The Israeli government insists that Hamas formally sanctioned sexual assault on October 7, 2023. But investigators say the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny. Catherine Philp and Gabrielle Weiniger report on eight months of claim and counter-claim...
Reddit was in a frenzy over the claim on October 7 itself. The major basis behind it was a video of an Israeli prisoner with what appeared to be blood on the back of her pants. The major worldnews sub banned anyone who questioned the claim. Weeks later it turned out that the blood on her bottom was because she had cut her ankle and was sitting or kneeling in the back of the truck and got it on her pants, not that she had been raped like many assumed.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel on Saturday carried out its largest hostage rescue operation since the latest war with Hamas began, taking four to safety out of central Gaza amid the military’s heavy air and ground assault. At least 210 dead Palestinians, including children, were brought to local hospitals, a health...
Hamas doesn’t exactly pick the most civilian-free areas to set up their base of operations either.
IDF headquarters is in the center of a civilian area in Tel Aviv. By Israeli logic, is firing missiles at Tel Aviv a legitimate military objective? Netanyahu’s bunker is in a crowded civilian area too, why is he using human shields?
The Israeli military had US support in rescuing four captives from Gaza in a “complex daytime operation” in Nuseirat that killed over 200 Palestinians....
The issue here is that the IDF believes Israeli lives are FAR more important than Palestinian lives. How much? They actually have calculated how many Palestinian civilian deaths are acceptable to protect one Israeli soldier.
The problem is Trump could claim “oops I forgot that I agreed with the crowd in 2016” and that is different than intentionally lying. That’s why journalists have to split hairs here; George Santos can be called a liar but saying Trump lied this time is harder. It opens a can of worms; when Biden inevitably gets a detail wrong in another story of his should they call him a liar?
What are you talking about, the Israeli government just announced a record breaking set of new settlement expansion lands. What sanctions did Biden restore or did Trump even add? Biden sanctioned less than 10 individual settlers and then repealed those sanctions under pressure.
That’s untrue, Congress already passed the Lehy law and arms shipments are already bound by that. Biden could have followed the law and stopped weapons shipments based on that or the other law that block aid to countries that block humanitarian aid. Instead Biden bypassed Congress to give more weapons faster, when he didn’t do that for Ukraine.
The state department is not some magically neutral apolitical arbiter, time and time again we see that the president’s political appointees at the top direct the department to act in a way he wants. That means biasing reports; burying reports that say what the president doesn’t want public and commissioning reports to say what the president ultimately wants.
Didn’t we all see how the president leaned on the CIA to play up WMD claims in Iraq?
What in the last 7 months gives you so much faith in the politically-controlled State Department that they’d publicly reach a conclusion Biden doesn’t want?
No. It’s more likely Biden leaned on the State Department to bury their findings. The organization is controlled by political appointees, remember. Typically their reports are a fait accompli. And no, there’s zero talk by Republicans on impeaching Biden over Israel, so you keep repeating this idea with no backing or evidence behind it. The president has broad discretionary powers in foreign policy and can restrict aid as he sees fit, and the courts including SCOTUS have consistently ruled in favor of the presidency on the issue.
Israel is absolutely working in bad faith, and Biden is enabling it. See Biden’s red line not being breached by airstrikes and literal tanks into Rafah according to Israeli government and with Biden rushing to agree after the fact, with excuses that tanks are merely on roads or that the airstrikes are limited under a new just-made up-threshold.
Your link merely says that Biden declared the settlements illegal, with no sanctions behind it. He is not restricting US aid money to the settlements or settlers, nor is he sanctioning businesses doing business in these illegal settlements. Your article points out that Israel defied Biden’s legal opinion and is expanding settlements anyway without US doing anything to stop it. Once again, where are the sanctions?
No they haven’t. Israel has not agreed to the ceasefire and Netanyahu today threw up a bunch of objections to the offer.
And again, please list any sanctions Biden has done against any illegal Israeli settlements. There are none. I’ll wait for you to show me any that prove me wrong.
Netanyahu has said for the last 6 months that returning all hostages is not sufficient for a ceasefire, AND that even if Hamas surrendered tomorrow and gave up all the hostages he would not end the war. That’s one of the reasons for Biden’s Friday speech.
Biden is pretending that Israel is not acting in bad faith even though it’s obvious. Look at how Israel is sending literal tanks into Rafah and 60+ airstrikes a day but claiming this is minor, and Biden doesn’t have the courage to call them on their BS.
“The prime minister himself insisted there would be no permanent truce until Hamas’s military and governing capabilities were destroyed and all hostages released.”
You are giving me links that quote advisors that say Netanyahu is privately agreeing to the plan, but has not done so publicly. The NYTimes and your BBC link is talking about how Netanyahu is struggling with cabinet divisions right now, and if he agrees his coalition may collapse as the extreme right under Ben-Gvir and others pull out of the cabinet.
So you’re giving me rumors and private conjecture, Israel has NOT publicly accepted the deal at this time despite Biden optimistically saying they will this time, like he said multiple times this year including on Jimmy Fallon that a ceasefire was only days away.
Sanctions on just 4 people? There’s hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers, thousands of attacks a year, and hundreds of Palestinians dead in the last 12 months even before October 7. Even 4 per settlement is insultingly low, not 4 in all of the OPT. You can’t even round up to the nearest 10 people; even you know this is a worthless gesture that is nothing more than a political talking point. And Biden walked back those sanctions after pressure from Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich; Israeli banks can now do business with the sanctioned individuals in a special exemption.
Close. All the postwar analysis including mentions in the Senate Report on Iraqi WMD Intelligence and independent reporting (Slow Burn podcast did a good summary) discussed how analysts were pressured to write reports backing up claims of WMDs or pre-assuming WMDs existed and that anyone who wrote reports otherwise was reprimanded from above and their career impacted negatively in a way that others saw and tried not to repeat. Some Bush supporters tried to make the case that the CIA came up with WMD claims on their own and Bush was unwittingly dragged into a war reluctantly because of the bad intelligence and that’s a laughable claim; it was the White House pressuring reports to say what they wanted to hear. Cheney personally set up an office in Langley to drive that point home.
My point still stands; the top levels of the Executive Branch can influence pretty far down into the bureaucrat levels. The White House can pressure the CIA to issue reports that favor the existing policy and bury papers that contradict it. The State Department can issue reports that favor the administration’s foreign policy objectives and bury reports that contradict it. The Trump (and Biden) administrations wielded control over the CDC and issued guidelines that sometimes went against what independent public health experts and the medical community were recommending; promoting ideas with weak evidence and burying other ideas with strong evidence because they contradicted the political policies at the time (see also needle exchange policies vs evidence based public health community recommendations).
lol, as a political scientist that’s ridiculous and false. The Judicial Branch does not have a role in impeachment aside from Chief Justice having a role in the Senate trial. Impeachment is a political process conducted by the Legislative Branch. And impeachment “for high crimes and misdemeanors” does not include wielding his congressionally-authorized power to condition aid or hold aid when the country in question violates the Leahy Laws (which require the US to hold military aid to a country that violates human rights without accountability.
Look at it this way, did the CDC ever openly contradict Trump? They had private disagreements behind closed doors according to a lot of anonymous media reporting, but since the CDC falls under the jurisdiction of HHS the civil service employees fall under the management of political appointees. In contrast, the Fed are a more independent agency designed to be more insulated from politicians and they had no trouble publicly saying no to a president.
I feel like people didn’t learn about this in school or remember it, so let me give a brief summary. Government agencies are staffed from the bottom up by civil service employees. They are hired and promoted based on their technical competence and expertise and can offer expert opinion and manage regulations. They are apolitical and keep their jobs in between presidential administrations. The very top and highest level jobs are politically appointed jobs by the White House and they change when administrations change. Their job is to set the policies for their respective departments and carry them out in accordance with the president’s wishes. If you’d like another example, the civil servants at the department of labor compile statistics on employment and unemployment rates and the president’s Secretary of Labor manages the department at the top and helps set departmental agenda.
My point is that the departments and agencies are not purely independent bodies and by design they are under the control of politicians. We have accountability by both electing a president who controls the staffing and high level decisions and Congress who oversees the functioning and results of each agency. I never said all presidents were equal on this but each one has a lot of control over what each agency PUBLICLY says. Biden essentially controls what ICE or CIA says to the press even if they privately warn him about changes in migrant numbers or WMD programs abroad.
That’s completely incorrect from the Palestinian POV. The Palestinians elected Fatah and Abbas, who had a policy of nonviolence and Israel continued to steal land and shoot Palestinians as a result. Palestinians went to the UN to complain and Israel blocked it and sanctioned Palestinians as a result. Palestinians copied Israel and elected a rightwing party Hamas, a party with a similar platform to fight back and squeeze the other side for concessions. Hamas proposed a ceasefire but Israel violated it by shelling the beach and killing a family, prompting a cycle of violence and blockade with starvation. Palestinians peacefully protested and the Israeli military shot hundreds of them. Israeli settlers engaged in a wave of pogroms in West Bank, dragging Arabs out of cars and beating them and burning down towns. (Also settler raids on Al Aqsa) The first 9 months of 2023 were the deadliest year for Palestinians in 20 years, so Hamas retaliated on October 7 as they warned they would.
Hamas has said explicitly that this was not a war they were hoping for but all their other options were closed.
Hamas has a clear charter and consistent speeches; liberating Palestine from Israeli control. You might not trust them but they’ve been consistent in calling for a Two State Solution since 2004, they kept the majority of ceasefires (Israel broke more ceasefires over the last 20 years than Hamas did) and since Netanyahu has spent years undermining Abbas it means Hamas has more public trust than he does. I don’t trust Likud either since their public charter calls for the total elimination of Palestine, but he’s in power and have to deal with him.
You act like releasing the hostages would end the war. Netanyahu publicly promised that even if all hostages were returned the war would not stop. That’s why he refuses all offers for a ceasefire in exchange for all hostages. He doesn’t care about them, and Israeli protestors and the opposition parties agree.
Likud wanted this fight, and could end it by allowing a two state solution. That would even undermine Hamas politically and give political credence to Abbas and other moderates. But Netanyahu intentionally spent 17 years obstructing that and trapping himself into this corner he made for himself.
No it doesn’t. Extreme rhetoric like yours is actually part of the problem. Like I said, Hamas has been supporting a 2 state solution for 20 years now; freedom for Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza and an end to de jure and de facto discrimination of Palestinians in Israel.
It was discussed during the Hope Hicks testimony and others. After the Access Hollywood tape came out, his poll numbers took a nosedive. He was afraid that a story about cheating on his wife with a porn star would doom the campaign so he arranged to pay hush money to her and talked about on stiffing her on the rest of the payments after the election.
As part of an analysis of how U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, reports from her courtroom show a judge who is both “prickly” and" insecure" and often has trouble understanding what lawyers from both sides try to explain to her....
A career State Department official resigned from her post on Tuesday, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza....
Completely Pulling support is one thing, but “conditioning support” has broad bipartisan public appeal. Bernie Sanders can articulate this well; support for Israeli defense programs like Iron Dome, and cutting support for offensive artillery that’s being used to storm Gaza. Why can’t Biden say the same, instead he’s trying to split hairs on whether tanks into Rafah doesn’t count as a ground invasion (and making himself look stupid in front of voters).
I think a lot of people are kidding themselves if they think there’s no material benefit to the US by keeping Israel as an iron-clad ally in the Middle East
Not at all. Israel is a greater liability than any benefit they provide. Unconditional support for every Israeli aggression makes the US deeply unpopular in the rest of the region when we were previously popular. It undermines all our rhetoric of freedom and human rights when we partner with such a blatant violator of them. Bin Laden spelled out in his 2001 statement that support for Israel’s atrocities is what motivated 9/11, and doubling down on that support only increased terrorism for the next 20 years.
And what do we get out of this ironclad support? Did Israel help us in any of our wars in Iraq or Afghanistan? Do they give us any aid or resources or do they demand them from us?
Israel dismisses any and all criticism, and always complains about medieval history as an ad hominem attack. Turkey complains about Israel killing Turkish civilians? Israel replies something about Turkey mistreating Armenians. German government complains about mistreatment of Palestinians? Call them modern Nazis. Now Spain gets derided as something from nearly 600 years ago.
Nonsense. Israel is claiming there were Hamas commanders responsible for recent West Bank attacks hiding under the tents. How is that possible when Gaza has been sealed and blockaded since 2007? And how are Hamas commanders allegedly in a land cleared by the IDF and in a “safe zone” the IDF told civilians to move to?
The IDF has a miserable track record of being proved to be lying by reporters over and over and over again, and even this claim strains credibility.
lol, so Netanyahu isn’t an extremist who was caught lying multiple times about the existence of Hamas command centers under multiple buildings. You think it’s more likely he’s guided by intelligence reports over his actual ideology or his political and personal motivation to prolong a war to avoid jail time once he’s out of office for corruption?
Western Intelligence hasn’t backed up this claim so stop hiding behind them as if that absolves the crime.
Go ahead and show me IDF prosecuting war criminals in their ranks. I’ll wait. Despite the White House telling the Israeli government which specific divisions committed documented crimes this year alone, there hasn’t been any prosecutions. And I’m not talking about a single case but the hundreds of documented episodes on video of Israeli soldiers supporting pogroms in West Bank. Russia literally prosecuted more pogrom perpetrators than Israel has despite the video proof and more witnesses.
After 24 hours of absolutely awful videos on TV and social media, Netanyahu finally reverses his previous press statement about “precision bombs” and “precision intelligence” targeting a refugee camp in a IDF-designated safe zone and decides to pretend the whole thing was a misunderstanding.
Rashida Tlaib is right, why won’t Biden say anything about his precious red line being violated?
Genocide does not have to exterminate everyone to be considered genocide. Erasing the nation is also a definition of genocide; and Netanyahu has publicly admitted to this. His party charter says to eliminate Palestine. He said he will never allow a Palestinian state, and that Palestinians don’t exist and are just Jordanians. His cabinet has toyed with the idea of forcibly deporting all Palestinians. The ICC and ICJ have spelled out how Netanyahu’s policies meet the definition of genocide.
Yes, even at the time of your posting Israel claimed they were hitting an underground bunker that just magically happened to be there after IDF cleared the entire territory and declared it a “safe zone” and moved civilians into it. None of your original claim is true nor the fault of anyone but Israel, even if we were to buy Israel’s claim which is dubious to begin with.
The IDF cleared the area and then chose to designate it as a safe zone. That’s 100% their responsibility if they herded and encouraged civilians there. Israeli intelligence has a pretty detailed map of the tunnels and have been citing them widely. I do not believe they suddenly discovered a tunnel (since they’re not even claiming a tunnel existed, merely that the Hamas people were underground). AND spokesman Daniel Hagari said that Israel only used two 17kg bombs, which isn’t enough to reach or destroy a tunnel.
Seems obvious I’m talking to someone who only regards Israeli people as evil, attributes everything to malice.
Nope, but keep looking for reasons to dismiss everyone you disagree with so nobody can affect your beliefs with new facts or evidence or logical arguments.
Do you honestly believe Netanyahu loves Palestinians and that the quotes in court were merely cherry-picked? His whole career is against the state of Palestine; it’s even on his damn campaign website and in the party charter. If you can’t be convinced of the blindingly obvious truth I can’t help you.
You can try to attack Sourh Africa as much as you want but Israel’s military ally Egypt also signed onto the charges. So did a lot of NGOs and EU countries. If you want to live in denial then that’s on you, but don’t try lying to the rest of us.
Israel isn’t prosecuting war crimes, actual documented confirmed war crimes by reporters and videos and admissions by the perpetrators and actual official statements by Israeli government officials, which is why it ESCALATED to an ICJ case when other wars don’t. I’m not even referring to the minimal prosecutions like IDF sentenced an Israeli to 3 months of community service as punishment for murdering a Palestinian, but the many others that the government refuses to even investigate or prosecute. The fact that you defend and condone war crimes as part of a war you think is justified tells everyone all we need to know about you. Peace.
Gaza officials say the death toll from Israeli air strikes on a camp housing displaced Palestinians near Rafah in southern part of the strip has risen to 40....
Hamas says it has launched a rocket attack towards the Tel Aviv area in central Israel for the first time in nearly four months. At least eight rockets were launched from the Rafah area in southern Gaza and several were intercepted, the Israeli military says. No injuries have been reported.
Israel has pointedly said that the civilian death toll is irrelevant no matter how big it gets. Killing 3 civilians for every terrorist is considered acceptable numbers by the IDF. For some reason if Hamas uses the same logic to kill 300 soldiers and 900 civilians (many killed by Israeli friendly fire) they’re wrong?
I’m against violence by both sides but this attempt at justifying one and condemning the other is stupid.
Genocide does not have to exterminate everyone to be considered genocide. Erasing the nation is also a definition of genocide; and Netanyahu has publicly admitted to this. His party charter says to eliminate Palestine. He said he will never allow a Palestinian state, and that Palestinians don’t exist and are just Jordanians. His cabinet has toyed with the idea of forcibly deporting all Palestinians. The ICC and ICJ have spelled out how Netanyahu’s policies meet the definition of genocide.
That’s a lame attempt to misdirect; Israel is blocking aid through the crossing. I don’t care what Canada or other countries do when the outcome is the same. And not just aid; Americans were blocked from fleeing Gaza including doctors and medical volunteers and it required the US State Department to pressure Israel into letting them out.
According to JNS, which explicitly says in their donation request at the bottom of the article that they’re trying to defend Israel. No bias there right?
Israel seized the crossing in violation of the treaty. Israel blocked aid until the ICJ chastised them, then they said they’d allow aid through despite blocking it, now the US pressured Egypt to accept their loss and treaty violations and ship things anyway.
Again, like I said above. Israel broke the treaty and seized the crossing. They initially restricted everything and then announced they were opening some of it after international pressure. Egypt then later decided it wasn’t going to play Israel’s game with its seized crossing and didn’t allow stuff to be sent, now they’re relenting on behalf of Palestinians despite the loss of Egyptian property in Israeli theft.
In what way does this make Israel look good in any of this?
One more time. Israel broke the treaty and seized the crossing. Claiming they share control is not true anymore. Egypt is not going to accept this change or play along and validate Israel annexing more land for themselves and you should stop trying to pretend Egypt shares blame in their victimization.
Still wrong. For someone who claims not to defend Israel, that’s all you seem to do on this sub.
The AMA was a deal between Israel and PA but it does not supersede the 1979 Egypt-Israel treaty. Israel doesn’t care if it violates the AMA because it always broke deals with the PA, but the Egypt treaty is different. Israel seized one side of the crossing but they seized the Egyptian side and even got into a firefight with Egyptian soldiers, in open violation of the original treaty and the Philadelphi Accords.
I’m clearly not going to convince you because your post history is only pedantic defense of Israel. So I’m going to leave it here; Israel broke treaties and international laws and tries to keep the thinnest veneer of deniability when it commits its war crimes, but people are seeing through it more and more despite their sophistry. Peace.
Israel says Hamas weaponised rape. Does the evidence add up? (www.thetimes.com)
The Israeli government insists that Hamas formally sanctioned sexual assault on October 7, 2023. But investigators say the evidence does not stand up to scrutiny. Catherine Philp and Gabrielle Weiniger report on eight months of claim and counter-claim...
Israel rescues 4 hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, and 210 Palestinians are reported killed (apnews.com)
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel on Saturday carried out its largest hostage rescue operation since the latest war with Hamas began, taking four to safety out of central Gaza amid the military’s heavy air and ground assault. At least 210 dead Palestinians, including children, were brought to local hospitals, a health...
US involved in Israeli operation in Nuseirat that killed over 200 Palestinians (www.middleeasteye.net)
The Israeli military had US support in rescuing four captives from Gaza in a “complex daytime operation” in Nuseirat that killed over 200 Palestinians....
Israeli military rescues four hostages alive from Gaza, including Noa Argamani (www.nbcnews.com)
Trump falsely claims he didn’t call to lock up Hillary Clinton | CNN Politics (www.cnn.com)
No end to Gaza war until ’destruction’ of Hamas, says Netanyahu (www.theguardian.com)
Live updates: Biden Endorses Israeli Proposal for a Cease-Fire in Gaza (www.nytimes.com)
Washington Post coverage
Breaking: Trump Verdict Livethread
Jury HAS reached a verdict. 11 hours, 43 minutes....
'Confused' Judge Cannon needed concept explained 'slowly' to her in court by lawyers: NYT (www.rawstory.com)
As part of an analysis of how U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, reports from her courtroom show a judge who is both “prickly” and" insecure" and often has trouble understanding what lawyers from both sides try to explain to her....
State Department official resigns after Biden administration says Israel not blocking Gaza aid (www.middleeasteye.net)
A career State Department official resigned from her post on Tuesday, saying she could no longer work for the Biden administration after it released a report concluding that Israel was not preventing the flow of aid to Gaza....
Israel sharpens its tone to Spain: "The Inquisition is over. Those who harm us, we will harm them" (www.elnacional.cat)
Netanyahu Under Fire After Calling Rafah Massacre a 'Tragic Mistake' [Brett Wilkins | May 27, 2024 | Common Dreams] (www.commondreams.org)
cross-posted from: lemmy.world/post/15904702...
Deadly strike on Rafah a tragic mishap, Netanyahu says (www.bbc.com)
At least 40 killed in Rafah after Israeli missiles hit camp for displaced (www.aljazeera.com)
Gaza officials say the death toll from Israeli air strikes on a camp housing displaced Palestinians near Rafah in southern part of the strip has risen to 40....
In light of Israel’s increasing starvation crimes, famine in Gaza Strip must be officially declared - EuroMed Human Rights Monitor (euromedmonitor.org)
Hamas launches rocket attack towards Tel Aviv area (www.bbc.com)
Hamas says it has launched a rocket attack towards the Tel Aviv area in central Israel for the first time in nearly four months. At least eight rockets were launched from the Rafah area in southern Gaza and several were intercepted, the Israeli military says. No injuries have been reported.
After call with Biden, Egyptian president agrees to restore aid flow to Gaza (www.jns.org)
(May 24, 2024 / JNS)...