A Textbook Case of Genocide

Hamas (supported by a majority of Palestinians, as surveys show) would kill all Israelis but can't do it

Israel could kill all Palestinians but absolutely won't. Imagine Russia or China in their place, you'd be counting the dead by the millions.

There is your difference, the rest is semantic bullshit, there is no genocide in Gaza, far from it

Unfortunately, there is a minority who are saying the 7 Oct attacks didn’t really happen, or that if they did, many of those who died were killed by IDF soldiers, and there are also posters who deny that the rapes and sexual attacks happened. However I certainly acknowledge that the majority of posters don’t hold those views.

I don’t see it as ‘what about Hamas’. Hamas started this latest conflict. Nothing happens in a vacuum. Hamas know Israel’s
military capability. Should Israel not respond, should it knowingly sacrifice its own soldiers in more dangerous ways of trying to root out Hamas? Perhaps it should - but surely you can understand why it doesn’t. I don’t think many are saying that Israel’s response is fine and dandy - the loss of life and the suffering is deplorable, the government is extreme and the whole situation is ghastly. Hamas has the power to do something about it, and they won’t, because it suits their purposes very well, whereas Israel has suffered a terrorist attack and has retaliated. It’s down to Hamas that they hide among civilians and prevent those civilians from leaving.

Israel is held to impossible standards while Hamas’s role is hand-waved away. Meanwhile people are slaughtered in other conflicts and
there is hardly a peep on here -people being killed in large numbers in Syria and Yemen for example, but when Israel is involved suddenly everyone wakes up and expects Israel to behave better towards the people of Gaza than its own government.

If Hamas was hiding in Israel, I would likewise condemn the Israeli government if it chose to bomb its own civilians to get to Hamas. If Hamas was hiding in Finland, and Israel bombed Finland and killed Finnish children to get to Hamas, I would condemn that response too. Only I suspect that many more people would join me in that condemnation and there would be fewer willing to justify the slaughter.

Are Palestinian children so different than Israeli children or Finnish children? Are their lives worth less?

This "what about Hamas" deflection is simply not relevant to the majority of people who view Israel's treatment of Gaza in a negative light.

Who here has expressed the view that Hamas' actions on October 7th were acceptable or okay? That October 7th was an atrocity is not controversial. No doubt there are antisemites (Palestinians and non-Palestinians) who want to destroy/kill all Jewish people or all Israelis, and this must be an appalling and frightening reality for those on the receiving end of this hatred. But the majority of people condemning Israel do not share or support this view.

Whether or not razing Gaza and the subsequent slaughter of trapped and powerless civilians en masse is an appropriate response by Israel, apparently is controversial to many. Hence the controversial topic is that which is discussed.

I could explain it this way, from my perspective:

If Hamas were perfect saints justified in everything they do, Israel's response in Gaza would be morally abhorrent (in my opinion).

If Hamas is the most evil organisation to ever exist, completely indefensible in any way and worthy of utter annihilation, then Israel's response in Gaza is still morally abhorrent (in my opinion).

Therefore repeated discussion on the relative merits of Hamas is not particularly informative and takes us nowhere (and for what it's worth, I personally very much view Hamas through the latter of those two lenses).

To constantly deflect from the actions of the Israeli government against a civilian population by saying "but Hamas are evil, why don't you condemn them" - is simply a derailment in my view.

If my neighbour was a paedophile who abused my children, it would not make it right to burn down their house and that of their neighbours with their children inside. No amount of saying "but paedophiles are evil" changes the argument, because the premise that paedophiles aren't evil (or in this case, the premise that Hamas is not evil) is not a component of the argument that it is never acceptable to slaughter children.

On the note of settlers getting away with literal murder, it was revealed the IDF were recruiting radicalised terror group Hilltop Youth to be soldiers. They set up illegal posts and basically grab land by threatening to kill or even killing Palestinians living on their own land. The really tragic thing is that Israel then legitimizes these posts and they become another settlement.

IDF turn terror group Hilltop Youth into soldiers

In all these arguments, why is there so little
condemnation of Hamas for its role in this conflict? It’s used aid money for its own ends and not for its citizens, it’s fired rockets into Israel, it’s outright stated its intention to commit
genocide, it uses the civilian population and hospitals etc to shield itself. It provoked this war by an atrocious attack explicitly directed at civilians, arguably in order to provoke the retaliation that is now happening.

I don’t understand how people can wave away the explicit intention of Hamas to wipe Israel off the map with an airy ‘oh don’t worry, they wouldn’t be able to’. That’s okay then!

Israel have said that detaining individuals without charge is necessary for security purposes. More than 99% of prisoners just so happen to be Palestinian. Can we please all take the time to remember this is supposedly a civil state.

The amount of children and babies being killed is just horrific, what Hamas did was monstrous but cannot condone the blanket bombing of thousands of civilians!

And even if people try and defend Israel’s response, how can they defend the bombing of blood banks, water reserves, bakeries, and the refusal to let in any aid (or journalists) to help the sick, injured and starving. This is targeted attacks to cause maximum suffering to the population and infrastructure of Gaza.

I've got no particular skin in this game. I believe what Israel is currently doing is abhorrent but then so are hamas' actions. Nobody's covering themselves in glory here whilst innocent civilians on both sides suffer.

But I am interested to know why some people are so quick to condemn anything that comes from the Israeli govt as misinformation (which it may or may not be) but are so ready to uncritically believe every report from hamas?

'I believe' is a turn of phrase, as you well know. Its not a statement of religious belief. My meaning was that I did not have exact statistics of the break down of particular offences. Its perfectly normal to have read or heard trustworthy news reports and recall the gist of them without being able to regurgitate granular factual detail. But you know that.

'Recruited'!! Oh dear.

one person here, persistently vocal and refusing to listen to facts is clearly recruited by the occupiers to debate nonsensically and continue with a scripted rhetoric despite evidence to the contrary. We are not here to teach facts that can easily be researched with a few keywords. It is not the eyes that are blind, it is the hearts. Leave them to their evilness

What I’ve heard is that many of them have been held for years without trial, including children as young as 14.

I wasn’t the one who stated the issue as a fact based on something they “believe”.

@Thereissomelight What evidence do you have that they're not?

Or is the burden of proof on those who disagree with your viewpoint?

Verified news reports, same as everyone else. Are you expecting me personally to have seen police/court documents? Have you? Honestly, why does this subject make everyone lose their grip on reality. Are you denying that Palestinians terror attacks within Israel?

What evidence do you have that many of the prisoners are being held for stabbing and rioting? Interested to know

Israel and Gaza are not the same country - people are really clear that Gaza shouldn't be considered part of Israel and get very upset about it if you suggest it is.
Less unpick this.
Gaza and Israel are indeed different country therefore we are rightly upset when the former is subjected to an appalling onslaught of bombs and of deprivation of basics human rights by the latter.

People from other countries can't just walk into the UK whenever they want either - you would need to apply for a work visa to come work here, you can't really just pop over from Spain for example and use the NHS.
I think you fail to understand that the Israeli government only allows exit permit for work and hospital treatment. No one else can leave. The Gazans don't have an airport ( thanks to Israel) and their port is controlled by the Israeli navy. They are in effect under siege.

Given Gaza is home to / governed by an organisation that is incredibly hostile to and regularly fires rockets at Israel, it seems understandable they might be cautious about who they allow over their border.
Indeed but I can't recall the UK only allowing entry to Irish people to work/hospital treatment because of the IRA bombing campaign, for example.

It's letting people in to Israel, not letting people out of Gaza.
The end result is the same.

Also Israel isn't the only exit from Gaza. The Rafah crossing has been controlled by Egypt and the Palestinian Authority for the best part of 20 years, not by Israel (although reasonable to argue they have had some say).

Indeed but let me jog your memory by reminding you that under the Agreed Principles for Rafah Crossing (2005), Israel has the authority to dispute entrance to Gaza by any person. In essence, you might be able to leave Gaza but you might not be able to return.

@verityunreasonable completely agree. As so often Israel held to a completely different standard to any other nation. If you know you are surrounded by countries that explicitly say they want to destroy you, you will be careful who you let in. Its not just regular rockets from Gaza (fired at civilians, remember) its regular terror attacks within Israel, mostly stabbings I think. Many of the prisoners being released as part of this deal are being held for stabbings & rioting I believe. If someone stabbed your relative and was released, would you want them to just be able to walk over the border & have another go?

How many Palestinians actually want to walk in and out of Israel? If Palestine wasn't some open air prison being controlled by Israel I doubt so many Palestinians would bother jumping through hoops to work there, it's not like they want to go over for a day trip like we might do with Ireland.

And what about all these 'settlers' in the west bank? No one seems to care that they can just go in and kick people out of their homes

I don't get this at all.

Israel and Gaza are not the same country - people are really clear that Gaza shouldn't be considered part of Israel and get very upset about it if you suggest it is.

People from other countries can't just walk into the UK whenever they want either - you would need to apply for a work visa to come work here, you can't really just pop over from Spain for example and use the NHS.

Given Gaza is home to / governed by an organisation that is incredibly hostile to and regularly fires rockets at Israel, it seems understandable they might be cautious about who they allow over their border.

It's letting people in to Israel, not letting people out of Gaza.

Also Israel isn't the only exit from Gaza. The Rafah crossing has been controlled by Egypt and the Palestinian Authority for the best part of 20 years, not by Israel (although reasonable to argue they have had some say).

I'm not for a second saying there aren't issues with Israel but the expectation they would just let their hostile neighbours walk in and out of their country whenever they fancy seems pretty unreasonable.

People like me?

Okay