Atrocities against unarmed civilians are not excused by 'but they started it', who did? The old woman, the 10 year old boy? Justifying collective punishment like this takes a huge degree of racism and heartlessness.
"once started (wars) are sometimes impossible to stop". How convenient then that land (belonging to people who also have nothing to do with 'the first punch') continues to be stolen as long as the war drags out.
Even the stance that such claims must be valid because the reporters are Israeli, is itself derivative of the Jewish conspiracy trope. Is it more likely there is a large conspiracy afoot and Israeli officers are engaging in war crimes at large scale as many in this thread have concluded (even before this report), or that these are isolated and undesirable events playing out in the fog of war and representative of poor decision making in circumstances of which we have only partial knowledge?
My bias, if I have one, is to believe that the Israeli military, or really any competently run military anywhere, is interested in not committing war crimes when avoidable.
Reporting is one way they are brought to light. Commenters are allowed to discuss the validity of the claims, whatever their reasoning. You have decided to believe the Israeli military, others have the right to conclude otherwise.
But that the reporters and sources are Israeli means your knee-jerk claims of their anti-semitism or conspiracy are absurd. Nor does that mean the claims must be valid, just that they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand by hair-triggered, wild accusations of anti-semitism. You do know they aren't doing anyone any favours, right?
The reality is a fortified Israel was born of Jewish trauma and while the citizens of the world continue to propel antisemitic nonesense, despot nationalists like Netanyahu will have excuses to justify horrific actions
Without a sense of proportionate response, if Hitler did some false flag attacks, do you expect the whole world to be okay with the Holocaust?
> Without a sense of proportionate response, if Hitler did some false flag attacks, do you expect the whole world to be okay with the Holocaust?
Can you explain this point? I don't think I quite understand.
If Hitler bombed a some Germans and blamed it on the Jewish people, should rest of the world be okay with the Holocaust?
If the claims are accurate, and we don’t know they are yet, they are the direct result of the bad situation we’re all in, and that situation was precipitated by (though perhaps not entirely due to) October 7th. We can’t let that get lost in the noise of what could be legitimate criticism of, hopefully isolated, Israeli military tactics. An overreaction to October 7th is bad, but it’s still just a reaction. The first punch was thrown by hamas. The terrorists videotaped themselves and their atrocities that day, wild celebrations of their horrors broke out, followed within hours and days by, shockingly to those with any sense of human decency, massive anti-Israeli protests in the West. Images of all of that are seared into the hearts and minds of most Israeli’s who will literally never forget. Wars are evil, and once started they are sometimes impossible to stop.
But bottom line, these are particularly disturbing claims and should be investigated, and if they are true then immediate changes should be made, including the removal and punishment of those who may be responsible.