…nobody is cheapening the word genocide in this thread. Nobody is cheapening the word genocide on the world stage. Israeli leadership have been making statements of genocidal intent since the start of the war, and the strategies and tactics of the IDF are genocidal in nature.
Ok, you are correct, I chose a poor hypothetical. Now can we stop reducing dead people in Gaza to Xs and Ys?
I really don’t care what motivations the Netanyahu cult has for their actions in Gaza, or how far they think they can push it. I’m done with their crap. More importantly, other people are done with their crap too.
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/24/gaza-humanitarian-aid-israel-hamas-police-biden
Very well said, and I think this captures my views pretty damn well. Just to add a couple of things:
Israel’s actions in the West Bank undermine their credibility. It’s the more peaceful neighborhood, and the continued settler encroachment, and ignoring of settler on Palestinian violence really shows how the government feels. There was a West Bank Palestinian on NPR the other day saying that he used to be able to report issues with Settlers to the IDF, and the IDF would help them. Now the IDF is hostile towards even the “good” West Bank residents.
Is anyone actually taking this position? There’s a subtle but very important distinction between something like “I have no problem with innocent Palestinians being killed”, which implies sociopathic lack of human empathy; and the similar-sounding but very different “innocent Palestinians being killed, in and of itself, does not outweigh the right of Israel to defend itself and to take military actions that will prevent future deaths of Israeli citizens”.
I think it’s more than just a semantic debate because of the symbolic power of the word “genocide” to act as a debate-ending cudgel.
A position I have seen all too frequently online recently (mainly on reddit) is some version of “I’m a leftist, so I won’t vote for trump, but I also can’t vote for Biden, who is supporting genocide”. Now, I’d like to think that the vast majority of people actually posting that are bots/Russian plants/whatever. But it’s certainly the case that “when are we going to stop funding genocide” seems, on the surface, like a question with a lot more straightforward and obvious answer than “when are we going to stop funding a close longtime ally with whom we have a massive web of dependencies of all sorts, which was recently greviously and horrifically attacked, and which is responding with military force; and many respectable observers believe military force has been excessive and has insufficient respect for innocent life and humanitarian concerns”.
The first charge just hardens the battle lines. If I was generally supportive of Israel, why would I engage with someone who was levelling such a horrific charge? It stifles actual exchange of information.
(I guess the counterargument is that it’s necessary to use such a horrific word in order to shock people into engaging in the first place, and I’m not going to say there’s no truth to that…)
…yes.
Its no more a “debate ending-cudgel” than it was to accuse people using the word “ethnic cleansing” or “genocide” of blood libel.
Genocide is being used here because of the case bought to the International Court of Justice by South Africa that argued that Israel had violated the genocide convention. I think that South Africa have made a convincing case. I think the evidence is fairly overwhelming. I think that they have shown intent.
So I don’t see a problem with using the word here. I’m not exactly going to be typing"
“the strategies and tactics, coupled with the statements of intent from Israeli leadership, show that they are indiscriminately bombing targets, driving people from the north to the south, are using starvation as a weapon, have destroyed the healthcare system, razing fields, using controlled demolitions, bulldozers and fire to flatten most of Gaza, with the intent of making Gaza un-livable for Palestinians so that they either 1) leave or 2) remain under cruel occupation or 3) die”
when using the word genocide would do.
I can assure you that I follow many of these people, and every single one of them are real people that I was following prior to October the seventh. And my suggestion would be to start listening to them and taking them seriously instead of just dismissing them because you think they are 'bots." Some of them held their noses and voted for Biden last time…but thats a bridge too far now. This is a serious problem that could lose the Democrats the election.
Because the evidence of that horrific charge is overwhelming. Why would you not engage with someone who leveled a horrific charge and backed it up with multiple corroborating cites?
No it doesn’t. For example I provided for you earlier in this thread before I started to use the word genocide everything I’m talking about now. The only difference is that I’m calling it a genocide. How has that stifled the exchange of information?
I don’t care about the definitions, semantics, or even spelling of the word at this point. I would say that instead of stifling debate, it has encourage debate here as several hundred postings can attest to. Where we may agree is that those postings have been a distraction. I think some people here are far more comfortable debating the semantics of the word, rather than debating what is actually happening in Gaza right now.
You know what is stifling? Being crushed under the wreckage of an apartment building that was just bombed by the Israeli Air Force.
…from the latest flash update:
Hospital in Rafah. 5 delivery beds. 78 deliveries in one night.
In the West Bank:
Much more at the link.
After a number of high profile incidents where The Palestine Red Crescent Society have coordinated with Israeli troops and either been fired upon, or their staff or the people they were trying to rescue, were killed (the most high profile incident was the killing of Hind Rajab), he PRCS have:
More airdrops into Gaza, from Jordan, with assistance from France:
About the only way food can get to the north at the moment. Nowhere near enough: but better than nothing.
Well, I don’t really see a different way to read this:
That was covering anything Israel has done so far.
I’m getting news alerts from several sources that a cease fire is being negotiated, and may take place before Ramadan.
In what might or might not be contradictory news, i got another news alert that Israel believes it is close to reaching one of the architects of October 7, but he’s deep in a tunnel, surrounded by many of the remaining hostages. In the one hand, if that’s true, it may be very hard for the Israeli troops to actual get at the guy, but in the other, if they do, that’s actually something that could be a concrete stopping point.
Israel is an 80 year old experiment of the UN. It is not a Davidic monarchy and has no connection with the past.
The current government did not let the crisis of Oct 7 go to waste. It is being used to recolonize Gaza. US aid is defending our political and military investment in Israel, not supporting it’s mythology.
Just to be clear: you’re quoting me saying that, but not quoting the part where I said “I don’t think that”.
Moderating:
@Crane: Don’t do that. Be more careful in either how you select your quotes or how you frame them.
Sorry - I honestly missed the point, the quote was incomplete. I apologize profusely.
Israel is an older obligation that the UN inherited from the League of Nations to devolve sovereignty over the territory that the Ottoman Empire held prior to World War I.
You’re both right? (I’m saying that a lot today, hmmm.) Yes, the UN inherited the sovereignty-devolution issue for post-Ottoman Palestine. But the particular Partition Plan that was adopted in 1947 is AFAICT just one of many possible ways that the situation could have shaken out. Same goes for the subsequent deviations from that plan in response to various geopolitical events, of course.
The particulars of the partition could have been different, but the fact that some part of it needed to be a “national home for the Jewish people” was built in to the treaty obligation, not a mere “experiment”.
The point is that Israel is a recent invention. It’s a high tech, modern state with colonial ambitions. It is not defending itself by obliterating a territory it has held under siege for years, It is clearing the way for future expansion. ‘Self Defense’ and ‘Never Again’ are propaganda slogans for local consumption.
The goal of the IDF was not to eliminate Hamas and rescue the hostages. The goal was to totally destroy the infrastructure of Gaza and exterminate a significant percent of the Gaza population. That is being accomplished and will allow resettlement under the guise of reconstruction.
If any of this is true - and I do not believe it is - why in the world would Israel have waited until 10/7/2023 to start this? Israel carried out a half-dozen prior operations against Hamas that could have provided pretext for such a thing if that was really their goal.
Hmmm, now you’re both wrong? It’s MHO of course, but I really don’t think Israel’s actions in this war can be adequately understood by any one consistent rational explanation, irrespective of whether the explanation assumes Israel’s motives to be nefarious or honorable.
I get the very strong impression that Israel’s current strategy is being driven by an incoherent mix of motives including expansionist opportunism, specific legitimate military/counterterrorism aims, political grandstanding, various populace-level fears with varying levels of justifiability, wishful thinking, and vengeful bloodthirstiness. I seriously doubt whether even the people waging this war are totally clear on exactly which reason(s) are motivating which actions.
And Hamas, of course, has its own set of disparate, complicated and sometimes contradictory motives. I just don’t think any of this shitshow can be validly explained in a nice neat way as the deliberate consequences of any clearly thought-out set of consistent goals.
This is pretty much how I feel. It’s not credible that a decade or more of malevolent, incompetent, far-right leadership hasn’t impacted how the IDF trains, recruits, and fights. And it doesn’t take very many wannabe fascists and enablers within the IDF (or any military) to allow atrocities. I don’t believe this Israeli leadership, and possibly even this IDF, can actually defeat Hamas, much less make a better Gaza.