Israel - Hamas War V

[Bironic]

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

If you'll go through the link I provided

Is this the Guardian article? It roughly states what the "new historians" in Israel have said since the eighties. I don't claim the British were Pro-Arab or pro-Palestinian back in the day... They were mostly pro-British and I think they would have liked a Zionist-Jewish state better than an arab state, since an arab state could have threatened the suez canal or the middle eastern oil which a jewish state was much less likely to do... On top of that there were a sginificant number of Antisemites that would have been happy if jews lived somewhere else rather than their precious albion...

1 hour ago, fionwe1987 said:

Here's a question. Take out the Nuremberg trials and the reckoning over the Holocaust. Do you think Europe would have been able to move on without it? Imagine Germany, as a state, refused to teach the Holocaust in its schools much, and most of its citizens today dismissed the Holocaust as a minor part of their history, and when you bring it up, you're as why you don't talk about the good things Hitler did. Would the Europe of today be possible in such a world?

Bear in mind that about 84% of the world's land was European colonial possession at one time or another, and while that number was lower by the mid-1940s, there was no reckoning at all for the crimes committed and the horrors inflicted over the preceding centuries. And before someone brings up older empires, none compare in size or the period of time, or the rapacious greed and wealth transfer of the European colonial project.

Nor was any measure of equality or respect afforded to former colonies once they gained independence. Instead, their colonial rulers were rewarded in the new world order, allowed a great pantomime of moral superiorty, and to this day, they remain top of the heap of global power that is shaped to their advantage.

We will move on. Once there is acknowledgment, apology and some kind of restitution. Instead, we have denial, dismissal and continued bullying and imposition of a crafted narrative. That is no recipe for reconciliation and moving on. That's the move of bullies, comfortable in the knowledge they have the bigger stick.

Hell yeah if you ask me have the colonial powers (all of them including germany) tried to teach the wrongs they did to the rest of the world in their schools or did what Willy Brandt did in eastern Europe or somehow remedied it in any way? No, afaik at the very least... .Would I support such an act: Yes. Would I support Israel acknowledging the Nakba and teaching it more thoroughly to their citizens yes, including the other findings of the new historians; but I don't see any new historians on the palestinian side either... I don't think there is much of a pantomime of moral superiority though, or when there is it's not really important and no one believes it anyway...Were the european powers more harmful than other powers in the past, most likely(is that a contest?)...

And yes a lot of Europe moved on without learning or acknowledging the wrongs they did in the past, Germanys acknowledgement of the Holocaust is actually the exception not the rule even in Europe. (Just as an example a lot of Austrians think they're the first victims of Nazi-Germany, which has been basically the official position of Austria since 1945 and it's obviously BS, or a lot of Italians have a very relaxed way of the Horrors of Mussolini and so on; the Germans themselves do not recognize the massive amount of plundering they did in places like Poland or Greece...) Germany also had a very problematic Nazi past in the period 1945-1971 at the very least, if you see old interviews from then they would not show much acknowledgement of the crimes of Nazi Germany...And the Holocaust acceptance is mostly important in German-Israeli relations and doesn't really factor into let's say German-French or Italian-Greek relations (or any other european relations since there are not many Jews in europe that could somehow be affected by such a move)

But wrongs were done on both sides and i think that is what Europe learnt, you can't undo one wrong by commiting another wrong(two wrongs don't make a right), and some powers ended up on the winning side and others on the losing side and others in between... And the only way to go forward is not go to war against the winners again but to reach out to them... Revanchism is kinda dead in western europe...and for good reason...

Edited October 23, 2023 by Bironic

[polishgenius]

Just now, Bironic said:

Europe learnt

 

[Bironic]

10 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

 

Well parts of Europe did... And it is an ongoing long process with lots of setbacks...

[Werthead]

Additional US pressure to delay the ground invasion as hostage negotiation talks have apparently reached a crucial phase. Reportedly 50 hostages could be released.

[fionwe1987]

42 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

It's just a requirement of the real world. The US will not (and honestly for the US folks, should not) give another governing party the ability to dictate to the US what it can and cannot do. The UN is not a global governance body nor was it ever intended as such. 

But yes, the US does not prize justice and peace over its own national interests. When they align, great, but often they don't. That's what nations are. You can either have a very imperfect organization that can help some of the time and get some of the major nations involved and participating - or you can have nothing but one-off agreements and random squabbling, like Trump wants. Take your pick, I guess, but I'd prefer the former. 

That's what nations are today. Unless you're pretending we've reached the End of History, and the concept of a Nation will never evolve again.

42 minutes ago, Altherion said:

This is putting the cart before the horse: the animosity of the Arab nations towards Israel was the direct cause of the "injustice" 75 years ago (I put the word in quotation marks because it was not so much an injustice as it was a war). Back when the UN was not a hopelessly corrupt and nearly useless agglomeration of bureaucrats, it came up with a plan for the partition of the territory between Jews and Arabs.

When was this lovely time when the UN wasn't corrupt?

42 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Today, this partition would be considered extremely generous for the Palestinians, but the Arab states would not agree to it and invaded the newly formed Israel instead. They lost a whole lot more territory than they won and they've been angry about the results ever since.

What they would not agree on was a division where the people on the ground were not consulted. Which they have every right to disagree on. Its not like there isn't a mechanism to answer these questions. A plebiscite, it is called. 

42 minutes ago, Altherion said:

But this is not what happened in Israel and Palestine. There was an attempt to come up with some division that most of the world could agree on, but the Arabs would not have it -- they wanted the whole territory.

Most of the world? Most of the world says Israel shouldn't invade Gaza, or hold it penned up the way it is today. I didn't realize most of the world had a right to tell Palestinians how to divide their land. Shouldn't they have been given a voice in this decision? 

17 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Is this the Guardian article? It roughly states what the "new historians" in Israel have said since the eighties. I don't claim the British were Pro-Arab or pro-Palestinian back in the day... They were mostly pro-British and I think they would have liked a Zionist-Jewish state better than an arab state, since an arab state could have threatened the suez canal or the middle eastern oil which a jewish state was much less likely to do...

Yep, that's the one.

17 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Hell yeah if you ask me have the colonial powers (all of them including germany) tried to teach the wrongs they did to the rest of the world in their schools or did what Willy Brandt did in eastern Europe or somehow remedied it in any way? No, afaik at the very least... .Would I support such an act: Yes. Would I support Israel acknowledging the Nakba and teaching it more thoroughly to their citizens yes, including the other findings of the new historians; but I don't see any new historians on the palestinian side either... I don't think there is much of a pantomime of moral superiority though, or when there is it's not really important and no one believes it anyway...Were the european powers more harmful than other powers in the past, most likely(is that a contest?)...

And yes a lot of Europe moved on without learning or acknowledging the wrongs they did in the past, Germanys acknowledgement of the Holocaust is actually the exception not the rule even in Europe. (Just as an example a lot of Austrians think they're the first victims of Nazi-Germany, which has been basically the official position of Austria since 1945 and it's obviously BS, or a lot of Italians have a very relaxed way of the Horrors of Mussolini and so on; the Germans themselves do not recognize the massive amount of plundering they did in places like Poland or Greece...) Germany also had a very problematic Nazi past in the period 1945-1971 at the very least, if you see old interviews from then they would not show much acknowledgement of the crimes of Nazi Germany...And the Holocaust acceptance is mostly important in German-Israeli relations and doesn't really factor into let's say German-French or Italian-Greek relations (or any other european relations since there are not many Jews in europe that could somehow be affected by such a move)

Ok, let me ask you this. Fast forward 30 years, and tell me if you'd substitute Gaza, headed by Hamas, in this conversation about moving on, if it behaved exactly like Britain or France did. Is a "sure would be nice if they'd acknowledge their awfulness" an acceptable future to you? If not, why should it be an acceptable present to the rest of the world?

17 minutes ago, Bironic said:

But wrongs were done on both sides and i think that is what Europe learnt, you can't undo one wrong by commiting another wrong(two wrongs don't make a right), and some powers ended up on the winning side and others on the losing side and others in between... And the only way to go forward is not go to war against the winners again but to reach out to them... Revanchism is kinda dead in western europe...and for good reason...

And the bolded part is where this isn't the case with colonialism. And hence why a "moving on" won't happen with the perpetrators still blithely in power, refusing to acknowledge or redress their harms.

[Bironic]

29 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Yep, that's the one.

Ok then I tend to agree with most of it... Don't nail me on the details though since I might have forgotten them by now...

 

29 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

Ok, let me ask you this. Fast forward 30 years, and tell me if you'd substitute Gaza, headed by Hamas, in this conversation about moving on, if it behaved exactly like Britain or France did. Is a "sure would be nice if they'd acknowledge their awfulness" an acceptable future to you? If not, why should it be an acceptable present to the rest of the world?

I don't understand this part (English isn't my mother language and I actually never properly learned it in a school). Substitute Gaza for what? another part of Israel or the WB? Don't think that would help, but if they genuinely want that maybe it's worth discussing it?

Generally I am both Anti-Nationalist as well as Anti-religious (its' complicated to explain why but that's how it is) so you can see my sympathies for Hamas (being both religious and nationalist) as well as Zionism are fairly limited(the majority of Israeli acknowledge a right of existence of the Arab-Palestinian world though, they did so since 1947, which neither Hamas or the PLO has ever done). And I would consider Hamas a bit more extreme in their ideology than France or Britain, they are more like Nazigermany...

29 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

And the bolded part is where this isn't the case with colonialism. And hence why a "moving on" won't happen with the perpetrators still blithely in power, refusing to acknowledge or redress their harms.

I wasn't talking about colonialism I was talking about what Israeli and Palestinians have done and continue to do...

Or do you want King Charles, Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron to acknowledge that the Sykes-Picot Agreement & the Balfour declaration had bad consequences? (I would support that) But how does that exactly improve the living conditions of the Palestinians?

Also that would have some unintended consequences across the middle east since all the states there with the exception Saudi Arabia, Turkey, parts of yemen and Iran were at one point colonies and their borders chosen arbitarily by western powers... (so are they now as bad as israel because of that, mind you that in 1947 it was the UN not the Uk that drew the borders in Palestine)

 

There is another thing that I often find peculiar (nothing to do with your posts though), why does it get so much more attention when Israel kills or mistreats Arabs, while when Arabs kill Arabs it's kind of meh, who cares (even if the numbers of Arabs killed or mistreated is significantly higher)... maybe someone can enlighten me?

Edited October 23, 2023 by Bironic

[ljkeane]

Hamas has released two more hostages apparently. It seems they’re Israeli citizens too which is encouraging. I don’t think there’s much chance they’ll hand over the IDF prisoners any time soon but there might be hope for a deal on the civilian hostages.

[fionwe1987]

4 minutes ago, Bironic said:

I don't understand this part (English isn't my mother language and I actually never properly learned it in a school). Substitute Gaza for what? another part of Israel or the WB? Don't think that would help, but if they genuinely want that maybe it's worth discussing it?

I think we're losing context here a bit, so here's my summation of my point:

There's nothing for the former colonies to learn from European rapprochement after World War II. You'd indicated that moving on from past mistakes is what Europe learned, and I'm saying that when it comes to colonialism, and Palestinian Arab history with it, there is no ability to move on because the harms done by Britain to Palestine (and the broader Middle East) were never addressed or acknowledged, and still aren't. And I'm asking if, in a similar fashion, you were 30-50 years in the future, and Gaza as ruled by Hamas was still an entity that didn't acknowledge or redress the civilian deaths it has caused in Israel, both on October 7th and before, would that be a future you find acceptable? 

If not, shouldn't that same right to be dissatisfied be allowed to Palestinians? 

4 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Generally I am both Anti-Nationalist as well as Anti-religious (its' complicated to explain why but that's how it is)

I am, as well. 

4 minutes ago, Bironic said:

so you can see my sympathies for Hamas (being both religious and nationalist) as well as Zionism are fairly limited(the majority of Israeli acknowledge a right of existence of the Arab-Palestinian world though, they did so since 1947, which neither Hamas or the PLO has ever done).

There's a distinction here. Majority of Israeli people may acknoweldge that right, but that government is actively trampling on it in the West Bank. With Hamas, there's similar disregard for Israelis, but that isn't the same as Gazan civilians not wanting Israel to exist, or thinking its people don't deserve security and a proper national status.

4 minutes ago, Bironic said:

And I would consider Hamas a bit more extreme in their ideology than France or Britain, they are more like Nazigermany...

France and Britain today, sure. But that really isn't the case for the France and Britain of the Mandate period, which is what we're discussing. Britain, just as an example, enforced a policy of exporting Indian rice, and preventing import of food into India, during a massive famine in Bengal, during the Second World War, because the Prime Minister of Britain felt Indians "breed like rabbits anyway". At least 3 million died of starvation. I don't think that counts as better than Hamas.

4 minutes ago, Bironic said:

I wasn't talking about colonialism I was talking about what Israeli and Palestinians have done and continue to do...

We seem to have shifted then. We were discussing the need to address colonial harms in Palestine as a way forward. 

4 minutes ago, Bironic said:

Or do you want King Charles, Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron to acknowledge that the Sykes-Picot Agreement & the Balfour declaration had bad consequences? (I would support that) But how does that exactly improve the living conditions of the Palestinians?

Uh, it gives them legitimacy? It correctly disputes the legality of the borders drawn in 1947, and enshrines the truth that those borders were drawn with no input from the people who actually lived in the land?

And, of course, it gives the lie to the idea that Britain/France has no reason to take in more Palestinian refugees, though I agree, this shouldn't be a permanent thing and focus should be placed on a proper two state solution. 

[Ran]

I'll again link to this by Matthew Yglesias, which points out how different views are depending on who you ask. 

It's worth considering that the 1948 war entailed some shifting in territory after the flights and expulsions with Egypt and Jordan both conquering land, with Israel losing some that was part of its partition. The regions they controlled led to the expulsion of Jews from their territory... whereas in Israel, the Arab Israelis remaining in its borders after the war became citizens. There are nearly 2 million Arab Israelis today, most of whom are Muslim.

Whither the neighboring states? There are maybe 40 Jews left in Lebanon. There are perhaps a few left in Syria, though some 4,000 of them in Damascus and Allepo were essentially compelled to emigrate in 1992 (but, notably, they were not allowed to go to Israel). There are none in Jordan. There are 3 left in Egypt as of last year, all old. Some chose to emigrate willingly, but many were forced out.

So when we talk about the Nakba being some unique trauma, I think the trauma for the Arab world (as opposed to the Palestinians) is about the establishment of a Jewish state and their defeat at its hand, and not at all about the Palestinian people. This is why you get this split that Yglesias describes, in that the Arab world is supportive of the cause but not really of the people.

Statelessness is the biggest issue for most Palestinians. I think Gaza becoming a state, once Hamas is removed, would radically shift the conversation in the Middle East, IMO, but that's me.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Ran

[Bironic]

33 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

There's nothing for the former colonies to learn from European rapprochement after World War II. You'd indicated that moving on from past mistakes is what Europe learned, and I'm saying that when it comes to colonialism, and Palestinian Arab history with it, there is no ability to move on because the harms done by Britain to Palestine (and the broader Middle East) were never addressed or acknowledged, and still aren't.

Nor were they and still aren't in Europe... (with the possible exception of the Holocaust which is not important at all for the European rapprochement). My point is that you have to do the rapprochement first and once there is enough trust on both sides you can start addressing and acknowledging the wrongs of the past. (Which again is how it happened in Europe and how it happens in history in general)... For Example the spaniards removed the bones of Franco now from his gigantic Mausoleum(he died in 1975) they started addressing and acknowledging the horrors of the civil war (1936-1939) only very slowly after 1975 and only a bit more in the 2000s. But there was some kind of peace in spain after 1939 and definitely after 1975... And so it was/is basically everywhere in europe... it basically is a choice between peace or justice, most europeans chose peace and only very reluctantly after decades of peace passed they started to slowly adress and acknowledge justice..

Or maybe a more apt example in your mind since it is a colony:

South African Aprtheid leaders concluded peace with the ANC leading to a peaceful transition of power. almost no Apartheid official ever served jail time, The last apartheid president even considered apartheid to have done more good than harm until he died. Is that acknowledgement? is that justice? is that adressing the issue? No it isn't but it's peace and the black south africans are better off now...

Edited October 23, 2023 by Bironic

[Varysblackfyre321]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Additional US pressure to delay the ground invasion as hostage negotiation talks have apparently reached a crucial phase. Reportedly 50 hostages could be released.

Elections do matter, if this had been trump, Gaza would likely be a crater with direct USA insistence  and all the hostages all dead certainly.

[Bael's Bastard]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

Additional US pressure to delay the ground invasion as hostage negotiation talks have apparently reached a crucial phase. Reportedly 50 hostages could be released.

Reminds me of Entebbe when they separated non-Jews from Jews/Israelis.

[Zorral]

Brief Comments on Rules of War

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2023/10/brief-comments-on-rules-of-war

Quote

 

.... Where does this leave us? You’re free, if you’d like, to declare that the direct targeting of civilians by Hamas on October 7 was Just because of the inherent justice of the Palestinian cause (jus ad bellum implies jus in bello). But if you’re going to make that claim you need to grapple with the full weight of what that claim means. Fighter pilots serving in the Israeli Defense Force also believe their cause to be just, and there is no Global Justice Tribunal capable of adjudicating between these claims. This means embracing an account of justice that is inherently subjective and that consequently will do no good at all with respect to limiting the destructive behavior by soldiers on either side of any conflict. If that’s the world you want, fine, but be clear about it with yourself and everyone else.

There is, to be sure, a “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids Hamas and Israel alike to fire unguided rockets at civilian settlements and behead ravers with shovels” problem to all modern LOAC conversations. Jus in bello restricts attacks to targets of military significance, a restriction that necessarily favors the more militarily powerful party to a conflict. But then LOAC also prohibits the stronger party from exerting the full force of its capability. There are probably reasons why Israel refrains from simply flattening and paving Gaza, civilian casualties be damned, that don’t have anything to do with jus in bello. I can guarantee, though, that jus in bello considerations are part of the conversation that Israeli military and political elites are having with one another and with the US, Europe, and the rest of the world. There are enormous potential costs, thus, in adopting an “anything goes as long as you think Justice is on your side” policy, even for those who consider LOAC to be an overly confining set of rules.

So what does this mean? I have found it enormously troubling that many advocates of Palestine (on X, in comments here, on campus, on Facebook, and wherever else they’ve been in my life) did not bother to wait for Israeli retaliation before exalting the justice of the massacres that Hamas undertook on October 7. In some conversations it has become clear that folks really did not have a good sense of the broader implications of what they were arguing. Thus, this post. There is little question in my mind that Israeli retaliation will soon (if it hasn’t already) exceed the guidelines imposed by LOAC (there is no lawful way of extricating Hamas from Gaza), and that’s a problem but it’s a different and in some ways more “normal” problem than the one posed by open embrace of Hamas’ brutality. The thing about being forced to embrace a gang of murderers like Hamas is that no one outside of Gaza is ever actually forced to embrace a gang of murderers like Hamas; wait a week and there’ll be some genuine Israeli war crimes that you can complain about online. ....

 

It feels to me as though we've been arguing these matters, specifically, about the Middle East all my life -- and all yours too.  We never get anywhere because two massive injustices and crimes keep colliding.

[Zorral]

Followed by:

'In Gaza, Israel Is Racing to the Moral Abyss'

By Michael Sfard. One of -- if not the -- leading Israeli human rights lawyers

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-23/ty-article-opinion/.premium/in-gaza-israel-is-racing-to-the-moral-abyss/0000018b-57d1-d8e2-a1eb-f7d7dc100000

Quote

 

Moral corruption is a mechanism that fuels and justifies itself in a cycle that can become endless without powerful and insistent intervention. For us Israelis, the 75 years of refugee status that we've imposed on millions of Palestinians, the 56 years of occupation that we've imposed on millions more, and the 16 years of siege that we've imposed on the millions of Palestinians in Gaza have eroded our moral principles. They have normalized a situation where there are people worth less. Much less.

Corruption usually moves into the depths of the abyss at a constant speed with frightening periods of acceleration, but there are also moments of hope for a slowdown – until the black Saturday of October 7.
The incomprehensible cruelty that we've been exposed to – which proves the degree to which the occupation and the siege corrupt the occupied as well as the occupier – has penetrated our soul. And like nuclear fuel, it has spiraled us on our way to a moral hell.

It took a few days for a day of unbridled and systematic slaughter of civilians – children, women, the elderly and men – by members of an organization that has lost any shred of humanity to lift some of the barriers that we still seemed to have. Israel today is a country and society where calls to erase Gaza aren't only the province of pathetic and marginal people leaving comments on social media. It's a country where lawmakers from the ruling party are openly and unashamedly calling for a “second Nakba,” where the defense minister orders a denial of water, food and fuel to millions of civilians, a country whose president, Isaac Herzog, Israel's moderate face, says that all Gazans are responsible for Hamas' crimes. (If I hadn’t seen this part myself I wouldn’t have believed it.)

In Gaza with its 2.3 million inhabitants, over half of them children living under a government combining totalitarian dictatorship with religious fundamentalism, our president couldn't find a single Gazan – man, woman or child – who wasn't responsible. It’s a good thing no news channel has ordered a survey to find out what percentage of the Jewish community supports ethnic cleansing in Gaza. And maybe not only in Gaza; why stop there? When the political and military leadership loses all restraint and approves ideas about a massive blow to civilians, we're creating a society where the process of stripping away the humanity of the people on the other side of the border has been completed.

And when that happens, the inferno is near. On October 8 we carried out a giant leap in our campaign of moral corruption, and we are now dangerously close to the black hole. It’s no wonder that there are thousands of dead in Gaza – thousands! – and the voices asking if we've done enough to prevent harming the innocent are barely heard in the Israeli public debate. And that’s not all.

No social moral corruption is only directed outward. There is always the enemy within – the same enemy the police commissioner declared war on last week when he ordered his subordinates to forcibly prevent protests against the war in Gaza and against harming innocent people there. And he proposed that we deport the protesters to Gaza. It's likely that expressing sorrow at the death of children in the Strip (there are already over 1,700 of them) won't only earn you a spot on one of the police commissioner’s buses. It will also get you suspended from work or university, as has happened to dozens of people in the past two weeks.

And that’s not the worst scenario, because compassion for the children of Gaza could also end in a lynching attempt by a fascist mob, as happened to journalist Israel Frey. (Full disclosure: I’m proud to say that he’s a friend of mine.) In short: How will we define the regime of a country that treats its critics that way? I know how not to define it.

Not far from us, on their own way to the black hole, hover those who call themselves members of the “progressive left.” They're finding it hard to unhesitatingly condemn – and without fleeing to the “context” – a satanic orgy of destroying civilian Israeli communities near Gaza, along with their residents. Some are even blabbering something about decolonization being an ugly process; that’s what happened in Algeria and Kenya, for example.

I read that and die of shame. Maybe you didn't understand, but the struggle to end the occupation and achieve independence for the Palestinian people is part of the universal struggle to defend everyone's human rights, not vice versa. The idea of the sanctity of human life, the noble idea that every person has basic rights that shouldn't be undermined, isn't a tool for implementing Palestinian independence but the other way around. Palestinian freedom and self-determination are designed to advance a reality where people enjoy protection of their rights and are free to conduct their lives as they desire. Those who are confused about this issue aren't humanists. Those who are confused about this issue aren't expressing a complex and profound moral thesis, they're simply sliding into support for terror.

Being humane is hard work. Remaining humane in the face of inhumane cruelty is far more difficult. Despite what we often think, humaneness isn’t a natural human trait. Much more natural is the desire to take revenge, to blame everyone on the other side, to drop thousands of bombs on them, to erase them from the face of the earth. Human history is full of examples, and apparently we haven’t learned a thing.

These are terrible times. We have experienced a horrific trauma perpetrated by human beings who have lost their humanity, and now we’re bombing, killing and starving people, and mainly hardening our hearts to stone. Moral corruption is no less dangerous to our survival than Hamas.

 

 

[Zorral]

Considering how those who are able to wage their war from the air, not on the ground, not putting their own asses on the line, and how this changes the 'rules of war' and what is a war crime and what is not.  This reminded me of this weekend's email from the Israeli friend who stated that the IDF had come to believe in their air superiority to such a degree that the barracks soldiers didn't even bother to care for and maintain -- or even take with them -- their hand weapons, and were thus caught so back-footed two Saturdays ago.

America’s War on Syrian Civilians
Bombs killed thousands of civilians in Raqqa, and the city was decimated. U.S. lawyers insist that war crimes weren’t committed, but it’s time to look honestly at the devastation that accompanies “targeted” air strikes.
By Anand Gopal

As mentioned above, as can be seen here, in case that was neccesary, which seems unlikely, we all have been debating and talking and discussing these matters, particularly within the context of the Middle East, for a century at least. Yet nothing changes.

December 14, 2020

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/12/21/americas-war-on-syrian-civilians

Quote

 

.... 'We have been conditioned to judge the merit of today’s wars by their conduct. The United Nations upholds norms of warfare that, among other things, prohibit such acts as torture, rape, and hostage-taking. Human-rights groups and international lawyers tend to designate a war “humane” when belligerents have avoided harming civilians as much as possible. However, in “Asymmetric Killing: Risk Avoidance, Just War, and the Warrior Ethos” (Oxford), Neil Renic, a scholar of international relations, challenges this standard. He argues that, when assessing the humanity of a war, we should look not only to the fate of civilians but also to whether combatants have exposed themselves to risk on the battlefield. Renic suggests that when one side fully removes itself from danger—even if it goes to considerable lengths to protect civilians—it violates the ethos of humane warfare.

'The core principle of humane warfare is that fighters may kill one another at any time, excepting those who are rendered hors de combat, and must avoid targeting civilians. It’s tempting to say that civilians enjoy this protected status because they are innocent, but, as Renic points out, civilians “feed hungry armies, elect bellicose leaders, and educate future combatants.” In Syria, home to a popular revolution, entire towns were mobilized for the war effort. Civilians—even children—acted as lookouts, arms smugglers, and spies. What really matters, then, is the type of danger that someone in a battle zone presents. The moment that a person picks up a weapon, whether donning a uniform or not, he or she poses a direct and immediate danger. This is the crucial distinction between armed personnel and civilians.

'But what if the belligerents themselves don’t pose a direct and immediate danger? Renic argues that in such theatres as Pakistan, where Americans deploy remote-controlled drones to kill their enemies while rarely stepping foot on the battlefield, insurgents on the ground cannot fight back—meaning that, in terms of the threat that they constitute, they are no different from civilians. It would then be just as wrong, Renic suggests, to unleash a Hellfire missile on a group of pickup-riding insurgents as it would be to annihilate a pickup-riding family en route to a picnic.

'One might respond that, say, the Pakistani Taliban does pose an immediate threat to Pakistani civilians, if not to U.S. soldiers. But Renic contends that the U.S., by avoiding the battlefield, has turned civilians into attractive targets for insurgents eager for a fight. Whether this claim is correct or not, it’s clear that risk-free combat has brought warfare into new moral territory, requiring us to interrogate our old notions of battlefield right and wrong. If we can distinguish combatants from civilians only by the danger that they pose to other combatants, then the long-distance violence of modern warfare is inhumane. Renic concludes that the “increasingly sterile, bureaucratized, and detached mode of American killing” has the flavor of punishment rather than of war in any traditional sense.

'How many civilian deaths in Raqqa were avoidable? In Tokhar, it was possible to reconstruct the evidence, but often it is not. Without transparency in the targeting process, the military usually has the final word. Yet there is one way we can intuitively know when an armed force has an alternative to causing civilian suffering. When U.S. forces are faced with a pair of isis gunmen on the roof of an apartment building, they can call in a five-hundred-pound laser-guided bomb—or they can approach the enemy on foot, braving enemy fire, and secure the building through old-fashioned battle. In the past, armies have sometimes chosen the harder path: during the Second World War, when Allied French pilots carried out bombing raids on Vichy territory—part of their homeland—they flew at lower altitudes, in order to avoid striking civilians, even though it increased the chances that they’d be shot down. For the U.S. military, however, the rules are blind to the question of risk. The law doesn’t consider whether an armed force could have avoided unnecessary civilian suffering by exposing itself to greater danger. For Neil Renic, wars waged exclusively through drones, therefore, point to the “profound discord between what is lawful on the battlefield and what is moral.”

'This may be why the U.S. military today tends to downplay the old martial virtue of courage. Historically, though, the concept was so central to the idea of good soldiering that weapons or tactics lacking in valor sparked objections from the ranks. Renic writes that when aircraft first entered the modern arsenal, in the nineteen-tens, fighter pilots engaged in dogfights reminiscent of the gallantry of a medieval duel. But such long-distance tactics as mortar fire and aerial bombardment had little to do with valor. A pilot from the First World War recalled, “You did not sit in a muddy trench while someone who had no personal enmity against you loosed off a gun, five miles away, and blew you to smithereens.” He concluded, “That was not fighting; it was murder. Senseless, brutal, ignoble.” A British airman from the Second World War wrote, “I was a fighter pilot, never a bomber pilot, and I thank God for that. I do not believe I could ever have obeyed orders as a bomber pilot; it would have given me no sense of achievement to drop bombs on German cities.”

 

 

[Werthead]

Some rumours of a schism between the military and political wings of Hamas; the former are spoiling for a fight, the latter are alarmed at WTF is going on and are trying to mitigate the situation (possibly pressure from their Qatari hosts as well). A small drip feed of hostage releases, possibly putting pressure on Israel to keep delaying the attack until they can negotiate it not happening at all.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Whither the neighboring states? There are maybe 40 Jews left in Lebanon. There are perhaps a few left in Syria, though some 4,000 of them in Damascus and Allepo were essentially compelled to emigrate in 1992 (but, notably, they were not allowed to go to Israel). There are none in Jordan. There are 3 left in Egypt as of last year, all old. Some chose to emigrate willingly, but many were forced out.

What is somewhat mind-boggling is that there is still a Jewish population in Iran. Maybe around 8,300, so not a lot out of 87 million, but still a lot more than in Israel's neighbouring states.

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Followed by:

'In Gaza, Israel Is Racing to the Moral Abyss'

By Michael Sfard. One of -- if not the -- leading Israeli human rights lawyers

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-23/ty-article-opinion/.premium/in-gaza-israel-is-racing-to-the-moral-abyss/0000018b-57d1-d8e2-a1eb-f7d7dc100000

 

You know that Biden told Israelis that we all have to learn from our mistakes and I’m pretty certain that Biden meant the US reaction after 9/11. Two countries invaded, hundreds of thousands dead, and at this point a cost approaching $3 Trillion dollars. I read that one trillion dollar bills would reach the sun. Imagine what $3 T would have done for impoverished people around the world. 

Could you stop the thirst for revenge the US had after 9/11? We debated that in other threads at other times, and I don’t think anyone believed the craving for revenge could have been stopped.

Israel has 9 M people in it, the US 330 M, I’ve seen and heard Israelis say 1,300 dead would have been like 45,000 dead on 9/11. The author of that article doesn’t seem to think the craving for revenge can be stopped. Are we safer now? Are we better now? Do we understand each other with greater tolerance now? (After 9/11)

A number of people like Ran and Kal, have repeatedly said Israel has to know what it’s goals are and what exactly is going to happen in the aftermath. I don’t think the US clearly thought out what it did and had to do in the aftermath, so if the Israelis do invade Gaza (and it sure looks like they will) I hope they’ve thought it through.

[Kalbear]

6 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

A number of people like Ran and Kal, have repeatedly said Israel has to know what it’s goals are and what exactly is going to happen in the aftermath. I don’t think the US clearly thought out what it did and had to do in the aftermath, so if the Israelis do invade Gaza (and it sure looks like they will) I hope they’ve thought it through.

By comparison to Israel's response the US was remarkably well-thought out and measured. It was over a month before a single airstrike was launched in Afghanistan, and before that the US put a number of covert assets and intelligence assets into play. The goals were well-established too, at least militarily. The lack of finding a suitable replacement government-wise and whatnot was a major miss, I think we can all agree - but the US actually did try and had a concept of how to do it. That it was a failure was significantly more about looking for the types of people that would work well with GWB and Rumsfeld's vision of the world and not because of a desperation.

This was also somewhat a requirement of the multinational work that was done. When you have dozens of different countries involved you better have a good plan to coordinate among them, along with establishing timelines and logistics and communications and all sorts of other things. 

I'm sure it could have been done better - and with Iraq it was FAR worse - but Afghanistan was pretty good as far as that went. 

[Bael's Bastard]

The US was attacked once by a group nearly 7000 miles away. Israeli communities were massacred by a genocidal group less than 1 mile away that has been murdering Jews and firing thousands of rocketed into Israeli communities for nearly two decades as the elected gov of Palestine and for more than a decade before that. The comparison is ridiculous as is most of the commentary on the history of the conflict. Israel needs to have a plan for sure. Not allowing Hamas to make it out of this in power over Gaza is a bare necessity, as it will never be a negotiating partner and will keep pulling this shit as long as it has the proximity to. Meanwhile, there is no hint that the hostages are receiving the care they need or that there is any plan to release them, and the useful idiots are calling for a ceasefire that will enable Hamas to stock back up. Revenge isn't what is driving the response, else there would be hundreds of thousands dead, and tortured and mutilated like Hamas did. Uprooting the ability for Hamas to do this against is driving the response. This goes beyond Netanyahu. He is fucking done and nothing he does now will keep or put him back in power.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Bael's Bastard

[Zorral]

This afternoon, no warning, formations of fighter jets flew over us.  The noise was deafening. I was out when this took place.  It was a strange sight: those jets, jetting over the western part of the city, seemingly following the Hudson River Tide race, followed, o so slowly it seemed in comparison, by a couple of teeny seeming, helicopters, all against a beautiful, pristine, peaceful blue sky.