The author Ehud Olmert
is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as the 12th prime minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009 and before that as a cabinet minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006. [source: Wikipedia]
Duh
It’s incredible. I protested against him in 2006 for his war crimes, and now he’s come around to admitting they’re happening.
I don’t know what it is with Israeli PMs. Ariel Sharon, himself a convicted war criminal, agreed at the end of his term that pulling out of Gaza was the only way to save Israel and keep their West Bank settlements. Olmert succeeded him and now admits Israel does war crimes. Does that mean in 2050 Netanyahu will admit war crimes took place and that he was against them?
They’ve been committing war crimes at least since the 60s and never had any consequences. The international community gives tacit approval day after day, month after month, year after year. It’s no wonder they’ve become bolder and bolder over time.
Gaza is apparently the line where people start saying “steady on now”.
I think this is a case of “things can always get worse”.
He isn’t saying that Israel committed war crimes under his leadership; just that it is doing so now. With the subtext of what is going on now is far worse than what happened back then. Which, as far as I can tell, is accurate.
I keep bringing this up to show how far Israel has slid. Back in 2007, Israel convicted a man for supporting a terrorist organization. In 2022, that man was appointed as the Minister of National Security; and he is a lynchpin holding together Israel’s current governing coalition.
His political party, Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) is the successor of the Kach party, which was barred from public office in 1994 under Israeli anti-terrorism laws.
Prior to the 2018-2022 political crisis, the far right parties like Otzma Yehudit were a political third rail and essentially left out of governing coalitions in favor of relatively moderate parties.
It’s like they all have to try it, personally, to figure out it doesn’t work.
It really doesn’t take a genius to come to conclusions about WHAT this really is, looking at the city. It looks like Hiroshima after WW-II.
Even the fucking slowpokes knew this…
Fuck me, that’s somehow creepier than it has any right to be.
You’re preprogrammed, through years of evolution you aren’t privy to, to be terrified of things that look human but aren’t, that move in unison. IDK what that says.
Don’t get fooled by former israeli leaders. They are just exposing the truth in this current war but them themselves commit war crimes. Like Ehud Olmert used white white phosphorus while he was prime minister
This is just ass covering because history will not look kindly on state sanctioned mass murder.
Fixed spelling error.
Nor is it possible to ignore what has been happening in some Israeli military units, including special forces, where the best and most daring soldiers serve. There have been too many incidents of cruel shooting at civilians, of destruction of property and homes, even when this should not happen. There is too much looting and theft from homes, about which in many cases Israeli soldiers have boasted. Some have gone as far as posting about their antics online. Israelis are committing war crimes.
There have been too many incidents of cruel shooting at civilians…
Is this the opposite of empathetic and humane shooting at civilians?
I guess he means cruel as opposed to “accidental”. He’s trying to make clear that it happens deliberately.
My response would be… Too many? What’s an acceptable number of cruel shootings at civilians?
That’s what they were doing before this whole Gaza invasion thing. Can’t condemn that obviously.
Seems like his issue is more about them getting caught doing it.
There’s no ‘getting caught’. They’ve been doing so publicly before, and they’re doing it publicly now.
I think what upsets him is that their long-term vision of Israel is a right-win illiberal middle-eastern theocratic kleptocracy, and he prefers a neoliberal technocratic imperial republic.
He’s not, like, a GOOD GUY, but I think in this instance his enemy is my enemy, and I think he’s being pretty frank and sincere.
Something something “decays into fascism”…
This is now a private political war
Implying there was a time when it wasn’t.
Also before anyone gets too hopeful, this guy is a disgraced former politician who was jailed on corruption charges. He doesn’t have the political baggage preventing him from speaking his conscience, which is pretty rich of him considering he led this particular escapade, but I digress. What I want to say is that this shouldn’t be taken as a sign that Israeli leadership is speaking out against the genocide, because Olmert isn’t Israeli leadership.
It is (and has been) both private and public. They are not mutually exclusive. The public war is fueled by private interests, but is also its own beast.
Wym ‘opinion’
Opinion section of the newspaper, as in position pieces written by guests rather than reporting by news desk staff.
However, it is also a fact that Israel is committing war crimes up to and including genocide.
It can only be fact after going through some sort of tribunal.
First, starving out Gaza. On this issue, the position of senior government figures is public and clear. Yes, we’ve been denying Gazans food, medicine and basic living needs as part of an explicit policy. Netanyahu, typically, is trying to blur the type of orders he’s been giving, in order to evade legal and criminal responsibility in due course. But some of his lackeys are saying so outright, in public, even with pride: Yes, we will starve out Gaza. Because all Gazans are Hamas, there’s no moral or operational limitation on exterminating them all, over two million people.
Nuh uh!! That’s antisemitism!! Look what you’ve made us do!! Now you’ve made us bomb a hospital full of different semite children simply out of spite!! It’s actually you’re fault they are all dead and dying!!
Let them say it. Never forget who stayed mum while hundreds of children were vaporized every day for a year and a half but let them speak now.
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I want to point out something: As you probably know, Zionists are compulsive liars who are pretty much physically incapable of telling the truth. They lie about their crimes, they lie about their victims, they lie about history, their whole narrative is one of lies and logical fallacies because that’s the only way they can justify the atrocities they commit and support. In the middle of this mountain of lies, why do you believe the Zionist claim that Israel acts on behalf and with the support of Jews everywhere? Any claim Zionists claim that’s advantageous to them is false; even when telling the truth they mix in some lies for good measure.
Probably because you’re conflating Jewish people and Israel
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Any Jewish individual can seek Israeli citizenship.
The fact that you’re blaming every potential Israeli for Israel’s crimes is a huge leap and pretty unhinged.
Not even Israelis, all jews. Man is saying someone like Bernie is complicit in the genocide for checks notes being born.
Jewish guy here who is deeply against the genocide as it’s fundamentally against everything I was taught growing up, people like you reinforce the cause of those commiting these atrocities you antisemitic maniac. Pull your head out of your ass and realize being a bigot is what caused this and adding on more bigotry isn’t solving it.
I’m going to respond to your post with a previous post I made in response to right wingers conflating protests of Israel with anti-Antisemitism.
Only a Nazi conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Those on the right, being Nazis, use the Hitlerian definition of anti-Semitism. In this Hitlerian definition, Jews can never actually be full citizens of any other nation besides Israel. Regardless of their personal loyalty or belief, any Jew in the US or Europe is suspect, only a partial citizen, a foreigner at their very core. This is Hitlerian, as it is the very way the historical Nazis viewed Jewish identity.
For modern Nazis, being a Jew and being Israeli are interchangeable. A criticism of the Israeli government is an attack on Jewish people in general. Nazis like the modern Republican Party believe that Jews can never be real Americans, and that they will always have some connection and loyalty to the Israeli state. This is the very logic that justified the Japanese internment camps. If you think every Jewish person must be loyal to Israel, you are literally a Nazi.
By your Definition its fine If you are called a nazi because you behave like one?
Im literally ok with nuking Israel off the map and find it morally justified, and I still think you’re a disgusting bigoted antisemite.
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Nobody is saying that there aren’t evil Jewish people. They’re asking you to recognise there are some good Jewish people.
But they don’t. There’s Jewish voice for peace, there’s Norman Finkelstein, Code Pink, and so on. Countless Jews oppose settler colonial Zionism, and many more oppose the genocide. Do not fall for the lie that Israel and Judaism are the same thing.
I don’t fault you for thinking what you do though. The propaganda that tries to equate antizionism to anti-Semitism is incredibly insidious and convincing. A German Christian man gets murdered for collaborating with this genocidal state, and all mass media outlets call it antisemitism. The planes that drop the bombs that have murdered tens of thousands of children have the star of David painted on them. The moment anyone criticizes Israel, immediately folks bring up the Holocaust as a counterargument. What are people supposed to think? Everything is geared towards making people believe Jews are Israel and Israel is Jews.
I recently saw a photo of a hand drawn picture here on lemmy protesting the genocide. It was very heartfelt and nice. I don’t fully recall, but it had a girl in a Hijab in the center holding hands with people next to her, and it said things like “not in our name”, and 'stop the genocide". Along the center of the picture, they had drawn stars of David. And my immediate gut reaction was to think that this was incredibly distasteful; it was like drawing swastikas on a picture remembering the Holocaust. I had completely forgotten that the star of David is a religious symbol, and that it is not owned by the Israeli state. The propaganda has worked on me too, and I know better.
The person who had drawn this was convinced that the genocide was wrong based on her Jewish identity. Her religious beliefs told her that what Israel is doing is wrong. And my instinctive reaction on seeing a symbol indicating this was disgust. I felt so ashamed when I recognized what I was feeling. This is what people mean when they say Zionism breeds antisemitism. This is what people mean when they say Zionism makes the world less safe for Jews. An entire generation is growing up watching a livestreamed genocide, and CNN, Fox News, all politicians, the entire nation of Israel are all telling them “this is what Jews want”. How could they not grow up to be antisemites?
Your comment is incorrect and immoral. But I hope the mods keep it up as an illustration of what Israel has really done for Jews after all these years.
Not to detract from anything you said, but the swastika is also a religious symbol. The fact today, some 80 years after the Holocaust, it is still viewed visourally as a Nazi symbol does not bode well for us.
Well I for one (not GP) am actually quite glad that it is literally illegal to publicly display here in Germany, especially with the current political climate going on here and elsewhere. You want to just out yourself as a Nazi? Okay, off to prison you go. That’s good. AFAIK there are exemptions for temples and such, e.g. for artistic uses like Games, some Wolfenstein games replaced swastikas in the German release because nobody was sure if that’s legal.
I don’t think it is actually illegal to display in any country that has a lot of people using it religiously, but yeah it’s a sad fact that it still has to be illegal in so many places such a long time later.
I was talking about perception, not legality.
I’m Jewish. The taboo around the swastika does not negatively effect me. If the local Indian restaraunt were to redecorate and adorn their walls with swasitkas, I would stop going there. If I saw someone I didn’t know whereing a swasitka necklace, I would avoid them.
I do, however, have enough empathy to recognize that this situation must suck for Hindus, Jains, or any other group for which that symbol has significance.
I also have the capacity to imagine a world where the same exact thing happens to the star of David. One where I cannot go outside whereing it on a necklace. One where we need to censor any artwork or buildings that might be viewed by the general public, lest they misinterpret the symbol. One where Jewish establishments are avoided or vandalized because people see the Star of David and interpret it as a declaration of support for Israel. Or, worse, as a declaration of hate for Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, or whatever other group the state of Israel gets into a fight with.
This is not some crazy hypothetical. The star of David is the iconic aspect of the Isreali flag; just like the swastika is the iconic aspect of the Nazi flag. There is a massive and media savy coalition devoted conflating Judism and Israel. A coalition that includes both pro-Israel members, and anti-Semitic members. In this very thread, just 3 posted my parent, we have someone openly admitting to doing this. I have a friend still in collage who has stopped wearing anything with the star of David on it. He has not taken down the Mezuzah from his dorm room door. He has not stopped wearing a kippah. The only symbol of Judism that has been causing him issues is the one plastered on the Israeli flag.
You can’t generalize the entire race like that though. That’s why they banned you. There are Jews and Israelis who dissent from what the current Israeli government is doing.
It’s you, not them.
Bombing kindergartners a war crime?
