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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

#631
post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> Facts is that most of the palestinians fled in the earlier phases of the war, and the very little instances of forced evacuation of the population where within the borders of Israel/Palestine, not out of the country. People don't leave their homes voluntarily. They leave because of violence or fear of violence. The fact is there were Palestinians living all over the map at the "before" stage. Settlers came to form…

> People don't leave their homes voluntarily. They leave because of violence or fear of violence.

Well the same applies to the Mizrahi Jews who fled Arab countries to Israel.

The Arab countries then seized their properties, which are estimated to add up to multiple times the size of Israel itself.

So on the larger ledger of who owes who reparations, the Arab states clearly owe Israelis more than the other way around.

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

#632
post #248
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Swedish. Since I was a child, for decades, I was taught and never questioned the idea that Germany had learnt from their history, in the most admirable way. That it was really ingrained into the German culture to never let anything like the holocaust happen again. That the education system there was very good in really making people understand why it happened, what went wrong, and how to make sure there would be…

David Simon (creator of The Wire) once gave a lecture at a Jewish conference trying to make the case that Jews in America should be uniquely aligned with the plight of Black Americans in the inner cities. The case was that the Jews went through an experience during WW2 that makes them uniquely qualified to always align in solidarity against oppression, poverty, and general suffering.

To be children of ethnic cleansing (obviously I’m describing the Holocaust lightly here) and still commit the same crime in Gaza is profound.

It’s a great point you bring up, that being, what have we learned?

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

#633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things you described are also war crimes. Calling it sophisticated does not change that fact.

> Those things you described are also war crimes No, it’s war. Targeted killing of a military scientist is war. Gunning down civilians trying to get food is a war crime. If we start labelling all war as criminal, the term loses all meaning.

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

#634

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…

> if the Israeli people really wanted anything different, it was their human duty and utmost responsibility to stop this by now

It’s wrong to single out Israel. The US is funding this mass murder of children and blocking attempts to stop it. It should correctly be called the US-Israeli genocide of Gaza.

For my part, as an American and a nobody, I feel helpless to stop the atrocities my government is participating in.

But I’ve found, for myself, the reason to fight the genocide - however I can - isn’t because I expect to stop it. I am powerless to do that. For me it’s to maintain a sense of human dignity in the face of evil.

Knowing my country’s role in the mass murder of children, shrugging my shoulders would feel like I’m surrendering something precious.

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

#635

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…

> People were already living there when settlers came to create an ethno-state for themselves Including a sizeable Jewish minority. The ethnic cleansing/settler-colonialist paradigm is easy for outsiders to project on the region. But it’s a continuation of outsiders (in particular Westerners, though the Iranians also bought this settler-colonialist nonsense which led to their recent miscalculations) with no connectio…

In 1920 (the year when British took over Palestine from the Ottomans) the jewish population was less than 10% Jewish and represented less than 1% of global Jewry. By 1948, after the British flooded in Jewish migrants mainly from Europe and the Americas, the population became about ~65% + arab and 35+% Jewish. Zionism was always predicated on Ethnic cleansing from the start and the founders of zionists were always aware of that fact.

“We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country.” - Theodore Herzl , Father of Zionism in 1895.

"With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement]. I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." - David Ben Gurion, Father of Israel.

"the world has become accustomed to the idea of mass migrations and has become fond of them. … Hitler – as odious as he is to us – has given this idea a good name in the world." - Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Founder of Revisionist Zionism, 1940.

Zionism is textbook settler-colonialism. I dont see it worth even arguing the point.

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

#636
post #626

Some context first so my opinion isn't misconstrued as as leftist stereotype. This is within context of the behavior described in the article. - I'm a Jew in USA, and served in the military for more than a decade. - I used to get annoyed by the Palestinian protests I'd see in the years before this, and generally sided with Israel, and the operations its military performed in counter-Shia-militia operations etc in the…

I'll provide context too - I'm a Jewish Israeli. I'd probably be considered left (or even far-left) by Israeli standards, but I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as conventionally understood online. This Haaretz article is very troubling. To the extent it's accurate, there's not much question that it reflects war crimes. A few thoughts: 1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation into some of these accusat…

The only news in the article is the way civilians are murdered. The Israeli government already kills far more people per day through deliberately induced starvation.

These events are hard to believe, not because of the cruelty, but because they now happen without a shred of deniability.

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

#637
post #617
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netanyahu has privately expressed preference for terrorist Hamas over political Fatah, and Israel has propped up those terrorist groups in the past (this is well documented not a conspiracy theory). Why? Because Netanyahu and a good chunk of the Israeli population want the Palestinians to cease to exist and its territory to be part of Israel. An opponent that wants to achieve its goals through political action and ap…

> to prevent any possibility of peaceful reconciliation This seems like a feasible goal. > and drive the Palestinians to eventual expulsion or eradication. That strategy haven't worked for what 50 years, what makes anyone think it'll work anytime ever? The Palestinians don't exactly have anywhere to go.

If there is a lot of malnutrition, population numbers will change without migration.

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

#638
post #632
post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Swedish. Since I was a child, for decades, I was taught and never questioned the idea that Germany had learnt from their history, in the most admirable way. That it was really ingrained into the German culture to never let anything like the holocaust happen again. That the education system there was very good in really making people understand why it happened, what went wrong, and how to make sure there would be…

David Simon (creator of The Wire) once gave a lecture at a Jewish conference trying to make the case that Jews in America should be uniquely aligned with the plight of Black Americans in the inner cities. The case was that the Jews went through an experience during WW2 that makes them uniquely qualified to always align in solidarity against oppression, poverty, and general suffering. To be children of ethnic cleansin…

Jews in America are not the ones committing a genocide in Gaza. Quite a significant proportion of the American Jews are absolutely horrified.

Can I ask why you think that American Jews are any more responsible for the crimes of Israel in Gaza than non-Jews, or Jews elsewhere in the world? Do you think that Judaism is a monolith, or that American Jews are the same as all Jews?

I ask because blaming Jews elsewhere for the acts of Israel, and conflating all of Jewry with Israel is a common tactic of anti-Semitic movements. I can't tell if you are doing that intentionally, or if you have just made your point poorly.

Assuming you are acting in good faith, you should look at the history of Black/Jewish relations in the civil rights eras. There was a disproportionate amount of support from American Jews (compared to the population at large) towards the civil rights movement.

MLK himself was outspoken about the support from American Jews:

"How could there be anti-Semitism among Negroes when our Jewish friends have demonstrated their commitment to the principle of tolerance and brotherhood not only in the form of sizable contributions, but in many other tangible ways, and often at great personal sacrifice. Can we ever express our appreciation to the rabbis who chose to give moral witness with us in St. Augustine during our recent protest against segregation in that unhappy city? Need I remind anyone of the awful beating suffered by Rabbi Arthur Lelyveld of Cleveland when he joined the civil rights workers there in Hattiesburg, Mississippi? And who can ever forget the sacrifice of two Jewish lives, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner, in the swamps of Mississippi? It would be impossible to record the contribution that the Jewish people have made toward the Negro's struggle for freedom—it has been so great."

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

#640
post #558

People ought to understand that this problem of innocent Gazans - often children - being fired upon by IDF soldiers isn't a new one, it predates the current food distribution operation. An article from October in the NY Times detailing some well-documented atrocities ("44 health care workers saw multiple cases of preteen children who had been shot in the head or chest in Gaza") was published as an opinion piece, in s…

I just want to point out something important about that article - it's not just talking about children, it's specifically talking about pre-teen children. Hamas recruits many "children" in the sense of under-18s to fight, but that's not true of pre-teen children. (Btw, I don't necessarily agree that that article proves the IDF is firing on children, there's actually no evidence of that presented in the article. But I…

> I don't necessarily agree that that article proves the IDF is firing on children, there's actually no evidence of that presented in the article.

I think the appropriate term is "circumstantial evidence." A doctor wouldn't be in the position to actually witness the cause of a gunshot wound (hey, maybe all these well-placed gunshot wounds are the result of Palestinians shooting their own kids, I guess would be the alternate explanation...), but let's not pretend that these reports are not evidence of crimes, evidence worthy of investigation.

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