ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ordering ceasefire

If I knew the answer to that question I would be a high ranked politician. But for me it's important to keep in mind what he is saying here and also in another part explicitly: a diplomatic solution is possible and history proves that. So what I can do is reject the notion that what is happening is unavoidable.

How does history prove any such thing? That's neither how history or proof work. Most of the wars that have been resolved to everyone's benefit have done so by the unconditional surrender of the aggressors, followed by amicable reconstruction.

> How does history prove any such thing?

Because there are Jews living in Germany nowadays?

Well, the alternative to diplomatic solution is total annihilation of palestinians in west bank, be it by forcing them off the land which is impossible since they have nowhere to run and other islamic states refuse them (so much for inter-muslim brotherhood, I guess Iran should take them), or murdering them one by one which seems to be going on now. Or what we had till now, which led to what we have now. It doesnt matter that the other side plays dirty, all sides eventually do. It just doesn't matter for statement above.

It doesn't matter a nanofraction of a bit what government(s) publicly say, those are farts in the wind to be polite, I don't understand why people even care about such PR, its like what Putin says, what does it matter when its clearly said for a specific purpose and truth is optional?

I honestly dont understand the resistance to their own state. Yes they will hate Israel, just like till now they did, just like every single its neighbor since its creation. So what? How did we/they move from this utter hate of neighbors to cca peace? Well certainly not by following the path of trying to eradicate the other, history is pretty clear there. Yes its a bit easier to invade and kill if you want compared to invading a foreign state, but preventing it should be a good thing. Also, US is effectively giving them a blank check, just empty words flying around, I really expected a bit more. A room for Russia or China to step up.

Its like counting some destroyed tunnels or killing few brainwashed young guys mattered in long run, in same vein as say counting Vietcong losses and comparing them to US ones didn't matter. That's whats happening now. What's the plan for rest of existence? I dont see that part, I mean 0. But maybe current Israel government likes this situation, I mean the top guy is former special forces guy, so this is not unusual situation and a bit of blood doesn't matter to them and if there is war people don't focus so much on how effectively he erodes democracy.

So what is this, state-sponsored genocide? Because 100% this is not how Hamas disappears for longer than few months (in same vein al qaeda didn't) and I think literally everybody involved realizes that, this will actually make it much stronger long term, think about all those eager volunteers from places like Saudi arabia. Soviet war was what created Osama. US invasion of Iraq is what pointed him to US.

Suffice to say, when doing grocery shopping I don't buy products from Israel these days, we don't need more wars in middle east and massive refugees waves in Europe. Tiny wallet, but its all I have (apart from vacations but for that Israel was very low in the list anyway).

... after Germany was bombed to the ground and occupied for years. Only after that came the diplomatic efforts.

Are there Jews in Germany today because of diplomacy? Or because those who tried annihilating and enslaving most German Jews were removed from power by force?

After Germany surrendered unconditionally and was amicably reconstructed.

The Palestinian people can oust Hamas, reject Islamic extremism without exception and reform their society to be compatible with a peaceful relationship with their neighbours.

> If I knew the answer to that question I would be a high ranked politician

The solution is simple, avoiding the solution in order to create a western military power ally in the middle east is what high ranked politicians do.

> Well, the alternative to diplomatic solution is total annihilation of palestinians in west bank,

This conflict is taking place in Gaza.

Why should the Palestinians leave? Palestinians leaving is ethnic cleansing.

It doesn't seem like the Palestinian people are extremist Muslims any more than the Israeli people are extremist Jews.

> after Germany was bombed to the ground and occupied for years

Well, looks like that box is checked for Gaza; can we jump to diplomacy now?

They could. But they’ll never do it as long as it looks like Hamas is the only one fighting for them.

> The Palestinian people can oust Hamas

How? They lack the organization and military capability to do so.

And while Hamas hasn't done them any favors, with the way Israel has been behaving, I'm not surprised your average Palestinian in Gaza isn't feeling like helping the Israeli objective, even if it likely would be in their long-term interests as well.

I wanted to let you know that I agree with all your comments. Nothing you have said is out of line. Sometimes it is really hard interacting with the HN crowd, when they get things wrong, it hurts, because they should be able to use their big brains to see through the chaos. Take care.

The average age in Palestine before Oct 7th was 19. You’re asking a nation of kids to be more mature and organized than the Israeli government who is killing them and their families

Who is the aggressor here?

They do it in cooperation with the IDF who are determined to do so.

Box is not checked yet, otherwise IDF wouldn't have any resistance.

We should try diplomacy all the time, but right now the offer of Israel is unconditional surrender or continuation of hostilities. Maybe - maybe - less atrocious to civilians than what it was during March 1945 in Germany. Diplomats will keep their work; of course everybody's abilities are limited.

Yes, while their optics is like this, it's hard for them to get to a peaceful solution.

Because there's an anti-terrorism operation turned to city war going on, and to be in the middle of hostilities is dangerous.

It's really, really hard for palestinians today, yet just remain in place and ignore all calls to leave doesn't look like a good approach. Maybe we don't know something big, it's possible, but from all information from the region leaving still looks like a better option.

> The solution is simple

Please explain.

Because it's a normal outcome of war for territory to shift. It's especially justified if you try to invade another country and then lose spectacularly.

Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN, and especially not to this thread. It's against the site guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and strongly against the intended spirit that I tried to describe in the comment that's pinned to the top.

This doesn't track because the USA has bases all around the ME, and supplies Israel's "competition" like KSA and Egypt with arms.

It is much more complicated.

Hamas on Oct 7th

Many people would disagree if you look at the history starting from the Nakba.

> Well, the alternative to diplomatic solution is total annihilation of palestinians in west bank, be it by forcing them off the land

What makes you so certain it's the Palestinians and not the Jews this will happen to? It's the stated goal of the Palestinians and much of the extreme Muslim world surrounding Israel to drive away the Jews and it's not far fetched to see them eventually succeed.

Apologies, I didn't intend the comment to come across that way, it was too flippant given the topic.

>avoiding the solution

The West isn't the one avoiding the solution. If it were up to us, two state would have been sorted decades ago, as evidenced by the repeated peace summits the US has hosted.

Israel believe they can't integrate the bulk of the Palestinian population, and there to afraid of attack to live next to an independent Palestinian state.

I don't think the situation is particularly inscrutable. Israel receives a greater degree of US support and benefits from it to a greater degree. Other ME states are aligned with the US out of convenience, the sale of western weapons plays a part in that.

Not sure how that easily Google-able question has anything to do with the discussion. Name one famous Israeli from more than 100 years ago. Name one famous American from more than 250 years ago. What am I proving by asking these questions?

If you continually provide missiles and prevent a ceasefire in the UN (a rather unauthoritative body anyways) I would describe you as "avoiding" the solution of not settling/attacking Palestine.

The "We were afraid of the people, they might attack us, we have to do this" line wasn't believable in the 30's and isn't now.

What is that question even for? What are you saying?

The Israelis would continue the war with Hamas with no US support and a ceasefire in the UN. The US won't sacrifice it's relationship with Israel to try to force a resolution on an intractable issue that doesn't really concern the US, and it's interesting that they would be expected to.

>The "We were afraid of the people, they might attack us, we have to do this" line wasn't believable in the 30's and isn't now.

Haven't the Israelis have come under attack from Palestinians since that time for moving on to the land in numbers that made the Palestinians uncomfortable.

I addressed that in my very short comment; not sure where I wasn't clear. With Israel itself admitting that they are killing roughly 2 civilians for every Hamas fighter they kill, why would you think any civilian in Palestine would trust Israel or be interested in working with them?

The fact that it might make logical sense to you or I that they should is entirely irrelevant. We're not there, and if we were, I doubt we'd be much driven by logic at this point. Not to mention we wouldn't have had access to the internet or regular communications with anyone for months now, and only see the death and devastation.

It provides examples that it happened and thus proves it's possible.

It's not just their optics. It looks that way to the rest of the world as well.

When the IDF kills (at least) two civilians to every combatant, and then drives many others out of their homes and into starvation, it really does make it look like Hamas is the only organization that will fight for them. And Hamas barely even does that (seeing as they are a terrorist organization that uses Palestinian civilians like sacrificial pawns), but they come far closer to it than any other organization in a position to do anything.

If we want Gazans to support an alternative to Hamas, then we need to come up with an alternative to Hamas that supports Gazans better than Hamas does. That should be pretty easy; it's a very low bar.

You're saying Gazans make immature choices because of the population's young age? That's a first time I hear this. They're a nation of kids you say.

<< why would you think any civilian in Palestine would trust Israel or be interested in working with them?

It is not the same, but in a sense this odd naivety was a similar surprised reaction to US withdrawal and quick rollover of 'local' army in Afghanistan.

<< We're not there, and if we were, I doubt we'd be much driven by logic

I think this is worth highlighting. edit: The reason to avoid war is because it is horrific and can remove all sense from a man.

The Nakba, you mean when all neighboring Arab countries said "hey Palestinians, step out of the way, we'll kill the Jews real quick and then you can have all the land"?

And then lost the war they've started?

Yes, that's a catastrophe for Arabs, just like losing WW2 was a catastrophe for certain Germans. And also for those in Germany who were exiled from their (sometimes extensive) land, no matter what they thought of the war and its outcome.

Eastern Prussian didn't then go and tried to kill the Western German president when the FRG took them in, though. Besides some whining by a few select bunch, that chapter is closed.

Not so for the Arabs for whom the "Nakba" was and is that the military campaign failed and not that Palestinians now live in misery.

Not at all.

"During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, dozens of massacres targeting Arabs were conducted and about 400 Arab-majority towns and villages were depopulated;[3] with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jewish residents and given new Hebrew names. Approximately 750,000[4] Palestinian Arabs (about half of Palestine's Arab population) fled from their homes or were expelled by Zionist militias and later the Israeli army"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba#:~:text=During%20the%2....

This did happen and I don't think there's a lot of prevarication to be done about how bad it was, but if we're talking about it as a way of imputing original sin to the citizens of Israel, it's worth keeping in mind that most of them are descendants of Arab Jewish people who were counter-Nakba'd --- chased from their homes across the Middle East and North Africa by pogroms.

I get why you'd respond to the previous comment, though, which reads as if it's an attempt to deny the events of the Palestinian Nakba. You're right to do that. All I'm here to say is that the 20th century history of that region is complicated and no simple narrative will get anybody to where we are today.

In many ways I agree with you. I'm not promoting any original sin.I'm simply responding the narrative that "Hamas started all this on October 7th, so as conclusion, all of what Israel is doing is justified."

Sure. It's easy to accept both arguments though: Hamas must be destroyed, but no matter how diabolical Hamas' tactics are, you still can't fight them primarily through an air war that kills tens of thousands of innocent Gazans.

Either way, my only stake in this little subthread is to stick up for the complexity of the history of the region, which both sides of the argument have a tendency to flatten to the point of unrecognizability.

I'm not convinced by the examples that you have listed (a conspicuously empty list at that), and examples are only evidence by analogy anyway. The reactivity of hydrogen is not proof of the reactivity of helium.

People use the word "war" to describe this, but it is a stretch in this case. The outcome is predetermined. Israel will kill as many people as it chooses and destroy as much infrastructure as it chooses. They will stop when they decide to stop. There is no threat that in this "war," Israel will lose. People in Israel right now are living their best lives (for the most part) while Palestinians are digging their kids out of the rubble and eating dog food to stay alive.

The list is empty if you haven't read what I originally posted and linked. Obviously you haven't. Politics is neither chemistry nor physics, it is what is referred to as the art of the impossible. Many nasty situations in the past seemed impossible to solve diplomatically, but it was made possible. No matter how bleak it might have looked. Again, refer to the link I posted that kicked off this discussion.

I assure you that I read the tweet, and the list remains utterly null.

In a broader sense, I don't fault you for looking at war and thinking, or rather hoping, that in a just world, this wouldn't be the solution to any problem.

It is unsettled whether or not humanity can create such a just world, but we certainly haven't done it yet. Requiring the unconditional surrender of Hamas through force is very much a reasonable and acceptable way forward.

You can’t really describe the events like this and leave out the massacres and the number of refugees storming into neighboring countries as a result. This kind of narrative would have Britain start World War 2 as we can easily omit all the Nazi atrocities and powergrabs in Czechia and Poland, just like we can omit the atrocities and land grabs committed by Zionists prior to the Arab invasion.

"And that's the cunning of history; when you're at the bottom, something can happen that gives hope. After the 1973 war, who would have thought that before the end of the decade, Egypt would sign a peace treaty with Israel?"

so at least the list is obviously > 0. That's a good starting point for you to reconsider where else you've made a mistake.

> Box is not checked yet, otherwise IDF wouldn't have any resistance.

That's a misqualification; Germany offered resistance up to the last day, Berlin didn't fall without a fight.

Alliances are not the same as peace. Egypt's tepid alliance with Israel has also served to anger the rest of the islamic world, and Gaza in particular is much more isolated as a result. This is one of those apples to oranges comparisons that you assured me weren't relevant.

If Christopher Columbus can be Italian, then Jesus Christ can be considered a Palestinian.