Israel to World: "Suck It."

looks like i'm going to israel again this summer (third visit)

where will you be? my parents visited friends in tekoa a few weeks ago

haifa (visiting baha'i holy sites)

might visit a friend in tel aviv, but we're not really supposed to tourist around

akka too

might get in a side trip to bethlehem also

sorry i mean nazareth, not bethlehem

embarrassing

‏@AliAbunimah
Lol. Netanyahu told New Zealand backing UN resolution would be “declaration of war”

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.761706

@DougHenwood
As someone pointed out somewhere, Israel is doing to itself what it hates BDS for - isolating the country from the world.

http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/uk-criticism-us-kerry/

A British government spokesperson said: “We do not believe that the way to negotiate peace is by focusing on only one issue, in this cases the construction of settlements, when clearly the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is so deeply complex.

“And we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically-elected government of an ally. The Government believes that negotiations will only succeed when they are conducted between the two parties, supported by the international community.”

Do the people in Israel who think Elor Azaria should be pardoned (including some politicians not of the right like Yachimovich) dispute what the judges agreed were the facts of the case (i.e. that he fatally shot an attacker who'd been subdued and was lying wounded on the ground) or do they disagree with the IDF policy that it's illegal to execute subdued prisoners who are lying wounded on the ground? This one is really hard for me to understand as an American Jew, I thought was the kind of outcome liberal Zionists like me were supposed to deploy as evidence that Israel punishes freelance ethnic murderers in a way its neighbors don't.

The apologia I've most often heard is that the soldier was afraid the terrorist was still a potential threat (like maybe playing opossum) but I agree it's a hard defense to understand and his legal teams argument was even more absurd. They argued the guy was already dead so the shot didn't kill him. I assume it's more about not punishing soldiers for killing terrorists no matter the circumstances. It's still far better than the US where a sizable part of population defend cops who murder black ppl in cold blood who weren't even attempted murderers just moments before (and then get let off by the legal system).

It's still far better than the US where a sizable part of population defend cops who murder black ppl in cold blood who weren't even attempted murderers just moments before

tbf a sizable part of the population thinks of any black man 13 and up as an attempted murderer who only by chance may not have been attempting to murder someone at the exact moment he was apprehended

If the comments on this article

http://www.timesofisrael.com/elor-azaria-and-israels-moral-core/

are any indication, there are definitely people in Israel who take the second view I described above: namely that a terrorist should be summarily executed if you have him in custody. It is.... unsettling.

If I can love America while keeping my eyes open to the fact that there are lots of really terrible Americans -- and I do -- I can love Israel while keeping my eyes open to the fact that there are lots of really terrible Israelis. Still, it stings.

it seems like a really dumb opinion too just from a pragmatic pov. don't prisoners have value as bargaining chips, or sources of intelligence? and since these stabbing attacks seem mostly suicide by soldier anyway it's just giving them what they want. idgi.

israelis are nuts. my boss is israeli. =|

Also I'll bet 75% of comments on that page (which is an English-language paper) are US basement hardmen letting you know how tough THEY'D be if they were in the idf

yeah i was gonna say the american right-wing zionists (esp those who ultimately make aliyah to the territories) are really the worst (where worse = more jingoistic, martial nationalism). which maybe shouldn't be such a shock bc even tho our (where our = diaspora cosmopolitan jewry) values are antithetical to theirs, our nation as a whole is v accommodating + even incubates these sentiments where there's a v real phenomenon of [some of] US jewry actually radicalizing israel.

It just sucks ass that an American Jew like me feels like maybe I could never move to Israel because it's been ruined by American Jews

so i heard this "divided the country", are people really 50-50 about whether it was a bad thing to do or not? seems like the judges weren't split

One poll was 84% supportive of letting him off but i don't know how representative that is.

There's a fairly similar case in the UK at the moment with a Royal Marine who was filmed murdering an injured and unarmed Afghan fighter - and telling his colleagues to keep quiet about it as he was breaking the Geneva convention. He was convicted but there has been a huge press campaign supported by a number of major newspapers to get him out of jail, ostensibly on a PTSD defence but, in practice, because nobody cares if soldiers kill 'hostile' targets whether they are a threat or not. I wouldn't be hugely surprised if a majority backed that here.

I started talking with an Israeli-American at the dog park a couple of nights after the election, and the theory he landed on was that the persecution of Jews in Trump's America would inspire liberal Jewish Americans to make aliyah in such large numbers that they would somehow vote in a Palestinian state. A truly amazing blend of unfounded paranoia and unfounded optimism.

summer israel trip postponed for 1-2 years due to family issues

mom says "maybe middle east politics will be more calm in 1-2 years"

i think she's being too optimistic and besides seems pretty calm atm

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/former-israeli-security-chiefs-warn-of-tyranny?CMP=share_btn_tw

Jacques De Maio, who heads the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation to Israel and the PA, asserts: 'There is no IDF order to shoot suspects to kill, as political officials tried to convince us'; he also rejects claims of apartheid: 'There isn't a regime here that is based on the superiority of one race over another; there is no disenfranchisement of basic human rights based on so-called racial inferiority.'

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4953648,00.html

This Palestinian village had solar power — until Israeli soldiers took it away

^ sums up everything wrong with the condition of Israeli politics/policy today.

Former prime minister Ehud Barak, one of the targets of Netanyahu’s sniping, rebuffed Netanyahu’s comments saying “there’s no hunt, there’s corruption.”

Yair Lapid, a former finance minister under Netanyahu who heads the Yesh Atid party, tweeted after the prime minister’s speech that it “crossed every line.” “What we saw this evening wasn’t a rally of support for Netanyahu but a rally in support of corruption,” Lapid said.

Likud leaders put heavy pressure on party activists to attend the rally. The gathering had a festive atmosphere, with activists hoisting Israeli flags, banners criticizing the media and chanting “Bibi, King of Israel,” using his nickname.

Netanyahu, the second-longest serving leader in Israeli history, is engulfed in a series of scandals relating to alleged financial misdeeds and supposed illicit ties to executives in media, international business and Hollywood.

https://apnews.com/bd0c708ddaed4f4387849d6a656bdd74/Netanyahu-rips-media,-opposition-in-face-of-corruption-case

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/magazine/how-arafat-eluded-israels-assassination-machine.html

some shocking details of how sharon was willing to blow up a stadium and commercial airlines to get arafat

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/13/world/middleeast/netanyahu-israel-corruption.html

No, you suck it!

JERUSALEM — The Israeli police recommended on Tuesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be charged with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, casting a pall over the future of a tenacious leader who has become almost synonymous with his country. The announcement instantly raised doubts about his ability to stay in office.

Concluding a yearlong graft investigation, the police recommended that Mr. Netanyahu face prosecution in two corruption cases: a gifts-for-favors affair known as Case 1000, and a second scandal, dubbed Case 2000, in which Mr. Netanyahu is suspected of back-room dealings with Arnon Mozes, publisher of the popular daily Yediot Aharonot, to ensure more favorable coverage.

some shocking details of how sharon was willing to blow up a stadium and commercial airlines to get arafat

― while my dirk gently weeps (symsymsym), Saturday, February 3, 2018 4:35 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

im not shocked by this

a tenacious leader who has become almost synonymous with his country.

the hell he has

lol did you read the article jim?

this is def al capone getting busted for tax evasion

AIPAC panel on freedom of the press in Israel is closed to the press (photo via @AllisonKSommer of Haaretz). pic.twitter.com/wQJoLdTZkt

— Lisa Goldman (@lisang) March 4, 2018

https://www.timesofisrael.com/americans-support-for-israel-among-highest-ever-recorded/

Live blog: Israeli army opens fire as tens of thousands march in Gaza. At least 7 Palestinians killed and more than 500 wounded. https://t.co/4GOeJQ9gUD

— +972 Magazine (@972mag) March 30, 2018

Israel claims its troops opened fire only when it was necessary and in the face of attempts to damage the fence and infiltrate its territory. After a number of recent efforts to break across, the Israeli army has increased its presence in the area. It had already had about 100 snipers deployed before the protest.

“Nothing was carried out uncontrolled; everything was accurate and measured, and we know where every bullet landed,” Israel’s military said in a tweet on Saturday. However, when asked to clarify, it would not provide a specific number of people it believed its forces had struck, and the tweet was later deleted.

this seems like good news: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-cancels-forced-asylum-seeker-deportations-after-deal-with-un-1.5973475

This is a remarkable statement by an Israeli general, translated by @ShunraCat, that the IDF's snipers shoot children not as a personal choice but as policy approved at the highest level https://t.co/LnnZOTgygZ pic.twitter.com/xiIx8VcbCh

— Jon Schwarz (@schwarz) April 23, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/05/07/netanyahu-puts-wrong-foot-forward-by-serving-japans-abe-dessert-in-a-shoe/?utm_term=.52a2726046b6

http://www.instagram.com/p/Bidx3pWgMnF/?utm_source=ig_embed

i'd eat it

As a follow-up to the atrocities this week. On Israel's shoot to maim policy:

as we're all struggling to digest the unconscionable images and numbers coming out of Palestine over the last few days and weeks, it is worth amplifying the fact that the policy of the Israeli state is to shoot to maim, injure, or disable rather than kill.

— kai a. bosworth (@kaibosworth) May 15, 2018

Is that post intended to convey information

Just emphasizing the failure of the policy

I'm just amazed anybody thinks "shoot to hurt" is a believable line, much less a policy that a standing army would comply with - cops don't even bother with such pretense

this post on LGM - by an israeli commenter - is really depressing

http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/05/problem-voters-dont-want-another-path

also a good reminder of why splintering your left wing into various fronts is a terrible idea

we have the trail of tears and such. not to be inflammatory for real but genuinely curious what the israelis call the 1940s/50s relocation of the palestinians

I'm just amazed anybody thinks "shoot to hurt" is a believable line

There are many things to be amazed by - use your imagination.

This was good, published yesterday and written before this week's attrocities:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v40/n10/henry-siegman/the-two-state-solution-an-autopsy-