Great post, thank you. I do have trouble in blaming a President 100% for issues and policies brought forth by Congress with a veto proof majority. In such cases a president may agree if passing is inevitable. The Congress holds responsibility in many cases.
I get it, but I also think there're real problems with "genocide." It's vague and off-putting and prone to overuse. It just is. What if we in the USA said something like "UN 242, now!"? Personally, I think that's tighter and more radical. Let's be specific.
Yes, and the ICJ has said regarding that definition "intent to destroy the group, in whole or in part, must be the only reasonable inference which can be drawn from the pattern of conduct.”
If, for example, civilians were living on top of hundreds of miles of tunnels housing a terrorist army, a reasonable inference could be made that the deaths were the result of military objectives.
So no, it is not at all clear that it is genocide based on the judicial interpretation of the definition.
I know, and I do get it. But I just think it's inherently abstract and prone to misuse. Which is the better slogan: "Stop the genocide!" or "242 Now!"? I think the latter, by far.
I know, and I do get it. But I just think it's inherently abstract and prone to misuse. Which is the better slogan: "Stop the genocide!" or "242 Now!"? I think the latter, by far.
The definition requires intent. If you intend to destroy a group, you do not warn them of attacks, you do not allow any food at all, for the entirety of the war, and you do not treat them as full citizens in your own country. You do not spend 18 months in a dense urban war and kill fewer civilians than are born in a year. Israel has done all of these, and more. These are facts.
Using the term genocide in this situation reduces the word to meaninglessness, which makes the perpetrators of actual genocide very happy.
A few notes:
The ICJ in the South Africa complaint does not actually address intent. Read the documents.
The ICJ does mention that genocide must affect a substantial portion of the group. About 1% of Gazans, and far less than 1% of total Palestinians is not a substantial portion.
The ICJ says that “intent to destroy the group, in whole or in part, must be the only reasonable inference which can be drawn from the pattern of conduct.” If, for example, civilians were living on top of hundreds of miles of tunnels housing a terrorist army, a reasonable inference could be made that the deaths were the result of military objectives. But Amnesty International decided that interpretation is "overly cramped", and unilaterally changed the definition of "intent" so they could implicate Israel.
If you are interested in sources, and a lot more detail, I am happy to help.
I doubt you're "happy" to do much anything considering how little you seem to care for human life. Your 3rd paragraph is demonstrably false on every point. And it's sickening how much you rationalize civilian slaughter by calling it "war" and coldly reduce it with idiotic percentage games and terms like "military objectives."
If you think using the term "genocide" in this situation reduces it to meaningless, take it up with the scores of Jewish and Israeli scholars like Omer Bartov who say it's genocide. I'm sure they'd love to experience your great empathy for others and hear your expert informed opinion on this.
In addition to actually reading the sources I provided, which you clearly have not, I suggest you revisit the articles of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), which clearly describe the conditions defining it so. As for intent, what do phrases like "wipe Gaza off the map” and “human dust” to describe Arabs in the 1948 Israeli state archives mean to you? The calls for "cleansing" and "exterminating" the people of Gaza are too many to list here. Do the work yourself. I'm not your servant.
There’s nothing nuanced and overly complicated about what is happening. We're well past parsing definitions to check and re-check like we’re reading the fine print of a home loan. It’s as obvious as the “full blown famine” happening in Gaza. Making this more complicated than it is is a deliberately moral obtuse strategy. Condescend elsewhere.
If you would like to discuss this based on facts, let me know.
For example, which points are "demonstrably false", specifically? Why do you not demonstrate them?
If you would like to continue with fact-free ad hominem attacks, without actually rebutting a single one of my facts, let me know that, and I won't bother.
Did you read any of the sources provided? You can check in with ANY of the scholars listed to find out why they believe it to be genocide. I will only refute one claim of yours, that the Palestinians enjoy full citizenship in Israel. There are neighborhoods and streets where it's illegal for them to go. They are made to explain their religious lineage for several generations to get past certain checkpoints. They live under apartheid and you are listening to supremacist propaganda.
He knows he is. He and anti-vaxxer crackpots use the same dishonest rhetorical smokescreen posing as “honest debate.” In the end it all boils down to defending eugenics and genocide.
I note that you did not address my arguments, but just referred to sources.
By “sources”, did you mean the list of names without links? I did look at a couple of them.
But first, a Pro Tip: If you want to make a point that “person A made statement B”, it is not very convincing to just make that statement. It is much better to provide a link of that specific statement by person A. Anyone can just cut and paste a list of names. Since you and Jim have done the hard work of reading the sources, I assume online, then why not share your efforts so everyone can see for themselves exactly what is being said? If you feel that actually providing documentation for your claims is being someone’s servant, I’m sorry, I can’t help you there.
As an example, here are a few sources that demonstrate that while the attacks are tragic and horrific, they are necessary and follow military law.
Or I could just list a bunch of names, if that's what will change your mind.
Another point – I have done research and drawn conclusions, but I may have missed something. If you have information that would affect my conclusions, please let me know and I may change my mind. For example, if you can send sources about neighborhoods where Israeli Palestinians are forbidden, I will look at them.
There was one actual link Jim provided. It was to an article written only 8 days after October 7, before Israel had even sent troops into Gaza. It talks about a “warning of potential genocide” That’s in the title, in case you missed it. If you think that a warning of a potential of a crime is evidence of a crime, I will have to disagree.
I decided to look at number 10 and number 20 on the list, rather than try to cherry pick. Number 10 was B’Tselem. I went to their website and did a search on “genocide”. I got 51 hits, but I tried the first 5 or 6, and none of them contained the word “genocide”. Then I did a google search “site:btselem.org genocide.” I got zero hits. If you can find direct evidence that they used the term genocide, let me know. If you can’t, you can just ask Jim to take them off the list. You will check on this and ask him to take them B’Tselem off the list if I am correct, won’t you?
Their conclusion is in fact that Israel’s actions violate the Genocide Convention, so they get to stay on the list.
A few points to demonstrate what, in my opinion, is significant bias.
-They do not distinguish between civilian and military casualties.
-They do not distinguish between deaths caused by Israel or by other causes. They certainly do not distinguish between deaths caused by Israeli bombs and bullets, vs. deaths caused by Hamas bombs and bullets. I have not found evidence that the death toll even excludes events that would happen without a war, like automobile accidents. If you have such evidence, I would like to see it.
-Relocation of civilian populations to take them away from intense combat eliminates Israel’s element of surprise but reduces Gazan civilian casualties. The report considers that a violation of the Geneva Convention and evidence of genocide, when reason says the opposite.
My major criticism of such reports (Amnesty International is the same) is as follows:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) says genocidal intent must be the *only* reasonable inference drawn from a pattern of conduct. (above report, page 30).
Here’s the unbiased interpretation. Hamas spent 15 years building about 300 miles of tunnels for their army. It is a military facility. It has entrances in children’s bedrooms and hospitals, and it goes under mosques, schools, apartment buildings, and pretty much everything in Gaza.
Hamas has made it a point that civilians dying is part of their strategy, so they make no attempt to protect their civilians. They say that is up to the UN.
So maybe, just maybe, it is reasonable to infer that when Israel bombs a school building, often after warning the occupants, it is because there is a tunnel underneath, or Hamas fighters in it, or weapons stored there. That is not genocide, that is war.
The report utterly ignores that interpretation.
Instead it refers to other cases where Croats were singled out from among other groups in a much different environment. It refers to a 6 countries who decided that genocidal intent should be the “dominant” explanation instead of the “only” explanation that the ICJ explicitly specifies. They make up their own definition and use that instead of the accepted definition.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said “the purpose of the act must be to kill members of the group, and that the act be of sufficient intensity as to suggest an attempt “to wipe out or even deplete the civilian population through attrition,”
The annual death rate in the US is about 9 per 1000. We can figure out the equivalent for the population of Gaza over 19 months. It comes out to 30,000 deaths if the situation were as deadly as the US. If you assume 20,000 Hamas as part of the dead, that means about 30,000 civilians died. I have trouble understanding how it is an attempt to wipe out or deplete the civilian population if the death rate is the same as it is in the US with not even a pandemic going on.
Here’s another approach. If Israel truly had the goal of eliminating Gazans, they would be done by now. There would have been no food, no water, no fuel, no electricity, no ceasefires, no negotiations, no vaccines, no medical supplies, no warnings of attacks, starting October 8, 2023. There would be no Israeli boots on the ground, because that risks Israeli lives. There have been no death camps, no collection and mass shooting of civilians. The actual civilian population probably has not decreased. I am not aware of any genocides missing every one of those factors. Let me know if you are.
One last thing. The human rights lawyers absolutely know the law, and the definitions. They have a lot of empathy, and when they see suffering on the scale of Gaza, they want to use the tools available to stop it. I do too. It feels like you are doing something when you call the horrific actions the worst thing you can think of, which is genocide. But that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it genocide just because it feels good to use the word.
The critical question is whether the civilian deaths are justified militarily. The human rights lawyers, and doctors, and charitable organizations, and academics are not qualified to make that decision.
He’s basically a world expert on Urban Warfare, Subterranean Warfare, and teaches at West Point.
He is unambiguosly of the opinion that Israel is doing better than any other country at minimizing civilian casualties in urban and subterranean combat.
I’m not saying Israel is perfect. I am strongly opposed to Netanyahu and what his party is doing.
It is a horrific war, no more, no less. The fact that it is defensive on Israel’s part (not existential, but defensive) does not make it any less horrific.
But I firmly believe that an unbiased person would not consider what Israel is doing to be genocide.
I hope you actually read this and absorb it, rather than dismiss it as "supremacist propaganda" without even looking, just because it does not conform to your existing opinions.
Great post, thank you. I do have trouble in blaming a President 100% for issues and policies brought forth by Congress with a veto proof majority. In such cases a president may agree if passing is inevitable. The Congress holds responsibility in many cases.
Yes I agree. We have a collective responsibility.
WOW you’re amazing
I get it, but I also think there're real problems with "genocide." It's vague and off-putting and prone to overuse. It just is. What if we in the USA said something like "UN 242, now!"? Personally, I think that's tighter and more radical. Let's be specific.
The legal definition of genocide exists.
Yes, and the ICJ has said regarding that definition "intent to destroy the group, in whole or in part, must be the only reasonable inference which can be drawn from the pattern of conduct.”
If, for example, civilians were living on top of hundreds of miles of tunnels housing a terrorist army, a reasonable inference could be made that the deaths were the result of military objectives.
So no, it is not at all clear that it is genocide based on the judicial interpretation of the definition.
I know, and I do get it. But I just think it's inherently abstract and prone to misuse. Which is the better slogan: "Stop the genocide!" or "242 Now!"? I think the latter, by far.
I know, and I do get it. But I just think it's inherently abstract and prone to misuse. Which is the better slogan: "Stop the genocide!" or "242 Now!"? I think the latter, by far.
Points!
Great poin6, thx
What is going on in Gaza is tragic and horrific.
It is not genocide.
The definition requires intent. If you intend to destroy a group, you do not warn them of attacks, you do not allow any food at all, for the entirety of the war, and you do not treat them as full citizens in your own country. You do not spend 18 months in a dense urban war and kill fewer civilians than are born in a year. Israel has done all of these, and more. These are facts.
Using the term genocide in this situation reduces the word to meaninglessness, which makes the perpetrators of actual genocide very happy.
A few notes:
The ICJ in the South Africa complaint does not actually address intent. Read the documents.
The ICJ does mention that genocide must affect a substantial portion of the group. About 1% of Gazans, and far less than 1% of total Palestinians is not a substantial portion.
The ICJ says that “intent to destroy the group, in whole or in part, must be the only reasonable inference which can be drawn from the pattern of conduct.” If, for example, civilians were living on top of hundreds of miles of tunnels housing a terrorist army, a reasonable inference could be made that the deaths were the result of military objectives. But Amnesty International decided that interpretation is "overly cramped", and unilaterally changed the definition of "intent" so they could implicate Israel.
If you are interested in sources, and a lot more detail, I am happy to help.
I doubt you're "happy" to do much anything considering how little you seem to care for human life. Your 3rd paragraph is demonstrably false on every point. And it's sickening how much you rationalize civilian slaughter by calling it "war" and coldly reduce it with idiotic percentage games and terms like "military objectives."
If you think using the term "genocide" in this situation reduces it to meaningless, take it up with the scores of Jewish and Israeli scholars like Omer Bartov who say it's genocide. I'm sure they'd love to experience your great empathy for others and hear your expert informed opinion on this.
In addition to actually reading the sources I provided, which you clearly have not, I suggest you revisit the articles of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), which clearly describe the conditions defining it so. As for intent, what do phrases like "wipe Gaza off the map” and “human dust” to describe Arabs in the 1948 Israeli state archives mean to you? The calls for "cleansing" and "exterminating" the people of Gaza are too many to list here. Do the work yourself. I'm not your servant.
There’s nothing nuanced and overly complicated about what is happening. We're well past parsing definitions to check and re-check like we’re reading the fine print of a home loan. It’s as obvious as the “full blown famine” happening in Gaza. Making this more complicated than it is is a deliberately moral obtuse strategy. Condescend elsewhere.
Jim,
If you would like to discuss this based on facts, let me know.
For example, which points are "demonstrably false", specifically? Why do you not demonstrate them?
If you would like to continue with fact-free ad hominem attacks, without actually rebutting a single one of my facts, let me know that, and I won't bother.
Did you read any of the sources provided? You can check in with ANY of the scholars listed to find out why they believe it to be genocide. I will only refute one claim of yours, that the Palestinians enjoy full citizenship in Israel. There are neighborhoods and streets where it's illegal for them to go. They are made to explain their religious lineage for several generations to get past certain checkpoints. They live under apartheid and you are listening to supremacist propaganda.
He knows he is. He and anti-vaxxer crackpots use the same dishonest rhetorical smokescreen posing as “honest debate.” In the end it all boils down to defending eugenics and genocide.
No response to my sources facts, and no response to my request for your sources.
What conclusion should be drawn on the strength of your argument?
I note that you did not address my arguments, but just referred to sources.
By “sources”, did you mean the list of names without links? I did look at a couple of them.
But first, a Pro Tip: If you want to make a point that “person A made statement B”, it is not very convincing to just make that statement. It is much better to provide a link of that specific statement by person A. Anyone can just cut and paste a list of names. Since you and Jim have done the hard work of reading the sources, I assume online, then why not share your efforts so everyone can see for themselves exactly what is being said? If you feel that actually providing documentation for your claims is being someone’s servant, I’m sorry, I can’t help you there.
As an example, here are a few sources that demonstrate that while the attacks are tragic and horrific, they are necessary and follow military law.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-moral-and-legal-case-for-israels-war-against-hamas (behind a paywall, but this is a free link)
https://archive.ph/JeDw9
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5077022-war-gaza-hospitals-israel/
Or I could just list a bunch of names, if that's what will change your mind.
Another point – I have done research and drawn conclusions, but I may have missed something. If you have information that would affect my conclusions, please let me know and I may change my mind. For example, if you can send sources about neighborhoods where Israeli Palestinians are forbidden, I will look at them.
There was one actual link Jim provided. It was to an article written only 8 days after October 7, before Israel had even sent troops into Gaza. It talks about a “warning of potential genocide” That’s in the title, in case you missed it. If you think that a warning of a potential of a crime is evidence of a crime, I will have to disagree.
I decided to look at number 10 and number 20 on the list, rather than try to cherry pick. Number 10 was B’Tselem. I went to their website and did a search on “genocide”. I got 51 hits, but I tried the first 5 or 6, and none of them contained the word “genocide”. Then I did a google search “site:btselem.org genocide.” I got zero hits. If you can find direct evidence that they used the term genocide, let me know. If you can’t, you can just ask Jim to take them off the list. You will check on this and ask him to take them B’Tselem off the list if I am correct, won’t you?
Number 20 was Boston University School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic (University Network for Human Rights UNHR). A search resulted in this. https://www.bu.edu/articles/2024/is-israel-committing-genocide-in-gaza/
Their conclusion is in fact that Israel’s actions violate the Genocide Convention, so they get to stay on the list.
A few points to demonstrate what, in my opinion, is significant bias.
-They do not distinguish between civilian and military casualties.
-They do not distinguish between deaths caused by Israel or by other causes. They certainly do not distinguish between deaths caused by Israeli bombs and bullets, vs. deaths caused by Hamas bombs and bullets. I have not found evidence that the death toll even excludes events that would happen without a war, like automobile accidents. If you have such evidence, I would like to see it.
-Relocation of civilian populations to take them away from intense combat eliminates Israel’s element of surprise but reduces Gazan civilian casualties. The report considers that a violation of the Geneva Convention and evidence of genocide, when reason says the opposite.
The full report is here: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/66a134337e960f229da81434/t/66fb05bb0497da4726e125d8/1727727037094/Genocide+in+Gaza+-+Final+version+051524.pdf
My major criticism of such reports (Amnesty International is the same) is as follows:
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) says genocidal intent must be the *only* reasonable inference drawn from a pattern of conduct. (above report, page 30).
Here’s the unbiased interpretation. Hamas spent 15 years building about 300 miles of tunnels for their army. It is a military facility. It has entrances in children’s bedrooms and hospitals, and it goes under mosques, schools, apartment buildings, and pretty much everything in Gaza.
Hamas has made it a point that civilians dying is part of their strategy, so they make no attempt to protect their civilians. They say that is up to the UN.
So maybe, just maybe, it is reasonable to infer that when Israel bombs a school building, often after warning the occupants, it is because there is a tunnel underneath, or Hamas fighters in it, or weapons stored there. That is not genocide, that is war.
The report utterly ignores that interpretation.
Instead it refers to other cases where Croats were singled out from among other groups in a much different environment. It refers to a 6 countries who decided that genocidal intent should be the “dominant” explanation instead of the “only” explanation that the ICJ explicitly specifies. They make up their own definition and use that instead of the accepted definition.
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia said “the purpose of the act must be to kill members of the group, and that the act be of sufficient intensity as to suggest an attempt “to wipe out or even deplete the civilian population through attrition,”
The annual death rate in the US is about 9 per 1000. We can figure out the equivalent for the population of Gaza over 19 months. It comes out to 30,000 deaths if the situation were as deadly as the US. If you assume 20,000 Hamas as part of the dead, that means about 30,000 civilians died. I have trouble understanding how it is an attempt to wipe out or deplete the civilian population if the death rate is the same as it is in the US with not even a pandemic going on.
Here’s another approach. If Israel truly had the goal of eliminating Gazans, they would be done by now. There would have been no food, no water, no fuel, no electricity, no ceasefires, no negotiations, no vaccines, no medical supplies, no warnings of attacks, starting October 8, 2023. There would be no Israeli boots on the ground, because that risks Israeli lives. There have been no death camps, no collection and mass shooting of civilians. The actual civilian population probably has not decreased. I am not aware of any genocides missing every one of those factors. Let me know if you are.
One last thing. The human rights lawyers absolutely know the law, and the definitions. They have a lot of empathy, and when they see suffering on the scale of Gaza, they want to use the tools available to stop it. I do too. It feels like you are doing something when you call the horrific actions the worst thing you can think of, which is genocide. But that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it genocide just because it feels good to use the word.
The critical question is whether the civilian deaths are justified militarily. The human rights lawyers, and doctors, and charitable organizations, and academics are not qualified to make that decision.
Here’s the guy who is.
https://www.johnspenceronline.com/bio
He’s basically a world expert on Urban Warfare, Subterranean Warfare, and teaches at West Point.
He is unambiguosly of the opinion that Israel is doing better than any other country at minimizing civilian casualties in urban and subterranean combat.
You can read any of his professional articles.
https://www.johnspenceronline.com/publications
Here are a few. I listed two at the top, but added a third.
https://archive.ph/JeDw9 (behind a paywall, but this is free)
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/5077022-war-gaza-hospitals-israel/
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286
I’m not saying Israel is perfect. I am strongly opposed to Netanyahu and what his party is doing.
It is a horrific war, no more, no less. The fact that it is defensive on Israel’s part (not existential, but defensive) does not make it any less horrific.
But I firmly believe that an unbiased person would not consider what Israel is doing to be genocide.
I hope you actually read this and absorb it, rather than dismiss it as "supremacist propaganda" without even looking, just because it does not conform to your existing opinions.