Due to the severity of the situation and the fast flowing news cycle, we have decided to create a general megathread for discussion regarding the conflict.
Informal/Satirical news sources are not allowed on the main feed of the community but you are free to post them in this thread.
Please remember that all community and instance rules apply to this thread hence keep is civil.
Some facts about the Gaza Strip:
- Population: ~2.3 Million
- Area: 365 km² (141 sq mi)
- 41 km (25 mi) long, from 6 to 12 km (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide
- Population density: ~6300/km² 1
Gaza is very densely populated. In Gaza live as many people as in Houston. But Houston has an area of 1658.6 km² (640.4 sq mi). Thus Gaza has nearly five times the population density of Houston. New York City is the only city in the US with a population of more than a million and a higher population density than Gaza. 2 The tallest building in Palestine stands at 76.1 m (255 ft). 3
A little less than half of the population of Gaza is made up of children. 4
There are only three (“legal”) ways in and out of Gaza:
- Rafah Crossing into Egypt in the south
- Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel in the south
- Erez Crossing into Israel in the north
Gaza has a very small port. It can only be used by small fisher boats. 5
Israel built a wall and fences around Gaza. 6
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Why do Palestinians and Israelites hate each other?
Hmm, why would Palestinians hate European settlers that stole their land via the imperial edict of Britain? 🙄
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Can we acknowledge that it’s one of the most complicated geopolitical circumstances in the history of the world?
No, we can’t… because it’s not. It’s only “complicated” due to pro-Israeli propaganda and nothing else - it’s no more “complicated” than Apartheid South Africa was.
There’s only two teams. The imaginary side you made up in your head doesn’t exist.
It’s Hamas or Israel. Pick one.
Almost a troll-like insistence on lack of nuance to an extremely complex situation
The invocation of nuance is a trick to get you to not take a stance that matters and to stay trapped in your own head cooking up imaginary solutions that can never and will never happen.
The actually nuanced position is to support Hamas despite its flaws, because they’re the only material force that is fighting for Gaza.
The actually nuanced position is to be opposed to the bloodshed and race/religion-based tribalism happening with both the Israeli government AND Hamas, and to do more than just “tut tut” Israel’s recent activities in the West Bank and the virtual prison they’ve turned Gaza into.
The current Israeli government is committed to eradicating Islam from within the borders of Israel. The current Hamas leadership is committed to eradicating Jewish people from the face of the earth and setting up an Islamic state where Israel currently stands.
Despite these two diametrically opposed positions, the majority of Palestinian and Jewish Israelis are secular and just want to live their lives while being afforded basic human rights.
And this goes back further than 80 years; both groups tend to have last names based on bloodlines, and those last names invariably trace themselves back to people living and worshiping on the same physical land, often repeatedly.
The stance that matters is to be vocally opposed to ALL genocide; right now, that means being opposed to the actions of the Israeli government; it also means being opposed to the claimed goals of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranian government.
It also leaves room for celebrating legitimate overtures of peace and the thousands of people of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds who are currently putting their lives at risk to provide food, water and basic medical assistance to all the Israelis/Palestinians currently affected by this battle waged by hardliners and extremists.
The actually nuanced position is to be opposed to the bloodshed and race/religion-based tribalism happening with both the Israeli government AND Hamas, and to do more than just “tut tut” Israel’s recent activities in the West Bank and the virtual prison they’ve turned Gaza into.
Hamas is resisting Zionism, not Jews. They’re pretty explicit about that.
So if you oppose race/religion-based tribalism you support Hamas, because they’re the ones opposing it.
People don’t have to pick one or the other at all. I despise the Israeli government for their genocidal actions. I despise Hamas for terror attacks on innocent civilians.
The Israeli government is disgusting in their actions, and I very much hope for the freedom of the Palestinians, but fuck Hamas. You can support the Palestinians and their plight while condemning the people in charge.
I have support for any Israeli or Palestinian citizen that does not commit or advocate for senseless violence. Fuck the people in power in both places.
By not picking a side you become invisible and irrelevant. If you don’t want to pick a side, just tune out and go play video games or something because it’s basically the same thing.
What a Moronic take. Both sides bad so pick one!
No, stop putting up shit and you’ll get support from non insane people. They’re both being shitbirds, there’s no reason to approve of either behavior
When Palestinians held peaceful marches for freedom, Israel blew their knees out. Pacifism doesn’t work when one side thinks you’re animals.
Also, by choosing to not pick a side, you’re just tacitly siding with the winning side. Which side do your tax dollars go to?
No shit that I am irrelevant to the war in Gaza. I live on the other side of the world and dont have any political power. The most I could do is try to send some money to aid the Palestinian refugees, and I still would be invisible and irrelevant to it. Are you sending money, supplies, armaments, or fighting for Hamas? If not you are invisible and irrelevant to this conflict yourself. Just like 99.999% of the world’s population.
Vocal support matters in democracies. If Western governments stopped supporting Israel this war would be very different.
By not even vocally supporting anything you have taken away your own voice. You’ve silenced yourself.
“European settlers” in the sense that they hadn’t been in Israel since the Romans kicked them out in '65 for causing too much trouble with all their messiahs and religious zealotry.
2000 years!
They hadn’t ever been in Israel, they were born and raised in Europe by parents that were born and raised in Europe by grandparents that were born and raise in Europe etc. etc. They were Europeans, complete with white skin and European culture and European language.
This wasn’t refugees returning to their home. It was settlers invading nonwhite people’s land and stealing it for themselves.
Yes, the vague equivalent would be for the Native Americans to reclaim the United States via superior force ~1800 years from now.
Not even Native Americans!
It would be the equivalent of people with extremely diluted ancestry and no connection to any tribe, white people who practice a Native religion and speak an extremely deformed English dialect of some Native language but are otherwise just US Americans.
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racism, forced displacement and oppression
HMM WHY DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR?!
capped off with one of the most horrific genocides in the history of the world.
History repeats, I guess.
Keep screeching for nuance while Israel bombs evacuation routes and refugee camps with the full throated support of Europe and America.
2000 years of racism, forced displacement and oppression, capped off with one of the most horrific genocides in the history of the world.
And who is responsible for that, eh? The same “western civilization” that is now using Israel as a kapo state to do it’s dirty work in the middle-east, perhaps?
Tl;dr Israel showed up and kicked Palestinians out, Palestinians want their land back. Ensue 80 years of complications
Also Israel has two means of aquiring citizenship. First is having Jewish ancestry. The second and more problematic is that anyone who converts to Judaism can apply in a slower process that grants them citizenship. People who aquire citizenship can then live there and gain govt benefits that subsidize living cost, in other words, govt sanctioned stealing of Palestinian homes/land. Thats why Palestinians say they often hear settlers with Brooklyn accents. People who live in places like NYC with high costs of living are basically given the option to have much cheaper housing if they convert and forget their morals about theft.
So basically Israel recruits citizens from groups of people who have financial incentives to move there and lack a sense of humanity to turn down “free stuff stolen from destitute opressed people” and thus you build a citizenry who is totally comfortable with this Apartheid/Genocidal bullshit.
There’s more than 2 ways to get Israeli citizenship.
Both of those fall under the “right of return” for Jews.
Non-Jews with permanent residency can become citizens after 3 years if they give up their previous citizenship. Meanwhile, Jews are allowed to be dual citizens. For example, some Druze in the Golan Heights became Israeli citizens that way, particularly due to the Syrian Civil War.
Also, in 1952, Israel passed a citizenship law that gave citizenship to anyone who had been a national of the British mandate in 1948, had registered as an Israeli resident in 1949, and hadn’t left Israel before claiming citizenship. So about 170k Arabs were granted citizenship, while the ~720k who fled or were expelled during the war were excluded, although they expanded eligibility a bit in 1980 to include Arabs who had returned to Israel after the war.
It’s even simpler
Israel showed up and kicked the Palestinians out, those either unable to or unwilling to leave are now being subject to ethnic cleansing.
Or even simpler: Israel’s sole purpose is to exterminate Palestine.
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Israel also wants to keep the support from the US so they are cleansing slow enough that the US won’t care.
Like when Russia creates it’s breakaway regions as an excuse to take a chunk out of a country. No one cares when they did it to Georgia or when they are doing it to Moldova but with Ukraine they became too visible and got a pretty big backlash. The trick is to not do crimes too visibly.
Hey fella: they “showed up” from where, and why?
Why should the people in the Middle East suffer because of what nazi Germany did?
Why should the people in the Middle East suffer because of what nazi Germany did?
It’s not just the Nazis - it’s the entire west.
Israel has not even been founded because of the shoah
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There was never a place called Palestine outside of the British mandate
And there wasn’t a place called the United States of America until 1776?
Only after ‘67 were these locations earmarked as “Palestinian land”.
Because Israel took over more land that was fully inhabited by the Palestinians (for the second time)
And why, when Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, did they renounce any claims to Gaza and the West Bank instead of pushing for Palestinian statehood in those areas? It’s almost as if the Arab world chooses to keep the Palestinians poor and stateless as a means to vilify and discredit Israel…
Assuming you’re arguing in good faith, which is a huge assumption, the answer comes down to negotiating power. Egypt was able to get the entire Sinai peninsula back during these negotiations. Israel never fully gave up the Gaza strip, hence the second part of my tl;dr above: “Palestinians want their land back. Ensue 80 years of complications”
Technically it wasn’t so much Israel as Europe (and the US) but the Zionists definitely made their mark.
Europe (Britain mostly) and the US pushed the newly formed UN to pass a resolution calling for the creation of Israel in 56% of the territory, but the zionist militias actually took almost 75% of the land while destroying entire villages and murdering the existing population. The West continued to support them after that and have been tacitly approving of them taking even more of the land as the decades have gone by. The West is not blameless, but it was very much Israel that did it.
Palestinians want freedom and sovereignty, the Israeli government wants the exact opposite, and most Israeli people either support the government or don’t care what happens (particularly because they get
free real estatesettlements out of it).Most normal people don’t. But the political situation of “we were here first” vs. “This is now the land of Israel” causes whatever you see happening nowadays.
The situation is complex, dating back to British involvement with the Belfort Plan in delineating Israel’s territory. In recent years, a cycle fueled by radicals and right-wing hardliners on both sides has intensified.
Don’t get me wrong, the recent casualties result from pure terrorism and Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism. Israels retaliation on the other hand as we can see will create a human catastrophe affecting everyone. Hopefully both parties will immediately stop and opt for peaceful dialogue.
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They don’t it’s a bit to keep the west from crowding their tourist spots.
Yeah, these attacks and bombings are just an elaborate stage play to keep out the tourists… 🤦♂️
What’s the matter with you?
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Zionist colonisers from Europe forced Palestinians from their land 75 year ago and have continued to inflict death and misery on those that remain.
It goes back a bit further than that, right?
The Jaffa riots, for example, were back in 1921. Palestinians rioted and killed about 50 Jews, and British police killed about 50 Palestinians while trying to restore order.
Jews started buying land and moving to Palestine in the late 1800s.
You mean the world finally allowed the Jewish people to establish a country in their ancestral homeland (which has maintained a Jewish presence in that land for the last 4000 years) and the Arab world continually rejects a partition plan that would allow 2 states for 2 people, instead resorting to terrorism and a repeated call for the extermination of the Jewish people, resulting in Israel having to do what it must to protect its interests and the interests of the Jewish people everywhere.
Let’s not forget - the people referring to themselves as Palestinians could have had a state any number of times in the last century, but it’s not really about that, it’s about killing Jews. If a state is what they wanted, they could have had it by now:
San Remo conference decisions, 1920 League of Nations decisions, 1922 Peel Commission proposal, 1937 UN General Assembly proposal, 1947 Israel’s stretched out hand for peace, 1948 Israel’s offer of fixed official borders, 1949 Israel’s stretched out hand for peace, 1967 Begin/Saadat peace proposal, 1978 Rabin’s contour-for-peace, 1995 Barak/Clinton peace offer, 2000 Sharon’s peace gesture, 2005 Olmert/Bush peace offer, 2008 Netanyahu’s invitation for peace, talks, 2009 Obama/Kerry contour-for peace, 2014
Oh look… a genocide apologist has shown up.
You mean the world finally allowed the Jewish
What do you mean, “the world,” apologist? Antisemitism is purely a western invention - don’t blame the entire world for that which white people did.
Also, don’t pretend that Zionism is (somehow) a Jewish idea - the idea originated in Christian countries that wanted to dump Jewish people in Palestine due to… drumroll, please… the west’s antisemitism.
Do tell, Clyde… which part of the world’s murderous antisemitism is the root cause of the idea of a modern-day Israel even making sense to many Jewish people, eh?
Stop pretending that Christian Zionism doesn’t predate Jewish Zionism - that cat is out of the bag, Clyde.
Israel’s stretched out hand for peace
Oh, look… the genocide apologist is pretending the side that has been engaging in genocide somehow isn’t and that it’s the people experiencing genocide that is the cause of the fucking genocide.
Civilian meat grinder.
Is Egyptian/UN aid actually going to make it through the checkpoint? Egypt has had aid trucks parked outside for like days.
The trucks initially went in but initially backed out when Israel bombed the corridor again.
Water runs out at United Nations shelters in Gaza
Israel has cut off the flow of food, medicine, water and electricity to Gaza, pounded neighborhoods with airstrikes and told the estimated 1 million residents of the north to flee south ahead of Israel’s planned attack. The Gaza Health Ministry said more than 2,300 Palestinians have been killed since the fighting erupted last weekend.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN on Sunday that Israeli officials told him they had turned the water back on in southern Gaza. But the spokesman for Israel’s energy and water ministry, Adir Dahan, said it was only flowing at a single location in southern Gaza. Aid workers in Gaza said they had not yet seen evidence the water was back and a Gaza government spokesperson said it was not flowing.
Hmm! Why would the US spread Israeli misinformation? It’s a mystery! 🙃
About half a million Gaza residents have taken refuge in U.N. shelters across the territory and are running out of water, said Juliette Touma, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency, known by the acronym UNRWA. “Gaza is running dry,” she said, adding that U.N. teams have also begun to ration water.
Touma said a quarter of a million people in Gaza moved to shelters over the past 24 hours, the majority of which are U.N. schools where “clean water has actually run out,” said Inas Hamdan, another UNRWA spokeswoman.
Across Gaza, families rationed dwindling water supplies, with many forced to drink dirty or brackish water. Many resorted to going to dirty wells and the sea, increasing the risk of dehydration, water borne diseases and more deaths.
“I am very happy that I was able to brush my teeth today, can you imagine what lengths we have reached?” said Shaima al-Farra, in Khan Younis.
Settlers are sick.
Everyone knows that the UN is a Hamas front. Providing the UN with water is akin to providing Hamas with the heads of babies.
Might want to add a /s tag there or something, poe’s law
The fact that I have to is a condemnation of this community.
Yeah, we are trying to very actively crack down on it but you know how things are with the influx
Isn’t salty water worse than no water because of the dehydrating effects of salt?
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/gaza-airstrikes-israel-1.6998419
So they’re airstriking the south after telling everybody in the north to head south.
Obviously. No civilians are in the North to strike anymore.
I’m sure the school must have contained some Hamas fighters. After all, the median age in Gaza is like 18 years.
There are a few Canadian citizens stuck in Gaza and very much in danger. I’m hoping that some solution can be found to help these people out.
Bro wtf. The millions of people in Gaza are in danger, how does their individual citizenships matter when there is non-descriminative bombing over the urban areas as well as exit routes? Israelis even bombed and killed prisoners from Israel in Gaza
As a Canadian, dude’s probably interested to see how the Canadian government will respond.
I wouldn’t hold my breath. Trudeau isn’t going to step out of line from American policy to save a few measly Canadians, and Biden won’t allow Americans to leave unless Egypt opens their borders to Palestinians (which definitely isn’t going to lead to ethnic cleansing, of course).
apologies for the off topic, but this thread shows as 11 hours old and I only see 7 top level comments. for a major event mega thread I expected much more and I’m wondering if I’m doing Lemmy wrong somehow?
lemmy.ca defederated from hexbear.net and lemmygrad.ml, who are driving top-level comments on here. Since you can’t see the top-level comments, you also can’t see any discussion below.
I opposed lemmy.ca’s decision to defederated from hexbear based on the perceived behaviour of hexbear users on other instances for exactly this reason: I think an instance’s role is to police the actions of users posting to that instance, not to police their users’ exposure to other instances.
Lemmy version 0.19 can’t come soon enough - it’s going to bring more moderation tools, which should help mitigate defederation.
There’s also a lack of moderators as well, which causes either overreaching or insufficient actions a lot of the time.
It’s being extremely heavily moderated. (Not just the defederation.) You can gather the political stance by what comments remain.
Yeah, it’s not the easiest to read because most of the censorship is “user was banned from community”. Which seems to remove the comments as well.
The only comment text listed in the modlog are the truly vile ones.
Sometimes you remove comment and then ban the user and the comment removal hasn’t had time to propagate. But yeah, the vileness you see is the ballpark for what we remove.
Can you look at this one by @Pipoca 2 hours ago? I won’t paste the full text here for obvious reasons, but it seems pretty reasonable, mostly facts, and not vile at all. It just looks like a bad case of overmoderation.
mod Removed Comment - There’s a few things going on.
…
reason: Bothsidesing a genocide
If I recall correctly it described a genocide primarily through the lense of a two sided religious conflict. We remove that stuff as genocide apologia.
Oh. I thought that’s exactly what this was.
A friend of mine is volunteering for this organization. We’re trying to help as IT guys but if you know anyone stranded in Israel or Gaza, or want to aid them indirectly, I thought I’d pass the link.
(They’ve helped in other crisis scenarios as well)
Can you elaborate on the helping as IT guys part?
Can you elaborate on how you’re helping as “IT guys” ?
I too am an “IT guy” and would be interested in learning how my skills could assist those in need.
Mandatory watching for those interested in the history of the conflict: How Palestine became colonized.
