deleted by creator

Cheers bro

So many pieces of news just establish that the IDF is full of pussies. “He’s waving a white flag… WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!!! TAKE HIM OUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD”

Never mind. I’m not sure you’re willing to listen.

Removed by mod

The only way to stop Hamas is to kill all of the innocent children. If you kill 10k I heard you officially have beaten terrorism and they all just quit.

Proving war crimes is super easy when Israel announces them. E.g. cutting off food and water to Gaza? Collective punishment aka a war crime.

You might want to think it’s all so complicated so Israel doesn’t look like an irredeemable piece of shit country, but it’s not and everybody watching what is happening objectively can see it all perfectly clearly.

I hope they read it. This post was what made me start openly calling it genocide. It’s a weighty word to use but that’s why it’s important to do so when it is actually happening. You can’t promise “never again” if you don’t remember what it even is.

deleted by creator

if the numbers were the same, does it matter?

Yes, very much so. The intent and methods absolutely matter. 9/11 killed thousands of civilians, but it would absurd to consider it genocide.

Here I was talking about intentional starvation vs just straight up killing. So of course this wouldn’t mean 9/11 was genocide. But intentional starvation could still be a method of genocide if that was the intent.

Simply put, yes. But more importantly, they are fundamentally different things, which is what I’m pointing out.

Saying one is worse is a bit of a hot take. But sure. But the “fundamental difference” doesn’t seem so important to me, it’s just a matter of approach. If you choose to use starvation instead of shooting them in a mass grave is it really so different? Like choosing a different weapon. Would you ever consider a mass starvation to be a genocide?

I’d probably just stick with warfare. Brutal and horrible warfare. They are waging war to destroy an enemy that attacked them, and in doing so are killing a fuck load of civilians in the process. Sort of like Britain in WWII.

Just regular old warfare. I see.

I’ll pose a question back, how many civilian deaths/collateral damage does it take for it to be genocide in your eyes? What if the Israeli’s only killed 1 single civilian as collateral damage? 10? 100? 1000?

I don’t think you can put a number on it. Hitler would have still done a genocide if he only killed 1000 Jews. It’s about intent. His goal was to kill Jews because they were Jews. Just like Israel cut off water and food to Gazans because they were Gazans. But I mean of course there must be some minimum value, I guess only 1 dead could never really be a genocide. But if Hitler had only killed 100 but had done so because of their Jewish heritage and his final solution? I guess I would have to say it’s just an ineffective genocide. Or an “attempted” genocide.

To me, genocide requires intentional effort to end a group of people and/or their culture through specific and measurable actions. Some definitions agree with me, others don’t.

Pretty good. As I said I would add that it doesn’t have to be ending the group in whole, but that it has to be because of their membership of the group.

Intentional effort to end a group of people through specific and measurable actions… how about: bombing civilian areas and cutting off the necessities of life. Bombing areas you told civilians to move to. Bombing UN schools being used as shelter. Attacking hospitals housing the sick and injured. Killing journalists. Not allowing them to escape from this horror. Doesn’t this meet your definition perfectly?

I guess the Allies just surrendering was an option to… but that’s would have lead to more genocide, no?

Yeah I mean there were probably options between surrender and nuclear warfare, but I think this is beside the point. Clearly it was at least collective punishment and a war crime, that’s how I would describe it.

And while I know that’s the UN definition. I’m saying I disagree with it for being too broad and including most forms of warfare.

It doesn’t include most forms of warfare because it has to be, “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” So the US in Afghanistan, despite being shitty, were not doing genocide. For example. The allied liberation of France? Fine. The goal was not to kill Germans, even though it was a necessary component.

I think actually planned slaughter of an entire group with the attempt of elimination is worth keeping a separate (and worse) category.

Yeah I mean obviously putting people in extermination camps is worse than starving them, in a way, but also, if the numbers were the same, does it matter? Is the Holodomor “not as bad” as Pol Pot’s genocide?

What would you call this category you propose? And what word would you use for what Israel is doing?

This is the UN dude, I didn’t write it. What’s your definition?

-Hiroshima/Nagasaki

I mean… This may not be the fantastic point you think it is.

Yeah I’m not sure about the exact details of international law and the ins and outs of all of the examples. But for example Stalin’s purges vs Pol Pot’ s killings seem very similar in a way. But maybe Holodomor is a pretty interesting case for our purposes. First off, starvation was the method of killing, second, “only” 10% of Ukranians died. There is dispute about intent, but the EU Parliament and 34 countries consider it genocide, according to Wikipedia.

I will say that you describe my definition as “expansive” but it is the definition of the UN and international law. I am just trying to use the standard definition. Do you have an alternative suggestion?

For the points about Hamas I guess that would take some discussion. What was the purpose of the attack, for instance? I would say it was to create discord and fear, and likely to goad Israel into responding in this way and ruin their efforts at normalization of relations (e.g. with Saudi). Not so much to kill Israelis, although obviously that is a “tool” to use to them, being pieces of shit and all.

I guess my point is that we could make this determination based on the definitions of international law and our take on what’s going on. We should do the same with Israel, openly and honestly.

Although I will also say, I think you might be right about having the means being important. Hamas could not cut off food and water to Israel even if it wanted to. What if a child tried to kill a whole country? Surely that couldn’t be considered attempted genocide? But then intent is obviously also important. The finer details would take some working out.

But in Israel’s case they have the means, are at over 18k dead and still going, and politicians have said and done enough things to make intent clear, to me at least. Honestly the intentional starvation is enough evidence of intent from my perspective.

Yeah I do! In fact that’s why I started this discussion with the example of the purposeful starvation and cutting off of water to Gaza. In my opinion this is an example of intentionality. This is not an accident or just a “side effect” or something. It is done purposefully. In the UN’s language, it is “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”

You say…

Not “people”, but “a people”, meaning basically a nation/race/tribe/etc. I don’t think that Israel is attempting to kill “the Palestinian people”

But the reality is that it’s “In whole or in part,” and Gaza is part of the Palestinian people. The important part isn’t the % intended to be killed. It’s primarily why they’re killed, and more specifically, if they are killed because they are members of a group. This is unavoidably true in Gaza.

You can see the issues with your take in other cases. The Cambodian genocide is a widely recognized genocide. They killed 25% of the pop and probably always intended to keep enough alive to run the farms. So not “The Cambodian people,” as a whole, but it doesn’t really matter.

Yeah I do. I don’t see how it’s problematic. They don’t have to be equally bad to be in the same category.

The conflict itself obviously is not in this category. This particular bout of conflict, progressively reducing the “safe” zones in Gaza (while bombing them anyway), calling Palestinians “animals”, cutting off food, water, medical supplies, connectivity and more, stripping people and taking photographs of them, putting hospitals under siege, and all of the daily horrors we’ve been reading about. That is something else.

To say this isn’t genocide because there are no gas chambers would be missing the point, I think. Hitler really gave a text book example. Israel is being a bit less obvious but the result is the same. Death and displacement of the unwanted.

I literally gave the official UN definition and argued a specific point regarding it.

Gaza has been blockaded for almost 20 years. It’s the complete stopping of food and water for months that makes it genocide, yeah. Combined with all the bombing etc. Are you being serious?

If you show me any analogous situation to Gaza then yes you will show me another genocide. Feel free to give an example you think is similar but widely accepted as fine.

Edit: still absolutely reeling over this: “Oh so you’re saying that every case of mass civilian starvation is genocide?!” Err… yeah?

I’m not sure what else the intent could be. If I lock someone in a room and eventually stop pushing food and water under the door for them what else am I doing but killing them on purpose? I honestly don’t understand how else this can be interpreted. I don’t even think this is really a matter of opinion.

Not really. I wanted you to explain to me why you think that cutting off food and water to 2.3 million people doesn’t meet the definition of genocide. But you just want to talk about Hamas. I didn’t even mention them.

I shouldn’t have said you aren’t capable of it. You are, I’m sure. You just don’t want to for some reason.

You are totally ignoring my point because you don’t want to admit to what is obviously a genocide.

Good luck with that! But clearly you aren’t capable of having an honest conversation so I’m out. Hope you feel good about starving innocent civilians.