If Hamas is using civilian infrastructure as a base of operation then advanced warning is about all that can be done in order to engage Hamas on their home ground. Otherwise there is no engagement.
Look at it this way. A few posts back, you said that the civilian deaths were accidental. If I thought that the Israeli military and civilian leadership had somehow managed to accidentally kill tens of thousands of people in Gaza, I would say that they are worse then Hamas and need to be eliminated immediately by any means necessary to prevent them from harming any more people.
On the other hand, if you say that the leaders of Israel have made the difficult, but deliberate decision that a certain amount of civilian deaths in Gaza is acceptable as part of their campaign to eliminate Hamas . . . well, I may not like that, but I accept the fact that a decision has been made with careful consideration of the overall impact of their actions.
What you are getting hung up on is the difference between deciding that you are going to kill a certain person versus deciding to take an action that you know will kill someone, but you don’t know who. Both are deliberate actions, but making a deliberate choice doesn’t mean you made a bad or evil choice.
You asked if I deny that the IDF would prefer not to kill civilians. No, I don’t. Now I will ask you, do you deny that the IDF is doing things that they know will kill civilians? Please note, I’m not asking if the IDF is bad for chosing to do those things, just whether or not they are making deliberate choices to do those things knowing that random civilian deaths will result.
You said they aren’t deliberate, they are just cold blooded. I’m saying that they are deliberately being cold blooded. And being deliberately cold blooded isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it is really the only way to fight a war.
My complaint here is with people claiming that the civilian deaths in Gaza are just happening, and that there is nothing that could be done to prevent them. I would just like people to admit that if they are supporting the Israeli actions in Gaza, they are by default supporting a certain number of civilian deaths. And for those who are concerned with the defense of Israel, this isn’t necessarily the wrong choice, heck it could well be the right choice. But it is a choice, a deliberate choice.
Just a reminder that there are no unbiased news sources (he says, posting a link from a
biased news source…). I was quite surprised at just how blatant the bias here was, though:
How do you know that? How do you know it isn’t indifference? For that matter, how can you make a blanket statement about thousands of individuals?
I can tell you this: I speak to Israelis every single day. I’ve been to our office there numerous times. I’ve seen a change in how my mostly self-described liberal colleagues see the Palestinians. I suspect (but of course cannot prove) that a lot of Israelis have shifted to indifference on the killing of Palestinian civilians.
Because it is bad publicity.
Maybe indifference.
I am not making a statement about each soldier, I said “the IDF”.
To a certain extent, the way we know that the state of Israel overall, and the IDF more specifically, does not have, as one of its aims, “kill Palestinians”, “kill Palestinian civilians”, “genocide Palestinians until none are left” or anything of the sort; is the fact that they have had total military control over Palestine for decades, and have NOT, during that time, ever “bombed it back to the stone age”. Which they easily could have. And even during the current conflict, however horrible the human cost has been, it’s nowhere near “modern military attempts to kill everyone in a well defined area” horrible.
Could one argue that they are acting with irresponsible indifference? I’m sure one could… but neither I nor (I suspect) anyone else in this thread is a sufficient expert in the realities of modern urban warfare to sort through the many different reports we’re getting from Gaza, figure out which ones can actually be trusted, and then evaluate how good a job the IDF is doing of achieving-war-aims-while-trying-to-minimize-civilian-casualties-when-possible-but-they-will-never-be-zero.
But, as an example, let’s discuss attacks on hospitals. I’m 99.9% sure that the IDF genuinely believed that those hospitals were Hamas bases of operation. Why do I believe that? Because I have inside information? Because I have some unshakable naive faith in the goodness of the IDF? Not at all. I’m sure that’s true because… why the f*** else would they do it? It’s obviously, as witnessed by this thread (to be a bit flip) an incredibly “bad look”. Do we really think that a modern 21st century military, with at least some level of centralized command and control, verifiability, paper trail, and checks and balances and so forth, is just making the decision to attack hospitals, a move totally certain to lead to massive international outcry, purely to cause suffering? If you’re a general in the IDF who knows that you live in a country with a free press and an independent judiciary and whatever the Israeli equivalent is of freedom-of-information-requests, are you going to sign off on “operation bomb the hospital” without what you view as pretty damn solid justifying intelligence?
Again, you could argue that they are not doing a sufficient job of vetting and verifying intelligence before launching such attacks. But then we’re off in far different debate, one which again very few of us have the knowledge (general or specific) to really engage in.
The same military where they tried to fob off beheaded babies as reliable eyewitness testimony? I think they think they can get away with anything at this point as long as they can even pretend Hamas is the target.
I appreciate that it is a sliding scale between collateral damage, irresponsible indifference, and genocide. However, I disagree with your claim that nobody here is enough of an expert in modern urban warfare to have a pretty good handle on what is going on. Over the past 33 years, the US military has poured a lot of things that go boom into the Middle East, and we know what it looks like on the receiving end. We also know what the US military’s justifications for those actions were, as well as the backlash that US caused civilian deaths created both domestically and internationally. Why would the IDF actions in Gaza be any different? Heck, we sold them most of the things that go boom.
My point, and I am not speaking for anyone else in this thread, is that the IDF can estimate how many civilian casualties will be caused by each of their operations in Gaza. They aren’t exact numbers, nor do they know exactly who will be afflicted, but after years of field use the military knows that bombing and shelling a densely populated area will lead to X number of civilian deaths. The civilian deaths in Gaza are not accident or happenstance, they are the result of deliberate choices to undertake certain military operations, done so in the full knowledge that civilian casualties will be the result.
Let me also be clear that I get it, that is how war works in the modern age. And on a tactical level it is exactly what any modern military would do, and in the case of the US military has done, in similar situations. I am not accusing the IDF of acting outside of the SOPs of modern warfare, cold blooded though those actions are. It is the job of military and civilian leaders to make such difficult decisions, and also to place a higher value on their own soldiers and civilian population than enemy non-combatants. I do however, find it either naive or insulting for people here to claim that the IDF does not know that their actions will certainly cause civilian deaths, and that they make the deliberate choice to take those actions anyway. That is the nature of the job.
I believe the more important question needs to be asked at the strategic level: what does Israel get out of continuing military operations in Gaza that will kill civilians? The stated goal is the elimination of Hamas, and the increased security of Israel. But I have yet to hear anyone here say that they think Hamas can be eliminated on the ground in Gaza. Particularly when Hamas’ leadership is not there, and the IDF activities in Gaza are encouraging new recruits to join Hamas, or similar groups. Short of killing or interning everyone in Gaza, there is no way to declare the place “Hamas free.”
So at what point does the continued bombing and shelling become counterproductive to Israel’s goals, and is actually weakening Israel’s security beyond Gaza? We may have passed that point. There are rumblings that the IDF is going to begin reducing the number of combat troops in Gaza. Which could be setting things up for a counter insurgency style campaign in Gaza that based on previous attempts would likely mean a decade or two of lower-level military occupation and fighting. Or it could be an opportunity for something different, like the introduction of a UN Peacekeeping force. In any case, the longer that Israel continues its current operations in Gaza with no end in sight, the more that world opinion will turn against them, which in turn could lead to other nations, including the US taking steps to curb their behavior.
…very quietly a couple of weeks ago, Doctors Without Borders posted this:
Do you remember the massive international outcry?
Because there wasn’t one.
Instead, multiple countries decided to defund one of the few humanitarian agencies still on the ground in Gaza.
The healthcare system in Gaza is completely fucking broken. 23 out of 36 hospitals are no longer functional. Those that are functional are only partially functional, some only able to provide basic medic services and hospice care.
And many of those remaining hospitals are currently under siege.
You’ve made an argument from incredulity. That’s a fallacy. And the reality on the ground paints a very different, horrific, dystopian picture.
There are critical shortages of insulin, anaesthetics, antibiotics. Children being amputated without any pain relief, without sedatives. Babies being born in classrooms, in tents. No cancer care. People dying from things they shouldn’t be dying from.
And yet…no outcry.
“Bombing” isn’t the only way to close down a hospital, and that wasn’t the way hospitals have been closed down in Gaza. They’ve been surrounded, put under siege, people going into and out of the hospitals targeted by snipers and drones. When supplies have been exhausted, the IDF raid the hospitals, expel most of the patients and people seeking shelter, and detaining/disappearing many of the hospital staff.
Then they destroy essential hospital infrastructure so that the hospital is unable to return to normal.
None of this is secret. None of this is hidden. All of this I’ve provided evidence for, extensively, over and over again in this thread and others.
And yet still, no international outcry.
Hospitals are supposed to be protected in war. You don’t accidentally destroy essential hospital infrastructure 23 times. It is a deliberate plan as part of a larger strategy to drive Palestinians out of Gaza. That’s the only thing that fits the evidence. And the evidence is extensive.
If you haven’t read South Africa’s submission to the International Court of Justice, you can read the entire submission here.
South Africa called “upon Israel immediately to halt all military attacks that constitute or give rise to violations of the Genocide Convention pending the holding of such hearing.”
The International Court of Justice heard submissions from both South Africa and Israel, and ordered:
The fact that Israel has decided to ignore this, instead choosing to intensify attacks, ignore protests that have effectively shut down block trucks at Kerem Shalom, rallied their allies to defund UNRWA based on the flimsiest of pretexts, should tell you just how much they care about any “massive international outcry.”
Right now Isreal is moving in on Rafah. 1.3 million people have been squeezed into Rafah. And they have nowhere to go. Those trying to return home risk getting shot by snipers. And even if they manage to get home, its likely there won’t be anything there for them, because they are flattening much of everything. But they are trying to return anyway, because they’s run out of options.
Just from the bombing alone, Euro-med Monitor estimates (based on both the Ministry of Health figures and those missing, presumed dead under the rubble) 35,000 Palestinians have been killed, 13,000 of them children, over 60,000 people have been injured, 80,000 homes destroyed, over 200,000 homes partially damaged, over 400 damaged Mosques, just under 200 Heritage sites, 2,700 people “disappeared”, probably now detainees.
This is happening on our watch. If the bombing campaign continues, if the siege continues as is, we will have famine, we will have mass death.
Yet no massive international outcry.
We literally witnessed an Israeli hit-squad disguise themselves as civilians, raid a hospital in the West Bank, and carry out extrajudicial executions, and even that wasn’t enough for a massive international outcry. It wasn’t even enough for everyone here in this thread to think it was wrong.
We are witnessing IDF soldiers daily filming their own war crimes, publishing them on TikTok and Facebook, cheering as they demolish yet another Mosque, today they killed a couple of horses from a tank, and there still isn’t a massive international outcry.
There are credible reports of mass executions in the north. We’ve got video of them humiliating prisoners on a bus, casually talking about not feeding detainees, report after report from released detainee how they were beaten, humiliated and sometimes tortured.
And still no international outcry.
At least 122 reporters have been killed in Gaza. We are getting less-and-less reporting from the ground in Gaza because they’ve killed most of the reporters, others have either had to flee Gaza, go into hiding or have been detained.
And still no international outcry.
Because international outcries are overrated. Israel pushed the boundaries early in the war and found out they could literally get away with anything…so here we are now.
The entire premise of your post is fundamentally flawed.
Hamas, the group representing Gazans, could return the hostages and surrender. Could be done in a day.
…the Israeli government, the group representing Israelis, could end the siege, stop the bombing, release all of the people detained without charge prior to October 7th, end discriminatory practices, end the occupation, could stop the illegal settlements, could stop the inflammatory genocidal rhetoric, could stop disappearing and killing Palestinians in the West Bank.
Heck: Israel could just stop committing war crimes and follow the Geneva Conventions and International Humanitarian law. That isn’t an extraordinary ask.
Could be done in a day.
It’s not a siege, it’s a war.
…the siege.
Post all you want. It’s a war.
…I certainly will. The siege is a separate but distinct part of the war. Gazans are starving. Credible reports of famine in the north. The healthcare system on life support.
It’s not a banana, it’s a fruit.
This is absolutely true and I find it hard to believe that anyone would deny it.
I think there might be some fine parsing of language here. Consider “Israel wants to kill civilians”. I personally find that simple, unadorned, sentence to be unsupported and, frankly, bordering on blood libel. But I also recognize that you don’t have to shade the meanings of the word “want” there very far before you get to a sentence that sounds very similar, and even means something quite similar, but whose implications are vastly different.
An entirely reasonable question, and one I don’t have a strong opinion about. That said, there’s a big difference between an attitude of “I’m concerned that Israel’s actions have become not only humanitarianly horrifying but in fact counterproductive” versus stating with confidence that those actions are counterproductive versus demanding that Israel immediately stop their actions.
First of all, to be clear, I’m not saying that “risk of international outcry” is the only thing that would motivate Israel not to commit cruel and unjustified atrocities… it’s maybe the most realpolitik one, but there are at least two others:
(1) internal investigations and repercussions. Israel is a nation of laws. All too often, even in progressive democracies, those who commit atrocities in war go unpunished… but it’s certainly not never
(2) basic morality and ethics. Most people, even most members of militaries, are not cold-blooded baby murderers. And decisions like “let’s attack that hospital” are made at at least somewhat of a remove, enough that they are not purely determined by in-the-moment passion.
That said, I’m not sure what you mean that there has been no international outcry. In fact, that seems so patently false to me that I think you must be using the word differently than I was imagining. I’m not saying just “actual substantive demands from major world governments/leaders/institutions”. There have been TONS of protests all over the world. I’m sure (anyone seen any data?) that the overall popularity of Israel in Western nations, as a whole, has dropped significantly. And that matters. All those people vote. It may take a while for measurable repercussions to manifest themselves, but do you think that to a country that has been such a flashpoint for controversy as Israel, international public opinion just doesn’t matter at all? (This is presumably particularly true of opinion in the US, which is clearly an incredibly valuable ally to Israel. How much more likely is a candidate for major political office who is significantly cooler on Israel than the current crop of elected officials to win an election now compared to a few months ago?)
… Sure, they’re a nation of laws - except for all those illegal settlements, extrajudicial detentions and torture. Before Oct. 7, I mean.
Apartheid South Africa was also a “nation of laws”. They loved them some laws, they did.
They can be. (or I could do My Lai, if you like)
All it takes is stirring the right kind of hatred.
This is true. More like deep-seated hatred.
Can you point to the headline, top-of-the-page, multi-article series on CNN or the BBC covering this specific topic?
Or the government sanctions for Israel from the US or Europe that mention this specific topic as a reason?
Those are more general and ongoing.
I think they’re more concerned that the funding keeps flowing. They’ve been somewhat international pariahs before, it didn’t stop them. They just found new friends.
As long as they still get their billions in US aid, and Germany steps up for them out of all that Kollektivschuld, the government isn’t going to care about overseas protests.
Oh, sure, they’ll work at getting BDS banned and labeling all anti-Israel campus protests antisemitism, but that’s reflexive, like protecting your copyright.
Perhaps that agency shouldn’t have been hiring terrorists.