Protests

[Phoebe]

Even in my town there are pro Palestinian protests going on right now and I'm sorry but it makes me sick to see protesters out there supporting what they did to innocent people. War is terrible and Israel puts Palestinian teenagers in prison and does all kinds of things we should rightfully object to, but that doesn't mean it's okay to celebrate the slaughter of innocent non-combatants just because you support the side that did the slaughter. I don't go out and wave flags and celebrate when the Israelis put Palestinian kids throwing rocks into a prison for adults. Like I feel the US needs to support Ukraine, but if they went into a village full of separatists and started gunning down and killing hundreds of innocents and then kidnapping old ladies and children? No. War is not something we should be celebrating and it honestly makes me ill to see people waving flags around and cheering because Hamas killed a bunch of people. Unpopular opinion that I can't easily share and it is actually scary. Security is off the charts in a lot of places around town because of this.

[poorpete]

Phoebe is right again. Sick to my stomach.

I saw some people tisk tisk Gal Gadot for saying stand with Israel, her country, and I'm like wow, they just had a 9-11 like event happen, hundreds of civilians are dead, how do you want her to react? How should we?

I want peace. I want a two state solution. I support those on both sides pushing for that. I never will like Netanyahu. But also I will never ever ever like Hamas.

[Mike]

My opinions:

1. There's not a "both sides" to this issue in the sense of any sort of equal exchange or easy moral equivalency. In 1948, Britain stole the Palestinians' land and gave it to an outside group of people and called it Israel. israel got the choicest pieces of land and the Palestinians were forced into the leftovers. In the decades since, Israel, backed by the USA, has become the most powerful nation in the region. And they are no doubt an occupying force that holds almost all the cards and are oppressing the Palestinians with a level of human rights violations that should be horrifying to the America that I was always taught that we were when I was in school. I don't condone the actions on either side, but if we want to tally up the cost in lives taken and sheer human suffering created, i'd say the Israelis have the higher score.

2. As a white American I don't think I know enough about what their situation is like to judge them (even though I'm doing exactly that). If I lived in a place where my travel was restricted and I was forbidden to work at certain jobs that compete with the ruling class, and I had limited access to transportation to get me to and from the work that I WAS allowed, and my basic utilities were controlled by the ruling class and shut off at their whim, and they could kill my people without justice, and they could lock up our children in adult prison for minor crimes, and if they keep moving in and "settling" our land and forcing us out... I can see how someone might view the latest offense by the Palestinians as self-defense. (And yes, I realize that most of those things to some degree also apply to being black in America). So I won't judge their actions at this point, but I will condemn random internet people who also know next to nothing about the situation but are willing to cheer the deaths of 1,000 people, many of them completely innocent.

3. But as much as I think I know, it seems that lately everything is three levels deeper, so I confess that I know nothing. If this whole thing was organized and funded by Putin to pull resources from Ukraine, would that make the young men on the ground who did all the legwork more or less guilty? How should it change our reaction to it?

4. There is only very circumstantial evidence for this, but I do believe that this is Trump's fault. Remember months ago on this very website when we talked about the vast amount of classified information that was completely unsecured and laying around Mar-a-Lago? Remember how we pointed out that it has been there for months and pretty much all of the major nations of the world would have gotten in there and copied/stolen as much as they could? Remember? And now everyone's shocked that this attack came in completely under the radar and circumvented a bunch of safeguards. Where would these 20-25 year old terrorists on the ground have gotten that info? Probably from Iran who got it from Russia who got it straight from Trump's crapper. Again, no idea if any of that is true, but it does match my preconceptions of how the world works, so I'm gonna lean into it.

[Phoebe]

Similarly feel it's ten layers deep complexity I do not grasp. It just upsets me to see cheering in the wake of these events. One of the disturbing things about this "Declassified" TV show is they had episodes about diff kinds of anti-Israel groups committing espionage, but in particular Hamas was cultivating sleeper cells in the US to conduct surveillance or be prepared to act when called up. They stopped one such sleeper cells but how many do we not know about? Jewish community here is genuinely alarmed about local effects - we've already had this increase in antisemitic violence in recent years.

[Mike]

Didn't know you were replying. I thought I was alone and edited my post about five times before I was happy with it.

[Mike]

Aha! Apartheid. Yes, that was the word I was searching for. Thank you random internet video.

[Mike]

And just to be clear, I agree with Phoebe and Pete that terror attacks--that is, attacks targeting civilians--are horrible and unacceptable. But Hamas doing terrible things doesn't make Israel the good guys. Or for that matter, even the least bad guys.

[poorpete]

Frustrating that the Oslo Accords of the 90s should have been the start, imo, with each officially recognizing each other, the groundwork for a two state solution, security cooperation, etc, and that not only was the progress not added to, it was either stagnated, cheated, or actively reversed.

[Phoebe]

Yeah I feel like we saw the window for a potential real peace go by in our lifetimes - opened and then closed and now it's not clear there's any chance to open it again. I'm definitely more sympathetic to the Israeli side of this conflict and can't see Hamas as anything but a lawless terrorist organization, but I don't want to see any of these people getting hurt - it's devastating to hear and see these images, with buildings blowing up and you know that innocents are being killed and wounded everywhere. There are lots of questions being raised now apparently, about why there wasn't better warning or why all of the assumed surveillance and security apparatus didn't work in this case. I don't know what's really going on here... Hindsight might be much later.

[Mike]

Here is my current understanding. If anyone has information that adds to, modifies, or contradicts this, please share...

The baby-beheading claims have now been rolled back. There is no video, even though I've heard many people I know assert that there is. An anonymous source within the Israeli government says that there is no evidence this story is true. It seems to come from an Israeli reporter during a live broadcast from the scene. She reported that Israeli soldiers had told her that babies were among the dead, "40 at least", and then in a separate clip from the same broadcast, she said soldiers told her there were babies "with their heads cut off". This has been conflated to "video evidence of Hamas beheading 40 babies." Netinyahu has been pushing that claim. Joe Biden commented on the Palestine situation and implied that he had seen photos of beheaded babies, but this was not true. It was later walked back and "clarified" that he was merely speculating that he might have to see such things.

Don't get me wrong, Hamas is a terrorist group, and it's bad, but it is not the Palestinian people. Hamas undoubtedly killed babies in their bombing of civilians, and the nature of bombings makes it certain that many bodies were dismembered by the blast. But prior to Oct 7th, Israel had killed 6400 Palestinians and Hamas had killed 300 Israelis. Both side include plenty of innocent civilians (including children), because many of the bombings are indiscriminate. That only counts people murdered by weapons of war. The exact number of Palestinians who have died due to malnutrition, starvation, and disease due to lack of safe drinking water, lack of proper sanitation and lack of medical care, lack of fuel, power, transportation, etc is unknown, but greater than zero, because Israel controls all of those things for the Palestinians.

It is an apartheid state.

Many of the actions and stated intentions of the Israeli government are war crimes, as reported by human rights groups. And yet the U.S. government is backing Israel without qualification. Biden gives full support and even repeats Netinyahu's talking points. The U.N. security council voted 12 to 1 for a ceasefire in order to provide humanitarian aid to Palestine. The U.S. was the lone 'no' vote, and our veto power means the bombings continue. Our tax money continues to fund this.

[Mike]

I am heartened by the outpouring of support for the Palestinian people being displayed by a number of Jewish organizations around the world. It is a glad reminder that the Israeli government does not represent all Jews and doesn't even represent all Israelis, just as Hamas is not the Palestinian people.

On the flip side, I am disappointed in our own government's failure to ever condemn Israel for it's bad behavior. I already mentioned that the U.S. vetoed for Israel to avoid a ceasefire. Now we've done it again, as the UN Security Council moved to condemn all violence against civilians in the current conflict and the lone voice of dissent is again the U.S.

[poorpete]

Can tell how much war sucks when there's debates over which is worse, killing kids with bullets, beheading them, or dropping bombs on them. Intentionality matters, cruelty matters, but in the end is cold comfort to those mourning. I pray this era of sorrow will fade ([edit: and] just be an era) and we'll find a way to peace. It's the only way out.

[Mike]

No debate. Dead is dead and is tragic. The narrative however, makes a difference. You say that kids are killed in a bombing and many people are numb to that. It feels like that's been happening on both sides forever. People who aren't directly affected can brush it off as tragic yet somehow unavoidable collateral damage. You tell people the enemy are beheading babies, and that frames your opposition as intentional monsters who must be destroyed. It makes peaceful resolution much harder to attain. And ultimately peaceful resolution should be the real goal.

[Mike]

Okay, I feel I came on too strong here. I jumped into this thread and immediately started condemning the actions of the Israeli government without qualifying it or even addressing the original point of the thread. That was dumb and rude. So let me back up...

Pro-Palestinian does not mean pro-Hamas and does not mean pro-terrorism. The Palestinian people are in the spotlight because of Hamas's actions Oct 7, and the Israeli government seems to want to destroy them utterly (which they could), so the pro-Palestinian protests are about trying to influence the narrative. Protesters are not celebrating the deaths of Israelis. They are trying to highlight Israel's crimes, justify their own existence and protest Israel's brutal occupation and oppression of their people.

But I fear it's too late for them. These images of protesters "celebrating" the deaths of innocent civilians is all too similar to the post-9/11 narrative of Muslims dancing in the streets at the deaths of thousands of innocent Americans. A narrative that whipped anti-Muslim sentiment to a fever pitch. Couple that with the tales of Hamas militants brutally beheading babies. Biden even claimed to have seen those images and later had to roll it back when it turned out no such images exist. But the narrative is already out there.

Hamas is a terrorist organization. They are the nominal head of Gaza, but that counts for little when Israel controls the flow of food, water, fuel, electricity, and all imports/exports from the territory. The attacks by Hamas on civilians absolutely must be condemned and those responsible brought to justice. But then I feel the same way about Israel. Israel has committed numerous war crimes. They have indiscriminately bombed civilians. In the last 16 years, they have killed 10 times as many people in Palestine as Hamas has killed. In the last two weeks, they've been dropping bombs on the West Bank, even though Hamas is not in the West Bank. They've attacked non-military targets repeatedly. They've killed unarmed protesters. They consistently engage in collective punishment.

Both sides have done terrible things, but whenever a Palestinian is interviewed, the first question is always "Do you condemn Hamas's actions?" No one ever asks starts an interview with an Israeli by asking them to condemn the actions of their government. Western news outlets worldwide have a long time pattern of referring to the number of "Israelis who were killed" and then in the same report referring the "Palestinians who died".

But in the grand scheme of things, Hamas is a terrorist organization of 20,000 or so people amongst the 2 million living in a giant prison camp. Israel is a nuclear capable nation that runs that prison camp. The power imbalance is off the charts. All Israel really has to do is maintain the "both sides" narrative long enough so that people don't interfere while they continue reducing Gaza to rubble. Their strategy has been to push the narrative that Hamas equals Palestine, and they are savage people who need to be punished, to insist that disagreeing with the Israeli government is antisemitism, and to push the idea of "both sides" and everything is too complex to sort out (something I myself engaged in above). And they are spending money to push these messages. Again, they just need people who are undecided on the matter to continue not deciding anything, and then there's not enough opposition to counter them.

Okay, maybe that didn't really soften it at all. I feel very strongly.

[Phoebe]

This is not particularly comforting, but we know the false narratives are spun in many directions and not only one. For example, the recent hospital strike made headlines and earned condemnation from the UN and various nations, and initially we heard thousands were dead and the IDF were monsters who would intentionally target hospitals. Then it turned out Hamas struck the hospital, and immediately the death toll was revised to a much smaller fraction and the story shifted to the way that other hospitals are running/have run out of fuel and other operations-critical resources. Which is true, so that's better, but it shows some media are sticking with one narrative and perspective or the other, rather than trying for objective communication about events.

One thing I learned reading UN reports is that violence resulting in deaths of Gazans over the last 15 years falls roughly into two kinds: air assaults, and everything else including ground incursions and gunfire at the border. The latter category mostly involves adult men; the former category of rocket fire is when more civilians perish indiscriminately across all demographics - men, women, children, elderly (plus many more injuries). I don't know any answers here but it seems the main thing to avoid is having rockets fired (by either side), because historically that's most likely to kill people randomly. The horror of the Hamas terrorist assault is magnified insofar as they did this kind of random, indiscriminate murdering on motorbike and hand to hand, to any person they happened upon, rather than from miles away with a rocket. But if we take random civilian casualties as the standard of injustice to be avoided, then stopping any action of the same kind could be demanded by allies on both sides. I'm just speculating because nothing I say about this matters. I do think there is a meaningful "both sides" to this conflict and that's not a false narrative in itself.

You know I have a random theory from left field to offer so here it is: just like the Soviets used misinformation to cause Egypt to react, spurring Israel to launch a surprise attack on Egypt's air force in 1967, so too do the Russians benefit from the present situation and, who knows, may have intentionally encouraged it. The parties involved already have been conflicting continuously; meanwhile, right now is an especially convenient moment for some to divert the US attention and action to another place, while dividing the US from and pressuring its alliances in Europe etc. It also divides Democrats in another year when they need to be all in together 1000%, while darkening the overall mood.

[Mike]

1. Then after the IDF claimed it was a malfunctioning Hamas rocket and the U.S. was quick to jump in and get their back, further independent investigation has cast doubt on that claim as well. Hamas can't back up their own claims, but independent NGO analysis says the rocket seems to have come in from the exact opposite direction claimed by the IDF. That is, it seems to come from the side the Israeli forces were on. That's not conclusive, but the IDF are definitely ignoring evidence and simply making bold assertions about their desired reality, which is what Hamas appeared to have done as well.

2. Of course it's Russia! If I'm remembering correctly, the news sources I follow say that Hamas mostly gets it's funding from Iran and much of that money is actually Russian money being funneled through Iran. Putin has to be positively giddy over this. The MAGA wing of the GOP very nearly shut down the whole government and it was only saved at the last minute by Republican demands to stop helping Ukraine. Then less than a month later, we get this distraction, which can only work to his advantage.. The fact that Hamas is state-sponsored terror makes all this even worse. And none of it does anything to help the 2 million Palestinians who are not Hamas.

3. Yes, I forgot how the Israeli government was tricked into a preemptive land grab. Sorry... that was sarcasm, but regardless of motivation, the seizure of land was illegal, and the major demand of Palestine is to get out from under Israel's control and restore the pre-1967 borders. I think those demands are justified.

4. I've been watching lots of primary sources on the current situation. Videos and commentary from people who are on the ground there right now. From inside occupied territory, it is mostly people near tears, fearing for their families, wondering how they can survive on the half-liter of water allotted per person per day (back when the Israelis were allowing them fresh water), people show asking the rubble, showing before and after pics of once vibrant neighborhoods, picking through wreckage for bodies, treating the wounded with no electricity and no supplies. Many of those are gone now--no power or communication infrastructure to upload to YouTube or Livestream to Tik Tok. But then there's also videos of ordinary Palestinians interacting with the IDF (again, from early on, before it became this full-on war), and I'm telling you watching these fully armed and armored interacting with civilians was almost exactly like watching American cops at a BLM rally. The belligerent swaggering, casual threats of violence, casual actual violence... it was all so similar. I've seen very few videos of ordinary Israeli citizens, but what I have seen feels very entitled--people who are untouches by the conflict thanking God that the Palestinians are finally getting the punishment they so richly deserve. One young woman said this while walking an untouched Israeli street, holding a Starbucks-like cup of coffee, and noting the constant patter of distant bombs as righteous, joyous music. Videos of a crowd of Israelis on a hill with their lawn chairs and drinks and binoculars, having a tailgater and watching the bombing of Gaza while laughing and joking. They all starting packing up quickly and hiding their faces when they saw they were being recorded. The most heartbreaking of the Israeli videos was a channel that features shots of Israeli soldiers just walking around town and hanging out. Everyone is in uniform with a massive assault rifle hanging on one side. They're laughing and flirting and just acting like high school kids, because they were all children. I mean, I'm sure they were all 18-25, but they all looked so young. And they may all be going off to do horrible things, but none of them are the system that created them. Not yet.

5. I can't believe I forgot 5. Israel is an apartheid state. There is only one controlling government for the entire conflict. When we look at the 10,000 dead Palestinians, those are Israel's own second class citizens they've been bombing. This isn't a both-sides style fair fight. The IDF kills 10 times as many people as Hamas, with a higher proportion of the Palestinian dead being children. We should be outraged by the actions of Hamas, but we should be even more outraged by the actions of the Israeli government. But instead, we stand with Israel 100% and are providing them funds and weapons and military support without even a hint of admonishment.But as Biden has been saying for literally 50 years, Israel is so important to protecting our national interests that if the state of Israel didn't already exist, the U.S. would have to make an Israel.. We should be horrified, but we as the western public have always been pretty good at rationalizing the deaths of brown people.

[Phoebe]

This is a good essay imo, worth a read in the midst of a lot of other writing coming out about this war: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/l ... om-israel/

[Mike]

That is an excellent piece. Thank you. I just read it twice and am letting it digest.

[Phoebe]

Well what I liked about it was the recognition of human suffering that is most important at the bottom of all this, combined with recognition of how intractable the problem seems. But even in this most intractable situation we have to try to solve it in some way. Even if it just means a partial improvement, It's not ok to sit by and do nothing. For us I think that means supporting political decision makers who want nuanced solutions. Granted there's not a lot of room for it right now but the decision makers have to be in place when they can seize the moment.

[Mike]

Yes. On October 7th, Israel suffered a 9/11 magnitude attack on their people. We can all relate to that horror to some degree. Since that day, they have repaid that level of bloodshed 4 times over (probably 5, since the most recent numbers I see are three days old already).

Both sides feel attacked and aggrieved, and both sides have committed numerous war crimes throughout the conflict. Both sides, in fact, admit to their actions, and while they wouldn't call their own actions war crimes or human rights abuses, the UN and many international agencies do.

Hamas feels their actions are justified as self defense, because the Israelis are violating their human rights and are taking their land and homes. The Israelis feel their actions are justified as self defense, because they strongly believe the Palestinians land and homes should belong to Israel. I've gathered this distinction elsewhere, but the essay you linked made this exact point about Israel's motivation/justification and it clarified things for me. He also highlighted the horror of Israeli officials making their goals explicit when they say the destruction of Hamas takes precedence over freeing any of the hostages. The destruction of Hamas takes precedence over any humanitarian aid getting into Gaza.

The people of Gaza are Israeli citizens whom the Israeli government is responsible for protecting. At the current rate, it will take 50 to 100 thousand more dead Palestinians for Israel to feel confident they've gotten almost all of the Hamas fighters. But those numbers might ramp up quickly now that the humanitarian organizations already in occupied territory have just run out of fuel for their generators.

I think Israel knows that once they pause for humanitarian aid there will once again be cameras on everything and their push will be ended. I believe they will stall humanitarian aid for as long as possible as a result and keep up this level of bombardment as long as they can.

Israel just needs the world to stand by while it happens, and with the full faith and support of the U.S. behind them, who will stop them? I mourn for all of the suffering, especially of innocent civilians, on both sides. But it looks like it will keep ramping up, and the actions of our own government are making sure that that happens.

[Mike]

I can't recall how many posts I've started here or wanted to start here, but have given up on because it is so demoralizing, and I feel like I'm shouting into the void.

A couple days ago, I typed up one noting that Israel claimed to have found evidence of a Hamas command center in tunnels beneath al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza. The largest medical complex in the territory, satellite imagery and internal reports estimate over 50,000 Palestinians taking refuge in the hospital. This, I tried to express, would be a prelude to bombing those people.

Last night I created a post calling out Israel's policy regarding enemies (specifically Hamas) using civilians as human shields. They repeatedly point out that Hamas is hiding amongst the civilians and using them as human shields. Thus, in exercising its right to "defend itself", Israel has no option but to fire through the human shields to try to hit the bad guys on the other side. Fourth largest military in the world with 600,000+ deployable soldiers, armed with U.S.-supplied modern equipment... fighting a force of 25,000 fighting persons (at most) who are all living in subsistence poverty conditions, contained in an area the size of Las Vegas, and the ONLY solution Israel is willing to explore is indiscriminate bombing? In what world is targeting civilians as a first-resort considered acceptable? And I'm paying for it.

I also fervently hope that moving forward, regardless of the outcome, people can distinguish between the actions of the Israeli government and the varied actions and beliefs of Jewish people in general. Antisemitism in this world is bad enough without the Israeli government's genocidal xenophobia being used as an excuse to bash the entire religion/ethnicity. Just as one would hope that people can separate Hamas and the general Palestinian populace in their minds. Not that the world has ever been good at that.

Hamas has claimed that the idea of a command center under the hospital is ridiculous and untrue. And Israelis have offered no proof except diagrams to show how it would work, and they say "hundreds" of Hamas fighters fled to take refuge in the hospital when the bombing started. Therefore, they are lined up to start bombing. They haven't started, but they insist it is definitely on the table. Personally, I think they're testing the waters and feeling out international PR response. They are working their asses off to generate consent for this atrocity before they pull the trigger.

But let's say everything Israel says about this situation is true. That means the Israeli government finds it morally acceptable to bomb a hospital containing 50,000+ people in order target the 1% of them that they believe to be bad guys. That's like saying you're willing to spray a room of 100 people with automatic fire because you believe there's a single murderer hiding amongst them. Our State Department's policy is to not provide weapons to any entity if there is reasonable suspicion that those weapons might be used at any point in war crimes. We've had at least one State Dept official resign because they noted that Israel is currently committing war crimes and will certainly use the new weapons we give them to continue doing so. Their words fell on deaf ears.

My fervent hope here is that worldwide Pro-Palestinian sentiment leads to a change in US policy, putting pressure on Israel to change course lest they lose US support. A ceasefire and honest negotiations would be ideal. But honestly, in purely mercenary terms, a ceasefire provides little to no net benefit to anyone except the Palestinians themselves, so unless enough outrage can be generated to make Democrats fear losing power, I don't see anything happening.

Hell, even here on Nerd Pride in my safe space, there's no one else condemning the actions of the Israeli government, except to say, "All killing is bad." Even though most of the things that Israel is accused of that its detractors say constitute war crimes and/or egregious human rights abuses are things that they freely admit to doing. They don't deny their actions. They instead claim that they're not crimes, but rather self-defense.

But Nerd Pride being quiet shouldn't bother me much, there's only a handful of us here. We're not a representative sampling of anything. More chilling to me has been the silence of the late night talk show hosts, specifically Seth Meyers and Stephen Colbert. I watch the political monologues from both of them every morning. I generally agree with them. But after the initial October 7 attack, they each gave a somber "this is tragic" speech and moved on. Since then, total radio silence on the matter. Instead, every night is talking about Trump and his lawyers in court or else covering the GOP speaker debacle.

And here's why I never post these. They're too long, and I only add to them in fits and starts. It's been 24 hours since I started composing this, and now the situation has progressed. Having cut off all electricity, water, food, fuel, etc to Gaza and severely restricting the number of aid trucks that are allowed to deliver humanitarian supplies, the IDF has eliminated all telecommunications in the occupied territory by elimination communication towers and stations and cabling, etc. Not switched it off, but destroyed it completely. They've also taken over all radio stations so those can't be used to provide information of any kind. And now it's not just Shifa Hospital in the crosshairs, but also al-Quds, a hospital sheltering 14,000 more people.

Then last night, they waited until full dark to implement the next phase of their self-defense: increase the intensity of their airstrikes. Plus a ground force invasion to go with it. If you haven't seen the videos of these massive bulldozer/tanks they're using, you should go look. There's good shots of them deployed in the West Bank. The IDF has been bombing and bulldozing the West Bank, because it's never really been about Hamas.

Long-winded and disjointed, I know. And I still have thoughts rattling around, but I'm spent for now. Part of it is my own guilt at having been fooled by anti-Palestinian propaganda in the past. But prior to the full flower of social media, it was much easier for authorities to control the narrative. And it was easy to allow yourself to be overwhelmed by conflicting viewpoints.

[Kyle]

So look- I agree with your points. I also agree that Israel's strategy in Gaza should be considered horrifying and condemned. Hamas are terrible, awful terrorists and we should encourage finding the instigators of these atrocities and bring them to justice. But not the way Israel is doing it. As I said to my wife, "If a neonazi shoots up a school and then runs and hides where a large, conservative symposium is being held, we don't blow up the entire convention center so we can say we killed the nazi that shot up the school." I agree. But when terrorists caused 9/11, Americans overwhelmingly supported going to war in Afghanistan and causing 10s of thousands of deaths and fatalities for people that weren't connected to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. I spoke about my opposition to that war and was widely derided by the people I know for it.

It's exhausting. It's just so exhausting. I've been reading your posts and I know that we all need to speak up, but I can't help but feel frustrated and overwhelmed by feeling futility over it. That's a weak thing for me to admit, I know that. But between this, the collective amnesia over the Black Lives Matter movement, the growing sentiment and bile against immigrants and brown people in general... it's hard. It's just hard for me. So what am I trying to say? I don't know. Sorry, bro.

[Mike]

I completely relate. AND if we want to bring up BLM, the parallels to the treatment of Palestinians are not a coincidence. This is how the white western world treats brown people. When I say Israel has bombed thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians and the answer I get is, "yes, but all killing is wrong", all I can hear is, "all lives matter."

And thank you for saying all that. I feel less crazy now. And to anyone else who isn't meeting me at this place right now, just know that I relate, because my life has always been deep in systemic biases, and I clearly remember rationalizing away so much awfulness in the past, and I am ashamed. I don't remember ever being gung-ho about Afghanistan, but I definitely bought into Bush's WMD bullshit 20 years ago and argued strenuously for the importance of going back to Iraq. Fuckin sucks.

[Phoebe]

I don't know if any of the following will change some of your feeling about it, but while these things don't change the awfulness of death and destruction, for me at least they underscore that there's no simple and obvious solution that would stop all this, if only people stopped blocking it. One perspective I hear a lot is that if the US just stopped supporting Israel the way it does, or if the US made certain demands, then things clearly would get better. Why wouldn't people do this obviously morally better thing, then? Doesn't the world agree?

The UN supports a truce, right, because we all want the violence to stop. But even the UN cannot simply agree what Hamas did was evil or that a truce should include freeing Israeli hostages, which still (if they're alive) include toddlers and elderly people and women who've been deliberately raped and beaten and paraded around as trophies (including those beheaded). The IDF may on your view be evil but it doesn't do these things, and to me that's still an essential moral difference.

Likewise, if the IDF destroyed that hospital, whether accidentally or intentionally, it would be the easiest thing to prove by providing a fragment of the rocket. But Hamas pretends the rocket evaporated, which is clearly false, because Hamas wins when people blame Israel for atrocities, including the ones Hamas itself committed. All the objective-observer evidence points to a rocket from Hamas; thus whether the IDF lies too is irrelevant. Thousands of rockets have been fired by both sides, yet the casualties (even if we believed Hamas reported numbers) are totally inconsistent with a procedure that doesn't worry about targeting civilians. Of course, I want everybody to stop with the rockets because that's how most innocent civilians die, in the recent history of this conflict. But Hamas does also fire rockets at civilians - including in Gaza, unintentionally but very predictably and avoidably. So rockets need to stop hitting civilians, but it's not somehow morally worse when it's done by Israel even though it's commonly judged that way.

In short, people around the world find it easy to blame Israel, and this underscores that they fight against what they see as an existential threat. People may dismiss this due to an imbalance of weaponry, but there's not a power imbalance when it comes to stopping terror. Hamas did not care who they killed on Oct. 7 and they'd do it again if they could, no limit. Does anyone doubt this? Tunnels are a great equalizer and now the war will go on there. Hamas certainly wants to destroy Israel, including Israeli civilians, but the same is not true in reverse. Israel has a moral obligation to defend its people too, and try to free those hostages. It would be better for everyone if the hostages were (like in some past cases) being kept in a place without other civilians around, but Hamas doesn't care about the Palestinian lives either so it puts those hostages as close to as many innocent civilians as possible. Yes, including under a hospital - this is nothing new. Shouldn't our frustration and moral ire be directed equally at that action?

Bottom line, it seems what a lot of protesters in the US and beyond and countries represented in the UN want is for Israel to tolerate a vicious and purely evil attack on its people, and then let hundreds of them be taken away with no response. Or is there a response that would be acceptable to any of these parties? If so, what would it be? If Israel knows that everything it does is going to be considered some sort of aggressive act, by people who can't even condemn vicious terrorism without trying to put it in an excusing "context", why should it not try to go save its people?

The US saw thousands of its civilians killed and injured by terrorists, and the justified response was to go hunt those people down and bring justice. And that wasn't going to happen without a lot of other innocent people dying, which is horrible, but how else? Beyond that specific mission people can argue about what the US should or shouldn't have done, but wasn't it justified in going after the group that spawned that attack? Even if it meant more loss of life? Imagine if it was another hostage situation...

Meanwhile, when Jewish people around the world are being harassed and held accountable for something Israel's military is doing, we're way past any kind of apples and apples comparison between oppressed peoples. Anti-Semitism is alive and well and will worsen because of all this. The same groups blaming Jewish people generally and acting like Israel has no right to exist as it does would absolutely not turn that lens on themselves in return. I'm sure we could find some of those protesters also willing to ask Congress to return the Black Hills (one small example!), or demand reparations for slavery, but for some reason they don't have anywhere near the same zeal when it's not about blaming Israel or Jewish people. It's not an accident; it's part of a long history of anti-Semitism. I can't even imagine the parallel situation where the US was facing a crisis involving a population of indigenous persons nearly equal to its own, and terrorist groups were conducting proportionally larger attacks like this one (it would have to be many thousands more, with thousands of hostages held). What would we consider morally justified then, when most don't worry even slightly, even remotely, about this kind of thing now? It doesn't make things any better but for me this does provide some perspective. If we don't want people to respond to terrorism in this way then how do we want them to respond? What would be appropriate? How do they get their people back? It's easy to say "not like this" but then what action would the same global community actually accept?

[Mike]

I don't have time for all of it yet, but two quick things off the top:

Likewise, if the IDF destroyed that hospital, whether accidentally or intentionally, it would be the easiest thing to prove by providing a fragment of the rocket.

There's a real disconnect between this concept and the reality on the ground. The Palestinians have no electricity, no clean water, no communications, no fuel to get around (and few drivable, rubble-free routes left if they had fuel), so it's not like they have expert forensic teams who are their #1 priority. But something they DO have? Thousands of pieces of IDF rockets and bombs. Imagine the scenario where Hamas hands over proof of rocket fragments and US intelligence says, "Yup. That's credible." The idea of "where are the bomb fragments" is a nonsensical distraction.

Second point. Of course Israel has a right to defend themselves. But how is starving people part of defending themselves? If people want to keep standing on the idea of Israeli self defense, then they must justify how all of these actions constitute self defense. Because they don't. But let me start a new post for someone who set it better...

[Mike]

If you don't have time to watch Irish politicians on the floor of their legislature, you should make time. These guys are fantastic. This is Matt Cathy speaking about the current situation:


Let us be very clear: Hamas breached international law on the 7th of October. Hamas targeted innocent civilians in the most callous and inhumane manner, and their actions have been rightly condemned by right thinking people across the world.

But we should also be very clear, Israel has breached international law, not just every day since October the 7th, but virtually every single day for decades.

Israel occupies Palestinian land, against international law.

Israel blockades Palestinian territory, against international law.

Israel builds and expands illegal settlements, against international law.

Israel enforces an apartheid system that restricts the movements of Palestinians and denies their fundamental rights, against international law.

And Israel regularly and systematically attacks and kills Palestinian civilians, against international law.

So the question that must be answered by all of us in political life is this: How does the world respond to flagrant abuses of international law when it comes to the horrendous war crimes of Hamas? The response was very clear and very consistent. World leaders queued up to say Israel has the right to defend itself. One after another repeated their words the great and the good, including our government.

“Israel has the right to defend itself.”

Repeated in statement after statement, tweet after tweet, despite the full knowledge that those words have become contaminated. The words, “Israel has the right to defend itself” means in practice that Israel takes that right as license to bombard civilians, to bomb schools, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure. And it has now been taken as license to enforce the displacement of 1 million people from one end of an open air prison to another. To deny food, energy, medical supplies to a besieged civilian population, to actually deny them water, to ensure that children, the sick, the disabled, the elderly will literally die of thirst.

“Israel has the right to defend itself” has now become cover for, “Israel has the right to commit genocide.”

Right in front of our eyes. How come we never hear the words, “Palestine has the right to defend itself”?

Not when a humanitarian flotilla bringing essential supplies to Gaza is met with a military assault and the murder by Israel of nine unarmed activists.

Not when Palestinians march in peaceful protests against illegal blockade and are met again with a military assault and the murder of 300 of them.

Not after the countless bombings of Gaza by Israeli forces.

Not even when Israel targeted and murdered four little Palestinian boys playing football on a beach.

And not when Palestinians were dragged from their homes and forced to watch as those homes were destroyed to allow for new illegal Israeli settlements on lands that are clearly defined in international law as part of Palestine.

And not after the countless offensive attacks by Israel against the people of Gaza or the West Bank, have we or any heard anybody in this house or any Western leader uttered the words, “Palestine has the right to defend itself.”

And why not?

And by the way, I'm not asking you to say those words. And in fact, it's just as well you don't. Because we all know that the people of Palestine can't defend themselves, not against one of the most powerful military forces in the world that is backed up by even more powerful military forces.

The truth is that the people of Palestine, just like the innocent people of Israel, don't need the international community to tell them that their leaders have the right to inflict more bombings, more pain, more suffering. They need the international community to say, “Stop.” To release the hostages, to say stop the bombings, the siege, the slaughter. They need the international community to tell Israel to stop the blockade, stop the apartheid, stop the annexations, to stop the genocide.

And they need countries tarnished to lead the way. And Ireland should be one of those countries that leads the way.

We know colonialism.

We know oppression.

We know conflict.

But we also know conflict resolution.

We know peace building.

We know nation building.

And because of what we know, what our history has taught us, our call tonight must be clear, immediate, full and unequivocal ceasefire fires and a decisive international intervention that leads to negotiations and to a lasting and just peace settlement and to, at long last, to a free, sovereign and independent Palestine.

[Mike]

10,000.

[Mike]

The IDF bombed a refugee camp in Gaza today. And you ask, how is there a refugee camp in what is already an open air prison? This is refugees from the Nakba. In 1948, Israel seized Palestinian land and forces around 700,000 people to evacuate temporarily. Once Israel has secured it's new borders, everyone could return to their homes, but under Israeli rule. Most of them fled to Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and other Arab nations (and none of them have ever been allowed to return), but some moves to refugee camps in Gaza. Those families are still there, but since the neighborhood is technically a refugee camp, it is even more rickety and even more densely packed than the rest of Gaza. This is how the IDF leveled six blocks and killed more than 400 people, injuring countless more.

The Israelis have taken full credit for this, but it is justified, because they believed a high level Hamas official to be in that area, and they wanted to be certain they got their target. That's what they said. Six blocks leveled, 400 killed, because they wanted to be 100% sure they got ONE guy.

Which is fair, because if they suspected a violent and dangerous criminal of taking refuge in a densely packed Israeli neighborhood, they would behave exactly the same way.

[Mike]

10,000.

My mistake... 9,000 as of last night.

[Mike]

I can't stand when this is referred to as a war. It's part of the effort to dress this up as a conflict between equal combatants instead of a slaughter. Israel lost 1400 people in the October 7th attack. In the 26 days since, another 100 Israelis have been killed, mostly IDF. Nearly 10,000 Palestinians have been killed in the same time period, mostly non-combatants. 3500-4000 children. 42% of residential structures in Gaza are now uninhabitable. They are leveling the entire area.

[Phoebe]

Haven't checked the news yet; I come to dread it because you know it's not going to be good. At last check it sounded like the IDF was engaged with the tunnels directly. Yet it wasn't clear that air strikes had slowed much. They had several hundred people leave, or maybe more, but still having trouble getting anyone out. I gather one of the objectives is to flatten the many real estate holdings of close relatives of the Hamas leadership, because they own various hotels and homes near the ocean. Perusing a map of where the strikes and damage have been concentrated was very interesting in that regard.. by this time you can see a pattern emerging of what they're going for and then maybe journalist can piece together what's going on as a strategy.

[Mike]

The goal is to concentrate as many people as possible near at the south end of Gaza near the Rafah Border Crossing. Then they will open the gates and force a million or more Palestinians (all that have survived if possible) to "temporarily" move into tent cities in the Sinai Desert on the pretext that they can receive humanitarian aid there while the IDF cleans up the rest of Gaza. And then in a few weeks, they will pronounce Gaza to be Hamas-free but unsafe for habitation, and then as with the 700,000+ Palestinians forced out during the Nakba of 1948, Israel will refuse to allow them to return, and their ethnic cleansing will be complete.

Following this, Israel (with U.S. money) will finish construction of their new canal to connect the Red Sea to the Mediterranean and directly compete with the Suez. The existing plans for this canal run through the middle of the Gaza Strip, unless they want to extend the canal by 10 miles so they can reroute it to the north going around Gaza through Israeli neighborhoods.

This plan for abandoning Palestinians in Sinai was drawn up by a minister in the Israeli government. They are following the plan pretty well.

The Ben Gurion Canal Project with it's Gurion Port located in Gaza is a real thing. It's a joint Israeli/American project and is almost certainly the reason so much of our government and our mass media is on board with Israel's bullshit attacks on Palestinians. Imagine the shift in balance of power in the region if WE control that kind of access.

The main place they fucked up is in not realizing the speed and reach of social media, especially Tik Tok, in revealing the truth on the ground. But even that likely won't be enough, because Israel did put millions into their PR campaign for this, mostly focusing on emotional appeals and graphic violence to maintain just enough uncertainty to keep people from wanting to interfere.

This "war" has never been about Hamas. Netanyahu has a history of empowering and maintaining Hamas, because they are his preferred enemy. With them in charge of Gaza, the Palestinians are divided and he has an excuse to never negotiate.

But even then, it's also not a real war. There was a horrific terror attack that launched this, and since then, the Israelis have lost just over 100 people, almost all of them IDF combatants. The Palestinians have lost over 10,000... 100 times as many people... almost all of them non-combatants, 40% of them children. Before you start seeking patterns that justify some sort of tactical strategy, first ask yourself if there is ANY strategy--any goal--that justifies that amount of slaughter of civilians. Israel keeps claiming self-defense, but defending against what at this point? What objective do they have that has no other reasonable solution except the deaths of 10,000 civilians?

I'm exhausted.

[Phoebe]

I'm not posting this to be argumentative, just to offer different perspectives that might be helpful to hear. I don't know where these claims about the canal are coming from but I don't know of any legitimate source saying this even among people vigorously defending the rights of the Palestinians and demanding total ceasefire etc. I wouldn't rely on anything coming from a source that also says things like this.

I don't disagree about the central concern here being the protection of innocent people who needed help weeks ago and still aren't getting it. But even when it comes to legitimate media sources, Hamas lies about all kinds of things and it's disturbing the way media start parroting as if these are reliable facts. I think it's important to separate that from the core concern about human rights and protection. In fact it seems really important to me not to give support to Hamas by mistaking their struggle for a liberatory struggle of people who need help. They are not liberators, so any narrative in which they play that role is automatically deeply suspect to me.

[Mike]

See, I knew I was overreaching, because all people need is one item they can point to as a suspected fabrication, and that's their excuse for ignoring all other facts on the table.

No. Hamas are not liberators. Hamas are violent terrorists. But the fact that Hamas are bad actors doesn't end the conversation.

Israel is a violent oppressor running an apartheid state. They regularly bomb civilians and have done so for decades. And in their self-defense, they have, for decades, consistently killed 20 times as many Palestinians as the number of Israelis killed by Hamas. Israel has created a humanitarian crisis, because their self-defense requires destroying all access to clean water. Their self-defense requires leveling all medical facilities. Their self defense has required the deaths of 4,000 children. Their self defense requires denying the vast majority of humanitarian aid.

It doesn't matter what Hamas is or isn't doing--find them, arrest them, bring them to justice... whatever. But at the same time, Israel needs to be stopped and held to account for their horrific actions. And so far, I'm not hearing enough people in authority condemning Israel for their actions. They're definitely concerned about the civilians who have been harmed, and they want a "pause" to let humanitarian aid in before letting Israel get back to what they were doing, and that's inadequate.

I just don't think think lived horrors of the Palestinian people are real enough to most Americans. It's mostly abstract numbers debated by talking heads. But there are a handful of dedicated Palestinian reporters who are on the ground who are pushing out live footage when they can, both during the bombings and in the aftermath. Much of what they show is the unreal destruction but also the efforts of the survivors to do anything they can to help others. In every bombing video, there are people who aren't running away to hide. Instead they are running TOWARDS the collapsing buildings in order to save as many as they can. That's where all the post-apocalyptic stories get it wrong: horrific tragedy doesn't make people turn on each other... it brings communities together, even when it looks utterly futile.

[Phoebe]

I'm not trying to defend or excuse anything here or ignore any facts. If sources present stories like a canal being the secret purpose for all this, it would not hurt to seek some balance with different perspectives common among, for example, Israelis who do want Palestinians to be protected, do want humanitarian aid to flow, and don't agree with policies that expand settlements or violate people's rights. They have a very different version of what's going on here. Obviously most of them think there is some legitimate military objective that Israel can carry out here. Many people would argue there is no such possible objective, but if Israel is blamed for every possible thing that has gone on for decades, there's no way to even reach that question. Anything they did would be considered illegitimate from the start.

[Mike]

I've never tried to justify Hamas'a actions. I've condemned them in nearly every post, and I believe the leaders of Hamas need to be held to account for what they have done. But I don't have to argue that very strenuously, because there is no one I talk to who says otherwise

But I also believe that the Israeli government has a long history of doing terrible things that constitute war crimes and/or egregious human rights abuses. They have been condemned by the U.N. many times, and the only thing that saves Israel is U.S. veto power in the security council. I believe the Israeli government should be held to the same standard applied to Hamas, and they need to be stopped and held to account for what they have done. This has to be argued more strenuously, because our government not only defends Israel from the U.N., but also continues to send them money to continue their efforts. It has to be argued more strenuously, because some people I talk to can't even bring themselves to condemn the actions of the Israeli government or acknowledge that the Israeli government might not be justified, except to say that it's all very confusing, but killing is bad, and we should focus on helping civilians in need.

I want the U.S. government to demand an immediate ceasefire from both sides. I want them to quit protecting Israel from the U.N. I want them to demand an end to the apartheid policies in Israel and demand full equal rights for all Israeli citizens (which includes the Palestinian residents of West Bank, Gaza, and all parts of the nation)..


**As a side note, I also wish we could undo decades of propaganda from many sources that have consistently equated being Muslim and/or Arabic with being violent, close-minded, backward, savage, and/or terroristic. I wish we could undo decades of propaganda funded by the Israeli government and others to specifically equate anything that criticizes the Israeli government or Zionism with antisemitism. The actions of Hamas are not representative of all Palestinians and the actions of the Israeli government are not representative of all Israelis, much less all Jewish people. When there is so much real antisemitism in the world, I don't think they help anything by muddying the waters of what is and isn't antisemitic.

[Mike]

This video just hit my Tik Tok feed about 30 minutes ago. I watch John Oliver every Monday morning, but I hadn't seen this, so I assumed it was the show opening, which I never see. He only publishes his main story on YouTube, and I don't ever see the rest of the show, because I don't like watching pirated material. But I had trouble finding the clip at first, because it turns out he said all this 2 years ago, and it almost exactly mirrors what I posted this morning... 2 years later. Weird.

[Mike]

[Phoebe]

It's to a point where things are so horrible, a person can hardly stand to read about them, but then obviously these are real things happening to real people who have to experience them and not merely worry about reading. It feels grotesque even to be upset about reading when the thing is happening. People here I know have family there, in Gaza and Israel and the West Bank, and everybody is just losing their wits distraught over this. The latest headline I saw is that some type of water treatment plant broke down completely and sewage is everywhere in a particular southern city, on top of just generally not having water. There was a story about freestanding water generators which work on solar power, and that's really amazing (and by the way why don't we have those everywhere?), but it was only enough to generate water for about 20,000 people per day, and they need 50 times that at minimum. I literally cannot imagine how people are living through not having enough water at that level. There must be so many people dying that we don't even begin to know about because they can't gather the communications, but if you don't have water at that level... How are people going to live through that?

[Mike]

An immediate ceasefire. An end to all hostilities. And then provide endless millions of dollars so that the disaster relief/emergency management/humanitarian aid people can get in there and do their thing. Have non-Israeli, non-Palestinian human rights watchdog groups to help monitor everything. Allow free press access. Release all the hostages. Then, so the diplomats feel useful, get them working on a process that ends apartheid in Israel, granting Palestinians the same rights as other Israeli citizens.

The U.S. has the leverage to pressure Israel on all of these things, and if Palestinians see an end to the slaughter and feel like maybe the U.S. is trying to be fair, I think they would be on board. Palestinians want peace.

Get the above done, and then we are on our way to discussing what the future of Israel/Palestine looks like.

[Phoebe]

Today they (US) are saying the Palestinian Authority needs to govern in Gaza, which apparently is a significant break with Netanyahu, but hopefully he's already on the way out!

[Mike]

That's a great move.

[Mike]

And now Biden has asked aides to prepare reprimands for violent Israeli settlers in the West Bank, seeking options for "expeditious action" against those responsible for violence. So public pressure is working to some degree. He needs to appear to be standing up against the horrors going on.

However, he doesn't condemn the government that is actively encouraging and incentivizing that violence, and he still refuses to call for a ceasefire, because he's still holding the line on "it would only give Hamas time to regroup".

The whole reason for bombing al-Shifa hospital was the extensive Hamas tunnels and command center underneath the hospital. The IDF claims to have found evidence of Hamas there, but there is indication that some or all of it may be staged. The only video is from IDF themselves or from news outlets like ABC News that were granted access in exchange for IDF editorial control over their reporting. There's the calendar written on a wall that was touted as a list of terrorists names and their commitment to the Oct 7 attacks. It turns out that if you can read Arabic, it's just the days of the week. They "found" a copy of Mein Kampf, which looks pristine and is filled with perfect Jew-hating highlighting, in a child's room, showing how even the children are filled with terrorist hate. A video purporting to be Hamas tunnels matches old YouTube videos of a cold war era Swedish transmitter tunnel. They say they have laptops from the hospital containing Hamas plans, etc, but there is no independent verification of any of the IDF claims. The Biden administration says that U S. intelligence agrees with the Israeli assessment, but offer no evidence or explanation that they are going on anything except the word of the Israeli government.

But even if you take the IDF claims at face value... 15 Kalashnikovs, a backpack of grenades being stored next to the MRI machine, some body armor, and no sign of hostages or any weapons of mass destruction? This is what Israel has to defend itself from that required bombing a hospital? This is what mandated shutting off electricity to all of the life saving equipment in that hospital repeatedly? This is what required 10... 11... 12,000 deaths? And there was no other less slaughter-filled way it could have been handled? C'mon. Certainly everyone else is getting the same Colin Powell U.N. WMD Presentation vibes that I'm getting, right?

Biden looks like he's starting to get tough on Israel, but it's all about the West Bank while still greenlighting the continuing horrors in Gaza. It feels like he's trying to buy some time.

[Mike]

I know we said Hamas was under al-Shifa, and that's why we evacuated all of Northern Gaza to squeeze everyone into half the space, but it turns out that Hamas is actually in Khan Younis, so now we need to cut your space in half again. Wait... did I say 'half'? Because that's probably way too generous. Although I don't think 'quartered' is really grammatically correct in this situation. Anyway, it doesn't really matter--everyone just repeat the evacuation process and squeeze in, because bombing starts in 3... 2...

[Mike]

My excess ranting that I'm carrying over from the Democrats thread:

As for the shine being off of Biden for many Democrats, especially young ones ane people of color, I'm telling you, I think it's Palestine. I mean, it's a lot of things, many of which you mentioned, but in the end Joe Biden not only didn't stand up in opposition to the mass slaughter of Innocents in an occupied land by their occupiers, Joe Biden also, with his whole goddam chest, justified said slaughter and sent billions of dollars to aid the oppressor. It's stark. And it's disillusioning. And it triggers a whole web of connections showing how most of our government and the mainstream media will happily lie to the American public to serve corporate profits and label them "national interests". I've always known that Democrats bow to big money just like any politicians, but to see the extremity of it--to see them greenlight and fund an ongoing ethnic cleansing is just horrifying.

Sorry. Palestine was/is a real existential crisis for me. If you want to see another dramatic illustration of what's going on, go find the group picture on the Capitol steps of all of the members of Congress who support a total ceasefire in Gaza. Go look. What do you see? You see a picture of only Democrats (which is no surprise), but specifically only Democrats of color. Why? Why is this a racially divided issue among people on the left? Where's my Katie Porter? Where's my Bernie Sanders? Where's my Elizabeth Warren?

And if you still have reasons for thinking Israel has been justified in its actions regarding Palestinians over the last 75 years, I invite you to look at Israel's treatment of Gaza over the last 16 years and explain to me how it is substantively different than the treatment of Black South Africans during apartheid, or the Jewish ghettos in Nazi Germany, or American Indian reservations in the U.S., especially before they were granted citizenship in 1924. How is Israel's handling of Gaza better than any of those? And now take those justifications and compare them to what the U.S. government said about Native Americans to justify their treatment, or what the German government said to justify their treatment of the Jews, or what white South Africa said about the indigenous African population. Oppressors always use the same reasoning.

[Phoebe]

I respect your opinion even if I disagree with it, but am somewhat shocked by the comparison to Jewish ghettos under the Nazis. For good reasons, human rights and other organizations have struggled over whether the apartheid label appropriately applies to Israel's treatment of Palestinians, but even human rights groups that condemned Israel's actions and say they do meet the definition of apartheid still acknowledge this case is different from apartheid as practiced in South Africa. Others who don't agree with the apartheid label nevertheless take it as a legitimate question to be answered by considering the defining criteria and taking human rights violations and discriminatory laws seriously. The comparison to Jewish ghettos is so different - it is exactly the kind of thing Hamas supporters or terrorist supporters say to justify their indiscriminate violence. I don't know where that is coming from.

[Mike]

As usual, my thoughts are running too long, so I will put them on pause for a minute for this quick news break:

Remember how they cleared out Northern Gaza and pushed the people of one of the most densely populated places on earth into half the space? And then a week or two ago, I pointed out that that wasn't good enough, and they reduced the "safe zone" to less than half of that again? Well the "humanitarian pause" has ended, and the bombing has resumed. And where is most of that bombing concentrated? The northern half of the safe zone. Israeli authorities are telling Gazans to move to the southern half of the safe zone for their own protection. They are using their bombs to corral 2 million people into the space of what... 10 square miles? 15? They are pressing everyone up against the Rafah Gate and intentionally exacerbating the humanitarian crisis. This all tracks really well with the "force them all out of Gaza and into the Sinai" plan that they deny was ever seriously considered.

[Mike]

(I) am somewhat shocked by the comparison to Jewish ghettos under the Nazis... I don't know where that is coming from.

That's part of the problem, I suppose: that someone like yourself can't even see where the comparison stems from.

And I'm specifically calling Gaza a ghetto, not a prison or concentration camp. Obviously the Nazis moved on to much worse, but ghetto is apt.

Forcibly separated from the rest of the population. All resources are controlled and limited. Freedom of movement in and out of (and sometimes within) the region is controlled and limited. Living conditions within the area are considerably worse--often by an order of magnitude--than those outside it. There is some limited autonomy within the ghetto, and they run schools and hospitals and other services. People in the ghetto live in houses and apartments instead of barracks or cells. People outside the ghetto not subject to its restrictions feel empowered to misuse those within without much fear of repercussion.

And while they have hospitals (for example) they are underfunded and lacking resources and often function in extremis as their access to water and electricity is frequently cut off (true in both Warsaw and Gaza).

Don't forget that after the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943, the German government considered it an act of open aggression against rightful authority. They referred to the Jewish people as animals and vermin and called for the ghetto to be reduced to rubble. Which they did, killing 13,000 Jewish people. The same language is being used by the Israeli government now as Gaza is being reduced to rubble and a similar number of Gazans have been killed.

Israeli president Isaac Herzog said, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took over Gaza in a coup d’etat.” A reporter asked if that makes all Palestinians legitimate targets. Herzog said he didn't say that, but then he couldn't resist undermining his denial by adding, “When you have a missile in your goddamn kitchen and you want to shoot it at me, am I allowed to defend myself?” and reiterated that sentiment later with, “Of course there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree to this — but unfortunately in their homes, there are missiles shooting at us, at my children.” So while he denies saying that all Palestinians are targets, he said that most Palestinians are Hamas or they are supporters of Hamas or, if they are innocent, they are human shields. Thus all people in Gaza are legitimate targets whose deaths are justified by Israeli self defense.

The intent of the two ghettos differs, of course. The Warsaw ghetto was in preparation for genocide. The Gaza ghetto is in preparation for ethnic cleansing. The Israelis have a formal plan drawn up for forcing all Gazans out of Israel and into the Sinai Desert. Then they will simply refuse them the right of return, as they always have, and the ethnic cleansing is complete. They deny that the plan was ever serious, and they deny that that is their intent. And yet, their actions in the wake of October 7th seem to follow the plan pretty faithfully.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said of the situation, “We will eliminate everything.” He also said, “We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” From an IDF spokesperson: “Our focus is on damage, not on precision.” Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba. Gaza Nakba 2023. That's how it will end.” Israeli Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu said a nuclear bomb “is one possibility.” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: “We need sterile zones in the West Bank” and he repeated Golda Meir’s infamous claim that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people. Multiple members of the Israeli parliament (three that I found) have called for the complete destruction of Gaza followed by a new and greater Nakba. Moshe Feiglin, the founder of Israel's right-wing Zehut Party and former Likud representative in Israel's parliament, has recently said, “There is one and only (one) solution, which is to completely destroy Gaza before invading it. I mean destruction, like what happened in Dresden and Hiroshima without nuclear weapons.”

So the conditions between the two are very similar. The rhetoric around them from the people defending them is the same. Their use and purpose seems generally similar--getting rid of people they don't like.

[Phoebe]

Rather than taking quotes like this as evidence, I think you should look into what actually happened in the Warsaw ghetto over a period of years. To say that Gaza is not like the Warsaw ghetto (to the extent that the comparison itself is offensive) is far from excusing the conditions that have existed there or currently exist. Yes, it's terrible to imagine 2 million people having to crowd into an even smaller area due to the destruction of homes. The Warsaw ghetto, meanwhile, was more densely packed with people than Manila; it's a whole order of magnitude different. It is terrible and immoral that relief supplies cannot flow into Gaza fast enough to stop hunger and starvation, but the population of the Warsaw ghetto was systematically allotted a hundred some calories a day, plus whatever came from risking their kids' lives by sending them over the wall to steal food. And obviously, 3/4 of the population was exterminated, which was going on the whole time. And then on Passover the Nazis came to kill the rest and faced an uprising against their military.

Hamas has a billion dollar trove of cash and weaponry, from which they constantly fire rockets at Israel. Hamas goes into Israel on Sukkot to indiscriminately slaughter people and kidnap the youngest to the oldest, who are still being held. Hamas would like us all to think that Israel is trying to exterminate Palestinians or ethnically cleanse them, except that the military operation keeps aiming at freeing their hostages and taking out Hamas leaders. Is the fear that somehow people wouldn't condemn this war strongly enough if it doesn't rise to the level of Nazi action? Is the concern that no one will care about starving, hungry, injured, or displaced persons If we don't pretend the conditions are the same as the Warsaw Ghetto? All kinds of things are bad and immoral.

The reason Hamas and their supporters make this kind of comparison to the Warsaw ghetto, even though it's offensive and inaccurate, is to justify violence against Israel by portraying them as Nazi-like. When you find yourself comparing Israel to the Nazis, something has gone awry. I don't know if it's bad information sources, being inside a certain bubble of info or what. That's what I mean by - I don't know where this comes from. No, people like me are never going to compare the current situation to the Warsaw ghetto unless it actually becomes comparable. It might be worth considering what other Israeli voices are saying about the desired resolution of this war, or how they are criticizing the conduct of the war. It's not difficult to criticize what is going on or point out immoral actions - It's easy to see the horrible damage to the population of Gaza, or even protest the legal disparities in treatment of Palestinian citizens of Israel (about the same number of people), without thinking Israel is ethnically cleansing people.

I want to edit this to add one thing because I don't know that it's clear yet: people who want to justify what Hamas did on October 7th literally are saying that It is somehow understandable in the way that Jewish residents of Warsaw throwing Molotov cocktails at the Nazis was understandable. We would consider that a sacred resistance to evil, so why are we calling Hamas monstrous or saying that their terrorist assault on Israel was a monstrous evil? That's why people react to this specific kind of comparison as they do - The example isn't selected at random but is intended to somehow equate moral monstrosity between Israel and the Nazis and Jewish freedom fighters and Hamas. It's a really disgusting kind of comparison.

[Mike]

Personally, I think the stated intent of the current leadership of the Israeli government is pretty relevant to their motivations and likely actions, but okay.

You describe the population density of Warsaw at its height, but the Gazan crisis is still working towards its height. 350,000 people per square mile is not quite an order of magnitude away from Gaza's newest "safe zone" restrictions which require Gazans to pack in at almost 150,000 per square mile. The IDF has systematically reduced the allowable space about every two or three weeks through this ordeal. We'll see where we are when they take another humanitarian pause around Christmas.

In 2012, Israel's "red line" documents were released. They were developed at the start of the occupation in 2006, when Israel took total control of all flow of goods into Gaza. The documents showed calorie requirements for Palestinians of all ages and made calculations for how many truckloads of food needed to be brought into Gaza per day to meet those bare minimum caloric needs without creating a humanitarian crisis. The calculated number was 106 trucks of food per day. However the evidence available for the first four years of the occupation 2007 through 2010 showed that they averaged only 67 trucks per day for that entire period.

I would suggest that much of the things that you seem so sure that you know are the result of the U.S. government and U.S. media for so long uncritically promoting the Israeli government's narrative, while casting a doubtful eye on reports originating from non-white news sources. The Biden administration is still doing it, but we've seen some cracks in the media reporting as evidence mounts that maybe Israel's narrative contains errors.