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Civilian deaths are indefensible, whether done by Hamas or Israel | Rajan Menon
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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That’s simply not true. If you hide ammunition, fighters amongst civilians, to use the as meat shield or their deaths as propaganda, they become collateral damage.
It’s horrible, but Hamas is counting on this! They could avoid this, by not hiding behind their own people.
Targeting civilians specificaly is a war crime.
EDIT: ~~please, do explain how it’s ok to hide behind civilians…~~ sorry, this doesn’t help
so if hamas is exploiting civilians for their own protection, they should kill their victims too? cool dude. you're totally not justifying killing civilians! it's not technically a war crime, so its fine! fuck. off.
What do you propose? Let them shoot from there and not retaliate? That’s how you get killed you genious.
They even do roof knocking to evacuate people ffs…
that frankly isn't the situation that we're dealing with. the idea that israel either has to let Hamas operate unchallenged or kill civilians is a vast oversimplification of how conflict works, and giving the IDF blanket permission to kill civilians if it also hurts Hamas is fucking monstrous. you suck.
I would argue a blanket statement of "killing civilians is always reprehensible" is a vast oversimplification of how conflict works.
Yeah, it sucks, war sucks, and it often turns out that the least bad option involves a decision where innocent people die. I know it feels like a hot take to say we shouldn't give blanket permission to kill civilians, but it turns out no one is claiming that.
This thread makes it clear that lemmy commenters are not equipped to debate the vanilla trolly problem, let alone the Iranian/Palestinian conflict.
"killing civilians is always reprehensible" as a moral statement has nothing to do with the mechanics of conflict. i'm telling you what i believe. giving room for acceptable civilian casualties in a moral framework provides a ready made justification for bad actors, that so long as they present a situation as looking enough like the acceptable kind of civilian casualty then its fine that an innocent person was killed.
i am taking issue with the rhetoric of acceptable casualties. no. there are only casualties, and they are all horrific. rhetoric that is not an explicit condemnation of war can be used as a justification for it.
Anytime you are doing any kind of military or police action within a civilian area there is always the risk of unintended civilian harm.
If police and military forces took this doctorine that any amount of risk is too much then they simply would be unable to operate.
There has to be a certain amount of acceptable civilian risk and that should be proportional to the threat you are attempting to stop.
Just to clarify, I'm not advocating that Israel is taking acceptable risks. But I am advocating that those risks will always exist with ANY police or military action and the primary debate is over where the red line of acceptable/unacceptable is.
That’s not what I said. There needs to be heavy pressure on them from the world. I’m putting pressure on my political representative exactly for that.
But a blanket statement like: “all civilian casualties are inadmissible” is just wrong.
all civilian casualties are inadmissible. its not wrong, its a moral imperative, and one that the state of Israel is blatantly disregarding. the framing that "okay, these civilian causalities are okay" is fucking monstrous, and gives a ready made excuse for Israel to escalate violence in Gaza.
No one is saying "all these civilian casualties are ok", stop oversimplifilying the situation.
I know it's tempting to make blanket statements about moral imperatives from your armchair, religion has been doing that to us for centuries, but it turns out the real world is actually full of moral dilemmas, where there IS no outcome where no one dies, and all you can do is pick the least bad option.
"All civilian casualties are inadmissible" is the coldest of cold takes, right there next to, "well I don't think anyone should have a war at all!" Like, great, thanks, why didn't anyone think of that?
i don't think anyone should have a war at all. there, are you happy? i'm frankly uninterested in litigating what hypothetical circumstances under which it might be okay to kill a civilian.
No one was asking you to.
You’re right, the Israeli should just say “too bad guys, they have hostages, we can’t shoot in that direction, check mate” and let hamas slaughter them
the scenario you're imagining doesn't exist. this isn't a rock paper scissors thing, where Israel either shoots through hostages to kill insurgents or dies themselves. if Hamas is hiding amongst civilians, they aren't attacking Israel, they're hiding. if they're attacking Israel, they aren't in a crowd of Palestinian civilians. the IDF does not need to have a shootout with civilians in the crossfire to protect its people. the IDF does not need to bomb civilian residences to wage war against an insurgency.
you are so willing to conflate the two, assume that Israel must kill or be killed themselves. that is a fucking falsehood. there is so fucking much a military force can do to defend against attack that doesn't involve shelling apartment buildings, shooting into crowds, and otherwise being monsters.
for what it's worth i think we've about exhausted what can be said on this topic past your own comment; i don't think further responses between you and @khalic@beehaw.org will really go anywhere and i've already nuked a bunch of the discussion downthread because it devolved completely.
Mischaracterize? Im practically quoting you.
Huh. Weird, that looks like your text copy and pasted right here, where you say that killing civilians under the claim of targeting "hidden fighters" among their ranks is excusable collateral damage of war.
Same argument used to defend the atomic bombing of hiroshima, another well known war crime. The city had a well established military headquarters and arms depot, tucked away in the center of civilian housing and business, after all. Just more collateral damage, right?
No amount of Hamas being wrong can make Israel's response right.
True, they (israel government) fucked up the place, in so many ways. They’re not the only actors, but they’re the ones with most power and possibilities.
They are still effing up, because we’re talking about men of war with stupidly large guns, afraid (with good reason) for their whole people, who maybe know victims, know a hostage… everybody knows what happens when warriors are mad… so why the fuck poke that bear?
There’s no good move. If israel doesn’t react, hamas will attack again, because hamas wants to exterminate every jew, not peace. If they react, they have to take out civilians because hamas uses them as human shields. And now with all that rage, the most racists and extremists from each side will have a chance to assuage their bloodlust.
Hamas have ruined Gaza’s future in a way that, in almost 3 decades of following this conflict, I never thought would be possible. And the racists in Israels government are living their wet dream.
There are no heroes in this story.
I feel like I say this too much, but it is too often true.
Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, it's also majority landlocked and has been under a naval and air blockade for nearly 2 decades.
You can make the case about the selection of which some specific civilian areas Hamas utilizes are intended to maximize the outage if struck, but ultimately there is NOWHERE inside Gaza that isn't a civilian area, period. It's just a matter of degrees i.e. retail shops vs schools.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/10/hamas-prepared-for-a-long-war-with-israel-as-concerns-for-hostages-in-gaza-grow
Just looked at the gaza satellite map to be sure. There are kms of fields between the border and most cities. They’re cowards hiding behind their people.
Those are literally watched by automated and remote control machine guns, as well as 24/7 surveillance drones.
So you're military strategic insight is to sit in an open field, just outside of range of the remote control 50 cal turrets, and wait for the drone to drop a PGM?
Feel free to browse my comment history. I'm no apologist for terrorists acts, but I'm also not blind to the realities on the ground, and what obstacles any opposition militant group within Gaza would have to plan around.
So because the situation is too risky, better hide behind your people? Of course not! Human shields are never acceptable.
No, I'm saying that any military strategy has to operate around it's own operational and environmental constraints, and the capabilities and obstacles of the opposing force.
Whatever you're opinions are on any conflict, you should still understand that rational actors will respond accordingly to their constraints.
Rational doesn't mean moral, it means they have a clear mission and objective, and a plan to achieve it.
You're suggesting that instead of being combat effective, they should instead suicide themselves by operating in an open field in close proximity, and with no cover, to a vastly superior force. That would be irrational.
Who gives a fuck if it’s combat effective when it kills your people? If you’re not fighting for the lives of your people? What are you fighting for? In the case of Hamas, the answer is in their charter: kill all jews. They admit it themselves ffs.
I'm providing an extremely high level and simplified outline of the operational and strategic constraints for militants operating within Gaza, not moral commentary on it.
If you want my opinions, or moral judgments, feel free to browse my comment history. Jump into any of those conversations if you disagree.
Sorry, I get your point. It’s getting late here, I got carried away. You are right, it’s a tactically valid choice, but I really hope I’d kill myself before I do something like that, but life can fuck you up real bad so who knows…