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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 28, 2025

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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.

Eh, they're not "release the hostages" starving yet.

About as insightful a comment as "Eh, they are not 'free Palestine' raped yet" would have been about Oct 7th.

There are several parallel subthreads already discussing to what extent the starvation actually affects Hamas, and you choose to ignore them and instead post this Twitter-level dunk.

Notice the discontinuity with your comparison.

Hamas invaded Israel, committed a bunch of war crimes, and now has no method nor seemingly intention of feeding their own people. Which apparently is Israel's fault?

You're comparing Hamas' crimes to their incompetence, and in so doing illustrating my point.

Hamas invaded Israel, committed a bunch of war crimes, and now has no method nor seemingly intention of feeding their own people. Which apparently is Israel's fault?

Israel was blocking the delivery of aid, and after begrudgingly letting some through they were shooting at people going from and to the distribution points. Yes, both of those are their fault.

If you think the two cases are asymmetric, the better difference to observe is perhaps that the Israeli government routinely engages in war crimes against Palestinians, whose relation with Hamas is between hostile and resigned for lack of better options, while Hamas routinely engages in war crimes against Israelis, who have a broadly voluntary and enthusiastic relation with their government. The average Israeli seems to deserve suffering for the Israeli government's crimes a lot more than the average Palestinian deserves suffering for Hamas's.

(And lest we go there, history did not start on Oct 7 2023.)

I don't think you know what a war crime is.

Potshots at civilians picking up groceries is a war crime.

That seems to depend on who is making the judgment, and whether the 'potshot' is an unguided missile launched at civilian population centers (which happen to include grocery stores, and maybe a few valid military targets) or IDF forces firing at what I assume they deem (validly or not) 'suspicious' actors seeking to steal or disrupt humanitarian aid distribution.

Neither really brings joy, though.