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IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

haaretz.com

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Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#351
post #190

I visited Israel for a sports seminar some ~10 years ago and met many nice people. I felt sympathetic to their reality of living in an ever-hostile environment from all sides, and struggle to keep their place in the world safe. I admired their resilience and strength. When this Gaza conflict started, I saw how the Israeli protested against their government and demanded peace, so I thought there is a semblance of an e…

I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on our states as well - the US and the EU states (especially Germany, sadly). As horrible as the Israeli mindset is, their subjective viewpoint is at least somewhat relatable: An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows nothing else, just learns that the entirety of the surrounding populations want them dead - and will with very high likelihood exper…

> I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on our states as well - the US and the EU states (especially Germany, sadly).

I understand that you are talking about the recent era, but I wonder if you could speak to the history of the creation of Israel, and the German perception of that. Is there any discussion about the European role in the creation of Israel? After the end of the war, it isn’t as if there was a movement to return property and homes to European Jews. If anything, the powers in Europe after the war (and, in the case of Eichmann, pre war as well) saw Zionism as a solution for what to do with the Jews.

Is there any sympathy or responsibility felt in European communities for essentially using Zionism as a solution?

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#352

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First you impose a blockade against people.

Then they run out of food and their families are starving.

Then you distribute a limited amount of food that will run out long before most get any food.

If your family is starving to death, you can't leave the area and someone is dangling food in front of your face, are you saying you wouldn't risk it for your family and try to get SOME food regardless of the threat of death?

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#353
post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Is there a way for IDF to fight Hamas without "inflict war crimes, or terrorism on civilians" though? How would that work in practical terms?

It's been widely reported that the IDF substantially loosened their acceptable civilian collateral casualty rules after Oct 7th.

>> In each strike, the order said, officers had the authority to risk killing up to 20 civilians. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/26/world/middleeast/israel-h...

The very existence of guidance change on civilian casualties should constitute a war crime, because to put it another way, the IDF decided that Palestinian civilian lives were worth less after the terror attacks.

In other metrics, the October attacks killed 1,200 Israelis, plus 1,700 killed in the war. Versus 50,000+ Palestinian fatalities.

So we're at ~1:17 Israeli: Palestinian killed.

I feel like any human can agree there should be an ethical ceiling to that number. Maybe it's lower or higher than the current number, but it being unlimited is genocide.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Fire at unarmed crowds” and “fire towards crowds” is the same thing, what sort of semantic ping pong is this? Also propaganda =/= bad. All media is propaganda, in some languages the word “propaganda” has the same semantic meaning as the English word “advertisement”. This comment is war crime apologia.

There is a difference between shooting people and firing warning shots.

Sure there is, but we’re not talking about firing “warning shots” at armed combatants, we’re talking about unarmed civilians, most of whom are minors. If you are sympathetic to the idea that these aid sites need to be heavily guarded, then you need to ask yourself why this level of force is necessary, because the explanation the IDF and Israeli officials are giving makes no sense. Can you imagine if we fired “warning shots” towards the homeless for lining up too early for the food bank?

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m becoming very skeptical of the “bad government, good people” idea. Governments need popular support. This goes even for horrible dictatorships. There are degrees, of course. An oppressive state can survive with less popular support than a democracy. But it still needs a decent amount. The machinery of dictatorship is as much about keeping popular support as it is about forcing people to suppress their opposition.

These people are manipulated by the media and by their government and by their spiritual leaders.

Could be, but that doesn’t really matter in the end. Support is support.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#356
post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Yeah, I know the playbook - deflect and deny, etc. 100k dead, more injured, highest number of child casualties in any modern conflict, countless statements of genocidal intent at the highest levels. But population growth is the metric we need focus on at this point, because that’s the Hasbara talking point du jour.

Also, just to add, a lot of this generic population data just doesn't factor in the current military action at all, they just operate on the last known figures. It's a complete red herring to this discussion. No one knows exactly how many people are in Gaza right now. Israeli policy is actively obstructing people from finding out. I suspect (fear) the total death toll may be well above the ~100k figure.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#357

I visited Israel for a sports seminar some ~10 years ago and met many nice people. I felt sympathetic to their reality of living in an ever-hostile environment from all sides, and struggle to keep their place in the world safe. I admired their resilience and strength. When this Gaza conflict started, I saw how the Israeli protested against their government and demanded peace, so I thought there is a semblance of an e…

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Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#358
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a state founded on ethnic cleansing. People were already living there when settlers came to create an ethno-state for themselves. In late 1947, their militias begun a campaign of massacring and expelling Palestinians from mostly defenseless villages. These refuges pouring into neighboring Arab countries is what prompted the 1948 war. When the war ended, they murdered any civilians trying to return to their homes…

Many states were "founded on ethnic cleansing". They are widely considered to posses a right of existence, and even expected to defend their citizens. (excuse me for ignoring the history trolling)

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Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#359
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> You definitely can kill 2.1 million people by bombing them. It's actually way easier than doing it with a gun Only if you have enough bombs, which they need to constantly purchase from the US using aid money given to them by the US. They don't have the stockpiles to eradicate without using their (not so) secret nukes. If they were to do that, there'd be a lot worse follow on effects for Israel. If they simply trick…

Genuinely wondering what terrible effects would there be for Israel if they used nukes? Not morally, internationally. IMO it's perhaps one of the few conflicts in the world where one side could theoretically use nuclear weapons and essentially no one will shoot back. "Trickle the deaths over time" doesn't make any sense - there are probably more births in Gaza than deaths now, and that's not including the general Palestinian population.

Re: IDF officers ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near Gaza food distribution sites

#360
Clever piece of engineering that needs to be studied. The US and Israel setup a company/foundation to "distribute" aid. I guess to escape the accusations that they are systematically starving Gaza's population. It seems to be working, they can hide behind this while inflicting even more crimes against Palestinians.

I was going to ask if people really fall for this, but it seems like they do.

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