Hamas is hiding among civilians. I don’t want innocent people to be hurt, but their use of human shields is simply the standard playbook in this type of warfare. Hamas rationally wants Gazan civilians to be nearby and indistinguishable from combatants.
This is true but not the whole story. If Hamas were dug in under an Israeli school or hospital, would it similarly by okay to treat civilian deaths as 'just Hamas fault'? Obviously not. The problem here has that the situation is between a war and a policing situation. Gaza is not a state, but it is not a suburb of Israel either. So who is responsible for the safety of Palestinian civilians?
The IDF HQ is in a heavily populated part of Tel Aviv. If a country dropped an enormous bomb on it which flattened nearby civilian homes and populations, would it be okay because the IDF is "hiding" among civilians? The IDF also literally used human shields until 2005 when it was banned (and a bit more afterwards trying not to get caught), so is it okay to kill ~20000 Israeli civilians as a result of that?
If you take what happened in Israel and change the location to London, do you think UK would just shrug it off? I am in no way saying what is currently happening is okay, but the response was the response, replace Israel with most other military dominant countries and you would get a similar response, especially if you were the stronger party. Depending on who we talk about, it may actually have been way worse.
I believe what OP is saying is that most other countries would have done the same. And for you to impart hatred on Israel for doing what most other countries would have done is anti-semitism.
Imagine if a terrorist group murdered 2750 people in New York and in response the US said they would topple the government which supported them and occupy their country indefinitely.
Which has widely been condemned by people who criticise Israel? And tends not to be talked about too much by the (right wing) pro-Israeli government (settlement program, bombing of Palestinians) crowd.
Isn't blockading people and food and goods and putting the entire population of Gaza on a "starvation plus" diet and constantly and blatantly violating int'l law to throw West Bank Palestinians off their land further and further while laughing about it publicly a declaration of war?
When Palestinians protested nonviolently at the gates of Gaza and were shot to death, was that an act of war?
When Israeli West Bank settlers burned a home in Duma with a family still inside and laughed about the small child who burned alive their and taunted onlookers, was that an act of war?
Gazans are an oppressed people, who under international law are permitted to fight for freedom by any means necessary.
But regardless, as more of the truth has been teased out it's become plain that what Israel said happened on October 7th was... well, absolutely riddled with lies. Beheaded babies, baked babies, babies hung up on washing lines, mass rapes - all of it debunked, but still being used by the Israeli propaganda machine. We've also learned that of those killed, civilians were in the minority - most were Israeli soldiers, then armed "settlers". And now we know that Israeli tanks and helicopters killed a lot of Israeli civilians that day. It's also been reported that Israeli intelligence was forewarned of the attack, a month before and the day before - and chose to do nothing except extend the Nova festival for an extra day.
As it looks so far (IMHO): Hamas militant freedom fightets broke out of Gaza with the aim of taking hostages to swap for Palestinian hostages held by Israel. They find the Nova festival still on, and the plan falls to shit - civilians are killed by both sides in the firefight, but militants manage to escape with some hostages before helicopters arrive on the scene and start shooting every fucking thing that moves. And then Israel pumps it up like a balloon, and many fall for it (I'm ashamed to admit I believed it all at the start) - it's used as the pretence for genocide (or at the very least, ethic cleaning) and a land grab, and the US is happy to supply the bombs because money,
Since then, the Israeli lobby and propaganda machines have been working overtime! While much Israeli propaganda is comically bad, the tactic of slandering any anti-genocidal comments as anti-semetic has been quite successful. The lobbying has been incredibly successful, managing to control celebrity messaging, buy US politicians and control mainstream media in a truly alarming way. Hell, Israeli politicians are even openly making calls for genocide and other war crimes, and what major US or UK papers/channels have even reported it?
From a tech standpoint, the genocide being carried out by Israel, with full support of the US and UK, has shown how powerful and important Twitter and Instagram are - without them, many of us (likely myself included) would have no idea what Israel is doing now, or indeed has been doing in the recent past. IMO channels like these are simply too important to be controlled by billionaires - and indeed we're now starting to see pro-Palestine content being censored on Twitter and Instagram (I'm not on Facebook, but I heard it's heavily censored?).
Criticising current Israeli government policy doesn't hold Israel to a higher standard than that of other countries.
Also Israel critics also tend to be _much more likely_ to condemn the actions of other states (e.g. Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Indonensia in Papaua, etc). The issue is that the press is less interested in this and the general American public is much more interested in Israel than they are in Saudi Arabia.
I've heard this claim, but what is your personal reasoning? It's an oddly narrow condition. Isn't 'prejudice against Israel' more general and effective? Enumerating prejudice in every possible form seems impossible and impractical.
FWIW, it's included in a definition from the last ~20 years that is favored by pro-Israel groups.
Possibly, it's just rhetorical and diversionary, putting critics on the defensive to carefully defend and establish all speech as non-anti-Jewish, which diverts time and attention.
I think those tactics work for Israel when the issues aren't so stark and prominent, and so few people see the critique of the critics (i.e., few see the accusation that the speech is antisemitic). With everyone watching closely, the apparent rhetorical tactics become noticeable.
Which other nation is allowed to literally colonize land than even itself doesn't consider to be part of their country? What other nation can get away with military enforcement of said colonies?
If anything, Israel is given more slack in the west than any other nation. More civilians died in Gaza than in Ukraine yet clearly, only one nation has been condemned officially by western states and that's not Israel
When is Israel, as a state, outright condemned due to its colonial projects? Like, what concrete consequences does it suffer from, due to its colonies?
Absolutely nothing, and if anything boycotting Israel is literally ground for getting fired in the USA.
Now that I think about it, no other country in the world has that privilege of being shielded from consequences like that either.
Again, Russia trying to annex Ukraine isn't just "not seen as acceptable". We saw very very clear and concrete actions from almost the entire west against that. What does Israel get when it colonizes its neighbors? Unwavering support that completely overlooks said colonies.
It's the same standard the entire world held the US to after 9/11. A response to the attacks by Al-Qaeda was justified, the 20 year "Crusade" across the Middle East was not. A response by Israel against Hamas terrorism is justified - a campaign of extermination and genocide is not.
It isn't even a high standard, "don't commit genocide" has been the bare minimum requirement for any modern country, much less democracy, for nearly a century. It would be antisemitic to believe that Israel is uniquely incapable of meeting that minimum standard.
I’m not holding them to a higher standard.
Imagine if you will someone going to start large scale bombing NYC. Or London. Or Rome.
The Hamas attack was unprecedented and horrific. I don’t know that it justifies declaring all out war on and entire city.
I can say that without being anti-Semitic.
Hamas is hiding among civilians. I don’t want innocent people to be hurt, but their use of human shields is simply the standard playbook in this type of warfare. Hamas rationally wants Gazan civilians to be nearby and indistinguishable from combatants.
This is true but not the whole story. If Hamas were dug in under an Israeli school or hospital, would it similarly by okay to treat civilian deaths as 'just Hamas fault'? Obviously not. The problem here has that the situation is between a war and a policing situation. Gaza is not a state, but it is not a suburb of Israel either. So who is responsible for the safety of Palestinian civilians?
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Would Israel allow Gaza to have a conventional standing army? With barracks, heavy weapons and maybe airbases?
Isn't it a bit silly to complain about their lack of adherence to conventional military practices?
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The IDF HQ is in a heavily populated part of Tel Aviv. If a country dropped an enormous bomb on it which flattened nearby civilian homes and populations, would it be okay because the IDF is "hiding" among civilians? The IDF also literally used human shields until 2005 when it was banned (and a bit more afterwards trying not to get caught), so is it okay to kill ~20000 Israeli civilians as a result of that?
If you take what happened in Israel and change the location to London, do you think UK would just shrug it off? I am in no way saying what is currently happening is okay, but the response was the response, replace Israel with most other military dominant countries and you would get a similar response, especially if you were the stronger party. Depending on who we talk about, it may actually have been way worse.
I believe what OP is saying is that most other countries would have done the same. And for you to impart hatred on Israel for doing what most other countries would have done is anti-semitism.
It is interesting to me how your narrative went from somewhat reasonable to talking about “imparting hatred” and concluding it is anti-Semitic.
Which is kind of what the article is talking about.
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If repeated terrorist attacks from the government of another neighboring country are not a valid reason to declare war, what is?
Imagine if a terrorist group murdered 2750 people in New York and in response the US said they would topple the government which supported them and occupy their country indefinitely.
US has toppled governments and occupied countries over far less... probably not the best example.
They did that. In fact, the US waited quite a long time to see if the Taliban would give up bin Laden, before invading.
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>Imagine if you will someone going to start large scale bombing NYC. Or London. Or Rome.
The response to Sep 11, 2001?
Which has widely been condemned by people who criticise Israel? And tends not to be talked about too much by the (right wing) pro-Israeli government (settlement program, bombing of Palestinians) crowd.
You don't think the Hamas attack was a declaration of war?
Isn't blockading people and food and goods and putting the entire population of Gaza on a "starvation plus" diet and constantly and blatantly violating int'l law to throw West Bank Palestinians off their land further and further while laughing about it publicly a declaration of war?
When Palestinians protested nonviolently at the gates of Gaza and were shot to death, was that an act of war?
When Israeli West Bank settlers burned a home in Duma with a family still inside and laughed about the small child who burned alive their and taunted onlookers, was that an act of war?
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It's difficult to declare war in the middle of a siege.
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Gazans are an oppressed people, who under international law are permitted to fight for freedom by any means necessary.
But regardless, as more of the truth has been teased out it's become plain that what Israel said happened on October 7th was... well, absolutely riddled with lies. Beheaded babies, baked babies, babies hung up on washing lines, mass rapes - all of it debunked, but still being used by the Israeli propaganda machine. We've also learned that of those killed, civilians were in the minority - most were Israeli soldiers, then armed "settlers". And now we know that Israeli tanks and helicopters killed a lot of Israeli civilians that day. It's also been reported that Israeli intelligence was forewarned of the attack, a month before and the day before - and chose to do nothing except extend the Nova festival for an extra day.
As it looks so far (IMHO): Hamas militant freedom fightets broke out of Gaza with the aim of taking hostages to swap for Palestinian hostages held by Israel. They find the Nova festival still on, and the plan falls to shit - civilians are killed by both sides in the firefight, but militants manage to escape with some hostages before helicopters arrive on the scene and start shooting every fucking thing that moves. And then Israel pumps it up like a balloon, and many fall for it (I'm ashamed to admit I believed it all at the start) - it's used as the pretence for genocide (or at the very least, ethic cleaning) and a land grab, and the US is happy to supply the bombs because money,
Since then, the Israeli lobby and propaganda machines have been working overtime! While much Israeli propaganda is comically bad, the tactic of slandering any anti-genocidal comments as anti-semetic has been quite successful. The lobbying has been incredibly successful, managing to control celebrity messaging, buy US politicians and control mainstream media in a truly alarming way. Hell, Israeli politicians are even openly making calls for genocide and other war crimes, and what major US or UK papers/channels have even reported it?
From a tech standpoint, the genocide being carried out by Israel, with full support of the US and UK, has shown how powerful and important Twitter and Instagram are - without them, many of us (likely myself included) would have no idea what Israel is doing now, or indeed has been doing in the recent past. IMO channels like these are simply too important to be controlled by billionaires - and indeed we're now starting to see pro-Palestine content being censored on Twitter and Instagram (I'm not on Facebook, but I heard it's heavily censored?).
Criticising current Israeli government policy doesn't hold Israel to a higher standard than that of other countries.
Also Israel critics also tend to be _much more likely_ to condemn the actions of other states (e.g. Saudi Arabia in Yemen, Indonensia in Papaua, etc). The issue is that the press is less interested in this and the general American public is much more interested in Israel than they are in Saudi Arabia.
Are they? There’s interesting statistics about UN human rights committee resolutions by country. Israel alone gets most resolutions.
Then what is holding Israel to a lower standard to other nations a sign of?
I've heard this claim, but what is your personal reasoning? It's an oddly narrow condition. Isn't 'prejudice against Israel' more general and effective? Enumerating prejudice in every possible form seems impossible and impractical.
FWIW, it's included in a definition from the last ~20 years that is favored by pro-Israel groups.
Possibly, it's just rhetorical and diversionary, putting critics on the defensive to carefully defend and establish all speech as non-anti-Jewish, which diverts time and attention.
I think those tactics work for Israel when the issues aren't so stark and prominent, and so few people see the critique of the critics (i.e., few see the accusation that the speech is antisemitic). With everyone watching closely, the apparent rhetorical tactics become noticeable.
Which other nation is allowed to literally colonize land than even itself doesn't consider to be part of their country? What other nation can get away with military enforcement of said colonies?
If anything, Israel is given more slack in the west than any other nation. More civilians died in Gaza than in Ukraine yet clearly, only one nation has been condemned officially by western states and that's not Israel
I don't know a single country - including Israel's closest allies - that says that occupation of West Bank is acceptable.
When is Israel, as a state, outright condemned due to its colonial projects? Like, what concrete consequences does it suffer from, due to its colonies?
Absolutely nothing, and if anything boycotting Israel is literally ground for getting fired in the USA.
Now that I think about it, no other country in the world has that privilege of being shielded from consequences like that either.
Again, Russia trying to annex Ukraine isn't just "not seen as acceptable". We saw very very clear and concrete actions from almost the entire west against that. What does Israel get when it colonizes its neighbors? Unwavering support that completely overlooks said colonies.
Not all other nations - just Palestine. Because Israel is in position of power.
So I have to have been involved in protesting a non-Israel conflict to have an opinion on this one?
My friend, not conflating groups is literally one of the standards for public discourse in 2023.
It's the same standard the entire world held the US to after 9/11. A response to the attacks by Al-Qaeda was justified, the 20 year "Crusade" across the Middle East was not. A response by Israel against Hamas terrorism is justified - a campaign of extermination and genocide is not.
It isn't even a high standard, "don't commit genocide" has been the bare minimum requirement for any modern country, much less democracy, for nearly a century. It would be antisemitic to believe that Israel is uniquely incapable of meeting that minimum standard.
I don’t believe that the IDF wants to kill Gazan civilians.
And yet they keep doing it, over and over and over and over again.
It's weird that they're killing so many civilians then, isn't it?
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Can you provide examples of a Genocide where the population of the people being exterminated multiplies during the genocide process?