eleventy_7

I’m no expert on international law, but from what I’ve seen for more isolated incidents generally it’s those who commit the crime that would be held responsible. The scale and consistency of civilian death pretty much rule that out though, which leaves either intentional orders to kill civilians (more on this later), or institutional failures to properly reign in soldiers and train them to not kill civilians. either way, that puts the onus higher up the chain of command.

If we assume that civilian death wasn’t intended by top brass, there is still a huge fuckup somewhere in the mix if somewhere near half of all those killed were non-targets of the operation. Again, with the scale of this massacre, I can’t imagine it not being a categorical failure of command all the way up in allowing this to happen.

If we assume it was intentional, well then Hamas ordered the killing of hundreds of civilians. that’s pretty cut and dry not cool in the ICC’s books.

The real problem I think is one of perspective. I believe that from the perspective of Hamas, any and all Israelis are themselves combatants, as settler colonialists continuing the project of eradicating the land of Palestine. There is truth to this, but then from that perspective there are no civilians in Israel. Once you come to this conclusion, there isn’t a lot that can’t be justified.

From that perspective, the difference between killing Israeli soldiers and destroying military targets vs killing Israeli citizens and burning down whole city blocks isn’t as significant as the ICC or (I assume) you or I deem it to be. It’s more like targeting barracks than harming non-combatants; something like “Sure, maybe they aren’t armed and attacking right now, but they are still the enemy and pose a threat. They chose to be part of this conflict by settling here”.

Like I mentioned, there is some truth to this logic. Israeli settlers, especially near Gaza and in the west bank, are complicit in the acts of their government and are continuing the colonial project. Does this justify their indiscriminate murder? I don’t believe it does.

So, in summary, I believe the massacres were planned, or at least allowed by hamas’ strategy. Even if it wasn’t intentional, that it was allowed to happen still incriminates most of not all of the decision-making and on-the-ground commanding portions of the organization. But that’s just my 2 cents.

Edit: spelling

You’re right that it is possible that Hamas didn’t intend for the scale of civilian casualties that were seen on Oct. 7th, but even if that’s true then they are still responsible for not keeping their people from commiting said spontaneous violence. As the leaders of a militant faction, like a regular military they are responsible for training their soldiers (or equivalent) and keeping them in line during operations.

I’m actually more on the Frantz fannon school of thought about the necessity of violence against oppressors to overthrow colonial regimes, so I’m more amenable to hamas’ plight than most I think, but Oct. 7th is still pretty indefensible.

Having said all that, to make clear, I’m not defending Israel or their retributive genocide. Fuck them. But I don’t think we should go easy on Hamas’ war crimes either, so I don’t think the ICC is really ‘both-sides’-ing in this case.

I believe most game dev studios have similar levels of turnover for new developers. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising, both industies rely on the passion of their employees to get products out the door, while under-paying and overworking them.

The source the article gets that 90% statistic from, the anime dormitory project, is actually a pretty good charity if you’re looking for ways to support animators and their working conditions. Right now they’re subsidizing housing for more than 10 animators, and I think there’s a fundraiser still running at the moment that’s trying to make real change to improve the industry’s working standards overall. Here’s a recent YouTube video they made on the subject.

thanks for linking this. I have to say though, this response is pretty bad imo. The CBC basically just falls back on saying “it’s complicated, uhhhh both sides”.

We’ve received hundreds of public complaints through our ombudsman and standards office about our reporting on this conflict since Oct. 7. About 55 per cent of complainants thought CBC was unfair to Israel, and about 45 per cent thought CBC was unfair to Palestinians.

We have been told that we are not going hard enough at the human catastrophe unfolding in Gaza and beyond. Some fear we are minimizing the destruction of a people and the deaths of thousands of innocent Palestinians trapped within borders they can’t leave. They worry we are trying too hard to balance with Israeli perspectives our reporting on a fight in which they see no balance.

even here the author uses minimizing and semi-revisonist language ‘thousands’ instead of the more accurate ‘tens of thousands’.

And we hear from people who feel we are not going hard enough at the disturbing rise in antisemitism (and what they deem is antisemitism disguised as criticism of Israel). They believe our coverage moved on far too quickly from the horrors of Oct. 7, that we give airtime to anti-Israel members of the Jewish community who don’t represent the majority, and that there is not enough journalism on Israel’s effort to defend itself.

this is being presented as the other side of “valid criticism” from that 55/45 split, but there’s obvious problems and clear contradictions here. It’s already concerning enough that they are equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, but the very next sentence wants to take away what scant airtime anti-israel Jewish voices get. Am I to conclude that those perspectives are anti-Semitic too? Ridiculous.

The fact that the CBC is presenting these two sides of complaints as equally valid is all the confirmation the breach article needs, honestly.

I managed a pretty nice shot of the moon, aurora and dusk last night, from the outskirts of winnipeg:

I wont comment on the efficacy of the search itself—I don’t know enough to meaningfully hold a stance about it—but I think you also have to consider the symbolic meaning of the government funding this search. There’s a long history of federal and provincial governments at best ignoring indigenous people and their struggles, if not actively pursuing policy that harms them.

This search has become a flashpoint for an accumulation of unrest over that history, it can’t be viewed in a vacuum. The sheer poetic horror of murder victims rotting in a landfill makes this example particularly abhorrent, but it’s hardly the only time the police and justice system has failed indigenous women and girls. The government putting a lot of funding into this specific search is bigger than just the outcome of the search itself.

I don’t think it’s a bad example in this case, since the US hasn’t lost it’s own cultural heritage much. For better or for worse, the US does a great job of assimilating people and making them “American”.

That’s pretty much exactly what Quebec is trying to accomplish, right? something like ‘if you want to live in Quebec, you have to become Quebecois’. So if US policy doesn’t blanket ban other languages in signage and social services and still manages to ‘americanize’ people, then Quebec could potentially do the same.

The US and Quebec are in pretty different situations, so it’s not a perfect example, but I think it is a pretty good basis for an argument against Quebec’s culturally protectionist policies.

I’ve really enjoyed The Nations of Canada by Greg Koabel. it’s a linear narrative history of Canada that runs from pre-contact indigenous oral tradition and archeology to (so far) the mid 19th- century.

I’ve found it really expanded my understanding of Canadian history and culture, doing a much better job than any of the canadian history classes I took in school!

I’ve been using mullvad for a few years—since PIA got bought out—and would recommend it if you’re concerned about trust.

So, using a VPN doesn’t actually eliminate all possibility of being tracked. All you’re doing is replacing who can potentially see all of your data, from your ISP to the VPN provider, so trust is actually a pretty important factor.

When I switched the consensus at the time was that mullvad was the most true to its privacy statement, i.e. trustworthy. A lot of other vpns are cheaper or have more bells and whistles, but have histories of data breaches or scandals, are based in countries with weak privacy/strong surveillance laws, or are owned by companies that may have an interest in the customers data (like with the PIA acquisition I mentioned).

Mullvad too has had a few incidents where they were served court orders to provide data to the police, but iirc no data was ever actually given up. Plus, they allow a bunch of different privacy-centric payment methods, including just sending cash in an envelope.

I’d recommend taking a look at some more recent discussions comparing VPNs but I think considering mullvad is a good place to start.

I remember a little while back when the British museum was making headlines about stolen artifacts, I was initially really surprised and pleased that they were making progress towards repatriating some of their collection.

Then I actually read the article and it turned out some artifacts stolen from the museum and they wanted them back. :l

Not surprised to see Manitoba has some of the longest wait times in the country, the provincial government has been gutting our health services for years.

Last time I went to the emergency center (pre-covid) I was with a friend who had broken his leg, and they had us waiting for more than 8 hours.