It’s been posted on the SDMB before - that’s where I found it.
Because that’s what’s important - making the case to you.
But that’s essentially the difference between Israel and Hamas. To Hamas, paraphrasing von Clausewitz, war is simply the continuation of public relations by other means. As far as they’re concerned, they’ll sacrifice as many of their own civilians and troops as they need to score a PR win. And maybe they’re right - maybe they’re ahead of the curve. Maybe Israel should shut down the Iron Dome for a few days and let the civilian casualties rack up, gain some international sympathy. But we won’t do that, and you know why? Because fuck all y’all. We look after our own. If the world only likes us when we’re victims and hates us when we aren’t, then we welcome your hatred. It’s better than the alternative.
…again: the “evidence” here is that “gunmen roam the halls of the hospital”, something that I linked to as well in this thread. the fact that they built the tunnels in 1983 says nothing about how the hospital is being used now.
No.
I’ve been explicit about why this is important to me. Because its about the Palestinian people. They do not deserve this. They deserve to live. They deserve not to have their homes stolen, and destroyed. Entire generations of families are being wiped of the face of the earth. I want that to stop.
I don’t give a FUCK about Hamas. Nobody here cares about Hamas. Nobody here is defending Hamas. I am not defending Hamas. I’ve made that explicitly clear from the beginning.
I want Israel to stop punishing the Palestinian people for the crimes of Hamas. That means lifting the siege.
I am far from an expert on international law. But for most laws that i know better, you do get to make the case later, when you are in the courtroom.
I certainly hope they have better evidence than “it’s common knowledge”. And if they want international support, they may need to share that. And they may need to share confidential information privately with leaders in other countries to keep other countries from joining the war. But no, war time intelligence generally doesn’t need to be shared with the public.
I am dubious of what Israel is doing. There’s a hell of a lot of smoke for there to not be a fire. And I’m dubious that their stated goal of destroying Hamas will do them any good in the long term, or even the medium term. But your assertions that it must be a war crime if they don’t make a public case right now seem weak.
Which is exactly what Hamas wants. They established their HQ in the hospital because they were hopping for your exact reaction. You’re playing a part in their little pantomime, following their stage directions to the letter. Well done.
There is no middle ground here. Any action anyone takes or fails to take in Gaza either serves Hamas or serves Israel. Myself, I know what side I’m on.
Are you sure? I think Hamas wants Israel to commit atrocities that will drive away its international support. I think Hamas wants this to turn into a regional war, bringing in nearby Arab countries to defend the Palestinians. I think Israel is playing into Hamas’ hand.
I’ve been pretty critical of IDF’s behavior in this war. But I’m not at all following the logic that Hamas isn’t the intended target in the attacks on Shifa.
Israel is getting a ton of international flak for this attack. There must be a reason that they’re continuing. Saying it’s deliberate retribution doesn’t pass the stink test: if they were only about deliberate retribution, they could easily have flattened the hospital with air strikes.
The idea that it’s inarguably a war crime if they don’t make the case right now is a non-starter. Whether it’s a war crime is orthogonal to whether they’re giving out public information on their strategy and rationale. And obviously people are arguing that it’s not a war crime, so saying it’s inarguably a war crime is hyperbole.
Most importantly to me, while Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations and other humanitarian groups are pleading for an end to the attack on the hospital, none of them are denying that Hamas is using it as a headquarters. If Hamas isn’t using it as a headquarters, why on earth aren’t the aid groups including that information in their pleas?
Refusing the aid the hospital needs to keep incubators running to keep newborns alive is atrocious, in my opinion; but it’s atrocious despite the strong circumstantial evidence that Hamas has a strong presence around the hospital.
This is a key point. The IDF’s willingness to release intelligence aside, this isn’t Schrodinger’s War Crime. Either Israel has legitimate reason to hit the target, or they don’t. This fact remains in place whether you, @Banquet_Bear, (and the international community at large) know about this or not. And it is based on this underlying fact that the IDF’s behavior should be judged, not your knowledge of this fact.
If that means you need to withhold judgement, or if you’d rather offer judgement now and amend it later, then so be it.
It does. It wants two things: it wants what you said, and it wants to survive. Which puts Israel in its usual lose-lose situation: if we fight, we’ll kill a lot of Palestinian civilians, and if we don’t fight, Hamas will survive, grow stronger, and attack again. This time, the country has decided - and believe me, it’s the country, not the government - that defeating Hamas should take precedence over everything else. Maybe a lot of civilians will die this time, but at least they’ll be prevented from dying in next war, and in the one after that.
And yes, I believe that the IDF is doing what it can to limit the number of civilian deaths. I believe that because I served there and I know how they operate. Yes, they’ll protect themselves first, and they certainly make mistakes, but they’re not bloodthirsty, and they’re not lazy - they won’t kill people just because they can’t be bothered to think of an alternative. It’s not in their DNA.
I do feel sorry for the Palestinian people, BTW. I hope their lives get better once all this is over.
…the Geneva Conventions are about protecting civilians. They exist to stop this from happening. And if we are fine with Israel just ignoring them, hoping that maybe, in a few decades time, nobody will be found accountable, then we are missing the point.
But they are sharing wartime intelligence. They released audio recordings! They are on the IDF website! They’ve been released on IDF social media!
I think they would release more if they had it. They made a big song-and-dance about this today.
The evidence of war crimes didn’t start here.
Then Israel could stop giving Hamas what it wants by lifting the siege and stopping collectively punishing the Palestinian people.
Have they?
I’m not the one relying on references to tunnels that were built in 1983.
You are ignoring the Palestinians.
Dr Mads Gilbert, Doctors without Borders, disputes Hamas is in the hospitals. There have been multiple other statements from other international medical workers who have worked at the hospitals and haven’t seen any evidence. The hospitals have asked that independent international observers be allowed to visit the hospitals, unfettered, to investigate Israel’s claims. They haven’t been allowed in.
The burden of proof is on the IDF. Don’t take my word for it. Take the word of the International Criminal Court prosecutor.
People keep bringing up the wildly insane, xenophobic, warmongering, provocative (in the sense of trying to provoke hostility) bullshit that Ben Gvir and Smotrich and the Settlers do on a regular basis as evidence that the IDF would engage in the sort of horrific behavior that Ben Gvir or Smotrich clearly support. But Ben Gvir and Smotrich are not the IDF. Ben Gvir never has been, since the IDF rejected him for being a fanatic provocateur since basically childhood. You know who the IDF is? These pilots who went on strike to protest Netanyahu’s judicial reform bill.
Nice. After all, Gazans are all exactly alike and not individual human beings.
I get that Israelis are angry and hurt. The tragedy is that they can’t see the other side is also angry and hurt. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves everyone blind and toothless. A death for a death leaves everyone dead. Unless the peace you seek is that of the grave this is not the way to secure peace.
Given the oceans of blood already spilled there will never be a balancing of the scales of justice. If people in that region actually want to live at some point they will have to cease killing each other, sit down, and talk. They will have to come to some sort of compromise that will leave no one happy but, if we are fortunate, will leave all equally unsatisfied.
Perhaps some people have a dream of utterly obliterating the other side, but whomever does so will be as reviled as the Nazis are.
I don’t expect people whose families have been slaughtering each other for generations to ever like each other. You don’t have to like your neighbors. What I want to see is for them to first stop killing each other. BOTH sides to stop killing each other. After that, find some way to live next to each other without one group oppressing the other. Unfortunately, I don’t expect to see either of those in my lifetime - but I would be delighted if the parties in this conflict prove me wrong on both points.
I understand that after October 7 there were going to be a shit-ton of dead people. Maybe others didn’t. Israel was always going to retaliate against Gaza and that always means dead innocents because of how Hamas operates. Despite that, it is entirely appropriate to criticize how Israel is conducting this war and ask “is there a better way”? Israel has committed war crimes here, and any attempt to justify them as the least bad way have been pathetic. I expect that hurts to hear, but Israel needs to hear it. They’re losing the PR part of this war.
The time is not wasted. I, too, spend a lot of time composing my posts here and sometimes avoid this thread for days. I absolutely support anyone taking a break from this thread for any reason. I value your continued presence in a thread that must at times been either uncomfortable or infuriating or both. Thank you for taking the time and effort.
And why should I believe him? Because he’s a doctor? Doctors lie as often as anyone else. He very well be lying for what he sees as a noble cause - he may genuinely care about his patients in Gaza and believe that parroting the Hamas line is the best way to protect them. Maybe he’s been told that if he tells the truth he and others like him will be banned from helping in the future. If that’s the case, I can respect that, but it doesn’t mean I should accept what he’s saying at face value
That would indeed give Hamas everything they want - Qassam, Fajr-5s, RPGs…
This is all true, but the major point you are missing is that peace is impossible with Hamas, as they have proven on Oct 7. This is why I, and many other Israelis, changed our stance - from a ground war in Gaza being unthinkable due to the enormous human cost on both sides, to a ground war in Gaza being necessary despite the enornous human cost on both sides. Because the alternative is to keep trying to negotiate for another decade until Hamas does this again, and again, and again.
Palestinians must be given a path forward, towards prosperity, that does not involve violence. This is the only way that they will choose peace. You and I know this, and so does Hamas. Hamas will never allow the Gazans’ lot to improve to that point, because that would make them obsolete.
It is also true that Netanyahu and others in his party have brought this situation about. Netanyahu’s disastrous policies, mostly designed with no coherent ideological basis on the left or right and only intended to keep Netanyahu in power (and out of prison), have brought us here. Netanyahu is dancing on the graves of both Rabin and Sharon, difficult as that may seem to accomplish. And there will be a reckoning there.
But this isn’t Netanyahu’s war, as much as he might want it to be. Now that Netanyahu has brought us here, we need to undo the damage, and that means destroying Hamas, which has taken such deep root in Gaza under Bibi’s watch. It also means throwing the messianics and the warmongers and the settlers out of power and changing the disastrous policies that brought us here. Obviously that’s a key part of the whole thing, destroying Hamas will be pointless (and all the lives lost on both sides will be for nothing) if real change doesn’t follow. Of course I support that, as do the thousands upon thousands of Israelis who have been marching in the streets on a daily basis right until this war started.
We need a new ruling coalition, without Ben Gvir or Smortrich or Vaturi (the “pilots should be shot” guy), and most of all without Bibi. That’s a necessary part of the equation if we want peace. But so is the removal of Hamas from power.
No, it is tragic they can not keep stray dogs away from bodies.
Where do you think they should keep the dead? In the hallways of a bombed hospital among the living? There is no food, no water, no fuel, no power for refrigeration. If you try to go outside and bury them you risk getting shot. The situation for the living is so desperate no care can be given to the dead, who are beyond suffering.
If you study warfare this is not odd at all - it’s what happens when people are under siege and under attack. It is an entirely predictable outcome of the IDF’s strategy here. If it seems surprising perhaps it’s because in the past we didn’t get to see such things live and up close on social media.
As bad as this is, it could get even worse, even more horrifying. Study your history, the lessons are there.
Cruelty doesn’t have to be deliberate to be cruel.
It is incredibly difficult to have empathy for your enemy and to try to see things from his viewpoint. Failure to do exactly that, though, only results in misunderstanding and further conflict.
It is entirely possible that from the Israeli side those phone calls were meant as a form of compassion and mercy. It is entirely possible that from the side of Gaza they were seen as a cruel mocking of people who were unable to flee. Thus… we have war and suffering and death.
The IDF/Netanyahu crowd are claiming they are doing these horrible things in self defense. OK, fine. You know what? If I shoot someone in my backyard I can’t just say “self defense!” and walk away. I have to prove it was self defense (which may or may not be easy) because, you know, killing people is really bad and otherwise a crime called “murder”. If I can’t do that I could go to jail for a long time, maybe the rest of my life. Likewise, bombing hospitals is a really bad thing, a crime, and unless Israel can satisfy the world community that this really was necessary for their defense the rest of the world it going to continue to view it as a crime and Israel is going to suffer the consequences on the world stage for a very long time. Worse yet, because of the conflation of entire ethnic groups with individual national governments, millions of people around the world who have no part in this war will also suffer consequences for a very long time. Israel is under no obligation to share intelligence with anyone, but if they chose not to do so then other people will draw their own conclusions from what evidence - or lack of it - they have.
If anyone wants to argue that’s unfair or unjust I’m not going to disagree. It is an example of how things in this world can be unfair. It sucks for everyone involved.
…who would you prefer I believe instead? I’m open to your suggestions.
Because every doctor, every nurse, every aid worker that has I’ve seen interviewed in the last month says they have seen no evidence that Hamas has an HQ at Al-Shifa. They could all, of course, be lying liars. But the burden here lies with the IDF. And the IDF case is…“its common knowledge.” Which isn’t a case at all.
Water. Food. Medicine. Electricity. Denying the Palestinian people these things are a breach of international law. As I’ve already said to you, if you are worried that Hamas would have weapons smuggled in then Israel could control everything and send the bill to the United Nations.
The Doctors without borders public statement on Gaza does not mention Hamas tunnels or activity one way or the other. It does say that they have witnessed people being shot as they try to flee the hospital, and calls for a cease-fire, and protection of hospitals. Mostly, it calls for a cease-fire.
There are actions that help Hamas and the Israeli right-wing at the same time. And there are likely actions that would help no one (let’s say, hypothetically, nuking Gaza). Just as a hypothetical – too many (and I don’t have a number for this – we really can’t know until later) Gazan civilian casualties could help Hamas… and help the Israeli right-wing. Even if they kill a lot of Hamas members, they would be helping Hamas ideologically, as well as increasing the likelihood of a broader war involving Hizbollah (and possibly others).
I’m not saying that everything the IDF is doing is necessarily wrong – I’m saying that these sorts of decisions are much, much harder than your above post implies. The IDF might well be helping Hamas without realizing it. We should be heavily scrutinizing everything the IDF does (and, quite clearly, what every other actor in the region does).
Minor correction here: those with connections to the region “know” that. The vast majority of the people on the planet have not been following this, have only the most vague awareness that Israel vs. Other People is a thing in that part of the world, and are coming into this with absolutely no background.
So no, this is NOT common knowledge for the vast majority of people on this planet. Now the war is on the world stage where most of the “audience” have only been following along since the start of October.
Again - I agree this can be unfair and unjust, but if you don’t have a grasp of that yes, you’ll find discussions of it extremely frustrating.
The location of Hamas installations under hospitals might be “everybody knows” common knowledge in Israel and in Gaza - I am not disputing that. I can assure that is it NOT common knowledge in the US (outside of Jewish and Palestinian diaspora, which are less than 3% of the population, and not even universal knowledge there). Rinse and repeat everywhere else on the planet. Yes, I’m saying that you have to state the obvious because it’s only obvious to you, not to literally billions of other people on the planet.
Yes, we know where you are and I appreciate that you have articulated your position with such clarity.
However, there IS a middle ground here you are failing to see. It’s probably best summed up as “I’m neither Palestinian nor Jewish so it doesn’t affect me and I don’t care” (I worded that deliberately - those who are outside this conflict and until now unaware of it are also unlikely to understand the distinction between “Palestinian” and “Hamas”, and “Jew” and “Israel”, much less even more nuanced understanding). Except this thing has blown up and threaten to become a regional war, maybe even the start of a world war, so everyone is waking up to maybe, just maybe, this will affect people outside the warring groups. With a lot of people wanting the whole thing to go away and finding both parties and their squabbling- blown-up-in-war distasteful.
You might want people to pick one side or another but there is the third option of “neither - a pox on both your houses”.
Bombing a hospital is one of those things that are a war crime until proven otherwise - which is possible, but it requires evidence to support that assertion that other parties will believe. Israel is losing that part of this conflict because they haven’t convinced others. As I have said, they are not obligated to provide military intelligence but failure to do that has consequences. Maybe they have sound reasons for not providing that evidence and taking the resulting fall out for not providing it. Until they do, though, it will continue to be regarded as a war crime.
Here’s how I see it: given how Hamas has behaved in the past it is certainly plausible that there could be installations under hospitals. Thus, I am open to the possibility targeting the hospitals can be justified as a “least bad option” (I’m never going to call it “good”) but I have not yet seen proof of that. Until then I have to say yeah, it sure looks like a war crime. But, like I said, I am open to a different interpretation, just not convinced of it.
Here’s the problem - I’ve never served in the IDF and neither have any of my relatives. I really don’t know much about them other than they’re Israel’s miltiary.
I do, however, know that my own country’s military have committed not just things that might be war crimes or atrocities but actually were those things, not just in the recent past but all the way back to the beginning of the country. Thus, based on the experience I have had living a lifetime in this country, where I don’t automatically trust the motives or actions of our military, I tend to not trust other nations’ militaries. Including the IDF. Maybe they are all paragons of virtue but as I said, i really don’t know that much about them. The average human being on the planet knows even less about them.
I get the impression that you’re saying “Trust me! Trust us!” and a lot of other people are asking “Why?”. Then you get upset they don’t trust you but it’s not being done out of malice or because they support “the other side”, it’s because they genuinely don’t know enough about the situation to trust either side. Maybe that’s not what you intended to communicate but it is what I perceive.
There are a lot of nations that in various votes in the UN has sat out entirely. You might interpret that as malice, but it could also be “this is not our fight and we don’t want to get involved” or “we don’t know enough to have an opinion”. A small nation in, say, Africa battling its own problems may see no reason to have anything to do with the Hamas-Israel war - they’re not taking sides, they just don’t care. That may feel very cold but it’s also a reality.
I do accept that this is broadly the opinion of most of the Israeli public. But ISTM that this by itself isn’t enough to improve Israel security (meaning the likelihood of the only guarantor of security, peace). If this is all that happens, Israel will be in the same danger next year and after that. Destroying Hamas is necessary, but by itself, ISTM, accomplishes nothing but showing that Israeli is willing and able to retaliate (which I think everyone already accepted).
Further, how can you trust that this Israeli government can accomplish this? The IDF doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The IDF, quite clearly, failed on Oct 7th. I’m sure Netanyahu and his allies bear a huge share of the blame for the failure to anticipate and defend the country, but the IDF failed as well.
The thrust of what I’m getting at is what can possibly get accomplished with Netanyahu and his allies in power? Not only are they malevolent, but they’re incompetent. And they are the faces of this war to the rest of the world. ISTM that keeping them in power weakens Israel every day, no matter what the IDF accomplishes in Gaza.