Israel/Hamas War Superthread

[Dill]

(03-12-2024, 10:12 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote: Quote:The bolded is our primary point of disagreement. Were there no Gazan history of Israeli dispossession, massacre occupation, and containment, Hamas would neither exist nor want to destroy Israel.

I agree that this is our primary point of disagreement.
In my opinion, if a victim's response to a prepetrators actions is genocide, then the perpetrator reserves the right to defend themselves in a way that elminates those who wish to commit genocide against them, even if that means innocents will die in the process. That doesn't mean they get to have complete disregard for innocent lives. I still think there needs to be limitations in how they respond, but those limitations cannot be waiting for all innocent lives to get out of the way before attacking any position.
... My argument completely hinges on the fact that Hamas wants to commit genocide against Israel, and I was using the history of their genocidal actions to argue that point. It wasn't to argue that the history of it matters from the perspective of Israel's response but from the perspective of Hama's intentions, whicn is genocide....
The moment genocide is claimed against a group of people and that genocide is acted upon, the group of people for which the genocide is claimed against cannot be told how to handle how they respond to the genocidal acts committed against them.

Yo Matt, 2nd response here. In this post I want to address the "genocide" claim which grounds your argument against IHL restrictions on Israel in Gaza.

I don't want to talk about "genocide" without a definition. Let's go by the UN's; genocide comprises the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such.”

Note that the UN has also adopted a principle of "Responsibility to Protect" regarding genocide, which obliges all states to protect their populations against it (and the incitement of it), and which obliges UN states to work together to help prevent it when a state is unable to protect its own population.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/about-responsibility-to-protect.shtml

"Intent" has been crucial in separating the crime of genocide from other kinds of mass murder. But so far as I can tell, it has to be coupled with actual possibility of genocide. In situations where a people is genuinely in threat of being extinguished, as the Tutsi were in Rwanda, then I agree it would be unreasonable to warn them to "fight fair" in defending their very existence.

But Israel are not the Tutsi. Let's consider the balance of power.

1. Israel is the most powerful country in the ME. It has nukes, a navy, a large effective air force, an Army 170,000 strong with reserves of almost 500,000, with thousands of armored/artillery units. Hamas has about 30-40,000 fighters with mostly light weapons. Their air force would be hang gliders and thousands of dumb rockets. https://www.axios.com/2023/10/21/palestine-hamas-military-power.

Israel has held Gaza in a siege/blockade for almost two decades now, limiting their maneuver room to about 140 square miles densely populated by civilians. Israel, on the other hand, has much greater freedom of movement, striking from land, sea, and air, and with 8,630 square miles of territorial depth, where they can stage and maneuver in relative safety, and to which they can evacuate wounded.

So the first point to make is that Hamas has never had the capacity to seriously threaten genocide against Israel. That they were able to do so much damage Oct. 7 appears in retrospect a fluke due to intelligence failure and Netanyahu's focus on the West Bank.

2. What you call "the history of [Hamas] genocidal actions" apparently refers to that one day on Oct 7, when they broke out of the blockade to attack the blockaders. That was an attack which had no chance of accomplishing some goal of genocide. Perhaps you want to include other rocket attacks from the past, from within their besieged quarters.To invoke genocide, you couple that with statements to the effect they want to destroy Israel.

3. But Israel DOES have the capacity to destroy all of Gaza and to kill its inhabitants, or to displace them somewhere else and settle the land with Israelis (same for the West Bank). And it is killing and displacing Gazans by the thousands, while many of its politicians cheer the destruction and urge Palestinians to leave forever. This begins to look to many, even Israelis, like the destruction of part or whole of a people. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-01-14/ty-article-opinion/.premium/if-it-isnt-a-genocide-in-gaza-then-what-is-it/0000018d-040c-dd07-a7df-cf7e8b980000

If Israel, following your reasoning, gets to ignore IHL because a group in Gaza called for Israel's destruction and then mounted an attack which had no chance of destroying Israel, then the real danger of genocide here is for Palestinians, not Israelis, given that so many Israelis want them gone as a people.

So my final point on this post is really a question--given the UN principle of "Responsibility to Protect," whom should the international community be addressing if it wants to prevent genocide? Were it following your rationale, it would have a duty to help Israel (not in danger of genocide) to wipe out Hamas, and maybe a large portion of innocent Gazans--including those tens of thousands who will die in the future of starvation and disease. Were it following mine, the duty to protect would dictate reining in the IDF toute suite.

Next post I want discuss whether religion can separate the conflict from its history.