this post was submitted on 19 Oct 2023
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Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib refused to apologize Wednesday for saying on Tuesday that Israel is to blame for the hospital explosion that day in Gaza, an accusation that sparked political backlash against her from Republicans as Israel denies fault.

Tlaib joined thousands of protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza during a solidarity rally hosted by the left-leaning group Jewish Voice for Peace at the National Mall. She was visibly emotional, at times pausing her speech to openly weep and criticizing lawmakers who have not backed a ceasefire resolution.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think the primary issue is that "destroying Hamas" and "killing a hell of a lot of Palestinians" currently has a large overlap and the Israeli mindset of large amounts of collateral damage/death being acceptable is not shared by most of the rest of the world, even though they're experiencing the same on a smaller mindset.

The pendulum swings the other way and there are absolutely bad faith actors out there (and on here) who have no problem with Israel continuing to take a barrage of rockets on a regular basis, because they either have no skin in the game or genuinely want Israel as an entity to collapse. They aren't helpful here either.

Historically speaking, land claim issues involved one side stomping out the other. But that's pretty much frowned upon today (not that has stopped Russia but, yeah, that's another topic). This is still the most likely outcome here and will ultimately favor the larger, better funded Israel - it doesn't make it right in any sense, though, but that's frankly just what is going to happen eventually. None of the countries complaining are interested in actually helping the people on the ground in Palestine, on either side, because they are more useful as a political tool if left in the wastes to perish as a symbol

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think the primary issue is that “destroying Hamas” and “killing a hell of a lot of Palestinians” currently has a large overlap and the Israeli mindset of large amounts of collateral damage/death being acceptable is not shared by most of the rest of the world, even though they’re experiencing the same on a smaller mindset.

I'd argue it has *very little" overlap in the minds of Israelis. I've heard three people in a very conservative small town in the US discuss the latter, which is absolutely three too many. The lion's share of Jews here—yes, Jews in a conservative town in the US—are very actively hoping for the best outcome possible for Palestinian civilians (even though we know they would never forgive Israel for destroying Hamas, even if it happened via magic bullet with no collateral damage).

Yes, a loud, dickish miniority of Israelis are calling for genocide, and yes, some of them will make it into the IDF, and do something horrible. That's terrifying. Yes, Netanyahu sucks, fuck Netanyahu—although he is not calling for genocide, although he's absolutely continued just about civilian-friendly policy the IDF ever had, he's moved farther and farther to the right of Israeli politics. But the IDF, as an organization, is really still doing its best to weed them out, to control them, and to protect civilians while it goes after Hamas.

This is why Israel is trying to evacuate civilians from Gaza City. But people call that ethnic cleansing... And meanwhile, Israel has evacuated its own civilians from the south and from the Lebanese border, but nobody said Hamas and Lebanon are engaged in ethnic cleansing. Why the fuck would you not evacuate people from a war zone?

Because Hamas likes to use people at human shields.

Israel warns Hamas what building it's going to strike, and when, and urges them to evacuate civilians from that building. And Hamas refuses. So Israel does its "roof knocking" if it thinks there's a chance there might still be civilians in a building that's firing rockets, trying to warn civilians again, and its critics say that "roof knocking" is somehow a war crime. They're trying their hardest not to kill civilians, and Hamas is trying its hardest to make them martyrs!

No other army warns its enemy of what building it's going to strike and when. That's not a thing armies do. They don't share intelligence, say "hey, I know you're firing your weapons from this exact building, please stop."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

People have no idea… they should look at the vietnam war and see what indiscriminate bombing looks like…

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Sad to hear. However, we're talking about innocents dying and what can be done to protect them. I argued more innocents die in the long run if Hamas is not destroyed. To allow such an organization to exist just beyond your borders, is to allow innocents to die every year and that tally never stops increasing. If you need to kill the cancer in your body, you end up destroying good cells in the process, yet you do it anyways to save yourself from that cancer.