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So, the Knesset has voted to ban the UNRWA from operating in Israel over claims that 10% of its staff have affiliations to terror organisations.
What is interesting here is the way the votes went.
One of the bills passed 92-10 (with eight MK missing or abstaining), the other 87-9.
The Knesset has ten members representing Israeli Arabs which I assume voted against the bills. Otherwise, it seems that most Israeli parties, even the ones much more moderate than Netanyahu's coalition, voted for it.
I find it a bit reminiscent of the post 9-11 unanimity towards GWB war on terror, were some bills were literally only being opposed by a single representative.
Personally, I think that it is likely that Hamas has infiltrated UNRWA. If your organisation worked in pre-war Gaza where Hamas ruled uncontested, you were not really in the position to tell them to go fuck themselves if they require that you extend paychecks and diplomatic privileges to a few jihadists.
However, I also think that this organisation plays an important role in securing basic humanitarian necessities to the people in Gaza.
The steelman might be that unlike other aid organisations (which will be infiltrated by Hamas in short order once they operate in Gaze), UNRWA has special privileges as a UN organisation. However, if this is the case, I don't get why it would not be sufficient to make a law to take away their privileges, making their activities in Israel fully subject to Israeli interventions (e.g. for passing propaganda material), instead of banning them outright.
The big trend with the GWB was the abolishment of the rules of war. There were no prisoners of war, only terrorists who can be tortured in any which way. There can be no negotiation because the enemy are terrorists and are just fundamentally evil. Pashtuns can't have any reason to oppose the Afghan government.
Palestinians are completely justified in having armed resistance and participating in an armed conflict. They are not terrorists, they are armed combatants participating in an armed conflict. There is no special terrorist clause in the Geneva convention.
Israel is an occupying force and is responsible for the people they are occupying. Israel is clearly trying to depopulate Gaza in order to steal the land.
Were the people captured while acting as uniformed members of a recognized belligerent state's regular military? If not (and not within a few closely-associated civilian professions like military sutlers and contractors), they're not legally POWs under the Geneva Conventions. And even then, the Convention does not bar prosecution of POWs for acts which contravene the laws of war, such as indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
They absolutely can - they're just not POWs when they're captured fighting out of uniform, or attacking civilians; they're insurgents/terrorists.
Sure, that's a moral claim. They can fight if they want to. But if they choose to fight, they then can't complain about the consequences of the other party fighting too.
They are not fighting in uniform so as to readily distinguish themselves from the civilian population, and are engaging in indiscriminate attacks against civilians.
No, there is a specific definition of who gets protection under the convention as a lawful combatant. Hamas and Hezbollah fighters do not qualify.
Low-effort mindreading.
No? It is an explicit, stated goal in many places and by many officials, including ones who are presently in power. There's no shortage of evidence to support the idea that many high-ranking Israelis believe that their territory ultimately covers the areas laid out in their religious scriptures. This is something that even pro-Israeli partisans will agree is their ultimate goal and something they're actively working towards - you don't need to read somebody's mind when they actively and loudly tell you what they intend and why.
Are you refering to calls from "the river to the sea" (the Jordan and the Mediterranean) respectively?
There are actually some Israelis who have used that phrase and they'd count, yes.
Some Palestinians too which was kind of my point.
If we are going to condemn the Jews it seems only fair to condemn the Muslims too. You wouldn't want to be seen as taking sides in a religious dispute would you?
Who cares? Palestinians saying that they want their land back isn't actually germane to the topic at hand, which is that when people say that Israel wants to depopulate them and take the land they aren't actually engaging in mindreading.
"If we're going to condemn the nazis and their plan to exterminate the jews, it seems only fair to condemn the jews too." No? I have no problems saying that I think the Israeli state is a racist ethnostate engaging in ethnic cleansing, and I don't think that my tax dollars should support it. I don't think that it qualifies as a religious dispute either - if the entire Israeli population saw the light of Allah, recited the shahada and converted to Islam overnight(or vice versa) I doubt it would make much of a difference.
How can it not be germane when it's one of the core points of contention?
The Gaza strip is the product of an armistice between Isreal and Egypt, the West Bank a product of an armistice between Isreal and Jordan, if might makes right why doesn't it make right here? If it doesn't make right, what are you so bent out of shape about?
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