To have reservations about a friendship with a woman who refers to Israel's actions in Gaza as a genocide?

[Oodiks]

I like this woman a lot, but we have very differing world views, specifically her belief that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

We work at a university and were coming back from lunch together when she commented that she was pleased the protestors hadn't come back. I agreed, noting how nerve wracking it must have been for Jewish students on campus to run the gauntlet of pro-Palestinian / anti-Zionist posters in the encampment.

We'd been talking about the American election over lunch, and I thought we'd agreed that Kamala Harris was the better candidate for her views on climate change, if nothing else, but then my 'friend' commented on Biden/Harris sending arms "to support the genocide" and I was left kind of speechless.

Am I being unreasonable to feel unsure about continuing this friendship?

Really? So odd, I swear I see female Palestinian doctors, lawyers, diplomats, journalists and business owners in the news reports. Many aren’t even wearing hijabs too! Wow 😯

You've got me all wrong, I want freedom for EVERYONE. I don't want people to live under repressive regimes or in Apartheid States. And before you say Israel is bombing the ME and destroying Gaza to bring freedom - no they're not.

They are not leaving the West Bank Palestinians alone!

Oh, you’ve got some evidence of bombings and military campaigns in the West Bank as a result of October 7th?

Oh gosh yes, I am positive her campaign donors include the defence industry.

Much confusion over this topic! Unfortunately, people don’t read much pasta headlines.

The ICJ haven’t said that it is genocide.

Whatever the UN says is neither here nor there unless you know how the UN works, it isn’t really worth talking to you about it.

I will just say this, do you know that there are more UN resolutions against Israel than there are against Iran, Russia, and North Korea combined?

Russia is a country that invaded a sovereign state stole children and continues to bombs civilians on a daily basis.

Iran is a country that murders women for not wearing headscarf and murders homosexuals for being homosexual.

North Korea, well, you get the picture.

And yes, a Liberal democracy like Israel has more UN resolutions against it and all three of these combined.

there’s a reason for this, and if you don’t know what it is, then there’s no point in talking to you about the UN

What lie?

Here's the original The Avalon Project : Hamas Covenant 1988 (yale.edu) and here's the revised version Hamas in 2017: The document in full | Middle East Eye

Have you read and understood their intent?

What’s the Iranian’s government’s excuse then @thedodo ?

israel is destroying the miles of terrorist infrastructure built underneath a civilian population. If only Hamas had used the aid money it received to, you know, help its people rather than embezzling billions and constructing rockets, etc. Things would be very different.

Well admittedly they are only using small bombs and destroying a few buildings at a time and shooting a few people at a time. And allowing settlers to destroy and take over Palestinian villages with the protection of the army. And running checkpoints all over the West Bank where they often kill innocent travelers for showing disrespect, including the odd academic. This, if it continues, is low intensity genocide, or at least unlawful repression.

@BabyEl
Nothing about the current situation supports the idea that there is a genocide happening.

The ICJ agreed in their preliminary findings that it is plausible that Israel may be committing genocide of the Palestinian people.

Numerous genocide historians and legal experts have stated that the conflict in Gaza met the threshold to be considered a genocide when the death toll and facts on the ground became irrefutably worse than for other already legally ruled by the ICJ as genocides.

Your post shows only your ignorance of the definition of and case law regarding genocide.

Are you living under a rock?
How can you claim you are well versed on the conflict and not know that the west bank has been bombed multiple times since Oct 7th. Aswell as the IDF carrying out multiple campaigns there (terrorising) that has been condemned by even allies.

You do realise that the UN has said that war crimes are being committed! Just because you said it's not a genocide also doesn't mean that you are correct!

Secondly, Israel has massive military superiority over the Palestinians
This i actually agree with and this is why this is mass extermination of a particular ethic group. This isn't even a war given this fact as it's totally one sided.

Israel has also provided food and Other supplies for people in Gaza.
Except they have actively tried to block food entering Gaza verified by independent relief agencies
On top of that, why did the Israelis go to such great length to avoid killing civilians
Mmm over 44000 dead mostly civilians women and children.
why are they only focusing on Gazza and leaving all the Westbank Palestinians alone?
I'm sure people living in the West bank would disagree. They are being oppressed, being randomly attacked and having their land grabbed by the settlers. Again verified by independent agencies.

Is this hard for YOU to understand?

@Oodiks not surprisingly, you glossed over my post.

Asking again, as it goes to the heart of your question about being friends with somebody who refers to Israel's actions as genocide.

From the Oxford dictionary -
Genocide -the murder of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group, with the aim of destroying that nation or group

So OP - is that NOT was is happening in Gaza? Take all the trumpesque style rhetoric out of the mix and consider the meaning of the word genocide.

From Amnesty International - this DOES NOT excuse pro-Palestinian atrocities but does contextualize the underlying reasons for the ever present discord and war mongering in the region.
If I were forced to live under such conditions, I might choose to fight back. Take Nelson Mandela - he fought back against a brutal regime. He is a hero. The situation has relevant parallels.

---

For half a century, Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip has resulted in systematic human rights violations against Palestinians living there.
Since the occupation first began in June 1967, Israel’s ruthless policies of land confiscation, illegal settlement and dispossession, coupled with rampant discrimination, have inflicted immense suffering on Palestinians, depriving them of their basic rights.

Israel’s military rule disrupts every aspect of daily life in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It continues to affect whether, when and how Palestinians can travel to work or school, go abroad, visit their relatives, earn a living, attend a protest, access their farmland, or even access electricity or a clean water supply. It means daily humiliation, fear and oppression. People’s entire lives are effectively held hostage by Israel.

Israel has also adopted a complex web of military laws to crush dissent against its policies, and senior government officials have branded Israelis advocating for Palestinian rights as “traitors”.

Whatever happens next the mass killing of innocent civilians is a crime. It is genocide. It needs to stop.

So everyone agrees Israel has the right to defend itself but it's genocide when it does? I wonder what the UK would have done in the face of a mass barbaric terror attack of that scale, burning our children, raping women and shooting them.

The ICJ haven’t said it isn’t genocide. The case passed the first hurdle where they agreed there is a plausible case that it might be.

Israel has the most vetoed resolutions by the UNSC, that is why the UNGA keeps rewriting and sending the essentially the same resolution over and over to try and get it past the USA veto.

Resolutions against countries with no veto holding protector pass on the first try.

Democracy shouldn’t be conflated with awesome human rights records btw, some of the worst empire builders, genocidaires and violators of human rights (hello slave trade!) were and are democracies.

I didn't say anything about Hamas not being somewhere though did i?
It was in response to a poster stating what evidence there was of bombing in the west bank

@ChiefEverythingOfficer

Fyi, the working legal definition of genocide is much more comprehensive and detailed:

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:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-prevention-and-punishment-crime-genocide

Your delulu patronizing confidence is fascinating.

You're not the only special snowflake who has enough brain cells to read past the headlines. Everyone does. Then they form their own opinions.

On the basis of evidence collected and examined by my Office, I have reasonable grounds to believe that Benjamin NETANYAHU, the Prime Minister of Israel, and Yoav GALLANT, the Minister of Defence of Israel, bear criminal responsibility for the following war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of the State of Palestine (in the Gaza strip) from at least 8 October 2023:

• Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(b)(xxv) of the Statute;
• Wilfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8(2)(a)(iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
• Wilful killing contrary to article 8(2)(a)(i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8(2)(c)(i);
• Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8(2)(b)(i), or 8(2)(e)(i);
• Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7(1)(b) and 7(1)(a), including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;
• Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(h);
• Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7(1)(k).

My Office submits that the war crimes alleged in these applications were committed in the context of an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas (together with other Palestinian Armed Groups) running in parallel. We submit that the crimes against humanity charged were committed as part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Palestinian civilian population pursuant to State policy. These crimes, in our assessment, continue to this day.

Tthe UN and the ICJ have decided that Isreal is committing atrocities WORSE than Iran, Russia, and North Korea combined. Imagine that. Nearly 200 countries got together and decided this ( the UN consists of many countries..)

The reason for this is: evidence-> conclusion. It's not the religion of the criminal. It's the crime. You steal you-> are a thief. "but I'm catholic" is not valid if you're found to be a thief in court.

@thedodo

"Consider me a Palestinian. I'm saying the killing of my people is genocide. My mother, my aunts, my brothers, my children. You'd respond with but wait the Chinese are also doing it to the Uyghars so accept it?"

You are of course correct that if you were a Palestinian then the most pressing issue would be the civilian deaths in Gaza, rather than say the genocide of a million Uighars or ethnic cleansing of a million Afghans.

But the majority of those outraged or protesting are not Palestinians either. So logically wouldn't their "protest / outrage time " be better spent on demonstrating against numerically the greater outrage against the Uighars or Afghans?

Seriously is the post a real post @Oodiks

Google Palestine prior to 1948 and compare it to present day. Then tell me there has been no genocide taking place. It's absolutely awful. The country was supposed to be shared....

Here's the original The Avalon Project : Hamas Covenant 1988 (yale.edu) and here's the revised version Hamas in 2017: The document in full | Middle East Eye
Have you read and understood their intent?

Well firstly you are entitled to doubt the sincerity of this document. But what it says is that Palestine should become an Islamic democracy (oxymoron warning) and that Jews and Christians should be entitled to live in peace in it. It admittedly falls short of saying that all current Israelis should be allowed to stay there, but it doesn't say the converse.

Again, Hamas' actions are not consistent with this document, but why lie about what the document says? It does not call for the expulsion and slaughter of Jews.