequitur comment. Or are you or they, suggesting Hezbollahs aims (given Hezbollah is what we are discussing) simply to reform internal issues within Israel and that is their reason for launching 10,000 rockets at them? I think you know that’s not the case.
> Which attack came first? Who is responding to who? It just doesn't matter any more.
As a fellow taxpayer, fuck no. As the initiator, Hezbollah can stop shooting the rockets at any moment, give up the Oct 2023 attackers and everyone actively involved. I don't see why that wouldn't stop Israel from going further.
This can not work for Israel, because they are responsible for bringing these fucks to justice.
>As the initiator, Hezbollah can stop shooting the rockets at any moment, give up the Oct 2023 attackers and everyone actively involved.
I don't think Hezbollah has any of the Oct 2023 attackers. Those attackers all came from Gaza, and were in Hamas. Hezbollah just decided to join in on the side of Hamas by shooting rockets, but they weren't the ones who did the Oct 2023 attack.
> decided to join in on the side of Hamas by shooting rockets
You answered your own objection then.
No, I didn't: your assertion still doesn't make sense. No Oct 2023 attackers came from Lebanon (it's quite a long distance away from southern Israel after all), so how exactly are they supposed to "give them up"? They're all in Gaza. Hezbollah doesn't control Gaza.
So basically they would just have to stop shooting rockets at Israel and it would be over?
I suppose; I'm simply addressing the part about "giving up" the Oct 2023 attackers. They aren't in Lebanon anywhere, so there's no way to "give them up".
Probably not, at this point. Israel left it to the UN, which failed to maintain peace and order. I imagine the intent would be to smash Hezbollah like Hamas.
This times 10^6. Nicely said.
There is a staggering amount of ignorance present in the other comments here.
I was ignorant too. But I spent a good amount of time educating myself this year. I hope others do the same so they can make completely informed assessments. I worry about tribalism and politics driving too much of the thinking.
What are the repercussions? If there is no reaction from the international community, did this action really happen?
Every reaction from the international community is vetoed by the United States of America. A veto power it has used on behalf of Israel to protect it from international scrutiny more than it has for literally any other country on earth. Over half of all US vetoes in the Security Council have been on behalf of Israel.
https://globalaffairs.org/bluemarble/how-us-has-used-its-pow...
> The U.S. has vetoed resolutions critical of Israel more than any other council member – 45 times as of December 18, 2023, according to an analysis by Blue Marble. The U.S. has vetoed 89 Security Council resolutions in total since 1945, meaning slightly over half of its vetoes have been used on resolutions critical of Israel. Of the vetoed resolutions, 33 pertained to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories or the country’s treatment of the Palestinian people.
> The first time the U.S. used its veto to support Israel was in September of 1972, when it vetoed a resolution that called on Israel to cease its aggression in Lebanon.
There's a mechanism for bypassing the Security Council by the GA during deadlocks caused by vetoes (Emergency Special Sessions convened under Uniting for Peace—5 of the 11 convened so far have concerned the Arab/Israeli conflict, including one of the two that is currently open, which is now on its 27th year), but no combination of countries otherwise willing to act to constrain the conflict has the capacity to effectively act against both Iran and its proxies and the Israel (directly) backed by the US.
There is no enforcement power for outcomes of those.
There is the same enforcement power as there is for Security Council resolutions, the coordinated action of member states.
UNEF, the first UN peacekeeping mission, was deployed under a GA resolution passed under Uniting for Peace in an Emergency Special Session called due to British and French vetoes creating a deadlock over the Suez Crisis.
Did what action actually happen? Those reported in the article? If so, clearly yes. They've been widely reported and confirmed repeatedly. The initial international outrage appears to have subsided. I'd guess partly mainly due to the obvious support of the US, who gave up on being outraged when it became obvious there was no one listening on the Israeli side.
Well, they might have listened if the weapon sales stopped
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I’m curious what’s exactly UN troops doing there?
And why they keep closing blind eye on the largest terrorist army in the world violating UN’s own agreements?
Also I wonder who benefits from them intentionally not moving out of harms ways and preventing israel from doing _their_ job of eliminating terrorists?
Genuine questions, not taking any sides.
Reasonable questions. I wish I had answers.
Is that the same UN that has its secretary-general António Guterres shaking hands with Putin and Lukashenko this week?
Let's be honest, UN is one of the most useless organization in the world (and been for a while, look at history of their Africa operations). By now their presense on ground with inability to actually do anything or help anybody is a liability (eg can't stop Hezbollah from launching rockets and using them as a shield)
The biggest issue we are facing now, it is that the same has happened ot the previous organization, League of Nations Union, which became useless to prevent WW II, UN was born after the war with the goal to be a better organisation than it predecessor.
And here we are, at the edge of WW III, with an useless UN.
How would you imagine useful UN? Or do you just want to be without it?
First of all, one whose army is actually useful, there are plenty of examples of genocides where UN troops were present and nothing was done to prevent that.
A weapon only works as dissuasion if the agressor isn't sure it might be used, otherwise they might as well be holding paper sticks.
They being there has been informative. We know of israel attacking UN bases. We are yet to see Hezbolla militants holding white hats at gunpoint. Or at least hiding in a tunnel under a UN base
There have been thousands rockets fired from southern Lebanon into Israel. So, Israel doesn't need permission from the UN or the international community or the US to invade and take out Hezbollah. Certainly not UNIFIL, who have been entirely useless as peace keepers.
> Or at least hiding in a tunnel under a UN base
You should balance your news consumption, because here is a terror tunnel within view of a UNIFIL observation center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KPLphHpQfA
This nonsense has been going on for years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rpCIMs0Xpo
Thanks for the links. Unfortunately, the telegraph is not a serious source of information (visit the frontpage anytime for proof). The other video is even worse.
I personally wait until CNN publishes such information. It is the only Israel biased news source I deem above fakenews.
If you think of CNN as pro-Israel, no wonder you're so anti-Israel. Bypass the middle men altogether! Listen to Hamas directly! Listen to Israeli officials directly! Listen to everyone you can without preconceptions. Each party says very clearly exactly what they believe and what they are doing and what they want and how they plan to achieve it. Look for consistency and straight-forward statements of fact. Watch out when something affirms your preconceptions because that's when you are most vulnerable to being manipulated. When you listen to a Westerner, especially an American journalist, explain what Hamas, Palestine, Israel, Hezbollah or Iran is doing, they are filtering it through their own biases and preconceptions and are almost certainly flat-out incorrect.
Heck. Unfiltered man in the street interviews. You can't get more direct than that. Here are some. https://www.youtube.com/@CoreyGilShusterAskProject/videos
Listen to the Israelis and Palestinians. They say very clearly and directly what they want.
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Although you rightly condemn the IDF's terrorist origins, you fall into the trap of labelling genuine resistance movements as terrorist. Was the French Resistance a terrorist organisation? Or the Polish Resistance? Given the brutal occupation executed by Israel in Palestine why is armed resistance, in your eyes, taboo? This is not a football match between two equal sides. This is, and always has been, asymetric warfare where one side is armed to the teeth by the west. Where is Hezbollah's air force? Or its tanks?
You have it precisely inverted. Hezbollah, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood are not "freedom fighters". They are a supremacist, revanchist, Islamist movement hiding behind the notion of "occupation", funded by the government of Iran. The French and Polish resistance movements in WWII aimed to liberate their countries from Nazi occupation and restore legitimate governments, operating with support from the Allied forces as part of a recognized war effort. Their tactics targeted military objectives, respecting international humanitarian laws. In contrast, Hezbollah and Hamas have broader ideological goals, including regional control and, for Hamas, the eradication of Israel, using tactics such as rocket attacks and civilian-targeted violence, which violate international law. Unlike WWII resistance fighters who returned to civilian life post-conflict, Hezbollah and Hamas retain military power within their political structures, acting as armed entities beyond immediate defense. Hezbollah and Hamas are internationally designated as terrorist organizations, unlike the WWII resistance movements, which had legitimate standing under international law.
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> UNIFIL has not done this.
...and therefore they deserve to be shot at, maimed or killed?
>> UNIFIL has not done this.
>...and therefore they deserve to be shot at, maimed or killed?
You quoted the wrong part. Here, let me fix that for you.
>> If true, this is not only a clear, systemic failure of their mission, but such an egregious failure that their presence is actually dangerous to civilians.
>...and therefore they deserve to be shot at, maimed or killed?
There. That's better. Now I can properly answer.
In my opinion, no, of course not. However, in light of their failure to accomplish their mission, and actually hindering peace, Israel asked them to leave. They did not. They have chosen to remain in an active war zone. So, "deserve" doesn't really come into play.
> However, in light of their failure to accomplish their mission, and actually hindering peace, Israel asked them to leave.
Asked them to leave a whole other country, that is not Israel or Israeli territory. Would this be reasonable to you if it were Ethiopia asking UN troops to leave Eritrean territory for failure to keep the peace, while there are active skirmishes between the 2 countries? This is an astounding ask for any country, and an affront to any semblence of a "rules-based order"
You're not addressing the most difficult point. The UN has failed spectacularly in their one single mission while giving cover to terrorists. You might disagree with Israel's response, but the scandal is with the UN. How is it possible that Hezbollah operated unimpeded for decades (e.g that Hezbollah dug a bunker tunnel mere 100 meters from a UN observation post)?
Frankly, I think Israel's reaction is way overdue. 40 years of Hezbollah firing rockets while the "peace keepers" sit on their thumbs. Facilitate terrorism, get the stick.
I suppose, by the same measure, that you approve of Israel's recent directive to the residents of northern Gaza to leave, for the nth time, or be considered a target?
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