this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2024
409 points (92.7% liked)

World News

38262 readers
2223 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News [email protected]

Politics [email protected]

World Politics [email protected]


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 108 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

To the Israeli lawmaker I ask:

Gazans? Certainly you mean Hamas, right? RIGHT? The military group that attacked Israel on Oct 7th. Because if you mean really mean "Gazans must be destroyed" then that is the dictionary literal definition of genocide.

edit: for clarity to whom I'm addressing my questions

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The Haaretz page seems to be unavailable right now. Here’s the MSN version:

Apologies if my post wasn't clear. I wasn't questioning you personally, but rather the cited lawmaker in the article. I'll edit my post to make that clear.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

No, I just somehow managed to post my reply under your comment when I meant to post it at the top level. I didn't have any issue with your comment.

[–] [email protected] 90 points 7 months ago (3 children)

They created this extermination camp.
Now they confirm they did it deliberately.
No country should ever support them again.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And yet the US govt just said there is no war in Ba Sing... I mean... no genocide in Gaza.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (2 children)

This is an excellent reference. Very cogently used as well I might add. Avatar the Last Airbender was truly ahead of its time, and one of the greatest pieces of children's media ever made in my humble opinion.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

I wouldn't call it ahead of it's time, this is just history repeating itself.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It is media that’s consumable by children, but I would absolutely not call it “children’s media”. It is a show that can be - and is - enjoyed in depth by humans of all ages.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

Liked it as a kid and really enjoyed a proper watch through as an adult

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, but how will America maintain peace and security without a military base in the Middle East (btw totally not colonialism)? (/s obviously)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe they can use all the other bases they have in the Middle East?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 7 months ago

Less bases? ALL of your base are belong to us.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

I'd like to remind people that the heritage foundation helped netanyahu to engineer this situation over the course of decades, . Mandatory military service + a lifetime of consistent propaganda is more than most people can overcome

Israel can be better... Netanyahu and his administration? They can fuck all the way off

[–] [email protected] 69 points 7 months ago

what’s clear to everyone is bibi and the far right are doing genocide. his popularity is around 4% over there, and the court just said sorry bibi, you still gotta stand trial for theft and corruption. what we call “the far right” is what the ancients called “evil.” it’s all about greed, lies, hatred, killing, blood, cruelty, and so on. nothin good come of it because it’s literally evil. doesn’t matter what the nationality or history of where it’s born. bibi has no more care for jews than he does for palestinians, just like the far right over here doesn’t give a rats ass about the rednecks and fanatics it winds up for its own gain.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 7 months ago (2 children)

But when I post anything anti-genocide - I get banned from Facebook for being anti-Semitic?

[–] [email protected] 26 points 7 months ago

Well it's because you're not an Israeli lawmaker.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Israeli lawmaker Moshe Saada from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party said on Tuesday that recent widespread calls to "destroy" the residents of the Gaza Strip affirm that the right-wing was right.

In an interview on pro-Netanyahu Channel 14, Saada said that even "in the kibbutzim they say, 'destroy them.' My friends at the prosecutor's office, who fought with me on political matters, in debates, tell me, 'Moshe, it is clear that all the Gazans need to be destroyed,' and these are statements I have never heard." This proves, he said, that the right-wing was correct just as it was on the Palestinian issue.

...

In November, Far-right Eliyahu said that that dropping a nuclear weapon on the Gaza Strip is "an option."

Eliyahu, a member of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party, maintained that "there are no non-combatants in Gaza." He was then asked, in light of his views, whether a nuclear attack on the Gaza Strip is an option. "That's one way," he responded.

Seems pretty clear and unambiguous what he means. This is calling for genocide.

In response, Ben-Gvir said that the Eliyahu was only speaking "metaphorically.

A ridiculous statement.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

A metaphorical nuclear weapon, much better.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 53 points 7 months ago

"It also confirms for many people in the world the allegation that Israel does intend to commit genocide," he added.

Yes. Yes it does.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Wow. Amazing. How the tables have turned.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Weird how that happens. I mean seriously. It makes no sense how terrible a peoples' memory can be.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

I'm not a person of belief but by their own lore, they have fell in disgrace again, by their own actions.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 34 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Do you ever wish you could be there just to call all of these people out? I mean I don't possess the eloquence to do it right but still. Seeing people in suits calling for the destruction of others really makes me grip my palms.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago

If you lack eloquence you can always throw your shoe, the message is clear.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 7 months ago (11 children)

The lawmaker in question is Moshe Saada, number 28 out of 32 MKs from Likud (Israeli elections fix an order for each party, and legislative seats are awarded by that order).

He gave an interview on Channel 14, which is generally regarded as extremely right wing in Israel. Ahmad Tibi, number 1 on the Ta'al list, was the one who called him out for the statement:

MK Moshe Saada, Likud ,is trying to get on the shameful list of people in South Africa's lawsuit against Israel at the High Court in The Hague. Stupid and criminal words

Moshe Saada said this in response to the article:

I understand that there is a "journalist" who took a sentence I said in an interview and took it out of context with a lack of integrity, just to light a little fire, divide a little more and sow hatred. Those who watched the interview can hear that I repeatedly said that Hamas must be destroyed. The time has come for the media to also move forward from 6.10 and realize that it is time to unite around the fight against the enemy who seeks to destroy us, instead of constantly engaging in attempts to slander elected officials

The full interview is here on youtube (In Hebrew, no translation available).

He only said it once in a 13 minute interview and every other instance he's talking explicitly about Hamas (L'hashmid Ha'Hamas). I'm guessing it was him searching for a word to include both Hamas and PIJ, but that might be too generous. But anyone thinking this is an official policy of Israel and that's the way forward is delusional - almost every country on Earth has extremist members of their legislature.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 7 months ago (32 children)

Funny how when it comes to Israeli extremists we all discuss nuance and how complicated and messy politics and language is but when it comes to extremists in resistance organizations it's immediately assumed that what they say colours the entire resistance.

load more comments (32 replies)
[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (5 children)

I support palestine but this kind of reporting definitely seems dishonest. There absolutely is an argument to be made about it being a slip up and a showing of true colors, but saying this is clear evidence for the intent of a genocide is dishonest and only hurting the movement to free palestine. Thanks for pointing out that it was the only time in the interview where he says gazans, not hamas.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] thecrotch 11 points 7 months ago (9 children)

anyone thinking this is an official policy of Israel

...need only look at their actions to confirm that

load more comments (9 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 months ago

It honestly seems pretty clear only to apartheid regimes hell bent on ethnic cleansing.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago (12 children)

I have a question but I want to make it clear that I am asking in good faith as I fumble my way through understanding the complexities of geopolitics, and I am not casting aspersions or pushing a conspiracy theory. I am especially not taking a position in defense of Israel, or against their accountability to the ICC.

Okay, that said: Is South Africa pushing this at the behest of Russia, like as a BRICS thing? The only other thing I can think of is that this helps improve the image of an embattled ANC at home.

I get why they have a unique perspective given their defeat of apartheid, and that's likely the steelman for why they are advancing this, but that just seems like too pat of an answer.

I would love additional perspectives on this.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

As horrible as South African apartheid was, what is happening to the Palestinans is degrees worse.

Ordinary South Africans still remember the deep damage Apartheid perpetrators inflicted on us, it's poisonous remnants are still affecting us as a country to this day as we try to heal as a people.

Now imagine South Africans seeing what Israel is perpetrating against the Palestinians, now and in the past. It's a punch to the gut, a searing pain, to see what was done to us and our parents being done to Palestinians. We're seeing a gross refined version of Apartheid that was inflicted on us being inflicted on the Palestinians. And largely the so called west/ global north is cheering for the Israeli Apartheid regime commiting genocide. It makes me sick to my core.

For these reasons there is immense pressure on our government by civil society to denounce Israel and support Palestine. It does help that the ANC has always been pro Palestinian in the first place. Also it's elections this year so the ANC definitely wants some good pr too.

I would say that these points factor in way more than any link to Russia or China

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I suspect whats going on here is that the South Africans know what kind of people Zionists are, since the old apartheid government used to partner with them.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

It's probably a similar reason to why the european country that first asked for sanctions againat Israel was the Republic of Ireland, who like Palestine and until the early XX Century was occupied and oppressed by a larger neighbhour, in their case the United Kingdom: when you suffered it yourself or grew up hearing the stories from those who suffered it, it's a lot easier to understand the true depth and hurt of what's being done to a people in a similar situation as you, your paraents or even grandparents were once in.

It also explains why Germany still unwaveringly supports Israel: they naturally empathise with the strong military power that's trying to control a "lesser race" in a territory they occupy - it's painfully obvious that "never again" wasn't at all about the violent genocide of a weaker ethnic group by a stronger one driven by cold violent extreme racism (the kind who describes another etnic group as untermenschen/human animals) and greed, but was only ever about Germans vs Jews, hence Germany ending up again involved in a Holocaust on the side of the genociders.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

An additional perspective is that the Apartheid government became an ally of convenience with Israel to the point that they created a joint nuclear weapons program together. Then you have the political pressure African union states have for maintaining robust trading agreements with Arab states. There's a ton of history there

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_incident

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago

Thank you for this!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I don't think it's a BRICS thing at all. It's what their own population want. South Africa has long been critical of apartheid in Israel.

Moreover back when South Africa was under Apartheid, for a long time Israel was one of its main trading partners even after the west had imposed sanctions, and it also contributed directly to the white military. They eventually joined the boycott but the damage was done.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I think South Africans just have a more defined (and more recent) sense of pride when it comes to standing up against Apartheid. They recognize the rhetoric and the legal justifications from Israel's right wing. I had the privilege of studying law under someone who helped to right the ship in South Africa, an American constitutional law scholar who worked with President Mandela to help write their new Constitution in the late 1990's. They are immensely proud of it as a document that secures human rights for people.

As an aside, just as Hamas must be thought of as separate from the Palestinians, the far right Israeli leadership needs to be thought of distinct from the Israeli people.

There are plenty of people in Israel who think their government has been going too far, and there are plenty more people who think their response after the attacks were justified but have since gone too far.

The danger is not really Israel or Zionism, it is nationalism, a perversion of patriotism that works to justify people's worst emotional reactions.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 months ago

That's the language of the team on defense!

load more comments
view more: next ›