Lovely Joe Stalin posted:

The Guardian is usually an ok source. But on this particular conflict, this time round, they need to be squinted at a lot. They've been a willing partner in the revolting push to weaponise accusations of anti-semitism against critics of Israel in the UK. It started with their attacks on Jeremy Corbyn when he lead the Opposition, and reached a nadir when they fired their own cartoonist of over 40 years immediately after October 7th for an 'anti-semitic' depiction of Netanyahu. It was the same caricature he'd been doing for years, the difference was that criticising Netanyahu or Israel was now a fireable, and character assassinating, offence.

Lovely Joe Stalin posted:

The Guardian is usually an ok source. But on this particular conflict, this time round, they need to be squinted at a lot. They've been a willing partner in the revolting push to weaponise accusations of anti-semitism against critics of Israel in the UK.

Hong XiuQuan posted:

Al Jazeera.

quote:

But Senor and Singer neglect the fact that Israel’s pronatalism is also underpinned by a deep anxiety about demographics, the same anxiety that compels the Israeli government to incentivise Jewish immigration from the Diaspora. This anxiety stems from the knowledge that if Israel is to remain both Jewish and democratic — and, though this is usually left unsaid, if Israel is one day to formally annex the occupied Palestinian territories — it is a matter of existential importance that Israeli Jews have as many babies as possible.

Likewise, the authors heap so much praise upon Israel’s postliberal society that they ignore its many downsides. It is one thing to expect the taxpayer to subsidise IVF treatments, but quite another to have them pay for the security of religious zealots settling the West Bank or to bankroll the Torah-study of the Haredim as they shirk military service. These are the fundamental political faultlines in Israel for which the debate over judicial reform was only ever a rough proxy. “All of Israel is responsible for one another” must surely have its limits.

Strikingly, the word “Palestinians” appears on only two pages of the book. This is not all that grates for the post-7 October reader. In one of their chapter-opening anecdotes, the authors tell the inspirational tale of Sderot, a town less than a mile from Gaza, which, surviving and flourishing against the odds, works as “a metaphor for Israel as a whole”. Sderot was amongst the principal targets of Hamas terrorists on 7 October and is now a ghost town. Many of its residents were killed, and those who survived have been evacuated. Nobody knows whether or when they will return.

quote:

We were texting a couple of days ago about setting up the interview, and you said that Biden’s stated policy to not condition aid “inhibits U.S. officials from objectively applying these laws and policies that relate to international human law compliance.” What did you mean by that? That was striking to me.

If the President has a policy of never conditioning aid to Israel, if that’s an ideological position and personal position of this President, and if that then goes down the bureaucracy, which is already inclined to be wary of ever criticizing Israel or accusing Israel of committing violations of international law—it sends a message to the bureaucracy that, When you come to me with these facts or legal decisions that I don’t like, there’s going to be debate and dispute over them, and then they will probably be overturned. We’ve been told there’s been robust debate in the State Department about application of laws and policies, but, at the end of the day, the decisions are made at the White House.

And so I think it dissuades policymakers from doing their job of saying, We’re concerned about these credible violations, and we think that under the law we need to cut assistance or under the policy we need to hold this arms transfer. When you have that stated policy of no conditioning, even though there’s literally laws on the books that condition assistance, then you create a culture where you’re not going to get any outcomes that are contrary to the President’s policy.

So it is not just that the White House may have a different opinion than you or I on some specific incident, and whether it violates international law. It’s that the Administration has made clear that conditioning aid based on things like human-rights violations is not something that they’re interested in.

That’s right. And I can give you an example. Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act is the provision that prohibits U.S. security assistance from going to a country that’s prohibiting or otherwise restricting, directly or indirectly, U.S. humanitarian assistance. You can’t send them security assistance if they’re doing this. The law is very straightforward. And obviously we don’t have access to all the facts, but there’s been much reporting from senators and members of Congress who have visited the border and say, Yeah, there are aid restrictions imposed by Israel. This law has not been applied. And I have heard personally from U.S. officials that lawyers in the White House and the State Department are still negotiating how to interpret that law. That, to me, is indicative of the fact that there are efforts to try to find ways in which there can be some kind of interpretation of these laws that will not implicate assistance to Israel. And, again, I think that this comes from the President’s personal policy that there will be no conditioning of aid. So it does frustrate the process and gum up the works when you have such a blanket policy.

The thing that’s so strange about this is the President himself has said that Israel is conducting “indiscriminate” bombing. I am not an I.H.L. expert, but I imagine doing indiscriminate bombing of places full of civilians is itself a violation of international law. And yet, at the same time, the tone from the White House and some of the State Department seems to be: We have no evidence that this could be going on.

Yeah, absolutely. It is a violation of international law, and I think that there have been efforts to kind of correct the President after he said that last year, that there’s been indiscriminate bombing and that it has to stop. But it just indicates that there are issues with respect to Israel’s conduct of operations that are being raised internally in the executive branch, but not to the point of restricting assistance, whether it be via law or policy. I think they’re recognizing that it’s just that their ultimate goal is to continue to provide both offensive and defensive weapons to Israel. And they’ve stated that they will not stop doing that.

Sir Kodiak posted:

For all the new talk in Congress about conditioning future aid to Israel, there are already requirements in the existing laws that place conditions on all military aid to foreign countries that seem like they aren't being followed with regards to Israel. So it would appear that any future conditions would have the same issue: without an enforcement mechanism short of democrats supporting impeachment (which is wildly implausible), it still all comes down to what Biden wants to have happen.

KillHour posted:

This might be more of a USPOL question, but is there a path through the courts to get an injunction?

KillHour posted:

This might be more of a USPOL question, but is there a path through the courts to get an injunction?

quote:

“If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so,” Warren said of the case before the ICJ.

Conspiratiorist posted:

*Liz Warren believes the ICJ ongoing legal procedures will find Israel is committing genocide, but this is not representative of her personal opinion on whether Israel is engaging in genocide.

Rust Martialis posted:

What an odd nitpick. She stated that Israel will be found to have committed genocide by a competent court, *and* that there's plenty of evidence to support the finding.

She might disagree with he definition of genocide under the Convention, or the competence of the ICJ, but otherwise that pretty much "yeah, they did it and there's proof"

quote:

At the mosque, Warren said the focus on the war in Gaza should go beyond a “labels argument.”

“For me, it is far more important to say what Israel is doing is wrong. And it is wrong,” she said. “It is wrong to starve children within a civilian population in order to try to bend to your will. It is wrong to drop 2000-pound bombs, in densely populated civilian areas.”

quote:

A spokesperson for Warren said in a statement to POLITICO Monday that the senator “commented on the ongoing legal process at the International Court of Justice, not sharing her views on whether genocide is occurring in Gaza.”

Irony Be My Shield posted:

2. The IDF is targeting drat near everything that moves without making any kind of checks on what it is. I think this is more likely, as it fits with the IDF's previous killing of 3 hostages attempting to escape and many other strikes in the war.

Szarrukin posted:

Aid workers that were killed by IDF have changed their car twice. There were three drone strikes, each targeted at different car, all three cars were marked as international aid and the route of convoy was known to IDF. There is absolutely no way it was case of "targeting drat near everything that moves".

Sir Kodiak posted:

Yeah, the article also contains this:

And the clarification was from a spokesperson, not Warren herself:

Seems like she's trying to avoid the criticisms and accusations that come with affirmatively using the term "genocide" while also avoiding denying that one is happening. I have to wonder if that's not her being too clever by half with it, but she's the senator so maybe it really is a useful dodge.

punishedkissinger posted:

as an institution, some portion of the leadership wanted to avoid killing those aid workers, but as a society they absolutely wanted them dead

punishedkissinger posted:

as an institution, some portion of the leadership wanted to avoid killing those aid workers, but as a society they absolutely wanted them dead

DeadlyMuffin posted:

quote:

as an institution, some portion of the leadership wanted to avoid killing those aid workers, but as a society they absolutely wanted them dead

Remember the hostages who were shot whole shirtless, waving a white flag, and shouting in Hebrew?

The IDF indiscriminately shooting everything that moves seems like it satisfies Occam's razor a bit better.

DeadlyMuffin posted:

Remember the hostages who were shot whole shirtless, waving a white flag, and shouting in Hebrew?

The IDF indiscriminately shooting everything that moves seems like it satisfies Occam's razor a bit better.

quote:

1. They deliberately went after the convoy in order to discourage future aid to Gaza. The WCK has announced that it's stopped operations following the strike. I do think that starvation has increasingly become a part of Israel's strategy for this war, and this would be a way to do that, although killing foreign aid workers seems like a worst diplomatic cost for them to incur than simply preventing them from entering in the first place. I also don't think Israel would want to spectacularly burn all bridges with an aid organisation when they're trying to push for such organisations to replace UNRWA.

2. The IDF is targeting drat near everything that moves without making any kind of checks on what it is. I think this is more likely, as it fits with the IDF's previous killing of 3 hostages attempting to escape and many other strikes in the war.

BRJurgis posted:

Not trying to attack you, but what's the difference?

quote:

A doctor at the field hospital set up at the Sde Teiman detention center to hold arrested Gazans described conditions that he said could compromise the inmates' health and put the government at risk of violating the law, in a letter sent last week to Israel's defense minister, health minister, and attorney general.

"Just this week, two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event," the physician said in the letter. He said inmates are fed through straws, defecate in diapers, and are held constant restraints, which violate medical ethics and the law.

...

"From the first days of the medical facility's operation until today, I have faced serious ethical dilemmas. More than that, I am writing [this letter] to warn you that the facilities' operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law," the doctor writes.

He stressed that all the patients at the hospital set up at Sde Teiman are handcuffed by all four limbs, regardless of how dangerous they are deemed. They are blindfolded and fed through a straw. "Under these conditions, in practice, even young and healthy patients lose weight after a week or two of hospitalization," the physician said. He added that the hospital doesn't receive regular supplies of medical equipment or medicine.

Unwise_Cashew posted:

*edit* I forgot but for added misery, the acceptable limit for collateral damage is kinda truly staggering, like its fine to kill a whole building to get one guy. I know the US is pretty guilty of being indescrimanate in our targeted killings, but the difference in scale here is really excessive.

quote:

All the sources interviewed for this investigation said that Hamas’ massacres on October 7 and kidnapping of hostages greatly influenced the army’s fire policy and collateral damage degrees. “At first, the atmosphere was painful and vindictive,” said B., who was drafted into the army immediately after October 7, and served in a target operation room. “The rules were very lenient. They took down four buildings when they knew the target was in one of them. It was crazy.

DeadlyMuffin posted:

The difference between "as a society they absolutely wanted them dead" and "IDF is indiscriminately shooting everything that moves" is that the later is a statement about how the military is conducting itself, and the former is a blanket statement about all of Israeli society.

There's good evidence that the IDF is indiscriminately killing. I don't think there's as good evidence that Israeli society as a whole wants to have foreign aid workers very visibly killed, and even many of the shittiest of them could probably see that doing so alienates the US and rest of the world even further.

Maybe I'm wrong and Israeli society is lusting for aid worker blood, if so, I'm sure someone will post it.

Edit

^^^^

I'm just saying I see Irony Be My Shield's #2 as more plausible than #1

not a value-add posted:

The charred bodies of the WCK workers were photographed and those photos were uploaded to yet another Israeli snuff telegram channel. I don’t want to post them here because it’s gore, but the comments are disgusting. I think there is a very high percentage of Israelis that will violently lash out at anything seen as “soft on the Palestinians” and that includes every single aid worker in the area celebrity-affiliated or not. The percent of people in the military with this view is likely even higher.

Speaking from experience, these kinds of gross attitudes are always present in some proportion of your soldiers. If it metastasizes into the leadership you are done. “Shooting anything that moves” is far too charitable and makes it sound like some kind of defensive reflex, a more accurate description is gleeful killing. They wanted those workers dead and they thought they could get away with it.

DeadlyMuffin posted:

The difference between "as a society they absolutely wanted them dead" and "IDF is indiscriminately shooting everything that moves" is that the later is a statement about how the military is conducting itself, and the former is a blanket statement about all of Israeli society.

There's good evidence that the IDF is indiscriminately killing. I don't think there's as good evidence that Israeli society as a whole wants to have foreign aid workers very visibly killed, and even many of the shittiest of them could probably see that doing so alienates the US and rest of the world even further.

Maybe I'm wrong and Israeli society is lusting for aid worker blood, if so, I'm sure someone will post it.

Edit

^^^^

I'm just saying I see Irony Be My Shield's #2 as more plausible than #1

Irony Be My Shield posted:

I'm surprised you think my interpretation is charitable - I am attributing the attack to the IDF being systematically indiscriminate in its targeting, linking this to the incident where they shot 3 of their own escaped hostages. Your interpretation is more damning to the individuals involved, but if your position is that this attack was due to "gross attitudes [that] are always present in some proportion of your soldiers" then that's surely letting the wider culture of the IDF and Israel's political leadership off the hook - it's actually fairly close to the Israeli line that the strike was purely a failing of the officers involved and that all they need to do is punish them.

VitalSigns posted:

It would only let the leadership off the hook if you presumed they didn't share those attitudes, and their genocidal statements suggest that they do.

I have detected a possibility you seem to have overlooked. It's possible that the motivation for killing aid workers is not 'lusting for aid worker death" (a strawman if I've ever seen one, I don't think anyone has claimed Israel has a vendetta against charities for no reason), but rather a pragmatic decision to deter organizations attempting to deliver food to Gaza as part of a strategy to use starvation as a weapon in the siege.

That is, I think, a much more believable potential motivation than "lusting for aid worker blood", no?

SpeakSlow posted:

In an entirely bloodless way, sure. Depends on how you feel about the phrase "gleefully lusting for starving Palestineans.

punishedkissinger posted:

from a purely logical standpoint they shouldn't want to kill those aid workers, but it seems pretty clear from numerous statements that at least a large portion of the top leadership is in full bloodlust mode.

VitalSigns posted:

It would only let the leadership off the hook if you presumed they didn't share those attitudes, and their genocidal statements suggest that they do.

I have detected a possibility you seem to have overlooked. It's possible that the motivation for killing aid workers is not 'lusting for aid worker death" (a strawman* if I've ever seen one, I don't think anyone has claimed Israel has a vendetta against charities for no reason), but rather a pragmatic decision to deter organizations attempting to deliver food to Gaza as part of a strategy to use starvation as a weapon in the siege.

That is, I think, a much more believable potential motivation than "lusting for aid worker blood", no?

E: * unintentional strawman of course, I believe you are engaging in good faith and just making a mistake

Irony Be My Shield posted:

punishedkissinger posted: