Even though this is a response to me, I'm guessing that this rant is not actually directed at me since most of it doesn't apply? But just in case.
I totally agree Israel needs to proceed very carefully in the coming days- in their own military interests, in the interest of the hostages, in the interest of international opinion, etc. Invading a city is probably every soldiers worst nightmare, only compounded by the fact it’s packed with civilians. And if urban warefare isn’t the nightmare scenario for soldiers, 300 miles of unmapped, underground tunnels probably are.
Speaking of which, while civilians in Gaza are unlikely to have bomb shelters, perhaps Hamas should let them shelter in those 300 miles of tunnels if they are indeed so compassionate.
I watched an actually quite hard hitting interview done by of all people a Saudi television host with Hamas leadership and under her withering questioning he basically admitted they were willing to sacrifice as many Palestinians as possible "for the cause" which she pointed out no one else, including the Palestinians in Gaza, had actually agreed to (oh and that he was sitting pretty in Doha - side point: I know the Qataris helped get us out two hostages but seriously eventually we or the Israelis or going to have SEAL TEAM 6 those assholes in Doha. Back to the interview, that was only one of the very interesting exchanges. Unfortunately it was on Twitter but it should be findable elsewhere. Of course Prince Bone-saw is no stranger to causing humanitarian disasters given the horrors he and Iran have combined together to create in Yemen, but even so, it has been ... edifying to see the fine line the Saudis walking on this.
Something that seems totally missed by a lot of people, especially those calling for ceasefires and such fail to realize that Hamas and their associates within Gaza are STILL launching rockets into Israel. Hamas started the war with their monstrous actions and are continue to be an active threat. Why is it Israel’s responsibility to be the one to initiate a ceasefire?
It isn't. I agree. There are reports that Hamas offered civilian hostages for a cease fire but I don't know how serious those offers were or Israel's response or what is happening behind the scenes. Somehow Hamas agreed to let two Americans go. Unsure if anything more can be expected. I put the probability at an actual cease fire any time soon as quite low and I agree that would be demonstrably unfair to Israel to couch any failures of peace squarely on them especially since Hamas have rather definitively proved they cannot be trusted. Which also makes a cease fire difficult.
And I am so tired of people who have zero understanding of the Palestine-Israel Conflict complaining of Israel’s “disproportionate” response. I would love for someone to explain to me the proportional response to atrocities committees by Hamas against innocent civilians (a number of whom were Muslim, not surprising when Israel is 20% Muslim). And the claims of “indiscriminate bombing of civilians”- there’s a difference between the unavoidable tragedy of collateral damage and carpet bombing. Israel uses laser and gps guided bombs and missiles.
I would definitely disagree with this that Israel isn't carpet bombing. You can have all the laser guided precision weapons in the world but if you're targeting anything that moves or twitches above ground you're going to just flatten everything. And that is what is happening. Israel has dropped more bombs in week than a coalition forces dropped on the entire "Islamic caliphate" in the highest month of bombing. That's not precision bombing regardless of what capabilities you employ. I know people here continuously repeat that Israel is only targeting what it "knows" to be military targets but the truth is that's flat out impossible. It would be impossible even if they were trying to do so and frankly it does not look like that they are trying that hard.
I will point out that war crime is a heavy word and as one of the articles stated: even actions which contravene the laws of armed conflict do not necessarily qualify was war crimes either by deliberate act or even negligence. Those actions have to be egregious. For instance, very obviously Hamas committed a war crime in its initial terror attack. That's about as cut and dried as it gets. However, let's say the hospital parking lot attack had been Israeli which looks unlikely but given the fog of war could still be the case and frankly could've easily been the case - there is a reason the Israelis have ordered evacuations of hospitals including the one in question. However, would it necessarily qualify as a war crime? Well no. Bombing a hospital or even near it is always bad, but depending on the circumstances it is may not constitute a war crime. Deliberately targeted? Yes. Obviously. Negligently targeted - maybe but it has to be extreme negligence. Hit because of a weapons or targeting failure against a nearby target? No.
Hamas’ overwhelmingly uses rockets which by definition have no guidance system- literally the definition of indiscriminate bombing. And they primarily point them at population centers rather than military assets, which are obviously built away from densely populated areas.
Yup. In fact to continue my example from above and this is an interesting point, but since the likely PIJ rocket that hit the hospital parking lot was aimed at civilians and killed civilians that they weren't the civilians they had hoped to kill is immaterial. Thus a Qassam rocket accidentally killing Palestinian civilians is actually more likely to constitute a war crime than an accidental or even negligent Israeli strike.
The justifications and excuses given to Hamas’ behavior here are insane. Just because they lack the technology for precision targeting does not excuse what they are doing. Yet Israel is expected to have mutations that only affect terrorists yet not produce any collateral damage. Another excuse I’ve heard is Israel has the Iron dome… which is not 100% effective when they do want to knock down a rocket, does not have 100% coverage, does not have unlimited missiles therefore some areas are intentionally not going to be protected, and like every other air defense system can be overwhelmed as demonstrated on 10/7.
Again, I'm not sure what you mean by "here". This where I was confused by the wording and I'm hoping that wasn't a response to something I wrote or recommended.
It should not be unreasonable for Israel to destroy Hamas given the recent circumstances, which comes after nearly two decades of violence perpetrated against Israel (and frankly the Palestinians too). Personally, I don’t think there should be any rush to wipe out Hamas as quickly and hastily as possible (other than the threat of continued terror attacks and impact on civilian quality of life). Hamas does not have the resources to play the long game such an existential conflict.
At this point I think people need to recognize that there is no peace to be had here- almost 2 decades into Hamas’ reign of Gaza. There is no peace to be had when Hamas’ entire existence as a group literally revolves around 1. Wiping Israel from the map and 2. Killing Jews. Frankly these barbarians do not deserve the grace of peace at this point even if they sincerely wanted longterm harmony- though I would not deny it to them if they legitimately sought it.
Again, I agree that the status-quo cannot be returned to and Israel has the right to defend itself and prosecute the war in Gaza to remove Hamas. However, it also fair to say that I and others have massive misgivings about Israel's strategy and it isn't even clear how well thought out their strategy is. For instance, some parts, like the North-South axis makes sense (for reason to do the with the tunnels) but unfortunately they are still heavily bombing the south so telling people to move there for their safety isn't helpful. And even if they did move there, the Israelis can hardly leave Hamas there in the South and now if people followed their instructions they are now even more concentrated and bottled up into an even smaller area.
Perhaps I'l be proven wrong, I sincerely hope I am, but the actions and statements so far out of the Israeli government do not give me any cause for great hope. These are the same assholes who have made done nothing but make things worse for everyone through incompetence, corruption (important to note that if Netanyahu wasn't PM he'd be facing charges), and brutality over the last 30 years. And some of them are reportedly at each others throats with reports of massive infighting - apparently the defense minister and PM hate each other and they were both in government before the current Unity government. Don't even get me started on Ben Gvir. Basically, I don't see them suddenly becoming effective and that is going to be a problem for both Palestinians and Israelis.
This war needs to be presented not as revenge but as necessary for Israel’s existence and as the liberation of Gazans from Hamas- an amazing opportunity if Gazans are willing to take advantage of it. The sad reality however is that many, many Palestinians have been indoctrinated into the radical beliefs of Hamas or even if not, extremely conservative religious ideas not conducive with democracy are very common.
Well ... yes ... but hard to take advantage of it when you're dead. And, if you do survive, hard to be grateful to your "liberators" when your children are dead and your home is destroyed. We learned that lesson, amongst many others, the hard way in our post-9/11 conflicts. Israel would do well to avoid our example. And yes, I recognize that 10/7 on a state the size of Israel is massively worse than 9/11 even beyond the horror perpetrated on the victims. That doesn't mean you let rage blind you to strategy. My reading of history and military history is I'll admit as a non-expert. But especially in this day an age and I'd argue in most cases, fighting smarter and fighting humanely are often the same thing. That doesn't mean ruthlessness isn't a necessary quality and it doesn't mean that there won't be civilian, innocent casualties regardless. But I have seen solutions that were better than what is seemingly on offer if the political will was there to enact them - and again I am not placing this all on Israel nor does this mean Israel just gives up and accepts the status quo. It can't. But it can do better than what it's doing. Yes we know Hamas won't and we know given that there are limitations, but that doesn't mean we stop trying.
In the meantime, these people celebrating the attack against Jews who live in this false binary world of everyone being oppressed or an oppressor need to actually have some understanding of the situation before they make comments that make them look totally uniformed or just really bad people. By the very same logic, they should be supportive getting violently slaughtered by Native Americans along with their friends and family.
Strangely enough I literally saw someone claim that they would be fine with exactly that - i.e. that they would totally recognize the righteousness of being butchered in a Native American revolt. I'm not sure if you saw the same comment that people instantly, and quite rightly, mocked but yeah some people are that far gone - at least performatively. They had the grace to admit that they would still hide, but yeah there are some people who really want to be seen as ... well ... something. I'm not even sure what to call that. However, I also agree with a quote I believe I put in a post earlier that, as inane as those people are, similarly many of those advocating for the complete destruction of Gaza here in America (which I recognize that you are NOT doing so this is NOT aimed at you) would quite happily have been foot soldiers in Hamas had the shoe been on the other foot.
Or perhaps they should be welcoming terrorist attacks against themselves because of the civilian deaths the US has inflicted around the world in military operations… apparently they’ve never been exposed to history to understand the brutal reality of war. I don’t understand how people can have such a sanitized concept of warfare, like it’s still pre-modern times war with soldiers lining up across from each other in a field and shooting muskets with no chance of collateral damage.
Okay, done ranting.
I would also point out that despite the very real horrors of modern war, pre-modern warfare was often quite brutal for civilians. Siege warfare wasn't invented yesterday. I mean get what you're saying, in fact, full disclosure, I've even said similar things to people who seemed to not understand what the rules (which I linked to in the post you quoted) are, but despite having used that very same jibe myself I have to admit that it's not always a great argument. The rules that we're all supposed to try to follow were written to curb the excesses of war, almost of which we've been perpetuating since the dawn of civilization. None of this is new by any stretch of the imagination and while the scale of human civilization is so much more massive and our destructive potential along with it, on a percentage, per capita basis we used to do far worse to each other. Just one example, the conquests of Timur the Lame throughout central and south asia and the middle east is thought to have killed just under 5% of the world's population at the time. Not 5% of the areas he invaded, 5% of the world's. !7 million people. True he did it over 50 years roughly, but even so we'd have to kill >350 million people to match that scale. Doable even without nukes? Absolutely. And we could do it faster too! But in the pre-modern world, the expression "where there is a will, there is a way" still applied.
www.lawfaremedia.org
www.justsecurity.org
