I look to what is reported about what measures Israel actually takes to prevent civilian casualties. Apparently, they do take such measures.
The problem with the “toting up corpses” method of determining moral culpability is that, assuming for the sake of argument that Israeli military acts are actually in fact working (defined here as ‘destroying Hamas military capability and effectively ruining its attacks on Israeli civilians’), your chosen method would lead to the inescapable conclusion that Israel is in the moral wrong. Which strikes me as the exact opposite of the correct conclusion.
It’s a lengthy and complex history. Just as an example:
Note that such cease-fires were brokered by Egypt - unlikely to be repeated, as Egypt is in the process of cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt/Hamas relations are, I understand, none too good.
Hamas is a religious organization and its opposition to Israel is not based on practical considerations. Moreover, its popularity in Gaza was not a result of Israeli harshness, but rather a reaction against the perceived corruption in the PA.
They aren’t an existential threat to Israel - but then, terrorism generally isn’t. The point is not to destroy Israel (now), but to weaken it, wear it down, destroy its morale.
Hamas has repeatedly launched rockets (and other attacks) at Israeli citizens. To a large extent, that they have succeeded in killing no Israelis is a reflection of their poor equipment, their general incompetence in rocketry, and Israel’s use of the Iron Dome shield.
Israel has responded to those repeated attacks by targeting rocket delivery sites and the Hamas leadership. Yes, those targets are located in civilian areas, but their only other option is to grin and bear it, just as they have been doing for years. Are you suggesting that the latter is the preferred Israeli response?
First off, a better analogy would be someone walking up to you, pulling a gun out and missing you. At which point you shoot the gun out of their hand unfortunately scarring them. You seem to be saying that you should have allowed them to reload.
Hamas has deliberately elected to provoke a military response knowing (and I guess hoping) it would kill civilians in Gaza. The moral crisis should be amongst Hamas supporters.
Consider that in 1982 the Syrian military wiped out a city over the course of a month killing between 10,000 and 40,000 people. That’s what an excessive military attack would look, like not this current state of affairs.
Isn’t it possible that the reason that Hamas has so far succeeded in killing 0 Israeli civilians is a) their (Hamas’) equipment sucks, b) their training sucks, c) Iron Dome works, or d) some combination of the above?
Is there any reason to believe that the airstrikes themselves are the reason Hamas haven’t managed to kill any Israeli civilians?
Oh, sure I’d be critical of genocide. But where is it all headed now? if you can’t afford to give them any breathing room because they’re just going to take a breath and attack you anyways and you really don’t seem to see any way to get them to stop attacking you other than by hitting them so hard they lose the will to fight (like I said, its been 60 years, they seem as wilful as ever).
So that’s their problem! If they had never ceased fire, Israel would stop thinking that military strikes worked.
So if Hamas’s survival was at stake, why did Israel let up?
If the bombardments worked so well in the past why do they need to keep doing them? Maybe these bombardments aren’t doing what you think they are doing. The original aggressors against Israel in 1948 are all dead of old age. Where are all the new militants coming from? Surely, Israel’s actions have NOTHING to do with the creation of new militants. I guess arabs are just crazy and so deeply genetically anti-semetic that they just can’t help hating Jews.
I don’t know much about this conflict. But isn’t Hamas both (1) the elected government and (2) arranging the attacks on Israel? If another country attacks yours, isn’t your country allowed to hit back in whatever fashion until they stop?
Exactly. I’m not sure what you’re point is with this.
You need to evaluate a given course of action against practical alternatives, not against hypothetical ideals.
True.
What are you trying to suggest with this? That Hamas should never agree to cease-fires so that Israel should give up on trying to pressure it into ceasefires?
In any event, they made the ceasefire for a reason.
I don’t recall saying that Hamas’ survival was at stake. There’s a cost to these battles for both sides.
They work temporarily. In the absence of a permanent solution, temporary solutions are better than nothing. See above.
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
. . . something of an overreaction.
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Do you believe Israel is under a moral obligation to allow Hamas to have some success before they retaliate?
IOW if you call the police to complain that people are driving by your house shooting at it, you think the response should be “get back to us once someone dies.”
That was a horrible, despicable crime. But I don’t really think these airstrikes make it less likely that such a thing will happen in the future. Do you?
Not entirely. There is a principle of proportionality in international law. So while Israel is right to fight back, it can’t do so in whichever way it pleases
Why do you feel this is a key point? Is Israel only allowed to respond with deadly force to an attack on their sovereign territory if it’s citizens are killed? Otherwise it’s no harm, no foul?? What other country in the world would restrain itself if it came under external/outside direct attack?
Others have already done so, with the usual results. Would you, instead, care to defend Hamas here? They decided to attack Israel from within the shelter of their own people, knowing what the response would be and knowing that it would be their own people who would take the brunt of the retaliation. Would you care to defend this action from a moral standpoint?
They could send in troops I guess. Or use artillery. Or basically do nothing. That’s about all the options available. Doing nothing doesn’t seem a viable option, and my guess is the other two would actually cause greater body counts in terms of both civilian and Hamas/Israel.
They didn’t initiate hostilities, so this entire thing wasn’t supposed to be in their interests…it’s a reaction to an attack. Which is the whole point of why Hamas is doing this sort of shit. Again…would you care to tackle justifying Hamas actions in moral terms?
Which, again, was the intended result. Which is why Hamas did what they did. Sadly, Israel’s options are extremely limited. As noted, they could invade with troops. Not going to be very popular. They could use air or artillery strikes. Same results. They could do nothing. Which would obviously invite further attacks and wouldn’t be popular with the voters in Israel. They could wish upon a star and hope that Hamas stops attacking them. I suppose they could surrender and move away…which is about the only thing Hamas would accept (probably tossing rockets at them the whole time).
YES!!! THAT kid. Where was he from? And WHO killed him? Where were THEY from?
Seems to me that if the Zionists hadn’t carved a country out of already occupied land, none of this would be happening.
Its a hypothetical. If we treated them the way Israel treats the Palestinians, I suspect they would fire rockets (or do something equally provocative). Then we would have no choice but to bombard Toronto and Tijuana, they would be forcing our hand, really.
Well, I’m being a bit sarcastic about the final solution but Israel has already expropriated Palestinians property, they have gathered them into ghettos, they conduct military attacks against those ghettos. I doubt we’ll actually see death camps but these Palestinians are never going to just lay down and play dead.
So either there is a middle ground that can be reached or there isn’t and when there are irreconcilable differences between peoples, what solution is there? Just keep going on like this? You don’t think the power balance will ever change? You don’t think they’ll ever get a nuke?
I don’t really think that’s a better analogy in terms of capturing the relative scale of the two actions. The Israeli response has been to kill 100 people (so far). Hamas doesn’t appear to have a gun that big.
Again, Hamas being in the wrong doesn’t necessarily make Israel in the right.
I certainly agree that that’s more disproportionate. And of course we can find even worse examples than that.
Sure, I suppose unconditional surrender could work. But its been 60 years and there is no sign of unconditional surrender. So I guess we are just stuck at the boot on the neck impasse.
Would Israel believe them if this was offered? Who would they hold accountable when a splinter faction of Hamas broke off and continued to blow shit up?
When South Africa eliminated apartheid, all the white folks were afraid that there was going to be a white genocide and it didn’t happen. Sometimes the victims aren’t as evil as the oppressors.
I would think there are some responses (e.g., kill every man, woman, and child in the opposing country) that we would all agree are way over the line as a response to a largely-ineffectual series of attacks that posed no existential danger whatsoever to the stronger country. So then it’s just a matter of where do you draw the line.
Ah, the ‘Israelis-have-it-coming-because-they-oppress-the-poor-Palestinians’ meme.
Why do you suppose the Israelis treat them that way (I assume you are referring to the rigid work, travel, and movement restrictions, and the ‘walling off’, etc)? Well, when the Palestinians were not under such restrictions, too often they used their mobility, their ‘freedom’, in order to infiltrate into and then terrorize Israeli citizens. Over and over and over again. And again.
Once more, it seems, the preferred solution in the minds of some is that Israel should just grin and bear it. Just like they had been doing for the repeated rocket attacks.
Presumably there is a point between “doing nothing” and “airstrikes” that would better than what is happening now - either it would be more likely to bring an end to the rocket attacks, or would convince Hamas to negotiate a settlement and stick to it, or in some sense would be desirable vs. whatever is happening today.
What do you think that point is, and what makes you think it is more attainable than bombing the rocket launchers?