[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Kazuaki Shimazaki II

When what are at least nominally called "aid ships" and they get attacked, by most books you are considered the victim, not the aggressor.

Breaking a blockade is breaking a blockade. By your logic a force breaking a blockade could be demanded to be allowed success if only it does not shoot at those opposing forces enforcing the blockade. That is absurd. It does not matter whether the blockade runner is armed and doe snot use its weapons, or has no weapons. The frigate running a blockade is the same like a trader running a blockade.

By this logic, when USS Yorktown participated in its "Freedom of Navigation" activities in Soviet territorial waters in the 80s, if it had gotten sunk, NATO should not have stood by America, seeing America was the aggressor. Somehow, I don't think that would have been the case at all.

Can't comment, don't know the details of that incident.

Generally, when one "breaks" a blockade, I think most think of using warships to sink the ships supporting the blockade, not running it with civvie ships.

See above. Abloackade is a blockade. It has a purpose, that is to prevent, limit or control the flow of goods to an enemy one is at war at. Any effort trying to counter that prevention or control of goods transports, is breaking the blockade. So is smuggling.

A large problem with this position is that it renders equivalent the military and the civilian, and also the equating of passive resistance to active military action, which would be counter to modern Western ideas of "civilized" warfare and humanitarianism, and effectively removes the Western (and Israeli) objection to terrorism.

The blockade by Israel is legal, was supoported actively by Egypt, and tolerated by many araba states. Now will you finally please spend some time on trying to understand what purpose a blockade has and what it tries to acchieve. It's becoming a bit boring that time and again I must point out and explain the very obvious. the Israeli blockade to Gaza is not even a total one, but one that is about inspections and just filtering out certain items that can be of military use for Hamas.

After all, generally we call people who sneak shot militaries "guerillas" or "freedom fighters" and those who sneak shot civilians "terrorists". But if military is equivalent to civilian, where's the distinction. Which would mean that Hamas is morally correct to fire 10,000 rockets into Israel civilian areas.

Civilians voluntarily lining up with combatants - become combatants themselves that way, because they have chosen one combatant side to line up with. Civilians in Israel that get terroised by randomly aimed missiles do not do that, nor does the Israeli military confuse the situation by hiding in civilian crowds like Hamas and Hezbollah does. The activists on those ships, on the other hand, voluntarily joined blockade runners and knew what they were doing and said that that was what they wanted and what they were doing. they have chosen sides in a conflict they knew they were heading into. That's what made them no neutral civilians but blockde runners. And since running through a blockade is an act of conflict in itself, they were combatants even if they were just sitting on the deck.

Your defnition and destinction of guerillas and terrorists is neither precise, nor complete, btw, but that is another thread.

Nothing you've written here actually attacks the point that bunkers themselves are pretty harmless existences. You can say the same of food, water and medicine in its value in facilitating attacks...

You could say the same of weapons and explosives, too, in principle they are pretty harmless if not being used. Your arguing here is so very absurd and naive that I refuse to seriously answer to that again.

A simplistic, purely military view that ignores the relation between wars and politics.

No. you just mess up the meaning of war and think there is a way war could be fought in a civilised way, like a sports event. It isn'T. It's neither fair nor just. It's only a war either needed, or a war not needed. The first you fight, the second you better stay away from.

Besides, instituting this total war policy will actually, again, legitimise Hamas civilian attacks - after all, no leaving untouchable supply lines and safe havens to the enemies, so any area you can hit is open.

Civilians are no combatants as long as they do not line up with a combating side/party/faction, and Hamas does not aim at military targets when firing it's unguided rockets - it intentionally tries to aim them at civilians as best as it can and hopes to kill them by as high scores as possible.

Understand the difference between terror, and collateral damage. The first (terror) is wanted and intended in the first. The latter (collateral damage) cannot be avoided (but is wanted to be reduced, and if you know just a bit about for example the way the Israeli Air Force issues warnings before point-attack that house of a known activist to give the people (and the target as well) enough time to escape, then you know what makes a decisive difference between the IDF and the Hamas.)

Taking out military important assets (offensive and defensive weapon sites, bunkers, sensors, ammuntion stores, bridges, forces, vehicles, communications, militarily usable infrastructure) , sometimes cannot be done without accepting civilian casualties as well. But that is still something different from trying to intentionally kill as many civilians as possible. where even that basic difference is not understood or is rejected, any further discussion is useless.