Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib refused to apologize Wednesday for saying on Tuesday that Israel is to blame for the hospital explosion that day in Gaza, an accusation that sparked political backlash against her from Republicans as Israel denies fault.
Tlaib joined thousands of protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza during a solidarity rally hosted by the left-leaning group Jewish Voice for Peace at the National Mall. She was visibly emotional, at times pausing her speech to openly weep and criticizing lawmakers who have not backed a ceasefire resolution.
Glad to see somebody that gets it. If one side intentionally slaughters civilians, does the other side get a free pass to do the same? Palestine deserves to be free, but how many civilian adults and children in both Palestine and Israel should be sacrificed upon the altar of war to get it? 500,000? 1,000,000? If someone claims to care about the people and not just the outcome, the answer should be zero. Period. Doesn’t matter which side.
Accepting this stance doesn’t magically fix the problem in the middle east, like so many trolls are glib to point out, but you can condemn the actions of Hamas and Israel without having a solution to their “thousand year grudge” (which starts with a ceasefire, anyway). I may not know how to fix things, but I know that what’s happening is wrong, and that’s at least better than the people who think, “[My chosen side] is justified killing [opposing side’s] civilians, because they had it done to them!”
Fuck. That.
If Israel stopped fighting tomorrow, what do you think would happen?
Would it get its civilian hostages back?
Or would Hamas just set up another invasion and kill more civilians?
I never implied it did.
It does, however, require border security. Most countries have borders, and most countries that have borders with hostile forces try to enforce security at those borders, rather than just letting people come in and rape their civilians all willy-nilly.
That’s not called “apartheid” anywhere else in the world, only when people are looking for a word to demonize Jews with.
Defense does not necessitate apartheid or ethnic cleansing.
Where exactly has Israel done this recently? Attacking someone across your border because they’re killing people near yours is war.
See, Ukraine attacking places inside Russia lol. Justifiably so.
If Hamas stops fighting, does Palestine get freedom and self determination?
Actually, if the extremists don’t gain control- yes. There have been several instances when they have been close to peace and even a two state solution… But then the terrorism starts.
It’s not going to end the blockade of gaza or the occupation of the west bank overnight, but Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally in 2005, Gaza was pretty free, and that backfired hard for everybody involved. Hamas took advantage of the freedom of they had to dramatically ramp up rocket power.
The Olmert deal was a big opportunity for peace, but before either party could actually negotiate it, mounting terrorism gave Netanyahu a huge boost in support and he obviously wasn’t nearly as friendly. And obviou
Peace is a process. Trust is a process. There’s obviously no way Israelis will trust the PA while Hamas is still the majority party. There needs to be some kind of good faith on behalf of Palestinian leadership, doesn’t there?
This war is obviously not helping anybody, especially towards building that process. Israel is never going to say “oh, they killed thousands of us, and don’t want to stop? guess we’ll just end the blockade and let them have all the weapons they want!”
I’m sorry but I read what you say and it sounds like you and others are taking the easy path of calling for peace while not acknowledging that there is no real way for there to be peace. How can Israel have peace when there is an organization that unequivocally demands their complete destruction. Every call for ceasefire seems simultaneously a call that Israel returns to the status quo of 100s of rockets launched per day and the threat of another invasion and raping of their civilians. What would you have them do? They’re a sovereign nation, they simply won’t roll over and die because it’s convenient for the Middle East. I have so far refused to argue for ceasefire on the belief that Israel is defending itself from an existential threat. I continue to think that’s the case and I don’t see what’s changed. Everyone abhorrs innocents dying, but on my view, a call for ceasefire is a call that Israeli innocents die in place of Palestinians. If innocents are going to die either way, I don’t understand why we should not spend that blood trying to destroy Hamas. In the long run, when the numbers are tallied, it may truly be that this would be the quickest way to minimize the death of innocents, yet there are those who offer no solution and demand Israel stop their actions for the sake of innocents, yet make no acknowledgment that many more innocents may end up dying in the long run as a result. If I care about innocents, I don’t see how I can support that right now.
I think the primary issue is that “destroying Hamas” and “killing a hell of a lot of Palestinians” currently has a large overlap and the Israeli mindset of large amounts of collateral damage/death being acceptable is not shared by most of the rest of the world, even though they’re experiencing the same on a smaller mindset.
The pendulum swings the other way and there are absolutely bad faith actors out there (and on here) who have no problem with Israel continuing to take a barrage of rockets on a regular basis, because they either have no skin in the game or genuinely want Israel as an entity to collapse. They aren’t helpful here either.
Historically speaking, land claim issues involved one side stomping out the other. But that’s pretty much frowned upon today (not that has stopped Russia but, yeah, that’s another topic). This is still the most likely outcome here and will ultimately favor the larger, better funded Israel - it doesn’t make it right in any sense, though, but that’s frankly just what is going to happen eventually. None of the countries complaining are interested in actually helping the people on the ground in Palestine, on either side, because they are more useful as a political tool if left in the wastes to perish as a symbol
I think the primary issue is that “destroying Hamas” and “killing a hell of a lot of Palestinians” currently has a large overlap and the Israeli mindset of large amounts of collateral damage/death being acceptable is not shared by most of the rest of the world, even though they’re experiencing the same on a smaller mindset.
I’d argue it has *very little" overlap in the minds of Israelis. I’ve heard three people in a very conservative small town in the US discuss the latter, which is absolutely three too many. The lion’s share of Jews here—yes, Jews in a conservative town in the US—are very actively hoping for the best outcome possible for Palestinian civilians (even though we know they would never forgive Israel for destroying Hamas, even if it happened via magic bullet with no collateral damage).
Yes, a loud, dickish miniority of Israelis are calling for genocide, and yes, some of them will make it into the IDF, and do something horrible. That’s terrifying. Yes, Netanyahu sucks, fuck Netanyahu—although he is not calling for genocide, although he’s absolutely continued just about civilian-friendly policy the IDF ever had, he’s moved farther and farther to the right of Israeli politics. But the IDF, as an organization, is really still doing its best to weed them out, to control them, and to protect civilians while it goes after Hamas.
This is why Israel is trying to evacuate civilians from Gaza City. But people call that ethnic cleansing… And meanwhile, Israel has evacuated its own civilians from the south and from the Lebanese border, but nobody said Hamas and Lebanon are engaged in ethnic cleansing. Why the fuck would you not evacuate people from a war zone?
Because Hamas likes to use people at human shields.
Israel warns Hamas what building it’s going to strike, and when, and urges them to evacuate civilians from that building. And Hamas refuses. So Israel does its “roof knocking” if it thinks there’s a chance there might still be civilians in a building that’s firing rockets, trying to warn civilians again, and its critics say that “roof knocking” is somehow a war crime. They’re trying their hardest not to kill civilians, and Hamas is trying its hardest to make them martyrs!
No other army warns its enemy of what building it’s going to strike and when. That’s not a thing armies do. They don’t share intelligence, say “hey, I know you’re firing your weapons from this exact building, please stop.”
Which I keep telling people, so far Israel has shown more restraint than any other nation which would have leveled Gaza within the first few hundred rockets. Israel is going to spend even more of its blood preforming a ground invasion. Those are innocents dying too, surely. They didn’t ask for this enemy or this war. I still support them, because there is no compromise that can be had with Hamas.
It’s true that self-defense doesn’t give Israel the right to indiscriminately destroy all Palestinians. But, outside of the online rhetoric, it seems they’ve been very clear about the target of their war and they repeatedly are taking steps to attack that target specifically. I just read an article from a Palestinian journalist returning to her home in defiance of Israel’s warning to evacuate. These Palestinians quite literally are supporting Hamas, because they are willfully standing in front of Israel’s aimed attacks. It’s sad to see, but if I believe in Israel’s right to self-defense, it means supporting them when they destroy those who defend Hamas.
Apartheid would never end in South Africa. Until it did. Peace would never exist in Northern Ireland. Until it did. The cold war would never end. Until it did. The belief that the situation is unresolvable is the problem
Again, one side has a stated charter to destroy all Jews and Israel? What ceasefire or peace do you think you will accomplish here? Why must Israel bear the burden of allowing endless attacks and endless threats of attacks?
Yes, the correct thing for them to do is prevent inbound threats without conducting an ethnic cleansing you genocidal freak.
So you have no solutions and you demand Israel accept living under hundreds of rockets per day and the constant threat of terrorism. No. They don’t have to. What do you call it when you have a charter to kill all Jews and destroy Israel? Geno-what?
Facts are that Gaza is still there. The citizens are still there. Israel is starting to let humanitarian aid in, which must frustrate you.
You think if Hamas violated a ceasefire agreement that people’s judgment of them wouldn’t change? At all?
Trolling
Hamas has violated multiple ceasefires and is very specifically the reason a two-state solution isn’t already implemented.
Look around and tell me if everyone is anti-Hamas.
I think it’s fair criticism . At the very least walk back and reserve judgement until there’s more conclusive evidence. But I think until there’s better evidence, there should be more respect given to the US intelligence community. It was not long ago trump was criticized for accepting foreign intelligence over the US intelligence community. I think it’s fair to criticize tlaib for this as well.
And the thing is, the blame of who bombed the hospital isn’t critical to advocating for peace, criticizing unproportial Israeli response, or other pro Palestine messaging.
Here is the available evidence: https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206795861/heres-the-available-evidence-of-what-happened-at-al-ahli-arab-hospital-in-gaza
I like that they claim it wasn’t Israeli because of the lack of shrapnel damage to the buildings… directly under a picture of someone inspecting shrapnel damage on one of the buildings.
That’s a difference between your understanding and the author - the level of shrapnel damage from an air detonated bomb would be an order of magnitude higher than shown from the hospital explosion, but that doesn’t mean no shrapnel is produced by a rocket explosion or cars cooking off.
If your munition is designed to explode above the ground its designed to spread a hail of shrapnel in the detonation zone. There are plenty of pictures from ukraine showing the effects of these munitions, it turns the area into a cheese grater.
Lack of crater and a large fire are hallmarks of a conflagration vs an explosion.
But I think until there’s better evidence, there should be more respect given to the US intelligence community
The US intelligence community isn’t an objective organization with a mission to inform US citizens of what’s really going on in the world. Anything they release is at the direction of political actors and intended to cause some effect. They can be good at their jobs and their released information is still inherently untrustworthy.
So what is the unbiased source that investigated this faster than the US Intelligence community that was not directly involved in the current conflict?
Yes, there are blemishes on the US Intelligence’s history. But a US Politician should have a little more deference you the US Intelligence Community.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/18/gaza-hospital-explosion-missile-palestine/
OSINT analysis. Independent analysts using public data very quickly determined that Israel was not to blame.
It doesn’t matter if the US Intelligence community is faster, they’re still not trustworthy. Within the government, hopefully intelligence is just a confidential useful tool to inform government officials, but press releases are political actions.
And frankly, US politicians (outside of the president) shouldn’t be overly trusting of the intelligence community. They’re heavily influenced by the executive’s wants and were (under pressure) a key player in justifying the war in Iraq. That’s not a small blemish, and I’m not aware of any changes that would make that impossible in the aftermath.
It feels like she is too close to this, and is expressing her passion instead of allowing evidence to be presented. It’s gonna look real bad if things don’t pan out her way, and she’s the one supporting terrorism.
How would she be supporting terrorism?, she’s one of the few in Congress calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence. Even if she’s wrong and islamic jihad were responsible that doesn’t mean she accidentally supported them. She said the bombing of the hospital was horrific and unless she changes her tone once she realizes Palestinians did it then this isn’t supporting terrorism.
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She’s calling for a ceasefire while Hamas has its hostages. Hamas isn’t going to give back the hostages in honor of a ceasefire. A ceasefire, even a temporary one, is a win for Hamas in that it prolongs the terror, and resolves nothing. The best-case scenario of a ceasefire is they wait two months, Hamas jerks everybody around, and then it all starts over again, except now with the babies indoctrinated two months further into Islam.
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She’s blaming Israel with only one piece of evidence: Hamas’s accusation. Meanwhile, OSINT + Israeli intelligence made public + US Intelligence all make it clear that Israel was not at fault. She chooses to repeat Hamas’s story instead of looking at the evidence. She is supporting Hamas.
She said the bombing of the hospital was horrific and unless she changes her tone once she realizes Palestinians did it then this isn’t supporting terrorism.
She didn’t just say the bombing of the hospital was horrific. She explicitly said that Israel bombed the hospital:
Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.
There’s enough evidence - from third parties, not from either Hamas or the IDF or another invested party - out there that runs counter to the claim that it was an Israeli airstrike that Tlaib should have at least modified here initial statement.
But she hasn’t.
I agree that she hasn’t openly supported terrorism, but blaming one side for something that was very likely caused by the other side, and then completely refusing to acknowledge that once evidence to the contrary comes out is, at the very least, doing nothing to calm tensions.
Even if she’s wrong and islamic jihad were responsible that doesn’t mean she accidentally supported them.
War doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If you add weight to one side of the scale, the other side is raised. If I have a can of Coke and a can of Pepsi, and I point to the Coke and say, “This one gave me diabetes,” it doesn’t matter that the Pepsi is just as bad, all that matters is that I pushed the blame on Coke.
Its easy and understandable to fall for initial disinformation, but after facts come out sticking to those lies becomes malicious.
From the article:
“Our office cited an AP report yesterday that the IDF had hit a Baptist hospital in Gaza. Since then, the IDF denied responsibility and the US intelligence assessment is that this was not done by Israel,” she wrote. “It is a reminder that information is often unreliable and disputed in the fog of war (especially on Twitter where misinformation is rampant). We all have a responsibility to ensure information we are sharing is from credible sources and to acknowledge as new reports come in.”
Omar called for a “fully independent investigation to determine conclusively who is responsible for this war crime.”
It sounds like she acknowledges Israel probably isn’t behind it, but also isn’t apologizing for her initial remarks like some Republicans were calling for. The story should probably mention that higher up and more explicitly, rather than burying the lede.
also isn’t apologizing for her initial remarks
I dunno this strikes me as an issue. Like, if a known serial killer is accused of murder for obvious reasons, and we find out they were actually innocent – we weren’t wrong for our initial suspicions and accusation, but we do owe them an apology once all the information is out.
If you accuse someone who turns out to be innocent, the polite thing to do is apologize for thinking badly of them, however much you were justified in thinking so to start with.
Omar’s comment calling for further investigation is completely appropriate, while Tlaib’s refusal to apologize is inappropriate, especially since she conflated the whole thing with being anti Muslim.
but we do owe them an apology once all the information is out.
No - we don’t owe a serial killer an apology if turns out they murdered ninety-nine people instead of a hundred.
the polite thing to do is apologize for thinking badly of them
No, there is nothing “polite” about “apologizing” to a genocidal settler-colonialist state.
The left just struggles with separating the sane part from the crazy-democrat-version-of-maga-part. Gotta stick together to show those stupid Republicans who are sticking by their crazy maga crowd.
The US DOD should find the munitions expert who made that bomb with such limited budget seeing how powerful it is and teach the Ukrainian military how to do something similar
There’s no reason to apologize, if Isreal is so adamant to prove it’s innocence let an international investigation open. But they won’t because like for the killing of the journalist Shereen AbuAkleh they are guilty.
Then why lie to strengthen your cause if it is already justifiable without the facts being known?
The ones that have a long track records of lies and deceit are Israeli and US government. History is the witness. I don’t need to strengthen the case I want the end of civilians murder, humanitarian aids and international investigation on war crimes such as this.
There’s a good essay on The Atlantic by a former AP reporter on how the press fails to counter Hamas strongarming them to give them a pass their failures in Gaza. Walking into the office armed to make them pull articles about misfires killing civilians and such. Rest assured that the ‘history’ you’ve seen is heavily colored by the Palestinian side as well, and perhaps even more.
