This is a megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
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Notes -
I've seen a few people wonder why some people support Palestine in this conflict. While videos like this one (which predates the current conflict) are undoubtedly propaganda, they do offer a window into the worldview of a person who supports Palestine.
I'm honestly a little conflicted about who I should support. I condemn the killing of civilians by Hamas last weekend, but then I see United Nations OCHA data like this, where it says that 3,208 Palestinian civilians have died from 2008 to 2020 (compared to 177 Israeli civilians over the same period), mostly from air-launched explosions. I see people talking about supporting "the Jewish state’s justified but often brutal response", which so far includes blowing up a Palestinian house full of civilians with no warning, killing those inside, blowing up marketplaces and mosques, and attacking the Jabalia refugee camp.
Wikipedia claims that 40% of male Palestinians have spent some time in an Israeli prison. I hear about Israel demolishing 55,000 Palestinian structures as of 2022. I remember that Gaza had been blockaded by Egypt and Israel since 2005, despite Israel supposedly backing out of Gaza.
Even if every example of Israelis killing Palestinian civilians was collateral damage or accident, even if we assume that the cameras showing Israeli brutality always start rolling at the perfect moment to make it look like unnecessary brutality on their part, it's obvious to me that Palestine won't be able to grow under its current conditions of occupation. If the United States supports Israel, then Israel will prevail and Palestine will lose little by little every year. It will be a slow motion catastrophe, and there is nothing Palestine can do about it.
Is national, regional and global stability worth anything to the Palestinian people under such conditions? No wonder people are posting music videos in this thread of Palestinians with pipe dreams of Russia becoming a global super power again, and supporting Palestine to spite the United States. They're fucked, and I think there's something noble in fighting until you're wiped from the Earth by your enemy. Even if history remembers you as a monster, they will remember you.
I don't understand how you can watch some of the videos that came out the last couple days and still feel this way. Raping someone to death and using their body as a trophy and then proudly releasing the video... makes it kind of an easy choice.
What confuses me; Is the hate I got for not putting certain political slogans in my twitter a few years ago... Where's all that outrage for actual atrocities against women? Why no feminist marches? Didn't people in Canada get their bank accounts frozen for donating to truckers honking loudly? Why is that apparatus not being applied here?
I've seen no evidence that this happened. Have you?
I have not seen any rapes captured on video, but I did see a young woman's body piled upon a bunch of corpses in the back of a pickup being spat upon and laughed at by multiple individuals in a parade. That much is clear really happened, and I believe this to be the incident most are describing. Whether she was raped is unclear from my perspective but not really hard to imagine. Nonetheless they paraded her body around with no exaggeration.
You did not see this. If you are referring to the video I think you're referring to, which people keep repeating as if it's not 1 data point. You are repeating headlines you read uncritically about a video that does not demonstrate what you said. Video (NSFW). Apparently 2 guys did spit, never noticed until now.
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Looks like she's alive now.
That seems shocking to me. That was the kind of scene I did not think people came back from.
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Her mom seems to have gotten some message from someone claiming to be (or maybe is, I don’t think it’s beyond question) Hamas or Hamas-associated saying she’s alive. The mother is clinging to hope, can’t fault her for that, but I doubt it.
Obviously it is possible someone with her visible injuries could survive with medical attention, and there are competent (largely volunteer) doctors and internationally funded hospitals in Gaza, but it really didn’t seem likely that the men in the trucks were on their way to drop her off at the hospital, to say the least.
With the worldwide exposure and she would make a good hostage that's for sure. I agree though, I think hope she's alive is slim.
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Doubtful, it does look like her mom has some false hope tho.
It'd take a lot to keep someone with that many massive fractures in their legs from bleeding out internally - and in some of the video of her she has what looks like a gunshot wound to the head.
Tourniquets can work. IF she is conscious when she reaches modern medical care AND she just has the fractures in her legs she can probably be saved.
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