God damn. I wish your average American politician had a tenth of the principles and heart that Bernie has.
Yeah Bernie's a good man but did he say how Israel is supposed to get their hostages back and end Hamas? or does he suggest pull out and let Hamas win?
He did not, obviously, but I think the counterpoint to that would simply be that the path Israel is on is no more likely to achieve those ends than alternative ones.
Eliminating Hamas through large scale and indiscriminate destruction of people and infrastructure is effectively impossible unless Israel's plan is one of ethnic cleansing (Gaza becomes Israel and Gazans disappear from it entirely) or one of long term occupation/apartheid (Gazans remain in Gaza but under a strict military police state, whether characterized as an occupied territory or province of Israel proper). The path they're on will simply create more Gazans who hate Israel, much in the same way Israel's heavy handed approach will inevitably spur anti-Israel sentiment (to say nothing of anti-semitism) globally. Ultimately they will make more enemies than they can defeat through these means, whether they fly the Hamas flag or some other standard.
As for the hostages, it might have been - and may yet be - that swaps for Palestinian prisoners would be an available and acceptable concession to secure their release. As things stand, it seems to me that for every hostage they may rescue, they'll kill another through their bombardment or their restriction of humanitarian aid and basic necessities (which the hostages presumably need too).
But I don't think Bernie needed to get into the weeds on that to make his point about what Americans can/should do from their vantage point. Not that I'd complain if he tripled the length of his pitch. It's just nice to listen to someone of his standing who has the level of compassion he does.
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Well, there a couple of things for me regarding Canada following their master, the US' lead here and pulling funding as a result of this.
1. These are Israeli intelligence claims and forgive me for having some doubt with what they claim given the last number of months.
2. From what I understand, the claim is that 12 employees were involved in the October 7 attack on innocent people. UNRWA employs 30,000 people according to Wikipedia which works out to 0.04% of the organization. This is not a deep organizational problem with that percentage, though if these 12 are connected in leadership roles within the organization, I'd want to understand more.
Not that you care or anything.
Quote:
TEL AVIV—At least 12 employees of the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency had connections to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and around 10% of all of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, according to intelligence reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Canada cut funding back in 2010 for what our government at the time saw as alleged ties to Hamas, so aren't we all glad that the Liberals reinstated it, only to now cut it again. Perhaps they could have done a little more due diligence the past few years to make sure the aid money is not actually funding terrorist activities?
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The Wall Street Journal front page is reporting that an estimated 1,200 Unrwa employees in Gaza are actual “operatives” of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and about half have close relatives who belong to the Islamist terrorist organizations, according to Israeli intelligence estimates shared with the U.S. government.
The report said 23% of Unrwa’s male employees—the agency has a total staff of 12,000 in Gaza—took active part in the Hamas organization’s military or political framework, a higher percentage than the average of 15% for adult males in Gaza.
The information in the Israeli intelligence reports is based on sensitive signals intelligence as well as cellphone tracking data, interrogations of captured Hamas gunmen and documents recovered from dead terrorists.
Nearly half of all Unrwa employees—an estimated 49%—also had close relatives with official ties to Hamas and other terrorist groups.
The Oct. 7 intelligence reports seen by the Wall Street Journal identified an Unrwa Arabic teacher who was also a Hamas terrorist commander and took part in a terrorist attack on Kibbutz Be’eri, where 97 people were murdered, and about 26 people were kidnapped and taken as hostages to Gaza.
Another Unrwa employee, described in the dossier as an Unrwa social worker, played a role in absconding with the body of a dead Israeli soldier, which was taken to Gaza, the reports said. He also coordinated trucks and munitions distributions for Hamas before being killed.
Need to wait for Hamas intelligence reports because we can't trust Israeli ones replies coming in 3, 2, 1....
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Need to wait for Hamas intelligence reports because we can't trust Israeli ones replies coming in 3, 2, 1....
To be fair both organizations are so pervasive in Gazan society that you'd expect to have heavy crossover between them. Hamas, and the other militant groups, control all parts of society and are watching everything everywhere. Similarly, these organizations like the UNRWA are the largest employers, supply massive amounts of food, etc...
What irks me about this is that for decades organizations like Amnesty and the UNRWA have been pleading impartiality and swearing up and down that they weren't aware of various Hamas activities. That couldn't be further from the truth. Hamas' military wing was obviously openly operating out of schools, hospitals, and these organizations themselves. Prior to this latest allegation the UNRWA was caught with anti-semitic textbooks preaching violence in their schools. How does a UN agency get away with teaching elementary school aged children the virtues of being martyrs?
Anyways, I hope that aid to the people of Gaza doesn't get interrupted by this. However, it's obvious that aid needs to bypass certain channels to get to the people it's supposed to be getting to.
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Well, there a couple of things for me regarding Canada following their master, the US' lead here and pulling funding as a result of this.
1. These are Israeli intelligence claims and forgive me for having some doubt with what they claim given the last number of months.
2. From what I understand, the claim is that 12 employees were involved in the October 7 attack on innocent people. UNRWA employs 30,000 people according to Wikipedia which works out to 0.04% of the organization. This is not a deep organizational problem with that percentage, though if these 12 are connected in leadership roles within the organization, I'd want to understand more.
It's systemic within the organization. These are the teachers who are teaching Palestinians. The UNRWA also have a very checkered history with curriculums and textbooks. You made a post previously arguing that Israeli tactics creates more Hamas soldiers, which is true. You know what else creates Hamas soldiers? UNRWA teachers seen above indoctrinating children.
The UNRWA has long been suspected of aiding Hamas and outright employing Hamas members. We now have overwhelming evidence of Hamas deeply rooted within UNRWA far past the 'bad apple' apologism.
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Defunding UNRWA does not mean stopping aid to Palestinians as they suffer immensely and calls for a ceasefire go unheeded. It doesn't even mean stopping aid being delivered by @UN
.
@WFP
is already in Gaza.
@UNOPS
is already in Gaza.
@UN
has rapid response capacity that can take over any UNRWA relief operations beyond the emergency capacity of WFP and UNOPS.
Defunding UNRWA just means not handing aid directly to a @UN
organisation some of whose employees participated in an act of terrorism. It means being more certain the aid is not going direct to Hamas.
If, as UN claims - and as deeply corrupt OIOS will find - it's 12 bad eggs, why did none of their colleagues report them? Maybe if @UN
had real #whistleblower protection, someone would have spoken up?
But every UN staffer knows - management will protect terrorists, child rapists, and criminals of all types. But *every* #whistleblower will face vicious retaliation and defamation.
These situations are always more complicated the deeper you go. Hamas terrorists are also civilians, with families, with children, with other jobs and civilian related businesses. For UN workers on the ground who have been living in Gaza, they see that side and likely aren't privy to their after hours involvement in the terrorist wing. Some people think that every Hamas militant has that as their full time job and it is easy to make the distinction between civilians, civilian infrastructure, and so on, but it isn't. They are woven into the society at the street level so much so that they can easily be employed by mainstream organizations and agencies.
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"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
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These situations are always more complicated the deeper you go. Hamas terrorists are also civilians, with families, with children, with other jobs and civilian related businesses. For UN workers on the ground who have been living in Gaza, they see that side and likely aren't privy to their after hours involvement in the terrorist wing. Some people think that every Hamas militant has that as their full time job and it is easy to make the distinction between civilians, civilian infrastructure, and so on, but it isn't. They are woven into the society at the street level so much so that they can easily be employed by mainstream organizations and agencies.
Yes.
I guess that’s why our government should not be sending money to organizations like UNRWA, since we have known for years that they have been linked directly to Hamas.
If there is blame to be spread around for the thousands of civilian casualties here, part of the blame falls to those who indirectly fund these organizations that funnel money to terrorist like Hamas. Unfortunately, Canada is one of them.
I'm not sure what the reference to systemic means.
I think that the three historical acts on the European continent, in the last 100+ years, would be the axis elimination of the Jewish, Roma and other people, the forcing of Germans back into Germany post wwii, and the Armenian Genocide by turkey, followed by the complete clearing of the Turkish west coast of everyone not Turkish, post wwi.
There are probably historians or buffs on this site that could cite what I've forgotten. Historically speaking, gazans would be finding a new place to live right now, but we are in a more enlightened time. Aren't we?
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"By Grabthar's hammer ... what a savings."
But you know, it's the education system. Once the Palestinians get re-educated with the knowledge that they're not part of the master race, God's chosen people can finally live in peace.
But you know, it's the education system. Once the Palestinians get re-educated with the knowledge that they're not part of the master race, God's chosen people can finally live in peace.
Saying thing like this, I don’t see a desire to live in peace.
