You mean the famine that was responded to with a large international humanitarian response, and where direct food aid was in no way blockaded?
Why would that response result in prosecution? Especially when the famine wasn’t caused by the UN the way Gaza starvation is caused by Israel.
“Might makes right” is why we need international law.
Not very far then.
About half of Lebanons population is Christian. Are they Christian Arab? Are the Copts (about 10M) Arabs? The Assyrian diaspora is certainly not Arabic, in their own opinion. To call Palestinians Arabs is akin to calling Canadians American.
Needing it and having it are two different things.
Of course they are. “Arab” is a cultural and ethnic condition, not a religious one.
Once again:
Palestinians are Levantine Arabs, and have been for at least 1000 years. That they don’t originate in the peninsula isn’t really important after so much time and so much mixing.
…can we be clear here, and that you understand that the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court are two very different things, right?
And you can ignore the jurisdiction of the court if you like. We can just focus on the submission. Do you have any issues with the factual details of the South African submission to the court? Any details that you would like to dispute? Do you understand why the courts rejected the evidence submitted by Israel?
And what we are seeing are thousands of civilians killed, the widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure, along with no evidence that Hamas have been targeted let alone killed in any of these strikes. Pick any day in the war. I’ve randomly picked Flash Report update #85.
162 Palestinians were killed that day, 296 were injured. How many of them were Hamas?
That isn’t my burden to prove. Israel have used “Hamas deliberately embeds itself in civilian areas” as their blanket defence of the way it has conducted its bombing campaign. It’s their job to prove this is the case, not me.
This isn’t a war. It’s a slaughter.
So as I said: Israel don’t have a fucking clue how many Hamas they have killed. Because they aren’t taking care to make a distinction between civilian casualties and Hamas.
From France 24 in December:
I think that a careful review of your cites will show they are all out of date.
Who is “them?” I was talking about the 14,031 Palestinian children that have been killed in the conflict. Is it your position that Israel is fully justified in destroying those children by whatever means necessary?
This is another one of those absolutely ridiculous talking points that just isn’t accurate here. Israel are blocking the aid trucks, both at the Egyptian crossing as well as the Kerem Shalom border *crossing (that is being blocked by protestors). This isn’t even something that is remotely debatable. We’ve got Israeli leadership at all levels stating quite clearly that they are responsible for the siege. We have daily reports from humanitarian agencies of exactly how many trucks are being blocked by Israel.
There is no dispute here. Israel have imposed a siege and are severely restricting humanitarian supplies including food, water, fuel, medicines, are blocking anything that even remotely could be considered “dual use” like tent poles.
This has nothing to do with Hamas. This is how Israel have decided to wage this war.
You may want to look up the date the Geneva Conventions were ratified.
No, the rules of war have been there since they were ratified. They aren’t a fiction.
What leads you to believe that Israel would treat Palestinians any better than they did prior to October 7th?
What are you imagining magically changes between then and now? Will Israel abandon the use of torture, end the practice of administrative detention, stop the surveillance, allow Palestinians to teach what they like in their schools, allow Palestinians to elect who they like, give Palestinians full control over their borders?
Will they allow Palestinians to rebuild their airport? To go fishing without fear of getting bombed? Will Palestinians outside of Gaza have the right of return? Will people in Gaza be freely allowed to travel to the West Bank whenever they like?
Or are you imagining something else?
Well, yes, it all depends on how far back we go. Some of them are partially ancestors to the biblical Judeans. The Muslim conquest of the Levant made conversion very attractive.
This is a part of the world that has been fought over for at least 3000 years (since the Late Bronze Age Collapse): invaded, deported, re-taken, ethnically cleansed. All Palestinians I know refer to themselves as Palestinians. Call them Arab and you’ll be greeted with a dark look at best and most often by a lengthy soliloquy of why they are not Arabs.
Now let’s return to @Smapti and his genocide denial.
As far as I can tell, that already happened; it’s less “in the future” and more ‘just like on October 7th.’
…nah.
Did Hamas, on October 7th, already act as if — as you said — “warcrimes don’t mean anything, and that they can conduct wars anyway they want”? Yes or Nah?
…I’ll repeat what I said:
Bolding mine.
I was specifically talking about Israel and the United States, the so called “only democracy in the Middle East” and “the land of the free, the home of the brave.” The so called “leader of the free world.”
Does that clear things up for you? We are talking about the people who represent “freedom, democracy, justice” who have decided to take all three of those things, trample it, and burn it to the ground. They have proven to be giant hypocrites. They never meant anything they said. And it’s a Democrat in charge. They are supposed to be the “good guys.”
When it comes to freedom, democracy and justice nobody will be looking to America any more. Because their word isn’t worth anything. They’ve funded this genocide. They’ve provided the bombs that have killed thousands. They’ve turned the other way while Palestinians starve. This won’t be forgotten. Especially by the global south. Whatever moral authority the United States and Israel had before this has gone.
You’re bolding the wrong part. I’m addressing the bit where you said “But it changes the way wars will be waged against Israel and US aligned countries in the future.” I’m saying that already happened.
Then let them remember; let them remember what happens if Hamas, or someone like Hamas, launches something like unto the 10/7 attack against someone who’s willing to respond the way you note. Let them remember that striking such a blow doesn’t lead to a nonviolent display of moral authority — perish the thought! — but, rather, to disproportionate violence that, as you say, Won’t Be Forgotten.
If only there was some middle ground between “nonviolent display of moral authority” and sniping five year olds with headshots. But clearly, Israel’s hands are tied on this.
…it literally can’t have happened, because the thing that I was talking about was the genocide along with America’s complicity with the genocide. I didn’t bold the wrong part. You snipped the context.
You are talking about genocide. Just say the word. Israel is committing a genocide.
Let them remember that Israel’s response to the atrocity by Hamas on October the 7th was ethnic cleansing. Multiple war crimes. Shooting children in the head. Deliberately starving millions of people.
Don’t try and make it sound less than what it is by talking about “moral authority.” Just call it what it is.
Genocide doesn’t mean “when a lot of people die” no matter how much you or the International Grand Poobah of War No-Nos keep wanting it to.
You stated — after providing the, uh, context — the following sentence: “But it changes the way wars will be waged against Israel and US aligned countries in the future.”
I’m not disputing the ‘context’ part. You wrote a sentence I disagree with: a sentence I take issue with, a sentence I dispute. As far as I can tell, that sentence — all by itself — is either correct or incorrect. As far as I can tell, war was already so waged on 10/7, so: incorrect.
I’m not trying to make it sound less than what it is; ideally, I’d want it to sound more than what it is: I’d want anyone mulling the decision of whether to launch a 10/7-style attack to figure that the response (a) would be even more horrifying than what we’ve seen so far, and (b) would involve absolutely no attempt to talk up “moral authority.”
:: shrugs shoulders ::
…the second part doesn’t happen without the first. And the first happened after October 7th, and specifically talks about Israel and the United States. This literally can’t refer to Hamas because I was talking about Israel and the US.
The sentence on its own is devoid of context.
You mean a genocide, correct?
A yes or no would suffice. Do you think genocide is an appropriate response to a terrorist attack?
I never claimed it did. The case for genocide was made by South Africa in their submission to the International Court of Justice. If you want to know what I mean when I say genocide, I’ll simply refer you again to that document. If you don’t want to read it, then I can’t do anything about that. But the submission doesn’t claim that “genocide means when a lot of people die.”
He’s danced around the question, but he’s nevertheless made his answer very clear. Here, and elsewhere, he’s expressed acceptance of mass killing of innocents as a tool of deterrence. It’s a position far outside the mainstream of modern thought, but there it is.
The sentence is: “But it changes the way wars will be waged against Israel and US aligned countries in the future.” You’re talking about how wars will be waged against Israel and US aligned countries, and saying it’ll change. But if it’s not a change from how war was waged on 10/7, then the sentence strikes me as false.
I believe that what Israel is currently doing is an appropriate response to the 10/7 terrorist attack; give me a definition of ‘genocide’ and I’ll tell you whether I believe it fits that definition.