Netanyahu and Hamas

The threat to Israel is existential: Hamas wants them all dead. Hamas proved they can do it, will do it, and intend to do it again and again.

What Hamas want and what they can do are two very different things. Hamas do not have the fire power or the manpower to kill all of Israel but Israel certainly do to kill all of Palestine.

On top of that, under the genocide convention Israel has a legal obligation to use devastating force against Hamas as a punishment for the genocide of October 7th.

As horrific as the attacks on October 7th were it was not genocide so the genocide convention does not apply here

Proportionality in international law is proportionality to the threat not to what has already happened (although it has to factor in what has happened to assess the threat). Proportionality isn’t about numbers, otherwise it would mean Israelis should go out and r—e exactly the same number of women & children and behead exactly the same number of civilians and kidnap exactly the same number of toddlers and shoot exactly the same number of children in front of exactly the same number of parents - that really would be retaliation - proportionality means means Israel should use the minimum level of force that is required compared against the threat. The threat to Israel is existential: Hamas wants them all dead. Hamas proved they can do it, will do it, and intend to do it again and again. Proportionality is comparing Israel’s actions to what Hamas is likely to do if Israel does nothing. On top of that, under the genocide convention Israel has a legal obligation to use devastating force against Hamas as a punishment for the genocide of October 7th.

And the policy of Israel is to use disproportionate force? Which is a war crime by the way.

Poor Palestinians- stuck between Hamas who use them as human shields and a country which kills hundreds for every one of their own citizens killed as a deterrence.

https://imeu.org/article/the-dahiya-doctrine-and-israels-use-of-disproportionate-force

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/05/israel-disproportionate-force-tactic-infrastructure-economy-civilian-casualties

Is this happening in the West Bank too? Is Hamas using West Bank civilians and homes to fire rockets into Israel, or is there another reason for the deaths there? Another reason why Palestinians are being driven from their homes? Are they Hamas, but they don’t know it?
At least 100 children have been killed in the West Bank this year!
https://www.savethechildren.net/news/least-101-children-killed-west-bank-year

i know you didn’t ask me and I’m not an expert but I’m giving you my opinion anyway. I don’t think the US will let this happen - that type of forced displacement of citizens would be very difficult to justify to the international community.

Egypt will be extremely against it, they will suddenly have a huge amount of refugees who will not have a right of return. They’ll also be worried about Hamas launching rockets and attacking Israel from Egyptian soil making Egypt a target.

I don’t know what the grand plan is. I think it’s looking like the US will ultimately be forced to say they will pull budget from Israel and in the meantime Israel want to do maximum damage.

I don’t see any denial (from the international community) that Hamas is using civilians as human shields but it doesn’t justify Israeli actions. They are still bound by international law to minimise civilian casualties. They said themselves that they are abandoning precision and focusing on maximum damage. Even the Isreali authorities themselves aren’t under the illusion that they are carefully hitting military targets.

@stomachameleon I think even if that is something that some politicians in Israel might want, Egypt will not allow it to happen and they have made it clear
I don't think it will happen

@Parkingt111 I am asking your opinion on this but do you think (whether rightly or wrongly) that the plan is to push the Palestinians through the border to Egypt?

If you have already said I apologise. I just feel like somethings got to give.

Re Hamas using civilians as human shields and why it is such a problem.

This is Fathi Hammad a Hamas politician (?) speaking in 2008. He is still speaking out, his views are still part of what is happening. You can see Hamas has an actual philosophy behind getting woman, children and the elderly killed:

www.memri.org/tv/hamas-mp-fathi-hammad-we-used-women-and-children-human-shields

Hamas MP Fathi Hammad: We Used Women and Children as Human Shields

#1710 | 49
Source: Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas/Gaza)Following are excerpts from a speech delivered by Hamas MP Fathi Hammad, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on February 29, 2008.Fathi Hammad: [The enemies of Allah] do not know that the Palestinian people has developed its [methods] of death and death-seeking. For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this, and so do the mujahideenand the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: "We desire death like you desire life."[me saying this now] So it is true the people have no where to go and no where to escape to given Gaza is so crowded, but at the same time the policy of Hamas is for the people to get killed.

There's very few who still believe that Israel is trying to avoid civilian casualties
Infact I see this narrative challenged almost daily on MSM. Even the US have finally conceded that not enough was done to minimise this

Just read this now on sky news.

Harrowing" reports are emerging from aid workers inside Gaza as Palestinians are "crammed in a smaller and smaller area" that is being bombarded from Israeli forces, the secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council has said.
Jan Egeland told Sky News there are no safe areas in southern Gaza, despite calls from the Israeli military for Palestinians to move to them.
There is "no functional aid" for the civilian population and it's an "illusion" the IDF is taking precautions, he said.
Mr Egeland said 50 of his colleagues on the ground in southern Gaza received leaflets dropped by Israel's military telling them to go to "known shelters" and "safe places" with no mention of where they were.
There is a map that can be accessed online but the internet is not working, he said.
The secretary-general described the Israeli offensive as the "worst possible way to wage war against terror" and said it had created conditions which were "unliveable for two million people".

I just looked up the question of how many Hamas terrorist fighters Israel has killed and found this:

5,000 Hamas militants
The AFP news agency first reported the Israeli assessment on Monday, citing a briefing for foreign media by senior Israeli military officials. Asked about reports that about 5,000Hamas militants had been killed since October 7, one of the officials replied, according to AFP: “The numbers are more or less right.”5 hours ago
www.cnn.com › middleeast
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/05/middleeast/israel-hamas-military-civilian-ratio-killed-intl-hnk/index.html

For some perspective, though not to suggest on my part that this is an excuse for Israel or anyone else to kill so many civilians, this was Afghanistan:

About 243,000 people have been killed in the Afghanistan/Pakistan warzone since 2001. More than 70,000 of those killed have been civilians.
watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan

Here are statistics of Israeli deaths to Palestian deaths 2008 -2020
https://www.statista.com/chart/16516/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank/

These go up to Nov 2023
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/12/israel-hamas-war-data-shows-human-cost-of-conflict-through-the-years.html

One worry is that if 5000 Hamas militants have been killed in two months, with such damage and so many deaths, what will it take to finish killing all of the Hamas terrorist fighters?

I think they have a right to complain, who wants to be used as a human shield by terrorists? Who wants to be collateral in the destruction of terrorists either? The issue is that people are blaming the wrong side.

Hamas deliberately operate from civilian areas to force Israel’s hand, for propaganda purposes. Hamas really are extremists, Hamas really do believe that when they get innocent children and Muslim civilians killed, they have done them a favour. It’s no cost to them, they get the propaganda they want and they also feel they have done a good deed. Everyone saw Hamas’s behaviour on October 7th, they are explicitly genocidal.

Despite people’s characterisation of Jews, we are not bloodthirsty, our culture celebrates life. Our famous toast translates literally as “To life!” European antisemitism is hundreds of years old with tropes about us sacrificing babies and revelling in the blood of the innocent, it’s never been true. As Eylon Levy said, we wish we could fight this war in sterile laboratory conditions. We wish that this war could be fought on a medieval battlefield miles away from civilians.

Israel categorically does not want Gaza. Israel gave up its claim years ago, for peace. Israel did not want this war. Israel did not break the ceasefire on October 7th.

It is Hamas that doesn’t care about innocent Palestinians. It’s Hamas that is genocidal and hungry for land - they want all of Israel to be Palestine with no Jews. It’s Hamas that is responsible.

Hamas planned this attack for months, they planned how they would survive underground and where the weapons would come from and how to breach the fence and how to select hostages and how to kill and torture civilians. They didn’t plan how to protect their own civilians, because they don’t want to.

When people in the West give Hamas exactly what they want - condemnation of Israel - it keeps the cycle going. Hamas use their civilians as human shields because there is no cost to them and because it works. If you want it to stop, you have to blame the right people.

‘For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.’

In my opinion, applicable to all who plant and support hate, with the whirlwind being unfairly indiscriminate. Why is it so much easier to spread hate and destruction than it is to spread kindness and understanding. A human weakness?

Oh yes, facts are very goady

@RafaistheKingofClay not sure you can complain about civilian areas being hit whilst firing rockets from those areas.

It would be more surprising if they weren’t given there’s a war going on. And just like in any war it’s unlikely to stop while they are still being heavily bombed.

Exact words regarding civilian death toll in Gaza

“The truth is that if asking nicely worked, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today,” Sanders said in a floor speech. It was time for the United States to use its “substantial leverage” with its ally, the Vermont senator said.
“And we all know what that leverage is,” he said, adding, “the blank-check approach must end.”

That's true
Bernie Sanders said yesterday or the day before that asking Israel nicely to minimise civilian casualties isn't working so maybe its time to use the leverage they have which is stop the blank cheque the US give to Israel

When the US are showing signs of alarm at the civilian death toll with daily open statements, I can't see how people here still think that Israel is taking great care to avoid civilian casualties

With 75% of the population now displaced and Israel more focused on a military campaign in the south - there is no safe place in Gaza.

I know you dismiss the WHO, the UN and international human rights organisations as anti Semitic. And you will probably dismiss Save the children, Oxfam, Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross who are all sounding the alarm bells about what’s happening in Gaza.

but even the USwho pay a percentage of Israel’s defence budget and can be surely considered a friend are saying both publicly and privately that Israel should be “more precise”, mentioning the death toll, the humanitarian situation and devastation.

I attended a vigil last week where they were reading the names of all the victims out, starting with the youngest. I was there an hour and a quarter and they were still only reading out the names of the four year olds. They've killed a lot of babies, toddlers and small children.

@paladium you may say that but rockets are continually being fired from civilian areas into Israel still.
You can't refute that.

@cauliflowerwaterfall

At this point debating it is silly because some people are determined to believe the worst. Israel is targeting legitimate military targets which are actively being used against Israeli civilians, and Hamas are deliberately using them deep in populated areas. Israel has made millions of phone calls, dropped millions of leaflets, made hundreds of house calls… I mean we have been targets of genocide quite a few times, no wannabe genocider has EVER told us they were coming or suggested we might think about escaping with our families. Meanwhile it never ceases to amaze me how there is no reaction whatsoever to Hamas using civilians as human shields or blocking them from leaving. It’s not even double standards, it’s no standards.

Just to add that the list of all those killed includes

• ID number
• Full names
• Age

I haven't seen a recent one but I did see the one that was published in response to early claims that the death toll was inflated

Not many people are saying that now as even the US have accepted that the death toll is likely to be correct
I remember reading the list at the time and there were many children on there under 10 years old

Even quite a few under 3 years old and 1 years old

Even if you take the Palestinian death toll with a pinch of salt the fact remains that Israel are using indiscriminate weapons in crowded places and a large civilian death toll is likely to result. Now whether the Israeli authorities see the deaths as “collateral damage” or whether their ultimate goal is to reduce the number of Gazan civilians is something that is still up for debate.