Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war

In that case the IDF should not fight an urban war. There is no strategic objective that can reasonably be achieved that justifies the carnage. What the IDF is waging in Gaza is clearly not any kind of defensive war: it is a retaliatory operation motivated by the humiliation suffered by the IDF and the Israeli government who failed, miserably, in their responsibility to defend their people. Hamas could never have perpetrated the 7 October atrocity, if the IDF was not asleep at the wheel, or rather off to defend the fascist settlers, and leaving the "socialist" kibbutzim to defend themselves. If the IDF really wanted to avoid a repeat of 7 October, the way to do that is very easy and does not require any Palestinians to be bombed at all: just don't fuck up again. The IDF had one job. They failed, and now the Gazans are paying for their failure. "Urban warfare" my ass, this is just shooting fish in a barrel.

And as everyone and their little sister has pointed out, including plenty in Israel, even if, when, Hamas is destroyed, the only way to avoid a new resistance organisation emerging is to exterminate the Palestinians (not just in Gaza, everywhere, and that includes Syria and Lebanon) and so perpetrate the genocide you claim Israel does not want to. Failing that, you think "Hamas-ISIS" are Nazis? Wait 'till you see the monsters that will rise from their ashes, the maggots bursting from the corpse of Gaza.

As to the hostages, there's no doubt that if Israel wants to get them back, then it should keep bombing and razing Gaza; but if it wants to get them back alive, then it should stop now.

I cannot find any reference to this as a reasoning for declaring genocide. 6 countries made a declaration, and all allegations centre around rampant killing of civilians. That's the main benchmark.

> Weirdly, quiet a few of the nations making this critique were notably cool on Ukraine..hypocrisy is in the other direction.

Without googling, can you tell how many armed conflicts are going on in Africa right now?

There is horrible civil war in Sudan and nobody in the west cares. Neighbouring countries have inflows of refugees, etc. So you are perfect example of western-brain, expecting everyone in the world to have same priorities as you do.

Meanwhile we can't even hold our own companies to account, they bypass sanctions through Kazakhstan and other ex-USSR states, and none of the executives are in jail.

You are correct, which is why (I assume as you were replying) I was editing my post. It is absolutely an attempt at ethnic cleansing, where they are herding Gazans towards the south in hopes that they just fuck off to Egypt.

> There's no other way to fight urban warfare in reality, that's the point.

That's an unfortunate situation for a member of the liberal order to be in, and I sympathize. I also don't think that changes the calculus. Civilians don't stop mattering because you want to (justifiably!) neutralize the authoritarians hiding amongst them.

My context is that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 as a pilot for a plan for complete disengagement from the Palestinians, effectively the two state solution everyone talks about. It handed this region, that used to be occupied (from Egypt) to the Palestinians to make their own. The settlements in Gaza were dismantled and the settlers left. Nobody was being watched or harassed by Israel. Hamas took control of Gaza by force and turned it into a mini-Caliphate with the sole purpose of killing all Jews in the middle east. Launching suicide bombers from it and launching 10's of thousands of rockets at Israeli cities. I think this is a more accurate context than yours.

What I will agree with you is that the history of the conflict has relevance to the morality of Israel's actions. I would say though that Hamas' conduct is: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and immoral. This does not need any context. It's absolute. I would also be inclined to say, in this light, that Israel's response to Oct 7th is moral regardless of previous context. I don't think there's any "oppression" or "occupation" that justifies the violence we've seen from the Palestinian side. I can't think of any similar historical examples of these levels of indiscriminate violence against civilians. It's not just their violence towards Israel but their violence towards each other (using children or people with mental problems as suicide bombers e.g.). At least not in modern times.

Israel is not "colonizing" anything. The state of Israel is the UN recognized legal entity in Mandatory Palestine, following the British Mandate, following the Ottoman Empire's collapse. I don't think Israeli settlements in the west bank (occupied from Jordan but historically part of the British Mandate, so complicated story there) are useful. I also don't like the settlers harassment of Palestinians (which is really a relatively recent phenomena, not going all the way back to 1967) in the west bank. But Palestinians have been attacking Israelis all along as well in some pretty bad ways and refusing to try and settle.

What do you propose as an alternative? Simply allow the terrorist government to continue to operate unimpeded, which enables attacks on your own citizens?

There's no population on the planet that would accept that.