Columbia University is colluding with the far-right in its attack on students

[Arctish]

...used Gazans as human shields. I call that a war crime.

If Israel has done it would you call it a war crime, too? I'm not saying you wouldn't. I am asking.

Where is there any meaningful example of Israel using human shield tactics?

The closest I'm aware of is using locals to go knock on doors, but they're being used as messengers, not as shields.

There also is the issue of having the homeowner demonstrate the safety of the house but they should know if it's unsafe. If Hamas has booby-trapped it it's going to be gone anyway.

Obviously you haven't been reading the articles linked in this thread. You should take some time to catch up.

Also, don't forget to support your claims. You've got quite a backlog of unsupported assertions to deal with before you go making new ones.

 

[Elixir]

You not believing doesn't make it so.

A 57% poll to the contrary doesn’t make most people think 10/7 was the “right” thing to do.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm talking about the here and now. Who is being accused of war crimes in thread?
Israel or Gaza?
Tom

I would say both. Nobody has been minimizing atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists, but you have been repeatedly framing critics of Israel's response to 10-7 as excusing those atrocities. For example, you just said this to me:

Nobody minimizing???

More like outright denying. People admit 10/7, they keep denying that Hamas is killing people in Gaza.

Who in this thread would you consider a "terrorist apologist"? Me? Elixir? Arctish? I don't see anyone here being a terrorist apologist, but you clearly imply that that is who you are trying to have a conversation with. Just because we criticize Netanyahu's horrific response to Oct. 7, that doesn't mean we've joined the cause of Hamas terrorists.

Anyone who says Hamas' actions were due to Israel is a terrorist apologist.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Answer the fucking question Tom.
And while you’re at it, is killiing 10x as many civilians an appropriate response?
Y/N

Irrelevant. This isn't about how many killed. It's about destroying Hamas. Israel isn't looking for kills, they're looking to remove Hamas. The reality of war is that removing them usually means killing them but that's not the objective.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, how about we place the blame where it belongs?

Egypt is not where it belongs. The Egyptians did not force Palestinians out of their communities in and around Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Ashkelon to become homeless refugees in Gaza. Neither did Jordan, Saudi Arabia, or the rest of the 'Arab world'.

Try again.

The Arab world encouraged the Palestinians to leave in advance of their attack. Oops, they lost and when they wouldn't swear to be peaceful they weren't allowed to return.

And Egypt annexed Gaza (and Jordan annexed the West Bank) so that the Palestinians couldn't have a state. Note that both of these annexations were undone after the 1967 war--it's not that the countries wanted the land, it's that they wanted the Palestinians not to have it.

It was Israel's Zionist founders and their successors who did that.

During the 1947–1949 Palestine war around 400 Palestinian Arab towns and villages were forcibly depopulated, with a majority being destroyed and left uninhabitable.[1][2] Today these locations are all in Israel; many of the locations were repopulated by Jewish immigrants, with their place names replaced with Hebrew place names.

Wikipedia, deceptive as usual on things like this.

An overwhelming number of the Arab residents who had lived in the cities that became a part of Israel and were renamed (Acre, Haifa, Safad, Tiberias, Ashkelon, Beersheba, Jaffa and Beisan) fled or were expelled.

Note the actual count is fled or expelled. The vast majority fled at Arab behest. And somehow that list has far more massacres than have otherwise been reported in that time.

Zionists refused to allow Palestinians to return to their former farms, businesses, homes, and communities because they were, and are, racist and religiously bigoted as fuck. They created a State for Jews, and Jews alone. They don't give a shit how many generations of Palestinians lived in those towns. They wanted the non-Jews gone, and they did their best to make it so.

They refused to allow people who continued to side with the enemy to return.

Refuse to acknowledge that simple truth all you want, it's still the truth. The 'Arab world' does not bear responsibility for the conditions in Gaza. The country that controls the borders, the water and electrical grid, the importation of food, medicine, building materials, school books, etc. , the movements of people into and out of Gaza, and where the natural gas from Gazan deposits is sent, is responsible.

It most certainly does bear responsibility. It's the Arab world that ensured they couldn't function. It's the Muslim world that funds the war.

Palestine used to be the most prosperous non-oil Arab country in the world. They threw that away on the Second Intifada. Their choice, not Israel's.

Israel is not trying to murder Palestinians.

Israel as a whole, no. Certain Israelis, though? It appears that some of them are. I'd be willing to bet every penny in my bank account that the sniper who shot the grandma holding the hand of a 5-year old waving a white flag was trying to murder her. Possibly the guys who shot the escaping hostages and the ones who killed the paramedics from Ramallah who had permission to rescue that 4 year old girl trapped in a car with her dead relatives.

But the sniper was probably Hamas.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I think step one is a ceasefire.

Easy enough--Hamas releases the hostages, they'll get a ceasefire.

Step two is a negotiated transfer of power, because right now the Gaza authorities are Hamas. It will be difficult but not impossible to get something resembling moderates in charge and the price will probably be amnesty for the surviving Hamas leaders, but at some point even the most ardent zealots are going to have to admit their position is untenable.

Step two shows an utter lack of understanding of the situation.

Iran's position is fine. And they're the ones in control.

Step three is a normalization of Gaza's relationships with other countries, including control of coastal waters and airspace, control of its borders, receiving royalties on resources extracted in Gazan waters, etc. , and a genuine possibility of prosperity. If the Gazans want Jared Kushner to develop their seafront into high end resorts and condominiums, that's fine. But if Kushner tries to screw them over, it could reignite the war, so IMO it's best to keep him out of the real estate business there.

They had that until they threw it away with the Second Intifada. By their measure destroying Israel is more important than their wellbeing.

 

[Copernicus]

I'm talking about the here and now. Who is being accused of war crimes in thread?
Israel or Gaza?
Tom

I would say both. Nobody has been minimizing atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists, but you have been repeatedly framing critics of Israel's response to 10-7 as excusing those atrocities. For example, you just said this to me:

Nobody minimizing???

More like outright denying. People admit 10/7, they keep denying that Hamas is killing people in Gaza.

Maybe I was wrong. Tom didn't answer, so I'll ask you. Who in this thread is outright denying and keeps denying that Hamas is killing people in Gaza? If you can't answer that, then I will assume that you agree with me that no one is doing that.

Who in this thread would you consider a "terrorist apologist"? Me? Elixir? Arctish? I don't see anyone here being a terrorist apologist, but you clearly imply that that is who you are trying to have a conversation with. Just because we criticize Netanyahu's horrific response to Oct. 7, that doesn't mean we've joined the cause of Hamas terrorists.

Anyone who says Hamas' actions were due to Israel is a terrorist apologist.

And who would that be in your opinion? Which ones of us have been saying that Hamas's terrorism on October 7 was justified by Israeli behavior?

 

[aupmanyav]

Anyone who says Hamas' actions were due to Israel is a terrorist apologist.

That is debatable.