It is an art form to figure out where the line is.
Apologies.
I’m just extremely frustrated with a certain poster suddenly deciding that we’re discussing the West Bank as an attempt to wiggle out of a hole he dug for himself. A poster that wants to squabble about the meaning of words but won’t accept a dictionary definition. A poster that seemingly has no concept of what malnutrition is or the dangers of water-born infectious diseases. A poster that seems to think something has to actually kill people to be dangerous.
I am at a loss for words. Frustrated and exasperated. And due to that I cracked. I’m sorry.
However, reasoning that because in that clause they authours use the term interchangeably within a single clause that whenever “belligerent” is used throughout the document “belligerent State” is meant appears to me to be a weak argument.
Note that in that clause in question starts with the term “belligerent State”, thus making it clear that the later term "belligerent, used within the very same clause, is meant to stand for “belligerent State”.
In contrast, the section on blockades does not use the term "belligerent State. The natural read is that not only “states” may be “belligerents”.
This interpretation reads into the Manual a prohibition that does not exist. Why presume a not-applicability on such grounds?
No-where in the document is there any statement that a non-state actor cannot be a “belligerent”. Moreover, it makes no sense. If that were true, one could never “legally” blockade a territory in succession or revolt.
To presume non-applicability would be to mistake the purpose of international law regarding conflicts. The purpose of that law is not to enable conflicts. They happen whether the law says so or not. The purpose of the law is to ameliorate the violence and destruction that such conflicts create. To declare that certain conflicts are not subject to international law does not mean that they won’t happen, but rather that there is nothing to restrain the damage that they cause.
The better view is that conflicts, even between state and non-state actors, are still restrained by the laws.
Which is one of the reasons that I agree with you and many others that the way the operation on the *Marmara *was carried out was stupid, stupid, STUPID (in addition to, y’know, small piddling details like 9 dead people :()
Way for us to win a battle but lose the war…
I agree with you. But I think where we’ll need to agree to disagree is on the use of the specific word “directed.” Civilian suffering in Gaza, like in any war zone, is the potential result of three proximate causes:
- Their own leaders (Hamas) making life difficult for the masses to score political points (or just out of sheer kleptocracy)
- The other side (Israel) making life difficult for the masses out of sheer hate and spite. AND
- General conditions, AKA “War is Hell.”
I submit that most of the detractors of Israel will claim that the breakdown of causes here is something like 10-80-10 (i.e., 80% a result of Israeli spite and hatered); my personal view is that it is more like 20-20-60.
which is still 20% too much in category 2!! I am not in any way claiming that Israel as a concept, or Israelis as individuals, are white-clad angels with harps – we have our share of assholes and bigots, and like everywhere else they are drawn to power like moths to light. Only that we are not the devils that our detractors are setting out to make us, rather that we are trying to bumble, generally the best we can, through a lose-lose situation – no worse than any other country would or does, and arguably (in my mind) actually a lot less poorly than many others.
But how many people have been starved (apparently a loaded term in this thread) of needed supplies from the blockade in the Egyptian side? Why doesn’t that draw an equal amount of ire from Gaza residents? Its essentially the same tactic, only one is being employed by fellow Arabs, the other by Jews.
Egypt is one of the few Arab nations that actually has some level of peaceful relations with Israel. Who’s blockade was initiated first? At who’s behest? Was it a cooperative effort between Israel and Egypt to both have blockades for security purposes?
In the case of Israel, the “legitimate” proto-state underground gov’t army (the Haganah) more or less violently surpressed the radical extremists (the Irgun).
Unfortunately, in the case of Gaza, the reverse happened.
The problem here, as I’ve always said, is basically the weakness of the PA. I don’t mean military weakness - I mean weakness in terms of institutional strengths: like resistance to corruption.
Until that is solved, the outlook for the entire region looks bleak.
You say that if its not essential to life, that its a luxury item, right? Would you be in favor of feeding the Gazans a liquid slurry containing water, glucose, fat, amino acids, and vitamins? I’m going to be honest and tell you that I don’t think your explanation is reasonable because I’m not convinced that chocolate or spices are a luxury in this day and age. Perhaps 200 - 300 years ago. The only justification I can think of in barring these items is to “punish” the populace - I put punish in quotation marks because it’s not clear to me what Israel is punishing the Gazans for.
There are thousands of Iraqis who were allowed entry into Dearborn, MI during and after the initial Iraqi invasion. Till this day, Dearborn remains one of the safest places in Michigan and the most highly concentrated Arab population in the Nation. I imagine, however, if the U.S or the Michigan legislature did vindictive shit like specifically preventing shops in Dearborn from stocking spices or chocolate - things would be different. Think about it. The problem isn’t about the chocolate or the spices per se; it is about denying people for the sake of denying people. How are people supposed to react to that reality, or more specifically, how do you want them to react to it?
- Honesty
Very, very odd. As evinced by your own posts, you were ignorant of the 2008 ruling until just a few hours ago. Why you’re alleging that you were ignorant of the very basics of the situation is beyond me. In any case, I’d say that the basics are what’s actually going on and not what the supreme court said about them. Whether or not the supreme court considers that what’s going on is an occupation or not, rather obviously the actual facts on the ground do not change.
Then again, I’ve also already said that I wasn’t correct and was unaware of the 2008 ruling and you’ve now mentioned that, what, five times? Six? Ah well.
Nope. You using a lesser used denotation for a term in order to buttress a political point does not make me wrong.
You’re now arguing that chocolate is an essential food because it has antioxidants, or calories, or maybe calcium, or maybe because it was in US ration kits but cigarettes were too, but those don’t count because that example shows that your use of the ‘rations’ example is, ironically enough, a rationalization.
Your claims are now that there is mass starvation going on in Gaza that is so severe that someone can be born into it and live another 70 years, at which point they die of old age. Truly, a humanitarian catastrophe.
Then again since you’re now also arguing that Americans who happen to lack, say, vitamin C are starving, I guess that America is also a humanitarian crisis zone.
Who knew?
But I guess when one of the wealthiest nations on the planet is a “humanitarian crisis” due to “starvation”, then your argument really doesn’t mean anything.
You already did. You made claims about disease that were shown to not be increasing and were, in fact, perfectly within expected seasonal averages with no epidemic.
I just quoted it. You say one thing, the ruling itself says the opposite. As I pointed out earlier, it was in the parts that you excluded while cherypicking a quote. Here, this time I’ll underline it.
Likewise, I cited and quoted Elbassiouni v. Prime Minister for you and it very clearly outlines those obligations. If you’re claiming these are not the facts, please cite where the 2008 ruling says something other than, I suppose, what I just quoted it saying.
The USA most certainly does have the right to inspect all ships coming into Cuba, if the US is maintaining a declared naval blockade of Cuba. Read about the “Cuban Missile Crisis”. You harm your own position by that ill-considered statement.
Fortification material. Automatically “contraband of war”, and thus must be rejected under a proper GC-legal blockade.
Yet you want to extend the previous discussion about Gaza to include the West Bank so your claims about me being incorrect would be true.
The problem being, of course, that we were not discussing the West Bank.
Lesser used my arse. Maybe for you, but your are not the arbitrator of the English language. Where I come from (England, where English comes from) it is a very common use of the word.
You are painfully unaware of the words terms like starvation and malnutrition actually mean. Starvation we have obviously covered.
There is a very real and valid argument that obesity is malnutrition (go on, google it!) and as such vast proportions of the US are suffering from malnutrition.
Hint: malnutrition means you aren’t getting the right food. It isn’t healthy. Hence the iron and vitamin A deficiencies that UNICEF talks about. You can eat LOADS of fat and carbs and still be malnourished.
Call me weird, but I’m going with UNICEF and their experts on the ground, dealing with the situation, rather than, well, you and you lack of understanding of basic terms like malnutrition.
This is an utterly pointless hijack. We only got to that document as it is proof that Israel doesn’t consider themselves to be occupying Gaza. Something that you denied.
The lack of food, medicine, water purifying equipment, building material and whatnot due to Israel’s blockade shows that they are not living up to what an occupier would be expected to do, something that you also denied.
Two things that you are very wrong about.
Whether or not a blockade is achieving the political aims it set out to achieve is a different question than whether or not a blockade is ‘legal’ under international law.
The latter question requires an analysis of the actual level of harm that a blockade causes civilians vs. military effect of the blockade. No-one doubts that being subject to a blockade is annoying; and no doubt, being subject to someone elses’ arbitrary restrictions would be infuriating.
But let’s get real: being annoyed (and infuriated) by being deprived of coriander is a fairly minor sort of “harm” to civilians compared with being bombarded with rockets.
Or bombed by planes, utterly levelling building as opposed to the small hole in a road a rocket makes, including using white phosphorous in an illegal manner, which was then denied and denied until it became so damn obvious that Israel had to come clean.
Before we progress, please tell me more about how claim that you are totally ignorant of the basic facts about Gaza. Or at least were until a few hours ago. How would you say that matters? You seemed to be quite insistent that it was very important to discuss and showed something about my argument. What would you say it shows about yours?
See, this is why it’s important to point out factual errors like claims that Israel certified that it “was not an occupying power”. WP is legal. This is another example where the facts are taking second place to the rhetoric. While it may not have been savory that Israel used WP, it was hardly “illegal” to do so.
… what?
No discussion has to be extended. You claimed, in error, that Israel said it was not an occupying power. It doesn’t matter if Israel says it occupies the West Bank or Outer Mongolia, your claim that Israel says it is not an occupying power is false.
It would have been correct to say that Israel said it was not occupying Gaza. But you didn’t, you said Israel denied it was an occupying power. Period. Full stop.
No, I am aware that why I reject your use of such silly terminology to score rhetorical points. There’s a bit of a difference between “X% of the Gazan population evinces malnurishment in these categories. The health risks are as follows.” and “The Gazans are starving! It’s a humanitarian crisis!”
Notice how you’re shifting the language because saying that vast portions of the US are starving is absolutely laughable?
That’s the point.
Likewise, your repeated claims that I am somehow “ignoring” the issue of malnutrition is somewhat odd, as I cited and quoted it before you did.
The WHO has already been cited, showing that your claims are false.
You’re using UNICEF when they say that there were, “slightly higher” levels of infectious diseases.
But when the WHO says that it was not an epidemic and did not constitute an outbreak and was totally in accord with expected seasonal variations, you continue to rely on UNICEF only.
Wrong. We’ve already covered this, in depth. I cited it to you, I quoted it to you, you said you hadn’t ever seen it and didn’t address the numerous caveats.
Then we get Michele Bachmannesque rhetoric from Netanyahu:
Good lordy, how is anyone supposed to take Israel’s ‘legitimate concerns’ seriously with that sort of nonsense spewing from it’s prime minister?
The ‘holier than the rest of us’ routine doesn’t work when you’re preventing Gazans from making proper falafel out of spite.
Pretty sure my response to this was covered in my subsequent posts. Did you read those?
Not trying to be snide here, just want to know if there’s something I’m missing.
The difference is I didn’t make any claims without fact checking. You, several times, said that Israel considered itself to be Occupying Gaza as if your word is Gospel.
I did the adult thing. I looked things up. I first hit Wikipedia. You didn’t seem to like that as, clearly, you were right and Wikipedia is wrong. So I had to go to the official documentation of the Israeli Supreme Court to show that you were wrong. And then you tried to pretend we were talking about Gaza and the West Bank, not just Gaza.
What it shows about me is that I know how to have an adult discussion and you do not.
Here we go again. White Phosphorous is legal in certain situations. It is not legal when used against civilians or in civilian areas. That is why Israel denied using it for so long, because they had used it against civilians and in civilian areas, which is illegal.
Please start looking up things before making statements. You really are making yourself look foolish.
The discussion was about Gaza and the occupation and blockade of Gaza. Only a child would claim that someone talking about an Occupying Power is talking about anywhere but Gaza.
Adults do this because it enables them to avoid having to punctuate everything with “in Gaza”. Everyone knows that the discussion is regarding Gaza so all claims are made regarding Gaza unless explicitly stated otherwise.
This isn’t a debating technique or anything fancy like that, it is simply how adults talk.
I’m glad you find “malnutrition” to be “silly terminology”. I think that says quite a lot about you as a person.
We originally were discussion starvation, but your ignorance of the meaning of the word and refusal to accept the dictionary definition made that somewhat difficult. I tried another word, malnutrition, but unfortunately it appears you are just as ignorant about what that means too.
Clearly reading English, especially cites, is not your strong point. UNICEF said there were “significantly higher” levels, not “slightly higher”. “Significantly” and “slightly” are very different words with very different meanings. Please try to not get them confused.
They compared with the same period in the previous year and found significantly higher rates.
It is a very good thing that I didn’t claim anything about epidemics, otherwise you may have actually made a point. Well done for trying.
Please stop lying. I said I couldn’t find it. That is VERY DIFFERENT to “hadn’t ever seen it”. You really aren’t very good at this “what words mean” thing, are you?
Please tell me which caveat allows Israel to block the necessary chemicals for water purification - especially considering that it was Israel that destroyed the water infrastructure - and the many medicines required.
Neither did I. I could explain how being aware of previous Israeli claims but not the 2008 version doesn’t constitute a lack of fact checking… but then again, your argument is now that being aware of the 2008 verdict constitutes total and complete ignorance, except for you, and then it doesn’t constitute total and complete ignorance, because you were ignorant of it.
No, your repeated mistake on that part is odd. I never said we were talking about the West Bank, I pointed out that your blanket claim that Israel stated it wasn’t an occupying power was false. It’s fairly simple and I’ve now explained it to you again, and I know you read it because you quoted it in your response here.
This is fiction. * Incendiary weapons* are illegal to use against civilians or in civilian areas. WP is not an incendiary weapon. Article 1 of Protocol 3 clearly states that:
[
](http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/int/convention_conventional-wpns_prot-iii.htm)
Again, your claim was that Israel said it was not an occupying power. That is manifestly false. Especially since it was a claim in service of ‘proving’ that
“Israel does not feel the need to act as an occupying power as set by the Geneva Conventions.” Except as already cited and quoted by me, Israel did indeed accept that it had affirmative obligations to the Gazans rather than the merely negative prohibitions that are inherent in the laws of armed conflict that do not include the 4th GC.
What an odd mistake for you to make. I pointed out that a detailed discussion of malnutrition was not silly, but the “Gazans are starving!” was silly terminology. Hence, the contrast between the two phrases.
As already pointed out, UNICEF’s readings were nothing out of the ordinary, did not indicate an epidemic, and were totally expected for seasonal variations. Like I said, you are relying on the UNICEF cite even though the WHO put it into context and rebutted the claims you are making. The facts, again, are that there was no epidemic and there was no increase over seasonal norms.
Looks like you did say you hadn’t seen them.
As we’ve already had the same discussion on the same subjectseveral times, please tell me what you object to in my previous answers.
Um, yes. Facts have repeatedly been cited, as well as the damn Geneva Convention articles in question to show that Israel’s blockade is valid under international law. That you don’t want to accept the result of those facts does not alter the fact that they have been cited (repeatedly).
I have been referencing the facts of the incident in question as cited by the people trying to use those facts in support of their “Israel is acting illegally” arguments, and comparing them to the relevant Geneva Conventions. I have not bothered to look for, let alone use, any statement made by the Israeli government. All the statements I have made about international law have been made based on the “facts” claimed by the posters who are claiming that Israel acted illegally under international law. If someone who’s not even looking at the “bad guy’s” (i.e. Israel’s) claims, finds the “illegal” argument worthless, then I guess it is legal bullshit.
No “international court or international body” has ever been authorized by “international law” to rule on these sorts of questions. OF COURSE THERE HAS BEEN NO RULING. There is no “body” constituted to do so. Your point is moot.
Doesn’t matter. See previous portion of comment. It’s a moot point.
No, the “traditional law of blockade” applies to “belligerants” (i.e. the organized parties who are making war on each other). It is not required that either of the belligerants be a “sovereign state”, let alone both. In the US civil war, the Confederacy was not recognized as sovereign by any sovereign state. Nevertheless, Britain, France, and other “sovereign states” recognized the declared US “blockade”. They had to, by the “international law and customary usage” in existence at the time, or else recognize the “Confederate States of America” as sovereign, and actively ally with it, or against it, or declare their neutrality. No other options.
This “international law” you point to does not exist in a vacuum. There is a very long history behind it. And that history must be respected, unless the government (i.e. sovereign) in question wants to make new law, by right of winning a war, which the government in question then has to wage (despite civilian casualties/humanitarian crises), and win. As you can see, this gets rather circular. And ugly, in terms of “civilian caualties”, or even suffering, especially if you want to define their suffering in terms of “coriander and chocolate” as “vital food” not being allowed through the blockade.
Finally, we get to this particular “piece of trash”. You are finally getting to something that matters, here. Hamas is, although loathed by the government of Israel, and the government of the “United States of America”, the “legally constituted government” of Gaza, as recognized (but not dealt with) by both Israel and the USA. Blame Bush [and insert the appropriate Israeli leader, here] for that. They gave you the chance to pick the government you wanted. They insisted on the elections, they didn’t like the results. Seems the citizens of Gaza are not happy either. [Well, tough shit. You asked for it, you got it. Deal with it.] Gaza may not be “sovereign”, but “Hamas” is the legally constituted government over “Gaza”, by both the USA and Israel governments’ official statements, and law. Israel no longer exercises “occupation” over Gaza. Now, Hamas is responsible for the duties. Are they actually fulfilling those duties? NO. Israel can not be blamed for that. It’s Hamas’ fault. In fact, by international law, most of the suffering that the Gaza palestinians are suffering is Hamas’ fault.
THIS IS THE ENTIRE POINT OF THE FREAKIN’ “blockade”.
Hamas took over “civil government”, and can’t provide. When Israel was in possession, at least basic food and water was.
Israel STOPPED “occupying”. Now, anything that goes wrong is Hamas’ fault. Hamas IS the “civil government” PERIOD. End of story. Don’t like it? Blame Hamas.
So in other words to “punish the general population”? Isn’t that one of the things that makes a blockade illegal?