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Posted

I love that the US and Russia signed and bailed. "What, you mean that's actually a crime? Shit, take our name off that shit!"

I was in the car a lot yesterday. I heard the outrage of Israel's spokespersons at being compared by even one iota with Hamas. In the particulars of the crimes against humanity carried out, Hamas' attack was like opening the doors of Hell for the victims. Hooray for Israel! They cleared that bar!

Sadly for Israel, pointing to more horrific crimes is generally not a defense for one's own crimes. 

I would also propose that the focus of the criminal charge is what was done to victims and, for nation states or stateless terrorist groups, who the victims are. In both of these attacks, extreme cruelty was imposed on civilians for no reason whatsoever.

Lastly, Israel's official denials and assurances come with zero transparency. They control the news, they shoot at dissenting reporters, they heavily restrict access to their slaughter campaign.

The big Israeli denier yesterday exclaimed something like, "We are a free democracy with a revered Supreme Court, how can you compare us to Hamas?"

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

It's your own acts, dickwad.

 

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Posted

Israeli soldiers and police tipping off groups that attack Gaza aid trucks:

Quote

Individual members of Israel’s security forces are tipping off far-right activists and settlers to the location of aid trucks delivering vital supplies to Gaza, enabling the groups to block and vandalise the convoys, according to multiple sources.

Settlers intercepting the vital humanitarian supplies to the strip are receiving information about the location of the aid trucks from members of the Israeli police and military, a spokesperson from the main Israeli activist group behind the blockades told the Guardian.

The claim of collusion by members of the security forces is supported by messages from internal internet chat groups reviewed by the Guardian as well as accounts from a number of witnesses and human rights activists.

Those blocking the vehicles say the aid they carry is being diverted by Hamas instead of being delivered to civilians in need, a claim relief agencies reject. US officials have also said that Israel has offered no evidence to support allegations that Hamas is diverting aid.

Rachel Touitou, a spokesperson for the Israeli group Tzav 9, said the group had been blocking trucks as they made their way through Israel since January, on the grounds that the aid they carried was “hijacked” by Hamas once it reached Gaza.

“When a policeman or soldier’s mission is supposed to protect Israelis and instead he is sent to protect humanitarian aid convoys – knowing it will end up in the hands of Hamas – we cannot blame them or civilians who notice the trucks passing by their towns for providing intel to groups trying to block that aid. Yes, some of our intel comes from individual members of Israeli forces,” Touitou added.

Videos last week showed aid convoys blocked and vandalised by Israeli settlers at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The incident, in which activists threw boxes of supplies to the ground, sparked outrage, with the White House condemning the attack as “completely and utterly unacceptable behaviour”.

Photographs from the scene showed piles of damaged aid packages and trails of rice and flour across the road. Photographs later circulated on social media showing the trucks on fire.

Touitou said: “It was not Tzav 9 that burned the trucks … this was not our action,” adding that other groups were responsible for the arson attack.

The settlers say they are blocking the aid trucks in order to stop supplies reaching Hamas and accuse the Israeli government of giving “gifts” to the Islamist group.

“Our purpose is to highlight that feeding your enemy, in this specific case Hamas, especially during a time of war, is immoral,” said Touitou. “Israel has been delivering this humanitarian aid without expecting anything in return. And 80% of the population agrees with our stance. Hamas is reselling this aid to civilians, which is meant to be distributed for free. We will continue to block this humanitarian aid until they can prove that it is reaching the civilians.”

Palestinian lorry drivers delivering aid to Gaza have described to the Guardian “barbaric” scenes” after their vehicles came under attack, claiming that Israeli soldiers escorting the convoy did nothing to intervene.

Yazid al-Zoubi, 26, a Palestinian lorry driver who was attacked by the protesters last week at Tarqumiya checkpoint, said: “There is full cooperation between the settlers and the army. We are shocked and surprised that the army did not provide us with any kind of protection. Even though they were present and watching what was happening. The army was at the service of the settlers.”

Two soldiers from Israel’s Home Front Command refused an order to evacuate protesters who blocked aid trucks in the Makhash area last week, according to the IDF. One of them was sentenced to 20 days in prison, Israel’s national broadcaster, Kan, reported.

An IDF spokesperson said: “A female reserve fighter refused to carry out a task to maintain order in an area that was defined as a closed military area and as a result she was brought to disciplinary proceedings accordingly. The fighter was convicted of the crime of refusing an order. This is an incident that is not consistent with what is expected of IDF soldiers while fulfilling their mission.”

Footage of the incident obtained by the Guardian appears to show Israeli soldiers escorting the convoy, taking no action against the settlers.

The same settlers and far-right activists often notify their members in advance about the times and locations that aid trucks are heading towards Gaza, citing that they receive this information from the Israeli police and military.

In one such message seen by the Guardian, far-right activists alerted members that they would “receive preliminary information about the planning of moving trucks, from border crossings’ soldiers and police”.

In another message in a settler WhatsApp group, a member wrote on Sunday: “I received information from an officer in the IDF that they bring the trucks in front of Ofra [a settlement] into Bitin [a Palestinian village].”

“When an emergency call about a convoy of trucks is received,” the first message says, “the group opens for discussions, and when this happens please only send messages related to the blockade, such as locations, photos, information and hitchhiking.”

Touitou said that most of the information they received came from civilians. “Often it is the same Israelis who report aid convoys passing by. After eight months into the war, Israelis are frustrated with how aid is being managed in Gaza. If it is soldiers, policemen, or civilians like me, you cannot expect us to accept that aid will end up in the hands of Hamas.”

Sapir Sluzker Amran, an Israeli human rights lawyer who last week visited the Tarqumiya checkpoint to document the settlers’ actions and to prevent the aid from being looted, said she was beaten and slapped by a settler and that Israeli security forces did nothing to stop the assault.

“The settlers had guns and knives,” Sapir said. “I asked the IDF soldiers to stop them as what they were doing was illegal, but they asked me to leave. At some point, as I was trying to prevent an aid truck from being vandalised, a settler slapped me very hard and went away. I filmed him and took photos of him. I went to the police and asked them that I needed their help as I wanted to press charge against the man. Again, they asked me to leave. The Israeli forces let the man who attacked me free to vandalise the trucks.”

Alleged collaboration between the army and the settlers has been denounced for years by Palestinians and human rights organisations. In 2016, the IDF corporal Elad Sela, a resident of the Bat Ayin settlement who served in the Etzion regional brigade, was sentenced to 45 months in jail for passing on classified information to extreme activists, allowing them to evade arrest and continue their activities.

In October 2022, Maj Gen Herzi Halevi, who lived in the West Bank settlement of Kfar HaOranim, was appointed as Israel’s military chief of staff, in a move that highlighted the army’s relationship with settlers.

The Israeli police and Cogat, an Israeli defence ministry agency, declined to comment on the allegations that members of the security forces were helping those blocking aid deliveries.

In a statement, Nir Dinar, the head of the IDF’s international press department, rejected the allegations as “a baseless claim that I am hearing for the first time”. Dinar said police were investigating incidents relating to the blocking and vandalisation of the convoys. “IDF is working to prevent these kind of events,” he added.

On Sunday, the far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, suggested the government itself should be stopping aid trucks to Gaza instead of leaving it to groups of activists.

“We are in a democratic country and I am in favour of freedom of protest. They are allowed to demonstrate,” he said in an interview with Army Radio. “I am against them attacking and burning trucks … It’s the cabinet that should be stopping the trucks.”

 

  • Rage+1 4
Posted
34 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

 

And apparently, the whole justification that Hamas is stealing the aid is largely a canard.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/u-s-envoy-says-israel-has-not-shown-evidence-that-hamas-is-diverting-un-aid-in-gaza

 

Moreover, we now have multiple examples of the IDF specifically targeting aid providers within Gaza. This goes far beyond the assassination of the seven World Central Kitchen workers. Are orders coming from the very top, or are rogue elements within the IDF pulling this shit independently?

I think those are serious questions to consider when the Minister of Defense (Gallant) is quoted as calling Palestinians "human animals" and saying that he had "ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed."

Then, you have Ben-Gvir, the Minister of National Security, stating on record his support for ethnically cleaning Gaza by saying that the war provides an opportunity to encourage the "voluntary migration" of Palestinians out of Gaza and that "We cannot withdraw from any territory we are in in the Gaza Strip. Not only do I not rule out Jewish settlement there, I believe it is also an important thing."

But, no, we mustn't question anything about the current Israeli government's intentions. Bibi and his allies deserve our unreserved support, always.

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Posted
7 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

I love that the US and Russia signed and bailed. "What, you mean that's actually a crime? Shit, take our name off that shit!"

I was in the car a lot yesterday. I heard the outrage of Israel's spokespersons at being compared by even one iota with Hamas. In the particulars of the crimes against humanity carried out, Hamas' attack was like opening the doors of Hell for the victims. Hooray for Israel! They cleared that bar!

Sadly for Israel, pointing to more horrific crimes is generally not a defense for one's own crimes. 

I would also propose that the focus of the criminal charge is what was done to victims and, for nation states or stateless terrorist groups, who the victims are. In both of these attacks, extreme cruelty was imposed on civilians for no reason whatsoever.

Lastly, Israel's official denials and assurances come with zero transparency. They control the news, they shoot at dissenting reporters, they heavily restrict access to their slaughter campaign.

The big Israeli denier yesterday exclaimed something like, "We are a free democracy with a revered Supreme Court, how can you compare us to Hamas?"

Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

It's your own acts, dickwad.

 

2c3745730d8db47cb6fe5ae61cd4411e.png

  • Haha 2
Posted

Spain, Norway, and Ireland will soon recognize the State of Palestine as an independent, sovereign nation, joining all these other nations in doing so. More Euro nations are expected to follow. In a bitch move, Smotrich decides he's going to withhold even more Palestinian tax revenue than he'd already been holding to further punish the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, which notably is not Hamas in Gaza.

image.thumb.png.68e2cc3ed57a4cfc31a7dc281e16a8ce.png

 

Israel Responds to Move to Recognize Palestinian State by Withholding Funds
The finance minister’s office signaled that the decision, which could worsen the Palestinians’ dire economic crisis, was a response to Spain, Norway and Ireland recognizing Palestinian statehood.

Israel will not transfer much-needed funds to the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the decision by three European countries to recognize a Palestinian state, the country’s finance minister said on Wednesday, as its foreign minister denounced the European moves as giving “a gold medal to Hamas terrorists.”

The decision by the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right leader who opposes Palestinian sovereignty, threatened to push the Palestinian government into a deeper fiscal crisis. He said in a statement that he had informed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that he would no longer send tax revenues to the authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank in close cooperation with Israel.

Mr. Smotrich’s office signaled that the decision was at least partly a response to Spain, Norway and Ireland recognizing Palestinian statehood, and that the Palestinian leadership bore responsibility for campaigning for the move.

“They are acting against Israel legally, diplomatically and for unilateral recognition,” said Eytan Fuld, a spokesman for Mr. Smotrich, referring to the authority. “When they act against the state of Israel, there must be a response.”

The Palestinian Authority did not immediately respond, but Palestinian officials have previously condemned Israel’s withholding of Palestinian tax revenues it collects as “piracy.”

Israel also recalled its ambassadors from Spain, Ireland and Norway for consultations on Wednesday morning. Israel Katz, the Israeli foreign minister, said he had summoned the countries’ envoys to Israel for a “severe scolding” following “their governments’ decision to award a gold medal to Hamas terrorists.”

Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Mr. Smotrich’s statement, nor did it immediately comment on the European countries’ announcements.

Under decades-old agreements, Israel collects customs and import taxes on behalf of the Palestinian Authority. Those revenues constitute most of the Palestinian budget, particularly as international aid has declined. But Mr. Smotrich — who has labeled the Palestinian Authority “an enemy” — had already delayed transferring the latest tranche of funds before the announcements on Wednesday, said Mr. Fuld and a Palestinian official. The Palestinian official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority is already in a severe financial crisis following tightened Israeli restrictions on its funding and a depressed West Bank economy stemming from the war. This month, it managed to pay only 50 percent of the salaries of tens of thousands of civil servants.

Diplomats and analysts have warned that the Palestinian government’s deepening financial problems could lead to further unrest in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. More than 500 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, many in clashes with Israeli forces, since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7 prompted Israel to go to war in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry.

Palestinians have faced tightening Israeli restrictions since Oct. 7. Over 100,000 Palestinians who worked in Israel were barred from entering, creating mass unemployment overnight. Near-nightly raids, Israeli road closures, and stricter checkpoints have further choked the Palestinian economy.

The Palestinian Authority traditionally disburses some of the tax funds collected by Israel to Gaza. After the war broke out in October, Mr. Smotrich said he would withhold that part from the amount it transfers to the authority. Palestinian officials refused to accept the reduced payments at all in protest.

After a monthslong standoff over the issue, Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to a deal stipulating that Norway would hold some of the revenues in trust until Israel agreed they could be sent to the Palestinians. The Palestinians agreed to receive the reduced payments in the meantime.

On Wednesday, Mr. Smotrich called for the government to immediately annul that agreement as well.

Top Israeli officials, including Mr. Netanyahu, have repeatedly excoriated international recognition of a Palestinian state as a “prize for terrorism” after the Oct. 7 attack.

Most of the current hard-line Israeli government rejects the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, practically ruling out peace talks to end Israel’s decades-long occupation.

President Biden and Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken have said that after the war, Gaza should be unified with the West Bank under a “revitalized” Palestinian Authority. Israel has remained vehemently opposed to that idea. The authority in its current form is also unpopular among Palestinians, who view it as complicit in Israel’s occupation.

  • Haha 1
Posted

Maybe we should be more careful about about blowing up people and invading other countries. Maybe we should face our past of propping brutal, absolutely brutal, dictators and training their death squads.

Or, we could just use our enormous power to silence even the weakest apparatus created to stop such horrors.

Shame on any politician muddying the issue with outrage over the distortion that the International Criminal Court announcement was about equating Israel and Hamas as perpetrators of horrors. The fact is they're both slaughtering the innocent. 

But that's just way too complicated for discourse here in the land of the free where just about everybody gets 12 years of public education. Creating fine minds.

Posted
On 5/20/2024 at 6:35 PM, bolverk said:

War crimes prosecutor seeks arrest of Israeli and Hamas leaders, including Netanyahu

JERUSALEM (AP) — The chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court sought arrest warrants Monday for leaders of Israel and Hamas, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over actions taken during their seven-month war.

While Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, do not face imminent arrest, the announcement by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor was a symbolic blow that deepened Israel’s isolation over the war in Gaza.

The court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, accused Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders — Yehia Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the move as disgraceful and antisemitic. U.S. President Joe Biden also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas.

A panel of three judges will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow a case to proceed. The judges typically take two months to make such decisions.

Israel is not a member of the court, so even if the arrest warrants are issued, Netanyahu and Gallant do not face any immediate risk of prosecution. But the threat of arrest could make it difficult for the Israeli leaders to travel abroad.

 

Israel is not a member of the court is because this is included in the list of war crimes: "the action of transferring population into occupied territory." Of course, conservatives in the US have opposed the US becoming a member. Otherwise, W and his cronies knew they could be arrested for war crimes, so they pulled out of the treaty. The Trump administration was so hostile to the ICC that it threatened sanctions on ICC judges and staff.

Notably, the State of Palestine has been a member of the ICC since 2015.

 

https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state

Specific charges against the Hamas leaders:

  • Extermination as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(b) of the Rome Statute;
  • Murder as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(a), and as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
  • Taking hostages as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(iii);
  • Rape and other acts of sexual violence as crimes against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(g), and also as war crimes pursuant to article 8(2)(e)(vi) in the context of captivity;
  • Torture as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(1)(f), and also as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity;
  • Other inhumane acts as a crime against humanity, contrary to article 7(l)(k), in the context of captivity;
  • Cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i), in the context of captivity; and
  • Outrages upon personal dignity as a war crime, contrary to article 8(2)(c)(ii), in the context of captivity.

 

Specific charges against Netanyahu and Gallant:

  • Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
  • Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
  • Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
  • Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
  • Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
  • Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h);
  • Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k).

 

Arrest warrants would mean no travel to the green countries:

image.thumb.png.c980f2c2f087e21092c6141e9369dbae.png

green: State party

yellow: Signatory that has not ratified

purple: State party that subsequently withdrew its membership

orange: Signatory that subsequently withdrew its signature

red: Non-state party, non-signatory

Finally.

Posted (edited)
Quote

Radical Israeli settlers have expanded their attacks on aid trucks passing through the West Bank this month, blocking food from reaching Gaza as humanitarian groups warn that the enclave is sinking deeper into famine.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/26/west-bank-aid-trucks-gaza-settlers/

Spoiler

Far-right Israeli settlers step up attacks on aid trucks bound for Gaza

The settler groups use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities.

TARQUMIYAH, West Bank — Radical Israeli settlers have expanded their attacks on aid trucks passing through the West Bank this month, blocking food from reaching Gaza as humanitarian groups warn that the enclave is sinking deeper into famine.

Groups of settler youth are tailing relief convoys, setting up checkpoints and interrogating drivers. In some cases, far-right attackers have ransacked and burned trucks and beaten Palestinian drivers, leaving at least two hospitalized.

The assailants use a web of publicly accessible WhatsApp groups to track the trucks and coordinate attacks, providing a window into their activities. Working off what they say are tips from Israeli soldiers and police, in addition to the public, members pore over photos to work out which vehicles might be carrying aid to Gaza and mobilize local supporters to block them.

An attack on Thursday showed the system in action: Users in one WhatsApp group with more than 800 members began posting about a flatbed truck loaded with sugar, sharing photos from the road as they followed it.

“The truck supplying Hamas stopped in front of Evyatar!” said 23-year-old Yosef de Bresser, referring to an Israeli outpost south of the Palestinian city of Nablus.

De Bresser is a leader in the “We Won’t Forget” movement, which set up protest camps at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza earlier this year and runs several of the WhatsApp groups targeting aid trucks.

“Come join the blockade!” he wrote. Others answered the call.

The flatbed was ransacked, its load strewn across the road, according to images posted later in the group — one of two sugar trucks vandalized by settlers that day. De Bresser said the waybills — which did not show a destination — proved that the truck was headed to Gaza.

Fahed Arar, who owned the cargo, said the 30-ton load of sugar was actually destined for Salfit, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. The driver escaped unharmed, he said, but the Israeli military wouldn’t let him reload the goods.

Instead, soldiers removed the sacks with a bulldozer and destroyed them, Arar said, putting his losses at $30,000.

The Israel Defense Forces said that troops arrived on the scene after the attack took place, dispersed civilians and “prevented further destruction.” It denied that soldiers stopped the driver from reloading. A message in the settler WhatsApp group said it was the police that removed the cargo.

The Israel Police, largely responsible for enforcing the law when crimes are committed by Israeli citizens, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The violence and vandalism, committed with near-total impunity, raises questions about the willingness of Israel’s security forces to restrain extremist settlers and protect Palestinians. It also challenges the Israeli government’s claim that it is doing all it can to ensure that aid flows to Gaza, where the humanitarian situation has deteriorated rapidly since IDF forces moved into the southern city of Rafah.

As bands of teenagers become the arbiters of who can and cannot pass along main roads in the West Bank, any trucks carrying food have become vulnerable to attack.

“The environment around us is fed by hate and revenge,” said Abdo Idrees, chairman of the Federation of Palestinian Chambers of Commerce.

Under pressure from the United States, Israel opened the Tarqumiyah crossing in the West Bank earlier this month for aid trucks traveling to Gaza from Jordan and for Palestinian businesses exporting food. The routes to the crossing take them by Israeli hilltop outposts where settler violence against Palestinians has spikeddramatically in recent months.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan has called the targeting of aid trucks “a total outrage,” and the Biden administration is considering imposing sanctions on people involved in the attacks, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

Humanitarian groups say Gaza is in its darkest hour after nearly eight months of war. More than a million Palestinians have been displaced this month, the United Nations says, after Israel began its assault on Rafah and sealed the enclave’s most vital land crossing for aid. The northern part of the territory is already in a “full-blown famine,” the World Food Program said recently, and aid officials warn it is spreading south.

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said last week that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including using “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.” Both men have said the charges are outrageous and politically motivated.

The opening of the Tarqumiyah crossing on May 13 was part of an effort by the IDF to increase the flow of aid to Gaza. But one of the first convoys from Jordan was immediately set upon by Israeli protesters, who tossed boxes of food on the ground and stomped on them. Several trucks were torched.

We “never called on people to take the law into their own hands,” said Rachel Touitou, spokeswoman for Tzav 9, which boasts hundreds of members, including settlers and demobilized reservists, and has been active in blocking aid trucks since January.

The group put its activities on hold after the May 13 incident, but Touitou said the effort would continue because it is in “Tzav 9’s DNA.”

De Bresser denied that his group was responsible for burning trucks but said he could not condemn the violence.

“I’m happy for every truck that doesn’t enter Gaza, and I’m also happy to see it catch fire,” he said.

The We Won’t Forget movement supports “dismantling” trucks and sometimes takes action based on “inside” information, he said, including from transport workers, police officers and soldiers he says are against sending “supplies to Hamas.”

A recent incident illustrated the Israeli authorities’ hands-off approach to enforcement. In the early hours of May 17, about two dozen far-right youths set up a makeshift blockade at Tarqumiyah; soldiers and police officers drove past the group multiple times without stopping them.

At dawn, as the first truck approached, a 12-year-old boy with blond side curls picked up a brick and brandished it above his head, threatening to throw it at the vehicle if it moved any closer. The truck reversed. Other vehicles turned around at the sight of the group.

Police asked the demonstrators to take down the barricade after about an hour, but the demonstrators continued to mill around. A police officer joined them as they prayed in the road.

“It’s not our job to stop them, it’s our job to protect them,” said a female soldier of the young settlers. She declined to give her name.

In recent days, there have been more efforts to protect the trucks. Left-wing counterdemonstrators have created a “humanitarian guard” at the crossing, which has put pressure on the police to ensure it is functioning, said Alon-Lee Green, head of Standing Together, the group behind the campaign.

Some aid convoys from Jordan are now traveling under police escort. But other commercial trucks are afforded no security at all.

Ibrahim al-Razem, 35, was driving a load of Coca-Cola to Kafr Aqab on the outskirts of Jerusalem when he ran into a roadblock on the night of May 16.

“They asked me if I was going to Gaza,” Razem, a Palestinian resident of Jerusalem, said of the crowd of settlers that stopped him. He provided the group documentation showing the goods were headed somewhere else, he said.

But they weren’t satisfied. “Are you a Jew or Arab?” Razem recalled them asking right before they attacked.

“They really wanted to kill me,” he said, adding that military officers at the scene did little to control the crowd. Razem said he hid under an IDF vehicle to shield himself from the blows.

The IDF said two officers and a soldier were “slightly injured” when they tried to separate the attackers from the driver. “Dozens of Israeli citizens reacted violently towards the force,” the military said in a statement.

“If the army really wanted them to leave, they could have shot in the air,” said Razem, who suffered three fractured vertebrae, broken ribs and a broken nose.

The truck, which he had decorated with keepsakes from his sons, was set on fire after he was taken to the hospital.

“This was my source of income,” he said, estimating his losses at around $200,000. “I was broken.”

John Hudson in Washington and Alon Rom in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.

 

Edited by HenryJames
  • Rage+1 2
Posted

Yeah, we’re not even getting any ‘my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Hamas pass out at 31 Flavors in Rafah last night. I guess it's pretty terrorist.’

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Posted

Reuters reports this morning the refugees were in a designated "humanitarian zone" and that they're still under Israeli fire.

Global leaders voiced horror at the fire in a designated "humanitarian zone" where families uprooted by fighting elsewhere in Gaza had sought shelter, and urged the implementation of a World Court order for a halt to Israel's assault.

*****

Residents said Rafah's Tel Al-Sultan neighbourhood, the scene of Sunday's night-time strike in which tents and shelters were set ablaze as families settled down to sleep, was still being bombarded.

"Tank shells are falling everywhere in Tel Al-Sultan. Many families have fled their houses in western Rafah under fire throughout the night," one resident told Reuters via a chat app.
 

Posted
Just now, InkaUtexas said:

How many hostages have been rescued? This operation was never going to work if that was the goal. This is punishment. ethnic cleansing, just like the hardliners said they were going to do.

FIF accuracy.

It continues to astound me that people scream that we are pro-Hamas and anti-semitic if we take what to me seems like the sane position of "Israel had and has every right to respond militarily to Hamas' Oct 7th attack, including operations to rescue hostages, but it does NOT have the right to purposefully target and terrorize Palestinian civilians, especially not with the goal of running them all out of the levant."  Israel can defend itself.  It can't commit a stack of war crimes in doing so.

And that makes me a "Hamas sympathizer" and "anti-semitic."  What a stupid fucking timeline.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

FIF accuracy.

It continues to astound me that people scream that we are pro-Hamas and anti-semitic if we take what to me seems like the sane position of "Israel had and has every right to respond militarily to Hamas' Oct 7th attack, including operations to rescue hostages, but it does NOT have the right to purposefully target and terrorize Palestinian civilians, especially not with the goal of running them all out of the levant."  Israel can defend itself.  It can't commit a stack of war crimes in doing so.

And that makes me a "Hamas sympathizer" and "anti-semitic."  What a stupid fucking timeline.

Spoke with a few friends, including my dad, who did a lot of hostage type work. They said this mission was going to be harder than Iran for us. But, we never leveled the IRG. Instead we took our time, inserted assets (Dude named Dick Meadows is a legend) and had three plans ready. Meanwhile we played the diplomatic game. Our goal was keep the hostages alive until we could 1- rescue or 2- have them released. I do not think Bibi gives a flying fuck about the hostages and has written them off.

If the IDF's special forces went in, got 50% out and there were Palestinian casualties most would not like it but understand it. This type of operation is just BS. It is like the leveling of Warsaw to get the resistance. Grozny to get the Chechen leaders (who were already in the hills.)

 

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Posted

Would it be fair to generalize that historically Jews have seen more autonomy and religious freedom under Persian, Arab, and Ottoman rule rather than under Macedonian, Roman, and Christian occupation, and received some of the worst treatment while spread out in Europe? There were the obvious times where Joseph's tribe found the situation in Egypt untenable, and when Nebuchadnezzar conquered, exiled and enslaved the Judeans.

Were the original Philistines from the Mediterranean like the island Crete? 

That would make the argument that this current blood struggle between Jews and Arabs has been going on for thousands of years not make a whole lot of sense.

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Posted
5 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

I do not think Bibi gives a flying fuck about the hostages and has written them off.

This is key.

It was never about rescuing the hostages.  And here's the thing...maybe it shouldn't have been.  Maybe the right, but hard answer should have been "we must presume the hostages are already dead or will be no matter what we do.  We will of course try to rescue any we can find, but we are in total war with an opposing military force, and we must focus all efforts on defeating that force."  That would have at least been honest.

Then, wage a methodical war to destroy Hamas as a military force.

That's not what's happening.  Not even close to it.

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Posted (edited)
15 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

That would have at least been honest.

To be honest would have been to say at best a new buffer zone of no occupation in the North is needed and that most likely will result in eventual Israeli settlement, and at worst turn the whole of Gaza into unoccupiable rubble forcing a humanitarian crisis resulting in a diaspora of the Gazan people and no need for an autonomous state separate from Israel.

 

 

 

Edited by JohnnyRage
'an'
Posted

It is nuts that a small group of literally crazy Christian evangelists seeking the end times have dictated our policy towards Israel and thus our participation in war crimes and genocide.

My entire life I have heard “remember the holocaust and never left it happen again!”. Welp, it’s fucking happening…I didn’t forget.

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Posted (edited)
38 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

How many hostages have been rescued? This operation was never going to work if that was the goal. This is punishment.

Punishment? Maybe. But also with a little opportunism sprinkled in.

Edited by BrickHorn
Posted

Perhaps. But what does israel get with this tactic? Hamas is destroyed and great, now we have a ghetto to rebuild and a few generations of really pissed of people.

No one is taking the Palestinians as refugees.

Posted
8 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Perhaps. But what does israel get with this tactic? Hamas is destroyed and great, now we have a ghetto to rebuild and a few generations of really pissed of people.

No one is taking the Palestinians as refugees.

They get to slaughter Palestinians. That's its own reward to fascists. 

Posted

Seems that way. Just another day. I guess you could say tank shells are "precise" munition. If so, that means the IDF is shooting at the tent areas.

CAIRO, May 28 (Reuters) - Israeli tanks shelled a tent camp in an evacuation area west of Rafah and killed at least 21 people on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said, while advancing to the heart of the southern Gaza city for the first time after a night of heavy bombardment.
Two days after an Israeli airstrike on another camp stirred global condemnation, Gaza emergency services said four tank shells hit a cluster of tents in Al-Mawasi, a coastal strip that Israel had advised civilians in Rafah to move to for safety.
 
 
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Posted
44 minutes ago, JohnnyRage said:

Would it be fair to generalize that historically Jews have seen more autonomy and religious freedom under Persian, Arab, and Ottoman rule rather than under Macedonian, Roman, and Christian occupation, and received some of the worst treatment while spread out in Europe? There were the obvious times where Joseph's tribe found the situation in Egypt untenable, and when Nebuchadnezzar conquered, exiled and enslaved the Judeans.

Were the original Philistines from the Mediterranean like the island Crete? 

That would make the argument that this current blood struggle between Jews and Arabs has been going on for thousands of years not make a whole lot of sense.

 

Yes, I've said it many, many times at this point, but the argument that this is a religious blood feud going back thousands of years is just another way for the Western world to abdicate its responsibility for its historic oppression and brutality towards Jews, and to attempt to force the Palestinian people to shoulder that burden for the rest of the world.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Seems that way. Just another day. I guess you could say tank shells are "precise" munition. If so, that means the IDF is shooting at the tent areas.

CAIRO, May 28 (Reuters) - Israeli tanks shelled a tent camp in an evacuation area west of Rafah and killed at least 21 people on Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said, while advancing to the heart of the southern Gaza city for the first time after a night of heavy bombardment.
Two days after an Israeli airstrike on another camp stirred global condemnation, Gaza emergency services said four tank shells hit a cluster of tents in Al-Mawasi, a coastal strip that Israel had advised civilians in Rafah to move to for safety.
 
 

Yep. It's yet another "humanitarian zone" struck by the IDF.

On another note, Israel is ordering the Spanish consulate to stop providing services to Palestinians in the West Bank. They say it's a punitive measure against Spain, but the residents are the ones getting punished.

Check out this language. The Israeli foreign minister accuses Spain of:

  1. "Harming Israel’s sovereignty and security" when Israel has no legal sovereignty over the West Bank.
  2. "Forc(ing) us to leave our religion or threaten our existence – those who harm us, we will harm in return,” equating Spain's recognition of the Palestinian State with the fucking Spanish Inquisition.

Israel orders Spanish consulate to stop providing services to Palestinians
Foreign Minister Israel Katz says the order is meant to punish Spain for recognizing a Palestinian state, as feud between Jerusalem and Madrid heats up

Israel said Monday it had ordered Spain’s consulate in Jerusalem to stop offering consular services to Palestinians in the West Bank from June 1, as a “punitive” measure for Madrid’s recognition of a Palestinian state.

The Foreign Ministry said that Spain’s consulate in Jerusalem is “authorized to provide consular services to residents of the consular district of Jerusalem only, and is not authorized to provide services or perform consular activity vis-a-vis residents of the Palestinian Authority.”

The directive is effective from June 1, the ministry said in a statement.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a separate statement that he had “implemented preliminary punitive measures against the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem following the Spanish government’s recognition of a Palestinian state.”

“We will not put up with harming Israel’s sovereignty and security.”

Katz added that “anyone who rewards Hamas and tries to establish a Palestinian terrorist state will not be in contact with the Palestinians.”

“The days of the Inquisition are over. Today, the Jewish people have a sovereign and independent state, and no one will force us to leave our religion or threaten our existence – those who harm us, we will harm in return.”

 

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Posted
1 minute ago, bolverk said:

Yep. It's yet another "humanitarian zone" struck by the IDF.

On another note, Israel is ordering the Spanish consulate to stop providing services to Palestinians in the West Bank. They say it's a punitive measure against Spain, but the residents are the ones getting punished.

Check out this language. The Israeli foreign minister accuses Spain of:

  1. "Harming Israel’s sovereignty and security" when Israel has no legal sovereignty over the West Bank.
  2. "Forc(ing) us to leave our religion or threaten our existence – those who harm us, we will harm in return,” equating Spain's recognition of the Palestinian State with the fucking Spanish Inquisition.

Israel orders Spanish consulate to stop providing services to Palestinians
Foreign Minister Israel Katz says the order is meant to punish Spain for recognizing a Palestinian state, as feud between Jerusalem and Madrid heats up

Israel said Monday it had ordered Spain’s consulate in Jerusalem to stop offering consular services to Palestinians in the West Bank from June 1, as a “punitive” measure for Madrid’s recognition of a Palestinian state.

The Foreign Ministry said that Spain’s consulate in Jerusalem is “authorized to provide consular services to residents of the consular district of Jerusalem only, and is not authorized to provide services or perform consular activity vis-a-vis residents of the Palestinian Authority.”

The directive is effective from June 1, the ministry said in a statement.

Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a separate statement that he had “implemented preliminary punitive measures against the Spanish consulate in Jerusalem following the Spanish government’s recognition of a Palestinian state.”

“We will not put up with harming Israel’s sovereignty and security.”

Katz added that “anyone who rewards Hamas and tries to establish a Palestinian terrorist state will not be in contact with the Palestinians.”

“The days of the Inquisition are over. Today, the Jewish people have a sovereign and independent state, and no one will force us to leave our religion or threaten our existence – those who harm us, we will harm in return.”

 

This is BS. If I was Spain I would open a new one inside Jordan.

But, also, what services does a consulate offer non-nationals?

Posted
Just now, InkaUtexas said:

This is BS. If I was Spain I would open a new one inside Jordan.

But, also, what services does a consulate offer non-nationals?

I imagine the services might be related to those who wish to emigrate to Spain maybe? There also could be some Palestinians who hold dual citizenship. I know there have been a few stories of American nationals, who are also Palestinians, getting caught up in the refugee crisis in Gaza. It was something along the lines of trying to reach them so they could get out. I think I also recall a story of an American citizen of Palestinian descent being killed by the IDF in the West Bank not too long ago.

Posted

Agree. And it sucks for the Palestinians. It is not like they can go into Tel Aviv for a scheduled appointment. And yes, there are. And they were denied access to leave. I think most got out via Egypt, but their families could not. Funny we don't hear about that anymore.

In the second instance then they are not technically Palestinians and should use their Spanish documents to get in. But again, and I think it is BS to deny ANYONE diplomatic or consular representation, but how can a Palestinian, if there is no state, be a two state national? Their situation is so unique and fucked up. Only time in the past 124 years I can think of quickly is how the Nazi's denied Non-German Jews the right to leave Germany or diplomatic protection.

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Posted (edited)
14 minutes ago, Gengs1 said:


 

That might be the worst thing I've ever seen... ever.

Humans suck.

Edited by Dnaguy
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Posted
1 hour ago, bolverk said:

"Forc(ing) us to leave our religion

God gave us this land. It’s religious persecution if you try to stop us from eliminating all the non-Jews who occupy it. It’s ours. God said so. Fuck off.

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Posted
God gave us this land. It’s religious persecution if you try to stop us from eliminating all the non-Jews who occupy it. It’s ours. God said so. Fuck off.

The Jewish high priest took 2 goats into the temple. He sliced the neck of one of the goats and drained the blood as an offering to God. Then he held the 2nd goat close and confessed the sins of the Israeli people. He then carried the goat to a cliff at the edge of the city and threw it over, removing the sins from Jerusalem.

Thus the word Scapegoat was invented.

Also this is Yom Kippur, the most holy day for Jewish people.

All of it is batshit crazy…
Posted
1 hour ago, Fastbreak said:


The Jewish high priest took 2 goats into the temple. He sliced the neck of one of the goats and drained the blood as an offering to God. Then he held the 2nd goat close and confessed the sins of the Israeli people. He then carried the goat to a cliff at the edge of the city and threw it over, removing the sins from Jerusalem.

Thus the word Scapegoat was invented.

Also this is Yom Kippur, the most holy day for Jewish people.

All of it is batshit crazy…

For it being called the Holy Land, I have to say there’s not much about it that feels holy when you’re there in the middle of all that division and hatred.

Posted
For it being called the Holy Land, I have to say there’s not much about it that feels holy when you’re there in the middle of all that division and hatred.

Not to mention, their “god” hasn’t been too kind to them. Hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt, 40 years wandering the desert, killing Gods son, getting kicked off “their” land, the holocaust, etc.

Maybe they should find a better god, there are thousands to pick from and I’m use any of them would have a better ROI.
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Posted
42 minutes ago, staboner said:

holy shit. i am physically ill. i hope that is fake somehow. i gotta dip for a while fellas. hang in there 

I mean, I saw “beheaded babies” in the description and decided, nope, not for me. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Biff Tannen said:

I mean, I saw “beheaded babies” in the description and decided, nope, not for me. 

Same.

Posted
6 hours ago, Fastbreak said:

Not to mention, their “god” hasn’t been too kind to them. Hundreds of years of slavery in Egypt, 40 years wandering the desert, killing Gods son, getting kicked off “their” land, the holocaust, etc.

Maybe they should find a better god, there are thousands to pick from and I’m use any of them would have a better ROI..

 

 



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