Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib refused to apologize Wednesday for saying on Tuesday that Israel is to blame for the hospital explosion that day in Gaza, an accusation that sparked political backlash against her from Republicans as Israel denies fault.
Tlaib joined thousands of protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza during a solidarity rally hosted by the left-leaning group Jewish Voice for Peace at the National Mall. She was visibly emotional, at times pausing her speech to openly weep and criticizing lawmakers who have not backed a ceasefire resolution.
“Who bombed the hospital” is the wrong thing for people to fight over. It doesn’t matter who did it. Supporting either “side” that’s fighting is wrong.
You can condemn Hamas’s attack on civilians without supporting the IDF or Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.
You can condemn Israel’s attacks on Gaza without being an antisemite or supporting Hamas.
People who have no say in the matter are suffering and dying because two “sides” have been unable to figure out a co-habitation situation for decades. Everyone focusing on which side did what is already on the wrong side. If you’re for either side you’re actually for the war and against the civilians.
Glad to see somebody that gets it. If one side intentionally slaughters civilians, does the other side get a free pass to do the same? Palestine deserves to be free, but how many civilian adults and children in both Palestine and Israel should be sacrificed upon the altar of war to get it? 500,000? 1,000,000? If someone claims to care about the people and not just the outcome, the answer should be zero. Period. Doesn’t matter which side.
Accepting this stance doesn’t magically fix the problem in the middle east, like so many trolls are glib to point out, but you can condemn the actions of Hamas and Israel without having a solution to their “thousand year grudge” (which starts with a ceasefire, anyway). I may not know how to fix things, but I know that what’s happening is wrong, and that’s at least better than the people who think, “[My chosen side] is justified killing [opposing side’s] civilians, because they had it done to them!”
Fuck. That.
If Israel stopped fighting tomorrow, what do you think would happen?
Would it get its civilian hostages back?
Or would Hamas just set up another invasion and kill more civilians?
Defense does not necessitate apartheid or ethnic cleansing.
I never implied it did.
It does, however, require border security. Most countries have borders, and most countries that have borders with hostile forces try to enforce security at those borders, rather than just letting people come in and rape their civilians all willy-nilly.
That’s not called “apartheid” anywhere else in the world, only when people are looking for a word to demonize Jews with.
I never implied it did.
You did, because you stated that:
If Israel stopped fighting tomorrow, what do you think would happen?
Implying that the only thing Israel is doing is fighting. It’s not, it’s doing a hell of a lot more than that. It’s doing apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
If you’re saying that Israel should stop doing those things and instead only focus on defense then I agree with you. But you’re acting like Isreal is completely innocent.
That’s not called “apartheid” anywhere else in the world, only when people are looking for a word to demonize Jews with.
Yeah, that’s not true.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_apartheid
The term was started in South Africa, being critical of the white people in charge.
Implying that the only thing Israel is doing is fighting.
How so?
I’m just saying that the calls for a ceasefire are absurd. Israel should be careful, Israel should follow international law, Israel should not start engaging in apartheid or ethnic cleansing (I’m quite happy it doesn’t). Settlements are bad, it should absolutely stop expanding settlements and offer land swaps (again) to try to resolve any existing disputes.
But Israel should not just lay down its arms and let Hamas keep the hostages, and try to use its words to negotiate with terrorists who openly and proudly want to wipe every Jew off the face of the earth, that is not a reasonable concept.
Yeah, that’s not true.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_of_apartheid
The term was started in South Africa, being critical of the white people in charge.
Apartheid occurred within the borders of South Africa. Israel enforces its borders, the same way the United States enforces its borders, and South Korea enforces its borders, and Egypt enforces its borders, and every other country enforces its borders. Again, enforcing your borders is not referred to as apartheid anywhere else in the world—only in Israel, because people want any opportunity they can get to accuse Jews of being evil racists.
What are Israel’s borders? It seems like it conveniently places its borders in one place when it wants to selectively disenfranchise 5 of the 7 millions Arabs, and another when it wants to place settlements.
Israel has a divided judicial system and Palestinian defenders are punished more severely than Israeli defenders. Here is an article about it by a group of Israeli human rights activists.
Have you heard of a country that didn’t have military court or military tribunals? Can you name such a country? Is the country in the room with us now?
It’s not a perfect system, and yes there are racist assholes in the system, but of course Israel doesn’t use its intranational civilian courts to try Palestinians in Palestine, that wouldn’t make any sense.
Every country has military courts, every country has some racist somewhere in the process, you’re going to have to try harder to explain what it is about Israel that makes it so singularly evil.
I always laugh when people fall over themselves trying to claim Israel isn’t an apartheid state. It’s basically matches the textbook definition of an apartheid state at this point. Even the many Israelis with a conscience call it out as an apartheid state. There’s no legitimate uncertainty there, only propaganda, lies, and ignorance.
Defense does not necessitate apartheid or ethnic cleansing.
Where exactly has Israel done this recently? Attacking someone across your border because they’re killing people near yours is war.
See, Ukraine attacking places inside Russia lol. Justifiably so.
Where exactly has Israel done this recently?
They’ve been doing it for decades.
As for the more recent:
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/10/13/civilians-trapped-in-gaza-cant-escape-israels-siege.html
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.[3][4][5] It constitutes a crime against humanity and may also fall under the Genocide Convention, even as ethnic cleansing has no legal definition under international criminal law
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing
Attacking someone across your border because they’re killing people near yours is war.
Civilians are getting killed and forced out of their homes, all based on race. It’s an apartheid, and an ethnic cleansing.
The apartheid accusation is solid, nothing to say here.
But ethnic cleansing?
There are 2 million arab israeli citizens… not very homogenous. That’s almost 1 in 5 citizens.
The degree to which a nation is homogeneous is not the qualifying factor for whether an action is considered ethnic cleansing. It is instead the effect, and the effect of forcing Palestinians out of their homes, out of Gaza, counts as ethnic cleansing.
It’s also not just based on race, it’s also got to do with religion.
About 18% of Israelis are Muslim, and they have the full rights of any other Israeli citizen. They serve in Knesset and in the IDF, there are Muslim celebrities, there are Muslim academics, they’re free to practice their religion as they see fit.
Actually, the only thing you can really call “apartheid” in Israel, if you want to be a dick about it, is the temple mount. Only Muslims are allowed to pray there, Jews are forbidden.
The last instance I know of where Israel was accused of “forcing Palestinians out of their homes” is the Sheikh Jarrah situation, where Palestinian tenants stopped paying rent to their Jewish landlords for over a decade and Israeli courts were really slow about processing their evictions. Like, really slow. For obvious reasons. And then, just before they decided, mounting tensions led to riots. You might complain about the property decisions from decades before that, but the tenants agreed to the rent terms in the early 90s, so framing this as “ethnic cleansing” is pretty nuts.
You are kidding, right?
Gaza is basically an open air prison. Do they control their own borders?
If Hamas stops fighting, does Palestine get freedom and self determination?
Actually, if the extremists don’t gain control- yes. There have been several instances when they have been close to peace and even a two state solution… But then the terrorism starts.
If both sides stop fighting and start working toward peace, sure. I’d note that those prior peace deals have usually been completely shit for Palestinians
It’s not going to end the blockade of gaza or the occupation of the west bank overnight, but Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally in 2005, Gaza was pretty free, and that backfired hard for everybody involved. Hamas took advantage of the freedom of they had to dramatically ramp up rocket power.
The Olmert deal was a big opportunity for peace, but before either party could actually negotiate it, mounting terrorism gave Netanyahu a huge boost in support and he obviously wasn’t nearly as friendly. And obviou
Peace is a process. Trust is a process. There’s obviously no way Israelis will trust the PA while Hamas is still the majority party. There needs to be some kind of good faith on behalf of Palestinian leadership, doesn’t there?
This war is obviously not helping anybody, especially towards building that process. Israel is never going to say “oh, they killed thousands of us, and don’t want to stop? guess we’ll just end the blockade and let them have all the weapons they want!”
I don’t think I fundamentally disagree with you. Hamas aren’t helping Palestinians and I don’t think Likud are helping Israelis.
I’m sorry but I read what you say and it sounds like you and others are taking the easy path of calling for peace while not acknowledging that there is no real way for there to be peace. How can Israel have peace when there is an organization that unequivocally demands their complete destruction. Every call for ceasefire seems simultaneously a call that Israel returns to the status quo of 100s of rockets launched per day and the threat of another invasion and raping of their civilians. What would you have them do? They’re a sovereign nation, they simply won’t roll over and die because it’s convenient for the Middle East. I have so far refused to argue for ceasefire on the belief that Israel is defending itself from an existential threat. I continue to think that’s the case and I don’t see what’s changed. Everyone abhorrs innocents dying, but on my view, a call for ceasefire is a call that Israeli innocents die in place of Palestinians. If innocents are going to die either way, I don’t understand why we should not spend that blood trying to destroy Hamas. In the long run, when the numbers are tallied, it may truly be that this would be the quickest way to minimize the death of innocents, yet there are those who offer no solution and demand Israel stop their actions for the sake of innocents, yet make no acknowledgment that many more innocents may end up dying in the long run as a result. If I care about innocents, I don’t see how I can support that right now.
I think the primary issue is that “destroying Hamas” and “killing a hell of a lot of Palestinians” currently has a large overlap and the Israeli mindset of large amounts of collateral damage/death being acceptable is not shared by most of the rest of the world, even though they’re experiencing the same on a smaller mindset.
The pendulum swings the other way and there are absolutely bad faith actors out there (and on here) who have no problem with Israel continuing to take a barrage of rockets on a regular basis, because they either have no skin in the game or genuinely want Israel as an entity to collapse. They aren’t helpful here either.
Historically speaking, land claim issues involved one side stomping out the other. But that’s pretty much frowned upon today (not that has stopped Russia but, yeah, that’s another topic). This is still the most likely outcome here and will ultimately favor the larger, better funded Israel - it doesn’t make it right in any sense, though, but that’s frankly just what is going to happen eventually. None of the countries complaining are interested in actually helping the people on the ground in Palestine, on either side, because they are more useful as a political tool if left in the wastes to perish as a symbol
I think the primary issue is that “destroying Hamas” and “killing a hell of a lot of Palestinians” currently has a large overlap and the Israeli mindset of large amounts of collateral damage/death being acceptable is not shared by most of the rest of the world, even though they’re experiencing the same on a smaller mindset.
I’d argue it has *very little" overlap in the minds of Israelis. I’ve heard three people in a very conservative small town in the US discuss the latter, which is absolutely three too many. The lion’s share of Jews here—yes, Jews in a conservative town in the US—are very actively hoping for the best outcome possible for Palestinian civilians (even though we know they would never forgive Israel for destroying Hamas, even if it happened via magic bullet with no collateral damage).
Yes, a loud, dickish miniority of Israelis are calling for genocide, and yes, some of them will make it into the IDF, and do something horrible. That’s terrifying. Yes, Netanyahu sucks, fuck Netanyahu—although he is not calling for genocide, although he’s absolutely continued just about civilian-friendly policy the IDF ever had, he’s moved farther and farther to the right of Israeli politics. But the IDF, as an organization, is really still doing its best to weed them out, to control them, and to protect civilians while it goes after Hamas.
This is why Israel is trying to evacuate civilians from Gaza City. But people call that ethnic cleansing… And meanwhile, Israel has evacuated its own civilians from the south and from the Lebanese border, but nobody said Hamas and Lebanon are engaged in ethnic cleansing. Why the fuck would you not evacuate people from a war zone?
Because Hamas likes to use people at human shields.
Israel warns Hamas what building it’s going to strike, and when, and urges them to evacuate civilians from that building. And Hamas refuses. So Israel does its “roof knocking” if it thinks there’s a chance there might still be civilians in a building that’s firing rockets, trying to warn civilians again, and its critics say that “roof knocking” is somehow a war crime. They’re trying their hardest not to kill civilians, and Hamas is trying its hardest to make them martyrs!
No other army warns its enemy of what building it’s going to strike and when. That’s not a thing armies do. They don’t share intelligence, say “hey, I know you’re firing your weapons from this exact building, please stop.”
People have no idea… they should look at the vietnam war and see what indiscriminate bombing looks like…
Sad to hear. However, we’re talking about innocents dying and what can be done to protect them. I argued more innocents die in the long run if Hamas is not destroyed. To allow such an organization to exist just beyond your borders, is to allow innocents to die every year and that tally never stops increasing. If you need to kill the cancer in your body, you end up destroying good cells in the process, yet you do it anyways to save yourself from that cancer.
Which I keep telling people, so far Israel has shown more restraint than any other nation which would have leveled Gaza within the first few hundred rockets. Israel is going to spend even more of its blood preforming a ground invasion. Those are innocents dying too, surely. They didn’t ask for this enemy or this war. I still support them, because there is no compromise that can be had with Hamas.
It’s true that self-defense doesn’t give Israel the right to indiscriminately destroy all Palestinians. But, outside of the online rhetoric, it seems they’ve been very clear about the target of their war and they repeatedly are taking steps to attack that target specifically. I just read an article from a Palestinian journalist returning to her home in defiance of Israel’s warning to evacuate. These Palestinians quite literally are supporting Hamas, because they are willfully standing in front of Israel’s aimed attacks. It’s sad to see, but if I believe in Israel’s right to self-defense, it means supporting them when they destroy those who defend Hamas.
Edit: correction, more bombs dropped in 1 year of the war
Israel has dropped more bombs in this latest “offensive” than in the US did in the entire war in Afghanistan.
More restraint my hole.
Also Israel has no right to preemptive self defence because this level of damage and the threat Israel faces would not meet the Caroline test.
Palestine has the right to resist occupation under the Geneva convention but I don’t see any Zionists making sure that right isn’t trampled on.
Israel has dropped more bombs in this latest “offensive” than in the US did in the entire war in Afghanistan.
I believe the bomb count is not the entire Afghanistan, but any given year of the Afghanistan war iirc that being discussed on PBS News Hour last night.
Thanks, added the correction.
Np. It’s still way too much. And at this rate, maybe it will exceed the entire Afghanistan war.
A figure you chose specifically because it sounds extreme. What matters is not the amount of bombs, as you well know, but the damage inflicted with those bombs. If you have to resort to extremities to make your point, do you really have a point worth making?
It is extreme…
4,200 murdered, 1 million people displaced all in 10 days. (From a UN article dated the 17th, probably not the current total)
There’s an esrimated 50,000 pregnant women now without proper healthcare, never mind the those with chronic physical or mental health issues.
The general population facing lack essentials like food and water.
Did no one tell you it’s cringe to defend fascist states or does that boot taste nice?
And again, perhaps more than that die in the long run when terrorists are capitulated with. Your calls for a ceasefire are to be understood exactly as a call for Israel to return to suffering under hundreds of rockets per day and the threat of another invasion and raping of their people. You demand everyone stop fighting while not acknowledging that at least one of the parties has made the full commitment to destroy the other, no compromises. You ask for peace because it’s easier to ask for peace than to fight for it.
you’re right, there should be no preemptive self defense, they should wait for hamas to slaughter hundreds and hundreds of their citizens before bombing anyone.
No need to wait, that already happened.
Aww did someone tell you that running a genocidal apartheid state would be easy and have no risks?
What poor genocide apologists.
If zionists cared about human rights, they wouldn’t be trying to re-settle the “holy” land
Israel is going to spend even more of its blood preforming a ground invasion.
Those poor innocent invading soldiers trying to invade and colonize more and more land from these savage indigenous people. If only the indigenous people just accepted their fate peacefully and just give up their homes to the colonizers. They simply are the wrong ethnicity so they have to leave their houses or be shot. Not enough people consider how bad that makes the colonizers feel. Not leaving your house means you are just asking to be killed.
Israel has stated their intention to destroy Hamas, as you well know. If you cared about your cause, I’m not sure why you would lie and misrepresent what Israel is doing? You’re not going to convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with you, which is to say it’s pointless. Be mad if you want. If Israel wanted the land, they would have taken it already. If Israel wanted to destroy Gaza, they would have already. Clearly, what they want is to destroy Hamas while allowing the innocents to live. They have a right to defend themself. Sorry that hurts you.
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There are certainly Jews that are indigenous to that region, but most of them are not.
And in any case, why would Jews that haven’t lived there for multiple generations have more rights to the land than people actually living there?
Can an Irish-American go to Ireland and kick people out of their houses? No! They can move there and get their own house, that’s it. Same with Jews wanting to live in Palestine. They can move there, they can’t form their own country and deport the people living there. That’s called ethnic cleansing.
What do you call it when you have a stated mission to kill all Jews and destroy Israel? Ethnic cleansing? Geno-what?
Palestinians are in the position they’re in because they lost a war. When you lose, you don’t get to make demands of the victor. If they wanted peace, they could stop harboring Hamas and raising their children to want to kill Jews. If they wanted peace, they could ask for peace. With Israel, there is at least in principle, the ability to have peace. With Hamas and their charter, there can never be peace.
Apartheid would never end in South Africa. Until it did. Peace would never exist in Northern Ireland. Until it did. The cold war would never end. Until it did. The belief that the situation is unresolvable is the problem
Again, one side has a stated charter to destroy all Jews and Israel? What ceasefire or peace do you think you will accomplish here? Why must Israel bear the burden of allowing endless attacks and endless threats of attacks?
Israel controls the land and the Palestinians don’t have a seat at the table. Those are the preconditions for brewing up a deep rooted terrorist organization.
It’s strange how the terrorists never seem responsible for their own actions.
You don’t understand what I’m saying. Which makes sense in the context of terrible trauma.
Hamas is awful and should be excised. But if these regions and classes of people continue to be subjugated and unrepresented in the government that governs them, and forcibly impoverished, of course the worst of them will be the most emboldened.
If you hate terrorism, stop it before it starts. Do a simple root cause on this one seriously.
That would require occupying and re-educating Gaza. As soon as Israel even tries, the whole world will react by screaming that they’re Nazis and this was their plan all along. I agree education is the way to stop terrorism, but it has to come from Palestinians choosing to love their children so much that they give them a better future through that education, where their children will be turned from terrorism. But, once there are terrorists, the path is done. They are responsible for their actions, it doesn’t matter about the past anymore.
Palestine <> Hamas Should we treat Israel like we would the hill top youth?
I never said they were the same. In fact, in all my messages, I’m explicitly against drawing that similarity. Israel has declared war on Hamas, whoever and wherever they are.
I appreciate IDF bombs only striking Hamas fighters and leaving innocent Palestinians who are not being bombed, terrorised, starved, facing mass eviction and collective punishment (a war crime)
Again, you have no solution. Your calls for ceasefire is simultaneously a call for Israel to return to the status quo of hundreds of rockets launched at them per day and the threat of constant terrorism festering just outside their borders. Israel won’t do that.
Yes, the correct thing for them to do is prevent inbound threats without conducting an ethnic cleansing you genocidal freak.
So you have no solutions and you demand Israel accept living under hundreds of rockets per day and the constant threat of terrorism. No. They don’t have to. What do you call it when you have a charter to kill all Jews and destroy Israel? Geno-what?
Facts are that Gaza is still there. The citizens are still there. Israel is starting to let humanitarian aid in, which must frustrate you.
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You think if Hamas violated a ceasefire agreement that people’s judgment of them wouldn’t change? At all?
Trolling
Hamas has violated multiple ceasefires and is very specifically the reason a two-state solution isn’t already implemented.
Look around and tell me if everyone is anti-Hamas.
I don’t think you’re completely right here. The two-state solution isn’t very popular with regular Palestinians either. A two-state solution cements Israel as ethno-state and doesn’t address all the Palestinians already deported.
Also Israeli settlers keep violently stealing people’s houses, which I would also consider breaking the ceasefire.
I’m curious, what makes you consider Israel an ethno-state?
Palestinians have near-zero bargaining chips and caring too much about the makeup of another country is a poor use of what little leverage they have.
Agreed regarding settlements on the West Bank not helping, but it’s hardly the breaking of a ceasefire. Notable also that outright giving this land to Palestine has been included in every peace deal since the 80s
I think it’s fair criticism . At the very least walk back and reserve judgement until there’s more conclusive evidence. But I think until there’s better evidence, there should be more respect given to the US intelligence community. It was not long ago trump was criticized for accepting foreign intelligence over the US intelligence community. I think it’s fair to criticize tlaib for this as well.
And the thing is, the blame of who bombed the hospital isn’t critical to advocating for peace, criticizing unproportial Israeli response, or other pro Palestine messaging.
Here is the available evidence: https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206795861/heres-the-available-evidence-of-what-happened-at-al-ahli-arab-hospital-in-gaza
This is the best I’ve read on the subject
I like that they claim it wasn’t Israeli because of the lack of shrapnel damage to the buildings… directly under a picture of someone inspecting shrapnel damage on one of the buildings.
That’s a difference between your understanding and the author - the level of shrapnel damage from an air detonated bomb would be an order of magnitude higher than shown from the hospital explosion, but that doesn’t mean no shrapnel is produced by a rocket explosion or cars cooking off.
If your munition is designed to explode above the ground its designed to spread a hail of shrapnel in the detonation zone. There are plenty of pictures from ukraine showing the effects of these munitions, it turns the area into a cheese grater.
Lack of crater and a large fire are hallmarks of a conflagration vs an explosion.
But I think until there’s better evidence, there should be more respect given to the US intelligence community
The US intelligence community isn’t an objective organization with a mission to inform US citizens of what’s really going on in the world. Anything they release is at the direction of political actors and intended to cause some effect. They can be good at their jobs and their released information is still inherently untrustworthy.
So what is the unbiased source that investigated this faster than the US Intelligence community that was not directly involved in the current conflict?
Yes, there are blemishes on the US Intelligence’s history. But a US Politician should have a little more deference you the US Intelligence Community.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/18/gaza-hospital-explosion-missile-palestine/
OSINT analysis. Independent analysts using public data very quickly determined that Israel was not to blame.
It doesn’t matter if the US Intelligence community is faster, they’re still not trustworthy. Within the government, hopefully intelligence is just a confidential useful tool to inform government officials, but press releases are political actions.
And frankly, US politicians (outside of the president) shouldn’t be overly trusting of the intelligence community. They’re heavily influenced by the executive’s wants and were (under pressure) a key player in justifying the war in Iraq. That’s not a small blemish, and I’m not aware of any changes that would make that impossible in the aftermath.
So you choose to trust Hamas instead.
How about this? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/18/gaza-hospital-explosion-missile-palestine
Okay, but there’s no evidence here either. Just geolocation of the video which doesn’t even suggest who is responsible. And some vague comments about the explosion not matching any Israeli weapon. Which is dubious to say the least, especially as the people involved specifically say they don’t actually know what happened.
No, that’s stupid and you haven’t been reading the conversation thread.
It feels like she is too close to this, and is expressing her passion instead of allowing evidence to be presented. It’s gonna look real bad if things don’t pan out her way, and she’s the one supporting terrorism.
How would she be supporting terrorism?, she’s one of the few in Congress calling for a ceasefire and an end to the violence. Even if she’s wrong and islamic jihad were responsible that doesn’t mean she accidentally supported them. She said the bombing of the hospital was horrific and unless she changes her tone once she realizes Palestinians did it then this isn’t supporting terrorism.
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She’s calling for a ceasefire while Hamas has its hostages. Hamas isn’t going to give back the hostages in honor of a ceasefire. A ceasefire, even a temporary one, is a win for Hamas in that it prolongs the terror, and resolves nothing. The best-case scenario of a ceasefire is they wait two months, Hamas jerks everybody around, and then it all starts over again, except now with the babies indoctrinated two months further into Islam.
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She’s blaming Israel with only one piece of evidence: Hamas’s accusation. Meanwhile, OSINT + Israeli intelligence made public + US Intelligence all make it clear that Israel was not at fault. She chooses to repeat Hamas’s story instead of looking at the evidence. She is supporting Hamas.
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She said the bombing of the hospital was horrific and unless she changes her tone once she realizes Palestinians did it then this isn’t supporting terrorism.
She didn’t just say the bombing of the hospital was horrific. She explicitly said that Israel bombed the hospital:
Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.
There’s enough evidence - from third parties, not from either Hamas or the IDF or another invested party - out there that runs counter to the claim that it was an Israeli airstrike that Tlaib should have at least modified here initial statement.
But she hasn’t.
I agree that she hasn’t openly supported terrorism, but blaming one side for something that was very likely caused by the other side, and then completely refusing to acknowledge that once evidence to the contrary comes out is, at the very least, doing nothing to calm tensions.
Even if she’s wrong and islamic jihad were responsible that doesn’t mean she accidentally supported them.
War doesn’t exist in a vacuum. If you add weight to one side of the scale, the other side is raised. If I have a can of Coke and a can of Pepsi, and I point to the Coke and say, “This one gave me diabetes,” it doesn’t matter that the Pepsi is just as bad, all that matters is that I pushed the blame on Coke.
“if”, jesus fucking christ
Big if true
Its easy and understandable to fall for initial disinformation, but after facts come out sticking to those lies becomes malicious.
From the article:
“Our office cited an AP report yesterday that the IDF had hit a Baptist hospital in Gaza. Since then, the IDF denied responsibility and the US intelligence assessment is that this was not done by Israel,” she wrote. “It is a reminder that information is often unreliable and disputed in the fog of war (especially on Twitter where misinformation is rampant). We all have a responsibility to ensure information we are sharing is from credible sources and to acknowledge as new reports come in.”
Omar called for a “fully independent investigation to determine conclusively who is responsible for this war crime.”
It sounds like she acknowledges Israel probably isn’t behind it, but also isn’t apologizing for her initial remarks like some Republicans were calling for. The story should probably mention that higher up and more explicitly, rather than burying the lede.
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rather than burying the lede.
but then we cant farm those juicy outrage page hits.
also isn’t apologizing for her initial remarks
I dunno this strikes me as an issue. Like, if a known serial killer is accused of murder for obvious reasons, and we find out they were actually innocent – we weren’t wrong for our initial suspicions and accusation, but we do owe them an apology once all the information is out.
If you accuse someone who turns out to be innocent, the polite thing to do is apologize for thinking badly of them, however much you were justified in thinking so to start with.
Omar’s comment calling for further investigation is completely appropriate, while Tlaib’s refusal to apologize is inappropriate, especially since she conflated the whole thing with being anti Muslim.
but we do owe them an apology once all the information is out.
No - we don’t owe a serial killer an apology if turns out they murdered ninety-nine people instead of a hundred.
the polite thing to do is apologize for thinking badly of them
No, there is nothing “polite” about “apologizing” to a genocidal settler-colonialist state.
Huh, when you put it that way… I see what you mean.
There were massive destruction weapons in Iraq. Or not ? How to know who you should believe ?
The left just struggles with separating the sane part from the crazy-democrat-version-of-maga-part. Gotta stick together to show those stupid Republicans who are sticking by their crazy maga crowd.
Wut.
The US DOD should find the munitions expert who made that bomb with such limited budget seeing how powerful it is and teach the Ukrainian military how to do something similar
It blew up some parked cars and caused a fireball, by no means a powerful blast lol
There’s no reason to apologize, if Isreal is so adamant to prove it’s innocence let an international investigation open. But they won’t because like for the killing of the journalist Shereen AbuAkleh they are guilty.
There’s a link above to NPR with the (Al Jazeera?) footage of the missile failing and part of it hitting the parking lot
Then why lie to strengthen your cause if it is already justifiable without the facts being known?
The ones that have a long track records of lies and deceit are Israeli and US government. History is the witness. I don’t need to strengthen the case I want the end of civilians murder, humanitarian aids and international investigation on war crimes such as this.
Oh, because Hamas never lies or murders civilians!
=/
Hamas is a terrorist organization born from Israeli apartheid and genocide.
Is there a reason you choose to believe their story about the hospital explosion? Have they presented any evidence at all?
I take no stance on the hospital bombing, from what I’ve seen it seems like it was a group called Islamic Jihad
Ah, I thought I was still replying to the OP of this thread. It probably was PIJ, but the only party that originally asserted it was Israel was Hamas, so people piggybacking off Hamas’s story and running with it rather than looking at any of the evidence is a real problem.
There’s a good essay on The Atlantic by a former AP reporter on how the press fails to counter Hamas strongarming them to give them a pass their failures in Gaza. Walking into the office armed to make them pull articles about misfires killing civilians and such. Rest assured that the ‘history’ you’ve seen is heavily colored by the Palestinian side as well, and perhaps even more.
This is actually an interesting point worth consideration. For all the talk of the propaganda and lying and manipulation, we often don’t apply similar scrutiny to Hamas nor question their numbers.
Israel has shared a whole lot of its intelligence publicly. The explosion occurred in Gaza, wouldn’t it be on Hamas to allow an investigation?
So they are not believing the Pentagon’s assessment? Or just don’t care and going with feels instead?
Pentagon also said Iraq had Weapon of Mass Destruction 🤷♂️
Also said Russia was going to invade Ukraine, and people were skeptical of it for the exact same argument.
Sometimes they’re right. You can’t take them as an absolute authority nor always lying. In the broader context, with analysis that other independent groups have done, it seems to me they’re telling the truth here.
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100%
True, but different time, different administration, different circumstances. Just because a government lied once doesn’t necessarily mean everything they say in the future is a lie, but certainly should be taken with a grain of salt.
…and the USS Maddox was struck by the north Vietnamese…
Yeah, I definitely trust the pentagon not to have a motive to lie about it. After all, they’ve proven to be trustworthy in the past! You gotta support the veterans, they never lie!
As a former service dog trainer who trained dogs specifically for disabled veterans there’s a reason I refuse to talk about the military and how it treats their people.
Who? For the lazy. She’s Palestinian as well so the bias is understandable.
A member of the Democratic Party, Tlaib represented districts 6 and 12, respectively, in the Michigan House of Representatives before her election to Congress.[3] In 2018, she won the Democratic nomination for the United States House of Representatives in Michigan’s 13th congressional district. She ran unopposed in the general election and became the first woman of Palestinian descent in Congress, the first Muslim woman to serve in the Michigan legislature, and one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress (the other being Ilhan Omar).[4][5][6] Tlaib is a member of The Squad, an informal group of six (four until the 2020 elections) U.S. representatives on the left wing of the Democratic Party.[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashida_Tlaib
The hospital attack was a failed rocket by Islamic Jihad coming from Gaza toward Israel.
https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-heads-middle-east-inflamed-by-gaza-hospital-blast-2023-10-18/
At the very least she should recant her statements. There’s been enough chaos from it being attributed to Israel that she has a responsibility as a public official to issue a retraction.
Who? You’re in a political subreddit. You didn’t know who she is?
Not everyone’s American, we don’t know your entire portfolio of talking heads.
Okay so read the article and it says exactly who she is?
Are you bothered by someone providing more context? What is it you are adding here?
… You know all 435 voting members of the US House of Representatives which she’s a part of and 100 Congressman?
Right lmfao.
She’s not some nobody from nowhere.
She needs to have her bias confirmed. The fog of war is a powerful thing. Unfortunately, her vocalizations do no service for her district.
That’s not true, they prove that she has a brain and is trying to use it unlike about 430 of her colleagues
You can acknowledge that there is uncertainty around who is responsible for the hospital, you can apologize for attributing blame prematurely without confirmation, and still hold Israel accountable for being reckless and disproportional in it’s response and call for peace. It’s damaging to her reputation and cause to double down on this when more evidence is coming out contrary to her initial claims.
Why do you think she’s doubling down?
The headline said she’s not apologizing for her earlier remarks, not that she refuses to consider that it might have been a case of friendly fire.
In fact, the article itself shows she’s not doubling down. She’s just not apologetic about taking initial reports at face value.
“Our office cited an AP report yesterday that the IDF had hit a Baptist hospital in Gaza. Since then, the IDF denied responsibility and the US intelligence assessment is that this was not done by Israel,” she wrote. “It is a reminder that information is often unreliable and disputed in the fog of war (especially on Twitter where misinformation is rampant). We all have a responsibility to ensure information we are sharing is from credible sources and to acknowledge as new reports come in.”
Evidence like that Pentagon report? Lmfao
Sorry if I’m a little callous about the Pentagon reporting on the middle east
So what sources are you holding in higher esteem?
Well there is the hospital itself, which was being bombed by Israel just days before this incident, who said immediately after the incident that this was an Israeli attack.
Logical reasoning, pretty much anyone but the pentagon or anyone who cites that information was transmitted between states.
Relief organizations are more reliable, as are civilian social media. I don’t trust people with guns and bombs to tell you honestly what they’re gonna do with them.
I would generally trust people with guns and weapons data and expertise to provide the best analysis of evidence use to understand weapon use. Also, we are seeing more independent reporting with similar conclusions based on photographs of craters (or lack there of), long periods of burning (which is characteristic of rocket fuel burning not bomb explosions which tend to not cause long burning fires), etc.
Argue the point all you want, I still don’t trust the people with the power to wipe Gaza off the map not to do it.
Nice meme but it’s the pentagon, you must be very young
It’s the “everybody is wrong except me” group heard from.
Seems like her heart is in the right place, but I fear peace talks at this time would be unproductive. Neither side can be described as conciliatory.
If not now, when? They’ve been at this for decades
I would love to be able to force them to try, as doubtful as such a peace would be. Any ceasefire would be preferable to this.
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The new rules will have a simple “Keep it civil” rule, this comment would be removed under either the old rules or the new rules so removing it now. You can disagree without calling someone a terrorist.
Cheers. I can abide being called a horror, but I’m no antisemite.
Ahhh the beheaded babies claim that even Biden had to walk back .
Save it for the peace talks.
There was a ceasefire you fucking terrorist apologizing moron, then Hamas invaded Israel and slaughtered 1500 men, women, and children
There was a ceasefire? When?
Israel’s objective is that Hamas no longer exists and that Gaza can no longer pose a security threat to Israel. They won’t accept a return to the status quo that just results in more rocket attacks and another wave of attacks years from now.
I understand wanting to see an end to violence and calling for a ceasefire based on that, but to do so is to de facto support more intentional attacks on Israeli civilians, which Israel is simply not going to allow. The time to discuss the future of Gaza will only come once Hamas and other militias are conclusively out of the picture.
The thing is that the Islamic Jihad and Hamas don’t want to negotiate, since they won’t accept a two-state solution, so peace is not possible while any of them has a militarized branch. There are plenty of people in Israel that don’t want to negotiate but at least on the Israeli side the only group that needs to stick to the plan is the IDF which will follow the orders they get.
If you see what’s going on in the West Bank, Israel is also doing everything it can to make a two state solution impossible
since they won’t accept a two-state solution,
They will. Well at least Hamas well. They changed their charter in 2017 to reflect that.
Yeah, but then Hamas went ahead and murdered 1,400 civilians in Israel. After this, why exactly would Israel want to negotiate with terrorists?
Mostly so this mess doesn’t happen again? Hamas and others like it are a symptom, not a cause.
Here’s the story of the last hostage negotiation between Israel and Hamas. Note that Israel released about half the prisoners from its side of the exchange after Shalit’s release.
Hamas, is, in fact, a cause. Those Israeli civilians were not murdered by some kind of bad-faith negotiation, they were murdered by people who decided to murder them. They were raped by people who decided to rape them. They were kidnapped by people who decided to kidnap them. We absolutely must blame the actual perpetrators of these atrocities, and not hand-wave them away as just a symptom.
The thing is: The atrocities themselves are symptoms. A free Palestine wouldn’t foster the conditions necessary for this kind of bullshit to happen at a large scale.
Note: I condemn any and all murder of civilians.
Israel has negotiated with Hamas before.
Hamas had virtually free reign in Gaza for the past 17 years, despite violently pushing out Fatah and never holding elections again.
That didn’t stop Hamas from murdering 1,400 civilians in Israel.
What results should Israel expect if they negotiated with Hamas this time?
Hamas won the 2006 election, and Fatah and the rest of the world opposed them taking office. Hamas and Fatah fought it out, and Hamas won in Gaza and Fatah in the West Bank.
You’re right that Hamas hasn’t allowed elections since then, but simply saying, 'violently pushing out Fatah ’ is much less than accurate.
It should also be noted that Hamas won that election because Fatah’s strategy of negotiations was seen as a dead end and Israel is responsible for that. And of course, there might not even BE a Hamas if Israel hadn’t funded Hamas as a divide and conquer strategy against the Palestinian secular nationalist movement .
Israel has negotiated with Hamas before.
And then went back on the results of those negotiations. Two ceasefires were signed before, and in both the blockade being lifted was a condition that Israel didn’t fulfill no matter how long Hamas waited.
Also you’re being very disingenuous by ignoring the blockade. You can’t call the situation in Gaza “free reign”.
They changed their charter to deflect criticism. They haven’t changed their behavior at all. They’re still actively pursuing the death of every Jew and Jew-sympathizer the world over. They still say the same shit, but they make sure to only say it in Arabic, and not while the West is paying attention. And they try their best to replace “Jew” with “Zionist,” (still around the world), and they still encourage “global Jihad,” and they still view a Jew’s death anywhere as cause for celebration.
Hamas’s founding charter prohibits them from seeking peace or negotiating at all.
And they still have ~150-200 hostages, mostly civilians.
The problem is that Hamas exists, and has complete political control over Gaza. There is nobody Israel can talk to, while Hamas is in power, and convince them to return the hostages, stop the rocket fire, etc.
This is not a problem that can be solved with words.
The only glimmer of hope, unfortunately, lays on the other side of a complete and total destruction of Hamas in Gaza.
There is nobody Israel can talk to, while Hamas is in power, and convince them to return the hostages, stop the rocket fire, etc.
There is. Hamas. It happened before. And Israel didn’t follow through with it. Look up the 2008 and 2012 blockades (or I can give a breakdown on them).
There is. Hamas. It happened before.
I wasn’t talking about the hostages, my bad there, though those can be easily demanded as part of a ceasefire agreement.
I liked her in her involvement with the progressives… but this is a real bad look. I understand her emotions especially given her Palestinian roots, but she needs to provide evidence if she’s going to use her political platform to rail against the currently accepted explanation of things.
Her initial reaction and statements are completely fair. But as a public official, she needs to issue a retraction and apologize for being incorrect.
I view her the exact same way I view Manchin. They’re Dems, and we need more Dems, but I wish I lived in a world where I didn’t need them specifically.
It’s crazy how quick people are to believe the pentagon with absolutely 0 proof as if they wouldn’t lie to protect the side that have massively invested interests in.
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please, don’t make me take up for Israel.
Israel is asshoe, but if I was captured, I’d rather it be Israel
Nice username dweeb
thanks
she has nothing to apologise for considering she is right
I’d love to see a source on that proving that she’s right, since you’re so sure and all
I’d love to see any source right now that could be considered reliable
Listen, I’m on the side of innocent Palestinian civilians as much as the next guy, but Hamas does have a habit of using human shields and putting military equipment near schools/hospitals. Truth is, none of us know truly who shot the missile. The fact that it’s actually still being investigated means everyone should stfu
Seeing as how Israel created an apartheid state and is commiting ethnic cleansing aka genocide, I fail to see how she has anything to apologize for.
Some of putler’s best allies don’t even know they are helping him.
