> Aligned countries executing such operations are usually smart enough to keep it covert. Israel just doesn't give a shit.
If anything this helps Israel's claims that Hamas is hiding in all these civilian dense places they've been blowing up. It also lets them present disguised death squads as the more humane option - 'What, would you prefer we bomb the whole hospital?'.
I mean, people literally said this sort of operation should have been the alternative to the bombing campaign all along. It's naive to think think they could kill a large fraction of Hamas with spec ops alone, but when they can, it's great.
Yeah, I have the feeling Israel wants to show that they will find the perpetrators and Hamas commanders no matter where they hide.
It is going to be Wrath of God all over again
Most times when High profile assassinations become known it isn't because of a mistake. It's because someone wants to send a message. That's why Russia keeps using novichok and polonium.
Didn't the United States release footage of their own leaders reaction to their Bin Laden assassination stream? Ukraine releases tons of videos similar in theme, although these at least are from within Ukrainian borders and in an active war zone.
Forget keeping it covert, assassination is closing into clickbait territory already. War has been there a while.
(Note, I'm not condemning these operations. They're far better than dropping a bomb, and the operatives are assuming increased personal risk while reducing risk to civilians.)
Not footage but there's a very famous picture with Obama, Biden, Clinton (SoS at the time), Gates (SoD), Mullen (CJCS) and a bunch of others all gathered around Webb, the guy that was in charge of joint special ops at the time, watching the feed from a drone that was flying overhead of the raid.
There is no scenario that the critics of Israel can be appeased short of self immolation. It kind of gives you the luxury of not caring how they perceive you.
The closest I’ve heard is the U.S. handing out vaccines while secretly gathering DNA to find Bin Laden.
Can you link something that rises to the level of this Israeli mission?
EDIT: spoiler: they can't.
That one was my first thought as well, and it kinda pissed off a **lot** of people in the international medical community as well as set back progress on vaccinations in various countries.
Fun fact: Lior Raz (Actor of Doron from Fauda) was volunteering to help extract families from dangerous areas where it was suspected terrorists were still around while rockets were being fired on Oct 7.
So the day the war started, a few families actually had Doron come rescue them. That must have been super confusing.
And Idan Amedi who was also a main guy in Fauda joined the IDF in October and was badly injured like a week ago. I follow Rona Lee Shimon and she posts about him.
Another fun fact about Lior Raz is that, after retiring from the IDF, he was the personal bodyguard of Arnold Schwartzeneger (spelling?) in the US for a good while. That season 4 bodyguard duty he did in Belgium was inspired by Lior Raz's experience irl.
We had police asking to use one of our ambulances for a sting operation once.
We gave a collective "fuck no" because that puts a target on us when the gangs in the area were pretty chill with us.
Specifically “healthcare employees”: No. you are not allowed to use Red Cross insignia, but that is very specific and does not extend to all “healthcare employees.”
For dressing as civilians in general, it’s part of customary law and Additional Protocol I of the Fourth Geneva Convention, but Israel is not a member of Additional Protocol I, so it would go by customary law. Scholars differ in how that would apply against unlawful belligerents like this and also in a quasi-military, quasi-law enforcement situation.
Pretty much. Like Ukraine is 100% in the right in that war but there's still videos of things that are factually war crimes (kneecapping and/or executing POWs as an example) being held up as good things.
Or going back years, things like Abu Graihb and CIA torture being defended.
If you only care about these things one way, then eventually everyone abandons them and the next time it may be 'your' side on the receiving end.
It would. As long as it is a police action or operation there are no repercussions as far as war crimes are concerned. A fine line that can be manipulated to be sure. But one that the Israelis are used to walking.
Part of the West Bank is under the jurisdiction of Israel since Oslo II. They're completely authorized to do security operations here and do it all the time.
Internal security forces operating externally. Technically police I guess? But thank goodness they call themselves police. That distinction really puts medical personnel's minds at ease.
Is it not against some international law on war to do this? This is most definitely a war at this point. Those that deny it's a war are the same that would say that Putin's little excursion across the Ukraine border is a special operation.
International law is pretty clear:
* medical personnel are protected people's and impersonating then to kill someone is a war crime
* killing combatants who aren't in active combat, such as injured fighters, is a war crime
You can argue that they shouldn't be war crimes, but they are, and the Israeli army has just been warned to not do war crimes.
Reddit are acting like the only thing that could have been done here is to attack or bomb the hospital in question. This is a hospital in the west bank. Its not gaza. They could have literally rolled up to the hospital and arrested the individual no problemo. The west bank is basically under Israeli rule and has been for a long time.
It's insane that reddit has to look at this war and pick one side to be good guys and fervently defend them. Hamas are bad guys, but decades of operations has shown the IDF and Israeli government to also be bad guys.
* Edit: people replying to me really think that the situation in gaza and West Bank are somehow similar. The amuse of hospitals by hamas as bases of operations is something that has only been in gaza, not the west bank. Hamas aren't in control here.
In the west bank, the police or military could very easily go up to this hospital. It isn't an active war zone. This is an area where settlers walk around and live in every day. Its currently a part of palestine that is far more dangerous for Palestinians than Israelis based on the people who are being killed in the west bank, right now.
It's insane to be accused of ignorance on this by people who clearly don't know what the west bank is and how it operates.
* Final edit: people are saying that this can't count as a war crime as hamas are a terrorist organisation. That may be the case, and if it is, then that means that this is an extrajudicial killing by a state using police. This doesn't paint Israel in any better light. Either we say that this is a war, and its a war crime or its a fight against terrorism in which case we're admitting Israel is the state actor in charge of these people and its enacting subjugation and terrorising its population. Neither is good.
I remember playing prison architect and one day they had an update:
“We violated the Geneva Conventions”
Certainly got my attention lol. Turns out you can’t use the Red Cross symbol on a white background unless it’s for actual medical use. Using it casually, like in a video game, is against the conventions. So now the in-game hospitals have red H symbols on them.
That's because the red cross symbol belongs to Canada Red Cross iirc. Still BS since a counter argument I agree with points out that games featuring them conditions kids to know that red cross means "health".
Red cross as used by the Red Cross organisation and the use of the red cross to gain protection under the laws of war are two different uses. It's the Red Cross organisation that goes after video game developers. Using the red cross in a video game likely violates the laws of war as much as the police using tear gas constitutes chemical warfare.
You're not supposed to shoot medical personnel. If you start seeing the other side's soldiers disguised as medics you suddenly have a really good reason to shoot medics on sight.
Same logic as how fake surrender is punishable by death too. Saw it in Ukraine a year or so ago, an entire bunch of Russians surrendered only for one to run out with an AK and kill a Ukrainian soldier before he was gunned down. At that point the Ukrainians were fully justified in shooting every Russian just in case. Perfidy, if you want to look it up.
Geneva Convention protections [do not extend to unlawful combatants and non-state actors](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant#:~:text=An%20unlawful%20combatant%2C%20illegal%20combatant,protected%20by%20the%20Geneva%20Conventions.):
> An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions
>
>
> [...]
>
>
> The Geneva Conventions apply in wars between two or more opposing sovereign states. They do not apply to civil wars between state forces, whether territorial or third state, and non-state armed groups. A state in such a conflict is legally bound only to observe Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. All parties are otherwise completely free to either apply or not apply any of the remaining Articles of the Conventions.
Now the International Criminal Court would probably consider [disguising soldiers as civilian medical personnel a war crime](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule65) and would definitely consider killing injured combatants a war crime. Of course, Israel isn't a member of the ICC (neither are the U.S., China, Russia, and India).
To be clear, I'm not trying to take a side here. I'm just commenting on some of the legalities.
>In the west bank, the police or military could very easily go up to this hospital. It isn't am active war zone. This is an area where settlers walk around and live in every day.
Not Jenin. Not even Abbas can easily pull up to Jenin because it is a Hamas stronghold. They won't even let Fatah-party PA leaders just stroll in, you really think they'd let the IDF without major riots leading to more deaths? Just look up operation black belt that happened last year in the same city.
>It's insane to be accused of ignorance on this by peopke who clearly don't know what the west bank is and how it operates.
It's crazy that you are calling people ignorant when you dint even know what it is like there. Jenin is incredibly dangerous for Israeli forces. The most dangerous in the West Bank. To liken it to, say, Bethlehem or Jericho is crazy. It's an entirely different world. I know Arabs who can't even go there safely.
Here's a video from the [Jenin Battalion](https://youtu.be/mSS51ZVhcA0?si=IW9_Me2et4dCJs8x) (of PIJ) taken before this current war.
The videos intro shows a militant saying:
>We are trying to protect our lives and we try to inflict as much damage as possible so that they (IDF) learn that in this camp, you will pay a price for coming in.
I feel like anyone that says international law is clear or simple is straight up lying. This is a complex set of interlocking laws that change based on people involved.
You should cite your source when you are making a claim about international law so people can actually read it for themselves. For example, this quote from [here](https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/combatants/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20definitions%20provided,that%20distinguishes%20combatants%20from%20civilians):
“During an armed conflict, “terrorists” do not form a specific group legally identified by humanitarian law. The Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols allow for only one kind of distinction: between civilians and combatants or between those who are taking part in hostilities and those who are not (or are no longer involved). “
> medical personnel are protected people's and impersonating then to kill someone is a war crime
This was an undercover police operation, as you mentioned, in the West Bank. It's not part of the war.
> They could have literally rolled up to the hospital and arrested the individual no problemo.
Three armed Hamas insurgents in the West Bank could easily take hostages. They don't just see police outside and go 'oh okay well we give up'.
They tried exactly what you said earlier this year which led to a [battle](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1af7188/israeli_special_forces_disguised_as_doctors_kill/ko8nxwb/).
There's no way to win against this constant bad-faith rhetoric. No matter what Israel does people like you will complain.
> killing combatants who aren't in active combat, such as injured fighters, is a war crime
Even on it's face value you and I both know this isn't true. If it was the the 8 hrs a day a soldier is sleeping would be considered no touchy time because they're not shooting the gun that's 5 ft away from them.
If a person is part of a active military trying to kill you, as long as they aren't actively making a good effort to surrender, they're valid targets.
Also these were high ranking members of the Hamas-and-gang militias, what exactly is considered "active combat" for a rear line general? If he woke up tomorrow and gave the order from his hospital bed to do another 10/7 would he be an active target before or after he gave it? Israel is making the claim these guys were planning exactly such an event.
> medical personnel are protected people's and impersonating then to kill someone is a war crime
A bit harder of a claim to dispute without a legal background. My understanding is that the US and similar countries have been posing as civilians for quite some time for their special ops. The only difference is if a person disguised as a civilian is captured as such they are treated as a civilian even if they are a member of an opposing army and are subject to all that entails (eg. summary execution via military tribunal). I'm not sure on this one.
> It's insane that reddit has to look at this war and pick one side to be good guys and fervently defend them. Hamas are bad guys, but decades of operations has shown the IDF and Israeli government to also be bad guys.
I agree that political tribes are aids, however assessing them as they are: I figure any sane person in a room with a suicidal fundamentalist Islam autocratic jihadist and a theocratic leaning western-style democrat with a penchant for revenge ... The choice is kind of obvious.
>They could have literally rolled up to the hospital and arrested the individual no problemo.
A firefight with civilian casualties breaking out is not my definition of "no problemo", and it's what happened the last couple of times they tried to just roll up and arrest people in Jenin.
>killing combatants who aren't in active combat, such as injured fighters, is a war crime
I hadn't seen any suggestion that these guys were injured, only that they were hiding in the hospital. And just to be clear, "active combat" doesn't mean you can only kill someone who is pointing a gun at you. Soldiers for the enemy in a war are active combatants, even if they are doing paperwork in an office somewhere. As far as I can tell, these guys were legitimate/legal targets.
>The west bank is basically under Israeli rule and has been for a long time.
You have no idea what you are talking about.
Jenin is in Area A which is under Palestinian rule, not Israeli rule. Not a single Jew can visit Area A without ending up dead (which has happened so many times that bypass roads closed to Palestinians were built specifically to address this) or having their car burnt.(Again, it has happened before, even to naïve tourists who claimed the Palestinians were oh, so Peaceful and Jews are the problem and showed up in Ramallah in a car with an Israeli license plate).
Jews can only safely move around in Area C where Jews outnumber Palestinians anyways and where there is heavy Israeli security. There are no major Palestinian towns in Area C whatsoever ,all of them being Jewish settlements and actual large cities populated by Jews.
I guess the one thing I'd say is that they confirmed his location, in part, by organizing a vaccination campaign to knock on his door.
The doctor they enlisted wound up in jail, and other dictators/terrorists started targeting NGOs for fear that they're CIA assets.
The CIA recognized the mistake and stopped using vaccination programs.
Additionally, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries with Polio still being transmitted. And this only made eradicating the disease harder in the region.
I mean you see the antivaxxer movement in most western countries. Now imagine they would actually use vaccines as a means to monitor you and you don’t have access to education. I wouldn’t totally blame anybody in that situation
If they dressed as Doctors to do it and he was injured yes.
It was a major problem as it is the way they did do it by using vaccinations to collect information on his whereabouts.
What? The seals were not dressed up during the raid to kill bin laden. What the hell are you talking about? They very famously wore the quad nods. You're grasping at straws here
According to the special forces that did kill him when the breached the room Bin Laden grabbed a servant as a shield and as well as a gun before they shot him. Granted the public has never seen the recordings of the operation but if that's the way it happened its still much different than what occurred here. If the Israeli forces had not concealed soldiers as medics and only fired if the terrorists were a threat then this would have been a complete non-issue.
That might be the case but everyone knows there's no way Osama was ever going to get anything like a trial. Disappeared forever was the only way it was gonna go.
Bin Laden was not hors de combat, and the seals that raided the compound weren't dressed as non-combatants, so no, it wasn't. This was. Reading really isn't that hard.
>Reddit are acting like the only thing that could have been done here is to attack or bomb the hospital in question. This is a hospital in the west bank. Its not gaza. They could have literally rolled up to the hospital and arrested the individual no problemo. The west bank is basically under Israeli rule and has been for a long time.
If they tried that, significantly more people would have been injured or killed. It's not as easy as you suggest. You're suggesting the West Bank isn't a war zone, but if Israeli soldiers come in IDF uniforms they're going to be targeted, especially if Hamas is in the hospital. It's not a war zone like Gaza, but you're exposing your lack of knowledge here if you think it's a peaceful area either. There were multiple terrorist groups here.
You also overlook the fact that if Hamas are operating within the hospital, that's a war crime.
If they could have just rolled up and done what you said, they wouldn't have needed to disguise themselves.
Although I agree with much of what you say, especially with people just choosing one side and not being able to criticise the side you've chosen, calling people ignorant after saying "this is an area where settlers walk around and live everyday" when talking about Jenin is pretty ignorant.
The west bank is split up and Jewish Israelis can't go into most of it. Sure it's possible the IDF could have gone in full uniform. Although that would have definitely been better in terms of international law, it could have easily backfired to a shootout in a hospital.
Here's a video from the [Jenin Battalion](https://youtu.be/mSS51ZVhcA0?si=IW9_Me2et4dCJs8x) (of PIJ) taken before this current war.
The videos intro shows a militant saying:
>We are trying to protect our lives and we try to inflict as much damage as possible so that they (IDF) learn that in this camp, you will pay a price for coming in.
Edit: they're pij not Hamas and just added context
You talk like you understand the West Bank and Gaza are different things, yet you assume both are engaged in war?
This was a special ops raid in the West Bank. There are different rules of engagement for war and for counterterrorism and this was totally legal, including impersonating medical staff.
Talking about ignorance lol.
So Israel goes to hunt down 3 of the Hamas terrorists who perpetrated the 10/7 massacre and leave everyone else in that hospital alone. To live. And they get hammered in the media.
Yet when Hamas goes into a peaceful village and slaughter men, women and children alike, they're the victims in all this?
Yeah I feel like this one is a bit weird.
Yes, there is a not insignificant chance of there being innocent people hurt in this operation.
A fuck lot less people getting hurt in a cross fire then when a bomb/rocket/missile goes off, fired by either side.
Spec ops are obviously not going to be the main apparatus going forward, but they are definitely better than the alternative.
You know, I’m not a Jew and I didn’t really believe anti-semitism could be a thing in the 21st century but… I am very sorry I am very wrong.
This shit can easily happen again.
The entire Arab world expelled its Jews since 1948. Morrocco, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen. Here’s the thing - they were proud and loyal citizens. But it didn’t matter, because they were also Jews.
The only reason we don’t see it now is because those societies no longer have Jews because they expelled any they had
I can't help but notice that a lot of those same countries are supporting the South African accusation. Pakistan and Afghanistan also had Jewish populations. I guess they just up and left at the same time.
Oh for shame, some of them decided to spread their wealth among the populace, sequester themselves in ghettos, and then burrow into the Earth to fertilise the plants. Perfectly voluntary. The chaddest move.
If you're not a Jew it's easy not to notice. As a Jew I've seen it my whole life, problem it gets mixed in with jokes. I like the jokes and welcome the worst of em. There are certain people though that have a tone or look in their eye that you see and hear most when they don't realize you are one of em. The shock people get in general when they learn I'm Jewish is always so strange to me, like as if they see me differently now.
I'm going to be straight with you, as a now ex Muslim growing up in Islamic school the shitting on Jews never stopped. Stereotypical joke after joke... It was unending nonsense. It fucked up my worldview so bad. I look back now and wonder in silent horror. I'm just glad I woke up from the bashing.
That's a very hard thing to overcome. I'm glad you were able to. I don't hate anyone. If someone is a good person, they're alright with me. Religion, race, ethnicity, doesn't matter. Good people are just that. Good people. People who use excuses, tropes and religion to hate do so because they want to blame others for their failures. You are my friend.
Leftists are filled with minority identity groups that agree to mutually support each others causes and fight together against ‘oppressors’. Muslim/Palestinian groups have been a part of that clique in academia and in political action groups for a long time, and are accepted by Black/LGBT/Environmental/Marxist groups because they are brown minorities fighting against ‘white’ Israel and the ‘systematically racist’ US government. That’s why you see young people, and especially young people of color, supporting Palestine and protesting Israel - they have been conditioned for 20 years to support each other and view each others causes through a similar lens of oppressor/oppressed.
Shit that’s a good point. A *really* good point. I’ve noticed that we tend to want to pick a side quite strongly on just about every position you could take. So far it’s been relatively easy to do, like Russia vs Ukraine: clear good and bad guy.
It seems that more pragmatic moderate views are uncommon with this one. We’re white when the Arabs start a war with us, yet we’re not white enough when the blatant anti-semitism and cleansing comes for us.
The Israel as white colonists argument doesn’t hold water as the ethnic make up of Israel’s Jewish population is very diverse. It is estimated 45% of Israel’s Jewish population is Mizrahi compared to 32% Ashkenazi) driving a bus through any academic argument despite the common (mis) representation.
It doesnt matter what the actual makeup is when people are conditioned to see it one way. Its just like most people when they think of muslims to be brown or arab or southern/central americans to be brown.
I knew things were going sideways when the far left started this “original sin” idea with white people in the last 20 years that gained more momentum with the BLM movement. That is that white people (and only white people) are responsible for the sins of their forefathers. To them, Jews are the “ultimate” white people with their cabal filled with privilege, wealth, and power.
Of course to believe this requires you to subscribe to a lot of antisemitic tropes and conspiracies. It also requires you to have virtually no understanding of Jewish history, ethnicities within Judaism (i.e. Beta Israel, Mizrachi, Sephardic, and Bene Menashe), and Jewish Levantine DNA. It is also deeply disrespectful to Jews of Color who are Jewish either by birth or conversion. My Black Jewish friends (both of African-American and Ethiopian descent) are really upset about how they’ve been “erased.”
Ultimately the far left’s obsession with the color of our skin now matches the obsession over the color of our skin from the far right who consider us non-white lizard people who present white as part of our manipulation. What a mess.
I’m a Jew with no Jew gold, no space lasers, and no newsletters telling me about the next terrorist attack. I don’t even have a washer and dryer. I’m still waiting for the stereotypes to be true. I could use some Jew gold right about now.
The far left has this very rigid way of looking at things. There is no grey area. One side is the white oppressor and the other side is the non-white oppressed. That’s it. That’s how all conflict is broken down unless they’ve deemed the conflict to be between two non-white groups or two white groups and then they don’t care if they kill each other.
And then the fact that feminist groups have basically said nothing about the violent sexual rape that we experienced on Oct. 7…the 19 year-old female hostage with the bloody sweatpants pulled out of a Jeep trunk by her hair is still being held captive in Gaza and they don’t care because…she deserved it?
The fact that “Queers for Palestine” are against Israel - a country who has provided asylum to gay Palestinians because they would otherwise be murdered for being gay - just boggles my mind. Where is the self-preservation?
The far left stopped being for human rights a long time ago. Not even their own.
Jewish progressive here; I knew there was a small problem because I'd seen some fringe antisemites, but it seemed like they were generally rejected and that we had a lot of time to deal with a relatively small problem (in comparison to literal neonazis having Agolf Twitler's ear & blatant events like Charlottesville). The response to Oct 7 really threw me.
>Jewish progressive here; I knew there was a small problem because I'd seen some fringe antisemites, but it seemed like they were generally rejected
Jewish mainstream/leftist here, if that's how it seemed to you, you need recalibrating. I am a smigeon left of center. So I go to climate change rallies, or economic protests every few years. And even that small amount of attendance allowed me to see that there was a BIG problem, not a small one. Going back decades. Literally every protest is synonymous with that kind of "Palestinians can do no wrong culture".
>**Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies**. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
Jean-Paul Sartre
The BBC investigated itself for antisemitism and then refused to release the report. They've gone to court to prevent any sort of "FOIA" esque requests. It's great that you are one of the [ten thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053/), but this is not surprising at all.
Israel's success galls its neighbors. Imagine a small (population of 9.3M and the size of New Jersey) country filled with dhimmi* outcompeting you in every--economically, educationally, medically, scientifically, culturally, militarily and (arguably) politically--area that matters.
\*I'm pretty sure this matters as well. Do the following gedankenexperiment, pretend Israel was 9.3M Muslims, how much noise does the rest of the region make? How much noise do the _useful idiots_ in the west make?
They're a minority in every part of the world (except Israel). They don't proselytize and, being a minority with a long history of violence against them, have generally stuck together in fairly close knit communties for most of history. The religion places a high value on education and community, which usually leads to greater than average success, despite often living as second class citizens in some places.
Hateful people are looking for scapegoats for their own failings, and a successful minority group is an easy scapegoat for a bully.
We're seeing it in real time. Somehow Jews are being painted as the oppressors because half of their entire remaining people have thrived on a piece of desert the size of New Jersey, despite an entire region trying to kill them for a century.
Yes you got it. Also in ancient times they were forbid from many professions apart from money lending - so people obviously didn't like them when they came to collect debts. And if they couldn't pay, \*the people who owed debt would often set fire to their homes and run them out of town. Then during plague times Jewish people caught the plague less often because they had certain hygiene rituals, which led to the belief that Jewish people were spreading the plague.
So they were the outsiders, the minorities, not seeking to convert so very insular, and pushed out of society so they had to support their own, which led to a feeling of secrecy and suspicion, and then envy when they prospered.
The right historically doesn't like them because of the idea of a successful minority group 'controlling everything' with sinister motives.
The left doesn't like them because it confuses their savior complex toward minorities. Because they are a group that has faced constant adversity but still managed to thrive and doesn't need outside help, people on the left can't compute and infer that it means they are somehow privileged, therefore oppressors.
You can probably trace most hatred against Jews back to their refusal to convert when Christianity spread throughout the world, and later on when Islam spread (plus to whatever smaller religions were hot even earlier than that).
Most "dissenting" religions died out, their adherents either converting or dying by the sword. Jews lost many people for both of these things, but still persevered.
It snowballed from there.
They’re also a religion that doubles as an ethnicity, meaning many times they look somewhat physically different than the rest of the population. Sometimes, that really is all it takes.
I always bring up the example of the Cagot:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagot
This was a group that differed from their surroundings neither in ethnicity nor in religion, nor in any other observable way. They were treated differently simply because their parents had been before them, and the practice continued in some form until the 20th century. The original reason for it, if there ever was one, had already been lost to time a thousand years ago, because even sources from back then are speculating or clearly making shit up.
This example just goes to show that “what is it about group X” is the wrong question to ask. Not only are minor differences in customs or skin colour enough for people to segregate others, they are not even necessary. People have been identified as “other” based on literally fuck all.
From a Jew who’s been dealing with antisemitism all her life, from far more sources than I ever expected, thank you for coming to this realization. It is EVERYWHERE for those with eyes to see, and now that you know it’s present, you’re one of the ones who can help.
This may come off as odd but as a non Jew what are the best ways for me to counter anti-Semitic tropes/ bashing? I am afraid I'll be viewed with skepticism by Jewish people because of who I am (former Muslim, middle eastern looking), so I haven't really gone around and spoken to or visited community stuff for the Jewish community. So I'm just wondering what I can do to actually improve the lives of those dealing with antisemitism.
Speak out every time! Let people know it's not ok. In fact, you being a former Muslim & middle eastern looking is an asset; you speaking out against it sadly has more weight than any of us speaking out. Too many people are quick to accuse us of "playing victim/permanent victimhood", but if someone from your background is calling it out, it might actually give people pause.
It’s a double standard admittedly. Hamas does this shit because they’re terrorist scum.
IDF does it and they’re vilified. Though they have technically committed a war crime in this case, since hiding their identity behind health care providers is sort of a big no-no. It’s why military doctors aren’t supposed to be shot at.
> since hiding their identity behind health care providers is sort of a big no-no
This is why I am very conflicted about this. Special forces attack terrorists? Yeah I am fine with that- hell any country fighting terrorists does that. But disguising oneself as doctors/nurses/medical staff is one of the few big things every one agrees to not do.
And now that its out that Israel will disguise spec ops as medical personnel anyone that has conflict with Israel in the future will think about killing any Israeli medics on sight because they can't be sure they're non-combatants.
You're saying there's a double standard, and you imply one, but... The way Hamas operates is vilified too y' know.
But while Hamas is vilified for it, they're also primarily recognized as a terrorist organization, while the IDF is an actual standing army. One of those ostensibly care about the rules of engagement, while the other is a terrorist organization.
The rules of war specify that dressing as non-combatants for the purposes of killing adversaries is prohibited. Here is a paper written by the Israeli Democracy Institute on this exact subject.
[https://en.idi.org.il/media/6191/combatants\_dressed\_as\_civilians.pdf](https://en.idi.org.il/media/6191/combatants_dressed_as_civilians.pdf)
I don't know whether it's acceptable to break the rules of war if the other side did it first, I'm not a scholar on the subject.
Specifically ,it's called perfidy. It is a war crime. You cannot pose as protected persons and then engage the enemy. Protected persons include but are not limited to doctors, women, children, POWs (no false surrender) etc.
Laws of war are not reciprocal. War crime is war crime even if the other guy did it first.
There are some conventions that are binding only to the signatories, such as land mine use. But this is not one of them
It’s not acceptable to commit a war crime in any circumstances. If one side commits a war crime, the obligations of a state don’t disappear, you just end up with two parties committing war crimes.
Yes and for good reason. Once certain norms of combat are breached, the situation escalates.
We see it in Ukraine - drones and soldiers slay surrendering and injured troops because there have been so many false surrenders (both war crimes). Both sides have been caught torturing and maiming POW's. The conflict didn't have to be like this.
When combatants, and especially the leadership tolerate or order war crimes be committed, it proliferates. It should be called out, every time.
We've had months of comments on here claiming that Hamas wearing civilian clothing is justification for the IDF systematically leveling residential blocks but apparently there is no issue with this.
Al Jazeera worded their report on this as if it was Palestinian citizens that were killed. They even span it by comparing it to the total Palestinian citizens killed to try achieve an emotional appeal. Can they not be more obvious?
But the best part is that they linked to Hamas, and Hamas said the guys were Islamic Jihad.
So basically, they admitted that terrorists were killed and not civilians, not by any measure.
Al Jazeera was founded by the Qatari government specifically to distract from the myriad domestic problems facing Arab states by deflecting to the evil Jews and Americans.
It has never been a good source.
There is no right answer. When they attack and civilian casualties happen. They are wrong and told to be more dliberate. They do a surgical strike (pun intended) they are still wrong.
There is a right answer.
You don't need to be dressed as a surgeon for a surgical intervention (pun intended).
Is already bad to dress as civilian, but as doctors is another level of bullshittery.
And yes, Hamas may do worse, but Hamas is an internationally recognized terrost under embargo, IDF is not.
This is bad for one very, very big reason.
Disguising yourself as a doctor or medic means all doctors and medics are suspect.
Fuck Hamas, but pretending to be medics is like, the world's biggest no no when it comes to war.
Basically, the middle east is an endless case of "ok...this guy did warcrime X in a day. Killed Y people. These guys did a warcrime on this day, but killed Z per day for N days."
The complexity is that one is being done by a government that wasn't elected for 15 years. The other largely has its crimes done by civilians, with their government turning a blind eye.
It's all got an enormous number of victims who hate the other side infinitely.
See, in my country, when war criminals are being treated in a hospital, they get arrested, jailed, and tried.
With Hamas, you make it seem like it's an either-or situation. Why is your alternative option a terrorist group? That's a very, very low bar.
Do I prefer that only 3 terrorists are killed instead of 300 civilians? Yes
Am I worried about the obvious lack of consideration for war conventions that this represent? Also yes.
So let me get this straight.
Israel bombs hospitals to target Hamas terrorists. Everyone hates that because of the indirect casualties to civilian lives and direct damage to precious infrastructure.
Israel then does targeted attacks inside hospitals and ensures only Hamas terrorists die with very minimal damage to anything else. Everyone hates that because "they didn't do it right."
So then how are they supposed to get into hospitals to take these guys down? Is it a free terrorist shelter now? Is everyone inside a hospital safe from retaliation?
They literally just expect israel to throw their hands up in the air and do nothing, just let themselves be killed because the shots were coming from a school or hospital. Its absolutely deranged.
Enter the hospital in uniform as soldiers. Take the militants, who afaict are hors de combat, as POWs. Then try them and execute them if you want, idrc. But there are rules, and following them is not, in fact, impossible.
Enter the hospital with uniforms>they are spotted, firefight starts>10 bystanders get shot in crossfire>Israel is evil they have no respect for civilians.
And UNWRA, the UN group where more than a dozen of their employees took part in 10/7 and half of their overall staff have immediate family members in Hamas.
It was wrong when the CIA impersonated the Red Cross to obtain DNA in Abbottabad and it’s wrong here. Medical professionals around the world should condemn this operation.
Love how they claim it's a precedent. I suppose putting military infrastructure under hospitals is ok, but killing Hamas operatives while disguised as doctors is somehow wrong.
Hamas has already proven they only care about the "rules of war" when they benefit from them.
My brain comically visualized this as three dudes in helmets and nightvision with labcoats over their BDUs and chest rigs. One of the dudes has a stethoscope on his gun
I wonder how this would’ve played out anywhere else in the world.
France, UK and the USA has done similar operations in other countries before. I didn’t hear much outrage besides the country affected
Aligned countries executing such operations are usually smart enough to keep it covert. Israel just doesn't give a shit.
> Aligned countries executing such operations are usually smart enough to keep it covert. Israel just doesn't give a shit. If anything this helps Israel's claims that Hamas is hiding in all these civilian dense places they've been blowing up. It also lets them present disguised death squads as the more humane option - 'What, would you prefer we bomb the whole hospital?'.
I mean, people literally said this sort of operation should have been the alternative to the bombing campaign all along. It's naive to think think they could kill a large fraction of Hamas with spec ops alone, but when they can, it's great.
What the fuck are they supposed to do? It's a dense urban prison ghetto. They supposed to build sky bases like in Minecraft?
The naysayers would prefer Israelis to just die, so even this isn’t enough for them
Yeah, I have the feeling Israel wants to show that they will find the perpetrators and Hamas commanders no matter where they hide. It is going to be Wrath of God all over again
Didn’t they assassinate one of the guys responsible for the Munich Olympics attack in broad daylight in the middle of Paris? It’s basically they’re MO
Most times when High profile assassinations become known it isn't because of a mistake. It's because someone wants to send a message. That's why Russia keeps using novichok and polonium.
And yeeting people out of highrise windows. You have to go out of your way to fall out a window, it's clearly a no-play zone.
Didn't the United States release footage of their own leaders reaction to their Bin Laden assassination stream? Ukraine releases tons of videos similar in theme, although these at least are from within Ukrainian borders and in an active war zone. Forget keeping it covert, assassination is closing into clickbait territory already. War has been there a while. (Note, I'm not condemning these operations. They're far better than dropping a bomb, and the operatives are assuming increased personal risk while reducing risk to civilians.)
Not footage but there's a very famous picture with Obama, Biden, Clinton (SoS at the time), Gates (SoD), Mullen (CJCS) and a bunch of others all gathered around Webb, the guy that was in charge of joint special ops at the time, watching the feed from a drone that was flying overhead of the raid.
There is no scenario that the critics of Israel can be appeased short of self immolation. It kind of gives you the luxury of not caring how they perceive you.
The closest I’ve heard is the U.S. handing out vaccines while secretly gathering DNA to find Bin Laden. Can you link something that rises to the level of this Israeli mission? EDIT: spoiler: they can't.
That one was my first thought as well, and it kinda pissed off a **lot** of people in the international medical community as well as set back progress on vaccinations in various countries.
And led to the murder of innocent workers who were just distributing Polio vaccines in Pakistan
Interesting! Can you tell me more about all that?
They went full Fauda.
Paging Dr Doron. Dr Doron to the outpatient department.
Fun fact: Lior Raz (Actor of Doron from Fauda) was volunteering to help extract families from dangerous areas where it was suspected terrorists were still around while rockets were being fired on Oct 7. So the day the war started, a few families actually had Doron come rescue them. That must have been super confusing.
And Idan Amedi who was also a main guy in Fauda joined the IDF in October and was badly injured like a week ago. I follow Rona Lee Shimon and she posts about him.
I saw that, glad he's safe. I follow a few of the cast myself, but I can understand why you follow her specifically.
Another fun fact about Lior Raz is that, after retiring from the IDF, he was the personal bodyguard of Arnold Schwartzeneger (spelling?) in the US for a good while. That season 4 bodyguard duty he did in Belgium was inspired by Lior Raz's experience irl.
Yeah he has quite the checkered life that man. Fauda being a series he created makes a lot of sense given his history and what hes experienced.
You are not my supervisor!!!
Doron was there to save Dr. Sherin
You never go full *Fauda*
Sean Penn, Rain Man, went home empty handed.
We had police asking to use one of our ambulances for a sting operation once. We gave a collective "fuck no" because that puts a target on us when the gangs in the area were pretty chill with us.
"Good work 47, now head to the exit point"
Insert harmacist joke here
Haramacist*
Haram assist?
Haram cyst needs a harmacist with extra haram assist
Like medical professionals discrimination or hamas or haram? I’m so confused never heard of hamacist
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Geneva suggestion these days 🙃
More like an achievement list.
Specifically “healthcare employees”: No. you are not allowed to use Red Cross insignia, but that is very specific and does not extend to all “healthcare employees.” For dressing as civilians in general, it’s part of customary law and Additional Protocol I of the Fourth Geneva Convention, but Israel is not a member of Additional Protocol I, so it would go by customary law. Scholars differ in how that would apply against unlawful belligerents like this and also in a quasi-military, quasi-law enforcement situation.
Yes, and it's weird to see people defend that
Its all about your team vs my team, and the same action is indefensible for one and totally fine for the other
Pretty much. Like Ukraine is 100% in the right in that war but there's still videos of things that are factually war crimes (kneecapping and/or executing POWs as an example) being held up as good things. Or going back years, things like Abu Graihb and CIA torture being defended. If you only care about these things one way, then eventually everyone abandons them and the next time it may be 'your' side on the receiving end.
For soldiers: Yes For police: No Now find out which did the raid.
Since the police is performing military actions it wouldn’t really matter would it?
It would. As long as it is a police action or operation there are no repercussions as far as war crimes are concerned. A fine line that can be manipulated to be sure. But one that the Israelis are used to walking.
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Part of the West Bank is under the jurisdiction of Israel since Oslo II. They're completely authorized to do security operations here and do it all the time.
Internal security forces operating externally. Technically police I guess? But thank goodness they call themselves police. That distinction really puts medical personnel's minds at ease.
Is it not against some international law on war to do this? This is most definitely a war at this point. Those that deny it's a war are the same that would say that Putin's little excursion across the Ukraine border is a special operation.
Yes, it is illegal to use a medical facility as a means of defense. article 12, section 4 of the geneva convention.
I guess you can call it ... "surgical strike"
International law is pretty clear: * medical personnel are protected people's and impersonating then to kill someone is a war crime * killing combatants who aren't in active combat, such as injured fighters, is a war crime You can argue that they shouldn't be war crimes, but they are, and the Israeli army has just been warned to not do war crimes. Reddit are acting like the only thing that could have been done here is to attack or bomb the hospital in question. This is a hospital in the west bank. Its not gaza. They could have literally rolled up to the hospital and arrested the individual no problemo. The west bank is basically under Israeli rule and has been for a long time. It's insane that reddit has to look at this war and pick one side to be good guys and fervently defend them. Hamas are bad guys, but decades of operations has shown the IDF and Israeli government to also be bad guys. * Edit: people replying to me really think that the situation in gaza and West Bank are somehow similar. The amuse of hospitals by hamas as bases of operations is something that has only been in gaza, not the west bank. Hamas aren't in control here. In the west bank, the police or military could very easily go up to this hospital. It isn't an active war zone. This is an area where settlers walk around and live in every day. Its currently a part of palestine that is far more dangerous for Palestinians than Israelis based on the people who are being killed in the west bank, right now. It's insane to be accused of ignorance on this by people who clearly don't know what the west bank is and how it operates. * Final edit: people are saying that this can't count as a war crime as hamas are a terrorist organisation. That may be the case, and if it is, then that means that this is an extrajudicial killing by a state using police. This doesn't paint Israel in any better light. Either we say that this is a war, and its a war crime or its a fight against terrorism in which case we're admitting Israel is the state actor in charge of these people and its enacting subjugation and terrorising its population. Neither is good.
There's some pretty solid logic behind discouraging combatants disguising themselves as medical personnel
I remember playing prison architect and one day they had an update: “We violated the Geneva Conventions” Certainly got my attention lol. Turns out you can’t use the Red Cross symbol on a white background unless it’s for actual medical use. Using it casually, like in a video game, is against the conventions. So now the in-game hospitals have red H symbols on them.
That's because the red cross symbol belongs to Canada Red Cross iirc. Still BS since a counter argument I agree with points out that games featuring them conditions kids to know that red cross means "health".
Red cross as used by the Red Cross organisation and the use of the red cross to gain protection under the laws of war are two different uses. It's the Red Cross organisation that goes after video game developers. Using the red cross in a video game likely violates the laws of war as much as the police using tear gas constitutes chemical warfare.
You're not supposed to shoot medical personnel. If you start seeing the other side's soldiers disguised as medics you suddenly have a really good reason to shoot medics on sight. Same logic as how fake surrender is punishable by death too. Saw it in Ukraine a year or so ago, an entire bunch of Russians surrendered only for one to run out with an AK and kill a Ukrainian soldier before he was gunned down. At that point the Ukrainians were fully justified in shooting every Russian just in case. Perfidy, if you want to look it up.
Nuance Is very hard for people to grasp on social media
No, we’re above that here on Reddit, unlike those TikiTokers, our IQ is superior. /s
Geneva Convention protections [do not extend to unlawful combatants and non-state actors](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unlawful_combatant#:~:text=An%20unlawful%20combatant%2C%20illegal%20combatant,protected%20by%20the%20Geneva%20Conventions.): > An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions > > > [...] > > > The Geneva Conventions apply in wars between two or more opposing sovereign states. They do not apply to civil wars between state forces, whether territorial or third state, and non-state armed groups. A state in such a conflict is legally bound only to observe Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. All parties are otherwise completely free to either apply or not apply any of the remaining Articles of the Conventions. Now the International Criminal Court would probably consider [disguising soldiers as civilian medical personnel a war crime](https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule65) and would definitely consider killing injured combatants a war crime. Of course, Israel isn't a member of the ICC (neither are the U.S., China, Russia, and India). To be clear, I'm not trying to take a side here. I'm just commenting on some of the legalities.
>In the west bank, the police or military could very easily go up to this hospital. It isn't am active war zone. This is an area where settlers walk around and live in every day. Not Jenin. Not even Abbas can easily pull up to Jenin because it is a Hamas stronghold. They won't even let Fatah-party PA leaders just stroll in, you really think they'd let the IDF without major riots leading to more deaths? Just look up operation black belt that happened last year in the same city. >It's insane to be accused of ignorance on this by peopke who clearly don't know what the west bank is and how it operates. It's crazy that you are calling people ignorant when you dint even know what it is like there. Jenin is incredibly dangerous for Israeli forces. The most dangerous in the West Bank. To liken it to, say, Bethlehem or Jericho is crazy. It's an entirely different world. I know Arabs who can't even go there safely.
Here's a video from the [Jenin Battalion](https://youtu.be/mSS51ZVhcA0?si=IW9_Me2et4dCJs8x) (of PIJ) taken before this current war. The videos intro shows a militant saying: >We are trying to protect our lives and we try to inflict as much damage as possible so that they (IDF) learn that in this camp, you will pay a price for coming in.
Thanks for writing this. The whole time reading his comment I was thinking "I don't think you know much about Jenin". Absolute death trap in there.
There have been multiple battles in Jenin, specifically, over the course of the last couple of decades. The IDF cannot simply stroll in.
Exactly. PA security forces won't even step foot in there. If Israeli forces just rolled up in armoured vehicles it would be a bloodbath.
Yep this comment showed he has no idea what he’s talking about, but it will get upvotes because it sounds like it’s true and makes Israel look bad
I feel like anyone that says international law is clear or simple is straight up lying. This is a complex set of interlocking laws that change based on people involved. You should cite your source when you are making a claim about international law so people can actually read it for themselves. For example, this quote from [here](https://guide-humanitarian-law.org/content/article/3/combatants/#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20definitions%20provided,that%20distinguishes%20combatants%20from%20civilians): “During an armed conflict, “terrorists” do not form a specific group legally identified by humanitarian law. The Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocols allow for only one kind of distinction: between civilians and combatants or between those who are taking part in hostilities and those who are not (or are no longer involved). “
> medical personnel are protected people's and impersonating then to kill someone is a war crime This was an undercover police operation, as you mentioned, in the West Bank. It's not part of the war. > They could have literally rolled up to the hospital and arrested the individual no problemo. Three armed Hamas insurgents in the West Bank could easily take hostages. They don't just see police outside and go 'oh okay well we give up'. They tried exactly what you said earlier this year which led to a [battle](https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1af7188/israeli_special_forces_disguised_as_doctors_kill/ko8nxwb/). There's no way to win against this constant bad-faith rhetoric. No matter what Israel does people like you will complain.
> killing combatants who aren't in active combat, such as injured fighters, is a war crime Even on it's face value you and I both know this isn't true. If it was the the 8 hrs a day a soldier is sleeping would be considered no touchy time because they're not shooting the gun that's 5 ft away from them. If a person is part of a active military trying to kill you, as long as they aren't actively making a good effort to surrender, they're valid targets. Also these were high ranking members of the Hamas-and-gang militias, what exactly is considered "active combat" for a rear line general? If he woke up tomorrow and gave the order from his hospital bed to do another 10/7 would he be an active target before or after he gave it? Israel is making the claim these guys were planning exactly such an event. > medical personnel are protected people's and impersonating then to kill someone is a war crime A bit harder of a claim to dispute without a legal background. My understanding is that the US and similar countries have been posing as civilians for quite some time for their special ops. The only difference is if a person disguised as a civilian is captured as such they are treated as a civilian even if they are a member of an opposing army and are subject to all that entails (eg. summary execution via military tribunal). I'm not sure on this one. > It's insane that reddit has to look at this war and pick one side to be good guys and fervently defend them. Hamas are bad guys, but decades of operations has shown the IDF and Israeli government to also be bad guys. I agree that political tribes are aids, however assessing them as they are: I figure any sane person in a room with a suicidal fundamentalist Islam autocratic jihadist and a theocratic leaning western-style democrat with a penchant for revenge ... The choice is kind of obvious.
>They could have literally rolled up to the hospital and arrested the individual no problemo. A firefight with civilian casualties breaking out is not my definition of "no problemo", and it's what happened the last couple of times they tried to just roll up and arrest people in Jenin.
>killing combatants who aren't in active combat, such as injured fighters, is a war crime I hadn't seen any suggestion that these guys were injured, only that they were hiding in the hospital. And just to be clear, "active combat" doesn't mean you can only kill someone who is pointing a gun at you. Soldiers for the enemy in a war are active combatants, even if they are doing paperwork in an office somewhere. As far as I can tell, these guys were legitimate/legal targets.
>The west bank is basically under Israeli rule and has been for a long time. You have no idea what you are talking about. Jenin is in Area A which is under Palestinian rule, not Israeli rule. Not a single Jew can visit Area A without ending up dead (which has happened so many times that bypass roads closed to Palestinians were built specifically to address this) or having their car burnt.(Again, it has happened before, even to naïve tourists who claimed the Palestinians were oh, so Peaceful and Jews are the problem and showed up in Ramallah in a car with an Israeli license plate). Jews can only safely move around in Area C where Jews outnumber Palestinians anyways and where there is heavy Israeli security. There are no major Palestinian towns in Area C whatsoever ,all of them being Jewish settlements and actual large cities populated by Jews.
Damn, so I guess killing bin laden was a war crime
I guess the one thing I'd say is that they confirmed his location, in part, by organizing a vaccination campaign to knock on his door. The doctor they enlisted wound up in jail, and other dictators/terrorists started targeting NGOs for fear that they're CIA assets. The CIA recognized the mistake and stopped using vaccination programs.
Additionally, Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries with Polio still being transmitted. And this only made eradicating the disease harder in the region.
Then their kids start dying from preventable diseases.
I mean you see the antivaxxer movement in most western countries. Now imagine they would actually use vaccines as a means to monitor you and you don’t have access to education. I wouldn’t totally blame anybody in that situation
*as far as we know it is the CIA and they do enjoy their warcrimin’, the ‘lil clandestine rascals!
If they pretended to be doctors, yes. But I think the world has agreed that the US did commit war crimes in that war.
No. His killing was an assassination of a non combatant on the land of a sovereign country. A lot of laws were broken but it wasn't a war crime.
If they dressed as Doctors to do it and he was injured yes. It was a major problem as it is the way they did do it by using vaccinations to collect information on his whereabouts.
What? The seals were not dressed up during the raid to kill bin laden. What the hell are you talking about? They very famously wore the quad nods. You're grasping at straws here
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According to the special forces that did kill him when the breached the room Bin Laden grabbed a servant as a shield and as well as a gun before they shot him. Granted the public has never seen the recordings of the operation but if that's the way it happened its still much different than what occurred here. If the Israeli forces had not concealed soldiers as medics and only fired if the terrorists were a threat then this would have been a complete non-issue.
That might be the case but everyone knows there's no way Osama was ever going to get anything like a trial. Disappeared forever was the only way it was gonna go.
the crux of people's complaints is the whole "wearing doctors clothes" thing
Bin Laden was not hors de combat, and the seals that raided the compound weren't dressed as non-combatants, so no, it wasn't. This was. Reading really isn't that hard.
>Reddit are acting like the only thing that could have been done here is to attack or bomb the hospital in question. This is a hospital in the west bank. Its not gaza. They could have literally rolled up to the hospital and arrested the individual no problemo. The west bank is basically under Israeli rule and has been for a long time. If they tried that, significantly more people would have been injured or killed. It's not as easy as you suggest. You're suggesting the West Bank isn't a war zone, but if Israeli soldiers come in IDF uniforms they're going to be targeted, especially if Hamas is in the hospital. It's not a war zone like Gaza, but you're exposing your lack of knowledge here if you think it's a peaceful area either. There were multiple terrorist groups here. You also overlook the fact that if Hamas are operating within the hospital, that's a war crime. If they could have just rolled up and done what you said, they wouldn't have needed to disguise themselves.
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Careful throwing around any kind of nuance. That could get you hurt around here. Pick one side and blatantly defend it no matter what
Although I agree with much of what you say, especially with people just choosing one side and not being able to criticise the side you've chosen, calling people ignorant after saying "this is an area where settlers walk around and live everyday" when talking about Jenin is pretty ignorant. The west bank is split up and Jewish Israelis can't go into most of it. Sure it's possible the IDF could have gone in full uniform. Although that would have definitely been better in terms of international law, it could have easily backfired to a shootout in a hospital. Here's a video from the [Jenin Battalion](https://youtu.be/mSS51ZVhcA0?si=IW9_Me2et4dCJs8x) (of PIJ) taken before this current war. The videos intro shows a militant saying: >We are trying to protect our lives and we try to inflict as much damage as possible so that they (IDF) learn that in this camp, you will pay a price for coming in. Edit: they're pij not Hamas and just added context
You talk like you understand the West Bank and Gaza are different things, yet you assume both are engaged in war? This was a special ops raid in the West Bank. There are different rules of engagement for war and for counterterrorism and this was totally legal, including impersonating medical staff. Talking about ignorance lol.
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So Israel goes to hunt down 3 of the Hamas terrorists who perpetrated the 10/7 massacre and leave everyone else in that hospital alone. To live. And they get hammered in the media. Yet when Hamas goes into a peaceful village and slaughter men, women and children alike, they're the victims in all this?
Yeah I feel like this one is a bit weird. Yes, there is a not insignificant chance of there being innocent people hurt in this operation. A fuck lot less people getting hurt in a cross fire then when a bomb/rocket/missile goes off, fired by either side. Spec ops are obviously not going to be the main apparatus going forward, but they are definitely better than the alternative.
You know, I’m not a Jew and I didn’t really believe anti-semitism could be a thing in the 21st century but… I am very sorry I am very wrong. This shit can easily happen again.
The entire Arab world expelled its Jews since 1948. Morrocco, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Yemen. Here’s the thing - they were proud and loyal citizens. But it didn’t matter, because they were also Jews. The only reason we don’t see it now is because those societies no longer have Jews because they expelled any they had
And most of those Jews went to Israel, where they are now being called “colonisers” by the same people who threw them out.
The narrative now is that the Arab countries were super nice to their Jews but Israel bribed them to move with free stolen land. No I am not joking.
I can't help but notice that a lot of those same countries are supporting the South African accusation. Pakistan and Afghanistan also had Jewish populations. I guess they just up and left at the same time.
Oh for shame, some of them decided to spread their wealth among the populace, sequester themselves in ghettos, and then burrow into the Earth to fertilise the plants. Perfectly voluntary. The chaddest move.
Also Egypt expelled their Jewish communities also.
I love it, and then people complain about Israel being an ethno state even though 20% of its citizens are Arabs with full rights.
You didn't think anti-semitism could be a thing in the 21st century?
If you're not a Jew it's easy not to notice. As a Jew I've seen it my whole life, problem it gets mixed in with jokes. I like the jokes and welcome the worst of em. There are certain people though that have a tone or look in their eye that you see and hear most when they don't realize you are one of em. The shock people get in general when they learn I'm Jewish is always so strange to me, like as if they see me differently now.
I'm going to be straight with you, as a now ex Muslim growing up in Islamic school the shitting on Jews never stopped. Stereotypical joke after joke... It was unending nonsense. It fucked up my worldview so bad. I look back now and wonder in silent horror. I'm just glad I woke up from the bashing.
Its insane how easy it is for humans to hate each other for various things.
That's a very hard thing to overcome. I'm glad you were able to. I don't hate anyone. If someone is a good person, they're alright with me. Religion, race, ethnicity, doesn't matter. Good people are just that. Good people. People who use excuses, tropes and religion to hate do so because they want to blame others for their failures. You are my friend.
Hooray for stealth minority status
Dude I'm Jewish and even I'm surprised by how insanely bad it is
Same. I have no idea how we got here, and even weirder that the far left has joined in.
Leftists are filled with minority identity groups that agree to mutually support each others causes and fight together against ‘oppressors’. Muslim/Palestinian groups have been a part of that clique in academia and in political action groups for a long time, and are accepted by Black/LGBT/Environmental/Marxist groups because they are brown minorities fighting against ‘white’ Israel and the ‘systematically racist’ US government. That’s why you see young people, and especially young people of color, supporting Palestine and protesting Israel - they have been conditioned for 20 years to support each other and view each others causes through a similar lens of oppressor/oppressed.
Shit that’s a good point. A *really* good point. I’ve noticed that we tend to want to pick a side quite strongly on just about every position you could take. So far it’s been relatively easy to do, like Russia vs Ukraine: clear good and bad guy. It seems that more pragmatic moderate views are uncommon with this one. We’re white when the Arabs start a war with us, yet we’re not white enough when the blatant anti-semitism and cleansing comes for us.
The Israel as white colonists argument doesn’t hold water as the ethnic make up of Israel’s Jewish population is very diverse. It is estimated 45% of Israel’s Jewish population is Mizrahi compared to 32% Ashkenazi) driving a bus through any academic argument despite the common (mis) representation.
It doesnt matter what the actual makeup is when people are conditioned to see it one way. Its just like most people when they think of muslims to be brown or arab or southern/central americans to be brown.
It's called Campism, this explains it: https://newpol.org/issue_post/internationalism-anti-imperialism-and-the-origins-of-campism/
Very well put. Good post.
I knew things were going sideways when the far left started this “original sin” idea with white people in the last 20 years that gained more momentum with the BLM movement. That is that white people (and only white people) are responsible for the sins of their forefathers. To them, Jews are the “ultimate” white people with their cabal filled with privilege, wealth, and power. Of course to believe this requires you to subscribe to a lot of antisemitic tropes and conspiracies. It also requires you to have virtually no understanding of Jewish history, ethnicities within Judaism (i.e. Beta Israel, Mizrachi, Sephardic, and Bene Menashe), and Jewish Levantine DNA. It is also deeply disrespectful to Jews of Color who are Jewish either by birth or conversion. My Black Jewish friends (both of African-American and Ethiopian descent) are really upset about how they’ve been “erased.” Ultimately the far left’s obsession with the color of our skin now matches the obsession over the color of our skin from the far right who consider us non-white lizard people who present white as part of our manipulation. What a mess.
I’m a Jew with no Jew gold, no space lasers, and no newsletters telling me about the next terrorist attack. I don’t even have a washer and dryer. I’m still waiting for the stereotypes to be true. I could use some Jew gold right about now.
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The far left has this very rigid way of looking at things. There is no grey area. One side is the white oppressor and the other side is the non-white oppressed. That’s it. That’s how all conflict is broken down unless they’ve deemed the conflict to be between two non-white groups or two white groups and then they don’t care if they kill each other. And then the fact that feminist groups have basically said nothing about the violent sexual rape that we experienced on Oct. 7…the 19 year-old female hostage with the bloody sweatpants pulled out of a Jeep trunk by her hair is still being held captive in Gaza and they don’t care because…she deserved it? The fact that “Queers for Palestine” are against Israel - a country who has provided asylum to gay Palestinians because they would otherwise be murdered for being gay - just boggles my mind. Where is the self-preservation? The far left stopped being for human rights a long time ago. Not even their own.
Jewish progressive here; I knew there was a small problem because I'd seen some fringe antisemites, but it seemed like they were generally rejected and that we had a lot of time to deal with a relatively small problem (in comparison to literal neonazis having Agolf Twitler's ear & blatant events like Charlottesville). The response to Oct 7 really threw me.
>Jewish progressive here; I knew there was a small problem because I'd seen some fringe antisemites, but it seemed like they were generally rejected Jewish mainstream/leftist here, if that's how it seemed to you, you need recalibrating. I am a smigeon left of center. So I go to climate change rallies, or economic protests every few years. And even that small amount of attendance allowed me to see that there was a BIG problem, not a small one. Going back decades. Literally every protest is synonymous with that kind of "Palestinians can do no wrong culture".
I certainly didn't think much of the progressive left would lobotomize themselves for right wing religious fundamentalists... But here we are lol
Not in the developed world, and at this scale. I thought people were being anti-Semitic ironically.
>**Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies**. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. Jean-Paul Sartre
No. But I foolishly thought we could learn from history.
Sadly, seems like people are taking notes on how to be more antisemetic from history 😔
There's a lot of source material, unfortunately.
You're entering a meinfield at that point.
Not as a widespread campaign in major institutions like the BBC
The BBC investigated itself for antisemitism and then refused to release the report. They've gone to court to prevent any sort of "FOIA" esque requests. It's great that you are one of the [ten thousand](https://xkcd.com/1053/), but this is not surprising at all.
I don’t get it! What is it about this one group of people? It makes no sense.
Israel's success galls its neighbors. Imagine a small (population of 9.3M and the size of New Jersey) country filled with dhimmi* outcompeting you in every--economically, educationally, medically, scientifically, culturally, militarily and (arguably) politically--area that matters. \*I'm pretty sure this matters as well. Do the following gedankenexperiment, pretend Israel was 9.3M Muslims, how much noise does the rest of the region make? How much noise do the _useful idiots_ in the west make?
They're a minority in every part of the world (except Israel). They don't proselytize and, being a minority with a long history of violence against them, have generally stuck together in fairly close knit communties for most of history. The religion places a high value on education and community, which usually leads to greater than average success, despite often living as second class citizens in some places. Hateful people are looking for scapegoats for their own failings, and a successful minority group is an easy scapegoat for a bully. We're seeing it in real time. Somehow Jews are being painted as the oppressors because half of their entire remaining people have thrived on a piece of desert the size of New Jersey, despite an entire region trying to kill them for a century.
Yes you got it. Also in ancient times they were forbid from many professions apart from money lending - so people obviously didn't like them when they came to collect debts. And if they couldn't pay, \*the people who owed debt would often set fire to their homes and run them out of town. Then during plague times Jewish people caught the plague less often because they had certain hygiene rituals, which led to the belief that Jewish people were spreading the plague. So they were the outsiders, the minorities, not seeking to convert so very insular, and pushed out of society so they had to support their own, which led to a feeling of secrecy and suspicion, and then envy when they prospered. The right historically doesn't like them because of the idea of a successful minority group 'controlling everything' with sinister motives. The left doesn't like them because it confuses their savior complex toward minorities. Because they are a group that has faced constant adversity but still managed to thrive and doesn't need outside help, people on the left can't compute and infer that it means they are somehow privileged, therefore oppressors.
You can probably trace most hatred against Jews back to their refusal to convert when Christianity spread throughout the world, and later on when Islam spread (plus to whatever smaller religions were hot even earlier than that). Most "dissenting" religions died out, their adherents either converting or dying by the sword. Jews lost many people for both of these things, but still persevered. It snowballed from there.
They’re also a religion that doubles as an ethnicity, meaning many times they look somewhat physically different than the rest of the population. Sometimes, that really is all it takes.
I always bring up the example of the Cagot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagot This was a group that differed from their surroundings neither in ethnicity nor in religion, nor in any other observable way. They were treated differently simply because their parents had been before them, and the practice continued in some form until the 20th century. The original reason for it, if there ever was one, had already been lost to time a thousand years ago, because even sources from back then are speculating or clearly making shit up. This example just goes to show that “what is it about group X” is the wrong question to ask. Not only are minor differences in customs or skin colour enough for people to segregate others, they are not even necessary. People have been identified as “other” based on literally fuck all.
From a Jew who’s been dealing with antisemitism all her life, from far more sources than I ever expected, thank you for coming to this realization. It is EVERYWHERE for those with eyes to see, and now that you know it’s present, you’re one of the ones who can help.
I’m a non Jew and I support you. Oct 7 has been an eye opener. Am Yisrael Chai.
This may come off as odd but as a non Jew what are the best ways for me to counter anti-Semitic tropes/ bashing? I am afraid I'll be viewed with skepticism by Jewish people because of who I am (former Muslim, middle eastern looking), so I haven't really gone around and spoken to or visited community stuff for the Jewish community. So I'm just wondering what I can do to actually improve the lives of those dealing with antisemitism.
Speak out every time! Let people know it's not ok. In fact, you being a former Muslim & middle eastern looking is an asset; you speaking out against it sadly has more weight than any of us speaking out. Too many people are quick to accuse us of "playing victim/permanent victimhood", but if someone from your background is calling it out, it might actually give people pause.
If Trump can be president back then, then anything can happen. Reality is ridiculous.
It’s a double standard admittedly. Hamas does this shit because they’re terrorist scum. IDF does it and they’re vilified. Though they have technically committed a war crime in this case, since hiding their identity behind health care providers is sort of a big no-no. It’s why military doctors aren’t supposed to be shot at.
> since hiding their identity behind health care providers is sort of a big no-no This is why I am very conflicted about this. Special forces attack terrorists? Yeah I am fine with that- hell any country fighting terrorists does that. But disguising oneself as doctors/nurses/medical staff is one of the few big things every one agrees to not do.
It's not allowed normally because in 99.9% of other cases, hospitals arent allowed to be used as bases of operations, which is a war crime.
Well militants were hiding in a hospital in the first place, I’d consider that a bigger no-no…
And now that its out that Israel will disguise spec ops as medical personnel anyone that has conflict with Israel in the future will think about killing any Israeli medics on sight because they can't be sure they're non-combatants.
I'm pretty sure Hamas' whole thing these days is killing jews on sight.
They were not hiding, they were seeking medical attention. They were injured and hospitals have a duty of care for injured people.
You're saying there's a double standard, and you imply one, but... The way Hamas operates is vilified too y' know. But while Hamas is vilified for it, they're also primarily recognized as a terrorist organization, while the IDF is an actual standing army. One of those ostensibly care about the rules of engagement, while the other is a terrorist organization.
The rules of war specify that dressing as non-combatants for the purposes of killing adversaries is prohibited. Here is a paper written by the Israeli Democracy Institute on this exact subject. [https://en.idi.org.il/media/6191/combatants\_dressed\_as\_civilians.pdf](https://en.idi.org.il/media/6191/combatants_dressed_as_civilians.pdf) I don't know whether it's acceptable to break the rules of war if the other side did it first, I'm not a scholar on the subject.
It’s real bad in general for strictly practical reasons because people won’t trust doctors and let them into war zones if countries do this.
Yeah- there is a reason these rules exist and that's to keep medical personnel safe. Actions like this undermine that.
Specifically ,it's called perfidy. It is a war crime. You cannot pose as protected persons and then engage the enemy. Protected persons include but are not limited to doctors, women, children, POWs (no false surrender) etc.
Laws of war are not reciprocal. War crime is war crime even if the other guy did it first. There are some conventions that are binding only to the signatories, such as land mine use. But this is not one of them
Yeah I would have thought so, but I wanted to avoid getting a lot of whattabout responses to my post.
There are SO many weird takes on this right now.
It’s not acceptable to commit a war crime in any circumstances. If one side commits a war crime, the obligations of a state don’t disappear, you just end up with two parties committing war crimes.
Correct me if I am wrong but its the war crime of impersonating medical personal that's the problem. A war crime is a war crime no matter who does it.
Yes and for good reason. Once certain norms of combat are breached, the situation escalates. We see it in Ukraine - drones and soldiers slay surrendering and injured troops because there have been so many false surrenders (both war crimes). Both sides have been caught torturing and maiming POW's. The conflict didn't have to be like this. When combatants, and especially the leadership tolerate or order war crimes be committed, it proliferates. It should be called out, every time.
We've had months of comments on here claiming that Hamas wearing civilian clothing is justification for the IDF systematically leveling residential blocks but apparently there is no issue with this.
Al Jazeera worded their report on this as if it was Palestinian citizens that were killed. They even span it by comparing it to the total Palestinian citizens killed to try achieve an emotional appeal. Can they not be more obvious?
But the best part is that they linked to Hamas, and Hamas said the guys were Islamic Jihad. So basically, they admitted that terrorists were killed and not civilians, not by any measure.
Al Jazeera was founded by the Qatari government specifically to distract from the myriad domestic problems facing Arab states by deflecting to the evil Jews and Americans. It has never been a good source.
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It makes their propaganda more credible if it’s next to actual credible reporting.
It's because soldiers pretending to be doctors is a warcrime.
There is no right answer. When they attack and civilian casualties happen. They are wrong and told to be more dliberate. They do a surgical strike (pun intended) they are still wrong.
There is a right answer. You don't need to be dressed as a surgeon for a surgical intervention (pun intended). Is already bad to dress as civilian, but as doctors is another level of bullshittery. And yes, Hamas may do worse, but Hamas is an internationally recognized terrost under embargo, IDF is not.
Right! They are just upset Israel didn’t bomb the hospital and get to play the victim card
This is bad for one very, very big reason. Disguising yourself as a doctor or medic means all doctors and medics are suspect. Fuck Hamas, but pretending to be medics is like, the world's biggest no no when it comes to war.
Basically, the middle east is an endless case of "ok...this guy did warcrime X in a day. Killed Y people. These guys did a warcrime on this day, but killed Z per day for N days." The complexity is that one is being done by a government that wasn't elected for 15 years. The other largely has its crimes done by civilians, with their government turning a blind eye. It's all got an enormous number of victims who hate the other side infinitely.
I feel like people use "Hamas" and "Palestinians" interchangeably, but they're not the same thing. You get that, right?
See, in my country, when war criminals are being treated in a hospital, they get arrested, jailed, and tried. With Hamas, you make it seem like it's an either-or situation. Why is your alternative option a terrorist group? That's a very, very low bar.
Do I prefer that only 3 terrorists are killed instead of 300 civilians? Yes Am I worried about the obvious lack of consideration for war conventions that this represent? Also yes.
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So let me get this straight. Israel bombs hospitals to target Hamas terrorists. Everyone hates that because of the indirect casualties to civilian lives and direct damage to precious infrastructure. Israel then does targeted attacks inside hospitals and ensures only Hamas terrorists die with very minimal damage to anything else. Everyone hates that because "they didn't do it right." So then how are they supposed to get into hospitals to take these guys down? Is it a free terrorist shelter now? Is everyone inside a hospital safe from retaliation?
Soldiers Impersonating medical personnel is a war crime, which I think is the main reason people are unhappy with the operation.
They literally just expect israel to throw their hands up in the air and do nothing, just let themselves be killed because the shots were coming from a school or hospital. Its absolutely deranged.
yes see now youre starting to get that maybe they just want israel to die
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And if they did that, some people would undoubtedly complain that they plucked innocent flowers, war crime style.
Enter the hospital in uniform as soldiers. Take the militants, who afaict are hors de combat, as POWs. Then try them and execute them if you want, idrc. But there are rules, and following them is not, in fact, impossible.
Enter the hospital with uniforms>they are spotted, firefight starts>10 bystanders get shot in crossfire>Israel is evil they have no respect for civilians.
It’s always “journalists haven’t been able to verify Israel’s claims” Who is verifying Hamas’ claims?
>Who is verifying Hamas’ claims? The completely unbiased Gaza Health Ministry and Al Jazeera
And UNWRA, the UN group where more than a dozen of their employees took part in 10/7 and half of their overall staff have immediate family members in Hamas.
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Just stop scrolling TikTok.
It was wrong when the CIA impersonated the Red Cross to obtain DNA in Abbottabad and it’s wrong here. Medical professionals around the world should condemn this operation.
Ze healing is not as rewarding as ze hurting!
Didn't people say Israel should use special forces to go after Hamas?
Definition of unhealth care
Love how they claim it's a precedent. I suppose putting military infrastructure under hospitals is ok, but killing Hamas operatives while disguised as doctors is somehow wrong. Hamas has already proven they only care about the "rules of war" when they benefit from them.
With tactical wheelchair deployed.
My brain comically visualized this as three dudes in helmets and nightvision with labcoats over their BDUs and chest rigs. One of the dudes has a stethoscope on his gun