I want to highlight the first sentence of this article:
All the incidents involved took place outside of Gaza before the current war.
This is relevant to current events because it shows that Israeli military has a history of such behavior, but it’s not actually directly relevant to the current fighting in Gaza, it’s really only tangential.
A lot of people in the comments seem to be assuming that this represents the US being slow to come to a conclusion about Israel’s conduct in regard to Palestine since last year… but in fact no such judgment has been made, this has nothing to do with the current conflict (still waiting on that).
Well, it’s basically a human rights violator accusing someone else of being a human rights violator. One doesn’t care what the international court of justice says, the other doesn’t even recognize it. While at the same time the one accusing keeps on delivering guns to the accused so they can continue violating human rights. It’s a strange world we live in.
Well, it’s basically a human rights violator accusing someone else of being a human rights violator.
This is true… but well, do you know of a government that hasn’t committed human rights violations? And I’m not asking that to try to deflect from the US’s complicity in this, but to point out that in basically every case where a government accuses another of human rights violations, the accusing party will also have some such in its past. But it’s still necessary to make the accusations, on a public stage. Nothing will ever change otherwise.
One doesn’t care what the international court of justice says, the other doesn’t even recognize it. While at the same time the one accusing keeps on delivering guns to the accused so they can continue violating human rights.
Politically, the US will ignore the international court, but realistically US foreign policy is absolutely affected by public opinion. If this were not the case, then the weapons deal for Israel would never have been tied to the one for Ukraine in congress. If support for Ukraine were not an issue, then Israel probably wouldn’t have gotten anything.
I will point out that in the past decades there would never have been a question of whether the US would give military support to Israel, it would have just happened. Things have changed substantially over the past 20 years. For the US State Department (the foreign affairs office of the executive branch) to make such a public accusation, in the current situation, is a stronger signal than I think most people realize. As this article says:
The announcement is the first determination of its kind for any Israeli unit by the US government.
It’s basically saying “get your shit together”. I think the reason they made this statement based on events from 2022 and prior (rather than anything since October 2023) is that it’s verifiable and thoroughly investigated - Israel can’t just dismiss it by saying “you have no proof” or otherwise claiming that it was a necessary act of defense.
This is speculative and might go a little too far into reading the tea leaves… but there’s a fair amount of political intrigue here. Biden didn’t make the statement about Israel’s actions himself, which allows him to continue acting friendly with Netanyahu in person (rather than devolve into finger-pointing), but the State Department is directly responsible to him so this still carries the weight of the president’s authority. It’s the political equivalent of a backhand slap. The timing is too coincidental with the passing of the new foreign aid package.
It’s a strange world we live in.
It’s a… complicated world we live in. It always has been, really. Anyone pushing a simplistic take like “the US is evil for continuing to support Israel” or “Palestine is a terrorist state so it’s ok for Israel to do whatever it wants for security” or anything like that is either an idiot or trying to manipulate you. Context matters, and everything is connected. We haven’t even talked about the influence that Iran has over the US’s decision making with regard to Israel - but you know as long as the US-Iran relationship is adversarial, the US won’t completely stop supporting Israel, the strategic position is too important.
I don’t disagree and I don’t think Israel are good guys or something. It’s just that saying “everyone thinks so, so it must be true” is one of the stupidest and most dangerous things to say and think.
Mind you these human rights violations happened before the war. The lives of Palestinians were never rosy under Israel’s occupation.
Israel has been treating them as livestock for a long time and every time they were opposing they were crushed really hard. Simply the rest of the world cared too little about them and apart from a couple of strong worded statements of some states.
So in a way Hamas is reaction to this ill reatment and I dare say that if they have respected them and managed to find some peaceful agreement and treated them respectfully, this was and Hamas would have never occurred.
The US state department has found five units of the Israeli military responsible for gross violations of human rights in individual incidents, but says they will continue to receive US military backing.
Wow, just wow, textbook representation of double standards. Mind you this has happened before the current war there, and imagine how many unspeakable human rights violations have been committed by this so-called most moral army in the world, and what we do, nothing, absolutely f****** nothing.
Seems like the US is the lapdog of Israel.
Israel investigated the battalion over the death of 80-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Assad who died after being bound and gagged by soldiers during a West Bank village search in 2022.
At the time the US called for a “thorough criminal investigation and full accountability”.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later said they regretted Mr Assad’s death, and a commander would be “reprimanded” and two soldiers barred from senior positions for two years - but would not be prosecuted.
It sounds about the right level of scrutiny. You allegedly tortured and killed a man, and the commander was “reprimanded” and two solders barred from senior positions for TWO whole years. Damn, I think that’s even too harsh on those most moral soldiers. And mind you, this is only a problem, because the said victim was Palestinian American, if he was Palestinian, nothing would have happened.
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