Comment by YZF
2 years ago
I would like to nitpick your list if that's ok. I think being very precise is really important here. If there are uncertainties then those should be spelled out as well. Once we know the facts we can have a better discussion (not just the facts related to this list but the complete picture).
- Israel did displace a lot of people. Partly for their own safety while Israel attacks the area they live in. I think your number are correct.
- We already covered the "cut off" in another thread so I (edit: didn't want to but I guess I did anyways) want revisit it. Water was off, and then on, food and medicine are allowed in but maybe not enough, Internet access is on most of the time in this war zone, electricity is mostly cut off (partly because the power station ran out of fuel I think, not strictly because Israel cut it off). This is a snarky comment but I'm pretty sure the tunnel vents still have power. Northern Gaza and Southern Gaza are also different (with more restrictions on Northern Gaza). I would call this statement misleading.
- Israel did drop a lot of bomb tonnage on Gaza but we can't really compare this to the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima. There were 60-80 thousand dead in Hiroshima which was much less populated/dense than Gaza (total population was about 350,000). As a piece of trivia, between 241,000 and 900,000 people died in Japan in the bombing campaigns of WW2. I would fact check this statement as misleading.
- There is plenty of press access from the Palestinian side. I think we're getting more footage from the war zone compared to many other war zones. Israel does review footage of press that embeds with the IDF in Gaza for operational-security reasons. I think that's pretty normal. I don't recall large complaints from the media about this, but they do note it in their reports. So correct but misleading.
- Do you have a reference for "dozens of murders by settlers prior to Oct 7th"? Are you going all the way back to Baruch Goldstein? Even with that "dozens" seems incorrect to me. There's no room for any violence by settlers but let's get the facts right. My very quick research has failed to substantiate this claim.
- Reference for "paraded them through the streets"? Also do we know they're all civilians? Israel strips people they arrest (to their underwear) to make sure they're not suicide bombers. I have seen those photos/videos as well. I agree it's pretty humiliating (and) the pictures didn't look good. I hope the people that are uninvolved will be released quickly. I know you're going to take issue with what I say here, but this was in Northern Gaza where civilians have been asked to evacuate and Hamas combatants operate in civilian clothing. Hamas has a lot of history with suicide bombers so it's not unreasonable to expect this tactic. I would call this partly misleading.
- I also take issue with "kidnapped" and "tortured". I would say arrested Islamic Jihad and Hamas activists. Torture is illegal in Israel (maybe allowed if there's a "ticking bomb", I don't recall) and while it's possible there have been cases I don't think it's systemic, any evidence to the contrary?
- You're technically correct about the move south and bomb the south but I think it's important to note there was significantly less bombing in the south than the north and Israel has said specifically they will still bomb the south if they have clear targets. Israel never said it won't bomb the south. It just said it's safer. And if you check the statistics you'll see that's true. This is where "technically right" can be misleading.
- West bank settlers have had weapons forever pretty much. Most of the handing of weapons these days is to people in Israel proper.
- I think there was a single incident with an ambulance where Israel claimed it was being used for a military purpose. There is a long discussion about the status and usage of ambulances here: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/attacks-misuse-ambulances-durin...
- I'm pretty sure "bombed every hospital" is false. Reference? We had the possible Islamic Jihad rocket falling in a hospital parking lot, we had some bombings close to hospitals, we had fake news from other conflicts presented as Israel bombing hospitals, but "bombed every hospital" is new to me. I think "did not bomb any hospitals" is closer to the truth. How many people were killed by Israel's bombing of hospitals?
- I've seen different accounts for the percentage of buildings damaged. 2/3 seems on the high side. References?
Israel used ambulances to arrest Marwan Barghouti.
If the discussion was about Gaza attacking Israel ambulances then this piece of information from 2002 would be relevant. Otherwise I'm not sure what's the point your trying to make? That because Israel used an ambulance (not during an active war, but in the occupied territories) then Hamas can use ambulances?
Israel should not use ambulances for military purposes. Israel is far far from perfect and you can find many examples of things we can agree on being "wrong". Perfection is not the right measure though, Israel doesn't do things like: https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p451 The question is compared to what its peers in the "free democratic west" would do in similar circumstances how does Israel measure. We know that most of the world doesn't even try to hold up the same standards.
It wasn’t a MDA ambulance, this was the West Bank.
- Re: the water/food/etc, I think you’re being glib about its impacts. It was widely described as a huge humanitarian crisis, e.g. https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/16/israeli-authorities-cutt...
- Re: Hiroshima, can we compare it to the amount of explosive the US dropped in the entire country of Afghanistan over a much longer period? The point is that this is an insanely high amount of bombing, even with respect to other wars. https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-dropped-as-many-bombs...
- Re: West Bank violence, I said settlers have killed “dozens” as a lowball number because I was too lazy to find a link. The actual number (including by Israeli security forces) is 192: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/22/while-fire-rages-gaza-we...
- Re: stripping prisoners, I imagine “paraded” is another word we’d disagree on like “targeted”, but Israel itself has said that it stripped “military aged men” and a number have been recognized by friends and family as noncombatants: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-hamas-war-images-p...
- Here’s a tweet from someone who recognizes a journalist firsthand. This is sexual violence, by the way: https://x.com/dima_khatib/status/1732797311846064541
- Re: abducted — yes, of course Israel will claim there’s a pretext for abducting people (although over 2,500 have been held without charges on “administrative detention”). This is kind of like someone in the antebellum US south saying “those runaway slaves were arrested in accordance with the law” — maybe true but not the point! Do you think the police are fair to Palestinians? The courts? https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01/1216643555/thousands-of-pales...
- Re: torture, I don’t know what you happens in prison. I guarantee it’s not better for political prisoners in apartheid regimes. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-ho...
- Re: bombing the south, there have been so many reported instances of Israel telling people to evacuate and then bombing the escape route. https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/middleeast/israel-palestinian...
- Re: arming settlers, this already sounds real bad, so if they’re handing out more guns in addition to that, it sounds… worse. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231011-far-right-israel-...
- Re: attacking the ambulance, of course the IDF says that there was Hamas there — that’s what they say about everything! I’m not going to look up a source here. If there’s any evidence that corroborates the IDF’s claim from an independent source, feel free to post it.
- Re: “bombed every hospital”, you’re using quotation marks but not actually quoting me directly. As of a month ago, Israel had issued evacuation orders for 22 hospitals in North Gaza and half of the 36 hospitals in Gaza had stopped operations. Unclear how many the IDF actually attacked but it’s a lot more than zero! https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/14/gaza-unlawful-israeli-ho...
- Re: 2/3, it was reported in the Financial Times. Also note that the damage the US inflicted on German cities in a matter of years, Israel has inflicted on Gaza in a matter of weeks. https://www.ft.com/content/7b407c2e-8149-4d83-be01-72dcae8ae...
The number that's been reported re: the detained Palestinians is that 30%-50% of them are suspected to be combatants and the others are uninvolved and were either released or are in the process of being released.
And yes, we agree to the facts of military aged men, in a combat zone where civilians have been asked to evacuate, stripped (EDIT: to their underwear) and arrested. That's what I also said in my reply. I explained why Israel strips potential Hamas combatants/activists ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at... ). I took issue with the "paraded" part. It is most certainly not sexual violence.
Apparently there are new instructions to the IDF to provide them with clothing immediately.
Do I think the police and the courts are always fair to Palestinians... Nope. But at least they have some legal recourse. The Israeli Supreme court, which is independent (so far), can intervene and has intervened in the past. You can read one case here: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/israel-detention-unlawf...
By the way extreme right Jews have also been held under administrative arrest.
I still think "arrested Hamas and Islamic Jihad members" is closer to the truth than "abducted random Palestinians".
Sorry I did take a bit of liberty with quoting you, the correct quote is: "Bombed basically every hospital" ... "basically" is basically a filler word that does not change the meaning. But I apologize and promise not to do that again.
I don't think changing "settlers" to "security forces" or conflating "issued an evacuation order" with "bombing", or "torture" vs. "things that happen in prison" is having a discussion in good faith. Many of those killed by the security forces were killed while they were attacking Israelis or during combat or clashes. If you're willing to have a discussion in good faith I'm happy to engage but you'll have to stop doing that. This is not helping some of the valid points you're making. "But what about the west bank" is a common anti-Israeli propaganda tool on social media. There's a lot to unpack there but I think it should mostly be an orthogonal discussion to the war in Gaza.
https://embassies.gov.il/UnGeneva/NewsAndEvents/Pages/Hamas-...
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/hamas...
I think specifically with ambulances there's a few ways to think about this:
- What is the benefit that Israel derives from attacking ambulances?
- What would be a reasonable standard of proof here? If forces come under attack from an ambulance, they bomb it, and it's destroyed, how do you expect Israel to prove that?
- Is the Hamas a signatory to the Geneva convention and are their methods typically in line with the laws of war? Are they generally honest? Moral?
- Did Israel order evacuation of those areas and give ample time for this evacuation to happen in accordance with the laws of war?
I think if you answer these honestly you'll say that Hamas would certainly use ambulances if they felt that was to their advantage and that Israel would not generally target ambulances intentionally. Is there a large gray area? Sure. Is it possible that Israeli forces would have a "light finger on the trigger". Sure. It's a war and it's their lives. Do I think that allowing Ambulances to operate within combat areas is a high priority for Israel? No. There's a big difference between actions that are within reason and actions that are intentionally evil. The goal of many people saying "Israel attacks ambulances" is to paint a picture of Israel being evil. They want to take a single ambulance that was attacked in a major scale conflict and use it as a propaganda weapon against Israel. That said Israel should be expected to follow the laws of war and we should demand that it does.
If our goal is to end the war and to make some sort of progress for the benefit of everyone involved I don't think inflammatory language or evoking anti-Israeli emotions is the way to get us there. I can get behind that goal if the methods are different.
Here is the crux of our disagreement:
> I think if you answer these honestly you'll say that Hamas would certainly use ambulances if they felt that was to their advantage and that Israel would not generally target ambulances intentionally.
So if I’m honest, I’ll say that Hamas doing something bad is normal but Israel doing something bad is exceptional. Why would I say that, exactly? Israel is one of the most powerful countries in the world, backed by one of the most vicious modern day empires, waging a one-sided war against people they have blockaded inside a literal ghetto. My allegiance is always with the victims of oppression; that is a core Jewish value to me.
This is not the pot calling the kettle black. The aforementioned empire is the US; we have truly horrendous skeletons in our closet and continue to add more. But goddamn, at least I’m not pretending they aren’t there.
I don’t think this is a productive conversation and I’m going to stop replying. Chag Hanukkah Sameach; may Palestine’s oil burn brightly forever.
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