Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

Yeah mine too, sorry.

it's both enraging and deadening that this is what gets the slaughter on the front of all of the papers

That wasn’t my point tbf, it was about the parallels of prolonged starvation on the civilian populace & the murder of people trying to alleviate entirely preventable suffering

It's enraging but unsurprising that this is what gets the greatest attention. At the same time, I have some hope that it will be a crystalizing moment and that it will open people's eyes to the way the IDF has been operating in Gaza.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai-database-hamas-airstrikes

Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants.

"You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people – it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” one intelligence officer said."

That wasn’t my point tbf

Yeah fair point - I wrote something connecting to your point but took it out, and left in that you were otm because you were

I'm trying to read the +972 report that that Guardian article is based on, and it is extremely difficult to get through (https://www.972mag.com/lavender-ai-israeli-army-gaza/). I was going to post a quote but it's honestly too disturbing.

oops I just posted this in the AI thread.

oops I just posted this in the AI thread.

That piece is just AI providing cover for the IDF. Not finished the piece but I'm not sure why 972 is entertaining it.

It doesn't read that way to me at all, but maybe because I've read a lot about machine learning and automated systems, so the idea that deciding to use AI could ever be exculpatory is a non-starter

Yeah it doesn’t strike me as remotely exculpatory.

AI churning out a list that no-one cares to check through is the IDF telling themselves a tale about these "terrorists", to me.

Must repeat I like what 972 do.

Struggling to see how the IDF comes out of that article anything other than very very very badly.

To bring in a first year law school term, it shows what you'd call reckless indifference to human life. I mean I guess it's one half notch better than literally just saying "Hey, let's bomb the shit out of as many civilians as we possibly can," but I never assumed that was how the decision making process went.

Interesting side story about military conscription in Israel:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/04/israel-ultra-orthodox-jews-haredim-benjamin-netanyahu-court-military-conscription-gaza-war

It's definitely an interesting and complex flashpoint in Israeli politics. I think I said upthread there's a chance it could undo the current governing coalition. The more secular side of society perceives the haredim as kind of like religious welfare queens. However there's a minority among them who consider themselves against zionism for religious reasons, don't take money from the government, and don't accept the state, and some of them descend from pre-Israel communities. Service in the army would radically change a lot of these communities, which are often fairly closed off from the rest of the country.

yeah, I just heard an NPR story about anti-zionist haredim living in Israel.. they consider themselves residents of Palestine based on some obscure religious texts. This was news to me

The role of haredim and orthodox judaism in the state have been controversial from the outset. I've heard some experts claim that it was just assumed in early zionism that they'd remain a small community and not that significant, so concessions could be made, but now their demographics have grown a lot and they are also more prone to voting than they used to be

(although I don't think the anti-zionist minority vote, tbc)

I have a buddy from Tel Aviv and he claims that the worst and most violent of the settlers are all from Brooklyn and LA

I can't claim to know but it wouldn't surprise me. Being born there vs moving there for purely ideological reasons.

I've never been to a settlement or to my knowledge met a west bank settler.

I definitely have frequent disturbing thoughts about the thought of some of those settlers being in the army and probably being the ones most likely to commit atrocities in Gaza. However those are typically what you call religious nationalists, which is different from the Haredi.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-04/ty-article/.premium/doctor-at-idf-field-hospital-for-detained-gazans-we-are-all-complicit-in-breaking-law/0000018e-a59c-dfed-ad9f-afdfb5ce0000

UK isn't a big arms exporter anyway but it's mildly interesting to see this talked about openly.

"I think it's the right time to make that move."

Former National Security Advisor Lord Darroch tells @KirstyWark he believes the UK should halt arms exports to Israel: "As a symbol of what we think about things and how we assess the Israeli action" #Newsnight pic.twitter.com/SLzoAPBmBB

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) April 4, 2024

but don’t expect any acknowledgment that the people who were saying this five months ago were right

Of course it's mostly demob happy Tories who are speaking up now - the Starmer Party are keeping schtum.

was watching a novaro vid where they were discussing David Mencer, the guy who said Corbyn was as much a threat to British Jews as Hitler was in 30's Germany while he was spokesperson for Labour Friends of Israel. Now he's a professional lying scumbag for the IDF.

he was director of Labour Friends of Israel, not a spokesperson

The same guy who just got chucked off Channel 4 News for spouting propaganda.

All ground forces from the southern Gaza Strip have been withdrawn overnight.

Among the conditions stipulated by Hamas’ leader, Haniyeh, yesterday for negotiating a ceasefire was IDF withdrawal as a starting point.

IDF suffered a heavy loss in Khan Younis yesterday also. pic.twitter.com/da3NxjtdaN

— Naks Bilal (@NaksBilal) April 7, 2024

Palestinian writer and resistance fighter Walid Daqqa, the longest-serving “security prisoner” in Israel, has died after nearly 40 years in captivity.

He wrote this last year, about his daughter Milad, and life in “the place without a door.” 💔 https://t.co/YVL88QCe5M pic.twitter.com/9txb1bUfGz

— Max Granger (@_maxgranger) April 7, 2024

Gets worse.

Walid Daqqa’s body will be held captive until March 2025, “to complete his sentence.” Even in death, his family is denied a last embrace. https://t.co/3eVLbcAATX

— علياء (@wabialiasabi) April 8, 2024

Hamas has held bodies of Israelis as bargaining chips numerous times over the years (notwithstanding their current holding of both live and dead hostages).

I also think it's worth noting that Daqqa was serving a life sentence for his involvement in an abduction and killing, and that he died of terminal cancer. I still don't see a purpose in holding his body, and fwiw Haaretz argued he should have been released when he was terminal. But those tweets make it sound like he was purely a political prisoner and was tortured to death. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-05-30/ty-article-opinion/israel-must-free-walid-daqqa/00000188-6e35-de23-ad8d-ffbd93b40000

this follow on tweet on the twitter thread about Walid Daqqa -

No world where we should be asked to “forgive” Israelis for what they’ve done and continue to do. Go away with that infuriating crap. I can barely contain the rage I feel every day, let alone the tremendous grief. Cruel, genocidal, narcissistic shits deserve nothing but contempt.

Daqqah was not convicted of carrying out the murder himself, but of commanding the group, an accusation he always rejected, and his conviction was based on British emergency regulations dating back to 1945, which require a much lower standard of proof for conviction than Israeli criminal law.

The idea that we should just "trust" the Israeli courts, or the state of Israel, about anything, is out the window. It's all lies, all the time.

yeah, it's easier to take North Korean statements at face value at this point

What does the term "security prisoner" mean?

It sounds like he wasn’t even tried but may have been charged and just held in remand forever.

yeah that's more to the point. is "security prisoner" what people in administrative detention are called?

ah I see table was quoting Amnesty International there. He was tried, but by a military court, which is indefensible imo:

https://amnesty.ca/human-rights-news/death-in-custody-of-walid-daqqah-is-cruel-reminder-of-israels-disregard-for-palestinians-right-to-life/

The murders of Ismail Haniyeh's children and grandchildren in targeted strikes in Gaza is part of a pattern of the IDF sabotaging negotiations.

In the last Gaza war, Israel struck apartment buildings housing 3 PIJ commanders who were to go to ceasefire talks *that morning*. pic.twitter.com/HmB94aPtEZ

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) April 10, 2024

I definitely have frequent disturbing thoughts about the thought of some of those settlers being in the army and probably being the ones most likely to commit atrocities in Gaza. However those are typically what you call religious nationalists, which is different from the Haredi.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Thursday, April 4, 2024 2:46 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Welp:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/top-idf-commander-in-aid-strike-wanted-to-block-humanitarian-supplies-into-gaza/ar-BB1lt1ub?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=DCTS&cvid=cefa68152f5748078061f850c6eb4cf9&ei=13
"he most senior IDF commander dismissed for his role in the drone strike which killed seven aid workers in Gaza is a settler who signed an open letter in January calling for the territory to be deprived of aid, The Telegraph can reveal."

"In the letter, Col. Mandel, a religious nationalist who lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, called with more than 130 other reserve officers and commanders for the flow of aid into Gaza to be restricted."

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/opinion/israel-hamas-rafah-gaza.html

NY Times finds Professor who believes Israel can "take Rafah and smash Hamas’s last organized military formations and its governing structures"

Benny Morris devotes zero sentences to what will happen in Gaza after the smashing of the remaining governing structures

That has always been the problem. I never doubted that Israel could "smash Hamas's organized military formations and its governing structures," it's the destruction of so much else along with that and the lack of a viable plan for after that that's the problem.

So...

World War III here we come.