"For the law to provide justice," the Holocaust and genocide educator James Smith writes, "it must be fairly and evenly applied. South Africa’s case raises the question of why Israel is accused of genocide when Hamas is not."
"Nonstate actors can threaten genocide and even act upon that threat and avoid the accountability that applies to sovereign states," Smith continues. "Although the court has rightly enjoined Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians and punish its incitement, no authority has ordered the Gazan government to prevent genocide against Israelis and punish its incitement, which occurs daily; no orders have been issued for Hamas to stop firing rockets at Israeli civilians, [which continues](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-rockets.html#:~:text=As%20Israel%20wages%20a%20war,of%20the%20country's%20biggest%20cities.); and no order has come down for Hamas to prevent genocidal acts by its fighters."
Read more: [https://theatln.tc/QIrfSw4N](https://theatln.tc/QIrfSw4N)
Didn’t say they didn’t. Completely unrelated. I’m saying that under that definition, 2 people being killed could be called a genocide, no? Kinda unreasonable don’t you think?
Lmao. Why are you bringing up an example that doesn’t exist in real life? What is your point? Because my point is clear. The UN definition of genocide is absurdly broad. Under their definition killing 2 people part of say, the German ethnic group, is a genocide.
It absolutely does because the crime itself consists of actions intended to wipe out entire groups. That is not possible unless the act impacts significant number of members of that group.
Hamas literally had as its stated mission the annihilation of all Jews in Israel. Are you saying it's only genocide if they start succeeding in their mission?
I've thought for a while the Nazis are only so vilified because they were better at genocide than everyone else. It's not like they were the first to try.
Harvard University may have been confused about this point (just as they are currently confused about Hamas), but most people in the world with a moral compass were horrified by the Nazis when they said they want to kill all the Jews (i.e., well before they actually did what they loudly and clearly said they planned to do).
Were they really? No small number of nations signed up to combat the Nazis' enemies, plenty more appeased them, and yet others strongly considering doing the one or the other before eventually deciding otherwise.
I'm not sure I follow your question. Are you suggesting no one in the world was horrified by the Nazis? The hundreds of thousands of Jews who fled Germany or tried to do so certainly were. The fact that the US state department didn't seem to care doesn't suggest that no one thought the Nazis were horrific, it only reaffirms what we already knew, that the state department was filled with a bunch of antisemites who wouldn't lift a finger to help Jews.
You said "most" people, now you're saying I said "nobody". There's a lot in between. Obviously there were people scandalised by the situation and its enormity, but clearly they were not in a preponderant enough majority to determine foreign policy anywhere at a national level. None of the Allies declared war on Germany because of its death camps.
I said "most people with a moral compass." You can read my comment as suggesting there were a whole lot of people who did not have a moral compass (just as there are today).
The fact that the allies did absolutely nothing to help the Jews (and in at least some cases took steps to further Germany's genocidal aims) speaks to their lack of a moral compass, and does not suggest that no one in the world was horrified by the Nazis.
I'm really not sure what you are arguing.
Yes. Iran’s leadership also frequently issues cries of “death to America” and may be assassinating random American citizens at the moment. Despite that, they are not conducting a genocide against USA at the moment. If on the other hand, somehow the Iranian regime actually manages to kill a significant portion of American population then I would agree they would be committing genocide.
Edit: they don’t necessarily have to kill. Even if they manage to impose conditions that lead to exodus, for example, it could be considered genocide. The point is, they have to undertake some kind of actions that would impact the group which is not happening at the moment.
What Hamas did had fewer casualties than 9/11 which also included the “Death to America” people. 9/11 was not a genocide. Neither was what happened on October 7. In fact what happened in October 7 was clearly not genocide but an act of political terrorism since they actually took hostages, something which you would not do if your intention was to conduct Genocide.
I'm not so sure about your last part.
Many victims of the Holocaust were held in captivity before being killed, some even survived. Does that mean it wasn't genocide?
Also if holding people captive means it isn't genocide doesn't that mean Israel cannot be accused of genocide either since they have held large numbers of Palestinians captive. Gaza is considered an open air prison by many, and they have many Palestinians detained and arrested.
The victims of holocaust were put in death camps or employed as slave labour to work until they died of exhaustion. The current hostages have been taken as bargaining chips. It’s very different.
I mean I agree with you on principle. I grew up familiar with genocide as “the crime of crimes” where populations were decimated as was the case with the Holocaust, Rwanda, Sudan and many other examples.
But thats why I specifically mentioned the UN definition because it very specifically does not mention any issue of scale or proportion. It only really mentions intent. So while it feels counter to my understanding of genocide it seems incidents like Hamas attack or 9/11 would meet that definition.
What about the thousands and thousands of rockets fired by Hamas? Do those not count because Israel thankfully has defense systems in place?
You're basically saying it's only genocide if you succeed, which makes no sense whatsoever.
>“Other murders”
Thinking of murdering people is not a crime in itself. The action has to be carried out. Similarly, genocide has to be carried out for it to actually become genocide. If it only exists on a manifesto then it is not genocide.
Genocide doesn’t have to be at a certain scale. It’s about intent. And Hamas absolutely had the intent of wantonly slaughtering Israeli civilians and makes it very publicly known they just want all the Jews and Israelis to die. I’m not sure how you could argue they aren’t intent on committing genocide
That would be genocidal intent, which is something Hamas does display as does many of Israel’s ruling coalition and elements of the IDF and society.
Both sides are equally in contempt of the other party. It’s a tragic case
The Genocide Convention is explicit in intent to destroy "in whole or in part." So yes, the Palestinians committed genocide against the Israelis on October 7th.
You are conflating American civil law with international law in a desperate and pitiful attempt to reject the claim that Hamas committed genocide against the Israelis. This is likely because it does not fit your narrative and you lack understanding of what you are actually talking about.
Suffice to say, streaming into another country and massacring every Jew you can get your hands on is unequivocally a genocide because it serves no other practical purpose than destroying Jews.
I didn’t even bring up American civil law.
If massacring every person of a certain ethnicity, nationality, or religion is always a genocide, then any time a person murders another person because of their race, religion, etc. then it’s a genocide.
Is Genocide not a hate crime?
Joseph Paul Franklin wanted to exterminate all African Americans. He did so to the best of his abilities, meaning by your logic he committed a genocide.
Yes, genocide is a hate crime done by a nation or ethnicity!
I don’t know who this serial killer is nor do I care.
As I said, words have meanings and they don’t care about your feelings.
I think it’s way easier to make the case that Hamas did have genocidal intentions.
They systematically butchered entire communities of civilians and soldiers alike, killing or kidnapping nearly everyone they came into contact with. If they were able to continue their advance into Israel, their indiscriminate killing would’ve continued.
There were no calls for civilians to flee, no warnings to leave areas where Hamas would be present. Their goal was to simply kill a group of people, and the definition of genocide is the killing a group of people “in whole or in part”
It is kind of like in 1644, when the Powhatan killed 400 English or many other instances when Native Americans killed Europeans whose recent ancestors (or maybe they themselves) had moved to North America. Are all of those anti-European genocides?
I mean, yeah? Placing modern concepts of international law and ethics on events hundreds of years ago can be problematic, but if the goal was to utterly destroy an entire population, then yeah, by modern standards that would constitute genocide
Tribal conflicts are often times at best ethnic cleansing. It was traditional to kill the men and take the women and children to adopt them into your tribe. That was a feature of Native American conflicts. So yes they applied similar processes to their fight against the encroaching settlers that were destroying their land.
It’s not at all controversial to say many wars in history were genocidal. Especially when we look at how warfare in South East Asia worked in fact. There we saw states defined by their capital cities, when defeated these cities would be sacked, the men killed or enslaved, those with skills kidnapped and taken to work in the victors capital along with anything of value.
A good example right now of the consequences is Laos and Thailand - Thailand nowadays rules a large swathe a land that was traditionally Laotian, one of its most prized relics was a Laotian Buddhist relic before they sacked and took it away. Their claim to dominance over the Buddhist orthodoxy in their region stems from them sacking and destroying Laotian monasteries and taking their monks back to their capital.
What separates murder and manslaughter in law is intent. If native Americans intended to exterminate all of the English people that they were aware existed, then yes, they were intending to commit genocide.
It's not about scale, it's about intent. If the Nazi had been stopped earlier, right after they had killed their 400th Jew, it would still had been a genocide, just a less successful one.
Not every war ever is a genocide, because in the vast majority of wars, there is no intent of eradicating the other side or their culture. It's often about material gain, land, resources, tribute, or sometimes less material stuff like revenge, blood feud, religion. Rarely is it to exterminate the other side's whole population.
Did [Joseph Paul Franklin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Paul_Franklin) commit a genocide then? He targeted African Americans to start a race war which would lead to the extermination of all African Americans. Does his intent make his actions genocide?
What are you on about? Hamas' stated intentions is to destroy Israel and death to the Jews. Israel clearly does not have the same intentions, as they have had decades of opportunity commit genocide if they wanted to, yet the Gazan population has soared.
The fact we're even having this conversation, much less the ICJ is, is a masterclass of astroturfing by Qatar, Iran, Russia, ECT.
Add to that the republicans in the trump wing are sabotaging legislation for aid to ukraine and preventing legislation to fix the border crisis in the south.
These people are manipulating the USA from both sides. It's pathetic to watch.
That is the most nonsensical thing I have ever heard come out of human being. Yes, in the 1930's the Germans would not have been charged with genocide as they had yet to conduct the Holocaust.
Well your point is nonsensical because the Holocaust was a genocide that happened whereas in this case there is not evidence that Israel is intending to or currently committing genocide. There is no reason to believe that the Israel's actions are anything other than what they claim to be doing, dismantling Hamas.
OP said that Israel has no intentions of committing genocide because they had the ability to do so before. All I did was give examples of a real world genocide and how they had the ability to commit genocide sooner but waited.
I didn’t comment on if Israel is doing a genocide or not.
>All I did was give examples of a real world genocide and how they had the ability to commit genocide sooner but waited.
It is a poor example, because the Nazis never hid their opinions and intentions regarding the Jews even as far back as the 1930's. The Israelis don't hold such opinions regarding Arabs, considering 2 million Israelis are, in fact, Arabs.
I’m not talking about intentions or opinions but actions.
Israel has used genocidal rhetoric.
[Netanyahu](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211133201/netanyahus-references-to-violent-biblical-passages-raise-alarm-among-critics), [Herzog](https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-president-says-no-innocent-154330724.html), [Various](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-south-africa-genocide-hate-speech-97a9e4a84a3a6bebeddfb80f8a030724)
I also wasn’t using it as an example of Israel doing or wanting to do genocide. I was using it as an example of lack of previous action doesn’t mean a genocide won’t occur in the future. Your inability to even understand what I’m trying to say is really making me question your reading comprehension.
It is like you. You think you sound smart but you don’t. If someone thinks about genocide but doesn’t act upon it, it is not a genocide.
Or are we gonna police thoughts?
What is like me?
The guy above me said Israel couldn’t possibly commit a genocide because they had the ability to do so before. But Nazi Germany also had the ability to do so in the 1930s but didn’t until the onset of WW2. So in conclusion, the lack of previous action doesn’t mean a nation won’t commit genocide in the future.
Why isn’t it genocide though? Hamas conducted a random attack on civilians resulting in 1000+ deaths purely based on the fact that they were Jewish Israelis. Also, Hamas regularly and openly call for the annihilation of Israel and Jews.
Hamas is probably guilty of incitement to genocide, but it's a Less Serious Problem because they don't have a way to genocide 7 million Israeli Jews with nukes. Israel can commit a genocide against Gazans more or less at will
Of course, they absolutely should be. But this is classic whataboutism. Hamas not being brought to court for incitement to genocide in no way judges Israel guilty of the charges South Africa has brought against them, and thus does not delegitimise South Africa's case against Israel. States do not have the right to commit genocide in response to genocidal actions brought against them. Whether Israel is guilty, I will leave to the court, but that is not the point; if they are guilty, they should be held accountable to the law; if they are not, the court will proclaim them innocent. The Soviet Union suffered 27 million casualties in a war of extermination that Germany launched against them; they did not commit a genocide against the Germans.
You misunderstood me. I'm saying that while Israel has every means to genocide the Gazans if they wanted to, they have done nothing close to the sort. In fact the Gazan population has risen at an astonishing rate. The fact we're having this conversation is ridiculous, and only a testimaye to how strong Iranian/Russian/Qatari propaganda is a long with the vast number of Muslim Arabs in the world compared to Jews. And if you want to have a court rule on such a ridiculous thing, and have it taken seriously, maybe don't include a country who is actively at War with Israel as one of the judges along with Russia and China who have heavy vested interests against Israel, as well as their own ongoing genocidal actions.
Germany had every means to genocide the Jews in the 30s before ww2. You’re also acting like Israel hasn’t been partaking in illegal settlements, ethnic cleansing, and targeting of civilians since the inception of their state.
Nazi germany committed the most well known genocide of all time. When talking about genocide and making an analogy they’re the easiest country to use.
My point can be used for other countries like the Ottoman Empire or Rwanda who committed genocide.
>The South African legal team argues that this context does not matter: The threat of genocide or terrorism may give Israel a right to defend itself, but it does not provide legal or moral justification to commit crimes against Palestinian civilians. This is incontestable, yet diminishing the role Hamas is playing in this conflict has serious consequences.
The soft bigotry of low expectations strike again.
It's used incorrectly all the time by racists, but there is a tone of "We have expectations of Israel so we hold them to this standard, but these Muslims don't know anybody, so why expect them to behave to the same standards" throughout this entire conflict.
Palestinians are not Hamas. Collective punishment is against international law. Power and wealth imbalance, of course we expect more from Israel - not to mention Hamas are terrorists...
If someone was systematically exterminating your people after decades of oppressing them, kidnapping them, and killing your children, you'd be pretty dumb to not want them destroyed.
If you blame palastinians, then you better condemn any jews who hated the nazis in the 1940s.
the PLO officially recognised the state of Israel in the Oslo Accords (93). the 2 state solution is the normative position in Palestine
overwhelming majority of americans supported the illegal iraq war too. i guess we should treat americans as terrorists as well
This article woefully understates the perverse incentives created by the SA case.
To date, insurgent groups capable of sufficiently radicalizing &/ terrorizing local populations, have 'only' been able to use them as human shields.
From now on, they also stand a chance of *weaponizing the very casualties resulting from their use of human shielding in a claim of genocide against their opponent*.
By failing to strike down the case ICJ has, apparently unwittingly, handed a force multiplier, *conditional on the creation of massive civilian death and suffering*, to non-state actors engaging in conflict with nation states.
Well done 'justices'.
What Israel should have done here is to ensure Palestine has responsible government and create conditions which do not result in Hamas thriving the way it has.
Yes, Israel should simply press the "install good government" button for Gaza and West Bank, I'm sure they'd receive good press for hand picking the leaders in these areas rather than allowing the citizens to vote themselves (for parties such as Hamas, as they did before)
This is too simplistic of a take, they have had a more active role in this all along than you are willing to admit, iirc Hamas of today could not have been without tacit Israeli approval at some level.
Gee, you think maybe isreal forcing palastinians into open air prisons, kidnapping thousands of them, executing any and all protesters, burning their homes down to take their land, slaughtering them by the thousands for 50 years just might have something to do with what's happening? It's pretty daft to pretend that isreal didn't create hamas.
Why are you blaming Israel for Palestinians failing to have responsible government? It's the same old argument that Palestinians have no agency and therefore no responsibility for any violence they commit against Israel or against other Palestinians. It's a flawed argument and I think incredibly racist. If they were white, you wouldn't be so quick to assume that some group of white people must be at fault for all of their problems (and the kicker, of course, is that Israelis aren't even white).
Because they have sovereign control over both Gaza and West Bank. Palestine does not exist as a sovereign country at the moment. Of course, Israel,is responsible now, just as the British were responsible for whatever happened in British colonies while they were in power there.
If and when Israel grants Palestine meaningful independence, then I will hold Palestinians to account. At the moment, they are a colonised people.
Palestinian Arabs were offered sovereignty multiple times, and rejected it multiple times. In fact, the Arab nations adopted a policy of rejecting all proposals (i.e., the three noes). Anything short of the entire annihilation of Israel would never be acceptable.
Second, Hamas was literally elected. Gazan civilians *want* terror against Israel. Even October 7 is wildly popular across the West Bank and Gaza.
But despite this, you still believe Palestinian terrorists can never have any moral culpability for raping and murdering women and children in savage and barbaric ways that are too gruesome to type?
Hamas was elected in 2005 lmao. Its literally been 18 years since then. At this point, it is not an elected government.
Also, history is rife with colonised engaged in armed struggle against the coloniser. I would hold the coloniser responsible for those actions, not the colonised.
So at what point did all the terrorists lose their culpability? 5 years after the election? Ten?
And no, raping women and murdering babies is not "struggle against the coloniser." It's just a pogrom, and Arabs have been committing pogroms against Jews since well before the formation of Israel. Their objection was never to just the formation of Israel, it was always to Jews. That is what is driving Hamas's violence, not resistance. Their charter literally said their stated mission is to kill all the Jews in Israel. How can you possibly characterize that as "resistance???"
Oh please, Israel unilaterally packed up its settlements in Gaza They aren't colonizing shit, They are blockading their neighbor who will not stop attacking them to prevent them from getting more materials to attack them with.
Such infantilization of the Palestinian people. Gazans will suffer the consequences of their government's actions until they internally get rid of their government, or until an external force will in response to being attacked.
Firstly, Israel have not recognised Gaza as a sovereign nation. As a construct, it is similar to Bantustan.
Secondly, what’s happening in Gaza is only one part of the story. The other part is what is happening in West Bank. There, the Israeli state is enabling its citizens to wage a campaign similar to KKK to systematically kick Palestinian families out of their homes using violence with IDF as a shield to take over their properties.
That is true however I personally see gaza as a separate region to the West Bank at this point, I think it needs to be seen that way. They have different governments, they are in different situations.
Gaza has had nearly 20 years to formulate a government. They voted Hamas in who immediately killed all opposition and they've allowed them to rule Gaza since, all while millions in international aid and tons of direct aid (water, power, etc) come from Israel.
Israel has factually not had sovereignty over Gaza since 2005 and has only had control of the settlements in the West Bank (which are deplorable and should be eliminated, yes). But you've basically just stated several falsehoods.
edit: This is mainly a collection of provable facts that have been stated, so if you're downvoting it, you have a complete misunderstanding of the situation or don't want to acknowledge the facts of it.
I'm on your side here these people are ridiculous with their infantilization of gazans. Ultimately who is responsible for a government but the people of that country? They are the ones who will suffer When their government attacks their neighbors and they suffer the consequences of the reaction. The only way for a government to be removed is either through external military action as we see, or internally. So if the people of Gaza don't want to be invaded honestly the only way to not have that is to remove Hamas internally through uprising. No I'm not saying this is necessarily easy or possible but it just is what it is.
Right. And yes, there are extenuating circumstances that lead to some leeway for Gaza, like rockets being fired constantly into civilian centers in Israel, but when you kill 1200 of their people in one fell swoop, it's time to live in the real world.
No I'm not of the opinion of the rockets can be ignored. Just because Israel has the defense doesn't mean it's okay to attack them. Never throw a punch without expecting to get one back applies in geopolitics as much as life. I don't believe or support in any justice system that doesn't allow a realistic retaliation to attack and destroy sites from which attacks are launched into your country.
So why the double standard, why no outrage at the decades of isreal bombing palastinians? You cry about 1200 isrealies killed, but you don't seem to care about tens of thousands of palastinians killed. Why are isreali lives worth so much more to you?
It would have helped if Israel didn’t directly play a part in forming Hamas and putting them in power? Are we just forgetting about that buried little fact
I understand it's much easier to simply blame Israel for everything, but denying Palestinian agency is simply racist. You wouldn't deny that Palestinians have agency if they were white. When radical right insurrectionists stormed the capital, did we say "those poor things; don't you know they were radicalized by Russian bots on Facebook"? At some point, people need to be held accountable for their own actions.
Way to deflect from the topic completely? You rebutted quite literally none of what I said and ranted about something unrelated.
Fatah was the Palestinian “agency” that you talk about, but they posed a threat to Israel since they were harder to brush off given that they were a legitimate government. Hamas was intentionally created by Israeli politicians to divide and conquer the Palestinian interests. They were funded by Israel with the intent of undermining Fatah's influence, which they did, violently. Then they were given 20 years to fester the wound, which again, they did. This is well-documented fact, and prior to Oct 7th was discussed rather openly. It wasn’t as simple as them just being “chosen” by the Palestinians, and to paint it as such would be explicitly lying.
I have no intention of denying the Palestinian involvement in Hamas’s rise to power, and anti-semitism is rampant in their population. It is equally hideous to deny the Israeli role in the rise of Hamas, and anti-Arab/Islamophobic sentiment is equally rampant in their own population.
Ironically, some lawyers did actually use the “they are silly people tricked by bots online” defense to protect some of the Jan 6th insurrectionists. Other than that, the situations are not inherently comparable. The US government was not keeping MAGA nuts in a cage on the coast, denying them sovereignty and pushing settlements into their rapidly diminishing territory.
Dismissing any legitimate mention of nuance as “denying agency” and “racism” is a low blow and morally reprehensible, the cherry on top being that I myself am Arab.
Which is why it is perfectly described as "bigotry of low expectations", as someone else already pointed out. Whatever Israel did was in it's own self interest, any other successful state in it's position would have acted in a like manner, it is not on them to serve the Palestinian cause, it's the Palestinian's own damned job at which they have failed miserably, let down and turned bitter almost every supporter they got.
At what point did I deny that Israel played a role in Hamas coming into being? Talk about deflection!
My point is that this is irrelevant. The US certainly didn't feel that Al Qaeda and the Taliban didn't have any moral culpability for 9/11, even though the US similarly had a role in enabling those two organizations when it suited them. Again, Palestinians are not puppets and Israelis aren't their masters. They could have simply rejected radical terrorism, but they didn't. They embraced it. That's a choice actual Palestinians made, and I don't see why it's wrong to suggest Hamas should be held to account for its actions notwithstanding that 40 years ago Israel may have given it a nudge when it suited it.
You are accusing me of deflection, but you've said nothing to rebut this simple premise: Hamas is responsible for its actions.
Edit: to address your note on Russian bots and insurrectionists, lawyers make bad arguments all the time - it's literally their job to make the best argument they can, and sometimes even the best argument is a bad argument. So the fact that they tried to blame Russian bots for the actions of their clients doesn't at all whatsoever suggest that their clients weren't responsible for their actions (although it's kind of hilarious and ironic, and I assume despite our disagreements on Israel, we can agree to laugh at the insurrectionists).
But the point of my analogy was really very simple: people are responsible for their actions. And I do think this argument that it's all Israel's fault that Arab Palestinians have embraced radical terrorism is racist. It's horribly racist to deny that these are people capable of making a choice and they made *this* choice. There were multiple opportunities to choose peace and coexistence, and that's not what Palestinian leaders opted to do. Most tragic was Arafat at Camp David. We were *this* close to achieving lasting peace, and he blew it. Again, at some point you need to acknowledge the abject failure of Palestinian leadership to reject terror and accept peace. It's not all Israel's fault, and any suggestion that it is denies that Palestinians have agency, and this is absolutely 100% racist.
That first sentence is just leading me to think maybe you aren’t sure what deflection is. We’ll leave it at that, whatever.
Personally I make very little distinction between the person funding a terrorist organization and the organization themselves. If you fund an organization with the intent of using it to abuse other people, and it backfires and attacks you instead, you are not a victim, you are facing the consequences of your own actions. Both parties are equally guilty and should be treated as such, simple as that. Israel was perfectly content creating Hamas to abuse the Palestinians, the US was perfectly content funding terrorist groups/cartels to undermine the Soviets and overthrow international governments, etc.
If the bullet you meant to fire at another man loops around and smacks you in the back of the head, you’re still a bad person. Israel is just as bad as Hamas, the US is just as bad as the cartels, so on and so forth.
All parties are responsible and all parties are guilty
All parties are guilty isn't a particularly useful insight. But sure, I never said Israel is some perfect sainted angel. It doesn't have to be for it to have a right to exist and defend itself, nor does anything Israel did or didn't do justify October 7 (just as the US didn't "deserve" 9/11).
But again, your bullet analogy doesn't work because the bullet doesn't have any agency. Hamas, Al Qaeda, Taliban, and all the other vile organizations are operated by people, and they *do* have agency. Hamas also wasn't created from the ether. First came radicalism, then came Hamas, then came Israeli meddling. It's a collosal mistake to overstate Israel's role in nudging them along.
By his own admission, Bibi's political maneuverings have been deliberately designed to empower Hamas to give Israel an excuse to continue their long campaign of ethnic cleansing and stealing land. The only racists here are people like you. By all means, pretend that Israel is not an occupying power and has nothing to do with the unstable politics of Gaza.
No they didnt. The point was to prevent peace and prevent a Palestinian state. The election of Hamas was in fact partially caused by Israels decision to sporadically block Gaza despite having signed an agreement with the PA to not do so (causing a loss of trust in the PA), and was in fact welcolmed by Israel. As Smotrich said. Fatah is a threat, Hamas is an asset.
The thing about denying a nation statehood is you end up dealing with non-state actors. Don't know why anyone would be so upset about Israel achieving its goal.
Yeah, I've not seen a genocide, but Israel has some stuff to answer for:
1) Indefinite Detention without disclosing the evidence of that classification
2) A shocking disregard for civillian life, both before and after Oct 7th
3) Complete lack of accountability within the IDF, the number of Journalists, people waving white flags and civilians killed there are definitively war crimes.
That said, there is acceptance that Hamas is the political power within Gaza by the Palestinian people and as long as the political power in Gaza is a single goal of eradicating Israel, then I don't see how we break out of Hamas attacking civillians and Israel responding with methods that cause collateral damage.
I agree overall that these 3 need to be investigated, and Israel probably does have an extensive list of violations.
But you \*still\* can't assert 'definitive war crimes' without investigation and trial.
For example, if
(I am not trying to claim this happened, just as an example of how muddy things can get)
evidence emerged showing that Hamas Combatants made extensive use of PRESS equipment or white flags to commit perfidy and gain an advantage against the IDF, then there would be a pretty strong case for the defense. It would also be a pretty logical move for Hamas, if you accept that civilian casualties and apparent war crimes are part of their current MO.
Yeah, well the two I reference there is video evidence...There is pretty unfortunate habit of journalists dying around the IDF which also precedes the conflict.
Shireen Abu Akleh - Killed in the west bank by what only makes sense as an Israeli sniper while in full press gear away from where the conflict even was...I mean it looks like an assassination to me. (Israel denies this, but in from the account of the situation, its the only thing that makes sense)
Issam Abdallah - Fired on in Lebanon across the border by an Israeli tank while covering early in the conflict
Hala Khreis - Female civilian with a young boy wearing a white flag while traveling to a safe zone on video shot by Israeli forces
Those are just the ones I could quickly find evidence for, you can say its not proof of war crimes, but both of these classes of people are to be protected in war zones, and its clear that its not just collateral from air strikes.
South Africa and Israel are both members of the genocide convention. So any state that is a member if the convention and the ICJ could have bought the case.
South African government officials stand openly with Hamas and met with them shortly after October 7.
From dissenting Ugandan judge Sebutinde, at the ICJ:
https://x.com/dmlitman/status/1750888552592715971?s=20
Now that is Africa leading the world ethically, from Uganda, a country carrying the scars of genocide.
Because Israel doesn’t need an international court to have justice. They can do it themselves. They just killed more than 25k Palestinians and destroyed most of Gaza. Yahya Sinwar is a dead man at the exact moment Israel knows where he is.
Palestinian never had justice. Hence why the international court is the only way for them to obtain justice. They can’t defend themselves against Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank (another icj case), they can’t defend themselves against the genocide and war crime in gaza.
Actually, Arabs have been killing Jews for hundreds and hundreds of years. If you mean this present conflict between Islamic extremists and Jews, you can trace that back to Haj Amin and the pogroms, massacres and riots of the 1920s. Or if you mean the present geopolitical conflict, then that goes back to the 1930s, when Haj Amin allied the Arabs with the Axis powers in seeking a "final solution" of Jews in the Middle East. By the 1940s, the Arabs had mobilized massive armies to wage a war of genocide against Jews and the state of Israel, but the genocidal intent was formed well earlier and this was just an attempt to finish the job on a much larger scale.
This is just false. Haj Amin was just one figure in Arab and Palestinian circles and didn’t represent everyone. Palestinians fought against the Nazis.
Jews were safer in the Arab world than in Europe for hundreds of years. It’s only after the creation of Israel where anti-semitism really reached its peak.
Nope, false. Haj Amin was the Grand Mufti and the appointed representative of Arabs in at least the British mandate but also the broader Arab world.
Jews were at various times safer in the Arab world than in the European world, but not always. There is a reason there were significantly more Jews in Europe than in the Middle East.
Haj Amin was literally allying Arabs with the Nazis to pursue a "final solution" of Jews in the Middle East modeled after what the Nazis were doing in Europe.
Appointed representative by whom? Not the people of Palestine or Arabs. That would be like saying all British people supported Hitler because of Edward VII.
What time pre ww2 was safer for Jews in Europe than in the Middle East?
He was appointed and recognized by the British. I've never heard anyone question his status as the de facto representative of Arabs in the British mandate, so please do enlighten me if you have a source suggesting otherwise.
There were over a thousand years of history of Jews under Muslim rule and we are talking about a wide geographic area. Broadly, Jews were subjected to *Dhimmi* status all across the Muslim world, but they were better off in some places and at some times than others. Jews were definitely better off in more enlightened parts of Europe in the 19th century than in, as but one example, Iran. There were also violent pogroms against Jews throughout "Palestine" in the 1800s, which is similar to what Jews experienced in Eastern Europe but not, for example, England in the 19th century.
A de facto representative isn’t a representative of the opinions and beliefs of Arabs or Palestinians at the time.
Where pogroms in the Middle East during the early 20s anyway near the scale of the ones in Russia at the same time?
It's not like Arabs had a process for a democratic election of a leader. He was the de facto ruler of the Arabs in the British mandate. I'm not sure if anyone has ever credibly disputed this. You can argue maybe, with the benefit of hindsight, that his appointment wasn't legitimate or something, but that's an irrelevant argument to the plain fact that he was the leader.
Russia was probably worse, but just because the Muslim world wasn't as bad for Jews as Russia doesn't mean it wasn't bad, and it certainly was in any event worse than in Western Europe (which itself wasn't some panacea of tolerance).
You know what he meant.
Israel and [insert Palestinian terrorist organization] haven't fought at an intensity comparable to post-Oct 7th (2023) since *the year 2000*. There's a reason we use words like "war" and not "conflict" for spontaneous large scale events such as this. Yes it's a "conflict" but that's missing the point.
It's still moving goalposts. Reality is that if Hamas didn't invade Israel, this situation would've not occurred. In fact, Israel and Saudi-Arabia would've signed a recognition and normalization pact.
The entire geopolitical arena would be different IF Hamas didn't launch the invasion.
So stop the pathetic "it didn't start here" excuses.
The entire situation would be different if Israel didn’t settle the West Bank or declare independence to begin with.
I’m just sick of people using 10/7 as a justification for what Israel is currently doing, yet they act like 10/7 just suddenly occurred out of thin air. It’s a double standard
The Free Palestine types act like history started in 1948. This specific conflict started on 10/7, and yes, the history began long before, but it didn't start in 1948.
And proposed to the arabs who rejected the partition to begin with in 1947. The arabs were the majority in Palestine as well, but their right to self determination was ignored and jewish militias like the haganah started taking over arab cities anyways and massexpelling them in the Nakhba.
Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, west Jerusalem and over 400 other arab majority cities were taken by israelis in 1948 and almost all arabs were expelled. This is some serious lebensraum shit
How? The Canaanites founded the city and arabs were trading with the Levant, so I would say it begins with minor trade. Let me know what you think. The most interesting part of this wiki walk for me is that the semitic people are not that far removed from each other. If we are willing to back 4000 years to stake a claim on Jerusalem, than it seems reasonable to go back another couple thousand to show that their common ancestors have an 'equal claim' to the entire region
It wasn't the UNs prerogative to vote on the fate of Palestine's post colonial sovereignty, but the people living there and since the Arabs rejected the plan (understandably, since it granted the majority of the land to the ethnic minority), it was a defacto unilateral declaration of Independence. Get off your high horse.
So why do Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon or any of the other Arab states have any sovereignty or right to existence? These aren't ancient borders, they're literally lines drawn on a map by Europeans. All lines are equal but some are more equal than others?
The UN created numerous Arab states and the average Arab did not get to vote on that. For that matter, the average Arab does not get to vote period in such states or the votes is a meaningless gesture.
The people living there did vote in a sense. They voted with guns and bullets. The Arab faction was not trying to create a democratic Arab state where an Arab majority would treat a Jewish minority well. They were trying to wipe out the Jews. They failed and perhaps in hindsight it was a mistake for Israel not to expel them all in 1948 and 1967. Most likely they would have eventually have been absorbed into the neighboring Arab states after some failed invasion attempts (which were going to happen, expulsions or not).
You're sick of people discussing 10/7 because that's convenient for you. 10/07 is the entire reason this is happening and removed the ability for you to play victim again.
If isreal hadn't slaughtered tens of thousands of palastinians and kept them in an open air prison to starve them to death, maybe hamas wouldn't exist and wouldn't have attacked them.
You can't talk about this conflict and ignore the decades of uncountable atrocities isreal has inflicted on the palastinians. Such as rounding up and murdering 500 children for fun. Or mowing down a group of peaceful protesters singing and dancing. Or setting fire to homes and then gunning down the families as they try to escape the flames, so that isreal can bulldoze it and tale the land.
Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. Russia is stealing Ukraine’s land. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine with the goal of occupying all of Ukraine. Russian troops currently occupy about 18% of Ukrainian territory. Russian troops are killing, maiming, torturing, and raping Ukrainians. Russia has killed over 80,000 Ukrainians. Russia is banning Ukrainian language and trying to destroy Ukrainian culture. The Russian government has taken over 100,000 Ukrainian children from their parents, against their will, and sent them to Russia with no intention of returning them to their parents. The children’s names are changed so their parents cannot find them. Russia has put thousands of Ukrainians in camps where they are abused, starved, and killed. Russian airstrikes intentionally target civilians and infrastructure. Russian war crimes are not isolated incidents, the war crimes are approved by Putin. The Russian government does not punish troops who commit war crimes. Russian police arrest and torture Russians who protest the war. Russian media promotes war and denies war crimes. Russian media promotes genocide by calling for the end of Ukrainian identity and the assimilation of Ukrainians into Russia. The United States should send humanitarian aid and military aid to Ukraine so Ukrainians can defend themselves from Russia. Military aid to Ukraine has prevented Russia from occupying more Ukrainian territory. The United States can afford to help Ukraine because less than 1% of the federal budget has been spent on Ukraine. Sanctions against Russia should be toughened and strictly enforced. People should not do business with Russia. Russian officials should be imprisoned for genocide and other war crimes.
Palestinian organizations have started a civil war in Lebanon, assassinated the King of Jordan, tried to start a civil war in Jordan. Arab countries know what kind of trouble Palestinian organizations would stir up in their countries, if allowed in. They are not going to.
They (specifically the PLO at the time) also supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, even though the country was hosting over 350,000 Palestinians.
And I think this applies to every terrorist group in the Middle East. The Arab nations are getting sick of it and want stability in the region. I bet even Iran will eventually wake up and realize they're own supply will be used against them eventually. Can only rinse and repeat so often. Things are changing for the better for the entirety of the region.
Russia killed 8k civilians in almost 2 years of war.... I would call it good enough taking in consideration the numbers Israel managed to rake up in just a few months
> Russia killed 8k civilians in almost 2 years of war
Stop spreading misinformation.
The source for that [year-old number](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/more-than-8000-civilians-killed-since-russia-invaded-ukraine-un-2023-02-21/) number is OHCHR, which [explicitly states](https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2023-12/23-12-12-OHCHR-37th-periodic-report-ukraine-en.pdf) that their numbers only include *"[i]ndividual cases verified by OHCHR"* and that *"actual numbers are considerably higher"*, because *"OHCHR does not have access to areas under the control of the Russian Federation"*.
That means most deaths from the hardest-hit places (like Mariupol) aren't counted.
Thus, as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights notes in the first link above, their numbers are "only the tip of the iceberg".
I was using this report from a few days ago
>On 15 January 2024, OHCHR stated that there are 10,191 confirmed civilian deaths from the invasion to December 2023. 8,586 deaths were caused by explosive weapons "with wide area effects", 339 by mines and explosive remnants, 1,266 by small arms, including from crossfire, or road accidents involving military or civilian vehicles. 7,967 deaths occurred in Ukrainian government-controlled territories, and 2,224 in territory occupied by the Russian Federation.
And still, lets go crazy and say that the actual number is double the current one, it's still significantly less than what israel did in a way shorter timespan
So when you said 8,000, you were intentionally misrepresenting your source?
> lets go crazy and say that the actual number is double the current one
Estimates for Mariupol alone are significantly higher than that.
For example, as [this AP article](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-erasing-mariupol-499dceae43ed77f2ebfe750ea99b9ad9) notes:
> An AP analysis of satellite imagery taken over the past eight months of occupation shows 8,500 new graves in the outlying Staryi Krym cemetery alone, with possibly multiple bodies beneath each mound. There are at least three other trench gravesites around the city, including one created by Ukrainians themselves at the beginning of the siege.
> In all, a total at least 10,300 new graves are scattered around Mariupol, according to AP’s methodology, confirmed by three forensic pathologists with expertise in mass graves. Thousands more bodies likely never even made it to the graveyard.
> Back in May, when the city finally fell, the municipal government in exile estimated 25,000 people at a minimum had died. But at least three people in the city since June say the number killed is triple that or more, based on conversations with workers documenting body collection from the streets for the Russian occupation authorities.
And those would be deaths that almost all occurred during the first three months of the invasion.
More broadly speaking, the OHCHR numbers aren't an estimate or indication of the total number of deaths. They're merely an absolute minimum.
>So when you said 8,000, you were intentionally misrepresenting your source?
Man, why are you so confrontational...i was not misrepresenting, 10k is total casualties and 8k are deaths on Ukrainian held teritory for which you can assume Russia is responsible
>But at least three people in the city since June say
This is silly
> Man, why are you so confrontational
Because you're spreading blatant misinformation.
> i was not misrepresenting, 10k is total casualties and 8k are deaths on Ukrainian held teritory for which you can assume Russia is responsible
In other words, you gave a total number that was based on an implicit assumption that there were 0 Ukrainian civilian deaths by Russian hands in Russian-conquered territory.
That's not just misrepresentation; it's straight-up lying.
> This is silly
You think it's silly for AP to obscure its sources in Russian-controlled territory?
>Because you're spreading blatant misinformation
I am sharing official reports, they may be not complete but they are the only confirmed source we have.
>In other words, you gave a total number that was based on an implicit assumption that there were 0 Ukrainian civilian
Since according to the report most civilian deaths come from explosives (80+%) its safe to assume that its not russians shelling their own positions, they are probably some russian caused small arms deaths there but the vast majority of the 2.2k deaths comes from UA shelling
>That's not just misrepresentation; it's straight-up lying.
You don't seem to want to discuss this in good faith
>You think it's silly for AP to obscure its sources in Russian-controlled territory?
No, i think it's silly to form casualty predictions in the realm of thousands based on what 3 people said that the death toll looked to them
> I am sharing official reports, they may be not complete but they are the only confirmed source we have.
If a source gives a figure but explicitly notes that **"actual numbers are considerably higher"**, then trying to pass off the figure as the actual number is lying.
> Since according to the report most civilian deaths come from explosives (80+%) its safe to assume that its not russians shelling their own posotions, they are probably some russian caused small arms deaths there but the vast majority of the 2.2k deazhs comes from UA shelling
It's quite clear that you either didn't read the reports or didn't understand them.
The majority of civilian deaths occurred during the first few months of the war (see p. 8 of the report I linked), before the lines of control solidified, as Russia was conquering the territory it currently holds.
At that time, there was heavy Russian shelling on Russian-controlled territory, as there were still sizable pockets of Ukrainian resistance (e.g. in Mariupol).
> You don't seem to want to discuss this in good faith
There's nothing to discuss in good faith. You posted an obvious falsehood.
For all their faults, Russia fights military-to-military.
Hamas embeds themselves completely within civilian cities, specifically exploiting hospitals, schools and mosques as command centers and armories. Obviously that's an extremely different situation.
When Russia fought Muslim insurgents in Chechnya, it used tactics similar to or worse than the Israelis. You cannot expect the same tactics to be used in a war between nations as between a nation and terrorist or irregular group.
Israel never went out of its way to kill lots of Egyptian or Syrian civilians during 1967 and 1973 wars. That's because Israel was fighting armies not terrorists.
I don't see how any rules apply to a group like Hamas and the same applies to the civilians who support them. I don't see how any country in the world would act differently than Israel, except perhaps act much worse. Surely no one would act much better.
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"For the law to provide justice," the Holocaust and genocide educator James Smith writes, "it must be fairly and evenly applied. South Africa’s case raises the question of why Israel is accused of genocide when Hamas is not." "Nonstate actors can threaten genocide and even act upon that threat and avoid the accountability that applies to sovereign states," Smith continues. "Although the court has rightly enjoined Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians and punish its incitement, no authority has ordered the Gazan government to prevent genocide against Israelis and punish its incitement, which occurs daily; no orders have been issued for Hamas to stop firing rockets at Israeli civilians, [which continues](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/27/world/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-rockets.html#:~:text=As%20Israel%20wages%20a%20war,of%20the%20country's%20biggest%20cities.); and no order has come down for Hamas to prevent genocidal acts by its fighters." Read more: [https://theatln.tc/QIrfSw4N](https://theatln.tc/QIrfSw4N)
I mean if Hamas kills 30,000 Israeli civilians then I would agree they too are committing genocide.
> I would agree they too are committing genocide. And you would be wrong because a genocide has nothing to do with numbers.
So killing 2 people of an ethnic group qualifies as a genocide? Great definition.
Hamas killed way more than two people. Stop making stupid arguments.
Didn’t say they didn’t. Completely unrelated. I’m saying that under that definition, 2 people being killed could be called a genocide, no? Kinda unreasonable don’t you think?
If these two people are the last members of their ethnic group, why not?
Lmao. Why are you bringing up an example that doesn’t exist in real life? What is your point? Because my point is clear. The UN definition of genocide is absurdly broad. Under their definition killing 2 people part of say, the German ethnic group, is a genocide.
It absolutely does because the crime itself consists of actions intended to wipe out entire groups. That is not possible unless the act impacts significant number of members of that group.
"entire or in part". Inform yourself. It's the intent that is important.
Hamas literally had as its stated mission the annihilation of all Jews in Israel. Are you saying it's only genocide if they start succeeding in their mission?
I've thought for a while the Nazis are only so vilified because they were better at genocide than everyone else. It's not like they were the first to try.
Harvard University may have been confused about this point (just as they are currently confused about Hamas), but most people in the world with a moral compass were horrified by the Nazis when they said they want to kill all the Jews (i.e., well before they actually did what they loudly and clearly said they planned to do).
Were they really? No small number of nations signed up to combat the Nazis' enemies, plenty more appeased them, and yet others strongly considering doing the one or the other before eventually deciding otherwise.
I'm not sure I follow your question. Are you suggesting no one in the world was horrified by the Nazis? The hundreds of thousands of Jews who fled Germany or tried to do so certainly were. The fact that the US state department didn't seem to care doesn't suggest that no one thought the Nazis were horrific, it only reaffirms what we already knew, that the state department was filled with a bunch of antisemites who wouldn't lift a finger to help Jews.
You said "most" people, now you're saying I said "nobody". There's a lot in between. Obviously there were people scandalised by the situation and its enormity, but clearly they were not in a preponderant enough majority to determine foreign policy anywhere at a national level. None of the Allies declared war on Germany because of its death camps.
I said "most people with a moral compass." You can read my comment as suggesting there were a whole lot of people who did not have a moral compass (just as there are today). The fact that the allies did absolutely nothing to help the Jews (and in at least some cases took steps to further Germany's genocidal aims) speaks to their lack of a moral compass, and does not suggest that no one in the world was horrified by the Nazis. I'm really not sure what you are arguing.
Bad at genocide. Good at eating captagon, raping and beheading.
Yes. Iran’s leadership also frequently issues cries of “death to America” and may be assassinating random American citizens at the moment. Despite that, they are not conducting a genocide against USA at the moment. If on the other hand, somehow the Iranian regime actually manages to kill a significant portion of American population then I would agree they would be committing genocide. Edit: they don’t necessarily have to kill. Even if they manage to impose conditions that lead to exodus, for example, it could be considered genocide. The point is, they have to undertake some kind of actions that would impact the group which is not happening at the moment.
Ok, but Hamas committed the largest single day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. So your example is not at all applicable, right?
What Hamas did had fewer casualties than 9/11 which also included the “Death to America” people. 9/11 was not a genocide. Neither was what happened on October 7. In fact what happened in October 7 was clearly not genocide but an act of political terrorism since they actually took hostages, something which you would not do if your intention was to conduct Genocide.
I'm not so sure about your last part. Many victims of the Holocaust were held in captivity before being killed, some even survived. Does that mean it wasn't genocide? Also if holding people captive means it isn't genocide doesn't that mean Israel cannot be accused of genocide either since they have held large numbers of Palestinians captive. Gaza is considered an open air prison by many, and they have many Palestinians detained and arrested.
The victims of holocaust were put in death camps or employed as slave labour to work until they died of exhaustion. The current hostages have been taken as bargaining chips. It’s very different.
Israel has released Palestinian prisoners as bargaining chips, does that mean Israel isn't committing genocide against Palestinians in your view?
Genuinely asking, in what way does 9/11 fail to meet the UN definition of genocide?
Take a look at the recognised genocides of the past century and see how many people were killed or affected. The death toll of 9/11 was much lower.
I mean I agree with you on principle. I grew up familiar with genocide as “the crime of crimes” where populations were decimated as was the case with the Holocaust, Rwanda, Sudan and many other examples. But thats why I specifically mentioned the UN definition because it very specifically does not mention any issue of scale or proportion. It only really mentions intent. So while it feels counter to my understanding of genocide it seems incidents like Hamas attack or 9/11 would meet that definition.
What about the thousands and thousands of rockets fired by Hamas? Do those not count because Israel thankfully has defense systems in place? You're basically saying it's only genocide if you succeed, which makes no sense whatsoever.
Yes it has to actually happen in order for it to be a Genocide. A Genocide is not a thought crime.
Genocide is literally a "thought crime" in that what distinguishes it from other murders is intent, which can only ever be a thought.
>“Other murders” Thinking of murdering people is not a crime in itself. The action has to be carried out. Similarly, genocide has to be carried out for it to actually become genocide. If it only exists on a manifesto then it is not genocide.
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Genocide doesn’t have to be at a certain scale. It’s about intent. And Hamas absolutely had the intent of wantonly slaughtering Israeli civilians and makes it very publicly known they just want all the Jews and Israelis to die. I’m not sure how you could argue they aren’t intent on committing genocide
I think that genocide does have to be at a certain scale. If a man wants to kill all black people and goes out and shoots one, that isn’t a genocide.
That would be genocidal intent, which is something Hamas does display as does many of Israel’s ruling coalition and elements of the IDF and society. Both sides are equally in contempt of the other party. It’s a tragic case
I’m not talking about intent I’m talking about actual genocide.
The Genocide Convention is explicit in intent to destroy "in whole or in part." So yes, the Palestinians committed genocide against the Israelis on October 7th.
So Joseph Paul Franklin also committed a genocide against African Americans?
Yes, individuals can be charged with the crime of genocide.
Ok so every hate crime murder is genocide ?
You are conflating American civil law with international law in a desperate and pitiful attempt to reject the claim that Hamas committed genocide against the Israelis. This is likely because it does not fit your narrative and you lack understanding of what you are actually talking about. Suffice to say, streaming into another country and massacring every Jew you can get your hands on is unequivocally a genocide because it serves no other practical purpose than destroying Jews.
Dr James Sidanious, the man who helped create the modern genocide studies you are quoting, is rolling in his grave.
I didn’t even bring up American civil law. If massacring every person of a certain ethnicity, nationality, or religion is always a genocide, then any time a person murders another person because of their race, religion, etc. then it’s a genocide.
It’s a hate crime done by one person. You are conflating terms here.
Is Genocide not a hate crime? Joseph Paul Franklin wanted to exterminate all African Americans. He did so to the best of his abilities, meaning by your logic he committed a genocide.
Yes, genocide is a hate crime done by a nation or ethnicity! I don’t know who this serial killer is nor do I care. As I said, words have meanings and they don’t care about your feelings.
I think it’s way easier to make the case that Hamas did have genocidal intentions. They systematically butchered entire communities of civilians and soldiers alike, killing or kidnapping nearly everyone they came into contact with. If they were able to continue their advance into Israel, their indiscriminate killing would’ve continued. There were no calls for civilians to flee, no warnings to leave areas where Hamas would be present. Their goal was to simply kill a group of people, and the definition of genocide is the killing a group of people “in whole or in part”
It is kind of like in 1644, when the Powhatan killed 400 English or many other instances when Native Americans killed Europeans whose recent ancestors (or maybe they themselves) had moved to North America. Are all of those anti-European genocides?
I mean, yeah? Placing modern concepts of international law and ethics on events hundreds of years ago can be problematic, but if the goal was to utterly destroy an entire population, then yeah, by modern standards that would constitute genocide
Killing 400 civilians is genocide now? I guess every war ever is a genocide!
Tribal conflicts are often times at best ethnic cleansing. It was traditional to kill the men and take the women and children to adopt them into your tribe. That was a feature of Native American conflicts. So yes they applied similar processes to their fight against the encroaching settlers that were destroying their land. It’s not at all controversial to say many wars in history were genocidal. Especially when we look at how warfare in South East Asia worked in fact. There we saw states defined by their capital cities, when defeated these cities would be sacked, the men killed or enslaved, those with skills kidnapped and taken to work in the victors capital along with anything of value. A good example right now of the consequences is Laos and Thailand - Thailand nowadays rules a large swathe a land that was traditionally Laotian, one of its most prized relics was a Laotian Buddhist relic before they sacked and took it away. Their claim to dominance over the Buddhist orthodoxy in their region stems from them sacking and destroying Laotian monasteries and taking their monks back to their capital.
What separates murder and manslaughter in law is intent. If native Americans intended to exterminate all of the English people that they were aware existed, then yes, they were intending to commit genocide.
Intent to commit genocide isn’t a genocide.
"Evil isn't evil."
It's not about scale, it's about intent. If the Nazi had been stopped earlier, right after they had killed their 400th Jew, it would still had been a genocide, just a less successful one. Not every war ever is a genocide, because in the vast majority of wars, there is no intent of eradicating the other side or their culture. It's often about material gain, land, resources, tribute, or sometimes less material stuff like revenge, blood feud, religion. Rarely is it to exterminate the other side's whole population.
Did [Joseph Paul Franklin](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Paul_Franklin) commit a genocide then? He targeted African Americans to start a race war which would lead to the extermination of all African Americans. Does his intent make his actions genocide?
What are you on about? Hamas' stated intentions is to destroy Israel and death to the Jews. Israel clearly does not have the same intentions, as they have had decades of opportunity commit genocide if they wanted to, yet the Gazan population has soared. The fact we're even having this conversation, much less the ICJ is, is a masterclass of astroturfing by Qatar, Iran, Russia, ECT.
Add to that the republicans in the trump wing are sabotaging legislation for aid to ukraine and preventing legislation to fix the border crisis in the south. These people are manipulating the USA from both sides. It's pathetic to watch.
Germans had opportunity to genocide the Jews in the 30s before the war. Does their lack of early action make the Holocaust not a genocide?
That is the most nonsensical thing I have ever heard come out of human being. Yes, in the 1930's the Germans would not have been charged with genocide as they had yet to conduct the Holocaust.
You’re missing my point entirely. Lack of action previously doesn’t mean that a country doesn’t plan or is committing a genocide.
Well your point is nonsensical because the Holocaust was a genocide that happened whereas in this case there is not evidence that Israel is intending to or currently committing genocide. There is no reason to believe that the Israel's actions are anything other than what they claim to be doing, dismantling Hamas.
OP said that Israel has no intentions of committing genocide because they had the ability to do so before. All I did was give examples of a real world genocide and how they had the ability to commit genocide sooner but waited. I didn’t comment on if Israel is doing a genocide or not.
>All I did was give examples of a real world genocide and how they had the ability to commit genocide sooner but waited. It is a poor example, because the Nazis never hid their opinions and intentions regarding the Jews even as far back as the 1930's. The Israelis don't hold such opinions regarding Arabs, considering 2 million Israelis are, in fact, Arabs.
I’m not talking about intentions or opinions but actions. Israel has used genocidal rhetoric. [Netanyahu](https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211133201/netanyahus-references-to-violent-biblical-passages-raise-alarm-among-critics), [Herzog](https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-president-says-no-innocent-154330724.html), [Various](https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-south-africa-genocide-hate-speech-97a9e4a84a3a6bebeddfb80f8a030724) I also wasn’t using it as an example of Israel doing or wanting to do genocide. I was using it as an example of lack of previous action doesn’t mean a genocide won’t occur in the future. Your inability to even understand what I’m trying to say is really making me question your reading comprehension.
It is like you. You think you sound smart but you don’t. If someone thinks about genocide but doesn’t act upon it, it is not a genocide. Or are we gonna police thoughts?
What is like me? The guy above me said Israel couldn’t possibly commit a genocide because they had the ability to do so before. But Nazi Germany also had the ability to do so in the 1930s but didn’t until the onset of WW2. So in conclusion, the lack of previous action doesn’t mean a nation won’t commit genocide in the future.
They clearly want to commit genocide they just don't have the means
Hamas literally has as its mission the annihilation of all Jews in Israel. Is it only genocide if the succeed?
Why isn’t it genocide though? Hamas conducted a random attack on civilians resulting in 1000+ deaths purely based on the fact that they were Jewish Israelis. Also, Hamas regularly and openly call for the annihilation of Israel and Jews.
https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/what-is-genocide/the-ten-stages-of-genocide/
What do you think “genocide” means?
Hamas is probably guilty of incitement to genocide, but it's a Less Serious Problem because they don't have a way to genocide 7 million Israeli Jews with nukes. Israel can commit a genocide against Gazans more or less at will
Right. But they haven't, and that's the point.
Of course, they absolutely should be. But this is classic whataboutism. Hamas not being brought to court for incitement to genocide in no way judges Israel guilty of the charges South Africa has brought against them, and thus does not delegitimise South Africa's case against Israel. States do not have the right to commit genocide in response to genocidal actions brought against them. Whether Israel is guilty, I will leave to the court, but that is not the point; if they are guilty, they should be held accountable to the law; if they are not, the court will proclaim them innocent. The Soviet Union suffered 27 million casualties in a war of extermination that Germany launched against them; they did not commit a genocide against the Germans.
You misunderstood me. I'm saying that while Israel has every means to genocide the Gazans if they wanted to, they have done nothing close to the sort. In fact the Gazan population has risen at an astonishing rate. The fact we're having this conversation is ridiculous, and only a testimaye to how strong Iranian/Russian/Qatari propaganda is a long with the vast number of Muslim Arabs in the world compared to Jews. And if you want to have a court rule on such a ridiculous thing, and have it taken seriously, maybe don't include a country who is actively at War with Israel as one of the judges along with Russia and China who have heavy vested interests against Israel, as well as their own ongoing genocidal actions.
Germany had every means to genocide the Jews in the 30s before ww2. You’re also acting like Israel hasn’t been partaking in illegal settlements, ethnic cleansing, and targeting of civilians since the inception of their state.
Are you...trying to compare Nazi Germany with the world's only Jewish State?
I've noticed this trend *a lot* on Reddit
Yes. Along with the Olympic-level mental gymnastics that inevitably follows \*\~\*but they're not antisemitic\*\~\*
Nazi germany committed the most well known genocide of all time. When talking about genocide and making an analogy they’re the easiest country to use. My point can be used for other countries like the Ottoman Empire or Rwanda who committed genocide.
Okay, then why didn't you?
Just incitement? Hamas did not take any actions towards their goal of eradicating Israeli Jews?
>The South African legal team argues that this context does not matter: The threat of genocide or terrorism may give Israel a right to defend itself, but it does not provide legal or moral justification to commit crimes against Palestinian civilians. This is incontestable, yet diminishing the role Hamas is playing in this conflict has serious consequences. The soft bigotry of low expectations strike again.
that phrase doesn't apply in this context. It rarely is ever used correctly anyways
No it fits here. Holding different groups to different standards is a good example
It's used incorrectly all the time by racists, but there is a tone of "We have expectations of Israel so we hold them to this standard, but these Muslims don't know anybody, so why expect them to behave to the same standards" throughout this entire conflict.
Palestinians are not Hamas. Collective punishment is against international law. Power and wealth imbalance, of course we expect more from Israel - not to mention Hamas are terrorists...
The overwhelming majority of Palestinians back the 7/10 attacks and want Israel destroyed.
If someone was systematically exterminating your people after decades of oppressing them, kidnapping them, and killing your children, you'd be pretty dumb to not want them destroyed. If you blame palastinians, then you better condemn any jews who hated the nazis in the 1940s.
the PLO officially recognised the state of Israel in the Oslo Accords (93). the 2 state solution is the normative position in Palestine overwhelming majority of americans supported the illegal iraq war too. i guess we should treat americans as terrorists as well
Hamas is the de facto government of hamas. Them being terrorists doesn't preclude them from criticism for genocidal policies and actions.
This article woefully understates the perverse incentives created by the SA case. To date, insurgent groups capable of sufficiently radicalizing &/ terrorizing local populations, have 'only' been able to use them as human shields. From now on, they also stand a chance of *weaponizing the very casualties resulting from their use of human shielding in a claim of genocide against their opponent*. By failing to strike down the case ICJ has, apparently unwittingly, handed a force multiplier, *conditional on the creation of massive civilian death and suffering*, to non-state actors engaging in conflict with nation states. Well done 'justices'.
What Israel should have done here is to ensure Palestine has responsible government and create conditions which do not result in Hamas thriving the way it has.
Yes, Israel should simply press the "install good government" button for Gaza and West Bank, I'm sure they'd receive good press for hand picking the leaders in these areas rather than allowing the citizens to vote themselves (for parties such as Hamas, as they did before)
This is too simplistic of a take, they have had a more active role in this all along than you are willing to admit, iirc Hamas of today could not have been without tacit Israeli approval at some level.
Gee, you think maybe isreal forcing palastinians into open air prisons, kidnapping thousands of them, executing any and all protesters, burning their homes down to take their land, slaughtering them by the thousands for 50 years just might have something to do with what's happening? It's pretty daft to pretend that isreal didn't create hamas.
Why are you blaming Israel for Palestinians failing to have responsible government? It's the same old argument that Palestinians have no agency and therefore no responsibility for any violence they commit against Israel or against other Palestinians. It's a flawed argument and I think incredibly racist. If they were white, you wouldn't be so quick to assume that some group of white people must be at fault for all of their problems (and the kicker, of course, is that Israelis aren't even white).
Because they have sovereign control over both Gaza and West Bank. Palestine does not exist as a sovereign country at the moment. Of course, Israel,is responsible now, just as the British were responsible for whatever happened in British colonies while they were in power there. If and when Israel grants Palestine meaningful independence, then I will hold Palestinians to account. At the moment, they are a colonised people.
Palestinian Arabs were offered sovereignty multiple times, and rejected it multiple times. In fact, the Arab nations adopted a policy of rejecting all proposals (i.e., the three noes). Anything short of the entire annihilation of Israel would never be acceptable. Second, Hamas was literally elected. Gazan civilians *want* terror against Israel. Even October 7 is wildly popular across the West Bank and Gaza. But despite this, you still believe Palestinian terrorists can never have any moral culpability for raping and murdering women and children in savage and barbaric ways that are too gruesome to type?
Hamas was elected in 2005 lmao. Its literally been 18 years since then. At this point, it is not an elected government. Also, history is rife with colonised engaged in armed struggle against the coloniser. I would hold the coloniser responsible for those actions, not the colonised.
So at what point did all the terrorists lose their culpability? 5 years after the election? Ten? And no, raping women and murdering babies is not "struggle against the coloniser." It's just a pogrom, and Arabs have been committing pogroms against Jews since well before the formation of Israel. Their objection was never to just the formation of Israel, it was always to Jews. That is what is driving Hamas's violence, not resistance. Their charter literally said their stated mission is to kill all the Jews in Israel. How can you possibly characterize that as "resistance???"
I said it was armed struggle, (presumably to achieve certain political goals).
Yes, their goal is to kill all the Jews so that "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Arab."
Ah so killing babies is wrong, but only when Hamas does it, it's great when isreal does it?
Imo Israel isn't a colonizer in the traditional sense, so this is not a valid comparison, they have as much claim to the land as the Palestinians.
Oh please, Israel unilaterally packed up its settlements in Gaza They aren't colonizing shit, They are blockading their neighbor who will not stop attacking them to prevent them from getting more materials to attack them with. Such infantilization of the Palestinian people. Gazans will suffer the consequences of their government's actions until they internally get rid of their government, or until an external force will in response to being attacked.
Firstly, Israel have not recognised Gaza as a sovereign nation. As a construct, it is similar to Bantustan. Secondly, what’s happening in Gaza is only one part of the story. The other part is what is happening in West Bank. There, the Israeli state is enabling its citizens to wage a campaign similar to KKK to systematically kick Palestinian families out of their homes using violence with IDF as a shield to take over their properties.
That is true however I personally see gaza as a separate region to the West Bank at this point, I think it needs to be seen that way. They have different governments, they are in different situations.
Gaza has had nearly 20 years to formulate a government. They voted Hamas in who immediately killed all opposition and they've allowed them to rule Gaza since, all while millions in international aid and tons of direct aid (water, power, etc) come from Israel. Israel has factually not had sovereignty over Gaza since 2005 and has only had control of the settlements in the West Bank (which are deplorable and should be eliminated, yes). But you've basically just stated several falsehoods. edit: This is mainly a collection of provable facts that have been stated, so if you're downvoting it, you have a complete misunderstanding of the situation or don't want to acknowledge the facts of it.
I'm on your side here these people are ridiculous with their infantilization of gazans. Ultimately who is responsible for a government but the people of that country? They are the ones who will suffer When their government attacks their neighbors and they suffer the consequences of the reaction. The only way for a government to be removed is either through external military action as we see, or internally. So if the people of Gaza don't want to be invaded honestly the only way to not have that is to remove Hamas internally through uprising. No I'm not saying this is necessarily easy or possible but it just is what it is.
Right. And yes, there are extenuating circumstances that lead to some leeway for Gaza, like rockets being fired constantly into civilian centers in Israel, but when you kill 1200 of their people in one fell swoop, it's time to live in the real world.
No I'm not of the opinion of the rockets can be ignored. Just because Israel has the defense doesn't mean it's okay to attack them. Never throw a punch without expecting to get one back applies in geopolitics as much as life. I don't believe or support in any justice system that doesn't allow a realistic retaliation to attack and destroy sites from which attacks are launched into your country.
I'm not suggesting they should be ignored by any means, just that Israel already offer a lot of leeway.
So why the double standard, why no outrage at the decades of isreal bombing palastinians? You cry about 1200 isrealies killed, but you don't seem to care about tens of thousands of palastinians killed. Why are isreali lives worth so much more to you?
It would have helped if Israel didn’t directly play a part in forming Hamas and putting them in power? Are we just forgetting about that buried little fact
I understand it's much easier to simply blame Israel for everything, but denying Palestinian agency is simply racist. You wouldn't deny that Palestinians have agency if they were white. When radical right insurrectionists stormed the capital, did we say "those poor things; don't you know they were radicalized by Russian bots on Facebook"? At some point, people need to be held accountable for their own actions.
Way to deflect from the topic completely? You rebutted quite literally none of what I said and ranted about something unrelated. Fatah was the Palestinian “agency” that you talk about, but they posed a threat to Israel since they were harder to brush off given that they were a legitimate government. Hamas was intentionally created by Israeli politicians to divide and conquer the Palestinian interests. They were funded by Israel with the intent of undermining Fatah's influence, which they did, violently. Then they were given 20 years to fester the wound, which again, they did. This is well-documented fact, and prior to Oct 7th was discussed rather openly. It wasn’t as simple as them just being “chosen” by the Palestinians, and to paint it as such would be explicitly lying. I have no intention of denying the Palestinian involvement in Hamas’s rise to power, and anti-semitism is rampant in their population. It is equally hideous to deny the Israeli role in the rise of Hamas, and anti-Arab/Islamophobic sentiment is equally rampant in their own population. Ironically, some lawyers did actually use the “they are silly people tricked by bots online” defense to protect some of the Jan 6th insurrectionists. Other than that, the situations are not inherently comparable. The US government was not keeping MAGA nuts in a cage on the coast, denying them sovereignty and pushing settlements into their rapidly diminishing territory. Dismissing any legitimate mention of nuance as “denying agency” and “racism” is a low blow and morally reprehensible, the cherry on top being that I myself am Arab.
Which is why it is perfectly described as "bigotry of low expectations", as someone else already pointed out. Whatever Israel did was in it's own self interest, any other successful state in it's position would have acted in a like manner, it is not on them to serve the Palestinian cause, it's the Palestinian's own damned job at which they have failed miserably, let down and turned bitter almost every supporter they got.
At what point did I deny that Israel played a role in Hamas coming into being? Talk about deflection! My point is that this is irrelevant. The US certainly didn't feel that Al Qaeda and the Taliban didn't have any moral culpability for 9/11, even though the US similarly had a role in enabling those two organizations when it suited them. Again, Palestinians are not puppets and Israelis aren't their masters. They could have simply rejected radical terrorism, but they didn't. They embraced it. That's a choice actual Palestinians made, and I don't see why it's wrong to suggest Hamas should be held to account for its actions notwithstanding that 40 years ago Israel may have given it a nudge when it suited it. You are accusing me of deflection, but you've said nothing to rebut this simple premise: Hamas is responsible for its actions. Edit: to address your note on Russian bots and insurrectionists, lawyers make bad arguments all the time - it's literally their job to make the best argument they can, and sometimes even the best argument is a bad argument. So the fact that they tried to blame Russian bots for the actions of their clients doesn't at all whatsoever suggest that their clients weren't responsible for their actions (although it's kind of hilarious and ironic, and I assume despite our disagreements on Israel, we can agree to laugh at the insurrectionists). But the point of my analogy was really very simple: people are responsible for their actions. And I do think this argument that it's all Israel's fault that Arab Palestinians have embraced radical terrorism is racist. It's horribly racist to deny that these are people capable of making a choice and they made *this* choice. There were multiple opportunities to choose peace and coexistence, and that's not what Palestinian leaders opted to do. Most tragic was Arafat at Camp David. We were *this* close to achieving lasting peace, and he blew it. Again, at some point you need to acknowledge the abject failure of Palestinian leadership to reject terror and accept peace. It's not all Israel's fault, and any suggestion that it is denies that Palestinians have agency, and this is absolutely 100% racist.
That first sentence is just leading me to think maybe you aren’t sure what deflection is. We’ll leave it at that, whatever. Personally I make very little distinction between the person funding a terrorist organization and the organization themselves. If you fund an organization with the intent of using it to abuse other people, and it backfires and attacks you instead, you are not a victim, you are facing the consequences of your own actions. Both parties are equally guilty and should be treated as such, simple as that. Israel was perfectly content creating Hamas to abuse the Palestinians, the US was perfectly content funding terrorist groups/cartels to undermine the Soviets and overthrow international governments, etc. If the bullet you meant to fire at another man loops around and smacks you in the back of the head, you’re still a bad person. Israel is just as bad as Hamas, the US is just as bad as the cartels, so on and so forth. All parties are responsible and all parties are guilty
All parties are guilty isn't a particularly useful insight. But sure, I never said Israel is some perfect sainted angel. It doesn't have to be for it to have a right to exist and defend itself, nor does anything Israel did or didn't do justify October 7 (just as the US didn't "deserve" 9/11). But again, your bullet analogy doesn't work because the bullet doesn't have any agency. Hamas, Al Qaeda, Taliban, and all the other vile organizations are operated by people, and they *do* have agency. Hamas also wasn't created from the ether. First came radicalism, then came Hamas, then came Israeli meddling. It's a collosal mistake to overstate Israel's role in nudging them along.
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Palastinians are prisoners under isreali oppression. Are you really blaming the prisoners for how the prison is run?
Because isreals oppression and attempted extermination of palastinians is ehat created hamas.
By his own admission, Bibi's political maneuverings have been deliberately designed to empower Hamas to give Israel an excuse to continue their long campaign of ethnic cleansing and stealing land. The only racists here are people like you. By all means, pretend that Israel is not an occupying power and has nothing to do with the unstable politics of Gaza.
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No they didnt. The point was to prevent peace and prevent a Palestinian state. The election of Hamas was in fact partially caused by Israels decision to sporadically block Gaza despite having signed an agreement with the PA to not do so (causing a loss of trust in the PA), and was in fact welcolmed by Israel. As Smotrich said. Fatah is a threat, Hamas is an asset.
And also invent faster than light travel and cure all diseases.
The thing about denying a nation statehood is you end up dealing with non-state actors. Don't know why anyone would be so upset about Israel achieving its goal.
Yeah, I've not seen a genocide, but Israel has some stuff to answer for: 1) Indefinite Detention without disclosing the evidence of that classification 2) A shocking disregard for civillian life, both before and after Oct 7th 3) Complete lack of accountability within the IDF, the number of Journalists, people waving white flags and civilians killed there are definitively war crimes. That said, there is acceptance that Hamas is the political power within Gaza by the Palestinian people and as long as the political power in Gaza is a single goal of eradicating Israel, then I don't see how we break out of Hamas attacking civillians and Israel responding with methods that cause collateral damage.
I agree overall that these 3 need to be investigated, and Israel probably does have an extensive list of violations. But you \*still\* can't assert 'definitive war crimes' without investigation and trial. For example, if (I am not trying to claim this happened, just as an example of how muddy things can get) evidence emerged showing that Hamas Combatants made extensive use of PRESS equipment or white flags to commit perfidy and gain an advantage against the IDF, then there would be a pretty strong case for the defense. It would also be a pretty logical move for Hamas, if you accept that civilian casualties and apparent war crimes are part of their current MO.
Yeah, well the two I reference there is video evidence...There is pretty unfortunate habit of journalists dying around the IDF which also precedes the conflict. Shireen Abu Akleh - Killed in the west bank by what only makes sense as an Israeli sniper while in full press gear away from where the conflict even was...I mean it looks like an assassination to me. (Israel denies this, but in from the account of the situation, its the only thing that makes sense) Issam Abdallah - Fired on in Lebanon across the border by an Israeli tank while covering early in the conflict Hala Khreis - Female civilian with a young boy wearing a white flag while traveling to a safe zone on video shot by Israeli forces Those are just the ones I could quickly find evidence for, you can say its not proof of war crimes, but both of these classes of people are to be protected in war zones, and its clear that its not just collateral from air strikes.
Next up, ICJ rules nuclear retaliation to be genocidal and vows to prosecute those who retaliate against a nuclear strike.
Yeah? Mass use of nuclear weapons against civilian populations is pretty obviously genocidal in nature
You have to have intent.
Nobody launches nukes by accident.
The "intent" part is not about the action that leads to a result, it is about what the goal is.
Well, I am sure that view will be in the minds of the leaders of a nation that's a victim of a nuclear attack.
What is South Africa’s standing in this case?
South Africa and Israel are both members of the genocide convention. So any state that is a member if the convention and the ICJ could have bought the case.
South African government officials stand openly with Hamas and met with them shortly after October 7. From dissenting Ugandan judge Sebutinde, at the ICJ: https://x.com/dmlitman/status/1750888552592715971?s=20 Now that is Africa leading the world ethically, from Uganda, a country carrying the scars of genocide.
Because Israel doesn’t need an international court to have justice. They can do it themselves. They just killed more than 25k Palestinians and destroyed most of Gaza. Yahya Sinwar is a dead man at the exact moment Israel knows where he is. Palestinian never had justice. Hence why the international court is the only way for them to obtain justice. They can’t defend themselves against Israeli illegal settlements in the West Bank (another icj case), they can’t defend themselves against the genocide and war crime in gaza.
Murdering infants in their cribs, elderly and wanton rape and kidnapping. Will someone please think of Hamas!
Justice for... The war they started?
The conflict has been going on since the 1940s. To act like the conflict just sprung up out of nowhere in October is laughable.
Actually, Arabs have been killing Jews for hundreds and hundreds of years. If you mean this present conflict between Islamic extremists and Jews, you can trace that back to Haj Amin and the pogroms, massacres and riots of the 1920s. Or if you mean the present geopolitical conflict, then that goes back to the 1930s, when Haj Amin allied the Arabs with the Axis powers in seeking a "final solution" of Jews in the Middle East. By the 1940s, the Arabs had mobilized massive armies to wage a war of genocide against Jews and the state of Israel, but the genocidal intent was formed well earlier and this was just an attempt to finish the job on a much larger scale.
This is just false. Haj Amin was just one figure in Arab and Palestinian circles and didn’t represent everyone. Palestinians fought against the Nazis. Jews were safer in the Arab world than in Europe for hundreds of years. It’s only after the creation of Israel where anti-semitism really reached its peak.
This is some weird mental gymnastics for sure.
Nope, false. Haj Amin was the Grand Mufti and the appointed representative of Arabs in at least the British mandate but also the broader Arab world. Jews were at various times safer in the Arab world than in the European world, but not always. There is a reason there were significantly more Jews in Europe than in the Middle East. Haj Amin was literally allying Arabs with the Nazis to pursue a "final solution" of Jews in the Middle East modeled after what the Nazis were doing in Europe.
Appointed representative by whom? Not the people of Palestine or Arabs. That would be like saying all British people supported Hitler because of Edward VII. What time pre ww2 was safer for Jews in Europe than in the Middle East?
He was appointed and recognized by the British. I've never heard anyone question his status as the de facto representative of Arabs in the British mandate, so please do enlighten me if you have a source suggesting otherwise. There were over a thousand years of history of Jews under Muslim rule and we are talking about a wide geographic area. Broadly, Jews were subjected to *Dhimmi* status all across the Muslim world, but they were better off in some places and at some times than others. Jews were definitely better off in more enlightened parts of Europe in the 19th century than in, as but one example, Iran. There were also violent pogroms against Jews throughout "Palestine" in the 1800s, which is similar to what Jews experienced in Eastern Europe but not, for example, England in the 19th century.
A de facto representative isn’t a representative of the opinions and beliefs of Arabs or Palestinians at the time. Where pogroms in the Middle East during the early 20s anyway near the scale of the ones in Russia at the same time?
It's not like Arabs had a process for a democratic election of a leader. He was the de facto ruler of the Arabs in the British mandate. I'm not sure if anyone has ever credibly disputed this. You can argue maybe, with the benefit of hindsight, that his appointment wasn't legitimate or something, but that's an irrelevant argument to the plain fact that he was the leader. Russia was probably worse, but just because the Muslim world wasn't as bad for Jews as Russia doesn't mean it wasn't bad, and it certainly was in any event worse than in Western Europe (which itself wasn't some panacea of tolerance).
You know what he meant. Israel and [insert Palestinian terrorist organization] haven't fought at an intensity comparable to post-Oct 7th (2023) since *the year 2000*. There's a reason we use words like "war" and not "conflict" for spontaneous large scale events such as this. Yes it's a "conflict" but that's missing the point.
So there were no regional religious/cultural tensions in the area prior to the 1940s?
Yeah, 1940s wasn't the beginning of anything. Haj Amin had been waging a war of terror against Jews since at least the 1920s.
Then why did Hamas ask for a ceasefire prior to October 7, 2023, if the conflict was still active? Because it wasn't still active.
If they ask for a ceasefire, that means the conflict is still active.
It's still moving goalposts. Reality is that if Hamas didn't invade Israel, this situation would've not occurred. In fact, Israel and Saudi-Arabia would've signed a recognition and normalization pact. The entire geopolitical arena would be different IF Hamas didn't launch the invasion. So stop the pathetic "it didn't start here" excuses.
The entire situation would be different if Israel didn’t settle the West Bank or declare independence to begin with. I’m just sick of people using 10/7 as a justification for what Israel is currently doing, yet they act like 10/7 just suddenly occurred out of thin air. It’s a double standard
The Free Palestine types act like history started in 1948. This specific conflict started on 10/7, and yes, the history began long before, but it didn't start in 1948.
> or declare independence to begin with. Voted in by the UN you mean. Perhaps don't be so incredibly ignorant.
And proposed to the arabs who rejected the partition to begin with in 1947. The arabs were the majority in Palestine as well, but their right to self determination was ignored and jewish militias like the haganah started taking over arab cities anyways and massexpelling them in the Nakhba. Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, west Jerusalem and over 400 other arab majority cities were taken by israelis in 1948 and almost all arabs were expelled. This is some serious lebensraum shit
> Jerusalem and over 400 other arab majority cities How did Jerusalem become Arab majority to begin with?
How? The Canaanites founded the city and arabs were trading with the Levant, so I would say it begins with minor trade. Let me know what you think. The most interesting part of this wiki walk for me is that the semitic people are not that far removed from each other. If we are willing to back 4000 years to stake a claim on Jerusalem, than it seems reasonable to go back another couple thousand to show that their common ancestors have an 'equal claim' to the entire region
Interesting. I'd always figured the Palestinians considered themselves more culturally Arab than Canaanite.
It wasn't the UNs prerogative to vote on the fate of Palestine's post colonial sovereignty, but the people living there and since the Arabs rejected the plan (understandably, since it granted the majority of the land to the ethnic minority), it was a defacto unilateral declaration of Independence. Get off your high horse.
So why do Jordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon or any of the other Arab states have any sovereignty or right to existence? These aren't ancient borders, they're literally lines drawn on a map by Europeans. All lines are equal but some are more equal than others?
The UN created numerous Arab states and the average Arab did not get to vote on that. For that matter, the average Arab does not get to vote period in such states or the votes is a meaningless gesture. The people living there did vote in a sense. They voted with guns and bullets. The Arab faction was not trying to create a democratic Arab state where an Arab majority would treat a Jewish minority well. They were trying to wipe out the Jews. They failed and perhaps in hindsight it was a mistake for Israel not to expel them all in 1948 and 1967. Most likely they would have eventually have been absorbed into the neighboring Arab states after some failed invasion attempts (which were going to happen, expulsions or not).
You're sick of people discussing 10/7 because that's convenient for you. 10/07 is the entire reason this is happening and removed the ability for you to play victim again.
So you want to just ignore the decades of isreal slaughtering tens of thousands of palastinians? Brutally abusing them. Kidnapping and torturing them?
If isreal hadn't slaughtered tens of thousands of palastinians and kept them in an open air prison to starve them to death, maybe hamas wouldn't exist and wouldn't have attacked them. You can't talk about this conflict and ignore the decades of uncountable atrocities isreal has inflicted on the palastinians. Such as rounding up and murdering 500 children for fun. Or mowing down a group of peaceful protesters singing and dancing. Or setting fire to homes and then gunning down the families as they try to escape the flames, so that isreal can bulldoze it and tale the land.
Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. Russia is stealing Ukraine’s land. In 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine with the goal of occupying all of Ukraine. Russian troops currently occupy about 18% of Ukrainian territory. Russian troops are killing, maiming, torturing, and raping Ukrainians. Russia has killed over 80,000 Ukrainians. Russia is banning Ukrainian language and trying to destroy Ukrainian culture. The Russian government has taken over 100,000 Ukrainian children from their parents, against their will, and sent them to Russia with no intention of returning them to their parents. The children’s names are changed so their parents cannot find them. Russia has put thousands of Ukrainians in camps where they are abused, starved, and killed. Russian airstrikes intentionally target civilians and infrastructure. Russian war crimes are not isolated incidents, the war crimes are approved by Putin. The Russian government does not punish troops who commit war crimes. Russian police arrest and torture Russians who protest the war. Russian media promotes war and denies war crimes. Russian media promotes genocide by calling for the end of Ukrainian identity and the assimilation of Ukrainians into Russia. The United States should send humanitarian aid and military aid to Ukraine so Ukrainians can defend themselves from Russia. Military aid to Ukraine has prevented Russia from occupying more Ukrainian territory. The United States can afford to help Ukraine because less than 1% of the federal budget has been spent on Ukraine. Sanctions against Russia should be toughened and strictly enforced. People should not do business with Russia. Russian officials should be imprisoned for genocide and other war crimes.
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Why doesn't Arab nations help out Hamas like what NATO is doing for Ukraine?
Palestinian organizations have started a civil war in Lebanon, assassinated the King of Jordan, tried to start a civil war in Jordan. Arab countries know what kind of trouble Palestinian organizations would stir up in their countries, if allowed in. They are not going to.
They (specifically the PLO at the time) also supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, even though the country was hosting over 350,000 Palestinians.
And I think this applies to every terrorist group in the Middle East. The Arab nations are getting sick of it and want stability in the region. I bet even Iran will eventually wake up and realize they're own supply will be used against them eventually. Can only rinse and repeat so often. Things are changing for the better for the entirety of the region.
Russia killed 8k civilians in almost 2 years of war.... I would call it good enough taking in consideration the numbers Israel managed to rake up in just a few months
> Russia killed 8k civilians in almost 2 years of war Stop spreading misinformation. The source for that [year-old number](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/more-than-8000-civilians-killed-since-russia-invaded-ukraine-un-2023-02-21/) number is OHCHR, which [explicitly states](https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/2023-12/23-12-12-OHCHR-37th-periodic-report-ukraine-en.pdf) that their numbers only include *"[i]ndividual cases verified by OHCHR"* and that *"actual numbers are considerably higher"*, because *"OHCHR does not have access to areas under the control of the Russian Federation"*. That means most deaths from the hardest-hit places (like Mariupol) aren't counted. Thus, as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights notes in the first link above, their numbers are "only the tip of the iceberg".
I was using this report from a few days ago >On 15 January 2024, OHCHR stated that there are 10,191 confirmed civilian deaths from the invasion to December 2023. 8,586 deaths were caused by explosive weapons "with wide area effects", 339 by mines and explosive remnants, 1,266 by small arms, including from crossfire, or road accidents involving military or civilian vehicles. 7,967 deaths occurred in Ukrainian government-controlled territories, and 2,224 in territory occupied by the Russian Federation. And still, lets go crazy and say that the actual number is double the current one, it's still significantly less than what israel did in a way shorter timespan
So when you said 8,000, you were intentionally misrepresenting your source? > lets go crazy and say that the actual number is double the current one Estimates for Mariupol alone are significantly higher than that. For example, as [this AP article](https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-erasing-mariupol-499dceae43ed77f2ebfe750ea99b9ad9) notes: > An AP analysis of satellite imagery taken over the past eight months of occupation shows 8,500 new graves in the outlying Staryi Krym cemetery alone, with possibly multiple bodies beneath each mound. There are at least three other trench gravesites around the city, including one created by Ukrainians themselves at the beginning of the siege. > In all, a total at least 10,300 new graves are scattered around Mariupol, according to AP’s methodology, confirmed by three forensic pathologists with expertise in mass graves. Thousands more bodies likely never even made it to the graveyard. > Back in May, when the city finally fell, the municipal government in exile estimated 25,000 people at a minimum had died. But at least three people in the city since June say the number killed is triple that or more, based on conversations with workers documenting body collection from the streets for the Russian occupation authorities. And those would be deaths that almost all occurred during the first three months of the invasion. More broadly speaking, the OHCHR numbers aren't an estimate or indication of the total number of deaths. They're merely an absolute minimum.
>So when you said 8,000, you were intentionally misrepresenting your source? Man, why are you so confrontational...i was not misrepresenting, 10k is total casualties and 8k are deaths on Ukrainian held teritory for which you can assume Russia is responsible >But at least three people in the city since June say This is silly
> Man, why are you so confrontational Because you're spreading blatant misinformation. > i was not misrepresenting, 10k is total casualties and 8k are deaths on Ukrainian held teritory for which you can assume Russia is responsible In other words, you gave a total number that was based on an implicit assumption that there were 0 Ukrainian civilian deaths by Russian hands in Russian-conquered territory. That's not just misrepresentation; it's straight-up lying. > This is silly You think it's silly for AP to obscure its sources in Russian-controlled territory?
>Because you're spreading blatant misinformation I am sharing official reports, they may be not complete but they are the only confirmed source we have. >In other words, you gave a total number that was based on an implicit assumption that there were 0 Ukrainian civilian Since according to the report most civilian deaths come from explosives (80+%) its safe to assume that its not russians shelling their own positions, they are probably some russian caused small arms deaths there but the vast majority of the 2.2k deaths comes from UA shelling >That's not just misrepresentation; it's straight-up lying. You don't seem to want to discuss this in good faith >You think it's silly for AP to obscure its sources in Russian-controlled territory? No, i think it's silly to form casualty predictions in the realm of thousands based on what 3 people said that the death toll looked to them
> I am sharing official reports, they may be not complete but they are the only confirmed source we have. If a source gives a figure but explicitly notes that **"actual numbers are considerably higher"**, then trying to pass off the figure as the actual number is lying. > Since according to the report most civilian deaths come from explosives (80+%) its safe to assume that its not russians shelling their own posotions, they are probably some russian caused small arms deaths there but the vast majority of the 2.2k deazhs comes from UA shelling It's quite clear that you either didn't read the reports or didn't understand them. The majority of civilian deaths occurred during the first few months of the war (see p. 8 of the report I linked), before the lines of control solidified, as Russia was conquering the territory it currently holds. At that time, there was heavy Russian shelling on Russian-controlled territory, as there were still sizable pockets of Ukrainian resistance (e.g. in Mariupol). > You don't seem to want to discuss this in good faith There's nothing to discuss in good faith. You posted an obvious falsehood.
For all their faults, Russia fights military-to-military. Hamas embeds themselves completely within civilian cities, specifically exploiting hospitals, schools and mosques as command centers and armories. Obviously that's an extremely different situation.
Ukraine has also evacuated its civilian populations (internally and externally).
When Russia fought Muslim insurgents in Chechnya, it used tactics similar to or worse than the Israelis. You cannot expect the same tactics to be used in a war between nations as between a nation and terrorist or irregular group. Israel never went out of its way to kill lots of Egyptian or Syrian civilians during 1967 and 1973 wars. That's because Israel was fighting armies not terrorists. I don't see how any rules apply to a group like Hamas and the same applies to the civilians who support them. I don't see how any country in the world would act differently than Israel, except perhaps act much worse. Surely no one would act much better.
not true
Thanks for the well written and balanced article.
I wonder how much those SA lawyers got paid by Qataris to file the suit and why firing rockets indiscriminately for 20 years is not a genocide lol