Originally published at: UK and German foreign ministers call for "sustainable" ceasefire in Gaza, ex-Defense Minister writes of Netanyahu's shame-fueled "killing rage" | Boing Boing
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Meh. Stop vetoing it then motherfuckers.
Cease fire now. No conditions. They’ve killed nearly 20,000 civilians. Russia has just reached 10,000 in nearly two years of brutal war in Ukraine.
Hypocrisy now. And how.
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Do we know for certain whether Netanyahu’s reaction is one of “shame-filled killing rage,” or more along the lines of “This! This is what we’ve been waiting for!”?
Because from the outside, the current efforts to render Gaza uninhabitable feel less like a panicked frenzy and more like the implementation of long-held goals that lacked only the proper pretext for them to be put into effect.
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The thing about shame is that it’s something you do to yourself, so the performance of shaming others is inherently theatrical, it doesn’t really imply that he is actually feeling shame. More like “he should feel shame” as a kind of fractal iteration of the traditional English tut.
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Immediate ceasefire and immediate removal of Netanyahu and his government! Even just a brief dire muse over the discovery that Netanyahu (and his cronies) were promoting the funding of Hamas should convince even the most vengeful that it’s way past time for a change in government in Israel
NYT link
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gambled that a strong Hamas (but not too strong) would keep the peace and reduce pressure for a Palestinian state. … For years, the Qatari government had been sending millions of dollars a month into the Gaza Strip — money that helped prop up the Hamas government there. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel not only tolerated those payments, he had encouraged them.
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Yeah, for sure the Tories will be mealy mouthed in their criticism, but I’d still say this is a significant pivot. I can’t see Israel coming back from this. Sympathy for the Palestinians is no longer the fringe left issue I grew up with.
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That’s dire, and, I suppose, true
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Now that the Israeli military has given up even the pretense that they’re not just wholesale slaughtering civilians (as evidenced by the killing of the hostages, etc.), I suppose it gets harder to toe the government line (that Israel should be allowed to do whatever it wants).
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The governments of the west are not in tune with their electorates over this. Young people in particular are outraged by what they see (not without some reason) as a genocide of the Palestinians.
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But do the governments of the west actually have any ability to changed Israel’s policy?
I don’t think they do. the govts can tisk-tisk Israel, could probably withhold some future loans or arms sales, but can they effect immediate action?
Which is what partially baffles me about some on the left who are angry at Biden bc Israel continues to kill people. I can’t see how Biden, or the kind of England, or the French govt, etc, can actually stop what’s going on in Gaza.
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The US provides Israel with material support. It just vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire. Maybe it couldn’t do anything to rein in Netanyahu’s indiscriminate killings and assorted other war crimes, but you sure can’t say it has applied any real pressure to try.
Seriously, how is “yes, we stand with the genocidaires, but it’s not like we control them” a serious argument? America uses its influence for better or worse all the time, but suddenly a few thousand civilians are wiped out by an allied government and we’re supposed to believe it has none at all?
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If we’re talking about the United States specifically, then yes. I don’t think there is any question, in any part of the political spectrum, that Israel’s ability to do this stuff is entirely dependent on unconditional US support.
Securing that support is a central issue in Israeli politics, and Netanyahu’s career is at least partly based on his claimed skill as an America whisperer. If Joe Biden refused to send Israel any more aid until a ceasefire was in place, it might send a tidal wave of cash into the Turmp campaign, but a ceasefire there would be.
Even aside from the geopolitics, on a purely physical level, Israel couldn’t keep dropping American bombs at the current rate if they didn’t have a guaranteed supply coming in. America not only has influence, it is the direct source of the infinite-ammo glitch that Israel’s Gaza campaign is based on.
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… the concept of a “two state solution” seems out of step with reality, in that no regime has been able to control both Gaza and the West Bank, and with no reason to expect differently in the future
The actual choices would be one state or three 
… among other things
Maybe the point shouldn’t be to “control” them, but rather to give them a functioning government that provides them actual services? 
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What are you, some sort of socialist?
/s
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@bobtato , @chenille Thank you for the reasoned posts. My opinion is that we have enough economic and military leverage with Israel to sway their longer term behavior, but not to stop their killing spree outright. Perhaps we could (quietly) threaten to alter the long term relationship, and that could bring about a quick cease fire? I doubt any other western nation has even that amount of leverage, though.
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