The Geneva convention was established to minimise atrocities in conflicts. Israeli settlements in Gaza are illegal and violate the Geneva convention. Legality of Israeli settlements Article 51 of the Geneva convention prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilian population yet Israel attacked hospitals with children inside. Whether you agree or not that Hamas were present, children cannot be viewed as combatants.so when no care was taken to protect them, does this not constitute a violation? According to save the children, 1 in 50 children in Gaza had been killed or injured. This is a very high proportion and does not show care being taken to prevent such casualties and therefore constitutes a violation.
So my question is simply, do supporters of Israel no longer support our believe in the Geneva convention, did you never, or how do you reconcile Israeli breaches of the Geneva convention? For balance I should add “do you not believe such violations are occurring and if so how did you come to this position?”
Answers other than only "they have the right to go after Hamas " please. The issue is how they are going after Hamas, not whether they should or not.
EDIT: Title changed to remove ambiguity about supporting Israel vs supporting their actions
In the interest of moderation transparency, we’ve had a couple of reports about this post.
Here’s my thinking about it:
Community purpose
- This post is more political that would ordinarily be seen on AskLemmy, ⬇️
- it is an open-ended thought provoking question, ⬆️
- it is generating healthy and informative discussion and debate. ⬆️
Rule 1:
- the post is not trolling, sealioning, racist or toxic, ⬆️
- the topic is contentious but seems to be worded politely, ⬆️
- the author has voluntarily amended the question to be more sensitive in their framing. ⬆️
Rule 3:
- it does not fit the definition of spam or astroturfing ⬆️
On balance, I’m going to let the post remain up.
Thank you but if the discussion does start going toxic, please do take it down.
This is a loaded question. It pretends every supporter of Israel also supports the current government, the illegal occupation, the ongoing war, and throwing the Geneva convention out.
I support Israel’s right to exist as a sovereign state and a homeland for the Jewish people.
But I support none of the above.
And no, I don’t have a good solution for this age-old conflict either.
So as an alternative question so someone who sounds reasonable (it is the Internet after all!), what are your thoughts on a 2-state solution, or Israel’s expansion into the West Bank?
Ignoring of course the fact that a 2-state solution will never ever happen.
The most optimistic resolution to this conflict would be the German/French model. 2 states that have been arch-enemies for over a millennium forged a close bond and lasting partnership within just one generation after WW2.
But I don’t think this is possible before both countries are completely exhausted or destroyed by the war, and a strong party from outside (likely the US again) steps in and forces them into a pact.A one-state solution would be unthinkable and completely without historical precedent, unless Israel either declares Palestine to be dissolved and rules over the land with an iron fist, or is itself wiped off the map.
P.s. I updated the title to make it clearer that I do not wish to conflate the two
The Jewish homeland was formed by killing and kicking out people who were living there.
As were most countries.
And the Jewish people were killed and kicked out everywhere they lived for centuries prior to that.That not Palestinians fault.
Why not give Jews half of Germany?
That’s how it should have been handled tbh
Or Sitka, Alaska?
I read the book because my wife is from Sitka. Apparently there is a disproportionately large Jewish population in real life as well, though not nearly like in the book.
As a German, I’d be fine with that. They can have the Eastern half.
I think this comment wasn’t supposed to be an argument for the existence of Israel, but rather directed at the initial premise. They are challenging the assumption that support for the Israeli state and support for the conflict in Gaza are one in the same.
a homeland for the Jewish people.
Weird way to call a stolen property lol
Everywhere has been stolen, not to excuse the bullshit happening on the West Bank but still
Yes but my tax money paid today didn’t support other crimes. They do support Israel and indont like it.
Well you’re part of the brainbin. What’s your ideal solution?
US taxpayer’s opinion on the issue is not material to the genocide being done. Best a peasant can do is say they don’t support the genocide or the country doing it.
Israel will pay for this down the road. People who did not know wtf that trash was, surely learning now.
Remember USS Liberty.
Israel will pay for this down the road. People who did not know wtf that trash was, surely learning now.
Well you’re not wrong there. I’ve certainly tried to educate myself more regarding this decades old conflict because of the current nonsense.
Until Oct 6 i was larping normie stream propaganda about “NEVER AGAIN” and “its their land anyway, trust me bro”… but no more!
It’s not stolen. Brief history lesson:
The lands of Israel and Jordan used to be part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans sided with the Nazis.
Brief aside: we know the Arabs believe that if you win a war, you win the land, and if you lose a war, you lose the land, because that’s what they want to happen with Israel. So this principle applies to them as well.
When the Nazis lost, the Ottomans also lost, and that’s where the British and French Mandates began. The land was no longer owned by the Arabs because, according to the principle they live by, they lost the war, therefore they lost the land.
The British Mandate for Palestine comprised an amount of previously Ottoman land, of which they allocated one third to the new country Israel (which includes Gaza and the West Bank), and two thirds to the new country Transjordan, later renamed Jordan. The land of Israel was not stolen by the Jews from the Arabs, it was lost by the Arabs in a war they lost. But they got two thirds of that land back, i.e. Jordan.
It’s remarkable how respectful you are of Arab views that you don’t also hold but which happen to be convenient for you.
Israel forcefully displaced Palestinians and moved in “lord’s chosen” people to live there.
I am not sure what else to call it lol
Good thing is that people are wising up about how israel came to be and public opinion is turning against the genocide state and its parasitic relationship with the US.
One day Israel will pay for this once US stops protecting it. And many people will say FAFO
The Ottoman empire sided with the Nazis?
How has no one commented on this ahistorical nonsense.
The Ottoman empire dissolved in 1922.
After The Great War aka World War One, the British took over the area called Mandatory Palestine in 1920.
Everything about this post is insanely wrong.
Perhaps you could update the Wikipedia article with your knowledge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Powers
“It consisted of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria; this was also known as the Quadruple Alliance”
Maybe you could update it with yours:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
In the aftermath of World War I, the victorious Allied Powers occupied and partitioned the Ottoman Empire, which lost its southern territories to the United Kingdom and France. The successful Turkish War of Independence, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk against the occupying Allies, led to the emergence of the Republic of Turkey in the Anatolian heartland and the abolition of the Ottoman monarchy in 1922, formally ending the Ottoman Empire.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Palestine
Mandatory Palestine[a][4] was a geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the region of Palestine under the terms of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine.
After an Arab uprising against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War in 1916, British forces drove Ottoman forces out of the Levant.[5] The United Kingdom had agreed in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence that it would honour Arab independence in case of a revolt but, in the end, the United Kingdom and France divided what had been Ottoman Syria under the Sykes–Picot Agreement—an act of betrayal in the eyes of the Arabs. Another issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. Mandatory Palestine was then established in 1920, and the British obtained a Mandate for Palestine from the League of Nations in 1922.[6]
Also, this is literally copied from your link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Powers
For the World War II alliance, see Axis powers. The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,[1][notes 1] were one of the two main coalitions that fought in World War I (1914–1918). It consisted of the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria; this was also known as the Quadruple Alliance.[2][notes 2]
Jesus, the link you provided was FOR the great war.
Did you even read it? Of course you did, you bad faith liar, the text literally from before your quotes was the time period that you intentionally removed.
On the tiny miniscule chance you actually believed the nonsense you spouted, do you see that you were either taught completely erroneously, or outright lied too?
EDIT: To address the racism of the original post:
Do you think Ottomans are Arab? Do you think Persians are Arab?
The whole point of Lawrence of Arabia was the attempt to get the Arabic people to mutiny against the Ottoman empire.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Revolt
Maybe you can read this and actually learn that Arab isn’t a generic term for middle easterner.
Well, I’m not intentionally lying but I may have been misinformed. TIL, thanks.
I did not mean to imply that supporting Israel’s right to exist as a state means you must support their actions or vice versa. It is not intended to be a loaded question.
Because they are fascists, and dictators think they can do what ever they want.
Which side are you referring to there? Both of them?
there was no side in question chump.
Some kind of a supporter here, I guess. Or let’s say that I’m so much anti-Hamas that it’s logical to be a bit anti-Palestine and pro-Israel.
Legality of Israeli settlements
Some of those settlements are not legal and israelis should leave those areas.
Article 51 of the Geneva convention prohibits indiscriminate attacks on civilian population yet Israel attacked hospitals with children inside.
It’s questionable if this applies when the other side violates other Geneva conventions by using the hospitals for military activity.
Not really questionable - hospitals explicitly lose their protection if they are used for military activity.
They explicitly lose their protection if used for offensive military activity.
If soldiers are being treated in a hospital, it very much does NOT become a valid target. If soldiers are merely hiding in a hospital, it explicitly does NOT become a valid target.
I’ll just add that according to modern Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC) the current definition of a military target may include schools, hospitals, religious sites and culturally relevent monuments should they be used by enemy forces.
Even in WW1 and WW2 when these rules were being written, if your enemy was hiding in a church, that was okay. But if they stored munitions or fired from the church, it and everyone in it would be considered valid military targets.
It was designed that way in order to stop soldiers from hiding in hospitals and schools saying “You can’t shoot us, there are women, children and the sick in here” while they used that amnesty to kill countless others.
Just a distinction a lot of people tend to miss when they talk about “The Geneva Convention.”
Does one side disregarding the Geneva convention mean the other is free to do so?
I would argue that the Geneva convention is as much about protecting the humanity of adherants as it is about protecting the lives of the innocent.
If you sign up to it, you should not be considering the actions of your enemy in deciding whether to adhere to it or not. Yes the realities of war blur the lines, but as someone else said, if you become a monster to defeat the monster, you still lost.
Does one side disregarding the Geneva convention mean the other is free to do so?
I mean yeah if both conventions revolve around the same thing, like for instance if the same hospital is both a sanctuary for civilians but also being used by soldiers. A more general whataboutism is another thing.
There are people who support Israel unconditionally and then there are those of us who just think they’re the lesser a-holes in the recent war. I’m definitely not the first group. Nobody with my perspective is saying the Geneva convention (however you take that; one could make the case the convention isn’t perfect as a reflection either…) shouldn’t apply to them, or that there should be an intrinsic bias towards either side, but at the very start of the war, I said Hamas and even Palestine should be seen as more disappointing, and except for where Israel increased its assholery over time, I did not disappoint myself in hindsight as time passed, as both Hamas and Palestine (as well as other entities now) have still never been passed on the assholery scale yet.
This issue is similar to the one with COVID, where it is the facts themselves that are often in question, and people following the leader regardless of what they do. As such, Innuendo Studios’ The Alt-Right Playbook works here as well - i.e. it is a mindset held by those who wish that the world were a certain way, and are willing to do whatever it takes to make that happen.
The Geneva conventions are not monolithic documents, and they are not completely uncontroversial. I believe the article 51 you refer to is in a 1978 addon protocol that Israel has not ratified. For reference, there is a different article 51 in the original 1949 conventions, that talks about when an occupying army may conscript civilian labor.
Like any other international treaties, the conventions only apply to countries that have signed on and ratified the treaties. The United States and Israel have not ratified the additional protocol, so from their perspective they are not bound by the text.
The original 1949 conventions do have protections for civilians, but they are weaker protections. Ratiometric evidence of civilian casualties is heartbreaking, but unfortunately simply not relevant to the 1949 conventions. Under those rules, if a facility is used by your enemy to harm you, you can attack that facility. Period.
IDF is always careful to portray how they scrupulously follow the 1949 conventions when they speak to the media. Clear violations that become public are referred to investigation.
As in any war, some elements of IDF are almost certainly violating the conventions. But as a USian I don’t think I’ll get close to understanding the truth any time soon. I basically don’t trust any news source coming out of that region any more.
The Geneva Convention is clearly Hamas.
Everybody I don’t like is clearly Hamas
Because they believe in a 3000 year old fairy tale that gives the ‘promised land’ to them, and condems all non-believers to death.
Wait…which side are you talking about exactly?
The justification is absolutely stupid no matter who attempts to use it.
3000 years means Zionists.
Geneva convention is anti semetic.
Things have gone so far south now.
As South as Iran one might say.
I’m an avid palestine supporter, but what’s the point of this thread? You know there are no Israel supporters here save for trolls, and this isn’t a question, it’s a rant.
No I’m genuinely interested in how people rationalise the actions of Israel against the articles of the Geneva convention. There have been some thoughtful answers already which I appreciate.
Fourpackets posted a complete thought that doesn’t seem to be trolling
FourPacketsOfPeanuts has already given a good answer specifically about Israel’s situation, but I want to say something about international law in general. Law may be written based on moral principles, but law is still not the same thing as morality. In our daily lives, we follow our moral principles because that’s what we believe is right, and we follow the law because otherwise cops will put us in jail.
The situation for a sovereign country is different - there are no cops and there is no jail. If other countries wanted to take hostile action, they would even if there was no violation of international law, and if they did not want to take hostile action, the wouldn’t even if there was a violation. Morality still exists (although morality at the scale of countries is necessarily not the same as morality at the scale of individuals) but the law might as well not exist because it is not enforced. It’s just pretty language that may be quoted when a country does what it was going to do anyway.
I’m not trying to imply that I think that Israel is violating international law. I’m saying that discussing whether it is or not is a purely intellectual exercise with no practical relevance. If I support Israel but you convince me that it is technically breaking some law, I’m still not going to change my mind. If you oppose Israel but I convince you that it is technically obeying every law to the letter, you’re still probably not going to change your mind.
Im in no way a supporter but I am voting for the choice that is less worse for them but still is supporting the country dut to complex tangle of history that created the damn country with our help along with a recent historical terrorist attack that the israeli current situation match is reminiscent of. Anyway I wish countries would follow it regularly rather than when it suits them.
From a strategic standpoint, they have no choice. What Hamas is doing is by the book insurgent strategy, that’s been observed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to lesser extents in WW2 and Vietnam.
Commit an atrocity akin to 9/11 to provoke an enemy attack and hide your forces amongst the population. The initial victim (usa, and in this case, israel) must retaliate against such an atrocity, but their only strategic targets are civilian in nature (as all militants are using them as a meat shield).
Once civilian targets are struck Hamas makes pleas to the international community, for aid, sanctions or isolation of Israel. They pander to civilians, as they’ll die whether or not they join the insurgency. This balloons their numbers and combat strength.
On top of that, all forces begin engaging in brutal urban warfare with costly casualties for the enemy.
Israel (to their voters and population) can’t just “let” Hamas get away for the October attacks so they press their advance, civilians be damned. I believe Hamas are as responsible as Israel for civilian casualties and deaths.
No sides are truly right here, it’s merely a brutal dilemma. Not a problem, those have answers, but a dilemma with no good solutions. Potentially be overthrown by an outraged population or slaughter a bunch of civs. You know what all regimes will do.
Interesting take, but I want to point out that Afghanistan was completely invaded in a matter of days, and only because the Taliban refused to give up OBL, who was the leader of Al-Qaeda and responsible for 9/11 (ie not the Taliban).
Point being that I don’t think the Taliban’s strategy was ever to force the USA to invade and then call for help. They simply did not want to back down against a foreign entity, especially since many of their ranks were former Mujaheddin who did the same against Russia.
The issue of civilian collateral only became an issue well after the USA took over and installed the new government, at which point the Taliban had been decimated and forced into hiding.
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Israel has the complete capability to completely invade Gaza right now. They have done it before and they gave the same treatment of basically running the area themselves and systematically removing enemies. However, the issue at hand is that Israel wants to expand to the border both in Gaza and the West Bank, but they do not want the Palestinians to be any part of the state.
Even comparing statistics, the rate of civilian collateral is several orders of magnitude higher than Afghanistan, despite Hamas being a smaller percentage of people than what the Taliban was. Hence why the Geneva convention is coming into question. The rate of death is so high that it indicates a level of a targeted massacre if not a genocide.
There’s overwhelming evidence that the daily airstrikes on hospitals, schools, camps, etc. do not contain any Hamas militants. Similarly, there’s practically zero evidence any of the aid trucks or NGOs working in the area could be confused with Hamas, yet they too have been targeted and shot at multiple times with multiple deaths.
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I think the belly of the beast is just not brought up enough. Israel has no interest with Palestinians being anywhere in their state, and they will use whatever means necessary to get rid of them, whether it be illegal land grabbing (forced displacement), refusal of citizenship, deportation, ignoring lynch mobs, running a war effort, etc.
Not to mention that Hamas was funded by Israel to keep them propped up in Gaza, which would actually make them the instigator by getting Hamas to do a massive attack to justify a strong reaction. People already forgot that Mossad was under fire for allegedly knowing all about the attack, yet doing nothing to prevent it.
Where Israel miscalculated in this plan was Hamas taking hostages and using them to prevent an instant invasion. This put pressure on the government from the civilian population, and likely caused the USA to force them to slow down. Even now, there is massive pressure on the government to enter a ceasefire simply to allow the hostages to return, regardless of what to do with Gaza afterwards.
I don’t agree with you throwing Hamas and IDF into the same category, but I appreciate your post because it helps me to understand the pro-IDF side better. So thanks.
Well, this is certainly one way to goose the participation on Lemmy.
