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[burningpet]

Again, what does israel suppose to do? just let them fire anti tank missiles from mosques? dig offensive tunnels from hospitals? shoot rockets from schools? evidently, the world doesn't care if they do, so what should we do?

[GavJ]

Except this resolution deals mainly about forming an international inquiry committee to investigate "israel war crimes" without investigating hamas war crimes, basically, it will completely disregard the israeli necessity to reluctantly hurt civilian population due to hamas war crimes.

1) The difference for the UN is that there just isn't very much to investigate for Hamas. They are basically more straightforward about their war crimes versus trying to act all innocent about it. Of course investigation focuses on Israel, because they're the one of the two that makes sense to require more investigation. You should actually be pleased about this - They're giving Israel slightly more benefit of the doubt in terms of the extent of their crimes, whereas for Hamas they are just skipping straight toward being committed to stopping them without launching any more investigations first.

2) As Frumple said, no. There is no justification of killing civilians. This is your logical flaw. That is never "necessary," and doing so--especially on a scale dozens or hundreds of times greater than your enemy--makes you evil as well and undermines any righteousness you may or may not have started out with.

[Frumple]

Again, what does israel suppose to do? just let them fire anti tank missiles from mosques? dig offensive tunnels from hospitals? shoot rockets from schools? evidently, the world doesn't care if they do, so what should we do?

Find a way to deal with it that doesn't involve destroyed civil infrastructure and a multiplicative body count, maybe. There's a means somewhere between gunning down fleeing children and destroying vital infrastructure, and just sitting on your thumbs.

That said, the world does care -- folks have been condemning hamas and other terrorist groups pretty much the entire bloody time. That's not going to excuse israel when they're acting on the same level.

[GavJ]

Again, what does israel suppose to do? just let them fire anti tank missiles from mosques?

Anti tank missiles are defensive weapons by nature. As the name implies, they are used against tanks, which means if they're using them on you, you usually probably have a tank in the vicinity. Thus, if you don't want them to use anti-tank missiles, then what you should do is not put unnecessary tanks in their cities, maybe? This example is absurd.

dig offensive tunnels from hospitals?

* Defend areas where tunnels might reach and train defenders on what to expect from tunnel entry.
* Pay spies to inform on locations of tunnels to predict and find them earlier
* Employ whatever technology is available to help search them out.
* Potentially send in small raids on suspected tunnel entry sites to sabotage the tunnel WITHOUT destroying the entire hospital they originate in.
* Blow up areas in between the hospital and the suspected exit points of the tunnels, thus collapsing the tunnels. Areas where there aren't civilians or needed medical service capabilities. After all, destroying the middle of a tunnel is equally as effective at stopping people going through it for a time as destroying the beginning of the tunnel is...

shoot rockets from schools?

IF those specific rocket sites are killing as many or more of your civilians as blowing up the school would kill, then you might be justified in bombing it, yes. Because in that case, doing so would be saving civilian lives overall. That's what people are referring to when they mention "proportional response," a concept that seems lost on Israel.

IF however, the rockets aren't very effective, and are estimated to kill on average like 0.1 people or something from that specific site over the next month (which is about the reality of it), then you aren't justified in any sort of overwhelming force in my opinion that wipes out 50 civilians too, because if you did, you'd be massively increasing the overall amount of civilian death, which is unconscionable. If you want, you can attempt to send in helicopter raids or something that will target only the rockets and rocketeers, but that's a tactical decision that may or may not make sense based on their AA capabilities, etc.

[palsch]

Anti tank missiles are defensive weapons by nature. As the name implies, they are used against tanks, which means if they're using them on you, you usually probably have a tank in the vicinity. Thus, if you don't want them to use anti-tank missiles, then what you should do is not put unnecessary tanks in their cities, maybe? This example is absurd.

Anti-tank missiles are missiles, and can be used as offensive weapons as easily as they can be used to defend against tanks. They have been used both in border crossings by Hamas militants and against infantry forces and positions. From that article;

"The demonstrated use of anti-tank guided missiles against small IDF units on foot, rather than against armored vehicles, shows a clear intent to simply inflict casualties and a recognition of the (Israeli army's) superior armor defense," said Charles Lister, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Center in Doha told Reuters.

Scrolling through Lister's Twitter is like an encyclopaedia of which heavy weapons various Islamist groups have.

Searching through this article for "anti-tank" or "antitank" I find four instances, two of vehicles being hit and two of infantry positions.


The tunnel thing... you are basically calling for Israel to have a multi-mile buffer zone around their border under constant watch for tunnels, with response forces and various technologies constantly deployed. I can't imagine such a system that would prevent casualties, and any casualties would make such a scheme politically unacceptable within Israel. It's sitting back and waiting to get hit. I can't imagine the population agreeing to that.

A pro-active approach within Gaza (bribing and local strikes) could work, but is unlikely while Hamas are in control. It would require a local government both accepting of such police actions and not controlling and using the tunnel networks to their own ends.

Blowing up the tunnel away from the end points seems unlikely. Even if it could be detected reliably, the article I linked earlier today suggests some tunnels are up to 25m down. The only weapons I can think of sure to hit such targets are bunker busters such as the GBU-28, of which Israel has a very limited supply from the US (their sale has been blocked several times lately). Using them on uncertain targets would very likely be a waste of extremely expensive munitions.

IF those specific rocket sites are killing as many or more of your civilians as blowing up the school would kill, then you might be justified in bombing it, yes. Because in that case, doing so would be saving civilian lives overall. That's what people are referring to when they mention "proportional response," a concept that seems lost on Israel.

This is not a recognised or even practical definition of proportional response. It's an interesting application of utilitarian principles to warfare, but I've never seen such a thing seriously accepted.

The internationally recognised definition is not locked down but the definition here is good. It's not a matter of balancing future casualties, ever. It's a matter of making sure a response achieves a military goal while inflicting a minimum of harm on civilians. Quoting the ICC official;

A crime occurs if there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) (Article 8(2)(b)(i)) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be clearly excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality) (Article 8(2)(b)(iv)).

What you should be arguing is the latter, that the military advantage is small compared to the civilian injury caused. Then it's a debate over Israel's attempts to minimise such harms and whether those reach the required level.

I'd also note that a lot of this would depend whether attack decisions are being made on a strategic or tactical level. A response to immediate action will often have different standards to a pre-planned and authorised attack. Making an air strike on a civilian target for strategic purposes is (to my eyes) always going to be more questionable than a tactical response to incoming fire from a civilian building. Making such determinations is almost certainly impossible during ongoing operations and without serious resources and access to the area and forces in question.

[Sheb]

You'll note though that this definition of proportional response doesn't mention intents to kill civilians, just the fact of killing them. It doesn't matter that Israel does try to minimize the civilian casualties of its bombing, if it keep bombing in the knowledge that many civilians will die for a minimal military gain, Israel is committing war crimes.

I also find it weird that the offensive tunnel issue is only coming up now. Did Hamas only figured them out last year or what?

[GavJ]

I find four instances, two of vehicles being hit and two of infantry positions.

Okay? So they are underfunded and don't always have the appropriate weapons for different jobs on hand and improvise, whatever. This has nothing to do with terrorism or not. Shooting invading soldiers with missiles is also defensive, and the solution is to avoid invading a country if you don't want them shooting things at your invaders.

To the extent they might have used them to cross the border, that would be offensive, but since I'm pretty sure they didn't put their mosques on wheels and bring them across the border with them, you're getting distracted from your original argument. In such cases, Israelis can and should simply gun down said border-crossing invaders. Has nothing to do with what we were talking about.

It would require a local government both accepting of such police actions and not controlling and using the tunnel networks to their own ends.

Why would bribing or coercing aid from citizens to provide intelligence about their government require that government's acceptance? Huh? It fundamentally requires the exact opposite... Spying implies lack of acceptance of the people being spied on by its very nature.

any casualties would make such a scheme politically unacceptable within Israel.

Yes, that's the part that needs to change in order for Israel to stop being war criminals 
Simply stating "that's not what Israel does" is not really a meaningful or valid response to "This is what Israel should do differently"
I'm aware that's not how they roll right now.  That's the problem.

Even if it could be detected reliably, the article I linked earlier today suggests some tunnels are up to 25m down.

You don't need a bunker buster to take out a dirt and wood tunnel 25m underground. It's not a rebar-concrete stronghole. It's a crumbly hole. Yes it does require detection, but I'm just pointing out that you don't need to detect AND THEN INVADE. If you can detect, then you can disable remotely/by plane/etc. Just a minor tool in the toolkit of response options.

Then it's a debate over Israel's attempts to minimise such harms and whether those reach the required level.

It's NOT a "debate" though. It's just hard numbers that we all have access to. Hamas kills a couple of people, and Israel kills several hundred and destroys a hospital which will probably indirectly lead to hundreds more dying on an ongoing basis from lack of healthcare later on.  If that's not "clearly excessive" to you, you're simply delusional.

Making such determinations is almost certainly impossible

No, it's extremely possible. Why? Because anybody over 5 years old can predict that when you roll into a country with tanks, the people are gonna shoot at your tanks.
It doesn't matter how fast-paced it is, because they should have foreseen something that obvious and decided ahead of time what to do.
Not having planned out contingencies for how to respond to nearly inevitable outcomes is irresponsible and negligent.

It's akin to saying "I can't be held responsible for being a jackass, because I was drunk." Even though you know that when you get drunk, you become a jackass. That's just a thin cop-out that doesn't convince anybody.

[palsch]

The standards of an actually prosecutable war crime are still fairly high. To continue the above quote;

Article 8(2)(b)(iv) draws on the principles in Article 51(5)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, but restricts the criminal prohibition to cases that are "clearly" excessive. The application of Article 8(2)(b)(iv) requires, inter alia, an assessment of:
(a) the anticipated civilian damage or injury;
(b) the anticipated military advantage;
(c) and whether (a) was "clearly excessive" in relation to (b).

Like I said, it's something that requires a detailed investigation and substantial resources to demonstrate comprehensively. Going from something that an individual or group morally condemns to an actual actionable war crime is a huge step, and calling something such with relatively poor information is usually a bad idea.

I also find it weird that the offensive tunnel issue is only coming up now. Did Hamas only figured them out last year or what?

Solid BBC article. They've been using offensive tunnels of one type or another since 2001 (then more of a sapper mine attempt). There were limited (likely expensive and complex) attempts to use offensive tunnels in other ways, as with the ambush that captured Gilad Shalit. The internal tunnel network was used in 2008-9 to help Hamas fighters ambush IDF forces. Then;

After the failure of Hamas' rocket forces to inflict significant damage on Israeli towns in November 2012, they decided to build a large offensive-tunnel capability that would enable them to infiltrate assault teams into Israeli villages within a few kilometres of the border or place large bombs underneath these villages.

Remember that in 2007 Hamas took control of Gaza and the internal/smuggling tunnel network (again, highly recommended reading) and with that gained use of tunnels and the resources/expertise that came with them. Combine that with the Iron Dome and various other measures reducing the effectiveness of the rockets and you have perfect conditions for a switch to more tunnelling.

To the extent they might have used them to cross the border, that would be offensive, but since I'm pretty sure they didn't put their mosques on wheels and bring them across the border with them, you're getting distracted from your original argument. In such cases, Israelis can and should simply gun down said border-crossing invaders. Has nothing to do with what we were talking about.

It wasn't my argument. I was making the narrow point that saying that anti-tank missiles are defensive weapons is false both in principle and in practice in this conflict.

Why would bribing or coercing aid from citizens to provide intelligence about their government require that government's acceptance? Huh? It fundamentally requires the exact opposite... Spying implies lack of acceptance of the people being spied on by its very nature.

The problem is that any action by Israel within Gaza is seen by Hamas as a cause for continued hostilities. Their proposal for a ceasefire required that Israel have zero influence or presence within the strip. Given that Hamas themselves have near complete control over the tunnels, conducting completely covert surveillance of the tunnel network in Gaza through bribes or other means without somehow first compromising Hamas would be near impossible.

Yes, that's the part that needs to change in order for Israel to stop being war criminals 
Simply stating "that's not what Israel does" is not really a meaningful or valid response to "This is what Israel should do differently"
I'm aware that's not how they roll right now.  That's the problem.

This is incredibly problematic.

No nation on earth accepts citizen's deaths from outside forces as a cost of the nation's existence. And I'd argue that any government that does accept such a thing is an inherently bad one, failing in it's primary role as a government. Now you could argue they should be safeguarding their citizens in another way, but to deliberately take a policy that will lead to citizens dying is almost always morally unacceptable.

Not to mention how completely unreasonable such a mindset change across the Israeli population is. Next we will implement a single payer healthcare system in the US and reunify the Koreas.

You don't need a bunker buster to take out a dirt and wood tunnel 25m underground. It's not a rebar-concrete stronghole. It's a crumbly hole. Yes it does require detection, but I'm just pointing out that you don't need to detect AND THEN INVADE. If you can detect, then you can disable remotely/by plane/etc. Just a minor tool in the toolkit of response options.

Check the BBC and academic articles I link above. They are concrete tunnels, relatively narrow (in the case of the offensive ones). You are still grossly underestimating both the sophistication of the tunnels and the difficulties in countering them.

It's NOT a "debate" though. It's just hard numbers that we all have access to. Hamas kills a couple of people, and Israel kills several hundred and destroys a hospital which will probably indirectly lead to hundreds more dying on an ongoing basis from lack of healthcare later on.  If that's not "clearly excessive" to you, you're simply delusional.

Again, making a determination of war crimes (or even just proportionality) based on casualty numbers is not how it works. It requires an actual investigation into the actions taken, the reason they were taken and the measures taken to minimise civilian impact. We don't have access to that information beyond the very limited IDF press releases and limited reports coming from Gaza.

I'm not saying that war crimes haven't been committed, but saying it's obvious that they have is simply wrong. It's the kind of crap that makes criticism of Israel look biased and naive.

[alway]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/140723/gaza-power-plant-stops-after-being-hit-israeli-tank-shells
Well, now that they've taken out the hospitals and their terrorist medicines, I suppose it's only natural they went in to stop the flow of terrorist electrons hiding in the wires.

[smjjames]

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/140723/gaza-power-plant-stops-after-being-hit-israeli-tank-shells
Well, now that they've taken out the hospitals and their terrorist medicines, I suppose it's only natural they went in to stop the flow of terrorist electrons hiding in the wires.

Whats next, stopping the flow of terrorist water molecules? lol.

In all seriousness, I think Israel is running into the exact same problem we (as in the US) did with Iraq, what's their end goal, what's their exit strategy? They seem to be trying to 'scorched earth' the gaza strip.

[GavJ]

The problem is that any action by Israel within Gaza is seen by Hamas as a cause for continued hostilities. Their proposal for a ceasefire required that Israel have zero influence or presence within the strip. Given that Hamas themselves have near complete control over the tunnels, conducting completely covert surveillance of the tunnel network in Gaza through bribes or other means without somehow first compromising Hamas would be near impossible.

"Spying is not an option, because that would be a presence in the strip and would piss them off!"
"Oh okay, what are you going to do instead then?"
"Oh, not much. We're gonna send in a bunch of tanks and bomb the shit out of them."

...Just stop and think about that for a second, dude.

to deliberately take a policy that will lead to citizens dying is almost always morally unacceptable.

In your opinion. As it turns out, most of the nations in the UN human rights council disagree with you. As do I. Dunno what else to say to you if you're going to disagree on as fundamental of a level as "innocent lives are equally valuable"




Although also, by the way, it's worth noting that launching a full scale hugely disproportionate invasion, putting tons of your citizens directly in enemy territory, and therefore ensuring another decade of hatred and missile attacks and suicide bombings of your citizens in the future STILL qualifies as morally unacceptable, even by your definition.

In addition to the opinion that "300 of them is worth it for 1 of us" being generally agreed on as a war crime mentality by the world, it still doesn't even justify Israeli actions by internal logic, because what they're doing is going to also end up killing more Israeli citizens as well.

Check the BBC and academic articles I link above. They are concrete tunnels

Fair enough. But your article also includes:

By the end of 2010, [Egypt] claimed to have sabotaged some six hundred tunnels by various means, including plugging entrances with solid waste, sand, or explosives, and flooding passages with sewage. Use of tear gas and other crowd-control techniques inside the tunnels resulted in several deaths.

Even if I might be underestimating, you're OVERestimating their sophistication, invulnerability, and invisibility.

And most critically of all for this discussion, Egypt managed to accomplish the above without a huge army invasion or blowing up hospitals...

Again, making a determination of war crimes (or even just proportionality) based on casualty numbers is not how it works.

Simply fundamentally disagree with you. And I think that the quote about the definition from the international criminal court linked earlier does as well in this case. If and when the numbers get so skewed that it is clearly excessive and disproportionate, it DOES work like that. Only if and when the retaliation is not excessive in scope does it become necessary to even consider the other nuances, because the definition is presented as "either/or" qualifications, not as "all of the above"

They already qualify under excessive and disproportionate civilian retaliated casualties, so waiting on the answers to the other optional parts of the definition is unnecessary to reach a conclusion.

[Leafsnail]

It's not like the huge civilian casualty rate is the only evidence that Israel has been committing war crimes.

http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/07/22/gaza-airstrike-deaths-raise-concerns-ground-offensive

The attacks Human Rights Watch investigated include a missile attack that killed four boys on a Gaza City pier and wounded three others, multiple strikes over several days on a hospital for paralyzed and elderly patients, attacks on an apparent civilian residence and media worker’s car, and four previously documented strikes. In many, if not all, of these cases, Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target.

There have been many extremely problematic attacks, as detailed in the article.  For instance, there was the beach shelling, in which four children were deliberately targeted and fired on by an Israeli warship after the structure they were playing near was destroyed.  The IDF line is that they misidentified these kids as combatants, but they have a duty to ensure that a target is military before firing, and considering that all the photos released by the IDF clearly show that the targets were children it seems ludicrous to even suggest that this standard had been met.

[GlyphGryph]

Looks like Israel has targeted the Gaza power plant, and the strip no longer has power. Some generators here and there, but I can't imagine they'll run long what with the blockade. Combined with the Israeli ban on media entering the country, and their firing on AlJazeera offices, it seems likely we're going to be getting a lot less news about what's actually happening in Gaza very soon.

(No sources, second hand and twitter accounts, more details when I get them)

Interesting article though:
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/23/%E2%80%9Cthe_more_the_dead_the_better%E2%80%9D_israel%E2%80%99s_crumbling_media_war/
It's about the Israeli PR campaign.. and how it's failing this time around. Some of their official strategies for disseminating their propaganda may be familiar from this very thread!

I'm also getting reports of vigilante Settlers in the West Bank killing yet another Palestinian innocent, and a lot of growing anger in that area on both sides. This could potentially get a lot worse before it gets better.

Edit
Uggggh.
http://972mag.com/contemplating-jehad/94177/
Jehad has been filming a lot of what's been going on for quite a while, and trying desperate to get anyone in the media to care.

In search of something – anything – to sell, Odeh wandered on fallow farmland, collecting scrap metal with his brother. One day he wandered too far into the “buffer zone” and an Israeli sniper killed him.

When they went there in protest, the 300 went unarmed, carrying orange trees – and mirrors. The mirrors they held up to the soldiers so they might see themselves through their scopes; so they might think twice before shooting.

They didn’t.

Jehad filmed that day, too, as he had before in Israel’s “death zone.” And each time he did, we sent the footage to journalists, inviting them to “meet Gaza’s non-violent resistance.” We pled with them to cover the story, to expose the killing before the murders turned to massacres.

They didn’t.

Of course, I'm sure burningpet will pop in to argue those Israeli's had "no choice" in their decision to kill a whole bunch of peaceful protestors. I mean, after all, they were just following orders, right?

[burningpet]

By the end of 2010, [Egypt] claimed to have sabotaged some six hundred tunnels by various means, including plugging entrances with solid waste, sand, or explosives, and flooding passages with sewage. Use of tear gas and other crowd-control techniques inside the tunnels resulted in several deaths.
Even if I might be underestimating, you're OVERestimating their sophistication, invulnerability, and invisibility.

And most critically of all for this discussion, Egypt managed to accomplish the above without a huge army invasion or blowing up hospitals...

Egypt dealt with long standing and active smuggling tunnels with trucks, camels and people going to its exit points. all they had to do was call israel and the US and they could see by satellite where are the people and goods coming out from.

"Oh, not much. We're gonna send in a bunch of tanks and bomb the shit out of them."

...Just stop and think about that for a second, dude.

No, you stop and actually think.

Israel didn't start the bombing only after Hamas started shooting barages of rockets toward civilian population. and it had done so because israel began taking actions, on its side, against offensive tunnels dug across its border. in essence, hamas was furious that his carefully constructed plan to send dozens if not more than a hundred of terrorists, through multiple tunnels had been discovered and prevented.

So no, those hamas terms are obviously unacceptable seeing how they take advantage of them to mass weapons so they could hurt israel, rather than improve their own people quality of life.

snippy snoopy, snippy snoop.

As always, accidents DO happen.

Looks like Israel has targeted the Gaza power plant, and the strip no longer has power. Some generators here and there, but I can't imagine they'll run long what with the blockade. Combined with the Israeli ban on media entering the country, and their firing on AlJazeera offices, it seems likely we're going to be getting a lot less news about what's actually happening in Gaza very soon.

(No sources, second hand and twitter accounts, more details when I get them)

Interesting article though:
http://www.salon.com/2014/07/23/%E2%80%9Cthe_more_the_dead_the_better%E2%80%9D_israel%E2%80%99s_crumbling_media_war/
It's about the Israeli PR campaign.. and how it's failing this time around. Some of their official strategies for disseminating their propaganda may be familiar from this very thread!

I'm also getting reports of vigilante Settlers in the West Bank killing yet another Palestinian innocent, and a lot of growing anger in that area on both sides. This could potentially get a lot worse before it gets better.

That salon, strictly opinionated, article is evidently biased since its author already decided in the past hamas is not a terror organization, despite, you know, their own self admission.

Second hand twitter acounts by pro palestines/anti zionists/semites is not an acceptable source, unless providing evidence and not rumors or opinions.

I didn't hear anything about any settlers killing any palestine. i only heard about palestines rioting, throwing molotovs and explosive devices. one of those thrown a molotov at a soldier, got shot by israeli military and died. justified action, seeing how a molotov and explosive device is a scary thing that can kill ya.

Or wait, was that settlers incident just another one of your opinions? you can't make up incidents based on opinions. i mean, if my opinion is that there should be wealth equality, i can't say "I saw from a second hand source from a second hand twitter account that mark zukerberg distributed all his funds" and expect that to really happen.

[burningpet]

(removed)