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Nolgthorn posted:Israel isn't committing a genocide of any kind. If they wanted to they could have done so at any time a long time ago, and probably saved themselves a lot of problems in having done it. Instead they spend extraordinary amounts of money trying to minimise casualties. The issue isn't about whether Israel is committing genocide (assuming we use the definition of trying to destroy a race entirely rather than some of the more expansive definitions). Only a small and mostly irrelevant portion of the population advocate and support genocide against the Palestinians and there is no way that the Israeli government, awful as it is, would go ahead with it. However what is an issue is decades of war crimes committed against the Palestinians to enable ethnic cleansing, including murder of civilians, an ongoing occupation, using children as human shields, torture, imprisonment without trial, collective punishment of entire communities and a host more offences. quote:Palestine is and has always been a region, not a country. Nobody declared themselves a state until 1988, more than 20 years after Israel was there. Didn't apply for international recognition until 2011. You're missing the point again. People have the right to self-determination within recognised international norms. The Palestinians have the right to form a country. Israel does not have a right to invade other people's lands and keep them occupied for decades and living in awful suffering. People don't support Palestine because they think Palestine is a country and that makes them specially important because only nationals of recognised countries deserve empathy, the formation of Palestine as a country is the goal because all people deserve to have freedom and basic human rights rather than living in a giant concentration camp and living their lives in suffering. quote:Before the campaign in Gaza Israel evacuated a huge area closest to the Israeli border, and the best places to launch rockets from. What did Hamas do, they moved back with everyone else. Into schools, into hospitals, and launched their rockets from there. Israel isn't new in the area, they underwent an incredible amount of restraint before ever doing anything other than diplomatic about the terrorism problem. Now it seems like whenever this country does anything everyone is willing to jump down their throats. They are surrounded on all sides by internationally recognised terrorist organisations, which ideologically and theologically demand the extinction of jews. Not Israel, but rather literally the extinction of jews, the ethnoreligious demographic. Here's the relevant paragraphs from the UN's Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict 2009 (Goldstone Report) In relation to Israel it says: "1097. This practice constitutes the use of involuntary human shields and is a violation of article 28 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which reads: "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations." Article 51, paragraph 7, of Additional Protocol I (set out in full in chapter VIII above) adds that "the presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations." The prohibition of the use of human shields also has customary law status (rule 97 of the ICRC rules of customary humanitarian law536), both in international and in non-international armed conflict. The Mission, therefore, finds that the Israeli armed forces have violated article 28 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the prohibition under customary international law that the civilian population as such will not be the object of attacks, as reflected in article 51 (2) of Additional Protocol I." While in relation to the Palestinians it says: "493. The Mission finds it useful to clarify what is meant, from a legal perspective, by using civilians or a civilian population as a human shield. Parties to a conflict are not permitted to use a civilian population or individual civilians in order to render certain points or areas immune from military operations. It is not in dispute that both Palestinian armed groups and Israeli forces were fighting within an area populated by civilians. Fighting within civilian areas is not, by itself, sufficient for a finding that a party is using the civilian population living in the area of the fighting as a human shield. As the words of article 57 (1) show ("shall not be used to render", "in order to attempt to shield"), an intention to use the civilian population in order to shield an area from military attack is required." "494. From the information available to it, the Mission found no evidence to suggest that Palestinian armed groups either directed civilians to areas where attacks were being launched or forced civilians to remain within the vicinity of the attacks." I mean the IDF has literally argued in court that they should be allowed to use human shields, trying to make the arguement that "THE TURRURISTS USE HOOMAN SHIELDS" is really shooting yourself in the foot because Israel doing this is a well documented fact while no-one ever seems to have discovered any evidence of Hamas doing this. For your reference, and again quoting the Goldstone report: "Fighting within civilian areas is not, by itself, sufficient for a finding that a party is using the civilian population living in the area of the fighting as a human shield. As the words of article 57 (1) show (“shall not be used to render”, “in order to attempt to shield”), an intention to use the civilian population in order to shield an area from military attack is required."" To further clarify I'll look to the 2015 report where Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, a researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, and former Head of the International Law Department of the IDF Military Advocate General is quoted as saying: "In a scenario like the Gaza Strip you cannot expect the other side or demand the other side to act only from empty areas, to go out of all the populated areas, fire only from there or from the beach area when no people are there, it’s not something that is expected. Therefore to say that the fact that they are operating from populated areas, in itself is a war crime or is in breach of the law of armed conflict, is not a plausible argument (...)" Your expectation that Hamas should march out into barren desert like 18th century line infantry is frankly stupid and bizarre. Urban warfare is almost as old as human civilisation and it is not inherently wrong or criminal. Soldiers specifically shielding themselves with civilians is and this is something that so far we only know that Israel is guilty of. My Imaginary GF posted:Look at how careless Hamas are, provoking Israel to respond in self defence against foreign attack. If Palestinians do not halt these attacks wherever and whenever they occur, then they are guilty of participating in those attacks and will be treated as enemy combatants without consideration for any other factors. Wrong about some very very basic stuff here. Enemy combatant status is binary, but not stopping attacks specifically does not make Palestinians as a whole enemy combatants. The people actually responsible for launching the attacks are enemy combatants but the people who are suffering are disproportionately not those combatant. They're the people who live in occupied palestinian territories and don't involve themselves in attacks, which is to say are civilians. They are not required to make an effort to halt acts that they aren't engaged in and your excuse does not rationalise what you want it to, which is to say massive war crimes against civilians. Your argument is either based on ignorance and you're not recognising the civilians affected or worse you're making the same kind of argument that supports the My Lai massacre and similar war crimes against civilians in Vietnam. The civilian population weren't stopping the Vietcong and were sometimes even giving support like food and shelter. It didn't make them legitimate targets then and it doesn't make the Palestinians legitimate targets now, any more than you're a legitimate military target for funding and supporting your country's military through the taxes you pay and the labour you provide.
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Dec 18, 2015 04:10
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Iowa Snow King posted:Well it worked out for Bajor. I would 100% buy Bibi as Dukat and that when push comes to shove he will try to summon the Pah-wraiths to destroy Palestine.
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Dec 19, 2015 04:32
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Kim Jong Il posted:Capital B BDS is all Israeli products, and they formally seek dissolving the Israeli state. No, they don't. That's the thing people accuse them of constantly so I can understand the confusion their actual stated goals are very different. What they actually formally seek is an end of the occupation, full equality for citizens of all races/religions and a right of return for palestinian refugees. Israel can still exist, it just can't exist as a discriminatory state committing constant war crimes.
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Dec 20, 2015 13:23
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-Troika- posted:And what does right of return mean in this context? The original refugees? The original refugees and all their descendants? The original refugees, all their descendants, and any random person who just so happens to be hanging out in their general area? People whose normal place of residence was Palestine and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict, as well as the descendants of such people, who have registered their status with UNRWA. Kim Jong Il posted:They want a one state solution, so your statement is false. A right of return and annexing Gaza and the West Bank means it's no longer Israel. You're arguing the equivalent of Ariel Sharon didn't slaughter those refugees, he just gave free passage, so there's no relationship whatsoever. But they don't want a one-state solution. Have a look at their founding statement. There is absolutely no mention of a one-state solution. That's something that's left up to their individual groups and although I'm not going to bother checking the statements of 200 different groups, Omar Barghouti (one of the founders of BDS) has stated that most groups support a two-state solution. Not even that but you're making a massive leap of logic. A one-state solution does not mean the destruction of Israel. The expectation is that there will still be a state with a large Jewish population based in the same historical land that the kingdom of Israel was based in thousands of years ago and including many of the key sites of Jewish religion which can serve to protect Jews against anti-Semitism. Now on the other hand they won't have a special privileged status where non-Jewish ethnicities and religions are at best treated as second class and they wouldn't be able to enact laws to discriminate against other ethnicities and guarantee a permanent Jewish majority, but if anyone thinks that should be the basis of any nation then gently caress 'em. Xander77 posted:From which I still draw the conclusion that: Then you're reading it wrong. Main Paineframe's link which I've cited before in these I/P threads explicitly goes through this. Children under 18 of existing refugees, all refugees, are themselves refugees and retain this status once they're over the age of 18.
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Dec 21, 2015 20:36
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The Insect Court posted:I will never grow tired of hearing anti-Zionists insist in the same breath that Jewish nationalism is an evil racist blight that must be torn out so as to make way for Palestinian nationalism. Or how it's a crime against humanity that Israel offers immigration to people of Jewish descent and one that must be halted so as to offer immigration to people of Palestinian descent. It turns out allowing people into your country of one ethnicity as part of your policy of racial purity, ethnic cleansing and war crimes isn't the same thing as allowing people of one ethnicity into your country as part of a commitment to egalitarianism, following international law and reversing the effects of war crimes. In the next instalment of "Of course things are different depending on the context, you loving idiot" we'll be looking at shooting someone who is actively trying to murder you and shooting an unarmed child who is running away from you and is no threat are two very different things despite the principal action being exactly the same! Edit: Not to mention your lack of understanding even in your warped comparison, seeing as it's not a comparison where you can even equate one ethnicity being accepted to one ethnicity being accepted. The right of return would only be offered to people based on their status as refugees regardless of their ethnic origins. Being Palestine wouldn't entitle someone to anything and the majority of Palestinians wouldn't get squat as it's only a minority, albeit a large one, which are refugees. The right is the same right given to every single refugee in the world. not to mention getting in to the country is only a fraction of what I was referring to. The West bank and Gaza are occupied apartheid camps while in Israel the situation isn't nearly so bad but even it's strongest allies like the US government admit that Israel discriminates against its own Arab citizens. team overhead smash fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 00:01
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hakimashou posted:It's never going to happen though. The palestinians absolutely and without exception doom themselves by continuing to be violent, only a real commitment to non-violence offers them any chance at all for a future, without that there is no hope for them and won't ever be. Please show me the stats for how all 12 million Palestinians, without exceptions, have been violent. Super interested in seeing you try to explain how this isn't blatant racism, what with you painting an entire ethnicity as the violent "other" in a manner which I'm sure you wouldn't for a moment accept if the situation were reversed.
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Dec 22, 2015 01:25
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My Imaginary GF posted:Does BDS accept the right for a Jewish state to exist in the mideast, yes or no? Being Jewish isn't a right and if in the I/P conflict made-up rights are your main concern rather than, for instance, all the horrific and terrible violations of actual rights and international military laws, then it just shows your priorities are messed up. BDS has no problems with a country which is predominantly Jewish and in a two-state solution which the majority of BDS constituents support the outcome is going to be two states (as has already been shown), one of which would have a Jewish majority and and a large geographic basis on the historical Jewish kingdom of Israel. What they do not accept is that a country can maintain it's racial purity by committing ethnic cleansing or that a country can discriminate against its citizens based on their religion/ethnicity.
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Dec 22, 2015 11:48
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My Imaginary GF posted:Why doesn't BDS demand compensation for those refugees rather than arguing that their economic prosperity should be further infringed? 1) Because that's not the focus of the organisation, any more than raising money for cancer research, fighting Yazidi discrimination or helping the Syrian refugees fleeing the crisis are things that they could be doing but aren't. 2) Because the situation for Jewish refugees isn't comparable to the situation of Palestinian refugees and the latter are the ones obviously in dire need, living in great suffering with Israel regularly committing war crimes against them. 3) Because compensation for Jewish refugees is only going to happen in the context of a broader settlement where it will be offset against the larger compensation for the greater amount of Palestinian refugees so even if they wanted to help Jewish refugees they'd need to do it by putting pressure on Israel as they're the biggest roadblock to peace for everyone involved. My Imaginary GF posted:Where would those refugees go if BDS destroys the Jewish state of Israel? It's already been explained how ridiculous this idea is over the last page in this thread. team overhead smash fucked around with this message at 17:44 on Dec 22, 2015 |
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Dec 22, 2015 17:33
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quote, not edit
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Dec 22, 2015 17:43
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The Insect Court posted:"We should preferentially allow people of the _____ ethnic group citizenship rights in this country" "'Committing ethnic cleansing and war crimes' and 'stopping ethnic cleansing and war crimes' are exactly the same thing because they both contain the words 'ethnic cleansing' and 'war crimes'" - The Insect Court, TYOOL 2015. You also ignored me pointing out how your entire scenario is fantasy that you've concocted in your head and that if BDS got exactly what they want there would be precisely 0 people preferentially allowed into Israel because of their ethnicity, although a minority of Palestinians would have the right to return based on their internationally recognised status as refugees regardless of their ethnicity. quote:Does this mean you are going to insist on enforceable protections for the rights of a Jewish minority in not-Israel? Why don't you share them with us then. Maybe some sort of power-sharing political arrangement? Or is it the old "Get hosed Zionists, you've got this coming"? What is "not-Israel" and why is there a Jewish minority there that needs special protections? Actually, scratch that. Why are you so concerned about the potential human rights abuses in some bizarre alternate reality that you've concocted in your head rather than - say - the actual real, wide-scale human rights abuses and war crimes that are being committed right now by Israel against the Palestinians?
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Dec 23, 2015 00:38
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The Insect Court posted:If you're going to insist that anti-Zionism has nothing to do with Jews and that you simply reject entirely the idea of the nation-state then you're going to have to do a better job coming up for an excuse for why you want to see the despised Jewish state replaced by a Palestinian state. Or is this going to be one of those horseshoe theory moments and you're going to insist there are no such thing as the Palestinian people, so a Palestinian right of return doesn't favor a particular ethnic-national group? The sentences you're quoting literally don't contain the words "jew" or "anti-zionism" or anything about how anti-zionism has nothing to do with Jews, which isn't even relevant to the discussion, once so I have no idea what argument you are strawmanning but it's nothing to do with what was actually written. Let me re-iterate: You also ignored me pointing out how your entire scenario is fantasy that you've concocted in your head and that if BDS got exactly what they want there would be precisely 0 people preferentially allowed into Israel because of their ethnicity, although a minority of Palestinians would have the right to return based on their internationally recognised status as refugees regardless of their ethnicity. You are making some ridiculous comparison which absolutely ignores all context of things like "Is this promoting or stopping ethnic cleansing" but also ignores the fundamentals of the situation. You're arguing against some situation where Palestinians are all allowed into israel based on their nationality through the Right of Return. This isn't what the right of return is, which is instead ethnicity neutral and based entirely on status as refugees - according a minority of Palestinians the same rights as any people would have in this situation. You're trying to draw a really awful comparison and it's not even one that is based in reality. quote:If you must know, I merely wished to illustrate the near total indifference of many anti-Zionists to the rights of Jews in a post-Zionist, post-Right of Return post-Israel where they are a minority. And you performed as expected by indicating that you simply don't care. This is a D&D I/P thread you know, it's a safe space if you just want to come out and say that any Zionists who stick around will get what's coming to them if that's what you believe, and I doubt it will be an unpopular position. It's not an indifference to the rights of Jews, it's an indifference to your fan-fiction. A one-state solution is only a minority position that isn't being pushed by anyone with serious influence in the Israel/Palestinian negotiations. The default is still a two-state solution which would have a Jewish majority state, albeit one where they would hopefully stop their discrimination against non-Jewish majorities within Israel and their war crimes against people outside of their territory (Two actual problem that are really happening). I honestly do not care about the unspecified problems you've invented in your head for an unspecified group of Jews you've also invented in your head which will happen in the event of an also unspecified peace process which is, yet again, entirely invented in your head. It's not because I don't care about Jews, I believe in racial and religious equality, merely because I don't care about your make-believe. Hell, because you haven't even actually given any details about what they supposedly need protection from, there's no way I could possibly answer even if I wanted to.
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Dec 23, 2015 11:12
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Dead Reckoning posted:I don't think anyone is arguing that Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is a good thing. The way I understand the argument is this: I think your view is unrealistic and kind of avoids engaging with the issue to the extend of coming to a conclusion. I say it's unrealistic because I disagree with your assessment. Based on 8.2 million Israelis with one fifth being arabs and 5 million refugees it's not going to be a short time to get a Jewish minority as you claim. The only way this would come about is with a 100% take-up of the right of return and 100% of the refugees returning to Israel rather than to Palestine. In reality only a fraction of the eligible refugees will return and some of those will be going to the new Palestinian state. The demographic problem, even with a lot more refugees, is still a long-term one - long enough that if we assume all the demographics remain the same then it corrects itself because the Haredi birth rate of a ridiculous 5.0% outstrips the arab birth rate of 2.2 by far. Based on the research done into the peace process, the above situation isn't even really a concern though. The ideal moral solution is very different from the pragmatic solutions that have been offfered and that we'll realistically end up with. The right of return is already an area where the Palestinians have shown willingness to compromise massively to achieve peace. In Camp David Arafat was willing to accept a token amount of returnees on the basis that the majority of them would be able to make homes in the newly formed Palestine which would be good enough even if it wasn't what they all wanted. You keep on saying Palestinian but refugees returning to live in Israel will , by definition, be Israeli and you don't seem to have considered how the Arabs who were part of the British Mandate came to see themselves as Israeli in the first place. They weren't eternally Israeli, they've come to see themselves as Israeli after years of living in a state which is biased against them but still provides a good degree of welfare, protection, opportunity in comparison to neighbouring countries and so they've become absorbed into the consumerist society where they worry about the mortgages and what's on TV and if they're going to order in takeaway or what have you. If you want refugees to assimilate, the answer isn't to separate them out and place restrictions on them and make them leave family members behind because Israel can't trust Arabs. If they are included in Israeli society more fully than the Arabs of '48 and '67, why would their integration be any slower or worse? The only possible reason seems to be because of all the war crimes and other awful actions committed by Israel, which seems to just be yet another good reason for Israel to stop committing them. "This national group might not like us for all the atrocities we're committing against them" is not a reasonable rationale to continue said atrocities. Arabs are marginalised within Israeli society. Even the US State Department, a government office of Israel's closest ally that is consistently biased in favour of Israel, calls Israel out on this. This is going to be a lot harder with a larger minority of arabs. The real issue isn't "oh no those perfidious Palestinians are trying to take over the state" it's that with a stronger demographic representation they might start to want a non negligible effect on the running of the country, which is actually a perfectly reasonably request. The only way that a civil disorder seems to automatically follow from this is if Israel continues to try to marginalise and discriminate against them even if they made a much more sizeable percentage of the body politic, making it more important to stop this from happening by ensuring in a peace deal that Israel is inclusive and egalitarian (something BDS calls for). I don't have a problem with this as I don't believe in stripping people of their fundamental rights and I simultaneously hold that refugees should be able to return home and people should be able to democratically decide the future of their country. If this is a problem for anyone then it's one that can easily be solved by a) Israel not trying to steal as much Palestinian land as possible so that when refugees can return home, they'll be returning to the Palestinian state rather than annexed land that is now part of the Israeli states and b) Not using the hypno ray that makes every single refugee decide to return to Israel and then vote for its dissolution which is obviously involved in this scenario for the numbers to make any sense. I think I read in one of the books on the Camp David peace process that about 60% of refugees would consider returning. That was obviously a while ago but I think any expectation that anywhere close to 100% of refugees would return is absurd. The reason I say you've avoided engaging with it is you've presented these hurdles, but at the same time you haven't presented a suggestion or alternative. What's meant to be the answer if not a right of return. The status quo? That's inherently unreasonable as it relies on an unproven fear of a future threat of violence to allow all of the violence and suffering that is carrying on now to continue. I mean what's the worry. That people will die? That there might be ethnic cleansing? Torture? People imprisoned without trial? denied basic human rights? Your unproven worst case scenario seems to be no worse then what's already happening so I don't think the potential things could not go well should stop us from advocating for people's basic human rights..
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Dec 24, 2015 02:32
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My Imaginary GF posted:It isn't "stealing land" if the land is being used to plan, provision, and conduct terrorist operations, any more than YPG is "stealing land" in Syria as it advances against ISIL forces around Tishrin Dam. It's specifically stealing land if you're violating the Geneva convention and numerous other articles of international law to commit war crimes by illegally taking people's land. It's kind of the very definition. Strange as it seems when they were writing the international military laws which all nations abide by, they didn't add an article saying "oh but feel free to ignore all these and commit all the atrocities you like if you can make up some feeble rationale about 'TERRURISTS'". Also Israels policy of racial purity and ethnic cleansing has gently caress all to do with terrorism, evicting Palestinian families with no involvement whatsoever to terrorism from their homes to allow Jewish settlers to live there instead.
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Dec 27, 2015 16:07
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Maoist Pussy posted:A two-state solution isn't possible because a nation founded for the purpose of being the Jewish state and an ethnic group defined in opposition to the existence of that state are not going to coexist, and because nobody wants weird little microenclaves all over the place, and because all sorts of other reasons that make it ridiculously impractical and undesirable. Palestinians aren't defined in opposition to the state of Israel. For the past 40 years the majority of them have supported a two state solution and it's only in the last few months when a very slim majority were found not to support a two state solution in polls, a set of circumstances which you could guarantee would change back to majority support for a two-state solution is Israel showed any actual interest in creating a state for the Palestinians rather than grinding the Palestinians down with decades of oppression and war crimes. There also wouldn't be micro-enclaves, a peaceful resolution will be based on mutually agreed land exchanges - something both sides have agreed on in past negotiations. Aside from the issue of joining Gaza and the West Bank, all borders would be contiguous and based on the 1967 borders with alterations to take Israels settlements into account. It's more than the Israelis have any right to ask, but if it gets a peace process going then it's a poo poo sandwich the Palestinians have to eat. In reference to your point about a sovereign israel, I would say Palestinian is unlikely to exist without either the US pulling its support or the EU (which makes up about 80% of Israelis trade) taking action and imposing serious sanctions - though in those circumstances a sovereign israel would still exist albeit side-by -side with a Palestinian state. That seems to be neither here nor there though.
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Dec 29, 2015 11:46
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Ytlaya posted:You keep saying this, but I don't think I've seen anyone in this thread or the last who has justified acts of Palestinian violence. The closest thing I can think of is people saying that such violence is to be expected under an occupation and that condemning them is not as useful as condemning the country that created that situation in the first place. But I can't think of a single person that has said "it's okay and good that this Palestinian knifed people." There are people, myself included, who consider the Palestinians to have a right to resistance and that many of these acts are justified. Their situation is similar to the ANC in South Africa.To quote Mandela: "All lawful modes of expressing opposition to this principle had been closed by legislation, and we were placed in a position in which we had either to accept a permanent state of inferiority, or to defy the Government. We chose to defy the law. We first broke the law in a way which avoided any recourse to violence; when this form was legislated against, and then the Government resorted to a show of force to crush opposition to its policies, only then did we decide to answer violence with violence..." When the Palestinians have been oppressed and had war crimes comitted against them for decades and have no peaceful or legal recourse, which is the case, violence is a justifiable recourse. This does not legitimise all violence however and of course TIC is a completely dumb fucknuts who misinterprets it because if he engaged honestly with the arguements other people make then he's have nothing to say. Attacking military personnel is completely justifiable. They're the occupation force and a legitimate target. Attacking some random kid on the street, which is TIC's suggestion of what people are defending, is not justifiable and no-one has been trying to do so.
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Dec 31, 2015 15:09
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Kim Jong Il posted:Nah, the Ferguson police are more like Hamas in that the latter too believes in executing civilians without a trial or due process. How is that different from the IDF's indiscriminate killing of thousands of Palestinian civilians? Is it simply the fact that the IDF do so with high-tech weaponry like bombs and artillery that isn't available to police forces and so are able to murder on a far larger scale?
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Dec 31, 2015 15:43
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Probably the only thing that I occasionally see Palestinian supporters taking a position on that I completely disagree with is Hamas and other militant groups using rockets. While they rightly point out that there are hardly any deaths cause by them and they're so inaccurate that they almost always just hit some empty patch of desert, they don't address the issue that when the rockets do rarely kill someone it is overwhelmingly likely to be a civilian rather than a soldier (about 20:1 I believe). As a basic principle of warfare is to distinguish between civilians and soldiers, the usage of these weapons which do not distinguish and overwhelmingly target civilians is a war crime that cannot be condoned. That's probably my one major area of contention that sometimes comes up between me and other supporters of a Free Palestine. It's kinda weird that it's an area that the few hardcore zionists in this thread don't pick up on, although I suppose "Killing lots of civilians with bombs and rockets" isn't an area someone supporting Israel wants the conversation to drift towards seeing as Israel is way worse in that regard than actual bona fide terrorist groups.
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Dec 31, 2015 18:16
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Ddraig posted:On the other hand, I think it's good that the Palestinians do fire rockets. For one thing, it feeds the narrative that Israel has to live up to that Palestinians are an existential threat (even though they clearly are not, any more than a caged dog is an existential threat to the person holding the key). Israel has to jump through so many, many hoops maintaining this lie and eventually they're not going to be able to do it anymore. FlamingLiberal posted:Since they have virtually no other methods to fight back, and no way to do anything right now via the political process, it's really hard to blame those of them that do it. As mentioned, it rarely does anything and Israel has Iron Dome anyway. Being able to truthfully say that Palestinians have fired thousands of rockets at Israel helps them a lot in being able to present the Palestinians as an existential threat to the average uninformed person who listens to an interview a few minutes long with an Israeli spokesman. While I don't think any system or conceit like Palestine being a threat is eternal, I can't help but think them firing rockets has exactly the opposite effect as the one you hope for and helps present Palestine as a real threat. Not using rockets isn't the same as not fighting back. "They can either go quietly into the night or take a stand and fight back" is a false dichotomy in this case. Palestinians have plenty of methods to fight back that aren't inherently war crimes and which don't disproportionately target and kill civilians. They can fire mortars, which are accurate enough you can specifically target military installations several kilometres away and which historically have disproportionately killed more soldiers than civilians even though most people lump mortars and rockets together in terms of Hamas attacks. They can stab a soldier in the face as they pass them on the street or at a checkpoint. They can dig tunnels and raid Israeli outposts. They can run soldiers over in a car. They can shoot at soldiers with guns. They could even have suicide bombers, though I wouldn't recommend it based on all the negative connotations. None of these will be incredibly deadly or vastly successful in terms of the ratio of Israeli casualties to Palestinian casualties but that's the case with rockets anyway and you can hardly say they will be worse. Rockets hardly kill any Israelis and the inevitable backlashes (Cast Lead, Pillar of Defence, Protective Edge) will kill hundreds or thousands of Palestinian civilians. What is the inherent worth of rockets which seem to offer no concrete advantages, enshrine Hamas attacks as war crimes in fact rather than just propaganda and which kill civilians rather than soldiers?
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Dec 31, 2015 20:29
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gently caress You And Diebold posted:It's closer to 5:1, and thats with a total of ~30 deaths (past 10 years, in Israel). They do many of those exact things you describe, but those all include more risk and often extremely limited resources. Palestinian rockets are usually little more than metal tubes with piss-sugar fuel, with all the damage coming from what kinetic energy it gains on the way up. This explains why they are so common, why they don't do much damage and why they aren't steerable. They are as simple as a rocket can get. Any less technological and you are throwing spears. The gaza strip is extremely resource deprived, and quite population dense. Mortars are more valuable than the rockets, if not just for the fact they usually have some sort of actual explosive in them. Stabbing a soldier in the face is essentially a death sentence, unless they are alone in an alley or something, as well as having possibly even worse reputation internationally. Digging tunnels is done, but takes longer, uses more resources (especially work-hours) and is quite a bit riskier. There's basically no downside to using rockets that Palestinians don't already and would continue to suffer from anyways. Can you back your ratio up? I count 24 civilian deaths including 6 children and 1 military death for the approx 20:1 ratio that I cited originally for rockets. The one death was to a Grad missile, a professionally manufactured missile which the Palestinians also use alongside Qassams. Also your explanations seem to hold only within a very narrow viewpoint. When firing a rocket the risk to the Palestinians doing the firing is relatively low at that specific point in time, but with Israel willing to launch missiles into areas where rockets have been fired from even when it's likely the perpetrators have gone (killing civilians in the area) and the willingness of Israel to launch massive attacks which kill hundreds or thousands in retaliation for missiles the risk is worse with rockets. Take Operation Cast Lead which was spurred on by rocket attacks. Over 1000 Palestinians died and their entire economy was wrecked for the benefit of killing a bare handful of Israels. We're talking worse than a 100:1 ratio of Palestinian Deaths:Israeli Deaths and thats if we include those not killed by rockets simply because they died in a conflict spurred on by rockets being fired. If you don't include them it's even worse!. When you view it in terms of the big picture and the results that come from it, the risks of firing rocket are absolutely appalling and the rationale of it being a strategic necessity absolutely falls apart. If trying to stab a soldier in the face resulted in a death one time in 10 and always resulted in the death of the Palestinian, it would still be a better strategy by an entire order of magnitude while not being a war crime that disproportionately targets civilians, including children. Frankly I don't care how effective firing rockets is, it's a war crime and is unsupportable even if it were effective. However it's not even that! Main Paineframe posted:They don't require the attacker to be in territory under direct Israeli military rule, they don't require attackers to be smuggled through a tightly controlled border or recruited from ethnic enclaves within Israel that are dominated and heavily surveilled by opposing political groups and will face collective punishment as a result, and they're far less likely to result in the death of the attacker? They're also visible from Gaza, which has significant domestic political effects. They're also cheap and can be built in Gaza out of piss and wreckage, circumventing the problems of tight border controls and Hamas' incredibly limited funding. The points you've laid out don't matter at all in and of themselves. They're just some of the factors which play into the outcomes we do care about like how effective the attacks are, who does it target and what are the drawbacks on the Palestinian side in terms of casualties. Now keeping in mind my response above to diebold and the massive amount of Palestinian casualties that are ultimately caused as retaliation for rockets, their lack of effectiveness in terms of casualties caused, the fact they mostly kill civilians and are thus war crimes and the ease with which they allow anti-Palestinian propoganda can you claim that there is any net benefit to using rockets? If so then on what basis. quote:Do you think Hamas is behind the East Jerusalem terror wave or something? Nope. quote:Or do you just think that Hamas has a wide array or more effective techniques that are superior to rockets in every way that they're just not using? I believe that what's effective for Hamas isn't what is most effective for the Palestinians. While I think that unlike Fatah they are truly working for Palestinian independence I believe that it has lost a lot of the militancy it had a decade or two ago and gained a good deal of institutional inertia where they focus on bettering Hamas to the extent that they prefer the methods that keep Hamas operatives safer because keeping Hamas operatives safe even if it causes massive collateral damage to the Palestinians population as a whole is preferable to them. quote:Edit: A common problem I see is that people ignore the Palestinian perspective, including such considerations as local domestic politics, and base their analysis of Palestinian activities based entirely on how Israel would portray them. "Why are they doing that thing? It lends more validity to the propaganda Israel was going to use anyway, while providing critical political points that help maintain their domestic popularity even in the face of more militant rivals! It's nothing but downsides!" Well the first half of that sentence is a downside. Lending validity to Israel's anti-Palestinian propaganda is a bad thing. Sure it might have happened anyway, but you don't have to literally commit war crimes to help Israels arguments. For the second half of the sentence, I don't believe it follows. I am not saying Palestinian militants become less militant or they stop trying to kill Israelis. The guys who would be firing rockets don't just sit around twiddling their thumbs, they carry on attacking but in different ways. I'm saying they focus on different methods of military action, which happen to be those which kill Israeli soldiers rather than civilians and children. You seem to have made a leap of logic that that will automatically erode their domestic support without explanation.
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Dec 31, 2015 21:42
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gently caress You And Diebold posted:Israel is going to attack and employ massively disproportionate retaliation whether Palestinians launch rockets or not, so I don't really see why that is an argument to not fire the rockets. And I don't see anyone saying it is a strategic necessity, but its one of the only things they can do. This isn't even all Hamas, there are plenty of extremist groups within Gaza that do not care as much about potential reprisal. This also leads to domestic unrest if/when Hamas is seen to be doing too little. Hamas already gets accusations of being too cozy with the Israelis for their participation in one sided peace negotiations, which can drive support towards the groups perceived to be doing something. A process which helped Hamas itself gain power under Fatah. Israel doesn't act in a vacuum and has to answer to international pressure and its own citizens. It can't simply kill Palestinians on a massive scale for absolutely no reason, it needs some kind of rationale even if it's not a good one. Stopping rocket attacks and destroying stockpiles of weapons buys them some leeway. If Palestinians to were adopt a more opportunist method of attacking with ordinary domestic weapons like knives and cars, they could hardly bomb massive amounts of Palestinian homes on the basis that there were hidden stockpiles of knives and cars that they were bombing. I can't say for certain that it would stop, but when you damage Israel's rationale for killing people en masse then surely at least reduce Israel's attacks and stopping the Cast Lead/Protective Edge/etc level of attack is a possibility. Besides if all you can say is "If in this one particular way rockets may only be equal with other methods of attack rather than worse" then it's not really a reason to stick with rockets seeing as they still have separate disadvantages like being inherently a war crime.
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Dec 31, 2015 22:31
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Cat Mattress posted:International pressure consists in every first world leader racing to be the first to loudly proclaim that Israel has the right to defend itself (Palestine, however, doesn't) every time Bibi decides to "mow the lawn" because his approval rate is falling down. This is completely divorced from reality. Every year the majority of countries in the world overwhelmingly vote in favour of recogning Palestine's right to freedom and independence. Last year it passed 165 to 6. I expect it to pass again by a similar margin. Countries and World Leaders frequently don't look at the situation the same way I would, but they don't all mindlessly support Israel. A lot of European countries are fairly anti-Israel and even in the USA the support of Israel isn't utter and total. Take the comment from kerry a couple of months ago when the attacks where starting up “Individuals on both sides of this divide are — have proven capable of, and in our view, are guilty of acts of terrorism.” Your view where you try and pretend this doesn't happen is nonsense. quote:1. They are Amalek This doesn't work for Israelis. I think a lot of Israelis have a somewhat warped view due to growing up on one side of the conflict and the propaganda they get fed, but they're not all religious fanatics. Some of them are anti-war and pro-peace while many more that support Israel's actions do so on the basis of them being retaliatory and just, part of the myth of the IDF being the most moral army in the world. If you take away their rationalisation, it becomes that much harder to carry out the same acts. quote:That's what has been happening recently, and the result was that Israel has encouraged vigilantism (aka lynch mobs) and decided to destroy the houses of every Palestinian related to a terrorist. Yes, what I am suggesting does not lead to Israel just sitting on its hands. What it tries to avoid is death ratios of 100:1 and massive bombing campaigns that ruin the entire economy of Occupied Palestine. quote:So what's the strategic upside of Israel bombing civilians even when they know they won't hit Hamas operatives? You're applying a nasty double standard here, where it's a propaganda success for Israel if Hamas commits war crimes against them, but a propaganda failure for Hamas (and also their fault) if Israel commits war crimes against Gaza. If any activity that could possibly injure civilians is a victory for the other side on the international stage, then I'm pretty sure every Gaza hospital bombing makes up for quite a number of rockets. And if you say that only Israel gets propaganda victories, then it doesn't matter what Hamas does because the deck is so badly stacked against them that there's little point in them trying to delay their defeat in that arena. I don't think there is a strategic advantage in the military sense. The rockets are so ineffective that Israel loses more men and money launching the large scale attacks then they do with the status quo and they don't manage to inflict any long-term damage to Hamas or its infrastructure. However that doesn't mean that it's mindless and they'll just do it regardless of context. It's politically motivated. They are being attacked by rockets and must be seen to do something, with bombing and artillery being viewed as an appropriate response by Israeli leaders and a good portion of the Israeli public. That isn't the case with other forms of resistance. When the stabbings started, did Israel launch massive bombing campaigns on Gaza to destroy their underground knife storage facilities? No, because that would obviously be insane and it wouldn't fly with many Israeli citizens, some of its politicians or a lot of the world at large. Look at the second intifada, Israel carried out large scale bombing of Gaza specifically in response to rockets when they started up in 2004. They didn't randomly bomb loads of homes to stop the demonstration violence, gun attacks or suicide bombs - it was specifically the rocket fire that was viewed as an acceptable rationale for bombing which then lead to hundreds of deaths including dozens of children. Israel puts a lot of effort into trying to look like the good guy and it does a decent job, because it should be openly despised. It might not be right, but they can make "We're being attacked with rockets and need to defend ourselves by bombing back" work both domestically and internationally, even if not perfectly. That does not mean they can make "A guy stabbed a soldier in the face so we had to blow up a Palestinian neighbourhood" work. Also I have no idea where you got the idea that Israel committing war crimes against Gaza is a propaganda failure for Hamas. Sure, it helps with propaganda, but it's something to still be avoided because of the massive amount of mostly civilian Palestine deaths. quote:You're asking the wrong question - it should be "who does it provide a net benefit to". Obviously the rockets are perceived by somebody as having a net benefit to themselves, otherwise they wouldn't be getting launched in the first place! What the hell do you think - that Hamas and other Gazan groups have this long list of things they can do that bring them benefit, but instead they're doing something that they don't perceive of as providing them any benefit at all? Hamas isn't doing so well that they can afford to throw away resources in order to do something they think just damages their strategic position. Yes, they obviously think it is a good idea or they wouldn't be doing it. I've explained why it's a bad idea and the alternatives available are better. Hamas can be wrong and I've explained why I think you are. If you you think I'm wrong and Hamas are right then you need to explain why, Hamas isn't full of such strategic masterminds that the mere thought of disagreeing with their strategy makes me obviously wrong. If their strategy is right then you need to explain why. quote:"It might have happened anyway" is actually a very important factor, because if a strong power is just looking for an excuse to bully or invade a weaker power, then it will happen sooner or later no matter how hard the weaker power tries to avoid giving that excuse. It's simply inescapable (and, if necessary, can eventually be provoked or faked by the strong power in order to manufacture the excuse), and pretending that the excuse was the cause or even a cause is little more than international victim-blaming. Why haven't Israel launched a massive bombing campaign killing thousands in response to the stabbings? Because these things don't happen free of context. Israel does not want to end its occupation and will fight it, but it's methods relate to the manner in which Palestinians form their resistance. The conflict is constant and ongoing. They don't need to invade or bully because they are doing that every single moment of every day with an ongoing illegal occupation and oppression of the Palestinian population, an ongoing never ending war crime. The issue is how up until Israel is forced to give the Palestinians their freedom, hwo they fight to try and maintain their occupation. quote:irst of all, Hamas doesn't have many other military options, and those that it does have are extremely limited and can only be done rarely, expensively, and at the cost of significant and often-unrenewable resources. They have alternatives I listed in my past post which they and Palestinian citizens/militants already use. quote:Second, being able to see the strikes against the enemy from your own front lawn has a significant morale component - for example, the Israelis who dragged out lawn chairs to party while they watched Gaza explosions from a hilltop. Ah, the old "I must commit war crimes and kill civilians and children to keep moral up" argument. gently caress you. Hoenstly the most worryuing thing is how throughout all of this people are just responding to me trying to defend this with strategy and tactical advantages and ignoring the moral and legal issues of loving killing innocent people. Not only that but do you have anything to suggest that it keeps morale up more than other much more effective methods which wouldn't result in the massive destruction to the Palestinian populace or are we just spitballing here. quote:On the other hand, recorded history. The excuse for Protective Edge, as I recall, was the kidnapping and murder of just three people in the West Bank. An ordinary domestic attack, nothing to do with rockets, but it was still enough to kill a thousand Gazans. Like I said, if the strong power wants to attack and is just waiting for an excuse, then they will find one. The question is not "if" but "when", and "when" is measured in "months" rather than "years". I'm not just talking Israel - the history of imperialism is just rife with cases like this, and it always ends up as an ultimately inescapable predicament. There's been tons of cases of that kind of unspoken ultimatum, and it almost always ends badly for the little guy. My personal favorites are when the little guy actually repels the initial invasion, treats the invaders humanely and lets them leave in peace in order to try and preserve diplomatic relations, and then gets obliterated by a far larger second wave because their foe simply could not tolerate the embarrassment of their glorious Empire losing to the natives. Nope, the kidnapping of the teens caused an escalation of tension and action and reaction between Israel and the Palestinians with Israel bombing Hamas and other militants and the militants responding with rocket attacks. It was those rocket attacks which gave Israel the excuse for Protective Edge. Over roughly a month the militants shot around 250 rockets into Israel, with the pace escalating and 80 of those being fired on the day Protective Edge officially began which lead of with an air campaign designed to halt the bombing before the ground forces moved in a week or so later. Couple quotes to back it up: 1:24 A.M. The IAF strikes Gaza targets in retaliation for the rocket fire. (Gili Cohen) 2:40 A.M. The IDF dubs the aerial offensive on Gaza "Operation Protective Edge." The airstrikes are targeting sites in the center of the Strip. (Haaretz) Israel will step up its actions against Hamas and the other terrorist organizations operating from Gaza as part of Operation Protective Edge, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Wednesday following security deliberations held in Beersheba. "The operation will expand and continue until the rocket firing on our cities stops, and the quiet returns," he said on the second day of the military operation. Netanyahu has consistently defined the objectives of the operation in relatively modest terms to restore the quiet" not, as some are suggesting, to topple Hamas or destroy its rocket infrastructure inside Gaza. Those later objectives would necessitate a ground action, something Netanyahu has said the IDF is prepared for, but which he has not yet ordered. The actual record shows that they don't just mindlessly bomb whatever, but that they specifically see it as the appropriate response to rocket fire. You seem to be married to this belief that you've pulled out your rear end that these large-scale attacks are inevitable and will always happen, that they're an indisputable fact of reality which isn't effected by any other factor in the entire world and cannot be in any way stopped or changed. It's so utterly reductionist that it remind me of the libertarian/objectivist points of view where they expound on some "fact of human nature" that they've made up like all people being driven and making decision based on self-interest and then make that the supreme fact that they can't get around. Israel does a lot of awful lovely stuff. If the Palestinians resist without rocket fire then Israel will still do a lot of awful lovely stuff. That doesn't mean the lovely stuff will include large scale ground attacks and bombings which kill thousands. You have done absolutely nothing to show that that if the rationale of rockets was removed those types of attack would continue, apart from some appeals to what you seem to consider the essential Israeli nature of always wanting to bomb all Palestinians no matter what.
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Jan 1, 2016 20:02
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Kajeesus posted:The Israeli police even had reason to believe that the teens were already dead and no reason to believe anyone in Gaza knew anything about them, but that didn't stop Bibi from kicking off Protective Edge. It only became about rocket storages and terror tunnels when it turned out that the original justification didn't hold and the IDF wanted to escalate anyway. You've got this all wrong. While there is reason to believe the police knew beforehand and factss were misrepresented, it was announced the bodies of the teens had been found on the 30th of June a week before Protective Edge began on July 7th. As I explain in my above post it became about rocket storage in the time leading up to the start of Protective edge because the militant groups started firing hundreds rockets at Israel in response to Israel's actions, with the rockets rather than the teens specifically begin the rationale for the attack - which was later extended to the tunnels when there were unfounded worries about militants using them to attack Israelis villages. It was around 800 Palestinians arrested without charge, I believe, as well as about 10 killed.
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Jan 1, 2016 20:18
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emanresu tnuocca posted:Palestinian-Israeli opened fire on customers in a pub in central tel-aviv using a sub machine gun killing two and injuring another six, weapon was likely stolen from his father who is a volunteer in Israeli police, the suspect is allegedly an ISIS sympathizer, an attorney who previously represented the suspect claims he is mentally unstable. Suspect is still at large- http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.694926 If this dude dies he is literally 1000 times more effective that firing a rocket at Israel (though gently caress him for choosing to target civilians) and I am willing to bet bet any poster here a banning that Israel will not use this attack as an excuse to bomb and kill 1000+ people.
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Jan 1, 2016 20:21
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gently caress You And Diebold posted:You continue to tie rocket attacks and Israel attacking Palestine as if they are connected. Palestinian actions have nothing to do with Israel's aggression. As we could see during the ceasefire before Operation Cast Lead, even a 99% reduction in rocket attacks with Hamas actively suppressing the other extremist groups still was enough for Israel to cite for an invasion. If it were even possible for Hamas to stop all the rocket attacks Israel would just use something else as an excuse. CommieGIR posted:This. Hamas managed to, somehow, get other extremist groups to cut down on the rocket attacks after Israeli promised to soften the siege. Once again your timelines are messed up. Hamas did stop 99% of rocket attacks on Israel for several months as part of a ceasefire On November 4th Israel launched an attack which killed several Hamas militants. It didn't view this as breaching the ceasefire because they were apparently involved in digging a tunnel into Israel, although both I and Hamas disagreed. In response Hamas and other militants increased its rocketfire a hundredfold (going from 1 rocket launched in October to 125 in November) and it was specifically in response to the rocketfire that Israel launched Cast Lead more than a month later after rockets continued to escalate in December. Once again it was specifically rocket fire that lead to the attack, exactly as I said. When there was no rocket fire Israel's oppression and violence were much more low-level and while that's not great, it did have the advantage of not causing thousands of civilian casualties. Not only that but again the rockets fired by the Palestinians were amazingly ineffective and were still war crimes that disproportionately targeted civilians. Israel gave Hamas the incentive to launch rockets with its attack, but it was the rockets which caused Cast Lead resuming in full force.
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Jan 1, 2016 21:06
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gently caress You And Diebold posted:Israel had already invaded Palestine before the rocket attacks resumed. They just claimed that this invasion didn't count as a truce violation because *waves arms wildly*. This comes after what CommieGIR already pointed out, Israel never actually adhering to its side of the truce in the first place, which was to open up the blockade to allow material in to rebuild Gaza, as well as food and medicine. That never happened. It also agreed to halt all military raids into Gaza, which it blatantly broke multiple occasions before the rocket attacks started up again in November. The 'invasion' that you're talking about was a small raid that killed several militants which is to say not an invasion and thus you being completely wrong about your claim. The type of consequence I'm arguing about being a downside of rocket attacks is the thousands of casualties caused by a large scale attack incurred as a response. Think Cast lead or Protective Edge or the 2004 stage in the Second Intifada where they started firing rockets to Israel bombed hundred of people. They're two completely different things and the large-scale attack occurred after and as a direct response to the rocket attacks, exactly as I claimed, regardless of whether there was a small 'invasion' that killed several people before that - which also fits exactly with what I've said as I've pointed out that no large-scale attacks is not the same as no attacks several times. I am not saying that Israel is good or trustworthy or nice or currently willing to live in peace and harmony with Palestine. My point is that they launch the big attacks with thousands of casualties specifically in response to rockets, so that is one of many reasons to stop firing rockets. The timeline backs this up, with Cast Lead starting after the rockets did and in direct response to them. Your waffling bullshit where you try and equate seven militants dying to a thousand civilians even though it's only the latter we're talking about or boohooing about Israel being is a bad guy who breaks truces just completely avoids the point. People are going to die in the conflict, but the massive attacks which kill loads of Palestinians (predominantly civilians with lots of children thrown in the mix) only occur in response to rockets so that is just another reason not to use them. Edit: Who would have thought trying to argue "Hey, war crimes which kill civilians are bad and shouldn't be committed" would be so god drat hard? team overhead smash fucked around with this message at 21:50 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Jan 1, 2016 21:43
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A Terrible Person posted:Ah. Cool. Seeing as the point being made is about large-scale attacks which result in thousands of casualties, exactly what the gently caress is a small scale attack that left several people dead supposed to matter in the context of the discussion being had?
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Jan 1, 2016 21:54
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gently caress You And Diebold posted:Arguing war crimes are bad isn't hard, but that isn't your argument. Your argument as to why Palestine shouldn't use rockets is wrong and that's why you're having trouble. You are a massive loving idiot. Have you actually been awake while this conversation has been going on or are you actually an Israeli Hasbara plant designed to make pro-Palestinians look as dump as possible? In each of my first three posts, the original one that started off this line of discussion and then my first two replies to you I specifically make the the argument that these are wrong because they're war crimes. I even start italicising those parts of my post to draw your attention to it because you keep on ignoring any moral or legal aspect of committing war crimes to kill civilians and focus only on the strategic and practicality aspects. "As a basic principle of warfare is to distinguish between civilians and soldiers, the usage of these weapons which do not distinguish and overwhelmingly target civilians is a war crime that cannot be condoned. That's probably my one major area of contention that sometimes comes up between me and other supporters of a Free Palestine. It's kinda weird that it's an area that the few hardcore zionists in this thread don't pick up on, although I suppose "Killing lots of civilians with bombs and rockets" isn't an area someone supporting Israel wants the conversation to drift towards seeing as Israel is way worse in that regard than actual bona fide terrorist groups." "When you view it in terms of the big picture and the results that come from it, the risks of firing rocket are absolutely appalling and the rationale of it being a strategic necessity absolutely falls apart. If trying to stab a soldier in the face resulted in a death one time in 10 and always resulted in the death of the Palestinian, it would still be a better strategy by an entire order of magnitude while not being a war crime that disproportionately targets civilians, including children. Frankly I don't care how effective firing rockets is, it's a war crime and is unsupportable even if it were effective. However it's not even that!" "Besides if all you can say is "If in this one particular way rockets may only be equal with other methods of attack rather than worse" then it's not really a reason to stick with rockets seeing as they still have separate disadvantages like being inherently a war crime." I'm the one that argued about them being bad because they're war crimes, you're the one that ignored it again and again and again and only tried to justify why they were practical. I have absolutely no idea how you can be engaged in this discussion and try to make the claim that I've never argued they were war crimes. A Terrible Person posted:Wasn't one of the points about rockets that they have almost no casualties due to their inaccuracy coupled with the Iron Dome? Yes, that was one of the points. I was also a completely separate point with the issue being a factor in a completely different context which has nothing to do with what I just asked you or was being talked about. So once again "exactly what the gently caress is a small scale attack that left several people dead supposed to matter in the context of the discussion being had"? CommieGIR posted:Oh, I dunno, using white phosphorus on a civilian center. Attacking UN sites and basically marking the entirety of Gaza as a rocket launch site. I think you've come into this half way without reading back and not understood the point or what's under discussion. The issue is one particular point I've made, which is that I contend that rocket attacks cause there to be large scale attacks like Cast Lead, Protective Edge that cause thousands of casualties and that one of several advantages to stopping rocket attacks and focusing on other forms of attack. He made mention of Israel attacking Palestine before the rocket attacks in Cast Lead, but actually that wasn't the case in a way that was relevant. A raid did happen over a month beforehand which really spurred the whole thing on, but it was only a small raid which killed several militants. It wasn't a large scale attack occurring before rockets were fired. It was therefore irrelevant to the point being discussed. My Imaginary GF posted:Foreign terrorists in a neighboring, underdeveloped nation are planning an imminent attack on your citizens. Within days, they plan to use terror tunnels, dug over months to years, fortified with reinforced concrete, to kidnap teenagers from your territory and hold them for ransom. The nominal governing body of the foreign territory maintains its calls for your nation's destruction and to drive your citizens "into the sea," which tempers your willingness to collaborate with them. Do you: I have positive proof that Israel is planning to commit war crimes against Palestine on the basis that it has been conducting them every second of every day for decades which has stretched on and caused tens of thousands of Palestinian casualties. I take it you therefore approve of all measures the Palestines take to stop these dastardly Israeli war criminals? Of course the main difference is that your scenario is imaginary and Israel never had such a rationale to attack or take any action while mine is real. Once again you focus more on the imaginary Israelis than the real Palestinians.
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Jan 1, 2016 22:28
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A Terrible Person posted:Fair enough. I never at any point said these were just for Gaza and I mentioned numerous tactics, including some like mortars just on military locations (mortars are quite different from rockets can be fired accurately onto military patrols, outposts and checkpoints along the border of Gaza so they cut out the issue of terrorising and attacking the civilian populace) that Gaza based militants already use effectively. Who What Now posted:Would you mind giving some exact hard numbers on what constitutes a "small scale" and "large scale" attack for future reference? Are medium scale attacks ok, or do we need to look at them on a case-by-case basis? The point isn't about whether different size attacks are 'ok'. It's about whether the large scale attacks which utterly devastate the Palestinians can be avoided while maintaining a policy of violent struggle against the Palestinians. The rationale for all of Israel's big operations like Cast Lead and Protective Edge have been stopping rockets. If militants attack using different methods and take away that rationale then it seems likely that the large scale attacks that Israel has so far reserved just for stopping rockets would no longer be used. While people would still die, the utterly ruinous attacks which cause thousands of mostly civilian casualties and utterly ruin the economy and livelihoods of people in Gaza would stop. Less death for the Palestinians, less destruction. Not an ideal, but still a good thing. gently caress You And Diebold posted:This is specifically what I've been arguing against, using the fact that Israel attacks Palestine all the time without missiles as a reason given. The missile attacks do not cause large scale attacks, the large scale attacks are from Israel. If Israel actually wanted to deter missile attacks there are better ways of doing it (like adhering to their side of peace treaties). Israel uses the large scale assaults to oppress the Palestinian people, and in Bibi's case, apparently to drum up political support. I know that you're arguing, it's just the lack of anything to back it up. I mean you tried referencing Cast Lead, but because you misunderstood the situation you didn't realise that despite a lull during a ceasefire the rocket attacks picked up again and the hundreds of rockets that were fired ended up being the rationale for Cast Lead when it took place - backing up my claims further. Now you've lost that you're not even bothering to present anything to back up what you're saying. I mean, how could you? Pillar of Defense, Cast Lead, Protective Edge, 2004 bombing during the second intifada, Summer Rains, Autumn Clouds, Hot Winter, etc, etc. As far as I'm aware, every single one of the big Israeli attacks since Qassams became a thing has been done on the basis of stopping missile attacks. You are right in that large scale assaults are there to oppress the Palestinian people. The thing is, so are the little tiny raids that kill two people. So are the oppressive non-violent laws. So is the lack of healthcare provision. So are a hundred other things. However only one of them has been used again and again as a rationale for large military operations that kill hundreds or thousands. Do you think that because Israel is going to oppress Palestine, the next time a Palestinian youth throws a rock at a soldier there's a chance Israel will respond by bombing five thousand Palestinians? That Bibi just rolls a die to see what he should do and it's only coincidence it's come up badly for rockets again and again? The context matters and you seem to be trying to reduce this to "Israeli bad, bomb Palestine always". quote:Pathetic ad homs aside, this entire section of your post is unnecessary, you seem to be under the mistaken assumption that you need to convince people that the rocket attacks are a war crime. I have never disagreed with you on that. Keep tilting at wind mills and getting angrier though, it really adds to the rest of your argument. You said I hadn't made the arguement about the awfulness of war crimes: "Arguing war crimes are bad isn't hard, but that isn't your argument." As I've shown in my last post that I'd actually made that exact argument several times and you were too dumb to see it, but by calling you out on it and and calling you an idiot you've finally halfway paid attention. Turns out calling you names works, so don't knock it! I mean you've still got it wrong, but at least you've finally noticed it. The point wasn't that they were war crimes, but that they shouldn't be carried out because they are war crimes. They ignore the concept of distinction; causing disproportionate death, damage and destruction to civilians that far exceeds any potential military objective. FYI the same basis is also why many of Israel's actions are war crimes, for instance wilfully bombing houses full of a dozen civilians because there was a militant there or they had 'intelligence' that there were weapons stored there. Such war crimes are inherently bad and there is no distinction as to whether the overall cause is good or evil in regards to how international law treats such crime. Legitimising Palestinian attacks on civilians only serves to legitimise all attacks on civilians, Israeli attacks on Palestinians inclusive. Of course that's the legal argument. The moral argument is that of course it's wrong to carry out attacks which kill more children (let alone civilians overall) than they do soldiers.
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Jan 2, 2016 00:57
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The Insect Court posted:Kind of hard to justify Gandhi's position in 1938 that German Jews should have allowed themselves to be slaughtered by the Nazis rather than offer any resistance. I suppose it makes a sort of coherent sense in light of his sustained commitment to a radical pacifism. When the Palestinians have used non-violent methods like UN recognition you've complained about them then too. You don't agree with Palestinians using any methods to try and get their freedom.
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Jan 2, 2016 01:52
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My Imaginary GF posted:Why do you oppose protesting non-violent methods you disagree with through non-violent means? When you're opposing human rights and promoting war crimes.
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Jan 2, 2016 02:39
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Main Paineframe posted:Because bombing East Jerusalem is something Israel won't do under any circumstances, and investigations have failed to discover even the most tenuous link to organized groups or occupied areas that can be targeted for collective punishment. Thank you, that's it exactly. There isn't some kneejerk reaction like people have been claiming where Israel automatically goes "MUST BOMB 1000 PALESTINIANS" to any provocation, it's based on the context of the attack and what is deemed as appropriate based on a host of different factors including internal and external pressure and the efficacy of any such measures. Now if the context of resistance changes to exclude as much of the rationale for large scale attacks as possible , dampen internal and external support for such measures and increase the consequences Israel faces for such attacks then the basic conclusion that any reasonable person must come to is that it will at the very very least make such attacks considerably less likely. quote:Hamas does not. Stabbings and ramming soldiers with cars is viable for residents of East Jerusalem, but not for Gazans. You're making the mistake of attributing all Palestinian tactics to Hamas, ignoring significant differences in resources, opportunity, and treatment. Mortars are more accurate than rockets, but much more difficult to get, especially considering Hamas' limited resources. At this point the approximately 10,000 rockets that Hamas and other militant groups have fired over the last 15 years have had the startling success of killing a single soldier. Mortars and tunnel attacks not only have the advantage of not being inherently war crimes that kill civilians and blacken the name of Palestinian resistance, losing them the international support they need and making it so much easier for Israel to retaliate with overwhelming force, but they are also more effective. Also while militants use mortars less than rockets, it isn't insanely less.They use rockets about twice as often as mortars so mortars are less common but not radically so. You might have a dated impression of Palestinian rockets. They've developed over time and gone from the bottle-rocket-like Qassam 1s which came up to your near to substantially larger Qassam 2, 3 and 4s which are as big or bigger than a person. They've also introduced professionally made rockets into their stockpile with the most common one being a GRAD, which incidentally is what was responsible for that single dead IDF soldier. quote:So let me pose you a question here. You've asked why Hamas conducts rocket attacks as if you have no idea why, dismissed every reason offered as false or irrelevant, and seem to act as if Hamas has no possible reason for doing it. So, then, why do you think that Hamas does it? Why do they engage in the rocket attacks that you are so completely convinced there is absolutely no good reason for? Well firstly, you asked this question a couple of posts back with slightly different wording and I've already made a reply that you've ignored. Secondly, it doesn't really matter. If the only thing that stands against the arguments I'm making is some inference of a vague strategic goal that you can in no way explain or back up, then am I or anyone else really supposed to take it seriously? Thirdly I don't really care why they think it's right. I've only asked that the benefit is to get posters here to try and rationalise any explanation, not because I wanted Hamas's specific explanation. For reference here's what I posted before: "I believe that what's effective for Hamas isn't what is most effective for the Palestinians. While I think that unlike Fatah they are truly working for Palestinian independence I believe that it has lost a lot of the militancy it had a decade or two ago and gained a good deal of institutional inertia where they focus on bettering Hamas to the extent that they prefer the methods that keep Hamas operatives safer because keeping Hamas operatives safe even if it causes massive collateral damage to the Palestinians population as a whole is preferable to them." Too add onto that that I'd also say that there are a couple of institutional blindspots with Hamas. Firstly they they believe that violence is the solution rather than a means towards leveraging peace (see Ireland, South Africa, etc) even though it's clear to everyone on the outside that they are never going to simply defeat Israel. This minimises the importance of abiding by international laws, not carrying out war crimes, etc. Secondly, due to the lack of a western institutional framework that they've been brought up in and the losses they suffer, I can easily see how killing Israeli civilians seems like justice rather than a horrific crime. quote:Rockets are small scale attacks that lead to, at most, a few casualties. So it seems that small scale attacks matter a whole lot! "Matters" in the context of that argument specifically refers to meeting the criteria of being a large scale attack with thousands of casualties. A small scale attack that leads to, at most, a few casualties, would therefore not matter in any way! gently caress You And Diebold posted:You ascribe entirely too much import to Israel's stated reasons for invasion. Part of my point you have ignored is that Israel has shown that it will create reasons for invasion/attack/peace treaty violations when standard excuses are not at hand. Specifically wrt "large scale" (per your distinction) invasions, rockets have been one of a number of things that show up in Israeli statements as for the reason, but considering that they have a tried and true method for stopping rocket attacks (peace treaties), their hand waving about accidentally fatal blind rocket attacks as the reason for massively disproportionate bombing and invasions in Palestine ring a little false for anyone who has paid attention for longer than 5 years. Your example is one of Israel making a small attack to stop what it viewed as a small threat, killing several militants to stop a single attack tunnel. It shows that Israel's responses are based on the context of the situation and is of an appropriate scale in the eyes of the Israeli government (as warped as that may be). This only backs up my point. Even if you think Israel is looking for any excuse to murder as many palestinians as possible at every opportunity, each opportunity does obviously not create the same opportunity for murder. A few militants in a single tunnel only warranted one attack that killed a few people rather than a massive month long bombing of downtown Gaza and it's only rockets which have again and again provided the rationale for these large attacks. Israel obviously doesn't want peace but it also obviously isn't attacking with it's full might (or even a large amount of might) at every provocation and there is a rough (if unjust and unbalanced) sense of scale to their response. Hundreds of rockets get thousands of Palestinian casualties.
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Jan 2, 2016 07:07
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Main Paineframe posted:Sounds like if they dropped rockets from their arsenal they would only be able to make one-third as many attacks, with no apparent improvement in the success rate of attacking soldiers. Nope, rockets disproportionately target civilians at a ~20:1 ratio. Mortars cause civilian deaths but mainly kill soldiers and I assume that at least some mortars were deliberately fired at civilian targets, which would obviously be something that would be stopped in these ideal circumstances and make the ratio even more favourable. Meanwhile tunnel attacks have only ever killed soldiers with no civilians being killed. Even without extra resources being poured into them, both these methods already kill more soldiers than rocket attacks have managed, which isn't hard seeing as 10,000 rockets fired over a decade and a half have managed to kill a single soldier at the cost of thousands of Palestinian civilian deaths in response. quote:The thing that stands against the arguments you're making is that if rockets weren't beneficial to anyone, why would anyone bother with them? Originally, you asked why Hamas launches rockets when you asserted that there was no benefit whatsoever to doing so. And I've answered you very simply - obviously Hamas wouldn't launch rockets if they thought there was no benefit to doing so or if they thought the downsides totally overwhelmed the benefits, so it naturally follows that at the very least they (and other Palestinian militant groups) believe that the benefits of rocket launches are worth the risks. Maybe you disagree, but that doesn't mean you're right and everyone else (ranging from internet commenters to the people actually involved on the ground) is wrong. Me having an opinion doesn't mean I'm right and people on the ground are wrong and I've never said that I have. Me being able to back up and explain my opinion with evidence and reasoning while you either get the facts wrong (above) or make meaningless points (below) or ignore the majority of the points I've made (not pictured) while your argument has basically devolved into vague inferences of some potential reasons Hamas has that you cannot explain or defend is what means that I'm right. Even if I'm not right, then based on your argument so far there's no reason to think I'm wrong. quote:The only thing that meets the criteria of being a "large attack" is Israel's invasions. Rocket attacks are also small attacks. Yes, that's not something that's being argued though and I'm not sure how it's meant to relate to anything. I hate to bring this up, but Dead Cosmonaut posted:I hate to bring this up, but This may come as a surprise to you but the Occupied Palestinian Territories are, well, occupied. I don't think it's possible to invade a country that you already occupy.
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Jan 8, 2016 09:24
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Kim Jong Il posted:Hezbollah's body count dwarfs Israel's. Doesn't seem to add up. What are you basing these figures off?
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Jan 8, 2016 09:28
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ANIME AKBAR posted:It's weird that you're evaluating Hamas's attacks as if killing Israelis (either civilian or military) was the primary goal, when in fact it's just a means of shoring up popular support in Gaza. Effectiveness isn't the issue, it's about showing actual resistance to Israel. Which is why rocket and mortar attacks can't really be resolved with military force. No matter how hard the retaliation is, Hamas is still going to have rockets and mortars, and the will to use them will only grow stronger. I'm not, I evaluated it on a number of levels and have even mentioned the effects of morale in a previous post. The people responding to me tend to only be challenging parts of my argument and its those bits I respond to. I'd also point out that I'm maintaining the point of view that militants should use almost every form of attack they have available, including mortars but excluding specifically rockets. The two are quite different and shouldn't be lumped in together as you've done in your post due to the inaccuracy of rockets making them ineffective weapons whose usage is automatically a war crime due to their disproportionate risk to innocent civilians. I don't see any particular reason why the militant groups' ability to lionise their deeds would be drastically weakened by concentrating on other forms of attack, especially when conspicuous options that the Palestinian public will see happening like mortars are still on the table (which seems to be the main point that makes rockets stand out in terms of influencing morale). If you think there is a particular reason they would then I'd like to hear it. On the other hand there are advantages that are fairly obvious and have been gone over quite a few times, with the main benefit not being the strategic effects (wow, killing 2 soldiers a year instead of 0.1!) but rather that this would stop the occurrence of war crimes which targeting civilians which will in turn have advantages in diplomacy, the propaganda/public perception of the conflict and Israel's counter-attacks. That's not to mention the moral basis for not committing war crimes.
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Jan 8, 2016 15:36
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A Terrible Person posted:It's almost as if Gaza is entirely surrounded by belligerents, has its waters monitored, can not import many "real" weapons, and has to have caches of real weaponry available for the the next inevitable Israeli attack while still remaining relevant as an active (if restrained) participant in an armed conflict. If it was that hard to get mortar shells, they wouldn't have literally already fired thousands of mortars at Israel to date - less that with rockets but not off by a massive amount, maybe twice as many rockets are mortars. Israels rockets are also made up of a significant amount of "real" weapons because as well as homemade Qassam rockets they also make frequent use of professionally constructed Grads as well as rare use of other missiles like the Fajr. I beleive they're smuggled in through the Egyptian tunnels. Even if it was much much harder to get access to mortars and other weapons, it still wouldn't justify committing war crimes and attacking civilians.
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Jan 8, 2016 17:11
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A Terrible Person posted:Does that really follow? I could just as easily say that their large supply is due in part to the fact that they use rockets more frequently when firing in protest. "Good weapons"? We're talking about rockets, not good weapons. After firing about 10,000 rockets over 15 years they've killed a single IDF soldier last year and that was with one of the professionally made grad rockets too, not a qassam. It'd probably be more effective to just save up money and then order the local IDF barracks some takeaway pizzas as often as they can. Pretty sure the health effects of fatty food would be a more reliable killer than rockets. If you're going to ignore the moral case and fall back on the strategic benefits, there have to actually be strategic benefits for that to work.
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Jan 8, 2016 19:18
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A Terrible Person posted:I don't believe for a second that Hamas ever planned to defeat Israel by randomly firing off pissrockets and the occasional mortar from within Gaza. That's not their purpose. And way to bolster my own point: the rockets are garbage weapons and therefor have been fired off by the thousands... rather than wasting the good (i.e. effective/accurate) weapons. You're all over the place and seem to be making this poo poo up as you go along. A post ago you say we can't waste rockets because they're good weapons. Now you say they're terrible weapons... but you still can't stop using them because then Palestinians would be forced to use good effective weapons that they have in massive quantity and won't run out of and which also aren't inherent war crimes. And that would be bad because, y'know, reasons. Ytlaya posted:As for the whole rockets discussion, it seems like many people on the "it's wrong for the Palestinians to shoot rockets" (and I don't necessarily disagree with this specific point) side of the argument forget that Israel is also composed of sentient human beings. They are not some mad dog that bears no moral responsibility for mauling you when provoked. So while shooting rockets is likely a bad idea from a moral and strategic perspective, it should not be viewed as a cause of Israeli retaliation. Israel, and only Israel, chooses to do the things it does. They are not forced to do these things by Palestinian actions. People often forget the fact that "X results in Y" does not imply "X is responsible for Y", especially when Y is the actions of another human being. Israel chooses to do them, but I think we can still recognise that rockets are a cause of a certain type of attack with that type of attack being the big ones involving mass bombing and artillery shelling that causes hundreds or thousands of civilian casualties sometimes supported by a large ground invasion. Every big attack by Israel on Palestine large enough to warrant a name like Protective Edge, Cast lead, Pillar of Defense, Autumn Clouds, Summer Rain, Days of Penitence, etc has been in response to Palestinian rockets- both chronologically and as the stated explanation for Israel's actions. This isn't to say Israel are right to do so or justified or right in their response. It's simply recognising cause and effect. The rocket attacks are what cause Israel to choose to make their big rear end attacks which kill masses of Palestinians. The choice is still Israel's completely and totally in how if at all they respond and to me the only moral way would be to end their occupation and then seek redress as part of a truth and reconciliation programme, but as they don't seem willing to change tactics and do that any time soon. quote:Part of the reason the motives of people who focus on rocket attacks are called into question is that, at best, it represents some very skewed priorities. The strategic argument (Palestinians shouldn't shoot rockets because it provokes Israeli aggression) in particular is very strange. It's like looking at a situation where some criminals are holding people hostage and, when one of the hostages fights back, saying "what an idiot, why would the hostage do something so stupid," when the only reason the situation arose in the first place is due to the action undertaken by the criminals (who are also human beings who can make their own decisions). While such an attack certainly isn't pragmatic given the circumstances, it's pretty easy to understand why most people who be off-put when someone focuses on the actions of the victim. You have to remember that I'm bringing this up in terms of "I would like it very much like Palestinians to continue to try and kill lots of Israelis in these ways, but to leave out this one method" and that the main reasons I've given (though not necessarily the main reasons people have picked out from my argument and started discussions on) are a) The moral aspect because war crimes are simply wrong and b) The fact that stopping these war crimes would help the Palestinians. quote:While the moral argument against them is obviously sound, it pales in comparison with the moral argument against Israeli actions and is usually focused upon very disproportionately to the harm the rockets actually cause. It is also blind to the fact that crimes committed by individuals under great stress/suffering, while still wrong, are at least more understandable than crimes committed by those in a position of authority/power (Israel). So while I agree when people speak of the rockets being immoral, it seems very misleading to focus on them independent of the context of the situation as a whole and Israel's actions (that is, it's very strange to talk about them without also mentioning the situation that gave rise to them - a situation entirely created by Israel). Yeah, to be honest if there was a single pro-Israeli poster here who didn't seem completely disingenuous or like they're trolling then I'd be focused on turning their argument around. Instead the only serious posters around here in my eyes are pro-Palestinian ones. The willingness of people to try and defend or justify rocket attacks is my biggest bone of contention with other people who support Palestine. They're war crimes. They disproportionately kill civilians. Hell, they kill more children than they do soldiers. They're wrong and I find it a disgusting that anyone would support them. I find it even more disgusting that people would okay the indiscriminate shelling of thousands of Palestinian civilians, but I make that clear whenever it comes up in the thread and I consider the rockets an issue because I'm on the Palestinian side to the extent of donating money and having taken part in pro-Palestinian activism (part of demos, handing out leaflets, collecting signatures) and I don't want to be palling around with people who support war crimes. Despite my support for the Palestinians my support for them is rooted in a respect for human rights and so I can't turn a blind eye to lovely things my own side sometimes supports. People get into the "us vs them" mindset and try to justify any actions by the Palestinians. quote:On the other side of this coin, however, the Palestinians' situation being created by Israel also does not mean that Palestinians bear no responsibility for committing war crimes, even if those war crimes are comparatively inconsequential and the situation prompting those war crimes was created by Israel. It certainly makes them less bad than Israel's own war crimes, but they're still not okay. It's just mostly pointless to spend time and effort condemning them, since they aren't the actions of an organized state and condemning them is even less likely to have an effect than condemning Israel. I don't think my internet postings will really have much effect most ways, but a key part of this is because not just that Palestinian militants committing war crimes is bad because it disproportionately kills innocent Israeli men, women and children (which is still true) but that Palestinian militants committing war crimes is bad for the Palestinian people themselves and the cause of Palestinian freedom due to the diplomatic, military and moral blowback. Also if the responses so far had been "yeah, rockets are bad but I don't think we should focus on it" then the discussion would have stopped 20 posts ago because I agree completely. That's my point of view. However when people try and defend Palestinians committing war crimes, that becomes an issue I'm not going to let go of.
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Jan 9, 2016 01:30
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A Terrible Person posted:Perhaps I should have italicized "real" the first time? Perhaps I should have typed "those" before my second use of real? In either case, my point was that Hamas and other groups mostly use lovely handmade pissrockets that aren't aimed at anything in particular as a sign of defensive aggression, an act of defiance, and (when the Iron Dome actually works) a reminder to the world that they're trapped in a ghetto and don't really have a viable military response to their plight; the actually useful munitions (read as: purchased rather than homemade shells/rockets/etc.) are generally saved for countering the inevitable Israeli bombing campaign. You're once again pulling poo poo out of your rear end to try and justify war crimes and killing civilians, which is abominable and sickening. Mortars and rockets, even the ones they purchase (and I'm not sure if they even do purchase them rather than them just being provided by Iran and other backers), do not in any way counter bombing campaigns as you claim. Even the professionally made rockets are too inaccurate to hit any specific target and mortars have a range of a few kilometres, useful for taking potshots at the surrounding outposts, checkpoints and patrols but utterly useless for trying to stop a plane being launched 50 km away or a howitzer that's firing from 15 km away. At best all that saving up rockets does is allow them to try and kill even more civilians as payback for their civilians getting killed. Whether they're war crimes is not irrelevant. It is awful that they are trying to kill innocent civilians. It's not the worst war crime being committed, but you don't get to commit war crimes if you can make the excuse that some other guy is committing them worse. The fact that you try and brush war crimes away with such a cursory argument and the fact you only apply human rights to one side shows you either haven't thought this through or are incredibly biased. Hell, it even works on a strategic level as there is no way Palestinian militants are winning in terms of real might while in terms of the international public and political support not committing war crimes puts them in a much better position. Not to mention the saw international military laws which make Palestinian rocket attacks illegal are the same ones that make Israel's shelling of Palestinian civilians illegal. You also can't condone one without implicitly condoning the other, unless you're going to take the racist stance that some things are only crimes when done by a certain racial/religious group. The Insect Court posted:So it seems obvious there's a sizeable contingent of anti-Israeli posters who are willing to condone rocket attacks against Israeli civilians. No, the same arguement doesn't apply. Rockets are a war crime because they are so inaccurate that they are indiscriminate. As the Israeli population is mostly civilian, some wildly fired rocket will be far more likely to hit a civilian than a military target. This means that the damage they inflict is disproportionately against civilian targets whether or not the user is trying to hit military targets or not, which is what makes them war crimes. With suicide bombs it is possible to discriminate and you can do attacks which inflict entirely or largely military casualties/damage. Take the Kerem Shalom suicide bombing in 2008. A suicide bomber detonated their bomb at an Israeli outpost and I believe all the casualties were military. It was a legitimate attack. Now it's possible to make an attack with a suicide bomber that is a war crime, detonating it in a crowded market, but that's down to the choice of the bomber you could make the same argument for a gun or a knife. You can choose to shoot/stab an IDF soldier or you can choose to shoot/stab a civilian. The use of suicide bombs, guns, knives and such aren't inherently a war crime like rockets are, they can be used legitimately or as part of a war crime depending on the choice of the user. That said personally I wouldn't recommend them because I think suicide attacks instantly repulse most western observers and international support is a key factor for the Palestinians so it would be strategically unwise. Even if they were done against entirely legitimate military target the thing most people would take home is "Palestinians = suicide bombers = dirty evil terrorists"
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Jan 9, 2016 11:24
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XMNN posted:like the rocket attacks from Palestine are war crimes (mostly in a technical sense because they don't actually end up causing damage to either the military or civilian targets they are incapable of discriminating between) but I'm not sure how that makes bombing Palestinian towns and killing hundreds of civilians OK? How many Palestinians civilians is Israel allowed to kill before it becomes a real war crime instead of just a "technical" war crime like Palestinian rockets?
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Jan 9, 2016 12:01
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XMNN posted:I'd go with zero for either side, a missile that might hit a civilian population but lands in a field or gets blown out of the sky is a war crime but it's not really on the same level as one that kills or injures someone or dozens or hundreds of people. Yes, what he's doing is wrong and is part of a consistent tactic on his part to diminish the suffering of the Palestinian people. However dismissing Israelis killed by Palestinian rockets as not being the victims of real war crimes as opposed to 'technical' war crimes due to their being far more Palestinian deaths is also wrong and not the way to go about correcting him, which is what you were implicitly doing in your last post.
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Jan 9, 2016 18:13
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