I agree with you, I just mean it’s hard for us to enforce it when we are being blocked by powers like the US etc.

Thanks, fantastic article, nice to get the BBC perspective on this as I wonder sometimes about The Irawaddy’s possibly being a bit optimistic.

This is the crux of it:

The ICC has 124 state parties, while the United Nations has 193 member states. This disparity makes clear the gap between what the ICC seeks to achieve – namely, universal accountability for international crimes – and what it can practically achieve when it lacks the support of implicated or nonaligned countries.

If the US would withdraw protection the rest of the international community could probably make more meaningful interventions in the genocide.

No, it’s really not necessarily what it looks like at all, though you could be forgiven for thinking it. I think perhaps this is the difference between those who focus on this issue because they’re interested in Israel, versus those who focus on it mainly because they’re interested in human rights.

You could blindly drop a bomb quite literally anywhere

Blindly dropping bombs on densely populated areas is a war crime.

Yes, killing this many people this fast is a consequence of the choices the IDF is making. No, they are not inevitable choices.

For instance, in its entire war against Islamic State the US dropped just one 2,000lb bomb. Israel is dropping hundreds of them.

Roof knocking and leaflets are a fig leaf - a fiction with the aim of avoiding international condemnation, a bit like the peculiar interpretations of “occupying force” and international law we see from them.

I’ve seen footage of those leaflets raining down on innocent people in Gaza, the panic and despair. It’s not humanitarian at all. Ironically some of the people best equipped to get away in time are Hamas fighters, which is probably why the IDF uses “Where’s Daddy” to kill suspected Hamas leaders when they are at home.

continue with their plan

Israeli politicians and public figures have been pretty clear in their national discourse about what their plans are. I don’t think we need to speculate further than that.

This “warning them beforehand” fig leaf only works if you think of everyone as fit healthy and mobile.

Anyone with disabled people, chronically ill people, terminally ill people and elderly people in their own lives knows it’s not that simple.

Most of us don’t have people physically weakened by famine in our own lives but it doesn’t take Einstein to know this is a problem too. And from NGOs we know there’s a lot of parentless children and a disproportionate number of child amputees in the mix as well.

If your response to this many civillians being killed is “it’s their fault for not getting away” you need to examine your logic, I think.

I find this comment disturbing in so many ways. I think an example that really sums up what’s wrong with it is

Israel unsurprisingly puts the safety of their soldiers above the concerns of local farmers.

“Concerns of local farmers” isn’t the main issue with crop destruction. Famine and starvation are.

And the binary between being blown up by ieds and destroying fields is a false dichotomy. A better way of phrasing it would be:

Israel puts expediency above the lives of local civilians.

The UN doesn’t declare famine until 30% of a population’s children are displaying physical signs such as muscle wasting. This is really serious. We saw it two years ago with the deliberate famine in Ethiopia and now we’re seeing it in Gaza.

Every single nation on Earth would have reacted to this with a full-on war

I find it a bit bizarre that people keep using this talking point when there’s ample evidence that other countries do not react to terrorism by slaughtering thousands of innocent civilians.

Many countries have shown themselves able to respect international law. Britain for example managed not to massacre the children of Ireland en masse when it was dealing with the IRA.

“Think of the children” as a phrase is meant to satirize the fallacious appeals of “moral panic” arguments in support of conservative social values.

Your idea that it also covers arguments for literally not killing children is odd. There’s nothing necessarily fallacious about singling out children as a subset that it’s especially important to avoid killing.

In this case half the civilians are children and they are being killed, so it’s a reasonable thing to want to stop.

The implication of your use of the phrase here is that no one should consider children’s wellbeing even when real harm is being done to them. I find that idea dystopian and inhumane.

Worth noting that for the UN to declare famine:

• at least 20% of the adults have to be experiencing severe hunger and

• at least 30% of the children have muscle wasting and/or stunted growth.

Guy in the front with a cane is a snappy dresser.

And you can also donate directly to UNHRA since some western countries have defunded it.

What’s the relevance?

If a company signs a public pledge and then breaks it, that’s worth knowing about.

I agree the variety in humans means we have a small percentage who differ.

What I’m objecting to is the normalization of abberant behaviour as “oh that’s just something we do.” It’s not something most of us do.

When someone comes along like Jimmy Saville people don’t say oh, large scale pedophilia is just human nature.

We quite rightly view it as abberant and our focus is on seeking to put a stop to it. The same thing should happen with things like genocide and ethnic cleansing.

If it’s in our “nature” how is it that the vast majority of us are not doing it?

If we look at early human societies they were mostly relatively egalitarian and peaceful. The Hobbesian view of humanity is very useful to make you accept the unacceptable.

If it had happened like in the 1980s or something it would have been forgiveable but it was like 2006, at that point we all already knew climate change was real.

I never really forgave them for the original ManBearPig climat change denialism.

This is where analogies break down… that same “short guy” locked most of his next door neighbours in their basement.

And he’s currently trying to distract everyone’s attention from mounting evidence that he’s a serial killer.

Yeah it’s nottheonion material.

The problems with Ethiopia’s rail system and financing are well-known though, you can find articles about it right accross the political spectrum.

Disagreeing with this article’s conclusions about it would be valid, but there’s no point trying to pretend the facts listed are not facts.

They’re a country that’s known to use torture and secret courts. They still have Guantanamo which is one big human rights violation.

That would be my concern.

At Corsight, board member and retired Israeli major general Giora Eiland has advocated for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza in Israeli newspaper articles.

In October, he wrote that Israel “has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in,” and that “creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieving the goal.”

Later, he wrote that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.”

Exactly. NGOs are pointing out that aid drops etc are not going to fix this, once famine hits you need a framework of relief workers, and the situation is far away from being able to have that.

Wars are all horrible.

But the world’s humanitarian NGOs, experienced in war zones, are saying this is unusual in its scale and scope of pediatric and civilian deaths.

There are also experimental weapons being “combat tested” against Palestinians. Sniper drones are an example.

I don’t see why you would want to downplay these things.

He honestly sounds more creepy not less creepy after that part.

From the aeticle:

Shadow foreign secretary David Lammy said there was “precedent” for suspending sales. Former PMs Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair both took similar action in 1982 and 2002 respectively.

This article’s compatible with that. The tldr is as usual brother laser, any model.

I too am outraged by the outrage.

Wow, you really weren’t kidding about the haiku. Wtf.

Over the years, the “High Chaparral” torrent achieved cult status among a small group of people who likely keep sharing it, simply because it’s the oldest surviving torrent.

Colonialism.

Fun fact: colonial-era “sedition” laws still form the foundation of authoritarian, anti-press freedom measures in some former colonies today e.g. Rwanda, Pakistan, Malaysia.

The bill received support from 71 lawmakers, while 10 opposed it.

The law allows the communications minister, with the prime minister’s consent, to order the cessation of broadcasts of a foreign channel broadcasting in Israel if the prime minister is convinced that its content directly threatens the country’s security. The law states that the decision requires approval from the security cabinet or the government.

So basically an end to press freedom, with cross-party support. Yikes.

I look up to people like this. Thanks for posting.

I don’t agree. There’s a point at which you have to step away from being a cog in a genocide.

She has already tried to effect change:

Across the federal government, employees like me have tried for months to influence policy, both internally and, when that failed, publicly. My colleagues and I watched in horror as this administration delivered thousands of precision-guided munitions, bombs, small arms and other lethal aid to Israel and authorized thousands more, even bypassing Congress to do so. We are appalled by the administration’s flagrant disregard for American laws that prohibit the US from providing assistance to foreign militaries that engage in gross human rights violations or that restrict the delivery of humanitarian aid.

So, you are arguing that the US has been protecting Palestinians throughout.

Words fail me.

Once that happens, Palestine is done.

Are you arguing that the US is protecting Palestinians?

You seem to be confusing the fact that the US will not withdraw support from Israel, with the idea that it can’t. It can. And the world does have some history of cross-national intervention in high profile genocides.

You have brought up the US response to 11 Sept. This too involved a number of war crimes. It’s not a persuasive argument. None of it makes me sympathetic to the genocidaires or to Biden’s tacit support of them.

Genocide and human rights abuses against civilians are never an appropriate response to anger at terrorist actions.

I don’t agree. As well as arms, Israel relies on political support from the US to block UN intervention.

There is growing international appetite for UN intervention in this matter. The African Union is always particularly interested in it, especially South Africa.

Without US military protection of Israel some of the Arab nations would also be interested in military intervention and I wouldn’t be surprised if Indonesia (the largest Muslim country in the world) would be as well.

Biden’s administration approach to this conflict is to tacitly fund a genocide and veto all UN resolutions to end it, all while making weak protests.

Eventually it started shipping token humanitarian aid after several other countries started doing that - but I’m pretty sure it ships less aid for the Palestinians than bombs to be used on them.

Contrast with the US approach to a similar situation in Ethiopia’s Tigray province a couple of years back, which involved economic sanctions.

Since 1 in 4 Canadians is a first generation immigrant themselves, I’m wondering if this 50% figure represents 2/3 of all Canadian-born Canadians.

Or maybe some leopards eating faces is going on?