The Gaza Strip is a tiny little area over on the left. The whole of Gaza is the size of Vegas and Gaza City is similar in size and population to Newark, New Jersey.
The West Bank is over on the right (eastern Israel, on the western bank of the Jordan River).
Three out of Five Palestinians live in the west bank.
Hamas operates primarily out of Gaza City (Northern Gaza), but they also fight in the West Bank. There are tunnels in West Bank, but they are small and disconnected from one another, tunnels connecting handfuls of buildings, or just hidden underground rooms used for snuggling weapons and people. There’s been a handful of airstrikes on personnel and tunnels in the West Bank. The death tolls in the West Bank, wjere the majority of Palestinians reside, is less than 300.
The large majority of deaths have been in Gaza City. That’s why I find it credible that Israel really is striking the tunnels, and not just saying “oh there was a tunnel there” as a pretext to bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure.
In Gaza alone, 1% of the population is dead. If you include the West Bank, 0.004 0.4% of the population is dead. The claim is that Israel are bloodthirsty villains trying to rid the world of Palestinians. That claim doesn’t hold water in light of these facts.
The place with more Palestinians living in it has 1/100th of the deaths in than in the part of Palestine just includes the Gaza tunnels. I can ot reconcile this fact with claims of a Palestinian genocide. The strikes to me look very measured and proportionate.
So your math is wrong. The dividend should be 5,000,000, the total population of Palestinians, not 2,300,000 million, the total population of only the Gaza Strip.
Edit: My total for Palestinian deaths was not properly converted to percentage. It is 0.4% on 0.004%.
You see this is what everyone else is talking about.
So your math is wrong. The dividend should be 5,000,000, the total population of Palestinians, not 2,300,000 million, the total population of only the Gaza Strip.
Maybe you should check your math. You didn’t multiply by 100 to make the percentage I guess.
But more importantly, including the West bank is these stats is misleading. If you’re going to do that why not also include all the diaspora around the world? The war is in Gaza. The numbers that make sense are those pertaining to Gaza.
Shit you’re right. I’ve shared this math maybe five or six times and the first time I said “hey there’s a chance my math isn’t right it’s not my strongest skill so please correct me if I’m wrong” and nobody has tried to correct me.
Well, I stand corrected and feel like a dumbass, it’s 0.4%.
Well thanks! I appreciate you admitting your mistake.
Next up, do you really think the right denominator is the whole Palestinian population? Shouldn’t it just be the population of Gaza? And if not, why shouldn’t we also include all the Palestinian diaspora from all over the world?
I would include Gaza and the West Bank but not the diaspora. The claim is that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. Palestinians include the West Bank.
I would not include the diaspora because the diaspora isn’t being killed and could not readily be killed by Israel. They are in other sovereign countries and protected by their militaries. Israel has neither the means nor opportunity to kill the Palestinian diaspora.
My initial takeaways confirm a lot of what you’ve heard me say.
There are some war crimes, no doubt, and no doubt that have been way over, reported such that people think it’s commonplace or part of an official policy. In SA’s complaint, for example, one apparent war crime was cited something like 19 different times in different sections of the complaint for different reasons. And many others had similar treatment. It’s laden with circular reasoning. Also, the most sensational claims, much like the most sensational claims in media, are often attributed to “reports.” In other words, the things that would make the best case for genocide are unattributed and therefore unlikely to be given ang weight bh the court (or by me).
It meets the definition of genocide because countries A, B, C, D, E,…etc. said it meets the definition of genocide where the list of countries supporting South Africa’s position are Iran, all of its proxies, and half a dozen other authoritarian-rum shitholes. Makes me wonder what is going on in South Africa that they are listed along with scuba, Iraq, Syria, Honduras, Pakistan, Malaysia, Namibia. That stood out.
More circular is stuff like:
It’s a genocide because…the Chief of the UN Security Counsel Said in December that nowhere was safe in Gaza and that the healthcare system was collapsing…total civilian casualties have increased since that statement…therefor the UN Security Council must agree that it is now genocide.
It’s a genocide because… Israel’s true goal is to expel all Palestinians from their homes permanently…the Jordanian foreign minister said that he thinks this is Israel’s goal…therefore that is Israel’s goal.
It’s a genocide because… Israel denies it meets the definition of genocide and says the war still has a ways to go…therefore it is genocide.
It’s a genocide because… Israel ordered civilians to evacuate Gaza and head south, many people did, a few handfuls of such refugees were killed while heading south… Therefore it’s genocide.
These are a few that jumped out. I see how people can read these allegations and say “see that’s a genocide.” The conclusions of South Africa are all consistent with the scope of Israel’s legitimate self defense. I say that because in my view Israel has a just and moral right to destroy the tunnels and kill every last member of Hamas. The tunnels are under Gaza City and there are apparently still hundreds or thousands of Hamas soldiers holed up in the tunnels dug in for a a guerilla campaign. That’s my starting point.
I’ll be going through the doc a little more this week. I’ll try to supplement this when I do.
But if the claim is about the Palestinians overall how could you not include them? “Palestinians” includes them too.
Despite all the ongoing killing in the West Bank, they don’t have a political cover to kill in the West Bank in the way they do in Gaza. So they can’t really do that either, because they are “protected” in the same way because there is zero justification for a bombing campaign in that case. America and others would certainly take issue. Maybe a security council vote would actually pass.
So I would say it’s much more reasonable to focus on the percentage of those actually at risk of large-scale killing.
I’m not making the claim. People here and such as the South Africa complaint are making the claim that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians that live in Israeli controlled territory. That doesn’t include the diaspora.
The claim is that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. I agree it shouldn’t include the diaspora, but I think the reason it shouldn’t include the West Bank is the same.
Also, worth noting from the definition of genocide:
genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group
Even if the claim was about Palestinians overall, the Palestinians in Gaza are “part” of Palestinians. There is no requirement that the entire group is involved.
I don’t think the claim is that it’s just committing genocide in Gaza. The claim is that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people because they are Palestinian.
It would be strange to ignore the much larger group of Palestinian people living within territory claimed by Israel in order to say that yes, israel is killing people solely for being Palestinian, but only in this specific little area, and not the other Palestinian people a little ways to the right.
In other words, if Israel is trying to kill people because they are Palestinian, why isn’t Israel bombing the West Bank with the save ferocity as it is Gaza City?
Well the answer is very obvious at least to me: Israel really is targeting the tunnels.
The Gaza Strip is a tiny little area over on the left. The whole of Gaza is the size of Vegas and Gaza City is similar in size and population to Newark, New Jersey.
The West Bank is over on the right (eastern Israel, on the western bank of the Jordan River).
Three out of Five Palestinians live in the west bank.
Hamas operates primarily out of Gaza City (Northern Gaza), but they also fight in the West Bank. There are tunnels in West Bank, but they are small and disconnected from one another, tunnels connecting handfuls of buildings, or just hidden underground rooms used for snuggling weapons and people. There’s been a handful of airstrikes on personnel and tunnels in the West Bank. The death tolls in the West Bank, wjere the majority of Palestinians reside, is less than 300.
The large majority of deaths have been in Gaza City. That’s why I find it credible that Israel really is striking the tunnels, and not just saying “oh there was a tunnel there” as a pretext to bomb civilians and civilian infrastructure.
In Gaza alone, 1% of the population is dead. If you include the West Bank,
0.0040.4% of the population is dead. The claim is that Israel are bloodthirsty villains trying to rid the world of Palestinians. That claim doesn’t hold water in light of these facts.The place with more Palestinians living in it has 1/100th of the deaths in than in the part of Palestine just includes the Gaza tunnels. I can ot reconcile this fact with claims of a Palestinian genocide. The strikes to me look very measured and proportionate.
So your math is wrong. The dividend should be 5,000,000, the total population of Palestinians, not 2,300,000 million, the total population of only the Gaza Strip.
Edit: My total for Palestinian deaths was not properly converted to percentage. It is 0.4% on 0.004%.
You see this is what everyone else is talking about.
Maybe you should check your math. You didn’t multiply by 100 to make the percentage I guess.
But more importantly, including the West bank is these stats is misleading. If you’re going to do that why not also include all the diaspora around the world? The war is in Gaza. The numbers that make sense are those pertaining to Gaza.
Shit you’re right. I’ve shared this math maybe five or six times and the first time I said “hey there’s a chance my math isn’t right it’s not my strongest skill so please correct me if I’m wrong” and nobody has tried to correct me.
Well, I stand corrected and feel like a dumbass, it’s 0.4%.
Well thanks! I appreciate you admitting your mistake.
Next up, do you really think the right denominator is the whole Palestinian population? Shouldn’t it just be the population of Gaza? And if not, why shouldn’t we also include all the Palestinian diaspora from all over the world?
I would include Gaza and the West Bank but not the diaspora. The claim is that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. Palestinians include the West Bank.
I would not include the diaspora because the diaspora isn’t being killed and could not readily be killed by Israel. They are in other sovereign countries and protected by their militaries. Israel has neither the means nor opportunity to kill the Palestinian diaspora.
BTW the ICJ case is titled this:
I’ve read a good chunk of it so far.
My initial takeaways confirm a lot of what you’ve heard me say.
There are some war crimes, no doubt, and no doubt that have been way over, reported such that people think it’s commonplace or part of an official policy. In SA’s complaint, for example, one apparent war crime was cited something like 19 different times in different sections of the complaint for different reasons. And many others had similar treatment. It’s laden with circular reasoning. Also, the most sensational claims, much like the most sensational claims in media, are often attributed to “reports.” In other words, the things that would make the best case for genocide are unattributed and therefore unlikely to be given ang weight bh the court (or by me).
Can you give an example of circular reasoning?
It meets the definition of genocide because countries A, B, C, D, E,…etc. said it meets the definition of genocide where the list of countries supporting South Africa’s position are Iran, all of its proxies, and half a dozen other authoritarian-rum shitholes. Makes me wonder what is going on in South Africa that they are listed along with scuba, Iraq, Syria, Honduras, Pakistan, Malaysia, Namibia. That stood out.
More circular is stuff like:
It’s a genocide because…the Chief of the UN Security Counsel Said in December that nowhere was safe in Gaza and that the healthcare system was collapsing…total civilian casualties have increased since that statement…therefor the UN Security Council must agree that it is now genocide.
It’s a genocide because… Israel’s true goal is to expel all Palestinians from their homes permanently…the Jordanian foreign minister said that he thinks this is Israel’s goal…therefore that is Israel’s goal.
It’s a genocide because… Israel denies it meets the definition of genocide and says the war still has a ways to go…therefore it is genocide.
It’s a genocide because… Israel ordered civilians to evacuate Gaza and head south, many people did, a few handfuls of such refugees were killed while heading south… Therefore it’s genocide.
These are a few that jumped out. I see how people can read these allegations and say “see that’s a genocide.” The conclusions of South Africa are all consistent with the scope of Israel’s legitimate self defense. I say that because in my view Israel has a just and moral right to destroy the tunnels and kill every last member of Hamas. The tunnels are under Gaza City and there are apparently still hundreds or thousands of Hamas soldiers holed up in the tunnels dug in for a a guerilla campaign. That’s my starting point.
I’ll be going through the doc a little more this week. I’ll try to supplement this when I do.
But if the claim is about the Palestinians overall how could you not include them? “Palestinians” includes them too.
Despite all the ongoing killing in the West Bank, they don’t have a political cover to kill in the West Bank in the way they do in Gaza. So they can’t really do that either, because they are “protected” in the same way because there is zero justification for a bombing campaign in that case. America and others would certainly take issue. Maybe a security council vote would actually pass.
So I would say it’s much more reasonable to focus on the percentage of those actually at risk of large-scale killing.
I’m not making the claim. People here and such as the South Africa complaint are making the claim that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians that live in Israeli controlled territory. That doesn’t include the diaspora.
The claim is that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. I agree it shouldn’t include the diaspora, but I think the reason it shouldn’t include the West Bank is the same.
Also, worth noting from the definition of genocide:
Even if the claim was about Palestinians overall, the Palestinians in Gaza are “part” of Palestinians. There is no requirement that the entire group is involved.
I don’t think the claim is that it’s just committing genocide in Gaza. The claim is that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people because they are Palestinian.
It would be strange to ignore the much larger group of Palestinian people living within territory claimed by Israel in order to say that yes, israel is killing people solely for being Palestinian, but only in this specific little area, and not the other Palestinian people a little ways to the right.
In other words, if Israel is trying to kill people because they are Palestinian, why isn’t Israel bombing the West Bank with the save ferocity as it is Gaza City?
Well the answer is very obvious at least to me: Israel really is targeting the tunnels.