Sanders calls Israel's siege on Gaza 'a serious violation of international law'
Sanders calls Israel's siege on Gaza 'a serious violation of international law'
Well I’m glad to hear more people stating the obvious. Well done Bern.
By only condemning human rights violations by Hamas and tacitly approving bigger war crimes by Israel, our American and European leaders are choosing sides in a very obvious and hypocritical manner.
We are unnecessarily antagonizing a billion Muslims and making ourselves a target for terrorism by blindly supporting an unjust apartheid state.
I don't want to on the side of Hamas, but I also don't want to be on the side of Israel.
Why drag us into this?
USA and rest of the Western world has enabled Israel for the last 70 years while the Palestinians have been systematically disenfranchised and radicalized. No one put in geniune effort to de-escalate this situation and now shit has hit the fan.
Most western countries feel and are guilty because they repeatedly killed and exiled Jews and promised them land as retribution that didn't belong to them in the first place.
A refreshing take for sure, and even though Bernie is Jewish he sees this cruel regime for what it really is. There are no excuses for harming innocent civilians, ever!
Religion has not done a lot of good in the world lately. Turns out the "my way or the highway" approach creates nothing but death and violence.
Religion, and British imperialism
The Roman empire's spawn. Western imperialism and christianity/islam.
As a Brit I'm always shocked people focus on us so much. Like yeah we fucked up a lot of places and did awful things, but basically every country in Europe has committed atrocities that are as bad if not worse, like the French in Vietnam or Belgium in Africa, or mother fucking Spain basically wiping put the entire south American continent.
Traditionally, churches and other religious institutions, have been good at building community and programs that benefit the less fortunate among us. You know, the whole "love your neighbor as yourself" thing.
More and more, though, it has devolved into not much more than political extremism and often hateful rhetoric and even calls to physical violence.
In all seriousness, community is the biggest benefit of religion, and the reason I'm ok with it existing in modern society. The idealized church (and these do still exist in smaller churches) is a safe place for people to come, not be judged, and find acceptance and support.
A friend of mine goes to a church like this, and honestly sometimes I'm jealous. I'm as atheist as they come in my personal beliefs, but hearing all the actually cool stuff they do to support their members is really cool. I don't agree with their religion, but they're practicing it right as far as I'm concerned.
Religion should absolutely be either personal or small community, though. As soon as you have states using it as justification for violence, that religion has stopped being useful or acceptable.
Pope hats are kinda cool.
It gives some people a lot of comfort.
Religion is a plague. It's the reason we're going to destroy ourselves. How many of the people who deny climate change (and every other batshit insane position taken by lunatics) are religious right-wingers? By far, most.
Religion or not, it sure would be nice if we could not killing civilians and not genocide.
Shh, Bernie, corporate America might blacklist you from ever working for them.
I (a non-US) watched Hillary in a documentary about her saying Bernie has never worked (in corporate/professional settings) all his life. If that's true, I don't think it matters to him.
Yeah, you’re right. My comment was a weak attempt a humor.
It’s a joke. They are saying Bernie will never be a paid off tool of the corporations. Which he would never want to be anyway. And that’s why he lost the nomination.
Hillary is a very transparent corporate goon. She's never done anything out of the currently accepted status quo. She's entirely interested in what benefits her political career.
Bernie being on the right side of history as usual.
At least someone has common sense
I mean, Bernie Sanders always had that. That's a good part of why people liked him.
See him arguing against various wars where he stood among few against the many and was so far right on these takes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om-x323Em0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZo97nFS9GU
One of the comments under the videos puts it well:
For every wrong move america has made in the last 40 years, there is a video of Bernie arguing against it.
I'm glad to hear him break back away from the Dem establishment orthodoxy. He's been mostly toeing the corporatist establishment line since Biden secured the nomination.
Though, maybe that means I need to get defederated now.
It's genocide. It's hate for hates sake. All for the benefit of a few rich old men.
The Israeli far-right. To a lesser degree, the leaders of Hamas.
Defense contractors, for one. Gotta keep the war machine going.
Israel's existence has been enough justification for the US to be involved in the affairs middle east for the last 80 years.
Who benefits from this crisis?
Russia. It gives them breath and cover at a time where the US is stymied against supporting Ukraine. Creates another thing for the media to "do" that isn't covering Ukraine.
Either Jews suck at genociding or you're a dumbass.
In case you are just uneducated and not a troll:
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
So, yes, what Israel is doing is genocide.
You do know that this same argument is used by holocaust deniers, right?
You joking mate?
I just got done watching PBS News hour Brooks and Capehart segment and, wow... Talk about completely one-sided. As though viewing this event in isolation without recognition to the broader historical context. Basically drooling over Netanyahu.
When will people learn that radicalization doesn't just manifest out of thin air...?
exactly. israel has been killing palestinian as for decades. because they want their land. bibi is taking israeli citizens down a dark, dark road. if israel had treated the palestinians as full humans with the same rights as themselves, hamas wouldn’t even exist.
I just got done watching PBS News hour Brooks and Capehart segment and, wow… Talk about completely one-sided.
I just watched it myself, and didn't see that.
How was it one-sided, in your opinion?
Did either of them give historical context to why Palestinians are blaming Israel and not Hamas in this instance? Did either of them address the creeping territorial seizure of Arab land? Did they give any mourning to the many more Palestinian civilian deaths both in this acute conflict, or in the past decades? (reminder there has been roughly 10x the number of Palestinian civilian deaths from Israeli forces than there has Israelis by Palestinian groups).
The way they spoke made it seem like this attack just manifested out of thin-air and that Israel is innocent.
That neither Capehart nor Brooks who raised their own race/ethnicity could relate to confining people into slums and ghettos, and imposing economic blockades as they victim-blame them for the number of civilian deaths is to me as shocking as it is ironic.
If a law carries no punishment, is it even a law?
Seems like more a set of guidelines that people are free to ignore whenever it suits them.
It's unclear.
Hamas clearly and obviously committed crimes against humanity (intentionally murdering civilians, raping, torturing and kidnapping).
Israel, so far, is playing in the gray areas. It's legal, according to international law, to lay siege on a population as long as it has a definitive and declared military purpose. It's illegal to do it to intentionally harm civilians or to intentionally starve them.
The main problem is that Hamas is using the Palestinians and hides amongst them. That makes the legal discussion very difficult because Israel can always say that they target Hamas and everything else is just collateral damage.
Unfortunately the Palestinians are getting f'ed from both sides here.
I'm pretty sure cutting of food and water to an entire population is no gray area, it's pretty unambiguously a warcrime.
Its not a gray area. Killing civilians is wrong. It does nothing to counter hamas. It is not productive towards rescuing the hostages. Its not a well thought out or considered strategy that follow even the logic of war. It is just a cruel and broken reaction to terrorism. One atrocity in return the other. The point if government and leadership is to not behave like this. Jews whose famiues bear the the scars of the holocaust, myself included, know this better than anyone.
The main problem is that Hamas is using the Palestinians and hides amongst them
Why do you think Hamas has not been able to "resolve" this issue?
Even when international powers would force the place into two countries the fighting will never stop. Because both don't have a country and want one and both ground their claim on religion. The religions are incompatible. Hamas consider Jews as the enemy of Allah quite literally.
Jews were pushed out of countries and killed and therefore promised land. So land was simply taken from a torn place that couldn't protect itself. Palestinians are also pushed out of countries and killed and want their land back. The Brits just left them with this conflict because they couldn't handle it. And now probably no one will be able to stop Israel anymore because they were given the better hand in terms of weapons.
Asking either side to stop won't work. Ban religion instead. They could both live there.
Before 1943, both Muslims and Jews lived in Palestine in peace, but as immigration increased, so did tension. It wasn't about religion, it was about land.
There were plenty of Jewish leagues, sports, ect, called the Palestinian Jewish (league name).
"In peace"
Not really. There has been conflict between the two groups since pretty much the day the first Jewish immigrants/settlers arrived in the 1800's. The first recorded violent action was in 1882 when an Arab was shot at a wedding by a Jew so a bunch of Arabs started a small riot vandalising Jewish property. And since there has been so many riots and shooting and checks notes mule thefts, done as retaliation to retaliation to retaliations.
Didn't immigration to Israel increase due to persecution of Jewish people? So if there was no Christ / bible leading to Judaism separating from Christianity, we wouldn't have the resulting anti-semitism that caused Jewish people to return to their biblical homeland and displace the indigenous Palestinians. Honest inquiry.
Jews lived in Arab and Muslim countries as second-class citizens at best. There are also many Palestines in Israel living there, doing sports, allowed to vote, etc. But somehow in that case it's not okay.
Almost as if it's okay to treat Jewish people as lesser, but not Muslims.
The whole fights and anger about the city Jerusalem is driven by religion, as well.
Even when Palestinians could live in Israel as first class citizens they reject it because they are anti-zionist. Which is a religious standpoint, even when Zionism itself is of course also a religious standpoint.
Please read this for example, which I think makes a very good point on how religion drives the conflicts:
So land was simply taken from a torn place that couldn’t protect itself.
I mostly agree, but 'taken' is somewhat reductive, it was more like a forced partition. Jews already lived there and were already emigrating there en masse long before the end of WWII, Zionism ramped up in the late 1800's, 60 years before the Jewish state. There was already violence in that area through a lot of early Zionism and a civil war in the few years leading up to partition.
It would be like if the UK decided tomorrow to give 35% of the US to Hispanic Americans despite them only being ~20% of the population, it just a weird way to split up a country that is bound to cause conflict. (Jews were 30% of the population of Israel/Palestine when it was split in half) No one actually expected Israel to survive the wars at the start, as you said they just wanted to push the 'problem' onto someone else. If you're a displaced population what do you do if no one wants to take you and your under threat of death most places you go? It's important to remember that Jews were pretty much universally hated everywhere in the world prior to WWII, they didn't have many prospects for peace.
I suspect however that if partition never happened, there would still be ethnic conflict in that area and it would have just shifted who was the oppressed group. Which really highlights the real problem as you implied, the inability for many religious communities to live side by side. Look at India, Nigeria, Ireland, etc. Whenever you have 2 prominent religions in large enough numbers living closely together their fanaticism often doesn't allow a shared sense of national unity. Banning religion is a great way to make religion popular again though, not the best way to get rid of it. A secular education is the best way to get rid of religion.
Thank you, I looked into it and found a lot of interesting research about the people who lived in that area in the past. I agree that both groups of people are native to the place.
It's interesting how the narrative of Jews being invaders or even colonizers of the place is prevalent in social media, on biased websites and sometimes even the news.
I guess people really like that idea because it makes the whole issue more easy black-and-white.
Oh yes of course banning religion is the obvious answer that will lead to harmony. Even in your magical world where religion doesn't exist this conflict would then be on racial lines.
Exactly, people use religion to justify acts that would otherwise be seen as irrational and inhumane. But with religion out of the picture, people will still commit the same atrocities and just try to find other ideologies as justification, such as racism.
To be fair, extremism flourishes when conditions are bad. Hamas is potentially a product of these conditions, or at least partially. If both peoples would be afforded better conditions, they might seem less incompatible than the two groups seem at the moment.
About time the Palestian issue is put back on the agenda. Strangely enough, Israel is doing everything they can it seems to make that happen.
Almost like you got this out of Chris Hitchens mouth.
I don't like religion either. But, I don't agree with banning religion. Banning something only give reason for martyrdom. It is too naive, to say that the Israel-Palestina conflict would be gone if both of them turned atheists. Too much bad blood between them. Instead it would need a long process to fight for peace. Short term cease fire, making them to have a long one. Stop giving Israel too much privilege and upperhand by giving them more advanced weapons. Reeducate the people! Honest education is one of the best solution against religion. And we might have a chance to have a peace there in the long future. The conflict wouldn't be resolved in the next couple of years, I believe it would take decades.
The western block has to stop giving weapons to Israel and stop supporting Israel blindly. What they did there, has to be condemned also.
When Israel wouldn't have weapons, Hamas would kill them an probably other Palestine groups as well because they see Jewish people as the enemy of Allah and do not want to share the land with them, they want to kill or exile all Jews in the area.
I think if you were able to pull the religious component out the conflict would be solved very quickly. Control over religious hotspots? Gone. Scripture telling everyone they are god's chosen and need to oppose the non-believers? Gone. Outside influence and money supporting 'their' extremists? Gone. Israeli settlers thinking it's their religious job to retake their holy land? Gone.
This conflict is entirely rooted in religion
and both ground their claim on religion.
No. Sorry, but this is bullshit.
Palestinians lived in Palestine before any Zionists came, and they lived with Palestinian Jews and Christians. They don't demand the land because of "religion"... they demand their land, country, identity, and dignity back.
Big fucking difference. And honestly, it reflects poor knowledge about Palestinians and Palestinian history on your part.
The reason why Palestinian groups like Hamas want the land completely for themselves is religious. They claim that Palestine is only really theirs when it's "pure Muslim". You can read this in the charta of the Hamas and also in the quotes of their leaders.
How is that not based on religion? Jews were living there before as well and many Palestines want them completely gone because they are Jews.
How come nobody is mentioning how President George Bush is the guy who fucked up Gaza?
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-day-that-bush-took-gaza/
The Day That Bush Took Gaza
April 25, 2004
President Bush’s embrace of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s plan for unilateral Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip is going to turn out to be more than a mere gesture. Sharon’s radical initiative would evacuate all Israeli settlements and military positions, unilaterally, within the next 18 months...de facto responsibility for what happens in Gaza once Israel withdraws will fall to the United States. That’s the hidden meaning in the president’s letter of assurance to Sharon saying that the United States will lead an international effort to build the capacity and will of Palestinian institutions to fight terrorism and prevent the areas from which Israel withdraws from posing a threat.
One wonders whether Bush really appreciates what he is getting himself and the United States into. Having trumpeted his support for an independent Palestinian state, he is now taking on responsibility for ensuring that the Gaza mini-state created by Israel’s withdrawal does not turn into a failed terrorist state.
I don't agree with this guy's hot take on things. He's arguing that because Bush supported the Israeli Prime Minister's idea of pulling out of Gaza, Bush is somehow taking full responsibility for Palestine and has all the blame for Hamas winning the majority vote in Gaza in 2007.
Sharon was going to let the Palestinian Authority (who rules the west bank) run Gaza. Bush is the guy who pushed for democratic elections. That's why he's the one who is most responsible. Of course the Gaza residents over 40 who voted for Hamas (perhaps around 20% of the current population) also share the blame. This is also something the news media doesn't talk about. The Gaza civilians voted Hamas into power.
How come nobody is mentioning how President George Bush is the guy who fucked up Gaza?
Maybe because it's a bit of a stretch
It's not a stretch. It was Bush's idea to hold democratic elections in Gaza, instead of turning Gaza over to the Palestinian Authority. Yes it was a noble idea, but it showed how Bush was incompetent on foreign matters. Bush also let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora when he refused to order the thousands of nearby US soldiers to go get him.
This all goes to show how incredibly important it is to have a US president who is competent. Bush would probably argue that he was just trying to do the right thing in pushing for democracy. And I'm not saying Bush is the only person responsible. But every time another building in Gaza is destroyed by bombing, that happened because Bush made the wrong call while he was in charge.
Gaza was fucked way backed in 1948 by the UN and especially the UK. What follows were 75 years of genocide/terrorism.
It’s too on the nose when religions claim they are coming in the name of peace yet they continue to leave a bloody trail. Yes, I condemn Hamas just as much as I condemn the killing of innocent Palestinians in the name of religion.
Innocent Palestinians are being killed by an ethno state so let's make sure we call it what it is. It's colonial sentiments and Jewish supremacy that are behind this.
Is it in the name of religion? How so?
Fuck him; call things by their names, GENOCIDE.
Watch out Bibi, the international police are going to come and arrest you! Blah blah blah.
