Facing a soaring death toll from Israel's renewed offensive in southern Gaza, the Biden administration is trying to pressure its ally to minimize civilian deaths while stopping well short of the kind of measures that might force it to listen, such as threatening to restrict military aid.
And providing billions unconditionally. Like seriously, unconditionally? Like they could kill tens, hundreds of thousands, a million, and you'd still fund that? Biden deserves a shit stain or ten on his name.
I wonder why so many foreign citizens got caught up in this.... certainly not because there's so many settlers who came to help colonize. Couldn't be it.
The land immediately outside Gaza has been recognized as Israel proper since the 40s, and it has never been included as part of any proposal for a Palestinian state.
So, unless your actual aim is the complete eradication of Israel entirely, there's no real grounds for criticism there. And if your aim is indeed the forced elimination of all Israelis, don't bother pretending to care about peace.
Palestinians gave up on the land inside Israel's 1949 borders, but that doesn't mean it wasn't ethnically cleansed as part of Israel's colonial project. See: The Nakba. Politically pursuing them is impossible, but that doesn't mean the people who "settled" them aren't complicit in Israel's genocide.
I don't think any of the people involved in the Nakba are alive anymore, beyond perhaps a few dinosaurs in nursing homes.
I'll be the first to admit that the founding of Israel was a disastrously messy process that, frankly, probably shouldn't have happened, and certainly shouldn't have happened the way it did. But the fact of the matter is that it happened, Israel is here now, and there are generations of Israelis that have known no other home (most of whom are not of European heritage, it should be said).
I'd agree that there were very real historical wrongs that need to be accounted for, but that won't happen with the Israeli right dreaming of eliminating all Palestinians or Palestinians hoping to eliminate all Jews and destroy Israel. A random Israeli civilian living near Gaza is no more responsible for the Nakba than a random American today is for the ethnic cleaning of the Americas, and there is absolutely no pretense for random violence against them (just as there is zero pretense for West Bank settler violence against Palestinians).
So I already know where this is going, so let me save some time and skip ahead:
I'm sorry, but the Bible (old testament, Torah, whatever you want to call it) isn't an accurate historical record. And even if it was, it explains exactly how the Jews got their land, doesn't it? How come Canaanites haven't ever existed since then? Huh. But I guess that's different somehow?
The Old Testament is chock full of genocide, whether it be through the Israelites (and the magic box they liked to carry) themselves commiting it in god's name, someone claiming that god spoke to them and commanded them to commit genocide, or even just god zapping entire cities himself. But Sodom and Gomorrah "deserved it" right? But not Lot's daughters that literally fuck their dad (shortly after their dad offered them up to be raped by the people of Sodom). That shit is A-OK.
Are these also accurate historical records then? If so, then it seems like, even by your own metric, Israel took that land from other people.
But regardless, again, the Bible (old testament, Torah, whatever you want to call it) is not history.
I genuinely have no idea why you're talking about the Bible, and I've been a pretty stringent atheist for most of my life. I agree it's a pretty poor moral guide and an unreliable source for history, but I'm not sure how that's at all relevant.
So er, I'm just gonna bow out of whatever this conversation was meant to be, because I don't know what you're trying to say. Cheers I guess.
I don't think any of the people involved in the Nakba are alive anymore, beyond perhaps a few dinosaurs in nursing homes.
Yet the effects continue to this day, in the form of an overpopulated Gaza and 6 million Palestinian exiles.
I don't think any of the people involved in the Nakba are alive anymore, beyond perhaps a few dinosaurs in nursing homes.
A random Israeli civilian living near Gaza is no more responsible for the Nakba than a random American today is for the ethnic cleaning of the Americas,
No, because the Nakba continued. People continued to be expelled from their lands after 1949. It's like someone moving to live on ancestral Native land that was taken three decades ago. I'm not saying all of them are criminals, but anyone who wasn't born there is the same as West Bank settlers.
Well, 70% of Israelis were born there, and most immigrant Jews go to firmly Jewish lands, so the odds of any random Israeli being a foreigner who came to settle traditionally Arab lands is quite small, though they do exist of course, and are rather shitty.
Regardless, the attacks on October 7th were concentrated on the land immediately surrounding Gaza, which has been firmly Jewish since the 40s. No Palestinian peace plan has ever claimed them. So even if you accept that direct violence is acceptable against people explicitly displacing Arabs, that describes essentially no victims of the attacks.
Are these stats for people in the attack's range or Israelis in general? I'm talking about the former.
and most immigrant Jews go to firmly Jewish lands, so the odds of any random Israeli being a foreigner who came to settle traditionally Arab lands is quite small, though they do exist of course, and are rather shitty.
Almost all of Israel is traditionally Arab land.
Also in the first place we're talking about foreign citizens (except for ones who were born there and inherited citizenship from their parents), who while not necessarily deserved to die are 100% not innocent.
Not just "some" are kids throwing rocks. Setting aside the Israeli justice system's ability to fairly judge Palestinians, there are thousands of Palestinians being held without trial.
Because hostages are one of the few ways Hamas has to get concessions out of Israel. Those usually include freeing Palestinian political prisoners and loosening the blockade.
Don't bother these people don't even read news and will go through hoops to justify the IDF report of killing people at the rave party to not be taking hostage.
“I went through hell,” Lifshitz said at a hospital in Tel Aviv early Tuesday.
Her captors beat her in the ribs with sticks, she said, making it difficult to breathe. She was visibly exhausted and physically worn. But she told reporters that she offered the handshake because the Hamas militants “were gentle with us” while she was imprisoned in the “spiderweb” of tunnels under the Gaza Strip.
Stockholm Syndrome textbook example right there. Kidnapped and beaten by Hamas, but thanked them afterwards.
I don't know where you're getting anything from that article that says Hamas wants to return hostages. This was part of the ceasfire agreement Hamas broke.