'Horrifying' Footage Shows IDF Killing Two Gazans, Burying Their Bodies With a Bulldozer
Video footage broadcast Wednesday by Al Jazeera shows Israeli soldiers gunning down two Palestinians on the coast of northern Gaza, even as one of them waves what appears to be a piece of white fabric. The video then shows Israeli soldiers burying the bodies with a bulldozer.
Richard Falk, former United Nations special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, toldAl Jazeera that the footage provides "vivid confirmation of continuing Israeli atrocities" and spotlights the "unambiguous character of Israeli atrocities that are being carried out on a daily basis."
"The eyes and ears of the world have been assaulted in real-time by this form of genocidal behavior," said Falk. "It is a shocking reality that there has been no adverse reaction from the liberal democracies in the West. It is a shameful moment."
But then you can't call the US a liberal democracy in any way as they aren't hands-off at all. Time and time again they meddle in other countries' business to exert influence and power and to advance their interests.
Israel itself was created by the West as Palestine was a British colony before and the US has since given more support to Israel than they would usually grant an ally. The continuous protection (political and militaristic) makes Israel almost a vassal state of the US. This is the real reason why "liberal democracies" have not reacted much (yet, hopefully).
Before we low-key split from Pakistan, they had a similar symbiotic/parasitic relation as the US does with Israel. Seen as a good ally/possible partner diplomatically and with military utility for bases and CENTCOM power projection. And though Pakistan was never really ‘on side’ for a couple of reasons, they kept themselves under the radar and out of our ire - until we found Taliban militants regularly getting refuge and medical care over the Afghan-Pak border, and capped off with discovering Bin Laden in Pakistan.
Israel is hardly a ‘vassal’ or even protectorate. The US has significant leverage, but Israel has remained cordial with Russia and China even if that means snubbing the US - Israel refused to export anti-ship and cruise missiles to Ukraine, in deference to Chinese and Russian interests. Israel has options now to split from the US (painful as it may be) unlike in the 60/70s when the Soviets were funneling weapons to Egypt and Syria, and Israel required US support.
All that to say, Israel can (and may yet) tell the US to kick rocks again, and I don’t think the west is ready for the reality of what enforcing a ceasefire/no-fly zone would mean.
This "vassal state" nonsense is a common meme, but that's about it. If it really was one, they'd listen to us.
And agreed, which is why I said that post-WW2, liberalism has been growing out-dated. It doesn't make much sense in a world of global communications, trade and warfare, so some evolution was, and continues to be, required. Otherwise it risks exchanging military imperialism for economic imperialism, where instead of conquering other lands you simply profit off of their people and resources.
There is nothing about Liberalism that excludes this practice as anything but an inevitability.
Inevitability? Not so sure about that, though the steps necessary to combat it could be construed as a departure from liberalism. Specific laws to prevent it, basically.
If you agree that liberalism does nothing to prevent the accumulation of power, how does liberalism not inevitably lead to economic imperialism? Honest question.
It really just seems like liberalism is being used here as a way to white-wash what is by most measures an extremely broken system.
With lawmaking. Our problem is that companies have acquired an outsized degree of power, including over the election system itself. The solution would be to break them, as we have done in the past. Certain behaviors need to be prohibited for the good of the country.
No system is immune to descent into tyranny of some form or another. Its enforcement mechanisms to prevent that need to be used appropriately though.
I'm happy that you see this, but I wish you could see how that accumulation happens. A system that doesn't have a way of addressing or acknowledging power differentials begotten by the accumulation of capital is bound to lead to that inevitability. And that doesn't even address the GEOPOLITICAL problems we started with. How the fuck does liberalism address the gigantic power differential of the United States against literally every other country on the planet?
Liberalism assumes that individuals entering into agreement are on equal footing. It ignores the coercive conditions of capital (between individuals and between nation states) and preaches 'self-determination'.
Geopolitical power disparities will exist for as long as different value sets and systems exist. I don't think it would be wise to even attempt to do away with them. Do remember, the sole purposes of the state from antiquity onward was to offer security against organized violence. Something must do so.
Regarding the fix for the domestic issues, again, that's the breakup of concentrated capital. We had similar issues in the 19th century, and you can look at the reforms of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to see how we addressed them. We can do so again, and probably should pretty soon here.
It's not that I'm unaware of the challenges we face, or inherent weaknesses of our system. My position is that it is difficult to solve them without simply becoming vulnerable to a different form of tyranny. It takes many forms, yes? With the oldest simply being people coming to kill you and take your stuff, as the Gazans and Ukrainians, among others, are currently experiencing.
So you don't see a problem or otherwise don't see a solution for economic imperialism...? I'm confused by this statement. Liberalism offers only voluntary exchange as a guiding principle, am I right in assuming you're OK with economic imperialism?
Ok.... so do you have a problem with social democracies as opposed to liberal democracies? Anarcho syndicalism? What makes liberalism preferable to a democratic system that's socially oriented instead of individually oriented?
To an extent, yes, I am okay with some economic imperialism. I would support laws that would restrict companies from working in overseas areas where slave wages are permitted, things like that. I do not see it as an all-or-nothing proposition though, it's not yes/no, black/white.
I'm not advocating for liberalism, I haven't been whatsoever. If you go back to my original comment, I was simply critiquing a statement of someone's misunderstanding of it. I'm personally more left than that. I just support accuracy, not blind, wrong-headed criticism and hot takes. Just because someone may share my position does not give them license to spread misunderstanding. Misinformation is never okay, no matter the position, side or belief.
I do not support anarchism in any of its forms, however, I don't think it can adequately maintain the military-industrial complex that modern warfare requires. Until warfare is a thing of the past, I don't think it would be wise.
You misunderstand. Economic imperialism isn't simply companies working overseas, it's a nationstate wielding it's economic advantage to establish market dominance over other countries. To my knowledge this is not a domestic policy issue but an international/Geopolitical issue. How would you go about breaking up a country that's gotten too big? In this regard (and In regard to your first comment), liberalism is absolutely not "hands-off" or neutral, at best it's ambivalent, but that sure as he'll doesn't mean it's "hands-off". You're correcting an alleged misunderstanding with your own.
As for anarchism or social democracies or even communism, I'm not sure you really understand the terminologies. Anarchism doesn't preclude a military, I'm not sure why you'd think that unless you took Anarchism to mean literally no governance at all. I don't want to assume you haven't, but I'd really recommend reading some lit on socialist economic structures, or even just some Locke and Rousseau to understand liberalism a bit better.
I was describing a single law I would support that would weaken economic imperialism. I was not saying that the law I proposed somehow solved it or anything, and that actually contradicts where I said I supported some. And please explain the difference between ambivalence/neutrality and hands-off.
A proper military-industrial complex requires a huge degree of coordination and stability across multiple independent sectors over many years. Only a large state is capable of managing the entire thing over the long periods of time necessary. An aircraft carrier battlefleet is a simply massive undertaking, requiring the efforts of millions of people over decades.
Sure. In this context, 'ambivalence' means having an internal inconsistency, whereas a true-neutral system would give no preference for a particular relationship. I mean it as liberalism claiming to support voluntary engagement and mutual consent in relations, but is ambivalent (i.e. internally inconsistent) about the relative power/influence between 'consenting' parties, to the extent that one party may not have any choice but to enter into a contract. Even though liberalism depends on the concept of mutual agreement, it has no answer to one party having outsized leverage against another, especially since its alleged benefit is mutual consent as a system of self-regulation.
It is the difference between 'social contracts' as a neutral observation of power dynamics generally, and 'liberalism' as an idealistic system of self governance.
Maybe if you take the US military as a standard, but even the founders envisioned a military comprised of independent militias. Besides, anarchosyndicalism traditionally acknowledges the need for a centralized government to ensure mutual security, even if they have strong feelings against a standing military the size of the current US one (with which I agree).
Anyway, I only posed that question to gauge your understanding of liberalism, since it seemed as if you understood it as something like "democracy". I wanted to see what you thought the difference between liberal democracy and social democracy was. I haven't been convinced you understand
The problem with that is in perception, ie: the US sees Israel as a vassal state but Israel sees themselves in an "equal" partnership. Therefore why would they feel they had to obey America?
I don't think the US sees them as a vassal state. Otherwise they probably would've been doing quite a bit of fighting for us in Afghanistan and Vietnam.
What is so hard to understand about the relationship known as "alliance", and how it means you are "allies"? Seems much more accurate than all this vassal state propaganda.
You think the US supports Israel despite their engagement in genocide simply on principle? You think there's no material benefit to the US?