Israel-Hamas War 2023

[OttoVonBismarck]

UN is saying over 120,000 Gazans have already been displaced since the fighting started.

[Sheilbh]

UN is saying over 120,000 Gazans have already been displaced since the fighting started.

That doesn't surprise me - even yesterday more or less as soon as the attack started there were also pictures of Gazan women and children living near the fence fleeing as they knew what would be coming. Obviously fleeing within Gaza is a relative term.

[crazy canuck]

Okay, one more question just to make sure we are clear on the concepts.  There are many bad things in the world, let's rank several of them.

1)  Making inflammatory comments.
2)  Killing captured members of military.
3)  Killing of civilian men.
4)  Killing of civilian women.
5)  Killing of civilian elderly.
6)  Killing of civilian children.

And both Hamas and Israelis have done all the above.

[OttoVonBismarck]

As I noted before--and is more useful, deliberate planned killing of civilians is he key here. You can follow every law of war that exists and still kill civilians, this is a brutal reality of war. There is a reason we specifically, as the society of "civilized nations" have specifically said that it is the deliberate targeting of civilians that is a war crime.

[crazy canuck]

As I noted before--and is more useful, deliberate planned killing of civilians is he key here. You can follow every law of war that exists and still kill civilians, this is a brutal reality of war. There is a reason we specifically, as the society of "civilized nations" have specifically said that it is the deliberate targeting of civilians that is a war crime.

I agree. But I'm not sure how one defends the actions of the sorts of incursions the Israelis have made into Gaza over the years and particularly over the last 24 hours to be anything other than the delivered killing of civilians.

[OttoVonBismarck]

As I noted before--and is more useful, deliberate planned killing of civilians is he key here. You can follow every law of war that exists and still kill civilians, this is a brutal reality of war. There is a reason we specifically, as the society of "civilized nations" have specifically said that it is the deliberate targeting of civilians that is a war crime.

I agree. But I'm not sure how one defends the actions of the sorts of incursions the Israelis have made into Gaza over the years and particularly over the last 24 hours to be anything other than the delivered killing of civilians.

With the fog of war I won't speculate too wildly on what the IDF is doing in Gaza, but Hamas is well known to use basically every apartment building in Gaza in various ways for C&C, storage, etc. This is actually a war crime in itself--intermixing military assets with purely civilian buildings is a war crime for the party that does it, not the enemy that bombs it, the IDF supposedly is issuing warnings to evacuate the buildings before they bomb them.

The degree to which that is going on, what % of bombs dropped have followed that process, neither of us know. It won't surprise me at all to find out some of the bombings have been nigh-indiscriminate which would be immoral and possibly war crimes depending on the particulars. But I'm not going to pretend I know what is happening.

[The Minsky Moment]

The merits or lack thereof of the various sides and factions in and outside of Israel are not really pertinent at this point.

The governing authority in Gaza invaded national territory, murdered civilians en masse, kidnapped others.  No nation with the capability to resist or retaliate would tolerate such a situation, nor would it willingly accept an outcome where such an attack could be easily repeated.  Any nation in that position with the capability to do so would take any steps it could to prevent such an outcome from ever being conceivable again.  And a democratic nation, because it must be responsive to the demands of its citizens, is more likely to be thorough in that respect, not less.

Of course Israel's retaliation measured in terms of lives lost will be disproportionate to the damage caused.  That is a simple function of Israel' far greater military capability and of Hamas' own strategy of using the bodies of the citizens of Gaza as its principal lines of defense.  This is both the means of Hamas operational art (such as it is) and a strategic end in itself: the enforced creation of unwilling martyrs for use as political propaganda and to burnish Hamas' reputation for "tough" resistance.

[DGuller]

Sometimes I wonder how much the practice of using own civilians as human shields would be utilized if it didn't work so well with some in the West.

[Legbiter]

Would not have worked on the Romans.

[Threviel]

Yeah, but we hold ourself to a higher standard than the Romans.

The problem is that the blame is directed the wrong way, it should be directed at the bastards not following the rules of war and not at the ones trying to minimize civilian casualties.

Like with Russia it seems like the western propaganda game entirely stopped when the Cold War ended.

[The Brain]

But Israel is the odd one out in the ME. It's 1) democratic and 2) Jewish. Either one would make it anathema to many people in Europe, and when you add them together...

[Threviel]

I think some part of a solution could be a better propaganda effort by western security services. Make sure that all information that can be shared is shared, show how the bad guys behave badly, share pictures of atrocities, most of all perhaps put in an effort to expose the useful idiots, pay Hollywood to make heroic pictures and so on...

If the bad guys could be solidly painted as bad guys political opposition to helping out Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel would decrease. Infiltrate MAGA and the likes in different countries and make them fanatical anti-China, anti-Russia and so on, they are stupid enough that it should be easy.

[Sheilbh]

Extraordinary to read that there is still fighting in five locations inside Israel as there are still Hamas fighters in those locations. I knew there were some holdouts yesterday but assumed that was over by now.

[Hamilcar]

The only solution is a permanent destruction of the culture and society which gives rise to cancers like Hamas. Palestinian society needs to be totally reformed the way Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were.

[Hamilcar]

The only solution is a permanent destruction of the culture and society which gives rise to cancers like Hamas. Palestinian society needs to be totally reformed the way Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were.

FWIW the same is true of Putinist Russia, though their nukes will probably spare them.