Israeli air force launches strike upon Hospital “Hamas Base” parking lot, with an R9X missile.
For context, the image is from Reuters with info about the missile. It references a different time that the US used it to kill a terrorist leader. The video below is a hospital parking lot in gaza.
Casualty is both dead and injured as an FYI. So not one casualty in this instance.
I agree this isn’t a good example of the IDF acting in the same vein as Hamas, but I also understand the frustration of OP, watching an organized military bomb civilians indiscriminately for a month while the majority of western world governments cheer them on while saying “please reduce the civilian slaughter, it’s getting uncomfortable to defend” in about the mildest way you can say something like that, is demoralizing at best. That we still can’t agree that unilaterally, no matter the circumstances, killing civilians in indiscriminate bombings simply can’t be accepted and needs to be condemmed in the strongest terms possible makes me disappointed in humanity and democracy.
I understand where you are coming from, really… And I also appreciate the care that went into crafting your reply with the clear considerations to keep a neutral and rational tone, so I wish to extend the courtesy back.
The major contention I have with your position is that it is only easily justified if it were true that Israel is in fact indiscriminately bombing Palestinians. However the basis in reality to support the indiscriminate claim just doesn’t exist at the current point. In fact the specific video posted here is explicitly contradictory to that argument. Israel has developed military technology beyond nearly every other country in the world in order to precisely and discriminatorily be able to target enemy combatants in civilian dense urban areas. The roof knock bombs that IDF use prior to levelling a structure so that citizens can have time to flee the scene is a prime example as well.
Ok, sure. But how come then the Palestinian dead number in the thousands? Were they all Hamas? Even the kids?
Some perspective on the conflict since 2008 (which isn’t the whole timeline of course but shows how skewed it is):
https://www.statista.com/chart/16516/israeli-palestinian-casualties-by-in-gaza-and-the-west-bank/
Add in the 1300 dead Israeli civilians (and 3000 or so more injured) in the heinous Oct 7 attack and we’re still extremely skewed without even mentioning the thousands dead since Oct 7th.
I’m absolutely not supporting Hamas here. But I’m also vehemently opposed to Israel, as in the government, not the civilians. I understand there is no quick fix. But acting like Israel is the only victim in this is blood boiling.
No dude… Nothing like that… Israel has made plenty of mistakes, especially in the past, and this is an extremely complex issue.
To answer your first question in terms of casualty counts. The very first thing is that casualty counts are very commonly over/under inflated, especially during times of conflict. There are many reasons you may want to over inflate or deflate your numbers. But honestly it is really difficult to take casualty rates at face value. Let’s say we take it for what it is and its skewed. Now we run straight into a philosophical conundrum that is probably much to big to effectively argue through on the internet.
Your philosophical position on about a dozen or so moralistic arguments are going to shape your ultimate decision on where you stand in terms of casualty imbalances.
So I will skip all that and give you some of the things that I believe would bring me to your side.
Elaborate on “following the restoration of page” I’m unfamiliar with the term “page” in this context?
As for my position it’s only that I hate how violence is somehow “justified” as if anything can give you the right to end someone else’s life. It might be considered naive, utopian or simplistic by some but it really isn’t. Almost every human subscribe to some level of sacredness of human life. Some extend it only to their family, some to all humans irregardless but we pretty much all agree that at least some life can’t be ended morally, be it kids or whatever. Just about everyone has at sometime been a sacred life in the eyes of the majority of humans, and that the reason they stopped being seen such is almost never grounded in factual, indisputable truth but opinion, prejudice, lies, circumstances and assumptions. If we, as most agree, see humans as fallible then we shouldn’t be able to declare someone’s life as no longer sacred and worth protecting. And from that simple position we can extrapolate that any active attempts to end someone’s life is amoral, the only moral kill is one in (proportional) self-defense. Which is of course what both Israel and Hamas argue they’re doing, to varying extent. It’s their main justification for why they’re (morally) in the right.
Up to there I think I have a good majority on board. Then people put vastly different things into what constitutes proportional self-defense. Which is what I assume you’re alluding to. Am I then right to think that your position as such is that it’s still self-defense and still proportional and the two bullet points are examples of when it stops being proportional?
EDIT:
I see you’ve edited to “restoration of peace”. What does that mean in a place that hasn’t seen peace for over 80 years? What “peace” are you referring too? The pre Oct 7 status quo? If so isn’t restoration of peace hinging on Israel leaving Gaza more so than anything else?
this is not what indiscriminate bombing looks like. Check Vietnam war footages…