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Comment by yyyk

2 years ago

Take that logic further. Israel's enemies outnumber it by 10x or more and are more than ruthless enough to sacrifice as many as necessary*. There's no way ever that Israel could avoid having the other side having more casualties. The same would apply to every minority.

If your suggested law of war isn't 'majority or ruthless minority, get to do everything they want because they have more causalties', than you need an alternative. The alternative is the current laws of war, which allow for strikes with collateral damage (what Israel says it's doing), but not for terrorist attacks aimed at civilians.

* Suicide bombers, Iranian mullahs sending kids with 'plastic keys to heaven' to dismantle minefields, or current refusal of Hamas to allow civilians to use its tunnels as shelters. We could fill the page with examples really.

** Funny, I don't recall opposition to America's post 9/11 response based on counts. Almost as if the same rules don't apply.

22 comments

yyyk

Reply
woodruffw  2 years ago

I don’t think the majority of people killed so far in this conflict have been enemies of Israel per se, in the same way that most (nearly all?) of the people who died on October 7 were not enemies of Palestine. Even in the most hardened, cynical, irredentist view this wouldn’t be true.

“Collateral damage” is one of those bloodless wartime euphemisms for killing innocent men, women, and children. It’s a dirty, unavoidable reality. But I don’t believe for one second that Israel’s hands are so sufficiently constrained that the current degree of civilian death is necessary. I say that as a Jew, with family in Israel, who I worry about.

  • edanm  2 years ago

    > “Collateral damage” is one of those bloodless wartime euphemisms for killing innocent men, women, and children.

    It's not a just a euphemism, because there really is a difference. Justified or not, Dresden wasn't collateral damage - it was directly targeting and killing innocent civilians. Collateral damage really is something different.

    > But I don’t believe for one second that Israel’s hands are so sufficiently constrained that the current degree of civilian death is necessary.

    (For the record, I'm Israeli)

    This is a hard question to answer. No one actually knows, because given fog of war and given the incentives of both sides, it's hard to get real numbers for what's going on. Not to mention that what even counts as "necessary"? Obviously zero civilian deaths is the only legitimate goal, but just as obviously this is impossible to achieve in practice. (I'd also add that zero deaths of militants is the goal, if possible - anyone that can be stopped by arresting them or causing them to surrender should be dealt with that way - though obviously this is even harder to achieve.)

    Given all that, I think a few points I'll say, again speaking as an Israeli citizen with my own particular biases:

    1. While I highly mistrust our current government (like many Israelis), I certainly don't think most of our government would condone killing civilians completely unnecessarily. At least not the ones in charge, mostly.

    2. More importantly, I trust the IDF a lot (and this is probably a big difference between me and most non-Israelis). While I'm sure that not literally every civilian death is legitimate, I do trust that the IDF is only attacking valid targets given reasonable intelligence, and that it's not knowingly targeting civilians for the most part.

    3. Most importantly - taking the outside view - the IDF estimates that it's killing roughly 2 civilians for 1 militant killed. If you believe that number - it's roughly in line with similar wars fought by Western countries.

    Note: While I talk about civilian deaths here as a "statistic", every death is a horrible tragedy. In a good world, no one would ever have to die of violence, and good people should mourn the deaths of any person on any side of this horrible situation.

    • TalEs  2 years ago

      I agree with your initial statement but I would ask of you to question you points 1 and 2.

      1. I am not sure if you are saying that extremists like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich are not in charge, but their rhetoric and speech has made it clear they do not care for Palestinian deaths, and rather would like to carry out more killings. If you didn't know about the people in charge of your government, I implore you to look into their history.

      2. I would ask you to look more critically at the IDF, after all that B'Tselem has shown them to have committed. I would look to what the IDF did during the peaceful 2018 Great March to Return where they shot and killed hundreds of unarmed civilians, including women and children, and severely injured thousands of others. Only one Israeli soldier was slightly wounded in the whole conflict. They have also been killing children indiscriminately in the West Bank, what would justify that? There are dozens to hundreds of other cases where the IDF has been incriminated for unjustified violence but I am not able to collate them for you at the current time. If that is not enough evidence to change your stance on the IDF, that nobody can help to change your mind.

      https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-...

      5 replies →

    • ChtiVans  2 years ago

      It seems you really are a critical thinking person (healthy skepticism). Whom accept as a basis that he has biais, but also that people bringing argument on table are equally biais, (if not more). And that is great for exchanging ideas and point of view. And you Present point in a logical sequence. Overall / Challenging your opinions based on facts.

      About 1: I don't know well enough the political landscape in Israel, but what is publicly visible, is there are many worrying statement made (some openly genocidal). I think this is factual. I read that polled opinion overall to this day in Israel, is supporting the level of Violence ongoing in Gaza. even having a majority asking for more. So from those 2 points (which I believe are true fact), i can understand the rational one would have to say, Neither Politician, nor Israeli Population is currently empathetic to Palestinian Civilians casualties.

      About 2: Things I think we can agree on: - IDF do mitigate collateral damage to Civilian. By several factual means. - There is a lot of CODAM (Volume of it). - IDF knows, on most strikes expectable CODAM level. (there has been 10.000 + Bombs, Guided or Not, those Bomb were aimed at a target. each Target had to be CODAM evaluated)

      What I don't know. is What is consider acceptable CODAM policy. I don't think anyone serious says that IDF is exterminating Civilian. What many people are saying is that, mitigation of collateral damage is not effective, and that it doesn't seem that the force used is proportionate to the threat. What I have a strong opinion about, is that, no, not everything possible is done to protect Palestinian Civilian to become CODAM.

      About 3: If the ratio is 2:1, considering the level of firepower and engagement, it could be a lot worst, I agree. (=> doesn't mean it can't be critized and that if there are war crimes, they remain war crimes)

      But here we have to trust the ratio of IDF, which are really on the "boarder" of credible data. For 2 Reasons in my opinion: - R1/ If figures from IDF of 5000+ Hamas militants killed is true ===> that would means a hell lot of militants are disabled. In urban combat, we should expect a 1 to 5 Killed vs Wounded ratio. that means already the complete Expected Military force of Hamas is KIA or WIA.

      - R2/ That the amount of overall casualties reported, and stated credible by US / UN of 16.000+. ===> I personally think, these is an absolute minimum: and even if Cease Fire Occurs Now, that full "Humanitarian" help is put in place to treat the injured Civilians. The civilian deathcount will keep going up for Weeks.

      => So i am really doubting on that ratio of 2:1. BUT, I would accept, that when this conflict End / Pause, deathtoll is properly documented and true. if 2:1 ratio in CODAM that would be "reasonable" in the overall context. (even if all agree, that best would be prison for all criminals and a free life for innocent)

      But, if it is 3:1, or 4:1 (which i think where it currently sits). Then in order to accept 4:1. I would have to face that on OCT 7th, Hamas ratio of 4:1 was a barbaric civilian indiscriminated attack. But that IDF vs Hamas 4:1 is "state of the art; taking all measure necessary to protect Civilian". I mean, my brain can't process that contradiction.

      To end, where you finished on a relatively factual point. Dresden wasn't collateral damage - it was directly targeting and killing innocent civilian. True

      Fact: In Dresden : 60% of the city / building were destroyed. how much of North Gaza / city is Destroyed already ? Satellite image reports already states 60%.

      I hope for peace, tolerance, truth.

  • nailer  2 years ago

    > I don’t think the majority of people killed so far in this conflict have been enemies of Israel per se

    How do you know? hamas overstates death, has had ‘journalists’ with weapons, ‘children’ than are 15-16 year old fighters, lied about the hospital being destroyed, has videos of people crying over dolls, and MrFAFO, the Johnny Sins of Hamasniks.

lazyasciiart  2 years ago

I do recall opposition to America’s post 9-11 response based on the same arguments, oddly enough.

The current laws of war do not allow, for instance, strikes at medical facilities: Israel’s argument is that they don’t have to follow the laws because Hamas is breaking them.

  • yyyk  2 years ago

    >I do recall opposition to America’s post 9-11 response based on the same arguments

    Very much on the margins if any. The overwhelming consensus ignored these considerations.

    >The current laws of war do not allow, for instance, strikes at medical facilities.

    This is wrong. Medical facilities can be struck if they are used for war.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/08/504815234...

    Moreover, this is not what happened in Gaza - there were raids but not dropping bombs from airplanes, the former being much less destructive.

    • lazyasciiart  2 years ago

      > Very much on the margins if any. The overwhelming consensus ignored these considerations.

      Not true.

      I certainly wouldn’t refer to “the US did it” as a cite for “it’s not a war crime”, but that article appears to be saying they attacked a place not thought to be currently active as a civilian medical facility.

      5 replies →

  • edanm  2 years ago

    > The current laws of war do not allow, for instance, strikes at medical facilities: Israel’s argument is that they don’t have to follow the laws because Hamas is breaking them.

    That is neither what the laws of war say, nor what the Israeli argument is (or at least, it's a misrepresentation).

    The laws of war say that if a medical facility (or any other civilian infrastructure) is used by militants as part of the war effort, then it loses its protected status. Israel's argument, whether you agree or not, is that this occurred, thereby making those targets legal.

pxc  2 years ago

There was lots of criticism of disprortionality in the US' wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US also made a point not to conduct civilian death counts and they were little reported. But what numbers did exist were absolutely important for those opposed to the war.

Just do a web search restricted from 2001 to 2007 for discussions of the civilian death toll.