Have you heard of the Geneva Conventions? How can you accuse Israel of waging war that is disproportionate and then turn around and say it’s a vague term and international laws of war don’t exist?
Have you heard of the Geneva Conventions? How can you accuse Israel of waging war that is disproportionate and then turn around and say it’s a vague term and international laws of war don’t exist?
Oh come on, there are well-established doctrines of internal law related to war - you know, the same “international law” that anti-Zionists love to accuse Israel of violating all the time.
‘Strike’ is the word I chose and may not be the word that actually appears in the documents that outline international law on the matter, but you get the point. This is a silly discussion.
That’s because we’re discussing the definition of proportionality outside the broader context of the laws of warfare. It is a principle applied to specific strikes within the context of military action that is justified under international law. So no, it doesn’t just license a group like Hamas to do what they did on the grounds that it helped them achieve their goals.
LOL, it is not the position of most of the world that Hamas is a resistance movement. It is only the position of radical Islamists and Western leftist anarchists.
They are an organization that formed for the purpose of committing genocide and they have been responsible for the barbaric murder of thousands of civilians. They are as terrorist as you can get.
By the way, there is mounting evidence that support among Gazans for peaceful coexistence with Israel is much higher than previously thought. Evidence, for example, that Hamas has been fudging the numbers on their surveys that show otherwise, recent surveys that show much more positive results, and with the death of Sinwar and damage to Hamas, Gazans are starting to speak out against them. If that is indeed true, it destroys the whole “resistance” and “decolonization” narrative since they wouldn’t actually represent the people for whom they claim to be resisting.
First of all, he’s not my president. I’m not Israeli.
Second, comments made by certain people in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic terror attack aren’t proof of genocidal intent. He has clarified his position since then.
Also, have you ever wondered why South Africa of all countries brought the case to the ICJ? Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that they entertained Hamas leaders as visiting dignitaries a month before they submitted the case?
Says international law. https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/proportionality#:~:text=The principle of proportionality prohibits,and direct military advantage anticipated”.
Hamas wants to make a deal if they can get what they want out of it. That’s the whole reason they took hostages. Terrorists who take hostages shouldn’t get what they want.
And again, Gaza is not a genocide.
That’s not what the principle of proportionality means. It has nothing to do with the death toll on each side. It’s a principle that’s applied to each individual strike and requires armed forces to ensure that any civilian deaths are proportional to the military objectives of the strike. Hamas and Hebollah are terrorist organizations that don’t respect the laws of war, so that’s a pretty big point in favor of Israel.
Second, many military experts have agreed that, given the conditions in which Israel is fighting this war, the civilian-to-combatant ratio in Gaza is among the lowest in the history of urban warfare. You’ve seen what Israel is capable of over the past year - it’s patently obvious that the death toll could have been much, much higher.
Third, the moral judgment of rightness or wrongness in a conflict isn’t determined by the death toll on each side. The winners of a war will typically suffer fewer casualties than the losers because that’s a big part of how winners in war are determined. The fact that very few US civilians died in WWII compared to German civilians doesn’t make the US the bad guys in that war.
There is one side in this conflict that is openly genocidal: the Iranian regime. They have literally admitted their goal is to destroy Israel. They have a doomsday clock in Tehran counting down to the death of Israel in the year 2040. And they are willing to sacrifice every single Palestinian life to make that happen.
What are you, 10 years old?
The Holocaust was unique and when someone feels the need to downplay it, that reflects very poorly on them.
How are the hard numbers devastating to our case?
It isn’t a genocide just because you say it is.
And it is nothing like the Holocaust. Not even remotely similar. There is literally nothing, not a single thing, that is similar.
You missed my point.
The world knows what genocide looks like because we’ve seen it. And it looks nothing like what is happening in Gaza.
I don’t give a crap what has been “discussed” - the facts clearly show that they aren’t committing genocide. The world knows what an actual genocide looks like.
LOL, every time someone provides contrary evidence to your accusation it gets labeled “whataboutism.” I know all the anti-Zionist propaganda tricks.
Russia invaded a sovereign nation to take over their land. Israel is fighting back against a genocidal regime that has sponsored terrorist violence against it for decades, and has promised to destroy it. Big difference.
Stop with the genocide accusations. It’s offensive to people who have actually suffered genocides.
LOL, wow. I don’t even know where to begin with this crap.
Yes, I am an Israel supporter. That makes me biased towards Israel. Just like your hatred for Israel makes you biased against Israel. See how that works?
And you’re right, it didn’t start on Oct 7, 2023. It didn’t even start in 1948. It started decades before that, when Arabs began violently resisting Jewish immigration spurred on by the violently antisemitic and Nazi-sympathizer Amin Al-Husseini. But I suspect that you actually know every little about the history, like most Israel haters.
What did you do to generate that ridiculous list of links, Google “Bad things Israel has done”?
I like your list of “massacres” too. Notice how the vast majority of them occurred in 1947 and 1948, during war started by the Arabs. Most of them are just battles in which civilians died, but the Palestinian propaganda machine attaches the word “massacre” to every single one for dramatic effect. I can play that game with actual massacres, going back centuries before your list.
Comments by extremists in the immediate aftermath of a traumatic terror attack don’t establish genocidal intent. The actions over the past year clearly aren’t in line with those comments.
Let’s not forget the current war in Israel started when Hamas terrorists (and Gazan civilians) actually murdered 1200 Israeli civilians. In the most barbaric way possible. And then took 250 more people hostage. Last time I checked, Ukrainian terrorists did not invade Russia and butcher civilians and take more prisoner. Israel and Russia are not analogous in the slightest.
You can’t cherry-pick one statement out of Article 57 and ignore everything else. Read the entire section. The whole point is to prohibit intentional attacks on civilians but to provide justification for attacks that harm civilians. Even attacks directly on civilians are justified under international law if those civilians are directly involved in hostilities. Here’s a brief article that summarizes these concepts: https://hhi.harvard.edu/files/humanitarianinitiative/files/conduct_of_military_operations_in_urban_areas.pdf?m=1615497739