Top analysts seem to agree with you in broad terms: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/01/politics/analysts-agree-with-Loki/index.html?hpt=hp_c3Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
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Top analysts seem to agree with you in broad terms: http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/01/politics/analysts-agree-with-Loki/index.html?hpt=hp_c3Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Well played.
Who besides the usual suspects is still interested in the excuses for the Israeli methods of warfare? I'm getting close to the point I don't feel the need to differentiate much between the sides in this conflict.
How do you suggest Israel destroy rockets that are stored in houses?
You seem to have misunderstood. Why should I care what priggish reason they have to want to kill each other. (FYI; I can predict you are going to say now that 'Israel doesn' t want to kill anyone', which won' t convince me either.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Shoot them down in mid-air :o
This must be why Israel was killing the Palestinians before and in-between the intifadas, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
You'd make a great politician. If your goal as a politician is to be hated by your entire population.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Look, I really want to eat steak but I don't eat steak every day or in between meals. That would be insane or at least impractical. My lust for steak is balanced by many other priorities and constraints, but you can be damned sure if the priorities align close enough and I have an opportunity to steak out with a little extra effort or the situation "demands it" I will do so.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Sorry I forgot that we might not be so good at shooting them down.Quote:
You'd make a great politician. If your goal as a politician is to be hated by your entire population.
Let me know when you want a serious conversation.
Don't worry guys, we found him (but apparently he died in battle): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/0...n_5644707.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by wiggin
I've been meaning to ask about that cease-fire btw. I mean, it sounds like both sides explicitly agreed to a cease-fire, but I can't imagine Israel really agreed to pull out or stop blowing up tunnels, and I can't imagine Hamas in turn would accept continued Israeli military activity in Gaza as any kind of cease-fire. Did they really??
To be clear, in response to your question to Hazir, I don't dispute the importance of destroying as much of the infiltration-tunnel-network as possible. I do dispute (to some extent) the utility and the moral defensibility (from the perspective of a person who has not yet been inured to the killing of civilians even in war) of those of the strikes on alleged rocket-caches that kill many civilians, and even more so wrt the rest of the general shelling along the lines of "I thought I saw Hamas... I did I did I did see Hamas somewhere in the general vicinity of that school."
I.E. Israel should not respond to attacks on its soldiers as long as the attackers are hiding behind civilians?
It would be interesting to learn how many of those long-distance school-, camp- and hospital-based attacks woulda been avoided if the IDF had just stuck to destroying the tunnels. But let's agree to disagree for a few minutes on the issue of returning fire and revisit the question of rockets that are just lying around waiting to be used. No doubt they will be used at some point, but it's hardly a case of returning fire. So let's try to arrive at a conclusion about that case first. Rockets lying around waiting to be used vs. tunnels lying around waiting to be used.
A lot of the high-casualty cases did involve Israel returning fire at buildings from where they were being shot at...
Yes but where were the IDF troops when they were thus attacked by heinous Hamas-troops shooting from buildings? What were those IDF-troops doing when they were attacked?
I'm guessing calling for air support, like any sane modern army.
You misunderstand my question. I meant what were they doing there in the first place?
You are still hoping to convince me your favorite thugs are the better thugs?Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Indeed, only in the perverse world of Gaza is this 'good news' in that Israel is far less likely to escalate and operation just to get a body back, rather than a live soldier. The media reports are unclear, but it looks like the IDF deployment is changing. Some have suggested that Israel, having mostly eliminated the tunnels it could find in the 3 km stretch of Gaza it holds, is planning on a unilateral reduction in hostilities - pulling troops out of built-up areas, scaling back airstrikes, etc. - and then completing a pullout from Gaza as rocket fire dies down. Israeli commentators have suggested that staying in Gaza after the tunnel threat has been largely blunted is just likely to be a waste, and by pulling out before Hamas can notch up a real 'victory' (i.e. dozens of dead Israeli civilians or a kidnapped soldier or two), they can deny Hamas political advantage moving forward (it also removes the responsibility to adhere to any terms of a ceasefire agreement that they figure Hamas will ignore anyhow).Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
That might be what's happening. On the other hand, other reports have suggested that more Israeli tanks are being positioned in Gaza (big traffic jams in Israel's south today as tanks are moved into place), and some people in the security services have suggested Israel should seize the initiative and try to capture the Hamas command cadres who are in a bunker underneath al-Shifa hospital in the middle of Gaza City. That would certainly be a bloody mess, but it does have the advantage of providing a more substantial return on such a ruinous conflict.
Oddly enough, it almost looks like Israeli right wingers are much more interested in a limited engagement than left-wingers. On the right, belief in the chances of real change leading to a peace agreement are about nil, so they figure the conflict should be managed continually but not solved. As such, toppling a known entity like Hamas is probably not a good idea. On the left, instead, there is hope that if Fatah controls both the WB and Gaza, a real peace can be achieved... so some are advocating for toppling Hamas and hoping Fatah can emerge on top after the smoke clear. Perverse.
Accounts are conflicting. Most of Hamas' early demands for a ceasefire appear to have been dropped because, well, they are in an extremely poor negotiating position. It appeared that a short term 'humanitarian ceasefire' where IDF troops remained in their positions was indeed 'accepted' by Hamas (though of course subsequently ignored by the cadre that attacked the soldiers in Rafah on Friday morning), and Israel made absolutely clear that they would continue their work of demolishing tunnels inside IDF-controlled Gaza - but would refrain from offensive operations. That was the fundamental deal presented on Friday, but it's obviously a moot point now. It appears that tunnel demolition in IDF-controlled areas is effectively completed, though searches of homes (a dangerous task, given that hundreds or more of them have been rigged with explosives) continue for additional tunnel entrances. I would imagine the operation will enter a new phase now (two possibilities outlined above), but Hamas' response to an Israeli withdrawal is an open question. Will rocket fire taper off? Will a formal ceasefire ever happen? I think it's unclear.Quote:
I've been meaning to ask about that cease-fire btw. I mean, it sounds like both sides explicitly agreed to a cease-fire, but I can't imagine Israel really agreed to pull out or stop blowing up tunnels, and I can't imagine Hamas in turn would accept continued Israeli military activity in Gaza as any kind of cease-fire. Did they really??
I think that most of the high-casualty events have happened due to several circumstances, most of which are to be expected in this kind of operational environment:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
1. Civilians ignoring warnings to clear an area. I don't mean general 'we're moving into this neighborhood, move out' warnings, but specific warnings to individual buildings. I have little sympathy for people who are told their building is about to be blown up, and then refuse to leave. If the building is believed to be a valid military target, and sufficient warning is given, these casualties are entirely avoidable.
2. Israeli strikes when under fire. Israel's efforts to limit civilian casualties are most effective when they have time to properly evaluate a target. When ground troops come under concentrated fire, they call in artillery and air support that may not have as much time to take as much care. This still fits in with arguments about proportionality, btw, since the perceived military advantage is much higher when your troops are under direct fire. There is ample video, audio, and eyewitness evidence of Hamas using civilian positions for sniper fire, anti-tank missile emplacements, and tunnel entrances/exits for attacks on Israeli troops. In such an environment, an immediate call for air or artillery support is going to cause civilian casualties. There's not much Israel can do about it - other than complete capitulation or, you know, Hamas being a bit less cynical and more choosy in their methods.
3. Mistakes and malfunctions. In such a densely populated area, munitions that 'skip' over their target do happen, as do soldiers who make mistakes in targeting weapons. Careful procedures and good quality control on weapons can help but not eliminate this reality, especially in such a tight urban environment. Israeli forces have struck many thousands of targets in the Gaza Strip in the last few weeks; it's a miracle that so few people have been killed, and is largely attributable to the care taken not to have such mistakes happen.
By and large, Israel does not attack known civilian centers without one of these three conditions being met. Rarely is there something so vague as 'I thought I saw Hamas' used as justification for an attack. I know you're being hyperbolic, but these are serious issues and a lot of people are dying. I'd appreciate a somewhat less flippant approach.
The IDF is largely sticking to destroying the tunnels. What else do you think they're doing in Gaza? They haven't gone after the Hamas leadership or much of its infrastructure deeper into urban areas in the Strip; almost all of their activity is involved in the identification and destruction of tunnels, along with the securing of the surrounding areas. A large proportion of IDF casualties in Gaza have been to units tasked with destroying said tunnels.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
As for 'rockets lying around waiting to be used', Israel tends to refrain from blowing up rocket caches near civilian areas unless (1) they are about to be used or (2) they are high value rockets. Short range Qassams are largely irrelevant, and Israel doesn't waste much time on taking those out. They'd blow up quite a bit to hit a cache of rockets that can hit major Israeli population centers, however. Again, proportionality seems reasonably exercised here.
Securing the 3km buffer zone while combat engineering groups identified, excavated, and detonated dozens of attack tunnels crossing into Israeli villages along the border. Seems reasonable to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
I'm glad you've somehow rationalized not having sympathy for dying civilians, that is indeed a major accomplishment for a young intelligent educated man, so congratulations on your great success at becoming almost as cynical as Hazir in half the time. Your lack of sympathy is of course also ridiculous.
- If Gazans stay and die in those areas because Hamas keeps them there, you should have sympathy.
- If they stay and die because they can't identify a safer place to be, you should have sympathy.
- If they stay and die because they number in the hundreds of thousands and have to find safety in a poorly organized area the size of a city with deteriorating infrastructure, poor transportation capabilities, no place known to be safe from airstrikes and no safe routes to any place of apparent safety, you should have sympathy unless you too live with your entire family in a small box that keeps getting shelled no matter what corner of it you try to hide in.
- If they stay and die because they were given too little time to heed the warnings, you should have sympathy, unless you have the super-power of evacuating a building one minute after someone "knocks" on its roof with a mortar because you failed to receive the phone-call on your dead telephone which you weren't attending anyway.
- If they stay and die because they didn't, to the best of their and our knowledge, receive any warning, then you should have sympathy unless you believe they're all lying while the IDF is not only perfect at reaching those who need to be warned but also perfectly honest and perfectly knowledgable about everything.
- If they stay and die because they are too frail to evacuate, or because they are caring for someone so frail, you should have sympathy.
So congratulations once again but also get a grip.
A true word is spoken in jest: http://www.theonion.com/articles/isr...cuate-t,36527/ :o
As for the questions about the IDF it would appear I have caused some confusion in mixing up the IDF with the IAF.
Am curious as to what the opinion is in Israel about this: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.608342
Quote:
The ongoing fighting in Gaza has revealed worrisome shortcomings in the Israel Defense Forces in battle readiness and management. While soldiers and commanders in the field are risking and sacrificing their lives to protect the state, the top military brass, led by Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, seem to have gotten used to regarding requests for more funding as the solution to every problem. In preparing for war against a determined and poorly funded enemy like Hamas, whose military commanders have developed an answer to Israel’s aerial superiority and advanced intelligence, the IDF does not use deception and surprise, relying mainly on the air force and neglecting ground forces and special forces.
Particularly prominent is the failure in dealing with the threat of the tunnels. Military Intelligence claims it knew about the underground attack routes that Hamas dug from Gaza to Israel, and warned the government about them. But the army’s job does not end with generating memos and PowerPoint presentations. It must develop a solution and drill it ahead of implementation. This was not done, and the result has been improvisation that extends the fighting and costs the lives of IDF soldiers and Palestinian civilians.
MI failed to uncover the Hamas command center and locate the hiding place of its commanders. Senior IDF officers boasted during the first days of Operation Protective Edge of huge achievements, of striking a mortal blow at Hamas, of signs the enemy was breaking. But Mohammed Deif and his men continue to control their forces, launch rockets at Israel and attack IDF troops even in the fourth week of the fighting.
Absent high-quality intelligence and battle plans, the IDF chose the Operation Cast Lead solution – massive fire at populated zones, with major harm to civilians. The number of Palestinian dead has reached 1,400, most of them civilians. Hundreds of thousands have become refugees; many homes have been destroyed.
Despite the cloak of legal approval with which the army covers itself, it is hard to be persuaded that a real effort has been made to limit harm to the innocent, to maintain the morality of the fighting, and to avoid deepening the hatred of our neighbors, next to whom we will have to live when the weapons fall silent.
I'm with stupid.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
I think you're being pretty delusional to expect saintly behavior from anyone facing non-stop asymmetrical warfare, and are equally delusional in suggesting that any attempt to fight back based on anything but the most high-minded motives is morally equivalent to constantly trying to wipe millions off the map.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hazir
First of all, I would very much appreciate if you refrained from ad hominem attacks. If you disagree with me, discuss my arguments, but not me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Secondly, obviously I'm unhappy that some 2000 people are dead. I think it's absolutely horrific, and much as I recognize that the ultimate fault for this round of hostilities rests with Hamas, I also realize that Israel is the direct cause of most of these casualties. Even if they are pursuing entirely reasonable ends, and even if this level of civilian casualties is to be expected in this kind of military conflict, it doesn't stop me realizing that life absolutely sucks for people in Gaza right now, and that many relatively blameless people are being killed. It's awful, and I think my posts have reflected that - on multiple occasions I've asked you to be less flippant when thousands are dying and millions are living in fear. That being said, my 'lack of sympathy' was for a very specific circumstance - people who intentionally subjected themselves to Israeli airstrikes in the hopes of becoming 'martyrs'. These aren't civilians who by the actions of Hamas are put in harms' way. These aren't civilians who had no warning, no alternative options, no way to save themselves. These are people who know they are walking into an Israeli airstrike and choose their fate. It doesn't stop them from being civilians, but it sure as hell limits my sympathy for their fate. I think this is probably a relatively small proportion of the casualties (a few hundred at most), but it's well-documented that this is happening on occasion. (Obviously, children and the like who are dragged along on these pointless actions are completely blameless.)
Israel's policy of warning civilians of homes they are about to destroy is unprecedented and wholly unnecessary, assuming that the homes are sitting on valid military targets. Yet they do it because they'd like to minimize the already ghastly toll of civilian casualties from fighting in a densely packed urban area. There's a common trope that the people of Gaza 'have nowhere to go'. In a certain broad sense, they're right. Yet in a more specific case, most of these airstrikes aren't taking place in the middle of a neighborhood where IDF soldiers are operating (in those cases, most of the civilians have fled to other neighborhoods). They're generally taking place in the middle of areas where it's certainly possible to leave your home and move down the block without getting shot or blown up. The Washington Post had a fascinating mini-story showing a series of pictures of a home in the middle of an urban area that had been targeted by the Israeli military. It was almost surreal - it shows a city street with plenty of people milling around; first the telephone calls come, and the people dutifully leave. Then there are several small strikes that don't destroy the building but rattle everything. Finally, an F-16 drops a larger munition and destroys the building - leaving all of the surrounding buildings intact. This is not some chaotic process where people have seconds to flee to shelter before indiscriminate fire could hit anywhere in a square block - that would be the situation in Israel. No, this is war waged by remarkable restraint and precision. There are places for these people to go for temporary safety; longer term safety is in the hands of Hamas.
I recognize that this portrait I'm drawing is not always how things work. Israeli bombs and shells go awry; sometimes warnings get to the wrong people at the wrong time; in actual combat zones, IDF troops respond to fire in a much less premeditated manner. These are the facts of a complex operational environment. It doesn't make the deaths of civilians any less tragic, but it should provide some context to what's going on.
There's always debate about the operational successes or lack thereof of the military; these critiques are nearly identical to those after previous rounds in Gaza and Lebanon. Haaretz obviously sharpens this criticism more than most media outlets (I've seen pieces in Yediot Acharonot, ToI, and JPost that are focusing more on why so many soldiers died - e.g. the decision to deploy old M113s instead of better protected APCs, questions about surveillance of tunnel entrances and adequate border security in outposts that have been attacked through tunnels, issues with the location and protection of gathering places for soldiers, etc.). I think it will take some time to see what the upshot is. I don't think the public or media have as negative an assessment of this as they did the 2nd Lebanon War - in this case, it appears that there were some important tactical and strategic successes - but certainly there will be recriminations as always. A rambunctious democracy and free press tend to have such outcomes during and after a war.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
Funny how you managed to write that after I repeated my conviction that both sides are led by thugs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Actually, neither side is led by thugs. Abbas is a decent ruler as far as rulers in that part of the Middle East go. It's just that he's far too moderate for his own population. And as I already mentioned, Netanyahu did no more than was expected of him by the center in Israel.
It doesn't really matter if Romeo is and was a bit more sympathetic than Tybalt, he's still the one who killed Mercutio.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I also have no real sympathy. Their situation sucks, yes. They're also pretty much all actively complicit in perpetuating it. Urban warfare has awful consequences. Those consequences are pretty much unavoidable except by just turning the other cheek when attacked yourself. When I say "a pox on both their houses" I'm not just talking about Hamas, the Israeli leadership, etc. I'm talking about all of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
It's an easy way out to claim moral equivalence when none of the sides involved are saints. But it seems to me that only one side (including its rulers) delight in killing civilians from the other side.Quote:
For the first time since the war began, deadly violence struck Jerusalem on Monday when an Arab construction worker used his backhoe to run down an Israel civilian and then topple an empty bus. The civilian was killed and three other people were injured, including the bus driver, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. Police fatally shot the construction worker, who was identified as an East Jerusalem resident in his 20s.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum described the attack as a “brave resistance action, and a natural reaction to the occupation’s massacre of our people in Gaza.”
Hang on. Israelis have cheered, celebrated, and toasted the death of Palestinians. Even when it meant killing innocent children.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
I've tried to keep my posts in one or two threads, but this is ridiculous. The only "Saints" are Israelis. They can do no wrong, even when they do bad things that no other nations could do. Even the US couldn't "get away" with what Israel has done.
So, is it me or is Hamas's strategy to constantly provoke Israel in order to trigger one of these attacks so as to increase the external diplomatic pressure on Israel?