Try to slow down your feral mind for a moment and actually listen. I claimed the U.S. was not fighting Hamas in Gaza, but your statement said we were. Cuz you are an unhinged wingnut. As for being a pet, no they are what we call an 'ally'. No pets or anything to do with animals at all. It's also true that Israel pursues its interests often that are in conflict with American interests, so they aren't such a great pet anyway. And be clear, I support neither Hamas nor Israel. I'm perfectly happy to let them fight out their religious war and slaughter each other without any U.S. involvement or even an opinion.
The Israelis have definitely adopted more permissive targeting criteria, and this report might account for why, but it remains uncorroborated. It’s based on anonymous sourcing from retired officials, and I’ve seen complaints that it misrepresents the practices it describes. The point isn’t to dismiss it, but to be careful about presenting it as obviously correct.
Of course you’ve seen complaints it misrepresents the targeting practices. The article is describing deliberate mass murder in some, though not all of the bombing, and the satellite photographs, the number of dead journalists, the cutoff of power and eyewitness accounts all support that this is very likely to be the case. This is about as clear cut an example of a massive ongoing war crime as one can imagine, with even some officials making genocidal remarks, but since some Israelis deny it, we can never have metaphysical certainty.
And this just depresses the hell out of me. I am frankly amazed that the Israelis are so far gone that we have many making unguarded genocidal remarks when the norm is for officials of almost any modern government to deny any wrongdoing no matter how flagrant and yet when we have this war with all the evidence that we can see of deliberate brutality we still have to take Israeli and American officials seriously when they deny any deliberate wrongdoing.
And very specifically, look at all the homes and high rises destroyed. I suppose one way to describe that in as technocratic and bloodless way as possible is to say they have adopted more permissive targeting criteria.
Given that Israel’s government is basically fascist, and given how horrific the 10/7 massacre was, I’m surprised by how comparatively little genocidal rhetoric we’ve seen and how much of it was quickly walked back or “clarified.”
No one doubts the IDF has been more willing to strike near, or simply strike, nominally prohibited targets. No one doubts that the IDF has been less sensitive to noncombatant casualties than during the last invasion of Gaza. No one (I hope) disputes that the mass cutoff of utilities was a war crime.
The question is what, exactly, is going on. The article actually provides three explanations: the use of AI to try to predict the location of Hamas targets, the extension of double effect reasoning previously reserved for high-level Hamas operatives to all Hamas operatives, and efforts to “demoralize” the population.
There are other explanations. The goals of this campaign are to destroy the capabilities of an urban guerrilla force, one highly entrenched in Gaza. The IDF presumably wants to minimize its own casualties (which are still expected to be very high). That requires literally changing the topography of Gaza, such that IDF soldiers don’t have to make their way through streets between apartment complexes that provide ample cover for snipers, or bore their way through those complexes one apartment at a time. That requires degrading and destroying tunnels. That means trying to kill a lot of Hamas fighters before in advance of Israeli troops. And if involves fighting a force that deliberately tries to maximize noncombatant deaths as part of its broader strategy.
This so why the White House, as well as a lot of independent experts, were trying to dissuade the government from going in this direction (the “Beirut option”): they knew it would be extremely deadly—even if the IDF was on its best behavior. Which it hasn’t been.
Let’s be clear though: “deliberately murder” here means doing what militaries always do—knowingly killing non-combatants as a byproduct of trying to attack legitimate targets. This does not ipso facto violate the principle of discrimination; what controls is the question of double effect, whether the intended outcome justifies the loss of life.
My view is that it does not, and that a ground invasion was bound to kill so many non-combatants that there was no realistic outcome that could justify it. While the IDF remains more discriminating than, say, the Russians or the Syrians, we’re seeing a lot of strikes that look prosecutable as war crimes.
(Of course, what Israel is doing in the West Bank — or the settlers, armed by Ben Givr and the IDF, which is under orders not to interfere, are doing — is unambiguously illegal and immoral.)
ETA: those who argued that the air strikes were uniquely bad and that the Israelis should just “fight it on the ground” have not thought through what they would mean in terms of noncombatant deaths (for instance, destroying those high rises probably on balance saved lives). Unfortunately, we’re now getting a real-life demonstration: https://apple.news/AMciRuhPSS5-rURWMImeTbw
"involves fighting a force that deliberately tries to maximize noncombatant deaths as part of its broader strategy." This is a war crime all of its own, yes? You guys are screaming war crimes from the roofs, why such soft language when it comes to Hamas slaughtering Gazans for military and political advantage?
I don't think anyone criticizing the destruction of the high rises says the Israelis should have fought it out on the ground. Maybe the Biden people or military types who thought Mosul was a good model might suggest something like that. The closest one could come to a humane military solution would be drone strikes when Hamas leaders are present. That is a long slow process and civilians will be killed, but it wouldn't be on this scale. (I am not advocating it either. I see this war as a war between two sets of war criminals and the actions of both sides should be condemned without reservation.) If you are going to kill all 30,000 Hamas soldiers (or whatever the number is), then you are going to kill multiple times that many civilians. If you go ahead and do it, then you are saying that you place no value on the civilians in comparison to your objective.
As for intent, the Israeli officials who have blurted out the genocidal comments are saying the quiet part out loud. In the modern era one usually doesn't claim to be targeting civilians--even Hamas has claimed it wasn't targeting civilians on Oct 7--they have learned to play the rhetorical game the way it is supposed to be played. But when a government levels a large fraction of the homes and apartment buildings in a town, and doesn't always give warning, it is hard to see this as anything other than mass murder, and people have no trouble using the harshest possible rhetoric regarding similar tactics in Aleppo and Mariupol.
Furthermore, it is clear that given the chance (i.e., if Biden lets them), many in the Israeli government would prefer to expel most or all of the Gazan population and an extremely thorough job of physical destruction of homes and other civilian infrastructure will make it almost impossible for them to move back.
There have been similar arguments about the Nakba--was it ethnic cleansing from the very start or did it start as a military measure and evolve into that as the war went on? Meron Benvenisti argued for the second in "Sacred Landscapes", but it seems like an artificial distinction. The Zionist militias in early 1948 knew it would be convenient if the Palestinians they were forcibly expelling didn't come back--it had to have occurred to any sentient being. Similarly, when you destroy entire buildings without in some cases warning the residents, you can say there is a military purpose, but it is one of those elaborate circumlocutions that people in the modern age use so they have something to say in court (or for Western governments that don't need to worry about such things, the court of public opinion.)
I should also add that the humanitarian situation is an independent issue, one in which we’re looking at the possibility of “genocide by depraved indifference.”
I don’t use that word lightly: I absolutely reject the characterization of the military campaign as itself genocidal, and I think the abuse of that term comes from a combination of a) the desire of well-intentioned people to find a word commensurate to the horror they feel in the face of so many dead children and b) the toxic combination of the Israeli government’s use (for decades) of the Holocaust as a get-out-of-jail-free card and antisemitic efforts to “turn the tables” on Jews.
"If I were going to commit a genocide, I’d make sure to kill as many women and children as possible to eliminate the future generations of the people I was trying to wipe out. Come to think of it, I guess I’d basically do what Israel is doing in Gaza."
Both sides are screaming 'genocide' and lying about it. It's so disgusting. Wanna see genocide? Go look at what just happened to the Armenians again this year....
Boy, that sure sounds a lot like....terrorism. But it can't be terrorism when the US and its pets do it!
The entire +972 article is well worth reading. There is not a dull word in it.
Oh, so the U.S. is taking back Gaza now? Do you even listen to how ridiculously dishonest you are?
Israel is not an American pet?
Try to slow down your feral mind for a moment and actually listen. I claimed the U.S. was not fighting Hamas in Gaza, but your statement said we were. Cuz you are an unhinged wingnut. As for being a pet, no they are what we call an 'ally'. No pets or anything to do with animals at all. It's also true that Israel pursues its interests often that are in conflict with American interests, so they aren't such a great pet anyway. And be clear, I support neither Hamas nor Israel. I'm perfectly happy to let them fight out their religious war and slaughter each other without any U.S. involvement or even an opinion.
Except I didn't say that that the US was fighting in Gaza.
Otherwise, you are looking to throw out ad hominems.
The Israelis have definitely adopted more permissive targeting criteria, and this report might account for why, but it remains uncorroborated. It’s based on anonymous sourcing from retired officials, and I’ve seen complaints that it misrepresents the practices it describes. The point isn’t to dismiss it, but to be careful about presenting it as obviously correct.
Of course you’ve seen complaints it misrepresents the targeting practices. The article is describing deliberate mass murder in some, though not all of the bombing, and the satellite photographs, the number of dead journalists, the cutoff of power and eyewitness accounts all support that this is very likely to be the case. This is about as clear cut an example of a massive ongoing war crime as one can imagine, with even some officials making genocidal remarks, but since some Israelis deny it, we can never have metaphysical certainty.
And this just depresses the hell out of me. I am frankly amazed that the Israelis are so far gone that we have many making unguarded genocidal remarks when the norm is for officials of almost any modern government to deny any wrongdoing no matter how flagrant and yet when we have this war with all the evidence that we can see of deliberate brutality we still have to take Israeli and American officials seriously when they deny any deliberate wrongdoing.
And very specifically, look at all the homes and high rises destroyed. I suppose one way to describe that in as technocratic and bloodless way as possible is to say they have adopted more permissive targeting criteria.
Given that Israel’s government is basically fascist, and given how horrific the 10/7 massacre was, I’m surprised by how comparatively little genocidal rhetoric we’ve seen and how much of it was quickly walked back or “clarified.”
No one doubts the IDF has been more willing to strike near, or simply strike, nominally prohibited targets. No one doubts that the IDF has been less sensitive to noncombatant casualties than during the last invasion of Gaza. No one (I hope) disputes that the mass cutoff of utilities was a war crime.
The question is what, exactly, is going on. The article actually provides three explanations: the use of AI to try to predict the location of Hamas targets, the extension of double effect reasoning previously reserved for high-level Hamas operatives to all Hamas operatives, and efforts to “demoralize” the population.
There are other explanations. The goals of this campaign are to destroy the capabilities of an urban guerrilla force, one highly entrenched in Gaza. The IDF presumably wants to minimize its own casualties (which are still expected to be very high). That requires literally changing the topography of Gaza, such that IDF soldiers don’t have to make their way through streets between apartment complexes that provide ample cover for snipers, or bore their way through those complexes one apartment at a time. That requires degrading and destroying tunnels. That means trying to kill a lot of Hamas fighters before in advance of Israeli troops. And if involves fighting a force that deliberately tries to maximize noncombatant deaths as part of its broader strategy.
This so why the White House, as well as a lot of independent experts, were trying to dissuade the government from going in this direction (the “Beirut option”): they knew it would be extremely deadly—even if the IDF was on its best behavior. Which it hasn’t been.
Let’s be clear though: “deliberately murder” here means doing what militaries always do—knowingly killing non-combatants as a byproduct of trying to attack legitimate targets. This does not ipso facto violate the principle of discrimination; what controls is the question of double effect, whether the intended outcome justifies the loss of life.
My view is that it does not, and that a ground invasion was bound to kill so many non-combatants that there was no realistic outcome that could justify it. While the IDF remains more discriminating than, say, the Russians or the Syrians, we’re seeing a lot of strikes that look prosecutable as war crimes.
(Of course, what Israel is doing in the West Bank — or the settlers, armed by Ben Givr and the IDF, which is under orders not to interfere, are doing — is unambiguously illegal and immoral.)
ETA: those who argued that the air strikes were uniquely bad and that the Israelis should just “fight it on the ground” have not thought through what they would mean in terms of noncombatant deaths (for instance, destroying those high rises probably on balance saved lives). Unfortunately, we’re now getting a real-life demonstration: https://apple.news/AMciRuhPSS5-rURWMImeTbw
"involves fighting a force that deliberately tries to maximize noncombatant deaths as part of its broader strategy." This is a war crime all of its own, yes? You guys are screaming war crimes from the roofs, why such soft language when it comes to Hamas slaughtering Gazans for military and political advantage?
I don't think anyone criticizing the destruction of the high rises says the Israelis should have fought it out on the ground. Maybe the Biden people or military types who thought Mosul was a good model might suggest something like that. The closest one could come to a humane military solution would be drone strikes when Hamas leaders are present. That is a long slow process and civilians will be killed, but it wouldn't be on this scale. (I am not advocating it either. I see this war as a war between two sets of war criminals and the actions of both sides should be condemned without reservation.) If you are going to kill all 30,000 Hamas soldiers (or whatever the number is), then you are going to kill multiple times that many civilians. If you go ahead and do it, then you are saying that you place no value on the civilians in comparison to your objective.
As for intent, the Israeli officials who have blurted out the genocidal comments are saying the quiet part out loud. In the modern era one usually doesn't claim to be targeting civilians--even Hamas has claimed it wasn't targeting civilians on Oct 7--they have learned to play the rhetorical game the way it is supposed to be played. But when a government levels a large fraction of the homes and apartment buildings in a town, and doesn't always give warning, it is hard to see this as anything other than mass murder, and people have no trouble using the harshest possible rhetoric regarding similar tactics in Aleppo and Mariupol.
Furthermore, it is clear that given the chance (i.e., if Biden lets them), many in the Israeli government would prefer to expel most or all of the Gazan population and an extremely thorough job of physical destruction of homes and other civilian infrastructure will make it almost impossible for them to move back.
There have been similar arguments about the Nakba--was it ethnic cleansing from the very start or did it start as a military measure and evolve into that as the war went on? Meron Benvenisti argued for the second in "Sacred Landscapes", but it seems like an artificial distinction. The Zionist militias in early 1948 knew it would be convenient if the Palestinians they were forcibly expelling didn't come back--it had to have occurred to any sentient being. Similarly, when you destroy entire buildings without in some cases warning the residents, you can say there is a military purpose, but it is one of those elaborate circumlocutions that people in the modern age use so they have something to say in court (or for Western governments that don't need to worry about such things, the court of public opinion.)
I should also add that the humanitarian situation is an independent issue, one in which we’re looking at the possibility of “genocide by depraved indifference.”
I don’t use that word lightly: I absolutely reject the characterization of the military campaign as itself genocidal, and I think the abuse of that term comes from a combination of a) the desire of well-intentioned people to find a word commensurate to the horror they feel in the face of so many dead children and b) the toxic combination of the Israeli government’s use (for decades) of the Holocaust as a get-out-of-jail-free card and antisemitic efforts to “turn the tables” on Jews.
"If I were going to commit a genocide, I’d make sure to kill as many women and children as possible to eliminate the future generations of the people I was trying to wipe out. Come to think of it, I guess I’d basically do what Israel is doing in Gaza."
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/12/03/caitlin-johnstone-if-i-were-going-to-commit-genocide/
Probably not a great idea to quote an Assadist as a moral arbiter of military tactics.
Both sides are screaming 'genocide' and lying about it. It's so disgusting. Wanna see genocide? Go look at what just happened to the Armenians again this year....
Okay. I guess we could agree with each other at the top of our lungs, but this might be a good place to end it.