Hamas doesn’t exactly pick the most civilian-free areas to set up their base of operations either.
IDF headquarters is in the center of a civilian area in Tel Aviv. By Israeli logic, is firing missiles at Tel Aviv a legitimate military objective? Netanyahu’s bunker is in a crowded civilian area too, why is he using human shields?
The issue here is that the IDF believes Israeli lives are FAR more important than Palestinian lives. How much? They actually have calculated how many Palestinian civilian deaths are acceptable to protect one Israeli soldier.
Netanyahu said since November that even if all hostages were released he was going to invade anyway and not stop the war.
“I don’t see a right to breathe air in the constitution either!”
lol, as a political scientist that’s ridiculous and false. The Judicial Branch does not have a role in impeachment aside from Chief Justice having a role in the Senate trial. Impeachment is a political process conducted by the Legislative Branch. And impeachment “for high crimes and misdemeanors” does not include wielding his congressionally-authorized power to condition aid or hold aid when the country in question violates the Leahy Laws (which require the US to hold military aid to a country that violates human rights without accountability.
Where did you even hear such a phony claim?
Sanctions on just 4 people? There’s hundreds of thousands of illegal settlers, thousands of attacks a year, and hundreds of Palestinians dead in the last 12 months even before October 7. Even 4 per settlement is insultingly low, not 4 in all of the OPT. You can’t even round up to the nearest 10 people; even you know this is a worthless gesture that is nothing more than a political talking point. And Biden walked back those sanctions after pressure from Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich; Israeli banks can now do business with the sanctioned individuals in a special exemption.
Your link merely says that Biden declared the settlements illegal, with no sanctions behind it. He is not restricting US aid money to the settlements or settlers, nor is he sanctioning businesses doing business in these illegal settlements. Your article points out that Israel defied Biden’s legal opinion and is expanding settlements anyway without US doing anything to stop it. Once again, where are the sanctions?
No. It’s more likely Biden leaned on the State Department to bury their findings. The organization is controlled by political appointees, remember. Typically their reports are a fait accompli. And no, there’s zero talk by Republicans on impeaching Biden over Israel, so you keep repeating this idea with no backing or evidence behind it. The president has broad discretionary powers in foreign policy and can restrict aid as he sees fit, and the courts including SCOTUS have consistently ruled in favor of the presidency on the issue.
Israel is absolutely working in bad faith, and Biden is enabling it. See Biden’s red line not being breached by airstrikes and literal tanks into Rafah according to Israeli government and with Biden rushing to agree after the fact, with excuses that tanks are merely on roads or that the airstrikes are limited under a new just-made up-threshold.
Biden restored US policy, he didn’t sanction Israel.
That’s untrue, Congress already passed the Lehy law and arms shipments are already bound by that. Biden could have followed the law and stopped weapons shipments based on that or the other law that block aid to countries that block humanitarian aid. Instead Biden bypassed Congress to give more weapons faster, when he didn’t do that for Ukraine.
What are you talking about, the Israeli government just announced a record breaking set of new settlement expansion lands. What sanctions did Biden restore or did Trump even add? Biden sanctioned less than 10 individual settlers and then repealed those sanctions under pressure.
It can be a little bit of both. There’s plenty of evidence for either.
Like I said above, pure sophistry on your part.
Israel is occupying Gaza currently, there are no civil services left. This is not in dispute and Israel admits this. International law says that the occupying power has responsibility to ensure the health and wellbeing of the civilian population. Israel is intentionally denying food from being delivered, they closed the borders for months until Biden pressured Israel to reopen them. That’s not Hamas’ fault. In fact, the Israeli government used intentional starvation as leverage to try and force Hamas to free hostages, but that’s also illegal and a war crime because you’re killing people unaffiliated with Hamas as a means to pressure them.
hundreds of trucks go through every day
It was zero for months, and even today it’s not at prewar levels and too low to prevent a famine. That’s Israel’s responsibility and no other, both under law and by the consequence of their actions. The IDF destroying desalination plants and farms means there’s no means of growing local food left, so even more food trucks are needed than prewar. 500 trucks a day was needed prewar and far more are needed now but the recent average has been 300 trucks a day. That’s because the IDF demands inspections of foreign goods and delays and rejects them arbitrarily. Again, the end responsibility is on Israel to feed the population since they now occupy the land and they aren’t doing it; not giving their own food or allowing enough foreign food.
Gaza has been blockaded since 2007 and that previous excuse of there being a Hamas government is no longer applicable; Hamas is no longer in control of 70% of the land in Gaza according to the Israeli government and therefore the responsibility to avoid famine is now on the occupying government. You may not like it but that’s the law including in Israel where they are bound by the Geneva Conventions.
There is no amount of aid that Israel is obligated to provide that is the cause of any hunger in Gaza
Completely wrong and ignorant of Israeli and international law as noted above.
I’m not going to waste any further time if you don’t know any of this. It’s settled international law, which is why it’s not just the UN, ICC, ICJ, many NGOs, and many governments including parts of the Israeli government that aren’t rightwing who all publicly admit this.
They blocked all food shipments for months and only relented after the US and ICJ pressured them and even then it’s only a trickle and not enough to sustain life. The confirmed famine is happening BECAUSE Israel is intercepting and blocking food from entering despite the long line of literally hundreds of trucks at israel-controlled crossings. It’s pure sophistry to suggest otherwise.
That’s an impressive attempt at spinning.
This isn’t about Israel giving free food, but that Israel is intentionally BLOCKING all food shipments into the Gaza Strip AND blowing up water and food production facilities to intentionally create a famine. The Geneva Conventions require you to ensure the health and safety of civilians of land you control. Intentional and deliberate starvation of civilians is a WAR CRIME. I can’t spell it out any further for you.
Israel dismisses any and all criticism, and always complains about medieval history as an ad hominem attack. Turkey complains about Israel killing Turkish civilians? Israel replies something about Turkey mistreating Armenians. German government complains about mistreatment of Palestinians? Call them modern Nazis. Now Spain gets derided as something from nearly 600 years ago.
Israel isn’t prosecuting war crimes, actual documented confirmed war crimes by reporters and videos and admissions by the perpetrators and actual official statements by Israeli government officials, which is why it ESCALATED to an ICJ case when other wars don’t. I’m not even referring to the minimal prosecutions like IDF sentenced an Israeli to 3 months of community service as punishment for murdering a Palestinian, but the many others that the government refuses to even investigate or prosecute. The fact that you defend and condone war crimes as part of a war you think is justified tells everyone all we need to know about you. Peace.
But Israelis DONT see it as controversial. Surveys of Israelis show 68% oppose humanitarian aid to Gaza. Intentional collective punishment and starvation are war crimes but they enjoy wide support in Israel; Netanyahu’s use of them is not considered objectionable by the mainstream and that’s not why the Israeli public is angry at him.
Do you honestly believe Netanyahu loves Palestinians and that the quotes in court were merely cherry-picked? His whole career is against the state of Palestine; it’s even on his damn campaign website and in the party charter. If you can’t be convinced of the blindingly obvious truth I can’t help you.
You can try to attack Sourh Africa as much as you want but Israel’s military ally Egypt also signed onto the charges. So did a lot of NGOs and EU countries. If you want to live in denial then that’s on you, but don’t try lying to the rest of us.
This is idiotic. Gandhi hated that Pakistan split off and said that he recognized their existence but would never recognize their “right” to exist.
That’s not even an international policy. Does Castile have a right to exist? Does Kashmir? Does Kurdistan? Why doesn’t Germany demand the same for others?