Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

I for one will be holding my representatives responsible who continue to vote for the US to enable a genocide. The videos coming out of Gaza have turned me and many others into single issue voters.

Flipping the U.S. really is the key to ending this conflict. The U.S. reliably uses its security council veto to nix any meaningful UN response and the U.S. remains, by far, the biggest supplier of arms to the IDF. If the US were to stop veto'ing everything and cut off the IDF's supply of, at least, some types of weapons, the new ground assault would likely end quickly.

Unfortunately, that isn't likely to happen. Netanyahu has, to date, handled Trump deftly and Rubio's current presence in Israel seems to be aimed at offering support to the ground offensive, not opposition. I honestly have no idea what kind of backlash it would take to shake U.S. support for this genocide.

There's definitely a generational gap going in the US. Support for Israel is not popular among the younger generation in the US, and there's a good deal of voters in their 20s and 30s for whom support for Israel a red line in candidates. But older generations tend to be staunchly in favor of Israel, and too much of the gerontocratic political class thinks that pro-Israel uber alles is the key to winning votes.

It is worth noting that Andrew Cuomo, in a desperate last-minute gamble to boost support in the NYC mayoral race, has come out against Israel. Considering that much of the attacks on Mamdani have focused on his support for Palestine (construing him as antisemitic), it's notable that other candidates also seem to think that being anti-Israel is actually the vote winner for moderates right now.

I wouldn't label this as "support for Israel"/"against Israel". One can support Israel without supporting Israel's current approach. Many within Israel are not happy with Netanyahu's methods, and presumably they are not against Israel.

I understand that that's the current shorthand, but it seems inaccurate and unnecessarily polarizing to me.

This is what puzzles me - ppl keep railing about being pro or anti Israel and it's overly simplistic and also not really accurately describing things. It's more pro/anti Likud or Kahanists, or really at heart a right vs left wing divide. There's still plenty of Labor or more progressive elements of the Israeli public who are against what Netanyahu and his political allies are doing.

I find this a strange take, and I hear it a lot from inhabitants of both the USA and Israel about their leadership.

For better or worse, Netanyahu represents the Israeli governement, which represents Israel. Similar with Trump and the USA, or Putin and Russia. Sorry for the people who don't agree with them, but that's an internal power struggle, and as an outsider it is normal to abstract that away. For all of us: Your country is doing what it does.

As a Belgian, I spit on my idiotic, nasty governements. Insert tiny violin, whatever Belgium does on the international forum, I'll still be tarred with it. Similarly, we talk about Germany's role in world war 2, even if only about 10% of them were associated with the NSDAP.

Every power struggle is always represented overly simplistic. Sorry for both the jews and Israëli's who don't agree with it, you're probably good people. This time I am lucky to sit at a very comfortable sideline, criticising your country. But the point stands: Israel is correctly described as officially committing a genocide, and hence it can't be described as the good side.

wait journalists are responsible for dead children because they mention the dead children which encourages people to put children in a position where people have to shoot them but the people shooting the children aren't?

Yes. That is exactly what happens. Hamas, and many journalists, have specifically said this.

It is incredulous to you and I because our culture would never support such a thing. I implore you to look at the Arabic channels that Hamas and the other Islamic bodies publish.

but, and I'm only asking this a second time for confirmation, the people who point the guns at the children and pull the trigger did not kill the children? they bear no responsibility?

Let's be clear, Israel is not pointing guns at children and pulling the trigger. After October 2023, Israel has pretty much stopped protecting human shields. Before October 2023, Israel would hold fire when Hamas were hiding behind their populations' children. This is extremely well documented and I encourage you to research it. After October 2023, we have stopped protecting the human shields. This is because our own children, our babies, and our brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers, are being held in Gaza. How long can we be expected to continue protecting their children at the expense of our own?

It should be also noted, and this is extremely well documented, that between 1/3 and 1/5 of all Hamas rockets fall back into the Gaza strip. That is an extraordinarily dense urban area, and all those injuries are blamed on Israel. Culturally, it makes sense for Arab media to report them as "killed in a war with Israel". But Western media then translates and reports that as "killed by Israel".

This is not some conspiracy theory the Arabs status very clearly. I highly suggest that you go through the Arabic Telegram channels. I personally speak Arabic, but if you don't then Telegram has a built-in translation feature anyway. Or go through any other Arab media, it's all over the place.

If you don't want to see children getting hurt, then stop protecting and encouraging Hamas.