Israel / Hamas Conflict in the West Bank

[Chulanowa]

One thing I've really been wondering about this conflict is something that I haven't really seen addressed that much anywhere: why? What on earth were Hamas actually hoping to accomplish by their actions last October 7? I'm pretty sure that they were not so stupid as to not have expected the Israelis to react the way they are doing. What is their endgame here? It certainly does no good for the Palestinians even in the long term, and it seems doubtful that they ever had the best interests of the Palestinian people at heart. They might be getting international sympathy now but the cost in innocent blood is far, far too high for it to have been a rational decision.

The only thing I can think of is that Hamas are actually mere pawns in some bigger geopolitical game being played by larger world powers.

Apparently the plan was to kidnap a lot of hostages, probably to use them in exchange for prisoner releases (As hamas has been attempting with the hostages it still has). According to at least one survivor, Yasmin Porat, who escaped the events at that concert into Kibbutz Be'eri, where she was eventually captured and held as a hostage for 2 and a half hours, that was indeed the plan. According to her, she and the other hostages were guarded, and even allowed to call the police. As far as i can understand it, the plan here was basically that the Hamas guys knew they were stuck, and planned to use the hostages as a method of escape, believing that the Israelis wouldn't fire on them. Again according to Porat, this was a very mistaken belief, and in the "crossfire" that ensued, only she and another hostage escaped. This is backed up by a Haaretz article where the claim is made that the Israeli commanders at Be'eri (Bari, in source) made the "difficult decision" to shell houses full of hostages, to eliminate the people holding them hostage. 

According to at least a few claims by Hamas, there was also the intent to basically just have a big fucking fight with the Israeli Gaza Army (basically the guys who are stationed around the perimeter of the Ghetto) and when that force collapsed (As the Hamas officials put it), chaos broke loose at the perimeter and the al-Qassam brigade couldn't really keep control of who was coming and going from Gaza. I would love to have a source for this beyond saying "an interview by al-Jazeera with Saleh al-Arouri" but I swear to god I can't find the interview.

It's not clear to me if the hostage stuff was a SHTF scenario after the "Big Fight" turned out to be much smaller and much more chaotic, or if it was a joint plan, or whatever.

I suggested something similar a while back. While I hate to say it, this entire affair pivots the world view from Ukraine, who has been receiving ample military and financial support for the war with Russia, towards Israel and Palestine's conflict. Given that Iran and Russia are close allies, and North Korea has been caught before shipping large numbers of weapons to Iran in the past, it would not shock me at all if there's a much larger geopolitical strategy at play.

There's already a large divide between House Republicans on support for Ukraine, while at the same time there is a lot of support among Republicans for Israel. I still remember when Israel bought a US Senator for just under $1M in 2015. So, this could be an attempt to divide politics on who should receive US foreign military support, between Ukraine supported by Democrats or Israel supported by Republicans.

Also, yes, I pulled that link because I'm from Arkansas and I vehemently do not like Tom Cotton. Dude's slimy as hell and I always vote against him. I'll vote for a damn lizard man before I vote for him.

If you want an idea of the actual "deeper geopolitical strategy at play," then I dunno, maybe consider the impact all this had on the US efforts to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. Consider the impact this would have had on Palestine. While Saudi Arabia has never been any "big friend" to Palestine, they still work as a sort of bellwether for the rest of the Arab world (Egypt might carry more actual weight, but Saudi Arabia pushes more opinion, especially with its influence on the Gulf states and thus their media)

[RedPhoenix]

One thing I've really been wondering about this conflict is something that I haven't really seen addressed that much anywhere: why?

You don't need to wonder, the New York Times did for you.

"Top Hamas official admits perpetual war is end goal, not governance"
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b1qgwmkx6

Sinwar's deputy said Hamas had wider goals than running Gaza. “Hamas’s goal is not to run Gaza and to bring it water and electricity and such,” said Mr. al-Hayya, the politburo member. “Hamas, the Qassam and the resistance woke the world up from its deep sleep and showed that this issue must remain on the table.”

“This battle was not because we wanted fuel or laborers,” he added. “It did not seek to improve the situation in Gaza. This battle is to completely overthrow the situation.”

According to the New York Times, which has been conducting interviews with leaders of Hamas in recent weeks as well as with Israeli and Western officials, it appears that the October 7 attack was planned and executed by a small group of Hamas leaders in Gaza who did not share the information with the leadership abroad, or other regional allies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Therefore, many outside Gaza were surprised by the scope of the attack and level of atrocities that had taken place and even the Gaza ruling terror group was surprised by the success of its assault and that the number of dead and abducted was higher than expected.

According to Hamas health officials, over 10,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war. al-Hayya told the paper it was clear that Israel would react to the attack by bombing Gaza. “What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Mr. al-Hayya said.

Two officials whose governments are in contact with Hamas said the aim of the October 7 attack was to take as many IDF soldiers, hostage as possible, in order to swap them with Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

One security source said Hamas expected Palestinians to rise up elsewhere after the assault and that mass demonstrations would force Arab governments and regional allies to join in the war.

“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told the Times.

There's the short version of your answer.

If you can get past the paywall the full New York Times Article is here. It's MUCH longer and goes into a lot more detail, although all the quotes above are accurate they aren't complete and there's a lot more information here.

"Behind Hamas’s Bloody Gambit to Create a ‘Permanent’ State of War"
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/08/world/middleeast/hamas-israel-gaza-war.html

I'm hesitant to directly quote an article that isn't available for free but the article also discusses how Hamas's current leader is free today because Israel swapped him along with many others for far fewer Israelis and he took from that a less in how to free Palestinian prisoners, and how he sees that as a mandate.

It also discusses how this attack has resolved an internal debate with Hamas about whether they should be governing or administering for the people of Gaza or not, and it has resolved that internal debate firmly for those who think Hamas should be solely a militant anti-Jew faction.

It also talks about how he went from being in favor of peace with Israel to being pushed into seeing militancy as the only solution by (I'll give you one guess) Netanyahu's push to kick Palestinians out of their homes in East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

So, the longer answer is - it's a mix between those in Hamas seeing this as a strategically viable move to free prisoners through swapping hostages, restoring the plight of the Palestinians to prominence in the international discussion, and good old fashioned ethnic cleansing, and those who have seen so much misery and been stymied in their efforts to push for a peaceful solution that they've given up and see no other course now - even those who were against militancy as recently as a few years ago have basically thrown their lot in with the terrorists because they don't see any other path to changing the status quo.

Given how apathetic the world has been to the plight of the Palestinians, it's hard to blame them for coming to this conclusion.

I would hope a two state solution with a chance for a "truth and reconciliation" style forgiveness  rather than persecution for those who were pushed to this point by actions outside of their control, and compensation for those who were harmed by it, might happen someday, but that hope feels like a pipe dream lately.

[Chulanowa]

I would hope a two state solution with a chance for a "truth and reconciliation" style forgiveness  rather than persecution for those who were pushed to this point by actions outside of their control, and compensation for those who were harmed by it, might happen someday, but that hope feels like a pipe dream lately.

Alright, I've said "the two-state solution is dead" and "the Oslo Accords are non-viable a few times in this thread, but I guess this has just run off you guys' backs. So let me  take the time to explain why this is the real situation.

For a moment - just a moment - let's set Gaza aside, and consider just the West Bank, which holds the majority of  the Palestinian population in Palestine, and is most of the territory envisioned in a "two-state solution." 

Perhaps you've seen a map similar to this one while engaging in the discussion of Israel and Palestine, depicting the loss of Palestinian land over the decades and ending up with the West Bank as a fragmented paint-splatter of dots and divots. This particular example claims to be from 2016, but is probably just a carbon copy of an older map (probably circa 2008) making the same point. These maps are more or less accurate depictions of how the "Settlement" activity has grossly fragmented the West Bank; and remember that if this is a copy from 2008, made in 2016, that leaves 15 years of non-stop settlement expansion to consider.

So. Where exactly is the Palestinian State supposed to go, here? 

Option one is just to accept this situation as-is, Israeli colonies remain Israeli, and everything between gets to be "Palestine." This effectively renders "Palestine" a scattering of ghettoes within a hostile nation's borders, with no meaningful control over land, water, security, food, airspace, or infrastructure. The reasons why this would be unacceptable to Palestinians should be pretty obvious who's not a psychopath.

Option two is to simply make those communities part of Palestine. I mean it sounds great right,  Palestine encompassing  the Israeli Jewish communities within its borders as well as the Palestinian Arab ones? Neat! But of course there's a lot of hangups on this idea. One, and very importantly, every settlement in the West Bank, all of them, every single one, is a literal war crime. A violation of the 4th Geneva conventions about transfer of population into or our of occupied  territory. Each and every one of  these communities is a product of theft and violence, as invaders, complete with armed goons, move in, kick out local communities, seize their property and resources, and threaten - sometimes deliver - murder if any resistance is given. Simply going "yeah that's okay they can stay" is a huge affront to the people who have been very literally robbed and murdered by the "settlement project." There's also the issue that these colonists are very often religious or at least ideological fanatics, violently dedicated to the ideal of smothering any notion of a Palestinian state before it can form, whether in  the name of God, or  the name of Zionism. So what are these guys gonna do if they find themselves within the borders of a Palestinian state, do you think?

Option three resolves that by just kicking out all the colonists and repatriating the land back to Palestinians. This is admittedly the closest thing to an actually just solution we've looked at so far, as the colonists have exactly no right to be there in the first place, even if they "get along." And in all fairness, this IS the idea that has been hashed over for the last thirty years since Oslo, for just that reason - though it's always been "Well, SOME of the colonists, in SOME of the places." The problem is... How exactly, is that going to be accomplished? How are you going to evict somewhere between seven hundred thousand and one million people in any sort of peaceful manner? Especially when as already noted, a lot of them probably have no intention of leaving remotely peacably? 

Well, option four uses force to resolve that situation; but then of course we run into the obvious problems of that just being a fucking war. And of course whose force are we talking? Israel's certainly not going to turn its guns on Israelis for the benefit of Palestine, and certainly not going to just sit back and let that go on idly either, so inevitable regional conflict, yet again, hooray.

And again, we're only considering the West Bank. Not Occupied Jerusalem. Not all the territory Israel has been occupying since 1946. Just the West Bank, the place there pretty much everyone who talks about a "two State Solution" with any seriousness, holds as basically the heartland of would-be Palestine.

AND of course, even all of THAT depends on something very important - the Israeli government being at all willing to see it through. I see a lot of you sniffing and huffing over Netanyahu, as if the problem were just him, or maybe just Likud. But that's not true at all. Yair Lapid, head of Yesh Atid and the major figure of the Israel opposition, is exactly as hostile to the notion of a Palestinian state as Netanyahu. A position he has made clear time, and time, and time again, reinforced by his (admittedly brief) period as prime Minister last year. The same is true for almost every israeli political party and its lists. Labour was probably even more violent than Likud has been. the National Religious Party would surely be even worse. Really the only shot at an Israeli government that might work towards a genuine two-state solution, is either the United Arab List or Hadash; and with five and four seats in the Knesset currently we can see exactly how likely THAT would ever be.

So yes, it is a pipe dream.

[elone]

I think you have hit the nail on the head with the unworkability of the various options.  Another option that could possible be put into play is that the world, including the US, turns against the apartheid government of Israel and boycotts it South African style until Israel gives in to one of the other options. Option 2 on your list would seem the most likely, Israelis can stay, war crimes are forgiven, and Palestinians rule the Israeli's. Israeli's who do not like it can leave.  None of that would work of course because it would probably create another war and no Palestinian rule would be accepted.  A total boycott might see some success and only forcing the Israeli's to leave the West Bank would be acceptable. Then there is Gaza, a place totally destroyed and in need of a complete rebuild. By whom, at what cost?

Israel has effectively left no solution to any of it.  Their only solution is the status quo or getting rid of all the Palestinians and giving all the land to Israel. More US funds would pay for it all. Would they stop there?  Probably not, they would move into parts of Jordan, Syria and possibly Egypt and Lebanon.  After all it is all greater Israel. God told them so.

Any ideas out there? Someone also answer why the world's governments are so supporting of Israel. Political, money, fear or what? Maybe another topic.

[Chulanowa]

Any ideas out there? Someone also answer why the world's governments are so supporting of Israel.

Well, the US' alliance with Israel is mostly a relic of the Cold War, when the US and USSR were jockeying for position in hte middle east. As recently as the 1960's, the US pretty much treated Israel as the warmongering but insignificant statelet that it is. But when the Soviets stood behind Egypt and Syria in 1967, the US threw in fully with Israel as a counterbalance.

But of course, the cold war is over (except in the minds of some age-added and lead-poisoned brains) and Israel is clearly a detriment to US regional interests. SO, why continue?

Inertia, for one. It's just easier to cling to Cold War era dogma than it is to revise and re-evaluate. Plus a lot of those aforementioned addled / poisoned brains are the ones ruling the US currently, so there's that.

Another is simply to keep Israel out of another sphere; Despite some theories I've seen, Israel and Russia actually have really good relations currently. If the US were to bail, Israel would simply align with Russia - taking all those US weapons and training and US-paid infrastructure and possibly even nuclear weapons with them.

The third - and probably most visible - reason in the US is the dominance of apocalyptic Christianity in our country. All the way into our government. The US is FULL of people who genuinely beleive that Israel NEEDS TO EXIST, that Palestinians NEED to be eradicated, in order for Jesus to come back and "fulfill prophecy." Since this beleif is wholly irrational and all-compelling, the result is Israel being given carte blanche to do as it pleases.

The fourth, and final reason - and the one I believe empowers the "I STAND WITH ISRAEL" types in the general public at large... is just white supremacism. Israel meshes neatly with our own national myth of "bold and brave settlers expanding the frontier and taming the basically-animal savages therein!" You've got the neo-Nazi types and their love-hate relationship with Israel. You've got the "Good Liberals" who believe in a eugenics ordering of humanity with some ethnic and racial and religious groups just being "naturally better" than others. 

As for the rest of the world... Mostly their friendliness towards Israel is a way of appealing to the US. More powerful states - Russia in particular - might want to peel Israel out of US influence, as noted earlier. Some European nations seem to at least in part have a deranged beleif that allowing Israel to do as it pleases to Palestinians will somehow "absolve" them of centuries of anti-Jewish persecution nad pogroms, "Yoü do a Yenocide, ve do a yenocide, ja? Iz as they say Even Stephan, hmm?" But even there I think it's still mostly a demonstration of alignment with the US.

[inkybus]

I would hope a two state solution with a chance for a "truth and reconciliation" style forgiveness  rather than persecution for those who were pushed to this point by actions outside of their control, and compensation for those who were harmed by it, might happen someday, but that hope feels like a pipe dream lately.

Too much blood spilled so far.

And this is in the middle east: they have a closer adherence to the 'eye for an eye' ideology for reparations. Alongside a landfill of archaic religious tenets that they still cling to, which are woefully different from humanitarian, reasonable beliefs.

[Chulanowa]

Too much blood spilled so far.

And this is in the middle east: they have a closer adherence to the 'eye for an eye' ideology for reparations. Alongside a landfill of archaic religious tenets that they still cling to, which are woefully different from humanitarian, reasonable beliefs.

Do you take cook suggestions Inkybus?

[Chulanowa]

So. Al-shifa hospital is under siege. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the cardiac ward has been destroyed. Its neonatal care unit stopped functioning yesterday, resulting in the deaths of two children and putting thirty-seven more at risk. While IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari has suggested the military will help evacuate these kids today, but whether that will carry through - and where they could be evacuated to - remains to be seen. Here's hoping for some incongruous humanity.

According to Palestine Red Crescent, al-Quds hospital is also currently non-operational.

And let's not forget that Israel isn't restricting itself to Gaza; it's allowing its colonial thugs to rampage as they want in the west bank, and is aiding with airstrikes against refugee camps. 

The Israeli regime has announced that, effectively, there will be no Palestinian rule in Gaza "after" (not that the Palestinian Authority is any form of self-rule either, as covered prior.) 

The death toll has surpassed 11,000. And hey, the Biden administration is now saying it is confident that the numbers are "roughly accurate." Which is certainly one way to walk back its former position of outright denial of the numbers having any accuracy at all. Israel has revised its death toll on October 7 from 1,400 to 1,200, as apparently the bodies of Hamas fighters were among the initial count. Also over 100 UN workers have been killed in Gaza.

London saw a pro-Palestine demonstration of 300,000 people, which went peaceably... aside from the arrests of 120 far-right "counter-protestors," who were apparently upset that the demonstration was taking place on armistice day. I guess calling for ceasefires on a day recognizing an end to a war is... offensive to some people? I don't get it. 2,000 protestors briefly shut down Grand Central Station in NYC as well.

[Rinzler]

London saw a pro-Palestine demonstration of 300,000 people, which went peaceably... aside from the arrests of 120 far-right "counter-protestors," who were apparently upset that the demonstration was taking place on armistice day.

That's not entirely accurate. There were 145 arrests in total, with around 90 confirmed as 'counter protestors'(I recall a figure of 93, but don't have a source). The remainder were presumably drawn from the pro-Palestinian marchers.

Its also worth noting that the Metropolitan police has taken a more circumspect approach in dealing with the troublemakers and hate merchants amongst the pro-Palestinian crowd, generally preferring to act on any available evidence after the fact rather than steam in while the demonstration is in full flow. This means there are likely to be more arrests ahead. At the time of writing, the Met are appealing for information on a number of pro-Palestinian marchers alledged to have been involved in a number of incidents, including hate related ones.

Source: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/mat-police-appeal-palestine-protest-armistice-day-hate-cime-b1119802.html

[elone]

Not entirely an accurate description of events.  Most of the arrests were hooligans from the far right whom police were trying to keep from the mainly peaceful 300,000 plus protestors, described as the largest ever in Britain. Police were looking for a handful of pro Palestinians who broke from the main event and shot fireworks at police. A more reputable source:

https://www.reuters.com/world/huge-crowds-expected-london-pro-palestinian-rally-police-gear-trouble-2023-11-11/

[Rinzler]

Not entirely an accurate description of events.  Most of the arrests were hooligans from the far right whom police were trying to keep from the mainly peaceful 300,000 plus protestors, described as the largest ever in Britain. Police were looking for a handful of pro Palestinians who broke from the main event and shot fireworks at police. A more reputable source:

https://www.reuters.com/world/huge-crowds-expected-london-pro-palestinian-rally-police-gear-trouble-2023-11-11/

Nothing in what you've quoted or sourced there contradicts my post, other than the figure of 126 arrests - which has since been revised to 145. Bear in mind that Reuters piece was last updated 20 hours ago (at time of writing), while the Evening Standard one was posted 2 hours ago.

[Chulanowa]

Israeli Minister says government is rolling out 'the Gaza Nakba'

Avi Dicher, Israel’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, described the evacuations of Palestinians out of northern Gaza as a “Nakba” during a local news interview today.
Nakba, which means "catastrophe" in Arabic, evokes memories of the mass displacement of Palestinians during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
When asked whether Gazans would have anywhere to return to following the war, Dicher told Channel 12 that “we are now rolling out, in fact, the Gaza Nakba.”

Knowing what bit I do about Dicher, I'm pretty sure he's not actually calling this a catastrophe.

[Oniya]

So, this is kind of odd, and may be just a case of autotranslation being fussy.  I have a thing for languages.

I went to Google Translate, selected 'Arabic' and typed in 'nakba'.  Nothing.  I told it to auto-detect the language, and it came back with 'English - detected' (and a translation of 'nakba'.)  Trying 'nakhba' (because transliteration can be a bitch) came back with 'elite'. ('Naqba' is apparently Zulu for 'look', and even now typing 'nakba' directly comes back with no result.)

It wasn't until I typed in 'catastrophe' to translate from English to Arabic that it came back with 'nakba' - and a swap-languages revealed at least one other particularly charged English word, that I doubt Israel wants to associate with what they're doing.

[Chulanowa]

Yeah, if you do it just on the chrome widget, it does that. if you use translate.google it gives it to you correctly and transliterates into Arabic characters.


It's Google's translate system being fiddly and weird.

[elone]

Nothing in what you've quoted or sourced there contradicts my post, other than the figure of 126 arrests - which has since been revised to 145. Bear in mind that Reuters piece was last updated 20 hours ago (at time of writing), while the Evening Standard one was posted 2 hours ago.

It is the overall tone of your article, not necessarily the facts or lack of them.  One has a pro Israel tilt, the other one does not. Your article describes memories of the holocaust for the jews and their fears, nothing to do with the march. It is just biased reporting. I am sure you would disagree. I read it by the way.

[elone]

An Israeli government official. Typical of the ruling class there.  From Sky news.

The fallout from the Armistice Day protests in London on Saturday also continued with Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy saying: "I don't think London has ever seen such a large demonstration of rape apologists before."

[Rinzler]

Your article describes memories of the holocaust for the jews and their fears, nothing to do with the march. It is just biased reporting.

Okay, I've just given it a re-read and couldn't find any mention of the holocaust. Have I missed something here?

[elone]

From your article: a backhanded reference, not a direct one.

An appeal has been launched to find several people who were pictured during Saturday’s pro-Palestine march with placards that may be considered “hateful”.
Officers posted photos of them, asking the public to help bring them forward “in relation to hate crime”.
The pictures included a woman holding a poster with a Swastika inside the Star of David, while another showed two people in what has been described as Hamas-style headbands.

[elone]

(Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel had offered fuel to Gaza's Al Shifa hospital, which suspended operations after running out of fuel, but that the militants had refused to receive it. 
  Netanyahu was asked by NBC News whether Israeli allegations that Hamas had a command post under Gaza's main hospital justified jeopardizing the lives of sick people and babies. 
  "On the contrary, we offered actually, last night, to give them enough fuel to operate the hospital, operate the incubators and so on, because we (have) no battle with patients or civilians at all," Netanyahu said. 
Israel's military said it was ready to evacuate babies from Al Shifa on Sunday, but Palestinian officials said people inside were still trapped, with three newborns dead and dozens at risk from a power outage. Fighting is raging nearby.
  Netanyahu was asked if Israel has a plan to get fuel into Gaza to power hospitals. "We just offered Shifa hospital the fuel, they refused it," Netanyahu said.

Another Netanyahu tidbit misleading the world about the generosity of Israelis.  From the director of the hospital below. Hospital has babies dying from lack of electricity while people going to help outside are shot on sight. According to Palestinians, bodies are left to rot. Numerous medical personnel and doctors have also been killed.

Al-Shifa Hospital’s director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, corroborated this in an interview with Al Jazeera, “Israeli officials reached out to me twice about providing the hospital with fuel: once to offer 2,000 liters [440 gallons] and then another to offer 300 liters [80 gallons]. Keep in mind the hospital needs from 8,000 [2,113 gallons] to 12,000 liters [3,170 gallons] per day.”

“The same person called me at 2 a.m. and said the 300 litres can be picked up from a specific spot that is dangerous and susceptible to shelling. I told him to send it or a larger quantity so we can operate a generator via the Red Cross.”

“Israel wants to show the world that it is not killing babies. It wants to whitewash its image with 300 liters of fuel, which barely last 30 minutes,” Abu Salmiya continued.

[Rinzler]

From your article: a backhanded reference, not a direct one.

Well, you got me there. You clearly have a far greater reach for subtext and allusion than I do.

[Oniya]

Out of curiosity, was this the symbol in question?  I should note that this particular movement has been criticized for the imagery, and it was replaced for a time between 1992 and 2007, only to revert to the original for 'educational' reasons.

(I don't find their argument particularly convincing, personally.  If your symbology is conveying the wrong message, then it isn't doing its job.)
. 

[Chulanowa]

Yup. The article has a photo of the lady in question.

This is a great example of how cautious one has to be. Israel (and Zionism at large) have appropriated a great number of Jewish symbols (the Magen David and menorah, most notably) as their own, as part of an intentional effort to make it seem as though these bodies speak for rhe whole of Jewishness in the world.

So, when one wants to also take the symbols of Israel and Zinism, and bend them into criticism, you have to do so in a careful way so that you're not ending up gluing all Jews together in your criticism.

So, a swastika in rhe center of a Magen David, all on its own? Pretty gross and thoughtless. If you did the same but with an Israeli flag, for instanc, then at least you're being specific about it. 

[Rinzler]

Out of curiosity, was this the symbol in question?  I should note that this particular movement has been criticized for the imagery, and it was replaced for a time between 1992 and 2007, only to revert to the original for 'educational' reasons.

(I don't find their argument particularly convincing, personally.  If your symbology is conveying the wrong message, then it isn't doing its job.)
. 

According to the Daily Mail - hardly the best of sources, I know - the woman's husband has tried defending her on the basis that it is indeed merely the Raelian symbol.

Ms Varnfield's 73-year-old husband, Terry, today insisted to the Mail that the signs had been 'taken out of context' and were an innocent reference to a 1970s UFO religion.

Source, FWIW.

[Oniya]

I remembered it primarily because Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye) had gotten some flak about posting it on Twitter (the platform currently known as X).  As I said, I'm not excusing the symbol's tactlessness.  There are plenty of readily identifiable symbols for peace, love, and cosmic awareness.

[Chulanowa]

Joe Biden, Sec. of State Anthony Blinken, and Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin are facing suit for complicity in genocide.

The president of the United States and two of his cabinet members are being sued for failing to prevent and aiding and abetting “genocide” in Gaza.

A federal complaint filed on Monday against President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, accuses them of “failure to prevent and complicity in the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide”.

New York civil liberties group the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) filed the suit on behalf of Palestinian human rights organisations, Palestinians in Gaza and US citizens with relatives in the besieged enclave that has faced more than a month of relentless bombardment by Israel, which receives funding and weapons from the US government.

More than 11,200 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched attacks on October 7. This followed a Hamas attack in Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed.

“Numerous Israeli government leaders have expressed clear genocidal intentions and deployed dehumanizing characterizations of Palestinians, including ‘human animals’,” the CCR wrote in the introduction to its complaint.

It said those “statements of intent”, when combined with the “mass killing” of Palestinians, reveal “evidence of an unfolding crime of genocide”.

The pdf of the complaint can be read here. One of the filers of the suit, Katherine Gallagher, makes the case in this op-ed:

A week into Israel’s war on Gaza, 800 eminent scholars and practitioners of law sounded the alarm about an imminent genocide in the territory. What made this warning both powerful and chilling was that so many legal experts came to this sombre conclusion together. It is not a claim that can be made easily.

Since that letter was released, the situation in Gaza has only gotten worse. The death toll has passed 11,000, while some 2,650 individuals, including approximately 1,400 children, are reported missing, potentially trapped or deceased beneath the rubble. Tens of thousands of wounded are overwhelming struggling medical facilities. The humanitarian situation has reached horrific levels, compounded by the lack of food, water, fuel and electricity.

To understand what is transpiring in Gaza, we must turn to the key legal frameworks that define genocide: Article 6 of the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court and Article 2 of the Genocide Convention.

According to these documents, genocide involves acts committed with the specific intent to destroy, either in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. These acts encompass killing members of the group, causing them serious harm, and imposing conditions of life aimed at physical destruction of the group in whole or in part, among other underlying acts. Notably, the people targeted can be a geographically limited part of the group.

This comes alongside a suit some days ago to the ICC by three Palestinian rights groups, demanding an investigation into Israel's apartheid and genocide. 

And rather unabashedly, Israel is advancing the idea of war crimes as humanitarian aid, by trying to frame mass deportation and exile of Gaza's population as "solving the problem."

Two Israeli Knesset members, from both the coalition and the opposition, published an article in the Wall Street Journal on Monday, calling for the formulation of a plan to transfer parts of the population from the Gaza Strip to countries that agree to accept them.

MKs Danny Danon of Likud, former ambassador to the UN, and Ram Ben Barak of opposition party Yesh Atid, former deputy director of the Mossad, wrote that "even if countries took in as few as 10,000 people each, it would help alleviate the crisis" in Gaza.
They pointed to last month's UN resolution calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce,” but said that UN resolutions "are doing nothing tangible to help Gaza’s residents," imploring the international community to "explore potential solutions to help civilians caught in the crisis."
Their article ended by saying that "The international community has a moral imperative – and an opportunity – to demonstrate compassion, help the people of Gaza move toward a more prosperous future and work together to achieve greater peace and stability in the Middle East.”

Their proposal came on the heels of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s warning to members of his cabinet to “be careful with your words” in the wake of Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter’s statement that “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba.”

I already noted Ditcher's commentary a few posts back, and there's of course the Ministry of Intelligence's recommendation of a wholesale purge further upthread. 


I think that between the UN experts calling this a genocide, a general consensus among scholars that this is a genocide (which some argument over whether it would hold up in a court - apparently now there is at least some confidence it would), the words and statements of Israel's own government (both ruling coalition and "opposition") and with my own damn eyes seeing what's going on?

Israel is conducting a genocide in Gaza. It has stated intent to destroy and depopulate, and it has certainly demonstrated the willingness, means, and ability to accomplish this stated goal.