In 1949, the relatively new United Nations collectively adopted the rules and laws set forth by the Geneva Convention regarding the rules of land warfare. Since that adoption, countries around the world have reaffirmed their desires to abide by these rules in an attempt to retain decency and honor when it comes to warfare. In contrast, several other countries around the world took steps to either ignore said rules or, at the very least, bend them to the point where they used them their favor to excuse certain abuses.
In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions:
1. Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.
To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:
(a) Violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;
(b) Taking of hostages;
(c) Outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment;
(d) The passing of sentences and the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.
2. The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.
An impartial humanitarian body, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, may offer its services to the Parties to the conflict.
The Parties to the conflict should further endeavour to bring into force, by means of special agreements, all or part of the other provisions of the present Convention.
No country in recorded human history has ever been able to claim that their hands were or are clean when it comes to their actions in war, but the adage that nobody is perfect was the defense many countries used. America has itself been accused of war crimes, specifically during the war in Vietnam, where American troops opened fire and directly targeted and killed innocent in what became known as the Mai Lai Massacre. Soldiers from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion 20th Infantry Regiment, killed at least 500 civilians in South Vietnam in 1968. What happened there is a stain on American honor and integrity when it came to our fight in the war. And ever since then, we have made tremendous strides to rid ourselves of that dishonor. In the Marine's Hymn, which all Marines have memorized by the time we graduate boot camp, there's a line that always gets repeated by our leadership every day: "First to fight for right and freedom, and to keep our honor clean..."
During my time in Iraq, we bent over backward to ensure we weren't targeting civilians, or at the very least, did everything we could to limit any collateral damage. Before the Battle of Fallujah, American forces dropped hundreds of thousands of pamphlets advising civilians to leave the area and warned them exactly what was going to happen, even to the detriment of our safety, because the enemy got them too. Did innocent civilians die, yes, they did. Were they targeted directly for the purpose of a psychological impact, absolutely not.
What transpired yesterday was terrorism defined. It was an affront to all things lawful and sane. Hamas fighters staged an invasion of a foreign nation via air, land, and water. Their targets were primarily civilians, and secondary considerations were military targets.
As a minimum, Terrorism involves the intimidation or coercion of populations or governments through the threat or perpetration of violence, causing death, serious injury or the taking of hostages.
As videos and pictures show, they paraglided into a music festival and immediately started to fire at anyone in the crowd. It is being reported that Israeli forces have recovered at least 250 bodies of civilians murdered in and around the festival grounds.
There are countless videos and photos online that I will not show display due to their extremely graphic nature, but you can find them yourselves and see the absolute savagery of Hamas. Videos of Hamas fighters and supporters beheading a little boy, dragging bodies through the streets, parading bodies in vehicles, and showing off captured civilian women and children.
This is not the conduct of lawful warfare, it is the conduct of savages. Groups like Hamas, the Taliban, ISIS, Al Qaeda, and more all actively participate in these tactics. Palestinian sympathizers and civilians are trying to point their disgusting fingers at Israel and blame it for crimes against humanity and use that as justification for their actions. There is no honor or righteousness in their actions. Israel has never once conducted military strikes or operations that directly and indiscriminately targeted civilians. They have never targeted women and children for capture, torture, or rape. They have never committed acts of genocide against the Palestinian people, ever. Any claim to the contrary is a disgusting and blatant lie.
Leftist politicians like Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) or Ilhan Omar (D-MN) offer up a pathetic excuse for an apology by not even mentioning the crimes committed by Hamas and its Palestinian supporters are guilty by proxy because they excuse and absolve Hamas of wrongdoing by omitting them and their actions entirely.
RedState Managing Editor Jennifer Van Laar reported Sunday on Tlaib's statement:
I grieve the Palestinian and Israeli lives lost yesterday, today, and every day. I am determined as ever to fight for a just future where everyone can live in peace, without fear and with true freedom, equal rights, and human dignity. The path to that future must include lifting the blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance. The failure to recognize the violent reality of living under siege, occupation and apartheid makes no one safer. No person, no child anywhere should have to suffer or live in fear of violence. We cannot ignore the humanity in each other. As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.
In other words, Tlaib shrugs her shoulders and believes it's all a result of the United States supporting Israel.
Tlaib has consistently claimed that Israel is an apartheid state and that its government has engaged in ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. In May she tweeted:
"Speaker McCarthy wants to rewrite history but the apartheid state of Israel was born out of violence and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. 75 years later, the Nakba continues to this day."
Tlaib was also part of a small group of leftist Members of Congress who refused to attend Israeli President Herzog's joint address to Congress in July 2023.
If Hamas fighters invaded Israel and specifically targeted military personnel and targets and avoided civilian casualties and targeting, it would have been viewed as legitimate because that's what lawful warfare looks like. But this wasn't and is not the case at all. What Hamas did to Israel, with the help of Iran, was a massive war crime and should be treated as such by anyone with a brain. Israel's military response should also be constrained to these objectives as well, lest they look just as bad.
Have Israeli forces killed innocent civilians in strikes and or operations before? Yes, they have. But the key difference is they never targeted civilians; they targeted sites that were known to either house Hamas fighters, their weapons, operations centers, etc. But what Hamas doesn't tell you, and Palestinian supporters refuse to admit, is Hamas knows the rules of land warfare. They know them enough to bend the rules in their favor by purposefully placing their forces in civilian areas, using hospitals and mosques as staging areas and headquarters. They know that Israeli aircraft and artillery strikes can never be as precise as they want, and that will guarantee Hamas's ability to parade around the bodies of civilians who were used as human shields.
What Hamas and their supporters are showing the world is that they are savage barbarians who lack a soul or any common decency. I personally hope that Israel's response to this barbaric and savage attack is met with the white-hot fury of vengeance, precise and brutal vengeance. This is the way.