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placnx

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Everything posted by placnx

  1. SInce when can Palestinians join the army? Druze can, though. Army service confers various advantages, so Palestinians are disadvantaged.
  2. IHL War rule 14 states: "Launching an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated, is prohibited." So the attack seems to be a violation of this rule, as only one person was a "squad commander". According to Times of Israel, "The IDF says that the trio were “en route to carry out terror activity in the area of central Gaza” when they were struck.", evidently another IDF lie. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/idf-shin-bet-confirm-killing-haniyehs-sons-say-the-three-were-hamas-operatives/ Today Al Jazeera has an excellent discussion of this assassination and the policy in general. The intro to the discussion mentions that worldwide Israel has done 2700 assassinations by various means. https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2024/4/11/what-has-allowed-israel-operate-an-assassination-policy-for-decades The comments by historian Ilan Pappe on the background and motivation for such assassinations are quite astute.
  3. There were times when Hamas stated that they would accept a 2-state solution, but without strong international pressure that has been out of reach for years because of the settlements. Back in the days of Camp David (2000), there were only around 100,000 settlers (not sure whether that includes East Jerusalem).
  4. Thanks for the link. I was writing of a report on BBC World News which did not mention the martyrdom statement. Maybe I was confused about who was visiting the injured, not bereaved, as recounted in your link.
  5. Unfortunately the settlers are not peaceable people, and there are too many. It would take an enormous prison and a a huge police force to arrest them. The Zionists manage to force 750,000 Palestinians out of present-day Israel in around 2 years, so with their technology it should not take to long to locate and transport the 700,000 setllers back to Israel or their countries of origin. Arab citizens of Israel do not enjoy equal rights. There is a more subtle form of aparthed practiced there than in the West Bank.
  6. Regarding the targeted strike on a car with Ismail Haniyeh's sons and grancshildren, the BBC report didn't mention the quote that you cite. He was reported to have said that this loss is not greater than any other Gazan. While Israel claimed that they were out on a terrorist operation, the other side said that they were out visiting bereaved people. This sounds more plausible since the grandchildren were along. While it is denied, I wonder whether Netanyahu was involved in approving this in order to torpedo the ceasefire negotiations. The leader of World Central Kitchen, José Andrés, wants a top down independent investigation of the targeted strike on his staff. I guess that he wants to know who really ordered this. After worldwide condemnation, the resulting offer by Israel to open the northern Erez crossing to aid trucks has not happened. A top down investigation, perhaps by the next government, might show (if transparent) whether attacks on aid workers, their trucks and ambulances, was a deliberate policy.
  7. These questions (see fine print) present such polar opposites that it would be hard for most people to choose the side criticizing Israel. It's human nature to not give the unfavored answer. If people were asked whether they approved of various tactics such as the starvation siege of the population, they would probably disapprove. A Wall Street Journal late February poll cited on page 6 of the April 3rd edition says that 60% of voters disapprove of Biden's handling of the war, up 8 points since December. If people approved of the execution of the war, why would they disapprove of Biden's stand?
  8. Regarding divion between Church & State, you could be talking about Israel & the US, too.
  9. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Watch In 2001, [David A.] Harris announced that UN Watch had become a wholly owned subsidiary of the American Jewish Committee. According to a press release at the time, “UN Watch was established with the generous assistance of Edgar Bronfman, President of the World Jewish Congress. Eighteen months ago, the American Jewish Committee and the World Jewish Congress reached an agreement, approved by the international board of UN Watch, to transfer full control of the organization to AJC, an agreement that went into effect on January 1, 2001.”[11] Since 2013, UN Watch claimed it is no longer affiliated with AJC and is an independent organization. Claudia Rosett, a journalist-in-residence with the conservative Foundation for Defense of Democracies, praised UN Watch as "stalwart and invaluable".[64] The American journalist and political activist Phyllis Bennis described UN Watch as a "small Geneva-based right-wing organisation" that is "hardly known outside of UN headquarters".[65] She stressed that "undermining and delegitimising" Richard Falk through "scurrilous accusations" has been an "obsession of UN Watch" when he became Special Rapporteur.
  10. A discussion on Al Jazeera last night claimed that Min Aing Hlaing was the behind the Pig Butchering scam operations near the Chinese border, that China is very annoyed by the operations, so China cooperated so that the opposition could take over the area to shut down these scams.
  11. War crime: intentional starvation of civilians
  12. You asked for it: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/
  13. The Israeli public has been subjected to Pavlovian conditioning for so many years that it seems to be immune to reason. There is this paranoid reflex that they are going to be eliminated, but the reality is quite the opposite. It's the Palestinians who see their space and identity constantly under threat since WW 1.
  14. I'm also following the Burma story. There the opposition is fortunately not up against the IDF. Even so many civilians have also died there in indiscriminate attacks, and the ICJ is involved. Now let's not digress further.
  15. A majority in the US now are against Israel's reactionary atrocities committed on a scale beyond anything since WW2. Whatever IDF did, it should have avoided alienating the US public. Also, exposing itself to charges of genocide was a fateful choice.
  16. This UN report had no testimony from victims, only hearsay.
  17. The Gaza Health Ministry says that they document their fatalities with names and ID numbers. If so, double counting is avoided. An accounting of the missing, those buried under rubble and Hamas in tunnels, will take quite a while.
  18. Mixing up IDF body count with deaths reported from hospitals. Maybe you were not around in the time of the Vietnam War and don't know what "body count" means. There of course could be some overlap of body count from drone footage with bodies subsequently collected and taken to hospital, but drones operators make mistakes as to who is a combattant or civilian. People waving white flags are also shot.
  19. It's important to know the agenda of the organization which is the source of your link, Foundation for Defense of Democracies. These 3 quotes are from Wikipedia: FDD was founded shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001.[6] In the initial documents filed for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service, FDD's stated mission was to "provide education to enhance Israel's image in North America and the public's understanding of issues affecting Israeli-Arab relations" John Mearsheimer in 2007, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad in 2014, and Ofira Sekiktar in 2018 have described FDD as part of the Israel lobby in the United States.[9][10][11] Sima Vaknin-Gil, director general of Israel's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, had stated that the FDD works in conjunction with the Israeli government including the ministry. On 15 November 2019, FDD officially registered as a lobby under Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundation_for_Defense_of_Democracies
  20. It is crucial to note that this report emanates from the Henry Jackson Society. Note criticism from a co-founder: Co-founder Matthew Jamison, who now works for YouGov, wrote in 2017 that he was ashamed of his involvement, having never imagined the Henry Jackson Society "would become a far-right, deeply anti-Muslim racist ... propaganda outfit to smear other cultures, religions and ethnic groups". He claimed that "The HJS for many years has relentlessly demonised Muslims and Islam". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Jackson_Society
  21. The difference between a foreign man and Thai woman couple versus the opposite perhaps depends on the Thai view of the married couple where the man is dominant. I believe that this is also reflected in the law, so maybe there would have to be equality of the parties in a marriage. The question of whether one is a foreigner is a subsidiary issue. I wonder whether there is any difference between the North which is culturally matrilocal and Bangkok which is patrilocal, i.e. like China, in attitudes regarding mixed marriages.
  22. An earlier example of interference in internal affairs was in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia to depose the Khmer Rouge. China then attacked Vietnam, but were repulsed.
  23. Please desist from obvious misrepresentation.
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