You may also find Alex Schmid's piece, which is frequently cited about this issue, interesting.
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1400&context=jil
Israel - Palestine Discussion | Post Respectfully | Discuss more, tweet less
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You may also find Alex Schmid's piece, which is frequently cited about this issue, interesting.
https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1400&context=jil
I've been on record in this forum, as far back as 2015, saying the demographics were pointing all the way to a one state solution. The coming generations are a lot more clued up on the issue, and won't accept the status quo, which I believe is what almost all Zionists, irrespective or whether they are liberal or hard right, want. It probably won't happen overnight, but eventually I think it will.
I don't think anyone would claim that, they've committed many acts of terrorism against civilians down the years.
Just the current conflict and the many prior to it aren't best discussed through the angle of terrorist group vs state. We can talk about objective labels etc but it's really not so simple and each event is best discussed in it's own right in my opinion.
A civilian death is a civilian death i don't really care if it's a state or a group. One isn't better.
While it's obviously subjective, I prefer it when these things are discussed from the point of view of legitimacy.
By that definition, most WWII resistance groups were terrorists.
If they targeted non combatants, yes they were.
They did frequently. Be it collaborators, bureaucrats, troops is noncombat roles, or families of soldiers/officers.
You wouldn't find many who'd be shocked, outraged or in other ways question your morality if you said you didn't consider them evil or terrorists, yet that's the reaction you'll often get if you say you don't consider Hamas evil or a terrorist org.
Israel does not recognise Palestine as a state. How would you define Hamas or other Palestinian resistance groups?
Hamas and Islamic Jihad specifically are terror groups because they deliberately target civilians.
Others like Fatah in their current mode of operations, I view as defense forces. I'm not aware of all the different groups in the area other than these three.
The IDF deliberately targets civilians as well, they just use the cover "but we were trying to target Hamas military infrastructure" as an excuse.
In actuality, this is really no better than Hamas:
"On Sunday, Israel launched heavy airstrikes along a main thoroughfare in Gaza City, saying it was targeting Hamas’ “underground military infrastructure.” The bombardment toppled three buildings and killed at least 42 people, including 16 women and 10 children. A day earlier, a strike in a crowded refugee camp killed 10 women and children. Israeli media said the military was aiming for senior Hamas officials meeting in the building."
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-war-crimes-explainer-87fc72d73fae1664d3a42a8bf79d10b5
So you have no evidence but (Ifs) and a theory. While in reality the Israeli gov killed more civilians than Hamas. Believe what you want but you cant change reality and numbers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7811386.stm
The International Committee of the Red Cross - guardian of the Geneva Conventions on which international humanitarian law is based - defines a combatant as a person "directly engaged in hostilities".
But Israeli Defence Forces spokesman Captain Benjamin Rutland told the BBC: "Our definition is that anyone who is involved with terrorism within Hamas is a valid target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding and human resources for the terrorist arm."
Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at University College London, says he is not aware of any Western democracy having taken so broad a definition.
"Once you extend the definition of combatant in the way that IDF is apparently doing, you begin to associate individuals who are only indirectly or peripherally involved… it becomes an open-ended definition, which undermines the very object and purpose of the rules that are intended to be applied."
Indeed, Hamas itself has been quoted as saying the fact that most Israelis serve in the military justifies attacks on civilian areas.
So basically the UK, USA and Israel beside Hamas!
I wouldn't argue with your assessment. These acts whether genuine or not, violate the principle of proportionality. Without being able to prove that the attacks deliberately intend to target civilians, I would suggest that this is a violation of international humanitarian law in a form other than terrorism.
In the first part of your argument, the expansion of the meaning of combatant is problematic indeed and could be a violation of international humanitarian law. Hamas's justification is also hollow because children and the elderly are not in the military and their attacks do not discriminate between them and reservists.
You could make this argument but do they really specifically target civilians?
I've thought about this situation myself.
If the logic used by the IDF for targeting locations in Gaza were applied to targeting areas within Israel proper, considering their near universal conscription and reserve forces practices, nearly any area could be considered a "military target" since it is bound to have active duty or reservist military personnel present.
**Disclaimer** I don't think places in Israel or Gaza should be indiscriminately targeted **Disclaimer**
But you also have those in here stating that if the IDF would exactly be the SS if they had ‘total time & freedom’ to do so.
Absolutist, fantastical rhetoric isn’t helpful & is being used to defend rationale by those on both sides of the issue in this thread.
There’s no shortage of such in here.
Similar to your belief despite me quoting the article, I do not believe targeting opposition combatants even if there is even the remotest chance it could harm a civilian is correct. This obviously comes from my understanding of religious jurisprudence.
I quote
In a famous decree, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, the first Caliph, told his military commander: “Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for guidance on the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies; do not kill a woman, a child, or an aged man; do not cut down fruitful trees; do not destroy inhabited areas; do not slaughter any of the enemies’ sheep, cow or camel except for food; do not burn date palms, nor inundate them; do not embezzle (e.g. no misappropriation of booty or spoils of war) nor be guilty of cowardliness…You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone."
I am sure there will be people in the IDF who will be considerate and sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. However, on the flip side there will be Zionist fundamentalists who think the Palestinians are sub-human and a waste of oxygen. There will be the treatment of innocents on par or worse than the SS.
Well the evidence I have is Hamas fires rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians, and Israel has the means to turn Gaza into a car park in under a day but haven't.
Also, if you believe Israel is worse than Hamas and target Palestinian civilians indiscriminately, why don't Hamas rather use the tunnels as bomb shelters for their civilians instead of shelters for their rockets?
But the status quo isn't sustainable forever. There has to be an end to it at some point, and I can only see that ending being either Apartheid or one-state.
This is quite debatable, but not exactly what I was describing.
It’s the selective, disingenuous outcry against the use of absolutist, fantastical rhetoric in here when it doesn’t align with your stance. It’s employed by both sides of the equation.
I'm sorry to pick on your post specifically, but can we all step well back from comparisons to the SS?
The reductio ad Hitlerum is, at the very best, completely unhelpful, and also a lazy trope that does nothing to advance debate.
What does comparing the SS to the IDF do?
Can we find historical examples of actions committed by SS soldiers and commanders which can be broadly equivalent to some acts of the IDF? Probably, as not everything the SS did was genocidal murder. But enough of it was to make the comparison between the two immediately draw parallels between the IDF's actions and the Holocaust.
Hamas has executed individuals for being gay. The SS helped send gay people to concentration camps during the war.
But what would it do to the debate if I made the point that Hamas has treated people just like the SS did? As well as it ignoring vital differences between the two conflicts, it is hardly able to reach across the divide to seek compromise which is what is needed here.
Or a situation like Bosnia, where there wasn't able to be a multi-national solution.
Indeed. I hope I didn't come across as thinking you personally supported such things, as I was also hoping to make it clear that I do not as well.
I just thought it interesting to see that thought mentioned in the article you posted, as it has been a thought I've had before when considering the Israeli justifications for things like taking out the international media's building, or a Hamas leader's house, etc.
Really, what do you think?
They did and will continue to do.
What's this based on?
Well, history...
Take the Zeitoun "incident", for instance. Where the IDF herded about 100 people of one family into a building, then a day or two later targeted the building that they'd herded the people into with an air / artillery strike.
The same applies on Israel, they target Palestinian civilians indiscriminately.
The second part of your post is what I notice on everyone trying to justify programmed murder the Israeli state do. There is the difference between us, you defend murder, I did not.
Based on the atrocities that has been done by these governments.
We're talking policy. Every army in the world will have isolated incidents of discipline failure or poor judgment. But as a matter of policy, what is the evidence that these States actively pursue a policy of targetting civilians?
Another instance...
The Gaza beach bombings, where the IDF blew up about a dozen kids & teenagers watching the Argentina vs. Netherlands match in the World Cup. The bombing came with no warning, and the IDF "investigation" never released details as to why they bombed the location.
And another instance...
In the same area of Zeitoun, another family was directed to evacuate their home to a different one (after one of them had already been shot), were told that they wouldn't be targeted while moving to the new location, then were in fact shot at as they moved to the new location, leading to several folks being wounded and one dead child.
If this was the case, why don't they just carpet bomb Gaza? Surely that would be the easiest and quickest solution if they targeted civilians?
Firstly, please show me where I defended civilians dying. Secondly, I am asking a very simple question: if Hamas cared about Palestinian lives more than their rockets, why do they rather put their rockets instead of civilians in the tunnels? This does not justify any Israeli action in any shape or form.
Many in here think that’s exactly what the IDF is doing, carpet bombing.
Do you know how many civilians died in Iraq because of a war based on a LIE created by the USA and UK? They were beating the drums of war that cause d and still causing the suffering of people around the world. Sure a definition of the term terrorism will never suit the ones who came up with the criteria in the first place.
Listen, I will not make this a long discussion, if your consciousness is ok with the USA, UK and the Israeli killing "by accident" fine, whatever makes you sleep well at night.
When it comes to warfare, I think the last twenty or thirty years has shown - whether it’s Gaza, Grozny, Fallujah, Raqqa, Aleppo, or Mosul - that states believe that the presence of Islamist militias dug into urban environments gives them carte blanche to inflict a level of violence and destruction on these areas that their own publics would never accept and rationalize were it inflicted on them for any reason; and that by and large, the rest of the world is content to shrug along (some protests notwithstanding). Obviously there are differences in each case, but I think has been the pattern.
There will be literally hundreds of examples, and frankly if you bomb an 'enemy combatant' knowing full well there are civilians in the area you are by definition targeting civilians. The fact that they decided that the death of the 'enemy combatant' was worth the trade-off of killing many more civilians doesn't mean you didn't knowingly kill civilians.
To take the word targeted literally, and also to demonstrate how tenuous the "its Hamas' fault we kill women and children" line is, during the 2018 protests 25 medics, who had gone to great lengths to identify themselves as such, were shot by Israeli snipers whilst trying to reach other civilians shot by Israeli snipers whilst protesting. One doctor was shot in the leg and the paramedic who came to help him was then shot in the chest and killed.
The Israeli ambassador to the UK later tweeted a video which had been doctored by the IDF to imply that one of the medics who was murdered was a Hamas plant and blamed her death on Hamas, rather than on the Israeli soldier who shot at her three times.
They are doing it slowly. People are dying a slow death there. In addition to the point you are ignoring all the time every time war erupts 10 times the civilians die in the other side.
About your Hamas question. I do not need to answer that question because I never said they should not be on the "terrorist list".
Again, Hamas is killing civilians, Israel is doing it 10 times more.
Because then the IDF couldn't hide behind roof knocks and "there was Hamas nearby".
Do you know how many civilians died in Iraq because of a war based on a LIE created by the USA and UK? They were beating the drums of war that cause d and still causing the suffering of people around the world. Sure a definition of the term terrorism will never suit the ones who came up with the criteria in the first place.
Listen, I will not make this a long discussion, if your consciousness is ok with the USA, UK and the Israeli killing "by accident" fine, whatever makes you sleep well at night.
Just make your point and spare me the histrionics. We engaged on a particular question, over whether civilians are particularly targeted in the context of situation terrorism in the context.
Why have you pivoted to the bolded?
Next time you want to throw a childish tantrum, quote someone else and have your long or short discussion.
I've actually seen discussion on a three state solution, with Jerusalem being its own standalone state (which itself has both benefits and drawbacks).
Personally, I don't see this current government ever agreeing to a two state solution, and we shouldn't forget that this solution does not fit in with the Zionist end goal (unless its in an Apartheid-like form).