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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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most of the people at the music festival attacked by Hamas were Israeli reservists, and therefore combatants. (It is a truth universally acknowledged by any society which still understands war that combatants don't become civilians just because they aren't currently attacking.)

You mean that in a country with universal conscription, everyone is a combatant until officially discharged in their 60s? Well, that would certainly be convenient for the attacker.

By that standard, are we conceding that Israelis shooting anyone on the Palestinian side of the fence who could possibly hold a rifle or an explosive device is shooting combatants?

You mean that in a country with universal conscription, everyone is a combatant until officially discharged in their 60s? Well, that would certainly be convenient for the attacker.

Yes - off-duty soldiers are combatants. You have the option of placing part of your population ("civilians") hors de combat in an somewhat permanent way such that they benefit from the principle of distinction, but Israel chooses not to do this because they gain a military advantage from having the whole military-age population (including, unusually, women) available to fight at short notice - particularly as Hamas doesn't abide by the Geneva Conventions anyway. The rules don't exist to make war fair - they exist to prevent acts of wanton destruction with a humanitarian cost that grossly exceeds the military benefit gained. Back when the first ius in bello treaties were being negotiated by people who were comfortable that some wars were morally justified (I am most familiar with the negotiations leading to the 1899 and 1907 Hague conventions because Barbara Tuchman writes about them in A Distant Mirror) everyone in the room understood that if you tried to ban sound military tactics the ban wouldn't stick. And attacking enemy soldiers while they are partying would be a sound military tactic, if Hamas was actually trying to win the war in a non-perfidious way.

By that standard, are we conceding that Israelis shooting anyone on the Palestinian side of the fence who could possibly hold a rifle or an explosive device is shooting combatants?

I would say it is closer to the truth that whenever Israel attacks Palestinians they are in a legal grey area because Hamas perfidiously* mix civilian and military targets in a way which makes it impossible for Israel to comply with the principle of distinction. The bastards hide military targets in hospitals, for crissake. The rules on precisely how you can lawfully attack a perfidious enemy are underspecified for the obvious reasons.

* I am using the term primarily in its technical legal sense as defined by the Geneva Conventions, although I think Hamas are perfidious in the ordinary English sense of the word as well.