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Comment by solidsnack9000 | Hacker News Reader

Does a reference to "...the judge, jury and executioner..." really make sense in armed conflict? Is there really a judge or a jury? There isn't really even an executioner, in the sense of a lawful delegate tasked with carrying out the result of adjudication.

One of the reasons armed conflict is bad is there is really no justice in it and no time for justice. Justice starts to be possible when security is established, and security is established through armed conflict or a strong norm not to get into it -- as we see presently in Europe, where many countries with meaningful territorial losses and weird borders (exclaves, &c) have elected to just never settle those things.

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Back when decent civilization was a thing, there were rules of engagement, conduct, the pursuit of security, and strategic goals which didn't include active genocide of civilians.

Now, granted, we've witnessed horrible things in wars that don't match up to order and clarity of my previous sentence. But there were end goals that made sense.

Sorry, genocide, apartheid and the establishment of a religious-fascist state at the behest of Israeli ring-wing fascists that wouldn't put a foot wrong in Hitlers RKF, isn't an end goal I'd say justifies the means, ends or anything in between.

The establishment of security to the denial of all else, isn't the only dish on the table.

> Back when decent civilization was a thing, there were rules of engagement, conduct, the pursuit of security, and strategic goals which didn't include active genocide of civilians.

What period of human history are you referring to exactly?

Hamas chooses to fight in urban locations. And keeps the civilians in place at gunpoint.

Consider an attack for which Israel was blamed for a large number of civilian casualties. Israel had given warning they were going to hit the building, get out. Reality: Hamas ordered all the neighbors to rush to the roof of the building to keep Israel from hitting it. Too slow, they were still inside when the bomb landed.

Even if that were true - and it's likely true in some cases - the disregard Israel has shown has been appalling. You don't get out of this by blaming Hamas. You simply don't. If you believe you do - I'll be writing you off as a disgusting apologist.

I'm not going to rehash the war crimes Israel has committed during the last two years. It's likely a waste of time as you already appear to be said apologist. A useful tool to those I don't see as any different to Nazi expansionists ...

Disregard?

Always based on nonsense. The number that matters is civilians per combatant--and for urban combat where there hasn't been an evacuation Israel far outperforms every other country. Every other--they make us look bad.

Ok, thanks, so the sun shines out of Israel's ass and they can do no wrong.

Got it. Thanks for your input.

Talking of disregarding ...

You're disregarding.

We have a lot of incidents frame by the press as being wrongful Israeli actions. Most of them turn out to be garbage. And even uncontested casualty numbers show Israel did better than we do.

I'm not an Israeli apologist, but I don't feel that I'm competent to tell the world's best performer that they're wrong.

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