In wake of teen deaths, Israel vows to crush Hamas

[Berkut]

I wonder if Israel could just have done nothing and let Iron Dome do its work. A bit like ignoring an internet troll. Once Iron Dome gets 100% instead of the current 90% that might become viable.

That would be intolerable.

Even the *chance* of an Israeli being harmed is justification for killing hundreds of Palestinians. Well, at least when it comes to rockets.

That is the definition of "empathy".

[derspiess]

Damn, Berkut went full Euroweenie on us.

[Malthus]

It isn't a fallacy, and you convincing yourself that killing civilians in droves is completely necessary in order to prevent the deaths of no Israelis at all is rather revolting.

I am amazed at how little empathy you have for the "others", just because they don't share your tribe. They are still just people, and they are still just as dead, just as maimed, just as torn into little shreds, and for no discernible purpose.

All along, I have agreed with you that attacks have to be proportinate to legitimate military objectives. This is true whether thet are by Israel, Hamas, the US, or Russia - whether by "my tribe" (nice dig, BTW)

What is that supposed to mean?

Are you asking me to believe that if the situation was reversed, and Hamas was killing hundreds of Israeli civilians at a 4-1 pace of civilian to military casualties, all to achieve a supposedly military objective that is demonstrably bullshit because the "threat" has not managed to hurt anyone, you would be arguing that that was a "reasonable" response?

I don't buy it.

or by anyone else. Never have I for one second had one wit less "empathy" than you.

That is impossible to believe - you cannot argue that Israel is perfectly justified in killing 3 times as many civilians as they do militants in response to a completely hypthetical threat that has been shown to be less effective than throwing rocks, while claiming that you have ANY empathy for those killed.

I have merely disagreed as to the effect of the Israeli campaign. 

You are arguing that we should ignore the actual results of the Hamas campaign to kill Israelis civilians in favor of speculating about V-1 rockets attacks on London.

You ahve a right to your own opinions, but not your own facts.

That fact is that Hamas rocket attacks are completely ineffective. You claim that a critical part of that ineffectiveness is the need to kill hundreds of civilians in order to scare them so they don't shoot straight, and at the same time demand that I believe that you have equal empathy for Palestinian civilians who are being injured at a rate literally 1000 times or more than Israelis the actions is supposedly stopping.

Those are the facts.

Israeli casualties from rocket attacks: Zero, or so close as to make no difference
Palestinian civilian casualties from Israeli attacks designed to stop rockets from killing civilians: ~1200 in the last week, some 200-300 dead.

Those are the facts.

If that is a proportional and reasonable response to the threat, then there is no such thing as a proportioned and reasonable response.

Why, why cannot you debate a point without being a total asshole about it?

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you - why can you not see that killing hundreds of people to prevent the deaths of nobody is not ok, even when it is your side doing it.

In short, to disagree with Berkut as to the effectiveness of a military campaign means you are an empathy-less monster.

I'm done arguing with you about this. You are not being at all reasonable, and are just slinging insults.

[Josephus]

So glad I missed this thread, until now.

Just can't help adding a couple points to Berkut's argument that the rockets are largely ineffective (although that's not really true, since at least one person has died and there have been plenty wounded).

True though that their missiles and launchers are not as effective as the israelis, but if a soldier armed with an M-16 faces a soldier armed with a spear, will the soldier not use his M-16 to kill the guy with the spear? Or should he lay down his M-16?

You can't count casualties and say "see the Israelis are being unfair in all of this" it's too lopsided. First of all whenever rockets are launched towards Israel, the Iron Dome is taking out 80 per cent or so of them but that stil leaves other ones and though they are largely ineffective as you say partly that's because the Israelis actually take to shelter when the sirens go off. Also, imagine living in a world where daily you got to take cover and have your kids afraid to walk to school. Imagine driving to work and having some kids on a bridge flinging rocks at your car. They ain't gonna kill you, but surely it becomes a pain in the ass.

The high casualty rate on the Palestinian side, is purely the fault of Hamas anyway. The Israelis routinely warn the Palestinians about imminent attacks and precisely what's being targeted. Hamas tells its population to stay put and do not heed Zionist warnings to leave the buildings. Because for Hamas every dead Palestinian is a point on its scorecard. They would love nothing more than hundreds of dead Palestinains daily to feed its publicity machine.

In short...look I'm pretty left wing on most things, and I'm against much of Israeli policy vis-a-vis the occupied territories. But a nation's first role is to protect its citizens and the Israeli goal up until now is to stop Hamas from firing their annoying missiles. They even accepted an Egyptian brokered cease fire. Hamas responded by launching 10 missiiles at Tel Aviv.

[Berkut]

So glad I missed this thread, until now.

Just can't help adding a couple points to Berkut's argument that the rockets are largely ineffective (although that's not really true, since at least one person has died and there have been plenty wounded).

True though that their missiles and launchers are not as effective as the israelis, but if a soldier armed with an M-16 faces a soldier armed with a spear, will the soldier not use his M-16 to kill the guy with the spear? Or should he lay down his M-16?

If the guy with the spear is dumb enough to attack him, the soldier can certainly shoot him.

He probably should not shoot three other unarmed people who happen to be walking by, then claim that he he was just defending himself from the guy with the spear, and killing those other people was necessary to save himself from the spear guy.

You can't count casualties and say "see the Israelis are being unfair in all of this" it's too lopsided.

Good thing I am not doing that.

I am noting that the rockets are not doing ANYTHING, and concluding that there is no compelling military need to kill hundreds of people to stop them.

You might as well argue that the IDF needs to bomb Gaza in order to protect Israeli citizens from the rabid dangers of Hamas attack dogs.

After all, it works, since there have not been any deaths from rabid Hamas attack dog packs.

First of all whenever rockets are launched towards Israel, the Iron Dome is taking out 80 per cent or so of them but that stil leaves other ones and though they are largely ineffective as you say partly that's because the Israelis actually take to shelter when the sirens go off. Also, imagine living in a world where daily you got to take cover and have your kids afraid to walk to school. Imagine driving to work and having some kids on a bridge flinging rocks at your car. They ain't gonna kill you, but surely it becomes a pain in the ass.

Sure, and while it is a pain in the ass, and certainly a war crime, a "pain in the ass" is not a reasonable cause to kill hundreds of civilians, especially when it is clear that killing all those civilians doesn't stop the rocket attacks anyway. The pain is still in their ass, the only difference is their ass feels better because they blew away a few hundred Palestinians.

The high casualty rate on the Palestinian side, is purely the fault of Hamas anyway. The Israelis routinely warn the Palestinians about imminent attacks and precisely what's being targeted. Hamas tells its population to stay put and do not heed Zionist warnings to leave the buildings. Because for Hamas every dead Palestinian is a point on its scorecard. They would love nothing more than hundreds of dead Palestinains daily to feed its publicity machine.

Of course. But just because the bad guys are bad guys doesn't mean the good guys get to act with impunity.

In short...look I'm pretty left wing on most things, and I'm against much of Israeli policy vis-a-vis the occupied territories. But a nation's first role is to protect its citizens and the Israeli goal up until now is to stop Hamas from firing their annoying missiles. They even accepted an Egyptian brokered cease fire. Hamas responded by launching 10 missiiles at Tel Aviv.

Yes, Hamas certainly does suck.

[Berkut]

In short, to disagree with Berkut as to the effectiveness of a military campaign means you are an empathy-less monster.

I'm done arguing with you about this. You are not being at all reasonable, and are just slinging insults.

In short, you cannot respond to the facts, so are going to declare me "unreasonable" and storm away. OK.

If being "unreasonable" means I don't think killing a few hundred women and children and injuring a thousand more is a "reasonable" way to respond to being attacked by totally ineffective weapons, then I can live with "unreasonable".

And you can live with lacking empathy, I am sure, because you think killing three times as many civilians as combatants is fine - and you would totally feel the same way if it was Israelis being killed in the hundreds. Of course. Because you are so empathetic.

[Berkut]

Damn, Berkut went full Euroweenie on us.

Is there anything in between "ZOMG ISRAEL 1111111111 THEY CAN DO NO WRONG!!!!!!" and full Euroweenie anti-semite?

This is like Republicans calling a Obama a Jew hater because he only gave them $400 billions dollars in aid and suggested they might consider showing some restraint.

[Tonitrus]

Israel should just reoccupy Gaza and push the more intolerable hotheads into Egypt.

[Josephus]

Damn, Berkut went full Euroweenie on us.

Is there anything in between "ZOMG ISRAEL 1111111111 THEY CAN DO NO WRONG!!!!!!" and full Euroweenie anti-semite?

This is like Republicans calling a Obama a Jew hater because he only gave them $400 billions dollars in aid and suggested they might consider showing some restraint.

I think Israel does plenty wrong. Their response to the current situation is justified though.

[Viking]

I posted this to the PDS forums. It's important to point out, that among the so called civilian casualties given the number of female deaths for every adult male death you would expect given an even distribution you get 8.8, that's not counting the actual declared 20% non-civilian casualties. We don't know how many of the adult males are combatants but they do make up 75% of the names on the list given by Al-Jazeera.

It's 80%...50% is the most conservative estimate possible. 80% has been verified by the UN. If your civilian casualty rate is between 50-80% you'll get no sympathy from me unless you're fighting a war to the death with Nazi Germany. In fact that's the problem; I think partly due to their history the Israelis think this is life or death for them when they don't realise that they aren't an oppressed minority any more.

That 80% is from the HAMAS run health department in Gaza. However regarding the casualties. Al Jazeera has a list of the names of the dead. CAMERA - The Commitee for Accuracy in Mid East Reporting in America (pro-israel news watchdog) has analyzed the data.

Reporting of Casualties in Gaza


Shown below is a chart of male fatalities in Gaza resulting from hostilities between Hamas and Israel between July 7 and July 14, derived from a list published by Al Jazeera on July 14. Information provided by Qatar-owned Al Jazeera should not be accepted at face value, as the emirate has close ties to the Hamas-led Gazan government, but nevertheless, the information provided in the list shows that as in past hostilities, the fatalities are disproportionately [compared to the overall population] among young males, which corresponds with the characteristics of combatants. Males over 40 years old are also disproportionately represented. Some of the fatalities in those over 40 years of age likely represent senior members of terrorist organization. Media coverage often parrots the line fed by Gazan authorities that "most of the casualties are civilians" despite the well-established propensity of Gazan authorities to exaggerate the proportion of civilian casualties.

CAMERA will update with information on the topic of combatant versus civilian fatalities as further investigation uncovers membership in terrorist groups of casualties labeled as civilian.

The x axis shows the age from 1 to 65 and the y axis shows the number of fatalities associated with each age. The total number of male fatalities is 150, but the ages are only available for 131, and 3 over age 65 are not shown due to space limitations. So 128 are shown on the chart. There were also 20 female fatalities over the same time frame.

Of the 150 male fatalities, 83 are between the ages of 16-39, 28 are over 40 years old and 20 are under 16 years old. For 19 not shown, the age was unspecified, although one of these was listed as a member of Islamic Jihad.

Notably, only about 12 percent of the total fatalities are female, though females make up half the population. Also, the median age of Gazans is reported to be around 15. Males under 15 make up just 13 percent of the total fatalities even though they represent half of all males in the Gaza Strip.

With 75% of death being in males of military and/administrative age this does seem not only that Israel takes care but also succeeds.

Remember half of all people in Gaza are female and half are children. With women being 12% and boys being 13% and assuming that adult men are as likely to be civilian fatalities as boys we are talking about a total civilian casualty rate of 12+13+13=38% - unless for some reason the remaining 42% of the random civilian casualties are all adult men suggesting (assuming the baseline of 13% based on boys) means that civilian adult men are somehow 420% over-represented compared to boys and 880% over-represented compared to all women.

Similar numbers were presented by the HAMAS controlled health department in the last war and those numbers had a similar massive over-representation of adult males in the civilian numbers and finally it turned out that the final numbers were over 50% non-civilian deaths, since the over-representation of civilian adult males was actually due to HAMAS men not identifying themselves as combatants in contradiction to the laws and customs of war.

[Berkut]

That is interesting - it would certainly be good news to find out that the Israeli bombing is not so indiscriminate as I had thought. I have to admit the numbers I've seen have just been what I've seen reported in the general media - and I also have to admit I hadn't considered that they might be bullshit.

Like I said, the particulars matter in these kinds of cases, when it comes to evaluating whether a military response is proportional to the risk weighed against the chances of causing collateral damage. So the questions of what percentage of casualties is actually civilian is critical.

[Viking]

That is interesting - it would certainly be good news to find out that the Israeli bombing is not so indiscriminate as I had thought. I have to admit the numbers I've seen have just been what I've seen reported in the general media - and I also have to admit I hadn't considered that they might be bullshit.

Like I said, the particulars matter in these kinds of cases, when it comes to evaluating whether a military response is proportional to the risk weighed against the chances of causing collateral damage. So the questions of what percentage of casualties is actually civilian is critical.

Why didn't you consider them bullshit? They were bullshit last time.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-admits-600-700-of-its-men-were-killed-in-cast-lead-1.323776

Hamas admits 600-700 of its men were killed in Cast Lead
The military group had previously claimed only 49 militants died during Gaza war, though Israel put the figure at 709.

Hamas admitted last week that between 600 and 700 of its militants were killed during Operation Cast Lead – a figure consistent with that reported by the Israel Defense Forces.

The figure is several times higher than the previous number of fatalities that Hamas claimed it sustained during the operation.

Hamas' military wing had previously claimed that only 49 of its militants were killed during the three-week operation that the IDF launched in December 2008. Israel had put the figure at 709.

In an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat daily last Monday, however, Hamas Interior Minister Fathi Hamad detailed the heavy price his group had paid during the war.

"They say that it was the people who were harmed in the last war," said Hamad. "Are we not part of the people nation? On the first day of the war, Israel attacked the police command and killed 250 martyrs, from Hamas and other factions."

"This was in addition to the 200-300 members of the Al-Qassam Brigade [Hamas' military wing] and 150 security personnel," Hamad added. "The rest of the fatalities were from among the civilian population."

Hamad also accused Israel of concealing the precise number of IDF troops killed during the operation.

Previously HAMAS had claimed the difference between  49 and "600-700" were all civilians.

[Berkut]

Because I was not under the impression that the reported casualties were coming from Hamas sources.

Nothing Hamas says is worth the electrons used to form the words of course.

[Hansmeister]

Israel certainly is not carpet bombing Gaza.

However, their bombing of Gaza that is ongoing does seem well out of proportion to the threat posed by the rocket attacks.

Only idiots are "proportional" when waging war.  Israel is going to insane lengths to avoid inflicting civilian casualties, something no other nation would do. Little good it does them.  If they were to carpet bomb gaza and then ethnically cleanse it they would hardly get a more severe hostile response by the international community than they get by being extremely over cautious. No matter what Israel does Israel will always be wrong.

Only dumbasses claim that only idiots are "proportional" when waging war, since in fact every single nation in a position like Israel (including Israel) does in fact strive to be propertional when waging war.

This is trivially proven by nothing that the US did not break out the ICBMs for Gulf War I.

The facts are very simple:

In this latest conflict, the total number of casualties that Hamas rocket attacks have caused in Israel: 0

On the other hand, Israel has inflicted some thousand plus casualties in the Gaza strip, the vast majority of which are civilians. They don't hold the entire blame for that, but they certainly get some of it.

It is, of course, a completely fucked up situation, for which there are no good answers. But there are lots of different bad answers, and bombing the shit out of Gaza resulting in large numbers of civilian casualties in a fashion that is guaranteed to just piss off the people you are occupying while doing exactly nothing to resolve any of fundamental issues (and in fact exacerbate those issues) is just another bad choice.

The US is never proportional in its response since it is a moronic position to have.  Israel has been proportional and it has gotten them exactly nowhere since it is simply factored into the Palestinian calculations.

When you're attacked you fight back until the other side surrenders or you will be stuck like Israel in an endless cycle. That worked pretty well for us in WWII.  The Israelis should bomb the shit out of the Palestinians until they either give up or they are all dead, whichever comes first. That's how you end wars.

Should Reagan have bombed a Lybian disco for the sake of proportionality?

[Sheilbh]

The most striking thing so far seems to be the growing radicalisation of both sides. Bibi's fighting his right-wing and I can even see the day when I'll see him as a relative moderate. Meanwhile I think Israel are very aware that Hamas could be outflanked by Islamic Jihad or any of the other more extreme groups popping up (who I suspect were behind the murder of the teenagers. Better Fatah than Hamas, but better Hamas than a mini-Syria.