I don’t think you know what the word genocide means. There are many things to criticize Israel for, and their behavior towards Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the West Bank is definitely part of it.
But they are not deliberately killing civilians in Gaza. A genocidal regime doesn’t give their victims the opportunity to flee, leave open humanitarian corridors, establish ceasefire hours or provide fuel to the opposing side’s hospitals. A genocidal regime would’ve just rolled into Gaza immediately and shelled everything to pieces while the civilian population is still there, as for example Assad has done in Syria.
So, let’s look at the definition of genocide and see where Israel lands here.
Definition
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
(1) Over 11,000 deaths, majority of civilians. And I’m just talking about deaths since Oct 7, I did not include any numbers from before that. Check.
(2) Illegal occupation and cutting off food, water, electricity and free movement. Check.
(3) Unknown to me.
(4) Unknown to me.
The head of the UN, Craig Mokhiber, just retired and called it unequivocally a genocide, here’s a source for that, but if you don’t like this source, you can just Google this and find plenty of other sources.
So, please tell me. How does Israel not fit as a genocidal regime?
with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
Civilian deaths and cutting off resource supplies to your enemy happens in every war. It’s when the intent is the destruction of a people that it becomes a genocide, and you have yet to provide any proof of that.
If you read the charter, you can see that if any of these things apply, it can be labelled a genocide. And you pick one and say “you need to provide proof”, glossing over the glaring fact that even without, it already counts as a genocide.
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group […]
any of these as long as there’s intent to destroy. Without intent to destroy, it’s not a genocide. Quite simple, really, if you read the charter.
None of the links prove or even hint at intent to destroy the Palestinian population. They hint at fears that Israel might occupy Gaza partiallly or fully and even displace Palestinian civilians permanently. While absolutely terrible, that isn’t genocide according to the Geneva Conventions you quoted above.
Again, where’s your proof for intent to destroy the Palestinian people?
"The minister, who also has some powers over the Israeli unit that controls border crossings and permits for Palestinians, has a long history of denying the existence of a Palestinian nation and has previously made controversial statements about them as well as on other issues like LGBTQ rights.
Earlier this month, he made incendiary comments saying that the in the West Bank “needs to be erased”’
State policy is made up of the opinions of those in power. They’re not going to put in their state policy “we want to ethnically cleanse Palestine” but you can use some critical thinking, read the opinions of those in the government, and see that is their intention.
The Prime Minister of Israel is a Holocaust revisionist. He led a protest that included death threats towards his opposition.
At what point do you look at the evidence and say, hey, maybe a genocide is happening. Hey, all these officials are referring to a minority as subhuman.
You literally just said that Hamas is using their own civilians as human shields, so maybe put the blame on Hamas, where it belongs?
Israel has a right to self-defense and in doing so has no other choice but to hurt civilians. That doesn’t mean they’re deliberately targeting civilians like Hamas does, and international law agrees with that.
No one is saying not to blame Hamas, they have responsibilities too, that doesn’t however give Israel an ok to bomb civilian targets and starve out a civilian population, it’s been a literal war crime since at least the 1400s.
Sure, they can defend themselves. Striking civilian targets, in civilian, areas with civilian populations is still a goddamn war crime. You didn’t see England intentionally bombing civilian targets even when v2s were hitting every single goddamn day. The international community is literally telling them to stop striking civilian targets because they are in fact admitting to doing just that!
that doesn’t however give Israel an ok to bomb civilian targets
They’re bombing military targets and are causing civilian casualties in doing so, which is generally not forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. As long as civilian harm is not excessive in relation to the military objective to be achieved, an attack is valid and not a war crime.
You didn’t see England intentionally bombing civilian targets even when v2s were hitting every single goddamn day.
…what? Have you read any books on Allied strategic bombing of German cities in WW2? There were firestorms in Hamburg and cities like Bochum were basically flattened. Britain’s Air Marshal Arthur Harris even stated this:
the aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive…should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany.
So you’re saying the extreme loss of civilian life is “not excessive”? Over 10,000 dead??
Also, what are “military targets” to you? Hospitals, churches, refugee camps, and homes are all fair game? Using white phosphorus bombs and hellfire missiles?
“AGM-114R9X is a non-explosive yet lethal missile due to its rotating blades that decapitate anyone within 3ft. The Minimum/Maximum fire distance is 1.5 km/8km.” That was launched at a hospital. This is despite Israeli insisting that Hamas is hiding in tunnels underneath densely populated areas and using civilians as “human shields” How is that going to kill members of Hamas?
No one except people trying to commit genocide go to these lengths to ensure civilian casualties. There are so many other options if they just wanted to kill Hamas fighters. But this is excessive, indefensible, and vile.
So you’re saying the extreme loss of civilian life is “not excessive”? Over 10,000 dead??
What’s excessive and what’s not is not clear. Hitting a hospital because there’s one Hamas member in it is certainly excessive, but if there’s a command post or even an entrenched fighting position in it that’s actively engaged in hostilities, that’s not excessive anymore. Military necessity and civilian harm have to be proportional.
As an example, Israel hasn’t used bunker busters or large JDAMs on hospitals even when there are suspected Hamas headquarters within / under them. That’s because it would be excessive to kill hundreds of people in the hospital for such a military objective. By contrast, they have destroyed whole civilian houses when there were Hamas installations within / underneath, because there are far fewer civilian casualties in such an attack.
Also, what are “military targets” to you?
Legitimate military targets are anything that is actively contributing to Hamas’ war effort, whether or not an attack on such a target is warranted depends on the collateral damage that would be caused.
There are so many other options if they just wanted to kill Hamas fighters
There are? Please enlighten me, I’m sure the Israeli General Staff would also like to know.
Maybe not to you. But when the Israeli government says they bomb a hospital because there’s a “suspected Hamas headquarters” in it, you blindly trust them. We have no reason to distrust the people saying they definitely did not just commit countless war crimes despite other countries saying they did /s
I’m sure the over 4,000 children that have died were suspected Hamas leaders too.
What’s excessive and what’s not is not clear. Hitting a hospital because there’s one Hamas member in it is certainly excessive, but if there’s a command post or even an entrenched fighting position in it that’s actively engaged in hostilities, that’s not excessive anymore. Military necessity and civilian harm have to be proportional.
It’s 100% forbidden, there are proportionality clauses. If I slap you you can’t shoot me in the face, it’s a pretty simple concept. Your excuse doesn’t make sense either, dead isrealis less than 2000, dead Palestinians 14000, you don’t think that excessive?
Blanket bombing of military targets correct, both of your examples contained military targets and military industries both valid targets at the time. Hamburg, oil yard, ship yards, sub pens, oil refineries. Bochum oil refineries, Krupp and a airfield.
Notably you could take the civilian casualties from both of those bombings and I’ll venture a guess they still won’t top the current civilian death count in Palestine.
You mean right to defend itself under Article 51 of the UN charter, right?
That doesn’t apply if you’re an occupying force. And for anyone saying “Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza, there are no Israeli officials there” if you control movement, water, gas, power, food supplies, where civilians can and can’t travel to, and the territory is not allowed to exist independently, all of that “right to defend yourself” is null and void.
Israel is as much an occupying force as Egypt is. Both share borders with Gaza, so your argument holds no water. If Egypt wanted to, they could relieve all pressure on Palestinian civilians by simply opening up their border with Gaza. Israel by itself cannot enforce a blockade of Gaza.
You’re moving the goal post. I’m saying Israel isn’t an occupying force because they can’t blockade Gaza in the way you wrote. Since they’re not an occupying force, they have the right to self defense under the Geneva Conventions.
I’m not saying I like what Israel is doing. What I’m saying is they can either choose to endure attacks on their own population or defend themselves. They chose the latter, and that’s completely legal under international law.
B’tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories says the following:
Although Israel declared an end to its military administration in Gaza, it continues to control critical aspects of life there. It controls all border crossings by land, apart from Rafah, as well as Gaza’s sea and air space. This control allows Israel to exclusively monitor the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, which it regulates according to Israeli interests. This holds true even when Gaza residents wish only to transit through Israel in order to reach the West Bank or other countries.
Regarding moving of the goal post, you brought up Egypt, not me.
If you want to continue discussing in good faith, please stick to the talking points.
It is well established that Hamas is using civilian areas and infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and refugee camps as cover for military installations. In doing so, they make them legitimate military targets - that’s international law.
Oh and while we’re on the subject of deliberately killing civilians, I’m sure you will agree that the mass murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7th constitutes genocide as well, right?
It is well established that Hamas is using civilian areas and infrastructure
Established by whom?
Can you tell me why Hamas gets carte blanche but others such as Ukraine are criticized in similar circumstances?
On what planet has Hamas received carte blanche? Gaza is currently being carpet bombed. This is exactly what Russia did to Kyiv in the opening days of the war, and it seems clear that Israel and Russia are running identical playbooks. Mass murder of the population as a form of ethnic cleansing is now the standard military doctrine of encroaching powers.
Ukraine isn’t an open air concentration camp governed in large part by Israeli blockade and airstrike and has been for thirty fuckin years dudes. Not quite the same situation is it?
So you’re saying it’s okay to use human shields when under blockade? You might want to read up on the Geneva conventions.
Also, do you know what country Gaza shares its Souther border with? That’s right, Egypt. How on Earth can Israel establish an open air prison when Gaza shares a border with a friendly Arab nation? How do they get all their supplies into Gaza, civilian and military? How come more than 200k Gaza civilians had work visa in Israel before the October 7th attacks?
That’s right, because it’s not an open air prison.
I’m saying a population that cannot escape and cannot leave for fear of not being able to return to their homes are in fact human shields. Hamas is certainly taking advantage like any other country would and in fact have done. What you’re ignoring is that Israel is the one creating the perverse incentive to use civilians to hide.
Yes, the Egyptian border Israel bombed.
200k have to work for Israel because there aren’t enough jobs in Palestine because Israel bombs businesses claiming they’re Hamas.
It’s an open air prison bud. Fun question, can a Palestinian exit gaza without an id.
Oh look, one genocidal country helping the other, making genocide easier…
I don’t think you know what the word genocide means. There are many things to criticize Israel for, and their behavior towards Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the West Bank is definitely part of it.
But they are not deliberately killing civilians in Gaza. A genocidal regime doesn’t give their victims the opportunity to flee, leave open humanitarian corridors, establish ceasefire hours or provide fuel to the opposing side’s hospitals. A genocidal regime would’ve just rolled into Gaza immediately and shelled everything to pieces while the civilian population is still there, as for example Assad has done in Syria.
So, let’s look at the definition of genocide and see where Israel lands here.
Definition
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Source: the UN
So; let’s have a quick look at these points:
(1) Over 11,000 deaths, majority of civilians. And I’m just talking about deaths since Oct 7, I did not include any numbers from before that. Check.
(2) Illegal occupation and cutting off food, water, electricity and free movement. Check.
(3) Unknown to me.
(4) Unknown to me.
The head of the UN, Craig Mokhiber, just retired and called it unequivocally a genocide, here’s a source for that, but if you don’t like this source, you can just Google this and find plenty of other sources.
So, please tell me. How does Israel not fit as a genocidal regime?
Civilian deaths and cutting off resource supplies to your enemy happens in every war. It’s when the intent is the destruction of a people that it becomes a genocide, and you have yet to provide any proof of that.
If you read the charter, you can see that if any of these things apply, it can be labelled a genocide. And you pick one and say “you need to provide proof”, glossing over the glaring fact that even without, it already counts as a genocide.
But sure, if you insist;
CBC
NPR
USA Today
People’s World
UN
Foreign Policy
ABC News
any of these as long as there’s intent to destroy. Without intent to destroy, it’s not a genocide. Quite simple, really, if you read the charter.
None of the links prove or even hint at intent to destroy the Palestinian population. They hint at fears that Israel might occupy Gaza partiallly or fully and even displace Palestinian civilians permanently. While absolutely terrible, that isn’t genocide according to the Geneva Conventions you quoted above.
Again, where’s your proof for intent to destroy the Palestinian people?
It seems you haven’t read any of the linked articles, so there is no need to talk about this any further until you do.
I did read the articles, but they just don’t mention a plan to destroy the Palestiniam people:
"The minister, who also has some powers over the Israeli unit that controls border crossings and permits for Palestinians, has a long history of denying the existence of a Palestinian nation and has previously made controversial statements about them as well as on other issues like LGBTQ rights.
Earlier this month, he made incendiary comments saying that the in the West Bank “needs to be erased”’
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/21/middleeast/israel-smotrich-palestinians-intl/index.html
That’s the opinion of Israel’s far-right finance minister and not state policy.
State policy is made up of the opinions of those in power. They’re not going to put in their state policy “we want to ethnically cleanse Palestine” but you can use some critical thinking, read the opinions of those in the government, and see that is their intention.
The Prime Minister of Israel is a Holocaust revisionist. He led a protest that included death threats towards his opposition.
At what point do you look at the evidence and say, hey, maybe a genocide is happening. Hey, all these officials are referring to a minority as subhuman.
You mean aside from those times they said specifically they were attacking civilians to “get to” Hamas access that the civilians are “human shields”.
Just an fyi I think in a few years your georing to feel really fuckin bad about your rhetoric.
You literally just said that Hamas is using their own civilians as human shields, so maybe put the blame on Hamas, where it belongs?
Israel has a right to self-defense and in doing so has no other choice but to hurt civilians. That doesn’t mean they’re deliberately targeting civilians like Hamas does, and international law agrees with that.
No one is saying not to blame Hamas, they have responsibilities too, that doesn’t however give Israel an ok to bomb civilian targets and starve out a civilian population, it’s been a literal war crime since at least the 1400s.
Sure, they can defend themselves. Striking civilian targets, in civilian, areas with civilian populations is still a goddamn war crime. You didn’t see England intentionally bombing civilian targets even when v2s were hitting every single goddamn day. The international community is literally telling them to stop striking civilian targets because they are in fact admitting to doing just that!
They’re bombing military targets and are causing civilian casualties in doing so, which is generally not forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. As long as civilian harm is not excessive in relation to the military objective to be achieved, an attack is valid and not a war crime.
…what? Have you read any books on Allied strategic bombing of German cities in WW2? There were firestorms in Hamburg and cities like Bochum were basically flattened. Britain’s Air Marshal Arthur Harris even stated this:
So you’re saying the extreme loss of civilian life is “not excessive”? Over 10,000 dead??
Also, what are “military targets” to you? Hospitals, churches, refugee camps, and homes are all fair game? Using white phosphorus bombs and hellfire missiles?
“AGM-114R9X is a non-explosive yet lethal missile due to its rotating blades that decapitate anyone within 3ft. The Minimum/Maximum fire distance is 1.5 km/8km.” That was launched at a hospital. This is despite Israeli insisting that Hamas is hiding in tunnels underneath densely populated areas and using civilians as “human shields” How is that going to kill members of Hamas?
No one except people trying to commit genocide go to these lengths to ensure civilian casualties. There are so many other options if they just wanted to kill Hamas fighters. But this is excessive, indefensible, and vile.
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/31/1209763194/the-latest-on-israels-bombing-of-the-largest-gazan-refugee-camp
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/5908/Israel-hits-Gaza-Strip-with-the-equivalent-of-two-nuclear-bombs
What’s excessive and what’s not is not clear. Hitting a hospital because there’s one Hamas member in it is certainly excessive, but if there’s a command post or even an entrenched fighting position in it that’s actively engaged in hostilities, that’s not excessive anymore. Military necessity and civilian harm have to be proportional.
As an example, Israel hasn’t used bunker busters or large JDAMs on hospitals even when there are suspected Hamas headquarters within / under them. That’s because it would be excessive to kill hundreds of people in the hospital for such a military objective. By contrast, they have destroyed whole civilian houses when there were Hamas installations within / underneath, because there are far fewer civilian casualties in such an attack.
Legitimate military targets are anything that is actively contributing to Hamas’ war effort, whether or not an attack on such a target is warranted depends on the collateral damage that would be caused.
There are? Please enlighten me, I’m sure the Israeli General Staff would also like to know.
Maybe not to you. But when the Israeli government says they bomb a hospital because there’s a “suspected Hamas headquarters” in it, you blindly trust them. We have no reason to distrust the people saying they definitely did not just commit countless war crimes despite other countries saying they did /s
I’m sure the over 4,000 children that have died were suspected Hamas leaders too.
So why the fuck you simping already bud?
It’s 100% forbidden, there are proportionality clauses. If I slap you you can’t shoot me in the face, it’s a pretty simple concept. Your excuse doesn’t make sense either, dead isrealis less than 2000, dead Palestinians 14000, you don’t think that excessive?
Blanket bombing of military targets correct, both of your examples contained military targets and military industries both valid targets at the time. Hamburg, oil yard, ship yards, sub pens, oil refineries. Bochum oil refineries, Krupp and a airfield.
Notably you could take the civilian casualties from both of those bombings and I’ll venture a guess they still won’t top the current civilian death count in Palestine.
You mean right to defend itself under Article 51 of the UN charter, right?
That doesn’t apply if you’re an occupying force. And for anyone saying “Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza, there are no Israeli officials there” if you control movement, water, gas, power, food supplies, where civilians can and can’t travel to, and the territory is not allowed to exist independently, all of that “right to defend yourself” is null and void.
Israel is as much an occupying force as Egypt is. Both share borders with Gaza, so your argument holds no water. If Egypt wanted to, they could relieve all pressure on Palestinian civilians by simply opening up their border with Gaza. Israel by itself cannot enforce a blockade of Gaza.
So because Egypt isn’t doing enough, Israel isn’t to blame? Right. Solid argument.
What Egypt does or doesn’t do does not in any way negate the fact that Israel is completely out of line.
What an argument “but look at them, they are also bad, which means the even badder guys must not be as bad”.
You’re moving the goal post. I’m saying Israel isn’t an occupying force because they can’t blockade Gaza in the way you wrote. Since they’re not an occupying force, they have the right to self defense under the Geneva Conventions.
I’m not saying I like what Israel is doing. What I’m saying is they can either choose to endure attacks on their own population or defend themselves. They chose the latter, and that’s completely legal under international law.
B’tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories says the following:
Regarding moving of the goal post, you brought up Egypt, not me.
If you want to continue discussing in good faith, please stick to the talking points.
Right, right… totally no genocidal behavior to see here.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
totally no genocidal behavior to see here.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
It is well established that Hamas is using civilian areas and infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and refugee camps as cover for military installations. In doing so, they make them legitimate military targets - that’s international law.
Can you tell me why Hamas gets carte blanche but others such as Ukraine are criticized in similar circumstances?
Oh and while we’re on the subject of deliberately killing civilians, I’m sure you will agree that the mass murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7th constitutes genocide as well, right?
Established by whom?
On what planet has Hamas received carte blanche? Gaza is currently being carpet bombed. This is exactly what Russia did to Kyiv in the opening days of the war, and it seems clear that Israel and Russia are running identical playbooks. Mass murder of the population as a form of ethnic cleansing is now the standard military doctrine of encroaching powers.
Ukraine isn’t an open air concentration camp governed in large part by Israeli blockade and airstrike and has been for thirty fuckin years dudes. Not quite the same situation is it?
So you’re saying it’s okay to use human shields when under blockade? You might want to read up on the Geneva conventions.
Also, do you know what country Gaza shares its Souther border with? That’s right, Egypt. How on Earth can Israel establish an open air prison when Gaza shares a border with a friendly Arab nation? How do they get all their supplies into Gaza, civilian and military? How come more than 200k Gaza civilians had work visa in Israel before the October 7th attacks? That’s right, because it’s not an open air prison.
I’m saying a population that cannot escape and cannot leave for fear of not being able to return to their homes are in fact human shields. Hamas is certainly taking advantage like any other country would and in fact have done. What you’re ignoring is that Israel is the one creating the perverse incentive to use civilians to hide.
Yes, the Egyptian border Israel bombed.
200k have to work for Israel because there aren’t enough jobs in Palestine because Israel bombs businesses claiming they’re Hamas.
It’s an open air prison bud. Fun question, can a Palestinian exit gaza without an id.
Removed by mod
Ah yes, classic ad hominem. We’re done here, bye.
Yes, you run for your next Big Lie… while you still have some left.