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When the first attack on an aid convoy to provoke outrage came out, I saw someone put it best: there is a difference between "war is chaos, and no matter how ha

When the first attack on an aid convoy to provoke outrage came out, I saw someone put it best: there is a difference between "war is chaos, and no matter how hard we try, some incidents regrettably occur" and "our rules of engagement are designed in such a manner to make these incidents almost certain." And the IDF... is pretty clearly in the latter category. > I imagine most of the armchair critics here have never been in a situation where they have to make these sorts of calls. Being in an ambush in a war with an enemy that, let's say, uses "unconventional" tactics (aka war crimes) to try and kill you while vans are approaching you. Attempting to use this as a defense requires conceding that the default assumption is that someone is a terrorist until proven otherwise, which is something that guarantees horrific civilian casualties. It's not actually requisite that soldiers have this mindset; instilling this requires training, and the fact that it seems to be so pervasive in the IDF is a sign that it's not just a criminal failure of a few soldiers but rather a core part of the IDF strategy that needs to be addressed.

YZF 8mo ago
The only clarity here is in the eyes of those who made their decision in advance and are cherry picking. Yes- There have been quite a few incidents but the percentage is still small. There were also many friendly fire incidents. All of these happen in every war. The difference is this war is being put under a microscope and there are powerful actors trying to push a narrative. It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here and the consequences. Not the "instilling via training".
- kennywinker 8mo ago
  > It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here When the bad guys use human shields, it’s on the “good guys” to somehow resist the “good guy” urge to blow the whole city up. Hamas has killed something in the order of 800 idf soldiers during this conflict, if we exclude the ones killed on oct 7th. In that same time at least 75,000 palestinians have been killed - most of which were women and children. So, unless you’re saying this is a justified collective punishment for oct 7th, what on earth are you possibly referring to? Hamas isn’t “waging war” in any real sense.
  - bawolff 8mo ago
    I think he's saying that this is par for the course for asymmetric conflicts with deeply rooted insurgent groups. So if you are going to say the handling of this conflict has more to do with Israeli training/mindset/etc and is not related to the type of conflict, do you have other armies in mind that have fought similar conflicts and done better?
    - kennywinker 8mo ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_Gaza_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... > the single deadliest conflict for journalists in all known conflicts in the history of the world, according to the Costs of War Project Does that sound like “par for the course”? By that measure, every other army in every other war prior has done better. This “war” (genocide) is not normal.
      - bawolff 8mo ago
        This list seems to include people who were journalists but weren't killed while acting in the capacity of a journalist (as far as i can tell). If this is how you define journalist then world war 2 was certainly much much deadlier for journalists. To put it bluntly, i have my doubts that its making an apples to apples comparison with other conflicts.
        dlubarov 8mo ago
        Yeah - for example Abdullah Ahmed Al-Jamal was killed because he was holding three hostages in his apartment, yet he was included in the list of "journalists killed" anyway.
        kennywinker 8mo ago
        That’s not quite right. There were three hostages in his father’s apartment. He was also staying there, but the home belonged to his father. But ok, have a look at what went down that day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuseirat_rescue_and_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuseirat_rescue_and_massacre > the Israeli military killed at least 276 people and injured over 698 Or if you don’t want to believe anybody but the IDF, “The Israeli military acknowledged fewer than 100 Palestinian deaths” In order to what? What was the cause of the murder of 276 (or 100) people? To rescue 4 hostages. Well, I should say more likely in retribution for the holding of those hostages… the air strikes that killed the majority of people appear to have happened AFTER they had extracted the hostages.
dijit 8mo ago
> Attempting to use this as a defense requires conceding that the default assumption is that someone is a terrorist until proven otherwise All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this. I'm trying to say this dispassionately because I'm aware that people get defensive, but lets say that you have to fight some enemy but they present as the most vulnerable of a population, how can you fight them without looking awful? Though "it's complicated" is not, by itself, a conclusion - and neither is "better training" a sufficient answer to a problem this structurally difficult."
- raducu 8mo ago
  > All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this. So let me check this reasoning: if there was a single US soldier in the WTC towers, the 9/11 attacks were justified because the soldiers were hiding among the civilians? Or if Hamas killed a single israelian soldier in their horrendous attacks in private homes, then it's justified because there were soldiers in those houses? Or if the israelian reservists have their weapons at home and can be called upon directly from home to action, does that mean Iran or Hamas are justified at flattening residential buildings in Israel because those could host soldiers?
  - dijit 8mo ago
    You've collapsed two meaningfully different things into one: 'soldiers exist near civilians' and 'soldiers deliberately operate from within protected populations as a systematic tactic.' Your three examples all illustrate the first. I was describing the second. These are not the same argument, and treating them as equivalent doesn't advance the discussion.
    - raducu 8mo ago
      I have conflated those two, but my main point is the monstrous, one-sided destruction Israel has caused in Gaza is a clear proof Israel has gone way, way, way into the genocide territory and not just into the "hamas fighters were hiding among the civilians and after considering the international laws for such cases SOME civilians were killed". Israel demonstrated complete disregard for human life for the sake of expediency to say in a gentle way, but in a harsher way, you could say the aftermath and details that are emerging point to malicious collective punishment.

YZF 8mo ago

The only clarity here is in the eyes of those who made their decision in advance and are cherry picking. Yes- There have been quite a few incidents but the percentage is still small. There were also many friendly fire incidents. All of these happen in every war. The difference is this war is being put under a microscope and there are powerful actors trying to push a narrative. It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here and the consequences. Not the "instilling via training".

kennywinker 8mo ago
> It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here When the bad guys use human shields, it’s on the “good guys” to somehow resist the “good guy” urge to blow the whole city up. Hamas has killed something in the order of 800 idf soldiers during this conflict, if we exclude the ones killed on oct 7th. In that same time at least 75,000 palestinians have been killed - most of which were women and children. So, unless you’re saying this is a justified collective punishment for oct 7th, what on earth are you possibly referring to? Hamas isn’t “waging war” in any real sense.
- bawolff 8mo ago
  I think he's saying that this is par for the course for asymmetric conflicts with deeply rooted insurgent groups. So if you are going to say the handling of this conflict has more to do with Israeli training/mindset/etc and is not related to the type of conflict, do you have other armies in mind that have fought similar conflicts and done better?
  - kennywinker 8mo ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_the_Gaza_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_... > the single deadliest conflict for journalists in all known conflicts in the history of the world, according to the Costs of War Project Does that sound like “par for the course”? By that measure, every other army in every other war prior has done better. This “war” (genocide) is not normal.
    - bawolff 8mo ago
      This list seems to include people who were journalists but weren't killed while acting in the capacity of a journalist (as far as i can tell). If this is how you define journalist then world war 2 was certainly much much deadlier for journalists. To put it bluntly, i have my doubts that its making an apples to apples comparison with other conflicts.
      - dlubarov 8mo ago
        Yeah - for example Abdullah Ahmed Al-Jamal was killed because he was holding three hostages in his apartment, yet he was included in the list of "journalists killed" anyway.
        kennywinker 8mo ago
        That’s not quite right. There were three hostages in his father’s apartment. He was also staying there, but the home belonged to his father. But ok, have a look at what went down that day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuseirat_rescue_and_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuseirat_rescue_and_massacre > the Israeli military killed at least 276 people and injured over 698 Or if you don’t want to believe anybody but the IDF, “The Israeli military acknowledged fewer than 100 Palestinian deaths” In order to what? What was the cause of the murder of 276 (or 100) people? To rescue 4 hostages. Well, I should say more likely in retribution for the holding of those hostages… the air strikes that killed the majority of people appear to have happened AFTER they had extracted the hostages.

dijit 8mo ago

> Attempting to use this as a defense requires conceding that the default assumption is that someone is a terrorist until proven otherwise All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this. I'm trying to say this dispassionately because I'm aware that people get defensive, but lets say that you have to fight some enemy but they present as the most vulnerable of a population, how can you fight them without looking awful? Though "it's complicated" is not, by itself, a conclusion - and neither is "better training" a sufficient answer to a problem this structurally difficult."

raducu 8mo ago
> All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this. So let me check this reasoning: if there was a single US soldier in the WTC towers, the 9/11 attacks were justified because the soldiers were hiding among the civilians? Or if Hamas killed a single israelian soldier in their horrendous attacks in private homes, then it's justified because there were soldiers in those houses? Or if the israelian reservists have their weapons at home and can be called upon directly from home to action, does that mean Iran or Hamas are justified at flattening residential buildings in Israel because those could host soldiers?
- dijit 8mo ago
  You've collapsed two meaningfully different things into one: 'soldiers exist near civilians' and 'soldiers deliberately operate from within protected populations as a systematic tactic.' Your three examples all illustrate the first. I was describing the second. These are not the same argument, and treating them as equivalent doesn't advance the discussion.
  - raducu 8mo ago
    I have conflated those two, but my main point is the monstrous, one-sided destruction Israel has caused in Gaza is a clear proof Israel has gone way, way, way into the genocide territory and not just into the "hamas fighters were hiding among the civilians and after considering the international laws for such cases SOME civilians were killed". Israel demonstrated complete disregard for human life for the sake of expediency to say in a gentle way, but in a harsher way, you could say the aftermath and details that are emerging point to malicious collective punishment.