Democratic leaders did not tell members to vote against an amendment to block the State Department from citing the Gaza Health Ministry’s statistics.
The House of Representatives has voted to effectively conceal the death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza.
On Thursday, lawmakers voted 269-144 on an amendment to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry. The measure is part of the annual State Department appropriations bill. It was led by Democratic Reps. Jared Moskowitz, Fla., and Josh Gottheimer, N.J., and Republican Reps. Joe Wilson, S.C.; Mike Lawler, N.Y.; and Carol Miller, W.V.
Mohammed Khader, policy manager at the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, told The Intercept that the amendment is part of a trend of anti-Palestinian sentiment in Congress since the start of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. “By preventing any recognition of the number of Palestinians killed since October, this amendment is a clear example of genocide denial and is no different from what was done towards victims of genocides in Rwanda and Armenia.”
Fuck the genocide deniers. Block all the info you want. Those of us who are sane, and aren’t bought by AIPAC money see through it all. All your attempts are transparent and ultimately futile. We know what Israel is doing, what info we do have clearly paints them as genocidal. Innocents dont murder journalists. Your reputation is shredded, Israel. Hopefully we can stay mad at this and AIPAC long enough to end lobbying. Destroying a lot of the incentive to be a complete piece of shit.
Innocents don’t murder journalists…
Hamas killed four Israeli journalists on Oct 7th during the attacks.
“but Israel is doing it worse”
How many people are they allowed to kill in retaliation for Oct 7th? Zero? 1:1? 10:1?
No country in the world would get attacked and not retaliate if they had the means.
How many people are they allowed to kill in retaliation for Oct 7th? Zero? 1:1? 10:1?
I mean you asked the question, whats your number?
Because Israel has killed 104 as of today.
If Hamas killed 4 on Oct 7, that puts the ratio at 26:1.
Israel estimates that 1200 were killed on Oct 7.
A recent estimate puts Israel at 34,900 killed.
Thats a ratio of about 29:1. Is that acceptable to you?
I’m doing this not because there is any acceptable level, but to highlight the absurdity of the idea that there even is one. Hamas needs to be held accountable for its crimes. Israel needs, at a level about 29 times more so, also needs to be held accountable for their crimes.
The idea that any level of incidental murder is acceptable is absurdist, and you are a terrible person if you think there is one.
To me, if my children or wife had been taken hostage. There would be no limit to the ratio I would be willing to accept to get them back.
Hamas still has hostages captured that day they are tying to use for negotiations.
The difference between my opinion and yours is that you consider it incidental murder, while I consider it a war that Palestinians are losing. War kills people, and acceptable casualties (enemy, friendly, and even innocents) are literally part of the calculations made by every single country that has ever participated in a war.
To me, if my children or wife had been taken hostage. There would be no limit…
So then, when about all those people killed in the process. What about the mothers and children dying? The ones that are not directly involved in this fight either. Do their spouses get the chance for the same level of revenge once they’re killed?
Do you not see that inequality and what it does?
Do I should let them take my family with no consequence because they’re using human shields?
No, my side is strong enough to get them back. Screw the terrorists and those that harbour them. They can try to retaliate, and they can die until they won’t fight back anymore.
People these days seem to think there’s a diplomatic solution for everything. They need to go read a nonfiction history book, because they are currently in the fiction section.
What if you were born in the wrong place and your family got gunned down or buried under rubble because the enemy thought a hostage (or their dead body) was in a building at the end of your street?
You can’t always assume you’re the one who is both on a righteous quest and in possession of superior firepower.
His statement is beyond telling. To him, everyone is a terrorist, so none of them matter.
Life isn’t fair.
There isn’t some sort of right to fairness.
TheReS nO diPloMAtiC SoluTiOn, thErE’S onLy M U R D E R
What’s the diplomatic solution? Give in to terrorists and let them attack again?
That’s exactly what happened in Ukraine with Crimea and we’ve all seen how that turned out.
These groups both want the same land. Somebody has to not get their way.
And how many hostages does Israel have? Do Palestinians not have the same right, that if their family has been taken hostage, to do anything to get them back?
You dont get it. Its clear that you dont get it.
They get it, but they believe that some lives are less important than others. When someone holds that position I haven’t found an argument to convince them otherwise.
They get it, but they believe that some lives are less important than others. When someone holds that position I haven’t found an argument to convince them otherwise.
Exactly. This is the fundamental lesson you (the royal “you”; as ‘one’) needed to learn from BLM. The history and legacy of settler colonialism and white supremacy leaves us with inherent and structural biases that means some “lives” are valued higher than others.
When you attack someone stronger than you, it usually does not end well. They can try, but there will be further consequences.
It took a few hundred thousand middle eastern civilians dying after 9/11 before anyone started complaining and even that did not lead to this level of protest.
People are ok with violence if its their country that has been attacked.
When you attack someone stronger than you, it usually does not end well.
Explaining this to the Israeli shipping companies currently bottlenecked in the Suez by Houthi rebels.
if my children or wife had been taken hostage
The first thing I’d do is find a dozen people of the same ethnicity as the hostage taker and kill them. Then I’d send in a strike team to grab anyone I believed was affiliated with the hostage taker - coworkers, family members, social media contacts - and imprison them indefinitely. Finally, I’d bulldoze someone’s house. Doesn’t really matter whose. Just to show people I mean business.
The difference between my opinion and yours is that you consider it incidental murder, while I consider it a war
I’m reminded of this old Thomas Friedman quote.
It’s important to stop for a moment here and take note of the fact that Friedman’s idea wasn’t that we specifically needed to attack Iraq. Friedman didn’t even bother to claim to Charlie Rose that there was, for example, a link between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Instead, he said that the problem is that “they” needed to see that Americans didn’t care so much about our “stock options and Hummers” that we were unwilling to make sacrifices.
What was the “they,” exactly? Muslim extremists? Muslims in general? The Middle East as a region? Friedman casts a very wide net:
“What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house—from Basra to Baghdad—and basically saying:
“Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?: You don’t think we care about our open society? You think this fantasy—we’re just gonna let it grow? Well, suck. On. This. That, Charlie, was what this war was about. We coulda hit Saudi Arabia… We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.”
Member Shireen Abu Akleh?
Israel killed an American journalist and Biden doesn’t care.
Not sure what your comment has to do with the post though.
How many people are they allowed to kill in retaliation for Oct 7th? Zero? 1:1? 10:1?
Per the Dahiya Doctrine the general rule is 30:1. If a single Israel is injured or killed, the state has the authority to kill up to 30 Palestinians.
Commentators for The Guardian, The Washington Post, and Mondoweiss have noted that the attacks of the Israeli Defense Forces on the civilian infrastructure of the Gaza Strip during the 2023 Hamas-Israel war may constitute an extension of the doctrine. Haaretz reported that IDF had dropped “all restraint” in its war: killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure at an unprecedented rate.
Writing in The Guardian, Paul Rogers of Bradford University argues that Israel’s goal in the 2023 war is to “corral the Palestinians into a small zone in the southwest of Gaza where they can be more easily controlled,” and that the long-term goal is to make clear that Israel “will not stand for any opposition.”
So they’re pretty much on target.
There are way too many evil people in power in this country.
We just need to vote for the lesser of the two evils every time to get rid of them.
How is less evil better than no evil?
I vote guillotine.
Because truthfully, one allows you to live to fight them tomorrow and the other starts hanging bodies on the wall next January. Grow up.
We are truly in a loop of insanity at this point. 40+ years loop of the same type of direction not working.
And the beatings will continue because money.
At least it would help if you didn’t oscillate between the two. Less evil, more evil, less evil, more evil. Pick less evil each time!
Pick less evil each time!
Part of the problem is that people are sold on these guys as “Less Evil” every time. Clinton was the less-evil replacement for Bush. Bush Jr was the less-evil replacement for Clinton. Obama for Bush. Trump for Obama/Hillary. Biden for Trump. Maybe now Trump for Biden.
Evil is necessarily subjective, and a great deal of what we see as “evil” varies starkly based on where we’re getting our news and our values. What do you tell to the people who are doggedly convinced a mob of hispanic/arabic/chinese fentanyl fueled rape gangs are charging across the border to steal American children and murder them for their adrenochrome? What do you say to the folks doggedly convinced that the wrong President will bring about a thermo-nuclear holocaust or a dozen new 9/11s? How do you reason with a person who believes Plan B is no different than strangling a baby to death with your own two hands?
So much of the conversation about “Lesser Evil” is justifying a new and more brutal police state as a defensive measure against some horrifying phantom menace - be it J6 Groypers coming to lynch everyone to the left of Mitt Romney or Chinese TikTok dancers tricking American teenagers into perpetuating a Uyghur genocide.
When you’ve got Israeli Genocide versus Palestinian Islamic Jihad as your baseline for debate, there’s an endless capacity for evil even in the “Lesser” branch.
Absolutely. There are limits and gray zones in everything. But sometimes you just have lying demagoges on one side and reasonable (but far from perfect and oftentimes really shitty) people on the other side. I wish more people could tell the difference.
There is a difference between spin and lies. Truth and false. Garbage and near-garbage.
Surely this will work, eventually!
What’s the alternative?
There are several viable alternatives.
Personally, I’d like to see the public rally around a 3rd party candidate who’s focused on getting money out of politics (stop the legalized bribery), and ending FPTP in favor of ranked choice or star voting. Then we could actually let democracy play out, and wouldn’t have these terrible candidates foisted upon us time and again.
I strongly believe both the major parties would crumble within 1-2 election cycles if this happened, and it could lead to the dawn of a new age of prosperity for our people.
It’s almost impossible to get a 3rd party to win in the US. Their system is rigged so that voting for a 3rd party means throwing away the vote.
You also have to take into account that it is a country in which almost 50% believe Donald trump to be their best option as a president, there’s no way you’re gonna convince enough people to vote 3rd party.
I don’t think you understood my reply. You asked how, and I gave a solution that would work.
As an aside, especially if you aren’t a US citizen, you might fall victim to some of the same liberal propaganda that many Americans do concerning the motivations of Trump voters. The vast majority of Americans of all political stripes are simply fed up with lack of representation. Give them a candidate who puts the people’s interests before those of corporations, and you might be surprised by the broad coalition of support which emerges from the woodwork. This is why any time a leftist outsider enters the political arena, they’re immediately subjected to bipartisan dogpiling. Trump is accurately considered an outsider, it’s just that he’s a right wing grifter and thus a fake populist. Consider that 2020’s record voter turnout was comprised of only 2/3 of eligible voters, and imagine a better world with a better candidate leading the charge. This is how we dispense with the “lesser of two evils” Hobson’s choice
You have to work your way up from the bottom with he voting system. You probably know a bit about how they work already, but Approval is my favorite.
Once again proving that Dems are the lesser of two evils, still evil, but less so
State is inherently evil. There is no non-evil way to dominate others.
I’ll agree that there’s no way to dominate others without being evil. My question is is there a way to form a state without domination?
In my view, “state” is by definition domination. There can be organization, community, and cooperation though without domination.
Fucking registerwalls.
I came to posit that if the government doesn’t release the numbers we have a press to do that. Supposed to do that. Used to do that. Can’t tell if even this story tried to do that.
I wish the mods would make a rule to require users to provide an archive link as a back up.
I thought they/world rules prohibited that? Same reason why can’t copy in the article text
Cool, so what were all of their names? That sounds like something concerned voters should know.
No I’m not signing up for the intercept to read “free” articles.
Here’s the Democrats that voted for censoring the Genocide statistics.
The Republican list is so long it’s more relevant who isn’t on that.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Mohammed Khader, policy manager at the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action, told The Intercept that the amendment is part of a trend of anti-Palestinian sentiment in Congress since the start of Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.
After reciting the death toll and other statistics about casualties, Tlaib said she intended to introduce the list of Palestinians killed in Gaza to the congressional record.
The Ministry of Health is the only official entity tracking the death toll in Gaza; its figures have been cited broadly, including by the U.S. and Israeli governments.
In December, the duo joined Republican Reps. Elise Stefanik and Steve Scalise to lead a resolution condemning university presidents and calling for their resignations for allegedly tolerating antisemitism on campus.
In November, the two Democrats joined 20 others in censuring Tlaib, for reasons that included posting a video calling for a ceasefire that contained the phrase “from the river to the sea.”
Along with Lawler, he headlined a call hosted by No Labels, in which he spoke with university trustees about how to push the FBI to take a bigger role in investigating campus protests.
The original article contains 655 words, the summary contains 186 words. Saved 72%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Remember to vote blue.
If only the system wasn’t designed to squash third parties. Blue gives very little fucks either, it seems.
Or better yet don’t vote. Let fascism have a swing at it. I’m sure 207 soulless horse traders can do better than 62.
Say, what do you call someone who openly works for the fascist cause?
I was assuming the comment I was replying to was satire
Congressman.
Let’s see … seven letters, starts with an F, ends with a T …
Fuckwit?
deleted by creator
Paywall
Loginwall actually. Just put in a random email.
deleted by creator
How are they concealing it? I have heard news reports citing the Gaza Health Ministry’s claims of tens of thousands of casualties since the war began. I believe they are correct (how many are non-combatants is debatable).
Anyone who is paying even a little bit of attention knows that many civilians are getting killed. Only a small minority seem to care.
" On Thursday, lawmakers voted 269-144 on an amendment to prohibit the State Department from citing statistics from the Gaza Health Ministry. "
Their death toll numbers have been very accurate in the past. The Defense department has also cited them.
No other group is allowed to enter Gaza (by Israel) to independently verify the death toll. Gaza Health Ministry is the only reliable source. This bill effectively censors the Gaza death toll.
What is there to conceal? Pretty sure it’s only Hamas that’s died so far.
Innocent aid workers are Hamas?
Kids?
If you’re legitimately unaware of the war crimes being committed in Gaza, you might want to run some Google searches.
