The Gaza War Has Convinced Russia It Was Right All Along By Nikita Smagin Updated: Dec. 18, 2023 https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023...onvinced-russia-it-was-right-all-along-a83468 The conflict in the Middle East is the perfect crisis for Russia, which is reaping a whole host of political benefits. The confrontation between Israel and Hamas has not only boosted the Kremlin’s hopes of changing the mood around the war in Ukraine, but also strengthened its belief that the Western-centric system of international relations is breaking down. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 put an end to most internal Western disagreements when it came to Russia, uniting countries on both sides of the Atlantic. But the Israel-Hamas war has seen divisions resurface at a state level: while the United States insists Israel has a right to self-defense, there have been bitter disagreements between European countries about what position the European Union should take. There are also societal divides, with protests by opponents and supporters of Israel taking place regularly from Washington to Stockholm. Even state agencies are not immune to these differing views, with media reports of widespread discontent among U.S. officials with the White House’s pro-Israel stance. Against this backdrop, the war in Ukraine has slipped down the agenda. The United States has said it will provide help to both Israel and Ukraine. But how long can it really be fully engaged in two major conflicts? Moscow’s hopes that the West will eventually tire of providing open-ended support for Kyiv have never looked so justified. In addition, Washington’s pro-Israel stance undermines the legitimacy of the West’s broader reasons for supporting Ukraine in the eyes of many in the Global South. The moral argument against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now looks like empty words, particularly in Middle East nations. Photos of the ruins in Gaza, reports of thousands of dead children, and the outrage of humanitarian organizations have made a deep impression on people in the developing world. People can argue endlessly about the reasons for the war in Ukraine, or Israel’s operation in Gaza, but for many the conclusion is obvious: the United States was critical of Russia when it killed innocent civilians in Ukraine, and now it is silent when its ally Israel does the same thing in Gaza.
Putin and the Kremlin will grasp at any possible straw to claim they are "right". The two situations are totally different and there is no parallel between them -- no matter how much the absurd Russian propaganda tries to twist it.
Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich: "The trouble with Gaza is that it's full of Gazans". Israeli minister reiterates calls for Palestinians to leave Gaza Israel’s far-right finance minister says Israelis who would replace the Palestinians would ‘make the desert bloom’. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023...iterates-calls-for-palestinians-to-leave-gaza
As Israel eliminates the terrorist leaders and militants one by one -- suddenly Hamas is open to negotiations about the hostages again. It is a shame that Hamas has appears to execute most of the hostages at this points -- so there is little to negotiate over. Hamas waives demand for IDF withdrawal, open to hostages-for-prisoners deal - report The terrorist group is now open to the release of 40 hostages in exchange for 120 prisoners held by Israel, the report said. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-780406
Bottom Line: The situation in Gaza is a tragedy --- a tragedy which Hamas is solely responsible for. Countries have the right to defend themselves against terrorists whose sole intent is to wipe a nation and its people off the face of the earth. Israel is following the “principle of distinction” as per International Humanitarian Law (IHL) including following the three principles (distinction, precaution, proportionality) in its military actions. The moral tragedy of Gaza - opinion The loss of civilian life, their homes, and livelihoods is a tragedy, a disaster. It is even a crime – but one for which the liability must be laid solely at the doorstep of Hamas. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-780243 During World War II, far, far more German and Japanese civilians were killed than American and British civilians. More than 300,000 German civilians and more than 200,000 Japanese civilians were killed by allied strategic bombing alone, leaving the starvation, disease, forced mass displacement, and general hellish suffering and deprivation that come with war. The wisdom and morality of the allied bombing campaigns has been rightly questioned. Still, today, no one questions the basic rightness of the allied cause. And no one would be so foolish as to suggest that the higher Axis body count made them the victims in the war and the Allies the aggressors. This is because, on an intuitive level, the moral mind understands that suffering per se is not a moral category. Suffering more does not make you a more ethical person – while suffering less does not make you an oppressor. It is true that often, throughout history, aggressors have profited from the oppression of suffering victims. We need not look further than the era of colonialism or thousands of years of institutionalized slavery to see plentiful examples of such injustice. But sometimes, conversely, justice is done, and then it is the aggressor who ends up suffering more. The aggressor’s suffering does not indemnify them, and the victory of the defenders against aggression does not compromise the justness of their fight. All this makes sense to most of the world most of the time. What is Israel doing to the Palestinians? It certainly should make sense to the horde of smug media commentators fighting relentlessly to keep the focus of the international community on the horrific humanitarian situation in Gaza. But now, of course, there are Jews involved, and when it comes to the Jews the rules change. It is true, they say, that Hamas violated every rule of war and humanitarian norm imaginable on October 7, and it might be true that they continue to do so by fighting disguised as civilians and using hospitals and schools as military bases, but (always look after the “but”) that is not “the story.” The story is what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, because the Palestinians are suffering more. What is Israel doing to the Palestinians? To date, more than 1.5 million people have been displaced. (We might say “made refugees” but most were already – or at least saw themselves as such.) Sixty percent of built-up areas have been demolished, so most refugees will have no homes to return to. More than 20,000 people have been killed, if we are to believe the Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not trouble itself to distinguish in these statistics between combatants and civilians – so let us put the number of civilian deaths at “many.” The destitute masses of humanity crowded into UN schools and camps in southern Gaza have completely inadequate housing, food, and medical care. Some are starving; many are dying in agony of diseases that cannot be treated for want of medicine. All are cold. Can such a state of suffering and misery possibly be justified, under any circumstances? Yes, as a matter of fact. The principle of distinction makes demands on both sides The laws of war mandate that all belligerent powers do their utmost to distance fighting from civilians in order to protect them. Noncombatants cannot be a target of hostilities. In International Humanitarian Law (IHL) this is called the “principle of distinction.” But the law also recognizes that if one side flouts these rules by fighting from civilian areas, that cannot tie the hands of the law-abiding side. To do so would be unjust. And so, if a hospital or school – which is a protected area under international law – is used to store weapons or fighters, it becomes a legitimate military target, provided two conditions are met. First, the attack against the target must do its best to minimize civilian casualties, for example by using a smaller bomb to destroy only the room or apartment in question, or by dropping leaflets warning civilians to flee. (This is the “principle of precaution.”) Second, it must weigh the military advantage gained from the strike against the civilian loss of life that would ensue, to ensure that it is not, say, killing 100 innocent children just to get to one lone fighter. (This is the “principle of proportionality.”) As long as the fighting force adheres to these three principles (distinction, precaution, proportionality), its attacks are lawful. And while the IDF makes mistakes, and while individual soldiers or commanders can make bad or even reprehensible decisions, the army as a whole devotes enormous resources – including large offices of military lawyers whose entire job is this – to ensure that its strikes follow these principles. This is what makes the IDF a law-abiding, moral army, and that is what makes its strikes just, even when they inevitably kill Palestinian (or, for that matter, Israeli) civilians and destroy their property because terrorist armies cannot be allowed to make themselves invulnerable by hiding among noncombatants. The loss of civilian life, their homes, and livelihoods is a tragedy, a disaster. It is even a crime – but one for which the liability must be laid solely at the doorstep of Hamas, the terrorist army that chooses to use its own people as human shields. History will judge people's moral clarity- or lack thereof- on Gaza THIS IS the moral lynchpin of the Gaza war and, more generally, all of Israel’s asymmetric conflicts with the Palestinians. One hundred years from now, when we have all moved on, the moral integrity of analysts and statesmen in assessing this conflict will be judged on this question: Did you understand that – to the extent that the IDF obeyed the laws of war – the inevitable horrific suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza was the fault of Hamas? If you are able to say this, you will be vindicated by history. If not, you will be damned. All those whose moral judgment is not clouded by the fashionable sophisms of the modern West see that there is a right side and a wrong side to this war, a side that systematically follows humanitarian law and norms and a side that systematically breaks them. Yes, that makes this a war between good and evil. We must not be afraid to say it: Those who target the innocent for murder, torture, and rape are evil. Their supporters are evil, their apologists are evil, and those who knowingly cooperate with their twisted propaganda war are evil. As for those on the sidelines who stubbornly refuse to see the simple truth that you are moral not when you suffer, but when you act morally – they are at the very least sorry rubes in a moral tragedy that is unfolding on a global scale. World pressure continues to mount on the State of Israel to relent in its pursuit of Hamas, agreeing to a long-term ceasefire that leaves its murderous leadership in place to continue its unceasing total war against Israel. It goes without saying that to do so would be a double evil, accomplishing all this terrible hurt to Palestinian life without achieving safety and justice for the Israeli people. It would be a defeat not only for Israel, but for all that is decent and right. And so, it falls to us Israelis, in the face of such pressure, not to flinch, but to remain adamant. A world in which murderers can massacre with impunity by hiding behind innocents is neither just nor safe. And the hypocrites who would have us, of all the peoples on Earth, sacrifice generations of our own children at the altar of their moral perversity will live in infamy forever.
It might be the moscow times but hard to argue w/the opinions expressed here. They're totally different in that Israel's acted much worse. They have killed a higher number of civilians, a higher number of infants, have struck more hospitals and schools, and demolished more civilian infrastructure in a much shorter amount of time than Putin has. Israel lost the moral high ground 48 hrs into their counterattack. If you want to blame Hamas having struck first and ignore the Al-Aqsa raid and other violence following the embassy move to Jerusalem that is. A convenient approach if you want to give Israel's war crimes a pass and buy into your boy's Bibi's opinion that investigating Israel for war crimes is "antisemitic".
......The newspaper became online-only in July 2017 and launched its Russian-language service in 2020. In 2022, its headquarters were relocated to Amsterdam in the Netherlands in response to restrictive media laws enacted in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine. The website was later banned in Russia. Some American foreign correspondents started their careers at the paper, including Ellen Barry, who later became The New York Times' Moscow bureau chief. ........On 15 April, Roskomnadzor blocked access to the Russian-language website of The Moscow Times in Russia after it had published what authorities called a false report on Russian riot police officers refusing to participate in the invasion. To make the website available within Russia despite blocks, it registered a range of domain names, sending links to the next current domain to readers via Telegram when one is blocked. On March 17, The Moscow Times said it has been designated a ‘foreign agent’ by Russia's justice ministry. Russian justice ministry accused the Moscow Times of spreading inaccurate information about authorities’ decisions, thereby forming a negative image of Russia. The Moscow Times said that the "foreign agent" legislation had been "disproportionately used”. WIKI
for those keeping tabs: hamas=hamas reporters=hamas civilians=hamas women=hamas children=hamas palestinian=hamas Israel protesters=hamas Palestinian supporters=hamas Harvard students=hamas Harvard president=hamas hospitals=hamas schools=hamas refugee camps=hamas doctors w/o borders=hamas UN workers=hamas
The Jews like to remind the world of the holocaust and how they were once victims. One day the Gaza fighting will cease. I'm wondering if those responsible for razing Gaza to the ground will proudly like to remind the world and remind their children and grandchildren of their involvement in the wholesale slaughter of thousands of innocent unarmed Palestinian civilians living next door. Somehow Israel currently believe that bully revenge feels good largely due to American support. If America wasn't there stoking the fire I bet this wouldn't have happened. I'm looking forward to Trump and the Republican Party being relected, then we'll see some more revenge in action and everything will truly turn to shit, you can then thank the Jewish lobbyists, the evangelicals and Biden for that. Biden will be voted out because he's a proven political asshole. Corruption breeds corruption.