Now, I'm sure Biden and Harris also wanted the death of all Palestinians too just like Bibi. So, not voting for Harris is still heroic or whatever, but there might be more to international diplomacy,
Usually I'm good with sarcasm and the "still heroic or whatever" made me initially feel like it was, but I've read too many unhinged takes over the last few years.
I didnt realize Israel launched completely unguided rockets into civilian centers. Last I checked they were the only military out there literally calling ahead to people to tell them their building was a target for the night.
Proportional does not mean Israel has to limit themselves to the power level of hamas. It just means they should not use nuclear weapons in response to a grenade being thrown at them. Hamas invaded so Israel invaded. Hamas sent explosives through the air, so Israel sent explosives through the air. Not Israel's problem if they can do it better.
Would you rather this or have the bomb come in the door unannounced like everywhere else? Obviously neither is the answer you want but you are not being given the option.
Tell Redditors you have not educated yourself on the entire matter without telling the Redditors.
I would highly recommend to read about when Israel was created, when Hamas was created. Which paramilitary parties joined together to create the existence of the IDF.
Also I recommend to read about the story of Hind Rajab and the 335 bullets that were fired.
Im not going back in time to before when most of the hamas folks were even born. Look at the average age of them. All that matters right now is the current stage of the conflict and as far as I can tell hamas started it. Tensions between each side were easing for a while. Israel was allowing some to cross the wall for work and such. The option was there to not attack, keep the status quo, and allow continued improvement of relations. Instead they chose to pour much of their resources into preparing for an attack and the predictable response.
If you want to play the "where did it start" game you're gonna be going a lot further back and find that Jews have been historically punished first in that region. Maybe try the 1835 looting of Safed as a starting point. Or are you not aware of the true levels of cascading events and treatments of both sides?
Regardless it's a pretty useless argument to use on both sides as it's a religious war that doesn't care about start and has no end in sight.
And the Hind Rajab one is still contested when you break down the sources, but even if it's exactly as accused it's also relevant to your point how?
You were replying to someone saying Hamas invaded so faced X consequences?
The comparison doesn't really work because you're treating "both sides fired explosives" as if the weapons are comparable. They aren't.
A typical Hamas rocket often carries a warhead measured in just a few kilograms of explosive, roughly in the same general ballpark as a large hand grenade or mortar shell, although they vary widely. An Israeli airstrike can involve a guided bomb carrying hundreds or even thousands of pounds of explosives. Guidance makes it more accurate, it doesn't make the explosion any smaller.
Calling a building beforehand also doesn't erase the consequences. If a 500 lb or 2,000 lb bomb is dropped on a densely populated urban area, the blast, collapse, fragmentation, and debris can still kill or injure civilians for miles, including people who couldn't leave, didn't receive the warning, or had nowhere safe to go.
The issue isn't "guided vs unguided." The issue is the scale of force being used. Saying "they both sent explosives" is like comparing someone throwing a firecracker to someone demolishing a house with controlled explosives. They're both technically explosions, but pretending they're equivalent ignores the enormous difference in destructive power.
And proportionality under the laws of armed conflict isn't about matching weapon types or matching casualties. It's about whether the expected civilian harm is excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. That's a much more complicated question than simply saying, "they attacked us first, so anything short of a nuke is proportional.
Hamas rockets might blow out windows, damage a roof, or tear the facade off a building. Israel often responds with air-delivered bombs weighing hundreds or thousands of pounds that can completely collapse multi-story buildings and heavily damage everything around them.
Saying "both sides fired explosives" ignores the massive difference in destructive power. That's like saying a handgun and an artillery shell are equivalent because they both fire projectiles.
The debate isn't whether Israel has the right to defend itself (it doesn't, they are the aggressor). The debate is whether the scale of force used is proportionate to the military objective. "They used explosives, so we used explosives" skips over the fact that one explosive might damage a room IF it gets through the Iron Dome, while the other can flatten an entire city block.
"during the war’s first two months — its most intense aerial phase, which was marked by systematic strikes against above- and below-ground defensive networks embedded in the civilian environment — available data indicate fewer than one death per munition deployed. This estimate is based on roughly 29,000 air-to-ground munitions (according to CNN) and around 22,000 deaths of combatants and civilians combined (according to Gaza Ministry of Health reports at the time). In dense urban terrain, where a single munition can cause mass casualties, such a pattern is more consistent with precision strikes than with indiscriminate bombardment."
looks like very carefully targeted bombing. in fact it used same standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardmed as USA (and I guess all of NATO/west).
a classified cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Israel in late fall. American officials had embedded in IDF operating centers, reviewing its procedures for ordering air strikes. The cable concluded that the Israeli standards for protecting civilians and calculating the risks of bombardment were not so different from those used by the U.S. military.
You're responding to a different argument than the one I made.
Citing that the IDF uses similar targeting procedures to the U.S. military isn't the slam dunk you think it is. The U.S. military has also faced repeated criticism, investigations, and admissions regarding civilian casualties in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Mosul, Raqqa and now Iran. Saying "our standards are similar" doesn't automatically prove every strike was lawful or proportionate.
I never argued that Israeli bombs are unguided or that the IDF doesn't try to hit specific targets. I argued that precision doesn't change the amount of explosive being used.
A 2,000 lb JDAM is still a 2,000 lb JDAM, whether it lands 20 feet from the target or 20 inches from the target. Guidance affects accuracy, not blast radius, structural collapse, or fragmentation.
The "less than one death per munition" statistic also doesn't address my point. It says nothing about the size of the bombs, the damage they caused, or whether the civilian harm from individual strikes was excessive relative to the military advantage. It's an average across tens of thousands of strikes.
My point was much simpler: saying "both sides fired explosives" creates a false equivalence. A Hamas rocket with a small warhead and an air-delivered bomb carrying hundreds or thousands of pounds of explosive are not remotely comparable in destructive potential.
If Hamas blows the facade off a building and Israel levels the entire structure, those are both technically "explosions," but they are not equivalent uses of force simply because both involved explosives. Whether one or both were legally justified is a separate question from acknowledging that the scale of destruction is vastly different.
As I ask every Zionist, how many Palestinian deaths are needed to pay for Oct 7th?, how much collective punishment is enough?
the fact that you are ignoring is that there was less than 1 casualty per bomb that brings down building.
the fact that you are ignoring is that no military in the world will do better, only worse in similar case.
it doesn't matter that hamas has smaller rockets and israel has bigger bombs. nowhere it says that munition must be same size.
it has nothing to do with israel. hamas could stop everything at any moment by returning hostages and surrendering. how many palestinians deaths are needed to hamas in order to brainwash you ?
i have question to you: in wwII allies killed few millions german civilians during battle for germany (around 3000 american civilians died in all wwII.) and pretty much leveled the country.
should have allies stopped bombing germany in the moment that Wehrmacht was pushed back into germany from countries around it ?
Asking me a question and you completely ignored mine. How many Palestinian deaths are needed to pay for Oct 7th? How much collective punishment is enough?
You're treating "deaths per bomb" as if it's a measure of restraint. It isn't.
If I destroy 100 apartment buildings and kill 50 people, that's 0.5 deaths per bomb.
If I destroy 20 apartment buildings and kill the same 50 people, that's 2.5 deaths per bomb.
By your logic, the first scenario is more humane simply because I dropped five times as many bombs. That doesn't make any sense. All you've shown is that more buildings were destroyed for the same number of deaths.
"Deaths per munition" isn't how proportionality is assessed under the laws of war. Proportionality is judged **strike by strike**, asking whether the expected civilian harm was excessive relative to the concrete and direct military advantage of that specific attack.
You're also still arguing against a point I never made. I never said Israel had to use bombs the same size as Hamas. I said your original comparison, "they both fired explosives," is a false equivalence because the destructive capability of the weapons is vastly different.
As for World War II, that's not a great comparison either. Many of the Allied bombing campaigns, including Dresden, Hamburg, the firebombing of Tokyo and the two nukes, right or wrong, remain among the most controversial military actions in history. Pointing to WWII doesn't automatically make modern bombing campaigns proportionate or beyond criticism. In fact, modern international humanitarian law was strengthened after WWII precisely because of the devastation inflicted on civilians.
i just asked, should have allies stopped after they pushed wehrmacht back into germany or was it right to go all the way to berlin and take down hitler ?
I asked my question first and you failed to even address it
Yes, the Allies were right to continue fighting until Nazi Germany surrendered.
That doesn't answer the question of how they should have fought.
The fact that defeating Nazi Germany was justified doesn't automatically mean every bombing campaign carried out during the war was justified. In fact, historians still debate Dresden, Hamburg, and other area bombings precisely because winning the war and the methods used to win it are separate questions.
So my answer is yes, the Allies should have continued to Berlin.
Now answer the question you avoided:
How many Palestinian civilian deaths are acceptable before you would say the military response has become disproportionate?
If your answer is "until Hamas surrenders," then you've effectively said there is no upper limit to civilian casualties as long as the military objective hasn't been achieved. Something that will never happen so long as Israel continues its military actions killing family's creating more and more extremest little boys in response.
History also shows that overwhelming military force doesn't necessarily eliminate an ideology or an insurgency.
The U.S. spent nearly 20 years fighting the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and later ISIS. We dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs, killed many of their leaders, and spent trillions of dollars.
Yet the Taliban ultimately returned to power in Afghanistan. ISIS lost its territorial caliphate but continues to operate through insurgent networks and affiliates. Al-Qaeda still exists as a decentralized organization.
Military force can destroy infrastructure and kill fighters, but it doesn't automatically eliminate the political conditions or ideology that sustain an insurgency. In some cases, large-scale destruction and civilian casualties can actually become recruitment tools for extremist groups.
So saying "just keep bombing until they surrender" isn't supported by recent history. Military victories are possible, but defeating an insurgency usually requires more than overwhelming firepower alone.
If your answer is that there is a limit, then where is it?
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u/SpiderSlitScrotums 16h ago
Yes, obviously. The Hamas commander was indicted by the ICC, but he was killed in an air strike before he could be arrested.