Uh, just where do you think people of Gaza have been living after 1967? Did they live under the same laws as Israelis? No. Have they had the same rights as Jewish Israelis? No.That's true, but it doesn't nearly go far enough. If Gazans surrendered, they would not only have peace, but if they let foreigners rule over them, rewrite their laws, and build their institutions, they would achieve a level of prosperity that would've been unthinkable before. — Chisholm
If Gazans surrendered
— Chisholm
Like the French in June 1942 — FreeEmotion
↪neomac
So it seems. Yet I think the question is how Israel defends itself. Is there a legitimate question about using excessive force? I think there is. Is it when 10 000 Palestinian civilians killed? Or 50 000? Or 100 000 out of 2,2 million? Would over 100 000 dead be excessive? Already Israel has made more strikes than the US did in one year in the war in Afghanistan. — ssu
It makes the situation especially difficult for Western leftists, who see everything through a prism of oppressed/oppressor logic. — Pneumenon
But still: what are they supposed to do? Just sit there and take it? Thus encouraging a second strike? No. They have to hit back, and it has to hurt. — Pneumenon
I am outraged and sickened by the atrocities Hamas perpetrated on October 7, by the rapes and abductions and the wanton slaughter of babies, children, the elderly, the disabled, pregnant women. I am also outraged – shocked to the core in fact – by the failure of some on the left to condemn these abominations.
But as a Jew I cannot stay silent in the face of the horrors now being inflicted on the people of Gaza by a lawless Israeli prime minister largely responsible for the disaster that has befallen his country. — David Leser, Stop annihilating innocent Palestinians in my Jewish name
if you walk up to someone and slap them do they have to turn the other cheek?
I say yes. — FreeEmotion
Israel is a first-world country in a third-world area. — Pneumenon
But this is false. Not every action taken against a justified cause is immoral, much less punishable — Leontiskos
Proportionality as a principle is a manifestation of the law of war’s delicate balance between the military imperative of defeating the enemy as quickly as possible and the humanitarian imperative of mitigating suffering during war as much as possible. Parties to a conflict must not only refrain from attacking civilians and civilian objects deliberately, but they must also make extensive efforts to minimize the incidental harm from their attacks on lawful military targets.
Less than one thousand civilians were killed then in Fallujah (800 according to the Red Cross/Crescent). Meaning if there were only 30000 left in the city, roughly three people of every one hundred civilians died in the battle at worst. That would be to Gaza's size 58 000 killed, if or when the civilians cannot get out from the fighting. Assuming the IDF would show similar restraint as the US did in Fallujah.Most of Fallujah's civilian population fled the city before the battle, which greatly reduced the potential for noncombatant casualties. U.S. military officials estimated that 70–90% of the 300,000 civilians in the city fled before the attack, leaving 30,000 to 90,000 civilians still in the city.
In Fallujah the US did have the Iraqi government to help here (and whose performance wasn't stellar), but who has Bibi? So what to do with the human animals from the evil city?The transition from combat operations to restoration of essential services and humanitarian assistance was envisioned to be spatial not time based. In other words while fighting was continuing in some areas of the city, where possible MNF and Iraqi forces would be rebuilding pump houses and electrical substations in an area not far away, and in other location within the city military forces would also be providing humanitarian relief supplies to the remaining Fallujah residents.
In practice, this conditions-based conflict termination process worked rather well, but it did suffer from some significant challenges.
Yep, it does create a cycle of violence. But the cycle continues precisely because both parties are left with no choice. You can't step in and say, "Break the cycle by allowing the other guy to hit you and get away with it!" That just ain't gonna work. — Pneumenon
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