Can we all please admit they’re committing war crimes now?
Anyone who isn’t admitting it yet isn’t going to start doing so because of evidence.
Anyone who isn’t admitting it yet isn’t going to start doing so because of fresh evidence
It’s messed up, but using white phosphorus isn’t banned under international law.
The usage of white phosphorus is restricted under international humanitarian law. Although there can be lawful uses, it must never be fired at, or in close proximity to, a populated civilian area or civilian infrastructure, due to the high likelihood that the fires and smoke it causes spread. Such attacks, which fail to distinguish between civilians and civilian objects and fighters and military objectives, are indiscriminate and thus prohibited.
Nice, thanks
Haven’t they been burning people down with white phosphorus for decades? They aren’t gonna start admitting it now.
I can hope.
There are 11,195,792 reasons they won’t admit Israel is committing war crimes
Do you know where that graphic comes from? The data on opensecrets.org indicates that Biden has received $5,688,069 between 1990 and 2024.
I’m not disagreeing that this is a problem. This is undoubtedly a route through which foreign money is making it into US politics and Biden is one of the biggest recipients of Pro-Israel funds. It just isn’t as much money as indicated by the graphic. It is $5,688,069 spread over 34 years but loaded heavily to more recent years.
Biden donations from Pro-Israel sources by election cycle:
- 2023-2024: $1,459,405
- 2021-2022: Unsure - Not in top 20 and can’t find full dataset
- 2019-2020: $3,753,304
All other election cycles, Biden doesn’t appear in the top 20. Simple math indicates that, outside of 2019, 2020, 2023, and 2024, Biden received an additional $475,360 over the rest of his career.
I don’t like to see that Biden received $3,753,304 in the 2019-2020 campaign cycle. That is way too much foreign influence in my opinion, even if it technically came from American organizations. That said, Biden spent $1,614,843,740 in 2019-2020 meaning that only 0.23% of that was from Pro-Israel groups.
Stopped reading the second it mentioned genocide. Any reporter who uses that term without yndwrstanding it, isn’t someone who should be taken seriously. Rwanda. That was an attempt at genocide, the systematic destruction of the Chinese Uyghurs is a type of genocide. Hiding combatants and hostages among the civilians and acting shocked when the civilians are killed isn’t a genocide, it’sa sign that everyone supports the fighting.
Yayyyyy warcrimes!
How can Israel attack another country and not be at war already?
Israel is USA’s spoiled brat. They’ve been violating international laws for decades now and no one dares touch them, otherwise Karen USA will start throwing a tantrum about it.
Have fun reading on how Israel has violated Lebanon’s airspace 22355 times since 2007.
My guess is that they are attacking Hezbollah-controlled parts of Lebanon and the Lebanese government doesn’t acknowledge their legitimacy.
When they start attacking the rest of the world while arguing that they are eradicating mosquitos, people may notice that something is wrong
Man, I want so much to be on Israel’s side since they are our only ally in the region but they are making it very difficult.
I love the implication that in an alternate universe, where the US is allied with Germany for some reason, the response to the holocaust would be unconditional support.
You’re confusing alliance with codependence.
codependence
I disagree. The US doesn’t need Israel at all.
The people in general don’t, but corrupt politicians rely on AIPAC and other foreign influence pressure groups like it for both bribes and free demonization of any anti-genocide opponents they may encounter.
They’ve never been our ally in any meaningful way. They used nuclear blackmail against Nixon to bail themselves out when they lost the Yom Kippur war. They blew up the USS Liberty and machine gunned my great uncle in the water. And they were literally the reason for 9/11, straight from the mouth of bin laden.
How much aid money did they send us after 9/11?
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The Hamas human shields thing is a lie propagated by Israel. Hamas operate in Gaza, an extremely densely populated area, and Israel’s blockade turns it into an open air prison. Hamas operating near civilians is necessary because there is nowhere they can go that isn’t full of civilians. There’s little evidence to suggest that Hamas intentionally puts civilians in more danger than they would otherwise be, they just have no choice.
Also worth noting, Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world.
Well Israel are doing their part to alleviate that.
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One side is committing genocide and the other is defending their home, but sure buddy, go on about how both sides are the same. I’m sure you would have supported the Nazis too, because after all remember the Warsaw ghetto uprising?
Not OP.
So your saying Hamas actions that are war crimes are justified because they are defending their home, therefore they are not the same?
War crimes are war crimes, but consider this: war crimes are worse if the warring party has the ability to mitigate them, and war crimes are worse if they are for an inherently unjust cause. Applied to this situation, killing civilians is a war crime, but it’s one thing if your best weapon is an unguided rocket, and way worse if you have the ability to make precise strikes against your enemy but choose to blow up an entire apartment building instead to intentionally commit collective punishment. And it’s even worse when you do so because your real goal is to kill all the civilians rather than the one scapegoat you used to try to justify killing them all.
i would argue neither is worse - but the intent would be much harder to defend against in court when you are also bragging about being able to put a round through a specific window.
It also runs the very real risk of a little war crime being accepted if… for example you’re just “protecting your home” or “the other side is worse” or “you don’t have a choice”.
War crimes, like other crimes, must be considered in context. It’s ok to shoot someone in self defense charging you with a knife. It’s not ok to blow up an entire apartment building because you want the people living there dead so you can steal their land.
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I hope i get this across without getting pedantic responses.
So why is Hamas allowed to be excused for using human shields because of the population density where there is no choice, but civilians being killed by Israeli attack are completely unacceptable? Surely if its so density they don’t have a choice then Israel doesn’t either.
Other poster is correct, civilians on both sides are the only innocent ones here. No need to excuse one side as “no choice”.
Because we have strong evidence Israel is not trying to avoid civilian casualties. There’s a difference between the missile attacks on boots on the ground too. When you actually have people in there, it shouldn’t be too hard to avoid killing civilians. Meanwhile, they’re doing things like literally using civilians as human shields or killing civilians collecting aid from an aid convoy.
I can accept some excuses from Israel, if it were accompanied by so much evidence that it’s on purpose. They clearly have no interest in avoiding civilian deaths, and quite probably show an interest in causing them.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
literally using civilians as human shields
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Yes - we also have no evidence Hamas is avoiding civilian casualties either. This is the point - why are we excusing one but not the other?
I struggle with any excuses from Israel- you have the manpower, tech and logistic to do soo much better and (regardless of your actual intent) causing excess suffering isn’t going to help your long term position. We learned this in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Three things: We aren’t giving weapons to Hamas to fight, they’re on the defence, and they’re a significantly less organized less advanced force. Gorilla warfare is the stand operating practice of a less advanced force fighting a more advanced one. They can’t hide in jungles though. They only have urban places (or directly next to the border).
Israel has the initiative. They get to choose when and how to take a fight (or to choose not to at all). Even when they put people in the area, they still commit atrocities, like dressing up as civilians and medical workers to assault a hospital and murdering civilians. I haven’t seen Hamas do such things.
I don’t think Hamas is good by any means. They just are. The situation in which they were created is not of their own will. The situation they fight in is not of their design. Their existence is also, in part, a piece of Israel’s desire and force. (They funneled money to them in order to create an enemy to fight against.) I don’t fault a lion for mistreatment of their prey, but I do fault humans for how we treat livestock. One does it because of the situation in which it lives, and the other does it out of a totally lack of respect, or potentially malice.
Point 0 - that you for engaging with facts and opinion rather than instant accusations.
Point 1 - correct, asymmetrical warfare is very common among weaker forces and is a great way to negate tech advantages. Nothing wrong with it, the issue is where and how they are conducting it.
Point 2 - interesting part of the point you mentioned regarding dressing up to murder civilians in hospitals. Hamas was doing such things - terrorists dressing up as civilians to access medical care, who took arms into a hospital that removed its protections, who were then killed by an opposing force in a way that minimizes civilian casualties.
I haven’t seen anything on the legality since, but discussions I had when this video came out was that it is probably justified as they did drop the disguise before opening fire. Lack of uniform does make it questionable.
This goes back to my original point - armed combatants aren’t allowed to use civilian infrastructure as it removes its protections. Hamas blatantly used it and yet its Israeli fault for killing them there?
For your last point, im sorry I’ve got a splitting headache and struggling to connect the dots, but you do raise an interesting point. I cant blame Palestine for wanting to fight, but I can blame Hamas for their conduct and choices within the conflict - just like Israel.
Point 2 - interesting part of the point you mentioned regarding dressing up to murder civilians in hospitals. Hamas was doing such things - terrorists dressing up as civilians to access medical care, who took arms into a hospital that removed its protections, who were then killed by an opposing force in a way that minimizes civilian casualties.
The Israelis didn’t just dress up as civilians, which would be bad, but they dressed up as medics. This is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. This is not acceptable because it leads to a situation where medical workers can’t operate because they can’t be trusted to not be soldiers.
Also, the soldiers there were seemingly brought there and were critically wounded. This does not “remove the protections” of the hospital. Soldiers are allowed to be treated in a hospital without the hospital becoming a valid military target.
I’m honestly curious. Have you ever heard of a single Palestinian accusing Hamas of using someone they know as a human shield? Has anyone ever, really?
The only “sources” backing these “well-known facts” are western media and Israeli-say-so. I’ve dealt with many Palestinians personally (I live in Egypt and we have a lot of them living here), and none of them ever complained about their families being used as human shields. Ever. You’d think some Palestinians would speak up about this by now if it were real.
You know who they unanimously consider unnecessarily brutal and cruel though? The IDF which treats them like less than dirt on a good day.
Good question, should clarify.
Standing directly behind someone, using them as a physical shield is not the human shield im talking about. The only direct evidence I’ve seen of this was the original attack when hostages were being taken back… and we know how that went.
Im referring to using protected places (hospitals, mosques, infrastructure) as bases for logistics, planning and operations - doing so removes the protection placed on those places and makes it legal to attack… regardless of what that means for the civilian population. There has been significant evidence of this.
Proportionality does need to be brought into discussion as I do believe much of the response on protected places was excessive - We’ve all seen the damage and suffering that removing the protection on these places has caused.
Going back to my original point, Hamas uses these with the justification of “we don’t have a choice” because there is a significant strength inbalance and everything not breaking the conventions has been destroyed - no where is this considered acceptable. The laws and convention doesn’t just apply when you are winning and its a “fair” fight. Nor does Israeli actions justify it - just like Hamas actions don’t justify Israeli breaches.
Regardless of this claim, the point still stands. No Palestinian I’ve ever met accused Hamas of jeopardising the Palestinian people’s safety. Only Israel does, for obvious reasons.
This is like the police cornering a wanted criminal into a crowded bus and shooting everyone indiscriminately whilst blaming it on them.
Hamas has no choice. They, along with Palestinian civilians, have been expelled from their homes and locked into the open air prison that is Gaza. They have a valid cause to fight for, and nowhere to go. In contrast, Israel is killing Palestinian civilians because they want to steal the little patch of land that they weren’t able to steal already. It’s not a valid cause and they have no reason to be anywhere near there.
Using your discussion they had no choice but to fight. Fair point.
They absolutely had choices on where to organise, whether or not to kill and capture civilians, or if they should set up in hospitals and key infrastructure that keeps their civilians alive. Do you have a justification for this?
Where should they organize? They’re in one of the most densely populated regions of the world, no place is far from civilians. If they had a larger territory, fighting intentionally close to civilians would be much worse. But given they literally caged in by the enemy they are fighting, there is no other alternative.
As for hospitals and key infrastructure, there is no evidence that they were used in the way that Israel has accused. Israel attacked hospitals and other key infrastructure to dismantle them to prevent the Palestinians they want dead from getting any aid or relief. They lie about Hamas’ presence there only to mask their genocidal actions. If they could prove to the world they were in the right, they would have done so by now.
Very well put. I think the only way out of this, post war, is for a Palestinian state to exist. Proper UN membership. The only way this is going to happen is if Hamas goes. Hamas must die. Israel is using every excuse they can to prolong this war and Hamas is giving them plenty of excuses. Everybody sucks here except the civilians who are hopelessly trapped.
That all makes too much sense so obviously that’s not what we’re going to get.
We’re going to get whatever makes the assholes in power the most money and whatever keeps bibi out of trouble as his legal troubles are postponed untill “major operations are over.”
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I don’t know if they really claim to hate it. Check out the reference guide: the old testament
Count how many towns, peoples/tribes/etc (women and children included), animals, god gave explicit permission/instruction to completely wipe off the face of the earth.