At this point the mask is completely off. For the last few years (and beyond) we've been hearing all the excuses such as:
"Well war is hell and we do our best to not target non-militants".
"Every child killed is a tragedy and definitely not our fault".
"They were used as human shields".
"Here's a spreadsheet with a name on it!".
"No really they were hiding in the hospitals, schools and under the bridges".
"..."
The mask is completely off, at least that we have.
Exactly. Let's do our "business as usual" thing but throw some flavour into the mix. Such a shame for her and the other thousands killed in Lebanon at the whim of Bibi Netanyahu and his cronies.
These where clan militias fighting for a headstanrt in the proxxy civil war to come. There is no iraq. Its a iranian proxxy with a sunni province and a basically split of kurdish region. That "nation" never existed except in western maps and heads. Those "freedom fighters" where the basis for isis and the iranian militias. None where patriots, just in it for the family wearing the state as skinsuit. They thoroughly disproved all neoliberal cultural ideals about universal nneeds and wants.
If we follow your logic, then I'd argue that similarly, there's no countries in the world. In particular, there's no United States, it's land colonized by Europeans who came to that land and slaughtered its indigenous people and claimed it for themselves.
The western culture forms meta families. We ostracize the sexual others like everyone else, but they form a nation wide "meta" family that connects everyone to everyone, allowing for the traditional clan family to flap open and dissappear with only nuclear families remaining. Oh and they form a ruling caste with working institutions. Western societies are one huge artifical clan.
Yes, for the sole reason that it's just a label assigned by an invading enemy government.
The problem is that the label is used in media to assign moral judgement, when it's just a political proscription that is typically assigned for entirely geopolitical reasons. Almost every country occupying a foreign territory, or is engaged in war with a group, or even another country, calls military action of the other side terrorism.
It doesn't mean anything. If it is to carry a moral judgement, it needs to be based on universally applied principles. It takes 5 seconds of thinking to see that it's absolutely not based on universally applied principles.
Terrorists specifically target civilian or government targets to make a statement or a demand. Those Iraqis were targeting American soldiers. The term doesn't apply here, no matter how badly the occupier wants to impose it on those defending their country.
The Hannibal Directive - the IDF's infamous "murder-suicide" pact, where in Israel's polity can take a decision to sacrifice their own civilians and soldiers to prevent them from being taken hostage by their enemies. In fact, it is now slowly being revealed that many of the so-called Hamas "savagery" that were hyped up by Israel and the western media about the killed civilians and soldiers were actually the result of Netanyahu government ordering the IDF to shoot, bomb and kill their own people and due to orders to disregard Israeli lives when attacking the Hamas militia:
- Israel expanded the use of its murderous “Hannibal Directive” – designed to prevent soldiers from being taken alive as prisoners of war – by killing many of its own civilians.
- The use of such “Hannibal” strikes are confirmed in a UN report published in June.
- Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately undertaken in order to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who could be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
- At the initiative of the local Gaza Division, “Hannibal” was carried out right away: less than an hour after the Palestinian offensive began. “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza,” the division was ordered at 11:22 am.
- By midday, an unambiguous order was given from the high command of the Israeli military (the so-called “Pit” headquarters, deep under Israel’s Hakirya building in downtown Tel Aviv) to invoke the Hannibal Directive throughout the entire region, “even if this means the endangerment or harming of the lives of civilians in the region, including the captives themselves.”
- Israel has been engaged in an aggressive cover-up of its crimes against its own people.
- “Every day in captivity was very hard,” one former detainee said at the angry meeting. “I was in a house when there were bombardments all around. We were sitting in tunnels and we were very afraid that, not Hamas, but Israel would kill us, and then they’ll say: ‘Hamas killed you.’” Another released detainee said: “The fact is that I was in a hideaway that was bombed, and we had to be smuggled away, and we were injured. Not to mention that we were shot at by a helicopter when we were on our way to Gaza … You are bombing the tunnel routes exactly in the area where they [the other captives] are.”
Think about the irony in that - Hamas wanted to keep, and did more, to keep the Israeli hostages alive than their own government or the IDF! (This is what happens when wacko religious fundamentalists run a country).
The HRC report does not say this: "227. The Commission verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases,
Israeli Security Forces counter-offensive actions resulted in harm to and the killing of Israeli civilians and, in one of the cases, the actions were undertaken with clear knowledge of this risk. According to the Commission’s investigation, in these two
cases at least 14 Israeli civilians were likely killed as a result of Israeli Security Forces fire: one woman was killed by helicopter fire while being taken from kibbutz Nir Oz to Gaza by militants78 and the other 13 were likely killed by tank shelling and crossfire in kibbutz Be’eri."
The Hannibal Directive is supposed to prevent kidnappings, in a similar vein as "the US does not negotiate with terrorists". Say what you want about it, but it's not borne from Israel's callousness towards its own people, it's borne from facing truly monstrous enemies.
Finally, and I know the odds of this succeeding are real low, I implore you to do what you can to get out of what seems like a Marxist/Leninist Israel/Palestine absolutist hole you're in. I don't know you or your background, and I don't know if my read here is correct. But sourcing "electronicintifada" and "wsws" (straight up propaganda outlet and ML rag) or claiming elsewhere that Biden/Democrats would have supported Israel's attack on Iran (not even Israel thinks this, and the evidence is they didn't do it under Biden) gives me some pretty clear signals. I want to be clear: these people are nuts. MLs are nuts. Pro-Pali antisemites are nuts. (Again if I'm right) you're in the equivalent of thinking ivermectin will get you laid right now, completely off the deep end. Timothy Leary said it best: think for yourself, question authority. Don't be a useful idiot for these evil people.
> The use of such “Hannibal” strikes are confirmed in a UN report published in June. - Fire from Israeli helicopters, drones, tanks and even ground troops was deliberately undertaken in order to prevent Palestinian fighters from taking live Israeli captives who could be exchanged for Palestinian prisoners.
> The HRC report does not say this: "227. The Commission verified information indicating that, in at least two other cases, Israeli Security Forces counter-offensive actions resulted in harm to and the killing of Israeli civilians and, in one of the cases, the actions were undertaken with clear knowledge of this risk. According to the Commission’s investigation, in these two cases at least 14 Israeli civilians were likely killed as a result of Israeli Security Forces fire: one woman was killed by helicopter fire while being taken from kibbutz Nir Oz to Gaza by militants78 and the other 13 were likely killed by tank shelling and crossfire in kibbutz Be’eri."
Really? What's the factual difference between the two statements? What EI wrote is a terse summary from the report confirming the fact that the IDF killed its own civilians. Other evidence, including from Israel's own Defence Minister confirms that the IDF were told to execute the Hannibal Directive (which is an order to kill their own people). There's no stretch in relating the two.
"The US does not negotiate with terrorists" doesn't mean that they also prioritise killing their own soldiers or citizens, as the first line of defensive or offensive tactics.
And your attempts to paint me as some left-based extremist / conspiracist, due to the sources cited, is both ludicrous and laughable. I am an Indian, and Gandhi politically united us Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs etc by teaching us to recognise the extremists / religious fundamentalists amongst us, who only political thrive in fostering hatred, enmity and violence between communities. That is why we remain a secular nation. And aren't a communist nation too (as we understand that extremist left- leaders seeks to divide people by class - a different identity politics at play).
Left- or right- doesn't matter, and each have a constructive role to play - the trick is to keep extremism at bay.
Thus, I don't see Israeli Jews committing genocide against Palestinians or the Lebanese. What I see is the depravity of Israeli right-wing Jewish religious fundamentalists relishing in the blood-lust of slaughtering Palestinian and Lebanese women, children and the old simply because they are Arab Muslims and Christians, who refuse to leave the land where they were born. We ordinary human beings are not capable of such depravity, only the extremists are. Hitler did the same too - while the west has white-washed it, the Nazis where driven as much by Christian fundamentalism (as they were by the Eugenics) in creating the "us vs them" political narration of hate and violence. Netanyahu's politics is not so different from Hitler's or the Nazis today.
And just as Hitler's perverted Christian Nazism has nothing to do with Christianity as practiced by the ordinary Christians, Netanyahu's own perverted fundamentalist version of Jewish Fascism has nothing to do with Judaism of the ordinary Jews. Netanyahu's Jewish religious fundamentalism that drives the Israeli-right and the Islamic fundamentalism that drives the Palestinian-right are two faces of the same coin. Get rid of both, and the politics of hatred and violence in the region have a real chance to end.
> Really? What's the factual difference between the two statements? What EI wrote is a terse summary from the report confirming the fact that the IDF killed its own civilians.
No, what EI wrote is: "Hundreds of Israelis were likely killed by Israel itself in “Hannibal” targeting incidents as well as unintentional crossfire."
This is wrong, and also propaganda. Why would they do this? Think for yourself, question authority.
> We ordinary human beings are not capable of such depravity, only the extremists are.
There aren't enough extremists to do the truly abhorrent things. They need help from others, so they use tools like propaganda and coercion. Think for yourself, question authority.
I'm not here to defend the Likud party. I think what Israel prosecuted in the wake of the October 7th attacks was a genocide. But I do the next thing, which is learn the history and analyze a variety of sources with different incentives to get as clear a picture as possible, in hopes of not becoming a useful idiot for evil. Not everyone can do this, I understand. But I agree with 90% of what you wrote--you're clearly pretty smart and motivated, so I think you can.
Also apply think for yourself, question authority to me! Why would I do this? Am I a Zionist psyop? Am I virtue signaling on what I think is an influential message board? Am I ignoring my wife in a vain attempt at making the world a better place, which is something like the shadow of narcissism or the fear of irrelevancy?
> "Hundreds of Israelis were likely killed by Israel itself in “Hannibal” targeting incidents as well as unintentional crossfire." - This is wrong, and also propaganda. Why would they do this?
Propaganda can be factual and based on truth too. Isn't everything in that statement factual? The Hannibal Directive specifically authorises the IDF to kill its own citizens. Multiple sources confirm the order was given. And EI doesn't claim that all of the dead civilians were killed only due to the Hannibal Directive, but also because of "unintentional crossfire" (i.e. collateral damage). This is also true and confirmed by multiple sources. Moreover, Israel was totally unprepared for the attacks and its response was poor and chaotic - Israel's own media has extensively reported on this and EI cites them (it has even provided English translation of those articles). In fact, Israel's own media accuses the Netanyahu government of deliberately not releasing the report on the intelligence failures leading to Oct 7 massacre and data on how many Israeli citizens (soldiers and civilians) were killed by the IDF, deliberately or unintentionally, as he faces an election and doesn't want the failures of Oct 7 to be an election issue.
We don't know each other, and communicating this way is hard because the lack of non-verbal cues make it easy to misunderstand each other. I understand your concern about political biases of the media that I have cited. I am aware of their biases too - I read both left- and right- leaning medias. And, as you suggest, I don't blindly believe everything I read and judge them on how logical and verifiable they are. The EI article I cited has many references, from reputable sources, that back up their assertions (so I find it credible and believe their claim that they spent over a year investigating it). The WSWS article also cites Israel's media. JPost is an Israeli media outlet.
Because I have a superhuman intellect, I can straddle the positions of "Israel has done monstrous things to the people of Gaza in the wake of Hamas' heinous attacks on Oct 7" and "there are lots of people who stand to benefit from the demonization of Israel and Jewish people writ large". EI maintains--incredibly--Hamas committed no rapes on Oct 7. Again this is completely false, and again anyone echoing that talking point is immediately on my propaganda radar. EI and other outlets argue that IDF was responsible for most of the civilian casualties because of the Hannibal Directive or incompetence. Also false, also propaganda. Etc etc.
Anyway, I think we agree on the main points. One thing I'd add is Netanyahu's corruption trial--which he'll almost certainly lose--was only suspended because of Israel's ongoing military operations, which are winding down. He's got a pattern of spinning military operations up to continue to defer this though (this isn't just me talking, this is former Israeli PM Ehud Olmert) so I mean, look for that to keep happening.
Religious crazies have taken over Israel and they simply don't value the lives of non Jews. They want those poor citizens gone for more Semitic Lebensraum.
It's amazing how often highly-polished web infrastructure gets put into the trash in pursuit of narrow objectives like avoiding a full page load. Very few applications actually benefit from being a single page. You tend to lose a lot more than you gain in terms of UX.
Netanyahu threw a temper tantrum on Wednesday (8th of April) and who suffered? Lebanese civilians that's who. The man (if you can call him that) is running on fumes at the moment. In the near future he'll wish he never left his original profession as a furniture salesman.
There is no such thing. I'll accept that Iran's model is a bit weird but there's definitely no supremacy nor expansionism going on in the name of some book or some psychopath's mind (like Netanyahu)
https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?is=ncWhlGOB3l721Lri
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