Israel launches massive search for three youths feared kidnapped in West Bank

[citanon]

Z, dok,

Casualty numbers are not scores. Its not about being fair, it's not about keeping it close, and it's not about keeping responses proportionate. Its about achieving an objective through limited violence.

Israel needs to degrade Hamas's operational capabilities in Gaza. It is doing so while limiting civilian casualties to what extent it can. Given the scale of the task and the difficulty of the situation and the way in which they have operated I think their conduct is well within the rules of war.

On the other hand were the Israelis to go out and shoot random Palestinian teenagers out of revenge, then even one would be an outrage.

[S2]

"...The Gaza Interior Ministry, in a statement on Hamas radio, dismissed the Israeli warnings as "psychological warfare" and instructed those who left their homes to return and others to stay put."

In the face of a demonstrated penchant by Israel for bombing the sh!t out of Gaza, the Interior Ministry is displaying the HEIGHTS of callous disregard for its citizens. Lenin would be proud of all those who pay heed to the Gazan Interior Ministry at the expense of words to be trusted from their enemy.

Useful fools, those.

Or seeking martyrdom for their families and themselves...

[Doktor]

Well he can gather his immediate family and show them the way.

How about that?

[zraver]

"S2- your open call for eventual genocide of the Palestinians is alarming."

Yawn. Merriam-Webster:....

Your words- I don't believe in a peaceful solution of two states side by side. Not remotely possible. Any truly prudent long-time observer knows this is so. The empirical evidence is overwhelming to the contrary by this point. So long as the calculus favors Israeli restraint then it's to the advantage of Tel Aviv to allow the present status quo to persist coupled with these periodic slap-downs. Should that calculus change in any respect for the worse, then Palestine needs to go bye-bye.

Rather than a Merriam Webster entry, lets use the legal definition we and Israel are party to

Excerpt from the Convention on the Prevention and
Punishment of Genocide (For full text click here)
"Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Article III: The following acts shall be punishable:

(a) Genocide;

(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;

(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;

(d) Attempt to commit genocide;

(e) Complicity in genocide. "

Dok,

Israel should be given two choices. 1. Formally annex the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and make all the residents there in full citizens. 2. Leave the occupied territories including East Jerusalem and grant Palestine some sort of link between Gaza and the West bank (tunnel, sky bridge, enclosed road etc) and formal recognition as a state. In trade they get a permanently de-militarized Palestine, a reciprocal extradition treaty and formal recognition of the right to exist as Israel and to in peace from Palestine. If Israel refuses both options she should be treated as a pariah, have her UN status reduced to observer nation status, be denied access to arms, credit, air travel, technology and fuel, and all of her ambassadors in the West ejected except for the UN ambassador until she does with the added bonus that if sanctions are imposed they will not be lifted until she does either 1 or 2 and signs the NPT as a Non-NWS and allows inspectors at Dimona.

If Palestine sabotages Israel, or refuses to renounce the right of return the same sanctions will be applied to them. Israeli Arabs will be given two choices- remain Israeli Arabs, or move and become Palestinians. If possible the IMF/WB should provide credits to Israel is she choose option 2 to offset half the cost of the relocation so long as the Israelis do not engage in or permit the willful destruction of property. Palestine should be provided with an equal amount to help build up civil infrastructure and the Palestinian economy.

[zraver]

Z, dok,

Casualty numbers are not scores. Its not about being fair, it's not about keeping it close, and it's not about keeping responses proportionate. Its about achieving an objective through limited violence.

Israel needs to degrade Hamas's operational capabilities in Gaza. It is doing so while limiting civilian casualties to what extent it can. Given the scale of the task and the difficulty of the situation and the way in which they have operated I think their conduct is well within the rules of war.

On the other hand were the Israelis to go out and shoot random Palestinian teenagers out of revenge, then even one would be an outrage.

The LOAC says to use the least to achieve the most. When Israel can use a hell fire or TOW to target a room or single dwelling, a 500lb bomb that devastates an entire block is not proportionate response because it does not have enough discrimination.

[citanon]

The LOAC says to use the least to achieve the most. When Israel can use a hell fire or TOW to target a room or single dwelling, a 500lb bomb that devastates an entire block is not proportionate response because it does not have enough discrimination.

That depends on what assets are present in the air at the given time and a whole host of other factors and pushes the bounds if military conflict into unprecedented territory. Byvtgat measure, what of our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan?

[zraver]

That depends on what assets are present in the air at the given time and a whole host of other factors and pushes the bounds if military conflict into unprecedented territory. Byvtgat measure, what of our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan?

In cases where all Israel has handy is a bomb and the target is the launch crew not the launch location your argument is valid. I have no ethical or legal problem with Israeli action in that type of a scenario. There is anther scenario where I have no problem- hunting the militants where they are. Like the US does with Drones in Afghanistan, Paksitan and Yemen. A hellfire can take out a single room. If Israel was only doing counter battery ad militant hunting my criticisms would be a lot more muted.

But, Israel is not doing counter battery missions and militant hunting missions for the most part, but retaliation. Hamas picks a roof and fires a rocket. Some time later the IDF drops a bomb- not to get the missiliers, but to make a Palestinian family homeless to try and undermine support for Hamas. This raises serious ethical and legal questions since targeting undefended civilian structures and engaging in collective punishment is illegal.

[S2]

"Rather than a Merriam Webster entry, lets use the legal definition we and Israel are party..."

So? I'm complicit to your charges, how, exactly?

I'd make no war on any unacceptable ethnicity, race or religious sect. I'd certainly, however, make war to remove the P.A. and HAMAS governments, thus ummmm...PALESTINE, were they to pose an unacceptable threat to Israeli security. For the immediate present, they don't represent any such thing save HAMA's persistent provocations. So I certainly condone this very limited reaction to date from the IDF. Well deserved and entirely appropriate.

Another weak swing and miss by you.

Predictably.

[Amled]

... Hamas picks a roof and fires a rocket. Some time later the IDF drops a bomb- not to get the missiliers, but to make a Palestinian family homeless to try and undermine support for Hamas. This raises serious ethical and legal questions since targeting undefended civilian structures and engaging in collective punishment is illegal.

I guess it’s a matter of timing.
If the bomb strike comes 24 hours after the rocket has been fired, then it could be considered retaliatory.
If struck shortly after firing, then the onus would be on the terrorists who emplaced a rocket firing ramp on a civilian roof top.

[zraver]

I guess it’s a matter of timing.
If the bomb strike comes 24 hours after the rocket has been fired, then it could be considered retaliatory.
If struck shortly after firing, then the onus would be on the terrorists who emplaced a rocket firing ramp on a civilian roof top.

When Israel sends a door knocker telling the residents to leave, that the home is about to be bombed, its retaliatory. I do't know how long the turn around is between Hamas rocket and Israeli remote home demolition services come calling but its not counter battery.

S2- your words Palestine needs to go bye bye. No matter how you slice it pushing them east into Jordan, or off the back of a c130 over the Med the end result is genocide. Something you think needs to happen as soon as the "calculus" changes. I didn't miss.

[citanon]

In cases where all Israel has handy is a bomb and the target is the launch crew not the launch location your argument is valid. I have no ethical or legal problem with Israeli action in that type of a scenario. There is anther scenario where I have no problem- hunting the militants where they are. Like the US does with Drones in Afghanistan, Paksitan and Yemen. A hellfire can take out a single room. If Israel was only doing counter battery ad militant hunting my criticisms would be a lot more muted.

But, Israel is not doing counter battery missions and militant hunting missions for the most part, but retaliation. Hamas picks a roof and fires a rocket. Some time later the IDF drops a bomb- not to get the missiliers, but to make a Palestinian family homeless to try and undermine support for Hamas. This raises serious ethical and legal questions since targeting undefended civilian structures and engaging in collective punishment is illegal.

Z,

Are you contending that all we did or are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc was counter battery fire??? Or that, as much as we took care to avoid civilian casualties, we have much lower collateral damage in our operations than the Israelis?

Surely, you're not also suggesting that weapons stores, tunnels, or underground bunkers in Gaza are off limits? Or that all of these things can be blown up from the air using Hellfires?

Would you like to give us accurate figures on which targets you consider to have been engaged over-forcefully?

Lastly, consider what would happen if Gaza was next to Manhattan and firing rockets continuously onto US territory. Nevermind collateral damage. Would the place even continue to exist on the map except as a great American parking lot?

[gf0012-aust]

Surely, you're not also suggesting that weapons stores, tunnels, or underground bunkers in Gaza are off limits? Or that all of these things can be blown up from the air using Hellfires?

The conventions are quite clear on not targeting civlian structure that isn't contributing to the warfighting situation - however the privilege of protection doesn't apply where those sites are used to house facilities, hide material etc....

ie you stick weapons in a medical facility, then the protection for that facility no longer applies.

plus the rules and conventions were crafted between nations and states - not non state actors

The other reality is that only until recent times the palestinians were a carbunkle on the local and neighbouring arab states - they became a cause celebre and a vehicle of anti-israel opportunity once the arabs realised that they could never win a conventional war and that non state actors provided them with another way in to fight their fight..

there's no shortage of evidence that hamas and their ilk co-locate weapons caches etc in buildings which nominally would be protected under the conventions. even in the sectarian shootouts between sunni and shia in Iraq they had no compunction in exchanging fire from mosques - and colocating mortar and rocket "units" next to schools etc.....

the press seem to have this love of holding the israelis to account on the conventions but conveniently ignore the fact that the non state actors break them regularly. You can imagine the reaction if Jerusalem was substituted with London, Moscow, Beijing Berlin, Sydney and had 200 rocket/mortar attacks per day.

[S2]

"S2- your words Palestine needs to go bye bye. No matter how you slice it pushing them east into Jordan, or off the back of a c130 over the Med the end result is genocide. Something you think needs to happen as soon as the "calculus" changes. I didn't miss."

Those words don't connote genocide in any way, shape or form. I understand your ego makes impossible an apology. So too even a retraction. But you'll be reported if you persist attempting to slap an onerous label upon me that patently doesn't stick.

Not now. Not ever.

[Amled]

When Israel sends a door knocker telling the residents to leave, that the home is about to be bombed, its retaliatory. I do't know how long the turn around is between Hamas rocket and Israeli remote home demolition services come calling but its not counter battery.

Beg to disagree.
The minute the rocket launcher was placed on his roof, the civilians house and home became a legitimate target of war.
Any ire felt by the now homeless civilian should be directed against the people that painted a large luminescent target on his house.

[zraver]

Z,

Are you contending that all we did or are doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, etc was counter battery fire??? Or that, as much as we took care to avoid civilian casualties, we have much lower collateral damage in our operations than the Israelis?

Much lower collateral damage rate. A recent report says UN forces accoutned for only 2% of the civilian deaths in A-stan so far this year. Overall in Iraq American forces killed 28K militants but only 13K civvies for a ratio of better than 2:1. Overall those 13K accounted for just 7.4% of the civilian dead.

Surely, you're not also suggesting that weapons stores, tunnels, or underground bunkers in Gaza are off limits? Or that all of these things can be blown up from the air using Hellfires?

No I'm not, a legit military target is a legit military target. But the retributive destroying of homes that were commandeered by Hamas to fire a rocket where Israel knows the launch team and equipment has left is what has me pissed off.

Would you like to give us accurate figures on which targets you consider to have been engaged over-forcefully?

Such figures wont be available for awhile but Israeli policy is to destroy the launch site. The goal is to deter, but Hamas isn;t detered, they don't need the home owners permission and don't launch from their own homes.

Lastly, consider what would happen if Gaza was next to Manhattan and firing rockets continuously onto US territory. Nevermind collateral damage. Would the place even continue to exist on the map except as a great American parking lot?

Did we glass Afghanistan? No, as I said earlier in the post, our responses have been remarkably effective in limiting civilian casualties. In Lybia, NATO did 3300 air strikes and only killed 72 civilians. Israel has reached that number in 1/3 the air strikes. Finally, I, like many consider Israel the aggressor and occupier of Palestine. Palestine being the land seized from Jordanian and Egyptian forces in 1967.