You being attacked does not allow you to commit war crimes, genocide or ethnic cleansing. This is not a grey area.
If someone was about to kill you, and they’re hiding behind another person, and the only way you could stop them from killing you would be putting the third person at risk of being killed as well, do you have the right to defend yourself?
That’s basically the point, on a macro level, that we are all arguing about.
There is another question on a micro level. How many people who are not about to kill you can you kill in self-defence to save how many people?
While in theory, every human life is as important and valued as another we do often in practice allow some movement morally.
The third question is immediacy. Are you allowed to kill someone in self-defence if you know they will kill you tomorrow? Is it just current action, and how far current stretches.
But while those are simplified questions on the philosophy of ethics in these situations they don’t entirely apply to Israel and Palestine. That is because they ignore the power imbalance.
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Something already got wrong in your logic chain if you came up with something like “well maybe if I need to kill 1001 citizens the terrorist is hiding behind in order to save my 1000 citizens, maybe better not do anything and let him kill my citizens”.
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Immediacy is simple in this case. We all know that if Palestinians do not attack Israel then Israel will not attack Palestinians. And we all know that no matter what, Palestinians are going to continue their unprovoked attacks. This means whoever comes up with “let’s attack first because otherwise we’ll get attacked” must be Palestinian, and a lying one.
Why are your citizens somehow more valuable than any other citizens? I am not even saying do nothing. I am saying killing people indiscriminately is not OK.
Second, if these are unprovoked attacks I have no idea what in your world constitutes provoked. I don’t think attacks being provoked makes them right but they didn’t come out of nothing. Israel is not an innocent party here. Neither is Palestine.
Are you seriously trying to argue that hamas is hiding behind 2 million civilians in Gaza, and that there were now thousands of valid military targets? Natalie Bennet couldn’t even answer a simple question a BBC interviewer posed to him about their consideration of the lives of innocent babies. Couldn’t even answer a simple question. This man is supposed to be one of the leaders of the nation.
Are you seriously trying to argue that hamas is hiding behind 2 million civilians in Gaza,
Its been widly reported that the Palestinians are being used by Hamas as human shields.
and that there were now thousands of valid military targets?
No. I was just stating the problem, not offering a solution. Its a very real dilemma.
What do you do, when your enemy is behind an innocent person who is being used as a shield.
But this is that justification in that context. “Oh, they are using the civillian population as human shields. Looks like we are going to have to kill everyone.” Like 2 million stand between the IDF and the hostages. So silly. I would hope the IDF leadership is a little more disciplined than that logic.
Its been widly reported that the Palestinians are being used by Hamas as human shields.
Could you support that claim? Because it is Israel that actually has a track record of using human shields.
There are like a gazillion more reports like this so just say the words and I will personally DuckDuckGo them for you.
And no sorry, living in an area does not mean you are using people as human shields. Israel, for example, forces children to walk through a cross fire as a human shield or straps them on the front of an army truck.
if someone was about to kill you, you would know who they were. you wouldn’t be killing random bystanders.
