Former Israeli defense minister accuses his country of committing war crimes in Gaza

The definition of some “war crimes” depends on intent. He is ascribing an intent to re-establish Jewish settlements in Northern Gaza. He believes this is a “war crime” and he may be technically correct, for what it is worth. The government denies this intention. At this point, this is more about internal Israeli politics than anything outsiders should be paying attention to..

And once Trump is inaugurated, it will make the activities Israel under Netanyahu has done to date look like child's play. Prepare for Gaza to be completely cleared of all Palestinian life — as in a total massacre; actual genocide.

This is what Muslims in Michigan voted for. This is what the Gaza children on college campuses across the US fought so valiantly against the Biden administration for, knowing that when Trump is in power, he'll remove all of the guardrails from Netanyahu, and watch Evangelical Christians joyfully celebrating the end of days.

^bullshit

[quote] The government denies this intention.

Of course the government is going to deny this intention publicly. All governments deny war crimes.

The other thing is Jewish ness will be once again reenforced as a synonymous for the people that justify their national identity with victim hood while victimizing others in the sam manner. In other words hypocrites. The whole shit show has been re perpetuated into another ten generations of jews and Muslims. Good job Israel.

This warning is coming from the former Defense Minister, not some random commenter.

[quote] The definition of some “war crimes” depends on intent. He is ascribing an intent to re-establish Jewish settlements in Northern Gaza.

The Israeli right wing, which runs the government, has been vocal that this is the intention

Some members on the right want to re-establish settlements. That doesn’t make it government policy. It is an unpopular, difficult and illegal goal.

Well, duh.

What is "government policy"? Many senior ministers IN THE GOVERNMENT have stated that settlements is the policy.

Link: "Senior ministers call for new settlements in Gaza at ultranationalist conference"

‘Settlement In Gaza Should Be Encouraged’, Says Israeli Minister

"Israeli minister says Palestinians should have no voting or land rights"

This IS the policy apparently

Being in the government does not mean that you always speak for the government. When they “call for” a policy they are not announcing a policy. They are advocating for it.

Let’s not forget that Israel is a fascist country but there are individuals of conscience in the country who want to see basic decency in its behavior.

Unfortunately they are a minority.

[Quote] Settlement In Gaza Should Be Encouraged

The people who think this wasn’t the goal all along are the kind of people who think the second Trump presidency is going to be really great for America.

Israel is not a fascist country, but actions like Oct 7 sure do empower the fascists.

Let them all kill each other, the fewer religious fanatics, the better.

[quote] Being in the government does not mean that you always speak for the government.

There seem to be a ton of top ministers saying the same thing. Of course the government will never come out and say "Our intention is to populate Gaza," no matter what the actual policy is

[quote] Israel is not a fascist country, but actions like Oct 7 sure do empower the fascists.

Yes, Oct 7 was abhorrent but you make it seem like it just occurred out of nowhere...

No, sadly it didn’t come out of nowhere. It is part of a continuing history of rejecting a state of Israel under any circumstances and within any borders and trying, again and again, to kill any Jews in order to drive the rest “elsewhere.” People talk of a two-state solution as if it doesn’t matter that one side completely rejects the existence of the other and regards its destruction as a commandment from God. From 1948 to Oslo to Oct 7, the Arabs have rejected peaceful co-existence and much of the world blames the Jews.

Israel welcomes ehhhh…..Kevin Spacey…..with open arms. Says it all really.

[Quote] Israel is not a fascist country,

Israel is a fascist country.

Consider this:

“Because of our ethnicity, we are more entitled to a distant land than the people who live there, who are just like germs infecting the land. Our ethnicity, who we are, gives us the superior right to go there, attack them, and drive them off the land, taking it for ourselves, as is our right.”

“Once it is ours, if any of the prior inhabitants are left, we will occupy them, and treat them as inferiors, as they deserve, because we are greater. If we kill them, they deserve it.”

“Once the land is ours, it we be ruled as ours, for the glory of our ethnicity, above all others.”

Ok — to whom does that apply, to Zionists going to Palestine, or to Nazis driving into Eastern Europe?

I didn’t say there are no fascists in Israel. There are fascists everywhere.

Israel is not a “distant land” to the Jews.

Israel was a distant land to the Jews when political Zionism was founded. Fewer than 5% of the inhabitants were Jewish.

You have it backwards — it’s a fascist country. That’s in its bones. But there are non-fascist people living there. Sadly, a minority.

Everything I’ve said is facts, but let’s all count down until I’m accused of antisemitism.

5 … 4 … 3 ….

Zionism and Nazism are two of the children of 19th century European colonialism. They have more than a little in common.

Over 20 percent of Israelis are Arabs, who have the same rights as Jews. Saying Zionism has “more than a little in common” with Nazism is quite a claim from those who are in no possible way anti-Semitic.

R28 ha you really believe that? Have a quick google of “Arab Israelis voter intimidation” and come back to us.

[Quote] Over 20 percent of Israelis are Arabs, who have the same rights as Jews. Saying Zionism has “more than a little in common” with Nazism is quite a claim from those who are in no possible way anti-Semitic.

It’s like saying Blacks have the same rights as Whites in the US. On paper maybe.

The problem is you can’t just occupy lands and not give the inhabitants rights. Palestinians have been in limbo for generations. That’s called Apartheid

r30 There is some truth to what you say. But the Jews recognize that the Palestinians have a much higher birth rate than them. If the Palestinians were given full l voting rights, once they reached the majority of the population, they would vote to eject all of the Jews out of the country. I'm not sure of the solution. Frankly, I think that the country ought to be divided in 2, more equally than it is now, and that the Jews should help the Palestinians by giving them transportation corridors and the means to establish a workable economy and the foundations of some sort of democracy, with mandatory weapons inspections going forward. I don't think that having separate Palestinian enclaves on the west and on the east is a viable long-term situation. However, getting to that sort of solution would involve even more displacements and more upheaval, including of the Jewish settlers on the west bank, who have gone to 2500 year old texts of dubious authenticity to claim it as their ancestral right. Somehow both sides need to figure out how to forgive the other for atrocities committed over the past 75 years. Otherwise this conflict will be perpetual until both sides obliterate one another.

Well, menluvinguy, when we here in the good ol' USA forgive "both sides", we'll be in a better position to tell Jews and Arabs how to resolve their centuries-long conflict. Until then, we'll keep teaching the world how to [italic]legally[/italic] discriminate against... everyone.

[quote] But the Jews recognize that the Palestinians have a much higher birth rate than them. If the Palestinians were given full l voting rights, once they reached the majority of the population, they would vote to eject all of the Jews out of the country.

R31 Girl what? First of all tf are you talking about? And second of all you’re just rationalizing apartheid.

[quote] I'm not sure of the solution.

Well, the Israelis seem to have figured out a final solution.

r33, maybe it wouldn't hurt to be less virulent. Israel didn't occur in a vacuum. 6+ million Jews had just been slaughtered by Nazi rifles or in gas chambers and crematoriums when the "deal" was made to give them a portion of their ancestral homeland, and it was the collective guilt of Europeans, who, by and large, didn't work very hard to prevent that slaughter, which gave the issue impetus. Jews felt then, and I think still do, that only by being the majority presence in a nation could they guarantee safety to their families, having endured powerful discrimination in nearly every nation they have ever resided in. The present opinion of Palestinians, repeatedly expressed since 1948, is that their goal is to drive all the Jews out of Palestine, so why would the Jews expect them to reverse that opinion if they invited all the Palestinians currently living in Gaza and the West Bank to join Israel with full voting rights? That wouldn't be a very realistic way to guarantee the long-term safety of Jews living in Israel.

They are not the only nation trying to enforce "religious" purity. Indian is working hard under Modi to make its 150,000,000 Muslims feel endangered. If human beings were truly rational, instead of just pretending to be, this would never be a problem. People could live side by side without conflict no matter their religions or ethnicities. But history doesn't show many success stories along that line.

The US and other nations made up of immigrants and refugees from many lands, is actually better than nations which held a single ethnic and religious identity since ancient times in integrating disparate peoples, but that's partly because the US education system and many facets of US society socialize children into the notion that they are Americans first, and their other identities second. Even so, the US has many problems getting people to let go of long-standing biases against others who are too "different".

I fully believe that Israel has a right to exist, but then so does Palestine. Israel needs to pay a large sum to families who were displaced (to end the Right of Return movement) and help Gaza and the West Bank become a separate country.

Sadly Israeli right wingers want to take all the land and are starting with the settlements in Palestinian land, basically stealing land and says it’s theirs

[quote]the US education system and many facets of US society socialize children into the notion that they are Americans first

Not any more. Goodbye to public schools and hello to Christian academies and private schools under Project 2025, paid for with public dollars. And remember, public school students will be required to take military preparedness/aptitude tests, while those attending private and religious schools will not.