I don’t post about international affairs much — that’s Adam’s thing and the only politics I know anything about is in North America. But, as is our ritual over the holidays, I watched the nightly news with my old man last night, and this story is just pure horror:
One of northern Gaza’s last functioning hospitals, Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahia, is “suffering from a stifling siege,” Gaza’s Health Ministry said Friday after Israeli forces stormed inside and “forcibly” removed health workers, patients and family members, as military vehicles surrounded the hospital.
“The operating and surgical departments, laboratory, maintenance, and emergency units have been completely burned, and the fire is now spreading to the buildings,” the ministry’s statement said.
This is from NBC News and it ran in last night’s prime-time newscast. One of the most gut-wrenching parts of the video was watching the hospital administrator, who had been interviewed multiple times by NBC (they said) being dragged out and labeled as a Hamas collaborator. He looked just broken.
Again, I’m not an expert in the Gaza conflict, but I am a human being with two eyes and two ears, and this whole fucking episode has been nothing but poison for our side, who we like to think are the “good guys”. The regular reports of Biden being big mad at Bibi Netanyahu, while doing essentially nothing about Bibi’s obvious prolongation of this conflict to stave off the reckoning for his corruption, was at least a factor in our loss this cycle, and certainly promoted the narrative of Biden being old and out of touch.
It doesn’t fucking matter that Trump will be worse, which he certainly will be. From the perspective of consequences for innocents in Gaza, how much worse can it get than burning down one of the last functioning hospitals, which is happening prior to Trump taking office?
It does matter that Hamas killed 1,200 in October, 2023. Does that justify burning down a hospital in December, 2024, and if it does, why? Does it justify killing 45,000 Palestinians, as well as hundreds of journalists and aid workers?
The moral ugliness of financing the army that burns down hospitals and murders civilians was a factor in the election, and we need to get this one right next time. I don’t know, exactly, what “right” is, but I know what it isn’t. I saw it on TV last night.
laura
There may not be a single right, but there have been so, so many wrongs. The Irish seem to have a solid grip on the moral high ground, we should emulate their stance.
Bibi Netanyahu is a monster.
Omnes Omnibus
Without overtly wishing anything bad on anyone, I will just say that surgeries can be complicated and sometimes bad things happen.
Kay
@laura:
This issue is very live on TikTok and Irish people were getting savaged by Americans and Brits for being pro Palestinian. So the dolts came up with a “cutting” slur, “Paddystinian”. Irish being Irish (they’re very funny and don’t suffer fools – I love Ireland, particularly Northern Ireland) they embraced the slur and proudly put it in their handles. Bravo. They’re an absolute inspiration.
A Ghost to Most
Just another chapter in the holy wars.
alquitti
I’m seeing a lot of things in the last ten years I never thought I’d live to see. The worst is that Israel, which exists because of the holocaust, is behaving like the Nazis. Gaza is Israel’s Lidice.
Kay
I do not understand why the IDF doesn’t get a handle on their soldiers social media posts. They are literally speaking into the camera and describing war crimes they have committed. Do they understand this is actionable? Or are they so confident no one will ever do anything they just allow it?
This has been reported in both US and foreign media over and over since February of 2024 and there is yet another new batch of what are on-camera confessions.
Geo Wilcox
@Kay: Nothing has happened to them so far so why wouldn’t they continue to brag all over the place?
Kay
@A Ghost to Most:
“Same old, same old” isn’t true, I don’t think. 90% of Gazans are either displaced or dead. This is what we dropped on them:
70,000 tons of US bombs. On 2 million trapped people. I think people are missing the scale of it.
Kay
@Geo Wilcox:
Ooof. A lot of them are young. One would think their superiors would take better care of them.
Poe Larity.
We will remain steadfast while our allies pursue a final solution to their ethnic problems.
Warblewarble
Netanyahu is merely continuing what was begun by Ben Gurion , but with more powerful weapons and the full backing of the colonial powers.
tobie
I’ll wait for independent confirmation of the cause. IDF says they didn’t start the fire. I don’t trust what Netanyahu says but I do believe Halevi is trustworthy.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-denies-hamas-claims-that-troops-set-fire-to-north-gazas-kamal-adwan-hospital/
Large weapons caches were found in the hospital and 15 of those arrested participated in Oct 7.
In general: I wish the Netanyahu admin had made freeing the hostages a priority. They didn’t. They’ve prolonged the conflict. This can be true, as can the fact that Hamas hides in hospitals and endangers civilians.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Israel has flamed through the high moral ground it owned as a refuge for persecuted Jews.
m.j.
Strangely enough, evil seems to exist along a continuum, you might say. It isn’t a simple dichotomy. Sort of like everything else that one can examine about humanity.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@tobie:
Yeah, don’t know who to believe on this particular one. As I said, not an expert, just reacting to what I saw and the track record of the IDF as has been reported over the past few months.
FWIW, the story was presented by NBC with as much skepticism about Israel’s claims as could be present in a network news piece. Clearly huge skepticism about the director of the hospital being a member of Hamas. I’m guessing he did what he had to do to keep the hospital open.
MomSense
Thank you for posting this, mm. Israel could not have done this without our support. We provided weapons, cash, and ran interference with media and UN. Unforgivable. I do not in anyway condone what Hamas did. It doesn’t excuse the disproportionate (never has that word been so understated) response.
tobie
@@mistermix.bsky.social:
@MomSense:
It’s the certainty of the cause of the fire based on the Hamas-appointed Ministry of Health that I find troubling. You treat with distrust & contempt anything and everything that the IDF says, though they have copped to many mistakes in this war, but take as Gospel truth anything Hamas says, which has never once admitted a mistake. Heck, the Hamas-appointed Gaza Ministry of Health still lists 500 dead at Al-Ahli Hospital from an Israeli bomb. If nothing else, shouldn’t we be we recognize that both sides are waging an information war that does a awful disservice to the civilians caught in a war zone?
Suzanne
I will co-sign everything you wrote here, Mistemix.
I will also note that the fact that this happened with American aid has been deeply devastating to me.
Warblewarble
In the years before 7 th October 2023 Hamas was the administration in Gaza, all public employees were were employed by Hamas. Calling those Israel wants to abuse and tarnish Hamas operatives is all too easy and eagerly snapped up by complicit western media.
Old Man Shadow
Mass starvation as ethnic cleansing. Annexation. Camps. Forcibly taking infants and children into reeducation/assimilation camps. Settler death squads. More mass graves which are paved over by Saudi redevelopment dollars to build resorts for tourists especially the 1% and/or American Evangelicals. Everyone in the world pretending its not happening and didn’t happen because there’s money to be made.
Kay
I watch the State Department press briefings and although the Biden State Department spokespeople are very disappointing – bland and disengenous but prickly as hell when they’re caught in a lie – the foreign policy press is a positive. They hammer. They ask real questions and do rigorous follow up. I wish our domestic news media were as professional.
tam1MI
MomSense
@tobie:
Don’t put words in my mouth to assist your argument. I do not accept anything Hamas says as Gospel truth.
I distrust statements made by Israel and Hamas. There are plenty of international humanitarian organizations and personnel on the ground who provide accounts of what is happening.
Leto
For n+1 time, Israel is a signatory of the Geneva Conventions of 1947, which established the Law of Armed Conflict. They’ve violated all four laws, and it’s not even a tough case to prove as their leadership encouraged them to post all of it online. Saying, “Hamas attacked us, so we get to violate all these laws/international treaties” doesn’t fly. Didn’t fly for us in Iraq/Afghanistan, doesn’t fly for them. Never has, never will.
Anyways, combining what we were discussing yesterday with this post (free WaPo gift link): Israel built an ‘AI factory’ for war. It unleashed it in Gaza.
Years before the Gaza war, Israel transformed its intelligence unit into an AI testing ground, triggering a debate among top commanders about whether humans were sufficiently in the loop.
Old Man Shadow
Also, I’m not sure how Biden or Harris was supposed to navigate the politics here. Half the people in communities I engaged with supported Israel and the other half supported the non-Hamas Gazans. Either way they were going to lose votes.
If they cut off aid to Israel and they get slammed relentlessly as pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic by Republicans and the media. If they support Israel after the 10-7 attack and try to negotiate a cease fire and get more humanitarian aid into Gaza, they’re called genocidal accomplices.
Betty Cracker
Netanyahu is a corrupt, bloodthirsty fascist, and he played Joe Biden. I’m deeply ashamed of my part in it as a U.S. citizen.
tam1MI
Gaza turned out to be the perfect wedge issue for the Republicans to use against us – it unified their side and tore our side to pieces.
@mistermix.bsky.social
@tobie:
Neither MomSense nor I treated “everything” said by the IDF with distrust and contempt, nor did we take as “Gospel” what Hamas said.
I just said I was skeptical of the claim that the army that chose to enter this hospital and empty it of patients (some of them seriously ill) didn’t start the fire in the incursion they started.
You really undermine your position when you reply like this.
tobie
@MomSense: I was responding to your post.
Suzanne
@Old Man Shadow:
Does it matter?
tam1MI
He also got a heavy assist from the pro-Palestinian movement in the US, who eagerly stepped on every rake they could find in their dedicated march to political irrelevance.
Netanyahu and AIPAC are monsters, but they are smart monsters. They were ahead of the pro-Palestinians every step of the way. Biden wasn’t the only one who got played.
Kay
@Old Man Shadow:
Biden had 65% Muslim support in 2020. He made them specific promises. He kept none of those promises with the exception of rescinding the Muslim ban.
They’ve flipped back and forth over the years, but can you blame them? They were 50/50 GOP and then the country went insanely anti Muslim (on a bipartisan basis) after 9/11 so they moved towards D’s. Then D’s offered them absolutely nothing this last cycle except Bill Clinton wagging his finger at them and telling them how great he is, to they went toward R’s. The truth is they don’t have a political party. They get screwed either way.
MomSense
@tobie:
I know. Too bad I didn’t write what you said I did.
Jay
@Leto:
https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/
From April,
TONYG
My own, uninformed, opinion … 1) Hamas is a horrible, terrorist organization, whose top leaders are not even in Gaza, who (deliberately or not), on 10/07/2023, provoked Israel’s deadly attacks on Gaza. 2) For more than fourteen months now, Israel has effectively occupied Gaza — but the Israeli forces are not acting like a responsible occupying force that is trying to provide stable government services to the areas that they occupy. Instead the Israeli forces are acting (for example) like the Serbian forces in Bosnia in the early nineties — using force and the credible threat of force to coerce Palestinians in Gaza to leave — ethnic cleansing. The goal is probably to replace Gazan Palestinians with Israeli settlers. 3) The United States should not be assisting Israel in doing this. Military aid to Israel should have been cut off many months ago. 4) From the strict perspective of U.S. electoral politics, however, I do not think that had much to do with Biden/Harris losing to Donald Trump in November. There are few issues in American politics more polarizing than Israel/Palestine. By continuing to ship weapons to Israel, Biden/Harris lost a lot of pro-Palestine votes. But if weapons shipments to Israel had been stopped, Biden/Harris would have probably lost about as many pro-Israel votes. The main reason why Trump won last month was the incredible stupidity of tens of millions of American voters, most of whom could not find Israel or Gaza on a map. Just my opinion …
tam1MI
@Jay: So apparently someone in the IDF saw CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER and thought that what Hydra was doing in that movie was a terrific idea.
Kay
@tam1MI:
Oh, don’t worry about the protestors. We didn’t protect their political speech. Apparently there’s an exception to the 1st Amendment. Their universities collapsed and complied immediately. The FBI are now fucking harassing them so they’ll be quiet now. The FBI can’t prevent an invasion of the capitol but they’re very good at silencing dissent.
But keep those tuition checks coming, right? Our young cash cows. College administrators disgust me. Absolute cowards.
Lumpy
Democrats should not worry about how to “navigate the politics”; Just take a stand against genocide.
tobie
@@mistermix.bsky.social: I would think that bringing patients to the Indonesian Hospital to get them out of harm’s way would be the right thing to do.
There’s plenty of room for a discussion of why Netanyahu’s refusal to consider a political solution has prolonged the conflict, cost many lies, endangered Palestinians (and also Israelis), and destroyed whatever last thread (we’re well past shreds) of good will there might still be for a two-state solution. There’s also room to acknowledge the conflict between Israeli political and military leadership. They’re not on the same page, though the firing of Gallant was an ominous sign. I’m just not in the mood for creating a cartoon villain. Urban wars are messy and deadly which is one of the many reasons why they shouldn’t go on indefinitely.
tam1MI
Polarizing for Democrats. Republicans stood shoulder to shoulder on it.
They probably would have lost even more votes if they had stopped shipments. Jewish people outnumber Palestinian people by a hefty percentage both in the USA at large and the Democratic party.
strange visitor (from another planet)
yeah, well. this is infuriating.
how many times will kay say that AMERICA is bombing gaza? how many times will she accuse our airmen/women and naval aviators of war crimes? where are all the protesters savaging saudi arabia for using US gear to drop US bombs on yemen?
funny how you just don’t hear much about that. as a red-sea pedestrian, i have to wonder what’s missing?
and not for nothing, as much as netanyahu is a giant fucking monster and the expanding combat-theatre is an over-reaction-
this is on hamas.
there was a a functioning ceasefire on oct. 6th.
hamas wants this. this is their plan.
they could surrender NOW.
the leaders of hamas could’ve unconditionally surrendered on oct 8th.
hell, they could put on uniforms and fight like a real army instead of swimming in a sea of civilian concealment.
they didn’t want to. they DON’T want to. they don’t care how many of their people die, they think that furthers their agenda of turning public opinion against jews so that they can ultimately eliminate us all. THEY don’t differentiate between ISRAELIS and JEWS at large. neither do many if not MOST of the protesters IRL and on-line. their strategy gets people like kay screaming into the ether about how horrible jews are while they sit comfortably countries away from the hot conflict they ignited.
hamas can not function without the support of the gazans. the gazans have made it clear they’d rather die hiding hamas than helping the IDF root them out.
and don’t give me this shit about how RIGHT the fucking “pro-palestinian” protesters are…they’re out here in nyc going after random fucking jews because apparently the riders of the F train and the head of the brooklyn fucking museum run the goddamn IDF.
fuck that shit.
and for real, AFAIK, what’s keeping this conflict going (beyond netanyahu’s court-related problems) is that the hidden leadership of hamas wants to remain in control of gaza (from afar), so they won’t just give the fuck up and stop the war (that they started), which is blasting and brutalizing their fucking constituents.
Kay
Our huge bloated Homeland Security apparatus can’t defend the capitol or find out who planted a pipe bomb right under their noses during the insurrection ( the insurrection they missed), but they can devote thousands of man hours to harrassing and silencing 21 year old human rights advocates.
TONYG
@Kay: Yup. The school of my long-ago college days (The University of Pennsylvania) issued a proclamation recently to the effect that the university will no longer comment on ANY issue (international, national or even local to Philadelphia) that does not directly pertain to the university. I imagine that this is happening at many colleges and universities. They’ve been slapped on the wrist and they’re learned to keep their mouths shut. This provides a useful example to the Gen Z students at these schools. Get that degree/job/”career” and don’t pay attention to anyone else. Shut up and obey orders.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Jay: in a nexus of horrors, that AI is directing death from above might be the most obscene thing emerging from this conflict.
TONYG
@tam1MI: That is most likely true. Apparently the Evangelicals (for their own crazy theological reasons) are very pro-Israel also — but almost all of the Evangelicals are Trump voters anyway.
Old Man Shadow
FWIW (which is nothing), I told my congressmen and Presidents Obama and Trump to stop supporting the slaughter and war crimes in Yemen.
Leto
@Kay: my Transnational Feminist/Global Ethics professor had the same reaction you did. Like you said, anything that disrupts the cash coming in has to be squashed, no matter what.
tobie
@strange visitor (from another planet): In our new world order, causality and responsibility are clearly divided. One side’s behavior is always the effect of external causes; the other side’s behavior is pure aggression, and they are 100% responsible for it. I’ve come to the conclusion we need villains to know we are on the side of right. It’s maddening to witness the new manicheanism.
Kay
@TONYG:
Evangelical Christians hate Muslims. That’s why they “support” Israel. Its not a secret. They’ll tell you. Israel is protecting them from the Muslim Hordes. Its pure hatred, like all of their “alliances”.
TONYG
@strange visitor (from another planet): That is true, but there’s a long history of that kind of automated death. The B52’s that bombed Vietnam a couple of generations ago were often flying 8 or 9 miles above the earth. The B52 crews were technicians dropping bombs on people that they never saw.
Lumpy
Stop arguing about what position would lose more votes for Democrats. Democrats need to stand against ethnic cleansing and genocide, period.
This is a land grab by Israel, full stop. Case in point, Hamas is not in the West Bank. But Israel attacks there as well.
Anyone who says that the status quo was fine before October 7 and Hamas spoiled the peace is either delusional or a monster.
Bill Arnold
@Jay:
The closest match I found for the code name “Where’s Daddy?” is this from Ralph Bakshi’s “Wizards”, 1977. It would be a typical spook (intelligence service) joke, comparing Hamas terrorists/militants with fairies that “just have love”. A grotesque cultural theft by Israelis, IMO. Regularly deliberately killing families (and sometimes extended families) because they are easy targets when asleep at home genuinely makes the Israelis the baddies in that movie.
Fairy Child: Where’s Daddy? What’s he doing?
Fairy: He is guarding our home, son. There has been a war, and this land is lost.
Fairy Child: Why can’t we fight and win, Mommy?
Fairy: Because they have weapons and technology. We just have love.
TONYG
@Kay: Yup. I think that it also has something to do with their theology about Israel and the “end times”, but that’s probably just bullshit. They’re hate-filled people (even worse than the Catholic Church of my youth) and I think that most of the “theology” is just a fig-leaf to justify their hatred.
Old Man Shadow
@Kay: Well, yes, they hate Muslims. But they support Israel because of their apocalyptic theology. Israel has to exist for Jesus to come back to rapture them to heaven, and then the seven years of tribulation happen and then Armageddon.
Also, in the Old Testament, God promised Abraham that he would bless people who supported Abraham and curse those that did not, so they see that as applicable to Israel the modern nation-state.
Lastly, as a subset of your anti-Muslim analysis, I think the nationalists among them see Jewish people in Israel as “white” and the Palestinians as “non-white” invaders.
Kay
@Leto:
People are kidding themselves if they think it stops with these students. My youngest graduates in June. I cannot get him away from these spineless cowards fast enough.
That sound you heard on campus was another US institution folding like a Dollar Store lawn chair. Call them trade schools. That’s what they are.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@TONYG: yeah, AFAIK, the support of israel comes from one place, the NEED for there to be a 3rd temple in fulfillment of elements of the prophecy required for jesus to return.
they hate sephardic jews almost as much as arabs (and really despise white muslims and ashkenazi jews once they find out our true natures). they figure once their christ returns, all jews get to repent or spend eternity in lakes of fire, so good times?
tam1MI
No surprises there. Anyone familiar with the history of 20th and 21st century left-wing social movements would have seen that coming a mile away.
Geminid
@Lumpy: Hamas operates in the West Bank and has for some years now. So does Hamas’s principal ally, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. They are rivals to the Palestinian Authority and its military wing, Fatah.
Leto
@Kay: I think one of the most revealing facts for my TransNational Fem class students was the fact that US colleges/universities have simply become job mills due to the abandonment of the private sector to provide job training. They foisted all that back onto the public sector, with no pushback. I basically walked them through that transition from the late 60s till today. The collective response was, “JFC…” and a deepening hatred of our current system.
And honestly, I think most of them recognize it, they just didn’t know how to put it into words. I had a really good group of classmates in that class. 12 women, 3 men (including myself); they were all really sharp. Fingers crossed for all of them.
Another Scott
@tobie:
+1
It’s been clear to me since Israel moved (back) into Gaza that the Bibi and the IDF under Bibi was determined to flatten the place and kill as many Hamas people as possible even if that meant killing everyone else there. The fact that it’s an impossibility to kill every Hamas person (and apparently Israel is continually trying to conflate everyone who has any relationship at all with Hamas as being the same as those who murdered Israelis on October 7) is apparently actually a benefit to Bibi because it means the war will never end and Israel’s total control over Gaza will never end.
It’s also been clear to me that Hamas was doing everything in its power to preserve its strength as a fighting force in opposition to the overwhelming superiority of the IDF. That means putting weapons in schools and hospitals, tunnels everywhere, and all the rest, to make the cost to Israel for trying to go after them as high as possible. Of course they’re doing that – every insurgency does that. Look at the history of the Old North Bridge in Concord for a relevant example. They counted on Bibi over-reacting and killing as many civilians as possible, because they know that Israel can only be forced to change, or to lose, if outside powers make Israel stop. (But, of course, we know that the outside powers will not make Israel stop – not least because the cost (by all kinds of measures) would be too high in the eyes of too many of their citizens.)
Israel’s political leadership is horrible, but a majority of Israeli voters either are supporters, or are Ok with it, or too naive or disinterested to build a strong enough coalition to keep the Greater Israel monsters out of power. Similarly, too many in the Palestinian leadership and their external supporters with deep pockets see too many benefits in the equivalent maximalist position that Israel should be removed from the map.
Israel needs to exist. Palestine needs to exist.
The US has treaties and support agreements with Israel that we need to uphold, even when we vehemently disagree with their government’s policies. Biden’s hands were – to some extent (we can argue about the extent) – tied, even before one gets to the very real domestic political considerations. Having the US be even more of an unreliable defense partner, especially in the middle east, is dangerous. It’s difficult enough to convince others that the US nuclear umbrella and various fleets means they don’t need their own nuclear weapons – imagine their reactions to us Noping out on satisfying defense treaties with a country that has a huge lobby in the USA. Letting Bibi claim that only he can protect Israel in face of US Democratic opposition would make him and the Greater Israel folks stronger and even more difficult to deal with – now and in the future when he’s finally gone.
What’s the answer? Beats me. :-(
We weren’t going to invade Gaza and force the IDF to stop.
Cutting off all arms shipments and access (there apparently are masses of US arms pre-positioned in warehouses in Israel under US control) invites the “then what” question. Suppose Bibi tries to nationalize the US warehouses? Then what? Suppose Iran saw an opening and launched a serious and sustained attack – what would we do? Remember our treaty and support agreements.
None of this stuff is easy.
Yes, innocents are suffering. Yes it’s horrible. Throwing up our hands, or just saying “No!” to Bibi is not a policy that gets us where we want to be (a peaceful, prosperous, fair, and just Gaza, Israel, and Palestine). We have to look more than one step ahead. Hamas brought a disaster upon the people of Gaza, but I think we have to remember that Israel has been strangling Gaza for decades and empowering Hamas and similar extremists who argue (with some – we can argue about the extent – justification) that Israel will never be fair to the Palestinian people.
Without some sort of fair peace agreement after this, the next blowup will be worse. :-(
FWIW. YMMV.
Peace and comfort to the innocents.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jay
Lavender and other AI are basically a “phone tree”. If Lavender ID’d somebody as allegedly Hamas, and you took a phone call or made a phone call to them, you are also Hamas.
The IDF also basically removed all ROE. In the past, the IDF would carefully target suspected Hamas leaders, usually by targeting them when they were alone, then they shifted to “precision strikes” taking out homes and apartments, killing everybody in side, and then to flattening entire apartment buildings. And that is for all “suspected Hamas”. If you are Palestinian, if you can be seen from an IDF position, you will be shot.
And of course, they added wanton destruction of buildings, rape, torture, murder and looting to their tool bag.
beckya57
@alquitti: yes. We need to acknowledge the reality and pull our support, with the caveat that we’d reconsider ONLY if Israel formed an entirely new government. I had hopes Harris would do something along these lines; Trump of course will cheer the Gazans’ annihilation, frees up all that beachfront property after all.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Lumpy: yeah, so gaza has been a self-governing entity since 2005? and that polity has decided in its infinite wisdom to devote nineteen (going on twenty) years and all of its international aid towards the goal of killing all the fucking jews in the whole fucking world?
the west bank IS in the midst of a constant, clawing land-grab by the IDF backed, zealot-settler movement, but fatah are worse bumblers than keystone cops leaving the west bank archipelagos with no functional leadership. the two scenarios are completely fucking different.
so i guess, from this monster, go fuck yourself.
Leto
Way OT: watching the Eagles/Cowboys game, and at this commercial break right here an Ontario (Canada) ad just came. Touting our long economic history, how 17 states were connected to them in trade, that we’ve always been partners and how we should keep working together, and that we have a long history with “our partner to the North”.
It was just a really different type of ad. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one like that before.
Jay
@Leto:
Won’t change any minds in the US, just a waste of money when we should be building a physical, media and social media wall.
Kay
@Old Man Shadow:
That came out in the US Muslim vote too. Muslims who see themselves as “white” went for Trump by 20 compared to Muslims who describe themselves as nonwhite. So that holds.
Suzanne
@strange visitor (from another planet):
There hasn’t been an election in Gaza since 2006. Over half of the Gazan population has never voted for anything.
Also, half of that population is children.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Suzanne: yes, and hamas won. then, IIRC, they threw their political opponents out of windows and off of roofs.
Kay
@strange visitor (from another planet):
It’s weird to make it all about me, I think. I don’t know about “airmen” but IDF soldiers are going on social media and recounting their war crimes in graphic detail.
So take it up with the generals. I suggest getting them off social media. They’ve been doing this bizarre bragging for more then a year and it has been covered EXTENSIVELY by media. They just released a fresh batch of war crimes video last week where they say they are “God” inside Gaza. They. The soldiers. Not me. Not the protestors.
But blame me, blame the protestors, blame anyone who brings this issue up because how dare we discuss US foreign policy. It isn’t going away.
tobie
@Another Scott: Needless to say, we don’t agree on everything but that’s okay. I’m not looking for moral support. I thought Harris would have been tougher on Israel than Biden because her statements on foreign policy generally were tougher than his and she focused on what was in the US’s interest. The continuation of this war is in no one’s interest, least of all Palestinians and Israelis. FWIW in the last poll in Israel Netanyahu and Likud netted a grand total of 26% support. A change in leadership in Israel and Gaza is a precondition for any lasting peace. How we get there is anyone’s guess.
tam1MI
Sadly, it is going away, and in the worst way it possibly could.
The Audacity of Krope
Decades. And this wouldn’t have been a successful wedge issue against Democrats if they had stood against colonial terrorism literally at any point ever.
suzanne
@strange visitor (from another planet): My point is that that polity hasn’t decided anything. There’s nothing even remotely close to democratic governance.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Kay: you. totally you. you’ve been saying for MONTHS now that WE are bombing gaza.
you’ve said it over and over again. i’ve mentioned it to you several times, so have other commenters
hasn’t stopped you.
eta- you wanna move the goalposts? fuck that. i’m not TALKING about IDF. i’m talking about OUR pilots. the ones YOU are accusing of war crimes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: I think the commenter was arguing that US soldiers and airmen are not committing war crimes in Gaza and that your rhetoric suggests that they are.
Old Man Shadow
If they didn’t want to be classified as Hamas militants, they should have chosen to be born somewhere else.
The Audacity of Krope
Exactly this. Standing for principle may lose some votes, pandering to placate fascists definitely loses votes.
If you stand for the truth and lose, at least you stood for the truth. If you try to be underhanded and lose, you’re lost.
Kay
@strange visitor (from another planet):
This is an Israeli news report of IDF soldiers depictions of their own actions.
Not me. Not protestors. In their own words.
It’s not the first! The NYTimes had an identical story in February of 2024. Take it up with their superiors.
Jay
@Kay:
Best not to respond to lies.
strange visitor is accusing you of accusing “American” service people of committing massive war crimes in Gaza,
I guess that they don’t know that the US Military is not involved in fighting in Gaza, other than as a weapons supplier,
and of course, is more than comfortable with the IDF posting video’s on YouTube and Tic-Toc of their warcrimes and boasting about them.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Kay: yeah. that’s groovy. that’s your own goalpost you’re shlepping, hope it’s not too heavy.
again. you’ve accused american airmen and naval aviators of war crimes, repeatedly.
it’s not about the fucking protesters, it’s not about the IDF.
it’s about YOU.
The Audacity of Krope
Can’t we all get together and agree that Joe Biden is the sole person responsible for the last 50ish years of US policy toward Israel?
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Jay: oh, i “don’t know” that american boots aren’t on the ground in gaza?
fucking ridiculous. first of all, she’s been talking about BOMBS. you know, from the sky? dropped by air assets?
you wanna go dive into the archive, you can find MANY times kay has said that WE, americans, the US, are committing war crimes in gaza.
i’ve objected to it before, so have other commenters.
FFS. she did it just a few threads ago.
Geminid
@strange visitor (from another planet): Actually, Hamas threw several dozen Fatah policemen off roofs in 2006 when they took over the Gaza Strip. The election came after that and under the circumstances, I wouldn’t call them free and fair.
Hamas ruled the Strip with an iron fist afterwards, and it’s hard to say how much popular support they have now or ever had. I’ve seen video of hundreds, maybe thousands of Gaza men celebrating the massacre on October 7, and these are often cited as proof of Hamas’s popular support.
But over two million people live in the Gaza Strip, so where were the rest of them? I suspect many were praying in mosques or at home, and many others were on the phone begging family and friends to help get them out. They knew the destruction that Hamas was bringing down on them.
The Audacity of Krope
@strange visitor (from another planet): Yesterday she also made a point to blame Democrats specifically and implied the exclusion of the Republicans.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Geminid: oh, i thought the defenestrations happened AFTER the elections, not before.
Old Man Shadow
@The Audacity of Krope: Well, he is history’s greatest monster who personally forced grocery stores to raise prices and neighborhood home owners to protest new housing development, so… yeah. It’s all his fault.
Rudi666
More poison
Gaza has most child amputees per capita globally: UN
https://www.trtworld.com/middle-east/gaza-has-most-child-amputees-per-capita-globally-un-18238947
Rudi666
@Rudi666:
The children of Gaza will grow up to hate ALL Israelis.
Geminid
@strange visitor (from another planet): Sorry, you were right and I was wrong.
The elections held in 2006 came first. Hamas won a plurality, and there ensued months of attempts to form a unity government with the Palestinian Authority. The deadlock continued until May of 2007 when open warfare broke out. Hamas got the upper hand over Fatah and that’s when the police were thrown of roofs.
@Geminid:
The Audacity of Krope
I’ve never seen the I/P issue come up among politicians without hearing the universal talking point, “Israel has a right to defend itself.”
I agree. But don’t its adversaries have the same right?
lowtechcyclist
Hamas and Israel are both pretty damn horrible. We shouldn’t support either one of these monstrous nations.
But we are, and that should have stopped many months ago.
Supposedly we lose some leverage over the Israelis if we stop aiding them. We certainly have lost our leverage already because we didn’t use it even in these circumstances. So why not just do the right thing, and stop aiding Israel?
We can’t undo the past, but at least then, we won’t share responsibility for their future war crimes and genocidal activity.
Leto
@The Audacity of Krope: they (Israel) have a right to defend themselves within the rule of law. I’ve always stated that they had the right to defend themselves against the October 7th attack, but like Biden warned them, don’t follow the same path we went down wrt Iraq/Afghanistan. And that’s what I always revert to with these discussions: LOAC. I know it’s not as sexy as “fucking kill them all,” but I dedicated 22.5 years to the profession of arms, so I’m gonna keep that drumbeat up.
The Audacity of Krope
I still say decades.
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
So do I. But Israel doesn’t have a right to billions of dollars each year of assistance from us in “defending itself.” Let them defend themselves, or whatever one wants to call it, without our assistance.
The Audacity of Krope
Regrettably, we live in a culture that prizes violence and exploitation.
It takes a really funny definition of defending oneself to accept 45 times as much loss of human life and incalculably greater destruction of infrastructure, which will lead to further loss of life.
TONYG
@Old Man Shadow: Jimmy Carter must be disappointed. He was History’s Greatest Monster for many decades but no Joe Biden has stolen that honor from him. Biden has the amazing ability to be both a senile old geezer and an evil mastermind — simultaneously.
The Unmitigated Gaul
@Kay: What was the bloated Dept Of Homeland Security doing during the lead-up to and on Jan 6?
TONYG
@Geminid: Since 10/08/2023 I have believed that Hamas planned and executed the 10/07/2023 atrocities in order to provoke Israel to attack Gaza. For both Hamas and Israel, the civilians in Gaza are pawns, not humans.
Another Scott
@The Audacity of Krope: The next 10 year MOU with Israel should be interesting. The existing one, signed by Obama, expires the end of FY2028 (September 30, 2028).
That agreement prevented Bibi from running to Congress every year and demanding more than the president proposed. In exchange, Israel was guaranteed a total of $3.8B/year. It’s hard to imagine Donnie being worried about such things, or even having the ability to think that far ahead. He’ll probably demand a lease for a big casino in Jerusalem over looking Temple Mount in exchange for whatever Bibi wants at the time, but that’s about it…
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
TONYG
@Leto: I guess Trump’s idiotic bloviation about taking over Canada has people up there concerned. They should be concerned. Trump is a psychologically unstable moron in command of the most powerful military in the world.
Kay
@Rudi666:
Its more than that. Millions of people have seen these videos. Remember Abu Ghraib? How that just rocketed around the world pre social media dominance? This is video after video, for two years. They’re basically on a loop on TikTok.
The Irish governments stand against the US bullying to drop their war crimes joinder was very popular with the Irish public. The days when the US had “poodles” for our ME bombings are over. The smart political move is to oppose us. People want their leaders to act like leaders of sovereign states. Its not unreasonable.
TONYG
@strange visitor (from another planet): Yeah, the Evangelicals seem to pretty much hate everyone who is not them (and an awful lot of their fellow Evangelicals too). Where I live (the New York Metropolitan Area) there are not a lot of Evangelicals, but they seem to be even worse than the religion of my childhood (Catholicism).
strange visitor (from another planet)
@TONYG: i’m in bk. kensington, a stone’s throw from borough park, domain of our own, home-grown zealots, the chasids.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Kay: “for our ME bombings”
FFS. you really can’t break the habit, can you?
our. country. isn’t. bombing. gaza.
Geminid
@TONYG: This is a correct conclusion in my opinion. The strategy was to stage a savage attack in order to provoke a savage response that would destroy Western support for Israel. Hamas bet the lives of tens of thousands of Gazans on this accelerationist scheme.
The Audacity of Krope
In exactly the same way Ethan Crumbley’s father didn’t shoot students at Oxford High School in Michigan.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … VirginiaMercury.com (from 12/27):
What’s that?? The GQP is in disarray??!! Unpossible!!
Reuters at Archive.IS:
“Wait, wait! How am I going to collect my vig on this if you decide it before I take office!!1” – DJT, probably.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@The Audacity of Krope: kid was hit with 24 charges including terrorism and murder in the first degree.
…and what were the parents charged with?
so yeah. kay’s wrong. kay’s not even CLOSE to right. our pilots aren’t killing any fucking gazans.
The Audacity of Krope
@strange visitor (from another planet): She is. Still doesn’t mean we don’t bear responsibility as a nation is all I’m saying.
Bill Arnold
@The Audacity of Krope:
Israel is not the USA’s child.
Israel is a major nuclear power, with a sophisticated military and intelligence apparatus, and a considerable domestic weapons industry.
(“Remember the Liberty”)
The Audacity of Krope
Child? No.
Dependent, though? Do we even need to check the receipts on this?
An irresponsible party that we insist on providing weapons? Beyond a doubt true.
Leto
@strange visitor (from another planet):
Just remember, when you’re wrong, keep digging. You’ll eventually make your way out. And just to continue to make the point, Kay has never said our pilots have conducted bombing operations in Gaza. At this point, post direct quotes where she has. It’s put up or shut the fuck up time.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: Accessory to murder is different to murder. Cold comfort, I know.
tam1MI
@Leto: I believe strange visitor was responding to this statement by Kay:
” The days when the US had “poodles” for our ME bombings are over.”
The Audacity of Krope
At least we all get to be accessories together. 🤗
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Leto: yeah. the parents were charged with involuntary manslaughter.
is that the same thing as murder in the first? terrorism?
FFS.
come on. i mean, she just did. in this thread. comment #101.
she said “our ME bombings”.
that would be “bombing operations”
@tam1MI: ty, yes. and like i said, she’s made similar sentiments very clear in other threads.
Bill Arnold
@The Audacity of Krope:
Israeli 2023 GDP was 510 billion USD.
If the USA cut off military (and other) support, they’d buy weapons elsewhere, and/or produce them domestically. They are capable.
To be clear, I believe that weapons supplies to Israel should be cut off due to their use by Israelis in commission of war crimes. But it would be a roadbump for the Israelis; they would make do, with other weapons and methods.
Kay
@strange visitor (from another planet):
Do you hold the people who funded Hamas responsible for the attack on Israeli citizens?
Yeah, me too.
We could have cut them off with, oh, 10000 tons of bombs. 20000. 300000. The blank check was unconscionable. It should not have happened. The nonsense with telling the US public eleven times that they were close to a deal sucked too. It’s bad government. ELEVEN times. To buy time. They lied to us.
Betty Cracker
Seeing reports that former President Carter has died. He was a good man. (Source)
The Audacity of Krope
This may well be true. Yet, I’ve been assured many times by politicians in both parties that if we stopped funding their
war crimes“defense,” that they would immediately be swarmed by their neighbors and subject to genocide themselves.Leto
@Betty Cracker: they’re reporting that now on the football shows.
Leto
@strange visitor (from another planet):
Sure, taken out of context but when you look at the entire passage she wrote…
Whatever dude. You keep digging. Tell us what you find on the other side.
The Audacity of Krope
Football has apparently scooped the FTFNYT. How the mighty have fallen.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Oh thanks. He got such a raw deal.
Stately Plump Buck
@laura:
The terrorist is using Judaism as a human shield.
The Audacity of Krope
@Leto: Strange visitor actually has the right of this with Kay. Maybe you can say this or that statement is ambiguous, but she never disambiguates.
Hell, yesterday she went even farther and singled out Democrats as uniquely responsible for these bombings.
I’m mad at Democrats too, but we gotta be sticking to facts here.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Kay: i mean, that’s a red herring- who funds gaza? who’s donations are converted into war material by hamas? who directly funds hamas?
do i blame iran for the rapes and murders of intoxicated, unarmed children on october 7th? yeeeeah, but not in the same way that i do the motherfuckers who did the deeds.
…and again, that’s not the point. that’s not even CLOSE to the point. you’ve been saying for a while that americans are bombing gaza.
there are naval assets in the gulf and eastern med protecting shipping; there are boots on the ground in syria and i’m SURE, tons of things civilians aren’t privy to…
but our pilots aren’t committing war crimes in gaza and i don’t know where the fuck you’re getting that from or why you keep repeating it.
Leto
@The Audacity of Krope: oh, well then you can quote them. Pull the quote where she states that US military is currently bombing Gaza. Not a “we are supplying the weapons to do this,” but “our pilots shouldn’t be doing this.”
And if we want to be sticklers for “facts,” we’re currently stationed there (US Navy just off shore), shooting down the incoming missiles from Iran/Hezbollah, as well as proving C2 and ISR capabilities for ops. As much as Bill Arnold wants to claim that they’re “self-sufficient,” they sure as fuck rely on us for so goddamned much. Like you said, we’ve been told our entire lives that if we stop supporting them then they’ll be overrun by their neighbors within minutes.
gene108
Israel is going to be surprised when GenX and Baby Boomers and older generations either get too old to be in charge in great numbers or drop dead from old age.
The younger generations do not have as much of a connection to WW2. The parents of Baby Boomers and grandparents of GenX were part of WW2. There’s a personal connection for many in these generations to the horrors and triumphs of the war. There were many more Holocaust survivors to remind people of what happened.
The younger generations don’t have this connection. Like everything, the living connection to past events dies off and much of it just becomes stuff in a history book.
I think Europe is already there with regards to Israel, I think. The global South is there.
U.S. won’t get there because the evangelicals who makeup the Republican Party need the Jews to rule Israel to bring on the Rapture and Apocalypse, but the U.S. role on the global stage will shrink as other countries rise.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: This is true for the most part, but the Israelis would be in real trouble if the US cut off replacement parts for their fighter jets.
Modern fighter jets are one set of weapon systems that they cannot produce for themselves or at least, not for years and then at great cost. Few nations can now
Betty
@Betty Cracker: We won’t see another one like him in public office any time soon. May he rest in peace.
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: See comment #8 in this thread.
TONYG
@Bill Arnold: That one I didn’t know about. Not just “accidentally” killing the families as “collateral damage” but deliberately targeting the families. Grotesque.
TONYG
@gene108: That is true. Like most Boomers I had (past-tense) a number of older family members who were ww2 veterans, and I also knew (past-tense) several Holocaust survivors. All of them died more than ten years ago. For generations younger than me, Hitler, World War Two and the Holocaust might as well have been the Civil War or the Punic Wars.
Jay
@Kay:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-funds-israel-backing-intl/index.html
Unlike most foreign aid to Gaza, which is conducted through the Donor Nation’s own programs, UNHCR or other known and respected Aid Organizations, it was cash in suitcases to Hamas.
And Israel made it happen.
There is also the little reported issue that “The Watchers” said that the October 7th attack was going to happen, but those in charge dismissed all their evidence and went so far as to pull 2 Brigade’s from Gaza, to beef up their ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.
The Audacity of Krope
@Leto:
@Kay: This is what we dropped on them: #8
@Kay: The days when the US had “poodles” for our ME bombings are over: #101
That’s two on this thread. The comments I referenced from yesterday were on a bloated 500 post thread that I’m not going to spend the time evaluating.
The Audacity of Krope
That’s too deep into the comments to reasonably expect someone to read that far.
ETA: My ability to stand between two people and say “you’re both wrong” continues to win friends and influence people.
stinger
Trump is a doddering old liar.
Starfish (she/her)
@tobie: One hundred bed hospital that was bombed last year for how many people?
Jay
@The Audacity of Krope:
#8 “We” = US supplied. IAF delivered. Israel makes only 20% of the aerial bombs used by the IAF, most Israeli manufactured aerial bombs are PGM’s and 70% are sold to export markets like China, India, Thailand, Brazil, El Salvador, etc.
#101, “poodles”. Used to be that US Allies used to follow the US “lead”, but now, many US Allies are “nopeing” on the US and Israel.
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: There is a book that I think I have mentioned here before called “The Limits of Whiteness.” It is an academic book about how South West Asian and North African people see themselves. After 9/11, a lot of college students started seeing themselves as non-white. I think we finally get a category in the next census.
The Audacity of Krope
@Jay: Point is, the latter comment was made amidst several people telling her to stop staying that we were doing the bombing. If she was actually engaged in the conversation, she was presumably aware of this criticism she was receiving. If the distinction mattered to her, she presumably would have made an effort to draw that distinction at some point. She didn’t.
But this wasn’t just today. This is a pattern. Today was relatively mild.
Glory b
@tam1MI: Exactly.
Bill Arnold
@Leto:
I’m just saying that they’d make do without USA support. Some missiles might get through that the USA would have otherwise shot down, or Israelis with USA supplied AA missiles. Israeli troops would have to engage in more ground combat (and lose more troops) and less obliteration-of-targets-from-the-air-with-very-large-bombs. etc. You’re the person with a military background, so adjust for accuracy.
Starfish (she/her)
@The Audacity of Krope:
After your reading comprehension failures yesterday, you are being intentionally daft today.
If we provided the bomb that was dropped on someone, we have some culpability in that. And just because we were not there in person does not absolve us of things like blocking every UN resolution against the war crimes being committed.
The Audacity of Krope
I agree. And I don’t have the faintest clue why you would think otherwise.
IOW, my reading comprehension failures?
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: There is no connection, direct or indirect, between the presence of US Navy ships in the theatre and Israel’s use of bombing to minimise IDF casualties. Same with the THAAD battery we stationed in Israel to augment their ballistic missile defense.
Jay
@The Audacity of Krope:
https://www.state.gov/key-topics-bureau-of-democracy-human-rights-and-labor/human-rights/leahy-law-fact-sheet/
PeakVT
@Betty Cracker:
Biden didn’t get played. He’s a Zionist who was bought by Israel decades ago. All of his actions point to him backing Israel’s genocide 100%.
Jay
@PeakVT:
So, you have evidence of Israel paying President Joe Biden? You should contact Gym Justice and James Comer about that with your documented evidence.
PIGL
@strange visitor (from another planet): I think you will find that the appetite on the part of the rest of the world for your hysterical self-serving bullshit is a lot less than it was in former times.
PIGL
@gene108: I think they’re aware of that and that their desperate murderous actions in Gaza, Lebanon Yemen, and Syria have to be seen in this light.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@PIGL:@PIGL: ah. well, that’s lovely.
i’m pretty fucking far from fucking hysterical. that being said, you can go fuck yourself too, strange new nym.
my alleged “bullshit” is factual and the facts aren’t serving ME, but it’s the fucking truth. kay has yet to miss an opportunity to blame american airmen and naval aviators for the bombings in gaza.
she’s been at it for MONTHS.
maybe if you didn’t just drop out of the fucking sky, you’d know that.
in conclusion: yeah, go fuck yourself
eta- or are you trying to pretend that a non-uniformed, guerilla force CAN function WITHOUT the CONSENT of the populace it CONCEALS itself within? yeah, bc then you’re just making shit up. just like kay
maybe you’re trying to pretend that hamas leadership isn’t hiding in another fucking country while their people are shredded in a conflict they re-ignited? because that’s ALSO a fucking fact. maybe you’re trying to pretend the gazans didn’t lash out against a bunch of unarmed CHILDREN at a fucking rave-for-peace.
maybe you’re a fucking propagandist.
maybe you should REALLY fuck off.
PIGL
@strange visitor (from another planet):
I suggest you apply your logic of collective responsibility to the citizenry of Israel.
You hateful, murderous fuck.
@strange visitor (from another planet):
strange visitor (from another planet)
@PIGL: you make less sense than kay, fuckface.
i mean, not even as an american, but i figure as a brooklyn jew, i’m responsible for EVERYTHING israelis do, right?
seriously, go fuck yourself.
eat a bag of dicks, drop in.
choke on them and fuck the fuck off.
Feckless
These often predicted horrors you describe, is this evidence that Kamala got the “message” from america’s Muslims who voted for tRump?
I’m sorry I have nothing for the Gazans, I’m too worried about me and mine ending up like Gaza, thanks to Muslims who “had” to vote for evil.
I have no heart left for the boy wolf cries of evil! horror! death! from Gaza’s “advocates”.
Muslims and Latino men supporting repugs have damned us all, tell them to care about gaza.