Pancho Villa crossed the border and murdered US citizens. War with Mexico was averted.
I agree, but I have much less trust in Netanyahu’s civilian government than I do in the IDF. Netanyahu is a criminal and a scumbag, but he isn’t the one picking airstrike targets in Gaza. Unlike the US, the “Commander in Chief” of the IDF is a purely professional military role (and one that traditionally takes nonpoliticism very seriously), not Netanyahu.
War was alerted by going to the Mexican government and saying “Fine, you capture Villa, we will keep our army here until you do”. This would be the equivalent of going to Gazan authorities and telling them to hunt down Hamas within their own border or Israel will do it for them. Hamas runs Gaza, though. So there’s no one to have that sort of conversation with.
This would be more like Israel going to Lebanon and telling them “Hezbollah has been shooting us with rocjets and we’re tired of it. Clean house or we will do it for you” and then letting the Lebanese government round up Hezbollah. (That’s not a perfect analogy either because Hezbollah is a major Lebanese party, but it’s a closer analogy).
Yes–but my understanding is that the specific war crime in question, attacks on civilians, were detailed in the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and that the Hague Conventions only dealt with treatment of enemy combatants, which isn’t as much what we’re talking about with Dresden or with Israel or Hamas. Is this accurate?
For all effects and purposes, Israel is currently being ruled by a triumvirate, an “emergency cabinet” consisting of Netanyahu, the one mostly non-corrupt member of his government Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and opposition leader Benny Gantz. How much control Bibi has right now is open to debate, but he’s been making himself very scarce in the past few weeks. Best as anyone can tell, the war is largely being run by Gallant - who was briefly fired by Netanyahu back in March, leading to the fiercest civil protests in Israeli history.
Thank you for that info.
Of course the US was run by people who weren’t especially horrible when we decided to level big parts of Afghanistan in response to 9/11. 
This is a podcast I listened to a long time ago that has a lot of interesting perspectives on this topic. Although I don’t remember a lot of the details and Dan Carlin paywalls his episodes after a certain amount of time. Also he’s mostly an entertainer first, historian second.
But in any case, what I remember of the episode is that pre-WWII there was a lot of thought that indiscriminate bombing of civillians would quickly break a country’s will to fight and lead to an easy victory, coupled with some proto MAD theory that no one would bomb enemy civillian centers out of an aversion to the enemy having a reason to bomb your civillian centers. Both of these theories failed almost immediately but everyone basically just kept doing civillian bombings out of hopes that it would ultimately be worth it. And I remember a lot of people involved viewing the bombings as inhumane but don’t remember the exact details. I do remember the US talking a lot about how they would the shiw other countries how to fight the war without mass murdering civillians before they entered the war and immediately started doing exactly what everyone else had been doing.
It’s on Hamas. It’s not on the innocent civilians. But IDF is collectively punishing them both. If some mass shooter runs into a crowd, the police don’t get to just mow down everyone to stop the shooter.
It’s absolutely a war crime for Hamas to hide among refugees. It really sucks that they’re doing that. But it doesn’t give the IDF carte blanche to kill whoever is in the way. It’s wrong to do, and it’s not helping Israel’s long-term goals of safety.
Yeah, this war is going to be a GREAT recruiting tool for Hamas, or whoever fills that power vacuum. Lots of orphans. Lots of bitter displaced people.
And Hamas winning the war will be an even greater recruitment tool. Triumph is a much greater motivator than despair.
That’s one main reason why Hamas’s defeat needs to be clear and unequivocal - because otherwise, its popularity will soar in the West Bank, leading to it overthrowing the Palestinian Authority, which is in pretty rickety shape as it is.
If Hamas comes out of this looking victorious, that’s it. Game over. The PA will fall, Hamas will seize the West Bank and next year we’ll be doing this all over again in Bethlehem - except it will be much, much worse.
ISTM that the defeat of Hamas is one necessary but small piece of any chance towards long term security and normalcy for Israelis. IMO Israeli leaders need to make clear, even now, that after they defeat Hamas they are willing to drastically change the path the Israeli government has been taking regarding Gaza and the WB for the last several years in service towards lasting peace. Until that happens, and it seems highly unlikely it would happen with Netanyahu in power, even defeating Hamas will accomplish very little, long term, for Israel. IMO.
I don’t disagree with you. It won’t be easy, though - there isn’t a lot of good will between Israelis and Palestinians right now.
There were far worse consequence for German civilians in WWII. But it was not inevitable that by 1960 there would be twice as many committed Nazis in Germany, all bent on revenge against the Allies and wiping out the Jewish race. In fact, the German people had no difficulty understanding Allied objectives in the war, and that it was the Nazis that bore primary responsibility for the devastation of Germany. Within a generation they were a thriving ally with a strong antiracist culture.
What is critical, of course, is that (as in Germany) we find solutions to give the Palestinian people the opportunity to live and thrive after the war. But since I do not believe that Arabs have an innate predisposition to terroristic death cults, I think that Palestinians are quite capable of understanding that it is Hamas that has brought these consequences upon their civilian population. I do not buy into the defeatist attitude that there is an inevitable trajectory toward terroristic death cults and that Palestinians are any less capable of making good choices for themselves if the world offers them good choices.
You are disgusting. You’re a disgusting fucking person cheerleading war crimes to try to convince yourself. Fucking monstrous.
This opinion piece - which uses as examples Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israel’s military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank from the early 1990s to 2005, Israel’s ground offensive into Lebanon in 2006, and the United States’ invasion and occupation Iraq in 2003 - argues that what you suggest is unlikely to work.
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/01/opinions/israel-flawed-strategy-defeating-hamas-pape/index.html
Moderating:
This is not the pit, and this post is nothing but insulting a poster and is wholly inappropriate. Warning issued.
Do you see any alternative between “bomb the refugee camps to maybe kill a Hamas soldier” and “let Hamas win”?
It is difficult to discuss when any suggestion that Israel maybe should not kill so many civilians is responded to with “I guess you want Hamas to win” or “you’re advocating for a pogrom against Jews.”
I think Israel has a right to defend itself. I do not think they should be bombing refugee camps.
One alternative would be for Hamas commanders not to hide among civilians in refugee camps.
It is impossible to analyze the ethics of specific military actions at this level of granularity, but it is wrong that this is so often framed as though Israel is the only party with any agency.
Insufficient to the needs of the people living there. Likewise, the truck of humanitarian aid going is are laughably inadequate for the population of Gaza.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. What you have just written above means there is no safe place in Gaza. Just because Hamas are evil terrorist scum does not give Israel leave to also commit atrocities.
As I said before - convince me this is the least bad alternative.
There are many similarities to the siege of Leningrad here. That siege killed over a million people people there simply wasn’t sufficient food to go around. If the current lack of supply situation continues in Gaza for a comparable amount of time it could kill a similar number of people.
An act of genocide does not require the attempted extermination of a people everywhere in the world. Actions that kill the vast majority of people in Gaza - regardless of who perpetuates them - certainly do meet the definition of both ethnic cleansing and genocide.
Granted Hamas has declared their intentions to commit those two acts on Israel. That does not give Israel carte blanche to commit those actions in return.
No. Oppression should not be a pissing match about who suffered the most. Thus, you should not have made your sarcastic remark about suffering pogroms.
My grand parents were opposed to Zionism and went to America where they built a better live for themselves and their descendants. I’m not sure what any of that proves.
Same. Those of my family that did not get out of Europe by 1939 were wiped from existence. There’s really no point for Jews to play this game because everyone’s family has been murdered and oppressed and chased around. Neither of us has any special point of view, just different points of view.
That is really one of the most irritating things to come out of the mouths of politicians like Netanyahu - the attitude that if a Jew doesn’t believe as he does, or do what he says, they’re not a “real Jew”. Whatever the hell that means. Two Jews with equal histories of oppression and genocide can nonetheless come to different conclusions about a current event.
Thus, it’s pointless to try to invoke the past oppression of one’s family in these discussions. It proves nothing and lends no additional weight to anyone’s argument. Everyone knows the Jews have been shit on a lot in history, including recent history. There’s no need to go into detail.
The possibility of good opportunities is crucial. As point in favor: Palestinian-Americans are not running around committing terrorist acts or joining death cults. Why? Because, despite a certain amount of prejudice, Palestinians in the US have true opportunities to live peaceful lives, get educated, get jobs or professions, and make a good, peaceful life for themselves and their children. If they don’t like where they’re living they are free to move about an entire continent. If they’re attacked the police and authorities move swiftly to enforce laws and protect them.
Same people, different circumstances.
Israel can’t control Hamas. Israel can control its own actions.
It may be unfair that no one is demanding Hamas behave themselves, but I guess we’ve given up on them being humane. Israel, however, claim to be the good guys.
So, one more time - someone prove to me that the IDF’s current actions are the least bad alternative at this time.
Call Jabalia what it is, a dense urban outskirt of Gaza city. It has not been a “refugee camp” in the sense of what ppl think of as refugee camps for quite a long time now. Hamas also uses just like they do with all of the other densly populated urban areas of Gaza, as a base of operations with no regard for the civilians who live there.