How the turntables
How the turntables
120 comments
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Uh huh. So… show me the gas chambers and other mass-death centers.
Not all genocides are alike. Not all use the same methods.
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The closest thing to a genocide is the West Bank situation. But its still relatively ambiguous. I'll give you points if you bring up West Bank issues because that at least gets the idea of genocide correct.
But Gaza is just a war man. A really brutal one where they obviously don't care about each other or civilians and such. Both my grandmothers were in the Philippines during WW2 and the Japanese occupation. Life sucked. But they won't call the Japanese genocidal there.
We reserve the word "genocide" for the explicit... well... erasures of people... to put it mildly. As brutal as Israel has gotten here in Gaza, its not a top-down policy of erasure.
Settlement / land stealing? Sure, could be genocidal.
Forced sterilization like the Uyghurs? Yeah, Genocide.
Etc. etc.
I'm fine with any example that shows a real genocide here. But I know you don't got any real example of genocidal programs occurring in Gaza.
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If a perpetrator hides their intentions but otherwise still does the acts that count as genocide, is it no longer a genocide because the goal is not stated to be genocide? Does the same also apply for ethnic cleansing?
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In US Law: the unwarranted death of someone can be:
- Negligent Homicide (ie: "Intent" judged to be negligent level).
- Manslaughter (ie: "Intent" judged to be reckless level).
- Murder (ie: "Intent" judged to be... well... intentional).
The "intent" is the entire debate. You have to prove that a death was at negligence / reckelssness / intentional to level off between the various crimes. Genocide is the same thing, you have to prove intent as part of it.
We both can look at the death of people (or the death of thousands, tens of thousands, or millions) and agree upon the dead bodies. But with regards to common law and the meaning of our words: it isn't "murder" unless it is intentional. And its not "genocide" unless the intent was to wipe out the population.
As such: a nuclear weapon (ie: Hiroshima or Nagasaki) is not considered genocide even if it kills far more people, far more quickly (and even innocent people) than anything Israel does today.
Obviously intent can be hidden. (Its still truly a murder if you intended for someone to die. Even if you pretend it was an accident). But a large component of the definition of genocide is indeed, the "intent" behind the actions. If you can't prove intent, then at "best" you only have the mass slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians.
Which... frankly should be enough of a point to your debate to ya know... make a point or whatever about Israel's needless brutality on this matter. But if you overplay your word-choice and miscalculate / misuse the word genocide, you lose debate points.
The reason why I consider West Bank setter bullshit to be "possible genocide", is because the entire damn point of land-stealing like that is to wipe out populations by squeezing them out of the land they live in. But bombs in population centers? (Even dumb bombs that Israel is using?) much harder to prove intent.
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So what would it take to convince you that it is intentional?
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Its hard for me to draw a line. In the case of Hitler / Nazis, they were just openly proclaiming it and shouting it from the rooftops so its obviously an easy call.
The level at which the Chinese invoke upon the Uyghur and/or the Russians vs the Ukrainians is sufficient. Both deny the genocide, but large scale forced sterilizations is a specific program designed to prevent births and is obviously genocidal. Russia vs Ukraine is a top-down high-level program to kidnap children, burn Ukrainian books, deny Ukrainian culture, and explicitly filter Ukrainian identity and disperse it. There's not much killing style genocide (aside from the Ukrainian war / atrocities in Bucha), but this is clearly an intentional program.
So something like that. When I see Israelis specifically doing genocidal actions that have been organized on a mass scale, then it'd reach the level of "Genocide" that I've called the Chinese / Russians out on.
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but large scale forced sterilizations is a specific program designed to prevent births and is obviously genocidal.
So what about this shows intention for genocide? How does that count as genocide (intention included) but the bombing of civilian areas comprising ~50% children does not? One is the act of preventing an ethnic group from breeding, the second is much the same just delayed a number of years after conception. You can't breed if the state sterilized you, and you can't breed if your children don't make it past childhood because the state killed them. This is only made worse by the fact that bombing children is far more violent than forced sterilizations.
Does the large scale "program" as you put it, to force Palestinians from their homes not factor into this? What about Israel shutting off water and food for millions of people?
Russia vs Ukraine is a top-down high-level program to kidnap children, burn Ukrainian books, deny Ukrainian culture, and explicitly filter Ukrainian identity and disperse it.
https://time.com/6548068/palestinian-children-israeli-prison-arrested/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/time/
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/03/1216200754/gaza-heritage-sites-destroyed-israel
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/30/gaza-library-palestinian-culture/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-post/
The scale is not the same here at least in part due to the difference in size between Ukraine and Palestine. But the similarity is clear.
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How does that count as genocide (intention included) but the bombing of civilian areas comprising ~50% children does not?
Because historically speaking, mass bombing campaigns has never been considered a genocide.
but shutting off food and water to millions of civilians does not?
The issue at play here is that Hamas was incredibly shitty with the planning of their food security. There's no requirement for two warring parties to be forced to feed their enemy. The issue at hand is that Hamas set up Gaza to become reliant upon Israel for both food and water (instead of say, Egypt, or other such potential partners in the region). When Hamas attacks Israel, Israel is in the right to shut off the food and water and fuel and electricity, because there's no requirement to feed the enemy (excluding POWs or such situations you know what I mean).
In this case, its ambiguous because Israel continues to keep the aid deliveries open. Israel isn't in charge of food anymore (and they shouldn't be, and they never should have been to begin with). Its not like Siege of Lenningrad where all food aid was cut off entirely and the food aid was explicitly choked off / prevented from entering Leningrad.
Egypt and other parties are 100% allowed (and protected by Israel) to ship food to the south. That's not what a genocide looks like. Historically, you can look at actual events of history (ex: Siege of Leningrad) if you want to see what a starvation tactic actually looks like.
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Because historically speaking, mass bombing campaigns has never been considered a genocide.
Why? I'm trying to ask you what is the fundamental difference.
Why is forced sterilization considered genocide, but the intentional killing of children not?
The issue at play here is that Hamas was incredibly shitty with the planning of their food security
Everybody can play the blame game. That doesn't mean Israel should get a free pass for shutting off the water in areas they occupy, or for preventing food aid from arriving. They are aware that doing so will lead to civilian deaths, and will force them from their homes.
Also, see the above links, I edited my comment to add additional support for the comparison to Russia's actions against Ukraine.
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Why? I’m trying to ask you what is the fundamental difference.
Intent. We can kill a million in Tokyo and many of them civilians through the use of firebombs explicitly designed to spread fires across wooden structures that the Japanese were known for in the 1940s. But if we're not "intending" to erase the Japanese off the face of the earth, then its not a Genocide.
Why is forced sterilization considered genocide, but the intentional killing of children not?
Intentional killing is "just" murder. For it to rise to the level of genocide is for the intent to be beyond just "intentional". It needs to be "Intending to wipe out the people and destroy them entirely".
Now you and I can agree that murder is bad. In fact, I can agree with you that murder is bad. But a ton of murder, or even thousands or tens of thousands of cases of murder is not yet a genocide. Genocide is a word reserved for a horrible ethical crime beyond even just "Tens-of-thousands murdered".
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I am aware you are saying intent is required. I am asking how can you come to the conclusion that:
- Forced sterilizations
- Killing of children en mass
Only one of these has clear intention, while the other does not?
In case you missed it, going to copy and paste from earlier:
Russia vs Ukraine is a top-down high-level program to kidnap children, burn Ukrainian books, deny Ukrainian culture, and explicitly filter Ukrainian identity and disperse it.
https://time.com/6548068/palestinian-children-israeli-prison-arrested/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/time/
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/03/1216200754/gaza-heritage-sites-destroyed-israel
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/11/30/gaza-library-palestinian-culture/
https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/washington-post/
The scale is not the same here at least in part due to the difference in size between Ukraine and Palestine. But the similarity is clear.
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120 comments