The conflict between Israel and Hamas is without a doubt controversial, and awakens considerable passions on all sides.
However, I would like to remind all who read and comment here of the golden rule of discussions on this Substack: disagreement is welcome, but being disagreeable is not.
Comments which are laced with bigotry of any kind, whether it be against the Palestinian Arabs or against the Israelis, will not be tolerated, will be deleted, and the authors of such poison banned. Trolling is not welcome and will be similarly excised.
This does not mean that Israel cannot be criticized and even condemned for their actions. It does not mean that Hamas cannot be criticized and condemned. It does mean that everyone needs to temper their rhetoric with a modicum of civility and a double dose of logic.
Everyone will have their opinions about the parties to this conflict and what should be done, and this is entirely as it should be. However, as we share and discuss those opinions, as well as such facts as inform those opinions, let us be mindful to be respectful to one another, and to remember that the ones who are suffering are the ones caught in the middle of all the violence.
Let us think on those caught up in this or any war with compassion. War is hell all on its own. We do not need to add to that hell with yet more hatred and anger. There's plenty of that already.
Ethnicity is not merely a matter of DNA, nor should it ever be reduced to a matter of DNA. Saying that the "Palestinians are not Arab" due to variances in DNA misses the point. DNA markers ultimately show that a person's ancestors might have moved through a particular region of the earth at some point far back in history, but little more than that.
What the DNA does show is that, contrary to the current myths surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Arabs are not that different from each other. There is a body of research that shows components of the Jewish Diaspora in close genetic proximity to other peoples of the Levant who now fall under the umbrella term "Arab", such as Druze and Bedouins.
Linguistically, Arabic and Hebrew are part of the same West Semitic language group, with Hebrew being potentially the older of the two languages (Arabic came into more common usage around the time of the prophet Mohammad). That Hebrew and Arabic are similar and related languages is something that has been known and accepted since medieval times.
No matter how one breaks down the ethnic heritages of the Palestinian Arabs and the Israeli Jews locked in this seemingly eternal conflict, the overwhelming body of evidence suggests that, genetically, linguistically, and even culturally, they are close kin fighting each other. It might not be exactly brother against brother, but it arguably is first cousin against first cousin. These are not nor have they ever been wholly separate and disparate peoples fighting over the same territory. They are, ultimately, one people fighting over the same territory.
When we look at the origins of the Palestinian Arabs and the Israeli Jews, it is with no small irony that their common ancestry brings a measure of empirical truth to Paul's teaching in Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
In like fashion we can plausibly say there is neither Jew nor Arab, for they are all one.
In many, perhaps even most, respects, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a fratricidal affair, which makes it particularly tragic.
Possibly. That has not been reported. However, the mere presence of small arms within the refugee camp does not make the entire camp a military target according to the Geneva Conventions. Medical and relief personnel are allowed small arms for their own protection and the protection of those to whom they render aid.
Additionally, the IDF has not claimed the camp itself was an Hamas installation, but that a single Hamas commander, Ibrahim Bieri, was hiding out in the camp. His presence would make whatever structure he was using as his hideout a legitimate military target, but not the other structures within the camp. The Geneva Conventions set the expectation that care is to be used to minimize civilian and collateral casualties and damage when attacking such military targets.
The IDF air strike on Jabalya was disproportionate to the claimed military objective, which is in violation of the Conventions.
Bad guys do bad things. That’s where the name comes from.
Using that level of ordinance is not appropriate for a targeted air strike. If you can’t send in a unit (almost always the preferred option), then an air strike needs to be surgical. There needs to be evidence that the target has indeed been taken off the battlefield. That means a body or at the very least DNA evidence. So the use of mass ordinance does no good.
Also, an air to surface middle can cost upwards of a half-million dollars USD. So again, it makes no sense to launch an air strike using this level of ordinance if it’s intended as a targeted strike. Zarqawi was taken out using a single missile fired by a single F-16. Therefore, one or two missiles should have been sufficient.
Finally, there actually is a process and operating procedure involving targeting killings. As such, the IDF should be able to produce intelligence (ie evidence) that their target was, in fact, confirmed to be in that location at that time.
I have a very difficult time believing that this was an air strike intended to take out a single Hamas leader. To believe that would require believing that the IDF is bad at their job. And I suspect that’s not what was bad about this particular air strike.
Depending on the state of mind of the Israeli commanders, and frankly how much attention to detail they made in planning the attack, it could easily be they simply did not examine the target area closely to devise a precise profile for the attack. The "fog of war" is a real thing, and it is not at all difficult for commanders to lose some of their perspective and over-react or over-respond.
That does not make the actions defensible. It merely makes them comprehensible. Even good guys can do bad things at times, and this may very well be one of those times. It could even be that the commanders who ordered the attack are themselves not exactly good guys who allowed darker passions to overwhelm their better judgement, and simply did not care to order a more restrained attack. That's a whole lot of speculation for which we have exactly zero facts. I certainly am not privy to the state of mind of Israel's commanders in Gaza.
Military targets, even those embedded among civilian populations, are legitimate and can be attacked with impunity. Civilian targets are never legitimate.
I don't know exactly why the IDF attacked this refugee camp, other than the justifications already offered. I do know that it was, based on the data known thus far, something that should not have happened.
First, I find your thoughts to be, as always, enviously well thought out and cogent. It’s always a pleasure to have the opportunity to dialogue with you.
I couldn’t agree more about the fog of war.
But just because we see events being played out before us, it’s almost certain the IDF has been thinking about this precise situation for years.
Almost invariably, there are going to be extremely well thought-out rules of engagement that are the result of years of war gaming and updating. This is done because when a crisis occurs, there isn’t enough time or reason available for pragmatism.
So what’s being done is being done with the benefit of forethought.
Excellent observation on surveillance. He’d probably been under UAV surveillance for several days prior. But UAV isn’t the end all be all. Without eyes at ground level, it’s not easy.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Dresden comparisons aren’t appropriate.
Dresden was carpet bombings using bombs that commonly could land 500 yards away from their target area. (I once heard a story whose voracity I can’t attest to that the Elba River was/is littered with unexploded ordinance.)
Today a CCT (Combat Controller) uses grid coordinates to call in ordinance that’s accurate within less than a yard. But again: modern ordinance is being called in. And that means that every one of those air strikes were individually called in.
If so, then that, almost certainly, was war gamed long ago and long before the fog of war could be used as an excuse.
kudos for putting facts, the law and analysis on the table and for taking the heat to explain and answer criticisms; this is no easy quagmire and no simple solution. given your ability to remain cool under pressure and stick to the data, do you have a recommended article (including your own history if you've done it) for giving a fair, unbiased and complete assessment of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (eg, when/how it began and whether, for instance, Israel is holding the residents of Gaza in an open air concentration camp as many allege)?
I've only recently been writing about the Middle East, in response to the eruption of the current crises.
A full historical accounting of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs has been the subject of multiple books, of varying degrees of fairness and objectivity.
Part of the challenge is untangling all the factors that ultimately have nothing to do with either the Palestinian Arabs or the Israelis. Britain's management (and mis-management) of Palestine after WW1 plays a crucial role in setting the boundaries for the current disputes, and that in turn arises from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1.
There are also questions about why Egypt and Jordan--two Arab states bordering not just Israel but the territories of the Palestinian National Authority (Gaza and the West Bank)--have not been willing to either accept Palestinians as refugees or as migrants. The challenge of calling Israel's blockade of Gaza an "open air prison" is that it ignores how one side of that prison is extremely well guarded by Egypt, which even now has been strongly opposed to accepting Palestinian Arabs, and only grudgingly allowed the wounded to seek refuge in Egypt.
The other Arab states in the region, it seems, want even less to do with Hamas and Fatah (the controlling entity for the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank) than does Israel. That's a wrinkle that is not getting any attention by either the pro-Israel or the pro-Palestinian Arab sides of the debate.
Is there a single reference I can recommend for further reading? Not really. There are histories, of course, each of which presents some of the information but not all (and, to be fair, this is such a Gordion Knot of a conflict that getting everything into a single history might be impossible).
I'm not even sure the history of the conflict even matters that much any more. After nearly a century of conflict and over a century of tension, while the history is fascinating, it is also I suspect increasingly irrelevant.
In the moral/philosophical realm, Israel, the Palestinian Arabs, and their supporters around the world have sown the winds of war, and are now reaping the whirlwind of perpetual war.
I don't see that changing until everyone jointly decides to make a lasting peace in the here and now, which almost certainly means the past is just not going to matter much.
Well said - as here in US can be unfair to attribute to me or any regular tax paying law abiding citizen the corrupt acts of our leaders, many on both sides seem trapped to outcomes they would have expected their leaders in good faith to have avoided. How many years does it take to reach some kind of accord here - seems certain one side doesn't want it, maybe both.
I suspect this whole debate will end up being academic. People will argue pro and con, until some kind of horrific terrorism attack happens on US soil and drags us into war with Iran and it’s proxies. Then few people will care if retaliation is justified or not - they will just want revenge. Seems like that’s the way it goes in every history of war I’ve read.
How do you keep from imagining a very horrific end game to this scenario? Esp with the track record of our US leaders during the past handful of years - all means are justified for their very subjective and often personal ends. Quite disheartening.
Oh yeah, BEYOND disheartening! The possibilities are about as depressing as you can get.
But, there are (somewhat) optimistic scenarios,too. If Iran (Shiite) goes to war, the Sunnis of the world could go to war against Iran to prevent the Shiites from gaining dominance in the Islamic world (remember the eight-year war in the 1980s between Iraq (Sunni) and Iran?) If that happens (again), the Western world could end up with a comparatively better situation.
One of the main things that has historically united the Islamic world has been their shared hatred of Jews. So, if - or please no - Israel is destroyed, then they will likely war amongst themselves.
But this is all speculation. I’m really, really hoping this all SOMEHOW a calms down before it hits WW3!
Gb - wanted to add, but got pulled away, appreciate the historical input; you seem well read on the topic -- it is a reminder that there are MANY factors at play here, and it's just hard to have any reliable prediction on what will actually happen -- so, retreat to obeying the 2 core commandments from God, and trust your loved ones do too.
Not a music historian just a fan but Joe Purdy is a current folk Americana artist who has some clever lyrics. And if you enjoy Texas music REK won't disappoint either.
There is an ironic symmetry to that intelligence failure.
Almost 50 years to the day earlier, Israeli intelligence and the IDF missed all the signs that Egypt and Syria were planning a fresh assault on Israel, which became the Yom Kippur War.
That failure ended Golda Meir's political career and Moshe Dayan's military career.
This wouldn't have happened if not for the terrorist attack on October 7th. Did these monsters care about civilians when they placed babies in ovens and set them on fire? Some of these atrocities are beyond the imagination. Hamas has a history of operating in civilian areas. So they bear the responsibility for the casualties. You expect Israel to "play fair" when the enemy never has. You can never defeat terrorism if you "play fair." It's a fact of war.
Hamas unquestionably instigated this latest round of violence. There is no disputing of that. As I pointed out, as the Palestinian National Authority--of which Hamas is an elected leading party--is a signatory to both the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol 1, the October 7 attack is indisputably a war crime committed by Hamas.
That being said, it is not a tenet of most Western systems of values and morals for two wrongs to make a right. Israel cannot claim a pass on excessive and indiscriminate attacks on indisputably civilian populations, nor anyone clearly hors de combat, merely because Hamas chose to violate that dictum first.
This is not a question of playing fair. This is a question of doing what is right even within the context of war. The Geneva Conventions identify a standard of what nations broadly consider to be "right conduct" for war. There is a substantial case to made that the Jabalya air strike does not measure up to that standard. We should not shy away from saying this merely because we despise Hamas.
The point is that this would never have happened in the first place if Hamas did not invade Israel and commit these horrendous atrocities. The responsibility is on them from the beginning. And the responsibility remains on them during this continuing conflict because they embed themselves within their own civilian population. That appears not to be in dispute.
Hamas can never be responsible for what Israel does. That responsibility will always be Israel's alone. Even Mosaic Law teaches that every man is responsible for his own sin.
So what is Hamas doing there in civilian areas? They are doing that intentionally because they want Israel to kill their own civilians so world opinion will turn against them.
But the onus is still on them. They ARE the government. They put this in motion.
By your way of thinking, top US officials and military commanders should have been hung when they killed thousands firebombing Dresden at the end of WW II--a war crime that makes Gaza look like a picnic.
If your wonderful Hamas came to our shores, do you think they would welcome you with open arms just because you bashed Israel on substack? I can see you welcoming them outside your home. "Look at me, I'm a freedom fighter. I'm for the oppressed Palestinian people." and you know what? they would cut your head off anyway cause you're an infidel. How about that, big lover of the "oppressed"?
Let us be clear on one thing: Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization which has for decades pursued a goal of eliminating the Jewish people from the face of the earth.
Fever dreams about Israel "creating" Hamas are skirting dangerously close to anti-Semitism, which is absolutely not welcome here.
This is a warning, not an invitation to debate the matter. In my house we do not traffic in hatred, in any direction.
I haven't heard one word from you. one iota as to anything bad the forces aligned against Israel have done. Apparently what happened on October 7th is justified in your mind. So I guess all those on your side are a bunch of fucking saints.
This stops now. Any further commentary intimating some alternative "truth" about the Jewish people, the Palestinian people, or the Nazi Holocaust will simply be deleted. As a discussion, this particular topic is done.
Do not reply, and do not argue. This is not up for debate.
"Ibrahim Biari, as a single individual, could never occupy multiple buildings, and thus the destruction of multiple structures within Jabalya cannot be justified on that basis..."
You can't seriously think Biari was there alone! If he was there, scores of subordinate Hamas regulars would be there with him, undoubtedly in several different buildings.
What I think is irrelevant. What Israel said is they were targeting Ibrahim Biari. One man. Not a cadre of Hamas.
If Israel believed there was a larger threat than one man, they need to make that clear, and so far they have not done so. On the basis of the justifications proffered thus far, the strike was excessive and indiscriminate--which is not okay.
I don't think whether an action is a war crime or not is dependant upon Israel explaning themselves. The facts stand outside of any explanation. If Israel thought there were other Hamas combatants present, they were within their rights to attack them, whether they explained themselves to potential critics or not.
We cannot know what Israel thought without the explanation.
By your own argument one of the relevant facts is Israel's own assessment of the military situation--i.e., were Hamas forces or Hamas commanders hiding (illegally, we should acknowledge) within the refugee camp, and, if so, where? If Israel does not tell us that assessment we have no basis for inferring that assessment, other than a circuitous logic of concluding that, as Israel attacked in the manner it did, it clearly assessed the damaged structures were legitimate military targets, which justifies Israel attacking in the manner it did. That's fallacious reasoning.
If there were no Hamas personnel in the camp--and especially if Israel did not assess that there were any Hamas personnel in the camp--then the attack has no military objective, thus no military justification, and thus is an attack upon a civilian population which is expressly forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.
If a structure within the camp was assessed as housing Hamas personnel, that structure does become a legitimate military target and may be attacked. If Hamas detains civilian Palestinian Arabs within that structure that would be a war crime by Hamas, not by Israel.
However, when more than a single structure is attacked in response to that single structure being that legitimate military target, those additional structures are not legitimate military targets and should not be targeted. Moreover, Israel is expected to take care to avoid making such structures collateral damage and inflicting civilian collateral casualties.
In an era where modern munitions can target not just specific structures, but specific sections of specific structures, Israel has an obligation to refrain from either targeting additional structures or indiscriminately making other structures collateral damage. The photographs that have emerged do not support an assessment that Israel so refrained in these attacks.
Place named ‘refugee camp,’ in 1948. Every person I see is a fighting age male. So no, not a war crime. Besides, when did the US start giving 2 sh*ts about war crimes? Did it just start now with the war in Ukraine? Is it some kind of new virtue signaling? Coming from the country that’s slaughtered 60million of their own babies, I think they should sit this one out. The US has and have, no right to accuse anyone of war crimes.
The US is not accusing Israel of war crimes. The UN has suggested Israeli strikes on Gaza may constitute war crimes but the Secretary General has not gone so far as to make an actual accusation.
I am stating that, based on the extant facts and the language of the Geneva Conventions, the strike was in violation of internationally recognized laws of war, and thus may be counted as a war crime.
What the US has or has not done is also irrelevant to the question at hand.
If you want to cling to the nostrum that Israel bombed the Al Ahli hospital, you are welcome to do so. The reality of events on the ground is not going to accompany you on that journey.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas is without a doubt controversial, and awakens considerable passions on all sides.
However, I would like to remind all who read and comment here of the golden rule of discussions on this Substack: disagreement is welcome, but being disagreeable is not.
Comments which are laced with bigotry of any kind, whether it be against the Palestinian Arabs or against the Israelis, will not be tolerated, will be deleted, and the authors of such poison banned. Trolling is not welcome and will be similarly excised.
This does not mean that Israel cannot be criticized and even condemned for their actions. It does not mean that Hamas cannot be criticized and condemned. It does mean that everyone needs to temper their rhetoric with a modicum of civility and a double dose of logic.
Everyone will have their opinions about the parties to this conflict and what should be done, and this is entirely as it should be. However, as we share and discuss those opinions, as well as such facts as inform those opinions, let us be mindful to be respectful to one another, and to remember that the ones who are suffering are the ones caught in the middle of all the violence.
Let us think on those caught up in this or any war with compassion. War is hell all on its own. We do not need to add to that hell with yet more hatred and anger. There's plenty of that already.
Ethnicity is not merely a matter of DNA, nor should it ever be reduced to a matter of DNA. Saying that the "Palestinians are not Arab" due to variances in DNA misses the point. DNA markers ultimately show that a person's ancestors might have moved through a particular region of the earth at some point far back in history, but little more than that.
What the DNA does show is that, contrary to the current myths surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Israeli Jews and the Palestinian Arabs are not that different from each other. There is a body of research that shows components of the Jewish Diaspora in close genetic proximity to other peoples of the Levant who now fall under the umbrella term "Arab", such as Druze and Bedouins.
Linguistically, Arabic and Hebrew are part of the same West Semitic language group, with Hebrew being potentially the older of the two languages (Arabic came into more common usage around the time of the prophet Mohammad). That Hebrew and Arabic are similar and related languages is something that has been known and accepted since medieval times.
No matter how one breaks down the ethnic heritages of the Palestinian Arabs and the Israeli Jews locked in this seemingly eternal conflict, the overwhelming body of evidence suggests that, genetically, linguistically, and even culturally, they are close kin fighting each other. It might not be exactly brother against brother, but it arguably is first cousin against first cousin. These are not nor have they ever been wholly separate and disparate peoples fighting over the same territory. They are, ultimately, one people fighting over the same territory.
When we look at the origins of the Palestinian Arabs and the Israeli Jews, it is with no small irony that their common ancestry brings a measure of empirical truth to Paul's teaching in Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
In like fashion we can plausibly say there is neither Jew nor Arab, for they are all one.
In many, perhaps even most, respects, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a fratricidal affair, which makes it particularly tragic.
I accept that the two parties to the conflict are close relatives, and that is what I have said. Do not attempt to put words into my mouth.
I have respected your views on this point. You will now respect mine and find a different point of discussion. This will proceed no further.
do they have guns in this "refugee camp"?
Possibly. That has not been reported. However, the mere presence of small arms within the refugee camp does not make the entire camp a military target according to the Geneva Conventions. Medical and relief personnel are allowed small arms for their own protection and the protection of those to whom they render aid.
Additionally, the IDF has not claimed the camp itself was an Hamas installation, but that a single Hamas commander, Ibrahim Bieri, was hiding out in the camp. His presence would make whatever structure he was using as his hideout a legitimate military target, but not the other structures within the camp. The Geneva Conventions set the expectation that care is to be used to minimize civilian and collateral casualties and damage when attacking such military targets.
The IDF air strike on Jabalya was disproportionate to the claimed military objective, which is in violation of the Conventions.
Bad guys do bad things. That’s where the name comes from.
Using that level of ordinance is not appropriate for a targeted air strike. If you can’t send in a unit (almost always the preferred option), then an air strike needs to be surgical. There needs to be evidence that the target has indeed been taken off the battlefield. That means a body or at the very least DNA evidence. So the use of mass ordinance does no good.
Also, an air to surface middle can cost upwards of a half-million dollars USD. So again, it makes no sense to launch an air strike using this level of ordinance if it’s intended as a targeted strike. Zarqawi was taken out using a single missile fired by a single F-16. Therefore, one or two missiles should have been sufficient.
Finally, there actually is a process and operating procedure involving targeting killings. As such, the IDF should be able to produce intelligence (ie evidence) that their target was, in fact, confirmed to be in that location at that time.
I have a very difficult time believing that this was an air strike intended to take out a single Hamas leader. To believe that would require believing that the IDF is bad at their job. And I suspect that’s not what was bad about this particular air strike.
Depending on the state of mind of the Israeli commanders, and frankly how much attention to detail they made in planning the attack, it could easily be they simply did not examine the target area closely to devise a precise profile for the attack. The "fog of war" is a real thing, and it is not at all difficult for commanders to lose some of their perspective and over-react or over-respond.
That does not make the actions defensible. It merely makes them comprehensible. Even good guys can do bad things at times, and this may very well be one of those times. It could even be that the commanders who ordered the attack are themselves not exactly good guys who allowed darker passions to overwhelm their better judgement, and simply did not care to order a more restrained attack. That's a whole lot of speculation for which we have exactly zero facts. I certainly am not privy to the state of mind of Israel's commanders in Gaza.
Military targets, even those embedded among civilian populations, are legitimate and can be attacked with impunity. Civilian targets are never legitimate.
I don't know exactly why the IDF attacked this refugee camp, other than the justifications already offered. I do know that it was, based on the data known thus far, something that should not have happened.
First, I find your thoughts to be, as always, enviously well thought out and cogent. It’s always a pleasure to have the opportunity to dialogue with you.
I couldn’t agree more about the fog of war.
But just because we see events being played out before us, it’s almost certain the IDF has been thinking about this precise situation for years.
Almost invariably, there are going to be extremely well thought-out rules of engagement that are the result of years of war gaming and updating. This is done because when a crisis occurs, there isn’t enough time or reason available for pragmatism.
So what’s being done is being done with the benefit of forethought.
Excellent observation on surveillance. He’d probably been under UAV surveillance for several days prior. But UAV isn’t the end all be all. Without eyes at ground level, it’s not easy.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Dresden comparisons aren’t appropriate.
Dresden was carpet bombings using bombs that commonly could land 500 yards away from their target area. (I once heard a story whose voracity I can’t attest to that the Elba River was/is littered with unexploded ordinance.)
Today a CCT (Combat Controller) uses grid coordinates to call in ordinance that’s accurate within less than a yard. But again: modern ordinance is being called in. And that means that every one of those air strikes were individually called in.
If so, then that, almost certainly, was war gamed long ago and long before the fog of war could be used as an excuse.
kudos for putting facts, the law and analysis on the table and for taking the heat to explain and answer criticisms; this is no easy quagmire and no simple solution. given your ability to remain cool under pressure and stick to the data, do you have a recommended article (including your own history if you've done it) for giving a fair, unbiased and complete assessment of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (eg, when/how it began and whether, for instance, Israel is holding the residents of Gaza in an open air concentration camp as many allege)?
Thanks for the kind words!
I've only recently been writing about the Middle East, in response to the eruption of the current crises.
A full historical accounting of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs has been the subject of multiple books, of varying degrees of fairness and objectivity.
Part of the challenge is untangling all the factors that ultimately have nothing to do with either the Palestinian Arabs or the Israelis. Britain's management (and mis-management) of Palestine after WW1 plays a crucial role in setting the boundaries for the current disputes, and that in turn arises from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WW1.
There are also questions about why Egypt and Jordan--two Arab states bordering not just Israel but the territories of the Palestinian National Authority (Gaza and the West Bank)--have not been willing to either accept Palestinians as refugees or as migrants. The challenge of calling Israel's blockade of Gaza an "open air prison" is that it ignores how one side of that prison is extremely well guarded by Egypt, which even now has been strongly opposed to accepting Palestinian Arabs, and only grudgingly allowed the wounded to seek refuge in Egypt.
The other Arab states in the region, it seems, want even less to do with Hamas and Fatah (the controlling entity for the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank) than does Israel. That's a wrinkle that is not getting any attention by either the pro-Israel or the pro-Palestinian Arab sides of the debate.
Is there a single reference I can recommend for further reading? Not really. There are histories, of course, each of which presents some of the information but not all (and, to be fair, this is such a Gordion Knot of a conflict that getting everything into a single history might be impossible).
I'm not even sure the history of the conflict even matters that much any more. After nearly a century of conflict and over a century of tension, while the history is fascinating, it is also I suspect increasingly irrelevant.
In the moral/philosophical realm, Israel, the Palestinian Arabs, and their supporters around the world have sown the winds of war, and are now reaping the whirlwind of perpetual war.
https://blog.petersproverbs.us/p/we-have-sown-the-wind-now-we-shall
I don't see that changing until everyone jointly decides to make a lasting peace in the here and now, which almost certainly means the past is just not going to matter much.
Well said - as here in US can be unfair to attribute to me or any regular tax paying law abiding citizen the corrupt acts of our leaders, many on both sides seem trapped to outcomes they would have expected their leaders in good faith to have avoided. How many years does it take to reach some kind of accord here - seems certain one side doesn't want it, maybe both.
I suspect this whole debate will end up being academic. People will argue pro and con, until some kind of horrific terrorism attack happens on US soil and drags us into war with Iran and it’s proxies. Then few people will care if retaliation is justified or not - they will just want revenge. Seems like that’s the way it goes in every history of war I’ve read.
How do you keep from imagining a very horrific end game to this scenario? Esp with the track record of our US leaders during the past handful of years - all means are justified for their very subjective and often personal ends. Quite disheartening.
Oh yeah, BEYOND disheartening! The possibilities are about as depressing as you can get.
But, there are (somewhat) optimistic scenarios,too. If Iran (Shiite) goes to war, the Sunnis of the world could go to war against Iran to prevent the Shiites from gaining dominance in the Islamic world (remember the eight-year war in the 1980s between Iraq (Sunni) and Iran?) If that happens (again), the Western world could end up with a comparatively better situation.
One of the main things that has historically united the Islamic world has been their shared hatred of Jews. So, if - or please no - Israel is destroyed, then they will likely war amongst themselves.
But this is all speculation. I’m really, really hoping this all SOMEHOW a calms down before it hits WW3!
Gb - wanted to add, but got pulled away, appreciate the historical input; you seem well read on the topic -- it is a reminder that there are MANY factors at play here, and it's just hard to have any reliable prediction on what will actually happen -- so, retreat to obeying the 2 core commandments from God, and trust your loved ones do too.
Nothing new under the sun
Even for Dylan. The best tunes and lyrics are always without time limits.
A Dylan fan?
Somewhat. I tend to appreciate his work before he went electric, when he bore favorable comparison to Woody Guthrie.
Not a music historian just a fan but Joe Purdy is a current folk Americana artist who has some clever lyrics. And if you enjoy Texas music REK won't disappoint either.
How many years can some people exist before they're allowed to be free?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' on the wind!
(Yeah, I wasn't going to resist that one! :P )
I’m still baffled by the complete intelligence and IDF failure for six or seven hours on October 7.
That gentleman has been banned. I have a low tolerance for trolling.
There is an ironic symmetry to that intelligence failure.
Almost 50 years to the day earlier, Israeli intelligence and the IDF missed all the signs that Egypt and Syria were planning a fresh assault on Israel, which became the Yom Kippur War.
That failure ended Golda Meir's political career and Moshe Dayan's military career.
Baffling, but not without precedent.
Six or seven hours is an awfully long time to not respond...
Have you anything substantive to add on that point? Anything factual?
This wouldn't have happened if not for the terrorist attack on October 7th. Did these monsters care about civilians when they placed babies in ovens and set them on fire? Some of these atrocities are beyond the imagination. Hamas has a history of operating in civilian areas. So they bear the responsibility for the casualties. You expect Israel to "play fair" when the enemy never has. You can never defeat terrorism if you "play fair." It's a fact of war.
Hamas unquestionably instigated this latest round of violence. There is no disputing of that. As I pointed out, as the Palestinian National Authority--of which Hamas is an elected leading party--is a signatory to both the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol 1, the October 7 attack is indisputably a war crime committed by Hamas.
That being said, it is not a tenet of most Western systems of values and morals for two wrongs to make a right. Israel cannot claim a pass on excessive and indiscriminate attacks on indisputably civilian populations, nor anyone clearly hors de combat, merely because Hamas chose to violate that dictum first.
This is not a question of playing fair. This is a question of doing what is right even within the context of war. The Geneva Conventions identify a standard of what nations broadly consider to be "right conduct" for war. There is a substantial case to made that the Jabalya air strike does not measure up to that standard. We should not shy away from saying this merely because we despise Hamas.
The point is that this would never have happened in the first place if Hamas did not invade Israel and commit these horrendous atrocities. The responsibility is on them from the beginning. And the responsibility remains on them during this continuing conflict because they embed themselves within their own civilian population. That appears not to be in dispute.
Hamas is always responsible for what Hamas does.
Hamas can never be responsible for what Israel does. That responsibility will always be Israel's alone. Even Mosaic Law teaches that every man is responsible for his own sin.
So what is Hamas doing there in civilian areas? They are doing that intentionally because they want Israel to kill their own civilians so world opinion will turn against them.
They are hiding behind the skirts of Palestinian Arab women and children. And that too is a war crime by Hamas, as I stated in the article.
And, again, war crimes by Hamas neither excuse nor justify war crimes by Israel. That has never been an accepted moral argument, nor will it.
But the onus is still on them. They ARE the government. They put this in motion.
By your way of thinking, top US officials and military commanders should have been hung when they killed thousands firebombing Dresden at the end of WW II--a war crime that makes Gaza look like a picnic.
If your wonderful Hamas came to our shores, do you think they would welcome you with open arms just because you bashed Israel on substack? I can see you welcoming them outside your home. "Look at me, I'm a freedom fighter. I'm for the oppressed Palestinian people." and you know what? they would cut your head off anyway cause you're an infidel. How about that, big lover of the "oppressed"?
Let us be clear on one thing: Hamas is a genocidal terrorist organization which has for decades pursued a goal of eliminating the Jewish people from the face of the earth.
Fever dreams about Israel "creating" Hamas are skirting dangerously close to anti-Semitism, which is absolutely not welcome here.
This is a warning, not an invitation to debate the matter. In my house we do not traffic in hatred, in any direction.
I haven't heard one word from you. one iota as to anything bad the forces aligned against Israel have done. Apparently what happened on October 7th is justified in your mind. So I guess all those on your side are a bunch of fucking saints.
So nothing happened and the Holocaust didn't either.
By the way. Are you an American? Then give up your house to the Indians because America stole it from them!
What words did I put in your mouth?
This ends now. Do not carry this discussion further. I do not wish to start removing comments but I will.
Not one post more. None.
fine with me.
This stops now. Any further commentary intimating some alternative "truth" about the Jewish people, the Palestinian people, or the Nazi Holocaust will simply be deleted. As a discussion, this particular topic is done.
Do not reply, and do not argue. This is not up for debate.
Period.
End of Sentence.
End of Discussion
"Ibrahim Biari, as a single individual, could never occupy multiple buildings, and thus the destruction of multiple structures within Jabalya cannot be justified on that basis..."
You can't seriously think Biari was there alone! If he was there, scores of subordinate Hamas regulars would be there with him, undoubtedly in several different buildings.
What I think is irrelevant. What Israel said is they were targeting Ibrahim Biari. One man. Not a cadre of Hamas.
If Israel believed there was a larger threat than one man, they need to make that clear, and so far they have not done so. On the basis of the justifications proffered thus far, the strike was excessive and indiscriminate--which is not okay.
I don't think whether an action is a war crime or not is dependant upon Israel explaning themselves. The facts stand outside of any explanation. If Israel thought there were other Hamas combatants present, they were within their rights to attack them, whether they explained themselves to potential critics or not.
We cannot know what Israel thought without the explanation.
By your own argument one of the relevant facts is Israel's own assessment of the military situation--i.e., were Hamas forces or Hamas commanders hiding (illegally, we should acknowledge) within the refugee camp, and, if so, where? If Israel does not tell us that assessment we have no basis for inferring that assessment, other than a circuitous logic of concluding that, as Israel attacked in the manner it did, it clearly assessed the damaged structures were legitimate military targets, which justifies Israel attacking in the manner it did. That's fallacious reasoning.
If there were no Hamas personnel in the camp--and especially if Israel did not assess that there were any Hamas personnel in the camp--then the attack has no military objective, thus no military justification, and thus is an attack upon a civilian population which is expressly forbidden by the Geneva Conventions.
If a structure within the camp was assessed as housing Hamas personnel, that structure does become a legitimate military target and may be attacked. If Hamas detains civilian Palestinian Arabs within that structure that would be a war crime by Hamas, not by Israel.
However, when more than a single structure is attacked in response to that single structure being that legitimate military target, those additional structures are not legitimate military targets and should not be targeted. Moreover, Israel is expected to take care to avoid making such structures collateral damage and inflicting civilian collateral casualties.
In an era where modern munitions can target not just specific structures, but specific sections of specific structures, Israel has an obligation to refrain from either targeting additional structures or indiscriminately making other structures collateral damage. The photographs that have emerged do not support an assessment that Israel so refrained in these attacks.
Place named ‘refugee camp,’ in 1948. Every person I see is a fighting age male. So no, not a war crime. Besides, when did the US start giving 2 sh*ts about war crimes? Did it just start now with the war in Ukraine? Is it some kind of new virtue signaling? Coming from the country that’s slaughtered 60million of their own babies, I think they should sit this one out. The US has and have, no right to accuse anyone of war crimes.
The US is not accusing Israel of war crimes. The UN has suggested Israeli strikes on Gaza may constitute war crimes but the Secretary General has not gone so far as to make an actual accusation.
I am stating that, based on the extant facts and the language of the Geneva Conventions, the strike was in violation of internationally recognized laws of war, and thus may be counted as a war crime.
What the US has or has not done is also irrelevant to the question at hand.
The New York Times also admitted it was wrong to do that.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/23/pageoneplus/editors-note-gaza-hospital-coverage.html
Established by the available evidences, which is a topic I've already covered.
https://newsletter.allfactsmatter.us/p/yet-another-epic-fail-corporate-media
If you want to cling to the nostrum that Israel bombed the Al Ahli hospital, you are welcome to do so. The reality of events on the ground is not going to accompany you on that journey.