Expect it? No.
Require it? It’s almost impossible to enforce, but some sort of international government conglomerate has supposedly agreed on the “law of war” that is supposed to be followed. That should be adhered too, specially if one wants allies on one’s side.
Technically both sides are in violation.
However, Israel has the technology and the superiority force to more methodically go in and root out Hamas. This is not how the IDF is currently operating.
I don’t expect zero collateral damage in war (to do so would be naive), but not much is being done to mitigate the level of collateral here.
-told the civilians to leave Gaza, gave them time to do so before going in
-hamas shields itself behind civilians in schools and hospitals, tunnels underneath both…so, in my opinion its on hamas not Israel
and everyone not involved thinks Israel should have a ceasefire…that will give hamas time to regenerate
That’s the narrative from some sources. Other sources are saying Israel is also making it difficult to get out. It’s pretty common knowledge now too that they are not letting aid in.
That is a justification for not mitigating collateral damage? Take the innocent non-combatants out with the assholes because the end outcome supposedly justifies the means?
I don’t think a ceasefire is prudent. My argument is that the approach being taken is indiscriminate against human life.
If Israel had no interest in casualty mitigation they would be waging total war. They aren’t even close to fighting with the gloves off.
Human shields in war are utterly inexcusable and a testament to the inverted values of Hamas. Their tactics are no different than strapping babies to tanks and then acting horrified when the child is blown to bits by an RPG.
This has been the story coming out of the Middle East for decades now.
The enemy combatants hide in and attack from mosques, hospitals, daycare/kindergartens and schools.
Then point the finger and claim that its an atrocity and war crime or what ever.
So they’re playing hopscotch with the lines between cultural relativism in theirs vs. ours. We like to be the good guys who don’t bomb hospitals & non-combatants, and clearly they don’t give a shit about any of those things unless it benefits them in the court of public opinion.
In fact, it seems like they go for weakest and least capable first.
The people who started shit and the people bearing the brunt of the getting fucked up part are two different groups. Maybe the latter is complicit with the first, most likely out of duress.
Lumping the entire citizenry in with Hamas is the same logic as lumping all white people in with the KKK.
Because they are part of your tribe and the opponent is not? Quite a reductionist view of humanity.
I have a duty to my family. I don’t have a duty to anyone else.
This sense of saving everyone else and the world is a large part of why we are where we are.
Giving billions and into the trillions to other countries while our infrastructure crumbles, our vets are not taken care of, our homeless skyrocket, mental health issues abound.
I sincerely do not give a fuck about anyone else until all of ours are taken care of and they are safe. If that takes annihilating an entire populace to guarantee the safety of mine? So be it. Price gladly paid.
This is like worrying about people in another state you don’t know while your kids go hungry and are not safe.
At the end of the day humans are still animals - the strong will prevail. The weak-spined cowards that can’t make the tough decisions or won’t due to some sense of morality will die out and perish. Especially when you are fighting an ideology that hates you and wants you to cease to exist. There is only one way this eventually ends and only 1 winner.
How they got there does not matter in terms of survival and keeping yours safe. All that matters is results. It matters zero how those results are achieved. Your descendants will be alive and theirs will not. They will cede to a footnote in history and nobody will care.
Where is the KKK now? Did all white people adhere to a version of the KKK’s religion that requires expansionism and for the infidels to be eradicated? This is a very poor example or comparison.
Was the KKK hiding in hospitals / behind civilians and shooting rockets into black neighborhoods?
I agree this is stupid and we should monetarily and physically stay out of the Israel/Gaza conflict.
I am not denying this exists, but since this is a thread discussing specifically Hamas/Israel, it can be recognized that what is going on is an utter clusterfuck.
And thats the crux of the issue.
It’s just the person with the bigger stick beating the smaller into submission. I understand this is essentially all of human history. Maybe there is a better way forward. Maybe not.
Again, I have no issues eradicating Hamas. Take everyone else out along the way is excessive.
Obviously minimally existent. The point is - no one started dropping bombs in white neighborhoods because a few racist assholes committed a lynching. Maybe they would have had option been available, I will concede that.
Why is it so hard for Americans to believe that people from a different part of the world, with a different religion, culture and history do not think and reason like Americans? The overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs hate Jews. And it has nothing to do with Israel as hating Jews is a tradition that dates back to Mohammad, who beheaded a lot of them.
I don’t know enough about this history between the two groups to know if it is a cultural phenomenon.
What you are essentially saying though is that given the means any given Palestinian would gladly wipe out the Jews given the means. Do you really believe that?
I grew up in American culture, on military bases in Korea, Turkey, Germany, Italy. But came to America when I was 12, so always looked as it from an outsider perspective.
Americans are fucking weird.
The American thoughts are unique, and our mythology is superheroes.
I could write a thesis on this, but after living, travelling, and moving around the world, and in America, I feel like it both misunderstands the world, but is also misunderstood.
Edit: To answer the original quote, I think Americans find this rabid need to to be individualistic, and it is fucking fun, makes you feel like a bonfire while the rest of the world is scholeric. Americans are like a fragmented sparta, if that makes sense. Read The Illiad, The Odyssey, and The Bible, you have all the info you need. Pair that with a short memory and you’re set.
I don’t think Israel is bombing civilians just to bomb civilians.
But, I also would not send my soldiers and citizens who are few in numbers in harms way when I don’t have to. I would choose to just level the building and achieve my goal instead of building clearing (which is one of the most dangerous and hardest things to do on a dug in enemy that knows you are coming).
If anything, Israel is being nice imo.
Not when dealing with what they are dealing with. You are fighting an ingrained ideology that has a religious stranglehold over billions of people. They are literally surrounded by people who hate them. They are being far more reserved than I would be.
It is a shitty situation for the “innocent” people there. There is nothing anyone can do about it until both sides stop worshipping the “holy” land and toss of the chains of their sky daddies.
Or one side gets eradicated. I am not a betting man, but I bet on one side eventually being eradicated.
Any? No. Most, yes. Look at the history of Western thought and culture. Now look at the Middle East. Ask yourself which part of the world thinks the same as it did a thousand years ago.
There probably are other alternatives, but I think these are fairly likely. Just my opinion, but there needs to be a culture / religious shift for there to be peace. Religion needs to be less prominent in the culture for both sides to get along (and I think that applies far more to the Palestinians).
To accomplish this, I think standards of living and access to information needs to be improved. The places with the extreme religious devotion tend to be poor without much access to information. They also don’t have much exposure to outsiders, which makes it easier to have hardened views of those who don’t follow the religion / are a different group.
I think we will see the rich Arab countries get more secular faster than the poor ones. We have already seen it to an extent, but by western standards, they are still backwards (just less so).
Saudi Arabia is wealthy and the citizens have a high standard of living. It also funds fundamentalist schools. Qatar is home base for Hamas. The 911 hijackers were not exactly uneducated.
