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‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

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Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#191
post #86
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dang, how can you say for sure they are organic? Just because the downvoters appear to be human and seem not to be bots? Even if the dovnvotes came from human beings: Israel apologists are very organised. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett publicly emphasized the importance of Wikipedia as an information source and stated that Israelis should learn how to edit Wikipedia. Israeli Hasbara, also known as publ…

I can't say for sure. What I said is that they seem that way to me, and are within the range of what one expects from divisive and emotional topics. That isn't proof (which is elusive if not impossible in any case), but is at least based on many years and god knows how many lost hours poring over this sort of data. Incidentally, I was talking about downvotes and flags from every side of the conflict, not just the sid…

I think it is a mistake of moderation to treat this as any divisive topic. The division line here is support for genocide. Users which are in favor of genocide—no matter how they justify it—are clearly in the wrong, both morally, and probably legally, and should not be given any ways to influence the discussion here.

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#192
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For progressive, educated people, Holocaust education was a double-edged sword. It made us keenly aware that the belief in the need for the existence of a Jewish state came from centuries of European Christian anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust. Therefore, when Israel justified its actions as defense against an existential threat, I think Europeans and American descendants of Europeans felt very nervous about…

That's what we were thought in school as well, but the actual history quite a bit more complicated than that. Modern racial antisemitism and political Zionism were two modern political projects that grew from the same 19th century soil of nationalism and race theory. They did not agree with each other, but they converged, from opposite directions, on the same fundamental conclusion: that the Jewish people constituted…

> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism

You're conveniently ignoring the Eastern European pogroms during the late 19th and especially early 20th century. Jewish immigration, in both number and origin, to Palestine not-so-coincidentally tracks the severity of the pogroms. And actually, during this time many times more Jews immigrated to New York than to Palestine. Immigration to Palestine didn't explode until the rise of Nazi anti-semitism.

Collective punishment is wrong. Full stop. Global civil society largely internalized this ethic, after millennia of accepting collective punishment as legitimate, in large part because of the experience of Jews in Europe. It's ridiculous to deny the history of how this norm came about no less than it is to deny that collective punishment has become the facial justification for Israel's war in Gaza.

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#193

As someone who went to US high school in the 90s, a good 1/3 of our curriculum seemed to be "never again" studies of the holocaust and other genocides throughout history. Which makes it completely incomprehensible to me that suddenly "don't talk about genocide" has become the basically law. What's worse is I actually feel openly saying "I don't support this genocide and I'm critical of the state committing it" is a r…

> It's also the area with the most clear manipulation of information on social media. The downvotes and flagged comments in this post are clearly not "organic", and the same pattern can be seen all over the web.

Unfortunately the techno optimism that we grew up with has given way to the stark reality that it is now easier than ever to manage the truth and squash dissent.

Which, btw, is the exact opposite of what we thought the Internet would be: the democratization of truth and voices. Instead we've allowed a handful of media oligarchs to own and distort the spin landscape.

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#194
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel is not an occupying power in Gaza, but rather a warring power. And Article 23 of the 4th Geneva Convention says: ".... are no serious reasons for fearing: (a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination," i.e. if the warring party believes the supplies will be diverted they have no obligation to supply them. And that's what is going on here.

Diverted to where? It is one city.

[flagged]

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#196
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For progressive, educated people, Holocaust education was a double-edged sword. It made us keenly aware that the belief in the need for the existence of a Jewish state came from centuries of European Christian anti-Semitism culminating in the Holocaust. Therefore, when Israel justified its actions as defense against an existential threat, I think Europeans and American descendants of Europeans felt very nervous about…

That's what we were thought in school as well, but the actual history quite a bit more complicated than that. Modern racial antisemitism and political Zionism were two modern political projects that grew from the same 19th century soil of nationalism and race theory. They did not agree with each other, but they converged, from opposite directions, on the same fundamental conclusion: that the Jewish people constituted…

> The leadership and foot soldiers of the early Zionist project in Palestine (1900s), were not suffering from the trauma of the Holocaust (it was decades before) and did not suffer from any meaningful antisemitism

I might be misreading you here, but it really sounds like you're claiming that antisemitism began and ended with the Third Reich. You're aware that's not the case, right?

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#198
post #162
post #156

The UN definition is quoted here: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: - Killing members of the group; - Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; - Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction…

Israel is not an occupying power in Gaza, but rather a warring power. And Article 23 of the 4th Geneva Convention says: ".... are no serious reasons for fearing: (a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination," i.e. if the warring party believes the supplies will be diverted they have no obligation to supply them. And that's what is going on here.

Thank you for your opinion (stated as a fact, I'll add) that Israel doesn't occupy Gaza. Can you please state your source for this belief?

To state why I believe Israel is occupying Gaza, I'll point out that Israel’s continued status as an occupying power has been affirmed repeatedly by the United Nations, the International Court of Justice, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and human rights groups. Do you believe all of these entities are incorrect?

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#199
post #104

Did the air dropping of food not work out?

It has not so far.

"Experts say that airdrops, another measure Israel announced, are insufficient for the immense need in Gaza and dangerous to people on the ground."[1]

"[T]he airdrops have an advantage over trucks because planes can move aid to a particular location very quickly. But in terms of volume, the airdrops will be 'a supplement to, not a replacement for moving things in by ground.'"[2]

The airdrops killed people when 1) the containers landed on occupied tents and, 2) containers landed in the water and people drowned attempting to retrieve the aid. Trucks can also delivery vastly larger quantities of aid substantially faster and cheaper than planes.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/gaza-starvation-israel-palestinia...

[2] https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-airdrop-humanit...

Re: ‘I witnessed war crimes’ in Gaza – former worker at GHF aid site [video]

#200
post #117

[flagged]

> How do Jewish people accept the genocide going on right now? Israel is predominately Jewish in religion and ethnicity, but Israel does not represent all Jewish people. While I am not Jewish, I would imagine some might find to conflation to be highly offensive.

It's obviously not all Jewish people, but there are unfortunately many Jewish communities who are very supportive of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Particularly in the US it's something that has allowed what is happening to continue almost exclusively unopposed. More generally the West has morally failed, so certainly not exclusive to any religion.

That the term anti-Semitism is constantly used to deflect or tar those objecting to Israels mass killing of civilians really is equally offensive I would suggest.

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