Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Iormlund]

What a weird metric. Shouldn't you ask what the ratio should be between combatants and civilians?

Sure. But how are you going to ascertain whether someone was a militant or not? They don't use uniforms or any formal identifier.

I dunno. That's the IDF's problem. Figure it out. They got drones all over 24/7.

That's not how it works. If one party uses their civilian population as a shield, their protection is simply removed.

The onus is not on the other party. Contrary to what many people seem to think, the laws of war were not designed to make war impossible. Nobody would have signed them otherwise.

[Razgovory]

It's the IDF's job to differentiate between civilians and combatants. The high number of dead women of children as well as the methods and weapons used by the IDF tell me they don't really give a shit about differentiating.

It is Hamas' job to conflate civilian casualties and combatant casualties to win the propaganda war in the West.  They've done so very successfully.  The weapons, methods and ratios of civilians dead are typical of what we see in urban conflict.  That's why you are so adverse to talking about preferred ratios, because it would be similar those casualties in acceptable conflicts.  You want the Israelis to lose and you want to instrumentalize dead children to achieve that end.

[Razgovory]

I'm tired of playing these stupid games.  I'm tired of the bad guys winning.  Why should we let them win by committing war crimes?  Hamas delibratly works to get civilians killed, and rather than outrage, it turns people to their side.  You want to give them what they want, the Israelis out of Gaza.  Hamas manipulation is working.

So basically, we should not let the guys who commit war crimes win, so we will commit war crimes to win. Great logic there.

I don't think wars should go to the side that is more willing to sacrifice their own children, I suppose we disagree here.

[Iormlund]

Is at least one?

I think Raz's stat is very interesting.  If the IDF were indiscriminately targeting civilians half the dead would be below 18.  Half would be women.  This is clearly not the case.

It's trivial to prove the IDF is does not have a general policy of indiscriminate killings.

You take the amount of bombs dropped, which is a known variable. Then multiply that by their lethal radius. Then you use population density to find out how many people a totally random bombing distribution would've killed. It will always be lower than the real thing, since people tend to be clustered.

Last time I could be bothered to do it it was over an order of magnitude larger than the total losses reported by Hamas.


If one wants to evidence an impending ethnic cleansing, the apparent systematic destruction of housing is a much better argument than the number of dead reported.

[crazy canuck]

So why did the IDF kill civilians coming to designated aid areas to get food from supply trucks?

The existence of a policy is not an answer.

[Iormlund]

So why did the IDF kill civilians coming to designated aid areas to get food from supply trucks?

The existence of a policy is not an answer.

I haven't seen any videos of that, so I can't say. The only one I've seen shows them firing warning shots.

Note that I'm not saying the IDF is squeaky clean. I'm sure there have been many instances of war crimes. Just saying there's no evidence for general indiscriminate killing as so many people allege.

[Neil]

I'm so tired of these comparisons. WW2 was 80 years ago. The Geneva Convention didn't even exist. Aren't we supposed to evolve as a species?

Isn't this a perfect example of evolution in action?  In response to the Crimean War, major powers begin to create rules around warfare, which are intensified after experiences in the late Victorian period and the two World Wars.  As the rules-based countries fight more and more with irregular groups who couldn't care less about the rules, adherence and support for the rules begins to flag.  Thus, you have different levels of support for the rules of war across the West, based on response to stimuli.

[grumbler]

Fine. I'm referencing the convention of 1949, post ww2. The protocol 1, which is sort of an add on that relates to civilian protections, has not been ratified by Israel. Happy?

So, now we are down to the lack of Israeli ratification of Protocol 1, which Israel accepts as binding bar a few areas where it feels it cannot comply:
1. The definition of combatants and thus POWs as including those who do not comply with the minimum standards for such recognition in GC IV
2. The "prohibition of the use of methods or means of warfare which are intended or may be expected to cause such damage to the natural environment and thereby to prejudice the health or survival of the population."
3. The prohibition of perfidy, as defined in Article 37 of the protocol (the exact objection is unclear).

Now that we have that out of the way, the question becomes "so what?" What is the point you believe that these objections support?

[crazy canuck]

So why did the IDF kill civilians coming to designated aid areas to get food from supply trucks?

The existence of a policy is not an answer.

I haven't seen any videos of that, so I can't say. The only one I've seen shows them firing warning shots.

Note that I'm not saying the IDF is squeaky clean. I'm sure there have been many instances of war crimes. Just saying there's no evidence for general indiscriminate killing as so many people allege.

The killing of civilians coming to an aid centre to get food is evidence of indiscriminate killing.

[Zoupa]

It's the IDF's job to differentiate between civilians and combatants. The high number of dead women of children as well as the methods and weapons used by the IDF tell me they don't really give a shit about differentiating.

You want the Israelis to lose and you want to instrumentalize dead children to achieve that end.

You masturbate to dead brown children.

See? I can also make shit up.

[Razgovory]

It's the IDF's job to differentiate between civilians and combatants. The high number of dead women of children as well as the methods and weapons used by the IDF tell me they don't really give a shit about differentiating.

You want the Israelis to lose and you want to instrumentalize dead children to achieve that end.

You masturbate to dead brown children.

See? I can also make shit up.

Yeah, I'm well aware you can make things up.  You've been doing it for a long time.

[Zoupa]

Whatever helps you on your path to MAGA, chief.

[Razgovory]

Whatever helps you on your path to MAGA, chief.

[Grey Fox]

We really should not make fighting against Muslims extremists a left vs right thing.

Israel can stand or fall on its own merits.

[Zoupa]

MAGA is not really left or right, just dumb. Between ICE is great, tariffs work and Arabs aren't humans, Raz is well on his way.