To wonder how anyone thought what was happening in Gaza was ok?

Wondering if it’s Ok for US to do this while the UN have said that the actions of Israel meet the conditions of genocide.

The article says that US support allows Israel to act with a feeling of impunity. I would argue that the US under Joe Biden are also acting with a feeling of impunity. The distribution of power can change over time and I think it’s foolish for any government to behave in this way. Perhaps Biden being senior will have already passed before that time, but maybe others who are complicit will still be around to face the consequences.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/29/us-approves-weapons-bombs-israel

@NotSoBigCrocodile
You’d need a pretty good Time Machine to go back to the Iron Age

Israel is not Iceland. It is not a discrete country defined by naturally occurring features .It takes a flexible approach to its borders to phrase it politely.

Israel will always have a terrorist problem because it was founded by seizing land violently and its borders are mostly land borders where the displaced continue live. No one has criticised Israel for developing the iron dome that was largely paid for by the US. That is self defence.

The bombardment of Gaza with untargeted missiles, the targeting of hospitals, the destruction of graves and places of worship, the repeated forced displacement of the civilian population to an unsafe area , the use of starvation as a weapon of war- these are not self defence.

Isreal faced an existential threat in that the 400,000 highly educated and skilled adults who keep Israel in the developed world are oozing out of the country as the religious right takes the reins of government.

Israel exists because of the Holocaust. But that generation is dying off and is nearly gone.It relies on the US and powerful pro Israel actors in the halls of power. But secular American Jews are marrying out. There is a strong demographic association between pro Israeli sentiment and age, and in a few decades Americans will no longer be funding Israel’s with their taxes

A few examples of accounts of the bombing of 'safe zones'.

https://msf.org.uk/article/gaza-msf-strongly-condemns-deadly-israeli-attack-staff-and-family-shelter

https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/21/middleeast/israel-strikes-evacuation-zones-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gaza-refugees-bombed-in-tented-safe-zone-0j2pnslhz#:~:text=There%20was%20little%20shelter%20and,told%20they%20would%20be%20safe.

Even the idea of a safe zone is seen as illegitimate, as ‘forced transfer’. So bombing is wrong, but asking people to leave an area before it is bombed is also wrong! Israel is always demonised

There appears to be nothing Israel can do that you wouldn't defend, what you're describing is a form of ethnic cleansing, which is against International law.

But of course the aim isn't to bomb Hamas, its to force Palestinians to leave Gaza or at least push them into a far smaller area, better still, drive them to break out into Egypt.

Yes, it's called ethnic cleansing and it's usually frowned upon by right thinking people.

In relation to your allegation that UNRWA have collaborated with Hamas, that's a pretty serious allegation to make. Do you have evidence of this?

In relation to your first point, I have seen with my own eyes that they do.

A friend's family were ordered by the IDF to evacuate, and given instructions on where to go, to a 'safe zone'.

While they were in the 'safe zone', it was bombed by the IDF. I highly doubt that my friend's family faked having to remove shrapnel from their child's face - from a toddler's face.

@CaterhamReconstituted I'm interested as to whether you think there is a point at which actions undertaken by the IDF to defeat Hamas would be disproportionate. Do you think the current military campaign should continue regardless of the number of casualties until every major Hamas figure is dead and their infrastructure destroyed? Or do you think there is a point at which the campaign would have caused too many deaths and should stop?

I don't need a time machine thanks because Israel is literally still doing this today. If you were one of those kicked off your land recently you'd probably consider it a pretty relevant issue in the conflict. And I would understand if your descendents weren't thrilled about it in years to come, even if it made life handier for those who stole their land if everyone just forgot about it.

As someone living in an occupied territory I can assure you that you never forget the wrong that was done.

No it’s not. But Israel do not do this. UNWRA claimed this but they are compromised having collaborated with Hamas.

Even the idea of a safe zone is seen as illegitimate, as ‘forced transfer’. So bombing is wrong, but asking people to leave an area before it is bombed is also wrong! Israel is always demonised.

I would be interested in your take on the bombing of 'safe zones', @CaterhamReconstituted - is that acceptable?

@NotSoBigCrocodile land theft and occupation are current issues, not simply historical. The Occupied Territories are referred to as such due to occupation. 'Settlers' are taking and planning to take land owned by Palestinians. The Israeli government has just recently approved plans for more 'settlements' in the Occupied Territories.

Life as a Palestinian in the West Bank, pre-7/10, included occupying forces making threats, controlling most aspects of life, and presenting a real risk to life. Imagine living in the land internationally stated as your homeland, and being threatened at gunpoint to leave your home, told which streets you can and can't walk down because of your race, prevented from using certain shops, etc. Imagine, every time your child leaves the house to play or go to school, there's real chance of them being shot dead by an occupying military force, or even just a random 'settler', with no repercussions for the perpetrators. Imagine having to watch your spouse be beaten, and be unable to intervene because if you do, you'd get shot.

Life in Gaza, for a Palestinian, pre-7/10, was life under blockade. Everything and everyone coming in to Gaza was controlled. Children couldn't have basic educational toys, hospitals couldn't have essential equipment to provide certain services (meaning people who needed those services had to wait and hope for approval to leave Gaza for their appointments and treatment - approval would often not come, or come too late, meaning that many people simply couldn't get the treatment they needed and died). Over 2 million people, in a small area of land, with nowhere to go and insufficient land and resources to meet their needs... They were dependent upon aid coming in. Food supplies coming in were calorie-counted, to ensure that there wasn't enough for people to actually thrive - to live in Gaza pre-7/10 was to constantly feel hungry.

This was happening on 6/10. This isn't the distant past.

Terrorists are also subject to legal frameworks.
What do you mean? I am really confused because terrorism is, by definition, illegal and a criminal offense.
Terrorists don't sign up to the Geneva convention ( Israel did) or are part of the UN/WHO ( again, Israel has been since 1949 for the former).
Terrorists do not operate within a legal framework ( see my first point) but Israel signed up to one ( see my second point).

Er, I’m not saying that.

So how much time needs to elapse before raping, torturing, murdering and mutilating stops being an acceptable response to “one side displacing people and stealing their land” considering there are none alive today on either side that were directly involved in or directly affected by the creation of Israel or any of the conflicts preceding that.

In the absence of a time machine, I’m not sure how much can be done about what you consider to be the core problem, anyway. So when is enough, enough? What solution do you propose that solves the problem of “one side displacing people and stealing their land” that goes back generations, to before WW2.

I mean, the peoples of Europe in WW2 endured unimaginable loss on an unprecedented scale - loss of life, loss of family, loss of property, loss of wealth, loss of land etc. The number of people displaced is estimated at around 65 million in Europe alone. If any group in Europe were raping, torturing, murdering and mutilating another group in 2024 due to the events preceding and of WW2, I don’t think there would be much tolerance for it. I don’t think there would be much sympathy for it.

If the core of the problem is “one side displacing people and stealing their land” why aren’t we seeing the same issues at play in Europe over displacement, loss of land and the insurmountable other losses people endured and for which there was no justice to be had. That’s unless, jihadism isn’t as small a problem in this situation as you seem to think it is.

The core problem in this conflict stopped being “one side displacing people and stealing their land” a long time ago.

You assume that there are no pacifists in Israel. Can you, please, provide facts supporting this?

We’ve probably completed the circle we’ve just gone around in. Let’s agree to disagree.

Im not defending Israel go the nth degree, I am arguing that the characterisation of Israeli military action as unacceptable, aggressive, war crimes as a matter of policy etc is not true. Of course there is misconduct in war, and that should be dealt with, but I’m talking about Israel’s right to defend itself against genocide

You really are....

Israel is NOT defending its self against genocide as Hamas do not possess the means to do this to Israel

On the final point, there are (rightly) rules about you treat prisoners of war. This is not the same as a military situation where a terrorist could be lying in a bed, in an hospital that his own side have deliberately chosen as an theatre of war, and still detonate a bomb

Well, based on that assumption, Israel should kill anyone it sees... as it appears to be doing.
Women with kids in house "Kill, kids could have bombs in their toys"
Patient in hospital bed "Kill, could have a bomb"
Family moving south in a car as told to by IDF "Kill, suicide car bomber"
3 men stripped to the waist, holding white flag... "Kill em all..."

You get the picture.... You are once again, defending the indefensible.

The threat IS existential. Have you read the Hamas charter? We saw on the 7 Oct what they are prepared to do if they get half the chance. The reason the Israeli body count isn’t higher is precisely because Israel recognise that threat is existential, so they have built a sophisticated Iron Dome defence system to keep missiles from killing more Jews. They can hardly be blamed for that.

The number of Hamas member the IDF claims to have killed is similar to the total number of men killed in Gaza. I don't think we can trust them when they say they have shot a member of Hamas.

Hard to know which murder in a hospital you are referring to as the IDF have committed so many.

Article 12 of the First Geneva Convention requires injured combatants to be provided with medical care whether they are friend or foe.

Shooting unarmed injured combatants is against international law regardless of the location.

The IDF shot three men in a hospital in Jenin in the West Bank, that hospital was not a theatre of war. The IDF commited murder.

Israel is committing genocide, not defending itself against one.

I have already explained the Third Reich analogy was specifically about pacifism and its consequences, I wasn’t comparing Nazi capability with Hamas.

Im not defending Israel go the nth degree, I am arguing that the characterisation of Israeli military action as unacceptable, aggressive, war crimes as a matter of policy etc is not true. Of course there is misconduct in war, and that should be dealt with, but I’m talking about Israel’s right to defend itself against genocide.

On the final point, there are (rightly) rules about you treat prisoners of war. This is not the same as a military situation where a terrorist could be lying in a bed, in an hospital that his own side have deliberately chosen as an theatre of war, and still detonate a bomb.