• @DarthJon
    link
    13 hours ago

    https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-68906919 “Ms Donoghue explained that the court decided the Palestinians had a “plausible right” to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court.”

    But the IDF is accountable for its own actions, and some of these seem to break both international and Israeli law> Yes, that is true. But no military can perpetrate a war without killing civilians. It’s impossible. International law only requires that they take reasonable steps to minimize civilian casualties. The fact that civilians have been killed in Gaza is not evidence of genocide, nor does it establish that Israel is morally wrong in their actions.

    The one thing that people can’t seem to grasp about Israel, because they are so blinded by their hatred and ideological brainwashing, is that Israelis don’t want war. That will become clear in time, when the Iranian regime is eventually dealt with, the Abraham Accords move forward, and we enter a new era of peace in the Middle East. And maybe then, just maybe, all the Western anti-Zionists will say, “Hmm, I guess Israel wasn’t the bad guy after all.”

    • abff08f4813c
      link
      fedilink
      12 hours ago

      Nice, thank you for the reference - the BBC article is really helpful.

      But the IDF is accountable for its own actions, and some of these seem to break both international and Israeli law
      Yes, that is true.

      And unfortunate. Thanks for acknowledging this simple reality, that the IDF broke the law.

      no military can perpetrate a war without killing civilians

      Yeah, so no country should ask its military to perpetrate a war. And by that I mean no country should be starting a war. (As per https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/perpetrate - perpetrate means to produce or bring about.) In fact I feel a major reason why Israel got away with so much nearer in time to Oct 2023 was because it was correctly and widely seen as the victim, rather than the perpetrator.

      The fact that civilians have been killed in Gaza is not evidence of genocide,

      Agree that the bar is higher. Will watch the SA case at the ICJ with interest.

      nor does it establish that Israel is morally wrong in their actions.

      I mean, strictly speaking, breaking the law doesn’t establish that either. Otherwise, Martin Luther King would have been morally wrong for his civil disobedience in participating in sit-in protests against racism? So just because - as we both agree - the IDF broke the law, it does not follow that they’re morally in the wrong?

      Logically that’s correct. But that just means we need to turn to another basis for arguing that some of the actions taken are morally wrong. Perhaps along the lines of failing to “take reasonable steps to minimize civilian casualties.”

      Israelis don’t want war.

      When I see the headlines from articles like https://time.com/7016741/israel-protests-netanyahu-six-hostages-deaths/ - yes, I can easily believe that.