Isreal's Security cabinet approves declaration of war

alphacyberranger@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 282 points –
jpost.com
63

How do you declare war on a state you don’t recognize?

Not sure if you're trying to be clever? You can start a war against anyone or anything.

You can attack anyone or anything but formal declarations of war are usually state actions.

I guess I’m partly being clever and pointing out that Israel is waving this word “war” around very generously right now, because they’re always dramatizing the direness of their situation, mainly for the American audience. But technically they shouldn’t be using this word unless they recognize the state of Palestine, which they have historically refused to do.

So, as usual, they’re trying to have it both ways.

I'm not sure I understand. Does war declaration being a state action require recognition the state of Palestine? Or can they declare war on "Hamas" or any other entity/group of people. Or do they even have to state who they are at war against? Can they just say "we are at war"?

I can't read the article (I just get an HTTP 403 "Forbidden", interesting) but Israel had previously talked about declaring war on Hamas itself.

This isnt a gotcha. Israel does not recognize the legitimacy of the Palestinian state, but they don't like, pretend it doesn't nominally exist. If Hamas considers themselves a legitimate government, they can be declared war against. They're not legitimate, but they still exist.

As an easy example in the US, everyone in the country doubted the legitimacy of the "Autonomous Zone" in Portland, and yet it very definitely was a thing.

Ask Hamas.

They didn’t issue a formal declaration of war.

There’s only one point under discussion here: Israel is calling this a declaration of war after years of refusing to acknowledge Palestinian statehood.

That means they’re playing the optics for a western audience in a self serving, hypocritical way. And geez it might take me an entire bathroom sit to assemble a list of more.

Hamas doesn’t have a PR strategy for the west. They’re just attacking. It’s not right but at least it’s not theater.

Let the American audience understand when they are being played to.

Israel accepted the original plan to have an independent Palestinian state. Palestine rejected it and started the 1947 civil war in an attempt to exterminate the Jews living there.

The borders of the state of Palestine would be "based on the pre-1967 borders". The latest resolution, in November 2013, was passed 165 to 6, with 6 abstentions;[5] with Israel and the United States voting against.[6]

The Palestinian leadership has embraced the concept since the 1982 Arab Summit in Fez.[7] Israel views moves by Palestinian leaders to obtain international recognition of a State of Palestine as being unilateral action by the Palestinians and inconsistent with a negotiated two-state solution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-state_solution#:~:text=The%20two%2Dstate%20solution%20to,west%20of%20the%20Jordan%20River.

That means they’re playing the optics for a western audience in a self serving, hypocritical way. ... Hamas doesn’t have a PR strategy for the west. They’re just attacking. It’s not right but at least it’s not theater.

I'm less worried about the hypocrisy and theatrics, than I am about civilian deaths.

But you do you.

You should be, because the u.s. will use this theater to justify sending huge amounts of military aid to Israel to level Gaza. Fuck Hamas but the u.s. sending more weapons over isn't going to help this situation.

Gaza is something like 300km^2. Israel has more than enough to level it a thousand times over. They have hundreds of artillery pieces, hundreds of fighters, an entire navy, something like a thousand tanks, ...

Hell, given they likely have hundreds of nukes, they could level the entire middle-east and end global civilisation as we know it.

The US giving Israel more military aid now, is politics. Not much more.

Wonderful. Now we have two wars that just happen to rile up needless political grandstanding for the uninvolved to fight over, so we wont have to think about the millions of innocents killed in the fighting.

Or any really important issues at home.

I dunno, I do sort of think that the deaths of innocent men, women, and children who lived between two warring nations is a big enough deal for us to set down our current affairs.

Im pissed that instead its going to be used as a proxy argument for ongoing at home political pissing matches.

This should make us pause our issues at home. Instead, its going to be used as fuel for the issues at home.

While millions die.

That's actually a pretty privileged pov. The hierarchy of need isn't very forgiving. When you can't feed your kids, or yourself, it's hard to give all your attention to a war going on across the world. Which is why US leaders should be leading the US first, instead of dragging foreign wars into their debates so they can try to get political points before an election.

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We don’t get many declarations of war these days. Usually they are just special military actions, or security operations, or something like that. What makes this different?

Israel is constantly catastrophizing their situation to win sympathy and demonize their enemy. Usually they try to avoid this kind of language because, being the only ones with an organized military, it would be a bad look to be at war with a bunch of refugees. But since they’ve been attacked they’re doing everything they can to paint that attack in the most bombastic terms possible 1) to win sympathy and 2) to justify the military devastation they are about to unleash on a civilian population.

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Following our decades-long invasion of Palestine and continually calling for Palestine's removal and the genocide of the Palestinian people, we are now calling it war.

Damn, maybe palestine should have accepted the two state plan in 1947 instead of trying to eliminate all Israeli Jews at the time.

Israel accepted it. Palestine started killing civilians. Then got their asses handed to them repeatedly.

You have to understand though, prior to the UN proposal, it was all just Palestine. Why should the Palestinians have accepted a UN (foreign, primarily western at the time) proposal to give half of their land to a minority who only began immigrating there en masse in the last 50 years? This was the period of decolonization, and while the rest of the Arab world and Africa was gaining their independence, Palestine was just getting a new map drawn on them by their western colonizers.

It’s easy to say with another 70 years of perspective that it didn’t work out for them, but in 1947 Israel was nothing more than an idea championed by a minority of religious extremists, viewed as terrorists even in the west.

Prior to the UN proposal it was a British territory. Before that it was part of the Ottoman Empire.

Palestine has never existed as an independent state.

Correct. However it was never israels. Can we at least agree on that?

Depends on how long you go back. It was Israel/Judea for over 1000 years before the Arab Conquest forced Jews to be scattered to the winds in the first place.

Wow, how gracious of israel, with the backing of the most powerful militaries in the world arrayed against a country without significant military allies, to nominally agree to a two-state plan and then for 75 years violate treaties, kill civilians and constantly invade the other state that essentially can't fight back.

Super brave of them to constantly show force with the US military backing them.

I'm sure Israel appreciates you admiring their genocide.

what if u were israel

should israel just let palestine attack and have israel intentionally hold back the fact they are much more powerful? if you poke a bear and get mauled do we blame the bear?

in america we would likely blame the bear but folks dont get consequences now.

Wow all over the wrong map. No, in American wildlife conservation and training, the wild animal is not blamed because humans have the ability to plan and reason and animals have an extremely limited ability to plan and reason and are practically only able to react.

You compare Israel to a mindless beast without the ability to plan or reason, ignoring that Israel has been invading Palestine for 75 years, carrying out a obvious territorial expansion "plan" according to their"reason"(I want it and I am stronger than you).

You're incorrect that Israel is doing this as mindless reactionaries, But you're probably making that assumption because as an American you are trained to be reactionary and hold knee-jerk reactions in high regard.

A bunch of Saudi Arabians bombed your New York! Quick, let's invade several unrelated countries! How reasonable. What a good plan. 80% approval ratings.

This declaration of war, if followed through, is a continuation of the systematic territorial invasion and execution of Palestinian civilians that has been going on for most of a century.

It's just going to happen faster now.

This seems like a really unevenly weighted war. Israel has nukes and is supported by most of the west. Vengeance and violence are also never a good mix so this will likely get ugly fast. It'll be interesting to see where the line is, if it exists at all, on how much violence the West will publicly support.

Good terrorism should be countered hard