General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt's genocide. I don't give a F**k who is offended!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/israeli-strikes-kill-dozens-gaza-091206507.htmlTrump has given the nod, and it's not just Gaza.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
usonian
(25,325 posts)
leftyladyfrommo
(20,005 posts)wants coastline property to build some luxurious resort.
It's always money with the Trumps. But with Musk trying to control stuff I think Trump might have run up against an even bigger monster than he is.
usonian
(25,325 posts)David Loy, in "Money, Sex, War and Karma" offers insights into the constructed nature of our "wants".
Also "A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack"
There is REAL lack and manufactured lack. "Someone else has more".
Things like money are symbols. One actually CAN "have enough" but since someone can always have more, it brings anguish rather than happiness. Famous quote: "Too much and never enough"
Book by Mary Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Too_Much_and_Never_Enough
malaise
(296,116 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 8, 2025, 03:32 PM - Edit history (1)
genocide and war crimes
That is all
PatrickforB
(15,426 posts)through the rest of this decade. Pluto entered Aquarius in November 2024 as a harbinger of a new way of thinking about things and organizing ourselves.
The change is the unraveling of big money, big corporations, end-stage capitalism and big centralized governments. It has all gotten too heavy. As time moves on we will find ourselves working more at the local levels to create conditions for self-sufficiency. Cottage industries, micro-lending, community gardens, local power generation, and other things.
I see lots of preppers who have truly bought the rugged individuality meme that has been so carefully put forth. The 'anti-woke' movement. Blood and soil and all that other nazi stuff. But we aren't that. Rugged individualists, I mean. Rather, we are interdependent. Our ability as individuals to cooperate with others for the sake of the group is what has kept us from going extinct, and this end-stage capitalism has created so many distortions in basic survival, the simple act of getting enough to live - air, water, food, clothing, shelter, warmth, safety...we must figure a way to build our local communities so they do that.
A great shaking? Yep. We need to get ready for a bumpy ride because the evil clowns will be in charge for a bit more time until it all falls down around their knees. But, hey, most of these billionaire parasites have their very own luxury bunkers! Gosh, I get a real warm feeling about that - don't you?
So that's it then. Our choice. I have severely limited my consumption of news at this point in favor of working on my emotional, mental and spiritual outlook. This is why I have not been posting much on here.
malaise
(296,116 posts)This planet is effed up u. Steroids
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)and only one party cut a secret side deal with Netanyahu during the election. A side deal that required Netanyahu to reject all further ceasefire proposals...
But yes, please keep believing both parties are the same....
themaguffin
(5,221 posts)brush
(61,033 posts)once a ceasefire and hostage release was near, as he always does. IMO he doesn't want a ceasefire/hostage release. He wants the Palestinians completely gone from Gaza and the West Bank...all for Israel and development.
It happens every time a deal is near. And yes, it is genocide, ethnic cleansing...whatever phrase you want to use.
DeepWinter
(931 posts)Not that Israel needs any approval from anyone.
Hamas has the power to stop this. 100%
Johnny2X2X
(24,208 posts)Israel.
Do you think genocide is the appropriate response to a terror attack and holding hostages?
DeepWinter
(931 posts)It's war. Hamas can stop it anytime they want. But they don't want it stopped. It's exactly the PR they want to win heart and minds over to terrorism. The college kids eat it up.
See post 5 below. 6, 16, and on.
Rob H.
(5,851 posts)any more than rowing a boat out to the middle of a lake, throwing a lit stick of dynamite overboard, and collecting the fish that float to the surface post-detonation is fishing. It's a wholesale slaughter that includes destroying transportation and sanitation infrastructures, schools, and hospitals--to say nothing of the fact that entire neighborhoods have been obliterated--and killing journalists, aid workers, doctors, and other innocent civilians. Israel is a terrorist state at this point and their leadership belongs in the Hague alongside the IDF soldiers who have serve them.
DeepWinter
(931 posts)Transportation, sanitation infrastructures, schools, and hospitals, entire neighborhoods were wiped out wholesale in WWII, Korea, VIetnam and it was the cost of war. It sucks. Gaza has a terrorist organization for a government. Until they get rid of that, they're in a no-win situation that they themselves voted into office.
endgenocide
(166 posts)Military's in the world can't get rid of Hamas how do you expect a hopeless, homeless and starving population of civilians to get rid of them. Your argument is pure unadulterated right wing talking points. Israel has no interest in getting rid of Hamas. Hamas is serving Israel's purpose of convincing people who don't want to see the truth that Gaza needs to be destroyed. Once Trump is in office your priorities and his in regard to Gaza will align perfectly. Gaza will be bulldozed and rebuilt as a settlement for Israeli Jews only.
Celerity
(54,409 posts)and his ultra right wing base of religio-fascist goons and their fever dreams of Eretz Yisrael.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel's ultra-nationalist minister, delivers anti-Palestinian diatribe in Paris
Netanyahu's finance minister participated in a gala event in Paris at the invitation of a French Jewish association close to the far right.
https://archive.ph/TVsfb
The Israeli ultranationalist Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister in Netanyahu's government and open Jewish supremacist, participated on Sunday, March 19, in a gala evening in Paris, organized by "Israel is Forever," a French Jewish association close to the far right.
Although it had been announced 10 days beforehand, Smotrich's arrival on the banks of the Seine was a surprise. In the middle of the previous week, following protests from pro-Palestinian movements and human rights organizations, Israeli media reported that the 43-year-old leader of the Religious Zionist Party had given up on the trip. Smotrich, who arrived from the United States, where he had no official meeting, only stayed a few hours in Paris and did not meet with government officials. The French Foreign Office had made it known last week that it had no intention of receiving the controversial Israeli minister.
During the ceremony, Smotrich spoke from behind a lectern decorated with a map that included not only the Jewish state and the occupied Palestinian territories but also the territory of present-day Jordan: the Greater Israel area for the proponents of an expansionist ideology. He gave a speech in which he urged French Jews to settle in Israel, a common call from Israeli leaders visiting France. But Smotrich (who recently called for the Palestinian village of Huwara in the West Bank to be "wiped out" in retaliation for the murder of two Jewish settlers) also made remarks full of contempt for the Palestinians.
'There are just Arabs'
"Do you know who the Palestinians are?" Smotrich asked at the start of his diatribe, which was streamed live on Facebook. "I am Palestinian," he replied to the cheers of the audience, about 100 people, judging by the images on Facebook. "My grandfather, a 13th-generation Jerusalemite, was Palestinian. The Palestinian people are an invention of less than a hundred years. Do they have a history, a culture? No, they do not. There are no Palestinians, there are just Arabs."
snip
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)the Gazan civilians vs what Israel has invested in theirs for decades makes this argument totally ridiculous.
Celerity
(54,409 posts)their slow-roll-but-relentless (in the end-game focus) ethnic cleansing, often accompanied by genocidal wish rants/demands.
And Hamas is not in charge of the West Bank, where Bibi and the gang have the same end-game goals as they do for Gaza.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)Hamas are highly disproportionately terrorist bastards who don't give two shits about Gazans.
And being disproportionally terrorist bastards entitles them to claim the disproportional amount of blame for what happened and is still happening to Gazan civilians.
This is not happening, which makes me wonder why. I am also wondering about all the talk of Israel engaging in ethnic cleansing instead. This is a conscious, deliberate and disproportional, not to mention untruthful, distraction from their disproportionate absence of blame for they have done, as a matter of a strategic plan, to Gaza.
And while Hamas is not in charge of the West Bank, they have sufficient leverage there to destabilize it, so much so that the PA, who is in charge, is seeking military assistance to put a stop to it. I doubt that Abbas has the same goal for the West Bank as Bibi does, yet both deem Hamas a clear and present danger there. Such unanimity cannot possibly be explained away with invoking ethnic cleansing.
Celerity
(54,409 posts)Long before Hamas even existed the disproportionate number of Palestinian deaths and forced exiles positively dwarfed the number of Israelis killed or driven out.
Also, you said:
That is exactly the divide et impera game that Netanyahu and his RW religio-fascist base (who most definitely have complete ethnic cleansing/genocidal intent for BOTH Gaza and the West Bank) have played for decades when they allowed Hamas to flourish, allowed them to be funded with billions of dollars from Qatar, Iran, Turkey, etc, as I laid out in post 76:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219884145#post76
Netanyahu had the vast bulk of the Israeli military focused on the West Bank, to defend the massive amount of illegal settlements and to enable more and more of them to be erected.
Because of that, Bibi and his ultra RW base allowed the terrorist beast (that they had helped to grow, allowed to be funded, and allowed to fester in Gaza) to break out of its cage and bite them in their exposed arse.
Multiple brave Israelis, many of them women, tasked with watching Gaza tried to warn Bibi and his ultra RWers, and they were ignored, because that did not fit the ultra RW Eretz Yisrael template of elevating the illegal ethnic cleansing land grabs in the West Bank above all else.
They were Israel's 'eyes on the border' - but their Hamas warnings went unheard
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67958260
They are known as Israel's eyes on the Gaza border. For years, units of young female conscripts had one job here. It was to sit in surveillance bases for hours, looking for signs of anything suspicious. In the months leading up to the 7 October attacks by Hamas, they did begin to see things: practice raids, mock hostage-taking, and farmers behaving strangely on the other side of the fence. Noa, not her real name, says they would pass information about what they were seeing to intelligence and higher-ranking officers, but were powerless to do more. "We were just the eyes," she says. It was clear to some of these women that Hamas was planning something big - that there was, in Noa's words, a "balloon that was going to burst".
The BBC has now spoken to these young women about the escalation in suspicious activity they observed, the reports they filed, and what they saw as a lack of response from senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers. We have also seen WhatsApp messages the women sent in the months before 7 October, talking about incidents at the border. To some of them it became a dark joke: who would be on duty when the inevitable attack came? These women were not the only ones raising the alarm, and as more testimony is gathered, anger at the Israeli state - and questions over its response - are mounting.
The BBC has spoken also to the grieving families who have now lost their daughters, and to experts who see the IDF's response to these women as part of a broader intelligence failure. The IDF said it was "currently focused on eliminating the threat from the terrorist organisation Hamas" and declined to answer the BBC's questions. "The problem is that they [the military] didn't connect the dots," a former commander at one of the border units tells the BBC. If they had, she says, they would have realised that Hamas was preparing something unprecedented.
Shai Ashram, 19, was one of the women on duty on 7 October. In a call with her family, where they could hear gunshots ringing in the background, she said there were "terrorists in the base and that there was going to be a really big event". She was one of more than a dozen surveillance soldiers killed. Others were taken hostage. As Hamas attacked, the women at Nahal Oz, a base about a kilometre from the Gaza border, began to say goodbye to one another on their shared WhatsApp group. Noa, who was not on duty and was reading the messages from home, remembers thinking "this is it". The attack they had long feared was now actually happening. Because of the locations of their bases, the women of this military unit - known as tatzpitaniyot in Hebrew - were among the first Israelis that Hamas reached after rampaging out of Gaza.
snip
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)Notwithstanding the irrelevance of your voluminous response, your conception of proportionality and how you applied it in this thread has been thoroughly refuted.
All I had to do was illustrate how tendentious your application of the proportionality principle is by applying the same principle to make the exact opposite point.
This is the only thing I did. There is no "none of that", just one of that.
And now, still avoiding the subject, you are trying to drown your refusal to address what I refuted in volumes of unrelated and irrelevant topics.
Apparently, to mangle Orwell's famous phrase, some proportionality principles are more equal than others.
Celerity
(54,409 posts)with linked evidence buttressing my claims. You also tried to pejoratively frame that supporting documentation, I might add, which as somehow making my replies 'voluminous' (a curious attempt, as if my adding in documentation backing up my stances is somehow a negative thing).
You, on the other hand, are simply trying to project your repeated sophistry onto me, as if that is some sort of effective rebuttal. It is not. There is nothing remotely tendentious about my usage of the term disproportionality. The maths are the maths, no matter how much you want to avoid or spin them. I clearly stated that I was comparing the number of Palestinian deaths suffered versus Israeli deaths in the current conflict (which are massively disproportionate, with the Palestinian losses vastly outnumbering the Israeli losses).
I also, in another post, correctly extended that disproportionality back to a pre Hamas measurement, which yields the same result, especially when you add in the amount of Palestinians driven into exile, compared to the number of Israelis driven out of Israel/Palestine over the same time frames, which absolutely pales in comparison.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)Last edited Thu Jan 9, 2025, 08:57 AM - Edit history (1)
who don't give two shits about Gazans (a fact you seem to be completely uninterested in disputing), are relevant to addressing the conspicuous absence of proportionately allocated blame for what happened and is still happening to Gazan civilians?
Let's count them... zero. Zero consistent, factually correct topics and stances, linked to evidence that is relevant. Only the irrelevant ones. If you take this underwhelming record to be pejorative, it is certainly not of my making. I am just bringing it to light.
And, considering this underwhelming record, your response had indeed been as voluminous as it was irrelevant.
Voluminous because, as a mere ploy to avoid the subject it has been exceedingly long and meandering, and irrelevant because in the end of it, none of the voluminous deflections you provided, links and all, had anything to do with your own conception of proportionality being used to make conclusions diametrically opposed to yours.
And still, not a word of disagreement from you on that matter.
When your own basis for an argument can be successfully applied to argue the exact opposite, fallacious is indeed the word that comes to mind.
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)ZRB
(465 posts)It's called losing a war badly. They should surrender.
markpkessinger
(8,912 posts). . . and the UN Convention on Genocide, to which Israel is a signatory, has defined genocide as follows:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/Genocide%20Convention-FactSheet-ENG.pdf
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)You probably didn't get close to Article VI. Or, perhaps, you didn't even look up the source document.
Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.
Not only did you disregard the matter of intent written into Article II, you appear to be confused about who may or may not determine that anyone suspected of genocide must first be charged and tried. It is only after due process of the law, and not before, that the determination of genocide having ocured can be made.
With all due respect, an anonymous post citing the definition of genocide does not constitute such determination.
Stargleamer
(2,728 posts)then if one uses this narrow definition to define "genocide" then it does not appear to me that the Armenian genocide could be considered a genocide for there was no competent tribunal.
It seems to me that what British invaders did to the indigenous people in this country from the 1600's forward also constitutes a genocide, as the indigenous people in this country suffered a humungous drop in their populations. But I know you might say that that's not a genocide either.
I myself don't really care if what the Israel government is doing in Gaza constitutes a genocide or not. For me, it is quite clear that they are committing war crimes in Gaza and that is enough for extreme condemnation. And yes, I think Hamas should be roundly condemned too for Oct. 7.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)However, since the term "genocide" did not exist until 1941, and the crime of genocide was affirmed as an international crime in 1946, the Ottoman officials were tried for violating military law as it existed at the time.
Natirally, no one would be convicted of the crime before it was affirmed by the UN, especially not a competent tribunal which had no standing to try a non-defined crime.
And it would be up to the aforementioned competent tribunals, not popular sentiment, to determine whether international crimes of any sort were committed, by whom, and to what punishable extent. Trials by popular opinion is what is commonly referred to as "mob rule".
Stargleamer
(2,728 posts)Last edited Fri Jan 10, 2025, 10:41 PM - Edit history (1)
given that Wikipedia also states: "The postwar Ottoman government held the Ottoman Special Military Tribunal, by which it sought to pin the Armenian genocide onto the CUP leadership while exonerating the Ottoman Empire as a whole". Such exoneration belies any "competency".
So it appears mainly what you decry as "popular sentiment" that can determine what we perceive to be what constitutes a "genocide" and as you point out the word was coined in 1943-1944 before the legal definition existed, thus it was believed that what was happening was a genocide before any Nuremburg trials and the like were conducted. If it was an appropriate word to coin in 1941 for what was going on then, it- could be reasonably said to be appropriate to what is going on now in Gaza.
But like I said I think it is enough to say Israel has committed war crimes against the Palestinians, which isn't to say that I don't think Hamas has committed war crimes too, as I do think that as well.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)It takes a great deal of competence to pin a genocide on just a few scapegoats. But I get your point.
What I don't get is, even assuming incompetence on the part of the aforementioned tribunal, it translates into popular sentiment dictating legal outcomes.Popular sentiment did not define the crime of genocide, and it would be a travesty to allow the mobs to dictate due process of law.
This is what due process of law is all about: to reasonably and appropriately determine what a crime is and what constitutes commission of a crime. Abdicating this responsibility, which certainly requires a great deal of competence to undertake, to popular demand is the definition of lawlessness.
Stargleamer
(2,728 posts)would not be opposed to having this government tried by a competent tribunal. They are charging the Israeli government with genocide. I can look at photos of Trump's bathroom at MAL and see documents labeled top secret, classified, confidential, etc. and say that it looks like theft to me of National Archive material. But that would not be enough for me, I would still want Trump to be prosecuted for this theft. It seems like you would have me say "Oh no, you can't actually accuse Trump with having committed such a crime until he has been found guilty of such a crime." As I've indicated, "I think I can but I would still want him to be tried in a court of law, something Loose Cannon took away from me.
Raphael Lemkin coined the term, "genocide" circa 1943-1944 based on reports he was getting and what he was witnessing around him. This was before any tribunals at Nuremburg or elsewhere. I really doubt he thought at the time, "Oh, I can't accuse the Nazi government with such a crime, tribunals for which don't exist yet, until such a judgment has been made by them in the future." Similarly DUers here that charge the Israeli government with the crime of genocide, aren't doing it willy-nilly, but based on the reports they have been getting. If you do possibly concede there was no competent tribunal that assessed whether the crime of genocide of Armenians took place, indeed given that it occurred before there was a defined crime of genocide, then you are left with, the mass slaughter of Armenians in Turkey may or may not have been a genocide, who knows? Similarly, Ishi's tribe, the Yahi, was wiped out, but it doesn't seem like you would be willing to call that a crime of genocide either.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)Last edited Mon Jan 13, 2025, 03:02 AM - Edit history (2)
You either usurp the authority of a competent tribunal to charge someone with a crime regardless of your competence or lack thereof, or you acknowledge its authority to charge someone with a crime on the basis of their competence to do so.
The former is called mob rule, and the latter is called the rule of law.
Remember, Lemkin himself never presumed the authority to charge anyone with genocide, even though he coined the term. He knew full well that his competence was in scholarly research and not jurisprudence. Apparently, such nuanced distinctions are completely lost on a whole bunch of people, to the absolutely ridiculous point of them charging random falafel joint owners with genocide and intimidating subway riders into outing themselves as Zionists.
We all know how devastating mob rule can end up.
Stargleamer
(2,728 posts)and charge them with genocide. And although "charge" and "accuse" can be used as synonyms, I see from what you wrote that you were using "charge' in a formal legal sense. I myself was using these words synonymously in the post you replied to, but I do agree that if you are using "charge" in a formal legal sense, you need to be a prosecutor to be able to charge someone with a crime in that sense.
I do not see though that one needs legal authority to accuse a person or a government of a crime though, and that is what it appeared to me the DU'er(s) you were responding to were doing, in this case the crime of genocide. Similarly, if you come home one evening, and see your neighbor going out the window with your TV, or see on your home surveillance video recordings them going off with your TV in such a manner, you have the right to accuse them of theft and testify to that in a court of law. Lemkin, himself, in his 1953 article, "Soviet genocide in the Ukraine" was essentially accusing the USSR government of genocide.
Maybe though you fear that such accusations can lead to "mob rule" or something similar. Well, those on DU who do accuse the Israeli government of genocide, do, like Lemkin did in 1953, feel there is sufficient evidence to warrant such accusations.--they are not like Trump and throwing out accusations without any foundations/evidence for such accusations whatsoever. (Trump in contrast: "they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats" ).
You write of Lemkin: "his competence was in scholarly research and not in jurisprudence". This seems to be belied by the fact that he was a lawyer and also "Lemkin worked on the legal team of Robert H. Jackson, Chief US prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunal." (Wikipedia)." Being on Jackson's team would seem to imply a certain amount of competence in jurisprudence. You also wrote: "It is only after due process of the law, and not before, that the determination of genocide having occurred can be made." Prosecutors, and those on the teams of prosecutors, have to make such a determination beforehand. So was Lemkin wrong to have made such a determination in 1953 of Soviet genocide in the Ukraine? So historians can't look at the totality of the evidence of what happen to Ishi's tribe, the Yahi, who were wiped out, and conclude that a genocide had taken place?
rasputin1952
(83,497 posts)Just like the Gaza Palestinians were herded into "protected zones".
How did either of them work out?
NoRethugFriends
(3,753 posts)Previously engaged in terrorist attacks against the Nazis? Asking for a friend.
rasputin1952
(83,497 posts)sadly, that increased the flow to the camps.
The Polish Underground made life hell for the Nazis.
yagotme
(4,135 posts)The uprising was AFTER the ghetto was formed. The other poster wanted to know if the Jews started the internment process, by terror attacks against the Nazis, or if the Nazis started it, well, because they're Nazis.
rasputin1952
(83,497 posts)However, the Polish Underground was formed prior to the Warsaw Ghetto.
They were quite effective, consisting of both men and women. I would not consider Underground attacks on Nazis as "terrorism", but it scared the shit out of them. I think of them as resistance to the attack of a foreign power, some might see it as terror, but words have power and can be used in many ways. Is defending one's homeland "terrorism"?
Here is an example from a different area, in the approximate timeframe:
"May 27, 1942
Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich
Czech Agents who had trained in Great Britain parachuted into German-occupied Czech territory to assassinate SS General Reinhard Heydrich in Prague.
Heydrich was the chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) in Berlin—the SS and police agency most directly concerned with implementing the Holocaust during World War II. While still chief of the RSHA, Heydrich also served as Acting Reich Protector of German-occupied Bohemia and Moravia. Czech agents who had trained in Great Britain parachuted into German-occupied Czech territory to assassinate Heydrich. As Heydrich traveled on a familiar route to the airport to fly to Hitler's headquarters for a meeting, two Czech agents succeeded in rolling a hand grenade under his car. Though not mortally wounded by the blast itself, the grenade splinters in Heydrich’s leg and lower back led to an infection that killed him little more than a week later. In retaliation for the attack, the Germans unleashed a wave of terror against the Czechs. For example, they destroyed the Czech village of Lidice, shooting all the men in the village and deporting most of the women and children to camps in Germany."
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/timeline-event/holocaust/1942-1945/assassination-of-reinhard-heydrich
I should think the Nazis would consider it "terrorism" when Heydrich was attacked, particularly since they committed a serious act of terrorism in retaliation. Lidice was razed. But Heydrich died a very painful death, which in my humble opinion is just fine for Nazis.
Others might not see it the way I do, but I can't stomach Nazis.
Sundance1220
(285 posts)That doesn't make it cupcakes. It's NOT a genocide when the population continues to rise. It's that simple. Now when more than half the European Jews were killed in WWII - THAT was an attempted genocide. When it's 2%, it's tragic and sad. But it's entirely the fault of hamas.
rasputin1952
(83,497 posts)The West Bank and elsewhere that is being bombed is Hamas.
I find it difficult to believe that people were herded into tent cities, expecting to be treated humanely (at least to some degree) only to be bombed and strafed by aircraft that cannot possibly know who is, and who is not Hamas.
Don't get me wrong, I do not support any group that will routinely kill others, regardless of their "cause". Netanyahu is using Hamas as an excuse to kill people. There is certainly no way I can, with good conscience support Hamas (or any other group of miscreants and fanatics).
The destruction of Palestinians in Gaza is genocide. Children have no ties to any group, except family, but they may well become anti-Israeli, when that family is destroyed, by the whim of another. I'd be pissed off if this was happening to my family.
I've seen civilians killed in a war that was unjustified over fifty years ago. I have been anti-war ever since, and cannot fathom why some people would kill others, just to stay in power.
Sorry if you don't agree, but reality is often very ugly.
Sundance1220
(285 posts)I loathe bibi and believe he's not doing all he can to get the hostages home to save himself but he is not responsible for this WAR. And in war, civilians die. It's a sad truth. That hamas KNEW Israel would respond this way and still hid behind their own people is something I'm getting tired of Israel haters making excuses for.
markpkessinger
(8,912 posts)Israel, and Israel alone, is responsible for the way it has responded to the Hamas attacks!
Look, Israel certainly had a right to respond to the October 7 attacks. But to suggest that those attacks excuse any and every war crime committed by Israel in its response amounts to moral absurdity!
Sundance1220
(285 posts)that hamas hides behind their people. You're asking Israel to fight with one hand behind their back and they are not going to do that to satisfy the far left's idea of self defense. They hide in schools, in hospitals, WITH THE FREAKING UN (UNRWA SHOULD BE DISBANDED IMMEDIATELY). How freaking kind of you to think they have a right to fight back but only under rules YOU approve of which would put more Israeli's at risk. This is WAR and in war civilians die. Next time they shouldn't take on a military that is so much bigger than they are. And their people didn't help by cheering and parading around the hostages while blood covered their underwear. They hardly look like the innocent bystanders you want to pretend they are.
markpkessinger
(8,912 posts)Sundance1220
(285 posts)hamas has been committing war crimes since their beginning. Do you think watching their hostages get spit on, jeered at and their captors cheered just may have hardened the hearts of ALL Israeli's? It certainly did mine, as you can see. I'm done with this topic. I only came on to once again point out there is no genocide happening in gaza.
markpkessinger
(8,912 posts). . . and war crimes by a signatory's opponent do NOT create license for the signatory to do likewise!
rasputin1952
(83,497 posts)Never have been, never will be.
I am simply stating that this "war" has been going on for far too long.
I also know that the first casualty in war is truth, the rest are mostly civilians.
In the early 20th Century, Turkey used The Great War as an excuse to kill Armenians (who had nothing to do with the war).
Jews, Slovaks, Roma, and any other "untermenschen" were killed by Nazis in the millions. Too often, they were "just in the way".
My DNA tells me I have Ashkenazi Jew genes, as well as German, English, and Dutch. My consciousness could not give a damn, human beings are human beings. As an atheist, I answer to no god, no religion, only myself. I am about as Liberal as they come and am disgusted when others do damage to any group of people. Hamas are assholes ( as well as cowards) being driven by a very limited ideology that Allah commands this (not as bad as the Islamic State) but enough to kill anyone who does not meet their ideals.
Israel needs to defend itself, I don't have a problem with that. It is the ongoing slaughter that is exceptionally disturbing. The "herding" of Gazan's into "kill zones", is beyond the pale. Cutting off humanitarian aid is reprehensible. This is but a dark shadow of what the Nazis did in Warsaw, and is unjustifiable.
Zealots of any stripe should be exposed as the evil they are. I spent 13 years in the Army, I find it very difficult not to see the initial incursion of one of the most highly developed borders on the face of the earth to "suddenly go down", with Hamas ready on the other side to use vehicles and hang gliders at the precise moment of the area's security failure, and only in that area.
This is circumstantial because there is no proof, but I would be hard-pressed not to believe that this was an "inside job".
Considering Netanyahu was close to being indicted, it is not too difficult not to piece together a scenario that would benefit him.
WIth all of that said, why don't the Israeli forces simply cease hostilities, back off a bit, then start some discussion?
In the mean time, allow humanitarian aid to get in and begin feeding, treating the wounded, and begin to show they are not as "bad" as many are seeing them?
Just my $1.25, but there are other options than what is going on.
FTR, I have no great love for Hamas or any other group who uses some "god" as their reason for military actions.
But killing civilians (of any ideology) on a massive scale is the very definition of genocide
Celerity
(54,409 posts)with Gaza and the West Bank, with the end-game goal of taking it ALL. Create a rabid junkyard dog, allow it to be funded with well over 2 billion dollars in Qatari cash, (plus dog only knows how much additional funding from Iran, Turkey, etc), the odds are high that dog of hate bites its erstwhile Israeli handler.
For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces
The premier’s policy of treating the terror group as a partner, at the expense of Abbas and Palestinian statehood, has resulted in wounds that will take Israel years to heal from
https://www.timesofisrael.com/for-years-netanyahu-propped-up-hamas-now-its-blown-up-in-our-faces/
For years, the various governments led by Benjamin Netanyahu took an approach that divided power between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank — bringing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to his knees while making moves that propped up the Hamas terror group. The idea was to prevent Abbas — or anyone else in the Palestinian Authority’s West Bank government — from advancing toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. Thus, amid this bid to impair Abbas, Hamas was upgraded from a mere terror group to an organization with which Israel held indirect negotiations via Egypt, and one that was allowed to receive infusions of cash from abroad.
Hamas was also included in discussions about increasing the number of work permits Israel granted to Gazan laborers, which kept money flowing into Gaza, meaning food for families and the ability to purchase basic products. Israeli officials said these permits, which allow Gazan laborers to earn higher salaries than they would in the enclave, were a powerful tool to help preserve calm. Toward the end of Netanyahu’s fifth government in 2021, approximately 2,000-3,000 work permits were issued to Gazans. This number climbed to 5,000 and, during the Bennett-Lapid government, rose sharply to 10,000.
Since Netanyahu returned to power in January 2023, the number of work permits has soared to nearly 20,000. Additionally, since 2014, Netanyahu-led governments have practically turned a blind eye to the incendiary balloons and rocket fire from Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel has allowed suitcases holding millions in Qatari cash to enter Gaza through its crossings since 2018, in order to maintain its fragile ceasefire with the Hamas rulers of the Strip.
Most of the time, Israeli policy was to treat the Palestinian Authority as a burden and Hamas as an asset. Far-right MK Bezalel Smotrich, now the finance minister in the hardline government and leader of the Religious Zionism party, said so himself in 2015. According to various reports, Netanyahu made a similar point at a Likud faction meeting in early 2019, when he was quoted as saying that those who oppose a Palestinian state should support the transfer of funds to Gaza, because maintaining the separation between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza would prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.
snip
Avalon Sparks
(2,751 posts)Genocide.
To my eyes it’s an obvious land grab by genocide.
Whether the population grow or not doesn’t even factor into the definition of genocide by the UN.
Here’s the US Holocaust memorial Museum’s definition:
The legal term “genocide” refers to certain acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. Genocide is an international crime, according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948). The acts that constitute genocide fall into five categories:
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
https://www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/learn-about-genocide-and-other-mass-atrocities/what-is-genocide
Sundance1220
(285 posts)Given the children that were taken hostage by hamas, it seems #1, #2 and #5 means it's hamas who has committed genocide.
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)Or does that only apply to one side?
Sundance1220
(285 posts)What's wrong? Don't like when the rules have to apply to everyone involved?
Violet_Crumble
(36,385 posts)https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219884145#post6
I'm curious about your belief that if population numbers rise, then it's not genocide. Can you point out where that's stated in the Genocide Convention? Even if it were to be true that there's more births than deaths in the first year of an attempted genocide, that leads to more questions. How is the affected population defined? (ie counting the population of Gaza, or including all Palestinians), where are those figures coming from? Is it a trusted source? I'd be suspecting the figures coming from Gaza on births and deaths would be from the same sources that I've seen many at DU call unreliable, so using the same source to prove something that suits their purposes wouldn't really work.
Looking forward to your answers...
Rob H.
(5,851 posts)A simple Google search would've told you that.
Sundance1220
(285 posts)Hardly Israel's fault that hamas (and apparently you) think Israel should fight with one hand tied behind it's back because hamas hides behind women and children. That only would have led to more Israeli deaths. NO country would go into a war with those kinds of ridiculous rules of engagement.
Rob H.
(5,851 posts)They've killed entire families and have murdered or imprisoned doctors, aid workers, and journalists. They don't give a shit about innocent civilian casualties as evidenced by the fact that so many of them have been killed, and "Hey, maybe don't kill women and children" is a pretty low fucking bar that they still found a way to slide under.
Sundance1220
(285 posts)your elected leaders are hiding behind them. So, not exactly a low bar.
Gaugamela
(3,511 posts)That’s what Rome said in 70 CE, and what the cavalry said in the American Indian Wars. “Dude! They was shootin’ arrows at us! — What?! The United States of America doesn’t have the right to defend itself?!!”
Very moving. Fills me with nostalgia.
Johnny2X2X
(24,208 posts)Because children are still being born it's OK to kill them to get to zero population growth then? Is that what you're suggesting? That if I murder my neighbor's child, it's OK if they have another two on the way?
This meets the definition of genocide now. It's not war, it's the wholesale killing of a people as punishment for a small group still holding onto hostages. there are no goals other than so much death of innocents that Hamas will release the 100 or so hostages they still hold. Starving people and preventing medicine from getting to them is not part of a war.
Sundance1220
(285 posts)I never said I was okay with any of this. I'm not suggesting anything other than it's madness to keep using a word so carelessly, it has lost all meaning. I'm done dealing with you.
Johnny2X2X
(24,208 posts)I noticed you changed or deleted your disgraceful comment. One of the sickest posts I've read here. Shame on you for suggesting it's not genocide if the population is still rising. What the f*ck is wrong with you?
betsuni
(29,078 posts)
Mz Pip
(28,455 posts)Around 45,000 have been killed since 10/7/23. If Israel is committing genocide that number would be much higher. 1% of the population doesn’t seem like genocide.
womanofthehills
(10,988 posts)“ According to a "letter" published on the website of the British medical journal The Lancet, "186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza". This is a significantly higher death toll than the 38,345 announced by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry on Thursday. FRANCE 24 takes a look at how the authors arrived at this estimate and whether their figure is credible.
According to a "letter" published on July 5 on the website of the renowned British medical journal The Lancet entitled "Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential", "it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza".
Based on "the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip", write the co-authors of this letter published in the "correspondence" section of the website.
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240711-more-than-186-000-dead-in-gaza-how-credible-are-the-estimates-published-on-the-lancet
womanofthehills
(10,988 posts)“ According to a "letter" published on the website of the British medical journal The Lancet, "186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza". This is a significantly higher death toll than the 38,345 announced by the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry on Thursday. FRANCE 24 takes a look at how the authors arrived at this estimate and whether their figure is credible.
According to a "letter" published on July 5 on the website of the renowned British medical journal The Lancet entitled "Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential", "it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza".
Based on "the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2,375,259, this would translate to 7.9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip", write the co-authors of this letter published in the "correspondence" section of the website.
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240711-more-than-186-000-dead-in-gaza-how-credible-are-the-estimates-published-on-the-lancet
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)Nt
Sundance1220
(285 posts)I called WWII an attempted genocide of Europe's Jews and that was when over 65% of European Jews were killed. If you're going to battle me, make sure you get what I post correct. Calling less than 2% dying a genocide is BS.
MarineCombatEngineer
(18,060 posts)
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)I'm surprised at you. No wonder you don't think Gaza is a genocide - which is NOT total extermination.
Where you are mistaken is your insistence on percentages and numbers.
By referring to the far greater victims of the Holocaust - in sheer numbers or percentages - you are attempting to minimize and erase what to many experts with far greater knowledge of genocide are calling a genocide.
Btw you said "more than half" not 65%. So I went with 50%. But quibbling about numbers is not what genocide is about.
Sundance1220
(285 posts)It was an attempted genocide that hitler didn't have time to finish before the allies got him to put a bullet in his brain like the coward he was.
And I'll also point out that couldn't have happened without the rest of the world turning their back on the Jews with many of the European countries serving up their Jews on a silver platter to satisfy hitler. NOBODY would take the Jews in, even the US turned them away. That was when we knew we needed a country - that we could NEVER EVER depend on anyone else to help us. And that's why Israel fights so hard for their country. Their memories are long.
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)You don't know what a genocide is.
By your argument, Rwanda wasn't either. The Hutus didn't "finish the job" as there were a few Tutsis left alive.
My takeaway from this convo is genocide deniers will twist themselves into a pretzel, denying even historical facts, and make up their own absurd definition of genocide even - to continue their denial.
So with that, I'm not going to debate this with you further.
Sundance1220
(285 posts)to make a point (and a bad point at that). A group that has been the victims of genocide cannot rebuild, it has nothing to do with the actual numbers - it has to do with a systematic attempt to eradicate a people and that simply is not happening here and you know it - if Israel wanted to eradicate the Palestinians, they have the weaponry to do it. You just want to trash Israel and knock yourself out doing that. It wont change a damn thing. I too am tired of this BS conversation.
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)But I am left wondering what part of "in part" is unclear to you.
"Genocide is the intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part."
I also wonder at how you can't or won't see that everything Israel has done - for decades, mind you, but now in hyperdrive - has been "a systematic attempt to eradicate" Palestinians.
Oh well. Have a nice day.
Stargleamer
(2,728 posts)because some Jews survived? Even if 2/3 of them were wiped out? So the Armenian Genocide should be relabeled as an "attempted genocide"? By this logic there doesn't seem to have actually been any real genocides in human history, only attempted ones, although perhaps there were some indigenous groups that were entirely wiped out.
You also say in an earlier post that the Israeli government intends to "destroy Hamas", and that women and children have to be killed because Hamas hides behind them. How are they going to destroy Hamas I ask you when Hamas has new eager vengeful recruits constantly coming up among the growing children who have seen their families wiped out. Hamas has been around since 2007. Do you really think one day that the Israeli government will prevail and there will be no more Hamas?
MarineCombatEngineer
(18,060 posts) 
BlueTsunami2018
(4,990 posts)I have a hard time worrying about theirs.
Sorry to appear callous but I care about the U.S. way more than any foreign conflict.
Unladen Swallow
(491 posts)dalton99a
(94,128 posts)
BannonsLiver
(20,595 posts)No need to announce it, just fire away!
Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)I won't/can't type my thoughts of what I think of the Israeli government and IDF and the people in the US who enable this brutal genocide.
Diraven
(1,898 posts)Are people alerting on criticism of the IDF.
Rob H.
(5,851 posts)It shouldn't expect people to overlook that some of its members have recorded and posted to YouTube and TikTok videos of themselves not only committing but celebrating war crimes. Their leadership seems not to care at all one way or the other.
Avalon Sparks
(2,751 posts)Someone give them their own planet.
ZRB
(465 posts)Entitled NOT to be the victims of constant terror attack from a neighboring grievance-obsessed population that refuses to take yes for an answer and build up their own society. Rather than self pity, I'd call it the desire to not get nearly wiped out again as a people. Self regard? Yeah, again, they value their own society and don't want it to become Greater Palestine, which is the stated goal of Hamas.
And of course, if Israel wanted to genocide Gaza, they could have wrapped that up in a day or two without even dusting off their nuclear arsenal. Their desire to save civilian lives is what has led to this conflict dragging on, and the world has done nothing but spit in their face for it.
The Gazans are not helpless. They have the power to turn in their Hamas brethren and force a surrender. They won't do it. Therefore, the war rightfully goes on.
Avalon Sparks
(2,751 posts)Last edited Thu Jan 9, 2025, 07:21 PM - Edit history (1)
I don’t get how you can cage 2.3 million ppl, institute a barbaric segregation system for millions more, kicking people from homes they’ve had for their entire lives, and still act like you are the victim. It’s an impressive feat of psychopathy.
“Look what you made us do” is the mentality of abusers & psychopaths. An entire country was left to beg on the Internet in order to survive. If the history books of the future don't talk about this as one of the biggest shames in our existence as a species we have truly failed.
Israel is the occupying force. A brutal settler, colonial, apartheid regime on course of becoming a pariah state for genocide, collective punishment and the butchering of thousands of children.
Cope.
ZRB
(465 posts)But ok, you do you.
Amishman
(5,929 posts)I can't write out my full opinion on Hamas here either.
And if Israel wanted genocide, there would be at least an order of magnitude more dead. They have little opposition and an abundance of weapons and soldiers.
War crimes? Yes, those are happening, but this is not genocide. Israel is indifferent towards civilian deaths - hence war crimes, but if Palestinian deaths were actually there goal, they could do far far worse than they are now.
Avalon Sparks
(2,751 posts)To speed things along.
Right?
Amishman
(5,929 posts)Israel has near total control and civilian deaths are averaging just over 100 per day. Deplorable and supportive of the war crimes accusation, sure. But if they are actively trying to murder an entire people - genocide - the numbers don't add up. The casualty rate doesn't outpace the Gaza strips birth rate.
The math just doesn't support the genocide claim, and the holocaust comparison is in very bad taste
Avalon Sparks
(2,751 posts)100%
Also, I never loathed anyone more in my life, I don’t think there’s an English word to express how horrible they are.
Response to Jit423 (Original post)
Post removed
sarisataka
(22,695 posts)The Rohingya in Myanmar?
South Sudan?
Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Syria?
Christians and Muslims in the Central African Republic?
Darfur?
Tigray?
Or the one that involves Jews?
Intractable
(2,103 posts)Let's start there.
sarisataka
(22,695 posts)if we supply weapons? If so, we can discuss the Saudi's war on Yemen and Pakistan's expulsion or arrest of two million Afghan refugees back to the welcoming arms of the Taliban.
No one ever want to start with (or ever get to) those or the other countries we supply military aid that is turned upon their own people...
Intractable
(2,103 posts)But, I already said that.
sarisataka
(22,695 posts)Many of the Saudi weapons dropped in Yemen have Made in USA stickers.
Intractable
(2,103 posts)sarisataka
(22,695 posts)IMHO it is quite morally hollow to only object and speak against the genocides that involve our money and weapons. Even if there is one we are not at least indirectly connected to, calling for an end to genocide is the right thing to do. YMMV
Intractable
(2,103 posts)>> IMHO it is quite morally hollow to only object and speak against the genocides that involve our money and weapons.
So, if I understand you, it's okay for us to supply money and weapons for genocides, as long as there are other genocides where we are not involved.
That's what your words mean.
If we are to stand against the indiscriminate killing of people, for the very last time, let's start with the ones for which we directly supply the weapons.
Say what you want. There will be no further response from me.
sarisataka
(22,695 posts)As I have posted on other genocides , we are less involved in and they routinely sink like a stone.
I can walk and chew gum at the same time. I believe we can try to negotiate an end to the fighting in Gaza while paying attention to genocides killing and displacing more people than the population of Israel and Gaza combined.
Respond or not as you wish. Silence on genocide is not new.
Intractable
(2,103 posts)Well then, we agree.
Avalon Sparks
(2,751 posts)The one my US tax dollars are funding.
sarisataka
(22,695 posts)You would be surprised where your tax dollars go and how they are used.
But as I said elsewhere, IMHO it is quite morally hollow to only object and speak against the genocides that involve our money and weapons. Even if there is one we are not at least indirectly connected to, calling for an end to genocide is the right thing to do. YMMV
I agree there’s no other way to describe it
Beacool
(30,518 posts)Over 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza, mostly women and children. There's no justification for that kind of butchery. Netanyahu is a war criminal.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(135,725 posts)JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)now have to deal with a sociopath in the WH.
What did they think would happen?
Not too much different strategy than what Hamas did on Oct. 7. What the hell did they think would happen?
Same with Hezbollah firing rockets into Northern Israel, what did they think would happen?
Hamas could have ended this tragedy if they released the all the hostages, and surrendered a long time ago, but they thought that innocent Palestinian lives were expendable.
markpkessinger
(8,912 posts). . . who nonetheless are thoroughly opposed to what Israel is doing!
JohnSJ
(98,883 posts)
Ping Tung
(4,370 posts)Both sides are seeing the other side not as people but as targets.
Both sides have claimed they are murdering for the good of their people and to please a cruel God.
Yet we still claim to be the very epitome of evolution.
Response to Jit423 (Original post)
Post removed
ThePartyThatListens
(340 posts)We've been witnessing nothing short of a genocide in Gaza.
Beastly Boy
(13,283 posts)propaganda.
Call me weird.
elleng
(141,926 posts)NO DOUBT.
AloeVera
(4,263 posts)That's how long it's been a genocide.
Just sayin'.
Skittles
(171,716 posts)it all just sickens me, UGH
stillcool
(34,407 posts)location of my birth, so I actually feel something when I read or hear about what is happening to the Palestinian families. I could be a mother losing her children, or a child losing their entire family. So much I don't understand about how people allow what they want to believe to turn their minds into steel traps.
FullySupportDems
(448 posts)What do you call it when people do that?
Screaming they're a terrorists. Or they might be. It's like beating someone until they stop resisting means they stop breathing.
All this ignores how many Palestinians have been imprisoned without charges in horrific conditions, so they can be traded for hostages. Some have died. Talk about getting hostages home.
And it ignores how many medical personnel and journalists have been killed. Anyone hear anything about that? Only when it's World Kitchen.
And it forgets things like when the Jewish hostages escaped and ran toward soldiers shirtless and waving a white shirt, they were shot by those soldiers for trying to surrender and looking like they might be Palestinians. It was called a mistake. Killing all of them was a "mistake". I think that made the news for a day or two.
Just the suffering and starvation ought to make anyone ashamed. Blowing up camps?
You can call what Israel is doing to Palestinians anything you want. It's an atrocity.
I'm not as brave as the op to go all in on these discussions. It's heartbreaking anyone wants to support this "war" on mostly civilians. Or it's just a lot of "mistakes" that mostly women and children are the ones dying, not really a war on them. They're just in the way.
C0RI0LANUS
(3,017 posts)Approximately 5,200 Palestinians were held in Israeli security detention without trial or hearing PRIOR to 7 Oct 2023 when the armed resistance group Hamas launched its surprise attack to seize captives for a prisoner swap.
In the following two weeks after the Hamas attack:
"Israel arrested some 4,000 laborers from Gaza who were working in Israel and held them in military bases. Separately, the IDF has also arrested 1,070 other Palestinians in overnight army raids in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem."
“Arrests are taking place 24 hours a day,” Sahar Francis, head of the Ramallah-based Addameer prisoners’ rights group, told Al Jazeera at the time.
In two weeks, the IDF doubled the number of Palestinians being held in security detention without trial or hearing.
D/Mossad David Barnea was the only voice of reason in the Likud Cabinet who pushed Netanyahu to easily release Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages and some trades were completed in Nov 2023. But Bibi wanted a continuation of the war in Gaza to delay his corruption trial and, as some in the White House suspect, sway the US election to Trumpf by not agreeing to a ceasefire to deny Joe Biden and the Democrats a diplomatic win before 5 Nov 2024. The pretext of being unable to achieve a ceasefire was an excuse to collectively punish the people of Gaza because the thought of a "Two-State Solution" is anathema to the Likud Party.
D/Mossad David Barnea (undated photo)
Sources:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/401089
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/11/israel-opt-horrifying-cases-of-torture-and-degrading-treatment-of-palestinian-detainees-amid-spike-in-arbitrary-arrests/
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/21/number-of-palestinian-prisoners-in-israel-doubles-to-10000-in-two-weeks
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cje3zl0dq2ko
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Benjamin_Netanyahu
lapucelle
(21,061 posts)not an “armed resistance group”.
Hamas terrorists did not “seize captives”. Hamas terrorists butchered, raped, murdered, and kidnapped innocent civilians.
The goal of Hamas’s protracted murder spree was not to “seize captives for a prisoner swap”, but to torture, rape, enslave, and kill as many Jews as possible.
And your numbers are wrong. According to an AP report, on August 1, 2023, Israel was holding 1200 detainees, not 5200.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-detention-jails-palestinians-west-bank-793a3b2a1ce8439d08756da8c63e5435
MarineCombatEngineer
(18,060 posts)and I don't give a fuck who's offended by my post.
EX500rider
(12,583 posts)Between 550,000 and 800,000 Japanese civilians died during World War II, was the US guilty of genocide?
No, because the US stopped as soon as the Japanese surrendered, so warfare, not genocide.
The Jewish population of Europe could have surrendered all they wanted to Hitler but the trains to the death camps would have kept right on rolling=genocide
If Hamas surrenders to Israel and the IDF stops their campaign then not genocide, just plain ole warfare.
Which of these high civilian death count wars were "genocide"?
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)All those Arab-American groups in Michigan and Pennsylvania that endorsed Donnie said so...
Blue_Tires
(57,596 posts)What exactly were Palestinians expecting after the Oct. 7th attacks and kidnappings, which were a massive global embarrassment for Netanyahu and the IDF? They had to have known they were going to be collectively punished with a outrageously disproportionate response...
mucholderthandirt
(1,783 posts)I've grown to hate all "leaders" who seek only to kill, maim, torture and suppress other human beings. That includes anyone, no matter what faith they claim, and no matter where they are.
Killing for the sake of killing, at this point. Little babies allowed to freeze to death. There is no shame for these people. None. Humanity, by the way, is fucked. I'll be surprised if we last another hundred years, what with climate change and the endless killing. And we all deserve it, because we don't rise up and stop it. Or do something to alter genetics so this is bred out of us.