I was thinking specifically of the rocket attacks, which can be called “acts of war,” although I do agree that “war” may not be the right term for the overall status.
On the other hand, what do you call it when both sides are engaged in “acts of war” against each other? It durn well ain’t “peace.” I don’t know what the technical diplomatic term is for such a status.
occupation tends to be part of war. Also, that war began before the occupation of the West Bank. There were Palestinian terrorists attacking Israel before 1967, or for that matter, 1948 or even the 1936 “Great Arab Revolt.”
Israel showed the world in the past that for peace, it would give up occupation. Where did it do this? EGYPT! Israel had the entire Sinai Peninsula, built settlements there, and took them out once the Egyptians made peace. The Palestinians should learn from them. Same with America and Japan/Germany.
It does tho, always seem to be the Islam apologizers who dislike Israel. Wonder why; “Intersectionality,” much?
But Egypt, Japan and Germany were all nation-states, whose own sovereignty was recognized even in military defeat. AFAICT, Israel doesn’t recognize any sovereign authority over the occupied territories other than Israel itself. Whom is Israel supposed to cut the deal with?
That’s the $64 question.
The best answer is “The Palestinian Authority.” And there have been some real and meaningful talks between Israel and the PA. However, they’re hopelessly hung up over non-negotiable terms – the Right of Return, recognition of Israel’s existence, where the exact borders should be, and so on. So the status quo continues, painfully.
(For just one more moment, I’m going to be partisan, and note that Israel recognizes the right of Muslim groups to maintain the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock…while Palestinian groups have desecrated Jewish shrines in the West Bank. This is a bad breakdown of parity, and makes Israel somewhat more “White Hattish” than the Palestinians. I wish both sides could have shown the same respect for each other’s holy places.)
How many times do I have to say it? READ POST #175 before you ask me obvious bullshit.
I’ve just provided cites which disprove it. It doesn’t matter what you “know”, or what you claim others know: this is not a subjective exercise, but one of interpreting international laws.
You are demonstrating facts that disprove your own theory.
The issue isn’t whether Israelis “knew” that civilians would die in the war in Gaza: it is obvious that civilians would die in a war fought in an urban environment. The only alternative that avoids the obvious probability of killing civilians is - not to fight.
However, that isn’t the test. The test is expressly not whether a combatant knows civilians are going to be killed, but rather, whether those deaths are (i) the whole point of the attack, or (ii) “clearly disproportionate” to the military objectives sought by the attack.
Seems to me from what you posted, the Israelis were taking pains not to kill civilians, what with their ‘warning shot’. This demonstrates that they were not deliberately set out to kill civilians. Whether the casualties they did, nonetheless, cause rise to the ‘clearly disproportionate’ level depend on an analysis in each case of the value of the military objectives they were pursuing - an analysis you have not attempted.
Again, that is not the test. To demonstrate that it is ‘clearly disproportionate’ you need more facts - like what military objectives the Israelis were pursuing at the time, and the number of civilian deaths pursuing those objections could reasonably be expected to cause.
The problem you face is that your proposed approach defies reality. Fighting a war in an urban area will of necessity cause civilian deaths. Interpreting international law as prohibiting such fighting on the basis that it is a ‘war crime’ merely encourages combatants to locate military assets in urban areas - the exact opposite of the desired outcome.
War is a terrible thing and in a perfect world it would not happen and no civilians should die in it. However, as long as it does happen, international laws should not be used to achieve a perverse outcome - and in this case, the actual laws doe not. Your proposed interpretation would.
Some history helps here.
The West Bank was in fact ceased from a sovereign state - Jordan - in the '67 War. Ideally, that would have led to some sort of deal, even in defeat.
However, Jordan’s claim to the territory is suspect. It simply seized the WB during the '48 War. The original UN plan was to partition the former Palestinian mandate and to create 2 states: Israel, and a Palestinian-majority state. Only Israel got created, because after the War (the intent of which was to prevent the creation of Israel), Jordan simply seized the WB for itself rather than creating a new Palestinian state, and declared everyone on the WB to be Jordanians. The only country that recognized Jordan’s seizure of the WB was the UK.
Jordan then fought Israel again and lost in 67. As a result of that war, Israel seized the WB.
However, Jordan - along with the rest of the Arab world - adamantly denied having any negotiations with Israel following the '67 war. This was famously breached by Sadat of Egypt, who negotiated a peace treaty with Israel - and was assassinated for it.
Jordan formally relinquished its claim to the WB in 1988. However, the UN still claims that the territory is “occupied” - from Jordan:
By contrast, Israel claims that, since Jordan never had a good claim to the WB in the first place and has disclaimed its claims over the territory in '88, the status of the territory is “disputed” and so “subject to negotiations” with the representatives of the Palestinians.
The sole purpose of the UN’s (very questionable IMO) stance is a narrow legalistic one: if the WB is “occupied territory” of a sovereign state such as Jordan, its boundaries may only be shifted with negotiations by that state (never going to happen now because Jordan has declaimed any responsibility for that territory) and population transfers are prohibited. If the Israelis are right, the borders are subject “to negotiations” and this favours them: they obviously have by far the stronger bargaining power and can simply “negotiate” a better deal for themselves - meaning they will help themselves to the lion’s share of the best territories.
To my mind, the UN stance is a well meaning but obviously less than logically supportable attempt to obtain the best deal possible for the Palestinians. The notion that the Israelis are ‘occupying’ Jordanian land makes no real sense under the circumstances (indeed is positively Kafkaesque), but is the way the UN seeks to correct the imbalance in bargaining power.
You can put something in quotes, but if it’s not what was said or written, that doesn’t make it a quote. It’s a misquote. A blatant misquote doesn’t win arguments.
If you look at the enemy Israel faces, they talk about it and frame the issue as a holy war between Islam and Judaism. If you consider how there’s a 1,000 Muslims for every Jew in the world, there is an imbalance there. The imbalance in casualties would then be against Israel. It’s worth bringing up to highlight the scale and the scope of the threat Israel faces. When they take defensive action against an enemy that calls for their extinction and perpetrates pretty much all manner of terrorism against them. The terrorists that use human shield and shoot their rockets from high population centers, begging Israel to respond so that they can be smeared in the international press for it. Israel is faulted when it’s all said and done for a “disproportionate response,” as though it’s a you kill one, we kill one sort of thing. Each time Israel has responded to protect its people against aggression. If the body count were really a concern, more eyes would be focused and more ink would be spilled on Syria. And more bile is spewed against Israel on college campuses than it is against ISIS.
I believe the preferred term was “Peace Process”.
70% of Gazans live below the poverty line. They are stateless people, ruled over by gangster warlords and arbitrary Israeli military justice, their land illegally confiscated by settlements, with no opportunities and nothing to lose. One could hardly design a situation more suited to violence and chaos. The threat the Palestinian Territories pose to Israel is nothing compared to the threat everyday life poses to your average Palestinian.
The threat the Palestinian Territories pose to Israel has never been a threat of a straight military contest between Palestinians and Israelis, at least since the founding of the Israeli state. There is not doubt that Israel is immensely the stronger of the two. That’s one of the primary reasons for Palestinian misery.
Rather, the threat to Israel that emerges from the Palestinian Territories is two-fold:
(1) To the Israeli individual, worrying about random terrorist attacks; and
(2) The use by others, much more powerful than the Palestinians themselves, of the Palestinian cause at an excuse or trigger for war.
In the past, this meant the other Arab states, who launched a series of wars against Israel, ostensibly at least on behalf of the Palestinians (although, as described above, this did the actual Palestinians no good - even when the Arab states held what is now the Palestinian Territories, they simply took it for themselves rather than creating a Palestinian State).
Today, that threat is mostly history, as the Arab states are mostly willing to deal with Israel (however reluctantly) and, more importantly, are facing much greater contemporary danger - from Islamicists such as ISIS. The threat to Israel will emerge if those Islamicists succeed.
So If Israel is not an occupying power that owes the duty that occupying powers owe to the civilians in occupied territories and the West bank is part of Israel proper then why aren’t the people who were born in the West bank Israeli citizens with all the privileges and immunities of Israeli citizens? It seems to me that Israel wants to keep them in limbo because none of the alternatives are particularly attractive to them.
I suppose its better than being ground under the treads of tanks but life there seems pretty shitty and Israel seems to bear at least some of the blame for their misery.
IIRC the pro-Zionist side of the debate doesn’t want a one state solution OR a two state solution. They want a buffer state solution.
There has been an interesting recent development: the Israelis have prohibited non-Muslims from visiting the shrines during Ramadan, in accordance with Palestinian demands, after a couple of days of Palestinian rioting.
I disagree. I believe Israel plans for an eventual Palestinian state, but wishes to ‘carve off’ bits of what used to be Jordanian WB territory for itself (notably, East Jerusalem). That’s the point of the ‘settlements’ - to carve off chunks by creating ‘facts on the ground’.
Palestinians living on the new ‘Israeli side’ (again, notably East Jerusalemites) would presumably become Israeli citizens; those living on the ‘Palestinian side’ would become Palestinian state citizens. The difficulty will be what to do with Palestinians in the carved-off sections unwilling to accept Israeli citizenship.
Israel could not do what Jordan attempted and simply make all WB inhabitants Israelis - not only because that would alarm Israelis (though it would), but more importantly, it would be fundamentally unacceptable to Palestinians, as it would mark the end of their nationalism.
The “limbo” currently is the result of both obdurate Israeli leadership (Bibi & Co.) and, more importantly, of fundamental demands by the Palestinian negotiators which are simply not acceptable to the Israelis: namely, that Palestine gets Jerusalem, and that Palestinians get an unlimited ‘right of return’. Israel will never agree to those demands, and the Palestinian negotiators know it; however, the Palestinian negotiators could not survive Palestinian anger if they agree to give them up - Arabs who negotiate peace deals with Israel have a tendency to be assassinated, and I have no doubt that any Palestinian leader agreeing to give up these demands risks his life. I don’t blame either side for this reality, it just is what it is.
So there’s thousands of Muslims per Jew, so it’s acceptable to kill more of them? Well, imagine how many Chinese they could kill! Hey, all we have to do is pick the right numerator and we can kill millions of innocents and still be on the side of justice. There’s billions of you and only one of me, what’s my limit?
Your cites prove nothing of the sort. How do you with a straight face manage to say in the same sentence that it’s both ‘not subjective’ and ‘based on interpretation?’
The Israelis also ‘knew’ from past experience that there would be very high civilian death rates. I just hope that they don’t decide to target someone near me so I can get to experience their ‘humanitarian’ way of warning potential victims.
The only objective that was completed was exacting retribution. It didn’t stop attacks. What it did do was kill more than 1,800 people whose only ‘crime’ was geographic location. But since you’re demanding evidence, how about providing a little of your own? How many urban battles resulted in 50% civilian casualty rates?
You can argue legalities till you’re blue in the face. This isn’t an international court of law. I’m not a judge finding whether war crimes were committed or not. And you will not EVER convince me that that high a casualty rate compared to the tiny casualty rate to Israelis was just a regrettable circumstance of war. It was asymmetric response, plain and simple.
Huh? Interpretation of a law isn’t “subjective”. Do you think judges and lawyers just decide cases based on how they feel?
Yes, I too would not want a war fought in my city. Though if one is, I’d hope the combatants made some attempt to not just kill everyone in their path; seems to me the Israelis are to be credited for that, not blamed.
Actually, 50% civilian casualty rates is the historical average for wars in general. Cite:
http://sdi.sagepub.com/content/20/1/89.full.pdf
Unfortunately requires login]
Cited: Civilian casualty ratio - Wikipedia
Naturally, civilian casualties could be expected to be considerably higher in a specifically urban environment alone - so the Israeli feat of achieving a mere 50% casualty rate, the historic average for war in general, is remarkable.
Well, given you have just announced you are not susceptible to argument, I’ll stop arguing. Though I will point out that announcing you are impervious to argument isn’t very convincing to others.
It’s the reality of the situation that Israel faces. Far from your analogy about the police. I wouldn’t subscribe to the thinking of radical Islamic terrorists, but it’s important to know their aims and motivations. When there are Imams in Gaza preaching the stabbing of civilians, tunnels being dug underfoot, rockets being fired in the air, anti-Semitism being taught in school. It’s easy to second guess from a distance. This isn’t simply a matter of Palestinian teenagers throwing some rocks, it’s a war zone. How should Israel respond and where’s the line? And how come we only draw that line when it’s Israel defending itself?
Maybe Israel would engender more sympathy if they used Israeli women and children as human shields like the other side does with Palestinian women and children. A way to up the body count on their side so people a world away don’t start calling it “asymmetric.” If the Israeli military works anything like America’s, and of course it does, they try to limit their death toll. America would have no more military if it swapped deaths with all the Iraqi and Afghan civilians killed, which is apparently what they’re supposed to do, in order to avoid the “asymmetric” brand.
Who is “we”? Personally I’m against killing innocent people regardless of who does it.