• ???@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Proximity shielding is bullshit and used to justify killing and DEHUMANIZING Palestinians. The idea of people being human shields in their own homes is genocidal bullshit used to justify killing them. Israel tops this list.

    I will keep that in CAPS, thanks. I don’t care how many times you donated or protested. It doesn’t change what Israel does which you sit here defending.

    • hh93@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      The idea of people being human shields in their own homes is genocidal bullshit used to justify killing them.

      So how do you call it if hamas is building their bases of operation in civilian buildings or launch their rockets from schools and hospitals exactly because they KNOW it’s impossible to target them there without also hitting civilians?

      Why is egypt not accepting refugees? Because they know that a big part of the palestinians are actually supporting hamas and are not just victims here and they don’t want to deal with the risk of those people radicalizing themselves further within Egypt and having to deal with that.

      And as for the dehumanizing part: which party did deliberately chose to deliberately attack civilians and not “just” accepted them as collateral damage? Sure the latter is also horrible and should be kept to an absolute minimum but the first is absolutely indefensible. There’s a reason why at every other pro-palestine rally right now there are people shouting to exterminate all the jews and why jews are scared wearing their kippah again: this whole thing is not just about standing with civilians in gaza but actually coming from an anti-semitic point a lot of the time.

      • ???@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I am going to copy this that I wrote long ago about proximity shielding. Proximity shielding and the idea of human shields is the excuse Israel is using to completely wipe out full Palestinian families.

        So how do you call it if hamas is building their bases of operation in civilian buildings or launch their rockets from schools and hospitals exactly because they KNOW it’s impossible to target them there without also hitting civilians?

        Israel should just not fucking hit civilians then. Who in the fuck shoots through a baby to get to an enemy?


        If you check the Wikipedia page for human shields:

        Authors Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini, elaborating on their book, Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire, discuss “proximate shields”, humans as shields merely due to proximity to belligerents and assert that this type has become “by far the most prominent type of shield in contemporary discourse”. They say that the proximate shielding accusation has been used by States to cover-up war crimes against civilian populations and that human rights organizations frequently fail to question this charge which they claim is being improperly used to justify civilian deaths.[7]

        There are several pieces that discuss this idea, but here are some.

        In this analysis piece of proximity shielding, we read:

        Our research suggests that human rights and humanitarian organizations have been complicit with this framing exercise and that it is urgent to have a frank conversation about human shields and the legal and political implications of the human shielding accusation. Both in our book and in several academic articles, we have shown that hi-tech States spend considerable resources on media campaigns and mobilize legal and military expertise to justify their use of lethal violence in cities where civilians are trapped.[ii] We describe how human shields, and particularly the charge of proximate shielding, are being widely used by States and their militaries to justify civilian deaths in asymmetric conflicts, and how it has become a major tool in what we have called the ‘erosion’ of the civilian. **

        If you turn your eyes back to the wiki page I first linked under the section on Israel and Palestine:

        Israel has used the charge, in what has been termed its ‘infowar’ on social media,[56] to explain the high ratio of civilian vs military casualties in its conflict with Gaza. In Operation Cast Lead 100 Gazans died for every Israeli, and the civilian ratio was 400 Gazans to 1 Israeli. Israeli spokesmen explained the difference by alleging that Hamas used civilians as shields. It has been argued that no evidence has come to light proving these claims.[57][58][59][60] In September 2004, Justice Aharon Barak presiding over the Israeli Supreme Court, issued a demand that the IDF desist from the practice of using Palestinians as human shields, and in October outlawed the procedure.[61] The independent human rights NGOs B’tselem and Amnesty International have stated that ample evidence exists in conflicts after that date that Israel has employed Palestinians as human shields. According to B’tselem, the practice goes back to 1967.[55][61]

        Finally, this article discusses the politics surrounding the idea of human shields

        By these means, entire populations and vast cities are reduced to war space. Prevailing hierarchies of humanity ensure that some places and some people are far more likely to find themselves expendable through the twisted logics and framings of the human shield.

        I hope this makes my point clear but basically: Israel is using proximity shielding (aka accusing Hamas of using civilians as human shields) to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and has itself had to outlaw the use of Palestinians as human shields because it was a normal part of Israeli military operations and totally allowed until all the human rights groups finally succeeded in outlawing it, and yet Israel still sometimes uses it.