I have noticed a change in tone from the colonel. He was very much all fire and bluster before while explaining why it’s Palestinians’ fault they are dying. Now he comes across as far gentler while explaining why it’s Palestinians’ fault they are dying.
Have you ever seen a politician make the rounds on Sunday news shows? They, especially Republicans, sound extremely different on Fox News vs. the rest of media (Democrats sounds different on mainstream media vs. progressive independent media). This colonel is doing the exact same thing. He learned from the clip going viral and the way people are reacting to it to sound like he’s concerned and feels for the Palestinians rather than saying it’s their own fault like he was in the Blitzer clip.
I’m more interested in what the term is for folks who wear different masks for different audiences and in particular folks who react to criticism by putting on a mask later all while saying the same thing. It was astonishing seeing this guy on Erin Burnett’s show after seeing him on Wolf Blitzer’s show. It was like watching Lindsey Graham on the Daily Show or Meet the Press vs. seeing him on Fox News Sunday discussing the exact same stuff.
Edit: I’d only listened to the Burnett interview. They’re different people.
Yeah, the complex reality of Judaism, the Jewish people, Israel, and Israelis is fascinating. But it pales in comparison to the horror of what’s going on right now, and that needs to stop.
Israel’s excuse is pure political theater. This was a war crime. Regardless of who’s coming a war crime - Israel, Hamas, Russia, America, Isis, or anyone else, they should be held to account. But they won’t, which is just so fucked up. But much like politicians and cops, you can’t effectively punish the ones with all the power.
Israel is punching down so hard it’s insane. If they really knew where the Hamas leader was, they could absolutely send in a team or assassin to take him out without the collateral damage. It’s not like they don’t have spec ops or all the money and military resources they could need to do the job. Hell, the pro-Ukraine saboteurs in Russia have been able to destroy military assets and assassinated at least one oligarch, all without hitting a crowd of civilians no matter how anti-Ukraine said civilians might be. Israel has no goddamn excuse. Neither does Hamas. They’re both at fault and the individual persons responsible should be punished.
The mossad is famous for tracking down Nazis who had been in hiding multiple continents away for decades, and they can’t find some dude literally next door.
they could absolutely send in a team or assassin to take him out without the collateral damage.
The Rules of Engagement, especially when it comes to civilians, should be adhered to by Israel.
Israel should send their army in to go after Hamas, instead of trying to blow up Hamas by also blowing up the Palestinians via air bombardment.
Political concerns probably keeps that from happening, as when the Israeli body bags of their fallen soldiers start coming back the Israeli public, who are already upset at the current government for allowing this to happen, would be at a fever pitch to remove the Israeli government, and what that would mean for certain individuals who are facing legal issues.
Why must you add qualifiers? Hamas committing war crimes in attempt to end the genocide being perpetrated on them is not remotely the same thing as Israel committing them in service of said genocide.
Hamas’ excuse for hitting civilians with their rockets is that Israel has made it utterly impossible for them to produce high quality rockets, capable of being aimed. Israels tech superiority means the only way to attack them is via sheer quantity of rockets fired into Israel.
October 7th was not “oops, our weapons are just too imprecise to aim properly”. It was an up close and personal direct violent attack on civilians explicitly designed to avoid any police or military targets.
So it’s absolutely appropriate to shame Israeli falling to apply precision attacks and Hamas for quite deliberately targeting noncombatants.
The U.S. has a talking zombie for a leader. Victims of injustice have long memories, and so do their families. The world is not on the side of Israel. The Holocaust trump card that diverts any criticism of Israel’s behavior as anti-Semitism is expired, null, and void. They are backed by the U.S. unequivocally, to commit genocide rather than push for ceasefire and dialogue. The U.S. president, a talking zombie, has made his country less safe.
You admit then that the disproportionate retaliation is motivated by vengeance. Ten times the body count, ten times the misery. I don’t condone either side’s actions.
You got any proof of that beyond “The genocidal state attacking them said so”? And further, since Israel is attacking all refugees, wouldn’t they thus all be enemy combatants? In which case it’d be like the Nazis saying they’re justified having concentration camps because they are at war with the Jews.
This isn’t a war. A powerful and western-backed military state dropping chemical weapons on innocent civilians in response to a terrorist attack that those civilians had nothing to do with isn’t a war. It’s just a slaughter.
Frankly I don’t know which words are powerful enough to describe this and condemn it. I don’t think the right words exist to explain how bad it is.
This logic is just… If it’s justified to blow up a refugee camp to kill a senior leader of Hamas, then by that same logic, Hamas would be justified in blowing up Israel’s capitol buildings to kill Netanyahu.
Fucking hell, not only that, but this logic defends the Hamas attack on Israel too. There could have been IDF members there or government officials.
I don’t see how anybody condemning Hamas’ terrorist attack could not condemn this. It’s the same picture.
More like it would be justified for Hamas to blow up Netanyahu’s neighborhood to try to kill him. Even then, it’s not even a fair comparison. These are refugees who have already lost their homes and families to Israel’s attacks and now they’re being targeted directly as a group. It’s about as high as war crimes go.
Yeah the whole argument skates over the question of why they were in a refugee camp in the first place. Probably a tree feel over and damaged their apartment building or something.
as was to be expected. :( I am 99.9% convinced Netanyahu was just waiting for Hamas to give him an excuse to escalate. They turned out to be the useful idiots (in the form of raping mass-murdering f*ckheads) that he needed.
I have been thinking about this for the last several years. We have grown our technology but are still basically angry monkeys flinging poo. Until we can evolve our own base instincts to match our reality, then nonsense like this will continue.
then by that same logic, Hamas would be justified in blowing up Israel’s capitol buildings to kill Netanyahu.
As this is a war (started by Hamas, but still a war), then yes, of course they would be “justified” in doing that. And Israel would then be justified in reacting to that. I’m sure they would do that if they were able to.
Fucking hell, not only that, but this logic defends the Hamas attack on Israel too.
Now it does, but not before the war was on. There’s however the subtle difference that Hamas primarily targets civilians. They attack soldiers only as self-defence or when the soldiers are in the way of murdering civilians. Israel works in an opposite way, they only target Hamas soldiers. Given how they don’t give much of a fuck for collateral damage, the end result looks similar, but intentions do matter. It implies that when Israel wins this, almost all gazans are still alive. If Hamas won this, Israel would vanish.
Bro you have no clue what you’re talking about. Hamas is the victims of attempted genocide. They do not target civilians, they launch rockets they aren’t able to aim (because of the attempted genocide preventing them having anything Israel doesn’t approve) at Israel.
Israel is the bad guy in this conflict, not Hamas.
This was was started by Israel decades ago through their apartheid actions. This was always going to happen. Until these millions of people are allowed to be free, this will continue.
No it’s worse. It would be like bombing a school or hospital while Netanyahu was visiting it. The Capitol building(s) are arguably a valid military target.
I was confused for years about the history of the conflict. I had heard “Israel was there 2,000 years ago”, and just had this blurry idea of “Israel was full of Jewish people at some point and there were also Arabs at some point”. But the second you actually double down and go, OK, what were the actual demographics in this region, every year in the last 200 years:
Jewish population in the region - 2.5% as of 1800 - didn’t even break 16% until WWI and hadn’t even been a majority since the 4th century. The influx of Jewish migrants into the region was spurred by post-1880s Zionism, which specifically sought to reclaim Palestine as a Jewish territory. And now, besides the Gaza strip and the constantly shrinking West Bank, they control the entire area of Mandatory Palestine, and then some. You keep looking into it and realize, yes, there was actually a forced expulsion of the Palestinian population, the Nakba, in 1948 - 700k Palestinians expelled, 500 villages destroyed, and the renaming of the former towns and cities to have Jewish names. Have you ever heard that word used by someone from Israel, or someone in Western media? “Nakba”? This huge act of ethnic cleansing, central to explaining this entire conflict, and it’s just completely brushed aside, as if the civilization never existed.
You look at videos of interviews about the conflict from the 1980s, they’re using the exact same language about “Israel’s right to exist”, “Israel’s right to self defense”. How long does it take after you violently expel a population for your “right to exist” on the land to take effect, exactly? What is the mathematical formula for reparations and Palestinian right to return here? Nobody is even asking these questions, rather, the remaining Palestinian population in its entirety is being sidelined as a “problem” and “terrorists” - it’s literally the language of Nazi Germany being rehashed by the Israeli state, under its (false) pretense to represent the Jewish people, while the existence of this other population they displaced is just erased. I’m just speechless to witness it. The entire discourse about this conflict is inherently racist, to such an extreme degree.
Most of what I looked into was trying to find the source of it all, so I didn’t look that much into the more modern history, but you’re absolutely right. The British and Zionists made a deal to grow the Jewish population in the region to grow British influence. Israel as a state isn’t even a hundred years old I think.
It is disgusting how between the Balfour Declaration and present the narrative has dehumanized Palestinians and stripped them of their cultural identity – which is genocide through and through. What’s worse is that I think they’ve been kicked down by everyone. In the first Arab Israeli War, the Arab nations occupied Palestine during the war. When they lost, the land was either ceded to or taken by Israel. Now, after decades of using the Palestinians, the neighboring Arab nations won’t take Palestinian refugees. Some have accepted Israel.
And then there’s Hamas, who effectively occupies part of the region and launches attacks from civilian areas. Once again, using Palestinians to their own ends. They have their stockpiles of water and medicine and food, and they aren’t sharing. They anticipated Israel collectively punishing (genociding) all of Palestine in response to their attacks. The radicals are also part of why the neighboring countries aren’t taking in Palestinians. When they did in the past, radicals like Hamas took advantage of it to cause civil strife and conflict. It’s all such a mess. Everyone’s using Palestinians for their own ends while Israel continues their genocide.
At this point, I think Israel has been around long enough that you’d just be punishing children for the sins of their fathers if the state was to be dissolved. By no means though does that mean the borders should stay the same. It should return to the original demarcation, and a state of Palestine, or perhaps Nakba, should be established next to them. Or maybe Israel can treat everyone within their borders and colonies as citizens with equal rights. I know neither are realistic. The latter is impossible with the IDF and conservative government. The former is impossible because of Hamas. They refuse a two state solution, and reiterated the other day that they would continue to do attacks like the first one until everyone there was dead.
Feel free to correct me if anything I’ve said is wrong, like I said I looked into the early history a lot more than the recent. I don’t know what can be done. You have the IDF hellbent on bombing all of Gaza, and you have Hamas hellbent on killing everyone in Israel.
Who comes up with these headlines?? Certainly not someone who based it off the video used to support their claim.
This bullshit dilutes real news stories. Headline should read; “IDF bombs refugee camp in attempt to kill Hamas terrorist, knowing it was full of civilians.” That’s the story and it’s fucked alone as it is. Why sensationalize this and make up shit that is objectively untrue??
By delivering highly personalized news content, social media can have an isolating effect, causing people to “increasingly live online — and perhaps in real life — in closed systems of political consensus and like-minded thinking,”
This is the guy who went on record claiming that it is somehow NATO’s fault for Putin’s Russia invading Ukraine. Do not trust him with anything related to politics, he is out of his mind.
"Terrorist’, “in attempt” are both editorialized in their own sense. “Terrorist” is a biased term in a conflict like this, which basically pick sides between two actors, both of which use genocidal rhetoric, target civilians, and want the annihilation of the other (but, bears mentioning, one is a U.S. backed nuclear power, one definitely isn’t). “In attempt” subjectively presents a claimed motive as fact, which doesn’t belong in journalism. An impartial one would read something like, “IDF airstrikes refugee camp in Jabalia, claiming to target Hamas leader, acknowledges civilian presence was known”.
Hamas is an internationally recognized terrorist organization, which just executed a bunch of civilians on a music fest. There is no grey area and no room for interpretation.
Make no mistake, I denounce their violence and targeting of civilians without a second thought. The same criteria I apply to anyone. But to portray only them as “terrorists” - while Israel enjoys designations like “democracy” - is not based in reality. Israel has taken more lives by an order of magnitude, aired equally horrific genocidal rhetoric on public TV in the last month alone, and stolen the land of the Palestinian people in what I can only describe as a psychotically self-centered and racist act of ethnic cleansing. One rooted in deep trauma, but nonetheless. And not in some trivial way, but literally to bring the modern state of Israel into existence.
To use a term like that, given the history of Palestinians being dispossessed of their land, shoved into ghettos and starved of all resources, for the “crimes” of existing and of self-defense, or because finally a tiny contingent of them use the very same rhetoric of genocide as the nation extinguishing their civilization, and applied the same indiscriminate targeting of civilians that they had experienced done to them their entire lives - I can only call that racism. You apply the term “terrorist” to the historical victims, but not to the victimizers.
For the record, here’s the actual list of designators of Hamas as a “terrorist” group:
Hamas European Union,[109][150] Australia,[151] Canada,[7] Israel,[152] Japan,[51][17] Paraguay,[54] United Kingdom,[153] United States,[15] Organization of American States[154]
Hamas – Al-Qassam Brigades[L] European Union,[109] Australia,[16] Canada,[7] Israel,[155] Japan,[17] New Zealand,[113] United Kingdom,[14] United States[15]Organization of American States[154]
Notice the entire world outside of the sphere of Western states doesn’t even participate in this. This is a political term, a stereotype that’s used against Muslims, it’s never accurately applied objectively in terms of what organizations cause destruction and death for political aims.
To tack on to all of that - the word has pejoratively being used in the last month to describe the entire population of the Gaza Strip. In the same way we stopped using the various “n” words because people had been beaten to death or hung behind them, we should not be using terminology that’s actively being weaponized in service of genocide. It’s an extremely dangerous thing to participate in.
I literally don’t understand why people have a hard time with this.
Israel has organized, funded armed forces wearing uniforms. Hamas has teenagers in street clothes hiding in hospitals, schools, and houses.
Israel attempts to protect it’s citizens, Hamas uses human shields.
If you agree with the actions of Hamas, which are designed to maximize fear and force Israeli troops to make hard decisions during combat, you support terrorists. Just admit it. Calling Hamas a terrorist organization isn’t necessarily perjorative. But it is perfectly descriptive.
If you don’t like that you support terrorists, then you have some deep reflecting to do.
It’s so hard to response to comments like this, because honestly your whole perspective is so out of whack. Let’s start from the top -
Israel has organized, funded armed forces wearing uniforms. Hamas has teenagers in street clothes hiding in hospitals, schools, and houses.
Israel has a modern army, U.S. supplied munitions to the tunes of billions of dollars a year, war planes, nuclear bombs, that it uses against teenagers in street clothes. Not in an effort to deescalate violence, but in an effort to deal retribution for it 10 times over each time, which https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli%E2%80%93Palestinian_conflict#/media/File:Israel-Palestine_conflict_deaths_per_month.png.
Israel attempts to protect it’s citizens, Hamas uses human shields.
First, Haaretz reported the IDF fired on Israeli citizens on Oct. 7 to take out the Hamas militants.
Second, the Israeli state and military - to whatever extent they actually care about their own citizen’s lives - does not care about the lives of Palestinians. You state that Hamas “uses human shields”. First, in a military situation, when you don’t have air superiority or arms superiority, or really any other advantage, there is no other choice. If you have standalone military facilities, they’ll just be destroyed. Second, Israel, in response to whatever degree they’re actually “using human shields”, just kills everyone. See OP. Take this same example - if they killed 50 civilians to kill one Hamas member, multiply that by 25,000 Hamas members and you would end up with 1,250,000 casualties. That is “terrorism”, if anything is. Rather, the term would be “genocide” - something Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu himself, have openly been signalling to the public. Both sides of this conflict, at the extremes, are indeed calling for the genocide of the other side - but one has killed 6 times more than the other.
If you agree with the actions of Hamas, which are designed to maximize fear and force Israeli troops to make hard decisions during combat, you support terrorists.
I get how people think explanations like this are about “justification”, or even “support”. They are not. I’m a pacifist.
The exercise here is to fully understand the circumstances, and why people actually behave in the ways they do, and how they actually fare on objective, universally applied moral standards. It is enough to say that Israel does not come out ahead.
It is also impossible not to apply the same logic to dropping 25,000 bombs on a city, to order a forced evacuation and displace a million people, something which was immediately denounced internationally as a war crime. It boggles my mind how people don’t think that “terrorizes” people - but people with these perspectives have rarely considered the actual experience of somebody who’s made to live in an active warzone.
That was a really long post. Nothing you said refuted anything I said. You’re literally doing the thing I’m talking about.
Do you support Hamas? Just admit it.
After a decade of near-zero conflict Hamas unilaterally launched the largest offensive between the two states in a decade. They murdered babies and tortured and paraded civilian hostages around. They can’t be trusted and should be destroyed.
In the last decade since the last Israel/Palestine “war” in 2014 Israel has had barely any military action against Palestine. It’s not like there’s some kind of genocide happening - if Israel wanted genocide Gaza could be wiped from the planet overnight.
Gaza has no democracy, no legitimate government, no industry, no trade. So no hope for the future. Countries don’t want to take Palestinian refugees because they attempt coups and threaten to destabilize regions.
The instant that Gaza forms a legitimate democratic government the attacks would stop. The moment that Gazans formed a non military state, the conflict stops.
Don’t get me wrong here - the situation for non-radicalized Palestinians is total dog shit. They are the biggest victims here but the blame falls on Hamas in my view.
Well, right off, I don’t appreciate writing a long comment for someone for them to just ignore it.
It’s not like there’s some kind of genocide happening - if Israel wanted genocide Gaza could be wiped from the planet overnight.
It is specifically like there’s some kind of genocide happening. The Israeli government has been openly calling for the destruction of Palestine, displaying maps with Palestine erased to the UN, comparing the Palestinian population to “human animals”, Netanyahu bringing up the biblical “Amalek” which the Old Testament commands the complete destruction of, men, women, children, and farm animals. Half a percent of the population of Gaza is already dead. It’s like you people are waiting for it to be 20% before you say anything.
People like you have no idea what the Israeli right-wing is like. It is the exact same thing as the American evangelicals calling to nuke Iraq or Afghanistan, just Jewish instead of Christian. They are extremely racist and genocidal, and they have a green light.
Comparing both, Israel is a ton worse. Doesn’t matter that they can budget for fancy equipment. And if anything, Israel should know better because of the holocaust.
True, there is no grey area, because Israel is a genocidal state attempting to steal palestine’s land. Quit reading nothing except US/Israeli propaganda and educate yourself.
“There could be infrastructure there, there could be tunnels there.”
Translation:
We killed them all just in case one of them was an asshole. What if we’re actually totally justified in bombing a refugee camp? We certainly don’t know for sure that we weren’t. Now that all of those innocent children are dead we’re checking under their corpses to see if there’s anything we can use to make ourselves seem like the good guy here.
in order to kill one terrorist you just created 300
If your goal is peaceful coexistence then this is a bad strategy, yes. If your goal is peaceful expansion and the annihilation of your neighbors then every terrorist you create also serves as an excuse for you to carpet bomb a neighborhood
It’s not just about Palestinian terrorists. It’s about us.
I’ve been on the “can people stop being assholes to Palestinians” team for many years - but this recent hamas attack was disgusting - they’ve always been disgusting but this was recent. I still supported Palestinians - but even I took a step back and was like, uhhhhh
Israel’s response has been worse. As a result, we’re all back to fully supporting Palestine. For as long as Israel is seen as the victim, they’ll have the world’s support; but if they start killing hundreds of innocents to get one person - like, did they give this any thought at all?
And yet no one bats an eye when china murders millions of muslims or Armenians are getting wiped out. The west only cares about Palestinians, even when they get warning after warnings of evacuation orders. “Israel says leave north Gaza for fear of your life” “Two weeks pass, plenty of time for anyone to flee” “People who didn’t live are fearing their lives”
Come on. Are they supposed to go in there on foot on basically suicide missions to heavily trapped areas because people are refusing to get out of an active warzone after multiple warnings? How about keeping Hamas responsible for evacuating their civilians when they live in active warzones? Israel is legit the only country in the world who knocks first, and ya’ll are goving them crap for it. Grow up.
People get surprised when people are killed in warzones. 10/10 logic.
Dude what? I guess ya’ll are really just supporting anything which is against the west, no matter how hypocritical it is. Next thing I’ll hear on Lemmy how Ukraine had it coming from Russia.
I am not sure what you want to tell me. But if you have proof that millions of uygurs were killed by China as the guy I replied too said, please send it.
I mean there’s a whole wikipedia page on the camps china built for them…
My point is that there are so many more wrongdoings and innocent people being prosecuted way more harshly than Palestinians in the world, and the world is only focusing on Palestinians since it’s the frontline of the west vs iranian arab society. Those magnitudes of protests weren’t around when china put muslims in camps or killed thousands of protestors.
This whole thing is an assault on western ideology. hamas is Iran2.0 and would massacre those same left-wing europeans or Americans who protest for them, in the name of Islam.
It’s not just whataboutism, I talked about how Israel did literally everything they could considering they’re at war. It’s like ya’ll forgot how wars worked.
Just imagine the allied forces telling germans “hey yo things are about to get ugly here please leave to this area where we’ll bomb way less”. There’s no other country who treats war with such careful hands, and Israel is still getting shit over it.
War is evil. Israel’s wars are the least evil in the world.
Okay buddy, sure. Really easy to talk from a peaceful state without constant threats pointed at you. How about providing actual real solutions to conflicts instead of waiting around, doing nothing then yelling when a war breaks out because of what everyone ignored.
The rest of the world did nothing to provide peace in the region - so those same foreigners to the conflicts shouldn’t point a finger and be surprised when war happens. Either leave the region alone (just like most disputes happening in Africa for example) or actually do something when it’s not wartime. Trying to do something when everything is broken to the point of no return is nothing but virtue signaling.
Those protest should’ve happened when Hamas won elections. Those protests should’ve happened when right wing Israeli government came to power. Those protests should’ve happened when no one did anything about Hamas arming themselves, preparing for war.
Protesting now is doing nothing. Both sides are so fed up with the other that no peaceful resolution, no ceasefire could happen. And screaming about it now is not gonna change that.
You might have some of the most boneheaded remarks I’ve seen here.
That you actively demonstrate your lack of any knowledge about this conflict is truly astounding.
I couldn’t bring myself to type up a message like that when it would show my ass so thoroughly.
And what lack of knowledge about this conflict do I have? Please enlighten me. Did Israelis not tell every possible Gazan “hey, leave this area, your terrorist leaders are hiding here and we don’t like killing civilians”?
It’s like ya’ll leave in a fantasy world where no wrong could ever be done towards a side in a conflict which is weaker. It’s like you forgot how war actually works.
As in apartheid South Africa, Israel classifies its citizens according to ethnicity and privileges one group over all others.
Today, there is a de facto caste system within the territories that Israel controls between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. At the top are Israeli Jews, while Muslim and Christian Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza are at the bottom. Between them are Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem. Each has different rights according to the regime Israel has implemented, with Jews enjoying the full benefits of democracy in a “Jewish state,” and Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza accorded no political rights whatsoever, being ruled by Israeli military decree.
In apartheid South Africa, blacks weren’t allowed to vote for the national government.
While Palestinian citizens of Israel can vote in Israeli elections, millions of Palestinians in the occupied territories cannot, even though Israel has ruled them for almost half a century.
In apartheid South Africa, the government used a complex pass system to control the movement of blacks, while Israel has instituted an elaborate permit and checkpoint system to control Palestinian movement in the occupied territories.
**In South Africa, blacks were forced into bantustans where they were more easily controlled by the apartheid regime. **
Israel has divided the occupied territories into several isolated territorial units, cut off from one another and from the outside world and surrounded by walls and checkpoints, so that the Israeli army can more easily control the Palestinian population. Meanwhile, within Israel’s internationally recognized pre-1967 borders, approximately 93% of the land is state-owned and controlled by the Israel Land Authority and quasi-governmental agencies like the Jewish National Fund, which systematically discriminate against non-Jewish citizens in its allocation. Combined with private discriminatory rental policies, Israeli government policies have ensured a concentration of the non-Jewish Arab population into several geographically constricted, overcrowded and underserviced ghettos.
In apartheid South Africa there were whites-only areas, while inside Israel there are more than 300 rural Jewish-majority towns that under Israeli law can reject residents who do not meet a vague “social suitability" standard.
Critics, including Human Rights Watch, have slammed the law as an attempt to allow Jewish towns to keep Arabs and other non-Jews out. In the occupied Palestinian territories, Israel has built a network of Israeli-only roads that Palestinians are barred from traveling on, while Jewish settlers living right next door in exclusive housing can use them.
**Many veterans of the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa consider Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to be a form of apartheid. **
One of the most outspoken voices has been that of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, one of the heroes of the struggle against South African apartheid. Tutu has repeatedly made the comparison, writing in 2012 that Israel’s version of apartheid is actually worse than South Africa’s, stating: “Not only is this group of people [Palestinians] being oppressed more than the apartheid ideologues could ever dream about in South Africa, their very identity and history are being denied and obfuscated.” In June 2013, the recently retired South African ambassador to Israel, Ismail Coovadia, wrote that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is a “replication of apartheid.”
One of the first people to use the word “apartheid” in relation to Israel was Israel’s first prime minister, David Ben Gurion, who warned following the 1967 War of Israel becoming an “apartheid state” if it retained control of the occupied territories.
In 1999, then-Israeli prime minister and current defense minister Ehud Barak stated: "Every attempt to keep hold of [Israel and the occupied territories] as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a nondemocratic or a non-Jewish state. Because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state.” In 2010, Barak repeated the apartheid comparison, stating: “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan river there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic… If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.”
The 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines apartheid as “an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”
Over the entirety of its 65-year existence, there has been a period of only about one year (1966-67) that Israel has not ruled over large numbers of Palestinians to whom it granted no political rights simply because they are not Jewish. Prior to 1967 and the start of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, Palestinians who remained inside what became Israel in 1948 were ruled by martial law for all but one year, similar to the way that Palestinians in the occupied territories have been ruled ever since.
Inside Israel there are more than 50 laws that privilege Jews or discriminate against non-Jewish Palestinian citizens, affecting everything from immigration and family reunification to land ownership rights.
In the occupied territories, Palestinians have lived under a brutal and repressive Israeli military regime for more than 46 years while Jewish settlers protected by the Israeli army colonize their land and lord it over them. In the words of a 2010 Human Rights Watch report entitled "Separate and Unequal: Israel’s Discriminatory Treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”
Is there going to be a military solution on the ground?
The answer is, no, there isn’t going to be a military solution. Whatever Israel is engaged in right now is pure revenge. It doesn’t have any strategic value. And it doesn’t have any direction. Israel is just bombing Gaza nonstop, killing as many civilians as it could, simply because it’s being enabled by the international community. No one in the international community is asking the tough questions. Is there going to be a military solution? What will this look like? What will this mean for the region?
Jehad Abusalim, a Palestinian scholar and policy analyst from Gaza. He’s the executive director of The Jerusalem Fund in Washington, D.C. shared the following.
“Let me tell you about my 88-year-old grandmother who lives in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. She is frail, she is old, and she’s ill. She was sleeping in her bed when an Israeli bomb hit the neighborhood where she lives, and she was injured by shrapnel and glass. My cousin, who was taking care of her, had to carry her on his shoulders and run down the stairs, run across the neighborhood as the bombs were falling, carrying a frail 88-year-old grandmother who witnessed more than eight or nine wars so far since she was born. Her entire life has been defined by war, by bloodshed, by aggression, by losing loved ones.
So, I think this entire narrative about north versus south, safe versus unsafe, is nothing but a false narrative that I think we should resist and we should not accept. Nowhere in Gaza is safe. Hundreds of people have been killed and lost their lives regardless of where they reside. That’s why we need a ceasefire now. And this is the demand by Palestinians from Gaza, whether they live in northern Gaza or southern Gaza.”
Kinda blows to shit your “They should have moved someplace safe” narrative.
Classifying Israel as Apartheid is valid if and only if Israel and Palestinians in the west bank define themselves as Israelis and treat themselves as part of the Israeli national. Surprise surprise - they don’t. Neither. Israel classifies Palestinians as basically foreigners, hence no citizen right. And Palestinians don’t try to push against it because all they want is a country of their own. Now, providing a Palestinian state is a whole subject in itself, but basically it’s hard. And not enough foreign power is used to make it happen - that’s the real disservice done to the Palestinians. They never ever talked about Israel accepting them to Israeli society, and no one expects that of them. They’re literal foreigners to Israel, with work permits. Of course they won’t have a government vote.
Another point was the jewish nature of Israel and how it discriminates - and that’s just true. There’s indeed a case to be made of Israel needing to be some part jewish, but Israel politics and laws are fucked up, especially regarding settlements. Let’s hope they get their shit together and have a working government who actually does good.
And lastly, Gazans moving south. Does anybody in this world remember what war’s like? Does anybody remember how many German civilian homes were bombed by the brits in WW2? Does anyone remember the civilian casualties Germany suffered?
War is war. And war is horrible. But expecting a country who just had its worst attack on its land ever to not fight the ones responsible, is extremely privileged by the world. Any state encountering such a big threat on civilian lives would do everything to destroy that threat. And that’s what they’re doing. The war won’t end when all Gazans are dead - it’ll end when Hamas has 0 armed terrorists, and 0 threatening capabilities. And that’s a goal no one can criticize Israel for pursuing. (Obviously you can criticize their methods - but relative to all recent conflicts - they really are avoiding civilian lives as much as possible considering their enemy.)
Keep making excuses for the apartheid state you seem to feel the need to stan for as they conduct an ethnic cleansing. History will look back on you with shame and disdain.
You keep repeating over and over hoping for your point to be true, while it’s just not. Keep crying and keep turning a blind eye to the fact that there are 2 sides here who both have valid goals and disregard one of them just because they’re bigger and pretty much achieved their goal is bullshit or straight up racism.
History is and forever was on the side of the bigger powers, so no. Looks like history would not be on the side of terrorists.
YOU keep equating all Palestinians to Hamas. Amazing how you needed to toss out racism only when it doesn’t agree with how the Israeli govt is acting presently. Criticizing a govt is not racist.
I have not taken the side of Hamas. I have taken the side of not killing civilians on any side of the conflict.
2021 was a major turning point for pro-Palestinian emancipation because in the beginning of 2021 in the spring Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch openly admitted that Israel is an apartheid state Israel had been an apartheid state at that point for 50 plus years, but them admitting this was a major step.
Why do you disagree with Holocaust Scholars, the Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and professionals that dedicate their entire lives to war crimes and human rights violations that Israel is an apartheid state?
How can you sit there and tell me that both Israeli activist organizations dedicated to Human Rights and numerous former Israeli officials have declared Israel to be an apartheid state are wrong? As well as those who have fought and won against the South African apartheid State and have always considered Israel to be an apartheid State?
Why do you think your opinion is more valid?
Sadly you don’t see the people in Gaza and the West Bank as human so it poses no moral issue for you. You are the racist in this situation.
Dude when have I equated all Palestinians to Hamas exactly?? I said that war is horrible and that innocents die in it, and that’s how it always has been. That doesn’t equate to me saying all Palestinians are Hamas. Heck, I think Palestinians are the biggest victims of Hamas, being the main reason for thousands of deaths on innocent Palestinians.
And taking the side of no civilian casualty is just a very privileged position you can say only from thousands of kms away - when your life is threatened, some civilian casualty is justified under war. That’s what I meant when I said war is horrible, and that’s why everyone no matter who you are should try and prevent it always. But saying a side who has pretty rightfully opened a war, and saying they should stop because you’re against all civilian lives lost, is just not helpful and not gonna do anything, since it really is just privileged, having not experienced any part of the conflict yourself. Saying “from my point of view it’s bad so don’t do it” while not looking at it from the point of view of the other party is really just not helpful in understanding or doing anything.
And about the Apartheid, my bad, I talked about Gaza, not the West bank, where the Israelis are actually entering the region and oppressing Palestinians. I still don’t compare it to south africa where it was oppression of your own citizens, but it’s still really horrible and the right wing government of Israel needs to fall. For that I’ll protest all day.
But again, I really see the people of Gaza as prisoners not of Israel, but Hamas. Israel willingly just fell back from the region in 2005, and from then onwards Palestinian civilians were truly doomed by Hamas (Israel literally physically just walked away) to a constant state of war.
