←back to thread

ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ordering ceasefire

(apnews.com)
517 points xbar | 2 comments | 26 Jan 24 14:35 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
locallost ◴[26 Jan 24 21:36 UTC] No.39148816[source]▶
My views on the situation aside, the clearest I saw anyone communicate the issues from a global angle was the former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin

Translated here: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1718201487132885246

Viewed from the angle of the West, I think the message it needs to avoid isolating itself from the world is very unusual for Western media and important.

Quote:

"Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers."

And

"This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle."

replies(6): >>39148909 #>>39148934 #>>39148966 #>>39149209 #>>39150381 #>>39151344 #
pgeorgi ◴[26 Jan 24 21:43 UTC] No.39148909[source]▶
All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?

Spend tons of money on iron dome to shoot down the rockets and hope that Hamas won't manage to conduct another massacre, even if "only" half the scope of October 7?

This mess features not one but two parties who currently reject the concept of a cease fire.

replies(10): >>39148950 #>>39149385 #>>39149812 #>>39149917 #>>39149974 #>>39150129 #>>39150783 #>>39151418 #>>39152292 #>>39153568 #
hypeit ◴[26 Jan 24 21:45 UTC] No.39148950[source]▶
Israel must face the reality that is an apartheid state that exists on occupied land. There is no solution until that happens. Just like apartheid South Africa was dismantled, Israel has to face the same fate or forever be locked into warfare and oppressing Palestinians.
replies(7): >>39149079 #>>39149102 #>>39149282 #>>39149718 #>>39150003 #>>39150676 #>>39151173 #
lacker ◴[26 Jan 24 22:08 UTC] No.39149282[source]▶
Isn't that exactly the view of reality that the Israeli right wing holds? They would agree that the choices are either dismantling the state of Israel, or eternal warfare. Since they don't want to dismantle the state of Israel, they elect for eternal warfare.

It's funny how on some questions, the most extreme people on both sides agree on the answer. Hamas and the Israeli right wing both agree that the only viable solution is for one ethnic group to control all the land from the river to the sea.

replies(2): >>39149326 #>>39149711 #
hypeit[dead post] ◴[26 Jan 24 22:10 UTC] No.39149326[source]▶
[flagged]
YZF ◴[26 Jan 24 22:32 UTC] No.39149673[source]▶
I feel that's an extremely naive view. How many Jews live peacefully and enjoy human rights under Arab rule in the middle east? Zero. How many in Gaza under Hamas? Zero. How many live in the west bank in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority? Zero.

So "Hamas" only wants Tel-Aviv "returned", Jersualem "returned", Haifa "returned", from the river to the sea, but somehow in that vision all the Jewish population lives peacefully and enjoys human rights that don't exist anywhere in the middle east?

replies(2): >>39150076 #>>39151672 #
runarberg ◴[26 Jan 24 23:07 UTC] No.39150076[source]▶
The West Bank holds the forth largest Jewish population in the world, after France. Now the West Bank is occupied territory, controlled by Israel, so perhaps that doesn’t count.

According to this Wikipedia article[1] there are around 2-3000 jewish people living in Morocco, 1-2000 in Tunisia, and about 100 in Syria and Lebanon (not including the Golan Heights).

I am aware that there were persecutions in the past in many Arabic countries, but the same is true of Europe. Beirut even restored one of their last Synagogues in 2010 after it was damaged, ironically, in an Israeli airstrike.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_population_by_country

replies(1): >>39150279 #
YZF ◴[26 Jan 24 23:24 UTC] No.39150279[source]▶
My point was specific to Palestinian Authority controlled areas of the west bank.

My second point (maybe not so obvious) was about human rights situations in the Arab world and under Palestinian rule. e.g. the Jews living in Morocco can't elect their government because Morocco is a dictatorship ("Monarchy"), ruled by a king.

I.e. there's no Jews living under Arab rule while meeting those two conditions. Being able to live in a democratic, free, country with human rights, and under Arab or Palestinian rule. I was well aware there is some (tiny) Jewish population in some Arab countries.

replies(1): >>39150784 #
runarberg ◴[27 Jan 24 00:17 UTC] No.39150784[source]▶
You could say the same of Europe prior to 1945. However today hundreds of thousands of Jewish people live in Europe enjoy equal rights and democracy.

What makes you think that Palestine can’t become one of those countries if ever allowed to be democratic and independent?

replies(2): >>39151434 #>>39158868 #
int_19h ◴[27 Jan 24 01:37 UTC] No.39151434[source]▶
Would it be democratic if it became independent, though?

Hamas specifically came to power via elections, but hasn't held any elections since then under various excuses, so they clearly aren't champions of democracy.

replies(1): >>39151833 #
runarberg ◴[27 Jan 24 02:33 UTC] No.39151833[source]▶
They have tried to hold election. Last attempt was in 2021. Israel prevented occupied East Jerusalem from participating which was a noop for Abbas who cancelled them. Also notable was that EU asked to observe the election, but Israel did not allow that. There have also been local elections on the West Bank, last one in 2021.

Holding elections with two distinct governments and a third one occupying both is not easy. Even Ukraine has difficulty holding a general election with only a portion of its territory occupied and a single government.

But yeah, I think, and I think most would agree, that an independent Palestine would defiantly be democratic.

replies(1): >>39159095 #
1. YZF ◴[27 Jan 24 19:44 UTC] No.39159095{3}[source]▶
defiantly? So you really think that the Hamas would abide by a democratic result that removes it from power? After it took power in Gaza by force, killing many Palestinians (hundreds!) that belonged to Fatah? I think there's little indication that Palestinians in power are interested in democracy, human rights, personal freedoms etc. Neither Fatah/PA nor Hamas. If Israel withdrew unilaterally from the entirety of the west bank it'd be a carbon copy of Gaza. Militarized, dug up with tunnels, rockets aimed at Israel, Jihadi antisemitic education system, zero human rights, rule by force, corruption. The only reason the PA is able to keep existing is because the IDF is supporting it, otherwise the Hamas would already be ruling the west bank cities (and/or Israel would retake them and re-establish the military rule over them).

There's a path to Israeli citizenship for Arabs living in east Jerusalem and Israel has de-facto annexed it. But Israel did allow the 2006 elections to happen there. I wasn't really aware of the details about 2021 but I think you forgot to mention that Hamas refused to allow the elections to take place in Gaza (and participate at all?). At the end of the day this is just another political battle tool. I think it would make sense for the Palestinians to have elections in the areas under their control, by insisting on extending those to areas not in their control they are making a political statement and trying to push towards the outcome they want to see. It's only fair that Israel pushes the opposite direction towards the outcome it prefers to see. There is still a dispute and the sides do not agree. If Palestinians were truly concerned about democracy they would restrict the process to the areas they control ("A" territory in the west bank and Gaza) which would make sense, i.e. give the people that live in areas under Palestinian control a say in who runs those areas, and wouldn't really make a statement as to what the eventual agreement would look like.

replies(1): >>39159440 #
2. runarberg ◴[27 Jan 24 20:21 UTC] No.39159440[source]▶
> At the end of the day this is just another political battle tool.

Show me a democracy where elections aren’t just another political battle tool. In anarchist circles there is even a saying: “If elections changed anything, they would abolish it.”

Of course the Palestinian governments are no different. Hamas wanted general elections because they thought they could gain more power. Fatah didn’t because they thought they would loose power. The game of politics happened and they had elections which were boycotted by Hamas and everybody (already in power) wins.

The onset of the Palestinian civil war is a whole lot more complected than to blame it on Hamas. Remember that the Irish also had a civil war after the 1921 treaty, and today both the North and the Republic are thriving democracies. The reality is that it is a whole lot easier to hold power in the modern world via elections (unless you are occupied, or otherwise exploited by a colonial power), and you have no reasons to believe that Hamas or Fatah or any governing body in a future free Palestine wouldn’t see that.