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> This is what Israel has begun to do - we cut the supply of energy, water and diesel to the Strip ... But it’s not enough. In order to make the siege effective

> This is what Israel has begun to do - we cut the supply of energy, water and diesel to the Strip ... But it’s not enough. In order to make the siege effective, we have to prevent others from giving assistance to Gaza ... The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave. If Egypt and other countries prefer that these people will perish in Gaza, this is their choice. -- Giora Eiland > If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza Strip. We will not allow a situation where 2 million people live there. -- Smotrich Two of dozens and dozens such statements, with rather tame language compared to others. Under the Geneva Convention the Israeli government is required to prohibit and prosecute such speech, not engage in it. And then there are is the actual murder, which in turn unrolls into hundreds of things, including soldiers incriminating themselves with a sort of "humor" that reminds of the cruelty of Abu Ghraib, plus "the Temple will be built soon" and all that. Even outright targeting of journalists. https://rsf.org/en/israeli-politicians-call-journalists-gaza-be-killed https://rsf.org/en/israeli-politicians-call-journalists-gaza...

tptacek 3y ago
It's worth noting that the Netanyahu government, in official statements, has disavowed Smotrich and Ben Gvir's rhetoric --- and claims that Israelis will re-settle Gaza in particular --- and that the war cabinet doesn't include them (was, in fact, formed in part to exclude them). There's probably no side of this debate that thinks Smotrich is anything less than a monster, so continually citing him isn't doing much to move the conversation forward. (Smotrich and Ben Gvir have said worse things than this!) None of this is to vouch for Netanyahu, who is himself a deeply problematic figure and is of course responsible for forming a coalition with these people in the first place --- something I think most people feel he did in order to escape prison. Not to keep one of these cursed threads going even longer, just, if you're trying to parse reasons why citing Smotrich isn't getting you more traction with your interlocutors, that could possibly be one reason.
- johnnyworker 3y ago
  I appreciate your effort, but I am citing him because he's put it very succinctly. As I said, that unrolls to many other people saying the same or worse things, many of them in the government. And their words match the current military actions, the flattening of villages, the religious zealotry, the wanton attacks on civilians. When I referred to Abu Ghraib I wasn't trying to be polemic, that's just the best one-phrase description I can give of all the shit I've seen and read and seen justified. > There's probably no side of this debate that thinks Smotrich is anything less than a monster When it comes to Israel itself, thinking that these people are "monsters" isn't enough under the convention against Genocide. As for the rest, where are the calls to stop this? Where is even honest reporting on it? NYT is currently lying about "Israel scaling back the war", meanwhile: https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1744326462449029399 https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17443264624490293... https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1744351540435935525 https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1744351540435935525 Again, just the tip of the ice berg. Videos chosen for not being very graphic. Just enough to realize that the convenient, clean narrative put forward can't possibly be correct. And the people who watch in horror and watch how it's swept under the rug, how the people scratch each other's back while having "concerns" (say, Biden delivering weapons, saying no to a ceasefire, while paying some lip service to being a nice human because that's all he has against Trump), how Palestinians are just treated as non-persons, vermin to be exterminated to take their land, while that is glorified with sombre references to the Holocaust, will never forget it. Every time there is something about, say, the atrocity that was putting Japanese Americans into camps during WW2 (which it was), they will think back on how Palestinian children and civilians were blown to bits, starved to death, in the ten thousands currently, with the declared target being hundreds of thousands if not millions, and how their neighbors, friends and family, shrugged and said "their fault for voting Hamas 2006", and how the connection they felt to that person died that day. That's not an argument, but that's what will happen. It already happened. We don't know why people do this or that, just like we never will fully understand the Holocaust, but we know what they did, and that will have to do. I'm not saying this to convince anyone. I can't convince anyone who isn't shocked about what I already posted and looking into it themselves. I try to stay on top of it, and I pass on some of the things I saw I see nowhere outside of the sources I stumbled onto by caring about and researching the issue. I like to think that makes it valuable enough, certainly as valuable something that contains no quotes and just rephrases justifications that are well known. When I reply to a person I haven't talked to before in a thread I haven't posted in yet, I might repeat a quote or a link, obviously. I don't have the time to come up with something fresh every time.

tptacek 3y ago

It's worth noting that the Netanyahu government, in official statements, has disavowed Smotrich and Ben Gvir's rhetoric --- and claims that Israelis will re-settle Gaza in particular --- and that the war cabinet doesn't include them (was, in fact, formed in part to exclude them). There's probably no side of this debate that thinks Smotrich is anything less than a monster, so continually citing him isn't doing much to move the conversation forward. (Smotrich and Ben Gvir have said worse things than this!) None of this is to vouch for Netanyahu, who is himself a deeply problematic figure and is of course responsible for forming a coalition with these people in the first place --- something I think most people feel he did in order to escape prison. Not to keep one of these cursed threads going even longer, just, if you're trying to parse reasons why citing Smotrich isn't getting you more traction with your interlocutors, that could possibly be one reason.

johnnyworker 3y ago
I appreciate your effort, but I am citing him because he's put it very succinctly. As I said, that unrolls to many other people saying the same or worse things, many of them in the government. And their words match the current military actions, the flattening of villages, the religious zealotry, the wanton attacks on civilians. When I referred to Abu Ghraib I wasn't trying to be polemic, that's just the best one-phrase description I can give of all the shit I've seen and read and seen justified. > There's probably no side of this debate that thinks Smotrich is anything less than a monster When it comes to Israel itself, thinking that these people are "monsters" isn't enough under the convention against Genocide. As for the rest, where are the calls to stop this? Where is even honest reporting on it? NYT is currently lying about "Israel scaling back the war", meanwhile: https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1744326462449029399 https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17443264624490293... https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1744351540435935525 https://twitter.com/MiddleEastEye/status/1744351540435935525 Again, just the tip of the ice berg. Videos chosen for not being very graphic. Just enough to realize that the convenient, clean narrative put forward can't possibly be correct. And the people who watch in horror and watch how it's swept under the rug, how the people scratch each other's back while having "concerns" (say, Biden delivering weapons, saying no to a ceasefire, while paying some lip service to being a nice human because that's all he has against Trump), how Palestinians are just treated as non-persons, vermin to be exterminated to take their land, while that is glorified with sombre references to the Holocaust, will never forget it. Every time there is something about, say, the atrocity that was putting Japanese Americans into camps during WW2 (which it was), they will think back on how Palestinian children and civilians were blown to bits, starved to death, in the ten thousands currently, with the declared target being hundreds of thousands if not millions, and how their neighbors, friends and family, shrugged and said "their fault for voting Hamas 2006", and how the connection they felt to that person died that day. That's not an argument, but that's what will happen. It already happened. We don't know why people do this or that, just like we never will fully understand the Holocaust, but we know what they did, and that will have to do. I'm not saying this to convince anyone. I can't convince anyone who isn't shocked about what I already posted and looking into it themselves. I try to stay on top of it, and I pass on some of the things I saw I see nowhere outside of the sources I stumbled onto by caring about and researching the issue. I like to think that makes it valuable enough, certainly as valuable something that contains no quotes and just rephrases justifications that are well known. When I reply to a person I haven't talked to before in a thread I haven't posted in yet, I might repeat a quote or a link, obviously. I don't have the time to come up with something fresh every time.