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this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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The alternative to air strikes is to send in IDF troops to kill Hamas in close combat. That option would likely lead to many more IDF deaths, as ypu notes, but dont pretend Hamas rockets are an actual threat, there are no Israeli civilians at risk, or at best a small number. The airstrike option saves IDF lives, but will lead to vastly more civil deaths. There are options here, you just have to make a judgement call on who you are willing to sacrifice, your own soldiers or innocent civilians, mostly children. Israel has made it's choice, they have to live with it, and one day they can tell their god all about how letting IDF soilders die on the battle field was a politically more costly option than killing thousands of innocent children from the air, after forcing those same children to live in unsanitary conditions, starving and without access to water, for weeks before sending someone in a jet to flip a switch and end their lives.
There are options. There are choices.
Also all of this assumes that Israel, an apartied state, is actually trying to minimize civilian causalities and that Hamas is using civilians as human shields by I guess existing in the same densely populated area, that Hamas governs, as the civilians? And that Israel isn't just using this as an opportunity to end the Palestinian problem once and for all, to cause so much suffering that the Palestinians abandoned their homes and seek refuge in Egypt, kind of like the plans drawn up and recommended by the Israeli government suggest. As you said "annexing" the territory. That's ethnic cleansing btw, but who's counting. Even ignoring all that, and assuming Israel is acting in complete good faith, they are still making a choice that an IDF soilders life is more valuable than a Palestinian childs.
Hamas is evil, btw, fuck them to hell. I hope Israel succeeds in wiping them off the face of the earth. But that doesn't mean I am going to mindlessly defend an explicitly racist country cowardly killing thousands of civilians from the air and starving the survivors. The only Innocents here are the civilians, but the Israeli civilians slightly less so because they at least have political control of their government which is taking these actions and have confined Palestinians to open air prisons for decades.
Sacrificing significant numbers of your own soldiers to save enemy civilians sounds noble, and would make a great movie, but would deeply hurt morale, be politically unpopular, and fundamentally weaken Israel's ability to defend itself from hostile enemies on all sides. It would be both handing a victory to the enemy you are at war with, and justifying the use of further human shields to repeat this winning strategy. Ironically, your concern for civilians over your own people would likely put far more future civilians at risk.
If Yahweh or Allah existed and cared I suspect they would have weighed in by now.
They certainly aren't trying to maximize civilian casualties; given their capabilities they could kill civilians a lot more effectively were that their goal. I wouldn't say they are indifferent because they are still calling people before strikes and creating evacuation zones. At very least it's obvious they want to minimize the blowback from the media, which means minimizing civilian casualties as long as they can still get their targets. I get the sense that Israel isn't willing to call another ceasefire until something fundamentally changes regarding their safety first, no matter how many bodies are paraded before the media or how outraged the (non-US) foreign public gets.
See the link in my above post for detailed info and examples of how Hamas intentionally uses human shields and puts their bases in and under hospitals, churches, mosques, etc.,
From a geopolitical standpoint, that is absolutely true. These countries are at war with each other, and someone currently on your side today is better for your national interests than someone who might potentially be on your enemy's side in the future.
Your plan is to sacrifice your soldiers and hand your enemy a victory in order to enlarge your enemy's potential forces in the future. I suspect if you were in charge of Israel it would not fare well because of your willingness to sacrifice its soldiers, but I can't help but admire your eagerness to protect innocents even if it meant your own downfall. The problem is that you'd be taking a lot of people with you and possibly dooming your nation.
I also can't help but wonder if your personal feelings about Israel are contributing to your willingness to sacrifice its soldiers. Would you feel the same way if you were sending in soldiers from whatever country you are from instead of IDF forces? Would you enthusiastically join them in such an incursion, without air support, on a possible suicide mission to save enemy civilians who are likely to support those attacking you?
It sounds consistent with the international laws of war. Everything you listed, especially being politically unpopular, is not a legitimate consideration for the use of military force against civilian populations. Under international law, the party using force must weigh the expected military advantage against the anticipated harm to civilians and civilian objects. If the same objective could be achieved via a means less harmful to civilians, that is the required option. Maybe you don't give a shit about international law, Israel never has. It is also completely disingenuous to frame loss of IDF soldiers on the battlefield as some "win" for Hamas or a risk to Israel's security. Hamas is terrorist organization fighting with soviet era junk and homemade rockets going up against a nation-state backed by the US. IDF losses would be in the hundreds at most in the worst conditions.
Now that's just silly. Israel doesn't care about the media. The Israeli UN ambassadors were wearing gold stars to protest the overwhelming UN resolution calling for a humanitarian cease fire, and Israel got called out by the Holocaust Musuem for the tactic. Israel does not care about media criticism. But you are right, they are not trying to maximize civilian casualties. They are trying to inflict maximum suffering as a means of ethnic cleansing.
Your link is nearly 10 years out of date. Also, there's no "its ok to bomb entire neighborhoods if a enemy combatant has a home in the neighborhood so is therefore using human shields" exception to the international law of war obligation to protect civilians. Not even if you, like Israel, view Palestinians as subhuman and not deserving of basic rights.
There are not two countries at war. There is one country, Israel. This is an anti-terrorism operation, by definition.
That's just some cold ass shit. Really all about wining those hearts and minds. At any rate, its a violation of international law so ok.
Ah this old chesnut, how lazy. I could easily ask the same thing to you - would you enthusiastically support your country bombing civilian neighborhood because there might be an enemy combatant in a tunnel underneath the homes? Really waiving the flag after that one?
How about the cutting off food and water for millions of people? That's a legitimate thing to do, right?
Just to note- Hamas was elected to govern in 2007. They are the elected governing body of Gaza. This is to say there are two governments at war.
I would also ask, as to responsibility: if Hamas fires a rocket from behind a human shield, and the innocent is killed as a result of return fire- wouldn’t Hamas be responsible for the war crime? Aren’t they responsible for the innocent life due to their purposeful choice to involve the innocent from the beginning?
If one side can turn off the other sides water and communications at will...it's not a war. Hamas is a fractured and opportunistic militia, without enough sovereignty to actually govern.
To also highlight, half of Palestinians are undrr 20 years old, so at most 4 years old when Hamas was elected. Hamas supporters also represented about 45% of the votes, compared to the 42% voting for the progressive party. They spoke for half of a mostly dead generation, and have since been left holding the bag as the only defense force as palestine is fractured by illegal settlments and bombed to hell.
That has nothing to do with the definition of war; asymmetrical war is still war.
Settlements: Israel dismantled all the settlements in Gaza when they unilaterally withdrew in 2005 and that didn't play out well for them. There's no reason for them to dismantle the settlements in the West Bank unless they are given a compelling reason to; ignoring them puts pressure on Palestine to negotiate for peace or lose everything.
Bombed to hell: This only applies to Gaza at present; it's almost like there are predictable consequences to attacking a nation with a superior military force.
Are parents not responsible for what their children inherit from them? They chose to have children in a blockaded, walled, belligerent territory at war, where terrorists are in charge and run the government, where children are both used as human shields and indoctrinated from a young age with militancy and hate. They could have left through Rafah when it was open, they could have found another way besides violence, they could have deposed Hamas. Yet, everyone considers Israel responsible for all the children suffering there. If this situation is hell for those youths, we can thank their parents for it. And let's not forget, these older youths have agency. They could have resisted or left but instead they went with the program [pogrom?] and chose violence, and now all of Gaza will have to live with the consequence of that.
The mediaeval slaughter on Oct 7, perpetrated mostly by youths, was clearly not defense, it was offense. An attack against peaceful civilians. If these "defense forces" resist against IDF now they will probably die. For their sake I hope they pacify themselves and Gaza surrenders before any more needless deaths occur.