I would argue that it's quite easy to judge, at any distance, the collective punishment of civilians through the withholding of the essentials of life.
We've a referendum this weekend largely on whether we're ready to confront uncomfortable and complex consequences of a history of colonial violence. What's more difficult is reconciling these sorts of statements from a government that says it is.
Well, looking at the Geneva convention and Article 8 "War Crimes" of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, "Intentionally using starvation of civilians as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects indispensable to their survival, including wilfully impeding relief supplies as provided for under the Geneva Conventions."
And one committing a crime doesn't allow the other to do the same. So either get pissed at both sides for war crimes or get pissed at none. But trying to excuse war crimes for one side in a war is a disgustingly hypocritical thing to do.
So either get pissed at both sides for war crimes or get pissed at none.
Yeah, not many people are taking that step.
I tend to think of it this way, personally: stealing is wrong, but it's more acceptable to steal when you're poor than when you're rich. Both sides are committing attrocities, but one does so to opress while the other to liberate themselves from opression. I will acknowledge that my understanding of the conflict is very limited though, so this might be oversimplified or outright incorrect.
That is a polite way of saying the optics of the situation are awful and you want to admonish your ally but not openly criticize them.
Also, "what you're doing is real shitty, but we can't really talk about human rights abuses without making ourselves look like hypocrites".
In practical terms how do you organise aid for a state you're at war with? How do you ensure the safety of your aid workers in a way that doesn't involve your military, but also doesn't just provide new hostages? How do you stop your own aid workers from getting in the way of military operations?
I guarantee you Israel wouldn't do this if they had a better option, this will only radicalise the normal people who start to go hungry and thirsty.
In practical terms you avoid the situation entirely by not operating an open air prison for decades and indiscriminately bombing civilians, thereby breeding terrorists with nothing to loose, and then cutting off the food, water and electricity to civilians as a collective punishment.
You guarantee Israel wouldn't do this if they had a better option? I think it's far more likely that the far right in Israel have just been waiting for an excuse to do this.
Seems like not cutting off food water and electricity would be easier than "organizing aid"
You understand food does not come through a pipe right
You understand food has to come from somewhere and Israel controls the sea, the air and most of the land while bombing the fuck out of the people and infrastructure.
Yeah and so it's not simple for them to provide the necessary logistics while taking into account their other priorities.
Not starving millions of people right on their doorstep is not highest on their list of priorities?
It's pretty easy to not cut off their power supply that they control.
It's pretty easy to stop carpet bombing civilians (including the banned use of phosphorus weapons near densely populated areas which happened yesterday)
It's pretty easy to not stop humanitarian aid.
It's pretty easy to stop blockading them.
It's pretty easy to stop killing them indiscriminately.
They just choose not to do the right thing.
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