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Comment by vasilipupkin | Hacker News Reader

this is false, first of all when there was a fight against ISIS, of course there were civilian casualties. Secondly, Israel has unique security challenges that most nations on Earth do not face. Which nation has a terrorist army on its border ?

"oppressed people fight back" is a red herring. Israel left Gaza in 2005, nobody prevented Gaza at that point from becoming paradise, instead of a terrorist haven. And now, with Hamas in charge and vowing to repeat October 7th again and again, Israel has no choice but to go in and eliminate Hamas.

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There's no Hamas in the West Bank, but Israel have killed 329 people there in the last 3 months. 86 of them children.

> nobody prevented Gaza at that point from becoming paradise, instead of a terrorist haven

The colonies were removed, but Israel retained control of Gaza's air, land, sea and airwaves. "Preventive strikes" have killed many civilians. Peaceful protests have resulted in murder and maim.

There is wall to wall consensus within the international community that Gaza is occupied, including the normally reserved ICRC [0].

> The ICRC considers Gaza to remain occupied Palestinian territory on the basis that Israel still exercises key elements of authority over the strip, including over its borders (airspace, sea and land - at the exception of the border with Egypt). Even though Israel no longer maintains a permanent presence inside the Gaza Strip, it continues to be bound by certain obligations under the law of occupation that are commensurate with the degree to which it exercises control over it.

Pretty clear. If you don't like that, you can read the UN Rapporteur Francesca Albanese view on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories [1]

> And now, with Hamas in charge and vowing to repeat October 7th again and again, Israel has no choice but to go in and eliminate Hamas

Again with this nonsense. They're not going after Hamas, they're trying to force Gazans out. You can see their own Minister of Communication, and others, saying this on national TV. [2]

> "oppressed people fight back" is a red herring.

No, no it isn't. It's a reality. People have a right to fight back against oppression. Calling them "terrorists" doesn't justify genocide - again, the Genocide Convention which you keep ignoring is very clear on that point.

I don't know what it would take to break you from this alternate reality that you are in, but I really hope you do.

0 - https://www.icrc.org/en/document/frequently-asked-questions-...

1 - https://www.jurist.org/features/2023/09/06/un-special-rappor...

2 - https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-uk-slam-inflammatory-call...

Again wit this nonsense ?

You are not engaging with the facts.

The fact is of course Israel is going after Hamas, they are literally losing soldiers daily in battles witn Hamas, it’s absurd to deny this

People have a right to fight against oppression is a red herring because you are unable to engage with actual facts

The actual fact is Israel left Gaza completely. At which point Gazans had a choice. And they chose Hamas which proceeded to continuously attack Israel and fire rockets at it, culminating in October 7th its impossible to deny this simple reality.

And this simple reality means Israel has no choice but to defeat Hamas militarily once and for all, which it’s now attempting to do

There is no Hamas in the West Bank? This is false, as anyone with a google account can verify. Hamas doesn’t fully control the West Bank, but of course it has a presence there along with other terrorist groups, especially in certain cities like Jenin

If you want to understand this conflict, you have to understand the facts first

> There is no Hamas in the West Bank

> The fact is of course Israel is going after Hamas [..] because you are unable to engage with actual facts

there is Hamas in the West Bank. That statement is simply false, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have a strong presence in the West Bank.

https://acleddata.com/2023/12/14/the-resurgence-of-armed-gro...

It's true that Hamas and Islamic Jihad do not fully control the West Bank. But once someone says "there is no Hamas in the West Bank", that's a dead giveaway the person is talking either in bad faith or is simply clueless

Bad faith discussions are discouraged here.

Bad faith includes thing like refusing to engage with reality, and calling horrific lies that amount to genocide denial "actual facts", or calling a fact based argument "nonsense".

> The fact is of course Israel is going after Hamas, they are literally losing soldiers daily in battles witn Hamas, it’s absurd to deny this

I don't know how this point makes any logical sense to you, unless you're arguing in bad faith.

Israel losing soldiers doesn't mean anything about Israel "going after Hamas". They'd lose soldiers if their goal was total destruction and making Palestinian lives so miserable and unlivable that they move "voluntarily" as expressed by Israel's own Minister for Communications.

> If you want to understand this conflict, you have to understand the facts first

It's a genocide.

Lawyers for the top court in the world have made a profoundly well sourced and factual argument on this.

If you have any respect whatsoever for truth and reality, I urge you to watch or read the arguments presented before saying things like "you have to understand the facts".

>I don't know how this point makes any logical sense to you, unless you're arguing in bad faith.

Of course it makes sense. How can you argue that Israel is not going after Hamas if Israeli solders on the ground are battling Hamas and dying in those battles? That is literally going after Hamas. Why would they lose solders if their goal was total destruction? They could just nuke Gaza if that was their goal or simply continue to bomb it into smithereens. Why would they put their own soldiers in harm's way?

>Jt's a genocide

No, it is not. Lawyers for one side made an argument and lawyers for the other side made an argument but you are for some reason unable to engage with the substance of that argument

>If you have any respect whatsoever for truth and reality, I urge you to watch or read the arguments presented before saying things like "you have to understand the facts".

Yes, you have to understand facts. A very simple fact is that Israel left Gaza in 2005 and it's security worsened as a result it did not improve. Why? Because Hamas is an organization whose sole purpose is to destroy Israel and kill Israelis. That is why this war is going on right now, and you have to engage with this reality to have any hope of making any sense.

https://nypost.com/2023/11/01/news/hamas-official-vows-to-re...

FWIW Israel did not denied the atrocities—nor any wrongdoings—at the trials. The only thing they have denied is the genocidal intent—specifically, the “special intent” required for the crime of genocide.

Israels defense mostly revolves around lack of jurisdiction (which even the Brookings institution says is nonsense), that is the UN has no authority to rule over matters in Gaza, and that the atrocities committed by the IDF in GAZA—which they don’t deny—are justified (which they are demonstrably not).

So basically the only real question for the court is whether Israel has the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group. You probably don’t think so, but I, OP, the South African legal team, the Governments of Bangladesh, Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan, Brazil, Colombia, etc. and several human rights, NPO, and activist organizations all think that Israel does in fact intent to destroy Palestinians of Gaza as a group.

But regardless of that, even if the court fails to prove that Israel has the intent to destroy Palestinians of Gaza as a group, then—as none of the atrocities are being denied—we are basically left with that there is some reasonable probability that these atrocities were committed by carelessness.

As a human being, you must see that that is not OK, and not a defensible behavior.

"atrocities" is a loaded term. There is a war going on, war is brutal and in war civilians suffer and die, which is horrible and regrettable. But you can't look at this situation and treat it as if out of thin air, for no reason at all, Israel decided to just commit atrocities.

No, what is happening is the following: Hamas is a 30,000 strong organization that has support of Iran which has as its main purpose and reason for existence, destruction of Israel and murder of Israelis.

It has been firing thousands of rockets into Israel for 17 years and on October 7th they attacked, broke through border defenses and killed 1200 Israelis. And subsequently explicitly vowed to repeat this again and again. In this situation Israel simply has no choice but to fight this group to the death.

That is the backdrop in which civilian deaths are happening. You cant just deny this backdrop or analyze the situation as if it doesn't exist.

It's an actual war, a war between two parties. It's bizarre to say that in a war which involves two actors and which Israel did not start, that it bears 100% of responsiblity for civilian casualties. You can't ignore the fact that Hamas embeds itself in civilian population or that Hamas and Islamic Jihad fire rockets at Israel, a decent percentage of which misfire and subsequently fall on Palestinian civilians and injure or kill them.

War is absolutely a horrible thing but you have to at least be willing to assign some of the responsibility for this war to Hamas, which actually started it on October 7th

The only point I’ve made which you address here is that you object to me using the word atrocities and then go on justifying the conduct which I called atrocities. The rest is irrelevant to any point I’ve made so I’m gonna ignore it (at least here).

Genocide is by agreement not justifiable. Article III of the Genocide convention makes it clear that genocide (a), incitement to commit genocide (c), attempt to commit genocide (d) and complicity in genocide (e) are all punishable crimes. The convention offers no exemption for these crimes, and therefor no justification. So if intent is found, any crimes committed against Israel prior to these atrocities (sorry, I don’t know a better word, so I’ll keep using it), then it is demonstrably false that the October 7th attacks were a justification for them. Because legally, they aren’t.

If the court fails to find intent, then honestly you’ll just have to look at your humanity and see whether the same atrocities committed because of carelessness instead of intent, are then justifiable. Personally I think human lives are worth more.

you've actually made several points, perhaps without realizing it

One point you made is that Israeli actions are apriori atrocities, not acts of legitimate warfare

The second point you made, perhaps without fully understanding it, is that human lives by your definition does not include Israeli lives.

Israel engaged in war with Hamas for a very specific reason, which is that Hamas is intending to continue murdering Israelis in unlimited numbers for all eternity.

This context is relevant. You can't sidestep it if you want to seriously engage with what is actually happening.

Sorry, I wasn’t clear (english is not my first language). What I meant to say was: The only point I’ve made which you’ve addressed.

I made more points in my parent post (which you didn’t address) and you made more points in your reply (which I subsequently didn’t address). The intersection of these points was only one point (that I found), and is what I replied to.

But it was unnecessary for you to assume believes from me about which live matter. Please don’t do that.

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