Where, other than with mere hand waving? How did they explain away blowing courts and universities with rigged explosives? Soldiers bragging about "occupation, expulsion, settlement, annexiation"? All the talk about how there are no civilians in Gaza? How many people who said that has Israel prosecuted so far?

I changed it to "indoctrination". Which is a more polite word that doesn't really do it justice, but it's not really important because the result, the inability to even meaningfully interact with the charges, is a constant.

As George Orwell put it, from the totalitarian perspective history is something to be created, rather than learned. Or as Robert Antelme described a concentration camp guard: "trapped in the machinery of his own myth". I just cannot find a flattering way to describe these things, there just is no material to work with for that.

> Leading propaganda machine and former Member of Knesset Einat Wilf suggests that the Israeli government should allow aid into Gaza officially, but unofficially let "protesters" to block all aid from entering the Strip. I think that's actually kinda what happened today.

-- https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/175021647115263591...

> The Gaon Rabbi Dov Lior Shalita in a halachic ruling: Citizens must prevent the entry of Hamas trucks even on Shabbat, because equipping and supplying the enemy is a war act that must be stopped from the point of view of human control.

-- https://twitter.com/Torat_IDF/status/1750600997745959279

Probably a terrible translation but the point is clear, incitement and impunity, and the results are predictable.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/protesters-prev...

https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/gaza/prote...

Yesterday, 0 trucks could enter Gaza, the day before that 9 out of 60, don't know about today. Note that under the convention against genocide, Israel is required to prosecute genocidal speech, much less such genocidal acts (apart from not committing them of course). Instead, as Yoav Gallant just posted this on Twitter:

> The State of Israel does not need need to be lectured on morality in order to distinguish between terrorists and the civilian population in Gaza. The ICJ went above and beyond, when it granted South Africa's antisemitic request to discuss the claim of genocide in Gaza.

... which is as good a summary as any for what you find at every corner with this: not just the unwillingness to learn, but the inability to even comprehend any of this. When Gideon Levy talks about the incredible depth of Israeli indoctrination, he isn't kidding, and he's not exaggerating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

And here is him speaking to Congress over their shameful handling of benefits for 9/11 responders. Nuff said?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uYpDC3SRpM

It's very obvious that media, the university and politicians look the other way because of the content of the protests that were attacked. If Muslims sprayed protesters at a pro-Israel rally with chemical weapons, they would be in jail that same day, and budgets for terrorism prevention would bloat all across the nation. That's not even a question. Instead we have faculty actually calling attempts to identify the perpetrators as "doxxing", while continuing to smear people. That plus the tacit approval in form of a wall of silence is all brown shirts need to do their thing.

just from one account:

> 72 hours since i was sprayed w/ skunk on campus: zero appetite, keep on throwing up, and i feel terrible. very fatigued and having trouble sleeping. skunk has not come out of my hair after 11 showers.

-- https://twitter.com/itslaylas/status/1749523794803257616

> amazing how we have to document our own hospitalizations, beg columbia university to investigate, identify the ppl who did it, & people still don’t believe us. I wish we were joking y’all, this has been a nightmare.

-- https://twitter.com/itslaylas/status/1749670357651366303

> fascinating how faculty members at this university are so quick to rebrand after inciting violence against arab, muslim, & palestinian students for months. We warned y’all for months that your words have consequences. I was telling admin & faculty about how they needed to be careful with their language since November. Sent dozens of emails & filed numerous reports while grieving my family in Gaza. Now eight students are hospitalized. Dozens are injured.

-- https://twitter.com/itslaylas/status/1749675386563146034

> almost 96 hours since I was sprayed w/ skunk on campus: skin is still burning. very dizzy and nauseous. turned in items for police evidence & having to throw away the rest. i finally got 6 hours of sleep. skunk water sticks to any fabric & cannot be washed out.

-- https://twitter.com/itslaylas/status/1749865142399992236

> Columbia University promised that the students who attacked us with chemical weapons are banned from campus. They’re still here & coming to @Columbia’s campus, according to student accounts. No arrests have been made, we’ve been left in the dark.

-- https://twitter.com/itslaylas/status/1750185681790337324

> here he is, going right up to protest attendees to harass them. this attacker is supposed to have been “banned from campus” but students are still seeing him @Columbia. Ten students have been hospitalized now and our attackers are still on campus.

-- https://twitter.com/itslaylas/status/1750195190084575712

> 120 hours since I was sprayed with skunk on campus: skin is still burning. hard to sleep for long periods bc it burns so bad. skunk is still in hair, after 12 showers. had some luck using a HEPA air purifier in my room & using charcoal soap but still dealing w/ bad symptoms.

-- https://twitter.com/itslaylas/status/1750247913115021450

Post people with guns on the borders. Investigate what caused the extremely sluggish response by the IDF, too.

Don't use it as an excuse for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, while talking about the hostages that are paraded around as an objective in public, as "pawns" to be sacrificed behind closed doors.

https://twitter.com/UncapturedNews/status/174516348183630682...

While IDF soldiers make TikToks literally showing off and bragging about war crimes, in the hundreds by now, given licence by hundreds of people from highest ranks of politicians to generals to "journalist" talking about how there are no innocent people, no civilians in Gaza, just "human animals" and so on. And how everyone who talks back is a Hamas supporter and/or antisemitic.

In a self-righteous fury that gets worse, no less. Which isn't explained by grief over a past event or even a knee-jerk "security" reaction, but rather by the increasing guilt: people painting themselves into a corner by running away from crimes they already committed by doubling down on them, and projecting the guilt as hatred onto those who call it out. That's as old as criminals and mobs, and it leads to war crimes in Gaza just as predictably as it emboldens settlers in the West Bank to up attacks, as it does to attacks on people elsewhere:

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/22/columbia-university-pale...

> Regarding journalists: incidents have occurred

That way one can dismiss anything. "brutally killed", "grim reality" on the one hand, "incidents", "oversimplification" and "politically motivated rhetoric that trivializes real and horrific genocides" on the other.

https://rsf.org/en/israeli-politicians-call-journalists-gaza...

and don't forget https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh

> On October 26, 2023, a memorial erected at the site of her killing was bulldozed by the Israeli army during a raid.

And this is how they acted during her funeral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y11CVGz7toM

These are not mere "incidents", they're a criminal habit.

> This rhetoric can trivialize historical genocides, which were real and horrific.

As if this one isn't real or horrific?

https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/alerts-archive/issue...

"This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity that the IPC initiative has ever classified for any given area or country."

The last number I heard was that 80% of the catastrophically hungry people in the world right now are in Gaza.

Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal says it's a "textbook case of genocide". Omer Bartov says it might be genocide, but that there are "clear signs of ethnic cleansing" and likely war crimes. To just shrug them and many more off as politically motivated or skimming the surface seems ironic.

> If Palestinians [..] ceased targeting civilians

What does that even mean? As if all Palestinians, instead of starving and freezing, are still holding a rifle pointed at civilians, while IDF soldiers hell bent on keeping innocent people from getting hurt say "drop the weapon"?

Collective punishment is a crime. Nothing you said and nothing anyone could say justifies it.

The argument is that someone wishing they could commit ethnic cleansing does not excuse actually committing it on a third party. Just like Hamas thinking collective punishment is justified doesn't mean you get to respond with collective punishment. Hamas and other terrorists are not the standard.

I wouldn't put it like that, but for what it's worth:

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-17/ty-article/.p...

> 'Unlawful, Unethical, Horrifying': IDF Ethics Code Author on Alleged Use of 'Hannibal Directive' During Hamas Attack

> Asa Kasher, the philosopher who wrote the IDF's Code of Conduct, tells Haaretz that incidents in which the infamous operational order may have been used on October 7 must be investigated immediately: 'There is absolutely nothing [in the code] to allow someone to kill an Israeli citizen, in uniform or not'

The claim was that Netanyahu preferred Hamas "to ensure there was never a 2 state solution", which is true.

And so far it that seems to be working out. Mass starvation, infectious diseases, day 7 of the internet blackout in Gaza, the university in Gaza was just blown up with wired explosives, the Israeli government (even Mossad on Twitter, heh) proudly show it off.

Hamas doesn't explain all that, the expansionist goals do, including why one would have preferred Hamas. There was never a realistic threat of Hamas "destroying all of Israel" from Gaza, regardless of what Hamas might have wished they were capable of, but the destruction of all of Gaza, and the people in it, is going on with a speed and ferocity we haven't seen before.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2024/jan/11/palest...

Allegedly, the count of bombs dropped on Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, half the population being minors, now surpassed the amount of bombs dropped in the second Iraq war by US and UK combined in ~8 years, that number being 29,199 bombs according to Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bombings_during_the_Ir...

Here's an older (this all moves so quickly) article also discussing the 2000lbs bombs: https://edition.cnn.com/gaza-israel-big-bombs/index.html

> A man sits on debris as Palestinians conduct a search and rescue operation in Jabalya refugee camp in Gaza City, on November 1

Were there tunnels under the refugee camp? I don't know, and I don't care. One cannot hide the elephant of the violent excesses, the genocidal language and the settlers who seem to have their every whims catered for, completely behind the fig leaf of Hamas and the actors that support them.

> I have not seen anyone say this before.

Smotrich is very blunt about this, as just one example of many.

https://twitter.com/ireallyhateyou/status/174690024226652991...

"Soldiers in Gaza saying they won't stop until their mission is completed: "Occupation, Expulsion, Settlement"

One of many such clips, most with a backdrop of flattening whole blocks with wired explosives.

https://twitter.com/PeruginiNic/status/1747730495482310771

"The Israeli military just blew up the University of Palestine in Gaza City with 315 mines. All the universities in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed."

Same thing with the supreme court of Gaza:

https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17317722618482647...

What more "concessions" is Palestine supposed to make here? They already get treated like people without any rights whatsoever. What more could they "concede" that hasn't been ripped from them already?

I'd say that's simply accurate, and should be said more often, not less.

By destroying civilian infrastructure, targeting journalists, using starvation? No, that can kill all civilians in Gaza, and then there still will be Hamas in a tunnel somewhere.

And that Hamas dude is not an actor? I thought you meant movie actors.

But okay, the only people who say the kind of stuff that is normalized in Israeli society and repeated from highest ranks to lowest soldier, the only equivalent to it, is Hamas. (and probably Antisemites and all sorts of terrible people, but nobody that is remotely considered respectable by anyone in the West). You kind of made that point for me.

> IDF has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, so 5 of them made a tiktok, so what? it's irrelevant.

And when many, many, many of public Israeli figures call all people in Gaza animals and call for extermination, then that's irrelevant because Hamas the terrorist organization is saying terrorist things ^^

At any rate it's not 5, and the fact that they make these genocidal statements while destroying civilian infrastructure, including usually naming their unit, often even the name of the person who leads it, makes it clear that it's not fringe, it's not something hidden, it's not a video that was stolen of a flash card, it's what they upload on social media and get celebrated for at home. And that rhetoric seems to matches the actions on the ground way better than all that stuff about this being "war" and aimed primarily at Hamas.

There simply aren't justifications for using starvation against civilians, calling them animals and calling for their extermination, while IDF soldiers make videos rifling through the belongings of Palestinians to mock them, talking about colonization. "They" (Israeli hard right etc.) always wanted to take the land, so using the crimes of Hamas as an excuse to do just whatever, for just targeting infrastructure to make Gaza unlivable, as they so proudly describe in interviews, while repeating how it's all just self-defense is just too transparent.

> it's clear that this would have been a lot worse for Israel if the blockade wasn't there

You think? As they say, there is nothing scarier than a man without hope, and nobody is complaining about not letting weapons in. At least I am not.

There is the cost to Israel. You cannot commit and justify atrocities, dehumanize other humans completely, without getting deeply damaged yourself. As Chris Hedges wrote about comraderie (versus friendship), it feels great in war time, it's a high, for a while, but the comedown is really depressing and lonely.

And then there is the damage in the eyes of the world, which will keep trickling in for many years. The US, UK, Israel and Germany have no credibility right now except to each other and the usual vassals.

> I'm not going to try to enumerate Israel's mistakes, but when you decide to invite a coterie of journalists to the hospital you damaged to provide proof of your claims that it was actually a hive center of terrorist activity, and all of them come away basically saying "this evidence isn't good enough," then that should be a sign that it's not PR that's the problem of Israel, it's Israeli actions that are the problem that needs addressing.

And the difference Gaza which has been cut off from the internet for 4 days in a row now, and a government that buys Google ads to smear the ICJ genocide charges as being politically motivated support of Hamas, is rather stark. The US senate just voted with a 75% majority to not even record Israeli war crimes. Are they affording that to other countries in the region, too?

> let alone countries in their own region

That's such an odd defense we never hear anywhere else, but constantly in contest of Israel. Why would the physical region matter? Those other countries aren't taking part in the Eurovision song contest, for example. They're not claiming to be a democracy respecting humanitarian values. Israel was founded by educated Europeans in no small part, not people from the region. If someone brags so much, including having "the most moral army in the world", while that army is doing what it is doing now, it might have something to do with them (too), not (only) the people who don't buy it having double standards.

We expect no better of other countries who currently aren't developed and weren't ever, we're barely even on speaking terms with them, when it comes to having a place at our table in polite company. I bet they also brag about being the best and having the best army, but we don't even hear about it and don't care. If one of them got accused of genocide via a formal trial, most media outlets would have covered and translated the first hearing, where the accusations where laid out -- instead of totally ignoring that and then reporting on Israel's so-called defense the next day.

We certainly don't have a fleet of journalists embedded in the armies of other countries in the region posting feel good stories, while the other half is writing up other random personal interest stories to make people feel good about the part of the picture they're not being shown at all. Or politicians just leaping to their defense before the ink on the accusation is even dry: https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2024/01/germany-rushes-to-decl...

As exemplified by a teacher put into solitary confinement for posting about innocent deaths in Gaza and suggesting having empathy for those.

Can you show me some, who aren't getting smeared and persecuted for it? I am not aware of a single one.

Some IDF soldiers made TikToks addressing Netanyahu, starting their intent to complete "Occupation, Expulsion, Settlement". There are dozens of them bragging about how many houses they are blowing up, while they do it with wired explosives. Right now, the last "functioning" hospital in Gaza is under attack, while Israeli youth make fun of "killing Palestines" (most of them can't even pronounce "Palestinian" apparently) in live video chats. Some dude on Israeli TV saying "I'll be honest, I don't care about the war crimes, I just want to see buildings destroyed, mooooore buildings" etc. and everyone laughs.

[edit: And the line that "there are no innocent people in Gaza" is still being repeated by all sorts of people, including military. Here's for example Lt. Col. Oren Schindler in a radio interview: "We need need to make sure that wherever the IDF meets Gaza, there is devastation. Nothing less, nothing more. Where Battalion 74 was - it happened. I can garuantee you that devastation, nothing less, in every place we were, there was only sand left, and houses on the ground. Because in every home, unfortunately I learned that in Gaza there is no innocence."

One might say this proves they don't want to kill innocent people, but Hamas forces them to, etc. but given the context and the actions, I'll just note that this is true about any atrocity. Look any of them up, from the most obvious to the most obscure ones, and you'll find someone painting the it as either a.) doing good or b.) doing bad because bad people forced them to or c.) doing bad for good reasons or a good goal that sanctifies the bad deeds. I doubt "genocide lawyers" would weigh such lip service much, if at all.]

Yes, there were also thousands of people in Israel chanting "Bibi, Bibi, you can't hide, you're committing genocide". But they sure are in the extreme minority.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/it-is-a-time-o...

> “Most Israelis don’t know much about Palestinians. They think they are terrorists, all of them, or vague images with no names, no faces, no family, no homes, no hopes,” Baruchin said. “What I am trying to do in my posts is present Palestinians as human beings.”

> Ten days after that Facebook message, he was fired from his teaching job in Petach Tikvah municipality. Less than a month later he was in a high-security jail, detained to give police more time to investigate critical views he had never tried to hide.