Genocide

[saythatagaintome]

AIBU to think/say that those saying what’s happening in Gaza is genocide?

The word is being grossly misused and, tbh… it’s offensive. Yes, IDF could be more careful, but they are not exterminating an entire race of people.

What happened to the Jews was genocide.
What happened to the Armenians was genocide.
Rohingya was genocide.
Darfur, Hutus, Rwanda = GENOCIDE.

Yeah, those sneaky fuckers, having loads of kids so people will feel sorry for them when Israel bombs the shit out of them.

OP, just seriously, do you think it matters if people call it genocide? I mean, do you think it matters MORE than the fact that 160 children a day are dying in this war? Never mind "but Hamas!" Killing thousands of innocent children is not a legitimate price to pay for stopping Hamas.

It honestly does feel to me like Israel have decided that the answer to the paradox that every war against the Palestinians aimed at defeating Hamas also grows the next traumatised, angry, hate-filled generation of Hamas, is to raze the ground and salt the earth, to leave no children left to come after them in 20 years time.

Of course not. War is sad, but it’s not genocide.

Hmmm. “ Killing thousands of innocent children is not a legitimate price to pay for stopping Hamas.”

do you think Israeli parents agree with this?

"sad"? "Sad?" Come back when your child has been blown to bits and say it's "sad" and bicker semantics.

Probably if you ask the mothers. A huge number of the people killed and kidnapped in the 7 October massacre were peace activists who recognised that Palestine is not Hammas, an that no child is a terrorist. Worked all their lives for justice and peace. Do you think they'd be happy to see all this innocent blood shed in their name?

Or for yourself. How many kids would you cndemn to certain, agonising death to protect your children from a possible threat?

And for what it's worth. I'd put my own life on the line to protect my kids. I wouldn't kill somebody else's kid to do it.

You wouldn't kill someone else's child to protect your own?

Really?

I wonder if Israeli parents would agree with Israeli schools, Israeli apartment blocks and Israeli hospitals with their kids in being bombed because Hamas is in there and is using their kids as “human shields”?

What about before 7th of october- idf kills thousands of palestinian children every year, for 50 years- watch born in gaza on netflix,kids shot for being on the beach- where was and is the outrage?

Gaza is called largest outdoor jail in the world for a reason. Until i watched documentaries on gaza i did not realise how these people have been abused and looking at reportes videos form gaza the strength of these people amazes me,i used to think they were 2 parties on equal grounds fighting over a territory,nothing equal about it of course. one video the other day a granddad working as a doctor saw his dead grandchild being brought in, a mother whos a nurse saw her daughter brought in, a father a doctor, lost his wife and 2 kids and had one child alive- if they are going to survive this the people who will be alive will be so damaged,its so upsetting i find it hard to scroll on my X feed,so many dead children from newborns to young teens

yesterday watched a video on YT by a british reporter that was made before the war how israel was drilling for oil in gaza, they cant even fish in their own waters as israel banned that too

If it was a case of "a child is definitely going to die and you get to choose if it's yours or someone else's", then maybe. But if it's a case of "some people killed your child, the only way to punish them is to kill thousands of unrelated children" - then no. Absolutely not. Or "your child is a target to a group of terrorists, the only way to be sure that group of terrorists never kill your child is to kill thousands of unrelated children " - also no. Basically what's happening here is like the aftermath of 9/11.

Hammas are not the ones who are going to suffer here, and certainly not their leadership, who are safely tucked out of the way in foreign lands. It's the people of Gaza, more than half of which are kids. This isn't about making anyone's kids safer, it's about revenge, and it's about conquest, and it's about Netanyahu clinging to power by keeping the religious right onside.

Thats not to say there isn't systemic issues within Israel but under the law all Israeli citizens are considered equal.

This is not true, there are laws and policies that treat Jewish people and Palestinians differently.

This article touches on the main ones:
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2018/7/19/five-ways-israeli-law-discriminates-against-palestinians

You have to really consider what these discriminatory laws are seeking to deny, which are fundamental rights of Palestinians.

You also have to consider whether the rights are afforded to Palestinians in Israel are effective, when the State is being run by fascist extremists such as Ben-Gvir, an actual criminal whose charges include supporting a Jewish terrorist organisation and incitement for racial hatred:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/02/27/itamar-ben-gvir-israels-minister-of-chaos

That’s without mentioning that Alex from Chorley has a right to Israeli citizenship if he was born Jewish, but Palestinians who have existed in Palestine for millennia are both stateless and likely do not even have an Israeli work permit.

Those who did have work permits had this done to them:
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/03/israel-deports-thousands-of-stranded-palestinian-workers-back-to-gaza

and this:

https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2023/11/3/arrested-tortured-and-insulted-say-workers-returned-to-gaza-by-israel

If Israel was genuinely committing genocide surely they'd be rounding up the 1.6m Israeli Palestinians who currently live in Israel, not just focusing on those in Gaza?

I think that you have to look at the way that Palestinians are treated by the state of Israel as a whole. Palestinians in Israel are monitored closely:
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/11/05/middleeast/palestinians-israel-fear-arrest-gaza-intl-cmd/index.html

There is an ever-present tacit threat of citizenship removal, of arrest and imprisonment, of unlawful killing, even.

You cannot assert that there aren’t multiple members of the Israeli government that are far-right and want to wipe out Palestinians.

Allowing some Palestinians (1.6mil of 6.8mil total Palestinians Israel/West Bank/Gaza) to exist in Israel is not enough evidence to suggest that the Israeli government is not trying to destroy the Palestinian way of life, when you look at the wider rhetoric and actions of the Israeli government and IDF.

I don’t know if you’re a member of a minority or not, but imagine for a moment that you are, and then apply what is happening to the Palestinians, to your ethnic minority.

Whether or not this is genocide is somewhat of a moot point; at the very least this constitutes mass ethnic cleansing.

This is what happens to peaceful Palestinians in the West Bank:

178 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since 7th October:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/eight-palestinians-killed-by-israeli-forces-jenin-palestinian-health-ministry-2023-11-09/#:~:text=At%20least%20178%20Palestinians%20have,to%20Palestinian%20Health%20Ministry%20figures.&text=Our%20Standards%3A%20The%20Thomson%20Reuters%20Trust%20Principles.

According to Israeli human rights organization HaMoked between 1 October and 1 November, the total number of Palestinians held in administrative detention, without charge or trial, rose from 1,319 to 2,070.

From Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, Amnesty:

“Over the last month we have witnessed a significant spike in Israel’s use of administrative detention – detention without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely – which was already at a 20-year high before the latest escalation in hostilities on 7 October.

Administrative detention is one of the key tools through which Israel has enforced its system of apartheid against Palestinians.

Testimonies and video evidence also point to numerous incidents of torture and other ill-treatment by Israeli forces including severe beatings and deliberate humiliation of Palestinians who are detained in dire conditions.”

From a prisoner:

“The beating to the rest of my body did not stop, at one point he started jumping on my back – three or four times – while yelling ‘die, die you trash’ … in the end before this finally stopped, another officer urinated on my face and body while also yelling at us ‘to die’.”

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-horrifying-cases-of-torture-and-degrading-treatment-of-palestinian-detainees-amid-spike-in-arbitrary-arrests/

No, Israel is just seen as one big homogeneous group of bloodthirsty Jews, hellbent on slaughtering Palestinians.

I’m sure that there are anti-Semitic people who think that way, but anyone who actually researches will find a tonne of information from Israeli human rights groups that do fantastic work in the region.

I also find Israeli mainstream media, like Haaretz and Times of Israel, a lot less biased towards the right-wing government’s actions than a lot of U.K./U.S. news outlets. There have also been outspoken Israeli leftists and brave peace activists, even after 7th October.

There is, however, a far-right in Israel that has considerable traction. I do worry that the country will continue to trend in that direction.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/07/israel-far-right-ultranationalist-hits-ground-running-and-ripple-effects-are-being-felt

Herewegoaroundthebastardbush is a saint 😂

sorry, but I’m choosing my own.

"LadyBevvy*

They refuse to negotiate a two state solution which will allow Scotland and England to co-exist ...

That's where your argument falls down, Israel has consistently refused a two state solution calling requests for Palestinian statehood "dangerous" and "unhelpful." It makes it easier to encroach on the Palestinian Territories, because they shrug and say,

"What country are we stealing land from? There is no such country."

That doesn't make it a genocide. It is horrible, as is all war, but words mean things.

Yes words mean things. What is happening is the definition of the word genocide.

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Cutting people off from food, water, aid, electricity...people are dying from the sudden bombing as well as slowly through disease from unclean water and conditions. Everything you can do to destroy a people is being carried out here...and you question this being genocide?

Starving, weak women and men searching through the rubble for their children...I can barely carry my shopping when I'm tired and hungry...the despair...the sheer despair that is driving these people...

And in the West Bank? Have you not seen the videos of torture of civilians by Israeli soldiers that have come out? Amnesty international and B'Tselem and have verified these. Civilians stripped naked, lying on the floor with their hands behind their backs- being kicked and stamped on and dragged around. A Palestinian woman and her husband were arrested for a tweet in the supposed beacon of democracy and free speech of the Middle East. There is no Hamas in the West Bank...

Who are Israel fighting? They have achieved nothing. They will achieve nothing. They claim they are wiping out Hamas to disguise their genocidal intentions. They don't care who dies and how many die and they never have 😂 this did not start on October 7th.

This is not a war...this is not state against state...the Palestinians do not have an army or any military support...Hamas do not have that kind of firepower. This is massacre and genocide plain and simple.