Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine - Page 273

On April 26 2024 23:33 Magic Powers wrote:


Mention of remediation efforts in this article:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/biden-wont-sanction-israeli-military-090107117.html

Take note of the double standard.
Funding to the whole UNRWA was stopped immediately after allegations against a few members for partaking in the October 7 massacre. The UNRWA immediately fired all accused members (with sufficient evidence not having been presented at the time) and yet funding did not resume until much later.
Meanwhile only a small part of the IDF was facing similar allegations, and sanctions against that particular battalion are immediately being revoked after some steps towards remediation are being taken.

This just doesn't make any sense. There's a clear general hostility towards Palestinians and a favoritism towards Israel. It cannot be denied.

On April 26 2024 23:44 Cricketer12 wrote:

Not what I'm seeing. In many cases the act of setting up tents has caused Police to be called in for mass arrests/shutdowns.

Columbia has been in discussions with the protestors but IU, Cincinatti and Ohio State went straight for immediate arrests

DUBAI—Egypt offered a new proposal for a truce between Israel and Hamas in which some Israeli hostages would be released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and a three-week cease-fire, in a bid to stave off an Israeli military offensive in the southern Gazan city of Rafah.

Israel, which helped create the proposal, according to Egyptian officials, would commit to entering longer-term discussions once Hamas releases a first group of 20 hostages over the truce period—a formulation designed to overcome the militant group’s reluctance to release any hostages without any prospect of ending the war.

The move represents the latest effort by mediators to revive negotiations that have dragged on for about five months without an agreement.

During that period, the fighting has thrown the roughly two million Gazans into survival mode and more than doubled the number of those killed since Israel’s invasion to over 34,000, according to Palestinian health officials. Death figures from the Palestinian side don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians.

In Israel, meanwhile, relatives of hostages seized during the Oct. 7 Hamas-led assault that precipitated the crisis are pressing the Israeli government to do more to find out whether their family members are still alive. In recent weeks they have stepped up street demonstrations aimed at getting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to give priority to the captives’ release over a continued military operation backed by far-right members of the government.

Domestic pressure for Israel to reach a deal is mounting. Benny Gantz, one of three members in Israel’s war cabinet, said Sunday the Israeli government ​shouldn’t reject a “responsible outline for the return of the hostages”​ or it shouldn’t have the right to exist and lead the military campaign in Gaza​. However he said that outline shouldn’t entail ending the war.

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a televised interview Saturday with Israeli media that Israel would delay an operation in Rafah in exchange for a hostage deal.

A spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s office declined to comment.

Israeli hostages to be freed under the Egyptian proposal would include children, women—including female soldiers—and elderly people in need of urgent medical attention, Egyptian officials said. They would be swapped for around 500 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel. The handover would be followed by a 10-week cease-fire, during which the two sides would continue talking and at least 300,000 to 400,000 Palestinians now sheltering in Rafah would be able to return to their homes elsewhere in the strip.

As part of the proposal, Israeli forces would withdraw from a corridor dividing the north and south of the enclave but still screen Palestinians on the move, according to the officials.

Hamas’s political leadership said it would consult with its military wing and other factions in Gaza and revert to mediators in a few days over the proposal, the Egyptian officials said. Hamas’s Doha-based politburo is nominally in charge of the group’s affairs around the world, including in Gaza, but final decisions are made by Yahya Sinwar, the group’s military leader in Gaza.

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.

All the incidents involved took place outside of Gaza before the current war.

Israel took corrective action in four units, giving "additional information" on the fifth, the department says.

This means all the units remain eligible for US military assistance.

Washington is Israel's major military backer, supplying it with $3.8bn (£3bn) worth of weapons and defence systems per year.

The announcement is the first determination of its kind for any Israeli unit by the US government.

State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said five security forces units committed gross violations of human rights.

"Four of these units have effectively remediated these violations, which is what we expect partners to do," he said.

"For a remaining unit, we continue to be in consultations and engagements with the government of Israel; they have submitted additional information as it pertains to that unit," he added.

The department denies claims it backed down under political pressure by continuing military assistance to the unit despite being unable to say whether or not there had been any accountability in the case.

"We are engaging with them in a process, and we will make an ultimate decision when it comes to that unit when that process is complete," said Mr Patel.

All the incidents are believed to have taken place in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem in recent years.

Under America's "Leahy Law", sponsored in 1997 by then-Senator Patrick Leahy, a finding that a foreign military unit committed gross violations of human rights means it can be cut from receiving US military assistance.

The US government says it considers torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearance and rape as such types of violations when implementing the Leahy law.

Even when there is such a finding, there is an exception to cutting military assistance if the state department is satisfied the cases have been dealt with and justice pursued by the government involved.

It says Israel did do this - so-called remediation - in four of the five units. However, the department declined to give any details of the incidents, the remediation, the units involved or evidence to support whether the remediation was effective.

The US was reportedly on the brink of announcing it would cut military aid to the fifth unit, but says new information from Israel means it will make a decision later.

The unit involved is widely reported to be the Netzah Yehuda battalion, a special men-only unit set up in 1999 where ultra-Orthodox Jews serve.

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.

Asked about reports an IDF unit would be the first ever to face the US government designation under the Leahy Law, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on 19 April: "I made determinations. You can expect to see them in the days ahead."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to reject any sanctions on the country's military, saying he would "fight it with all my strength", while Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz spoke on the phone to Mr Blinken.

Pressed by the BBC on Monday over whether the state department had delayed or softened its position on withdrawing military assistance to the fifth unit, Mr Patel said officials would make a decision when their consultations with the Israeli government were complete.

On April 28 2024 02:30 JimmiC wrote:
Really good essay on the protests from a Jewish student about what the media is getting wrong. Some interesting insights.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/27/opinions/yale-student-palestinian-protests-berlin/index.html

On May 07 2024 06:05 Kreuger wrote:
Hamas is incredibly bad faith in this, they agree on a proposal that they themself have put forward and Israel havent even seen. They are only playing the optics game and its good that Israel doesnt buy it and instead increases the pressure.