For context, a total of 69 journalists were killed in WWII, 63 in the Vietnam war both of which lasted several years. As of today March 6th 2024, the Gaza invasion has left 86 journalists dead in less than 4 months. That is an amazingly high percentage for the expected mean in a conflict.
That may be true but a couple things have changed since those very dated sample points. (1) Definition of journalist (2) quantity of journalists (3) willingness to be on the very front lines in order to get better stories (4) technology enabling journalists thus being able to be more dangerous spots. (5) speculation -> journalists who are using press credentials as cover
I'm neither way on the conflict but want to correct some of your arguments assumptions that lead your conclusion astray.
Yes if you google 'how many journalists died in WW2' in Russian you get numbers from a couple of hundred to over a thousand for the Soviet Union alone. The 69 number listed at https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/middleeast/30embed.... is almost certainly just US journalists.
Tbf, a lot of those victims were due to dubious strategic choices. They could have probably conceded Stalingrad, for example, and refused to simply because of the propaganda angle. That battle alone was an absolute meat-grinder, and didn't really have to be.
But yes, the overall cost in human lives was higher for the Soviet Union than for any other country or federation.
Stalingard was a trap for the 6th Army, which was beyond overextended and undersupplied. I have a strong prior that giving up Stalingrad and allowing Germans and their allies to resupply would've caused even more causalties, especially considering the Soviets would have had to attack over Volga. That final Russian bridgehead in Stalingrad was a horrible place, I imagine.
No, that was "the great war" that started with what's called "WWI" by many and ended with what's called "WWII". Basically, one big war with a really long intermission.
Ah, you are one of the people seeing WW1 and 2 as the new 30 years war. Ok. Still wrong saying tze assination started WW2, and oversimolyfied saying it started WW1.
Worth pointing out that your view is still not mainstream.
They are linked, for sure. The Versaille treaty and reparations did not directly cause the Nazi's rise to power so. I know it is a popular believe, it is just not the case. At best, they were a Nazi talking point. After all, the pre-Nazi goverment got rid of them. Same for the economic downturn, no direct link to Nazi popularity. It simply made it a little bit easier for them.
Re WW1: The assassination gave the Austrians the excuse to pose excagerated demands on Serbia. Because Austrian leadership, politically but especially military, wanted to conquer the Balkans. Austria got German support for those demands after Russia got involved on Serbias side, Germany was affraid a war with Russia was inevitable and would be unwinnable for Germany at a later date (history would proof both of these points correct).
Proof for the assassination being a welcome excuse, and not the reason: Serbia agreed to basically all of Austria's demands. Austria refused on basis of minor details, and the fact thatvthey needed an excuse. Back the day, formal declarations of war and acceptable excuses were still a thing in diplomacy, truely more civilized days in some regards.
After Austria declared war on Serbia, and launched its almost failed invasion, all the existing treaties kicked in: Austria and Germany declared war on Russia, France and Britain declared war on the central powers, including the Ottoman Empire, and events couldn't be stopped anymore. After all, everyone believen it would be a quick affaire, akin to the war of 1870. Didn't work out like that.
After the war, the German Empire was no more. The ancient guard and Prussian royalists were as opposed to the Weimar Republic as were the communists and Nazis (they came later). The result was a mess politically. When the conservatives failed to gain a majority in parliament, in part because society driffted away from the middle to the fringes left and right (immensly supported by mas media, radio, and Hitlers and the Nazis brilliant use of that as well as air travel, Hitler sometimes held two rallies the same day in different parts of Germany), they formed a coalition led by tze NSDAP. Conservative leadership hoped they could control the "Austrian private". They couldn't.
Which brings me to another myth: The Nazis were never led legitimate government. Truth is, they did. The first election on 1933 was in deed free and as fair as the other ones in the Weimar era. The fact that the NSDAP needed a coalition is normal, Germany was back the, and is today, a multi-party system. The times one party won a majority and not a mere plurality are extremely rare. Hence, the fust Nazi-led government was legitimate, they won that role fair and square.
The interesting, and today extremely important, part is thus: Once the Nazis were in power, they lost no time dismantling democracy from within. The next election the same year were the opposite of free and fair. The Nazis used their party apparatus, very well established across Germany, as a shadow govenrmwnt and administration. They used violence and every other trick in the book to manipulate the election outcome. It worked, they won a majority. And with that majority, their shadow party government and the additional powers assigned to the Chancellor, thay took power. When Hindenburg died, they merged the powers of Prwsident and Chancellor into the role of the Fuhrer, and their power grab was done.
The lesson of this being: democracies are a fragile beast, they can be attacked and destroyed from within if we are not carefull. And when this happens, well, the outcome usually is very, very ugly. Everybody should keep that in mind when they vote in 2024, regardless of where they are.
What? That Germany started WW2 by attacking Poland in cahoots with the USSR? How is that wrong?
Edit: The European theatre, in Asia the war started earlier when Japan invaded China. The most commonly understood start of WW2 was thebinvasion of Poland and the resulting declarations of war.
The narrative that USSR started the war, surrounding the "Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact" often misinterprets it as a partnership between the Nazis and Soviets to undermine the sovereignty of Central and Eastern European nations. Typically misrepresented as an "alliance," this controversial "nonaggression" pact, which included undisclosed provisions, was actually the culmination of a complex and urgent sequence of events. It's noteworthy that similar agreements had previously been established with Nazi Germany, such as Britain's naval arms agreement in 1934, and a nonaggression pact with Poland that same year. Additionally, it was almost exclusively the Soviet Union that took a stand against fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War two years later, offering support to the democratically elected government facing a fascist uprising, without the backing of other international powers.
Finally the infamous Munich agreement of 1938, where Britain and France agreed to the dismemberment of the last democratic and multinational state in Central and East Europe, Czechoslovakia, occurred without any consultation with the Soviets.
Appeasement was a failure. And enabled Hitler a lot. It also gave him legitimacy.
And no, the USSR did not start the war, that "honour" goes to Germany. The USSR did grap its portion of Poland so.
Regarding Munich, even worse, Czechoslovakia wasn't really consulted neither.
Edit: The war in Europe was ended by all allies, including the USSR. And that the USSR did most of the fighting, and dying outside the holocaust, should be crystal clear to everyone who ever read a short history of WW2 on wikipedia.
> (1) Definition of journalist (2) quantity of journalists (3) willingness to be on the very front lines in order to get better stories (4) technology enabling journalists thus being able to be more dangerous spots.
How have these things changed, and how have the changes affected the number of journalists killed? The changes could reduce the number.
My point is, we need much less speculation and possibilities, and much more credible fact. CPJ provides some credible fact.
Internet does not allow nearly all to be publishers? Does not foster many small online news sources? Has number of news sources not gone up with rise of the internet? Outsourcing of news collection by global news sources to (technology connected) hired locals has not gone up? Number doing (and claiming to be doing) journalism has not gone up?
TFA has a list of those included, who they worked for, and the circumstances of their death. I saw one that was only credited with having a podcast (which has 225k followers on their instagram account,) and a few others that seemed to work for smaller local websites and whatnot, but it seems like the vast majority had affiliations with established news agencies.
I think the argument is that its a lot easier to protect journalists if there are very few journalists in the war zone, so absolute numbers are the wrong way to look at it.
So you don’t think there is a difference between a huge front across a country, and a tiny blob of very densely packed land, with a huge population density? Just something as simple as the chance of a bomb exploding near you is significantly higher in case of one.
I think the US chose not to level Baghdad and if it had, it would’ve been at least as catastrophic as what’s going on in Gaza. So no it’s not merely a matter of a different situation, it’s a matter of different decisions.
I am however pointing out the very significant differences between what the original comment is referring to and what is happening and what might be driving the largest (if true) difference in numbers.
I didn’t say you were. I am pointing out a more directly analogous war to demonstrate that similar militaries have waged similar wars against similar adversaries for far, far greater spans of time yielding far fewer journalist deaths.
I am also pointing out that “this war is extra hard to prosecute” is not actually justification for certain actions. The difficulty of fighting the war falls on the people fighting the war, including the difficulty of protecting civilians during that war. What else would any standards or laws mean if that weren’t the case? The whole premise of these standards is to set a ceiling on what sort of awful conditions can be allowed during warfare.
> The onus of protecting journalists (and medical workers) falls on the military regardless of how difficult the war they’re trying to prosecute is.
No it doesn't?
Just searched the International Criminal Court's English document on war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity for 'journalist' and found no results.
1. Onus doesn’t mean legal requirement. Civilized nations can be, should be, and generally are held to standards far exceeding legal statutes.
2. They DO have an actual legal obligation to protect journalists as well, try searching for “civilian.” If they are targeting journalists (read: civilians) that would obviously be illegal.
> Onus doesn’t mean legal requirement. Civilized nations can be, should be, and generally are held to standards far exceeding legal statutes.
Are they? USA literally has a law on the books that authorizes bombing the netherlands if any of their troops are ever held responsible. Trump pardoned 4 people who masacared civilians (including 2 children) in Iraq
The west doesn't just not go beyond the legal requirements, it flouts the legal requirements when convinent.
GP is referring to the "Hague Invasion Act", aka "American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002" passed under GW Bush to authorize a US invasion of The Hague, to protect American officials and military personnel from prosecution [by the ICC] or rescue them from custody. Originally drafted in response to the Iraq invasion.
Oh dear... I knew the US is one of the few to not recognize the ICC. Never heard of Section 2008. The wording so interesting, especially part covering also people of NATO allies: So theoretically, the US could sent Seal Team Six to extract a member of the Dutch armed forces from The Hague, and attack a NATO member in order to free a citizen from said NATO member. Theoretically, right after Seal Team Six delivered a wanted war criminal to The Hague. Well, I guess at least the strike is easy to position in that case...
Thanks for the throw back to the times of bad George W. policy and laws, almost forgot how bad it was over everything that happened since 2016...
You said "protecting" and protection is far different from "not target".
We have laws for an important reason, without them it's up to any individual to decide for themselves what is just at any given moment. What happens when Israel decides that what's fair and just seems barbaric to you or me? We agree on the rules ahead of time so that we can act accordingly.
If you want war crimes to include "must protect journalists", then I'd suggest your best chance at realizing that goal would be to get the legal codes modified.
You said journalists, not civilians. If you want to talk about civilians now not journalists, that's a new topic.
Sorry, correction, Concentration Camp would be a proper term in this case. Prison implies a crime, the only crime is that they are born in an occupied land by a brutal occupier.
The Israelis are the ones setting those parameters and creating the conditions, though. It's not a "gotcha" to point out that journalists are also affected along with the other noncombatants.
> but all you can muster is evidence that journalists are not being targeted but are rather being killed at rates of other civilians.
No, they are being killed at much faster rate, to the point of depletion in relation to other civilians. Look at this plot: https://imgur.com/a/SWNSYOn
In my first post in this thread I did a detailed estimate that for the curve to bend this way, the journalists must be decimated with odds between 51:1 - 96:1 higher when compared to other civilians. This post got heavily downvoted and now sits at the bottom of the thread, but you can read the full explanation there.
Is it actually a reasonable assumption that journalists die at the same rate as civilians? Arguably, journalists are much more susceptible to go to dangerous places, close to actual combat, etc, for better videos.
In my estimates I used a biased urn model. Given the number of remaining journalists is very small when compared to total population (hundreds vs. millions), the final proportions should still be similar, unless the risk disparity is huge enough to overcome the effect of four order of magnitude difference in absolute number between groups.
Some of the individual incidents do point pretty strongly to deliberate acts. The incidents in Lebanon, for example, rule out a lot of the "proximity" reasoning, as do the methods and types of weapons.
That 69 figure cannot be remotely close to accurate. Millions of civilians died from mass bombing campaigns alone, which certainly killed many journalists working for local outlets in those cities!
Each atomic bomb on its own probably killed more than 69 journalists.
"Of the 715, the Syrian regime was responsible for the killing of 553 journalists, including five children, one woman, five foreign journalists, and 47 journalists who died due to torture, while 24 journalists were killed at the hands of Russian forces."
That's a remarkably small number. It makes me think journalists weren't present in the warzone at all.
Irrespective of which side you support, Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians. An elevated civilian death count, including journalists is to be expected.
However, the numbers being THIS high in this short a time is alarming and tragic.
> Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians.
I despise Hamas, but this claim is disingenuous propaganda (by the leaders who make it, not the parent who repeats it):
First, Hamas is 'notorious' for it because it's endlessly repeated by their enemies. That rhetoric doesn't make anything true. (Haven't we had the Internet long enough that people know it well by now?)
Second, Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians (or hide in wilderness); it's just the nature of being that kind of force:
They have personal weapons, mostly. They cannot bring their rifles and RPGs to fight a fully capable modern state military's tanks and planes on an open battlefield - would you? The modern state military would kill them all immediately; it would be pointless. Might as well surrender.
Therefore the assymetric force cannot hold ground, and therefore cannot build bases separate from civilians: If they had identifiable bases, the state military would erradicate them in minutes.
The laws of war require militaries to distinguish soldiers from civilians, but I wonder if that is written by 'symmetric' forces and to their advantage. For assymetric forces, they might as well have bullseyes on their uniforms.
I agree with the premise that Hamas wouldn't be able to fight open battles. But it doesn't make using human shields (directly by putting military infrastructure in civilian ones or indirectly by not distinguishing themselves) not their fault. The death of human shields is their responsibility, and their alone (without getting into details of which part of dead civilians is actually due to being human shields). Of course, that is a sacrifice they are willing to make, but why would you justify it?
> using human shields (directly by putting military infrastructure in civilian ones or indirectly by not distinguishing themselves)
That doesn't mean they are using human shields (and it doesn't mean they are not): Asymetric forces need to blend into the environment - the mountains, the city, etc. In the city, that means blending into the civilian population - it doesn't require any intent to use them as shields (but they still could intend it - they even could intend to cause civilian deaths to drive world opinion).
> The death of human shields is their responsibility, and their alone
The asymetric force is at least partly to blame for the deaths of civilians, but that doesn't excuse the 'symmetric' force (is there a better term?) from all laws of war and basic human morality. They can still minimize civilian death and still follow rules of proportionality - Israel can't justify nuking the Gaza strip because Hamas is hiding among civilians.
Being indistinguishable from civilians (blending in) is exactly using civilian as a shield -- the opponent can't identify you and can't kill everyone who looks like you
> They can still minimize civilian death
Arguably Israel does it with fairly low civilian: combatant death ratio
> Arguably Israel does it with fairly low civilian: combatant death ratio
Fairly low compared to what? The USSR invasion of Afghanistan? Assad engaged in a civil war? WW2 carpet bombings?
No recent war has seen anywhere near the deplorable civilian:combatant death ratio that we see here.
And if you also take into account that the IDF basically defines adult male as combatant, so that a lot of the "combatants" killed were actually just adult male civilians, then the picture gets even grimmer.
Not to mention, we keep talking about direct casualties, but Israel is going beyond this - they are not allowing some kinds of critical aid into Gaza at all (water treatment pills are forbidden, for one egregious example), and they are generally only allowing a trickle of aid of any kind in - in effect starving the population.
No rate is acceptable. The debate is not about abiding to any modern war KPIs but rather the intent to minimize civilian casualties. Israel definitely does NOT do that by actively engaging with their current strategy of retaliation and that's already enough to say that, from a human perspective, Israel needs to stop right now and enable any sort of progression into a longer holding peace in that area.
I'll rephrase. What rate do you expect in city fights against the enemy mixed with civilians and actively using them as human shields, assuming that the attacking side makes reasonable effort to minimize civilian casualties.
> intent to minimize civilian casualties
Intent is very hard to argue about. Especially when talking about proportionality which is not rigorously defined. Numbers are easier to argue about. It is reasonable to expect that civilian casualty rate will be higher in cases where there is no intent to minimize civilian casualties compared to cases where it is; comparing numbers with conflict in similar conditions where you believe there was such intent is a good starting point
> enable any sort of progression into a longer holding peace in that area
Getting rid of terrorist government who promised to repeat 7th of October looks like necessary condition for peace.
No, the responsibility is always on who is shooting at civilians. If you can't beat the Hamas in Gaza without shooting civilians, don't shoot, retreat in Israel and focus on protecting Israel.
And that's the breaking point of the whole debate whether Israel's current way of defense is justified. This is literally THE point where most of the general population has split opinions and chooses to condemn or not Israel's actions.
Most people think killing thousands of people to eliminate a terrorist group is a trade-off that should be made which baffles my mind. Where do we live? No human life can be weighted upon anything else.
Do you imply that if you're attacked by an army mixed with civilians you're just supposed to surrender and not make a single shot? Luckily people who wrote the Geneva and other conventions understood that it made zero sense.
Um, the things Israel has done to Palestinian citizens in Gaza over the past 15 years (e.g. [0] - [3]) have been pretty horrific, as are the things Hamas has done to Israeli citizens. This situation didn't randomly start on October 7, 2023.
I found this interview pretty thought provoking. I think it is still pro-Israel, but it provides a view of Hamas's strategy that I haven't seen anywhere else.
Basically, what I think Hamas leadership was thinking was to mirror the Hezbollah-Israel conflict from, what, 10 years ago, on a much bigger scale. According to this CIA officer, Hamas had 30,000 soldiers ready to engage in fighting with Israel in an urban environment, and the initial terror attack was trying to sucker the Israelis into rushing in and suffering huge casualties. Not 30,000 soldiers in uniforms and formations to your point, but nonetheless a large force. (This part starts at about 7:30 into the video).
According to the intel officer in the interview, Israel did NOT rush in, and is engaging in effective counterattacks per the Intelligence officer. I understand everyone thinks the press is owned by Israel, but in the failed conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon there was plenty of stories about the Israeli army failing.
I have not heard those stories. Just desperate stories from the Palestinian side, which tells me the Israelis are being quite effective.
Hamas is embedded with civilians by default: the Gaza strip is stuffed full of people, it has very high population density due to the insane 8 children-per-woman population expansion of the Palestinians over the last 60-70 years.
> Israel did NOT rush in, and is engaging in effective counterattacks
According to all the experts I read, Israel rushed in without a political outcome planned. All warfare is a tool to achieve political outcomes (unless the outcome was to drive Palestinians out of Gaza or just destroy as many people and buildings as possible). All warfare ends only with a stable political solution; otherwise it continues indefinitely; an example is Afghanistan, where the US failed to achieve a stable political solution and so the war never ended - unfortunately the Taliban have acheived a stable political solution, to some degree.
> I have not heard those stories. Just desperate stories from the Palestinian side, which tells me the Israelis are being quite effective.
I agree that the Israeli military has spared itself the hubris and casualities they experienced when they attacked Hezbollah around 20 years ago.
But we still see stories criticizing the Israeli military, and we don't hear desperate stories from Hamas, only from civilians. A military killing civilians isn't accomplishing anything. The question is, are they being effective against Hamas and in establishing some desireable political outcome?
> it has very high population density due to the insane 8 children-per-woman population expansion of the Palestinians over the last 60-70 years.
The political aim was to cause a LOT of casualties. I'm not going to disagree that this is ugly stuff, but Hamas must have known this was the result. Also I do think the Israelis think they can get a large amount of Hamas leadership.
Gaza is a mafia state under control by Hamas, who likely control all aid coming into the country and certainly the Iranian military funding.
Israel seems to apply a 10x minimum response to any Israeli casualties over the years. This attack is well above the 10x number already.
And remember, the Israelis do not completely surround Gaza. Egypt is complicit in closing the walls of the prison on Gaza, and Egypt I'm told hates the Palestinians more than Israel does. I wonder why this is, Egypt did manage/oversee Gaza for 25 years and I guess said "no thanks".
AFAIK, it's not like the Sinai peninsula is some valuable land, I think Egypt has room to take in Palestinian refugees. They simply refuse to do it. I have not gotten any good reason why they hate them. I guess the Lebanese hate their Palestinian enclave. It is clear the Arab world doesn't care about the Palestinians, and a common brotherhood of Islam doesn't carry weight.
Egypt has said that if people are displaced it will put the peace agreement with Israel at risk. It's understandable that they do want 2 million more people to feed and the problems will just move to Sinai as among those 2 millions many will also support Hamas.
Its also not true that Egyptians hate Palestines. In fact I would say its rather unison that they feel great sympathy with the Palestines in the occupied areas, and the boycott of companies that support Israel is strong. McDonald's and Burger Kings are mostly empty and there are Palestine flags at shops, stickers attached to products you buy and people are sad about the situation.
> I think Egypt has room to take in Palestinian refugees. They simply refuse to do it. I have not gotten any good reason why they hate them. I guess the Lebanese hate their Palestinian enclave. It is clear the Arab world doesn't care about the Palestinians, and a common brotherhood of Islam doesn't carry weight.
This is a bad take. Egypt, and others, refuse to take "Palestinian refugees" because doing so would make them complicit in Israel's ethic cleansing. Why should Palestinians be forced off their own land?
Palestinian refugees have started civil wars in Jordan and Lebanon. Neither country is keen to repeat that experience and Egypt is not keen to join that list.
Russia doesn't allow ukrainians back to the occupied territories, they deport the non-complicit ones and the remaining ones are heavily oppressed. That should be the excuse for Poland or the rest of EU to not let the refugees in?
If Egypt were to abandon leave with Isreal, they would take in refugees and then allow them to return back across their border to Gaza. Maybe they fear that Isreal would bomb them, but it would be harder to politically justify if Egypt wasn't agressing AND the returning Palestinians were returning to create a peaceful state.
The problem seems to be that Palestinians don't want peace, or are unable to separate themselves from the terrorists government.
Yea, it will probably never end as Palestines have a right according to international law to attack Israel as they are occupied by them. Even if Hamas disappear as an organisation the resistance part will continue and there will probably never be peace until Palestines get the country they were promised and the illegal settlements are removed.
>> Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians.
> this claim is disingenuous propaganda
> Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians
Is the hangup on the word "notorious"? Because you appear to first claim the notion of colocation to be propaganda before explaining why it's also a logistical inevitability.
My point is that the Israeli / pro-Israeli leaders - the ones who understand asymmetric warfare - calling Hamas somehow evil for doing it are spreading disingenuous propaganda. They know very well that an asymmetric force must blend into its surroundings. The Taliban blended into the mountains; Hamas blends into densely populated Gaza.
Hamas does a lot of bad things; they still are 'notorious'; but this thing is just fundamental asymmetric operations, at least generally speaking.
> Hamas is notorious for colocating themselves among civilians.
> this claim is disingenuous propaganda
> Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians
Are you listening to yourself here? Pure cognitive dissonance
Still, you got it wrong: It wasn't cognitive dissonance, but miscommunication. I'm not trying to score a point; I'm trying to say that jumping to conclusions - despite it's popularity these days - often yields wrongness, and we all are especially prone to it when we are emotionally charged. Curiosity, as a policy and rule, is an effective prophylactic against screwing yourself. :)
Yes? Use your basic reasoning. Hamas fights in civilian clothing, they hide in civilian buildings, they hide in hospitals. They use regular civilians as shields. This is not your average fight; Hamas hates their enemy more than they love their own country.
If you can't tell innocent people from legit targets... rethink the approach?
Here is my reasoning: they hide in civilian clothes, okay let's not shoot civilians. They hide in hospitals, okay let's not bomb hospitals. They use civilian buildings, okay let's not bomb civilian buildings.
They use civilians as shields... let's not shoot the shields.
Essentially that implies Israel will get shot at and not be allowed to shoot back. I suspect most Israelis would find that unreasonable. Israeli civilians don't like being killed anymore than Palestinian civilians do.
The thing that usually prevents war is that both sides lose in the end. If only one side is allowed to shoot, why would the side being allowed to shoot ever stop? They would be getting all the benefits of war with none of the drawbacks.
> Israel will get shot at and not be allowed to shoot back.
The logic doesn't really follow
What shots exactly? the missiles? Attack the launch sites. They're pretty clear as they expose themselves. Israel has 24/7 surveillance it shouldn't be a challenge. Can you support your claim by showing evidence that a hospital was used to launch missiles?
You likely don't have evidence that Israel is targeting anything. It seems every street in the city was indiscriminately bombed, every hospital was distroyed, and tens of thousands of civilians were murdered. That's a massacre not a "response".
I would be referring to all forms of military violence, whether that be guns, rockets or something else.
I also believe if the facility was being used to conduct the war in a significant capacity, e.g. as an ammunition store or as a command and control center then it becomes fair game. Just waiting around for someone to open fire, shoot back only when they are firing, and letting them escape back to their base of operations is not a way to prevent future attacks and puts the defender at an unreasonable disadvantage.
This should still be subject to the doctrine of porportionality and discrimination of course.
> Can you support your claim by showing evidence that a hospital was used to launch missiles?
I never claimed that. It is especially impossible to show since hamas has not been using missiles in this conflict as far as i know. Perhaps you mean rockets?
My main claim is that if the hospital is being used in any significant capacity to conduct military operations it is reasonable that it could be targeted. Whether any specific instance in this war is justified - i don't know, i don't have the full picture of what happened and i don't know what Israel knew at the time of targeting (intent matters). More to the point, i do not believe that allowing hamas impunity so long as they co-locate their activity near civilians is reasonable.
> You likely don't have evidence that Israel is targeting anything.
Only circumstantial based on the civilian death ratio being much lower in this conflict than in other wars where the military bombed indiscriminately.
Generally crimes have an innocent until proven guiltly element. The onus is on evidence is the other way around.
> That's a massacre not a "response".
Whether or not it is ever justified to bomb a hospital is a very different conversation than whether the actions in this specific conflict are justified. For the latter the details matter a lot.
> What if those launch sites are top of hospitals or media buildings?
Is that a claim or just a hypothetical scenario? If it's a claim, please provide evidance that supports hospitals were used to launch rockets.
You know what is not hypothetical? the fact that Israel bombed hospitals, UN schools, churches, mosques, civilian shelters, ambulances, and killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians: women, children, journalists, UN staff, Red Crescent members. You know what else isn't hypothetical? Israeli minister's call to wipe out a Palestinian village. It's not about a hospital here or there. Just me typing that sentence makes me sick. The fact that we're past the point where a hospital bombing makes a difference in illustrating the crimes committed. Sadly, the attrocities are far greater.
Here are some not hypothetical Massacres and war crimes committed by Israel:
Same as Hamas is fighting an asymmetrical warfare at a disadvantage by IDF, IDF is at the same disadvantage on the journalistic side. They have the monopoly on reporting their side while Hamas is every person with a camera creating whatever narrative they want.
So yeah I can see why you choose not to take their word when they say that they have evidence.
But trust me bro :-)
But seriously now, I don't really understand why it would be shocking to discover Hamas is operating from hospitals, mosques and schools. They are fighting a war and will do anything they can to gain an advantage.
It's very convenient to deploy your base under a hospital, for so many seasons, that I really don't understand why people find it hard to believe...
What is the something else? There is an extensive tunnel network that likely allows insurgents to travel from the hospital to elsewhere. So you can't lay siege to it.
You could send troops in, but now you're in disadvantaged close quarters combat, which is horrific and guaranteed to get many of your troops killed.
The only reasonable strategy is to bomb the hospital. It saves the loves of your troops. Will there be civilian casualties? Yes. Is that preferred to losing your own citizens? Absolutely.
A lot of evidence, if you choose to believe videos coming out of IDF.
But to take a step back, why would Hamas operating from hospitals, schools and mosques surprise you in any way ? Would you then think anything different of them ? This is asymmetrical warfare. Of course they would use anything they can to create an advantage. Let's not kid ourselves. It's the same as using human shields. That's just how this type of war works.
You work with what you have to survive and gain an advantage
> Why did 500 Israeli soldiers die in Gaza from your perspective?
Are saying you committed massacres and
bombed hospitals, UN schools, mosques, churches, and ambulances, as some sort of retaliation?
leveling the entire place, displacing a million, and killed tens of thousands of innocent civilians most of whom were women, children, medical staff and red cross members because...? enlighten me please
When the IRA was periodically attacking UK institutions and killing civilians, did the UK feel entitled to level Belfast and say that the IRA is to blame?
This war in Palestine is much closer to a civil war than to any country-to-country combat, especially since Palestine is simply not an independent country. Since Israel is in control of the Gaza strip for 50+ years (explicit military control till the 2005, still in full control of their borders today), it is on them to treat this as authorities in any country are expected to treat insurgencies on territory they control, not as if they were attacked by a foreign country.
The british controlled the police in northern ireland, Israel does not control the police or other government functions insude Gaza. (As an aside it should be noted that that conflict is orders of magnitude less violent. If the IRA did what Hamas did, i suspect belfast would be leveled) At most israel control their border with gaza (but not egypt's border with gaza) the sea access and air access. A blockade no doubt, but not donestic government functions.
Whether or not gaza is independent is complicated, since they have some features of independence but not others and don't quite squarely fit in either camp. Nonetheless if your suggestion is that israel should have called in whatever their equivalent of a police swat team is - that's impossible because hamas controlled all domestic government functions in gaza. You can't use domestic police techniques on land where you only control the border but not the land itself.
Northern Ireland/UK was not similar to Gaza/Israel at all. The UK was always Northern Ireland's government and controlled all state functions. A better comparison is Mainland China/Taiwan: according to various outsiders, the two are the same country supposedly, but in reality they function as two different states, with entirely separate governments. The main difference between these situations (aside from Taiwan being an island) is that China actually wants Taiwan, whereas Israel really doesn't want Gaza.
Like, if Israel doesn't want the Gaza strip/west bank, then why hasn't there been a two state solution?
> The UK was always Northern Ireland's government and controlled all state functions.
This is 100% not true, Ulster (the majority of which is in Northern Ireland) was historically the part of Ireland that resisted British/English invasions the most, such that the British brought in lots of scottish settlers to try and make the area more favourable to them.
Honestly though, Northern Ireland is more similar to the West Bank, rather than Gaza due to the settlers.
Like, fundamentally, oppressing the nationalist aspirations of the Palestinian people is never, never going to work, and October 7th will happen again and again until the Israeli people realise this, and make attempts towards peace (which the Palestinians should also do, but right now the Israeli's have a lot more power in the situation).
> Like, if Israel doesn't want the Gaza strip/west bank, then why hasn't there been a two state solution?
My understanding is support for a 2 state solution is relatively low on both sides. Especially now that things have deteriorated, but even before oct 7 it seemed unlikely.
Even if Israel doesn't want Gaza, they still have an interest in not getting shot at. I don't think they believe that they would be safe from attacks if they left Gaza alone, and based on both history as well as current rhetoric from Palestinian leaders, it doesn't seem like an irrational fear.
> Like, fundamentally, oppressing the nationalist aspirations of the Palestinian people is never, never going to work, and October 7th will happen again and again until the Israeli people realise this, and make attempts towards peace (which the Palestinians should also do, but right now the Israeli's have a lot more power in the situation).
I think a fundamental problem here is historically, israeli overtures towards peace (imperfect as they may have been) have often been met with an increase in violence. Its hard to sell peace to someone when they don't have a lot of reason to believe it will actually result in peace and not increased violence.
How about some history, let's go back to 1993 and the Clinton presidency. There was a nice little deal called the Oslo Accords. Not the best deal for the Palestinians, but it created a lasting peace and established a Palestinian state.
Israel has never lived up to their side of the agreement. How do you expect anyone to trust them at this point. So yes, confidence is low and will continue to be low as long as Israel is not beholden to international law and continues to be protected by the USA.
There are many murmurs that Netanyahu orchestrated the death of the accords starting with the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin.
Both sides claim the other did not live up to their end of the deal, and i think both have a point to a certain extent. However it does not exactly give strong evidence of peace deals actually leading to peace.
> My understanding is support for a 2 state solution is relatively low on both sides. Especially now that things have deteriorated, but even before oct 7 it seemed unlikely.
I find that pretty hard to believe (particularly from the Palestinian side). I agree that Israel's government doesn't want this (Netanyahu has been against since forever), but the options are occupation and the consequent destruction of Israel as a liberal democratic state, or a two state solution. Fundamentally, nothing else will work.
> Even if Israel doesn't want Gaza, they still have an interest in not getting shot at. I don't think they believe that they would be safe from attacks if they left Gaza alone, and based on both history as well as current rhetoric from Palestinian leaders, it doesn't seem like an irrational fear.
I completely understand the fears that many Israelis have, but fundamentally if they stopped settling the west bank and moved towards actually working towards a two state solution, there would be a lot less violence.
> I think a fundamental problem here is historically, israeli overtures towards peace (imperfect as they may have been) have often been met with an increase in violence. Its hard to sell peace to someone when they don't have a lot of reason to believe it will actually result in peace and not increased violence.
Can you give me some examples here? I'm open to being convinced, but I haven't noted much of this over the twenty years I've been following this conflict.
> I completely understand the fears that many Israelis have, but fundamentally if they stopped settling the west bank and moved towards actually working towards a two state solution, there would be a lot less violence.
To be clear, i 100% agree with this, for moral reasons if nothing else. However i imagine its not lost on israelis that the violence seems to be coming from Gaza not the west bank.
> Can you give me some examples here? I'm open to being convinced, but I haven't noted much of this over the twenty years I've been following this conflict.
I was referring to the second intifada, as well as the rise of hamas and their general kill israel rhetoric. Which both came after Oslo (or arguably its semi-failure) To be clear, i am aware that both of these have complex causes, and perhaps my simplification is unfair, but i also don't think that matters to the optics of the situation.
> Because Hamas wants Israel destroyed, and a state actor doing that is a much bigger problem for Israel than a non-state actor.
Hamas is fundamentally a response to the co-option of the PA by (perceived) western/israeli governments. It's rather like the provisional IRA versus the constitutional nationalists in Ireland.
If people see that only violence has any impact, there will be more violence. The events post October 7th (i.e. what's happened in Gaza) have basically created the next Hamas, even in the vanishingly unlikely case that the IDF can wipe them out now.
Israel has had a long-standing policy of propping up Hamas in order to divide Palestinians and thwart the creation of a Palestinian state. Here's an actual quote from Netanyahu on this from 2019 :
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas … This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”
To the contrary, they want Gaza for the 500 billion dollar natural gas field which is in it's international waters - this would turn Palestine into another Qatar.
> Essentially that implies Israel will get shot at and not be allowed to shoot back. I suspect most Israelis would find that unreasonable. Israeli civilians don't like being killed anymore than Palestinian civilians do.
We are talking about Gaza. The only Israelis being shot there are Israeli militari attacking the Gaza strip.
If you are talking missiles, well Israel should abandon the colonies and create a no man's land where no civilian, be it Israeli or Palestinian, can go, and only shoot those that trespass.
If you are talking missiles, Israel has air defense systems.
> We are talking about Gaza. The only Israelis being shot there are Israeli militari attacking the Gaza strip.
What exactly do you think happened on oct 7?
> If you are talking missiles, well Israel should abandon the colonies and create a no man's land where no civilian, be it Israeli or Palestinian, can go, and only shoot those that trespass.
They did do that to Gaza in 2005. That is how we arrived at the current situation.
> They did do that to Gaza in 2005. That is how we arrived at the current situation.
No, they didn't "do that to Gaza" - Israel has kept Gaza under a brutal blockade, by air, land and sea. Israel kept the place like an open air prison, and had it surrounded by military outposts and remotely operated guns. Hundreds of civilians were shot in 2023 prior to Oct 7th, including peaceful protesters.
The person i was responding to didn't say israel should stop the blockade. They said israel should dismantle their colonies. Which they did in Gaza in 2005. There are no colonies currently in gaza.
It should also be noted that the blockade happened in 2007, so there was a 2 year period there. In any case, the israeli withdrawl is one of the key historical facts that lead to the current geopolitical context.
What would be useful is a historic example where another approach has worked. I don't approve of Israel's methods. I'd prefer an egalitarian solution. But, I'm all out of ideas. Find me an instance of 2 co-habiting or neighboring groups that hate each other, have huge disputes and ended up in relative peace.
I can give you my recent examples of previous instances that are now mostly peaceful, and all of them violate the geneva convention or UN human rights declaration.
Xinjiang = permament open air prison and extreme brain washing
Srilanka LTTE = violent genocide of all suspected participants and their innocent family. 100k civilians killed
Bosnia - Sijekovac killings = violent genocide of thousands of innocent Bosnians in the Bosnian war
Kosovo - thousands of killings, massive population displacement (1+ million) & US military intervention
So what is it ? Do we want the US to intervene and guarantee safety to Israel ? Do we want real open air prisons and complete cultural eradication ? Do we want population displacement of every Gazan to a 3rd location ? Hopefully we are not in support of genocide ?
Well, so what is 'another method' ?
Every single instance of haphazardly drawn post-WW2 line, has led to some kind of insurgency, war, genocide or forced population displacement. Peaceful borders are drawn in the blood of ancestors. The west is simply fortunate enough to have concluded it's killing mid-way through the 20th century. Israel is currently going through one such process. It is especially rich to see the criticism come from western nations who first created the problem. They encouraged the conditions that led to Oct 2023: 2005 withdrawl of Israel and rise of Hamas, and its unilateral control on aid. They refuse to propose any middle ground solution. It's ridiculous.
We actually have very clear examples from history of how to turn an enemy into a friend: the Marshall plan and the similar levels of aid that the USA poured into post-nazi Germany, post-fascist Italy, post-imperial Japan. That turned War-torn bitter enemies into some of the staunchest US allies today.
Given Israel's position of power, they can and should be doing this. However, Israeli politicians just don't want this. Netanyahu has publicly boasted numerous times that he has personally been actively fighting to prevent a two-state solution. A one-state solution is unthinkable to even the moderates in Israel (the Supreme Court has repeatedly iterated that the government MUST protect both the Jewish and the Democratic character of Israel, so integrating the populations of Gaza and the West Bank as full Israeli citizens like this would be unconstitutional, but integrating them as second class citizens would also be unconstitutional).
So what is Israel's solution? Destroying Hamas is a pipe dream - the famine, death, and destruction they are pereptrating in Gaza today will, inevitably, create a new wave of terrorism, whether it's called "Hamas" or something else, as it always has throughout all of history.
The only real solution is massive economic investments in Gaza and the West Bank, and relying on police-like peacekeeping to prevent attacks as much as possible. This is the obvious long-term solution, anything else will worsen, not improve, Israel's security.
> Destroying Hamas is a pipe dream - the famine, death, and destruction they are pereptrating in Gaza today will, inevitably, create a new wave of terrorism, whether it's called "Hamas" or something else, as it always has throughout all of history.
I've seen it argued that is exactly what Israel want - to whip up a new frenzy of Islamophobia, both encouraging immigration to Israel and also making it easier to attack their neighbours and advance their plan for "Greater Israel".
I thought it sounded unlikely at first, but with everything going on in the UK right now... I'm inclined to believe it.
>We actually have very clear examples from history of how to turn an enemy into a friend: the Marshall plan
Japan, Germany, and Italy's people didn't practice a religion that required them to hate Americans. For Germany and Italy in particular, they followed (basically) the same religion as most Americans. Japan never really had much religion. And none of these WWII powers were theocratic states in any way, or governed by religious extremists.
The idea that Israel and Gaza are somehow going to become staunch allies seems like a pipe dream.
However, if you really do want to follow the WWII example, you're totally forgetting that the Allies completely flattened major cities and killed millions of civilians, intentionally, before finally getting unconditional surrenders from their enemies. Basically, one side had to hit rock-bottom before it could be built up again into an ally by the victor. Being so completely devastated and defeated in a major war caused the losing powers to collectively change, on a societal level, the way they viewed the world.
You do know that the vast majority of Muslim people live in countries that don't have any higher hatred of the USA than the average person, right? The largest Muslim country is Indonesia, followed by Bangladesh and Pakistan. So religion has nothing to do with this.
The fact that Palestine is ruled by extremists is not a happenstance, it is a direct consequence of how the Palestinian people have been treated after the war. They lived under full military occupation until 2005, for close to 30 years. Is it any wonder that they became extremists?
What we are seeing are the exact same consequences of the Versailles agreement after WW1, with Germany becoming more and more radicalized because of the extreme economic conditions until a deranged lunatic came to power. This didn't repeat after WW2 exactly because, instead of occupying the defeated countries or imposing harsh economic penalties (both of which Israel did to Palestine after the war) we helped them build up.
Were there terrorists and radicalized groups in the Palestinian territories immediately after the war as well? Of course. But they were fringe groups, and were to be expected when so many had been displaced from their homes. They would have quieted down if the next 30 years had been full of economic growth, instead of military occupation and deprivation.
>What we are seeing are the exact same consequences of the Versailles agreement after WW1, with Germany becoming more and more radicalized because of the extreme economic conditions until a deranged lunatic came to power. This didn't repeat after WW2 exactly because, instead of occupying the defeated countries or imposing harsh economic penalties (both of which Israel did to Palestine after the war) we helped them build up.
You're missing some stuff. In Germany, the Allies didn't just build them up economically and hope for the best, they carried out a strong de-Nazification campaign to basically brainwash everyone out of the Nazi ideology that they had brainwashed themselves into. It wasn't like the Germans suddenly all realized they were wrong and horrible and their racist ideology was bad. This is the same reason the US tried similar de-Baathification after defeating Iraq.
For something similar to happen in Gaza, Israel needs to completely and utterly defeat the ruling government there, then use military forces to occupy the land and create a military government for a while until a civilian government, completely controlled by Israel, can be set up. Meanwhile, they have to control education and teach the Gazans, forcefully (i.e., no free-speech allowed), that their ideology is wrong (along with their interpretation of their Islamic religion). Anyone who publicly supports the atrocities of Hamas get to go to prison. (In Germany, denying the Holocaust or supporting the Nazi government is a criminal offense, remember.)
Is this really what you want?
>You do know that the vast majority of Muslim people live in countries that don't have any higher hatred of the USA than the average person, right? The largest Muslim country is ... So religion has nothing to do with this.
First, this isn't about the USA, it's about Israel vs. Gaza. The people in Gaza hate Israel.
Secondly, talking about Indonesia is like equating Catholics and Protestants, when they've historically hated each other and had wars. They might all be "Muslims" to you, but they're not the same and their beliefs aren't the same. Looking at the last century, it's pretty obvious that Middle Eastern Muslims are not happy about having a Jewish-dominated country in their midst. They aren't even happy about having different kinds of Muslims living around them, which is why they've had so many Sunni vs Shia wars, or ISIS who hated everyone who wasn't as ridiculously extremist as themselves.
> Japan, Germany, and Italy's people didn't practice a religion that required them to hate Americans.
I'm not sure if you're equating Islam with hatred of the USA, or if you mean because so many Israelis believe Palestinians are "amalek", no better than bugs?
> Allies completely flattened major cities and killed millions of civilians, intentionally
And out of these horrors came international agreement on what actions are allowed during wartime, with the aim of ensuring such atrocities weren't repeated. Israel does not respect international law, and should be sanctioned.
>I'm not sure if you're equating Islam with hatred of the USA
I don't know where people are getting this. I'm equating Islam and Judaism with hatred of each other. It's what religions do. We have two effective countries, each one basically a theocracy (less so on the Israeli side, but the fact is, it was founded to be a Jewish state), and their religions are incompatible.
>And out of these horrors came international agreement on what actions are allowed during wartime, with the aim of ensuring such atrocities weren't repeated.
Sure, and the nation-building successes that came after those horrors have never been repeated.
> Japan, Germany, and Italy's people didn't practice a religion that required them to hate Americans.
I mean historically Jews were treated much better by Islam than they were by Christians, so I'm not sure that argument holds up.
Now, given that Israel has been occupying the land of the Palestinians for over fifty years now, there's definitely gonna be a lot of anger there. But flattening Gaza is definitely not gonna help with that.
Palestine has been under de facto Israeli control for more than 50 years. Israel won this war a long, long time ago.
And instead of helping to build a place for Palestinians to live, they kept them under direct military occupation until 2005, then under blockade plus air raids (in retaliation for Palestinian attacks, but usually ending up with a 10:1 ratio of dead Palestinians for each killed Israeli citizen).
What they're seeing now is exactly what the French and British discovered after WW1: if you try to humiliate and subjugate a whole country, even after you have just decisively won a war against them, you'll only radicalize them, ending in a bigger war (thankfully, Palestine doesn't have the resources to become Nazi Germany even if they want to).
The only solutions to have long lasting peace are either (a) investment and openness, or (b) complete annihilation or something close to it. I'm advocating as much as I can for (a).
> And instead of helping to build a place for Palestinians to live, they kept them under direct military occupation until 2005, then under blockade plus air raids (in retaliation for Palestinian attacks, but usually ending up with a 10:1 ratio of dead Palestinians for each killed Israeli citizen).
Gaza got billions of aid since 2005. Water pipes were built, material was delivered. What happened with it? They built one of the biggest underground tunnel systems in the world (as we can see right now), they dug out the pipes to use them for rockets, same with the material. And all the time they attacked Israel and then said "we cannot live in peace, Israel blockades us", leaving the 'after we attacked them again and again' part out.
Palestinians had all the help in the world to live a peaceful life in the Gaza strip with more freedoms over time if they can show that that freedoms don't lead to more dead Israelis. Each time they chose violence instead.
Seriously speaking, what they got is subsistence level help, essentially. The Marshall plan was about building up businesses, industry, banks - everything. Not some token support to just about prevent them from dying.
And, with the 30 years of military occupation and the 20 years of blockade, no real commerce could be made, so Gaza was kept entirely dependent on foreign aid.
> What would be useful is a historic example where another approach has worked. I don't approve of Israel's methods. I'd prefer an egalitarian solution. But, I'm all out of ideas. Find me an instance of 2 co-habiting or neighboring groups that hate each other, have huge disputes and ended up in relative peace.
I mean, they're basically gangs now, rather than terrorists. I remember growing up in the 80s/90s in the south and every single weekend there was either bombings or killings. That's almost entirely ended now.
Another method would be the IDF accepting their responsibility for failing to protect the kibbutzim on 7 October, and making damn sure that this doesn't happen again on their watch. Stop killing the Arabs and start defending the jews.
And I don't mean that they should make sure there's no more Palestinians left to attack them, because that is a horror that the world must never see again (but still sees all too often).
Note that what I'm describing is essentially the status quo before 7 October, including the periodic "mowings of the lawn" by Israel to keep Gaza uprisings in check.
Alternatively of course, Israel could choose to make peace. And that's an option that is available only to Israel, who is the occupying power, and the overwhelmingly more militarily powerful party, not to the Palestinians who can only keep growing resistance groups as long as they are occupied. Israel can choose to end the atrocities and the bloodshed tomorrow. But I guess that would be too much loss of face for all the belligerent fascist assholes in its government.
Serious question: Do you think that Isreal would cease to be attacked by Palestinians tomorrow if they stopped military operations, left Palestine, lifted all blockades, and only operated a no-cross policy for the shared border?
My hypothesis is that without a blockade, external munitions would be shipped in and used to try and obliterate Isreal.
I see no evidence of a stop-and-immediate-peace outcome.
You are probably right. I think it will certainly take a very long time for the feelings of hatred and vengeance to subside, on both sides, after all the horror, death and destruction. But I think that the majority of the Palestinians, even many who have lost people in all the wars in Gaza in the last 17 years, would prefer peace to war. They have gained nothing from war and have lost way too much. Why wouldn't they want it to stop, at last?
Within Hamas itself there are moderates, that were sidelined in 2007, after the attempted coup by a US-armed Fatah faction that led to Hamas taking control of Gaza. These moderates have been severely weakened in the wars that followed, but Hamas has made a few entreaties for peace with Israel (all rebuffed) so they are still there and still have some influence. If Israel shows that it is serious about peace, these moderates will be empowered and will find support in the population, I believe.
I believe peace is possible. I'm Greek. After the Catastrophe of 1922 (you'll find information about it on Wikipedia), we have had 102 years of peace with the Turkish, our blood enemies for many centuries. A peace troubled, at times, but a peace nonetheless, that has endured. Like the Jewish, we too have lost the land where our ancestors lived for thousands of years, lost our greatest city, lost our greatest temple that was turned into a mosque by the Turkish. If we and the Turkish can make it work, the Israelis and the Palestinians can make it work. Not immediately, like you suggest. But someone has to make the first step. The Palestinians can't, because they're the weakest side and they cannot negotiate from a position of power. The Israelis must make the first move. And endure through any turbulence that follows.
>> My hypothesis is that without a blockade, external munitions would be shipped in and used to try and obliterate Isreal.
That doesn't have to happen but I think 7 October was the worst Hamas will ever be able to do. It's not like they'll suddenly grow a modern army with F-16s and armor. The IDF will always be able to deal with whatever Hamas manage to throw at them, there is no question about that in my mind.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I'm with you in that I want the same peaceful outcome to stabilize. It's just that I think Isreal is unwilling to allow even a lesser version of Oct 7 to happen in the future, and therefore I'm suspect that Isreal will let Hamas continue to exist, even if it flipped to majority-moderate led.
We will see how this plays out, but I hope Palestine can use this as an opportunity to rebuild and find some industry, such as tourism, to boost them economically and allow them to thrive.
They didn't 'rob them of their land.' The word "Palestinian" used to refer to jews.
Obviously it's all a bit complicated but a lot of people seem to have the idea that Israel was created out of whole cloth. They were pushed out of literally every other country in the region - https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fh... - so they're clearly hated for reasons other than what you stated.
Jewish people take on no special moral obligations by being victims of the Holocaust. I can't tell if you were implying that they were, but just for clarity's sake.
Because then you let people committing literal war crimes murder you while doing little to nothing to stop it (IIRC, using human shields is a war crime).
Israel uses AI to detect targets with all of their intelligence gathering. It uses precision weaponry. It drops pamphlets (which the US did in Iraq), calls apartments before bombing, has 4 hours of quiet the same time each day for civilian evacuations -- these are Israeli innovations.
Meanwhile Hamas hides in tunnels that are under hospitals, schools, mosques, residences making them military targets. They don't wear uniforms. They captured hostages.
Rooting terrorists out of tunnels is a very complicated task. Most cases of Urban combat such as Mosul don't involve tunnels, yet have much greater civilian to combatant ratio of casualties (3:1 in the case of Mosul).
Hamas never built bomb shelters for its civilians, unlike Israel. They had plenty of concrete to build tunnels for themselves.
The war would have been over by now except other nations have been slowing Israel down. These nations claim that they want the conflict to end but it won't unless Hamas surrenders or Israel finishes the job.
Funny thing is, since this all kicked off I've seen several photos and videos clearly showing Israeli soldiers using civilians, including children, as human shields. I haven't seen any evidence of Hamas doing anything like this; it seems Hamas are mostly accused of this by Israel, simply because Hamas exists in a dense, urban environment.
If your using other wars as a comparison like this what was the journalist per capita and have you adjusted for the prewar ratio per capita also. This seems like ham fisted attempts at statistics otherwise
It's going to take decades just to unwind this one statement.
Look at the history of Al Shifa hospital and who has been in control of it at what times. It is storied, and messy.
This conflict has added to it in a major way, and may represent the second largest intelligence failure of the IDF in this whole mess (the first being missing the attack all together).
The build up to them taking the hospital, was impressive. Like it was going to be some major turning point in the conflict. They told everyone that there was a base under the hospital, that it was a command center under there for Hamas.
The actual taking of the hospital had some reporters embedded, who were oddly silent about what was found... We did get some good photo opportunities of IDF soldiers standing next to boxes of aid.
Days later the videos come out. We're talking now about the 'hospital complex'. They bulldozed a wall, and then dug a hole to get to a tunnel entrance. The "tunnels" and a rooms went under and were "attached" to a pharmacy next door.
Was this a massive intel failure for the US and the IDF? Did Hamas pull off one of the greatest dis and mis information campaigns of the last 100 years? Did the IDF outright lie to the US? What really happened here is going to be one for the history books and I hope I live long enough to see it unravel.
It's not just al-Shifa, but also other hospitals such as al-Rantisi [1] or Nasser [2] that have at least substantial claims of Hamas activity, and there have been statements by arrested Hamas operatives that support these claims [3].
I agree that the facts are still nebulous (it's an active war after all), but there is IMHO enough indications for Hamas violating international law at scale.
The framing of Gazans as a whole as "Hamas's people" is at best problematic; Hamas is an accelerationist and revolutionary movement that believes that dead Gazans advance their aims.
Israel seems pretty happy to help Hamas out with proving out their theory right now, but it's important to note that a Gazan could've been born and raised literally to the age of majority without getting a chance to vote on whether they think Hamas is doing right by them.
It is always true that governments don't fully represent their people. Some do more than others, but i am not sure how it matters. The fact is that hamas was in control of gaza and taking military action on its behalf. Whether ordinary Gazans approve is besides the point other than perhaps making it more tragic.
As an example, we don't say ukraine shouldn't defend themselves from russia because russian elections were rigged even though they clearly are.
If Ukraine, in response to Russia’s invasion, did something remotely equivalent to Israel’s actions so far, they’d rightly be condemned by most people.
It matters whether gazans approve because people use their approval as pretext for bombing them.
> The framing of Gazans as a whole as "Hamas's people" is at best problematic
I fully agree with you on everything you said. Doesn't change the fact though that the blame for all the Palestinian casualties cannot be laid on Israel, not even by international law - as Hamas, the (more or less) legitimate government of Gaza, abused civilian infrastructure, they stripped it from the legal protection against military action.
I mean... what's the alternative? Let Hamas continue to exist, only to have them regroup and announce the next intifada in a few years? There's no way Israel can (or will) accept that - even if the USA and EU completely withdraw any support, for any Israeli government the first priority is the survival of the nation.
Look, I am both ideologically and morally more aligned with Israel (or the pre-Otzma-Yehudit-getting-an-ounce-of-power Israel anyway) than I ever could be with regards to Hamas. But "what's the alternative to doing an ethnic cleansing?" is "not doing a ethnic cleansing". Yes, that's harder. It involves more work, it involves more risk, and when the book closes, you don't get every last inch of what you want. It also means not fairly blithely killing and displacing civilians 'cause you can't nail down the people you have an actual problem with. Skill issue.
And let's be honest: it's more and more obvious that the people that Ben-Gvir and that crew have a problem with are not merely Hamas, but "everyone in Israel who isn't Jewish." (Israeli Arabs are absolutely next in line for that guy.)
Like, fuck Hamas, to be clear--I know, what a bold position, I'm so brave. But the thing is, it seems obvious that what Israel is doing won't even achieve their stated aims about Hamas in the first place; Ismail Haniyeh is not going to get creased by a bomb dropped on Gaza, you know? But what Israel is doing may, however, move most of an ethnic population out of their homes and leave it conveniently empty. And we just plain have expectations of ostensibly-liberal countries...and one of them is to not do that. Ethnic cleansing's a war crime even if you think free-firing a hospital because Hamas might be there isn't.
Because Israel has herded Gazans to the border and is steadfastly refusing to guarantee that they may return to their homes if refugee placement and aid becomes available in Egypt.
It’s almost as if they want those Gazans, and not merely Hamas, gone. One of those things is a war crime.
> What's happening in Gaza is by all means not a genocide.
You are correct, which is why (I assume as you were replying) I was editing my post. It is absolutely an attempt at ethnic cleansing, where they are herding Gazans towards the south in hopes that they just fuck off to Egypt.
> There's no other way to fight urban warfare in reality, that's the point.
That's an unfortunate situation for a member of the liberal order to be in, and I sympathize. I also don't think that changes the calculus. Civilians don't stop mattering because you want to (justifiably!) neutralize the authoritarians hiding amongst them.
It’s not a genocide yet I suppose, if you define such a thing purely by percentage dead, but it certainly seems like Israel would like to do a nice big genocide, and like what they’re doing shares many characteristics with the actions of a country engaging in a genocide.
In agreement with the other commenter, the loss of life implicit in depriving so many people of homes, food, clean water, and medical care can’t be justified even if it results in the elimination of hamas after a long process of starving them out. I’m no expert, but I’d advocate a response that ensures Israel cannot be hurt by further attacks, cuts hamas off from arms or reinforcements, then negotiates the release of hostages. What they’re doing instead is needlessly murdering tens of thousands of innocents, and I can’t imagine that number remains in the double digits by the end of this.
>> There's no other way to fight urban warfare in reality, that's the point.
In that case the IDF should not fight an urban war. There is no strategic
objective that can reasonably be achieved that justifies the carnage. What the
IDF is waging in Gaza is clearly not any kind of defensive war: it is a
retaliatory operation motivated by the humiliation suffered by the IDF and the
Israeli government who failed, miserably, in their responsibility to defend
their people. Hamas could never have perpetrated the 7 October atrocity, if
the IDF was not asleep at the wheel, or rather off to defend the fascist
settlers, and leaving the "socialist" kibbutzim to defend themselves. If the
IDF really wanted to avoid a repeat of 7 October, the way to do that is very
easy and does not require any Palestinians to be bombed at all: just don't
fuck up again. The IDF had one job. They failed, and now the Gazans are paying
for their failure. "Urban warfare" my ass, this is just shooting fish in a
barrel.
And as everyone and their little sister has pointed out, including plenty in
Israel, even if, when, Hamas is destroyed, the only way to avoid a new
resistance organisation emerging is to exterminate the Palestinians (not just
in Gaza, everywhere, and that includes Syria and Lebanon) and so perpetrate
the genocide you claim Israel does not want to. Failing that, you think
"Hamas-ISIS" are Nazis? Wait 'till you see the monsters that will rise from
their ashes, the maggots bursting from the corpse of Gaza.
As to the hostages, there's no doubt that if Israel wants to get them back,
then it should keep bombing and razing Gaza; but if it wants to get them back
alive, then it should stop now.
>> But the thing is, it seems obvious that what Israel is doing won't even achieve their stated aims about Hamas in the first place; Ismail Haniyeh is not going to get creased by a bomb dropped on Gaza, you know?
People keep saying this but I don't know why. For me it's obvious that if the IDF keep besieging Gaza, Hamas will eventually have to come out of their holes, and die.
I suspect this already happens a lot except we don't get to find out because there's no reporting from the locations where IDF and Hamas fighters exchange fire. But, reports from the few hostages that have been released, or freed, make it clear that Hamas is subject to the same deprivation of food and water as the rest of Gaza (the hostages tell stories about the poor quality and amount of meals they shared with their guards) and they're stuck in their bunkers to boot, which can't be great for their overall physical and mental stamina.
This is not a war that Hamas can win, not even survive. Not in the long run. Their best chance is to keep their heads down and wait it out. But if I understand that, IDF commanders certainly understand that and they're not going to go away until Hamas all come out of their holes exhausted and starved waving little white flags.
I think the mistake people make is to think of Hamas a bit like the partisans who took to the maquis in WWII, or maybe the Taliban against the US. It's not the same situation. Hamas has nowhere to go. They are trapped, like rats in a maze. They're not getting out of that alive, unless the IDF is forced to withdraw by political pressure, which so far is not happening.
Besides which, if the IDF keeps at it like it is, it won't really matter because there won't be any Gaza, or Gazans, left for Hamas to control.
Hamas (and I mean the Al Qassam brigades) are toast. The only question is how much Gaza will bleed until they pop out of the toaster.
I'm not sure if the continued existence of Haniyeh and his band at Qatar is of any consequence. IDF are clearly keeping the Al Qassam brigades and Yahya Sinwar in their sites, for now. Maybe when they're done with them they'll turn to Haniyeh, but he'll probably won't matter at all by then.
Haniyeh and the others in Qatar are not the leadership. Sinwar and the commanders of Al Qassam in Gaza are the leadership. They're the ones who organised "operation Al Aqsa flood", notably without informing Haniyeh, they're the ones holding the line in Gaza, instead of being entertained by the Qataris while their people die by the hundreds daily. That's why Israel is after them and tolerating Haniyeh, who is more useful to them as an intermediary to Sinwar, than anything else.
Once the war is over and Sinwar is dead or captured then they will probably turn to Haniyeh, but until then his role is reduced to that of a senior negotiator and nothing more.
All fine, even if I don't buy it. Also, Israel actively, and openly, supported Hamas as a counter to Hizbollah (just a side note).
Still doesn't justify the conduct of war in Gaza we see, because so far nil on taking out the Hamas leadership you mentioned. And going by public statement of senior Israeli government officials (which by no means is representative of all Israelis nor all jews), the goal is more a depopulation of Gaza, with a asecond priority on Hamas leadership. One could even say, Hamas needs to be kept alive and active in order to serve as an excuse for continued war, one could say ethnic cleansing, in Gaza.
It's possible, there was an article in the NYT and reports elsewhere in the press a couple months ago on how Netanyahu directly funded Hamas because he though they were the best foil to a two-state solution. That guy is such an idiot.
Yeah, on Netanyahu we agree. He is also dangerous, as his attempt (?) of dismantling the judiciary branch of government showed. He absolutely is part of the group of wannabe authocrats in Western-style democracies: Trump, Le Pen, the AfD, Meloni, Erdogan, Modi... The list is quite long, unfortunately.
Sources:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/interactive/2024/israel...
https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2024/02/over-75-of-all-jour...
https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/30/world/middleeast/30embed....