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Cake day: July 18th, 2023

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    • bombing civilian infrastructure which is likely to have families, children, non combatants inside is a war crime.
    • collective punishment is a war crime.
    • forcible relocation is a war crime.
    • ordering civilians to a new area and then bombing them en route or on arrival is intentional targeting of civilians, and therefore a war crime.
    • blockading a population within an area which you are actively shelling is a war crime.
    • depriving a population of non combatants of food and water and fuel is a war crime.
    • bombing a convoy of ambulances is a war crime.
    • bombing a refugee camp is a war crime.
    • killing reporters is a war crime.
    • use of white phosphorus on civilian targets is a war crime.

    Israel has done all of these things. There is no excuse for war crimes. It doesn’t matter how evil the enemy is, you are not allowed to do these things and not be a war criminal.


  • Just wanted to point out a few factual inaccuracies in your comment.

    1. This is no longer a justified conflict. A state has the right to self defence in a limited way. The right to self defence does not override the rules on collective punishment. The right to self defence does not include the right to invade a state where the enemy is a terrorist group within that state, rather than the state itself. The right to self defence does not override the rules on attacking civilian infrastructure (especially ambulances) even where there is suspicion that a terrorist organisation may be using it. The right to self defence does not override the rules on forcible relocation or blockade. In short, the response to an enemy using a human shield must not be to eliminate the shield. It’s astounding that so many people seem to need this explained to them. This is borne out by international law, cf. the UN charters.
    2. Israel did not do everything they could do to avoid this conflict. The one thing they had to do was to abide by the Oslo accords, yet they have built settlements in Palestine every single day since signing, and restricted Gazans every single day since signing. The two state solution has failed as a result of Israel’s actions. In terms of actions since October 7th, the usual way to go about dismantling an embedded terror organisation is to use counterintelligence, ground ops and precision strikes. The reasons are obvious, I hope. The only way to get those hostages back is either by freeing them in covert ops or by negotiation at a political level. Destroying entire city blocks from the air will not get the hostages back, as we all know.
    3. The label genocide is not misconstrued, according to the UN genocide experts. Some say there is a grave risk that this is a genocide, based on the available facts, and some say that it already fulfills the criteria.
      I can provide sources for all of my claims, if you’d prefer not to do the legwork yourself.

  • Sentience is a spectrum. Grubs and worms are barely more sentient than some plants, if at all. I think the yoga instructor’s take handles this well, since each individual decides on their threshold and it’s a personal choice. I like that, because it encourages people to consider it, without forcing an agenda. I doubt many people who then think about where their own threshold really lies would go the wrong way, i.e. from vegan to steaks for lunch. Merely reflecting on the suffering you may cause is likely to have a positive effect. Anyone who tries to be ethical in their choices has had this talk with themselves or with someone else. It’s getting people to actually think that’s the struggle. As usual.



  • Totally agree. I’m British, so bearing responsibility for all the horrific and stupid shit the people in charge of the place I was born have done is especially unappealing. Abolishing Israel isn’t the answer, nor is blaming powerless Israeli citizens. Even worse is attacking the Jewish diaspora around the world as if they have anything to do with it, that’s clear and unambiguous racism.
    Similar is the disgust for China/the CCP.
    Fuck the CCP --> valid criticism
    Fuck China --> ambiguous, could be either
    Fuck the Chinese --> outright racism
    The problem is the racist can hide behind the likes of the middle statement, using it as a dog whistle, and it can seem like it has huge support, even though most of the people agreeing think they are agreeing with the top statement.


  • Would you prevaricate thusly when speaking about, say, the third Reich? Or would you “delegitimise” that entire state? Maybe you should think twice before publicly “demonising” the Nazis?

    Sometimes a “whole state” bears criticism. Israel does, right now, because it is committing war crimes with western support.

    The 3D test unfortunately proves nothing. It would be very useful if we could prove criticism of Israel was coming from an anti-semitic place, but you can’t, because you can’t read minds. It’s one of the most insidious features of all racism: it’s very easy to hide. At the moment, though, it is fair to assume that a majority of the criticism of Israel comes from common decency and human compassion, because the IDF are dropping tower blocks on children in their thousands in “self-defense”. Anyone enabling those types of actions is the worst of humanity because of their actions and decisions, not because of which god they pray to.


  • Isn’t Israel quite happy to keep Israel and Judaism undifferentiated, though? They seem happy to conflate anti-zionism with anti-semitism, and even any criticism of the state of Israel, or support of Palestine as anti-semitism. With such broad and frankly ridiculous definitions, I’m not surprised to see a rise in so-called anti-semitism.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if hateful people did take delight in the genocide Israel is perpetrating, but I don’t see it. And criticising genocidal actions doesn’t require hatred for the perpetrators in order to be valid. Anti-semites were clear to lambast Israel at any point in the past 100 or so years, even more so now. And so were normal people.