Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Josquius]

Racism?

Kind of obvious why the western democracy is held to higher standards than terrorists.

Why Iranians cannot be expected to create a government that adheres to standards we take as granted/mandatory from Israelis? What quality is it they are lacking? Why Palestinians cannot be expected to fight for their goals without terrorism if we expect Israelis to refrain from it? What is it they are lacking? If they lack nothing, they can be held to the same standard.

They are expected to follow internationally expected rules.
That they don't is key to why they're a heavily sanctioned axis of evil pariah nation.

[The Minsky Moment]

So if the Russians bomb the US embassy in Warsaw to kill the US military attaché there who is providing direction and support to the shipment of US arms to Ukraine, you'd be okay with that?

No I wouldn't be OK with that; I'd expect the US to retaliate, just as Iran did (tried to do).  Of course, the US retaliation would be more effective, which is a big reason why the Russians won't do it.  Putin certainly isn't restrained by international law or norms; if he was, his troops wouldn't be in Ukraine in the first place.

That's not to say I accept the analogy.  Russia is not at war with Poland as Israel is de facto and de jure with Syria. The US and Poland are giving arms and support to Ukraine, but they are not directing and operating paramilitary forces against Russian civilian targets.

Embassies and consulates are protected by diplomatic immunity against even countries at war, though the personnel can be declared non grata and forced to leave.  The revocation of immunity and sovereignty for the embassy itself has to be carried out in writing and must allow time for the original owner to evacuate its property.  The Germans did not bomb Allied embassies in, say, Switzerland during WW2 because that would have been a breach of international law.

The first two sentences arefully consistent with what I said, as it addresses the duties of host countries towards foreign embassies on their soil. No question that if Iran had a consulate in Israel, that attack would be illegal. As to the last sentence, Germany was never at war with Switzerland and sought to keep good relations with the Swiss during the war.  Had the Swiss and the British been openly running anti-Nazi militias, I doubt the Germans would have have hesitated to act.  When the British and US bombed Germany I am not aware of any steps taken to protect foreign embassies still accredited with the Nazi regime. When the Americans firebombed Tokyo, they made no efforts to avoid damage to the German embassy, even though at the time of the strike the US was no longer at war with Germany. 

[grumbler]

Also I never see demands for Hezbollah and Iran to adhere to the rules of war and while I understand that is largely due to racism, I still am not sure why one side respect a set of rules the other is purposefully ignoring.

Your failure to see the demands doesn't mean that they do not exist, just that you fail to see them, e.g.

Thomas-Greenfield lashed out at Iran for supplying advanced weapons systems to the Houthis in violation of U.N. sanctions including drones, land attack cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles, which she said have all been used in attacks on vessels.

AP story from January

Hezbollah is a criminal organization, so there's no expectation that they will follow international (or any other) law.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There are two contexts where diplo facilities are protected.

One is the obvious host country relationship, under the Vienna Treaty and long standing international norms, if you are a host country, you don't get to touch militarily anything in an accredited country's diplomatic mission with force. The proper way under this regime to deal with them if you don't want them there, is to formally expel all their diplomatic staff and tell them they have to close their embassy down (effectively severing diplomatic relations), but they would have to be given a reasonable time to do so.

This has actually recently been violated, as an example, in Ecuador, with Ecuadoran police storming a Mexican Embassy in Ecuador, and has caused major diplomatic backlash throughout the Western Hemisphere.

The other context is if Country A is at war either with or in Country B, but has no such state with countries that have embassies in Country A or B. In that case, it would be a violation of norms for Country A to attack diplomatic facilities of Country C, if Country C is a neutral third party.

An example of this would be the American bombing campaign in the Balkans in the 1990s, that resulted in a Chinese diplomatic building being leveled. This was a mistake for which America apologized, but the Chinese were incensed about it nonetheless.

The example of Israel bombing an Iranian Embassy in Syria fails to meet either of these criteria for a number of reasons:

1. Obviously, Israel is not the host country of any of these facilities.
2. Israel and Syria, as I understand it, have been legally at war since 1948. They have never signed a peace treaty, and they to this day have no formal diplomatic relations.
3. Israel and Iran, while not formally at war like Israel and Syria, have not had diplomatic relations since the Iranian Revolution. Further, by all accounts they are in a "state of war", without war being declared. Iran has used facilities in Syria (a country Israel is at war with) to coordinate and launch attacks at Israel through Hezbollah.

Iran has no expectation of any of its facilities in Syria that are being used in a hostile way to enjoy any form of diplomatic protection from the IDF.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Something that needs to be said, since we glossed over it a bit to engage in arguing about minutiae of Iran's embassy being bombed (which is largely not actually very important), is the reason we in the West cannot trust "Palestinians", is because Palestinian is not a "natural" ethnic group.

Ethnic groups form over things like shared language, culture etc. The concept of a Palestinian nation exists and was created solely as a "negative nationalism", it is a concept that exists because Arabs don't view it as acceptable for Jews to have land and a country of their own. By its nature, identification as a Palestinian is membership in a group that exists solely as a negation of Israel.

If for whatever reason, a Jewish state had never been carved out of British Mandatory Palestine, if for example the Arabs won their initial war (which a large % of the posters in this thread would have preferred, and would likely gloss over or ignore the ensuing mass murder of Jews that would have occurred), there likely would not be a country called "Palestine" in that region. It would likely just be part of Jordan, and the Arabs living there would have no issue with that--because they were never "Palestinians", they were Arabs.

[grumbler]

No I wouldn't be OK with that; I'd expect the US to retaliate, just as Iran did (tried to do).  Of course, the US retaliation would be more effective, which is a big reason why the Russians won't do it.  Putin certainly isn't restrained by international law or norms; if he was, his troops wouldn't be in Ukraine in the first place.

But if your earlier contention is correct, you are okay (under international law) with Russia attacking that US embassy, and you believe that such attacks should only be constrained by fear of retaliation?

That's not to say I accept the analogy.  Russia is not at war with Poland as Israel is de facto and de jure with Syria. The US and Poland are giving arms and support to Ukraine, but they are not directing and operating paramilitary forces against Russian civilian targets.

Israel's state of war with Syria has nothing to do with Israel's bombing of sovereign Iranian territory.  If Israel wants to declare war on Iran and state that the Iranian use of the embassy in Damascus is perfidy, then they'd be in the right and could launch such an attack after giving notice.  This isn't 'Nam. There are rules. 

The first two sentences arefully consistent with what I said, as it addresses the duties of host countries towards foreign embassies on their soil. No question that if Iran had a consulate in Israel, that attack would be illegal. As to the last sentence, Germany was never at war with Switzerland and sought to keep good relations with the Swiss during the war.  Had the Swiss and the British been openly running anti-Nazi militias, I doubt the Germans would have have hesitated to act.  When the British and US bombed Germany I am not aware of any steps taken to protect foreign embassies still accredited with the Nazi regime. When the Americans firebombed Tokyo, they made no efforts to avoid damage to the German embassy, even though at the time of the strike the US was no longer at war with Germany. 

The obligation to respect the diplomatic immunity of nations one is not at war with is not just an obligation of the host country towards credentialed foreign diplomatic staff and facilities, it is a general obligation.  The Russians could not take into custody a US diplomat credentialed to japan traveling in a passenger jet forced by emergency to land in Russia, for instance.

The German embassy in Tokyo analogy is a particularly bizarre one because there was not German embassy in Japan after May 7, 1945, nor was there even a Germany to have such an embassy.  Some of the other embassies in Japan were destroyed in the bombing by the Americans, but none were targeted and, insofar as I am aware, no diplomatic staff were casualties.  There were only six neutral-nation embassies in Japan in any case: Switzerland, Sweden, Portugal, the Vatican, Ireland, and Afghanistan. MOFA history

[OttoVonBismarck]

Israel's state of war with Syria has nothing to do with Israel's bombing of sovereign Iranian territory.  If Israel wants to declare war on Iran and state that the Iranian use of the embassy in Damascus is perfidy, then they'd be in the right and could launch such an attack after giving notice.  This isn't 'Nam. There are rules. 

If Iran wants to declare war on Israel and assert that it is legitimate to use diplomatic buildings in Syria to conduct military operations against Israel, then they could do so. There are rules. When you just attack without declaring war you are essentially waging an undeclared war, you cannot then pretend you are protected by a peaceful status.

There are literally no rules covering this situation, you are largely talking out of your ass on this one. Israel's bombings of military facilities in Syria is covered as legitimate by their existing war with Syria and due to Iran engaging in active hostilities.

Also unequivocally--Russia targeting NATO advisors etc in Ukraine is entirely valid. It would just be unwise. Those are different questions.

[The Minsky Moment]

Basically the argument comes down to whether it is permissible for Israel to strike Iranian sovereign territory despite the lack of a formally declared war. It is not a black and white situation, but the law of war permits such attacks for pre-emptive defensive purposes if there is imminent danger.  That was the justification for the US attack vs Qassem Soleimani, which occurred on Iraqi sovereign territory. The Israeli strike appears to have a stronger justification as the imminence of the threat to Israel was greater and more direct than that posed by Soleimani to the US, and it appears that Zahedi was meeting at the time specifically for purposes related to the ongoing war of Hezbollah vs Israel, as opposed to Soleimani who at the time of his killing was delivering a diplomatic message from the Iranian government to Iraq's PM.

[The Minsky Moment]

The Russians could not take into custody a US diplomat credentialed to japan traveling in a passenger jet forced by emergency to land in Russia, for instance.

Correct, that would violate the Vienna Convention which requires countries to respect the inviolability of diplomatic personnel in transit through their country. But Zahedi was not in transit through Israel.  I don't know if he was an accredited diplomatic agent either.

[Josephus]

Something that needs to be said, since we glossed over it a bit to engage in arguing about minutiae of Iran's embassy being bombed (which is largely not actually very important), is the reason we in the West cannot trust "Palestinians", is because Palestinian is not a "natural" ethnic group.

Ethnic groups form over things like shared language, culture etc. The concept of a Palestinian nation exists and was created solely as a "negative nationalism", it is a concept that exists because Arabs don't view it as acceptable for Jews to have land and a country of their own. By its nature, identification as a Palestinian is membership in a group that exists solely as a negation of Israel.

If for whatever reason, a Jewish state had never been carved out of British Mandatory Palestine, if for example the Arabs won their initial war (which a large % of the posters in this thread would have preferred, and would likely gloss over or ignore the ensuing mass murder of Jews that would have occurred), there likely would not be a country called "Palestine" in that region. It would likely just be part of Jordan, and the Arabs living there would have no issue with that--because they were never "Palestinians", they were Arabs.

yeah, that's all true. Although by that argument, you can also say, there are no Egyptians or Jordanians, they are all ethnic Arabs.

So what you have is a group of displaced Arabs in Eretz Israel looking for a home. One they would call Palestine. So for convenience sake, they identify as Palestinians.

In an ideal world, the remaining Arabs in Eretz Israel would be taken in by the neighbouring Arab states, become Jordanian and Egyptian and the problem would be solved. But that would never fly because there is a segment of the Arab population who don't recognize a Jewish state, and doing this would remove their raison d'etre.

Israel could also return to the pre-1967 border but that would also never fly.

And so that's why we are where we are.

[grumbler]

Correct, that would violate the Vienna Convention which requires countries to respect the inviolability of diplomatic personnel in transit through their country. But Zahedi was not in transit through Israel.  I don't know if he was an accredited diplomatic agent either.

Correct.  The inviolability of diplomatic missions and personnel extends beyond the borders of the sending and receiving nations.  Zahedi was in an accredited mission which was itself inviolate except in cases of war (and even then still protected but not inviolate).

[OttoVonBismarck]

Egyptians are a bit of an outlier though, they do sort of identify Egyptian as their ethnic group and view it as distinct from "Arab", they consider themselves to be Arabic speakers but not Arabs. Sort of like Scots / Welsh / Irish speak English but don't consider themselves English.

[Josquius]

Something that needs to be said, since we glossed over it a bit to engage in arguing about minutiae of Iran's embassy being bombed (which is largely not actually very important), is the reason we in the West cannot trust "Palestinians", is because Palestinian is not a "natural" ethnic group.

Ethnic groups form over things like shared language, culture etc. The concept of a Palestinian nation exists and was created solely as a "negative nationalism", it is a concept that exists because Arabs don't view it as acceptable for Jews to have land and a country of their own. By its nature, identification as a Palestinian is membership in a group that exists solely as a negation of Israel.

If for whatever reason, a Jewish state had never been carved out of British Mandatory Palestine, if for example the Arabs won their initial war (which a large % of the posters in this thread would have preferred, and would likely gloss over or ignore the ensuing mass murder of Jews that would have occurred), there likely would not be a country called "Palestine" in that region. It would likely just be part of Jordan, and the Arabs living there would have no issue with that--because they were never "Palestinians", they were Arabs.

See also top 10 examples of clichéd Israeli extremist propeganda.


1: There's far more nations in the world born out of this "negative nationalism" than the more "positive" (not really) sort of Europe.
2: Palestine as a place and the Palestinians as from there long predates zionism.

The Palestinians are just Jordanians thus ethnic cleansing is fine stuff is such weakly masked fascist bollocks. Wrong on so many levels.

[grumbler]

Under Ottoman rule the Arabs were tribal but mostly desired to establish a nation-state called Arabia and that was the basis of the 1916 "Great Revolt."  The future colonizers of the region, the UK and France, worked to ensure that tribal and ethnic differences would doom any such attempt and allow the colonizers to play different Arab groups against one another; classic "divide and conquer."  The Palestinian identity dates from that period, as does the Saudi identity, Syrian, etc.  "Palestinians" exist as a distinct nationality as much as the Syrians, Iraqis, Omanis, and whatnot.

[Tamas]

Syria and Iraq might not be the best examples of a matured national identity.