For those who didn't know: There are multiple charges of corruption against him, which he is probably guilty of. But as long as he can lead Israel in a state of emergency, he can have those delayed, or perhaps even work around them.
This new war against Iran also diverts attention away from what is happening in Gaza. The starvation has entered a new critical phase. The populace has been concentrated, so they can no longer work the fields. The number of sites that are handing out food aid have been greatly reduced, and dozens of people are killed every day by Israeli soldiers while they are trying to get to the sites.
For anyone who is not following the trial, as soon as the prosecution's case-in-chief was over, the judges publicly notified the prosecution that they should drop the bribery charges as they are unlikely to be able to prove them.
The prosecution case for briberty was built on a hypothesized meeting in which Netanyahu supposedely instructed the director general of the ministry of communications to serve the interests of Elovitch.
During cross examination, the defense managed to prove conclusively that such a meeting, as described, could not have occurred. They also showed that the presocution had the evidence to show it could not have occurred.
Don't assume guilt or innocence based on heavily politisized reporting.
https://www.kan.org.il/content/kan-news/local/409910/ (use Google Translate)
the 20 years leading up to trump, calling every republican a nazi, has completely destroyed the meaning of the word. trump is actually doing a lot of fascist leaning stuff this time around, and you could possibly use that word appropriately but it is currently meaningless.
Soldiers are murdering an entire population- or as many of them as they can, seemingly- for political purposes that desire that population to simply not exist anymore. To say that is _not_ a genocide devalues the meaning of the word.
Here is the UN definition for genocide. While you normally can't prove a negative, each jot and tittle of the definition is clear in the Gazans' case, so I leave it to you to figure out why you're so cautious to call a spade a spade and call a genocide a genocide.
> The word “genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. It consists of the Greek prefix genos, meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix cide, meaning killing. Lemkin developed the term partly in response to the Nazi policies of systematic murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust, but also in response to previous instances in history of targeted actions aimed at the destruction of particular groups of people. Later on, Raphäel Lemkin led the campaign to have genocide recognised and codified as an international crime.
> Genocide was first recognised as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/96-I). It was codified as an independent crime in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The Convention has been ratified by 153 States (as of April 2022). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the Convention embodies principles that are part of general customary international law. This means that whether or not States have ratified the Genocide Convention, they are all bound as a matter of law by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. The ICJ has also stated that the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of international law (or ius cogens) and consequently, no derogation from it is allowed.
> The definition of the crime of genocide as contained in Article II of the Genocide Convention was the result of a negotiating process and reflects the compromise reached among United Nations Member States in 1948 at the time of drafting the Convention. Genocide is defined in the same terms as in the Genocide Convention in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 6), as well as in the statutes of other international and hybrid jurisdictions. Many States have also criminalized genocide in their domestic law; others have yet to do so.
> # Definition
> Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
> ## Article II*
> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
> Killing members of the group;
> Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
> Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
> Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
> Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
> *Elements of the crime*
> The Genocide Convention establishes in Article I that the crime of genocide may take place in the context of an armed conflict, international or non-international, but also in the context of a peaceful situation. The latter is less common but still possible. The same article establishes the obligation of the contracting parties to prevent and to punish the crime of genocide.
> The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:
> 1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and
> 2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
> 2a. Killing members of the group
> 2b. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
> 2c. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
> 2d. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
> 2e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
> The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.
> Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.”
There are a few completely separate issues here. GPs comment is talking about the internal-to-Israel, state-level trials against Netanyahu. These have been ongoing, started several years before the Gaza war, and are being adjudicated in Israeli courts right now. These actually have the power to force Netanyahu out of office or actually make changes to how he behaves - because they are internal to Israel, and if the court decides something, presumably the police and military will follow the courts. (Unless there's an actual coup and Israel stops being a democracy - which I don't think is even remotely likely, btw.)
There is no ongoing trial within Israel against Netanyahu related to the conduct of the war. In general, Israelis view the current war as being fought legally.
Regarding what you call "genocide" or other accusations of war crimes or illegal conduct in war - that's something that gets adjudicated by international courts like the ICC and ICJ. The ICJ has a case open against Israel, claiming it is committing genocide, and the ICC has a warrant out against Netanyahu for war crimes. Those are completely unrelated matters. They also have less immediate impact - because there is no real way to force Netanyahu to comply with those warrants.
Please don’t delete this thread. Yes it’s getting pretty heated, but it’s by far the most rational discussion of this topic I’ve seen in a while. Plus I’ve learnt a few things, which tends to be a positive signal for quality
Well, that's kind of true. The Iran war has certainly stopped proceedings against Netanyahu, because the courts are shut down - along with much of the country.
That said, this can't last much because the economy is completely shut down, and the trials against him were ongoing, eve amidst the Gaza war.
So he can't just indefinitely put off the trial against him.
Unless he changes the law, which he's tried on multiple occasions
Case 1 - as Minister of Communications he, allegedly, tried to get a tax extension for a company whose owners had given him expensive cigars and jewelry to his wife (worth $3100). The extension was not granted. He also tried to get a US visa for one of the owners.
Case 2 - One of the newspapers in Israel said that if he gave them advantages over a competing newpaper they would paint Bibi and his family in a positive light in their coverage*Case 3 - seemingly similar to Case 2, a large news website offered to portray Bibi in a better light if he would push through regulatory changes as Minisiter of Communications.
Favorable coverage was the original charge (סיקור אוהד). However, since this website was exteremely hostile to Netanyahu, the charge was changed to being
unusually responsive* to requests from Netanyahu's spokespeople (הענות חריגה).Bombs including and especially large not particularly sophisticated bombs were dropped on entire buildings preferentially at night to ensure the target would be likely to be home with their wife and family and you know any other families in the same building.
Previously such strikes with very large numbers of collateral damage were authorized to kill top members of Hamas. Now they were authorized to hopefully an 18 year old cook irrespective of the 7 children that would burn to death painfully in the fire.
They recovered around 150 hostages at the cost of 50,000 children being killed or injured.
https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/unimaginable-horrors-m...
Remember that Gaza isn't a democracy. Hamas is 50k people out of 2M of which the number of people that actually have decision making power would fit in a small room. Most people in Gaza aren't Hamas.
Israel is presently starving a large city full of people under the pretense of forcing them to leave knowing that can't do so. Starving people isn't morally different than herding them all into gas chambers.
If there is a place that needs immediate intervention it is using force to enforce peace in Gaza before all the remaining people in Gaza die.
>The populace has been concentrated
>in a camp
ummmmmmmmmm
my interpretation is: disable Hamas (who embeds amongst civilians), then go after Iran (the true head of the dragon).
Hamas recruits among civilians. Radicalized civilians. And Israel has just radicalized even more Palestinians, creating even better recruiting ground for Hamas.
Israel has supported Hamas because it's a very convenient enemy for them. Hamas wants to wipe Israel from the map, and to Israel, that means a powerful Hamas controlling Palestine justifies their wiping Palestine off the map.
During the 1980s, when the PLO was the dominant force in Palestine and wanted a two-state solution, Israel supported the much less influential Hamas in order to undermine PLO's position. And I think in 2017, Israel asked Qatar to support Hamas.
Note that the Netanyahu government only goes after the people on the ground, not the leadership abroad. And they clearly have no problem killing and radicalizing more Palestinian civilians.
You have got that the other way around. Hamas was founded in 1987 during the Intifada, before the PLO started supporting a two state solution in 1988. The reason the PLO made that shift was that it was in exile and a new leadership in Palestine was formed (including Hamas), and they were afraid they will lose relevancy.
In 1987 and going forward Hamas fought Israel, so claiming Israel supported it is paradoxical.
Qatari money was transferred to Hamas prior to any Israeli involvement as early as 2007, sometimes in cash through the tunnels.
In 2017 the Palestinian Authority refused to transfer taxes collected to the Hamas Gaza government or pay Israel for Gaza's electricity, leading to an economical downturn in Gaza.
Because of the pending humanitarian crisis that would probably end in starvation due to Gaza less than stellar economy, whose blame would be put on Israel as is accustomed, Qatar was used as a lesser evil solution. It allowed Israel not to directly fund the Hamas government, which except for its military wing, is also its schools, hospitals, municipal and all other civilians functions.
The narrative you are repeating also repeats itself as Israel created Hezbollah or even as far as the US created ISIS, 9/11 was an inside job etc
The source of this narrative in my opinion is the old racist imperialist narrative where the so-called natives are merely children incapable of agency. Here in the post colonialist sense, if there is any evil actor around, its actions or mere existence must quickly be attributed to the West/Israel, or else cognitive dissonance abounds
Israel says it killed Iran's military co-ordinator with Hamas - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn9yxrxwzzzo
What other country is attacking or has attacked its neighbors as Israel has? What other country has been executing a live-streamed genocide that you can see the outcomes of on Instagram?
Just yesterday I saw a video of a mother comforting her infant whose leg was blown off by Israeli bombs. And yet these religious fanatics are the ones we call our “allies”.
what do you mean by this? that there is no Hamas, or that they aren't embedded amongst civilians, or something else?
israel is instead making up its own hamas, and then bombing the food aid to target the civilians.
There is no Hamas and if there is there’s barely any
Exactly who is the Dragon here? You think Israel’s bloodlust is done with Iran? They want much more Territory across the Middle East. They are occupying parts of Cypress right now, And have craving for parts of Egypt and more.
