No, if you start referring to one side as “the Zionists” and the other side as “the Palestinian nationalists” or “the Islamic radicals” it’s makes a coherent juxtaposition.
Proof of the “knowingly”? The terrorists were moving, on a motorbike. Are you claiming that Israelis waited until they were close to the school before hitting them?
Israel has a right to defend itself. They are trying to take out the sources of the rocket attacks. The little shits in Hamas are hiding the rockets behind civilians for the sole purpose of getting propaganda to use against Israel.
This will end with either a total cease-fire on both sides, or Israel is going to be forced to kill everyone in the Gaza area and flatten it into rubble. I hate to say it, but option 2 is probably going to be what happens, because Hamas won’t deal honestly.
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Taking hostages by force is one thing. If the hostage takers are not using their hostages as a human shield while they fire their vengeance weapons at their neighbors, then there is no reason fire on the hostage takers. You can take the time to negotiate and wait them out.
If the hostage takers are only using human shields to prevent their neighbors from stopping the repeated and continuous vengeance weapon launches which are intended to murder their neighbors, then the neighbors can defend themselves by taking out the launch sites and weapons storage.
If you want to protect the children. The children of Israel and Gaza. You should tell Hamas to stop their repeated terrorist attacks against Israel.
Are you saying that Israel doesn’t have any maps of Gaza? Note, according to the UN, they informed Israel’s security forces of the location of the school, and that UN staff were working there on 17 separate occasions.
In a hostage situation, whether the perp is just using the people as a human shield or not (and I’m not sure how you’d even draw a clean line between hostages as shields and bargaining chips…in any real situation it’s a bit of both)… no we don’t just advocate blowing up the building hostages et al.
And hypothetically if a situation did play out like that no we wouldn’t lay all the deaths on the hostage-taker. The person who gave the green light to blow up the building would likely face criminal charges.
Now, we can take these analogies too far I think.
But it’s staggering to me that you really think I would agree with you that because someone is using hiding in a school as a dirty tactic then that makes it OK to blow it up, and our hands are clean because it was the perps fault for using that tactic.
What do “maps of Gaza” have to do with it. You’re trying to hit a fast-moving target. Accidentally, you hit it in front of the school.
Bank robbers can take hostages by force. Police depts have the luxury of waiting for the bank robbers to give up or to respond with force if the bank robbers begin killing hostages or firing at the police.
Hamas can create human shields by force or by asking for volunteers. Volunteers would not be considered innocent victims.
I don’t expect you to agree with me. If a terrorist organization is using a school/hospital/mosque/church/Burger King as a launching area for it’s vengeance weapons, those buildings can become targets. If Hamas is aware that Israel will never fire on schools, hospitals, or mosques, then Hamas will only fire it’s rockets from schools, hospitals, and mosques.
You seem to be under the impression that Israel must not attack the actual rocket storage and launch sites chosen by Hamas.
So, is the solution to use snipers against Hamas? Just asking about a practical solution.
International agreements are inherited when governments change. When Clinton left and Bush took office, that didn’t end all of the U.S.'s treaty obligations.
I’ve actually been wondering if it’s practical to just fly a fleet of Apaches over Gaza and simply strike rocket launch sites once visual confirmation has been made. The Wiki page for the AH-64 says that Israel uses them in this fashion already, and it seems like a much safer way to operate than mortar fire with respect to civilian casualties. Is it a problem of cost, or that 42 helicopters is not enough to cover the strip, or some other tactical issue?
Overly worrying about collateral casualties tends to go out the window when rockets keep flying in the window. Israel should be commended for its restraint in not flattening Gaza.
Sure. So it’s clear that Israel would prefer a restrained course of actions which minimizes collateral casualties. So why not utilize methods that would assist in that goal?
Such as?
Your suggestion about helicopters does not qualify. Low-flying helicopters are vulnerable to small-arms fire.
Well there was that Battle of Mogadishu thing in 1993. You may have seen the Hollyweird version - “Black Hawk Down”?
AFAICT they are already trying to. This task is made difficult by
[ul][li]The fact that Gaza is pretty damn crowded together, and surgical precision is not generally possible, and[/li][li]The fact that Hamas is trying to maximize civilian casualties, by stashing its rocket launchers and so forth in hospitals and schools and such, and[/li][li]The fact that there isn’t often somewhere else to go when Israel wants to blow something up, and[/li][li]Hamas tries to keep their own civilians in place despite Israeli warnings, because dead Israeli civilians for some reason don’t get the same attention as dead Palestinians civilians. [/ul][/li]Regards,
Shodan
The Apaches could get shot down, and then there’d be a whole “captured-IDF-pilots-held-hostage” saga.
Hovering, darting, nimble armed unmanned drones might be perfect, though.
Do Palestinians willingly serve as human shields or does Hamas have to use some gunpoint persuasion?
Did some net surfing and I have to concede this point to you. What about armed drones? I found references to the IDF using them dated since 2012, but nothing official. What would be the issue with this option?
I agree that they’re trying to. I also think that there’s significant room for improvement, as evidenced by shells hitting a designated UN shelter and causing casualties. As I’ve stated previously, Israel is absolutely right to target Hamas rocketeers. However, as the nation with huge technological superiority, it is incumbent upon them to use this superiority to minimize civilian casualties as much as possible. The fact that a UN shelter was hit indicates that better methods could be used, and I’m trying to learn what those could be. Terr and several online sources convinced me that the helos would be a bad idea. I don’t see any problem with Predator-style drones though (aside from the fact that Israel doesn’t officially admit to having them).
For differing values of “willingly”. Hamas tells its people that the Israeli warnings are just psychological warfare, and propgandizes in favor of acting as a human shield. I don’t know if they get permission from anyone before they put rocket launchers in schools and hospitals - perhaps because Hamas is the ruling authority in Gaza they don’t feel the need.
Hamas has been accused of forcing people to act as human shields, but I am not aware of many confirmations of this. In a world where people are afraid to criticize Hamas for fear of being labeled corroborators with Israel and getting shot or beaten to death, and since many human shields get blown up whether they consent or not, it is difficult to be sure.
A lot of the time, as mentioned, the Gazans don’t think they have anywhere to go, and stay put even if the Israelis warn them of bombs to come.
Regards,
Shodan
I am pretty sure that is already being done. It is not a panacea. You just cannot saturate the sky with the drones enough to prevent rockets being fired. And it doesn’t solve the problem of rockets being fired from hospitals and schools. Not even to mention complete uselessness of drones against tunnel building.
Once again, people who were hit and killed were two (some sources say three) terrorists on motorbikes. At the time they were hit they were passing the school, and there were casualties in the school. There really is no way to prevent stuff like that from occasionally happening. With much less urgency and best weapons in the world, US managed to hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.