White House says Israel’s latest actions in Rafah do not cross US red line

RubberDuck@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 110 points –
White House says Israel’s latest actions in Rafah do not cross US red line
theguardian.com
18

When you ask them where the red line is

Presumably they appear as red lines because of the speed they are zooming away at.

A year from now: "White house says Israel bulldozing every building in Gaza and building resort hotels on the coast do not cross US red line."

Biden's red line just so happens to be an infinitely elastic rubberband.

“We’ve also said we don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah that would really make it hard for the Israelis to go after Hamas without causing extensive damage and potentially a large number of deaths. We have not seen that yet,” - John Kirby, National Security Council spokesperson

"but we are secretly eagerly awaiting it and already have the popcorn on order!" - also this fucker (probably)

Bonus content. There is absolutely a major ground offensive going on in Rafah. The administration is playing a game of, "I can't see it if I don't look for it!"

This article says:

“The Israelis have said this is a tragic mistake,” Kirby said, referring to the airstrike and fire in an area crowded with refugee tents that Gaza health authorities said killed at least 45 people on Sunday.

According to an AP article titled: Netanyahu says deadly Israeli strike in Rafah was the result of a ‘tragic mishap’

Netanyahu did not elaborate on the error.

That's a blank statement. So what does Netanyahu consider as a mistake? Bombing too little?

Decapitated small children. Children burned alive. Elderly women burned alive. In a refugee camp in tents next to an UN facility. In a designated safe zone they were told to flee to.

You may delude yourself into thinking you have to prop up Biden now instead of demanding an end to this genocide, because "Trump would be worse!!!!", but you will always be complicit in these crimes. You will have chosen your comfort over the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civillians brutally murdered and millions more brutally occupied, beaten, sexually assaulted and starved.

If you don't make it clear that your vote depends on the end of this genocide, apply pressure, demand this from your representatives and take to the streets, you will be complicit when voting Biden in November.

I'm not convinced that Democrats wouldn't just happily go down down with the ship, so to speak, if they believed stopping the genocide was the singular issue that people's votes hinged upon. I don't know where that really leaves us all either, given how horrible the alternative is. If the Citizens United decision hadn't of happened we might have politicians that didn't act beholden to far-right Israelis, but, even considering the unfettered money poured into politics, it's ridiculous the hold that they seem to wield over both main parties in the US.

Do you honestly think that Trump would be better? Have you read what he has to say about this subject?

I'm disgusted with Biden too, but sometimes choosing between the lesser of two evils is the responsible thing to do. Ethical choices are often the most difficult. One-topic voting is almost never ethical. The ultimate results do matter.

You fall into the trap of believing that these are you only two options. But you can demonstrate now. You can put pressure on your represantatives now. You can organize Union action now. But you also need to ask yourself seriously, which factual differences are there between Trumps reign an Bidens reign. Biden still runs the internment camps. Biden increased the crackdown on immigrants. Biden is building the wall we all mocked Trump for for years. And also Biden did not push for Trump to be held accountable sooner and better. He did not push to address Jan 6. with the attention it deserves. He tried to go back to business as usual quite fast and his business as usual is more or less the same as under Trump, with the difference that he is now actively endorsing and supporting a genocide. Maybe not through his words but through his actions.

You're seeing only ideals and not reality. I'm all in favor of applying pressure toward better goals to both parties. That does not change the fact that a candidate of one of those two parties is going to win the election and run the country.

False equivalence is another problem with ignoring practical results in favor of pure ideology. There is a vast difference between Biden and Trump. It's obvious from looking at what they've done already. It become even more stark if you pay attention to what Trump is saying he intends to do if re-elected. Trump genuinely wants to destroy our system of government, eliminate democracy, and rule as a dictator. He badly wants to persecute those who have offended him or who disagree with him. And he now has detailed plans for how to go about those things. When someone tells you who they are you should believe them.

Biden will run things the way he has been, which does not make me happy, but provides an opportunity for change within the system. How do you expect to enact progressive changes under a right-wing autocracy?

Even if your only concern is the Gaza genocide, Biden and Trump have significantly different positions. Biden has making a weak and unsuccessful attempts to rein in Israel. There is reasonable hope that he does have a limit for how far he's willing to go in that direction, as evidenced by his temporary halting arms shipments. Trump has said that he supports what Israel is doing, but thinks they aren't going far enough. He has, in the past, suggested using nuclear weapons to resolve situations like this.

It all comes back to false equivalence. We are not talking about two of the typical business-as-usual candidates. We are on the verge of becoming Nazi Germany. If you aren't doing everything you can to prevent that, whatever efforts you make toward other goals are going become irrelevant.

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This is the best summary I could come up with:


Speaking after Israeli tanks were seen near al-Awda mosque, a landmark in central Rafah, national security council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that the US was not turning a “blind eye” to the plight of Palestinian civilians.

“The Israelis have said this is a tragic mistake,” Kirby said, referring to the airstrike and fire in an area crowded with refugee tents that Gaza health authorities said killed at least 45 people on Sunday.

Asked if there was anything the White House had seen from Sunday – through to the ongoing ground operations this week – that would prompt a US withdrawal of more military assistance, Kirby said “I believe that’s what I’ve been saying here”.

“We’ve also said we don’t want to see a major ground operation in Rafah that would really make it hard for the Israelis to go after Hamas without causing extensive damage and potentially a large number of deaths.

Pentagon official Sabrina Singh also said the administration was waiting for the Israeli military to conclude its investigation into Sunday’s strike before commenting further.

Israel has called the loss of life “a tragic accident” and its army said Tuesday its munitions alone could not have caused the deadly blaze, adding that it had targeted and killed two senior Hamas militants in the strike.


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