A lot of civilians being killed by the enemy driving global condemnation.

Are there any other examples from history where the goal of combatants was (or at least appeared to be) to maximize the destruction of their own side? If so, what were the outcomes of these?

> Are there any other examples from history where the goal of combatants was (or at least appeared to be) to maximize the destruction of their own side?

Every false flag operation designed to rally support for a conflict.

I'm not quite clear on what you're implying here, but in any case I would prefer to find an example of a prolonged war rather than an isolated false flag operation.

> I would prefer to find an example of a prolonged war rather than an isolated false flag operation

During the Chinese civil war, the Maoists let the Nationalists take a shellacking when convenient. And while I wouldn’t say America was conducive to civilian deaths on “our” side in Vietnam or Afghanistan, it clearly wasn’t something we optimised for: our priority was protecting our troops.

Hamas is a paramilitary. It serves its own forces. The civilians of Palestine aren’t “its” people; they’re a battlefield element.

Apologies for my ignorance, but aren't Hamas literally the government of Gaza? Have they been renounced by the population in favor of any other government?

> aren't Hamas literally the government of Gaza?

The Kims are the government of North Korea. That doesn’t mean they serve its people.

> Have they been renounced by the population in favor of any other government?

Difficult to tell. Hamas did away with elections in their 2007 coup [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007)

Up until quite recently in history, the vast majority of countries have been controlled by unelected autocrats, and as you say, some still are. But I don't recall that ever bothered us from associating conflicts with the countries as a whole.

We mostly don't waste time dwelling on the ethics of long dead people, and the few that do are usually seen as some ivory-tower kinds without any concern for present issues.

But rest assured that the people that study those things know quite well it's the country leaders declaring wars, not the people.

Point taken.

But I'm still wondering where we should be drawing the line. For example, Russia has arguably not had fair and free elections for over two decades, so should we refrain from saying that there's a war between Russia and Ukraine and instead say that there's a war between Putin's party (United Russia) and Ukraine"?

If you believe Russians are somehow to blame for this war, you are completely deluded.

Some (many) tens of thousands of people were arrested for complaining... But don't bother, their punishment was only half a year or so in prision... And in unrelated news, some (many) tens of thousands of Russian prisoners were sent to die at the Ukraine winter, on the frontline, without guns or even socks.

But no, all Russians are in full support of this war. You can read all about this on the news.

I apologize if that's what I implied, that was not my intent; I'm definitely not looking to put blame on regular Russians or anyone else.

I'm just asking a naive geopolitical question of whether we should in general be talking about countries being at war (and I just offered Russia vs Ukraine as an example), or whether it's more appropriate to think of wars as being between leaderships/militaries, whereas the rest of either country should be considered generally uninvolved? Or if "it depends", where should that line be?

Mukden incident 1931. False flag operation that lead to the invasion of Manchuria by Japan.

Gaza civilians are not on the Hamas “side”.

Hamas is the sovereign in Gaza. It’s literally their elected government.

You should check when the last election was. And even if the majority supports Hamas, it is NEVER a justification to target civilians.

72% isn't some[0].

Civilians aren't targeted just collateral damage.

0:https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/poll-shows-palesti....

If you select target liberally enough, classify combatants on liberal enough criteria and use munition liberal enough, as shown by IDF reports, numbers and whistelblower accounts, the colleteral damage becomes the target.

And hell, you are really surprised after everything Israel did in Gaza so far, that support for Hamas rises? Really? I suggest to whatch the first season of Andor for an in-depth explanation of why a hard crackdown is usually only hardening resistence.

> And hell, you are really surprised after everything Israel did in Gaza so far, that support for Hamas rises?

Hamas has risen to power in Gaza after Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza and forcefully evicted all the jews living there. In this war, support for Hamas in Gaza is actually decreasing.

How do you think, what's the logical conclusion for Israel in this situation?

Not sure what want to say, but here some dates, courtesy of wiki:

- Hamas won 42.5% in the elections in 2006, no elections took place since

- Hamas support was not strong, based in the few pols done, it increased after Israels attack

And the last bit what is so not surprising.

Edit: If you are interested in how we ended up with this cluster fuck, wikipedia is good place. Start way back so, in 50s, to get the necessary context. I don't have everything in my head, and reading up yourself is way faster than me retyping a summary.

Israel not leveling Gaza would have a great option.

> Hamas won 42.5% in the elections in 2006, no elections took place since

...because Israel (which still occupies and directly administers some of the territory involved) has refused to cooperate with joint PA/Hamas agreements on subsequent all-Palestine elections, preferring to freeze in place the current split and presence of "elected" governments that most people subject to weren't eligible to vote (and in Gaza, where the median age is about the interval since the election, its right on the edge of the the majority not even having been alive) at the last election.

> Hamas won 42.5% in the elections in 2006, no elections took place since

Calling what happened in 2006 “an election” is not a good idea.

> - Hamas support was not strong, based in the few pols done, it increased after Israels attack

I don't think that Israel's response to an unprecedented terror attack and rocket barrages targeting civilians should be called “an attack” either.

> Start way back so, in 50s, to get the necessary context. I don't have everything in my head, and reading up yourself is way faster than me retyping a summary.

Thats way too late. You better start at Arab colonization of the region in 17-19th century (a different colonization from the initial Arab conquest in the 7-8th centuries).

> Israel not leveling Gaza would have a great option.

Are there any other options left for Israel in this situation? I mean, technically it could also just allow its citizens to continue being murdered by terror attacks and rockets. Do you think this would be a better option?

Genozid and ethinic cleansing are not an act of self defence. That people fail to see that is troublesome.

And no, I won't go back to King David and the Romans. The current conflict between Palestinians and Israel can be traced back to right after WW2. That's were the interesting events start. Going back further is not helpful.

That's your choice, but it's just an arbitrary point in time, by which Arabs have airway been slaughtering Jews for generations. You could have just as well choose last week as a starting point.

Pointless to further discuss with you.

> Calling what happened in 2006 “an election” is not a good idea.

From Wikipedia:

> An 84-delegate international observer delegation monitored the elections. It judged the elections to have been peaceful and well-administered.[33] Twenty-seven members of the European parliament were included. Edward McMillan-Scott, the British Conservative head of the European Parliament's monitoring team described the polls as "extremely professional, in line with international standards, free, transparent and without violence".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_e...

So a very large team of international observer agreed that this election was fair and the results accurate. Why do you claim it wasn’t?

> Thats way too late. You better start at Arab colonization of the region in 17-19th century

You are talking about the Ottoman Turks (not Arabs) who ruled Palestine between 1516 and 1914 (with some pauses in the 19th century).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Palestine#Ottoman_p...

I think your anti-Arab sentiments are showing.

> So a very large team of international observer agreed that this election was fair and the results accurate. Why do you claim it wasn’t?

Because Hamas have physically killed all major opposition politicians prior to these elections.

> You are talking about the Ottoman Turks (not Arabs) who ruled Palestine between 1516 and 1914 (with some pauses in the 19th century).

No, I'm not. You clearly don't understand what Ottoman "rule" over this territory looked like, and using your intuition from modern nation states to inform you — which is incorrect. Ottomans have indeed had conquered this territory, but their de facto presence was almost non-existent, especially outside a couple of major cities. They even didn't bother to install any significant judicial system or common law — instead, every community was responsible for handling it's own affairs, which is the system that persists in modern Israel to present day.

So you’re gonna have to explain to me who the Arabs were that colonized Palestine in the 17th-19th century. And why that matters in relation to the current conflict. I don’t know whether the Ottoman Empire was a nation state or not (it obviously wasn’t; and I never claimed it was) has any bearing on the popularity of a resistance movement fighting a completely different occupying force.

> Because Hamas have physically killed all major opposition politicians prior to these elections.

The Palestinian Civil War (aka the Battle for Gaza) was after this election. The onset was much more complex then “Hamas killed all opposition”. But even if it was, this civil war had no effect on the election because it happened after it. If you are not referring the the civil war, which instances of political violence are you referring to? The dozens of international observers observing the election certainly didn’t see any? Were they all wrong? Is there some conspiracy we don’t know about?

> Start way back so, in 50s, to get the necessary context

Can't forget 1937 (what happened before Nakba)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947%E2%80%931948_civil_war_...

Or 1929

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Hebron_massacre#:~:text....

Or 900 CE

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashidun_Caliphate#:~:text=T....

Or 1000 BCE

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Israel_(united_mo...

Elected in 2006. Half the population weren't even alive then. Over then thousand dead children the last months also have had no say even if there had been a recent election. Don't try to blame this on the victims.

I mean, they have managed to hurt israel's position on the world stage & economy quite significantly relative to their actual military power.

Hardly seems worth it to me, but i guess you could argue that is success of a sort.

The first time in Palestinian history that they took and held Israeli territory after 1948 for any length of time.