An American mom, 67, spent her life advocating for Palestinian rights. Then, Hamas came for her.
They exchanged text messages and emojis. Brief status updates with words of encouragement. A picture of the beloved family dog "Tutsi."
Until no more messages came.
And then, Cindy Flash, an American, and her Israeli husband Igal vanished into the violence, presumed kidnapped by Hamas.
Four days after Hamas attacked Israel, more than 100 Israelis and potentially dozens of foreign nationals are thought to be held captive in the Gaza Strip. At least 14 U.S. citizens have been killed and an unknown number are still unaccounted for.
Flash, 67, originally from St. Paul, Minnesota, is one of them. She lives in Kfar Aza, a kibbutz in southern Israel near Gaza, where some of the most harrowing and grisly stories have been emerging during the last few days.
"They are breaking down the safe room door," Flash said in one of her final messages to her daughter Keren, 34. "We need someone to come by the house right now." She had been communicating with her parents from a few houses away.
Keren described her mother, who worked as an administrator in a local college, as someone who had the "sweetest biggest heart," who everyone knew and loved, and who had spent a lifetime advocating for the rights of Palestinians, including those who live in Gaza where she may now be held.
Hamas ≢ Palestine
Ok, but how truish are "Hamas ≠ Palestine" and "Hamas ≈ Palestine"? At what point do we draw the line?
Questions: Who is fighting for Hamas? From where the "boots on the ground" come from? How can they organise amidst civilian population to take any coordinated actions?
Assuming that your questions are rhetorical and that you are placing blame on all Palestinian citizens for the actions of Hamas. By the same logic, all Americans are guilty for the Jan 6th attack on the capital and all the other horrific acts America have committed around the world.
No, my questions are not rethorical. Any such movement cannot live separated from the local population. They cannot organise in secret if nobody is keeping that secret. They cannot train if the others don't keep the secret. They cannot manufacture, hide and launch thousands of small range rockets if other don't keep a secret.
I'm not arguing about justifications or who did what and why. It's not relevant for this discussion.
Goes on to talk about how they were making a point rather than wanting an answer to their questions
Ok, good luck.
Palestinians knew who they were when they elected them.
Israel knew who Netanyahu was when they elected him.
Sure. And Netanyahu is a right-wing asshole. But he isn't a terrorist.
You see the difference?
I'm not here to argue semantics, Hamas are terrorists, Netanyahu is a terrorist.
If a terrorist is someone who attacks civilians for political aims, then yes.
That is pretty much textbook. Someone or some party that uses violence and the threat of violence to create fear in the pursuit of political goals.
Problem is that applies to most nation states that are active on the global scale. So the political use can be reduced to "terrorists are always the others"
It's pretty much always "terrorist are when those without power use the tools of fear against those with power." All "freedom fighters" are terrorists who won pretty much. All nations are terrorists who get to use their power and influence to convince others they aren't.
A terrorist is a member of a non-government military group that uses violence for political gains
Attacking civilians isn’t related
Yeah, if I was dead wrong about what words mean, I wouldn't want to argue semantics either.
What is your definition? It's got to be interesting if it isn't the one everyone else has decided is the correct one.
Then why do you keep replying when you are dead wrong? Can't even be consistent on keeping your word.
Hamas are terrorists, Netanyahu is a terrorist. If a terrorist is someone who attacks civilians for political aims.
I find it hard to discriminate Civilian A who was killed from Civilian B who was killed by the other side. Apparently that is a controversial statement around here. Ya'll are fucked.
Hamas are terrorists because the target civilians for death.
Netanyahu is a corrupt right-wing asshole, but he doesn't target innocent civilians for death.
If you broaden the word "terrorist" to apply to anyone you don't like for any reason, the word ceases to have any meaning or weight.
And that gives cover to ACTUAL terrorists.
Deliberately cutting off water, electricity and medical aid will result directly in children dying. Again I find it hard to see the difference between civilian A and civilian B being killed just on the basis of WHO killed them. But you do you.
Hunting down children with machine guns will directly result in children dying.
Not sure if you refer to Hamas, or the possible Israeli land invasion.
Hamas , since killing civilians was not collateral damage for their plan on oct 7 , it was sanctioned and approved by every level of the Hamas command structure as an objective of their attack.
Interesting you'd say this 19 days later, after:
How many times "collateral damage" is fine? All of it?
Again, you're pretending that INTENTION doesn't matter. That collateral damage is morally equivalent to a targeted killing.
I just 100 percent disagree.
What other result is there for INTENTIONALLY cutting off food, water and electricity. BTW I just asked my 12 yr old if I cut off the food water and electricity to a population would mean I be responsible for the deaths and her answer was "DUH!" This isn't hard man.
That's fine. Maybe if we ask Hamas to be nice and come out, they'll stop using all those people as a human shield.
Go lecture them. You're very persuasive.
They're intentionally killing civilians. It's equally targeted. It's not just collateral damage any more than nuking a civilian populace to kill one person is collateral damage. They also intentionally targeted and bombed the border crossing between Egypt and Gaza after telling civilians to flee there.
Just because one side can kill the other with technology and superior firepower doesn't make it morally different.
Netanyahu has every opportunity to tell his army not to target civilian dwellings.
But he isn't. Because he and his ilk have repeatedly stated their opinions that Palestinians don't matter. They aren't people.
Israel has been waiting on an excuse to genocide the Palestinians for at least a decade now. Hamas just gave it to them.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/no-such-thing-as-palestinian-people-top-israeli-minister-says
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-election-idUSKBN0MC1I820150316
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2014/07/18/10-quotes-that-explain-the-history-of-the-gaza-conflict/
It's wrong-headed to try to absolve either side of any blame here. Hamas are terrorists. So is the Israeli state.
Israel has a right to be paranoid and militant. They've had to fight for their right to exist as a nation for 70-80 years now. Constantly under attack. Constantly at war.
And the Palestinians have the right to be angry. Their land was stolen from them to make room for a Jewish State. They were displaced with no attempt to compromise. And they've been discriminated against and murdered systematically since.
So course extremist factions popped up on both sides.
Innocent people have been murdered by both. Hamas might have started this most recent fight, but Israel has had no qualms in using its superior firepower just as ruthlessly.
bro you can you read? hear words? Israel is currently bombing apartments, ambulances, etc. Specifically with the goal of killing every last citizen in gaza that doesn't flee.
So what is your response to the report that IDF missiles are hitting hospitals in Gaza and nearly killing MSF workers?
https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/gaza-situation-catastrophic-hospitals-are-overwhelmed
Hamas's well-documented use of its own civilians as human shields, as well as its use of mosques, hospitals, schools and private homes as weapons storage facilities and firing platforms, violates international humanitarian law.
https://www.jns.org/hamas-again-using-human-shields-in-gaza/#:~:text=Hamas's%20well%2Ddocumented%20use%20of,Source%3A%20IDF%20International%20Cooperation%20Division.
More apologetics for Netanyahu killing civilians that you deem worth killing. You are fuckin sick in the head dude. Stop makin excuses for people committing war crimes no matter the side.
KILLING civilians happens in every war, no matter how just.
The issue is who is being TARGETED.
Hamas targets civilians. Israel targets Hamas.
Hamas hides among civilians, to use them as human shields.
So when Israel targets Hamas, of course civilians are going to die. That's on Hamas's hands as well.
If each faction had the ability to only kill exactly who they wanted, Israel would be killing only militants, and Hamas would still be killing children.
CUTTING OFF ALL WATER FOOD AND ELECTRICITY IS TARGETING CIVILIANS FOR DEATH. Sorry for the all caps but you seem to not be getting the idea otherwise. I don't care if civilian A or B is killed by either side, it is a war crime.
If they are truly so cut off from water that someone dies of thirst, you'll definitely have a good point. But if this is a short term tactic that gives them a tactical edge over Hamas, that's a different story.
Obviously not.
Hamas was never elected as sole leadership in Palestine. They never won a plurality of votes, ever.
They formed a unity government, then fought the other government, usurped control, and cancelled elections forever.
Hamas won 74 out of 132 seats. They did it with 44 percent of the vote. Not sure how that worked.
Anyway, you're kind of right, kind of wrong.
Same way Republicans do it in Ohio, one assumes. Heavy concentration in minority-population areas.
And the Palestinian authority is really a puppet government that Israel allows Palestine to have, so it's not like any available option is really good
No lol. One of Israel's dumbest moves ever was empowering Hamas as they saw it as an alternative to the Palestinian Authority
This should be said more often and more forcefully, as its knowledge people (including myself) are not generally aware of.
20 years ago. Around half of today's population didn't vote and of the ones that did many didn't vote for hamas. Find a new way to blame innocent people, this one doesn't work.
Half of the population is below 19 years old. So they weren't even born when Hamas was elected.
The average age of Palestinians is 19. The average age of Israelis is 30. That tells you one thing, that you don't live a long life if your Palestinian.
Living in what human rights groups and the UN describe as an open air prison under bombarded from a neighboring country isn't exactly the best thing for life expectancy.
Roughly 2.3 million people live on the Gaza Strip out of the roughly 5 million people living in Palestine BTW, which is the area currently being bombarded by Israel in response to the terrorist attack by Hamas.
I wouldn't put a lot of stock in how the United Nations describes anything to do with Israel. Their bias is of the charts.
Remember, this is an organization that officially denounced Israel for human rights violations 20 times in one year, and for every other nation on Earth, with all the modern slavery, sex trafficking, genial mutilation, honor killings, murder of LGBTQ, marriage and rape of 7-yr-girls, denying basic education to women, forcing women to fully cover their bodies, mass incarcerations, etc,etc... For all the rest of the world, 6 denouncements.
So yeah, the UN is not a serious organization when it comes to Israel.
Maybe Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch is better.
Amnesty international wasn't the one that faked reports on Russian concentration camps in kherson?
Someone passed Whataboutism 101! Congrats 🎉
I think he's at least at 301.
It's not about whataboutism but about the credibility of the source. A year ago, everybody was taking a shit on amnesty because of its tankie-bias
Gotta link? I don’t know about this.
First please note that i ended my comment with a quotation mark, cause I may very well have fell in plain disinformation propaganda.
There was quite a scandal that aroused from an amnesty report during the last year i presume this is it. The Ukrainian government apparently heavily criticized it and accused them of projecting the guilt on the victims. The head of amnesty in Ukraine's office quit not long after because of it article from Reuters. The Times published its own opinion on that report (sorry for the paywall).
A few days later a few newsoutlets suggested that amnesty based its opinion on Russian filtration camps on interviews to people inside those camps, alleging that those persons could very well be answering at gun point. Everything apparently roots to this article from NV, an ukrainian newsoutlet. I have mixed feelings with this article because they use a facebook post from what they call a 'government channel' as source and i coudlnt find the original post and the channel says loud and clear NGO.
On April of this year, The New York Times published that leaked documents from Amnesty titling it "Unreleased Report Finds Faults in Amnesty International’s Criticism of Ukraine". Another paywall, this link from the guardian abords it.
Here another review on the scandal, but its the first time i see this source.
Any organization that calls Israel "apartheid" is comically biased.
Israel is the only country in the region where a lesbian Muslim woman can vote, get an education and hold elected office.
Claiming it's apartheid is like claiming the US was apartheid when occupying Iraq because we didn't allow Iraqis to be citizens of the US.
Words have meanings, and the accusation is demonstrably absurd.
I can't help but notice your only issues here is with how terms are used in regards to Israel and Palestine but not with the bombardment of Gaza in response to a terrorist attack from Hamas. A place where nearly half of Palestine's population lives.
Do you not have an issue with Israel's response or something?
I have no idea who Israel is targeting, but if history is any guide, it is Hamas terrorists.
And Hamas terrorists make it a POLICY to hide among civilians.
For now, I'm giving Israel the benefit of the doubt because they have very much earned it.
Then you were living through an alternate timeline. Israel has killed more than 10.000 Palestinian civillians since 2008 before this weekend. Now they have declared the Palestinians animals when announcing the blockade starving them to death now.
Also they told the Palestinians to flee into Egypt and then bombed the road close to the border crossing.
And Egypt has closed their border to Palestinians just todaySo the situation gets worse and worse
Edit: I was mistaken, their just taking steps to make it harder currently.
I don't dispute your numbers. But Israel has been in a non-stop battle against terrorists who use their own people as human shields. So I put the civilian death toll squarely where it belongs: at the feet of the terrorists.
I've seen ZERO evidence that Israel has ever as a matter of policy targeted innocent civilians. In the contrary, I've seen Israel go out of it's way to send text messages to civilians to give them time to evacuate. I've seen they drop lead weights on rooftops as a warning to the people inside you get out before actual missiles come.
I've never heard of any other nation doing that. Never. They are knowingly letting terrorists escape because it spares civilian lives.
Even if Hamas didn't have a policy to hide amongst civilians, do civilians really have a choice but to be close to possible Hamas members? There's 45 square kilometers of Gaza with 2.3 million people. That's 50,000 people per square kilometer that's 51 people per meter approximately. So where the hell can you be in that tight space without being close to 50 or more other people.
That's an excellent criticism ... of Hamas.
If they can't operate without endangering their own civilians by pure proximity, then... don't?
Take the word of some random guy on internet, or an international NGO? Tough call 📞
Or, just use your brain.
Already did.
You go first.
50% of the persons living in palestina are under 18
Edit: had a stroke
Yeah. I wish their parents loved them more than they hate Israel.
Are you a troll or something?
No he's just right.
Yet Israel government=all Israelis is fine to you
The article clearly states "advocate for Palestinians, then Hamas came for her" like it's some "voting for the face eating leopards" situation. It's a valid distinction. Also, no, the Israeli army isn't all Israelis.
It's hard to see the difference between Palestinians and Hamas when they had a pro Palestine rally in my city and their signs were peppered with "death to all Jews" and pictures of Jewish caricatures being hanged.
You must be pretty stupid if you struggle to see the difference between hamas and normal palestinians
Do you think piss is apple juice, because theyre both a liquid and they could be the same color sometimes if you squint?
Please calm down if you can. Don’t let the miseducated get you emotional. They are victims of disinformation and propaganda, and it takes time to work through it. 👍
Just because Hamas support Palestine doesn’t mean that supporting Palestine makes you support Hamas. That’s like saying that because I like art and Hitler liked art that means I support Hitler (which I very much fucking don’t). It doesn’t make any sense logically.
https://twitter.com/RomanGoddess72/status/1712114433428799680
Funny because I can't see the difference between these people and the fascist Israeli government
Ok so don't. These people are just like the IDF and the people shouting death to Jews are just like Hamas, what's the problem here? Seems we're in agreement
One group has the power to complete annihilate the other.
The other is living in the largest open air prison & concentration camp in the world.
This is a ghetto uprising. Something I would expect you to know the history of.
no it's not, where the fuck did I wrote that?
where did he say that?
sick of you fuckers not letting people feel complexly about this. fuck off
This seems more like an example of wrong place wrong time because nowhere in the article does it state that they were specifically targeted. What it does say is that they lived right next to the fence
and that they and their neighbors both had safe rooms. To me, when you (and your neighbors) feel the need to build a fortified room to protect yourselves during a potential attack that saysthis area is potentially very dangerous.Also, stop conflating the Palestinian people with Hamas. Not all Russians are committing war crimes in Ukraine. Not all Americans stormed the US capital on J6. Not all Saudis were on planes on 9/11. We do not need to further dehumanize ANY of the people who are now suffering through this now and the MANY who are continuing to have suffering brought upon them.
Nobody can excuse attacks on civilian populations for revenge. This goes both ways. And whether or not this poor sweet lady and her husband are still alive, I'm sure she would be equally abhorred that her life's work is being used as an excuse to undo the very thing she worked towards.
Edit: I've been informed all homes in Israel must have safe rooms by law.
Israeli here:
Every house in Israel has to have a safe room by law
The place where she lived was close to the border but completely within Israel. It wasn't a settlement at all.
Most kibbutzim in Israel are known to be centre-left. This is well-known to anyone who even vaguely follow the Israeli media (and Hammas follow)
Hammasb (not the Palestiniens, Hammas) knew exactly who they murder. There is no excuse to wash their hand.
So then Israel (not it's people, but the military) know exactly who they murder now? So when they now and in the past murder civilians there's also no excuse?
Edit: also, aside from all that. I'm truly sorry this happened to your country and your people. I wish you all peace and an end to the bloodshed.
"It wasn’t a settlement at all."
Your entire country is a settlement.
There are Palestinians that are older than your "state".
Palestine became a state at the same time. there was never a Palestine before that.
Palestine isn't a state. It never became it state. It never has been a state.
lmao that's just as BS as saying that Israel isn't a state
It’s slightly older, it became a British mandate state in 1920.
A British Mandate isn't a state though.
Why not
Because it was still basically part of Britain, not independent. Like Canada wasn't it's own country until 1867 when we were made independent from British control.
A state doesn’t need to be independent. Texas isn’t independent. Chechnya isn’t independent.
We are currently using the word state for it's sovereign meaning given the context of this conversation, not for it's meaning as a part of a country. In the context of this conversation state is equivalent to country.
No we are not. All you said was that they are of the same age. Age of a state has nothing to do whether it is sovereign or not.
Words can have more than one meaning and you are being disingenuous by conflating 'state' as it implies to the U.S. internally and 'state' as in a sovereign entity, which is how it is being used in this discussion.
Yes we are. We are using state as a sovereign territory. That is the context of this conversation. I'm sorry you failed to pick up on that.
Yes it does. Canada is 156 years old, not 400 and something, because we gained independence in 1857, even though we've existed as part of the British empire since the 1600s.
Yeah the area has always been a provincial administrative division but I'm pretty sure the last time there was a sovereign state controlling that general area, it was a Crusader kingdom. Before then, it was Judea before the Roman conquest. Relying on historical sovereignty isn't a very good argument since the area wasn't sovereign before 1948, and it was divided by UN mandate in 1948.
Every country is a settlement, you're really not making a point.
Look into the chain of events that caused Israeli/Palestinian enmity, then what caused those events, and so forth. You'll find the only innocent side here are the civilians.
Basically nobody was specifically targeted. Hamas simply flooded in and started raping, murdering, destroying and taking hostages indiscriminately. People from various countries and religions, old women, children and babies, even pro-Palestinians advocates like these people. It was straight up terrorist madness, and now innocent people in Palestine are suffering as a result. A textbook cycle of violence.
The raping allegations stuff doesn't make sense. Imagine you are in an attack. Bullet flying, and you stop to rape someone.
Usually these things happen in occupied territory over time noy during the time of taking over.
I hate to break it to you, but sadly rape during war and violent conflict go back as far as the dawn of humanity.
It's a very well documented thing and has been for a very long time.
https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Media/Publications/UNIFEM/EVAWkit\_06\_Factsheet\_ConflictAndPostConflict\_en.pdf
Seriously, have they never heard of Vikings 'raping and pillaging?' That's like the biggest thing people hear about Vikings.
Sadly most people are way too fucking dumb and uneducated to have nuanced opinions, but you can't blame them fully when they're so busy working all day that they can't afford to spend time reading and learning from quality sources
I really don't understand why people decided to live in these kibbutz right next to the Gaza border and never realize that this might happen.
It's like sitting right on the very edge of the shoulder of a very busy highway. Eventually you will be hit by a fast moving car.
It's disputed territory with the potential of becoming a war zone at any moment and people decided to buy expensive real estate and build beautiful homes next to impoverished people that have nothing.
And we should be surprised that this happened?
What the Palestinians did was terrible ... but we should all be reading the headlines with a lot of history and context. None of it is justified by any side ... but at the same time, none of it is a surprise.
Seoul is 11 km from the North Korean border. People just assume things won't go wrong until they do.
Moving a city is quite the feat compared to just not building houses blocks from a military DMZ
If you're a lifelong Palestinian advocate, as this women was, it makes a lot of sense to live near the Gaza border.
What doesn't make much sense is someone like her being killed by an indiscriminate Hamas terrorist attack...
That’s because indiscriminate terrorist attacks don’t make sense, all they do is piss of everyone
It's not like you have a lot of options in a small country.
People in South Korea are not regularly bombed in rocket attacks, SK does not require houses have steel-reinforced concrete bunkers.
The last time a North Korean killed a South Korean was a long time ago, I don't know that I would call these situations comparable.
If NK did start shelling Seoul and attacking civilians near the DMZ, that would legitimately be unexpected.
wow. this is the best comment I have seen on it. I feel sorta similar. Whats been done is just monsterous but man the situation is so ridiculous and I wish the US and the rest of the world had done many different things post ww2.
It's a common misconception that Israel and Palestine were created post WW2 but the roots go all the way back to turn of the 20th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate\_for\_Palestine
People like to blame America for all things, but this region has been under conflict and conquest for literally thousands of years. It was controlled at points by Egypt, Babylon, Assyrians and Persia, In biblical times it was essentially tribal (Israelites, canaanites, samaratins, philistines who were in conflict with israelites...) until the Roman Empire took over. Then Rome broke up into two and it become part of the (Eastern Roman) Byzantine Empire, then after Muhammad's death it was conquered by the Muslim Caliphate, then taken under control of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire. Religiously it has been Jewish, Christian and Muslim and I think has historical significance to all 3. I'm sure I've left a bunch of stuff out because I'm no historian.
It's one of the most complicated and protracted conflicts in history, and the people who want to make this out to be simple are either plain dumb or have some kind of alterior motive.
There's really no point in history we can use to say "there, this makes X side justified and Y side the bad guys!"
Pogroms in Russia left Jewish scholars to conclude that they would only see respect and freedom if they had their own state. That morphed over time into a nationalist movement with violent insurgents.
Palestinians were just living under British colonial rule. They wanted freedom and independence too, and cooperated against violent insurgents. They wanted their land in full and to not have to give it away to and accommodate other people. And over time that's morphed into groups like Hamas that want every Israeli dead and Israel destroyed.
Their causes have all done damnable things at some point. Their causes started from wanting fundamental freedom and independence and safety.
Well I was talking more than just the creation of isreal which was technically britain but the american end times christians who feel they need to make biblical prophesies come to pass so they can say. See look the bible prophecy we made happen came to pass so its really magic for sure darn diggety. I did not explain myself well because my little comment represents a whole bunch in my head but essentially I wish the democratic world would have gotten together and worked to protect itself and had nothing to do with the non democratic world until such time as they had evolved into decent democracies. It still cracks me up the UN is a democratically run (sorta) body that had non democratic members.
WWII will continue to shape the history of the world for generations to come.
Israel is TINY. EVERYTHING is near a border with one of their hostile neighbors.
Man, if I could upvote this comment more than once I would.
Expresses my sentiments exactly.
I visited Israel years ago - shortly after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin - and remember coming across a class (girls, around 7-8 years old) out on a school trip … and they had 3 guys carrying assault rifles to protect them. And I remember thinking: “whatever it is you’re fighting for … isn’t worth it if you have to live like this”
And sadly I think it’s only got worse since that time.
Yesterday on TV over here, they showed a satellite picture of an area of Hamas' incursion across the border were you can see both sides of the border line and the border itself.
And the commentator said: "Here you can see the destruction caused by the attack"
And it's only after a few seconds of looking at the area that looks like a junkyard and a mess and thinking "yes indeed, it's all trashed" that you notice that actually the black smoke is all on the opposite side of the border, the one with lots of space and nature, with little villages, which would look idyllic if not for the smoke.
The overpopulated slum on the left side that looks like a junkyard on a satellite picture is the Gaza side and just a wall away on the right side is this idyllic area with lots of space and nature, a place were the people from the left side will never be allowed to live or even just visit.
How could anybody ever imagine that it would be safe to live in spacious homes and comparative luxury, right next an area were people are forced to, since the day they were born, live in what's basically an overcrowded slum?
I was under the impression that the border was extremely well guarded and secure. At least at some point it must have been. It seems like the government recently moved troops to the west bank in order to protect settlers instead. https://lemmy.world/post/6616736
It still begs the question.
Who would want to buy real estate and settle into a home right next to a militarized border that separates you from a country that has many individuals that want to murderously destroy you and your entire family? In an area that might at any time turn into a war zone?
I guess that applies to the whole of Israel, though. Gaza is the most dangerous hot spot right now. But I don't know if that has always been the case. Hamas came to power in 2006. I guess people just carried on, hoping for the best and trusting in the security forces. But honestly all of that is speculation. My point was just, that the reasons for people living there are complicated.
https://begthequestion.info/
Why it should happen to us, exactly? People build up tolerance to accept this kind of gambling-as-a-routine, especially if the rules are obfuscated and conditioned by other things. Consider now how suicidal is a process of driving a car to work – but you can't avoid it this morning and there are many safeguards at place to make it less risky. They just go with it, they rationalize it before they stop giving a fuck. And it is layered, as many parties approved such a thing to be.
Politicians push to approve construction there and guarantee it's safe because their career depends on it, like one of safety-promising Benj. Companies buy a plot and develop this place into housing because high risk => high reward and FOMO. Young people and re-pats buys them because they need a house, it's their best affordable option and two other parties said it won't get them killed. Such a snowball, growing bigger at each turn, and each next party has less agency there. And it could be stopped at any of them, I guess?
I've seen that with Crimea: occupiers waving a hand to their rich oligarch friends in the biz, companies taking random bits of land to develop, building apartments in the middle of nowhere, people buying property there. I knew some of the latter. They had a fascinating list of reasons why to buy it and none of them thought that there's any chance of water and energy limiting, escalation and, for sure, Ukrainian advancement. But at the time they've settled there, these phantom risk were outweighted by Crimea's good climate and them not getting any housing otherwise for that price.
Frugal person pays twice, as our saing goes.
And it's not like they are talking about cheap real estate either
https://www.timesofisrael.com/despite-rockets-arson-balloons-israeli-communities-on-gaza-border-keep-growing/
If I had access to half a million dollars to purchase or invest in real estate ... I wouldn't want to invest in a location that could be destroyed by war or risk me and my family to violence or death.
It really does seem like an inevitable outcome of the status quo. I think it's silly to pretend otherwise.
The Palestinians didn’t do anything. Hamas, the chosen enemy actively propped up by Netanyahu, did something terrible.
“None of it is justified by any side ...“
Strong disagree. Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself.
Israel doesn't have a right to exist, but the Hebrews have a right to live on the land and to defend themselves from attack. The problem comes from people refusing to accept that Palestinians have a right to live there too and to defend themselves from attack too.
The borders have to come down, a new South Levantine Confederation must be established with equal rights, freedom of movement, and an absolute ban on supremacism and separatism as unassailable, reparations to all war victims must be paid out of a combined fund taken from Israel, Hamas, and the Fatah, and Northern Israel which features thriving mixed demographic communities must be used as a model to integrate the rest of the new state peacefully.
Thanks for taking the time to think this through and explain it.
By cutting off food, electricity, water, and escape from their concentration camp? Doing that to 2 million people is "defending itself"? This is genocide.
Did you see what happened? I mean all the killing of civilians, just targeting women, elderly and children on purpose? And you are not surprised in any way that humans can do that?
Ignoring the aspect that you might think that one of the best army in the world guards the border, do you expect human being to do such atrocities, especially if you are a person advocating for their rights?
That's quite literally not what they said. You'll get better responses if you don't argue against what people are not saying.
If you've paid attention to the conflict in the region and you're intelligent, yes, I would expect one to anticipate such a group could carry out such monterous acts.
Atrocities like this happen all over the world all the time. There's just differing levels of media coverage/social interest.
This should sicken and disgust people to their core. But it really shouldn't be surprising for a terrorist organization to commit evil acts.
Before all the crazies jump to conclusions about me, I don't support Isreal's expansionism or ethnic cleansing or Hamas and their terror attacks.
I agree .... It's absolutely atrocious.
But if you have a crazy person threatening to kill you or your family, do you just ignore that and believe that they will never carry through with their threat? How about if that person or group of people shouted that threat in a regular basis for years? Would you want to build your house next to them?
There's a reason why there are laws against uttering threats.
None of the death and destruction is justified, it's absolutely abismal that humanity can sink this low but both sides are guilty of fanatical followers that want the other side dead.
In the context of the hatred and fanaticism, we shouldn't be surprised at the violence.
Hamas isn't Palestine. They don't represent the Palestinian people. It's not because Hamas took her that she was betrayed by Palestinians.
Hamas literally represents Palestine.
Hamas was elected in 2006. The destruction of Israel was clear on its agenda. They are representing people of Gaza.
The problem with that argument is that the Israelis have also voted for the fascist, corrupt leader Netanyahu who needed to change the law to not land in prison and completely failed to protect Israel or to deescalate the situation in any way. You wouldn't want to justify the killing of Israeli civilians either, so you shouldn't try and do that with Palestinian ones.
A lot of people are trying to justify the killing of Israeli civilians however.
If there's going to be an "open air prison", we should make one for the far right nationalists of every country so the rest of the world can live in peace.
Yeah, unfortunately that's nothing new... in fact it seems older than all of us and some of our cultures and languages. I think the only moral high ground you can get to in this conflict is to completely reject any notion of killing or hurting civilians.
Exactly.
I voted for a way different party in 2006 than I do now. Opinions change.
Do you honestly think if free elections were held today in Gaza, (or week ago, does not matter) then Hamas would not be re-elected?
Things can change a lot in nearly 20 years.
That was a looong time ago. And it was also during the middle of a conflict involving the entire region, Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon. Israel was ruthless and went on a murderous rampage against all these countries.
You understand that was 20 years ago right?
Half their current adult population werent even capable of voting 20 years ago.
The more I read the more it seem Hamas works for Bibi.
Bibi was having a popularity problem. Now it doesn't matter.
The targets are mostly from the opposition to Bibi.
This gives him the excuse he was waiting to level Gaza.
Too many timely coincidences.
But maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Right? It's just too convenient.
Netanyahu and the Mossad literally funded Hamas against the left secular PLO. They have the blood of innocents on their hands.
Do you have any sources about this? I wouldn't have any trouble believing you, but I always prefer when there's facts to look up.
Good instinct to ask for sources, but I'd add that one can never underestimate the depravity capable by an apartheid, genocidal state.
https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/
Oooooooooohhhhh wow! Holy shit.
Amazing article. Thank you so much.
They enjoy very wide support amongst the populace so they do represent many Palestinians, probably a majority?
Because they control the infrastructure, hospitals etc. This is the result of Israel assassinating other political leaders and funding Hamas. Netanyahu and the Mossad did it on purpose. Its their own fault.
Hamas isn't in any way working for Palestinian rights. Hamas is not a synonym for Palestinian.
As an elected government, it's a synonym for "most of Palestine". AFAIK it's direct representation with no gerrymandering fuckery like the states to make it only questionably true.
Pootie was elected in a land slide in Russia. Kimie was Elected unanimously in North Korea. Pooh Bear, oops, sorry, Xi was elected by a large majority. Nyet 'n Yahoo was voted into power by a good margin. Fat Joffrey was elected by mostly empty land. None of those leaders represent anyone but themselves.
You are simply trying to justify your bigotry.
Ceausescu won his last elections with 96% approval. In the same year he escaped the capital, was captured, sentenced to death, and immediately executed, which promted a coutry-wide celebration
exactly
Netanyahu funded Hamas against the PLO to stop the two state solution. Fault lies for most things with Israel and the Mossad.
Maybe don't vacation in or move to an occupied colonial outpost apartheid state.
Being a settler in an occupied territory =/= advocating for Palestinians rights.
So much cognitive dissonance in this world making the bad guys now the good guys.
The article didn't say she was a settler in an occupied territory though, she was in a Kibbutz on the border of Gaza. The settler problem is in the West Bank. The article DID say she advocated for Palestinian rights, which I don't understand why you'd deny unless you have some proof otherwise? Hamas killed civilians indiscriminately - they were bound to kill some very good people. I don't understand why someone who advocated for Palestinian rights is so hard to believe. It's just super sad.
Why should a US citizen be given the right to someones else's land. it is a stolen land from the Palestinians. every Israeli citizens is a settler. the were given the freedom to live and buy land that used to belong to its rightful owners, while the last are being caged-in in an open air prison
Where do you live? Because I doubt you are the original settler of your land.
If you're an American (North or South), you are not responsible for the reprehensible actions of your ancestors towards the Native populations just because you now live there. Similarly with Russia, China, most of Africa, Australia, Europe... basically the entirety of the world has a history of war and settling on conquered land. And you don't deserve death for the actions of your ancestors.
Typical westerner settler response.
my ancestors have been living here for thousands of years . they went through many colonizers and we are still bitter about the ones that are left.
death to colonialism everywhere in the world.
Hey, don't question the biased media narrative or look up statistics on the number of people killed by each side and realize Israel is terrible as well. That would distract from massive military industrial complex socialism.
Never seen it phrased this way. Thanks