You’re close, more or less, to how I see it but I think you know you’re being a bit cheeky. My views on this are too complex to put into bullet point as you’ve done, there’s too much nuance. It’s hard to even talk about in paragraphs, let alone bullet points. There’s a reason peace in the middle east has been so elusive and so polarizing; it comes down to very personal beliefs.
Targeting civilians is absolutely not okay. Targeting military assets after warning nearby civilians is absolutely fine, as far as prosecuting a war goes. It’s not that I’m just okay with such calamity, I’m just not surprised to see five figures death tolls of civilians when Hamas forces, tricks, or convinces Gazans to literally stand underneath bombs, so I don’t blame Israel for those excess deaths. They are clearly the result of Hamas’s strategy; and it’s their strategy that is the war crime, their strategy of literally using entire cities as human shields, their strategy of not wearing uniforms, their strategy of operating out of hospitals and schools, are the crime against humanity.
In law it’s called transferred intent. If you commit an armed bank robbery and a responding police officer shoots at you but hits and kills a family crossing the street, you are charged for their deaths since their deaths were within the range of probable consequences of committing armed robbery, and among the range of foreseeable risks that make the conduct illegal in the first place.
News reports can be verified, just not fast enough for either the 24-hour outrage news cycle or the coalition of propogandists who are trying to mobilize extremists against the western world order, you know, all these pan Islamists chanting “death to America and death to Israel,” as well as all these dark moneied MAGA loyalists in America trying to mobilize liberals against Joe Biden. I think the public got lied to in the early days of the war and every further lie they see just confirms their initial reaction.
So unfortunately in America the coverage of this war has been utterly one sided and people have a perception of it that doesn’t match reality. Again, monthly casualties have decreased every month since the start of the war. The famine that has been imminent for four months hanot happened. Shroedingers Gaza, somehow simultaneously starving with no aid and also literally has people dying because aid is failing on them from the sky.
Then, to add to that misperception, there are the bona fide war crimes that some Israeli soldiers obviously do commit, which as noted in the ICJ opinion, Israel has a credible record of prosecuting when it can. Events such as the flour massacre or this recent food aid workers’ vehicle.
The legit atrocities get mixed in with the unbelievable rage bait about IDF soldiers just doing sniper rifle turkey shoots of little kids, just scooping up women and kids and torturing them, based on third and fourth hand accounts of “reports” of literal Hamas accomplices, and they always have the same report about how none of the bombs ever hit any Hamas fighters, and never hit any tunnels and there were no warnings, only women, children, orphans, and puppies.
Then there is the echo chamber of media where we hear the same few quotes, day in, day out, such as, “entire families wiped out” and “famine is imminent.” Since November 3, 2023, famine has been imminent, at least according to an NGO in a fundraising press release. Since October 10, 2023, “families wiped out.” Generic info. Scant mention of causation or circumstances. Scant basic details such as identification of which families, or when, or where. Headlines like “strike on aid convoy” or “hospital bombed.” If you only read headlines, you have no idea that you’ve seen twenty-five headlines about the same one or two events, not twenty five separate events. And even if read the articles, you don’t fair much better because the details are just lacking. Obviously when Hamas uses cities, their own families and friends, as human shields, and war breaks out, entire families are going to be killed.
It seems very obvious to me that a mix of true and false “reports” falsely colored public opinion of the entire war, and continues to taint the basic facts. Before you know it, someone has their patriotism exploited and they go to Washington DC and self immolate trying to get their government to intervene on Hamas’s behalf. It’s called lawfare. It almost looks like it might be effective. It seems to have boiled down to Rafah. Will the lawfare provide enough cover for Hamas to survive the siege intact?
International law is based on custom and tradition, and most of all the circumstances. Present circumstances are unprecedented because Hamas has the most extensive tunnel warfare (read: human shield) operation in world history and a well established local customs and traditions of martyrdom (read: letting Hamas build tunnels under your house), and terrorism (read: operating entirely outside of international law while demanding its protection, whilst having an actual genocidal intent).
It seems very obvious to me that people who say Israel is commiting genocide or is an apartheid state are anti semitic or bad faith actors applying a double standard to Israel in order to sway opinion to their self interests, they are themselves anti semites, or they are basing their assessment on the aforementioned falsely colored factual circumstances, on lies and exaggeration, mixed with unfortunate truths.
Like, give me a break, apartheid? Israel has a Palestinian Supreme Court justice. He’s a citizen of Israel. People in Gaza are not citizens of Israel, obviously they don’t have the same rights of travel and protected legal status as people who are born or naturalized Israeli citizens. And still, apartheid is more than not just one group not having equal rights, it is the legal and political subjugation of the majority by the minority, sort of the opposite of democracy. That is the characteristic about apartheid that make it a crime against humanity, rather than merely run of the mill discrimination. South Africa didn’t have any black Supreme Court Justice during Apartheid, and they were not only citizens of South Africa but the majority.
Targeting civilians is absolutely not okay. Targeting military assets after warning nearby civilians is absolutely fine, as far as prosecuting a war goes.
Well, we do know by now that according to Lavender the death of 10-15 civilians for a low level Hamas fighter is tolerable, for high level commanders 100 civilian deaths are still just fine. Also, Lavender prefers hitting apartment blocks because the targeted people are easier to find when they’re with their families.
I understand the bullet points were brief (and a bit cheeky yeah) but I think it helps to focus if you want the conversation to be productive. Like we could argue for days about a single “full version” of one of the bullet points. I think I do understand what you’re saying, though.
But in international law, genocide has a specific definition (sure you have seen it but just to be clear):
any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
When people say Israel is committing genocide they mean “they are doing this stuff.” Bearing in mind that any one is enough, the third act is clearly being done, for example. Israeli officials announced that they would purposefully be cutting off food and water to the civilians of Gaza. Having no food and water is clearly a condition that brings about destruction of life. The situation was created purposefully, announced beforehand and the consequences of this are being seen (yes people were talking about it sooner but, you know, we understand what happens if people don’t have food). Oh yeah and are you sick? Bad news, no hospitals.
There is no “unless a terrorist organisation is there” caveat to this, at least from my understanding. It is an act of genocide. We could do this for the first three or four pretty convincingly.
In law it’s called transferred intent. If you commit an armed bank robbery and a responding police officer shoots at you but hits and kills a family crossing the street, you are charged for their deaths since their deaths were within the range of probable consequences of committing armed robbery
I’m not sure this applies to genocide, but is “starving children to death” in the range of probable consequences of someone from the same place as you committing an atrocity? Is this an expected consequence? This is absurd, surely.
So from your explanations I’m still confused. Do you accept that Israel is committing acts of genocide, by this definition?
Then the only thing left is intent. But I feel like the amalek thing alone is pretty damning. Especially given IDF chanting it on the ground too. South Africa made a very convincing case for this overall.
Is your point that, “yes, these things would be genocide but some of the key foundations of the argument are false or misinformation”?
It seems very obvious to me that people who say Israel is commiting genocide or is an apartheid state are anti semitic or bad faith actors applying a double standard to Israel in order to sway opinion to their self interests, they are themselves anti semites, or they are basing their assessment on the aforementioned falsely colored factual circumstances, on lies and exaggeration, mixed with unfortunate truths.
I think by your estimation I would be using “falsely colored factual circumstances” etc? It seems a bit dangerous to assume bad faith when an international court has ruled that this is not an unreasonable accusation.
The court’s ruling takes South Africa’s vague and repetitive allegations as true. It’s only in that circumstance that the allegations is plausible. South Africa’s allegations fall apart under scrutiny. The underlying allegations are unverified reports and bullshit straight from the mouth of literal Hamas members.
Starving children to death? Hamas started a siege war with a vastly superior force and they didn’t pack enough food to feed their people. How is that not on them? I agree generally with “you break it, you bought it” with countries, but Hamas broke Gaza. The famine has been imminent since November 3, 2023, and it hasn’t materialized. I understand there is food insecurity and some malnutrition. Aid is flowing though and increasing and Israel secured more territory. Death tolls have been going down month over month. The mass starvation and genocide hasn’t been borne out.
Hamas started a siege war with a vastly superior force and they didn’t pack enough food to feed their people. How is that not on them?
Because Israel is still responsible for it’s own actions and controls the border and flow of aid to Gaza? Is this not obvious? If you’re honestly making this argument I think we’re done here. You have apparently lost all humanity. I thought you could have been a reasonable person but apparently I was wrong.
Dude anyone defending Israel at this point is devoid of humanity. This guy literally shrugs off aide workers being murdered with precision strikes, let alone thousands of innocent deaths. They’ve demonstrated their belief that 1,500 Israeli lives are significantly more important than 32,000+ Palestinians. “They’re killing less every day” lie as if it’s a good thing, makes me sick. The amount of time they take to write out their long-winded comments excusing mass murder is fucking shocking, and I can’t believe people like them actually exist. Israel could nuke New York, say it was Hamas, and this brainwashed idiot would believe it even if their own family was killed in that strike.
I know dude I just wanted to give him a chance to not be a piece of shit. But here we are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The amount of time they take to write out their long-winded comments excusing mass murder is fucking shocking
Yeah seriously. I was trying to be concise and keep on the point and every response was an essay. That’s because somewhere in there he sees the issues with what he’s about to say and so has to package it with all of this bullshit so he doesn’t read it back and see what a monster he has become
I’ve heard this argument before so many times now it’s weird. They (the person you are going back and forth with for example) 100% agree that Israel is taking all the actions. They are killing civilians, creating a situation in which food and aid are both dangerous and inconsistent, and use AI to specifically target family homes with large numbers of civilians.
The civilian casualties aren’t high because Hamas used human shields to make it high, it’s high because the IDF allowed for and made specific rules that targeting civilians was ok en masse, as collateral damage, using Lavender.
Hamas didn’t make Israel pursue this war in a way that was purposely destructive towards civilians. Israel chose to do this at every turn in reaction to Oct 6th. Israel has all the power in this situation to do things differently.
It’s not like I don’t get, I would want revenge too, but at some point they’re going to be forced to admit that the pain to the civilians is part of the point. And that their ACTUAL argument is that the civilians deserve it because of Hamas.
They (the person you are going back and forth with for example) 100% agree that Israel is taking all the actions
You would hope so but I’m not sure about that. He just blamed the famine on Hamas.
it’s high because the IDF allowed for and made specific rules that targeting civilians was ok en masse, as collateral damage, using Lavender
Yeah I read about this. Disgusting. Imagine putting that low a value on human life. Makes me sick to my stomach.
at some point they’re going to be forced to admit that the pain to the civilians is part of the point. And that their ACTUAL argument is that the civilians deserve it because of Hamas.
Exactly. But they’re all too cowardly to admit this.
They don’t seem to see that they’ve lost the moral high ground and they will never regain it again. I for one won’t forget or stop speaking out about this bullshit until the day I die. When the court convicts them of genocide people like JustZ here will either have to re-evaluate and maybe grow as a person or stick their fingers in their ears and claim the court is just so antisemitic and Israel has been innocent all along. I think it’s clear which is more likely
So these are your grounds for saying that it isn’t a genocide?
But how does this relate to the genocide convention? Are you saying there is no intent?
We can talk about specific points after but I want to understand how this all connects
You’re close, more or less, to how I see it but I think you know you’re being a bit cheeky. My views on this are too complex to put into bullet point as you’ve done, there’s too much nuance. It’s hard to even talk about in paragraphs, let alone bullet points. There’s a reason peace in the middle east has been so elusive and so polarizing; it comes down to very personal beliefs.
Targeting civilians is absolutely not okay. Targeting military assets after warning nearby civilians is absolutely fine, as far as prosecuting a war goes. It’s not that I’m just okay with such calamity, I’m just not surprised to see five figures death tolls of civilians when Hamas forces, tricks, or convinces Gazans to literally stand underneath bombs, so I don’t blame Israel for those excess deaths. They are clearly the result of Hamas’s strategy; and it’s their strategy that is the war crime, their strategy of literally using entire cities as human shields, their strategy of not wearing uniforms, their strategy of operating out of hospitals and schools, are the crime against humanity.
In law it’s called transferred intent. If you commit an armed bank robbery and a responding police officer shoots at you but hits and kills a family crossing the street, you are charged for their deaths since their deaths were within the range of probable consequences of committing armed robbery, and among the range of foreseeable risks that make the conduct illegal in the first place.
News reports can be verified, just not fast enough for either the 24-hour outrage news cycle or the coalition of propogandists who are trying to mobilize extremists against the western world order, you know, all these pan Islamists chanting “death to America and death to Israel,” as well as all these dark moneied MAGA loyalists in America trying to mobilize liberals against Joe Biden. I think the public got lied to in the early days of the war and every further lie they see just confirms their initial reaction.
So unfortunately in America the coverage of this war has been utterly one sided and people have a perception of it that doesn’t match reality. Again, monthly casualties have decreased every month since the start of the war. The famine that has been imminent for four months hanot happened. Shroedingers Gaza, somehow simultaneously starving with no aid and also literally has people dying because aid is failing on them from the sky.
Then, to add to that misperception, there are the bona fide war crimes that some Israeli soldiers obviously do commit, which as noted in the ICJ opinion, Israel has a credible record of prosecuting when it can. Events such as the flour massacre or this recent food aid workers’ vehicle.
The legit atrocities get mixed in with the unbelievable rage bait about IDF soldiers just doing sniper rifle turkey shoots of little kids, just scooping up women and kids and torturing them, based on third and fourth hand accounts of “reports” of literal Hamas accomplices, and they always have the same report about how none of the bombs ever hit any Hamas fighters, and never hit any tunnels and there were no warnings, only women, children, orphans, and puppies.
Then there is the echo chamber of media where we hear the same few quotes, day in, day out, such as, “entire families wiped out” and “famine is imminent.” Since November 3, 2023, famine has been imminent, at least according to an NGO in a fundraising press release. Since October 10, 2023, “families wiped out.” Generic info. Scant mention of causation or circumstances. Scant basic details such as identification of which families, or when, or where. Headlines like “strike on aid convoy” or “hospital bombed.” If you only read headlines, you have no idea that you’ve seen twenty-five headlines about the same one or two events, not twenty five separate events. And even if read the articles, you don’t fair much better because the details are just lacking. Obviously when Hamas uses cities, their own families and friends, as human shields, and war breaks out, entire families are going to be killed.
It seems very obvious to me that a mix of true and false “reports” falsely colored public opinion of the entire war, and continues to taint the basic facts. Before you know it, someone has their patriotism exploited and they go to Washington DC and self immolate trying to get their government to intervene on Hamas’s behalf. It’s called lawfare. It almost looks like it might be effective. It seems to have boiled down to Rafah. Will the lawfare provide enough cover for Hamas to survive the siege intact?
International law is based on custom and tradition, and most of all the circumstances. Present circumstances are unprecedented because Hamas has the most extensive tunnel warfare (read: human shield) operation in world history and a well established local customs and traditions of martyrdom (read: letting Hamas build tunnels under your house), and terrorism (read: operating entirely outside of international law while demanding its protection, whilst having an actual genocidal intent).
It seems very obvious to me that people who say Israel is commiting genocide or is an apartheid state are anti semitic or bad faith actors applying a double standard to Israel in order to sway opinion to their self interests, they are themselves anti semites, or they are basing their assessment on the aforementioned falsely colored factual circumstances, on lies and exaggeration, mixed with unfortunate truths.
Like, give me a break, apartheid? Israel has a Palestinian Supreme Court justice. He’s a citizen of Israel. People in Gaza are not citizens of Israel, obviously they don’t have the same rights of travel and protected legal status as people who are born or naturalized Israeli citizens. And still, apartheid is more than not just one group not having equal rights, it is the legal and political subjugation of the majority by the minority, sort of the opposite of democracy. That is the characteristic about apartheid that make it a crime against humanity, rather than merely run of the mill discrimination. South Africa didn’t have any black Supreme Court Justice during Apartheid, and they were not only citizens of South Africa but the majority.
Well, we do know by now that according to Lavender the death of 10-15 civilians for a low level Hamas fighter is tolerable, for high level commanders 100 civilian deaths are still just fine. Also, Lavender prefers hitting apartment blocks because the targeted people are easier to find when they’re with their families.
I understand the bullet points were brief (and a bit cheeky yeah) but I think it helps to focus if you want the conversation to be productive. Like we could argue for days about a single “full version” of one of the bullet points. I think I do understand what you’re saying, though.
But in international law, genocide has a specific definition (sure you have seen it but just to be clear):
When people say Israel is committing genocide they mean “they are doing this stuff.” Bearing in mind that any one is enough, the third act is clearly being done, for example. Israeli officials announced that they would purposefully be cutting off food and water to the civilians of Gaza. Having no food and water is clearly a condition that brings about destruction of life. The situation was created purposefully, announced beforehand and the consequences of this are being seen (yes people were talking about it sooner but, you know, we understand what happens if people don’t have food). Oh yeah and are you sick? Bad news, no hospitals.
There is no “unless a terrorist organisation is there” caveat to this, at least from my understanding. It is an act of genocide. We could do this for the first three or four pretty convincingly.
I’m not sure this applies to genocide, but is “starving children to death” in the range of probable consequences of someone from the same place as you committing an atrocity? Is this an expected consequence? This is absurd, surely.
So from your explanations I’m still confused. Do you accept that Israel is committing acts of genocide, by this definition?
Then the only thing left is intent. But I feel like the amalek thing alone is pretty damning. Especially given IDF chanting it on the ground too. South Africa made a very convincing case for this overall.
Is your point that, “yes, these things would be genocide but some of the key foundations of the argument are false or misinformation”?
I think by your estimation I would be using “falsely colored factual circumstances” etc? It seems a bit dangerous to assume bad faith when an international court has ruled that this is not an unreasonable accusation.
The court’s ruling takes South Africa’s vague and repetitive allegations as true. It’s only in that circumstance that the allegations is plausible. South Africa’s allegations fall apart under scrutiny. The underlying allegations are unverified reports and bullshit straight from the mouth of literal Hamas members.
Starving children to death? Hamas started a siege war with a vastly superior force and they didn’t pack enough food to feed their people. How is that not on them? I agree generally with “you break it, you bought it” with countries, but Hamas broke Gaza. The famine has been imminent since November 3, 2023, and it hasn’t materialized. I understand there is food insecurity and some malnutrition. Aid is flowing though and increasing and Israel secured more territory. Death tolls have been going down month over month. The mass starvation and genocide hasn’t been borne out.
Yes.
Because Israel is still responsible for it’s own actions and controls the border and flow of aid to Gaza? Is this not obvious? If you’re honestly making this argument I think we’re done here. You have apparently lost all humanity. I thought you could have been a reasonable person but apparently I was wrong.
Dude anyone defending Israel at this point is devoid of humanity. This guy literally shrugs off aide workers being murdered with precision strikes, let alone thousands of innocent deaths. They’ve demonstrated their belief that 1,500 Israeli lives are significantly more important than 32,000+ Palestinians. “They’re killing less every day” lie as if it’s a good thing, makes me sick. The amount of time they take to write out their long-winded comments excusing mass murder is fucking shocking, and I can’t believe people like them actually exist. Israel could nuke New York, say it was Hamas, and this brainwashed idiot would believe it even if their own family was killed in that strike.
I know dude I just wanted to give him a chance to not be a piece of shit. But here we are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah seriously. I was trying to be concise and keep on the point and every response was an essay. That’s because somewhere in there he sees the issues with what he’s about to say and so has to package it with all of this bullshit so he doesn’t read it back and see what a monster he has become
I appreciate your effort and patience.
Well said.
I’ve heard this argument before so many times now it’s weird. They (the person you are going back and forth with for example) 100% agree that Israel is taking all the actions. They are killing civilians, creating a situation in which food and aid are both dangerous and inconsistent, and use AI to specifically target family homes with large numbers of civilians.
The civilian casualties aren’t high because Hamas used human shields to make it high, it’s high because the IDF allowed for and made specific rules that targeting civilians was ok en masse, as collateral damage, using Lavender.
Hamas didn’t make Israel pursue this war in a way that was purposely destructive towards civilians. Israel chose to do this at every turn in reaction to Oct 6th. Israel has all the power in this situation to do things differently.
It’s not like I don’t get, I would want revenge too, but at some point they’re going to be forced to admit that the pain to the civilians is part of the point. And that their ACTUAL argument is that the civilians deserve it because of Hamas.
You would hope so but I’m not sure about that. He just blamed the famine on Hamas.
Yeah I read about this. Disgusting. Imagine putting that low a value on human life. Makes me sick to my stomach.
Exactly. But they’re all too cowardly to admit this.
They don’t seem to see that they’ve lost the moral high ground and they will never regain it again. I for one won’t forget or stop speaking out about this bullshit until the day I die. When the court convicts them of genocide people like JustZ here will either have to re-evaluate and maybe grow as a person or stick their fingers in their ears and claim the court is just so antisemitic and Israel has been innocent all along. I think it’s clear which is more likely