Another war in Palestine

According to ReliefWeb, which is the specialized digital service of United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs :

“According to Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the destruction of property that is not justified by military necessity and is carried out on a large scale constitutes a grave breach that requires prosecution. Such practices are also considered to be war crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

“A grave breach that requires prosecution”? What chances of that?

The only reason Israel does it is because they know they can do with total impunity.

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/israel-commits-widespread-war-crimes-gaza-humanitarian-catastrophe-imminent-enar

Yep, clearly in the war crime category. They knew what they were doing and knew what the outcome would be – they were after revenge at that point and not any sort of warfare. What is being planned now with ground offensive, presumably a bit more targeted fighting with intent to kill the actual enemy, rather than children, is an accepted method of war.

The only reason Israel does it is because they know they can do with total impunity.

In that respect they’re like every other country in the world that pays lip service to every UN charter and agreement that gets signed in solemn ceremonies and looks good on paper, but has zero effect on their behaviour.

No they are not like “every other country in the world”. They are in fact fairly unique.

Not many countries publicly announce that they are about to commit war crimes as Israel did when it said that it would stop food and water supplies to the civilian population in Gaza.

And not many countries in the world know that they can violate international law to the extent that Israel does without facing any risk of having sanctions placed on them – can you think of any at all?

Plenty of countries violate international law, plenty of countries have sanctions slapped on them. Uniquely Israel violates international law knowing that it doesn’t face any risk of effective sanctions.

In fact the current UK government is in the process of making it illegal for organisations to boycott Israeli goods.

Absolutely agree that the Israeli government needs holding to account for war crimes, this can’t go on. Warning them about proportionality doesn’t cut it.

And for balance Hamas need to be tried for their crimes.

The cynic in me wonders if Hamas and the Israeli government are using the death and suffering of their respective people to further their own ends and strengthen their own positions.

Israel seems to have seriously underestimated what Hamaas is capable of planning and carrying out, and now they’re reaping the whirlwind.

The scale and sophistication of the attack required a lot of planning, and there were no warnings? I read that Egypt claimed to have warned the Israelis a few days before. Were warnings ignored, or does it suit both sides to allow these atrocities on both sides to strengthen their position?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jun/17/uk-government-expected-to-table-bill-banning-boycotts-of-israeli-goods

What is being planned now with ground offensive, presumably a bit more targeted fighting with intent to kill the actual enemy, rather than children, is an accepted method of war.

The IDF has a long record of using children as human shields. This was earlier this year long before the Hamas attack:

https://www.dci-palestine.org/israeli_forces_use_five_palestinian_children_as_human_shields

“Ahmad and Mohammad, both two years old, and forced them to stand in front of Israeli military vehicles while Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters, stun grenades, and live ammunition at Palestinians confronting the group of soldiers”

The cynic in me wonders if Hamas and the Israeli government are using the death and suffering of their respective people to further their own ends and strengthen their own positions.

This is exactly what’s happening. They’re both posturing, just for different (equally hardline) audiences.

With the way they’re talking, I don’t even want to imagine the death and destruction that the Israelis are about to rain down on the population of Gaza, or what Hamas have got planned in reply, but it’s going to be a humanitarian catastrophe on a scale we may not have witnessed before

No voices of reason or moderation are being listened to on either side and I fear for all the poor people caught in the middle of what’s about to unfold

Utterly depressing

In asking for evacuation maybe this goes beyond a ground evacuation. Nuke on Gaza city?

I think a nuke would be too much even for their staunchest supporters. It will, I think, fully drop them into the “genocide” category and would, rightly, make them a pariah.

I’m having a massive feeling of déjà vu about this whole sorry mess. How many times in my lifetime have I shaken my head in total despair and frustration at another Israeli/Palestinian war? Horrific terrorist acts and massively disproportionate military responses. Suffering on an epic scale breeding a new generation of hate filled youth to feed the never ending cycle.

We’ve been here before so many times and it creates such an overwhelming feeling of helplessness. Other than supporting some of the humanitarian relief organisations and voting wisely to unseat a UK government which is actively enabling the collective punishment of 2 million civilians, what can we do?

Imagine if our Government issued an order for 100% of the residents of Birmingham to move out and entirely leave within 24 hours. With roads and infrastruucture already partially destroyed… I’m sure that’d go well.

Bloody hell, what are we witnessing.

and voting wisely to unseat a UK government which is actively enabling the collective punishment of 2 million civilians, what can we do?

Keir Starmer has basically said Israel can do whatever the hell it it likes. Whoever is in govt in the UK will make no difference. The Uk, and by extension all of us, is now a participant in ethnic cleansing and potential genocide.

The cynic in me wonders if Hamas and the Israeli government are using the death and suffering of their respective people to further their own ends and strengthen their own positions.

Of course. Hamas went on a murder spree to provoke exactly the level of reaction the Israeli government is now delivering to Gaza. They don’t care about the 2.1m men, women and children in Gaza. Setting back peace efforts in the middle east, and seeding a new generation of young recruits is a fine reward for death and misery.

In Israel, Netanyahu will be buoyed by being a ‘wartime leader’, even though there will be deep embarrassment over the ease with which thousands of Hamas fighters managed to cross into Israel.

Genuine friends of Israel should be trying harder to hold them back from committing war crimes on a civilian population, because it is exactly what their enemy wants.

There was no-one to hold back the US and its allies after 9/11, all our governments were swept along in a revenge-fest that cost hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and probably helped recruit some of those who struck at Israel this month.

Labour are terrified of the antisemitic/Corbyn tag – which was deployed again on QT last night. There’s an election year in the US and Biden can’t afford to risk upsetting the Jewish vote.

Perfect storm, sadly

There was no-one to hold back the US and its allies after 9/11, all our governments were swept along in a revenge-fest that cost hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and probably helped recruit some of those who struck at Israel this month.

Very much this. There was a cautionary article about this in the Guardian a couple of days ago

The attack on Israel has been called a ‘9/11 moment’. Therein lies a cautionary tale

If the Israeli government responds to this moment like George W Bush, it will soon follow the route of his government from global sympathy to global outrage

In the meantime, it unfortunately looks like our joke of a government is going to be as much of a nodding dog as it was back then and go along with whatever the Israeli’s do in retaliation, no matter how extreme

Grant Schapps is on Radio 4 at moment, saying as much. He’s utterly pathetic and is just parotting the Israeli line about its ‘right to defend themselves’ and is now going with the the Daily Mail line of attacking the BBC instead, as a distraction. He’s being taken apart obviously, not that he’ll care

Grant Shapps MP just shatt himself live on R4. He had his balls nailed to the wall by Mishal Husain over the UK Gov seemingly being supportive of 1.1m Gazans being asked to move in 24hrs.

You could almost hear his brain ticking over, ‘don’t say anything implicating the UK to war crimes, don’t say anything implicating the UK to war crimes’.

Seems the Israeli strategy is clear now. They’re going to do a Maruipol on Gaza city, push as many of the 2M Palestinians into Egyptian refugee camps, and kill anyone else left remaining. Then they’ll claim Gaza (or at least the northern half of it) as their own. It’s going to be the worst example of ethnic cleansing we’ve seen since WWII, and Western govts are going to stand aside and let them do it. If that happens we’ll see the West Bank explode and then that will drag in other Arab states. We’re in very dangerous times.

Biden can’t afford to risk upsetting the Jewish vote.

I obviously know that it wasn’t intended to be (you have friends/family in Israel?) but that is the narrative often pushed by anti-semites.

The Jewish vote in the United States is mostly exaggerated. Only 2.4% of the population are Jewish. Furthermore American Jews are far from universally supportive of Israel, some of the most outspoken critics of Israel are American Jews.

The majority of Jewish voters in the US are opposed to the current Israeli government policy of further colonisation in Occupied Palestine.

So much so if fact that they support restrictions on US military aid to Israel.

“In 2021, a Jewish Electorate Institute poll found that 58% of American Jewish voters support restrictions on US military aid to prevent Israel using it to expand West Bank settlements.”

Jews are not the bad guys! Zionists are.

can you think of any at all?

Sure, the US has committed so many war crimes you could start a thread of them all by themselves, as has Iran, Russia, China, the UK. France, Turkey Syria…etc etc. If the low bar to their behaviour is that they tell everyone beforehand, what difference does that make if they behave like every other overly-heavily armed country,  i.e. with impunity?

I’m horrified by the tactics used by the IDF, but I don’t think for a second that any other militarised right wing govt would do anything different. 

@martinhutch well said. The tit for tat escalates until it creates another angry generation. 

There’s an election year in the US and Biden can’t afford to risk upsetting the Jewish vote.

Trump seems to be making a halfway decent attempt at it with his praise of Hezbollah.

Keir Starmer has basically said Israel can do whatever the hell it it likes

I don’t think he has really He’s said publicly

“I think that Israel does have that right, it is an ongoing situation, obviously everything should be done within international law but I don’t want to step away from the core principles that Israel has the right to defend herself.”

And people with vested interests on either side of the debate are using it to either condemn him or support him.

The tit for tat escalates until it creates another angry generation.

And if we think we’re immune from that we’re not. The UK’s and western support for this is going to result in a new wave of Islamic terrorism in our own countries, with all the resultant erosion of human rights, increase in authoritarianism and surveillance, and sectarian divides within our communities. What a shitshow.

I don’t think he has really He’s said publicly

Well I hope to be corrected. I’ll be looking forward to his calls for restraint and condemnation of ethnic cleansing.

I’m horrified by the tactics used by the IDF, but I don’t think for a second that any other militarised right wing govt would do anything different.

I can’t agree. Even under a neo-con administration the United States has never behaved in the Middle East in the way that Israel currently is.

I guess at least one big difference is that the Israeli government can afford to ignore public opinion, United States governments cannot.

Labour are terrified of the antisemitic/Corbyn tag

Maybe it would have been better if the last leader hadn’t been so relaxed about taking money from Iranian state TV, calling Hamas “friends”, and having an advisor who publicly praised Hamas…
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/04/jeremy-corbyn-says-he-regrets-calling-hamas-and-hezbollah-friends

The scale and sophistication of the attack required a lot of planning, and there were no warnings?

Tin foil hat time. Israel knew about it and let it happen as it has given them the perfect reason for now wiping out Hamas – maybe they underestimated the Israeli death toll but it was a means to an end.

They couldn’t just invade Gaza and wipe out Hamas unprovoked could they.

And if we think we’re immune from that we’re not.

Yep. I’m scared for several reasons.

calling Hamas “friends”, and having an advisor who publicly praised Hamas…

You have just linked to a 7 year old article, the current pro-Israeli Tory government decided less than two years ago that Hamas was a terrorist organisation. The EU has provided funds for Hamas.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-middle-east-67096916

The young Palestinian girl injured, crying, reminded me of my own niece. I cried last night when I saw this..

This is not right, civilians shall not be legitimate targets for either side.

Stop the madness.

The UK’s and western support for this is going to result in a new wave of Islamic terrorism in our own countries

Has there ever been a wave of terrorism in the UK linked to Palestine?

The majority of Jewish voters in the US are opposed to the current Israeli government policy of further colonization in Occupied Palestine.

I find it slightly baffling that the west (USA and Europe) are so vocal in their support of modern Israel. It feels to me like its just tipping fuel on an already unstable fire.

I’m horrified by the tactics used by the IDF, but I don’t think for a second that any other militarised right wing govt would do anything different.

I’m sorry Nick, I usually think you’re on point but with this you’re way off. Same with the references to 9/11.

Park the clearly emotional responses to this, and the history lessons for a moment.

What would you do if you where the bod at the top, and someone just murdered 3000 of your citizens? Or carried out this current attack?

Sit on your hands and say “well we might have deserved it?”

Let’s not allow luxury beliefs and the relative safety we live in and the isualtion we have from that level of responsibility take a measured discssion to fantasy land.

The response is appropriate, it’s the methodology that is flawed and illegal.

The majority of Jewish voters in the US are opposed to the current Israeli government policy of further colonization in Occupied Palestine

Those guys in the photo – Naturei Karta – are a tiny subgroup of a religious fringe. Like all extremists, they are absolutely bonkers, hanging out in Tehran with holocaust deniers. Using them to illustrate a claim about mainstream US Jewish opinion is extremely disingenous.

Israel’s situation isn’t the US’s. Multiple invasions by a coalation of all of her neighbours, and in Hamas an opponent that has this in its charter: “Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

So I also think that any other militarised right wing govt wouldn’t do anything different. What’s needed is a goverment that holds back, but Israel doesn’t have that.

Tin foil hat time. Israel knew about it and let it happen as it has given them the perfect reason for now wiping out Hamas

This is just recycling 9/11 conspiracy theory. Did a man in a petrol station tell you not to go to Manchester on Friday because you lent him a pound?

 it’s the methodology that is flawed and illegal.

I completely agree. I’m happy to go on the record to utterly condemn Netanyahu’s govts actions. 

This is just recycling 9/11 conspiracy theory. Did a man in a petrol station tell you not to go to Manchester on Friday because you lent him a pound?

Yeah, it’s not like Hamas might have an inkling about counter-intelligence awareness courtesy of their associations with Iran.

Sometimes you just need one side to be off their game slightly and it delivers a victory for the other.

If they keep pushing antisemitism to mute their war crimes and murder in Gaza, many will start wearing that lable with pride.

Look at Trump’s latest narrative, say what you want about him, but he’s an excellent weathervane of latent public opinion.

Also, where the **** are a million people supposed to move to? How can the UK and the US allow this ethnic cleansing? What appalling hypocrites and cowards they are.