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Notes -
This, as with any law, will be pursued with litigation and deliberation to work out details. The entire application of law is not based on a single sentence with no rational determination applying to it. The above, along with Additional Protocol I, Article 54, “ Protection of objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population”, which states “Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited”, leads one to think that Israel is committing war crimes. In addition,
is a crime, and regarding said relief, if
I mean, it won't be. Israel hasn't signed on to this statute. Apologies if I'm misunderstanding something, but right now it seems to me that:
OK? But that's not what we're talking about. I could have provided a lengthy list of Hamas' war crimes per the statute, but I didn't because that wasn't relevant. The starvation charge has nothing to do with the carrying-lethal-weapons charge. It is actually important to get the details right in these matters, isn't it? War crimes aren't fungible, you can't just substitute another one when it turns out your initial accusation (which was at best sanewashing Aguilar's incoherent nonsense) was untrue. It's serious business and allegations, if they are to be taken seriously, ought to made with care and precision.
I feel comfortable saying neither you nor Aguilar meet this minimum standard.
I get you think Israel is really, really bad. And sure, maybe it is. But this defense is not only not convincing, it's providing ammunition to Zionists who say their opponents have no regard for the truth and will say anything at all to make them look bad because they just despise Jews that much. It's exactly the behavior I complained about in my first post: if you have rock-solid complaints, focus on those and don't make up other grievances to drive the point home. (Or defend Aguilar when he does that.) Cause right now I'm thinking you actually don't.
It does not matter that Israel has not signed on to the first Additional Protocol, because it’s now customary international law, making it binding to Israel (and to everyone). This was even reiterated in 2020 by Israel:
Now, again, it doesn’t matter that Israel isn’t a signatory whatsoever, and even their opinion on what constitutes international custom isn’t determinative of anything, but it’s telling that they do not even specify article 54 as a reason for their not being signatory. (That’s, of course, the purpose of the lawyerly language that follows; but lawyerly language will not save malefactors from either God or international courts of law). This is probably because, as of few months ago, any reasonable nation would have considered “you’re not allowed to purposefully starve civilians” part of the custom of international law.
It is only by your own reading that he compares M855 to another lethal ammo type, rather than the various sub-lethal ammo types. I don’t consider this any point against him, and I think it is unreasonable to read his sentence as indicating such. He was a commander of special operations who previously fought ISIS, and previously commanded the entirety of the West Asian special operations (I’m pretty sure; from something I found online). He knows his munitions.
I think he’s shocked that he was equipped like this, with lethal rounds, when tasked with giving aid to starving unarmed people. Maybe he doesn’t assume people would assume the ammo type is so lethal. He’s talking to normal people, not military guys. As I sourced to you in his video, his group was using the lethal ammunition to disperse the crowd. This all seems quite reasonable to me.
If they’re shooting civilians, who are not endangering their lives, then it constitutes directing attacks against the civilian population. There are ample sources of Israel doing this, not just from Aguilar. So I provided you another video where he explains that this is what’s happening.
It was not in self-defense, it was in crowd dispersal.
It’s very obviously against the statute to kill civilians, who are not endangering their lives, as evidenced in what I sent you, no matter what the excuse is. This is according to Aguilar’s testimony. I don’t know how many more times I can reword this to someone who is intent on finding every plausible way to misinterpret it. Remember, it’s a long video of him talking, not writing a high school thesis; the meaning of what he says is clear when you listen to the audio or even just read what he says with an holistic understanding (not just focusing on the verbiage of an isolated sentence).
Huh? It’s another example. All of this is talked about in the OP. So I’m providing you another example, if you’re for some reason intent on disagreeing with Aguilar because he didn’t talk about munitions neurotically enough or something, or if you think he meant the starving children were threatening his life.
I feel comfortable agreeing with you that you feel comfortable saying a lot of things. In this, we can find some common ground. I guess because we’re rehashing:
You weren’t familiar, at all, with what is normatively used in crowd control scenarios in Israel, even for lethal ammo. I corrected you.
You read his statement as implying that a lesser-lethal ammo can go in his specific gun, rather than sub-lethal ammo, which is just a misreading.
You read his statement as indicating that the crowd was trying to assault them, which is just wrong, so I provided another source clarifying that the civilians never posed a risk.
You had no idea about the concept of customary international law, or that the first protocol is binding to Israel insofar as it is customary
Yeah, sure, in the story he tells the crowd wasn't trying to assault him. Did I ever once claim that wasn't a war crime? I'm pretty sure I agreed it was.
But this is the quote we're talking about:
You quoted that yourself. You didn't bold it -- you bolded 'against an unarmed population,' which isn't relevant to the statute. (Being unarmed is not sufficient to claim protection under 8(2)(b)(i), as I explained. Maybe you disagree, but you haven't said so yet.) Was I to assume that meant you disagreed? Presumably not, given you also said, 'Hm, I don’t see a single error in his testimony.' But no, it's not an error, it's just that, taken holistically, his words mean something other than what he said. Fine. The tone of my last message would have been very different if you'd just pointed that out instead of saying:
With no effort to clarify that I'd completely misinterpreted what you were calling a crime. I misread things sometimes, I won't lie. But it really doesn't feel like I'm the one who isn't trying to achieve mutual understanding.
But forget what he said. Here's what you said -- not off-the-cuff, not in a video:
The statute does not say that. It forbids directing any attack whatsoever 'against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities.' The fact that attack is performed with a rifle with live bullets is entirely irrelevant. I'm not ignoring your point that the IDF uses rubber bullets in the West Bank, it just has nothing to do with the statute as best as I can tell. And what does 'deal[ing] with civilian crowd control' actually mean? Cause if you don't actually shoot any civilians who aren't taking a direct part in hostilities (or act in one of the other manners I described in my previous comment), it's simply not a war crime. Are you under the impression that civilian crowd control is impossible without attacking civilians who take no hostile action? If so, you believe that civilian crowd control is a war crime per se, since, again, the weapon used in the attack makes no difference. If not, then it's entirely possible to deal with civilian crowd control while armed with a rifle with live bullets and not commit a war crime.
Or am I taking you out of context too? I mean, it's a complete thought. In text. Is the fact you described an example of something else entirely ('starving children getting a little too close or not disseminating as quickly as the group wants, and then being shot with live ammo') afterward meant to clarify that you didn't mean what you said?
It's not like it's not important. Whether Israel is in fact having its forces 'us[e] a rifle with live bullets to deal with civilian crowd control' is trivial to establish; the details of any particular incident are much, much harder. And there's number of violations, and the fact that it is (allegedly) policy; policy in violation of international law is much more damning than bad behavior from individual soldiers.
If I didn't bother to check the cite and replied, 'Oh, wow, and Aguilar says every contractor is using a rifle with live bullets to deal with civilian crowd control! That must be hundreds or maybe thousands of violations of international law right there!' would you have corrected me and clarified the war crime is actually just using those rifles to shoot non-violent civilians? Would you have said, 'Aguilar's remarks were off-the-cuff, you can't take his words at face value?' Or are you just retreating to the motte after I've challenged the bailey?
It's interesting that you accuse me of hostile misreading. Here are the three things I said on this subject:
and
and
And your response:
I'm pretty sure Israel's opinion on this question matters a great deal for whether the trial is ever going to happen. Or is there a date set for Netanyahu's ICC trial? It's gotta be pretty soon, they put out the warrant for his arrest ages ago. I never said that Israel wasn't subject to the ICC's jurisdiction -- a topic on which I have no strong opinion and am not particularly interested in arguing about, because it doesn't matter when I already said I'd concede if the behavior is a war crime by the Rome Statute regardless. I certainly didn't indicate I thought the ICC (and the ICJ, and the Red Cross, and whoever else) accepted Israel isn't subject to it. It's impossible not to hear them shouting that it is.
I said:
That Israel hasn't signed it (True)
That the US and Israel refuse to subject themselves to it (Only 98% True! Israel contests that some or all of the First and Second Additional Protocols do not reflect customary law (they name specific articles, but say explicitly the list is non-exhaustive), which does not conclusively rule out the possibility that they accept at least one provision somewhere in the document is customary! They've never surrendered any of their citizens for trial by the ICC, though, and there's no indication that's going to change. Mea culpa.)
the trial is never going to happen (True). Well, no, to be fair I said you know the trial will never happen. If you don't know that, I apologize.
I'm intent on saying true things on super important topics and not saying false things, even if those false things holistically contribute to a true impression. I'm not perfect on that score, I know... for which I've apologized and retracted my erroneous claims.
The civilians, you mean? As I’ve mentioned in my last few posts now, the claim about a war crime occurring is only about the civilians, who are no threat to the security force. We know this from the context. We also know this from the other article I provided you. The reason not to take a single sentence in isolation is because he is narrating his experiences, not writing a textbook, as I mentioned. The actual context is as follows, given the preceding sentences:
So, because he’s talking about lethal indiscriminate use of force against civilians, that this would violate intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking part, provided that its conditions are met upon litigation, for which there is additional evidence as well. Does this clarify things? Remember, this is just a transcript of a person talking, so “Why would anyone need that, even if to defend themselves for their defend their lives, against an unarmed population” can be rendered “Why would anyone need that — (even if to defend themselves for their defend their lives?) — against an unarmed population”.
Right; as I mentioned, his complaint is in the use of shooting people with lethal ammunition as faux crowd control. Perhaps you just really hate how he said this. They use live bullets for this. So the bullet matters, relative to rubber bullets; and even the gun they got mattered, because Israel usually uses an even less lethal munition (in the case of their needing to use it), which may show intent. You know how police who want you to leave can use pepper spray, but they can’t immediately shoot you in the head? All of the follow up questions you pose are based on this misunderstanding / misreading.
I care about the substance of relevant points, not nitpicking an isolated sentence in a person’s verbal testimony. I don’t know why you think this guy would be a professional speechwriter or something. I can’t help but feel you’re doing everything you can to obfuscate the points so you can discount his testimony, something you wanted to do as a prior perhaps. You are hung up on one sentence that has an aside in it (indicated by the hyphen), when the very preceding paragraph explains what he means, and when I even linked you with a very easy to digest short video where about the soldiers committing a war crime. As best as I can understand your argument as it relates to the substance of the discussion, it is: “I interpret him as claiming that carrying a specific ammunition type is a war crime. -> therefore his testimony is invalidated”. (Even were this true, it would be very silly, because he’s not a war crimes lawyer).
I’m accusing you of not understanding basic things, because you replied “I mean, it won't be. Israel hasn't signed on to this statute.” But whether Israel signed on to this statute is literally immaterial as to whether it’s a war crime. It’s not even 0.01% relevant. It’s a war crime if it goes against customary international law. Will you accuse me of not reading your post holistically by hyperfocusing on an isolated sentence?
Yeah, this also doesn’t matter. This isn’t how customary international law works.
No more than in Nuremberg. If they are found to have violated international customary laws, they can be executed regardless.
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Additional Protocol I, Article 54
Israel has not signed Additional Protocol I. (and the US has not ratified it). Hamas, of course, ignores such things entirely as applied to itself.
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