• BlueBockser@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I don’t think you know what the word genocide means. There are many things to criticize Israel for, and their behavior towards Palestinians and Israeli settlers in the West Bank is definitely part of it.

    But they are not deliberately killing civilians in Gaza. A genocidal regime doesn’t give their victims the opportunity to flee, leave open humanitarian corridors, establish ceasefire hours or provide fuel to the opposing side’s hospitals. A genocidal regime would’ve just rolled into Gaza immediately and shelled everything to pieces while the civilian population is still there, as for example Assad has done in Syria.

      • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        It is well established that Hamas is using civilian areas and infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and refugee camps as cover for military installations. In doing so, they make them legitimate military targets - that’s international law.

        Can you tell me why Hamas gets carte blanche but others such as Ukraine are criticized in similar circumstances?

        Oh and while we’re on the subject of deliberately killing civilians, I’m sure you will agree that the mass murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7th constitutes genocide as well, right?

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It is well established that Hamas is using civilian areas and infrastructure

          Established by whom?

          Can you tell me why Hamas gets carte blanche but others such as Ukraine are criticized in similar circumstances?

          On what planet has Hamas received carte blanche? Gaza is currently being carpet bombed. This is exactly what Russia did to Kyiv in the opening days of the war, and it seems clear that Israel and Russia are running identical playbooks. Mass murder of the population as a form of ethnic cleansing is now the standard military doctrine of encroaching powers.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Ukraine isn’t an open air concentration camp governed in large part by Israeli blockade and airstrike and has been for thirty fuckin years dudes. Not quite the same situation is it?

          • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            So you’re saying it’s okay to use human shields when under blockade? You might want to read up on the Geneva conventions.

            Also, do you know what country Gaza shares its Souther border with? That’s right, Egypt. How on Earth can Israel establish an open air prison when Gaza shares a border with a friendly Arab nation? How do they get all their supplies into Gaza, civilian and military? How come more than 200k Gaza civilians had work visa in Israel before the October 7th attacks? That’s right, because it’s not an open air prison.

    • Madison420@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You mean aside from those times they said specifically they were attacking civilians to “get to” Hamas access that the civilians are “human shields”.

      Just an fyi I think in a few years your georing to feel really fuckin bad about your rhetoric.

      • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        You literally just said that Hamas is using their own civilians as human shields, so maybe put the blame on Hamas, where it belongs?

        Israel has a right to self-defense and in doing so has no other choice but to hurt civilians. That doesn’t mean they’re deliberately targeting civilians like Hamas does, and international law agrees with that.

        • Madison420@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          No one is saying not to blame Hamas, they have responsibilities too, that doesn’t however give Israel an ok to bomb civilian targets and starve out a civilian population, it’s been a literal war crime since at least the 1400s.

          Sure, they can defend themselves. Striking civilian targets, in civilian, areas with civilian populations is still a goddamn war crime. You didn’t see England intentionally bombing civilian targets even when v2s were hitting every single goddamn day. The international community is literally telling them to stop striking civilian targets because they are in fact admitting to doing just that!

          • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            that doesn’t however give Israel an ok to bomb civilian targets

            They’re bombing military targets and are causing civilian casualties in doing so, which is generally not forbidden by the Geneva Conventions. As long as civilian harm is not excessive in relation to the military objective to be achieved, an attack is valid and not a war crime.

            You didn’t see England intentionally bombing civilian targets even when v2s were hitting every single goddamn day.

            …what? Have you read any books on Allied strategic bombing of German cities in WW2? There were firestorms in Hamburg and cities like Bochum were basically flattened. Britain’s Air Marshal Arthur Harris even stated this:

            the aim of the Combined Bomber Offensive…should be unambiguously stated [as] the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany.

        • Therealgoodjanet@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          You mean right to defend itself under Article 51 of the UN charter, right?

          That doesn’t apply if you’re an occupying force. And for anyone saying “Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza, there are no Israeli officials there” if you control movement, water, gas, power, food supplies, where civilians can and can’t travel to, and the territory is not allowed to exist independently, all of that “right to defend yourself” is null and void.

          • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            Israel is as much an occupying force as Egypt is. Both share borders with Gaza, so your argument holds no water. If Egypt wanted to, they could relieve all pressure on Palestinian civilians by simply opening up their border with Gaza. Israel by itself cannot enforce a blockade of Gaza.

            • Therealgoodjanet@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              So because Egypt isn’t doing enough, Israel isn’t to blame? Right. Solid argument.

              What Egypt does or doesn’t do does not in any way negate the fact that Israel is completely out of line.

              What an argument “but look at them, they are also bad, which means the even badder guys must not be as bad”.

    • Therealgoodjanet@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So, let’s look at the definition of genocide and see where Israel lands here.

      Definition

      Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide

      Article II

      In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

      Killing members of the group;

      • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
      • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
      • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
      • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

      Source: the UN

      So; let’s have a quick look at these points:

      (1) Over 11,000 deaths, majority of civilians. And I’m just talking about deaths since Oct 7, I did not include any numbers from before that. Check.

      (2) Illegal occupation and cutting off food, water, electricity and free movement. Check.

      (3) Unknown to me.

      (4) Unknown to me.

      The head of the UN, Craig Mokhiber, just retired and called it unequivocally a genocide, here’s a source for that, but if you don’t like this source, you can just Google this and find plenty of other sources.

      So, please tell me. How does Israel not fit as a genocidal regime?

      • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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        1 year ago

        with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

        Civilian deaths and cutting off resource supplies to your enemy happens in every war. It’s when the intent is the destruction of a people that it becomes a genocide, and you have yet to provide any proof of that.

          • BlueBockser@programming.dev
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            1 year ago

            In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group […]

            any of these as long as there’s intent to destroy. Without intent to destroy, it’s not a genocide. Quite simple, really, if you read the charter.

            None of the links prove or even hint at intent to destroy the Palestinian population. They hint at fears that Israel might occupy Gaza partiallly or fully and even displace Palestinian civilians permanently. While absolutely terrible, that isn’t genocide according to the Geneva Conventions you quoted above.

            Again, where’s your proof for intent to destroy the Palestinian people?

            • Therealgoodjanet@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              It seems you haven’t read any of the linked articles, so there is no need to talk about this any further until you do.