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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]

#471

Post by seanmcdirmid »

josephg wrote: post #466
wredcoll wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no problem with the initial invasion of Gaza to stop Hamas and get their people back. I’m not sorry for saying so, or holding that position after Hamas gave them such a clear casus belli. But it doesn’t seem to be about that any more. The point is that you were told this was the inevitable consequences of such actions and yet chose to ignore it. That's probably the kind of mea culpa they're looking for. Pred…

That logic cuts both ways. We could equally say that this overreaction by Israel was entirely predictable - and inevitable - after Hamas’s murderous rampage on Oct 7. And to take hostages and not return them? What did they think Israel would do? Capitulate to Hamas’s demands, thereby encouraging Hamas to do the same thing again every few months when they want treats? Invasion was perhaps the only option the Israelis…

I'm pretty sure Hamas went into this expecting Israel to respond with war crimes, it was probably the reaction they were going for with the kidnappings. What I don't understand is how Hamas thought that they could take advantage of it (if not for the betterment of the Gazans, for themselves)?

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

#472

Post by protocolture »

zetazzed wrote: post #220

I see an increasing number of politicians taking the position: "I supported Israel's government's actions when they first attacked, given the goals of destroying Hamas' leadership and freeing hostages, but now that it has turned into a brutal siege with mass civilian casualties on a horrific scale, I'm strongly against their actions." E.g. Macron, Angus King, and many people I know personally. And I think we need to…

Eh nuance. Accept anyone who can accept they were wrong. But it has to come with that understanding, that they were wrong. Growth and understanding are great. "I love bombing civilian populations, I just hate the consequences of bombing civilian populations" is not the amazing support that people on the ground are looking for. Gotta attack the why. Why would you support killing civilians who pose no threat to you in the name of defense.

Its been the common theme of anti war sentiment for the better part of a century. "Never Again". "Lest We Forget". etc. What was all that holocaust remembrance for if not to get ahead of and prevent situations like this (While Gaza doesnt have a lot to do with the holocaust in totality it sure looks like a Warsaw Ghetto).

Its kind of useless to get people along for a single issue, ending the genocide in Gaza, but for them to not understand why the things that lead up to the genocide in Gaza are bad also. Mobilising a military, into a civilian area, that has been trained from birth to resent the people in that space, that they own that space, told that the government will support them killing civilians, is going to cause this. Supporting that action is bad actually. Wanting that military, in that area, is something an Asshole would want.

The phrase "Mowing the grass" was coined in like 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass

Its like closing a ticket without addressing the root cause. Just gonna come up again.

>but now that it has turned into a brutal siege with mass civilian casualties on a horrific scale

Its been that(again) since the IDF got organized, late 2023.

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

#473

Post by trustinmenowpls »

YZF wrote: post #446
mjevans wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These terrorists, yield? Already faulty logic. Their proclaimed goals and historic record show that will never happen and their budget for violence knows no limit. It's as tough as desalinating water, but removing the civilians from the terrorists must happen. Otherwise the result will either be genocide of the 'salt water', or of the 'plants' the salt in that water is bent on destroying. What is an acceptable plan f…

I'll give you my honest opinion here and a criticism of Israeli government all at once. Israel should have moved the Palestinians civilians into Israel proper, e.g. the Negev. It should have created refugee camps for them there and provided them with all the support/aid while it went after Hamas. They'd be able to filter the people going in, make them surrender their weapons etc. No tunnels, no weapons caches, etc. I…

If they had done this they would be accused of ethnic cleansing as well as genocide. the negev isn't an altogether welcoming place, any death natural or otherwise that happened there would be blamed on the jews as proof and it would be an even bigger PR disaster. Egypt and the sinai would have a similar problem. Even Trump's recent suggestion of temporary resettlement to a populated area has been met with calls of ethnic cleansing and genocide. Most of the supposed supporters of the palestinian people don't care so much about their fate so much as they hate Jews and love the easy cudgel they make for attacking jews.

Putting that aside, no one, not Hamas, not the Israeli public, not Netanyahu, and certainly not the IDF, not any neighboring countries, not the wider world believed the war would drag on this long. Everyone thought it would be over fairly soon. Hamas probably didn't think there would be a war because israel itself was on the brink of a civil war, the Israeli public with their strong belief in their military might thought the war would be over before the new year and the IDF and politicians (BN included) likely had a similar belief, that A) Hamas didn't have an apatite for a long war, and B) the IDF would be able to quickly return the hostages. Everyone else also believed in the might of a stronger more organized force against a much weaker force that supposedly also had to care for their own people.

Instead Hamas showed they had no concern for their own people, and they had significantly deeper fortifications than the israeli security establishment knew about. So here we are almost two years later, and no end in sight.

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

#474

Post by blast »

kn0where wrote: post #239
zetazzed wrote: post #220

I see an increasing number of politicians taking the position: "I supported Israel's government's actions when they first attacked, given the goals of destroying Hamas' leadership and freeing hostages, but now that it has turned into a brutal siege with mass civilian casualties on a horrific scale, I'm strongly against their actions." E.g. Macron, Angus King, and many people I know personally. And I think we need to…

It’s fine to accept your mom or your neighbor changing their mind, but I think we should be skeptical of politicians changing their mind and consider what hidden, calculated motives they may have for changing it now, when they had plenty of information to reach the same conclusion over a year ago.

Politicians respond to pressure.

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

#475

Post by protocolture »

YZF wrote: post #427
ivape wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You're confusing hatred for Palestinians with hatred for Gazans. Most Israelis do not hate Palestinians. There might be some. There's definitely a lot of hate to Gazans after Oct 7th which is understandable. As to the "what are we supposed to do" part- What are they supposed to do? How would you navigate this better after Oct 7th given the setup/hostages etc.? Israel has officially said many times they are not target…

>You're confusing hatred for Palestinians with hatred for Gazans.

No, the post you are responding to is correct.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/24/video-jewish-e...

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

#476

Post by [deleted] »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #260
zetazzed wrote: post #220

I see an increasing number of politicians taking the position: "I supported Israel's government's actions when they first attacked, given the goals of destroying Hamas' leadership and freeing hostages, but now that it has turned into a brutal siege with mass civilian casualties on a horrific scale, I'm strongly against their actions." E.g. Macron, Angus King, and many people I know personally. And I think we need to…

It's good to be honest about all the horrors going on in the world, not just when they're committed by jewish people (I'm not jewish btw). For example there are recents vids of syrian muslims going door to door in villages in Syria and asking people if they are muslims or of the Druze faith: those answering they're from the Druze faith are shot on the spot. This qualify as war crimes too to me. But you don't get to r…

[deleted]

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

#477

Post by dang »

kalberg6429 wrote: post #425
jahewson wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is not the narrative. The problem is Hamas.

[flagged]

> You Zionists are really not even putting any effort into your hasbara anymore.

Please omit swipes and flamebait from your posts, as the site guidelines ask: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

This is also in your interest, since you can always make your substantive points without it and it will make your comments more persuasive.

edit: I appreciate that you edited that bit out of your comment, but once there are replies, you should make it clear how you edited it. Otherwise you deprive the replies (like this one) of their original context.

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

#478

Post by aSanchezStern »

asddubs wrote: post #454
carefulfungi wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what does winning actually look like today? Sure. Run against these people and support their political opposition in the next election. But take the win on the short term and get food to Gaza.

it's worth noting that joe biden lied about trying to get a ceasefire, as we now know. So it's worth being skeptical, though of course I agree that ultimately what matters are results.

Cite?

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

#479

Post by leyth »

YZF wrote: post #446
mjevans wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These terrorists, yield? Already faulty logic. Their proclaimed goals and historic record show that will never happen and their budget for violence knows no limit. It's as tough as desalinating water, but removing the civilians from the terrorists must happen. Otherwise the result will either be genocide of the 'salt water', or of the 'plants' the salt in that water is bent on destroying. What is an acceptable plan f…

I'll give you my honest opinion here and a criticism of Israeli government all at once. Israel should have moved the Palestinians civilians into Israel proper, e.g. the Negev. It should have created refugee camps for them there and provided them with all the support/aid while it went after Hamas. They'd be able to filter the people going in, make them surrender their weapons etc. No tunnels, no weapons caches, etc. I…

[flagged]

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

#480

Post by jibal »

waterlaw wrote: post #453
subpixel wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those who wield power in Israel have calculated that they can do whatever they want at this moment and that they will enjoy functional impunity. I repudiate what they are doing, but I do not disagree with their calculation. I can imagine no scenario where any foreign power tries to actually stop them.

There are numerous clips of Rabbis openly promoting the extermination of Palestinians. They use the story of Amalek from the Torah. One of the Rabbis I watched recently said "when you kill the first child it breaks your heart [...] then you start to enjoy it." _Many_ Rabbis are demanding that animals, children, women and unarmed males be "erased." IDF soldiers are bragging about killing and raping civilians on social…

I've seen the video on Twitter but no confirmation that it was actually an IDF soldier -- Grok claimed it was authenticated as such but when further challenged said it was a South African satirist. I don't know one way or the other but again cannot find any confirmation. (But I'm aware of plenty of other unspeakable horrors committed by IDF soldiers and similar horrible things said.)

As for Netanyahu ... the Overton window in Israel has shifted far to the right so one can say in those terms that he's a "moderate", but I think it's a bit of a semantic game. His behavior is extreme, regardless of the fact that the behavior of the whole damn country is extreme.

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