https://apnews.com/article/business-middle-east-israel-foreign-aid-gaza-strip-611b2b90c3a211f21185d59f4fae6a90 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-plagued-poverty-hamas-no-shortage-cash-come-rcna121099 https://www.prio.org/publications/12927

Most of Israel’s support from the US has come in the past several decades. Israel was founded in 1947, fought a war with virtually no support from anyone, and then spent about 20 years building up the country from nothing. It didn’t develop major political alliances until after the Six-Day War in 1967, when countries like the US realized Israel could prove to be a mutually beneficial ally.

I know it’s hard to admit that a few hundred thousand Jewish refugees could actually build a country through their own hard work, but that’s what happened. There’s a reason why the Jewish people have survived and thrived against all odds, and it ain’t because of handouts.

We actually have no idea how many women and children have been killed because the numbers aren’t accurate. But again, the numbers killed don’t define whether the killing was indiscriminate or not. Even accepting the Hamas numbers, experts have concluded that the civilian-to-combatant ratio is among the lowest in the history of urban warfare. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/apr/18/israels-war-against-hamas-posts-lower-civilian-to-/. Plus, as you well know because you see the headlines, the IDF regularly instructs civilians to move from one area to another to avoid the fighting.

The Lancet article was not research, it was an opinion letter. And it was bullshit. They’re just estimating the number of indirect deaths that could occur some time in the future from all sorts of things that could be connected to the war. By the same token, we could estimate the death toll from the Hamas attack on 10/7 as much higher because of the deaths that will result in the future from stress, mental illness, PTSD, etc.

Could Israel have done a better job avoiding civilian casualties? Probably. But that also means they would have passed up on taking out key targets to bring the war to an end. What you also don’t know is how often decisions are made behind the scenes to NOT carry out a strike because it crosses the threshold of proportionality. You only see the strikes that were carried out.

Thanks for acknowledging this simple reality, that the IDF broke the law.> I have no idea if any of their actions have broken the law. I was acknowledging that they are accountable for their behavior.

Yeah, so no country should ask its military to perpetrate a war. And by that I mean no country should be starting a war> It’s figure of speech. In this context I was using it as a synonym for “carry out.” But if you’re implying that Israel started this war, that just has no basis in reality.

They definitely slipped up, that’s for sure. But so suggest that they were complicit - that they allowed 10/7 to happen on purpose - is just insane. Like you’re actually mentally ill.

You really are completely oblivious. Is this what happens when you become brainwashed by Marxist crap?

First of all, do you know how much money Hamas has received in foreign aid to help the people of Gaza? Billions. And that doesn’t include the support they get from Iran in the form of weapons and money. How the hell do you think they could afford to build a tunnel network larger than the London Underground? It has nothing to do with privilege, it’s about how a civilized society chooses to spend its money compared to how a genocidal Islamist terror organization decides to spend its money. Have you not seen the palaces that Hamas leaders have in Qatar? Did you know that Arafat died a billionaire?

Second, Israel built a thriving successful nation from nothing through hard work, innovation, and a shared commitment to building a future for the Jewish people. They fought off genocidal enemies and survived and thrived against all odds. If you could put aside your hateful ideology for a minute you might appreciate it for the incredible success story it is.

Are you actually suggesting Israel fabricated 10/7 to justify going to war with Hamas? Or do you admit it happened but you’re just nitpicking over specific stories? Are you aware of the fact that terrorists wore GoPro cameras to record their atrocities, and even recorded their torture on the phones of their victims?

Are you serious?

Hamas deliberately puts their civilians in harm’s way. That’s why they have dug 500km of tunnels underneath cities. That’s why they operate out of hospitals and schools. They want civilians to die and the more the better.

Israel, on the other hand, has spent billions to protect its citizens. And not just the Iron Dome either. There is a law in Israel that all new buildings and homes must be built with safe rooms and bomb shelters. They have a highly advanced early warning system so that civilians know to find shelter and exactly how much time they have to do so. Most of the rockets and missiles that have gotten through have been allowed to fall in open areas where they won’t do damage.

Did you even read that article? It nitpicks over specific stories but doesn’t dispute claims about civilians burned alive.

You’re clearly a lost cause. You have no critical thinking ability whatsoever, you just keep spitting back propaganda. Story after story, accusation after accusation, has been debunked as propaganda. The hospital bombing. The Flour Massacre. The famine. The children with sniper bullets in their skulls. All of it bullshit.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-68906919 “Ms Donoghue explained that the court decided the Palestinians had a “plausible right” to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court.”

But the IDF is accountable for its own actions, and some of these seem to break both international and Israeli law> Yes, that is true. But no military can perpetrate a war without killing civilians. It’s impossible. International law only requires that they take reasonable steps to minimize civilian casualties. The fact that civilians have been killed in Gaza is not evidence of genocide, nor does it establish that Israel is morally wrong in their actions.

The one thing that people can’t seem to grasp about Israel, because they are so blinded by their hatred and ideological brainwashing, is that Israelis don’t want war. That will become clear in time, when the Iranian regime is eventually dealt with, the Abraham Accords move forward, and we enter a new era of peace in the Middle East. And maybe then, just maybe, all the Western anti-Zionists will say, “Hmm, I guess Israel wasn’t the bad guy after all.”

You guess wrong about Stewart. If he understood Israel, he would know that the Holocaust narrative is very much not a part of Israeli culture. It’s a Jewish diaspora phenomenon. Israelis hate when people (like Coates and Stewart) connect Israel and the Holocaust because they resent the image of the Jew as a weak victim. So the accusation they make that the Holocaust makes Israelis feel justified in treating the Palestinians poorly is just plain ignorant.

Its been a week or two since I watched the Jon Stewart interview, but one of the final questions Stewart asked Coates was something to the effect of “So what is the answer? Where do we go from here with the two side so far apart?” Thank isn’t a difficult question?> What I mean is, he didn’t challenge him at all. He didn’t question any of his assumptions or narratives, he just accepted it all at face value. It wasn’t a journalistic interview, it was a conversation between two people who think the same way.

The fact that strawmanning and attacks are the only thing you’re recognizing as journalism shows how much journalism has deteriorated.> First of all, how did Dokoupil strawman Coates? Second, it wasn’t like Coates offered a thoughtful, intellectual argument. There’s no substance at all to what he says about Israel. he just gives his impressions based on his very limited experience and dresses it up in intellectual clothing.

No, they are not targeting civilian areas. They are targeting weapons caches, rocket/missile launchers, and Hamas/Hezbollah operatives that are unfortunately located in civilian areas.

This isn’t even close to ethnic cleansing.

Yes, people burned to death. That happens in war. You might recall that Israeli civilians were deliberately burned to death on Oct 7, 2023, which is how this war started.

And the second link is not proof of anything, other than that people were found dead with their hands bound. There is absolutely no evidence to prove that the IDF executed those people.

Stop throwing around baseless accusations.

Many military experts have commented that Israel has done a very effective job at minimizing civilian casualties. If if were truly indiscriminate, the death toll would be much, much higher.

And you have absolutely no evidence for your claim that “the current government of Israel would like to see all Palestinians dead., and is willing to act on that desire whenever they think they can get away with it.” This is an ignorant statement with no basis in reality. If this were true, all Palestinians would be dead. It should be very obvious to you that Israel has the ability to do far more damage than they have done.

On 26 January 2024, the ICJ said that it was plausible that Israel had breached the Genocide Convention.>

That is not what they ruled. In this video the former head of the ICJ clarifies the ruling: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-68906919 “Ms Donoghue explained that the court decided the Palestinians had a “plausible right” to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court.”

And I really don’t care what biased groups say about Israel. Did you know that back in 2014, the last time there was major armed conflict between Israel and Hamas, critics were accusing Israel of committing genocide then…when the death toll was a whopping 2500 people? All they’re doing is diluting the meaning of the term so much that it carries no weight anymore.

But Israel/IDF has indeed been found to probably have committed genocide. By agencies and systems in the UN. At this point it’s kinda pedantic if it’s called terrorism or not, because it’s genocide.>

This is false. The former chair of the ICJ herself clarified the ruling. They only ruled that it is plausible that the rights of the Palestinian people under the Geneva Convention are at risk, which is a fancy way of saying the ICJ has jurisdiction to hear the case.

And those horrors you refer to were all brought about by Iranian terror proxies who declared war on Israel. Unfortunately civilians suffer the most in war.

Yes, they’re biased against terrorists.

Samidoun is very closely linked to PFLP, which is a terrorist organization. They literally invented the airline hijacking.

Assuming you’re referring to Israel, they are literally not doing any of this.

Typical. Can’t engage in a discussion, huh? I’m guessing that’s because you know as much about Israel as Coates does.

There are roads that both Israelis and Palestinians are prevented from using FOR SECURITY PURPOSES. That’s the problem with Coates’ perspective, he refuses to even ask how it got to this point. He just looks around, sees fences and soldiers acting as security guards and says, “This feels like apartheid.”

It’s not the job of a journalist to kiss the interviewee’s ass and finish their sentences for them. That’s not journalism, that’s marketing and promotion.

The Jon Stewart interview is two people who don’t understand Israel at all talking as though they’re experts on Israel. Stewart didn’t ask Coates a single difficult question or challenge his narrative in any way at all.

Dokoupil did his job and the fact that he’s received so much backlash shows just how far journalism has deteriorated.

Coates thinks he’s an expert on Israel because he took one trip sponsored by Palestinian activist organizations and openly admits that he was only there to hear one side of the story.