The news loves to focus on individual Israeli hostages and victims by providing backgrounds and what they do for a living, but for the most part just lists Palestinian deaths by numbers and only occasionally includes names or family relationships.
There is one news agency, I think the BBC, which used the phrase "unprecedented attack" to refer to the Oct atrocity that kicked off the current hostilities but doesn't use any similar phrasing for the IDF killing many times more civilians as a response. So apparently genocide doesn't need called out in a similar fashion because it is apparently not unprecedented.
I mean. "she was killed by the IDF" is passive voice, no? I think IDF is out of control as much as the next person but passive voice can be communicative and clear as much as active voice. And clearly it's easy to reach for if you gave it as a counter example accidentally.
The problem is not that they use the passive voice, it's that they use the passive voice systematically for one side and the active for the other. It's always "Hamas kills" versus "shot dead by the IDF", and usually the "by the IDF" part is buried in the article instead of the headline.
Over 20 years ago they ran over US citizen Rachel Corrie with a bulldozer when she protested Israel stealing Palestinian land. As horrible and disgusting as it is: it's the same as it ever was. The US doesn't even give a damn about it's own citizens when it comes to Israel.
And the saddest thing is that if she wasn't an American citizen this incident would have simply been briefly mentioned in the news without providing a name or a story.
I'd argue that assuming they'd even get a passing mention is overly charitable - to your point, look at all the aid workers murdered outside that particular instance that got no reporting... and the fact that people need to be told that they've killed hundreds of aid workers and journalists - the most per day of any conflict in history initially.
Kamala Harris issued a Whitehouse statement condemning Hamas after the body of an American hostage was found last week:
Hamas is an evil terrorist organization. With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands. I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world.
...
As Vice President, I have no higher priority than the safety of American citizens, wherever they are in the world.
Will this be the trigger for her to use equally strong language to condemn Israel, who has killed 30 times more people in the ongoing genocide than Hamas? Or will she just reiterate as she did in her recent CNN interview that:
I’m unequivocal and — and unwavering in my commitment to Israel’s defense and its ability to defend itself.
...
CNN Reporter: But no change in policy in terms of arms and — and so forth?
No.
Does she care about all Americans, or only those whose deaths justify continuing this genocide?
Shame “genocide Kamala” doesn’t have the same ring, maybe “colonizer Kamala”?
Either way I’m disappointed, I had some hope and refrained from commenting about her for a while, but it’s clear she has zero intention of differing her stance from Biden.
Same. I wanted to believe so badly. I would honestly accept the smallest hint that she was going to be different. Something to tell myself as I pull the lever. But if anything, she is toeing the line even more carefully than she did before.
There's a BIG spectrum between unequivocal support of Israel and nuking it. Right now she's on one end of the spectrum. No one is asking her to swing to the other.
The CNN article got comments from two other people present.
A resident:
Dr. Hisham Dweikat, a resident of Beita who took part in the demonstration, told CNN that as the protest was wrapping up, the Israeli military started firing tear gas towards the crowd.
“As people were running away, live fire was shot and a soldier fired directly at the protesters, hitting the American activist in the head from behind and falling to the ground,” he said.
An American activist:
Eygi was crouched behind a dumpster at the bottom of a hill when gunfire began, Vivi Chen, an American activist who was at the demonstration and who volunteers for Faza’a – another pro-Palestinian group which works in partnership with ISM – told CNN. Chen confirmed Eygi was there with ISM.
“We were all at the bottom of the hill and the Israeli army was at the top,” Chen said. “There were two volunteers sitting behind a dumpster and they fired one shot at the dumpster. It hit a metal plane. And then there was another shot and they shot – they shot her in the head.”
...
“They are one of the most advanced armies in the world,” Chen said. “They have weapons from America. It is not an accident that they hit her in the head. That was on purpose. It’s not that they shot a hundred shots at the same time, and she was hit with one. We were all standing still, not moving. Just standing there, and they shot her through the head.”
If you just mean the part about advanced weapons from America then I agree with you, it's nonsense, obviously an accurate rifle can be manufactured anywhere.
The not an accident part has a decent argument. Considering that only a few shots were fired, one hit the dumpster she was hiding behind and one hit her in the head, it seems unlikely it was accidental.
The victim here said she wanted to go to the West Bank to "bear witness," which is coded language for "be martyred," which is coded language for "wilfully disregard your own safety and get yourself killed in a warzone." That's why she arrived in town, went straight to the front, and started some shit.
That's called martyrdom and Palestinian nationalists and pan-Islamists encourage and reward it. Get an air raid warning? Go stand on the roof, if you're a true victim of the infidels. Soldiers working nearby? Throw rocks at them until they start shooting, if you're a true patriot.
That's the greatest ambition the leadership in Palestine celebrates; the greatest blow they can deal to their oppressor is to put a body on them, get some sympathetic international headlines. And, obviously, for that reason, Hamas and their ideological allies throughout the region love nothing more than for Israel to kill a foreign national from somewhere with clout, but they'd settle for shooting one themselves and blaming it on Israel.
"Bear witness" is codified language for make your voice heard, but I can see how you don't understand that applies to people who you don't assign basic human agency to. What a monstrous comment.
I have to assume this was written by an Antisemitic troll to deliberately make Israelis look bad, because the alternative is you thinking this was going to convince somebody.
Then why is Israel helping them? It is, after all, quite true that Israel has refused to stop settlement activity in the West Bank. Seems like a great way to cause protests, and then responding with a shoot first, ask questions later mentality will lead to a lot of martyrs. Are you accusing the Israeli government of being in league with Hamas?
The Israeli soldiers seem to be murderers and killers who shoot wildly at the slightest provocation. They probably deliberately escalated this protest too.
Israel is a fascist regime that should face harsh sanctions.
I think a more sensible nation than the US would freeze shipments to israel until a full investigation was concluded.
Not only does failing to react to this give Israel free reign to murder US citizens, but it also says the US probably won't make any effort to protect any americans abroad.
Don’t worry, the IDF will investigate themselves and (yet again) find no deliberate wrongdoing but maybe admit that ‘regrettable mistakes’ were made. This legal fig leaf is required so that an actually independent judiciary cannot enforce international law.
Article 17 of the Rome Statute allows the ICC to step in and exercise jurisdiction where states are unable or unwilling genuinely to investigate or prosecute
As long as there’s some form of judicial action by an Israeli court, the IDF can push everything under the rug and get away with what they please.
The US is doing everything it can to stonewall, and statements it made regarding it being dumbfounded that the ICC can also prosecute its allies, and that it's not just a weapon to use against its enemies, reeks of colonialist hubris.
I'm not sure she's owned by them. But pissing them off in an incredibly close election is not wise. Unfortunately their money dump on tight progressive primaries had exactly the effect they wanted. "Talk about Israel during the campaign and we dump tens of millions in strategic states and demographics."
So we're not likely to see her true position on that until November 5th.
When a group gives millions to a campaign that's a quid pro quo, the candidate will do what they want when elected. There's no chance Kamala will change her stance on Nov 5th because the cash will still be flowing
He (Ben Gvir) has a long history of anti-Arab activism leading to dozens of indictments and at least eight convictions of crimes including incitement to racism, possession of propaganda for a terrorist organization (the now illegal political party Kach) and support for a terrorist organisation (also Kach).[9] As a lawyer, he is known for defending Jews accused of Jewish extremist terrorism on trial in Israel.[10]