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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 perc

by 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.
        dlubarov 8mo ago
        The 276 figure is a claim from Hamas. I don't think they regularly make up casualty numbers, but they certainly did in the Baptist Hospital case, where they initially claimed Israel killed "at least 500" before it became clear it was actually a PIJ rocket. It's highly plausible that they made another exception to their usual casualty reporting process for this embarrassing incident. Even if we accept the claim at face value, it's just a total. It includes Hamas fighters who were trying to kill fleeing hostages and their rescuers, and anyone killed by them. In any case, Israel has a responsibility to try to rescue its citizens that were kidnapped. The moral culpability for collateral damage lies with the terrorists who kidnapped and held civilian hostages, and then fought to prevent their rescue, not with the rescuers. If some terrorists kidnapped several American citizens on US soil, and the US determined that any rescue plan would risk disproportionate harm to the country that kidnapped them, would you expect the US to just give up and ignore the hostages?
  - jcranmer 8mo ago
    Battle of Fallujah? The war against ISIS in Iraq in the 2010s? Before the most recent invasion of Gaza started, there was an interview with an Israeli general about the imminent invasion. And when the question came up about what lessons Israel was drawing from other urban conflicts like the Battle of Fallujah, the response was a very indignant we-don't-need-to-learn-anything. Small wonder that the IDF claims to have achieved unprecedentedly low civilian casualty ratios in their invasion of Gaza when in reality, they're commensurate with WW2 ratios and well above the urban assaults of the US's Iraq War.
    - bawolff 8mo ago
      > Battle of Fallujah Which one? There was five, and they generally were pretty bloody. For the second battle of Fallujah (seems like the one you are talking about), US estimated that most civilians had already left the city. However that is somewhat disputed with some people claiming usa used that as an excuse to claim everyone left in the city was a combatant. To quote the guradian: > Before attacking the city, the marines stopped men "of fighting age" from leaving. Many women and children stayed: the Guardian's correspondent estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians were left. The marines treated Falluja as if its only inhabitants were fighters. They leveled thousands of buildings, illegally denied access to the Iraqi Red Crescent and, according to the UN's special rapporteur, used "hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Another guardian quote: > "There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans." > The war against ISIS in Iraq in the 2010s? So according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Iraq_(2013%E2%80%932017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Iraq_(2013%E2%80%932017... there was 200,000 killed and 5 million displaced. To quote from the human rights section of the article "Iraqi government forces and paramilitary militias have tortured, arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared and executed thousands of civilians who have fled the rule of the Islamic State militant group", which doesn't sound great. So i think it raises the question of if the Americans were really better than the Israelis or just better at the PR game.

by YZF 8mo ago

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.
        dlubarov 8mo ago
        The 276 figure is a claim from Hamas. I don't think they regularly make up casualty numbers, but they certainly did in the Baptist Hospital case, where they initially claimed Israel killed "at least 500" before it became clear it was actually a PIJ rocket. It's highly plausible that they made another exception to their usual casualty reporting process for this embarrassing incident. Even if we accept the claim at face value, it's just a total. It includes Hamas fighters who were trying to kill fleeing hostages and their rescuers, and anyone killed by them. In any case, Israel has a responsibility to try to rescue its citizens that were kidnapped. The moral culpability for collateral damage lies with the terrorists who kidnapped and held civilian hostages, and then fought to prevent their rescue, not with the rescuers. If some terrorists kidnapped several American citizens on US soil, and the US determined that any rescue plan would risk disproportionate harm to the country that kidnapped them, would you expect the US to just give up and ignore the hostages?
- jcranmer 8mo ago
  Battle of Fallujah? The war against ISIS in Iraq in the 2010s? Before the most recent invasion of Gaza started, there was an interview with an Israeli general about the imminent invasion. And when the question came up about what lessons Israel was drawing from other urban conflicts like the Battle of Fallujah, the response was a very indignant we-don't-need-to-learn-anything. Small wonder that the IDF claims to have achieved unprecedentedly low civilian casualty ratios in their invasion of Gaza when in reality, they're commensurate with WW2 ratios and well above the urban assaults of the US's Iraq War.
  - bawolff 8mo ago
    > Battle of Fallujah Which one? There was five, and they generally were pretty bloody. For the second battle of Fallujah (seems like the one you are talking about), US estimated that most civilians had already left the city. However that is somewhat disputed with some people claiming usa used that as an excuse to claim everyone left in the city was a combatant. To quote the guradian: > Before attacking the city, the marines stopped men "of fighting age" from leaving. Many women and children stayed: the Guardian's correspondent estimated that between 30,000 and 50,000 civilians were left. The marines treated Falluja as if its only inhabitants were fighters. They leveled thousands of buildings, illegally denied access to the Iraqi Red Crescent and, according to the UN's special rapporteur, used "hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population". Another guardian quote: > "There were American snipers on top of the hospital shooting everyone," said Burhan Fasa'am, a photographer with the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. "With no medical supplies, people died from their wounds. Everyone in the street was a target for the Americans." > The war against ISIS in Iraq in the 2010s? So according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Iraq_(2013%E2%80%932017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Iraq_(2013%E2%80%932017... there was 200,000 killed and 5 million displaced. To quote from the human rights section of the article "Iraqi government forces and paramilitary militias have tortured, arbitrarily detained, forcibly disappeared and executed thousands of civilians who have fled the rule of the Islamic State militant group", which doesn't sound great. So i think it raises the question of if the Americans were really better than the Israelis or just better at the PR game.