Shtinamin_ said:
Curious questions: lets say you think they are going too far. What could Israel to do take it down a couple notches? |
What's happening exactly is Israel relaxed all restraints and is using AI to bomb anything that even has a hint it might be tied to Hamas.
https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-calculated-bombing-gaza/
Which is a lot of course since Hamas is the entire government. It's the equivalent of attacking the US government by bombing the homes of US soldiers and their family, all US infrastructure, hospitals, schools, universities, libraries, museums, shelters, fuel depots, water sanitation, food supplies, bakeries, internet infrastructure.
In addition Israel has also laid complete siege on Gaza, preventing water, electricity, fuel, medication and food from coming in (or in very minimal quantities now, about 10% of what's needed to survive, through one entry point which can't reach most of Gaza due to bombing and most major roads having been destroyed) razing farmland, basically making it impossible for civilized life to exist in Gaza.
Hospitals and aid can't operate anymore in Gaza. Families bombed in their homes are trapped under the rubble with no way to rescue them or retrieve the bodies. There is no fuel to operate rescue machinery. Pregnant women have no where to go to give birth, hospitals are either bombed or out of service. No electricity nor medical supplies left. Doctors have to perform amputations on children without any anesthesia nor the correct medical tools and have to watch children die from pain, shock and blood loss.
In some places 500 people have to share 1 toilet while sewage pumps aren't working anyway. Disease outbreaks are getting worse, due to overcrowded shelters (1.8 million people chased out of their homes with nowhere to go) lack of sanitation, lack of water, malnutrition, hypothermia due to lack of clothes, blankets.
There are endless ways Israel could take it down a lot of notches. Unrestricted aid access through multiple entry points. Respect UNWRA shelters, stop bombing shelters, stop targeting ambulances, stop bombing/shelling hospitals and schools where many refugees are sheltering. Allow water, food, fuel and electricity back into Gaza, restore basic needs for survival. Protect civilians. (That's all required from an occupying force by law, respect international laws)
It has gone so far already that a complete ceasefire is desperately needed now or many more people will start dying from the medieval like siege on Gaza. And where are the humanitarian pauses?
Here is life for the 'lucky' ones that still have a place to stay inside an UNWRA facility
To go farther? Simply extending the bombing campaign while preventing even the minimum amount of aid getting in is taking it further day after day. But there are also voices to wipe out everything and drive the people into the Sinai desert in Egypt. Leave or die.
The West has been complicit in the oppression and occupation for decades. Stories like this don't gain any traction in Western media
Illegal detention (admistrative detention and military courts for civilians and children in the West Bank and East Jerusalem) has been going on for decades.
https://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners
That's just the numbers up to September. Since Oct 7 thousands more have been put in jail without any access to representation, nor even getting charged, simply put under administrative detention for indefinite length of time. Or put before military 'justice' courts (only for Palestinians, apartheid regime) with a 99% conviction rate.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/02/1216715999/how-israels-judicial-system-handles-the-estimated-7000-palestinians-in-its-priso
In total, an estimated 7,000 Palestinians are in prison, including many minors and activists. Nearly 2,900 of those detainees are held without trial.
Just speaking out against the occupation or having any pro Palestine materials in your web browser can get you arrested, your home raided at night and dragged off to jail. There are multiple daily raids occurring in the west bank. More people were arrested during the ceasefire than released as part of the hostage negotiations.
That amidst the ongoing settler violence which has further escalated since Oct 7
https://www.btselem.org/topic/settler_violence
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/israeli-settler-attacks-on-west-bank-palestinians-have-escalated-since-oct-7-un-says
Israel arms the settlers and provides military cover for them, shooting and arresting Palestinians that resist.
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/14/1212836719/ex-idf-soldier-calls-for-international-intervention-to-stop-settler-violence
You don't have the order to stop violent settlers. What you do have orders for is to protect the Jewish community. We don't have orders as soldiers to protect everyone in the area. We have hundreds of testifiers. None of them said that they received an order to detain a settler attacking a Palestinian, even though it's the most simple order.
And it goes on and on, has been since 1967, or rather started in 1948 with the Nakba.
If you want to learn more, listen to Chris Hedges
The USA is losing all its goodwill it had slowly build up in the Middle East, yet still think they can push 'normalization' between Arab countries and Israel. Meanwhile sending more troops to try to contain the conflict from spreading further into surrounding countries.
As long as there is still oil and gas in the ground, the middle east will stay a battleground :/ The USA needs Israel to keep the Arab countries under control and has been doing so by giving Israel unrestricted military aid. (Basically paying itself through Israel to send avg $3.9 billion in weapons a year to Israel under the title of aid) Right wing Zionist have been taking this as an opportunity to keep oppressing Palestinians while slowly taking more and more land and sustaining the apartheid regime, against international law.
In addition to financial and military aid, the United States also provides large-scale political support to Israel, having used its United Nations Security Council veto power 42 times against resolutions condemning Israel, out of a total 83 times in which its veto has ever been used.
This is one of the latest expulsions back on the table (never left, but being pushed through again)
Cutting East Jerusalem further off from the West Bank. Further fragmenting the little land Palestinians have left.
This particular expulsion has been on the agenda for years, now pushed through under the cloak of war.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/04/israel-un-experts-urge-international-community-end-forced-displacement-and
“Israel’s transfer of its own population into the occupied territory confirms a deliberate intention to colonise the territory it occupies – a practice strictly prohibited by international humanitarian law,” they said, reiterating their past statement. “It amounts to a prima facie war crime.”
What we're seeing now is the sped up endgame in a 75 year colonial war to settle all of Palestine.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-war-gaza-genocide-hamas-colonial-war
This is not about Hamas. It's a 75-year colonial war
The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is inseparable from the racialised structures of Zionism, which receives unbridled support from Europe and the US
The ICC has been investigating war crimes by Israel for the past 9 years, yet keeps stalling.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/palestine
Focus: Crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court that are alleged to have been committed in the Situation since 13 June 2014, the date to which reference is made in the Referral of the Situation to the Office of the Prosecutor.
On 3 March 2021, the Prosecutor announced the opening of the investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine. This followed Pre-Trial Chamber I's decision on 5 February 2021 that the Court could exercise its criminal jurisdiction in the Situation and, by majority, that the territorial scope of this jurisdiction extends to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
It took them 7 years to even determine jurisdiction...
Reports from the 2014 Gaza war
https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-i-gaza-conflict/report-co-i-gaza
Will it ever end?
Btw the USA also backed apartheid in South Africa. https://www.salon.com/2011/02/05/ronald_reagan_apartheid_south_africa/
It took a change in public opinion to finally get the US to see reason.
https://adst.org/2021/06/american-peoples-foreign-policy-usaids-role-in-apartheid-south-africa/
In 1986 Congress overrode a presidential veto on major foreign policy. During the 1980s, the American public increasingly resented the South African system of apartheid and urged the United States government to take major action. This led to bipartisan Congressional action to override President Reagan’s veto of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act [CAAA] of 1986. This act imposed broad economic sanctions against South Africa to pressure the government to end the system of apartheid.
The Israeli lobby has too much influence on US politics for congress to do anything meaningful
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/pro-israel-pacs-campaign-contributions
https://theintercept.com/2023/11/18/aipac-congress-israel-trips-donors/
Propaganda through major news outlets and social media disinformation campaigns keep the public distracted and divided. Preventing the end of apartheid as it eventually happened in South Africa.
What is the way out?
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