https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/london-massive-pro-palestine-protest-gaza-ceasefire-b2437485.html
Police expect about 100,000 people to join a demonstration in London demanding a ceasefire in Gaza
Was it evil also to bomb and flatten Berlin and the rest of Germany at the end of WW2?
If you are British or American, how do you feel about that?
Back then it wasn't known that it's not an effective strategy, Germany's reaction to those bombings pretty much set the precedent for it becoming a war crime.
And from a German perspective: We started it. And did way worse, e.g. bombing Polish cities with the explicit goal to cause maximal casualties in predominantly Jewish quarters. The allies, meanwhile, did not try to maximise casualties or anything like that but tried to make as many people as possible homeless, in an attempt to lower economic output, gum up the system, etc. Generally speaking, it didn't work. Have a Kraut video for a lot more context.
And no such thing could possibly be the goal in Gaza as Gaza already doesn't have an economy. Other possible justifications, such as "have lower overall casualties" (see e.g. bombing Dresden vs. slogging through it like slogging through Budapest) don't apply because Hamas is not going to surrender and are way more erm entunnelled. To get them out of there you have to get in there. Or maybe pour concrete in all exits you can find? That'd have my blessings.
Furthermore: As a German Zionist I'd rather Israel didn't slide into complete inhumanity, and further into fascism, thank you. (Ben-Gvir is minister so they're already half-way there, also, there doesn't seem to be much opposition against collective punishment). It's not exactly a thing you wish on a country: It's pretty much the worst calamity that can befall a country.
What would be your preferred and effective strategy against someone who wants you dead and comes into your home and kills your children? Expect and accept apology?
The priority is creating conditions such that Palestinian teenagers don't constantly see Israel abusing their families, unjustly imprisoning them, stealing their land and murdering them by the thousands, or else you'll have Palestinians asking themselves: "What would be your preferred and effective strategy against someone who wants you dead and comes into your home and kills your children? Expect and accept apology?" and joining Hamas.
comes into your home and kills your children
Are you talking about the Deir Yassin massacre?
Eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind, at some point people have to make up and let the past be the past. Currently Israel is going way beyond eye for an eye.
As to the current situation: How about at least having the fucking decency to build a couple of tent cities outside Gaza and let children, the elderly, and vetted people out of that killbox. If that's too much, how about not bombing areas you previously told people to flee to. This is like the bare minimum to be able to claim you care a fucking iota about humanity.
People gobble up Hamas propaganda and repeat it. On social media a lot of things have become facts that aren't proven or were shown to be false. For example the alleged bombing of the hospital or the alleged bombing of the escape route.
On the other hand, most people don't even know that Israel is constantly bombarded from different sides and that there are ongoing attacks on their settlements etc.
People online don't know because it is an ongoing info war which is very unequal. Hamas and other extremist islamic groups win by numbers alone because the majority of Muslims unquestioning stand behind Palestine.
About 79 % of Israelis are Jewish, there are 16 million Jews world wide.
99 % of people in Gaza and 85 % of people in West Bank are Muslim. 1.8 billion people are Muslim world wide!
Palestine, Hamas and activists invest into social media and propaganda a lot because that's the war they will almost certainly win. And it comes with huge benefits people seldom acknowledge.
Just think about it: Hamas was able to conduct a mass killing and abduction of civilians and continues to do so and people are justifying it left and right. You don't see the faces of Israeli victims or photos of the destroyed buildings on Israel's side online.
You should definitely look up some less biased sources.
People gobble up Hamas propaganda and repeat it.
Are you saying Hamas made up Deir Yassin or what are you getting at? Can you, for a single moment, be actually concrete in your accusations? What, precisely, did I say that is supposedly Hamas propaganda?
For example the alleged bombing of the hospital or the alleged bombing of the escape route.
The escape route bombing happened. The hospital bombing didn't happen... this time. The IDF has bombed hospitals on other occasions. And don't get me started on what's going on in the West Bank.
Palestine, Hamas and activists invest into social media and propaganda a lot because that’s the war they will almost certainly win. And it comes with huge benefits people seldom acknowledge.
And Israel doesn't?
You don’t see the faces of Israeli victims or photos of the destroyed buildings on Israel’s side online.
Are we living on the same planet? It has been all over the news. Now Israel's completely disproportionate response is all over the news. That's how news cycles work.
You should definitely look up some less biased sources.
I'm actually, as already mentioned, a Zionist and quite well-informed, thank you very much. Thing is: I gave up in despair when the fucker killed Rabin, for the first time realising just how fucked parts of Israeli civil society are. Back then it was a national tragedy, now Israel has a minister of national security who called for that very assassination. The short of the story is that it's better for the Jewish people for there to be no Israel than a fascist Israel, and y'all are heading right into that direction with ever increasing speed.
Yeah, that doesn't fly in the real world where actions have consequences.
Justice cannot simply be allowed to die in the dark just because both sides are stubborn. We as humans owe reality much more than that. Trying to let the past be the past is what got us here. We have to do something to hold everyone who committed a war crime responsible so all sides feel as though justice has been done.
Forgiveness blackens the soul, bro. Justice is what brings humanity light and those people so badly need light right now.
We have to do something to hold everyone who committed a war crime responsible so all sides feel as though justice has been done.
So what exactly did all those civilians do in terms of committing war crimes? How many Settlers are facing the music for killing Palestinians while doing highly suspicious things such as harvesting olives?
Yeah, that's a pretty transparent attempt to twist my words. We have international criminal courts. We've held tyrants and genocidal maniacs to the hangman's noose before and need to start doing it again. We're capable of discerning who is responsible for doing what. We're adults.
You might not want justice to happen, but the rest of us do, and we won't be deterred by you.
We have international criminal courts.
Israel is not part to the ICC. Palestine is.
You might not want justice to happen, but the rest of us do, and we won’t be deterred by you.
Now that is twisting my words. Again: How many Settlers are facing the music for killing Palestinians while doing highly suspicious things such as harvesting olives? Is that or is that not advocating for justice?
Meanwhile Israel surely served justice by exchanging 1000 Hamas fighters for a single IDF soldier. Letting stone throwers and crooks go, fine, sure, but people like Yahya Sinwar? Who justly got four life sentences? Fucking stop talking about justice.
I don't care what side you're on. Doubling down isn't going to let you get around the fact that you can't sacrifice justice for peace, for any side of the conflict. The ICC really needs to hold authority over all countries. That's where your quibbling should be taken. If humanity refuses to accept justice, then all you'll get are genocides and forever wars, and it'll probably be what we deserve.
You are only looking at the consequence of oppressing people until they are out of hope and the only path that remains to them seems to be one of violence.
More violence and more oppression will only cement this and pave the road for the next generation of hopeless militants.
The solution would be to break this cycle but that would require concessions from the hardline Zionists.
You too would feel hate and resentment for those who took your father's land, bombed regularly, put you under a harsh embargo, no jobs prospects, no hope, and, no future.
🤔 I wonder if it's even possible to resolve the situation in a just fashion that holds all parties responsible for their actions.
We've tried having third parties intervene but it's becoming such that humanity as a species is taking sides on the issue.
That means it might not be possible for justice to be done. There might not be anything anyone can do except evacuate as many innocent civilians as possible and let Hamas and the Israeli government fight it out to the last man.
EDIT: Addendum to that, we cannot give up on justice just because it seems hopeless, and I do concede it looks pretty fucking hopeless. But we're humans. We're the ones who brought justice into this world and we are its only stewards. If we give up on it, all that'll be left is genocide and abject fucking darkness. We have to find a way.
Are you saying that all the Palestinians have to die to prevent a few Palestinians from committing crimes?
If the actions of a few can condemn an entire population... which seems to be the underlying argument here, then a few Israelis can commit crimes to condemn the entire country....
This is eye for an eye leaves the world blind territory. Collective punishments simply magnify overall violence, they don't stop it.
You just described why every war is bad.
There is not a single war in the entire history of humankind were exclusively "the bad people" died.
So what you are actually saying is that specifically Israel is not allowed in partaking in war unless they somehow achieve what no one else ever achieved, which is a war without casualties.
With on top of it the added difficulty that Hamas is a terrorist group, so no "official" military targets.
Great, lets let the people who dont want to fight in this war leave.... ohh, that's right, they are all in prison and can't leave the "combat zone" which is... literally their prison.
The reason this conflict is very polarizing, is you have 1 million children/adolescents, 500k women, and 500k adult men locked in a box, no way out... They can't leave this conflict... they are trapped. If you were trapped in a room that was on fire, you would want to be let out....
It's not a war, it's a goddamn genocide. The Israeli government is making the same mistake the U.S. did in Iraq and as an American who protested the Iraq war as a kid, I watch what is happening and I shake my head in disappointment. 🤦
In this case though, the analogy is only correct if I was also repeatedly setting my own rooms and the rooms beside me on fire. On purpose.
Civilians are innocent. Can the actions of a few condemn the whole group?
If your in a house, that is on fire, would you want to be rescued even if there was a arsonist with you?
Collective punishment is nasty unjust business. Where do you draw the line on the group your punishing? And if the innocents harmed in the collective punishment decide to collectively punish you right back... that is just fair - right?
Is a war always collective punishment in your opinion, or just in this case? How is Palestine not also committing collective punishment?
Was it evil also to bomb and flatten Berlin and the rest of Germany at the end of WW2?
Yes. Reckless bombing of civilians is always evil.
I'm always flabbergasted when people bring up other heinously awful things as if it's some kind of gotcha.