Some context first so my opinion isn't misconstrued as as leftist stereotype. This is within context of the behavior described in the article.
- I'm a Jew in USA, and served in the military for more than a decade.
- I used to get annoyed by the Palestinian protests I'd see in the years before this, and generally sided with Israel, and the operations its military performed in counter-Shia-militia operations etc in the region, and was outraged at the Oct 7 attacks.
Israel's operations as described in the article are clear-cut war crimes. The military and civilian leaders responsible for these ROE should face something similar to the Nuremberg trials. I am embarrassed for my country's support of Israel's operations.
This is large-scale, continued, intentional CIVCAS.
I'll provide context too - I'm a Jewish Israeli. I'd probably be considered left (or even far-left) by Israeli standards, but I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as conventionally understood online.
This Haaretz article is very troubling. To the extent it's accurate, there's not much question that it reflects war crimes.
A few thoughts:
1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation into some of these accusations. I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court.
2. There is clearly something broken with the GHF and the new aid delivery - dozens dead every day for weeks. We really need some answers on what's going on.
3. From Haaretz today:
> The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Saturday urged Israel to investigate reports that soldiers opened fire towards unarmed Palestinians near aid distribution sites, detailed in a Haaretz expose, calling the allegations "too grave to ignore," while denying that any such incidents occurred within its facilities.
> GHF Interim Director John Acree stated, "There have been no incidents or fatalities at or in the immediate vicinity of any of our distribution sites."
I don't like getting involved in political threads but on this I have to.
All information presented is mostly unverified testimony printed verbatim by the press from untrustworthy sources on both sides. It's difficult to tell what is fact and what is not. A lot of early reports in this war turned out to be false information and the rush to immediate news notification rather than quality journalism means that the headline changes context very quickly from the first cut to what people read and remember. (I wrote an extensive suite of software to track this)
Wait and see. Do not judge too early. Take nothing as verbatim from anyone without evidence.
Don't be unknowing partisans of an information war. Veracity takes time.
>GHF Interim Director John Acree stated, "There have been no incidents or fatalities at or in the immediate vicinity of any of our distribution sites."
Isn't there a video of dismembered body parts after the mortar shell hit and killed a few dozen?
It sounds like if he is making such a clear statement as this, there should be an investigation, and, if it turns out there were such fatalities, then Acree (and many others) should be tried for covering up war crimes.
Note that this response is from a cynical American sick of Israel always Getting Away With It. I have no problem with Jewish people, but I strongly distrust the state of Israel and believe that it's a force that makes Jewish people less safe as the state screams it is doing what it is doing to protect Jewish people. One of my close college friends is a rabbi, and we've been talking about this since the start of the hostage crisis.
> 1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation into some of these accusations. I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court.
There is zero chance that happens as long as Netanyahu, Likud, Trump, or the Reupublicans are in power. Trump would immediately offer asylum in the US to anybody accused of such a thing.
Even if Israel did investigate, there's nothing more classic than Israel going "we investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong".
So if you want accountability, drive that internally with your politicians and get Netanyahu/Likud out of office
This article isn't really about whether there's some situation where there were some wrong doings, but it's yet another piece adding to the overall body of Israel's offenses against humanity.
As a random bystander with no real skin in this conflict, other than being American, what I can say is that for a while, it did seem that Israel the country had to unfairly deal with hate and war and it seemed quite unfortunate.
Most of the horrifying stories that would occasionally rise up seemed unbelievable, if not overblown.
Though in recent weeks, social media & news has provided another perspective.
1. Numerous Israeli citizens mocking Palestinians and having the gall to upload it to social media.
2. Numerous classrooms and children being taught that non-Israeli's do no deserve the same human rights as Israelis, and the children from a young age reveling in their superiority.
3. Videos showing citizens in normal cars being a nuisance to Palestinian medical vehicles.
4. Videos showing the absolute decimation of Gaza.
5. Israeli news articles reporting 70% and more of the population supporting certain war actions.
6. Ex-IDF soldiers whistleblowing the atrocious acts they needed to commit.
7. Citizens barbequing and hanging out right along the Gaza's border as Palestinian folks on the other side starve.
8. The video of Palestinian medics getting murdered on the side of the highway.
9. Pictures of the logos on IDF uniforms showing "our promised land" with a map showing borders that claim the land of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon.
I don't think there is something "broken" in aid delivery. It appears that there is a systemic and concerted effort by the bulk of the government and citizens (100% of who have to serve in the IDF) to colonize and usurp Palestinian land and beyond.
And it seems that the latest set of conflicts have pulled back the curtain on the attitudes held by both the Israeli citizens and government.
The only news in the article is the way civilians are murdered. The Israeli government already kills far more people per day through deliberately induced starvation.
These events are hard to believe, not because of the cruelty, but because they now happen without a shred of deniability.
As another Jewish Israeli I agree this is concerning.
I do want you to consider the context here on Hacker News though. You and me have context, we understand the history, we understand at least something about wars and how they are fought. Most people here do not.
The problem isn't whether firing on civilians with no reason when they come to get food is wrong or right. We all know it's wrong. The soldiers in Gaza know it's wrong. We all know this is a war crime.
Most cases of war crimes during war are not prosecuted at all and not visibly. This is true for US wars in the middle east. It's true for the war the West wages against ISIS. It's true for Ukraine and Russia. It's a sad but unfortunate reality of our world. The current political climate and government in Israel are also not the best for the kind of outcome you are describing.
Iran and Hamas firing missiles and rockets into population centers is a war crime too. So is their embedding and use of civilians. The entire strategy of Israel's opponents in the middle east is to engage in war crimes.
Where do we place Israel on that scale? Is there more attention on Israel vs. other similar world events? Why? Do we see similar public debate and discussion of the morality of those wars in other countries? Again, where is Israel on that scale (not of idealistic fantasy world of justice but in the real world)?
> I'd probably be considered left (or even far-left) by Israeli standards, but I'm in the "pro-Israeli" camp as conventionally understood online.
Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far) left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's rights/LGBT/other social stances?
(Orthogonally, I can certainly empathize with being pro-something, but not pro-everything-that-something-does. There's certainly nothing intrinsic to a Jewish state that would require firing at unarmed crowds.)
> I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court.
Sorry but you’re either dishonest or totally delusional. Tens of thousands of children murdered, nobody even thinks of putting a stop on this, and you say « it’s not widespread ». What?
There has been so so many atrocities, even before Oct 7th committed by both the Israeli army and armed settlers in the West Bank. There is never, NEVER, anyone being held accountable. Snipers shoot kids on the beach? All good. Torture and rape in your prisons? Fine.
Dude, you should fix your society. You are simply heading towards your own destruction, morally, on the side of public sympathy, and merely as people capable of living with other people peacefully.
Hamas are not Shia, they're Sunni. And Shia is not some some inherently violent ideology as your usage of the word there implies. And, while I'm at it, you should know the human crimes in the Gaza strip long predate Oct 7. Chemical weapons, starvation, terror bombing, these are tactics that the IDF's deployed in short time I've been alive (21st century).
The commenter is probably referring to Hezbollah and Iran.
And yes, the IDF has been relying on abhorrent & violently escalatory tactics since at least 1982 (Lebanon invasion).
On that note, I recently picked up an excellent book (“Our American Israel”) that dives pretty deep into the US-Israel relationship, and spends a good chunk of time on how the invasion of Lebanon was received by the West.
There are definitely some parallels between 1982 and the ongoing Gaza genocide with regards to the use of violence. But the most salient point to me is that it is quite clear that Israel learned a ton on how to ensure its image in the West does not easily get tarnished going forward.
I love the Jewish community, so I don’t say this lightly, but I view Netanyahu actions as somewhat resembling Nazi Germany in one respect (though certainly not others). He may not believe Israeli Jews have a birthright to the whole world (rather they are trying to strengthen one nation’s borders), but there is no doubt in my mind they are indiscriminately cleansing a people out of existence. That is their aim, beyond simple deterrence or defense.
The October terror attack is not to be defended, but the response is disgusting behavior by the state of Israel. There’s nothing proportionate about this. Rather Israel sees this as an opportunity to strengthen its position and wipe out its enemies - and innocent men, women, and children.
In the United States, we talk about Israel as if it must be protected because it’s the Middle East’s only democracy. It is not a liberal democracy. It exists only to protect the rights of one type of people with one particular type of ethnicity. In America, we wouldn’t recognize this as a democracy.
For our part, it’s important to protect our own interests in the region and so yes, strange bedfellows. But given Netanyahu’s comfort with war crime, given Israel’s weak and distorted democratic institution, and given what nationalism can do to a country, we should be very careful to balance and diversify our interests.
Israel in another 10 years might not be recognizable. It’s cause for alarm.
> Israel in another 10 years might not be recognizable.
The strange thing is, this statement held true before October 7th. Hopefully not everyone has forgotten that there were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets before the war, protesting what Netanyahu was doing to the Israeli government.
Another POV is that when you distill everyone’s experiences, not just yours, into legitimate votes, people, on both sides of this conflict, choose violence. Does the discourse you participate in achieve your goals? No, it achieves the opposite.
What is this discourse? “Sharpen the fractal of demographics and opinions until you get some rare alignment between them, and you find a supposedly irrefutable and most valid position.” Can you see why winning Internet arguments and getting upvotes doesn’t translate to your goals?
Of course you should share these thoughts and forums like these should publish them. But as much as I hate the Intellectual Dark Web and its philosophies, which are as ridiculous as, “you can gain power by thinking about things differently,” I think they are right that popularity contests are not the end all be all of conflict resolution.
No need for weird acronyms, it has been looking like a clear cut genocide for months now and Trump comments about displacement more than show he is aware and doesn’t care.
It’s not even about being shameful about Israel support at that point. It’s going to be a black stain on both countries forever.
RIght this isn't Israel as a whole, it's the crazed right wing Netanyahu government. I can understand taking out Hamas but their tactics have far superceded what is considered "not a war crime"
I'm really surprised to hear another Jewish person speak about this in language that evokes the Nuremberg trials.
The article generally describes the IDF being asked to do crowd control with lethal weapons. For the most part it also described casualties (number unclear/unknown) as unintentional consequences.
I agree this does not look good but it's also not a matter of fact either. We don't know the facts, we don't know the scale, we don't know the intentions, we don't know who is making the allegations, we don't know the details.
War crimes in this war should be dealt with. Nuremberg trials is really not the right analogy.
> War crimes in this war should be dealt with. Nuremberg trials is really not the right analogy.
War crimes for firing into a crowd of civilians, for both the one that ordered it, and those that executed it, should definitely be at the same levels as the nuremberg trials.
The fact that it will never happen doesn’t detract from that. Happily, the ICC seems to already know so, which is why there’s warrants out for all these Isrealian leaders, no?
You're misreading. The civilian casualties are very much intentional. They are being ordered to fire on unarmed people seeking food. There are verified reports of IDF targeting journalists and EMTs. I am also Jewish American and I am 100% convinced that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. I find it utterly reprehensible that this opinion can ever be considered antisemitic since the actions of the Israeli government are so incontrovertibly at odds with Jewish ideology. They shame us all.
Israel's government is doing a genocide on the Palestinian people. The ICC sees it and that is why the war criminal Netanyahu has a warrant for his arrest and will be tried in the Hague, not Nuremberg, but close enough.
People ought to understand that this problem of innocent Gazans - often children - being fired upon by IDF soldiers isn't a new one, it predates the current food distribution operation.
An article from October in the NY Times detailing some well-documented atrocities ("44 health care workers saw multiple cases of preteen children who had been shot in the head or chest in Gaza") was published as an opinion piece, in spite of the fact that it consisted of dozens of eyewitness accounts. [0][1]
The incomparable sway that Israel holds in American media and American politics prevents pressure to hold those responsible accountable on an international level. When there's enough pressure within Israel to demand accountability for something terrible (and that's rare enough, outside of their peace movement) the conclusion drawn is typically that the soldiers are just careless, but not acting with malice. [2] If there's a single instance of an IDF soldier being held accountable for a civilian killing in this conflict, someone could make me feel a little better by sharing it.
I just want to point out something important about that article - it's not just talking about children, it's specifically talking about pre-teen children. Hamas recruits many "children" in the sense of under-18s to fight, but that's not true of pre-teen children.
(Btw, I don't necessarily agree that that article proves the IDF is firing on children, there's actually no evidence of that presented in the article. But I want to forestall a common "pro-Israeli" objection that is not true in this case.)
> I don't necessarily agree that that article proves the IDF is firing on children, there's actually no evidence of that presented in the article.
I think the appropriate term is "circumstantial evidence." A doctor wouldn't be in the position to actually witness the cause of a gunshot wound (hey, maybe all these well-placed gunshot wounds are the result of Palestinians shooting their own kids, I guess would be the alternate explanation...), but let's not pretend that these reports are not evidence of crimes, evidence worthy of investigation.
Most people do understand, there are many sites dedicated to citing and maintaining lists of the atrocities for easy access through google. I think it's okay just to refer to the incident in the article and immediate opinions and emotions it evokes.
The biggest problem with this isn’t the horror of the actual war crime. The far more serious concern are the lengths the government will go to avoid holding anyone accountable. That is so much worse because it unintentionally endorses future crimes and challenges the offenders to take ever more offensive actions without fear of consequences.
They can take out nuclear scientists thousands of kilometers away by either planting bombs in their cars in traffic or firing accurate munitions through their windows when they sleep.
Thousands of kilometers away.
The IDF can be highly sophisticated in their plans and methods when they want to.
Until corrective actions with criminal penalties occur incidents like these almost certainly continue with possible increases of frequency and severity. More importantly though when this becomes a matter of conduct and military discipline is that it will spread to other areas even outside Gaza.
This isn’t just a matter of vague speculation as there are historical cases outside of Israel on which to see how things like this develop and what the consequences are both for the victims and the soldiers. These historical accounts also indicate soldiers committing these sorts of actions become victims themselves with catastrophic mental health disorders.
Why would the government hold someone accountable for its own actions? Let’s not pretend that this is just some random soldiers doing this, this is exactly what the Israeli government wants.
Soldiers shooting at civilians is a war crime. It does not matter what the intentions of the soldiers are. It doesn’t even matter if the civilians are also armed up until the point they display violent intent according to a common person standard. Shooting at a crowd is a crime.
That said the soldiers pulling the trigger are committing crimes. These are patently illegal actions to a common person standard which eliminates any defense of following military orders. That being said the soldiers, at least, are committing crimes. Accountability starts at the source of the crime.
If the government is ordering these actions then those are illegal orders, according to international standards of military conduct. The soldiers on the ground must ignore those orders on the basis of patently illegal conduct according to a common person standard and the officials facilitating those orders can be investigated for issuing war crimes.
Well, there is actually a reasonable reason. Typically you'd want the government to hold people accountable so you could have the thin veneer of operating by the rules of warfare and not committing war crimes. That's usually been a popular strategy of the US for when someone goes a little too far (or gets caught).
As far as I can tell Israel doesn't particularly care for even looking like it's trying to behave responsibly. I don't think they've held anyone responsible for even some of the most obvious war crimes we have evidence of being committed.
Because "the govahment" is not a singular entity. In functioning democracies, by popular definition in large parts of the field, legislative and executive powers are kept separated from the judicial powers. So the executive power can not interfere with being held accountable. That's not fullt implemented everywhere, but that is the general idea how it is supposed to work.
> Why would the government hold someone accountable for its own actions?
Because that is what keeps the ICC off of their backs. The ICC only has authority to step in in cases where national jurisdiction is unable or unwilling to prevent and prosecute war crimes.
Even ignoring primary crimes, under Israeli law, even incitement to genocide is punishable by death. But so many members of the political and media elite have made inciting statements, that the rubicon is crossed; the political class cannot allow any serious, independent consideration of war crimes to ever occur, because that would risk them all facing the firing squad. This in turn signals to individual soldiers that there will be no accountability, even in the absence of directives.
Regarding the risk to Israelis facing the firing squad, you do know that Israel only executed Eichmann (and one other person in a field court) since the founding of the country?
When it comes to the list of things that Israelis fear, being sentenced to a firing squad is very low down.
> even incitement to genocide is punishable by death
For that to happen, the government, and the overall population, would need to consider what's being done in Gaza and on the West Bank to actually be a genocide. I don't think popular support for that actually exists in Israel. Last time I checked, most of the population supported the annexation of Gaza and the forced eviction of the local population to neighboring countries.
I don't think I'll live to see a two-state solution.
Where I hope this comes back, after the conflict and a new Israel government, is human culpability for automated systems.
AI being whitewashing for IP is disruptive and troubling.
It being whitewashing for war crimes is a much more serious problem.
If Israel/IDF put in place a automated system that gave effectively caused war crimes to be committed, some humans in positions of power need to be held responsible and face consequences.
The world should not allow cases where (a) it's undisputed that war crimes occurred but (b) authority was interwoven in an automated system in such a way that humans escape consequences.
Sadly, it'll probably take the fall of right-wing Israeli and current Russian governments to have a hope of passing through.
For anyone else, who for some reason, feels compelled to comment without reading the article:
> Haaretz has learned that the Military Advocate General has instructed the IDF General Staff's Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism – a body tasked with reviewing incidents involving potential violations of the laws of war – to investigate suspected war crimes at these sites.
Now what will come from this (a proper investigation, etc.), who knows.
Or maybe because this isn't happening at all could be the reason why because there is actually no one to hold accountable because this is just some hysterical anti semitic conspiracy theory.
What is the conspiracy here? Who is the perpetrator? Haaretz is Israeli owned and operated. The sources are Israeli soldiers and officers. The war is definitely real and gazans definitely died while receiving food aid.
It's even worse: Awful lot of people die for the careers of politicians and it's not limited to Israel. If someone needs political tension for weathering a scandal or economic turmoil, it can be created artificially by killing certain people and they do it all the time.
I have distaste for Trump but something I appreciate about him is his abilities to stage a theatre with his "fake" bombings. The more mainstream politicians have much more sociopathic tendencies.
If you think about it, %100 of modern wars are about who is going to be the administrator and doesn't feel like can win an election. We live in a world of abundance, there's no reason for a group of people to kill other group for their resources. If it wasn't for the careers of some people with huge egos all this can be sorted out through civil matters. After the wars it gets sorted out anyway, we don't see mass exterminations anymore.
I visited Israel for a sports seminar some ~10 years ago and met many nice people. I felt sympathetic to their reality of living in an ever-hostile environment from all sides, and struggle to keep their place in the world safe. I admired their resilience and strength.
When this Gaza conflict started, I saw how the Israeli protested against their government and demanded peace, so I thought there is a semblance of an excuse for glimpses of abhorrence being reported - "it's a small number of people in power, not the Israeli nation doing it, and also there are always 2 sides to the story".
Since then, there have been unfathomable horrors and crimes against humanity done from the Israel side, with extreme intensity and one-sidedness, and it's now been going for so long. I can find no excuse of any kind anymore, for what has been and is being done in Gaza. I don't think any normal person could. The weight of these things, in my mind at least, is such that if the Israeli people really wanted anything different, it was their human duty and utmost responsibility to stop this by now, in whatever way needed. They didn't... It's sad that people who have suffered so much as well, let themselves become the villains to this depth and extent.
I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on our states as well - the US and the EU states (especially Germany, sadly).
As horrible as the Israeli mindset is, their subjective viewpoint is at least somewhat relatable: An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows nothing else, just learns that the entirety of the surrounding populations want them dead - and will with very high likelihood experience terror attacks themselves. That this upbringing doesn't exactly make you want to engage with the other side is psychologically understandable.
(I'm imaging this as the universal experience of all Jewish Israelis, religious or secular, left or right. I'm excluding the religious and Zionist-ideological angles here, because those are a whole different matter once again)
What I absolutely cannot understand is the behavior of our states. We're pretending to be neutral mediators who want nothing more than to end the conflict, yet in reality, we're doing everything to keep the conflict going. We're fully subscribed to Zionist narrative of an exclusive Israeli right to the land (the justifications ranging from ostensibly antifascist to openly religious) and we're even throwing our own values about universal human rights and national sovereignty under the bus to follow the narrative.
If the messianic and dehumanizing tendencies of Israelis are answered by nothing else than full support and encouragement of their allies, I don't find it exactly surprising that they will grow.
I'm Swedish. Since I was a child, for decades, I was taught and never questioned the idea that Germany had learnt from their history, in the most admirable way. That it was really ingrained into the German culture to never let anything like the holocaust happen again. That the education system there was very good in really making people understand why it happened, what went wrong, and how to make sure there would be no second one.
In early 2024, I was chatting with a German colleague of mine. Great guy, politically we were the most aligned out of anyone in our team. The genocide in Gaza was already well under way, so the topic came up. He told me, as if it was incredibly obvious "Well of course as Germany we couldn't possibly say anything about Gaza, given our history." For the rest of my life I will remember exactly that moment, where we were stood, the scene, because it came as a shock; this belief that I'd had since childhood turned out to be entirely wrong. It was the exact opposite - Germany had learnt nothing, in fact they'd learnt even less than the countries they had occupied. It was all a complete ruse, and I really lost all respect I had for how Germany has dealt with it all. A country like Japan at least doesn't even pretend to have learnt anything, and I'm not convinced that's the worse option.
I should've known the second news started flowing out of Germany such as "Award ceremony set to honor novel by Palestinian author at the Frankfurt Book Fair canceled “due to the war in Israel,", along with stuff like designating B.D.S as "antisemitic" but I wanted to believe that was just a tiny minority of ignorant people.
Yes, I know that now "the narrative inside Germany has been turning around" but imo it's far too late, and can't possibly be sincere, being entirely fuelled by external pressure rather than any kind of actual realization.
What does it even mean 'to want nothing more than to end the conflict'? As far as I can tell it doesn't mean anything. Everybody wants the conflict to end, including the Israelis and the Palestinians. They just want it to end differently, of course.
>> An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows nothing else, just learns that the entirety of the surrounding populations want them dead.
You have to look at the other side too. Palestinian's are born knowing that Israeli's have taken lots of their land through violent force. And they want to take more of it. And while the Israeli's live in a well developed wealthy nation they are condemned to poverty.
Consider the King David Hotel Bombing[1]. Israeli terrorists murdered nearly 100 people. In 2006 Netanyahu presided over the unveiling of a memorial plaque, alongside some of the terrorists involved in it, with the plaque specifically remembering the terrorist who died in the attack. So Israeli terrorism is fine, even worthy of praise.
And while the Israelis may grow up scared that the Palestinian's want them dead, 10's of thousands of Palestinian children won't grow up at all.
>> I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on our states as well
I agree. It seems that all over Europe at least, the governments are largely going against public opinion on this issue. But it's not the first time we've seen this (Iraq being a recent example).
> An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows nothing else,
They know perfectly well that their settlers are conducting daily pogroms against Palestinian villages in the West Bank, protected by their own army. They know perfectly well that thousands of Palestinians are detained for years without due process, trialled by military courts, kept in a state of apartheid.
Israel and people of Jewish heritage has a lot of soft-power in the west. And the anti-terrorism rhetoric that Israeli's using to sell this has has previously been deployed by the west to cover up it's own crimes.
> I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on our states as well - the US and the EU states (especially Germany, sadly).
I understand that you are talking about the recent era, but I wonder if you could speak to the history of the creation of Israel, and the German perception of that. Is there any discussion about the European role in the creation of Israel? After the end of the war, it isn’t as if there was a movement to return property and homes to European Jews. If anything, the powers in Europe after the war (and, in the case of Eichmann, pre war as well) saw Zionism as a solution for what to do with the Jews.
Is there any sympathy or responsibility felt in European communities for essentially using Zionism as a solution?
I do not think this simplification works. A lot of the conflict is about systematic attempts at expansion of Israel itself - that is what settlements are and always were. Removal and mistreatment of original population went hand in hand with that.
> An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows nothing else, just learns that the entirety of the surrounding populations want them dead - and will with very high likelihood experience terror attacks themselves. That this upbringing doesn't exactly make you want to engage with the other side is psychologically understandable.
This "entirety of the surrounding population want them dead" language is both dehumanizing, false, and (perhaps not intended by you) genocidal.
The "surrounding population" is not a monolith. I imagine only a very small minority of people want all Jewish Israelis dead. I do Palestinian liberation work with many non-Jewish people from the middle east (I'm Jewish) and have yet to meet a single one who wants me dead.
They all want an end to Zionism.
Some may want it replaced with an Islamic government (which at its best is not different from the ideal "Zionism" you may hear defended by liberal Zionists, and at its worst is no different from the Zionism instituted by the modern state of Israel today)
Most want it replaced with a secular state where everyone has equal rights.
If your intent was to explain the mindset of an "ordinary Israeli citizen" who supports Zionism, then I agree with you, but it's dangerous to say something like this without distinguishing why this is a flawed mindset which can only exist due to an extensive system of propaganda.
My recent thoughts on why the US is complicit is that Israel is America's "bad cop" of the world. The trade is that the US will allow Israel to act with impunity in the region as long as Israel gets to be the bad guys to the world.
The reasoning for this is action about nuclear weapons programs. Israel gets to have nukes, developed by sending US expertise to Israel, while Israel has not been subject to nuclear investigation programs.
If things ever got bad, the US doesn't want to nuke the world, then face retribution, they want Israel to shoulder that burden.
Speaking of Germany - Israel really weaponized the holocaust, in the sense that's absolutely impossible to criticize Israel without being accused of antisemitism. I actually think it got to the point it makes difficult fighting antisemitism because it's evident to any honest person that the accusation is a weapon now.
I dont disagree with anything you said, but isn't that the role of elected leaders ? Actually making the difficult decisions that may be unpopular, but necessary ?
Or is it the leader class in most western countries have no sense of duty , are effectively cowards, and are in it just to have a profitable, white-collar career ?
I recommend you reflect a little deeper on this topic. Maybe look a little bit into how Jews were treated in Europe and the middle east.
The Anti-Israeli crowd is throwing universal human rights under the bus. That crowd doesn't care about human rights under Arab and Muslim rule. It wants to see some imaginary "justice" at the cost of murdering the Jewish people. It promotes antisemitism including justification of the Holocaust.
I'm Israeli and your "relatable" is nonsense. Israelis engaged with the other side in good faith many times. We made peace with Jordan and Egypt. We negotiated with the Palestinians during the Oslo process. What we got in return was a suicide bombing campaign in the late 1990's early 2000's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at... and then we got Oct 7th. Israelis would be happy with a solution that leaves the with those human rights that you appear to be championing, such as the right not to be murdered.
Modern anti-zionism is just another incarnation of antisemitism. There is really no other way to look at it or explain it. The selectivity and the images used are 1:1 with antisemitism throughout the ages. This is not about whether you can critique Israel or its government. This is purely Jew hatred and racism under the mask of anti-Israeli.
EDIT: And for people who are reading this comment who think antisemitism isn't a reasonable argument here I would recommend the book: https://www.amazon.ca/People-Love-Dead-Jews-Reports/dp/03935... ... Once you read this you will have a better understanding of the different forms antisemitism takes and learn a bit of interesting history too.
Almost half of Jewish Israelis polled said they supported killing everyone in Gaza. https://archive.is/nNzq4 About 80 percent supported ethnic cleansing of Gaza.
I don't think it's just propaganda. These folks know they'll materially benefit from Palestinians being dispossessed of their remaining land.
From the start of Israel’s assault on Gaza, the vast majority of Israelis haven’t shown any concern about the suffering in Gaza. Those who campaign for an end to the war do so purely as a means to secure the release of the hostages.
That's not surprising. They remember the scenes of ecstatic celebration on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank on october 7. And the fact is that the people of Gaza could end the conflict whenever they want. All they need to do is surrender and hand over the hostages. You might think i'm oversimplifying but actually that's really it.
I’m becoming very skeptical of the “bad government, good people” idea. Governments need popular support. This goes even for horrible dictatorships. There are degrees, of course. An oppressive state can survive with less popular support than a democracy. But it still needs a decent amount. The machinery of dictatorship is as much about keeping popular support as it is about forcing people to suppress their opposition.
> I’m becoming very skeptical of the “bad government, good people” idea. Governments need popular support. This goes even for horrible dictatorships
You're either being disingenuous or have never experienced real dictatorship. I lived under theocracy in IRAN for more than half my life and I promise you that the Westerns screaming from the back "just revolt!" have no clue what they are talking about.
These regimes control communication, the media, intact laws that punishes any kind of dissent and often has multi layered of security forces to keep the population in check (not including the regular army and police).
It's easy to shout this when it's not your life, your sibling, your child or significant other's life on the line. These regimes will not hesitate to murder their own citizens to stay in power.
I don't know enough about Israel's internal politics and their society to make an assertive comment but what I _can_ say, is that from my interactions with them, they seem like ordinary and kind people who have no intention of harming me or my family.
Unless you are psychopath, you are not going to wake up one day and decide to murder people.
What are you actually expecting an average Israeli who does not agree with this to do? This comment strikes me as wild considering the exact same thing is playing out in America right now, and a bunch of people are making up their minds about "Americans" and what they stand for.
The same has been true for Iran, only up until now (and probably still) we have always had a more nuanced discussion - its the Iranian government, not the people of Iran.
Come on, the government of many countries does not necessarily represent the people.
Israel is supposed to be a democratic state. If the average Israeli disagrees with this they can speak up. The only voices we are hearing now are those who support it's current activities. Those who oppose are fewer and quieter.
The problem with this take is that the polls show a strong support for all those things that the Israeli government doing in Gaza among its citizens. That is, the average Israeli does agree. I don't think that the minority that disagrees is to blame, but they also clearly cannot meaningfully speak for the nation anymore.
In a similar vein, I'm ethnically Russian and a Russian citizen. I don't support the Russian invasion of Ukraine in any way, shape, or form, and I don't think that I am responsible for it as a Russian. However, it is also clear to me that the majority of Russians do support it (or at least think that it's fine), and on that basis I don't consider myself to be a part of that nation anymore, regardless of ethnicity.
> What are you actually expecting an average Israeli who does not agree with this to do?
Funny you say this because you don’t have to look far for people saying that “Gazans deserve what’s happening” because the average Gazan should fight back against Hamas.
I upvoted this article because it reminds me that there are Israelis who are opposed to what is going on. And newspapers that take risk to report on it. And maybe even military investigators trying to stop it.
Brainwashing by the government, religion, the media, schools, etc is what I suspect based on documentaries I watched. It’s heartbreaking what people can be made to think and say. I feel bad for the citizens of Israel to have become detached so much from humanity.
I would put myself in the timeframe of the Holocaust era. Germans were next to the concentration camps and they did nothing. Germans were conditioned to support nationalism. And they trusted the nationalist party (known as nazionale Party). The Germans had convinced themselves that the Jews were different people. (And the Jews had earned much infamy during the time when Germany was suffering economically.)
Today, we see Israelis who are taught to perceive Palestinians as enemies. They see the Palestinian flag during birthrights and are taught by the IDF to hate it. And they are also taught that the west bank is dangerous and they are not to go there. Then we see IDF operations in West Bank and we see silence. We know Gaza is in a plight caused by Israel and we see silence and ignorance. Israel is bad. Israelis are bad too. And the polls have shown that 80% wish for Gaza to be cleansed, 56% support the forced expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel, 47% want the IDF to act according to the Biblical war against Jericho. That is effectively 47% want murder while 33% want expulsion (equivalent of the ghettos+concentration camps). The benefit of doubt is disappearing rapidly fast.
And the west has been supporting Israel for decades in this campaign. This is the second millenial crusade of Europe (aka the west).
There is strong support within Israel for the genocide of Palestinians.
Unfortunately religious zionism isn't limited to Jews. Christian evangelicals also support it, and they make up a huge percentage of voting americans (and even worse, elected officials).
> if the Israeli people really wanted anything different, it was their human duty and utmost responsibility to stop this by now
It’s wrong to single out Israel. The US is funding this mass murder of children and blocking attempts to stop it. It should correctly be called the US-Israeli genocide of Gaza.
For my part, as an American and a nobody, I feel helpless to stop the atrocities my government is participating in.
But I’ve found, for myself, the reason to fight the genocide - however I can - isn’t because I expect to stop it. I am powerless to do that. For me it’s to maintain a sense of human dignity in the face of evil.
Knowing my country’s role in the mass murder of children, shrugging my shoulders would feel like I’m surrendering something precious.
>it was their human duty and utmost responsibility to stop this
Do you apply the same standard to Palestinians for not overthrowing Hamas, to Americans for the US being the key enabler of Israel's military operations, to the citizens of any Western country for not adding Israel next to Russia in all their sanction laws? If not, why?
Or maybe we should be careful with assigning collective guilt and not throw stones in glass house?
And you can think the same way about russians. They support all horrors russian people do to Ukrainian cities. And many are trying to earn some extra cash out of it.
This point of view whitewashes a lot of the history. Israel has been doing horrible things since its founding to Palestinians, starting with the Nakba in 1948 which was an ethnic cleaning campaign to create an ethno state. Many massacres occurred like in Deir Yassin in 1948 and continued with other massacres like in Kahn Younis in 1956 where they lined up more than 200 men over 15 and executed them against the wall.
With the continued persecution of Palestinians, whether its the illegal occupation of the west bank or the siege of Gaza which was essentially a concentration camp, that was "mowed" like grass every few years in terrorist bombing campaigns by Israel, its no surprise that organisations like Hamas, originally a humanitarian charity, exist.
Israelis want peace through domination, just like the French in Algeria. Be aware that Jews are not native to Palestine, except those that had been living there before the state was founded. They are living as colonialists on stolen land, and are continually denying the native Palestinians the right to return, which is part of the definition ethnic cleansing.
I say this as Jewish person originally born in Palestine (or Israel) and who had grandparents that survivide the Holocaust. Once I read about what really happened in 1948, that it was zionist terrorist militias that started the conflict and that Palestinians did not "simply leave", I became an anti zionist. I don't think Israel has the right to exist. People have the right to exist and they have the right to fight back against jewish supremacism.
I highly recommend the book by Prof. Rashid Khalidi, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine, from the academic perspective of the situations. His relative was once the mayor of Jerusalem and he's the Editor of the reputable Journal of Palestine Studies based in the US. The book begins with an examination of correspondence from 1889 between his relative Yusuf Diya ad-Din Pasha al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, and Theodor Herzl, father of modern political Zionism [1],[2].
Although the book was published back in 2020 prior to the current conflict, he correctly labeled the many years siege on Gaza by Israel as the act of war against Palestinian people, and it turn out to be manifested in the all out war in 2024.
> Be aware that Jews are not native to Palestine, except those that had been living there before the state was founded.
Not true, many Semitic Jews who fled from those lands due to persecution went to Europe and North Africa, that includes Ashkenazi and Sephardim Jews.
The difficulty I have with your statement is akin to denying a white, blue eyed aboriginal in Australia their heritage to the land just because one of their ancestors slept with a European colonialist - its fundamentally racist.
White skinned blue eyed Australian aboriginals exist.
It's a state founded on ethnic cleansing. People were already living there when settlers came to create an ethno-state for themselves.
In late 1947, their militias begun a campaign of massacring and expelling Palestinians from mostly defenseless villages. These refuges pouring into neighboring Arab countries is what prompted the 1948 war. When the war ended, they murdered any civilians trying to return to their homes.
Gaza was originally a refugee camp created for receiving these expelled people.
The ethnic cleansing and denial of rights has continued ever since. The current Gaza war is not when the crimes against humanity started. Israel has been commiting crimes against humanity throughout its entire existence.
> People were already living there when settlers came to create an ethno-state for themselves
Including a sizeable Jewish minority.
The ethnic cleansing/settler-colonialist paradigm is easy for outsiders to project on the region. But it’s a continuation of outsiders (in particular Westerners, though the Iranians also bought this settler-colonialist nonsense which led to their recent miscalculations) with no connection to the land drawing up broad moral claims for how the Middle East should be divided up.
> People were already living there when settlers came to create an ethno-state for themselves.
Isn't that just history repeating itself? Even in the old testament, they had to clear the current inhabitants of their promised land after wander the desert for 40 years.
I don't think it's possible to understand the whole issue without taking into account how people fled into Israel, both because of genocide in Europe as well as prosecution in multi-ethnic yet predominantly Arab states. Germany being in an awkward position of being an economically dominant state but also having contributed to the whole misery. Also the US is far from neutral probably due to deeper ties that are just part of reality. You cannot undo the past but I don't think it's possible to unroll the whole problem without properly confronting it. The increasingly horrific escalations have obviously completely detached from any reason
We already knew this was happening from testimony from Gazans, it was obvious that the new US-Israeli monopolized "aid" organization was running the Hunger Games, with dozens killed by Israelis (+ US contractors) every time there was a distribution day, and horrific pictures and video of it. Entirely predictable too when the genocidaires are controlling the aid. It is good there is now proof from the inside as well.
> ...the new US-Israeli monopolized "aid" organization was running the Hunger Games, with dozens killed by Israelis (+ US contractors) every time there was a distribution day ... the genocidaires are controlling the aid.
It was apparently 2 VCs and not the military that came up with GHF (and if I recall, there even was a brief flare up between the ruling Cabinet and the Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, who did not want the IDF to be responsible for aid).
Even though the early planning was led by the Israeli military, two Israeli technology investors played an influential role in shaping discussions as they progressed, according to six Israeli and American individuals familiar with the GHF’s origins. One was Liran Tancman, an entrepreneur and reservist in the IDF’s 8200 signals intelligence unit, who called for using biometric identification systems outside the distribution hubs to vet Palestinian civilians. Another was Michael Eisenberg, an American Israeli venture capitalist who argued that existing U.N. aid distribution networks were sustaining Hamas and needed to be overhauled.
> One was Liran Tancman, an entrepreneur and reservist in the IDF’s 8200 signals intelligence unit, who called for using biometric identification systems outside the distribution hubs to vet Palestinian civilians.
Gives the feeling of the serial number tattoos the Germans used, with tech "fixing" the bad optics of doing that, but the biometric ID serves as one.
As a westerner, I feel ashamed that my country is Isreal's ally. It makes me guilty by association because the western world is letting Israel commit thoses atrocities.
Worse, we are helping them when they need it, and closing our eyes when they don't want us to watch.
This isn't ambiguous. This is really clear evidence of (at minimum) an atrocious and continuing war crime with full intentionality. Realistically, it is more likely explicitly genocidal in intent.
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This is large-scale, continued, intentional CIVCAS.
This Haaretz article is very troubling. To the extent it's accurate, there's not much question that it reflects war crimes.
A few thoughts:
1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation into some of these accusations. I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court.
2. There is clearly something broken with the GHF and the new aid delivery - dozens dead every day for weeks. We really need some answers on what's going on.
3. From Haaretz today:
> The U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation on Saturday urged Israel to investigate reports that soldiers opened fire towards unarmed Palestinians near aid distribution sites, detailed in a Haaretz expose, calling the allegations "too grave to ignore," while denying that any such incidents occurred within its facilities.
> GHF Interim Director John Acree stated, "There have been no incidents or fatalities at or in the immediate vicinity of any of our distribution sites."
All information presented is mostly unverified testimony printed verbatim by the press from untrustworthy sources on both sides. It's difficult to tell what is fact and what is not. A lot of early reports in this war turned out to be false information and the rush to immediate news notification rather than quality journalism means that the headline changes context very quickly from the first cut to what people read and remember. (I wrote an extensive suite of software to track this)
Wait and see. Do not judge too early. Take nothing as verbatim from anyone without evidence.
Don't be unknowing partisans of an information war. Veracity takes time.
Isn't there a video of dismembered body parts after the mortar shell hit and killed a few dozen?
It sounds like if he is making such a clear statement as this, there should be an investigation, and, if it turns out there were such fatalities, then Acree (and many others) should be tried for covering up war crimes.
> 1. The article itself says there is an ongoing investigation into some of these accusations. I hope that, to whatever extent this is happening, it's not widespread, and anyone committing war crimes is very visibly and publicly tried in court.
There is zero chance that happens as long as Netanyahu, Likud, Trump, or the Reupublicans are in power. Trump would immediately offer asylum in the US to anybody accused of such a thing.
Even if Israel did investigate, there's nothing more classic than Israel going "we investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong".
So if you want accountability, drive that internally with your politicians and get Netanyahu/Likud out of office
As a random bystander with no real skin in this conflict, other than being American, what I can say is that for a while, it did seem that Israel the country had to unfairly deal with hate and war and it seemed quite unfortunate.
Most of the horrifying stories that would occasionally rise up seemed unbelievable, if not overblown.
Though in recent weeks, social media & news has provided another perspective.
1. Numerous Israeli citizens mocking Palestinians and having the gall to upload it to social media.
2. Numerous classrooms and children being taught that non-Israeli's do no deserve the same human rights as Israelis, and the children from a young age reveling in their superiority.
3. Videos showing citizens in normal cars being a nuisance to Palestinian medical vehicles.
4. Videos showing the absolute decimation of Gaza.
5. Israeli news articles reporting 70% and more of the population supporting certain war actions.
6. Ex-IDF soldiers whistleblowing the atrocious acts they needed to commit.
7. Citizens barbequing and hanging out right along the Gaza's border as Palestinian folks on the other side starve.
8. The video of Palestinian medics getting murdered on the side of the highway.
9. Pictures of the logos on IDF uniforms showing "our promised land" with a map showing borders that claim the land of Egypt, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon.
I don't think there is something "broken" in aid delivery. It appears that there is a systemic and concerted effort by the bulk of the government and citizens (100% of who have to serve in the IDF) to colonize and usurp Palestinian land and beyond.
And it seems that the latest set of conflicts have pulled back the curtain on the attitudes held by both the Israeli citizens and government.
These events are hard to believe, not because of the cruelty, but because they now happen without a shred of deniability.
I do want you to consider the context here on Hacker News though. You and me have context, we understand the history, we understand at least something about wars and how they are fought. Most people here do not.
The problem isn't whether firing on civilians with no reason when they come to get food is wrong or right. We all know it's wrong. The soldiers in Gaza know it's wrong. We all know this is a war crime.
Most cases of war crimes during war are not prosecuted at all and not visibly. This is true for US wars in the middle east. It's true for the war the West wages against ISIS. It's true for Ukraine and Russia. It's a sad but unfortunate reality of our world. The current political climate and government in Israel are also not the best for the kind of outcome you are describing.
Iran and Hamas firing missiles and rockets into population centers is a war crime too. So is their embedding and use of civilians. The entire strategy of Israel's opponents in the middle east is to engage in war crimes.
Where do we place Israel on that scale? Is there more attention on Israel vs. other similar world events? Why? Do we see similar public debate and discussion of the morality of those wars in other countries? Again, where is Israel on that scale (not of idealistic fantasy world of justice but in the real world)?
Would you consider ethno-nationalists of other nations (far) left, based on (speculating) their economic/women's rights/LGBT/other social stances?
(Orthogonally, I can certainly empathize with being pro-something, but not pro-everything-that-something-does. There's certainly nothing intrinsic to a Jewish state that would require firing at unarmed crowds.)
Sorry but you’re either dishonest or totally delusional. Tens of thousands of children murdered, nobody even thinks of putting a stop on this, and you say « it’s not widespread ». What?
There has been so so many atrocities, even before Oct 7th committed by both the Israeli army and armed settlers in the West Bank. There is never, NEVER, anyone being held accountable. Snipers shoot kids on the beach? All good. Torture and rape in your prisons? Fine.
Dude, you should fix your society. You are simply heading towards your own destruction, morally, on the side of public sympathy, and merely as people capable of living with other people peacefully.
edit: minor typo.
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And yes, the IDF has been relying on abhorrent & violently escalatory tactics since at least 1982 (Lebanon invasion).
On that note, I recently picked up an excellent book (“Our American Israel”) that dives pretty deep into the US-Israel relationship, and spends a good chunk of time on how the invasion of Lebanon was received by the West.
There are definitely some parallels between 1982 and the ongoing Gaza genocide with regards to the use of violence. But the most salient point to me is that it is quite clear that Israel learned a ton on how to ensure its image in the West does not easily get tarnished going forward.
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Unfortunately the Israeli lobby has so much money and power they would silence anyone who says that publicly by accusing them of being antisemitic.
At this point people should really take a look in the mirror.
too late, m8
anybody with unfavorable opinions against Israeli government is a "leftist stereotype"
any unfavorable opinions and facts against Israeli government gets you pinned as a "anti-semite" these days
The October terror attack is not to be defended, but the response is disgusting behavior by the state of Israel. There’s nothing proportionate about this. Rather Israel sees this as an opportunity to strengthen its position and wipe out its enemies - and innocent men, women, and children.
In the United States, we talk about Israel as if it must be protected because it’s the Middle East’s only democracy. It is not a liberal democracy. It exists only to protect the rights of one type of people with one particular type of ethnicity. In America, we wouldn’t recognize this as a democracy.
For our part, it’s important to protect our own interests in the region and so yes, strange bedfellows. But given Netanyahu’s comfort with war crime, given Israel’s weak and distorted democratic institution, and given what nationalism can do to a country, we should be very careful to balance and diversify our interests.
Israel in another 10 years might not be recognizable. It’s cause for alarm.
The strange thing is, this statement held true before October 7th. Hopefully not everyone has forgotten that there were hundreds of thousands of people in the streets before the war, protesting what Netanyahu was doing to the Israeli government.
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What is this discourse? “Sharpen the fractal of demographics and opinions until you get some rare alignment between them, and you find a supposedly irrefutable and most valid position.” Can you see why winning Internet arguments and getting upvotes doesn’t translate to your goals?
Of course you should share these thoughts and forums like these should publish them. But as much as I hate the Intellectual Dark Web and its philosophies, which are as ridiculous as, “you can gain power by thinking about things differently,” I think they are right that popularity contests are not the end all be all of conflict resolution.
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It’s not even about being shameful about Israel support at that point. It’s going to be a black stain on both countries forever.
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The article generally describes the IDF being asked to do crowd control with lethal weapons. For the most part it also described casualties (number unclear/unknown) as unintentional consequences.
I agree this does not look good but it's also not a matter of fact either. We don't know the facts, we don't know the scale, we don't know the intentions, we don't know who is making the allegations, we don't know the details.
War crimes in this war should be dealt with. Nuremberg trials is really not the right analogy.
War crimes for firing into a crowd of civilians, for both the one that ordered it, and those that executed it, should definitely be at the same levels as the nuremberg trials.
The fact that it will never happen doesn’t detract from that. Happily, the ICC seems to already know so, which is why there’s warrants out for all these Isrealian leaders, no?
It didn't happen. We didn't do it. If it happened Hamas did it. If we did it they deserved it. Oh it's on video, our bad, we did an oopsie.
Countless of cases like this.
Stop the Israeli genocide on Palestinian people.
An article from October in the NY Times detailing some well-documented atrocities ("44 health care workers saw multiple cases of preteen children who had been shot in the head or chest in Gaza") was published as an opinion piece, in spite of the fact that it consisted of dozens of eyewitness accounts. [0][1]
The incomparable sway that Israel holds in American media and American politics prevents pressure to hold those responsible accountable on an international level. When there's enough pressure within Israel to demand accountability for something terrible (and that's rare enough, outside of their peace movement) the conclusion drawn is typically that the soldiers are just careless, but not acting with malice. [2] If there's a single instance of an IDF soldier being held accountable for a civilian killing in this conflict, someone could make me feel a little better by sharing it.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/10/09/opinion/gaza-...
[1] https://archive.is/9Lr00
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alon_Shamriz,_Yotam...
(Btw, I don't necessarily agree that that article proves the IDF is firing on children, there's actually no evidence of that presented in the article. But I want to forestall a common "pro-Israeli" objection that is not true in this case.)
I think the appropriate term is "circumstantial evidence." A doctor wouldn't be in the position to actually witness the cause of a gunshot wound (hey, maybe all these well-placed gunshot wounds are the result of Palestinians shooting their own kids, I guess would be the alternate explanation...), but let's not pretend that these reports are not evidence of crimes, evidence worthy of investigation.
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Thousands of kilometers away.
The IDF can be highly sophisticated in their plans and methods when they want to.
This isn’t just a matter of vague speculation as there are historical cases outside of Israel on which to see how things like this develop and what the consequences are both for the victims and the soldiers. These historical accounts also indicate soldiers committing these sorts of actions become victims themselves with catastrophic mental health disorders.
That said the soldiers pulling the trigger are committing crimes. These are patently illegal actions to a common person standard which eliminates any defense of following military orders. That being said the soldiers, at least, are committing crimes. Accountability starts at the source of the crime.
If the government is ordering these actions then those are illegal orders, according to international standards of military conduct. The soldiers on the ground must ignore those orders on the basis of patently illegal conduct according to a common person standard and the officials facilitating those orders can be investigated for issuing war crimes.
As an example read about Slobodan Milošević
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobodan_Milo%C5%A1evi%C4%87
As far as I can tell Israel doesn't particularly care for even looking like it's trying to behave responsibly. I don't think they've held anyone responsible for even some of the most obvious war crimes we have evidence of being committed.
Because that is what keeps the ICC off of their backs. The ICC only has authority to step in in cases where national jurisdiction is unable or unwilling to prevent and prosecute war crimes.
When it comes to the list of things that Israelis fear, being sentenced to a firing squad is very low down.
For that to happen, the government, and the overall population, would need to consider what's being done in Gaza and on the West Bank to actually be a genocide. I don't think popular support for that actually exists in Israel. Last time I checked, most of the population supported the annexation of Gaza and the forced eviction of the local population to neighboring countries.
I don't think I'll live to see a two-state solution.
AI being whitewashing for IP is disruptive and troubling.
It being whitewashing for war crimes is a much more serious problem.
If Israel/IDF put in place a automated system that gave effectively caused war crimes to be committed, some humans in positions of power need to be held responsible and face consequences.
The world should not allow cases where (a) it's undisputed that war crimes occurred but (b) authority was interwoven in an automated system in such a way that humans escape consequences.
Sadly, it'll probably take the fall of right-wing Israeli and current Russian governments to have a hope of passing through.
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> Haaretz has learned that the Military Advocate General has instructed the IDF General Staff's Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism – a body tasked with reviewing incidents involving potential violations of the laws of war – to investigate suspected war crimes at these sites.
Now what will come from this (a proper investigation, etc.), who knows.
I have distaste for Trump but something I appreciate about him is his abilities to stage a theatre with his "fake" bombings. The more mainstream politicians have much more sociopathic tendencies.
If you think about it, %100 of modern wars are about who is going to be the administrator and doesn't feel like can win an election. We live in a world of abundance, there's no reason for a group of people to kill other group for their resources. If it wasn't for the careers of some people with huge egos all this can be sorted out through civil matters. After the wars it gets sorted out anyway, we don't see mass exterminations anymore.
When this Gaza conflict started, I saw how the Israeli protested against their government and demanded peace, so I thought there is a semblance of an excuse for glimpses of abhorrence being reported - "it's a small number of people in power, not the Israeli nation doing it, and also there are always 2 sides to the story".
Since then, there have been unfathomable horrors and crimes against humanity done from the Israel side, with extreme intensity and one-sidedness, and it's now been going for so long. I can find no excuse of any kind anymore, for what has been and is being done in Gaza. I don't think any normal person could. The weight of these things, in my mind at least, is such that if the Israeli people really wanted anything different, it was their human duty and utmost responsibility to stop this by now, in whatever way needed. They didn't... It's sad that people who have suffered so much as well, let themselves become the villains to this depth and extent.
As horrible as the Israeli mindset is, their subjective viewpoint is at least somewhat relatable: An ordinary Israeli citizen is born in that land, knows nothing else, just learns that the entirety of the surrounding populations want them dead - and will with very high likelihood experience terror attacks themselves. That this upbringing doesn't exactly make you want to engage with the other side is psychologically understandable.
(I'm imaging this as the universal experience of all Jewish Israelis, religious or secular, left or right. I'm excluding the religious and Zionist-ideological angles here, because those are a whole different matter once again)
What I absolutely cannot understand is the behavior of our states. We're pretending to be neutral mediators who want nothing more than to end the conflict, yet in reality, we're doing everything to keep the conflict going. We're fully subscribed to Zionist narrative of an exclusive Israeli right to the land (the justifications ranging from ostensibly antifascist to openly religious) and we're even throwing our own values about universal human rights and national sovereignty under the bus to follow the narrative.
If the messianic and dehumanizing tendencies of Israelis are answered by nothing else than full support and encouragement of their allies, I don't find it exactly surprising that they will grow.
In early 2024, I was chatting with a German colleague of mine. Great guy, politically we were the most aligned out of anyone in our team. The genocide in Gaza was already well under way, so the topic came up. He told me, as if it was incredibly obvious "Well of course as Germany we couldn't possibly say anything about Gaza, given our history." For the rest of my life I will remember exactly that moment, where we were stood, the scene, because it came as a shock; this belief that I'd had since childhood turned out to be entirely wrong. It was the exact opposite - Germany had learnt nothing, in fact they'd learnt even less than the countries they had occupied. It was all a complete ruse, and I really lost all respect I had for how Germany has dealt with it all. A country like Japan at least doesn't even pretend to have learnt anything, and I'm not convinced that's the worse option.
I should've known the second news started flowing out of Germany such as "Award ceremony set to honor novel by Palestinian author at the Frankfurt Book Fair canceled “due to the war in Israel,", along with stuff like designating B.D.S as "antisemitic" but I wanted to believe that was just a tiny minority of ignorant people.
Yes, I know that now "the narrative inside Germany has been turning around" but imo it's far too late, and can't possibly be sincere, being entirely fuelled by external pressure rather than any kind of actual realization.
You have to look at the other side too. Palestinian's are born knowing that Israeli's have taken lots of their land through violent force. And they want to take more of it. And while the Israeli's live in a well developed wealthy nation they are condemned to poverty.
Consider the King David Hotel Bombing[1]. Israeli terrorists murdered nearly 100 people. In 2006 Netanyahu presided over the unveiling of a memorial plaque, alongside some of the terrorists involved in it, with the plaque specifically remembering the terrorist who died in the attack. So Israeli terrorism is fine, even worthy of praise.
And while the Israelis may grow up scared that the Palestinian's want them dead, 10's of thousands of Palestinian children won't grow up at all.
>> I'm German and I really see a lot of the blame for this on our states as well
I agree. It seems that all over Europe at least, the governments are largely going against public opinion on this issue. But it's not the first time we've seen this (Iraq being a recent example).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
They know perfectly well that their settlers are conducting daily pogroms against Palestinian villages in the West Bank, protected by their own army. They know perfectly well that thousands of Palestinians are detained for years without due process, trialled by military courts, kept in a state of apartheid.
They just don't care.
I understand that you are talking about the recent era, but I wonder if you could speak to the history of the creation of Israel, and the German perception of that. Is there any discussion about the European role in the creation of Israel? After the end of the war, it isn’t as if there was a movement to return property and homes to European Jews. If anything, the powers in Europe after the war (and, in the case of Eichmann, pre war as well) saw Zionism as a solution for what to do with the Jews.
Is there any sympathy or responsibility felt in European communities for essentially using Zionism as a solution?
This "entirety of the surrounding population want them dead" language is both dehumanizing, false, and (perhaps not intended by you) genocidal.
The "surrounding population" is not a monolith. I imagine only a very small minority of people want all Jewish Israelis dead. I do Palestinian liberation work with many non-Jewish people from the middle east (I'm Jewish) and have yet to meet a single one who wants me dead.
They all want an end to Zionism.
Some may want it replaced with an Islamic government (which at its best is not different from the ideal "Zionism" you may hear defended by liberal Zionists, and at its worst is no different from the Zionism instituted by the modern state of Israel today)
Most want it replaced with a secular state where everyone has equal rights.
If your intent was to explain the mindset of an "ordinary Israeli citizen" who supports Zionism, then I agree with you, but it's dangerous to say something like this without distinguishing why this is a flawed mindset which can only exist due to an extensive system of propaganda.
The reasoning for this is action about nuclear weapons programs. Israel gets to have nukes, developed by sending US expertise to Israel, while Israel has not been subject to nuclear investigation programs.
If things ever got bad, the US doesn't want to nuke the world, then face retribution, they want Israel to shoulder that burden.
So naturally, the logical response is to wish that on others. Seriously, wat?
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Or is it the leader class in most western countries have no sense of duty , are effectively cowards, and are in it just to have a profitable, white-collar career ?
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The Anti-Israeli crowd is throwing universal human rights under the bus. That crowd doesn't care about human rights under Arab and Muslim rule. It wants to see some imaginary "justice" at the cost of murdering the Jewish people. It promotes antisemitism including justification of the Holocaust.
I'm Israeli and your "relatable" is nonsense. Israelis engaged with the other side in good faith many times. We made peace with Jordan and Egypt. We negotiated with the Palestinians during the Oslo process. What we got in return was a suicide bombing campaign in the late 1990's early 2000's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at... and then we got Oct 7th. Israelis would be happy with a solution that leaves the with those human rights that you appear to be championing, such as the right not to be murdered.
Modern anti-zionism is just another incarnation of antisemitism. There is really no other way to look at it or explain it. The selectivity and the images used are 1:1 with antisemitism throughout the ages. This is not about whether you can critique Israel or its government. This is purely Jew hatred and racism under the mask of anti-Israeli.
EDIT: And for people who are reading this comment who think antisemitism isn't a reasonable argument here I would recommend the book: https://www.amazon.ca/People-Love-Dead-Jews-Reports/dp/03935... ... Once you read this you will have a better understanding of the different forms antisemitism takes and learn a bit of interesting history too.
I don't think it's just propaganda. These folks know they'll materially benefit from Palestinians being dispossessed of their remaining land.
You're either being disingenuous or have never experienced real dictatorship. I lived under theocracy in IRAN for more than half my life and I promise you that the Westerns screaming from the back "just revolt!" have no clue what they are talking about.
These regimes control communication, the media, intact laws that punishes any kind of dissent and often has multi layered of security forces to keep the population in check (not including the regular army and police).
It's easy to shout this when it's not your life, your sibling, your child or significant other's life on the line. These regimes will not hesitate to murder their own citizens to stay in power.
I don't know enough about Israel's internal politics and their society to make an assertive comment but what I _can_ say, is that from my interactions with them, they seem like ordinary and kind people who have no intention of harming me or my family.
Unless you are psychopath, you are not going to wake up one day and decide to murder people.
The same has been true for Iran, only up until now (and probably still) we have always had a more nuanced discussion - its the Iranian government, not the people of Iran.
Come on, the government of many countries does not necessarily represent the people.
In a similar vein, I'm ethnically Russian and a Russian citizen. I don't support the Russian invasion of Ukraine in any way, shape, or form, and I don't think that I am responsible for it as a Russian. However, it is also clear to me that the majority of Russians do support it (or at least think that it's fine), and on that basis I don't consider myself to be a part of that nation anymore, regardless of ethnicity.
Funny you say this because you don’t have to look far for people saying that “Gazans deserve what’s happening” because the average Gazan should fight back against Hamas.
It’s no different with the American military.
Today, we see Israelis who are taught to perceive Palestinians as enemies. They see the Palestinian flag during birthrights and are taught by the IDF to hate it. And they are also taught that the west bank is dangerous and they are not to go there. Then we see IDF operations in West Bank and we see silence. We know Gaza is in a plight caused by Israel and we see silence and ignorance. Israel is bad. Israelis are bad too. And the polls have shown that 80% wish for Gaza to be cleansed, 56% support the forced expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel, 47% want the IDF to act according to the Biblical war against Jericho. That is effectively 47% want murder while 33% want expulsion (equivalent of the ghettos+concentration camps). The benefit of doubt is disappearing rapidly fast.
And the west has been supporting Israel for decades in this campaign. This is the second millenial crusade of Europe (aka the west).
Unfortunately religious zionism isn't limited to Jews. Christian evangelicals also support it, and they make up a huge percentage of voting americans (and even worse, elected officials).
https://theconversation.com/in-israel-calls-for-genocide-hav...
https://theconversation.com/christian-zionism-hasnt-always-b...
It’s wrong to single out Israel. The US is funding this mass murder of children and blocking attempts to stop it. It should correctly be called the US-Israeli genocide of Gaza.
For my part, as an American and a nobody, I feel helpless to stop the atrocities my government is participating in.
But I’ve found, for myself, the reason to fight the genocide - however I can - isn’t because I expect to stop it. I am powerless to do that. For me it’s to maintain a sense of human dignity in the face of evil.
Knowing my country’s role in the mass murder of children, shrugging my shoulders would feel like I’m surrendering something precious.
Do you apply the same standard to Palestinians for not overthrowing Hamas, to Americans for the US being the key enabler of Israel's military operations, to the citizens of any Western country for not adding Israel next to Russia in all their sanction laws? If not, why?
Or maybe we should be careful with assigning collective guilt and not throw stones in glass house?
With the continued persecution of Palestinians, whether its the illegal occupation of the west bank or the siege of Gaza which was essentially a concentration camp, that was "mowed" like grass every few years in terrorist bombing campaigns by Israel, its no surprise that organisations like Hamas, originally a humanitarian charity, exist.
Israelis want peace through domination, just like the French in Algeria. Be aware that Jews are not native to Palestine, except those that had been living there before the state was founded. They are living as colonialists on stolen land, and are continually denying the native Palestinians the right to return, which is part of the definition ethnic cleansing.
I say this as Jewish person originally born in Palestine (or Israel) and who had grandparents that survivide the Holocaust. Once I read about what really happened in 1948, that it was zionist terrorist militias that started the conflict and that Palestinians did not "simply leave", I became an anti zionist. I don't think Israel has the right to exist. People have the right to exist and they have the right to fight back against jewish supremacism.
Although the book was published back in 2020 prior to the current conflict, he correctly labeled the many years siege on Gaza by Israel as the act of war against Palestinian people, and it turn out to be manifested in the all out war in 2024.
1] The Hundred Years' War on Palestine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hundred_Years%27_War_on_Pa...
[2] A new abyss’: Gaza and the hundred years’ war on Palestine (2024):
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/11/a-new-abyss-ga...
Not true, many Semitic Jews who fled from those lands due to persecution went to Europe and North Africa, that includes Ashkenazi and Sephardim Jews.
The difficulty I have with your statement is akin to denying a white, blue eyed aboriginal in Australia their heritage to the land just because one of their ancestors slept with a European colonialist - its fundamentally racist. White skinned blue eyed Australian aboriginals exist.
In late 1947, their militias begun a campaign of massacring and expelling Palestinians from mostly defenseless villages. These refuges pouring into neighboring Arab countries is what prompted the 1948 war. When the war ended, they murdered any civilians trying to return to their homes.
Gaza was originally a refugee camp created for receiving these expelled people.
The ethnic cleansing and denial of rights has continued ever since. The current Gaza war is not when the crimes against humanity started. Israel has been commiting crimes against humanity throughout its entire existence.
Including a sizeable Jewish minority.
The ethnic cleansing/settler-colonialist paradigm is easy for outsiders to project on the region. But it’s a continuation of outsiders (in particular Westerners, though the Iranians also bought this settler-colonialist nonsense which led to their recent miscalculations) with no connection to the land drawing up broad moral claims for how the Middle East should be divided up.
Isn't that just history repeating itself? Even in the old testament, they had to clear the current inhabitants of their promised land after wander the desert for 40 years.
(excuse me for ignoring the history trolling)
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It was apparently 2 VCs and not the military that came up with GHF (and if I recall, there even was a brief flare up between the ruling Cabinet and the Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, who did not want the IDF to be responsible for aid).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/05/24/gaza-humanit... / https://archive.vn/TugwRGives the feeling of the serial number tattoos the Germans used, with tech "fixing" the bad optics of doing that, but the biometric ID serves as one.
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Worse, we are helping them when they need it, and closing our eyes when they don't want us to watch.
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