Fwiw , I don’t think Israel should do what they are doing and I’ve mentioned that quite a lot of times.
But if people expect Israel to have a right to defend themselves , why would Israel handicap themselves and allow Hamas to get material etc ?
Much more recent that that,Dublin and Monaghan spring to mind.
Soldiers die in war,civilian casualities should at all cost be avoided.That’s not happening here on both sides.The world has now stated that 1 side are terrorists yet the side who are commiting the biggest atrocities are supposed to be deemed a legitimate government.Protests the world over would suggest that people do not agree with the actions that Isreal have taken in order to defend themselves.At best this is revenge rather than defense.
I’m not sure how far in Hamas managed to get but most excursions seem to be within a few KMs inland from the border wall.Isreal need to start by pulling back settlements and civilians from there where they can to avoid a repeat of what happened on Oct 7th.Leave it as a no go area for now.Do what they can to stop rockets etc coming from or landing in other Isreali civilian areas outside of this zone.
Once this has been achieved then Isreal should look to how Hamas can be nulified as they will never defeat them by swelling their ranks.
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As I’ve said 100 times, Hamas should be, and were, widely condemned for their attack. My response was to a post that attempts to justify Israel’s massacre of a refugee camp
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It seems so far away, but we have to grasp for some hope
My apologies if I don’t have the right language here, but I’m specifically referring to anything in video/audio format that specifically interview individuals or provide footage of such, especially if it involves weeping.
To be clear, my point was that the same protocols that consider hitting that refugee camp a war crime consider sheltering belligerents among a civilian population a war crime.
If Hamas wants a way out of this, I think the first step has to be returning all hostages. War crimes on one side by definition do not justify war crimes by the other, but they damn sure muddy the waters - and make the rules of engagement virtually impossible to define in practice.
Unless they plan on killing every Palestinian,i don’t see what they achieve by this other than swelling the ranks of Hamas.
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Then you would be justifying bombing the settlements in the West Bank because they’re been firing from them at Palestinians for decades?
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Everyone can agree on that. Can we say the same about the hundreds of Palestinian children who are held in Israeli jails and subjected to all forms of oppression, torture and degrading treatment?
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Under what rules of engagement? Is the West Bank to be considered a war zone too?
For the avoidance of doubt, I think the religious extremists who make up most of the West Bank settler population are vicious, evil bastards. In the event of open hostilities (rather than the steady simmering violence we see), they are exactly the kind of population that is a nightmare for conventional forces trying to adhere to some sort of rules of war (viz. late stages of former Yugoslavia conflict). They are armed, hostile, and yet ostensibly civilians.
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You’re quibbling about rules of engagement as over 450 children are currently being killed or injured everyday. Does this seem like a war to you? For a start Palestinians aren’t allowed an army or an air force to fight this war you speak of
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As far as I can see , a few things need to happen before any type of resolution can even be contemplated. In no particular order ;
- Hamas needs to be removed from the equation.
- The PA needs to be dissolved.
- Abbas needs to step down and elections held.
- Netanyahu has to go and the religious zealots in the government need to be neutered.
- Settlement building must cease.
Those are just the prerequisites required to facilitate any meaningful attempt at negotiations , and not a single one of them (maybe apart from Netanyahu being dethroned) looks anywhere near likely as things stand.
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IDF’s undertaking isn’t easy or straightforward by any stretch of imagination. It’s impossible to eliminate combatants embedded in civilian population without causing harm to said civilian population. However, Israel’s cause would be far better served if the IDF didn’t demonstrate such blatant disregard for the civilians. Maybe they could avoid using WP, maybe they could use smaller calibre/payloads when targeting a single individual, maybe they don’t use a sledgehammer to crush a fly. At least try to look like they are trying to minimize civilian casualties not because they are legally obligated but because it’s the right thing morally to do.
But at best they don’t care and at worst they are purposely aiming for them.
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This is part of a cycle of violence, not a one off incursion that you can judge in isolation. The point is to not just argue that they should have acted differently prior to now to avoid finding themselves in a no win situation, which is what you seem to be responding to, but that continuing down this blood and wrath response will inevitably end up once this particular chapter is over with them again having to stand on the world stage and respond to criticism of them killing more civilians in the next round with incredulous questions of what else are they supposed to do.
It is not viable for Israel to not respond. Hamas cannot be seen to have done what they did to civilians without there being retribution. But there is no level of success they can have, short of wiping out the Palestian people as a meaningful demographic, in which a military response in the absence of a greater rethinking of the situation and their attitude towards it results in us not being right back in this spot at some point down the line. Likely sooner than later.
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Turned around, you seem to be asserting that Israel does not have a right to defend itself because it is not being attacked - that hundreds of rockets fired does not constitute a threat. ‘Quibbling’ dismisses the idea that any sort of military response can be justified. I don’t particularly like where that logic ends up, because if no restraint or restriction of military action under a set of rules can be reasonable, there is no basis for any restraint.
I don’t think Israel is engaged in a proportional and reasonable response. But I don’t think it is useful to say that any military response on their part is a crime, and I don’t think bad faith assertions like Amnesty International’s are useful.
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Absolutely no disagreement there.
Exactly.
No one has said that.
Palestinian Christian from Bethlehem who has devoted her life to peace and reconciliation. We don’t hear about hostages like this on the news
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There is no doubt that we speak about multiple war crimes here. It might be too early to speak about genocide, but more and more, you hear the media saying that a number of 150k dead Gazans should be expected before it calms down. Now that would definitely be genocide, no ifs or whens here. And in that case, all people organizing this massacre should be deferred in front of the tribunal in The Hague, and judged for being the monsters they are**.
** along with the Hamas leaders of course. The cunts.
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I’m quite comfortable to tag Hamas’ attack as a genocide to be fair, just as for me, Israel is about to commit an even worse genocide in terms of numbers.