(To state the obvious, however, before someone strawmans you: Nobody is claiming that all these situations are exactly the same in terms of the ethical calculus when civilian casualties are likely. Obviously the urgency of taking out the specific target under consideration is a very significant part of that decision.)
Here are some questions I have to those asking why Israel would airstrike a refugee camp to kill 1 guy, especially @TroutMan.
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Jabalia is an urban district of Gaza with a population of over 100,000 people. It is a “refugee camp” because it grew around a refugee camp founded by the UN in 1948. But it is not some tent city where displaced persons are temporarily cared for. It is, for all intents and purposes, an urban district of Gaza. Is this something you were already aware of, or is it news to you?
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The same IDF press release that announced that they killed Ibrahim Biari also claimed to have killed numerous other terrorists belonging to the Central Jablia Battalion of Hamas. They also say that the damage to buildings was mostly caused by the collapse of Hamas tunnels underneath them due to the airstrike. Were you aware of this, or is it new information?
Thanks. Agreeing (if the thread lets me.)
So you’re not going to address my actual point? Here is my actual point, summed up much better than I can manage.
I know you can find right wing Israelis saying odious things; it’s why I oppose right wing Israelis by being a left wing Israeli. Now, why are you so careful to distinguish Hamas from Palestinians while being so sloppy about conflating right wing Israeli parties with Israel as a whole?
Earlier in this thread, or perhaps another, I used sloppy language which @iiandyiiii called out, which conflated Palestinians and Hamas. I apologized for my mistake and corrected my phrasing to better convey my intentions. I believe you have been making a similar error, which I am trying to point out to you here. It’s not a rhetorical trick or an attack, and I hope you take this in the spirit it is offered.
After the 6 day war in June 1967, when a coalition of United Arab Republic, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait tried to invade Israel in order to wipe the country off the map… These Arab states realized that they could not win a conventional war against Israel, and the goal of destroying Israel must change into a terror war. This led to an increase in international terrorism attacks against Israeli citizens, including the massacre of Israeli athletes in the Munich olympics in 1972.
I normally think of a guerilla campaign as one being waged to harass and target enemy troops who have invaded your country (think, the French or Dutch in WWII). Your definition may vary. I don’t think of a guerilla campaign as being one where olympic athletes are murdered, or women and children are gunned down and hostages taken. A guerilla campaign would not include sending explosive rockets to explode in civilian towns in another country.
I would call this a campaign of terrorism, reaching for the one original goal; The elimination of Israel as a country. That’s not a guerilla campaign in my books.
Hamas having proven themselves irredeemably bad eggs, one wonders what current Israeli policy is vis-à-vis the PLO (Fatah, DFLP, PFLP, etc.), PIJ, PLF, PPSF, … I’m sure they would like to weaken all of them, on one hand, but on the other hand it does not add up for there to be no (non-Israeli-puppet) Palestinian political parties or government at all.
You’re mostly right. I wrote that they are in many ways fighting a traditional guerilla campaign. When I wrote that sentence, I intended to add some ways (like, I dunno, murdering children) that distinguish it from a guerilla campaign–but then I got distracted by saying that even if it’s a guerilla campaign it’s a war crime, and I never completed that thought. Sorry for leaving it out, and thank you for adding that in.
Edit: although now I’ve looked up a bit about definitions of “guerilla warfare,” and see that terrorism is mentioned as a tactic used by guerillas on Wikipedia and on Google’s first hit:
WAR OF THE FLEA - A STUDY OF GUERILLA WARFARE - THEORY AND PRACTICE | Office of Justice Programs.
The summary of that document from 1970 contains an incredibly apt point:
GUERRILLAS EXPLOIT THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THEIR OPPONENTS’ GOAL (DEFEAT OF THE GUERRILLAS) AND NECESSARY MEANS (OVERWHELMING FORCE) TO THE ADVANTAGE OF THE GUERRILLA MOVEMENT.
It depends on what you mean by guerilla campaign, I suppose. The Viet Cong fought a campaign of asymmetric warfare against the United States Army. They also used terrorism against the people of South Vietnam.
Did Partisans in WW2 ever use terrorist tactics against German civilians? It isn’t something I have heard of, but it isn’t out of the realm of possibility by any means. Certainly the Red Army committed many atrocities against German civilians by the end of the war.
I think it is reasonable to say that the use of asymmetric tactics that might be considered “brutal” or “unfair” against enemy soldiers is understandable in this context, but the use of terror tactics against a civilian population is never justified.
I have not heard it referred to as an “urban district,” so yes, that would be new information. I was aware that “refugees” is in reference to long-term refugees, not refugees of the current battle (is that an important difference to you?) As for describing it as a refugee camp, I was going by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency:
Jabalia is the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight refugee camps…Over the years, a staggering proportion of the population, who used to be largely self-sufficient, has become dependent on the UNRWA food assistance programme.
Basic hygiene is also of great concern in the camp, with 90 per cent of the water being unfit for human consumption.
…
Overcrowding and a lack of living space characterize Jabalia camp. Shelters are built in close proximity to one another and there is a general lack of recreational and social space.
I don’t think defining this as an urban district makes any difference in whether the bombing was justified. If you do, then we disagree.
I’m also aware that the IDF has claimed that other Hamas personnel were killed in the strike, and that some people were killed by collapsing tunnels. Although I trust IDF press releases more than Hamas, I don’t trust them that much. But it’s still immaterial to my opinion - the military advantage gained by killing a few Hamas soldiers does not justify the bombing.
I’ll also note (without asking you to confirm if this is new information to you) that the bombing did hit schools that were currently being used as shelters from the current war.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency meanwhile highlighted the civilian toll of the ongoing conflict, after agency chief Philippe Lazzarini announced that Israeli warplanes had hit several UN-run schools that had been sheltering civilians. More than 20 people were reportedly killed in the attacks, he said.
“Over the last few hours, I received reports that three of our schools sheltering about 20,000 people have been hit. This reportedly has led to the deaths of more than 20 people in Jabalya, and also one person at the beach camp,” he said. An UNRWA statement later said a fourth school-turned-shelter had been hit.
I don’t think it makes a difference morally, no; but I do think describing at as a “refugee camp”, with the associations that come with that, is a big part of the reason why people have a hard time understanding that this strike was targeted at Hamas infrastructure within a densely populated area, not at one guy who was visiting his sick refugee friends.
It’s pretty fucked up of Hamas to operate from within such a densely populated area. If my government tried to place military equipment in the cellar of my child’s school, I’d either leave the country or take up arms against such tyranny (pulling my kid out of school first, of course).
I don’t think it’s fair to tell Israel that the Central Jabalia Battalion is off limits, that it can work to repeat the events of Oct 7 in peace so long as its members keep hiding under schools and residential buildings. I think the assholes who put their paramilitary operation there need to be removed from power as quickly as possible so that they can no longer abuse the people of Palestine in this way.
I mostly agree with you, although the bolded part is unnecessary hyperbole. Obviously there are middle grounds between bombing schools and letting Hamas repeat October 7, and no one is suggesting the latter.
I think when you say “as quickly as possible,” you simply left unstated that it needs to be weighed against civilian deaths. Bombing anyplace that is or once was a Hamas operations spot, no matter who is nearby, is probably the quickest way to remove them from power, but I don’t advocate for that, and I don’t think you advocate for the most extreme implementation of that either. We differ on where that balance falls, and the likelihood of success of a quick military strike versus a longer process.
That’s the question. Is it obvious? Is it true?
If Israel can remove Hamas as an effective force without bombing any schools, hospitals, or other locations with civilians in them, or attacking any such places in such a way as to significantly risk killing civilians children and otherwise, terrifying children, or stopping the proper operation of hospitals: then they should do so. But the reason, AIUI, that Hamas is in or under the schools, hospitals, and other locations with civilians in them, is in order to make it impossible for Israel to do so.
None of which is “happens to be situated above a tunnel that has those things”, in the case of the civilian building. The tunnel is the military site, the civilian buildings are separate structures, in that scenario.
This would be a good point - if I hadn’t already made it in the part you didn’t quote.
That doesn’t mean we can’t state what our judgements are.
The part I didn’t quote said that if there were actual firing taking place, then that would count. I was saying that IMO that is not required. Maybe you didn’t mean that to be the only example of what would count.
I also said if it was a military factory it would count.
But not, apparently, according to you, a headquarters or military barracks or storage place for the items made in the military factory or storage place for items necessary for the military factory to function or for the firing to take place.
Did I say it was an exhaustive list?
Any of those could be legitimate targets if housed in a civilian building, because then the building would be being " used at the same time for military purposes".
Not, though, if they are in a separate tunnel system under the building. Then, using bunker busters on the civilian building to get to the military one crosses the line.
IMO, of course (shouldn’t need saying, but apparently does)
Ah. Thanks for clarification.
What if there’s no way to get at the tunnel system other than through the building without killing a lot more civilians who would be in the way of accessing the military use by any other technique? Or, at least, without going through some other civilian building(s) which pose equal risk of killing civilians?
(I don’t know whether or not this is true in any specific case.)
Boots on the ground would kill less people than a bunker buster every time, I’d wager. So there’s always a way.
Or otherwise, just … don’t kill the civilians.
The French Resistance certainly killed many civilian collaborators. The IRA and the FLN in Algeria often used bombings that caused civilian casualties, as have many other 20th/21st century guerrilla fighters. Not defending the actions, but it is a fairly common occurrence in asymmetrical warfare.