Tuesday, March 12, 2024

"Human Shields" n' Other Stuff

 


One of the stupid lies proffered by the Israeli Nazi Party and the Israeli Wehrmacht is that Hamas is to be blamed for Palestinian civilian casualties because Hamas imbeds itself within Palestinian civilians, using them as "human shields."  And this stupid lie was swallowed by Western cowards, shitheads and dullards, as if innocent people being used as "human shields" have been removed from all legal protections by the actions of their captors.  As if it's simply understood that you can blast away at "human shields" to get at the "bad guys" and that this is just a (perhaps sad) rule of engagement between warring parties.

Of course, that obliterates the whole point of the word "shields" in the term "human shields."  So, the Israeli Wehrmacht's argument is complete bullshit.

Furthermore, the stupid argument would have us believe that Hamas embedded itself within Palestinian civilians to use them as "human shields" because they believed in the actual meaning of the term "human shields" and that the Israeli Wehrmacht would be hesitant to kill Palestinian civilians.  As if Hamas (or any Palestinian) isn't well aware that the Israeli Wehrmacht regards all of them as garbage, as vermin to be eradicated.  As if Hamas has any reason to believe that the Israeli Wehrmacht would pause for a millisecond over whether to kill Palestinian civilians along with Hamas fighters.

From "Operation 'Cast Lead'" from 2008

"Operation Protective Edge" from 2014

There's no reason for Hamas to think that the IDF won't murder Palestinian civilians to get at them.  And even if Hamas had thought that, the IDF right now is telling the world: "Human shields??? We'll show you what we think of human shields!!"  They are indiscriminately bombing them.  Which is a violation of international law for which the US-government and all of its lickspittle vassals (such as Canada) have not protested.  And, on top of all of that, with all their sadistic murders of unarmed individuals, the IDF/Israeli Wehrmacht is showing itself to be a criminal organization.  And, again, neither Biden, nor Trudeau, or Macron or Sunak (or Starmer) or Scholz have uttered a word of criticism for any of this.

Canada continues to provide diplomatic cover for Israel's genocidal policies.  It continues to export weapons components to Israel.  My country, our country (if, as is likely, you're a Canadian reading this) is contributing to a genocide.  An overtly violent genocide (since our ongoing smothering of the First Nations is a more slow-motion genocide) and we are revealing ourselves to be a debased, sickening people.

How in the name of fuck can a government support a genocide and then go through the motions of condemning another government for the death of one man without any evidence that this other government had anything to do with his death?  What must Ambassador Oleg Stepanov been thinking when Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly summoned him to "rebuke" him for the death of Alexei Navalny?

First of all, while he wasn't anything like the manufactured non-entity that Juan Guaido was, Navalny wasn't the revolutionary democratic superstar that the corporate/imperialist propaganda system made him out to be.  Also, just like the incoherent Skripal novichok story in the UK, the narrative about Navalny's alleged poisoning and recent death while in custody is dodgy.  But even if everything said about the Russian FSB and Navalny is true, shouldn't Canada's foreign minister be summoning the Ambassador from our ally Israel for conducting a GODDAMNED FUCKING GENOCIDE instead of hypocritically blathering about one man being killed by a government we see as a rival?

You really have to wonder if Crystia Freeland (and everyone associated with her) is completely shameless or whether they're just so fucking stupid that they can't see how nauseating and contemptible their behaviour is.

 

Next up is This CBC article about a protest and counter-protest outside a Thornhill synagogue where a seminar providing information about how to purchase stolen land in the West Bank was going on.  

Hundreds of pro-Palestinan protesters and counter-protesters demonstrated for hours outside a Toronto-area synagogue hosting a real estate event that marketed property in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

Realtors and companies participating in the session, called the great Israeli Real Estate Event, gathered at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto in Thornhill, Ont., on Thursday — part of a group of broader tours taking place in five North American cities. 

York Regional Police confirmed arrests were made at the demonstration near Clark Avenue West and York Hill Boulevard, but by Thursday night, they had not provided details as to who has been arrested or if any charges have been laid.

The website for the event markets it as: "Your chance to own a piece of the Holy Land!"

Along with other cities in Israel, the website says customers can inquire about purchasing property in Ma'ale Adumim, Efrat and Neve Daniel — all Israeli settlements in the West Bank, according to the United Nations. Modiin is also listed on the real estate show's website, and while some parts are considered Israeli settlements, not all of it is. The website does not specify where in Modiin advertised property is located.

The UN, alongside Canada, considers Israeli settlements in the occupied territories to be in violation of international law.

Did you read that last bit?  "Canada considers the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories to be in violation of international law"!  So why don't we DO anything about it?  Why don't we ever say to the Israelis that if they continue to steal the Palestinians' land in violation of international law that there will be consequences?  Why does Canada instead bow and scrape and coddle and make every excuse for that murderously racist, degenerate country?  Because Canada's ruling class are pro-zionist, most of our people are brainwashed ignoramuses, and we're a colonialist, settler society ourselves and we think we racist colonizers need to stick together!  Oh yeah, and we're also cowards.  Israel is important to the USA and we believe whatever the USA tells us to believe.

I suppose I should mention here that this article constitutes an abberation from the CBC's current policy of not saying ANYTHING about the current Israel-Palestine conflict.  Which is to say Israel's current genocidal behaviour.  The sin of ommission.  The CBC.  Doing whatever it can to help Israel perpetuate a genocide.

Anyway, the article goes on about the Canadian government's stated position on illegal settlements:

Ahead of the event, the Canadian government reiterated that it does not recognize "permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967, and strongly opposes illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank.

"The settlements also constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace," Global Affairs Canada spokesperson John Babcock said in a statement, adding Canada "strongly condemns" extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the area. 

"Canada is also gravely concerned by reports of Palestinian communities being forcibly removed from their lands in the West Bank."

Asked if events promoting the sale of the land in the West Bank are allowed in Canada or if there are any legal implications for Canadians who purchase property in those settlements, the government did not respond. 

Of course it didn't.  Gutless, hypocritical cowards.  These "settlements" aren't some new wrinkle to this story.  They've been going on for decades.  If pressed, the Canadian government of the day will mouth its empy platitudes about "grave concerns" and "international law" and a "peace process" but then it will slink back into the shadows and hope that that will be the end of the matter.  And Israel routinely sabotages this "peace process" with impunity. Meanwhile, here is the attitude that they're pretending doesn't exist:

Note: A lot of these quotes are from 2012 not 2024


Getting back to the CBC article about the Thornhill synagogue protest,  there's a part about the synagogue organizing a counter-protest, and there's a bunch of mewling bullshit from zionist nazis that you can read at the link if you're interested.  But I wanted to point out the image of this charming person at the counter-protest:


"Stop the Hate!" [!]  It's astonishing isn't it?  Israel has slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children and is deliberately starving the survivors and denying them access to medical care.  But to that woman in the photo, conducting a genocide doesn't constitute "hate."  No, for her, "hate" consists of protesting the genocide and protesting the stealing the land of the people being wiped-out.  (Yes, I understand that the actual, concentrated genocide is in Gaza while the land-thefts are in the West Bank.  But the victims are ALL Palestinians.  And what's going on in the West Bank is also a genocide regardless.)

That woman's level of cluelessness and entitlement stayed with me as I read this story about Ontario family doctors discussing the crisis in funding that is causing many of them to consider leaving the profession.

A group of family physicians held a meeting on Monday evening to talk about alternative career paths because it says the practise of family medicine is not sustainable in Ontario.

...

Hijazi, a family physician in Ottawa, said the point of the meeting was to draw attention to the crisis that family doctors are facing. He said family medicine in Ontario is unsustainable because of inadequate funding from the Ontario health ministry and the amount of time that family doctors have to spend on administrative work, which is estimated to be roughly 19 hours a week.

...

"Family doctors in Ontario are paid by the government through funding intended to cover various expenses such as rent, staff salaries, nursing services, electronic medical records, computers, phone bills, utilities, and more. However, this funding has remained stagnant for far too long and has failed to keep up with rising costs and inflation. As a result, family doctors struggle to meet their basic operational expenses," the petition reads.

And it occurred to me: How can Doug Ford not see what he's doing with his multiple assaults on Ontario's healthcare system?  How can he deliberately underfund family medicine?  How can he knowingly pay more for nurses from private agencies instead of saving money by increasing funding for public nurses?  He must know that the private insurance dominated healthcare system in the USA is an unmitigated disaster for ordinary people there.  It's more expensive, less accessible and ends up bankrupting and/or killing people.  Is he a cackling monster?

I don't think so.  Sure, he's a fucking asshole.  A bloated, blustering, arrogant bully.  But he's also the sort of shit-head who thought he could call a mother driven to desperation by his idiotic changes to assistance for autistic children and explain himself.  A cackling monster wouldn't care.  An intelligent, cynical cackling monster wouldn't bother because they'd be aware that their reforms were stupid and the phone call would be a political disaster.

I think Doug Ford is like that stupid woman with the "Stop the Hate!" sign.  She is a racist who supports ethnic cleansing and slaughtering the indigenous people if they protest their expulsion.  And anyone who disagrees with her is like the nazis.  Even though she has more in common with Adolph Hitler than they do.  She has compartmentalized things and deluded herself and stopped thinking things through to their consequences so that she can convince herself of her insanity.  Pure insanity.  Madness.  And it's the same with Doug Ford.  He's a rich stupid asshole who likes being Premier of Ontario because of the power and the fame.  To stay in power he needs to help other rich people.  He likes to help them because, again, he's also rich.  And he believes in the political ideas that his stupid, obnoxious father bloviated about to him in his youth.  And he can't be bothered to think things through.  He's lazy and stupid and an asshole, but the hero of his own life's story and therefore all the shitty, scuzzy things he does are somehow "good" things because what else could they be?

THE END

4 comments:

Purple library guy said...

One more thing to keep in mind about human shields is the marked tendency for fascists and various other right wingers to use projection all the damned time. So, with human shields, Israel talk and talks and talks about Hamas using human shields in a sort of vague almost metaphorical way, because the IDF routinely uses human shields in the actual literal way it's meant in law: When they go into potential combat situations, like they're attacking some innocent people in the West Bank, they will grab a few Palestinians and put them in front to absorb possible bullets. This is a fairly standard IDF tactic in the West Bank; it doesn't generally result in dead Palestinians because apparently Palestinians don't shoot their own people. So the IDF use people as human shields, and it works, because their victims aren't psychopaths with doctrines about killing hostages rather than letting the opponent have leverage.

Meanwhile, what Israel talks about when they accuse Hamas of using human shields is always one or both of two things: 1. A lie, or 2. Not actually use of human shields, just either normal life or a refusal to line up in the bright sunlight to be shot. So for instance, if a member of Hamas goes around living with his family when he's off duty, that's him using a human shield, although nobody would dream of saying IDF personnel living with their families were acting as human shields. Heck, as far as I can tell if a Hamas member DOESN'T live with his family and they bomb the family anyway just in case he might have been there, that's still "use of human shields" just by HAVING a family at all. And if Hamas members are hiding in tunnels, and the IDF don't know just where the tunnels are and even if they do it's hard to bomb them, and so they bomb a bunch of civilians on the surface instead like a drunk looking for his car keys where the light is, THAT'S use of human shields. Anything short of Hamas all massing in a town square with a huge sign saying "Kill Us Here!" is use of human shields.

Thinking of lies, it continues to impress me the way the media is able to keep on retailing what the "right" people say as if it has the faintest chance of being true even after they've been proved to be lying time after time after time after time. My previous most-impressed mark on this was the way they kept reporting what Trump said even though it had long since become obvious that his relationship to the truth was entirely random. But at least it was random--he would say dozens of things a day, and there was a decent chance a few of them would happen to be true. That has changed nowadays because most of what Trump says now relates to something he needs to lie about, but back in say 2018 there was at least a chance of truth. With spokespeople for Israel it's even more impressive, because it's clear the truth is a situation they absolutely must avoid letting anyone realize, so every single thing they say to the media is going to be a lie, and most of the media people reporting with a straight face must realize this by now, and yet they keep on reporting these bastards as if their statements should be taken seriously as potentially containing facts.

thwap said...

Purple library guy,

No matter how thin you slice it, whatever the zionists say still stinks like shit.

As do our boot-licking politicians.

For my part (with regards to your point about the media) I have started to visit the CBC News website every morning, and it seems to me that they're hardly covering the genocide in Gaza at all. I see more of the dregs of news from the NATO defeat in Ukraine than I see about Gaza.

Genocide for god's sake.

I hate our species.

zoombats said...

With regard to all the crisis mentioned in your post Thwap it brings me to only one conclusion. Belief in what one is told by various media is the problem. whether Ukraine was run by Nazis, Hammas sexually abused their victims before beheading them, bombing Lebenon whatever the justification doesn't give anyone to run roughshod over the lives of others or their rights to healthcare housing or food for that matter.My conclusion therefore is that anyone who continues to side with any of these political fuckwits based on religion or greed are either really dumb or completely fucking insane.

thwap said...

zoombats,

It is truly depressing to think how much garbage, incoherent garbage, people will believe just through having received their garbage info from "respectable" sources.

The system works! We're the good guys fighting the bad guys!