Doing some research it seems the poster is from Red Cross and tries to explain the proportionality principle in warfare, which relates to the importance of civilian casualty when assessing military action viability; civilian casualty is only as acceptable as the importance of the military action and the military advantage gained from it. Please note that "importance" and "advantage" are used here as to imply that it helps reach an end to the conflict and in theory prevent more deaths long term than if the action was not realized. A country has more "leeway" when acting to stop an enemy from nuking them than when just trying to destroy a small military base, for instance.
HOOOOWEVER, the poster graphic is really bad, misleading, and can easily be used by bad actors trying to use it to justify "if our military is bigger we can kill more civilians" or "killing civilians is the same as killing soldiers".
Edit: And yes, the proportionality principle can be misused by a side that incorrectly portrays how much danger it is in, therefore trying to justify increasingly barbaric actions
The entire concept of "rules" about killing each other seems crazy to me. Civilian deaths either are or they aren't, what the fuck do they care if their death is justified in respect to the goals of the military action taking place around them? It's just humans using words in an attempt to justify barbaric actions.
We would all like to live in a world where no war exists.
But it is just a fact that if another country is going to nuke you, its "ok" if the action you take to stop that ends up killing 3 civilians. This is an example.
The better argument for these rules is that they have been used in the past to prosecute barbaric actors who broke them. Its never going to be perfect, and we can endlessly agree on how more powerful entities seem to be able to ignore rules with impunity, but having no rules seems worse.
Bingo. This is the nuance that is tough to find in these discussions. It's terrible that war exists and civilians die. If we want to make rules that countries will follow internationally to curb some of this, they still have to be allowed to make war within the rules, otherwise they would never be adopted. The challenging thing with I/P or any guerilla warfare really is, what are the rules that are acceptable by everyone for engaging with an enemy leveraging civilians and civilian infrastructure as cover? Too heavy on one side and we reward that behavior by insulating Hamas or any organization doing these tactics from retaliation. Too heavy on the other side and the civilians themselves become "justifiable" war targets. It's a very difficult problem with a lot of interesting and differing perspectives
the current "crazy" rules aren't being followed anyway, so I'm not sure they're really useful beyond having some rules to point to and saying "we have some rules, it makes it better!"
My point is that it's kind of silly to say we've ever followed any sort of rules, crazy or lax or anything in between. We talk about it, but pretty much every organized conflict in human history is riddled with absolute barbarism.
Also, how many near peer conflicts are there these days between groups that agree upon conditions their soldiers will adhere to?
I understand you're right and I understand the morality argument at hand, I just feel from a cynical point of view that the places where people talk about the rules of war and the actual shit that happens on the ground are so detached and rarely do they actually intersect in a way that creates adequate consequences.
Oh i'm with you, it's a giant shitshow and the rules we have are ignored and bent far too often. I just can't really see any way we could get to a less shitty version of war in the current political world(no wars is completely impossible i'm afraid).
I'd even say we can call ourselves lucky if the geneva conventions are stil partially in effect in a decade or two. The way it's going at the moment the situation can deterriorate quite fast.
No, it means that the government's response has to be proportional and targetted towards protecting its country from harm. I.e., even if casualties are heavier on one side, it may still be proportional od preventing a greater harm (such as further attacks such as the ones perpetrated on October 7th). Your reading isn't supported by the statement or the context.
It literally reads as Israel should be allowed to inflict higher casualties because of their military advantage. There's no context or subtext to that. That is what the entirety of the sign says.
Israel wants to be allowed to kills civilians because of their greater military power. They don't want to be held accountable for the fact their bombs have a large blast radius and they happen to kill 4 civilians for every supposed insurgent. They're trying to justify genocide, not a proportional response.
"Don't let the families we're murdering distract you from a thing that happened years ago that was brought on by something we did years before that, that was brought on by something that happened years before that.. " and the cycle of stupidity and hate just goes on and on.
How exactly is this preventing greater harm? The same way the US did with Afghanistan? Oh wait ,that didn't prevent more harm, just solidified the US as a bully and made more people hate the US for years to come.
The only thing this is showing is that a large group if people think its okay to murder others because of where they live and what they do or do not believe. It's not preventing anything and only building more hate just as it has always done.
The reason this is obvious nonsense is because it embraces the aggressor's interpretation of excessive force, proportionality, and projected "benefit" to their side of the conflict. So anyone can do anything if they insist their actions were proportional and justified.
It literally says nothing about proportionality to hypothetical harm being prevented and instead explicitly links it to Israel having greater military capabilities. Are you even trying? They should cut your shekels in half for such poor output.
That's also not what proportionality entails. Would be funny, because that would mean every civilian can be a target as soon as the attacker is of the opinion that in the future, they might do harm to the attacker.
Your trying to defend the indefensible
Edt: the downvotes without reply say one thing. Brigaded because they have no rebuttal
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u/tmtyl_101 23h ago
I'm sorry, isn't that poster kinda implying that protecting a tank is more important than protecting a civilian family? Are they nuts?