Israel is Coming Apart at the Seams, It Seems

How closely have you been following this thread?

Well

Same. Firing off missiles randomly in the direction of the enemy is unacceptable. For every strike the strikers should be able to answer who and what they were targeting, why they thought their target was there, and why they considered that target worth attacking.

Agreed. There's always going to be the fog of war, and Hamas works very hard to make things foggier, so honest mistakes and accidents are going to happen, but intentionally targeting civilians is indeed monstrous.

Whoa now, that might be going a bit far. Does "anything that comes to them" include the intentional retaliatory targeting of civilians on their side? Does it include the wholesale slaughter of hippies at a music festival hosted on their side? Does it include weaponized rape? Does it include torturing hostages? Because I don't support any of that. Do you?

Rape enthusiasts in Israel are now rioting in favour of their right to sexually abuse Palestinian prisoners, and the Knesset is debating the issue.

Gonna need some solid evidence for that one, you lying sack of shit.

Source, beyond retweets from an openly anti-Israeli Twitter 'journalist' who makes "media critiques?" A cursory Google search turns up nothing beyond that. I have no love for the Israeli far right, and if people are doing this in Israel it's awful and further proof of a desperate need for regime change. But maybe less openly biased and inflammatory language is in order here (not likely from you, unless it concerns Hamas' actions). And some confirmation from sources who don't hate Israel and Israelis (but not Jews, of course not) would be helpful too.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/a...rks-far-right-fury?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

It's amazing how google (and other media) stops working for you people when there's a story like this.

So the far right in Israel is as detestable as the far right in America and everywhere else.

Well, that’s why I said a cursory search, so thanks.

So the current people in charge of the Israeli government, elements of the IDF, and pretty much everyone in the Israeli far right are disgusting assholes who need to be removed from any position of authority and power. I think we all agree on that.

It’s just interesting how you choose to phrase things.

Sounds like the protesters were offended by how the accused soldiers were treated. From the link:

Yariv Levin, Israel’s minister of justice and a member of Netanyahu’s political party, said he was “shocked” see the images of soldiers arrested at Sde Teiman, “in a way suitable for arresting dangerous criminals”. He added: “It is impossible to accept this, even if there is no debate regarding the obligation to observe the law and the orders of the army.”

I don't see the part where anyone was "rioting in favour of their right to sexually abuse Palestinian prisoners." So I guess that confirms you're a liar?



(The rest of the article quoting UNRWA as any sort of reliable source is laughable, by the way. )

Yes, clearly I need to be more diplomatic with my tone towards the guys committing genocide. Apologies.

No, it doesn't sound like that. You want to minimise this so that you can feel better about your full-throated support for the atrocities they've committed. But randomly picking a quote out of an article about a topic you've clearly only just heard about doesn't do that for you.
The rioters were trying to free the rapists and were objecting to the very idea of raping "Nukhba" being a crime. They were accompanied by members of the Knesset, whose allies also literally asserted that position in parliament. Here's the video of it.

Systematic sexual abuse of Palestinian prisoners has been documented for years and this is just the most extreme example. It goes way beyond one incident with one prisoner.

For anyone interested in paying attention, what's happening here is actually a consequence of the ICC & ICJ charges, and particularly recent interactions between those bodies and the UK. One of the tactics being used by Israel's allies to stop the ICC from proceeding with its arrest warrants has been to point to the principle of complementarity, which states that the court should defer to robust domestic legal systems where those already exist. Israel's legal system manifestly hadn't been prosecuting the many war crimes its politicians and military have been committing. But the action against the torturers working in Sde Teiman was an effort by some within Israel to give some substance to the idea that they are doing something to prosecute abuses (see also the action being taken against those blowing up the water infrastructure) in order to give the ICC an out from the difficult position that they're in.
Ben Gvir runs the torture camps - he and his allies obviously are offended by the very notion of accountability. While the guy who received 58 standing ovations in the US Congress last week had been turning a blind eye and is now caught in the middle.

Israel isn't committing genocide any more than the Russians are. By the way, where's the overwhelming concern for the Ukrainians? Weird how quiet people are on that... people who have no problem bring diplomatic (i.e. sympathetic) to terrorists, that is.

Russia is trying hard to commit genocide, but they're up against a tougher enemy that actually cares about protecting it's own people, so they're not accomplishing as much as they'd like.

That's called "performative condemnation," and that's bad.

Also calling what's happening in Ukraine "genocide" devalues the term and is just a cynical ploy to generate an emotional response. Rick told me so. But that's not what he's doing when he constantly accuses Israel of genocide. That's different because reasons.

I've been plenty critical of Russia, but it happens that we all mostly agree on that, so there's less discussion.

It's also different because Israel are starving the population of Gaza and systematically destroying all infrastructure, among other genocidal acts. This is abundantly documented by international institutions and human rights groups. Start by reading the South African submission to the ICJ.

Different contexts. While we could and should be doing more, the governments of most posters on WF are providing support to Ukraine, so there is less to protest against.

In the case of Israel many of our governments are supplying weapons and other support to Israel.

Regardless of your views on the parties in either conflict, it's clearly not weird why people who object to the actions of Russia and Israel would be more vocal about the ones that their own nation is actively supporting.

If we start shipping weapons to Russia while our government makes statements about how there is no evidence of any Russian war crimes then I can guarantee that here at least there would be large protests.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Iran, group says

That's what Israel should have been doing from the start: targeting and eliminating Hamas leadership, not leveling Gaza and indiscriminately killing innocent people along with Hamas members.

I'm sure there are many who will condemn this assassination as more evidence of Israel's perfidy. But this guy was wanted by the ICC. He was a legitimate target.

This aged well.

That'll be the end of the ceasefire talks then. And a potential regional war, because Iran will respond.

Which is quite a bit hypocritical, as it's not like Hamas wouldn't do the exact same thing if given the opportunity.

Iran should be circumspect, this isn't going well for them. Their nearly 200 strong missile and drone attack on Israel was swatted away with virtually no damage. In response Israel hit them by taking out a S300 missile system that was protecting critical infrastructure, showing that Israel can respond whenever they like IN Iran.

And this again - almost certainly F35's made an airstrike that hit a very select building during in Tehran during the celebration for the President. That could have been any building in Tehran. The F35s entered and left unmolested.

If there's anyplace in Iran that should be protected from these kind of strikes, it would have to be their capital city and seat of government.

So no place in Iran is protected from these kinds of airstrikes.

That's a shame.

Oh, so Iran can fund and supply a Hamas attack that kills 1400 people on Israeli soil, but Israel can't kill one Hamas guy hiding out in Iran? Pussies.

There's already a regional war happening, Iran is just using Hamas and Hezbollah as proxies. Maybe Iran will reconsider that strategy if Israel teaches them such actions come with consequences.

LOL.

So far Iranian ADA (Air Defense Artillery) is -1/5*.


*All they have successfully intercepted is a civilian airliner leaving Tehran killing mostly Iranians (the Canadians were almost all dual nationals of Iranian descent).

After they murdered the man that they were supposedly keen to negotiate a ceasefire with, yesterday the IDF distinguished themselves by conducting a precision strike on one of the primary Al Jazeera news anchors in Gaza. Grisly photos show that he was beheaded in his car.

Journalists there say that they will stop wearing their press vests, as it makes them more likely to be killed rather than less.

The guy orchestrated a terrorist attack that brutalized civilians without warning and said he'd do it again.
I'm not going to label his death with a negative pejorative like "murder"

Haniyeh was the political leader of Hamas, based on Qatar and was unaware of the October 7th attacks until after they'd happened. Nor did he say he'd "do it again". That was Ghazi Hamad.

Either way, despite the efforts of the United States and Israel to normalise the practice, carrying out an extra-judicial execution of any individual is murder, whatever they might have done.

Israel says they have confirmed Mohammed Deif is dead. He was the chief of the military wing of Hamas that planned the Oct 7th attack. He was believed dead several weeks ago, but the IDF says they now have confirmation.

Iran and Hamas both confirm that Haniyeh Ismail is dead. You know, the nice political leader of Hamas who lionized Osama Bin Laden as the Arab's 'Holy Warrior', cheered on the Oct 7th attack, vowed that the hostages would not be released while the war was ongoing, and had multiple ICC warrants out for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

And Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah's military advisor to their political leader Hasan Nasrallah, was also killed. Shukr was one of the chief architects of the Beirut Bombing that killed 241 US Marines and 58 French Army soldiers in Lebanon. He was one of the founding members of Hezbollah when it was formed by the IRGC, Iran's Revolutionary Guard. And one of the last survivors. He is said to have ordered the shelling of the Golan Heights that killed 12 Druze children recently. The US had a $5 million reward for his capture.

Bad week for the bad guys.

Predictably this is another falsehood, and it's flabbergasting that you'd bring it up since the reason the warrants haven't been issued yet is that the application lists similar charges against Netanyahu and Gallant (whose crimes you support) and are being delayed by Israel's allies.

However - Haniyeh, Deif and the rest should have faced justice at the ICC and very long prison sentences.

Instead he exploded.

Because he was never, ever going to end up in front of the ICC.

Just like Netanyhahu is never going to end up in front of the ICC.

So better that the monster be put down.

Which gives you the sads.

If we lived in a world where these things were feasible, I'd agree.

We don't live in that world, and are nowhere close to it.