Ask Lemmy

In the interest of moderation transparency, we've had a couple of reports about this post.

Here's my thinking about it:

Community purpose

• This post is more political that would ordinarily be seen on AskLemmy, ⬇️
• it is an open-ended thought provoking question, ⬆️
• it is generating healthy and informative discussion and debate. ⬆️

Rule 1:

• the post is not trolling, sealioning, racist or toxic, ⬆️
• the topic is contentious but seems to be worded politely, ⬆️
• the author has voluntarily amended the question to be more sensitive in their framing. ⬆️

Rule 3:

• it does not fit the definition of spam or astroturfing ⬆️

On balance, I'm going to let the post remain up.

Here's a devils advocate type answer. On balance, I err on the side of Israel rather than Hamas but am not a die hard supporter. I say that because comments below may appear to make me out as such, but I'm just trying to represent the coherent argument for the sake of discussion rather than the strength of my own views per se. For the record I regard the suffering of innocent people in Gaza as grotesque.

Settlements.

The justification for this behaviour is complicated but essentially amounts to the belief that the Geneva conventions were not drafted with Israel's particular dilemma in mind. The Geneva conventions were drafted by European powers for whom the annexing of territory was strategic and imperially motivated rather than existential. Israel does not believe it can have security if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank. The justification for this being Arab/Egyptian aggression in '48, '56, '63, and '73. Not to mention more recent state sponsored actions by Hezbollah, Hamas et al. A Palestinian state on the West Bank could maintain a standing army on the Israeli border, could invite other Arab nations' armies to base themselves there. Echos of the previous conflicts listed above. This is unconscionable for Israel, one only needs to glance at the map to see how indefensible its position is if a foreign army was amassed on the West Bank. Ignoring settler activity or evicting Palestinians if a single member of their family commits any kind of act against Israel is just a convenient way to achieve the larger goal. The settlers of course are a lot more religiously / ethnically motivated. The government is too but I think realpolitik plays a larger role.

Gaza civilians

The capricious and deliberate targeting of civilians and children with no other goal is of course horrific. Israel of course will maintain that that's not what they're doing, that they are acting on intelligence against Hamas who are using people as human shields. Which is also horrific but is a different type of justification. Everyone of course will have decided in their own minds if they believe what Israel says about its intelligence or whether they believe what Hamas says about their lack of presence in an area.

If we assume for a moment that Israel is being honest about that particular aspect: that they are ok killing innocent people and children if Hamas die too. What's the justification for that? I think their view is that they're dealing with a problem that no Western country has to deal with. Britain has seen maybe a hundred deaths over 25 years from about 20 Islamic extremists. The US has seen 3000+ deaths from a similar number. In both cases the number of Islamic extremists are small enough that you could remember their individual names. Israel on the other hand has ~25,000 signed up members of Al Qassam terror brigades on their doorstep. That is a different level of threat all together, by three orders of magnitude. Hamas will not engage with the Israeli military in a standing battle because they would lose. So they are engaging in a guerrilla type strategy where shielding themselves behind civilians is an integral part so they can opportunistically strike out in suicidal attacks. It doesn't happen accidentally, but repeatedly, it's a core part of their strategy. A state needs to decide whether they're ok with Al Qassam brigades existing or killing the civilians they surround themselves with. It's a shitty choice, but it is a choice Israel sees as Hamas' when they choose their mode of fighting. Leaving Hamas free to plot their next maraudering attack on Israeli civilians is unconscionable, so the death of Hamas human shields has to be ok. There isn't another way.

This is a situation so unfamiliar to the West that it is easy to see it as capricious and brutal, horrific and evil. And the death of innocent people are those things, but one has to see the trolley dilemma in full.

America actually has been in this type of situation, only once as far as I'm aware, and it provides a useful insight into how Western countries justify themselves when confronted with the same dilemma. On 9/11, United 93 was identified as under terrorist control and inbound to Washington DC. Fighter jets were dispatched to shoot it down. The deaths of the 40 innocent people on board would obviously be horrific, but one can see the logic that letting a terrorist controlled plane be flown into a densely populated city would be to cause the deaths of hundreds of even thousands.

Was the mission to shoot down United 93 the right one? Was it evil? What if those 40 civilians had been 40 orphans on their way to be placed with foster families? How completely horrific does the situation have to be before it's better to let the terrorists fly they plane into hundreds or thousands of people?

Israel sees itself caught in this kind of dilemma 24/7 with Hamas. Each signed up member has the proven intention to cross the border and maraude around killing grandparents, babies, children. So Israel calculates that, regrettably, it is necessary to kill them and the civilian shield they themselves have created. It is a shitty awful dilemma with evil on both sides, but Israel feels justified holding Hamas to blame for their human shields deaths the same way most of the American public would have blamed Al-Qaeda if the US Air force had managed to shoot down United 93. (The fact that in reality events meant they didn't have to doesn't take away from the logic of what they were prepared to do)

This is a loaded question. It pretends every supporter of Israel also supports the current government, the illegal occupation, the ongoing war, and throwing the Geneva convention out.

I support Israel's right to exist as a sovereign state and a homeland for the Jewish people.

But I support none of the above.

And no, I don't have a good solution for this age-old conflict either.

The Geneva Convention is clearly Hamas.

Because they believe in a 3000 year old fairy tale that gives the 'promised land' to them, and condems all non-believers to death.

Because they are fascists, and dictators think they can do what ever they want.

Hamas was using Al Shifa hospital as a base, tunnel entrance, and torture site.

Using human shields is war crime. Torture is a war crime. Killing your hostages is a war crime. Raping prisoners is a war crime.

It basically turns into "who is committing less serious war crimes" and attacking the place where they torture prisoners and use them as human shields, imo, is a valid military attack.

The Geneva conventions are not monolithic documents, and they are not completely uncontroversial. I believe the article 51 you refer to is in a 1978 addon protocol that Israel has not ratified. For reference, there is a different article 51 in the original 1949 conventions, that talks about when an occupying army may conscript civilian labor.

Like any other international treaties, the conventions only apply to countries that have signed on and ratified the treaties. The United States and Israel have not ratified the additional protocol, so from their perspective they are not bound by the text.

The original 1949 conventions do have protections for civilians, but they are weaker protections. Ratiometric evidence of civilian casualties is heartbreaking, but unfortunately simply not relevant to the 1949 conventions. Under those rules, if a facility is used by your enemy to harm you, you can attack that facility. Period.

IDF is always careful to portray how they scrupulously follow the 1949 conventions when they speak to the media. Clear violations that become public are referred to investigation.

As in any war, some elements of IDF are almost certainly violating the conventions. But as a USian I don't think I'll get close to understanding the truth any time soon. I basically don't trust any news source coming out of that region any more.

Geneva convention is anti semetic.

Things have gone so far south now.

Some kind of a supporter here, I guess. Or let's say that I'm so much anti-Hamas that it's logical to be a bit anti-Palestine and pro-Israel.

Legality of Israeli settlements

Some of those settlements are not legal and israelis should leave those areas.

Article 51 of the Geneva convention prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilian population yet Israel attacked hospitals with children inside.

It's questionable if this applies when the other side violates other Geneva conventions by using the hospitals for military activity.

From a strategic standpoint, they have no choice. What Hamas is doing is by the book insurgent strategy, that's been observed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to lesser extents in WW2 and Vietnam.

Commit an atrocity akin to 9/11 to provoke an enemy attack and hide your forces amongst the population. The initial victim (usa, and in this case, israel) must retaliate against such an atrocity, but their only strategic targets are civilian in nature (as all militants are using them as a meat shield).

Once civilian targets are struck Hamas makes pleas to the international community, for aid, sanctions or isolation of Israel. They pander to civilians, as they'll die whether or not they join the insurgency. This balloons their numbers and combat strength.

On top of that, all forces begin engaging in brutal urban warfare with costly casualties for the enemy.

Israel (to their voters and population) can't just "let" Hamas get away for the October attacks so they press their advance, civilians be damned. I believe Hamas are as responsible as Israel for civilian casualties and deaths.

No sides are truly right here, it's merely a brutal dilemma. Not a problem, those have answers, but a dilemma with no good solutions. Potentially be overthrown by an outraged population or slaughter a bunch of civs. You know what all regimes will do.

Well, this is certainly one way to goose the participation on Lemmy.

FourPacketsOfPeanuts has already given a good answer specifically about Israel's situation, but I want to say something about international law in general. Law may be written based on moral principles, but law is still not the same thing as morality. In our daily lives, we follow our moral principles because that's what we believe is right, and we follow the law because otherwise cops will put us in jail.

The situation for a sovereign country is different - there are no cops and there is no jail. If other countries wanted to take hostile action, they would even if there was no violation of international law, and if they did not want to take hostile action, the wouldn't even if there was a violation. Morality still exists (although morality at the scale of countries is necessarily not the same as morality at the scale of individuals) but the law might as well not exist because it is not enforced. It's just pretty language that may be quoted when a country does what it was going to do anyway.

I'm not trying to imply that I think that Israel is violating international law. I'm saying that discussing whether it is or not is a purely intellectual exercise with no practical relevance. If I support Israel but you convince me that it is technically breaking some law, I'm still not going to change my mind. If you oppose Israel but I convince you that it is technically obeying every law to the letter, you're still probably not going to change your mind.