@javi2541997
"Ha! Ha! You made me laugh, my dear pal."

:grin:

This is to say, if the destruction of Gaza is necessary for the protection of Israel, then it would be unethical for Israel not to destroy Gaza. — Hanover

Genocide:

"the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.
"a campaign of genocide"

https://www.google.com/search?q=genocide&oq=genocid&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57.11650j0j7&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

I understand your need to vent but wiping out cities of millions of people, the vast majority of whom are civilians, could never be justified unless they posed a similar level of immediate existential threat, as might be the case in a nuclear war etc.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide seem to be the stated or implicit goal of both. Only Israel has the means to really follow through on that though. — Baden

One suggestion is that Hamas might decide to martyr themselves in order to become the heroes that brought about the final battle that would drag in all the usual suspects for the end of days. It's hard to make sense of their attack without some such background plan to provoke a response that'll draw in other parties, except as mass suicide by Israeli.

Ethnic cleansing and genocide seem to be the stated or implicit goal of both. Only Israel has the means to really follow through on that though. — Baden

One suggestion is that Hamas might decide to martyr themselves in order to become the heroes that brought about the final battle that would drag in all the usual suspects for the end of days. It's hard to make sense of their attack without some such background plan to provoke a response that'll draw in other parties, except as mass suicide by Israeli.

Either Warsaw uprising is closer to the current situation militarily. I thought the urban bombing campaigns of WWII were more interesting in that the justification of them in terms of the balance of power eroded later in the war. Warsaw is less interesting from a moral perspective in that everyone agrees that the Nazis were wrong, and the Soviets as well. It's even more obviously that the Soviets invading Poland to aid Hitler's conquest was strategically idiotic in retrospect, so there isn't even a shred of pragmatic justification.

But the Jews didn't end up in Palestine by invading to "defend the oppressed Jews there," after a false flag attack on a radio station (how Hitler started his war). They ended up there in a mix of ways, at first through state supported migration, as the Ottomans were happy to have people move into what was a depopulated economic backwater. And the people that came were largely refugees from either genocidal pogroms or at least official state suppression.

Conflict only began later when the migrant population hit a critical mass. And in some ways the opposition began in quite self-serving ways that we certainly wouldn't accept in the context of say, Mexicans moving to the US. E.g.,

- Demands from Arabs that other, unrelated Arabs not be allowed to sell their own property to Jews because "I don't want those people in my neighborhood," but also because "Jews are bidding up the price and it should be sold at a lower price to me." Imagine this argument re San Diego housing.

-Demands that property sold to Jews be returned to Arabs, without the sale price even being returned, after the land had been significantly improved through cultivation.

-Demands that the government reflect the religious confession of the original majority in all cases and not give consideration to the new arrivals as equal citizens.

-Demands that no more people of the out group be allowed to move into the area regardless of refugee status.

But these demands emerged slowly at first. Later waves of arrivals came because of the Holocaust and later because the Arabs expelled Jews from throughout the Middle East.

Point being, this is qualitatively different from Hitler's invasion and there was no Jewish action on par with the Germans to exterminate the Arab population so that they could settle the lands. Indeed, they accepted a peace agreement that would leave them with far less land than they ended up with, with Jewish ethnic cleansing efforts largely occuring during the 1948 war, at the same time that Arab ethnic cleansing efforts (some actually quite successful) were trying to push Jews out of other areas. This is more similar to the partition of India than Hitler's invasion of Poland. That's where the Warsaw analogy falls apart, "how the Germans got control of Warsaw."

So the interesting part would be that it seems that Israel was far more justified in defending itself "to the best of its abilities," in 1948 than in 2023. And this is because the balance of military power has shifted decisively. But the relation to WWII is if the shift necessities then taking far more risks. Does the winning side in a war have an obligation to pursue different defense strategies as it starts winning?

I'm not claiming the two are perfectly analogous. A key difference is timing. WWII in Europe lasted just half a decade. The Japanese leadership during the US bombings was the same leadership that encouraged genocide in China, not one from 70 years later.

In the Israel-Palestine conflict, all the original participants are long dead, even those from 1948 are dead, and half those in Gaza were born shortly before or after the economic blockade went up. I do think that changes things because Israel increasingly becomes responsible for the attitudes and governance in the areas they occupy through how they have occupied them. And Israel is responsible for Hamas to the extent they at times helped Hamas' cause in their early days, hoping to use them as a way to destabilize the PLO.

But from the Israeli perspective, since "total victory, we will genocide you out of existence as soon as God gives you over into our hands," has remained the unconditional terms of the conflict for some parties, it also seems like there is justification for destroying that leadership since it's unclear how peace can possibly come when they rule through force and are accountable to virtually no one save Iran.

Just for an example, Hamas moving their bases out of urban areas to reduce the threat to civilians was a campaign promise in the one election they allowed. It was, in fact, something people weren't happy about. Hamas won a plurality of the vote, not even a majority, then canceled elections indefinitely and purged all opposition. And in this, the argument that "they need to be removed despite the cost," is one that comes closer to the Allied position re unconditional surrender.

It's also similar in that no strong opposition movement grew up in Germany or Japan during WWII, even as the costs of the war mounted and it became increasingly obvious that they would lose. Similarly, while discontent with Hamas obviously exists, it also doesn't seem like they are likely to lose their grasp on power without having external losses inflicted on them.

And I'd argue that they are similar in questions about "what comes after?" The treaties of WWI laid the seeds of WWII. The blockade if Gaza and terms of peace with Egypt laid the seeds of this war in Israel. Will Israel strike a path more similar to the US after WWII re Germany and Japan? This required a huge investment, but it did work. And it's not like the Japanese hated the Americans any less. Being close allies today's owes to the successful reconstruction and efforts on both sides for lasting peace. But of course, US investment was heavily motivated by the threat of the Soviets, and no similar threat exists for Israel (or Palestine, it helped that West Germany and Japan feared Soviet invasion more than US occupation).

Also the humanitarian situation wasn't as dire as in Gaza. — Tzeentch

Uhhh... just how many have been killed in Ukraine compared to this little fight? And there are over 6 million refugees from Ukraine now all over the World. That's multiple times the population in Gaza. And how do the deaths compare? In the war in Ukraine 200 000 soldiers in all have perished in the war and perhaps 40 000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed. And the actual figures can be even higher, actually.

So please do notice the huge differences in scale.

According to my reading it was more complex than that, but my point was that this is less like WW2 and more like 9-11. — frank

Of course. Yet if we look at WW2 anything that would resemble the current situation, the Warsaw Uprising is most similar.

Do what they must, but the honorable thing to do would be to fight street by street without heavy weapons and avoid deaths and injuries. Can the best trained army in the world do this, or are they not interested any more?

This is simply based on false assumptions. People arguing against a ground invasion are doing so specifically because a ground invasion will almost certainly mean far more civilian death. In no way would "street by street fighting," result in less damage. This has historically never been the case.

A ground fight requires much looser ROE and significantly increases the risk of a loss of discipline and massacres.

A drone operator can be far more dispassionate in picking targets. They aren't at risk. There is time for the JAG team or its equivalent to vet a strike, something that is done. You have time to select appropriate munitions, lower payloads for smaller targets or for greater risks of collateral damage.

But if you're actively being shot at? If the choice is to let mortars wipe out a squad or to fire shells into an urban area to suppress the fire? You can't just decide "the risk is to civilians is too big," if people are firing anti-tank weapons at you from a building. You're going to die unless you level the thing with a main gun round.

You're also going to get ambushes, people pretending to be civilians and attacking, all the stuff that erodes discipline and makes eroding discipline more likely.

Street by street fighting means a much higher volume of fire in the area, less time to make decisions, more barriers to flows of civilians, less access to areas by rescue and medical teams, etc.

The fact is that even massive scale strategic bombing has tended to produce less fatalities than urban battles.

Uhhh... just how many have been killed in Ukraine compared to this little fight? And there are over 6 million refugees from Ukraine now all over the World. That's multiple times the population in Gaza. And how do the deaths compare? In the war in Ukraine 200 000 soldiers in all have perished in the war and perhaps 40 000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed. And the actual figures can be even higher, actually.

So please do notice the huge differences in scale. — ssu

That's of course terrible, however in the case of Ukraine there is a professional army capable of protecting civilians (and not using them as human shields), and a state capable of sheltering them with wide international support. That's not the case in Gaza. In Gaza there is no food, no running water, no electricity, and the civilians cannot flee even if they wanted to.

So I think it's fair to say that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is much worse - that's not necessarily a quantitative statement.

:up:

There have barely been any diplomatic conversations between Washington and players in the Middle-East - something that would be unheard of 20 years ago.

But they have been? The media just doesn't focus on them because they are unlikely to mean anything in the current context. The problem is that all the traditional "players" in the Middle East outside of Iran are essentially enemies of Hamas, in some cases quite openly. So what fruit are these overtures supposed to bear?

Second, consider that Hamas has several EU and US prisoners, as well as prisoners from several other countries. I would imagine that rhetoric is what it is because more strident diplomatic support is being held back as a carrot to return the foreign nationals.

I honestly can't see why Hamas would want to keep EU or US nationals given the two fund like 7% of Gaza's GDP and aid payments are crucial to them. It's even less apparent why they would want to hold Russian and Chinese nationals. Unless, of course, you've already treated them so poorly that you don't want word getting out. But it might speak to a broader lack of discipline and coordination that the nationals you'd expect to be released haven't been.

Your comment is almost symbolic for the lack of diplomatic tact that I sought to point out.

The US advises Israel to exercise restraint.

understand your need to vent but wiping out cities of millions of people, the vast majority of whom are civilians, could never be justified unless they posed a similar level of immediate existential threat, as might be the case in a nuclear war etc. — Baden

As with all moral questions, the issue of intent is critical. If the intent is to eliminate an inferior or immoral race, then that is genocide.

If it's to protect your own people and nation from destruction, it's a different matter. Israel does face an existential threat that is only reduced by doing the things it is currently doing. I get those from the sidelines think they have a gentler way to secure Israel's security, but others disagree.

Define "its" land. — Benkei

The Be'eri kibbutz, for example.

Now, does this include Gaza and the West Bank? — FreeEmotion

Israel isn't at war over a claim by Israel that Gaza and the West Bank belong to Israel. Israelis presence in Gaza is part of a military operation. I don't think Israel has any interest in occupying and policing Gaza every day.

According to your own premise, Russia is legitimate to occupy Crimea, Donbas and Donetsk, right? — javi2541997

That doesn't follow.

Ok, so you're making a claim about Israel's annexations of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967 - places that belonged to Egypt and Jordan respectively at the time, and where there lived (and still live) primarily Palestinians.

What makes this annexation by Israel during the Six-Day War legitimate in your eyes? — Tzeentch

I'm not laying an Israeli claim to Gaza or the West Bank. That is a Palestinian territory, controlled by Hamas and Hezzbolah respectfully.

But can land be acquired by war? Of course. If not, the world map would look very different.

Acquisition of land by ancient inheritance is no more defensible than by war.

And vice versa? — unenlightened

The existential threat to Gaza is Hamas provoking war with Israel.

The security problem in the region goes both ways. And let's not pretend terrorism wasn't a reaction to the illegal occupation and not the other way around. — Benkei

Terrorism is not a legitimate response. Period.

Then I have trouble understanding your position.

If you believe Israel isn't occupying foreign territories in Gaza and the West Bank, then what exactly do you believe Israel is doing there?

Clearly "legitimate possession" is not the end of the question. — Echarmion

No, but it's the first question. If the Mexican government continuously lobbed bombs into El Paso and raped and butchered its citizens, it wouldn't be shocking if the US took over a chunk of Mexico. That justification comes from no one remotely questioning the US's right to its land.

I get those from the sidelines think they have a gentler way to secure Israel's security, but others disagree. — Hanover

Any conqueror can say this, including Nazis. Germans had seen Jewish cultural independence as an existential threat for generations before the Holocaust. Was it really a threat? Who cares? That's what Germans believed. Same thing here.

You don't set your morals by what you think you need to accomplish your goals. You set them by what you know is right and accomplish your goals within those constraints. Otherwise you're going to fuck up.

If you believe Israel isn't occupying foreign territories in Gaza and the West Bank, then what exactly do you believe Israel is doing there? — Tzeentch

They're invading it after being attacked. That's what happens in a war. Do you think Gaza is a safety zone that can't be entered into by Israel after being attacked?

Do you think Gaza occupied foreign territory when it arrived at the kibbutz?

I don't think one can uniquely declare one party good and the other evil in this conflict that's been going on for ages.

George Bush: 'God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq'
^{— Ewen MacAskill · The Guardian · Oct 7, 2005}
:D
By the way

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, who was also part of the delegation at Sharm el-Sheikh, told the BBC programme that Mr Bush had said: "I have a moral and religious obligation. I must get you a Palestinian state. And I will." — Ewen MacAskill · The Guardian · Oct 7, 2005

So this is what things look like in Gaza at the moment (google can translate Spanish as needed)...

The complete siege complicates the lives of Gazans in the Strip dodging the bombs
^{— Euronews · Oct 12, 2023}

What have we done to them? Look at the destroyed houses. Nobody has warned us. We are civilians. What have we done to them? — Hassan Zidane (Store Owner, Gaza)

I'm guessing a few feel like Zidane among both parties.

Rubble and debris. No electricity, fuel (e.g. backup generators). Too little running water. Increasingly long food lines. Humanitarian disaster. How many affected? 300,000?

We reject the practices of killing civilians or abusing them on both sides because they contravene morals, religion and international law. — Mahmoud Abbas · Ali Sawafta, James Mackenzie, Mark Heinrich, Jonathan Oatis · Wafa via Reuters · Oct 12, 2023

it really a threat? Who cares? — frank

That is the critical question. If the threat isn't real, responding to it with force isn't justified.

The distinction between the German justification for slaughtering Jews and the Israeli's justification for invading Gaza, is that Israel's justification is correct and Germany's wrong.

It requires moral judgment. The solution isn't to declare an amorality and paralyze yourself with inaction because you think yourself too humble to decide right from wrong

You really think Hamas was an existential threat that requires allowing the power to go off in Gazan hospitals? I'm not seeing that.

If you believe Israel isn't occupying foreign territories in Gaza and the West Bank, then what exactly do you believe Israel is doing there? — Tzeentch

They're invading it after being attacked. — Hanover

I believe it is and was an occupation, and relevant rulings on this case seem to agree.

Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (September, 2022)

The Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, and the occupied Syrian Golan are currently under belligerent occupation by Israel, to which international humanitarian law applies concurrently with international human rights law.

I'm not laying an Israeli claim to Gaza or the West Bank. That is a Palestinian territory, controlled by Hamas and Hezzbolah respectfully. — Hanover

You mean the PLO. Hezzbollah is in Lebanon, remember?

I believe it is and was an occupation, and relevant rulings on this case seem to agree. — Tzeentch

Exactly. To argue that Israel hasn't a claim on the West Bank or Gaza is hypocrisy and basically false.

A lot of Israeli maps show just how Israelis think themselves what constitutes Israel.




Above all, Netanyahu wants the West Bank, or should we say Judea and Samaria. He wants to annex them and perhaps this war will give him the opportunity to do so.

(2020) in a television address after US President Donald Trump’s announcement of the [UAE] deal, Netanyahu said he had only agreed to “delay” the annexation, and that he would “never give up our rights to our land”.

“There is no change to my plan to extend sovereignty, our sovereignty in Judea and Samaria, in full coordination with the United States,” Netanyahu said in Jerusalem, using the biblical name for the occupied West Bank.[/qoute]

I get those from the sidelines think they have a gentler way to secure Israel's security, but others disagree. — Hanover

This is a philosophy forum, what do you expect?

Israel isn't at war over a claim by Israel that Gaza and the West Bank belong to Israel. Israelis presence in Gaza is part of a military operation. I don't think Israel has any interest in occupying and policing Gaza every day. — Hanover

The way I understand the international law, Gaza is territory of Israel. Unless it's still considered Egypt, but then Egypt doesn't seem interested.

No, but it's the first question. If the Mexican government continuously lobbed bombs into El Paso and raped and butchered its citizens, it wouldn't be shocking if the US took over a chunk of Mexico. That justification comes from no one remotely questioning the US's right to its land. — Hanover

Of course it would be shocking. I'm not sure how you believe it would not be.