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Trump, breaking with Netanyahu, acknowledges ‘real starvation’ in Gaza. Reddit discussion.
This makes him the first right winger I've seen say anything about starvation after something happened recently that made lots of places start talking about it, maybe the move to GHF food distribution? I can't really trust the UN when they talk about it, since they may have been still pissed that Israel cut UNRWA out, plus I heard it was only two dedicated Gaza writers putting out statements of that kind. I can't really trust leftists when they post about it, because they fail to show me their homework and seem to argue a very motivated stance. But Trump talking about it... I don't know about that either. He has spoken off the cuff before. But it brings me to ask: how bad is it? What footage did he see and is it reflected in the data?
Supposing that there is starvation: is that Israel's intention? What is Israel's strategy going forward? I thought that making camps to move civilians into was a good idea, and then once everyone's out, painstakingly clear the whole place, but I think that the international community wouldn't accept that because it's technically ethnic cleansing. There isn't actually anything the international community would be satisfied by except for total ceasefire and return to October 6th. But I don't actually know what the intention is, is the intention to draw Hamas out of hiding to get to the food somehow? I have a hard time discerning what is true about the war and what isn't.
The default assumption at this point is that Israel is waging a cargo-cult war. They're shooting people, and blockading checkpoints, and bombing suspected targets, but they don't seem to have any coherent goal beyond, "do war stuff to bad guys". They know cutting off supplies to the enemy is good, but they're also scared of the mass starvation that would ensue if they won too much.
If we take as an assumption that Israel knows what they're doing, then it sort of looks like their strategy is to technically let in enough food to feed the population of Gaza, but simultaneously to destroy the institutional infrastructure that would enable actual distribution. That way they can go, "see, we gave them enough food, Hamas was just too evil to give it to their people. They ethnically cleansed themselves," as if effectively rationing supplies to an entire population is no big deal.
That doesn't look like it to me, so why would it be the default assumption?
What it looks like to me is Israel is fighting with two hands tied behind its back. What they, IMO correctly, perceive is that most of "the international community" doesn't want them to win, nor would it tolerate them using META strategies in furtherance of an Israeli victory. So what they end up doing, and we end up observing, is a bunch of tiny motions in the direction of victory that advance the goals of Israel a little bit at a time, while mostly carefully avoiding any dramatic moves in that direction, which would have a high likelihood of generating massive blow-back, even if there was no alternative plausible avenue to generating whatever that strategic gain is/was.
I don't know what this is intended to mean. Is META an acronym for something? Or what are "metastrategies" in this context?
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I've heard some people in gaming think meta refers to "most effective tactics available." Maybe that?
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Why is Palestine entitled to Israeli food? They can't pay for it, and actively stymie distribution of any food that arrives onshore. Thefts are unattributable because Hamas keeps its uniforms only for parades not for enforcement or fighting Israel - which it has largely stopped doing only because its proximate threat is the Gaza clans that now have a chance of fighting for their own slice of the narrow pies.
However you slice it, the governing body of the Gaza refuses surrender yet demands food for its own people from the Israelis it swears to destroy. When Armenia held Nagarno it supplied the enclave, not the Azerbaijanis. Israel ceded occupying power decades ago, yet the Gazans have expected Israeli water food and electricity without any expectation of paying for it even when waging war. If Gazans want to not starve perhaps kicking Hamas out might help.
A combination of "with great power comes great responsibility" and "you break it you bought it".
They're not entitled by default, but given the amount of control Isreal likes to exert over the strip (and who can blame them), they are now de-facto responsible for the outcomes.
If Isreal decided "fuck it, Gaza's borders are open. We're just gonna sit behind the border wall and do our thing, the people of Gaza are free to do whatever" then yeah, I would assign them zero responsibility.
They don't like having rockets shot at them (fair), so they don't do this. But because they chose to do something, they get to inherit the consequences.
They did do this in 2005 when they removed (sometimes at gunpoint) all the Jewish settlers in Gaza. The naval blockade and walls went up years later in response to the rockets and other attacks. I think this is part of why the Israelis question whether peace is possible at this point: Gaza's government, and arguably it's populace that hasn't overthrown it, supports attacks on Israel, even questionably effective ones, at almost any cost to themselves.
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Well, human rights come to mind. Rather, they're the reason individual Palestinians are entitled to food generally, whatever it takes to get it to them - not Palestine as a political entity, and not Israeli food in particular.
Do those human rights exist if neither side chooses to enforce them?
Hamas has relied on the concept of human rights to win the ideological part of this war. They don't believe in it, but they know we do, so they weaponize it. Western liberals demand Israel enforce this idea of human rights because they are the more capable and, supposedly, moral side. Liberals invoke human rights when it comes to Israel, all while Hamas intentionally holds their own people hostage in order to create a moral dilemma and pit Western countries against Israel. The Stockholm syndrome cannot be denied.
Imagine for a moment if Hamas and Palestinians knew these human rights would no longer be upheld by other countries. Would the majority of Palestinians continue to support Hamas? Maybe they would, and maybe they would rather starve to death or get blown up than cede ground to Israelis. My instincts tell me that a majority wouldn't continue to support them, but then again I'm a Westerner and can't really put myself in that situation. What seems obvious to me though is that the cost-benefit analysis for Hamas continuing their strategy appears much more feasible when you have 3rd parties supplying aid and moral support.
I acknowledge that what is happening to Palestinians is horrible. I don't wish it on any human. However, third party empathy is Hamas' greatest weapon. Israel knows this but Westerners don't, and I do not expect Israel to cave to outside pressure. What this means (and what it has resulted in thus far) is an even more prolonged ordeal, where more Palestinians die and Hamas gains more support from other countries. Maybe this will result in Israel's demise at some point. It's a brilliant strategy by Hamas, but it will come at a great cost because Israel will not succumb to the empathy games directed at the world's liberals. They believe that might equals right and nobody has been able to prove otherwise.
Well, if you aren't a nihilist, yes. The morally correct course of action remains the morally correct course of action even if nobody implements it. Under most western ethical philosophy, the right thing is under no cosmic obligation to be easily achievable for people who are also trying to secure geopolitical goals. Sometimes doing the right thing for the needy means you risk your own comfort and safety, and that's just the way it is.
We instinctively understand this where individual life-or-death situations are involved, eg running into a burning building. But somehow when we're talking about whole populations, both sides of the conversation pretend that a case that XYZ is the right thing to do also needs to prove it's the advantageous thing to do. No. It's perfectly coherent to say "The right thing to do is to prevent children from starving. It might in fact result in losing the war, but it's the right thing to do anyway. A victory that can only be won by starving children to death through inaction would be morally bankrupt and is not worth pursuing."
It's coherent but you are invoking a moral truth, whereas I am discussing realpolitik. Can you enforce what you believe in? I think not. Will Israel's "morally bankrupt" actions have consequences down the road? Potentially, yes.
Will you convince an entity who believes that their existence is under threat that they are morally wrong if they feel they are protecting themselves? Maybe later, but not in the moment. What can that moral correctness without leverage really accomplish in the moment?
Perhaps you are, but I think talking about "human rights" in terms of realpolitik is a category error. I was originally springing off of 2D3D asking what entitled Palestinians to Israeli food. "Moral rights," I replied. Your jumping to say 'what are these human rights worth, if no state actually enforces them?' is the equivalent of bringing up gun ownership and effective self-defense in the context of a conversation about whether innocent people getting murdered is wrong.
Even if it can't sway Israel (let alone Hamas), it can influences the choices of people on the sidelines ie the rest of the world. Whether we're talking about the big picture of "should America support Israel's war effort even though it results in starving children", or the small picture of "should I, personally, donate to that online fundraiser to send help to starving little Abdul".
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