CNN Host Left Stunned As IDF Confirms Israel Hit Refugee Camp With Airstrike
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer seemed at a lost of words at the justification being used to bomb a refugee camp in Gaza.
That's our fucking tax money, that's what's killing me. We are indirectly funding the killing of all of these innocent people. I hate life.
We could have healthcare. Or free college. We are all complicit in this, like it or not.
Taxes aren't what's stopping us from having health care. We already spend more taxes on health care per capita than countries with single payer health care. (Not that changes that we could be using our taxes better, but the myth that we would spend more taxes to get single payer needs to be dispelled.)
You mean how Israelis have Healthcare and free college?
Isn't Israel quite wealthy? Why do they even need this funding?
You don't get wealthy spending your money.
You get wealthy spending other people's money.
But how will Jeebus be reborn if he doesn't have a home?
The US had better pray Jesus doesn't show up a second time - he'd take a flamethrower to it first thing. Israel won't be far behind.
That’s our fucking tax money,
Nope. It's not. That money they hand Israel? Completely sucked out of their thumb - I literally use the massive handouts the US gives Israel as a way to debunk the "but printing money causes inflation!" crowd.
Btw, that is an actual example of a handout - ie, not the (alleged) "handouts" right-wing pundits start whining about whenever the issue of social services come up.
Of course, they could just as easily spend all that invented money to give you healthcare - but they won't... that's not how class warfare works.
Not "completely". They spend into a deficit every year, which is partially financed with tax and partially financed with debt obligations. It's more that any spending is paid for 50% tax and 50% "indirect inflation tax" later, or whatever the exact numbers are (I stopped keeping track).
Oh just wait until you find out what else tax money is used for...
Better not worry about that and just focus on yourself
Remember that time a million Iraqis died... for some reason?
your tax money is added to a pool. a very small part of that pool is used to fund interests internationally.
And people wonder why they're calling what Israel is doing a genocide...
“tAnKiEs aRe ThE ReAl aNtIsEmItEs NoW! YoU cAn’T sAy pAlEsTiNeAn ChIlDrEn aRe InNoCeNt wItHoUt sUpPoRtInG HaMaS!”
EDIT: either no one knows the mOcKiNg TeXt meme, or there are a lot of IDF supporters in here
I downvote that type of meme humor because I don't find it adds to discussion. Even if I agree with the person, I downvote them every time.
Up/downvotes are meant for promoting relevant discussion and suppressing off-topic content, spam, trolls, and hate. They are not and were never intended to be dis/agreement buttons. People just misuse them.
Not sure what tankies have to do with it, but I think everyone understands mocking text, and yes, there is a lot of pro-IDF astroturfing on all social media platforms currently.
Genocide.
There is no excuse for this. Don't you dare try and find one.
Narrator: They did.
Thank all of you dudes. This is the only non radical platform that actually consists of well thinking people. All others are..........
I found a plausible ratio-oh no wait, it's genocide too.
Hamas openly calls for genocide
and Israel is in the midst of one...
why not? if you're unwilling to listen to another opinion, is it still a discussion?
There is no discussion to be had with mass murderers, they stop murdering or you force them to stop.
Ow I have heard and revised those opinions. I've seen them in the UN today STICKING GEW YELLOW STARS ON THEIR OWN CHEST.
WHILE THEY ARE LITERALLY BOMBING A TOWN.
fck hamas but you can't do that.
I think Israel is losing the information war on this recent crisis. They're trying to defend the indefensible. There's no way to spin "we dropped a bomb on a refugee camp" into something acceptable. And people are seeing the bullshit for what it is.
They really screwed the pooch on this one from a messaging stance. Stepping back from the emotions and the war crimes and just looking at their propaganda, it's just being handled sloppily. Propaganda has always been Israel's superpower, and they're doing a terrible job of it.
You don't defend the bombing of a refugee camp by saying "There may have been tunnels or infrastructure."
At this point you just lie and say you know there were military objectives. Or pull a play from the US and count the bodies and claim that any body of a "military-age male" was a combatant.
Admitting on international television that you knowingly and intentionally bombed a bunch of civilians you absolutely knew you were killing just in case there might be bad guys among them is a bad look.
Propaganda has always been Israel’s superpower, and they’re doing a terrible job of it.
They're using the exact same kind of messaging they're using internally to their own right-wing and scared centre, "tough guys making hard decisions to keep you safe" kind of stuff. To people who went on school trips to Auschwitz with armed Israeli security -- not because visiting Poland wouldn't be safe, but out of a mixture of security theatre and propaganda. It just doesn't work if you aren't part of that particular information bubble. They seem to have forgotten that it doesn't even work on the Israeli left wing so why should it work on random people from elsewhere.
Also stunts like the yellow stars in the security council. Come the fuck on crocodile-teared self-victimisation can't possibly be more blatant, and it's fucking disgusting how they trivialise the Holocaust with that shit.
I think you're underestimating just how much Islamophobia exists in the world. People don't mind if brown people get killed.
I think it's a combination of pushing boundaries of tactics that were previously working well enough for them and not realising that over time, more and more people become aware that Israel is a present day colonial country still doing some of the evil shit we're not proud of our own countries for doing in the past. And people are more willing to challenge the anti-semitism accusations because there's a huge difference between hating people for existing and hating what an authoritarian power is doing to a population it hates for not quietly letting them take more and more of their land.
Not to mention I don't think the response to 9/11 was a good one either and evoking that seems to be one of the prongs of their propaganda attack. There's a comment a bit higher up doing that exactly, but it's kinda funny because in the first paragraph it sounds like it's making a 9/11 reference ironically, but then the 2nd paragraph shows it was serious.
At this point you just lie and say you know there were military objectives. Or pull a play from the US and count the bodies and claim that any body of a “military-age male” was a combatant.
One of them tried that same claim in an interview yesterday. Not Hecht, but an older guy - he said, seeing the video of the cleanup effort (men sorting through rubble), "a lot of those look like military age males".
Well, they keep killing them, but the reporters keep reporting! /s
Easy, just gotta kill them and their families too! (Obvious /s)
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208019720/journalist-deaths-gaza-israel-hamas
https://cpj.org/2023/11/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/
they might be losing the information war but they'll always have the support of the governments of the english speaking world and they don't actually need to win the information war. they're winning the kill-the-other-guys war and no one who can do anything about it wants to.
They are only winning if killing civilians is winning. It isn't, France killed tens of thousands of Algerians before being promptly defeated and expelled. Same thing happened in Vietnam. The Palestinian resistance is inflicting huge losses in the Israeli army. Scores of destroyed tanks and dead israeli soldiers every day
Yeah, but it's pretty damning to see all the astroturfing on social media, blacklisting from companies, and crackdowns on peaceful protests by governments.
I think we're witnessing one big Streisand-effect here where people are fed up at having others choose what they can see and what they can say.
I'm very proud at how the narrative didn't snowball in Israel's favor. If anything, this caused people who blindly supported Israel to learn more about the history of the region and why there is conflict in the first place.
If you weren't anti-Zionist before, you're probably one now.
Not if you look at my Facebook feed full of evangelicals saying "I stand with Israel cause the Bible says so"
Posted this above but I'll copy here, since you seem to be making the same mistake as Wolf.
Friendly reminder this is an urban center with 50k people normally living in it, with permanent concrete buildings. This is not a bunch of tents and soup pots.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabalia_refugee_camp
They killed a battalion of Hamas fighters. This is just how war functions
Blitzer not knowing the facts of this “camp” just kind of makes him look like an amateur.
Edit: also it's in the North and bombings are why they said to move south for 2 solid weeks.
Were there IDF at the music festival?
That would make it fair game by your own logic.
Seems like the sort of thing that, in addition to being morally abhorrent, would drive more Palestinians to become terrorists.
It truly is the worst long term "solution". You're not gonna make friends by bombing them, I thought that much would have been obvious.
It’s a perfect solution when all you need is a boogieman to “protect the nation” against. You get to show that you hurt the boogieman, and the wounds you inflict ensure the boogieman’s continuous survival.
It truly is the worst long term “solution”.
Israel has been doing this since 1949 - I think the Palestinians by now know the Israelis didn't do white supremacist settler-colonialism in order to be their friends.
That's the Israeli way, choosing a hard stance that makes things worse long term. That helped provoke the Hamas attack in the first place.
I no longer have the cognitive dissonance to condemn any Palestinian for resisting Israel.
If you fight against Israel, you're called Hamas - No matter who you are or what your opinions are. I simply will not condemn Hamas knowing that most of the "Hamas" being targeted at actually children armed with nothing more than stones and grief. I won't condemn people driven to violence and aggression by a regime that is a million times more violent and aggressive.
Hamas was a tool of Israel and the people who spend endless days arguing over Hamas are the victims of this tool - The only way to defeat the ghost of Hamas is to support them. Only then does the Israeli propaganda fall apart, and thus the necessity of Israel to maintain Hamas as a scapegoat for terror.
There grief is that Israel exists. They are Islamic fascist who believe every country should be Muslim. They'd kill you if given the opportunity
If you fight against Israel, you’re called Hamas - No matter who you are or what your opinions are. Now apply this to pretty much ANY social issue today and you've now understood how we got where we are.
It's almost as if they want this conflict to exist perpetually...
Starve a population to death, population lashes out, take more of their land, rinse and repeat. People fall for it, so it works.
if the palestinian state ceases to exist, then they're just back to being normal terrorists like hamas... presumably they'll have to integrate into Egyptian society, etc
Frankly I don't know which words are powerful enough to describe this and condemn it. I don't think the right words exist to explain how bad it is.
This logic is just... If it's justified to blow up a refugee camp to kill a senior leader of Hamas, then by that same logic, Hamas would be justified in blowing up Israel's capitol buildings to kill Netanyahu.
Fucking hell, not only that, but this logic defends the Hamas attack on Israel too. There could have been IDF members there or government officials.
I don't see how anybody condemning Hamas' terrorist attack could not condemn this. It's the same picture.
I mean yeah, that's where the Palestinians are, who did they think was the target of a military attack on a city?
It's getting hard for people to pretend that this isn't a genocide when the people doing it aren't even bothering to pretend it isn't.
Oh, they know. They don't care.
Truth is dying, as well. You get to choose what to believe during and long after the fog of war. One wonders why the US supports Israel so much throughout this level of shit if it's actually this bad.
A country's support for an action is not the moral bellwether you think it is.
You don't understand the US all that well, do you?
It couldn't have anything to do with this, could it?
If they were attempting genocide, why ask the people you're trying to kill to leave the area you're going to bomb?
That seems to work at cross purposes.
They are posting Internet messages warning people to get out of a place where they have cut electricity and communications, think about that for a second. Those messages aren't for the Palestinians, they are for ignorant people like you to defend them in the US.
It's textbook genocide. They've seen they can get away with anything under the guise of war, so why not just solve all their issues and make sure no one's alive to return to their homes?
What was the old sarcastic quip from Vietnam vets?
"Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out."
The origin of that (specifically "Kill Them All and Let God Sort It Out") is way older than that, back all the way to the 13th century and the Cruzades.
I vaguelly remembered it being from a source older than that so I went and looked it up.
Charlie can't surf.
under the guise of war
There's no guise. This is the way war has been prosecuted for millennia. The Geneva Convention, UNHRC, etc. are blips. War is genocide and always has been. Only in the late modern to post-modern era has war been something other than the complete annihilation of your enemies and their culture, including all the infanticide and rape that implies. If you're, for instance, the US prosecuting a war for nebulous geopolitical reasons, then you can slap up a veneer of rules and conduct. If it's a war of territorial expansion, on the other hand, you'd better be prepared to do what it takes to stamp out any trace of the people who originally lived there, or at least leave those who remain so broken and disempowered that they'll never pose a threat.
Expect more like Ukraine & Palestine as the US's grip on hegemony slips, and as we continue to slowly forget the lessons of the World Wars.
This is not true. There are hundreds of cultures around today who were conquered and just left to live until their conquerors eventually moved out. The Jews themselves have literally been conquered a dozen times.
Not quite true. While there were many wars of cultural genocide, (culture is a great control tool), wars of physical genocide were largely reserved for religious wars and punishment wars. Not gonna pay that tithe or surrender the second you see us? Congratulations, you're an example. Espouse a different religious truth? You're a threat that must be made an example.
For the most part they understood the value of human capital and didn't want to destroy it if they didn't have to.
I think Ukraine has reestablished American hegemony. It's showcased how powerful it is to have American support, and galvanized NATO once more.
I honestly don't think you can tie Palestine into this. This conflict has never been indicative of any global influence. This is where global influence does nothing in the face of intense hatred.
I have one of Mahmoud Darwish's books right here, goes into pretty significant detail about Israel's attempts to stamp out Palestinian culture in the earliest years:
https://blogs.transparent.com/arabic/write-down-i-am-an-arab/
As the book details, he wrote this and then performed it on a stage in Israel, to their outrage, I think it said around 1958.
I admit, I've been skeptical of this for a while because I couldn't think of a reason why they'd want to do this.
And I realized today. There doesn't have to be some grand reason. Killing them all ensures Hamas is killed too. They'll destroy Palestine because it's easier and safer for them to indiscriminately bomb the place. That's reason enough. :/
From the article:
“But you know that there are a lot of refugees, a lot of innocent civilians—men, women, and children—in that refugee camp as well, right?” Blitzer asked again.
“This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. We as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians who are not involved with Hamas, please move south.”
Holy shit, Wolf is getting trolled on just as hard as us, but on live TV... I hate the future.
And then they throw a bomb in the south.
The US fucked up hard on its killing of civilians, but MODT of the time it was at least a result of supporting direct ground combat where friendly forces were engaged. At least that was true from weeks after the initial invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Israel is tossing bombs at targets, using the most advanced aircraft in the world… and their ground forces are not within 10 miles of the site.
That’s what makes this inexcusable. They had time. They didn’t have ground forces under threat. Every vehicle isn’t an IED waiting to happen yet. They have the time to check for authorization before letting a JDAM off the rails.
The right to defend has to come with purse string implications if they use it as right to kill without mercy. They do this, we cut funding. They do it more, in clearly not accidental strikes, we impose sanctions. The purse will hurt enough due to their reliance on western arms, that they change lest they not be able to drop bombs at all.
It’s one thing to have a legit terror target and mistake the building or some freak accident. It’s another to drop a bomb on a refugee camp and then simply shrug.
The video of the car being shot by the tank is a clear example of their actions. If anyone hasn't seen it, there was a tank parked on a road sort of hidden from sight, in a 'safe area' in central Gaza, outside of the evacuation zone. A car didn't see it at first, noticed and turned around still a bit away from the tank, as it begins to drive away the tank fires on them and kills them. If you look at the strikes going on now this is what it is, it isn't a 'Hamas rocket position' or other BS, there hasn't been a shred of verifiable evidence for any target that it was a legitimate military target.
“Look Wolf, we’ve experienced a genocide, leave this to the professionals, okay?”
It's fascinating. Every war has collateral damage and Hamas deliberately hides behind civilians- a war crime- and Israel gives them opportunity to leave
And hamas deliberately targets civilians and you say nothing
What are some of your own quotes on Israel targeting civilians? I assume they're intended to absolve Israel of all responsibility?
but this is the now. the present. well, technically it's the past. but tomorrow is a brand new day!
"There could be infrastructure there, there could be tunnels there. We’re still looking into it.”
So... you bombed this refugee area, didn't give a fuck... you got the target you wanted along with a bunch of civilians. Now, after the fact, you are searching for more justifications than you had before the attack was sanctioned.
What the fuck. They may as well just say "tell us what you need to hear for this to be okay, and we'll say it".
Memba when the cops broke into Bo Jean's apartment, shot him in the face while he was sitting on his couch eating ice cream, then searched the apartment they broke into and had a big press conference about how he had <1 gram of marijuana?
Y'all know how american cops and the IDF trade people, training and techniques back and forth all the time?
I can imagine the news host already, "we don't know what could have happened if we didn't shoot this guy for <1 gram of hardcore addictive cannabis. Anything could have happened, just imagine, kids walking the streets, high as a kite, completely oblivious to how smelly and antisocial they would be. But only that, but they could be run over if I were to drink drive. If not me, someone else could, absolutely incredibly dangerous substances out there I tell you"
Fun fact. Many of the "warnings" are recorded on video in English. What's the majority language in Gaza again?
70 year of atrocities committed in Palestine with the support of western powers and the indifference of western media
2023 : IDF commits yet another round of genocidal atrocities in Palestine
western media: Surprised Pikatchu face 🤯
There's no surprise. Nobody is. Place has been a warzone since before I was born, and will be long after I'm dead.
They're just getting all the juicy pictures of dead kids to sell their papers.
Give it a week and they'll be a massive flood in Bangladesh or somewhere, and they'll forget all about dead Israelis and Palestinians, and we can have a good old look at a load of water bloated brown corpses instead.
Not just indifference. Actively supporting while character attacking opposition.
Pals despite there constant war live as good or better than most other Muslim countries in the region
Blitzer pressed Hecht on the logic involved in Israel’s decision to target the refugee camp.
“This is the tragedy of war, Wolf. We as you know, we’ve been saying for days, move south. Civilians who are not involved with Hamas, please move south.”
They have been bombing the southern humanitarian corridor too. So I am not sure what he is saying.
Also, the thing about battlefields is that eventually the north becomes the south. At least if you are winning.
They're saying that they consider all Palestinians to be terrorists. It's that simple.
Go south if you're not a terrorist, bombed because there may be terrorists in the mix.
Don't go south, but stay in a refuge camp. Bombed, because there may be terrorists in the mix.
They're all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers as far as IDF is concerned.
Greta Thunberg posed with a "Free Palestine" sign after the retaliation started. The IDF complained that she wasn't telling their side, that Israel had just been attached. Therefore, she was labeled a terrorist sympathizer. That really boils down their mentality.
They’re saying that they consider all Palestinians to be terrorists.
Gee... it's almost like "counter-terrorism" is just the politically correct term the propaganda-peddlers these days use so that they don't have to call it colonialist warfare.
They're all terrorists or terrorist sympathizers as far as IDF is concerned.
Kind of getting there myself tbh.
BBC Verify has analysed the Israeli strike locations and found that they are indeed striking 'safety zones' where IDF instructed Gazaans to take shelter. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67264703
once hamas has been defeated the Saudi's still want to pursue their roadmap to stability for the region. there's still light at the end of the tunnel.
there’s still light at the end of the tunnel.
Soooo... a white supremacist settler-colonialist state emerging victorious is how you qualify there being "light at the end of the tunnel"?
Now they will start saying that beneath every hospital and refugee camp in Gaza lies a Hamas headquarter.
Yep... after all - if you see a Palestinian child without a Hamas "terrorist" hiding behind them it just proves how sneaky they are!
(s/ - for the terminally bewildered)
They've been doing that for 20 years. Possibly earlier but that's around when I started following it.
Well, I mean, to be fair, Hamas frequently does actually use hospitals and refugee camps as human shields. It doesn't make blowing up thousands of innocent people okay, but don't act like Israel is blowing up camps for no reason. They're doing it because Hamas are cowardly pieces of shit who hide behind children and sick people. Everyone is horrible in this except the innocent people dying in the crossfire.
We’re doing everything we can, you know, other than not dropping bombs directly on refugees
I'm just scrolling. Not really doing anything.
And nothing's ever going to change if we don't do anything.
So think about the question; "well what can I do?"
We can't do shit because we are owned and overpowered by nation-gangs. We are helpless, because the most conniving people at the perfect time in the past made it that way.
When war is happening we should all feel guilty.
Boycutt Israel
Spread some pro Palestinian narratives
Call your reps
It's not much, but it can help
Cut off the funding. Do not support trade that benefits some while hurting others.
We might be helpless to stop it this second, but there are actions we can take to slow the support for this down and stop it in the future hopefully. Even little things can help, we are owned and overpowered by nation-gangs but they are always outnumbered by their pawns.
Jabalya was established in 1948. It's not a refugee camp and hasn't been in 50 years. Don't buy into their narrative.
Just to note, they've bombed people in cars fleeing Gaza as directed by them as well. There really is no safe way to be in or attempt to leave.
This is why Palestinians are staying at home despite the threats.
They know that if they leave they'll be bombed.
They know that if they stay they'll be bombed.
They know that if they leave and survive they'll be permanent refugees to a world that despises them.
They know that if they leave and survive and are allowed to return, they'll be clearing rubble for the rest of their lives (until Israel bombs them again)
No matter what, they're doomed to be a tool for propaganda or a corpse. I'd rather be a corpse in my own home in a final act of defiance than a statistic of a settler colonial cleansing project.
No, they've had days to leave and many of them did. Not sure why Egypt doesn't open the rafah crossing
Who comes up with these headlines?? Certainly not someone who based it off the video used to support their claim.
This bullshit dilutes real news stories. Headline should read; "IDF bombs refugee camp in attempt to kill Hamas terrorist, knowing it was full of civilians." That's the story and it's fucked alone as it is. Why sensationalize this and make up shit that is objectively untrue??
"Terrorist', "in attempt" are both editorialized in their own sense. "Terrorist" is a biased term in a conflict like this, which basically pick sides between two actors, both of which use genocidal rhetoric, target civilians, and want the annihilation of the other (but, bears mentioning, one is a U.S. backed nuclear power, one definitely isn't). "In attempt" subjectively presents a claimed motive as fact, which doesn't belong in journalism. An impartial one would read something like, "IDF airstrikes refugee camp in Jabalia, claiming to target Hamas leader, acknowledges civilian presence was known".
There is no such thing as real news.
I think they already reported on the IDF bombing the refugee camp.
This is how we know they didn't hit that hospital car park the other week.
They're not ashamed of what they do. They just say they were "targeting a Hamas commander" and walk away.
Well israel actually did tweet that they bombed that hospital and "targeted Hamas" but promptly deleted the tweet. Nobody seems to question that anymore.
israel's propaganda machine has gone in overdrive since the last week, every comment section on the internet is getting flooded with Zionist bots even smaller ones.
They're activating every last account they have access to, the tell is they're making arguments they know are wrong and they are getting paid to do it so they keep on doing it. There are ones who argue directly and ones who work more subtly to normalize apartheid and genocide.
There was just no possible way of denying this one. There was enough fog of war and misinformation floating around to get away with muddying the water around the hospital, this is clear cut.
Friendly reminder this is an urban center with 50k people normally living in it, with permanent concrete buildings. This is not a bunch of tents and soup pots.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jabalia_refugee_camp
They killed a battalion of Hamas fighters. This is just how war functions
Blitzer not knowing the facts of this "camp" just kind of makes him look like an amateur.
half of gaza is kids. Israeli government is the #1 childkillers. good job
Ah yes 50k and on top of them another few thousands in tents with soup pots. And Israel killed a shit ton of them.
It's just sad, absolutely sad that Israel is using these excuses to use weapons of war against thousands of impoverished, innocent civilians, the large majority having nothing to do with the tragedy that occurred in early October.
The U.S. needs to take away the toys it gave to Israel.
"There could be infrastructure there, there could be tunnels there."
Translation:
We killed them all just in case one of them was an asshole. What if we're actually totally justified in bombing a refugee camp? We certainly don't know for sure that we weren't. Now that all of those innocent children are dead we're checking under their corpses to see if there's anything we can use to make ourselves seem like the good guy here.
That s such a cynical admission but also very stupid. In order to kill 1 terrorist, you just created 300. Very smart.
By the same logic btw, a dozen nukes would be enough to ensure that no terrorists survive, until the cockroaches invent molotov cocktails
in order to kill one terrorist you just created 300
If your goal is peaceful coexistence then this is a bad strategy, yes. If your goal is peaceful expansion and the annihilation of your neighbors then every terrorist you create also serves as an excuse for you to carpet bomb a neighborhood
It's not just about Palestinian terrorists. It's about us.
I've been on the "can people stop being assholes to Palestinians" team for many years - but this recent hamas attack was disgusting - they've always been disgusting but this was recent. I still supported Palestinians - but even I took a step back and was like, uhhhhh
Israel's response has been worse. As a result, we're all back to fully supporting Palestine. For as long as Israel is seen as the victim, they'll have the world's support; but if they start killing hundreds of innocents to get one person - like, did they give this any thought at all?
Oh, man... do I have news for Wolf Blitzer - Israel loves bombing refugee camps almost as much as they love bombing hospitals.
Israel's excuse is pure political theater. This was a war crime. Regardless of who's coming a war crime - Israel, Hamas, Russia, America, Isis, or anyone else, they should be held to account. But they won't, which is just so fucked up. But much like politicians and cops, you can't effectively punish the ones with all the power.
Israel is punching down so hard it's insane. If they really knew where the Hamas leader was, they could absolutely send in a team or assassin to take him out without the collateral damage. It's not like they don't have spec ops or all the money and military resources they could need to do the job. Hell, the pro-Ukraine saboteurs in Russia have been able to destroy military assets and assassinated at least one oligarch, all without hitting a crowd of civilians no matter how anti-Ukraine said civilians might be. Israel has no goddamn excuse. Neither does Hamas. They're both at fault and the individual persons responsible should be punished.
Don't worry, in about 23 more strikes they'll then send in ground forces to sort the survivors. /sarcasm
You dropped some zeros there. They did several hundred airstrikes over the weekend alone.
I'm an ardent supporter of Israel and their right to defend themselves in these extreme times. This isn't that.
This is not okay. Targeting the tunnels is understandable. Targeting their leadership is understandable. Targeting a refugee camp is not acceptable, it's the sort of thing Hamas would do and I can't believe they've gone that far.
If this is the part that shocks you, you haven't been paying attention.
If you want to target the Hamas leaders then send in special forces to take them out in Qatar and other countries they hide out in. Send in precision teams to take the tunnels out without destroying towns above.
Don't kill 30,000 civilians for a handful of actual fighters.
Don’t kill 30,000 civilians for a handful of actual fighters.
But then who will kill the 30,000 civilians?
Besides... the only thing these "special forces" are really good for is murdering civilians - it's mostly the reason states keep them around.
I concur. Frankly, they're both a bunch of terrorists.
Tragically, one side had been receiving all kinds of war support for generations now and it's incredibly imbalanced.
I just don't understand how genocide can be a goal...
Tragically, one side had been receiving all kinds of war support for generations now and it's incredibly imbalanced.
This is why people are saying Israel and the US created this crisis, because we've spent generations militarizing an apartheid state that subjugates and abuses Palestinians. Israel wanted to strengthen Hamas as a way to undermine the strength of a Palestinian state in Gaza:
those who want to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy - to differentiate between the Palestinians in Gaza and the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria.
Israel and the Western Allies have intentionally fed the flames of this conflict in order to consolidate power in the middle east.
What's the problem? It's not like they're "people." /s
I’m an ardent supporter of Israel and their right to defend themselves in these extreme times. This isn’t that.>
Honest question: after this, will you still continue to be? Because they're not done.
I'm a supporter of Israel, not its government.
Sadly, they're not going to stop until Hamas does or they're destroyed. Just today I was watching an interview where Hamas' second in command was saying they're going to continue to do 10/7 type attacks until Israel doesn't exist anymore. If you expect Israel's current government to sit back and let that happen, you're seriously mistaken. No country on earth would allow a neighbor to fire rockets randomly at civilians and call for their people to continue to murder Jews.
Hamas has made clear they are an existential threat to Israel and sadly, the Israeli government is taking the approach of meeting Hamas on their terms of engagement. It's getting harder to blame them but I do hope they would be better than the savages who are calling for the death of an entire ethnic group.
They stopped defending themselves roughly 3 days before the Hamas attack. Not sure what level of genocide was comfortable to you?
Those tunnels were always a propaganda tool of Israel too, by the way. They were built because of the total blockade of Gaza that made tunnels the only method for Palestinians to trade with Israel and the wider world (Remember Israel blockades Gaza's access to the ocean too!). If these were purely military in their purpose, Israel would've cleared them all out a long time ago but the reality is that these tunnels were a benefit to the economy of both sides.
Hamas using those tunnels to resist the Israeli occupation and cleansing of Palestinian communities is a side-effect, sure, but you're clearly too receptive of the propaganda of Israel if you think tunnels are an excuse for indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure.
Are you joking right now? Those tunnels, aka the Hamas highway are absolutely fair game in this war. Just like Ukraine destroyed infrastructure to hinder the Russians advancing, the routes of supply are a part of the theatre of war and always have been.
As sad as it is, this bombing wasn't indiscriminate. They had a large number of targets including high value ones located in the area. The area is sitting on top of a tunnel system known to be used to traffic materials used to attack Israel. I don't agree with Israel bombing a refugee camp but I also don't agree Hamas putting all of those people intentionally at risk like they intentionally did.
As has been noted countless times, when Hamas stops using human shields, this madness will stop much faster.
I’m an ardent supporter of Israel
If you support a white supremacist settler-colonialist state it means you support a white supremacist colonialist state.
End of story.
You can't colonize your own homeland. Jews are indigenous to Judea. Simple as that.
Israel is actually the greatest story of decolonization the world has ever seen.
60% of Israel is non white, what white supremacy is in place there? Get your facts straight before you go spouting your Anti Semitic bullshit.
Correct, this is not defense.
It is revenge.
Sounds like they got 50 Hamas operatives among the 150.
Hamas needs to stop hiding amongst the civilians. If they're even civilians, I'm seeing far more cheering than protesting in the videos coming out of the strip.
Is it the kind of thing Hamas would do I do know it’s the kind of thing Israel does and this isn’t the first. It’s easy to say oh we killed civilians but we share targeting tunnels or something.
Don't you realize this is where they put the tunnels ? And this 'refugee camp' is a city
What a sick fuck!
I'm all for Israel defending themselves, but they're not even trying to hide the fact that this is about revenge, not security.
Anyone have the clip?
Its in the article, my guy.
Trying in chrome I see it now. Doesnt show in FF Browser.
Disclaimer: what I'm about to say is not in support of any action, it's just philosophical musing.
Isn't the whole concept of a war crime sort of hypocritical? War is inherently barbaric and uncivilized. Yet we seem to think we can make it something other than that by placing restrictions on parts of it. The goal is to defeat your enemy but society says it's not gentlemanly to do it in a particular way, as if treating it like a sporting event with ineffectual referees will fundamentally change what's happening. At the end of the day we're still giving the green light to kill a bunch of people. I get why we do it, it just seems insincere to stop short of saying any amount of killing is immoral. We'll only allow you to kill these people in these places under these circumstances.
I don't know how this helps anybody it's just something I was thinking about.
The Geneva Conventions laws were built around the idea that while War is hell, War is also inevitable. The purpose was to provide a framework around the way war can be waged while trying to limit the atrocities committed while it is happening. Providing protections to prisoners of war and civilians in combat zones is beneficial to both sides because without those protections in place, it leads to an circle of escalation by both sides' armies against those not actively engaged in combat against you (i.e. army A kills civilians, army B kills civilians asl retaliation, army A's soldiers mistreat POWs as retaliation, army B's soldiers no longer accept surrender from Army A in battles and executes those surrendering, etc)
So yes, admitting war is inherently barbaric and uncivilized. But that doesn't do anything to help prevent the fact that war crimes happen in war. The goal of defining war crimes isn't to make them something other that barbaric and uncivilized. It's simply to try and set a soft limit on the level of crap an organized military can and/or should do to non combatants in order to facilitate a quicker end to the conflict instead of needing to eliminate every last living member of the other side in order to declare victory.
Those same conventions also have clauses around the usage of civilians to defend military targets. These same clauses make Israel's strikes in fact not war crimes by the same Geneva Convention that people love quoting.
Also, another thing you have wrong. The Geneva convention isn't as much laws as an agreement between countries, and more of a suggestion to other countries not part of it.
War parties usually don't want to completely eradicate the opponent's population, just break their fighting power and force them to surrender. The "tolerated" form of war is a power struggle between those who want power (incl. keeping it, so defending yourself), and it should leave out those who don't as much as possible. So the idea is that you only fight the people on the other side who actually signed up for fighting, and spare those who would rather flee or accept defeat. Ofc in reality it's never that clear cut, soldiers can be forced to fight against their will for example.
If war is unavoidable, wouldn't it be a good idea to have an international council capable of condemning tactics that lead to total destruction?
The concept of war crimes and international courts aren't there to concede that war is acceptable. They are there to grapple with the fact that war is inevitable and try to mitigate the worst, most horrific and lasting consequences.
If the international courts had the power to stop war crimes they would, but they don't have that power. All they do is condemn. Why is it hypocritical that they condemn war crimes when they don't have the power to stop wars either?
Condemning something you believe to be inevitable is a rather pointless exercise in my opinion. It may not be wrong but it's not exactly useful either unless you believe it can be avoided, in which case it is no longer inevitable.
In any case, you're speaking from a UN perspective and I'm speaking from the perspective of individuals. The way we speak of war as if it's something that can be noble so long as the enemy "deserves" it. Nevermind the fact that your enemy thinks the same of you. We're fine with dehumanizing and killing large groups of men but women and children is a step too far. It's perfectly acceptable to bomb a factory full of workers but not a hospital. The concept of innocence in war presupposes that those who participate in it are not worthy of the same consideration as those who do not, despite the fact that in many cases a small group of people directed the actions of everyone else equally. Maybe that's a valid point but it does seem to clash with Western ideals of equality and judicial review.
I think the idea is that a ‘good’ war (lolwut?) is one they would surgically cut out that opposition like a tumor without affecting everybody else.
Madmen see the world as a thing they can change with simple actions, wielding power only to hurt.
"War is simply the continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means." - Clausewitz
The U.S. has a talking zombie for a leader. Victims of injustice have long memories, and so do their families. The world is not on the side of Israel. The Holocaust trump card that diverts any criticism of Israel's behavior as anti-Semitism is expired, null, and void. They are backed by the U.S. unequivocally, to commit genocide rather than push for ceasefire and dialogue. The U.S. president, a talking zombie, has made his country less safe.
It's a religious holy war, nothing else... And it's irrational because of it.
Religion has darkened politics for the past decade in particular ways. In America it's shown Christians will support fascism. In the middle east it's showing Jews will do as well...
...religion is the root cause. Anyone over there is there for religious reasons. I think perhaps it would be best if, whenever peace is achieved, the secularist west nuke the entire area, with a particular focus on long term irradiation of all holy sites. This version of humanity in the current era can't handle organised religion, and it needs to be prohibited with an automatic means of early death. It needs to be made abstract and reasonable... and only the irrationality or nuclear irradiation can be its metaphorical equal.
Nuke religion. Nuke religious wars. Irradiated holy sites.
This is absolutely not a religious war. I understand why you say that. But if it were, Muslim countries would come to the aid of Palestinians. But there's a reason Egypt is standing still. And it's not religion.
With the US carrier group in the area I'd be pretty hesitant to interfere if I was Egypt or anyone else really. At least in any direct way that could be retaliated against militarily, right now.
Egypt has tried to get rid of Israel already. history shows us what happened - they know better than to get involved.
Jews, Muslims, and Christians all lived in the region of Israel-Palestine (well, just Palestine) before 1948. Israel was a concept by nationalists and Europeans who saw an opportunity to get rid of Jewish refugees as well as project European military interests into the Arab world.
Religion was a useful tool in dividing these people, but nationalism and colonialism played the role in turning these divisions into wars.
it might come to that. sure hope not but... maybe
OK CNN, so ? at least you get clicks and time views.
where's the fucking flag "we stand with " you were throwing up at our face during Ukraine invasion ???
It's not about what's right and wrong, it's about who will stop them. This is America's war.
if hamas werent cowards they wouldnt try (and fail) to hide in civilian camps. they do it because they have no actual chance in a real war. end result is more civilian casualties.
Can you show me the Hamas flags, vehicles, uniforms, etc that proves there even was a military target there?
And yet no one bats an eye when china murders millions of muslims or Armenians are getting wiped out. The west only cares about Palestinians, even when they get warning after warnings of evacuation orders. "Israel says leave north Gaza for fear of your life" "Two weeks pass, plenty of time for anyone to flee" "People who didn't live are fearing their lives"
Come on. Are they supposed to go in there on foot on basically suicide missions to heavily trapped areas because people are refusing to get out of an active warzone after multiple warnings? How about keeping Hamas responsible for evacuating their civilians when they live in active warzones? Israel is legit the only country in the world who knocks first, and ya'll are goving them crap for it. Grow up.
People get surprised when people are killed in warzones. 10/10 logic.
Millions of murders in China? Really mate? That is the biggest take on xinjiang I have ever heard of.
https://www.npr.org/2021/05/31/1001936433/who-the-uyghurs-are-and-why-china-is-targeting-them
Dude what? I guess ya'll are really just supporting anything which is against the west, no matter how hypocritical it is. Next thing I'll hear on Lemmy how Ukraine had it coming from Russia.
You might have some of the most boneheaded remarks I've seen here.
That you actively demonstrate your lack of any knowledge about this conflict is truly astounding.
I couldn't bring myself to type up a message like that when it would show my ass so thoroughly.
Hats off to you, good job champ.
And what lack of knowledge about this conflict do I have? Please enlighten me. Did Israelis not tell every possible Gazan "hey, leave this area, your terrorist leaders are hiding here and we don't like killing civilians"?
It's like ya'll leave in a fantasy world where no wrong could ever be done towards a side in a conflict which is weaker. It's like you forgot how war actually works.
Whatabout China? Is this the new talking point to cover ethnic cleansing?
It's not just whataboutism, I talked about how Israel did literally everything they could considering they're at war. It's like ya'll forgot how wars worked.
Just imagine the allied forces telling germans "hey yo things are about to get ugly here please leave to this area where we'll bomb way less". There's no other country who treats war with such careful hands, and Israel is still getting shit over it.
War is evil. Israel's wars are the least evil in the world.
Hamas doesn't seem to be enjoying this particular Finding Out phase.
Neither are about 3000 children so far. And counting.
lol and it'll be even less enjoyable next week.
You mean this?
“A short while ago, IDF fighter jets, acting on ISA intelligence, killed Ibrahim Biari, the Commander of Hamas' Central Jabaliya Battalion. Biari was one of the leaders responsible for sending “Nukbha” terrorist operatives to Israel to carry out the murderous terror attack on October 7th. Numerous Hamas terrorists were hit in the strike.
Biari oversaw all military operations in the northern Gaza Strip since the IDF entered. He was also responsible for sending the terrorists who carried out the 2004 terrorist attack in the Ashdod Port in which 13 Israelis were murdered, and was responsible for directing rocket fire at Israel, and advancing numerous attacks against the IDF, over the last two decades.
His elimination was carried out as part of a wide-scale strike on terrorists and terror infrastructure belonging to the Central Jabaliya Battalion, which had taken control over civilian buildings in Gaza City. The strike damaged Hamas’ command and control in the area, as well as its ability to direct military activity against IDF soldiers operating throughout the Gaza Strip. As a result of the strike, a large number of terrorists who were with Biari were killed. Underground terror infrastructure embedded beneath the buildings, used by the terrorists, also collapsed after the strike.
The IDF reiterates its call to the residents of the area to move south for their safety.”an this?
This is an article about how veteran news man Wolf Blitzer found such logic disgusting. You think swooping in and doubling down is helping disprove that?
"My three kids are gone, my kids, no one is alive," one despondent man named Jabar could be heard saying as his friends tried to console him.
Dr. Atef Al-Kahlot, director of the nearby Indonesian Hospital, said the total number of people wounded and killed is about 400.
What a just and noble war the brave bombs of Israel wage. We can all learn a lot from this I think.
the IDF got a top operative of the enemy forces. that's all that matters.
They apparently managed to kill Ibrahim Biari - he was near the top of the Hamas hierarchy. I'm impressed that they knew he was there.
Wolf seemed less impressed.
I think the average person knows something like sixty or seventy other people, IIRC. Israel flat out killed that many to get one guy; imagine every single person you know getting deleted instantly but the government saying "don't worry, we got him, so it's all good." That's without talking about the injured, that's just the people who got immediately killed. Spree shooters have better target discipline than these fucks.
You're presupposing that a way to kill him without killing civilians existed, but I don't think it's a coincidence that so many civilians just happened to be around him. As long as he's near civilians, Israel either has to avoid killing him or triggers international outrage, so of course he's going to stay near civilians.
This whole thing follows on the crowning jewel of intelligence fuckups, so I wouldn't take any of their claims too seriously.
