That awkward moment when the genocidal occupying force can’t handle literal facts.
So I guess we make policy choices via temper tantrum nowadays.
They didn’t call the UN chief an anti-Semite. I guess that’s progress right?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/António_Guterres
What a terrible human being, looking at his life filled with works trying to improve people. He should be ashamed, trying to look at the cause instead of the effect of global situations.
But in all seriousness, the chilling effect is real, because he’s the UN secretary general they’re holding back a little bit, but they’re demonstrating for everybody you better not say anything we don’t agree with. And that has a real impact on political speech globally.
According to Hamas’ own charter, “the cause” is that a Jew somewhere in the world has a pulse.
So I think it’s reasonable for us to say, no, we’re not going to address their stated grievances.
You’re getting downvoted because no one here wants to face reality.
I get it. Reality sucks.
Also, people want to see themselves in an underdog. They want a “good guy” to root for.
Or maybe Israelis are the ones who are not facing reality. You keep a malnourished and abused big dog chained in your backyard, you’re going to get bitten sooner or later.
…And now that they’ve been bitten, they’re going to beat it to death, and god help anyone that thinks what they’re doing is cruel and unnecessary (and terrorism, and a war crime).
Hamas is not the underprivileged good guy here. It’s the plight of the Palestinian people, that gives power to Hamas, that is the thing that needs to be addressed.
So saying looking at the situation that enables Hamas to get political power is a reasonable thing for a politician to say. That’s literally the game they play every day. Trying to remove the power from an antagonistic belligerent is a good thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Charter
For what it’s worth Hamas is a political organization, and they respond to political realities, in 2017 they attempted to amend their charter to give them the ability to negotiate.
The 2017 charter accepted for the first time the idea of a Palestinian state within the borders that existed before 1967 and rejects recognition of Israel which it terms as the “Zionist enemy”.[2]
Again, not apologizing for them, not condoning them… but there are political organization that exists in political reality is, and examining the realities that enable them to draw power from a population, is a reasonable thing to do, and in fact the job of a global politician - like the UN Secretary general.
That’s exactly the kind of thinking that the Israeli government had a month ago, that by negotiating with them, they could find mutual self interest. 10/7 has disabused them of that delusion.
When someone says their goal is genocide, you should probably take them at their word.
I take issue with the implication that moving the Palestinians into reservations, and embargoing them from all trade, economic development, and movement is ‘finding mutual self interest’, but sure, fine, lets go with it, I preserve the issue for appeal, but not worth arguing here.
So Israel has been punished for treating The Gaza strip with dignity and mutual self interest… What should the new strategy be?
If the goal is to minimize ongoing future violence, what do you do now?
So Israel has been punished for treating The Gaza strip with dignity and mutual self interest… What should the new strategy be?
I have no idea. I don’t see a path from where we are to peace. But I am realistic about the fact that Hamas isn’t just some club of would-be liberal democrats just yearning for freedom. That’s just not realistic. They don’t want a two-state solution. They don’t want a “Jews still being alive” solution. And increasingly, it doesn’t seem like most Israelis want a two state solution either.
I don’t have a solution for you.
I don’t think anybody here is saying Hamas is a good guy. I haven’t seen a single comment in this thread defending Hamas.
A lot of people however, are rationally, and correctly, pointing out that organizations like Hamas are a symptom of an oppressed people. Like an apartheid state, or slave state, we can look at history for examples of people striking out over and over again. It’s not a justification, it is however an observation based on history. Slave rebellions are bloody affairs, and the innocent are killed, but the solution to slave rebellions is not harder slavery.
The two-state solution is no longer viable. It is impossible to break apart Palestine from Israel. Especially looking at how fractured the West Bank is, all of the Israeli exclaves, and all of the Palestinian reservations or intermixed - one might say even deliberately to prevent a two-state solution from being viable.
I can’t speak for the next 10 to 20 years, but the long-term viable solution in 30 years is going to be a single country encompassing both current Israel and current Palestine, in a secular, non-ethnocentric, non-religious democratic organization. Where people are equal regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or language.
And it’s going to be a very bloody time to get to that stage, but it’s the only stable steady state.
A lot of people however, are rationally, and correctly, pointing out that organizations like Hamas are a symptom of an oppressed people. Like an apartheid state, or slave state, we can look at history for examples of people striking out over and over again.
You can see it that way, but you also have to take Hamas’s stated goal into consideration. Their stated goal is not to liberate their people, it’s to be the new oppressor, and a far worse one than that.
Let’s put it another way. There are around two million Arab Israelis. They’re in the Israeli parliament, they serve in its courts, in the military, etc. Would they be liberated if Hamas achieved its goal? They would probably be viewed as collaborators and executed.
This myth that Hamas are just freedom fighters, like Nelson Mandela or Gandhi, really needs to be dispelled. It has no basis in reality.
There’s this weird urge in the minds of people to try to find a hero story. There’s no hero story. And if groups like Hamas weren’t wreaking havoc in the area for the past 50+ years, realistically, a Palestinian state would probably exist.
I can’t speak for the next 10 to 20 years, but the long-term viable solution in 30 years is going to be a single country encompassing both current Israel and current Palestine, in a secular, non-ethnocentric, non-religious democratic organization. Where people are equal regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or language.
Except no one in the region wants that. Certainly not Hamas.
When was the last time this political organization allowed for democratic elections so the people could have a voice, instead of holding on to power? Was it 17 years ago?
2006/2007 - the results didn’t go the way external parties would have liked…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah–Hamas_conflict
There was a bit of a coup and intervention, and then Palestine was effectively fractured with two defacto governments. As far as I can tell from the internet, Hamas runs as a religious dictatorship since 2007.
A pretty good video summary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=is6hIUw0KzM
Then why did Netanyahu fund them then? The PLO was open to a two state solution.
Hamas gets almost all of its direct funding from Iran and Russia.
Israel, along with the United Nations, United States, EU, etc funds humanitarian projects in Gaza. Some of that aid is surely diverted to Hamas and Hamas controls Gaza, but the moral case for allowing some aid to be diverted to Hamas in exchange for avoiding a humanitarian catastrophe is strong.
I assume they were talking about this
Toward the end of Netanyahu’s fifth government in 2021, approximately 2,000-3,000 work permits were issued to Gazans. This number climbed to 5,000 and, during the Bennett-Lapid government, rose sharply to 10,000.
That’s what counts as empowering Hamas? Letting Palestinians earn a living?
I mean I guess you can spin it that way, but it’s a spurious claim to make.
The whataboutism on this issue is off the charts. If your best defense of Israel’s government is to compare it to a terrorist group, don’t be surprised when people think of it as a terrorist group.
I didn’t mention the Israeli government, except to point out that they were delusional. This isn’t whataboutism.
This is a statement free of whataboutism: Hamas is a terrorist organization intent on killing as many Jews as possible, worldwide, without stopping.
That’s it. No need to expand on that. That’s a statement free of whataboutism.
More than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since the war began, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, the New York Times reported.
I would take this number always with a grain of salt. Keep in mind that this ministry is run by the Hamas and that it immediately made Israel responsible for the shelling of the Hospital parking lot and put up a very high number of casualties for that said parking lot.
Otherweise Israel’s ambassador is acting quite childish in my oppinion and it surely does not help Israel at all to behave in such a way at the U.N. I also have no answer on how to deal with those terrorists of the Hamas, but casually accepting civilian casualites without much precision is definitely not the right thing to do…
And of course nothing that is happening there in the middle east is happening in a vacuum. Neither Israel or the people of Palestine lived in peace in the last decades.
More than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since the war began, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, the New York Times reported.
I would take this number always with a grain of salt.
Understandable, it’s a claim made by a partisan faction after all. That said, according to this random X/Twitter account the IDF itself claimed two days ago to have made “over 10,000 targeted strikes” on Gaza since the beginning of the current conflict, so the casualty number given by Hamas works out to about 0.57 fatalities per strike, which doesn’t seem like that outlandish a claim to me given how densely populated Gaza is.
Even if you halve that number, it still more than 2,500 people so far.
It’s appropriate to call Hamas terrorists and monsters.
It’s also appropriate to call the Israeli response extremely excessive- and appropriate to point out that the powers that are created this mess specifically to gain/keep power in Israel.
Both things can be true.
It’s also worth pointing out, that if you figure for every civilian killed, they’re making another Hamas soldier? Or whatever it is that comes after Hamas?
It’s also appropriate to call the Israeli response extremely excessive- and appropriate to point out that the powers that are created this mess specifically to gain/keep power in Israel. Both things can be true.
I absolute agree!
People keep bringing up the parking lot incident as if admitting that there isn’t definitive proof it wasn’t Israel is the same thing as proof that is was Hamas, and errors in reporting mean nothing reported is credible. Building your propaganda model on split hairs is back-firing badly for you. Humanistic Judaism can not be constrained by the straight-jacket of colonial Zionism.
The Undisputed Facts in Gaza Are Enough by Eric Levitz
The case for a ceasefire in Gaza does not rest on Israel’s culpability for any single air strike. The undisputed facts are more than enough to indicate that Israel’s campaign against Hamas has featured a callous disregard for civilian suffering. We don’t need to rely on Hamas to know that Israel has cut off food, fuel, electricity, and water to much of Gaza’s population. Israel’s own government has told us that. Similarly, data from the Gaza Health Ministry is not our only indication that there have been massive civilian casualties in Gaza. The U.N. tells us that Gaza is running out of body bags, while photos published by the IDF portray the large-scale decimation of civilian infrastructure.
Fact is, that hospital disaster wouldn’t have happened if Hamas hadn’t slaughtered 1500 people in their homes.
Are you making a justification for a hospital bombing?
How in the fuck did you get that from my comment?
Confirming your complete lack of irony.
What’s ironic here? Sorry, I really do have a problem recognizing irony.
While the hospital disaster wouldn’t have happened if not for the attack, the attack also wouldn’t have happened if not for the blockades, terrorization of Palestinians, demolition of houses, and non stop settler violence everywhere even in the West Bank.
Fact is, Hamas slaughering 1400 people wouldn’t have happened if Israel hadn’t oppress the Palestine people for more than 50 years. That is what UN chief is saying, because they’ve been calling out Israel bs for a long time. Israel have the power themselves to stop the cycle of hate, but they didn’t, instead they intensified it.
This is also true. It’s possible to hold more than two thoughts in your head.
Israel’s response is not a force of nature.
No, I agree. I just mean that Hamas wanted to sow chaos and destruction by doing what they did, and well, that’s what they got. It’s still unclear who fired that rocket, whether it was a misfire or whatever, but if Hamas hadn’t attacked, there would be no israeli ground offensive, half of Gaza wouldn’t have been ordered to evactuate, and a lot of innocents would still be alive today.
…And Hamas wouldn’t have wanted to sow chaos and destruction if Israel had been negotiating in good faith since 1967. But they haven’t. So here we are.
Hamas is an entity of Israel’s creation, and was funded by Israel to remove support from other, less militant Palestinian organizations.
Every time there’s been a viable two-state solution presented, Hamas or whoever was the palestinian authroity at the time rejected the proposal because they want all of Israel. That isn’t happening. Israel has agreed to a two state solution multiple times! The representatives of palestine never have. If they had, this situation would’ve stabilized decades ago.
Israel has agreed to a two state solution multiple times!
Certainly not in 1995, or in 2014. They’ve also went back on their own ceasefires with Hamas in 2008 and 2012.
Zionists argue all the way back to several hundreds years B.C. Not that you can always draw an exactly straight line here, but the point should be that no reaction is inevitable, but that we have organized governments here making these decisions every day.
Well, shit, then argue back before that. What of the Babylonians and the Assyrians that the Israelites genocided? What of their ancestors? Shouldn’t they have their land returned to them?
Indeed.
And even beyond respecting human rights and international law, I would also like to add the following.
Israel and Biden are showing a total lack of consideration for the hostages or for foreign nationals stuck in Gaza.
In fact, they are giving priority to opportunistic and illegal land grabs in the West Bank above all else.
The West should put way more pressure on Israel to stop the war crimes they are committing right now, and to put more effort in securing the release and safety of our own citizens.
Hamas attack did not happen in a vacuum, just like Israel acting like this to what the UN chief said did not happen in a vacuum. Israel has been hating on the UN calling out their apartheid for decades now, and it is Israel itself who is principally responsible for removing any meaning from the term antisemitism itself. It is going to find itself very, very alone in the coming decades.
This clearly shows the power of Israel regarding having a public opinion that goes against their book… no one dare speak ill of Israel government narrative
I really believe that this effect is waning, at least with younger people.
Yeah well Israel was offended by the UN sending out an untargeted reminder that the Geneva conventions exist.
Let them seethe and cope.
bad bot, forget word slam. I guess it happended in a vacuum then…
Huh, deja vu.
“Earth exists within a vacuum, therefore UN chief is wrong.”
How DARE the UN chief express the blindingly obvious truth?! The nerve! 🤦
Proud of Guterres’ courage. We share a country and an alma mater and that also makes me proud.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations is calling for the resignation of UN Secretary-General António Guterres after he said the Hamas attack on October 7 in which 1,400 people were killed “did not happen in a vacuum.”
After the statement, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan called Guterres’ speech “shocking” on X, formerly Twitter, saying “the Secretary-General is completely disconnected from the reality in our region.”
“There is no justification or point in talking to those who show compassion for the most terrible atrocities committed against the citizens of Israel and the Jewish people,” he added on the social media platform.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the Palestinian Authority’s foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki also spoke to those assembled Tuesday, both appealing for mitigating harm to civilians in Gaza.
More than 5,700 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since the war began, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza, the New York Times reported.
Since the Israel-Hamas war began this October, Israel has enforced a “complete siege” on the territory, cutting off fuel, electricity and water to a population largely reliant on humanitarian aid.
The original article contains 413 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 54%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Looks like stating simple facts it not acceptable any more …
Oh, no, it’s not that, at all. It’s just a good media manipulation tactic. The Israeli ambassador pitches a fit and calls for his resignation, then the news cycle turns to the spat over whether Guterres should resign, and we forget about the truths he spoke. Truths which are unflattering and inconvenient for Israel. Mission accomplished.
inconvenient truths.
‘did not happen in a vacuum,’ calls for his resignation
Here’s the “vacuum” he was talking about.
