Israel

[Vēritās]

Gaza Health Ministry is reporting at least 8,000 dead. Mostly women and children. Genocide in action.

[Chap]

Gaza Health Ministry is reporting at least 8,000 dead. Mostly women and children. Genocide in action.

Killing lots of civilians by bombing or otherwise is not in itself enough to qualify the act as genocide. I don't think, for instance, that the killing of over 500,000 German civilians by allied bombing in WWIi has ever been so termed by any serious historian. See for instance this article for the legal definition of genocide:

Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG)

Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[7]
Article 3 defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 3[7]

The action of the IDF in bombing Gaza with the aim of destroying Hamas's capacity to attack Israel is certainly killing lots of civilians who happen to live in Gaza. But it is by no means clear that Israel actually has the intent to

"destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group".

Israel may well be committing a serious war crime by failing to observe recognised prohibitions against causing civilian deaths that could have been avoided in the course of its current military actions. But that is not the same as genocide.

Let's keep that word for actions where people do things like killing Armenians just because they are Armenians, or killing Hutu just for being Hutu, or ... well, to take a very clear example, killing Jews just because they are Jews.

[Vēritās]

1. the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group:

Ok, so it is genocide without us knowing that is what they actually intend. But if they were wanting to commit genocide in the most acceptable way, then gradually wiping out all of the women and children is a pretty good first step. And that's apparently what they're doing. 8,000 + dead and Israel says they are just getting started.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67241290#

The Hamas-run housing ministry has estimated that about 45% of all the housing units in the territory have been either completely destroyed, rendered uninhabitable or damaged. An estimated 1.4 million people are internally displaced.

Uuuh, look, I don’t know if ^ that is an attempt to commit genocide, but it looks like total war to me. It should be noted the UN SecGen stated attacking Hamas doesn’t justify collective punishment.

- Doc

[Jersey Girl]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67241290#

The Hamas-run housing ministry has estimated that about 45% of all the housing units in the territory have been either completely destroyed, rendered uninhabitable or damaged. An estimated 1.4 million people are internally displaced.

Uuuh, look, I don’t know if ^ that is an attempt to commit genocide, but it looks like total war to me. It should be noted the UN SecGen stated attacking Hamas doesn’t justify collective punishment.

- Doc

I get the impression that they don't give a damn what the UN says any more. And the Geneva Convention? Pfffft! Out the door looks like to me.

[Chap]

My point is a simple one: "Genocide" is a term with a legally defined meaning. It does not simply mean killing a lot of innocent civilians. Nor does it mean "An instance of killing a lot of innocent civilians that the speaker happens to find particularly repellent."

It is quite possible to say that Israel is committing serious violations of international law by blockading and bombarding territory occupied by innocent civilians who have no means of escape and who increasingly lack the basic necessities of life because of Israel's actions. You don't need to deprive the term "genocide" of its real meaning in order to do that. And once "genocide" has simply become no more than a term for the killing of civilians to a degree and in a manner which the speaker happens to find particularly reprehensible, how shall we in future refer to the actions of those who sought to wipe out Armenians as Armenians, Hutu as Hutu, and Jews as Jews?

For those interested in such matters, it may help to take a look at the various versions of the Hamas charter:

Hamas Charter

The 1988 version (on the basis of which Hamas was founded) quoted this hadith (a extra-Quranic saying of the prophet):

The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, 'O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.' Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.

That is not in the current version. But I wonder how such an approach might reasonably be characterised?

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Did you just whatabout, Chap? Lol. Wow.

- Doc

[Vēritās]

Here’s Why U.S. Elites Support Israel No Matter What

JFC this video presentation got me pissed! Biden once said that if Israel didn't exist for us in the Middle East then we'd have to invent an Israel. Israel has been doing our dirty work in the region for decades now.

General Matityahu Peled, one of the Israeli commanders in the 1967 war, told the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, on March 19, 1972, “The thesis that the danger of genocide was hanging over us in June 1967 and that Israel was fighting for its physical existence is only a bluff, which was born and developed after the war.”

The USA always protects Israel from any repercussions from their many violations against Human Rights, usually as the only country to vote in their favor.

[Vēritās]

My point is a simple one: "Genocide" is a term with a legally defined meaning. It does not simply mean killing a lot of innocent civilians.

That's exactly what it means. Not everything is defined in legal terms.

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/genocide

Why are you so against calling it genocide when that's obviously what it is?

Jewish Scholar Judith Butler Condemns Israel’s “Genocide” in Gaza

[Vēritās]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67241290#



Uuuh, look, I don’t know if ^ that is an attempt to commit genocide, but it looks like total war to me. It should be noted the UN SecGen stated attacking Hamas doesn’t justify collective punishment.

- Doc

I get the impression that they don't give a damn what the UN says any more. And the Geneva Convention? Pfffft! Out the door looks like to me.

I get the impression they never gave a damn. I'm beginning to understand why hatred of the United States is so strong in Arab countries. We enable Israel to murder them with impunity and when the international community tries to speak up, the power of America steps in and gives Israel a pass. Over, and over, and over.