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

They did finally turn on Volpe after he was convicted

yeah I just read a story from last year where they said Volpe was being released after serving "just" 24 years (out of 30), so they found a way to stay on brand

"swaggering like a cop", how do they come up with such vivid imagery

https://www.timesofisrael.com/likud-polls-as-largest-party-for-first-time-since-oct-7-netanyahu-favored-over-gantz/

well look at that (though if the poll is accurate the election would be very close)

where does the times of israel stand on the partisan spectrum?

Yeah. The polls show what the polls have been showing. The current coalition can't survive an election. In a grim way, it's good news that Netanyahu himself is recovering a bit in the polls; the more an election means the inevitable end of his position as Prime Minister, the more he'll do anything (i.e. prolong the war) in order to make an election impossible. But if he thinks he can hold on in a unity coalition with Gantz and Lapid he'll flush the far-right parties in a heartbeat, I expect. That would give the whole situation a very different (better) look.

That said, it looks like in this poll the opposition might be in position to cobble together a bare majority without Netanyahu.

https://unosat.org/products/3904

This map illustrates a satellite imagery-based comprehensive assessment of damage and destruction to structures within the area of interest in the Gaza Strip. . . . According to satellite imagery analysis, UNOSAT identified 46,223 destroyed structures, 18,478 severely damaged structures, 55,954 moderately damaged structures, and 35,754 possibly damaged structures for a total of 156,409 structures. These correspond to around 63% of the total structures in the Gaza Strip and a total of 215,137 estimated damaged housing units.

“In the United States’ Guantanamo Bay detention camp, nine prisoners were killed in twenty years; in Israel, it’s sixty detainees in ten months.” https://t.co/kynnbrdFk5

— dylan saba (@shaabiranks) August 12, 2024

I'm honestly trying to post less in this thread b/c clearly there isn't much to discuss at this point, but the relative quietening around the genocide (I don't mean on ilx, I mean in general) is hard to accept while revelations like this keep coming.

Haaretz Investigation: Israeli Army Uses Palestinian Civilians to Inspect Potentially Booby-trapped Tunnels in Gaza: https://archive.ph/pEq28

At first it's hard to recognize them. They're usually wearing Israeli army uniforms, many of them are in their 20s, and they're always with Israeli soldiers of various ranks.

But if you look more closely, you see that most of them are wearing sneakers, not army boots. And their hands are cuffed behind their backs and their faces are full of fear. The soldiers call each of them a shawish, an obscure Arabic word of Turkish origin meaning sergeant.

Random Palestinians have been used by Israeli army units in the Gaza Strip for one purpose: to serve as human shields for soldiers during operations.

"Our lives are more important than their lives," soldiers were told. The thinking is that it's better for the Israeli soldiers to remain alive and for the shawishim to be the ones blown up by an explosive device.

This description is one of many obtained by Haaretz, some from combat soldiers, others from commanders. The picture that emerges: In recent months, Israeli soldiers have used human shields in this way all over Gaza; even the chief of staff's office knows.

I want to post more but its just repetition until things get worse.

that's part of the problem too, right? hard to tell when things get markedly worse versus the steady grind of dehumanization, mass murder, disease, starvation, and destruction. even in the article I just posted -- which initially struck me as a remarkable step towards deeply immoral conduct -- there's mention that the IDF did this before during the second intifada, which was news to me.

I worry about being ghoulish though. there was an article yesterday about newborn twins being killed while their father was away registering their births that I thought about posting but decided it was too terrible, too awfully intimate. otoh it mentioned that 115 (iirc) babies have been born and then killed in Gaza since Oct 7, which I didn't know and feels like something one should have to face

There is a quieting of talk on ILX too, fwiw, but since I get flak for bringing it up whenever I do, I have also stopped talking about it.

(as much as i should)

true, obviously this thread is much quieter than it was in previous months, but I don't think I can draw any clear conclusions from that. being fatigued or numbed by how horrible this is is entirely understandable, and probably healthier than my own approach if I'm being honest.

I do get frustrated by the sometimes (imo) inane topics that can generate lots of posts in the USpol thread. but I have to remind myself that posting on ilx is more or less meaningless, so it's not worth hectoring people about. the rejoinders are all predictable and will be basically correct anyway

this is a message board that generated thousands of posts about a Simpsons joke, what do you expect

I'm grateful for the links and news in this thread when it's posted. I'm so saddened and angry and I feel so powerless.

xp
well if you actually want to talk about it: there are dozens of threads about Israel in the archives, and I don't know how many posts but probably more than there are about Ralph Wiggum. so I think the fact that almost no one wants to talk about Israel & Palestine during a major genocide is maybe a little unexpected? I mean I've already said I empathize with people being numbed, but this board doesn't *only* talk about inane stuff

anyway, this was making the rounds yesterday so I assume most have seen it already, but this is well worth reading: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/13/israel-gaza-historian-omer-bartov

It’s probably a good idea to not call people who disagree with you ethnic cleansing deniers and then wonder why the thread’s not getting posted in. Never stopped caring, very much lacking energy for the bullshit that comes with. xps to table

"there was an article yesterday about newborn twins being killed while their father was away registering their births that I thought about posting but decided it was too terrible, too awfully intimate."

I thought above posting that but yes there was a video of the father crying and so was too intimate. I try to steer away from a specific case as its quite a lot to take on.

"hard to tell when things get markedly worse versus the steady grind of dehumanization, mass murder, disease, starvation, and destruction."

Personally I think its quiet because it has been going on for nearly a year now. Nothing to do with genocide denial or AS. Its banal but Gaza has been destroyed, its a reality.

My marker for things getting worse is if/when things escalate between Israel and Iran, and if the US gets involved. More of a geopolitical thing.

I mean there’s not much left to say about the issue on a tiny message board, or much good it will do in the larger world.

the biden admin approved $20B of new weapons for israel today. about $19B of it is F-15s and isn't scheduled to be delivered til 2029.

The Biden administration has approved about $20 billion in new weapons sales to Israel over the next several years, amid fading hopes that a negotiating session scheduled for Thursday would lead to a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release.

Notification of the pending sale was sent to Congress on Tuesday. It includes F-15 fighter jets, 120mm tank ammunition, tactical vehicles, AMRAAM antiaircraft missiles and high-explosive mortars.

The tactical vehicles and about 50,000 mortar cartridges are expected to be delivered starting in 2026. The following year, more than 32,000 120mm tank-ammunition cartridges are estimated to arrive in Israel.

Roughly 50 F-15 fighter jets, along with supplies to modify Israel’s own fighter jets, are expected to start arriving in 2029 — supplies that will cost about $18.82 billion. It was not immediately clear when the AMRAAM antiaircraft missiles would arrive, but the State Department said in a news release that they would be “sourced from new production.”

(https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/08/13/us-israel-f15-sales/)

i didn't see anything in the article about how the sale can be halted. you would think that since the state dept/biden admin handled the sale, a future presidential administration could reverse it. kamala harris is all for selling weapons to israel (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/8/8/harris-campaign-denies-support-for-cutting-off-weapons-transfers-to-israel), so i suppose it doesn't matter

I mean there’s not much left to say about the issue on a tiny message board, or much good it will do in the larger world.

― Bad Bairns (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 14 August 2024 bookmarkflaglink

How do you know? Maybe the President of the US in ten years time is lurking here.

ten years? Ned is too young for that.

"And when they keep coming back and asking me to raise taxes, I'll say: Read My Lips--So Not Gonna Happen!"

It’s probably a good idea to not call people who disagree with you ethnic cleansing deniers and then wonder why the thread’s not getting posted in. Never stopped caring, very much lacking energy for the bullshit that comes with. xps to table

― Romy Gonzalez’s utility infusion (gyac), Wednesday, August 14, 2024 8:19 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I haven't responded to a thing you've written in months, and wasn't addressing you this go-round either.

Whatever it is it’s definitely not ethnic cleansing even though Christian Palestinians haven’t been spared

― mojo dojo casas house (gyac), Friday, December 22, 2023 10:01 AM (seven months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Do you want another go at that

xp wow do you really not get that that was sarcasm?

lmaoooooo

lmaoooooo

sorry, zing glitch

but lmaoooooo

xp sorry I don’t tend to get sarcastic when talking about war crimes

fwiw gyac, it seems i did misread the tone of your post, so i am very sorry.

that said, i also just want to offer an olive branch— i know we actually agree on quite a bit and i don’t want to fight with you or read bad intentions into everything you post or whatever. you don’t have to accept, but know that as of right now, i am trying to treat you with respect and some amount of kindness.

Intentionally preventing polio vaccine from tens of thousands of children expose them to death and suffering. It’s another violation of basic intl law rules and another element of Israel’s war against children https://t.co/9QGO2iZjrK

— Noam Peleg (@NoamPeleg) August 17, 2024

un-paywalled Haaretz piece with testimony from people who served/worked at Sde Teiman: https://archive.is/WoS6k

BREAKING | A truck in Tel Aviv exploded, killing its driver. The cause of the explosion is still unknown. pic.twitter.com/PYSeo7UUbL

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) August 18, 2024

Just as a quantification of destruction its staggering.

If there can ever be a ceasefire how can it be made liveable again?

Staggering piece of reportage, data viz & photography from a team at Bloomberg on the ruin that is Gaza. 42 million tonnes of rubble.

As an historian specializing in *post-WW2 reconstruction* puts it: “Gaza is something never seen before in the history of urbanism.” pic.twitter.com/Q52oxew3ju

— Leigh Phillips (@Leigh_Phillips) August 18, 2024

This is brutal pic.twitter.com/JrtywGBiEs

— Ryan Rozbiani (@RyanRozbiani) August 12, 2024

the israeli military is now just chasing groups of increasingly sick, injured, and exhausted people around the strip, moving them from arbitrary location to arbitrary location. it’s a death march in a limited area https://t.co/i4nyyC4Qpw

— michael wave (@SzMarsupial) August 24, 2024

yeah check out the animated map in this AP article: https://apnews.com/article/gaza-hamas-war-displacement-palestinians-israel-f4833f8faf3cdb683e2ddd964767b438

Yeah, beyond anything...nothing adequate to describe it

Another vile atrocity.

If ISIS did this we would all be appropriately outraged. This building was far older than Notre Dame. Why are we enabling this? https://t.co/Feahsfd6Bz

— Drew Dixon (@deardrewdixon) August 24, 2024

I'm not the only one

Depending on which headline you prefer, Israel has either launched retaliatory fire into Lebanon, or Israel struck first, or it’s an “exchange of fire” prompted by Israel’s assassination of Fuad Shukr. Generally, I like to come away from the news less confused than I was. pic.twitter.com/iStSje4mpb

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) August 25, 2024

?!?!

The rapist from the Sde Teiman Israeli prison camp is now becoming a regular TV show guest in Israel. Inconceivable how this society can exist and be accepted in the modern age. https://t.co/ZnFxPJsqh2

— Séamus Malekafzali (@Seamus_Malek) August 26, 2024

that's sickening but is also 100% something that would definitely happen, and has basically already happened, in the US. someone has probably written a good analysis of this phenomenon in modern mediatized fascism

desantis even became a governor

definitely one of the people I had in mind, though his work at Gitmo isn't as notorious as psychos like
R1ttenhouse or Eddie Gallagher

there are non-US examples too of course (Modi, arguably), and there is plenty of precedent in Israeli history of course