Don't they do everything to avoid hitting civilians? My guess is that they do more to protect the average palestinian than meets the eye....definitely more than Hamas or Fatah

Also, I'd take HRW with a grain of salt when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even their founder has expressed concern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Human_Rights_Watc....

Might be interesting: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/palestinians-accuse-hamas-...

Is Amnesty also biased?

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-a...

I just glanced it.

Yes. Bias here. Whoever wrote this has not been reading history closely enough.

I will continue to support Amnesty though. One of the better ones IMO, together with MSF.

I don't know as much about them, sorry. Quick Google search showed that there has been some claims of selection bias and "not telling the full story". My take is that they're doing a disservice to both sides.

By "don't they do everything to avoid hitting civilians" do you mean the warning phone calls? They don't make such calls when their aim is to assassinate someone - for obvious reasons.. The IDF also has good information on who lives where - that's how they know where to bomb - so they know that many children will be killed/murdered - as they often are.. The aim is killing some terrorist leader - which is arguably rather dubious given that they'll soon be replaced and the additional hatred will help greatly with terroist recruitment..

e.g. see https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/gaza-israel-wiping-entir...

I'm not sure you can simulataneously accuse hrw of bias (wrt isreal-palestine conflict), but also link to the jerusalem post

Washington Post better? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/07/3...

They've been doing it for years. The odd ones are the one's who aren't reporting it.

Israeli settlers regularly steal Palestinian lands and homes. Israeli military regularly demolishes Palestinian homes. Israeli snipers kill Palestinian children with sniper rifles, sometimes while comrades are cheering. Israeli drones kill Palestinian children playing soccer on the beach.

The Israeli army wants us to not believe our eyes when we see the destruction of civilian buildings [1]. They want us to pretend like its normal for snipers to cheer when they shoot unarmed civilians [2]. They want us to pretend like its normal to fire missiles at children playing on the beach [3].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLhXRDS1Dtw

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyLzRv_kNXU

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_war_beach_bombing_in...

I wonder, what is that makes you dehumanize Palestinians and present such a skewed picture of what happens to Palestinians?

> Israeli settlers regularly steal Palestinian lands and homes.

> Israeli military regularly demolishes Palestinian homes.

This is another important discussion. However the recent east Jerusalem case has been about Jewish homes that was given to Arab families during the short Jordanian rule of the area, wasn't it?

> Israeli snipers kill Palestinian children with sniper rifles, sometimes while comrades are cheering.

I cannot support everything Israelis do. If this is correct and the kids where unarmed etc this is a war crime and should be punished as such.

> Israeli drones kill Palestinian children playing soccer on the beach.

Extremely sad case. Also possible reason for war crimes investigation, but:

It would be extremely ironic if that case gets prosecuted while the even worse guys who start a war from this area doesn't get prosecuted.

Israelis are to blame here for not being careful enough, "Palestinian leaders" for starting this.

> The Israeli army wants us to not believe our eyes when we see the destruction of civilian buildings [1].

No, they are quite clear that it is civilian buildings - only with significant presence of legitimate targets.

> They want us to pretend like its normal for snipers to cheer when they shoot unarmed civilians [2].

Link does not support your claim?

> They want us to pretend like its normal to fire missiles at children playing on the beach [3].

Again, link does not support your claim.

[...]

> I wonder, what is that makes you dehumanize Palestinians and present such a skewed picture of what happens to Palestinians?

I do not dehumanize them.

I feel terribly sorry for them.

They are suffering more than the Israelis now.

But the solution isn't to continue to ostracize the least unreasonable part of the conflict and turn a blind eye to the ones who keeps starting this "war" again and again.

You act like East Jerusalem is the only place where Israelis are colonizing Palestinian lands. It is common for the Israeli army to show up to some nice land, declare the land a military zone, proceed to kill and evict Palestinians, and then begin construction of a new settlement for new settlers.

But why are we surprised by this? This has been going on since before Israel when terrorist groups like the Haganah and the Levi would terrorize Palestinians to force them to flee. Of course this policy continues because the leaders of these groups later became prime ministers, presidents, and generals.

Israel is a presently criminal state (settler colonialism is a crime) with a criminal and bloody history. We aren’t ostracizing it — we are pointing out the facts and demanding justice.

> This has been going on since before Israel when terrorist groups like the Haganah and the Levi would terrorize Palestinians to force them to flee.

One of the differences between me and you is that I admit Israelis have faults.

What you say is of course to some degree right.

But presenting it this way without mentioning all the Arab terrorist groups, how the Arabs sided with the nazis etc makes it a huge lie anyway because it makes people think it is one sided.

It isn't.

And media is constantly fueling the same lie.

Arabs sided with the Nazis? You really don’t mind giving history a nice stretch so long as it fits your narrative.

See the other answer here, then stop to reconsider on how many other accounts you are simultaneously mistaken && accusing others at the same time.

Then we can soon start discussing the real problems.

But I am fully aware that Israel has some serious problems so this always starts with me and others shattering the illusion that media and others have created over the last 40 years that this is one sided and that a simple good solution exists.

I wish Arabs living in Palestine and everywhere else all well and I can even kind of understand them.

My biggest problem is well meaning but uninformed journalists and forum participants who keep fueling this from the sidelines - and I wish you well as well.

I am sorry but you are really quite off. Answer me this, how you would feel if you were an Arab living in Palestine? How would you feel if you had to live in an apartheid system where another person can kill your family or steal your property with more-or-less impunity just because you are an Arab? Now tell me how would you react when you read that Israel precision-bombed an entire family [1] in response to “Hamas rockets from nearby”. Stop dancing around the real problems. Widespread racism. Apartheid policies. Settler colonialism. Systemic injustice. Disproportionate responses. Tell me your solutions to these problems.

I think you assume a lot when you say that people post “from the sidelines”. I would say that given the huge number of Palestinian victims some the people who post on the forums have probably suffered a loss of family/property/livelihood because of the Israelis.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2021/05/23/999563043/gaza-residents-acce...

> how you would feel if you were an Arab living in Palestine?

Terrible. Either I'd feel terrible because I was oppressed by the Israelis or less likely I guess because I realized I was oppressed by Hamas and Iran.

Again: I see both sides. If everyone here where overwhelmingly denying Israel ever did anything wrong I could play another role.

That never happens though so I am relegated to always inform people about basic pro Israel facts.

I’m not sure I understand your “less likely” remark. Are you conceding that Israel is doing most of the oppressing of Palestinians? Or do you mean that you wouldn’t feel terrible about Israeli land-theft/killing/jailing/apartheid because of Iran and Hamas?

While we are on this topic: how is this a “both sides” issue? Let’s keep it simple and not try to compare Israel oppression of gazans to the Hamas/Iran oppression. Please explain to us how does Hamas and Iran oppress West Bank Palestinians?

> I’m not sure I understand your “less likely” remark. Are you conceding that Israel is doing most of the oppressing of Palestinians?

I mean Hamas has a pretty strong grip over what gets said and written in Gaza.

> Please explain to us how does Hamas and Iran oppress West Bank Palestinians?

Torture, disappearances, embezzlement of aid, using civilians as shields. Iran comes in as supporters.

Yes, in some way this is not a both sides issue. One side is almost a normal democracy, the other is run by a cleptocratic regime that refuses to hold elections.

Best example here is the grand mufti of jerusalem. https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/

Like I said, it’s really quite a stretch to conclude that “Arabs sided with the Nazis” because of the arguably inconsequential positions of one individual — from the small Palestinian subset of the middle-eastern Arab population. Mind you these meetings occurred at the tail end of the war to discuss the forced migration of European Jews to Palestine.

Anyhow, what makes this feel like such a low misrepresentation are the historical facts that Arabs were taking in the Jewish victims and refugees that the Nazis were forcing out of Germany while the Europeans and Americans were refusing them.

> Arabs were taking in the Jewish victims and refugees that the Nazis were forcing out of Germany while the Europeans and Americans were refusing them.

Good point. In all fairness you do have some good points and if you stick to them I say you have a better story.

Here is the video of the sniper shooting a clearly unarmed person while his comrades are cheering and raving about the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyLzRv_kNXU

I wonder how many instances of this kind of targeting occur without a video recording being leaked to the public.

Most palestinians suffer from this situation, but it's important to remind everyone that palestinians torture each other because there are 2 camps, Fatah led my Mahmoud Abbas, and the Hamas, which is heavily influenced by Iran.

I don't like Israeli extremists either, but at some point, I don't think Israel can just sit idle when rockets are fired from civilian positions and fired on Israeli civilians.

Palestinian terrorists are evil cowards and they don't hesitate to put civilian in danger and talk about martyrdom.

Palestinians have been protesting Mahmoud Abbas, and as long as Palestinians are unable to gain leadership and organize, violence will continue. I really dislike how people have been blaming Israel as a whole. The extremist government surely has responsbility, but I'm curious about how de-escalation will be possible.

The Wikipedia is a case of whataboutism. And a complaint of how difficult it is to influence HRW by government, leaders and special interest groups.

The fact that you linked to a jpost article and shined light on the little israel does to “save” lives after literally bombarding them tells me where you stand in relation to the conflict.

IDF offered help recently to Lebanon during the crisis. Lebanon refused.

You can guess how the response of Gaza will look like...

I mean what else are people going to talk about? The IDF is best known for bombing civilians. That's their shtick. It's hard to have a balanced conversation about them without at least bringing that up, especially when the topic is "collapsed building".

I think you forgot the /s at the end of your statement.

IDF is best known for fighting defensive wars from aggressive arab armies. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Defense_Forces

Additionally they are known for rescue operations. A few examples below: -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Moses -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Magic_Carpet_(Yemen)

They are also known for civilian rescue operations: -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Entebbe

Finally, they are considered one of the best trained, most humane armies in the world. It's literally in their mission statement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purity_of_arms

Examples: roof knocks -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking

> Examples: roof knocks -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roof_knocking

I am sorry but in what world does purposefully bombing civilians mean they are one of the "most humane armies in the world".

The defense of "but we are only using little bombs to bomb civilians" is almost beyond parody.

They are not bombing people, they are warning them (and also calling and texting them) to get out so that thee are no/limited civilian casualties and only the infra is destroyed which is housing rockets etc

Sure, how about I drop a 30 second "door knock" before I blow your life to smithereens because I feel like your 10 story building might be hiding a few kalashnikovs? Feel free to evacuate to the few hundred meters of free space in the world's largest open air prison. The simple fact is: this is colonialist ethnic cleansing and the only reason it goes unchecked is because of historic Western guilt uncritically favouring the Israeli state for geopolitical reasons.

Just to be clear again:

> "door knock"

is a hellfire missile being blown up above someone's home.

Nope. The UK also has plenty of tarnished conscience (we were the mandate holder for Palestine immediately before the creation of Israel and played communities against each other, as we normally did in our colonies). The French also played their dishonourable part in carving up the middle east with us. Plenty of guilt to go around.

The parent is largely correct.

In addition, Iran is financing and using Gaza as a proxy war with Israel.

I wouldn't call the IDF "100% humane", as they deliberately shoot reporters, but they are fighting a defensive war to avoid being pushed into the sea - there is no peace treaty with their neighbors.

Arab countries have had decades to offer to resetttle Palestinians and Uighurs, but not a peep.

> I wouldn't call the IDF "100% humane", as they deliberately shoot reporters,

sources?

> Arab countries have had decades to offer to resetttle Palestinians and Uighurs, but not a peep.

Also remember that far more jews have been chased from their homes in lands around Israel than Arabs from within Israel, the major difference being that Israel integrated its own people instead of abusing them as a living pawn in a horrible game.

Also remember that Israel tried to get Arabs to stay but they were convinced by their own to leave to make "cleansing" the area easier in 1948.

Anyone who'd like to tell me what I got wrong?

1) IDF "kneecaps" reporters (shoots them in the knees) to get them out of their way. This has been reported for decades.

2) The SJWs, regardless of side, refuse to recognize there is a war. Protesting isn't going to solve anything since neither side has anywhere to go.

3) There was plenty of media coverage of Iran involvement recently. Again, if you're a SJW and don't know that, you're misguided.

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/irans-role-in-the-latest-g...

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/555594-irans-desta...

I'm a lot of things but definitely not a "SJW".

I do however sometimes help foreigners, girls etc but I don't brag about it under my real name nor do I start crusades against anyone just because they are white or male or straight or anything so no, definitely not SJW.

My only question was because of you claim that IDF shoots reporters in the knees like it is a well known fact and I haven't heard that before.

How do you feel about an entity committing war crimes and pretend to get involved in humanitarian efforts inside the US? Do think it's suspicious? Or genuine efforts, killing in one part and aiding in another. Seriously, I am curious to know. Do you think it's just about helping or more about the media campaign? And how do you consider war crimes nonsensical inflammatory thing? Well, at least it is not a "thing".

Jimmy - peeling apart your statement:

Israel is not pretending to get involved; they sent personnel who helped remove people from the rubble.

Your warcrimes comment is not fact based; so I feel nothing about that.

In conclusion 1) israel sent this team and they did help 2) how can i possibly know the intent, all we can see is the action, and it is help.

> all we can see is the action

Have you seen IDF actions in Gaza?

Yes - war is bad. Israel is always ready for peace. I can link you to a list of all the offers that have been made for peace. Additionally, you do know that there is no IDF in Gaza and that Gaza shares a border also with Egypt (strangely they keep it closed). They are free to live there peacefully and grow their prosperity.

Have you seen Hamas' work in Gaza: https://news.yahoo.com/gaza-city-blast-kills-1-091252256.htm...

Jimmy - since I cant reply to your comment below:

No this is not about hamas, but neither was this about Gaza. This was about rescuing people from a collapsed building. Yet here we are.

>>"Israel is always ready for peace"

That I doubt very much. In my opinion we are seeing a clear on going colonization effort. This is not about religion or race, but about land and the rest is a distraction.

Because we are not in the eighteen century anymore, it can't be done old European style, so it has to be done boiling frog style with a lot of spending in public relations.

The crude fact is that land is being taken by the strongest party:

https://sites.psu.edu/anaouf2/files/2017/02/israel-palestine...

I have not doubt that the IDF did great, but you have to recognize that this article reads like a puff piece.

Have you observed any evidence that the other side is seeking peace?

No mention of ethnic cleansing and military checkpoint enforced apartheid where kids are harassed by fully armed soldiers? Do you want to see the B'TSelem videos? Here they detail a 5 year old child: https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20130711_soldiers_det...

Or "1 shot 2 kills" military tshirts for killing pregnant Palestnian women? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7960071.stm

> Have you seen Hamas?

Is the thread about Hamas? Or is it a try to change the subject?

I don't know what's going on. This was supposed to be about "the idf doing humanitarian work in florida and helping with the rescue"

seconds later the scope has become "everything israel does is wrong, look at gaza, something something apartheid"

Sorry that reality is crashing your propaganda party, dude. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

it's all good ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ cool to critisize anything and anyone. It just comes off as a very different vibe when compared to other HN discussions.

Everyone here is so smart and inquisitive, but when the issue is middle east the gang seems to take a shallow, dogmatic take on something they absolutely do not understand. For so many independent thinkers there's a lot of knee jerk group think

>but when the issue is middle east the gang seems to take a shallow, dogmatic take on something they absolutely do not understand. For so many independent thinkers there's a lot of knee jerk group think

And China. And American foreign policy. And anything related to or that even mentions sex, gender or race. And the media. And economics. And COVID. And RMS. This place is legendary for its aggressively ignorant and toxic hot takes on just about everything but technology[0], especially if it requires empathy, emotional reasoning or an understanding of mainstream society.

[0] With the possible exception of Javascript or the modern web in general, mention of either of which sometimes sends people into a frothing rage.

HN dogmas on Israel match exactly what I was taught in my soviet high-school history class 30+ years ago. Good stuff, highly entertaining nostalgia.

> Your warcrimes comment is not fact based; so I feel nothing about that

Not fact based? I don't know how anyone can possibly deny what Israel is doing is literally war crimes par excellence.

Illegally occupying and settling foreign land? Bombing civilians? Open air prison? Multiple armed attacks in foreign countries like Iran and Iraq?

The UN, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, among the authorities on human rights and war crimes agree with that.

>Your warcrimes comment is not fact based; so I feel nothing about that.

Hmmm:

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-a...

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-a...

Strange - Occupied it is not. Defensive removal of rocket infrastructure seems ok.

Another question: do fighting nations generally supply electricity, medicine and water to entities raining missles down on their civilians indiscriminately?

Great read for the uninformed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_State_of_Palesti...

Ironically, by your own admission, you simply highlighted Israel's infrastructure control on Gaza. So it's not merely a military occupier but controls food, water and electricity supplies to the imprisoned population. But hey, thanks for your generosity to allow a trickle of aid supplies through.

"Transfers of fuel for the power plant were stopped by Israel during the Gaza War in May 2021 and resumed by the end of June."

They are welcome to get it from egypt with whom they share a border as well.

The gaza-strip shares a border.

>Defensive removal of rocket infrastructure seems ok.

That's offensive removal of rockets, iron dome is defensive removal of (flying) rockets.

It's a marketing feel-good campaign because of Pegasus:

https://www.axios.com/israel-nso-pegasus-spyware-crisis-3115...

It is hard not to notice that all the US/UK media were very afraid to put Israel's name in the titles and articles when they reported on that scandal.

So Pegasus project is considered conspiracy against Zionists. Okay, I guess!

>distract from a cellphone hacking company

Yes lets downplay it, sounds much better right?

https://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/252454013/NSO-Gro...

>Zionists actually collapsed the building

Are you a politician? Making fun about something very serious to undermine facts (the feel-good campaign)?