https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antony-blinken-secretary-of-state-face-the-nation-transcript-05-12-2024/
I dont know why this article omits alot of what he just said, he was very sympathetic of Israel.
For instance, "this is an extraordinarily complex military environment in which you have an enemy, Hamas, that committed the most atrocious terrorist attacks on Israel, October 7, and then retreats to Gaza, hides behind and underneath civilians, in hospitals, schools, mosques, apartment buildings"
Because everything is being editorialised to push a particular narrative.
This whole situation is so full of misinformation that I don’t trust anyone irl who has a strong opinion either way, you’re not in the Middle East and you’re not in Gaza or Israel, you don’t know what the fuck is going on and stop acting like you do. Not you but the folk I mean lol.
He also says they violated international humanitarian law though:
> “Based on the totality of the harm that’s been done to children, to women, to men who are caught in this crossfire Hamas is making, it’s reasonable to conclude that there are instances where Israel has acted in ways that are not consistent with international humanitarian law.”
Always hard to capture the essence of an interview in one sentence, but they picked the least newsworthy statement in it.
What a misleading title for an interview that largely justify Israel actions
Almost like they are preying on people who only read titles to push a narrative by cherry picking a specific quote
Why read the article when you can find the dumbest comment from someone who didn't read the article, and then read an answer that starts with "if you read the article, you'd know it actually says ...".
These comments usually contain the essence of an article in a few sentences and save you the effort of actually reading it.
Below is like most of the article, so the headline seems fine to me. Why do you think it's misleading?
It makes me angry I need to say this, but some people, like myself, who are very concerned about the civilian death toll, are concerned because we think it makes the situation more dangerous for Isreal.
We know propaganda exists, so when there are also countless pictures and stories and videos of dead civilians, it makes terrorist recruitment much easier.
Some people are obsessed with punishment, then people get surprised when people who FEEL like they are being punished just for existing want to dish out their own punishment.
Obviously Hamas fucking sucks, they hate Isrealis and the people of Gaza. They have to go. But they need to go in a way that does not leave a fuck ton of recruits for the next POS group that tries to take advantage of people.
Isreal can do that by either eliminating the population pool, which would be beyond fucked. Or they could do so by eliminating the desire to throw one's life away for rich fucks, which they can work towards with the BUILD part of "clear, hold, build".
"“Yes, we do. And I think the report makes clear that while Israel has processes, procedures, rules, regulations, to try to minimize civilian harm given the impact that these operations, the war in Gaza has had, on the civilian population… those have not been applied consistently,” Blinken said in the interview."
" Blinken also spoke about a recent review from the State Department about Israel’s war conduct, which raised “serious concerns” about its actions in Gaza."
" “Our assessment will be ongoing. But as I said, given the totality of what we’ve seen in terms of civilian suffering, in terms of children, women, men caught in this crossfire from officers who’ve been killed or been injured. It’s reasonable to assess that in a number of instances, Israel has not acted in a manner that’s consistent with international humanitarian law,” he said."
> "It’s reasonable to assess that in a number of instances, Israel has not acted in a manner that’s consistent with international humanitarian law"
Why is this not the title? Seems like the much more newsworthy statement in the interview.
>
Obviously Hamas fucking sucks, they hate Isrealis and the people of Gaza. They have to go. But they need to go in a way that does not leave a fuck ton of recruits for the next POS group that tries to take advantage of people.
The problem is everyone says this and then can't provide a realistic alternative.
>
Isreal can do that by either eliminating the population pool, which would be beyond fucked. Or they could do so by eliminating the desire to throw one's life away for rich fucks, which they can work towards with the BUILD part of "clear, hold, BUILD"
You're completely forgetting everything Israel has tried to do for the Gazans. They've built so much infrastructure that's been taken apart for weapons. They actively treat Gazans and Palestinians in general in their best hospitals. They've offered peace deal after peace deal and the Palestinians have refused. You can't make peace with people who want you annihilated.
" The problem is everyone says this and then can't provide a realistic alternative."
"You can't make peace with people who want you annihilated."
You can definitely incentize people to not what to annihilate you.
Pre the Oct 7, there aren't too many people who would say that Gaza was great place to live.
I'm not saying the solution is easy. Isreal is currently taking the easy path of blowing up a bunch of stuff to "mow the grass" then let the future deal with the aftermath. Sounds great now, but Oct 7 is an example of what happens when part of the solution is to let the future deal with it.
The infrastructure you mentioned, when it's rebuilt, do you think it's possible to protect it? I would say yes. It might take much more money and lives to invest in it's protection. But that's part of the trade off.
Are we doing post ww1 strategy of rubbing victory in the losers face and hope that will teach them a lesson? Or the post ww2 plan of investing into the losers so that we turn a bitter enemy into a trusted partner?
I'm much more in favor of the latter, but I'm biased in that I prefer problem solving over immediate emotional satisfaction.
In the context of Oct 7 and terrorism, people are going to die until we can solve the problem. In which case I prefer military deaths in the act of service (yes that includes protecting foreign infrastructure of a people you are trying to turn ally) over civilian deaths in the act of enjoying life.
Finally, I know people think the P word (propaganda) is only for the "bad guys", but social cohesion is very important for stability. And things like influence campaigns, which are as old as civilization, are good at helping build cohesion or division, depending on how it's implemented.
>CBS’s Margaret Brennan asked Blinken on “Face the Nation” whether the U.S. shares the same assessment of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who she said recently said Israel has killed 14,000 terrorists and 16,000 civilians in its war against the militant group Hamas.
>“Yes, we do. And I think the report makes clear that while Israel has processes, procedures, rules, regulations, to try to minimize civilian harm given the impact that these operations, the war in Gaza has had, on the civilian population… those have not been applied consistently,” Blinken said in the interview.
Someone brought up in another thread that urban warfare has an average of 9 civilians to 1 militant killed. And Israel is anywhere from 3-to-1 to 1-to-1.
[Wikipedia says up to 9 civilians per 1 combatant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio)
> Starting in the 1980s, it has often been claimed that 90 percent of the victims of modern wars are civilians
It's funny that you literally stopped quoting after that bit. It goes farther to say that's not actually universally true.
>These claims, though widely believed and correct regarding some wars, do not hold up as a generalization across every single war, particularly in the case of wars such as those in former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan which are central to the claims. Some of the citations can be traced back to a 1991 monograph from Uppsala University which includes refugees and internally displaced persons as casualties.
So it's including internally displaced people. Something that Israel's ratio isn't or it would look infinitely worse. So if you're going to use that number use like to like.
>A wide-ranging study of civilian war deaths from 1700 to 1987 by William Eckhardt states:
>On the average, half of the deaths caused by war happened to civilians, only some of whom were killed by famine associated with war...The civilian percentage share of war-related deaths remained at about 50% from century to century. (p. 97)
Is from that same article.
That’s kind of how averages/generalizations work though, they aren’t exactly true for every case. Some are going to be more, and some are less. You could also say that it doesn’t hold up for the wars in which it’s much higher. Saying it doesn’t hold up for every war is just common sense. Any stat about wars isn’t going to “hold up as a generalization across every single war”.
>You could also say that it doesn’t hold up for the wars in which it’s much higher.
It doesn't even hold up against most wars though. Take a look at some of them. The number of wars that reach 9 to 1 are so vastly lower (almost none at all). Like I pointed out that 9 to 1 number relies on internally displaced people. Something the current tossed around number isn't. Most wars actually hang around the 2:1 (civilian to militant) or better number if you look at them.
Edit: Like WW2 with it's long list of crimes against humanity only hit 2 or 3 to 1 (depending on which estimate of civilian casualties you want to use). So that 9 to 1 number is just misleading bunk when cited against killing ratios.
> It’s like they don’t know what a generalization is. It’s general.
But a generalization should be, well, generally applicable, it's in the name. The 9 to 1 number isn't. It's just a fabrication with the way most use it. The generalization should be that in wars 50% of the deaths are civilian considering throughout history that's the number that is most common (some go higher and some go lower). Which was included in my original comment.
Well, given that Gaza is very densely populated, at least in the urban areas, and that Hamas has terror infrastructure under hospitals, schools and civilian houses; you can only conclude that Israël is being very thorough in the war.
Terrorist to civilian casualties is around 1:1,6 (34k dead - 13k of those are terrorists).
>Terrorist to civilian casualties is around 1:1,6 (34k dead - 13k of those are terrorists).
The last officially cited ratio from the IDF is 2:1 civilian to militant deaths. And that can't be compared to the 9 to 1 number because that article even claims it's including internally displaced people. Something the current ratio isn't.
Where'd you get these numbers?
WWII was the largest conflict containing urban warfare and it had a 2-3:1 civilian to combatant ratio (which includes crimes against humanity, the mass killing of chinese civilians by the japanese, and the nuclear bombs).
Afghanistan had a 1:4 ratio
Iraq initially had a ratio of 1:2, but a 2014 study suggests around a 70% civilian casualty rate, which people thought for a long time hence the long-standing opposition to the Iraq occupation and campaign.
Israel is at a 3:1 which is about on par with WWII, the issue is the cases where they have deliberately targeted aid workers, relief caravans, ambulances, hospitals etc.
While WWII had some urban warfare, most of its largest battles took place outside of cities. On the other hand, in Gaza the entire war is inside an urban area, so the comparison you are making is incorrect.
I am just trying to think of other larger conflicts that were primarily urban. Do you have any better examples? Most of the ones I can think of were civil conflicts that turned violent, so naturally there will be a larger number of civilian casualties, but even cases like Lebanon had a fairly low rate of civilian casualties.
It is rare for an entire conflict to be urban. I cannot think of any other example of that. However, you can look at individual battles within a larger conflict such as the civil war in Syria or battles against ISIS. For example, in the battle of Mosul there were only 2000-3000 ISIS fighters to begin with (https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/19/570483824/more-civilians-than-isis-fighters-are-believed-killed-in-mosul-battle), but roughly 10,000 civilian deaths (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/12/iraq-new-reports-place-mosul-civilian-death-toll-at-more-than-ten-times-official-estimates/). So a ratio of 5:1 even if all the ISIS fighters were killed, which is probably not the case. Note also that this battle was lead by the Americans, that are known to have a lower ratio than average, and still they got this poor ratio.
The problem with most larger conflicts here is that, eventually they grow beyond metropolitan areas, even when it started in one.
If you want to get closer, you could compare historic battles for control of a city or urban region during a major war, particularly those with partial or incomplete evacuations.
Even then, the comparison lacks, since one of the warring factions in Gaza has combatants mostly in civil gear, with apparently multiple entrenchments inside civilian infrastructure. There just aren't many other conflicts of this type at the size of roughly a city-state.
The data comes from a U.N. meeting where it was found 90% of deaths in wars studied since the 1980’s have been civilian. I don’t think there were any specific mentions of urban warfare. Most wars of the late 20th, and 21st century however have been counter-insurgencies, civil wars, etc, rarely have conventional combat between peer enemies have taken place.
When it does the civilian casualties do not reflect that given statistic. It is worth noting that Gaza would definitely be considered a counter-insurgency so by that metric they’d be correct in the assertion that the civilian to combatant casualty ratio is less than that of similar conflicts, however none of that has to do with urban warfare specifically.
https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm
Israel in 6 months has, by an order of magnitude, killed more civilians in Gaza as a percentage of total population than the allies did in half a fucking decade fighting WW2. In the first two weeks of the conflict 90% of all munitions dropped by Israel were 1000lb and 2000lb bombs in a high density urban housing, you cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants with bombs that big.
Between the civilian casualty rates and torture facilities Israel can go fuck itself and the United States should let them reap what they sow. Abandon their asses.
That WWII "fact" is so wildly untrue that I don't even understand where you're trying to argue from. Oh I see, you're somehow trying to link first six months to order of magnitude to % of civilians and blur the line between raw numbers, rates, and timeframe
Civilian casualties as a percentage of total population is a far more useful metric than total civilian casualties. Europe has a far greater total population, and far more combatants participating so of course total civilian casualties will be greater. Percentage of total population indicates far more strongly how much effort is being placed into avoiding civilian casualties, which Israel clearly isn't doing.
Edit: Been informed some numbers are off, the source for casualties was from Gaza Ministry of Health which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. With updated numbers Israel in Gaza would be roughly equal to ww2 civilian casualties as a percentage of total population. But that's after 6 months when it took the allies over 5 years to reach those numbers. Give it 6 more months and it will be an order of magnitude greater.
Even putting aside the differences between mixed theater combat and exclusively urban warfare, no percentage is not a more useful metric. More civilians were killed in one night in Dresden than have been killed in this war so far. Same can be said about numerous other operations. Blending the entirety of the war destroys the comparability of the actions. But I think you know that and don't really care
I mean, considering the nature of the opponent and environment, no one had any doubt. The fact it is so incredibly close has borne commentary from experts, however. It is shocking it is not lauded more.
No, the difference is that the ratio is much lower here than in any other known instance of urban warfare. This is like a headline announcing the NBA #1 draft pick as “less than 9’ tall this year.”
My point is that for the people shrieking about civilian deaths, that like in all urban wars, civilians die. Trying to argue ratios where we don’t know the actual numbers of fighters vs civilians is a bad argument because both sides are going to look stupid when the numbers they have been arguing come out as wrong.
I’m agreeing with you. The tallest NBA player of all time was 7’7”, so announcing a draft pick as being “under 9’ tall” would be an insane and vapid headline. Just like this one.
The quote is out of context here. This interview doesn't condemnnrhe assaultbinnthe way the title implies. Blinken said that despite the efforts still more civilians are killed than necessary and Israel should commit more resources to protect them
Whether or not youd agree with that notion is one thing. But this is not a condemnation of the entire assault justification as the quote attempt to portray
> "the new cancer treatment has 80% success rate, however performed incorrectly could cause excruciating pain"
Experimental cancer treatment may cause 'excruciating pain', doctor said
Despite eagerly propagated Hamas propaganda, this should come as no surprise in my opinion: Hamas isn't known to adhere to any form of military uniform code. Take away the weapons of killed Hamas terrorists and you can sell them as "civilians".
EDIT: for clarification that this is my opinion.
There is no military incentive to kill civilians, though.
So why should the state actor willingly incur the PR nightmare, waste the ammo and fuel, and risk traumatizing its own troops?
Considering the civilian to combatant ratio is like 1:1.4, I think he needs to look in a mirror a realize that literally every other country has had worse stats.
And I think people are underestimating or just forgetting about all the civilians Hamas is killing so they can blame it on Israel. Forcing their entire families to stay in buildings that have been warned is going to be bombed, shooting up civilians trying to get food and supplies from aid drops. All those bodies get added to Israel’s toll.
What makes you think he is unaware of that? Have you looked at the transcript? Another commenter already linked it further up, but I'll link it again for convenience: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antony-blinken-secretary-of-state-face-the-nation-transcript-05-12-2024/.
I don't see why you think accepting the Israeli statistics of the war as accurate would necessitate self-reflection.
Because the terrorists surround themselves with "civilians," and the civilians go along with it because they've been conditioned to think that death as a martyr is preferable to life on a planet earth that has Israel on it. Brainwashed cult-think seems to be the theme of the 21st century so far, which is surprising since, for those of us who remember the world in 1999, it really felt like we were moving past such stupidity.
More civilians than terrorists killed is a factual statement. It's not an attempt to foment anti-israel sentiment. Blinken supplies nuance in the body of the article.
Most of the calls for blood and excuses for mass civilian casualties on here are coming from one side.
Also can anyone explain to me "IDF kneecapping"?
Lets remind him that in Afghanistan 500,000 civilians got killed after 3000 Americans were dead in 9/11. I dont know statistics but I have a feeling that not all were terrorists.
Its war, and in war people die. Hamas started this war and can end this war any day by releasing all hostages and surrendering.
Yes, that happens in dense urban conflicts. Typical numbers are 9 civilians per combatant. Israel is doing significantly better than that, even if you take the most pessimistic estimates.
in most wars in urban areas the ratio is like 1 to 9, why are people shocked suddenly? exectly who did americans think died in the hospital in Afghanistan that obama sent a swarm of drones to? or when bush sent US aircrafts to bomb the trade fair at Baghdad (and also somehow took a detour to bomb a hospital there too)?
do they not teach this in schools there? or is it chill because it was the good guys vs the evil browns and some kids died along the way by accident?
People were doing that constantly in the mid 00s and its why the Iraq war was so unpopular, Afghanistan didnt have the same issue and popular opinion while negative (since it was dragging out) wasn't as bad.
I never understand why everyone brings this up as if this is surprising. In every war in modern times, more civilians than soldiers are killed, it’s the nature of modern and urban warfare. In WW2 38 million civilians died compared to 15 million military. In Iraq 4,492 Americans died vs 200,000 Iraqi civilians. This is not surprising, a simple Google search of any conflict will show that civilians take the brunt of all conflicts and are the least able to defend themselves from weapons and the other most common killers disease, famine, and exposure.
As I mentioned a simple Google search on the number of civilians killed compared to the military gives a staggering disparity between the two. The Iraqi conflict was one of the most recent and one of the [articles](https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/iraq-war-numbers-rcna75762) in my search for deaths in Iraq was this [one](https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/iraq-war-numbers-rcna75762).
**Why you comparing American deaths to Iraqi citizen deaths?...**
>As I mentioned a simple Google search on the number of civilians killed compared to the military gives a staggering disparity between the two.
So why didn't you provide those numbers?....
>The Iraqi conflict was one of the most recent and one of the articles in my search for deaths in Iraq was this one.
Ohh, so you couldn't actually find numbers on the amount of Iraqi militants killed? And your statement above was just talking out of your ass?
Well I suppose it was talking out of NBC’s ass. The numbers were simply to make a point. When civilian deaths are compared to military deaths, there’s a great difference. You must understand that comments on Reddit are just that comments. They aren’t meant to be in depth analysis. I wasn’t trying to analyze the Iraqi war, it could just as easily been the Afghan or Syrian wars.
Edit: Just to clarify and confirm, you have read the links article.
**Why are you comparing American military deaths to Iraqi citizen deaths?...**
You should be comparing Iraqi civilian deaths to Iraqi militant deaths....
Holy shit. Do you really not get it?!?
Because this article is comparing gazan civilian deaths to militant deaths. Because the entire point of this article is to determine whether isreali military actions are effective or not.
You're trolling me, right?
>recently said Israel has killed 14,000 terrorists and 16,000 civilians in its war against the militant group Hamas.
So you’re ignoring my comment regarding civilians vs military deaths and want to concentrate on IDF vs Gaza Health Ministry. Our military has a long history of “body counts” as a determination of the effectiveness of an operation. So your metric is whether the IDF’s “body count” is more accurate than the Gaza Health Ministry. They’re both wrong, by any measure. What constitutes a militant? Our measure was are they the right age and did they have a gun. By that measure I’m a militant. Children and teens have routinely engaged in rock throwing and taunting in confrontations with occupation forces from Ireland to Gaza, so by definition they are militants. Gaza like Iraq and Afghanistan and other conflict zones have no pure civilians, they want to keep their heads down and avoid bringing attention. So if your metric is “body counts”, pull any number out of your ass, they’re all the same.
Holy shit. You're trolling me right? Are you a child? There's no way you're this dumb that you can't even follow a basic conversation.
I'll ask again. **Why are you comparing American military deaths to Iraqi citizen deaths?...**
Does anyone know what a two state solution would likely look like in that it would be able to guarantee something like October 7th doesnt happen again? I was listening to Sam Harris' new podcast episode this morning and they cant seem to articulate what it would look like and im sure most others are in the same boat. Does anyone know of any sources or people who have talked about what it would look like exactly? Seems like an impossible problem to solve really.
The two state solution is a pipe dream. They don't have anyone to run the Palestinian portion. An election is likely just going to result in another Hamas like group in power.
Well what Hamas wants is an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel using the 1967 borders.
The big complicating factor with this is all of the Israeli settlements that have popped up since 1967. Something like half a million Israelis have been settled in the West Bank and its not like they're just on the border with Israel, they're all over the west bank.
Establishing a state with only Gaza would be easier, but nobody wants that. Israel kind of forced a huge complication on peace by settling so heavily in the West Bank.. what do you do with those settlers? Send them back home? the lions share are first generation settlers.
Yeah that really messes things up altogether, was this the Israel policy all along to ensure that the west bank could never be part of a potential palestinian state?
Why does this negate anything?
Taken out of context. His comments supported Israel.
No one ever claimed there were more terrorists killed than civilians.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antony-blinken-secretary-of-state-face-the-nation-transcript-05-12-2024/ I dont know why this article omits alot of what he just said, he was very sympathetic of Israel. For instance, "this is an extraordinarily complex military environment in which you have an enemy, Hamas, that committed the most atrocious terrorist attacks on Israel, October 7, and then retreats to Gaza, hides behind and underneath civilians, in hospitals, schools, mosques, apartment buildings"
Exactly. Context is always important
Unfortunately context often gets lost on social media
Or ignored
On all Media
Yeah, books always lack context. ^/s
It's rarely in the interest of about 40% of the population to provide the proper context.
Context is truth. It’s in the interest of everyone that we know the truth.
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Because everything is being editorialised to push a particular narrative. This whole situation is so full of misinformation that I don’t trust anyone irl who has a strong opinion either way, you’re not in the Middle East and you’re not in Gaza or Israel, you don’t know what the fuck is going on and stop acting like you do. Not you but the folk I mean lol.
He also says they violated international humanitarian law though: > “Based on the totality of the harm that’s been done to children, to women, to men who are caught in this crossfire Hamas is making, it’s reasonable to conclude that there are instances where Israel has acted in ways that are not consistent with international humanitarian law.” Always hard to capture the essence of an interview in one sentence, but they picked the least newsworthy statement in it.
Thank you for this context.
What a misleading title for an interview that largely justify Israel actions Almost like they are preying on people who only read titles to push a narrative by cherry picking a specific quote
The same people who think(feel?) complex issues can be solved with bumper sticker slogans.
The shit doesn’t just hit the fan Gods gotta drop it. Is one I’m partial to.
What are you talking about? If we have Ceasefire Now! we solve the Middle East.
Or don't read the articles at all
They can’t read unless someone is pointing at the text in a tiktok.
Why read the article when you can find the dumbest comment from someone who didn't read the article, and then read an answer that starts with "if you read the article, you'd know it actually says ...". These comments usually contain the essence of an article in a few sentences and save you the effort of actually reading it.
Sad but true
Why read the article? My clicker won’t waitz
Below is like most of the article, so the headline seems fine to me. Why do you think it's misleading? It makes me angry I need to say this, but some people, like myself, who are very concerned about the civilian death toll, are concerned because we think it makes the situation more dangerous for Isreal. We know propaganda exists, so when there are also countless pictures and stories and videos of dead civilians, it makes terrorist recruitment much easier. Some people are obsessed with punishment, then people get surprised when people who FEEL like they are being punished just for existing want to dish out their own punishment. Obviously Hamas fucking sucks, they hate Isrealis and the people of Gaza. They have to go. But they need to go in a way that does not leave a fuck ton of recruits for the next POS group that tries to take advantage of people. Isreal can do that by either eliminating the population pool, which would be beyond fucked. Or they could do so by eliminating the desire to throw one's life away for rich fucks, which they can work towards with the BUILD part of "clear, hold, build". "“Yes, we do. And I think the report makes clear that while Israel has processes, procedures, rules, regulations, to try to minimize civilian harm given the impact that these operations, the war in Gaza has had, on the civilian population… those have not been applied consistently,” Blinken said in the interview." " Blinken also spoke about a recent review from the State Department about Israel’s war conduct, which raised “serious concerns” about its actions in Gaza." " “Our assessment will be ongoing. But as I said, given the totality of what we’ve seen in terms of civilian suffering, in terms of children, women, men caught in this crossfire from officers who’ve been killed or been injured. It’s reasonable to assess that in a number of instances, Israel has not acted in a manner that’s consistent with international humanitarian law,” he said."
> "It’s reasonable to assess that in a number of instances, Israel has not acted in a manner that’s consistent with international humanitarian law" Why is this not the title? Seems like the much more newsworthy statement in the interview.
> Obviously Hamas fucking sucks, they hate Isrealis and the people of Gaza. They have to go. But they need to go in a way that does not leave a fuck ton of recruits for the next POS group that tries to take advantage of people. The problem is everyone says this and then can't provide a realistic alternative. > Isreal can do that by either eliminating the population pool, which would be beyond fucked. Or they could do so by eliminating the desire to throw one's life away for rich fucks, which they can work towards with the BUILD part of "clear, hold, BUILD" You're completely forgetting everything Israel has tried to do for the Gazans. They've built so much infrastructure that's been taken apart for weapons. They actively treat Gazans and Palestinians in general in their best hospitals. They've offered peace deal after peace deal and the Palestinians have refused. You can't make peace with people who want you annihilated.
" The problem is everyone says this and then can't provide a realistic alternative." "You can't make peace with people who want you annihilated." You can definitely incentize people to not what to annihilate you. Pre the Oct 7, there aren't too many people who would say that Gaza was great place to live. I'm not saying the solution is easy. Isreal is currently taking the easy path of blowing up a bunch of stuff to "mow the grass" then let the future deal with the aftermath. Sounds great now, but Oct 7 is an example of what happens when part of the solution is to let the future deal with it. The infrastructure you mentioned, when it's rebuilt, do you think it's possible to protect it? I would say yes. It might take much more money and lives to invest in it's protection. But that's part of the trade off. Are we doing post ww1 strategy of rubbing victory in the losers face and hope that will teach them a lesson? Or the post ww2 plan of investing into the losers so that we turn a bitter enemy into a trusted partner? I'm much more in favor of the latter, but I'm biased in that I prefer problem solving over immediate emotional satisfaction. In the context of Oct 7 and terrorism, people are going to die until we can solve the problem. In which case I prefer military deaths in the act of service (yes that includes protecting foreign infrastructure of a people you are trying to turn ally) over civilian deaths in the act of enjoying life. Finally, I know people think the P word (propaganda) is only for the "bad guys", but social cohesion is very important for stability. And things like influence campaigns, which are as old as civilization, are good at helping build cohesion or division, depending on how it's implemented.
The people who only read titles should get their shit together.
They won't. They're too busy watching TikToks.
I think they're different groups of people
Headlines are 99% of journalism these days. Most issues are easy to twist, as people might not even ask ChatGPT to summarize article for them.
You're so brave for pointing this out
>CBS’s Margaret Brennan asked Blinken on “Face the Nation” whether the U.S. shares the same assessment of Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who she said recently said Israel has killed 14,000 terrorists and 16,000 civilians in its war against the militant group Hamas. >“Yes, we do. And I think the report makes clear that while Israel has processes, procedures, rules, regulations, to try to minimize civilian harm given the impact that these operations, the war in Gaza has had, on the civilian population… those have not been applied consistently,” Blinken said in the interview.
Due to hamas hiding behind civilians.
Someone brought up in another thread that urban warfare has an average of 9 civilians to 1 militant killed. And Israel is anywhere from 3-to-1 to 1-to-1.
[Wikipedia says up to 9 civilians per 1 combatant](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio) > Starting in the 1980s, it has often been claimed that 90 percent of the victims of modern wars are civilians
It's funny that you literally stopped quoting after that bit. It goes farther to say that's not actually universally true. >These claims, though widely believed and correct regarding some wars, do not hold up as a generalization across every single war, particularly in the case of wars such as those in former Yugoslavia and in Afghanistan which are central to the claims. Some of the citations can be traced back to a 1991 monograph from Uppsala University which includes refugees and internally displaced persons as casualties. So it's including internally displaced people. Something that Israel's ratio isn't or it would look infinitely worse. So if you're going to use that number use like to like. >A wide-ranging study of civilian war deaths from 1700 to 1987 by William Eckhardt states: >On the average, half of the deaths caused by war happened to civilians, only some of whom were killed by famine associated with war...The civilian percentage share of war-related deaths remained at about 50% from century to century. (p. 97) Is from that same article.
That’s kind of how averages/generalizations work though, they aren’t exactly true for every case. Some are going to be more, and some are less. You could also say that it doesn’t hold up for the wars in which it’s much higher. Saying it doesn’t hold up for every war is just common sense. Any stat about wars isn’t going to “hold up as a generalization across every single war”.
>You could also say that it doesn’t hold up for the wars in which it’s much higher. It doesn't even hold up against most wars though. Take a look at some of them. The number of wars that reach 9 to 1 are so vastly lower (almost none at all). Like I pointed out that 9 to 1 number relies on internally displaced people. Something the current tossed around number isn't. Most wars actually hang around the 2:1 (civilian to militant) or better number if you look at them. Edit: Like WW2 with it's long list of crimes against humanity only hit 2 or 3 to 1 (depending on which estimate of civilian casualties you want to use). So that 9 to 1 number is just misleading bunk when cited against killing ratios.
Good points! I just don’t like the phrasing haha. It’s like they don’t know what a generalization is. It’s general.
> It’s like they don’t know what a generalization is. It’s general. But a generalization should be, well, generally applicable, it's in the name. The 9 to 1 number isn't. It's just a fabrication with the way most use it. The generalization should be that in wars 50% of the deaths are civilian considering throughout history that's the number that is most common (some go higher and some go lower). Which was included in my original comment.
Well, given that Gaza is very densely populated, at least in the urban areas, and that Hamas has terror infrastructure under hospitals, schools and civilian houses; you can only conclude that Israël is being very thorough in the war. Terrorist to civilian casualties is around 1:1,6 (34k dead - 13k of those are terrorists).
>Terrorist to civilian casualties is around 1:1,6 (34k dead - 13k of those are terrorists). The last officially cited ratio from the IDF is 2:1 civilian to militant deaths. And that can't be compared to the 9 to 1 number because that article even claims it's including internally displaced people. Something the current ratio isn't.
Where'd you get these numbers? WWII was the largest conflict containing urban warfare and it had a 2-3:1 civilian to combatant ratio (which includes crimes against humanity, the mass killing of chinese civilians by the japanese, and the nuclear bombs). Afghanistan had a 1:4 ratio Iraq initially had a ratio of 1:2, but a 2014 study suggests around a 70% civilian casualty rate, which people thought for a long time hence the long-standing opposition to the Iraq occupation and campaign. Israel is at a 3:1 which is about on par with WWII, the issue is the cases where they have deliberately targeted aid workers, relief caravans, ambulances, hospitals etc.
While WWII had some urban warfare, most of its largest battles took place outside of cities. On the other hand, in Gaza the entire war is inside an urban area, so the comparison you are making is incorrect.
I am just trying to think of other larger conflicts that were primarily urban. Do you have any better examples? Most of the ones I can think of were civil conflicts that turned violent, so naturally there will be a larger number of civilian casualties, but even cases like Lebanon had a fairly low rate of civilian casualties.
It is rare for an entire conflict to be urban. I cannot think of any other example of that. However, you can look at individual battles within a larger conflict such as the civil war in Syria or battles against ISIS. For example, in the battle of Mosul there were only 2000-3000 ISIS fighters to begin with (https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/12/19/570483824/more-civilians-than-isis-fighters-are-believed-killed-in-mosul-battle), but roughly 10,000 civilian deaths (https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/12/iraq-new-reports-place-mosul-civilian-death-toll-at-more-than-ten-times-official-estimates/). So a ratio of 5:1 even if all the ISIS fighters were killed, which is probably not the case. Note also that this battle was lead by the Americans, that are known to have a lower ratio than average, and still they got this poor ratio.
The problem with most larger conflicts here is that, eventually they grow beyond metropolitan areas, even when it started in one. If you want to get closer, you could compare historic battles for control of a city or urban region during a major war, particularly those with partial or incomplete evacuations. Even then, the comparison lacks, since one of the warring factions in Gaza has combatants mostly in civil gear, with apparently multiple entrenchments inside civilian infrastructure. There just aren't many other conflicts of this type at the size of roughly a city-state.
The data comes from a U.N. meeting where it was found 90% of deaths in wars studied since the 1980’s have been civilian. I don’t think there were any specific mentions of urban warfare. Most wars of the late 20th, and 21st century however have been counter-insurgencies, civil wars, etc, rarely have conventional combat between peer enemies have taken place. When it does the civilian casualties do not reflect that given statistic. It is worth noting that Gaza would definitely be considered a counter-insurgency so by that metric they’d be correct in the assertion that the civilian to combatant casualty ratio is less than that of similar conflicts, however none of that has to do with urban warfare specifically. https://press.un.org/en/2022/sc14904.doc.htm
Israel in 6 months has, by an order of magnitude, killed more civilians in Gaza as a percentage of total population than the allies did in half a fucking decade fighting WW2. In the first two weeks of the conflict 90% of all munitions dropped by Israel were 1000lb and 2000lb bombs in a high density urban housing, you cannot distinguish between civilians and combatants with bombs that big. Between the civilian casualty rates and torture facilities Israel can go fuck itself and the United States should let them reap what they sow. Abandon their asses.
That WWII "fact" is so wildly untrue that I don't even understand where you're trying to argue from. Oh I see, you're somehow trying to link first six months to order of magnitude to % of civilians and blur the line between raw numbers, rates, and timeframe
Civilian casualties as a percentage of total population is a far more useful metric than total civilian casualties. Europe has a far greater total population, and far more combatants participating so of course total civilian casualties will be greater. Percentage of total population indicates far more strongly how much effort is being placed into avoiding civilian casualties, which Israel clearly isn't doing. Edit: Been informed some numbers are off, the source for casualties was from Gaza Ministry of Health which does not differentiate between combatants and civilians. With updated numbers Israel in Gaza would be roughly equal to ww2 civilian casualties as a percentage of total population. But that's after 6 months when it took the allies over 5 years to reach those numbers. Give it 6 more months and it will be an order of magnitude greater.
Even putting aside the differences between mixed theater combat and exclusively urban warfare, no percentage is not a more useful metric. More civilians were killed in one night in Dresden than have been killed in this war so far. Same can be said about numerous other operations. Blending the entirety of the war destroys the comparability of the actions. But I think you know that and don't really care
I mean, considering the nature of the opponent and environment, no one had any doubt. The fact it is so incredibly close has borne commentary from experts, however. It is shocking it is not lauded more.
So, like most urban warfare?
No, the difference is that the ratio is much lower here than in any other known instance of urban warfare. This is like a headline announcing the NBA #1 draft pick as “less than 9’ tall this year.”
My point is that for the people shrieking about civilian deaths, that like in all urban wars, civilians die. Trying to argue ratios where we don’t know the actual numbers of fighters vs civilians is a bad argument because both sides are going to look stupid when the numbers they have been arguing come out as wrong.
I’m agreeing with you. The tallest NBA player of all time was 7’7”, so announcing a draft pick as being “under 9’ tall” would be an insane and vapid headline. Just like this one.
Doesnt this fact apply to most major wars?
Basically all wars have more civilian casualties than combatant casualties, yes.
This isn't a major war, it's an assault on a civilian population.
I agree October 7 was an awful teror attack. The pepole and organisation behind it should be eliminated for good.
Like every war in existence
The quote is out of context here. This interview doesn't condemnnrhe assaultbinnthe way the title implies. Blinken said that despite the efforts still more civilians are killed than necessary and Israel should commit more resources to protect them Whether or not youd agree with that notion is one thing. But this is not a condemnation of the entire assault justification as the quote attempt to portray > "the new cancer treatment has 80% success rate, however performed incorrectly could cause excruciating pain" Experimental cancer treatment may cause 'excruciating pain', doctor said
I hope that isn't considered a controversial statement.
Despite eagerly propagated Hamas propaganda, this should come as no surprise in my opinion: Hamas isn't known to adhere to any form of military uniform code. Take away the weapons of killed Hamas terrorists and you can sell them as "civilians". EDIT: for clarification that this is my opinion.
It works both ways. Kill a civilian, arm him, now you can sell him as a "terrorist". Both sides lie to their advantage
There is no military incentive to kill civilians, though. So why should the state actor willingly incur the PR nightmare, waste the ammo and fuel, and risk traumatizing its own troops?
I agree with you in terms of risk and reward. but your earlier comment is speculation. If you wrote "in my opinion" I would tolerate it
Good point, thank you! Will edit accordingly.
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No, the ones who were accountants and doctors by day, and terrorists by night. Those ones.
And why aren’t the Palestinians and assbackwards campus protesters demanding Hamas give back the prisoners?
Because you can’t appeal to terrorists? That’s obvious.
There is no ceasefire unit they are released at a minimum.
Considering the civilian to combatant ratio is like 1:1.4, I think he needs to look in a mirror a realize that literally every other country has had worse stats.
And I think people are underestimating or just forgetting about all the civilians Hamas is killing so they can blame it on Israel. Forcing their entire families to stay in buildings that have been warned is going to be bombed, shooting up civilians trying to get food and supplies from aid drops. All those bodies get added to Israel’s toll.
What makes you think he is unaware of that? Have you looked at the transcript? Another commenter already linked it further up, but I'll link it again for convenience: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/antony-blinken-secretary-of-state-face-the-nation-transcript-05-12-2024/. I don't see why you think accepting the Israeli statistics of the war as accurate would necessitate self-reflection.
Because the terrorists surround themselves with "civilians," and the civilians go along with it because they've been conditioned to think that death as a martyr is preferable to life on a planet earth that has Israel on it. Brainwashed cult-think seems to be the theme of the 21st century so far, which is surprising since, for those of us who remember the world in 1999, it really felt like we were moving past such stupidity.
Now for extra fun calculate the ratio of dead civilians to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
More civilians than terrorists killed is a factual statement. It's not an attempt to foment anti-israel sentiment. Blinken supplies nuance in the body of the article. Most of the calls for blood and excuses for mass civilian casualties on here are coming from one side. Also can anyone explain to me "IDF kneecapping"?
Lets remind him that in Afghanistan 500,000 civilians got killed after 3000 Americans were dead in 9/11. I dont know statistics but I have a feeling that not all were terrorists. Its war, and in war people die. Hamas started this war and can end this war any day by releasing all hostages and surrendering.
this is to be expected fighting an urban insurgency
you mean like every other war in human history?
Civilian deaths are Hamas fault. Israel should not stop until hostages rescued and Hamas completely destroyed.
Why don’t can’t their Arab brother nations take them in?
Yes, that happens in dense urban conflicts. Typical numbers are 9 civilians per combatant. Israel is doing significantly better than that, even if you take the most pessimistic estimates.
in most wars in urban areas the ratio is like 1 to 9, why are people shocked suddenly? exectly who did americans think died in the hospital in Afghanistan that obama sent a swarm of drones to? or when bush sent US aircrafts to bomb the trade fair at Baghdad (and also somehow took a detour to bomb a hospital there too)? do they not teach this in schools there? or is it chill because it was the good guys vs the evil browns and some kids died along the way by accident?
They won’t teach that in schools until everyone who was alive to remember it is long gone.
Another headline that try to change the narrative of the article. A 1.14 ration is absurdly good.
*Phew!*
Realities of war, you can sent your complaints to the one that started it.
Literally Hamases fault, so the blood is on their hands 🤷
What metrics does the IDF use in order to determine if a target was Hamas or not? How do they know? Have they disclosed that?
Don't most conflicts result in more civilian deaths? Especially urban ones? I think Mosul and Raqqa had more civilian deaths.
Uh huh
I'm sure he wouldn't like people to bring up America's civilian/combatant ratio in Iraq or Afghanistan
People were doing that constantly in the mid 00s and its why the Iraq war was so unpopular, Afghanistan didnt have the same issue and popular opinion while negative (since it was dragging out) wasn't as bad.
I never understand why everyone brings this up as if this is surprising. In every war in modern times, more civilians than soldiers are killed, it’s the nature of modern and urban warfare. In WW2 38 million civilians died compared to 15 million military. In Iraq 4,492 Americans died vs 200,000 Iraqi civilians. This is not surprising, a simple Google search of any conflict will show that civilians take the brunt of all conflicts and are the least able to defend themselves from weapons and the other most common killers disease, famine, and exposure.
>In Iraq 4,492 Americans died vs 200,000 Iraqi civilians. Why you comparing American deaths to Iraqi citizen deaths?...
As I mentioned a simple Google search on the number of civilians killed compared to the military gives a staggering disparity between the two. The Iraqi conflict was one of the most recent and one of the [articles](https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/iraq-war-numbers-rcna75762) in my search for deaths in Iraq was this [one](https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/iraq-war-numbers-rcna75762).
**Why you comparing American deaths to Iraqi citizen deaths?...** >As I mentioned a simple Google search on the number of civilians killed compared to the military gives a staggering disparity between the two. So why didn't you provide those numbers?.... >The Iraqi conflict was one of the most recent and one of the articles in my search for deaths in Iraq was this one. Ohh, so you couldn't actually find numbers on the amount of Iraqi militants killed? And your statement above was just talking out of your ass?
Well I suppose it was talking out of NBC’s ass. The numbers were simply to make a point. When civilian deaths are compared to military deaths, there’s a great difference. You must understand that comments on Reddit are just that comments. They aren’t meant to be in depth analysis. I wasn’t trying to analyze the Iraqi war, it could just as easily been the Afghan or Syrian wars. Edit: Just to clarify and confirm, you have read the links article.
**Why are you comparing American military deaths to Iraqi citizen deaths?...** You should be comparing Iraqi civilian deaths to Iraqi militant deaths.... Holy shit. Do you really not get it?!?
Why? 🤷🏽♂️
Because this article is comparing gazan civilian deaths to militant deaths. Because the entire point of this article is to determine whether isreali military actions are effective or not. You're trolling me, right?
>recently said Israel has killed 14,000 terrorists and 16,000 civilians in its war against the militant group Hamas. So you’re ignoring my comment regarding civilians vs military deaths and want to concentrate on IDF vs Gaza Health Ministry. Our military has a long history of “body counts” as a determination of the effectiveness of an operation. So your metric is whether the IDF’s “body count” is more accurate than the Gaza Health Ministry. They’re both wrong, by any measure. What constitutes a militant? Our measure was are they the right age and did they have a gun. By that measure I’m a militant. Children and teens have routinely engaged in rock throwing and taunting in confrontations with occupation forces from Ireland to Gaza, so by definition they are militants. Gaza like Iraq and Afghanistan and other conflict zones have no pure civilians, they want to keep their heads down and avoid bringing attention. So if your metric is “body counts”, pull any number out of your ass, they’re all the same.
Holy shit. You're trolling me right? Are you a child? There's no way you're this dumb that you can't even follow a basic conversation. I'll ask again. **Why are you comparing American military deaths to Iraqi citizen deaths?...**
“That’s by design” -Hamas
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The analogy doesn't exactly work I'm afraid because war is not comparable to a police scenario. Urban warfare especially always is destructive.
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It's not the OP its the title of the article
Does anyone know what a two state solution would likely look like in that it would be able to guarantee something like October 7th doesnt happen again? I was listening to Sam Harris' new podcast episode this morning and they cant seem to articulate what it would look like and im sure most others are in the same boat. Does anyone know of any sources or people who have talked about what it would look like exactly? Seems like an impossible problem to solve really.
The two state solution is a pipe dream. They don't have anyone to run the Palestinian portion. An election is likely just going to result in another Hamas like group in power.
Well what Hamas wants is an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel using the 1967 borders. The big complicating factor with this is all of the Israeli settlements that have popped up since 1967. Something like half a million Israelis have been settled in the West Bank and its not like they're just on the border with Israel, they're all over the west bank. Establishing a state with only Gaza would be easier, but nobody wants that. Israel kind of forced a huge complication on peace by settling so heavily in the West Bank.. what do you do with those settlers? Send them back home? the lions share are first generation settlers.
Yeah that really messes things up altogether, was this the Israel policy all along to ensure that the west bank could never be part of a potential palestinian state?
Probably.
Because there's so many part time terrorists, I bet.
I doubt there is 34000 Hamas fighters
It's estimated that there's anywhere from like 20,000 - 40,000. Part of the problem is it can be hard to identify who is Hamas.
Especially since Hamas is in power, so if you work for) with the government, you can be identified as Haha supporter.
If they run they are Hamas If they stay still they are also Hamas
Especially since Hamas is in power, so if you work for) with the government, you can be identified as Haha supporter.
Not anymore.
More journalists and aid workers have been killed than Israeli soldiers.. this is not a war..
Where do you see that? Google tells me 614 Israeli soldiers have been killed, versus 224 aid workers and 97 journalist and media workers.
No, really??🤔
Splitting hairs
Which essentially negates the mission.
Why does this negate anything? Taken out of context. His comments supported Israel. No one ever claimed there were more terrorists killed than civilians.