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Israel is in no way justified in executing innocent civilians. What they are justified in is waging a war of self-defense against a country that wishes to completely destroy them and has used every dirty trick in the book to attempt just that before turning its populace into a meatshield and playing innocent little victim when Israel returns fire. This has been Hamas's MO for years.
Now you tell me: what should Israel do? Allow their neighbor to continue killing Jews in perpetuity? Evacuate the whole country so that Palestine can have its "from the river to the sea" goal? Lie down and accept the genocide that will come if they lay down their arms completely? This is by no means an easy war to judge or adjudicate on, and saying that Israel can't fight back at all, like you seem to be saying, is tantamount to declaring that the Jews in that area have no right to live. If you believe that Israel has a right to fight back, then I ask you: how, exactly, do you fight an enemy that will eagerly throw its entire civilian population into a wood chipper if it means killing just one Jew? If you can't think of a better solution to this problem, then you have no place criticizing them for their actions.
It wasn't just October 7th that triggered it. It's Hamas's long and storied history of breaking ceasefires and using humanitarian aid as weapons against Israel. The Hamas government is utterly insane. They need to be replaced with representatives who will not drag their people into wars that get them killed.
I would argue that you do have to provide a better solution. If you do nothing about the people killing innocents indiscriminately, that will only embolden them and lead to even more deaths. When does it become unacceptable to continue allowing your citizens to be massacred by terrorists? Again, should Israel just let their people get killed forever?
What other options does Israel have at this point? Again, you're implying that if they just let themselves die then the problem will eventually disappear. I mean, it will, because the roads of Jerusalem will be painted with the blood of innocent Jews, but that's beside the point. They can't make peace with Hamas because Hamas is single-mindedly focused on destroying Israel. It's going to take an international coalition to stop the war, of which I am in wholehearted support, by removing the genocidal freaks running Palestine. Border security and the Iron Dome are good, but they'll only go so far when the entire purpose of the government across that border is to kill you. Left to their own devices, they'll figure something out eventually.
Israel is, in fact, running precision strikes against the leadership of Hamas. They are continually picking off the leaders of that faction, but it's difficult to get at them because they often hide in other countries and issue suicidal orders from cozy apartments and hotel rooms. They sure could use better leadership - the intelligence failure with October 7th shows that much - and they certainly should be promoting peaceful political parties. I want this war to end peacefully as much as you do, and I don't want any more Palestinian or Israeli civilians to die needlessly. But right now, Hamas is killing its population and Israel's out of sheer, blind hatred. If there was certainty that Hamas wouldn't start its nonsense again (as I've said before, they want to do October 7th over and over again), then maybe we'd have peace now.
How can one not see that the latter is merely a euphemism for the former? Let's bear in mind that Gaza is not "a country" and is not even recognized as a state by Israel, themselves. What Hamas is is a terrorist organization who is holding a captive audience of innocent Palestinians no different than the terrorists in the film Die Hard -- which would have quite a different outcome if the police just decided to demolish the entire building.
In other words, yes: If Israel knows that civilians will be killed when they attack a Hamas target, then they are indeed, executing those civilians in kind. There is zero difference been sitting the 5 of them down and shooting them in the back of the head, or dropping a 1,000lb JDAM on them with full knowledge of civilian presence — agreed?
I need to be very clear because I'm coming from the perspective of someone who is above all Pro-Civilian; So let me explain that when I assess this scenario, I look for who is actively harming the most civilians. Independent of who fired the first shot, if the the response becomes objectively worse for those innocent lives — all the while having no clear end-goal objective that doesn't exacerbate the risk to rising radicalism — then that's going to be the center of my concern.
We know how radicalism occurs. People don't get radicalize out of thin air, after all. It takes decades of oppression, diminished opportunities, living in slums, low education, low socioeconomic opportunity, and so on. Therein lies solutions as to how you improve conditions to the point that people don't feel so desperate and vengeful. The solution isn't to make orphans and leave parents without their children by bombing one of the most densely populated regions on the planet.
Let me be very clear that I am (a) NOT saying Israel cannot DEFEND itself, (b) NOR am I saying that Israel does not have a right to exist. What I am saying is that there are better methods at protecting Israeli civilians (remember, it wasn't just Jews who were targeted that day, but Palestinian Muslims died, too) AND reducing terrorism that does not necessitate committing the equivalent of DOZENS of October 7ths in kind.
It was October 7th that triggered it, bar-none. If October 7th didn't happen, then Israel would not have leveled Gaza as they did. This really isn't up for dispute; this is what Israeli leadership themselves have repeatedly said.
What frustrates me is you dodged so many of the questions I have. If I'm being honest, I suspect your incapacity to confront these questions head-on speaks to the discomfort as we approach the threshold of cognitive dissonance. So please permit me to reiterate the dodged questions:
Where, exactly, does the line finally begin to be blurred for you, I wonder…?
How many civilians are you willing to execute per alleged Hamas target?
And tell me further, would you also defend Israel if they were to drop a nuke on Gaza?
So tell me, how far does this logic extend?
How does killing this many civilians and destabilizing the region by leveling all civilian infrastructure including undermining the capacity for hospitals to operate truly lead to less and not more radicalization in the years to come?
What do you think is going to happen to all those orphans and parents of dead children in the decades to come? I can tell you exactly what I would do if I was in their shoes, after all...
How many children is Israel morally permitted to kill in their end goal?
You ask me what they could do differently and I provided several that went entirely ignored, but I'll reiterate a key one: Change of Leadership. Over 70% of Israel disapproves of Bibi. It's not working. His actions have only exacerbated radicalization and will only continue to do so. He has botched several hostage rescue attempts, moved the goalpost on permanent ceasefire deals that could've seen these hostages freed, and failed to secure his borders and adhere to blatantly obvious intelligence. But it's not going not happen because Netanyahu would be in prison if not for the immunity of being in office. Please, stop trying to justify the actions of this war criminal.
And no, border security and the iron dome really is it. It really is the most effective way. It's not difficult to stop motorcycles and para-gliders. The planning of this simplistic attack took countless resources and months if not longer of planning and could've easily been stopped by a competent leadership and military. Right here I have both protected Israelis, and prevented the mass slaughter of innocent Gaza civilians. I once again reiterate that Israel has committed a scale of destruction against innocent civilians that Hamas could not possibly have achieved in 50 or 100 years with the resources they had. So in that respect, and in regards to thinking about the innocent civilians, it's no wonder why I believe it is in fact Israel who is the larger terrorist threat.
Remember: Under bibi they've ignored intelligence, killed their own hostages who were unarmed and had a white flag, botched a rescue when they could've been saved by a permanent ceasefire, and bombed humanitarian aid convoys despite coordination with IDF command as instructed. This demonstrates profound incompetence that also explains the gross civilian casualty count.
Ultimately here are the conditions for you to convince me that what Israel is doing is morally justified:
You don't seem to understand what "execution" means. Let me put it to you this way: an execution is when you intend to kill someone specific. When the government sentences someone to death and shoots them in the head behind the prison, that is an execution. When the Israeli government is trying to warn people that they're going to attack a place, Hamas refuses to evacuate them, and they die as a result, that is not an execution.
If Israel is going around, finding civilians, putting them against the wall, and shooting them in the head, that is wrong. But the Geneva Conventions are clear that simply because a military installation has civilians in it does not mean the installation is no longer a legitimate target. That's the question at hand here. Hamas has been using civilian buildings as military installations for the entire war. Therefore, Israel is justified in bringing those buildings down. One point you are constantly missing is that not only are the combatants in the building holding the civilians hostage, they are an active threat to people miles away. The longer they aren't dealt with, the worse the situation will become. If they can't go in there and clear the building floor by floor to specifically only kill the combatants - which is precisely the situation Israel is in - then they have no choices other than to bomb the place or to allow the assaults to continue. It's a lose-lose situation, but they have an obligation to their own people first and foremost. Why should Israel take the blame when Hamas is the organization that is putting weapons and personnel into a civilian building, launching assaults at them, and refusing to allow the civilians to leave?
October 7th has had a long, long history leading up to it, on both sides. This just happens to be the worst incident in a long time. It likely wouldn't be as bad as it is today if none of that had happened, or if Israel had listened to their intelligence.
Alright, I will directly answer your questions.
I agree that a leadership change is necessary. But as far as I can tell, you have offered no solutions to the problem of an active war other than "let the Jews die." If Israel gets rid of its idiotic governors and installs people who will at least listen to their intelligence reports, that's a good start, but right now they also have to contend with a genocidal government next door. While you're cleaning up inside the government, what would you do about the soldiers killing your people?
"Border security" means nothing against a foe with a tunnel system that's practically as large and developed as the surface of the country. If you'd like to bury Israeli soldiers underground waiting for Hamas to tunnel to them, I welcome you to relay that to the IDF. Yes, more civilians have died on the Palestinian side, but if Hamas would stop strapping babies to themselves to make it suddenly morally unjustifiable to shoot back, then those deaths wouldn't have happened.
Now, since I've answered your questions, I'd like to ask you some as well.
(Comment 2 of 2)
Just as to whether the scale of the Israeli response was unjustified — No.
Yes. There is a shared responsibility between the hostage taker and the person willing to shoot the hostage(s) alongside the hostage-taker. To me it speaks more of the "good guy," who is so willing to level the hostages than it even does the terrorist for whom we already know lacks moral values. To me it (a) makes zero logical sense in stifling radicalization in the long-term, and (b) it undermines a fundamental western philosophy that actually underscores our entire judicial philosophy: That "it is better that 10 guilty persons go free than 1 innocent person be imprisoned." It's the same reason the US negotiated with Russia to free innocent people in exchange for giving them back scum. The value of our innocent people is greater than their scum. Naturally, I would respect Israel more if they actually cared about civilians of all types a little bit more as opposed to justifying what is, on paper, far worse than the original attack.
I'm not sure a ratio, but I'll say up to but not exceeding 1,200 total or whatever the official toll of October 7th was. As Robert McNamara once said, "Proportionality should be a guideline to war."
Ideally, none.
There is no real government of Gaza; and there is no national identity. There is a gang and that gang like a pimp offers protection to the Goliath next door who is equally no friend but rather a right-wing nationalist state with an obvious interest in creeping territorial annexation that can be tracked going back decades. Both sides of shown an unwillingness to compromise ultimately, which again dates back to the assassination of Israel's former prime minister. My direct answer: Studying how radicalization occurs; why some humans radicalize and others do not. The answer isn't all that difficult in my view.
I'm not sure I buy the premise; there were countless times where IDF has murdered and yes, even raped in between truces; established blockades and invoked clear provocations in their own right.
To make this analogy work, you need to move these people across the border and into the streets of Israel. For that to happen, they need to get through a heavily-defended border, and yes, if that's going to happen, then sure. But I'll tell you what's really happening: You're leaving your home and deciding to wander into an adjacent city of people holed up in their own homes with babies on them and deciding, "Okay we'll just blow you up where you are even though you are not clear and present danger to the civilians of OUR city — nor ever would be if we actually took adequate measures to secure the bridge to our city properly.And in fact, we don't even fully know for sure IF there is a target in this area but we're just going to level it on a lead anyway." Quite a bit different, no? I'm going to also take a wild guess and say that Hamas isn't going so far as to do that and is simply hiding wherever they possibly can because Gaza isn't even that big, and that if they were strapping babies to themselves then they probably would face quite a bit of backlash even from those whom they try to oppress.
Russia basically is doing this with their mobilization and obvious attempts to purge ethnic minorities and other undesireables inside Russia. Unfortunately Ukraine has no choice given the the threat. But again, notice the difference in that Ukraine is legitimately playing defense.
I'll conclude with a reiteration of my original point: that in being Pro-Civilian, I cannot in good conscience believe that Israel is making a concerted effort to reduce civilian casualties; nor can I see how this will ever prevent further radicalization in the future without invoking genocide itself. The amount of civilian murders by Israel in their calculations to kill Hamas is on a scale that Hamas could not achieve for 50 or even 100 years. And within that time frame, I'm certain we could've figured out a better solution.
I forgot to address this from your other comment. If there truly are pointless killings of civilians being carried out by the IDF, those responsible should be punished. I'd be more than happy to see a third-party investigation into Israel's war effort performed by a neutral, disinterested party. If such a thing were to happen and, for example, certain people made it their goal to kill as many Palestinian civilians as possible, then those people need to be dealt with because they compromise the entire integrity of the IDF while wasting human life. Just like Hamas.
One-off intelligence failures, such as the one time I could find that Israeli hostages were accidentally killed, do not an illegitimate state nor genocide make.
We can do de-radicalization when Hamas decides that watching over 200 of its people die every day isn't worth however many Jews were killed since October 7th. They started this war, and they should have understood the consequences of breaching the border of a highly militarized society before they did so. Now, instead of paying the price, they're deflecting all blame to their sworn enemy and basking in neutral-if-not-positive press. If Hamas is truly incapable of coming to such a conclusion, they have no right to exist; not only should there be pressure on Israel and Gaza to declare a truce, but Hamas must be dissolved for the sake of the people of Gaza.