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ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

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Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#161

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

dlubarov wrote: post #158
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you saying that as an independent country, Gaza's sovereignty can't be violated? This isn't absolute; there are exceptions like self-defense, whether we're look at this from a legal perspective (UN article 51) or an ethical one. Not Gaza, Palestine . That includes Gaza and the West Bank, which has been under Israeli apartheid for a long time. There is rarely an unrestrained right to self-defense of a country en…

It seems like you're veering into a different topic with the assertion that West Bank is an apartheid system. If we're talking about Gaza still, Hamas is the de facto government there, having won the election and the subsequent war. The PLO's declaration and aspirational claim of Gaza doesn't change the reality of Hamas' rule. From a moral perspective, it seems like you're saying the ICJ would be a better arbiter of…

We've covered Israel's actions being illegal in the eyes of the world, immoral in the eyes of the world, and unhelpful to peace in the eyes of the world. I appreciate your offering of another viewpoint, because a diversity of viewpoints is good, and indeed your viewpoint is valid. Valid enough that the world has heard it, and took it into account when forming the above consensus.

> [consensus] just doesn't seem necessary when discussing morality.

That would not be an entirely unexpected claim from any given person who doesn't like the humanitarian consensus, Just like it was not entirely unexpected to see Israel claim that international laws don't seem necessary when violating international laws they don't like.

I think we're both smart enough to realize what would happen if each person on earth decided that they were the true arbiter of law and morality, and had the right to do whatever they wanted, regardless of the law or what anybody or almost everybody else thought. So it is good that the consensus is that consensus is indeed necessary when writing and enforcing and judging the laws we wrote, around such moral standards as "don't genocide people".

By rejecting the concept of this consensus, which you call an "appeal to authority", it seems this topic is indeed being reduced to whether Bibi will say "whatever, I do what I want" like Putin or Cartman or Kony or Sinwar, while his country continues to spiral into international pariah status. So, I will submit a bet that he will, and leave it at that.

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#162

Post by dlubarov »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #161
dlubarov wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're veering into a different topic with the assertion that West Bank is an apartheid system. If we're talking about Gaza still, Hamas is the de facto government there, having won the election and the subsequent war. The PLO's declaration and aspirational claim of Gaza doesn't change the reality of Hamas' rule. From a moral perspective, it seems like you're saying the ICJ would be a better arbiter of…

We've covered Israel's actions being illegal in the eyes of the world, immoral in the eyes of the world, and unhelpful to peace in the eyes of the world. I appreciate your offering of another viewpoint, because a diversity of viewpoints is good, and indeed your viewpoint is valid. Valid enough that the world has heard it, and took it into account when forming the above consensus. > [consensus] just doesn't seem neces…

It seems like you're treating law and ethics as more or less interchangeable, which I think is a mistake. International law is more about politics than ethics.

For example, parts of international law come from UN security council resolutions, which are passed based on 9/15 security council votes, and no vetoes from the 5 permanent members. The permanent members include Russia and China, and non-permanent members often include other authoritarian states, like UAE until recently. Trump may soon have authority over US votes. Do you trust these political entities as bastions of morality?

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#163

Post by weatherlite »

tsimionescu wrote: post #159
weatherlite wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it did. Which events I listed are you disputing?

You adjusted your post to note that the ten thousand dead was an adjustment. Even so, it's an adjustment in the wrong direction - Northern Ireland is tinier than Israel, not larger. And the correct comparison is Irish Republicans in Northern Ireland ~ Palestinians, British loyalists in Northern Ireland ~ Israelis. You can view the greater UKs role in the conflict as similar to the USAs role in the Israel-Palestine co…

"The IRA (Irish Republican Army) was responsible for killing around 1,800 people during its terror campaign from the late 1960s through the late 1990s. This includes approximately 650 civilians"

So 650 civilians in around 30 years, that's less than what Hamas did in a couple of hours on October 7th. Btw Hamas is not only active in Gaza, it was a big part of the terror campaign that derailed the Oslo peace initiative and later Camp David - mostly in the West Bank. Hamas' reach is all across the Palestinian territories and it has hit Israelis in all kinds of ways - suicide bombings (in the West Bank), rockets (Gaza) and recently full on invasions and massacres. The death toll, destruction and disruption to the economy and civil life it had on Israeli society is orders of magnitude larger than what Britain has ever experienced.

> Yes, the IRA had the objective to eliminate British rule in Northern Ireland entirely, which is quite similar to Hamas's goal of eliminating Israeli rule in all of Israel. I'm not sure if the IRA was as happy to kill any loyalist civilians as Hamas is in killing Israeli civilians, to be fair.

So there's a major difference here I think, Britain could have simply left Northern Ireland or reach some compromise to meet some of the IRA's demands (which has actually eventually happened) and still remained Britain. For Israel to meet Hamas demands it needs to commit national suicide, cede control to a group that hates it (happy to kill Israelis - your words) and wants to take revenge and as a result probably have the majority of its population flee the region completely (where to? perhaps to the West, which is also not the most hospitable environment for Jews/Israelis).

> I'm not sure what superpower you refer to here (are you calling Egypt a superpower? Edit - oh, you mean the USSR...).

I am talking about Iran which is considered a regional superpower and about the fact Israel is surrounded by Iranian made armies (Hezbollah to the North, Yemenite Houtihs and Iraqi militais to the East) that are now occasionally bombing its civilian population or trying to force a naval blockade on it. England never had to face anything remotely similar to this with the IRA. The last time England had something similar to this was WW2.

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#164

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

dlubarov wrote: post #162
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've covered Israel's actions being illegal in the eyes of the world, immoral in the eyes of the world, and unhelpful to peace in the eyes of the world. I appreciate your offering of another viewpoint, because a diversity of viewpoints is good, and indeed your viewpoint is valid. Valid enough that the world has heard it, and took it into account when forming the above consensus. > [consensus] just doesn't seem neces…

It seems like you're treating law and ethics as more or less interchangeable, which I think is a mistake. International law is more about politics than ethics. For example, parts of international law come from UN security council resolutions, which are passed based on 9/15 security council votes, and no vetoes from the 5 permanent members. The permanent members include Russia and China, and non-permanent members ofte…

I'm not treating law and ethics as interchangeable, simply pointing out that the global consensus is that Israel's behavior is wrong in both a legal sense and an ethical sense (and a moral sense, if you distinguish that from the former), and thus is unhelpful to peace.

I understand Israel disagrees with this consensus. I understand you may disagree with this consensus. I accept that if global consensus hasn't already changed their minds, I might not, either. That is okay. Consensus doesn't require buy-in from any single particular person or country. But as a general rule of thumb, if a great majority say you're in the wrong, and you say they're all in the wrong for saying you're in the wrong, that means you're probably in the wrong, so it's worth seriously considering the possibility.

Your latter observation doesn't seem to apply here, as it seems the ICC and ICJ based their findings and rulings on laws and ethics, not politics or bias, and it doesn't seem like the laws themselves are biased against Israel in particular, either.

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#165

Post by candiodari »

runarberg wrote: post #154
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only real violations of international law apply to an army purposefully going, unprovoked, into a civilian area and starting to shoot everyone. Hamas does that, as they've proven on many occasions (including their own civilians), Israel doesn't. Israel has been shown to do this on multiple occasions. Take, for example, them doing exactly this to their own surrendering hostages, which they mistook for surviving,…

I’m also thinking about the Jenin hospital raid[1] where the Israeli army stormed a hospital wearing civilian clothing (i.e. hiding among civilians) and extra-judicially killed three wounded (and as a result inactive; i.e. unprovoked) operatives. I’m also thinking about the massacres during the great march of return[2], where Israeli soldiers fired indiscriminately at unarmed protestors. In the protests, and the ensu…

Everybody's seen these arguments ... and knows exactly how true they are. I mean you put one absurdity after another and treat it as fact. I'm not even going to bother.

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#166

Post by runarberg »

candiodari wrote: post #165
runarberg wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m also thinking about the Jenin hospital raid[1] where the Israeli army stormed a hospital wearing civilian clothing (i.e. hiding among civilians) and extra-judicially killed three wounded (and as a result inactive; i.e. unprovoked) operatives. I’m also thinking about the massacres during the great march of return[2], where Israeli soldiers fired indiscriminately at unarmed protestors. In the protests, and the ensu…

Everybody's seen these arguments ... and knows exactly how true they are. I mean you put one absurdity after another and treat it as fact. I'm not even going to bother.

I don’t understand, are you implying that none of these events actually occurred, that those pictures of Israeli operatives wearing civilian clothing as they raid the hospital in Jenin are fake? That the Israeli army did no shoot indiscriminately at aid seekers near the Al-Nabulsi roundabout in Gaza? That the collective memory of the event is wrong, recordings and satellite photos of the event are just false?

I know you are trying to hold onto the position that these events were taken out of context, and that the IDF has a different story, which somehow excuses these events. But just so you know, there is international consensus that the IDF versions don’t survive scrutiny. Israel has been under investigation for human rights violations for a long time. Multiple human rights organizations have come to the same conclusion that Israel is a serial human rights violator, and unlike Israel, these human rights, and international organizations, have evidence which support their claims, evidence which actually holds up to scrutiny.

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#167

Post by racional »

weatherlite wrote: post #143
stanfordkid wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. It’s absurd to draw the line into ancient history of Arab’s colonizing the Levant. Early 1900s to 1948 are more reasonable given that people actually exist that lived in this time or at least meaningful records of history. The fact is the British/UN gave a bunch of land to people that wasn’t really theirs to give. Nakba happened (which is illegal to even talk about in Israel) which was already a mass geno…

How was the Nakba a genocide?

Per the modern definition of the term:

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#168

Post by candiodari »

runarberg wrote: post #166
candiodari wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody's seen these arguments ... and knows exactly how true they are. I mean you put one absurdity after another and treat it as fact. I'm not even going to bother.

I don’t understand, are you implying that none of these events actually occurred, that those pictures of Israeli operatives wearing civilian clothing as they raid the hospital in Jenin are fake? That the Israeli army did no shoot indiscriminately at aid seekers near the Al-Nabulsi roundabout in Gaza? That the collective memory of the event is wrong, recordings and satellite photos of the event are just false? I know…

[flagged]

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#169

Post by dlubarov »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #164
dlubarov wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like you're treating law and ethics as more or less interchangeable, which I think is a mistake. International law is more about politics than ethics. For example, parts of international law come from UN security council resolutions, which are passed based on 9/15 security council votes, and no vetoes from the 5 permanent members. The permanent members include Russia and China, and non-permanent members ofte…

I'm not treating law and ethics as interchangeable, simply pointing out that the global consensus is that Israel's behavior is wrong in both a legal sense and an ethical sense (and a moral sense, if you distinguish that from the former), and thus is unhelpful to peace. I understand Israel disagrees with this consensus. I understand you may disagree with this consensus. I accept that if global consensus hasn't already…

Okay that fair, but it's a rough consensus among political entities, each with their own flaws. Some are authoritarian, some don't share Western values, some represent countries with deeply ingrained antisemitism. It's not a consensus among impartial ethicists or something.

Re: ICJ orders Israel to stop military operation in Rafah

#170

Post by runarberg »

candiodari wrote: post #168
runarberg wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand, are you implying that none of these events actually occurred, that those pictures of Israeli operatives wearing civilian clothing as they raid the hospital in Jenin are fake? That the Israeli army did no shoot indiscriminately at aid seekers near the Al-Nabulsi roundabout in Gaza? That the collective memory of the event is wrong, recordings and satellite photos of the event are just false? I know…

[flagged]

I’m just gonna repeat what I said above:

> These allegations of Hamas violations of international humanitarian laws—even if true—does not devalue the lives of Palestinians, nor does it give Israel an excuse for further violations.

When I said that, I was referring to my parent’s allegations of Hamas’ use of human shields, hiding among civilian populations etc. But this also applies to your accusations of Hamas’ terrorist actions.

But let’s step back and see what you are doing here. You are claiming that because of Hamas’ atrocities, International humanitarian laws does not apply to Israel. However, there is no such clause in International Humanitarian law. It applies to everybody, even if your enemy breaks them.

So basically what you are saying here is that Israel—a state actor—is as bad as Hamas—a terrorist organization. This argumentation does not look good for Israel. That said, Israel is a state actor and should not be held to the same standard as a terrorist organization. We can expect Hamas to continue committing as long as the Palestinian people are treated unjustly. Hamas is a resistance movement, and they will resist. Israel, however, is a state actor, and is bound to international treaties. In the ongoing conflict, they are the oppressors, giving unjust treatment of other peoples. They are fighting to keep oppressing, to prevent justice for Palestinians. And they are bound by international law to not do that.

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