Hamas attacked those kibbutz in a period where there was nominal peace, and clearly entire settlements were a target. If the Israelis were firing weapons at Gaza from the middle of a village, yes, I could justify this. The rules of law don’t allow free shots. That said, some of those hostages (not sure how many) are Israeli soldiers, and would therefore be legitimate prisoners of war if one considers this conflict to be a legitimate war.
Israel lost 15 soldiers in combat yesterday, so there is clearly combat going on. Your example would to me clearly be on the wrong side of the rules of war. But civilians get killed in war, which is why I asked the question - are there any rules by which you think it would be legitimate for Israel to be going after Hamas in Gaza?
This has been in my thoughts throughout the past few weeks of this conflict.How far would Europe,America have allowed Britain go in order to weed out all terrorists and sympathisers in Ireland?
Where does Isreal draw their line?
What is happening is what we all feared. Hamas ignited this latest episode (of course I am aware of all the previous) with a horrible attack that led to 1400 Israeli deaths. And now Israel, full of rage, armed to the hilt, and with the intent to - at least - wipe out Hamas, is doing just that, with the indiscriminate killing of mass civilians just collateral damage in their eyes.
It is a humanitarian disaster and many war crimes are being committed.
The old fashioned sense that America might be a force for good, or a restraining force against evil at least, seems to have gone, and the likes of Iran, Russia and China will be looking at all this and wondering what their own moves will be.
I think there are too many differences to make it a useful comparison. The most critical being that the IRA were not the legitimate government of Northern Ireland by anyone’s reckoning, because that changes the nature of the conflict and dramatically alters the governing rules. No one ever considered the IRA to be controlling territory, nor responsible for civilians in that territory. The UK had an absolute responsibility for all civilians.
For at least some of us, that ‘gone’ happened sometime around 1800. Always cocked an eyebrow at the Americans complaining ‘why do we need to be the world’s policeman?’, like somehow they were a neutral party.
A scourge on both their houses I say. I am certainly not taking sides and I deplore the deaths of the innocent people on all sides. Like everyone else I just wish it would stop…but I fear it never will be resolved.
I won’t go all the way back to when the Helga blew the crap out of Dublin in 1916 or when their own forces shot and killed innocent civilians, but their responsibilities didn’t stop them colluding with terrorists resulting in the deaths of civilians on boths sides of the border during the troubles.
But they did at least draw the line at the mass killing of thousands of innocents and the indiscriminate barrage of bombing in order to achieve their goal.
Hamas are but 1.5% of the population of Gaza,they are not going to surrender or play by the rules of war.That should not give license to Isreal to do what they are nor should it allow the rest of the world to turn a blind eye to the genocide being committed by a fully recognised and legitimate nation.
Equally, what happened in Cork in 1920 was an extreme violation. Without question, those responsibilities were at times ignored.
I guess the question remains - what rules of engagement must Israel follow in this situation? Their opponent is sheltering with civilians. Are they not allowed to use force? What increase in their own rate of casualties are they responsible to accept?
Israel are constantly in a situation of responding to their critics with questions of “what would you like us to?” If their actions are predicated as they claim on needing to secure security for their own people, then maybe the first step is admitting that this path does not actually get there, or at least does not short of eliminating all Palestinians so there is no one left from that side to continue the cycle of violence.
If you take the most benign interpretation of Isreal’s goals here at the crippling of Hamas as an organization, history tells us that without changing the fundamental forces at play all that will happen is a V2 with a new name will spring up that will be more extreme and more vengeful. Does that promote Isreali security?