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.
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.
Could you explain to me what’s circular about this? Nowhere is safe in Gaza, as witnessed by people in Gaza, humanitarian workers in Gaza, medical staff in Gaza, journalists in Gaza, and experts on Gaza either in Gaza or outside Gaza, with areal footage, videos, and a consistent feed of evidence of destruction showing Israel bombing areas it deemed safe..
Seems to me like you are saying that the reason it’s circular is that the Chief of the UN Security Council used words to describe what we have thousands of videos of. Or…? It’s not like you have to take their word for it… and they don’t want you to do that either… you have thousands of reports to inspect as proof that they have presented over and over again.
I think that argument is circular because it didn’t even attempt to argue grounds for genocide. It merely states facts that the humanitarian picture is grim and that the healthcare system was in the verge of collapse. It seems obvious to me that the arguments don’t lead to the conclusion. I’m not sure how to explain it differently. It begins with the premise and goes back around tk the same premise. Part of this is because the entire document does not consider Israel’s position or include Israel’s explanations for things.
It’s a war, a war in a tiny city where the enemy is dug into the city itself and using civilians as human shields with the goal of intentional martyrdom.
The arguments do not consider perfectly valid reasons why the humanitarian picture is so grim and why the healthcare system in Gaza is collapsing: because Hamas built its war infrastructure underneath people’s houses, schools, hospitals, electrical and water infrastructure, and then use those places to launch terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli, including intentionally targeting women and children as a matter of purposeful strategy, as opposed to discordant, occasional war crimes, for which the Israeli’s responsible should absolutely be held accountable.
I get it, is real shots of hostages here and there, the shot some civilians here and there. By and large though Israel really is targeting Hamas and the tunnels and Hamas have for years deployed a strategy of maximizing civilian casualties to paint as immoral.
Like if you drive up to my house and open fire on it from your car, if I shoot back, is it my fault that you have your kids and your family in your car with you while you’re out doing drive-bys?
I’ve read a lot of books and have seen a lot of movies where war comes to a city, and the warriors tell the women and children to get out, while they stay behind to fight. That’s not what Hamas does. Apparently 1.8 million people left their homes and went and signed in at refugee camps. That means something like 600,000 to 800,000 people did not heed the calls for evacuation. It’s pretty impressive that only 25,000 people have died in this situation, a war in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.
Of course if you ask Hamas, they don’t have one single fighter working for them, in fact, they don’t even exist, and everyone killed in every airstrike and every explosion and every shooting ever are innocent Palestinian civilians. In my book the Palestinian authorities and Hamas and even the Palestinian people have very little credibility when it comes to saying what happened in this theater.
I think there has been war crimes on both sides and the people responsible should be dealt with most harshly.
Like if you drive up to my house and open fire on it from your car, if I shoot back, is it my fault that you have your kids and your family in your car with you while you’re out doing drive-bys?
No. It’s not your fault.
But does this describe what’s happening on the ground today?
Others might see it more like this:
“If you drive up to my house and open fire on it from your car, then I come to your neighborhood with all my friends with guns, and I kill your wife, and I kill your son and your daughter and your dog, and then I blow up your house and the library next to you, is it my fault if your son, daughter, wife, and dog are dead?”
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.
No. Genocide means killing all or a part of a population because of their genes. I agree.
The civilians in Gaza were told to leave and virtually all of the civilian deaths have occured in and around Gaza City where there is 800 tunnel shafts and hundreds of miles of tunnels from which a militant enemy that regularly kills women and children is operating.
The tunnels and members of Hamas are just and valid military targets. That is why Gaza City is being bombed. Not because of anything to do with the genome of the people living there.
If Israel wanted to eliminate Palestinians, it could carpet bomb all of Gaza and all of the West Bank and kill every soul there within a matter of hours. But instead the numbers of civilian casualties are decreasing every day.
The New York times just published an article today called The Decline of Deaths in Gaza.
It makes several salient points:
The daily death tolls out of Gaza have reduced by half and continue to fall as they have been for weeks;
Israel said two weeks ago that it was shifting strategy to a more targeted approach;
Hamas is still launching rocket barages on Israel from Gaza City, 25 rockets just last week;
Many Hamas fighters fled South to another massive tunnel network under the second most populated area of Gaza, Khan Younis.
Some civilian deaths are likely to continue for a while to come as long as Hamas is still hiding underneath people’s homes and using women and children as human shields.
If Israel has genocidal intentions, shouldn’t the killing apparatus be getting more efficient?
At the current rate, it would take 50 years before there are no more Palestinians. That doesn’t sound very genocidal to me; not with the numbers dropping off as they have. Clearly Israel has changed it’s strategy.
No. Genocide means killing all or a part of a population because of their genes. I agree.
Then you can see that it is not relevant whether the people in the West Bank are also being genocided. The genocide in Gaza is still a genocide. The intent does not have to be to kill every single Palestinian in existence.
But I don’t understand how you say this and then a couple or paragraphs later say this…
If Israel wanted to eliminate Palestinians, it could carpet bomb all of Gaza and all of the West Bank and kill every soul there within a matter of hours.
You see how you’ve shifted back to “killing all Palestinians” being the only valid focus of a claim of genocide? It could do that but that is not the only way it could be a genocide. God even Hitler didn’t kill all of the Jews as quickly as possible.
It seems like you’re assuming Israel are stupid. Think about it. Imagine you did want to kill the Palestinians, in the modern world. Would you just drop some nukes and call it a day? Would you start making gas chambers?
Of course not! You would look evil. So you would have to do it with some kind of political cover. October 7th provided just that type of cover. That’s why they aren’t bombing the West Bank like they are Gaza, because they don’t have that justification. It would look too much like the gas chamber approach.
I’m not expecting you to agree that this is what is happening, but you must see that this “kill them all now” type of genocide is not the only “true” genocide? This is not a valid metric.
And then if we keep the “let’s not assume stupidity” approach for this point you made:
The New York times just published an article today called The Decline of Deaths in Gaza.
I think we can see why if you were being tactical, when you are literally on trial for genocide it might be a good idea to cool off a bit. Sooo many people are pissed at Israel, the justification is wearing thin (at best). If you’re being smart about it, you wouldn’t just carry on the tactics that got you into this mess.
I see your points and mostly agree. I’m not trying to be obtuse. But to be falling off by half within four months? Also, why text people and tell them to evacuate? Wouldn’t that provide the same subterfuge? The IDF still texts people before they bomb if they know there are civilians around, look it up.
But more importantly, they aren’t bombing indiscriminately. In my understanding: they are bombing legit targets, the tunnels and members of Hamas, and Hamas uses human shields and sympathy from high civilian casualties (martyrdom) as a weapon. Aren’t they the superceding cause of the civilian casualties? I agree, 30,000 dead is horrendous. Hamas members are honored to cram their entire extended family into an apartment right above their nearest tunnel shaft and have them all die as martyrs while their phones buzz with unread emergency broadcasts.
1.2 million people evacuated safely, a massive forced evacuation. That fact alone makes it reasonably suspect. I get where the allegations are coming from. On balance, I find Israel’s response to be proportionate (destroying the enemy’s attack capability (the tunnels)), and evacuations are necessary to achieve that purpose.
This war is unique, the tunnels are unprecedented in all of human history. The willingness to use human shields is not entirely unprecedented, but the tunnels, hiding military infrastructure under hospitals and schools, under apartment complexes, under colleges, makes it unprecedented in its atrocity. October 7 was the last straw. Hamas has to go. The tunnels have to go and the city rebuilt from scratch.
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.
Could you explain to me what’s circular about this? Nowhere is safe in Gaza, as witnessed by people in Gaza, humanitarian workers in Gaza, medical staff in Gaza, journalists in Gaza, and experts on Gaza either in Gaza or outside Gaza, with areal footage, videos, and a consistent feed of evidence of destruction showing Israel bombing areas it deemed safe..
Seems to me like you are saying that the reason it’s circular is that the Chief of the UN Security Council used words to describe what we have thousands of videos of. Or…? It’s not like you have to take their word for it… and they don’t want you to do that either… you have thousands of reports to inspect as proof that they have presented over and over again.
I think that argument is circular because it didn’t even attempt to argue grounds for genocide. It merely states facts that the humanitarian picture is grim and that the healthcare system was in the verge of collapse. It seems obvious to me that the arguments don’t lead to the conclusion. I’m not sure how to explain it differently. It begins with the premise and goes back around tk the same premise. Part of this is because the entire document does not consider Israel’s position or include Israel’s explanations for things.
It’s a war, a war in a tiny city where the enemy is dug into the city itself and using civilians as human shields with the goal of intentional martyrdom.
The arguments do not consider perfectly valid reasons why the humanitarian picture is so grim and why the healthcare system in Gaza is collapsing: because Hamas built its war infrastructure underneath people’s houses, schools, hospitals, electrical and water infrastructure, and then use those places to launch terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli, including intentionally targeting women and children as a matter of purposeful strategy, as opposed to discordant, occasional war crimes, for which the Israeli’s responsible should absolutely be held accountable.
I get it, is real shots of hostages here and there, the shot some civilians here and there. By and large though Israel really is targeting Hamas and the tunnels and Hamas have for years deployed a strategy of maximizing civilian casualties to paint as immoral.
Like if you drive up to my house and open fire on it from your car, if I shoot back, is it my fault that you have your kids and your family in your car with you while you’re out doing drive-bys?
I’ve read a lot of books and have seen a lot of movies where war comes to a city, and the warriors tell the women and children to get out, while they stay behind to fight. That’s not what Hamas does. Apparently 1.8 million people left their homes and went and signed in at refugee camps. That means something like 600,000 to 800,000 people did not heed the calls for evacuation. It’s pretty impressive that only 25,000 people have died in this situation, a war in one of the most densely populated areas on the planet.
Of course if you ask Hamas, they don’t have one single fighter working for them, in fact, they don’t even exist, and everyone killed in every airstrike and every explosion and every shooting ever are innocent Palestinian civilians. In my book the Palestinian authorities and Hamas and even the Palestinian people have very little credibility when it comes to saying what happened in this theater.
I think there has been war crimes on both sides and the people responsible should be dealt with most harshly.
No. It’s not your fault.
But does this describe what’s happening on the ground today?
Others might see it more like this:
“If you drive up to my house and open fire on it from your car, then I come to your neighborhood with all my friends with guns, and I kill your wife, and I kill your son and your daughter and your dog, and then I blow up your house and the library next to you, is it my fault if your son, daughter, wife, and dog are dead?”
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.
Sorry did you just ignore my entire comment?
No. Genocide means killing all or a part of a population because of their genes. I agree.
The civilians in Gaza were told to leave and virtually all of the civilian deaths have occured in and around Gaza City where there is 800 tunnel shafts and hundreds of miles of tunnels from which a militant enemy that regularly kills women and children is operating.
The tunnels and members of Hamas are just and valid military targets. That is why Gaza City is being bombed. Not because of anything to do with the genome of the people living there.
If Israel wanted to eliminate Palestinians, it could carpet bomb all of Gaza and all of the West Bank and kill every soul there within a matter of hours. But instead the numbers of civilian casualties are decreasing every day.
The New York times just published an article today called The Decline of Deaths in Gaza.
It makes several salient points:
Some civilian deaths are likely to continue for a while to come as long as Hamas is still hiding underneath people’s homes and using women and children as human shields.
If Israel has genocidal intentions, shouldn’t the killing apparatus be getting more efficient?
At the current rate, it would take 50 years before there are no more Palestinians. That doesn’t sound very genocidal to me; not with the numbers dropping off as they have. Clearly Israel has changed it’s strategy.
Then you can see that it is not relevant whether the people in the West Bank are also being genocided. The genocide in Gaza is still a genocide. The intent does not have to be to kill every single Palestinian in existence.
But I don’t understand how you say this and then a couple or paragraphs later say this…
You see how you’ve shifted back to “killing all Palestinians” being the only valid focus of a claim of genocide? It could do that but that is not the only way it could be a genocide. God even Hitler didn’t kill all of the Jews as quickly as possible.
It seems like you’re assuming Israel are stupid. Think about it. Imagine you did want to kill the Palestinians, in the modern world. Would you just drop some nukes and call it a day? Would you start making gas chambers?
Of course not! You would look evil. So you would have to do it with some kind of political cover. October 7th provided just that type of cover. That’s why they aren’t bombing the West Bank like they are Gaza, because they don’t have that justification. It would look too much like the gas chamber approach.
I’m not expecting you to agree that this is what is happening, but you must see that this “kill them all now” type of genocide is not the only “true” genocide? This is not a valid metric.
And then if we keep the “let’s not assume stupidity” approach for this point you made:
I think we can see why if you were being tactical, when you are literally on trial for genocide it might be a good idea to cool off a bit. Sooo many people are pissed at Israel, the justification is wearing thin (at best). If you’re being smart about it, you wouldn’t just carry on the tactics that got you into this mess.
You wouldn’t just drop the nuke.
I see your points and mostly agree. I’m not trying to be obtuse. But to be falling off by half within four months? Also, why text people and tell them to evacuate? Wouldn’t that provide the same subterfuge? The IDF still texts people before they bomb if they know there are civilians around, look it up.
But more importantly, they aren’t bombing indiscriminately. In my understanding: they are bombing legit targets, the tunnels and members of Hamas, and Hamas uses human shields and sympathy from high civilian casualties (martyrdom) as a weapon. Aren’t they the superceding cause of the civilian casualties? I agree, 30,000 dead is horrendous. Hamas members are honored to cram their entire extended family into an apartment right above their nearest tunnel shaft and have them all die as martyrs while their phones buzz with unread emergency broadcasts.
1.2 million people evacuated safely, a massive forced evacuation. That fact alone makes it reasonably suspect. I get where the allegations are coming from. On balance, I find Israel’s response to be proportionate (destroying the enemy’s attack capability (the tunnels)), and evacuations are necessary to achieve that purpose.
This war is unique, the tunnels are unprecedented in all of human history. The willingness to use human shields is not entirely unprecedented, but the tunnels, hiding military infrastructure under hospitals and schools, under apartment complexes, under colleges, makes it unprecedented in its atrocity. October 7 was the last straw. Hamas has to go. The tunnels have to go and the city rebuilt from scratch.