This is a refreshed megathread for any posts on the conflict between (so far, and so far as I know) Hamas and the Israeli government, as well as related geopolitics. Culture War thread rules apply.
It’s not clear to me how much of a consensus this is outside of Australia, Canada, and NZ,
Basically every military that has fought an insurgency or an urban conflict in the last century, or otherwise had to fight a conflict where a house is a battle position, has adopted the force protection argument that some civilian casualties are acceptable. This goes from Russia to the Philippines to Sri Lanka and India to Iran and Saudi Arabia to Colombia and every NATO member.
This is usually the point where I remind an audience that war is hell, and that the laws of wars are about limiting, not preventing, civilian casualties. The conventions on how to wage war 'right' are as much about protecting every single life as a fire break is about stopping forest fires. The effects are good for the greater whole, but the part of the forest within the forest break is fully expected to burn.
So there’s indeed a strong case to be made that regardless of civilian casualties, the IDF has not committed war crimes in this particular air strike campaign. Not that anyone already calling it “genocide” would care to change their minds, of course.
This is generally correct. There will be some specific cases that people will focus on, but these can depend on having insight into the belligerent perspectives, as well as other 'the law isn't what you thought the law was' contexts. For perspectives, nothing in the conventions requires a belligerent to reveal their Intelligence- and thus sources and methods- for why they chose a target, so there are often targets that are legitimate but which may not appear to be when prioritized... and this in turn doesn't even include cases of flawed/wrong intelligence, where the a belligerent can legitimately believe there is a valid target somewhere one isn't. It doesn't become a war crime retroactively if one is duped by a denial/deception campaign. Meanwhile, some things that may seem obviously off-limits are actually covered in other areas of the convention. We had a good example in the first thread, when someone did an actuall review of the convention requirements for delivering aid to civilians- in short, while delivering aid to civilians must be allowed, it doesn't have to be allowed by any given organization to any given organization. Rather, a belligerent must allow a mutually acceptable intermediary to deliver it, so that the there can be some sort of guarantee that the aid goes to civilians and not the beseiged belligerent. As a consequence of that, for example, bombing the border crossings early on is not, from a rules-of-law perspective, 'preventing aid from getting to civilians,' which is forbidden, it is 'preventing resupply to a belligerent,' which is permitted.
Rather than quibbling on legal dynamics few know and fewer actually care about, the better argument against genocide-claimers is the point that, just by the numbers, if the Israelis are trying to genocide the Gaza Strip population... they are doing a really, really poor job at it by even the most pro-Palestinian numbers.
If the goal of the Israeli government and military was to genocide the Palestinian population, we would expect to see massively higher Palestinian casualty rates so far. Like, orders-of-magnitude higher. We'd also have seen considerably different targeting decisions of types of targets- with far more about irrevocably destroying essential infrastructure beyond repair or leveling apartment blocks without organizing evacuations- if they were in a 'just kill them all before anyone can stop us' dynamic.
This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a
court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to
optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.
The weekly Culture War threads host the most
controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are
appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy;
if in doubt, post!
Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts.
You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.
Why are you called The Motte?
A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently,
it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey",
originally identified by
philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial
but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens
this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for
the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired
propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."
On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.
New post guidelines
If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it.
A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts
such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a
submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).
Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or
significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Basically every military that has fought an insurgency or an urban conflict in the last century, or otherwise had to fight a conflict where a house is a battle position, has adopted the force protection argument that some civilian casualties are acceptable. This goes from Russia to the Philippines to Sri Lanka and India to Iran and Saudi Arabia to Colombia and every NATO member.
This is usually the point where I remind an audience that war is hell, and that the laws of wars are about limiting, not preventing, civilian casualties. The conventions on how to wage war 'right' are as much about protecting every single life as a fire break is about stopping forest fires. The effects are good for the greater whole, but the part of the forest within the forest break is fully expected to burn.
This is generally correct. There will be some specific cases that people will focus on, but these can depend on having insight into the belligerent perspectives, as well as other 'the law isn't what you thought the law was' contexts. For perspectives, nothing in the conventions requires a belligerent to reveal their Intelligence- and thus sources and methods- for why they chose a target, so there are often targets that are legitimate but which may not appear to be when prioritized... and this in turn doesn't even include cases of flawed/wrong intelligence, where the a belligerent can legitimately believe there is a valid target somewhere one isn't. It doesn't become a war crime retroactively if one is duped by a denial/deception campaign. Meanwhile, some things that may seem obviously off-limits are actually covered in other areas of the convention. We had a good example in the first thread, when someone did an actuall review of the convention requirements for delivering aid to civilians- in short, while delivering aid to civilians must be allowed, it doesn't have to be allowed by any given organization to any given organization. Rather, a belligerent must allow a mutually acceptable intermediary to deliver it, so that the there can be some sort of guarantee that the aid goes to civilians and not the beseiged belligerent. As a consequence of that, for example, bombing the border crossings early on is not, from a rules-of-law perspective, 'preventing aid from getting to civilians,' which is forbidden, it is 'preventing resupply to a belligerent,' which is permitted.
Rather than quibbling on legal dynamics few know and fewer actually care about, the better argument against genocide-claimers is the point that, just by the numbers, if the Israelis are trying to genocide the Gaza Strip population... they are doing a really, really poor job at it by even the most pro-Palestinian numbers.
To take just two stores from Al Jazeera, which has a definite anti-Israeli slant in the conflict to date- on 13 November, Al Jazeera reported on the (Hamas-controlled) Gaza Public Health Ministry's claim that 11,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict so far. This is, of course, what the Americans know as a McBigNumber. 11,000 in a month an a half- that's a lot, right?
But nearly a week early, Al Jazeera reported on an Israeli government claim to have conducted more than 12,000 strikes... as of 1 November, nearly 2 weeks before the Hamas death claim. If we accept both claims as true- and both Hamas and Al Jazeera have an even greater incentives to greatly inflate the death claims than the Israeli government does- this is less than a 1-death-per-bomb ratio... in one of the most densly populated urbanized war zones in modern history, when Israeli ability to level entire apartment blocks is incredibly well established.
If the goal of the Israeli government and military was to genocide the Palestinian population, we would expect to see massively higher Palestinian casualty rates so far. Like, orders-of-magnitude higher. We'd also have seen considerably different targeting decisions of types of targets- with far more about irrevocably destroying essential infrastructure beyond repair or leveling apartment blocks without organizing evacuations- if they were in a 'just kill them all before anyone can stop us' dynamic.
Instead, this is where we also remind you that Hamas's militant wing has had an estimated strength in the 30,000 to 40,000 range even before the conflict. Total Palestinian death could triple or even quadruple from the first month, and it would be mathematically possible- though incredibly implausible- for nearly every single one of those casualties to not only be a Hamas member, but a part of Hamas's military component. (And it's not like the military component members are the only legitimate target under the conventions either.)
More options
Context Copy link