Israeli evidence still falls short

benfell

Imperialism

Israel

Palestine

07_09:10:47-2
Fig. 1. The ruins of a terminal at the Gaza airport. Image by Said Khatib (Agence France-Presse) on September 9, 2018, via the Times of Israel,[1] fair use.

The Israeli military, however, has struggled to prove that Hamas maintained a command-and-control center under [Al-Shifa Hospital]. Critics of the Israeli military say the evidence does not support its early claims, noting that it had distributed material before the raid showing five underground complexes and also had said the tunnel network could be reached from wards inside a hospital building. Israel has publicly revealed the existence of only one tunnel entrance on the grounds of the hospital, at the shack outside its main buildings. . . .

After the raid on the Qatari Hospital, the commonly used name for the Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, the Israeli military showed a video on Nov. 5 of what it said was the entrance to “a tunnel that was being used for terror infrastructures” on the hospital’s grounds.

But the video appears to show something else: a water storage area built in 2016, when the hospital was constructed, according to engineering plans and images from the hospital’s construction reviewed by The Times.[2]

Evidence available to the New York Times supports only some, not all Israeli justifications for the war crimes it has committed at Gaza hospitals.[3]

Yasmeen Abutaleb, John Hudson, and Tyler Pager, “Biden moving closer than ever to a breach with Netanyahu over war in Gaza,” Washington Post, February 11, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/11/biden-netanyahu-closer-to-a-breach/

Liz Goodwin and Mariana Alfaro, “Aid bill for Ukraine, Israel on track to pass Senate early this week,” Washington Post, February 11, 2024, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/02/11/senate-aid-ukraine-israel-taiwan-aid/

James Politi and Neri Zilber, “Biden says Israel must have plan to avoid civilian casualties in Rafah,” Financial Times, February 11, 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/b00a8dcc-f8e3-4da6-a65b-280bb2289f5f

Andy Bounds, James Shotter, and Jonathan Wheatley, “Dutch court bans export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel,” Financial Times, February 12, 2024, https://www.ft.com/content/502ebca5-5f2c-497c-968f-e710e617f268

Susie Coen, “Joe Biden considers going public with frustration over ‘a–hole’ Benjamin Netanyahu,” Telegraph, February 12, 2024, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2024/02/12/joe-biden-going-public-frustration-benjamin-netanyahu/

Chao Deng, Carrie Keller-Lynn, and Daniel Michaels, “Defying Biden, Netanyahu Doubles Down on Plans to Fight in Rafah,” Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/defying-biden-israels-netanyahu-doubles-down-on-plans-to-fight-in-rafah-7b66d1dd

Emine Sinmaz, “Israel says two hostages freed in raid Gaza officials say killed 67 Palestinians,” Guardian, February 12, 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/12/israeli-hostages-freed-rafah-idf-gaza-report-dozens-palestinians-killed-strikes

Matthew Rosenberg et al., “A Tunnel Offers Clues to How Hamas Uses Gaza’s Hospitals,” New York Times, February 13, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/12/world/middleeast/gaza-tunnel-israel-hamas.html

So-called ‘ridesharing’

Drivers


Fig. 2. Yeah, this is me. The sign says, “If you’re whining about a labor shortage, STOP ignoring my job applications!” And the QR-code leads here. Photograph by author, January 16, 2023.

I guess I’ve got a day off tomorrow.[4] According to my tax data, Uber is taking an average of about 45 percent of each fare, but when passengers happen to tell me how much their fare is, that difference often appears more like 60 percent. Uber attributes the cut it takes to its fees, taxes, and insurance. But it does not even tell drivers how much of each fare it withholds, let alone how much of each fare goes to each, allowing drivers only aggregate data.

Uber clearly has something to hide. That it has something to hide strongly implies that it has something to be ashamed of. And this presumably underlies its ludicrously expensive insistence on misclassifying drivers as independent contractors.[5]

But organizers of a driver strike scheduled for tomorrow[6] also clearly have trouble getting the word to drivers. I heard about this from a passenger who was unclear on where the strike was occurring (it’s U.S.-nationwide[7]). I had to search a couple of times, a couple of different ways before I found the Reuters story.[8]

Akash Sriram, “Uber, Lyft, DoorDash drivers to strike on Valentine’s Day for fair pay,” Reuters, February 12, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/uber-lyft-doordash-drivers-us-strike-valentines-day-fair-pay-2024-02-12/

  1. [1]Agence France-Presse and Times of Israel, “20 years after its opening, destroyed Gaza airport embodies grounded peace hopes,” Times of Israel, September 12, 2018, https://www.timesofisrael.com/20-years-after-its-opening-destroyed-gaza-airport-embodies-grounded-peace-hopes/↩
  2. [2]Matthew Rosenberg et al., “A Tunnel Offers Clues to How Hamas Uses Gaza’s Hospitals,” New York Times, February 13, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/12/world/middleeast/gaza-tunnel-israel-hamas.html↩
  3. [3]Matthew Rosenberg et al., “A Tunnel Offers Clues to How Hamas Uses Gaza’s Hospitals,” New York Times, February 13, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/12/world/middleeast/gaza-tunnel-israel-hamas.html↩
  4. [4]Akash Sriram, “Uber, Lyft, DoorDash drivers to strike on Valentine’s Day for fair pay,” Reuters, February 12, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/uber-lyft-doordash-drivers-us-strike-valentines-day-fair-pay-2024-02-12/↩
  5. [5]Michael Hiltzik, “Uber and Lyft just made their campaign to keep exploiting workers the costliest in history,” Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2020, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-09-08/uber-lyft-most-expensive-initiative↩
  6. [6]Akash Sriram, “Uber, Lyft, DoorDash drivers to strike on Valentine’s Day for fair pay,” Reuters, February 12, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/uber-lyft-doordash-drivers-us-strike-valentines-day-fair-pay-2024-02-12/↩
  7. [7]Akash Sriram, “Uber, Lyft, DoorDash drivers to strike on Valentine’s Day for fair pay,” Reuters, February 12, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/uber-lyft-doordash-drivers-us-strike-valentines-day-fair-pay-2024-02-12/↩
  8. [8]Akash Sriram, “Uber, Lyft, DoorDash drivers to strike on Valentine’s Day for fair pay,” Reuters, February 12, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/uber-lyft-doordash-drivers-us-strike-valentines-day-fair-pay-2024-02-12/↩

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