We know what happens with peaceful protests, elections, and foreign interference (and more foreign interference), so how can Palestine gain it’s freedom? Any positive ideas are welcome, because this situation is already a humanitarian crisis and is looking bleaker by the day.
Historical references are also valuable in this discussion, like slave revolts or the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, although hopefully in the case of Palestine a peaceful and successful outcome can be achieved, as opposed to some of the historical events above.
By not killing civilians maybe. By engaging in actual normal warfare if it insists it cannot achieve success peacefully. By not encouraging persecution around the world or siding with nations such as Russia and North Korea. By respecting human rights within its borders. Can’t be too much to ask.
What is “normal warfare?”
Warfare that is self-contained, distinguishes between combatant and non-combatant, does not cause damage that ends up being permanent, and doesn’t make metaphorical deals with the devil.
There is no such thing as “normal” or “good” or “moral” warfare. War is war. And war is hell. Regardless of where it’s happening or what reasons are given to justify it. Every bit of time, resources, and effort directed toward war is time, resources, and effort stolen from advancing humanity and uplifting ourselves. By it’s very nature, war has no rules. The dream of a “self-contained, limited-casualty, non-permanent damage” warfare is frankly naive. My experience may be colored by having grown up in and witnessed war in various times in my life, but there is NEVER a reason for war. Because at the end of each and every disagreement, conflict, war…etc., one thing happens: they have to sit down and talk. So it’s all just futile and wasted effort. We steal from ourselves and our children only to end up doing the very thing we should have been doing all along: putting ego (in the psychological sense) aside and talking.
That is assuming war is a single entity. War is more like a series of actions due to how blurry it is. Certainly a hacking is far better than sending a nuclear missile for example. It is these actions that are condemnable when we say war is condemnable. Sometimes a war is even one-sided enough we don’t even call it a war. In Palestine’s case, had they not resorted to what amounts to forcing the burden, they’d have less dismissal than, say, simply sending regular units.
This is a justification (and not a good one, imo), like the ones I was talking about above. There is no just war. No just response. It just creates more death and destruction.
Maybe ask Israel to stop occupying Gaza (and the rest of Palestine) before demanding that. This isn’t a war between countries; this is an occupied territory fighting for freedom.
Gaza has not been occupied since 2005.
Palestinian arabs have been launching pogroms against Jews without rest since 1920, but Israel didn’t occupy the West Bank or Gaza until 1967. Maybe if Israelis felt they could possibly be safe without occupying the West Bank, they would try it. Like they tried with Gaza. Gee, look how that played out.
Gee, I wonder how Germany and Japan managed to get freedom from occupation… Oh right, they went with peace!
Ask the UN what they think of Gaza’s status. Hint: They won’t say “independent state”.
The United Nations, international human rights organizations and many legal scholars regard the Gaza Strip to still be under military occupation by Israel.[4] This is disputed by Israel and other legal scholars.[74] They argue that occupation requires an actual, physical presence by a military force that maintains authority.
Following the withdrawal, Israel continued to maintain direct control over Gaza’s air and maritime space, six of Gaza’s seven land crossings, maintains a no-go buffer zone within the territory, controls the Palestinian population registry, and Gaza remains dependent on Israel for its water, electricity, telecommunications, and other utilities.[4][75]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza
I don’t care what their opinion is, Israel in fact ended the occupation of Gaza in 2005.
People are now upset about a blockade that started in 2007. Aside from ignoring the reasons for the blockade, and totally ignoring the two years between the end of the occupation and the start of the blockade, people like to pretend the blockade is an occupation because it’s not very nice and they don’t know how to talk about an unoccupied Gaza (or because they’re just too stupid to know what’s going on there).
There’s still a right and wrong way to do that. The attack on October 7th is unbecoming of anyone who wouldn’t exist in shame if they had that freedom. In fact, if Palestine and Hamas are distinct, literally the only thing Palestine had to do was condemn Hamas’ actions that day, even if Palestine enjoyed the fruits of the attack, but Palestine instead decided to stand by Hamas. And here everyone is.
So I wrote about this before so I’ll just copy and paste:
The serious argument that October 7th was legitimate resistance relies on the fact that it was against military targets, with no evidence the leadership ordered anything close to slaughter of civilians. Add in that even after the IDF shelled and shot their own citizens the civilian casualty rate was 66% and the idea that Hamas just passed the border and randomly murdered civilians falls apart pretty quickly. Of course not denying the atrocities that actually happened, but October 7th as a whole was legitimate resistance with an army that’s prone to committing war crimes, not a terror attack with the goal of murdering civilians. This distinction is important because “atrocities were committed on October 7th” and “October 7th was a terror attack” aren’t equivalent statements.
End copy paste.
Therefore there’s no reason to condemn the attack. The lack of condemnation of atrocities committed during the attack is pretty bad and the result of rampant anti-Semitism in the Arab world, but there’s no reason to condemn October 7th itself.
The resistance argument falls apart when you remember the attacks coincided with not one but two Jewish observances. Ever since the hospital incident, it’s also widely known for fact in developed nations that those targeting Israel have been honest about the war and is good at its dishonesty.
It also coincided with the 50th anniversary of October 7th, basically the Arab victory over Israel. Also Idk if the Jewish observances were intentional or not, but attacking your enemy while they have their guard down is common sense.
Then there would’ve been plenty of other opportunities, this one still being too oddly specific. Even moreso if it coincides with a victory date. It’s no different from how the World Trade Center was attacked on 9/11 because 911 is an important number in communication. It’s hyperstigmatization which is a timeless tactic used in terror.
What’s often downplayed is that during the Oct 7 revolt, Israeli child casualties were 3% of total casualties. We know how that figures against Palestinian child casualties.
I think it’s when
both countries have a military
the countries at war are not bound by occupation law.
How could they engage in normal warfare?
Edit: also, does killing civilians make a whole country fair game to be attacked violently or something?
Let me put it this way, how many of us are anti-nuclear-arms? I’m sure most of us are. Nuclear assault is seen as the epitome of abnormal warfare as it kills people who have nothing to do with a conflict, and nuclear war, defined as when the two nations start throwing nuclear weapons at each other, is seen as absolutely unnecessary escalation under any circumstances considered normal as well as no better just because someone fired the first shot. If there is no distinction between “normal” and “abnormal” warfare though, surely nuclear attack wouldn’t be off the table.
Other forms of warfare follow this logic. Biological weapons attack indiscriminate people and spread in a population and even cross borders. Arson spreads and doesn’t care what it consumes. Landmines like those still littering previously war-torn nations, including those we discuss here, are not programmed to factor in political or religious allegiance. Such things are akin to boxing out of a ring and are highly condemned. If Palestine and its allies don’t change its stance on how warfare is supposed to work, then if they did become fully independent, it would be a shameful new existence, built on national character flaws that would haunt and define any who call themselves Palestinian patriots.
When the Ismaili Muslims were still around in the 1100’s, their mode of warfare was simply to have spies sneak into a fortress and eliminate the leader, sparing the people who do the dirty work, with the intention that the heir would yield, like how in chess you wouldn’t eliminate the other pieces besides the king if you don’t have to. It was called fedai warfare and this was the world’s most peaceful form of open warfare and perhaps more normal than what we call normal. What a leap we took in modern times, where nobody is safe and nothing is off the table.
Targeting civilians is bad.
Terrorists, including those who target civilians, are combatants, and are valid targets. They remain valid targets when they use schools, hospitals, mosques, churches, and residential areas as bases for combat operations. This is pretty clear in international law.
Israel still must not target civilians, and must take reasonable measures to minimize civilian casualties of war. We’ve seen Israel, in at least some contexts, take quite extreme measures to warn civilians, help evacuate civilians, and carefully target munitions to minimize civilian death despite Hamas and PIJ using those civilians as human shields.
The raw numbers are still gruesome… unless you compare them to other instances of urban warfare, in which case the numbers are actually lower than many would expect. The civilian death ratio, as far as we’ve been able to estimate (since Hamas does not estimate), appears to be lower than usual.
Civilian deaths are tragic. It would obviously be much better if Hamas had not started this war, or if they would agree to the ceasefire Israel offered, or if they weren’t so committed to war in general. But they are. They frequently condemn even the concept of peace, and insist that they will repeat the October 7th attack as often as they can. There is no avenue to peace while they remain in power.
So the war will continue. And we will continue to hope that Israel does its best to minimize harm to civilians.