Triggernometry - interview with Netanyahu

[Digitalhen]

Thoughts on this interview?

Massive scoop for the Trigger podcast.

How should they view Israelis?

Tell me, how should they view Hamas? Hamas who steal their aid? Hamas who instigated everything that has happened since October 7th. Hamas who have hundreds of miles of tunnels enough to shelter everyone - yet don’t. Hamas who build and use hospitals to store weapons and as centres of command. You are forgetting to ascribe their share of blame, their massive input into the creation and perpetuation of the current situation.

How do they view Hamas? You seem to have left them from the equation.

People do and should detest Hamas.

People in Gaza may not be able to demonstrate this at the current time- especially the children, who make up half the population suffering due to what has been inflicted on them by the IDF and Hamas’s actions.

Now, do you care to answer my question?
How should a Gazan mother/ child view Israelis?

Avoidance of an answer is an answer in itself.

Your claim is that since in your view Israel are perpetuating a genocide you may infer Holocaust analogy to the situation you see in Gaza. You can’t reference the Holocaust unless you believe a genocide.

We need to be clear about what the definition of genocide is and that means if such words are sprinkled around carelessly and people insist on inverting the Holocaust.

Definition:
"Acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."

(Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 1951)

Historical Cases of Genocide:

Instances of genocide are characterised by a reduction in the total population and population growth rates of the victim group.

Jewish Holocaust
6 Million Jews
78% of European Jews

Armenian Genocide
1.2 Million Armenians
80% of Ottoman Armenians

Rwandan Genocide
800,000 Tutsi
80% of Rwandan Tutsi

Let’s look at Gaza then:

Palestinian Population Trends

Yearly Population
Growth Rate (1960-present)
2.31%

Life Expectancy
74yrs

Infant Mortality rate-
12.77
per 1000 births

So we can see:

• Yearly Population Growth Rates have increased 113% since 1948.
• Life Expectancy has increased by 28.5 years (62% since 1948.
• Infant Mortality has decreased 83.3% since 1975.

If Israel were indeed attempting to eradicate the Palestinian population, it would stand as the only recorded annihilation campaign in modern history in which the victim population increased.

Genocidal Intentions:

Genocidal intentions are explicit and deliberate expressions of intent to exterminate an entire victim population. There is no official Israeli government document expressing genocidal intentions against the Palestinian people.

Examples of Genocidal Intentions:
"The time [Judgment Day] will not come until
Muslims fight the Jews and kill them..."
Hamas' 1988 Charter, Article 7

"Approximately 11 million Jews will be involved in the final solution of the European
Jewish question..."
1942 Wannsee Protocol on the Final Solution.

Definitions matter.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has tragically taken the lives of thousands of innocent individuals.

However, by definition and by any reasonable standards, Israel's actions do not meet any criteria for genocide.

We must differentiate between war/self-defense and deliberate mass
extermination.

Characterising Israel’s actions as genocide is not only inaccurate and misleading, but only serves to demonise the State of Israel and to minimise actual instances of genocide.

———

A discussion surrounding acknowledging what it takes to achieve peace: de-radicalisation, de-militarisation, disarmament, and disbanding of radical groups - is more useful, surely, than constantly shouting that Isreal is commuting a genocide and debating everyone on every thread until they acquiesce to that statement.

Thank you for posting this.
The Tantura myth rears its ugly head far too often.
This jumped out from the article.
‘In an article in the Spring 2001 issue of the “Journal of Palestine Studies,” Pappé insisted that Katz’s conclusions were correct, even if his facts may not have been. Katz’s research was valuable regardless, Pappé wrote, since historical research need not be based on facts.’

This is from an interview with him in 1999,
“Indeed the struggle is about ideology, not about facts, Who knows what facts are? We try to convince as many people as we can that our interpretation of the facts is the correct one, and we do it because of ideological reasons, not because we are truthseekers,” Pappe said in an interview with the French newspaper Le Soir, Nov. 29, 1999.

For everyone on this board reading Ilan Pappe’s books to find out about the history of the conflict, be aware you are reading a narrative where the ‘facts’ are cherry picked and made to fit his narrative.

"Put their Zionism into practice". You mean how they practice their ideology of self determination. What a threat that is. A Gazan mother/child views Israelis as they are told to - by their husbands and fathers.

Tell Israel to stop being what - self determining, fighting for their survival, expecting the only Jewish state - you know that little piece amongst all the Arab states, to exist.

Aww bless. Now a random member of the public from Mumsnet has said it's not a genocide, I guess that clears that up...

Who cares what Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders, MSF, B'Tselem, many. Other Human Rights organisations, NGO's and an increasing number of Countries have labelled Israel's actions as amounting to Genocide. Then there's the ICC case.

Ah so it's ok for Israel (it's even part of the ruling Likud party's charter) but a genocidal statement for Palestinians. So racist, so supremacist.

I repeat what @Digitalhen stated. If you don't know the definition of something, so fundamental regarding the conflict, you are going around in circles. Please don't expect us to hop on your merry-go-round.

Ask me a question and you get an answer (except for if I genuinely miss it because of life/sleep)

I ask you (and several others who share your view) a question and you dodge it 99% of the time.

It's dodging
Or 'but Hamas'
Or accusations of anti semitism.
But never an actual answer.

It's very obvious why.

The smudging or selective use of facts to avoid difficult answers is impressive.

Firstly, let’s stick with events in Gaza post 7/10 as that is when from when claims regarding alleged genocide are most apparent.

Definitions do matter, so let’s look at the full definition of genocide and how it can occur:

Definition
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Article II
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:

Killing members of the group;

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

It does not involve percentages of people killed.

In the Bosnian case, genocide was proven in court after the death of 8,000 men in the Srebenica massacre.

No-one can doubt the physical AND mental harm done to Palestinians at the direct hands of the IDF. Yes Hamas also to blame but they did not drop the bombs, but more pertinently Israel had a complete block of food going in twice.

We can also see Google world photos to show how conditions for life have been impacted.
As well as blockade of food, there has been forced displacements, environmental destruction, denial of appropriate medical (for example through blockade of medication) and concentrating people in certain areas.

As to the intent, can people not remember the words that have come out of the mouths of those who are holding the coalition at ransom?

The use of blockade of aid cannot be backed up by any defence of proportionality by Israel. Nor can it be accidental.

Woops we forgot to open the gates for the aid trucks

Repeat, rinse, repeat and you wonder why your demands for answers, go ignored. Funny you should mention accusations of antisemitism. I was on the receiving end of the same for Islamophobia, just for talking about Islamic extremism.

What is the ICC case on genocide do you think?

Strangely enough it seems organisations that support Palestinians don’t seem to like Israel much. Politicians will go with what their electorate wants them to.

Who in their right mind would recognise a State run by a barbaric terrorist organisation who have shown what they are by their actions before and definitely on Oct 7th and again then since in their actions towards their own civilians, and insist the country they attacked roll over and let them win, if there wasn’t a massive amount of public sympathy towards them.

The Tantura documentary (free to watch on Amazon Prime) features interviews with Israeli soldiers some of whom admit to witnessing the massacre, some of whom admit to taking part in killing innocent villagers, some who say they don’t remember. They explain the mindset, their instructions and why they did it. They also say that afterwards they were told to deny it ever happened.

It also features a small number of interviews with survivors, with Israeli settlers who came to settle there and a man from a neighbouring village who was part of the group that dug the mass grave. Different estimates are given for the death toll in the documentary but the man who buried them estimated that they buried between 270 and 280 people there.

One of the things the soldiers said that shocked me was about a guy who some referred to as crazy, another as a rascal and another as a normal soldier just doing his job - several soldiers talk about how after villagers were rounded into a room that he threw a hand grenade into the room killing several people. The soldiers talk about him grabbing a 16 year old girl and violently raping her and returning her half dead, her uncle who objected was shot in the head. The soldiers talked about people being incinerated with flame throwers as they tried to run away. Of being lined up against the wall and shot. These are Israeli soldiers saying that these are the things that Israeli soldiers did. Some admit to taking part in the executions.

They cover the original researcher Katz who had audio recordings of interviews with 135 people who were at Tantura, half arab and half Israeli. Katz’s talks about being sued for defamation and being taking to a room in the middle of the night and forced to retract without his lawyer. His lawyer discusses how he and Katz tried to get them to continue the trial and throw out the retraction two days later but they refused. The judge never heard Katz’s audio recordings.

The documentary then shows the judge 20 years later finally listening to the audio confessions and saying that she didn’t know, that it would have changed her judgement and said that Katz should have fought harder. She is shook by the recordings. Soldiers who denied the massacre in the original audio but admit on camera that it did occur talk about how they were told to deny it and that they want to repress it. One soldier expresses regret about Katz losing his academic career and says had he been allowed testify that would not have happened.

It is pretty damning. People who live in the area now, arab and Israeli, say they all know it happened. They show us the car park where the bones are buried and another spot where in recent years someone went to build but unearthed a mass grave so covered it back up.

What are you hoping to achieve by bringing up alleged incidents from 1948?

Even if you believe everything claimed (and much of what is claimed is highly controversial) - it is still from 1948.

Is it just another way for you to say that Israel are evil?

This is how the state was created, it is the result of Zionism. The soldiers in Tantura say they executed people in other villages too and then in some villages there was no need because people who had heard of massacres left their villages without a fight.

This is 2025, settlers today are expanding Israel by killing Palestinians, burning and bulldozing their properties and it is being supported by the Israeli government. Every week more and more settlements are approved and achieved through violence. People keep asking me if I agree Israel has a right to exist and have equated anti Zionism with anti semitism. I share this to show that while I agree Israel should exist now as it is established and innocent people have built lives there that how it was created was wrong and the idea of Greater Israel and expansion is wrong. The killing for the extreme Zionist goal is ongoing, stealing villages is ongoing, the Israeli government are still covering up executions- paramedics buried with their ambulances in the middle of the night akin to those poor villagers. I know there were original Zionists who just moved to the area and bought land and lived peacefully alongside native Palestinians, no one has an issue with that original version of Zionism - it is the twisted version we have now that requires theft and murder that people object to.

As a few people have pointed out you can’t end a cycle of violence while denying your part in it and continuing to perpetuate violent acts.

I’ve never posted on this board before and did so because I thought the Trigonometry interview was interesting and hoped for some discussion about it.

Does every thread on this board descend into a ‘Isreal are evil and committing genocide’ no matter what is said or discussed?

How depressing. I guess there is a reason such topics are not widely discussed here or no one can have differing opinions or experiences. I guess it will go back to the usual echo chamber of agreement. Not a single person after the 3rd page here have even watched the interview, have any intention of doing so or have anything to say on it other than the above same general comments over and over.

The documentary arose from a thesis. Theses rely on methodology. Methodology can be inaccurate and often unreliable. The author's work didnt go without scrutiny. Let's get together a bunch of ex soldiers and put a documentary on Netflix. Click 💸 £££££ ka-ching. BBC learnt from its mistake with the Gazan doctors. Shame Channel 4 didn't.

As a few people have pointed out you can’t end a cycle of violence while denying your part in it and continuing to perpetuate violent acts.

But this is exactly what Hamas are doing and people don't seem to understand the need to destroy them before Gaza can be rebuilt. Let's be honest - no country in the world is going to put their money into rebuilding Gaza while Hamas are still there planning future attacks.

Gaza needs to be ruled by people not locked in never ending cycles of violence & distrust between themselves and Israel.

At the end of the day, Hamas needs to be exiled from Gaza and an outside body bought in to rule, at least in the short term. I agree with those proposing an Arab coalition as that seems to be the best way forward.

Yes I'm afraid it does @Digitalhen

The least people could do was watch the interview.

I'm wondering how this board even still exists and think it would be better if the plug were pulled. Pile ons, badgering and demanding answers until you concede your own point. I followed MN for 5 years. From October 2023, I followed this particular board. Nothing has changed, only the actors.

Your thread was articulately presented, as are all your posts x

Not sure how people are meant to respond to a post about Israel not committing alleged genocide other than pointing out why people are concerned that they are?

Of course not all Israelis support what has happened in Gaza. I find reading Haaretz informative to get a more liberal Israeli view.

Stop being from the River to the Sea - your distaste for those words but apathy for Israelis active occupation of the whole area shows that its ok when Israel are occupying from the River to the Sea but Palestinians cant say they want freedom from the River to the Sea because that's obviously genocidal. I cant understand.

Oh yes, thank you.

Any more interviews with war criminals that you would like to share?

Does every thread on this board descend into a ‘Isreal are evil and committing genocide’ no matter what is said or discussed?

I’d say that’s the case, yes. Definitely most threads.
I also find the sheer number of threads picking up on any and every (alleged) crime or wrong move Israel commits quite astonishing.
I haven’t seen anything like that about any other conflict, including the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Speaking of Ukraine, it never made sense to me how even Russia agreed to equal numbers in their recent POW exchanges with Ukraine, whereas disproportionate numbers of Palestinian detainees have been released for every Israeli hostage, yet some posters on MN will still claim that ‘it’s never been about the hostages’ for Israel.
I’ve watched the Triggernometry interview and found it very interesting.
I also think you made an interesting point regarding the number of hospitals in Gaza, that’s something I’ve also wondered about.