I used to like The Economist, but this is Nazis propaganda right on their page.
Israel, by contrast, does not meet the test of genocide. There is little evidence that Israel, like Hamas, “intends” to destroy an ethnic group—the Palestinians. Israel does want to destroy Hamas, a militant group, and is prepared to kill many civilians in doing so. While some Israeli extremists might want to eradicate the Palestinians, that is not a government policy.
This is not okay. This is Nazi logic. Nazi, fascist logic, from The Economist.
Even Nazi Germany did not make killing the official “intention” or government policy in my understanding. At least not always. It was announced as a safety guarantee, for example.
There is little evidence that Israel, like Hamas, “intends” to destroy an ethnic group—the Palestinians
This particular line I keep seeing parroted. Yes, Hamas has said they wish to eradicate an ethnic group. Yes, that is egregious. No, that does not mean their rebellion against the occupying, more powerful force, is a genocide.
Beyond that, Israel has said “we are fighting against animals”, painting Palestinians as inhuman to legitimize their warcrimes. While one may argue that they were just talking about Hamas, it’s obvious that Hamas is composed of Palestinians, and while not elected by the Palestinians of today, represent them.
But to my initial point, the occupying force, physically erasing a people and systemically erasing their culture and ability to congregate and form community is genocide. Regardless of Hamas. They have the means, and they are enacting that means.
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Does this invalidate the subject upon which they’re reporting, i.e. does this invalidate Neve Gordon’s opinion that Israel’s painting Palestinians as animals to justify their warcrimes?
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“It’s not official government policy to kill Palestinians. It’s official government policy that they all have to ‘leave voluntarily’, it’s official government policy to be looking for places for them to go, and it’s official government policy not to ask what happens if Palestinians fail to ‘leave voluntarily’, but it’s not a genocide because during the killing no one said ‘I’m doing this very genocidally’.”
Also there’s a subtext I haven’t seen news outlet calling out. Every time they put out one of those announcements for them to leave voluntarily (not that they actually have anywhere to go or any means to get there) somehow cell communications and internet went down simultaneously just prior. Almost as if, I don’t know, somebody disabled communications and then put out a communication so that no one would find out and they would have an excuse. “They never left!”
I deffo noticed that the IDF tried to deliver a message to an arabic speaking population in an area where they had destroyed the internet, but that they did it in english on twitter. feels rather performative, no?
Lol, I didn’t have those details before. Definitely increases the absurdity.
misused
There have been a slew of these articles from The Economist that blatantly side with Israel or distort facts. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t multiple members of Israel’s far-right government openly calling for the destruction of as many Palestinians as possible?
“um, akshully, it’s not genocide, but it might still be bad or whatever.” Ridiculous
Setting aside whether Israel’s attacks, killings, civilian casualties and mass displacement meet a particular definition of genocide, what possible reason does the author have to quibble on this?
Either they’re merely being pedantic (which I find hard to believe) or they’re trying to blunt outrage over what I think any reasonable person would call a genocide. They’re reaching for any means possible to make these crimes seem less heinous. Seems like a move of desperation to me.
genocide and ethnic cleansing were inevitable from the moment Israel was formed. ethnic cleansing is the inevitable result of an ethnostate, and Israel was formed to be a Jewish ethnostate. an ethnostate is an ethnostate, regardless of which ethnicity it’s for
“It’s not genocide because they’re not trying to murder everyone. Yes, they are killing everyone but it’s not intentional.”
What a stupid fucking piece of shit excuse.
When you can apply that same anger and outrage to the other side, then you might have some credibility.
How so? Is it a requirement that someone state at every turn that Hamas is genocidal as well? Who is dying right now?
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What do you call it when a government accidentally wipes an ethnicity from a place through war and displacement over the course of several years? A genslaughter? An oopsie-daisy?
Although I understand your point, it’s a stupid fucking piece of shit excuse.
Just a quick correction, the ICJ (where this is taking place) is the UN Judicial body. The ICC, established by the Rome Statute, is a different thing. If you’re a UN member, the ICJ has jurisdiction.
The ICC is also launching a war crimes probe, but as you noted, Israel and the US aren’t signatories so that might not amount to much.
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I think classifying “hurt children, family dead” as a military metric should be the canary in the coalmine.
But again, we don’t establish intent by catching Netenyahu saying “We’re literally going to genocide the Palestinian people”.
You’ll have to establish intent, or motive, by collecting the many, many hundreds of statements, quotes and accounts regarding the Israeli state, Israeli organisations, Zionist organisation ACROSS THE DECADES, to the Zionist vacation plans, the gathering of settlers and international fund raising, the paper trail of property seized by the Israeli state in one form or another, the messaging, the subtext, and oh my god I’m glad I’m not a lawyer.
We even used to be subscribers of the Economist for a long time, but they have made a complete u-turn over the years. In the meantime they appear to just echo mostly pro-establishment opinions with weak research and an often weird approach of interpreting data and issues. So this does not come as a surprise unfortunately.
South Africa levels accusations of ‘genocidal conduct’ against Israel at world court are different as we know.
The Economist was founded as a bag carrier for neoliberalism (back then it was just called liberalism). They’ve become more shrill and less confident as their views have been shown to be utter bullshit.
The Economist is inherently fascist because it exists both as a product of and to foment capitalism.
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The Apartheid government of South Africa this quote is in reference to no longer exists. It was abolished in the 90s.
That was in the 1980s.
