naraburns nihil supernum
6mo ago
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Israel-Gaza Megathread #1
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.
No electricity, water, or fuel for Gaza until hostages freed - Israel
Israel's Energy Minister Israel Katz says the siege of Gaza will not end until Israeli hostages are released.
In a social media post, Israel Katz said no "electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter" until the "abductees" are free.
I think this is a smart move. Even if the hostages being released remains very unlikely, it puts more of the moral burden for the siege on the Gazans, who do (broadly) support Hamas.
A mass scale war crime to block food and water to 2.3 million people. Using war crimes to punish a population is an excellent way to get the world to hate you and the victims to never forget.
How can it be a war crime to not feed the people trying to kill you? Was it a warcrime to blockade Germany during WW1? Are our sanctions on North Korea a war crime? Is cutting off Russia from US trade a warcrime?
The people of Gaza have agency. They chose to forgo all the necessities of civilization in favor of killing Jews with literally every resource at their disposal.
Hamas is a single issue party, and that single issue is genocide of the jews. Every mouth you feed in Gaza is a person who will grow up and try to kill you. Let them feed themselves.
is there evidence that they're using european donated pipelines to make rockets, instead of older lines? just send PVC pipe if you're worried about that.
Isn't this a bit like the "US government money going to Planned Parenthood/Christian charities but that money doesn't fund abortions/Christian ceremonies" situation? Pipelines aren't fungible like money, but if getting PVC pipe allows them to dig up existing non-PVC pipes, that's close enough to fungible, and so they're using European-donated pipelines to make rockets regardless. It's just that the European-donated pipelines aren't being used to build the body of the rockets; rather, the European-donated pipelines are being used to substitute the existing pipelines for their water-carrying use while those existing pipelines get used as the rocket frame.
That's a fair point, the effective fungibility breaks down at some point. Of course, it's also the case that at some point they should run out of Israelis to blow up, but I think it's most likely that that point is far beyond the point after which they run out of metal pipes, so that's not really a limiting factor.
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Notes -
No electricity, water, or fuel for Gaza until hostages freed - Israel
[From the BBC news live tracker]
I think this is a smart move. Even if the hostages being released remains very unlikely, it puts more of the moral burden for the siege on the Gazans, who do (broadly) support Hamas.
A mass scale war crime to block food and water to 2.3 million people. Using war crimes to punish a population is an excellent way to get the world to hate you and the victims to never forget.
How can it be a war crime to not feed the people trying to kill you? Was it a warcrime to blockade Germany during WW1? Are our sanctions on North Korea a war crime? Is cutting off Russia from US trade a warcrime?
The people of Gaza have agency. They chose to forgo all the necessities of civilization in favor of killing Jews with literally every resource at their disposal.
Hamas is a single issue party, and that single issue is genocide of the jews. Every mouth you feed in Gaza is a person who will grow up and try to kill you. Let them feed themselves.
is there evidence that they're using european donated pipelines to make rockets, instead of older lines? just send PVC pipe if you're worried about that.
Isn't this a bit like the "US government money going to Planned Parenthood/Christian charities but that money doesn't fund abortions/Christian ceremonies" situation? Pipelines aren't fungible like money, but if getting PVC pipe allows them to dig up existing non-PVC pipes, that's close enough to fungible, and so they're using European-donated pipelines to make rockets regardless. It's just that the European-donated pipelines aren't being used to build the body of the rockets; rather, the European-donated pipelines are being used to substitute the existing pipelines for their water-carrying use while those existing pipelines get used as the rocket frame.
Well, at some point they should run out of metal pipes to repurpose if all the replacements are polymer pipes.
That's a fair point, the effective fungibility breaks down at some point. Of course, it's also the case that at some point they should run out of Israelis to blow up, but I think it's most likely that that point is far beyond the point after which they run out of metal pipes, so that's not really a limiting factor.
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