Israel, Palestine and Iran

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, magnkarl said:

In a wider sense, the death-toll in Palestine is nothing new in warfare, even if that sounds horrible.

I do hear this often, those people getting written off one way or another - I'm fairly sure they shouldn't be written off, same as nobody has written off the victims of Oct 7th. It's a tragedy for Israel, most neutrals watching the reaction to Oct 7th see an over-reaction, a murdering spree multiple times larger than Oct 7th - and I can't speak for the Irish gov, but the overiding message is for the killing to stop, first and foremost. Israel have done untold damage to themselves and when folks are suggesting they stop, it's honestly because they think it's in their best interests, I certainly think that.

[magnkarl]

9 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I do hear this often, those people getting written off one way or another - I'm fairly sure they shouldn't be written off, same as nobody has written off the victims of Oct 7th. It's a tragedy for Israel, most neutrals watching the reaction to Oct 7th see an over-reaction, a murdering spree multiple times larger than Oct 7th - and I can't speak for the Irish gov, but the overiding message is for the killing to stop, first and foremost. Israel have done untold damage to themselves and when folks are suggesting they stop, it's honestly because they think it's in their best interests, I certainly think that.

No one is advocating for Israel to kill civilians. No one is writing off the murdered on both sides. Some people are naivly thinking that two sides who have been at it for 70 years are going to not kill each other. At the same time as was replied to your earlier in this thread, Hamas is hiding in refugee camps, shooting rockets from civilian areas, using the population as living shields and taking food from the population that is starving. In a recent poll the same population is still supporting Hamas. Israel could go block by block to clear it of Hamas but that would likely mean that Hamas got it exactly the way they wanted. Find me an instance of a country's government attacking another country, killing 1000 people and the other country just letting them carry on. 

I keep referencing IRA because the IRA are well known for bombing people indiscriminately to get at 2 soldiers and then killing a bunch of civilians in the process. What is happening in Gaza is both on Israel and the Palestinians.

Edited April 29 by magnkarl

[Panto_Villan]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

I do hear this often, those people getting written off one way or another - I'm fairly sure they shouldn't be written off, same as nobody has written off the victims of Oct 7th. It's a tragedy for Israel, most neutrals watching the reaction to Oct 7th see an over-reaction, a murdering spree multiple times larger than Oct 7th - and I can't speak for the Irish gov, but the overiding message is for the killing to stop, first and foremost. Israel have done untold damage to themselves and when folks are suggesting they stop, it's honestly because they think it's in their best interests, I certainly think that.

Sure. I think what you've written there is perfectly reasonable - but the problem is you semi-regularly mix it in with posts where you blame everything on Israel, which is what sparks most of the arguments.

1 hour ago, magnkarl said:

No one is advocating for Israel to kill civilians. No one is writing off the murdered on both sides. Some people are naivly thinking that two sides who have been at it for 70 years are going to not kill each other. At the same time as was replied to your earlier in this thread, Hamas is hiding in refugee camps, shooting rockets from civilian areas, using the population as living shields and taking food from the population that is starving. In a recent poll the same population is still supporting Hamas. Israel could go block by block to clear it of Hamas but that would likely mean that Hamas got it exactly the way they wanted. Find me an instance of a country's government attacking another country, killing 1000 people and the other country just letting them carry on. 

I keep referencing IRA because the IRA are well known for bombing people indiscriminately to get at 2 soldiers and then killing a bunch of civilians in the process. What is happening in Gaza is both on Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel could easily stop now and declare a victory though - they've killed plenty of Hamas fighters, and lots of other Palestinians. They're clearly ahead when it comes to damage and deaths caused.

The problem is that they've declared victory to be the full elimination of Hamas, or at least killing their leader - and doing that is going to be extremely difficult, and likely to cause even more civilian casualties (and more problems for Israel's standing in the world).

And to what end? As you say, a lot of Palestinians still support Hamas. Another militant group would spring up to replace them even if they're fully wiped out.

[Chindie]

If you provoke someone, you carry some responsibility for there being a reaction, but you aren't entirely responsible for the reaction, and the provocation isn't a carte blanche justification for whatever that reaction entails. 

Israel have committed crimes in Gaza, and there's not a world in which that's justified, or is to be laid at the feet of anyone else. They didn't need to flatten Gaza, they didn't need to kill so many people with abandon, they didn't need to bring an already battered population to the edge. But they wanted to. They wanted to punish Gaza and they wanted to justify further power and land grabs, they wanted to get rid of more Palestinians and they wanted to erase more of Palestine.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

2 hours ago, Jareth said:

Israel has a powerful modern army and modern munitions - yet it has somehow annihilated civilians on a breathtaking scale, also targeting and executing British aid workers and many others. These crimes, including intentional famine currently afflicting Gaza, are Israel's fault. Oct 7th = Hamas' fault. I'm blaming whoever is pulling the trigger. 

It's 2035 and the UK is shelling Ireland using artillery placed on a hospital roof just over the Northern Ireland border.   After 400 Irish deaths the artillery piece is destroyed along with the maternity unit.  Who is responsible for the dead babies? 

Your answer - Ireland

My answer - UK and Ireland

Can't you see how perverse your logic is?  

 

 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

21 minutes ago, Chindie said:

If you provoke someone, you carry some responsibility for there being a reaction, but you aren't entirely responsible for the reaction, and the provocation isn't a carte blanche justification for whatever that reaction entails. 

Israel have committed crimes in Gaza, and there's not a world in which that's justified, or is to be laid at the feet of anyone else. They didn't need to flatten Gaza, they didn't need to kill so many people with abandon, they didn't need to bring an already battered population to the edge. But they wanted to. They wanted to punish Gaza and they wanted to justify further power and land grabs, they wanted to get rid of more Palestinians and they wanted to erase more of Palestine.

Thank you for some sanity.  

 

 

[Jareth]

42 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

It's 2035 and the UK is shelling Ireland using artillery placed on a hospital roof just over the Northern Ireland border.   After 400 Irish deaths the artillery piece is destroyed along with the maternity unit.  Who is responsible for the dead babies? 

Your answer - Ireland

My answer - UK and Ireland

Can't you see how perverse your logic is?  

 

 

Pretty sure levelling multiple hospitals is a war crime. 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

1 minute ago, Jareth said:

Pretty sure levelling multiple hospitals is a war crime. 

Is it?  You learn something new every day. 

So you would agree that Ireland would be committing a war crime and the UK would be completely blameless?  

[Jareth]

3 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Is it?  You learn something new every day. 

So you would agree that Ireland would be committing a war crime and the UK would be completely blameless?  

If you commit a war crime - are you able to defend that action by saying it was self defence, i.e. it was provoked and blame should be shared? 

[Mandy Lifeboats]

42 minutes ago, Jareth said:

If you commit a war crime - are you able to defend that action by saying it was self defence, i.e. it was provoked and blame should be shared? 

You are good at posing futher questions.  But not as good as answering them. 

The law of warfare is incredible complicated and specialised. I have no idea whether that's a legitimate defence.  I suspect (but do not know) that it is. 

But let's get back to my question to you.  In the scenario I outline who is to blame (in your opinion). 

1. Ireland alone.  They pulled the trigger. 

2. Both sides. 

 

Edited April 29 by Mandy Lifeboats
Spelling mishsteaks

[OutByEaster?]

I'd go both sides - but I"m not sure it's a very direct comparison.

If the IRA were to launch an attack on Belfast, killing several hundred people, and in response the UK government were to bomb then demolish most of Dublin and blockade the Republic of Ireland to the point of starvation, destroying any infrastructure and killing tens of thousands, would you say that the two groups responsible were the British and the Irish?

In both cases, there aren't really two sides, because one of the sides is a small group within a wider population - that wider population might well sympathise with the small group at some level, but there's a lot of different ways they might do that, some will agree with the idea in principle of a united Ireland (or an independent free Palestine), some would want to play an active part in campaigning for that politically, or vote for those that will, some would want to do whatever they can to smuggle in food and medicine or work in the interests of the people they live around and some would be in favour of joining an armed struggle - but those groups are incredibly disparate - the biggest problem with the Israeli response to Palestine is that they make no effort, either by accident or design, to distinguish between those levels of support or indeed the existence of different types of desire for freedom/safety/security - they just get in and clear everything out.

It's like having a schoolkid bully your child and you as a parent and professional special forces agent burning down the school with every child but yours inside it - of course, you can make a case for the school itself being a part of the problem, but the argument that both sides are responsible, the bully for being a bully, and the parent for burning down a school full of kids is, whilst factually correct, morally empty.

[Genie]

7 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'd go both sides

[Mandy Lifeboats]

18 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I'd go both sides - but I"m not sure it's a very direct comparison.

If the IRA were to launch an attack on Belfast, killing several hundred people, and in response the UK government were to bomb then demolish most of Dublin and blockade the Republic of Ireland to the point of starvation, destroying any infrastructure and killing tens of thousands, would you say that the two groups responsible were the British and the Irish?

To my knowledge the Irish state and the IRA were 2 completely disconnected organisations.  Therefore the UK would be entirely to blame.  

But replace "IRA" with "Regular Irish Army" and its a different matter. 

My standpoint is simple - there is blame on both sides. 

I don't understand how anyone can come to any other conclusion?

[Jareth]

17 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

To my knowledge the Irish state and the IRA were 2 completely disconnected organisations.  Therefore the UK would be entirely to blame.  

But replace "IRA" with "Regular Irish Army" and its a different matter. 

My standpoint is simple - there is blame on both sides. 

I don't understand how anyone can come to any other conclusion?

I think it depends on how wide you go. Israel flattened a hospital, a war crime, and as a consequence a child dies as they had no access to healthcare (or even food and water) - I'm blaming Israel for that war crime and the subsequent death. I would blame Hamas for Oct 7th, another war crime. Is there blame to be shared in either instance? If there is then that's not easy to say. On the overall conflict,  there is blame on many sides. 

[Tumblerseven]

55 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I think it depends on how wide you go. Israel flattened a hospital, a war crime, and as a consequence a child dies as they had no access to healthcare (or even food and water) - I'm blaming Israel for that war crime and the subsequent death. I would blame Hamas for Oct 7th, another war crime. Is there blame to be shared in either instance? If there is then that's not easy to say. On the overall conflict,  there is blame on many sides. 

If you use this concept of a war crime you should read about it more. The destruction of a hospital does not automatically constitute a war crime. 
You are cherry picking concepts and terms but you not really believe in them. If tomorrow ICJ would come out and say: no that X hospital bombing is not a war crime. You would disagree. I think you just using these buzzwords to strengthen your sentences.
What makes hospital bombing and 10 dead children inside it not a war crime can you answer that question?

[Mandy Lifeboats]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

I think it depends on how wide you go. Israel flattened a hospital, a war crime, and as a consequence a child dies as they had no access to healthcare (or even food and water) - I'm blaming Israel for that war crime and the subsequent death. I would blame Hamas for Oct 7th, another war crime. Is there blame to be shared in either instance? If there is then that's not easy to say. On the overall conflict,  there is blame on many sides. 

Here is the flaw to your argument. 

Hamas didn't just wake up and start a war on 7 October.  They did it as retaliation for various acts by Israel.  They did it due to a false sense that they were defending their country and their people.  They felt it was necessary and proportionate. They were provoked by x, y and z.  

Israel did not wake up and decide to flatten hospitals. They did it as retaliation for various acts by Hamas  They did it due to a false sense that they were defending their country and their people. They felt it was necessary and proportionate. They were provoked by x, y and z. 

Assigning sole blame assumes single events are not connected.  They are.  

 

 

[magnkarl]

1 hour ago, Jareth said:

I think it depends on how wide you go. Israel flattened a hospital, a war crime, and as a consequence a child dies as they had no access to healthcare (or even food and water) - I'm blaming Israel for that war crime and the subsequent death. I would blame Hamas for Oct 7th, another war crime. Is there blame to be shared in either instance? If there is then that's not easy to say. On the overall conflict,  there is blame on many sides. 

The same child lives in a state where the government is withholding and hoarding aid to use as their own combat rations. The blame is still on both Hamas and Israel. Pro-Palestinian people need to put at least a tiny bit of responsibility where it’s due, which is both sides. Feverishly protesting for Palestine with absolutely no idea about how to better people’s lives outside of removing the Jewish state from the Jordan to the Med is as mindless as it gets.

[Panto_Villan]

23 minutes ago, Mandy Lifeboats said:

Here is the flaw to your argument. 

Hamas didn't just wake up and start a war on 7 October.  They did it as retaliation for various acts by Israel.  They did it due to a false sense that they were defending their country and their people.  They felt it was necessary and proportionate. They were provoked by x, y and z.  

Israel did not wake up and decide to flatten hospitals. They did it as retaliation for various acts by Hamas  They did it due to a false sense that they were defending their country and their people. They felt it was necessary and proportionate. They were provoked by x, y and z. 

Assigning sole blame assumes single events are not connected.  They are.  

 

21 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

The same child lives in a state where the government is withholding and hoarding aid to use as their own combat rations. The blame is still on both Hamas and Israel. Pro-Palestinian people need to put at least a tiny bit of responsibility where it’s due, which is both sides. Feverishly protesting for Palestine with absolutely no idea about how to better people’s lives outside of removing the Jewish state from the Jordan to the Med is as mindless as it gets.

I don't agree with this logic; it's perfectly possible to point to specific instances of war crimes by Israel and assign the blame specifically to Israel. Like the recent killing of the aid workers in Gaza. It was Israelis "accidentally" not following their own rules of engagement (which are already skirting the legal definition of "proportionate"), and I'm sure has happened many more times to people who aren't foreign aid workers. That's not the fault of Hamas, even if both parties are responsible for the wider conflict.

Clearly there's a lot of people who believe flattening any hospital is automatically a war crime if Israel does it. But you also can't argue that all Israeli actions become necessary and proportionate because they are linked to previous events - that's equally bad for the opposite reason.

[Mandy Lifeboats]

@Panto_Villan

I don't necessarily agree but it's great to hear a rationale standpoint. 

The attack on an aid convoy is a small,  clear and distinct event.  I agree with you. 

The event that sparked this discussion was the death of a young girl due to the lack of medical care due to a destroyed hospital.  That's less clear. Especially as its quite believeable that Hamas shelters its military in and around hospitals. 

[magnkarl]

41 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

 

I don't agree with this logic; it's perfectly possible to point to specific instances of war crimes by Israel and assign the blame specifically to Israel. Like the recent killing of the aid workers in Gaza. It was Israelis "accidentally" not following their own rules of engagement (which are already skirting the legal definition of "proportionate"), and I'm sure has happened many more times to people who aren't foreign aid workers. That's not the fault of Hamas, even if both parties are responsible for the wider conflict.

Clearly there's a lot of people who believe flattening any hospital is automatically a war crime if Israel does it. But you also can't argue that all Israeli actions become necessary and proportionate because they are linked to previous events - that's equally bad for the opposite reason.

All perfectly fine. By that account it is also perfectly reasonable to point at the things Palestinian organisations are doing. People aren’t. They’re whitewashing everything Palestine and furthering the conflict by not holding the Palestinians accountable for anything. It is not like Israel is the only country who have had its share of issues from the group of people millions are protesting for every weekend.

If you can plan and enact the largest terrorist act since 9/11 you can also be held responsible for the appalling state of your government, corruption, stealing of aid and terrible treatment of anyone not male and Muslim. Terrorism has consequences, and Israel is by far not the only country who has gone totally overboard dealing with it.

There are obvious things that the Pro-Palestinian organisations don’t want to talk about. Hostages, terror, fundamentalism, killing of opposition, gay people, minorities, stealing aid and water pipes to make rockets. +++. It can’t all be Israel’s fault, it’s been happening since 1948, aimed at not just Israel, but Germany, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Christians, Kurds, Turkmen +++.

Edited April 29 by magnkarl