This news isn’t as good as it first appears unfortunately:

State attorney Aner Helman told the court that 700 inmates had been moved to Ofer military facility in the occupied West Bank, with another 500 set to be transferred in the weeks to come. Around 200 detainees will remain in Sde Teiman, said Helman

So, they’re not even shutting down their Abu Ghraib in Sde Teiman, but they’re moving the bulk of it to a detention camp called Ofer. Except:

Last week, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the military launched a probe into the allegations of mistreatment at Sde Teiman, as well as at Anatot and Ofer

In other words Ofer’s already a shit show of human rights abuses as well. They’re just shuffling people around their various camps.

Dean, a Londoner who moved to the kibbutz eight years ago

So, he’s a British guy who chose to move from England to an Israeli collective that is literally located on top of a displaced Palestinian village, right up against an actively disputed border and now he’s complaining about it?

This article reads like it was probably put together to generate support for more IDF attacks on Lebanon.

Knew this was going to be Sde Teiman. Some horror stories coming out of there.

I think it was really cool that you asked questions instead of just being content with assumptions.

Btw, here’s an article describing how epidemiologists have been able to independently verify the mortality rate. It’s from a while ago so the numbers are lower but you can still get a sense of it.

The answer to your second question to some extentit probably depends on which country you’re in.

Generally speaking I think the people with strong opinions about land occupation already had those opinions before this war. The current wave is much more a reaction to what is happening to civilians right now.

I think the general population in the US are more likely to have pre-existing strong opinions about Israel Palestine because it’s regularly in their news, and there is a sizeable US expat population in Israel. For me personally (I live in New Zealand) the human rights situation in Gaza normally sits on my radar alongside the situations in for e.g West Papua and Western Sahara. But right now, there is an active large-scale massacre of civilians taking place in Gaza.

To answer the first question, sorry I keep breaking it into smaller components but again, separating it out makes it clearer. If we look at:

• what the IDF intentions are

• what their actions are

• what the effects of their actions are

What people think kind of depends on how well we think it matches up and whether we think the first one is actually an okay justification for the third one.  Like when is it okay shoot when you can see there’s someone in the crossfire.

What their intentions are

The IDF and mainstream Israeli politicians publically stated intention is to “destroy Hamas” in order to protect the safety of Israeli citizens both in Israel and in the part of Palestine that Israel is occupying. Hamas is a broad term encompassing both militant (eg militant) and civil (eg Health Dept) organization. Some politicians have gone a lot further and said their intention is to remove most Palestinians from Gaza. Some have said that no civilians are innocent, but these are minority viewpoints.

What their actions are

This is where it gets tricky, and some of it is contested. What is common ground is that  they have chosen to use an unusually large number of bombs in a built up environment full of civilians, using huge bunker buster bombs, and drone bombing of targets suggested by AI. It also involves a ground offensive, and there appear to be “kill zones.” The IDF has set itself numbers for “acceptable” number of civilians per kill, which may be high, and also permits itself to bomb hospitals and schools. Here is an article which covers some of the AI concerns. They also keep tight control of humanitarian aid and limit what enters. There are allegations that are disputed, of widespread deliberate killing of wounded and civilians and children. We may find forensic evidence in the mass graves. The IDF dispute it.

The effects of their actions

• I’ve covered this already above, but what stands out is the unusually high number of civilians and medics being killed, compared to other modern wars that involved urban warfare. To put the total mortality into perspective, during the Bosnian Genocide 3% of the population were killed over a 2-year period. 1.5% of the Gaza population have been killed in 6 months. The mortality statistics we have are for known deaths, those still buried in rubble are extra.

• Using satellite images of before and after, analysts estimate 57-60% of buildings in Gaza are destroyed, rising to 75% in Gaza City. We also know the hospitals were bombed.

• During the current war monitoring of humanitarian aid entering Gaza has drastically reduced the amount going in. (Before this war, Gaza did not function self-sufficiently.  A significant part of the population (many were refugees) relied on humanitarian aid.

• NGOs on the ground report that the current numbers of starving people will meet the technical threshold for it to be designated famine, by May.

For many of those who are on the side of civilians, there is no possible justification for killing this many people to get to each millitant. International law (eg Geneva Conventions) specifies how to treat civilian populations, and many international experts think that these rules are being breached. Moreover, the blocking of humanitarian aid is problematic, whatever the rationale.

Most of us live in civilisations where we do not find it acceptable to kill innocent people as way to also kill guilty people.

We are all familiar with the genocidaires’ explanations/pretexts for why they are blockading humanitarian aid, thanks, you don’t need to rehash them here.

Egypt doesn’t want terrorists

More to the point Egypt doesn’t want to give Israel a pretext for constant drone strikes in Egyptian territory now that every Palestinian refugee child is supposedly “Hamas”.

But either side can close a border, that’s intrinsic to borders.

Okay there are more than 2 sides.

Personally I am on the side of civilians whether they are Israeli or Palestinian or Druze or Bedouin. I am also on the side of the doctors, nurses, and humanitarian aid workers. These are who I consider the Good Guys. “Look for the helpers.” - Mr Rodgers.

But to cover your question, there’s two separate issues here:

• the claims of the belligerents

• feelings about what is happening now in the Israel Gaza war

The past claims of the belligerents

I’m not going to go into this, but but it goes back to history and it’s where the side-taking on the sides of the belligerents mostly comes from, because different people have different interpretations. Legally speaking Palestine is occupied by Israel (West Bank) and blockaded by Israel (Gaza). No one can get in or out, it’s effectively controlled by Israel.

What is happening now

What is happening now is a “war” between the IDF and Hamas. People like me, who are rooting for civilians are upset about:

• proportionality (so far about 33,000 Palestinian deaths vs 1,400 Israeli deaths)

• mortality (currently over 1.5% of the population of Gaza have been killed)

• civilian mortality - high numbers of children being killed (according to aid agencies, one is killed or injured every 10 minutes)

• high numbers of humanitarian workers and medical staff being killed

• inappropriate weapon choices (hundreds of 2,000lb bombs are being dropped, for reference the US used just one in its war against Isis.

• widespread infrastructure destruction, particularly of hospitals and other important buildings

• mounting evidence of starvation in the civilian population due to blockade of aid

Personally I am against anyone treating a civilian population like this for any reason, and I believe it amounts to war crimes. I was against the killing of civilians in Myanmar, Rwanda, East Timor, and I am against it now.

Side note: The median age in Gaza is 18, meaning literally half the people in it are still children.

Edit: I haven’t given any sources cos lazy. I am happy to give them to OP or anyone in good faith (there are probably a bunch on the post history of my main which is [email protected]). However, I do not speak sealionese.

The UN officials aren’t saying any of those things. Here’s a tldr of the issue

• The platform is meant to be in Northern Gaza where the worst of the starvation is

• Israel wants it to be moved south to an Israeli choke point

• Israel is about to close the crossings in South Gaza so it can attack Rafah

• If the tiny amount of aid that can come in is able to be diverted to South Gaza then Israel may face less international condemnation over this phase of the Gaza genocide.

Please help me understand why delivering food and medicine to Gaza is bad.

If there is a starving child and you can choose to deliver them the nutrients they need but instead you choose to give them half a peanut instead, in a really theatrical way, that’s obviously bad right?

That’s what’s happening here.

A UN recognition of nation state is not a pre requisite for self governance.

I’m not saying it is a prerequisite. Historically being free was not a prerequisite for being paid some kind of wage at times either, for that matter.

Historically, many former colonial nations gained their independence before being able to hold free and fair elections. Kenya for example, or South Africa.

Palestine is in a similar state at present.

That’s putting the cart before the horse. You can’t say “you have to have conducted a general election before you become a nation state.”

That would be like telling a slave they can’t become a free person unless they’ve already got a job that pays them direct wages.

UNRWA also said that its staff had been detained while carrying out their duties in Gaza, being held in the same conditions as the other detainees.

They were interrogated about their work and threatened to make false confessions about the UN agency, including that it had links with Hamas.

Among the forms of torture the UNRWA staff were subjected to were severe beatings, being forced to strip naked, threats of rape and electrocution, threats of violence and murder at gunpoint, attacks by dogs, and threats against the lives of their families.

Yes if I were documenting this I would want hours of witness testimony, forensics, etc.

I mean, to the standards required for a court of law (e.g. forensic proof that these were patients) but I take your point.

Objectively, Spez. [I changed my mind, see edit]

Subjectively, in my personal experience the worst mod I ever encountered was Ghislaine Maxwell Maxwellhill.

There are whole articles out there about how bad their moderation was.

They somehow had enough people convinced that their sockpuppet “Anutensil” was a separate user that it joined the same mod teams and constantly advocated for them. Which is crazy because a utensil literally means a tool (that they were using to consolidate power).

Edit: actually objectively it’s probably someone like CarlH who was the mod of carlhprogramming but also irl turned out to be this pedo guy who kept his own young son in a basement and tortured and abused him.

I hope this is being documented somehow.

Even if it takes 40 years for the perpetrators of these war crimes to be brought to justice, as in some other cases, it still should happen.

Totally with you on the important part, which is everyone needs to de-google now.

I didn’t downvote you personally (I only downvote spam), I was just pointing out the flaw in your logic, in passing.

Fantastic article.

Probably.

I know it’s realpolitik but it’s still mind-blowing to me that this guy is in the middle of fighting against an aggressive occupation of Ukrainian land with elements of ethnic cleansing, and simultaneously takes every opportunity to align himself with Israel, an occupying force.

As @[email protected] says, it’s creating real dissonance outside of the West.