Let's not start accusing each other. Drop the bullshit.
> using human shields (directly by putting military infrastructure in civilian ones or indirectly by not distinguishing themselves)
That doesn't mean they are using human shields (and it doesn't mean they are not): Asymetric forces need to blend into the environment - the mountains, the city, etc. In the city, that means blending into the civilian population - it doesn't require any intent to use them as shields (but they still could intend it - they even could intend to cause civilian deaths to drive world opinion).
> The death of human shields is their responsibility, and their alone
The asymetric force is at least partly to blame for the deaths of civilians, but that doesn't excuse the 'symmetric' force (is there a better term?) from all laws of war and basic human morality. They can still minimize civilian death and still follow rules of proportionality - Israel can't justify nuking the Gaza strip because Hamas is hiding among civilians.
Being indistinguishable from civilians (blending in) is exactly using civilian as a shield -- the opponent can't identify you and can't kill everyone who looks like you
> They can still minimize civilian death
Arguably Israel does it with fairly low civilian: combatant death ratio
Fairly low compared to what? The USSR invasion of Afghanistan? Assad engaged in a civil war? WW2 carpet bombings?
No recent war has seen anywhere near the deplorable civilian:combatant death ratio that we see here.
And if you also take into account that the IDF basically defines adult male as combatant, so that a lot of the "combatants" killed were actually just adult male civilians, then the picture gets even grimmer.
Not to mention, we keep talking about direct casualties, but Israel is going beyond this - they are not allowing some kinds of critical aid into Gaza at all (water treatment pills are forbidden, for one egregious example), and they are generally only allowing a trickle of aid of any kind in - in effect starving the population.
Can you give the numbers for comparison? What are acceptable rate in your opinion?
> intent to minimize civilian casualties
Intent is very hard to argue about. Especially when talking about proportionality which is not rigorously defined. Numbers are easier to argue about. It is reasonable to expect that civilian casualty rate will be higher in cases where there is no intent to minimize civilian casualties compared to cases where it is; comparing numbers with conflict in similar conditions where you believe there was such intent is a good starting point
> enable any sort of progression into a longer holding peace in that area
Getting rid of terrorist government who promised to repeat 7th of October looks like necessary condition for peace.
Most people think killing thousands of people to eliminate a terrorist group is a trade-off that should be made which baffles my mind. Where do we live? No human life can be weighted upon anything else.
[0] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2015/06/un-gaza-inqu...
[1] https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/06/13/israel-apparent-war-crim...
[2] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2009/10/un-fact-find...
[3] https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/25/rain-fire/israels-unla...
I found this interview pretty thought provoking. I think it is still pro-Israel, but it provides a view of Hamas's strategy that I haven't seen anywhere else.
Basically, what I think Hamas leadership was thinking was to mirror the Hezbollah-Israel conflict from, what, 10 years ago, on a much bigger scale. According to this CIA officer, Hamas had 30,000 soldiers ready to engage in fighting with Israel in an urban environment, and the initial terror attack was trying to sucker the Israelis into rushing in and suffering huge casualties. Not 30,000 soldiers in uniforms and formations to your point, but nonetheless a large force. (This part starts at about 7:30 into the video).
According to the intel officer in the interview, Israel did NOT rush in, and is engaging in effective counterattacks per the Intelligence officer. I understand everyone thinks the press is owned by Israel, but in the failed conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon there was plenty of stories about the Israeli army failing.
I have not heard those stories. Just desperate stories from the Palestinian side, which tells me the Israelis are being quite effective.
Hamas is embedded with civilians by default: the Gaza strip is stuffed full of people, it has very high population density due to the insane 8 children-per-woman population expansion of the Palestinians over the last 60-70 years.
According to all the experts I read, Israel rushed in without a political outcome planned. All warfare is a tool to achieve political outcomes (unless the outcome was to drive Palestinians out of Gaza or just destroy as many people and buildings as possible). All warfare ends only with a stable political solution; otherwise it continues indefinitely; an example is Afghanistan, where the US failed to achieve a stable political solution and so the war never ended - unfortunately the Taliban have acheived a stable political solution, to some degree.
> I have not heard those stories. Just desperate stories from the Palestinian side, which tells me the Israelis are being quite effective.
I agree that the Israeli military has spared itself the hubris and casualities they experienced when they attacked Hezbollah around 20 years ago.
But we still see stories criticizing the Israeli military, and we don't hear desperate stories from Hamas, only from civilians. A military killing civilians isn't accomplishing anything. The question is, are they being effective against Hamas and in establishing some desireable political outcome?
> it has very high population density due to the insane 8 children-per-woman population expansion of the Palestinians over the last 60-70 years.
Also from being unable to leave.
Gaza is a mafia state under control by Hamas, who likely control all aid coming into the country and certainly the Iranian military funding.
Israel seems to apply a 10x minimum response to any Israeli casualties over the years. This attack is well above the 10x number already.
And remember, the Israelis do not completely surround Gaza. Egypt is complicit in closing the walls of the prison on Gaza, and Egypt I'm told hates the Palestinians more than Israel does. I wonder why this is, Egypt did manage/oversee Gaza for 25 years and I guess said "no thanks".
AFAIK, it's not like the Sinai peninsula is some valuable land, I think Egypt has room to take in Palestinian refugees. They simply refuse to do it. I have not gotten any good reason why they hate them. I guess the Lebanese hate their Palestinian enclave. It is clear the Arab world doesn't care about the Palestinians, and a common brotherhood of Islam doesn't carry weight.
This is a bad take. Egypt, and others, refuse to take "Palestinian refugees" because doing so would make them complicit in Israel's ethic cleansing. Why should Palestinians be forced off their own land?
> Russia doesn't allow ukrainians back to the occupied territories
I don't know that to be true. AFAIK, Russia would like the population there too.
The problem seems to be that Palestinians don't want peace, or are unable to separate themselves from the terrorists government.
Its also not true that Egyptians hate Palestines. In fact I would say its rather unison that they feel great sympathy with the Palestines in the occupied areas, and the boycott of companies that support Israel is strong. McDonald's and Burger Kings are mostly empty and there are Palestine flags at shops, stickers attached to products you buy and people are sad about the situation.
> this claim is disingenuous propaganda
> Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians
Is the hangup on the word "notorious"? Because you appear to first claim the notion of colocation to be propaganda before explaining why it's also a logistical inevitability.
Hamas does a lot of bad things; they still are 'notorious'; but this thing is just fundamental asymmetric operations, at least generally speaking.
> this claim is disingenuous propaganda
> Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians
Are you listening to yourself here? Pure cognitive dissonance
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39626896
Still, you got it wrong: It wasn't cognitive dissonance, but miscommunication. I'm not trying to score a point; I'm trying to say that jumping to conclusions - despite it's popularity these days - often yields wrongness, and we all are especially prone to it when we are emotionally charged. Curiosity, as a policy and rule, is an effective prophylactic against screwing yourself. :)
I despise Hamas, but this claim is disingenuous propaganda (by the leaders who make it, not the parent who repeats it):
First, Hamas is 'notorious' for it because it's endlessly repeated by their enemies. That rhetoric doesn't make anything true. (Haven't we had the Internet long enough that people know it well by now?)
Second, Hamas is an assymetric, irregular force, and assymetric forces cannot operate bases or fight open battles anywhere; they all must blend in with civilians (or hide in wilderness); it's just the nature of being that kind of force:
They have personal weapons, mostly. They cannot bring their rifles and RPGs to fight a fully capable modern state military's tanks and planes on an open battlefield - would you? The modern state military would kill them all immediately; it would be pointless. Might as well surrender.
Therefore the assymetric force cannot hold ground, and therefore cannot build bases separate from civilians: If they had identifiable bases, the state military would erradicate them in minutes.
The laws of war require militaries to distinguish soldiers from civilians, but I wonder if that is written by 'symmetric' forces and to their advantage. For assymetric forces, they might as well have bullseyes on their uniforms.