Israel - Palestine Conflict. **Mod note in OP - updated 1st August**

brimal wrote: »

That's good.

I'm sure you find anti-semitism as abhorrent as I do. No 'character references' needed from me either.

Manic Moran wrote: »

Different blockade. Check the Notices to Mariners.

The rules change when you're involved in a conflict. Israel and Gaza have been in a state of mutual hostilities for a couple of weeks now. As Corvus correctly points out, a full blockade is an act of war. Note that the Notice to Mariners starting mid July from Israel after the shooting started changed from the previous status to "Closure of area". We're not talking about whether or not sufficient calories or cement have been let into the country, we're talking about an honest-to-god shooting war. Well, since that's what Hamas and Israel are involved in, who wouldn't expect to see a closure? This is not the same standing blockade from 2010 (and opinions as to that one's legality vary: eg The UNHCR report found it illegal, the UN Secretary General's report found it legal), this is a "this is a battlefield" blockade, and Israel (understandably) seems to make no attempt to link the two.



No reason to think they're not Israeli. I have no way of telling who they're shooting at or why.



I have no idea if they are knowingly breaking the laws, being unacceptably reckless, or if it's just that we notice the effects more because of the modern media. One thing I have noticed, there have been very few instances in this conflict where concluding that Israeli forces are acting unlawfully have gone beyond "inference and subjective interpretation" to "yeah, there's not really any way to explain that one" such as the chap in the green shirt shot when looking for his family. And in the cases which do fit in the latter category, I have not attempted to put forth another perspective as I agree with most on here with their interpretations in such instances.

Look, I'll be amongst the first to say that Israel is screwing up on a policy level. Their position on settlements and continued encroachment on Palestinian land can only bring trouble, and why they won't accept third-party enforcement of the blockade as Hamas has proposed is beyond me except out of bloody-mindedness, but that's not what I've been addressing here. It's not even the topic of this thread, which is the vigorous exchange of opinion which has been going on the last couple of weeks.

Over the past few weeks, I've seen all sorts of statements being repeatedly thrown around which I have not commented upon. "Israel used human shields in 2007" (relevance to today?), "Hamas are evil as they shoot from near hospitals" (I don't see a need to ascribe motivation, if they're evil or not, I don't care), and so on. I'm a soldier, and from my point of view, arguments like that are utterly irrelevant. What matters is the here and now, and actions, not motivations. When you're slinging ordnance at each other, motivation becomes pretty irrelevant. "We got it. You don't like us". And, unfortunately, often times to assess the actions, we are required to have information which is not available to us, either due to lack of access to it (as is usually the case), or lack of willingness to look it up. (How many people know that Israel publicly changed the blockade to a war condition once the shooting started? How many even thought to look it up?)

Every single Israeli action noted on this thread, it seems, is being taken as an outrage, a war crime, despite lack of evidence that it is one, and the improbability that they -all- are. You don't take a guy to court and say "Your honor, Joe Bloggs should be found guilty of vehicular manslaughter because X was killed as a result of being hit by his car, and all his friends are scum". You can't even say "Your honor, Joe Bloggs is guilty of vehicular manslaughter given that person X was killed as a result of being hit by his car, and his scum friends both were guilty of vehicular manslaughter last week."

Further, as we all are aware, we're pretty much only seeing the 'end result' part of the equation. That's hardly confined to warfare. You may recall several police incidents in the US in recent years, such as "Video shows unarmed man being shot as he runs away from police", or "Protests after man dies in police custody from gunshot wound", only to have later discoveries that, well, another dashcam caught the incident and he had actually just shot at the cop, or the release of cell footage which showed that the prisoner wasn't searched upon arrest, drew his own .45, and shot himself.

It is possible, I'd say probable, that a number of the incidents I have actually commented upon were, in fact, war crimes. That does not make them all so. It does not make any particular one so. I have never once said, as far as I can recall, "This was not a war crime," as such a statement requires the same missing information which would be necessary to determine that it was one. But I do put forward explanations why they may not be so, and believe people are not taking a dispassionate view of things.

For whatever reason, and I really don't care why, a lot of people on this thread are emotionally vested towards the Palestinians and a few towards the Israelis. I don't care. I have very rarely commented upon jus ad bellum issues. I've never said that Israel were correct to attack Gaza last month, or that Hamas do or don't have a justification for armed resistance. Jus in bello is far more my lane and I will comment equally dispassionately upon both Palestinian and Israeli actions as they're brought up. Just seems Israeli actions are coming up in discussion far more around here.

Incidentally, in the application of this, I seem to differ from many of my colleagues. I'm currently taking a staff officer's course, and we have a couple of ethics blocks. As we were discussing terrorism, I observed that we are being far too loose with the word these days, and that, for example, the Beiruit bombing was, in my eyes, legitimate. And that even sitting as we were in the classroom, paid, uniformed soldiers, we were legitimate targets under the laws of war. I appear to be in the minority viewpoint on this, most of my colleagues would categorise it as terrorism.

TommyKnocker wrote: »

Israel on Cease fire

http://www.imemc.org/article/68848

RustyNut wrote: »

Do you accept the Palestinian peoples right to resist the hostile military occupation and blockade?

Manic Moran wrote: »

Sure, they have the right, but I don't think it's a good idea for reasons which should be rather obvious right now

Fiolina wrote: »

Does anyone know if there's another march organised for this Saturday?