Israel: We Are At War

I dont think there was any breakdown in C&C. They've been blocking aid for months and trying to induce a famine. What better way to achieve that than killing aid workers to discourage others from offering aid? They just didnt expect the backlash. After all they've killed scores of journalists, medical staff, destroyed hospitals, sniped women in a church courtyard, killed 1000s of children with impunity, so whats 7 more aid workers to them? And they have a history of doing this shit since way before October 7.

Meanwhile HRW just released a report on a war crime committed that had no military targets in the vicinity.

More than 600 British lawyers, academics and retired senior judges — including three who sat on the country’s Supreme Court — have written to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak imploring him to “end through lawful means acts giving rise to a serious risk of genocide,” namely, to stop arming Israel while it carries out its atrocities in Gaza...

The letter on Wednesday comes in the wake of leaked audio recordings revealing that the British government is ignoring the advice of its own lawyers not to continue supplying weapons to Israel for its Gaza operation...

It warns:

“The UK must take immediate measures to bring to an end through lawful means acts giving rise to a serious risk of genocide. Failure to comply with its own obligations under the genocide convention to take ‘all measures to prevent genocide which were within its power’ would incur UK state responsibility for the commission of an international wrong, for which full reparation must be made.”...

There is a lot going on here and the proper context of WCK and the aid needed by Palestinians must be understood.

The Palestinians need the hundreds of trucks that are lined up at Rafah border and they need UNRWA to provide basic essentials of life. This is the main issue that is now harming Palestinian people. Israel denying the massive convoy of trucks and Israel/America defunding UNRWA, a crucial UN aid agency that the Palestinians depend on for living. This World Central Kitchen is an American/Israeli coordinated attempt to replace UNRWA and this is extremely limited. Jose Andres, founder of WCK, has made pro-Israel statements before so no wonder Israel has no objections to him offering his help. This is not to excuse or to diminish anything. The killing of those 7 WCK workers was terrible and it shows how Israel is and how it has treated Palestinians for decades.

The point here is that Jose Andres and his WCK are approved by Israel and this should raise some questions. Of course, now Israelis and Americans are very upset and they are going out of their way that it was a mistake to attack the aid workers but WCK is a Western aid agency that apparently America/Israel thinks will be enough to provide food to Palestinians. This is not the case, not even close. The only way for Palestinians to survive adequately is for the Rafah border to open and UNRWA to be fully restored, everything else is helping Israel commit genocide. (This is not to diminish the role of WCK and they should be thanked for their service)

It must be said that Israel has killed so many aid workers already that they were not mentioned to the same level as what we saw recently. Why is this? Is it because WCK is mainly a Western organization so they deserve more coverage? What about all the UNRWA workers that Israel killed? Or the Palestinian aid workers and medical workers? We don't hear about them in Western news. Israel routinely attacks Palestinian medical workers.

This is from NBC News:

The killing of seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen may mark a turning point in support for Israel and for long frustrated efforts to bring relief to Palestinians on the brink of starvation.

But while the Israel Defense Forces investigation suggests this was an isolated “grave mistake,” the mounting toll faced by aid agencies throughout the war points instead to what they say are systemic failings in the IDF’s approach to protecting humanitarian workers in the Gaza Strip. According to the United Nations, a total of 224 humanitarian aid workers have been killed since the start of the war.


Monday’s strike has inflamed global outrage that has coalesced into international pressure, forcing Israel to open new points of entry for humanitarian aid.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have issued rare expressions of contrition about the killings, and the IDF said Friday that it had removed two senior officers from their posts after a probe found the targeting of the aid convoy with three successive missile strikes to be in violation of IDF protocol.

So the question is why has it taken Western media to start being actually critical of Israel this long? Why is Biden just now getting angry? Why are Western people just now calling for stopping of weapons to Israel? They waited 6+ months and maybe 40,000 Palestinians to be killed to start being outraged. But this is what happens when Israel has so much power over Western world. Germany is shaking in its boots to not get called anti-Semitic so we know Germany will give Israel everything it asks for. Same thing with America. Joe Biden and some Democrats might say one thing but the Republicans want to give Israel unlimited aid. So this is just theatre once again. Israel will get everything it asks for from the Western world.

Israel has reportedly withdrawn the vast majority of its forces from Gaza.

K1052 said:

Israel has reportedly withdrawn the vast majority of its forces from Gaza.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1776894050072748358

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I've seen others commenting about the troops being withdrawn for R&R and replacement/reorganization. Sounds like logical strategy...

I haven't seen anyone else mention the possibility that IDF troops are withdrawing before an intense bombing campaign in the south starts. Khan Younis, Rafah, etc.

Am I the only one seeing that possibility?

The IDF on Sunday announced that it had concluded the active invasion stage of the war for now while leaving open the possibility of a future new invasion of Rafah in deep southern Gaza.

In terms of IDF soldiers, this means that the IDF has withdrawn all of Division 98 from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza while maintaining one plus brigades - the Nahal brigade and portions of Brigade 401 – in northern and central Gaza...

Critically, this means that Palestinians can, on one hand, move freely within southern Gaza and Khan Yunis and that there is a complete vacuum for preventing a return of Hamas governance, but the IDF is keeping northern and central Gaza cut off from the south...

Pohemi said:

I've seen others commenting about the troops being withdrawn for R&R and replacement/reorganization. Sounds like logical strategy...

I haven't seen anyone else mention the possibility that IDF troops are withdrawing before an intense bombing campaign in the south starts. Khan Younis, Rafah, etc.

Am I the only one seeing that possibility?

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Possible but I think unlikely. Probably more worried about Hezbollah at this point and they don't want to get caught with a bunch of spent units if the shit hits the fan.

evident said:

it took the killing of aid workers and a threat from biden for these fuckers to move a needle. Tired of this shit.

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Unfortunately it often takes weirdly specific situations to actually get people to care. See how Civil Rights Movement needed Rosa Parks (they'd already tried similar and it failed) to get people to give a shit? America specifically seems to have some bizarre need for specific flashpoints to be able to galvanize concern (Gulf of Tonkin, the testimony that led to the first Gulf War; granted both of those were actually false, but even in WWII we needed Pearl Harbor for widespread public sentiment).

Although, on the flip side, that's not all bad, as look at all the insane, often obviously bullshit claims by right wing people, they use to try to get support only for it to get meh response (although they keep at it and often will end up finding something to be a flashpoint - right wingers had been making shit up about satanic cults and other for decades before McMartin Preschool; there's unfortunately a lot of instances of drawn out FUD campaigns working eventually). There's people in Israel that have been saying a lot of the fucked up claims for years and years but it got little traction outside hardline conservative/religious people because of the dearth of legitimate evidence.

But for instance, how long were some Israelis howling about various claims (babies in ovens or beheaded, then claims of rape, etc) and yet it didn't get the overwhelming support that they seemed to expect? Granted, some of that is likely "boy who cried wolf" where after being caught lying about so much shit people had learned to vet their claims at least some. Although it came close to working, arguably actually did since current American administration has basically given largely overwhelming support (and the fact that Biden mentioned some of those claims). But still, compared to what could have happened (widespread rah-rah of everything Israel has done, similar coalition to first Gulf War for instance with other countries sending troops and other to support).

Increasingly looks like we finally achieved a meaningful shift in Israeli policy.

This is bizarre. With 130 hostages still held by Hammas. Unless there is some unannouced deal to release them in exchange for the withdrawal it doesnt make sense. N'yahoo will be in the worst possible position politically with basically nothing achieved other than exposing Israel to the world as a horrible genoicdal state and Hammas still existing and hostages still held.

I think there is more to this than we know at this stage. Have feeling a deal has been made to release the hostages.

amenx said:

This is bizarre. With 130 hostages still held by Hammas. Unless there is some unannouced deal to release them in exchange for the withdrawal it doesnt make sense. N'yahoo will be in the worst possible position politically with basically nothing achieved other than exposing Israel to the world as a horrible genoicdal state and Hammas still existing and hostages still held.

I think there is more to this than we know at this stage. Have feeling a deal has been made to release the hostages.

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Israel said they are still planning to invade Rafah, just recalibrating. Basically a delaying tactic - trying to see what can they get away with later and then do it. Because they hit a wall with Biden. Finally. Took that guy way too long to get here. But here we are.

The problem as I see it is that when faced with an implacable enemy who offers no mercy and takes actions to destroy you the first and most low level thinking reaction will be to make sure you destroy them first. Every simpleton can understand and gut level respond to this.

The difficulty however with this apparently sensible sounding response in that eyes of world opinion not itself so closely exposed to the threat, and in the eyes of citizens perhaps more dedicated to self examination and objectivity, that it not be strikingly obvious to either that the reason the enemy is actually implacable is because of your own actions in the past.

The brilliance and creativity of Jewish culture that incidentally formed the basis of my own personal sense of morality at whatever meager level I was able to take from it, seeks, on the Israeli political right , to become a hive mind.

dank69 said:

With how shitty Israel has been acting lately I honestly don't care if they get their asses handed to them. Netanyahu and all their far right leaders being assassinated would only make the world a better place.

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How do you defend this assassination moral justification with MAGA folk hoping for that for Biden? If one sounds good how can you condemn the other. Are you engaging in hate speech?

Are you reading this as condemnations? If so why?

amenx said:

This is bizarre. With 130 hostages still held by Hammas. Unless there is some unannouced deal to release them in exchange for the withdrawal it doesnt make sense. N'yahoo will be in the worst possible position politically with basically nothing achieved other than exposing Israel to the world as a horrible genoicdal state and Hammas still existing and hostages still held.

I think there is more to this than we know at this stage. Have feeling a deal has been made to release the hostages.

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Because the whole operation had nothing to do with the hostages...?

Moonbeam said:

The problem as I see it is that when faced with an implacable enemy who offers no mercy and takes actions to destroy you the first and most low level thinking reaction will be to make sure you destroy them first. Every simpleton can understand and gut level respond to this.

The difficulty however with this apparently sensible sounding response in that eyes of world opinion not itself so closely exposed to the threat, and in the eyes of citizens perhaps more dedicated to self examination and objectivity, that it not be strikingly obvious to either that the reason the enemy is actually implacable is because of your own actions in the past.

The brilliance and creativity of Jewish culture that incidentally formed the basis of my own personal sense of morality at whatever meager level I was able to take from it, seeks, on the Israeli political right , to become a hive mind.

How do you defend this assassination moral justification with MAGA folk hoping for that for Biden? If one sounds good how can you condemn the other. Are you engaging in hate speech?

Are you reading this as condemnations? If so why?

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Biden isn't committing genocide while Netanyahu is.

dank69 said:

Biden isn't committing genocide while Netanyahu is.

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What I posted above was meant to be two posts, the first part to the forum and the second to you.

Your answer was exactly what I see as the problem. Suppose I were to tell you that Biden's crimes are much worse. He is responsible for (I forget whatever the issue is supposed to be about the dangers of jet contrails) which are killing all life on earth, I'm sure some imagine. That would make him a more deserving candidate for the remedy you favored than Netanyahu in their eyes which, of course makes the issue that Biden isn't committing the less serious crime of genocide irrelevant to them. We can maybe look at genocide when we save all life on earth.

The point is that you just can't willy-nilly claim things that are based on your personal values unless you can first substantiate they are being violated and that they should not be because they are valid. What touchstone are you using to prove your beliefs. Are you quoting from a book that self- references it's absolute truth? How do you prove what is good and what isn't? Aren't liberals of the opinion that all things are relative? Is it feels? It was trying to answer that question that lead to me lose everything I held sacred and collapse into black despair. I understand if you don't want to go there, but I say do.

'So while Bibi/Israel commits objective genocide against Palestinian civilians, you only see it as such because of your personal values and beliefs. You can't prove your "willy-nilly claims" though, apparently. Because what is happening in Palestine isn't obvious, or something.

Also, because some idiot wingnut conspiracists think Biden is the devil for made-up reasons, you can't say Bibi is worse than anyone else. It's just your feels with no frame of reference, I guess.

And don't talk about genocide until all other killing and murders and violence in the world stop. If you become enlightened like I did, you'll understand there's no such thing as genocide.'

JFC.

amenx said:

This is bizarre. With 130 hostages still held by Hammas. Unless there is some unannouced deal to release them in exchange for the withdrawal it doesnt make sense. N'yahoo will be in the worst possible position politically with basically nothing achieved other than exposing Israel to the world as a horrible genoicdal state and Hammas still existing and hostages still held.

I think there is more to this than we know at this stage. Have feeling a deal has been made to release the hostages.

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Or it could be that this wasn't primarily about the hostages, but a deeper "mowing of the lawn".

And at this point Biden has to be getting all types of blinking red lights from the intelligence community and Foreign Affair policy types. What Israel is doing in Gaza is not beneficial to the US in any way. Even leaving out their attack on an Iranian embassy and the coming fallout from that, the generation of terrorists that will spring from this probably has policy makers very nervous.

It's a thing to see how Israel, predictably, squandered its own good will and is dragging the US along for the ride.

Biden seems to have lost not just his moral center here but any real long term policy goals when it comes to Israel. How is any of this sustainable? What's next, a Palestinian people without a state, without the ability to vote, just corralled in an area, without any Hospitals, Schools, infrastructure? History is flooded with lessons of similar situations.

emperus said:

Or it could be that this wasn't primarily about the hostages, but a deeper "mowing of the lawn".

And at this point Biden has to be getting all types of blinking red lights from the intelligence community and Foreign Affair policy types. What Israel is doing in Gaza is not beneficial to the US in any way. Even leaving out their attack on an Iranian embassy and the coming fallout from that, the generation of terrorists that will spring from this probably has policy makers very nervous.

It's a thing to see how Israel, predictably, squandered its own good will and is dragging the US along for the ride.

Biden seems to have lost not just his moral center here but any real long term policy goals when it comes to Israel. How is any of this sustainable? What's next, a Palestinian people without a state, without the ability to vote, just corralled in an area, without any Hospitals, Schools, infrastructure? History is flooded with lessons of similar situations.

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Lots of things Israel has been doing over several decades have not been beneficial to the U.S. but rather destructive, incl loss of many American lives. Israels invasion of Lebanon in 1982 had also resulted in a US presidents outrage at their actions:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 (1982) - President Reagan expressed ''outrage'' to Prime Minister Menachem Begin today over Israel's latest bombing raids in west Beirut, saying the attacks had resulted in ''needless destruction and bloodshed.'' It was the sharpest statement by Mr. Reagan since the start of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon nine weeks ago...


As I posted earlier in the thread, Bin Ladin cites the Israeli destruction of Lebanon and the 1000s dead civilians as a motivating factor behind the 9-11 attacks. Hezbollah was born in 1982 as a result of this invasion and bombed US military barracks there a year later killing 241 servicemen as well as the US embassy killing many for US support of Israel.

Not to mention the $ trillions spent on the Iraq war (which Israel had manipulated th US into) and the Afghan war from which they pulled out achieving nothing and handing back power to the Taliban.

Israel has been a cancerous growth on the US for so long and will continue to exact a heavy toll upon it unless excised completely from it.

Biden also wants to get elected. Can he win without the Jewish vote that will presumably rebel against him if he dares stand up to the chosen people of Israel? I personally have no idea. Maybe he's got those votes in the bag anyway, or they'd be more than offset by voters pissed the other way etc.

Said it before, but if Trump was smart he'd keep his trap shut and let Biden flounder. Biden is going to lose votes no matter what he does. People who actually read know that Trump is all for Israel stomping out every last Palestinian, but the mushy middle idiots called "independents" may not have paid attention.

Of course Trump has NOT kept his trap shut, saying to "get it over with". We'll see if he can manage it going forward.

amenx said:

This is bizarre. With 130 hostages still held by Hammas. Unless there is some unannouced deal to release them in exchange for the withdrawal it doesnt make sense. N'yahoo will be in the worst possible position politically with basically nothing achieved other than exposing Israel to the world as a horrible genoicdal state and Hammas still existing and hostages still held.

I think there is more to this than we know at this stage. Have feeling a deal has been made to release the hostages.

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All parties are presently negotiating in Cairo for a swap and six week ceasefire. Israel has agreed to make some more concessions.

Edit: I wound up doing what I asked not be done but not intentionally. This post was meant for @Pohemi End edit.


Two favors, please. While I am happy to have noticed your post was intended for me, please quote me or us '@ me' because I could easily not notice that fact.

And please define objective as it applies to morality so I can distinguish it from subjective moral opinion. I don't need the definition of genocide nor do I deny it exist as you pretend to avoid answering my questions. No, I want proof it is morally wrong. Why, for example, should white people, who have brought such misery to the people of Earth, not be exterminated for the betterment of all? What is the nature of the North South magnetic poles the guide your moral compass?

I know you have no idea really, you just know you feel it and it's only stupid people like me who question the program.

If you told me that the sum of the angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees, I would say you are objectively correct if we leave out that space is actually curved. Add that back in and I would not know know because the math would be above my head.

So tell me, isn't it pretty obvious that the only people who know the absolute moral truth about anything are just those who think they do? Is that not objectively true? Now you can lay down and die knowing there's absolutely nothing to anything you believe, that all you have been carrying is ten thousand pounds of cabbage. Lighten up and be free you crazy diamond.

This post has been edited to remove a quote of emeprus whom I had started to reply to and changed my mind. My apologies to him for thinking my reply to amenx was also intended for him.

amenx said:

Lots of things Israel has been doing over several decades have not been beneficial to the U.S. but rather destructive, incl loss of many American lives. Israels invasion of Lebanon in 1982 had also resulted in a US presidents outrage at their actions:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 12 (1982) - President Reagan expressed ''outrage'' to Prime Minister Menachem Begin today over Israel's latest bombing raids in west Beirut, saying the attacks had resulted in ''needless destruction and bloodshed.'' It was the sharpest statement by Mr. Reagan since the start of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon nine weeks ago...

REAGAN DEMANDS END TO ATTACKS IN A BLUNT TELEPHONE CALL TO BEGIN (Published 1982)

www.nytimes.com

As I posted earlier in the thread, Bin Ladin cites the Israeli destruction of Lebanon and the 1000s dead civilians as a motivating factor behind the 9-11 attacks. Hezbollah was born in 1982 as a result of this invasion and bombed US military barracks there a year later killing 241 servicemen as well as the US embassy killing many for US support of Israel.

Not to mention the $ trillions spent on the Iraq war (which Israel had manipulated th US into) and the Afghan war from which they pulled out achieving nothing and handing back power to the Taliban.

Israel has been a cancerous growth on the US for so long and will continue to exact a heavy toll upon it unless excised completely from it.

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I hear radiation can be very effective against cancer and I guess you know the source of the cancer, right? Clearly we need you in charge of things. I just hope that when we exterminate all those vermin there won't be any who are innocent that will cause me to lose sleep at night. Oh well, I know that certainty is the cure for that.

Moonbeam said:

I hear radiation can be very effective against cancer and I guess you know the source of the cancer, right? Clearly we need you in charge of things. I just hope that when we exterminate all those vermin there won't be any who are innocent that will cause me to lose sleep at night. Oh well, I know that certainty is the cure for that.

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Fortunately your sig puts things into context, but still cant help feeling you're a bit off. Nothing about "exterminating vermin" was ever implied, but rather excising a malignant force in the US political system which would involve ppl waking up and not allowing their representatives to prioritize Israeli interests over their own country.

amenx said:

Fortunately your sig puts things into context, but still cant help feeling you're a bit off. Nothing about "exterminating vermin" was ever implied, but rather excising a malignant force in the US political system which would involve ppl waking up and not allowing their representatives to prioritize Israeli interests over their own country.

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Excising cancer, exterminating vermin, you don’t think they have a similar ring when applied to a nation of human beings? You don’t think the language is intemperate or sounds like hate speech? How was I supposed to distinguish excising a malignant force supposed to be different from exterminating vermin. One can use a scalpel to do either, but a nuke would be much quicker no.

Are you sure you’re not trying to sugarcoat now what you earlier sad?

Moonbeam said:

I hear radiation can be very effective against cancer and I guess you know the source of the cancer, right? Clearly we need you in charge of things. I just hope that when we exterminate all those vermin there won't be any who are innocent that will cause me to lose sleep at night. Oh well, I know that certainty is the cure for that.

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I'm not sure who you are primarily responding to, but most of what I wrote is corrupted by reporting coming out of the White House, DOD and State Department.

As to the rest of it. I'm lost. Who are the vermin and who is doing the extermination and who are "we"? I just want to be clear as to what you are saying.