“Israel has a right to self-defence, but it has to be done within international law … cutting water, cutting electricity, cutting food to a mass of civilian people is against international law,” said EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday (10 October).
He repeated the view more than once in his press briefing. “The Palestinian people are also suffering,” he added.
An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind. This cycle of violence and repression needs to stop.
It’s not an eye for an eye though. Israeli atrocities over the decades dwarf what has been inflicted upon them by Palestine and Hamas.
You go far back in history enough and we can be here all day over who is guiltier
Do we get to go back far enough to the part where israel admitted to funding hamas in 2019?
You guys know this isnt a conspiracy, right? Israeli politicians flat out said this in interviews?
It’s not an eye-for-an-eye because we shouldn’t consider targetting civilians an option. If you want to call militias that target civilians terrorists, be consistent regardless of what uniform they are wearing.
It is a pretty clown face move to attach those that supply your water, electricity and fuel.
There’s another possibility.
Lebanon gets involved. Then Iran. Then the US. Then Iraq. Then Afghanistan. Then Russia. On and on until it’s WW3
But no one wants to talk about that
Yes I’m sure we need to care about great power Afghanistan “getting involved” in Gaza. We should also be wary of Mongolia, and probably Lesotho as well.
Russia/Iran/US/EU are all already “involved” in with Israel. US/EU/Israel want to culturally genocide palestine and Russia/Iran want to hurt the US/EU. This isn’t ww3, and if push comes to shove none of the major players are going to start ww3 over Israel or Palestine.
Nobody talks about it, because it’s not realistic. This will be treated as another proxy war, with countries providing aid, but not actively fighting.
The US and Russia are already involved. Russia likely started this mess, and US is already sending munitions to its ally.
Eye for an eye is a misunderstood quote.
It actually means tolerance.
It means you can only take what was taken from you.
The Middle East has always had an issue with being barbaric. It was intent to mellow it out.
Get this racist bullshit outta here, the middle east is literally one of the cradles of civilization and throughout its history has been a place of tolerance and learning, the barbarity overwhelmingly comes from the outside
You’re also using an example of one of the earliest law codes we know to show barbarity, fucking unreal
The exact opposite before the law, if a family member was killed, the other tribe may go kill the whole family.
That is what eye for an eye is about. Tolerance.
Maybe you should brush up on your history. Blood feuds are still on going In the Middle East.
It’s like communism. It’s brutal for the sake of being brutal
If you want to just count recent history, jews started buying land and returning to Palestine in the late 1800s. They started flooding in after some anti-semitic pogroms in the early 20th century and things have been spicy since.
Do you think the region of Palestine and Arabs/Jews were created in 1948?
There have actually been plenty of periods of peace and tolerance in the middle east over the millennia. When these feuds break out people go back and dig up ancient reasons to justify them, but the feuds themselves are new and are not contiguous with those ancient ones.
Ehhhhh…when everyone reporting on it and everyone involved all acknowledge these old reasons as the root of the issue, I’m inclined to believe them over some comment on Lemmy.
Heard a lot of shit Iran’s supposed to be involved with in the region, but it’s the first time I hear them being accused of having engineered the Israel -Palestine conflict. How do you figure that? I would’ve understood accusing France for their involvement in sykes-picot, or even the Turks since the Ottomans administered the region in early 20th century. But Iran started supporting the Palestinians after the 1979 revolution, before that the Shah very much supported Israel. So I have a hard time seeing how they could be blamed for engineering the conflict.
Haven’t read a history book I take it, if you think the fight over Palestine is a new thing. I guess you’ve also never heard of the Crusades
I can say that about literally every piece of land on the planet.
So can you. You literally did, in a comment in this exact thread
Exactly. We can say that about anywhere, and many people can claim Palestine as their ancestral home. It’s in the past and that’s over now. Sucks but my people went through it. Get every white and European off of my continent and ancestral lands and I’d be more sympathetic. P.s that’s what makes me laugh too about all this, North American kids bitching about Israel colonizing Palestine, meanwhile my native ass is sitting there wondering if they get the irony.
Israel isn’t going away, the people who think the answer is getting rid of it are delusional.
Hamas can surrender and they’ll get water immediately. I don’t see why Israel has to give them anything while their soldiers get killed during the takeover
The children living in Gaza don’t have that option. Hopefully evacuation corridors are operational.
Unfortunately the only right way to go about this is to completely decimate Hamas and force an unconditional surrender then occupy and reprogram Palestinians in the hope that eventually 60 years from now they are able to govern themselves as allies.
The UN and EU consider lots of things Israel does illegal. We just don’t do anything about it and they don’t care.
This is true. But it is also because there isn’t a much better alternative.
The Palestinians don’t have a Nelson Mandela, MLK or Mahatma Gandhi kind of person that the western world can rally around and support.
Like, I’m sitting here at home in Europe, thoroughly disapproving of Israel, while being also fully disgusted by what Hamas did.
And I understand why Palestinians fight. I can understand that they can’t be fully pacifist and that they don’t have the capability to wage a normal war, so they result to asymmetric warfare.
But if they had just cleanly killed or kidnapped the adults and spared the children, that would have been the minimum to not fully alienate a lot of people who are sympathetic to their cause.
I guess Yasser Arafat was the best they had and it only went downhill after that.
The problem I have with the “both sides” argument is while I agree we should not approve of Hamas’ actions, Israel routinely murders civilians without consequence. We tut and tsk but we still send them basically unlimited aid and approval.
Yes both sides behave badly but one side does so with our explicit support.
Don’t forget how Israel sells world-class spyware to despots and dictators, who use it to terrorise journalists and political opponents.
There’s a bit of a moral difference though. When you say ‘routinely murders civilians’, in a lot of cases we’re talking about protestors throwing rocks or molotovs at police or soldiers. Or when Hamas is firing missiles from a schoolyard or the roof of a hospital. Where do you draw the line where police/army/country has the right to defend themselves? Of course it creates a tense situation and Israel is going to close ranks around those who are far too trigger happy.
But there’s still a huge difference with Hamas’ stated and demonstrated goal to kill off all jews. Israel is trying to bully the muslims so that they would emigrate, but they’re not killing civilians to wipe them out (if that were the case they would be failing).
As a comparison Israel is acting more like Morocco colonising the Western Sahara and Hamas is acting like Europeans genociding the Native Americans
We (the EU at least) also send a lot of aid to Palestinians.
Israel should be sanctioned and decolonized like South Africa was.
And I, for one, believe that that would have happened a long time ago if the Palestinians had followed the Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi playbook.
Perhaps I am wrong. Like the rest of the world, I also don’t have the solution for this quagmire.
Thing also is that those people were also hated during thier time and also called terrorists. There’s no good options for a leader sadly.
I was alive when Nelson Mandela was active, and he wasn’t called a terrorist in the west.
He was revered as a hero by many in the West, just like Navalny is revered today.
But Hamas does very textbook terrorist things, seems to me like they are actually terrorists.
“And in response we will send 100 billion in lethal aid directly to Israel.”
Israelis are doing a genocide in Gaza right now and the whole western world will celebrate it at worst and tut about it at best. Disgusting
Yes, they are doing a genocide.
I’m not sure what other options are available at this point though.
Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
People say separate the Hamas from the people, but that’s really hard when the members of Hamas are of the people and have the support of a good percentage of them.
If Israel invades on foot and Hamas is threatened they can simply fade back into the population and wait to try again. And the general population will support them in doing so.
The creation of the state of Israel was a mistake and the rise of Hamas is the direct result of decades of apartheid practiced against the Palestinians by the Israeli state.
… But as the issue stands today, I can’t blame Israel in taking extreme action to end the conflict that’s dragged on for nearly a century now.
There is no reasonable path to peace. A two state solution would end with the states at war anyway as both states have extreamists who want to genocide the other in government positions.
And there is no where that would accept the Gaza population as refugees even if you could get them to leave.
So what’s left?
Well one option is they could get off the fucking land they stole and stop doing a genocide. Not sure why that option slipped your mind. Libs always trying to find hard solutions to simple problems.
It was Western powers that “gave” land that didn’t belong to them, and where other people already lived (and, of course, continue to support Israel). The Israeli government is not the only responsible party here.
Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
The exact same nonsense was said about the end of apartheid in South Africa. That the extremist communist party and ANC would genocide white people. It never happened. This is literally a talking point from ex apartheid South African president PW Botha he said the same nonsense:
“I am not prepared to lead white South Africans and other minority groups on a road to abdication and suicide,”
That the extremist communist party and ANC would genocide white people. It never happened.
Hi comrade. Not coming at you personally or aggressively but I feel I do have to come back pretty hard on this take.
The same words can be used in different contexts with different implications, and in the one case they can be correct, in another they can be wrong. The difference which makes your analogy not hold is that the ANC is not Hamas, and pretending otherwise is either confused or disingenuous. They are extremely different organizations. The ANC was a broad-tent organization that included conservatives, nationalists, reactionaries, and revolutionary socialists, notably communists (especially in the armed wing). The armed wing did carry out military operations obvs, but they did not have as a common or explicit policy the indiscriminate torture of unarmed children or torture. They never carried out actions like Hamas has done. Not least because they were sufficiently progressive to recognize that this would politically idiotic, given that the anti-apartheid cause was perceived as depending on foreign pressure on apartheid SA. It seems clear to me that the same applies to the Palestinian case, thought the problem if ofc that the situation is so fucked that the main organization capable and willing of waging armed resistance would not only be terrible for a Palestinian left’s growth in the long-run but could also lead to a regional destabilization which would be harmful for the left in the region more broadly and would likely only benefit Islamists. The actual idea situation would be another leftist-led Intifada, but this has been prevented by Israel, but is also not in the interest of either Hamas or the PA, as it would undermine their authority and power they possess thanks to Israel in Gaza and the West Bank respectively.
By contrast, Hamas are very different. The is evidence for Hamas being the way they are has been there since their inception. They are Islamists. They are extremely fascistic in their politics. They explicitly equate Jews and Israel frequently in their media and they are otherwise clear in their genocidal anti-semitism. Murdering children in their homes is not national-liberation. I’d also add that Hamas are not identical to Palestinians and their actions are not immediately identical with, though they are unfortunately the main military vehicle currently available for, the struggle for Palestinian liberation. Not only that, but Hamas have consistently proven throughout their existence that they do not desire full Palestinian liberation, otherwise they would not have run affairs in Gaza (to the extent they are able in an Israeli open-air concentration-camp) the way they have. This is in no way surprising, given that the interests of Islamists are no less inimical to those of actual working class and liberation movements than fascists and ultra-nationalists, though the latter might also find themselves in the inferior position in asymmetrical warfare with an imperialist power and at the military head of the movement against said imperialism.
Quite frankly, it is an insult to the South African liberation movement to equate them with Hamas, as opposed to the genuinely progressive aspects of the Palestinian liberation movement.
I do think it is important to note these profoundly reactionary aspects of Hamas, otherwise we end up with a blinkered, confused view of what is happening, which is not simply reducible to Hamas being or leading a progressive revolution in Gaza. That in no way changes the fact that the mass of Palestinians who are taking part in these operations are attempting to combat Israeli apartheid and genocide and defend themselves. They evidently feel they have no other choice. But neither does the latter point make Hamas a progressive organization who should be explicitly supported as the solution to Palestinians’ oppression.
The right and need of Palestinians to depend themselves does not, however, in any way imply that every organization that happens to be the means they can do it through now is ideal, good, progressive, or that that will benefit them in the long run. Palestinian Marxists and other groups have found themselves in a situation where they feel they have no option or choice other than to form a front with Hamas in this. The deeper reasons and processes that led to that decision are not entirely clear from outside. We can unequivocally support Palestinian liberation and their self-defense while recognizing that Hamas is otherwise reactionary and therefore will not be the ideal vehicle Also, frankly, I’m never going to support an organization that tortures gay people and throws their Marxist opponents off of rooftops. Unfortunately I’m a pessimist on the front of how the political situation will develop in the long-term as I think the situation’s possible developments are going to be catastrophic in any case, given the genocidal nature of the Israeli apartheid state, how profoundly reactionary Hamas are, and that the material conditions do not allow for the strength of a Communist movement. That would require more ideal conditions which are not to be found in Gaza, and I also don’t think will be brought closer by this current round of war. Israel does of course have ultimate responsibility for this as the genocidal apartheid occupying power, but reaction can bread reaction.
Not all national liberation movements are equal. Not all methods are politically or morally equal. People on this site seem to be able to make this realization in several other cases, such as with ostensibly ‘communist’ groups like the Khmer Rouge and Sendero Luminoso, yet unable to consistently make the same obvious realization in the case of groups in the middle east who’s interests are opposed to those of Western imperialism. There’s a deep and hysterical need among a lot of the western left, not only including but above all among those who are not Marxists but ultras of various types, to unequivocally identify Hamas with the Palestinian people and the cause of Palestinian Liberation with anything that Hamas does, which is a really bizarre and honestly perverse (especially in its reduction of Palestinians to Hamas) form of metaphysical argument by semantic shift of the meaning of the words being used, to make something appear to imply something which it actually does not.
The slightest glance at the history of the relationship of the USSR to national liberation movements makes clear that serious and intelligent socialists of the past who have actually held political power and had geopolitical relevance were perfectly aware that not all national liberation groups are politically equal. Their support was never unconditional, because they were not ultra edgelords on the internet. They were a serious geopolitical power with a specific socialist ideology, and their support was therefore conditional on there being a minimum of progressive aspects to the movements they supported. Of course, this did lead to cases of of questionable or debatable support (such as the Guomingdang or the Derg), and the case is even worse when we consider the CPC’s foreign policy. But that these were mistakes (if they were) is made clear by how they contradicted with the socialist principles which were explicitly underlying them in the minds of socialists politicians who determined foreign policy.
Hamas is extremist to the point where they would be doing a genocide as well if they were in the position to do so.
“the people being genocided would do the exact same thing if they come into power!” is just soft genocide denial. it’s colonizers telling on themselves, because that’s their solution to an unwanted indigenous populace.
People say separate the Hamas from the people, but that’s really hard when the members of Hamas are of the people and have the support of a good percentage of them.
israel was instrumental in destroying all non-hamas groups. their extremism is intentional, as it gives israel an excuse to continue doing genocide.
… But as the issue stands today, I can’t blame Israel in taking extreme action to end the conflict that’s dragged on for nearly a century now.
you…can’t blame the genocidal settler state for continuing to do a genocide in response to…people resisting the genocide they have been doing for 70 years?? are you fucking drunk?
That’s what makes the whole thing complicated, isn’t it?
Israel shouldn’t have existed to begin with and when it did, it shouldn’t have acted the way it has since its inception.
Yes, Israel is to blame for Hamas having power in Gaza today as well.
I’m not arguing that Israel isn’t a bad guy here.
What I’m arguing is I don’t see an alternative that doesn’t just kick the can down the road.
Really? Your stance is “decolonization sounds complicated, let’s just let Israel genocide millions of people”? As other posters have said, send any dual citizens back to their country of origin, remove settlers from Palestinian land, end the siege of gaza, take down the wall and machine guns, prosecute IDF war criminals, and dissolve the criminal entity that is Israel. Will it be bloodless and free of violence? Of course not, I’m not naive, but the genocide of Palestinians will be much more bloody than any decolonization process
Decolonization is a bloody and violent process. Once you colonize a place and the people that live there, the only ways that it will end is the near-complete extermination of the colonized peoples by the colonizers, or decolonization. There can never be a lasting, peaceful status quo, as the interests of the colonized and the colonizers are inexorably opposed. The colonizer wants more of what is and was the colonized’s. The colonized want to keep their homes, and to not be subject to the colonizers. Both will use violence to achieve their ends.
The question of “how can peace be achieved in Palestine” is not “how can the current conflict be resolved,” but instead “should Palestinians be subject to ethnic cleansing, including violently and directly as occurred during the Nakba, or should Palestinians govern Palestine?”
And there is no where that would accept the Gaza population as refugees even if you could get them to leave.
So what’s left?
Did you just end your lengthy support of Israeli genocide with “No one wants them anyway, so what else is there but to kill them?” Because it sure sounded like that.
Obviously illegal. Collective punishment is a war crime and makes Israel a monster. Imagine if there was a murderer in your building and the feds blew the entire building up.
As is punishing all Russian passport holders for the action of the government. So it’s either both EU and Israel are monsters or neither is.
Not being able to spend summer in the Algarve and being brutally murdered is totally the same thing.
“Collective punishment is a war crime”. Except for Palestinians and Russians, of course. And anybody we disagree with. Fuck those civilians.
We are hypocrites. We have double standards.
I am just pointing it out.
“Collective punishment is a war crime”. Except for Palestinians and Russians, of course. And anybody we disagree with. Fuck those civilians.
We are hypocrites. We have double standards.
I am just pointing it out.
Launching missiles across borders is different than securing your own borders. You can’t possibly really be trying to equate the two?
“Collective punishment is a war crime”. Except for Palestinians and Russians, of course. And anybody we disagree with. Fuck those civilians.
We are hypocrites. We have double standards.
I am just pointing it out.
This is not valid in all cases as I know multiple Russians and those living in EU continue to do so with no issue and those living in RU say it doesn’t affect them. You can even find interview with random RU citizens in RU and they all say it doesn’t affect them or that they want to attack UA BC Nato boarder is too close.
You missed the point :
Russia invades and terrorises the Ukrainian civilians. We punish Russian civilians aka collective punishment.
Hamas invades Israel and terrorises Israeli civilians. Israel punishes Gaza civilians aka collective punishment.
In the first case we are OK. In the second case we scream at Israel (the OP post) “Collective punishment is war crime!!”
We. Are. Hypocrites.
Oh I love allegories. Let me try.
Imagine there was a murderer in your building. But he is not really interested in murdering you, he keeps shooting at some other people you also hate. The feds have tried to go into the building to extract the murderer, but his friends and you lynched the feds when they tried. The murderer has stockpiled his guns in the building and the feds figure that if they can’t get to the murderer at least they can destroy his guns and vantage point from which he is firing at people. They don’t really want to destroy the building but the murderer is actively trying to kill people and the people he is trying to kill demands action.
You receive a text message that the building you are in will be destroyed shortly. You want to leave, but now the murderer says he will kill you if you do.
It is a very silly thing to think that having a “civilian” stay in a legitimate military target ( rocket launcher and or rocket storage ) makes it a place that is untouchable!
And then you left and srill the rocket kills you even when you ate not in the building anymore
Are you telling me there are people being told their building will be blown up who leave the building to go stand just a few meters away on the street it sits on?
There is no helping the clowns in this forum. They’re lost and don’t understand the costs of living in a terrorist society. There has been billions spend on providing aid, proving avenues, providing resources to the gaza strip.
“the cost of living in a terrorist society”
If Hamas orders civilians to stay in buildings that will be bombed, those lives are taken by Hamas, not Israel.
Where are the sanctions then?
Slavs are schrodinger whites in the eyes of the west. They can be called white when they die in a proxy war for US oligarchs, or may become even a proud second class citizens and earn some praise when colonized by the west and bootlicking it. But when they resist? Immediate reclassification to the “asian mongolic horde” status.
