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I was willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt on this before the 2024 World Central Kitchen Aid convoy attack. That really made me re-evaluate what Isra

I was willing to give Israel the benefit of the doubt on this before the 2024 World Central Kitchen Aid convoy attack. That really made me re-evaluate what Israel's general standard level of carefulness is, and how much they weigh the balance between avoiding noncombatants when pursuing military targets. And there have been multiple other incidents since then in which international aid workers have been targeted, whether purposefully or accidentally. There's no way to attribute that to Hamas militants pretending to be civilians or sheltering in proximity. I don't believe that any of those incidents would have happened if the Israeli military were applying an appropriate standard of care in target selection, which in turn inclines me toward believing almost any other claim about civilian casualties. I also think unless they want to kill or evict all two million Gazans, Israel's #1 priority in this conflict should be convincing Gazans that the Israelis are the good guys and Hamas are the bad guys. No matter how you spin it, they are failing at this, and they're using the wrong sort of weapons. It's merely sowing seeds for another three generations of unshakable hatred. That is not at all good for Israel but it might be just fine for Benjamin Netanyahu.

scotty79 1y ago
Aren't your standards for morality of target selection unrealistically high? I don't think US had a better one in any conflict it participated. It went as far as defining "enemy combatant" as anyone within blast radius. War is brutal and messy. Atrocious things always happen. It's very hard to take any moral stance except blaming the one who started killing and waiting till the matter is resolved. It's not perfect, but this world is very far from perfect in every aspect.
- mitthrowaway2 1y ago
  Maybe? Maybe not. I'm not an American and my statement is no stronger than condemnations I have made throughout my life about the US' conduct throughout the War on Terror (in both the Bush and Obama years and beyond). I believe that drone-bombing weddings in Pakistan creates more terrorists than it kills, and that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake from day one. I believe the war in Vietnam (and the bombing of Laos and Cambodia) was an atrocity and without it there would have never been a Khmer Rouge. I also decry the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the firebombing of Dresden, but I am more willing to accept that that kind of murderous excess can happen in a total war for survival against a near-equal. What I am sure of is that Israel's situation is not a war against a near-equal. The kind of rules of engagement I'm talking about are par for the course in peacekeeping operations, and there's no reason Israel cannot be employing them. Israel is shooting fish in a barrel, and if there's not enough time for them to double-check their homework on a missile strike then they have plenty of time to wait for a cleaner opportunity to take a shot. More importantly, I think that being extremely delicate is not only a moral imperative but a strategic one. Realistically, bombs dropped on Gaza can do more damage to Israel than to Hamas, both by causing fresh grievance in Palestinian hearts, which is the sustenance on which Hamas feeds for support and soldiers, and by gaining them sympathy abroad. I've been watching this happen in real time and it's playing out like clockwork, and I am sure that Israeli strategists see it too. But I also think Israel's loss is Netanyahu's win, and the stronger Hamas gets, the more justification Netanyahu has to push things further. So I see a feedback loop playing out in which Netanyahu and Hamas are on the same side, buffing each other while Israelis and Palestinians both lose. (It also goes without saying that I also, obviously, denounce Hamas and the Oct 7th attacks, just like I denounce Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Un, Putin, and other villains. But I rarely see any point wasting breath on that kind of denouncement, at least not until I meet someone who thinks otherwise.)
  - scotty79 1y ago
    Fair enough. Personally I don't believe taking life is ever moral, but I accepted that the world doesn't share my morality and I don't anticipate it's going to in my lifetime.
YZF 1y ago
I'm going to agree with you the standard of carefulness has been at times pretty low. If it moves and looks like it might be Hamas - shoot it. I was also not happy about that incident and others. There were also plenty of friendly fire incidents (where soldiers were killed by other soldiers) and the incident where hostages were killed by other soldiers. The level of "discipline" in the IDF isn't what it used to be and definitely the mood in Israel in the early days of the war was of revenge (though the military is not supposed to be thinking like that). The other side of this coin is when you fight this kind of fight, in a dense urban environment, where combatants intentionally blend with civilians, and use any imaginable tactic they can to attack you, and put weapon stashes in civilian homes, and tunnel entrances etc. Where the enemy may even want to increase civilian casualties on their side, and when you have infantry and armor fighting day in and day out with no sleep and under constant pressure. You are going to have more of these incidents. There might be some at the margin that are actually war crimes but many are just what happens in this kind of war and in this specific scenario. I'm not going to judge those people when I'm not in their shoes. Including the people who ordered the strike on that convoy. I am Israeli (who hasn't lived there in a long time, but I served in the distance past in the IDF) and I have spoken to people who have been in Gaza. So I know targeting an international aid group is not who we are. I also know that if it was decided that they were Hamas then they'd get obliterated, so that part is not a surprise. The other thing I do know for sure, is that Hamas started this war and that Israel can not accept Hamas in Gaza after the war and it can not accept Hamas holding hostages after the war. I'm not sure I see what Israel can do here in terms of Gazan perception of Israel or why it even matters. Many Gazans hate the Hamas but they have no control.
- mitthrowaway2 1y ago
  Thanks, that's a very reasonable comment on a sensitive subject, and I appreciate that. I don't disagree with you. But because this is a predictable result, it's also part of the calculus that Israel has to weigh as part of the choice to deploy its soldiers in those positions in the first place. I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to. In my opinion the carrot almost always works better than the stick, and Israel should be throwing a Marshall plan at Gaza, literally truck-tons of money making Palestinians rich and happy, under the one condition that they turn over the hostages and any Hamas militants who don't surrender. All that would cost pennies compared to the costs of waging war (and the eventual rebuilding, and the next century of anti-terrorism policing, all of which Israel will undoubtedly be footing the bill for). Instead Israel is choosing to stir the pot in the West Bank at the same time, removing any chance of getting the Palestinian Authority as an ally against Hamas, and burning through what was left of the post-WW2 international goodwill that got it statehood in the first place. It's understandable and predictable but I think it's still deeply mistaken, and very sad for me to watch.

scotty79 1y ago

Aren't your standards for morality of target selection unrealistically high? I don't think US had a better one in any conflict it participated. It went as far as defining "enemy combatant" as anyone within blast radius. War is brutal and messy. Atrocious things always happen. It's very hard to take any moral stance except blaming the one who started killing and waiting till the matter is resolved. It's not perfect, but this world is very far from perfect in every aspect.

mitthrowaway2 1y ago
Maybe? Maybe not. I'm not an American and my statement is no stronger than condemnations I have made throughout my life about the US' conduct throughout the War on Terror (in both the Bush and Obama years and beyond). I believe that drone-bombing weddings in Pakistan creates more terrorists than it kills, and that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake from day one. I believe the war in Vietnam (and the bombing of Laos and Cambodia) was an atrocity and without it there would have never been a Khmer Rouge. I also decry the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the firebombing of Dresden, but I am more willing to accept that that kind of murderous excess can happen in a total war for survival against a near-equal. What I am sure of is that Israel's situation is not a war against a near-equal. The kind of rules of engagement I'm talking about are par for the course in peacekeeping operations, and there's no reason Israel cannot be employing them. Israel is shooting fish in a barrel, and if there's not enough time for them to double-check their homework on a missile strike then they have plenty of time to wait for a cleaner opportunity to take a shot. More importantly, I think that being extremely delicate is not only a moral imperative but a strategic one. Realistically, bombs dropped on Gaza can do more damage to Israel than to Hamas, both by causing fresh grievance in Palestinian hearts, which is the sustenance on which Hamas feeds for support and soldiers, and by gaining them sympathy abroad. I've been watching this happen in real time and it's playing out like clockwork, and I am sure that Israeli strategists see it too. But I also think Israel's loss is Netanyahu's win, and the stronger Hamas gets, the more justification Netanyahu has to push things further. So I see a feedback loop playing out in which Netanyahu and Hamas are on the same side, buffing each other while Israelis and Palestinians both lose. (It also goes without saying that I also, obviously, denounce Hamas and the Oct 7th attacks, just like I denounce Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Un, Putin, and other villains. But I rarely see any point wasting breath on that kind of denouncement, at least not until I meet someone who thinks otherwise.)
- scotty79 1y ago
  Fair enough. Personally I don't believe taking life is ever moral, but I accepted that the world doesn't share my morality and I don't anticipate it's going to in my lifetime.

YZF 1y ago

I'm going to agree with you the standard of carefulness has been at times pretty low. If it moves and looks like it might be Hamas - shoot it. I was also not happy about that incident and others. There were also plenty of friendly fire incidents (where soldiers were killed by other soldiers) and the incident where hostages were killed by other soldiers. The level of "discipline" in the IDF isn't what it used to be and definitely the mood in Israel in the early days of the war was of revenge (though the military is not supposed to be thinking like that). The other side of this coin is when you fight this kind of fight, in a dense urban environment, where combatants intentionally blend with civilians, and use any imaginable tactic they can to attack you, and put weapon stashes in civilian homes, and tunnel entrances etc. Where the enemy may even want to increase civilian casualties on their side, and when you have infantry and armor fighting day in and day out with no sleep and under constant pressure. You are going to have more of these incidents. There might be some at the margin that are actually war crimes but many are just what happens in this kind of war and in this specific scenario. I'm not going to judge those people when I'm not in their shoes. Including the people who ordered the strike on that convoy. I am Israeli (who hasn't lived there in a long time, but I served in the distance past in the IDF) and I have spoken to people who have been in Gaza. So I know targeting an international aid group is not who we are. I also know that if it was decided that they were Hamas then they'd get obliterated, so that part is not a surprise. The other thing I do know for sure, is that Hamas started this war and that Israel can not accept Hamas in Gaza after the war and it can not accept Hamas holding hostages after the war. I'm not sure I see what Israel can do here in terms of Gazan perception of Israel or why it even matters. Many Gazans hate the Hamas but they have no control.

mitthrowaway2 1y ago
Thanks, that's a very reasonable comment on a sensitive subject, and I appreciate that. I don't disagree with you. But because this is a predictable result, it's also part of the calculus that Israel has to weigh as part of the choice to deploy its soldiers in those positions in the first place. I do think that Israel doesn't have to be fighting this fight; instead it could be playing the soft power game in Gaza much better, and it's barely even trying to. In my opinion the carrot almost always works better than the stick, and Israel should be throwing a Marshall plan at Gaza, literally truck-tons of money making Palestinians rich and happy, under the one condition that they turn over the hostages and any Hamas militants who don't surrender. All that would cost pennies compared to the costs of waging war (and the eventual rebuilding, and the next century of anti-terrorism policing, all of which Israel will undoubtedly be footing the bill for). Instead Israel is choosing to stir the pot in the West Bank at the same time, removing any chance of getting the Palestinian Authority as an ally against Hamas, and burning through what was left of the post-WW2 international goodwill that got it statehood in the first place. It's understandable and predictable but I think it's still deeply mistaken, and very sad for me to watch.