‘If you don’t leave, we’ll kill you’: Hundreds flee Israeli settler violence
Seeing the Gaza war as a golden hour to fulfill their ambitions, settlers have chased out entire Palestinian communities in the Hebron area.
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Israeli settlers wearing sweaters reading “In blood and fire Judea will rise"
These people are dangerous extremists and should be imprisoned wtf
The IDF is complicit too. Maybe it is time to label Israel a terrorist state?
This is very specifically not terrorism, so no?
Strongly in favor of US soft power being used to change Israeli leadership goals though
How is it not?
ter·ror·ism
noun
the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
They're using the threat of violence, and sometimes using violence, to push their agenda of Israeli expansion into Palestinian territory.
Ah, see it is lawful because Israel says so, therefore it doesn't qualify as terrorism. /s
Israeli propagandists are trained to believe that whoever spams harder wins.
the unlawful use
It's not unlawful to take land during a war. It's just shitty, in most instances.
This is why the settlements were (international viewed as) illegal (or, in the most generous of terms, of extremely questionable legality) prior to the war but aree authorized during the war specifically. Plays a lot better, in terms of international politics.
I would love to see the US make any aid to Israel conditional on a complete reversal of this policy and development of the West Bank in general. Would do a lot for the eventual peace process, as a nice side effect.
Edit: from the link in the article, about the background here
The deal would include gestures to the Palestinians. Among the suggestions has been a freeze in West Bank settlement activity, including the authorizations of outposts. Netanyahu’s government has been opposed to any such demand within the context of the Saudi deal or any other framework.
Prior to the war's start, it was very politically unpopular for them to build settlements on outpost territory. Not the gloves are off, because they have plausible reasons in the international community.
The US has the power to take that plausible reason away, and should do so.
So, if this is a war, they basically have the same rights as Ukraine as they fight for the integrity of their land? Is that what you're saying?
The people of the west bank (and Gaza) absolutely have the right to fight back right now. I wouldn't recommend it as an outsider, because they're going to lose, but I'd do it if I was there, because I'm an idiot.
They didn't have the (internationally recognized) right to engage in hostilities, prior to the 10/7 terrorist attacks.
Worth noting this land is already Israeli land within the West Bank. They are outposts similar to US military bases.
You and I can disagree with Israel on the morality of that, but the international community absolutely recognizes this land as Israeli (outside the Muslim block of the UN, which doesn't really recognize Israel as a state still.
which doesn’t really recognize Israel as a state still.
Even Saudi Arabia is considering to normalize relationship with Israel.
This is why Hamas attacked Israel in October, to try to disrupt that normalization, because Israel's "aggressive" strategies are as predictable as the tides.
Thank you for your reasonable voice. Reading comments here about this topic can be very frustrating.
There is no war in the west bank. They are involved in a drastic increase of settler violence, colonialist land grabs, judicial violence and ecocide. Behaviour that has been observed for decades and that has seen a significant increase even before the Gaza strip war, and has seen an outright explosion following Israel's increase of wanton and indiscriminate violence in Gaza perpetrated by the IDF.
All of this violence in the west bank has been thoroughly documented by HRW and B'Tselem. The Israeli settler's and the IDF's behaviour is decidedly not a consequence of 'the war', and any claim made as such fails to take into account that this behaviour has seen an upwards trend for a decade at least, and is therefore merely a continuation, albeit a stark increase.
There is no war in the west bank.
Per the article, Israel has declared war on the West Bank when they declared war against Hamas.
I find that declaration sweeping and a bit difficult to defend, but it has happened.
All of this violence in the west bank has been thoroughly documented by HRW and B’Tselem. The Israeli settler’s and the IDF’s behaviour is decidedly not a consequence of ‘the war’
This current violence is absolutely predicated upon the war legally, and more importantly in human terms, driven by hate - which is most assuredly because of the war.
It’s not unlawful to take land during a war. It’s just shitty, in most instances.
It is illegal to take land during a war. Wiki:
Boy someone better tell literally every country on the planet
They did, that's why it's illegal now.
Hey broski, you should've clicked some links in your Wikipedia article.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cession
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six-Day_War
Israel didn't start that war btw. Jordan, Syria and Egypt dont want the land.
Kind of similar to how Palestine has never been a country throughout all of human history. The only country that ever reliably tried to create a state of Palestine was Israel.
What's the specific claim you're making? Israel did in fact start that war, with a "preemptive" air raid meant to cripple Egypt's air force. And the political history of the region doesn't abrogate the right of its long-established inhabitants to the land - this is an Israeli propaganda talking point.
Israel did in fact start that war, with a “preemptive” air raid meant to cripple Egypt’s air force.
Lmao what
In the months prior to the outbreak of the Six-Day War in June 1967, tensions again became dangerously heightened: Israel reiterated its post-1956 position that another Egyptian closure of the Straits of Tiran to Israeli shipping would be a definite casus belli. In May 1967, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel[31] and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel.[32][24]
seems to me israelis are using terror to achieve their goals. death threats supported by the idf seem pretty terrifying to me.
Artillery fire is also terrifying and is not terrorism
are you sure? the israelis call the palestinian rockets terrorism.
You have got to be kidding.
That is literal terrorism by literal terrorist groups, yes.
according to whom? seems to me they are fighting a terrorist state.
How can people actively defend terrorists like Hamas and Hezbollah? Absolutely crazy.
how am i defending them? what money have i send them. how much money have you sent israel?
What's crazy is people who think any criticism of Israel is support for Hamas and/or antisemitism. That objection doesn't hold up under even the slightest scrutiny, yet we have people like you repeating it again and again. It's like claiming critics of the death penalty believe murder should be without repercussions. It's nonsensical and l, appropriately enough, I have yet to meet a single supporter of such an opinion who can provide any sort of explanation of how it makes sense.
Do you just repeat what the government tells you without ever questioning it?
Your personal beliefs can be anything. But according to how these terms are actually used in the real world (and not "kinda similar online pedantry") it is not the same at all.
lol. just because a large number of people believes something doesn't make it true.
that is the beauty of truth, it endures in solitude until the lies have no more souls to eat. in the end it will shine bright and cast the light on fact that israel is a terrorist state. so you are like the slavery supporters.
Giant LOL here.
Hamas uses terror to get what they want: that's terrorism because it's a terrorist group!
Israeli government uses terror to get what they want: that's not terrorism because it's a government, not a terrorist group!
Hamas is running a government too, so I guess they're not either. Problem solved everyone, Israel can go home now.
Why were Israel sponsoring Hamas, a terrorist group, to displace the moderate PLO-aligned orgs then?
Irredeemable stupidity?
Antisemitism?
Manufacturing a pretext for the genocide they're now committing, perhaps?
We've established elsewhere that Israel meets the UN definition of terrorism.
Irredeemable stupidity?
As always, when something truly terrible happens, it's this.
While genocide does require intense stupidity, decades-long escalation toward genocide when you're dependent on US support requires a pretext before you can escalate. There's elements of all of the above - busy mostly the pretext.
Politically motivated violence to exterminate an ethno-religious group sounds like terrorism to me. I think the difference you see vs most terrorist orgs is that Israel have the means to follow through on their genocidal intent.
The UN General Assembly's definition of terrorism from a condensation of it:
Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes.
The US legal definition:
premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents
I think it meets the UN definition, but misses the US definition because it's a national power that's committing it.
Edit: The national power requirement would ironically mean the Holocaust wasn't a genocide, so I think it's better for everyone that we don't rely on the US government's definition that seems to throw the baby out with the genocidal bathwater in an effort to show that it's impossible for them (or a certain strategic ally in the Middle East) to meet the definition of a genocide.
Politically motivated violence to exterminate an ethno-religious group sounds like terrorism to me
That's not happening.
I'm sure you have lots of opinions on this, but I'm not talking about how I feel. I'm talking about how the world actually works.
If you aren't going to discuss reality there's not much point in us continuing.
I took the definition and pointed out how it's applicable to the situation - what have I missed about how the world actually works? So far, it looks a lot like your feelings to me.
Do you have a counter more substantive than "feels", "we don't want to kill thousands of children - Hamas made us" or "criticising genocide is antisemitic"?
Edit: Formatting & clarity.
I really would have liked to see their answer but it appears they're unable to substantiate any of their argument. I'm not surprised, their criticisms seem to be entirely projection.
Great job laying out your case, by the way.
Thanks! The formatting could use some work if nothing else, but I appreciate it.
To be fair, it's only hitting 8am in Israel now, so there's still the possibility of some substantiation yet - though deflection, performative offence, claiming a lack of evidence, and whattaboutisms seem more likely - let's see...
It's terrorism
It's not a rising democracy in a central American country so the US won't care to intervene
I find it inexcusable that we don't use our power to rein in Israel. It's not only morally repugnant (and I'm staunchly a defender of Israel's right to exist and anti-Hamas), but it's also just really shitty in terms of realpolitik.
There's no justifiable reason the US can't strongarm Israel into a two-state solution that guarantees a full pull back from the west bank. What's Israel going to do, turn on the US? Will never happen.
The sense of invader is so strong with this guy.
Everything that doesn't suit your agenda should be 'reined in'. Hm, that looks similar to many things in the past, Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, Korea peninsula. What else I wonder, American?
What? Are you high?
No, you are.
Not yet. It's 8am. Later today tho