Gaza's Children Face "Bombs Disguised as Toys"

[AnOrangeCat]

It was occupied for some time

Was.

It wasn't on 10/7, and hadn't been for 20 years.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

It was occupied for some time and even after withdrawal Israel still figuratively (and sometimes literally) calls the shots.

"Figuratively"!

LMAO! Yeah, definitely figuratively. Meaning, no substance whatsoever.

So if we're figuratively defining things now, how do you explain the "figurative" occupation of Palestinian land by Jordan and Egypt from 1948-1967? Was that "figurative"?

 

[AnOrangeCat]

Are you sure it was?

Well yeah because I've seen the videos and listened to the hostages.

What I haven't seen is any Palestinian speak out against it until they started being affected by the consequences of it. At that point, it's too late. The atrocity already happened, as well as the two years of torture that the hostages endured.

Buyer's remorse is predictable, but pretending like you never supported it is BS and you know that.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

Oh so you do recognise that Palestinian Christians exist.

Yeah, and they are used as human shields, which is a war crime.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

Are you lumping them into your idea that all Palestinians supported the atrocity of 2023?

I don't know if they did or didn't.

The idea of resistance is among Palestinians, not specifically Muslim Palestinians.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

You should refer back to those lines from Auden.

So that's the excuse, then. Committing war crimes is inevitable. So if that's an inevitability for Palestinians, why should they get any state?

 

[AnOrangeCat]

Long enough judging by that Times of Israel article.

That is not an answer. That is vague. It's very simple question. To what degree and for how long?

 

[AnOrangeCat]

Hmm... war crimes is an interesting term given what Israel has been accused of doing and the numerous warrants for the arrest of Netanyahu and others in his government.

Accused of doing that, sure.

But actually committing them, no.

What war crimes has Israel committed?

They don't use human shields. They don't use civilian infrastructure to carry out attacks. They wear uniforms. They don't recruit child soldiers.

Everything about war you don't like isn't a war crimes. War crimes are specifically defined, they're not some nebulous, ambiguous sense or feeling. Just like genocide, starvation, and famine...they're not nebulous, ambiguous senses or feelings. Nor are they figurative. They are actual things whose definitions you are changing because of your personal feelings, not because of anything substantial or provable.

If you're making figurative claims, then you're doing it because you have an agenda that doesn't reconcile with the truth.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

Well historically Israel did occupy the region.

So you say. So there's the indulgence of delusion. The indulgence of the delusion that Israel is illegitimate so there's no need to compromise because one day, the illegitimate state will disappear.

Do you see how that is the biggest reason why no compromise has been reached? Because you're telling these people that Israel is illegitimate, so if that's the case, what is the incentive for Palestinians to compromise?

 

[AnOrangeCat]

The fledgling state took over an area and forced the indigenous populations to leave.

No they didn't.

This is the cognitive dissonance that sent Kruska over the edge.

How could Israel have driven Arabs out while making them citizens at the same time? Square that circle. Because we know for a fact that Israel did extend citizenship to Arabs because that's why there are 2 million Israeli Arabs today.

So either Israel drove Arabs out, a rumor, or they offered them citizenship, a fact.

Both things cannot be true. Only one can be true and we know which one is true because they are people who exist in Israel today.

At the same time Israel was being partitioned there was another, larger partition that was also happening in India. There, 15 million people were displaced, but the difference is that every displaced Hindu was taken in by India and made citizens, and every displaced Muslim was taken in by Pakistan and made citizens. Every single Jew driven from MENA were taken in by Israel and made citizens. Only the Arabs didn't take in displaced people. How come India, Pakistan and Israel took in displaced people but the Arab countries didn't? What's the excuse?

 

[AnOrangeCat]

Have you ever looked on the site Breaking the Silence?

Yeah, of course.

Have you ever looked at the Dinah Project or the Asserson report?

Every single day? Do you have attested confirmation for that comment? Or are you just engaging in conjecture and assuming?

Well, Hamas hides behind civilians and uses civilian infrastructure to plan attacks. They don't have military bases like the IDF. Their whole modus operandi is to use the civilian population as human shields.

So yeah, every day. Every day there's a "base" in a hospital, in a mosque, in tunnels underneath UNWRA buildings. Israel uncovers them all the time. Finding weapons in people's homes, in schools, pretty much everywhere. Hamas cannot survive if they don't commit war crimes.

If Hamas didn't hide behind human shields, what would happen to civilians? If Hamas didn't use civilian infrastructure to launch attacks, what would happen to that infrastructure?

 

[AnOrangeCat]

You seem to be unfamiliar with the use of metaphors.

How about instead of speaking figuratively you speak literally?

What happens when you are taken literally by calling something an "open air prison"?

Also, what is the metaphor? I don't get it. For it to be a metaphor, it must have the same literal context. It's an exaggeration.

So again, what we have here is an instance of you substituting a feeling for an actual fact.

It's just emotions, not logic.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

The Nazis killed others as well. Let us not forget that.

Yeah, let us also not forget who helped the Nazis kill people. Like the Palestinian Muslims recruited by Amin Al-Husseini into an SS battalion to murder people in the Balkans.

You have a very "all lives matter" kind of mindset.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

I do not recall reading that the Jewish freedom fighters/terrorists (take your pick) in the late 1940s wore a uniform.

They did though. During the war for independence, Israelis wore uniforms. That's how they distinguished between civilians and soldiers.

If you actually DID any reading instead of doing confirmation bias, you would learn that the IDF used whatever military gear and uniforms they could get their hands on.

From Google AI:

Mix-and-Match Attire: Combatants wore British battledress, khaki drill (KD) uniforms, US Army fatigue shirts, and surplus sweaters. Webbing, boots, and gear were scavenged from various military and civilian sources.

When should we put Israel on trial?

For what?

Because you feel that Israel figuratively commited war crimes?

It's hard to tell when to take you literally and when to take you figuratively because it seems that switches depending on how your argument is going. That's bad faith.

 

[Shusha]

Thank you for ably demonstrating you have no idea what Auden's poem was about.

I must have missed the part where it related to Israeli policy or government.

 

[Shusha]

Would you include the trafficked sex workers for the brothels?

Tell me again how this relates to Israeli policies and government? Why bring this up if not to color the perception of Israelis (read: Jews) with a black stain? Are there large cities without brothels? If there are, please do point to one. As someone who is an international expert on violence against women, I would very much like to know of such a place.

Tel Aviv is a thriving and stunningly beautiful city. Filled with friendly and out-going people. Have you been there?

 

[AnOrangeCat]

I must have missed the part where it related to Israeli policy or government.

It was just something for him to say that was profound because nothing else he says is.

 

[Shusha]

In my opinion the problem lies in Israel having never defined its borders. Its control of "occupied areas" merely excuses land grabs and the intimidation of the indigenous populations whom many Israelis would prefer not to be there.

It was occupied for some time and even after withdrawal Israel still figuratively (and sometimes literally) calls the shots.

The only time the territory previously known as the Mandate for Palestine was occupied was between 1948 and 1967 when it was illegally invaded and occupied by Jordan and Egypt. That is what an occupation is. When a State overtakes the territory of another State. Neither Jordan nor Egypt had any legal sovereign claim to that territory and no consequences of the belligerent invasion can result in changes to the victimized State, except through agreement or treaty. The doctrine of the unacceptability of acquiring territory through aggression.

Israel is not required to "define its borders". Where that silly myth came from escapes me. Newly emerged States do not define or declare their borders. Their borders are either inherited (as was the case with Israel) or they are negotiated and agreed upon in treaties (as was the case with Turkey). Usually treaties of peace. (See the Treaty of Peace between the State of Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Treaty of Peace between the State of Israel and the Arab Republic of Egypt. Note where the borders are between these States.)

Should Israel agree to cede its sovereign territory to another State or to an emerging wanna-be State, such agreement will be formalized in a treaty which will delineate the new borders between the previous sovereign and the new one. Since Israel inherited her international borders in 1948, there has never been a treaty which ceded Israel's sovereign territory nor which has delineated new boundary lines. Israel remains one territorial unit. This is incompatible with the concept of "occupation".

There is an Interim Agreement which outlines separate and distinct territories to be administrated by Israel and/or by the newly-formed government of Palestine in Judea and Samaria. Those administrative territories are not borders, which were to be established in a final peace treaty. It is possible for them to become borders. (No one wants them as borders, they were never intended to be borders, and they are, well, awkward, at best.) Still, they functionally act like international borders in the interim. This is also incompatible with the concept of "occupation".

It is also my understanding there exists an MOU to the UN in which Israel renounces the territory of Gaza circa 2005. (I have not been able to source the primary document. If anyone has access to it, I'd love to see it, please share.) Yes, this is incompatible with the concept of "occupation". The territory was renounced and is no longer a part of Israel. (Yes. You can now argue that Gaza is occupied by Israel. But only since 2024).

Understanding that legal lens would be helpful in negotiating a new State from Israeli sovereign territory. Israel has shown willingness to cede territory to a newly emerging State of Palestine, conditional on peace between them. Documented evidence of word and deed. This is not always the case. There is an unresolved tension in customary international law between territorial integrity and self-determination through sovereign secession. So far, the law resides more firmly for territorial integrity, resulting in the struggles of various peoples such as the Kurds and the Catalans as examples. The fact that the Arabs refuse to take the territory offered to them suggests that the condition of peace is the point of rejection.

The Arab peoples of the territory are not indigenous. Their culture did not have its ethnogenisis in that place pre-colonization. They are colonizers and/or colonized. That said, their national identity did arise in that place and because of that I accept that they have a right of self-determination in part of that territory.

However, that right of self-determination does not grant the right to prevent another peoples (an actual indigenous peoples - the Jewish people) from also having self-determination. Israel exists. Am Israel Chai.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

How else could they have survived?

Are you serious? Is this a serious question?

Hamas needed to keep them alive in order to bargain for some kind of compromise, which was reached in October 2025. The state every Israeli hostage was released in was horrific and tortured. That is the whole point of keeping hostages, so stop feigning because it just shows that you do not act in good faith.

Unfortunately, Palestinians have not abided by those ceasefire terms, and that's why Israel continues to attack Hamas. And every single hostage account has been clear that they received no help from any Palestinians. In fact, many hostages talk about how Palestinian "civilians" kept them hostage or aided in the movement of hostages throughout Hamas' network.

A Palestinian "doctor", supposedly not Hamas, injected air into the veins of one Israeli hostage, causing her death. He also recorded himself doing that and sent the video to the hostage's father because they had her cell phone from when they kidnapped her.

 

[AnOrangeCat]

They must have been given some food and water otherwise they would have died of starvation and/or dehydration.

Many of them did die. Every one of them was tortured. So they were kept alive just enough to be used as bragaining chips. Because that's what hostage taking entails.

They weren't kept alive because Palestinians were saving them. And many of them were killed in capitivity.

There was also the tragedy of the three hostages killed by the IDF with the IDF Chief of Staff stating that they had violated the rules of war. Three hostages mistakenly killed by IDF fire screamed ‘help' | The Jerusalem Post

Yeah, fog of war is going to happen because when Hamas fights, they don't wear uniforms.

So it's hard for the IDF to determine who is a terrorist and who isn't.

That's why not wearing uniforms while you're fighting is a war crime.

So again, here you are blaming Jews for the atrocities and war crimes Palestinians commit every day. You give them a free pass because you're holding them to different standards than you do Israel and Jews.

And you do that because you're antisemitic and racist.