The White House on Thursday said it was exploring a series of pauses in the Israel-Hamas conflict to help people safely exit Gaza and allow humanitarian aid to get in, but reiterated its opposition to a full ceasefire.

National security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that such pauses should be temporary and localized, and insisted they would not stop Israel from defending itself.

“What we’re trying to do is explore the idea of as many pauses as might be necessary to continue to get aid out and to continue to work to get people out safely, including hostages,” he told reporters at a regular White House briefing.

  • xenomor@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    If the US helps get people out of Gaza, and Israel eventually blocks their return, then the US has directly participated in ethnic cleansing. I mean, I think we are already culpable in Israel’s multifaceted war crime factory, but this is a remarkable escalation of that policy. I suppose that I’d have more respect for the US if it didn’t try to cloak its support of apartheid and genocide in feel good bullshit rhetoric like “democracy” and “defense” and “humanitarian pause”. In reality Israel is fascist ethnostate, this is a genocide, and we are facilitating ethnic cleansing. The Biden administration is monstrous.

    • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I’m genuinely curious, what course of action here could the US do that you wouldn’t criticize? If the US helps citizens evacuate a war zone, you call it ethnic cleansing. If the US instead didn’t do this and supported keeping them in Gaza, you’d say America is forcing them to be bombed to death.

      I can’t help but think that you’re fundamentally always going to criticize the US and then find a justification for it afterwards.

      • xenomor@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        How about restraining Israel so they aren’t bombing in such a dangerous manner. How about acting as a mediator to get the hostages released? How about pushing Israel to stop its self destructive and inhuman behavior including: settlements, occupation, apartheid, and actively promoting Hamas. How about not pushing to make arms sales to Israel secret. How about securing public assurances that refugees will be able to return. I don’t understand why these things are so exotic and difficult to imagine for so many people.

      • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        I fully support the US trying to initiate peace talks and take a hard-line stance of anyone breaking the peace. The fuckers who attacked folks partying in the desert absolutely instigated a terrible conflict… yes there are historical grievances but we had like a decade and a half of relative stability even while Bibi was encouraging illegal settlements. That, however, does not earn a response of ethnic cleansing.

        • filister@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Sorry what stability, check the numbers of casualties and injured people on both sides and tell me more about the stability and peace. https://www.ochaopt.org/data/casualties

          Not to mention the illegal settlements, displacement, and other methods Israel was oppressing Palestinians. That’s far from a recipe for a long standing peace, isn’t it?

      • Orvorn@slrpnk.net
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        1 year ago

        Any time the US (or any other major world power) does anything I’m going to question the motive, as it’s likely motivated by greed. However, in a hypothetical where I could make the US do whatever I want in this one specific time and place, I would force a regime change in Israel to one that is, at the very least, less bloodthirsty. At the most, one that would initiate a peaceful retreat of Israeli settlers from all native Palestinian land.

      • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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        1 year ago

        Maybe just stay the fuck out of it and worry about the shitheap of problems we’ve got domestically

      • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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        1 year ago

        Call for complete seize fire, get foreigner national out, negotiation for hostage release, initiate peace talk, send peace keeping troop via UN to West Bank, so on and so forth. There’s a lot of thing a world leader can do to stop the war, instead he decided to be a yes man for a far right war criminal, sabotage every call for seize fire and keep emphasise on “right to defend” and “condemn hamas” like a broken clock. Do note that his decision help escalate the tension within the region.

        • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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          1 year ago

          get foreigner national out

          Actively working on it.

          negotiation for hostage release

          Actively working on it.

          initiate peace talk

          Being discussed

          send peace keeping troop via UN to West Bank

          I’m pretty sure you would call this more western imperialism.

          Keep emphasize […] “condemn hamas”

          If you don’t think that Hamas should be condemned, that says more about you than it does about Joe Biden.

          It’s ‘ceasefire’, by the way.

          • Annoyed_🦀 @monyet.cc
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            1 year ago

            get foreigner national out: Actively working on it.

            would be better if there’s a ceasefire.

            negotiation for hostage release: Actively working on it.

            would be better if there’s a ceasefire.

            initiate peace talk: Being discussed

            a discussion on what happened to the ruin of Gaza is not a peace talk.

            send peace keeping troop via UN to West Bank: I’m pretty sure you would call this more western imperialism.

            Not if it’s under UN.

            Keep emphasize […] “condemn hamas”: If you don’t think that Hamas should be condemned, that says more about you than it does about Joe Biden.

            No where did i say Hamas should not be condemned, only that “condemning hamas” should not take precedence over ceasefire.

            It’s ‘ceasefire’, by the way.

            noted.

          • TheDankHold@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            No the Israeli settlers stealing land in the West Bank is already western imperialism. What they’re suggesting is sending people to stop the imperialism.

    • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I agree with everything you said.

      And simultaneously, I’m thinking about how that’s going to be used as a bullet point for GOP activists to push their campaign next year, and there’s a decent chance it’ll be Trump. If Trump was still calling the shots, he’d be screaming at his generals to send half of our B-52s to carpet-bomb Gaza into dust.

      I hate that we are forced to choose between “participating in ethnic cleaning” and “enthusiastically participating in ethnic cleansing” for our national leadership.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There’s three options for people.

        1. Actively vote for helping with ethnic cleansing

        2. Actively vote for even worse ethnic cleansing

        3. Actively do something else, with the end result being either ethnic cleansing or worse ethnic cleansing

        There’s really nothing else we can do for the elections.