Yes. But it is objective reality.
And the rest of the world would be doing the Palestinians an enormous favor of they told them that in no uncertain terms.
Genocide?
My bad, I confused you with a serious person for a minute.
That's fine. Maybe if we ask Hamas to be nice and come out, they'll stop using all those people as a human shield.
Go lecture them. You're very persuasive.
It matters because Palestinians have zero leverage. Their choice is either make peace and build a future, or keep fighting a losing battle, and ensure that their children never have a chance.
Israel can wait.
Israel is thriving.
If they are truly so cut off from water that someone dies of thirst, you'll definitely have a good point. But if this is a short term tactic that gives them a tactical edge over Hamas, that's a different story.
Again, you're pretending that INTENTION doesn't matter. That collateral damage is morally equivalent to a targeted killing.
I just 100 percent disagree.
KILLING civilians happens in every war, no matter how just.
The issue is who is being TARGETED.
Hamas targets civilians. Israel targets Hamas.
Hamas hides among civilians, to use them as human shields.
So when Israel targets Hamas, of course civilians are going to die. That's on Hamas's hands as well.
If each faction had the ability to only kill exactly who they wanted, Israel would be killing only militants, and Hamas would still be killing children.
Congratulations, you've just discovered how national sovereignty works, and how it's always worked.
It IS fucked up. It's also true.
Palestinian refugees have been involved in political violence or rebellion many places, and that's why you don't see them opening their doors anymore. Here's a couple:
Jordan:
- In 1970, during a period known as Black September, King Hussein of Jordan moved to suppress the autonomy of Palestinian organizations, particularly the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in an effort to restore his monarchy's rule over the country. This led to armed conflict which lasted until July 1971, resulting in the expulsion of the PLO and thousands of Palestinian fighters to Lebanon. The violence during this period resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, the vast majority of whom were Palestinians ➊.
Lebanon:
- After being expelled from Jordan, the PLO resettled in Lebanon and began to extend de facto autonomous rule from there, staging raids into Israel. The presence and activities of the PLO were major factors for the sectarian destabilization of Lebanon, contributing to the eruption of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. This continued with various conflicts and Israeli interventions in Lebanon until the PLO agreed to withdraw in 1982 following an Israeli invasion ➋.
Hamas's well-documented use of its own civilians as human shields, as well as its use of mosques, hospitals, schools and private homes as weapons storage facilities and firing platforms, violates international humanitarian law.
From your own link:
Here we go again with the “double standard” for Israel, said The Jerusalem Post. The soldiers’ testimony—none of which has been confirmed—cited only two “egregious cases,” and neither was a war crime. In one, a sharpshooter killed a woman and her two children in what everyone agrees was a tragic mistake—it merited discussion only because one soldier believed the shooter hadn’t felt “too bad about it.” In the other, an elderly woman was shot as she approached an army position—most likely because she was wrongly suspected of being a suicide bomber. Such incidents are highly regrettable, but they are aberrant: The IDF tries to target only militants. Hamas, by contrast, plants bombs in crowded buses and shopping malls; a large car bomb was discovered at a mall in Haifa just last weekend, and it was mere luck that it malfunctioned and failed to go off. The difference between Israel and its enemies is undeniable: “We don’t set out to kill innocents, and if we do, our society feels anguish. They set out to kill civilians, and when they fail, they’re disappointed.”
I question them all the time. Never seen a shred of evidence that Israel targets civilians.
And the distinction between that and collateral damage is one of intent, which is absolutely key in determining moral and practical culpability.
Hamas won 74 out of 132 seats. They did it with 44 percent of the vote. Not sure how that worked.
Anyway, you're kind of right, kind of wrong.
Yes. Largely it is the Palestinian conflict that muddied the waters here to begin with.
After 9/11 the world was united in a war on terror, defined as I just defined it. It was in direct response to the evil of killing innocent civilians in that awful day.
And for a while it looks like the entire tactic of terrorism was going to be stamped out. Even the Irish Republican Army vowed to stop using it as a tactic.
But then people looked at the Israel conflict, and their hatred of Israel did not compute with this new war on terrorism, where the Palestinians were clearly the only ones deliberately targeting civilians.
So the anti-Israel people started muddying the waters by throwing around the term "state terrorism" which meant... Whatever they wanted it to mean.. Building a fence. Bulldozing a house. Collateral damage while killing a terrorist. Whatever.
And that's where we are today... Where the anti-Israel people are very happy to muddy the waters to the point where terrorism no longer has a meaning for them. That way they don't have to remember that the Palestinians are the only ones with a policy of deliberately targeting civilians.
Hamas are terrorists because the target civilians for death.
Netanyahu is a corrupt right-wing asshole, but he doesn't target innocent civilians for death.
If you broaden the word "terrorist" to apply to anyone you don't like for any reason, the word ceases to have any meaning or weight.
And that gives cover to ACTUAL terrorists.
Or, just use your brain.
Yeah. I wish their parents loved them more than they hate Israel.
That's an excellent criticism ... of Hamas.
If they can't operate without endangering their own civilians by pure proximity, then... don't?
I don't dispute your numbers. But Israel has been in a non-stop battle against terrorists who use their own people as human shields. So I put the civilian death toll squarely where it belongs: at the feet of the terrorists.
I've seen ZERO evidence that Israel has ever as a matter of policy targeted innocent civilians. In the contrary, I've seen Israel go out of it's way to send text messages to civilians to give them time to evacuate. I've seen they drop lead weights on rooftops as a warning to the people inside you get out before actual missiles come.
I've never heard of any other nation doing that. Never. They are knowingly letting terrorists escape because it spares civilian lives.
Yes, I really, truly believe that if my choice was smaller country, with sovereignty, vs an unwinnable war with an overpowering force, I would ABSOLUTELY make peace so that my kid could grow up in a world with a chance of prospering.
It's not even a hard decision.