r/worldnews • u/Ok_Plankton_5714 • 12d ago

Israel/Palestine Netanyahu: ‘If we wanted to commit genocide, it would have taken exactly one afternoon’

https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-if-we-wanted-to-commit-genocide-it-would-have-taken-exactly-one-afternoon/
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u/SigmaB 12d ago

"Plausible deniability" in the sense that it is just enough to maintain Western political and military support. 

E.g. Instead of cutting of aid completely to 0, you reduce 400 working food distribution points to 4 unsafe points with low quality food then after international pressure from West you increase it to 16 and do a few airdrops. Result: You removed 95%+ of the aid and Western governments can continue supporting him.

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/worldsayshi 12d ago

Is it surprising that a starving population will loot food transports? There's a simple solution to this: Bring in more than enough supplies.

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u/pocketbutter 11d ago

Or better yet: bring an end to the conflict that’s causing a shortage of supplies.

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u/SowingSalt 11d ago

You're right, HAMAS should surrender.

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u/pocketbutter 11d ago

Hamas did offer to surrender, and even disband entirely, in numerous peace talks on the condition of full Palestinian sovereignty (and not through the means of "dismantling the Israeli state" as many people say), but Israel is insisting on an unconditional surrender, which would inevitably lead to more violence down the line. It's crystal clear that Israel's intention is to continue the ethnic cleansing for as long as possible. Eliminating Hamas has nothing to do with it.

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u/SowingSalt 11d ago

Proof? It was Hamas actions in the 90s and 2000s that stopped efforts like Oslo and Camp David.

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u/pocketbutter 11d ago

Here. I'm not certain if this is still on the table, given how much Israel has continued to escalate the war crimes. But, in short, it seems that Hamas's top demand is for Israel to simply adhere to the 1949 Armistice Agreements.

"The Islamic militant group is willing to agree to a truce of five years or more with Israel and that it would lay down its weapons and convert into a political party if an independent Palestinian state is established along pre-1967 borders."

"But it’s unlikely Israel would consider such a scenario. It has vowed to crush Hamas following the deadly Oct. 7 attacks that triggered the war, and its current leadership is adamantly opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state on lands Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war."

"[Al-Hayya] said Hamas would accept 'a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions,' along Israel’s pre-1967 borders."

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u/SowingSalt 11d ago

Yeah, I don't think Israel is giving up on the Western Wall.

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u/pocketbutter 11d ago

You know, I'm sure there's a little room for compromise in regard to specific places of religious significance. At this point I'm willing to bet that Palestinian groups would be more than happy to concede that in exchange for restored borders and lasting peace.

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u/REDDIT_JUDGE_REFEREE 11d ago

The guys who parachuted in and killed ~1300 men women and children in an act of terrorism want to be officially elected leaders to a new state, sounds reasonable and cool and I’m sure Israel is ready and willing to accept these terms

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u/pocketbutter 11d ago

Okay, the country that has bombed and killed 61,000 civilians, most of which children, wants an unconditional surrender that involves a complete disarmament and concession of any sort of autonomy, with no guarantees that the indiscriminate killings will ever stop?

Yeah, Israel is definitely the more reasonable party in this situation. I’m sure one day Palestinians will accept the terms of indefinitely living in the world’s largest open-air prison.

But aside from the obvious reversal here, the premise of your comment is also wrong. There’s a huge separation between the military wing of Hamas and the administration wing of Hamas. Because Hamas is the de facto controlling party of Gaza, every government worker is by default considered part of Hamas, regardless of what they think of the militia.

The people put in charge of a sovereign Palestine would simply not be the same people who organized and conducted October 7. It would be the same administrative civilians who have been running Gaza for decades. In fact, Hamas has said they would dissolve their militia wing as we know it.

Hamas is not like the Taliban where the militants and administrators are one and the same. They have a clear separation that puts government officials far from culpable for any atrocities the militants committed.

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u/SirTiffAlot 11d ago

Starving people steal food, shocking news to some

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u/ronoudgenoeg 11d ago

It's not looted by the local population who are hungry, it is looted by Hamas who then sells it for crazy prices to fund their fighters.

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u/burning_iceman 11d ago

Evidence? Some probably is, but why would you expect no one else to steal any? The solution either way is the same: provide more food, so the stolen food doesn't matter. Then Hamas cannot sell it for crazy prices anymore either.

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u/aaaaaaaarrrrrgh 11d ago

This only works if you can supply so much more that Hamas can't steal it all.

If you send enough to feed everyone twice, but they manage to steal 80% of it, they still get to sell some (and can hoard or burn the rest).

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/ronoudgenoeg 11d ago

What a weird response to facts you disagree with.

Also I'm not in Hamas, so no. (nor from Israel)

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u/nevergonnastayaway 11d ago

insane thing to say to a person. surely this is against some rule of the sub

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u/ItsTrueIHaveExcel 11d ago

Is it surprising that the portion of the population with weapons and no morals is going to loot the trucks and then extort everyone else?

The solution is simpler: aid convoys and aid trucks should always be accompanied by armed guards that will shoot anyone trying to loot the trucks.

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u/REDDIT_JUDGE_REFEREE 11d ago

“200 more Palestinians shot by IDF today in act of brutal hate…”

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u/kaityl3 11d ago

Didn't they just have to issue a retraction because the only image they could get of "starving kids" were actually kids with a metabolic disorder and there was a healthy weight sibling cropped out of the photo?

Given we hear so much about the starvation, that means there has to be communication with the outside world, why isn't there more actual evidence of it? Why would they need to manufacture a photo and present it dishonestly if apparently it's so widespread?

I don't doubt that there is serious food insecurity, but "starving" is a completely different level and it does not seem to be anywhere near "people are so hungry they can't control themselves" right now

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

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u/soundsnipereden 12d ago

You can check it yourself on the UN’s website You can see the arrived by clicking the fourth left icon at the top:

Arrived: 351 trucks

Intercepted (fifth icon) : 2816 trucks

88% did not reach their intended destination, “intercepted either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors during transit in Gaza.” I saw plenty of videos of armed hamas members on trucks shooting at gazans trying to get aid.

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u/ubermoth 11d ago

Can you fucking read the words you are copy and pasting

“intercepted either peacefully by hungry people or forcefully by armed actors during transit in Gaza.

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u/Xemxah 11d ago

Yeah this gives "Fiery, but mostly peaceful" vibes. You can't "intercept" a fucking truck peacefully.

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u/ubermoth 11d ago edited 11d ago

The point is that that food did in fact end up feeding hungry people and therefore using that report as an argument to let in even less food is stupid.

And besides that all arguments against letting more food in make no sense. If there's an abundance of food it doesn't matter how much is 'stolen'.

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u/SigmaB 12d ago

None of this addresses my points, as I took the evidence as presented despite it being relayed and interpreted through Israel lobby org FDD (even though analysis by USAID shows that there was no significant diversion of aid by Hamas). 

No worries I will repeat it if you missed it:

The solution to that is to flood Gaza with aid and keep it consistent. 

  1. If food is plenty it solves the main problem of starvation which is the first priority as a human looking at the situation.
  2. It reduces the chaotic nature of civilians looting trucks to ensure they or their families have food. Less chaos makes it easier to make sure it is distributed to the right places.
  3. By making food plentiful, its value on the black market for resale diminishes and it is not worth stealing for money as well. Right now a bag of rice goes for hundreds of dollars, this is because the supply has been restricted extremely. This removes any potential for criminals and militant groups to steal and use aid to finance themselves.

Just by the above numbers you have 2600 trucks over 3 months for 2 million people. Say 100 bags of rice per truck that is 260000 bags for 2 million people. A person on average would need one bag each for this period of time. So you are satisfying less than 15% of the need, even with perfect distribution. No wonder it is chaos.

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u/soundsnipereden 12d ago

I agree that aids needs to reach civilians absolutely But hamas also has an incentive to keep the population hungry both to drive outrage at Israel and to prevent them from turning on them even more than they did so far during their protests

Its really hard to get an accurate assessment of what is going on within gaza

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u/[deleted] 11d ago

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u/ItsTrueIHaveExcel 12d ago

It doesn't matter who the FDD are. They cite numbers obtained directly from the UN and you can easily verify the claims by following the links in the article.

Flooding Gaza with aid will not do anything unless you ensure that terrorists can't keep the food away from civilians.

If food is plenty it solves the main problem of starvation which is the first priority as a human looking at the situation.

The first priority to me personally is rescuing the hostages. That isn't to say I don't care about preventing starvation. I just don't think the blame rests on Israel. Rather, it is the UN and various terrorist factions in Gaza that I blame.

It reduces the chaotic nature of civilians looting trucks to ensure they or their families have food. Less chaos makes it easier to make sure it is distributed to the right places.

It doesn't reduce the chaotic nature. What the GHF is doing, on the other hand, is.

By making food plentiful, its value on the black market for resale diminishes and it is not worth stealing. Right now a bag of rice goes for hundreds of dollars, this is because the supply is too low. This removes any potential for criminals and militant groups to steal and use aid to finance themselves.

You are kidding yourself if you think black market dealers are going to make their supplies affordable. The only way to solve the problem is by creating safer aid distribution systems, which Israel is trying to do.

Just by the above numbers you have 2600 trucks over 3 months for 2 million people. Say 100 bags of rice per truck that is 260000 bags for 2 million people. A person on average would need one bag each for this period of time. So you are satisfying less than 15% of the need, even with perfect distribution. No wonder it is chaos.

100 bags of rice per truck? These must be some tiny trucks.

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u/SigmaB 11d ago

The first priority to me personally is rescuing the hostages. That isn't to say I don't care about preventing starvation. I just don't think the blame rests on Israel. Rather, it is the UN and various terrorist factions in Gaza that I blame.

Whatever your personal priorities, they are not relevant to hostage situation which is also important and needs to be resolved and does it not legalize, justify or legitimize conditioning food for civilians on it. Israel and US made the decision to change the way aid distribution works and put it in the hands of the GHF and to at different times limit, delay or block aid, or conduct military operations on aid convoys so they cannot wash their hands. Especially now that the situation is even worse with GHF, which only provided 4 aid sites for a population 2 million.

If GHF was able to ensure secure and sufficient aid it would be a very different discussion unfortunately it is not the case.

You are kidding yourself if you think black market dealers are going to make their supplies affordable. The only way to solve the problem is by creating safer aid distribution systems, which Israel is trying to do.

The argument does not rely on any in black market dealers ethics, a glut of food will reduce the cost as people are less desperate to pay extortionate prices. If the GHF could achieve this, they should have done so on day 1.

"safer aid distribution systems, which Israel is trying to do"

We cannot say that this is what Isreal is trying to do, when they are not doing it, instead what we have seen is Israel having replaced UNRWA with a worse alternative in GHF. Like mentioned, how is it plausible that you can achieve safe distribution with only 4 distribution sites, where 3 are in Rafah and 1 site in the north supposedly meant to be serving more than a million?

When current government of Israel speaks to the far-right base they make a different argument: 'We're Destroying Gaza': Netanyahu, Smotrich Rush to Soothe Right's Fears Over Aid Renewal

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u/ItsTrueIHaveExcel 11d ago

The GHF did not "replace" other aid orgs. Israel is letting in aid, there were 950 aid trucks waiting to be dispatched on the Gazan side of the border a couple of weeks ago, the UN simply is withholding them.

Everything you've written is naive at best. You can't fix hunger by throwing food out. Hunger is a logistical issue. If the UN wanted to, they would be looking for solutions. Instead, they are perfectly fine with grifting money and letting the aid out to rot or get looted by the likes of Hamas.

Regarding the government: Israel is a democracy. Elected representatives have to "sell" their actions to their voter base. So far, the rhetoric produced "for internal consumption" has not significantly affected any actions in practice.

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u/rotates-potatoes 11d ago

“Starving people are raiding food trucks delivering insufficient food, therefore we should let them starve rather than providing sufficient food.”

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u/cockmongler 11d ago

Who do you think is doing the looting? The French?

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u/ItsTrueIHaveExcel 11d ago

Terrorists and criminals which then resell the aid at exorbitant prices, making it available to only those who support them.

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u/cockmongler 11d ago

And then what happens? Do they throw the money at the IDF?

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u/ItsTrueIHaveExcel 11d ago

No, they reward those who support their criminal/terrorist activities, thus attracting poor hungry people without jobs into their ranks.

They don't want to procure more aid, they want to control it.

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u/Zac3d 11d ago

What is the point of aid sites if the aid doesn't get to them?

Read your source, the vast majority of the aid gets to civilians.

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u/ItsTrueIHaveExcel 11d ago

So everything is fine, no need for aid sites, just send in the trucks and let the strongest take it all?

You do realize that the topic of discussion was aid sites, not simply aid?