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Israel/Palestine - The ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza - ICJ Orders Halt to Israeli Offensive on Rafah - See Staff Posts for Posting Guidelines

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Macam

Macam

Member
Nov 8, 2018
1,610
Just want to encourage everyone (in the US) to keep up the pressure on your Congress critters (use www.5calls.org for numbers/scripts/etc). Calling is what matters most in terms of outreach.

Out organize these folks.
 
m_shortpants

m_shortpants

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,568
Scuffed said:
This is an interview portion of former PM Ehud Olmert

View: https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1788645957963301113

He says some surprising things. He is also against an invasion of Rafah and he considers Ben Gvir and his supporters a bigger threat than Hamas because they are an enemy within. He says more important stuff I just don't want to paraphrase. This is a must watch clip imo.
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Also he says the quiet part out loud - Hamas is fundamentally not a threat to Israel. They just aren't. Israel is a nuclear state. The narrative that extremists have been pushing that Hamas is some existential threat, therefore the carnage and destruction in Gaza is justified, is pure nonsense.
 
Sordid Plebeian

Sordid Plebeian

Member
Oct 26, 2017
17,538
Psittacus

Psittacus

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,997
m_shortpants said:
Also he says the quiet part out loud - Hamas is fundamentally not a threat to Israel. They just aren't. Israel is a nuclear state. The narrative that extremists have been pushing that Hamas is some existential threat, therefore the carnage and destruction in Gaza is justified, is pure nonsense.
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The only thing wilder than all the former Israeli PMs speaking out about the war is looking into what the IDF was up to when they were in office.

"The government's position was from the outset that if there is shooting at the residents of the south, there will be a harsh Israeli response that will be disproportionate," Olmert said at the weekly cabinet meeting after the latest rocket salvo.
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This sketch is from just after the 2008/2009 invasion of Gaza and holds up today.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9QRL0QSi-c
 

Adventureracing

The Fallen
Nov 7, 2017
8,114
effingvic said:

View: https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1787934139439632895

This is because theres no red line and its all bullshit.

While kids are getting blown up by bombs supplied by the US, Biden is out giving speeches calling students who are protesting these atrocities violent and antisemitic and his ironclad support for this rogue nation. This is despite escalating violence against students, as counter protestors continue to literally drive into students and harming them.

Fuck this fucking administration. People still try to argue this motherfucker is trying. He isnt doing shit and he wont. There needs to be international intervention here, fuck what the US says.
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After everything else that had happened you'd have to be a fool to think that would be there red line.
Psittacus said:
The only thing wilder than all the former Israeli PMs speaking out about the war is looking into what the IDF was up to when they were in office.



This sketch is from just after the 2008/2009 invasion of Gaza and holds up today.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9QRL0QSi-c
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Not the chasers best work but another reminder of not only how long this has been going on but how blatant they have been about it.
 
Lighinthedarkness

Lighinthedarkness

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,467

Gaza aid operations could grind to halt within days, UN agencies warn

Dwindling food and fuel stocks could force aid operations to grind to a halt within days in Gaza as vital crossings remain shut, forcing hospitals to close and leading to more children dying of hunger, United Nations aid agencies warned on Friday.

Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid and people into Gaza as part of Israel's military operation in Rafah, the enclave's southernmost city where around 1 million uprooted people have been sheltering.

"For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel," said the UNICEF Senior Emergency Coordinator in the Gaza Strip, Hamish Young.

"This is already a huge issue for the population and for all humanitarian actors but in a matter of days, if not corrected, the lack of fuel could grind humanitarian operations to a halt," he told a virtual briefing.

The closed crossings had prevented the movement of people including aid workers and medical evacuations, he said, while food shortages were pushing up prices and supplies had already been lost from the destruction and looting of warehouses.

In the next day or so, five health ministry hospitals, five field hospitals and 30 ambulances would stop without more fuel, he said, adding that any kind of meaningful safe water production in Rafah has come to a halt.

Of the 12 aid-supported bakeries in southern Gaza, eight had ceased to operate and the rest would run out of stocks by Monday.
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Mivey

Mivey

Member
Oct 25, 2017
18,036
Hana-Bi said:
Just stumbled upon this report from over 30 years. Yeah, the IDF was high on killing children even before Hamas. And who can blame some people to be radicalized by this, if the West not only silence and dismiss such reports but actively support this?

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this brings home to me how this is all reported in most of Western media, across the decades really. In my case I'm reading Austrian newspapers, and it's pretty impressive almost how virtually all violence from IDF is dismissed, put into question and generally disregarded since the unassailable assumption is that the IDF operates like a normal Western army (as if NATO forces had a great humanitarian track record operating during the Golf wars) and thus any extreme claims from "Hamas-led" ministries cannot possible be believed. Combined with the reality that there is no Western reporting on the ground (since Israel is not letting them enter Gaza) it basically creates this space that is completely devoid from reality. IDF could literally kill millions in Gaza, and I'm fairly positive most newspapers here would not report about it in any credible ways.
It's pretty depressing, honestly. It's hard for me to not be cynical about the state of local media here
 
Lighinthedarkness

Lighinthedarkness

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Oct 28, 2017
1,467

View: https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1788887976987988032

Two days ago, amid intensified bombardment in Rafah, a @WHO staff member's home was destroyed due to an airstrike in its vicinity; he was injured, along with his spouse and one child. His 7 year old niece was killed.

We are deeply saddened by this tragedy and loss. Other colleagues have suffered such losses over these last 7 months.

We are supporting our colleague and his family to get medical care.

This is another devastating example of how unsafe it is in Rafah and across #Gaza.

We call for the protection of all humanitarian workers and all civilians. We call for a ceasefire.
 

Nola

Member
Oct 29, 2017
8,184
Hana-Bi said:
Just stumbled upon this report from over 30 years. Yeah, the IDF was high on killing children even before Hamas. And who can blame some people to be radicalized by this, if the West not only silence and dismiss such reports but actively support this?

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While this is a little too old for me(and shocking and also not unexpected), this was the one when I was coming up that jolted me and made me start questioning the assumptions I just sort of had on this issue as an American. Just a complete and utter destruction of one of the core lies(Israel as the most moral army compared to the "enemy'" that disgustingly uses human shields in violation of every moral principle and why Israel is the good guy), a default US narrative that I just believed without giving much thought.

But the neverending atrocities whitewashed by the West that seems to have no consequences is a large reason why I am so close to being broken over this issue.

It really feels like things just don't change.

It is also why I felt(and continue to feel) like I am going insane as Americans just keep repeating the same history over and over, often with the same actors and the same people that report on this stuff.

Like how many times must Israel's government commit atrocities that our politicians look past? how many times must the IDF lie but reporters and the public bend over backwards to shade their lies with credibility? How many times must mainstream news manufacture consent about US imperialism before we begin questioning them from the get? How many times are we going to point to the idiots on the margins to justify total initial capitulation to state narratives only to pretend years later they weren't that person while learning nothing? And sadly, the answer increasingly feels like there is no limit. We are just going to keep doing it until things deteriorate to the point of collapse or global catastrophe.
 
Scuffed

Scuffed

Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,274
effingvic said:

View: https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1788601928345076213

So which is it?
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The rule of thumb is to not believe anything this administration tells you about Israel/Palestine it is in their best interest to lie. Even if we are still charitable despite so much bullshit, aid has pretty much stopped going in so we are back to starvation as the primary weapon of death. People still don't take the man made famine as serious as they should and Libs just look for the latest tiny morsel Biden throws them to make them feel better about his genocide and that he is turning a corner. One of the last morsels Biden threw libs was the port which is a mockery and a clown show of ineptitude.

The only thing that needs to be understood is that 1.5 million Palestinians are still packed into Rafah like sardines and scrounging for food while there is a famine in the north which is slowing travelling south. Israel are belligerent occupiers they will just sit there and wait out the death if they have to. There needs to be an international defense force for Palestinians because if they defend themselves they are called terrorists.
 
Khanimus

Khanimus

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
40,687
Greater Vancouver
effingvic said:

It's Time to Stop Ignoring the Sexual Violence Happening in Gaza








www.thenation.com

It’s Time to Stop Ignoring the Sexual Violence Happening in Gaza

As long as our outrage is selectively assigned only to specific victims in specific contexts, we are lying to ourselves about the reality of violence in war zones.
www.thenation.com www.thenation.com

Earlier this year, the UN reported on sexual violence against Palestinian men and women detained by Israel. This was one of many such reports since last year.
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Oh this will continue to be ignored, let's be real here.

The number of videos of IDF soldiers (posted themselves) of them dehumanizing Palestinians at every turn are conveniently never brought up.
 
Scuffed

Scuffed

Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,274

CNN-Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center​



CNN spoke to three Israeli whistleblowers who worked at the Sde Teiman desert camp, which holds Palestinians detained during Israel's invasion of Gaza. All spoke out at risk of legal repercussions and reprisals from groups supportive of Israel's hardline policies in Gaza.

They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners' limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being "a paradise for interns"; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.
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According to the accounts, the facility some 18 miles from the Gaza frontier is split into two parts: enclosures where around 70 Palestinian detainees from Gaza are placed under extreme physical restraint, and a field hospital where wounded detainees are strapped to their beds, wearing diapers and fed through straws.

"They stripped them down of anything that resembles human beings," said one whistleblower, who worked as a medic at the facility's field hospital.

"(The beatings) were not done to gather intelligence. They were done out of revenge," said another whistleblower. "It was punishment for what they (the Palestinians) did on October 7 and punishment for behavior in the camp."
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This is a hell of a read and absolutely horrific. If that report even dares come back Israel isn't breaking humanitarian law then I don't know what to say. We know more laws have been broken than can even be counted but if CNN is addressing this torture via Israeli whisteblowers and the Biden administration still doesn't see anything then what in the actual fuck.
 
Lighinthedarkness

Lighinthedarkness

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,467

UN to vote on resolution that would grant Palestine new rights and revive its UN membership bid

apnews.com

UN to vote on resolution that would grant Palestine new rights and revive its UN membership bid

The U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote on a resolution that would grant new “rights and privileges” to Palestine.
apnews.com apnews.com

The U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote Friday on a resolution that would grant new "rights and privileges" to Palestine and call on the Security Council to favorably reconsider its request to become the 194th member of the United Nations.

The United States vetoed a widely backed council resolution on April 18 that would have paved the way for full United Nations membership for Palestine, a goal the Palestinians have long sought and Israel has worked to prevent, and U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood made clear Thursday the Biden administration is opposed to the assembly resolution.

Under the U.N. Charter, prospective members of the United Nations must be "peace-loving," and the Security Council must recommend their admission to the General Assembly for final approval. Palestine became a U.N. non-member observer state in 2012.

"We've been very clear from the beginning there is a process for obtaining full membership in the United Nations, and this effort by some of the Arab countries and the Palestinians is to try to go around that," Wood said Thursday. "We have said from the beginning the best way to ensure Palestinian full membership in the U.N. is to do that through negotiations with Israel. That remains our position."

But unlike the Security Council, there are no vetoes in the 193-member General Assembly and the resolution is expected to be approved by a large majority, according to three Western diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because negotiations were private.

The draft resolution "determines" that a state of Palestine is qualified for membership – dropping the original language that in the General Assembly's judgment it is "a peace-loving state." It therefore recommends that the Security Council reconsider its request "favorably."

The renewed push for full Palestinian membership in the U.N. comes as the war in Gaza has put the more than 75-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict at center stage. At numerous council and assembly meetings, the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinians in Gaza and the killing of more than 34,000 people in the territory, according to Gaza health officials, have generated outrage from many countries.

The original draft of the assembly resolution was changed significantly to address concerns not only by the U.S. but also by Russia and China, the diplomats said.

According to the diplomats, Russia and China which are strong supporters of Palestine's U.N. membership were concerned that granting the list of rights and privileges detailed in an annex to the resolution could set a precedent for other would-be U.N. members — with Russia concerned about Kosovo and China about Taiwan.

Under longstanding legislation by the U.S. Congress, the United States is required to cut off funding to U.N. agencies that give full membership to a Palestinian state – which could mean a cutoff in dues and voluntary contributions to the U.N. from its largest contributor.

The final draft drops the language that would put Palestine "on equal footing with member states." And to address Chinese and Russian concerns, it would decide "on an exceptional basis and without setting a precedent" to adopt the rights and privileges in the annex.
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Sacrilicious

Sacrilicious

Member
Oct 30, 2017
3,486
Lighinthedarkness said:
"We've been very clear from the beginning there is a process for obtaining full membership in the United Nations, and this effort by some of the Arab countries and the Palestinians is to try to go around that," Wood said Thursday. "We have said from the beginning the best way to ensure Palestinian full membership in the U.N. is to do that through negotiations with Israel. That remains our position."
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God, they are so full of shit. They aren't even trying to hide it.

This IS the process for obtaining full membership in the UN.

Convincing a genocidal warmonger (who spent 30+ years sabotaging every single peace effort) is absolutely not part of "the process", it's an impossible condition that let's the US pretend to support a 2-state solution while ensuring it never happens.
 
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Lighinthedarkness

Lighinthedarkness

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,467

Blinken report expected to criticize Israel, but say it isn't breaking weapons terms

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to submit to Congress as soon as Friday a highly critical report about Israel's conduct in Gaza that stops short of concluding it has violated the terms for its use of U.S. weapons, three U.S. officials said.

Why it matters: The report assessing whether Israel complied with international law and restricted humanitarian aid to Gaza sparked the most contentious internal debate in the State Department since the Oct. 7 attack, U.S. officials said.

Behind the scenes: In recent weeks, there has been a tug of war within the State Department over the contents of the report about Israel and its conclusions.

  • The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor and USAID recommended Blinken conclude that Israel has violated the terms of the national security memorandum, but other parts of the department pressed Blinken to certify that it didn't.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew and outgoing U.S. Gaza humanitarian envoy David Satterfield sent a memo to Blinken in recent weeks saying Israel isn't violating international law in its war in Gaza, two U.S. officials who read the memo told Axios.
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effingvic

effingvic

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,658
Lighinthedarkness said:

Blinken report expected to criticize Israel, but say it isn't breaking weapons terms

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  • According to U.S. officials, Lew and Satterfield said that the situation today when it comes to Israeli policy regarding humanitarian aid has significantly improved and Israel isn't intentionally impeding aid.

This is the level of bullshit I expected, especially from the ambassador to Israel. Even this sentence reads like complete bullshit based on everything we know from biased western media sources.


View: https://twitter.com/UNReliefChief/status/1788605114179072192

Imagine saying that bullshit when this is the actual reality on the ground.

This is an evil administration and they are in lock step with this genocide. I hope Blinken and Biden and everyone at the state department thats enabling this genocide rot in hell.
 
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Lighinthedarkness

Lighinthedarkness

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,467

Civilians flee Rafah for the north as heavy fighting keeps Gaza aid crossings closed


www.pbs.org

Civilians flee Rafah for the north as heavy fighting keeps Gaza aid crossings closed

Over a million Palestinians have fled to Rafah to escape fighting elsewhere, with many packed into U.N.-run shelters or squalid tent camps. The city on the border with Egypt is also a crucial hub for bringing in food, medicine, fuel and other goods.
www.pbs.org www.pbs.org
Heavy fighting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants on the outskirts of the southern Gaza city of Rafah has left crucial nearby aid crossings inaccessible and caused over 100,000 people to flee north, a United Nations official said Friday.

Israel's plans for a full-scale invasion of Rafah appear to be on hold for now, with the United States deeply opposed and stepping up pressure by threatening to withhold arms. But even the more limited incursion launched earlier this week threatens to worsen Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe.

Israel's plans for a full-scale invasion of Rafah appear to be on hold for now, with the United States deeply opposed and stepping up pressure by threatening to withhold arms. But even the more limited incursion launched earlier this week threatens to worsen Gaza's humanitarian catastrophe.

Heavy fighting was also underway in northern Gaza, where Hamas appeared to have once again regrouped in an area where Israel has already launched punishing assaults.

Over a million Palestinians have fled to Rafah to escape fighting elsewhere, with many packed into U.N.-run shelters or squalid tent camps. The city on the border with Egypt is also a crucial hub for bringing in food, medicine, fuel and other goods.

The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, says about 110,000 people have fled Rafah and that food and fuel supplies in the city are critically low. Georgios Petropoulos, an OCHA official working in Rafah, said the two main crossings near the city remain closed, cutting off supplies and preventing medical evacuations and the movement of humanitarian staff.

"Even if there were assurances to us being able to pass through a corridor, the proximity so close to a military involved in fighting is just not acceptable for something that has to be a humanitarian zone," he said.

The U.N.'s World Food Program will run out of food for distribution in southern Gaza by Saturday unless more aid arrives, Petropoulos said. He said about 30,000 people were leaving Rafah daily in search of safety, but that humanitarian workers had no supplies to help them set up camp in a new location.

"We simply have no tents, we have no blankets, no bedding, none of the items that you would expect a population on the move to be able to get from the humanitarian system," he said.
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Scuffed

Scuffed

Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,274
effingvic said:
  • According to U.S. officials, Lew and Satterfield said that the situation today when it comes to Israeli policy regarding humanitarian aid has significantly improved and Israel isn't intentionally impeding aid.

This is the level of bullshit I expected, especially from the ambassador to Israel. Even this sentence reads like complete bullshit based on everything we know from biased western media sources.


View: https://twitter.com/UNReliefChief/status/1788605114179072192

Imagine saying that bullshit when this is the actual reality on the ground.

This is an evil administration and they are in lock step with this genocide. I hope Blinken and Biden and everyone at the state department thats enabling this genocide rot in hell.
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Yup. Totally expected. The delay was to put it through the washing machine and come out with a cleaner report.
 
Oghuz

Oghuz

Member
Oct 27, 2017
5,000
Lighinthedarkness said:

View: https://twitter.com/BarakRavid/status/1788952088724062258
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Embarrassing.

BabyDontHurtMe said:
These Israeli spokespeople really only know how to do melodramatic theatrics and nothing else. It's not that surprising to see them lose more respect and support than they ever have in a long time.
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It's not just Israel. The US should also lose a lot of face for their insane support for this genocide.
 
m_shortpants

m_shortpants

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,568

Strapped down, blindfolded, held in diapers: Israeli whistleblowers detail abuse of Palestinians in shadowy detention center​
Sde Teiman, IsraelCNN —
At a military base that now doubles as a detention center in Israel's Negev desert, an Israeli working at the facility snapped two photographs of a scene that he says continues to haunt him.

Rows of men in gray tracksuits are seen sitting on paper-thin mattresses, ringfenced by barbed wire. All appear blindfolded, their heads hanging heavy under the glare of floodlights.

A putrid stench filled the air and the room hummed with the men's murmurs, the Israeli who was at the facility told CNN. Forbidden from speaking to each other, the detainees mumbled to themselves.

"We were told they were not allowed to move. They should sit upright. They're not allowed to talk. Not allowed to peek under their blindfold."

Guards were instructed "to scream uskot" – shut up in Arabic – and told to "pick people out that were problematic and punish them," the source added.
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CNN spoke to three Israeli whistleblowers who worked at the Sde Teiman desert camp, which holds Palestinians detained during Israel's invasion of Gaza. All spoke out at risk of legal repercussions and reprisals from groups supportive of Israel's hardline policies in Gaza.

They paint a picture of a facility where doctors sometimes amputated prisoners' limbs due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing; of medical procedures sometimes performed by underqualified medics earning it a reputation for being "a paradise for interns"; and where the air is filled with the smell of neglected wounds left to rot.
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The same whistleblower also said he witnessed an amputation performed on a man who had sustained injuries caused by the constant zip-tying of his wrists. The account tallied with details of a letter authored by a doctor working at Sde Teiman published by Ha'aretz in April.

"From the first days of the medical facility's operation until today, I have faced serious ethical dilemmas," said the letter addressed to Israel's attorney general, and its health and defense ministries, according to Ha'aretz. "More than that, I am writing (this letter) to warn you that the facilities' operations do not comply with a single section among those dealing with health in the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law."
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Disgusting.
 
Lighinthedarkness

Lighinthedarkness

Member
Oct 28, 2017
1,467

Biden admin says it's 'reasonable to assess' Israel used American weapons in Gaza in ways 'inconsistent' with international law

The Biden administration said Friday that it is "reasonable to assess" that US weapons have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza in ways that are "inconsistent" with international humanitarian law but stopped short of officially saying Israel violated the law.

The report said that investigations into potential violations are ongoing but noted that the US does "not have complete information to verify" whether the US weapons "were specifically used" in alleged violations of international humanitarian law.

"Given the nature of the conflict in Gaza, with Hamas seeking to hide behind civilian populations and infrastructure and expose them to Israeli military action, as well as the lack of USG personnel on the ground in Gaza, it is difficult to assess or reach conclusive findings on individual incidents. Nevertheless, given Israel's significant reliance on U.S.-made defense articles, it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm," the report said.

The report, which covers the period from the outbreak of the war with Hamas on October 7 to late April, did not find that Israel has withheld humanitarian aid to Gaza in violation of US law.
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View: https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1789037742699012337

Palestinians literally starving to death in Gaza because of lack of food, but the U.S.concluded that Israel has not restricted aid and is following international law.
 
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BlueTsunami

BlueTsunami

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Oct 29, 2017
8,560
Scuffed

Scuffed

Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,274
Lighinthedarkness said:

Biden admin says it's 'reasonable to assess' Israel used American weapons in Gaza in ways 'inconsistent' with international law




View: https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1789037742699012337

Palestinians literally starving to death in Gaza because of lack of food, but the U.S.concluded that Israel has not restricted aid and is following international law.
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I've been reading assessments of this report and it's actually scandalous in it's whitewashing and omissions. Most of it entails them just taking Netanyahu's word for it that he is obeying the law. This is a catastrophic embarrassment.
 
effingvic

effingvic

Member
Oct 25, 2017
14,658
Lighinthedarkness said:

Biden admin says it's 'reasonable to assess' Israel used American weapons in Gaza in ways 'inconsistent' with international law




View: https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1789037742699012337

Palestinians literally starving to death in Gaza because of lack of food, but the U.S.concluded that Israel has not restricted aid and is following international law.
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Senator Van Hollen shares his thoughts on the report


View: https://twitter.com/AkbarSAhmed/status/1789047936711561574


View: https://twitter.com/AkbarSAhmed/status/1789050941129248903


View: https://twitter.com/AkbarSAhmed/status/1789054797225550246

What a fucking joke of a "report". Its like yeah shit is bad but for the sake of this report we'll pretend it isnt. I cant believe we're debasing ourselves like this. Remember when Biden was supposed to bring the US' reputation out of the gutter after the Trump years?
 
yogurt

yogurt

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,159
Senator Chris Van Hollen's full statement on the certification is worth reading:

Van Hollen Statement on Administration's NSM-20 Report


Today U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) released the following statement in response to the Administration's report to Congress required by NSM-20:

"NSM-20 was put into place as an accountability mechanism intended to ensure U.S. security assistance is used in line with American interests and values. Among its requirements was the report produced today, which is meant to track our partners' compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL), U.S. best practices for civilian harm reduction, and standards for facilitating the delivery of U.S.-supported humanitarian assistance. Per NSM-20, the intent of this report was not just to look at the facts on the ground today – but to provide an unvarnished account of the facts and the law since January 2023, including the full period of the war in Gaza.

"While the report acknowledges that 'it is reasonable to assess that defense articles covered under NSM-20 have been used by Israeli security forces since October 7 in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm' – it largely fails to meet the mark of what NSM-20 requires.

"According to the NSM, this report had three areas to investigate: whether recipient countries used U.S. weapons in line with international law, followed established best practices to limit civilian harm, and fully cooperated with U.S.-supported efforts to deliver humanitarian aid. The NSM requires a full accounting of each of these measures, from day one of the conflict to now.

"On whether weapons were used in line with international law, this report essentially ducks the critical question at hand. In addressing only 10 incidents of possible misuse of U.S. weaponry by the Netanyahu government, the Administration fails to comply with the NSM-20 requirement that 'any credible reports or allegations' be assessed. The President himself has described the IDF's bombing campaign as 'indiscriminate,' thus implying this conduct violates the IHL principle of distinction. We've seen clear reports of violations from credible organizations that the Administration often relies on – including Amnesty International, Oxfam, and Human Rights Watch – as well as the report produced by the Independent Task Force on NSM-20. These reports created a yardstick by which we've been able to measure the scope and credibility of the Administration's report – and yet in comparison, despite having access to broader resources, the Administration failed to review all the available evidence. There's no excuse for this lack of in-depth review, and the report provides no justification for why it did not reach the same conclusion as these independent analyses. What's more, these independent reports underscore a concerning trend: the Administration cites the important work of these organizations when it suits their purposes but ignores them when it does not.

"On whether U.S.-developed best practices were followed to limit civilian harm, the report falls woefully short of its mandate, failing to identify and examine any specific cases. As acknowledged by Sec. Austin in April of this year, protecting civilians is both 'a moral duty and a strategic imperative.' Though this task is made more difficult by Hamas' tendency to operate from among the civilian population, the IDF still has a responsibility to comply with the rules of distinction, precaution, and proportionality. Credible organizations and experts on civilian harm have clearly shown the IDF has taken actions that the U.S. would not find acceptable on the grounds of anticipated civilian harm. While the report indicates the Intelligence Community concludes that Israel could do more to prevent civilian harm, it provides no examples based on the overwhelming evidence.

"Lastly, on whether humanitarian aid has been obstructed, the Administration has again chosen to disregard the requirements of NSM-20 to look at the full conduct of Israel throughout this war, and instead has chosen to take a very limited approach based on where we are today. Whether or not Israel is at this moment complying with international standards with respect to facilitating humanitarian assistance to desperate, starving citizens may be debatable. What is undeniable – for those who don't look the other way – is that it has repeatedly violated those standards over the last 7 months.

"The Administration created a tool to promote accountability but has come up very short in its implementation. When it comes to applying international law and human rights, you can't cherry-pick the facts and the law. Today's report also indicates a continuation of a disturbing pattern where the expertise and analyses of those working most closely on these issues at the State Department and at USAID have been swept aside to facilitate a predetermined policy outcome based on political convenience.

"For a country that bases its foreign policy on the values of human rights and the rule of law, we weaken our credibility when we don't apply that standard to friend and foe alike. Applying a double standard will boomerang on us. While I appreciate the fact that the Administration has used this tool to push the Netanyahu government in the right direction, that was not the purpose of this report – it was to give an unvarnished accounting of the facts as they are. In order to stand up for our values and principles, we need to be honest about the realities at hand.

"Simply put, while this is a step forward, this report does not meet the requirements of NSM-20. It also risks establishing a dangerously low bar for the permissible use of U.S. weapons and the acceptable standard for the delivery of humanitarian assistance."
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www.vanhollen.senate.gov

Van Hollen Statement on Administration’s NSM-20 Report | U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland

The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland
www.vanhollen.senate.gov

He's on the money. I'll be calling my senators again on Monday and citing Van Hollen's statement.
 
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