this post was submitted on 23 Dec 2023
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Gaza war's staggering toll reaches a grim milestone: 20,000 dead (apnews.com)
submitted 10 months ago by Five@slrpnk.net to c/news@beehaw.org
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[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 25 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

This is devastating. And amidst so much debate over Israel's right to defend itself, I feel it's getting lost that this military campaign is only a success if measured by a set of goals even most Zionists would not recognize as productive.

Will it make Israel safer? No, undoubtedly the war has cost international standing, strained the US-Israel relationship, and will inevitably radicalize far more extremists than are killed.

Will it continue the right-ward shift of Israeli policy? Does it cut off avenues for peace and reconciliation and foster militant Israeli nationalism? Yes.

This campaign is only a success if the primary objective is the eventual capture of the entire region at the cost of Israel's safety (and the safety of Jews around the world) and Israel's international standing. By any more conventional aims, it is an unmitigated disaster.

[–] bermuda@beehaw.org 5 points 10 months ago

The US's twenty years in Afghanistan should have taught the rest of the world the "forever wars" don't work.

But I suppose not.

[–] Boff@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Honest question, what is Israel supposed to do? Give Hamas concessions? I think history shows that appeasement only emboldens terrorism. Back out now and let Hamas come back with even more local support?

It's a lose/lose. There is no winning for Israel. It seems that either Israel makes itself a pariah in the international community by killing countless innocent Palestinians or it lets terrorists win.

I would love for you or someone to help me see a different way Israel can get back out of this.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I'm going to answer in two parts.

Part 1: I grew up a Zionist. In most versions, Zionism envisioned a peaceful, multi-ethnic state. In that sense, the zionist project is half-complete.

The first half was accomplished by people who aspired to something that everyone said was madness, totally impossible, completely unfeasible, hopelessly unworkable. And they fucking did that thing.

Now, anyone who considers themselves a Zionist needs to take on the responsibility for continuing that project with the sense of courage and insane vision that brought Israel into existence. 'It's too hard!' 'There are no good solutions!' BULLSHIT. The whole country is founded on the idea that nothing is impossible, so let's stop making excuses.

Part 2: The biggest problem is Jewish radicals. Itmar Ben Givir of the Jewish Power Party, Bezalel Smotrich of the Religious Zionist Party, and Netanyahu of Likud. These are the primary leaders of a genocide, and Netanyahu's special move for decades has been foreclosing peace. Step one is wanting peace, and step two is holding accountable the people who've never wanted it and always tried to keep it out of reach.

Step three, I think, is to help every Palestinian climb what I think of as "the ladder". Israel is an apartheid state. You've got Ashkenazi Jews at the top, and Mizrahi/Sphardeic Jews close but just below. Then you've got Palestinian Israelis, then a whole bunch of tiers of West Bank / East Jeruselum Palestinians, then Gazans / foreign refugees. Each group needs a path to the rights of the group above, and there has to be a roadmap to a roadmap to peace. And that is going to require international brokers. Israeli needs a government that isn't hostile to the UN, and the US needs to reduce its involvement and stay the fuck out of the peace process.

[–] SinAdjetivos@beehaw.org 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You should think a bit more about that "ladder" concept. In the same way that advocating for manumission doesn't fix any of the issues with slavery a "path to the rights of the group above" doesn't fix any of the issues with an apartheid state.

Unless you're fine with a little genocide, any apartheid state is not a solution.

[–] andrewrgross@slrpnk.net 5 points 10 months ago

I'm saying that the apartheid state needs dismantled.

It's just a mental exercise to get people to expand their imagination. I don't expect the end of apartheid to literally require each group to pass through a series of stages.

[–] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 13 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Too many posts are removed if they’re critical of Israel. I hope this post survives for discussion.

[–] Five@slrpnk.net 18 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yes, I've had several posts that humanize Palestinians removed near the start of the conflict on Lemmy.World, though things have improved there. I've never seen censorship of Gaza reporting here at BeeHaw; I have a lot of admiration for @alyaza@beehaw.org who has beaten me to the post several times.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago (2 children)

According to the modlog, posts that are not negative towards Israel have been removed. There is definitely censorship here.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 14 points 10 months ago

you literally just had a protracted argument with me, an admin who determines what gets removed or not, in another thread over Israel and that was not removed. you have another pro-Israel set of comments in this thread that have not been removed even though i personally think they're even less defensible than what you were arguing with me. i don't know how you can seriously attempt to make this point.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Got any examples?

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

https://beehaw.org/modlog/8

Several ten days ago alone.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

The top one on that list is a comment condemning Israel, and the mods removed it. Several others, too.

It's not censorship when they're removing posts by both sides.

It mostly looks like the same 2-3 trolls posting inflammatory content that is getting removed.

[–] m0darn@lemmy.ca 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I'm not the one you were replying to and haven't read the comments you referenced but couldn't let this stand unchallenged:

It's not censorship when they're removing posts by both sides.

Yes it is censorship, it could be censorship with reduced bias, it might even be appropriate censorship. But it is literally censorship to censor speech.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

If you read who I was responding to, they are asserting that this is political censorship of pro-Israel content. It may be censorship, but not towards a certain political viewpoint, just towards assholes.

[–] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Lemmy.world hasn’t improved as far as I can tell. Or maybe their bias was even worse before I noticed.

In any event, their entire instance is now blocked from my feeds, so I won’t have to deal with them.

[–] EmergMemeHologram@startrek.website 10 points 10 months ago

That’s nearly 1% of the total population.

[–] DdCno1@beehaw.org 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

health officials said Friday.

Hamas health officials. How I hate the lazy reporting on this conflict.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 28 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

How I hate the lazy deflection and caping for Israel in your comments.

The Gaza Health Ministry is considered to be reliable for casualty reporting due to independent verification by groups that monitor the conflict like Human Rights Watch and the UN. They release specific casualty data including names, ages, and ID numbers.

The only argument that Israel or their allies have used against their released casualty numbers is that they're run by Hamas (the Gaza government), but oddly those people, yourself included, never seem to dispute Israeli numbers for the same reason.

But keep up your propaganda, bro.

[–] abhibeckert@beehaw.org 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

In October the Gaza Health Ministry claimed 471 people were killed by an Israeli missile strike on a hospital. Widespread credible (independent) evidence proves a small Hamas rocket missfired and hit a carpark near the hospital, causing relatively minor damage (there was a large fireball, but it was mostly rocket fuel - which is far less damaging than an explosive payload intended to kill).

None of the credible evidence was able to put a number to the deaths in that accident but it’s highly improbable that 471 people were in the carpark. And it definitely wasn’t an Israeli rocket.

In other words - Gaza’s health ministry is not a reliable source. Some of the things they report are probably accurate but they have been proven to be unreliable. Don’t trust anything they say unless it’s been backed by someone more reliable (in which case, you might as well refer to the other source instead).

At best, the ministry failed verify facts (e.g. was a large missile even fired at all?) before reporting what happened. But I think that’s being too charitable. For example where did they get the 471 number from? I think they made it up. I don’t have proof but it’s the only believable explanation.

Worse though - they haven’t retracted the claim. Mistakes are understandable… but failing to admit someone in your organisation made a mistake is unacceptable.

[–] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 1 points 10 months ago

And these credible independent sources are…? You’ll forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.

[–] CaptObvious@literature.cafe 11 points 10 months ago

Hamas is the government in Gaza. Who else would run their health ministry? Israel obviously doesn’t give a damn about them.

How I hate the lazy trolling on this conflict.

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 10 months ago

🤖 I'm a bot that provides automatic summaries for articles:

Click here to see the summaryIsrael’s aerial and ground offensive has been one of the most devastating military campaigns in modern history, displacing nearly 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and leveling wide swaths of the tiny coastal enclave.

“That such a brutal conflict has been allowed to continue and for this long — despite the widespread condemnation, the physical and mental toll and the massive destruction — is an indelible stain on our collective conscience,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

The military has said that months of fighting lie ahead in southern Gaza, an area packed with the vast majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million people, many of whom were ordered to flee combat in the north earlier in the war.

On Friday, it ordered tens of thousands of residents to leave their homes in Burej, an urban refugee camp, and surrounding communities in central Gaza, suggesting a ground assault there could be next.

Mustafa Abu Taha, a Palestinian farm worker, said many areas of his hard-hit Gaza City neighborhood of Shijaiyah have become inaccessible because of massive destruction from airstrikes.

Because of insufficient aid entering Gaza, the extent of starvation has eclipsed the near-famines of recent years in Afghanistan and Yemen, and the risk of famine is “increasing each day,” Thursday’s report said.

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