Support for Palestine at Glastonbury

Individual events may be war crimes. The occurrence of war crimes doesn’t mean there have been zero efforts by IDF command and Israeli political leadership to prevent these crimes.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/29/middleeast/gaza-food-truck-deaths-israel-wwk-intl/index.html

Yes the IDF have been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Some of these will likely be confirmed in the courts.

But there is a larger picture to consider and buried in the news are bits and pieces of Israel evacuating civilians for medical treatment abroad, of turning on water and power, of letting some aid in, of attending negotiations, of declaring evacuations - as I say these are certainly efforts to minimise civilian deaths, the question is has it been and will it be enough effort? Or has Israel fallen far short of the efforts they could and should have done?

@cupcaske123 read the article I posted. There is plenty of evidence that the IDF is working to reduce civilian casualties.

Editing to add that the only time a POW or hostage can be taken to a hospital/medical facilit is when they need or are receiving medical care. The Geneva convention requires that POWs and hostages be given adequate medical care when/as needed. Holding civilians hostage is a war crime, but it’s the kind of crime where you end up committing more crimes in addition to keeping a hostage if you also keep them too close to combat, refuse medical care, refuse food/water, refuse dignity, rape/torture. Only POWs (enemy armed forces members) are legal hostages.

There is no question that IDF is trying to minimise civilian casualties

There's only evidence to assert the opposite. In fact the IDF have been accused of war crimes. I've read reports of the IDF shooting people for approaching food trucks and killing kids for throwing stones.

Perhaps the IDF is working to minimise civilian casualties, in the circumstances?

There is no question that IDF is trying to minimise civilian casualties, the million dollar question is are they trying hard enough? Do the efforts match their capabilities or are the efforts so small as to be criminally negligent?

The international laws and justice system hold those with higher technology and military capabilities to a higher standard in regards to minimising civilian deaths. For example, a warring party that does have the capability to laser guide bombs is allowed less latitude when it comes to misfires that unintentionally kill civilians than a warring party that can only aim a rocket east before lighting a fuse. A warring party that can see “UN” emblazoned on the roofs of buildings before pushing the button to do an airstrike is held to a higher standard than a warring party with no air force and no capability to see a target from the air.

So the courts will consider all the evidence in making their determination as to whether the IDF tried enough or were negligent and caused more civilian deaths than they could and should have.

The recently rescued hostages were kept in civilian homes.

This is an urban conflict zone, so the combat zones and zones directly adjacent will all have evacuated civilian homes within them. IDF and Hamas are using civilian homes in these areas as outposts, places for combatants to shelter, places to mount attacks and secure perimeters. Keeping the hostages in vacated civilian homes outside any declared safe zone is not a violation of the rules of war. Especially since, unlike Israel, Hamas cannot remove any POWs or hostages from the Gaza Strip.

The rescued hostages were not held in the then IDF declared civilian evacuation safe zone (Al-Malawsi) or an internationally recognised safe zone like a UN or IRCS building/school, hospital/medical facility or a place of worship.

In addition, the Geneva Convention requires that all parties remove POWs or civilian captives(hostages) from active combat areas and keep them from harm as much as possible from ongoing combat operations. This means keeping them behind front lines or away from active combat zones while not imprisoning them within any declared evacuation or safe zone for civilians.

The use of a vacated civilian home in a conflict zone is not a get out of jail free card to dismiss 270 dead civilians and 3 dead hostages to rescue 4 other hostages. Whether this was a disporportionate death toll for the mission and a war crime by Israel will most likely be decided by the ICC and ICJ in due course.

Perhaps the IDF is working to minimise civilian casualties, in the circumstances? here is an article which seems balanced (I have skimmed it)

https://www.justsecurity.org/93105/israeli-civilian-harm-mitigation-in-gaza-gold-standard-or-fools-gold/

It is challenging for the IDF to prosecute a war in which their opponents are terrorists who are prepared, indeed eager, to sacrifice their own civilians. The IDF has a responsibility to its own troops as well as to civilians in Gaza. Are they the gold standard? No. Are they making efforts to minimise civilian casualties? Yes. Is the loss of civilian life a tragedy? Unquestionably, yes it is and it is hard to read about ‘collateral damage’ etc even though this happens in all conflicts, and it is a good thing that pressure is put on states and armies to minimise civilian deaths.

The recently rescued hostages were kept in civilian homes.

I do think your statement about tunnels is disingenuous but I take your point that they weren’t built from scratch for the purpose of this particular conflict.

The leftist oppressor/oppressed framework that the stronger party is always to blame and the weaker one is always the victim is something I will never understand. You have to distort the humanity of both peoples to make it make even a little bit of sense.

I'm really not sure about this, in a moral sense. I have always believed the stronger party in any conflict must show restraint, and not do harm. At the point where the stronger party uses their strength to inflict greater harm, they are to blame. I thought this is why we are moving towards a social consensus, at least in Europe, that children should not be hit, the elderly and disabled should not be abused, the mentally ill should be supported, animals should have welfare rights, women should have legal protections from men etc. I thought this was all a recognition that those with much greater power to harm the more vulnerable must be restrained, legally if necessary. I have worked in different social care environments, and there are times I have met with aggression. I believe the emphasis is always on keeping people safe and never on quashing with more violence. The left does indeed believe in preventing abuse where there is asymmetry of power, but I think this is part of a general move towards a more unified and harmonious world. Humans are always moving forwards. It seems regressive to return to thinking in the punitive ways this comment suggests. It suggests a return to corporal punishment, institutional abuse of the sick, elderly and vulnerable, increased violence from men against women etc.

There is next to no evidence that Hamas embeds itself in hospitals, schools and mosques.

I don’t think it is disingenuous to correct a flat out false claim that “Hamas built 500km of tunnels” since 2005 by stating the fact that most of the tunnels pre-exist both Hamas and 2005.

Tunnels and guerrilla tactics are completely allowable under the rules of war and do not inherently maximise civilian casualties. If an enemy uses these legitimate tactics, armies still have to avoid killing civilians as much as possible.

Rabin’s wife and many moderates blamed Nethanyu for inciting the assassination.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JhMF30VLZCA

There is plenty of evidence that Hamas embed themselves in hospitals, schools etc.

It is disingenuous in the extreme to say that because there are old tunnels, somehow Hamas hasn’t built, reinforced, ‘upgraded’ and used a network of tunnels to consolidate itself. The use of tunnels and civilian buildings ensures that warfare is of the grinding almost guerilla type which maximises civilian and IDF casualties. It’s a strategy Hamas is using and it works for them but it’s not Israel’s fault.

Indeed.

Arafat and Rabin signed the Oslo accord in 1995.

Rabin was promptly assassinated by an Israeli.

they have never felt the need to compromise on their demand for the whole of the land.

This is incorrect too. At various points in the 75yr history of Israel, both Israeli and Palestinian leaders have compromised on the land and borders. Sadly, extreme elements within both sides have consistently sabotaged all efforts towards enacting these written compromises into the formation of two states.

People who think that the Israelis are responsible for their own actions AND also responsible for the Palestinians' actions have a very skewed view of the conflict, IMO. Every barbarous action of the Palestinians is simply further proof in their eyes of how bad the Jews are. Look at them, what truly terrible people they must be, to provoke the Palestinians into doing such terrible things to them. The leftist oppressor/oppressed framework that the stronger party is always to blame and the weaker one is always the victim is something I will never understand. You have to distort the humanity of both peoples to make it make even a little bit of sense.

In any case it seems clear the Palestinians don't see themselves as the weaker party, not really. Temporarily weaker militarily, but zoom out and you'll see the conflict as the Palestinians see it: as a contest between 7 million Jews and 450 million Arabs. That's why they say stuff like 'the end of the Zionist entity is a mathematical certainty'. That's why they have never felt the need to compromise on their demand for the whole of the land.

@Shutupaboutthesun ‘s contributions to the thread are incredibly valuable imo, but for me, in broad terms the above is so important to understand.

It is ridiculous, I would argue racist against Palestinians as well as Jews, to cast the Palestinian people as so lacking in agency and the Jewish people as so malign (an ancient antisemitic trope - often absorbed by people who are not actively or consciously antisemitic).

We do need to zoom out geographically and historically. It serves nobody to assign a shallow victim/oppressor narrative to what’s happening.

The posts by @Shutupaboutthesun are revisionist history aka a rewrite of history by islamaphobic propagandists.

Fake facts include but are not limited to-
-The assertion that “the Arabs” invaded the Palestinian Mandate in 1948 with the goal of “taking all the land” instead of accepting the UN partition. The Arab League only intervened when over half a million refugees from the Nakba had streamed into their countries due to the village by village massacres and ethnic cleanising by Jewish paramilitary groups rejecting the UN partition and seizing land set aside for Palestine. This is stated in the Arab League’s UN cable. In addition they did not set foot into any of the land set aside for Israel in the UN partition but tried to defend the land set aside for Palestine with limited success.

-The statement that this war caused the Palestinian refugee crisis. As you can see the Palestinian refugee crisis (Nakba) cannot have been caused by this war as the Nakba started a full 7 months prior to Israel being formally inaugurated and the Arab League later intervening on a defensive mission on behalf of the Palestinians.

-The statement that “pre-October 7, Gaza had not been under occupation since 2005” is patently false. The UN and all other international experts state that Gaza has been under continuous military occupation by Israel since 1967.

-The statement that “Egypt did introduce a blockade after Hamas was elected in 2007” is also false. Israel implemented a partial blockade in 2005 which was then upgraded to total permanent blockade after Hamas murdered their way into power in Gaza.

-The statement that “Hamas had total control of the Gaza strip” is only true in the sense of a criminal gang having power within the walls of an open air internment camp. Israel still was the occupying and besieging power and as such were legally responsible for allowing a criminal gang to take root within Gaza and prey on the 2.3 million interned civilians.

-The statement “there's no way Hamas would have been able to build 500km of tunnels there [if Israel were occupying it] is deceptive. Hamas did not build the majority of tunnels under Gaza as most of the tunnels predate Hamas/2005.

-The comment “Turning the first bit of territory they actually controlled into a base from which to attack Israel was a decision taken by Palestinians. Building their military installations under schools, hospitals and mosques so as to deliberately turn the civilian population of Gaza into military targets..” is also mostly false. They never “actually controlled” the territory of Gaza as it was still under military occupation and total blockade by Israel. There is also no evidence that Hamas has had any “military installations” under schools, hospitals and mosques. In the early months of he current conflict, Israel attempted to construct proof of these allegations which were quickly discredited by independent investigative organisations and fact checking intelligence agencies world wide. Israel doesn’t bother with proof any more on this, they simply destroy everything and make the same unevidenced allegations that the school/hospital/mosque was a military target.

Then there are various Islamaphobic comments such as- “450 million Arabs” vs “7 million Jews” and “the Palestinian cause is an extension of the Arab conquest” In fact, the Jewish population has always been a minority in the Levant region and the Arab conquest of the Christian kingdoms happened in the 7th century so the Israeli military occupation and ethnic cleansing is the only current ongoing conquest in Palestine.

One could with temerity call the Israeli military occupation in the area a “reconquest” if the area sought aligned with the borders of ancient Israel and Judah as described in the Torah (although archaeological evidence says these borders and kingdoms are vastly exaggerated), but even the Torah’s expansive territorial claims excluded the Gaza Strip from its description of the bounds of the Promised land and the Jewish kingdoms of 1100 BC.

Fits the narrative... there's no Palestine.

I'm old enough to remember when Jack Straw, the then Foreign Secretary, was forced to apologise for simply uttering the word.

It’s interesting how when someone says something about Jews / Israelis and the community says please don’t use as it’s offensive to us then everyone tries to stop using it and I’d not their comments get reported and deleted

😂Yeah sure, that's what always happens.

It’s interesting how when someone says something about Jews / Israelis and the community says please don’t use as it’s offensive to us then everyone tries to stop using it and I’d not their comments get reported and deleted

here we’ve the opposite , a person saying that there was no palestines that they were Arabs. We’ve got someone from Palestine saying please don’t use it like that , my family were Palestines and referred to themselves like that decades ago and yet posters insist to call them Arabs and refuse to recognise what someone local is saying.

If you genuinely think this started with a massacre of innocent people at a musical festival (which I find VERY difficult to believe) I suggest you read a book. Or at least familiarise yourself with the history of Palestine and Israel. JFC.

But we were a people living there calling ourselves Palestinians. Do not lie about that.

I'm not lying about that. Anyone who reads the sources written before about 1965 can see that the Arabs referred to themselves as Arabs and rarely used the word Palestinian. The Palestinian Arab leaders who testified before the Peel Commission called their people Arabs, the first book written about the Nakba does not use the word Palestinians once:

The Meaning of the Catastrophe

As far as I'm aware it only began to be widely used by Arabs after the establishment of the PLO.

In saying the Arabs had no institutions of governance in Mandatory Palestine, I was not claiming that they didn't have homes or farms or a right to live on their land. Obviously, they did and they do. But there were no states in existence at that time, and I can't agree with the Anti-Zionists that the Jews had no right to work towards building one there. Any fair-minded person would agree that the Palestinian Arabs also had that right, of course.

This too.

Simplistic.

Indeed.

Slogans, chants, same old, but lacking awareness of 7th October.....a music festival.... now imagine if that happened at Glastonbury.

I am very glad to hear that Glastonbury showed support for all the innocent victims of the conflict.
Glastonbury has always been a festival of peace and love and everything about the festival is about respecting and celebrating our shared humanity so I’m very happy that tradition continues.