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“Israel wants to starve innocent people in order to ethnically cleanse the land for Israelis” is the reasonable takeaway to me, because there is no evidence of Hamas ever taking aid (1, 2), Israel’s actions are entirely inexplicable unless they deeply desire to starve innocent people, nearly every independent international body paying attention to Gaza has called attention to the risk (and now reality) of starvation, important Israeli leaders like Ben-Gvir and Amichai Eliyahu have specifically advocated for destroying food supplies as a tool to get what they want, and an American retired green beret Anthony Aguilar who worked with the designated aid distributor has said that Israelis open fire indiscriminately on civilians seeking aid.
Aguilar was previously the Commander of Special Operations of the Central Asian Command. This is not some no name guy. His testimony is confirmed by Dr Nick Maynard of Oxford University, who treated malnourished children. Maynard also suspects that the IDF is deliberately shooting children for sport, which other doctors have said in the past (I wrote a post on this a year ago or so).
But why does Israel want to starve innocent people?
IMO there’s simple answer to this, and it’s the same reason that anyone commits a crime against another for personal benefit which they believe they can get away with. There’s an insufficient “love for one’s neighbor”, an inability to feel empathy or otherwise recognize the shared humanity in another person from a different tribe. This can also be called being evil, as in, Israel has fallen so far from the standards of reasonable goodness that they are closest to its opposite, which is evil. So Israel is doing this because they are evil, very far from good. It is advantageous for them to take the land from Palestinians. It is advantageous even to starve them if you can’t take the land, because this damages longterm health, fertility rates, and intergenerational health. There is no real cultural or religious pressure that promotes love for non-Jews in Israel. So, IMO, the leaders of Israel are evil, and that’s why they are currently starving children for their own benefit.
The very first bullet point sub-head on your second link disproves your claim: "State Department disputes findings, cites video evidence of Hamas looting"
Also, there's plenty of mainstream coverage indicating that Hamas has been heavily involved in receiving food "aid" - look at this article from November last year, which outright admits:
They'll admit that Hamas is taking the aid meant for civilians if they can use Russell conjugation to make it sound pleasant - "securing aid supplies [from hijackers]" but when someone actually carries that thought through to its obvious and logical conclusion - that a combatant organization is taking aid meant for civilians - nope, no evidence!
So what ? Why is it so bad if Hamas gets food ? Blockading food supplies is considered a war crime in the post-war world.
Assuming Gaza has no food reserves, Israel should allow the passage of food-aid for 2 million people. Share the distribution logs and nations should step off their neck. Logistically, they should be able to check the food for smuggling. Hawaii checks all agricultural imports and exports before they trade with the mainland. It's not unheard of. The UNRWA may be biased. But, it's not like they can smuggle in weapons. UNRWA may report false atrocities, but that's already happening. Israel's public perception is in the dumps. Can't get much worse than that.
Hamas sells the food back to the civilian population it was intended for and uses the funds to pay its fighters. Israel's new aid systems aims to give food directly to civilians, thereby ensuring that a) civilians actually get the aid (instead of having to buy it from Hamas) and b) that Hamas' funding gets cut off.
The current situation is also compounded by the fact that UN refuses to allow its aid to be used by Israel's system, so it just sits there in trucks. Does this make the UN war criminals too?
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The State Department is just Trump appointees, who are ardent defenders of Israel. So, while someone downstream from a Trump appointee disputed the findings based on a “video”, they
as the article continued. So it doesn’t appear that there is really a video of Hamas looting. I think this can be ignored. Do we expect Trump appointees to tell the truth here? Where is the video showing Hamas looting? One is a study, the other is Rubio. But if the State Dep comes out with evidence then it should be considered.
Your link about Hamas taking aid actually proves the opposite, at least in 2024. Because —
which means that Hamas did not take or monopolize aid at the time of the article’s writing; armed gangs (probably funded by Israel as I cite in another comment ITT) took the aid. If Hamas had control of aid, a rival gang could not be in control of the aid.
This would only be required if Hamas was not in the business of appropriating or overseeing aid retrieval within the period preceding the article being written. If Hamas was getting the aid, how could a rival group ever hijack so much aid that the citizens of Gaza question Hamas’ ability to fight crime?
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It's the constant prevarications that make it so hard for me to take these complaints seriously.
Oh, OK, that sounds really, really bad.
Wait, what? If they're firing indiscriminately on civilians seeking aid, how is this number not zero? Is the claim that Palestinians are charging these aid stations under fire, climbing through concertina wire, and some few manage to escape with food? ... Or are they not actually firing indiscriminately on civilians seeking aid? I don't doubt civilians have been shot in these places -- It wouldn't even be hard convince me this is a deliberate strategy to deter Palestinians from accepting food aid! -- but that's not what the word 'indiscriminate' means.
How is it, exactly, that Aguilar can confidently make statements of fact about others' intentions? Did they tell him that? If they did, I'm pretty sure he'd have said. Is he a mind reader? Actually, I rather doubt he's met whoever decided on the placement of the distribution locations; he can read minds at a distance, I suppose. Again, I'm not even saying that's not the intention! I don't know! But he doesn't either, and presenting this as though it's certain is dishonest.
What nonsense is this? Are the distribution locations in active combat zones or not? Anyway, armor-piercing rounds are, obviously, intended for piercing armor. Against unarmored targets, they're less lethal than hollow points. Unarmed civilians, notably, are unlikely to have armor. As for the capacity to penetrate cover: I thought these locations were designed to be death traps? Why would they leave convenient cover in the killing field? Anyway, I don't see the logic in permitting the individuals guarding the site to have weapons, but only so long as they'll be ineffective against a prepared adversary. (Especially after admitting there are prepared adversaries in the area.) I have to say, it seems very weird to me this would be a war crime. Let me do some reading...
Oh, it's not a war crime.
The M855 green tip (the American version of the SS109) is the standard issue round for all of NATO! It's actually not some super special armor-piercing variant, it's what they give every last grunt. Safe to say, issuing this round is not illegal.
It sure is designed to kill, that's true -- is this former green beret confused about the purpose of firearms and their ammunition? Or is he just so contemptuous of his audience that he believes they are? As I noted, they're less deadly against unarmored civilians than hollow points, but here's something I didn't know until I looked into it: using those is (arguably) a war crime! I'm deeply curious what round Aguilar believes would be appropriate; unfortunately, he doesn't say. Rubber bullets? Taking rubber bullets into a situation where you might well get shot at with real bullets is incredibly dumb, but that's not the real problem with the idea: no one even makes rubber bullets in 5.56. They don't exist. Blanks, perhaps?
Aguilar makes some other points that are harder to contest -- for all I know, they are using concertina wire inappropriately -- but I see very little reason to take anything he says seriously given the obvious errors -- I struggle not to say 'lie,' but unlike him, I'm willing to extend the charity to allow he might just be incorrect -- I found briefly skimming the article.
Would that be the thread with several x-ray images of full power rifle rounds, with no deformation whatsoever, in the middle of children's heads? I'm genuinely asking; it might be something else. But that's the one I remember, because it was a transparent hoax.
Once again, I'm perfectly willing to believe the IDF is misbehaving in Gaza -- actually, I'd go so far as to say I do believe it, at least to some extent -- but if there's such overwhelming evidence for it, why do their opponents insist on mixing in obvious falsehoods? Just tactically, I'm certain it does far more damage to their position than just sticking to points that aren't trivially refuted.
I too am convinced that that many 3rd parties reporting on Israel are lying (outright or by omission). However, the information blackout from Israel makes it hard to defend them.
Hamas has lost. Israel's existential threat comes from Iran, which has temporarily been rendered sterile. There is no plausible reason for fighting a war with medieval siege tactics. Not anymore. Sure, many who're accusing them of genocide are antisemitic. But, it should not be that hard to refute it. The burden of proof is on Israel. There's little indication that the majority of Israelis want a final solution to the Gaza problem. Israelis haven't so much as articulated an endgame, let along enacted it. In this framing, Israel's current actions don't make sense, unless viewed as Netanyahu's actions.
IMO, Netanyahu's interests and Israel's interests stopped coinciding after the attacks on Iran's nuclear sites. Hamas's leaders were dead. Iran's nukes were gone. Hezbollah was over. Gazan supply lines were wiped. Israel was safe. So what's next for Netanyahu ? He's a dead man walking. He was thought to be on the way out in 2020. He swindled (all is fair in love and war) Benny Gantz into a 1 sided coalition and through morbid luck got a national emergency handed to him. His approval ratings are on a slow decline in 2025 after a post-tragedy resurgence. Democracies have a track record of ousting wartime leaders as soon as the war is over. Netanyahu won't be an exception.*
Netanyahu wants his problems to be Israel's problems. As long as the conflict remains, he can keep finding exceptions to stay in power. Global anti-semitism pushes Israel to the right, strengthening him**. He is the only one who benefits from a protracted conflict. Even today, there is sufficient internal pushback against Netanyahu within Israel.
Yet, the loudest detractors steer the conversation towards the existence of the state of Israel instead of Netanyahu as the leader who oversaw this response. To me, that's the difference between credible detractors (Tech elite, European centrists, American Jews) and antisemites. (Progressive left, Muslim leaders). Antisemites are tempted by maximalist claims and their hate makes up for the lack of due diligence. "All Israelis are evil, always have been. All Gazans are being killed. All kids are being shot in the dick. No one is getting food." No nuance. Only hate.
Either way, their detractors have served. The ball is now in Israel's court. Sympathies are wearing thin. Netanyahu better show proof refuting it, or his time might be up. Hopefully, the Israel's people are able to pin the stink of genocide onto him. Otherwise, this will cement the end of Israel's post-holocaust sympathy.
Ah, I don't necessarily disagree on any of this. To tell the truth I haven't followed these events closely at all -- my point was very narrow: 'I'm confident these claims are false, which makes it a lot harder to believe your other claims.' Not even saying the pro-Israel side doesn't do the same thing (though I can't immediately recall anything quite so blatant).
Probably best I not make a fool of myself commenting on Israel's internal politics, but sure, I'm not clear on what Israel expects their current actions to accomplish. I certainly don't like some possible answers. Your theory doesn't sound implausible to me.
If that is what's happening, it's a curious mirror of what's going on on the other side: Hamas depends on Israel's misbehavior to gain recruits and garner international sympathy while Netanyahu depends on Hamas's ability to recruit and garner international sympathy to push his voting public right. Not sure if that's actually an insight or just pedestrian inter/intra-group dynamics. (Pretty sure that was one of the reasons for eternal warfare in 1984, so it probably counts as a hackneyed truism by now.)
Yeah, this makes sense. I object to a certain strain of common, virulent opposition with a loose relationship with truth -- certainly doesn't mean Israel's actions are unobjectionable.
I understand that no military ever actually wants transparency into any of their operations, but it doesn't seem like it can do all that much harm to the IDF at this stage; the more national and international pressure mounts to provide that transparency, the more suspicious the failure to do so will be.
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Indiscriminate means “not marked by careful distinction : deficient in discrimination and discernment”. What definition were you looking at? It does not mean that they fire on everyone they see.
M855 ammo passes through soft tissue more readily, meaning in a large crowd there will be more casualties per shot; his point is that this is a terrible choice for crowd control. Police doing crowd control use rubber bullets etc. In fact the IDF specifically uses .22 LR in Ruger 10/22 rifles for riots in the West Bank. You weren’t aware of this? NATO is not supplying these munitions so I don’t know why you’ve mentioned NATO.
It’s an unarmed civilian population receiving food. Rubber bullets are a smart way to do crowd control.
It was the one confirmed by numerous third party experts who dealt with gunshot wounds. I’m not sure how Israeli pundits responded to it but they may have called them forgeries.
Hm, I don’t see a single error in his testimony. Which error did you have in mind?
Hmm, OK. I read 'indiscriminately opening fire' as 'making no distinction between combatants and civilians,' and since they surely do fire on enemy combatants, they must also fire on civilians at similar rates. Which is obviously untrue, or no aid would be distributed. Is it your position that they don't discriminate on that basis at all (that is, they're just as likely to return fire at enemy combatants as to fire at random civilians), or that they do, but without sufficient care? (Which would be an opinion, not a fact, but whatever.)
Maybe that's my misread.
He explicitly says the rifles are OK. .22 LR is a different caliber which those rifles can't shoot. So far as I know, there is no widely used 5.56 munition that's less deadly than M855. (Well, there's less reliable/accurate ammo; this makes civilian casualties more likely, not less.) There are rounds which have less penetration, sure: hollow points, the use of which would actually be a war crime. If he wanted to argue 5.56 rifles were inappropriate, he could have done so. Instead he fixated on the bog-standard ammo, emphasizing its spectacular lethality, and, bizarrely, claiming its issue (not even its use!) is a war crime.
I mention NATO because as a rule it can be assumed that using the standard-issue munition of the world's premier military alliance -- the whole thing, not just America, who hasn't signed on to every treaty -- is not a war crime. It's additionally abundant and, due to economies of scale, pretty cheap for its quality. I'm only harping on this because he chose to harp on it.
Who said the rifles are intended exclusively for crowd control? He says repeatedly there's active fighting in these areas -- there's active fighting in all of Gaza, as he acknowledges elsewhere, but he claims these areas are especially bad. If there's serious risk of these sites coming under fire from enemy combatants, these rifles are suitable for engaging them. If there's not, then it sounds like it's actually not an active combat zone.
Well, the one I'm talking about was physically impossible. I recall there were a number of 'experts' who swore by it, thereby proving that either they're not experts or they're willing to flagrantly lie to propagandize against Israel. It's perfectly possible some members of the IDF have shot children for sport -- I certainly can't prove otherwise, and there might well be other, real proof -- but they weren't the ones in those pictures.
I note you didn't address the claim that issuing M855 is a war crime. Here's what he said:
Can you please point me towards the treaty, the case law, anything at all, that makes carrying M855 a war crime in and of itself?
You’re interpreting his statements somewhat uncharitably. Remember that he’s explaining these things in a long video, verbally and narratively, so the words have to be understood in the context.
Elsewhere he specifies in what sense he means indiscriminate killing:
We can surmise that this is what he means by war crimes, that using a rifle with live bullets to deal with civilian crowd control is a war crime. This is a war crime under The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Article 8 (Article 8(2)(b)(i) and 8(2)(e)(i)). In the DemocracyNow video he previously said that razor wire is a war crime —
———
He says that the “fully automatic weapons” were not in itself a war crime. Probably because it can be used with some less-than-lethal munition. Then, when he mentions the ammunition which “in and of itself” is a war crime, he clarifies —
It’s reasonable to assume that the “action” he’s talking about is starving children getting a little too close or not disseminating as quickly as the group wants, and then being shot with live ammo.
Hmm, alright, I can extend some tolerance towards sloppiness in extemporaneous verbal remarks. I still think most of the ammo paragraph is highly misleading nonsense, but I'm willing to file it under verbal diarrhea and take your interpretation at face value. And, sure, the razor wire might be a war crime; like I said, I didn't look into it.
As to the meat of the matter: The Rome Statute you're citing is this one?
(If I've somehow gotten the wrong one: Sorry, and don't bother reading the rest of the comment.)
(Both 8(2)(b)(i) and 8(2)(e)(i) have the same text; one is a list of 'other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in international armed conflict, within the established framework of international law' and the other 'Other serious violations of the laws and customs applicable in armed conflicts not of an international character, within the established framework of international law.' Not wholly clear which applies myself, but the rule is the same.)
(Israel hasn't signed this statute, but I'll concede the point if the behavior is a war crime by any international standard with substantial support.)
This is... not a very strict clause. I, perhaps naively, thought the standard was much higher. Especially since this is the infamous ICC which the US and Israel refuse to subject themselves to.
As best as I can tell, this statute doesn't distinguish between lethal and nonlethal weapons at all. (Not just this clause; I searched the whole thing for 'lethal' and various non-lethal technologies, and read all of 8(2)(b).) It's just as much a war crime to 'direct attacks' with a baton (or .22 LR rubber bullets) against civilians in general or 'against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities' as with a machine gun. Conversely, if the individual civilian is taking direct part in hostilities, it doesn't seem that they're entitled to any protection under this clause (other clauses and statutes certainly limit what might be done with them even then, but normal infantry rifles with normal ammunition certainly isn't forbidden by 8(2)(b)(xx)). It also does not distinguish between armed and unarmed civilians who are taking a direct part in hostilities.*
So when he says
That's not supported by the statute. They might not need those rifles to defend their lives against an unarmed population, but they're not forbidden from doing so. If they're 'defending their lives,' the individuals threatening them are certainly taking a direct part in hostilities -- have blown way past that standard -- and so may be shot. Even if they accidentally hit other civilians in the process of shooting them; that's not 'intentionally directing attacks' at them. That could run afoul of 8(2)(b)(iv):
But I think it would not in general. The attack must be launched knowing it will cause incidental loss of life or injury, which applies to a missile strike but generally wouldn't to aiming at a particular person and missing. Maybe it'd apply to over penetration? Even then I'm not sure you know it'll happen and that the collateral damage will be clearly excessive.
Concerningly, I'm not even seeing any protections against negligence (except in the narrow sense of 8(2)(b)(iv)) or even deliberately structuring the sites so as to maximize the probability that incidental loss of life that is not clearly excessive will occur. (I suppose this arguably could include issuing standard rifles to soldiers with crowd control responsibilities, provided you could somehow prove that was the intention. Not easy at all, especially if there's any meaningful chance they'll encounter armed, organized opposition.) Perhaps the court would be willing to fill in the gaps there, but it's not in the statute.
If they deliberately shoot civilians who aren't fighting, yeah, that's a war crime. And he's alleging that has happened, fair. But the nature of the rifles is orthogonal to its status as a war crime.
('Not a war crime' is not the same thing as 'morally correct,' or 'tactically wise.' I address only the first, as that's the question at hand.)
* I'm pretty sure? There is 8(2)(b)(vi) that forbids:
My read is that someone who is attacking without weapons has not surrendered in any sense, even if laying down one's arms is a sign of surrender in general.
This, as with any law, will be pursued with litigation and deliberation to work out details. The entire application of law is not based on a single sentence with no rational determination applying to it. The above, along with Additional Protocol I, Article 54, “ Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population”, which states “Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited”, leads one to think that Israel is committing war crimes. In addition,
is a crime, and regarding said relief, if
I mean, it won't be. Israel hasn't signed on to this statute. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding something, but right now it seems to me that:
OK? But that's not what we're talking about. I could have provided a lengthy list of Hamas' war crimes per the statute, but I didn't because that wasn't relevant. The starvation charge has nothing to do with the carrying-lethal-weapons charge. It is actually important to get the details right in these matters, isn't it? War crimes aren't fungible, you can't just substitute another one when it turns out your initial accusation (which was at best sanewashing Aguilar's incoherent nonsense) was untrue. It's serious business and allegations, if they are to be taken seriously, ought to made with care and precision.
I feel comfortable saying neither you nor Aguilar meet this minimum standard.
I get you think Israel is really, really bad. And sure, maybe it is. But this defense is not only not convincing, it's providing ammunition to Zionists who say their opponents have no regard for the truth and will say anything at all to make them look bad because they just despise Jews that much. It's exactly the behavior I complained about in my first post: if you have rock-solid complaints, focus on those and don't make up other grievances to drive the point home. (Or defend Aguilar when he does that.) Cause right now I'm thinking you actually don't.
It does not matter that Israel has not signed on to the first Additional Protocol, because it’s now customary international law, making it binding to Israel (and to everyone). This was even reiterated in 2020 by Israel:
Now, again, it doesn’t matter that Israel isn’t a signatory whatsoever, and even their opinion on what constitutes international custom isn’t determinative of anything, but it’s telling that they do not even specify article 54 as a reason for their not being signatory. (That’s, of course, the purpose of the lawyerly language that follows; but lawyerly language will not save malefactors from either God or international courts of law). This is probably because, as of few months ago, any reasonable nation would have considered “you’re not allowed to purposefully starve civilians” part of the custom of international law.
It is only by your own reading that he compares M855 to another lethal ammo type, rather than the various sub-lethal ammo types. I don’t consider this any point against him, and I think it is unreasonable to read his sentence as indicating such. He was a commander of special operations who previously fought ISIS, and previously commanded the entirety of the West Asian special operations (I’m pretty sure; from something I found online). He knows his munitions.
I think he’s shocked that he was equipped like this, with lethal rounds, when tasked with giving aid to starving unarmed people. Maybe he doesn’t assume people would assume the ammo type is so lethal. He’s talking to normal people, not military guys. As I sourced to you in his video, his group was using the lethal ammunition to disperse the crowd. This all seems quite reasonable to me.
If they’re shooting civilians, who are not endangering their lives, then it constitutes directing attacks against the civilian population. There are ample sources of Israel doing this, not just from Aguilar. So I provided you another video where he explains that this is what’s happening.
It was not in self-defense, it was in crowd dispersal.
It’s very obviously against the statute to kill civilians, who are not endangering their lives, as evidenced in what I sent you, no matter what the excuse is. This is according to Aguilar’s testimony. I don’t know how many more times I can reword this to someone who is intent on finding every plausible way to misinterpret it. Remember, it’s a long video of him talking, not writing a high school thesis; the meaning of what he says is clear when you listen to the audio or even just read what he says with an holistic understanding (not just focusing on the verbiage of an isolated sentence).
Huh? It’s another example. All of this is talked about in the OP. So I’m providing you another example, if you’re for some reason intent on disagreeing with Aguilar because he didn’t talk about munitions neurotically enough or something, or if you think he meant the starving children were threatening his life.
I feel comfortable agreeing with you that you feel comfortable saying a lot of things. In this, we can find some common ground. I guess because we’re rehashing:
You weren’t familiar, at all, with what is normatively used in crowd control scenarios in Israel, even for lethal ammo. I corrected you.
You read his statement as implying that a lesser-lethal ammo can go in his specific gun, rather than sub-lethal ammo, which is just a misreading.
You read his statement as indicating that the crowd was trying to assault them, which is just wrong, so I provided another source clarifying that the civilians never posed a risk.
You had no idea about the concept of customary international law, or that the first protocol is binding to Israel insofar as it is customary
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Additional Protocol I, Article 54
Israel has not signed Additional Protocol I. (and the US has not ratified it). Hamas, of course, ignores such things entirely as applied to itself.
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Okay, where is Hamas getting its food then? Do they have a giant stockpile that they have been surviving off of since October 2023? Have they invented the world’s most efficient solar-powered hydroponics system? Does every Hamas militant spend 23 hours a day in a cryostasis chamber? How are any of them still alive if they aren’t surviving off of food aid?
Could be a stockpile. Could be tunnels between Egypt and Gaza, with one found last year so large that a car could fit through. A small tunnel for beans / flour need only be a quarter in size. It could be that civilians are giving food to their relatives, one of whom is a member. It could be a tunnel from Israel to Gaza. Could be an underwater drone of sorts. Could be drones from Egypt to Gaza, apparently being used recently.
edit another important point. There’s an assumption that the number of Hamas units is fixed since the war began, and that Hamas is a monolith. These are silly assumptions. Israel is creating thousands of boys every week who want nothing more than to fight back against Israel — because they just saw soldiers shoot their grandmother, or shoot their little sister, or kidnap their brother, or maybe Israel bombed their entire family, or maybe they were mistreated, or maybe their cousin is starving. No sane young man anywhere in the world would not seek to do something in response to this. So there are new Hamas soldiers being officiated every day. But the officiatiation is not formal and organized. They join small cell structures (in all likelihood apolitical and religiously moderate, if not irreligious) who are then provided with weaponry (and ideas) by a small number of Hamas intermediaries (and these are the extremist ones). Meaning they were civilians being fed as civilians until the inhumane oppression became too much for their heart to bear, and they fight back. The same happened with the Irish against the British —
IRA numbers always increased when the British took an oppressive approach. Perhaps we should assume that somewhere between 5% to 90% of boys in Gaza would very much like to fight the IDF in any way they can, and they are more than happy to receive a weapon from Hamas.
If this is true it is a grave violation of the laws of war. The Geneva convention unequivocally requires that armed forces must be “under a command responsible for the conduct of its subordinates”.
That it should be totally impermissible to create a set of small cells without any independent command authority is completely obvious, especially in the current context.
In any event, they certainly aren't soldiers as the word is used in the field of international law.
Israel has been committing grave violations of international law since the King David Hotel bombing, the Nabka, etc.
Very few are complaining about the treatment of the actual men fighting Israel.
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You'll notice that this argument applies to shooting enemy soldiers just as much as it applies to civilians. By your reasoning, Israel shouldn't shoot any enemy soldiers because it creates thousands of boys who saw their brother or father or uncle or whoever get killed by the Israelis, and who want revenge.
Also, notice that bombing Nazis didn't create more Nazis. Why? Because Germany was saturated with Nazis already. Boys who saw their relatives killed were already steeped in Nazi propaganda and probably would become Nazis no matter what you did. If for some reason they didn't, they'd just get drafted anyway.
Everyone understands that combatants are killed in war. This is unremarkable and no reasonable person seeks revenge for war. What’s less remarkable is when an Israeli soldier purposefully shoots your daughter or sister in the head for no reason. Any young male who experiences this and wouldn’t seek revenge for it is the lowest of the low coward. Certainly my American ancestors who fought in the Revolution wouldn’t have submitted to that sort of rule. Neither would my Irish fifth cousins in the IRA. I would feel content knowing that my great grandparents who were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral home by someone born in Poland speaking a German dialect would look at me as a hero. (We can see how empathy goes a long way in explaining the Gazan PoV; this is an exercise.)
Both sides were bombing each others cities, for essential military reasons that likely reduced sum total casualties over the war.
This is not true. And Gazans (and people in honor based and tribal societies in general) tend not to be reasonable people anyway.
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X to doubt. Not just because it's Gaza but because intemperate religion and radical politics are very appealing to the greatly distressed.
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The assertion you start this post off with has got some heavy caveats to it.
There's no evidence that Hamas took aid! Well, the people who took the aid were aligned with unknown forces and not wearing any uniforms, similar to how Hamas operates, but they didn't say they were Hamas into convenient nearby microphones, so I am going to heavily imply that there is no Hamas theft with sleazy lawyer-like framing. Feel free to uncritically quote me, Israel haters!
That's just appalling reporting. And USAID said this? Isn't that the one getting dismantled? I was neutral about their being dismantled, but after seeing this kind of shit, I am glad. Holy hell. They're not even an intelligence agency... The information war is real. You can't trust anyone.
Along the lines of my thesis “it’s literally that Israeli leaders are evil”, they are funding gangs to pillage and monopolize aid. These are the ones most likely involved in the theft of aid:
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/israel-recruits-local-gangs-and-foreign-mercenaries-turning-aid-distribution-centres-mass-slaughterhouse-enar
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/video/newsfeed/2025/7/18/how-israeli-backed-gangs-in-gaza-are-extorting-starving-civilians
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/06/09/israel-is-backing-a-militia-known-for-looting-aid-in-gaza_6742148_4.html
https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/inside-the-israeli-governments-starvation-of-gaza-from-an-aid-group-trying-to-deliver-food/
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The first article quotes IDF officials praising the UN system as effective in distributing aid and having found no proof that Hamas was systematically stealing aid from the UN, although they did steal from smaller organizations that didn't always have boots on the ground. It's been widely reported that various armed gangs have formed in the power vacuum to steal and resell aid at extortionate prices.
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