Israel (now broader Mid East discussion)
I think one of the ways people talk past each other in these conversations is taking specific statements and treating them as if they're much broader - or even different - ones. E.g. here, the question implies that the suggestion is being made that every military action being taken is a war crime, when what's been referred to specifically is targeting a school, and the killing of civilians that took place in general.
So right off the bat, it should be clear that, "military actions that don't target schools or kill civilians as has taken place" aren't being included as war crimes in those statements. So unless someone holds the belief that every military action taken by the IDF is doing one or both of those, there's no implication that every military action is a war crime there.
So I would actually come back to you here to start off with and say, do you think that? Do you think that the IDF can't engage without targeting schools or killing civilians at this scale? Because that would seem to be the crux of the matter.
And I think another one of the ways people talk past each other is, without supporting context, reading something into someone's question that isn't there.
I can certainly guess why you might be generally gun shy in this thread given the past few days' activity here, but I'd ask you to take my question at face value. If you hadn't already shown a propensity to post at length, I wouldn't have asked such a broad question of you. Certainly, I have a beginning perspective on this, as all thinking humans do, but I'm
far from set in stone on it and am sincerely looking for additional grist for my mind's mill -- hence, the question.
Go back and look at any of my posts or reactions on this or other threads if you feel that's worth your time to "smoke out" any subterfuge, but it's not a gotcha question. I'm simply interested in your opinion, not setting you up for a left hook. And given that you're not hesitant to go back-and-forth multiple times covering the same ground with folks whose opinions you are unlikely to change, it's a bit surprising that you're gun shy on this question from me. The only potential "trick" here (and it's not really even even that) is if your unyielding, nay, totally unflinching position is that Israel should have taken no military action
whatsoever in response to October 7; in which case I'd suggest that you've been a bit disingenuous in some of your earlier posts on this thread.
If it helps, my starting position is that I think it's clear that Israel has committed war crimes in this conflict. But my starting position is also that I think there is/was an (as yet not fully clear to me) underlying ethical basis to their "once-and-for-all, in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound" mindset...that has become a slippery slope to those very war crimes. Also, as mere additional context for my initial mindset and NOT as false situational equivalency, I think that the Allies were ethically justified in causing frighteningly high numbers of civilian casualties in WWII...and also guilty of multiple war crimes as well (for example, writ large Dresden and, on a more intimate level, looking the other way for many, many occupational rapes of French and German women (at least those not carried out by black soldiers)).
So, again I ask: what, in your opinion, constitutes acceptable rules of engagement for the IDF in this conflict? Or, if you prefer it put a different way, what military actions against Hamas and/or Hezbollah would not constitute a war crime?
Justice Potter's definitional approach doesn't work here. You have to know these things rather specifically ahead of time, not just know it when you see it.