Votanic wrote:Dukasaur wrote:That is true of wounded soldiers, under the Geneva Convention.
However,
unlawful combatants, including terrorist organizations and organizations that harbor them, are not subject to Geneva Convention protection
and
An unlawful combatant, illegal combatant or unprivileged combatant/belligerent is a person who directly engages in armed conflict in violation of the laws of war and therefore is claimed not to be protected by the Geneva Conventions.
One of the three was a Hamas soldier. Although Hamas is generally accepted as a terrorist organization, it could be argued to be a government, so I guess a tenuous argument
could be made for extending the rules of war to him. However, he was not the unarmed one, but an armed guard.
The other two were members of Islamic Jihad, recognized as a dangerous terrorist group and definitely
not a government, and so had only the status of ordinary run-of-the-mill street thugs. I suppose in peacetime one might give them a chance to surrender, and possibly they were given a chance, but given that the IDF soldiers were performing a risky manoeuver behind enemy lines, they can probably be forgiven for being a little trigger-happy.
Everything you wrote here doesn't discredit Hamas or 'the Islamic Jihad'. In fact, it only discredits the Geneva Convention.
I wasn't trying to discredit either. I was simply responding to ralf and kenny, who wanted to claim the legalistic protection of the rules of war for the slain terrorists. I simply pointed out that those rules don't apply. Hunting terrorist gangs is not the same as a war between civilized nations.
It's quite frankly total hypocrisy for these people supporting terror groups like Hamas to claim protection under the rules of war when the group they endorse has never tried to follow any rules and would not agree to them if given a chance.
Votanic wrote:Frankly the Geneva Convention needs to be re-ratifed by all parties for it to be in anyway acceptable/applicable anymore.
All the various Geneva Conventions were negotiated between European nations with a shared tradition of adherence to legal forms. That tradition isn't shared by all. The first Geneva Convention, in 1863, was negotiated among nations which not only had a European tradition of liberal democracy but also a shared tradition of Roman Catholicism and its allegiance to ancient ideas like the Peace of God. Later versions were broadened to larger groups of nations, but the core principles were still Eurocentric and basically Roman Catholic. The 4th and final Geneva Convention was signed in 1949 amidst the wild optimism of the early days of the United Nations, and although 164 nations signed it, probably less than a quarter of those ever had any intention of following it.
I don't disagree with you that in order to regain respect, it needs to be re-ratified and only among nations who actually believe in it, instead of asking Chad and Gabon and Maldives and China and 100 other corrupt dictatorships to taint it with their hypocritical signatures.
It
still would never apply to gangs like Hamas, who have no intention of
ever restricting their activities to open combat against uniformed soldiers, and have
from their inception lashed out at civilian targets without hesitation or remorse.
Votanic wrote:Maybe Israel is a terrorist organization and Hamas is a country?
Other way around? Both? Neither?
The legalities of both can be argued. Bottom line is that in modern times the legitimacy of a government is largely measured by its willingness to submit to popular enfranchisement.
Israel has held free and open multiparty elections from the opening bell. Hamas followed the communist playbook of winning one highly-manipulated election and never allowing another.
Draw from that what conclusions you will.
