Palestine 🇵🇸 = Ukraine 🇺🇦 ?

I think you've grown as a person.

[thread closed as a duplicate]

Good post btw, they are such big and extremely serious topics, that although they have parallels and links with parties involved one inevitably drowns out the other. Particularly so when the topics are, as emotive as these.

Moved from the other thread.

I’ve yet to see an example of using the word “terrorism” do anything other than expose the prejudices of the writer.

There are formal definitions of terrorism. Off the top of my head, I think it requires that targets be non-military and that the aim is to affect policy by inducing fear or terror.

The destruction of the World Trade Center is one very clear act of terrorism. On the same day, the Pentagon was also attacked. That's a bit trickier because it's a legitimate military target, but the hijacking of a civilian airliner and crashing it is terrorism. If the attackers had attacked the Pentagon with a missile instead, I would say it's not terrorism.

Attacking Israeli soldiers on duty is similarly not terrorism in my book (which doesn't mean it's not a crime, just not terrorism), but Israeli soldiers also have the right to shoot back, that's not a crime as long as they are firing at armed attackers, not indiscriminately at civilians. Firing rockets indiscriminately into Israeli cities is very clearly terrorism. The people who do it are textbook examples of terrorists.

Serious answer: it's not an area of great knowledge for me.

Russia invading Ukraine was relatively new, clearly unprovoked, and all over the news. There is very clearly The Goodies and The Baddies.

Palestine, I know I should probably educate myself but I genuinely don't have a clue what's going on or why. War is not a topic that is generally a great deal of interest for me and I engaged with politics relatively late having avoided it for most of my life (that's probably the one positive thing to come out of 2016).

Closer to home, I mentioned this recently in another thread but I'm utterly ignorant of Irish history. But that's probably a topic for another thread.

The west still feels guilty about the holocaust and Israel have managed to argue that their offensive is justified on protectionist grounds?

You must clearly be aware of the differences, a quick read of the history on the Wiki page would clear that up for you.

They come from a different place, and quite some time ago. The original issue was caused by a third party (the British) and regardless of the morals of that, the fact that militant groups keep lobbing rockets into Israel allows observers to equivocate about the right to defend your territory on both sides.

I think it requires that targets be non-military and that the aim is to affect policy by inducing fear or terror.

Which would put shooting children, unarmed protesters and journalists, seizing property and land and bulldozing houses of “suspects” into the terrorism ambit?

Is killing nuclear scientists terrorism?

The Israeli government and military have been engaged in terrorism for years, it’s hypocrisy to say otherwise, ymmv.

Perhaps if the Palestinians formed a recognized army they could fight back without risking the terrorism label.

Oh...

The State of Palestine has no land army, nor an air force or a navy. The Palestinian Security Services (PSS, not to confuse with Preventive Security Service) do not dispose over heavy weapons and advanced military equipment like tanks.

In the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, Israel has consistently demanded that the Palestinian state would always be demilitarized. Israeli negotiators demanded to keep Israeli troops in the West Bank, to maintain control of Palestinian airspace, and to dictate exactly what weapons could and could not be purchased by the Palestinian security forces.[4] In June 2009 at Bar-Ilan University, Benyamin Netanyahu said: ″We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarised

To address the OP's question, there may be some similarities between Palestine and Ukraine, but there are very important differences. Trying to fit every problem into one box just does not work.

Ukraine is a sovereign nation that is a member of the U.N. They had established borders and treaties with Russia. Russia launched an unprovoked attack and their military strategy is quite literally just terrorism - they are destroying Ukrainian cities, torturing, murdering, raping, and kidnapping Ukrainians. There really isn't a more clear-cut case of an unprovoked attack on an innocent neighbor.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on for over 70 years. The Jewish side won the first war back in 1948 and created Israel. That's been recognized by pretty much every other country and is a UN member. That left a huge problem of displaced Palestinians. Arab nations initially refused to recognize the existence of Israel and there were major wars in 1956, 1967, and 1973. Israel won all those, if they had lost any single one, Israel would have been wiped from the map, something that Israelis are extremely conscious of. The 1973 war started very badly for Israel before they regrouped and defeated the Arab armies. After that, Israel realized that they would never be able to trust other countries to guarantee their security so they built atomic weapons. Whatever you think about that, that is Israel's guarantee that they won't be invaded again.

In the decades since, other middle-eastern countries realized that they just had to accept the fact of Israel's existence however much they might hate it. That left the problem of the Palestinians, who have been treated by pawns by everyone, not just Israel. Once the Arab countries started recognizing Israel, the PLO position that Israel must be destroyed was no longer remotely possible. So, the PLO and Israel began working towards some sort of peace settlement. That was derailed by hard-liners on both sides. Quite justifiably, the right-wing Israelis are criticized for their constant provocations and theft of Palestinian land.

The problem here is that there is no Palestinian state (massive difference from the Ukrainian situation) and some of the Palestinian leaders still claim to want to destroy Israel. They keep launching attacks on Israeli civilians, which is a war-crime.

So, the situation is different in very important ways from Ukraine. Palestine is not a sovereign state (which doesn't mean it shouldn't be, just that it isn't). Many Palestinians refuse to acknowledge that Israel has any right to exist, so their policy is genocide, which is a crime against humanity. Ukraine recognizes Russia as a sovereign nation and isn't trying to destroy it and isn't launching indiscriminate attacks on Russian civilians.

That's not to say that Israel's treatment of Palestinians isn't horrible, but there are some very important differences between the situations. The support for Ukraine is because they are unambiguously victims of aggression. The situation in Palestine is much more ambiguous and Palestinians are constantly attacking Israeli civilians.

Which would put shooting children, unarmed protesters and journalists, seizing property and land and bulldozing houses of “suspects” into the terrorism ambit?

Not every crime is terrorism. Collective punishment is, I believe, considered a crime. That doesn't mean it's terrorism. Bulldozing a building used by terrorists (or even legitimate combatants) isn't terrorism.

Is killing nuclear scientists terrorism?

If they're working on a nuclear weapons program, it's not terrorism. Doesn't mean it's not a crime. Not every crime is terrorism.

The Jewish side won the first war back in 1948 and created Israel

So you'll be supporting russian claims to territory won when this war calms down and Russia tries to assert its form of might is right?

So you’ll be supporting russian claims to territory won when this war calm down and Russia tries to assert its form of might is right?

No, because there weren't recognized sovereign states in Palestine at the time. The war was fought over the creation of a state, not changing the borders of existing states.

The situation in Ukraine and Palestine are not the same, there are very important differences. Just asserting that they are the same is not useful in any way.

They are very different aye. Russia isn't quite at the stage where it blockades a very large open air prison.

A blockade is an act of war btw.

They're very similar situations, particularly since Ukraine declared that it refused to recognise the right of Russia to exist and committed itself to its complete destruction

Oh... hang on a minute...

Off the top of my head, I think it requires that targets be non-military and that the aim is to affect policy by inducing fear or terror.

So - Hiroshima, Berlin, Dresden etc etc.

Not every crime is terrorism. Collective punishment is, I believe, considered a crime. That doesn’t mean it’s terrorism. Bulldozing a building used by terrorists (or even legitimate combatants) isn’t terrorism.

So why make a big deal about Palestinian "terrorism".

CPS defines, from a UK legal perspective, terrorism as

The use or threat must also be for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause.

The specific actions included are:

serious violence against a person;
serious damage to property;
endangering a person's life (other than that of the person committing the action);
creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public; and
action designed to seriously interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

Israeli activity would seem to be state terrorism using that definition

So – Hiroshima, Berlin, Dresden etc etc.

Yep. Terror bombing. After WW2, people looked at what happened with horror and set about defining things like that as war crimes. I guess the Russians didn't get the memo.

Neither did many others

Careful now. Any criticism of Israel is classed as antisemitism.

Yep. Terror bombing. After WW2, people looked at what happened with horror and set about defining things like that as war crimes. I guess the Russians didn’t get the memo.

I think Vietnam was post-WW2 ? Not just the Russians not reading their mail.

Israeli activity would seem to be state terrorism using that definition

Israel is very careful to target people who they can point to as posing a danger. Killing someone who is attacking you is not terrorism.

I suspect Israel thinks they are being clever about this, I personally think it's counter-productive. They basically come out with plausible legal arguments that often push common-sense to the limit and it makes them look bad. However, they do seem to put quite a lot of thought into limiting their actions to things that a lawyer can argue is justified.

Russia and the extremist Palestinians have a different policy. They just announce that they don't accept that their opponents have any right to exist so the laws don't apply. Murdering Israeli civilians isn't seen as any sort of crime because they aren't acknowledged as having any right to exist anyway. Same with Ukrainian civilians.

I think Vietnam was post-WW2 ? Not just the Russians not reading their mail.

Yep, Vietnam was a catastrophe of America's own doing. It pretty much broke the U.S. military. Doesn't make Russia's war crimes acceptable though.

Israel is very careful to target people who they can point to as posing a danger.

OK - at, this point the discussion stops having any value, if indeed it ever had any value. If you're just going to make stuff up that flies in the face of clear evidence to the contrary, there's just no point continuing.

Careful now. Any criticism of Israel is classed as antisemitism.

Nope. Criticizing Israeli policy and advocating for change is perfectly fine. Calling for the destruction of Israel (which means genocide) is not.

" I have in my hand a piece of paper"

If you’re just going to make stuff up that flies in the face of clear evidence to the contrary

The problem here is that Israel is trying to be too clever. They put lawyers on the job and look for legal justifications. It runs counter to commonsense and it makes Israel look bad, but it makes it difficult or impossible to actually bring a legal case because they have checked all the legal boxes.

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Neither side is close to genocide. One side is killing an awful lot more people.

So – Hiroshima, Berlin, Dresden etc etc.

I think it's very difficult to look at those events in isolation and label them, certainly events like Hiroshima need to be looked at from a perspective of 5 years of continuous war against an opponent showing no signs of surrendering and every indication that they would continue the fight until the bitter end. On the day Tokyo was firebombed for instance (itself a controversial event) it's been estimated that Japanese forces murdered at least 100,000 -120,000 civilians in areas that they occupied.

Dresden similarly. Looking back at records at the time, after 6 years of war with Germany, decisions with regards to it's military significance, the approaching Russian army, and the public's willingness to see area bombing continue, you can see the logical steps that it takes to get to point where the destruction of Dresden is acceptable.

In either case, I'm not excusing them, I'm just attempting to highlight that it's somewhat easy with hindsight to look at these events and make decisions about them that were different at the time, and less useful than a fuller understanding of the events of the time that led to those decision.

” I have in my hand a piece of paper”

Chamberlain's policy of appeasement was wildly popular...right up until the point that it wasn't

I think it’s very difficult to look at those events in isolation and label them

True, but there is no hesitation in labelling the actions of desparate people after DECADES of struggle

In either case, I’m not excusing them, I’m just attempting to highlight that it’s somewhat easy with hindsight to look at these events and make decisions about them that were different at the time, and less useful that a fuller understanding of the events of the time that led to those decision.

I'm just saying that calling something "terrorism" serves no useful purpose. Hiroshima fits the bill as terrorism, but is excused by some people along the lines you mention. Killing people is bad. There isn't some sort of special killing that we do that is different. Killing a child because someone of the same race made some idiotic speech about rights to exist or whatever is still an evil crime.

Simple fact when it comes to Israel, is that Israel holds all the cards, it utterly dominates Gaza with the blockade and in the West Bank it's going about the slow enchroachment of settler building and straight up theft of the land.

There is no possible 2 state solution. Israel won't let 'Palestine' live a normal existence.

So if Israel wants the land. It should take the people and immediately institute 1 vote 1 person across Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

There really isn't another solution to this.

Otherwise it's a straight up fascist state, operating a couple of open air prisons that it needs to quell once in a while, imo.

There really isn’t another solution to this.

Well the solution favoured by the Israelis is to do as you say, but without the troublesome democracy bit.

I’m just saying that calling something “terrorism” serves no useful purpose.

Having a legal definition of terrorism as opposed to legal acts of war is extremely useful. Using terrorism to mean anything you disapprove of corrodes that, just like calling anyone you disagree with a fascist corrodes the true meaning of fascism.

An important thing here is that war isn't a war crime. Nations are allowed to conduct war under some conditions (self-defense is the obvious case), so killing enemy combatants is not a war crime and it's not terrorism. Killing civilians accidentally while fighting enemy combatants is not a war crime either. If the enemy puts an artillery battery in a school, you are allowed to target the artillery battery. It was the enemy's responsibility to clear civilians away from the area. Other things are not legitimate violence. The torture, rape, murder etc. that Russia is inflicting on Ukrainian civilians has no direct military purpose, it done as a policy of terrorizing Ukrainian citizens. Utterly clear-cut case of war crimes and an illustration of why having legal definitions is necessary to separate (legal) war from war crimes.

Otherwise it’s a straight up fascist state imo.

You don't know what fascism means. Not every bad or authoritarian government is fascist.

What is the legal position on war when you don't have an army?

Perhaps if the Palestinians formed a recognized army they could fight back without risking the terrorism label.

Oh…

The State of Palestine has no land army, nor an air force or a navy. The Palestinian Security Services (PSS, not to confuse with Preventive Security Service) do not dispose over heavy weapons and advanced military equipment like tanks.

In the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, Israel has consistently demanded that the Palestinian state would always be demilitarized. Israeli negotiators demanded to keep Israeli troops in the West Bank, to maintain control of Palestinian airspace, and to dictate exactly what weapons could and could not be purchased by the Palestinian security forces.[4] In June 2009 at Bar-Ilan University, Benyamin Netanyahu said: ″We cannot be expected to agree to a Palestinian state without ensuring that it is demilitarised

Israel is very careful to target people who they can point to as posing a danger.

You must be trolling? How many children have been killed this week alone?

thols2
Free Member
Otherwise it’s a straight up fascist state imo.

You don’t know what fascism means. Not every bad or authoritarian government is fascist.

We are seeing the subjugation of millions of people, mate, that's Fascism.

I’m just saying that calling something “terrorism” serves no useful purpose

Personally i can see both sides of the argument, you could quite clearly draw an non-equivalence between actions designed to simply terrorize citizens an an otherwise largely peaceful environment to affect sociological change, under that definition events like 9/11 and the Tokyo firebombing are clearly different. However you could also argue that there are also such similarities to some events perpetrated in warfare as to make the distinction worthless. See Operation Phoenix in Vietnam and say; Operation Anthropoid in WW2

If we're being honest about it, the separator is time. Look at the way books about Julius Caesar's genocide in Gaul or Genghis Khan's invasions of just about anywhere, are written. Writing in similar ways about Hitler or Stalin or Mao would appear to be grotesque to us, I'll bet money that give it 500 years and the history will be written differently.

What is the legal position on war when you don’t have an army?

As far as the British Army is concerned, if it looks like an army, and behaves like an army then it's treated as an army.

So whilst Palestine is effectively prohibited from forming an army to protect itself, Israel continues to receive vast amounts of military aid...

We are seeing the subjugation of millions of people, mate, that’s Fascism.

That's not what fascism means. It has a very specific technical meaning. Using it as a general term for any government you dislike robs it of its meaning. I disliked both the G.W. Bush and Trump administrations, they were utterly terrible presidents. They weren't fascists though, even if Trump seems to have fantasies of being one.

As thols seems to have picked up on, language is very important for propaganda purposes:

https://twitter.com/AssalRad/status/1555950659920400385

The irony of supporting one country that's being invaded whilst supporting another country that is invading another seems to be lost on a lot of people.....

The irony of supporting one country that’s being invaded whilst supporting another country that is invading another seems to be lost on a lot of people…..

That's not what's happening here. The OP's question was about whether Ukraine and Palestine are the same. They aren't the same, there are some important differences. That's not the same as saying that Israeli policy isn't appalling. I don't support Israel's policies towards the Palestinians but they are orders of magnitude less bad than Russia's behaviour in Ukraine (and China's, and Myanmar's...). Ukraine is not deliberately targeting Russian civilians, Palestinian groups are targeting Israeli civilians. Sending weapons to Ukraine is not problematic, sending weapons to Palestine to be used against Israeli civilians is very problematic. No irony there, two different situations, two different policies.

I thought the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter was whether they were on your side or not.

No-one was suggesting sending arms to Palestine I'm more concerned that the west has continually financed and supported Israel. .

I thought the difference between a terrorist and a freedom fighter was whether they were on your side or not.

I've always thought that was an important observation about how propaganda works. Key thing is that you can be both a freedom fighter and a terrorist. Terrorism is a strategy used in warfare. You can be fighting a just war but also engage in war crimes such as terrorism. Being on the good guys' side shouldn't excuse you from answering for war crimes. Believing that Russia is wrong wouldn't excuse Ukrainian soldiers for torturing and murdering prisoners. Believing that Israeli policy is appalling doesn't excuse murdering Israeli civilians.

That being the case, why aren't Palestinian Freedom fighters described as such in the media?

After all, Israeli soldiers often target civilians, yet terrorism is never mentioned in relation to Israel's actions...

"Strange how NATO are not sanctioning apartheid Israel & arming the Palestinians…"

This was the quote from the other thread that started this conversation.

Might I suggest that the reason NATO behaves in this way is that they see Israel as a more useful strategic partner in the geopolitical sense than Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

The Jews have been chased around the Middle East, Europe and North Africa for 2 millennia and they decided to make a stand in the Middle East. Their primary concern is their survival as a people. They know that many of their neighbours would like to see them wiped off of the face of the earth. It doesn't make their actions right but it is the fact of the matter.

My own partner has Russian / Ukranian Jewish ancestry, her great grandfather migrated to Britain in the late 19th Century, which was pretty good timing, as his chances of survival at the hands of both the Russians and the Ukranians (or the Germans for that matter) would have been pretty slim had he stayed. He and his family ezperienced a lot of grief when they came to britain but at least they weren't slaughtered.

I don't think that Jewish Isrealis really give a s*** what we think. If we want to help the Palestinians then we need to change the narrative and treat the Palestine issue as something other than a 'gotcha' question.

That being the case, why aren’t Palestinian Freedom fighters described as such in the media?

After all, Israeli soldiers often target civilians, yet terrorism is never mentioned in relation to Israel’s actions…

Israel is actually extremely careful about legal stuff, which is a big part of their problem in my opinion (as I've explained earlier in the thread). Killing civilians in itself isn't a war crime, deliberately and indiscriminately targeting them is. If there are weapons present at a location, the weapons can be targeted. If civilians get killed, that's the responsibility of the side that brought the weapons to the location. All that Israel needs to do is to show that there was an armed Palestinian at the location (or a stash of weapons or bomb components) and they are legally in the clear.

Being legal doesn't make it a good policy, I think it's a terrible policy and extremely counterproductive. However, it does explain why Israeli soldiers kill civilians and aren't prosecuted - they show some sort of evidence that they believed they were firing on armed fighters and then it's pretty much impossible to prosecute.

“Strange how NATO are not sanctioning apartheid Israel & arming the Palestinians…”

This was the quote from the other thread that started this conversation

For what it's worth, personally, I'm pretty disgusted at the human race as a whole for the vast amount of resources that are funneled into war, which trumps pretty much everything else including the future of the planet...

And to clarify, I don't actually think arming the Palestinians is a viable option; after all, besides not being allowed to form an army, any weapons they did receive would 1st be vetted by the Israeli authorities, so as to ensure they remained largely ineffective.

That said, given Israel is increasingly being recognized as an apartheid state, it does beg the question as to why there is no significant talk of sanctions

All that IsraelRussia needs to do is to show that there was an armed Palestinian Ukrainian at the location (or a stash of weapons or bomb components) and they are legally in the clear.

Sergei Lavrov - is that you?

Killing civilians in itself isn’t a war crime

But Israel isnt at war with the Palestinians. So deaths that occur from shootings and bombings are crimes against humanity.

How ironic is that 😕

That said, given Israel is increasingly being recognized as an apartheid state, it does beg the question as to why there is no significant talk of sanctions

There is pressure to do that but the region is extremely unstable and pretty much every other country there has vastly worse human rights records than Israel. If you sanction Israel, then you need to sanction every country in the region. If you do that then you will probably destabilize the region and the results would be catastrophic. Keep in mind that Israel has nuclear weapons, Iran is very close to nuclear weapons capability, and Saudi Arabia, UAE, etc. would see no option but to go nuclear if Iran did. I really do feel great sympathy for the Palestinians used as pawn in all this, but plunging the region into a nuclear war is a much bigger concern than the plight of Palestinians.

"That said, given Israel is increasingly being recognized as an apartheid state, it does beg the question as to why there is no significant talk of sanctions"

If the West applied sanctions on Israel then they would turn to Russia or China for support. Failing that the whole situation would result in the most horrendous bloodbath and the U.N. would be called upon to stop the Jews being wiped from the middle eastern map.

For a bit of historical context, in the 1940's, the Grand Mufti of Palestine was a member of the SS fighting in Bosnia during the second world war.

Also, as much as we celebrate Rommel as 'the good General', had he succeeded in reaching Palestine then the Einsatzgruppen that were stationed in Crete, ready and waiting, would have been shipped over to Palestine to do their worst.

Sergei Lavrov – is that you?

No, that's the Israeli government lawyers. They read international law extremely carefully and train their soldiers in plausible deniability. That's why it's impossible to prosecute them.

I'm sure all this Kissinger-esque realpolitik is of great comfort to the Palestinian parents whose children have been killed.

No, that’s the Israeli government lawyers. They read international law extremely carefully and train their soldiers in plausible deniability. That’s why it’s impossible to prosecute them.

Please, spare us this bullshit. If there was any political will to prosecute, they'd be in court. As it is, even when an American journalist is shot dead in cold blood the US does nothing.

But Israel isnt at war with the Palestinians. So deaths that occur from shootings and bombings are crimes against humanity.

Not if they aren't deliberately targeting civilians. If they bomb the location that a rocket was fired from, that's targeting a military site, not civilians. Just because Palestinians don't wear uniforms doesn't mean that Israel can't shoot back when Palestinians fire at Israel.

Israel is very careful to show that they don't indiscriminately target civilians (in the legal sense, not the commonsensical sense). Palestinians indiscriminately fire rockets at Israeli cities, that's utterly illegal. If you think Israel is criminally liable, there's absolutely no way you can justify murdering Israeli civilians.

Palestine is under constant seige and invasion, yet is not allowed to form an army; hence their entire civilian population, who have every right to defend themselves, for the purposes of indiscriminate murder by Israeli forces, can effectively be classed as combatants...

Please, spare us this bullshit. If there was any political will to prosecute, they’d be in court. As it is, even when an American journalist is shot dead in cold blood the US does nothing.

Same thing when the Saudi's strangled and dismembered a journalist in their embassy in Turkey. Do you really think anyone wants to start a regional war over that? The region is a tinderbox full of murderous tyrants. Nobody wants to start arresting and trying heads of state, it would start WW3.

Aside from both being formed by the British in the 1st place, the Saudi and Israeli regimes have the continued full support of Western Powers.

Hence the soft touch when it comes to media coverage

Palestine is under constant seige and invasion, yet is not allowed to form an army; hence their entire civilian population, who have every right to defend themselves, for the purposes of indiscriminate murder by Israeli forces, can effectively be classed as combatants…

If you don't have a weapon, you aren't a combatant. Even if you are a soldier in uniform, if you are unarmed and trying to surrender, you are legally protected. I'm sure that in the heat of battle that gets ignored a lot, but it's not the case that you can just kill anyone who is classed as a combatant. The point of Israeli legal doctrine is to show plausible evidence that there were weapons or some sort of threat. That's not the same as deliberately and indiscriminately targeting civilians like Russia is doing.

I have no doubt there is a wealth of videos out there that would completely debunk your analysis, though many would likely be a touch gruesome for the forum, so instead, let's take a look at one of many first-hand testimonies on the subject:

ot if they aren’t deliberately targeting civilians.

But they are deliberately targeting civilians. Usually youths who throw stones towards them at the border.

And as we all know, stones are the equivalent of bullets, which means Israeli snipers are totally justified in returning 7.62mm rounds in retaliation.

But they are deliberately targeting civilians. Usually youths who throw stones towards them at the border.

And as we all know, stones are the equivalent of bullets,

No, they aren't the equivalent of bullets (you're being silly there, right?), but they are weapons. Throwing rocks at armed border guards isn't just a bunch of harmless civilians out having a picnic. If you don't believe me, get someone to throw some rocks at you. They hurt like ****, I got hit on the hand by a chunk of a broken roofing tile when I was a kid, smashed my hand. Forever grateful it was my hand, not my head.

That’s not the same as deliberately and indiscriminately targeting civilians like Russia is doing.

I'm sure the Russians make exactly the same excuse.

But they are deliberately targeting civilians. Usually youths who throw stones towards them at the border.

Or, indeed, journalists and health care workers. Just like the Russians.

I got hit on the hand by a chunk of a broken roofing tile when I was a kid, smashed my hand. Forever grateful it was my hand, not my head.

And were you dressed head to toe in body armour, wearing a ballistic helmet ?

.

I will say that those youths are using slings, and well selected rocks, but slings though it will pack a fair punch, arent travelling at 2400 feet a second and are fully jacketed in hardened curonickel

But no, I wasnt being funny. Palestinian youths get shot all the time.

Thols,

I'm with you on some of the points you have made but you can't draw an equivalence between a kid throwing a stone and being shot with a bullet.

I'd call such actions murder.

There have been plenty of protests in the UK where protesters have thrown missiles and worse at the police. Would you excuse the UK police if the opened fire on said perotestors?

Or, indeed, journalists and health care workers. Just like the Russians.

Not, not "just like" the Russians. Russia does it very differently. The Russian approach is to demonstrate that they have no concern for laws, treaties, or human rights. In fact, they murder journalists and opposition politicians and are now torturing and raping Ukrainian civilians just to demonstrate they they have contempt for the law. They aren't trying to pretend they're not guilty, they are flaunting that they are guilty and their opponents are powerless to do anything about it.

The Israeli approach is a legalistic one. They accept the law but hire lawyers to explore the grey areas. They train their soldiers to push the limits of plausible deniability, but not to just openly flaunt contempt for the law.

So, no, the Israelis are not "just like the Russians", they are different in a very important way. Israel accepts international law, but tries to skirt the edges. Russia openly violates the law as a deliberate strategy to intimidate their opponents.

I agree with Thols, DrJ, you're being rather silly.

So, no, the Israelis are not “just like the Russians”, they are different in a very important way. Israel accepts international law, but tries to skirt the edges. Russia openly violates the law as a deliberate strategy to intimidate their opponents.

Either way - dead children.

Israel accepts international law

I can't believe that I have just read that!

I can’t believe that I have just read that!

In a "limited and specific way" I suppose.

you can’t draw an equivalence between a kid throwing a stone

Problem here is what you mean by a "stone". If it's a pebble, it's harmless. If it's a rock, it's potentially fatal.

There have been plenty of protests in the UK where protesters have thrown missiles and worse at the police. Would you excuse the UK police if the opened fire on said perotestors?

If you throw a rock at a police, you're gonna face a serious assault charge if caught. Doesn't mean the police should just shoot you, but the courts will consider a rock as a weapon. Israel isn't the UK. Throwing rocks at armed border guards isn't a harmless kid's prank and the kids doing that know exactly what they're doing.

In a “limited and specific way” I suppose.

Accepts international law in a limited and specific way?

Just the settlements in the occupied territories are a daily violation of international law.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”

Accepts international law in a limited and specific way?

Yes 🙂 🙂 🙂

In a “limited and specific way” I suppose.

In the sense that they train their soldiers about what is legally defensible and what is not. It's like coaches training footballers about offside rules. Players are coached to play to the letter of the law and have plausible deniability if they offend.

The Russian approach is to murder the referee, put his head on a pike, rape his wife, sell his children into slavery, then dare the next referee to penalize a foul.