President Joe Biden and his top advisers are warning Israel with growing force that it will become increasingly difficult for it to pursue its military goals in Gaza as global outcry intensifies about the scale of humanitarian suffering there.
Urban warfare against an entrenched enemy is a slow process. For example, recently it took Russia three months to completely capture Mariupol despite a willingness to inflict civilian casualties and disregard international opinion. Israel is much more constrained in both ways. I hope they have a plan for reaching their objectives quickly enough - a premature ceasefire would mean many people dead but very little accomplished.
Israeli leaders understand that, but they had to take internal politics into account as well. “We’re not going to invade Gaza because we want to avoid international condemnation” would not have been acceptable to the majority of the people even if it were a good idea. I’m worried that this might have pushed them towards a course of action that they won’t be able to complete successfully.
(I also wonder if in a perverse way, pressure to finish the war quickly actually leads to more civilian casualties. People’s emotions don’t process numbers very well, so a shorter but bloodier war may hurt Israel’s international relations less than a longer but less bloody one. This incentivizes acting quickly rather than taking the time to wait for better circumstances.)
For example, recently it took Russia three months to completely capture Mariupol despite a willingness to inflict civilian casualties and disregard international opinion. Israel is much more constrained in both ways.
Israel has killed roughly as many civilians in the last month as were killed in Ukraine throughout the entire conflict. It’s preposterous to say Israel is more restrained in causing civilian casualties.
Regardless of whether a single month of Israel’s war is roughly equal or only a third of the total casualties for a 21-month long invasion, once you started arguing that ~10,000 dead in a month is “restrained” you really should have considered how you got to that point.
It’s a relative valuation; restraint means the numbers could have been much higher, but aren’t. There are a lot of tactics Israel is capable of using and didn’t. They notify people before strikes. They demarcate which zones need to be evacuated. They are attacking military targets and not civilians. Restraint.
Urban warfare against an entrenched enemy is a slow process. For example, recently it took Russia three months to completely capture Mariupol despite a willingness to inflict civilian casualties and disregard international opinion. Israel is much more constrained in both ways. I hope they have a plan for reaching their objectives quickly enough - a premature ceasefire would mean many people dead but very little accomplished.
Israeli leaders understand that, but they had to take internal politics into account as well. “We’re not going to invade Gaza because we want to avoid international condemnation” would not have been acceptable to the majority of the people even if it were a good idea. I’m worried that this might have pushed them towards a course of action that they won’t be able to complete successfully.
(I also wonder if in a perverse way, pressure to finish the war quickly actually leads to more civilian casualties. People’s emotions don’t process numbers very well, so a shorter but bloodier war may hurt Israel’s international relations less than a longer but less bloody one. This incentivizes acting quickly rather than taking the time to wait for better circumstances.)
Israel has killed roughly as many civilians in the last month as were killed in Ukraine throughout the entire conflict. It’s preposterous to say Israel is more restrained in causing civilian casualties.
This is not true. According to the Ukrainian government, 25,000 civilians died in Mariupol alone: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63536564
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights puts the number at 9,701 confirmed, though they do admittedly believe the true number is likely to be much higher. The Prosecutor General of Ukraine puts the confirmed number at 10,749, though they also think the real number is higher.
Regardless of whether a single month of Israel’s war is roughly equal or only a third of the total casualties for a 21-month long invasion, once you started arguing that ~10,000 dead in a month is “restrained” you really should have considered how you got to that point.
It’s a relative valuation; restraint means the numbers could have been much higher, but aren’t. There are a lot of tactics Israel is capable of using and didn’t. They notify people before strikes. They demarcate which zones need to be evacuated. They are attacking military targets and not civilians. Restraint.