The Very Discriminate Assault on WCK Humanitarian Workers

 

I am outraged and heartbroken by the deaths of seven humanitarian workers from World Central Kitchen, including one American, in Gaza yesterday.

Incidents like yesterday’s simply should not happen.

Here is my full statement. pic.twitter.com/Nl2jq8wqTt

— President Biden (@POTUS) April 3, 2024

With respect to my president, whom I continue to support, I lack faith in the ability of the IDF to investigate what they did wrong here and be honest about it, because they keep saying they are NOT indiscriminately bombing or attacking journalists or aid workers or children, and since the results are that aid workers and journalists and children keep being assaulted, I am going to have to take them at their word:

It isn't indiscriminate. If these are the results they are getting, and they insist they are targeting precisely, I must assume these are the results they want. 

I'm not an infant--I get that even innocents die in wartimes all the time. Privations are a part of the deal. But famines can be planned, and the deliberate starvation of Gazans over the decisions of their terrorist government is a bridge way too far. 

Hamas does not give a shit. Hamas rejects ceasefires. Hamas won't give up the hostages. They continue to fire missiles. I am not immune to the call for Israel to self-defense. I am long past immune, however, to the idea that the IDF is being disciplined in the process of this conflict or that they are taking necessary steps to minimize non-combatant casualties. I have begun to see the civilian population of Gaza as a kind of hostage as well. They seem to have decided on behalf of these innocent civilians to go ahead and let Israel to their worst, because when it comes to Palestinian liberty, well okay, they will also take death. For them. Those guys who aren't in the tunnels and end up paying for the privilege of eating intercepted aid to terrorist mafiosi. 

I want to focus my rage correctly. The Biden Administration has an unreliable ally with significant support here in the States. Netanyahu is a bastard. There are reasons to consider him our bastard of the moment, and for the sake of Democracy, not press too strongly against him--and let the people figure out how to best oust him. History, politics, and the future of Israel (which has also Hezbollah and Iran to contend with) aren't small concerns. And I don't discount what I perceive as thousands of unnecessary deaths because of tactics that ride roughshod over the concept of combatant and noncombatant. 

I am not, even as my blog is turning to this fraught issue right now, only turning an eye to the unnecessary deaths because these were volunteers and westerners, even though the World Central Kitchen and Chef Andres are especially dear to my heart, for fulfilling the most basic and compelling need in any tragedy--to feed the people. Whatever comes. 

I am because this felt like the IDF assailants did think they were targeting an enemy with prejudice.  Aid workers. And against the other activities that seem to suggest isolating and fixing this population in disaster's crosshairs, I don't have an innocent explanation for what is described. 

They want an unrelieved siege. They would accept the death of every Gazan and anyone who would help them. And if this is not so, I don't know how to just accept the word of this government that it is not. 

UPDATE: IDF is using an AI to determine strikes. AI gives you what you prompt it to--there's no real intelligence there, it's still GIGO.  So we still need competent, thoughtful people making rational decisions, not just doing what the little box spits out. 

But they got the results they prompted, right? 

UPDATE: Maybe elections?