War between Hamas and Israel

[N.E. Brigand]

Yep, Hamas continues to be awful.

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Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just weeks after the U.S. played a huge role in defending Israel against an Iranian attack, said today in an address to his nation that "if we don't protect ourselves, no one will" and "we cannot trust the promises of gentiles."

[Frelga]

Yeah, Netanyahu is also fairly awful. He's not wrong on that point, but I really don't like where that kind of rhetoric can go if taken too far.

For one thing - notice who isn't protesting for Hamas? Israeli Arabs. There are massive protests against the government in Tel Aviv, but they are carrying Israeli flags, not Palestinian. But Arabs are a large proportion of Israeli citizens, and antagonizing them at this point would be dangerous as well as morally wrong.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Most of the people in the U.S. who are protesting for Hamas don't actually realize that they are protesting for Hamas. (Or so I believe.)

[N.E. Brigand]

I guess this means the ball is now in Israel's court?

[N.E. Brigand]

Per reporting in Haaretz, international diplomatic observers, echoing my take, actually said "the ball is in Netanyahu's court" because the deal to which Hamas has agreed is "at its core, the same as the Egyptian proposal which Israel has already approved," but Israeli sources are saying they think Hamas's acceptance of that deal is merely a "ploy."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well then call their bluff.

[N.E. Brigand]

Driving to band practice this evening, I heard on NPR that the deal to which Hamas agreed is not really the same deal that Israel had previously agreed to.

[N.E. Brigand]

From Politico: "The Biden admin has indefinitely delayed its report on whether Israel has violated humanitarian law in Gaza. The State Department was supposed to issue the report today. If it had concluded there was a violation, the U.S. would be expected to stop sending Israel military aid."

I'm not sure we can read into this decision that the report does or does not say that Israel was in violation. Either determination would be met with outrage that would threaten to undermine U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict. And that probably would be a worse outcome than the criticism that not issuing the report will generate. But I'm not in a position to say.

[N.E. Brigand]

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has confirmed reporting that the United States last week paused a planned shipment of 3,500 bombs to Israel in an effort to get Israel to back down from plans to launch a ground invasion into the city of Rafah at least until such time as Israel has a solid plan in place to protect Palestinian civilians.

[N.E. Brigand]

CNN has started to release excerpts from today's interview with President Biden, including this clip which is relevant to this thread:



Naturally one of the first replies still criticizes Biden as "Genocide Joe."

It sounds like Biden has a cold.

[N.E. Brigand]

So "indefinitely" turned out to mean a few days, because the State Dept. report I mentioned below has now been issued and finds that Israel may have violated international human rights laws using U.S. weapons, but "it hasn't violated terms of U.S. weapons agreements ... the State Department said it hasn’t verified specific instances that would justify withholding military aid," in part because the U.S. has to rely on certain assurances provided by Israel itself.

From Politico: "The Biden admin has indefinitely delayed its report on whether Israel has violated humanitarian law in Gaza. The State Department was supposed to issue the report today. If it had concluded there was a violation, the U.S. would be expected to stop sending Israel military aid."

I'm not sure we can read into this decision that the report does or does not say that Israel was in violation. Either determination would be met with outrage that would threaten to undermine U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict. And that probably would be a worse outcome than the criticism that not issuing the report will generate. But I'm not in a position to say.

Some Congressional Republicans are claiming that today's report is meant to appeal to Democrats' anti-Semitic base. What?

[N.E. Brigand]

From just a few days after the war started:

This morning I saw an Israeli colonel interviewed on U.S. television say that proportionate to the two nations' populations, yesterday's attack was equivalent to the Pearl Harbor and 9/11 attacks combined. Obviously there are lessons to be learned from both. I would say that Osama bin Laden killed far more Americans than those who died on 9/11 by goading the U.S. into launching two 20-year wars. Hamas may have similar hopes about Israel's response.

Perhaps this has been mentioned in this thread since then, but that math was way off. Here's what retired U.S. General Mark Milley, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said today: "If you take 1,200 Israelis [massacred on Oct 7th] and apply it to the United States, that'd be 50,000-100,000 people dead in a morning! Can you imagine what we would do?"

As regards the numbers, Milley is also wrong, but he's closer than the Israeli colonel I mentioned seven months ago. The population of the United States is nearly 36 times that of Israel, so 1,200 Israelis dead works out to about 43,000 Americans dead.

And supposing that Canada had launched a surprise attack that killed 75% of the number of U.S. soldier killed over ten years in the Vietnam War, would the U.S. respond with an invasion that killed some 594,000 Canadians (1.5% of the population, as has happened in Gaza)? I would hope not, but who knows.

[N.E. Brigand]

From the Times of Israel: "IDF chief said to tell PM that army fighting again in parts of Gaza due to lack of strategy."

Because Netanyahu has no plan for what happens after the fighting.

[Frelga]

UN seemingly halves estimate of Gazan women, children killed

On May 6, the UN published data showing that 34,735 people had reportedly been killed in Gaza, including over 9,500 women and over 14,500 children.
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On May 8, the UN published data showing 34,844 people had reportedly been killed, including 4,959 women and 7,797 children.

It's not clear how many of the children are teenage males among the Hamas fighters.

The only acceptable number of children casualties is 0. But it has always been clear that the numbers coming from Gaza, all provided by Hamas-controlled entities, were BS.

Washington Institute for Near East Policy released a report in January that showed major discrepancies in the fatality reports. They concluded such discrepancies were most likely caused by manipulation.
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Professor Abraham Wyner also told Tablet Magazine that the rate of deaths was very unnatural and climbed far too regularly.

Compare with casualty reports from Ukraine, where Russia had been targeting residential areas for over two years. Numbers coming out correspond to specific attacks and take time to compile after the rescue work is completed.

It is probably accurate that civilian casualties are higher in Gaza, because Ukraine does everything it can to build shelters and protect its population, while Hamas publicly stated that Gazan civilians are the responsibility of the UN. And people have nowhere to go, with Egypt reinforcing the border wall and reportedly sending Bedouin patrols to look for anyone trying to sneak in.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

An even better comparison is the Yemeni "civil war." These are the casualty figures I was able to pull off Wikipedia, which are far from complete (as they only are up to 2020-21) but show a pretty compelling picture:

377,000+ people killed overall (150,000+ from violence) (2014–2021) (UN)[117]
85,000 Yemeni children dead from starvation (2015–2018) (Save the Children)[118]
~4,000 dead from cholera epidemic; 2.5+ million cases overall (2016–2021)[119]
4 million people cumulatively displaced (2015–2020) (UNHCR)[120][121]

Anyway you slice it, the suffering in Yemen dwarfs that in Gaza, as horrible as things are there. But you don't see anyone in the U.S. protesting or really even caring. Because in Yemen, it is Muslims killing Muslims, rather than Jews killing Muslims.

[RoseMorninStar]

My heart breaks for any people, of any nation, of any ethnicity, of any creed (or none) who are stuck in the middle of violence and mechanisms of the 'powers' that be. I iimagine in most conflicts there are a great many people who just want to peacefully get on with their lives. It's often such a waste.

[N.E. Brigand]

Imprison these men:

[N.E. Brigand]

"Secret Hamas Files Show It Spied on Everyday Palestinians. Hamas leaders do not tolerate even a whiff of dissent. Security officials trailed journalists and those suspected of immoral behavior. Political protests were viewed as threats to be undermined" (New York Times).

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Meanwhile, the United Nations yesterday revised downward the number of Palestinian children killed in the war. (It's still a lot, but significantly lower than before.)

[N.E. Brigand]

After the much-publicized news last week that President Biden's administration had paused one particular weapons shipment to Israel, last night it was reported that the White House has just authorized another $1 billion in military aid to Israel, specifically "$700 million in tank ammunition, $500 million in tactical vehicles and $60 million in mortar rounds". The article paints this both as Biden giving in to Democratic donors who support Israel and as "the latest indication that attacks by Republicans asserting that Biden had imposed an 'arms embargo' on Israel, a charge spearheaded by Sen. Tom Cotton (Ark.), bore little connection to reality."

[N.E. Brigand]

Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's party, today publicly demanded that Netanyahu "make a decision and declare that Israel will not retain civilian control of Gaza, that there will be no Israeli military rule, and that an alternative to Hamas' government in Gaza Strip will be promoted immediately."