Israeli bulldozers demolish most of a West Bank hamlet, displacing dozens of Palestinians

[Eko]

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli military bulldozers demolished most of a Palestinian Bedouin village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Monday, taking out the hamlet’s infrastructure and leaving residents wandering amid the rubble of their homes. The bulldozers rolled into Khalet Al-Dab in the morning, taking down most of the village’s structures, said Basel Adra, a filmmaker, journalist and activist from the area.

Nine homes, five tents and five animal pens were demolished, said Mohammed Rabia, head of the village council in the area.

COGAT, the Israeli military body responsible for administrative affairs in the occupied West Bank, said it demolished the buildings because they were built illegally in an area designated as a closed firing zone.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-west-bank-palestinians-demolition-masafer-yatta-6170aef3114eaf84ceaef3dfa873ac3d

[Dave Bowman]

1. War criminals gonna crime.

[brush]

2. Yes, that's what's happening. The warmongers have...

appropriated the phrase "from the river to the sea." And they're showing they mean it and are doing it in the open.

All this removal of the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza will not end with these crimes by a pariah nation.

It's so clear that these crimes will keep the violence going for who knows how many more decades.

Just cruel inhumanity. No feeling for the poor villagers who lost everything.

[Dave Bowman]

3. "a pariah nation"

Yes, I'm afraid that it's what they have become.

[Beastly Boy]

5. I keep hearing "a pariah nation" over and over again. Can you explain?

In international rankings, Israel ranks
-in the top 15% on the economy
-in the top 10% on free speech
-in the top 20% on globalization
-in the top 35% on human development and society
-in the top 35% on politics
-in the top 25% on technology
-and in the top 55% on tourism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_rankings_of_Israel

I am not a fan of baseless sloganeering. What makes Israel a pariah nation?

[Eko]

6. Killing a lot of innocent civilians when they didnt have to.

[Beastly Boy]

7. Clearly, that didn't make Israel a pariah nation.

Perhaps you have some unconventional definition of "pariah nation" that is not reflected in Israel's standings? Or perhaps your presumptions of Israel's standings doesn't reflect reality?

[Eko]

8. No, pretty sure I know what it means.

pa·ri·ah
/pəˈrīə/
noun
noun: pariah; plural noun: pariahs

1.
an outcast.

[Beastly Boy]

9. You did see the numbers I cited, didn't you?

Do they refelect the definition you posted?

BTW, I also have an English dictionary, so I am not impressed.

[Eko]

10. You do realize that Israel ranked lower than us right?

Would you say we are not becoming a pariah nation now? Are we well loved across the world?
https://www.heritage.org/index/pages/all-country-scores
You have decided to use those statistics to try to prove your point but they dont.

[Eko]

11. Oh yeah your link doesnt show what you posted either.

[Beastly Boy]

12. What I posted was my observations which I based on the numbers in my source.

It would have been absolutely idiotic to copy and paste all the numbers that you can look up yourself, no?

OK, I did presume that you can look up the numbers yourself.

[Eko]

13. How did you get

-in the top 15% on the economy
It doesn't say that on that page at all as well as the rest.

[Beastly Boy]

14. Ok, I will not indulge you with lessons on basic math

Just estimate the precentages from each source and average them out. That's how most people do it.

[Eko]

15. Not sure what this nath you are talking about is.

I do find it interesting that you chose to do the math instead of just copy paste but whatever. Usually you post data as it is and then change the format if needed letting people know you did so if its from a link but you do you. Nice using years old data to not prove a point at all though. If people consider a nation a pariah nation it is an opinion, not an economic number.

[Beastly Boy]

16. Take a guess. I am sure you can figure it out.

I am flattered that you finally found my post interesting, but flattery will get you nowhere. The numbers are there, don't expect me to keep beating a dead horse. If you are too busy to do the nath, feel free to move on. I will not be offended. Quite the contrary.

[Eko]

17. Unfortunately your

nath doesn't nath.

[Beastly Boy]

18. Show me.

&t=1s

[brush]

19. Jt's not complicated and you know the answer.

The continued killiing and inhumae treatment of Palestinians and aide workers in Gaza,the destruction of structures in the enclave, and just recently of homes and structures in a West Bank village...leaving the inhabitants homeless with nothing.

The breaking of the ceasefire. Are you unaware these war crimes are happening, That th ICC has issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant for crimes against humanity?

Please.

[Beastly Boy]

20. "Pariah nation" implies that a nation is considered an outcast among other nations.

I gave you stats on Israel's standing among nations which show the exact opposite. Rather than showing Israel at the bottom of the list, the stats show Israel in the top 25% of world's countries. This is not consistent with suggesting that Israel is a pariah nation. On the contrary, Israel's international ranking beats about 75% of nations that you don't consider pariahs.

Evidently,, what you think makes Israel a pariah nation, doesn't make it a pariah nation.

I am not debating you on your opinions about Israel. That would be my opinion against yours. I am contrasting your opinions with objective data, to show that facts do not support your conclusions about Israel.

Are you telling me to hell with the facts?

[brush]

21. You must be very proud that Israel's PM has a standing arrest warrant against him.

Like I said, it's not complicated.

[Beastly Boy]

22. So you will not address the facts that invalidate your use of "pariah" with respect to the nation of Israel.

I think I got my answer, and indeed, it is not complicated at all.

[brush]

23. Whatever 'facts' you're talkng about don't erase mass killings, bombing and destrction done to the Palestinians.

Last edited Tue May 6, 2025, 07:00 AM - Edit history (1)

Before I posted 'you must be very proud...", but it shold be you must be ashamed of what has been done to the Palestinians... with more to come as Israel has signaled that it will take over the whole of Gaza.

An actual second Nakba.

[Beastly Boy]

24. I gave you multple sources, and they are all in agreement

Israel's world rankings beat most countries in a number of categories. This contradicts your assertion of Israel being a "pariah nation".

Have you looked at the numbers? Do you not see that they contradict what you are saying? No?

Than you are not in the position to shame me away from pointing out how wrong you are. When confronted with the actual facts to counter your small collection of overused slogans, your only response is to get personal.

It's a self-defeating strategy. I know the facts, and you know nothing about me. A lose-lose proposition.

[brush]

25. Meh! Enjoy your war criminal PM.

[Beastly Boy]

26. He is not my PM. But I appreciate your confirmation that getting personal is all you've got.

[brush]

27. My mistake. Keep supporting Israel's war criminal PM.

[Beastly Boy]

28. I am not supporting him. But keep proving my point.

[brush]

29. Heehee. Dude, do you even know what you stand for?

You show up on all these OPs about Israeli war crimes, now you're saying you don't support Netanyahu.

Make up your mind.

[Beastly Boy]

30. I do. And you don't. That was my point, and you keep driving it home.

[brush]

31. Please. You're on everyone of these Israeli war crime OPs supporting Israel.. Do you support the war cries or not?

[Beastly Boy]

32. Once again, you are illustrating my point.

I support Israel, not Netanyahu. To you, there is no distinction between the two. In the same way that you do not make a distinction between "pariah" and Israel's actual standing in the world. You don't even want to address the fallacy of gratuitously employing such misnomers.

I must say that this is my general impression of your posts. No nuance, no going beyond tired memes, to say nothing of objectivity.

[Violet_Crumble]

33. Can you explain why you feel there's no distinction between the two?

And does the same apply to other countries? For example, drawing a distinction between Putin and Russia, and Trump and the US? If not, why not?

I personally would say there's no distinction between Nutty and the Israel government. Is that something you'd agree with?

Also, my general impression of Brush's posts over many years is the complete opposite of yrs. Just thought I'd contribute my opinion as well

[Beastly Boy]

34. Just because you seem to be genuinely interested in my opinion,

I will give you somewhat serious answers (as serious as the DU format allows for). They will necessarily be short and incomplete but genuine to the extent possible..

A far more in-depth knowledge of Israel's internal political dynamics than I can provide is required to answer your question more seriously. My contact with the immensely diverse and ever-changing political landscape in Israel is superficial at best, and even on this level it will require volumes to succinctly communicate my views. For lack of an alternative, we will have to take this disclaimer as a point of departure for everything I say, and my replies, just like your questions, will be sorely lacking in context. That's the best I can do.

To me, there is clear distinction between Israel and Netanyahu. It is the post I replied to that makes this distinction arbitrary and nebulous, if not entirely non-existent at times. Furthermore, I see a clear distinction between Netanyahu and members of his cabinet, Netanyahu and the Judiciary branch, his cabinet and the Judiciary, Netanyahu and Israelis, Jews and Israelis, Netanyahu and IDF, etc. Without elaborating, you can still see why the overly simplistic rigidly judgemental stereotyping that lacks any nuance or specificity pisses me off so much.

No, the same does not apply to other countries, because geopolitical, cultural and historical differences between them are so varied that one standard cannot possibly apply to all. In the most general of terms, there is always a distinction between the rulers and the ruled, but there is so little in common from one country to the other that there is no way to generalize how those differences manifest themselves.

I believe the above will partially explain why I disagree with you on Netanyahu and his government: I believe that his government is way to the right of Netanyahu, and that he is beholden to his right wing for his political survival. For a number of reasons, too many to address in full, the radical right wingers got him by the balls, to speak figuratively. A more detailed explanation how and why it happened has to do with how governments in Israel are formed, but that's a topic way beyond my ability to address briefly.

As far as individual DUers, I would rather not go into how my opinions of them were formed. I have my reasons.

[Violet_Crumble]

35. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you on this one...

And I do appreciate yr answers. When I see something I'm struggling to understand, I'd rather ask and try to understand, rather than end up guessing and probably coming to the wrong conclusion.

I do think overly simplistic and rigidly judgemental stereotyping is part and parcel of a place like DU. People use shorthand and do dumb things down, and the more complex the topic, the worse it gets. Time to indulge in my own stereotyping here, but I've noticed over the years that Americans seem to love simplistically labelling just about everything. One example I've just seen poke its head up in this forum is 'anti-Israel'. It appears to be used to describe people who are critical of Israel's actions towards the Palestinian people, but misses the blatant fact that it's possible to be critical, yet still admire the early Zionists and understand why a homeland for the Jewish people was and still is needed. That's where I stand, anyway.

Israeli politics used to hold a real interest for me, and its every changing multiparty system was (and probably still is) both messy and fascinating and seems closer to the political system of my own country than that of the US. There's a lot I don't understand, though, and would always defer to an Israeli (thankfully we have one in this forum, though she posts sporadically) on their political system and how it operates.

I agree with you that Netanyahu is beholden to the extremists in his government, and his goal is much like Trump's, to stay in power so he can stay out of prison. But I think in his own right, he's a terrible person. I remember that Leah Rabin blamed him for the assassination of her husband and made a point of refusing to accept condolences from him. It was because of the incitement he sowed. I don't think he's changed and that he's an opportunistic sack of crap and Israel deserves a far better leader than him.

[FadedMullet]

4. They bulldozed five tents. Sounds like some of these "settlers" had been displaced before. Hard to get.....

......really settled when you don't have state sponsored authorities providing funding like the Jewish settlers will have when they move in and complain that there's no place to live. God damn it anyway, but I do truly hate the Israeli right wing and it's starting to rub off on the nit-wits that keep electing them.