Israel/Palestine

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Israel/Palestine

(Thread IKs: Main Paineframe, Irony Be My Shield, punishedkissinger)

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

The US now feels confident that Marwan Issa was killed last week.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68578735
He was the deputy commander of Hamas' military wing, and would be the highest ranking casualty of the war so far. Obviously US intelligence isn't infallible but his death has been rumoured since last week and Hamas has not issued a proof of life or even a denial to counter it yet, so it seems likely.

I don't think this will necessarily affect Hamas' capabilities that much directly (by all accounts they have a flexible command structure) but Hamas no longer being able to protect their senior leadership would be a very bad sign for them.

In other news Trump continues to attack Biden for not being pro-Israel enough, now branding Democratic-voting Jews as disloyal.
https://time.com/6958299/trump-israel-democrats/

quote:

�I actually think they hate Israel,� Trump responded to his former aide, Sebastian Gorka. �I think they hate Israel. And the Democrat party hates Israel.�

Trump, who last week became the Republican Party's presumptive nominee, went on to charge: �Any Jewish person that votes for Democrats hates their religion. They hate everything about Israel and they should be ashamed of themselves because Israel will be destroyed.�

Biden is certainly going to lose votes from people who want him to do more to stop Israel, but there has to be a lot of fear in his camp that appeasing them would result in many pro-Israel Democrats voting for Trump (who has consistently taken an extremely pro-Israel line and pro-Israel policies even for a Republican). It really is an extremely nasty wedge-issue for the Democrats and it's difficult to see a way out for him unless he is able to somehow pull off a deal between two sides that seem to have absolutely no common ground.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2024 13:31

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 21, 2024 03:34

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

I think if Israel were to forcibly move the population of Gaza they'd probably do it using one or more of the four land border crossings they have full control over, rather than the hypothetical much lower capacity makeshift port they do not have control over.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2024 13:36

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

There have been negotiations under which Arab states have offered to fund the rebuilding of Gaza, in exchange for Israel allowing a two-state solution to happen, eg here.
https://jewishinsider.com/2024/03/task-force-arab-states-rebuilding-gaza-jinsa-vandenberg-coalition/
I think this misunderstands Israel's motivations though - they have absolutely zero interest in doing anything that could be regarded as a 'reward' for Palestinians. I suspect they will leave Gaza as a shattered tent city to serve as a reminder.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2024 09:18

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

I don't think that either Hamas nor the PA are intentionally collaborationalist, but both are so woefully incompetent that they nonetheless prove extremely useful to Israel. Netanyahu based his whole approach to Palestine on this fact (which worked great up until Hamas turned out to be even more stupid than anyone could have anticipated).

# ¿ Mar 21, 2024 17:32

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Civilized Fishbot posted:

Was Hamas stupid for doing October 7? Obviously completely calloused to the loss of enemy civilian life, and demonstrating an inhuman comfort with inevitable danger to their own civilians, but that's not at all unique among political parties or armies. And like SMEGMA_MAIL says, Hamas was in serious competition and needed to make a big move to stay in power.

So I think the operation as planned was a rational way to pursue the party's own interests - where it went wrong was for unpredictable reasons: the discovery of the Nova Festival and the IDF's lack of readiness resulted in far more civilian death than planned, including a lot of tourists/dual nationals dying or being kidnapped, laying the ideological foundation for Israel to unleash a total humanitarian catastrophe, either a genocide or a proto-genocide. But I don't think Hamas could have anticipated that on October 6.

Supernova certainly made it a lot worse, but their actual error was strategic - there was obviously a large group of fighters who were instructed to kill as many civilians as possible. If they had decided to do a mission focused on taking hostages instead of mass murder then encountering Supernova would've been a stroke of luck.

Neurolimal posted:

You can't really accomplish this as a guerilla force, because that would require static defensive positions on terrain the enemy is familiar with. Think ISIS; they started really cratering when they attempted to establish a state.

What we're seeing in Gaza right now is effectively what the Viet Cong and the Taliban did; hit-and-run tactics from hidden positions & tunnels, as few "fair fights" as possible. It requires ceding territory in the short term and risks the occupying force doing what they want with the civillians, but it's the only real approach to asymmetrical warfare where you aren't the side funded by the country that can print free money.

Issue being they don't seem to have very much ability to actually 'hit', or indeed anywhere good to 'run' to. By Hamas' own numbers they're taking 25 casualties for every IDF soldier who dies - enormously worse than the insurgencies in Vietnam or Afghanistan, and they're also facing a proportionally much larger force.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2024 21:09

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

The distinction is subtle but important. Wordings that the US has previously rejected would potentially hold Israel at fault if a ceasefire is not reached, while this one supports the idea of a ceasefire in principle but would not hold Israel responsible if/when negotiations fail to produce one.

e: also worth noting that this would theoretically be binding if it passed the security council. The UN obviously has no way to enforce its will on states directly though

# ¿ Mar 22, 2024 15:54

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Your Brain on Hugs posted:

Imagine if it was any other country that was killing tens of thousands of women and children, and it was a republican president in office, giving billions in weapons to that country.

Judging by the Saudi Arabian intervention in Yemen my guess would be very few Americans would know or care about it?

Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Mar 24, 2024

# ¿ Mar 24, 2024 18:39

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

quote:

"And if Israel is not going to implement it, then it is the duty of the Security Council to use Chapter 7 to take measures, and punitive measures, in order to make them obey the resolution of the Security Council."

Chapter 7 of the UN charter allows the Security Council to authorise actions ranging from sanctions to military intervention.

You may have noticed the issue with this - there'd have to be another vetoable Security Council vote to actually decide and implement any measures. This resolution is obviously a strong signal to Israel from the US but it would need to withhold its veto on another vote for there to be any actual consequences.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2024 09:56

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

They can, and indeed already did in December. The results of an emergency session aren't binding however.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2024 13:24

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Sephyr posted:

If Israel ever flips its geopolitical support to Russia or China (astronimically low odds, granted, but stranger things have happened), the US establishment will be dusting off this genocide, Sabra and Chatila, and likely even the USS Liberty incident to call them traitorous vipers.

Otherwise? They can make a giant statue of a merkava tank running over a ziptied civilian (there's a picture I wish I had not seen) in the middle of Jerusalem and they'll still get only praise and more care packages.

Israel was until recently a close partner of Russia, working with it in various theaters such as Syria - their falling out has only happened in the last 6 months or so. Israel's unusual positioning was exposed pretty dramatically at the start of the Ukraine invasion - Israel offered condolences to Ukraine but did not actually condemn Russia, and generally took a far more equivocal line on it than almost all western countries. I wouldn't be surprised if the countries quietly started working together again at some point.

Argas posted:

Do France and Germany have similar motivations as the US for backing Israel?

Germany specifically does not ever want to be seen as going against the Jewish state due to their infamous crime against the Jewish people. Other than that, yeah, I'd say so - some mixture of Israel being a useful strategic ally, Hamas slam-dunking its international reputation into the garbage by performing mass atrocities against civilians, the populace being generally unsympathetic towards radical Islamists due to attacks on their own countries, narratives around Israel being a way for Jews to stand up and prevent genocides from happening to them again etc.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2024 16:25

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

The biggest story that has happened since the thread's closure is Israel's killing by drone strike of 7 aid workers from the World Central Kitchen.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-68710515
This was not a random stray - the strike involved multiple missiles hitting multiple vehicles in the convoy. Given that the IDF specifically sanctioned and was told about the convoy, there are only two real explanations I can see for Israel's actions, both of which are extremely damning:
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.

There has certainly been a chorus of international condemnation, and I think it has been seen as an escalation due to the extraordinarily targeted nature of the attack and the fact that most of the victims were foreign nationals from countries that are largely supportive of Israel. My question is though - have there actually been any international moves towards consequences for Israel? While the rhetoric against them is ever-escalating it still doesn't really seem like Israel's allies are prepared to take direct measures against them. I think that's because they still fundamentally regard the ends for Israel's war as legitimate even as they criticise their means. And if they think their interests are ultimately better served by Israel winning than by a frozen conflict where Hamas continues to stay in power then they're not likely to flip.

team overhead smash posted:

Less sure about the recent announcement that Israel is withdrawing troops from South Gaza: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/07/israel-withdraws-troops-from-southern-gaza-for-tactical-reasons

At a guess I�d say it�s simply to have a breather and recoup (while continuing to bomb plenty of Palestinians) before continuing, but happy to hear anyone else�s more informed guesses.

We've seen similar moves in the past that did not mark the end of Israel's campaign.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/01/middleeast/israel-to-withdraw-some-troops-from-gaza-intl/index.html
That example is interesting since they may have done it to prepare for a possible Hezbollah attack following the killing of al-Arouri. It's possible Israel fears that Hezbollah may make a move again given Israel's extraordinary attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria.

Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Apr 7, 2024

# ¿ Apr 7, 2024 22:13

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

I follow the Guardian live tracker personally. I like the format since it makes some attempt to be comprehensive (I have never felt it was lacking critical information) and is a relatively low time commitment while containing a lot more information than a Twitter account follow would due to the character limit there. If something seems particularly interesting I will generally go and read articles on it. The Al Jazeera and BBC trackers also seem perfectly good for this purpose.

There are some times when it's useful to read Twitter (eg statements from public officials can be statements of position and newsworthy in and of themselves) but I really would not recommend using it as your sole or primary source of news. For example I wouldn't really say there's anything wrong with the Asaf Ronel account recommended above, but if you're just reading that then often all you're really getting is some headlines related to the conflict and a few <280 character takes regarding them. For example, see today's (image for people who don't have Twitter accounts):
https://twitter.com/AsafRonel/status/1777236595751498215

What does this mean, exactly? Is he implying that Israel has actually stopped the slaughter? Has there been some major sanction against Israel that implies this will happen in the future? You'd have to go away and read actual news articles to find out what he's alluding to (if anything) because Twitter is a format far better suited to pithy takes than it is to informing people. You need more information than this to be able to reach your own informed opinion, especially in a conflict like this where virtually all on-the-ground journalists have been forced out and you often only have information from clearly interested parties.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 15:04

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

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".

Could you please provide some kind of argument linking the facts you're presenting to your conclusion, and also be more specific about what you think it was a case of? I already cited largely the same information in my post and used it to narrow it down to two cases that seemed plausible to me, and explained why I thought the second was more likely than the first.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2024 23:06

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

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.

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.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2024 09:02

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Israel's (and I mean that both in the sense of their political leadership and the prevailing sentiment among Israelis) first priority is not and never has been to rescue the hostages. They want to obliterate Hamas and brutalize Gaza as revenge and to make an example. Killing hostages is if anything a bonus for them since it reduces Hamas' leverage in ceasefire negotiations. Concern for their countrymen is a far, far weaker motivation

VitalSigns posted:

Yeah I was specifically addressing that as a motivation for the attack, sorry if that wasn't clear.

Israeli society probably does want them dead (ever heard of the pancake parties for Rachel Corrie?), but i think that probably does not have as much effect on military decisions as strategic factors (I mean it probably does influence the reasoning somewhat, but I think they are primarily concerned with their war objectives).

My point was that there are more possibilities than "Israel did it because they want aid workers to die" and "the IIDF was just shooting at anything that moves without intent to kill these specific people". It's not as simple as scoffing at the former and concluding the latter must be more plausible by process of elimination

That's fair - there is some more nuance I didn't account for in my assessment.

Yawgmoft posted:

Nah, that can't be right. I have it on good authority that Israel's civilian to evil terrorist kill ratio is between 4 and 2 to 1, so there's no way they could be killing a whole family of people to kill just one guy, let alone a block.

Also please do not compare and contrast that number that Israel says is fine to the ratio on October 7th.

Hamas reported 6000 deaths back in February, which would put the ratio at 4:1 (there were 30,000 total deaths reported by the Health Ministry at that point). That absolutely doesn't exclude Israel engaging in massively indiscriminate bombing as well though - if they successfully hit a Hamas base and kill 20 members that doesn't somehow make it ok for them to go and kill 80 civilians in a tower block (and with almost all of the buildings in the North and Khan Younis destroyed there's little doubt this is happening).

# ¿ Apr 10, 2024 14:28

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Darth Walrus posted:

https://x.com/snarwani/status/1778464074499526972?s=46&t=ARI_L-v32Oind1-d9B3a3Q

Houthis got offered extremely generous concessions by the US in return for assuming a neutral stance on Gaza, replied with 'lol, nope'. Implies the pressure they're applying is working, given the stuff America was prepared to give them to stop was hardly cheap.

This whole article is based on uncritically believing the words of "Informed Yemeni sources". This is very weak - I don't doubt that there are ongoing diplomatic efforts but the Houthis have an obvious incentive to exaggerate the concessions they are being offered to make their position appear stronger.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2024 13:59

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

cr0y posted:

Is this the thread for the Iran news or is there a better place for that?

Other fronts Israel is or could be fighting on and potential escalation is important context for the Israel/Palestine conflict, so that news would be appropriate to post here. That said debates which go deeper into those other actors in ways that is not directly related to the I/P conflict (eg debates about the morality of the Houthi's current naval campaign) would be better suited to the Middle East thread.
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3839774

Stringent posted:

"Informed Israeli sources" were plenty to spread the 40 beheaded babies and rape stories, why balk at this now?

Leaving aside your misrepresentation of the evidence and reporting surrounding October 7th, what exactly is your argument here? That because Israel is dishonest somehow that means we should uncritically believe what any other actor says?

# ¿ Apr 12, 2024 14:57

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Charliegrs posted:

Iran attacking Israel from their own territory is a pretty bold move and has never happened before. It's pretty bad because Israel might retaliate and attack Iran somehow.

Yeah - they did in fact vow to do so previously. Not sure if there's a mechanism for de-escalation at this point,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/13/israel-under-fire-as-iran-launches-extensive-drone-strikes
Looks like Netanyahu might get the war with Iran he's craved for years. The obvious questions now is what Israel's response will be and to what extent the US is prepared to get involved (Biden has re-iterated his support but there's a big difference between just helping to intercept Iranian attacks and actually prosecuting the war on Israel's behalf).

Dandywalken posted:

Did the missiles land yet?

Some of them have, apparently, yeah - explosions reported over Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Dimona.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2024 00:50

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Iran absolutely did have a right to respond, but a direct attack on Israel proper is an escalation that puts us in uncharted territory. It's likely to lead to at the very least a strike in kind from Israel, which dramatically increases the chance of a full war.

99pct of germs posted:

These article are farcical at this point. "Biden officials behind the scenes are big peeved this time about Israel's latest deranged action". When's the next multi-billion dollar arms transfer coming?

There's a difference between continuing to sell arms and actively assisting/leading a counterattack on Iran. It's good to hear that Biden is not prepared to do the latter, although if the situation seriously escalates I could imagine that changing.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2024 15:20

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Either an attack on Israeli assets abroad or a response delivered via its proxies (Hezbollah, the Houthis, etc), similar to how it has responded to US strikes, would've been less likely to lead to a direct confrontation with Israel, yeah. Although I can't imagine an attack on Jordan would be a good idea given that it would significantly help Israel in its efforts to build a regional alliance against Iran.

e: the one saving grace is that the vast majority of the attack was intercepted, and it seems to have only ended up doing minimal damage, so while Israel will certainly want to respond on principal the attack probably hasn't triggered the same level of psychotic bloodlust that October 7th unleashed

Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 16:27 on Apr 14, 2024

# ¿ Apr 14, 2024 16:16

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

apatheticman posted:

Pretending international law isn't just a post-hoc justification for those who have the military power to get their way is a fine way to carry on an internet debate, but it's by no means a reflection of reality.

apatheticman posted:

Realizing we're just doing imperialism with more steps?

apatheticman posted:

Avoiding the "but the rules say" circular arguments that tend to clog up these discussions.

I find this line of argumentation completely baffling, and you should develop it by clearly explaining what your conclusion is and how you arrived at it. Like if it weren't for your post history I would actually assume this is a pro-Israel argument, as much of the case against their campaign (paritcularly recently in this thread) is based around them breaching international laws such as IHL (eg attacking hospitals), the genocide convention or generally held norms around not attacking embassies, and with no other context to go on this appears to be a rebuttal to that (a sortof "might makes right, Israel should be able to do whatever it wants since no-one can stop it" angle). Maybe you think that those international laws are good in principle but that in practice they are selectively enforced in a way that is harmful?

# ¿ Apr 15, 2024 22:51

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Nail Rat posted:

Even if there's a pier, it's likely to mostly be used for "voluntary" relocations of gazans to the sinai.

Also even if it was used for aid, even if Israel didn't bomb it or block it, they'd bomb the aid trucks that pick up from it at some point before they get to people that need it, as is their way.

If Egypt for some reason allows or is unable to stop Israel from forcibly moving Gazans into Sinai then Israel would do so via Kerem Shalom. Sending people through the land border with Egypt that Israel already has full control over would be hugely more practical than trying to use a makeshift temporary pier.

Piell posted:

Did you know that Israel will control security for the land side of the pier, thus giving them the ability to block it whenever they want?

They can, but one key difference is that right-wing activists wouldn't be able to blockade it in the same way they've been doing with Kerem Shalom - Israel would have to explicitly make the decision to block aid itself, rather than trying to wash its hands of it by blaming the protesters. That would be a greater political cost.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 16:50

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

I think the Iran attack has taken a lot of heat off Israel - the chorus of condemnation from the WCK killings has been replaced by solidarity from its allies. Israel is likely to start framing the Gaza campaign as part of its "shadow war" against Iran, with destroying Hamas being critical to its national security to avoid having a thorn in its side if Iran decides to launch a full attack. And given that Israel could decide to start a fullscale war with Iran at any times it may be that its allies would rather appease it by allowing it to continue into Rafah without the arms embargoes and other consequences that were previously being threatened.

They have vowed to make a a response, but given the lack of damage caused by the attack it they choose to wait until after they've finished attacking Gaza and the US president has been replaced with someone who takes a harder line against Iran.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 19:12

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

As I understand it the UN already recognises Palestine as a state, since it's status is 'non-member observer state'. This vote is about whether to admit it as a full member of the UN. Notably this would allow Palestine to vote and bring cases before the ICJ.

Barrel Cactaur posted:

De facto: The requirements are a permanent territory, a permanent population, a government that nominally has authority over that territorial claim, and that that government can conduct international affairs. Note that the government being recognized doesn't need firm or exclusive control of its whole territory claim, though at least some portion must be under it's control (Gaza is not a stumbling block, even if interested parties would claim otherwise, and the settlements are a solvable issue as most states consider them non legitimate claims) states have been admitted while in civil wars, so neither is the existence of Hamas. The lack of recent elections has never mattered. The population is not just passing through. The government of the West bank already conducts international relations, and could assert more control over the territory. Israel's only choices would be war, or capitulation. Additionally being an independent state makes it way simpler for other parties to legally intervene, even if practicaly non of them actually would

I mean there's a strong argument to be made that no portion of Palestine is actually under the PA's control - Israel can just rock up and arrest, evict or otherwise brutalize Palestinians wherever it pleases in the West Bank. I suppose it is possible that the PA "could assert more control over the territory", but I don't see what relevance that has to Palestine's current de facto status as a state, or indeed why Israel might choose to 'capitulate' when it could instead revoke what limitated recognition it has granted the PA and put their members in jail alongside so many other Palestinian political prisoners.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2024 18:31

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Fortunately it seems like Iran is in fact backing down.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-missiles-hit-site-iran-abc-news-reports-2024-04-19/

cagliostr0 posted:

So yesterday when it was reported that the white house had reached a deal to allow the idf to invade Rafah on the proviso they didn't attack Iran, effectively saying if you are a good boy and don't start world war 3 you can continue your genocide, presumably this agreement is now void and it should be expected the USA should act in accordance with the requirements of the convention for the prevention of genocide?

Any reasonable person knows the USA will continue enabling Israel so what argument is there that American targets aren't legitimate as part of resolving the current conflict?

Edit: This makes the Rafah deal that was reported even more ludicrous

https://x.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1781149557306401272

I think it's possible this is part of the deal - Israel gets to save face by being seen to respond, but the response is small enough that Iran can let it slide.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 10:35

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

suck my woke dick posted:

Which country would want to bomb Iraq right now though?

The better question is "Which country would want to bomb Iranian-backed militias right now?". The obvious answer would be Israel, especially given that they seem to have been talked out of making a significant attack on Iran itself. The US isn't a ridiculous proposition as they did exchange strikes with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq (which as I understand it is heavily linked to the PMF) back in February:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/2/us-launches-strikes-in-response-to-attack-that-killed-troops-in-jordan
But my understanding was that they did in fact stop targeting US troops after this, so unless there's some fresh provocation I'm unaware of the US probably wouldn't want to go poking a group that is currently "behaving".

Irony Be My Shield fucked around with this message at 14:01 on Apr 20, 2024

# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 13:59

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Jaxyon posted:

Why is this probated if nobody in American media is in fact covering that photo?

That didn't seem like the intention of the post given that it did not in any way acknowledge that multiple articles on the subject already existed and covered similar claims. If we are reading it that way though it seems unfair to single out "American media" given that non-western outlets like Al Jazeera and The Cradle have also not covered that specific photo from Twitter.

punishedkissinger posted:

also the user was clearly conversing in good faith as you can see from their responses to examples being brought up downthread. very bad shoot.

I assume you're talking about the hadji murad probation, given that Nucleic Acids has not made any more posts since. I agree that the post was made in good faith, but when it's something as cut and dry as this I would encourage posters to take the 5 seconds to verify their premise rather than making an argument based on an assumption that is entirely untrue.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2024 20:02

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

If you are unsatisfied with that decision I would suggest either contacting a D&D mod about it or making a thread in Something Awful Discussion. It is off-topic for this thread which is for discussion of the Israel-Palestine conflict rather than Something Awful moderation policies.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2024 20:49

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Marenghi posted:

Weird they can't verify his claims when there's very obvious photographic evidence confirming it.

They would probably want to establish the source of the photo or otherwise cross-check it before reporting on it - there have been plenty of Twitter photos that have proven to be unreliable. Al Jazeera has also not picked it up yet - it will be worth watching to see if they do, as they have on-the-ground reporters who can examine the evidence for themselves.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2024 22:00

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

VitalSigns posted:

I don't see what any of that has to do with I/P

Yes people can feel however they want, if you feel a connection to Ireland because your family had roots there and you keep in touch with extended family from there, that's your right. It's also your right to feel a deep connection to Ireland because you're an Irelaboo who just became enamored with it on your own.

So what, that has nothing to do with current events in Israel, a country that is acting on it with violence. It's practically a nothing statement. People can't tell each other not to feel a certain way. Okay so?

I agree - the present day conflict is far less related to the legitimacy of the establishment of Israel in 1948 than it is about Israel continuing to occupy, annex and commit abuses on land it captured in 1967. Israel supporters (not that I'm accusing anyone in the current discussion of secretly being one) would much rather have a debate on whether there should be a Jewish state in the abstract or the practicalities of whether Israel should continue to exist, rather than have to defend its specific actions in Palestine which are almost completely indefensible.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 08:51

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

The video is far too indistinct to really serve as compelling evidence, but Euromed Monitor did gather some testimonies reporting incidents like this:
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/artic...e-Nuseirat-camp
With that said I honestly don't find it likely, and most of the testimony in this article is not particularly conclusive - just because a witness couldn't find the source of a sound while under fire at night doesn't mean the sound had to be coming from a quadcopter.

If these are Lanius drones (which Israel has been widely reported to use) I can't find any evidence that they're equipped with any kind of loudspeaker - those drones are intended for scouting and killing people, not for communication. It's completely possible that Israel has some other model of drone that's equipped with a loudspeaker to issue warnings, confuse enemies or engage in psychological warfare, but I find it hard to believe that they're engaging in this kind of deception purely because it seems like it would be pretty obvious if a voice is a recording being broadcast through a loudspeaker high in the air as opposed to a genuine event happening on the ground. See this video for an example of a drone-mounted loudspeaker - I don't think anyone hearing this would mistake this for a non-recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03-FiDj2bXw
With that said, if someone has a source that demonstrates that Israeli drones can come equipped with speakers (particularly very high quality ones) this story would become more believable.

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 15:05

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

Marenghi posted:

Why can't they find any native Israeli spokespeople?
It's always emigres from the US, UK, Australia, or people who fled Rhodesia and Apartheid Africa.

I assume they'd prefer recent expats since they can speak the language and theoretically sell the idea that Israelis are 'just like you' to their respective nations. Although I think in practice the kind of person who would leave a safe country for Israel (and volunteer as a spokesperson) tends to come off as pretty weird

# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 13:57

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

The US support for Israel is certainly more political (a President who is seen to desert Israel would almost certainly lose an election) and strategic (it has been a long-term US ally in a region with few of them) than it is economic. Honestly I suspect that even if public opinion stops being significantly in favour of Israel that may not be enough - there are plenty of horrible dictatorships that aren't particularly popular with the public that the US supports for purely strategic reasons.

Demiurge4 posted:

Honestly think it would be very interesting to see the court case against Hamas officials in the Hague. What they can pin on them, what they'll confess to and how much of it is going to be various shades of "shot rockets at Israel".

Edit: As far as optics go, a public trial in this atmosphere could potentially rehabilitate Hamas in the public eye because it's an opportunity to communicate their goals and methods in a setting that can't be ignored.

Probably civilian hostage taking - it's a completely uncontroversial point of fact that Hamas is engaged in it (and that the leadership is involved) and there's no defense for it under IHL. With that said it seems unlikely there could be any actual trial since if Israel captures any Gazan Hamas leaders it will want to deal with them itself, and Qatar doesn't recognise the ICC so the political leaders are also safe.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:52

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

As I understand it most of the food delivered will be energy-dense products such as flour, which provides somewhere in the region of 1500 calories per pound once prepared (I'm basing this off a factsheet that puts it at 3-3.5 calories per gram). At that rate and the numbers cited above the pier theoretically could meet Gaza's food need, although I suspect the security and logistical challenges would be too great for it to be feasible in practice even assuming no direct interference from Israel.

# ¿ May 1, 2024 00:35

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

The article mawarannahr quoted above includes a quotation from Hamas that implicitly threatens to attack whoever is manning the pier, and provides their reasoning for doing so:

quote:

Al-Hayya also implicitly threatened that Hamas would attack Israeli or other forces who might be stationed around a floating pier the US is scrambling to build along Gaza’s coastline to deliver aid by sea.

“We categorically reject any non-Palestinian presence in Gaza, whether at sea or on land, and we will deal with any military force present in these places, Israeli or otherwise … as an occupying power,” he said.

Although even if you got Hamas on-board with the pier I'm not convinced they still have the control required to keep other groups in Gaza from attacking it. US troops will likely always be regarded as a prestigious target by local forces.

# ¿ May 2, 2024 14:24

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

The problem is that while the Democrats are split on the issue, the Republicans are overwhelmingly in favour of Israel. Their candidate also has a track-record of exceptionally pro-Israel actions (eg the unprecedented recognition of Israeli land seizures in Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) and is heavily favoured by Israeli politicians. Continuing to support Israel will certainly cause some people to not vote for Biden on principal, but ultimately those voters don't really have anywhere better to go. Meanwhile the pro-Israel Democrats can and will defect to the Republicans if Biden makes a significant break with Israel.

# ¿ May 3, 2024 11:07

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

VitalSigns posted:

The bolded is not strictly true. It would be if everyone were frog-marched to the polls and forced to stand on hot coals until they vote for one of only two parties. In reality, they have other options which can be more appealing to them: they can vote for a third party, they can dejectedly stay home, they can reluctantly vote Blue but not volunteer or encourage others to vote. You can disagree that any of those choices are "better" from your perspective, but ultimately it's them making the choice not you.

We've seen this miscalculation happen before:
Since Republicans make no bones about being pro-Wall Street, our candidate can give paid speeches to Goldman-Sachs. People who don't like that ultimately don't have anywhere better to go.

Since Republicans are proud racists, we can pick a candidate who calls black people Superpredators, has a long history of mass incarceration, used black slavor labor to do her laundry in the Arkansas governor's mansion, and jokes about "CP time" on the campaign trail in 2016 () Black people ultimately have nowhere better to go.

Since Nixon wants to double down harder on the war, we can keep escalating the Vietnam War ourselves and beat the poo poo out of anti-war protestors. They have nowhere better to go.

Doesn't always work out how you think.

I explicitly stated in my post that Biden's course "will certainly cause some people to not vote for Biden on principal" (whether that results in them voting 3rd party or not voting at all). I am aware that the current situation will cause harm for Biden, it just seems clear that the alternative is worse because in that scenario the (roughly equal number of) pro-Israel Democrats aren't just having to make a call on whether they should abstain on principal, but rather whether they should vote for a candidate who much better represents their views. Not only do they have a far stronger reason to defect, but each defection is twice as painful because they will be voting for the other guy rather than not voting.

# ¿ May 3, 2024 17:10

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

If Nelson Mandela had hypothetically, instead of running an overwhelmingly peaceful campaign that killed fewer than 100 people over several decades, ordered his group to massacre hundreds of civilians at a music festival in a single weekend, that would be worthy of condemnation. I'd suggest he also probably would not have succeeded, at least in the way he did via a political settlement.

If Gabčík and Kubiš had decided to abandon their mission to kill a critical Nazi officer who was a principal architect of the Holocaust, and instead decided to just go house to house killing every civilian they could get their hands on, that would be worthy of condemnation. It also would not have in any way contributed to the war effort against the Nazis.

And so on. These examples only demonstrate that there are ways to violently resist that are not killing as many civilians as you can. Provoking a crackdown can be a legitimate strategy, but if your initial provocation is itself already unimaginably morally heinous then it is unlikely to change many minds or achieve anything other than massive civilian suffering on both sides. The same countries that traditionally support Israel are still supporting Israel. The same countries that usually condemn Israel but perform no concrete action against them are condemning Israel but doing nothing concrete to help. The brulality of Israel's response is not surprising to anyone (other than Hamas, apparently), and therefore has not prompted any significant re-evaluation of support.

# ¿ May 4, 2024 09:57

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

It's true that some friendly fire occured, but the idea that it was most or all of the victims is completely ludicrous. For example, Al-Jazeera's investigation (which went against many more lurid claims from Western media) still found:
https://network.aljazeera.net/en/press-releases/%E2%80%9Coctober-7%E2%80%9D

quote:

widespread human rights abuses by Hamas fighters and others, including the killing of 782 Israelis and foreign nationals.

Proving that it was ordered is slightly harder, although I'd suggest the idea that Hamas and affiliated fighters could kill such a huge number of people accidentally or spontaneously is ludicrous on its face. More than that though, if your position is that Hamas unintentionally allowed its fighters or affiliated groups to kill 782 civilians then October 7th should surely be presented not as some heroic act of resistance but a catastrophic fuckup of historic proportions. In that scenario Hamas should have been apologising for it profusely and making assurances it would never happen again rather than celebrating its success and promising to repeat it. Statements like these amounted to full endorsement even if we decide to believe the implausible narrative that the decision to commit the massacre was purely made by the fighters on the ground rather than the leadership.
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news...9b-ebdfbee90000

# ¿ May 4, 2024 11:28

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 21, 2024 03:34

Irony Be My Shield: Jul 29, 2012

In this case the aid was passing through the West Bank on its way to Gaza (from Jordan) and it was actually settlers.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/13/total-outrage-white-house-condemns-israeli-settlers-attack-on-gaza-aid-convoy

# ¿ May 14, 2024 00:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Israel/Palestine

«‹›9 »