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No, I don't think that is a reasonable take at all. 1. This is warfare, not civil law. Hamas, which is the sovereign in Gaza (there has been no Israeli militar

No, I don't think that is a reasonable take at all. 1. This is warfare, not civil law. Hamas, which is the sovereign in Gaza (there has been no Israeli military presence there for years), commited an act of war in which hundreds were killed, raped, and kidnapped. Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. Otherwise, it breaks the most basic contract between citizen and state ("I give up on violence and in turn you protect me from violence"). 2. The aggressors (both in the field and leadership) are still largely out there, and holding kidnapped civilians and soldiers. They don't get a pass just because the "aggression is over" (whatever that means, rockets are still being fired indiscriminately at Israeli cities and towns, which is a war crime by the way...) 3. The responsibility for the safety of the Gazan civilians is that of Hamas since, again, they are the sovereign in Gaza. We shouldn't absolve them of responsibility for picking a fight with a better armed opponent. The defense does not have to be proportionate since that would mean Israel cannot use it's Tanks, warplanes, etc. To imply that Israel should fight with it's hands tied behind its back is ridiculous since war is not fair. There are some international laws intended to reduce the suffering of those that are uninvolved. For example, what does have to be proportionate is the harm caused to civilians when attacking a military target on a case by case basis, to the best of your knowledge (note that, according to international law, the target can in fact be a hospital/school/etc if it's used for military purposes). Finally, an honest question, what would you do? How would you respond in this situation?

rightbyte 3y ago
> Finally, an honest question, what would you do? How would you respond in this situation? The situation is by design. I am not going to pretend I don't think Netanyahu wanted this.
- nahumfarchi 3y ago
  Based on what? He's a cynical real politik kind of guy, but I doubt this is how he hoped this would play out. At the end of the day, I believe that his legacy is extremely important to him, and he probably did not want to be remembered as the one in power during one of the worse massacres against Jews since the holocaust. Not to mention that it's highly likely he'll be voted out during the next elections (TBD...)
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Based on his policies and character. But, obviously, I don't know for sure. We need to wait 10 - 30 years til people involved starts to write memoirs.
    - nahumfarchi 3y ago
      His policy towards Hamas was one of containment and not making a decision, which is classic Netanyahu behavior. I don't know whether or not his biographies agree with this, but this is pretty much the consensus among Israelis. Again, I truly doubt that October 7th is what he was aiming for (happy to change my mind if there is evidence otherwise).
qwertthrowway 3y ago
I think an honest answer would be to end occupation and oppression of the Palestinians by Israel. Any occupying force has an interest to silence and stop indigenous people from claiming their land rights. For example, Gaza had been described as an open air prison for almost 2 decades because its borders, imports, sea usage, had all been controlled by Israel. This is not what we call “sovereign rule”. The West Bank has been checkered with military checkpoints and illegal settlements, contravening international agreements. When people are driven to desperation, and their lives are made miserable because the occupying forces want to remove them, they do not have many options. I think it is quite adequate to compare Gaza to the situation in for example, the Warsaw Ghetto in WW2, when an uprising was quashed by occupying German forces. This Gaza is a heavily urban area with vast majority of civilians, it cannot be compared to two armies fighting on a battlefield.
- liorsbg 3y ago
  In Gaza, all they would have to do is put their weapons down. Blockade and restrictions would lift, and Gaza could be prosperous. In the West Bank, I agree that the settlements are abhorrent and need to be removed.
  - nonviol 3y ago
    This is what happened when Gazans tried nonviolent protest: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters/0000017f-f2da-d497-a1ff-f2dab2520000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-ma... https://archive.ph/vDhPP https://archive.ph/vDhPP I'm not implying that October 7 was justified.
    - oytis 3y ago
      Seeing what happened on 7th of October one can understand why IDF is nervous about people getting close (500m is the official buffer zone as I understand) to the fence. Not implying that competition in number of knees shot is justified.
nielsbot 3y ago
This is a longer version of "Israel has the right to defend itself". Maybe Israel shouldn't exist but since it does I think we can agree it has a right to defend itself since if it doesn't innocents will be harmed/killed/raped. That said, even in war, there are long established rules of engagement in war designed to protect (as possible) non-combatants. Israel is not respecting these rules at all. And beyond the insane death toll and indiscriminate bombing, Gazans are hungry and without water and shelter. Of course, Israel should exercise restraint, especially since it's better armed and has such sophisticated intelligence. Now it's making itself a pariah (except in the US)
- edanm 3y ago
  > That said, even in war, there are long established rules of engagement in war designed to protect (as possible) non-combatants. Israel is not respecting these rules at all. Israel absolutely should be respecting the rules of war. As far as I know, it is. People often like to claim that it's not, hinting at some vague "war crimes" or claiming that Israel is targeting civilians, but there is no proof of that happening on purpose, that I'm aware. This is complicated by Hamas deliberately using human shields and trying to get Gazans killed to make Israel look bad. It is a very complicated situation to fight in and Israel is absolutely making mistakes, but I urge you, show evidence of it actually committing war crimes in the killing of citizens. > And beyond the insane death toll and indiscriminate bombing, Gazans are hungry and without water and shelter. Hamas is the government responsible for Gazans. if they are hungry, it's because Hamas is failing in its duty to its citizens. They are literally stealing food from aid trucks in order to feed themselves (and probably stockpile food in tunnels) instead of feeding their own citizens. Not to mention, they could return the hostages and surrender and spare themselves and their citizens all of this death and pain. As for the "insane death tool" - what makes it "insane" in your mind? Note: every death is a tragedy. Civilians dying, on either side, is tragic. Hell, even soldiers and Hamas militants dying is tragic - every death is a tragedy. I'm talking about all this analytically but the death and suffering here is horrible.
  - vacuity 3y ago
    Whether Israel is proportionately attacking Gaza remains to be seen. Just because Hamas doesn't care about Gazans doesn't mean that Israel is giving them a reasonable opportunity to thrive, though. That's without mentioning the settler colonialism debacle, which is not as one-sided as some people claim but still an injustice to Palestinians.
shihab 3y ago
Israel absolutely has the right to fight Hamas. But on the question of whether it's really defense vs avenge on entire population, I urge you to go through recent nytimes article titled "Gaza After Nine Weeks of War" with an open mind [1]. Entire neighborhoods has been bombed to rubbles, parks and roads have been bulldozed. Every single civilian structures, hotels, homes, playgrounds, port- on a large stretch beside sea has been utterly destroyed. That's not a picture of a moral army fighting insurgents embedded in Civilian population, it's the picture of a fight against the entire civilian population- or "mowing the grass" in Israeli military's parlance. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/12/world/middleeast/gaza-strip-satellite-images-israel-invasion.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/12/world/middlee...
- edanm 3y ago
  Every time somebody says this, I always ask the same question - what is the alternative? What should Israel do instead? This is war. War is horrible and tragic, and far more so because Hamas hides within civilian buildings and used human shields. What should Israel do instead to protect itself and to fight Hamas?
  - bjourne 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - neoromantique 3y ago
      >Refaat Alareer >Poet Ah. One of the most known Hamas propagandists is now a mere poet.
      - sudosysgen 3y ago
        Killing civilians is fine on the basis of their speech now?
      - dang 3y ago
        Please don't cross into posting battle comments in this thread. I've explained at the top of the thread, and in many other comments, why we're trying to avoid that and what we're going for here.
tsimionescu 3y ago
You seem to be arguing from a bizarre perspective that Israel is the defender here. In reality, Israel is the aggressor, and Palestine is the state that has been under occupation and illegal blockade for decades. October 7th was an (illegal, abhorrent and criminal!) act of retaliation against previous Israeli aggressions, not an unprovoked attack. If Ukraine were to bomb a Russian city during the current war, no one would views it as legitimate for Russia to bomb a Ukrainian city back: Russia started the whole conflict and is expected to bear the consequences, until such a time as it stops the occupation. In general, the overall solution would be for Israel to allow Palestine to be an independent state, recognized in the UN, with full control of its own borders. It is fully within its rights to keep its border with Gaza closed, of course, but there is no right whatsoever to blockade Gaza's access by sea. There is also a good argument to be made for paying reparations to Palestine for the occupied territories and for the entire illegal blockade duration - though that is ultimately secondary. The thornier question is of course how to connect Gaza to the West Bank.
- __blockcipher__ 3y ago
  > but there is no right whatsoever to blockade Gaza's access by sea This by the way is an important fact to bring up when the claim that "Israel left Gaza many years ago and the problem didn't improve". In actuality, they withdrew their occupying army but still kept up a blockade, including a literal cap to the number of calories allowed to enter the country, which I can only interpret as a population control measure. That's of course in addition to all the other stuff they kept doing, but that's probably a discussion for another day. I'd note that the GP was careful to specifically mention Israel having withdrawn its military from Gaza which is true, so I'm not disputing the veracity of their claim on that specifically.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - h3rsko 3y ago
    Israels next door neighbor calls for its total destruction and routinely launches rockets at its cities. In what world would they not blockade them?
scythe 3y ago
>Finally, an honest question, what would you do? How would you respond in this situation? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/opinion/israel-hamas-ceasefire.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/opinion/israel-hamas-ceas... There are plenty of cases of countries being attacked by terrorists and not responding like Israel has. PKK has carried out acts of terrorism in Turkey. FARC carried out attacks in Colombia for half a century.
- h3rsko 3y ago
  Countries being attacked by a sovereign city-state?
- ashirusnw 3y ago
  None of those had a massacre like Oct 7 with 1200 dead (and as a proportion of Israeli population count that makes it proportionally more devastating than 9/11 for Israel, not too mention it was also more cold blooded and barbaric in methodology). A better example is eg Mosul which had a far higher death toll, as well as other Isis warzones. Plus none of those threats are anything like Gaza (and indeed Jenin) which is 5 minutes drive from Israeli towns and so a far greater persistent threat. Plus those terrorists aren't part of a pattern of repeated wars by neighbouring countries for the same cause that Israel had to endure since its founding. ... amongst many other differences
bjornsing 3y ago
> Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. This is often said and I’m sure often in good faith, but I always find it a bit unsettling. If by “making sure it never happens again” you mean stronger protection of the boarder going forward it’s fine of course. But if you’re referring to someone kind of offensive operation (as I assume most who say this are, since they are defending an offensive operation) I can’t see how that would be possible within the law of armed conflict. It would require sending Gaza back to the stone age and keeping it that way forever, or permanent occupation, or something like that.
- nahumfarchi 3y ago
  We've tried defense, didn't work out. Which laws of armed conflict are you specifically referring to?
  - bjornsing 3y ago
    As it’s not clear to me how this goal could possibly be accomplished I can’t refer to any specific international law. But the spirit of the law does not allow for the indefinite subjugation of a neighboring people, regardless of what some of them have done.
    - ashirusnw 3y ago
      It's impossible to describe Gaza 2005-2022 as indefinite subjugation. Quite the opposite. It could have become Singapore if not for Hamas.
      - covercash 3y ago
        Then why isn’t the West Bank Singapore?
        pgeorgi 3y ago
        Abbas is no Lee Kuan Yew, and that comparison is already way more charitable than Abbas deserves... Wikipedia describes Lee as such: "Lee oversaw Singapore's transformation into a developed country with a high-income economy within his premiership. In the process, he forged a highly effective, anti-corrupt government and civil service. Lee eschewed populist policies in favour of long-term social and economic planning, championing civic nationalism through meritocracy[3] and multiracialism[4][5] as governing principles, making English the lingua franca[6] to integrate its immigrant society and to facilitate trade with the world, whilst mandating bilingualism in schools to preserve the students' mother tongue and ethnic identity." That's a forward looking vision, not a backwards looking vision like the "Palestinian cause" that seems to end with restitution. Would any politician with such a vision like Lee's even have a chance with Palestine's electorate? No idea, elections were last held in 2006...
Georgelemental 3y ago
> Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. Otherwise, it breaks the most basic contract between citizen and state ("I give up on violence and in turn you protect me from violence"). If violent retribution alone could ensure "this never happens again," the conflict would have ended long ago. Instead, it is over a century old. > Finally, an honest question, what would you do? How would you respond in this situation? Israel has no good options, only terrible ones and even worse ones, but: invade Gaza on the ground, block by block, instead of indiscriminate airstrikes. Accept higher casualties among Israel's forces to protect civilians. Give civilians as much stability as possible, as long as they follow orders ("if you are peaceful, we'll ensure you have food, water, medical care, shelter; step out of line and you will never be seen again.") Meanwhile, end the settlements in the West Bank, stop sidelining Fatah, show that there is a path forward for Palestinians if they are peaceful.

rightbyte 3y ago

> Finally, an honest question, what would you do? How would you respond in this situation? The situation is by design. I am not going to pretend I don't think Netanyahu wanted this.

nahumfarchi 3y ago
Based on what? He's a cynical real politik kind of guy, but I doubt this is how he hoped this would play out. At the end of the day, I believe that his legacy is extremely important to him, and he probably did not want to be remembered as the one in power during one of the worse massacres against Jews since the holocaust. Not to mention that it's highly likely he'll be voted out during the next elections (TBD...)
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Based on his policies and character. But, obviously, I don't know for sure. We need to wait 10 - 30 years til people involved starts to write memoirs.
  - nahumfarchi 3y ago
    His policy towards Hamas was one of containment and not making a decision, which is classic Netanyahu behavior. I don't know whether or not his biographies agree with this, but this is pretty much the consensus among Israelis. Again, I truly doubt that October 7th is what he was aiming for (happy to change my mind if there is evidence otherwise).

qwertthrowway 3y ago

I think an honest answer would be to end occupation and oppression of the Palestinians by Israel. Any occupying force has an interest to silence and stop indigenous people from claiming their land rights. For example, Gaza had been described as an open air prison for almost 2 decades because its borders, imports, sea usage, had all been controlled by Israel. This is not what we call “sovereign rule”. The West Bank has been checkered with military checkpoints and illegal settlements, contravening international agreements. When people are driven to desperation, and their lives are made miserable because the occupying forces want to remove them, they do not have many options. I think it is quite adequate to compare Gaza to the situation in for example, the Warsaw Ghetto in WW2, when an uprising was quashed by occupying German forces. This Gaza is a heavily urban area with vast majority of civilians, it cannot be compared to two armies fighting on a battlefield.

liorsbg 3y ago
In Gaza, all they would have to do is put their weapons down. Blockade and restrictions would lift, and Gaza could be prosperous. In the West Bank, I agree that the settlements are abhorrent and need to be removed.
- nonviol 3y ago
  This is what happened when Gazans tried nonviolent protest: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/42-knees-in-one-day-israeli-snipers-open-up-about-shooting-gaza-protesters/0000017f-f2da-d497-a1ff-f2dab2520000 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-ma... https://archive.ph/vDhPP https://archive.ph/vDhPP I'm not implying that October 7 was justified.
  - oytis 3y ago
    Seeing what happened on 7th of October one can understand why IDF is nervous about people getting close (500m is the official buffer zone as I understand) to the fence. Not implying that competition in number of knees shot is justified.

nielsbot 3y ago

This is a longer version of "Israel has the right to defend itself". Maybe Israel shouldn't exist but since it does I think we can agree it has a right to defend itself since if it doesn't innocents will be harmed/killed/raped. That said, even in war, there are long established rules of engagement in war designed to protect (as possible) non-combatants. Israel is not respecting these rules at all. And beyond the insane death toll and indiscriminate bombing, Gazans are hungry and without water and shelter. Of course, Israel should exercise restraint, especially since it's better armed and has such sophisticated intelligence. Now it's making itself a pariah (except in the US)

edanm 3y ago
> That said, even in war, there are long established rules of engagement in war designed to protect (as possible) non-combatants. Israel is not respecting these rules at all. Israel absolutely should be respecting the rules of war. As far as I know, it is. People often like to claim that it's not, hinting at some vague "war crimes" or claiming that Israel is targeting civilians, but there is no proof of that happening on purpose, that I'm aware. This is complicated by Hamas deliberately using human shields and trying to get Gazans killed to make Israel look bad. It is a very complicated situation to fight in and Israel is absolutely making mistakes, but I urge you, show evidence of it actually committing war crimes in the killing of citizens. > And beyond the insane death toll and indiscriminate bombing, Gazans are hungry and without water and shelter. Hamas is the government responsible for Gazans. if they are hungry, it's because Hamas is failing in its duty to its citizens. They are literally stealing food from aid trucks in order to feed themselves (and probably stockpile food in tunnels) instead of feeding their own citizens. Not to mention, they could return the hostages and surrender and spare themselves and their citizens all of this death and pain. As for the "insane death tool" - what makes it "insane" in your mind? Note: every death is a tragedy. Civilians dying, on either side, is tragic. Hell, even soldiers and Hamas militants dying is tragic - every death is a tragedy. I'm talking about all this analytically but the death and suffering here is horrible.
- vacuity 3y ago
  Whether Israel is proportionately attacking Gaza remains to be seen. Just because Hamas doesn't care about Gazans doesn't mean that Israel is giving them a reasonable opportunity to thrive, though. That's without mentioning the settler colonialism debacle, which is not as one-sided as some people claim but still an injustice to Palestinians.

shihab 3y ago

Israel absolutely has the right to fight Hamas. But on the question of whether it's really defense vs avenge on entire population, I urge you to go through recent nytimes article titled "Gaza After Nine Weeks of War" with an open mind [1]. Entire neighborhoods has been bombed to rubbles, parks and roads have been bulldozed. Every single civilian structures, hotels, homes, playgrounds, port- on a large stretch beside sea has been utterly destroyed. That's not a picture of a moral army fighting insurgents embedded in Civilian population, it's the picture of a fight against the entire civilian population- or "mowing the grass" in Israeli military's parlance. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/12/world/middleeast/gaza-strip-satellite-images-israel-invasion.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/12/world/middlee...

edanm 3y ago
Every time somebody says this, I always ask the same question - what is the alternative? What should Israel do instead? This is war. War is horrible and tragic, and far more so because Hamas hides within civilian buildings and used human shields. What should Israel do instead to protect itself and to fight Hamas?
- bjourne 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - neoromantique 3y ago
    >Refaat Alareer >Poet Ah. One of the most known Hamas propagandists is now a mere poet.
    - sudosysgen 3y ago
      Killing civilians is fine on the basis of their speech now?
    - dang 3y ago
      Please don't cross into posting battle comments in this thread. I've explained at the top of the thread, and in many other comments, why we're trying to avoid that and what we're going for here.

tsimionescu 3y ago

You seem to be arguing from a bizarre perspective that Israel is the defender here. In reality, Israel is the aggressor, and Palestine is the state that has been under occupation and illegal blockade for decades. October 7th was an (illegal, abhorrent and criminal!) act of retaliation against previous Israeli aggressions, not an unprovoked attack. If Ukraine were to bomb a Russian city during the current war, no one would views it as legitimate for Russia to bomb a Ukrainian city back: Russia started the whole conflict and is expected to bear the consequences, until such a time as it stops the occupation. In general, the overall solution would be for Israel to allow Palestine to be an independent state, recognized in the UN, with full control of its own borders. It is fully within its rights to keep its border with Gaza closed, of course, but there is no right whatsoever to blockade Gaza's access by sea. There is also a good argument to be made for paying reparations to Palestine for the occupied territories and for the entire illegal blockade duration - though that is ultimately secondary. The thornier question is of course how to connect Gaza to the West Bank.

__blockcipher__ 3y ago
> but there is no right whatsoever to blockade Gaza's access by sea This by the way is an important fact to bring up when the claim that "Israel left Gaza many years ago and the problem didn't improve". In actuality, they withdrew their occupying army but still kept up a blockade, including a literal cap to the number of calories allowed to enter the country, which I can only interpret as a population control measure. That's of course in addition to all the other stuff they kept doing, but that's probably a discussion for another day. I'd note that the GP was careful to specifically mention Israel having withdrawn its military from Gaza which is true, so I'm not disputing the veracity of their claim on that specifically.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- h3rsko 3y ago
  Israels next door neighbor calls for its total destruction and routinely launches rockets at its cities. In what world would they not blockade them?

scythe 3y ago

>Finally, an honest question, what would you do? How would you respond in this situation? https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/opinion/israel-hamas-ceasefire.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/29/opinion/israel-hamas-ceas... There are plenty of cases of countries being attacked by terrorists and not responding like Israel has. PKK has carried out acts of terrorism in Turkey. FARC carried out attacks in Colombia for half a century.

h3rsko 3y ago
Countries being attacked by a sovereign city-state?
ashirusnw 3y ago
None of those had a massacre like Oct 7 with 1200 dead (and as a proportion of Israeli population count that makes it proportionally more devastating than 9/11 for Israel, not too mention it was also more cold blooded and barbaric in methodology). A better example is eg Mosul which had a far higher death toll, as well as other Isis warzones. Plus none of those threats are anything like Gaza (and indeed Jenin) which is 5 minutes drive from Israeli towns and so a far greater persistent threat. Plus those terrorists aren't part of a pattern of repeated wars by neighbouring countries for the same cause that Israel had to endure since its founding. ... amongst many other differences

bjornsing 3y ago

> Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. This is often said and I’m sure often in good faith, but I always find it a bit unsettling. If by “making sure it never happens again” you mean stronger protection of the boarder going forward it’s fine of course. But if you’re referring to someone kind of offensive operation (as I assume most who say this are, since they are defending an offensive operation) I can’t see how that would be possible within the law of armed conflict. It would require sending Gaza back to the stone age and keeping it that way forever, or permanent occupation, or something like that.

nahumfarchi 3y ago
We've tried defense, didn't work out. Which laws of armed conflict are you specifically referring to?
- bjornsing 3y ago
  As it’s not clear to me how this goal could possibly be accomplished I can’t refer to any specific international law. But the spirit of the law does not allow for the indefinite subjugation of a neighboring people, regardless of what some of them have done.
  - ashirusnw 3y ago
    It's impossible to describe Gaza 2005-2022 as indefinite subjugation. Quite the opposite. It could have become Singapore if not for Hamas.
    - covercash 3y ago
      Then why isn’t the West Bank Singapore?
      - pgeorgi 3y ago
        Abbas is no Lee Kuan Yew, and that comparison is already way more charitable than Abbas deserves... Wikipedia describes Lee as such: "Lee oversaw Singapore's transformation into a developed country with a high-income economy within his premiership. In the process, he forged a highly effective, anti-corrupt government and civil service. Lee eschewed populist policies in favour of long-term social and economic planning, championing civic nationalism through meritocracy[3] and multiracialism[4][5] as governing principles, making English the lingua franca[6] to integrate its immigrant society and to facilitate trade with the world, whilst mandating bilingualism in schools to preserve the students' mother tongue and ethnic identity." That's a forward looking vision, not a backwards looking vision like the "Palestinian cause" that seems to end with restitution. Would any politician with such a vision like Lee's even have a chance with Palestine's electorate? No idea, elections were last held in 2006...

Georgelemental 3y ago

> Israel, as a state, has the moral duty to fight back and make sure this never happens again. Otherwise, it breaks the most basic contract between citizen and state ("I give up on violence and in turn you protect me from violence"). If violent retribution alone could ensure "this never happens again," the conflict would have ended long ago. Instead, it is over a century old. > Finally, an honest question, what would you do? How would you respond in this situation? Israel has no good options, only terrible ones and even worse ones, but: invade Gaza on the ground, block by block, instead of indiscriminate airstrikes. Accept higher casualties among Israel's forces to protect civilians. Give civilians as much stability as possible, as long as they follow orders ("if you are peaceful, we'll ensure you have food, water, medical care, shelter; step out of line and you will never be seen again.") Meanwhile, end the settlements in the West Bank, stop sidelining Fatah, show that there is a path forward for Palestinians if they are peaceful.