Israel-Hamas War 2023

[viper37]

I'm wondering out loud what Israel should have done differently as regards its policies towards Gaza.

What is the humane and benevolent way to respond to a statelet which was elected by the people there and which conducts intermittent attacks against your population?

Why do you guys keep seeing the question as if Gaza and the West Bank were two distinct entities, with two totally different, totally unrelated realities, like it was Canada and Germany?

Bad enough that Raz promotes apartheid saying the Palestinians were better off with no rights in an occupied territory living under the whims of a foreign government, but you come and make that argument about Gaza like the colonization of the West Bank and the sidelining of the Abbas government there had nothing to do with the rise of the Hamas.

Bibi was busy was defending murderous settlers.  The IDF was camped in the colonies protecting the settlers who were killing Palestinians civilians living their daily lives.  Not Hamas terrorists, not Djihadists, not suicide bombers, just regular civilians who happened to be Palestinians.

And the IDF was protecting the murderers.  The Shin Bet warned the government about these kind of idiotic policies and what they would cause.  The Americans warned Israel about what was going on in Gaza.  The Egyptians warned Netanyahu about something major brewing in Gaza.  But he didn't listen to anybody because the IDF was currently occupied protecting settlers in the West Bank.  Colonization by extreme right wingers was more important than protecting leftist bobos near Gaza.  That's the reality of it, and that's why there were 700 Israelis killed that day, totally helpless while the army was nowhere to be seen.

And now, Bibi is taking his frustration on the Palestinian civilians in Gaza.  Giving 2hrs to evacuate 2 million people while they have no infrastructure.  All while his supporters are cheering.  And some people are defending it, while condemning the Palestinians who cheer the Israelis deaths.  I just don't see how one is better than other.

This whole fucking mess is Bibi's fault who let it happen by his incompetence, and his supporters who cheered for him.

Gaza and the West Bank are intrinsically linked.  As long as there's colonies and no real 2 state solutions, there'll be violence in the Middle East, or until there are no more Palestinians. Which seems to be the solution retained by Israel here.

[Zoupa]

Yasser Arafat would not have signed the treaty Rabin alive or not.

I think he would have.

[Razgovory]

Bad enough that Raz promotes apartheid saying the Palestinians were better off with no rights in an occupied territory living under the whims of a foreign government, but you come and make that argument about Gaza like the colonization of the West Bank and the sidelining of the Abbas government there had nothing to do with the rise of the Hamas.

Where did I say that?

[Razgovory]

More on the Canceling of Palestine supporters.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/12/israel-gaza-war-social-media-job-firings/?fbclid=IwAR0X5yH65vWizl2NogSlWzFZN1mwVIEVr_qcyjPq8MDtQeejPti07d1N3D0

Ryna Workman had a job offer lined up when the New York University law student wrote a message to the university's Student Bar Association saying Israel was solely to blame for the war with Hamas that has killed at least 1,300 people in Israel and more than 1,350 people in Gaza.

"Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life," Workman wrote. "This regime of state-sanctioned violence created the conditions that made resistance necessary. I will not condemn Palestinian resistance."

But the post came with a consequence: Workman no longer has a job after law school.

"These comments profoundly conflict with Winston & Strawn's values as a firm," the Chicago-based law firm wrote in a news release. "Accordingly, the Firm has rescinded the law student's offer of employment."

The Israel-Gaza war is still in its first week, but some people in the United States and around the world have lost their jobs, or have faced discipline or backlash, for their criticism of Israel. The backlash has been directed toward people of different backgrounds, from a law student and an airline pilot to a basketball writer and an adult-content influencer.

The blowback has come at a time when at least 25 Americans have been killed since the cross-border assault by Hamas militants. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday in a show of support for Israel, is grappling with the issue of unaccounted-for Americans who may have been killed or taken hostage by Hamas. Meanwhile in Gaza, authorities warned of dire water and electricity shortages after Israel ordered a "full siege" of the densely populated, impoverished Palestinian enclave.

"Never tweet" turned into a Twitter meme years ago — long before the platform became X — as a way of warning people not to write online posts that could get them in serious trouble, or cost them their jobs. That idea has been put to the test during a war in which thousands of civilians have been killed in the days since the Hamas surprise attack on Saturday and the targeted counterstrikes Israel has launched on Gaza.

The backlash has played out at places such as Harvard University, where student groups are taking back their signatures in a letter that holds Israel "entirely responsible" for the violence. The fallout has resulted this week in a doxing truck coming to campus that displays the faces of the students critical of Israel.

On Sunday, Jackson Frank, a basketball reporter who had recently joined the PhillyVoice to cover the Philadelphia 76ers, criticized the franchise's statement supporting Israel and denouncing Hamas.

"Solidarity with Palestine always," he wrote in a post on X that has since been deleted.

The website responded by firing Frank this week, not long before the start of the NBA season.

"Mr. Frank is no longer employed by PhillyVoice.com," PhillyVoice chief executive Hal Donnelly said in a statement to the New York Post.

Frank, who said he will still be covering the team on his Patreon account, told The Washington Post in a statement that he stood by his comments "and condemn organizations for involving themselves in geopolitics without any sort of context or nuance."

"The Sixers and other sports organizations have not uttered a word, let alone criticized [Israel], about any of the violence Palestinians have endured for decades and are enduring as we speak from the settler-colonial power of Israel," Frank said.

Not long after Frank was fired, an Air Canada pilot was dismissed after he shared anti-Israel photos of himself during a protest in Montreal. StopAntiSemitism, a U.S.-based group, shared Instagram screenshots of Mostafa Ezzo wearing Palestinian colors while he was in his Air Canada pilot uniform. He was also seen holding a sign that made reference to Hitler: "Keep the world clean."

"Burn in hell," he wrote in a caption in a post.

Ezzo — an Air Canada first officer on 787s, according to his since-deleted LinkedIn page — was initially grounded Monday from work for his "unacceptable posts," with the airline saying, "We firmly denounce violence in all forms." The company announced Wednesday that Ezzo had been fired.

"We can confirm the pilot in question no longer works for Air Canada, following the process initiated on Monday," the airline wrote on X. Ezzo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The backlash to people's Israel posts has stretched to all corners of the internet — including Playboy's Centerfold, a platform similar to OnlyFans that connects content creators to their fans. Hours into the war, Mia Khalifa, a Lebanese American adult-content influencer who had partnered with Playboy, began criticizing Israel to her more than 5.7 million followers on X.

"If you can look at the situation in Palestine and not be on the side of Palestinians, then you are on the wrong side of apartheid and history will show that in time," she wrote over the weekend.

After Khalifa continued to post her support of the Palestinian people, Playboy announced its decision to end its business relationship with the former adult-film star and delete her Centerfold channel. Her page has since been taken down.

"Over the past few days, Mia has made disgusting and reprehensible comments celebrating Hamas' attacks on Israel and the murder of innocent men, women and children," the company said. "We expect Mia to understand that her words and actions have consequences." Khalifa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musicians and actors have also faced backlash for their social media posts, though on a lesser scale. Actress Jamie Lee Curtis was criticized for publishing a post to Instagram that showed a photo of Palestinian children looking up to the sky with a caption that included "Terror from the skies" and an Israeli flag emoji. The post was deleted after some pointed out that the children in the photo were from the Palestinian territories, not Israel.

Something similar happened Wednesday with singer Justin Bieber, who shared a "Praying for Israel" post to his 293 million Instagram followers that showed a photo of destroyed buildings in Gaza instead of Israel. The pop star later replaced the photo with a post saying, "Praying for Israel," without an image.

"To [villainize] all Palestinians or all Israeli people to me seems wrong," he wrote in a post earlier in the day. "I'm not interested in choosing sides, but I am interested in standing with the families who have been brutally taken from us."

Still, some critics were surprised that Bieber and others would get key details wrong, and share them on social media, during the early days of the war. "Justin Bieber posting 'praying for Israel' using a picture of a destroyed Gaza is actually insane," one X user wrote.

[Admiral Yi]

Why do you guys keep seeing the question as if Gaza and the West Bank were two distinct entities, with two totally different, totally unrelated realities, like it was Canada and Germany?

Because they have two separate administrations with two distinctly different policies towards Israel.

[crazy canuck]

The UN which routinely, for many decades has condemned Israel for everything it does, and ignored basically every bad thing every Muslim or autocratic hell hole in the world does every day?

The same UN whose bodies are often captured by autocracies because maybe 30% of its membership have democratic governments?

Yeah I have never given two shits what the UN says about Israel and I never will, and this is a perfect example why.

I get it, you would rather to have Palestinians in Gaza suffer terribly. I am not one of those people and so we have a fundamental disagreement, which seems to be at the core of our disagreement over whether killing civilians in Gaza is ok.

The laws of war do not criminalize killing civilians--full stop. What I favor is Israel being able to reasonably self defend itself, and if it chooses to remove Hamas from power I support that.

I prefer the opinion of somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. You know the world leading expert on the topic.

But just to clarify, have you just endorsed the killing of civilians in Gaza?

[Tonitrus]

More on the Canceling of Palestine supporters.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/10/12/israel-gaza-war-social-media-job-firings/?fbclid=IwAR0X5yH65vWizl2NogSlWzFZN1mwVIEVr_qcyjPq8MDtQeejPti07d1N3D0


Still, some critics were surprised that Bieber and others would get key details wrong, and share them on social media, during the early days of the war. "Justin Bieber posting 'praying for Israel' using a picture of a destroyed Gaza is actually insane," one X user wrote.

[/quote]

This is why modern journalism sucks so bad.  Especially from the WaPo...that is down at the Fox News level.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The UN which routinely, for many decades has condemned Israel for everything it does, and ignored basically every bad thing every Muslim or autocratic hell hole in the world does every day?

The same UN whose bodies are often captured by autocracies because maybe 30% of its membership have democratic governments?

Yeah I have never given two shits what the UN says about Israel and I never will, and this is a perfect example why.

I get it, you would rather to have Palestinians in Gaza suffer terribly. I am not one of those people and so we have a fundamental disagreement, which seems to be at the core of our disagreement over whether killing civilians in Gaza is ok.

The laws of war do not criminalize killing civilians--full stop. What I favor is Israel being able to reasonably self defend itself, and if it chooses to remove Hamas from power I support that.

I prefer the opinion of somebody who actually knows what they're talking about. You know the world leading expert on the topic.

But just to clarify, have you just endorsed the killing of civilians in Gaza?

I like that trick

1. Argue something an expert never argued--a position that is largely wrong in a trivially easy to prove sense.
2. Quote that expert and claim his words prove your position, despite them not actually saying the same thing.
3. Accuse another person of wrongthink whilst using 1&2 as some sort of ace in the hole

[Legbiter]

I like that trick

1. Argue something an expert never argued--a position that is largely wrong in a trivially easy to prove sense.
2. Quote that expert and claim his words prove your position, despite them not actually saying the same thing.
3. Accuse another person of wrongthink whilst using 1&2 as some sort of ace in the hole

Unlike you cc runs a tight ship. The paperwork on Israel's side may be irregular, hence the traumatized nation must cease all offensive action.

[crazy canuck]

Reports Israel shelled one of the routes south that they had designated as safe, killing over 70.  Mostly women and children.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I saw that reported on Al Jazeera with only Hamas as a source, and didn't seem like any other news has picked it up over night--and Al Jazeera no longer has the article up on their website--makes me question the accuracy of the report.

[fromtia]

Here is a post on X a colleague sent me.

Well worth the read.

You're right, that was worth reading.

Yeah, seems pretty on point.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, I saw that reported on Al Jazeera with only Hamas as a source, and didn't seem like any other news has picked it up over night--and Al Jazeera no longer has the article up on their website--makes me question the accuracy of the report.

CBC radio reported it through their reporter in the region this morning.  But it looks like they have toned down that report in subsequent news reports to say that civilians were hit by fire, including aid workers, but the location and number of causalities is not clear.


Troubling that Israel has cancelled the agreement to let foreign nationals leave through the border with Egypt.

[crazy canuck]

I like that trick

1. Argue something an expert never argued--a position that is largely wrong in a trivially easy to prove sense.
2. Quote that expert and claim his words prove your position, despite them not actually saying the same thing.
3. Accuse another person of wrongthink whilst using 1&2 as some sort of ace in the hole

Unlike you cc runs a tight ship. The paperwork on Israel's side may be irregular, hence the traumatized nation must cease all offensive action.

Wait, you guys said the expert was wrong and did not understand how war is really fought because I guess you know more than someone who has dedicated their academic career to these issues.  And now its more convenient to waive away the fact his views are inconsistent with yours by claiming he doesn't hold views inconsistent with yours.

Now that IS a neat trick.

[Valmy]

Reports Israel shelled one of the routes south that they had designated as safe, killing over 70.  Mostly women and children.

I mean that seems really evil so I would probably want confirmation.

But...why not? Nothing seems beyond the pale in this conflict.