demagogue on 18/9/2024 at 16:12
Quote Posted by RippedPhreak
It's a two-way street.
Legally it's not.
Most war crimes and the big international crimes like genocide, crimes against humanity, torture, etc., are peremptory obligations, which means there's no justification or excuse under any circumstances, including violation by other parties.
For normal treaty obligations, if another treaty member violates a rule, other parties are justified in violating it or associated rules as a countermeasure to induce compliance if they meet certain conditions (but in no case can you ever violate someone's rights doing that; so that rule wouldn't apply here even if these were normal treaty rules). But that doesn't apply to these rules in int'l humanitarian law or the law of armed conflict because they're preemptory to begin with, so you can never violate them even if you found a way to do so without violating anybody's right to life or other important right (which you can't really). Not that I thought you were even trying to make a legal argument here.
Anyway, there's politics and there's law, and the job of civilization and good governance is to make the two meet so injustice and violations don't run rampant and impunity set in. If you want to focus only on the politics side, it's a meager, sad, mean, and fraught existence we don't have to accept.
RippedPhreak on 18/9/2024 at 16:39
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you can never violate them even if you found a way to do so without violating anybody's right to life or other important right (which you can't really).
To lawyers, who assume words on paper are reality, sure. But in the real world, in WWII for example we treated German prisoners of war well not to get goodboy points from some international body of lawyers, but because we were hoping to get good treatment for
our own prisoners. As for Israel, they know muslims are going to slaughter any jewish civilians they can find, anywhere at any time. So they have no incentive to avoid killing civilians themselves. Not to mention that they can't determine which muslims are fighters and which are civilians in the first place, since Hamas wears no uniforms and hides in civilian homes/buildings.
SD on 18/9/2024 at 17:56
Quote Posted by RippedPhreak
As for Israel, they know muslims are going to slaughter any jewish civilians they can find, anywhere at any time.
This is absolutely not the case, and is a gross distortion of the truth. Two million Muslims live happily in Israel, where they enjoy more civil rights than they would in any nation in the Arab world, serving in the army, judiciary, Knesset, and even captaining the national football team. It is only a minority of Muslims, chiefly those within the Iranian sphere of influence, who pose a threat to Jewish people.
RippedPhreak on 18/9/2024 at 17:58
And some of those folks "living happily" helped pass information to Hamas to execute the Oct 7th attacks, but sure, keep trusting them....
Qooper on 24/9/2024 at 21:26
Quote Posted by Starker
Compared to indiscriminate bombing of schools and hospitals and other civilian infrastructure with no regard to civilian casualties, this is way less morally questionable and it's undoubtedly a tactical victory
I have to respond to your comment, as it seems to get repeated here time and time again. Israel does not bomb indiscriminately, and in fact goes to great lengths to minimize civilian casualties. Hamas launches their rockets from civilian sites, such as hospitals. Israel responds by firing back at those sites. It is Hamas' responsibility to protect their citizens. In every war, civilians die, and since Oct 7, Israel and Palestine are at war. What is your estimate or latest information as to how many Palestinian casualties there are, both militants and civilians, and what is your source?
EDIT: I found this interesting conversation related to the topic.
[video=youtube;qYB3GUlzskk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYB3GUlzskk[/video]
Starker on 25/9/2024 at 00:24
If Israel seeks to minimise casualties, how then do you explain the massive civilian casualties, most of whom are women and children -- by default non-combatants? How do you explain the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, bakeries, archives, universities, etc? How do you explain Israel blocking food and medicine from reaching Gaza, to the extent there is starvation in Gaza and widespread outbreaks, including quite serious diseases such as polio? If the response to Hamas using civilian infrastructure (and that's assuming you take Israel's statements at face value) is to destroy nearly all infrastructure, how is that not indiscriminate? How is Israel using bombs that US has forbidden their forces to use in urban areas not indiscriminate? How is setting fire to libraries not indiscriminate? Exactly what military value does a library have?
SD on 25/9/2024 at 02:31
Are they massive, in comparison to similar conflicts? My understanding is that the civilian:combatant ratio is, depending on who you listen to, either average, or on the low side.
Qooper on 26/9/2024 at 12:28
Quote Posted by Starker
If Israel seeks to minimise casualties, how then do you explain the massive civilian casualties, most of whom are women and children -- by default non-combatants?
In most cases you can group women and children like you've done here, but not when it comes to islamic terrorist organizations. Hamas is training children in military camps and issuing them rifles, effectively making sure they will be among the casualties. Hamas knows they cannot win by force, so they fight by maximizing their own civilian casualties (launching rockets from amidst civilians, gathering children around the launch sites) in the hopes that Western support for Israel suffers. I'd say their morbid, deceitful strategy is effective. Palestine would rather sacrifice their own children than let Israel exist.
[video=youtube;L3hYjDNbj4Y]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3hYjDNbj4Y[/video]
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How do you explain the massive destruction of civilian infrastructure, including schools, hospitals, bakeries, archives, universities, etc?
There are two things here you could be referring to, so I'll answer them both. First is the hospitals, universities etc. inside Gaza. For that, there is undeniable proof that Hamas uses such buildings for military purposes. Even though the (
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/12/world/middleeast/gaza-tunnel-israel-hamas.html) events in the Al-Shifa Hospital remain unclear and controversial, there are Hamas tunnels connecting North and South Gaza running under the Turkish Hospital and Israa University.
[video=youtube;ZXLwsKtftv0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXLwsKtftv0[/video]
The other thing you could be referring to is the "buffer zone", which is an approximately 1km deep border area that Israel is creating on Gaza's side by evacuating the civilians to safe zones and demolishing all buildings. The reason Israel is doing this is to prevent another Oct 7 attack coming from Gaza. It is terrible that the civilians are forced to relocate to safe zones, but it is preferable to being caught in the crossfire. It is not by any means an easy situation for Israel, as their enemy won't rest until Israel has been wiped off the face of the Earth. How do you deal with that?
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How do you explain Israel blocking food and medicine from reaching Gaza, to the extent there is starvation in Gaza and widespread outbreaks, including quite serious diseases such as polio?
Israel isn't preventing food and medicine from reaching the civilians in Gaza. They are directing it to the designated safe zones where they are urging civilians to go to.
(
https://youtu.be/wXcdHt73fM8?t=216) https://youtu.be/wXcdHt73fM8?t=216 (And if you watch that entire video, there's more on the buffer zone I mentioned earlier.)
In fact Israel is vaccinating Palestinians against polio:
[video=youtube;t-CfrPcQYCY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-CfrPcQYCY[/video]
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If the response to Hamas using civilian infrastructure (and that's assuming you take Israel's statements at face value) is to destroy nearly all infrastructure, how is that not indiscriminate?
Israel isn't destroying nearly all infra. Like I mentioned before, there are the specific sites that Hamas is using that Israel is targeting, and then there's the buffer zone. Israel is putting a lot of effort into saving civilian lives, whereas Hamas is doing the exact opposite and is in fact butchering civilians, including children, up close and personal. That AP news article you linked had a reference to another AP news article with (
https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-photos-964bcd9e90a42940e6044245cc2786f9) pictures of Hamas' methods, blood splattered in a child's room. There is a difference between civilians dying in a warzone and a terrorist coming after a child brutally taking their life. Israeli soldiers aren't raping women and children, Israelis aren't dragging dead bodies of civilians with cars as the crowd on the streets cheers, Israelis around the world aren't chanting "God is great!" when Palestinian civilians die.
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How is Israel using bombs that US has forbidden their forces to use in urban areas not indiscriminate?
Israel is running out of JDAMs and as such they're using non-guided bombs that are less accurate. I don't necessarily agree with that, but they're doing the best they can in a very difficult situation. I can understand you'd call it indiscriminate, but Israel's intention is not to kill civilians.
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How is setting fire to libraries not indiscriminate?
I don't condone setting fire to a library unnecessarily, and (
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/military-police-opens-probe-after-soldiers-filmed-themselves-burning-a-quran-and-other-books-in-gaza/) neither does the IDF. In every army there are individuals who go too far, break the rules and commit crimes, but what determines the character of an army force is whether or not they accept such misconduct and what they do about it.
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Exactly what military value does a library have?
That depends on whether or not it's used by militants. If I'm not mistaken, in this case it wasn't, and it didn't have any military value.
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Even according to Israel itself, the ratio is at least more than half
According to that Reuters article, in August the Palestinian health authorities said the death toll was at more than 40000. In May Israel said that 14000 militants and 16000 civilians had been killed in the war. Like you said, a little more than one civilian per every militant. But that is still much less than in the history of urban warfare, and certainly less than Hamas' ratio.
