I think the point is that if Israel can do pinpoint decapitation strikes anywhere in Iran they sure as hell can do so in Gaza, but they choose to bomb hospitals and flatten every single building in the Gaza Strip instead.
This. Israel demonstrably has the capability for precision warfare.
That they chose to level infrastructure across Gaza instead is indicative.
And it'd be real stretch to assume they did so even for military-economic reasons.
They knew the world community would give them some leeway after Oct 7th, so exploited it as far as possible to militarily achieve their geo-political goals.
To wit, the elimination of anything resembling a Palestinian state: politically, economically, and demographically.
Which is cynical and evil as fuck, given they're smart enough to realize they eventually either have to (a) kill every Palestinian or (b) make a deal.
Instead, they decided killing 50,000+ Palestinians was worth improving their negotiation position and kicking the can down the road.
> They knew the world community would give them some leeway after Oct 7th, so exploited it as far as possible to militarily achieve their geo-political goals.
That’s my read as well. I was strongly pro-Israel for decades and while I was never comfortable with the plight of Palestinians Hamas had a lot of the blame, too, but the last year really moved me over to thinking that the people who said most of the “accidents” over the years were intentional were correct. They can pull off these amazingly accurate strikes when they want to, it’s implausible that they suddenly have the precision of a drunken 18th century musketeer around aid workers and civilians. Their leadership clearly do not care and collective punishment is a war crime no matter who does it.
The term ”mowing the lawn”[1] has been used to describe their long term strategy, so I can ”excuse” someone for thinking that they can’t control the situation, but it’s been a tactic for a long time.
HN readers can recognize the tactic in other parts of our world too. It’s the strategy of people in power who believe they can control the chaos. When chaos in one group is a benefit to the other, chaos becomes a worthy status quo. When your military is infinitely more powerful, any uprising can eventually be exhausted, and you get automatic casus belli. The Cold War was full of this destabilizing politics, where superpowers tried their best to turn functioning socities into hellholes, in the hopes that it would spread in the enemy’s region. The same works for Israel. The less legitimacy Gaza and the West Bank Palestinians have, the longer they can keep building settlements. If they ever gain independence, it will cause another war, which has been planned for, because settlements have been overwhelmingly built on higher ground. Illegal settlers will not give up easily, and will likely gain military assistance.
To be fair, the Iranian state is a proper military. I’m not sure if there is a way to fight a guerilla force without massive civilian casualties. (Which is why one generally shouldn’t.)
A better analog might be Hezbollah. Surgically dispatched. Resolved with minimal follow-on nonsense from both sides.
No, it’s war. Targeted killing of a military scientist is war. Gunning down civilians trying to get food is a war crime. If we start labelling all war as criminal, the term loses all meaning.
How about killing a scientist that they claim is trying to make a bomb with 15 members of his family and several neighbors including children under age 10.
This claim is not proved. In Europe there is no capital punishment for mass murders but Israel can kill anyone they want with their family without trial or even conclusive evidence and no one can condemn it.
If you do it with a crude hand made bomb it is called terrorism but if you do it with F35 it is called self-defense.
> war crimes are just a label for anyone in opposition to Western domination
Eh, there is a broad consensus on what constitutes a war crime. But there is also broad precedent for these rules not applying to major powers. (China annexed Tibet in 1951.)
I’d also argue that recent history has almost rendered the term worthless, as activists label practically every civilian death as a war crime.
Calling it sophisticated does not change that fact.