Not sure why the BBZ feels the need to mention the rocket strike launched elsewhere in Rafah. Must hope their readers are stupid enough to believe Rafah the place with >1 million refugees is just a small tent camp.
Netanyahu paid a leader of Hamas who convinced some ignorant hate filled Palestinians to do it to justify shooting bombs at defenseless women and children in a refugee camp
That’s great and all. I’m sure that works at the individual level. When your country enters an active war none of that matters, does it? So why bring it up?
@TheFonz I'm finding this conversation a bit puzzling.
You sort of sound like you want this discussion to cover all those tired Hasbara "talking points" and their common rebuttals on Americam discuasions or something, hence IsRaEl HaS A Right to DeFenD ItSelf.
This isn't a game or a logic 101 essay though. It's ordinary people from multiple countries discussing a humanitarian catastrophe that has killed over 37000 people.
Yep, that’s exactly what I wrote. You got me bro. Thanks for the charitability. Appreciate it. If only there was another possible explanation…perhaps written in a post two comments above. Oh wait, that would involve actually reading what people write and engaging with their points. That’s too hard for Lemmy I suppose.
Linkerbaan is lying. I’ve told him expressly several times on these boards that I am against the IDF. But of course none of that matters because this person can’t engage with the topic either in good faith.
Hmm. Have I defended the IDF, or have I been critical of flimsy arguments which enable the IDF to commit more atrocities? Hmm. I wonder which one it is…
I’ve clarified my position to you multiple times, Linkerbaan. I’m pro Palestine- it’s your rhetorical devices that cause more harm. Happy to explain if you don’t understand.
You have clarified your position as a staunch defender of the IDF’s actions very well the last 8 months and in this comment section.
At least be honest about your position.
Is the IDF counter-attack proportional or is it excessive compared to what Hamas is doing? I would say it’s absolutely excessive. How is that excess justified? I would urge you guys to put more thought into any of this discourse beyond “genocide; colonialism; apartheid; imperialism”. Please, for the love of god. Try. When you use cheap logic, all you do is give more fodder to IDF --and I’m not a fan of IDF.
Why are you lying? I’ve told you expressly many times I’m against the IDF. So now you have to lie? Says all I need to know about you guys. I find this very fascinating.
Hey @FlyingSquid : Linkerbaan called me a Zionist, which I find extremely offensive, especially after I’ve repeatedly told him I’m pro-palestine. I just wanted to make the record clear here in case there’s any confusion. I wonder what kind of warning Linkerbaan will get.
Of course it matters! If your enemy kills 3 innocent people on your side and you retaliate by killing a million people on their side, it matters a whole fucking lot.
Hamas is bad. Very few people will dispute that. Israel has proven that, at this point in time, it is far worse because it kills far more innocent people.
Discourse on Lemmy is so stupid. It’s so stupid. Like Facebook boomer stupid.
Is the IDF counter-attack proportional or is it excessive compared to what Hamas is doing? I would say it’s absolutely excessive. How is that excess justified? I would urge you guys to put more thought into any of this discourse beyond “genocide; colonialism; apartheid; imperialism”. Please, for the love of god. Try. When you use cheap logic, all you do is give more fodder to IDF --and I’m not a fan of IDF.
If I take your claim and analyze it logically it’s not sound at all. The typical numbers game to counter whether the occupation is justified: More civilians dead = IDF bad. Pause. Think about this statement for a second. Do we measure justification for war based on the number of casualties incurred? When the allies bombed Dresden, did we find reason to defeat the Nazis even though many civilian casualties occurred? Yes, a calculated risk was made.
The question is: What ought the IDF do in this scenario with Hamas perpetually shelling them with rockets by planting themselves in civilian areas?
Sorry… you’re comparing what Israel is doing right now to what allies did to a city in the country that was itself perpetrating the genocide? A country that was also itself invading Allied nations?
I don’t even know what you think my logic is beyond “the more innocent people you kill, the less morally justified your position becomes.”
Can you give an example of when that is not the case? Because I don’t know too many people who think that the bombing of Dresden was morally justified.
If their objective is to destroy Hamas and they determine that the only way to do that is wipe out the Palestinian people from the face of the Earth, you’re saying that’s justified because it’s their necessary military objective?
Necessary according to their military capabilities, which can be judged by observers.
Most observers don’t think destroying Hamas requires wiping out all Palestinians, but at the same time it’s impossible to destroy Hamas without civilian casualties.
Legal isn’t the same as moral, but there is no consensus on the morality of war. Some people are pacifists and believe all war is immoral. Most people believe war is justified if it has a legitimate casus belli.
Whether or not Israel is committing genocide is a separate question from whether a military action is morally permissible, because genocide involves actions with no military purpose. In other words it’s possible that strikes like these are morally permissible even if a government is also doing things that are illegal, like blocking aid delivery.
Once again- if Israel determines that wiping out every last Palestinian has a military purpose, that, according to you, is not genocide and is also justified.
You have a very strange idea about what is or is not justified in this world. You seem to think Dresden was justified and that killing thousands of children in Gaza is justified because things happen in war.
Please do contact the parents of dead Gazan children and let them know those deaths were justified. Let me know how it goes.
Jeesus. You are unable to hold more than one parallel thought in your head at once. A thing can be genocidal or casualty of war or both. Thats all this dude was saying but you can’t even engage with a simple thought like this because you have to rush quickly to grandstand.
That’s the problem. You are more eager to ascribe positions to interlocutors rather than engage with the points. It’s really odd and unnecessarily combative. This dude was just providing context and a different perspective. At no point -nowhere- did they defend the IDF and claim the occupation is inherently justified. Read people’s posts more carefully? I don’t know. Lemmy has no interest other than hearing themselves
Dude, sync for Lemmy has dark mode. I’m sure the other apps have that too. Maybe it will improve your dyslexia. Which of these screen grabs connect to the thread above? And these are screens of multiple users. The thread above is from Flow.
Edit: also, even if it was true in the past they defended the IDF. Who cares? Engage with the points being made. Is that too hard?
At no point -nowhere- did they defend the IDF and claim the occupation is inherently justified.
Insulting my reading abilities, apart from violating community rules (I do not moderate my own discussions, but this will make me take a look at others you are having) is a bit silly when you don’t seem to remember what you wrote one post before.
Yes, in a separate thread, which you had to dig up. My point stands: you’re not engaging with the argument. You’re here for cheap shots. IDF bad, amirite?
I don’t care…as long as you guys don’t have to engage with any of the points go ahead and ban. What’s the point anyway? You guys can keep the circle jerk going. Whatever makes you feel better I suppose.
I am not going to ban you unless you continue to violate the rules as clearly stated in the sidebar. All users have to abide by these rules, not just you. Insulting people is very much against them, so stop doing it if you wish to keep talking here.
For the same reason, apparently, that it is so hard for you to engage without making personal attacks. The difference is that if I see you do it again, you’ll be banned.
Listen, I will admit. I have been making personal attacks, that’s true. But only because it seems no one here is able to engage critically with any of the points without having to grandstand or divert. Here is a sample of a Lemmy conversation:
Also, love the pivot. When you can’t engage with the argument any more you resort to ban threaths. Just do it. Who gives a fuck about your little echo chamber.
Again, by definition genocide has no military purpose.
Israel’s military objective is to destroy Hamas. According to Western military doctrine (which Israel is capable of using), this objective does not require wiping out every last Palestinian. So it doesn’t matter what Israel “determines”, wiping out every last Palestinian is not permissible.
I think if war is justified, then killing children is justified because children are always killed in war. Personally I’m ambivalent about whether war can ever be justified, but I certainly recognize that most people think it can.
But I don’t agree with those who believe that (say) the US invasion of Normandy can be justified, but this invasion cannot be justified. Both involved immense civilian suffering.
Hamas did not invade Israel. What are you talking about? They didn’t try to take over territory. They committed an act of terrorism, not an act of war.
A missile strike is a legitimate casus belli. If you’re not a pacifist, that means it justifies force to achieve a military objective, which necessarily justifies killing civilians.
Whether that’s “countless” or a few depends on the objective.
In general, civilian-combatant casualty ratios range from 1:1 to 5:1. They tend to be higher in urban settings like Gaza. The Chechen wars were closer to 7-10:1
The US estimates 15,000 combatants have been killed in Gaza. If so, we would consider 15,000 to 75,000 civilian deaths to be normal at this point.
I consider all civilians to be equal, so I’m not going to separate children for the same reason I’m not going to separate Palestinian Christians, mothers, teachers, or retirees.
Okay, let me put it this way- are you so firm in your conviction that all the child deaths in Gaza so far have been justified that you would be willing to say that to the parents of a dead child? Because I’m willing to find some so that you can tell them that yourself. I bet they’d even be willing to get on video chat with you so you can tell them, to their faces, that their child’s death was justifiable.
So, are you willing to do that? Tell grieving parents that their child’s death was justifiable because Israel is accomplishing its military objectives?
Believing something is true does not mean that you should tell someone, especially someone in grief.
If someone’s husband just died, would you be willing to say, “You should know that he was cheating on you for years”?
If someone’s mother just died, would you be willing to say, “I really think you should have spent more time with her in her final days”?
If someone’s child commits suicide, would you be willing to say, “You could have prevented this if you had bothered to pay attention to the warning signs”?
Even if all these things are 100% true, I think it would be monstrous to blurt them out.
Sometimes compassion means respecting that people are not always ready to hear the truth.
Okay, so you would be willing to tell them that in a year, correct? You gave them time to grieve, so they would be ready to hear the truth.
Shall we make an appointment in one years’ time for you to tell the parents of a dead Palestinian child that their child’s death was justified so that Israel could meet their military objectives?
One year later, ten years later, a million years later: I would never say “You could have prevented your child’s death”.
Most people do not want to debate the circumstances of their child’s death, ever. They often only want reassurance that it’s part of god’s plan. And if that’s all they want, then that’s all I will ever say about it (even though I’m not exactly religious).
Do you think any Palestinians will be willing to hear that the death of a Palestinian child was justified so that Israel could achieve its military goals?
Edit: Wait a second-
I would never say “You could have prevented your child’s death”.
What are you even talking about? I thought this was about whether or not the death was justified, not whether or not it was preventable.
“You could have prevented your child’s death” is simply an example of something that may be true, but I will never say to anyone. Not next year, not in a hundred years. Not in Palestine, not in New York.
Do you think any Palestinians will be willing to hear that the death of a Palestinian child was justified so that Israel could achieve its military goals?
I don’t think anyone, Palestinian or not, will be willing to debate whether the death of their child was justified.
I think plenty of people, including Palestinians, are willing to debate whether the death of other people’s children is justified. For example, some Palestinians argued that the death of Israeli children on 10/7 was justified.
You didn’t answer my question. I will ask it again:
Do you think any Palestinians will be willing to hear that the death of a Palestinian child was justified so that Israel could achieve its military goals?
Some Palestinians are in the IDF, they might agree it’s justified. Some Palestinians don’t agree, but are willing to hear an opposing view. And many Palestinians, like many people in general, don’t want to hear an opposing view.
But no parent would be willing to hear that within a year? Just other Palestinians who did not lose children?
And let’s talk about agreement- How about a lot of the rest of the world? Would you say that most of the world would agree with you that Israel is justified in killing thousands of children for their military goals? If a majority, how big a majority? Can you back that up? If a minority, then it sounds less like it’s justified and more like you personally consider it to be so, which is a different issue.
As I said, I think the vast majority of people who have lost a child do not ever want to debate whether the death was justified. Furthermore plenty of other people - Palestinian or otherwise - do not want to engage in a debate over Israel.
I have no idea how many people in the rest of the world agree with Israel, and it doesn’t matter to me at all. I don’t think it affects whether they are justified. There are plenty of things that are not justified even though they are very popular, and vice versa.
Morality usually comes from some sort of first principles. Some are religiously inspired, but I think it’s much better to start with one or more moral philosophers.
If we simply put it to a vote, then we would likely conclude that slavery was moral in the 18th century.
Justifying the death of civilians implies justifying the death of children, because children are a subgroup of civilians.
Likewise, the ICC bans “intentionally directing attacks against civilians”. They do not specify children. Do you suppose that means directing attacks against children is legal according to the ICC? Of course not, because children are a subgroup of civilians.
Finally, I am not your research arm either. You asked me the names of relevant philosophers, I provided them. If you have follow-up questions about their ideas then I applaud your curiousity but you should probably just read what they wrote.
I know you want to pretend that children are not a special class, but there’s a reason we treat children differently from adults and the reason that I am specifically talking about then since you are saying their deaths are justifiable.
The death of children is not treated as a special case by the ICC or Geneva conventions. If they are nevertheless protected, then it’s not necessary to treat them as a special case.
I understand that you prefer to treat them as a special case, but I don’t understand why you expect everyone else to share your preference.
If you look at that link, you’ll find that many of the philosophical concepts (“proportionality”, immorality of directly targeting civilians) are codified into law and enforced by the ICC.
Which makes sense, the Geneva conventions were written precisely because laws at the time did not cover wartime actions that were viewed as highly immoral.
Sure. Medicine and electronics also heavily overlap. They’re in no way the same thing.
Now are you going to actually show a philosopher saying that it is justified to kill thousands of children in order to achieve a military objective or are you going to be honest and admit that no such philosopher, at least not one that is in any way widely-respected, would ever suggest such a disgusting idea?
Philosophers have justified killing civilians in order to achieve a military objective.
You have yet to show a single philosopher who has justified in killing an unlimited number of civilians to achieve a military objective. All you have said is that it wouldn’t be allowed for that to happen. Which doesn’t mean it isn’t justified.
Can you even show a philosopher who agrees with your upper limit cap on civilian deaths you put up earlier? Don’t tell me to do the research myself, don’t give me the law, quote the philosopher specifically advocating your upper limit cap.
Or just admit you were being dishonest. Either one.
You have yet to show a single philosopher who has justified in killing an unlimited number of civilians
And I don’t think I ever will. As I said earlier, “There is no military goal that justifies killing “any amount” of civilians. All of them have limits, which are based on military capabilities.”
Can you even show a philosopher who agrees with your upper limit cap on civilian deaths
I never provided an upper limit cap.
I said “we would consider 15,000 to 75,000 civilian deaths to be normal at this point.”
Normal, as in “typical”. Which is not the same as acceptable, it depends on whether you believe a “normal” war is acceptable.
As I suggested earlier, it’s quite reasonable to take the pacifist position that even “normal” wars are not acceptable.
And I don’t think I ever will. As I said earlier, “There is no military goal that justifies killing “any amount” of civilians. All of them have limits, which are based on military capabilities.”
Israel’s goal is to destroy Hamas. Every time they kill innocent children, they create more members of Hamas. Therefore, their goal is any amount of children including 100% of them.
Sorry, I’m not going to stop making this about children just because you don’t want it to be.
So when do you think they should stop killing children before it is no longer justified?
Israel’s goal is to destroy Hamas. Every time they kill innocent children, they create more members of Hamas. Therefore, their goal is any amount of children including 100% of them.
Destroying Hamas means destroying the current leadership, so it can no longer function.
It’s true that Israel is running the risk of inciting hatred and creating more fighters, but those future fighters won’t be in Hamas. They will be in some other organization that replaces Hamas, just like Hamas replaced Fatah.
destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities; and returning the hostages home
And these are Netanyahu’s current goals:
Seizing the Rafah Crossing is a very significant step towards destroying the remaining military capabilities of Hamas, including the elimination of the four terrorist battalions in Rafah, and an important step to damage the governmental capabilities of Hamas
You mean his goals keep changing? Hmm… seems like a constantly changing military objective would allow you to kill an unlimited number of children justifiably based on your reasoning.
Today, he says the Rafah operation is a significant step towards
destroying the remaining military capabilities of Hamas, including the elimination of the four terrorist battalions in Rafah,
and an important step to damage the governmental capabilities of Hamas
The first two goals look unchanged.
There is no mention of hostages in my quote. Maybe he isn’t interested in that any more, but it’s entirely possible he mentioned it elsewhere and I didn’t see it.
No, Hamas forces are steadily getting smaller. If there are new recruits, they are not enough to make up for the losses.
Your link:
Hamas may have lost half its battalion commanders by December, while half its battalions had been broken down as well.
The article suggests that they can recruit in the future, and maybe they can. Or maybe Palestinian militants will join a different organization, as I suggested.
But for now, Hamas is definitely smaller than they were in October.
You showed me an article that speculates about how it might grow in the future, but that doesn’t mean it’s growing now. It doesn’t even mean it will grow in the future. It’s just speculation.
As for how this war will end: I don’t know and neither do you. You seem to think that Israel will kill 100% of Palestinian children but I don’t believe that will happen.
You showed me an article that speculates about how it might grow in the future
Which is what we are obviously talking about when talking about reaching a military objective.
I am tired of your blatant dishonesty. This has all been about justifying Israeli genocide and I wish you had just been honest about that from the start.
The US estimates that there are 50K Hamas combatants, 30K soldiers and 20K armed police. Currently 30-35% have been killed (note your estimate was from January).
About 2/3 dead are women and children according to most sources I see. 15K Hamas of 37K dead exceeds 1/3, so that can only be possible if you count numerous women and children as Hamas and valid military targets.
Yet everyone except Israelites can see that it is a cover up excuse to exterminate the people who they have been trying to get rid off for more than half a century
You can target military objectives like certain infrastructure to disable it, but you’re not allowed to target civilians. The rules of war just says when civilian casualties aren’t punishable. You have to take measures to ensure attacks are as precise as you can make them and with as little collateral damage as possible.
“eliminate every human because they might be an enemy” is not a valid military objective.
That’s true, you cannot target civilians. But you can destroy a military objective even if you know it will kill civilians. Per ICC:
Under international humanitarian law and the Rome Statute, the death of civilians during an armed conflict, no matter how grave and regrettable, does not in itself constitute a war crime. International humanitarian law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur.
“Eliminate every human” is not a valid objective, but “eliminate Hamas” is.
Even if they somehow were accurate, these numbers only cover the direct deaths from attacks, the totals you cite include all deaths from starvation and disease and more. The attacks on the hospital system and infrastructure and access to food will cause the ratio to get much much worse. Famine is indiscriminate.
I can’t find any source showing the context of the 30-35% claim from US Intel. I can’t even find a reliable source of the US estimate of how many fighters they have. The last public numbers from US intel in January had much more detail and said 20% incapacitated, not 20% dead. A jump to +30% of Hamas fighters dead now seems beyond implausible. Especially because USA has also said they don’t independently track deaths in the region, they rely on local numbers.
Different Hamas officials have made different claims about their losses, and all the sources seems vague. It’s been reported as 6000 - 8000 either lost (could be casualties including injured survivors not able to fight) or dead. And some of them deny the numbers entirely.
25-30K fighters, 20-30% killed, so at best ~10K down to ~5K, assuming their intel is correct. It’s very strange that the estimate of killed fighters is in percent and injuries is in absolute numbers. Doesn’t make me feel confident they got the context right of the numbers shared
I believe those are still from January, when the total number of deaths was 25,000. So if they are correct then that would result in a casualty ratio between 1.5:1 and 4:1
I’m not sure that matters, since the majority of military casualties are caused by the same side.
So for example, when evaluating the Iraq War you would compare Iraqi civilian to Iraqi military casualties. There is little point in looking at American civilian casualties.
Seems like you need to learn reading comprehension if you can’t understand the relevance of an article about proportions in a discussions about proportionality
Hamas launched a barrage of rockets at central Israel on Sunday afternoon, setting off air-raid sirens in the Tel Aviv area for the first time since at least late January Source
I can see how it's harder for you to argue against war crimes from other nations if you're an apologist for war crimes committed by your own ancestors.
But many of us don't need to jump through those particular rhetorical hoops. The barrage of war crimes in WW2 was part of the impetus for strengthening international law against that shit.
I never said it wasn’t horrendous. Clearly the rules of engagement back then were different. That’s not what is being discussed though is it? What do you think I’m saying? Can you TRY to steel man my position or do you only like to hear yourself?
@TheFonz I'm sorry but you haven't expressed your position clearly enough for me to summarize and I'm not interested in trying to forensically reconstruct it from your comments as it's too ameliorised.
Like I said above, this conversation isn't some kind of game for points. It's just us talking about our views.
That’s right. Because you can’t engage with others in good faith. You can’t even call out logical fallacy correctly. Why are you posting here anyway? What’s your goal?
If you can’t even summarize my position, then who are you engaging with at this point?
Yeah Germany also claimed it was attacked by Poland in 1939. Guess everything after was justified then… The US claimed to have been attacked by North Vietnam. Guess Vietnam was aokay then. Putin claimed to have been attacked by Ukraine before invading. Guess we should consider everything since then as self defense…
You’re saying because some countries lied about needing defense no country should be allowed to defend themselves? What exactly is your point here? Is it possible some countries actually need to defend themselves?
Proportionality is simply not dependent on the question of who “started first” and you will always find something that is credibly or uncredibly put forth as “the beginning”. This is why Israel tries to claim it all started on Oct. 7. This is why Germany argued Poland started arming and preparing for war first. This one is even technically true, but ignores the context of Germany already announcing its Lebensraum ideology back then.
That is the problem. There is a both a larger context and a direct context to the question of proportionality, where there is no plus points for being “just retaliating”. Retaliation can be a legitimate goal, but only in the context of deterring from further attacks, like Iran did after the embassy attack.
Going to fight against Nazi Germany for comparison of porportional counter attacks is really dumb when the Nazis killed more civilians than all their enemies during WWII combined. And it is not like the russians did not kill those in retaliation aswell, it was just impossible to catch up (we are going to ignore what Stalin did outside of fighting germany for this comment). Comparing a power capable of subjugating nearly a whole continent in the span of some months (all while planning and executing the murder of millions of civilians) with hamas got to be a bad joke.
You’re incorrect. War has escalation of force for modern militaries. My rules of engagement in Iraq were the similar to the poster above you. If someone threw a rock at me I couldn’t just shoot them.
No, we’re talking about people lobbing a handful of rockets at a multi-billion dollar defense system that is more than capable of stopping such a small attack. Kind of like throwing rocks at a tank.
Then we’re talking about a response of bombing tents that have no defense system. Kind of like using a tank to fire shells at a person in response to a rock being thrown.
It’s called an example. I was demonstrating escalation of force. You should maybe rethink how you talk to people. Being so rude and confrontational isn’t going to bring people to your side of the argument.
Yeah, ok but perhaps be careful with the example you choose. There are people here who genuinely believe Hamas is literally fighting only with rocks. Escalation of force is a discussion to be had, but no one here is interested in that.
I’m not interested in people coming to my side, because oddly enough, more often than not I’m actually aligned with the people criticizing me on the actual positions.
My issue is more with people not coming to sound conclusions using sound arguments and just repeating sound bytes from social media. They aren’t capable of engaging with any of these topics beyond really superficial levels.
Your issue is that you have already come to a conclusion, and your issues aren’t issues to anyone but you. Give me an example of someone saying Hamas is literally fighting with rocks as an actual answer.
So tell me, should the US have stopped attacking Japan once they’d matched the ~2.4k soldiers killed at Pearl Harbor?
Or should the allies have stopped “genociding” Nazi Germany once they’d matched Hitler’s body count?
OF COURSE NOT. This isn’t about tit for tat. Especially when going after an enemy that is openly committee to your annihilation. Israel certainly appears to be doing a shit job of it, but there is no need to muddy the waters with specious arguments.
You’re mixing up things. Proportionality is a specific thing about scale. It doesn’t say you’re not allowed to respond to failed attacks.
You can for example evaluate the likely future harm your enemy would cause if you don’t stop them and then apply the proportionality principle to that when you try to stop them. Or evaluate likely harm if somebody else attempted and succeeded with an attack you just stopped, and decide what kind of deterrence is needed based on that.
And Israel isn’t just doing a shit job of it. they’re not doing it at all
They are trying to discredit the casualities numbers by saying it’s coming from hamas run health ministry while the world health organization said that there is no reason to doubt the numbers
What I have heard is that Palestinians are incredibly good at taking notes / data and statistics. They have record keepers in the hospitals whose entire jobs are counting the casualties and dead. That’s where the numbers that are exact to a single casualty come from.
It’s because they are desperately trying to frame this as Israel responding to a terrorist attack rather than Israel openly defying the International court of justice order to stop bombing civilians.
Israel is openly committing genocide while actively trying to frame this as defense of their borders, which could have worked as a strategy had not everything they have stated and said been proven absolute lies, to the point where they got their feelings hurt and had to openly assasinate journalists so that what they say can no longer be shown to be lies.
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