It’s not my definition, it is the definition of genocide accepted by all members of the UN.
If a cop in Missouri shoots a man because he is black, that is murder. If cops in the US shoot men because they are black, that is genocide. And I can assure that there are plenty of cops in the US shooting black men.
If Israel sterilizes 130,000 Ethiopian Jewish women, while not sterilizing white Jewish women, that is genocide under international law. Read the UN definition carefully.
Acting against a group because of what they do and not because of who they consider themselves to be is not necessarily wrong. Destroying the nation of Germany - reducing it to a pair of vassal states - was not genocide, just as criticising Jews for mutilating the genitals of infants is not hate speech.
Waging war against the leadership of the Gaza strip on the basis that they are launching artillery attacks against Israel is not genocide.
Claim that the deaths were inadvertent, as a result of famine, migration, or disease, not because of willful murder.
Emphasize the strangeness of the victims.
Rationalize the deaths as the result of tribal conflict, coming to the victims out of the inevitability of their history of relationships.
Blame “out of control” forces for committing the killings…
Avoid antagonizing the genocidists, who might walk out of “the peace process.”
Justify denial in favor of current economic interests.
Claim that the victims are receiving good treatment, while baldly denying the charges of genocide outright.
Claim that what is going on doesn’t fit the definition of genocide. “Definitionalist” denial is most common among lawyers and policy makers who want to avoid intervention beyond provision of humanitarian aid. It results in “analysis paralysis.” It is what the State Department investigation and report brilliantly overcame. At the time of writing (September 2004), the European Union, the Secretary General of the United Nations and even Amnesty International still avoid calling the crimes in Darfur by their proper name. It is a pity. There are three reasons for such reluctance:
Blame the victims.
Say that peace and reconciliation are more important than blaming people for genocide, especially if the genocide happened in the past.
Raphael Lemkin coined the word genocide. He was intent in framing a concept that would encompass the Holocaust and Armenian death marches, but would also cover certain actions short of it. After all, the idea was to prevent atrocity and not wait until the gas chambers were installed. But Lemkin was also skeptical about the international human rights movement: he thought that international action could only realistically be reserved for huge crimes, not routine ones.
Lemkin defined genocide as, “A coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.” Furthermore, [INDENT] "It takes centuries and sometimes thousands of years to create a national culture, but Genocide can destroy a culture instantly, like a fire can destroy a building in an hour " [/INDENT] I think the US actions against Native Americans may very well have been genocidal in part. I’ve seen no evidence presented of Israeli intent to wipe out the Palestinians. Though they certainly have the means to do so and I daresay any other nation on earth would have done that terrible if subjected to decades of military and terrorist attack by a far weaker people across a border.
Cite: Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell, 2002, p42-43.
Furthermore with regards to the language of the 1948 UN Convention, “If the perpetrator did not target a national, ethnic, or religious group as such, then killings would constitute mass homicide, not genocide,” as Power characterizes it on page 57.
I believe you made an oversight. The document purports to be a list of “Genocides and Politicides Since 1945”, or “Genocides, Politicides, and Other Mass Murder Since 1945”, as referenced on the webpage. That’s a wider criteria, especially since, Politicide’s definition isn’t as clear cut.
Second Stone, the problem you’re having is you don’t appear to accept that war and genocide are two different things. Both involve a lot of killing. But war is aimed at some particular political goal. In genocide, the goal is the total elimination of some group (or as complete an elimination as is possible).
Nobody is disputing that there is a war going on between Gaza and Israel. Both sides are fighting and both sides have goals they want to achieve. But you haven’t produced evidence that either side is trying to completely eliminate the other one.
[QUOTE=andros;17674041My humblest apologies, tom~, and even more to ~debb.[/QUOTE]
I’m concerned with how ~n~ feels about being left out of your apologies.
Og help me for even doing this in the BBQ Pit of all places, but no, you have not demonstrated a), b) or c). Even if we accept the definition of “in part” as opposed to “the whole”, what “part” of the Palestinians is Israel trying to destroy? Are we to define “rocket launching Palestinians” as some group that is being “genocided”?
Only to point out once more that you, lying as usual, have accused me of being a “genocide denier” when I have not even posted on the topic.
While I would ask you to link to the post in which I have “denied” genocide in the Levant, I am sure that we would only see one more smugly self-righteous claim that he alone is fighting for “truth,” and, unable to deal with the factual world, will accuse me of saying things I have not said, then, incompetent in logic, will twist what he has posted to mean things that the actual words do not mean, and convinced of his own correctness even when caught in error, will further demonstrate that he is utterly incapable of perceiving anyone else’s perspective.
If that thread is any indication, he will deliberately “paraphrase” things I have posted in ways that are utterly at odds with the words in my posts. He is pretty much incapable of accuracy or honesty, believing that he alone is the arbiter of (his invented version of) truth.
50 years … some-a-bitch … genocide isn’t that difficult. Maybe Israel should re-think their plan of killing them all with … you know … walls and stuff.
Is that why the US built a wall on her southern border … genocide on Mexico? It’s not working …
You are re-defining it in your own terms. You’re claiming it applies where it clearly does not.
Again, Israel has never “destroyed” any ethnic, racial, or religious group.
Bullshit again. Not in the numbers observed. There is no “destruction” of a class of people. There are still millions of black American citizens. You can’t even hide behind the “in part” qualification: it simply isn’t happening to the degree that would make the term meaningful.
If you want to be a chickenshit, then, sure, one man’s death is the destruction “in part” of a class or group. But that makes the definition meaningless: every murder is “genocide” if you push it that far.
Let me know when the U.S. kills even one per cent of the American black population, or when the wars in the near east kill even one per cent of the Palestinian population.
Less than one per cent? Doesn’t add up to “genocide.” The gen is actually growing in population.
You need to read the definition again, so here it is:
Here is the 1948 UN definition of genocide
Emphasis added.
With intent to destroy, in whole or in part. There is no need to attempt to eliminate a whole population. Eliminating a part of a people counts.
There is an internationally agreed to definition of genocide. You don’t get to have your own private definition of genocide, or any other definition than the UN has agreed to. A number of posters have suggested complete elimination must be a goal or achieved, such is a misreading of international law.
