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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   28558 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 21, 2025

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I think there are multiple meanings of surrender that are confused here. I don't mean retreat and it's not just leaving the populace or the underlines to do whatever. In this context I meant it as keeping the organization of forces and all materiel intact and accounted for while ordering every member to obey without exception the orders of the victor.

Hamas is more than capable of imposing their will on the populace of Gaza.

Hamas is not capable of that sort of surrender. There is no "emperor of Hamas" who will be listened to if he tells everyone to obey the Israelis.

First, on a normative level, this is why international law requires command authority. An armed force must be “under a command responsible for the conduct of its subordinates”. I'm sure I"m preaching to the choir here, but "We have constituted our armed forces to be incapable of X, therefore it isn't our fault if we don't do X" is a game theoretic self-own. It's invites the very conduct we seek to proscribe.

Second, I'm not sure that's right. Hamas is more than capable of butchering domestic opposition. They did it to the PLO, they can impose what they want at the tip of a bayonet and be obeyed. Perhaps though.

International law can require command authority all it wants; it can't make it actually exist. Hamas's leadership cannot surrender and retain command authority.

Of course. But it goes to who is at fault -- the siege ends when Hamas surrenders. That Hamas has constructed itself to make that impossible to surrender doesn't change the fact that the lack of surrender is the but-for cause that perpetuates the siege.

International law can't make anyone do anything -- but it does assign normative responsibility based on the practices of nations. Doubly so when there the construction that prevents the resolution of the conflict based on that practice is itself against that practice.

but it does assign normative responsibility based on the practices of nations

No it doesn't, and that's actually kind of the central issue: it conveniently leaves out any redress for another country fighting a war against such a nation. International law, or rather those states who appeal to it, are trying to have their cake and eat it too.

The Hamasi/Palestinians are breaking international law on this matter because it's the only possible way to prosecute this war- that's why they put their command structure in schools and hospitals, too. In a fight that complies with that law, they instantly lose, and they know that.

However, intentionally ignoring the provisions of international law must (in a system whose default state is anarchy) then also come with a withdrawal of the protection other international laws provide (and no other aid should come from the international community that is protected by those laws until they bring themselves into compliance).

Laws against genocide (and other related mistreatment of ostensibly-civilian populations) are meant specifically to protect peoples who follow the laws of war and lose from being completely obliterated in contrast to the otherwise-natural punishment for the crime of waging war and losing. If a people fails to follow those laws, intentionally (regardless of whether or not they have a choice), then the only redress available to the nation that people are at war with is the consensus that the laws that would otherwise protect them no longer apply.

Erasing the Hamasi from the face of the Earth is a legitimate act of war in the state of nature in which the Hamasi have collectively agreed to exist. If a Palestinian faction manifests to fight a civil war against the Hamasi we should aid them, but until that happens, that is all we should do.

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