Biden can point to literally dozens of battles, sieges, and wars that the US was directly involved in and resulted in similar levels of civilian casualties, with no genocide accusations. This is not going anywhere.
In past conflicts America has always had plausible deniabilty.
This time israel is screaming from the rooftops that they want to kill every man woman child and animal in Gaza. And then doing it
Cutting off food water and medicine also doesn’t help. Nor does Biden repeating Zionist propaganda about beheaded babies or rapes that didn’t happen. Or command centers under hospitals which were quickly forgotten about in the media after zero evidence was found of their existence.
Whether it works or not, it will massively tank the reputation of these institutions if they side with Genocide Joe.
The “fact check site” links to the now completely debunked New York Times article as “evidence” for the rapes.
You are arguring against a large amount of evidence here that has been verified independently multiple times.
Hamas murdered children, and they also raped women.
I probably won’t convince you, but for the people who care about truth: “The grayzone” you’re linking here is everything but a reputable news source.
The Grayzone has been criticized for defending authoritarian regimes.[4][20][34][40][61] In Reorienting Hong Kong’s Resistance: Leftism, Decoloniality, and Internationalism, The Grayzone was described as “known for misleading reporting in the service of authoritarian states”.[25] Nerma Jelacic, writing in the Index on Censorship, described The Grayzone as “a Kremlin-connected online outlet that pushes pro-Russian conspiracy theories and genocide denial.”[62] In 2019, The Grayzone had claimed the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, of which Jelacic is a director, collaborated with ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra affiliates.[62]
You spread disinformation. You’re not helping anyone by doing that. Just stop, okay?
I’m going to assume you’re posting in good faith until proven otherwise.
The US never fought an urban country the size of Las Vegas, so a country-scale comparison is poor. We have however engaged in city-scale battles lasting several months, many of which killed 1% of the civilian population. A pretty good recent example is Mosul. There are several more egregious examples in the world wars, Korea, Vietnam, etc. notably we carpet bombed Tokyo for months killing several percent of the population.
Be careful not to ask why a country is packed into the size of Vegas or you may realize that was a coordinated campaign by the same people who are now claiming it’s impossible to not slaughter innocents because of the way THEY designed the strip.
Intentionally brining about conditions that lead to destruction in whole or part of a group is genocide, literally as written, in the Geneva Convention. Israel is the reason it’s so populated there, so when they blame the density, they blame themselves.
I’m well aware of the history and parallels with Jewish ghettos. These are somewhat confounded by repeated rejected offers of a two-state solution over 70 years, periods on unilateral Israeli withdrawal, the election of Hamas, decades of terror attacks on Israeli civilians with popular support, and a recent 9/11 scale massacre which also has popular support.
Also not to nitpick, but Israel didn’t create or design the Gaza strip. That was Egypt, who controlled it for 20 years without giving them citizenship or letting them leave.
Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas.
This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank
Speaking to Likud members of the Knesset (March 2019), as cited in “Another Concept Implodes: Israel Can’t Be Managed by a Criminal Defendant”, Haaretz (9 October 2023)
I hate that I am defending Israel when I say this because what is occurring in Gaza is tragic, but a lot of people are confusing “Genocide” for perceived “War Crimes” as defined by international law and also confusing “Hamas” for “Palestine” or the “Palestinian Authority”.
Hamas is terrorist government (similar in nature to the Taliban) that receives a lot of external funding from countries that actively wish to see the death of Israel and all Jews, making Hamas the chief perpetrators of Genocide in this conflict despite how ineffective they have been in their goals.
Israel was attacked by this terrorist government, and is now defending itself with the expressed war goal of destroying Hamas. While Israel has had a tenuous relationship with the Palestinian people (namely the government’s active efforts to limit the Palestinian Authority and drag their feet on grant the PA more autonomy and their own state which is deplorable and inexcusable), they do not and have not wished to kill an entire culture of people.
Complicating matters, Hamas commonly employs warfare techniques that go against the Geneva Convention like placing government and military headquarters in basements of protected buildings like Hospitals and places of worship. The moment they do that, and abuse those international recognized sanctuaries, they become legitimate military targets leading to the tragic deaths of unwitting civilians.
People can object to the war on the grounds that war is tragic and results in many civilian casualties, but to make meritless claims is detrimental to both international institutions and to the definition of a Genocide. South Africa calls what Israel is doing a genocide, but also explicitly looks the other way with Ukraine and continues to forge close ties with Putin? (For the record, Russia’s actions in Ukraine are also not considered genocide under it’s strict international definition, but they have been found guilty of war crimes).
Israel has an internationally recognized right to defend itself, and it is doing that by dismantling Hamas through force. The Palestinian people are unfortunately caught in the crossfire. With that said, Israel’s methods to this end are not above criticism, and they have faced pressure from the US and Biden to limit civilian casualties wherever possible, and use ground forces to directly attack Hamas rather than relying on airstrikes that have resulted in many innocent deaths.
For those reading who think all war is bad, I’ll leave you with this quote from John Stuart Mills:
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
All sides seem to get confused about the difference between Hamas and the Palestinians, at least when it suits them.
The charge of genocide is entirely fair and well supported. Israel’s consistent refusals to allow adequate aid, and cutting off water and power are sufficient all by themselves to support that claim, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The reason this is a genocide where Ukraine is more of a warcrimes but not Genocide situation has to do with how international relief for civilians is handled. Routinely blocking international relief efforts to evacuate or treat the wounded, provide food, water and fuel for civilians tends to threaten the bit of genocide ruling that marks “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. Making " reasonable" provision keeps that off of the table. Russia has been cagey about relief efforts but has always fallen short of a full blockade.
But when you look at Israel they have a situation set up where prior to this conflict they had a system in place that put a lot of paperwork in place for Pallistinians to use Israeli hospitals. If you then remove the hospitals that are open for unrestricted Palistinian use and then allow the pre-existing system to become choked with paperwork for a problem you aren’t really interested in solving you aren’t fulfilling your duty of care. The Israeli government has also outright said it’s intention is to block food, water and fuel going to Palistinian civilians. Fuel sounds like a lesser consideration but it is key to keeping sanitation at reasonable levels.
So you have a civilian population starving, likely fighting outbreaks of cholera, dysentary, typhoid intestinal parasites and hepatitis with no viable place to seek treatment and international aid in the form of food, water and medical supplies has been stopped, the intention being made baldly clear by statements made by high ranking officials that this is a deliberate tactic.
Thusfar Egypt and Jordan have blocked refugees from entering the country because of concerns of damage to their Israeli peace treaties which means the dominos are set to cause massive loss of life for Palestinian civilians where help is held out of reach by Israeli interests. Hence, a genocide.
Well, sheer number of civilian causalities isn’t genocide. Israel is stealing land and pushing away Palestinians from their homes. Even if Palestinians weren’t murdered and just forced to emigrate that would still wipe their culture
Is Israel stealing land in the Gaza strip? Unlike the West Bank there are no settlements and the border is a clearly defined wall. I agree if they forcibly resettle the population and claim the strip for themselves that would be ethnic cleansing, but they haven’t done that.
Pushing civilians out of a city during war is common practice (see literally any Eastern Ukrainian city). Pushing them out of their country is not. Gaza is essentially an urban city-state which conflates these two actions.
Yup that’s bad and I appreciate the source, thanks. The devil’s advocate counterpoint would be that virtually all nations have intelligence “concepts” for wildly implausible actions they have no intention of pursuing. It’s kind of the job of the intelligence agency to prepare for any potential eventuality. I’m pretty sure the US has detailed plans for war with Canada, should they be needed. Egypt is the country who originally locked the Gaza Strip down - there is next to zero chance Israel could force a resettlement in Egypt. But if they made an actual attempt, it would be ethnic cleansing. At that point, should the US government continue support, this case would actually have merit.
The difference here is the Palestinians don’t have passports, they can’t return. Even our war plans with Canada don’t include genocide, this plan does (because there is no opportunity to return).
I love how you still can’t counter my point that what Israel is doing in the west bank is ethnic cleansing. You’re argument is honestly hilarious, I don’t even want to report it so more people can read how stupid you are
I understand that you may have come in looking for a wider discussion, but this thread has always been about the genocide lawsuit and the civilian casualty counts, both of which clearly refer to Gaza, not the West Bank. It sounds like any discussion of the facts on the ground constitutes “minimizing ethnic cleansing” in your book, which indicates that you’re approaching this with a closed mind. Have a nice day.
Yes. They are stealing land in the Gaza strip. They are also stealing land in the West Bank. None of it was theirs to begin with, but the old “agreed upon” lines don’t exist anymore either.
I imagine the Genocide claim will be aided by the targeting of hospitals which are highly restricted targets in wartime which even if their protected status is removed requires a lot of very specific measures to be taken to not be a warcrime. Since the permit system allowing use of Israeli hospitals to Palistinian patients has not relaxed and has for the most part closed up shop it is a bad look.
Not to mention the Israeli government had made outright statements that they intend to starve the civilians of food, water and fuel (fuel being fairly key to sanitation ). In fact they have actively attempted to block international relief efforts in the region so wouldn’t that mean they are :
“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”
After all if you starve people in unsanitary conditions and take any medical care options effectively off the table I would imagine a fairly large part of the group would die as a consequence. I imagine the actual brief will have many counts as to why this is specifically a Genocide but all they need to do is fail one.
Their government and wealthy elite have made their intentions very clear with repeated statements. You don’t need to wait for a genocide to be done to act. In fact it’s preferable if you don’t.
Sure, but that’s a moral argument relating to the justification of different wars, weighing of collateral damage, etc. This is a legal case based on the genocide convention of 1948, and if there is no genocide, it falls apart.
Nobody credible is estimating the US killed this many civilians this quickly. It took years of small incidents adding up. We also had a habit of prosecuting soldiers who committed obvious warcrimes.
Yup you’re right of course. It was a throwaway reply to someone clearly arguing in bad faith. While it isn’t legal precedent, it is a fairly compelling defense.
It is not in any way compelling unless you’re just looking for excuses. Take your bad faith genocide apologia to someone gullible enough for it.
EDIT: Also just take a moment to notice how fucking wild it is that “Yeah, I was totally wrong but the other guy was also wrong I reckon so it’s fine also I think what I said was good actually,” was their defense. That sure was a bunch of words they said.
Again, the fact anybody liked this comment is a definite sign of brigading.
Good luck with the “those other guys did it too and didn’t get a ticket” argumentation in a Court of Law when you try to contest a speeding ticket…
“It was done before and never taken to court” does not create a legal precedent and even if taken to court, it requires a high enough court and it’s specifically about interpreting certain points of Law, so merelly “A similar situation yielded Not Guilty” means nothing.
Biden can point to literally dozens of battles, sieges, and wars that the US was directly involved in and resulted in similar levels of civilian casualties, with no genocide accusations. This is not going anywhere.
In past conflicts America has always had plausible deniabilty.
This time israel is screaming from the rooftops that they want to kill every man woman child and animal in Gaza. And then doing it
Cutting off food water and medicine also doesn’t help. Nor does Biden repeating Zionist propaganda about beheaded babies or rapes that didn’t happen. Or command centers under hospitals which were quickly forgotten about in the media after zero evidence was found of their existence.
Whether it works or not, it will massively tank the reputation of these institutions if they side with Genocide Joe.
Two corrections: On October 7, infants have been executed. While they weren’t beheaded, they were still murdered. And sexual assault by Hamas fighters has been widely documented and proven.
These things did happen. You’re not helping anyone by hiding things that are also true.
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I probably won’t convince you, but for the people who care about truth: “The grayzone” you’re linking here is everything but a reputable news source.
From the wikipedia article:
You spread disinformation. You’re not helping anyone by doing that. Just stop, okay?
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I literally provide resources of evidence and all you say there is “none”??
give me evidence backed by multiple, independent sources. Then I have a look. Otherwise this is nothing but misinformation.
Going after the US instead of Israel will definitely end it.
Did you even read the summary? They’re literally both being pursued
Israel has an ICJ case going after it already. Biden must be held accountable for his complicity in genocide as well.
Did the US ever kill 1% of a country’s population in less than four months? Iraq took years to reach 0.5% and it was a big fucking deal.
I’m going to assume you’re posting in good faith until proven otherwise.
The US never fought an urban country the size of Las Vegas, so a country-scale comparison is poor. We have however engaged in city-scale battles lasting several months, many of which killed 1% of the civilian population. A pretty good recent example is Mosul. There are several more egregious examples in the world wars, Korea, Vietnam, etc. notably we carpet bombed Tokyo for months killing several percent of the population.
Be careful not to ask why a country is packed into the size of Vegas or you may realize that was a coordinated campaign by the same people who are now claiming it’s impossible to not slaughter innocents because of the way THEY designed the strip.
Intentionally brining about conditions that lead to destruction in whole or part of a group is genocide, literally as written, in the Geneva Convention. Israel is the reason it’s so populated there, so when they blame the density, they blame themselves.
I’m well aware of the history and parallels with Jewish ghettos. These are somewhat confounded by repeated rejected offers of a two-state solution over 70 years, periods on unilateral Israeli withdrawal, the election of Hamas, decades of terror attacks on Israeli civilians with popular support, and a recent 9/11 scale massacre which also has popular support.
Also not to nitpick, but Israel didn’t create or design the Gaza strip. That was Egypt, who controlled it for 20 years without giving them citizenship or letting them leave.
Here’s a cool Netanyahu quote:
Here’s a compact 5 minute video about Hamas origins and how israel propped them up themselves.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Here’s a compact 5 minute video about Hamas origins and how israel propped them up themselves.
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
deleted by creator
I hate that I am defending Israel when I say this because what is occurring in Gaza is tragic, but a lot of people are confusing “Genocide” for perceived “War Crimes” as defined by international law and also confusing “Hamas” for “Palestine” or the “Palestinian Authority”.
Hamas is terrorist government (similar in nature to the Taliban) that receives a lot of external funding from countries that actively wish to see the death of Israel and all Jews, making Hamas the chief perpetrators of Genocide in this conflict despite how ineffective they have been in their goals.
Israel was attacked by this terrorist government, and is now defending itself with the expressed war goal of destroying Hamas. While Israel has had a tenuous relationship with the Palestinian people (namely the government’s active efforts to limit the Palestinian Authority and drag their feet on grant the PA more autonomy and their own state which is deplorable and inexcusable), they do not and have not wished to kill an entire culture of people.
Complicating matters, Hamas commonly employs warfare techniques that go against the Geneva Convention like placing government and military headquarters in basements of protected buildings like Hospitals and places of worship. The moment they do that, and abuse those international recognized sanctuaries, they become legitimate military targets leading to the tragic deaths of unwitting civilians.
People can object to the war on the grounds that war is tragic and results in many civilian casualties, but to make meritless claims is detrimental to both international institutions and to the definition of a Genocide. South Africa calls what Israel is doing a genocide, but also explicitly looks the other way with Ukraine and continues to forge close ties with Putin? (For the record, Russia’s actions in Ukraine are also not considered genocide under it’s strict international definition, but they have been found guilty of war crimes).
Israel has an internationally recognized right to defend itself, and it is doing that by dismantling Hamas through force. The Palestinian people are unfortunately caught in the crossfire. With that said, Israel’s methods to this end are not above criticism, and they have faced pressure from the US and Biden to limit civilian casualties wherever possible, and use ground forces to directly attack Hamas rather than relying on airstrikes that have resulted in many innocent deaths.
For those reading who think all war is bad, I’ll leave you with this quote from John Stuart Mills:
All sides seem to get confused about the difference between Hamas and the Palestinians, at least when it suits them.
The charge of genocide is entirely fair and well supported. Israel’s consistent refusals to allow adequate aid, and cutting off water and power are sufficient all by themselves to support that claim, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The reason this is a genocide where Ukraine is more of a warcrimes but not Genocide situation has to do with how international relief for civilians is handled. Routinely blocking international relief efforts to evacuate or treat the wounded, provide food, water and fuel for civilians tends to threaten the bit of genocide ruling that marks “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. Making " reasonable" provision keeps that off of the table. Russia has been cagey about relief efforts but has always fallen short of a full blockade.
But when you look at Israel they have a situation set up where prior to this conflict they had a system in place that put a lot of paperwork in place for Pallistinians to use Israeli hospitals. If you then remove the hospitals that are open for unrestricted Palistinian use and then allow the pre-existing system to become choked with paperwork for a problem you aren’t really interested in solving you aren’t fulfilling your duty of care. The Israeli government has also outright said it’s intention is to block food, water and fuel going to Palistinian civilians. Fuel sounds like a lesser consideration but it is key to keeping sanitation at reasonable levels.
So you have a civilian population starving, likely fighting outbreaks of cholera, dysentary, typhoid intestinal parasites and hepatitis with no viable place to seek treatment and international aid in the form of food, water and medical supplies has been stopped, the intention being made baldly clear by statements made by high ranking officials that this is a deliberate tactic.
Thusfar Egypt and Jordan have blocked refugees from entering the country because of concerns of damage to their Israeli peace treaties which means the dominos are set to cause massive loss of life for Palestinian civilians where help is held out of reach by Israeli interests. Hence, a genocide.
Well, sheer number of civilian causalities isn’t genocide. Israel is stealing land and pushing away Palestinians from their homes. Even if Palestinians weren’t murdered and just forced to emigrate that would still wipe their culture
Is Israel stealing land in the Gaza strip? Unlike the West Bank there are no settlements and the border is a clearly defined wall. I agree if they forcibly resettle the population and claim the strip for themselves that would be ethnic cleansing, but they haven’t done that.
Pushing civilians out of a city during war is common practice (see literally any Eastern Ukrainian city). Pushing them out of their country is not. Gaza is essentially an urban city-state which conflates these two actions.
They have openly stated that’s their intention, not succeeding yet is not a measure of how much they want to succeed.
Can you offer any proof of that beyond some disgusting statements by the finance minister, who is not setting military policy?
Just Google it my dude:
The Israeli Intelligence ministry, in a ‘concept paper,’ proposes transferring Gaza civilians to Egypt https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-population-transfer-hamas-egypt-palestinians-refugees-5f99378c0af6aca183a90c631fa4da5a
Yup that’s bad and I appreciate the source, thanks. The devil’s advocate counterpoint would be that virtually all nations have intelligence “concepts” for wildly implausible actions they have no intention of pursuing. It’s kind of the job of the intelligence agency to prepare for any potential eventuality. I’m pretty sure the US has detailed plans for war with Canada, should they be needed. Egypt is the country who originally locked the Gaza Strip down - there is next to zero chance Israel could force a resettlement in Egypt. But if they made an actual attempt, it would be ethnic cleansing. At that point, should the US government continue support, this case would actually have merit.
The difference here is the Palestinians don’t have passports, they can’t return. Even our war plans with Canada don’t include genocide, this plan does (because there is no opportunity to return).
Unlike a specific case that completely proves my point? Palestinians have homes in the west bank and Israel is still colonizing that land
We’re talking about Gaza in this thread. Any evidence of stealing land in Gaza?
I love how you still can’t counter my point that what Israel is doing in the west bank is ethnic cleansing. You’re argument is honestly hilarious, I don’t even want to report it so more people can read how stupid you are
What Israel is doing on the West Bank is ethnic cleansing. Done. Let’s return to Gaza now.
Cool, now read through every comment. This thread never mentioned Gaza, so get out of your own ass. You’re minimizing ethnic cleansing
I understand that you may have come in looking for a wider discussion, but this thread has always been about the genocide lawsuit and the civilian casualty counts, both of which clearly refer to Gaza, not the West Bank. It sounds like any discussion of the facts on the ground constitutes “minimizing ethnic cleansing” in your book, which indicates that you’re approaching this with a closed mind. Have a nice day.
Yes. They are stealing land in the Gaza strip. They are also stealing land in the West Bank. None of it was theirs to begin with, but the old “agreed upon” lines don’t exist anymore either.
Please point me to any Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.
I imagine the Genocide claim will be aided by the targeting of hospitals which are highly restricted targets in wartime which even if their protected status is removed requires a lot of very specific measures to be taken to not be a warcrime. Since the permit system allowing use of Israeli hospitals to Palistinian patients has not relaxed and has for the most part closed up shop it is a bad look.
Not to mention the Israeli government had made outright statements that they intend to starve the civilians of food, water and fuel (fuel being fairly key to sanitation ). In fact they have actively attempted to block international relief efforts in the region so wouldn’t that mean they are :
“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”
After all if you starve people in unsanitary conditions and take any medical care options effectively off the table I would imagine a fairly large part of the group would die as a consequence. I imagine the actual brief will have many counts as to why this is specifically a Genocide but all they need to do is fail one.
Their government and wealthy elite have made their intentions very clear with repeated statements. You don’t need to wait for a genocide to be done to act. In fact it’s preferable if you don’t.
Frankly, genocide or not, there should be consequences for the high amount of civilian casualties in those US conflicts.
Sure, but that’s a moral argument relating to the justification of different wars, weighing of collateral damage, etc. This is a legal case based on the genocide convention of 1948, and if there is no genocide, it falls apart.
Right. But there is a genocide occurring.
Yeah but not if you just deny it. The right have great succes denying genocide too. 6 million 6 schmilion amirite?
Nobody credible is estimating the US killed this many civilians this quickly. It took years of small incidents adding up. We also had a habit of prosecuting soldiers who committed obvious warcrimes.
“I killed this person but I can point out to many other similar situations where this happen in the past”
Amazing logic…
… Literally how legal precedent works mate
No it’s not. You need to have a trial to have legal precedent. You can’t base a legal precedent on “Those other times were the same I reckon.”
Lazy, wrong bullshit like this gets 7 upvotes, how? Brigading.
Yup you’re right of course. It was a throwaway reply to someone clearly arguing in bad faith. While it isn’t legal precedent, it is a fairly compelling defense.
It is not in any way compelling unless you’re just looking for excuses. Take your bad faith genocide apologia to someone gullible enough for it.
EDIT: Also just take a moment to notice how fucking wild it is that “Yeah, I was totally wrong but the other guy was also wrong I reckon so it’s fine also I think what I said was good actually,” was their defense. That sure was a bunch of words they said.
Again, the fact anybody liked this comment is a definite sign of brigading.
It’s one of most basic things about Law that merelly “somebody else did the same and got away with it” isn’t at all a valid defense.
The act itself is lawful or unlawful, quite independently of other people having done the same and gotten away with it.
Good luck with the “those other guys did it too and didn’t get a ticket” argumentation in a Court of Law when you try to contest a speeding ticket…
“It was done before and never taken to court” does not create a legal precedent and even if taken to court, it requires a high enough court and it’s specifically about interpreting certain points of Law, so merelly “A similar situation yielded Not Guilty” means nothing.
Oh really? Any of them after Vietnam or are we going for the Dresden defense?