The murder of 6-year Hind Rajab and her family by Israeli forces as they were fleeing the shelling i that I wrote about recently has reverberated around the world, putting a tragic human face to the carnage. CNN has audio of the call made by Rajab to the Red Crescent just before she and her family were killed. It is described as ‘harrowing’ and I could not bring myself to listen to it.
Ryan Grim writes that the story is even more grisly, in that the medics from the Red Crescent who tried to rush to her rescue following her frantic phone call were themselves murdered.
Two weeks ago, on January 29, Hind, a 6-year-old girl, climbed into a car with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. They were doing what so many Palestinians have been doing for the past four months: trying to find the least unsafe place possible. Safe zones are dangerous. Moving toward safe zones is dangerous. Staying put can be fatal. With Israeli troops approaching, the family decided to flee, some in the car, some on foot.
Hind and her family quickly came under fire. Her older cousin called the Red Crescent, pleading to be rescued. The call was cut off as she was killed along with the rest of her family by Israeli gunfire. Only Hind remained alive. Wounded, she called the Red Crescent back, begging to be rescued. She was scared of the dark, she told them, and it was getting late. “I’m so scared, please come,” she said.
The distraught dispatcher told her over the course of a three-hour call that they couldn’t dispatch rescuers until they had approval from the Israeli forces. Without that approval, the rescuers could be struck. As we reported earlier with the killing of Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abu Daqqa, often those approvals can be fatally slow to come.
Finally, permission was granted, and two medics were sent in an ambulance. Dispatchers heard a terrible noise, and then lost contact with the medics. Since then, the world has been on edge, praying for news of Hind’s successful rescue, but fearing the worst. Finally, Israeli forces withdrew from the area, and on Saturday morning, Hind’s surviving family ventured back to the neighborhood. There, they found the decomposing victims of the Israeli attack. Hind was dead. Just yards away were the charred ruins of the ambulance and the impossibly heroic medics.
Hind’s life and death, her courage and her fear, had captivated the globe. Her killing was also an unspeakable war crime. The Israel Defense Forces can’t say it was the unfortunate but unintended consequence of a strike on a terrorist, because we know that the Red Crescent was in direct communication with the IDF, which therefore knew that an ambulance was heading to those precise coordinates to rescue a little girl. Somebody pulled the trigger — or pressed the button — that ended their lives. Somebody higher up signed off on it, if the snippets of cockpit and drone operator recordings from previous Israeli assaults represent standard practices. As we speak, somebody — perhaps many people — inside the IDF knows who committed this spectacular atrocity and is staying silent.
Even some US senators are outraged and calling what happened a ‘textbook war crime’ and that the US cannot continue to ignore Israel’s war crimes, including the blocking of food aid that has resulted in starvation.
Had the ambulance sent to rescue Hind not been incinerated by the IDF, she would have still faced the challenge of starvation. Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who is a leader in the Democratic foreign policy establishment, gave an extraordinary speech on the Senate floor on Monday night, excoriating the Netanyahu government for deliberately blocking aid to civilians. He and Sen. Jeff Merkley traveled to the Egypt side of the Rafah crossing around five weeks ago, and Van Hollen came back livid at Israel’s deliberate stalling of aid. On the Senate floor, he said that he had recently heard reports that children are now beyond starving and are actually dying of starvation. He texted Cindy McCain, the head of the World Food Programme, and asked if the rumors were true. He quoted her response to him: “This is true. We are unable to get in enough food to keep people from the brink. Famine is imminent. I wish I had better news.”
He drove the point home: “Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food. In addition to the horror of that news, one other thing is true: That is a war crime. It is a textbook war crime. And that makes those who orchestrate it war criminals,” he said, adding that he had recently spoken with officials at humanitarian relief organizations. “Every one of them, every one, has stated that their organizations have never experienced a humanitarian disaster as dire and terrible as the world is witnessing in Gaza.”
But Van Hollen still voted for the aid package to Israel because it also included aid to Ukraine. Bernie Sanders and Merkley voted against it.
The Israeli playbook in situations like this is to shrug, smile, and say, “Ooopsies!”, or else to claim that the victim (in this case a small child) was actually a Hamas operative, don’t-cha-know. A last-ditch excuse would be to claim utter innocence by IDF forces and blame the child for assassinating herself, in some kind of fiendish Hamas plot.
These atrocities have worked for them for the past 50 years. Because what happened in Germany 80 years ago excuses 70-year-old Netanyahu from planning genocide against a completely different set of people, and 20-year-olds with American assault weapons to carry it out.
I’m sure it’s a real shock to them that the world is turning against them and seeing their actions for what they really are.
Katydid, but is it a shock? Or is it the assumption that the world is against them so it doesn’t matter what they do they will be criticised so they’ll do whatever seems good to them? That view doesn’t seem unlikely to me when you have a whole society founded by people who were persecuted where ever they came from, that that may be the only thing they have in common with each other beyond their religion, and we know that while Judaism is not as fragmented as Christianity it is still fragmented. Add in the evangelical need for Israel to exist so the end times can happen, along with decades of courting American politicians so they won’t turn against Israel, and you have a toxic mix.
Fifty years ago, Israeli agents murdered some perfectly innocent palestinians in Lillehammer, Norway, because they got their information wrong. Two of their agents got caught, which caused short-lived indignation towards Israel.
Palestinian and Israeli children have been dying in this conflict for many years and will continue to do so for many more years to come, especially if they keep using the definition of insanity as a solution. To bad a deal couldn’t be worked out with Mexico to let Israel establish itself in Baja California. I think that might have been Archie Bunkers suggestion. “Those were the days”.
@Jazzlet: I think you’re seeing it backward. The issue is that Great Britain and the USA gave land that was already occupied and had been for millennia to people whose ancestors might once have lived there a couple of millenia ago. You don’t expect that people driven from their own homes over nothing they did, people killed for staying in homes their families had occupied for generations…you don’t think that pissed people off? I mean, if you run up to people who never did anything to you and assault or kill them, you don’t get to cry that people hate you for no reason. You’re not being persecuted.
@birgerjohansson, and in 1967, an American ship in international waters--the USS Liberty--assisting the Israelis in the seven-day war, was attacked by the Israeli Air Force and the Israeli Navy torpedo boats that killed 34 and wounded 171 more Americans as well as severely damaging the ship. Those Americans who survived the attacks are very clear that it was not a case of mistaken identity because there had been a lot of Israeli fly-overs and the pilots and the men on ship even waved to each other. Wikipedia has a complete write-up of the situation. I went to school with several children whose fathers had been killed by “friendly” fire.
Google Israel spies on the United States and you’ll find dozens of articles about the many, many times Israel has been caught spying or paying others to spy on the USA, with the newest (a Newsweek article) dating from 2019.
And now we’re giving them money and weapons to wipe out the Palestinians, just as we always have, because if we don’t, then the evangelicals don’t get to fantasize about Jesus coming back down to Earth and killing everyone the Evangelicals don’t like.
Careful, katydid, roj will pop up to call you antisemitic for speaking the truth about Israel.
@ WMDKitty: LOL. Anti-Evangelical, yes. Palestinians are Semitic people, too. Back in the 1980s, I was anti-apartheid in South Africa. Interesting that South Africans--who know apartheid when they see it--have been so adamant that what’s been going on in Israel is apartheid. Now it’s escalated to full-on genocide. “Leave your home and all your possessions and go to THIS PLACE or we’ll bomb you to smithereens!” :::bombs all roads leading to THIS PLACE, then bombs THIS PLACE:::
@Katydid — I know they’re a semitic people. Roj apparently does not.
It doesn’t help that the ADL has a new definition of antisemitism that includes even the mildest criticism of Israel. Or that everybody and their brother is drinking the Israeli Kool-aid.
Katydid @7: The ethnic origins of Palestinians are a distraction regarding the usage of ‘antisemitism’. Antisemitism was coined as a 19th century ‘politically correct’ term for hatred of Jews. It is not logically inconsistent for a Palestinian to be antisemitic or to be described as such, nor is it logically inconsistent to be supportive of Palestinians and antisemitic at the same time.
Personally, one rule of thumb I apply is that if someone’s objections to Zionism, or the government, or the people of Israel uses common antisemitic tropes then there is reason to suspect it is antisemitism in disguise.
Katydid @5
I was not in any way excusing the behaviour of the Israelis, just saying that I think they already believed the rest of the world is against them, so I don’t think they will be surprised by recent condemnations of the actions of the IDF.
anat @9, yes indeed, regarding the actual origin and usage of ‘antisemitism’.
It’s not a descriptive term, it’s a dogwhistle.
Nothing to do with Semites, everything to do with Jews.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism)
—
That noted, there surely is a distinction between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, though obs there are people who conflate the two.
@Anat — Doesn’t matter. Palestinians are, categorically, SEMITIC PEOPLE. But if you really like that Kool-Aid, you keep on drinking it.
John Morales, I agree there should be a difference, and often there is, but sometimes one is a cover for the other. The way to sort these out is with long term familiarity with the person’s output.
WMDKitty, this doesn’t change the meaning of antisemitism.
WMDKitty, anat is not changing any meaning, but rather explaining it.
Look at my link, and if you care to try, dispute the etymology (my emphasis):
(Also, are you aware of the
WMDKitty, you are looking at the components of the word instead of its use. Yes, it contains semitism, but in this application that is not to be taken literally. The word refers to jewish people rather than all semites, because that is how it is used. See idiom and compositionality.
There are many words like this. Incredible and unbelievable, broken down to their components, would suggest a thing that can not be credited / believed; yet their usage is very often unrelated to that direct meaning. Both are often synonymous with amazing, and can also simply be an expression of surprise.
[OT]
Good principle, bad example.
Incredible means not credible, rather than not credited, and credible and believable are synonymous.
(Amazing means not mazed, which is an old term for confused)
@6: your problem there is -- I haven’t, and shall not. I’ll call out anti-semitic (i.e. explicitly anti-Jewish people, NOT Israeli governement) talk when I see it -- like in what you’ve written on FtB.
I don’t see any of that in anything Katydid has written. That said: the old dictionary-waving argument “ah, but the Palestinians are semitic people too so hah! Gotcha! I can’t be anti-semitic” is straight out of the closet-Nazi playbook, so, y’know Katydid, you might want to watch out for that one in future. I don’t *think* you’re anti-semitic, but you’re using an argument there that is very commonly deployed by Jew-haters of WMDKitty’s stripe (see #12, shouting “Gotcha” to distract attention).
As for “drinking the Israeli Kool Aid”, I’m going to repeat my opinion that the international community should be sanctioning Israel the way they did South Africa -- SA never did a tenth of what Israel are doing.
[oops, only just got back, too rapid a retort]
Um, amazing means that which mazes. Obviously. That which stuns, confuses, astonishes.
(Not amazing means not mazed)
Roj, you are dishonest.
https://youtu.be/2dVV8HjSpdA?si=lhhJWWDK3mEMmdLJ
Roj, prove I “hate Jews” without resorting to dishonest Israeli tactics. I’ll wait.
@Anat — You ARE changing the definition, and you’re doing it deliberately to smear people who oppose illegal theft and occupation of Palestine.
Nope. anat is using the actual definition.
Again: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism
@21: answer this -- https://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2024/02/11/israels-murder-of-gazans-continues/#comment-5299322
I’ll wait.
From Wikipedia: The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Aramaic, Hebrew, and numerous other ancient and modern languages.
From the Encyclopedia Brittanica: Semite, name given in the 19th century to a member of any people who speak one of the Semitic languages, a family of languages spoken primarily in parts of western Asia and Africa. The term therefore came to include Arabs, Akkadians, Canaanites, Hebrews, some Ethiopians (including the Amhara and the Tigrayans), and Aramaean tribes. Although Mesopotamia, the western coast of the Mediterranean, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa have all been proposed as possible sites for the prehistoric origins of Semitic-speaking populations, there remains no archaeological or scientific evidence of a common Semitic people.
It got re-defined to only be used as people who are anti-Jewish. However, being against genocide and war atrocities is not anti-semitic. It’s an interesting tell that these people *do* recognize it’s genocide and their only comeback is “anti-semitism!” When Turkey committed genocide against the Arminians, nobody is screaming “anti-semitism!” when that fact is discussed. Other countries that have committed genocide include China, Ethiopia, Sudan--also Semetic countries, but nobody’s screaming about anti-semitism there.
What Israel is doing in Gaza and to a lesser extent in the West Bank is genocide per the 1948 Geneva Convention on genocide.
Surely that article means Eastern coast of the Mediterranean…? I suspect someone confused themselves by thinking of that coast as the western edge of the land.
For the edification of WMDKitty and anyone else who might be confused by this:
Antisemitism
From same source:
See also: anti-Semitism
That some words mean something other than their literal translation appears to imply is not new. My go-to example is ‘atom’, which literally means ‘cannot be cut/split’.
Note that I haven’t accused anyone of being antisemitic, I merely pointed out that the ethnicity of Palestinians is irrelevant to whether anyone is or isn’t being antisemitic. The current war is horrifying and depressing, and I can’t think of anything that will keep it from repeating in some form even if the current cycle is forced to an end.
Okay, so some people are redefining words. If enough people decide that the word “shoes” can only refer to Manolo Blahnik 6″ heels, then it’s forbidden to ever refer to loafers, sneakers/trainers, slip-ons, lace-up leather dress shoes, and others as shoes. Those examples all stop being shoes just because someone decided that calling those things shoes was somehow causing great trauma to the Blahniks. Got it.
Katydid, please read the wikipedia article in full. Antisemitism has meant hating Jews since the 19th century. This is not anything new. Antisemitism never meant hatred or opposition of all Semitic people/ethnicities.
For fucks sake! Trying to argue against the generally accepted meaning of “antisemitism” (i.e. hatred and prejudice against Jews) on the basis of the technical meaning of “Semitic” is exactly like arguing against the generally accepted meaning of “homophobia” on the basis of the technical meaning of “phobia”. Etymology is not meaning. Have a fucking word with yourselves.
@Katydid, 28:
Yes. You are. I’m going to repeat exactly what I said in #18: the old dictionary-waving argument “ah, but the Palestinians are semitic people too so hah! Gotcha! I can’t be anti-semitic” is straight out of the closet-Nazi playbook, so, y’know, you might want to watch out for that one in future.
And since you appear to be doubling down on it, you might want to have a very serious think about why you’re so desperate to have THAT conversation specifically. Nobody here (me especially) will have any problem with you roundly condemning the genocidal and indefensible actions of the IDF in Gaza (and elsewhere). Nobody will have any any problem with you calling out Netanyahu (yahoo!) as a war criminal. I don’t *think* anyone here is going to police that kind of condemnation with the “yeah but what about what Hamas did” canard -- I know nobody defending those fuckers for the horrors they perpetrated, but it doesn’t defend genocide from the government of their victims. So you’re safe… unless you’re going to start dictionary-waving when “anti-semitism” is brought up. Ask yourself why you’re reaching for that. And if you come to a conclusion, and if you want to, tell us. Know that you’re skirting territory staked out by Elon Musk, Kanye West and WMDKitty -- is that where you’re comfortable? I can’t tell.
See also “it’s not technically paedophilia if she’s pubescent -- it’s ephebophilia“. And we don’t want to be like those dickheads, do we?
“We” dont. Whether Katydid wants to is the question. Let’s see.
@7: This is what linguists call the etymological fallacy. Briefly, the meaning of a word is defined by its actual usage, not by the meaning of its component parts.
I have to agree with anat and Dunc here: whatever the strictly technical/etymological/dictionary definition of the word, “antisemitism” has always, in common usage (i.e., in conversations like this one), meant hatred of Jews and only Jews. I, for one, can’t recall a single instance where anyone has used that word to mean hatred of all Semitic peoples. If you’re not comfortable with this well-known common usage, then try to use another word in its place. But don’t waste anyone’s time trying to quibble and over-police other people’s choice of that word.
@35:
LOL
#28 Katydid
Ooh, it looks like you are about to discover that common use drives meaning. Say on…
Not forbidden per se, but your usage of shoes with the old meaning in mind will cause difficulties in communication. Everyone else will hear ‘Manolo Blahnik 6″ heels’ when you use the word, and confusion will result. If you’re lucky, someone will patiently explain to you that ‘shoes’ has not meant that meaning for some time now, and the new word commonly understood to mean that is now _____.
However your example is not a very apt one, as ‘antisemitism’ has never been used to refer to semitic groups in general. It was coined specifically to refer specifically to anti-jewish sentiment, and now you and many others are making the mistake of looking at the construction (no, not etymology) of the word to derive its meaning.
And here is where you go a bit wobbly. Remember, you started your hypothetical with “If enough people…” but here you have regressed to “someone”. But you were right in the first case, as common use meaning derives not from the ruling of an individual but from the broad swath of speakers of the language.
…then it’s forbidden to ever refer to loafers, sneakers/trainers, slip-ons, lace-up leather dress shoes, and others as shoes.
Well. loafers and slip-ons are DEFINITELY not “shoes.” Anyone who’s worn them can tell you that. Calling such abominations “shoes” is heresy! HERESY I SAY!!!
Datum, from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance:
“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
but
“However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”
(https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definition-antisemitism)
Obs, there’s a Palestinian Holocaust going on. Right now. As I write this.
What was done to the Jews is what Israel (the political entity) is doing to the Palestinians (the people), every bit as viciously.
Pogroms, ghettoes, diaspora.
Human rights abuses, functional genocide, arbitrary detention, seizure of property, immiseration of children.
Some slightly different terms, but exactly the same process.
Just as abused children often become abusers in turn, so do abused peoples, apparently.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_diaspora
—
I am shamed by my Government’s participation in this. But I am not silent.
Been going on for quite a long time, of course.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-killings-palestinian-children
“Israeli forces are gunning down Palestinian children living under occupation with increasing frequency,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Unless Israel’s allies, particularly the United States, pressure Israel to change course, more Palestinian children will be killed.”
—
This has been so obvious for so long:
https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/israeli-soldiers-killed-hostages-as-they-held-white-flag-20231217-p5eryg
“Jerusalem | Three Israeli hostages who were mistakenly shot by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip had been waving a white flag and were shirtless when they were killed, military officials said on Saturday (Sunday AEDT), in Israel’s first such acknowledgement of harming any hostages in its war against Hamas.”
—
Easy enough to look and see numerous like examples over recent years.
People being in the street?
Gunned down by Israeli soldiers.
Stripped down to their underwear, blindfolded, made to kneel down for hours in the hot sun.
Etc. etc.
(And we all know what happens to women in particular in such circumstances, no?)
It’s all there for anyone with internet access to see.
—
UN News
Global perspective Human stories
Gaza’s displaced children: ‘A heartbreaking story of loss and grief’
(https://news.un.org/en/gallery/1146372)
—
UNICEF State of Palestine Humanitarian Situation Report (Escalation) -- 07 February 2024
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/unicef-state-palestine-humanitarian-situation-report-escalation-07-february-2024
Imagine you’re a kid.
Your granma and your dad and your sister and your brother are dead.
You moved to an uncle’s house, but that got bombed and you other sister could not be found in the rubble.
You moved to the house of your mom’s friend, but then your ma got sick and could not get medicine and died.
You have to shit in the street, because the water doesn’t run and sewage does not work. The food you get, you’re not too fussy about. It’s winter, so you shiver because only so many people can huddle around the fire made from the timbers and furniture of ruined houses.
Another bomb explodes, and when wake up you’re in a tent in a refugee camp. Your wounds are bandaged, but you will forever have a limp and one eye is gone.
You are a “WCNSF” – “wounded child, no surviving family”.
No hopes for a decent life, no hopes for decent work, a lifetime of pain and suffering ahead of you.
—
There are very literally thousands such children — what sort of exceptional saintliness would it take not to harbor a bitter life-long antagonism towards Israel?
Not an accident; that really is the Israeli politicians’ attitude.
https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/israeli-politician-the-children-of-gaza-have-brought-this-upon-themselves/
(Content warning: distressing image at link)
We get it Morales. You don’t think Palestinians are born evil like Russians.
Well done. It’s like there’s almost a person in there after all.
We’ll make some semblance of a humanist of you yet.
Silentbob, your obsession with me is exceedingly stupid.
Another take on that interview:
Another StevoR style spree from the guy that insists he feels no need to post, not at all, could take or leave posting. Snide retort in 3… 2… 1…
@Katydid, and further to Holms@37:
If you’re UNlucky (or you persist in the teeth of patient explanations), then the patient explanations will stop. Oh, and sidenote: all the other people in the world loudly insisting that “shoes” has its old meaning, not the generally accepted one, also happen, every single one of them, to be paedophiles. So there’s you, and all the paedophiles, all insisting “shoes” has its old meaning. Why might the patient explanations have stopped? And what do people think of you now?
Holms, your obsession with me is exceedingly stupid.
@Raging Bee: LOL!
I seem to recall a whole lot of carrying on about how horrific it is to change meanings.
Per news (dot) un (dot) org, as of January 2024 and after 2 years of war, 1800 children have been murdered by Russia. Also, children are suffering malnutrition. The entire world calls Russia out for its atrocities.
Per abc (dot) net (dot) au, 18,000 children have been murdered by Israel and the entire population is not only at risk of random bombing, but is at risk of starving to death if they don’t freeze first…and there’s a major outcry that pointing this out is anti-semitic against Israel, because Israel is the only population that’s allowed to be called semitic.
Which news outlets are reporting this “major outcry”? None of the ones I’ve seen. All the major news outlets I’ve seen (including but not limited to The Guardian and the BBC) are pretty comprehensively covering Israel being condemned for war crimes and nobody suggesting that doing so is anti-semitic, plus (bonus) nobody quibbling about what “anti-semitic” means. That’s just you, so far.
#52 Katydid
Defenders of Israel’s actions regularly cry ‘anti-semite’ because it is one of the few cards they have to play. But they aren’t the ones claiming semitic also refers to Palestinians; this would greatly undercut their own cries of anti-semitism.
@ 54 Holms
Sorry, did you say, “Defenders of transphobe’s actions regularly cry ‘misogyny’ because it is one of the few cards they have to play. But they aren’t the ones claiming misogyny also refers to women who are transgender; this would greatly undercut their own cries of misogyny.”
Oh no, sorry wrong topic. This is one where Holms has a clue what’s going on.
Pardon me.
@ 51
Dude, can you knock off your stupid obsession with Holms?
Silentbob, your obsession with me is weird and stupid.
#55 Bob
No, what I actually said was:
Maybe bold will be easier for you to read?
By the way, if the troll has been reduced to repeating his silly formula, he is replying only because he is captive to his urges (mustn’t call them needs though!). He has nothing in the tank but his blood-minded desire for the last word. Which, as we’ve seen, is something he takes pride in -- weirdly.
By the way, if the troll has been reduced to repeating his silly formula
Stop being obsessed with me and you won’t see that formula, because, Holms, your obsession with me is stupid and pathetic.
🙂
Holms, your pathetic obsession with me is stupid.
—
In the news: Gaza doctors: ‘We leave patients to scream for hours and hours’
In the news: WHO says Gaza’s Nasser hospital not functional after Israel raids
When will it end? A two-state solution seems like a punchline and a one state solution impossible?
The names have changed, you don’t here about the fedayeen or the PFLP like years ago. When Dr. George Habash was in charge he said this in 1970:
“…Since 1917, when the BalforDeclaration was signed, you have ceased to know about us. It is only now beginning to dawn on people that we were chased from our land like rapid dogs. Well, through sabotage we want to remind the world that a catastrophe has taken place here, and that justice must be done. Believe you me, after what has happened to us we have the right to do anything , including what you call acts of terrorism.. Where was world opinion in 1917 when the British decided to give a land that was 90% populated by Palestinians as a gift to the Jews?”.
Nothing changes. Reminds me what the Athenians said:
“You know as well as we do, (they tell the Melians) that right as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, where as the stronger do whatever they can and the weaker suffer whatever they must”.
Seems to have held up well.
It’s a horrible mess.
I wish Hamas would just surrender already and save their people from further bombing. I don’t think the Israelis are going to stop until then.
Sure. That would stop the bombing. smh
Hans, then it would become again like the West Bank. The oppression is now three generations on, and ever-escalating. Ever less land for the Palestinians, ever less opportunity, constant humiliations and repression.
This is the West Bank, remember.
Palestinian people arbitrarily killed on the street, arrested and detained, humiliated and abused. Just for being there.
Lots of stories, well-documented. Plenty of video evidence.
Here’s one from January:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/10/west-bank-videos-show-israeli-troops-killing-teenager-and-driving-over-mans-body
Here’s a story from February 15, 2024
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-investigators-visit-homes-of-2-palestinian-american-teens-killed-in-west-bank/7489490.html
I wish Hamas would just surrender already and save their people from further bombing.
Yeah, right, because everything was totally hunky-dory in Gaza before this (latest) attack by Hamas… * eyeroll *
The IDF has described its operation in Nasser as “precise and limited” and accused Hamas of “cynically using hospitals for terror”.
After Beginyahu and his Likud chums cynically allowed Hamas to run the hospitals in Gaza.
In the news: https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/childrens-lives-threatened-rising-malnutrition-gaza-strip
Children’s lives threatened by rising malnutrition in the Gaza Strip
The situation is especially serious in the north, where one in six children under the age of two is acutely malnourished
19 February 2024
https://twitter.com/WHOoPt/status/1759874622546161759
Longish statement by the WHO.
7:36 PM · Feb 20, 2024
Extracts:
CNN reports that on February 5, 2024, a UN aid convoy carrying wheat for the 300K Gazans facing famine in the north was struck by Israeli gunfire destroying the food. Despite receiving clearance for the delivery from Israel’s COGAT, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, the convoy was attacked by Israeli forces.
Read the CNN report here: http://www.cnn.com/...
[Katydid’s intended link]
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/21/middleeast/un-food-convoy-gaza-israel-strike-cmd-intl/index.html
In the news: Gaza food crisis: I miss bread, says girl
(Of course, one can’t tell just by looking at the video that the little girl is Palestinian; she could as easily have been Israeli, but she had the misfortune of being born some kilometers away from that nasty pet of the USA)
“A death is a tragedy. One million deaths is a statistic”.
.
Mano does not care about the killing of babies in the Russia-Ukraine war.
.
If Israel is not involved, Mano does not care about babies being killed in war.
^
Morales this one’s about on your level -- go for it.
Silentbob, your obsession with me is stupid, and it surely ain’t healthy.
[Still, I admit I call that drive-by the friedfishe because e represents Euler’s number]
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/22/claims-of-israeli-sexual-assault-of-palestinian-women-are-credible-un-panel-says
In the news: https://www.msf.org/msf-briefing-gaza-un-security-council
Extract:
In the news: Israel Not Complying with World Court Order in Genocide Case