Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Framing and context is everything to Israeli sympathisers and Zionists. It’s the mechanism by which they maintain their status as the perpetual victim, as opposed to an active participant in decades long struggle where the vast majority of casualties, and bombs dropped by tonnage, are on the other side.

It’s the mechanism by which Palestinian deaths portrayed as a price worth paying.

Neither Amnesty nor anyone else are obliged to indulge such a ludicrous proposition.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Just a few lines further down in the report:

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Mmm. “Coming soon” … funny how they’re still working on *one day* of savagery more than a year on, despite it being recorded and live streamed by the perpetrators, while they’ve apparently spared no effort to wade through an entire year’s worth of material on the opposite side in order to get their report out condemning Israel.

As I said, context and framing is everything. Putting the very reason this latest round of bloodletting began downpage, rather than at the top where it belongs, is a deliberate editorial choice. As is leaving out words like ‘rape’ and ‘torture’, for which there is copious video evidence. Amnesty clearly wishes to downplay, to the maximum extent it can get away with, the fact that Hamas initiated this and nothing that has been done to Gaza or its people in the last year would have happened were it not for this.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

It is comments like this that are used to turn a blind eye to what has been done to the Palestinians: "Well if Hamas had not attacked us, we would have not needed to kill all the innocent men, women & children". The focus on how bad Amnesty is and not the events they are reporting on is disturbing ...

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Hamas don’t have a monopoly on rape or torture in the conflict, as demonstrated by the prisoners brutalised at the hands of the IDF in the absence of trials or evidence. Indeed the IDF slaughtered Israeli hostages for having the audacity to approach them with a white t-shirt waving as if to be a white flag. Heinous does not begin to cover it - the day in, day out existence of the Palestinian people.

It may suit you to deploy such evidence as examples to create an emotive response - indeed the Israeli state has done so effectively alongside the “40 beheaded babies”. None of this, absolutely none, would justifiy a genocide.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

No, it isn’t. Do please stop trying to use emotive nonsense to police other forum users’ choices about what and how they discuss.

This is a discussion forum, not a virtue signalling forum. We’ve been here more than 20 years, and in that time we have always freely discussed issues from various angles. We are here to discuss, not to recite approved opinions.

Right now, I choose to discuss Amnesty’s choice to pick political sides, which they very obviously are doing, on this and other issues, over what they once had a reputation for, i.e. calling out injustice without favour.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Look forward to seeing the evidence.

---------- Post added at 18:36 ---------- Previous post was at 18:34 ----------

It’s comments like this that are totally irrelevant to what’s taken place over the last 14 months

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

I sense that it is only your view that matters here and any contrary position is "virtue signalling" or "emotive nonsense". So be it ...

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Seems correct, if Hamas had not attacked, Israel would not have responded. Do you have proof otherwise ?

Of course, you forgot to mention that Hamas "killed innocent men, women & children", funny how you missed that ....

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Nobody missed that - it gets mentioned often enough - it’s the tens of thousands of slaughtered Palestinians that get overlooked. Efforts to make October 7th day 1 in the conflict erase decades of Palestinian suffering and occupation. Framing it that way, so to speak.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

As so it should.

Had Oct 7th not happened, none of this would have happened. The fault lies squarely at the feet of Hamas.

And let’s not forget why it happened. You and Ian can quote decades of oppression La, La La.

But you know it was orchestrated because of the Abraham accords, the normalisation of relations between Israel and other Middle Eastern nations, especially Saudi Arabia ( that has no interest in continuing hostilities, they are for economic advancement not medieval religious bullshit.


Iran could see the direction of travel and acted.

The Palestinians are expendable to Iran and Qatar and Hamas, they’re happy to see them die.

The IDF/Israel care more for their lives than Hamas do.

To trot out this argument, implies deep naivety, bordering on ignorance, as to why Oct 7th really happened.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Neither does the fact that other countries are happy to sacrifice Palestinians as pawns justify a genocide. If Iran and Qatar are pulling the strings they should pay the price. Hope that helps.

And no, it doesn’t require centring Israeli suffering in the narrative to justify one.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

That’s the weakest response to this subject I’ve seen from you in the last year to 18 months.

And it’s absolutely expected.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

I suspect international law would say otherwise - punishing entirely different people for crimes they didn't commit on the basis of proximity/ethnicity or any other reason usually doesn't go down too well.

Re: Israel, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran … War
 

Cue, "yeah but 7 October, proportionate response"