I don’t think there’s any sign of this. Like governments protest it and it’s difficult to legitimize territory taken by war, but like, Crimea is de facto Russian now and and only further military action or diplomatic negotiation will change that, and if nothing changes in the next 50-100 years then the number of maps that label Crimea as Russian will slowly grow until it’s just a fact of everyone’s reality, and one of those things on Wikipedia that comes with a note saying Ukraine disputes Russia’s ownership.
Yeah Crimea was on my mind. Say Ukraine managed to reclaim it now by rolling tanks in then I think most world would feel it was justly reclaimed. But say this war ends without definitively addressing Crimea then in 150 years Ukraine invaded to reclaim it I think world likely would feel it was an unreasonable war of aggression against residents of Crimea.
So feels like the more powerful a country is and the more fully it can dominate a territory then it becomes “OK” (not sure right word) to continue to control it so long as they have held on to the territory for an arbitrarily long time
Meh, everything is in context right? A lot of Israeli expansion came because Arab countries lost a war they started to remove Jews from Palestine. I’m going to be a lot more sympathetic to a state pushing against their neighbors when that state just survived a mass murder attempt.
2 Likes
I have a hard time envisioning the Crimea situation going unresolved for 10+ years. Either Ukraine retakes it, or aid gets cut off substantially, which results in Russia securing international recognition of its claim, because ain’t no one going to be able to dispute it.
Nah, international recognition of all sorts of things aren’t actually there despite de facto things being true. Korean War was never actually done IIRC, Russia holds lands in other euro countries that have been disputed for a decade plus despite no formal recognition.
realpolitik
Oh also, there was no borders in 1948. One of the big problems with the map posted by pvn is that map never existed in any de facto way. There was also an active blockade of the Jews in Jerusalem IIRC.
I agree the situation is fluid enough that it’s unlikely to see a lack of change in one direction or the other, but I agree with CN that the lack of an ability to meaningfully contest a territorial claim doesn’t automatically mean international recognition for the holder.
“an egyptian regime that doesn’t even exist anymore lost a war 50+ years ago” is a pretty thin argument for doing war crimes today against palestineans
1 Like
Sure. And if you attempted to be even a little bit honest here, you’d realize I made no such argument
Eta: Honest question here pvn, who is responsible for the conflicts escalation right now?
1 Like
I feel like you’re fishing for an unequivocal “Hamas” here (do tell me if that’s wrong), but isn’t that a bit like saying the Taliban was responsible for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, like we had no choice in the matter? At what point does the victim of a terrorist attack lose their license to take disproportionate action against civilians in response?
I think that quite a stretch, maybe if a terror group loosely associated with Hamas bombed Toronto and Canada invaded Gaza.
Hamas proudly attacked Israel and encouraged others to join the effort also so can be no surprise they now in war but that obviously no excuse for Israel to do whatever they want with no regard for civilians.
I think the actions Hamas took resulted in a far more predictable reaction from Israel than the 911 attacks did for Afghanistan.
I’d argue the most likely reason for Hamas’s actions was precisely to provoke that reaction, and therefore shutting down the Saudi and Israeli peace process (and further weakening alliances against Iran). It’s not like they went after any sort of strategic objectives otherwise. They took out go pros while they emulated Eric Harris. They took hundreds of hostages.
I don’t think there was any sort of precedent for the USA would do. Predictable that they would invade? Sure. Precedent after precedent? Nah.
Beyond that, Hamas knew Israel would react strongly, and specifically decided it was worth it for the people in Gaza to die in reprisals.
Could Israel just not reacted? I suppose theoretically, but I don’t think reality would allow for them to not conduct some sort of harsh military response to this. Both because of internal politics and the deterrent threat they have to maintain for their own security
Anyways, this event wasn’t some sort of the normal provocation with a bombing or assassination or whatever. It was a large scale equivalent of a school shooting specifically designed to get Israel to react. Hamas is the largest problem here.
I guess there an argument that if Hamas wanted Israel to react maybe more optimal from Israeli standpoint for Israel not to react in the expected manner? I guess that assumes Hamas was rational in their desire for Israel to invade.
Immediately, with that wording. Disproportionate action against civilians is never ok.
There is no legitimate reason to withold aid to Gaza civilians e.g. Punishing two million civilians because Hamas leadership won’t release the hostages is wrong, period. Particularly when those civilians have no place to run to, since they’re locked in on all sides.
I dissed this article on UP due to its sweet summer childness, but it describes pretty well what a rational government would do in this situation. As we all know, this government consists mainly of the absolute dregs of the world, so they will never do anything resembling this.
3 Likes
Yeah. In a completely inhuman and vile way, Hamas’ actions look fairly calculated and not bad for their long-term goals. I very much hope Israel proves them wrong.
Anyways, very NSFL images here from Israel
Again, this was only going to get one reaction… and I can’t really blame Israel for having it.
The central thrust across these posts is around the predictability of the Israeli response. This feels a bit fatalistic, like as long as Israel lays out the ground rules ahead of time that 1 Israeli life is worth the same as 5 Palestinian lives - a morally abhorrent calculus that none of us agree with - you can’t be too mad at them for reacting according to the (extremely messed up) rules they laid out, as they shower Gaza in bombs while tapping the “we told you how this works” sign.
Like, yeah, this was predictable, but I feel like that’s missing the point and strips agency from the more powerful party. Why does a party’s bad behavior being predictable absolve them from responsibility for it?
(eta: my assumption here is that we’re all on the same page that killing 4,500 and counting Palestinians is, in fact, “bad behavior”)
2 Likes
Goofy this isn’t some arbitrary ground rule. This was a go pro filmed mass torture event. I’m struggling to think of any entity that wouldn’t have a massive reaction to this.