To think sometimes people use words without fully understanding them?

[Oodiks]

There were a few examples in my previous AIBU thread. Including, but not limited to:

Genocide
Antisemitism
Zionism
Ethnic Cleansing

These are strong trigger words for many people, myself included, but I think they are often misused and/or misunderstood.

Thoughts?

Here’s an example
Oct 9, 2023, Israel’s Education Minister declared “Those are animals, they have no right to exist. I am not debating the way it will happen, but they need to be exterminated”.

If it was said about a group of which you were a member then you would know instantly that its intention is genocidal.

We're still waiting OP.......

Genuinely can’t believe some people are still denying this genocide. More children have been killed in one year than in any other recent war. Pretty unlikely they were all ‘combatants’.

Have seen posts saying similar to “am mortified that keir starmer has taken winter fuel payments”. No you are disappointed/ angry etc not mortified. Surely to be mortified you need to have done or perceived to have done something you then feel embarrassed about?

So the poor poster whose teen was rude to a GP was mortified- correct use of word.

Starving
Flu
OCD
Autism
Abusive

Also hate office says that mean something else-
Fire fighting and deep dive spring to mind.

YABU for including links to a source people need to subscribe to.

Or you can just learn English well. Logically learning one language is easier than two.

(My mother used to say the same as you and actually I literally find it triggering. So stop gaslighting us please. )

Gaslighting? 🤔

I see you and raise you, very unique. I know that's a phrase but it seemed apt.

“Ms Bibble and myself will be conducting the interview.'”

BUT it should be “and I”
not “and me”

come on now! 🙃

Also hate office says that mean something else - Fire fighting and deep dive spring to mind.

Showstopper being used as a negative annoys me.

Weary and wary.

Whenever someone says they're weary of something I just think oh, you're tired of it. But they mean 'wary' like a bit afraid.

Also 'defiantly' when they mean 'definitely'. It does make me chuckle, that one. Like someone is standing their ground jutting their chin out with their hand on their hip DEFIANTLY doing or saying something haha

Another has got to be pedal stool when they mean pedestal, or 'wa la' when they mean voila.

Special mention to the Americans saying 'I could care less' when they mean couldn't!

They're describing how you should feel about your last thread.

People in Gaza are identifying their dead children as liquid mess in carrier bags, while freed Israeli hostages are posing around their pools for CNN.

So true OP.

I would add to your list ' Fascist' and 'Nazi', which are now near universally misused terms, including by black clothed, black booted men screaming at other people, without a hint of irony or self-reflection.

That's awful. Really awful. Especially as Hamas deliberately provoked this death and destruction on their own people, and then never used their extensive tunnels under Gaza ( built with money they should have been using to build up Gaza) to protect their own citizens in ( you know, like Londoners were able to use the underground tunnels of the Tube during the bombing raids of WW2), but instead revelled in the deaths of their own people as 'the blood of martyrs that fortifies our fight.'

You must be furious with Hamas for all of this, really furious. I don't blame you. You are right to be furious with them.

Always makes me think of rik from 'the young ones.'

Sure, and prayers of thanks to the IDF as well. [sarcasm]

Are you not ashamed to reply to the deaths of children in such a disingenuous manner. Were you smirking to yourself as you typed “you made me do it”

We used to use the word 'nearly' as in 'I nearly died when I discovered...' but 'nearly' doesn't seem extreme enough these days.

One growing up was that people would use the word 'random' when they meant 'bizarre' but I think this has now been adopted and seen as acceptable,

I'm not disingenuous. I mean every word. I'm not so ideologically captured that I am not able to properly attribute blame. Israel was not occupying Gaza prior to 7th October, they withdrew long ago. Vast amounts of money have been spent to improve the lives of people in Gaza to secure lasting peace, Hamas spent that money on a vast tunnel network and arms in preparation for this attack. The attack on the 7th October was deliberately barbaric, and deliberately publicly glorified in, to provoke a response, and then Hamas did not let its own citizens in the tunnels to protect them, but instead sacrificed them, without their consent. and then gloried in their suffering and deaths too. And then said how it was going to keep on attacking Israel like it did on 7th October, just to ensure the fire kept raining down on its own people. Its hard to think of something more evil than this. Pure unadulterated evil. But you have to ignore all this to maintain your position.

No country would be expected not to defend its citizens through military means after such an attack like 7 October. And this is EXACTLY what Hamas was banking on.

And trying to deride pointing out these facts as a narrative of ' you made me do it' as if Hamas had failed to get dinner ready on time and then got a kicking from Israel, instead of torturing and butchering children, women and men and then saying it was going to keep on doing it, is a particularly weak and low argument. Utterly dishonest. If you want to use comparison to argue your case, you need to pick things which are actually comparable.

Having a narrative that Israel is currently attacking Gaza, which you clearly do, is akin to having a narrative than in WW2 Britain was attacking Germany.

And unless you can show me where you have cried over the deaths of Israeli children on October 7th, where children were tied by wire to their parent and then burnt, I simply cannot believe that you have a humanitarian concern for children. Some children are more equal than others, eh?

You are basically hating Israel for being able to defend itself. Do you even realise that Hamas continually fire rockets at Israel? They would raise it to the ground too. The only reason they can't is because Israel has better defences.

Instead of hating Israel for being able to defend itself, it would be more honest to hate Hamas for failing to protect its citizens.

I hate Hamas for that. I absolutely hate them for death and suffering they have brought to the children, women and men in Gaza. I hate them for the suffering and death they have brought to the children, women and men living in Israel. And I can't for the life of me understand why others have moved so far from their humanity that they don't hate Hamas for this too.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5170760-would-you-report-offensive-message-in-a-group-work-chat?reply=138476258

I think my view on killing children and those who do it, and those who support or minimize it will be clear from this thread.

I find the act repugnant, I find the supporters and minimizers repugnant.

Having a narrative that Israel is currently attacking Gaza, which you clearly do, is akin to having a narrative than in WW2 Britain was attacking Germany.

I really have to say this comment is particularly egregious given the following quote from Netanyahu:
All the places where Hamas is formed at, of this evil city, all the places where Hamas is hiding, acting from, we will turn them into rubble. I'm telling the people of Gaza, get out of there now, because we will act everywhere in full force.

Saying that Israel is attacking Gaza (and Lebanon) is confirming the government policy, and it absolutely is not the same as doing a WW2 role reversal.

You’re so wrapped up in enjoying your moral outrage you’ve taken the side of a man who says “Those are animals, they have no right to exist. I am not debating the way it will happen, but they need to be exterminated” whilst lecturing about losing one’s humanity.
Were the babies in incubators animals who needed to be exterminated- presumably by you measure a regrettable, hand wringing “Yes”

I really have to say this comment is particularly egregious given the following quote from Netanyahu
All the places where Hamas is formed at, of this evil city, all the places where Hamas is hiding, acting from, we will turn them into rubble. I'm telling the people of Gaza, get out of there now, because we will act everywhere in full force

You've obviously never heard of Dresden then. I don't think the British gave forewarning to the people of Dresden to get out though. Urban warfare is brutal - there are high civilian casualties. Its one of the things that makes Hamas so despicable for starting such a war and then leaving its citizens to die in it.

Not quite clear what you are saying in the rest of the post - you do understand that this talking about destroying Hamas? Its quite clear in the quotes you posted. Which is a legitimate goal after 7th October. Prior to that Netanyahu seems to have believed that Israel could co-exist with Hamas lobbing rockets at Israel regularly as they had the Iron Dome to protect them. 7th October changed that. You don't seem to be addressing that. Or the responsibility of Hamas. Why is that?

Yes I am morally outraged by barbarous terrorists enacting mass cruelty and murder and rape, knowing it will lead to the mass suffering and death of their own citizens. Not sure what you think the correct response is to such events being as you seem to want to deride me for being outraged at this?

Glad to hear you also believe murdering children is wrong. Sorry to hear you aren't condemning Hamas who did this but appear to be 'morally outraged' at the Leader of democratic country for wanting to destroy Hamas who have caused the deaths of children - both directly and (not so) indirectly - and who explicitly stated their desire to want to continue doing so.

Point proven.

Mortified.

Oh Dear, Oh Dear

Shall we start with Dresden and what Churchill said at the time about it “It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed”
Churchill was not a fan, and whether his unease was humanitarian or political or a mixture of the two, it nonetheless shows that he knew there are longer term repercussions to bombing people.

I think I also understand better than you what Netanyahu said. Try reading it again to see if he slips from attacking Hamas, to attacking Gaza (generally).

1. All the places where Hamas is formed at, of this evil city, all the places where Hamas is hiding, acting from, we will turn them into rubble.
2. I'm telling the people of Gaza, get out of there now, because we will act everywhere in full force

I am going to suggest that you didn’t pay close attention to the actual words being said. You heard what you wanted to hear, and blocked out the rest.

What specifically do you think he meant by This Evil City and “We will act everywhere”? Where in Gaza is excluded from the everywhere given that we know it includes premature baby units?

Love the way you highlight the words ' people of Gaza' but not ' get out of there'. Very telling. You might want to reflect on your own selective reading there. What a shame Hamas never gave the same warning before October 7th. All this death could have been avoided! If only they had thought of that!

Also very telling is the way you are determinedly refusing to address the point of how the acts of October 7th destroyed the relative peace between Israel and Gaza, and deliberately so. For all those, presumably including you, who call for a ceasefire: there was a ceasefire prior to October 7th. The man you hate Netanyahu was content with that. Hamas were not and poured money that should have gone into securing the peaceful future of Gaza into preparing for a terrorist attack that they deliberately to use to provoke a war.

But you are determinedly refusing to allocate any responsibility or condemnation to Hamas.

I guess what the difference between you and me comes down to is that I blame wars on the people who deliberately start the wars. And you don't. Or perhaps you do, except when its Israel whose forced into the position of defending its citizens.

So I'll ask again.

Do you accept that Hamas on October 7th deliberately broke a ceasefire to start a conflict?
Do you hold Hamas responsible for the suffering deaths on October 7th and the subsequent suffering and death?
Do you condemn Hamas for this?

Btw, thank you for the link to your other thread. It makes clear that you have an line of ' but what about the babies!' to anyone who disagrees with you. I note from the responses that others found this a disingenuous line of argument too. if you want to be taken seriously, you need to start showing your condemnation of Hamas for 'not thinking about the babies'. After all, absolutely none of the babies who have died on October 7th or since would be dead if Hamas had not committed that appalling act of Terrorism. But that is the central point you are markedly refusing to address.

The population of Gaza prior to Oct 7th last year was around 2.1/2.2 million. About 2 million have been displaced from their homes. Hospitals, medical facilities, schools and infrastructure for an entire population have been more or less obliterated. That is pretty destructive of a whole population. It is killing the population both physically, and metaphorically. Trauma can leave us dead inside.

Journalists, professors, and the most educated who could get the message of the suffering out to the world and help rebuild Gaza after it's destruction, have been systematically wiped out in targetted attacks. Thousands of people including children have been brutally murdered in the most horrific ways including being literally blown apart, heads ripped off, run over by tanks

Every day for the last year, children, women and men have been exposed to DAILY trauma - not one single person in Gaza has escaped the sounds of bombs, family members murdered, seeing dead bodies in the streets, the smell of decaying humans, dogs, cats.

It's the relentlessness, the multiple exposure to trauma day in day out that is unbearable.

Children are being orphaned daily. Kids are being left to raise their siblings among debris, trauma, shortage of clean water and nutritious food.

When those hospitals were bombed and destroyed, where do you think the cancer patients went? The infirm? The bed bound?

Gaza is a living hell. 40,000 dead is a massive underestimation. 100,000 under the rubble or missing also an underestimation.

By destroying all the land, all the hospitals and displacing and entire population. Subjecting an entire population and three or four generations of families, to horrific trauma DAILY, is sadistic.

Call it genocide, ethnic cleansing or call it just evil. The words don't matter OP. It's the acts that are clearly wrong.

And if you think what has happened in Gaza and continues to happen in Gaza. What has happened for years in the west bank and continues to happen. What is happening in Lebanon. If you think these actions will make Israel safer ... you are living in a fantasy world.

If someone blew my mother to bits in front of me, ran over my neighbour with a tank, stole my house and imprisoned me in a war zone with no way to leave, to escape, no way to exit this hell - I can tell you now, that would breed hatred. The acts of Israel will only cause future revenge attacks way beyond what Israel can possibly imagine.

Eradicate Hamas? What a joke. Do you really think those who manage to survive in Gaza will suddenly fall in love with Israel?? It may be called Hamas, or it may not, but mark my words, a group will rise up bigger and stronger than Hamas and the terror they unleash will be horrendous.

Israel's government have been foolish in their actions. If a country wants to feel safe, they HAVE to treat their neighbours better. It's the only way. You cannot keep yourself safe by trying kill and traumatise innocent children. You cannot kill an ideology, a hatred of you when you give grounds to be hated.

Whatever you call it is irrelevant. The brutality must stop. The children cannot take anymore.