Israel’s war in Gaza is chipping away at so much of what we – in the United States but also internationally – had agreed upon as acceptable, from the rules governing our freedom of speech to the very laws of armed conflict. It seems no exaggeration to say that the foundation of the international order of the last 77 years is threatened by this change in the obligations governing our legal and political responsibilities to each other.
The victim is now the abuser
It’s not “breaking the world” it’s literally showing the Israeli state for what it’s been all along, and israeli influence extends so far in the western culturescape that no one is able to actually speak the truth about it
But that’s what the author is saying. The “post war liberal order” of the last 77 years had mostly been a success of coming together to say that there are lines that can’t be crossed.
Now, at this point in the order’s timeline, those lines are being left so far in the rear view that they’re not visible anymore, while the empires that came to take down the holocaust are now cracking down on the people pointing this out. And critically, as pointed out later in the article, are taking notes for future wars.
Factor in the right wing fascists rising to power all over the world who are flagrantly walking all over decency and inflicting violence/turning the systems on enemies without much of a peep…well, things for the future look to be heading down a seriously dangerous path.
This isn’t business as usual. That is what they’re saying. They point out that this “established order” and international law have always been vulnerable to powerful actors moving the goalposts to serve and protect their interests. But this much drastic change in just a few years, specifically centered around Gaza is a horrific force—coupled with every other factor throughout the world— that seems to be upending any hopes for a decent future.
We are all watching a holocaust live on TV, perpetrated by the victims of a holocaust 80 years ago
Gaza is the latest in a long line of atrocities committed by countries ostensibly committed to a law of armed conflict.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria… hell the US interventions in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia were as horrifying as they were criminal. Sometimes we can find an exigent threat that gives us permission to use overwhelming force to brutalize the bad guys - as in Iraq '91 with the Kuwaiti invasion. Other times we just have to make some shit up, as with Grenada or Vietnam.
But this idea that we’ve had an international order for any of the last 77 years is more a reflection on the quantity of our propaganda than the quality of our international ethics. The total war Israel is conducting in Gaza, while the US hovers overhead threatening to flatten any Egyptian or Jordanian or Lebanese who attempts to intervene, has been historic in the degree to which far more cushy liberal rhetoric has been replaced with full-throated endorsement of ethnic cleansing.
But the policies themselves? We manufactured a famine in Afghanistan shortly after withdrawing the last US troops. We have repeatedly blocked countries with socialist governments from accessing international markets to obtain relief, such as Bangladesh in '74 and Ethiopia ten years later. Somalia has been under near constant assault by US Navy vessels “policing” the most lucrative fishing territories, driving up rates of piracy as a substitute for traditional subsistence farming. Then you’ve got the '91 famine in N. Korea and the '94 Cuban hunger crisis, both the consequence of US blockades.
Any one of these would be considered a modern-day Holodomor from the perspective of an objective outside observer. Unfortunately, Americans only get to hear about Gaza - and even then only in dribs and drabs on social media or alt-news publications - as they turn away from the traditional corporate-friendly press venues.
It’s hard to find a more Nazi way of doing it. Never forget, Zionists signed the Haavara Agreement with Hitler. You can look up Hitler’s quotes on Zionists to find that his problem with them was that *“It doesn’t even enter their heads to build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there” *- that they weren’t being imperial colonialist enough and were just all talk. It’s sad to see the meaning of genocide twisted so much to use the genocide of the past to protect the genocide of the present. Hitler’s problem with Jews in Germany is that they were staying in Germany, it was not with the Zionists who were trying to take over the reigns of Mandate Palestine.
Sort of what we are seeing now, radical far right groups sticking up for each other even when at face value ideologically they should be opposed - because it’s not about the lie they are peddling, it’s about forcing people out and conquering occupied territory to take their wealth and resources. Not that these far right leaders will ever admit it, but the shifting stream of excuses, justifications, and contradictions create the outline of what they’ve even lied to themselves about. They are not people of character.
that’s a bit of hyperbole. Gaza is happening because the institutions were already rotten, and not the other way around
It works both ways. Governments are bending over backwards to silence opposition to Israel, and that means abandoning the rule of law and supressing free speech. The rot was there, but the open corruption and the sheer quantity of lies puts it into overdrive. If not for Israel, Trump would not have been reelected.
Social rot causing systematic rot causing social rot?
Somewhere Hari Seldon is laughing.
Ukraine lowers its head as nobody sees it with its hand up…
While I truely weep for Palestinians this is a large issue that is worldwide. Nobody gives a crap because it’s utter chaos everywhere
I would say the big distinction between Ukraine and Gaza is that in Ukraine there has been a meaningful (and enormously lucrative) project to arm locals in opposition to Russian invasion. It’s been of dubious success, given how much territory they still lost. But its difficult to say that the Biden Era government (or even Trump Term 1) wasn’t willing to shovel arms and mercenaries into Ukraine in an effort to cripple Russian advances.
In Gaza, the Israel blockade has gone virtually unchecked - outside of a few salvos from Yemen and some allegations of support from Iran and Hezbollah. Americans are supporting the genociders not the victims. There is no Gaza military left to repeal an invasion nor is there any appetite for a Hamas resistance to repeal IDF advances. At this point, it’s little more than a shooting gallery.
There’s a line of combat between Ukraine and Russia. There’s nothing in Gaza. Just Israelis and their private security contractors kettling and massacring neighborhood after neighborhood, then flagging bulldozers to knock down the houses when they’re done.
This may be a stupid question, but why did we need to create Israel in the first place? If my memory from my shitty American education serves me, they had all these survivors of the Holocaust with nowhere to go, so they created Israel for them to live peacefully, fuck whoever was already living there.
But why couldn’t they all just go back home? I know everyone was shipped off across Europe to the camps but like… surely they remembered where they lived before? Everything was bombed to hell but that’s the same for whoever lived there, Jewish or not. Am I missing a piece that makes the need for their own country to make sense?
I’m no less ignorant than you are, but “returning home” isn’t as easy as it sounds when your leaders and neighbors were at best complicit and at worst eager conspirators (excepting those who rebelled either openly or secretly) in your extermination. Jews have a rather long history of being…mistreated, for lack of a more appropriate term within reach, so the abstract idea of having a self-governed homeland where you can feel safe as a Jew seems to make some degree of sense in context.
But because Zionism is generally practiced by nationalists and religious zealots, and because colonialism was (and evidently is) still considered a-ok by the global power brokers when all this started, the tone of the occupation became “we’re taking your space because we deserve it and you don’t” rather than “may we please share your space in mutual benefit for our safe refuge.”
Right… Like why TF wouldn’t you want to leave
It’s actually a good question. We didn’t.
The desire to create a country Israel came about in the 1800s, when Theodor Herzl looked at anti-semitism in Europe and concluded that Jews would never be accepted by countries or have any political power so the only way to get ahead in such a nationalistic world would be to make their own country. It was built on an anachronistic set of ideas; religion was tied to your citizenship of a country. Turkey represented European Muslims and UK/France/Germany represented Christians, and he concluded there was no way Jews could be considered equal citizens in Europe.
Originally the plan was to buy land in Africa or South America and declare a new country there. It was a purely secular plan to build an ethnostate. The World Zionist Congress had a vote and they narrowly approved to build the country in British mandate Palestine, not for religious reasons but because the connection to Jerusalem would help motivate immigration and tourism. They almost had it in Uganda or Argentina or Madagascar.
The holocaust merely accelerated the plan and gave a justification after the fact to build the country. Initially Israeli society didn’t like having holocaust survivors and they weren’t treated well, only today are they out on a pedestal and used as justification for their colonialism.
Jews would never be accepted by countries
Did he thought that they would be accepted by the local population?
British Palestine (and other Mid-East / North Africa states) were notable in that they were far more accommodating to Jewish peoples than the European continent had been. They were colonial territories with large international trading hubs that were already pluralistic and accommodating to foreigners. And they weren’t carrying the baggage of a few centuries of Inquisitions and Pogroms.
Until the Shah was installed in '53, Iran had one of the largest Jewish populations in the world. Ethiopia and Sudan had hundreds of thousands of Jewish people living contentedly in its borders until the '70s, when civil war and famine ripped the country apart. And prior to the Holocaust, there was an enormous flight of Jewish residents to the Americas.
Now, primarily white militant European settler colonialists might have trouble setting up an intentional community of Zionist radicals anywhere. But there’s no reason to believe Argentina or Madagascar would have been materially worse for them than British Palestine.
But there’s no reason to believe Argentina or Madagascar would have been materially worse for them than British Palestine.
There is no reason to believe any population would allow foreigners to build a state in their countries and not react like palestinians
As best as we can tell, he truly didn’t care what locals thought. He wanted to buy the land and make everyone else leave so an all Jewish state could be created.
Unfortunately this plan didn’t sit well with the locals who eventually stopped selling land to these newcomers, and the rising illegal immigration caused conflicts. Eventually an actual war erupted and new militias massacred and forcibly expelled the local Arab communities, creating the Israel we have today.
Herzl’s concept wasn’t as terrible on paper as it actually was in practice. (It just wouldn’t work in modern society where countries aren’t governed under ethnic supremacy) But likely if the World Zionist Congress had voted a different way, we’d be talking about how awful Israel was for mistreating Ugandans and forcing them off their land.
It was more “given up” rather than “freely given” to the Zionists. They were resolute invaders and ferocious terrorists. And once they tuned their sights from the local population to the British, the British fucked off real fast. Then did the paperwork.
Our imaginations have always fallen short with regard to World War III. The only thing anyone can visualize is total nuclear destruction, but this world definitely has another actual world war left in it where conventional forces fight it out across multiple fronts, largely through proxies but orchestrated by the major powers. The world economy will plunge into chaos for a decade or more. The political situation in every country around the world will turn to shit. Fascism will bloom and commit mass atrocities. Oh shit… that’s all already happening.
The next world war
Will have no rules
In repression of counter speech against genocide in almost all western countries to some degree their hand has been shown once again to be prioritizing order over law’s rotting corpse.
Not order. It’s control and oppression, a tale as old as mankind.
the Mayans missed it by like … 15 years
Idk. Seems like this was occurring in 2012 too.
no they were spot on. it just takes a while for the change to take effect in the outside world.
If we consider UN as being the main arbitrator on who gets to launch a war, then to mention a few instances…
1950: North Korea illegally attacks South Korea.
1956: Soviet Union illegally invades Hungary.
1956: Israel / France / UK illegally invade Egypt. All invaders withdraw after UN condemnation and international pressure.
1964: USA illegally escalates Vietnam War.
1967: Israel launches the Six-Day War, illegality debated.
1968: Soviet Union illegally invades Czechoslovakia.
1973: Egypt and Syria attack Israel.
1974: Turkey illegally invades Cyprus.
1978: Vietnam illegally invades Cambodia.
1979: Soviet Union illegally invades Afghanistan.
1982: Israel illegally invades Libanon.
1983: USA illegally invades Grenada.
1989: USA illegally invades Panama.
1990: Iraq illegally invades Kuwait. Got their ass kicked though so that worked out fine.
1999: NATO illegally bombs Yugoslavia.
2003: US and UK illegally invade Iraq.
2008: Russia illegally invades Georgia.
2014: Russia illegally invades and annexes Crimea.
2015: Saudi-Arabia illegally invades Yemen.
2022: Russia illegally invades Ukraine.
I probably forgot a few. No ill meaning meant, just missing knowledge.
You really have to do whataboutism on every post concerning Israel.
1967: Israel launches the Six-Day War, illegality debated.
Nice how you question the illegality of Israel doing war crimes.
Hasbara bots are now on Lemmy 🥀
Only here on .world they banished everywhere else.
Genuinely the worst fucking lemmy server. Tankie shit is exhausting, but it doesnt flirt with world wars.
Previous poster was not questioning it but quoting the UN as the authority. https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Nations-Resolution-242
Resolution 242: On November 22, 1967, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 242
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The “inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.”
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The need for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied during the conflict.
They attacked on a Monday, knowing that on Wednesday the Egyptian vice-president would arrive in Washington to talk about re-opening the Strait of Tiran. We might not have succeeded in getting Egypt to reopen the strait, but it was a real possibility.” - Dean Rusk, the Secretary of State of that time
“The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.” - Menachem Begin
So there was no eminent security risk, the attack was not proportional and Israel kept the west bank and east Jerusalem violating the need for Israeli withdrawal from territories occupied during the conflict
your reading comprehension is below elementary school levels.
My reading comprehension is perfect. You been calling anybofy who disagree with you stupid. Thst’s mean it’s you the stupid one. Get off your high horse.
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I’m still not convinced about criticism of whataboutism being an actual defence. I’ve heard the argument that it doesn’t make the original criticism any less valid but to me it does. It’s more of a go fuck off together and be shit somewhere else rather than a let’s focus on this one point only purely because it was brought up before the other. And purely because it was brought up first there is not allowed to be any mention of any hypocrisy?
The guy has history of backing up isrseli war crimes
Look at how you called them all illegsl except isrsel 6 day war thst was illegal no debate sbout it
“he Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him. - Menachem Begin
Late stage capitalism is killing the world
ban landlords.
I’m pretty sure it’s just Trump breaking the world order and eroding the freedom of Americans.
When the Israel-Hamas war is over do you really think everything is going to go back to normal in the US and the rest of the world?
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This is .world you cannot get banned for supporting genocide.
Myopic US take. The Israel lobby is all through the western world and has pushed almost every government into the corner of accepting this racist genocidal war lest they be labelled anti-Semitic.
I really don’t understand where this idea comes from of a country with the 40th rank GDP having the pull to mastermind politics worldwide. For reference: their revenue is about the same as Apple, who’s lobbying sees less success despite being more politically neutral.
The reason they have international support is because it’s convenient and their location + antagonism align with the geopolitics of a large group of states. Isreal is a dog on a leash, what we’re seeing Trump do is give them unprecedented lead to genocide at will.
Letting them go this far and long without tugging their collar back to peace talks is not the historical norm, no matter how hard you point at Biden. Did Biden take direct military action to support them? Has any US president?
This Isreali lobbying is a boogeyman; Isreal could dissolve tomorrow and you would see another antagonist spring up in the region with international backing. People are just uncomfortable with their country being aligned with the bad guys of their own free will.
What you’re failing to include in your calculations is how cheap political sway is to buy worldwide. You don’t need to be the wealthiest nation in the world to place several $50k political donations per year to the two major parties and some of their key politicians, and keep a lobbying firm in the nation’s capital well-funded to wines and dines key politicians and journalists.
Manufacturing consent is financially trivial for Israel, they’ve been practicing it for 50 years and the machine is institutionalized.
Nothing excuse their complicity, nothing
Reason is not justification, I excuse nothing - just pointing our it’s much wider than the US.
The major west countries are neocolonials an racist powers that’s the real reason. If they can do an economical war with china they can do it with israel too
The complicity of many national governments in this genocide, including my own (Canada), will be remembered with disdain.
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Read the article. The most egregious violations occurred during the Biden administration. Biden is better at Trump as a whole, but on the Gaza issue, both have support for Israel locked in at 100%. People often fall for the marketing - Biden virtue signals while Trump vice signals. Biden made a few token show gestures towards Palestinian rights, and Trump gleefully celebrates his cruelty. But in terms of actual tangible support for Israel? Trump’s record is a direct continuation of Biden’s. The Biden admin for example were the first ones to propose the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. That isn’t something Trump came up with - he just vice signaled with his stupid ‘Gaza riviera’ plan, while Biden’s plan for ethnic cleansing was discussed quietly.
Could you source the statement about biden’s quiet discussion?
