# Are Palestinians in Gaza a distinct ethnic group? Is pushing Palestinians out of Gaza "ethnic cleansing?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 7, 2023, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255 "2023-10-07T22:16:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/81 "2023-10-08T04:19:54Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Um, yeah, it is. Your plan on where they are going to be relocated to after pulling teeth to finally get an answer from you isn’t even to ethnically cleanse them, it’s to straight up drive them into the Sinai desert. Maybe they could wander there for 40 years! > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Still not genocide. (And I seriously doubt they would be left to drop dead in the desert.) Driving the Armenians into the desert and leaving them there to die is _literally and iconically_ how the Ottomans perpetrated their genocide on the Armenians ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/82 "2023-10-08T04:21:15Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > No, Israel attacking the actual militants isn’t ethnic cleansing. Israel killing some civilians who are in the way is unfortunate, but that’s not ethnic cleansing, either. Israel driving out the entire population of the Gaza strip would be ethnic cleansing. Or maybe genocide, depending. Attacking an entire population because they disagree with the actions of the ruling class is what Hamas does, not Israel. Why do you want us to be as bad as Hama, @Whack-a-Mole? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/83 "2023-10-08T04:21:58Z")
So much hyperbole. Still not genocide. Millions of refugees are not new in this world. Most will not die (which isn’t to say it is not awful for them). Such a thing does not happen in a week. It would be a process of years. What is your solution? Let Hamas do a rampage like this weekend every so often? Toss a few thousand rockets at you for the lols when the mood suits them? If this was happening to your town would you be so calm about letting them stay a few miles away? Just something you need to deal with because pushing them out would be genocide? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/84 "2023-10-08T04:27:32Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > What is your solution? Let Hamas do a rampage like this weekend every so often? I guess this is GD, are we playing [logical fallacy bingo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma)? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/85 "2023-10-08T04:28:54Z")
Hamas (or their ilk) have been doing this for decades. What fallacy? This whole thing started because of an unusually large attack they committed a day ago! Fallacy? ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/86 "2023-10-08T04:30:02Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > So much hyperbole. > > Still not genocide. There is literally no hyperbole whatsoever. Your grand plan, in your own words to relocate them is: Drive. Them. Into. The. Desert. “Millions of refugees not being new to the world” is a wild attempt at distraction on your part. Those refugees weren’t driven into the desert. Of a country that still isn’t going to enable a clinically insane Israel by allowing them entry into their country. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/87 "2023-10-08T04:30:25Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Just something you need to deal with because pushing them out would be genocide? Like other posters in this thread, I don’t see how you get, logically, from retaliating against the Hamas attackers to collectively punishing all the millions of inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Genocide doesn’t stop being genocide just because some of the leadership among the people for whom the genocide is being proposed have committed acts of terror and/or war. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/88 "2023-10-08T04:43:19Z")
It remains that no one has provided a solution to a 50 year old problem in this thread. No blame. Loads and loads of effort has been put into a solution over those 50+ years. No lack of effort. Yet, all attempts have failed. I see no problem moving a population away who has repeatedly tried to kill you and yours. Not just once but many, many, many times…over many years. A population who has stated their explicit goal is to kill you and yours and wipe you from the face of the earth. A population who truly tries to do exactly that with some regularity. Saying that most of the population doesn’t actually fight and are peaceful is evasive. At the least they aid and abet those who do. We see no push from the “peaceful” people to stop the violent people. ITT people use “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” with abandon. I am willing to bet no one here would be so calm about it if the neighboring town rampaged through their town and killed people in their homes and dragged their naked bodies through the streets and spit on them and desecrated them (this happened this weekend in Israel). And, the people in that neighboring town said they want to do that as much as possible. Every chance they get. But y’all will be very calm about it. Clearing out the other town would be genocide! Ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/89 "2023-10-08T05:30:38Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > What is your solution? Let Hamas do a rampage like this weekend every so often? So it’s your opinion that the only options are “Do nothing” and “_Caedite eos, novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius_”, then, and if anyone objects to Plan B it’s their obligation to come up with a better idea. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/90 "2023-10-08T05:46:03Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It remains that no one has provided a solution to a 50 year old problem in this thread. > > No blame. Loads and loads of effort has been put into a solution over those 50+ years. No lack of effort. I think that’s highly debatable. For one thing, I don’t see how you reconcile the Israeli government’s continued facilitating of expanded Jewish-only settlements in the occupied territories with “loads and loads of effort put into a solution”. Israeli settlement expansion doesn’t accomplish anything except to strengthen a de facto claim for Israeli sovereignty over the entire occupied territory. I don’t see in what way that can be considered a “solution”, at least not in the sense of “solution that is fair to all parties”. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I see no problem moving a population away who has repeatedly tried to kill you and yours. This toleration doesn’t seem to work both ways, though. Over the years many, many Palestinian civilians who haven’t harmed anybody have been killed by Israeli soldiers and civilians. And the peaceful Israelis have not effectively stopped that; on the contrary, it’s been getting worse. You seem to be demanding that Palestinians accept a situation where only Israelis have full rights or territorial sovereignty or any kind of claim to their ancestral homeland. And that if any Palestinians respond with violent resistance and/or acts of terror, then all Palestinians immediately forfeit any moral claim even to the limited rights and autonomy that they still have. I don’t think you can make a valid case for that viewpoint. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I am willing to bet no one here would be so calm about it if the neighboring town rampaged through their town and killed people in their homes and dragged their naked bodies through the streets and spit on them and desecrated them Certainly not; but you don’t seem to have any problem with expecting Palestinians to remain “calm” when attackers from Jewish settlements commit violence against them. [As in this (far from unique) 2021 incident:](https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestinian-farmers-injured-during-settlers-attack-north-occupied-west-bank) > [@](#): > > Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian activist monitoring the expansion of Israeli settlements north of the West Bank, told Middle East Eye that dozens of Barqa residents went to tend their agricultural lands, taking tools and farming tractors with them, but were soon surrounded by settlers. > > They fired live bullets and threw stones at them, beat them using clubs and sprayed some with pepper gas. […] > > In [a report released on Sunday](https://www.btselem.org/publications/202111_state_business), Israeli rights group B’Tselem said that Israel uses two main methods to confiscate Palestinian land in the West Bank: official annexation via its judicial system and unofficial acts of intimidation and violence carried out by its settler population. [Such incidents, already not rare, escalated in 2023:](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66620250) > [@](#): > > There’s been a dramatic rise in violence carried out by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank this year, with more than 100 incidents reported a month according to the UN. […] > > Smashed cars and homes and shops set ablaze. Recent months have seen some of the worst ever scenes of settler violence in the occupied West Bank. > > Some have turned deadly. […] > > Already 2023 has set an all-time record for settlement construction in the West Bank and for the legitimisation of outposts, according to settlement watchdog Peace Now. Outposts are often set up with a wink and a nod from Israeli authorities but without official permission. […] > > The UN’s humanitarian agency (OCHA) says it has registered over 700 incidents this year where settler violence has resulted in Palestinian casualties, damage to property or both. The number is the highest since it began recording such acts in 2006. > > “Just to give you an idea, in 2021 there was an average of one incident of settler violence a day that we were recording. In 2022, there were two incidents of settler violence and in 2023 we have an average of three incidents of settler violence a day,” says Andrea De Domenico, head of OCHA in the occupied Palestinian territory. You seem to have remained perfectly calm about all such abuses against Palestinians, and are fine with expecting the Palestinians themselves to do the same? Their towns being rampaged through and their neighbors and family members being murdered isn’t a problem, for some reason? Of course I’m not trying to argue that two wrongs make a right. None of the settler violence or Israeli military violence against Palestinian civilians justifies Hamas’s violence against Israelis. But the world is never going to get anywhere with resolving this conflict if we pretend that Palestinians have no right to any kind of sovereignty in (some part of) their ancestral homeland, or that Israeli expansion policy is being fair to Palestinian rights. Jumping on the “mass population transfer” bandwagon in response to the Hamas attack is just exacerbating that cognitive dissonance. Fundamentally, it’s not defensible to propose mass expulsion of Palestinians from their ancestral territories, because it’s their homeland too. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/91 "2023-10-08T05:53:59Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > ITT people use “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” with abandon. No, in this thread you are advocating genocide as the only option to choose from other than ‘do nothing’ since you’ve painted yourself into the corner of demonstrating that yes, your grand plan actually isn’t ethnic cleansing because you want to drive them into the desert to die and you insist that these are the only two options from which to choose from. It’s a disgusting and violently absurd example of the logical fallacy of the excluded middle. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/92 "2023-10-08T05:55:08Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > No, in this thread you are advocating genocide as the only option… I have done no such thing. This is offensive. Define genocide before you tell me how I am advocating it. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/93 "2023-10-08T05:56:32Z")
Yes, it is offensive, but read your own posts. It is exactly what you are proposing. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/94 "2023-10-08T05:57:18Z")
Detail it then. If it is obvious you can show how I promote genocide. I dare you (be sure to define what genocide is). ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/95 "2023-10-08T05:58:11Z")
Already done. > [@Dissonance](#): > > > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > > So much hyperbole. > > > > Still not genocide. > > There is literally no hyperbole whatsoever. Your grand plan, in your own words to relocate them is: Drive. Them. Into. The. Desert. > > “Millions of refugees not being new to the world” is a wild attempt at distraction on your part. Those refugees weren’t driven into the desert. Of a country that still isn’t going to enable a clinically insane Israel by allowing them entry into their country. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/96 "2023-10-08T05:59:06Z")
That is not genocide and not me advocating it and not you refuting anything. I’m done. This is truly offensive. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/97 "2023-10-08T06:23:00Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > It remains that no one has provided a solution to a 50 year old problem in this thread. That’s not true, not _no one_. I’d say that you offered a pretty final solution to the problem. It’s just that the rest of us consider your proposal morally reprehensible, and not an option that would ever be on the table for a civilized democracy like Israel. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I see no problem moving a population away who has repeatedly tried to kill you and yours. “Moving a(n ethnically distinct) population away” _is the fucking definition_ of racial cleansing, which you kept claiming no one would provide. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > ITT people use “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” with abandon. I am willing to bet no one here would be so calm about it if the neighboring town rampaged through their town and killed people in their homes and dragged their naked bodies through the streets and spit on them and desecrated them (this happened this weekend in Israel). I’m not _calm_ about it. Unlike you, these aren’t just nameless foreigners on TV. I have family members fighting on the front lines of this conflict. Some of them have close friends who were killed, or who were at that desert rave you probably _read about_. So [checks forum] you might want to rethink your little comment. It’s a lot more personal for some of us than it is for you. That they do this does _not_ justify engaging in the sorts of acts you describe, deporting entire populations like some Babylonian king or Persian satrap. Maybe you think Bibi should raze Gaza to the ground and found [Bibi’s Better Gaza](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weh_Antiok_Khosrow) in the middle of the Sinai. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > But y’all will be very calm about it. Clearing out the other town would be genocide! Your comments are ridiculously insulting. I sincerely hope you never have to get out of your comfy Monday Morning General chair and find out what it’s actually like to see war come to your nation. Despite what you appear to believe, it’s nothing like a game of Civilization. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/98 "2023-10-08T06:25:56Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > That is not genocide Is the Armenian genocide a genocide? Because as I cited earlier, driving Armenians into the desert to die was such a common tactic that a comprehensive book about the Armenian Genocide is literally called “_They Can Live In the Desert But Nowhere Else_”. That’s a quote from Talaat Pasha, perpetrator of the genocide. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/99 "2023-10-08T06:37:34Z")
Let me be clear about something @Whack-a-Mole. Israel will respond to this atrocity with overwhelming force. When all is said and done, there will _be no Hamas as an organization._ It will cost too many lives, on all sides, but there is no other way this can end. And considering what has already happened, this is the best possible outcome. Hamas must end. But _once that happens_, what will not happen is an ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. Because despite the lies spread by Hamas and their allies _every day_, that is not behavior that Israel engages in. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2023, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255/100 "2023-10-08T07:23:55Z")
Exactly; compare this to the extreme of a hypothetical situation where, say, Hamas is leading an actual fully sovereign Palestinian nation-state bordering Israel, and decides to straight-up invade Israel as an overt act of military aggression. With a declaration of war and everything. Of course Israel would fight back and compel its defeated adversary to formally surrender, etc. etc. But even then, as the target of an actual international attempted military conquest, Israel would not demand to “move away” the entire population of the neighboring nation that invaded it. Because that is their ancestral land and you can’t just kick them out of it. Aggressors can legitimately be punished for their aggression, but the (surviving) population doesn’t forfeit their right to live in their own homeland. If that would be the case even for the population of an enemy nation-state to whom Israel has zero responsibility of governance, it goes double for the population of an ancestral homeland that Israel itself occupies and controls. So yeah, mass population transfer of Palestinians in the aftermath of the Hamas attack is a completely unworkable and rationally unthinkable proposition. It’s wishful thinking fueled by the desire to just magically make the conflict go away. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-palestinians-in-gaza-a-distinct-ethnic-group-is-pushing-palestinians-out-of-gaza-ethnic-cleansing/991255.md?page=6)