30,000 people have died. 17 million people died in the holocaust. That is not on the same level and it is not on the same scale. 30,000 is a significantly smaller number than 17 million.
If you support the Palestinian cause, pretending otherwise is a home goal.
I get that it feels right, because people are understandably angry about all this, but it’s not a winning argument. Quite the opposite. If you’re provably exaggerating the scale of what’s happening, it allows supporters of Israel’s far right government to sow doubt and claim you might also be exaggerating about the very very real war crimes and ethnic cleansing they are engaged in.
I feel like you and I are NOT on the same page, as a matter of fact, I feel like we are arguing to different points.
You seem like you are gatekeeping the definition of the Holocaust based on number of murdered casualties, I argue that the act of ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people is comparable to the Holocaust.
Please don’t create another straw man to argue over, the number of casualties was never the point, rather the act itself.
I argue that the act of ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people is comparable to the Holocaust.
Your comment above:
if you don’t care about the fact that a Holocaust level genocide
Maybe you misunderstood my criticism, but I wasn’t disputing that what was happening was genocide or ethnic cleansing. I was disputing the level or scale of what was happening. Clearly what is happening in Gaza (and the West Bank) is on a smaller scale. 17 million vs. 30,000 in Gaza.
This doesn’t make what is happening ok. It just means that it is on a smaller scale than the holocaust.
Please don’t create another straw man to argue over, the number of casualties was never the point
This is not another argument. The number of casualties was my argument from the beginning. The number of casualties may not have been your point, but it was mine when you said that what was happening was on the same level or scale as the holocaust.
This is also not a strawman argument. I am literally adressing something you said in your comment.
On a more general note, this is why comparisons to the Nazis or the Holocaust are rarely helpful, and partly why Godwin’s law is a thing.
For example, just because someone isn’t Adolf Hitler or a Nazi, doesn’t mean they’re not a fascist. Calling someone like Ben Gvir or Smotrich a Nazi might feel good, but it allows them to say “Aha! But I don’t believe x, y, z. Also, the Nazis hated Jews. I’m a Jew. So you’re wrong.” It undermines your argument, even if they are quite similar to Nazis. Call them a fascist or racial supremacist, based on things that they actually said and did, and it’s far harder to deny.
I have much respect that you are willing to engage in a civilized argument.
Now that you have pointed out what I have posted, I understand that I wasn’t being explicit enough in my definition and argument so I’ll do that here:
When I said Holocaust level, I didn’t mean it in the sense of the total amount of victims, but rather the act itself (systematic cleansing and expulsion of an ethnic race).
The other key distinction, of course, being that in the Holocaust, the Nazis were not striking military targets in the course of killing Jews. They were just lining up civilians and shooting them into mass graves, that is before that sort of up close violence affected the morale of the Nazis and they invented the gas chambers and death camps instead.
There is literally none of that going on in Gaza. There’s also the fact that for virtually all of these airstrikes there is a legit military target, being the tunnels underneath the cities.
I agree that the victims of the holocaust are 17 million by many estimates, but did you notice how the wikipedia page of it only mentions 6 million Jewish deaths under the Holocaust definition as an event?
Curious to know what you think about that because it irks me. I don’t see how all those dead Polish people aren’t part of the tally.
The comment I replied to said:
30,000 people have died. 17 million people died in the holocaust. That is not on the same level and it is not on the same scale. 30,000 is a significantly smaller number than 17 million.
If you support the Palestinian cause, pretending otherwise is a home goal.
I get that it feels right, because people are understandably angry about all this, but it’s not a winning argument. Quite the opposite. If you’re provably exaggerating the scale of what’s happening, it allows supporters of Israel’s far right government to sow doubt and claim you might also be exaggerating about the very very real war crimes and ethnic cleansing they are engaged in.
I feel like you and I are NOT on the same page, as a matter of fact, I feel like we are arguing to different points.
You seem like you are gatekeeping the definition of the Holocaust based on number of murdered casualties, I argue that the act of ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people is comparable to the Holocaust.
Please don’t create another straw man to argue over, the number of casualties was never the point, rather the act itself.
Your comment above:
Maybe you misunderstood my criticism, but I wasn’t disputing that what was happening was genocide or ethnic cleansing. I was disputing the level or scale of what was happening. Clearly what is happening in Gaza (and the West Bank) is on a smaller scale. 17 million vs. 30,000 in Gaza.
This doesn’t make what is happening ok. It just means that it is on a smaller scale than the holocaust.
This is not another argument. The number of casualties was my argument from the beginning. The number of casualties may not have been your point, but it was mine when you said that what was happening was on the same level or scale as the holocaust.
This is also not a strawman argument. I am literally adressing something you said in your comment.
On a more general note, this is why comparisons to the Nazis or the Holocaust are rarely helpful, and partly why Godwin’s law is a thing.
For example, just because someone isn’t Adolf Hitler or a Nazi, doesn’t mean they’re not a fascist. Calling someone like Ben Gvir or Smotrich a Nazi might feel good, but it allows them to say “Aha! But I don’t believe x, y, z. Also, the Nazis hated Jews. I’m a Jew. So you’re wrong.” It undermines your argument, even if they are quite similar to Nazis. Call them a fascist or racial supremacist, based on things that they actually said and did, and it’s far harder to deny.
I have much respect that you are willing to engage in a civilized argument.
Now that you have pointed out what I have posted, I understand that I wasn’t being explicit enough in my definition and argument so I’ll do that here:
When I said Holocaust level, I didn’t mean it in the sense of the total amount of victims, but rather the act itself (systematic cleansing and expulsion of an ethnic race).
I hope you and I are now on the same page.
The other key distinction, of course, being that in the Holocaust, the Nazis were not striking military targets in the course of killing Jews. They were just lining up civilians and shooting them into mass graves, that is before that sort of up close violence affected the morale of the Nazis and they invented the gas chambers and death camps instead.
There is literally none of that going on in Gaza. There’s also the fact that for virtually all of these airstrikes there is a legit military target, being the tunnels underneath the cities.
I agree that the victims of the holocaust are 17 million by many estimates, but did you notice how the wikipedia page of it only mentions 6 million Jewish deaths under the Holocaust definition as an event?
Curious to know what you think about that because it irks me. I don’t see how all those dead Polish people aren’t part of the tally.