I think it is currently about an order of magnitude more civilians deaths have resulted from the actions of Likud (Netanyahu etc..., who control the government and hence the IDF) than from the actions of Hamas. IDF is apparently disrupting civilian aid, destroying infrastructure including hospitals, and causing mass population movements into areas that cannot support them, so the risk of death from starvation and infectious disease at a massive scale as an indirect result is high. The Likud-controlled IDF are also apparently enforcing a 'lock down' of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank while allowing Israeli citizens to seize land by force and further expand the occupied territories.
So the scale of the atrocities seems to be much higher on the Likud side than the Hamas side, covers both the West Bank and Gaza, and it makes sense that the Palestinian victims of those atrocities would receive more support. That doesn't mean that all the people who care about the plight of the Palestinian population are anti-Israel (they are just not posting about it because they are likely prioritising issues).
It’s not always “right” to measure just action in terms of lives saved or lost, but it’s hard for me (and so many other American Jews) to see anything right or just about 10 dead Palestinians for every dead Israeli.
>while condemning the massacre of civilians under the orders of Likud (and other far right parties)
When has Likud ordered massacres of civilians? Or when has any modern Israeli party? I also don't believe Likud is considered far-right in Israel; just "right". There are parties far to the right of them. Not that that's necessarily a good thing, but it's a relative designation.
- Israeli Prime Minister (!!) Benjamin Netanyahu: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember." [1]
- IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari: "we're focused on what causes maximum damage" [2]
- Israeli defense Minister Yoav Gallant: "I have ordered a complete siege on Gaza: no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly." [3]
- Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir: “As long as Hamas does not release the hostages in its hands - the only thing that needs to enter Gaza are hundreds of tons of explosives from the air force, not an ounce of humanitarian aid” [4]
- IDF Reservist Major General Giora Eiland: “The State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in" and "Creating a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza is a necessary means to achieve the goal." [5]
- Israeli President Isaac Herzog: "It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true." and "Of course there are many, many innocent Palestinians who don’t agree to this — but unfortunately in their homes, there are missiles shooting at us, at my children." [6]
- IDF Reservist Ezra Yachin: "Be triumphant and finish them off and don’t leave anyone behind. Erase the memory of them. Erase them, their families, mothers and children. These animals can no longer live." and "Every Jew with a weapon should go out and kill them. If you have an Arab neighbour, don’t wait, go to his home and shoot him." [7]
- IDF Reservist Major General Giora Eiland: "The international community is warning us against a severe humanitarian disaster and severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this. After all, severe epidemics in the south of Gaza will bring victory closer" and "there’s no reason why the Hamas generals in southern Gaza wouldn’t surrender when they have no fuel, no water, and when plagues will reach them and the danger to the lives of their family members will increase" [8]
- Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant: "Hezbollah is close to making a grave mistake. The ones who will pay the price are first of all the citizens of Lebanon. What we do in Gaza we know how to do in Beirut" [9]
- Israeli Minister for Agriculture and former head of Shin Bet Avi Dichter: "We are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba" [10]
- Likud Knesset member Galit Distel-Atbaryan: "Invest this energy in one thing; Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth." and "A vengeful and cruel IDF is needed here. Anything less is immoral." [11]
- Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz: "Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water pump will be opened and no fuel truck will enter until the Israeli abductees are returned home" [12]
- IDF Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, in response to Wolf Blitzer asking if the IDF knew there were civilians in Jabalya refugee camp before they bombed it: "This is the tragedy of war, Wolf — as you know, we've been saying for days, move south." [13]
[1] https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/11/benjamin-netany...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/10/right-now-it-i...
[3] https://twitter.com/marwasf/status/1711392643908071789
[4] https://x.com/davidrkadler/status/1714362716565979534
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/15/opinion/israel-united-sta...
[6] https://www.huffpost.com/entry/israel-gaza-isaac-herzog_n_65...
[7] https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-vete...
[8] https://twitter.com/hahauenstein/status/1726326606782984506
[9] https://twitter.com/alihashem_tv/status/1723369208191287738
[10] https://twitter.com/hahauenstein/status/1723441134221869453
[11] https://twitter.com/GalitDistel/status/1719689095230730656
[12] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/energy-minister...
[13] https://twitter.com/justinbaragona/status/171941227835150748...
This is very propaganda. I've been following the conflict pretty closely and I speak Hebrew. The parent is correct, there is and was no order to massacre civilians.
It's probably safe to say that protecting Palestinian civilians is not Israel's main priority, but there's a big difference between that and painting a picture of Israel trying to massacre as many civilians as possible.
- Amichai Eliyahu, Israel's heritage minister: "that "there are no non-combatants in Gaza," adding that providing humanitarian aid to the Strip would constitute 'a failure.'" [8]
In the same interview: "When asked by the interview whether a nuclear weapon could be used on Gaza, Eliyahu responded: 'That's one way.' " [9]
[8]https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-05/ty-article/ne...
[9]https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-minister-suggested-nu...
I believe breaking things up into "us" vs "them" is the root of much evil in the world.
Would it be more meaningful to say "dads killing dads" or "this specific person killing that specific person" ?
That would be a nuanced view. The reality is that most people and especially most people who post their views online are not capable of seeing things that way.
What I would and do blame the current government for is that Oct 7th even happened, the scale, and the immediate response.
EDIT: I also blame the current government for trying to eliminate any possibility of a two state solution and effectively supporting the Hamas rule in Gaza as means of accomplishing that. I can probably blame them for lots more. That said the actual Oct 7th attack is all on Hamas and the response is pretty much the only response you'd have seen from any Israeli government (or anyone else in that position for that matter). We're in a place today that is a different place and we can talk all we want about what other possible places we could be.
I'll agree with you on the west bank policy being a Likud/right-wing policy in general. We can also talk about why the Israeli public is more right wing leaning and the left has all but disappeared.
I think those two groups are really more mutually exclusive than what you're trying to portray. At least to most Israelis they are. Because for most Israelis, when you say "peaceful within 1967 borders", it reads as "kill all the Jews in Israel". Many (most?) Palestinians will also not accept this statement because they consider Israel in the 1967 border to be the Palestinian state. If there was an overlap we wouldn't really be where we are, we'd have peace. I have not met many people who are in this overlap, i.e. they're both "pro-Israel" and "pro-Palestine" in a meaningful way. Most people do not hold nuanced views at all, don't know that much about the conflict, don't really understand what's going on, hold on to simplistic narratives and "windows" they get from the media and social media. For me as an (ex-) Israeli your equating the response of Israel to the Hamas puts you squarely in the anti-Israeli camp. You blank statement "massacre of civilians under the orders of Likud (and other far right parties)" feels like a blood libel. This is just my emotional response to how you phrase things. So that doesn't seem to be an overlap of pro-israeli and pro-palestinian.
How did Hamas come into power? What are its goals? What have they promised to do to accomplish those objectives?
Their goals are of malicious intent, and they have demonstrated that they're willing to do anything to accomplish them.
About innocent Palestinians, I understand their fears (at least I hope I do). But, _as of this moment_, focusing the narrative on them and Israel is just a cunning way to further drive a wedge between them, and muddle the waters.
If the critics were clear about their issue being how Israel measures proportionality with respect to every single target they go after, and they were able to support their case comparing to other similar military campaigns, and there was a very clear outcome of that comparison, I think that's very fair and I'd even be able to get behind it. But that's not what the critics are doing.
> Israeli defense Minister Yoav Gallant: "I have ordered a complete siege on Gaza: no electricity, no food, no fuel, no water. Everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly."
Re: "any other way is a can of worms". I agree with this statement.
Putting these two statements together means there will never be peace in Palestine. It sucks....
The US has huge military presences in both countries, and if they really wanted to shut down funding to those institutions they could do it tomorrow.
We know that Netanyahu deliberated supported these groups to shut down opposition in Gaza by his own accord and that he has even recently asked to send more funding[1]. The talking heads also want you to believe that this is some sort of protection money out of goodwill for the poor civilians in Gaza.
I listened to some Palestinians on twitter spaces the other day and they told explained to people how the political landscape is actually a lot more complex than we are led to believe from media.
One person breaking down Hamas really well has been Brian Berletic from the new atlas[2]. Some people here might not like him, because he very much in favour of China, but I still urge everyone to take a look at his Palestine analysis.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/mossad-chief-top-general-visit...
Begin is rolling in his grave as we speak. There is nothing between today's Likud and any historic version of that party. That's one thing.
The Likud (under the leadership of Sharon, who is also rolling in his grave) is also the party that withdrew from Gaza and handed it to the Palestinian Authority, dismantling settlements (by force). The Likud (under Begin's leadership) was the party that made peace with Egypt and gave Sinai back, also dismantling Israeli settlements (by force).
I don't think the history of the Irgun is really relevant here. At any rate, the views of the Likud shifted substantially and current party called "Likud" has really zero connection to the Likud at the time of Begin/Shamir/Sharon etc.
What you hear instead are thinly-veiled justifications. Oh, we had to bomb those hospitals because there were tunnels there. So sorry about the civilian deaths at a refugee camp, but we just wanted to get that one commander.
Let’s be real here. Israel shut off food, water, medicine and electricity to Gaza. They’ve damaged over 2/3 of the buildings there [1]. As of a month ago, they’d dropped almost 2x the amount of explosives the US delivered to Hiroshima [2].
These are not the actions of a country “going after military targets even at some cost to civilians”. Israel is doing exactly what Hagari said: inflicting maximum damage.
[1] https://x.com/tksshawa/status/1732447886237974898
[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/11/9/israel-att...
This complete siege didn't happen.
So what exactly is your solution then? To create 10-20 times the suffering that has led to the growth of Hamas to begin with?
But let's say, for the sake of the argument, that that line of reasoning is justified, which for the record, I don't think it is. How does that then justify the violence, and the killings happening in the West Bank? How does it justify shooting Palestinians in the US?
Nobody here wants to hear it, but the only country that has gotten a hold of its Islamist terrorism problem without mass bombing is China. And contrary to what people in the US like to hear the Organization of Islamic Cooperation which comprises dozens of Muslim countries, have praised Chinas efforts to build infrastructure and schools. The US shouts about Uyghur rights all the time and then bombs them the moment they hang out with the Taliban for training[1].
Even the guy who came up with the Uyghur genocide says that the people working in the factories are treated well, and yet that's somehow a bad thing[2].
[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/u-s-targets-chinese-uighu...
[2] https://twitter.com/adrianzenz/status/1732406580623098274
The parents of Ethan Crumbley's victims asked for maximum penalty - sounds a lot like eye for an eye right and is right here in the US. A dad of one of Nasser's victims asked to be alone with Nassar for 5 minutes. When the judge (obviously) declined that request that guy jumped over the fence in the courtroom trying to get to Nassar.
What do you think regular people would do when their kids are killed? Or their brothers and sisters are killed?
In some perverse way, the objection to the two state solution forces the one state solution, which is likely the only solution that would ever work. Jews and Arabs living side by side in the same country as equal citizens. Hamas isn't interested in that solution either.
Except that Israel has Arabs already, living side by side with the Jews there. Palestinians have rejected that.
Palestinians did not reject a one state solution. Most Israelis don't want that. I.e. annex the West Bank and Gaza and have a single country, let's call it "Israel-Palestine".
I think the Israeli Arabs are a model/proof that it can work. It might need a generation or two to get there.
If you want more radical ideas then if all Palestinian Arabs convert to Judaism we can also solve the problem pretty quickly...
> On 9 October 2023, Israel imposed a "total blockade" of the Gaza Strip, blocking the entry of food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity.
Strongly disagree. There are honest debates and questions here. I am learning from them, though I’m also fact checking everything that surprises.
How did Hamas come to power? Via democratic elections and by winning a subsequent civil war.
What are their goals? Total Palestinian liberation and the restoration of the pre 1948 borders (a.k.a one state solution).
How do they promise to achieve these goals? Via armed struggle, a.k.a. intifada and revolution.
Hamas came into power after a fair democratic election in 2006. Outside observers monitored the elections and all agreed they were correct and fair. The only major interference actually came from Israel which backed the rival political group Fatah. Following the election the Palestinian civil war broke out in Gaza, which Hamas won. After which they took full control of the Gaza strip. There has not been an election since then, neither on Gaza nor on the West Bank. Aside: The legislative council in Gaza was demolished by the Israeli army last November.
Meanwhile on the West Bank Fatah took power, where they control the Palestinian Authority. It is interesting to see the fate of the territory each faction controls. While Gaza suffers a blockade and constant military interventions, the West Bank is suffering from constant incursion from settlers and military raids as well as further partitioning of their lands, illegal settlements, military checkpoints, etc.
In simple terms, Fatah supports the two state solution, among with most of the international community, which is why many Western nations view them as the legitimate government despite Hamas having won the election fair and square. Hamas on the other hand at first did not recognize Israel as a state, and wanted all of historic Palestine under Palestinian control. Since 2006 they have somewhat eased their stance against Israel, but are still calling for decolonization and one state.
The Palestinian Authority (and Fatah by extension) is not popular among Palestinians. The way I understand it is that people view them as a colonial government, pandering to the interest of their colonizers. It is my understanding that Hamas is viewed favorably, as pandering to the interests of the colonizers has not left the West Bank in a nice state for the indigenous population.
In short, in simple terms (as per my limited understanding), the two state solution is not seen as the right path inside Palestine, so people actually support Hamas’ one state solution, and see the fight for decolonization as legitimate. This may be a tough reality for westerners to accept as Hamas is only portrait by their very real and devastating atrocities, but seldomly seen as liberation fighters and never recognized for their decolonization efforts.
Instead of relying on western analysis of the situation, I actually like to take in some historic comparisons. The Mau Mau in Kenya were indeed very brutal, and conducted very severe crimes against, however their fight—with the hindsight of history—was indeed very just, and resulted in the liberation of Kenya from the oppressive British colonial rule. Another example is FLN in Algeria, which probably had even more popular support then the Mau Mau, and were even more brutal in their fight against their French colonial oppressors.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/unrwa-continues-to-teac...
Meanwhile, Palestine has shown no restraint at all in their 10/7 massacre and no Jews live in Palestine, whereas many Arabs live peacefully in Israel.
If that was the goal, wouldn't you think more Palestinians be dead by now? How does this goal benefit Israel in any way?
But it's a fair question what would it take to convince me. I think you'd need to show me enough incidents of Israel intentionally targeting civilians with the clear goal of maximizing civilian deaths. e.g. carpet bombing of civilians in the south with casualties in the 10's of thousands from one bombing raid or indiscriminate artillery firing on the south like we see the Russians doing in Ukraine.
Just a by the way, do you know what exactly "refugee camp" means in the context of this conflict? Can you describe what that is and why it's called a refugee camp. I'm asking because it seems many do not know (and if you don't, it's not actually what you think it is).
Haven't you seen large numbers of civilians walking from the north part of Gaza to the south part of Gaza right by Israeli soldiers and tanks? I've seen IDF soldiers give them water as they're passing by. There were photos of civilians arrested yesterday (and treated poorly, doesn't look good) ... but alive.
Israel does provide water now to Gaza. It did temporarily shut down its water supply to Gaza which is part of how Gazans get water (but not the sole source). How many people have died from lack of water? Food is restricted but is getting in. Probably not enough. How many people have died from starvation?. Medicine is coming in. Israel is not providing electricity. It's a war! Many, one might say too many, have died.
Can you provide references to other major wars where one side was providing the other side with water, food, electricity, medicine? When siege was laid on Mosul did the US provide all those to the citizens of the city? Did the Russians to Mariupol? And sure, I understand Gaza's situations is a bit unique so it's hard to find parallels (and definitely don't want Israel to be compared to Russia).
There is definitely wide scale destruction to structures. I've seen the figure 1/3 today. It's all one big combat zones, when tanks fire inside cities and airplanes drop bombs, and artillery shells targets there is widespread damage. Very much like major scale war in other urban areas around the world, Bahkmut, Mariupol, are two examples from the other active conflict. I don't take it as proof of targeting civilians. It is a tactic to avoid urban warfare, booby traps, remove cover that the enemy can use etc. I agree it's a pretty brutal tactic but not one specifically disallowed in the rules of war.
Have you ever been to Israel? I'm just curious. Do you know many Israelis?
I think this (new) Wikipedia article is somewhat iffy. And maybe I'm misusing terminology. I think Israel's actions in this context constitute a blockade that is legal in times of war. I don't want to nitpick siege vs. blockage etc. or the fact that Israel doesn't control all the borders. Israel's actions here are legal.
I remember reading about a psychology case of two sisters getting constantly raped by their father.
One of them finally grabbed the dad’s rifle and shot him. One of them recovered and went on to live a normal life and the other spent the rest of her life in treatment.
But what’s ultimately clear is that Israel in its current form is not sustainable. Either they change, meaning they stop calling and treating people they don’t like, like animals, or they launch an all out war with all their neighbors in which case all bets are off. The media is guilty in this. If they hadn’t perpetuated this myth that the USA is infinitely powerful and will defeat anyone standing in Israel’s way they would have had to find a way to arrange themselves with their neighbors.
Because it would mean the end of a Jewish state. Combine Israel and Palestine and you get roughly 50% Jews, 50% Arabs. (5.3M Arabs in Palestine, 7.1M Jews in Israel and 2M Arabs in Israel).
You need to zoom in, zoom out, the history is vast, there's the big picture, there are details. Most of what you'll encounter online and in the media, on both sides really, is propaganda.
* There really isn't any better deathrates when the other side is explicitly based on indifference to its own civillian casualties. Mosul had 40K civillian deaths in a 2.5x smaller city (by population)[0]. I fail to see why Israel can't use the same legal tactics** the US used to defend itself versus jihadists, except the Israeli death rate is lower and the US had far less justification.
* Focusing on the Likud is a mistake. Every Israeli political party would have counterattacked at Gaza, with about the same (legal) tactics, but probably much more aggressively. Leaving next door to a genocidal terrorist regime was unacceptable, actually moreso to the Israeli Left. After all, what's the point of two states if the other side can do _anything_ and get support afterwards?
And I mean anything - the attack was into 1967 lines, deathrates much higher than in Gaza. The irony is that many people that say they support 2ss are trying to enshrine impunity here, basically destroying any hope that either side will support 2ss. That's why Bibi was the pretend 'cautious' here, because of very cynical calculation - Hamas staying weakened but alive lets Bibi kill 2ss - WB Palestinians flock to 'victorious' Hamas, while Israeli Left approach is discredited - but his hand was forced.
* Focusing on Hamas is also somewhat of a mistake, given polls show widespread crosscutting Palestinian support to Hamas action[1].
[0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mosul-m...
[1] https://www.awrad.org/files/server/polls/polls2023/Public%20...
** When we ignore scaremongering about 'starvation/disease at a massive scale' when it's not happening, the only thing the list has are actions into hospitals which even the US believes are used by Hamas.
> Israel does provide water now to Gaza. It did temporarily shut down its water supply to Gaza which is part of how Gazans get water (but not the sole source). How many people have died from lack of water? Food is restricted but is getting in. Probably not enough. How many people have died from starvation?. Medicine is coming in. Israel is not providing electricity. It's a war! Many, one might say too many, have died.
Shutting off these things is targeting civilians! You may think it's justified or that there's precedent, but that doesn't change the fact that the goal of the attack is to harm every human being there.
> Can you provide references to other major wars where one side was providing the other side with water, food, electricity, medicine? When siege was laid on Mosul did the US provide all those to the citizens of the city? Did the Russians to Mariupol? And sure, I understand Gaza's situations is a bit unique so it's hard to find parallels (and definitely don't want Israel to be compared to Russia).
I opposed the US conquering Iraq, I oppose Russia's invasion of Ukraine and I oppose Israel's bombing in Gaza (and, as you alluded to, Gaza's situation is unique among those examples in that they are more or less blockaded by and dependent on Israel). I don't really find "but what about other wars" a compelling argument — war is bad!
As to your last question, although I don't know why it's relevant: I'm a diaspora Jew who has not been to Israel from a fairly large Jewish community in the US. Not sure what counts as "many" but yes, I know some Israelis.
Considering that they killed 15K+ civilians in various ways in just a couple of weeks , and bombed two thirds of the buildings in north gaza including hospitals, refugee camps, they were certainly not trying very hard not to kill them. So practically, this doesn't make a big difference.
It seems the order were "bomb anything that may have a hamas member nearby, and don't bother about any civilian nearby (even israelis hostages).
You mean by not bombing rafah crossing in violation of international law as they did several times already?
> I think Israel's actions in this context constitute a blockade that is legal in times of war
> Israel's actions here are legal.
At least provide any sources during your quest to defend isreal actions. Even if it is straightout lies like that one [1]
Hint : the story is about Israeli military releases footage of a secret terrorist ‘roster’ that turns out to be a calendar (that was very obvious for any one with basic arabic knowledge) and that was their justification for bombing and taking out a children hospital bt force.
[1] https://www.dailydot.com/debug/israel-gaza-hospital-calendar...
What else is the long term trajectory here? Israel can't keep occupying Palestinians indefinitely (and I'm using the term "occupy" in the Israeli meaning, not in the Palestinian meaning, fwiw). Two states as we've seen is not going to work. Anyways, I know this is a hard time to talk about this.
Do you realize that isreal is the side who killed at least 10x the number that the other side kill. I can see that you describe hamas's action as horrible but there is no way of condition that justifies what isreal did and is still doing to Palestinian civilians (no matter how you think you can)
Your second point is wrong, by the way. There are hundreds of thousands of Jews living in settlements in the West Bank.
This is an oversimplification. A few months before the election, Israel pulled out all its forces/settlements/infrastructure from Hamas-dominated Gaza, while keeping them in place in the West Bank where Hamas was stronger. This was a huge victory handed on a silver platter to Hamas, by the administration of Israeli PM Ariel Sharon (who the Palestinians call the "Butcher of Beirut" [0]).
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org//wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
It looks more as a civilian massacre than a war. Yes, it's pretty obvious that they don't try to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible. But they clearly show no consideration for civilian lives. What we're witnessing is extremely disturbing to say the least, and we should make Israel stop because nothing can justify what they do. They are entitled to live safely, not to kill thousands of innocents because it suits them.
> Have you ever been to Israel? I'm just curious. Do you know many Israelis?
How is that relevant to the discussion? having Israeli friends should make us accept these horrors? I don't think so.
Even though the current Israeli government may be more conservative than the ones previous, I see few possibilities for a more socially liberal government if Israel were to combine with the more-conservative majority-Muslim Palestinian states, given that there is not a single majority Muslim country in the world that is close to as socially liberal as Israel is, even now. Especially given that Muslim majority countries have a tendency to start employing Sharia law, even in Malaysia, far separated from the Middle-Eastern Muslim world.
If your suggested law of war isn't 'majority or ruthless minority, get to do everything they want because they have more causalties', than you need an alternative. The alternative is the current laws of war, which allow for strikes with collateral damage (what Israel says it's doing), but not for terrorist attacks aimed at civilians.
* Suicide bombers, Iranian mullahs sending kids with 'plastic keys to heaven' to dismantle minefields, or current refusal of Hamas to allow civilians to use its tunnels as shelters. We could fill the page with examples really.
** Funny, I don't recall opposition to America's post 9/11 response based on counts. Almost as if the same rules don't apply.
The 1% most extreme on both sides want to drag you down to their level, don't let them.
My problem is that the terms are not necessarily the common definition of those terms.
Clearly civilians are impacted by Israel's actions. Nobody can argue with that. And the impact is major. Someone used to live in a nice house and have their basic needs met, and now they're crammed in a tent somewhere with almost nothing. Their house could be destroyed. And yes, many civilians have died. This is not what I take to mean by "Israel is intentionally targeting civilians", what that means to me, and likely to many others, is that Israeli soldiers are looking for civilians and killing them wherever they can find them, intentionally, as many as they can. This matters. Words matter. By your definition every war targets civilians, and it's sort of maybe true, but again, not really how most people IMO think about it.
The reason I asked my "Israeli" questions is that I do think most Israelis are moral, decent, people. As a whole they would prefer not to be in this war at all. You can say maybe they're misguided but their goal is the security of their country, not inflicting pain on others. Intent does matter.
I think there's a minority of Israelis that are not that (e.g. we just had the case of an Israeli settler soldier killing an Israeli civilian who was no threat because he thought he was Arab and we had other similar cases).
The reason Arabs supported the British against the Ottomans was because they wanted to create a unified Arab nation: https://awayfromthewesternfront.org/campaigns/egypt-palestin.... And Arabs got the overwhelming majority of the territory they wanted (notwithstanding the many minority groups they had conquered in the Levant), with the exception of what became Israel. Put differently, you could say that Arabs got 0% of Israel, and that’s technically true. But it’s not an accurate description of what they got in comparison to what they actually wanted.
For individuals, that is simply wrong. If my brother were to kill an innocent kid and that kid's father were to kill my brother, as much as I love my brother, I'd hate him for killing an innocent kid and I'd totally understand the father of the kid killing my brother.
Would I suffer? Sure. And I'd be ashamed of what my brother did. But I wouldn't go out and kill the kid's father.
It's totally ridiculous to consider killers doing mass shooting should be given a second chance to mass shoot again and it's totally normal parents of some of the dead kids want lifetime jail (or the death penalty).
And I don't think the parents of the mass shooter would, in turn, go on a killing spree. They know fully well what their kid got is well deserved.
As to the latter part, you're pulling a trick to imply that the 10x are all civilian non-combatants, which is just as bad as the other people pretending that all the teen-aged Hamas soldiers who have been killing people are non-combatant children.
Murder is not just worse than manslaughter it is on a different level.
Western criminal codes generally allow for no punishment, perhaps even no guilt, for a manslaughter. If Israel could remove Hamas without injuring any non-combatants I think they would. It makes a difference. Almost by definition suggesting that scale is a factor is implying that collective punishment is acceptable.
If Israel stops now, and Hamas kills 2000 Israelis in 5 years, and then Israel kills 50,000 Palestinians because Hamas is much stronger and the war is much more complex and the population is denser, should we stop now? What is the probability of this outcome? What are the range of outcomes of stopping now, beyond the obvious of less people will die over the next week or 2 weeks, or month, until the next round flares up. We have had many rounds of violence.
How do we weigh the continuation of rocket fire into Israel from Gaza into the equation? What happens if Hamas figures out a technological solution to defeat the iron dome?
There are many many other factors.
How do we weigh the motivation/chances that Hezbollah would attack Israel from the north?
Clearly all the dead people are not coming back to live. All the damage that has been done is done. It's all extremely tragic. The question is where do we go from here. You're saying "we should make Israel stop". Assuming that's even an option (I don't think anyone can make Israel stop at this point) who is going to pay the price of that decision down the road? "we" or Israel?
I don't know. I don't have answers. My opinion is that stopping now will result in more deaths in the future. But I'm not sure. If I was convinced stopping now is the best option for peace I would certainly support it. I hope we are getting very close to the end of the war, at least the more intense phase of it.
I think knowing Israelis will give you some sense of what kind of people they are, and will let you relate to them as people. Something I think is missing from a lot of the discourse. I agree we're seeing horrors. By the way, you should also talk to some Palestinians and get to know them as well fwiw. I've had some pretty interesting discussions in the past with a Palestinian friend.
The hospital they bombed had the parking lot damaged by a failed Hamas rocket. The "refugee camp" has been there for many years, not as huddled fleeing masses, but permanent structures from people who fled there long ago, the tunnel network is well known and there's video evidence, the aid was being supplied by Israel to begin with (including the water) and they were using the pipes to make weapons, etc.
So I'm not surprised to find that none of your other points make sense either.
Again, none of that, to me, vitiates the right of an Israeli person to live peacefully in Israel, but I don't take kindly to anyone's nationalist fantasy, and I find it absurd that people continue to trade in the kind of simplistic tribal patriotism that just regurgitates their ethnic narrative.
How?
The Japanese killed a few dozen civilians in Pearl Harbor. America killed 10,000x as many during their bombings of Japan. Had they not surrendered, they likely would have killed an order of magnitude more. The only alternative would have been for the US to completely blockade Japan indefinitely to prevent them from rebuilding their military. Actually, they wouldn't be able to do that either because that would make Japan an "open air prison."
This was not a calendar. The first day was Oct 7th. It had the operation's name as the title "Al Aqsa Flood". https://twitter.com/IDF/status/1724245759174791626
It's true that Hagari incorrectly said it was a "roster". But it's not a calendar. It was a mistake, not a lie. He shouldn't have done that.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IsraelPalestine/comments/17zu5x8/di...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaz...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
Fatah had more support in elections (yellow) in areas with former Israel settlements.
I was (obviously) referring to their share of the population of Mandatory Palestine specifically.
I feel the "question of that cost" is where the differences in opinion lie.
For example, if Israel considered the civilians of Gaza as Israel citizens of equal importance to all other Israeli citizens, you'd expect them to consider that cost to be much higher, and it would force them to maneuver much more carefully in their military operations in order to minimize it. Yes, it would make it a lot harder for them to fight and make headway against Hamas as well if they did.
Some people hold the belief that this is how Israel should treat civilians, no lesser than they'd treat their own.
I think another contentious issue, is around the outcome of the war, and what it means for those civilians as well. Is the idea to force the One-State solution, but not as a binational state with equal rights for all citizens, irrespective of ethnicity or religion, but instead as a state with dominant Jewish identity? The impression to this question can change your opinion of the civilian casualties, are they an unfortunate price to pay towards their liberation from Hamas, and their incorporation into a more just, equal, fair, democracy, where they can live a better life? Or is it actually towards their further oppression by Israel?
Or if it is to force a Two-State solution, again, what would it mean of those civilians, would the Palestinian state be forced to harsh conditions as part of treaties if they lose the war, which would hurt those civilians further, etc.
It's complicated, but I do think most of it is about this "cost of civilian casualties", and what worth you attribute to it, and what worth you attribute to the end in order to justify the means.
Criminal punishments are more about the social consequences than about the crime itself. If someone gets X years in prison for crime A and another person gets 2X years for crime B, it doesn't mean that crime B was twice as bad. It only means that after taking a large number of factors into account, it made sense to give twice as long sentence for crime B.
Hardliners in the current Israeli government (e.g Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich, Amichai Eliyahu) want to "annex Judaea and Samaria". There seems to be a bit of ambiguity about whether they mean only Area C, or the whole of the West Bank (or even annex Area C now as a precursor to annexing A and B later.)
If they did that, what would happen to the Palestinians living in those areas – would they become Israeli Arabs? Would they first have to request Israeli citizenship? Would they be entitled to it, or would it be up to the Israeli government to decide whether to extend it to them?
"One state solution" is an idea primarily associated with Israel's peacenik far left, but maybe the best way to achieve it might (paradoxically) be to let the Israeli far right get a big chunk of what it wants?
> If you want more radical ideas then if all Palestinian Arabs convert to Judaism we can also solve the problem pretty quickly...
Speaking of radical ideas, I find the "cantonization" proposals [0] for the future of Israel rather fascinating. Basically convert it into a federation of different "cantons" representing the different sectors of Israeli society (secular, religious, Haredi, Arab). These cantons might be partially geographical and partially personal – i.e. every citizen belongs to a canton personally, the canton also controls the territory where its members are a majority, but has to protect the rights of minorities from other cantons in its territory; individuals will receive some government services from the canton of residence (e.g. public utilities), others might be provided by their personal canton (e.g. education, family law)
[0] https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-05-05/ty-article-ma...
Not once did you mention what atrocities were committed on Hamas’s side and instead you spent all your effort justifying Hamas by arguing how you think Lukid is worse.
What actions in your opinion would be an appropriate response for people (& government) of Israel to respond to the targeted rape, murder, beheadings of the elderly, men, women, and children, which was filmed by Hamas and sometimes live-streamed on the social media accounts of their victims to show off what they have achieved?
I’m not sure you can claim to be in the middle or support ‘both sides / both peoples’ when you only have bad things to say about one of them.
The implicit assumption is that any place with a majority of "Arabs" would ethnically cleanse all the Jews or become an Islamic theocracy, so we must view everything through the lens of competing ethno-states. It's important to challenge this assumption. Ethno-states are inherently violent because every population is a mixture of different ethnicities, and an ethno-state needs to maintain a majority of a certain population. If the "wrong" group's population grows in an ethno-state, it becomes a "demographic problem" that the government needs to "solve". This is why carving up the world into such states is never a lasting solution for peace.
Aside: "Arab" and "Jew" are not mutually exclusive. You can be an Arab Jew in the same way you can be a Hispanic Jew - Arab is a distinction based on one's mother language not one's religion. This is why the Arab League includes countries in north Africa where most people aren't descended from ancestral Arabians. The history of and literature of Judeo-Arabic is an interesting rabbit hole: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Jews
> In the lead-up to the elections, on 26 September 2005 Israel launched a campaign of arrests against PLC members. 450 members of Hamas were detained, mostly those involved in the 2006 PLC elections. The majority of them were kept in administrative detention for different periods.[19] In the election period, 15 PLC members were captured and held as prisoners.[20]
> On 21 December 2005 Israeli officials stated their intention to prevent voting in East Jerusalem, which, unlike most of the Palestinian-inhabited areas that were planned to participate in the election, was under Israeli civil and military control.
> On the day of the election, the ballot boxes were held in Israeli Post Offices inside Jerusalem. Israeli police officers were present to monitor the proceedings of the election. At the end of the day the Israeli authorities transferred the ballot boxes to the Palestinian Authority.[19]
Question: How is withdrawing from Gaza interfering with the election while these actual examples of interference aren’t?
It seems to me if your narration of history were true (which I’m not sure it is) then withdrawing from Gaza but not the West Bank was merely a dumb move, not interference.
EDIT: To be clear, I don’t believe—as did observers at the time—that these interference efforts had a significant impact on the results. I believe these elections were fair and accurate despite some inference efforts by Israel. Whatever politics Israel conducted before the election was just that, politics. Every participant or stakeholder in election which holds any amount of power over the electorate does these politics before and during elections.
Two states are much better than one in my opinion, and the PA-led pseudo-state is much better than Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel and Palestine need a manageable divorce, not a forced and unhappy marriage.
Regardless, the PA does not advocate for one state, Hamas does not advocate for one state, and the vast majority of Israelis do not want one state, so I think this is kind of a moot point.
Also, a reminder that Putin and Hamas were also democratically elected, and I don’t see why that has any relevance to whether their actions should be condemned or not.
The current laws of war do not allow, for instance, strikes at medical facilities: Israel’s argument is that they don’t have to follow the laws because Hamas is breaking them.
Democratic processes are good because it holds those in power accountable for their actions and should not just be hand waved away as if it doesn’t matter.
And no, what Hamas has done was not mentioned, all that was said was ‘the actions of Hamas’. What actions - did they hold a bake sale? It is unclear and minimized.
Very much on the margins if any. The overwhelming consensus ignored these considerations.
>The current laws of war do not allow, for instance, strikes at medical facilities.
This is wrong. Medical facilities can be struck if they are used for war.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/08/504815234...
Moreover, this is not what happened in Gaza - there were raids but not dropping bombs from airplanes, the former being much less destructive.
Talking about “how much of Mandatory Palestine the Arabs got” is contrived, when it was just a part of a much larger Arab territory under the Ottomans, and was planned to be part of a much larger Arab territory after the Ottomans.
Surely you jest. How is this attack supposed to remove Hamas? It seems designed to strengthen Hamas, just as Israel has been supporting Hamas since their formation.
The existence of Hamas prevents a united Palestinian people while simultaneously giving Israel the excuse to reject a 2-state solution. If Hamas didn't exist, Israel would have to create a Hamas from scratch.
I don’t have easy answers here. But I think we’ve lost an important piece of the plot here if we can’t look at one terrible human tragedy, and then another, and then ask ourselves whether the first had to beget the second.
> Even though the current Israeli government may be more conservative than the ones previous, I see few possibilities for a more socially liberal government if Israel were to combine with the more-conservative majority-Muslim Palestinian states
According to some forecasts, roughly 50% of all Israeli children born in 2065 will be Haredi. [0] If that's right, Israel could well end this century with a majority of the population being Haredi, and Haredi parties in control of the Knesset and Israeli government. I doubt a socially liberal Israeli government could be possible in that circumstance; whatever remains of the secular minority may not be "strong", it may be politically weakened, demoralised, and increasingly diminished by emigration and a low birth rate.
And all that's assuming there is no change to the relationship with the Palestinians. So maybe a change won't do as much as you think – it might just hasten the inevitable.
[0] https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-05-22/ty-article-opinio...
“Collateral damage” is one of those bloodless wartime euphemisms for killing innocent men, women, and children. It’s a dirty, unavoidable reality. But I don’t believe for one second that Israel’s hands are so sufficiently constrained that the current degree of civilian death is necessary. I say that as a Jew, with family in Israel, who I worry about.
So there is a very real sense in which there _are_ two mutually exclusive groups. There is also a third group wishing for nuance and understanding and thoughtful discourse of the historical context, but that group gets coded as the “other” by both of the black-and-white groups.
I hate sports analogies (doubly so with something as serious as this), but… you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take or the debates you don’t have.
Actually I find the discussion on HN has brought up many useful insights on a complex conflict that provokes emotional responses. It's a model that many other communities could learn from.
- Killed almost 18,000 people
- Displaced 1.9 million people
- Cut off food, water, medicine, fuel, electricity and Internet access
- Limited press access except for footage reviewed by the IDF
- Dropped ~2x as much explosive as the US dropped in Hiroshima
- Damaged over 2/3 of buildings
- Bombed basically every hospital
- Bombed an ambulance
- Told people to move south and then bombed Rafah crossing, on the border with Egypt
- Kidnapped thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank
- Tortured Palestinian abductees
- Handed out weapons to West Bank settlers
- Stripped civilians and paraded them through the streets
This is all after October 7th — before that, Israeli settlers were responsible for pogroms and dozens of murders in the West Bank.
I'm sure Hamas feels the same way! I'm not going to say whether one or two-state solution is best, that's for Palestinians and Israelis to decide, but something's gotta give.
I think you need to self reflect a bit harder. Unless you are the dali lama, i'm sure you can understand the need for revenge and looking for a sense of security. Not saying it's the right thing to do, but it sure is easy to grasp.
This is simply not true. Almost none of the world is ethnostates.
Not true.
I certainly wouldn’t refer to “the US did it” as a cite for “it’s not a war crime”, but that article appears to be saying they attacked a place not thought to be currently active as a civilian medical facility.
I made no narration of history.
Imagine that was done here (in the US), those teachers might get a talking to, but nobody would buy that they're teaching hate unless students or observers say something.
If someone were to scrub your social media accounts, would they find 0 likes or shares of 'hateful content'? Depending on who you follow, that could be anything from sharing videos of the IDF's attacks, Hamas' attacks, Likud's charter, or even some dude that edited their viral post to inject something positive about Mein Kampf
The biggest cosmopolitan countries are the United States and Brazil if I remember correctly. Maybe Canada too. Europe is moving in that direction. Countries that have a diverse citizenry are more of an exception though. Not that I disagree with your probable view that we should all live in diverse secular democracies, I just think your claim that almost none of the world is ethnostates is somewhat suspect.
I agree with the idea that Israel would ideally be a single secular state, but navigating that transition while preserving it as the safest place the Jews of the world can go would be an enormous challenge. The situation sucks and resists simple answers.
Sort of apartheid.
It's more wishful thinking than a plan.
That's like saying the Nazis just wanted Jews "gone", gassing them wasn't a priority.
Here is a German phrase you must learn:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorauseilender_Gehorsam
People murder -- to not mince words, some people act and think like Nazis, as Yeshayahu Leibowitz so very correctly pointed out -- and they know they'll get away with it. There are rarely "explicit explicit" orders, the general atmosphere, the words and deeds you saw others get away with, is enough.
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231024-security-minister...
[2] https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17327731468585127...
[3] https://twitter.com/NimerSultany/status/1731736295666282707
[4] https://twitter.com/muhammadshehad2/status/17330661183302657...
That doesn’t mean that “the highest ranking Knesset members are secretly ordering their soldiers to kill civilians!” I don’t think they have to, in the same way that high ranking police in the US don’t have to tell officers to target Black people. I think there is a culture of supremacy and racism, and the IDF is collectively taking advantage of this moment to act on their worst impulses. I think they are at best indiscriminately attacking and making only token efforts to avoid civilian harm. Insofar as they are showing restraint, I think it’s only from the vague threat of losing the support of the US — just tonight, the sole abstaining vote on a UN security council demand for ceasefire — and if they could get away with even more outright genocide or ethnic cleansing, they would.
And yes, if it’s not clear, I am talking about the state of Israel, its government and military, not its citizens (although if reports in the US are to be believed a lot of y’all are real bloodthirsty right now — not that many Americans aren’t just as bad). I certainly don’t equate a government with its civilians: 2/3 of all Americans and almost 80% of Democrats support a ceasefire even as our Democratic president continues to defend this war.
On TV in English, which atrocity is used to justify the current and growing civilian death toll in Gaza seems to depend on who the audiences. US audiences are appealed to with comparison to Hiroshima and UK audiences, to Dresden.
It's easy to read it cynically when it's an Israeli official excusing one war crime with another on television. It's stranger and sadder to see it done by an ordinary stranger online.
- Israel did displace a lot of people. Partly for their own safety while Israel attacks the area they live in. I think your number are correct.
- We already covered the "cut off" in another thread so I (edit: didn't want to but I guess I did anyways) want revisit it. Water was off, and then on, food and medicine are allowed in but maybe not enough, Internet access is on most of the time in this war zone, electricity is mostly cut off (partly because the power station ran out of fuel I think, not strictly because Israel cut it off). This is a snarky comment but I'm pretty sure the tunnel vents still have power. Northern Gaza and Southern Gaza are also different (with more restrictions on Northern Gaza). I would call this statement misleading.
- Israel did drop a lot of bomb tonnage on Gaza but we can't really compare this to the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima. There were 60-80 thousand dead in Hiroshima which was much less populated/dense than Gaza (total population was about 350,000). As a piece of trivia, between 241,000 and 900,000 people died in Japan in the bombing campaigns of WW2. I would fact check this statement as misleading.
- There is plenty of press access from the Palestinian side. I think we're getting more footage from the war zone compared to many other war zones. Israel does review footage of press that embeds with the IDF in Gaza for operational-security reasons. I think that's pretty normal. I don't recall large complaints from the media about this, but they do note it in their reports. So correct but misleading.
- Do you have a reference for "dozens of murders by settlers prior to Oct 7th"? Are you going all the way back to Baruch Goldstein? Even with that "dozens" seems incorrect to me. There's no room for any violence by settlers but let's get the facts right. My very quick research has failed to substantiate this claim.
- Reference for "paraded them through the streets"? Also do we know they're all civilians? Israel strips people they arrest (to their underwear) to make sure they're not suicide bombers. I have seen those photos/videos as well. I agree it's pretty humiliating (and) the pictures didn't look good. I hope the people that are uninvolved will be released quickly. I know you're going to take issue with what I say here, but this was in Northern Gaza where civilians have been asked to evacuate and Hamas combatants operate in civilian clothing. Hamas has a lot of history with suicide bombers so it's not unreasonable to expect this tactic. I would call this partly misleading.
- I also take issue with "kidnapped" and "tortured". I would say arrested Islamic Jihad and Hamas activists. Torture is illegal in Israel (maybe allowed if there's a "ticking bomb", I don't recall) and while it's possible there have been cases I don't think it's systemic, any evidence to the contrary?
- You're technically correct about the move south and bomb the south but I think it's important to note there was significantly less bombing in the south than the north and Israel has said specifically they will still bomb the south if they have clear targets. Israel never said it won't bomb the south. It just said it's safer. And if you check the statistics you'll see that's true. This is where "technically right" can be misleading.
- West bank settlers have had weapons forever pretty much. Most of the handing of weapons these days is to people in Israel proper.
- I think there was a single incident with an ambulance where Israel claimed it was being used for a military purpose. There is a long discussion about the status and usage of ambulances here: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/attacks-misuse-ambulances-durin...
- I'm pretty sure "bombed every hospital" is false. Reference? We had the possible Islamic Jihad rocket falling in a hospital parking lot, we had some bombings close to hospitals, we had fake news from other conflicts presented as Israel bombing hospitals, but "bombed every hospital" is new to me. I think "did not bomb any hospitals" is closer to the truth. How many people were killed by Israel's bombing of hospitals?
- I've seen different accounts for the percentage of buildings damaged. 2/3 seems on the high side. References?
Just do a web search restricted from 2001 to 2007 for discussions of the civilian death toll.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-adopts-divisive-la...
Or this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaization_of_the_Galilee
These are simply not normal things for a country to do in the 21st century. That doesn't mean I don't have massive problems with what these other countries are doing, or what the US is doing, but to say they're ethno-states like Israel in my view is a false equivalency.
> but navigating that transition while preserving it as the safest place the Jews of the world can go
Is it though? I know Jewish folks in the US with family in Israel, and it doesn't seem like they'd feel safer in Israel. These policies don't seem to be making Jews safer.
> Saudi Arabia is named after the Arabs.
nit: It's named after Arabia which is a geographic region that's been named after the Arabs for centuries. The disturbing part of the name Saudi Arabia is that it's named after a specific family of despots, not that it refers to Arabia. But even being named after an ethnic group doesn't make your country an ethno-state.
https://time.com/3035937/gaza-israel-hamas-palestinian-casua...
Why are we playing this numbers game? If Hamas hypothetically had killed 30,000 Israels would you be saying that Israel still has 12,000 to go? Every person matters and in a war there are no targets for how many people are killed, in wars people get killed for achieving some other objectives. I would imagine that even if Hamas had only killed 150 people in Israel we'd be in exactly the same place and the ratio would be 100x because there's a point where Israel has to (well, at least they think) reoccupy Gaza at any cost. Israel was almost there in previous conflicts, but backed off.
There is no war in history, as far as I know, but willing to be corrected, where the measure or who is wrong and who is right, or when the war should end, was some threshold or ratio in the number of dead people. A war continues until both sides agree to stop it. Wars have a terrible human price. I think something like 400,000 people have died in the war in Yemen. I think there are hundreds of thousands of dead in the Russian-Ukraine war (mostly soldiers but they're people, and young people, too. Many civilians.). Sudan is pretty bad. 600,000 killed in the Syria civil war.
I think a thing that should give you pause is if the conclusion to a train of thought is "and therefore, no war is ever justified". Some people think that's true! Some people think it's better for them and all their friends and family to die than to risk killing civilians. Most people (including me) disagree with that statement.
The basic argument is "If you think it was legitimate when X country did this, then what's different here?" I think it's very valid to find an X that the person you're speaking to will actually agree with.
That is neither what the laws of war say, nor what the Israeli argument is (or at least, it's a misrepresentation).
The laws of war say that if a medical facility (or any other civilian infrastructure) is used by militants as part of the war effort, then it loses its protected status. Israel's argument, whether you agree or not, is that this occurred, thereby making those targets legal.
This attack is supposed to remove Hamas by killing them, or forcing them to surrender. There's a lot of legit criticism of what Israel is doing, but if you think it's designed to bolster Hamas, then you're really misunderstanding what's happening.
The other details are mostly incidental.
It's not a just a euphemism, because there really is a difference. Justified or not, Dresden wasn't collateral damage - it was directly targeting and killing innocent civilians. Collateral damage really is something different.
> But I don’t believe for one second that Israel’s hands are so sufficiently constrained that the current degree of civilian death is necessary.
(For the record, I'm Israeli)
This is a hard question to answer. No one actually knows, because given fog of war and given the incentives of both sides, it's hard to get real numbers for what's going on. Not to mention that what even counts as "necessary"? Obviously zero civilian deaths is the only legitimate goal, but just as obviously this is impossible to achieve in practice. (I'd also add that zero deaths of militants is the goal, if possible - anyone that can be stopped by arresting them or causing them to surrender should be dealt with that way - though obviously this is even harder to achieve.)
Given all that, I think a few points I'll say, again speaking as an Israeli citizen with my own particular biases:
1. While I highly mistrust our current government (like many Israelis), I certainly don't think most of our government would condone killing civilians completely unnecessarily. At least not the ones in charge, mostly.
2. More importantly, I trust the IDF a lot (and this is probably a big difference between me and most non-Israelis). While I'm sure that not literally every civilian death is legitimate, I do trust that the IDF is only attacking valid targets given reasonable intelligence, and that it's not knowingly targeting civilians for the most part.
3. Most importantly - taking the outside view - the IDF estimates that it's killing roughly 2 civilians for 1 militant killed. If you believe that number - it's roughly in line with similar wars fought by Western countries.
Note: While I talk about civilian deaths here as a "statistic", every death is a horrible tragedy. In a good world, no one would ever have to die of violence, and good people should mourn the deaths of any person on any side of this horrible situation.
That doesn't change the tragedy of innocents being killed - that's still a horrible tragedy. But Israel is not going around just killing civilians for no reason, as that number makes it seem.
Some of those statements are also reprehnsible and are should be and are rightly condemned, within Israel as well.
But do you have a similar list of all the statements that Israeli officials have made that go against these? Because there are far more of those, they just don't make it into circulation like these. There are many, many on the record statements of Israeli officials specifically saying that the war will be conducted justly, morally, while trying to minimize civilian casualties.
You can choose to dismiss those as "well they have to say it to please the world", and insist that these statements you've linked are the only ones that matter, but then you're just choosing what to believe based on your own prior beliefs going into this.
For better or worse, the Likud-led coalition is the current government of Israel, and Hamas is the current government of Palestine.
The UN doesn't have the firepower to force Israel to do anything it doesn't want to do, and doesn't have the desire to force Palestine to do anything it doesn't want to do.
I agree.
And I'm not saying that any countries are better or worse at being an ethnostate than Israel, just that there are many countries where racial identity is prominent. China as an ethnostate is complicated (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Dream for some examples), but 91% of people in China are Han Chinese. That culture is predominant and the Chinese state has an official language associated with that identity. Likewise, foreigners make up just about 2% of the population in Japan (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Japan). Japan is known to be an insular country that has a reputation for xenophobia. That's what I meant by de facto. Both countries have a dominant culture in a more pronounced way than the United States, for example. China also practices ethnic clensing with things like the Uyghur cultural genocide, which could be compared to some of the policies you linked.
You can legitimately think that those wars weren't justified, or that no war is ever justified. Some people think that way. I think most people don't think that way.
I certainly don't, and I think a war against Hamas is incredibly justified. That doesn't mean I automatically agree with everything Israel does btw, nor should it.
If we waived a magic wand and made Palestine and Israel one country we wouldn't have peace. We'd have a a bloody civil war that makes the current conflict look like childs play.
1) An air strike at the building, destroying it and killing most of its inhabitants, and leaving a minority of them wounded.
2) A squad of soldiers enters the building and executes most of the inhabitants at close range, and wounds and leaves alive a minority of them.
Most people would call scenario 2) a deliberate massacre that cannot be justified. Many people would, however, call scenario 1) a legitimate military strategy with unfortunate collateral damage that cannot be avoided. Question is, why? The outcome is the same, but for some reason the impersonality of striking from distance (air strikes, missiles, or artillery fire) seems to make it acceptable in many bystanders' eyes.
Dresden was defended as the justified bombing of a strategic target, a major rail transport and communication centre, housing 110 factories and 50,000 workers in support of the German war effort.
Had the technology of the time included GPS positioning and laser guided missiles there would not have been widespread bombing across the broader city area "just to be sure".
The issue here today is an incredibly high civilian to justified target ratio despite having centimeter precison targeting and high resolution overview of the region of interest.
Deeper issues go back into the history of strategies of minority groups with decision making powers on both sides that resulted in dragging a majority of civilians into this current situation.
Some of us have direct memories of the time and it was very much true...
>I certainly wouldn’t refer..
They weren't even aware they weren't any patients. And it's not the only hospital attacked at Mosul. Most hospitals there were attacked:
https://reliefweb.int/report/iraq/iraq-rebuilding-hospital-r...
If you want the legal brief, see Article 8.2.e.iv. with an explicit carveout ("provided they are not military objectives"):
https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf#page=...
You don't know what the civilian to justified target ratio is. I don't know it. No one in the world really knows, except the actual IDF. Their estimate, last I heard, is about 2 civilians killed for every militant killed. Which is awful, but is more-or-less in line with similar wars carried out by Western countries in the past, as far as I can tell.
> The issue here today is an incredibly high civilian to justified target ratio despite having centimeter precison targeting and high resolution overview of the region of interest.
You make it sound like a lot more precision is possible than I think reality warrants. According to Israel at least (and backed up by the US), Hamas militants are hiding in civilian clothes among civilians. No overview of the area and no GPS makes it easily possible to tell them apart.
No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
and numerous others.
Are you saying the IDF has had troops on the ground in Gaza verifying the M&M stats? Or are you simply stating that you believe the IDF?
Either way, as neither of us are an expert here I suggest you take this up with The Lancet and the UN, etc.
I have stated as a simple matter of verifiable fact that vastly more precision is both possible and achievable today in 2023 than was the case in WWII night time bombing.
The IDF are hitting the targets that they have chosen to hit.
If they have poor intelligence then perhaps they should not fire their weapons.
As an outsider to this feud, perhaps the best thing for me to do is not to judge either of them. I think it’s human to want to pick a side, but they’re not making it easy either way, by now. War is ugly, and I feel sad about and disappointed in that region for reminding me how bad people can be…
I wish they would stop fighting and dying but i got no power to change that. If that’s what they wanna do, it’s up to them.
I was really looking forward to a trip to Israel this year but now i guess that’s on hold…too dangerous
Yes, I get the logic.
But as someone who isn't either Israeli or Palestinian, I give the same value to any life and I'd like my government to 1. at the very least, not support the ongoing massacres 2. pressuring them to stop what they're doing 3. send help to gaza. I'm not american, but if I was, I'd be very pissed that my taxpayer's money is going to this.
Then one could argue that what is done isn't the best course of action of Israel's safety, regardless of any moral consideration.
> I think knowing Israelis will give you some sense of what kind of people they are,
I have no doubt that Israelis are no different than any other people on earth. But really, this isn't the question here.
Besides, even if that were the order, that doesn’t make it illegal or immoral. Destroying military assets is an essential part of war. If you want civilian losses to be minimized, you’d do well to keep military assets clearly delineated from civilian zones. If you don’t and your people die as a result… well, that’s on you, not on the enemy you’re fighting.
So destruction now or destruction some time after 2065? I know what I'd pick ...
1. I am not sure if you are saying that extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich are not in charge, but their rhetoric and speech has made it clear they do not care for Palestinian deaths, and rather would like to carry out more killings. If you didn't know about the people in charge of your government, I implore you to look into their history.
2. I would ask you to look more critically at the IDF, after all that B'Tselem has shown them to have committed. I would look to what the IDF did during the peaceful 2018 Great March to Return where they shot and killed hundreds of unarmed civilians, including women and children, and severely injured thousands of others. Only one Israeli soldier was slightly wounded in the whole conflict. They have also been killing children indiscriminately in the West Bank, what would justify that? There are dozens to hundreds of other cases where the IDF has been incriminated for unjustified violence but I am not able to collate them for you at the current time. If that is not enough evidence to change your stance on the IDF, that nobody can help to change your mind.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-...
Them living safely means winning the war by destroying Hamas’ logistics, assets, and ability to launch attacks. Them destroying Hamas means air strikes that unfortunately will inevitably include civilian collateral damage due to how Hamas operates. In my view, this justifies all actions Israel has taken so far.
Additionally, if successfully done, killing Hamas now means fewer Palestinian deaths in the future.
> Are you saying the IDF has had troops on the ground in Gaza verifying the M&M stats? Or are you simply stating that you believe the IDF?
I do trust the IDF, yes. And obviously it has troops on the ground in Gaza, it's a ground invasion.
Their numbers are largely in line with the MoH reported numbers, except they add that they've killed 1 militant for every 2 civilians.
You might not trust this number, but there is no other number to use as far as I know. Though if you trust the MoH number but not the IDF's number, I'm... not sure why.
>I have stated as a simple matter of verifiable fact that vastly more precision is both possible and achievable today in 2023 than was the case in WWII night time bombing.
> The IDF are hitting the targets that they have chosen to hit.
Yes, I agree with this.
Note 1: While the historical numbers given by the MoH were accurate, this doesn't necessarily mean that in the current war their numbers are sound. The current war is very, very different from previous conflicts in Gaza, making both the fog of war and incentive to lie very different.
Some things that give pause on their numbers is that they have been shown to give vastly inflated numbers already (e.g. the "Hospital bombing", which Hamas claimed was conducted by Israel but wasn't as verified by numerous third parties, was initially given a death toll of 500, though later third parties put it at much closer to 50, iirc).
Well, realistically, no big change is likely to happen to the relationship with the Palestinians in the near future. Maybe in another 20-40 years. So the time gap between the two scenarios may be smaller than you suggest.
Britain killed a lot more German civilians than Germany killed British civilians in WWII. Does that make the British the bad guys?
Why are your trying to blame all Palestinians, like as if they are a monolith and all of them are troublemakers?
Yes, I was saying that Smotrich and Ben-Gvir are not the ones in charge now, luckily for everyone. They are horrible people, and I believe that if they were in charge, they would commit crimes as bad as any that Hamas has committed. It's shameful that they are part of our government and as far as I'm concerned they should be barred from office in any decent country.
But no, they are not currently in charge, the majority of the government is not in line with their extremist views, and neither is the majority of the country. (Though views have certainly gotten more extreme after October 7th, predictably.) Their power in the current government is inflated because all decent politicians (the entire center and left) refuse to form a coalition with Netanyahu. And the populace have been protesting this government, with the backdrop of the judicial reform, in the largest protests in Israel's history, for the last year.
2. I do look critically at the majority of things the IDF does. It's not all perfect, there are many moral failures, like in any army. I think B'Tselem and the world in general look far more critically and without context at Israel and the IDF, compared to other armies.
Note, like most secular Israeli men, I served in the army (though not in any kind of combat way - I was a programmer). I also know many, many reservists serving today, as does literally every Israeli. There are a lot of Israelis with views I vehemently disagree with, but very few that would target civilians for no reason. (Though obviously take this with a grain of salt - my view of the IDF is still, at the end, anecdotal to me - my circle of acquaintences don't represent a true random sample of the army.)
I can't speak to The Great March of Return, I don't have any inside info here, I'll just note that the situation with the border is very complicated. Look at what happened when the border wasn't defended strongly, thousands of militants were able to storm in and slaughter thousands of Israelis, and drag all of us (Israel and Gaza) into a terrible war. Does this mean everything that happened there was justified? Of course not. But life's complicated.
I'll take specific note of something you said:
> They have also been killing children indiscriminately in the West Bank, what would justify that?
Nothing would justify that, but I don't believe that's happening. I don't think there are real, verified cases of the IDF targeting children, only of children dying as collateral damage.
> There are dozens to hundreds of other cases where the IDF has been incriminated for unjustified violence but I am not able to collate them for you at the current time. If that is not enough evidence to change your stance on the IDF, that nobody can help to change your mind.
I'll reframe this as a question, because I think it's a very good one. What would make me change my mind? Let's be specific, what would make me change my mind that the majority of operations the IDF is currently undertaking are "unjustified"?
1. Firstly, if I get convinced that the current aim of getting back the hostages or destroying Hamas is itself an incorrect/immoral goal, I'd be convinced current actions are unjustified. This is almost impossible to change my mind on - Hamas has invaded Israel and slaughtered civilians, and claim they will do it again and again. I don't see a way for Israel to avoid trying to seek Hamas's destruction. That said:
2. If I am convinced that the current war isn't the best way (or one of the best ways) of achieving the goal of Hamas's destruction, or of retrieving the hostages, then I'll consider Israel's actions unjustified. If we could pause the fighting, go back to the previous status quo, and stop Hamas by targeted assassinations or whatever over the next year, then it's not justified to risk so many civilians. I don't think this (or other ways) are practical, but I could be convinced otherwise.
3. If I see evidence that the IDF systematically targeted civilians without any justified reasoning, I'll consider the way Israel's waging this war unjustified. Note that I say systematic - I'm sure many individual horrible cases have happened (and anyone doing this knowingly should be arrested, though I doubt they will be), but on the whole targeting is aimed at legitimate targets.
4. If I see evidence that the IDF is knocking down civilian infrastructure without any legitimate military reasoning, but rather only in order to cause damage in Gaza, I'll consider this illegitimate, though a lesser crime than other accusations. (It would probably be considered ethnic cleansing if the goal is to e.g. make Gaza uninhabitable.)
I think those are all situations where, were I to change my mind on what is actually happening in reality, would make me change my mind on the legitimacy of the current war.
I think it would be a good idea for you to do the same as me - what would make you change your mind about the current situation?
My point is that Palestinians have their share of blame.
Parent comment blamed everything on israel when clearly Palestinians have a fair share of blame - you can't deny that.
In general, ‘deserve’ should always be followed with ‘because…’. Just saying x deserves y assumes we agree on: what x did, an ethical/moral system, and that y is the best punishment/reward in that ethical/moral system.
Make an argument, not just a contradiction. The fact is that public opinion on the Iraq war was far higher (47-60% in favor) initially than it is now (61% say we should have stayed out).
wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_in_the_United_States_on_the_invasion_of_Iraq#
It it leads to a peaceful and stable state that would be a good thing.
Is there a need for a Jewish state? Lots of ethnic groups do not have their own state. Mine does not - a much smaller number of us, and we are disappearing through mixing.
That is absurd. Israel bombs “facilities used by Hamas”, civilians going in Hamas tunnels will be a direct target for IDF.
So maybe there’s no strict need for a Jewish state, but I can see how going back to a collective of (often oppressed) minorities is not appealing.
> Note, like most secular Israeli men, I served in the army (though not in any kind of combat way - I was a programmer). I also know many, many reservists serving today, as does literally every Israeli. There are a lot of Israelis with views I vehemently disagree with, but very few that would target civilians for no reason. (Though obviously take this with a grain of salt - my view of the IDF is still, at the end, anecdotal to me - my circle of acquaintences don't represent a true random sample of the army.)
I'm sure that there are bad eggs in the IDF, but by and large the IDF as an organization completely rejects the idea of deliberately hurting civilians. And every single cog in that machine that I've met has upheld that standard.
This is a surprising statement as I haven’t heard of such an event happening and I’ve followed these events fairly closely.
When was the civilian massacre? Do you have a source? Or did you make it up?
> peaceful Israel within the 1967 boundaries
Israel was previously peaceful within the 1967 boundaries, in 1967. Arab states tried to destroy it in 1967 and again in 1973, resulting in Israel gaining land, something arab states now blame on Israel.
If Egypt was smart they would ask for them all, ask the world for major help, look like hero's, and grow the economy.
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/civilians-are-israel-un...
> The war had two main phases, the first being the 1947–1948 civil war, which began on 30 November 1947,[19] a day after the United Nations voted to adopt the Partition Plan for Palestine, which divided the territory into Jewish and Arab sovereign states, and an international Jerusalem (UN Resolution 181). Partition was accepted by the Jewish leadership, but rejected by Palestinian Arab leaders and the Arab states.
Most European countries historically functioned like ethnostates. They’re trying to change that, but not successfully.
I don’t believe diverse countries are sustainable in the long run. Look at what happened to Jews in Europe. They were living in peace with their neighbors for hundreds of years, and then their neighbors turned on them and massacred them.
Ethnostates are still highly relevant today, especially for Jews.
Calling France an ethnic state is saying the Normans are the same group as the Provençal. It's like doing the same in Spain; a sure way to lose new friends. France and Spain are also old empires.
Japan is something else. The description makes sense there. Maybe also for the Nordic countries of Europe.
'The comparison' in fact varies according to what defenders of Israeli disproportionate violence against Gazan civilians actually say. That particular example is one I saw made on television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewLx9XN8sLc
And indeed the comparison was made specifically to justify the measures that Israel has taken which indisputably affect primarily civilians (the siege, which there is very wide agreement constitutes a war crime). And the Israeli politician in the video does in fact react with opprobrium to the suggestion that the Allied bombing of civilians in WWII might not have been one of the just elements of the war.
Do you have a reason to assume they don’t do so? The reported 2:1 ratio is absolutely in line with modern warfares, especially considering the very very densely populated urban environment.
- Re: Hiroshima, can we compare it to the amount of explosive the US dropped in the entire country of Afghanistan over a much longer period? The point is that this is an insanely high amount of bombing, even with respect to other wars. https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-dropped-as-many-bombs...
- Re: West Bank violence, I said settlers have killed “dozens” as a lowball number because I was too lazy to find a link. The actual number (including by Israeli security forces) is 192: https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/22/while-fire-rages-gaza-we...
- Re: stripping prisoners, I imagine “paraded” is another word we’d disagree on like “targeted”, but Israel itself has said that it stripped “military aged men” and a number have been recognized by friends and family as noncombatants: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/israel-hamas-war-images-p...
- Here’s a tweet from someone who recognizes a journalist firsthand. This is sexual violence, by the way: https://x.com/dima_khatib/status/1732797311846064541
- Re: abducted — yes, of course Israel will claim there’s a pretext for abducting people (although over 2,500 have been held without charges on “administrative detention”). This is kind of like someone in the antebellum US south saying “those runaway slaves were arrested in accordance with the law” — maybe true but not the point! Do you think the police are fair to Palestinians? The courts? https://www.npr.org/2023/12/01/1216643555/thousands-of-pales...
- Re: torture, I don’t know what you happens in prison. I guarantee it’s not better for political prisoners in apartheid regimes. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-ho...
- Re: bombing the south, there have been so many reported instances of Israel telling people to evacuate and then bombing the escape route. https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/16/middleeast/israel-palestinian...
- Re: arming settlers, this already sounds real bad, so if they’re handing out more guns in addition to that, it sounds… worse. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231011-far-right-israel-...
- Re: attacking the ambulance, of course the IDF says that there was Hamas there — that’s what they say about everything! I’m not going to look up a source here. If there’s any evidence that corroborates the IDF’s claim from an independent source, feel free to post it.
- Re: “bombed every hospital”, you’re using quotation marks but not actually quoting me directly. As of a month ago, Israel had issued evacuation orders for 22 hospitals in North Gaza and half of the 36 hospitals in Gaza had stopped operations. Unclear how many the IDF actually attacked but it’s a lot more than zero! https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/14/gaza-unlawful-israeli-ho...
- Re: 2/3, it was reported in the Financial Times. Also note that the damage the US inflicted on German cities in a matter of years, Israel has inflicted on Gaza in a matter of weeks. https://www.ft.com/content/7b407c2e-8149-4d83-be01-72dcae8ae...
With that said, any amount of civilian death is tragic - and we should absolutely mandate Israel to be as specific in their attacks as possible. But 0 civilian casualty is impossible to achieve. What we can know, even according to the biased hamas numbers, they are roughly in the 2 civilian to 1 military personnel ratio, which is absolutely realistic given the circumstances/other modern warfares, etc. Feel free to refute this statement of mine, if you do believe that they “want to kill as many civilians as possible”.
I don't think changing "settlers" to "security forces" or conflating "issued an evacuation order" with "bombing", or "torture" vs. "things that happen in prison" is having a discussion in good faith. Many of those killed by the security forces were killed while they were attacking Israelis or during combat or clashes. If you're willing to have a discussion in good faith I'm happy to engage but you'll have to stop doing that. This is not helping some of the valid points you're making. "But what about the west bank" is a common anti-Israeli propaganda tool on social media. There's a lot to unpack there but I think it should mostly be an orthogonal discussion to the war in Gaza.
https://embassies.gov.il/UnGeneva/NewsAndEvents/Pages/Hamas-...
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/hamas...
I think specifically with ambulances there's a few ways to think about this:
- What is the benefit that Israel derives from attacking ambulances?
- What would be a reasonable standard of proof here? If forces come under attack from an ambulance, they bomb it, and it's destroyed, how do you expect Israel to prove that?
- Is the Hamas a signatory to the Geneva convention and are their methods typically in line with the laws of war? Are they generally honest? Moral?
- Did Israel order evacuation of those areas and give ample time for this evacuation to happen in accordance with the laws of war?
I think if you answer these honestly you'll say that Hamas would certainly use ambulances if they felt that was to their advantage and that Israel would not generally target ambulances intentionally. Is there a large gray area? Sure. Is it possible that Israeli forces would have a "light finger on the trigger". Sure. It's a war and it's their lives. Do I think that allowing Ambulances to operate within combat areas is a high priority for Israel? No. There's a big difference between actions that are within reason and actions that are intentionally evil. The goal of many people saying "Israel attacks ambulances" is to paint a picture of Israel being evil. They want to take a single ambulance that was attacked in a major scale conflict and use it as a propaganda weapon against Israel. That said Israel should be expected to follow the laws of war and we should demand that it does.
If our goal is to end the war and to make some sort of progress for the benefit of everyone involved I don't think inflammatory language or evoking anti-Israeli emotions is the way to get us there. I can get behind that goal if the methods are different.
But you don’t even need to look into history. Today Malaysia and Indonesia both have non-muslim minorities. Bosnia and Herzegovina has slight muslim majarity and is doing relatively fine.
Israel should not use ambulances for military purposes. Israel is far far from perfect and you can find many examples of things we can agree on being "wrong". Perfection is not the right measure though, Israel doesn't do things like: https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p451 The question is compared to what its peers in the "free democratic west" would do in similar circumstances how does Israel measure. We know that most of the world doesn't even try to hold up the same standards.
Freeing the slaves (a task which required us to fight the deadliest war in our history) was still the right and necessary thing to do. "You broke it, you bought it."
Yes, I don't think Palestinian Christians would love the idea of a caliphate in any case…
> Territorial gains from their conquest of the Levant
Again, for the daily life of the average resident of Gaza or the West Bank, this matters not a whit.
When Turks left about 100 years ago Muslims were a minority but thanks to much higher birth rate they now want to set the rules in Bosnia. Serbs know that, that's why they resisted, and still resist, a unified Bosnia.
Ottoman Empire tolerated Christians, true, but to achieve anything in life you had to convert to Islam. Otherwise you could just remain a haraç-paying Christian peasant without any chance of education or growth. Haraç was a tax for being a non-Muslim.
It was super hard to be a thriving Christian under Turks. In fact the Turkish policy was to demographically and economically slowly bleed Christians and for those with ambition to convert to Islam.
Why do the Arab countries care so much about Palestine? It’s not like they go around spending their blood and treasure to protect other oppressed groups. Saudi just bombed the shit out of Yemen. The reason they want to get rid of Israel is because they view this as a matter of Arab territorial integrity.
My Bangladesh family is posting the paratrooper meme on my FB. Why? Because they view the existence of Israel as an affront to territorial integrity of the Islamic world. You cannot understand the situation Israel is in from a western secular point of view.
Also, since you mention civilian vs militant casualties, it might be worth mentioning that hundreds of the Israeli casualties on Oct 7 were Israeli soldiers.
https://www.memri.org/reports/hamas-leaders-our-goal-establi...
Yes
> What do you think a father who lost his kids in an airstrike will do next?
That’s not how people get radicalised. Students are taught in Gaza that the Jews stole their land, that Jews are from Europe, that dying as a martyr is the best death and that when they grow up they should kill as many Jews as possible. Many of Hamas’ fighters are only 15 or 16 years old.
How do you know? hamas overstates death, has had ‘journalists’ with weapons, ‘children’ than are 15-16 year old fighters, lied about the hospital being destroyed, has videos of people crying over dolls, and MrFAFO, the Johnny Sins of Hamasniks.
And yes, it's not a secret that in addition to the hundreds of civilians that Hamas targeted, it also attacked military bases. (Though also worth mentioning that it's illegal to kill soldiers too, if they've surrendered and/or don't have weapons on them.)
But yes, I think Hamas targeting bases is one reason I consider this to be an invasion into Israel. Since Hamas has promised to invade again and again, it's very clear that it cannot be lived with peacefully.
Many of these purchases were from wealthy Ottoman landowners who had in many cases never seen the land they owned. The peasant families that actually lived on the land for generations had no say in the matter. I'm not faulting the purchasers for conducting legal business transactions, if anything the fault belongs to the feudal system of the Ottoman Empire—but none of that matters to someone who has suddenly lost their home and livelihood.
> Arabs weren’t to be expelled from the remainder
I don't think the historical record bears that out. Why did Israel not let the civilians it displaced return once the war ended, if the displacements were merely a temporary military necessity? And certainly massacres like Deir Yassin were not military necessities, though they did scare many Palestinians into fleeing.
Also, the point you and many others fail to understand is that there is no other way for Israel, this is a least bad option. No one is happy about the situation, and both Israel and the Palestin civilians are victims here, all because of Hamas. If you know of any other realistic solution that gets rid of terrorists, I’m sure IDF is happy to hear about that.
The question of the outcome of the war is a reasonable one. That said the primary goal of the war is to ensure the security of Israel. The longer term outcome would depend on political processes in Israel and in the Palestinian side and likely all the other parties that are have been meddling in this conflict forever.
Note: 'killing children indiscriminately' usually means 'not taking adequate precautions to avoid killing children' - which means that children as collateral damage is part of the problem. On the extremes I believe it's easy to agree on this: nuking Hiroshima hit some military targets but also killed unconscionable numbers of children and civilians as collateral damage.
To continue: What counts as evidence? Do these stories from Amnesty International of bombed civilian residential buildings with no warnings to the inhabitants fit your section 3? Or do they not meet the bar of being systematic, because it's possible they are e.g. hitting the wrong target, or being targeted based on incorrect information?
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evide...
A lot of countries might act that way, but that position doesn't command anyone's deference or sympathy, whether in this conflict or others, and the rest of us are free to pile on in moral condemnation.
Moreover, given the conflict's history and a lot of the discourse many of us have witnessed from those who wish to suppress any acknowledgement of Palestinian death or suffering, we have plenty of reason to believe that there is something more sinister underlying a lot of this talk.
> Also, the point you and many others fail to understand is that there is no other way for Israel, this is a least bad option.
This is obvious bullshit. It's not up to anyone else to provide some specific plan of action; it is obviously the case there are a number options Israel can take short of murdering between 15k-20k civilians and displacing 2 million more.
To be clear, I do not begrudge Israel the right to take some military action here, especially because it has to rescue its hostages. But the onus of offering justification is on someone trying to justify the staggering death toll and the sheer cruelty the country is displaying right now, not on the ones who are looking at it for realistically what it is.
> I’m sure IDF is happy to hear about that.
Given what many of us have read and seen of the IDF's conduct, I think we have every reason to believe they are more than ok with what their current plan. The rest of us are not as naive or stupid as you seem to think.
I have not met anyone who supports Hamas, or even read that on this forum (though I have seen a couple eyebrow-raising comments here and there), yet there are so many people only justifying the actions of the IDF and try to convince the rest of us that what it has been doing to the Palestinians is ok. Think about that.
(Which is not to say that partisans on the Palestinian side of this are somehow angels or anything--if anything, I think it's disappointing there aren't more Muslim or Arab groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, etc.)
Anyways, if I continue arguing like this, I am part of the problem, even if I am right. I don't want to pass up the opportunity in another one of these threads to try to plug these guys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGZlR_h96ek
I get the viewpoint from the Palestinian-American side. My problem isn't with their natural response, which is to do whatever it takes to protect their families and friends. My problem is with the demonizing rhetoric they use and the real world consequences of that. They have mass protests with calls for genocide against Jews. As a Jew in North America this makes me feel less safe. In the real world, Jewish businesses are getting attacked, Jews feel threatened and are threatened. There is a connection between the demonizing and antisemitism. There is no other context or way to look at attacks against Jews everywhere other than antisemitism. "The Jews" and "Israel" are used interchangeably in online discourse and on the street. Another real world consequence is IMO more Palestinian suffering in the middle east, not less. I also want my family in Israel to be safe, I don't go marching in the streets calling for all Palestinians to be expelled from the region or killed.
There are many Palestinians that support Hamas. In previous surveys it's been somewhere around 50% or more. In more recent surveys it's 75% ( https://thehub.ca/2023-11-27/amal-attar-guzman-palestinian-s... ). We also need to separate the question of support for Hamas from the question of supporting the goals and methods of Hamas. Many Palestinians believe in violent struggle until Israel is dismantled. Basically either kill all the Jews or force them to leave. I don't have a survey handy but that view is prevalent. I would challenge your assertion of "not met anyone that supports Hamas". People don't come out and say "I support Hamas" (well some do, but it's not exactly politically correct) but they act in support of Hamas. In my view if you're chanting "from the river to the sea" you support Hamas because that is Hamas ideology. A recent survey found many of the chanters don't know what's the river and what's the sea and once told many changed their minds but ignorance does not absolve. People have a choice of calling for peace or calling for violence and we see too many people calling for violence. A call for peace should be a call for peace for everyone. I am convinced the root cause of violence in the region is the Palestinian pursuit of indiscriminate violence as a means of solving their historical injustices.
I have no problem saying that I support the IDF and Israel. I think the IDF's actions are as moral as any other military in war. Israel didn't choose this war. It was forced on it. At the same time I do feel for the Palestinians. There is no conflict. I wish Israel's security could be achieved without this massive price in lives. I am as sad as anyone by the scenes of destruction, children being pulled from rubble, etc. I just don't make my moral decisions based on appeals to my emotions and attempts of the media to manipulate me. Whenever I see the IDF acting in ways that I feel are wrong I do add that to my overall evaluation, there might be a point where I reconsider. I also lived in Israel during Hamas' suicide bombing campaign against Israeli civilians. There are many injustices from the Israeli side. You need to form a complete picture though.
I feel like most of your message is emotional. This is a normal response to many things we're seeing. I'm not sure it's a way to make progress. I think likely you're also being manipulated. There could be a different media and social media narrative that would make you feel different given the exact same facts on the ground. Think about that. There's plenty of evidence to support this thesis.
EDIT: I also love cats...
I think most of us without direct skin in the game have the basic moral sense to fail to find the kind of incredibly biased take you're offering here particularly convincing, and to greet with skepticism the notion that the side which has had the upper hand for longer than most of us have been alive is purely a victim.
If a Palestinian person came on trying to say "well the people in Gaza are so oppressed, they had no choice..." I would roll my eyes at that too. That they would lash out violently is understandable, but it's not their only choice, and it doesn't make it morally acceptable. You guys are more alike than you realize, and I don't mean that in a "kumbaya brotherhood" good kind of way.
> I also want my family in Israel to be safe, I don't go marching in the streets calling for all Palestinians to be expelled from the region or killed.
You don't have to. It's been happening, and has just been accelerated.
Under the "canton" proposal, there would still be a national government in charge of the military, intelligence agencies, diplomacy, foreign trade, the currency, the banking system, etc. The "cantons" would primarily control local matters, schools, housing, family law, religious affairs, etc. So I don't think it would make much difference to military.
It would basically be transforming Israel from a unitary state (like New Zealand) to a federal state (like the US, Canada, Australia, Germany, Switzerland) - however, with the added factor that the top-level national subdivisions would be based on cultural factors rather than purely geographical ones – which would be a system more like that of Belgium.
Ofcourse I'm biased but so are you. I'm struggling to follow your logic. If the Allies had the upper hand against the Nazis does it make the Nazis the victim? If the west had the upper hand against the Soviet block is Russia the victim? What does that have to do with anything.
"That they would lash out violently is understandable," no it's not. You're just taking the "people in Gaza are oppressed" (by Israel) at face value. It's just a false statement. Even if it was true then Oct 7th is not justified. Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 and the course the Palestinians took from that point was mainly their own.
All Palestinians are not being killed or expelled from the region. That is an indisputable fact as of this time. But it's also got nothing to do with my argument. Supporters of Israel aren't marching in the streets calling for this but supporters of Palestinians are marching in the streets calling for the destruction of Israel. (EDIT: and this was true earlier in the war as well, as soon as Israel responded, when there were still many more Israeli dead and more damage than on the Palestinian side)
The only thing I will agree with you is that Israel does have choices. And their choices can be criticized. Israel acts to protect its citizens and that's an important context. If your starting point is that Israel should be destroyed and all its citizens be killed then naturally no choice Israel makes is going to be acceptable to you.
EDIT: I just want to add here that while I am biased about this conflict I think I am applying the same measures and principles that I apply when I look at other conflicts where I am not directly and emotionally involved. Ofcourse I have some biases for those as well. So when I look e.g. at the wars the US or NATO engaged at, or when I look at the Russia-Ukraine war, or I look at any other war that happened in my lifetime, I try to apply some objective measures. If we look at how countries wage wars we can look at their practices. For example, we can look at Russia's practices at Mariupol. Or we can look at practices in the battle of Mosul. and we can compare them to IDF practices. Or we can look at practices in the Syrian civil war. Or we can look at WW-I or WW-II. How do we know if Ukraine is right or Russia is right? How can we tell which side is fighting more "morally". We need a benchmark. What we have here is a war between Gaza and Israel. We don't say Ukraine's war with Putin. We say Ukraine's war with Russia. When the US went to war in Afghanistan it was likewise not the US vs. Al Qaeda, it was the US vs. Afghanistan. If we want to take the bias out we need to be able to benchmark things and make them comparable. Whenever I try to set some benchmark (for example what are protestors calling for) there's always some maneuver to try and get away from a benchmark to emotions and opinions. I'm open to figure out other ways of "discovering" the unbiased truths here as much as that exists. We have facts and we have the interpretation of these facts. In most discourse on this topic the facts/truth are distorted and benchmarking/interpreting this facts is not an interest.
- [1] Weapons are distributed to civilians/cities/settlements all over Israel as a response to 3000 heavily armed Palestinians murdering (and worse) civilians. Clearly a matter of self defense against an enemy who have shown they have the means and the will to do what they've done. Itamar Ben Gvir is a right wing minister who is definitely leveraging the Oct 7th attack to his agenda. In the US everyone can get a weapon. Just the presence of these weapons, at least according to Americans, is not a problem. I'd rather Oct 7th didn't happen and we wouldn't see more weapons since inevitably these weapons are going to be used for bad things, just like in the US.
- [2] The video shows men, in fighting age, from the active combat area in North Gaza where civilians were ordered to evacuate a long time ago. They are in their underwear so they can not blow themselves up, a common Hamas tactic. They are loaded on trucks and they will be interrogated. Likely many or all of them are combatants. We've seen videos from Hamas of their combatants in civilian clothing who turn from a combatant to a civilian in a second. This is all there is to it. There is no support for the other claims made in the tweet. I'm sure they're treated much better than the way Hamas is treating the Israelis they're holding and much better than the US treated Al Qaeda or ISIS fighters. Because the combatants aren't fighting by the rules of law, e.g. they're not in uniform, they don't get the protection of the Geneva convention as war prisoners.
- [3] This is just a random panel on TV. The talking head there is saying maybe the intent is to prevent Hamas from ruling, maybe the intent is to saw chaos, or maybe the intent is for Palestinians not to go back to Northern Gaza at all. Not sure what "they openly admit on Israeli TV" means here. Who is "they" what is "Israeli TV". This is a random person on a random channel, not a policy maker. It's very common in a war to go after the symbols of the enemy's regime as part of trying to force them to surrender.
- [4] I am not familiar with this story. Israel is and has been blowing up tunnels with explosives. Israel also blows up buildings that can be used as enemy cover. I can't say anything about this specific incident, do you have more references? Do we know this isn't fake news? Not from Gaza? Not this conflict? Not the place the Tweet says it is?
There are tactical reasons for Israel to attack buildings. There are tunnel entrances in many buildings. There are booby traps. They're used as cover by the enemy. One thing that's interesting to note is that the footage from where the prisoners were taken seems to show buildings still standing. The camera pans around and gives us views up the streets where buildings are also still standing.
All that said I'm sure there's some element of retribution, deterrence, and trying to break the will of the enemy and get them to surrender, in the massive scale of destruction. It's also a show of force to others who might contemplate attacking Israel (like Hezbollah). Wars are ugly.
I reject any comparison to WW-II Germany. These is insulting and offensive to the victims. If you want to make comparisons look at the Hamas.
The question we were talking about above is: What caused the Arabs to attack Israel the day after the UN Declaration? Note: it was not just Arabs in Mandatory Palestine, it was Arabs in Egypt, Syria, Transjordan, and Iraq. All of them attacked Israel. Why? It wasn’t Arabs in Palestine being forced to leave their land. That wasn’t part of the partition plan, and hadn’t happened yet. The Israeli Declaration of Independence specifically asks Arabs to stay and become equal citizens.
As to why Israel hasn’t allowed Arabs who fled to return, I suspect it’s because the Arab countries tried to kill Israel in its crib, and then expelled a million Jews from their own lands.
As well, there was fighting in the streets. They had to turn off the lights at night and hide in the basement to avoid raids. There was a sniper who was shooting at their apt from a nearby mosque and they would find shells on their balcony. They lived on Ben Yahuda St.
Just thought readers might appreciate a first hand account of what it was like to be a Jewish Israeli at the time.
> I think if you answer these honestly you'll say that Hamas would certainly use ambulances if they felt that was to their advantage and that Israel would not generally target ambulances intentionally.
So if I’m honest, I’ll say that Hamas doing something bad is normal but Israel doing something bad is exceptional. Why would I say that, exactly? Israel is one of the most powerful countries in the world, backed by one of the most vicious modern day empires, waging a one-sided war against people they have blockaded inside a literal ghetto. My allegiance is always with the victims of oppression; that is a core Jewish value to me.
This is not the pot calling the kettle black. The aforementioned empire is the US; we have truly horrendous skeletons in our closet and continue to add more. But goddamn, at least I’m not pretending they aren’t there.
I don’t think this is a productive conversation and I’m going to stop replying. Chag Hanukkah Sameach; may Palestine’s oil burn brightly forever.
Because they’re a minority. Look at what happens when Jews are a minority in a Muslim-majority country.
Even if Palestinian Arabs could get okay with Jews it would be a powder keg long term. Because the whole Muslim world hates the idea of Jews in the holy land, and uses Palestinians as a proxy against Jews. I’m from a “moderate” Muslim country. Out of thousands of Jews that used to live in the country, only a few families are left (openly). It’s really as bad as people think.
I think if Israel stated that is the goal, to make Palestinians equal citizens in the larger single country, and had a plan as to how that goal could be accomplished, that would be more constructive than the current stall until things blow up plan. I'd like to think many/some Palestinians would buy in and the rest would get no choice anyways.
This plan naturally involves dismantling the PA and taking complete civilian control over the entire territory including formally annexing it to Israel. It should also include some clear continuous benefits to Palestinians from where they stand today (which is pretty bad, so shouldn't be a problem).
A variation of this plan could be some sort of federation, where the country is "Israel" and there are two states under that country. Not unlike Canada or the US. That could also address the population ratios vs. democracy (just like democracy in the US or Canada isn't a proportional system). So we can have a parliament some fixed representation for different parts. I think Lebanon also has something along those lines. I'm sure over time we'll see coalitions that cross those "state" boundaries.
As long as there's a constitution, and there are the right mechanisms, checks and balances, to maintain that, and enough time to get beyond the current tribal let's kill everyone mindsets, it can work.
We live in a post truth era and not sure what can be done about that. You'd think that with the Internet and access to information people can do research but research is hard. There are many, sometimes conflicting accounts of historical events. It's so easy to be sucked into echo chambers. Any thesis you have can be easily supported.
I won't engage much with your other points but I think they are a combination of leaving out critical facts (hospitals and ambulances were used by militants), misrepresentation ("Stripped civilians and paraded them through the streets" - they weren't paraded, quite on the contrary it was the people on Gaza who did this) and lies (at least last time sometime argued "Tortured Palestinian abductees" the only thing they showed for it was images of POWs with minor battle scars).
Yes, I maybe should've phrased it as "Hamas militants" or the "Hamas organization", though I'm not sure to the extent everything is tied together. Is it possible to destroy Hamas militarily but keep the government part in charge? Idk enough to know the answer or what that means.
As for whether point 2 is true - whether the current war is the best way to destroy Hamas and prevent another October 7th from happening - my problem is that many people who think the answer to that is "no" also have no better idea.
Not that it's impossible to criticize something without having a better idea yourself, I think it's fair to do that. But if you're calling for a ceasefire, but offering no alternative to stop the people who say they will continue killing thousands of your citizens over and over - I don't really see how you can be sure that the current war is wrong in that circumstance. It really is a situation where, as many Israelis say, "Israel isn't allowed to defend itself".
> Note: 'killing children indiscriminately' usually means 'not taking adequate precautions to avoid killing children' - which means that children as collateral damage is part of the problem.
Ok, that's fair. Though note that, at least according to the IDF (and which I'm confident is true), we have another layer here - it's not just "kill civilians on purpose" vs "don't care about killing civilians" vs "try to avoid killing civilians". Here, we have an enemy that actively sends civilians into harm's way to use them as human shields. This is meant literally - Hamas will send rockets from within civilian buildings in order to either stop themselves from being killed, or to at least have civilian casualties on the way to make the strike look bad.
There's no country in the world that has figured out how to handle this situation, as far as I know. You can't just say "well, if they use human shields, we just won't attack", because all you are doing is making human shields be a thing that works, so that they'll use them more.
> To continue: What counts as evidence? Do these stories from Amnesty International of bombed civilian residential buildings with no warnings to the inhabitants fit your section 3?
That's a hard question. Evidence needs to come from a source that I trust, which is different for different people. It's hard for me to trust a source that is clearly starting with the conclusion in mind.
Also, while I only skimmed the article, the only actual documented "wrong thing" done there is that the people said they weren't warned beforehand. Which isn't by itself a war crime or even necessarily wrong, without knowing why that building was bombed.
Amnesty International says: "According to Amnesty International’s findings there were no military objectives in the house or its immediate vicinity, this indicates that this may be a direct attack on civilians or on a civilian object which is prohibited and a war crime."
While that's true, them not finding a military justification for that bombing doesn't mean that the IDF didn't have a justification. We have "no idea" which of these is true:
1. There was a real threat, valid military intelligence and justification, and the IDF did nothing wrong.
2. There was no real threat, wrong but valid military intelligence and justification, so while the IDF got the intelligence wrong, it didn't do anything wrong.
3. There was no real threat, there was some military intelligence, but the bar for whether or not that intelligence is enough is so low that it makes the action immoral/illegal. So the IDF is, while not bombing indiscrimanately, is not showing the appropriate care for civilian life.
4. There was no threat and no intelligence that there was a threat - the IDF targeted civilians on purpose.
Each of these levels has different moral and legal implications for what the IDF is doing. This single case doesn't prove anything, because it doesn't differntiate which of those happened, and doesn't prove whether whichever it is is systemic. Amnesty International has no access to the internal IDF decision-making here so also can't make the call (though the article right away leaps to assuming it's number 4 here - hence me calling it biased).
What would qualify as evidence to me? A bunch of things, like large scale external audits/reports by people in the know, like Israel itself conducting an inquiry of its actions (obviouisly most people wouldn't rely on this too much), and possibly most importantly - seeing casualty numbers that make it seem like the IDF is truly targeting civilians, and/or multiple confirmed non-biased cases of targeting civilians (and/or reports from soldiers within the IDF that say there were such orders/etc).
Hamas is an actual movement, not a cult around one leader. Moreover, it controls local media and education in Gaza. We can't cut off the radicalization pipeline when they control the local media. Dealing with that requires controlling the ground. Also, there's no amount of assassination which can dislodge a real movement, and it makes very little sense when the big leaders live underground in deep tunnels.
There are two ways to deal with the deep tunnels: Flood them with something, or lob 1t bombs from the air on every deep tunnel one can detect, when the deep tunnels are often under residential blocks. The first requires invasion and ground control. The second has a lot of collateral damage (There was a recent example in Jabalia where the houses above collapsed with a bad result after dealing the 1t bomb), to the point a serious assassination campaign may not even be ensuring less civilian deaths.
I'd like to think you just have the facts wrong. Facts and truth are key. For example the fact that when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 it did not blockade it. It blockaded it in 2007 when Hamas took power. It has not "waged a one-sided war against people they have blockaded in ghetto". That is just factually wrong. The one-sided waging of war was from the Gaza side. Applying core/moral values should start with a correct evaluation of the factual reality (and yes, it's a complex reality, life is hard).
The Hamas states they want to kill all the Jews in Israel. They act towards that goal. The Hamas engages in activities that are morally wrong beyond any doubt. There is no context in this world where Hamas is justified because they are oppressed. They are antisemites. They are Nazi. The atrocities they committed against Jews on Oct 7th are a new standard of evil.
The US has its problems. I don't think that's directly relevant. The US might be supporting Israel for the wrong reasons but I think basing your evaluation of Israel's moral position on that is incorrect. Russia, China and Iran, support the opposing side here. I don't think those are clearly beacons of good.
EDIT: I want to clarify my "Gaza waging a war on Israel" position. I am referring to the entire period since Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. Not to the current situation. It is true, and factual, that Israel is at war with Gaza right now. A war started by Gaza. Israel is fairly powerful but I don't think that is a moral argument. If Israel was weaker does that really change the moral viewpoint? Israel has tried to avoid as much as possible the war it is engaged in right now, and possibly if it hadn't done so (i.e. if it went to war sooner) there would be a lot less lives lost, so the moral argument against Israel re-occupying Gaza or not attacking Gaza because it is more powerful feels a bit hollow. It was obviously not powerful enough to protect its citizens and we are dealing with an asymmetric war. With all its power it has so far been unable to stop rockets being launched from Gaza into Israel. Its power has pretty big limits.
EDIT2: I have a problem with the "oppression" narrative. I think generally oppression is not a justification for violence and we have plenty of examples of oppressed peoples throughout history that have not resorted to the kind of violence we see in this conflict. It is also intellectually shallow. I have a similar problem with the term that comes with it in this conflict which is "occupation". Again, occupation is the de-facto status of most of the planet, and it does not justify the kind of violence we see in this conflict. I'm just talking about the Palestinians here. Israel does many questionable things as well which we can go into if we wish. The other problem I have which I already pointed out in this thread is the redefinition of words. I think using words like "ghetto" is problematic. My dictionary says ghetto is either "a jewish quarter in a city" or "a poor urban area occupied primarily by a minority group or groups.". The use of this term by pro-Palestinians is meant to either equate Israel to the Nazis. I.e. they intentionally want to say Israel in this story is the Nazi Germans and the Palestinians are the Jews. Or the other intent is to try and diminish the original meaning of the usage, i.e. to belittle the historical suffering of Jews. This usage is factually wrong and I would say is insidious (to put mildly). I'm surprised to see that Jewish people adopt this terminology (Ghetto) but I guess nothing can surprise me at this point. I think points can be made without redefining words and appealing to emotions and conversely redefining words means we can't actually have a discussion because we're talking past each other. I would almost call some of the tactics we're seeing "intellectual terrorism". It seeks to broadly disable the ability of the other side to engage in a discussion and to intimidate them. I also want to make it absolutely clear that all the above doesn't change the morality of the conflict. I.e. I'm not saying "it is justified to attack civilians because they engage in tactics that I can consider insidious.". If you have a self defense situation as a person, the threshold for using deadly force isn't a function of the personality of the other side, it should purely be a function of their actions and the situation.
I must admit I don't know as much as I would like about this, so please correct me if I say something stupid (and share reading recommendations), but: my understanding is, "Israel" at this point was composed of several factions who disagreed greatly about methods. Probably Ben-Gurion did not have ethnic cleansing in mind, but Irgun and Lehi did, which was enough—the most radical factions were also most willing to fight, which gave them outsize power. (Though even Ben-Gurion did not intend to stay only within the borders allotted by the UN, he intended to take control of even Jewish settlements outside the partition borders.)
As for the war: the invasion by the Arab countries upon Israel's declaration of independence was an expansion of a civil war within Palestine that had already been going on for more than 5 months, and that the Palestinians were decisively losing. The Arab states hoped mostly to save face and to stop the flood of Palestinian refugees that would result if the current trajectory continued.
And yes, we agree to the facts of military aged men, in a combat zone where civilians have been asked to evacuate, stripped (EDIT: to their underwear) and arrested. That's what I also said in my reply. I explained why Israel strips potential Hamas combatants/activists ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_at... ). I took issue with the "paraded" part. It is most certainly not sexual violence.
Apparently there are new instructions to the IDF to provide them with clothing immediately.
Do I think the police and the courts are always fair to Palestinians... Nope. But at least they have some legal recourse. The Israeli Supreme court, which is independent (so far), can intervene and has intervened in the past. You can read one case here: https://casebook.icrc.org/case-study/israel-detention-unlawf...
By the way extreme right Jews have also been held under administrative arrest.
I still think "arrested Hamas and Islamic Jihad members" is closer to the truth than "abducted random Palestinians".
Unfortunately, it’s part of a larger victimhood narrative that has become an important part of Muslim identity. “Our once proud civilization has been oppressed by the west, including ripping away our holy city of Jerusalem and giving it to the Jews.” And because the Muslim world was an important participant in the worldwide socialist movement, that narrative has taken hold among European leftists who otherwise wouldn’t have a horse in the race.
Progroms were not exactly a new thing in europe, but frequently happened over the centuries. The 19. and beginning of the 20. century was rather a quite peaceful episode, with jews getting equal citizen rights etc. but the hate did not go away, as can be seen, once the Nazis took over.
Since after Israel's founding, the Arab states have initiated war against it exactly once: the 1973 Yom Kippur war. (Technically, I guess you could count Iraq's 1991 rocket attacks as a second time?) In all other cases, either Israel attacked first, or Israel's opponent was not a recognized state actor.
France officially rejects the idea of French ethnic nationalism. France’s nationalism is civic and linguistic - the French nation is defined in terms of citizenship and language, not in terms of ethnic ancestry - in fact, the French government does not even know the ethnic/racial composition of their country, since they refuse to collect statistics on it. So I disagree with the suggestion that France is an “ethnostate”
> Saudi Arabia is named after the Arabs
Both the Saudi royal family and the Saudi religious establishment have always opposed Arab nationalism; the only significant Arab nationalist force in Saudi politics was the outlawed Arab Socialist Action Party opposition, which was mostly crushed by the Saudi regime in the 1980s, and by 1991 or so was extinct.
At the level of spoken language, Han natively speak several mutually unintelligible languages; even at the written level, most of the mutually intelligibility only exists in the more formal registers. Are Han really one ethnic group then? Or more like a family of closely related ethnic groups?
> Japan is something else. The description makes sense there
Are Ryukyuans the same ethnic group as Yamato Japanese?
I don't personally know what's reasonable or not here to be honest, but I do know the differing opinion on it is a major contributor to the discourse and the disagreements around it.
I wanted to point that out, because you and another commenter were not able to convince each other, and this is why in my opinion.
That's not what I'm asking for. In the US, Native Americans and descendants of slaves have full legal and political rights (in fact, Native Americans have extra political rights not granted to other citizens). Israel also can give Palestinians full legal and political rights, either in a separate state or as part of a one-state solution, without compromising its continued existence.
And I'm sure you will accept Hamas strikes against Israel as justified as long as they deem the IDF as a terrorist organization? Or is it only your view of who is or is not a terrorist organization that matters?
We should never let labels like "terrorist" be used to justify using any means neccassary to ensure their removal. There is always the null option - do nothing. How much civilian casualties are there with that option vs. indescriminate eradication of anyone near Hamas?
Nowhere in any civilised state in the world do the authorities just go in and kill everyone in a building to get to a few.
It's beyond insane.
The fiction you've created to rationilise this is that there is a "war", but there is no fucking war. It's an occupying force slaughtering its hostages to punish a relative handful among them.
I mean, fire the general in charge of security and put competent people on your walls to avoid any further incursions, and then work to remove the million settlers you've pushed onto stolen lands.
It's insane how Israel has managed to sell this fiction that they have a right to slaughter tens of thousands because a few terrorists must be hiding amongst them.
No it isn't. It might be impossible to achieve Israel's goals without any civilian casualties but those goals are not a given. Not doing anything would have caused less total suffering than Israel's current strategy.
They can be stopped by arresting/killing the members. Why wouldn't it be possible? Similar groups have been stopped.
About 1: I don't know well enough the political landscape in Israel, but what is publicly visible, is there are many worrying statement made (some openly genocidal). I think this is factual. I read that polled opinion overall to this day in Israel, is supporting the level of Violence ongoing in Gaza. even having a majority asking for more. So from those 2 points (which I believe are true fact), i can understand the rational one would have to say, Neither Politician, nor Israeli Population is currently empathetic to Palestinian Civilians casualties.
About 2: Things I think we can agree on: - IDF do mitigate collateral damage to Civilian. By several factual means. - There is a lot of CODAM (Volume of it). - IDF knows, on most strikes expectable CODAM level. (there has been 10.000 + Bombs, Guided or Not, those Bomb were aimed at a target. each Target had to be CODAM evaluated)
What I don't know. is What is consider acceptable CODAM policy. I don't think anyone serious says that IDF is exterminating Civilian. What many people are saying is that, mitigation of collateral damage is not effective, and that it doesn't seem that the force used is proportionate to the threat. What I have a strong opinion about, is that, no, not everything possible is done to protect Palestinian Civilian to become CODAM.
About 3: If the ratio is 2:1, considering the level of firepower and engagement, it could be a lot worst, I agree. (=> doesn't mean it can't be critized and that if there are war crimes, they remain war crimes)
But here we have to trust the ratio of IDF, which are really on the "boarder" of credible data. For 2 Reasons in my opinion: - R1/ If figures from IDF of 5000+ Hamas militants killed is true ===> that would means a hell lot of militants are disabled. In urban combat, we should expect a 1 to 5 Killed vs Wounded ratio. that means already the complete Expected Military force of Hamas is KIA or WIA.
- R2/ That the amount of overall casualties reported, and stated credible by US / UN of 16.000+. ===> I personally think, these is an absolute minimum: and even if Cease Fire Occurs Now, that full "Humanitarian" help is put in place to treat the injured Civilians. The civilian deathcount will keep going up for Weeks.
=> So i am really doubting on that ratio of 2:1. BUT, I would accept, that when this conflict End / Pause, deathtoll is properly documented and true. if 2:1 ratio in CODAM that would be "reasonable" in the overall context. (even if all agree, that best would be prison for all criminals and a free life for innocent)
But, if it is 3:1, or 4:1 (which i think where it currently sits). Then in order to accept 4:1. I would have to face that on OCT 7th, Hamas ratio of 4:1 was a barbaric civilian indiscriminated attack. But that IDF vs Hamas 4:1 is "state of the art; taking all measure necessary to protect Civilian". I mean, my brain can't process that contradiction.
To end, where you finished on a relatively factual point. Dresden wasn't collateral damage - it was directly targeting and killing innocent civilian. True
Fact: In Dresden : 60% of the city / building were destroyed. how much of North Gaza / city is Destroyed already ? Satellite image reports already states 60%.
I hope for peace, tolerance, truth.
October 7 was calculated to derail the peace negotiations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, and in the short-to-medium term it succeeded. But, I expect that (privately) MbS is really angry at Hamas for doing that, and I think most other Arab governments likely feel similarly. That doesn’t bode well for Hamas in the long-run.
Regarding Lebanon-for all of Lebanon’s woes, it still survives, it hasn’t broken up into a new civil war; and for all the criticism of its political system, maybe its unique political system has been one of the factors preventing that outcome. And I think Lebanon’s biggest problem is that the national government lacks a monopoly on force, with sectarian political parties controlling their own militias beyond state control (of which Hezbollah’s is the most significant example.) I don’t think the “cantonalisation” proposal for Israel is going to lead to that, since all the versions of it I’ve seen have the military, intelligence, law enforcement, prisons, etc under the 100% control of the national government. Lebanon’s problem in that area is a leftover of its civil war; Israel is not going to have the same problem unless it has a civil war (which I still think is very unlikely)
It also shows, of course, that Arab countries have not changed and have zero interest or respect for the ICC or the UN. But they do seem to respect that Iran wants to destroy them. And if stopping Iran requires war in Gaza, then they're perfectly ok with that. They have barely denounced Israel over it, in fact most haven't done that at all.
If there's a war, where is the army that the IDF is fighting? How many losses have the IDF had? Where is the front-line of this war? Where is the footage of this so called "war"?
These answers are obvious. You would’ve been able to answer your questions yourself if you were earnestly looking to do so.
I'm not doubting it will be grounded in peace, a stalemate can be a form of that as nothing will happen. A state not only keep residents safe (ideally they should try do this). It becomes a failed state when a state is no longer in control. When other government services like utilities are no longer delivered, that's when the failed state question can also come into being. Lebanon isn't quite there thank goodness but it's not great either.