Palestinians starve as Israel continues full ban on humanitarian aid
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Understandable, yes.
Predictable, yes.
Deserved, yes.
Effective, perhaps.
Excusable? No.
Are we really debating whether it’s okay to rape / kidnap / slaughter civilians?
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On Wednesday, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said in its latest update that Israel’s ban on entry of aid has continued for nearly a month and that no aid entered the enclave throughout this period. All requests by humanitarian agencies to coordinate access with Israeli authorities have been denied.
Helles recalled when the blockade was imposed. The shops were empty within hours, and what was left was too expensive, she said. Even the charity distributions, which once offered a variety of meals, have dwindled, now providing only small servings of rice at the time of Iftar.
After days of eating little more than rice, Huda couldn’t sleep at night, suffering from severe stomach pain and colic. She was diagnosed with a stomach infection two weeks ago.
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Hamas did not rape any civilians. This is recently been fully debunked. The Israeli october 7 investigator said there was no evidence of any rape happening.
Any rape at all? I thought they'd only confirmed that no mass rape happened? If I'm misremembering that's great.
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Any rape at all? I thought they'd only confirmed that no mass rape happened? If I'm misremembering that's great.
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Months? More like decades. We're at more than half a century of this shit by now.
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Fuck off with that hamas bullshit. Hamas exists because the secular palestinians agreed to a ceasefire in exchange for self-determination. Instead of freedom, they got area C, colonies and settler violence. They are the only one defending people from a genocide. Hamas are the good guys.
Hamas are the good guys.
In the fight against Israel. Let's not forget that they're still a brutal authoritarian regime that must go immediately after someone does something about Israel.
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Absolute zero. Everything was made up.
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Hamas are the good guys.
In the fight against Israel. Let's not forget that they're still a brutal authoritarian regime that must go immediately after someone does something about Israel.
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Months? More like decades. We're at more than half a century of this shit by now.
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I'd like to see you try to organize elections while bombs are falling from the sky and you don't even have food or drinking water lmao
Okay dude that's not what happened. If you want the end of Palestinian democracy you should be looking at the Gaza civil war, and while it was Fatah who moved to override the democratic process Hamas jumped at the opportunity to turn their government into an autocratic regime. There was no reason they couldn't hold elections in times of relative peace, or respect freedom of speech or do all that other democracy things.
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Okay dude that's not what happened. If you want the end of Palestinian democracy you should be looking at the Gaza civil war, and while it was Fatah who moved to override the democratic process Hamas jumped at the opportunity to turn their government into an autocratic regime. There was no reason they couldn't hold elections in times of relative peace, or respect freedom of speech or do all that other democracy things.
Fatah engaged in a coup, locking up elected officials. It succeeded in West Bank and failed in Gaa. Why should those remaining officials reconcile with the people who did that coup and openly took aid from Israel to topple that democracy?
There were attempts to unify and move forward, but this is a thorny issue because they don’t trust one another. Meanwhile, Netanyahu took advantage of the division to steal more land and refuse peace negotiations .
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Armed struggle != war crimes. One does not justify the other. The October attacks were like 5% achieving military objectives, the rest mindless slaughter, to the point where one can legitimately question whether the military objectives were not completely incidental. Hamas could have bee-lined for as many IDF outposts as they could, they didn't, they shot up Hippie Kibbutzim of all places.
Same, of course, goes for the IDF and what they're currently doing.
No. The attacks were originally aimed at a military base; they had no idea that a music festival was going on. The death count is roughly 300 soldiers dead and 900 civilians. By Israel’s own logic, this ratio of civilian deaths is acceptable in war. (I disagree which is why it’s wrong for both sides) Hamas claimed they were taking enemy fire from these locations, and by Israeli logic it meant that these Kibbutzim were now legitimate military targets. (Again, Israel has done this to Arab towns using the same rationale). Israel doesn’t like hoisted on their own petard.
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May be the case, we'll probably see when the dust has settled. OTOH, it's still a war crime to abduct non-combatants so my point stands. And no, reservists aren't combatants.
it's still a war crime to abduct non-combatants
And yet Israel has kidnapped thousands of Palestinian children and holding them without access to lawyers or contact by their families.
There needs to be war crimes investigations and charges against both sides, and yet the US is sanctioning the international bodies that adjudicate this.
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Understandable, yes.
Predictable, yes.
Deserved, yes.
Effective, perhaps.
Excusable? No.
Are we really debating whether it’s okay to rape / kidnap / slaughter civilians?
Read this New Yorker interview of a Hamas leader. Palestinians tried everything the “right” way. They engaged in nonviolent protest and were shot by the IDF. They went to the UN and Israel called it “diplomatic terrorism” and sanctioned the PA. They offered deep concessions to move forward on a two state solution and Netanyahu refused with no counter offer. They called for new elections and were blocked. There was really no way to left to resist Israel peacefully.
“We rolled down all of the pathways to get some of our rights—not all of them. We knocked on the door of reconciliation and we weren’t allowed in. We knocked on the door of elections and we were deprived of them. We knocked on the door of a political document for the whole world—we said, ‘We want peace, but give us some of our rights’—but they didn’t let us in.” He added, “We tried every path. We didn’t find one political path to take us out of this morass and free us from occupation.”
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May be the case, we'll probably see when the dust has settled. OTOH, it's still a war crime to abduct non-combatants so my point stands. And no, reservists aren't combatants.
Israel doesn't give a fuck about any of its people, whether they're civilians or soldiers. There'd be no difference if the kidnapped were all soldiers.
Also the thing about international law is it has to apply to everyone or it doesn't exist. Israel, by not following internatonal law, has forfeited its protections. Hamas simply followed the same rules of war that Israel does.
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Israel doesn't give a fuck about any of its people, whether they're civilians or soldiers. There'd be no difference if the kidnapped were all soldiers.
Also the thing about international law is it has to apply to everyone or it doesn't exist. Israel, by not following internatonal law, has forfeited its protections. Hamas simply followed the same rules of war that Israel does.
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On Wednesday, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said in its latest update that Israel’s ban on entry of aid has continued for nearly a month and that no aid entered the enclave throughout this period. All requests by humanitarian agencies to coordinate access with Israeli authorities have been denied.
Helles recalled when the blockade was imposed. The shops were empty within hours, and what was left was too expensive, she said. Even the charity distributions, which once offered a variety of meals, have dwindled, now providing only small servings of rice at the time of Iftar.
After days of eating little more than rice, Huda couldn’t sleep at night, suffering from severe stomach pain and colic. She was diagnosed with a stomach infection two weeks ago.
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After seeing how Hamas is torturing and executing Palestinians who protest against them, while Israel is bad they may as well share responsibility for this most recent conflict.
Damn the IDF is executing Palestinians who protest against them?
Oh wait they did that in 2017 in broad daylight.
If only there was any evidence for Hamas doing it. The 4k projector must be on again.
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Read this New Yorker interview of a Hamas leader. Palestinians tried everything the “right” way. They engaged in nonviolent protest and were shot by the IDF. They went to the UN and Israel called it “diplomatic terrorism” and sanctioned the PA. They offered deep concessions to move forward on a two state solution and Netanyahu refused with no counter offer. They called for new elections and were blocked. There was really no way to left to resist Israel peacefully.
“We rolled down all of the pathways to get some of our rights—not all of them. We knocked on the door of reconciliation and we weren’t allowed in. We knocked on the door of elections and we were deprived of them. We knocked on the door of a political document for the whole world—we said, ‘We want peace, but give us some of our rights’—but they didn’t let us in.” He added, “We tried every path. We didn’t find one political path to take us out of this morass and free us from occupation.”
Palestinians tried everything the “right” way.
I’m well aware - have been following this conflict for 40 years, generally siding with the Palestinians. I will say however that no one has done such a clean job of “trying it the right way” as you make out here. It’s been far more morally grey from the start.
But let’s accept your point and the language you’re establishing here. They tried everything the right way. Now they’re trying everything the wrong way. It’s like I said: they stopped waiting for the world’s moral outrage to save them, went it alone, and have played it as dirty as they think they need to. Understandable. Predictable.
They don’t need me to think it’s excusable, and it happens that I don’t. They’ve discarded any hope of moral rectitude and are simply trying to win the fight in practical terms by whatever means available. They’re not trying to be right, they’re trying to be effective - to control land, repel Israel, and help Palestinians.
How would you say they’re doing?
Instead of quibbling over whether suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism are orally excusable, judge them by their effectiveness on behalf of the Palestinians.
It’s hard to say what their condition would be without the suicide bombings, rocket attacks, and hostage takings over the last 20 years since the second intifada. No one knows what would have happened in an alternate reality where they continued doing things “the right way.”
But from what I see, “the wrong way” is not only wrong but ineffective. The October attacks have succeeded at the impossible: restoring Israel’s moral standing in the eyes of the world. If the west were silently complicit before, they are actively and vociferously complicit now. Gaza is nearly sanitized of all life. There isn’t even a bargaining table at which to give everything away at. Palestinians are being erased from existence.
So maybe, just maybe, on “effectiveness” grounds, these tactics are a practical failure as much as they are a moral evil.
