Israeli atrocities in Gaza

[DGuller]

It's one thing when the usual European anti-Semites claim atrocities.  It's concerning when Israeli soldiers themselves now lay the accusations.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090321/wl_time/08599188685600

I don't know what to think about this.

[jimmy olsen]

It's pretty simple I'd think. If it's true the perpetrators and those who gave the orders should be punished.

[Viking]

The Jerusalem Post says the leader of the group which revealed this is an anti-occupation activitst

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1237461630293&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

that and a lack of specifics in the accusations along with the lack of an official complaint leaves me slightly sceptical.

[Siege]

It's one thing when the usual European anti-Semites claim atrocities.  It's concerning when Israeli soldiers themselves now lay the accusations.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090321/wl_time/08599188685600

I don't know what to think about this.

Well, I can't say I am surprise of seing this in the media.
What did you think war is? An sport?

Soldiers go to war, and want to come back home in one piece.
If some civilian walks anywhere near soldiers in the middle of an operation, he or she will be considered a threat and dealt with accordingly.
Scalation of force goes from hang signal, yelling to stop, showing your weapon, visual laser to the face, warning shot, non-lethal shot, and finally the lethal shot.
Now, the more hostile the situation, the more shortcuts the troops will take. In a middle of a firefight a civilian shows his head and he will be seen as an enemy spotter, at best. If the troops are in a tactical stop on the way to their OBJ, any civilian aproaching will be suspected of suicide bomber.
War ain't pretty, and soldiers want to come back home. If mistakes are made, better to make them on the enemy than to fail to react to the threat and become responsible for the loss of your buddies.

Now, on the case at hand.
I'll say the sniper reports are hearsay. Regular grunts are not in the loop. They don't have comms in the same net snipers operate. If a perceived threat aproaches the troops, snipers are used to minimized civilian cassualties. I know this have been published to sound as if the IDF had a free-for-all in Gaza, but if this were true, all the grunts would have opened on those 2 women, instead of calling on the snipers to take the shot.
More likely, they had an intelligence report on suicide bombers, saying the enemy was using women to get close to the troops. I have had millions of those. Intelligence reports are enough to justify engaging the enemy. It counts as PID (positive identification). Every army in the world do this.

About the building clearing thing.
Well, what can I say. Enter and clear a building is the most dangerous activity you can do in the military. This ain't escort a convoy, or patroll a random route. You are going into harms way, there is a reason while you are clearing that damn building, and even though 90% of the time the enemy will have likely moved out by the time you get there, in the oportunity when you do make contact, is close and personal, and the enemy is in a defensive position, and will have vertical superiority on you. Hand grenades are a bitch when the enemy is in the top floor, especially because you don't know in which building they are. The moment you start clearing a town, you give away the element of surprise. The enemy will see you coming, and wait for you in a position advantageous to them. So I can see how in the heat of battle the rules of engagement might get a bit relaxed. Especially if you had taken friendly cassualties. You don't want to get ambushed twice in the same mission, and your mission still require quite a few more buildings to be cleared.

The rules of engagements are made with all the good intentions in this world, and they work 99% of the time.

[The Minsky Moment]

Total deaths in the conflict on the Gazan side were in the 1200-1300 range - this is everyone, combatant and civilian.  Given the intense nature of the fighting, and the highly urbanized setting, that number is not consistent with there being thousands of trigger-happy IDF soldiers blowing everyone's heads off for fun and committing mass war crimes.  The numbers just don't add up.

That said, there will be investigation, I expect it will be thorough and professional - and if individuals violated the rules of war, they should be punished appropriately to their offense.

[Siege]

I expect it will be thorough and professional - and if individuals violated the rules of war, they should be punished appropriately to their offense.

Sure.
I'll tell you a little story.
Back in Bagdad at the heigh of Teh Surge, I was given an intellingence report saying that the enemy was using women and children as spotters. Soon after, I was ordered to shoot anyone that would peek at my stryker more than twice from behind a covered position, like a corner, a roof, or a window. Basicly, if anyone were to peek at me twice, putting the head up and back down twice, on the third time I was authorized to open fire.
On another ocasion, there was a constant low intensity firefight going on in one of our COPs (Combat Outpost), and we were told AQI was motorcycles to reinforce their cells in the area. Soonafter we got as PID to shoot any male riding a motorcycle, whether armed or not. The thing is, AQI was moving their fighters unarmed, to pass through the Iraqi army checkpoints as civilians, to their weapons caches to get their weapons.

Terrorists are a very smart lot, you know, and their MOs make war that more nasty.

Your famous "Rules of War" work a hell of a lot better when fighting an enemy that plays by the same rules.

[Jos Theelen]

Israel will push forward with its offensive in the Gaza Strip until it "completely destroys" Hamas, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, said Monday.

If the enemy mixes himself with civilians, hides in civilian buildings, etc. you can only completely destroy the enemy by destroying everything.

[DontSayBanana]

If the enemy are entangling their personnel and civilians, then wouldn't it make more sense to go after the supply lines? Once you've cut their materiel, then they've only got as much teeth as the civilians they're blending with...

[grumbler]

Israel will push forward with its offensive in the Gaza Strip until it "completely destroys" Hamas, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, said Monday.

If the enemy mixes himself with civilians, hides in civilian buildings, etc. you can only completely destroy the enemy by destroying everything.

Hamas is an organization, though.  Organizations can be completely destroyed without anything physical being touched.  Google "Communist Party USA," which was once more numerous than Hamas.

[Jos Theelen]

Israel will push forward with its offensive in the Gaza Strip until it "completely destroys" Hamas, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, said Monday.

If the enemy mixes himself with civilians, hides in civilian buildings, etc. you can only completely destroy the enemy by destroying everything.

Hamas is an organization, though.  Organizations can be completely destroyed without anything physical being touched.  Google "Communist Party USA," which was once more numerous than Hamas.

The communist party USA has still a website (http://www.cpusa.org/), so you cannot call that "completely destroyed". Do you really think Hamas can be destroyed, without anything physical being touched?

[grumbler]

The communist party USA has still a website (http://www.cpusa.org/), so you cannot call that "completely destroyed". Do you really think Hamas can be destroyed, without anything physical being touched?

Do you realy think that Gabriela Shalev meant that the Gaza offensive would continue until Hamas no longer had a web site?

The CPUSA is gone. It runs no one for offices, has no employees, turned over all its records and archives to some college library for historical research, and, insofar as I know, doesn't even hold meetings anymore.  There is a "club" that calls itself CPUSA, but it isn't a political party.

So, do I thnk that an organization can be destroyed without "destroying everything?" Yes, I do.  I never said Hamas could be destroyed without touching *anything.*   That would be a position as extreme as yours, and I am no extremist.

There are positions on this issue between "destroying everything" and "touching nothing" and I occupy one of them.  Yours is the Fallacy of the False Choice.

[Razgovory]

Israel will push forward with its offensive in the Gaza Strip until it "completely destroys" Hamas, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, Gabriela Shalev, said Monday.

If the enemy mixes himself with civilians, hides in civilian buildings, etc. you can only completely destroy the enemy by destroying everything.

This is tried.  They get attacked for it all the time.

[Jos Theelen]

The communist party USA has still a website (http://www.cpusa.org/), so you cannot call that "completely destroyed". Do you really think Hamas can be destroyed, without anything physical being touched?

Do you realy think that Gabriela Shalev meant that the Gaza offensive would continue until Hamas no longer had a web site?

The CPUSA is gone. It runs no one for offices, has no employees, turned over all its records and archives to some college library for historical research, and, insofar as I know, doesn't even hold meetings anymore.  There is a "club" that calls itself CPUSA, but it isn't a political party.

So, do I thnk that an organization can be destroyed without "destroying everything?" Yes, I do.  I never said Hamas could be destroyed without touching *anything.*   That would be a position as extreme as yours, and I am no extremist.

There are positions on this issue between "destroying everything" and "touching nothing" and I occupy one of them.  Yours is the Fallacy of the False Choice.

I don't understand this. I copied your own words "without anything physical being touched". And why am I suddenly an extremist?

[grumbler]

I don't understand this. I copied your own words "without anything physical being touched". And why am I suddenly an extremist?

I never said that you were "suddenly" an extremist.  I said that the position that Hamas could not be destroyed without "destroying everything" was extreme.  And cherrypicking a phrase of mine, applying it to a situation that i never said was applicable, and then repeating it back to me as though my choice was to agree with the new, extreme position or acept your extreme position is a classic case of the Fallacy of the False Choice, which is a favorite of extremists.

I need not pick between them, and choose not to do so.  This is the moderate choice.

[Jos Theelen]

Every time the IDF attacks Hamas, they will destroy civilian lives and properties. And hence it will increase the popularity of Hamas at the population. That is what we have seen the last decades in the Middle-East, but also in other regions of the world.

Another solution to destroy Hamas could be "doing nothing". Let the economic blockade do its job, so the people at Gaza get tired from their Hamas-masters. That seemed to have worked with organisations like the IRA and ETA. People got tired from the swollen rethoric from those organisations and the economical problems of their resistance. They just want peace and prosperity.

However the problem of that tactics is, that Israel has to endure the stream of rockets, fired from Gaza. It is clear that they don't want that.