[lukan]

To be honest, I do prefer drug dealers over Hamas islamists in general. And where exactly is the proof the gangs are connected to ISIS?

"The basis for Lieberman’s allegation of ties to IS was unclear."

It is easy to throw dirt and hope something sticks, but the main thing speaking against his group seems Netanjahu's support in my opinion. But otherwise I don't see the scandal so much here. Especially not compared to the scandal of intentionally targeting civilian population and indiscriminate killing of starving people like the article states.

Edit: But I just read

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerem_Shalom_aid_convoy_loot...

And well, that is indeed better to show who we are dealing with, ruthless criminals who loot and shoot a UN aid convoy for profit.

[regularization]

> I do prefer drug dealers over Hamas islamists

Netanyahu prefers Hamas, he was propping them up prior to the current battles, according to the New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...

Also, if, as in the recent New York City mayoral debate, US politicians are supposed to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, which it recognizes itself as, then I don't see the big deal over Palestine as an Islamic state. I myself would prefer to see a secular PFLP state, but the Zionist entity, US, Canada etc. fight against the PFLP, proscribe them as "terrorists" etc.

[lukan]

"he was propping them up prior to the current battles"

Those words indicate something different, than allowing quatari money to reach the civilian part of Hamas government as part of a temporary peace deal. Because that sounds actually reasonable to me.

Now there is indeed more, like this:

"Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right politician who is now Mr. Netanyahu’s finance minister, put it bluntly in 2015, the year he was elected to Parliament.

“The Palestinian Authority is a burden,” he said. “Hamas is an asset.”"

But those words came without context (just a youtube video, that I won't watch right now).

[LunaSea]

Palestinians preferred them as well since they elected Hamas.

[FireBeyond]

When was the last actual election?

[nelox]

Ironically, the closest you will get to something approaching that type of Marxist-Leninist utopia in the Middle East, is living in an Israeli kibbutz near the border with Gaza.

[LudwigNagasena]

Why is a civic state in the Middle East is utopia? Do you think that the US not based on white nationalism is also a Marxist-Leninist utopia?

[ben_w]

> To be honest, I do prefer drug dealers over Hamas islamists in general. And where exactly is the proof the gangs are connected to ISIS?

A simple dealer vs an armed wing of a religious theocracy who think people like me are the devil incarnate, I'd pick the dealer.

An organised armed drug network that necessarily has to be at least comparable strength to an existing network of religious theocrats who are obviously getting external support owing to the ability to continue fighting despite the evidence of systematic destruction of their civil environment that satellite imagery shows has been in aggregate comparable in scope and depth to a nuke going off…

I don't want either of them anywhere near anyone I care about. Even if the latter wasn't associated with a different group of religious zealots.

[xg15]

It gets ugly at the latest when remembering that "looting" was always a core part of the Israeli narrative to explain the humanitarian crisis.

Even before the current siege/semi-siege, the standard response to calls from aid orgs had been essentially "Look, it's not us. We're letting in aid, but it's not our fault if Palestinian armed gangs themselves are looting it after we let it in. Palestinians are just too stupid to organize their own survival."

Of course that response was already ridiculous back then: The 1000s of aid trucks stuck at the Egypt-Gazan border are definitely not kept there by Hamas or armed gangs. Even the looting attacks themselves were suspicions: Aid orgs kept reporting they were happening in areas under full control of the IDF - and IDF was forbidding using any other route[1]:

> Israel is doing the opposite of ensuring aid can be delivered to Palestinians in need. For example, a U.N. memo recently obtained by the Washington Post concluded that the armed gangs looting aid convoys could be “benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” and “protection” from Israel’s military, and that a gang leader had a military-like compound in an area “restricted, controlled and patrolled” by the Israeli military.

The gangs operate in areas under Israeli control, often within eyeshot of Israeli forces. When convoys are looted, Israeli forces watch and do nothing, even when aid workers request assistance. Israeli forces refer to one area about a kilometer from its Kerem Shalom border checkpoint as “the looting zone.” The IDF-designated looting zone might be the only place in Gaza that Israeli forces won’t shoot an armed Palestinian.

But there was still at least some benefit of the doubt that the armed gangs were just some ordinary criminals exploiting the situation. Claims that the gangs themselves were operating under Israeli orders were conspiracy theories.

Netanyahu now confirmed those theories as reality.

[1] https://responsiblestatecraft.org/gaza-aid/

[aaomidi]

> To be honest, I do prefer drug dealers over Hamas islamists in general. And where exactly is the proof the gangs are connected to ISIS?

Comments like this coming from an audience currently not being genocided is going to haunt our history forever.

[lukan]

Can you get a bit more specific here?

Because it kind of reads like an attack towards me for not caring about genocide. If you are curious about my point of view, it is that both Hamas and Israeli leadership belongs in prison and the US and EU should stop supporting them immediately. But that doesn't mean I support anyone who wants to erease Israel. Do you support Hamas?

[Fraterkes]

This is an article about idf warcrimes, I think the comment you are responding to is just pointing out that you are immediately pivotting to condemning Hamas

[navane]

But the comment he's responding to already talks primerely about Hamas, it's not he who switched the topic from IDFs horrors to Hamas crimes.

> I guess the Israeli government's original plan to arm and support drug gangs and literally ISIS (euphemistically called 'clans') as "aid security" wasn't working out? Especially after it was revealed said "security" was stealing and reselling the food aid under the protection of IDF while the Israeli govt. and media blamed the looting on Hamas.

To which he responded his opinions about drug and faith dealers.

[aaomidi]

Asking if I support Hamas makes this unworthy of a response.

[lukan]

You could just state "no", if you don't, then I would have apologized.

But you gave a response, but avoided the question. Together with your comment history and wording I do conclude now that you do.

[freen]

Well, Israel could have worked with the UN… it’s not the like choices are ONLY Hamas or Drug Dealers.

Unless, of course, delivering aid is not actually your intent.