Guys, what’s your opinion about Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)? I watched a couple of interviews of him and he was very critical of Israel. I never heard such harsh words about Israel from US politicians aside from the Squad or Sanders.
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Is it a recent photo? Israel used White Phosphorus shells from the beginning of October and have reportedly destroyed hundreds of thousands of trees (large part of that is olive trees). Very reminiscent of US using Agent Orange during Vietnam War.
Appreciate that this is a side-track from the above topics, but still abhorrent nonetheless. The authorities in Oman seem to not care about the issue either.
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I don’t know, there is no dateline on the photo in the Guardian story, just that caption.
It is important to note that WP is not a banned munition, but it is tightly regulated. The use of incendiaries is permitted for the purpose you describe. However, that photo jumped out at me for three reasons:
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The caption describes smoke rising (which it is) while being silent on the fact that is a WP airburst that catches the viewer’s eye.
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Article 2 forbids the use of WP against civilian targets.
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Article 2 also forbids the use of airburst WP against military targets in civilian areas.
While we don’t know the full story of what is happening in the photo, it is best case an extremely questionable use of WP. It damn sure isn’t just ‘smoke rising’
He is an interesting guy in that he comes from the party leadership from his time in the house and has a real bipartisan deal maker centrist reputation, but is often more aligned with the left of his party than most in that leadership class. It’s almost like the reaction to what a politician says is influenced by whether they are a middle class white guy or a non-white woman
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So, progressive without being radical (oh, I hate how this word has been demonized)?
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Rather it is , someone who’s got a clue without being a clueless idealist who’s had his/her head in the clouds.
Or, as a white guy he is harder to caricature than someone like AOC or Omar are. So instead the media and the opposition just largely ignores him.
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and from the same source:
11.43 CET
## UN human rights office: Israel’s continued restrictions on Gaza aid 'may amount to use of starvation as method of war’
The UN human rights office said on Tuesday that Israel’s restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza could amount to a war crime.
“The extent of Israel’s continued restrictions on entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime,” Reuters reports UN human rights office spokesperson Jeremy Laurence said.
Israel has denied obstructing the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. Yesterday, Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy insisted on social media that “There is no limit to: 1) the amount of aid that can enter Gaza 2) the lies people will tell to deny this.”
Crowds gathered in Gaza City yesterday outside an UNRWA office waiting to receive a limited amount of flour. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed group that includes the World Food Programme and the World Health Organization, said in a report yesterday that 1.1 million people, half of Gaza’s population, faced famine, and people were suffering “catastrophic levels of hunger”.
The IPC report came as Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa – the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees – said yesterday that he had been denied entry to Gaza, where he was due to work on improving the humanitarian response.
Palestinians hold empty containers to receive food distributed by aid organizations in Jabalia, Gaza on 18 March. Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Dr. Mustafa Barghouti explains how the general destructions, destructions of the hospitals, and now the enforced famine is having a cascading (and catastrophic) effects.
No houses mean the people are exposed to the elements and vulnerable to illness.
No hospitals mean even the simple injuries and illnesses become aggravated.
Destruction of the sanitation system means the people are exposed to diseases.
The famine means the malnourished people are can’t recover from the illness and injuries.
A genocide is in progress and the World is just pretending that it’s not happening.
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The world as such is aware that the genocide is happening. There’s no pretending it isn’t.
They just don’t want to take any steps to pressurise Israel. Because of US warships.
Contrarily to what happened during the Rwanda genocide, the UN has been extremely vocal since a long time (see articles posted above, latest of a long line of alerts issued by the UN and its different affiliated human rights organisations).
I think that the world is well aware of what happens, but the problem is the US being totally blind to the misery of the Palestinian people since so long (and thus bearing a heavy part of the responsibility regarding the October 7 attacks imo), and now allowing Israel to go ahead with their retaliation without any noticeable restraint. Europe’s role is shameful too. They should be heavily concerned about the prospect of two million Palestinians soon coming in as the next wave of war refugees, but they don’t do anything apart from empty posturing. Same goes for the Arab states.
The rest of the world takes notice, but is largely indifferent. It doesn’t affect them. Same as for Rwanda at the time.
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It’s truly a WTF moment for me.
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“Gaza could have been the Dubai on the Med” has been one of the common attitudes among the Israeli apologists for quite some time, almost suggesting a “they deserve to be ethnically cleansed because this land is too valuable to give to people who cannot have anything nice” type of argument.
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I genuinely hope that this horrible pseudo of a human being will one day personally make the experience of being bombed, stripped of his home, have a big part of his family killed, and suffer man-made famine and disease.
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For him, every land is just a piece of real-estate. This guy is just despicable and been that for a long time. During Trump era, I kept saying that while people will notice Trump and others spewing nastiness, it’s snakes like Kushner who are scheming in the shadows who are the real evils.
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