> Thanks for demonstrating, once again, that biased attacks against Israel are heavily laced with Antisemitism.
Antisemitism is such a tired strawman. Am I accused of sinophobia if I critique the CCP? Of course not. But critique of Israel is so often interpreted as 'antisemetic'.
Please think more carefully about using 'antisemitism'. Israeli power does not represent all Jews - and calling 'antisemitism' to deflect critique of it is just disrespectful to the lived experience of historically oppressed Jewish people everywhere.
> Am I accused of sinophobia if I critique the CCP? Of course not. But critique of Israel is so often interpreted as 'antisemetic'.
Do you have concrete examples? I am getting tired as well of hearing this statement. Usually it's an answer to not much differentiated and thoughtless criticism. (Disclaimer: I'm from Germany and this discussion underwent unbelievable depths over here)
Your comment above is clearly flagged and downvoted due to being transparent whattaboutism. You aren't making substantive arguments of dissent, you're just spamming a wikipedia quote with your own editorializing after it.
I am pointing out a blatant double-standard. The fact that HRC is not condemning egregious mass violators like China, Russia, and Syria, and focuses all its attention on Israel, shows they are not honestly trying to enforce any standard in good faith, they're just trying to attack Israel. That, together with the well-documented participation of Neo Nazi and other openly Antisemitic groups in movements that criticize Israel, shows that criticizing Israel is often linked to biased prejudice against Israel and Jews.
Either way, your subjective disagreement with my post is not cause for flagging, which is supposed to be reserved to objectionable content that violates basic rules against SPAM etc. Users are supposed to downvote posts they simply disagree with, not flag them. Nothing in my posts violates any rules, and their flagging is a clear example of abuse.
The HRC does condem those, you're just trying to cherry pick a naive statistic as some sort of slam dunk proof while deflecting from the banal reason that Israel gets criticized a lot because it keeps doing terrible things. It's possible to have informed views on this stuff without the jingoistic nonsense.
> The following is a list of United Nations resolutions concerning Israel. As of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council. Since the creation of the Council in 2006, it has resolved almost more resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined. The 45 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific resolutions passed by the Council, not counting those under Agenda Item 10 (countries requiring technical assistance).
Are you seriously claiming that Israel has committed about the same amount of atrocities as the rest of the world combined?
Just one example from one country that is not Israel: an estimated 500k civilians have been killed as direct result of the Syrian regimes' atrocities over the past decade alone:
How many Palestinian in total, including combatants, died in decades of conflicts with Israel?
Fewer than 10k according to the highest estimates.
You are welcome to keep believing that this is all fine, and there's no bias or Antisemitism here. This is certainly the convenient and politically expedient belief to hold.
No, again, it's possible to simultaneously condemn both Israel and China. Mentioning China by comparison is not a meaningful response to criticism specific to Israel. Counting the number of UN resolutions to claim it's a measure of the proportion of antisemitism is preposterous nonsense. Yes antisemitism exists in the world, but it is not the driving force behind UN policy nor is that a valid approach to measuring bias.
You know you have no substantive response to the criticisms of Israel. The "actually your criticism of a government is antisemitism" deflection is not convincing to those of us who no longer want our tax dollars supporting the actions of a defacto apartheid state.
> So Israel, a tiny nation, received almost half of all condemnations by HRC.
> It's abundantly clear that Israel is singled out for "special treatment"
No, what is abundantly clear is that Israel is a state that engages in supremacist tactics, land grabs, war crimes, and is essentially occupying vast tracts of stolen Palestinian land. Everyone knows it, but because of people like yourself who fling the accusation of "antisemitism" against anyone who dares question your neocon war machine, nobody can say it. There would be far more condemnations against Israel from nations all over the planet if it didn't have such disastrous consequences, politically, to do so.
They served the PM of Japan food out of a shoe. A tremendously offensive, targeted act of personal humiliation. Many such stories. Any attempt to push back on this ruins careers and lives.
Not a surprise that many of the people most vehemently against free speech are your countrymen - you have the most to lose, because if people can freely discuss things from the Balfour Declaration through the Suez Crisis, the USS Liberty, the first and second Gulf Wars, etc. with the positions and actions of your country accurately accounted, you look pretty bad. Much better to clamp down on discussion and call any serious dialogue on the topic Hate Speech so as to avoid having to answer difficult questions.
The defense always comes down to "if you don't agree with Israel's foreign policy, you're Anti-Semitic, and therefore a Neo-Nazi", and it's a weak and tired defense. It doesn't work when the people that are calling you out are diverse and have well-researched positions.
Much like America, your nation has sins to atone for, except I don't see any honest dialogue on the topic emerging. Perhaps you personally could learn how to be a voice for change instead of a partisan troll.
> “This was a stupid and insensitive decision,” a senior Israeli diplomat, who had previously served in Japan, told Yediot Aharonot. “There is nothing more despised in Japanese culture than shoes. Not only do they not enter their houses while wearing shoes, you will not find shoes in their offices either. Even the prime minister, ministers and members of parliament do not wear shoes to work... It is equivalent to serving a Jewish guest chocolates in a dish shaped like a pig.”
> Antisemitism is such a tired strawman. Am I accused of sinophobia if I critique the CCP? Of course not. But critique of Israel is so often interpreted as 'antisemetic'.
In one you criticizing a ruling party, in the other you are criticizing the only majority Jewish country in the world.
Your statement itself isn't anti-Semitic but highly ignorant of the key differences. I don't intend to change your views nor biases but I hope you are able to reflect on what you wrote.
“The nation of Israel was attacked by 7 Arab countries literally the day it was founded”.
So a bunch of foreign powers come in and take land off you and create a new nation state overnight and you’re supposed to just be chill!? Yeah - no shit they were attacked.
I’m not anti-Israel btw. Not in the slightest. I just find it funny that ppl act so shocked that - what was effectively an invasion - was not well received by the locals living in the region in the mid 20th century.
“But it’s their homeland...” Yeah I’d love to see how Americans would react if China/Russia came in overnight and carved out a new action state to give to Native Americans cause it was their homeland hundreds of years ago...
That argument would be more convincing if many of the attacking countries weren't created by the same foreign powers in exactly the same way around the same time.
The borders of Lebanon were set by the French in 1920 as part of the Mandate of Syria and Lebanon. It was recognized as independent by the French in 1941, and the French Mandate more or less dissolved following the end of WWII.
The borders of Syria were similarly drawn up by the French in 1920 under the same Mandate. French troops would not evacuate the territory until 1946.
The territory of Jordan was drawn up by the British around 1915, and they are also the ones that created the distinction between the territories of Palestine and Transjordan. It gained a measure of independence in 1922, but remained under British Mandate until 1946, when it was granted independence with The Treaty of London.
In fact, of Israel's 4 immediate neighbors by land, Egypt is the only one to have existed as any kind of autonomously governed territory prior to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the assumption of responsibility by occupying European powers.
The entire region was basically re-drawn and carved up by foreign powers following the end of WWI pretty much by necessity, since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire left an enormous power vacuum. Far from being an anomaly, Israel's creation is actually pretty consistent with the area overall.
> carved out a new action state to give to Native Americans
I rather like the idea that Native Americans could have their own country if they choose, as Jews do now, something better than reservations. China and Russia have nothing to do with it.
Forgive me, but that’s a pretty one sided view to take.
The local Jewish population was certainly instrumental as were Zionist groups in the UK and elsewhere. But you’re fooling yourself if you think great power diplomacy and the region’s colonial history weren’t also important factors.
I’d encourage you to look into the history of the British mandate, the Balfour Declaration, and the lead up to the 1947 Partition Plan/1948 War. It’s a fascinating story if nothing else.
The British mandate authorities outlawed all Jewish defense forces and tried to confiscate all arms from the Jewish population before they left the region. They also actively prevented Jews from immigrating to Israel:
That doesn’t mean the British state played no role. Are you saying the Balfour Declaration had no impact on developments in the region from 1917-1947?
I’m not saying the formation of Israel was 100% the result of intentional British foreign policy.
Foreign policy is messy and inconsistent. The various actors in the region were seeking different things at different times.
Yes the British were in some cases trying to disarm Jewish militants, but in many cases they were also the ones who had handed out the arms in the first place (eg. The Jewish Brigade).
I don’t see how you can dispute that this a messy, contested historical saga with many factors to consider.
I urge you to read more widely on this topic. If you’re so certain that your position is the correct one, you stand only to confirm your existing beliefs.
> Are you saying the Balfour Declaration had no impact on developments in the region from 1917-1947?
Not much, no. It was largely a symbolic act. Actual British policy remained hostile to the establishment of a Jewish state in Israel.
The fact is, that besides this exceptional, purely symbolic act, the British Empire as a foreign power did all it could to prevent the successful establishment of a Jewish nation in Israel.
> The Jewish Brigade
The Jewish Brigade was part of the British Army, a brigade of Jewish volunteers.
It is true that some individuals who served in that brigade ended up joining Israeli groups that eventually formed the IDF, but these were individual acts by individuals, and by no means an expression of a policy by the British Empire or any other foreign power.
> I urge you to read more widely on this topic.
I'm not sure well read you are on the topic, when your only example of a "foreign power" helping the nation of Israel in its inception is... the Jewish Brigade.
Did you know it was a brigade of individual volunteers within the British Army? If you did, I don't think you'd cite it as an example.
> In September of 1936, Wingate was posted to Palestine as an intelligence officer with the British Mandate. His obsession with the Bible had a profound effect on his views during this posting, turning him into an ardent Zionist and supporter of the idea of a Jewish state.
So this is yet another example of individual actions based on his personal convictions, not of the British Empire acting at the state level.
Compare that to the British official support of other military and paramilitary groups, such as the Arab Legion:
These examples shows substantial evidence for the British Empire itself formally supporting groups that _fought_ Israel. Indeed the Arab Legion was among the chief military forces to attack Israel in 1948:
> During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the Arab Legion was considered the strongest Arab army involved in the war.[3] Glubb led the Arab Legion across the River Jordan to occupy the West Bank (May 1948). Despite some negotiation and understanding between the Jewish Agency and King Abdullah, severe fighting took place in Kfar Etzion massacre (May 1948), Jerusalem and Latrun (May–July 1948).
John Bagot Glubb was a British officer in official capacity leading a force trained and commanded by other British officers to a fight against Israel.
It certainly appears that it was individual action instead of state policy, but it did occur with state sanction:
> Wingate quickly conceived of a joint military unit, staffed by both colonial and local Jewish troops, to protect Jewish and British interests, and took the idea to Lieutenant-General Archibald Wavell, the commander of British forces in Palestine. Wavell, intrigued, granted Wingate his permission to set up such a unit. Wingate then pitched the unit to the Jewish Agency and directly to the Haganah (“the defense”), the pre-state Israeli military. The Agency, which originally opposed the idea, eventually had a change of heart, and in June of 1938, the Plugot Ha’Layla Ha’Meyuchadot, the Special Night Squads, were born.
And it sounds like even if it went against the letter of state policy, it certainly fulfilled the spirit of it, at least in other areas of colonial control:
> The SNS fulfilled a dual purpose that likely aided its establishment within a colonial administration opposed to the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine: Though it indeed fought against armed Arab insurgents who rose up in increasingly violent acts against British forces and against the Jewish yishuv (the settlement in Palestine), the unit’s stated purpose Wingate may have given to his superiors was to protect the oil pipelines of the Iraq Petroleum Company. The southern of two pipelines (the “TAPline”) which spanned Iraq to the Mediterranean ran for over 1,000 km from Mosul to Haifa, on the coast of British-controlled Palestine, and moved over 4 million tons of oil per year (between two lines) prior to the Second World War. This line was increasingly being bombed and sabotaged by Arab bands throughout the revolt, and as it ran through the Lower Galilee on its course to the sea, Wingate could easily patrol its length with the SNS from his base in Ein Harod.
> Wingate quickly conceived of a joint military unit, staffed by both colonial and local Jewish troops, to protect Jewish and British interests
The SNS were founded to "protect Jewish and British interests" which were attacked by the Arabs under the British Mandate. At no point did the British government start any group, or take any action, to aid the creation of Israel as a independent nation.
At most, you can claim that they sometimes tried to defend the Jews under their mandate from violent Arab attacks. Which makes sense, given that these Jews were under British mandate, supposed to be protected by the British, and massacres of Jews reflected poorly on the Brits.
Compare that to the official British government's actions in creating the nation of Jordan and founding the Arab Legion, and it's clearly much easier to argue that the British Empire helped create and support the nation of Jordan, while doing nothing for Israel, and in fact creating, training, and commanding one of the major military forces which attacked it after inception.
1) who allowed Jews to migrate into british mandate before the creation of the state?
Jews lived in the area continuously for thousands of years before, so some Jews already lived in places like Jerusalem long before the mandate begun. Even modern Jewish immigration to Israel happened before the Mandate, which only begun in 1923.
The Brits tried to limit Jewish immigration into the territory of Israel. The Jews responded by organizing illegal immigration:
Though generally the Brits were pretty effective in blocking these efforts, as soon as they left in May 15th 1948, large waves of Jewish immigrants (especially refugees) flowed into the newly-established Israel.
2) since the british did not opposed jewish state, why did they allow it to form?
It wasn't really their choice. The Brits had a mandate in Israel for a specific purpose. They tried to follow an agenda that suited them, and did not include helping the Jewish minority establish their own country, but instead aligned them with the Arab majority in the region - with the obvious goal of gaining and maintaining influence in the region by this choice.
The Jews understood that very clearly, and launched an insurgency campaign to rid themselves of the hostile and indifferent Brits:
This conflict soured relations between Israel and the UK for decades, arguably to this day.
The Jews accomplished their goal: the British mandate terminated and the Brits had to leave. However, the UK remained bitter towards the Jews and Israel, which reflected in its policy. The UK organized, armed, trained, and in some cases directly commanded Arab military forces that become major foes of Israel, notably the Arab Legion:
The "right of return" is a unique invention with no historical precedent. Ethnic groups got into conflicts since the dawn of humanity, and frequently one would displace the other. Nations won territories from each other in armed conflict.
There was never a "right of return" in any of these cases. Refugees are resettled in available locations.
The refugees in this case are deeply hostile to the nation of Israel and in particular to its Jewish population. That's why they became refugees in the first place.
The idea to try to simply resettle them among the Jews they hate has no precedence in human history. In Israel's case, it will lead to the Jews becoming (again) a persecuted minority, and end their independence. There's no reason to assume an Arab majority will treat the Jews any better than they treated them before 1948 and the decades of conflict that followed - and they already tried to destroy them in 1948.
The Middle East is also not a place where minorities are treated very kindly in general. Neither ethnic minorities, nor religious minorities - and the Jews are both.
TL;DR the "right of return" is an invention by the "social justice" crowd to promote a policy that sounds just and reasonable but is without precedent in human history, and is designed to make the Jews of Israel into a persecuted minority, subject to the same violent attacks they've been suffering for centuries - while stripping them of the protection of having their own state and military force.
Interesting I just find it ironic that israel have the law of return that allowed my friend Dan who has basically 0 material tie to that many to emigrate to israel but banished my friend Ahmed who still have the photos and records of their house and farm land.
I'm not saying this right or wrong but to me it's so extremely unfair especially coming from the people who experienced the holocaust.
The British government opposed the creation of the State of Israel and its armies fought alongside the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan during the 1948 war in an attempt to destroy the state. The US disavowed the 1948 partition plan, which in part led to the Arab and British invasion. The country that provided military support to the nascent Jewish state was not the capitalist West that had previously exerted military authority over the region: it was the USSR under Stalin, as part of an effort to destabilize the British. The USSR was in fact the first country to recognize the State of Israel (ironically, given later alliances in the Middle East). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union_and_the_Arab%E2...
I urge you to read more widely on this topic. If you're so certain that your position is the correct one, you stand only to confirm your existing beliefs.
its not anti-Israeli to refute the statement "Foreign powers did not create Israel. Jews did." by pointing out the actual Middle Eastern Jews who lived in the region are the ones doing the worst in modern Israel
> Israel isn't perfect, and has its own internal tensions, much like the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and basically every other nation.
The level of racism in Israel is unique among Western nations:
* 53% of Israelis say Arabs should be encouraged to leave. Only 51% think they deserve equal rights. 46% say that they would not want to live near Arabs [1].
* 52% of Israeli Jews thinks African migrants are "a cancer" [2].
* 96% of Israeli Jews would be uncomfortable with their child marrying a Muslim, 89% say this about a Christian [3]
* 72% of all Israeli Jews thinks it is more important to keep Israel a Jewish majority than to keep Israel democratic [4].
> Trying to use these tensions as a wholesale argument against Israel is like claiming Sweden is an illegitimate country since it's going through social tensions and unrest due to immigration right now.
The tell-tale sign of a right-wing bigot is that they use the uninformed "what about Sweden!"-argument. The idea that immigration of brown-skinned people is a threat to their country because, apparently, and unknown to most Swedes, immigration has caused Sweden to collapse.
My "judgement" is that it is abhorrent to view African asylum seekers who flee war-torn countries as "cancer". I don't think that is an American standard. I don't think it is disrespectful to claim that it is racist to compare humans with cancer.
> Love it when a bunch of new users join the discussion to spread anti-Israeli propaganda.
You've made like 10 comments in this thread. I'm not accusing you of anything. But before you accuse others of "propaganda", maybe take a look at yourself and see who's behaving somewhat suspiciously in this thread.
I've made probably 30 comments in the last thread in which I participated, which had exactly zero to do with Israel. Unlike these new users, I have a history of comments on the site, and I have not joined today just to engage in this very specific thread.
Have a look at that Wikipedia article. No other "power" was fighting for Israel, as it was attacked by Egypt, Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
This narrative of "invasion" and "stealing land" is entirely false and irrelevant to 1948. Iraq doesn't share a border with Israel, neither do Saudi Arabia or Yemen. Israel also didn't claim any territory from any of the others.
It was just tribal warfare, pure and simple. The Arabs didn't like the Jews, so they attacked them.
Folks like to assume that Israel was "helped" by various "foreign powers", notably the US. The reality? Not only did the US not help, but Israel was under a US arms embargo since its inception in 1948. The alliance between the US and Israel only started when Israel decisively won the 1967 war, because at that point the US figured it was in its best interest to ally with Israel.
Poor choice of words on my part. I meant British occupation of the region at the time and a promise by the British of the establishment of a home for Jewish ppl in the region.
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’m not anti-Israel. Im saying that ppl shouldn’t be shocked that there was a hostile response by neighboring Arab nations when Jewish ppl asserted their claim to a new state in the region.
Basically what I did a terrible job of trying to get at is - that Israel isn’t special. Try create a new state anywhere and ppl around that area will get mad, doubly so if your beliefs don’t align.
> and a promise by the British of the establishment of a home for Jewish ppl in the region.
That promise meant next to nothing. The British actually tried to confiscate all the weapons held by the Jewish population before leaving Israel. They fully expected (and arguably, intended and hoped) that the Jews would lose to the Arabs in the ensuing war.
> Im saying that ppl shouldn’t be shocked
I think people "shouldn't be shocked" by the 1948 attack, and the many ensuing attacks, because the Middle East is a tribal region, has been such for centuries, and the Jews are a minority there. The Middle East has been an arena of ethnic and religious conflict for over 2,000 years, after all.
> Jews seek refuge from Antisemitism in their historic homeland, immediately get attacked by 7 nations. But this is all their fault, of course.
Of course. That's what happens when you unilaterally found a country on someone's else historic homeland and start an apartheid state.
> Right, all these Jews in Israel are using "many dirty tricks". Thanks for demonstrating, once again, that biased attacks against Israel are heavily laced with Antisemitism.
The bulk of Jewish and Palestinian people in Israel during the founding were similarly recent turn-of-the-century migrants from elsewhere in the Middle East to relatively low-population areas previously lived in by Bedouins and Druze.
The standards you're raising are arbitrary and can apply to all of the other countries that were drawn up after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. Many forcibly expelled their Jewish population, while Israel at least offered all residents first-class citizenship. It's tragic that Pan-Arab Nationalist neighbors convinced so many to reject and rebel, and then offered no aid after.
It's been a colonization project since inception and it continues to this day. Antisemitism is not an excuse to colonize others and commit human rights violations.
Not just that. But Jews lived all over the Middle East and now they all been expelled, most into Israel. (Similar story is still being played with Christians of the Middle East.)
That happened 70+ years ago, we have had a genocide as recently as the 1990s back here in Europe [1] and nevertheless the country that got out of that tragedy doesn't feel like it's in an "existential threat" (I'm talking about BiH).
From some point on (I'm betting on the second part of the 1990s, after the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin) parts of the Israeli establishment decided that it's more worth it to double-down on the "existential threat" discourse because it was good for business instead of really wanting a way out for everyone involved (including the Palestinians), and here we are almost 30 years after the Oslo accords, no end in sight for the tragedy that happens to the Palestinian people, to say nothing of the Israeli citizens that have to live in a constant state of war.
Israel is threatened with destruction right now, for example by Iran, Hezbollah, and Syria.
In 2006, Hezbollah fired rockets and missiles at Israeli population centers. Hamas in Gaza has fired rockets at Israeli civilians literally every year since 2001:
Iran is a nation with over x7 the population of Israel, which is also trying to develop nuclear weapons.
It's very easy to dismiss existential concerns when you live in Europe that has been one of the most peaceful regions on Earth for the past 30 years. Try doing that as an Israeli civilian in a bomb shelter, hearing Hezbollah/Hamas rockets explode in your city. That's the reality for millions of Israeli civilians today.
> when you live in Europe that has been one of the most peaceful regions on Earth for the past 30 years
Transnistria, Yugoslavia, Georgia, Ukraine. Not really peaceful.
> Try doing that as an Israeli civilian in a bomb shelter, hearing Hezbollah/Hamas rockets explode in your city.
As an Israeli civilian I say: if you hear rockets explode you chose a wrong city to live at.
You have to understand that Gaza is kind of concentration camp and significant portion of Gaza population are arabs forcefully displaced from villages in Gaza-Ashdod-BeerSheba triangle. Do you expect them to just agree with "facts on the ground" and do nothing?
> Ah, so it's perfectly acceptable to you when rockets hit some Israeli cities, where the poorer Israelis live.
If it's acceptable for them, who am I to judge?
Election after election they vote for the party (Likud) that does consider Hamas a viable partner, transfers them hundreds of millions USD in cash and refuses to support any alternative government in Gaza.
Nations rise and fall based on a sense of common identity, solidarity, and shared fate.
Your comment revealed the complete breakdown of these necessary elements.
As someone who has enormous sympathy for the suffering of the Jewish people, and Israel as a response to that, I do hope that there are very few of you in Israel.
Otherwise, Israel will disintegrate, and you will discover that when you demonstrate smug selfish indifference to rockets hitting your fellow citizens, those same rockets will eventually hit you too.
> for the suffering of the Jewish people, and Israel as a response to that
You do understand, that Israel was established by people, who didn't suffer in Holocaust, but still demanded retribution from Arabs, who weren't responsible for Holocaust, right?
A lot of Holocaust survivors were afraid to admit it until 90-ties for the reason they were considered sub-humans by fellow Israelis.
> sense of common identity
Please, be kind and explain to me, what common identity can be between me, secular son of Ashkenazi Jew, and minister Deri, Moroccan Arab of Jewish religion, who considers my father as good as dead since he married my non-jewish mother?
Given the incredibly polarized state of American politics and society over the past decade, especially the last five years, I don't think that comparison is as true as it was twenty years ago. Probably not the most cogent comparison these days.
American society has polarized, it is true. Still, I believe only a tiny fringe minority will openly claim indifference to the WTC attacks because they haven't affected them personally. Much less show any support for the terrorists who committed these attacks.
At this point it's not even indifference, it's more like animosity between different regions and different segments of society. When was the last time anyone stormed the Knesset?
The US is home to 350,000,000 people. If you gather the craziest of these in one small place, you'll have enough force to storm a (poorly defended) Capitol.
The US always had various fringe, a-social and anti-social groups. Still, Americans do largely share a sense of identity, especially against a common external threat. To judge by some of the comments here, perhaps to a greater extent than Israeli society currently does.
Isreal bombards Gaza with missiles and chemical weapons, and continuously fires at Syria taking advantage of the "moderate rebels" it and its allies sponsor. Meanwhile, they continue to evict 60 year old men from their homes and arrest children. Not to mention Isreal has nuclear weapons but refuses to comply with any international treaties.
I'm sorry that I'm not going to respond to outright false claims, such that Israel used "chemical weapons" in Gaza, especially when you are at the same breath apparently defending Syria, which has been proved to use chemical weapons against civilians multiple times.
Under international law white phosphorous is considered an incendiary weapon, not a chemical weapon. There is a list of chemical weapons and white phosphorous is not on that list, although it is often incorrectly claimed to be so.
The Chemical Weapons Convention, sometimes invoked in discussions of WP usage, is meant to prohibit weapons that are "dependent on the use of the toxic properties of chemicals as a method of warfare" (Article II, Definitions, 9, "Purposes not Prohibited" c.). The convention defines a "toxic chemical" as a substance "which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals" (CWC, II). An annex lists chemicals that are restricted under the convention, and WP is not listed in the Schedules of chemical weapons or precursors.
The fact that an American intelligence analyst once during the Gulf War miscategorized WP as a "chemical weapon" when Saddam Hussein used it doesn't change its listing under international law.
Your 'key quote' misses the next section, which makes my case.
> No it's not forbidden by the CWC if it is used within the context of a military application that does not require or does not intend to use the toxic properties of white phosphorus. White phosphorus is normally used to produce smoke, to camouflage movement.
> If that is the purpose for which the white phosphorus is used, then that is considered under the convention legitimate use.
> If on the other hand the toxic properties of white phosphorus are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that, of course, is prohibited, because the way the convention is structured or applied, any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons.
~ Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
Dropping white phosphorus during the daytime (when the illumination features of WP aren't needed) on a school in a dense urban environment is pretty clearly the case where it's considered to be a chemical weapon.
The annex lists chemicals understood to be chemical weapons under the convention, but it doesn't purport to be a complete list, only a set of some examples.
Er, but unless I missed something, Amnesty International didn't claim Israel used it for its toxic properties against humans or animals? They were against it being used for any purpose in Gaza, and chiefly cite it causing property damage. While that's still bad, it's not true that in that case WP counts as a banned chemical weapon. Ergo, the claim is false. White phosphorous is not a banned chemical weapon, and was not used for its chemical properties against humans or animals.
Also, even Amnesty International mentions that the purpose wasn't "illumination" — which would be ridiculous — the purpose was camouflage (which is apparently a typical use case).
The Amnesty International article is against any use in Gaza _because_ any use in a dense urban env is by definition an illegal use of chemical weapons.
Camouflage isn't a valid use of chemical weapons on a dense population when the arguments are taken as a whole. Even Mustard Gas works as a camouflage, it'd mean the whole convention is pretty much unenforceable.
Even the Amnesty International article doesn't call Israel's usage of WP as using a chemical weapon: they call it an incendiary weapon in the very first sentence (which goes along with the Wikipedia article I linked). The Mustard Gas comparison isn't valid; the whole point of mustard gas is to target humans. WP was being used as camouflage, and caused property damage. That can be bad! That can even be a war crime. But being bad or a war crime doesn't mean Israel used chemical weapons against people in Gaza. They used an incendiary weapon that caused a lot of property damage (which is possibly a war crime in its own right).
Edit: the entire Gaza War started with Hamas firing rockets packed with incendiary chemicals into dense Israeli urban environments. I would say many things about Hamas, but I would not say that Hamas has used banned chemical weapons against Israel. I suppose if you believe Hamas has used banned chemical weapons against Israelis, you may certainly believe Israel has done the same. But I think your definition of chemical weapons is significantly broader than international law. AFAIK neither side has done this.
The event they're talking about killed 2 and critically injured 14 more when WP was used over an in use UN run school. I'm not sure how you attached to the property damage component, but it's not a core piece of the argument being made by me or Amnesty International.
Edit in response to your edit: It's not the incindiary part of WP that's an issue, it's the chemical toxicity to humans and animals. Hamas has not used anything approaching chemical weapons by any definition against Israel, despite your attempt to deflect.
Hamas has not used anything approaching chemical weapons by any definition against Israel, despite your attempt to deflect.
Hamas rockets have in fact been filled with white phosphorus, literally exactly the same substance you're talking about, and fired at Israeli cities, intentionally, in attempts to kill Israeli civilians. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_o...
I assume you've been misinformed, or only presented with information from a specific side. But literally both Hamas and Israel have used white phosphorous. That's not a matter of debate, it's just a fact.
International law doesn't consider WP a chemical weapon, which is why no one claims Hamas has used chemical weapons against Israel. It's also why your claim that Israel used chemical weapons against Hamas is incorrect.
Ok, I was mistaken about that one piece. It doesn't help your case.
One of the citations from that line on the wiki page has
> Haim Yelin, head of the Eshkol Regional Council, added: "Everyone criticized Israel for the weapons it's been using, but we must realize that the other side is using illegal weapons."
So, yes, people including Israelis claim that the use of WP is a chemical weapon and illegal.
You get how taking unexploded munitions and sending them back over is a different thing than using them originally in the first place, no?
I searched the wiki page for that quote, since it doesn't mention chemical weapons, and it doesn't appear to exist on the page. Do you mind providing a reference? Weapons — and certain uses of weapons — can be "illegal" without being violations of chemical weapons bans.
I admit to being a bit suspicious that this quote claims anything about "chemical weapons." What the international community has criticized Hamas for, as per the wiki page, is indiscriminately firing rockets at civilian areas — which is illegal. They used white phosphorus in the rockets as well, but even prior to that, as per the wiki page they were filling rockets with TNT and explosive fertilizers, which use their chemical properties (of explosion) to kill people too. So if chemical properties of lighting on fire count as "chemical weapons" (they don't though), I think the chemical properties of TNT would suffice as well.
As per numerous [1] articles [2] and sources [3] the international community does not even consider Israel to have ever revealed owning chemical weapons (although it is suspected that they do); if white phosphorus was considered a chemical weapon, there would be no question: Israel has publicly used it, and publicly admitted to using and owning it [4]. Your claim is just incorrect.
Edit: even the Human Rights Watch article you linked disagrees with you! It criticizes Israel's use of white phosphorous because it violates international law on indiscriminate weapons use — the same laws Hamas broke with its rocket attacks — and specifically says that white phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon. Quote:
White phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon and is not banned per se. But like all weapons its use is restricted by the fundamental principles of international humanitarian law: it must be used in a manner that adequately distinguishes between combatants and civilians, and it may never target the latter.
I think this is the end of the discussion. Even the sources you have tried to provide contradict your claim that Israel used "chemical weapons" on Gazans.
Literally nobody considers WP as a "chemical weapon" in the same sense as Sarin Gas was used by the Syrian regime against its own citizens over the past decade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghouta_chemical_attack
You and others are obsessively focused on any collateral damage caused by Israel which is trying to defend its citizens against deliberate rocket attacks launched by terrorists from civilian population. Meanwhile, you ignore far more egregious violations by the enemies of Israel, like Syria.
You use hyperbolic and unjustified language to condemn Israel for using weapons nobody considers "chemical weapons".
This is bias, pure and simple. Some of you have been brainwashed to obsessively hate Israel. Others were Antisemitic to begin with. Either way, you are now prejudiced.
> If on the other hand the toxic properties of white phosphorus are specifically intended to be used as a weapon, that, of course, is prohibited, because the way the convention is structured or applied, any chemicals used against humans or animals that cause harm or death through the toxic properties of the chemical are considered chemical weapons.
~ Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
Yes, people consider WP a chemical weapon. It's been cited several times from several different sources from authorities on the matter.
I also condemn in the strongest terms the US's use of WP in urban areas which I also consider a war crime (and several others do as well).
As far as Syria or any other, why do you think I accept their chemical weapon use? But just because someone else is using chemical weapons doesn't give Israel a pass.
The roots of the Arab-Israeli conflict were all laid out in 1948 and the years immediately preceding it. 1948 also reflects the attitude that Israel's neighbors have repeatedly taken towards it, namely: trying to destroy it.
Israel was attacked again in 1973, 1991, 2006. They suffer regular rocket and terror attacks to this day.
It's also hard to blame all aggression in the region on the Israeli (Jews) when we recall that they were attacked by all neighboring nations as soon as they tried to find refuge in Israel, before there was any history of hostility.
Simply put: Israel's neighbors targeted it for destruction from day 0.
Uhm... At least 32% of those living there would probably beg to differ.[1] (Or 55%, if you look at the actual partition plan.[2])
In any case most of the rest of the region was carved up by the occupying European powers in much the same way, including the creation of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq.
