Gaza Death Toll Continues to Rise

[BLADE]

To as many as 2100. With likely more as Gazan authorities retrieve more bodies from the rubble.

Consider this a place for discussion.

 

[jpchewy01]

Obviously human shields.

 

[Horizon]

So, I hear a lot of hate on Israel right now.

Mind you, I have no idea what is actually going on. Been reading snippets about the fighting, first and foremost the Gazan death toll.

Seeing a lot of people disliking Israel and from that, I'm guessing a lot of these casualties aren't just military.

Primarily civilians?

 

[Brandon Rhea]

It's 80-90% civilian casualties on the Palestinian side.

 

[BLADE]

Keep in mind the Israelis are claiming that roughly fifty percent of the casualties are civilian. That makes the Israeli bombardment of Gaza (by their own standards, which every reputable neutral party disagrees with) as concerned with civilian life --proportionally-- as were the Nazi operations at Stalingrad.

tl;dr This operation is monstrously amoral, even taking Israeli claims (and you really, really shouldn't) at face value.

 

[jpchewy01]

But what about the prophecy?

 

[Lavi]

Keep in mind the Israelis are claiming that roughly fifty percent of the casualties are civilian. That makes the Israeli bombardment of Gaza (by their own standards, which every reputable neutral party disagrees with) as concerned with civilian life --proportionally-- as were the Nazi operations at Stalingrad.

Quick clarification: the exact number of civilian casualties is unknown at Stalingrad, but if you take the most conservative estimate of civilians killed in one of the 26 weeks of the battle via aerial bombing and use that as an average, it comes out to greater than the number of Soviet soldiers killed (according to Russian archives, of course) throughout the entire battle. This doesn't include other non-discriminatory attacks like artillery barrages.

 

[BLADE]

The average calculation doesn't really work out, Lavi, since Stalingrad's geography and the scale of the attack meant that most civilians were evacuated from Stalingrad. I've seen Kremlin estimates of around half a million civilians, which seems about right.

In any case, the point about the fuzziness is conceded, so let us instead use Leningrad as our example. The necrography there is far clearer and serves to make the point just as well if not better, since both Gaza and Leningrad during the War present us examples of continuous and savage siege.

 

[Fang.]

while alot of the casualties are civilian, the fact is that Hamas is using civilians as human shields by making their headquarters in public places like hospitals and storing munitions in places like schools so that when the israelis go to clear it out and civilians get caught they can claim that the israelis are killing their people when Hamas put them in harms way in the first place.

the IDF (the isreali defense force) goes to great lengths to try and keep civilains out of harms way, most often by dropping leaflets a day before a bombing saying something along the lines of "we are going to be bombing this place at this time tommorrow please clear out".
If they choose to not leave or are forced to stay by Hamas that is not israel's fault.

 

[Lavi]

while alot of the casualties are civilian, the fact is that Hamas is using civilians as human shields by making their headquarters in public places like hospitals and storing munitions in places like schools so that when the israelis go to clear it out and civilians get caught they can claim that the israelis are killing their people when Hamas put them in harms way in the first place.

the IDF (the isreali defense force) goes to great lengths to try and keep civilains out of harms way, most often by dropping leaflets a day before a bombing saying something along the lines of "we are going to be bombing this place at this time tommorrow please clear out".
If they choose to not leave or are forced to stay by Hamas that is not israel's fault.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/gaza-israel_b_5624401.html

Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor: "I saw no evidence during my week in Gaza of Israel's accusation that Hamas uses Palestinians as human shields."

The Guardian: "In the past week, the Guardian has seen large numbers of people fleeing different neighbourhoods.. and no evidence that Hamas had compelled them to stay."

The Independent: "Some Gazans have admitted that they were afraid of criticizing Hamas, but none have said they had been forced by the organisation to stay in places of danger and become unwilling human-shields."

Reuters, 2013: "A United Nations human rights body accused Israeli forces on Thursday of mistreating Palestinian children, including by torturing those in custody and using others as human shields."

Human Rights Watch: "Israeli forces may also have knowingly or recklessly attacked people who were clearly civilians, such as young boys, and civilian structures, including a hospital - laws-of-war violations that are indicative of war crimes.

Amnesty International: "Deliberately attacking a civilian home is a war crime, and the overwhelming scale of destruction of civilian homes, in some cases with entire families inside them, points to a distressing pattern of repeated violations of the laws of war."

Regardless of whether Hamas are good guys or not, Israel doesn't play nice either.

 

[BLADE]

while alot of the casualties are civilian, the fact is that Hamas is using civilians as human shields by making their headquarters in public places like hospitals and storing munitions in places like schools so that when the israelis go to clear it out and civilians get caught they can claim that the israelis are killing their people when Hamas put them in harms way in the first place.

the IDF (the isreali defense force) goes to great lengths to try and keep civilains out of harms way, most often by dropping leaflets a day before a bombing saying something along the lines of "we are going to be bombing this place at this time tommorrow please clear out".
If they choose to not leave or are forced to stay by Hamas that is not israel's fault.

Don't be a twit. The whole point of international law (to say nothing of morality) is that the aggressor power --particularly the one with the space-age precision weaponry-- has the responsibility to continually monitor its bombardment areas for civilian life and then stop any bombardment if it detects civilians. If civilians are unable (elderly mother with chronic disease who can't move, perhaps) or unwilling to move, then Israel should and must not attack.

That's it. No ifs, ands, or buts.

 

[Green Ranger]

Don't be a twit. The whole point of international law (to say nothing of morality) is that the aggressor power --particularly the one with the space-age precision weaponry-- has the responsibility to continually monitor its bombardment areas for civilian life and then stop any bombardment if it detects civilians. If civilians are unable (elderly mother with chronic disease who can't move, perhaps) or unwilling to move, then Israel should and must not attack.

That's it. No ifs, ands, or buts.

You're a traitor to the cause.

I like that.

 

[Blaxican]

I thought international law was just some thing we use as an excuse to **** with other countries.

 

[BLADE]

@Boli: I'm an atheist, but I do attend services regularly at my local synagogue. The food is very good, and there are beanbag chairs. And our rebbe plays guitar (he was a sessions player with Poco and the E Street Band!) It's one of the very few non-Zionist synagogues in the United States. Increasingly, I see more willingness within the Jewish community to challenge Israeli/Zionist barbarism. Our criticism is not any more valuable than those of gentiles of conscience, and I won't be as self-absorbed as to say that our community --no better or worse than any other, moral mantles, history and stereotypes aside-- should be the deciding factor here, but it will be interesting to see if Israel can maintain its historical narrative without the support of Jews, particularly American Jews.

Those of us that stand up and say "not in my name," are hopefully going to a force multiplier.

@Blaxican: That sad and cynical people twist good works to their own ends has never --unfortunately-- been an uncommon feature of human society. But that does not erase the fact that the Palestinians are my family. They are your family too. I grew up hearing about aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters who played games and sung songs and dreamed. Their bones were ripped from them, their fat rendered, their very flesh set out in a grotesque tannery upon the ferrous trellis of a hysterical industrial hatred. Blood sacrifices to the prejudices of a regime that had no use for "human rights" or "international law." Such a dismissive discourse is increasingly --and disturbingly-- common in regards to this particular conflict.

"Never again" has no caveats and no contexts. That is the task ahead of us. As I always say: call your congressman. Get money out of politics. Get involved (BDS or a peace now solution or something --anything really.)

As regards the purpose of this thread, a ceasefire has been agreed to. Whilst recognizing that there is suffering on both sides (for the oppressor coarsens himself in his thuggery), I am particularly heartened for the brave Palestinian Gazans, who will get to collect their dead and sleep without the grim spectre of death hovering over their slumber. Hopefully as Americans (and whatever else) we can do our best to help them along.

 

[Blaxican]

You uh... you really love your purple prose, don't you? lol

I think Palestine should be inducted into the UN, honestly. That's not going to change anything over night, but I think it'll be a good move toward brokering negotiations. I don't respect Hamas as an organization but I think it's weird to hold them in disdain for not coming to the diplomatic table while simultaneously decrying the notion that they're a legitimate government worthy of negotiating with.

And in the short-term, sigh. Israel just needs to gtfo of the Gaza Strip.

 

[BLADE]

You uh... you really love your purple prose, don't you? lol

Tee-hee. Oh you.

I think Palestine should be inducted into the UN, honestly. That's not going to change anything over night, but I think it'll be a good move toward brokering negotiations. I don't respect Hamas as an organization but I think it's weird to hold them in disdain for not coming to the diplomatic table while simultaneously decrying the notion that they're a legitimate government worthy of negotiating with.

And in the short-term, sigh. Israel just needs to gtfo of the Gaza Strip.

The problem is Israel wants all the land. Gaza's a handy distraction as it continues to set up more settlers (now nearing a million!) in the West Bank. Even so, with the right leverage you could get Israel to settle for the 1967 or the (fairer) 1948 lines. But the only country with leverage has been captured by Israeli lobbies and special interest groups.

So yes. As Americans we have a special responsibility here. The real question is whether at this point we even really want a two-state solution. Yes, it harms our standing in the Muslim world, but the geopolitical calculation has always been that Israel is a handy outpost for projecting American power.

 

[jpchewy01]

Even then, a two-state solution really only keeps the two sides on opposite borders of each other and doesn't even begin to address the racial/religious hatred that this conflict has fomented and exacerbated in the region. I would be in favour of a single state solution that guaranteed a voice for the Palestinian people in the Israeli government. In my mind, such a solution would not only solve the conflict over land (Israel gets to keep it all) but also be a beginning to reconciliation in the region. Palestinian Muslims would have a place in a recognised first-world nation, a step towards not only ending conflict in the region but also reconciling the East and West as a whole. Prospero has said before many times that we as a culture and civilisation have separated ourselves from our Muslim brothers and this would be the first step towards reversing that separation.

 

[Blaxican]

The problem is that the mitigation of racial/cultural tension isn't something that can realistically be mediated by outside forces. Muslims and Jews bro-fisting is the conclusion of a journey that they pretty much have to make themselves as an evolution of their culture. All we can really do is stop destabalizing the region, but then that brings us back full-circle, as the question then becomes "how do we prevent civil war and mass murder without destabilizing the region?"

I mean, truth is- it's not even just Muslims vs. Jews. The entire Middle-East is more or less ****ed up by culture clashes, even within predominantly Muslim areas. So long as the mere existence of another group is cause for hatred, a one-state solution can't be tenable.

Tee-hee. Oh you.
The problem is Israel wants all the land. Gaza's a handy distraction as it continues to set up more settlers (now nearing a million!) in the West Bank. Even so, with the right leverage you could get Israel to settle for the 1967 or the (fairer) 1948 lines. But the only country with leverage has been captured by Israeli lobbies and special interest groups.

So yes. As Americans we have a special responsibility here. The real question is whether at this point we even really want a two-state solution. Yes, it harms our standing in the Muslim world, but the geopolitical calculation has always been that Israel is a handy outpost for projecting American power.

Word. Your assertion about Israel is scary to a lot of people- Israel and the US has done a great job of portraying Israel as the defenseless puppy beset on all sides like the Imperium of Man or some shit, just struggling to exist- but I think you're right that their situation is a bit more malicious than that. Israel isn't content to just keep what they have and be left alone. They want everything, or at the least, as much as they can get away with.

Frankly, well. Eh. Honestly, I don't share you guys' sanctity for human life. If it were up to me I'd just let Israel and its neighbors go at it, providing only refugee status in the way of support to the Israelis.

 

[TheSilentWind]

Their really isn't any good side to this war. Hopefully they can reach peace although hopefully Hamas's capabilities are being destroyed.