The Intercept seems to have a real problem with providing fair coverage of anything related to Israel. The problems of incitement to violence on Facebook result in actualized civilian deaths in Israel.
>UK news organisations are becoming increasingly frustrated by the continuing ban preventing foreign correspondents from crossing into the Gaza Strip, more than two weeks after Israel's military offensive against Hamas began.
>After months of attempting to limit access, the Israel Defence Forces are still refusing to open the Erez crossing they closed on 27 December, when the bombing campaign began, to anything other than humanitarian aid – despite a supreme court ruling ordering the government to allow members of the international press into Gaza.
>David Mannion, the ITV News editor-in-chief, branded the Israeli media ban "disgraceful", while Dominic Wagthorn, the Sky News Middle East correspondent, said the "unprecedented" level of interference was "very frustrating".
The Egyptians actually fire across the border, flood tunnels with sewage, and without going out on a full on assault do pretty much the same thing the Israelis do but since it's Egypt (almost) no one is reporting on it.
Gaza is a part of a separate sovereign state, with which Israel has tense foreign relations and is within its rights to control exports. and they're posting border guards for those exiting it. It's legally no different from inspections that take place at U.S./Mexico border checkpoints.
> They also reserve the "right" to invade Gaza whenever necessary
Source?
> while keeping the population locked in
Source? No country is obligated (except for E.U. member states) to allow the free flow of people without visas. The only thing I've read which might qualify for this claim is naval blockade of the coastline.
> The whole world agrees that it constitutes an occupation
Gaza? Source?
Regarding you request for source on the "right to invade Gaza": > "Israel will continue to control Gaza's coastline and airspace and reserves the right to undertake military operations when necessary. (Art 3.1)." http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/mfadocuments/p...
This is also evident by the many incursions Israel has made on Gaza. Israel is still firing shells into Gaza with tanks and mortars! https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=hundred...
Regarding the Israeli control of Gaza being an occupation:
>In January 2012, the spokesperson for the UN Secretary General stated that under resolutions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, the UN still regards Gaza to be part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.[15]
I don't see the text you've cited from your first source when I follow the link about the prerogative of general military operations. There is similar wording in B 3.1 et ff., but limited to defense, and context is needed: Israel is formally at war with Hamas, which (after suspending every election in Gaza after they were put in power) is the de facto regional authority. This is not a claim of a peacetime "right" any more than our in
The second link is not a source, and the most recent attacks at the top of the search are claimed to be a self-defense response.
The link in the third source is nowhere to be found, but it likely rests on UN Resolution 242, of which Hamas (and the PNA insofar as Abbas represents it) has not honored by rejection of affirmation 1(ii): "Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgment of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force" http://www.un.org/Depts/dpi/palestine/ch3.pdf
Israel does not recognize any separate state as having sovereignty over Gaza.
> It's legally no different from inspections that take place at U.S./Mexico border checkpoints.
Last I checked, the US doesn't assert a right to control Mexico's seacoast or airspace, and impose a blockade of shipments into and out of Mexico that do not come through the US.
It doesn't matter what country it is.
Or put another way, if you support this, you also (whether you realize it or not) support China, Iran, the UAE, North Korea, etc. etc. etc. doing the same thing. Think you don't? Just wait for the arguments after one of those does something awful.
This is a tug of war between cultures, all sides are culpable.
Cited directly from the submission that you clearly did not read.
Soldiers themselves are posting online calling for the death of Palestinians.
This is very far from the case of uneducated Muslims being whipped into a frenzy, and I say that as someone that adamantly views the Israel-Arab schism as a fight between civilized men and savages. I'm about as pro-Israel as you can get but the conduct of Israelis can get just as disgusting as their Arab detractors.
There are more links to sources in the article.
Being targeted by Israeli extremists for holding them to high standards and expectations is pretty unpleasant, and being targeted by Arab extremists for accepting the existence of the Israeli state is also unpleasant.
I sympathize with both Israeli and Palestinian people, I accept the existence of the Israeli state, and I recognize the need for Palestinians to have political representation. Call me what you want but please don't jump to conclusions or make any hasty decisions.
I might also be a bit biased as around here (both locally and on hn it seems) there is or has been a quite strong anti-Israel bias although at least were I live that seems to have been changing over the last year.
You are absolutely correct that there is (IMO) a healthy amount of Arabs elected to the Knesset, but I think more needs to be done to integrate them into normal and day-to-day Israeli society. Unfortunately, integration into host societies is not popular among hard-liner fundamentalists.
Frankly I think something akin to the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement in Canada would be appropriate.
Source? Assuming that is true, they have the ability to vote.
There are some companies that go out of their way to employ them (Rami Levy and SodaStream are some of the largest). Unfortunately, extremists use this as an attack vector against innocent men, women, and children, as they exploit their jobs to be able to murder and maim civilians (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Jerusalem_synagogue_attac...).
Israel provides electricity to the PA even though they haven't paid their bill in years, and will probably never pay it in full. We're talking debts of $500M+ (http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-pa-said-to-reach-deal-on...).
Palestinians have the potential for a very good life in Israel. Sure, there are extremists on both sides. However, Israel is not a country made up of extremists (in fact they are a tiny portion of the population). The key difference is that most Arabs support their extremists though they won't carry out acts of terror (centrists celebrate in the streets after terrorist attacks are carried out; most vocally support terrorism against Israel and the West even if they wouldn't do it themselves, and they would rather see Israel destroyed than have a two state solution implemented) [I know there are sources for this, but I can't seem to find them. I'll instead attribute this to my personal experience with this, and leave you to draw your own conclusions].
The way I see it, it's best summed up with a quote from Golda Meir (disputed, but accurate nonetheless):
“Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”
To your comments on illegal settlements. Yes, there is plenty of support for them. In fact, most of the supporters contend that they are not illegal.
There's a very big difference between supporting the settlements right to exist and supporting extremist violence coming from the settlements. Settler violence is very different than Arab violence. Please bear in mind that what follows is true most of the time, and I'll address a few of the exceptions. They key difference - and this holds for all cases of extremist violence - is that it is thoroughly condemned by the full spectrum of Israelis (except for other violent extremists, although depending on how heinous it was, some of the tamer elements would condemn it as well). It is something that is taken seriously by Israel, especially if it leads to a loss of life, because Israelis care about life. It can even lead to violent crackdowns against settlers (which very often turn into witch hunts that violate due process and humanitarian rights, but the Left is quiet about that - see the dubious detention of Meir Ettinger).
1. Settler violence is condemned by the Israeli public and government - from the Right to the Left 2. Settler violence is proven to have been staged by the Left or Arabs 3. Settler violence is reactionary / provoked (price tags and harrassment by leftist groups and/or Arab neighbors) 4. Settler violence is an anger outlet vs an outright desire to maim/kill and as such rarely leads to bodily harm / death 5. Reported Settler violence is often referring to an instance of an Israeli Settler injuring/killing an Arab as the Arab was infiltrating a settlement or attacking Israelis (reported by B'Tselem a far left HR organization who has since amended their page showing this - http://www.btselem.org/english/Statistics/Casualties_Data.as...) 6. Settler violence committed by a mentally unstable assailant (Abu Khdeir killing)
As I noted, there are exceptions to the above (Goldstein, etc...), but most follow the above points, and rarely end in injury or death for Arabs, as the violence tends to be rioting and property destruction.
OTOH:
1. Arab violence is rarely condemned by the Arab public and government - most rejoice, and the more serious the attack the more they rejoice 2. Arab violence is often committed in public or has direct evidence of its occurrence 3. Arab violence is often out of the blue (not in retaliation for a specific personal attack or provocation) 4. Arab violence is often expressed as a desire to murder innocent Israelis and Westerners and to bring about the destruction of Israel
#5 doesn't really have a corresponding bullet, because most Israeli's entering an Arab settlement do so by mistake. Doesn't stop the population from trying to lynch them (I've heard multiple first-hand accounts of this, including from relatives and schoolmates).
I'm sure there are mentally unstable Arab assailants, but I don't know percentages.
2. Citations, please, as to what the "smolanim" are up to.
3. I don't care if it's a "price tag", it's still a difference of degree, not of kind from Arab violence.
4. Doesn't matter. Are they babies? We hear all the time about how Israel is a more morally advanced, "European" country and yet shouldn't be held to higher standards?
5. Sure
6. OK, and what about that wedding party where they were chanting support for Abu Khdeir's killer?
Now to respond to your OTOH:
1. Violence against whom? Themselves as well? 2. Citation. Also, as opposed to in private in a settlement? 3. Again, citations. Also, if you're living under the control of occupation authorities and harassed at checkpoints that isn't a provocation (this doesn't apply if they attack civilians of course) 4. I think the state of Israel and the Jewish people are going to survive a bunch of people talking shit. 5. Ding ding ding ding ding. And you want to rule over these people? When those Catholics lynched the British Army soldiers at the funeral in Northern Ireland for driving in the wrong way down the street, does that mean Britain should have expelled all the Catholics from Belfast?
1. Settlers who commit crimes are prosecuted by the Israeli government, and have no support for their actions from non extremists 2. Pallywood. In terms of smolanim, there are many videos on YouTube showing them harassing and attacking soldiers and civilians, and only filming the response (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallywood - I'd get some video links for both examples but I really have to get back to work :-) 3. That does take degree into account. Price tags rarely cause injury or death, even though they are often in response to Arabs injuring or killing Israeli's 4. No they're human beings, and they exercise restraint in retaliation. That being said, an overwhelming majority of Israel condemns their actions. You'll be hard pressed to find a Leftist who supports them, and a large majority of the right condemns their violence. 5. Not sure if that's sarcasm or not 6. Both the groom and his parents are on record stating that they do not know those people who were not invited and they were dancing off to the side so they didn't notice them. If they had, they would've removed them from the wedding. In any case, they were violent hilltop youth; again, condemned by a large majority of Israel (http://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Abu-Khdeir-murderer...)
1. They celebrate death and injury to Westerners and Israelis. When Arabs commit terrorist attacks against Israel they parade in the streets and hand out candy. The terrorists are hailed as hero's as they celebrate the fact that they just killed/injured innocent people. 2. When an Arab blows up a bomb in a busy street, when an Arab goes in a knifing and/or shooting spree in the street, when an Arab uses his car to ram into people in the street, that's pretty public. There are also less public ones, sure. But you almost never hear of a settler walking into an Arab town in broad daylight and just start killing/injuring people. 3. Ignoring the fact that they do this to civilians, we'll focus on the soldier aspect. You think it's OK for an Arab to approach a checkpoint, pull out a knife, and stab a soldier who was doing nothing other than standing there? How about when they ram their cars into checkpoints, or try to blow them up. It got so bad that the IDF had to instruct soldiers to start shooting these terrorists, because the soldiers didn't want to have to kill anyone, but it was leading to soldiers getting injured and killed. What if it's not at a checkpoint? What if an Arab walks past a soldier in the street and knifes him/her? Is that OK? (http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2015/11/09/west-bank-attempt... http://www.stogether.org/idf-soldiers-hate-checkpoints/ http://www.ifcj.org/news/stand-for-israel/two-idf-soldiers-w... and there multiple others that are easy to find) 4. The Holocaust started with a bunch of people talking shit. We're very wary of shit talking now, especially when that leads to (and has led to) dead Israelis 5. No we don't want to rule over these people at all. We want them to go away, or stay and be functioning members of society. But no one should have to worry that making a wrong turn will lead to them being lynched.
"While the focus here is on Palestinians’ “incitement,” it’s actually very common for Israelis to use Facebook to urge violence against Palestinians, including settlers urging “vengeance” when there is an attack on an Israeli. "
"In 2014, thousands of Israelis used Facebook to post messages 'calling for the murder of Palestinians.'"
Sources are linked in the article.
No one in the west or elsewhere was claiming that Egypt or Jordan were occupying Palestine, no one in the west objected Egypt shelling Gaza pretty much every other night, and no one dragged Jordan to the Hague for Black September, ironically enough the "Black September" terrorist organization which murdered the Israeli athletes during the Munich olympics was named for a terrible event that Israel had nothing to do with, but instead of going to attack Jordanian athletes for the 20,000 Palestinians that the Jordanian army butchered they went after the Israeli delegation.
I was thinking more along the lines of stealing US nuclear tech, false-flagging, attacks on US, high-level espionage and "turning" top government officials, negotiating for top posts, etc. Or the whole "mess with us and we'll nuke the world" stance. Behaviour that's unbecoming of such a close ally, and that would be more expected to be coming from North Korea (if they had the resources). Maybe "everyone" does this kind of stuff, but these ones are public knowledge yet bringing them up is usually reacted to very negatively.
Maybe? are you kidding me? How do you think the UK and France got their Nukes? The UK pretty much stole the designs from the Manhattan project because the US wasn't in a sharing mood (even tho the UK gave them the early and flawed weapon designs), so did the French, (Dutch, Greeks, Italians, and pretty much everyone else at the same time that wanted a bomb).
As for spying goes everyone spies it's one of the supporting pillars of modern politics and diplomacy, the US constantly spies on Israel, Israel spies on the US. The UK, France, Germany, Turkey, South Korea, Japan and even freakin Australia spy on the US and everyone else. Espionage isn't a question of will or morality it's a question of resources, and the US spies more than anyone on everyone, so using your argument the US is North Korea to all of NATO and the entire world.
The level of spite you seem to hold towards a single country is simply irrational regardless of how you try to rationalize it, Israel never threatened to nuke the world, I think you are confusing it with some other countries, including a country that pushed for MAD which most of the world seen as the most pretty freaking immoral thing invented and the only reason it worked is because while the soviets were appalled by that idea they had no choice but to comply or risk being on the receiving end of a first strike.
Wonder how much of that selective reporting is Omidyar vs. the journalists.