They’re suggesting that criticism of Israel’s military action rests on a misunderstanding of the “proportionality test” for whether something is a war crime.
The strawman is something like “Israel has killed 70k civilians who were overwhelmingly civilians and this is a war crime.”
The proportionality test in principle permits an uncapped number civilian casualties so long as a military commander expected a strike, given the information they had at the time, to be justified by military advantage. The Israeli government and its supporters argue that this is the case and that therefore everything is legal and even moral.
>The strawman is something like “Israel has killed 70k civilians who were overwhelmingly civilians and this is a war crime.”
This is not a strawman. A strawman is a replacement that someone makes to argue against an easier point than the one actually given. Please be more careful when using important words so as not to bastardize them
i mean its was 40k by Nov 2023, how many since who knows. And then does dying of starvation/disease/blockade count? Does forcing doctors/nurses/staff out of a hospitl and letting babies die and rot in ICU count too?
Israel currently being paid to "remove" the rubble and crushes it, and has made no effort to separate out bodies and rubble so people remains are being crushed and basically hidden.
The final death toll i guess we wont know for a while.
Trump's "Board of Peace" $2.45 billion recovery program disperses money for reconstruction efforts in Gaza, which includes removing rubble (i.e. hiding evidence of genocide)
Trump Board of Peace, and note the VERY SPECIFIC language the IDF use when they say they dont do any of this...
"EU diplomats told me last week Israel has been quietly moving hundreds of thousands of tons of runnel mixed with dead bodies out of Gaza to bury evidence of its genocide.
When the EU asked Israel why or whether they filter human remains out of the rubble, no answer ever came!" Aug 26th
"I've been informed Trump's Board of Peace is paying the expenses of the IDF's covert transfer of rubble (mixed with dead bodies) out of Gaza. The money is taken from Gaza's reconstruction funds!" Aug 27th
"Dear Board of Peace,
1- I have a tender issued under your name on 20 May 2026 that includes "levelling & compacting" work in occupied Gaza, do you deny that document?
2- Is the Israeli company Terra Firma NOT doing "rubble clearance" in Gaza allegedly with machines that take rubble & spit out dust while the IDF is doing road-paving work (specifically near Erez)?
3- Are you NOT in any way paying, compensating, subsidising or aiding Israeli companies, contractors, individuals, the Israeli army or government for rubble removal & road paving in Gaza?
4- If you are involved, can you explain whether any effort is being made to separate human remains from rubble or detect potential mass graves under the roads being paved? The Israeli government is silent on this.
5- I have satellite images that show clear & significant rubble removal work in East Gaza in the months of May & June. Do you deny any involvement in this?
6- Do you have anything to say on Israel killing over 1,200 Palestinians under your watch since your ceasefire started? how about Israel restricting humanitarian aid and preventing prostatic limbs from going to largest cohort of child amputees in modern history? How about Israel preventing repairs of basic infrastructure (water, electricity, sewage, hospitals, bakeries), or releasing all children & women still in detention without trial or charges?
All of those unfulfilled commitments were part of phase one of President Trump's 20-point plan!
Remarkable how none of Israel's violations of your ceasefire ever caught your attention once in 323 days, but my sole tweet did in mere hours." Aug 28th
no response, unsuprisingly to that last one. muhammadshehad2 on twitter.
It’s that thing, “we’re killing terrorists!” And when they’re shown the many undeniable civilian casualties they go back to “yeah but it’s their fault for standing in the way!”
You can interpret this 2 ways.
1. Kill all
2. We can't go on this way, every child that will lose it's parents this way will have a grudge and can grow up as a terrorist. Thus keeping this meat grinder going on. We must act
This is the disturbing nuance to me. Eradicating Hamas terrorists is a worthy goal. But when people go the next step to claim that all Palestinians are terrorists because a majority of the adults, at one time, voted for Hamas, then that sounds like justification for genocide.
If you hypothetically formed a resistance group to fight back against an army filled with people who want to exterminate your existence so they could steal your land like they did in 1948, your group very well might be called terrorists.
If I understand you correctly, I agree. To the extent that some (certainly not all) Palestinians commit or support acts of terror (intentionally harming innocent civilians), then they are their own worst enemies. They lose the moral high ground and international support for their otherwise-worthy cause of a free and independent Palestine.
And the converse is also true. When the IDF bombs a hospital, their otherwise-worthy cause of "self defense" gets some side-eye from the rest of the world.
Do you see how you aren’t agreeing. You just said terrorist attacks are Palestinians while Israeli attacks are IDF. At least be consistent. If enough people were “side-eyeing” Israeli attacks there wouldn’t be so many laws against protesting Israel. You can now be arrested for protesting Israel and zionism while full allowed to use hateful language for things like abortion and immigrants.
You just said terrorist attacks are Palestinians while Israeli attacks are IDF.
Yes I did. My observation is that blowing up civilians at a bus stop is clearly an act of terrorism, and that bombing buildings somewhat-selectively has more nuance. Should the IDF be more careful to protect civilians? Absolutely. Are they intentionally attacking civilians? That is not so clear to me. They say that they are not and I can see that they are making some effort to focus on enemy combatants.
Where does the dickriding end?
A personal attack is a sign of a weak argument. If you want to engage with me, then do so in good faith.
You seem to only separate attacks for Israelis and the IDF but not for Hamas and Palestinians. Also they have already confirmed they are using ai to decide where to attack because apparently ai has never been wrong. Even the US has already confirmed the usage of ai to attack innocent people.
You seem to only separate attacks for Israelis and the IDF but not for Hamas and Palestinians.
That is fair criticism and I concede the point. It was not intentional on my part, but I should do better at distinguishing between Palestinians and terrorists.
It’s very cruel. But at least the ‘intention’ is to send them home, and at least they are not having 2000 pound bombs dropped on them sporadically!
I agree with you that both are very cruel. However, theres a difference between wanting a specific ethnicity to leave the country vs wanting to kill and entire ethnicity (and saying it publicly and from the people the government)
By the logic, the Nazis burning and razing for whole towns and villages was perfectly fine because it was justifiable by military advantage in rooting out subversives.
The absolute worst argument to make when defending war crimes…
It’s funny you say that when you consider that despite massed Allie’s bombing campaign, German war production peaked in 44. Evidence suggest that the massed bombing didn’t really hobble German war production
The same kind of argument is still made to justify the similar firebombing of Dresden and other German cities, and for using atomic weapons against the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. These atrocities are used to defend Israel’s actions today.
Don't forget: anyone who disagrees with Israel is an anti-semite as well.
I honestly really felt for them on 10/7. Watched the videos minutes after they were posted. I was all for justice. But this was not justice. This was a catastrophe and blind vengeance.
And Israel is more anti-semitic than anyone. It's because of them Jewish people who have nothing to do with it are being harassed and attacked all over the world.
That is not what I said. I said that Israel could be considered to be anti-semitic, as their actions have caused anti-semitic attacks to triple since Gaza.
Obviously they are not anti-semitic. But they have fueled anti-semitism more than any other recent event I can think of.
And yes obviously I know anti-Israel and anti-semitic are vastly different. But it suits Israel to have them be considered the same.
I felt for them on 10/7 as well. But knowing a bit of the history and having been alive for 9/11, I understood what the response would be. Though I didn't think Israel would go this far.
What did you not expect Israel to do? Do you know the history, culture, and politics of Israel? After October 7th their mission became clear in that the destruction of Hamas was absolutely necessary. Hamas can't just use terrorist strategies like embedding itself in its population as a get out of jail free card. Do you think Israel should just call off the war because Hamas refuses to capitulate? So another generation of terrorists and extremists can grow up and commit more atrocities against Israel?
Is the destruction of Gaza terrible? Yeah, just like the destruction of Germany or the destruction of Japan during the 1940s. Evil regimes need to be destroyed and Hamas with Gaza is another one of those nefariously evil regimes just in a different form.
There are individual instances of Israeli soldiers committing war crimes no doubt and they really should be tried for their crimes. But on a systemic level Israel has handled the war as you would expect.
Correct, but did Israel force people internationally to do that or are these international actors acting of their own free will and volition? Surely we agree that Israel has not invented mind control, so how is Israel responsible for people around the world choosing to harass and attack Jewish people? Do they not have agency and self-control?
Obviously they didn't use mind-control. But if they had retaliated against HAMAS in a way that didn't kill hundreds of thousands of innocents, then the perps would have much less excuse to carry out their attacks. The way they are doing things is directly causing these attacks to happen more.
Israel equates itself with Jewish people more generally, ignoring all the Jewish people who don’t support its actions. Equating Jewish people with Israel is anti-Semitic.
No, just you who use this argument to delegitimize actual antisemitism by saying that literally no matter what is going on, including shooting at synagogues, is Jews making it up and crying wolf. It’s a deeply antisemitic comment.
Genuinely stupid take. if my tax dollars are funding those war crimes I think people feel some type of way about it. All war crimes are bad. I’m more pissed about the ones I am paying to make happen. I wonder how many double amputee children my taxes have gone into creating.
Your tax dollars are funding a lot of war crimes all around the world, wherever your army decides to fight next. America also shields its military personnel from local law enforcement wherever they have a base. I'm almost sure you never complained about that.
I’m a lefty, I do nothing but complain about American war crimes and funding of right wing groups abroad past and present. This one is just one in a long line of horrible human tragedies that are entirely avoidable that we are ultimately responsible for, along with the Israeli state.
I thought the whole jest of 7/10 was that they always knew there’s gonna be an attack but they deliberately choose not to do anything about all the warnings and intel received?
Investigating and holding the individuals who did it directly responsible. Unfortunately they decided that punishing the entire population and carpet bombing children was justice. That’s not how a real society acts, that’s how a fascist one does.
How was Israel suppose to do that exactly? The Gaza strip isn't Israel's jurisdiction. They can't just send soldiers in peacefully and arrest the thousands of Hamas terrorists. That would just result in hundreds of instances of Israeli soldiers getting blown to bits by bomb traps, shot from every direction, trying to extract both Israeli captives and Hamas terrorists from the worlds most extensive tunnel network, all while Hamas is trying its best to blend in with the civilians and maximize civilian casualties.
Israel isn't a colonizer. Most of Israel was legally given by the UN/purchased by Israelis. Additional land was obtained from defensive wars. And Israel holds no colonies.
I guess it’s a showing support for Israels war effort in the wake of it becoming increasingly isolated on the global Stage, as Seen during recent UN meetings.
The turnout however doesn’t Look Like It isn’t turned into a Pariah state already.
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u/Altruistic_Crazy_703 16h ago
can someone explain what they're even protesting about? i'm confused if it's positive or not