I downvoted this. If you can point to anything Israel is doing that qualifies as genocide, I’ll retract my downvote. I’ve asked half a dozen times, here and on Reddit when people casually accuse Israel of genocide, and all I’ve got is basically “OMG how can you ask, don’t you know they’re doing bad things!”
Yes they’re doing bad things. War crimes? Certainly there are plenty of examples. Bombing civilians? Absolutely. Occupying Gaza again? No question.
Genocide? WTF are you talking about? They’re attempting to exterminate the Palestinians, and/or eradicating their culture? How? Where are the death camps? Where are the crematoria? Where are the videos of mass executions, or the mountains of bodies and bones? At the very least, where are the reeducation camps, where Israelis are attempting to teach Palestinian kids to speak Hebrew, as in Xinjiang?
Why not make the headline “We know this is not a war, it’s a cannibalistic feast!” Or “this is a Satanic orgy!” Why pull punches? If you’re making shit up, why stop an genocide?
Thanks for the earnest reply. I’m not convinced, but it’s refreshing not to just get downvotes and insults.
Trying to remove a people from their land Armenian genocide-style is also genocide
The thing that made the Armenian genocide a genocide is that the Turks killed somewhere between 0.6 and 1.2 million of a population of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey. The forced relocations were just an implementation detail. If forced relocation on it’s own was genocide, then the Soviets would be responsible for like a dozen genocides.
There has always been a strain of Israeli politics that has been striving for “greater Israel”. It’s never been dominant, but I think there’s a real concern that a genocide (in the traditional sense) might occur there, and I think you could claim conspiracy to commit ethnic cleansing. Israeli politics is ugly, and the fundamentalists are scary. Still…calling the current conflict a genocide is misleading and hyperbolic as hell IMHO. But that’s what it’s called all the time, without question, and people get furious if you ask what, specifically, they’re talking about.
It reeks of propaganda. I can’t take people seriously when they casually throw the term around. Talk about the terrible things that Israel actually is doing instead.
Well, but basically what you’re saying is that the genocide in Gaza exists in the hearts and minds of certain Israeli leaders. The Israelis have had the Palestinians at their mercy for decades, and they’ve been…supplying them with free water and power. Doesn’t seem very genocidal to me.
I agree that there are some scary government figures. I wouldn’t doubt that some of them have genocidal desires. But they’re counterbalanced by the fact that, in the end, Israel is a liberal country. And if the standard for ‘genocide’ is that some government officials harbor or express the desire for genocide, then the list of countries in the Middle East that are not genocidal would be a pretty short list.
What’s happening in the West Bank is wrong. You could, at a stretch, call it ethnic cleansing, but usually that term is reserved for government policy in land it controls. Extremists creeping across the border to settle and claim land, with the goal of driving the Palestinians out–to the annoyance of most of the government in power–doesn’t really fit the mold. I mean, the attack on Israel was executed by the governmental body that can best be claimed to represent the Gazans, with the eventual intent of driving all Jews out of the region, per their officially stated policy. Is that therefore ethnic cleansing?
Not supplying them with water and electricity would be a crime against humanity.
So they’re simultaneously committing genocide, and carefully avoiding violations of international law?
Again, I’m definitely not saying Israel has done nothing wrong. I’m specifically pushing back on the casual and irresponsible claims of genocide.
including Gaza, as much as Israel would like you to believe otherwise
In what way were Israelis occupying Gaza before the attack in October? Not with troops, right? They controlled the border pretty tightly, but it’s not Gaza’s only border. So…by what mechanism were they occupying it?
The settlers in the West Bank are a problem, and their relationship with the government & people of Israel is complicated and messy. To be clear: they’re wrong, they’re fundamentalist religious assholes, and to the extent the government supports them, the government is wrong to do so. I can totally get on board with that criticism!
I don’t buy the claim that relocating people is a genocide. Many genocides do involve relocation, and relocation on it’s own may well be be considered a crime against humanity (especially if there are signs that it’s permanent), but it’s a different crime than mass extermination.
The biggest impediment to free speech is people’s belief that they have it. Not censorship. Not refusal to platform critical voices. Not the war on journalism. It’s the fact that most people are propagandized into saying what the powerful want them to say, and don’t know it....
We live in a society with something much worse than censorship: we live in a society where I can say whatever I want, but other people disagree with me!
Obviously, this isn’t because I’m wrong, or my opinions are debatable. Clearly it must be because everybody is too stupid to see the truth, and they’re easily tricked by my ideological opponents, who are liars and who don’t actually believe anything they claim to believe.
The ideal society would be one where everybody was totally free to agree with me and my opinions, and all other opinions and viewpoints were recognized as being incorrect!
I’m just reading between the lines. I did skim a bit, but I didn’t miss much.
The culture war is a psyop? By who? Are Biden and Trump in cahoots? Is Trump much, much, much smarter than he seems? Or are they both puppets? And if so, of whom? Don’t tell me it’s a big conspiracy of ((International financiers)) or something…
The culture war is just tribalism and populism in a new medium. It’s not a fucking conspiracy by a shadowy elite, it’s mobs getting worked up and then politicians pandering.
Again, the implicit suggestion is: the reason people don’t agree with the author about shit is because they’re being tricked. I agree it’s frustrating that polarization has made American politics stupid as shit, but it doesn’t take a corporate conspiracy to make people behave stupidly: it comes to us very naturally.
As Jews we know, this is not a war. It’s a genocide. | Mondoweiss ( mondoweiss.net )
Team Trump Mulling Deploying Military to Streets on Day 1 if Elected: Report ( www.thedailybeast.com )
The former president’s allies are developing a plan that would immediately deploy the military to the streets against potential demonstrators.
[Opinion] - Propaganda Restricts Speech More Than Censorship Does: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix - Caitlin Johnstone ( caitlinjohnstone.com )
The biggest impediment to free speech is people’s belief that they have it. Not censorship. Not refusal to platform critical voices. Not the war on journalism. It’s the fact that most people are propagandized into saying what the powerful want them to say, and don’t know it....