War is attacking military targets to reduce the enemy’s capability to wage war against you.
Civilian target = terrorism
Military target = war
There absolutely are grey areas and overlap between the two but not nearly as much as people like to make out.
It is this rationalization that enables powers to bomb civilians and ethnic groups under the guise of targeting military targets who stand no chance if they segregate themselves from the populace due to the power dynamics. And then the cycle only continues as each side adds fuel to the fire.
Looking at it from that perspective there is no line between war and terrorism. All wars are terrorism.
This is flawed rational. If you can't find any parking lot you keep driving, it doesn't allow you to double park and block someone else's car. If you are too weak to maintain your posture at war you shouldn't fight it on the backs of civilians. Your inability to execute your wishes legitimately doesn't provide you with any right to act illegitimately and inflict the cost and pain on others.
That cuts both ways. Just like hamas should not hide amongst civilians, if Israel is too weak to go into Gaza to arrest hamas, it has no excuse to act illegitimately and bomb civilians.
Their bombing campaign begs to differ
The army could have burn down the entire strip from the air and leave no person or stone there, in five minutes. That's what I meant by burning down the entire strip. If Hamas had the power to do the same to Israel they would gladly do so, as is evident from the way they use their power and resources.
Saying that it's 'cutting both ways' is evil statement. One side gladly ignores the lives and suffering of it's own people, while the other pay with the lives of soldiers in an effort to minimize the death toll of the same people.
And let's not pretend that no diplomatic solutions have been proposed, all of which were rejected. They will only accept it if they own every inch of the land and Israel is obliterated (their own word).
The actions that led up to Oct. 7 long predate it. The seeds of this have been sown every year that the IDF "mowed the grass" and every time they tried to disrupt the PLO from negotiating a peace. Remember, an Israeli prime minister was assassinated for seeking and negotiating peace- not by the Palestinians but by a radical Israeli, whose politics are aligned with the current prime minister. This current prime minister has used his long time in office to disrupt and prevent any peace from occurring.
The disappointing logic there is the idea that historical conflict of any kind, anywhere on Earth, could possibly "seed" an atrocity like Oct 7. The sheer ferocity, scale and cruelty of 3,000 terrorists storming across the border to gleefully slaughter and capture civilians young and old, is somehow reduced to "oh well, they had it coming"... "oh well, the seeds were sown"?
In my view, that is a very dark and troubling position. I will never in my lifetime form the view that Oct 7 was anything other than crossing all lines. It was end-game stuff. Standing alone in measures of evil, it therefore needs dealing with on those terms. Civilised humanity should be uniting against that senseless barbarism including renewed focus on the deeper causes and future remedies for fanatical violent groups.
This may be why many of are divided: Those who believe Oct7 crossed all lines; and those who believe Oct7 was horrific but within "resistance" seed-sowing territory. We all want peace, but it amazes me the latter has any traction at all.
> The disappointing logic there is the idea that historical conflict of any kind, anywhere on Earth, could possibly "seed" an atrocity like Oct 7
If you don't recognize causes, then you will be baffled by effects. It has been clear to observers of the Middle East that the status quo that Netanyahu has created was violent and untenable. It gave the appearance of peace only because most people remained ignorant of the underlying brutality of the situation. If you think Oct. 7 was frightening, what do you think about the generations of children that have been killed and maimed by IDF soldiers and settlers? The terrorist invasion of Oct. 7 was terrible and unacceptable, but that does not make what Israel did before or after ok. The fact that you cannot recognize that Israel has also crossed all lines, means that you are incapable of being a part of the solution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_and_massacres_during_...
One are relatively small scale horrible events within an active full scale war, the other are sadistic attacks aimed at civilians, by crowd that is made of at least half civilians, outside of active war. One is a massacre, the other is a prolonged violence torture and mass raping.
I don't think Israelis are saints, and Israel could and should have acted better in many cases, both for moral reasons and for its own good. I believe a two states solution is the only just and sustainable option, and Israel's share in avoiding it is a terrible mistake. But October 7th wasn't action of people who see the two states solution as a desired state or a viable compromise.
Trying to treat the terrorist attack on Oct. 7 as unprecedented and unique is not only deeply ignorant but incredibly dangerous. It allows you to suspend all normal considerations of decency, which we have seen in the words of Israelis leaders (calling all Palestinians "human animals" and terrorists) and the actions of the IDF (war crimes, murdering civilians, throwing people off buildings, torturing, etc).
Please stop with your apologies for genocide and war crimes. Even Israeli scholars and Holocaust survivors recognize that what Israel is doing now is deeply wrong. Stop
I wish that October 7th was unprecedented. It is not the first pogrom Jews suffered. I'm not aware of a case in the history where Jews behaved like that. If it did occur,it is unexcusable, just like October 7th.
Let's put it in clear terms. I'm an Israeli, humanist and supports a two states solution. You, on the other side, are terror justifying and, I guess, antisemite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Beirut_barracks_bombings
That was a Marine barracks that was part of a "military peacekeeping operation". Granted, 128 non-military Americans were injured, but all of the dead people were military. The U.S. politicians labelled it terrorism.
>On November 5, 2009, a mass shooting took place at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos), near Killeen, Texas.[1] Nidal Hasan, a U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others.[2][3] It was the deadliest mass shooting on an American military base and the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks until it was surpassed by the San Bernardino attack in 2015.[4]
Fire bombing Dresden or Tokyo - terrorism, or war?
Nighttime Bombing a factory that produces ball bearings - terrorism, or war?
I think it can also get less clear when the target is an enemy's infrastructure, industry, or political infrastructure.