Is israel committing war crimes as this opinion/article suggests?

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok I’m putting this here in the pit as I know this has been an emotional subject for as long as I’m alive (in fact I think Israel took over the west bank a year or two before I was born )

Now I know there’s a lot of people who think Israel can do no wrong in dealing with the west bank/Gaza etc and to think otherwise is terroristic antisemitism

I’m wondering if this guy has a point or just spouting off …

here’s the article:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/israels-big-lie-this-isnt-self-defense-—-its-a-war-crime-aided-and-abetted-by-the-us/ar-BB1gLHhM?ocid=SK2DDHP

What says the dope ?

2

I’m going to repost my response to that article from the thread in question, without further comment for the time being:

I disagree with a number of things in this article.

  1. The author speaks of targeting residential high rises but declines to mention they were being used as Hamas command centers and that the Israeli military phoned in advance so people were able to evacuate. I mentioned upthread that Israel has not issued much of a justification for hitting the press building so I’m waiting to hear their argument there. But I do think it’s dangerous to exclude this fact.

  2. The author says that Israel is indiscriminately killing thousands of civilians, while basically tut-tutting over the fact Hamas is the party actually using indiscriminate weapons. By all accounts both now and in 2014, Israel was using targeted weapons and targeted strikes, and appeared to generally make attempts to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties. There are some examples where these standards were not upheld, but his portrayal of Israel as just massacring as many Palestinians as possible is not in line with the factual reality of these conflicts.

  3. He casually references “ethnic cleansing” of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in the formation of the State of Israel. This is a horrifying simplification of the reality. The reality is near the end of the British rule over “Mandatory Palestine” a civil war broke out between Jews and Arabs. Horrific war crimes occurred between both sides, this was not a pretty war, it was a street fight more or less, between two quasi-state entities going at each other. Many of the referenced 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes, and were not expelled, as they sought to avoid the fighting. Some were expelled. However the way he portrays it is as if Israel fell out of the sky in a space ship and forced 750k Palestinians out of their home. He completely declines to mention that just the approaching spectre of the Jews in the region being given a state (while other former Ottoman subjects were being given the exact same thing) was enough to precipitate mass Arab hatred across Jews around the region, including expulsions of Jewish communities from ancestral Jewish quarters in cities throughout the Middle East, some of which were over a thousand years old. In the civil war, Jews did bad things. So did the Arabs. It is incredibly dishonest the way this author painted the conflict. He also completely ignores the fact that that civil war lead right into the 1948 invasion of Israel by much of the Arab world after Israel declared its independence, or that the “1967 war” he just mentions with no context other than to explain that is when Israel’s occupation of the West Bank begun–omitting the fact that the causes and activities of the 1967 war are generally controversial to this day and that many view it as an attempt to basically end the existence of Israel.

  4. He then spends multiple paragraphs blasting Israel for forming a relationship with Saudi Arabia, due to Saudi Arabia’s terrible human rights record. This is rank hypocrisy considering the entire Western world largely enjoys robust diplomatic and trading relationships with Saudi Arabia, but Israel who has to contend with the actual realities of the Middle East at the ground level, is somehow singled out for dealing with KSA? What a fucking load of bullshit.

Frankly, this is a bad article by a stupid person who shouldn’t be read again.

I will admit to being strongly pro-Israel. Meaning I believe Jews have an innate right to live in Israel and their presence there is fundamentally legitimate. But I don’t want it to sound like I am blind to anything Israel has done–Israel has much to answer for with many of its behaviors, but the answer to that reality is not to publish an article like Salon did that paints Israel as the evil monsters in a one sided conflict in which only Israel is bad, that isn’t a helpful way to understanding the reality.

3

Yeah, the State of Israel has been committing war crimes for years.
I’m not saying that Hamas firing missiles is good or smart; I don’t see that it makes any strategic sense at all. But Israel is run by hyper-nationalists now.

4

I think it’s fair to accuse “the entire Western World” of a moral failure by getting in bed with the Saudi royal family.

5

…the IDF are CLAIMING they were being used as Hamas command centers. But as you know the IDF have not proven that they are Hamas command centers. Not running
unverified claims is the correct thing for reputable news agencies to do.

The IRA used to phone in advance.

And the IDF don’t always phone in advance. In fact we don’t actually know how often they do phone in advance. Yusef Abu Hussein for example didn’t get a phone call. He just ended up dead. Claiming they “phone ahead” is just blatant propaganda. It means nothing.

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Sure and I think that actually isn’t even a particularly difficult argument to make, frankly. My core issue was the Salon article engaging in what I genuinely feel is a “pattern and practice” of painting a scenario in which Israel is a “special villain” or a “representative of many of the ills of the West”, this usually is done by people with a certain bent, and often comes with completely minimizing or ignoring the varied complexities that make the conflict…complicated. I think a blank check for Israel from the West is an impediment to peace. However, the thing that many want to do is to replace that blank check with a lopsided view of the conflict that paints Israel as evil and Palestine as virtuous. This just isn’t a black and white morality play, and I don’t think you correct inappropriate behavior by the West in giving Israel a blank check, but trying to paint Israel as apartheid South Africa (which had basically no justifications to its actions vs Israel where the history is complicated and has involved multiple major wars designed to erase Israel’s existence.)

7

Are you under the impression that South African history is simple? Or that it didn’t involve wars to erase Afrikaner nations? If Israelis are “justified” by existential threat, so were the Boers.

I’ve been persuaded that the Israel situation is not the same as Apartheid, but if your opponents are painting Israel as a “special villain”, you’re doing the inverse here. There’s nothing particularly unique about its opponents trying to wipe the nation out. “They want to end the existence of Israel” is not the moral trump card some seem to think it is.

8

Same thing I said in the other thread, if you choose a side in this conflict then you are wrong. Both sides are awful. Both sides kill people indiscriminately. Neither side operates in good faith with the rest of the world. They both consider themselves under siege and justify everything they do by claiming it is necessary for their survival.

9

Yep, that’s my feeling. Both sides are committing war crimes, so the answer to the OP is “Yes”

The Geneva Code does not have a “but I WhatsApped the civilians first…” exception, AFAIK.

10

@Martin_Hyde: What are your thoughts about the position that Gideon Levy (an award winning Ha’aretz columnist) holds on what he considers to be Israel’s version of an Apartheid state approach to Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank. I realize that words such as Apartheid are loaded and people immediately want to make distinctions between S.A. history and that of Israel. But if we can get past trying to point out differences and focus on Israel’s treatment of Palestinians separate and apart from the threats which Israel faced to it’s borders in past wars. Perhaps it’s time to stop perpetuating the idea that Israel is at constant DefConX for its very existence from neighboring states in order to justify its response and ongoing treatment of the Palestinian population.

11

I think there are elements of truth to it, which should be something that prompts self-reflection in Israel.

But I will also say the situation is quite unique in Israel because it fought an actual war of survival with its Arab neighbors in 1948, and only signed an Armistice with them–not a peace treaty. The war continued in 1967 with again, all of Israel’s Arab neighbors fighting it (and losing)–this resulted in the Israeli occupation of the “Occupied Territories.” There was then a three year period of fighting in Sinai called the “War of Attrition”, and then the 1973 Yom Kippur War, again between the original parties of the 1948 war. This war lead to the 1978 Camp David Accords, which finally saw Egypt and Israel sign a peace treaty, but Israel remained at war with all of the other participants of the 1948 war for years after, and in fact is still legally at war with Syria and Lebanon today.

The Israeli political leadership class is old (as is true of most countries), many of them are veterans of these wars. This strongly shapes the way people think–there are many observed political trends that historians have linked to the veterans of the American Civil War running the country for the next 30 years, Veterans of WWII doing the same later on and etc, being in something as traumatic as a war causes life long changes in how one thinks and behaves. South Africa really faced nothing like this. Israel for about 30 years very legitimately could say it was engaged in actual war with all of its neighbors, and as part of that war it occupied territory that, previously being under Arab occupation, was a grave strategic threat to Israel in this war.

It would be like if in addition to the domestic issues of apartheid South Africa, there were 5 powerful African countries, who occupied territory that nearly cut South Africa in half, ringing South Africa and in a state of legal war with it. This element cannot be fully dismissed or forgotten.

The fact that shooting wars broke out 3 times in 25 years created pretty strong justification for Israel to act and behave as if it was facing grave security threats, which justified occupying territory for defensive purposes.

Also different from many “colonial” powers, if Israel leaves those territories, it isn’t like France leaving Vietnam or America leaving the Philippines. The occupied territories are not thousands of miles away, they are next door.

Now all that being said, the world has changed over time. Over the decades after the Camp David Accords in 1978, arguably any real risk of “hot war” with Israel’s Arab neighbors declined precipitously, in fact Israel went on to eventually make peace with most of these neighbors other than Syria/Lebanon, and Syria’s military capacities are minimal compared to Israel’s and Lebanon is only vaguely even an independent state.

What started as a strategically justifiable, especially given the actual genuine threats to national survival, defensive occupation, has slowly morphed into…something else entirely. However Likud and its political leadership, and indeed much of the right in Israeli society, still largely talk about this conflict and the occupation in the context of the wars between 1948 and 1973. This isn’t entirely crazy person behavior, if you were a veteran of those wars they are much more salient in your mind than they are to a person who is 30 or 40 years old and wasn’t alive or was a baby during those wars. Much of the political leadership on the Israeli right were literally “baptized in fire” of major wars with a coalition of Arab states. That context I think is important for understanding the behavior involved.

12

Israel has been committing war crimes since 1948.

13

I don’t see where I’ve said South Africa’s history is particularly simple. I don’t know a ton about it frankly, but I do know a good bit about Israel’s history.

I do know the procedural facts of the two situations were very different, South Africa had its origins in a European colony with roots dating back to the 18th century. A lot of white settlers over a 200 year period moved to and established lives in the territory. After being granted independence, the whites who (unsurprisingly given how colonialism works) dominated the economic and political structures, sought to establish in the 50s a legal regime that would lead to permanent political entrenchment of white power. Then there was decades of political developments after that.

I think it is fair to say that given human nature, the desire of white South Africans to do what they did, is not shocking. But I’m not sure even in the context of the 1950s you can say it was morally or ethically justifiable, even by the standards of those times. Just like Jim Crow in 1950s America, which I understand why it existed, from a sociological perspective, it was not morally or ethically justifiable.

Israel’s situation is different because it faced 25 years of war with a large coalition of much larger neighbors, declared in 1948 with a specific goal of genocide. In that context I believe occupation of the Occupied Territories for defensive purposes was actually justified in the time it occurred. I believe as I mentioned in my previous post, as conditions have changed in the years since 1978, that context has become less justified, and Israel has done much to undermine the claim that this is a defensive strategic military occupation (i.e. massive settlement building, annexation of East Jerusalem and other things.) The origin of the OT doesn’t give Israel a blank check 55 years later, but I do think it makes it different enough from apartheid in South Africa that it represents an unhelpful simplification to pain the two as equivalent.

14

So has the United States and a large list of other countries. But like the United States Israel has an actual posture and practice of attempting to minimize civilian casualties in all military actions it is engaged in.

15

Don’t be disingenuous - you contrasted Apartheid SA with Israel : “vs Israel where the history is complicated” etc…

The implication there is that SA’s isn’t, or else didn’t involve major wars over national existence.

I’m OK with you walking that back, but that was clearly the comparison you were making.

It’s clearly never been justifiable - but the justification they used wasn’t actually a 50s one, it was an 1890s one.. Everything about Apartheid harks back to that loss.

16

I think as is typical of you, you are unusually sensitive about any reference to your country. That does not give you leave to categorize or classify my arguments for me. I was not saying South African history was simple. I was saying that it is simple that Apartheid was morally wrong. Do you think it is “complicated” as to whether Apartheid was wrong or not? If so make that argument.

17

Also rereading my original post when I said

Sure and I think that actually isn’t even a particularly difficult argument to make, frankly. My core issue was the Salon article engaging in what I genuinely feel is a “pattern and practice” of painting a scenario in which Israel is a “special villain” or a “representative of many of the ills of the West”, this usually is done by people with a certain bent, and often comes with completely minimizing or ignoring the varied complexities that make the conflict…complicated.

I was specifically replying to a post that said the West’s involvement with Saudi Arabia was a moral failure. The actual post you quoted I was literally not even referencing South Africa at all, either directly or in response to the post I was quoting. Not everything in the world is about South Africa.

18

No, I’m just sensitive to people getting facts wrong.

I quoted you. If that’s mischaracterization, I suggest you take it up with your stenographer, not me.

And I’m saying that the justification that was put forward for Apartheid was not simple. You said “no justification”, but there were plenty given, mostly related to a history of oppression and a religious imperative.

Starts to look similar then, doesn’t it?

19

Oh, kindly fuck off, you fucking liar.

20

I mean if you are not able to see the threaded conversation here, and literally see that I was responding to a post about Saudi Arabia, I’m not sure you can be helped and suggest you probably have a deficiency of intelligence or reading ability.