[dlubarov]

I think we're mostly in agreement? I agree civilian casualty ratios can be meaningful signals about morality, provided that we account for context (e.g. whether civilians are trapped in a warzone or able to evacuate) and are careful to draw apples-to-apples comparisons.

But the parent wasn't really comparing these ratios; it was closer to a "total deaths on either side" sort of comparison. Usually the implied message is that in a conflict between two sides, the side that killed more must be less moral. That dubious logic would suggest e.g.

- The Nazis were morally superior to Western Allies, since the Western Allies killed more Germans than the reverse.

- The Coalition was extremely evil in the Gulf War, since Iraq suffered several orders of magnitude more casualties.

- Israel is bad partly because it goes to extreme lengths to protect its people (Iron Dome, bomb shelters everywhere, etc.). Letting more of its people get killed would "even out the scales" and suddenly make Israel's military operations more moral.

[gambiting]

>>Usually the implied message is that in a conflict between two sides, the side that killed more must be less moral.

And you decided that this is an argument I'm making and decided to argue against that, instead of what I'm actually saying - which sure, would lead to the nonsensical logical conclusions that you wrote.

What makes Israel a state worthy of condemnation is the fact that they target civilians on purpose. That they shoot at medics, deny food supplies, shoot rockets at refugee camps, hospitals, schools, they shoot at little kids playing around, they torture their prisoners, they use AI to guess which person needs to be eliminated and they blow them up with their families to maximise casualties - and all of the above happens without any oversight or consequence for any people involved. The 20k children dead is a consequence of all of these decisions, the number itself isn't what makes Israel bad - it's how they got to it, through a culmination of decades of decisions on how they see Palestinians - as subhuman scum needs to die. There is no effort to protect civilian life, and IDF saying otherwise is just lying.

But I feel like you're keen to say that Israel is "defending" itself and Gaza is a narrow urban zone, so of course it can't be done any other way.

Let me maybe ask you this, just to satisfy my own curiosity more than anything - if Israel decided to kill everyone in Gaza, based on the assumption that since Hamas doesn't wear uniforms anyone can be a militant so this is justified, would you just go "yeah that's fair"? Or would you just make some argument about how no army in the world would do better.

[dlubarov]

> And you decided that this is an argument I'm making and decided to argue against that

Then what was the point of your numeric comparison? If you agree it's a very poor signal about morality, why bring it up?

> What makes Israel a state worthy of condemnation [...]

It seems like you're just listing every random accusation you've heard that paints Israel in a bad light. Should we try this game with another country, like say Palestine?

> the assumption that since Hamas doesn't wear uniforms anyone can be a militant so this is justified

No I certainly don't think that.

[gambiting]

>>It seems like you're just listing every random accusation you've heard that paints Israel in a bad light

I really don't understand your train of thought. Are you saying these things didn't happen? Or they did happen but Palestine also is doing despicable things so they don't matter? Or they do matter but they aren't worth being upset about? Or it's worth being upset about them, but they shouldn't be discussed?

>>No I certainly don't think that.

Well what did you bring it up as the first point then? I said - hey I'm bothered by the fact that Israel killed 20k children in this conflict, and then you said hey I wish someone was talking more about the fact that hamas doesn't wear uniforms when fighting. Like, what is the conclusion here? That Israel is killing civilians because anyone can be a militant(since hamas militants don't wear uniforms), or.......what is the alternative?

>> If you agree it's a very poor signal about morality, why bring it up?

I don't agree with that - I just said it's a consequence of every other choice that Israel made up to this point.

[dlubarov]

I just don't see the point of engaging with a big laundry list of random accusations against Israel. Some are likely true. Urban wars aren't rainbows and butterflies, and no military is perfect. Ukraine has had a bunch of incidents with soldiers abusing and even executing POWs, should we sanction them too? US recently obliterated a girls' school, should we sanction ourselves for our mistake?

> what is the conclusion here?

Maybe something like "Israel's neighbors should probably stop attacking it", "Hamas should put on uniforms", or "countries that supposedly care about Gazans' well-being should accept war refugees"?

If your takeaway is that it's all Israel's fault, but you can't name any other military that does a better job of dealing with terrorists who embed themselves among civilians, that seems like the wrong takeaway.