Murdered vs died.

[Eyesopenwideawake]

Watching the BBC news tonight and they quoted "1200 people were murdered on the 7th October". In the same report they said that 20,000 people in Gaza had died since Israel started their campaign.

Language is so emotive. How would you think about the conflict if you were told/read that 20,000 Gazans had been murdered?

Agree.
I call what both Hamas did and Israel is doing “murder”.
The deliberate killing of innocent people for your own gain.

No. It’s a decision for all human beings to make, as all of us know we wouldn’t like ourselves or our children to be brutally murdered or maimed so we shouldn’t do it to others.

I agree OP, the language standards are completely different and I think it is obvious.

Here is an interesting related article about it:

https://www.declassifieduk.org/analysis-how-the-uk-and-us-media-dehumanise-palestinians/

With some examples copied from the article below:

Gazans aren’t killed by Israeli forces or Israeli government policies. They “dehydrate to death as clean water runs out” (Guardian, 18 October) while Israeli airstrikes “continue to pound the Palestinian territory”.

On 9 October, the BBC ran with “700 people have been killed on the Israeli side with more than 400 also dead in Gaza”, presumably succumbing to shock or an act of God.

On 8 November, the Times of London noted: “Israelis marked a month since Hamas killed 1,400 people and kidnapped 240, starting a war in which 10,300 Palestinians are said to have died”, which is of course qualified.

Palestinian deaths are natural, undifferentiated. This is only possible because the media treat Israel’s blockade of Gaza as wholly logical, proportionate and even restrained.

I find it very unsettling to see the Chinese Communist Party information being shared like this.

In my view killing unarmed civilians that are not a threat is murder

So the U.K. committed mass murders in all the cities it bombed in WW2, like the fire bombing of Dresden?

In wars, innocent people are killed, often in unimaginably large numbers. It awful. It’s often indefensible.

Framing those deaths as murders rather than killings doesn’t make them
any more or less dead, or the circumstances of their death any more or less tragic.

The CPS says:

the crime of murder is committed, where a person:

• of sound mind and discretion (sane)
• unlawfully kills (not self-defence or other justified killing)
• any reasonable creature (a human being)
• in being (born alive and breathing through its own lungs)
• under the King's Peace (not in wartime)
• with intent to kill or cause grievous bodily harm (in contrast to the offence of attempted murder, where only intent to kill will suffice)

(bold type my own)

Murder isn’t the right term for an army killing people. That’s what war means.

Agree @LenaLamont.

Using another word such as killed has the same impact imo. Using the word murdered doesn't quite fit. And what others have said.

Whether or not any of us feel it was murder is irrelevant, the BBC aren't going to use it in this context.

I can't see any link in that Tweet to the Chinese Communist Party?🤔And the man making it appears to be an entrepreneur and unrelated to the Chinese Communist Party.

The report the tweet refers to can be found here via the Relief Web (an official organisation) website and appears to be genuine

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/un-human-rights-office-opt-unlawful-killings-gaza-city

about relief web

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReliefWeb

It's well known that the poster is spreading CCP propaganda. I happen to know him tangentially. He's a failed businessman who moved to China and is a regular feature on Chinese State Media posing an "independent" "entrepreneur".

Last year, when civilians were dying in Ukraine, he spent all his time defending Russia's actions. Since October he's been posting furiously about Israel-Gaza. The whole point is to spread anti-west propaganda, and as we see from its spread, it's working.

@auberginefortea ah thanks for confirming.

That said the report is by Relief Web and contains important info. Relief Web is an official organisation. I don't think you could argue they are not trustworthy.

https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/un-human-rights-office-opt-unlawful-killings-gaza-city

OHCHR OPT has received disturbing information alleging that Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) summarily killed at least 11 unarmed Palestinian men in front of their family members in Al Remal neighbourhood, Gaza City, which raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime. This comes in the wake of earlier allegations concerning the deliberate targeting and killing of civilians at the hands of Israeli forces.

The Israeli authorities must immediately institute an independent, thorough and effective investigation into these allegations, and if found to be substantiated, those responsible must be brought to justice and measures implemented to prevent any such serious violations from recurring.

On 19 December 2023, between 2000 and 2300 hours, IDF reportedly surrounded and raided Al Awda building, also known as the “Annan building”, in Al Remal neighborhood, Gaza City, where three related families were sheltering in addition to Annan family. According to witness accounts circulated by media sources and Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, while in control of the building and the civilians sheltering there, the IDF allegedly separated the men from the women and children, and then shot and killed at least 11 of the men, mostly aged in their late 20’s and early 30’s, in front of their family members. The IDF then allegedly ordered the women and children into a room, and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room, reportedly seriously injuring some of them, including an infant and a child. OHCHR has confirmed the killings at Al Awdabuilding, although the details and circumstances of the killings are still under verification. IDF has not released any information on the incident.

I'm no fan of the BBC and havent been since Covid. I was labelled a conspiracy theorist' and all sorts for that at the time. I find it fascinating how this war has made it socially acceptable to call out and question 'mainstream media'. Literally weeks before 10/7, Russell Brand was ridiculed for doing so.

Russell Brand, serial sex offender (allegedly)?

@LenaLamont So the U.K. committed mass murders in all the cities it bombed in WW2, like the fire bombing of Dresden?

Yes, they did. Acts like this led to the Geneva Convention.

By your own (UK CPS) definition. Hamas committed murder 1200 times on the 7th October. Since then the IDF have committed murder (minus fatalities due to direct combat with Hamas members) 20,000 times.

Not a great example I admit..

but sprung to mind as I had a conversation about RB literally a week before 10/7 with someone whose exact words, in regards
to RB were:
"anyone who uses the phrase 'mainstream media is a complete tool'"
and low and behold that same person is now using the phrase 'mainstream media'

Just an interesting observation and have observed similar scenarios playing out amongst many peers

Since then the IDF have committed murder

@Eyesopenwideawake on October 8th Israel declared they were at war. Deaths during war due to military operations are specifically excluded.

I don’t understand why you want to contort the meaning of murder to include acts of war. Both are horrific tragedies. But they mean different things.

Are you implying Palestinian civilians aren't being deliberately targeted and murdered?

A Rwandan doctor has just been charged in France for being part of the Rwandan genocide so has the former Serbian president Milosevic for his war crimes committed in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo where he died in prison. This genocide isn't and never was targeted towards Hamas only. Israeli officials have commented many times including Netanyahu that they will wipe out Gaza and anyone in it until no Gazan is left because if they leave anyone they will breed future Hamas. So are you telling me those that are still defending Netanyahu's war crimes that it is ok to wipe out every Russian on this planet and they are just collateral damage or war casualties?

And yet, we distinguish both morally and legally between actions taken with direct intent and with secondary consequence.

If I get attacked in the street and I defend myself, and in the course of doing so I punch someone and they fall down, crack their head on the pavement and have a stroke and die, it would be seriously unjust to suggest I had murdered them.

Yet if I started a fight with murderous intent, and made the same punch, and that person fell and died, it would be just to suggest I had murdered them (even though the pavement being irregularly shaped was what caused their actual death)

I don’t think most people seriously think that it is unjust that Israel responds to the events of October 7. Which was also, very obviously, murder. Now if Israel have the right to defend themselves and strike back in consequence, and are aiming at legitimate military targets, then no, collateral damage is not murder.

I don’t know what the specific circumstances of those events referred to above are- I don’t know why the snipers did what they did- but part of what is making this conflict so awful is the blurring of lines by the use of human shields. If the IDF are targeting legitimate Hamas targets (even if they don’t present an immediate threat) and human shields die in consequence, it’s not murder. Not legally, not morally.

Unless in your view all war is murder as such (which again I think diffuses the meaning of the word), in which case I’m not sure what retaliation you think would have been a reasonable course after October 7, but I guess that would be a separate discussion.

Gazans aren’t (in the main) being murdered. They are being killed. The Israeli’s on October 7 were legitimately murdered- well with the possibly exception of those members of the IDF who it could be argued were killed as enemy combatants- but then at the time Hamas and Israel weren’t at war, so at the very least it’s an act of aggression.

"Gazans aren’t (in the main) being murdered. They are being killed." @Hiddenmnetter

Maybe if someone explained to them that they're just being killed, not murdered, they'd feel better about the whole thing?

I think it's it's genocide anyway. Hopefully there'll be prosecutions.

So I can go out and murder innocent children but it’ll be ok if I declare that I’m “at war”?

@Toothyfruity
Yes, I’m sure the families of those orphaned and murdered children in their THOUSANDS would say oh yes, killed not murdered, sorry, go on then.

Yes, if someone attacked you and you punched them and they died that would be excusable.
Thats not what’s happening in Gaza.

@Hiddenmnetter The Israeli government doesn't really believe that Palestinian civilians are being killed as a result of "secondary consequence". You know that right? It's just the cover they're using to ethnically cleanse Gaza. They're not even doing a good job of keeping their true intentions under wraps.

Oh I imagine that it makes no difference to how they feel, but it should certainly make a difference to our approbation and the view on what the resolution is.

As this thread is about- language matters. It doesn’t seem to rise to the definition of genocide either: the intention of Israel doesn’t appear to be to eradicate the Palestinians- it appears to be the total degradation of Hamas capability as well as the killing of its leadership.

If the suspicion is that Israel is actually bent on the eradication of the Palestinian people’s, then the methodology would appear different. The attempted extermination of the Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda resulted in the deaths of nearly 1 million Tutsis in around 3 months. Even accounting for per capita population differences, the death rate of civilians is colossally different, and given the relative military strength you would expect it to be vastly the reverse if it was actually genocide.

So you're OK with mass civilian murders, including thousands of children, because it's wrapped up in the word 'war'?

On that basis, would the UK have been justified in carpet bombing Northern Ireland because of IRA terrorist acts on the British mainland?

I'd really love if those saying that this isn't genocide would bother to even look up the definition. Nothing you said there is relevant to genocide.