Starker on 27/10/2024 at 12:06
Whataboutism doesn't render criticism invalid. Otherwise you can endlessly parade issues around and go, "Well, why don't you talk about (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide) Myanmar, why don't you talk about (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Delhi_riots) India?" and so on.
As for accusations of anti-semitism, I think it's blatantly ridiculous and frankly quite transparent if people try to equate any criticism of Israel's government with hating of Jews as an ethnicity. Israel doesn't represent all Jewish people and there are many Jewish people in Israel who are against Israel's current actions and who recognise the terrible civilian cost Israel is enacting on Palestinians as well as the unjust treatment of them in general. There are former IDF soldiers as well as organisations like B'Tselem, for example, who have condemned what Israel has been doing.
As for Sudan, I think it's really a shame Western media isn't talking about it, as it's a terrible humanitarian catastrophe. I certainly would like to know more about it, but the sources are few and far between. There was a guy from Sudan I knew from a small Japanese language learning community. From time to time, he would also talk a bit about the situation in his country -- this was before the big fighting started last year, but there have been conflicts on and off from what I gather for quite a while. He was just an ordinary guy, moderately good with computers and interested in Japanese culture and dreaming of living there some day, and he didn't really talk about the sides of the conflict or the ideology behind it. He just talked about what it's like living in constant danger, not knowing when the electricity was going to be cut off for long periods of time, etc. I hope he is alive and okay.
heywood on 27/10/2024 at 12:06
Quote Posted by SD
Without doubt one of the biggest reasons why people like to single out Israel, even though I could name 50 worse countries off the top of my head, is that it justifies all the bad things they want to believe about Jews. So we get the "Israel is killing children" shouts, which are just a modern twist on the old (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel) blood libel. America's perceived inaction on the conflict is because their politicians are in the pockets of Israel, which is just the latest incarnation of the (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Jewish_conspiracy) global Jewish conspiracy. There's not a single antisemitic trope that has not been utilised at some point or other in attacks upon Israel.
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but the US and UK feel responsible for what Israel does because we made the project happen. Israel was supposed to a foothold for western values in the Middle East. We wanted it to become a model for the region, a billboard for democracy and western liberalism. I feel like Israel didn't hold up their end of the bargain and doesn't deserve our support any longer. It doesn't matter that it's a Jewish state, what matters is that it's misbehaving and not taking responsibility for it, like a petulant child who gets in trouble and cries how everyone is being unfair and it's all someone else's fault.
demagogue on 27/10/2024 at 14:43
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Yes dema, it's all Bibi. Nothing to do with Iran attacking Israe a couple of weeks ago and supporting terror all over.
This is scale conflation. I'm talking about walking to the bank, and you're talking about walking through the door.
At the time I wrote that it was looking like a full war might be ready to break out (Iran has walked it back now); and if a regional war breaks out, it's not even controversial to say it'd be the Bibi admin's war. There's a right to defend oneself and respond to a terrorist attack, but then the Netanyahu admin went much further into damaging or leveling 2/3 of structures, including especially civilian infrastructure, and erasing entire neighborhoods in Gaza, restricting aid entering Gaza combined with statements by military authorities that the motivation was as a war tactic, things that had nothing to do with Nov. 7 and are crimes against humanity, as well as striking other countries.
The response from Hezbollah and Iran against Israel's illegal actions were also illegal. I found a (
https://x.com/Alonso_GD/status/1850090010852094263) post getting to the point you're trying to make out of this though.
Quote:
Israel's unlawful retaliation against Iran's unlawful retaliation against Israel's unlawful retaliation against Iran's unlawful retaliation against Israel's unlawful retaliation against Iran's financial support of Hamas/Hezbollah is now complete. We now await Iran's unlawful retaliation against Israel's unlawful retaliation against-...
You know there's a very smart reason why these kinds of retaliatory strikes are unlawful. See if you can pick up what it is!
In my day job we criticize the treatment of women in Iran and Afghanistan all the time, and we've always supported the opposition movements in those countries. I write about the treatment of Rohingya, Uyghurs, and the situation in Ukraine even more than Palestine, and when I teach on current conflicts I include Sudan. So that line of criticism can't be thrown at me at least. I didn't start threads on any of those things (we have a thread on Ukraine and I've posted to that), but I never start any threads and didn't start this one. I've been writing about Gaza going back to the 2014 business, including failures by both Israel's government with its criminal blockade and criminal mismanagement by Hamas, so it's not like I'm being inconsistent now. The authoritarian practices of Hamas, including the ongoing holding of hostages, have never been okay; aside from illegally holding hostages, their actual attacks since last Oct. have been against Israeli military targets. In any new government their authoritarian elements would need to be renounced.
I haven't been ranking countries by atrocities and authoritarianism. If I did, China would probably be the top. Each situation is its own thing. What is special about the situation in Israel is that the Palestinians are one of the largest stateless populations, and statelessness is one of the biggest vulnerabilities for a population, most especially putting them at risk of crimes against humanity, and in fact they're being subjected to crimes against humanity ... like the Rohingya, like Uyghurs (who aren't stateless, but they're still treated like a foreign enemy population as if they were. The other largest population of stateless people is in Cote d'Ivoire, which is to do with the surrounding conflict and abandoned children, a big problem but a somewhat different issue.)
The vulnerability of Palestinians doesn't have to do with the group in most control over their vulnerability being Jewish any more than Roghinya vulnerability has to do with Buddhist nationalism or Uyghur vulnerability has to do with reformed Maoism.
The basic fact is that Israel lost the ICJ Advisory Opinion finding that it is committing apartheid/racial segregation on the facts (more specifically violating CERD Art. 3; I think they should use the Arabic
alfasl aleunsuriu for what it is since apartheid is a loan term; but apartheid is more widely understood anyway), and it's getting ready to lose the genocide case on the facts. (That's just a prediction based on the preliminary orders that have already been issued and the gov't of Israel openly ignoring them and knowing the justices' past decisions, but of course we have to wait for the final decision.) I'm sure a lot of people will insist the ICJ jurists must be antisemitic to find that, but what you won't see them doing is being able to actually respond to the legal analysis, at least not without applying the law in a completely unique way that makes Israel a special category to which the law applies like it applies no where else in the world. That's a point for another post though.
RippedPhreak on 27/10/2024 at 15:59
Quote:
Israel lost the ICJ Advisory Opinion finding that it is committing apartheid/racial segregation on the facts
...and that, plus $9.99 will get you a Stabucks mocha frappucino.
Quote:
In my day job we criticize the treatment of women in Iran and Afghanistan all the time, and we've always supported the opposition movements in those countries. I write about the treatment of Rohingya, Uyghurs, and the situation in Ukraine even more than Palestine, and when I teach on current conflicts I include Sudan.
And no one in Iran, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Myanmar or Sudan gives the slightest shit. As a lawyer, you live in a world of words and paperwork, but words do not discourage enemies from attacking you. Killing a metric shitload of them every single time they attack you, is what will discourage them from attacking you. At this point I'm sure Israel is sick and tired of words words words, and appealing to the UN for resolutions.
Starker on 27/10/2024 at 16:15
Killing a metric shitload of civilians, including large numbers of women and children, through bombs, disease, and starvation is not what discourages people from attacking you. Israel is not destroying Hamas, Israel is creating Hamas.
Tomi on 27/10/2024 at 18:18
Quote Posted by Subjective Effect
Well Tomi, if you can explain the protests against Israel and the claims of genocide when nearly 1 million Muslims have been killed in Syria, Yemen, Sudan with hardly a peep out of the same protesters I'd love to hear it.
I don't think it's even that hard to explain. People are generally more interested in things and events that they have a closer connection to. The connection may be geographical or cultural or religious, and in practice a mixture of a lot of factors.
If there's a traffic accident in your country where a hundred people die, it'll be front page news in every single media outlet for days. (Of course that may not apply to countries where accidents like that are common, but you get my point!) If the same accident happens in a neighbouring country or in a country with deeper cultural links (UK and USA for example) it'll still be big news. But if our tragic accident happens on the other side of the world in a country that people don't even know much about, it may only get a small mention on page 17 and be forgotten the next
day minute. And that's not because these people are less important than some others, it's just normal human behaviour.
Israel traditionally has had close connections to the Western countries, a bit like Russia or Ukraine for example. The events in the Ukraine war are front page news almost every single day at least here in Finland, but I doubt that the media in Central Africa or South America covers them as much. Israel doesn't get criticised because they are Jews or because the western media has some conspiracy against them, they get criticised because they're acting like dicks while trying to claim some moral high ground.
Do you find it shocking that we haven't got a thread for the ongoing (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabinda_War) Cabinda War in Angola?
Tomi on 27/10/2024 at 18:52
Quote Posted by SD
Without doubt one of the biggest reasons why people like to single out Israel, even though I could name 50 worse countries off the top of my head, is that it justifies all the bad things they want to believe about Jews. So we get the "Israel is killing children" shouts, which are just a modern twist on the old (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel) blood libel. America's perceived inaction on the conflict is because their politicians are in the pockets of Israel, which is just the latest incarnation of the (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Jewish_conspiracy) global Jewish conspiracy. There's not a single antisemitic trope that has not been utilised at some point or other in attacks upon Israel.
While it's true that
some people fall in for all sorts of stupid conspiracy theories, or let their minds be poisoned by some religious nonsense, I just don't believe that that's how
most people think. Most people don't care that there are jews in Israel, but they do have an issue with their hostile politics as well as terrorist organisations such as Hamas. Or do you honestly think that the rest of the world is hoping to see another holocaust? Don't be silly. Also, the reason why we get the "Israel is killing children" shouts is most likely because
Israel is killing children, and has been killing children for years and years. :erm:
True antisemitism does exist without a doubt and needs to be weeded out, but just because the term exists doesn't mean that it should be thrown around at every opportunity when someone criticises Israel as a state. In a similar fashion Russia likes to play the Russophobia card to try to defend their actions and make their opponents feel bad about themselves. (And no, I'm not comparing the two conflicts here.)
heywood on 28/10/2024 at 11:51
Quote Posted by Tomi
I don't think it's even that hard to explain. People are generally more interested in things and events that they have a closer connection to. The connection may be geographical or cultural or religious, and in practice a mixture of a lot of factors.
It's more than that. People protest the institutions that they might be able to influence. When ISIL exploded in Iraq and Syria, western governments and universities didn't have ISIL connections to protest. Same with the civil war in Yemen. Regarding Sudan, there were large protests here in the US for years after Omar al-Bashir took power, which helped lead to mass divestiture from Sudan and then sanctions. Protests started again last year because of this new war, but so far they are small and peaceful and not getting much press coverage. The US isn't arming Sudan, and sanctions on Sudan were just lifted in the Trump administration so there aren't a lot of business ties to protest either.
Tomi on 28/10/2024 at 12:27
Quote Posted by heywood
It's more than that. People protest the institutions that they might be able to influence.
Yeah, that's a very good point that I hadn't thought about.
Subjective Effect on 28/10/2024 at 16:04
Both those reasons are disingenuous twaddle.
The protesters, in Europe at least, have massive Muslim membership. Why doesn't all Muslim suffering bother them? It's only if Jews pull the trigger.
And our countries have diplomatic relations with lots of the governments that are killing. Syria, Saudi, Sudan, etc. We've sorted parts of the regimes. We have a Russian embassy. Russia supports Assad in Syria. Where are the protests outside the Russiaaaaaha ha ha no Jews.
