Template talk:Expert opinions in the Gaza genocide debate

Posen

@Cdjp1 With due respect I think that Posen clearly says that this is not a genocide. In fact he accepts the Israeli claim that the civilian death toll is a result of Hamas using civilians as human shields or camouflage, i.e. collateral damage and not intentional attempt to kill as many Palestinians as possible. See these paragraphs:

One answer is simple. When war is fought among civilians, civilians are killed. Among the most poignant examples is from World War II: the number of French citizens killed by Allied bombing in the months prior to the June 1944 Normandy invasion. The allies bombed lines of communication heavily to prevent the Germans from reinforcing their coastal defenses along the English Channel. Historians suggest that some 20,000 French civilians who had the misfortune of living near ports, bridges, roads, or railroad infrastructure were killed in these attacks and during the subsequent two months of ground and air operations.

Some would say that this is ancient history; we would never do that again. But more recent history suggests that, though modern weapons are considerably more accurate and procedures in Western militaries to avoid collateral damage are more formalized, fighting among civilians, especially in urban areas, always means hell on earth for the civilians who may be trapped there.

Hamas, for its part, appears unconcerned about putting Palestinian civilians in harm’s way. Indeed, this is a feature, not a bug, of their political and military strategy. Some use the term “human shield” for this strategy, but that is incomplete. This element of Hamas’s strategy could also be described as “human camouflage,” and more ruthlessly as “human ammunition.”

On a daily basis, the activities of civil society obscure Hamas’s activities. More importantly, Hamas understands that civilian casualties are an Achilles’ heel for Western military operations. Liberal democracies put a high value on the individual, and hence on every human life. Lawyers have developed an elaborate legal structure to regulate the conduct of warfare because of this respect for the individual, which is enshrined in international treaties.

Western militaries, including the IDF, try to live by these laws, though the law of armed conflict does not proscribe them from waging war. They try to follow these rules in part because they reflect the values of the societies that they serve and in part because of an expectation of reciprocity, but also because pragmatically, they know that lots of civilian casualties can become a political liability at home and abroad. Hamas spends the lives of Palestinian civilians as ammunition in an information war. They are not the first to do so, and they probably will not be the last.

Vegan416 (talk) 09:33, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vegan416 OK,I can't re-add it in right now, but I've got a collection of additions to the table it will be included in when I update it this evening. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:39, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

thanks Vegan416 (talk) 10:42, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Habermas

@Cdjp1 With due respect Habermas clearly says that attributing geocidal intent to Israel is a complete slip of judgement.

And so it had been understood by other sources:

https://theconversation.com/jurgen-habermas-is-a-major-public-intellectual-what-are-his-key-ideas-218796

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/22/israel-hamas-war-opens-up-german-debate-over-meaning-of-never-again

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-european-philosophy-ethically-bankrupt-exposed Vegan416 (talk) 09:04, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vegan416 I don't understand the need to ping me on Habermas et al.'s opinion. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 09:24, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I got confused. However, even with regard to professor Gat, I think it is obvious that he rejects the genocide accusation. Surely you wouldn't call engaged in genocide a "moral army"... Also please consider the following sentences from his opinion piece:

There is no way to eliminate this array without causing massive destruction. Anyone who argues that it is forbidden to cause such destruction must propose feasible alternatives that would enable the elimination of Hamas in Gaza in the sense defined above [i.e. the destruction of Hamas as a semi-state military organization with a massive military infrastructure that controls Gaza – not its elimination as an ideology and as a guerrilla movement]; otherwise, they are arguing that the situation in effect gives Hamas immunity. Many in the West evade the question, and presumably there are also those who implicitly support such immunity.

In practice, by the standards of the most respected democracies, it can be said that Israel has met its humanitarian obligations under international law in regard to warning the civilian population to evacuate combat zones, opening humanitarian corridors and observing humanitarian cease-fires to permit evacuations, using advanced technology to communicate these messages.

Assuming that more than 30,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip (Hamas' figures), of which 12,000-13,000 were Hamas members, according to IDF estimates, this is a ratio of 1.5 civilians killed for every Hamas member killed. This is still below the estimated civilian casualty ratio of the American wars of the past few decades, which certainly were not conducted at the same level of threat under which Israel operates.

Soldiers have a looser finger on the trigger, and they are not free of feelings of revenge, but the main factor explaining the killing and destruction is the enormity of the challenge and the acute danger to the troops' lives on the battlefield in Gaza. Vegan416 (talk) 11:35, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vegan416 this strays into inference from the source. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 11:38, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Userfying

This shouldn't be in Draft space. If the intent is for it never to become an article, then the content is better-suited in User space. The Draft namespace is for pages that will eventually become articles. Please read WP:NOTWEBHOST. Wikipedia is not for the indefinite hosting of material deemed unsuitable for the encyclopedia mainspace. C F A 💬 22:35, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

The problem is this is supposed to be a common resources, not owned by one user. Vegan416 (talk) 10:10, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

OR comments

@Cdjp1 I saw you started to add critical comments about the experts opinions based on your opinion and OR. Are you sure you want to go this way? This is not the idea behind this list. If each of us will start adding critical comments based on our opinion and OR we'll end up with endless debates... Vegan416 (talk) 10:13, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vegan416 these are not my opinions but the opinions of experts and legal bodies. The citations will be added in the next update this evening. Understanding the context to claims is important, please add any explanatory comments you think need to be in the notes column. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:39, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. What you suggest will turn this page page into a discussion forum. This is not what it was meant to be. It is meant to be a barebone list of sources to be used as reference page for discussions in places such as the talk page of the Gaza genocide article. Any critical discussion of the sources should be left to that talk page. Vegan416 (talk) 11:36, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

@Vegan416 for Mirsky, at least, it is highly important as he claims that of people South Africa presented as evidence, None of them, though, have direct decision-making power, when South Africa presented the statements of Netanyahu and Gallant in their evidence. I am open to hearing how Netanyahu and Gallant have no decision-making power over IDF direction. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 12:36, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

I'll answer that so that you won't think I'm trying to evade the question, but my point is precisely that this kind of discussion that we are having now should not be held here in this sources page in this no man's land, but rather at the talk page of any article to which anyone will decide to bring Mirsky's opinion. Anyway the answer to your question is simple. Mirsky doesn't think that Netanyahu and Gallant made any genocidal statements (and I agree with him). Vegan416 (talk) 16:22, 15 July 2024 (UTC)