Please do all you can to object to the genocide of Palestinians

[Finallyloggedin]

It’s just heartbreaking. I’ve seen videos on twitter that are beyond anything I can even begin to describe. Palestinians are being murdered in their thousands and the western media is largely pretending it’s not happening.

The average age of the people who have been killed in Gaza is FIVE years old.

The UK media are not showing how the Israeli government is openly talking about, and cheerleading genocide now. Israeli government speaks about Palestinians as if they are not humans. They are saying women are targets as they can have babies. I’ve just read how, since October 7th they have taken over 5,000 Palestinians from the West Bank and tortured them. They were already routinely arresting Palestinians and taking them away from their family with no reason and no but this is not being adequately reported.

Please, please visit sites such as 972 magazine and declassified uk. The BBC, etc, unfortunately aren’t reporting the extent to what is going on.

https://www.declassifieduk.org/israel-and-its-allies-are-repurposing-the-goals-and-lies-of-1948-in-gaza-in-2023/

And recommendations should be for investments and properties and friendships and not for ooooh should we save this life or not? Let's draw out a excel sheet, check ethnicity, put a value and make a gentle recommendation.

I like this poem

Adding poem now

And this

Misinformation. Putting words into his mouth that he didn't say.

I'm not a fan of arguing with those who seem to have an agenda. But, if you are debating in good faith, here are some points that have led to my hesitancy to just go along with internet demands to call a government action a genocide, primarily because there are internationally agreed upon specific legal precedents and sanctions for it.

I'm fully aware that who decides what is a genocide and what the criteria should be is an ongoing debate.

It is not at all 'bizarre' to compare WWII city bombardments, especially Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to what is happening now. Indeed, it is what is used as criteria and a foundation to determine war crimes. The international court does just this when assessing what constitutes criminal acts in war and violent conflicts.

Trying to wipe out an entire people - one of the definitions of genocide - did not arise after the Holocaust. The definitions of holocaust have been applied posthumously, such as against the Circassians in the mid 1800s (estimates up to 1.5 million dead) and the Taino genocide under the Spanish in the late 1400s (estimates up to 900K dead).

Some of the criteria used by the courts include intent, and I think that Israel's intent behind the bombardment is still open for debate.

Google can, indeed, be helpful at times, but having advanced degrees in history and a background journalism also help ;).

I'm not arguing at all that this will never be deemed a genocide, I'm simply cautioning that jumping to that inflammatory language sets a very stark black/white narrative and if the Israeli/Palestine issue is anything, it's complicated.
<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20231121044028/www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20231121044028/www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/opinion/israel-gaza-genocide-war.html

Thank you 💔

@Delphinium20 that article was an interesting read thank you for sharing.

It highlights the intent of genocide and how Netanyahu and his government have used genocidal rhetoric. And that it could very well turn into a genocide even if it can't be proven to be one right now In this authors opinion.

And so, while we cannot say that the military is explicitly targeting Palestinian civilians, functionally and rhetorically we may be watching an ethnic cleansing operation that could quickly devolve into genocide, as has happened more than once in the past.

I was responding to you about the use of the term genocide.

Here are some links explaining in simple terms how what's been happening in Gaza is a textbook case of genocide:

A Textbook Case of Genocide
Israel has been explicit about what it’s carrying out in Gaza. Why isn’t the world listening?

https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide

By Raz Segal, associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide.
(Note: this scholar is Jewish Israeli)

Here's another article in the Los Angeles Times where you can read the report of three leading Holocaust and genocide studies scholars: Victoria Sanford, Barry Trachtenberg and John Cox.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-11-19/israel-hostages-gaza-bombing-civilians-genocide-holocaust-studies

And if you prefer it, here's an interview with Raz Segal where he explains the situation.

What I find really upsetting too is thinking that the death rituals were most likely enable to be performed. In Islam, for example, the body must be washed 3 times. Water is scarce in Gaza so this is certainly not done. Some have no one to mourn them, some are unknown.
This is too much.

@Delphinium20

And this: credit to the author for writing a informative and balanced article

None of this happened in a vacuum. Over the past several months I have agonized greatly over the unfolding of events in Israel. On Aug. 4, several colleagues and I circulated a petition warning that the attempted judicial coup by the Netanyahu government was intended to perpetuate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

It was signed by close to 2,500 scholars, clergy members and public figures who were disgusted with the racist rhetoric of members of the government, its anti-democratic efforts and the growing violence by settlers, seemingly supported by the I.D.F., against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
What we had warned about — that it would be impossible to ignore the occupation and oppression of millions for 56 years, and the siege of Gaza for 16 years, without consequences — exploded in our faces on Oct. 7.

Yup. Israel have killed 1 out of every 200 children in Gaza in a few short weeks that is what is obscene. 1 in every 200 children dead and that is just the ones they can confirm not the ones lying dead under tonnes of rubble. To write off people being concerned about this as just being antisemitic or anti Israel is obscene. The trail of death and destruction that Israel has created is just unfathomable and it needs to be spoken about.

@Parkingt111 both sides at times have used genocidal rhetoric.
It will be interesting whilst there is a cessation in hostilities whether Hamas regroup and attempt to put into fruition theirs.

And the far right, hateful, murderous Israeli government have been voted in. That does not mean that all Israelis support them.

Not even just washing - basic dignity of death. There was a video of a fathers body being put in a sling and having to be hoisted down with strings, falling and banging on walls as it went down. It was horrific to watch, so inhumane and dehumanising.

@Delphinium20

Sorry we will have to agree to disagree on how useful the advanced degrees are because this response doesn’t really add up…

For some reason you keep insisting it’s not a genocide using a 4year global war involving all the “great powers” as a comparison to a war between a sovereign state& a terrorist faction or an occupying power/ occupied people depending on who defines it.
They are not equitable wars and no the ICC does not use the atomic bombings as a baseline for defining genocide because they lack the intent to be classified as such.

Again, as I said the term genocide was coined post WW2 and that stands.

Yes I referred to lots of examples of Israeli speech such as “human animals”, “Amalek”, “we will annex Gaza”… as the intent that provides the context.

Still think you googling articles where people more expert than you or I outline their reasons for defining the assault ongoing in Gaza as genocide would be worthwhile. Many people are insisting otherwise without having a clue and if it is happening I don’t think it is a great thing to be denying so flippantly.
If you are waiting for The Hague to do so, you’ll be waiting some time as that makes a judgment long after the fact.

Don’t think I can add much more, leaving it there.

Yes Hamas have too
I'm hoping that the truce leads to a full ceasefire and political and diplomatic efforts can steer this towards a two state solution. No more Hamas. And no more Netanyahu

Just saw on news now hundreds of bodies being put in a mass grave 😭

@Parkingt111 I don't disagree with you on that front.

If we want to focus purely on how many people have died (e.g. Israel killed x amount of children vs. Hamas killed x amount of children) I'll just say that guns in my own country of the US kill children at alarmingly high rates ... In 2021, 4,752 children dead by a gun (this isn't even counting children dead by knives/other weapons/fists). While, this was over one year, not in a month and a half, we need to remember that there are children around the world dying needlessly from what are adult-created problems.

One child's death is always one too many ... whether they die from malnutrition, war, freezing, heat, guns, beatings or accidents. Since I started studying the Middle East conflict in the 90s, one constant that has not changed is the demand from pro-Israel and pro-Palestine factions to expect the wider world to take their problems more seriously than all the rest of the world's children.

Honestly, I'm fucking sick of them both.

@Stomacharmeleon no one serious thinks Hamas have the power to enact genocide? Now that is a classic example of the term being rendered meaningless.
Do people recognise the power differential between ’rocket throwing/ horrific acts of violence on innocent civilians ’ group Hamas and ‘extremely powerful military/ holders of nuclear weapon/ droppers of 18,000 bombs on innocent civilians’ nation Israel?
They are not like for like. Only one of these has the capacity to commit genocide. And an alarming number of its government officials have expressed the wish to do so in coded and more explicit language.

You should read the Open Letter from Scholars of Holocaust and Genocide, I’ve just posted it on the forum.

I have to say that I find this way of thinking a bit 'off'. If someone was killing 1 in every 200 children where I live I would want the world to be talking about it. I'm lucky, my kids are lucky, we live in the 3rd safest country in the world, I wish everyone was as lucky but if we weren't ,if we lived somewhere where my children had a 1 in 200 chance of being killed and 1 in 100 chance of being injured, and it could be stopped straight away, I would want the world to be screaming for it to stop. It would make me sick to my stomach if everyone just shrugged and said we all have our problems.

@Decisiontimenow I disagree with you and that should be ok.
Hamas' intentions are in their charter and the events of 7/10 are in keeping with their explicit aims and stated objectives.
Regardless of Israel's superiority with regard to armaments they succeeded in getting through and raping, murdering and brutalising 1,400 people and took 230 hostage including babies and children.
They have stated they will do it again. The cost of Palestinian life is worth it to them.
They don't have to have military might to have insidious intent.
They can fight on many fronts and i don't want to play 'who has it worse' as I don't think there are any winners on that front.

@Delphinium20 I don't understand. If you are so sick of both pro Israelis and pro Palestinians demanding extra attention then why come onto a thread and do exactly that? If it irks you that much

@Stomacharmeleon
Of course you can disagree on a matter of opinion but this isn’t opinion. They can commit acts of terror and acts of violence no doubt, and they are hideous. And awful. And as committed against civilians, they are war crimes.
But they do not amount to genocide by any stretch of the imagination.
Insidious intent does not equate to ability to commit genocide.
It is a very specific term, used to denote a very specific violence. Very important to be clear surely?