The European Union on Sunday condemned Hamas for using "hospitals and civilians as human shields" in Gaza, while also urging Israel to show "maximum restraint" to protect civilians.
This is completely stupid. If Hamas are hiding in hospitals then surely there’s a better fucking way to target them than trying to blow the whole fucking place up. One way would be to send a strike team, after all Israel and Mossad are “famous” for hunting terrorists down after the Munich bombing at the Olympics. Yet the same country can only now resort to cutting off infrastructure and bombing refugee camps, ambulances, schools and hospitals plus which is killing aid workers and drs.
OP’s a child who’s never dealt with violence, war or destroyed infrastructure.
My ex-FIL was a decorated Army vet (Iraq, 2x Bronze Stars), Mississippi National Guard. FFS, those men couldn’t get into their own cities after Hurricane Katrina, in peacetime. They cut fucking houses in half and pushed them aside to open the roads.
Send in a strike team?! To a civilian hospital in a war zone?! That’s a solid plan to get your men killed on the incursion, OR, get a bunch of civilians killed and THEN lose all your men.
Unless you happen to be your own uncle. You are just the pot calling the kettle black.
The IDF and the last month has killed more innocent civilians than Hamas has in years. Israel absolutely could be doing things differently if they wanted to save people and have peace. But they don’t want to have peace. Other than that piece of land. And I guarantee 100% before this is all over. It will be found that Israel itself killed many of their precious hostages with their own munitions in their indiscriminate bombing campaign. That’s just going to be a given. And also part of the reason why the Israel people are rightly calling out netanyahu and his cabinet of butchers.
People serving in Iraq acting like they served in WWII. Mother fuckers killed and tortured civilians, destroyed towns and claimed “victory” against people who were defending their homelands.
We invaded and occupied a sovereign nation in the name of “WMDs” which we found none of and acting like we did god’s work over here. All they did was help create more animosity against Americans. Good fucking job.
You mean the government that committed multiple atrocities against their own people? The government which regularly tortured and executed prisoners of war? The government whose leader’s son was a psychopath who raped a different woman every day, and had a penchant for brides on their wedding night?
USA did the people of Iraq a favour by getting rid of Saddam and the Baath party, WMDs or not.
Oh? Is that right? I see a government (Israel) slaughtering 10k civilians right now. Where is that sense of moral duty? Why don’t we go in there and send a peace keeping force?
We did Iraqis a favor by slaughtering 30k of their civilians did we? How many did Saddam kill before us? Didn’t we take out OBL by not slaughtering people in Pakistan?
Dude, Saddam Hussein committed genocide against his own people. It’s well documented and is why the United Nations authorized unilateral force against the country back in 1991, as well as a 15-year no-fly zone across most of the country.
He also gassed the Kurds repeatedly. And his brothers were a psychopaths. Well, they all were.
Uday was in particular a great guy:
“he was guilty of rape, murder, and torture, including the arrest and torture of Iraqi Olympic athletes and members of the national football team whenever they lost a match.”
And
“Uday also ordered the kidnapping of Ilham Ali al-Aazami, Miss Iraq, after she had rejected him. Uday and his bodyguards subsequently held her captive and raped her for weeks, and started the rumor that she was a prostitute, causing her to be killed by her father. When the father confronted Uday, the latter spoke disparagingly about the girl, causing the father to lose control to the point of first verbally accosting and ultimately physically assailing Uday. This prompted Uday to order Latif to shoot the father — rather than acquiesce, Latif instead refused and attempted to commit suicide. Ultimately the father was murdered by one of Uday’s bodyguards.[76] On another occasion, Uday attacked a newlywed couple and raped the bride in the al-Medina Hotel. She then committed suicide by throwing herself off the balcony. Her husband, a lieutenant, was later killed for “insulting the president”.[76]”
These were the people who were ruling Iraq for decades. I really wouldn’t want to be making excuses for people like this. But, you do you!
Read my comment again. I’m not making excuses and Saddam didn’t need to exist beyond the moment in time the first time he took a human life.
The point which you missed was that we have the ability to take out tyrants without having to cause 30k civilian casualties and decimate towns/cities. We didn’t do that, we went blood thirsty and inflicted so much damage on a sovereign nation and its citizens that it created a generation of Iraqis and people in the broader region that hates the US.
We took out OBL and have toppled numerous regimes without using excessive force.
This whole notion of us taking out Saddam because of us being some benevolent nation for good is complete bullshit. We went in there for oil and because Saddam didn’t let us have it, so we made it a point to take him out by any means necessary, using the WMDs cover-up.
The US has a history of getting cozy with dictators and letting them kill and pillage their own people as long as it serves our interest.
The Iraq “war” was a massive fuck up and mistake. Nobody should be decorated for it.
Yeah, for starters your own people are going to get killed.
It would probably have fewer casualties on the enemy side however since some of them might actually live. However, Israel’s goal is not to allow Hamas members to survive.
This is not as easy as you think. You have to get your team to the target, through terrorists hiding among civilians, through IDE’s that are hidden along the way, through civilians that do not like you. And if you miraculously survive this march without heavy casualties the Hamas are already gone and hide somewhere else…not to forget the civilian casualties that would happen on the way…
From a tactical perspective it’s a goddamn war crime. When should they stop, then? When no native Palestinian remains, so they can swoop in and take all of Gaza like they’ve been trying to do for the last 70 years? Hamas is a response to decades of ethnic cleansing and Israel is using it as an excuse to further their conquest
Edit: this isn’t necessarily directed at OP. It’s more of an open ended question for those in support of the bombings
As far as international law goes no this is not a war crime.
If your military takes refuge or uses a civilian center for military operation then that location becomes a valid military target regardless of the risk to civilian lives.
Basically Hamas is commiting the crime by purposefully setting up in these areas. Once they do that then civilian death is acceptable collateral damage, legally speaking.
The point I’m making is both of those situations happened (good banks got bombed immediately after the convoy left and they have been using white phosphorus on people) and people are just looking the other way.
From a tactical perspective it’s a goddamn war crime.
It’s also a war crime to use civilians as meat shields or to use hospitals or other cilvilian buildings as base of operations or storage for military equipment. Please don’t act as Hamas is giving real choices to Israel. They could either act or give the Hamas and other organisations an advantage and they all have their fair share of atrocities but I mostly see the war crime label on the actions of Israel in social media and I find this kind of strange.
Hamas is a response to decades of ethnic cleansing
Hamas is a bunch of rabid dogs that hate jews, just like all the other terrorist factions around them, who want to kill everyone that dont give a fuck about their great Allah. Of course Israel has their fair share in atrocities and is also fueling this conflict, but don’t fool yourself in thinking that those terrorist groups would stop after they got rid of Israel. Netanyahu and his political party need to go if we ever want peace in the middle east, but the same goes for Hamas and all the other religious dipshits.
And just to set this in perspective, the same is happening in Russia right now. There will be a whole generation with a furious hatred for the west and our lifestyle because of the propaganda and the lies of their leader. And I’m asking you, wouldn’t it be justified for the west to defend itself against that?
It’s more of an open ended question for those in support of the bombings
I really don’t think that someone is supporting the bombing of civilians or the amount of casualties. But Hamas or the other groups will continue. Israel gould go back to the borders of 1948 and there would be still missle attacks each day against them. From the perspective of these groups Israel has no right to exist and now please tell me how do you defend yourself against such primal agression? How do you avoid civilian casualites if the enemy is hiding among them? How do you save the life of your troops and keep your defense up in such a scenario? The cruel and sad answer to that is what we all witness every day.
And I do not support it, I really condemn it, but I also have no idea how it could be dealt with in any other way that would not benefit the Hamas in the end.
Where do you think these terrorist groups come from? Decades of people displacing, killing, and blockading their friends and family. The West has been invading and splitting up the Middle-East for like a hundred years. Continuing to do the same is just causing more jihad groups.
The solution, since you asked, is to not undermine the PLO by supporting Hamas like the right in Israel did. It’s to prop up and strengthen the PLO, legitimize them instead of running scared from negotiations every time Hamas does an attack (a third party that should be ignored, but since Israel has never been serious about negotiations since that one guy got assassinated it’s been a good excuse for them to stop them and then keep grabbing more land). Then they can work together against Hamas. Then you’re probably going to have to Marshall Plan the area. It’s racist to think their inherently more violent because they’re brown. It’s basically what people used to say about the Japanese during WW2. They’re in a giant prison right now which breeds that kind of behavior.
Basically they need a chance to have a better quality of life, and that will require what the world did for the Germany and Europe after the war, the same kind of investments we made in Japan or South Korea, or Israel lol. It will probably also require some Reconciliation committees like South Africa, possibly some land reform like in many formerly colonized countries, maybe reparations, etc.
You realise what it took to get Japan and Germany to the point where they could be rehabilitated? Both were completely dismantled as warfighting states, something which caused millions of civillian casualties.
War is grim as fuck but what other choice does Israel have?
Palestine is already not a war fighting state. They have no military. They’ve got a guerilla fighting force fighting and that’s it. You’re not going to see Palestine invade neighboring states like Germany or Japan, they’re more like German occupied France at this point except one of their resistance groups are a terrible terrorist group.
Theyre already weakened to the point where negotiations need to begin. Hamas only gets more recruits the more bombs you drop on them and the more you oppress their people. And ya, it’s only probably going to take a lot of work, but it’s better for our souls than genocide.
Not if you look at it from Israel’s point of view. The bombing results in less casualites on their side and still hurts the Hamas. I know this sounds cruel and I strongly condemn the civilian casualites, but from a tactical perspective it absolute makes sense and Israel has not that many options, Hamas made it very clear that they will continue so they have to fight them.
No it doesn’t make fuckin sense unless you don’t understand why hamas exists. Let’s assume that Palestinians aren’t people, and it’s morally acceptable to kill dozens of them to get one or two Hamas guys. Now, you have a ton of family members of those dead people who are extremely angry at Israel for killing their family and friends. Do you think those people just sit down and die quietly? No, quite a few of them join a terrorist organization to fight back. So now, by bombing that hospital, you’ve created more terrorists than you’ve killed.
“Let’s assume that Israelis aren’t people, and it’s morally acceptable to kill dozens of them to get one or two IDF guys. Now, you have a ton of family members of those dead people who are extremely angry at Hamas for killing their family and friends. Do you think those people just sit down and die quietly? No, quite a few of them join the IDF to fight back. So now, by attacking the concert, you’ve created more enemies than you’ve killed.”
If Hamas was freedom fighters, then your exact same defense applies to the Israeli military, and it’s a neverending cycle of “justified” violence.
But, Hamas are NOT freedom fighters. They want the war to continue in perpetuity and they’re keeping supplies from the civilians. They are a terrorist organization completely distinct from the Palestinians, that is also oppressing the Palestinians.
Hamas’ goal is to provoke Israel into the most violent responses possible. They want Israel to be genocidal. It makes Israel lose support and it’s more likely for countries like Iran to join the fight. They would be more than happy with all Palestinians dying if it meant killing all the Israelis too. Because they are a terrorist group.
If Hamas was freedom fighters, then your exact same defense applies to the Israeli military, and it’s a neverending cycle of “justified” violence.
Yeah. That’s true. There will be continued death and destruction until Israel tries for peace by undermining Hamas politically, not violently. Or until Israel ethnically cleanses the vast majority of Palestinians, which it seems like they’re trying to do.
Hamas is a resistance group, even if their tactics are awful. Their goal isn’t to provoke the most awful Israeli responses possible, but to retaliate for the violence that the IDF does. This has been the case for a while, and October 7th is really the main exception because I doubt Hamas predicted how far they’d get. Even with the Oct 7 attack, Hamas literally tried to trade their hostages for women and children in Israeli prisons. They tried to use their hostages as leverage to get Israel to stop bombing civilians as much. They have to care about Palestinians to some extent, because if enough citizens of Gaza decide the PA is a lot better, Hamas won’t exist anymore, or at least lose power.
Because they are a terrorist group.
You say this like it means anything. The ANC (fought apartheid south africa) was also a terrorist group. So was the FLN (fought french in the Algerian revolution), the Viet Minh (first Indochina war, against the french), and many other resistance groups.
I think Israel should give them supplies to continue operation until they can be evacuated. And also Israel should give them notice of evacuation weeks in advance so they can prepare. And Israel should be expected to provide alternate medical care.
This is a war, so you are basically talking about an urban assault involving thousands of IDF infantry kicking doors down house to house and shooting anyone who shoots at them.
The US did that in Fallujah, and it’s pretty gnarly. US had 500 casualties IIRC. The US also told all the residents to evacuate Fallujah before the operation went down.
That’s why they’re using this strategy. If there were a ton of Israeli soldier casualties on Bibi’s watch, the military might let the public remove him from power, or do it themselves. Netanyahu has every motivation to bomb and starve Gaza. The actual solution would have been to build up Palestinian groups who oppose Hamas and prefer a two state solution, but that isn’t the IDF’s goal. Their refusal to do so over the last few decades not only led to this war, but should have told supportive nations that too many Zionists are genocidal theocrats.
The most economical endgame for Israel’s current military actions is the forceful expulsion of almost all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. Occupation is a bad option. They’ve undermined the movement for coexistence so badly that even a total reversal of policy would be difficult. It’s so fucking sad.
I don’t care what God will do to him; I just want to get these awful people out of power so they’ll stop killing children. God making things right in the afterlife isn’t a universally agreed upon truth, so we must do the right thing regardless of its existence. If God is good, surely he’d want us to make our mortal existence less miserable and more meaningful, right?
Not really. Israel has attacked and undermined the PLO for decades, almost more than Hamas. It’s the situation of Israel stepping on the throats of all Palestinians, even those who want to work towards peace. The two state solution requires Israel’s support, and when they don’t give it, those attempting to make it happen on the Palestinian side look like fools. Israel has the power to allow for peace, but they make it near impossible.
Palestinians can’t make a two state solution happen without the cooperation of the other state. That’s what two state means.
America tried bombing a million innocent civilians from the comfort of their lazy ass Texas seat too. Remind me whether they won that war. Surely they didn’t leave a giant power vacuum and created many more resistance fighters.
Majority of deaths in iraq were during the civil war and the insurgency that followed, the 1 million figure that gets banded about with little evidence is in no way “civillians killed by NATO”.
America purposely targeted civilian infrastructure at the start of their attack to cripple and kill the population and ruin their economy. They did not target military goals.
The irony of hiding in a hospital when you literally cause war.
Doesn’t it make more sense to argue that the person dropping bombs just doesn’t want to admit they missed the target and fucked thousands of people because they’re shit at their job? If you were fighting an alien or hunting a foreign agent, and you screwed up and accidentally shot your own family down in flames, you’d probably be rather embarrassed, I sure would be too haha
But hey it’s alright nobody will judge even if they knew because the truth is that some jobs suck and just get glamorised on the news and in the media precisely because even the very few who make the cut can still be considered competent
Everyone is blaming Israel for the actions of Israel. I honestly have no idea how you could get this from the comment.
If you feel like you need to defend Israel in this situation, maybe ask yourself why that is. Is it really so difficult to call this obvious war crime out? You can still support them overall but acknowledge their (many) failings. At this point just saying “but Hamas!” in response to every valid criticism looks absolutely pathetic.
At what point do you think Hamas should take responsibility for hiding behind civilian infrastructure, including digging tunnels under a freaking hospital?
They did. Israel is firing at Hamas, not hospitals. Full stop.
To take out Hamas any other way would be worse for civilians because it would involve a longer operation including a cordon. Look at 2017 in Mosul if you don’t believe me.
They bombed the (water) tanks, they bombed the water wells, they bombed the oxygen pump as well. They bombed everything in the hospital. So we are hardly surviving. We tell everyone, the hospital is no more a safe place for treating patients. We are harming patients by keeping them here
[…]
Gaza health ministry spokesperson Qidra said an Israel tank was now stationed at the hospital gate. Israeli snipers and drones were firing into the hospital, making it impossible for medics and patients to move around.
“We are besieged and are inside a circle of death,” he said.
And there are 32 patients dead in the past three days because of Israel’s blockade of supplies alone. Not to mention the constant bombing.
I find it really weird that people come into the comments to demand people denounce Hamas, but then refuse to acknowledge Israel’s crimes under any circumstances. Is it so hard to call out crimes in both sides?
Honestly if someone can’t acknowledge the problems with what Israel is doing here I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from debating this with them
Edit: I thought you were the original commenter before, sorry, but the point still stands
If Israel did their job right there would be no Hamas. If the police did their job right there would arguably be no such thing as crime, yet the police can accept when they’re imperfect, nobody is above criticism here and neither should Israel be, don’t let your ego blind you from the reality of the circumstances and the actual events at hand.
For most people, I think that the problem isn’t with Hamas being held responsible. The problem is that people bearing the brunt of Hamas’ and Israeli actions aren’t members of Hamas - they’remedical personnel and patients and civilians in general.
German people in WW2 weren’t all nazis. Some of those non-nazi germans were hurt, which was ultimately a tragic thing, but the responsibility for their deaths lies primarily with the nazis.
Edit It’s impressive that everyone’s able to agree with this thought but get very confused when “nazis” is replaced with “hamas” and “German people” with “Palestinian people”
Just like in this case when you’re an Israeli and you’re in government you have been given power. Power and authority is a gift, with strings attached. Your paystub and government funded car and badge is not a whore to be abused.
Of course they are. Why else would you set up in a hospital? Doing so (turning hospital into a command post or using a marked ambulance to transport fighters or weapons) is against international law. If it is true that Hamas is doing that in these exact examples and not merely as a general practice), those buildings and vehicles are legal military targets. I was in the business and I’m familiar with all of the arguments and justifications.
What it comes down to, legally, is whether the response was proportional to the threat and whether every attempt was made to restrict damage to civilian infrastructure and persons. Just as a hypothetical example, using an F-16 to drop two bombs on a populated hospital because there’s a couple of snipers on the 6th floor would be a disproportionate response. Using a rocket propelled grenade against that window/room is more proportional, even if there were patients in the same room. Killing them with counter-sniper fire so as to save those patients but still eliminate the threat is the most proportional.
The other dimension, though, is the moral culpability (if you believe in free will) or at least the functional responsibility (if you do not) of designing and launching an operation in which massive amounts of civilian casualties and misery will be caused. I don’t see that enough.
I think it was Aquinas who laid out one of the early versions of just war theory. One of the main points is that the intended outcome must be proportional to the harms caused.
What people are questioning is whether a particular encounter or the operation in general were necessary and proportional.
I appreciate the well reasoned response. Whether this is an appropriate or balanced response from Israel, I don’t really know, but I’m tired of everyone demanding they be the bigger people, and completely ignoring the actions of Hamas.
You’re ignoring the massive power imbalance. You expect people to cast out blame to 2 equal sides, when that really isn’t the case. Isreal as a so-called democratic nationstate should be held to a higher standard than a band of extremists.
Edit: tl;dr ITT I try and fail to convey that terrorists using innocent people as meat shields/hostages is wrong and a government bombing those terrorists along with their hostages is also wrong. I dunno how that’s too confusing for anyone to understand but I guess some folk truly are lost causes.
Original comment below:
Are you implying that Israel has not done any bombing whatsoever? Or are you implying that terrorists hiding behind innocent people means everyone involved must die by bombing? Or are you just a troll trying to get a reaction from people by posting an obviously ignorant comment?
Let me ask you this, if some bank robbers took your family and friends hostage, what do you think the response should be? By your own logic I must assume that they all need to die because criminals were using them as meat shields. By your logic, if your home is being robbed and the robber uses you as a shield, the response should be to mow you down along with the robber. How unlucky for you that the robber chose your house eh? How ignorant.
And if you’re struggling to put yourself in those shoes, good. Be glad that you’re so far removed from such dangers. But you are not immune. Criminals and potential terrorists exist everywhere, and I truly hope that if you ever find yourself in a hostage situation that the response isn’t what you idolize for innocent people in a foreign land. Because even unemphatic scum don’t deserve to die simply for being a hostage.
I’d like to assume that you simply forgot a “/s”, and I apologize if the sarcastic intent of your comment was lost, but there are people that truly believe what you’ve said.
And what does that change exactly? Definition: A government is a group of people governing an organized community. So if that organized community were a bunch of robbers or terrorists, and they had some others to govern them, they are by definition a government. If that government or organized community then holds you hostage, does that somehow make it different compared to if it were just a group of unorganized robbers or terrorists that didn’t have leaders? So just because some common criminals have a leader, making them a “government”, all of a sudden it’s ok to kill you along with them?
Let me simplify that. Gangs are governments by definition, i.e. an organized community with leaders. If you, your family, and/or friends were held hostage by a gang, you are saying it’s okay to kill you, your family, and/or friends in the name of killing off some gangsters. If that feels wrong then you need to rethink your opinion because that is a direct equivalence to what is happening between Israel and Hamas/Palestinians. Hamas are the equivalent to gangsters and Israel is the equivalent to the US government acting through the police to murder people you love in the name of killing off gangsters.
Let me answer that first question for you because I now believe you’re too thick skulled to figure it out yourself. The fact that it’s a “government” changes nothing in regards to another “government” killing innocent people.
Please note, I am not(!!) advocating for Hamas. What they have done and are still doing is fucking terrible. I condemn it with every fiber of my being. But to say that innocent people brought their own deaths upon themselves simply for existing on the wrong side of an imaginary line is fucked up. The only people that are “losing” in this conflict are the innocent people dying on both sides of the imaginary line. And if you can’t agree with that I’m done replying. Just because someone is Palestinian doesn’t make their deaths any better or worse than if they’re Israeli. Innocent civilians are innocent civilians regardless of which side of the line they’re on. I condemn any and all violence in this conflict. Both governments think they’re in the right and the only people that suffer are those caught in the crossfire. Full stop. May you find a little empathy, have a nice night, and a good life.
Are you implying that all Palestinian people are apart of “a terrorist organization”? You are beginning to come across as full on racist. At what point does “Justice” turn into terrorism in itself? How many innocent people is it “okay” to kill in the name of defeating a terrorist organization? It isn’t just “a terrorist organization” being killed.
Palestinian == terrorist. Hamas == terrorists. Killing hundreds/thousands of Palestinians in order to kill Hamas is not okay. Bombing a hospital filled with Palestinians is not okay.
Also, which is it? Is Hamas “a terrorist organization” or a government?
Also, I’m not blaming anyone or any government. I’m not speaking anything about self defense, other than that self defense does not entail violence against innocent people. I do not know enough of the topic or conflict to get into any of that. I am solely pointing out that blindly killing anyone and everyone in proximity of some wrong doing, regardless of their involvement in said wrong doing, is in and of itself wrong.
They slaughtered about 1400 altogether, including 270 at that festival.
It’s possible to condemn Hamas slaughtering innocent civilians and also condemn Israel slaughtering innocent civilians. This would be most people’s reaction, and in fact the person you’re responding to has repeatedly condemned Hamas. So why do you ask this?
This is completely stupid. If Hamas are hiding in hospitals then surely there’s a better fucking way to target them than trying to blow the whole fucking place up. One way would be to send a strike team, after all Israel and Mossad are “famous” for hunting terrorists down after the Munich bombing at the Olympics. Yet the same country can only now resort to cutting off infrastructure and bombing refugee camps, ambulances, schools and hospitals plus which is killing aid workers and drs.
I don’t know how strike teams work and such but I doubt it’s as easy as in Call of Duty.
OP’s a child who’s never dealt with violence, war or destroyed infrastructure.
My ex-FIL was a decorated Army vet (Iraq, 2x Bronze Stars), Mississippi National Guard. FFS, those men couldn’t get into their own cities after Hurricane Katrina, in peacetime. They cut fucking houses in half and pushed them aside to open the roads.
Send in a strike team?! To a civilian hospital in a war zone?! That’s a solid plan to get your men killed on the incursion, OR, get a bunch of civilians killed and THEN lose all your men.
Unless you happen to be your own uncle. You are just the pot calling the kettle black.
The IDF and the last month has killed more innocent civilians than Hamas has in years. Israel absolutely could be doing things differently if they wanted to save people and have peace. But they don’t want to have peace. Other than that piece of land. And I guarantee 100% before this is all over. It will be found that Israel itself killed many of their precious hostages with their own munitions in their indiscriminate bombing campaign. That’s just going to be a given. And also part of the reason why the Israel people are rightly calling out netanyahu and his cabinet of butchers.
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what the actual fuck. I’m gonna report you here, to insult every decorated veteran as a war criminal is wrong on so many levels.
Lol you’re getting downvoted for being right.
People serving in Iraq acting like they served in WWII. Mother fuckers killed and tortured civilians, destroyed towns and claimed “victory” against people who were defending their homelands.
We invaded and occupied a sovereign nation in the name of “WMDs” which we found none of and acting like we did god’s work over here. All they did was help create more animosity against Americans. Good fucking job.
You mean the government that committed multiple atrocities against their own people? The government which regularly tortured and executed prisoners of war? The government whose leader’s son was a psychopath who raped a different woman every day, and had a penchant for brides on their wedding night?
USA did the people of Iraq a favour by getting rid of Saddam and the Baath party, WMDs or not.
Oh? Is that right? I see a government (Israel) slaughtering 10k civilians right now. Where is that sense of moral duty? Why don’t we go in there and send a peace keeping force?
We did Iraqis a favor by slaughtering 30k of their civilians did we? How many did Saddam kill before us? Didn’t we take out OBL by not slaughtering people in Pakistan?
Foh.
Dude, Saddam Hussein committed genocide against his own people. It’s well documented and is why the United Nations authorized unilateral force against the country back in 1991, as well as a 15-year no-fly zone across most of the country.
He also gassed the Kurds repeatedly. And his brothers were a psychopaths. Well, they all were.
Uday was in particular a great guy:
And
These were the people who were ruling Iraq for decades. I really wouldn’t want to be making excuses for people like this. But, you do you!
Read my comment again. I’m not making excuses and Saddam didn’t need to exist beyond the moment in time the first time he took a human life.
The point which you missed was that we have the ability to take out tyrants without having to cause 30k civilian casualties and decimate towns/cities. We didn’t do that, we went blood thirsty and inflicted so much damage on a sovereign nation and its citizens that it created a generation of Iraqis and people in the broader region that hates the US.
We took out OBL and have toppled numerous regimes without using excessive force.
This whole notion of us taking out Saddam because of us being some benevolent nation for good is complete bullshit. We went in there for oil and because Saddam didn’t let us have it, so we made it a point to take him out by any means necessary, using the WMDs cover-up.
The US has a history of getting cozy with dictators and letting them kill and pillage their own people as long as it serves our interest.
The Iraq “war” was a massive fuck up and mistake. Nobody should be decorated for it.
Uhh, what?
Yeah, for starters your own people are going to get killed.
It would probably have fewer casualties on the enemy side however since some of them might actually live. However, Israel’s goal is not to allow Hamas members to survive.
That would only make sense if the goal wasn’t revenge and ethnic cleansing.
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This is not as easy as you think. You have to get your team to the target, through terrorists hiding among civilians, through IDE’s that are hidden along the way, through civilians that do not like you. And if you miraculously survive this march without heavy casualties the Hamas are already gone and hide somewhere else…not to forget the civilian casualties that would happen on the way…
jUst sEnd A sTriKe tEam lmao
Idiots thought modern warfare was a documentary
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So bombing hospitals is the right answer? Really Israel needs to just fucking ceasefire.
From a tactical perspective it is. A ceasefire would help the civilians but also would benefit the Hamas…it’s a double edged sword.
From a tactical perspective it’s a goddamn war crime. When should they stop, then? When no native Palestinian remains, so they can swoop in and take all of Gaza like they’ve been trying to do for the last 70 years? Hamas is a response to decades of ethnic cleansing and Israel is using it as an excuse to further their conquest
Edit: this isn’t necessarily directed at OP. It’s more of an open ended question for those in support of the bombings
As far as international law goes no this is not a war crime.
If your military takes refuge or uses a civilian center for military operation then that location becomes a valid military target regardless of the risk to civilian lives.
Basically Hamas is commiting the crime by purposefully setting up in these areas. Once they do that then civilian death is acceptable collateral damage, legally speaking.
What about bombing humanitarian aide locations or using white phosphorus as a weapon?
Same thing applies to humanitarian aid.
If Hamas has hijacked or is operating in those places then they become military targets.
As far as white phosphorus, it depends on how it’s deployed. If it’s deployed for masking, tracing or identifying then it’s legal.
If it’s being directly used as an incendiary then that’s illegal.
The point I’m making is both of those situations happened (good banks got bombed immediately after the convoy left and they have been using white phosphorus on people) and people are just looking the other way.
It’s also a war crime to use civilians as meat shields or to use hospitals or other cilvilian buildings as base of operations or storage for military equipment. Please don’t act as Hamas is giving real choices to Israel. They could either act or give the Hamas and other organisations an advantage and they all have their fair share of atrocities but I mostly see the war crime label on the actions of Israel in social media and I find this kind of strange.
Hamas is a bunch of rabid dogs that hate jews, just like all the other terrorist factions around them, who want to kill everyone that dont give a fuck about their great Allah. Of course Israel has their fair share in atrocities and is also fueling this conflict, but don’t fool yourself in thinking that those terrorist groups would stop after they got rid of Israel. Netanyahu and his political party need to go if we ever want peace in the middle east, but the same goes for Hamas and all the other religious dipshits.
And just to set this in perspective, the same is happening in Russia right now. There will be a whole generation with a furious hatred for the west and our lifestyle because of the propaganda and the lies of their leader. And I’m asking you, wouldn’t it be justified for the west to defend itself against that?
I really don’t think that someone is supporting the bombing of civilians or the amount of casualties. But Hamas or the other groups will continue. Israel gould go back to the borders of 1948 and there would be still missle attacks each day against them. From the perspective of these groups Israel has no right to exist and now please tell me how do you defend yourself against such primal agression? How do you avoid civilian casualites if the enemy is hiding among them? How do you save the life of your troops and keep your defense up in such a scenario? The cruel and sad answer to that is what we all witness every day.
And I do not support it, I really condemn it, but I also have no idea how it could be dealt with in any other way that would not benefit the Hamas in the end.
Where do you think these terrorist groups come from? Decades of people displacing, killing, and blockading their friends and family. The West has been invading and splitting up the Middle-East for like a hundred years. Continuing to do the same is just causing more jihad groups.
The solution, since you asked, is to not undermine the PLO by supporting Hamas like the right in Israel did. It’s to prop up and strengthen the PLO, legitimize them instead of running scared from negotiations every time Hamas does an attack (a third party that should be ignored, but since Israel has never been serious about negotiations since that one guy got assassinated it’s been a good excuse for them to stop them and then keep grabbing more land). Then they can work together against Hamas. Then you’re probably going to have to Marshall Plan the area. It’s racist to think their inherently more violent because they’re brown. It’s basically what people used to say about the Japanese during WW2. They’re in a giant prison right now which breeds that kind of behavior.
Basically they need a chance to have a better quality of life, and that will require what the world did for the Germany and Europe after the war, the same kind of investments we made in Japan or South Korea, or Israel lol. It will probably also require some Reconciliation committees like South Africa, possibly some land reform like in many formerly colonized countries, maybe reparations, etc.
You realise what it took to get Japan and Germany to the point where they could be rehabilitated? Both were completely dismantled as warfighting states, something which caused millions of civillian casualties.
War is grim as fuck but what other choice does Israel have?
Palestine is already not a war fighting state. They have no military. They’ve got a guerilla fighting force fighting and that’s it. You’re not going to see Palestine invade neighboring states like Germany or Japan, they’re more like German occupied France at this point except one of their resistance groups are a terrible terrorist group.
Theyre already weakened to the point where negotiations need to begin. Hamas only gets more recruits the more bombs you drop on them and the more you oppress their people. And ya, it’s only probably going to take a lot of work, but it’s better for our souls than genocide.
Rather just bomb the fucking place and move on.
Should’ve added an /s eh
Not if you look at it from Israel’s point of view. The bombing results in less casualites on their side and still hurts the Hamas. I know this sounds cruel and I strongly condemn the civilian casualites, but from a tactical perspective it absolute makes sense and Israel has not that many options, Hamas made it very clear that they will continue so they have to fight them.
No it doesn’t make fuckin sense unless you don’t understand why hamas exists. Let’s assume that Palestinians aren’t people, and it’s morally acceptable to kill dozens of them to get one or two Hamas guys. Now, you have a ton of family members of those dead people who are extremely angry at Israel for killing their family and friends. Do you think those people just sit down and die quietly? No, quite a few of them join a terrorist organization to fight back. So now, by bombing that hospital, you’ve created more terrorists than you’ve killed.
If Hamas was freedom fighters, then your exact same defense applies to the Israeli military, and it’s a neverending cycle of “justified” violence.
But, Hamas are NOT freedom fighters. They want the war to continue in perpetuity and they’re keeping supplies from the civilians. They are a terrorist organization completely distinct from the Palestinians, that is also oppressing the Palestinians.
Hamas’ goal is to provoke Israel into the most violent responses possible. They want Israel to be genocidal. It makes Israel lose support and it’s more likely for countries like Iran to join the fight. They would be more than happy with all Palestinians dying if it meant killing all the Israelis too. Because they are a terrorist group.
Yeah. That’s true. There will be continued death and destruction until Israel tries for peace by undermining Hamas politically, not violently. Or until Israel ethnically cleanses the vast majority of Palestinians, which it seems like they’re trying to do.
Hamas is a resistance group, even if their tactics are awful. Their goal isn’t to provoke the most awful Israeli responses possible, but to retaliate for the violence that the IDF does. This has been the case for a while, and October 7th is really the main exception because I doubt Hamas predicted how far they’d get. Even with the Oct 7 attack, Hamas literally tried to trade their hostages for women and children in Israeli prisons. They tried to use their hostages as leverage to get Israel to stop bombing civilians as much. They have to care about Palestinians to some extent, because if enough citizens of Gaza decide the PA is a lot better, Hamas won’t exist anymore, or at least lose power.
You say this like it means anything. The ANC (fought apartheid south africa) was also a terrorist group. So was the FLN (fought french in the Algerian revolution), the Viet Minh (first Indochina war, against the french), and many other resistance groups.
I’m amazed people are so stupid they still haven’t realized if you kill one innocent guy you just created 3 freedom fighters.
Exactly! It surely can’t be harder to fight 30,000 embedded terrorists than 8 scattered terrorists in hiding.
I think Israel should give them supplies to continue operation until they can be evacuated. And also Israel should give them notice of evacuation weeks in advance so they can prepare. And Israel should be expected to provide alternate medical care.
This is a war, so you are basically talking about an urban assault involving thousands of IDF infantry kicking doors down house to house and shooting anyone who shoots at them.
The US did that in Fallujah, and it’s pretty gnarly. US had 500 casualties IIRC. The US also told all the residents to evacuate Fallujah before the operation went down.
That’s why they’re using this strategy. If there were a ton of Israeli soldier casualties on Bibi’s watch, the military might let the public remove him from power, or do it themselves. Netanyahu has every motivation to bomb and starve Gaza. The actual solution would have been to build up Palestinian groups who oppose Hamas and prefer a two state solution, but that isn’t the IDF’s goal. Their refusal to do so over the last few decades not only led to this war, but should have told supportive nations that too many Zionists are genocidal theocrats.
The most economical endgame for Israel’s current military actions is the forceful expulsion of almost all Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank. Occupation is a bad option. They’ve undermined the movement for coexistence so badly that even a total reversal of policy would be difficult. It’s so fucking sad.
Meh. God will punish him surely.
I don’t care what God will do to him; I just want to get these awful people out of power so they’ll stop killing children. God making things right in the afterlife isn’t a universally agreed upon truth, so we must do the right thing regardless of its existence. If God is good, surely he’d want us to make our mortal existence less miserable and more meaningful, right?
I prefer not to attempt to assert my morality upon a higher power
This idea supposes that Palestinians themselves are somehow too incompetent to do it without external help. Which reality seems to agree with.
Not really. Israel has attacked and undermined the PLO for decades, almost more than Hamas. It’s the situation of Israel stepping on the throats of all Palestinians, even those who want to work towards peace. The two state solution requires Israel’s support, and when they don’t give it, those attempting to make it happen on the Palestinian side look like fools. Israel has the power to allow for peace, but they make it near impossible.
Palestinians can’t make a two state solution happen without the cooperation of the other state. That’s what two state means.
Hmmm, what reason would Israel have to regard the PLO as the terrorist group it once was?
I mean, they did sign the Oslo accords and recognized the PLO as the official representatives of Palestinians.
America tried bombing a million innocent civilians from the comfort of their lazy ass Texas seat too. Remind me whether they won that war. Surely they didn’t leave a giant power vacuum and created many more resistance fighters.
Majority of deaths in iraq were during the civil war and the insurgency that followed, the 1 million figure that gets banded about with little evidence is in no way “civillians killed by NATO”.
America purposely targeted civilian infrastructure at the start of their attack to cripple and kill the population and ruin their economy. They did not target military goals.
The 1 million figure is widely accepted.
I don’t disagree, but given that the majority of the deaths happened uears later I think its niave to suggest that the USA killed 1 million iraqis.
The irony of hiding in a hospital when you literally cause war.
Doesn’t it make more sense to argue that the person dropping bombs just doesn’t want to admit they missed the target and fucked thousands of people because they’re shit at their job? If you were fighting an alien or hunting a foreign agent, and you screwed up and accidentally shot your own family down in flames, you’d probably be rather embarrassed, I sure would be too haha
But hey it’s alright nobody will judge even if they knew because the truth is that some jobs suck and just get glamorised on the news and in the media precisely because even the very few who make the cut can still be considered competent
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Why do you blame Israel for the actions of their enemies?
Everyone is blaming Israel for the actions of Israel. I honestly have no idea how you could get this from the comment.
If you feel like you need to defend Israel in this situation, maybe ask yourself why that is. Is it really so difficult to call this obvious war crime out? You can still support them overall but acknowledge their (many) failings. At this point just saying “but Hamas!” in response to every valid criticism looks absolutely pathetic.
At what point do you think Hamas should take responsibility for hiding behind civilian infrastructure, including digging tunnels under a freaking hospital?
Obviously they should take responsibility. Should Israel take responsibility for it’s crimes too?
So why blame Israel for something Hamas is doing? Why aren’t you ranting about them?
Answer the question
They did. Israel is firing at Hamas, not hospitals. Full stop.
To take out Hamas any other way would be worse for civilians because it would involve a longer operation including a cordon. Look at 2017 in Mosul if you don’t believe me.
Weird thing to say. How do you explain this?
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And there are 32 patients dead in the past three days because of Israel’s blockade of supplies alone. Not to mention the constant bombing.
I find it really weird that people come into the comments to demand people denounce Hamas, but then refuse to acknowledge Israel’s crimes under any circumstances. Is it so hard to call out crimes in both sides?
Honestly if someone can’t acknowledge the problems with what Israel is doing here I don’t think there’s anything to be gained from debating this with them
Edit: I thought you were the original commenter before, sorry, but the point still stands
If Israel did their job right there would be no Hamas. If the police did their job right there would arguably be no such thing as crime, yet the police can accept when they’re imperfect, nobody is above criticism here and neither should Israel be, don’t let your ego blind you from the reality of the circumstances and the actual events at hand.
For most people, I think that the problem isn’t with Hamas being held responsible. The problem is that people bearing the brunt of Hamas’ and Israeli actions aren’t members of Hamas - they’remedical personnel and patients and civilians in general.
German people in WW2 weren’t all nazis. Some of those non-nazi germans were hurt, which was ultimately a tragic thing, but the responsibility for their deaths lies primarily with the nazis.
Edit It’s impressive that everyone’s able to agree with this thought but get very confused when “nazis” is replaced with “hamas” and “German people” with “Palestinian people”
Just like in this case when you’re an Israeli and you’re in government you have been given power. Power and authority is a gift, with strings attached. Your paystub and government funded car and badge is not a whore to be abused.
Yeah, because they’re being used as human shields.
Of course they are. Why else would you set up in a hospital? Doing so (turning hospital into a command post or using a marked ambulance to transport fighters or weapons) is against international law. If it is true that Hamas is doing that in these exact examples and not merely as a general practice), those buildings and vehicles are legal military targets. I was in the business and I’m familiar with all of the arguments and justifications.
What it comes down to, legally, is whether the response was proportional to the threat and whether every attempt was made to restrict damage to civilian infrastructure and persons. Just as a hypothetical example, using an F-16 to drop two bombs on a populated hospital because there’s a couple of snipers on the 6th floor would be a disproportionate response. Using a rocket propelled grenade against that window/room is more proportional, even if there were patients in the same room. Killing them with counter-sniper fire so as to save those patients but still eliminate the threat is the most proportional.
The other dimension, though, is the moral culpability (if you believe in free will) or at least the functional responsibility (if you do not) of designing and launching an operation in which massive amounts of civilian casualties and misery will be caused. I don’t see that enough.
I think it was Aquinas who laid out one of the early versions of just war theory. One of the main points is that the intended outcome must be proportional to the harms caused.
What people are questioning is whether a particular encounter or the operation in general were necessary and proportional.
I appreciate the well reasoned response. Whether this is an appropriate or balanced response from Israel, I don’t really know, but I’m tired of everyone demanding they be the bigger people, and completely ignoring the actions of Hamas.
You’re ignoring the massive power imbalance. You expect people to cast out blame to 2 equal sides, when that really isn’t the case. Isreal as a so-called democratic nationstate should be held to a higher standard than a band of extremists.
Edit: tl;dr ITT I try and fail to convey that terrorists using innocent people as meat shields/hostages is wrong and a government bombing those terrorists along with their hostages is also wrong. I dunno how that’s too confusing for anyone to understand but I guess some folk truly are lost causes.
Original comment below:
Are you implying that Israel has not done any bombing whatsoever? Or are you implying that terrorists hiding behind innocent people means everyone involved must die by bombing? Or are you just a troll trying to get a reaction from people by posting an obviously ignorant comment?
Let me ask you this, if some bank robbers took your family and friends hostage, what do you think the response should be? By your own logic I must assume that they all need to die because criminals were using them as meat shields. By your logic, if your home is being robbed and the robber uses you as a shield, the response should be to mow you down along with the robber. How unlucky for you that the robber chose your house eh? How ignorant.
And if you’re struggling to put yourself in those shoes, good. Be glad that you’re so far removed from such dangers. But you are not immune. Criminals and potential terrorists exist everywhere, and I truly hope that if you ever find yourself in a hostage situation that the response isn’t what you idolize for innocent people in a foreign land. Because even unemphatic scum don’t deserve to die simply for being a hostage.
I’d like to assume that you simply forgot a “/s”, and I apologize if the sarcastic intent of your comment was lost, but there are people that truly believe what you’ve said.
We’re not dealing with bank robbers though, are we? We’re dealing with a government.
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And what does that change exactly? Definition: A government is a group of people governing an organized community. So if that organized community were a bunch of robbers or terrorists, and they had some others to govern them, they are by definition a government. If that government or organized community then holds you hostage, does that somehow make it different compared to if it were just a group of unorganized robbers or terrorists that didn’t have leaders? So just because some common criminals have a leader, making them a “government”, all of a sudden it’s ok to kill you along with them?
Let me simplify that. Gangs are governments by definition, i.e. an organized community with leaders. If you, your family, and/or friends were held hostage by a gang, you are saying it’s okay to kill you, your family, and/or friends in the name of killing off some gangsters. If that feels wrong then you need to rethink your opinion because that is a direct equivalence to what is happening between Israel and Hamas/Palestinians. Hamas are the equivalent to gangsters and Israel is the equivalent to the US government acting through the police to murder people you love in the name of killing off gangsters.
Let me answer that first question for you because I now believe you’re too thick skulled to figure it out yourself. The fact that it’s a “government” changes nothing in regards to another “government” killing innocent people.
Please note, I am not(!!) advocating for Hamas. What they have done and are still doing is fucking terrible. I condemn it with every fiber of my being. But to say that innocent people brought their own deaths upon themselves simply for existing on the wrong side of an imaginary line is fucked up. The only people that are “losing” in this conflict are the innocent people dying on both sides of the imaginary line. And if you can’t agree with that I’m done replying. Just because someone is Palestinian doesn’t make their deaths any better or worse than if they’re Israeli. Innocent civilians are innocent civilians regardless of which side of the line they’re on. I condemn any and all violence in this conflict. Both governments think they’re in the right and the only people that suffer are those caught in the crossfire. Full stop. May you find a little empathy, have a nice night, and a good life.
You’re putting a lot of effort into blaming Israel for defending themselves against a terrorist organisation.
Are you implying that all Palestinian people are apart of “a terrorist organization”? You are beginning to come across as full on racist. At what point does “Justice” turn into terrorism in itself? How many innocent people is it “okay” to kill in the name of defeating a terrorist organization? It isn’t just “a terrorist organization” being killed.
Palestinian == terrorist. Hamas == terrorists. Killing hundreds/thousands of Palestinians in order to kill Hamas is not okay. Bombing a hospital filled with Palestinians is not okay.
Also, which is it? Is Hamas “a terrorist organization” or a government?
I’m done arguing with Hamas sympathisers today, sorry.
Also, I’m not blaming anyone or any government. I’m not speaking anything about self defense, other than that self defense does not entail violence against innocent people. I do not know enough of the topic or conflict to get into any of that. I am solely pointing out that blindly killing anyone and everyone in proximity of some wrong doing, regardless of their involvement in said wrong doing, is in and of itself wrong.
What’s your position on slaughtering over a thousand civilians at a music festival?
They slaughtered about 1400 altogether, including 270 at that festival.
It’s possible to condemn Hamas slaughtering innocent civilians and also condemn Israel slaughtering innocent civilians. This would be most people’s reaction, and in fact the person you’re responding to has repeatedly condemned Hamas. So why do you ask this?
seems meta around here…