Israel is Coming Apart at the Seams, It Seems

The Israeli-issued ID numbers (yeah, that's a thing but it's not an occupation, honestly) have been provided showing their identities. Two-thirds are women and children.

The idea that you can just uncritically believe an organisation engaged in large-scale killing about the affiliations of those they are killing is just mind-boggling. I mean, it's possible that a third of them are Hamas according to the IDF definition of Hamas - which going from how the political leaders have been speaking and how the IDF has been behaving might mean anything from military-aged males to anyone who has worked in Gazan civil society to anyone who has done anything in any forum to oppose Israel. And their families of course.

And whether you like it or not, there is a distinction between Hamas as a political party, their military wing, the Gazan civil authorities, public workers (e.g. doctors) and foreign non-profits. Yes, there are relationships that might bear on trustworthiness but neither you nor the IDF should get away with ignoring complexities and categorising them all as "Hamas" as if they're all masked terrorists. It's like saying that the US government, the Republican party, the US military, staff who work for the Department of Transport and the Heritage Foundation are all the same thing.

So we cant' trust Israelis because they work for the Zionist Entity, but we can trust Palestinians who work for Hamas? That's ridiculous.

No, power disparity has nothing to do with morality or truthfulness. Hamas lies at least as much, which is why their surprise attack on Israel that led to the massacre and the war we see now was successful.

And I didn't say I accepted Israel's numbers, I pointed out the fallacy that Israel's numbers and Hamas NGO and Government entity numbers are the same. You were wrong factually, but you still lecture.

Clearly Hamas military wing calls the shots in Gaza, because they are the wing that vanishes people who disagree with them. This is yet another very simple concept that you fail to grasp.

And just as clearly decades of indoctrination have impacted Palestinians, including those who work for extranational entities.

Hostages have stated that they were held at the homes of a UNRWA teacher and of a doctor working for one of the Hamas run hospitals.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-775777

Yes, there are delineations between different organizations run by Hamas. But to presume that there is this divide in a theocratic authoritarian state that uses violence not only against Israelis but also Muslims that it disapproves of is to make a massive error in understanding the power balance in Gaza.

No, Hamas is not organized like a democratic state. It is a de facto one party state led by an authoritarian council.

https://freedomhouse.org/country/gaza-strip/freedom-world/2021

Like the Nazis in 1933, it's one the people chose in 2006 - and now don't have any say whatsoever.

On, and we have as our outer boundaries either 9-1 civilian to combatant ratio, per EuroMed which is directly connected to Hamas, and the IDF, which claims 2-1. Both sides tend to lie about these things, so it's probably somewhere in between.

And this is in one of the densest urban areas in the world, with a terrorist government that fires rockets from schools and hospitals and is known actively to use human shields and overtly states that it is their greatest honor to martyr themselves, and were willing to accept the casualties in Israel's response to their attack, per their own spokesmen. We are a nation of martyrs, he said.

That 9-1 number is outrageous, right, showing the absolute inhumanity of the IDF. If true, they are monsters!

Actually, even if that number is true, and clearly I am skeptical of the number being that high considering the source, it's actually the exact average ratio of military to civilian casualties in the last 100 years. Who says so? The UN.

https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm

With civilians accounting for nearly 90 per cent of war-time casualties and humanitarians threatened with arrest for providing aid to “the enemy”, the Security Council simply must do more to ensure the protection of innocent people caught amid the conflicts raging around the world, experts from the field told the 15-nation organ today, as over 70 delegates denounced its inaction and explored ways to stanch the suffering during the all-day debate.

Didn't say that. We should not uncritically accept claims from either the IDF or Hamas.

But Euro-Med Monitor is not Hamas, nor do they "work for Hamas". They are an independent human rights group. Your charge is based on a ludicrous triangulation.

You are claiming that because Ramy Abu was involved in a group (CEPR) alongside multiple European parliamentarians, academics and lawyers which was alleged by Israel to be associated with Hamas, that every subsequent organisation that he becomes involved with (including Euro-Med Monitor) can be dismissed by you as essentially being synonymous with Hamas. That's fucking insane, yet you just merrily skip on past the gigantic contortions as if they're the most natural thing in the world that everyone should accept.

Once again, I didn't say that.

Not going to waste any more time clarifying the rest of your misrepresentations and conflations, of which I can see there are many.

Another list I didn't make.

Actually, poor people are fatter than wealthy people because wealthy people can afford good, nourishing meals. Whereas poor people can only afford boxed meals full of chemicals and shit and the bits of meat that would otherwise get thrown away, but sell it to the poor anyway.

This image came from Israeli media.

There's surely no better way to show your humanitarian intent than kidnapping people from a UN school, lying about where they came from (the north, not the south as claimed), stripping, tying and blindfolding them, before bringing them to waste ground and lining them up beside a very large pit.

All absolutely normal. This is fine.

Point of order: While nothing anyone posts here makes even the slightest difference anywhere in the world, my position on this topic is based on a desire to make life better for people on both sides in the long-term.

The people calling for a "permanent ceasefire now" think they're acting out of kindness because it'll save lives today. But they don't seem to realize or care that letting Hamas remain in power in Gaza guarantees future attacks against civilians in Israel, and future Israeli retaliation, and the same shit we're seeing right now happening again and again and again forever. The "permanent ceasefire now" people don't give a shit about the future, they just want the instant gratification of not having to see unpleasant images in the news today.

I want Hamas gone now, even if it means more people suffer now, so that fewer people will suffer in the future. That's what responsible adults are supposed to do, right? Deal with the hard stuff today so future generations can benefit?

I know you're not actually going to read this, but I still wanted to say it.

I asked you earlier in the thread if there was literally anything that the IDF could do that would be too much for you, and you wouldn't answer.

This "Hamas gone" nonsense is for the birds anyway. It's an impossibility and even the Israelis are walking it back.

Oh, that wasn't a rhetorical question? I assumed it was a rhetorical question. How was it not a rhetorical question?

So you think it's plausible that Israel is doing full-blown genocide against the people of Gaza, but wiping out one political party is too farfetched?

Even if you ignore that there’s been an indigenous Jewish population in Palestine for 3000+ years, the “colonizer” label is unfounded because there was no Jewish home country from which people left to “colonize” Palestine.

The US has “meddled” in Israel for decades yet that turned out just fine. Really what you’re displaying here is the soft bigotry of low expectations. The people throughout the Middle East are poor, marginalized, disadvantaged, etc and they can’t possibly make a better life for themselves because the answer to every question is the US.

Oh, you might want to talk to Amaris about that, as she clearly is taking that at face value.

But then, here we go:

By them? No. By a Gazan policy advocate that works for Pro-Palestinian causes such as the Palestinian Policy Network.

Who writes things such as this:
https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1733106399784169815?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

He states that Israel intentionally targeted this man, yet there isn't a single bit of corroborating evidence. It's just a baseless assertion, that I've had to caution you about before.

He posts Palestinian propaganda that Hamas was not involved in rape of Israeli civilians, despite overwhelming evidence.

He's a propagandist. You just like the version of bullshit he's selling.

You know I try to give you the benefit of the doubt, hell I was the one saying you weren't an antisemite. But you keep lying about shit I can see with my own eyes about what you've said.

You posted this:


That's an assertion you are putting forward that IDF and Hamas sources are the same when it comes to their assessment of deaths. I've already pointed out they aren't, and very much differ on how many combatants vs civilians are being killed.

This is no different then your outright lies over genocide. Genocide in Ukraine, you explicitly stated it has to be the complete destruction of the population of a people. Both @14thDoctor and myself found direct quotes to that effect.

Genocide in Gaza? No, this is textbook genocide, despite it not being the complete destruction of the population of a people.

Israel police stop settlers march in Jerusalem after ‘racist chants’

About 200 Israeli settlers gathered in the centre of West Jerusalem on Thursday night, making provocative speeches as part of a march before Israeli police forcefully dispersed them.

The march was expected to head towards the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem and enter through Damascus Gate. But police said the marchers violated conditions that had been set for them by authorities, forcing them to crack down and cancel the permission that had been given for the march.

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/...ttlers-march-in-jerusalem-after-racist-chants

"Forcefully dispersing" racist demonstrators? That's exactly what a genocidal regime would do.

Honestly, the UN plays a big part in this.

UNRWA is the only UN refugee agency for a specific group that has ever existed.

What's more, it specifically states that anyone who was a refugee at the time of it's founding and all of their descendants always have refugee status.

That's not the case in any other conflict in human history.

That's how you go from 490,000 refugees to 5.9 million. Four generations of refugees, as opposed to people that are incorporated into the nations they exist in. Even citizens of Jordan with full rights who have lived there four 4 generations now are considered refugees.

They allow Palestinians to teach their schools, and they teach that Israel is not a legitimate state (despite the UN itself being the one that created it), that the Palestinians have a 'right to return' despite the fact that is not the same thing as establishing their own state.

And there's been many, many accusations of them teaching hatred of Jews and endorsing violence against them. Aid from member nations have been paused multiple times while this has been investigated, along with multiple times finding UNRWA locations or personnel helping Hamas. This includes finding multiple Hamas weapons caches on UNRWA schools.

And, of course, is corrupt, it's former head putting his mistress on the payroll for a $200,000 a year for a no show job and having to be removed from the position.

So instead of telling Palestinians they should go about creating their own state, they instead indoctrinate for the next war. You have UN employees teaching children that Israel doesn't have the right to exist.

And this is how Hamas justifies stealing aid and not caring for the people of Gaza. They are the responsibility of the UN - or even Israel itself. Yes, we murdered and raped your civilians, but you need to give us water!

It's pretty repulsive.

Quite the opposite. I'm rejecting the colonialism of the US, and of western nations, and demanding these people the right to stand on their feet and prosper. It's you who wishes to coddle them, to turn them into servants and idiot children. You're barking up the wrong tree. Palestinian liberation, not subjugation.

Because it was in the context of you responding to everything that Israel did with a "Blame Hamas!" response. Your position appeared to be (and you've given no reason to believe this has changed) that Israel bore no moral responsibility for their own actions whatsoever, begging that question.

It certainly does not align with "I just want the best for everyone".

The situation is that the IDF are very good at dropping bombs on defenceless people and wrecking the place. But their ground operations, where they have to fight someone who shoots back - have been very poor. They are taking significant losses, still don't control Gaza City and haven't significantly impacted Hamas's capabilities.

Hamas are a popular resistance organisation (in the technical sense of the term). They enjoy a degree of co-operation, support or acquiescence from large sections of the Gaza population, mostly founded on justified grievance against Israel and they gain additional support the more Israel kills Palestinians. It is not possible to eliminate them entirely short of eliminating Gaza.
And that is manifestly what they want to do - via murder, starvation and destruction of civilian infrastructure, they set the stage for forcibly displacing the population of Gaza into Egypt and elsewhere (no, that isn't the same thing as someone voluntarily leaving London as you claimed ). But the US (who can call the shots when they want) are not onboard with that plan and it seems they're on a timetable that ends some time in or before January.

That's why they're rounding up random men and publicly parading them in the streets - it's to prevent the appearance of some success. They'll probably end up settling for killing some of the leaders.

Oopsie, you said the quiet part out loud there.

Nope. It's recognition of reality. It doesn't mean they're responsible for the actions of Hamas, fair play to kill, or even a majority.

This really floored me. I've been following him and his travails with his family for weeks now as he attempted to get by and he was a great source of info as to what life was like as things developed. Refaat was a great advocate of education as a way to help chart a path out of the current predicament, and Palestinians have more degrees per head than almost anyone else in the world.

There's definitely a trend of the IDF targeting intellectuals (as well as journalists) - a recurrent theme in most genocides, redolent of Eastern Europe in WW2 when both the Nazis and Soviets tried to eliminate the elite sections of the peoples they invaded in order to destroy their cultures.
See also the destruction of public records, cultural buildings and so forth.

Same. There's apparently a report coming out, soon, from Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor that they found evidence Israel targeted him, and even called him beforehand telling him they were going to kill him.

Well, as far as I'm aware, they bombed the family home (killing everyone there) and they know who lives in every building. Hard to see any other conclusion.

Absolutely. They want all of these people dead, and anyone who thinks this isn't a genocide is a fool. They're the same people who will watch black people get beaten by police on TV and assume that those black folks had it coming to them, who will watch indigenous people protesting pipelines on their own land get arrested by US troops, and believe that the US was in the right. They're fine with state sanctioned genocide. They only need the flimsiest of reasons to suspend belief.


Israel-Palestine war: Israeli politician calls for captured Palestinians to be 'buried alive'

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-politician-calls-civilians-buried-alive

Germany is complicit in covering up genocide. They don't give a damn about human rights, only about cooperating with a western hegemony that destroys lives to maintain the rule of law that serves colonizers so well.

Israel-Palestine war: Germany cuts funding for anti-trafficking programme after chair calls for Gaza ceasefire

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/...fficking-programme-funding-cut-ceasefire-call

I'm also confused by those who seem to be saying that because Wordforge "doesn't matter", being passionate about things is worthy of scorn. We all get passionate about various things on here and it's heated by nature. Hopefully some of us take that and apply it in a positive way in an arena where it does matter.

I've certainly been doing what limited amount I can to influence public policy around here. Ireland has only a little influence on the world stage but it can make an impact at EU level and that can have some effect. In a rare departure, partly due to the public pressure and our own history of being colonised, our leaders haven't been totally awful. They've been in a couple of diplomatic spats with Israel, have condemned their violence, have divested from companies involved in settlements and so on. It's not enough - they have refused to expel the Israeli ambassador but we're working on that.

Here are some pictures.

For context on the first one, Joe Biden was here earlier in the year and was treated like a returning hero due to his ancestry. He will not be welcome back.



This is Dublin City Hall.



Free Derry corner:

Indeed. This whole detached rationality thing is just as much horseshit as the notion that men are reasonable and logical, and women are emotional. It plays into stereotypes that hamper communication, but does serve to uphold patriarchal and systemic inequality for people who are comfortable.

God forbid people get passionate over the murders of children, the absolute destruction of people's homes, the capture and incarceration of innocents whose existence is practically a crime. Would they have done this if we were protesting Jim Crow? Some of them, absolutely. They would have complained Martin Luther King was an extremist and brought it on himself. They're moderate white men, in spirit even if not in physicality, and they're more dangerous than any Klanner.

Also, hell yeah, Ireland, whose people know what it's like to be crushed by an imperialist force, and who continues to fight back.

Well, damn. She was cool as hell.

‘Older than Israel’: Elderly Palestinian Woman in Viral Video Killed in Gaza

https://www.palestinechronicle.com/...stinian-woman-in-viral-video-killed-in-gaza/#

Amaris is outraged that some of us aren't engaging in performative condemnation and posturing and saying very rude things as a result.

Hey, was this you?

Uh huh. I take it we have independent corroboration that an Israeli sniper peered through his optics and decide to murder a grandmother?

I don't doubt she's dead. After all, this is a nation that prides itself on it's martyrdom, per the people who run it.

And they do kill their own, according to the son of one of their founders who defected due to the torture and murder of Palestinians by Hamas.

But what would Mosab Hasan Youssef know - it's not like he predicted a ceasefire with Hamas was a waste of time that would only lead to a massive attack down the road.

Oh, wait, he did - in 2014.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/destroy-hamas-in-gaza-now-urges-the-green-prince/

"Can't grab someone else's land if you historically lived there"? Just taking back what's yours?

You'd fit in well with the cunts in this story - which, I note, is a post that is still going mysteriously unaddressed by posters on the "Israel is the good guy" side of the fence.

http://wordforge.net/index.php?posts/3512938/