When we reach for our democratic ideals we are at our best.
Meanwhile back in the middle east, authoritarian religious police stone you to death for saying things like you’re saying about their government. Grow up. You obviously have it very good.
If they want more rights that begins with following International law on any occasions. Rejecting terrorism. Putting your soldiers in uniform. Freeing hostages. Not targeting innocent people every single day with indiscriminate rocket attacks. Do you know anything about the people you’re talking about or are you just ignoring it all because you’re sad about the consequences of their own actions? Nobody made Hamas build tunnels under every single school and hospital, nobody made Hamas turn their airport and water ports into instrumentalities of international terrorism. That’s what the people chose. Hamas is (was?) wildly popular.
Prisoners taken in a warzone under suspicion. Administrative detention. Call it however. No diplomatic status. Citizens of no legitimate state. Hamas is a terrorist organization. They don’t get to have a state. They are actual war criminals for all intents and purposes, and in all pursuits. War crimes are never punished in Gaza, often rewarded, always revered. Hamas is indefensible and unredeemable for what they’ve done to millions of people of have lived and died in Gaza without any prospects, having turned every institution into modalities of Iranian-vassal terrorism. Give me a break.
Go read the ICJ preliminary order and the express finding that Israel does prosecute war criminals. And guess what? It’s true. The Qatari state/ pro-Trump/pro-Russia media diet you are gorging yourself on does not cover it at all.
Hamas are war criminals…in all pursuits.
No, that’s not also true about Israel. You are looking at a small isolated thing, which I think you are portraying unfairly and incompletely, but fine we can disagree.
But Israel has a legitimate government that has stabily for decades provided essential services to tens of millions of people.
Glad you agree Hamas must go.
What’s your plan to make that happen? How would you destroy the tunnels?
You’d do the best you could. That means ordinance and coordinated evacuations and warnings, knowing that the civilian population is going to follow Hamas around up above like one of those artic foxes stalking a tundra shrew below the snow, so they can win Martyrdom™ prizes, paid in rial, no doubt. Such disregard for their own side’s civilians is unprecedented in warfare. International law is based on precedent.
You’re conflating a few isolated stories from the initial days of the war during the evacuation of northern Gaza when they said “go south toward general safety,” not “go south and your safety is guaranteed.”
At that time, 99.94% of the civilian population evacuated without harm.
At any rate “don’t stand above tunnels and stay the fuck away from any members of Hamas or die” would have been very clear to me.
Try believing less of what you read on the internet. It’s pretty good in America for more people than in virtually any place in any time in world history. Thanks for the effort it took to type your post though.
And hope for the future is more justified here than anywhere in the middle east.
I’d say the most hope rests with Israel: they could excise their right wing populism problem in one election. Could happen this year. How much hope do you have for an Arab Spring in Iran? Even the places that had Arab Springs mostly remain unchanged.
And that’s precisely why Israel is worth the West’s defense against Iranian and Russian fuckery, much less open war (world war III). I hope Biden continues to lead western diplomacy toward incentivising a more just future for Israel. I have zero hope that there is a more just future in Iran without total regime change, or in the laundry list of other dumpy theocracies which pass as “government” in the mid east, Gaza, Houthiville, or whatever glorious caliphate they imagine, etc.
For the future rights of the hundreds of millions of people who will live and die in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, for example, there is more hope after western military invention than before.
No not at all. Hostages? Of who? No one wants to trade anyone for anything, except Hamas.
I see how there exists in Gaza a pervasive, deranged culture of support for terrorism and willing “martyrdom,” a wilfull disregard for life or law, material support of which justifies administrative detention. Easily. Do you not?
Listen I can totally face up to the war crimes. There have been many. The side that actually punishes war crimes is redeemable. The side that rewards war crimes is not.
I understand that in Israel there is a political movement that fosters a culture of wiping things under the rug or maybe pardoning war criminals like Trump did and would do again in America. But every dead kid in Gaza rests squarely at the feet of Hamas. Seems like it’s about 3% of the population that is so hardcore for Hamas that they are ready to die for the cause with their loved ones in tow.
Sure, in the West Bank. Gaza is forfeit. It’s a collapsed state, lawless, unincorporated territory, irredenta, free to whoever can establish order.
Even from just a physical standpoint, the very foundation of Gaza’s cities and towns were turned to Swiss cheese by Hamas. Nothing is stable. Gaza has zero capability or capacity to rebuild itself and literally nobody else cares enough about Gaza to do it other than Israel. Qatar only sends money if Hamas is fielding soldiers to kill Jews, the West only sends money if Hamas tricks enough human shields into being “martyred.”
Nobody is trading them for anything stop calling them hostages. Call them detainees. As usual the claim you’ve made against Israel is wildly exaggerated.
They couldn’t play nice in the neighborhood without helping trying to blow anything up so they don’t get to play outside with their friends.
My highschool had more students than Israel has administrative detainees. For some years, my middle school even had more. Seems about right. Hamas is (was) 20,000~ strong, obviously they enjoy massive public support and aid.
There’s more important considerations than 3,600 detainees. Most of them are very temporary, based on levels of suspicion and probable cause, on emerging intelligence and progressing investigation. Do you really think most of them aren’t accomplices or coconspirators? Some of them are going to be hopeless cases who will probably never see the sun again. Oh no, how will I sleep at night?! Easily and restfully. What keeps me up is the thought that so many of my compatriots in the West have been force fed these wild exaggerations, day in, day out, since day one, and that because the news got too sad for too many, the world will sit back and let Iran park a proxy state owned by terrorists right on Israel’s border. Not going to happen though, so, zzzzz.
That’s an insightful, direct question. Truly appreciate it.
We’re speaking of people held without charge under administrative detention. It falls short of rote internment only by the fact that it’s intended to and generally is reasonably temporary. Read your own article. It’s like a revolving door.
There is no fairly analogous type of criminal detention. The closest is custodial arrest, but that’s way more temporary in scope; charges are either filed or not in western criminal procedure usually within hours, commonly known as “48-hour hold,” with a process for a longer hold if there’s a component of irreparable harm, that’s commonly known as a “72-hour” hole. After charge, the accused have a right, at least where I am, to a probable cause and bail hearing, and maybe to post bond, and then the accused is released pending trial.
These folks aren’t accused, they are suspects albeit still being investigated, but there’s enough suspicion to justify holding them longer than what would be typical in the usual criminal setting, i.e., a 72 hour hold, given the potential for irreparable harm if the suspect gets released without charges and goes back to the suspected criminal enterprise, which in this case is international terrorism, hostage taking, rocket attacks, and mass shooting. Most of them though aren’t being wrongfully detained. It really sucks. As someone who very early did a 180 on a career of prosecuting cases, and have since only ever defended the accused, I hate what this administrative detention means to well-founded, hard-won notions of fairness and justice. But it doesn’t break humanity. I know there’s no justice for those wrongly caught up in it. That doesn’t make it unjustified.
My state pays wrongful incarcerees restitution by a statutory formula; locking up innocent people is inevitable, so we account for it. If Gaza had diplomatic status and would get out from under the utter tyranny of Hamas, nice things like that could exist, instead of just surviving on charity. I believe the good will of the western world will endeavor to indemnify the inevitable victims of such inherent unfairness. Not going to negotiate with terrorists on it, that’s for sure. When a state collapses after all its institutions are coopted by violent extremists and criminals, this is roughly what reconstruction looks like, right? It’s scène à faire. We both agree it’s offensive to behold.
Paragraph three is what I’m citing for the proposition that Israel is redeemable. Their government has a Supreme Court and in it exists a right of habeas corpus. The detainees you are talking about are, in a significant way, having their day in court right now. Even the detainees at Gitmo, except maybe one or two stateless souls no-one will take, got their day via habeas corpus.
The UN could not have existed at all without its charter members coming together for the future of the world.
Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.
Seems clear to me they aren’t ready. Excise Hamas from the West Bank, excise Iranian corruption, stop the rocket attacks, destroy the tunnels, and then talk about the West Bank and the PA’s willingness to carry out it’s obligations. Can’t have their cake and eat it too.
UN assembly approves resolution granting Palestine new rights and reviving its UN membership bid (apnews.com)