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?

No. That’s not genocide. Genocide has nothing to do with overthrowing the nation state status of a nation or nationality status of the civilian populace.

Yes it does

https://casebook.icrc.org/a_to_z/glossary/proportionality#:~:text=The%20principle%20of%20proportionality%20prohibits,and%20direct%20military%20advantage%20anticipated%E2%80%9D.

I think it is incredibly important that it does. Israel are making the world a less safe place, if Israel are allowed to get away with what we are all seeing happen then that is the new standard set. When Russia began war against Ukraine the world lept into action, making it clear that it was not acceptable. Russia was sanctioned, the world opened their homes to Ukrainians, and Russia was isolated on the world stage, it was clear that this behaviour would not be tolerated.

Now, living in a small country next one with a history of violent oppression I feel worried for the first time. Seeing the world powers, of which we are not one, close ranks around Israel as they kill and injure 3% of a country's total population in less than 3 months it has become clear that if you are in a certain gang you can commit horrendous, unspeakable acts with impunity. It is a terrifying new standard to set and if this isn't the new standard that we want set Israel need to be charged for their crimes. We need to treat them as we have treated Russia. We need to speak about and condemn them and we need to be free to do so without criticism and the only way that can happen is if they are convicted of their crimes. If not people will continue shrugging their shoulders and denying that shooting people dead who are waving white flags is murder and is a war crime.

Again, you are confusing military targets with civilian targets.

Proportionality applies to weighing incidental damage to nearby civilans/civilian infrastructure or the risk thereof when attacking a bona fide military target.

Porportionality in regards to attacking a civilian target suspected of concealing military personnel or equipment is completely different. There is no weighing of military advantage because it’s not a military target.

@Hiddenmnetter
This is a decent summary on how medical facilities and transport cannot ever become a military target even when fighting terrorists that misuse them. It gives a summary on the laws and special protections that apply to clinics, hospitals, Red Cross/Crescent ambulances and medical personnel.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3611028/

“.Seeing the world powers, of which we are not one, close ranks around Israel as they kill and injure 3% of a country's total population in less than 3 months it has become clear that if you are in a certain gang you can commit horrendous, unspeakable acts with impunity. It is a terrifying new standard to set…”

It is absolutely terrifying and why the greater UN is accusing the US and some of Europe of double standards. On a side note, Gaza isn’t a country. Gaza, West Bank, and East Jerusalem are occupied territories that fall wholly under the rule of Israel.

Ah yeah, that was my mistake sorry.

Oh so true.
This blatant disregard for the ICC and the UN really worries me.

And all this endless, tiresome, time-consuming arguing about what language we all should use and saying “words matter” is utterly exasperating. Actions speak louder than words! Don’t say you’re the most moral army in the world and you’re avoiding civilian casualties and you’re acting in self defence and Hamas is making you do this and you’re killing not murdering - while all the time you are bombing, mutilating, orphaning and making homeless thousands and thousands of innocent children.

The rest of us aren’t fucking stupid you know.

The gaslighting is infuriating.

That article actually spells out the conditions under which medical facilities may be made targets:

”The protection to which medical units and transports are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit hostile acts outside of their humanitarian function. Protection may, however, cease only after a warning has been given, setting—whenever appropriate—a reasonable time limit, and after such a warning has remained unheeded.” (Emphasis my own)

But actually it is possible to fool a lot of people, isn’t it? I’m still waiting for all that extra cash for the NHS to arrive on a Brexit bus.

@Hellenika

So as per the UN definition in an earlier post genocide means committing acts with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group by for example killing members of that group.

Now Russia is firing missiles at Kiev with the intent of killing Ukrainians in part (not all of them) because they are Ukrainians - ie based on their nationality. This meets the UN definition of genocide.

The same logic can be applied against Ukraine attacking Russians civilians in Sevastopol.

The word "murder" is a legal term, with a very specific meaning, and I think it's pretty obvious why the BBC can't just decide to refer to killings in Gaza as "murder". This doesn't mean that I'm "perfectly OK" with innocent children being killed, just because I'm not using the word "murder".

It may well be the case that a number of those killings will, in the fullness of time, be proven to be murders, at which point the BBC will be able to refer to them as such.

I don’t think the intent requirement is met nor the level of civilian death that would indicate intent.

Yeah, and that condition has not been met in regards to Gaza. It is as I mentioned you have to be under current threat of lethal force in order to be able to return fire on a civilian target. HTH.

an interesting article on the use of language in the context of Israel and Palestine.

https://www.thenation.com/article/world/language-israel-gaza-palestine/

It sounds the language might be correct in the end - the Israeli number was murdered. It was a clear intention, person by person, no doubt about the verb here.

The overall number of Gazans died, some of them were killed and some of those were murdered. It is unclear what is the ratio - both from "severity" and from "guilt" point of view.
(I suppose some proportion was murdered by IDF members, but it doesn't make sense to say that about the whole number).

This is nasty stuff. We can all see it but it’s helpful to see it articulated so clearly and with dates and names and written records.

The BBC and some of the other media are terrible about the words they use or refuse to use in general when talking about either side.

There have been protests at different times from both pro groups outside the BBC about the words or the way they angle a story. Sometimes it is them trying to keep there own journalists around the world safe. However other times it is definitely an agenda or politics. They are supposed to stay natural but I think depending on who is editing and who the journalist reporting is that angles a story a certain way. Then they are decisions from above that mean they can only use certain words for certain situations.

Just get rid of your watch instantly type TV programme viewing, then you don't need a TV licence. This means you won't be paying the BBC to act like the god of world wide news anymore

The issue extends much wider than the BBC. It’s one across all media and it needs to stop. The killing of Palestinians needs to be called out clearly.

Another example that shows how the media chooses to frame this conflict compared to others.

@Desertrose2023
It’s true. And people do notice - however, it can be difficult to articulate the sense that something isn’t right. So it’s great to see that people are writing about it and giving specific examples as this sort of bias needs to be pointed out and recorded so that younger generations can see how they’re being manipulated.

The UK would not have been justified, no. It’s not a great analogy though - for it to have been the equivalent, the IRA would have had to have killed over 7k people in one day, including brutal rape and the killing of children, and would have to be the governing authority of NI. I would expect that there would be a fairly severe reaction if say an Irish government backed armed force invaded the UK and shot, raped and killed thousands in one day. Attacks of the level of the IRA terrorist acts in the UK would be quite frequent in Israel.

I do think killed would be better than the passive died.