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On October 23 2025 00:27 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 22 2025 23:40 mindjames wrote:On October 22 2025 23:26 WombaT wrote:On October 22 2025 22:37 mindjames wrote:On October 22 2025 22:02 PremoBeats wrote:
As someone who has been attacked a shit-ton lot by the Anti-Israel-gang here for my views, I'd really like to hear about your opinion in regards to the complete blockade in terms of it being a war crime or not. Is it your position that enough food was stored up, so Israel knew/took the chance that the civilian population was not truly in danger?
That is my current understanding. When reading up about on-the-ground sentiment during this time (still speaking about March-April), I mostly see mentions of a looming danger and prices of food going up in the strip. By the time aid was resumed, it was in GHF's hands, and in my understanding - that's where things got really bad. So if anything, I believe you could hold Israeli leadership accountable for their reckless disregard for the hunger situation in Gaza while the GHF was quite clearly failing at its mission. They even had a couple of months of grace because they were supposedly learning on the fly. But that doesn't cut it when so much human life is at stake. Would that be a war crime? I tend to think so. But the crime would probably not be "starvation as a weapon of war". As you mentioned in your reply to Arcofales, intent matters. What I see is hubris and irresponsible disregard for the performance of GHF. Who put GHF in that position in the first place? A comparable amount of civilians have died at GHF administered aid points than died on October 7th at this stage. Still, to my knowledge lower, but not far off, and ever-increasing. Who also doesn’t let other orgs do this, to stick GHF in the first place? Who also doesn’t let foreign journalists in to catalogue how it’s all working? The more factors that point in a pretty damning direction, the more that implies intent. Especially given the lack of real corrective measures, and indeed at times doubling down. If I was doing my best to be humane, had all sorts of complexity making my job tough, with sometimes tragic outcomes I’d actively welcome outsider eyes so I could show that was the case. But it’s basically omertà outside of pre-vetted fluff. If we were talking some civil war in Africa or w/e and x despot leader was instituting these kind of policies and implementation of said policies, I somewhat doubt the benefit of the doubt would be extended. I'm not sure where this is coming from. You are beating at an open door. I don't think I've ever brought up GHF as a way to absolve Israel's conduct. In the very post you quoted I specifically said it could be considered a war crime to have kept GHF around despite the lackluster and deadly results. And I also never claimed Israel is "doing its best to be humane", in fact I clearly laid out why I think Israel is attempting to satisfy the bare minimum under IHL. Whether you agree with that or not, I am quite clearly not saying what you are attributing to me. To quote you, you said ‘What I see is hubris and irresponsible disregard for the performance of GHF.’ You do recognise the problem more broadly, you’re not handwaving it away or denying its existence. I don’t think we massively disagree, merely your wording implies a lack of oversight, and incompetence being to blame for it. I don’t think that’s the case, I think it’s pretty intentional. It’s not hubris, or a lack of oversight, what we’re seeing in recent times is the plan. And the plan is to do war crimes. But perhaps I’ve misread you and I’m basically throwing your own positions back at you, and if so, apologies
I can live with that disagreement, sure. I was just confused at your assumptions about my position.
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United States43181 Posts
Just chiming in to agree with everyone else who has already stated that using civilian hunger as a pressure tactic is a doubleplusungood way to describe a war crime. There’s no act so fucked up that you couldn’t somehow describe it as a pressure tactic. We’re skinning kids in front of parents to place pressure on them to demand political reforms or whatever. There’s no legitimacy to be gained through that particular newspeak.
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On October 23 2025 00:37 mindjames wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2025 00:22 Jankisa wrote:Well, in the spirit of constructive criticism, I think, from my viewpoint, you, much like promo here, write these things out and then say "well, I wrote them but that doesn't mean I agree with them being justifications" even as you are using them to justify what happened in an ongoing discussion about exactly that. Same with this GHF part, GHF is, to me, responsibility of Israel, they blocked the aid, they, with the Trump government planned and executed GHF's aid distribution. To me, as another left of center person, it's incredibly perplexing how you can just simply dismiss this and apparently not really care about who is behind the organization and how it came in to being: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_Humanitarian_FoundationWhen I read that, see the names, the Evangelicals, CIA operatives, private military all with no experience, and then look at what happened during the execution with aid being distributed at 4 distribution points instead of nearly 200, I can't understand how that can be defended. What I'm trying to say, is that I don't get why your approach is like this. I mean I do, kind of, I come from a country that was relatively recently at war. I've heard arguments from both Croats and Serbs justifying various war crimes, even people I respect intellectually and morally, so I do understand, but what makes me sad is that you can't just say: "well, fuck it man, we did some fucked up shit and we should be called out, Hamas is worse, of course, but our government, Nethyanahu and the war council did some inexcusable things, so fuck them". Instead we'll have long posts about was it technically a pressure tactic or not, was it to appease the right wingers or not. That's not constructive, that, to me, is just letting your biases cloud your ability to see the full picture. In any case, I get it and I appreciate you engaging so far, I get if you aren't interested in doing it moving forward, none of this is easy or necessary, for anyone who watched it and especially for people like you who lived through it in a much more visceral way then any of us did. Cheers! Thanks, I appreciate it. Here is my perspective. In this conversation I have, essentially: - Said fuck GHF - Said fuck Netanyahu - Said fuck the current Israeli government - Said Israel did some fucked up shit (up to and including war crimes) When we are trying to assess whether a specific crime has been committed, it is sufficient for me to point out my assessment of the available evidence or lack thereof in order to make my point. If you then go and assume that I am simply doing so out of an attempt at being wholly protective of this government, and ascribe positions to me that I have not argued for - then I'm not sure any assessment short of my full agreement with you could be seen by you as reasonable, and that is precisely why I've chosen to step away.
Well, as usual, we do have quite different outlook on how stuff reads, and that's OK.
I'm glad that you are going to be voting for people who wouldn't do shit like this, and that's good enough for me.
Thank you for engaging and stay safe!
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On October 23 2025 00:48 KwarK wrote:
Just chiming in to agree with everyone else who has already stated that using civilian hunger as a pressure tactic is a doubleplusungood way to describe a war crime. There’s no act so fucked up that you couldn’t somehow describe it as a pressure tactic. We’re skinning kids in front of parents to place pressure on them to demand political reforms or whatever. There’s no legitimacy to be gained through that particular newspeak.
On top of it being fucking disgusting it creates justification to hate Israel. Classic scenario of killing one enemy and creating four.
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Enjoyed the conversation for as long as it lasted. Hopefully Mindjames will make future appearances, short bursts might be the best for keeping everyone calm and for his mental health. But good insights!
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On October 23 2025 03:34 Billyboy wrote:
Enjoyed the conversation for as long as it lasted. Hopefully Mindjames will make future appearances, short bursts might be the best for keeping everyone calm and for his mental health. But good insights!
It can be a bit frustrating to try and lay out my position at length and then have to try and respond to 6 different interpretations, rewordings of my comments, and imagined positions that I don't hold. And it certainly doesn't help when some of these are just off handed quippy remarks to try and dismiss my position without engaging directly and charitably.
I will just say, if someone basically agrees with 90-100% of your moral assessments to the point of condemning their own government, and you still feel the need to accuse them of essentially sweeping for war criminals because they don't agree that a certain scenario rises to the level of a specific war crime, perhaps you are more interested in the ability to scold somebody rather than genuinely find out what they think or why.
EDIT: I will be fair and say that at least two people have apologized and retracted their statements, so thank you. TL is not necessarily the worst place for discussion, it's just a very select audience, I guess.
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Northern Ireland25916 Posts
On October 23 2025 04:02 mindjames wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2025 03:34 Billyboy wrote:
Enjoyed the conversation for as long as it lasted. Hopefully Mindjames will make future appearances, short bursts might be the best for keeping everyone calm and for his mental health. But good insights! It can be a bit frustrating to try and lay out my position at length and then have to try and respond to 6 different interpretations, rewordings of my comments, and imagined positions that I don't hold. And it certainly doesn't help when some of these are just off handed quippy remarks to try and dismiss my position without engaging directly and charitably. I will just say, if someone basically agrees with 90-100% of your moral assessments to the point of condemning their own government, and you still feel the need to accuse them of essentially sweeping for war criminals because they don't agree that a certain scenario rises to the level of a specific war crime, perhaps you are more interested in the ability to scold somebody rather than genuinely find out what they think or why. EDIT: I will be fair and say that at least two people have apologized and retracted their statements, so thank you. TL is not necessarily the worst place for discussion, it's just a very select audience, I guess.
Given your location on this site is given as Israel, and most of us here are not so situated:
How are general attitudes, how are the internal debates within Israel and how does that manifest (or not) in terms of government policy as per this conflict?
What is your general sense or instinct on such things? I get the impression there’s some pretty forceful resistance to some things, but equally the general direction of travel moves things otherwise.
One can read as much as they want, sometimes it’s worth asking a native. My native Belfast has come along, but there’s definitely areas I’d absolutely push a tourist away from
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On October 23 2025 04:26 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2025 04:02 mindjames wrote:On October 23 2025 03:34 Billyboy wrote:
Enjoyed the conversation for as long as it lasted. Hopefully Mindjames will make future appearances, short bursts might be the best for keeping everyone calm and for his mental health. But good insights! It can be a bit frustrating to try and lay out my position at length and then have to try and respond to 6 different interpretations, rewordings of my comments, and imagined positions that I don't hold. And it certainly doesn't help when some of these are just off handed quippy remarks to try and dismiss my position without engaging directly and charitably. I will just say, if someone basically agrees with 90-100% of your moral assessments to the point of condemning their own government, and you still feel the need to accuse them of essentially sweeping for war criminals because they don't agree that a certain scenario rises to the level of a specific war crime, perhaps you are more interested in the ability to scold somebody rather than genuinely find out what they think or why. EDIT: I will be fair and say that at least two people have apologized and retracted their statements, so thank you. TL is not necessarily the worst place for discussion, it's just a very select audience, I guess. Given your location on this site is given as Israel, and most of us here are not so situated: How are general attitudes, how are the internal debates within Israel and how does that manifest (or not) in terms of government policy as per this conflict? What is your general sense or instinct on such things? I get the impression there’s some pretty forceful resistance to some things, but equally the general direction of travel moves things otherwise. One can read as much as they want, sometimes it’s worth asking a native. My native Belfast has come along, but there’s definitely areas I’d absolutely push a tourist away from
Thanks for asking. Israel is looking more and more like the US in many ways, but I'll touch on media environment specifically. We now have a TV channel that is the equivalent of Fox News (Channel 14). That plus the increasing adoption of Twitter and Telegram among Israelis has basically turned public discourse into a pile of shit. Imagine having to deal with MAGA-level arguments while attempting to discuss matters pertaining to the middle east, in all its complexities. Yeah.
The way it manifests in policy is not quite as bad as it is with Trump, because our head of state, crooked and cynical as he may be, is not at all as stupid or politically clumsy. So on the one hand, we don't have policy passing on a whim; but there definitely seems to be an erosion of democratic guard rails over time; and we definitely have the orchestrated campaigns to "prepare" public opinion for sweeping legislation. Thankfully there is still a strong enough base out there that opposes these moves and actively protests them (if you've heard of Israel's judicial reform debacle, for example).
To make that more specific to the conflict, I was happy to see - for as long as it lasted - pretty firm opposition to Netanyahu in the former defense minister, former Shin Bet chief, and former IDF chief. The war cabinet has not seen a lot of consensus (still doesn't) and I believe that to be a restraining factor.
Israel's biggest internal problem in my opinion is how hard the Labour party crashed a few years ago, due to what I see as a pretty stupid political miscalculation. The left in Israel is essentially fragmented out the ass and there is no more a "pro-worker" type home party that can easily galvanize that crowd.
I am also having to rethink my positions on global isolation and sanctions lately, because from the inside, it seems to turn people to the right. It's difficult as a local to make sense of the absolute torrent of hate coming at both Israelis in general and Jews in particular, and so people gradually adopt the view that we are "alone" in this battle and must be resilient; it makes Netanyahu's messaging resonate much better.
You would think global isolation would cause locals to have an issue with the person in charge, and want to replace them... but if that leader is able to use this environment to their benefit, then the external push is essentially achieving the opposite of its intended effect. It's really worrying to think that our lives are gradually getting worse (without comparing to Gaza of course), but Netanyahu is somehow only strengthened by it.
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On October 23 2025 05:17 mindjames wrote:
Israel's biggest internal problem in my opinion is how hard the Labour party crashed a few years ago, due to what I see as a pretty stupid political miscalculation. The left in Israel is essentially fragmented out the ass and there is no more a "pro-worker" type home party that can easily galvanize that crowd.
I think that's very insightful. Politics are never static, there's always a main opposition, so every place where the left has either crashed out or decided to move to the center has caused that opposition to become center vs far right, and that's how you get to terrible situations because in those situations it's mechanically unreasonable to expect the far right to never win. A healthy society needs a healthy left.
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What was the political miscalculation which caused the labour party to 'crash out' ?
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On October 23 2025 04:02 mindjames wrote:Show nested quote +On October 23 2025 03:34 Billyboy wrote:
Enjoyed the conversation for as long as it lasted. Hopefully Mindjames will make future appearances, short bursts might be the best for keeping everyone calm and for his mental health. But good insights! It can be a bit frustrating to try and lay out my position at length and then have to try and respond to 6 different interpretations, rewordings of my comments, and imagined positions that I don't hold. And it certainly doesn't help when some of these are just off handed quippy remarks to try and dismiss my position without engaging directly and charitably. I will just say, if someone basically agrees with 90-100% of your moral assessments to the point of condemning their own government, and you still feel the need to accuse them of essentially sweeping for war criminals because they don't agree that a certain scenario rises to the level of a specific war crime, perhaps you are more interested in the ability to scold somebody rather than genuinely find out what they think or why. EDIT: I will be fair and say that at least two people have apologized and retracted their statements, so thank you. TL is not necessarily the worst place for discussion, it's just a very select audience, I guess.
I feel you, you are doing a great job and your approach is leading to interesting conversations. If possible contribute as much as you can, as long as you can stay productive. What makes this site cool in the non SC related stuff (that is cool for different reasons) is hearing different (ideally) informed opinions from people with different perspectives, different knowledge and from different places.
Issues as emotional as this are super difficult to discuss unemotionally, but when it happens it can be pretty informative and cool.
The people discussing with you were doing their best as well which was nice. My advice, which is worth what you paid for it, is to pick one two people to chat with and ignore the rest. If you try to talk with everyone it just turns into a cluster where you are just playing non stop defense and fighting about things you never said. It is hard to ignore, both because of politeness and even more so when you are being misrepresented but I think it is the only way to keep it on track. That being said it is "do what I say not what I do" style advice.
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On October 23 2025 10:14 Ze'ev wrote:
What was the political miscalculation which caused the labour party to 'crash out' ?
Pre 2nd Intifada, demographic changes in the voter base let to substantial losses.
More recently, instead of joining forces with other center-left or centrist parties to form a viable anti-Netanyahu bloc, Labor insisted on running independently.
That decision split the oppositional vote and left Labor below/near the electoral threshold. Years of unclear ideological positioning, weak leadership and public association with Oslo - which is mostly unpopular in Israel in how it ended (the rise of Hamas) - didn't help either.
They went from roughly a third of the overall 120 seats to 4 in the last election.
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EPT
