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UN secretary general visits Russia for BRICS summit despite Kyiv's criticism
(kyivindependent.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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LOL, every time someone provides contrary evidence to your accusation it gets labeled "whataboutism." I know all the anti-Zionist propaganda tricks.
Russia invaded a sovereign nation to take over their land. Israel is fighting back against a genocidal regime that has sponsored terrorist violence against it for decades, and has promised to destroy it. Big difference.
It's because most Zionist arguments are whataboutisms. You want to make it about history, you want to make it about culture and religion, you want to make it about technicality. About anything except the hard numbers of what's happening on the ground, because that's devastating to your case.
How are the hard numbers devastating to our case?
Well, let's see. 80% of commercial or public buildings in Gaza, and 60% of homes are rubble, and there's ~50,000 dead Palestinians and twice that number injured. Meanwhile, Isreali deaths amount to ~2,000 (let's say 4000 adjusting for the extra cruelty) and I can't even find data on infrastructure damage because it probably amounts to a few buildings. In addition, something like three-quarters of the Gazan population have caught a contagious disease, such as cholera, do to the destroyed sanitation system, and >90% have had food insecurity, while Israel is unaffected by both.
That doesn't really sound proportional, just or humane to me.
I checked the numbers with Al Jazeera for convenience, but everyone else watching gives similar values, including the UN, so it's not just a Qatari opinion. War is starting up In Lebanon now, as well, and the West Bank is getting more and more lawless as a blind eye is turned to violence from settler groups. Gaza continues to be economically isolated and suffers all the various social ills caused by the resulting poverty, on top of the direct war damage.
That's not what the principle of proportionality means. It has nothing to do with the death toll on each side. It's a principle that's applied to each individual strike and requires armed forces to ensure that any civilian deaths are proportional to the military objectives of the strike. Hamas and Hebollah are terrorist organizations that don't respect the laws of war, so that's a pretty big point in favor of Israel.
Second, many military experts have agreed that, given the conditions in which Israel is fighting this war, the civilian-to-combatant ratio in Gaza is among the lowest in the history of urban warfare. You've seen what Israel is capable of over the past year - it's patently obvious that the death toll could have been much, much higher.
Third, the moral judgment of rightness or wrongness in a conflict isn't determined by the death toll on each side. The winners of a war will typically suffer fewer casualties than the losers because that's a big part of how winners in war are determined. The fact that very few US civilians died in WWII compared to German civilians doesn't make the US the bad guys in that war.
There is one side in this conflict that is openly genocidal: the Iranian regime. They have literally admitted their goal is to destroy Israel. They have a doomsday clock in Tehran counting down to the death of Israel in the year 2040. And they are willing to sacrifice every single Palestinian life to make that happen.
Says who? The entire philosophy of a just war is about trolley problems - kill someone now, to protect someone later. Killing for anything else is just murder. Certainly, the UN doesn't say what you're suggesting, and Israel's arguments under international law have focused more on all of Gaza being a military target somehow, as opposed to it being okay simply because of their goals, or because proportionality doesn't apply outside of some very narrow situation.
Nothing is above human rights, and definitely not Bibi's career, which is really what's driving things here. Israelis themselves would rather make a deal. Everyone on the other side and Israel's allies would definitely rather make a deal.
Says international law. https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/proportionality#:~:text=The%20principle%20of%20proportionality%20prohibits,and%20direct%20military%20advantage%20anticipated%E2%80%9D.
Hamas wants to make a deal if they can get what they want out of it. That's the whole reason they took hostages. Terrorists who take hostages shouldn't get what they want.
Yeah, I can read the definition as well as you can. What you're proposing is an interpretation of "military advantage" - one which would let any number of bad guys from history off the hook. Oh, and also Hamas - Oct 7 advanced their goals quite well, as you've pointed out with the hostages.
That's because we're discussing the definition of proportionality outside the broader context of the laws of warfare. It is a principle applied to specific strikes within the context of military action that is justified under international law. So no, it doesn't just license a group like Hamas to do what they did on the grounds that it helped them achieve their goals.
Okay, who says that. That's an incredibly narrow context, I'm not even sure what "strikes" would mean here - since it's usually applied to a tactical context that's way below the granularity of any military treaty I've ever seen.
Oh come on, there are well-established doctrines of internal law related to war - you know, the same "international law" that anti-Zionists love to accuse Israel of violating all the time.
'Strike' is the word I chose and may not be the word that actually appears in the documents that outline international law on the matter, but you get the point. This is a silly discussion.
I assure you, I don't know what exact rules you mean, and suspect they don't exist. (No shade on you, though)
As far as I know, proportionality is vague, but applies on every scale, in every situation. The actual lawyers for Israel have argued that their overall response has been proportional. (Because Hamas is hiding in the Gaza strip, and so it's all a legitimate target to vapourise. By that standard, they're right, and they've actually been generous, but it's a dumb standard)
Have you heard of the Geneva Conventions? How can you accuse Israel of waging war that is disproportionate and then turn around and say it's a vague term and international laws of war don't exist?
Vague insofar as it's totally left to courts and individuals to interpret what the exact threshold of disproportional is. That's why there's a cottage industry in dissecting the ethics of every individual thing the US did in it's recent wars. Damage and casualties are extremely lopsided here, though, even if you argue the lopsidedness is justified somehow.
I was trying to include the nuances to be fair to you, but apparently that was just confusing.
The main mention is Article 57, called Precautions in Attack, and it has this nice little section:
From a Westpoint academy article I just stumbled on, on proportionality:
The military objective here being a few Hamas fighters sprinkled around, and civilians and civilian objects being all of Gaza. I'm now pretty certain there isn't a loophole based on what you're doing or thinking at the time, like you seem to be suggesting.
You can't cherry-pick one statement out of Article 57 and ignore everything else. Read the entire section. The whole point is to prohibit intentional attacks on civilians but to provide justification for attacks that harm civilians. Even attacks directly on civilians are justified under international law if those civilians are directly involved in hostilities. Here's a brief article that summarizes these concepts: https://hhi.harvard.edu/files/humanitarianinitiative/files/conduct_of_military_operations_in_urban_areas.pdf?m=1615497739
I did read the entire thing - it's not long. Yes, you can unintentionally harm civilians, proportionately.
It's not intrinsic to urban warfare to do it this way, either. Compare any of the American operations of this millennium.
US operations have killed a lot of civilians. But there is no theater of war quite like Gaza, which is what makes the numbers that much more impressive.
Gaza is denser than a typical Arab area (gee, I wonder why) but the construction and customs are pretty much the same. Nothing about it morally, legally or tactically justifies flattening it any more than Fallujah or Kandahar.
The entire area is a giant terrorist base. There are 500km of tunnels underneath Gaza used to transport weapons and conduct terror attacks. Hamas was integrated into the civilian infrastructure.
The impact on civilians is devastating but this is the only way to end the cycle of violence. Groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda still exist but they have no power because they have no territory. Israel has now done the same to Hamas.
They're less of a threat, that's true, but they're far from gone.
Okay, so you're done then? We can have a two-state solution with the PLO in charge in Palestine, and they can rebuild and control their own non-Israeli borders? That's what I think should happen next, as does the broader international community.
Israel isn't done yet. Hezbollah is almost done, but there is still the head of the octopus: the Iranian regime. As long as they are in power and are working towards nukes, Israel will not be able to live in peace.
A two state solution is a long term goal. Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 was the first test of a 2SS and look how that turned out. The Palestinian people have a role to play in this too, by making a commitment to pursue peaceful coexistence. Otherwise we will go through all this again in another 15 years.
So, that's a no.
As long as there's an Arab or Persian population around and angry, there's no 100% safety. I'm sure you know that. If anything that stands in the way of Israel's safety is a legitimate target, which is what you're saying at this point, you're talking about genocide.
This is the part where I mention I myself am Jewish, if never practicing, and that kind of thing is painfully ironic.
Where did I say that Israel needs to wipe out any particular population? I said they need to deal with Hezbollah, which is a genocidal terror army, and then deal with the Iranian regime, which is a genocidal Islamist government regime. Putting off a two state solution until the Palestinians can agree to stop trying to murder Jews isn't advocating for genocide. That's a ridiculous statement you made.
Glad to hear that's not what you're saying - it really feels like that's where the region is headed.
What's the alternative to a two-state solution? One state is a pipe dream right now, and the status quo leaves Israel unsafe. Even if every single individual Hamas fighter was killed somehow, there's a lot of Palestinians who want revenge for the destruction of their whole world, and another organisation would start.
Does it really feel like that's where the region is headed? Is that why Israel keeps telling Gazans and Lebanese people to move out of target areas? Don't you think Israel could eliminate all 2 million Gazans in a few hours if they wanted to? Step back from the propaganda and think critically for a minute.
If you think there are a lot of Palestinians who want revenge, that's all the more reason to postpone the recognition of a Palestinian state. Part of the problem with the two state solution is that it rests on a faulty assumption: that statehood is a goal of the Palestinian people. The past 75 years of history shows that to be false. If they wanted a state, they would have one. The goal of the Palestinian people (or to be fair, the Palestinian leadership) has always been the destruction of Israel. That's what has always defined Palestinian nationalism. So pushing the 2SS is pushing a solution on the Israelis and Palestinians that the latter never wanted, and now the former don't really want either.
The only real solution is one that will take time and involves several important developments:
I agree that propaganda is bad, but both sides make it. That's why I like hard numbers so much.
It's clear they want to look merciful, especially to their Western patrons. You'll recall that the Nazis had a voluntary emigration program at first, and then blamed anyone still around for not leaving. (Israel isn't the Nazis, but maybe Yugoslavia)
As for your numbered plan, I feel like it makes some unrealistic assumptions. Like that step 1 is possible, and that Israel won't keep building out settlements instead of actually helping Palestine. It's basically Likud's publicly announced plan, which the IDF leadership itself doesn't buy.
In practice, if they try that, insurgent activity will never stop, and the Israeli occupation will never turn into a strong Palestinian state. It's just a matter of time then before Israelis get tired of it and contemplate something more extreme, as a minority already openly are.
I see, so you think Israel is telling civilians to move just so they *look *merciful. Because it just can't be possible that Israeli leaders are human beings with consciences and actually want to prevent civilian death if they can. Is that the implication?
Yes, of course my plan rests on a lot of assumptions. The settlements are the most complex part of negotiating peace between the two sides. But agreements have been reached in principle in the past (like Camp David and Taba). It's difficult but not impossible, provided both sides are willing to figure it out. I probably should have included in my plan that the Netanyahu government eventually has to be replaced by a more moderate administration.
That's never stopped us humans before. Germans are nice people, too. And Palestinians, for that matter - and yet Oct. 7 happened. Regardless of what the Torah says, we're not special of different from the rest.
Look, it's easy enough to make make wild assumptions, but at that point you're on the same level with the one-state-solution people. I want my government to treat this like every other international ethnic conflict, because that's what it is. Putting the Bosnians or Serbs individually in charge of the former Yugoslavia wouldn't have been good, and neither will helping the Israelis do whatever they want.
I never said we're special. But if the IDF is telling people to move out of harm's way in the middle of a war, the simplest and most likely explanation is that they don't want to kill those people.
Unfortunately this is not like every other ethnic conflict. That's where the left is wrong, thinking this is just the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and we can sort it out with diplomacy. Those of us who understand the broader context don't see it as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict but the Israel/Iran war. This is about a genocidal Islamist regime that wants Israel literally destroyed and is willing to destroy countries and sacrifice their people (Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria) to accomplish that goal. *They're *the bad guys here.
So do you think if the Iranian government fell (not far fetched, as you mentioned - they're domestically unpopular), the issue would go away? I really don't. They're part of it, but it seems more like opportunism to gain support and influence than anything else.
Over the long term, yes.
There will always be jihadists and Islamist terrorists will always exist on a small scale, but without the backing of Iran none of it would exist on a scale that can threaten Israel or other countries in the region. The moderate Sunni countries like SA would become the main Muslim influence in the region and could help bring the Middle East into a new era of peace and prosperity.
Saudi is moderate on Israel, I guess, but they're even more brutal than Iran in most other ways. The Middle East is a rough neighborhood.
That's a pretty strong claim, and seems to fly in the face of the fact that there's more Arabs than Iranians out there by far. The Iranian revolution was in the mid 70's. You know Israel had to fight for it's existence several times before that, right? The borders everyone is telling Israel to respect are the 1967 ones, even...
Yes, the Middle East is a rough, regressive, oppressive neighborhood. Islam has a lot to do with that.
But there are Muslim countries that have shown an interest in at least progressing from the most archaic and extreme interpretations of Islam. Those countries are pursuing normalization with Israel not because they suddenly like Jews, but because they respect the strength and prosperity of Israel and recognize it as a valuable partner for their own national development. These countries have put their past conflicts with Israel behind them.
Ironically, the people of Iran are among the least antisemitic in that part of the world. They scored lower on the ADL Global 100 than Greece!
Islam is slightly remixed Judaism. It's annoying when Christians do this, and it's annoying if Jews do this, too. Islamic civilisation was better and more progressive than the ones in Europe for a long time, even.
I really hope you stick to this line in the future, I guess. If you're right, everything will be fine. If I'm right and you stay true to it, we'll be on the same side shortly.