ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

Note before reading that my following post is NOT a justification of the evil massacre that Hamas perpetrated. It is however a comparison meant to illuminate something about the concept you've noted.

So, food for thought: a lower ratio of civilians to military and security personnel was killed on October 7th (according to Israeli published figures) than tends to be killed in even precision bombings.

Note: I can only fairly say "tends to be killed" because it can be difficult to truly get accurate data on military bombing casualties -- but one can absolutely find many individual cases of dozens of civilians being considered valid collateral for 1-3 military targets.

Source on deaths: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20231215-israel-social... > 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces

If we use sources like Times of Israel, which ignores police and other emergency personnel, claims become https://www.timesofisrael.com/14-kids-under-10-25-people-ove... > 859 civilians 274 soldiers

So notice that these figures are looking between 1.86 and 3.13 civilians per soldier dead.

That means an essentially random massacre which deliberately TRIED to target civilians, but which was primarily performed by individual soldiers, couldn't even cause nearly as many deaths as precision bombings do.

And note that, from what I could gather, those figures on Israeli deaths don't include government workers as being valid combatants, when I doubt any Hamas pencil pushers that may exist would get the "luxury" of not being counted as non combatants.

The can of worms opened up here only gets messier still if you then start going more philosophical issues like how they seem to have spent the last few decades uncertain if Palestine is basically a mini case of Escape From NY, under outright Israeli military occupation, or an entirely independent country. I'd want to ask the Israeli government if this is a war or a policing action.

A minor counterpoint to something you wrote though: I don't think this is often something in terms of their civilians being less valuable, at least not publicly due to the obvious bad optics. I rather think it's a case presented more like a need for some civilians to die now to prevent more from dying later or being "oppressed under illegitimate government" type concerns, etc.

The extremists from both sides have to be removed from the conversation. Extremists on both sides are using religion to justify political goals and want to achieve political goals through military action. Half-measures will only result in suspension of atrocities for a brief moment while both sides re-arm. You cannot talk about what's going on without discussing Hamas' rise to power, removal of political opposition, and making preparations for an attack that resulted in what has been going on since last year. They took Palestinians hostage and used them to turn the world against Israel. How is that not genocidal? Palestinians are used in a political game for political gains. Does it justify Israel's actions? No. Does is present Hamas as a saviour of the Palestinian people? No.

Well, the first thing you do is stop doing it if you're the one killing the civilians. If your own leaders are doing it, you try to stop them, especially as a citizen of a democratic country. If someone else in the world is doing it, you try to engage the UN and other international bodies to help, hopefully with a diplomatic solution. Failing all this, and assuming it's your people being killed, you will have to take up arms and defend.

This is roughly what the Palestinians did when they found themselves attacked by the Israeli settlers, back at the formation of Israel. It's important to always remember that in this conflict, Israel has been the first aggressor, not the defense. And since Israel had the full support of the UN, and later of the USA, the Palestinians really couldn't spend too much time waiting for those to fix their problem (though they are actively engaged even today).

Now, for Israel to stop these attacks on their own people, especially before October 7th, the solution is actually relatively simple: stop attacking the people of Palestine, and they will stop attacking back. Recognize Palestine as a state, including a corridor to link Gaza and the West Bank, give back the territory stolen by illegal colonists in the West Bank, stop blockading their borders. Condition this on a free cross-Palestinian election, maybe even explicitly blocking Hamas from it.

The problem is that Israel's goal is not simply to stop the attacks on their civilians. Israel's goal, as many top leaders in Israel, including Netanyahu, openly declare, is to expand Israel's borders while excluding Palestinians from being Israeli citizens. Netanyahu has been supporting Hamas for more than a decade, and has many times openly admitted to this, as a great ally in ensuring that a two-state solution will never be reached.

So, what if a few Israeli citizens are killed every year? That's a price that Israel's government is willing to pay to keep the status quo and not get their hands too dirty with Palestinian blood. Of course, Oct 7th changed that: it challenged them and showed they are not all powerful, and that is not acceptable, so the people of Gaza had to be punished.

And just one final note - Israel performed two October 7th-level attacks just in the last twenty years - 2004's Operation Cast Led (1200+ civilians killed), and 2014's Operation Protective Edge (2200+ civilians killed). Except of course those were much worse, since Israeli bombs also destroyed many thousands of homes, displacing tens of thousands of civilians atop those killed.

Again, the same argument can be made for the other side. Two things can be true at the same time; both Hamas and Israel do/did terrible things and its tiring that people defend one side no matter what.

Their [the Palestinans] story is they didn't have a choice once others violated it and they had to defend themselves, and they make a very strong case. Obviously you find Christian countries in general (and in number, they are the largest faction in the UN general assembly) ... extremely opposed to any enforcement, because they blatantly violated international law again and again and again.

*There are overwhelmingly more Christian-majority countries as compared to Muslim-majority countries. Also non of the Muslim counties have veto power. If you make an argument please base it on facts: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Security_Coun...

The problem is that they will also lose all legitimacy if they only give decisions against the enemies of the USA. They then end up looking as a propaganda arm of the USA, which is, in my opinion, even worse than being an ineffectual but respected international organization.