Do you think the suicide bomber warned the passengers to evacuate the bus before he detonated the bomb?
[quote]On the morning of February 25, 1996, a suicide bomber blew himself up on a No.18 bus traveling down Jaffa Road near the Jerusalem Central Bus Station in Israel. 17 civilians and 9 Israeli soldiers were killed and 48, mostly civilians, injured.
International norms, were broken by a state, that's a member of the UN. Giving 1.1 Million people 24 hours, to evacuate, with all escape routes cut off, and no proper transportation means, or a place to go to.
To paraphrase Jon Stewart, are they supposed to swim for it?
@flipper1966 You presented a false equivalency, followed by a set of false claims. I'm not sure what you're arguing, but I don't believe for one second you do either.
@Northwest On the issue of false equivalence. I presented an ironic comparison between the IDF and terrorists. I doubt that an ironic comparison, which is a literary device, needs to conform to the laws of logic. Any thoughts?
@flipper1966 I don't think you understand my point - my point is: states who signed the Geneva convention are required to, by international law. If they didn't, they would be terrorists. Therefore, your question is rhetorical. As to the article you posted - perhaps it is worthwhile to study the effectiveness of warning civilians - but I will say again - countries do this because of international law, not necessarily out of the "goodness of their hearts." In this particular case, they warn by text message or leaflet. Considering every other day I see a headline about power or communications being out in Gaza, hear reports of IDF having orders to treat people walking the street as potential combatants, and IDF dropping bombs in places where people were supposed to evacuate to, I doubt the warnings are that effective. Israel might "care" about civilian deaths, but clearly they don't care enough to examine the effectiveness of their warnings and change their tactics. Their mission is too urgent.
That's fine, I understand. Civilians die in war. What I don't like is them going on propaganda binges claiming to be the "most moral army in the world" when that clearly is not true, nor something you can objectively evaluate. The other thing that bothers me is whenever someone brings up the high number of Palestinian casualties, their rebuttal is always to point out what Hamas did to them rather than show any kind of concern that civilians are being killed. In other words a justification. If we keep justifying our killing based upon others killing us, the violence never stops.
@SW-User I don't think ether will meet the definition of "genocide" War crimes, definitely. But I think bringing the cases to the court is exactly the right thing to do.
@trollslayer In order to get provisional relief, South Africa only has to show probable cause of genocide. A final finding of genocide requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
(Although I would need @Northwest's opinion on whether I have made a valid point.)
@flipper1966 Well, I think there is an "incitement to genocide" charge. In some ways like Trump and Jan 6th. He says a bunch of strong words that indicate he wants supporters to fight and storm the capitol, and then it happened and he now says they were "just words". I expect a strong rebuke of Israeli Minister's words, a re-affirmation that settlements in Gaza, the West Bank, and Golan Heights are unlawful under international law, but they walk away from "genocide". Doesn't matter, because in that case SA has already "won" simply by bringing attention to it.
