So tell me, should the US have stopped attacking Japan once they’d matched the ~2.4k soldiers killed at Pearl Harbor?
Or should the allies have stopped “genociding” Nazi Germany once they’d matched Hitler’s body count?
OF COURSE NOT. This isn’t about tit for tat. Especially when going after an enemy that is openly committee to your annihilation. Israel certainly appears to be doing a shit job of it, but there is no need to muddy the waters with specious arguments.
You’re mixing up things. Proportionality is a specific thing about scale. It doesn’t say you’re not allowed to respond to failed attacks.
You can for example evaluate the likely future harm your enemy would cause if you don’t stop them and then apply the proportionality principle to that when you try to stop them. Or evaluate likely harm if somebody else attempted and succeeded with an attack you just stopped, and decide what kind of deterrence is needed based on that.
And Israel isn’t just doing a shit job of it. they’re not doing it at all
That’s great and all. I’m sure that works at the individual level. When your country enters an active war none of that matters, does it? So why bring it up?
You’re incorrect. War has escalation of force for modern militaries. My rules of engagement in Iraq were the similar to the poster above you. If someone threw a rock at me I couldn’t just shoot them.
No, we’re talking about people lobbing a handful of rockets at a multi-billion dollar defense system that is more than capable of stopping such a small attack. Kind of like throwing rocks at a tank.
Then we’re talking about a response of bombing tents that have no defense system. Kind of like using a tank to fire shells at a person in response to a rock being thrown.
It’s called an example. I was demonstrating escalation of force. You should maybe rethink how you talk to people. Being so rude and confrontational isn’t going to bring people to your side of the argument.
Yeah, ok but perhaps be careful with the example you choose. There are people here who genuinely believe Hamas is literally fighting only with rocks. Escalation of force is a discussion to be had, but no one here is interested in that.
I’m not interested in people coming to my side, because oddly enough, more often than not I’m actually aligned with the people criticizing me on the actual positions.
My issue is more with people not coming to sound conclusions using sound arguments and just repeating sound bytes from social media. They aren’t capable of engaging with any of these topics beyond really superficial levels.
Your issue is that you have already come to a conclusion, and your issues aren’t issues to anyone but you. Give me an example of someone saying Hamas is literally fighting with rocks as an actual answer.
Of course it matters! If your enemy kills 3 innocent people on your side and you retaliate by killing a million people on their side, it matters a whole fucking lot.
Hamas is bad. Very few people will dispute that. Israel has proven that, at this point in time, it is far worse because it kills far more innocent people.
Discourse on Lemmy is so stupid. It’s so stupid. Like Facebook boomer stupid.
Is the IDF counter-attack proportional or is it excessive compared to what Hamas is doing? I would say it’s absolutely excessive. How is that excess justified? I would urge you guys to put more thought into any of this discourse beyond “genocide; colonialism; apartheid; imperialism”. Please, for the love of god. Try. When you use cheap logic, all you do is give more fodder to IDF --and I’m not a fan of IDF.
If I take your claim and analyze it logically it’s not sound at all. The typical numbers game to counter whether the occupation is justified: More civilians dead = IDF bad. Pause. Think about this statement for a second. Do we measure justification for war based on the number of casualties incurred? When the allies bombed Dresden, did we find reason to defeat the Nazis even though many civilian casualties occurred? Yes, a calculated risk was made.
The question is: What ought the IDF do in this scenario with Hamas perpetually shelling them with rockets by planting themselves in civilian areas?
I can see how it’s harder for you to argue against war crimes from other nations if you’re an apologist for war crimes committed by your own ancestors.
But many of us don’t need to jump through those particular rhetorical hoops. The barrage of war crimes in WW2 was part of the impetus for strengthening international law against that shit.
I never said it wasn’t horrendous. Clearly the rules of engagement back then were different. That’s not what is being discussed though is it? What do you think I’m saying? Can you TRY to steel man my position or do you only like to hear yourself?
@TheFonz I’m sorry but you haven’t expressed your position clearly enough for me to summarize and I’m not interested in trying to forensically reconstruct it from your comments as it’s too ameliorised.
Like I said above, this conversation isn’t some kind of game for points. It’s just us talking about our views.
That’s right. Because you can’t engage with others in good faith. You can’t even call out logical fallacy correctly. Why are you posting here anyway? What’s your goal?
If you can’t even summarize my position, then who are you engaging with at this point?
Going to fight against Nazi Germany for comparison of porportional counter attacks is really dumb when the Nazis killed more civilians than all their enemies during WWII combined. And it is not like the russians did not kill those in retaliation aswell, it was just impossible to catch up (we are going to ignore what Stalin did outside of fighting germany for this comment). Comparing a power capable of subjugating nearly a whole continent in the span of some months (all while planning and executing the murder of millions of civilians) with hamas got to be a bad joke.
Yeah Germany also claimed it was attacked by Poland in 1939. Guess everything after was justified then… The US claimed to have been attacked by North Vietnam. Guess Vietnam was aokay then. Putin claimed to have been attacked by Ukraine before invading. Guess we should consider everything since then as self defense…
You’re saying because some countries lied about needing defense no country should be allowed to defend themselves? What exactly is your point here? Is it possible some countries actually need to defend themselves?
Proportionality is simply not dependent on the question of who “started first” and you will always find something that is credibly or uncredibly put forth as “the beginning”. This is why Israel tries to claim it all started on Oct. 7. This is why Germany argued Poland started arming and preparing for war first. This one is even technically true, but ignores the context of Germany already announcing its Lebensraum ideology back then.
That is the problem. There is a both a larger context and a direct context to the question of proportionality, where there is no plus points for being “just retaliating”. Retaliation can be a legitimate goal, but only in the context of deterring from further attacks, like Iran did after the embassy attack.
Hamas launched a barrage of rockets at central Israel on Sunday afternoon, setting off air-raid sirens in the Tel Aviv area for the first time since at least late January Source
Sorry… you’re comparing what Israel is doing right now to what allies did to a city in the country that was itself perpetrating the genocide? A country that was also itself invading Allied nations?
I don’t even know what you think my logic is beyond “the more innocent people you kill, the less morally justified your position becomes.”
Can you give an example of when that is not the case? Because I don’t know too many people who think that the bombing of Dresden was morally justified.
Removed by mod
In my country we have a law that self defense has to be proportional and you are only allowed to use enough force to stop the attack.
It can’t be like “the guy down the street threw a rock through my window so I go and kill his whole family in their beds”.
Proportionality is international law: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/article-51
Gotta love this thinking here.
So tell me, should the US have stopped attacking Japan once they’d matched the ~2.4k soldiers killed at Pearl Harbor?
Or should the allies have stopped “genociding” Nazi Germany once they’d matched Hitler’s body count?
OF COURSE NOT. This isn’t about tit for tat. Especially when going after an enemy that is openly committee to your annihilation. Israel certainly appears to be doing a shit job of it, but there is no need to muddy the waters with specious arguments.
You’re mixing up things. Proportionality is a specific thing about scale. It doesn’t say you’re not allowed to respond to failed attacks.
You can for example evaluate the likely future harm your enemy would cause if you don’t stop them and then apply the proportionality principle to that when you try to stop them. Or evaluate likely harm if somebody else attempted and succeeded with an attack you just stopped, and decide what kind of deterrence is needed based on that.
And Israel isn’t just doing a shit job of it. they’re not doing it at all
That’s great and all. I’m sure that works at the individual level. When your country enters an active war none of that matters, does it? So why bring it up?
You’re incorrect. War has escalation of force for modern militaries. My rules of engagement in Iraq were the similar to the poster above you. If someone threw a rock at me I couldn’t just shoot them.
You must not be a part of the IDF. They firmly believe that throwing rocks deserves getting shot
Cool. Are we talking about people throwing rocks?
No, we’re talking about people lobbing a handful of rockets at a multi-billion dollar defense system that is more than capable of stopping such a small attack. Kind of like throwing rocks at a tank.
Then we’re talking about a response of bombing tents that have no defense system. Kind of like using a tank to fire shells at a person in response to a rock being thrown.
It’s just a handful rockets, amirite?
It’s called an example. I was demonstrating escalation of force. You should maybe rethink how you talk to people. Being so rude and confrontational isn’t going to bring people to your side of the argument.
Yeah, ok but perhaps be careful with the example you choose. There are people here who genuinely believe Hamas is literally fighting only with rocks. Escalation of force is a discussion to be had, but no one here is interested in that.
I’m not interested in people coming to my side, because oddly enough, more often than not I’m actually aligned with the people criticizing me on the actual positions.
My issue is more with people not coming to sound conclusions using sound arguments and just repeating sound bytes from social media. They aren’t capable of engaging with any of these topics beyond really superficial levels.
Your issue is that you have already come to a conclusion, and your issues aren’t issues to anyone but you. Give me an example of someone saying Hamas is literally fighting with rocks as an actual answer.
Because it’s a sound principle.
Genociding tens of thousands of people, half of whom are children, is not self defense.
Of course it matters! If your enemy kills 3 innocent people on your side and you retaliate by killing a million people on their side, it matters a whole fucking lot.
Hamas is bad. Very few people will dispute that. Israel has proven that, at this point in time, it is far worse because it kills far more innocent people.
Discourse on Lemmy is so stupid. It’s so stupid. Like Facebook boomer stupid.
Is the IDF counter-attack proportional or is it excessive compared to what Hamas is doing? I would say it’s absolutely excessive. How is that excess justified? I would urge you guys to put more thought into any of this discourse beyond “genocide; colonialism; apartheid; imperialism”. Please, for the love of god. Try. When you use cheap logic, all you do is give more fodder to IDF --and I’m not a fan of IDF.
If I take your claim and analyze it logically it’s not sound at all. The typical numbers game to counter whether the occupation is justified: More civilians dead = IDF bad. Pause. Think about this statement for a second. Do we measure justification for war based on the number of casualties incurred? When the allies bombed Dresden, did we find reason to defeat the Nazis even though many civilian casualties occurred? Yes, a calculated risk was made.
The question is: What ought the IDF do in this scenario with Hamas perpetually shelling them with rockets by planting themselves in civilian areas?
Dresden was a horrendous war crime too.
I can see how it’s harder for you to argue against war crimes from other nations if you’re an apologist for war crimes committed by your own ancestors.
But many of us don’t need to jump through those particular rhetorical hoops. The barrage of war crimes in WW2 was part of the impetus for strengthening international law against that shit.
Agreed. Kurt Vonnegut wrote all about what he witnessed firsthand at Dresden. It was a war crime. “The good guys” can commit war crimes.
I never said it wasn’t horrendous. Clearly the rules of engagement back then were different. That’s not what is being discussed though is it? What do you think I’m saying? Can you TRY to steel man my position or do you only like to hear yourself?
@TheFonz I’m sorry but you haven’t expressed your position clearly enough for me to summarize and I’m not interested in trying to forensically reconstruct it from your comments as it’s too ameliorised.
Like I said above, this conversation isn’t some kind of game for points. It’s just us talking about our views.
False dichotomy, and a bit of a swing and a miss.
That’s right. Because you can’t engage with others in good faith. You can’t even call out logical fallacy correctly. Why are you posting here anyway? What’s your goal?
If you can’t even summarize my position, then who are you engaging with at this point?
Going to fight against Nazi Germany for comparison of porportional counter attacks is really dumb when the Nazis killed more civilians than all their enemies during WWII combined. And it is not like the russians did not kill those in retaliation aswell, it was just impossible to catch up (we are going to ignore what Stalin did outside of fighting germany for this comment). Comparing a power capable of subjugating nearly a whole continent in the span of some months (all while planning and executing the murder of millions of civilians) with hamas got to be a bad joke.
Yeah Germany also claimed it was attacked by Poland in 1939. Guess everything after was justified then… The US claimed to have been attacked by North Vietnam. Guess Vietnam was aokay then. Putin claimed to have been attacked by Ukraine before invading. Guess we should consider everything since then as self defense…
You’re saying because some countries lied about needing defense no country should be allowed to defend themselves? What exactly is your point here? Is it possible some countries actually need to defend themselves?
Proportionality is simply not dependent on the question of who “started first” and you will always find something that is credibly or uncredibly put forth as “the beginning”. This is why Israel tries to claim it all started on Oct. 7. This is why Germany argued Poland started arming and preparing for war first. This one is even technically true, but ignores the context of Germany already announcing its Lebensraum ideology back then.
That is the problem. There is a both a larger context and a direct context to the question of proportionality, where there is no plus points for being “just retaliating”. Retaliation can be a legitimate goal, but only in the context of deterring from further attacks, like Iran did after the embassy attack.
Who claimed that? Did I claim that? I don’t think I did, did I?
Yeah, you’re wrong.
“central israel”. Key word. Also, not connected to what we’re discussing. But thanks for sharing, I guess?
Sorry… you’re comparing what Israel is doing right now to what allies did to a city in the country that was itself perpetrating the genocide? A country that was also itself invading Allied nations?
Is this opposite day or something?
Nop. I’m contesting your logic. Not comparing the countries. We are examining whether your logic holds up to scrutiny.
I don’t even know what you think my logic is beyond “the more innocent people you kill, the less morally justified your position becomes.”
Can you give an example of when that is not the case? Because I don’t know too many people who think that the bombing of Dresden was morally justified.
Ok, so if Hamas kills more people that automatically makes Israel’s actions justified?
you lost me at “planting themselves in civilian areas”
You’re right. Hamas are so brave they are fighting out in the open fields day and night.
dude, no one gives a fuck about the Hamas, it’s a fight against the IDF and innocent civilians
Ok
Tell that to the tens of civilians they murder every time they fire a rocket strike into civilian areas.
A country is still responsible for the war crimes they commit, Israel just thinks it’s above being held to account for war crimes, including genocide.
Israel suffered no injuries or casualties as the rockets were shot down or fell into fields.
So Israel’s response was overkill, which is par for the course.