[jcranmer]

When the first attack on an aid convoy to provoke outrage came out, I saw someone put it best: there is a difference between "war is chaos, and no matter how hard we try, some incidents regrettably occur" and "our rules of engagement are designed in such a manner to make these incidents almost certain." And the IDF... is pretty clearly in the latter category.

> I imagine most of the armchair critics here have never been in a situation where they have to make these sorts of calls. Being in an ambush in a war with an enemy that, let's say, uses "unconventional" tactics (aka war crimes) to try and kill you while vans are approaching you.

Attempting to use this as a defense requires conceding that the default assumption is that someone is a terrorist until proven otherwise, which is something that guarantees horrific civilian casualties. It's not actually requisite that soldiers have this mindset; instilling this requires training, and the fact that it seems to be so pervasive in the IDF is a sign that it's not just a criminal failure of a few soldiers but rather a core part of the IDF strategy that needs to be addressed.

[YZF]

The only clarity here is in the eyes of those who made their decision in advance and are cherry picking. Yes- There have been quite a few incidents but the percentage is still small. There were also many friendly fire incidents. All of these happen in every war. The difference is this war is being put under a microscope and there are powerful actors trying to push a narrative.

It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here and the consequences. Not the "instilling via training".

[kennywinker]

> It is the nature of how Hamas wages war in Gaza that is driving the assumptions here

When the bad guys use human shields, it’s on the “good guys” to somehow resist the “good guy” urge to blow the whole city up.

Hamas has killed something in the order of 800 idf soldiers during this conflict, if we exclude the ones killed on oct 7th. In that same time at least 75,000 palestinians have been killed - most of which were women and children. So, unless you’re saying this is a justified collective punishment for oct 7th, what on earth are you possibly referring to? Hamas isn’t “waging war” in any real sense.

[dijit]

> Attempting to use this as a defense requires conceding that the default assumption is that someone is a terrorist until proven otherwise

All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this.

I'm trying to say this dispassionately because I'm aware that people get defensive, but lets say that you have to fight some enemy but they present as the most vulnerable of a population, how can you fight them without looking awful?

Though "it's complicated" is not, by itself, a conclusion - and neither is "better training" a sufficient answer to a problem this structurally difficult."

[raducu]

> All other things being equal, if your opponent engages actively in hiding among medical and press workers as a type of guerrilla warfare, then the reality does become this.

So let me check this reasoning: if there was a single US soldier in the WTC towers, the 9/11 attacks were justified because the soldiers were hiding among the civilians?

Or if Hamas killed a single israelian soldier in their horrendous attacks in private homes, then it's justified because there were soldiers in those houses?

Or if the israelian reservists have their weapons at home and can be called upon directly from home to action, does that mean Iran or Hamas are justified at flattening residential buildings in Israel because those could host soldiers?

[tpdly]

Also trying to speak dispassionately: If your enemy presents as the most vulnerable as the most vulnerable of a population, shouldn't that be an indication that you're colonizing? That you're squeezing so hard, oppressing so vehemently that an entire people become your enemy? Or the entire people were your enemy the whole time.