Proportionality

[GeoMuller]

Am I missing something? Israel legitimately exercises its right to defend itself but is condemned for violating the "principle" of proportionality. Is it a requirement of the Geneva Convention? Surely effectiveness should take precedence?

[murraymints]

[Gromit]

This latest flare up was ostensibly triggered by the murder of 3 students. The backlash from Israel has killed more than 600 Palestinians.

But surely Israel should be able to defend themselves from missile attacks?
Yes they should, and they do. They have a missile defence system, Iron Shield' which is highly effective. A third of missiles are intercepted, if their trajectory goes near any populated. Software detects which missiles will reach populated areas, and which will land harmlessly. The missiles are not 'smart' so the majority are misses anyway. Of the thousands of missiles that have been fired, the resulting casualties are very very low.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/09/iron-dome-gaza-israel-air-defence-missile

So yes, it is about proportionality. It seems that one Israeli death is punished by 200 Palestinian deaths.

[Gromit]

Dennis Prager is not the most objective commentator on Israel. He is ultra right wing and Jewish. He believes that the US Government, trial lawyers and newspapers are run by left wingers bent on destroying America. In short, he is not a full Shekel.

[kvalidir]

Of course Israel ought to be able to defend itself and it can from missiles as has already been covered, however their response to the horrific killing of the three Jewish teenagers has been utterly, utterly disproportionate.
Imagine this scenario-England is Israel and Wales is Gaza.
Some Welsh loonies kidnap three English teenagers and kill them, England then proceeds to shell the hell out of Cardiff killing 600 odd people and injuring thousands as well as bringing the whole infrastructure to it's knees effectively making the whole of Wales a war zone under siege.
When you replace the words Israel and Gaza with places you are actually familiar with suddenly it seems a whole lot less acceptable and if it was anywhere else then the UN would have raised Cain about it by now.
It has also had the nasty knock on effect that anti-semitic attacks are on the rise across Europe attributed to the common man's outrage at the Gaza situation, and we can really all do without our home grown right wing nutters jumping on the bandwagon for their own political agenda.

[Gromit]

When you see that a quarter of those killed (more than 150) are children and babies, it starts to look like like an attempt at genocide.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/10984259/Revealed-the-Palestinian-children-killed-by-Israeli-forces.html

[sandyRoe]

'Genocide', Gromit? You should choose your words carefully lest your post is pulled so as not to offend the tender susceptibilities of the Zionist supporters here

[kvalidir]

If you kill the children though Sandy they can't grow up to be a thorn in your side- Gromit has a point.

[sandyRoe]

Indeed, but voicing a strongly held opinion here, as I did yesterday, can see your post removed.

[kvalidir]

Did your post get zapped for saying that Sandy? If so that's shocking :(

[douglas9401]

Well I'm more outraged than you, so there.

[sandyRoe]

I said, in a bitterly ironic way, that 1400 deaths 5 years ago, and 600 or so now, wasn't really going to solve the problem for the Zionists. They needed a final solution for the Palestinian problem.

[Gromit]

Bye Sandy.

[kvalidir]

Ah yes I saw that post and understood it to be said in the way you intended it, apparently someone took it more literally then perhaps?

[DrFilth]

Gromit > This latest flare up was ostensibly triggered by the murder of 3 students. The backlash from Israel has killed more than 600 Palestinians. <

up to the murder of the 3 young jewish lads at least 5 young palestinians were murdered this year , sorry 5 young palestinians were killed don't want to upset the irraeli supporters on here as we all know that god gave you this land

[DrFilth]

change irraeli to israeli

[mikey4444]

Over 600 Palestinians dead and about 30 Israeli dead. Israel has warships, tanks, and aircraft....Gaza has none of those... Doesn't sound very "proportional" to me.

All this over-reaction from Israel won't do them a bit of good in the medium to long term. We have been here before and Hamas are still there. The children of the current Palestinian dead will Hamas fighters in the next generation, so what has Israel gained ?

Maybe Israel should think about why the Palestinians are so angry. Israel was formed in 1948 and populated by Jews that had fled Nazi Germany, including ones that were found in Auswitch, et all by the Allied forces. So how is right for the Israelis to keep the Palestinians cooped up in the the Gaza strip now ?

Let me make it quite clear that I am far from being a supporter of Hamas, and I deplore the murder of the 3 Israeli schoolboys, but how is killing 100's of Palestinians going to help keep Israel safe ?

[Peter Pedant]

Yeah this thread is gonna go... far too palestinian

If you are gonna be outraged at 300 deaths, confine yourself to something like Ukraine...

No Geo - original poster - effectiveness should not take precedence.... The bombing of Dresden was effective (1944) but was never advanced as a defence to war crime.
You might ask - and what was the effect - ? well it flattened Dresden....

[Gromit]

The murder of the students was just a pretext for an invasion.

The real crime occurred in April when the Palestinians unified to form a new Palestinian Authority. Israel promise punitive action in April, long before the students were murdered, and we are now seeing it.

The Israelis promised punitive action in April, and in

[Old_Geezer]

I suspect it is more a requirement of morality. Ends do not always justify the means, even if the end goal could be defended. Draconian responses should be avoided. Lack of proportionality does not necessarily lead to effectiveness, as umpteen past actions have proven to us, but it is more likely to lead to increased mortality.

[Clanad]

Lots of sides (more than two) in this whole episode, but, being overlooked is Israel's stated primary objective; that of destroying as much of the vast tunnel network constructed by Hamas and used to infiltrate Israel. That, of course, coupled with the rocket attacks... as many as two or three hundred per day, which few countries would be willing to accept...

The tunnel system is well engineered and must have taken a massive work force to construct, lending credence to suscpicion about the involvement of other Islamic countries (think Iran)... nearly all of whom have sworn to destroy Israel and "wipe them from off the map"..."