• the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Yes, actually, the source does discredit Al-Jazeera’s claims. Here are a few points from the article:

    • Al Jazeera claims that these protests were entirely peaceful, while ironically showing footage of a young boy using a slingshot to throw either a rock or explosive towards the border fence.
    • It should also be mentioned that while the protests are depicted as Palestinians merely wanting to return to their historical homes, this would not be peaceful. The majority of Palestinians do not seem willing to share the region with Jews. A one-state solution would necessitate a genocide of Jewish people. And a two-state solution will never work because Palestinian resistance groups insist on total domination.
    • It claims, very innocently, that Hamas was elected as the Gazan government in 2006, without mentioning Hamas’ brutal killing of its political opposition and its violent seizing of all power shortly after those elections. Hamas is not just a terrorist organisation. It’s a brutal dictatorship that oppresses Gazans far more than Israel, as a foreign power, ever could.
    • Footage is then shown of Hamas fighters attacking civilian areas, killing innocent people in their cars, and firing into windows of houses, cutting off women screaming. There is CCTV footage of Hamas fighters, fresh from killing, attacking a gas station convenience store, and proceeding to steal candy and pastries. I can’t imagine a normal person having the appetite to eat treats after committing such a slaughter.
    • Taking civilian hostages is a war crime which has not been mentioned by Al Jazeera or many media or governments. Hamas clearly engaged in intentionally slaughtering civilians, another war crime. Israel’s alleged killing of Gazan civilians has all been as a result of air strikes or bombardment, where the fog of war obscures the true identities of the combatants. Hamas knowingly killed civilians. That should mean something.

    It may not be the beginning of this entire conflict, but it did cause a drastic escalation. That much is undeniable. Hamas chose this, and this is the result.

    • Sundial@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Not a single one of your bullets points discredits Al-Jazeeras article that I linked. It didn’t discuss the false claims that Al-Jazeera debunked such as beheaded babies or mass rapes. Read the article before you give me some response that doesn’t even address it. I never said Oct 7th was a good thing, I merely pointed out that a lot of claims surrounding it were later proven to be untrue. And I used this to say that what Hamas did is nothing new given what Israel does to Palestinians regularly.

      No, Hamas didn’t start this. They were forced to do it. They didn’t have to oppress and cleanse the Palestinians the way they did. But they did, and left them no choice but to fight back. This is a conflict architected by Israel. Absolving them of any liability in this is very disingenuous and cruel.

      There is an overwhelming amount of evidence to prove where I’m coming from. I suggest you read some of it before continuing this discussion, and any similar ones. You’re clearly lacking a lot of insight into this conflict. Hopefully this fixes it.

      Apartheid

      Amnesty Report

      Human Rights Watch Report

      B’TSelem Report with quick Explainer

      Genocide

      Holocaust scholar to discuss his conclusion that Gaza campaign constitutes genocide

      UN Expert Says Impunity for Israel Must End as ‘Genocidal Violence’ Spreads to West Bank

      “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza

      800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza

      Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated

      AP News, Time, Reuters, Vox, CBC

      Human Shields

      Hamas:

      Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.

      Israel:

      Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields:

      Deliberate Attacks on Civilians

      Israel deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so:

      Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.

      Starvation

      Prior to the current hostilities, 1.2 million of Gaza’s 2.2 million people were estimated to be facing acute food insecurity, and over 80 percent were reliant on humanitarian aid. Israel maintains overarching control over Gaza, including over the movement of people and goods, territorial waters, airspace, the infrastructure upon which Gaza relies, as well as the registry of the population. This leaves Gaza’s population, which Israel has subjected to an unlawful closure for 16 years, almost entirely dependent on Israel for access to fuel, electricity, medicine, food, and other essential commodities.

      After the imposition of a “total blockade” on Gaza on October 9, Israeli authorities resumed piping water to some parts of southern Gaza on October 15 and, as of October 21, allowed limited humanitarian aid to arrive through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on October 18 that Israel would not allow humanitarian assistance “in the form of food and medicines” into Gaza through its crossings “as long as our hostages are not returned.”

      Israel: Starvation Used as Weapon of War in Gaza

      • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Per the article, Hamas still engaged in quite a lot of rape, some of it documented on video, and 38 children were executed, including 3 under the age of three. Were babies beheaded? Apparently not, but children still died at the hands of Hamas murderers. And there’s an entire article on Wikipedia about the sexual violence that happened on that day.

        How was Hamas forced to kill over a thousand civilians, including women and children? How were they forced to open fire on a music festival? How does that solve the problem of Israeli settlers? How do these solve anything?

        There’s also an overwhelming amount of evidence for Hamas’s continued human rights abuses, including among them the continued hostage situation (although it’s anyone’s guess on how many of those hostages still live.)

        • Sundial@lemm.ee
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          1 month ago

          Per the article, Hamas still engaged in quite a lot of rape, some of it documented on video, and 38 children were executed, including 3 under the age of three.

          Literally nowhere jn the article does it mention this. And you’re creating a strawman argument. I never denied the crimes committed. I just said they were greatly exaggerated. Until you provide evidence of the actual things Al-Jazeera debunked this conversation is not going anywhere.

          How was Hamas forced to kill over a thousand civilians, including women and children? How were they forced to open fire on a music festival?

          Read the links I sent you.

          How does that solve the problem of Israeli settlers? How do these solve anything?

          That’s on Israel to figure out.

          There’s also an overwhelming amount of evidence for Hamas’s continued human rights abuses, including among them the continued hostage situation (although it’s anyone’s guess on how many of those hostages still live.)

          Criticizing Hamas of human rights abuses while not even acknowledging the human rights abuses perpetrated by Israel is incredibly hypocritical. Hamas are amateurs at this compared to Israel.

          • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            Literally nowhere in the article does it mention this

            From the article:

            • Al Jazeera devotes a lot of time to playing a numbers game, claiming that very few children actually died. They claim that only 2 babies were killed on October 7th. Already, this is false, as at least three children under the age of 3 were killed. Further, 38 children were killed. Not in a crossfire. Not in the fog of war. But by being executed by Hamas fighters who could see they were children
            • Al Jazeera blatantly lies about the sexual violence that occurred on October 7th, moving between claims that no rape occurred, to that some rapes occurred. Further arguments that it was not systematic are petty and irrelevant. Hamas fighters raped men and women and got away with it. That’s what matters.

            For more specific sources, The Guardian reports that the UN reported “clear and convincing information” detailing rape of women and children hostages by Hamas. There’s a link to their findings in the article. Per Reuters, the White House said it has no reason to doubt authenticity of Israeli attack images.

            Read the links I sent you. That’s on Israel to figure out.

            Can you put it in your own words?

            Criticizing Hamas of human rights abuses while not even acknowledging the human rights abuses perpetrated by Israel is incredibly hypocritical. Hamas are amateurs at this compared to Israel.

            Here are a few key points from Amnesty International:

            • Women do not have equal status under the law compared to men. Nearly 60% of women living there have experienced violence at the hands of their spouses. Barely any of these cases were reported to the authorities, let alone investigated.
            • LGBT+ people have very few, if any, rights in Gaza, and Hamas has described attempts at changing this as promoting “deviance and moral decay”.
            • There is a history of violations of freedom of association, notably involving government accountability and women’s rights.

            Oh yeah, and Hamas is still holding people hostage. Why?

            • Sundial@lemm.ee
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              1 month ago

              First point is not something the Al-Jazeera article even mentioned. As foe the second point, the article I linked didn’t say no rapes occurred. Just that it wasn’t as systemic and widespread as initial claims. I think this is the 5th time I’ve said but I’ll say it again. I never said bad things didn’t happen, only that it was greatly exaggerated and people have used these exaggerations to help justify all the evil Israel is currently doing.

              Can you put it in your own words?

              I have been. I switched to official sources since you didn’t seem to take what I said seriously. If you don’t want to listen to actual evidence and reason then there’s no point in this conversation continuing.

              Your points of Hamas human rights abuses is pretty hypocritical given your staunch support of Israel. The links I gave you o ly scratch the surface of all the evil Israel has done. No one made the claim that Hamas is some beacon or example of human rights.

              Oh yeah, and Hamas is still holding people hostage. Why?

              Same reason Israel still has hostages as well, and a lot more of them at that too. Not to mention the entire Gaza Strip.

              • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                Alright, I’ll go back to your previous comments and address them.

                The “Death to Israel” chants and hatred to Israel as an anti-zionist expression, not an anti-semitic one.

                In their charter, Hamas quoted Hadiths about such an extreme war against the Jews that a tree/rock would tell them that a Jew was hiding behind it and ask them to kill him. That’s not just anti-zionist.

                The only new thing Oct 7th introduced was that the civilians dying were white and not brown.

                Absolutely incorrect, Israeli civilians have been dying for decades.

                Like I said above. Oct 7th wasn’t the beginning of this conflict. And Gaza was being wiped out before it, just more slowly and a lot more quietly. Hamas didn’t start this fight, they’re just fighting back for their freedom and very lives.

                Yes or no, does that justify shooting up a music festival and raping who-knows-how-many women?

                The links I gave you o ly scratch the surface of all the evil Israel has done.

                Let’s see. Hamas has been placing weapons in schools and hospitals since at least 2014. It’s impossible to not attack “civilian” buildings when Hamas does this.

                If the offense on Rafah is a genocide, then why did Israel order an evacuation of the area? If Israel just wants to kill as many Palestinians as possible, none of the evacuation orders would have happened. At the start of the war, at least, Hamas refused to allow people to evacuate Gaza. That means they’re complicit in the ensuing deaths.

                Given that Hamas fighters do not wear uniforms, and the general mixing of Hamas fighters among the population of Gaza, civilian deaths are inevitable. One of your sources about Israel using human shields confirms Hamas’s use of human shields. But not only do they store weapons in civilian areas, in 2014, they were also quite proud of the fact that they cause so many civilian deaths as a result: “Hamas despises those defeatist Palestinians who criticise the high number of civilian casualties. The resistance praises our people … we lead our people to death … I mean, to war.”

                Using human shields is an abominable practice indeed. Israeli soldiers should be punished severely for doing so. Hamas should, as well, because they’re experts at it.

                If the claims about AI are true - they seem to originate from a number of unnamed sources - then their use should be ended. To say that Hamas is any better in this regard is only a matter of scale. If they had as sophisticated a military as Israel’s, Israel would no longer exist.

                The alternative to blockading Gaza is allowing the flow of resources to the enemy that Israel is fighting. Israel has been issuing evacuation orders since the start of the war; Hamas revels in the death of its people.

                I’ll end the comment with this: The majority of Gazans support Hamas’s rule, approve their decision to kill over 1,000 people without warning, believe they committed no atrocities on October 7th, and want Hamas to return to power once this war is over. They want this war.

                • Sundial@lemm.ee
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                  1 month ago

                  In their charter, Hamas quoted Hadiths about such an extreme war against the Jews that a tree/rock would tell them that a Jew was hiding behind it and ask them to kill him. That’s not just anti-zionist.

                  No, it doesn’t. Here’s the actual charter. On the topic of Jews it said the following:

                  Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion

                  Absolutely incorrect, Israeli civilians have been dying for decades.

                  Unless you’re able to provide a level of oppression, ethnic cleansing, systemic genocide, mass displacement, and regular human abuse and rights violations similar to what I showed Israel does, this argument of yours is useless.

                  Yes or no, does that justify shooting up a music festival and raping who-knows-how-many women?

                  I’m not going to justify civilian deaths and atrocities. Justified? No. Unexpected? Also, no. Like I said before, Israel doesn’t have the right to be surprised and cry victim after all they’ve done. This is a conflict of their own making by a population they oppressed and by a militia group they helped prop up.

                  Hamas refused to allow people to evacuate Gaza. That means they’re complicit in the ensuing deaths.

                  The source is the American government. Given how many lies they knowingly propagated and their blind and utter devotion to Israel, they have lost all credibility in the matter. I would believe it if it was corroborated by independent journalists. Too bad Israel keeps murdering them.

                  Let’s see. Hamas has been placing weapons in schools and hospitals since at least 2014. It’s impossible to not attack “civilian” buildings when Hamas does this.

                  The very link you provided said that a later investigation confirmed it wasn’t rockets. Oh, and the school was vacant.

                  Given that Hamas fighters do not wear uniforms, and the general mixing of Hamas fighters among the population of Gaza, civilian deaths are inevitable. One of your sources about Israel using human shields confirms Hamas’s use of human shields. But not only do they store weapons in civilian areas, in 2014, they were also quite proud of the fact that they cause so many civilian deaths as a result: “Hamas despises those defeatist Palestinians who criticise the high number of civilian casualties. The resistance praises our people … we lead our people to death … I mean, to war.”

                  Your source is the IDF. Given the level of propaganda they are known to issue, as well as having a long history of imprisoning and assassinating journalists, as well as their repeated human rights violations they do; I liken whatever they say to something North Korea or Russia would say. Find better sources.

                  Using human shields is an abominable practice indeed. Israeli soldiers should be punished severely for doing so.

                  Yeah too bad they keep getting away with it even though they openly admit it.

                  The alternative to blockading Gaza is allowing the flow of resources to the enemy that Israel is fighting.

                  That’s not an excuse for the blockade and deliberately starving an entire population, we wouldn’t accept it anywhere else. Are you even hearing yourself here? How on earth are you using this to justify what Israel is doing. They’re not even letting in enough food to feed the population.

                  Israel has been issuing evacuation orders since the start of the war

                  Yes, and they also have a long history of issuing evacuation orders and then bombing the place within minutes, bombing refugee camps and so called “safe zones”, attacking civilians fleeing, and more. Don’t believe me? Look at what they’re doing right now in Northern Gaza.

                  I’ll end the comment with this: The majority of Gazans support Hamas’s rule, approve their decision to kill over 1,000 people without warning, believe they committed no atrocities on October 7th, and want Hamas to return to power once this war is over. They want this war.

                  Yeah, that’s kind of the point of what I’ve been saying. Palestinians have every right to hate Israelis. And Israelis have no right to cry about it.

                  • the_toast_is_gone@lemmy.world
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                    1 month ago

                    No, it doesn’t.

                    Not anymore, but their original charter cites the verse. That spirit obviously lives on in the modern militant movement, because they’ve been killing civilians even after the apparent “reforms.”

                    Unless you’re able to provide a level of oppression, ethnic cleansing, systemic genocide, mass displacement, and regular human abuse and rights violations similar to what I showed Israel does, this argument of yours is useless.

                    The reason these haven’t happened at the same scale is because Israel is quite capable of fighting off its attackers. If Hamas and Hezbollah had the same military quality that Israel has, Israel wouldn’t exist today.

                    I’m not going to justify civilian deaths and atrocities.

                    But also according to you:

                    Palestinians have every right to hate Israelis. And Israelis have no right to cry about it.

                    Which is it?

                    The source is the American government.

                    Do you prefer this source written by Michael Georgy, an Egyptian correspondent? Egypt is no friend of America. Also, is this American propaganda? Or is it only American propaganda when it says something you don’t like?

                    Tell you what. Here’s a few more pieces showing Hamas hiding behind the veil of civilian garb and infrastructure: One; Two; Three; Four. It’s obviously been a part of their strategy. Do you think it’s changed? If so, why?

                    The very link you provided said that a later investigation confirmed it wasn’t rockets. Oh, and the school was vacant.

                    The article states:

                    As soon as the rockets were discovered, UNRWA staff were withdrawn from the premises. … the Board concluded that it was highly likely that a Palestinian armed group might have used the premises to hide weapons but was unable to confirm with certainty what type of weapon might have been hidden at the school.

                    So it wasn’t rockets specifically, but still weapons. And the building was vacant because it was evacuated. Why are you getting caught up on semantics like this but missing other major details in the same article?

                    Your source is the IDF.

                    Actually, the quote I mentioned with that link to The Guardian references Al-Aqsa TV, which is run by Hamas. Based on his author page, Peter Beaumont is not a paid shill of the IDF. Or again, is it only hostile propaganda when it argues against Hamas’s indiscriminate killings?

                    That’s not an excuse for the blockade and deliberately starving an entire population, we wouldn’t accept it anywhere else.

                    According to the Palestinian Authority, aid is being stolen by Hamas and sold to civilians at very high prices. Given that the article describes them congratulating Hamas on the October 7th attack, I don’t think they’re being paid off by Israel when they say this. Either way, Hamas’s theft of aid is contributing to the ongoing conditions there.

                    Yes, and they also have a long history of issuing evacuation orders and then bombing the place within minutes, bombing refugee camps and so called “safe zones”, attacking civilians fleeing, and more.

                    Would it be better if they didn’t order an evacuation at all? That would get a lot more Palestinians killed, and would result in an even more severe genocide. Or would you rather they enter into urban combat against a foe that hides behind civilians and stores weapons in civilian buildings? Or should they simply lie down and accept Hamas shooting up their citizens and firing off indiscriminate rockets into their territory?

                    Palestinians have every right to hate Israelis. And Israelis have no right to cry about it.

                    This line along with the whole “October 7th isn’t as bad as you seem to think” thing has big “it didn’t happen but they deserved it” vibes.