You are correct that the Geneva Conventions of 1949 did not prove an impediment to these attacks.
Which part of the Geneva conventions say that military targets are off limits if there are civilians nearby?
The same part that says that frogs should always wear overalls when they’re on TV. Act like you got some sense.
I think that “surrender” is not even an option, from the point of view of Hamas, or Iran, or other hardliners. I think the only option that these groups have on the table is “All Jews Die”. That’s pretty much their stated policy. Pretty hard to negotiate with a group who has that as their underlying principle.
Clearly I meant “What part of today’s Geneva Conventions forbid targeting legitimate military targets if civilians might be killed in the process?”
Article 52:
"In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage. "
When the only way to fight an enemy is to attack them in the cities, and you are fighting an existential fight, clearly the conditions of Article 52 are met. The key, like I said before, is that civilian consequences must be proportional to the value of the military objective and there is no other way to achieve it that would incur less civilian damage.
Sam. Nobody has made a claim that the Geneva Conventions do that. Stop arguing against what people aren’t saying. Show some sense.
Exactly. Which severely limits Israel’s options.
I would love to hear any of the critics describe an alternate way of achieving the goal of deatroying Hamas, or alternatively, why Israel should allow Hamas to exist after such a heinous act. Doing so would just invite more atrocities, and the first duty of any government is to ensure the safety of its citizens.
I’m baffled even about how to deliver much needed humanitarian aid to the people in Gaza with Hamas fully in charge.
I get that the aid is desperately needed, and the fastest, best way to get it to the people is “no questions asked, here you go”
However, this seems to be complicated when Hamas is happy to use the suffering of their own people as a means to achieve their goal (eradication of all Jews) Perhaps I’m just a victim of propaganda here - I’d be happy to be disabused of my notions.
At the moment though, it seems that any aid given by humanitarian organizations will simply be channeled through Hamas with the ultimate aim of destroying Israel.
For example (again, correct me if I’m totally off base here)
Give water pipelines so that safe drinking water may be available for all citizens of Gaza; Hamas takes the pipe and uses it to make rockets
Give much needed food and medical supplies to the people of Gaza; Hamas takes a bunch for their own fighters, gives a token amount to the citizens and sells the rest on the black market to get more money for weapons
Aid organizations set up safe centers for fleeing citizens of Gaza; Hamas sets up roadblocks to prevent them from reaching the safe centers, as they want them as human shields.
I have no solutions. Just despair.
Realistically speaking, I’m not sure that Hamas’s existence is something that Israel can choose to “allow” or “not allow”.
I remember very similar rhetoric in the US about “destroying” the Taliban and al-Qaeda following the 9/11 attacks. Twenty-two years after the invasion of Afghanistan and twenty years after the invasion of Iraq (both involving some notable war crimes on the part of the US), the Taliban is doing fine and al-Qaeda has ramified into Daesh/Islamic State and other terrorist organizations still doing a bunch of damage globally.
I support the capture and punishment of terrorists, but I’m not on board with subjecting civilians to massive amounts of war crime (or even small amounts of war crime) in order to pursue complete eradication of any terrorist organization, which past experience indicates is likely a futile goal anyway.
The only thing, AFAICT, that will substantially and permanently reduce the influence of violent terrorist movements in the Palestinian occupied territories is substantive change in Israeli policy so that Palestinians actually have equal rights and sovereignty in their ancestral homeland. And even that, IMO, won’t fully eradicate violent terrorism in the region.
So I think your putative simple binary choice between Israel “allowing” Hamas to exist or Israel “destroying” Hamas is a false dichotomy. I don’t see any realistic scenario in which Israel, while it continues to control and claim sovereignty over the Palestinian territories, can literally destroy Hamas. The most they can do is to severely knock back some current Hamas supporters and materiel while inflicting horrific collective punishment on tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians. (And most of the actually effective knocking-back part could probably be accomplished without the massive-war-crimes part.)
I was browsing around and found the following remarks I made on 29 September 2001:
Twenty-two years on, that remains true, not only regarding the US but regarding Israel or any other power.
Can you tell me what that looks like, practically? Israel has 1200 innocents murdered, and Hamas fades back into the civilian population in Gaza. So what then? A couple of token strikes against a headquarters or something, followed by a cease-fire? And then wait for the next atrocity?
You are also ignoring that Iran is partly behind this, and Iran’s reason is religious. Israel is the 'Little Satan" and must be destroyed. How do you negotiate with that? Where is the middle ground? Only destroy half of us in exchange for peace?
This isn’t just about land. There is a real religious war going on here. The secular left has a hard time understanding that, and always put things in terms of oppressor/oppressed. But Iran isn’t oppressed by Israel, but has still been trying to destroy it since the Ayatollah came to power. Hamas gets funding, weaponry, encouragement and training from Iran, as does Hezbollah.
But you are right that destroying Hamas isn’t guaranteed, and the damage done in trying could breed more terrorism. I don’t have a good answer to that. I’m afraid that we are heading into a much larger war in the region involving the U.S. and Iran, and possibly Syria and other players as well. There are no easy answers.
That is true and Iran has been criticized for it. In this latest attack, there is no proof Iran was behind it, but nobody believes they were surprised either. If they weren’t directly involved, they at least helped Hamas prepare by providing money and arms to them (whether it was recently or in the past).
Joe Biden is warning Iran that their part in this hasn’t been forgotten, and “the left” has no problem understanding that this is very much an issue of Islam vs Judaism as much as it is an issue of what people live where.
What sucks is there are no easy answers. Israel isn’t going anywhere regardless of what Hamas wants. Hamas isn’t going to be easily eliminated, if it’s possible at all. Innocent people on both sides are dying. It’s all a bunch of awful shit.
Yeah, it’s depressing. Historically, the way intractable conflicts like this end is when one side completely obliterates the other. Russia did it in Chechnya, China is doing it to the Uyghers, The Hutu did it to the Tutsi, etc.
If Israel actually was the bloodthirsty country it’s accused of being, rather than a liberal democracy full of decent people, the ‘solution’ would be to flatten Gaza by air or artillery until nothing was left, as Russia did to Grozny and Melitopol.
But Israel isn’t that kind of country, so it has nothing but a bunch of really bad options, none of which are likely to secure a lasting peace.
The devastation wrought on Palestinians is already far more than “token”, and the prospects of future atrocities aren’t in any way guaranteed to be changed by additional devastation. As you yourself admit, the more brutal slaughter of Palestinians Israel commits, the more they’re incentivizing future acts of terrorism.
There’s always religious fanaticism playing some role, on all sides. For that matter, Shi’ite-dominated Iran has been involved in religion-related wars (including the current level of “cold war” or “proxy conflict”) with its Sunni-majority neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia, for decades.
But it’s stupidly naive to imagine that the only thing driving Iran’s activities (or for that matter, even the activities of all Hamas supporters) is religious zeal. Nonsense. Realpolitik issues are the most important thing here overall, including not only Palestinian rights but the Iran-Saudi balance of power and the potential effects on that of a Saudi-Israel normalization. None of those involves merely a simple division into oppressor and oppressed, but none of them can be explained by handwaving about “religious war” either.
And I would have thought, considering the poor outcomes of the extended wars whose commencement you were enthusiastically advocating on these boards two decades ago, that the lessons of experience might have slowed down your saber-rattling a bit. It is really kind of depressing how many people are resolutely refusing to learn from the bad choices of the past.
The Hutu did not obliterate the Tutsi. There are 3-4 million Tutsi living in Burundi and Rwanda…approx. 14% of the population. More live in the DRC. The Tutsi led Rwandan Patriotic Front has formed the government in Rwanda since 1994. Where did you get the idea they had been “obliterated?”
Also, there are one and a half million Chechens living in Chechnya, and their population there has averaged about one and a quarter million since 1989. They are by no means “obliterated” either.
(Nor are the Uyghurs, despite genocidal actions that human rights groups have—with reason, AFAICT—accused China of perpetrating in Xinjiang.)
Palestinian innocents. Israeli innocents must be revenged at all costs, even if current numbers say twice as many Palestinians have died since October 7th than Israelis. This is literally what I’m talking about. “Some of you may die, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Where did you see anyone say anything reconsidering an invasion when Chingon pointed out hundreds of thousands of Palestinians may die (they pointed out children, I won’t be that discriminate)? The literal only response was “Well, that’s the fault of Hamas, too”.
Read the thread, it’s become the Pit thread for the entire conflict.
Let me be clear, because I’ve already been told I was consumed with hatred and stupidity. I hate Hamas. I hate what they did and who they targeted. I hate those that defend them. Full stop. If I was king and could send them all to meet their god, I would. But the past week has been an unending stream of revenge porn, both on the Dope and media at large. That rhetoric helped killed a child, who escaped the unending cycle of violence in Palestine, in the US. The response has been literally silence, except to attack the person calling the bullshit out. Was my comment unnecessarily snarky? You’re goddamn right, and I don’t give a shit.
Let me be frank… You’re a fucking idiot. Not only that, you’re an asshole using a child’s murder by a racist psychopath to win points. Shove a lead candelabra up your ass.
Yup, you sure as fuck have been.
Pretty much anything one could say in this context to argue against any policy could potentially be described as “using a child’s murder by a racist psychopath to win points”. There have been a lot of racist psychopaths murdering children in all directions, sadly.
(Not that I’m trying to claim that every death of either Palestinian or Israeli children has been a direct result of murderous racist psychopathy rather than unintended consequences, but there are plenty of examples of such psychopathy to go around.)
I didn’t see @Chingon point that out at all–but over and over and over and over in this thread I’ve seen many posters express concern, dismay, anger, grief, and helplessness over the deaths of Palestinian civilians, as well as over the deaths of Israeli civilians. Sure, there are a few chestthumping assholes who are down with genocide if they think it’s necessary–but they’re not the only people on the board, and they’re getting plenty of pushback. Have you really missed all these posts?
I just checked, and @Chingon hasn’t posted in this thread. But I’ve made a similar point to the one you’re ascribing to Chingon. Are you confusing us?