You don’t remember me but I remember you from SCP. Have no words to describe how disgusted and disturbed I am to find what one of my favourite writers is up to in 2026. Never meet your heroes as they say.
I’m sorry you feel that way.
Hello @Jrogyrogy and welcome to the Straight Dope. Sorry that your introduction takes place under such disheartening circumstances, but if it’s any consolation, you are far from the only one around here who’s disgusted with @Smapti’s bullshit apologetics for war crimes and genocide.
How can I be an apologist for things that aren’t even happening?
Denial is one of the tools of apologism. ”That didn’t happen, and if it didn’t happen it wasn’t that bad, and if it was that bad they deserved it”, etc.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Apologizing on behalf of others. How classy.
If genocide was being committed by Israel, that would be bad.
Israel is not committing genocide. That is campist propaganda created by the Russians to try to fracture the US-Israel alliance, cause a schism in the American left, and ultimately get Donald Trump reelected (at which it was successful).
Gee, how clever of those dastardly conspiracy theorists to somehow hoodwink such experienced and knowledgeable international observers as the UN independent commission, Amnesty International, and the Lemkin Institute into producing detailed and verified evidence-supported explanations for their assessments that Israel is committing genocidal acts against Palestinians, when it’s all just made-up Russian propaganda! 
Idiots like to think that they’ve outsmarted the “sheeple” who accept documented consensus views from widely recognized authorities, because they’ve landed on some farfetched contrarian alternative version that changes everything!!
Thank you for the kind words. Frankly I’m surprised he hasn’t been banned, but I don’t know how the rules work here re. genocide denial.
The same Amnesty International that just kowtowed to JK Rowling’s anti-trans pogrom?
If Israel wanted to commit genocide against the Palestinians, the war would have lasted about a month. They certainly have the ability to do so. What we’ve seen over the last three years is the result of them holding back and not engaging in total war or eradication.
It took three years and two months from when the German government decided on “the final solution” to murder two-thirds of Europe’s Jews. The Gaza “genocide” has been going on for almost as long and the total death count - which INCLUDES military targets - is about 3% of the pre-war population. Some genocide.
…I think Amnesty International’s decision not to stand with the writers of the report and to kowtow to JK Rowling is an absolute disgrace.
Because there was nothing wrong with the report.
Just like there is nothing wrong with this.
If in the future Amnesty International also kowtows to the likes of you on this report, I’d feel exactly the same way. There is nothing wrong with the report.
You and others say this over and over again. But it isn’t true. Because genocide isn’t defined this way. As you have been told over and over and over and over again its defined like this:
Intent is a key part of the definition. As is in whole or in part.
And this is complete and utter bullshit. This didn’t happen because Isreal held back.
Help for these children is right next door. Imagine living right next door to this absolute misery and not doing anything to help.
What a pathetic thing to say. Imagine thinking 3% of the population is an insignificant amount. Imagine being the guy who thinks Palestinian lives have so little value.
And for the record, the number of confirmed dead from bombings and shootings is 73,500. That doesn’t include the hundreds, possibly thousands, that are still buried under the rubble. So it’s closer to 3.5/4% now.
And it also doesn’t include those who died in other ways. Because they couldn’t get treated for cancer because Isreal blew up the cancer hospital. Those who died when Isreal implemented a total siege on food. So it’s a bigger percentage than that. But we won’t know the real number for years. The first step has to be letting war crimes investigators into the strip.
And Israel has no genocidal intent.
Israel holding back is the reason they’re amputees and not, you know, dead.
Germany lost 10% of its population in WWII and nobody claims the Allies committed genocide against the Germans. 23% of military-age male southerners died in the Civil War and nobody claims the Confederates were the victims of genocide. Russia lost 13% of its population in WWII.
So yes, 3% is relatively insignificant.
…many in Isreali leadership have openly expressed genocidal intent. Its a matter of public record.
There are 20,000 dead children that suggests otherwise. Over a thousand babies under the age of one. Over 400 of them were born then killed during the “war.”
There are 2700 bloodlines that have been eliminated. Exterminated. Every single member of those families killed.
The Genocide Convention was drafted post-1946. You’ve listed things that were prior to the convention. No shit, Sherlock; these historical events weren’t called genocide before the term was broadly introduced into international law.
But we don’t use percentages to determine if something is or isn’t a genocide. You know that, right? So this percentage isn’t relevant at all here.
“Many” meaning “two” in this case.
OK, now do those numbers for WWII Germany.
Are you willing to call them genocide now, with the benefit of himdsight? Or did genocide only become wrong when your precious international courts made a rule about it?
It disproves genocidal intent. If Israel wanted the Gazans eradicated that number would be a LOT higher.
…more than two.
And historically intent has always been one of the hardest things to prove. In this case though, the simply tweeted it out.
See page 59, Section D titled “Expressions of Genocidal Intent against the Palestinian People by Israeli State Officials and Others”
Those were expressions made in 2023. There have been no shortage of expressions since then.
Fuck off. I’m not your monkey.
The key words here are “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
Bolding mine. Genocide doesn’t mean “kill a lot of people.” It means “we intend to destroy, in whole or in part, this group of people because they share an ethnicity, a race, or a part of a religious group.”
So the allies didn’t intend to destroy Germans just because they were Germans. Nobody killed the confederates because they were white. These wouldn’t be regarded as genocide under the convention.
No it doesn’t. Its a number, and numbers in isolation don’t mean jack shit.
And since Israel has no intent to do that to the Gazans, it’s not a genocide.
I’m sure I could find plenty of Allied politicians and generals who made comments about “killing the Huns” or how “the only good German is a dead German”.
But I’m not your monkey.
Then stop listing off numbers and figures as if they prove anything, since by your own admission they don’t.
…the expressed genocidal intent is all a matter of public record.
Tweets from a couple of government officials and legislators do not equal official government policy any more than Greg Bovino tweeting about “100 million deportations” proves the US intends to commit genocide.
…tweets are evidence. And it was more than a couple of officials.
And this is important: people committing genocide don’t always create official government policy that says things like “we are committing a genocide.”
It certainly IS strong evidence that Bovino is committed to ethnic cleansing, and if he ever saw the inside of an international court, those tweets would be front and centre.