I said nothing about Israeli Arabs or even Palestinians in general (though I'm sure I can find statements about Palestinians in general).
But these are clearly statements about Gazans in general, not some specific subset of Gazans. Mr Herzog is clearly saying, or at the very least heavily implying, that Gazans in general are bitter enemies of Israel. Not every single Gazan, but Gazans in general. He could have said "there was some small group of Gazans that [...]". He could have said "There are some X thousand Gazans that [...]". But he didn't: he chose to say "Gazan civilians", without any other discriminant.
> "Israeli politicians openly call the Palestinians "our bitter enemies"."
As I said the bulk of statements from Israeli military, politicians, and government, in Hebrew and in English say that the war in Gaza is not against civilians but against Hamas. If you insist on cherry picking some statements and building your story on those then I would respectfully ask that you reconsider.
I would also urge you look at surveys and see what Gazans think about Israelis instead of obsessing with the (IMO not true) idea that Israelis consider Gazans their bitter enemy. Find me surveys before Oct 7th that show that Israelis had more negative opinions about Gazans than Gazans held about Israelis overall and I'm open to changing my position. I also urge you to see footage of Oct 7th and ask yourself a question about the mindset towards Israelis leading to these actions.
I did not, that was another poster. I specifically talked about Gazans.
> As I said the bulk of statements from Israeli military, politicians, and government, in Hebrew and in English say that the war in Gaza is not against civilians but against Hamas. If you insist on cherry picking some statements and building your story on those then I would respectfully ask that you reconsider.
They say they are not fighting against the civilians through one corner of their mouth, and say the civilians are bitter monsters that cheered as Israelis were slaughtered (as you are claiming as well) through the other corner of their mouth. In the meantime, their hands are busy destroying hospitals, schools, universities, killing journalists, killing aid workers, killing doctors and nurses, killing children, preventing aid of any kind from entering the country, and so on.
Not to mention, for every video of one Palestinian or Gazan cheering on the Hamas crimes of October 7th you find, I'll find a similar video of an Israeli citizen or soldier cheering when a school is destroyed or a "terrorist" killed. Both are heinous, but a lot of people, like yourself apparently, pretend only Gaza has monsters that take pleasure in the killing of civilians.
And still it must be remembered that Gazans are being actively occupied by Israel, a state which has no intention whatsoever as recognizing them as an independent nation, nor allowing those of them that wish to to return to the homes they had to abandon in the fighting of only a few decades ago. I personally cut oppressed people some small amount of slack when they feel vindicated for their oppressors feeling some amount of the oppression they feel every day, as bad as it is to think like that (note that more than 200 Gazan civilians were being killed per year even before the current slaughter began).
The actions of these politicians are more important than their words.
According to Amnesty International (which has a separate report detailing Palestinian war crimes), the politicians you are defending directly authorized the killing of 10,000’s of children, the maiming of 10,000’s more, torture of civilians (often to death, and including residents of Israel), created a famine that lead to a 93% starvation rate last winter, and also committed systematic violations of LGBTI’s rights in Israel.
There are many, many more war crimes enumerated in the report, and it also documents the connection to top Israeli officials.
The above is indefensible, as are the actions of Hamas.
The UN has revised its estimate of the number of children killed to 7,797 admitting the "fog of war" makes it hard to know how many were killed. The definition of "child" is anyone under 18yo which can include combatants. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-69014893
The UN numbers come from Hamas, there is no independent verification of those numbers and Hamas is a side to the conflict.
Either way, your statement about "authorizing the killing of 10's of thousands of children" is false.
I'm not sure what systemic violation of LGBT right you're referring to. The LGBTQ+ community in Israel has no issues unlike anywhere else in the middle east (for example). Israel ranks above most countries in the world in LGBT legal rights and friendliness: https://www.equaldex.com/equality-index
I don't know what 93% starvation rate you're talking about. This is just an outright lie. Also straight from Hamas. This lie has been repeated endlessly since the war started but somehow the markets are still full of food. People (e.g. Hamas) are also stealing aid and re-selling it.
Everything happening in Gaza is a result of war. Yes, Israeli went to war after Oct 7th, which Israel's government has authorized. The goal of the war is to destroy Hamas something that is within Israel's legitimate right to self defense. These outcomes you're describing including civilian casualties, hunger, etc. are not just a function of Israel's decision, they're also a function of Hamas' decision to hold onto its hostages and continue fighting. The reason for the war is Hamas attacking Israel. Hamas, the government of Gaza, is responsible for the condition of the people it governs.
> The UN numbers come from Hamas, there is no independent verification of those numbers and Hamas is a side to the conflict.
There are no other numbers for Palestinian casulaties. The Israeli state and military have continuously and vehemently refused to provide any numbers of their own (recently in a very embarrassing way on Piers Morgan's show, of all people). In contrast, the Gaza Ministry of Health numbers are considered very high quality by the UN and by all humanitarian organizations working in the region, and have been consistently confirmed for years. Sure, the ministry of health is run by Hamas, but that is only because they are the official ruling party in Gaza. Its not like trusting numbers reported by Al Quaida or ISIS.
Not to mention, those numbers represent a significant undercount of casulaties, since they only count confirmed deaths of people whom the health ministry could specifically identify. People lost in the rubble, small communities that were killed or starved and were not reported, etc are all not counted in these numbers. You can go and check the name and address of each and every one of those 7,797 children, and confirm that they are indeed dead.
Edit: If the IDF or Israel want to refute those numbers, it is extremely easy to do so: they can provide their own numbers, their own methodology, and allow independent experts to study them, like the ministry of health has. "Mysteriously", they have entirely failed to do so, just like they have failed to price that the hospitals they were bombing were Hamas control centers, and many other bogus claims they are making.
I would disagree with you. Those numbers are exactly like numbers that would come from ISIS or Al Qaeda. Hamas uses violence including torture and summary executions to force compliance in Gaza. Nobody in Gaza will work against Hamas or disobey an order from Hamas. There is no "independent health department" as some would like to portray. No such thing. The same methods are used towards UN or humanitarian organizations operating in Gaza and the people employed by those organizations are mostly Gazans.
Even according to Hamas officials many of the the casualties are based on "self reporting" and/or so called "media reports". Even they do not claim that the count is as accurate as you claim.
Nobody can check the "names and addresses" of those Hamas declared to be dead. For one thing there has been huge movement of people and even Hamas doesn't know who is where, for another there's no way for anyone to independently check on this.
The IDF released plenty of evidence of fighting Hamas in hospitals by the way. It also released interrogation videos where Hamas operatives describe their use of hospitals. Probably not in the news you choose to consume.
I think the IDF simply does not know. I think Netanyahu said something like 14,000 combatants and 16,000 civilians is the estimate.
The numbers were as accurate as I stated for the beginning of the war. It's true that as Israel kept destroying all of Gaza's civilian infrastructure (hospitals, power, government offices, everything), they have started relying on less reliable sources, which they fully discuss, and clearly estimate how many numbers are directly known and how many are more complex estimates. I was a little vague perhaps in not going into all of these details. The fact remains that all international organizations view these numbers as highly reliable, including the UN, WHO, Human Rights Watch, and many parts of the US government (despite Biden publically claiming these numbers are not refutable).
And in fact Netanyahu has all but confirmed these numbers himself. The "about 30,000" number, with no other details about provenance, accuracy, methodology, etc, is basically an excellent confirmation of the Hamas numbers.
> The IDF released plenty of evidence of fighting Hamas in hospitals by the way. It also released interrogation videos where Hamas operatives describe their use of hospitals. Probably not in the news you choose to consume.
They staged a few photo shoots of weapons they "found in the hospital", and showed some tunnels under one of the hospitals that Ehud Barak himself confirmed live in an interview with Christiane Amanpoor were actually built by Israel back when it controlled Gaza. So, no, they have not actually presented any evidence whatsoever, anymore than Avengers was evidence of an alien invasion in NYC. No journalists were ever allowed to investigate this evidence on their own, nor have any other kind of investigators.
> I think the IDF simply does not know. I think Netanyahu said something like 14,000 combatants and 16,000 civilians is the estimate.
Than it should shut up immediately about (1) the "Hamas" numbers that they just confirmed being "inaccurate", and (2) any pretense that they care about not slaughtering civilians, if they don't even know how many they are murdering.
But these are clearly statements about Gazans in general, not some specific subset of Gazans. Mr Herzog is clearly saying, or at the very least heavily implying, that Gazans in general are bitter enemies of Israel. Not every single Gazan, but Gazans in general. He could have said "there was some small group of Gazans that [...]". He could have said "There are some X thousand Gazans that [...]". But he didn't: he chose to say "Gazan civilians", without any other discriminant.