Middle East ......

Lerxst1992

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

Halifax2TheMax

And was my house next door to a declared safe zone that was then bombed, in that hypothetical?

• Thirteen out of 21 people killed in the latest Israeli military attack on tent cities in southern Rafah’s so-called “safe area” of al-Mawasi were women and girls as deadly strikes on civilians continue.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2024/5/28/israels-war-on-gaza-live-intense-israeli-artillery-shelling-across-rafah

pjl44

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

I agree with you that it is in no way a genocide by Israel and am not convinced that Israel is even acting with excessive disregard for civilian casualties. I disagree that there is a reasonable path for the Palestinian people to effectively rise up against Hamas.

gimmesometruth27

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

a: the united states IS involved in this. the us has historically used its veto at the un to shield israel from any international punishment or criminal accountability. the united states has constantly meddled in the middle east. we prop up israel because we need a place to launch our air attacks from besides saudi arabia. the united states has for decades sent billions in military aid to israel. even when they did not ask for it.

b: how can the palestinians "turn on hamas" when there have been no elections held for like 17 years since hamas took over? how can they turn against hamas with the israeli embargos in place? they cannot even get concrete into gaza, how can they get weapons if they want to fight hamas? the leadership of hamas does not even live in the area. how can people with no food, no weapons, and no electoral power do anything against hamas?

c: you act as if this all started on october 7, which leads me to believe that you are ignoring everything that has happened since the founding of israel. this conflict did not begin on 10/7. the killing of palestinian civilians did not begin on 10/8. it has been going on for decades.

d: genocide is not a term thrown around willy nilly. what israel is doing is systematic and deliberate. they are displacing native people and seizing their land and building illegal settlements on it. 

the only reason israel has not been held accountable internationally is because we support them and defend them at the un, and they have nukes.

mickeyrat

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

Iraq and Afghanistan still stand.

pjl44

mickeyrat said:

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

Iraq and Afghanistan still stand.

Neither one attacked us!

mickeyrat

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

Iraq and Afghanistan still stand.

Neither one attacked us!

true but the ruling power at the time actually did harbor those who did  in Afghanistan

pjl44

mickeyrat said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

Iraq and Afghanistan still stand.

Neither one attacked us!

true but the ruling power at the time actually did harbor those who did  in Afghanistan

As soon as I hit Post Comment I was like ah Christ I don't have the energy to start a 9/11 diversion

Halifax2TheMax

Halifax2TheMax

Halifax2TheMax

Now, tell us again how Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was a meaningful olive branch.

mickeyrat

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

Iraq and Afghanistan still stand.

Neither one attacked us!

true but the ruling power at the time actually did harbor those who did  in Afghanistan

As soon as I hit Post Comment I was like ah Christ I don't have the energy to start a 9/11 diversion

But that is the obvious parallel. No out of the blue attack on civilians and the response shouldn't be more different.

mickeyrat

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/israeli-spy-chief-icc-prosecutor-war-crimes-inquiry?utm_source=instagramthreads&utm_campaign=IsraeliChiefThreatenICC

 

Revealed: Israeli spy chief ‘threatened’ ICC prosecutor over war crimes inquiry

Mossad director Yossi Cohen personally involved in secret plot to pressure Fatou Bensouda to drop Palestine investigation, sources say

• Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC exposed

Harry Davies in Jerusalem

Tue 28 May 2024 02.30 EDTLast modified on Tue 28 May 2024 21.31 EDT

The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.

Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.

That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.

The prosecutor’s decision to apply to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders, is an outcome Israel’s military and political establishment has long feared.

continues.....

mickeyrat

she really wants back in fucksticks good graces....

https://www.threads.net/@cnn/post/C7i13qmoAIf/?xmt=AQGzcwj7g1WG9JNxUL5iAJOy4kqodBZPopmGFM16Uu_qqw

pjl44

mickeyrat said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/28/israeli-spy-chief-icc-prosecutor-war-crimes-inquiry?utm_source=instagramthreads&utm_campaign=IsraeliChiefThreatenICC

 

Revealed: Israeli spy chief ‘threatened’ ICC prosecutor over war crimes inquiry

Mossad director Yossi Cohen personally involved in secret plot to pressure Fatou Bensouda to drop Palestine investigation, sources say

• Spying, hacking and intimidation: Israel’s nine-year ‘war’ on the ICC exposed

Harry Davies in Jerusalem

Tue 28 May 2024 02.30 EDTLast modified on Tue 28 May 2024 21.31 EDT

The former head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation, the Guardian can reveal.

Yossi Cohen’s covert contacts with the ICC’s then prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, took place in the years leading up to her decision to open a formal investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestinian territories.

That investigation, launched in 2021, culminated last week when Bensouda’s successor, Karim Khan, announced that he was seeking an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over the country’s conduct in its war in Gaza.

The prosecutor’s decision to apply to the ICC’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, alongside three Hamas leaders, is an outcome Israel’s military and political establishment has long feared.

continues.....

Have they served their warrant on Putin yet lol

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/israel-netanyahu-antisemitism-campus-05ebd71bec931a62f58e7d5f9e93fa19   Netanyahu frequently makes claims of antisemitism. Critics say he's deflecting from his own problems

 

Israel government

Netanyahu frequently makes claims of antisemitism. Critics say he's deflecting from his own problems

By TIA GOLDENBERG

Today

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — After the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister and top Hamas officials, the Israeli leader accused him of being one of “the great antisemites in modern times.”

As protests roiled college campuses across the United States over the Gaza war, Netanyahu said they were awash with “antisemitic mobs.”

These are just two of the many instances during the war in which Netanyahu has accused critics of Israel or his policies of antisemitism, using fiery rhetoric to compare them to the Jewish people's worst persecutors. But his detractors say he is overusing the label to further his political agenda and try to stifle even legitimate criticism, and that doing so risks diluting the term's meaning at a time when antisemitism is surging worldwide.

“Not every criticism against Israel is antisemitic,” said Tom Segev, an Israeli historian. “The moment you say it is antisemitic hate ... you take away all legitimacy from the criticism and try to crush the debate.”

There has been a spike in antisemitic incidents since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to researchers. And many Jews in North America and Europe have said they feel unsafe, citing threats to Jewish schools and synagogues and the pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations in the U.S., although organizers deny that antisemitism drives the protests.

The war has reignited the long debate about the definition of antisemitism and whether any criticism of Israel — from its military's killing of thousands of Palestinian children to questions over Israel's very right to exist — amounts to anti-Jewish hate speech.

Netanyahu, the son of a scholar of medieval Jewish persecution, has long used the travails of the Jewish people to color his political rhetoric. And he certainly isn't the first world leader accused of using national trauma to advance political goals.

Netanyahu’s supporters say he is honestly worried for the safety of Jews around the world.

But his accusations of antisemitism come as he has repeatedly sidestepped accountability for not preventing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people and took 250 hostage, which many in Israel’s defense establishment acknowledge they shoulder the blame for.

Netanyahu has continued to face criticism at home and abroad throughout the war, which has killed 35,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between fighters and noncombatants. The fighting has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe, and ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has accused Netanyahu and his defense minister of using starvation as a “method of warfare,” among other crimes.

Segev, the historian, acknowledged there is a rise in “violent hate” toward Israel and, speaking from Vienna, said he wasn’t sure if speaking Hebrew in public was safe. But he said Netanyahu has long used Jewish crises to his political benefit, including invoking the Jewish people's deepest trauma, the Holocaust, to further his goals.

At the height of the campus protests, Netanyahu released a video statement condemning their “unconscionable” antisemitism and comparing the mushrooming encampments on college greens to Nazi Germany of the 1930s.

“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific,” he said.

In response to Khan seeking the arrest warrants, he said the ICC prosecutor was “callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world,” comparing him to German judges who approved of the Nazis' race laws against Jews.

Those comments drew a rebuke from the European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell. “The prosecutor of the court has been strongly intimidated and accused of antisemitism — as always when anybody, anyone does something that Netanyahu’s government does not like,” Borrell said. “The word antisemitic, it’s too heavy. It’s too important.”

Netanyahu has compared accusations that Israel’s war is causing starvation in Gaza or that the war is genocidal to blood libels — unfounded centuries-old accusations that Jews sacrificed Christian children and used their blood to make unleavened bread for Passover.

“These false accusations are not levelled against us because of the things we do, but because of the simple fact that we exist,” he said at a ceremony marking Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day earlier this month.

Netanyahu previously made repeated allusions to the Holocaust while trying to galvanize the world against Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli leaders and the country's media also made such comparisons about Oct. 7, describing the Hamas attackers as Nazis, comparing their rampage to the historic violence inflicted on Eastern European Jews, and referring to the images of Jewish victims' burned bodies as a Shoah — the Hebrew word for Holocaust.

Israelis have been jarred by the global rise in antisemitism, and many view the swell of criticism against Israel as part of the rise. They see hypocrisy in the world's intense focus on Israel's war with Hamas while other conflicts get much less attention.

Moshe Klughaft, a former advisor to Netanyahu, said he believes the Israeli leader is genuinely concerned over rising antisemitism.

“It is his duty to condemn antisemitism as prime minister of Israel and as head of a country that sees itself as responsible for world Jewry,” he said.

Many Israelis view the war in Gaza as a just act of self-defense and are befuddled by what many think should be criticism directed at Hamas — blaming the group for starting the war, using Palestinian civilians as human shields and refusing to free the hostages. The ICC warrant requests have likely bolstered such feelings.

When Netanyahu leans on accusations of antisemitism, he is doing so with the Israeli public in mind, said Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Hazan said Netanyahu has leveraged the campus protests, for example, to get Israelis to rally around him at a time when his public support has plummeted and Israelis are growing impatient with the war. He said Netanyahu has also used the protests as a scapegoat for his failure so far to achieve the war’s two goals: destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages.

“He deflects blame from himself, attributing any shortcomings not to his foreign policies or policies in the (Palestinian) territories, but rather to antisemitism. This narrative benefits him greatly, absolving him of responsibility,” Hazan said.

Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think thank, rejects the notion that Netanyahu stifles criticism by calling it antisemitic, pointing to just how much criticism the country receives. But he said using the antisemitic label to achieve political ends could cheapen it.

"I’d be more selective than the government of Israel in choosing the people and bodies they tag ‘antisemitic,’” he said.

Halifax2TheMax

mickeyrat said:

https://apnews.com/article/israel-netanyahu-antisemitism-campus-05ebd71bec931a62f58e7d5f9e93fa19   Netanyahu frequently makes claims of antisemitism. Critics say he's deflecting from his own problems

 

Israel government

Netanyahu frequently makes claims of antisemitism. Critics say he's deflecting from his own problems

By TIA GOLDENBERG

Today

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — After the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his defense minister and top Hamas officials, the Israeli leader accused him of being one of “the great antisemites in modern times.”

As protests roiled college campuses across the United States over the Gaza war, Netanyahu said they were awash with “antisemitic mobs.”

These are just two of the many instances during the war in which Netanyahu has accused critics of Israel or his policies of antisemitism, using fiery rhetoric to compare them to the Jewish people's worst persecutors. But his detractors say he is overusing the label to further his political agenda and try to stifle even legitimate criticism, and that doing so risks diluting the term's meaning at a time when antisemitism is surging worldwide.

“Not every criticism against Israel is antisemitic,” said Tom Segev, an Israeli historian. “The moment you say it is antisemitic hate ... you take away all legitimacy from the criticism and try to crush the debate.”

There has been a spike in antisemitic incidents since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, according to researchers. And many Jews in North America and Europe have said they feel unsafe, citing threats to Jewish schools and synagogues and the pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations in the U.S., although organizers deny that antisemitism drives the protests.

The war has reignited the long debate about the definition of antisemitism and whether any criticism of Israel — from its military's killing of thousands of Palestinian children to questions over Israel's very right to exist — amounts to anti-Jewish hate speech.

Netanyahu, the son of a scholar of medieval Jewish persecution, has long used the travails of the Jewish people to color his political rhetoric. And he certainly isn't the first world leader accused of using national trauma to advance political goals.

Netanyahu’s supporters say he is honestly worried for the safety of Jews around the world.

But his accusations of antisemitism come as he has repeatedly sidestepped accountability for not preventing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. Hamas killed roughly 1,200 people and took 250 hostage, which many in Israel’s defense establishment acknowledge they shoulder the blame for.

Netanyahu has continued to face criticism at home and abroad throughout the war, which has killed 35,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between fighters and noncombatants. The fighting has sparked a humanitarian catastrophe, and ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has accused Netanyahu and his defense minister of using starvation as a “method of warfare,” among other crimes.

Segev, the historian, acknowledged there is a rise in “violent hate” toward Israel and, speaking from Vienna, said he wasn’t sure if speaking Hebrew in public was safe. But he said Netanyahu has long used Jewish crises to his political benefit, including invoking the Jewish people's deepest trauma, the Holocaust, to further his goals.

At the height of the campus protests, Netanyahu released a video statement condemning their “unconscionable” antisemitism and comparing the mushrooming encampments on college greens to Nazi Germany of the 1930s.

“What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific,” he said.

In response to Khan seeking the arrest warrants, he said the ICC prosecutor was “callously pouring gasoline on the fires of antisemitism that are raging across the world,” comparing him to German judges who approved of the Nazis' race laws against Jews.

Those comments drew a rebuke from the European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell. “The prosecutor of the court has been strongly intimidated and accused of antisemitism — as always when anybody, anyone does something that Netanyahu’s government does not like,” Borrell said. “The word antisemitic, it’s too heavy. It’s too important.”

Netanyahu has compared accusations that Israel’s war is causing starvation in Gaza or that the war is genocidal to blood libels — unfounded centuries-old accusations that Jews sacrificed Christian children and used their blood to make unleavened bread for Passover.

“These false accusations are not levelled against us because of the things we do, but because of the simple fact that we exist,” he said at a ceremony marking Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day earlier this month.

Netanyahu previously made repeated allusions to the Holocaust while trying to galvanize the world against Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli leaders and the country's media also made such comparisons about Oct. 7, describing the Hamas attackers as Nazis, comparing their rampage to the historic violence inflicted on Eastern European Jews, and referring to the images of Jewish victims' burned bodies as a Shoah — the Hebrew word for Holocaust.

Israelis have been jarred by the global rise in antisemitism, and many view the swell of criticism against Israel as part of the rise. They see hypocrisy in the world's intense focus on Israel's war with Hamas while other conflicts get much less attention.

Moshe Klughaft, a former advisor to Netanyahu, said he believes the Israeli leader is genuinely concerned over rising antisemitism.

“It is his duty to condemn antisemitism as prime minister of Israel and as head of a country that sees itself as responsible for world Jewry,” he said.

Many Israelis view the war in Gaza as a just act of self-defense and are befuddled by what many think should be criticism directed at Hamas — blaming the group for starting the war, using Palestinian civilians as human shields and refusing to free the hostages. The ICC warrant requests have likely bolstered such feelings.

When Netanyahu leans on accusations of antisemitism, he is doing so with the Israeli public in mind, said Reuven Hazan, a political scientist at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University.

Hazan said Netanyahu has leveraged the campus protests, for example, to get Israelis to rally around him at a time when his public support has plummeted and Israelis are growing impatient with the war. He said Netanyahu has also used the protests as a scapegoat for his failure so far to achieve the war’s two goals: destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages.

“He deflects blame from himself, attributing any shortcomings not to his foreign policies or policies in the (Palestinian) territories, but rather to antisemitism. This narrative benefits him greatly, absolving him of responsibility,” Hazan said.

Shmuel Rosner, a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a Jerusalem think thank, rejects the notion that Netanyahu stifles criticism by calling it antisemitic, pointing to just how much criticism the country receives. But he said using the antisemitic label to achieve political ends could cheapen it.

"I’d be more selective than the government of Israel in choosing the people and bodies they tag ‘antisemitic,’” he said.

Some posters should take note of the bold.

mickeyrat

https://apnews.com/article/new-york-urse-fired-genocide-israel-palestinians-55c694d6a0c64b1612262310dc208124   A nurse honored for compassion is fired after referring to Gaza 'genocide' in speech

 

A nurse honored for compassion is fired after referring to Gaza 'genocide' in speech

By KAREN MATTHEWS

Today

NEW YORK (AP) — A nurse was fired by a New York City hospital after she referred to Israel's war in Gaza as a “genocide” during a speech accepting an award.

Labor and delivery nurse Hesen Jabr, who is Palestinian American, was being honored by NYU Langone Health for her compassion in caring for mothers who had lost babies when she drew a link between her work and the suffering of mothers in Gaza.

“It pains me to see the women from my country going through unimaginable losses themselves during the current genocide in Gaza,” Jabr said, according to a video of the May 7 speech that she posted on social media. “This award is deeply personal to me for those reasons.”

Jabr wrote on Instagram that she arrived at work on May 22 for her first shift back after receiving the award when she was summoned to a meeting with the hospital's president and vice president of nursing “to discuss how I ‘put others at risk’ and ‘ruined the ceremony’ and ‘offended people’ because a small part of my speech was a tribute towards the grieving mothers in my country.”

She wrote that after working most of her shift she was “dragged once again to an office” where she was read her termination letter and then escorted out of the building.

A spokesperson for NYU Langone, Steve Ritea, confirmed that Jabr was fired following her speech and said there had been “a previous incident as well.”

“Hesen Jabr was warned in December, following a previous incident, not to bring her views on this divisive and charged issue into the workplace,” Mr. Ritea said in a statement. “She instead chose not to heed that at a recent employee recognition event that was widely attended by her colleagues, some of whom were upset after her comments. As a result, Jabr is no longer an NYU Langone employee."

Ritea did not provide any details of the previous incident.

Jabr defended her speech in an interview with The New York Times and said talking about the war “was so relevant” given the nature of the award she had won.

“It was an award for bereavement; it was for grieving mothers,” she said.

Gaza's Ministry of Health says that more than 36,000 people have been killed in the territory during the war that started with the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Around 80% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has been displaced and U.N. officials say parts of the territory are experiencing famine.

Critics say Israel's military campaign amounts to genocide, and the government of South Africa formally accused the country of genocide in January when it asked the United Nations’ top court to order a halt to Israeli military operations in Gaza.

Israel has denied the genocide charge and told the International Court of Justice it is doing everything it can to protect Gaza's civilian population.

Jabr is not the first employee at the hospital, which was renamed from NYU Medical Center after a major donation from Republican Party donor and billionaire Kenneth Langone, to be fired over comments about the Mideast conflict.

A prominent researcher who directed the hospital's cancer center was fired after he posted anti-Hamas political cartoons including caricatures of Arab people. That researcher, biologist Benjamin Neel, has since filed suit against the hospital.

Jabr's firing also was not her first time in the spotlight. When she was an 11-year-old in Louisiana, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on her behalf after she was forced to accept a Bible from the principal of her public school.

“This is not my first rodeo,” she told the Times.

mickeyrat

gift op-ed

https://wapo.st/455He0b 

 Opinion | The latest mass killing of civilians brings Israel to an inflection point
Opinion by Jennifer Rubin
Columnist
May 30, 2024 at 7:45 ET
The latest mass casualty event in Gaza, the accidental killing of at least 45 civilians in a horrific fire set off by shelling, echoes the killing of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers last month. After that tragedy, fierce condemnation forced Israel to increase humanitarian aid and intensify efforts to “deconflict” (i.e., take measures to prevent accidental killings). Now, in the wake of the killing of 45 innocents, pressure on Israel mounts again. As a result, two starkly different possibilities emerge: another cycle of recrimination and Israeli defiance, fueled by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal desperation to remain in power, or domestic and international pressure galvanizing to bring about a negotiated end to the ordeal.
As unlikely as the latter may seem, there are precedents for it. “When a single Israeli action has resulted in a civilian death toll that the world cannot tolerate, it’s often become a tipping point in the course of conflict,” writes Dan Perry for the Forward. “Perhaps the most well-remembered such case was Israel’s 2006 shelling of Qana in Lebanon, which killed more than 100 displaced people. Outrage over the Qana massacre was so extreme that the strike ended up being one of the final actions in Israel’s (quite justifiable) ‘Grapes of Wrath’ operation against Hezbollah terrorists.”
With the investigation ongoing, the precise sequence of events is as yet unknown. “The Israeli military is investigating the possibility that munitions stored near a compound in Gaza hit by an air strike on Sunday may have caught fire, killing more than 40 civilians, a spokesperson said on Tuesday,” Reuters reported. “Chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said it was still unclear what set off the deadly blaze in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, but added that the 17 kilogram munitions used in the strike were believed to be too small to have set off such a big fire.”
Whatever the specifics of this incident, the deaths would not have occurred but for Israel’s incursion. Accordingly, the Israeli government finds itself the target of international condemnation. The government’s response did not help matters. As Israeli press reported, Netanyahu was silent for nearly 24 hours and then merely expressed regret over a “a tragic mishap” and promised the Knesset he would investigate.

continues.....

HughFreakingDillon

Lerxst1992 said:

pjl44 said:

mickeyrat said:

flaw in the premise about harboring. as if the general population has any power over those with the guns. 

second unmentioned thing is since a plurality voted them in, there has been no other election to vote them out.

For the record, I don't like the "voted them in" argument because it's typically used as a way to imply or outright accuse the Palestinian people of being complicit. Don't like it for the exact reason you stated and several others.

My point was if this involved the United States any country initiating the original battle would have been leveled and destroyed by now. Not in any way comparable to what israel is now doing

If the palestinian people wanted to turn on hamas, we would have seen some evidence of that

 if any country tried anything close to this, to what hamas did to Israel on October 7th, the United States of America military would completely level and decimate any country that tried to do this to them.

But in this case the Palestinians have come up with the nonsensical genocide argument (to get the woke support) which people have to realize that's an insulting thing to say to an Israeli

 If you want to discuss genocide let's read Geddy Lee's book together and we can discuss genocide. That was genocide.

Why is your benchmark “well it’s not as bad as what the US would do”?. That’s a pretty terrible benchmark, and not the standard we should be employing. As the “wars” in the mid east since 9/11 have shown us.