I’m not sure why you find it stupid. It gets to the heart of minimizing civilian casualties. IDF has made a calculation of how many Palestinian casualties are acceptable, and you and I disagree on that point. I think the benefits gained by targeting the Hamas soldier in the refugee camp do not outweigh the cost in human lives and do not help Israel’s goals.
No, it’s actually a great question. An even better one would be this:
Let’s say that Netanyahu’s health worsened, and he went to a hospital for treatment. Hamas fired rockets at the hospital in an attempt to kill him. Many Israeli patients were killed, as was Netanyahu.
Would you consider that attack a terrorist attack, or a legitimate act of war, or something else?
I know I would consider it an atrocity–not because Israeli civilians were killed, and not because Hamas carried it out, but because civilians were killed by an armed power in an action that they knew would kill far more civilians than military targets.
You may well be right, but with a specific militarly action like this personally I just don’t feel qualified to know exactly who they were targeting, how important he was, what the calculus was in terms of the likelihood of civilian casualties.
You also don’t know the downstream consequences. The message that “we will target you wherever you hide” may make Hamas less likely to use refugee camps for military operations in the future.
I’m not trying justify what Israel did, maybe they just fucked up. I’m just saying that I don’t think this level of analysis of specific actions in the fog of war is particularly useful.
How would you suggest Israel achieve its goal of eradicating Hamas?
How would you suggest preventing Hamas from existing in any form? Would it involve killing everyone affiliated with Hamas?
While I don’t think this would be possible, let’s say for argument’s sake that Israel is able to kill everyone affiliated with Hamas. Is that the end of the problem, in your opinion?
What about the sons and daughters, brothers and sisters of those Hamas-affiliated people killed? Will they not seek revenge? Would there not be a subsequent generation of people motivated by hatred towards Israel? What would be your solution to deal with them?
A political process.
I don’t think this would be possible, though, with your viewpoint that everyone should unequivocally support Israel, as it would involve recognising the rights and grievances of the opposing side.
Hypotheticals about Netanyahu (why not Hitler?) in a hospital aside…
It is certainly a valid question whether the IDF could achieve the objective of removing Hamas using different tactics that would result in fewer civilian casualties.
But I simply have no idea. Do you?
Muffin baskets and kittens?
I know that if achieving their objective requires killing many thousands of civilians, they must not achieve their objective. THey must find a different objective.
Eliminating Hamas is a vague objective. Does that mean killing everyone who officially works for Hamas? Does that include every member of the Ministry of Health? Does that include everyone who worked anywhere in the Hamas government, even as a street cleaner? Does that mean killing every politician? Does that mean killing every person who took up a weapon under Hamas’s official rubric?
Or does that mean getting rid of Hamas’s power in Gaza?
If it’s the former–if they’ve declared a death sentence on everyone who since 2006 has had any taxpayer-funded position in Gaza–that’s an unacceptable goal. If it’s the latter, it’s still ill-defined.
Yes, attacking Hamas and crippling their ability to carry out similar attacks is important. But to do it correctly–that is, without killing thousands of innocent children–means doing it differently from how it’s being done now.
Super helpful and productive conversational approach there.
This is our fundamental point of disagreement, then. I think leaving Hamas in power will ultimately be far more harmful. I wish it could be done without any civilian casualties, but I think the war is justified.
(I’m guessing we’d probably also part company on whether bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki was justified.)
Let’s be clear here. The opposing side of this war is Hamas. I recognize the rights and some of the grievances of the Palestinian people. I also recognize the rights and some of the grievances of the Israeli people. I believe there could a political solution to the existence of both Israel and Palestine, and Israel is partially complicit as to why one has not been reached yet. But Palestine is equally if not more complicit as to why a political solution has not been reached yet. But right here and right now Israel is at war with Hamas. Who’s official charter states “our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious” and calls for the eventual creation of an Islamic state in Palestine, in place of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, and the obliteration or dissolution of Israel.
What sort of political process did you have in mind to sort that out?
The Hiroshima/Nagasaki comparison is excellent, because yes, I think those were atrocities that never should have happened, and that the rhetoric that led to them was self-serving and self-deceiving. Military equipment demands to be used, and there was never a clearer demonstration of that principle than Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Did you think saying that “a political process” is the solution was productive?
Present any alternative for Israel to take in dealing with Gaza.
This is so disconnected from reality I don’t even know where to begin. Israeli actions are orders of magnitude removed from killing “the vast majority of people in Gaza”. What are you even talking about?
Well, hopefully the ongoing thread about which countries would take American refugees is never necessary. I highly doubt it will be any time soon. But I wouldn’t bet my life (literally) on the idea that the US will never decide it has had enough of its Jewish residents. You may be more trusting than I am, but I recall many places that were great for Jewish communities until suddenly they weren’t.
Do you believe the decades-long Palestine-Israel issue can be solved militarily?
I believe that removing Hamas from power is the only viable starting point.
That’s what I alluded to earlier, when I suggested that it would be nice if for once Israel was held to the same standard as other nations.
The two-state solution.
How does one “do it correctly” when Hamas makes a point of using its citizens as human shields and canon fodder? It’s an easy thing to say when it’s not your back up against the wall. Send in commandoes? Lots of innocent Gzans will still die. Magical Jewish Space lasers than can target a Hamas soldier or leader without touching the family who’s shop sits next to his rocket launching facility?