Don't worry about "death to the IDF", worry about death from the IDF
Actions are more concerning than words
While the UK is in crisis because a punk band wished death upon Starmer's favourite genocidal army, that army is slaughtering around 100 Palestinians a day. IDF soldiers are being ordered to shoot unarmed civilians and Israeli fighter jets are dropping excess bombs to avoid waste.
We see no outrage about this in parliament because Bob Vylan is far more of a concern. Wishing death upon killers is worse than killing, you see.
Israel bombed a refugee shelter today in the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood of Gaza City. Civil defence teams were filmed rescuing a woman who was being burnt alive. I'm unclear if she survived. Horrific images of injured children are emerging and it appears most of the seventeen dead are children.
It's worth noting the death toll of seventeen is likely to go higher. Al-Zaytoun has faced relentless attacks from Israel throughout this genocide and has been turned into a crater-filled moonscape. The level of destruction is unsurprising when you consider the munitions Israel has been using.
For example, evidence has emerged that it used a 500lb MK-82 bomb in its attack on al-Baqa café at the weekend.
Israel targeted the beachfront café because it was frequented by journalists, which seem to be its number one target in this "war". The café was also frequented by children and the elderly, meaning use of such a large munition unquestionably constitutes a war crime.
While estimates on the death toll vary, it is clearly in the dozens, and we know at least three children are among the dead, the youngest being four years old. Perversely, Israel said it was using aerial surveillance to minimise harm to civilians, but this means it knew the café was crowded at the time. Even worse, a kids birthday party was being held and the bastards still went ahead with the strike. This was confirmed by
.Obviously, you can't claim you're minimising civilian casualties when you're bombing a crowded building that contains children - the aim here was to maximise casualties.
One of the reasons Israel has been going crazy is that it has excess bombs from the war with Iran and it wants to avoid waste. The story was first reported by centrist Israeli newspaper Maariv so you can hardly accuse it of being antisemitic or far left!
The report shows how Israeli pilots had spare air-to-ground missiles after their missions in Iran so they flew to Gaza to use them up. They decided to bomb the shit out of Gaza because it was better to blow civilians up than not use those bombs. Extraordinary.
It's unfair to say Israel has only been bombing Gaza indiscriminately, sometimes it has been bombing discriminately too. For example, it blew up the house of the director of the Indonesia Hospital, killing Dr Marwan Sultan and seven members of his family. Perhaps they had failed to condemn Bob Vylan or something.
While Israel is systemically eliminating doctors, Gaza's healthcare system has all but collapsed. The al-Shifa hospital has suspended dialysis services due to lack of fuel and announced that many of its patients face certain death without immediate supplies.
Across Gaza, babies are facing starvation because Israel won't allow in baby formula and people are struggling to maintain hygiene because it won't allow in products like soap, toothpaste and sanitary towels. Palestinians are not just being killed, they are being degraded and treated as though they are subhuman.
I'm guessing there won't be any emergency debates in parliament about this though. I'm guessing we won't see Lisa Nandy making an impassioned speech about the dangers of anti-Palestinian racism. I'm guessing we won't see arms manufacturers being proscribed for sending bombs to Israel. I'm guessing we won't be seeing supporters of this genocide cancelled, because while saying "death to the IDF" is unacceptable, death from the IDF is perfectly fine.
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As a kid I learned about the horrors of WW1 in History class at school - read all the war poets - Owen, Sassoon, Graves - and I could not understand how those in power had sent so many young men to die horribly in a pointless and immoral war. I supposed they were just ignorant bastards left over from the last century who didn’t really understand what they were unleashing. I was quite sure nothing like that could ever happen again - ok WW2 but we were the good guys and that was all Hitler’s fault right? But no - instead of learning from these terrible wars - Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine - we just get worse. It’s quite incredible how our politicians pretend they are moral, right thinking human beings when they are actually monsters, fully aware of the evil they are committing. I really can’t quite believe how they can be like this… They lie to their own people; they pontificate. How do they sleep at night?! For the rest of us we are awake in a nightmare beyond anything imaginable.
Evil pure evil