Hacker News Reader

Comment by tmnvix | Hacker News Reader

I think you're suggesting a false dichotomy here: do nothing or sacrifice the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people in pursuit of your aims.

Consider what the Israeli response might have looked like if they didn't have access to the munitions that they do (2000 pound bombs, etc). Likely they would have still invaded Gaza and fought a very bloody battle but with many fewer innocents killed at the expense of more of their own soldiers.

Essentially, Israel has made the judgement that the lives of their soldiers are (many times) more important than those of innocent people.

View on HN

I think this is true to an extent. I certainly think the US given the same task would have been more surgical, but the US has a lot more money power and resources. Israel has to maintain a military so it can fend off attacks from its neighbor which limits the amount of resources it can expend. Soldiers are a finite resource.

Also all countries military's inherently value its own soldiers over an advisory civilians. If I was a IDF general it would be my goal to minimize the casualties taken in securing what ever goal the political leadership sets forth within the laws of war.

> I certainly think the US given the same task would have been more surgical, but the US has a lot more money power and resources

Israel having too little “money, power, and resources” is not the reason Israel dropped nearly as many bombs on Gaza in the first six days of its reaction to the Oct. 7 attacks as the US dropped in the peak year of bombing in the Afghanistan war.

If anything contributed to that, it was a surplus of resources, not a shortage.

They may have more bombs than they have manpower. It's about which resources you choose to expend. Also the is has far more precision weapons than anyone else.

And their bombs have a kill rate of less than 1, a testament to them being as specific as possible.

I don't think this is really relevant when we are talking about over 20,000 bombs.

Not to be facetious, but if I were to drop 1,000 bombs on a village of 100 people, killing them all, it hardly matters that I can claim my 'kill rate' was 0.1.

> all countries military's inherently value its own soldiers over an advisory civilians.

I would say you are right about this. Maybe what is so shocking in this particular situation (at least for many people) is how little relative value Israel places on the civilians of their adversary. The recent reporting by +972 Magazine[0] on the Israeli decision making process for selecting bombing targets makes this clear.

[0] https://www.972mag.com/mass-assassination-factory-israel-cal...

> I certainly think the US given the same task would have been more surgical

I think people often have a very magical feeling about what is possible military-wise. There is no way whatsoever to be significantly more precise in a densely populated area with tunnels, hiding behind civilians, etc.

Maybe not but the US has more resources more Spec Ops ect.

No, they would have been forced to be less surgical and precise in their strikes, leading to even more deaths.

It's been said that the Iron Dome saved more Palestinian lives than anything else in living memory because it allowed Israel to ignore Gaza (well, up till now anyway).

Be very very happy Israel has the tech to minimize civilian casualties and the desire to minimize them - things could have been very different.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com