Israel Broadens Bombing in Gaza to Civilian Sites

[Ash_F]

37. For the record...

...I don't think the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is analogous to the Holocaust. However, let us look at the definition of genocide per The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as adopted by the United Nations in 1951.

"...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.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2"
http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html


a) and b) are somewhat arguable. The Israeli government will claim that it's reprisals are aimed at those attacking Jewish citizens. But this campaign is increasingly showing that they are not aiming with that much discretion.

c) and d) Are largely inarguable. Palestinian(as well as Israeli Arab) population is a common subject of debate among right wing Israeli politicians and media heads(spoiler alert: they think it's too high). For decades there have been measures to curb it. Food restrictions on Palestinians is one such measure that has no moral justification, whatsoever. The restrictions on living space is another. Lack of adequate civil infrastructure is another(power/water/sewage/hospitals ect). The Palestinian territories are under the control of the Israeli government so yes, they are responsible for infrastructure which they have neglected for decades. Furthermore, racist restrictions social advancement including(but not limited to) limited access to employment, education, intermarriage, ability to buy property and lack of representation in government all contribute to the overall effort to keep Arabs out of Israeli society and to keep them from starting too many families. All of this has persisted for decades.

No, this is not Nazi Germany. It is more analogous to Apartheid South Africa. Like South Africa, the right wing(In both Israel and the USA) see no problem with these abuses and point to the violent actions of a minority of one ethnic group as a justification to take punitive measures against all of its members. Like South Africa, I believe that attitudes will eventually change and this position will become yet another black eye for Republicans in history, as well as the global conservative movement.

Noam Chomsky is a distinguished scholar and certainly not an idiot.