Israel/Palestine thread

As the name implies "anti-tank shells" are designed to take out tanks, not building. These are extremely complex and the production for them is more complicated than something like a JDAM. If you want to look for the meaning behind USA sending these costly and very advanced shells to Israel then the message would be that USA is afraid of spillover to a largely conflict and wants to make sure Israel is prepared in that event, not that Israel is running out of tank shells.

My argument boils down to "This is awful, but it would be far worse without precision." Showing that things are awful does not refute that. As we discussed previously, the point isn't that Israel is only targeting valid sites. It is that when it targets ANY site if they were not using precision weapons they might be destroying the target, and several surrounding buildings and the civilians living there instead. Israel will almost definitely be chastised for using these precision weapons to kill civilian targets, but that doesn't mean that they wouldn't have skipped those civilian targets if they didn't have the precision weapons; it almost certainly means they would have killed those targets and accepted the collateral damage and extra loss of life. Your rhetoric ITT seems to support that you believe this to be true.

Most people's colloquial English differs from international law. For most, occupation refers to a significant expansion of Israeli presence in Gaza, with boots on the ground, and a situation very similar to Iraq or Afghanistan.

It's really not difficult to grasp.

It wasn't a good argument for Russia either.

Regarding the genocide debate: genocide today is not going to look like Nazi Germany's attempt. There are too many ways to get footage out and the consequences for such actions are too great for a state actor with significant ties to the international community. Genocidal actions can absolutely be taken on much smaller scales than trying to exterminate an entire population. Regarding specifically Palestine: there are absolutely people there trying to commit genocide. They post things which make this extremely obvious. The main question is whether or not this is a policy from Israel itself. With the exception of some (extra) extremist politicians, most are pretty careful not to let this rhetoric escape their mouths (although some fail which is an awful look) and the government is very careful not to have any policies which could directly be called genocide. I think the SA trial is likely for show and Israel won't be convicted of genocide, although I could be wrong. It will still be debated for some time, and once the Israeli occupation starts in full there will be even more evidence against Israel.

if you think its for show you should read the 85 page document and watch their presentation

they do a very good job of directly linking the rhetoric and statements of the Israeli leaders to the actions of the troops.

and I agree they will not be convicted of genocide although that will take years to conclude. however the immediate decision of this court will decide if there is even a chance of genocide.

ofc the South Africans did an amazing job and easily crossed that bar. ofc they will lose.

the point of these courts and really any law is to prop up entrenched power. they will never rule against Western aligned nation.

They're a chaos culture. You think those fancy hospitals being bombed grow on trees or are the product of Palestinian ingenuity, commerce, economy? They've proven they cannot coexist with their neighbors. Everything they have is likely charity.

They had plenty of water until they murdered and kidnapped a bunch of people. If they tap out and give the hostages back the water will magically reappear. The Gazans have total control over their own destiny.

You expect Israel to continue to supply them with water and electricity? They can figure it out

Or Egypt or Jordan can help them

They aren't allowed to fish more than three miles out. There was a blockade even before Oct. 7. They couldn't come and go as they please.

Israel is in charge of the water because their government doesn't care if their citizens have potable water

I believe it was changed to 15 miles several years ago

I don't understand it enough. I know Israel is trying to prevent terrost shipments but that does sound too restrictive

Yes some Israeli policies towards Palestinian people are bad.

They just aren't the hyperbolic words many of you like to use

FWIW this is why I considered it largely for show. I had not considered the other things you mentioned, which are good points.

I do not quite follow this:

If the outcome is most likely not going to be genocide, how do you see the outcome deciding if there is a chance of genocide? My immediate reaction to the trial was that they were better off waiting until they had a stronger case to try it at all. Granted that is very much a USA legal system point of view and I have not followed this very closely and do not know much about the legal process.

Stick with the facts. You have the facts on your side so keep pounding the facts while guys that have neither law nor fact on their side keep pounding the table.

Israel never controlled much of the water supply and Hamas had a lot to do with why Gazans had no power:

Hamas just didn't pay for it, neither to the Israelis (through the PA) nor to the Egyptians that supplied the fuel for the power plant. They were simply disinterested in governing and siphoned off everything they could to fund the leadership's lavish lifestyle and the military wing.

I cant remember the legalistic term. I think it was if there was any "plausibility" to the case. google isnt helping me and I had never looked it up but heard it repeated by a few different pundits that I listened to prior Mearsheimer Finkelstein Rabbani.

the case last week was for 9 provisional measures including an order of protection. I dont think the court will rule in favor of SA. maybe it will happen but I see 6 no votes right away (USA India Germany Australia Uganda France). fwiw, they ruled 13-2 against Russia for the same measure.

imo the legal case is as strong as it can be. and I dont think the judges are gonna rule on the merits of the case.

all of this stuff is just for show in some sense. like, Russia isnt going to stop their war either. but its important to document this stuff and at least in Israel's case since they are more reliant on Western perception than Russia, it could damage their reputation and contribute to ending the conflict sooner.

TY, that makes sense and is a perspective I haven't seen.

Most of the rest of the world actually is anti-semitic. Do you know anything about the history of how jews have been treated, anywhere they have settled?

Under the silly UN definition, any conflict is genocide.

One person kills another because that person is part of the group of people he hates - genocide!

Personally, if I really wanted to kill people, I wouldn't tell them to leave before I attacked, and I wouldn't tell them exactly where and when I was attacking.

I showed you where I got my definition, and it was crickets in here.

Very good watch imo. It's more about why media sucks at reporting on anything war related, but it uses the poor reporting regarding the Al-Ahli Arab hospital explosion as its example:

“The Hague won’t stop us” is definitely the kind of thing you say when you’re not doing any war crimes at all.

15s in he says Israel lost the information war 10 days into the war.

a completely absurd statement.

then he blames the NYT which again, is absurd.

I think that guy is way off on the facts. I would be careful listening to him. its hard to take seriously a guy who claims that Israel losing in the media.

he also straight up lies that the damage was from a Palestinian rocket. it hasnt been confirmed either way and the mainstream outlets actually retracted their earlier analysis that it was a resistance rocket bc the video evidence presented by Israel turned out to be doctored. so in fact, he makes the same mistake that he criticizes the NYT of making.

How is Israel not losing the media battle?

mainstream Western and esp USA media is extremely pro-Israel.

CNN runs all of their coverage through the IDF censor. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/04/cnn-...

heres an analysis of headlines and humanizing of the subject. https://theintercept.com/2024/01/09/news...

heres a very small list of some of the reporters and speakers silenced or retaliated against https://objectivejournalism.org/2023/11/...

another reporter out https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/11/...

you dont ever hear of pro-Israeli reporters or voices being silenced. in fact, they write a ton of stories.

A few comments on this:

First, I think his statement about Israel losing the info war 10 days in is an unsupported conclusion. The fact that the NYT and some other news outlets jumped the gun and published stories blaming Israel for the blast based solely on Hamas sources may have created an initial propaganda win for Hamas. But even assuming that, a single media report hardly constitutes "losing the info war".

How one responds to opposing side propaganda is a key part of engaging in the info war. And the info war continues throughout the conflict (and even after the fighting stops). So an analogy I would use is Hamas getting their version out first and the NYT publishing it was like an initial attack on a small section of the enemies long defensive line going well. But no one would say that single initial attack meant the war was won.

The defensive side can counter and repels the attack. Or seal of the penetration to prevent a further advance. And that attack is just one of dozens of skirmishes being fought up and down the defensive line.

So the entire notion that the info war was lost because of the reporting of that single incident is just wrong headed. Not because Israel is necessarily winning the info war, (or Hamas is winning) but because there is so much more involved and the outcome is far from determined at this point.

Also, "winning" an info war doesn't necessarily mean getting the world on your side. Information operations target specific target audiences to influence them in specific ways. For example, one objective of Israel's info ops might be to get countries providing military support to continue it. So their ops may stress things like the necessity of the war, and the need to accept collateral damage to civilians as an unfortunate consequence. So they may not really care what the whole world thinks (Like the Hague trial) as long as the target countries are convinced to maintain military support. If they do that, that piece of the info war is won.

Hamas may not care at all about overall world opinion, but target certain countries in the area to create outrage against Israel and influence them to enter the conflict. Or they may target Gazan residents to maintain support for their goal to eliminate Israel despite the extreme hardships they are enduring.

So the whole premise of anyone losing an info war on a single event is just wrong. To use that guy's hypothesis, maybe he should have consulted a PSYOPer before putting out that video.

His other theme about the problem with the NYT is a lack of veterans is also not really valid. First, very few vets will have experience in PSYOP or info war;it is a very small field, so 99% of vets wont know **** about it. Sure, more will know abiut bombs, but even then a random veteran will likely have no experience in BDA (battle damage assessment) or crater analysis. And the idea that hundreds of reporters will have to run their story past "the military guy" is ridiculous.

Many war or military reporters do in fact become very knowledeable. About weapons and tactics. But more importantly, those reporters failed to consult actual military experts to check the background facts. Reporters arent expected to be experts in the topic they report on. They are expected to have expert sources to confirm things with before publishing. So imo the whole "hire more vets" so you can report on wars was bs.

Lastly, there have been numerous independent investigations abiut what caused that hospital explosion. They included analysis of numerous videos and sattelite imagery obtained from several sources, not just from Israeli sources. Without going into it all here, wikipedia actually dies a good job of laying out the findings of all the investigations, and describes the positions of all sides of the conflict.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Ar...