[Quanttek]

Years ago, scholars (such as Didier Bigo) have already raised concerns about the targeting of individuals merely based on (indirect) association with a "terrorist" or "criminal". Originally used in the context of surveillance (see Snowden revelations), such systems would target anyone who would be e.g. less than 3-steps away from an identified individual, thereby removing any sense of due process or targeted surveillance. Now, such AI systems are being used to actually kill people - instead of just surveil.

IHL actually prohibits the killing of persons who are not combatants or "fighters" of an armed group. Only those who have the "continuous function" to "directly participate in hostilities"[1] may be targeted for attack at any time. Everyone else is a civilian that can only be directly targeted when and for as long as they directly participate in hostilities, such as by taking up arms, planning military operations, laying down mines, etc.

That is, only members of the armed wing of Hamas (not recruiters, weapon manufacturers, propagandists, financiers, …) can be targeted for attack - all the others must be arrested and/or tried. Otherwise, the allowed list of targets of civilians gets so wide than in any regular war, pretty much any civilian could get targeted, such as the bank employee whose company has provided loans to the armed forces.

Lavender is so scary because it enables Israel's mass targeting of people who are protected against attack by international law, providing a flimsy (political but not legal) justification for their association with terrorists.

[1]: https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/assets/files/other/icrc-002-0990...

[surfingdino]

It always starts with making a list of targets that meet given criteria. Once you have the list its use changes from categorisation to demonisation -> surveillance -> denial of rights -> deportations -> killing. Early use of computers by Germans during WW2 included making and processing of lists of people who ought to be sent to concentration camps. The only difference today is that we are able to capture more data and process it faster at scale.

[Qem]

There's even books written about it. Shame on IBM for this. I suspect in the future we'll have lots of books like this, for other companies enabling this genocide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

[imjonse]

The same author wrote Nazi Nexus, with separate chapters for different US companies' (Ford, GM) dealings with the Nazi regime. It can always be a case of "let's not bring politics into work" attitude or the belief that "tech is a tool only, can be used for good or ill" but at least in the years leading up to WW2 there was a lot of support for eugenics, antisemitism (Henry Ford was a notorious one) and other Nazi tendencies in the US too. I would not be surprised if many of those working on killer AI today were politically motivated and not just developers caught in projects they don't really have their hearts in.

[zelphirkalt]

Only recently someone here on HN posted a video about some big hall in the US, where nazi supporters gathered in droves. It made it seem like they had significant ideological footing in the US as well. Unthinkable what could have happened, if they had had even more support. Not exactly this video that was linked, but this seems to be about the same gathering: https://invidious.baczek.me/watch?v=r4zRZ7XLYSA

[cmurf]

It was 1939 at Madison Square Garden, NYC

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2019/02/20/695941323...

You’ll find these bad ideas never really die. Look and you’ll see it throughout time and location. Russia, Germany, the U.S., Japan. Tyranny isn’t something accidental, exotic or mysterious. People take their eye off the ball and get clobbered with it from time to time.

I’ll always argue we’re better off with a world war than tyranny, but the whole goddamn point of the UN Charter is to prevent both. The lesson was learned. It was written down. And we’re still fucking it up again.

[Sleepful]

Operation Paperclip et al

[GaryNumanVevo]

Don't forget Japanese Unit 731, all the scientists involved were whisked away to the US if they would give up their research on human subjects to the US military and help translate.

[boppo1]

Is any of that declassified now? Did we actually learn anything other than 'causing pain causes pain'?

[selimthegrim]

The weird thing is, I’ve seen this author post factually incorrect things about early Islamic history. I just wish he was more careful about things outside his area of expertise.

[palmfacehn]

There's such a premium on outlining the crimes of the Nazis. Condemning eugenics and the culture of blind adherence to institutional norms is valuable. However the concerns ring hollow when we apply it in the retrospective or accusatory rather than the introspective sense.

For decades, Nazi-adjacency has been just another insult to be hurled at the political opponents we've othered. Depending on where you are on the political spectrum, "Nazi" could be synonymous with Elon Musk. In one breath we trivialize the evil humanity is capable of inflicting upon itself. In the next breath we exclaim, "Never again!"

The American Eugenics Society rebranded itself into, "Society for Biodemography and Social Biology". Ambiguous terms like, "bioethics" are used by eugenicist think tanks like "The Hastings Center" where explicit appeals to eugenics are undesirable. The Club of Rome evolved into the WEF. Paul Ehrlich's ideas are as popular as ever. The same eugenicist appeals for population control remain in the forefront of public discourse. Even here on HN, you will regularly find posters lamenting the impending doom of climate change. The answer, if you ask many here is the eugenicist policy of population control.

There are other themes in parallel, but I'll try to keep it somewhat concise and less controversial.

It isn't only the "Banality of Evil" or an engineer only who wants to go home to watch Netflix after designing a killer drone. Similar authoritarian ideas are celebrated in our popular discourse. Instead of examining these ideas critically, we accuse political others, dehumanize them and finally rationalize them into the Nazis.

[CatWChainsaw]

In the future, AI will be so good that it will detect criticism of IBM as you are typing and threaten to lock you out of "your" computer unless you delete your work.

Either that or genAI will be used to publish a bunch of books telling fantasy stories about how IBM personally arrested Hitler. :)

[ysofunny]

as it turns out, there's a better way.

already the AI detects criticism of itself. except its response it's to shadowban you meaning you can continue to post but nobody sees your opinion online.

eventually, you're "bubbled" by AIs.. all your interactions online are surrounded by an AI and you'd think you're interacting with other people when you're just AI-bubbled so to not disrupt the rest of the workers.

you'll still see likes, and other interactions with the social media posts you leave behind, but as a flagged critic of the system, all these interactions are merely faked to keep you calm. as the AI advances you'll even see responses, retweets and other interactions.... all AI driven in order to keep you busy while IBM keeps a calm overwatch over all. the end.

[CapeTheory]

Ridiculous fantasizing - there is simply no way that IBM would be able to build something as good as that.

[ysofunny]

they don't have to, they bought it. or hired it? dunno. for all you know I'm an AI intended to keep you distracted while at the same time you're just an AI bot keeping me occupied with pointless online discussions.

even if neither of us is actually an AI, this interaction will surely aid in training some LLM in the end...

[pyinstallwoes]

How do you know if you're in the correct reality that isn't predicted by AI?

[TeMPOraL]

Not today, no. But remember that IBM is critical to SERN due to the importance of IBM 5100 for time travel, so there's a bit of technological back and forth going on within the ~100 year period we happen to be at the center of right now.

[more_corn]

Slow clap.

[aatd86]

Could probably implement this on twitter very easily if it hasn't been already.

Or at a higher level, at the ISP level.

Targeted via DNS tunneling and all.

[vintermann]

Twitter doesn't bother being subtle about it. They aggressively bury anyone mentioning a rival platform.

[red-iron-pine]

like the reddit "shadowban", where your comment isn't shown to others but is visible to you in the thread.

fudge the up/down votes to make it look like it's been seen but not reacted to.

but do you need to burn cycles on AI to keep these people engaged? if someone is spamming stuff you don't want seen have them throw out a basic response and then shadowban or just straight-up ban them. if they're very negative bad actor types just give em the boot

[nebula8804]

Wouldn't this bubble system only work if you are on a platform that has it? And you can also easily test to see if you are being "bubbled".

Enough frustrated people will use AI to quickly generate the code for an alternative platform to avoid this bubble system.

It will be individual platforms all the way down...oh wait.

[fy20]

Welcome to the future of racial / political / ideological / social status segregation.

On platforms like Facebook or YouTube where the feed is algorithmically generated and you can't easily view a filtered list of topics (like Reddit) something like this would be very easy.

The interactions don't even need to be generated by AI, it just needs to keep you seeing interactions with other people in your social status circle. And if you try to venture too far outside of that it shadow bans you.

Heck I'd be surprised if the way the news feed algorithms work today they don't already do something like this, as a byproduct of optimising for viewership.

They'd just need to take it a bit further by preventing you from seeing viewpoints outside your circle. So taking the WWII example, people in the Nazi group would not be able to see pro-Ally content. All they'd see about Allies would be content that paints them in a bad light, and vice versa.

[nebula8804]

It is already happening, just recently Instagram pushed out an update to 'quietly' limit political content (ie. pro Palestinian voices) to all users by default without informing them.

[1]:https://time.com/6960587/meta-instagram-political-content-li...

[MilStdJunkie]

One of the reasons for the adoption of the Hollerith Tabulator in the great 1890 Census - arguably the birth of computing in the United States - was the increasing concern about . . let's say ethnics. To be frank, there were too many of them. "Japanese," "Chinese," "Negro," "mulatto," "quadroon," "octoroon," "negrito", etc etc. So in 1890, we needed dozens of new categories, and the old methods simply would not work. At least in terms of usable - actionable[1] - data in a quantitative setting.

Its success was so marked that it was immediately decided in 1893 to move a Tabulator to Ellis Island, to count the ethnics from the source with Hollerith's new technology. Herman Hollerith had great success in his own lifetime, the technology eventually becoming the core of the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, otherwise known, a decade later, as International Business Machines.

The establishment of this clear process surrounding race - actual race law - was, believe it or not, pretty novel in Western history. A lot of old-timey race policy - like the relationship between a monarch and the Jews, or what exactly a visiting Muslim could or couldn't do (like sell and buy slaves cough Venice cough) - this race stuff was almost always very, ah, what we'd call "tribal knowledge". A Jew in the Middle Ages could have far greater rights and lifestyle than in later periods, but those rights were completely unpredictable; this was true to greater or lesser extent for many "outsiders" in the early European era. Even in 1900 American innovation in race law - based on "Science!" - was a new thing, and extremely exciting to the enthusiasts of folk movements[2] crisscrossing our entire civilization[3] at the time. One of those was Willy Heidinger, who established Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft to produce license-built Hollerith machines. World events interceded, however, and the German civil service infrastructure to run a census would not be present until much later . . 1933, in fact, when things would get very spicy indeed in the world of race "science".

And then, of course, cataclysm: the end of the European Order.

On the European continent, a debt to truth was paid. A hundred million dead or maimed, nations wrecked, a whole world - a weltanschauung - burnt down to the foundations - below the foundations. But elsewhere - like in the New World - the lesson was not as stark. And in yet other places the inverse lesson was learned: once you determine a person is not a person, you must brutalize yourself and your population immediately, before the soon-to-be-unpeople realizes that the struggle is existential.

Let's wrap this up.

What 20th century Race Science/Race Law were trying to do was make sense of something as complicated as human culture but using the sciences they understood: 19th century statistics, the physics of iron and steam. Those were the sciences with the capital backing, so - of course! - those were the only science that mattered. Today, we're looking at another complex element of the human experience - human language, human consciousness - and again, we're looking at it through the science that's got the most capital backing it: computation. That's how "text" somehow, incredibly, came to contain "language". Or how "scarcity" was represented by "money" - as if there were any N-dimensional descriptions that could adequately vectorize either of those concepts.

Ultimately, when you really dig yourself into these sorts of artificial - if not downright dishonest - "science-y" establishments, when you start imposing them on the world, you don't break out of them easily. Or without damage. The people making use of your LLM widget do not understand the math - all they know, like the race science of previous centuries - is that it's Science-y. It might as well be wearing a Mitre and Crosier.

[1] What those actions were, is a subject for another post. Probably inside a soon-to-be-flagged topic.

[2] The American example in race law was also very exciting to a certain Mr. Adolf Hitler, as well. You can read all about it in Mein Kampf. Hitler's attitude towards America is really fascinating stuff, but an entirely other subject.

[3] And beyond! Ethnonationalism spread like fire, as colonized peoples realized this could be their big ticket towards peerage in the European age.

[cess11]

IBM decided who was jewish, roma, socialist, and so on? IBM:s machines found these people and brought them to the attention of genocidal authorities?

[rdtsc]

> Everyone else is a civilian that can only be directly targeted when and for as long as they directly participate in hostilities, such as by taking up arms, planning military operations, laying down mines, etc.

There is some incredible magic that often happens: as soon as anyone is targeted and killed, they immediately transform from civilians to "collaborators", "terrorists", "militants" etc. Of course everything is classified and restricted to avoid anyone snooping around and asking questions.

[skinkestek]

In Norway it is rather the other way:

We all know (if we stop and think) that a person can be both a teacher and a terrorist.

But according to media here almost every victim except top Hamas brass seems to be referred to by their whatever else they were besides terrorists and the terrorists (or even just soldier) part get hushed down.

[NomDePlum]

Can you site an example of this please?

It's contradictory to my understanding of what is happening.

By that, I mean, when the few remaining police left in Northern Gaza, who had reported to be critical to providing security for aid deliveries (and involved in coordination with Israel) where assassinated recently by Israel, and claimed as high ranking Hamas targets it pretty much cemented my opinion that nothing is true, or believable from Israel in this conflict.

How are you defining terrorist here as well? As other than the horrific events of October 7th, and the hostages from that day, the only visible acts of violence and terror associated with Palestine appear to be towards anyone Palestinian, journalists, aid workers and medical staff.

[skinkestek]

> How are you defining terrorist here as well? As other than the horrific events of October 7th, and the hostages from that day, the only visible acts of violence and terror associated with Palestine appear to be towards anyone Palestinian, journalists, aid workers and medical staff.

You can start with the large scale, multi year campaign of using MLRS ramps to shoot barrages of unguided rockets from Gaza and Lebanon into Israel.

That is indiscriminate - or even targeting civilians directly.

But because Israel has gone to extreme lengths to counter it there are few causalities these days and combined with medias extreme one-sidedness that means we don't even hear when they hit a hospital in Israel last year.

Cynically speaking, Iron Dome has been an expensive PR disaster for Israel, but that is what one get for caring about ones own citizens and not being allowed to just do counter battery fire until the enemy stops.

[ThinkBeat]

When people complain that disadvantaged people fighting asymmetrically use "unguided missiles" it makes me think that we need to provide them with the technology and means of production and infrastructure to shoot smart missiles instead.

That could in theory allow the asymmetris side to kill less civilians and more military targets.

Would that make the whole situation better? There would no longer be outrage that they use -unguided- missiles.

The unguided missiles that are used to today are of such poor quality that they seldom hit anything. A majority are tracked by Irondome but never targeted since the system predicts it wont do any harm

Properly targeted missiles would be far more likely to hit a target unless Iron Dome manages to shoot it down.

In the end is it not the case that "unguided" missiles are an advantage for IDF rather than a problem?

[skinkestek]

Alternatively we could withhold aid and make it clear we will only send what they need to survive until there has been a full month without attacks.

Since Israel doesn't attack first that will be the end of the hostilities.

We can then start discussing when and how to normalize the borders and reopen the airport as the situation normalizes.

[NomDePlum]

My understanding of what you have said:

Israel has had rockets fired at it. It was frightening for the population (understandably), but it didn't affect us much.

So I agree that's an impact of terrorism. But, it's really saying we haven't been impacted since October 7th is it not?

Not a criticism, and a good thing. My response is just related to earlier questions. Which are now reopened.

[skinkestek]

Sadly rocket barrages continued way after 07 of October.

Even during the short cease fire there was at least one rocket barrage.

Say what you want but they surely have manage to do the things they prioritize.

[zild3d]

> As other than the horrific events of October 7th, and the hostages from that day, the only visible acts of violence and terror associated with Palestine appear to be towards anyone Palestinian

That's a wildly inaccurate statement. There has been continual rockets fired into Israel, as well fairly regular incidents of stabbings, shootings, etc.

https://www.tzevaadom.co.il/en/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/three-seriously-wounded-in-ter...

Not intending to make any justification or moral comparison in either direction, but it is objectively untrue that violence/terror has only been in one direction post Oct 7th

[NomDePlum]

Fair point. Apologies for not mentioning that.

[YZF]

Not sure what's the point of your last paragraph. Clearly there have been many documented visible "acts of violence" towards the IDF in Gaza. There have also been rockets fired from Gaza into Israel for weeks since Oct 7th and even in recent days. Plenty of "visible" acts of violence. By the way, Hamas also killed Palestinians they suspected of collaborating with Israel during this time.

Hamas Police is Hamas. Hamas is a terrorist organization (e.g. where I live in Canada). I.e. everyone in Hamas is a terrorist, at least in Canada, the US, the EU, and I'm pretty sure in Israel. They earned that by indiscriminately attacking civilians and according to organizations like Amnesty International committing crimes against humanity.

Soldiers, even if they commit war crimes, are not generally labelled as terrorists. I know sucks to be a terrorist. They fight by different rules so they get different names (they wear uniforms etc.).

[cess11]

The palestinians have a right to violent resistance to the occupation. On the Gaza strip they're denied international relations and trade so they can only make very primitive military equipment, which means that to reach an effect at all they pretty much have to fire unguided rockets into Israel. When they tried non-violent protest against the occupation, the "March of Return", by demonstrating at the border they were systematically mutilated by the IDF.

There is an alternative, sure, prepare for a year and then invade Israel. Which they did, after decades of "mowing the lawn" as the israelis call it.

The terror organisation classification of Hamas isn't as much about the political party or its affiliated militia as manufactured consent to relations with Israel and traditions among colonial states. The modern 'West' usually calls its enemies terrorist, like it did during the Mau Mau uprising. This is why so few states agree with this classification.

You don't have to like Hamas but compared to the PA they're not very corrupt, and since they stopped doing suicide bombings they've been quite successful as a resistance movement. Since several years back they've also been quite good at unifying and coordinating the political parties and militias on the Gaza strip in preparation for and during periods of israeli military aggression, including with their main competitor in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, socialists from PFLP/DFLP/Fatah movement, Iran's Mujahideen movement and so on.

Hamas isn't just a political party with a militia, it's also a charity movement. To most people it seems weird to call people terrorists because they take care of their vulnerable neighbours and run soup kitchens and the like.

[YZF]

People keep saying "right to a violent resistance" but it's not a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_resist

Nobody has the "right" to kill other people. That's not a right.

Gaza was not occupied, so they specifically didn't have the right you claim they had that doesn't even exist.

> On the Gaza strip they're denied international relations and trade.

This is also not true. When Israel left in 2005 they pretty much had control of their destiny. They chose to elect Hamas, that said its goal is to kill all Jews in the world. They chose to keep attacking Israel after Israel left. The full blockade on Gaza from the Israeli side was only imposed after Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza still has a border with Egypt where they were free to negotiate any trade or relationships they felt like. Except the Egyptians didn't like them any better than Israel because they supported ISIS in Sinai.

[WJW]

Nobody calls them terrorists because they run soup kitchens. People call them terrorists because they take children hostage and kill civilians. Destroying the Israel and killing its inhabitants is literally in their founding charter, and they act upon it whenever they get the chance. That is why they are terrorists.

[Tainnor]

People can have different opinions on the way Israel is conducting this war. I know I am conflicted.

But Hamas is not a legitimate resistance movement. It is a fundamentalist, oppressive, terrorist regime. You do not stand to gain anything by associating with them.

[fakedang]

> You don't have to like Hamas but compared to the PA they're not very corrupt,

If your society's two choices are a.) lots of corruption, and b.) less corruption but with terrorism, then you've pretty much shown that you're incapable of self-governance as a people.

> and since they stopped doing suicide bombings they've been quite successful as a resistance movement. Since several years back they've also been quite good at unifying and coordinating the political parties and militias on the Gaza strip in preparation for and during periods of israeli military aggression, including with their main competitor in Palestinian Islamic Jihad, socialists from PFLP/DFLP/Fatah movement, Iran's Mujahideen movement and so on.

Sounds like if Israel didn't exist, these guys would just be fighting against Fatah instead. Or fighting between themselves.

[NomDePlum]

What are the documented, visible acts of violence towards the IDF this year? I'm not questioning there haven't been any but it's difficult to imagine a more aggressive, punitive force at present. Everything I hear about them is them being the aggressor/instigator and in a high level of cases executioner.

On the execution of civilian police I don't find it acceptable to label civilians as you want and then execute them. Those are obvious war crimes. In the case I'm talking about the group of police were some of the last able to assist aid getting through and had been doing that in coordination with the IDF.

I find the reporting we get (UK) very IDF/Israel based, with no real perspective from Palestinians, but still it's clear that the deaths and suffering in the current conflict day to day are pretty much all a result of Israel's deliberate actions. It's not excusable what is happening.

Does it matter what you are called if you are deliberately committing war crimes?

If nothing else what will Israel be like as a place to live in with so many people who have deliberately and consciously decided to kill, starve, maime and persecute so many others? How will Palestine and Israel ever recover?

[cess11]

The resistance groups in Palestine publish videos of their operations pretty much daily, and the bigger ones publish text messages about their operations and political commentary several times daily.

If you follow their communications you'll see a lot of sniping, light artillery and RPG:d vehicles.

The mainstream israeli position is to hurry up and get it over with, there are daily protests demanding a change in government to one that, unlike Netanyahu who is perceived to use the military campaign to stay in office and avoid prosecution for corruption, would make a quick prisoner deal and then end the palestinian resistance as soon as possible.

Edit: And if you want to take a look at how IDF/Israel presents itself you'd look for soldiers on TikTok (preferred by israelis) or Facebook (preferred by foreign fighters), and Telegram channels like dead_terrorists. You'll notice some pretty stark differences.

Should probably also mention that you'll come across very NSFW, quite traumatising material.

[skinkestek]

> What are the documented, visible acts of violence towards the IDF this year?

Go to r/combatfootage on reddit.

Plenty there from all sides although you'll typically find the Ukrainian and Israeli viewspoints get more upvotes.

[KennyBlanken]

The person you're debating with is not interested in genuine debate. Look at their profile - it's an alt account for their religious dogma they're too embarrassed to associate with their public persona.

That is backed by them refusing to answer you with specific examples, engaging in a gish-gallop instead.

[skinkestek]

I am absolutely not ashamed.

I am just smart enough not to make it trivially easy for the entire internet to harass me.

[notsafetocomm]

Maybe it's because the overwhelming majority of the people being killed are actually just regular people?

[zmgsabst]

That’s always the case.

At 2:1 civilians to combatants, this is an unusually low civilian death count.

[Gabriel54]

Trying my best to assume this comment in good faith... Low compared to what? For reference, in the recent war in Ukraine (post 2022), there have been approximately 11,000 Ukrainian civilians killed and approximately 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrain...

[_djo_]

Not to get into the debate about that other war, but there have almost certainly been many more Ukrainian civilians killed than the 11 000 formally confirmed deaths. That's just the number that can be properly verified, mostly in Ukrainian-held territory, and nobody is entirely certain how many have died in the Russian-occupied regions. Ukraine claims a much larger number have died, including more than 25 000 in Mariupol alone, for instance, but that can't be independently verified because it's still Russian-held.

[bawolff]

Usually you would compare it to other instances of urban combat.

E.g. you might compare it to ukrainian battles that took place in cities, but you wouldn't compare it to ukrainian battles that took place in the middle of nowhere where no civilians were. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio has some things to compare against. Part of the problem is it is often hard to identify who is a civilian, and often different battles will categorize them differently. For example, in the iraq war us was accused of significantly undercounting civilian casualties. All this makes it hard to do direct comparisons.

[zmgsabst]

A similar anti-terrorist war featuring large amounts of urban conflict, eg Iraq (3:1) or Afghanistan (4:1.1) — since much of Ukraine is designated armies across open fields.

Numbers from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio

[throwaway6734]

Ukraine's troops are uniformed and fighting along a front, not trying to blend in with civilians in an urban area

[oa335]

Hamas’s Oct 7th attack also had a 2:1 civilian to soldier death ratio.

“The latest death toll from the attack is now 767 civilians, 20 hostages and 376 members of the security forces, giving a total of 1,163. One person remains missing.” https://www.barrons.com/news/new-tally-puts-october-7-attack...

[YZF]

Since we're quoting might as well: "Under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, they killed indiscriminately in streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival.

It took more than three days of heavy fighting for the Israeli army to regain control, and left the country deeply traumatised by violence unseen since the country's formation in 1948.

Police are still working to assess the scale of the sexual violence that was reported alongside the killings."

I'm pretty sure "security forces" includes police and possibly firefighters and even ambulance drivers. What I found in the IDF site is 282 soldiers: https://www.gov.il/en/departments/news/swords-of-iron-idf-ca...

So the ratio is more like over 3:1. More importantly your statement not true ("civilian to soldier").

[wahnfrieden]

Much of that was Israeli friendly fire

[lukan]

Well, depends how exactly you classify people as "combatant".

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-03-31/ty-article-ma...

[tmnvix]

This could only be possible if you are assuming all males killed are Hamas militants. In other words, absurd.

[elygre]

This is probably obvious, but just to make sure: This is the opinion of skinkestek, and not an objective truth. As another Norwegian, I do not share this opinion.

[skinkestek]

To avoid a back and forth here, people should feel free to find a way to analyse the confidence levels that newspapers use when quoting the different sides.

- what entities are quoted using netral or confidence signaling language like "sier" (says), "i følge" (according to) and similar, "data fra" (data from)

- what entities are quoted using language that gives low trust connotations: "påstår" (claims, but in Norwegian signalling low confidence)

Feel free to also compare how the claimed Israeli bombing of a hospital early during Israels response affected the front pages, vs when it became clear that it was a rocket engine from Gaza that had hit a mostly empty parking lot ourside a hospital and left a dent in the asphalt.

Since I argue in good faith I also encourage you elygre to provide similar ways to try to get something measurable to show your perspective.

I pride myself (for the lack of a better term) with being able to change my views based on listening to others and have done so both when it comes to drug policies (I have gone from very strict to liberal), economics (I used to be anti socialism, now I have come to appreciate and defend our current Norwegian system very much), and I used to defend Israel in ways that I don't do anymore.

[boppo1]

What about the World Central Kitchen people? Aid workers and terrorists?

[skinkestek]

No!

And someone needs to be held accountable whatever the reason is.

[SZJX]

And again, what would be the reason why a lot of people trying to live a “normal” life feel compelled to take up arms?

Many will call it resistance in an occupied territory in a lot of other contexts.

By this logic when the Nazis killed members of the resistance, of course they were also fighters in addition to whatever day jobs they had.

[Aerroon]

Another one is when you label any 15+ year old male as "military age" and treat them as combatants.

[jiggawatts]

On the flip side, in this war many of the Gaza combatants are either irregular forces or militants deliberately wearing civilian clothing.

So if some guy in a track suit and flip-flops uses an anti tank grenade launcher, discards the empty tube, walks away, and gets lit up, then the next day the Internet is awash with videos of the “IDF murdering a civilian!”

For reference, I think both sides are in the wrong in this conflict, and Israel more than Gaza.

However, the Internet is full of armchair international law experts that are being played like a fiddle by Hamas’ propaganda arm.

Speaking of international laws of combat: no protections apply to non-uniformed combatants pretending to be civilians. None. They can be tortured, executed on the spot, whatever.

If you want protections to apply to you, then wear a uniform or never go anywhere near a gun.

[singleshot_]

While perfidy is a violation of the law of war, summary execution is not a generally-acceptable penalty under IHL.

[bandrami]

Huh? Summary execution has always been the punishment for perfidy under the laws of war.

[elygre]

Do you have a reference for that? Even as perfidy is a war crime, we do not generally allow for summary execution for war criminals.

[bandrami]

ICRC says perfidy places you outside of the bounds of protection of international law:

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule65

[doom2]

> However, the Internet is full of armchair international law experts that are being played like a fiddle by Hamas’ propaganda arm.

And Israeli hasbara? I see a lot of this take, that everyone is just blindly trusting, eg, casualty counts from the Gazan health ministry, but there seems to be very little questioning of and critical thinking about the propaganda the IDF is spreading in this conflict. Why should we take their word for it that killing a bunch of aid workers[1] was just a mistake, for example?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/02/israel-idf-air...

[Quanttek]

> Speaking of international laws of combat: no protections apply to non-uniformed combatants pretending to be civilians. None. They can be tortured, executed on the spot, whatever.

Speaking of "armchair international law experts", this is completely wrong.

BLUF: Failing to distinguish does not deprive you of fundamental guarantees of humane treatment, including the prohibition of torture and summary execution - both of which are war crimes.

The individual obligation to distinguish is linked to Prisoner of War (POW) status - those who do not distinguish, do not get the protections of that status. That is the only consequence of the failure to distinguish. All those persons who are not POWs are automatically civilians, as made clear by the residual clause in Article 4(4) Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV). While civilians can be interned for "imperative reasons of security", they are entitled to their own detailed treatment obligations (Articles 79-135 GC IV). In any case, even if they are somehow not entitled to that treatment, the fundamental humane treatment guarantees of Art 27 GC IV [1] and Art 75 Additional Protocol I [2] (which, as customary law, applies to all parties to a conflict) nonetheless apply. If we argue that it is a non-international armed conflict (which knows neither POW status nor the obligation to distinguish), Common Article 3 [3] similarly obligates humane treatment. Humane treatment is also a norm under customary law [4].

Under these rules, you cannot torture people and you cannot summarily execute people [4]. Read the provisions yourself. In fact, summary execution and torture are actual war crimes [5]. If you want to punish a person, you need to give them a fair trial (IHL does not prohibit the death penalty).

You seem to be hinting at the Bush-era "illegal enemy combatant" theory but even the Bush Admin never argued that those persons are not entitled to humane treatment (it was mostly about fair trial rights), and the US (as its lone defender) has long since abandoned the position.

Whether Hamas is actually subject to such an obligation to distinguish is highly controversial. On one level is the issue of conflict classification, since POW status and the obligation to distinguish only exist in the law of international armed conflict (IAC). If we accept that there is an IAC (e.g. because of the military occupation), then the question still arises if Hamas somehow "belongs" to the State of Palestine or if they should just be seen as civilians directly participating in hostilities or as being in a parallel non-international armed conflict between Hamas and Israel. In turn, if we accept that there is an obligation to distinguish applicable to Hamas, then Israel also needs to treat Hamas fighters that distinguished as POWs (and, as set out above, if they failed to distinguish, as civilians).

[1]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...

[2]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/api-1977/arti...

[3]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gciv-1949/art...

[4]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule87 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule89 https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule90

[5]: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule156

[mitthrowaway2]

> On the flip side, in this war many of the Gaza combatants are either irregular forces or militants deliberately wearing civilian clothing.

I'd be more inclined to believe that this was all it was, if the IDF didn't just blow up a convoy of foreign aid workers who had already received clearance and pre-registered their route with the IDF.

Sure, accidents happen, but it speaks volumes to the general level of diligence that goes into approving each strike, and this makes me very skeptical that other incidents that get coverage are simply attacks on plainclothed militants.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-israel-air-str...

[ein0p]

Children and women do not shoot up tanks

[andsoitis]

> women do not shoot up tanks

There’s quite a bit of literature, history, statistics on women terrorists as well as soldiers.

[goatsi]

In the linked article the only check the IDF was still using on the target list provided by the AI was discarding any and all targets it selected who were women, as they don't believe Hamas would use them as fighters.

[CommieBobDole]

It's also interesting (and I guess typical for end-users of software) how quickly and easily something like this goes from "Here's a tool you can use as an information input when deciding who to target" to "I dunno, computer says these are the people we need to kill, let's get to it".

In the Guardian article, an IDF spokesperson says it exists and is only used as the former, and I'm sure that's what was intended and maybe even what the higher-ups think, but I suspect it's become the latter.

[NomDePlum]

I read that article and feel your interpretation is very misleading/wrong.

The Guardian article makes it clear prior to those denials that those higher-up appear to not to care how accurate it is and appear to be making a conscious choice to accept the fact it is highly flawed on the basis that it might kill some of whom they would legitimately claim as valid targets.

It's clear from the operational details discussed in the article the critical target number is largely number of kills, regardless of whether they are any actual material threat, or not.

Cull predominantly the male population and their family members, not assassinate active threats is the overall impression I got of the Israeli strategy.

I must add that anyone claiming the use of AI and inference models in this way is in anyway justifiable needs to seek help. The claim of 90% accuracy is almost certainly over claiming by over 100%.

[solarpunk]

20 second turnaround from target acquisition to strikes seems to guarantee it's become the latter.

[hluska]

Do you have enough military experience to say this? Or are you just guessing?

I’ll guarantee that it’s the latter.

[JohnKemeny]

I'm guessing the point they're making is that there's no human in the loop, which can confidently be claimed, even without military experience.

[londons_explore]

I'd bet there is a human in the loop, but the human isn't informed. Ie. "Your job is to press this button whenever that red light comes on".

[NomDePlum]

There is testimony to that exact occurrence in the article in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/03/israel-gaza-ai...

Quote: "I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day. I had zero added-value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval. It saved a lot of time.”

[pixl97]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_Don%27t_Argue

[lozenge]

"I'm sure that's what was intended"

Intended by who? You don't kill 13,000 children by accident.

[GuB-42]

Ideally, that would be "Computer says we shouldn't kill these people, let's not".

[jiggawatts]

It’s a very powerful drug to be able to shrug your shoulders and say you were just doing as you were told.

[throwaway7351]

By the standards discussed in the article, anyone with a beef with Israel could justify targeting possible a majority of buildings in Israel. After all, most of the population is required to serve in the IDF.

[BurningFrog]

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are routinely doing exactly that.

[throwaway7351]

Are they trying to legally or morally justify those attacks?

Last year I would have said that Israel was reasonably well behaved and Hezbollah and Hamas’s rockets fired into Israel were utterly unjustifiable terrorism and served no valid military purpose.

It seems like Israel is busily lowering itself it to its enemies’ level, and it’s not particularly clear that its attacks serve a legitimate military purpose to a much greater extent than Hamas and Hezbollah’s.

Compare to the US’s war in Afghanistan. Regardless of whether one believes that the war was a good idea or we’ll executed, at least the US seemed to be trying to make Afghanistan livable for its non-militant residents, and they perhaps even succeeded for a while.

[trimethylpurine]

The current justification is that children WILL be IDF. So, this would be an upgrade, no?

[goatlover]

What do you think all those rockets being intercepted by the Iron Dome are targeting?

[megous]

Nothing, they are unguided and not targetable. They have almost 0 military value as far as targeting goes. They're "lucky" if they hit something outside of Gaza. You can see them being used for distraction/confusion (like on the morning of oct 7 in a mass firing), or as reprisals for IDF massacres (for deterrence, not working very well at that either), or for "we targeted grouping of soldiers" in Gaza envelope (usually unsuccessfully). Only thing they ever target successfully is the hearts and minds of Palestinians horrendously victimized by Israel, some of whom can feel that something is being done, I guess.

They're certainly not used to target any specific buildings in Israel. Only thing with targeting capability that Hamas ever repeatedly showed successfully used in videos is their home made Yassin-105 RPG shell and other RPGs. And these are used as short range defensive weapons, pretty much.

[bawolff]

> That is, only members of the armed wing of Hamas (not recruiters, weapon manufacturers,..

I think the loop-hole here is that a weapon manufacturing facility is almost certainly a military strategic target, and international law allows you to target the infrastructure provided the military advantage gained is porportional to the civilian death.

So you can't target the individuals but according to international law its fine to target the building they are in while the individuals are still inside provided its militarily worth it.

[klipt]

But presumably if you can target the building e.g. at night when nobody is there, that's preferable to targeting it during the day when there may be more civilian workers.

[Quanttek]

Exactly! The key difference is that the worker still count as civilians in the calculus that considers whether an attack is proportional (anticipated military advantage vs expected civilian effects) and whether the attacker took all feasible precautions to avoid and minimize civilian loss, including attacking at night, using tailored weaponry, giving a warning, …

[firejake308]

Practical AI did a podcast episode about the dangers of using AI models as a shield to hide behind in justifying your decisions. The episode was titled "Suspicion Machines" and based on the libked article [1], and I think it's worth a read/listen.

[1]: https://www.wired.com/story/welfare-state-algorithms/

[wahnfrieden]

It's also an incentive to use it - accountability evasion.

[shmatt]

Gitmo is still open, if the US isnt participating in those laws, I don't see how any of its allies are expected to

[jibe]

That is, only members of the armed wing of Hamas (not recruiters, weapon manufacturers, propagandists, financiers, …) can be targeted for attack

It seems wrong that you can't target weapon manufacturers, can you cite a source? Weapon manufacturers contribute to the military action, and destroying weapon manufacturers contributes to military advantage.

[Quanttek]

You can target the manufacturing plants since they are military objectives but you cannot target the workers. If any war-sustaining activity would make you, as a person, a target, pretty much anyone could be bombed: farmers, bankers, power plant engineers, truck drivers, ...

For a source, you can check out the Red Cross document I linked. Specifically, Ctrl+F for "continuous combat function" and read the commentary on recommendation V. The Guidance is considered authoritative in legal circles.

[quandrum]

In the case of Hamas, the US and Israel are the primary weapon manufacturer, as unexploded ordinance is the primary source of their explosives.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/hamas-is-using-unexplo...

[zip1234]

It is not the primary source of their weapons, nor is it the primary source of their explosives. It might be "a primary source" now as your linked article mentions, but certainly not THE primary source. Hamas is primarily given weapons by Iran.

[cess11]

They claim to be producing a lot of them locally in the Gaza strip, based on russian or iranian design. They've proudly showed videos of factories producing al-Ghoul rifles, Tandem anti-tank grenades, light artillery grenades, rifle ammunition.

This is an explicit ideal in the 'Resistance Axis', to develop the ability to produce military equipment locally and not be dependent on brittle trade routes or smuggling.

The West Bank seems to get rifles from several sources, both american style that probably comes from PA or IDF and russian style, probably smuggled through Jordan from Iraq, Iran, Russia. They produce IED:s locally, quite crude ones, not the directed type with concave copper plates favoured by iraqi militias. Eventually they'll learn to make those too, I'm sure.

[nickff]

This is a very 'anti-war' opinion by a lawyer affiliated with the Red Cross, not some sort of treaty or other convention. As an example, the Geneva Convention's scope of protection is much narrower.

[Quanttek]

While the DPH Guidance has it's controversial parts (Rec IX), the guidance on interpreting "directly participating in hostilities" is quite authoritative.

And that should be emphasized: the Geneva Conventions allow the targeting of military objectives, combatants (i.e. members of armed forces) and "civilians directly participating in hostilities". The Guidance just interprets the latter and arguably widens the scope, because - without the invention of "continuous combatant function" - you could attack e.g. members of Hamas' armed wing during an attack and in preparation of one. Now you can attack them at any time.

[Aloisius]

Em. From the foreword:

> First, the interpretive Guidance is an expression solely of the ICRC's views. While international humanitarian law relating to the notion of direct participation in hostilities was examined over several years with a group of eminent legal experts, to whom the ICRC owes a huge debt of gratitude, the positions enunciated are the ICRC's alone. Second, while reflecting the ICRC's views, the interpretive Guidance is not and cannot be a text of a legally binding nature.

The purpose and of the Interpretive Guidance is to provide recommendations, as the document itself states, in an attempt to persuade states. It does not claim to be authoritative.

[Quanttek]

I did not assert that it would be legally binding. However, it is considered to be quite authoritative by lawyers, including military lawyers. The two most controversial parts concern the idea of "continuous combatant function" to define members of an armed group, which some want to see defined more narrowly or more broadly (latter: US), and recommendation IX. However, the criteria for direct participation on hostilities are widely accepted as the authoritative interpretation by States and scholars of that term in the Geneva Conventions.

Of course, the document itself would not make a statement on its authoritative nature since, despite the broad consultation with experts, they cannot predict the wider reaction.

[Aloisius]

What military lawyers? What States?

The ICRC stated that they couldn't reach consensus and that the Interpretive Guidance provided their own recommendations and does not necessarily reflect the majority opinion of participating experts.

The DPH meeting reports show there was considerable contention beyond the requirement of a continuous combat function or IX. Dissension was significant enough that over a third of the experts involved asked for their names to be removed from the Interpretive Guidance prior to publication which led the ICRC to remove all the experts' names.

Then there are all the papers published criticizing the document for reasons that go beyond just the two most contentious issues, several by experts were among those consulted by the ICRC (e.g. Schmitt, Parks).

Given the dissension, I find it strange that such a document could possibly be widely accepted as the authoritative interpretation of what constitutes DPH by States as you claim.

[BLKNSLVR]

This happens in wartime:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-03/world-central-kitchen...

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-02/israeli-strike-that-k...

Pretty disgraceful (which itself feels a disgracefully unimpactful thing to say regarding people losing their lives whilst doing charity work).

[tootie]

That's not exactly a prediction. It was was standard operating procedure for Warsaw Pact nations. They used human intel which was possibly even worse because it could manipulated out of malice.

[mschuster91]

> Only those who have the "continuous function" to "directly participate in hostilities"[1] may be targeted for attack at any time.

The problem with Hamas is that they don't shy away from hiding combattants in civilian clothings or use women and children as suicide bombers. There is more than enough evidence of this tactic, dating back many many years [1].

By not just not preventing, but actively ordering such war crimes, Hamas leadership has stripped its civilian population of the protections of international law.

> Otherwise, the allowed list of targets of civilians gets so wide than in any regular war, pretty much any civilian could get targeted, such as the bank employee whose company has provided loans to the armed forces.

In regular wars, it's uniformed soldiers against uniformed soldiers, away from civilian infrastructure (hospitals, schools, residential areas). The rules of war make deviating from that a war crime on its own, simply because it places the other party in the conflict of either having no chance to wage the war or to commit war crimes on their own.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_of_child_suicide_bombers_b...

[colordrops]

> Hamas leadership has stripped its civilian population of the protections of international law.

You completely lose any credibility with this statement. Civilians can't be "stripped" of protections of international law.

[mschuster91]

Oh yes they can, that question has been settled in the aftermath of the Yugoslavian Wars [1, page 148]:

> 46. The law is thus clear: a hospital becomes a legitimate target when used for hostile or harmful acts unrelated to its humanitarian function, but the opposing party must give warning before it attacks

[1] https://www.icty.org/x/cases/galic/acjug/en/gal-acjud061130....

[Quanttek]

That has nothing to do with your original statement. Yes, hospital can lose their special protection but must then be given a warning that gives them enough time to evacuate and only if that warning is unheeded, it loses special protection. But all the other rules protecting civilians still apply (distinction, proportionality, precautions, …). In any case, this has nothing to do with the whole civilian population being stripped of their protections. They still have their human rights and cannot be targeted.

[colordrops]

So pretty much every hospital, school, and over 60% (nearly 300,000) residences have been destroyed in Gaza, leaving well over a million displaced. You are a genocide supporter.

[Thiez]

An entire civilian population cannot be stripped of its protections of international law. This type of dehumanising rhetoric is the exact filth that leads to genocide and other atrocities (as we can see happening live in recent months).

[sgjohnson]

> That is, only members of the armed wing of Hamas (not recruiters, weapon manufacturers, propagandists, financiers, …) can be targeted for attack - all the others must be arrested and/or tried.

In theory, yes. In practice--in which make believe world is this true?

[pvaldes]

If they can target "terrorist", unavoidably the system will be upgraded to target "politician" also.

[megous]

It was upgraded to target politician's families, already.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Haniyeh

Always interesting to me how western diplomats do not just right out reject bombing of diplomatic buildings, but search for stupid justifications, if it's "others" being bombed and not their team.

Or politicians who don't reject targeting of other politicians' families for killing, when it's the politicians they "don't like" or whatever, and even tacitly support it. Or who don't say a word when a hospital is attacked and hundreds of people murdered in it over several weeks, and ultimately destroyed, but blab something about right to self-defence constantly, or IHL which according to legal experts is used mostly to enable mass murder, not to stop it. Kinda paradoxical for a law that was meant to prevent needless suffering.

It's like all these people have a death wish, because they're setting standards for future wars. And there will be future wars, even in Europe. Anyway, I lost all respect for all the idiot politicians I sadly voted for, who justify day and night the murder of medics, whole families, children, starvation, etc., when it's "the other", and are all up in arms when it's "us". I certainly won't be fighting for any of them, when the war comes here. They have 0 standards. I'll let them die according to their wishes and standards.

[abtinf]

It would be difficult to deliberately design a set of rules that would prolong war and human suffering even longer than what you’ve described.

[graymatters]

Dresden rules should be applied to Gaza. Israel is way too considerate with Lavender. Every other house in Gaza is full of weapons.

[logro]

So if you're just an 9-5 office based terrorist doing admin stuff, you're off limits?

[bjourne]

Yes, if you think about actions rather than labels it makes sense. Otherwise every office worker in Israel would be a legitimate target too.

[Spooky23]

As a target for assassination? Yeah.

It makes sense. Blowing up a military HQ with a clerk in it makes sense. Blowing up a clerk walking on the sidewalk seems like a wasted effort.

You can come up with all sorts of justifications for anything. At the end of the day, time and time again, over the top escalation usually hurts the stronger party. Asymmetrical warfare doesn’t garner sympathy or military advantages to the stronger party.

[usaar333]

I don't understand your point here. They are targeting militants with the system:

> Formally, the Lavender system is designed to mark by all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets.

Obviously any judgement is probabilistic.