It was never about Hamas. A six minute summary.

The truth hurts 🤕

But wait.... There's more.

The reality is war is hell, and life is unfair.

People have forgotten how wars are fought.

More people died in the napalm bombings of Japan in WW 2 than the two nuclear bombs combined. More people died in Korea during Japans occupation and then proceeding Korean war. More people died during the London blitz, Nanking, Stalingrad , Bataan death march etc. the list goes on. The same is even true for the war in Ukraine many civilians, hospitals etc bombed too. In war you kill more of them than they do of you. The end goal remains the same elimination or surrender.

This is why nobody else is doing anything about this war because they don't want to risk their own skin. International law and morality is a joke neither side has the moral high ground in a conflict. History doesn't determine who's right only who's left.

“Self-Defense” Under International Law

Self-defense is the most basic legal right afforded to all sovereign nations.

Under both customary international law & Article 51 of the UN Charter, all countries acknowledge one another’s “inherent right” to self-defense against armed attack.

You may hear some claim Israel’s self-defense is limited to what he or she claims is “proportionate” to the Hamas Massacre of October 7-only. That is incorrect.

Israel’s right to self-defense under international law continues until it has eradicated the ongoing threat of further attacks by Hamas

Why? Well, the OctobreMassacre was only the latest & most deadly Terrorrist Attack by Hamas against Israel.

Hamas’ Goals Stated in its Charter

For anyone paying attention, Hamas does not hide its intentions. Its raison d’être is expressly stated in its 1988 Charter, which includes the following (just a few examples):

(1) Hamas is in a worldwide religious “struggle against the Jew”;

(2) Hamas intends to “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” (“from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea”) where it plans an Islamic Caliphate; and

(3) Hamas vows no Peace with Israel, claiming “Palestine is an Islamic land.”

Extent of Israel’s Legal Right to Self-Defense

Israel’s legal right to self-defense permits it to do everything “necessary” to ensure Hamas can never attack Israeli civilians again.

At a minimum, this is because of: (1) the genocidal brutality of Oct 7; (2) Hamas’ history of genocidal warfare against Israel & Jews; and (3) Hamas’ express commitment to repeat massacres like Oct 7 “over and over.”

Thus, Israel’s right to “self-defense” extends beyond just stopping Hamas’ immediate attacks (it still fires rockets daily at Israel), it permits Israel to completely eradicate Hamas’ military capability.

One way to think of how/why it is “necessary” for Israel to destroy Hamas’ military capability in self-defense is to understand countries not only have the right to eliminate threats to their civilian population, but they also have the right to restore a sense of security.

On October 7, Hamas shattered Israel’s sense of security since Hamas showed it had the capability to defeat Israel’s defensive measures.

Israel had invested heavily in defensive-only military capabilities such as building the Iron Dome system that intercepts the majority of rockets fired from Gaza & by constructing bomb shelters across the country.

However, on October 7, Hamas got around Israel’s defenses & carried out a genocidal massacre.

As a result, Israel is legally justified under international law to take necessary action in self-defense by completely destroying Hamas’ ability to make war or commit atrocities again by doing things such as: (1) capturing or killing Hamas’ command & control; (2) destroying Hamas’ combat capabilities by taking out operatives, launch sites, & military equipment; and (3) taking steps to prevent Hamas from reconstituting & rearming.

One additional thing to keep in mind with regard to Israel’s legal right to self-defense is the possibility that Israel could extend this right to Iran given its role as the main sponsor of Hamas in both weapons and terror training.

Whether Israel thinks it is a good idea to strike Iran directly remains to be seen; however, it is clear that Israel would be legally justified in doing so in order to stop Iran from funding attacks against its civilians.

Under International Humanitarian Law, proportionality requires that any degree of damage (up to and including death) to civlians not be “excessive” in relation to the “military advantage anticipated from a strike against a military target.”

We are going to break that down, so everyone understands what exactly that means.

However, first, you should be aware that it is a misnomer that anytime palestinian civilians die after an Israeli strike, it is automatically evidence of an Israeli war crime. This is completely false - the law does not work that way.

Simply, and unfortunately, the international rules of law recognize that civilians are often killed during war; and, most of the time, those deaths are actually not indicative of a war crime.

Instead, the legal test for “proportionality” requires that each individual strike be looked at with a particular balancing analysis.

First, here is a hard and fast rule: the strike must be intended to target a military objective; it is, therefore, an unlawful war crime to strike with the intent of targeting civilians without any military objective whatsoever.

Now, let’s get a little technical while still keeping it simple.

Under the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1977 at both Article 51(5)(b) and Article 52(2), we know that when Hamas uses its own population (or Israeli hostage) as human shields - either by using them to shield themselves or to shield their weapons depots - Hamas has, under international law, turned civilians targets into military targets.

That means that when Hamas places weapons caches in and under schools, hospitals, mosques, etc., Hamas has made each of those places legitimate military targets.

So, it has been well-known for many years that Hamas purposefully placed its headquarters underground beneath the al-Shifa Hospital. In doing so, international law holds that the hospital is no longer just a civilian target, it is a legitimate military target.

That does not necessarily give the IDF carte blanche to attack hospitals, schools, mosques, etc.; however, it does mean that an IDF attack on a civilian target that has been made into a military target by Hamas’ use of human shields is not per se illegal under international law.

Instead, such a strike (as is the case with any strike conducted by a military like the IDF), must be analyzed through a balancing test.

One part of this balancing test performed by Israel before each strike is to determine whether the human shields in question are being used voluntarily or involuntarily.

If the human shields are being used voluntarily - meaning the human shields are there protecting Hamas and its weapons of their own volition - then the target remains a completely legitimate military target.

If the human shields are being used involuntarily - meaning Hamas is forcing people to act as human shields to protect themselves and/or their weapons - then the IDF must go back to the balancing test to determine whether the anticipated military advantage of a successful strike would outweigh the reasonably anticipated loss of civilian life.

Importantly, the IDF rules state that if it cannot determine whether a human shield is being used voluntarily or involuntarily, it must presume the civilian is being used against his or her own will and treat the civilians as an involuntary participant.

Assuming that there is a military target & that there may be human shields that are there involuntarily, the next step in the proportionality analysis for each individual strike (remember, proportionality is determined on a strike-by-strike basis, and not as the accumulation of strikes over time) is to try to determine the likely amount of damage to civilian persons and/or property as a result of the strike.

In other words, under international law, Israel must be able to give a sort of “value” to the anticipated impact on civilians (including potential civilian deaths). Simply, a smaller number of anticipated civilian casualties may make the strike proportionate if there is a significant military advantage to be gained by conducting the strike.

However, if Israel determines that the anticipated impact of a strike may cause many civilian casualties, it must make the difficult determination of whether the anticipated military advantage is so significant that it warrants carrying out the strike anyway.

So, if Hamas has a weapons depot underneath a house with two civilians inside, and that house has been used to fire 500 rockets at Israeli civilians, and it is reasonably expected that there are hundreds more rockets under that house, Israel can almost certainly carry out the strike within the confines of international law.

If that same house, however, had 10 families living inside, including many children, it could - and likely would - tip the scales of the proportionality balancing test toward Israel not being permitted to carry out the strike, even though the house has been used to attack Israeli civilians and can be expected to continue to be used to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians.

Now, that balancing test can always change. If that same house is being used to fire long-range, precision-guided missiles at Israel’s major population centers in places like Tel Aviv (effectively putting millions of Israeli civilians in danger), the balancing test may tip back in favor of Israel being legally permitted to carry out the strike.

This all suggests the third and final step in the proportionality balancing test: the IDF must determine and place a “value” on the anticipated military advantage that would be gained if it were to carry out a particular strike.

An attack on Hamas leadership and/or its weapons manufacturers would be considered a high value target. An attack on a single Hamas member who has no special skill, would be a much lower value military target.

Similarly, an attack on a small cache of mortars would have less military value that an attack on a large cache of advanced rockets that can reach large Israeli civilian population centers.

Once the IDF determines the anticipated “value” of the likely effect on civilian persons and property and the anticipated “value” of the likely military advantage to be gained if the strike is carried out, the balancing test can be performed, and a certain amount of judgment must go into the determination of whether that strike would or would not be “proportionate.”

Importantly, this decision is so vital that the IDF does not simply permit a single solder on the ground with his or her hand on the proverbial (or actual) “trigger” to make that determination.

In fact, the decision of whether a strike is proportionate is not even left up to IDF officers. It’s not even left up to IDF Generals.

Instead, before any IDF strike can take place, IDF Guidelines provide that the proportionality balancing test must be presented to and analyzed by IDF military lawyers who then determine whether the strike is legally permissible as “proportionate” under international law and the rules of war.

And these IDF military lawyers are not mere patsies or people who simply “rubber stamp” what the IDF requests.

In fact, the IDF’s military lawyers work entirely independently of the IDF. They are outside of the chain of command and do not answer to anyone in the IDF, including a General (for example).

Plus, every IDF military lawyer knows he or she may very well be held to account if he or she makes a wrong decision based on the evidence available at the time.

Furthermore, sometimes the decisions to be made while balancing the likely military advantage against the likely civilian casualties can be so difficult that the legality of the strike is first brought to the Israeli Supreme Court for instant review.

Another important concept: the comparison of civilian body counts of Israeli versus Palestinians (to the extent those numbers can be trusted since they come directly from Hamas-only) is not relevant to a proportionality analysis. Each strike must be viewed individually to determine proportionality. It is not a test of the cumulative nature of the strikes.

Also, by simply comparing body counts, it does not factor in how many people killed were actually Hamas Terrorists, how many were Hamas collaborators there voluntarily, and it does not consider what military advantage was gained by Israel carrying out any individual strike.

As Israel is now in the process of seeking to secure the military advantage of preventing Hamas from having the capacity to carry out repeated attacks of the kind and nature seen on October 7th, Israel is permitted to act proportionately insofar as necessary to achieve that military objective (the elimination of Hamas and/or its ability to make war).

One more important fact people do not know, but that they should know: according to UN statistics of global conflict, the average civilian to combatant killed ratio is a rather appalling nine civilians killed for every one combatant killed.

That’s why civilian body counts in and of themselves are never indicative of a war crime. Each individual strike has to be analyzed, and unfortunately civilians always suffer disproportionately in wars.

In fact, while Israel is routinely criticized for any of its strikes that kill civilians, you may be surprised to know that Israel’s civilian to combatant ratio is routinely much lower than the nine to one average.

In the very last operation carried out by the IDF prior to October 7 (in Jenin), 0.6 civilians were killed for every one combatant killed.

In that conflict, not only were the IDF’s ratio numbers nowhere near the nine to one international average, but the IDF actually managed to kill more combatants than civilians - something that is extremely rare.

In truth, Israel is targeted by accusations of war crimes almost immediately by the media, by politicians, and by the UN General Assembly despite the fact that those accusations are near 100% of the time based neither in fact nor in law.

Since a proportionality balancing test must be used to determine whether a single specific Israeli strike falls within the confines of international law, someone providing an analysis must have all of the facts Israel considered before carrying out that strike as to the anticipated impact on civilians and the anticipated military advantage. Obviously, anyone who is making a snap judgment critical of Israel could not possibly have that information.

Understand then, that when you see talking heads accusing Israel of “war crimes” immediately after and/or during Israeli strikes, that is not an actual legal analysis under international law of what constitutes a war crime.

Much more likely, what you are witnessing is part of Hamas’ ongoing psychological and propaganda warfare campaign of demonizing and delegitimizing the State of Israel in the eyes of public opinion.

Quote from SandyBee3

I'm not here to assert that Israel is truthful; they could very well be lying. However, these tweets, in all seriousness, fail to debunk anything. They lack the impartiality of an independent third party, and the OP introduces doubt, saying things like 'I doubt.' As a result, these statements amount to speculations, which cannot be treated as absolute truths. It's worth considering that there might be a vested interest from the pro-Palestine side to dispute certain claims, aiming to prevent the perception that what's happening in Gaza is justified.

There are literally people out there distorting historical events just to do so.

Both sides have clear motives to distort facts and share misinformation. And allies sometimes intentionally or unintentionally ( because they want to support) post whatever they think will be in Palestinians favor without fact checking. Each side seeks unwavering support for their cause.

Indeed people have agendas and will ignore history

This is real truth and for those that want to deny it the truth hurts.

This video illustrates why people talking about genocide is stupid. Because logically it doesn't make sense especially if Israel is immune to any UN action

Besides the ethnic cleansing from 1948 till now (which math tells us that is 75 years) and the genocide that's been happening with a second nakba taking place, the ultimate root of all things will always be money and greed. A story as old as time.

Hamas didn't exist in 1948 yet many people were killed and exiled it was always about stealing Palestine resources

Quote from nana18

Hamas didn't exist in 1948 yet many people were killed and exiled it was always about stealing Palestine resources

Which is the funniest thing to me. Jews esp EUROPEAN Jews should ALL hate European nations and band together with the rest of the world in humbling them but no, they are in bed with the people who for hundreds of years wanted to get rid of them, even almost wiping them out as the "final solution" but here we are.

Quote from chounim

Hamas claim it's not possible to store weapons next to an MRI machine

This is actually true. MRI machines have extremely powerful magnetic fields rated in the tens of tons in strength they can easily rip metal out of you the moment you set foot in the room and the force only gets stronger the closer you get. Only way this was theoretically possible is if the machine was out of service entirely. Which does seem possible as the covers were removed. Plus since Gaza is heavily controlled and sanctioned it's possible, as the extremely expensive he3 liquid needed to cool those magnets aren't cheap, if it's offline and the magnets have been quenched,then you can't use the unit until you get a refill and that's upwards of 25,000$.

If there's important strategic resources in gaza how come hamas didn't turn Gaza into a first world nation like Israel is? When Israel left Gaza in 2005 They left all the industry stuff there, how come nobody there used that stuff? Instead of making missiles lol. All those pipes could have been used to make oil wells. How come Egypt which controlled Gaza before Israel, didn't keep the territory, in addition to this how come Egypt which shares a border with Gaza, didn't open diplomacy with them why do they maintain a "prison" border like Israel has? You'd think it would be smart for Egypt to make nice with them and help them build up Gaza while getting a taste of that oil. Why haven't they nor Jordan do this? How come the Palestinian authority in the west bank not jump on this?

In all of this the world leaders see this and never condemn Israel and their actions or demande a ceasefire

Quote from SandyBee3

I’m aware. And this is why it’s so frustrating.

For them to be careful they need to understand that they shouldn’t trust everyone in what they post on social media. But people believe whoever post something because they support the same side they do.

So much antisemitism and islamophobia on social media at the moment, but especially antisemitism and encouraged.

Moments like this shows how easy it is for history to repeat itself.

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Exactly it's frustratingly annoying and also dangerous. That people are openly supporting this stuff because they saw it on Twitter etc and didn't fact check a damn thing. Worse is i have watched interviews where people join the protests and ask people about Hamas and these people have said oh they are the freedom fighters the good guys🤡🤡 when 99% of them haven't even learned the name of the region they are protesting about let alone the factions and people and the history etc.

It's to the point that seeing this alarming trend that we are seeing growing calls from local citizens upto government talking about stripping visas from hamas supporters and deporting them. Seeing news from the west they are going further than that to penalizing colleges that allow it including removing funding and also looking at kicking everyone out including citizens that support hamas.

People that don't like our " civilized" societies will soon be forced to go where they are supporting and see for themselves if it's where they want to be

Quote from chounim

Israel : /isolates Gaza inside a walled fence, controls thei water and electricity supply, controls the number of calories allowed inside Gaza for consumption based on gender and age, controls their borders, restricts their travels, bombed their only airport, restricts and controls what kind of goods are allowed inside Gaza, bans cement and construction materials, takes away their right of self determination and does not recognise Palestine as a sovereign country, carries out illegal expansions and settlements in the west bank, employs an apartheid regime where Palestinians movement is restricted inside the west bank to the point of segregated roads and neighborhoods where Palestinians aren't allowed entry, employs excessive intrusive checkpoints that makes it a struggle to even make it on time for school and work.

Allkpop user Kazu something something : how come Palestinians didn't turn their besieged, occupied land into a first world nation? How come the Palestinian authority in the west bank didn't make good use of Gaza's resources even though Palestinians aren't allowed to travel from the west bank to Gaza unless they pledge to never return????

I'm losing my mind at the fucking audacity to know absolutely nothing but still feel the entitlement to say too much

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Israel build a walled fence on their border. egypt did the same. every country controlls their border. its gaza who needs to work on better relations with their neighbors if they want changes in this regard. Threaten them with extinction is not the way to go.

Israel does not controll Gaza water supply. gaza gets 80% of their water from their own gazan coastal aquilifer. 10% from their own salination plant and 10% they buy from israeli water company. the water supply was allready on the verge of collapse befor the war since gazan local authority is to busy building rockets and tunnels instead of take care of that. so if the gazan civilians lack water its because they are not under israel but hamas authority.

If you expect israel supply gaza with utilities after they started a war you are insane.

Of course they controll who travel into their country. They do so to secure the safety of their people. no country recognise palestine since they dont behave like one.

They let like 67.000 trucks into gaza in 2022. no other region receive as much aid as gaza. you can work in a civilised way to improve that or you fight and it gets less.

If you think most palestines and israelis want war you stupid.

On palestine side its a bunch of young fanatic islamists and on israel side its a bunch of extremist settlers who cause the trouble. both parties are a minority on their side.

Quote from SandyBee3

I don’t know when it went from calling out the injustice Palestinians are facing to actively supporting the Hamas.

I was also shocked to hear how many universities allow or even encourage this nonsense. Imagine paying thousands for your tuition to be thought absolute nothing. No wonder the rest of the world continues to not take Americans serious.

I mean here in Germany majorityof young people are in support of Palestine too, but they also condemn the Hamas and also see things more nuanced. Maybe it’s because we got better history lessons, I feel like Europe does a way better job in that aspect anyway.

Welcome to Columbia Untisemity

Pro Hamas college students sketch as aired on the Israeli satire TV show "What a Wonderful Country" on channel Keshet 12. #ColumbiaUntisemtiy

www.youtube.com

This pro-palestine slogan "From the river to the sea, Hitler would agree" is now illegal in germany like all kind of support for holocaust .