Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders said Sunday he doesn’t know that a ceasefire is possible in the Israel-Hamas war with “an organization like Hamas” involved.
“I don’t know how you can have a ceasefire, (a) permanent ceasefire, with an organization like Hamas, which is dedicated to turmoil and chaos and destroying the state of Israel,” Sanders told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” Sunday.
Hamas ran on an entirely different platform (of moderation) to a different group of voters. Why not see what happens?
Convince the EU to support sanctions until an election. That’s what’s keeping Hamas going.
Netanyahu has been seen sending covert money to Hamas and has been alleged on multiple times to have said that Hamas is good for the Israeli government (which might have been true before October).
Sanctions would simply be an expansion of the siege. Collective punishment is against the Geneva conventions. What grounds are there to sanction a people for having a government they themselves dislike but which they are forbidden from voting out of power? Further, how is that better than organizing a vote? Palestinians will starve to death between then and now, if they’re sanctioned.
You can’t continue to give Hamas more money and claim to support elections in Gaza. Giving them money is defacto support for a non-democratic Gaza Strip.
I don’t want to give Hamas money, because I don’t support Hamas. I want to give Palestinian people access to food, water, healthcare, safe shelter and education, ideally through NGOs, until an election can be held.
Then, if the government elected is Hamas or worse, you still support the populace through NGOs, because they’re still people, and lack of education and stability have never made a group less extremist. The cost of basic social services and life supports for a few million people is far smaller than the cost of the weapons to eradicate them
Israel has in the last month specifically targeted hospitals, schools, Red Cross/red crescent vehicles, and MSF operations. That’s why the ceasefire is a necessary first step.
You can’t do both as long as Hamas rules the strip. You can give Palestinians aid in the West Bank and in Lebanon and Jordan; but not in the Gaza Strip.
What the last few months have shown is that aid meant for individuals is stolen by Hamas to fund terrorism. Unless the UN or EU puts troops on the ground to police the aid; funding the Strip will be finding terrorism to a large degree.
Let’s keep the ceasefire and hold an election then.
How does Hamas turn bandages and water into bombs?
Why not use the preexisting NGOs?
If troops on the ground are truly required, then let’s use them! The other option is genocide. We should ask Palestinians what they would prefer, but this is why peacekeeping forces exist.
A ceasefire doesn’t make elections possible.
They steal the supplies and then they sell them back to Palestinians (and smuggle them out) for cash.
The current NGOs have proven that not only can they not ensure aid doesn’t go to Hamas’ military/terrorism activities; in the case of most of them funding those activities is part of the goal. As they’ve regularly had reports of the misuse of aid over the last 20 years and have done nothing about it.
The Palestinians will kill your troops and use your aid dollars to reward the families of those who do so.
Ultimately, there are plenty of starving, impoverished people in the world and limited aid dollars from the West. We should quit investing those dollars I’m Palestine and start investing them in places where they’ll be better used.
The West has invested like 6 per capital Marshall Plans into the Gaza Strip and it’s been squandered. How much more should we waste before we decide to help people that will use that aid to better themselves?
No, Israel needs to allow elections.
Then it’s a supply problem. If significantly more aid is allowed in and distributed freely, there won’t be much profit to be made.
How do they do that? They’ve currently got about 1100 calories per person and have had very little water for the last six weeks. The troops are well supplied, armed, and armored. There might be an occasional ied attack, but Palestinians are not going to mount a significant resistance against UN troops distributing aid fairly among the people.
That could be said about any group of people. Unfortunately, the less money and infrastructure people have, the more money it takes to get them independent, so the places that need aid most will be the least “efficient” uses of that money.
Literally as much as people are willing to give, which is a lot. How can we watch people starved and oppressed to the point of desperation for decades, then turn our backs because they’re… acting out of desperation? People need basic security before they can make long term decisions, so punishing them for not having security is barbaric.