Author decided to ignore the fact that Israel and Hamas are fighting a war and so isn’t grappling with what is actually happening in Gaza. Instead making it seem as if Israel woke up one morning and decided to bomb a bunch of people for no reason.
I'm fine with Israel assassinating Hamas members. Having a legitimate military objective does not give you carte blanche to run over civilians with a steamroller, any more than it gave Hamas just cause to massacre civilians at nearby kibbutzim and a music festival (vs the attacks on IDF bases, which were valid targets in my view).
Author is speaking from the perspective of decades, even millennia of history. This war didn't emerge from a vacuum, and Israel wasn't always under the thrall of Likud.
The change in the status quo is a result of the West growing weak. The weaker the West becomes, the more chaotic the world will become, until the next world order emerges (or the West reclaims the throne).
Genocide is never acceptable. It's never justified. Never.
That's explicit in the Genocide Convention, which Israel signed.
The murder of ~700 Israeli civilians was an atrocity. That doesn't justify Israel's disproportionate, indiscriminate, and wholly illegal ongoing series of atrocities in response.
you can't put an equal sign on the two. Hamas committed horrible acts for genocidal reasons and subsequently vowed to do it again and again, multiple times in speeches of multiple Hamas leaders
Israel is trying to destroy Hamas to remove this threat. Hamas has embedded itself in civilian population, Hamas is not coming out to fight man to man in an open field
So, yes, as a result of the fact that Hamas is embedded in civilian areas, innocent people die in the fighting. But it's absurd to assign all the responsibility for this to Israel and zero to Hamas.
It's absurd to say Hamas committed an atrocity and Israel should do nothing to stop similar atrocities from happening in the future. And if you concede Israel has the right to defend itself, then how is it supposed to do that other than actually go after Hamas?
> Israel is trying to destroy Hamas to remove this threat.
Are they though? Israel's Minister of Communication just spoke on national TV about the need to make the people of Gaza leave "voluntarily".
They want the land. That was always the goal, clearly. Because:
How does murdering 20,000 women and children remove the threat of Hamas?
How does leveling 75% of residential buildings remove the threat of Hamas?
How does salting the earth and destroying all the infrastructure necessary for life remove Hamas?
How does bombing historic mosques and churches, or universities and civic buildings remove Hamas?
How does blockading food, electricity, internet, essential medicine, and even water remove Hamas?
30,000 Palestinians have been murdered during those war crimes.
Israel are bombing and destroying refugee camps, UN shelters, UN schools, humanitarian corridors, and hospitals.
In all this, they haven't taken out one single senior Hamas leader in Gaza.
NOT ONE.
Israel hasn't rescued a single hostage. In fact, when they found three hostages - shirtless, waving white flags and calling out in Hebrew - they murdered them.
Can you imagine spending over ten billion dollars, and failing to take out one senior leader or rescue a single hostage? Even when allowed and encouraged by your leadership to kill as many civilians and destroy as much as you need to, to the point where ~90% of the population is now homeless?
Really - try, if you can, to imagine that level of failure. The world's fourth largest military, killing 10,000 babies in an effort to save a single hostage or kill a single senior Hamas leader. And failing.
And people think this will prevent terror? Absurd. Farcical.
I find it hard to believe that anyone is taken in by this - and in fact, most of the world isn't. Even a majority of Americans want a ceasefire, and they're Israel's closest ally.
> Hamas has embedded itself in civilian population, Hamas is not coming out to fight man to man in an open field
That doesn't excuse war crimes, or genocide. Neither did the atrocities of October 7th. The Genocide Convention, which Israel signed over 70 years ago, is very clear on that fact.
> how is it supposed to do that other than actually go after Hamas?
Consider - making sure 2.3 million people have nothing to lose is a profoundly stupid way to try and fight terrorism. Israel isn't defending itself - when you invade an occupied land, destroy everything, massacre refugees and kill 5 children every hour for a hundred days straight, that's not defense. It's ethnic cleansing. It's genocide.
And denying that makes you a genocide denier. Palestinians have provided HD footage of their suffering, their nightmare, their horror, for 100 days.
Israeli leadership have made little attempt to hide their intent - go to israelquotes.com and filter for the word "genocide". You can't claim ignorance any more.
They left Gaza in 2005 voluntarily and dismantled Gaza settlements
Yes, Israel being a democracy and allowing a variety of views including in the government, has various people saying various things
there is no doubt they are trying to destroy Hamas, they have soldiers on the ground dying in combat battling Hamas
Your list consists of a number of absurd questions. The answer to all of them is they are happing during combat, as damage as a result of combat. Hamas can surrender any time and combat will cease
"In all this, they haven't taken out one single senior Hamas leader in Gaza.
NOT ONE.
"
this is false, clearly, they have taken out multiple battalion commanders. Most Hamas most senior leaders are outside of Gaza and they have taken out some of those too
"Consider - making sure 2.3 million people have nothing to lose is a profoundly stupid way to try and fight terrorism"
There is no way to fight terrorism other than actually fight terrorism.
> There is no way to fight terrorism other than actually fight terrorism.
Yet somehow every other nation on Earth manages to do it without killing 10,000 children, destroying 75% of residential buildings, blowing up infrastructure, bombing hospitals into rubble, bulldozing cemetaries, bulldozing injured refugees, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
It's a fact that oppressed people fight back. You can, in fact, stop oppressing them and things work out; like apartheid ending in SA, or like the GFA in Northern Ireland. In neither of those cases was "atrocity upon atrocity" the solution to anything.
Really, it's surreal to be having to explain this. It's truly self-evident.
this is false, first of all when there was a fight against ISIS, of course there were civilian casualties. Secondly, Israel has unique security challenges that most nations on Earth do not face. Which nation has a terrorist army on its border ?
"oppressed people fight back" is a red herring. Israel left Gaza in 2005, nobody prevented Gaza at that point from becoming paradise, instead of a terrorist haven. And now, with Hamas in charge and vowing to repeat October 7th again and again, Israel has no choice but to go in and eliminate Hamas.
There's no Hamas in the West Bank, but Israel have killed 329 people there in the last 3 months. 86 of them children.
> nobody prevented Gaza at that point from becoming paradise, instead of a terrorist haven
The colonies were removed, but Israel retained control of Gaza's air, land, sea and airwaves. "Preventive strikes" have killed many civilians. Peaceful protests have resulted in murder and maim.
There is wall to wall consensus within the international community that Gaza is occupied, including the normally reserved ICRC [0].
> The ICRC considers Gaza to remain occupied Palestinian territory on the basis that Israel still exercises key elements of authority over the strip, including over its borders (airspace, sea and land - at the exception of the border with Egypt). Even though Israel no longer maintains a permanent presence inside the Gaza Strip, it continues to be bound by certain obligations under the law of occupation that are commensurate with the degree to which it exercises control over it.
Pretty clear. If you don't like that, you can read the UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese view on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories [1]
> And now, with Hamas in charge and vowing to repeat October 7th again and again, Israel has no choice but to go in and eliminate Hamas
Again with this nonsense. They're not going after Hamas, they're trying to force Gazans out. You can see their own Minister of Communication, and others, saying this on national TV. [2]
> "oppressed people fight back" is a red herring.
No, no it isn't. It's a reality. People have a right to fight back against oppression. Calling them "terrorists" doesn't justify genocide - again, the Genocide Convention which you keep ignoring is very clear on that point.
I don't know what it would take to break you from this alternate reality that you are in, but I really hope you do.
The fact is of course Israel is going after Hamas, they are literally losing soldiers daily in battles witn Hamas, it’s absurd to deny this
People have a right to fight against oppression is a red herring because you are unable to engage with actual facts
The actual fact is Israel left Gaza completely. At which point Gazans had a choice. And they chose Hamas which proceeded to continuously attack Israel and fire rockets at it, culminating in October 7th its impossible to deny this simple reality.
And this simple reality means Israel has no choice but to defeat Hamas militarily once and for all, which it’s now attempting to do
There is no Hamas in the West Bank? This is false, as anyone with a google account can verify. Hamas doesn’t fully control the West Bank, but of course it has a presence there along with other terrorist groups, especially in certain cities like Jenin
If you want to understand this conflict, you have to understand the facts first
It's true that Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not fully control the West Bank. But once someone says "there is no Hamas in the West Bank", that's a dead giveaway the person is talking either in bad faith or is simply clueless
Bad faith includes thing like refusing to engage with reality, and calling horrific lies that amount to genocide denial "actual facts", or calling a fact based argument "nonsense".
> The fact is of course Israel is going after Hamas, they are literally losing soldiers daily in battles witn Hamas, it’s absurd to deny this
I don't know how this point makes any logical sense to you, unless you're arguing in bad faith.
Israel losing soldiers doesn't mean anything about Israel "going after Hamas". They'd lose soldiers if their goal was total destruction and making Palestinian lives so miserable and unlivable that they move "voluntarily" as expressed by Israel's own Minister for Communications.
> If you want to understand this conflict, you have to understand the facts first
It's a genocide.
Lawyers for the top court in the world have made a profoundly well sourced and factual argument on this.
If you have any respect whatsoever for truth and reality, I urge you to watch or read the arguments presented before saying things like "you have to understand the facts".
>I don't know how this point makes any logical sense to you, unless you're arguing in bad faith.
Of course it makes sense. How can you argue that Israel is not going after Hamas if Israeli solders on the ground are battling Hamas and dying in those battles? That is literally going after Hamas. Why would they lose solders if their goal was total destruction? They could just nuke Gaza if that was their goal or simply continue to bomb it into smithereens. Why would they put their own soldiers in harm's way?
>Jt's a genocide
No, it is not. Lawyers for one side made an argument and lawyers for the other side made an argument but you are for some reason unable to engage with the substance of that argument
>If you have any respect whatsoever for truth and reality, I urge you to watch or read the arguments presented before saying things like "you have to understand the facts".
Yes, you have to understand facts. A very simple fact is that Israel left Gaza in 2005 and it's security worsened as a result it did not improve. Why? Because Hamas is an organization whose sole purpose is to destroy Israel and kill Israelis. That is why this war is going on right now, and you have to engage with this reality to have any hope of making any sense.
FWIW Israel did not denied the atrocities—nor any wrongdoings—at the trials. The only thing they have denied is the genocidal intent—specifically, the “special intent” required for the crime of genocide.
Israels defense mostly revolves around lack of jurisdiction (which even the Brookings institution says is nonsense), that is the UN has no authority to rule over matters in Gaza, and that the atrocities committed by the IDF in GAZA—which they don’t deny—are justified (which they are demonstrably not).
So basically the only real question for the court is whether Israel has the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group. You probably don’t think so, but I, OP, the South African legal team, the Governments of Bangladesh, Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan, Brazil, Colombia, etc. and several human rights, NPO, and activist organizations all think that Israel does in fact intent to destroy Palestinians of Gaza as a group.
But regardless of that, even if the court fails to prove that Israel has the intent to destroy Palestinians of Gaza as a group, then—as none of the atrocities are being denied—we are basically left with that there is some reasonable probability that these atrocities were committed by carelessness.
As a human being, you must see that that is not OK, and not a defensible behavior.
"atrocities" is a loaded term. There is a war going on, war is brutal and in war civilians suffer and die, which is horrible and regrettable. But you can't look at this situation and treat it as if out of thin air, for no reason at all, Israel decided to just commit atrocities.
No, what is happening is the following: Hamas is a 30,000 strong organization that has support of Iran which has as its main purpose and reason for existence, destruction of Israel and murder of Israelis.
It has been firing thousands of rockets into Israel for 17 years and on October 7th they attacked, broke through border defenses and killed 1200 Israelis. And subsequently explicitly vowed to repeat this again and again. In this situation Israel simply has no choice but to fight this group to the death.
That is the backdrop in which civilian deaths are happening. You cant just deny this backdrop or analyze the situation as if it doesn't exist.
It's an actual war, a war between two parties. It's bizarre to say that in a war which involves two actors and which Israel did not start, that it bears 100% of responsiblity for civilian casualties. You can't ignore the fact that Hamas embeds itself in civilian population or that Hamas and Islamic Jihad fire rockets at Israel, a decent percentage of which misfire and subsequently fall on Palestinian civilians and injure or kill them.
War is absolutely a horrible thing but you have to at least be willing to assign some of the responsibility for this war to Hamas, which actually started it on October 7th
The only point I’ve made which you address here is that you object to me using the word atrocities and then go on justifying the conduct which I called atrocities. The rest is irrelevant to any point I’ve made so I’m gonna ignore it (at least here).
Genocide is by agreement not justifiable. Article III of the Genocide convention makes it clear that genocide (a), incitement to commit genocide (c), attempt to commit genocide (d) and complicity in genocide (e) are all punishable crimes. The convention offers no exemption for these crimes, and therefor no justification. So if intent is found, any crimes committed against Israel prior to these atrocities (sorry, I don’t know a better word, so I’ll keep using it), then it is demonstrably false that the October 7th attacks were a justification for them. Because legally, they aren’t.
If the court fails to find intent, then honestly you’ll just have to look at your humanity and see whether the same atrocities committed because of carelessness instead of intent, are then justifiable. Personally I think human lives are worth more.
you've actually made several points, perhaps without realizing it
One point you made is that Israeli actions are apriori atrocities, not acts of legitimate warfare
The second point you made, perhaps without fully understanding it, is that human lives by your definition does not include Israeli lives.
Israel engaged in war with Hamas for a very specific reason, which is that Hamas is intending to continue murdering Israelis in unlimited numbers for all eternity.
This context is relevant. You can't sidestep it if you want to seriously engage with what is actually happening.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear (english is not my first language). What I meant to say was: The only point I’ve made which you’ve addressed.
I made more points in my parent post (which you didn’t address) and you made more points in your reply (which I subsequently didn’t address). The intersection of these points was only one point (that I found), and is what I replied to.
But it was unnecessary for you to assume believes from me about which live matter. Please don’t do that.
> The answer to all of them is they are happing during combat, as damage as a result of combat.
Turning off water is not combat.
Rigging the supreme court with explosives after posing for selfies in it is not combat.
Destroying universities and mocking people in Gaza for having no education (when they're not singing that they're no schools in Gaza cuz there are no kids in Gaza) is not combat.
IDF soldiers singing about how "there are no innocent civilians" and bragging about how many residential houses they destroyed is not combat.
Sniping a 70 year old woman fleeing with a child isn't combat.
Shooting at youth, then running over their body with an army truck on camera and leaving them to bleed to death isn't combat.
Bombing the tents of refugee camps is not combat.
> Hamas can surrender any time and combat will cease
Right. So occupying land and blockading Gaza is fine. Supporting Hamas over moderates to get "legitimacy" as Smotrich called it, is fine. But NOW you draw a line, and simply make demands that must be met before we can stop hiding crimes against humanity under the cover of "combat".
No. Such arguments, no matter how often we have heard them repeated, are not even a bad attempt, and light of the gravity of the situation that's grave as well.
I beg you people to engage with actual facts. You can't deny that there is combat going on there, what are we actually arguing about.
Is Israel obliged to provide water to an enemy entity? In what world does a country attacked by an enemy have an obligation to provide water.
Why is Hamas, which is in control of Gaza, not obliged to provide water for its citizens? WHy is it the responsibility of Israel?
Israel left Gaza in 2005. The blockade of Gaza was in response to Hamas taking power and immediately engaging in attacks against Israel. WHy do you think Egypt also blockades Gaza?
"But NOW you draw a line"
Please, engage with facts
Israel spent 17 years trying to manage Hamas without engaging in a full on war, despite Hamas repeated attacks against Israel. This strategy completely failed culminating in October 7th. Which showed that Hamas can't be managed, it must be destroyed. That is what is currently going on in Gaza. All this could have been different had Hamas made different choices. But they chose war and war they got.
> The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
And Smotrich, more recently
"If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza Strip." and "In the context of de-legitimization - Hamas is an asset and the Palestinian Authority is a liability"
One crime does not excuse the other. Blaming war crimes and crimes against humanity on Hamas because they're just so extremely evil and wiley, while people in Gaza get starved to death and Israeli soldiers make TikToks about blowing up whole villages with wired explosives, singing about how they'll move in, while journalists are targeted, refugee tents are bombed, while people repeat the same sophistry over and over, because a positive wall of politicians and hack fraud journalists repeating the most obvious of lies, gives them the idea they have license to.
"They chose war and war is what they got". Children screaming in agony as legs get amputated without anesthesia.
Unforgivable.
People who chose to justify atrocities with the flimsiest excuses got what they wanted, too. But you can't accept it, say I'm engaging with "actual" facts. You are wrong. The facts simply are very unflattering for what you are advocating is all.
Secondly, Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization that Israel thought was moderating over time and one that could be managed. That assessment was proven spectacularly wrong
And now there is an actual war happening as a result, in which civilians are dying, which is terrible
But it’s completely absurd to place 100% of responsibility for this on Israel. Hamas is an actor in this war, not a passive observer
Did you know, for example, that when Hamas and Islamic Jihad fire rockets at Israel, a significant percentage misfires and falls right on top of civilians, right in Gaza, injuring and killing civilians?
Hamas embeds itself among civilian population
These are all choices, choices about starting a war and a manner in which it’s conducted
It’s absurd to discuss all this as if Israel is the only party with agency here.
Israel has no choice but to try and wipe out Hamas because Hamas has explicitly vowed to repeat October 7th again. That leaves Israel with no real options. But Hamas doesn’t have to embed itself in civilian population to fight Israel, that’s a choice they made knowing it would lead to high civilian casualties.
You are not supposed to destroy existing water resources of the population of the entity you are at war with, but you are under no obligation to provide them with water out of your own resources.
Regardless, this whole convo is a red herring because Israel turned water back on
I agree that it's mostly immaterial given that Israel was forced to turn the water back on. I do not agree that the supposed arms-length relationship between Israel and Gaza meant Israel wasn't obligated to supply water. For all practical purposes, Israel occupies Gaza; it is required to keep Gazan civilians supplied. If Israel wanted Gaza to be self-sufficient, it could allow them to build an airport, to receive ships on its shorefront, and to manage its own border with Egypt. It will not do those things, for a variety of practical reasons, and so it must accept its responsibility toward Gazan civilians.
"For all practical purposes, Israel occupies Gaza; it is required to keep Gazan civilians supplied, If Israel wanted Gaza to be self-sufficient, it could allow them to build an airport, to receive ships on its shorefront, and to manage its own border with Egypt"
This is besides the point. Israel did not stop Hamas, which is the governing authority in Gaza, from investing in water infrastructure. Hamas chose to invest in underground tunnels instead. That is tragic, but it's not the responsibility of Israel. Israel did not control what happened inside Gaza and blockade did not prevent Hamas from importing cement and other materials for tunnel building, this is because civilian imports were allowed, but Hamas used imports earmarked for civilian use to build tunnels and rockets.
We're veering towards a debate about competing values, and I'm deeply skeptical of the value of those kinds of conversations on HN, given how polarizing this topic is and how conditioned we are to pattern match to the worst possible interpretations of competing arguments. I'm doing my best to stay dry and neutral about the overall conflict, and to rebut only claims that are in the ballpark of factual.
Regarding the "governing" status of Hamas, I would observe that the overwhelming majority of Gazans are too young to have ever voted, and that Hamas seized and maintains power coercively, so we should be careful attributing ideas like rightful governing status to Hamas. Among the organizations that care less about the lives of Palestinians than Israel, one must clearly number Hamas.
I don't agree that this has anything to do with values really.
Hamas is the de facto governing authority of Gaza, or was as of October 7th
It could have chosen to build water infrastructure, desalination plants, etc.
Instead it chose to build tunnels and rockets.
As the de facto governing authority, it has the obligation to provide water, not Israel, if we are talking about strictly legal aspect of this situation.
We disagree sharply about these things are at likely at diminishing returns for conversation, one indication of that being that you didn't really respond to the point I raised, but rather reasserted your original claim as if I hadn't raised it at all. That's fine; some discussions are just hard to have on HN, and we shouldn't force it.
your point that you raised seems irrelevant to the specific question at hand.
"Regarding the "governing" status of Hamas, I would observe that the overwhelming majority of Gazans are too young to have ever voted, and that Hamas seized and maintains power coercively, so we should be careful attributing ideas like rightful governing status to Hamas"
I agree, but I did not attribute "rightful" status to Hamas. It's just a factual observation that Hamas had de-facto governing control of the Gaza strip. Elections are not a pre-condition to control
Given that it had control of the Gaza strip, Hamas, as the controlling authority, has responsibility for civilians under its control, not Israel, at least legally
if you want to argue that regardless of legal responsibilites, Israel is still responsible for those civilians, despite Hamas control, that's a separate line of reasoning that leads to its own implications
At that point you're making a very banal point about the moral status of Hamas. But Hamas has no moral status, so metering it in ever finer units isn't moving any conversation forward. We agree: Hamas is very bad.
well, it's not as banal of a point as you think because plenty of players treat Hamas as a legitimate organization, including Turkey and others. Palestinian politicians from the West Bank are on record, for example, that future governments should and will include Hamas. Once you agree it's very bad, there are further implications that follow from this assessment and then we arrive at where we are now.
Anybody who treats Hamas as a legitimate organization has disqualified themselves from the public debate. That is a values statement I am unafraid to make.
Cutting off water for 2.2m civilians "but only meaning" the militants is not a thing.
> It’s absurd to discuss all this as if Israel is the only party with agency here.
And each party is responsible for their own actions. It's not like some kind of car with two steering wheels. Each person has responsibility for what they do.
> Israel has no choice but to try and wipe out Hamas
Oh, so Israel has no agency. No choice but to turn off water, just lay waste to infrastructure to make Gaza unlivable, and of course no choice to sing about how there are "no civilians in Gaza", as shown during the hearing of the ICJ trial.
Which is just one of so many clips the IDF soldiers are proudly making. They all talk about colonization very openly, and the dehumanizing rhetoric is just astonishing.
> But Hamas doesn’t have to embed itself in civilian population to fight Israel, that’s a choice they made knowing it would lead to high civilian casualties.
Many, many Israeli politicians have vowed to ethnically cleans if not outright murder Palestinians, for their Greater Israel thing. While they're doing it, no less. Right now, it's hundreds of thousands people set to starve, and that is justified with mere "aims" of Hamas. Nobody had to do or justify that, either.
> “It is unprecedented to make an entire civilian population go hungry this completely and quickly. Israel is destroying Gaza’s food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people.”
> Israel is destroying and blocking access to farmland and the sea. Recent reports allege that since Israeli military's ground offensive started on 27 October, approximately 22% of agricultural land, including orchards, greenhouses, and farmland in northern Gaza, has been razed by Israeli forces. Israel has reportedly destroyed approximately 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleet.
[..]
> Israel has also destroyed more than 60% of Palestinian homes in Gaza, directly affecting the ability to cook any food, and causing domicide through the mass destruction of dwellings, making the territory uninhabitable. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has estimated that nearly 85% of Gaza's population — representing 1.9 million people — is internally displaced, including many who have been displaced multiple times, as families are forced to move repeatedly in search of safety.
> “We have raised the alarm of the risk of genocide several times reminding all governments they have a duty to prevent genocide. Not only is Israel killing and causing irreparable harm against Palestinian civilians with its indiscriminate bombardments, it is also knowingly and intentionally imposing a high rate of disease, prolonged malnutrition, dehydration, and starvation by destroying civilian infrastructure,” said the experts. “Aid needs to be delivered to Gazans immediately and without any hindrance to prevent starvation.”
> “Our alarm for the unfolding genocide does not only refer to the ongoing bombardment of Gaza but also concerns the slow suffering and death caused by Israel’s long-standing occupation, blockade and current civic destruction, since genocide advances through an ongoing process and is not a singular event.”
Just because an entity has agency, it doesn't that in every situation it has unlimited choices. You have to acknowledge the reality that Hamas has vowed to keep repeating October 7th again and again. Given this reality, what choice does Israel have other than fight Hamas?
Now, the point is, Hamas does want to fight Israel, it's their whole reason for existing as an entity. But certainly they can choose not to embed themselves in civilian population, digging tunnels under childrens' bedrooms, etc
Yes, war is absolutely horrible. And it could end instantaneously, if Hamas surrendered.
Wow, IDF soldiers made a clip? Yes, there are idiots in every army, this is not really relevant for analyzing the broader situation, or at best tangentially relevant.
"Many, many Israeli politicians have vowed to ethnically cleans if not outright murder Palestinians, for their Greater Israel thing"
And many many Palestinian actors have vowed the same. There are extremists literally in every single country. The difference is whether the extremists are actually running the policy of the government. Israeli Government spokespeople are out there every day explaining the policy and it's clearly not to ethnically cleanse, etc
You can't pick out what one idiot said in one instance and then completely ignore what others said in other instances.
Again, you have to engage with a very simple fact, if you want to analyze this situation objectively. Hamas has vowed to kill as many Israelis as they can for all eternity in the future basically. No sovereign country can allow this to happen to its citizens. Therefore, the only thing Israel can do is fight Hamas and try to destroy its capabilities to attack Israel
War is horrible, but you have to also acknowledge that Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel on and off for 17 years. All other options to stop this have been exhausted.
> Just because an entity has agency, it doesn't that in every situation it has unlimited choices.
Nobody claimed that. If you're implying not having unlimited choices meant being forced to dehuamnize Palestinians and to call for their extermination and commit war crimes, that'd of course be false.
> And many many Palestinian actors have vowed the same.
What? Name one. What Palestinians actors have talked bout how there are no innocent Israelis?
And why are you comparing "actors" with people like President, Prime Minister, generals and soldiers in the field? And actions that match it, more importantly?
> Israeli Government spokespeople are out there every day explaining the policy and it's clearly not to ethnically cleanse, etc
No, they're not, they're just repeating their "but Hamas" stuff and it's hilarious to see how even the people who interview them sometimes run out of patience with that. One can't "explain" that the deeds that are already on record for having been committed haven't been committed. One can just kick up sand and lie about it.
> Hamas has vowed to kill as many Israelis as they can for all eternity in the future basically.
Or, as you said elsewhere, they want to "continue to keep killing infinite Israelis". Which is such an absurd attempt to justify the crimes Israel is committing.
Right now, you're saying Isreali is justified in its actions, which is leading to killing and starvation of civilians en masse, at rates we haven't seen before, because Hamas must be defeated and this is the only way. Since Hamas cannot be defeated in this way, it stands to reason that what you also are proposing is killing infinite Palestinians, unless they ethnically cleanse themselves, or stop having children. Same goes if you replace "freeing the hostages" with "destroying Hamas". The only way these actions achieve is the humanitarian catastrophe outlined above, which didn't even make you skip a beat.
And while Netanyahu is paying some lip service to not settling Gaza (and some Israelis are talking about how Ben Gvir should take over because that weakness is unforgivable), IDF soldiers are making their TikToks. Like this one addressing "Bibi", naming his unit (hence, no shame, this isn't something that will harm their career) and saying they will stick to it until they finished their task, which is, and I quote, "Occupation, Expulsion, Settlement"
you are making a lot of conclusions that don't follow from your premises and many of your premises are false.
"Since Hamas cannot be defeated in this way, it stands to reason"
It can and it doesn't. Of course Hamas can be militarily defeated, its military infrastructure dismantled.
"No, they're not, they're just repeating their "but Hamas" stuff"
Yes, they are
"What? Name one. What Palestinians actors have talked bout how there are no innocent Israelis?"
"Right now, you're saying Isreali is justified in its actions, which is leading to killing and starvation of civilians en masse"
This is a war, you can't say Israeli actions are leading to killing of civilians, because this war has two sides, two players. At a minimum, the actions of Hamas have effects on civlians. At the very minimum, misfired rockets that they fire at Israel are known to fall on the heads of civilians injuring and killing them. The war could end if Hamas decicded to end it, not just Israel
"IDF soldiers are making their TikToks."
IDF has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, so 5 of them made a tiktok, so what? it's irrelevant.
> Of course Hamas can be militarily defeated, its military infrastructure dismantled.
By destroying civilian infrastructure, targeting journalists, using starvation? No, that can kill all civilians in Gaza, and then there still will be Hamas in a tunnel somewhere.
And that Hamas dude is not an actor? I thought you meant movie actors.
But okay, the only people who say the kind of stuff that is normalized in Israeli society and repeated from highest ranks to lowest soldier, the only equivalent to it, is Hamas. (and probably Antisemites and all sorts of terrible people, but nobody that is remotely considered respectable by anyone in the West). You kind of made that point for me.
> IDF has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, so 5 of them made a tiktok, so what? it's irrelevant.
And when many, many, many of public Israeli figures call all people in Gaza animals and call for extermination, then that's irrelevant because Hamas the terrorist organization is saying terrorist things ^^
At any rate it's not 5, and the fact that they make these genocidal statements while destroying civilian infrastructure, including usually naming their unit, often even the name of the person who leads it, makes it clear that it's not fringe, it's not something hidden, it's not a video that was stolen of a flash card, it's what they upload on social media and get celebrated for at home. And that rhetoric seems to matches the actions on the ground way better than all that stuff about this being "war" and aimed primarily at Hamas.
"By destroying civilian infrastructure, targeting journalists, using starvation?"
they are not using starvation, humanitarian aid is going into Gaza, multiple trucks are going on, hundreds a day.
they are not targeting journalists, they are targeting Hamas.
There are plenty of examples of Hamas affiliated "journalists" there.
"At any rate, it's not 5". It doesn't matter if it's 5 or 10. There are literally hundreds of thousands of soldiers. You are holding Israel to a bizarre standard that no country can fulfill while somehow completely letting Palestinians off the hook. Thousands of civilians took part in the October 7th massacre. If you are going to compare soldiers making tiktoks
Israel has fringe figures, bad people that say bad things or do bad things like any other country. This is not relevant to the analysis of the situation in which two sides are at war. In war civilians die, civlian infrastructure gets destroyed and that is horrible. But it;s extremely bizarre to place full responsibility on one side of the war, the side that did not start the war. Hamas started the war and Hamas made clear that Israel doesnt have too many options.
Which is why you probably keep making up that straw man no matter how often I explain to you that everyone is reponsible for THEIR actions. There is not some kind of "war" package with shared responsibility. That is sophistry to sweep actual war crimes done by actual people under the rug.
At the point where you're writing stuff like this, maybe the thread has outlived its usefulness? This isn't going to get resolved here, and you're both writing on a 7-day-old story that nobody is reading.
> There is not some kind of "war" package with shared responsibility. That is sophistry to sweep actual war crimes done by actual people under the rug.
I'd say that's simply accurate, and should be said more often, not less.
Right, but you didn't simply say it; you said it emotively and with implications about good faith from the other side. It's your call, I'm not the boss of you, but I think you two are probably wasting your time at this point. 7 days! That's a very old thread.
If someone ignores what I say over and over and over again, no matter how I rephrase the point I was making all along, I no longer assume good faith, no. The goal at that point isn't to convince them, but to end it without letting the last word be another falsehood. Seems that last comment did the trick, so.
It's the IDF soldiers singing about genocide while they're committing ethnic cleansing, as high ranking officials condone genocide and/or ethnic cleansing, that is the issue.
80% of the currently catastrophic hungry in the world are in Gaza, right now. Every hour of time that can be played for causes death, predictably so. Those hospitals that haven't been damaged or destroyed have no fuel or electricity to operate. Just turning off water and enforcing mass starvation isn't "fighting Hamas". It's committing atrocities, if not genocide, while betting that people will simply shrug and blame it on Hamas after the people were murdered, directly or indirectly in even larger numbers. Calling that the playbook isn't just an idle accusation, this has predictive power, since every mention of Israeli crimes against civilians is hardly even looked at before deflecting at Hamas, time and time again.
there is no doubt that the situation in Gaza is tragic, no argument there
But you have to engage with a simplest of facts: two sides are fighting a war in Gaza, right now, two armies. You can't put all the blame on suffering of civilians on Israel because it's a war that Israel didn't start. Israel can't easily stop this war because Hamas has publicly vowed to repeat October 7th again and again and again, a million times if necessary. But Hamas can stop this war and suffering of civilians literally any time by surrendering.
I keep hearing the water argument. The water was turned back on first of all, but secondly it's absolutely astonishing to me that people take it as given that Israel has full responsibility to provide water to Palestininans, but Hamas, their own government, does not.
I think it's absurd to treat Palestinians and Hamas specifically as if they are children, as if they are unable to make choices and bear responsibility for those choices.
Gaza is not an autonomous region, but an occupied territory. This is not a war like the Russian invasion into Ukraine but a military operation which the Israel Army is conducting inside territory it controls. This was made abundantly clear at the public hearings in the Hague last Thursday.
The IDF does not have any claims to self defense nor acts of war when it is fighting against Hamas. So, yes, you can indeed put all the blame on the suffering of civilians on Israel, because they controlled this territory before, during, and after oct. 7.
The conduct of the Israel army should not be compared to an army that is fighting a war, like the Russian or the Ukrainian armies. Rather it should be compared to armies which act to maintain an occupation, like that of the British army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
It's an absurd claim because Israel completely pulled out of Gaza in 2005 but was subsequently forced to take measures to defend itself when Hamas started firing rockets at Israel. Egypt is also blockading Gaza, why do you think that is?
Your claim that Hamas should be able to attack Israel with impunity and kill Israelis at will and Israel has no right to self defense is completely absurd. No sovereign state would leave such an attack unanswered and Israel is no different. Regardless of what you think, of course Israel will defend itself.
As to whether it was "made abundantly clear" just because this is your interpretation it doesn't follow that it's abundantly clear. In fact the opposite is abundantly clear, that every state has inherent rights to defend its own citizens from being murdered by hostile armed groups.
There was a debate on another thread whether Gaza can correctly be categorized as occupied territory, and I’ve seen multiple denials of that fact elsewhere (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38985147).
> Your claim that Hamas should be able to attack Israel with impunity and kill Israelis at will and Israel has no right to self defense
I never claimed that. It is just that any action Israel takes as a result is not war, but rather counter terrorism or counter insurgency. The British army also had to deal with terrorist groups from their occupied territory during the troubles, when they responded by firing live ammo into unarmed demonstrator, there were consequences. Ultimately the British failed to land a military victory over the terrorists, and finally ended their occupation over Northern Ireland with an agreement.
Israel’s conduct here is as if the British army would have doubled down after Bloody Sunday, say by imposing a blockade, conducting bombing campaigns, and as the IRA’s terror would respond in kind, invade the territory with mass civilian casualties.
What I’m saying is that Israel cannot act as if it has no control over what goes on in Gaza. Their conduct has to match their possibilities. And ending the occupation is one option which they have, but aren’t exploring.
British Army and the IRA is not a relevant example.
At no point did IRA want to destroy all of Britain and kill all British people. IRA phoned in bomb threats. It's a totally different situation. Hamas has 30 thousand fighters and its goal is actual destruction of Israel. Again, Israel ended the occupation of Gaza in 2005, it withdrew from Gaza and removed all settlements. The only thing that accomplished is worsen Israeli security, provided Hamas with a base to fire thousands of rockets from and ultimately culminated in October 7th. So, Israel is left with no options other than a full war against Hamas
and yes, it is a war. Since Hamas is the official government in control of Gaza it is most definitely a war. If you prefer to call it armed conflict instead of war, that's fine, it doesn't change the reality of what's happening.
My comparison between the IRA and Hamas was never anything more than that they both operated from occupied territory. I could have used the ANC, FLN, the French Resistance, etc.
Hamas may be the government of Gaza, but they are still operating from a territory occupied by Israel. Hamas does control some things in Gaza, including the legislator, but the Israel army has the ultimate control. Look this has been debated before. If you choose to deny the occupation of Gaza, that is up to you. You are just wrong about it.
ANC, FLN, French resistance are all irrelevant examples because once again, as I explained, Hamas is an organization dedicated to destruction of Israel
Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. That is an undeniable fact. Subsequently, Hamas took over and started firing rockets at Israel, which caused Israel to impose a blockade on Gaza. Egypt also blockades Gaza, btw. Saying that Israel occupies Gaza without acknowledging that Israel actually pulled out of Gaza in 2005 is just silly. Israel did not control what happens inside Gaza strip for the simple reason that it did not have a presence inside Gaza strip, which is why Hamas was able to build all those tunnels. Why deny the facts? What's the point?
> Despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators consider the territory to be still occupied by Israel, supported by additional restrictions placed on Gaza by Egypt. Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, as well as six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities. The extensive Israeli buffer zone within the Strip renders much land off-limits to Gaza's inhabitants. The system of control imposed by Israel was described in the fall 2012 edition of International Security as an "indirect occupation". The European Union (EU) considers Gaza to be occupied.
This is how it was possible for Israel to cut off millions of people from the internet as it starves them to death.
yes, but why did Israel and Egypt put restrictions on Gaza after Israel left Gaza in 2005? Why did this happen? Surely, the reasons are extremely relevant for any conversation on this topic.
Unless you think that reason is that all Palestinians are terrorist and not humans, I fail to see how they're relevant. I'd be happy to accuse Egypt, too, where applicable.
sorry, that's just an absurd way to reason about things.
Of course, they are relevant. Israel is not acting in a vacuum. It didn't just wake up one day having completely withdrawn from Gaza and say, let me blockade Gaza for no reason at all, just because we feel like it. They did it for specific reasons and so, if you are going to talk about the blockade and not mention at all, pretend like the reason for the blockade just isn't there, then your analysis just becomes absurd.
The reason for it was that Hamas took over and proceeded to fire rockets at Israel, right? That Hamas is a terrorist organization. Look at the military infrastructure they were able to build under the conditions of the blockade, it's clear that this would have been a lot worse for Israel if the blockade wasn't there. And Israel as a state has a primary responsibility to protect its own civilians against being murdered by Hamas. This clearly is highly relevant to any analysis here.
First Israel "completely withdrew", now it didn't, but for good reasons.
There simply aren't justifications for using starvation against civilians, calling them animals and calling for their extermination, while IDF soldiers make videos rifling through the belongings of Palestinians to mock them, talking about colonization. "They" (Israeli hard right etc.) always wanted to take the land, so using the crimes of Hamas as an excuse to do just whatever, for just targeting infrastructure to make Gaza unlivable, as they so proudly describe in interviews, while repeating how it's all just self-defense is just too transparent.
> it's clear that this would have been a lot worse for Israel if the blockade wasn't there
You think? As they say, there is nothing scarier than a man without hope, and nobody is complaining about not letting weapons in. At least I am not.
There is the cost to Israel. You cannot commit and justify atrocities, dehumanize other humans completely, without getting deeply damaged yourself. As Chris Hedges wrote about comraderie (versus friendship), it feels great in war time, it's a high, for a while, but the comedown is really depressing and lonely.
And then there is the damage in the eyes of the world, which will keep trickling in for many years. The US, UK, Israel and Germany have no credibility right now except to each other and the usual vassals.
Israel completely withdrew from Gaza. This inability to deal with the basic facts of the situation is amazing to me. Are you seriously arguing that Israel didn't withdraw? here, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueN-wntJqNE
After it withdrew and Hamas took over and started firing rockets, after that, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade. This is not hard, this is not confusing.
"here is the cost to Israel. You cannot commit and justify atrocities"
They are not committing atrocities. What you call atrocities is the inevitable tragedy of war. Yes, war is bad, it's bad for everyone, including Israel
But what's the alternative? Leave Hamas in power? that is not a possible alternative, that's been tried for 17 years, it has failed.
Israel only withdrew ground troops and settlers from the Gaza strip, it maintained the occupation via other means, including full control over the airspace, telecommunication, sea access, the population registry, etc. Israel fully controls all but one border crossing, and the only remaining is controlled by Egypt, but fully monitored by Israel and is subject to Israeli approval.
Israel maintains a 300 meter no-go zone inside the Gaza strip which they regularly shoot at Gaza residents for entering (although reports exist which states people have been shot at up to 1.5 km from the border).
Israel reserves the right to enter the Gaza strip whenever they see fit.
Israel has kept a continuous blockade of Gaza since 2007, between 2005 and 2007 there were also blockades of various levels of intensity. This started before the Hamas takeover of the strip.
Israel claims it ended the occupation but nobody outside of Israel believes that. This includes the UN, EU, International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, etc. Even the US state department considers Gaza to be occupied territory.
No, Israel only ever partially withdrew from Gaza. Their conduct prior to oct 7 is more then enough to qualify as occupation.
You are missing the point. Israel physically withdrew from Gaza unilaterally, without any agreement, without any negotiation. It simply withdrew its forces and moved its people out of there at huge cost. Subsequently, the expectation was that the security situation would improve. Had that happened, then you could talk about airspace, waters, etc. But that did not happen, the opposite happened. Israel's security worsened as a result of the withdrawal. Hamas has been firing rockets at Israel for 17 years now. The blockade happened not because Israel woke up one day and for no reason other than its own amusement ( and apparently Egypt too ) and decided to blockade. The blockade happened because a terrorist organization which is dedicated to destruction of Israel took over and at that point, Israel and Egypt had very little choice other than blockade Hamas.
Alleging that blockade did not happen in response to Hamas is just flat out false. Did Egypt also blockade Gaza for no reason whatsoever? Come on, this is just absurd argumentation.
It is good that we can finally agree that Gaza is occupied by the Israeli military.
> Alleging that blockade did not happen in response to Hamas is just flat out false.
Never alleged that. The current variation of the blockade is in response to Hamas’ takeover. However there were blockades before Hamas’ takeover:
> The special envoy of the Quartet James Wolfensohn noted that "Gaza had been effectively sealed off from the outside world since the Israeli disengagement [August–September 2005], and the humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population were profound. There were already food shortages. Palestinian workers and traders to Israel were unable to cross the border
> On 15 January 2006, the Karni crossing – the sole point for exports of goods from Gaza – was closed completely for all kinds of exports.
Hamas is elected to government in a fair election on 25 January 2006
> Between 1 January and 11 May [2006], more than 12,700 tonnes of produce were harvested in Gaza's greenhouses, almost all of it destined for export; out of it, only 1,600 tonnes (less than 13%) were actually exported.
Hamas takes control of Gaza in March 2007 after winning the civil war.
So for 2 years between the partial withdrawal and Hamas taking power Israel is limiting imports and exports into the Gaza strip.
The blockade follows a similar pattern as other illegal conduct in other occupied territories, is to limit the potential of a free Palestinian state. Israel didn’t wake up one day and decide to blockade for fun. It remains a colonial power with aims to keep its colonial holdings and limit any potential of its colonial subjects.
> Subsequently, the expectation was that the security situation would improve. Had that happened, then you could talk about airspace, waters, etc.
You are arguing in alternative history, any argument rooted in alternative history is pure speculation. You have no proof that would be the case. Who is to say that without the rocket attacks, the Gaza strip would have continued to be subjugated, economically suppressed, and turned into a bantustan for Israel to exploit?
Gaza is not occupied by Israeli military.
After Israel withdrew from Gaza and ended its physical presence in Gaza, some still consider Israel as occupying Gaza due to control of airspace, etc. Some consider, that does it make it a settled fact. THere is disagreement on this from legal point of view its not a settled legal question.
Leaving the legal definition of occupation, here is the simple dictionary definition of occupation from wikipedia
Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the temporary military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.[1][2][3][4]
Israel did not have military control over Gaza, it is absurd to allege simultaneously that Israel had military control over Gaza and also allowed Hamas to build 500 miles of tunnels and attack itself on October 7th from the territory it militarily controled.
So no, by any sane definition of occupation, such as Wikipedia, Israel was not occupying Gaza before October 8th
These greenhouses you are referring to were run by Israeli settlers in Gaza. They were dismantled when the settlements were dismantled. Not by Israel, by Palestinians themselves
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863
"You are arguing in alternative history, any argument rooted in alternative history is pure speculation."
Sorry, that is a weird analysis. By your logic we can't anticipate or logically analyze anything at all, it would all be speculation
The point of Israeli withdrawal was that if the occupation ends, maybe there is more chance for peace, that was the point of it and the opposite happened.
> There is disagreement on this from legal point of view its not a settled legal question.
The disagreement is Israel says there is no occupation while the rest of the world says there is. This is hardly a disagreement as much that one party is simply wrong. It is like Iran stating it does not have a nuclear weapons program or Russia claiming their elections are fair.
no, the disagreement is about whether the fact that Israel exercised some control over Gaza strip after it withdrew can count as "military control over Gaza strip"
In plan English, it's plainly absurd. If I own 10% of the stock of a company, nobody would say I have control over this company
But even if these arguments had any merit before Oct 7th, it's clear after that they make no sense. You can't claim with a straight face that Israel had military control over Gaza strip. It plainly did not, which is why Hamas was able to build a tunnel network and succesfully execute these attacks. And if it didn't have military control, that means it wasnt an occupation by definition of what an occupation is.
I feel like you are purposefully derailing the discussion.
First of all the French Resistance was dedicated to the destruction of Vichy France and Nazy Germany, and the ANC was dedicated to the destruction of Apartheid South Africa. The current Hamas charter only calls for the destruction of Zionist Israel, not for Israel as a nation.
Second of all, I stated before that the only relevant comparison, and the only comparison I ever made, was that they operate from occupied territory and against their occupiers. How far they go against their occupiers is indeed irrelevant, like we have both pointed out.
Israel does occupy Gaza, and they have since 1967, no matter how much you deny it. And as such, they bare full responsibility for what goes on in there. Off course any terrorists from Gaza are responsible for their own actions, and should be charged in a court of law. But Israel cannot fight those terrorists by causing mass civilian casualty inside the territory they control. And if they do, any collateral damage they cause, is their responsibility, and a crime they must answer too.
"The current Hamas charter only calls for the destruction of Zionist Israel, not for Israel as a nation"
This is gaslighting. There is no doubt that Hamas wants to kill all Israelis because we not only have the text of the charter, but we have their actions on October 7th and their subsequent statements. Israel does not occupy Gaza, they left Gaza in 2005, you can't just pretend like that did not happen, come on. Israel did not have a physical presence inside Gaza before this latest round of fighting, this is a fact and it's absurd to deny it.
I find it interesting that you are willing to assume intent on Hamas while Israel is literally on trial for intending to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group.
Everything you say about Hamas can be equally applied to Israel, and it is exactly what South Africa does in its legal case for the ICJ.
No, it can't equally be applied to Israel, just because South Africa does something, it doesn't follow that it's logical or correct.
It can't equally be applied to Israel because Hamas attacked on October 7th and subsequently vowed to repeat these attacks. That is extremely relevant, you can't just ignore this fact.
It's manifestly untrue that Hamas and Israel are morally equivalent. Nobody would bother to bring Hamas before a trial in the Hague; virtually every western country, given the ability to aerosolize Hamas (and only Hamas) with thermobaric warheads, would do so with minimal ceremony. The October 7th attack was horrific even on the scale of 20th century atrocities; it may not be on the top 5, but it's on the leaderboard.
The simple fact is that civilian casualties are not all equally and cannot simply be tallied.
None of this is to say that what Israel is doing now doesn't constitute a series of war crimes for which Netanyahu and his administration might be imprisoned (if Israel doesn't get to him first). A conflict can be squarely complaint with jus ad bellum but prosecuted in a way that contravenes the laws of war and humanity.
<del>You are right.</del><ins>I would argue</ins> Israel is much worse.
Israel is a state actor with a state level budget, and a state level arsenal which includes nuclear weapons. The damage it can and does inflict is an order of magnitude worse than the horrors any terrorist organization could ever dream of inflicting. But unlike Hamas, Israel also has state level responsibilities, of which it is horrifically failing to uphold. We should judge Hamas as a terrorist organization, but we should also judge Israel as a state actor, and as such any moral failings of Israel is infinitely worse.
> The simple fact is that civilian casualties are not all equally and cannot simply be tallied.
If true the horrors of 75 years of colonization, occupation and apartheid should be weighted in. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are under constant threat of being shot at for opening a car gate, going down the wrong street, or simply for protecting their orchards from settlers.
That said, atrocities and crimes against humanity should not be ranked in any order. They should all be prevented, and in the worst case scenario prosecuted.
What my parent said was: “There is no doubt that Hamas wants to kill all Israelis because we not only have the text of the charter, but we have their actions on October 7th and their subsequent statements.” is the only thing I’m equating.
The case against Israel at the ICJ is exploring whether it can be stated without a doubt that Israel intents (wants) to kill (or displace) all Palestinians in Gaza as a group. For this South Africa cites written and spoken statements by Israeli officials (written charter) but also its actions during the current conflict (hindering aid, destroying civil infrastructure, leveling residential neighborhoods, etc.) as well as also actions prior to Oct 7 of which this inferred intent only builds upon.
My parent was assuming genocidal intent onto Hamas, all the while many states are doing the very same against Israel. My parent may be right, but if South Africa et.all are right, the results are an order of magnitude more horrific, by the very nature that the perpetrator is not a mere terrorist organization, but a state actor.
---
EDIT: Removed an unnecessary name calling from post.
I don't think you've made a case for Israel being worse here that doesn't rely on simply tallying up civilian deaths; in fact, your argument lowers the bar further for Hamas, by suggesting Israel has special obligations conferred by statehood. Together, this offers a mode of inquiry that would lead one to believe that virtually every industrialized country is far worse than every terrorist organization.
If you have an argument that would be persuasive to someone who does not in fact believe that almost every country in the world is worse than Hamas, maybe there's a point in continuing to talk. Otherwise, it's fine that we disagree.
While I have you, can you stop writing things to me like that "you are right" barb?
Sorry about my choice of rhetoric. I’ll try to improve.
I want to note that Israel does indeed have special obligation coferred by statehood. Formally those are all the international agreements it has signed and promised to uphold. Relevant here are, among others, the Geneva convention, the Genocide convention, Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc. I’ll give special mention to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons which Israel hasn’t signed, thus making it scary as North Korea.
When a state signs these obligations but then fails to follow them, they have in fact failed humanity on a moral level. When these failures result in countless deaths and horrors, they are especially bad. To me this is what makes Israel worse then Hamas. You don’t have to agree with me, but I hope you understand where I’m coming from.
I think Israel's actions in Gaza have been hard to defend (their motivation: less so) so none of what I'm saying is an apology for Israel. But the idea that they're even morally comparable to Hamas is an extraordinary claim. Many (most?) normal reasonable people will read it and scratch their heads.
Every country fails humanity at a moral level in a great variety of ways. Israelis sometimes feel --- with some justification --- that they're held to a standard that does't apply to other western countries, let alone countries in their own region, where the deliberate, planned murder of civilians has occurred within just the past decade or so at scales that dwarf what's happened in Gaza.
I think the root of our disagreement is in Israel’s motivation. We will see when the ICJ rules whether Israel’s intention is merely counter terrorism or—as it is accused of—to destroy Palestinians in whole or in part. In the latter case (which is what I believe) the motivation is indeed hard to defend.
When you think about this, remember that there are 2.2MM Palestinians in the Gaza Strip alone, and almost 5MM total. 24,000 is a terrible toll, and I think much of it is reckless and probably criminal, but it isn't a dent in the Palestinian population. There's no way to write that without sounding soulless, as if people were scoring tokens on some sort of strategy game we're all playing. But it's deeply relevant to the formal notion of a "genocide", which is what we're talking about when we talk about the ICJ.
Yemen and Syria are instructive comparisons here, and I'll note that while everyone was pretty grossed out at Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen (which had more to do with how we felt about Saudi Arabia than a genuine concern for Yemenis, who, like Palestinians, are for the most part victimized by the combatants on "their side), you didn't see much talk about Yemeni genocide.
Further arguing against a finding of genocidal intent on Israel's part is the provocation they responded to, which, again, is among the worst in modern history: a truly, deliberately vile attack done at breathtaking scale.
Like I said, we will see when the ICJ rules on the matter, which probably won’t be for another decade. However if the court rules in favor of provisional measures (which will probably be in the coming weeks) you must at least see how I’m justified in believing the genocidal intent. And even if it isn’t, the very fact that these serious charges are being pressed, means that many legal experts think there is a probably cause for concern.
The other points raised here are irrelevant. I’ve said before in this thread—and other threads—that there is no justification to genocide. So however heinously Israel was provoked, the genocidal conduct afterwards speaks for it self. This was explicitly stated in the oral arguments by South Africa.
As for the numbers, that also is irrelevant to the question of genocide. The convention states “in whole or in part”. South Africa argued that Palestinians of Gaza constitutes a group, and that Israels conduct in Gaza violates annex (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; of Article II of the Genocide Convention.
In comparison the Army of Republika Srpska was convicted of Genocide for killing 8,372 victims out of a population of 1.2 million living in territories controlled by the perpetrators. The total number didn’t matter, what mattered was the intent to destroy Muslim Bosniaks living in Srpska as a group.
I don't think you need the ICJ ruling to press a case that Israel is perpetrating a genocide, because there is a colloquial meaning to the word that covers any mass killing that targets a specific ethnicity. That isn't the legal definition, but legal definitions aren't the only ones that matter --- especially in international law, where the legal definition doesn't much matter at all, since international law is largely performative, a vehicle for mobilizing diplomacy and little else.
I would just caution that the colloquial meaning of "genocide" covers a lot of other terrible events in recent history that people don't single out as genocidal, and Israelis are, with very good reason, especially alert to the multiplicity of different standards here. They're largely (leaving out goblins like Ben Gvir) convinced they have no intention of displacing all the Palestinians, let alone killing them all.
I agree that Serbia perpetrated a genocide that killed far fewer people than Israel did. We killed more than 3 times as many civilians as the IDF in Gaza in our doomed Afghanistan invasion, and not only did very few normal people call it a genocide, but they got angry when we abruptly left. And I again urge you to check out the numbers on Syria and Yemen, two other conflicts Iran helped instigate.
The world is messy and usually pretty horrible. I'm not trying to persuade you of anything, but I think it's helpful to know what another perspective on this might be.
> They're largely (leaving out goblins like Ben Gvir) convinced they have no intention of displacing all the Palestinians, let alone killing them all.
Some IDF soldiers made TikToks addressing Netanyahu, starting their intent to complete "Occupation, Expulsion, Settlement". There are dozens of them bragging about how many houses they are blowing up, while they do it with wired explosives. Right now, the last "functioning" hospital in Gaza is under attack, while Israeli youth make fun of "killing Palestines" (most of them can't even pronounce "Palestinian" apparently) in live video chats. Some dude on Israeli TV saying "I'll be honest, I don't care about the war crimes, I just want to see buildings destroyed, mooooore buildings" etc. and everyone laughs.
[edit: And the line that "there are no innocent people in Gaza" is still being repeated by all sorts of people, including military. Here's for example Lt. Col. Oren Schindler in a radio interview: "We need need to make sure that wherever the IDF meets Gaza, there is devastation. Nothing less, nothing more. Where Battalion 74 was - it happened. I can garuantee you that devastation, nothing less, in every place we were, there was only sand left, and houses on the ground. Because in every home, unfortunately I learned that in Gaza there is no innocence."
One might say this proves they don't want to kill innocent people, but Hamas forces them to, etc. but given the context and the actions, I'll just note that this is true about any atrocity. Look any of them up, from the most obvious to the most obscure ones, and you'll find someone painting the it as either a.) doing good or b.) doing bad because bad people forced them to or c.) doing bad for good reasons or a good goal that sanctifies the bad deeds. I doubt "genocide lawyers" would weigh such lip service much, if at all.]
Yes, there were also thousands of people in Israel chanting "Bibi, Bibi, you can't hide, you're committing genocide". But they sure are in the extreme minority.
> “Most Israelis don’t know much about Palestinians. They think they are terrorists, all of them, or vague images with no names, no faces, no family, no homes, no hopes,” Baruchin said. “What I am trying to do in my posts is present Palestinians as human beings.”
> Ten days after that Facebook message, he was fired from his teaching job in Petach Tikvah municipality. Less than a month later he was in a high-security jail, detained to give police more time to investigate critical views he had never tried to hide.
Netanyahu has historically low approval, and most observers expect him to get booted as soon as the Gaza war winds down (sooner, if he can't wind it down expeditiously). When that happens, there's a nonzero chance he's going to end up in prison. It is not at all reasonable to suggest that his opponents are an "extreme minority".
People who are calling out the genocidal speech by hundreds and thousands of high-ranking "trolls" and the genocidal actions by the IDF are in the extreme minority.
As exemplified by a teacher put into solitary confinement for posting about innocent deaths in Gaza and suggesting having empathy for those.
Can you show me some, who aren't getting smeared and persecuted for it? I am not aware of a single one.
I agree with all of you that we should not tally crimes, that one crime doesn't justify another. But if I had to rank anyone morally, I'd say the same deed becomes morally worse the better off a person/group/nation is. We can trivially observe this in daily life, too. A rich person stealing 1€ from a beggar would be considered kind of monster, even though it might not even matter that much to the beggar. A beggar stealing 1€ from a rich person dropped wouldn't be a hero, but wouldn't raise any eyebrows either.
And the difference Gaza which has been cut off from the internet for 4 days in a row now, and a government that buys Google ads to smear the ICJ genocide charges as being politically motivated support of Hamas, is rather stark. The US senate just voted with a 75% majority to not even record Israeli war crimes. Are they affording that to other countries in the region, too?
> let alone countries in their own region
That's such an odd defense we never hear anywhere else, but constantly in contest of Israel. Why would the physical region matter? Those other countries aren't taking part in the Eurovision song contest, for example. They're not claiming to be a democracy respecting humanitarian values. Israel was founded by educated Europeans in no small part, not people from the region. If someone brags so much, including having "the most moral army in the world", while that army is doing what it is doing now, it might have something to do with them (too), not (only) the people who don't buy it having double standards.
We expect no better of other countries who currently aren't developed and weren't ever, we're barely even on speaking terms with them, when it comes to having a place at our table in polite company. I bet they also brag about being the best and having the best army, but we don't even hear about it and don't care. If one of them got accused of genocide via a formal trial, most media outlets would have covered and translated the first hearing, where the accusations where laid out -- instead of totally ignoring that and then reporting on Israel's so-called defense the next day.
We certainly don't have a fleet of journalists embedded in the armies of other countries in the region posting feel good stories, while the other half is writing up other random personal interest stories to make people feel good about the part of the picture they're not being shown at all. Or politicians just leaping to their defense before the ink on the accusation is even dry: https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2024/01/germany-rushes-to-decl...
To my eyes, Israel is held to the standard of a colonial European power in the 1960s, just prior to decolonization.
The atrocities and horrors of European colonization were indeed recognized, but not loudly, the media talked about it, but in a weird tone, often justifying or devaluing the lives of the colonized peoples. Resistance movements among the colonized were described as terrorists, and any fight against them (which was a fight to keep the European colonies) was described as just and moral. The UN spoke against colonization, but was ignored. Human rights abuses in the colonies were ignored or justified amongst western governments.
Of course Israel today doesn’t parallel this dark time period of European history. But the standards applied to Israel today are in many ways quite similar to the standards applied to a European colonial power aiming to keep their colonies.
84 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 189 ms ] threadThe change in the status quo is a result of the West growing weak. The weaker the West becomes, the more chaotic the world will become, until the next world order emerges (or the West reclaims the throne).
That's explicit in the Genocide Convention, which Israel signed.
The murder of ~700 Israeli civilians was an atrocity. That doesn't justify Israel's disproportionate, indiscriminate, and wholly illegal ongoing series of atrocities in response.
Israel is trying to destroy Hamas to remove this threat. Hamas has embedded itself in civilian population, Hamas is not coming out to fight man to man in an open field So, yes, as a result of the fact that Hamas is embedded in civilian areas, innocent people die in the fighting. But it's absurd to assign all the responsibility for this to Israel and zero to Hamas.
It's absurd to say Hamas committed an atrocity and Israel should do nothing to stop similar atrocities from happening in the future. And if you concede Israel has the right to defend itself, then how is it supposed to do that other than actually go after Hamas?
Are they though? Israel's Minister of Communication just spoke on national TV about the need to make the people of Gaza leave "voluntarily".
They want the land. That was always the goal, clearly. Because:
How does murdering 20,000 women and children remove the threat of Hamas?
How does leveling 75% of residential buildings remove the threat of Hamas?
How does salting the earth and destroying all the infrastructure necessary for life remove Hamas?
How does bombing historic mosques and churches, or universities and civic buildings remove Hamas?
How does blockading food, electricity, internet, essential medicine, and even water remove Hamas?
30,000 Palestinians have been murdered during those war crimes.
Israel are bombing and destroying refugee camps, UN shelters, UN schools, humanitarian corridors, and hospitals.
In all this, they haven't taken out one single senior Hamas leader in Gaza.
NOT ONE.
Israel hasn't rescued a single hostage. In fact, when they found three hostages - shirtless, waving white flags and calling out in Hebrew - they murdered them.
Can you imagine spending over ten billion dollars, and failing to take out one senior leader or rescue a single hostage? Even when allowed and encouraged by your leadership to kill as many civilians and destroy as much as you need to, to the point where ~90% of the population is now homeless?
Really - try, if you can, to imagine that level of failure. The world's fourth largest military, killing 10,000 babies in an effort to save a single hostage or kill a single senior Hamas leader. And failing.
And people think this will prevent terror? Absurd. Farcical.
I find it hard to believe that anyone is taken in by this - and in fact, most of the world isn't. Even a majority of Americans want a ceasefire, and they're Israel's closest ally.
> Hamas has embedded itself in civilian population, Hamas is not coming out to fight man to man in an open field
That doesn't excuse war crimes, or genocide. Neither did the atrocities of October 7th. The Genocide Convention, which Israel signed over 70 years ago, is very clear on that fact.
> how is it supposed to do that other than actually go after Hamas?
Consider - making sure 2.3 million people have nothing to lose is a profoundly stupid way to try and fight terrorism. Israel isn't defending itself - when you invade an occupied land, destroy everything, massacre refugees and kill 5 children every hour for a hundred days straight, that's not defense. It's ethnic cleansing. It's genocide.
And denying that makes you a genocide denier. Palestinians have provided HD footage of their suffering, their nightmare, their horror, for 100 days.
Israeli leadership have made little attempt to hide their intent - go to israelquotes.com and filter for the word "genocide". You can't claim ignorance any more.
there is no doubt they are trying to destroy Hamas, they have soldiers on the ground dying in combat battling Hamas
Your list consists of a number of absurd questions. The answer to all of them is they are happing during combat, as damage as a result of combat. Hamas can surrender any time and combat will cease
"In all this, they haven't taken out one single senior Hamas leader in Gaza. NOT ONE. " this is false, clearly, they have taken out multiple battalion commanders. Most Hamas most senior leaders are outside of Gaza and they have taken out some of those too
"Consider - making sure 2.3 million people have nothing to lose is a profoundly stupid way to try and fight terrorism"
There is no way to fight terrorism other than actually fight terrorism.
Yet somehow every other nation on Earth manages to do it without killing 10,000 children, destroying 75% of residential buildings, blowing up infrastructure, bombing hospitals into rubble, bulldozing cemetaries, bulldozing injured refugees, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.
It's a fact that oppressed people fight back. You can, in fact, stop oppressing them and things work out; like apartheid ending in SA, or like the GFA in Northern Ireland. In neither of those cases was "atrocity upon atrocity" the solution to anything.
Really, it's surreal to be having to explain this. It's truly self-evident.
"oppressed people fight back" is a red herring. Israel left Gaza in 2005, nobody prevented Gaza at that point from becoming paradise, instead of a terrorist haven. And now, with Hamas in charge and vowing to repeat October 7th again and again, Israel has no choice but to go in and eliminate Hamas.
> nobody prevented Gaza at that point from becoming paradise, instead of a terrorist haven
The colonies were removed, but Israel retained control of Gaza's air, land, sea and airwaves. "Preventive strikes" have killed many civilians. Peaceful protests have resulted in murder and maim.
There is wall to wall consensus within the international community that Gaza is occupied, including the normally reserved ICRC [0].
> The ICRC considers Gaza to remain occupied Palestinian territory on the basis that Israel still exercises key elements of authority over the strip, including over its borders (airspace, sea and land - at the exception of the border with Egypt). Even though Israel no longer maintains a permanent presence inside the Gaza Strip, it continues to be bound by certain obligations under the law of occupation that are commensurate with the degree to which it exercises control over it.
Pretty clear. If you don't like that, you can read the UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese view on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories [1]
> And now, with Hamas in charge and vowing to repeat October 7th again and again, Israel has no choice but to go in and eliminate Hamas
Again with this nonsense. They're not going after Hamas, they're trying to force Gazans out. You can see their own Minister of Communication, and others, saying this on national TV. [2]
> "oppressed people fight back" is a red herring.
No, no it isn't. It's a reality. People have a right to fight back against oppression. Calling them "terrorists" doesn't justify genocide - again, the Genocide Convention which you keep ignoring is very clear on that point.
I don't know what it would take to break you from this alternate reality that you are in, but I really hope you do.
0 - https://www.icrc.org/en/document/frequently-asked-questions-...
1 - https://www.jurist.org/features/2023/09/06/un-special-rappor...
2 - https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-slam-inflammatory-call...
You are not engaging with the facts.
The fact is of course Israel is going after Hamas, they are literally losing soldiers daily in battles witn Hamas, it’s absurd to deny this
People have a right to fight against oppression is a red herring because you are unable to engage with actual facts
The actual fact is Israel left Gaza completely. At which point Gazans had a choice. And they chose Hamas which proceeded to continuously attack Israel and fire rockets at it, culminating in October 7th its impossible to deny this simple reality.
And this simple reality means Israel has no choice but to defeat Hamas militarily once and for all, which it’s now attempting to do
There is no Hamas in the West Bank? This is false, as anyone with a google account can verify. Hamas doesn’t fully control the West Bank, but of course it has a presence there along with other terrorist groups, especially in certain cities like Jenin
If you want to understand this conflict, you have to understand the facts first
> The fact is of course Israel is going after Hamas [..] because you are unable to engage with actual facts
https://acleddata.com/2023/12/14/the-resurgence-of-armed-gro...
It's true that Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not fully control the West Bank. But once someone says "there is no Hamas in the West Bank", that's a dead giveaway the person is talking either in bad faith or is simply clueless
Bad faith includes thing like refusing to engage with reality, and calling horrific lies that amount to genocide denial "actual facts", or calling a fact based argument "nonsense".
> The fact is of course Israel is going after Hamas, they are literally losing soldiers daily in battles witn Hamas, it’s absurd to deny this
I don't know how this point makes any logical sense to you, unless you're arguing in bad faith.
Israel losing soldiers doesn't mean anything about Israel "going after Hamas". They'd lose soldiers if their goal was total destruction and making Palestinian lives so miserable and unlivable that they move "voluntarily" as expressed by Israel's own Minister for Communications.
> If you want to understand this conflict, you have to understand the facts first
It's a genocide.
Lawyers for the top court in the world have made a profoundly well sourced and factual argument on this.
If you have any respect whatsoever for truth and reality, I urge you to watch or read the arguments presented before saying things like "you have to understand the facts".
Of course it makes sense. How can you argue that Israel is not going after Hamas if Israeli solders on the ground are battling Hamas and dying in those battles? That is literally going after Hamas. Why would they lose solders if their goal was total destruction? They could just nuke Gaza if that was their goal or simply continue to bomb it into smithereens. Why would they put their own soldiers in harm's way?
>Jt's a genocide
No, it is not. Lawyers for one side made an argument and lawyers for the other side made an argument but you are for some reason unable to engage with the substance of that argument
>If you have any respect whatsoever for truth and reality, I urge you to watch or read the arguments presented before saying things like "you have to understand the facts".
Yes, you have to understand facts. A very simple fact is that Israel left Gaza in 2005 and it's security worsened as a result it did not improve. Why? Because Hamas is an organization whose sole purpose is to destroy Israel and kill Israelis. That is why this war is going on right now, and you have to engage with this reality to have any hope of making any sense.
https://nypost.com/2023/11/01/news/hamas-official-vows-to-re...
Israels defense mostly revolves around lack of jurisdiction (which even the Brookings institution says is nonsense), that is the UN has no authority to rule over matters in Gaza, and that the atrocities committed by the IDF in GAZA—which they don’t deny—are justified (which they are demonstrably not).
So basically the only real question for the court is whether Israel has the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group. You probably don’t think so, but I, OP, the South African legal team, the Governments of Bangladesh, Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan, Brazil, Colombia, etc. and several human rights, NPO, and activist organizations all think that Israel does in fact intent to destroy Palestinians of Gaza as a group.
But regardless of that, even if the court fails to prove that Israel has the intent to destroy Palestinians of Gaza as a group, then—as none of the atrocities are being denied—we are basically left with that there is some reasonable probability that these atrocities were committed by carelessness.
As a human being, you must see that that is not OK, and not a defensible behavior.
No, what is happening is the following: Hamas is a 30,000 strong organization that has support of Iran which has as its main purpose and reason for existence, destruction of Israel and murder of Israelis.
It has been firing thousands of rockets into Israel for 17 years and on October 7th they attacked, broke through border defenses and killed 1200 Israelis. And subsequently explicitly vowed to repeat this again and again. In this situation Israel simply has no choice but to fight this group to the death.
That is the backdrop in which civilian deaths are happening. You cant just deny this backdrop or analyze the situation as if it doesn't exist.
It's an actual war, a war between two parties. It's bizarre to say that in a war which involves two actors and which Israel did not start, that it bears 100% of responsiblity for civilian casualties. You can't ignore the fact that Hamas embeds itself in civilian population or that Hamas and Islamic Jihad fire rockets at Israel, a decent percentage of which misfire and subsequently fall on Palestinian civilians and injure or kill them.
War is absolutely a horrible thing but you have to at least be willing to assign some of the responsibility for this war to Hamas, which actually started it on October 7th
Genocide is by agreement not justifiable. Article III of the Genocide convention makes it clear that genocide (a), incitement to commit genocide (c), attempt to commit genocide (d) and complicity in genocide (e) are all punishable crimes. The convention offers no exemption for these crimes, and therefor no justification. So if intent is found, any crimes committed against Israel prior to these atrocities (sorry, I don’t know a better word, so I’ll keep using it), then it is demonstrably false that the October 7th attacks were a justification for them. Because legally, they aren’t.
If the court fails to find intent, then honestly you’ll just have to look at your humanity and see whether the same atrocities committed because of carelessness instead of intent, are then justifiable. Personally I think human lives are worth more.
One point you made is that Israeli actions are apriori atrocities, not acts of legitimate warfare
The second point you made, perhaps without fully understanding it, is that human lives by your definition does not include Israeli lives.
Israel engaged in war with Hamas for a very specific reason, which is that Hamas is intending to continue murdering Israelis in unlimited numbers for all eternity.
This context is relevant. You can't sidestep it if you want to seriously engage with what is actually happening.
I made more points in my parent post (which you didn’t address) and you made more points in your reply (which I subsequently didn’t address). The intersection of these points was only one point (that I found), and is what I replied to.
But it was unnecessary for you to assume believes from me about which live matter. Please don’t do that.
Turning off water is not combat.
Rigging the supreme court with explosives after posing for selfies in it is not combat.
Destroying universities and mocking people in Gaza for having no education (when they're not singing that they're no schools in Gaza cuz there are no kids in Gaza) is not combat.
IDF soldiers singing about how "there are no innocent civilians" and bragging about how many residential houses they destroyed is not combat.
Sniping a 70 year old woman fleeing with a child isn't combat.
Shooting at youth, then running over their body with an army truck on camera and leaving them to bleed to death isn't combat.
Bombing the tents of refugee camps is not combat.
> Hamas can surrender any time and combat will cease
Right. So occupying land and blockading Gaza is fine. Supporting Hamas over moderates to get "legitimacy" as Smotrich called it, is fine. But NOW you draw a line, and simply make demands that must be met before we can stop hiding crimes against humanity under the cover of "combat".
No. Such arguments, no matter how often we have heard them repeated, are not even a bad attempt, and light of the gravity of the situation that's grave as well.
Is Israel obliged to provide water to an enemy entity? In what world does a country attacked by an enemy have an obligation to provide water. Why is Hamas, which is in control of Gaza, not obliged to provide water for its citizens? WHy is it the responsibility of Israel?
Nevertheless,they turned the water back on https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-says-it-is-restarting-w...
"Occupying land and blockading gaza is fine"
Israel left Gaza in 2005. The blockade of Gaza was in response to Hamas taking power and immediately engaging in attacks against Israel. WHy do you think Egypt also blockades Gaza?
"But NOW you draw a line" Please, engage with facts
Israel spent 17 years trying to manage Hamas without engaging in a full on war, despite Hamas repeated attacks against Israel. This strategy completely failed culminating in October 7th. Which showed that Hamas can't be managed, it must be destroyed. That is what is currently going on in Gaza. All this could have been different had Hamas made different choices. But they chose war and war they got.
https://nypost.com/2023/11/01/news/hamas-official-vows-to-re...
Using starvation, and denying water falls under that, as a means of warfare is a war crime EVEN if ONLY used against "the enemy".
And you are implying the often-heard "there are no civilians in Gaza", which is another atrocity on top of that.
https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/misc/634kfc....
> Israel spent 17 years trying to manage Hamas
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
> The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
And Smotrich, more recently
"If we act strategically correctly, there will be immigration and we will live in the Gaza Strip." and "In the context of de-legitimization - Hamas is an asset and the Palestinian Authority is a liability"
One crime does not excuse the other. Blaming war crimes and crimes against humanity on Hamas because they're just so extremely evil and wiley, while people in Gaza get starved to death and Israeli soldiers make TikToks about blowing up whole villages with wired explosives, singing about how they'll move in, while journalists are targeted, refugee tents are bombed, while people repeat the same sophistry over and over, because a positive wall of politicians and hack fraud journalists repeating the most obvious of lies, gives them the idea they have license to.
"They chose war and war is what they got". Children screaming in agony as legs get amputated without anesthesia.
Unforgivable.
People who chose to justify atrocities with the flimsiest excuses got what they wanted, too. But you can't accept it, say I'm engaging with "actual" facts. You are wrong. The facts simply are very unflattering for what you are advocating is all.
https://www.quora.com/Is-cutting-off-water-to-an-enemy-city-....
Secondly, Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization that Israel thought was moderating over time and one that could be managed. That assessment was proven spectacularly wrong
And now there is an actual war happening as a result, in which civilians are dying, which is terrible
But it’s completely absurd to place 100% of responsibility for this on Israel. Hamas is an actor in this war, not a passive observer
Did you know, for example, that when Hamas and Islamic Jihad fire rockets at Israel, a significant percentage misfires and falls right on top of civilians, right in Gaza, injuring and killing civilians?
Hamas embeds itself among civilian population
These are all choices, choices about starting a war and a manner in which it’s conducted
It’s absurd to discuss all this as if Israel is the only party with agency here.
Israel has no choice but to try and wipe out Hamas because Hamas has explicitly vowed to repeat October 7th again. That leaves Israel with no real options. But Hamas doesn’t have to embed itself in civilian population to fight Israel, that’s a choice they made knowing it would lead to high civilian casualties.
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/96544/what-services-...
You are not supposed to destroy existing water resources of the population of the entity you are at war with, but you are under no obligation to provide them with water out of your own resources.
Regardless, this whole convo is a red herring because Israel turned water back on
This is besides the point. Israel did not stop Hamas, which is the governing authority in Gaza, from investing in water infrastructure. Hamas chose to invest in underground tunnels instead. That is tragic, but it's not the responsibility of Israel. Israel did not control what happened inside Gaza and blockade did not prevent Hamas from importing cement and other materials for tunnel building, this is because civilian imports were allowed, but Hamas used imports earmarked for civilian use to build tunnels and rockets.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/16/us/politics/israel-gaza-t...
Regarding the "governing" status of Hamas, I would observe that the overwhelming majority of Gazans are too young to have ever voted, and that Hamas seized and maintains power coercively, so we should be careful attributing ideas like rightful governing status to Hamas. Among the organizations that care less about the lives of Palestinians than Israel, one must clearly number Hamas.
Hamas is the de facto governing authority of Gaza, or was as of October 7th It could have chosen to build water infrastructure, desalination plants, etc. Instead it chose to build tunnels and rockets.
As the de facto governing authority, it has the obligation to provide water, not Israel, if we are talking about strictly legal aspect of this situation.
"Regarding the "governing" status of Hamas, I would observe that the overwhelming majority of Gazans are too young to have ever voted, and that Hamas seized and maintains power coercively, so we should be careful attributing ideas like rightful governing status to Hamas"
I agree, but I did not attribute "rightful" status to Hamas. It's just a factual observation that Hamas had de-facto governing control of the Gaza strip. Elections are not a pre-condition to control
Given that it had control of the Gaza strip, Hamas, as the controlling authority, has responsibility for civilians under its control, not Israel, at least legally
if you want to argue that regardless of legal responsibilites, Israel is still responsible for those civilians, despite Hamas control, that's a separate line of reasoning that leads to its own implications
> It’s absurd to discuss all this as if Israel is the only party with agency here.
And each party is responsible for their own actions. It's not like some kind of car with two steering wheels. Each person has responsibility for what they do.
> Israel has no choice but to try and wipe out Hamas
Oh, so Israel has no agency. No choice but to turn off water, just lay waste to infrastructure to make Gaza unlivable, and of course no choice to sing about how there are "no civilians in Gaza", as shown during the hearing of the ICJ trial.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G15NyemgYDM&t=4548s
Which is just one of so many clips the IDF soldiers are proudly making. They all talk about colonization very openly, and the dehumanizing rhetoric is just astonishing.
https://www.nad.ps/en/media-room/latest-israeli-incitement-r...
> But Hamas doesn’t have to embed itself in civilian population to fight Israel, that’s a choice they made knowing it would lead to high civilian casualties.
Many, many Israeli politicians have vowed to ethnically cleans if not outright murder Palestinians, for their Greater Israel thing. While they're doing it, no less. Right now, it's hundreds of thousands people set to starve, and that is justified with mere "aims" of Hamas. Nobody had to do or justify that, either.
edit: this just in:
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/01/over-one-hun...
> “It is unprecedented to make an entire civilian population go hungry this completely and quickly. Israel is destroying Gaza’s food system and using food as a weapon against the Palestinian people.”
> Israel is destroying and blocking access to farmland and the sea. Recent reports allege that since Israeli military's ground offensive started on 27 October, approximately 22% of agricultural land, including orchards, greenhouses, and farmland in northern Gaza, has been razed by Israeli forces. Israel has reportedly destroyed approximately 70% of Gaza’s fishing fleet.
[..]
> Israel has also destroyed more than 60% of Palestinian homes in Gaza, directly affecting the ability to cook any food, and causing domicide through the mass destruction of dwellings, making the territory uninhabitable. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has estimated that nearly 85% of Gaza's population — representing 1.9 million people — is internally displaced, including many who have been displaced multiple times, as families are forced to move repeatedly in search of safety.
> “We have raised the alarm of the risk of genocide several times reminding all governments they have a duty to prevent genocide. Not only is Israel killing and causing irreparable harm against Palestinian civilians with its indiscriminate bombardments, it is also knowingly and intentionally imposing a high rate of disease, prolonged malnutrition, dehydration, and starvation by destroying civilian infrastructure,” said the experts. “Aid needs to be delivered to Gazans immediately and without any hindrance to prevent starvation.”
> “Our alarm for the unfolding genocide does not only refer to the ongoing bombardment of Gaza but also concerns the slow suffering and death caused by Israel’s long-standing occupation, blockade and current civic destruction, since genocide advances through an ongoing process and is not a singular event.”
Now, the point is, Hamas does want to fight Israel, it's their whole reason for existing as an entity. But certainly they can choose not to embed themselves in civilian population, digging tunnels under childrens' bedrooms, etc
Yes, war is absolutely horrible. And it could end instantaneously, if Hamas surrendered.
Wow, IDF soldiers made a clip? Yes, there are idiots in every army, this is not really relevant for analyzing the broader situation, or at best tangentially relevant.
"Many, many Israeli politicians have vowed to ethnically cleans if not outright murder Palestinians, for their Greater Israel thing"
And many many Palestinian actors have vowed the same. There are extremists literally in every single country. The difference is whether the extremists are actually running the policy of the government. Israeli Government spokespeople are out there every day explaining the policy and it's clearly not to ethnically cleanse, etc
You can't pick out what one idiot said in one instance and then completely ignore what others said in other instances.
Again, you have to engage with a very simple fact, if you want to analyze this situation objectively. Hamas has vowed to kill as many Israelis as they can for all eternity in the future basically. No sovereign country can allow this to happen to its citizens. Therefore, the only thing Israel can do is fight Hamas and try to destroy its capabilities to attack Israel
War is horrible, but you have to also acknowledge that Hamas has been firing rockets into Israel on and off for 17 years. All other options to stop this have been exhausted.
Nobody claimed that. If you're implying not having unlimited choices meant being forced to dehuamnize Palestinians and to call for their extermination and commit war crimes, that'd of course be false.
> And many many Palestinian actors have vowed the same.
What? Name one. What Palestinians actors have talked bout how there are no innocent Israelis?
And why are you comparing "actors" with people like President, Prime Minister, generals and soldiers in the field? And actions that match it, more importantly?
> Israeli Government spokespeople are out there every day explaining the policy and it's clearly not to ethnically cleanse, etc
No, they're not, they're just repeating their "but Hamas" stuff and it's hilarious to see how even the people who interview them sometimes run out of patience with that. One can't "explain" that the deeds that are already on record for having been committed haven't been committed. One can just kick up sand and lie about it.
> Hamas has vowed to kill as many Israelis as they can for all eternity in the future basically.
Or, as you said elsewhere, they want to "continue to keep killing infinite Israelis". Which is such an absurd attempt to justify the crimes Israel is committing.
Right now, you're saying Isreali is justified in its actions, which is leading to killing and starvation of civilians en masse, at rates we haven't seen before, because Hamas must be defeated and this is the only way. Since Hamas cannot be defeated in this way, it stands to reason that what you also are proposing is killing infinite Palestinians, unless they ethnically cleanse themselves, or stop having children. Same goes if you replace "freeing the hostages" with "destroying Hamas". The only way these actions achieve is the humanitarian catastrophe outlined above, which didn't even make you skip a beat.
And while Netanyahu is paying some lip service to not settling Gaza (and some Israelis are talking about how Ben Gvir should take over because that weakness is unforgivable), IDF soldiers are making their TikToks. Like this one addressing "Bibi", naming his unit (hence, no shame, this isn't something that will harm their career) and saying they will stick to it until they finished their task, which is, and I quote, "Occupation, Expulsion, Settlement"
"Since Hamas cannot be defeated in this way, it stands to reason" It can and it doesn't. Of course Hamas can be militarily defeated, its military infrastructure dismantled.
"No, they're not, they're just repeating their "but Hamas" stuff" Yes, they are
"What? Name one. What Palestinians actors have talked bout how there are no innocent Israelis?"
https://nypost.com/2023/11/01/news/hamas-official-vows-to-re...
"Right now, you're saying Isreali is justified in its actions, which is leading to killing and starvation of civilians en masse"
This is a war, you can't say Israeli actions are leading to killing of civilians, because this war has two sides, two players. At a minimum, the actions of Hamas have effects on civlians. At the very minimum, misfired rockets that they fire at Israel are known to fall on the heads of civilians injuring and killing them. The war could end if Hamas decicded to end it, not just Israel
"IDF soldiers are making their TikToks."
IDF has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, so 5 of them made a tiktok, so what? it's irrelevant.
By destroying civilian infrastructure, targeting journalists, using starvation? No, that can kill all civilians in Gaza, and then there still will be Hamas in a tunnel somewhere.
And that Hamas dude is not an actor? I thought you meant movie actors.
But okay, the only people who say the kind of stuff that is normalized in Israeli society and repeated from highest ranks to lowest soldier, the only equivalent to it, is Hamas. (and probably Antisemites and all sorts of terrible people, but nobody that is remotely considered respectable by anyone in the West). You kind of made that point for me.
> IDF has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, so 5 of them made a tiktok, so what? it's irrelevant.
And when many, many, many of public Israeli figures call all people in Gaza animals and call for extermination, then that's irrelevant because Hamas the terrorist organization is saying terrorist things ^^
At any rate it's not 5, and the fact that they make these genocidal statements while destroying civilian infrastructure, including usually naming their unit, often even the name of the person who leads it, makes it clear that it's not fringe, it's not something hidden, it's not a video that was stolen of a flash card, it's what they upload on social media and get celebrated for at home. And that rhetoric seems to matches the actions on the ground way better than all that stuff about this being "war" and aimed primarily at Hamas.
they are not using starvation, humanitarian aid is going into Gaza, multiple trucks are going on, hundreds a day. they are not targeting journalists, they are targeting Hamas. There are plenty of examples of Hamas affiliated "journalists" there.
"At any rate, it's not 5". It doesn't matter if it's 5 or 10. There are literally hundreds of thousands of soldiers. You are holding Israel to a bizarre standard that no country can fulfill while somehow completely letting Palestinians off the hook. Thousands of civilians took part in the October 7th massacre. If you are going to compare soldiers making tiktoks
Israel has fringe figures, bad people that say bad things or do bad things like any other country. This is not relevant to the analysis of the situation in which two sides are at war. In war civilians die, civlian infrastructure gets destroyed and that is horrible. But it;s extremely bizarre to place full responsibility on one side of the war, the side that did not start the war. Hamas started the war and Hamas made clear that Israel doesnt have too many options.
At the point where you're writing stuff like this, maybe the thread has outlived its usefulness? This isn't going to get resolved here, and you're both writing on a 7-day-old story that nobody is reading.
I'd say that's simply accurate, and should be said more often, not less.
80% of the currently catastrophic hungry in the world are in Gaza, right now. Every hour of time that can be played for causes death, predictably so. Those hospitals that haven't been damaged or destroyed have no fuel or electricity to operate. Just turning off water and enforcing mass starvation isn't "fighting Hamas". It's committing atrocities, if not genocide, while betting that people will simply shrug and blame it on Hamas after the people were murdered, directly or indirectly in even larger numbers. Calling that the playbook isn't just an idle accusation, this has predictive power, since every mention of Israeli crimes against civilians is hardly even looked at before deflecting at Hamas, time and time again.
But you have to engage with a simplest of facts: two sides are fighting a war in Gaza, right now, two armies. You can't put all the blame on suffering of civilians on Israel because it's a war that Israel didn't start. Israel can't easily stop this war because Hamas has publicly vowed to repeat October 7th again and again and again, a million times if necessary. But Hamas can stop this war and suffering of civilians literally any time by surrendering.
I keep hearing the water argument. The water was turned back on first of all, but secondly it's absolutely astonishing to me that people take it as given that Israel has full responsibility to provide water to Palestininans, but Hamas, their own government, does not. I think it's absurd to treat Palestinians and Hamas specifically as if they are children, as if they are unable to make choices and bear responsibility for those choices.
The IDF does not have any claims to self defense nor acts of war when it is fighting against Hamas. So, yes, you can indeed put all the blame on the suffering of civilians on Israel, because they controlled this territory before, during, and after oct. 7.
The conduct of the Israel army should not be compared to an army that is fighting a war, like the Russian or the Ukrainian armies. Rather it should be compared to armies which act to maintain an occupation, like that of the British army in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.
Your claim that Hamas should be able to attack Israel with impunity and kill Israelis at will and Israel has no right to self defense is completely absurd. No sovereign state would leave such an attack unanswered and Israel is no different. Regardless of what you think, of course Israel will defend itself.
As to whether it was "made abundantly clear" just because this is your interpretation it doesn't follow that it's abundantly clear. In fact the opposite is abundantly clear, that every state has inherent rights to defend its own citizens from being murdered by hostile armed groups.
> Your claim that Hamas should be able to attack Israel with impunity and kill Israelis at will and Israel has no right to self defense
I never claimed that. It is just that any action Israel takes as a result is not war, but rather counter terrorism or counter insurgency. The British army also had to deal with terrorist groups from their occupied territory during the troubles, when they responded by firing live ammo into unarmed demonstrator, there were consequences. Ultimately the British failed to land a military victory over the terrorists, and finally ended their occupation over Northern Ireland with an agreement.
Israel’s conduct here is as if the British army would have doubled down after Bloody Sunday, say by imposing a blockade, conducting bombing campaigns, and as the IRA’s terror would respond in kind, invade the territory with mass civilian casualties.
What I’m saying is that Israel cannot act as if it has no control over what goes on in Gaza. Their conduct has to match their possibilities. And ending the occupation is one option which they have, but aren’t exploring.
and yes, it is a war. Since Hamas is the official government in control of Gaza it is most definitely a war. If you prefer to call it armed conflict instead of war, that's fine, it doesn't change the reality of what's happening.
Hamas may be the government of Gaza, but they are still operating from a territory occupied by Israel. Hamas does control some things in Gaza, including the legislator, but the Israel army has the ultimate control. Look this has been debated before. If you choose to deny the occupation of Gaza, that is up to you. You are just wrong about it.
Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005. That is an undeniable fact. Subsequently, Hamas took over and started firing rockets at Israel, which caused Israel to impose a blockade on Gaza. Egypt also blockades Gaza, btw. Saying that Israel occupies Gaza without acknowledging that Israel actually pulled out of Gaza in 2005 is just silly. Israel did not control what happens inside Gaza strip for the simple reason that it did not have a presence inside Gaza strip, which is why Hamas was able to build all those tunnels. Why deny the facts? What's the point?
> Despite the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza, the United Nations, international human rights organisations, and the majority of governments and legal commentators consider the territory to be still occupied by Israel, supported by additional restrictions placed on Gaza by Egypt. Israel maintains direct external control over Gaza and indirect control over life within Gaza: it controls Gaza's air and maritime space, as well as six of Gaza's seven land crossings. It reserves the right to enter Gaza at will with its military and maintains a no-go buffer zone within the Gaza territory. Gaza is dependent on Israel for water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities. The extensive Israeli buffer zone within the Strip renders much land off-limits to Gaza's inhabitants. The system of control imposed by Israel was described in the fall 2012 edition of International Security as an "indirect occupation". The European Union (EU) considers Gaza to be occupied.
This is how it was possible for Israel to cut off millions of people from the internet as it starves them to death.
Of course, they are relevant. Israel is not acting in a vacuum. It didn't just wake up one day having completely withdrawn from Gaza and say, let me blockade Gaza for no reason at all, just because we feel like it. They did it for specific reasons and so, if you are going to talk about the blockade and not mention at all, pretend like the reason for the blockade just isn't there, then your analysis just becomes absurd.
The reason for it was that Hamas took over and proceeded to fire rockets at Israel, right? That Hamas is a terrorist organization. Look at the military infrastructure they were able to build under the conditions of the blockade, it's clear that this would have been a lot worse for Israel if the blockade wasn't there. And Israel as a state has a primary responsibility to protect its own civilians against being murdered by Hamas. This clearly is highly relevant to any analysis here.
There simply aren't justifications for using starvation against civilians, calling them animals and calling for their extermination, while IDF soldiers make videos rifling through the belongings of Palestinians to mock them, talking about colonization. "They" (Israeli hard right etc.) always wanted to take the land, so using the crimes of Hamas as an excuse to do just whatever, for just targeting infrastructure to make Gaza unlivable, as they so proudly describe in interviews, while repeating how it's all just self-defense is just too transparent.
> it's clear that this would have been a lot worse for Israel if the blockade wasn't there
You think? As they say, there is nothing scarier than a man without hope, and nobody is complaining about not letting weapons in. At least I am not.
There is the cost to Israel. You cannot commit and justify atrocities, dehumanize other humans completely, without getting deeply damaged yourself. As Chris Hedges wrote about comraderie (versus friendship), it feels great in war time, it's a high, for a while, but the comedown is really depressing and lonely.
And then there is the damage in the eyes of the world, which will keep trickling in for many years. The US, UK, Israel and Germany have no credibility right now except to each other and the usual vassals.
After it withdrew and Hamas took over and started firing rockets, after that, Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade. This is not hard, this is not confusing.
"here is the cost to Israel. You cannot commit and justify atrocities"
They are not committing atrocities. What you call atrocities is the inevitable tragedy of war. Yes, war is bad, it's bad for everyone, including Israel
But what's the alternative? Leave Hamas in power? that is not a possible alternative, that's been tried for 17 years, it has failed.
Israel maintains a 300 meter no-go zone inside the Gaza strip which they regularly shoot at Gaza residents for entering (although reports exist which states people have been shot at up to 1.5 km from the border).
Israel reserves the right to enter the Gaza strip whenever they see fit.
Israel has kept a continuous blockade of Gaza since 2007, between 2005 and 2007 there were also blockades of various levels of intensity. This started before the Hamas takeover of the strip.
Israel claims it ended the occupation but nobody outside of Israel believes that. This includes the UN, EU, International Red Cross, Human Rights Watch, etc. Even the US state department considers Gaza to be occupied territory.
No, Israel only ever partially withdrew from Gaza. Their conduct prior to oct 7 is more then enough to qualify as occupation.
> Alleging that blockade did not happen in response to Hamas is just flat out false.
Never alleged that. The current variation of the blockade is in response to Hamas’ takeover. However there were blockades before Hamas’ takeover:
> The special envoy of the Quartet James Wolfensohn noted that "Gaza had been effectively sealed off from the outside world since the Israeli disengagement [August–September 2005], and the humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population were profound. There were already food shortages. Palestinian workers and traders to Israel were unable to cross the border
> On 15 January 2006, the Karni crossing – the sole point for exports of goods from Gaza – was closed completely for all kinds of exports.
Hamas is elected to government in a fair election on 25 January 2006
> Between 1 January and 11 May [2006], more than 12,700 tonnes of produce were harvested in Gaza's greenhouses, almost all of it destined for export; out of it, only 1,600 tonnes (less than 13%) were actually exported.
Hamas takes control of Gaza in March 2007 after winning the civil war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
So for 2 years between the partial withdrawal and Hamas taking power Israel is limiting imports and exports into the Gaza strip.
The blockade follows a similar pattern as other illegal conduct in other occupied territories, is to limit the potential of a free Palestinian state. Israel didn’t wake up one day and decide to blockade for fun. It remains a colonial power with aims to keep its colonial holdings and limit any potential of its colonial subjects.
> Subsequently, the expectation was that the security situation would improve. Had that happened, then you could talk about airspace, waters, etc.
You are arguing in alternative history, any argument rooted in alternative history is pure speculation. You have no proof that would be the case. Who is to say that without the rocket attacks, the Gaza strip would have continued to be subjugated, economically suppressed, and turned into a bantustan for Israel to exploit?
Leaving the legal definition of occupation, here is the simple dictionary definition of occupation from wikipedia
Military occupation, also known as belligerent occupation or simply occupation, is the temporary military control by a ruling power over a territory that is outside of that power's sovereign territory.[1][2][3][4]
Israel did not have military control over Gaza, it is absurd to allege simultaneously that Israel had military control over Gaza and also allowed Hamas to build 500 miles of tunnels and attack itself on October 7th from the territory it militarily controled.
So no, by any sane definition of occupation, such as Wikipedia, Israel was not occupying Gaza before October 8th
These greenhouses you are referring to were run by Israeli settlers in Gaza. They were dismantled when the settlements were dismantled. Not by Israel, by Palestinians themselves https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863
"You are arguing in alternative history, any argument rooted in alternative history is pure speculation."
Sorry, that is a weird analysis. By your logic we can't anticipate or logically analyze anything at all, it would all be speculation
The point of Israeli withdrawal was that if the occupation ends, maybe there is more chance for peace, that was the point of it and the opposite happened.
The disagreement is Israel says there is no occupation while the rest of the world says there is. This is hardly a disagreement as much that one party is simply wrong. It is like Iran stating it does not have a nuclear weapons program or Russia claiming their elections are fair.
First of all the French Resistance was dedicated to the destruction of Vichy France and Nazy Germany, and the ANC was dedicated to the destruction of Apartheid South Africa. The current Hamas charter only calls for the destruction of Zionist Israel, not for Israel as a nation.
Second of all, I stated before that the only relevant comparison, and the only comparison I ever made, was that they operate from occupied territory and against their occupiers. How far they go against their occupiers is indeed irrelevant, like we have both pointed out.
Israel does occupy Gaza, and they have since 1967, no matter how much you deny it. And as such, they bare full responsibility for what goes on in there. Off course any terrorists from Gaza are responsible for their own actions, and should be charged in a court of law. But Israel cannot fight those terrorists by causing mass civilian casualty inside the territory they control. And if they do, any collateral damage they cause, is their responsibility, and a crime they must answer too.
This is gaslighting. There is no doubt that Hamas wants to kill all Israelis because we not only have the text of the charter, but we have their actions on October 7th and their subsequent statements. Israel does not occupy Gaza, they left Gaza in 2005, you can't just pretend like that did not happen, come on. Israel did not have a physical presence inside Gaza before this latest round of fighting, this is a fact and it's absurd to deny it.
Everything you say about Hamas can be equally applied to Israel, and it is exactly what South Africa does in its legal case for the ICJ.
It can't equally be applied to Israel because Hamas attacked on October 7th and subsequently vowed to repeat these attacks. That is extremely relevant, you can't just ignore this fact.
The simple fact is that civilian casualties are not all equally and cannot simply be tallied.
None of this is to say that what Israel is doing now doesn't constitute a series of war crimes for which Netanyahu and his administration might be imprisoned (if Israel doesn't get to him first). A conflict can be squarely complaint with jus ad bellum but prosecuted in a way that contravenes the laws of war and humanity.
Israel is a state actor with a state level budget, and a state level arsenal which includes nuclear weapons. The damage it can and does inflict is an order of magnitude worse than the horrors any terrorist organization could ever dream of inflicting. But unlike Hamas, Israel also has state level responsibilities, of which it is horrifically failing to uphold. We should judge Hamas as a terrorist organization, but we should also judge Israel as a state actor, and as such any moral failings of Israel is infinitely worse.
> The simple fact is that civilian casualties are not all equally and cannot simply be tallied.
If true the horrors of 75 years of colonization, occupation and apartheid should be weighted in. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are under constant threat of being shot at for opening a car gate, going down the wrong street, or simply for protecting their orchards from settlers.
That said, atrocities and crimes against humanity should not be ranked in any order. They should all be prevented, and in the worst case scenario prosecuted.
What my parent said was: “There is no doubt that Hamas wants to kill all Israelis because we not only have the text of the charter, but we have their actions on October 7th and their subsequent statements.” is the only thing I’m equating.
The case against Israel at the ICJ is exploring whether it can be stated without a doubt that Israel intents (wants) to kill (or displace) all Palestinians in Gaza as a group. For this South Africa cites written and spoken statements by Israeli officials (written charter) but also its actions during the current conflict (hindering aid, destroying civil infrastructure, leveling residential neighborhoods, etc.) as well as also actions prior to Oct 7 of which this inferred intent only builds upon.
My parent was assuming genocidal intent onto Hamas, all the while many states are doing the very same against Israel. My parent may be right, but if South Africa et.all are right, the results are an order of magnitude more horrific, by the very nature that the perpetrator is not a mere terrorist organization, but a state actor.
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EDIT: Removed an unnecessary name calling from post.
If you have an argument that would be persuasive to someone who does not in fact believe that almost every country in the world is worse than Hamas, maybe there's a point in continuing to talk. Otherwise, it's fine that we disagree.
While I have you, can you stop writing things to me like that "you are right" barb?
I want to note that Israel does indeed have special obligation coferred by statehood. Formally those are all the international agreements it has signed and promised to uphold. Relevant here are, among others, the Geneva convention, the Genocide convention, Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc. I’ll give special mention to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons which Israel hasn’t signed, thus making it scary as North Korea.
When a state signs these obligations but then fails to follow them, they have in fact failed humanity on a moral level. When these failures result in countless deaths and horrors, they are especially bad. To me this is what makes Israel worse then Hamas. You don’t have to agree with me, but I hope you understand where I’m coming from.
I think Israel's actions in Gaza have been hard to defend (their motivation: less so) so none of what I'm saying is an apology for Israel. But the idea that they're even morally comparable to Hamas is an extraordinary claim. Many (most?) normal reasonable people will read it and scratch their heads.
Every country fails humanity at a moral level in a great variety of ways. Israelis sometimes feel --- with some justification --- that they're held to a standard that does't apply to other western countries, let alone countries in their own region, where the deliberate, planned murder of civilians has occurred within just the past decade or so at scales that dwarf what's happened in Gaza.
Yemen and Syria are instructive comparisons here, and I'll note that while everyone was pretty grossed out at Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen (which had more to do with how we felt about Saudi Arabia than a genuine concern for Yemenis, who, like Palestinians, are for the most part victimized by the combatants on "their side), you didn't see much talk about Yemeni genocide.
Further arguing against a finding of genocidal intent on Israel's part is the provocation they responded to, which, again, is among the worst in modern history: a truly, deliberately vile attack done at breathtaking scale.
The other points raised here are irrelevant. I’ve said before in this thread—and other threads—that there is no justification to genocide. So however heinously Israel was provoked, the genocidal conduct afterwards speaks for it self. This was explicitly stated in the oral arguments by South Africa.
As for the numbers, that also is irrelevant to the question of genocide. The convention states “in whole or in part”. South Africa argued that Palestinians of Gaza constitutes a group, and that Israels conduct in Gaza violates annex (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; of Article II of the Genocide Convention.
In comparison the Army of Republika Srpska was convicted of Genocide for killing 8,372 victims out of a population of 1.2 million living in territories controlled by the perpetrators. The total number didn’t matter, what mattered was the intent to destroy Muslim Bosniaks living in Srpska as a group.
I would just caution that the colloquial meaning of "genocide" covers a lot of other terrible events in recent history that people don't single out as genocidal, and Israelis are, with very good reason, especially alert to the multiplicity of different standards here. They're largely (leaving out goblins like Ben Gvir) convinced they have no intention of displacing all the Palestinians, let alone killing them all.
I agree that Serbia perpetrated a genocide that killed far fewer people than Israel did. We killed more than 3 times as many civilians as the IDF in Gaza in our doomed Afghanistan invasion, and not only did very few normal people call it a genocide, but they got angry when we abruptly left. And I again urge you to check out the numbers on Syria and Yemen, two other conflicts Iran helped instigate.
The world is messy and usually pretty horrible. I'm not trying to persuade you of anything, but I think it's helpful to know what another perspective on this might be.
Some IDF soldiers made TikToks addressing Netanyahu, starting their intent to complete "Occupation, Expulsion, Settlement". There are dozens of them bragging about how many houses they are blowing up, while they do it with wired explosives. Right now, the last "functioning" hospital in Gaza is under attack, while Israeli youth make fun of "killing Palestines" (most of them can't even pronounce "Palestinian" apparently) in live video chats. Some dude on Israeli TV saying "I'll be honest, I don't care about the war crimes, I just want to see buildings destroyed, mooooore buildings" etc. and everyone laughs.
[edit: And the line that "there are no innocent people in Gaza" is still being repeated by all sorts of people, including military. Here's for example Lt. Col. Oren Schindler in a radio interview: "We need need to make sure that wherever the IDF meets Gaza, there is devastation. Nothing less, nothing more. Where Battalion 74 was - it happened. I can garuantee you that devastation, nothing less, in every place we were, there was only sand left, and houses on the ground. Because in every home, unfortunately I learned that in Gaza there is no innocence."
One might say this proves they don't want to kill innocent people, but Hamas forces them to, etc. but given the context and the actions, I'll just note that this is true about any atrocity. Look any of them up, from the most obvious to the most obscure ones, and you'll find someone painting the it as either a.) doing good or b.) doing bad because bad people forced them to or c.) doing bad for good reasons or a good goal that sanctifies the bad deeds. I doubt "genocide lawyers" would weigh such lip service much, if at all.]
Yes, there were also thousands of people in Israel chanting "Bibi, Bibi, you can't hide, you're committing genocide". But they sure are in the extreme minority.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/it-is-a-time-o...
> “Most Israelis don’t know much about Palestinians. They think they are terrorists, all of them, or vague images with no names, no faces, no family, no homes, no hopes,” Baruchin said. “What I am trying to do in my posts is present Palestinians as human beings.”
> Ten days after that Facebook message, he was fired from his teaching job in Petach Tikvah municipality. Less than a month later he was in a high-security jail, detained to give police more time to investigate critical views he had never tried to hide.
As exemplified by a teacher put into solitary confinement for posting about innocent deaths in Gaza and suggesting having empathy for those.
Can you show me some, who aren't getting smeared and persecuted for it? I am not aware of a single one.
And the difference Gaza which has been cut off from the internet for 4 days in a row now, and a government that buys Google ads to smear the ICJ genocide charges as being politically motivated support of Hamas, is rather stark. The US senate just voted with a 75% majority to not even record Israeli war crimes. Are they affording that to other countries in the region, too?
> let alone countries in their own region
That's such an odd defense we never hear anywhere else, but constantly in contest of Israel. Why would the physical region matter? Those other countries aren't taking part in the Eurovision song contest, for example. They're not claiming to be a democracy respecting humanitarian values. Israel was founded by educated Europeans in no small part, not people from the region. If someone brags so much, including having "the most moral army in the world", while that army is doing what it is doing now, it might have something to do with them (too), not (only) the people who don't buy it having double standards.
We expect no better of other countries who currently aren't developed and weren't ever, we're barely even on speaking terms with them, when it comes to having a place at our table in polite company. I bet they also brag about being the best and having the best army, but we don't even hear about it and don't care. If one of them got accused of genocide via a formal trial, most media outlets would have covered and translated the first hearing, where the accusations where laid out -- instead of totally ignoring that and then reporting on Israel's so-called defense the next day.
We certainly don't have a fleet of journalists embedded in the armies of other countries in the region posting feel good stories, while the other half is writing up other random personal interest stories to make people feel good about the part of the picture they're not being shown at all. Or politicians just leaping to their defense before the ink on the accusation is even dry: https://gpil.jura.uni-bonn.de/2024/01/germany-rushes-to-decl...
The atrocities and horrors of European colonization were indeed recognized, but not loudly, the media talked about it, but in a weird tone, often justifying or devaluing the lives of the colonized peoples. Resistance movements among the colonized were described as terrorists, and any fight against them (which was a fight to keep the European colonies) was described as just and moral. The UN spoke against colonization, but was ignored. Human rights abuses in the colonies were ignored or justified amongst western governments.
Of course Israel today doesn’t parallel this dark time period of European history. But the standards applied to Israel today are in many ways quite similar to the standards applied to a European colonial power aiming to keep their colonies.