Really, objectively, I am wondering what on Earth any country X would do faced with a statement from an enemy Y as in :-
The complete and utter destruction of X as an essential condition for the liberation of Y and the establishment of a religious state based on [ Y's religious theocratic laws ]
Any form of coexistence is clearly not on the table. For the context please read the link in the Atlantic article.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up...
Giving concessions to the population and offering them an equitable stake in society would go a long way to dissipating support for armed resistance.
It's not a conflict on the same scale but you can look to the resolution of conflict in Northern Ireland for parallels. Denying people their basic chances in life and doing so with the threat of violence it's never going to win people to your side.
At some point you either have to talk to them or kill them all. The situation now is only creating martyrs and enough trauma to fuel the next generation of the cycle.
This feels a lot like the American reaction after 9/11 where a great crime was committed but less violent options were rejected by hardliners who wanted to overcompensate for having missed the threat after having made “we will protect you” a major campaign point, and likely also seeing an opportunity for something they could not do following the normal political process. In this case it seems all the more tragic because there’s no natural separation due to distance, and it’s hard to see this not resulting in more tragedies for decades with so much fresh blood to avenge.
According to international observers the elections in Gaza that Hamas won in 2007 were democratic and fair:
The National Democratic Institute (NDI) in partnership with The Carter Center reported "a professional and impartial performance of election officials".[33] The European Union delegation reported "there was nothing which would indicate that the final result was not the outcome chosen by the voters".[34] A CRS Report for Congress on the 2006 elections concluded: "The election was overseen by 17,268 domestic observers, complemented by 900 credentialed international monitors. ... The Bush Administration accepted the outcome of the Palestinian legislative elections and praised the PA for holding free and fair elections. ... The conduct of the election was widely considered to be free and fair."[45]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
Indeed, the entity that did its best to obstruct the democratic protest was Israel:
In the lead-up to the elections, on 26 September 2005 Israel launched a campaign of arrests against PLC members. 450 members of Hamas were detained, mostly those involved in the 2006 PLC elections. The majority of them were kept in administrative detention for different periods.[23] In the election period, 15 PLC members were captured and held as prisoners.[24]
During the elections, the Israeli authorities banned the candidates from holding election campaigns inside Jerusalem. Rallies and public meetings were prohibited. The Jerusalem identity cards of some PLC members were also revoked.[25] The Carter Center, which monitored the elections, criticised the detentions of persons who "are guilty of nothing more than winning a parliamentary seat in an open and honest election".[26]
Israeli obstruction during the election resulted in estimated 123,000 voters in East Jerusalem being prevented from registering until ten days before the elections, creating a number of logistical problems shortly before the election day. The checkpoints of Israel also continued to pose serious obstacles to all Palestiniain parties during the electoral campaign as well as on voting day itself. It was also noted that Palestinian refugees in exile and 9,000 prisoners remained ineligible to vote.[27]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
The only problem with the elections was that the Palestinians elected the wrong party. The US, that great champion of liberal democracy around the world, did its utmost best to correct the result: they sponsored, armed and trained a Fatah faction to stage a coup; which backfired and left Hamas in control of Gaza.
The report said that instead of driving its enemies out of power, the US-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. David Wurmser, who resigned as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief Middle East adviser a month after the Hamas takeover, said he believed that Hamas had no intention of taking over the Gaza Strip until Fatah forced its hand. "It looks to me that what happened wasn't so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was preempted before it could happen," he was quoted as saying. Wurmser said that the Bush administration engaged in a "dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] with victory." Wurmser said he was especially galled by the Bush administration's hypocrisy. "There is a stunning disconnect between the president's call for Middle East democracy and this policy," he said. "It directly contradicts it.".[69]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...
Also:
1. Most of the current population wasn't born then.
2. Voting for the political wing of a violent group isn't the same as supporting violence. Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, are the biggest party in Northern Ireland almost 30 years since the cease fire.
They elected Hamas
Hamas won a narrow plurality in the 2006 legislative elections. That government dissolved entirely in 2007 after a military conflict between Hamas and Fatah.
So since 2007, Hamas has not been "elected". In any case it's main function since then has been as an instrument of Israeli policy. In Bibi's own words, just a few years ago: "Anyone who wants to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state needs to support strengthening Hamas."
So if you are unhappy with Hamas still being around, you know who to direct your concerns at.
‘Buying Quiet’: Inside the Israeli Plan That Propped Up Hamas
As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-q...
What a guy, that Bibi. He's so cute and smart, you just want to pinch his cheek and ruffle his hair. He funded Hamas to encourage them to fight the PA so they would not work together to create a Palestinian state. What an amazingly bright plan! Sending millions to Hamas? I mean what could ever possibly go wrong?
But hopefully more bombing will fix this soon! Insallah!?
Um, not really. Hamas did. And their radical brethren who assassinated Yitzhak.
It did end up extremely bad for everyone involved.
(I don't want to downplay the anti-Oslo sentiment [0], especially that Oslo I-II got signed despite the attacks previously.
Also it's hard to say how well the PLO represented the people, but it's sure that they were more accepted than Hamas. After all Arafat got elected in 1996 despite participating in the peace process.
It seems fairly clear that the peace process was a very unfortunate Schelling point for extremists on both sides, and their tireless cooperation successfully pushed the region away from peace and prosperity.
And, it's also important to note that it's perfectly possible that Arafat was simply deceitful, and the PLO wanted to get some breathing space to gather an army, blablabla. Sure. And that would/could have lead to ... exactly here anyway. Or maybe it would be even worse! Those are all legitimate concerns that have to be addressed, but very few things can simply make the basic issues irrelevant, and as long as people are there they will inevitably bear the burden of living with those unaddressed issues.)
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_views_on_the_pea...
Israel should make peace with the Palestinians. It is only Israel that can decide to have peace, because it is the overwhelmingly more powerful side, militarily and in every other way, and even if Hamas put down its weapons and surrendered, there would be no peace if Israel did not agree to it.
And just to be sure this is well understood: Israel does not want peace. Israel has maintained its brutal occupation of the Palestinian territories for years well before Hamas, it has broken ceasefires left and right for years, it has continued to massacre the Palestinians every chance it gets, it has continued to settle more and more of the lands where the Palestinians live, and even when the top leadership of Hamas proposed a long-lasting truce, Israel responded by assassinating them, just in case anyone took them to their word:
According to Tristan Dunning, Israel has never responded to repeated offers by Hamas over subsequent years for a quid pro quo moratorium on attacks against civilians.[176] It has engaged in several tadi'a (periods of calm), and proposed a number of ceasefires.[176] In January 2004, Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin, prior to his assassination, said that the group would end armed resistance against Israel for a 10-year hudna[k] in exchange for a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, and that restoring Palestinians' "historical rights" (relating to the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight) "would be left for future generations". His views were quickly echoed by senior Hamas official Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, who added that Hamas envisaged a "phased liberation".[178] Israel's response was to assassinate Yassin in March in a targeted Israeli air strike, and then al-Rantisi in a similar air strike in April.[179]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Second_Intifada
And let's not forget that the current leadership of Israel has made it exceedingly clear that it is hell-bent against any ideas of a "two state" solution, that it has complete disrespect for any UN resolutions trying to establish any kind of solution that involves Palestinian independence, and has of course worked hard to reduce the Oslo accords to a farce.
Meanwhile: if we're talking about peace in the context of what happened after October 7, there's no country in the world that would have failed to respond militarily to an attack like that, which was the point of the attack in the first place. Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled.
The Israel/Palestine situation is widely considered one of the more complicated geopolitical crises, and for good reason. If you think you have a simple summary of it, like "Israel does not want peace", you're probably glossing over a lot of stuff.
Israel’s military is now launching targeted strikes in eastern Rafah, Reuters and AP reported citing a statement. Israel says it is striking Hamas targets in the region. But more than 1 million displaced Palestinian people have sought refuge in Rafah amid Israel’s attacks in Gaza, the Washington Post reported.
Hamas says it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari ceasefire proposal to halt the seven-month war with Israel. It issued a statement on Monday saying its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar’s prime minister and Egypt’s intelligence minister.
An IDF spokesperson said Israel will continue to act in a “operational manner” in Gaza despite Hamas announcing that it accepted a Gaza ceasefire deal on Monday. Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israel is going to continue to act in an operational manner, saying earlier that Israel has a right to defend itself.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/may/06/israel-ga...
Israel does not want peace and there is nothing simplistic in that observation.
I don't think you're going to find many people to take the other side of your "Netanyahu is a monster" argument. The IDF has crushed Hamas militarily. There was no reason for Netanyahu not to accept a ceasefire on any terms that gave hostages back. This is why the streets in Israel are full of gigantic demonstrations about the return of the hostages.
Yes, what may not be clear is that those people are demonstrating for the return of the hostages, not the end of the massacre of the Palestinians. They couldn't care less about the Palestinians. As I point out in another comment there is widespread support among the Israeli public for the war and near zero concern about what it will do to Palestinian civilians, including children.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/6/text-of-the-ceasefir...
I don’t think Netanyahu on his own is able to reject this deal and invade Rafah. Especially with protests in both Israel as well as the USA, and with USA having set a red line here.
No, I think it is wildly simplistic to blame this on him, and there is a deep understanding inside the entire Israeli leadership that the genocide continues, no matter the cost. The Israeli public may not agree with it, however from what I see in the protests, there is very little talk—if any—of the lives of Palestinians. So it doesn’t really seem that Palestinian lives matter as much as the hostages for the Israeli public at large.
If e.g. Benny Gantz were to become the Prime Minister, there is little evidence he would behave any differently, this is for example how he is reacting to Hamas’ accepting of the ceasefire deal:
> “Every decision will be brought before the war cabinet—there will be no political considerations”
> “The military action in Rafah is also an inseparable part of our continued efforts and commitment to return our hostages and change the security reality in the south.”
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/389518
There are not many—if any—political regimes plausible in Israel at the moment who do not take a very hawkish and a criminal approach in denying Palestinians their states. The political reality is that without an intifada, there will be no political avenue for Palestine to gain their freedom from oppression.
It may be "widely believed" but that doesn't make it true. It's highly unlikely that Netanyahu would end up in prison. The only case with a real threat of prison (case 4000) has been collapsing steadily since the start, with dismal prosecution witnesses, and judges were pushing the prosecution team for a plea bargain [1] due to the low chances of successful conviction.
It's also clear that the court proceedings would last until the end of the decade, so extending the war by months wouldn't buy him much time. Not to mention that the war cabinet is a unity wartime cabinet that is made up of the main centrist leaders too.
The idea that Netanyahu's war strategy is based on him clinging to power is lazy thinking that keeps on getting trotted out in order to bolster the argument that the war is unjust. In fact, the Israeli public are clearly behind the war aim of dismantling Hamas, the only significant split in public opinion is whether to risk a hostage deal that may not result in many living hostages released in practice and will only encourage further hostage taking by terrorists in the future.
Only ben-Gvir can be accused of having neo-Kahanist tendencies, the rest are "merely" right wing. And forming a coalition with a large parliamentary majority after an election is hardly a "parliamentary manoeuvre", it's democracy and all too predictable after multiple elections and failure for 5 years for centrist coalition to stick together.
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/prosecution-rejects-retreat-fr...
The rest of your comment is predicated on the fact that Hamas is a spent force which is nonsense. If there was a ceasefire today it's clear Hamas will regroup and reestablish. Most media sources claim 4 of their battalions are almost fully intact in Rafah.
The war aim, supported by vast majority of Israelis, is that Hamas is no longer a fighting force and will never threaten Israel again. Yes, there may be new terrorist groups that pop up, but the essential deterrent - that Israel is capable and will fully dismantle any good group that wars against it - will be reestablished. (Plus Israel has learnt a lot of lessons about how to ensure Hamas 2.0 is less of threat, including a renewed focus on insisting to the world for a Marshall-plan-style deradicalization, and the realisation that there are no bounds to what terrorists will do even if you ply them with cash and improve work opportunities for Gazans as Netanyahu and many previous governments did prior to Oct 7).
This war involves the most difficult urban warfare the world has ever seen - it's Mosul or Raqah combined with Vietnam, with extensive extensive secret tunnels and the use of civilian infrastructure to wage war. The civilian casualties and destruction where inevitable and the "collective punishment" argument simply does not stack up in this war.
Though that certain other major cabinet figure you're not mentioning (Smotrich) avoids the explicit affiliation and more obvious rhetoric -- his actions clearly resonate with the Kahanist agenda.
Other coalition members seem to be "out there" on the Kahanist spectrum. Meet Orik Strook (aka Minister of Settlements and National Missions), for example:
In 2007, Strook's son Zvi was convicted of abusing a Palestinian boy and killing a young goat, and spent thirty months in an Israeli prison as a result. In response to the ruling, Strook stated that, "Unlike the Court, who preferred to believe the Arab witnesses, we are sure of Zvi's innocence, and are hurting from the success of his haters and would assist him to deal with the difficult sentence imposed on him".
You've also got Zvi Sukkot:
In 2012, [Sukkot] was expelled from the West Bank under suspicion that he was part of a group of 12 that had planned and carried out violent attacks against Palestinians and their property. ... On 6 July 2017, he was arrested on suspicion of engaging in "price tagging". ... At the onset of the Huwara rampage, Sukkot tweeted that "Huwara's killers' nest needs to be taken care of", and posted a picture of himself among a group of settlers gathering at Tapuach Junction, to the immediate south of Huwara.
Finally, it's important to note that the vast majority of the folks who helped the Nazis do their dirty work throughout Europe were not members of their local Nazi parties (or if so, only on paper and sometimes under duress). By and large, they were "merely" right-wing or apolitical.
Looks like a duck, talks like a duck ...
For example, I cannot find any information about Ismail Haniyeh having left for Qater with his merry band of revelers because of Sinwar. The scant information we have about the support of Hamas among Palestinians suggests that Hamas is popular enough among Palestinians in Gaza, and certainly in the West Bank, that if there was another election they would easily win it [1].
The same goes for the Israeli government. Certainly everyone agrees that Bibi is doing everything he can to prolong the war to save his ass, but at the same time his government coalition enjoys the support of a majority of the Israeli voters, whom, after all, it represents [2] [3]. And a majority of Israeli civilians support the "war" [4]. Scare quotes because that's not a war but an unhindered massacre of a defenseless civilian population.
>> Sinwar expected Iran to go all-in on a final war that would wipe Israel off the map; instead, Hezbollah stayed home, and the whole plan fizzled.
There is absolutely no reason to assume any of that is true. We do not know what were the strategic goals that Hamas had in invading Israel. They have given some reasons but they're not exactly a trustworthy source so the best thing to do is to avoid launching into wild speculation.
_______________
[1] Palestinian poll shows a rise in Hamas support and close to 90% wanting US-backed Abbas to resign
Overall, 88% want Abbas to resign, up by 10 percentage points from three months ago. In the West Bank, 92% called for the resignation of the octogenarian who has presided over an administration widely seen as corrupt, autocratic and ineffective.
At the same time, 44% in the West Bank said they supported Hamas, up from just 12% in September. In Gaza, the militants enjoyed 42% support, up slightly from 38% three months ago.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-palestinians-opinion...
[2] The Israeli public has embraced the Smotrich doctrine
The terrifying Smotrichization of the Israeli public is embodied in the total willingness to sacrifice the lives of every last Palestinian in Gaza for the ultimate victory that the far-right minister promised in his plan. It is the terrifying indifference to the astronomical number of dead children, and the complete internalization of the idea that any thought of struggle and freedom on the other side of the fence must be extinguished, no matter the human cost.
https://www.972mag.com/smotrich-decisive-plan-israeli-public...
[3] How Israeli youth helped usher in the farthest right-wing government ever
Recent polling backs that surprising observation: A joint poll published by the Israel Democracy Institute last month found that 73 percent of Jewish Israelis between ages 18 and 24 identify as right-wing, compared with only 46 percent of Jewish Israelis over 65. Young Jewish Israelis are showing up to rallies and polling stations for the extremist politicians whose November electoral victory ushered in Israel’s farthest right-wing government ever.
https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/2/23/23609584/israel...
[4] As trauma of October 7 massacres endures, Israeli support for Gaza war remains high
https://www.timesofisrael.com/as-trauma-of-october-7-massacr...
The Israeli government is currently at ~30 killed Palestinians for each 1 killed Israeli.
Presumably, whatever anyone's opinion, there's some ratio that is unjust. Or is killing every Palestinian in Gaza just?
Last I checked, Exodus' Covenant Code [0] was also pretty clear on this, and it didn't include any multiple.
>> Anyone who strikes a person with a fatal blow is to be put to death. However, if it is not done intentionally, but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place I will designate. But if anyone schemes and kills someone deliberately, that person is to be taken from my altar and put to death.
I'm not aware of any such ratio used by the IDF. I've recently heard an Israeli government spokesperson say that the IDF has killed 13,000 Hamas including "civilian combatants". My guess would be that the IDF uses a very loose definition of whom they define as a combatant (note that the US for example has never used the term "civilian combatant" as that mixes the two groups: if they're a combatant they're not civilian and vice versa). Given that Israel also does not seem to acknowledge the 30,000+ lower bound on total deaths from IDF attacks in Gaza, it's entirely possible that Israel's ratio could be as low as 2 civilians per combatant in aggregate. But it's worth noting that this would still be much higher than anything used by any "Western" military even the US in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Given the rhetoric of Israeli government spokespersons, officials, politicians and other talking heads, I think it's more likely that the IDF effectively has no limits on how many Palestinian civilian casualties are acceptable per target. Former IDF soldiers have mentioned eliminationist rhetoric like "the terrorists who did Oct 7 are the kids we spared" or "anyone who hasn't left after the evacuation order should be assumed to be Hamas". This doesn't inspire confidence.
The IDF has a robust decision making process, in excess of a single “ratio” approach. Here is an article that talks about an aspect of this:
http://law-disrupted.fm/idf-lawyer-advises-war-gaza-military...
>> They also discuss the three cardinal principles of targeting: distinction (which prohibits intentionally targeting civilians or civilian objects), precautions (which requires taking all feasible measures to mitigate civilian harm), and proportionality (which for each individual attack requires balancing the anticipated military advantage against the expected civilian harm) and the rules, procedures, and policies the IDF has in place to follow these principles in every attack.
> Given that Israel also does not seem to acknowledge the 30,000+ lower bound on total deaths from IDF attacks in Gaza, it's entirely possible that Israel's ratio could be as low as 2 civilians per combatant in aggregate. But it’s worth noting that this would still be much higher than anything used by any “Western” military
The most comparable recent US engagement was destroying ISIS in Mosul. The US had a 2.5:1 civilian combatant casualty ratio. Source: https://twitter.com/SpencerGuard/status/1786612914117349769#
My point wasn't that the US is better. My point was that there were widespread protests opposing the US's "collateral damage" in their wars after 9/11 and Israel is doing worse.
The number you're citing is also the effective ratio based on the reported deaths, not an official or leaked guideline and this wasn't "the US" but "the US-led Iraqi Security Forces" (not a Western military, even if it is in practice US-led). The tweet you cite also references a Pacific battle between the US and Japan in WW2 (when the US infamously dehumanized the Japanese to an uncomfortable degree - surely the nuclear bombs trump that battle in terms of civilian casualties) and a battle that was part of the "Korean War" which in retrospect has become infamous for its war crimes, mostly committed by the US.
These are battles of infamy. You don't get a medal for being better than that, those are the table stakes if you want to shout about being the "most humane military".
Also, the reason I called 30,000+ the "lower bound" is because the process used by the "Hamas-run health ministry" is extremely conservative (it's not just a tally - the "fake deaths at hospital parking lot" story everyone ran with was a translation error into English that conflated "injured" and "deceased") and seems to have broken down earlier this year along with the remaining infrastructure in Gaza.
> The IDF has a robust decision making process, in excess of a single “ratio” approach.
That's a no then unless you think other militaries don't have decision making processes.
I'm not going to engage with you further as we seem to have either fundamentally opposed value systems or fundamentally opposed perceptions of reality.
Getting the last say in an argument by fiat isn't healthy.
Don't want others opinions? Don't offer your own.
The soldiers were told they were fighting "human animals", and acted accordingly.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/defense-ministe...
Most of them are illegal combatants and none of the Geneva Conventions should apply to them.
Also, there is documented evidence that even their "civilian civilians" participated in atrocities, not to mention that a significant portion of them elected and supported terrorist "government".
I'm guessing that the so-called "civilian combatants" in these reports are people who are on the payroll of a terrorist organization, such as police officers, security guards, tunnel builders, etc. - anyone who helps/supports the terrorist "government", but may not be 100% militants by themselves. I.e. like the difference between a regular support soldier and a special forces.
Indeed the Geneva Convention doesn't apply which means lots of things are on the table that otherwise wouldn't be. This is how the British state forces were able to use chemical weapons against the civilian population in Northern Ireland.
I'm guessing these Catholics from Northern Ireland were British citizens, right?
This is something between separatism and civil war (although much closer to the former than the latter).
A better analogy would be if the Republic of Ireland settled its citizens there en masse and provided them with weapons, similarly to what Egypt did when they controlled Gaza.
A significant portion of Gaza's population today is descended from Egypt, they even speak with the Egyptian accent.
And majority of the advanced weapons were smuggled via Egypt.
But I would say two things: First, not only Catholics were targeted during the Troubles. If tear gas is used to dispel a riot then it not only those involved on both sides but also anyone down wind from it. My mother lost her eyesight from tear gas related injuries because she had to walk past a flash point daily on her return from work.
Secondly, while citizens of Northern Ireland are British by birth they were also entitled by birth to Irish citizenship after 1956.
I think if we want to make comparisons, an important difference is that Gaza has been existing in a limbo where Israel insists it's a sovereign territory because Israel withdrew from it but also insists it's part of Israel because they want to control its borders and what goes in and comes out of it.
Also, in addition to everything that happens in Gaza, Palestinian Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank have also been targeted by Israel despite Hamas being largely confined to Gaza.
no need to point obvious things
> not only Catholics were targeted
In case everyone were targets, and not just separatists - then it's closer to civil war. It only shows how cruel Brittish were (or still are), and all the double standards with regards to Israel.
> while citizens of Northern Ireland are British by birth they were also entitled by birth to Irish citizenship after 1956.
Granting citizenship to people in breakaway separatists regions is the strategy employed by Putin. Russia first grant them citizenship, and then uses this as a pretext for military invasion in order to protect their newly acquired "citizens".
Obviosly, Republic of Ireland doesn't employ this tactic, but granting citizenship to foreign people in confict areas is still problematic.
The Geneva Convention is (currently) humanity's best attempt at codifying ethical aspects of war. Unfortunately, it is not some lofty goal to aspire to. Oh no. It is the result of discussion and compromise. In other words, it literally is the lowest possible ethical standard we agreed to hold each other to. We should strive to do better, not worse.
Therefore: all of the Geneva Convention applies, always, to everyone.
Taking your line of thought to the ad absurdum will result in: "No one should ever be punished nevermind atrocities they have committed."
The Convention clearly states to whom it applies:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Conventions#Application
So-called "international law" is not really a law, but only a set of political treaties. In addition, the jihadists and other bad actors do not recognize it.
Japan killed 2403 Americans at Pearl Harbor, to which the US retaliated by killing over 2 million Japanese, with more than 100 thousands in a single day.
So don't tell me about "conventions" that apply to some and don't apply to others. It's not some Law of Physics. It's a man-made stuff, invented by corrupt politicians.
If the international treaties do not work - they shouldn't be treated as written in stone - instead they should be changed and adapted to the realities of the modern assymetric wars. And also everyone should be treated the same - no double standards, otherwise nobody should recognize them.
We program the world through incentives, positive and negative. Malicious agents must be disintensivized/punished, and if that doesn't work - destroyed.
Except it only applies in certain circumstances, and doesn't apply in the current conflict.
15:1 for low-ranking Hamas militants
Elsewhere reported to be 100:1 for high-ranking Hamas targets
>> Several of the sources described how, for certain categories of targets, the IDF applied pre-authorised allowances for the estimated number of civilians who could be killed before a strike was authorised.
>> Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants.
If Israel could neutralise Hamas and retrieve the hostages with zero casualties, they would do it. That's obviously impossible.
Presumably we all agree that's unacceptable.
So somewhere between "zero collateral civilian casualties" and "all collateral civilizian casualties" is warranted.
Which leads to a debate about where the line should be.
And to the IDF's credit, as much as I have issue with their absent strategic goals and tactical choices, they are fighting a guerrilla insurgence in one of the most density populated areas in the world.
So, it could have been worse? But it still isn't great.
Israel has been caught multiple times willfully killing civilians in this conflict, and there are hundreds of statements by politicians, officers and soldiers calling for atrocities or even genocide. Israel is not a moral actor, and far more comparable to Hamas than any real democracy.