this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2023
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Hamas’s Qassam Brigades has threatened to execute Israeli captives if Israel continues to bombard and kill civilians in Gaza.

“Any targeting of innocent civilians without warning will be met regretfully by executing one of the captives in our custody, and we will be forced to broadcast this execution,” said Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ Qassam Brigades.

“We regret this decision but we hold the Zionist enemy and their leadership the responsibility for this,” he said.

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[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 136 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It’s great both sides of this conflict have so much respect for protecting the lives of civilians. Ugh. I wish the leaders of Hamas and Bibi’s reactionary government were the ones that would actually suffer the consequences of this war.

[–] takeda@lemmy.world 71 points 2 years ago (4 children)

This conflict benefits the most: Russia and China (by having US distracted) and Bibi (by having previously divided Israelis united behind him)

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 48 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Iran too. I’m sure they weren’t too happy with the impending Israeli-Saudi rapprochement. This at a minimum will significantly complicate that.

[–] Earthwormjim91@lemmy.world 25 points 2 years ago

Hamas has already said it was directly backed by Iran.

[–] Shadywack@lemmy.world 15 points 2 years ago

This is why I want a blank check for Ukraine.

[–] GCostanzaStepOnMe@feddit.de 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

So while the US is "distracted", Russia and China do what? Steal the pie from the windowsill?

[–] TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

We stop backing Ukraine, we start backing Israel. Ukraine loses billions in funding, which helps Russia. The better off Russia is the larger ally China has.

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[–] weeahnn@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Wouldn't this whole thing just be a huge problem for him tho? After Israel is done, I would think that the government would start getting really uncomfortable questions from the people. Like wtf was the military and the intelligence doing.

[–] Instigate@aussie.zone 3 points 2 years ago

A segment of the populace will definitely be feeling that, but remember what happened in the US after 9/11? There weren’t a lot of calls to figure out how intelligence failed so spectacularly because the sabre-rattling government came out in full force, and the country (almost) united against Islamic terrorism. Those who aren’t overtly political or who don’t follow politics too closely will only see that Bibi has reacted with as much force as possible, which plays into his strongman vibe and may even win his party an election in their own right, without having to coalesce with the other parties. After the clusterfuck of elections they’ve been through recently, this could be what seals another decade of Likud rule.

[–] TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone 55 points 2 years ago (12 children)

I'm not sure why people wonder, "What is Hamas thinking?!"

They aren't.

They are a far right fundamentalist extremist terrorist organisation. They are fucking delusional.

Palestinian people deserve so much better than Hamas, and they have to suffer now. That's just terrible.

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[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 41 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (17 children)

I dunno, the internet has told me that Israel is just as bad. I definitely remember when the IDF took a bunch of civilian women and children as hostages and then announced that it was going to livestream their murder.

Oh wait.

[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 39 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (9 children)

There are no good guys in that conflict.

Only bad guys and victims.

Hamas being terrorists doesn't make it OK for Israel to be committed to genocide any more than Israel's existence as an ethnofascist apartheid state makes in OK for Hamas to be bombing proms.

Both organizations are making it impossible for Palestinians to live peacefully.

[–] DarkGamer@kbin.social 26 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (10 children)

If Israel were committed to genocide there would be no Palestine. It is their historical sensitivity to genocide and limitations placed on them by international law and foreign pressures that imposes on them very different standards of behavior in this war. If they operated by the same set of rules that Hamas does, this conflict would have been over long ago.

Others were captured and bound and kidnapped. “I saw videos with a male getting held by a group of Arab kids. Like, they’re like 16, 17,” one survivor recalled. “They’re kids, but they’re young men already, and they’re holding this guy, and he looks as his girlfriend is being mounted on a bike and driven away from him. God knows what she’s going to experience … Women have been raped at the area of the rave next to their friends bodies, dead bodies.”
Several of these rape victims appear to have been later executed. Others were taken to Gaza. In photographs released online, you can see several paraded through the city’s streets, blood gushing from between their legs.
One survivor who’d returned to the scene later in the day to look for his friends spoke, in a breaking voice, of what he’d seen. Of the bodies, mainly of young women, lying cold and mutilated. Of scantily clad corpses, many of whom appeared to have been shot at point-blank. Of cars, perforated by bullets or blown up by grenades.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/israel-music-festival-massacre-eyewitness-account

Israel does not perform atrocities like this. This wasn't collateral damage, this wasn't an attack on a valid military target, it was intentionally kidnapping, raping, and murdering civilians. This sort of behavior makes it very hard for me to swallow the, "both sides are equally bad," narrative. I had a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian situation before, it is quickly evaporating.

[–] NevermindNoMind@lemmy.world 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Israel has turned Gaza into an open air prison. Today Bibi announced the blockade would become total, including food, water, and medicine, which sure sounds like a path to genocide, but I'll save that criticism until it actually plays out. In general, Israel is an apartied state. Hamas is a bunch of murderous terrorists committing war crimes, doing far more harm to their supposed cause than good. This attack will result in far more of their people suffering. But they count on that, hate within the Palestine community in Gaza is what gives them political power, so the civilians Isreal is currently killing will just continue to fuel the cycle of violence.

Everyone sucks here, Hamas sucks way way way more, but that doesn't make Israel "good". If you compare Nazi Germany to apartied South Africa, the former is going to win the evil country contest everytime. But that doesn't make apartied South Africa good. If it wasn't for the Book of Revelations, America (it's government and it's people) would care as much about this conflict as it does about various civil wars and genocides happening all over the world, which is to say not at all (unless oil or other natural resources are imperilled).

[–] DarkGamer@kbin.social 9 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (5 children)

Today Bibi announced the blockade would become total, including food, water, and medicine, which sure sounds like a path to genocide

My understanding is the border crossing with Egypt is still open, so Palestine can still have access to all of that.

Everyone sucks here, Hamas sucks way way way more, but that doesn’t make Israel “good”.

You make a good point about no one having clean hands in this conflict, but one party here seems willing to commit atrocities that the other is not. One party is historically willing to compromise and negotiate for a viable solution and the other has not, and in fact has it in their charter that they will not negotiate or compromise.

[Hamas's charter,] article 13, "There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

What we need to end this amicably is a solution that neither party is happy with, one they are equally dissatisfied with, because that is a hallmark of compromise. If one or both parties are unwilling to compromise, the erosion of Palestinian lands and power will continue as it has, and such atrocious acts may serve to hasten it.

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[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 9 points 2 years ago

If Israel were committed to genocide there would be no Palestine.

Hate to point out the irony, especially in this context... but at the rate things are going, in another 5 years there probably won't be a Palestine.

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[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 24 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Snark aside, I do completely agree, and there's a lot that I would criticize Israel for. That list does not, however, include mass murder, rape, and kidnapping of random civilians.

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[–] kromem@lemmy.world 16 points 2 years ago

The equivalency discussions are all BS.

Terrorist attacks targeting civilians are bad.

Also, indiscriminate bombing killing civilians is bad.

A civilized world really shouldn't condone either. And one doesn't justify the other.

Flying planes into civilian buildings killing thousands wasn't an appropriate response to their government supporting tyrants who tortured and killed dissidents. (Also, probably not a good idea to support tyrants.)

The hundreds of thousands of civilians who died in the middle east in response to those attacks shouldn't have had to pay the price on such an attack even if their country had had anything to do with it in the first place.

The only appropriate "both sides" in these kinds of situations is the capacity to have empathy and regret over the suffering that occurs to normal people trying to live their lives on both sides of the conflicts.

Unfortunately a lot of what I'm seeing online these days is the logical equivalent of "Bin Laden was justified in 9/11 because the US's foreign policy caused the suffering of many in the middle east." Logic I happen to think is pretty disgusting personally, just as I've also always found dismissal of civilian suffering in broader military responses reprehensible.

Not a lot of countries have clean hands to be pointing fingers with, but the only way we move towards a world with less blood on our collective hands is by unequivocally pointing to human rights abuses where they occur and saying "this is not okay."

Not "this is okay because so and so bombed a city block first and wasn't touching black while saying I'm rubber and you're glue."

No - targeting or indiscriminately killing civilians is not okay - full stop.

And if one's attitude about the civilian deaths of one group of people is anything less than that, they might just be a bit racist towards that group of people, and may want to reexamine how they look at fellow humans and the degree to which minor differences in skin color or religion or ancestral identity outweighs the commonality of the human experience of pain, suffering, and loss.

TL;DR: It's perfectly appropriate to recognize that the Palestinian people have suffered injustice and mistreatment while also recognizing that a terrorist attack on Israeli civilians is repugnant. The mental gymnastics to recognize the former and not the latter is pretty gross though, and honestly every time I see it (and frequently these days) I can't help but think it probably really does boil down to racist assholes using false equivalency to justify their bigotry.

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[–] jcit878@lemmy.world 26 points 2 years ago

Always remember, if you plan on doing some stupid crime or barbaric thing, just make sure you say the other guy is responsible first. Prosecutors HATE this one trick!

[–] dumdum666@kbin.social 10 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Why would they negotiate with Terrorists?

[–] nonailsleft@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

Because, despite what Hollywood told you, everyone does

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