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I don't have a direct reply, but I'm going to piggy back off this post because I'd written up a related issue. I’d like to look at the prisoner exchange ratio.
We’ve looked at this issue various times before on The Motte, with amazement at the disparate ratio of prisoners being exchanged on each side, and the risks involved in releasing
terroristsfreedom fighters in a prisoner exchange only to have the prisoners commit attacks on Israel in the future.This time its 20 Israeli hostages against a list of 1900 Palestinian prisoners.
One way of looking at this is that it’s a release of ‘Prisoners of War’ and that all POWs are released at the cessation of hostilities. Except that the hostages were civilians deliberately taken as.. well as hostages, to prevent military advancement and also as leverage in negotiations such as this peace deal.
In addition, the list of 1900 is not limited to ‘POWs’ captured during the latest war, but includes 250 other
terroristsfreedom fighters that have attacked Israel prior to the current war)If this peace plan doesn’t hold then Hamas would have bolstered its force by almost 2000 fighters, not for this war, but the future wars to come.
I don't blame Trump and other peacemakers for trying and I am a fan of lasting peace, but this exchange ratio has always been a bugbear of mine and I don't think I'm alone. At a minimum they should stagger out the prisoner release with the 250 non-POWs to be released after the peace holds for 5+ years.
I feel like the political leverage the hostages represented was probably worth a lot more to Hamas than 2000 additional warm bodies. In spite of any Israeli rhetoric to the contrary, I'm pretty sure if the ceasefire breaks down, Israel will no longer be fighting with one arm tied behind their back.
Israel was lining Palestinians up and then crushing them with bulldozers (see the story about the IDF soldier who killed himself because he couldn't live with being the driver), on top of torturing people with downs syndrome (Mohammad Bhar) and murdering small children (Hind Rajab). They deployed more explosive power relative to the size of their target than the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If you think this is them being restrained, you're making the case that Israel needs to be removed from the Earth before they can do this to anyone else.
"Proactively provide evidence in proportion to how partisan and inflammatory your claim might be."
... which they deployed over the course of two entire years, as opposed to all of that explosive power being released in one go. And the death toll in that period was between a quarter* and three-fifths** of the death toll of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, making it abundantly clear that the primary function of all this explosive ordnance was not the taking of human life for its own sake, but the destruction of Hamas's tunnel network.
I'm baffled as to how you expect me to be horrified by this metric.
*Assuming a death toll of 246k in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a death toll of 63k in Gaza.
**Assuming a death toll of 150k in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and a death toll of 90k in Gaza
I've actually already posted and discussed this particular story on the motte with multiple people - my apologies for assuming that this was just commonly accepted knowledge.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/21/middleeast/gaza-war-israeli-soldiers-ptsd-suicide-intl
Actually it doesn't make that clear at all - and if that's the case, then the IDF was actually just extremely incompetent, given that the tunnels are still there and they're making noises about how important it is that they be let in to clear out the tunnels. They've blown up the civilian infrastructure and all the hospitals, and there are more amputee children in Gaza than anywhere else in the world. If that was the goal then the IDF is incredibly incompetent - but they've demonstrated enough competence elsewhere that I just can't accept the claim that this was to destroy the tunnels.
Horrified? I'm not expecting that at all. You claimed that Israel was being restrained and fighting with one arm behind their back. But when I look at what's left of Gaza now the idea that this is Israel being restrained just makes me believe that they need to be stopped or denazified before they get the chance to do this to anyone else.
If you don't want your hospitals and civilian infrastructure blown up, don't use them as weapons caches in flagrant violation of the Geneva convention. I really don't see what's so complicated about this.
When did I say that?
How do you think Israel ought to have prosecuted a war against a combatant like Hamas? What would you have done differently?
They didn't. Israel lied and just blew them all up anyway - I haven't seen any confirmation that these hospitals were actually terror bases. Rather, I've seen evidence that the fancy visuals they used to tell people those hospitals were terror bases were largely manufactured out of videogame assets https://www.972mag.com/israeli-army-3d-propaganda-animations/
My apologies! My posts have been so popular and generated so many replies I didn't realise you weren't actually the person I was replying to.
Well, first of all, I simply wouldn't institute apartheid - I'd give the Palestinians equal rights and full franchise, giving them an actual path to peaceful and shared co-existence, giving them a stake in a shared society that could lead to mutual success. But assuming that's out of the question because my government coalition is full of bloodthirsty ethnonationalists and if I resign I'll just get killed... I'd either flee the country or kill myself rather than take part.
But if I had to prosecute it... I would implement incredibly rigorous conduct rules and make sure that the IDF became the most ethical and well-behaved army in the world. I'd make sure that there's zero opportunity for hostile propaganda, fill the waves with stories about our brave soldiers helping rescue people from dangerous conditions and improving their lives. Be as brutal as you want with the people actually taking up arms, deploy drones to the tunnels etc... but guerilla forces can only operate with the help and assistance of the people around them. Public perception and reputation is incredibly important to Israel and I don't think the country is sustainable without support from the west - so I'd make sure that whatever I did, there wouldn't be gigantic protest movements against my country all over the world.
Your phrasing is very telling. Whatever I did. Because I really do get the distinct impression that whatever Israel does, people will be condemning it.
The gigantic protest movements against the country in question had begun in earnest less than a week after October 7th, well before Israel even had the opportunity to commit any war crimes. In New York, there were protests and calls to "globalise the intifada" literally the day after. (The less said about the people at these protests chanting "Allahu akbar" and "gas the Jews", the better.)
Call me crazy, but it kind of seems like at least a significant proportion of these protests have nothing to do with how Israel's military conducts itself, and more to do with the fact that Israel exists at all.
Actually, you appear to have misinterpreted me - I said "Whatever I did" because I honestly don't know what actions I would take in that scenario. I already know enough about myself to know that I'd kill my commanding officer or myself if I was asked to administer a genocide/ethnic cleansing, and the difference between me as I am now and the person who would actually carry out those orders is large enough that I have a lot of trouble figuring out how this hypothetical me would actually do it.
And you're technically wrong - there are plenty of things Israel could do that wouldn't be condemned. If they dropped the arms and extended a sincere offer of peace and co-existence, the majority of that condemnation would vanish overnight. But at the same time, given the incentives and attitudes in place in the Israeli government, I don't think they're going to change course in any appreciable way. Of course whatever Israel does will be condemned - the specific acts they're taking to implement their ethnic cleansing plan are immaterial when what is being condemned are the goals they're trying to achieve in the first place.
Are you going to sit here and claim that Israel has never committed any war crimes prior to October 7th? I've been a committed antizionist since I had to do a study on the Arab-Israeli conflict for high-school. If you're unaware of Israel's earlier actions, please let me know - we have a lot of material to cover if you really want to understand why all these people have been protesting against Israel!
I'd rather not call you crazy, but as someone who has been to many of these protests that's really not the case. Many of the protestors point at specific actions and deeds - Hind Rajab being the most prominent for the shocking inhumanity on display. It also isn't necessarily the Israeli military either, because it isn't just the military that's involved in what's happening. There are a fair few people who protest against the fact that Israel exists at all, but those are usually the ultra orthodox jews who believe that the creation of the Israeli state is in violation of the Torah.
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