Bombs to stop genocide in Iraq. Wtf DO WE CALL WHAT'S GOING DOWN IN GAZA?

[onenote]

107. People who are unaware of the legal and historical meanings of genocide use that term for

what's happening in Gaza. Or people who assume things about Gaza that aren't true. Or who simply use the term to further a political agenda.

Genocide has a specific definition in international law: any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(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.

The "in part" aspect has been clarified in international law to mean a substantial portion of the group so as to threaten the viability of its continued existence.

What is happening in Gaza is horrible. But if one thinks that it is genocide, then one must think that what happens in virtually every armed conflict is genocide. One must think that the Germans were the victims of genocide when the British firebombed Dresden. That the British were the victims of genocide when the Germans bombed London. That the Japanese were the victims of genocide when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those actions killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of civilians and left enormous numbers of people homeless. But they weren't genocide.

As is the case in most areas that are locus of an armed conflict, Gaza is a horrible place to be. Even before the conflict, it was hardly paradise. But despite the blockade, which undoubtedly made conditions worse, it was not the hellhole some seem to assume it was.

Populations undergoing genocide don't grow. The population of Gaza has been growing, even during the blockade, at a rate far above the international average. Infant mortality in Gaza is half that of the international average and the birthrate is well above the average.

Populations undergoing genocide don't have positive growth in gross domestic product. WHile the blockade has set back economic development in the occupied territories, it has not stopped it cold. According to the official Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, from 2008 to 2012, GDP in Gaza and the West Bank grew from 1.17 billion to 1.72 billion. During 2012, GDP in Gaza alone grew at a faster rate than GDP in the West Bank (6.6% v. 5.6%). GDP growth continued during 2013, but at a slower rate.

And this assumes that Gaza is somehow separate from the other occupied territories (West Bank and East Palestine). If Israel is pursuing a policy of genocide against Palestinians, it is hard to explain how it is that there is no armed conflict in West Bank. It is hard to explain how the 1.5 million Palestinian Arabs in Israel not only are not being killed but, in fact, can become Israeli citizens, can vote and elect representatives to the Israeli government (there are around a dozen Palestinian Arabs in the Knesset) or serve on the Israeli Supreme Court.

I know I will be accused of minimizing the horror that is currently Gaza. I recognize that it is horrible. I agree that it merits international condemnation. But the devastation rendered on the people in Dresden, London, Hiroshima, Nagasaki and untold other locations also was horrific. But they were not genocide. And neither is what is happening in Gaza.