Israel is trying to pull a “if the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit” sleight of hand here.
Even if it were a Hamas command center, that does not justify withholding food and medicine from the hospital.
Even if it were a Hamas command center, that does not justify conducting their brutal attacks on civilians elsewhere.
Even if it were a Hamas command center, that does not justify destroying the infrastructure that civilians require in order to survive.
They are going to make sure there is a command center there, because their entire narrative has become that if Hamas uses civilians as human shields (even if there is literally not enough space for civilians to go anywhere else anyways), then Israel is justified killing civilians.
That’s is false on its own, but more importantly, they are not only attempting to kill Hamas, they are also attempting to kill and displace large numbers of civilians, and we know this because their own government ministries and employees are putting together reports and doing news interviews about how they should displace Palestinians from Gaza.
They would not be making those reports and statements if they thought the government was against it; that would be career-ending. They feel comfortable making those reports and statements precisely because they know that their government is on board with that. They are getting people comfortable with hearing it, for when they actually do it.
“Yeah, but if there’s one Hamas guy inside a densely-populated refugee camp, what possible other choice do we have than to bomb literally tens of buildings in there? He could have been in any of them! We gave those civilians ample warning that they are subject to murder at any time, anyways! How can you say we’re not merciful and restrained!?”
Are you by any chance in denial of the PIJ missile which misfired into the hospital carpark a couple of weeks back? The one which Hamas lied was a direct hit by Israeli bombs killing 500?
No, I think it is likely that it was a rocket that misfired. Israel has been responsible for all the intentional bombs hitting hospitals, schools, places of worship, etc though, so I’m not sure what significance you are attributing to what someone believes about the one unintentional one?
Hamas wouldn’t have done 10/7 if not for Israel’s colonialism and genocide, and Israel has never had a true “ceasefire” in Palestine. They for years have done bombing campaigns that they euphemize as “mowing the grass”, against Gaza. You can’t divorce the current conflict from the history that led to it.
Turns out that desperation breeds extremism, and Israel is the one who made Palestinians desperate.
People don’t denounce slaves who revolt as being too brutal, but continually murdering and starving peoples’ children apparently is not bad enough to justify revolt when it’s only Palestinians being murdered.
Netanyahu is going to bomb the hostages and then blame Hamas, saying they were used as human shields, just like he’s been doing with Palestinian civilians. 200 Israeli hostages “murdered by Hamas (using Israeli bombs)” is more useful politically to his war-machine than 200 live hostages.
Yep, and the worst part is that it’s proving that as long as you do a genocide slowly, and through systems like cultural erasure, forced abortions of Uyghurs, and ‘reeducation’ camps rather than straight deathcamps, world governments won’t put any real effort into stopping it.
Imperialists like America don’t like China’s imperialism, but not because they’re opposed to Imperialism, only because it threatens their own hegemony.
Meanwhile, anti-colonialists who should know better, like Mbembe, fall for China’s positioning of themselves as a counter to Imperialism simply because they’re opposing American and European hegemony with their own hegemony.
what it means (people in support of that use of force and tanks to suppress civilian revolution)
This ^ is the incorrect part of your statement. That is not what it means now.
edit: Also
Tankie refers to those people who supported the Soviet use of tanks to quell the Hungarian revolution.
Emphasis added. If you meant “referred” in the past tense, that was a typo on your part. Otherwise, you are just trying to reclaim the term to an earlier meaning.