Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Hamas is not the Palestinian people. Why do people keep identifying Hamas with all who live on Gaza? Yes they are there, yes they are Arab/Palestinian. No they are not 100% of the population living on Gaza and you can condemn Hamas without suggesting all Palestinians are barbarians. Why is this such a problem for Jewish people? I mean I condemn the Hamas attacks. I do not support Israel's right to kill everyone on Gaza which is essentially what they are doing. Allies of Israel claim it's not but look at what's happening. It sure is. You are killing everyone there which amounts to killing all Palestinians, Hamas or not. It is every bit as tragic as Hamas killing innocents because Israel is knowingly killing innocents as well. You just can't say well we want to kill Hamas so it makes killing innocent people OK. It's not. It's never OK. EVER. To do it accidentally or because there's no way around it is different than simply dropping bombs to wipe out as many as you can at once. You really think this is about Hamas? It's about wiping the Palestinian people off the face of the earth. It's sick. As sick as Hamas.
Your point seems to be that Israel defending itself is sick.
The point is that war crimes are sick, even when Israel is the perpetrator.
The point seems to be that anything Israel does to defend itself is a “war crime.”
So Israel is allowed to do anything it wants in defense of it's security? I'm sure you'd be applauding if Israel nuked Gaza, which is what they seem to be doing in small doses. It's like you and the pro-Israel people have blinders one. Nothing Israel does is wrong. God's chosen people are infallible. Everything they do is justified, including killing and stealing land from West Bank Palestinians. Israel's murder of 13,000 Palestinians is viewed as negligible and inconsequential compared to Hamas' murder of 1,400 Israelis.
+1. Israel suffered a terrorist attack. It was brutal and very sad, and I am so sorry for the families and people affected. Obviously they didn’t deserve what happened to them.
That said, the Israeli government’s plan to essentially carpet-bomb Gaza and withhold basic supplies like food, water, and power from the entire strip, is a war crime against the civilian population. They and everyone else know that this plan is going to indiscriminately kill Palestinian civilians (who are not Hamas). And their warnings to civilians to evacuate the northern part of the strip are pretty hollow. There are civilians there who cannot evacuate, as the UN pointed out. And there’s nowhere to go. They’re still bombing the southern part.
War crimes aren’t permissible just because it’s “self-defense” and it’s totally disingenuous to say that it’s antisemitic to point that out. Israel doesn’t get a pass on that because they suffered a terrorist attack.
They are not "carpet bombing" Gaza. And, they are not committing "war crimes."
Once again, there is a rule in International Rules of War called "proportionality.:
"The principle of proportionality prohibits attacks against military objectives which are “expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”.
Civilians will die during wars. That is a fact that is true with all wars.
Israel's purpose in waging this war was a direct response to the attack it suffered (in which war crimes were committed) and is an effort to allow their citizens to exist. The goal of Hamas is to wipe Jews off the map. They have the backing of Iran, that has stated the same goal.
So, the military advantage Israel is seeking is to allow their nation to exist.
I'm the PP you're responding to. You and I have a fundamental disagreement on what is happening as reported by mainstream media news sources (Washington Post, NYT, BBC, CNN, etc.), then. It's an undisputed fact that the IDF is bombing northern Gaza, including residential buildings, medical facilities, and schools. It's not "incidental loss", it's literally their declared strategy. The IDF is also bombing locations in southern Gaza, which is where they know civilians who evacuated the north have amassed.
Of course civilians die during war. But Israel is bombing a tiny, enclosed strip, which is populated by two million civilians who have no way out of the area. It is tragic and heartbreaking that 1,500 Israeli citizens were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists. But indiscriminately bombing Gaza is not a proportional response. Also, in my view, this is not a war in which the basic existence of the Israeli state is at risk, such that under your "proportionality" argument the starvation and bombing of a large civilian population (who cannot leave) is justified. I agree that Hamas is a terrorist organization whose stated goal is eradicating Israel, but realistically they are not going to be able to do that. Hamas committed a brutal terrorist attack on innocent Israelis, which is horrific and unjustified, but it isn't about to collapse the Israeli state. Of course Israel (and any country) has the right to defend itself after an attack, proportionally and within the boundaries of the Geneva Conventions and laws of war. Those laws are quite literally what separate civilized societies from brutal terrorists.
You also did not address my comment that Israel is blocking water, food, power, and all humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza. There are aid convoys waiting at the Egyptian border that cannot get through because the IDF is bombing the border facility at Rafah. Collective punishment of civilians is a war crime - possibly the quintessential war crime (see the Geneva Conventions if you're unclear on that). And it will not help Israel or bring justice to the Israeli victims. It's just more violence and death and brutality.
Forum Index
»
Political Discussion
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}