Israel, Palestine & the Levant rolling events: Oct 23 on

from the report:

"55. As a result of the aforementioned challenges, it must be noted that the information gathered by the mission team was in a large part sourced from Israeli national institutions. This is due to the absence of United Nations entities operating in Israel, as well as the lack of cooperation by the State of Israel with relevant United Nations bodies with an investigative mandate. Nevertheless, the mission team took every step, in line with UN methodology, to mitigate issues of source reliability before drawing conclusions within the scope of this report."

Sorry, this doesn't pass the sniff test.

Basically Israel did not allow them to interview victims.

And the videos they were able to review did not show any sexual violence.

Going to tap the fucking sign and tell all you cancers trying to pretend there was no sexual violence - which would be a first for any conflict - to shut the fuck up already.

I don’t give a fuck about the NYT report or whatever standards of proof a bunch of men on ilx think need to be met to their satisfaction. This is a fucking disgusting line of discussion and you should all be ashamed of how you’re coming across right now.

mojo dojo casas house (gyac)
Posted: 9 December 2023 at 17:08:53
Independent verification of sexual violence is nearly impossible in the circumstances. It’s usually wiser to assume any such statistics are underestimated, if anything. In the conflict in the eastern Congo, the percentage of women and children said to have experienced sexual violence from militants is exorbitant.
…

ty

Also, of course it was gathered by Israeli national institutions, it happened in Israel.

It would literally be the first conflict in human history to have no sexual violence.

Basically Israel did not allow them to interview victims.

― President Keyes, Tuesday, March 5, 2024 10:59 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The report itself makes it pretty clear that a lot of the likely victims are dead, not sure why this continues to be so hard to comprehend when it has been pointed out repeatedly

My read on all of this is that: there was likely sexual assault, but also it will probably be impossible to ascertain the extent of it.

Because of this it leaves room for unwarranted speculation, and many sides can play with it to their 'advantage', which is either justifying Israel's actions since Oct 7th or downplaying what happened on that day.

xp

Basically Israel did not allow them to interview victims.

― President Keyes, Tuesday, March 5, 2024 10:59 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The report itself makes it pretty clear that a lot of the likely victims are dead, not sure why this continues to be so hard to comprehend when it has been pointed out repeatedly

My read on all of this is that: there was likely sexual assault, but also it will probably be impossible to ascertain the extent of it.

Because of this it leaves room for unwarranted speculation, and many sides can play with it to their 'advantage', which is either justifying Israel's actions since Oct 7th or downplaying what happened on that day.

xp

I don't really want to use it to any "advantage" and I didn't really want to discuss it again at all except that unspecified "doubt" keeps getting smeared on it. If there was some conclusive evidence that the accounts were FABRICATED, then sure, bring that up. But there isn't any evidence they're fabricated, you're all just not satisfied with the evidence that it happened.

Sexual assault undoubtedly took place but, at the same time, no-one believes anything the Israeli government says about anything anymore.

I only comment on how this has gone down as I've seen it.

There isn't anything wrong with the thread on the report. It pulls out what is in there, and it's informative.

It’s irrelevant. It doesn’t justify what’s happening in Gaza even if the worst cases were true. You don’t have to pretend or insinuate that it didn’t happen because there was no evidence to your standard. It’s disgusting.
― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Tuesday, March 5, 2024 11:13 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Right, this! I would not advocate starving the population of Gaza if there were 1000 rapes, or 10,000 rapes.

I don’t doubt that horrible things happened, including rape, which is abhorrent.

I also don’t believe a single word put out by any Israeli national institution.

The issue at hand also isn’t whether posters on this board think that any sexual violence doesn’t justify what’s happening in Gaza, but how these reports have been used and will continue to be used by the Israeli state and the US and its media proxies to justify its genocide

Sexual assault undoubtedly took place but, at the same time, no-one believes anything the Israeli government says about anything anymore.

^^^agree strongly.

Warfare is the embodiment of patriarchal enforcement so that means sexual violence on top of all the other violence.

Sorry, President Keyes is on the case going through the UN report looking for holes in the stories, like everyone genuinely interested in sexual assault taking place does

A posted asked what the supposed gaps were in that Twitter thread, so I answered the question. But go off as usually gyac.

Poster

I care about male posters on this site I continue to post on engaging in “well who can say if it ACTUALLY happened” and talking about how lying about rape makes people disbelieve those real sexual assault stories. It’s repulsive.

― Roman Anthony gets on his horse (gyac), Tuesday, March 5, 2024 11:39 AM (two hours ago)

I assume the last part of this is directed at me. And while I don't think that's an entirely fair summary of what I posted, I'd like to respond in what I hope is a constructive manner.

This is what I wrote earlier: "the reason I focused on the Times reporting is because absolutely bungling reporting on sexual violence makes it harder for good reporting on sexual violence to break through."

It is admittedly a very short post, and I regret not putting more thought into it. To my mind, I was making a narrow point about the responsibility news media have when investigating and reporting on sexual violence. Allowing someone with a clearly prejudicial agenda to frame and leverage this story to the benefit of their political cause is a violation of that responsibility, in my opinion. I did not intend to suggest that the Times handling this poorly should be taken as reflective of people in general relating stories of sexual assault. But I am aware of this pernicious feature of rape culture, and I can see how what I wrote connects to it.

Ultimately, I very much take the point that the reporting is far less important than the fact of the assaults themselves, which are undeniable and as you, gyac, and suzy have said a recurring feature of war. On reflection, I let my personal frustration over the NYT's coverage of Gaza in general get the best of me. I apologize for minimizing the significance of such horror.

I hear you, thanks Rob .I appreciate it. I made the point harshly because that rhetoric is so utterly poisonous and can’t be separated from its place in the wider discussion of sexual assault.

That's absolutely fair and true (not that you need me to tell you, of course). Thank you very much for responding.

🚨The Israeli army killed Dr. Abdulkarim Al-Rekeb, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Khan Younis - #Gaza Strip

Dr. Abdulkarim has been treating the wounded and fulfilling his duty to assist pregnant women amidst the difficult circumstances of the genocide war for 152 days. pic.twitter.com/o0fns1pFKA

— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) March 6, 2024

jfc: https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/08/middleeast/gaza-airdropped-aid-deaths-intl/index.html

At least five people were killed, and 10 others injured on Friday, when airdropped aid packages fell on them in the Al Shati camp west of Gaza City, according to a journalist on the scene.

Khader Al Zaanoun told CNN he witnessed the aid packages falling from planes over the Al Shati camp but cannot confirm which nation was behind the air drop.

Muhammad Al-Sheikh, Head of Emergency Care Department at Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City confirmed five people were killed in the incident.

The Israeli military transferred 70 orphan kids from Gaza who were at SOS orphanage to another in Bethlehem, West Bank, at the request of the German Gov.

However, Israeli fascist FM is angry about what happened, and Smotrich sees offering “mercy” to orphaned children as evil. pic.twitter.com/smYNeSotmJ

— Khalil Sayegh (@KhalilJeries) March 12, 2024

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68513408

Palestinian medical staff in Gaza have told the BBC they were blindfolded, detained, forced to strip and repeatedly beaten by Israeli troops after a raid at their hospital last month.

Ahmed Abu Sabha, a doctor at Nasser hospital, described being held for a week in detention, where, he said, muzzled dogs were set upon him and his hand was broken by an Israeli soldier.

His account closely matches those of two other medics who wanted to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/gaza-torture?

Israel Defense Forces officers brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured, according to survivor testimonies published this week by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

Prisoners held at detention centers in Zikim on the northern border of the Gaza Strip and at a site in southern Israel affiliated with Naqab Prison "told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israeli towns," the group said.

The former detainees said groups of 10-20 Israeli civilians were brought in and allowed to record torture sessions in which the men, stripped nearly naked, were beaten with metal batons, electrocuted, and had hot water poured over their heads. The ex-prisoners said some of the Israelis laughed while filming their torture.

It just gets worse from there.

every helicopter, every hellfire missile, comes straight from the USA. this is an israeli-US war to exterminate the palestinian people as if they were insects. no one will ever forget this. ever. israel will never, ever live it down. they are sowing the seeds for a reckoning that will take many, many jewish lives and palestinian lives and others. it’s disgusting and shameful and beyond any justification.

i mean, religions have been birthed from less than this. where is the art that will document this sadness and pain? where are the songs? where are the heart-stirring armies of justice who will ride to the rescue?

some extremely heroic attempts at delivering aid right now, by sea, and via egypt, although sadly completely unequal to the task. israel continues to block all meaningful aid routes.

100%!! there is art and there are songs. there will be more.

The latest episode of Unapologetic: the Third Narrative podcast features a conversation with Gaza-born US citizen Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib talking about his experience going to UNRWA schools in Gaza, his opinions on Hamas and Israel and his opinions on what is needed for a path forward to peace.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-13-a-gazan-speaks-unrwa-hamas-and-more/id1714176763?i=1000649344702

He's lost a lot of family members in the conflict which you can read about on his Twitter. Like the hosts of this podcast, he is pretty blunt that Hamas has to go, that he does not want Gaza continuing to move in the direction of a fascist, dictatorship fundamentalist state like the Taliban, that too much time has been wasted, and he describes how UNRWA fell into a codependency of sorts with Hamas, with disastrous results for Gazans. In his opinion UNRWA needs to be reformed, not defunded. He talks about how UNRWA operates to maintain Palestinians aid-dependent within permanent refugee camps in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon as well as Gaza, which is not great for Palestinian people in those countries either, in his opinion, and would like to basically see a movement to constitute a Palestinian government from the Palestinian Authority.

The podcast and show are quite critical of Israel and aspects of the movements in the West too. As I think I mentioned, before they present themselves as neither "pro-Palestinian" or "pro-Israel" but (in their words) pro-peace and pragmatic. I don't know if there is a hidden agenda, but am finding it interesting.

I think everyone agrees Hamas aren't very good, and should absolutely go, of course

Unfortunately Israel's actions aren't achieving that aim, its a strategic disaster not just an ethical one. As Alkhatib says, targeting civilians doesn't really work and that goes the same for Netanyahu as it does for Hamas. Removing Hamas is a political operation not a military one, and one that can only be done by the population themselves, not via outside forces (as we saw the US also had trouble with this in Afghanistan)

Israel isn't removing Hamas. Israel is growing Hamas. And while Alkhatib correctly states that it is in Israels interest to have a developed Gaza, that doesn't mean Israel will necessary act in its own interests, which it clearly isn't doing so (though they're hardly unique in that currently)

But then the concept of "own interests" is subjective, and rests on a lot of assumptions

and would like to basically see a movement to constitute a Palestinian government from the Palestinian Authority

Wasn't the desire to forestall that the aim of Israel backing Hamas to start with?

like yeah a secular liberal democratic state would be fantastic, too bad the country actively carrying out a genocide is firmly opposed to it

Also: there’s a culture of dependency on UNRWA and aid because of Israel, not Hamas. People are displaced because of Israel, not Hamas.

The idea that Israel "backed Hamas" has become kind of a tall tale - there are grains of truth to it at times, but it is much more complex than that. Hamas is not an Israeli proxy or puppet, Hamas is the largest and most powerful vehicle of Palestinian anti-capitulationist resistance, and particularly Muslim Palestinian anti-capitulationist resistance. When Israel pulled out of Gaza, it did not back Hamas, it backed Fatah. No question that for a period of time Bibi (foolishly) saw Hamas as useful to divide the Palestinians, but a lot of what is described as "backing" Hamas is actually just a description of the simple reality that Hamas was the party in power in Gaza and therefore the party Israel had to deal with, and that Israel thought it was better off with "stability" created by Hamas receiving funding. Israel did not arm Hamas against itself, nor did it seek to create a bogeyman to justify conflict. Hamas is a very real Palestinian movement (and one that has support from Iran and Qatar, hardly cooperators with Israel). It's not as though Israel had the ability to install some other party in Gaza (it tried and failed to install Fatah!).

Hamas's goal has always been to prevent any compromise, or any solution that doesn't involve dismantling the Israeli state. When Hamas slaughtered buses and cafes full of civilians during the Second Intifada, this is exactly what it was aiming for - it wanted to harden people on both sides against any kind of negotiation or compromise, and it arguably succeeded, or it certainly helped that process. The kahanist right was still fringe back then - it was even banned from government. There were still a lot more Israelis (and I think more Palestinians too) who thought a compromise could be reached and were willing to accept a compromise. The same is true of the rocket attacks - the goal is to provoke and to prevent compromise. The longer this has gone on, and especially with October 7, the more interest in compromise among Israelis has dried up.

This all may seem a bit academic now, and none of this absolves Israel of responsibility for its abhorrent actions in Gaza, nor do I think Israel can realistically remove Hamas without creating a gaping power vacuum and doing even more needless destruction and harm, but if we want to talk about context, this is part of the context too.

all that is true, but there's also this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/30/how-israel-helped-create-hamas/

I think Israel could remove Hamas. But not by military means.

Or rather more to the point, Palestine could remove Hamas, if they were to get some help. The problem is that bombing people is a military solution not a political one and makes it more difficult to help them get rid of Hamas

Which means, whether Israel backed Hamas or not, intentionally, is arguable. But in terms of effect, they're backing them right now, they're creating more Hamas. Whether they mean to or not, the effect is the same

That should be Gaza not Palestine above I think

When Israel pulled out of Gaza, it did not back Hamas, it backed Fatah.

Israel was using Islamists/future Hamas/Hamas to counter the secular Arafat sphere in the '80s. Perhaps in the intervening 20 years they had some inkling they fucked up.

Saying that Hamas was backed by Israel is not the same as saying that Hamas is the creation of Israel, nor is 'Israel backing' mutually exclusive with 'authentically Palestinian.' They tried to use the Islamist enemy of their secular enemy to serve their own ends (to disastrous results), as Americans we couldn't imagine...

Hamas this, Hamas that.

Producing a stateless Palestinian population is not the answer. If that is what the Israeli state is doing we need another answer.

Hamas this, Hamas that.

Producing a stateless Palestinian population is not the answer. If that is what the Israeli state is doing we need another answer.

I started a novel/memoir by Israeli author S. Yizhar this morning which talks about the establishment of farms in land formerly owned by Arabs. There is an undercurrent of guilt about what has been done, with descriptions of the struggle to master a land they don't know but had to occupy as people who were themselves kicked out of Europe.

Might post more (on ILB) when I finish.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/18/al-shifa-hospital-raid-gaza-palestine-israel-idf-hamas-terrorist-activity-claims

There's no substitute for listening to Alkahatib, Amira or Ibrahim or reading their pieces so this is a paraphrase.

Generally, what Amira and Ibrahim say in the first episode is that they are resistant to Western narratives, as these are often backwards looking and not practical and lead to more death. Not to say that any of these accounts are wrong as it is true that both "sides" have done heinous things to the other. According to them, who say they have more skin in the game than the West, what is needed in this moment is an immediate cessation of violence, an acceptance of accountability and a way to move forward in co-existence. Not that Israel doesn't bear a big part of responsibility, but they personally are sick of war. Each time the Arab countries have attacked Israel and lost they have lost land and lost rights, so they think it's time to give up on the fantasy of eliminating Israel altogether and pursue peaceful coexistence.

Amira and Ibrahim don't always agree with each other, nor with their guests. They were talking a few episodes ago about with some Australian guests about how it's triggering to see protesters overseas calling for violent resistance by any means possible or "river to the sea" because it's the local populations who pay the price of violent resistance, not the diaspora.

Alkatib talked about his childhood experiences and also different analyses of motivations for or against statehood in the West Bank versus Gaza. What he says about Hamas is that Hamas is the "useful idiot" of Netanyahu and the right wing Israeli government, in the sense that while the PA had recognized the existence of Israel and (officially) denounced violence, Hamas hijacked the Gazan narrative and turned it into violent resistance. And that the fantasy of eliminating Israel is sort of egged on for cynical reasons in other parts of the world. He clarified that Hamas is an Islamist movement, Islamist being a political ideology not to be confused with Islamic culture or religion. He explained the layers of Hamas - the military wing, the political wing, the bureaucratic wing, and the people that just need jobs and work there and feel like they have little choice. Hamas are very incompetent at governing and corrupt, but that doesn't mean the solution is killing all of "Hamas" but finding a political off-ramp for removing Hamas leadership from governing and rehabilitating the rank and file as was done in Libya.

According to Alkatib, Hamas gives Netanyahu and israeli right-wingers an excuse to overreact with unwarranted force. Alkatib has written and talked about the anti-Hamas protest movements in Gaza, how he was horrified by the attack on October 7, as he never thought the Gazan independence movement would become associated in the minds of people worldwide with beheadings, burnings, and kidnapping of senior citizens and babies, and this has set progress back 20 years. What they would like to see is normalization of criticism of Hamas and more political pressure for the removal of Hamas. If Hamas is removed, then more external pressure can be brought to bear on the settlements and land swaps in the West Bank. But with Hamas, it is basically providing the fig leaf of an excuse for terrorizing and destruction.

I gotta say I’m a little wary of “third narrative” messaging, as well as taking a guy who “has a master’s degree in intelligence studies from American Military University” and contributes to an AIPAC-funded think tank as a wholly reliable source.

Of for sure. Be wary of all the narratives. If you're willing to listen to they NY Times coverage of Hamas (which I was) you should probably listen for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I think broadening your sources to include Palestinian voices is one way.