Self-defence is available to individuals to communities and to nations. It is ethically and legally sound to engage in self-defence.
The principle of proportionality should be applied when engaging in self-defence. This means that you should do no more advertently, than is necessary to remove the threat. For example, if somebody begins punching you on the nose you are justified in punching back until your adversary is incapable of punching you again. You would not be justified in deliberately killing your adversary. However, if your adversary vowed to begin punching you at every opportunity until you were dead, you would be justified in killing or permanently disabling your adversary, if there was no other way to prevent such attacks on your person.
If, having repelled an attack on your person by an adversary intent on your death, such adversary asked for time-out to recover in order to resume the attack, you would be justified in not granting the time-out.
I hope this is all clear. Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, Anthony Albanese, and Penny Wong should take note. So far as I know, the Allies didn’t pause their push into Germany and suspend fighting to allow humanitarian aid to reach German civilian populations. They suspected, no doubt, that the Wehrmacht might take the opportunity to regroup.
Says who?, particularly if the attacks have been repeated over time.
The role of your military is to ruthlessly eliminate your enemy, before lunch, on the first day, with a 100:1 kill ratio, then to enjoy his cattle and his women… pour encourager les autres….
What the flying duk says.
We have watched the Middle East flare up into war on many, many, occasions because proportionality has been used.
At the start of the 6 day war, Israel should have used most of her nukes against anyone who was in the coalition against her:
United Arab Republic
Syria
Jordan
Iraq
Saudi Arabia
Kuwait
Lebanon
ALL of these nations should have had their capitals smashed, major infrastructure destroyed, and taught to never, ever raise a hand against Israel.
Had this happened, the sputtering war of proxies would not be continuing to this day, and the loss of life would probably have been less.
War is war – it isn’t a game where diplomats get to scurry around the globe attending meetings and peace banquets at the cost of thousands of civilian lives with no end in sight to the war or the meetings.
I can think of a better way to spend $58 billion a year than subsidising their jaunts, meetings, book deals, and egos.
A major trimming of these functionaries is in order.
Israel needs to go TE Lawrence on those baby butchering turds.
Acc. to US State Dept on Friday:
Israel will “refine” its tactics in the coming week as it focuses on clearing specific areas in northern Gaza.
This will enable more humanitarian aid to enter.
It may also facilitate the release of more hostages.
The US is framing this as a response to Biden/Blinken requests, although it may also represent simply the next planned phase of the war from Israel’s viewpoint.
ALP data wonk Kos Samaras condenses the Herald Sun’s reporting of his latest polling & data analysis:
oop, rong thread. (how embarrassing)
Pertinent – why is the world full of arseholes?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRcfqpyuk9k
If genocide/ethnic cleansing and conquering of land can be justified for one side, it can be justified for all sides…
evidence, please.
see here
I really couldn’t care less if everyone in the region on both sides were wiped off the map.
I just find it interesting when people are happy to justify the killing of others as long as you feel morally superior…
Remember, the allies bombed plenty of civilians in Dresden…
There really are no ‘civilians’ in war, its a recent invention. This is particularly true in todays realtime media driven, 5th generation war. You might not be a ‘warfighter’, but you are nevertheless a weapon – whether you are building munitions, growing food or dying for the cameras, you dont get to opt out – all you get to do is chose your side. Sadly, wishing it was otherwise does not make it so.
thanks for that. Certainly an option worth considering.
At what point is a neighbour so troublesome that evicting them is the solution?
btw – its an ethnic cleansing plan, but not a genocide plan.
If you can find a self-defence school near you credentialed to teach Krav Maga (KM) then avail yourself of the training. Krav Maga was originally developed by Jews to protect themselves in Europe from fascist bullies. It was later adopted and developed for Israel’s IDF. If you can’t access a KM school, then at least learn some basic moves from an instructional video. It might save your life.
I agree with this completely.
There is no such thing as an ‘innocent’ in war as you are guilty of the crime of being a citizen of a particular country.
It also makes disarming your population an vilification of firearm owners seem even more stupid than it already is…
Also, why have we been sending our best troops to fight U.S. wars for 20+ years while our navy gets sent out to pick up boat people and bring then here???
Seems counter-productive to defending the nation…
My understanding is that the international law is exactly as Peter says. In the case of Israel, they are within their rights, legally, to continue their actions until the (actual and potential) actions/threat by Hamas is eliminated. If innocent civilians are killed that is sad and unfortunate, but doesn’t diminish a State’s right to self-defense and eliminating the threat.
In fact, I also understand that civilian losses are, legally, ‘acceptable’ or at least acknowledged as unavoidable PROVIDED the State is acting proportionally. States do have an obligation to try and minimize civilian losses wherever practical but that obligation does not over-ride the right to self defense and elimination of the threat.
It’s why the allies and Russia didn’t stop at the German border in WW2. It could have been argued that Germany was defeated and was contained within their own borders – but, of course, the Nazi threat hadn’t been eliminated. Thus, the allies and Russia pushed on. Ditto with the Japanese and the use of nuclear weapons was still proportional relative to the future threat of a resurgent Japan.
Laws are just a formal way of telling people how things are going to be before force is applied.
A law means nothing if it is not enforced with violence.
In the case of countries, so called ‘international law’ only applies to everyone except the U.S. as there is no other country powerful enough to hold them accountable.
Consider this, if the U.S. decided to carpet nuke a country like New Zealand into the ground, what would realistically happen to them?
A law is simply a formal way of saying ‘my dick is bigger than your dick’
duncanm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRcfqpyuk9k
That is so very very true. It explains my position in the Israel/Muzzie fights, and it explains the behaviour of the Negro population in the US as well as the Aboriginal Youth Problem in Australia.
Flyingduk:
Far too many in the West get their ideas of war and its rules from “Red Dawn”, “Sniper” and other Hollywood feelgood movies.
They do not understand the concept of Military Necessity and the ugliness of what it entails.
Plasmamortar:
Our navy is defending an ideology – it is not defending our nation.
Winston Smith
Nov 5, 2023 1:25 PM
Far too many in the West get their ideas of war and its rules from “Red Dawn”, “Sniper” and other Hollywood feelgood movies.
They do not understand the concept of Military Necessity and the ugliness of what it entails.
Hence the vapours our betters are feeling and therefore the trumped up charges against Ben Roberts-Smith and other SAS troops for alleged war crimes.
I think he said, “It is better to fight them over there than over here.”
It is here where i draw the distinction between what people deserve and what should be done. Unfortunately Israel is playing their part in the narratives of marxists among the populace and the media, where meting out what Hamas deserve damages their support internationally, which they cannot exist without, without going full nuclear.
I can’t tell them where their limits should be, but they most certainly should be trying to get maximum results for minimum bad PR. Jordan Peterson claimed that this was a desperate attempt by Iran to destroy the Abraham Accords. Worth keeping in mind when determining what victory looks like.
Pity we combined ‘fight over there’ with ‘leave the castle unguarded at home’ then wasnt it?
Example #1: massive pro Hamas, antisemetic demonstrations in every western capital of late.
What is quite evident, is that Israel has the most well equipped, well trained, and morally-guided armies on the planet.
They are fighting against ruthless barbarians who deliberately target civilians, and do not even think protecting civilians on their side is their problem.
STJOHNOFGRAFTON
Nov 5, 2023 12:48 PM
If you can find a self-defence school near you credentialed to teach Krav Maga (KM) then avail yourself of the training.
Krav Maga is instantly useable, from your first lesson or even watching a demonstration or video.
I wouldn’t bother with any other martial art if you want some self defence training and don’t want to train for years or for it to become your lifestyle.
It doesn’t rely on body strength, it helps but you don’t need it to know what to do when trouble is around.
Yeah, no.
You put your enemies down so far they don’t get up again.
Which Israel and the Jewish peoples (BIRM) now need to do.
I want Greater Israel to emerge from this. The Sinai, the West Bank, The Golan and Southern Lebanon.
arab free zones. Forever.
Enough.
moozley arab free zones, just to clarify …
“What is quite evident, is that Israel has the most well equipped, well trained, and morally-guided armies on the planet.”
Really?
What happened on October 7th then?
Israel has NEVER been weaker than now, compared to its neighbours.
This is why it should never have entered Gaza.
It had the sympathy and respect of most of the world. That has now evaporated.
Who was it that took away the “human” element of surveillance in Southern Israel and moved them to the North, then relied solely on a computer system, that had been publicly advertised, to anyone who was interested in how it worked?
2,000 fighters entering Israel and 2,000 rockets fired is no small undertaking, yet, despite Egypt stating that they warned Israel, no increased security was contemplated.
Who made that decision?
Hint, the answer to the last 2 Q’s, are the same guy.
Not for me, it hasn’t. Anyone who doesn’t support Israel now, never did.
The world loves to weep over dead Jews. Jews don’t.
Could be military and intelligence thought it would be a normal riot on the border, and kept it from Netanyahu because of the political divisions over judicial reform.
Return of the original Mandate extending east to about 20 miles past the Hejaz railway.
Katzenjammer:
Perhaps just the West bank and the Golan Heights. You need defensible borders that don’t require a Maginot Line.
Then flood the Dead Sea – if possible. It looks like there’s a 30 Km stretch to the north that would take a canal/pipeline to the Sea of Galilee and all points south.
Build 3 or four dams with roadways as chokepoints, and let the Arabs try and assault across them.
OK, cancel that idea – the Sea of Galilee is freshwater. I thought it would be quite salty considering it’s origin and the landform.
Rufus – that’s an intelligence failure.
It depends on who you are fighting. If it’s zombies, or Hamas, the only sane response is to destroy them completely. The principle holds only if you are fighting human beings. Zombies don’t count. After 7th October, neither does Hamas.
So true DrBG.
These are not people that can be negotiated with in any rational manner.
The I.D.F. says the valley of the Jordan river is the Worlds finest anti tank ditch.
From Enders Game, by Orson Scott Card….
ZK2A:
I’d like to see it extended south, and a bit deeper. Also fluctuating levels so the banks turn into glue when anything tries to cross.
Plasmamortar.
Almost all the Jews of Dresden survived the bombing, subsequently destroying all identifying insignia etc.—and so surviving orders for their fairly immediate transportation to Theresienstadt. See The Diaries of Victor Klemperer 1942–45 (1999), p. xiii.
Winston Smith , Drones !! ?
Wayne:
Certainly a game changer – if the feed isn’t interrupted or ignored.
It seems that this was the issue with the wall and surveillance. Camera feeds being ignored as they failed and the operators being indifferent as to why. The other aspect is that they weren’t indifferent – calling out a recon overflight is expensive in terms of aircraft time and money, as well as the operators professionality. Too many false alarms + operator reluctance to call one is endemic throughout bureaucratic organisations. The operator must have rigid Standing Orders to protect themselves otherwise a “Shoot the Messenger” ethos becomes ingrained.
But yes – drones – especially drone swarms – are a game changer, and we are in the very early days of their use, similar to tanks in the fields in France in1917.
That includes the firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden, and of course, on the other side of the world, Tokyo and probably other Japanese cities. Then, of course, there were Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
This is a disturbingly blood-thirsty forum. Until recently I shared the taste for remote peoples’ blood. During earlier incursions into Gaza, I was disappointed that Israel stopped its offensives, voicelessly urging them, from my seat at the computer, to get on with it. Now not so much.
Mark Durie has a useful primer on Hamas, starting here., including the doctrine (in part 2) of waqf, by which lands once subjected to Islam are Muslim in perpetuity.
This doctrine has similarities to the attitude of religious Jews to Judea and Samaria. Given such fundamental differences, the prospects for a 2-state solution do not look good, but it’s that or war until one side or the other is completely annihilated.
It may or may not be relevant that, despite the Chechen wars, Chechen forces fight alongside other Russian ethnicities and religions in Ukraine. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent of “Russian identity” in the region of Israel.
LOL
Nice 2-state solution you wanted there, shame if anything were to happen of it.
Yes, it’s quite disturbing. This is how people can be twisted by hatred and spill the blood of innocents as long as the ends justify the means.
Instead, pray for peace as there are no good outcomes here for Israel or the middle-east at large.