Because it's Israel. It's also why no western country has ever really officially condemned Israel no matter what they do. They are on "our side" so it's okay. And those civilians kind of deserved it anyways or something, and we can just trust every single word the IDF says and use them as an actual source to pretend the IDF isn't into mass civilian murder.
The only thing that made this time a bit different is the crazy, almost hard to believe, switch from the Ukrainian conflict and how it was seen and portrayed... To western countries staying completely silent when again, it's our side doing it. Well it wasn't hard to believe but it just made it a lot more blatant.
Israel doesn't really care though since israeli officers routinely go on public tirades that amount to mask-off allusions to genocide ("wipe Gaza" "level the city to the ground" "make it unliveable"), with again 0 consequences at all. Even Russia at least tries to not have Russian military officers just say the quiet part out loud.
This is what I found the most shocking and disheartening in the first days after the October 7th massacre and the start of indiscriminate bombing of Gaza - the reaction and inaction of the West.
At the moment of the Russian invasion, so many countries banded together in supporting Ukraine, both in materiel and moral support. Russia became a pariah overnight.
It was an awful situation but it was uplifting to see how we all cared about sovereignty, peace, self-determination and the well-being of civilians.
Then civilians in Gaza started getting slaughtered and... nothing, or worse - full support of it.
The exact same freedom-loving world leaders had become mute.
I consider myself more cynical than the average person, but this still caught me off guard. Two horrible situations, two suffering peoples and such different outcomes.
As a father of a young child, it was a gut punch to see what we were suddenly trying to justify and it left me numb for days until I adjusted to the actual reality.
The reaction to the Russian invasion had little to do with the welfare of Ukrainians; it was more about political affiliations.
The selectivity of Western calls to not commit war crimes predates the response to Oct 7. Two weeks earlier, the Azerbaijani dictatorship ethnically cleansed over 100,000 people from their ancestral land. Not a peep from anyone, in fact Azerbaijan is a "reliable, trustworthy partner" according to von der Leyen: https://neighbourhood-enlargement.ec.europa.eu/news/statemen...
Yeah,true even Russia doesn't openly state that their goal is to level Ukraine to the ground and displace the population one way or the other.
Israel also gets away with encroaching and colonizing palestinian territory (that they don't even deny isn't theirs until they "settle" it). Again, Russia at least gets international condemnation when it does so
Russia entered into an international agreement guaranteeing Ukraine’s territorial integrity (Minsk), and subsequently clearly violated it. Israel and Palestine have no such agreement, though they’ve come relatively close to making one, and both countries have repeatedly violated the other’s territorial sovereignty over the past 80 years. They’re very different cases.
Uh? Colonizing a country and land that isn't theirs inherently violates multiple international laws. A treaty isn't somehow worth more than territorial integrity
> The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members
The only consequence for them was "paying compensations" as if there was a price to put on human lives.
The example you're citing was actually investigated, and (IIRC) it was found that Hezbollah was firing mortar(s) from a position directly adjacent to the UN post. I believe that it was generally assumed that Hezbollah was using the Canadians as 'human shields'. Culpability in such situations is usually attributed to the shield-users, largely due to the consequences of attributing blame to the retaliators (i.e. encouraging further use of human shields).
Have you looked at the Wikipedia article? According to it, the UN said the Hezbollah position was 150m away from the UNIFIL Khiyam base; the Israelis claim the distance was <40m.
>"According to an interview on CBC radio and multiple print sources, retired Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie, referring to an email he had received a few days previously from the now deceased Canadian peacekeeper Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, stated that "...what he was telling us was Hezbollah fighters were all over his position and the IDF were (sic) targeting them and that's a favorite trick by people who don't have representation in the UN. They use the UN as shields knowing that they can't be punished for it.""
>"UNIFIL maintained that Hezbollah fighters were not allowed into any of its bases. However, they reported more than 20 instances of rockets being fired from less than 500m from their positions, as well as a number of cases of small arms and mortar fire from within 100m. Additionally, UNIFIL reported several instances of their positions and vehicles being hit by Hezbollah mortars, small arms fire, or rockets."
So even according to your link, it's either Israel or Hezbollah. In fact, the victims seem to be just as scared by the Hezbollah than by Israel (an ally state). Now, surely you can agree that only one those two is very often condemned in the west, while the other is praised, supported, and granted a free pass for leveling a city to the ground? You're proving my original point, that Israel can act like a criminal state with 0 repercussions.
The only thing that made this time a bit different is the crazy, almost hard to believe, switch from the Ukrainian conflict and how it was seen and portrayed... To western countries staying completely silent when again, it's our side doing it. Well it wasn't hard to believe but it just made it a lot more blatant.
Israel doesn't really care though since israeli officers routinely go on public tirades that amount to mask-off allusions to genocide ("wipe Gaza" "level the city to the ground" "make it unliveable"), with again 0 consequences at all. Even Russia at least tries to not have Russian military officers just say the quiet part out loud.