| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re | |
| Posted by: | Steven Rose | |
| Date/Time: | 21/05/24 23:55:00 |
| There are a number of assertions here. You suggest that Israel has caused mass starvation in Gaza. Where is the evidence of this? Has anyone died of hunger? So far the Chief Prosecutor has only charged Netanyahu of restricting food aid into Gaza. The case has not been heard, yet you have already found Israel guilty and added a further charge of genocide. You concede that civilian casualties are inevitable in a counter insurgency of this kind but suggest that the Israelis have caused ‘excessive levels of suffering’. Excessive in comparison to what? The level of civilian to military casualties is near 1 : 1, compared to the typical ratio of 10: 1 when militants are embedded in a civilian population. No army in history has ever employed leaflets and messages to warn civilians of impending attacks in the way that the IDF has tried to do. It is not a false dichotomy to say that that there is a choice between victory and defeat. It is a real dichotomy. If there is a ceasefire, which some on this Forum have called for, leaving Hamas in control of parts of Gaza and still holding their hostages, then Hamas will have won a significant victory, albeit at a terrible cost to themselves and the Palestinians of Gaza. The threat to Israel will remain and Islamists everywhere will be emboldened. I don’t condone all of Israel’s actions. It is not possible to condone all the measures taken by one side in any war. War is an ugly business where soldiers in the heat of battle overreact and where mistakes are made. This is true of the Israelis in Gaza, it is true of the Americans in Iraq and Syria, it is is true of British troops in Afghanistan. But this is a war which Israel has to win for its own security given that its enemy, Hamas, has threatened to repeat the atrocity of October 7 ‘again and again’. If you were living in the south of Israel rather than in the safety of Putney, would you not expect your government to protect you and your family from rape, mutilation, abduction and murder? |