- Use ChatGPT to get a list of landmarks in Gaza (historical, religious, medical, educational...)
- Find the wikipedia for a landmark (hit or miss), and copy the coordinates from the upper right hand corner
- Open "Google Earth" and paste the coordinates
- Use the "Show historical imagery" button to compare the 2023 image to the most recent
You'll see with your own eyes that the majority of all notable landmarks are just about destroyed, obviously targeted, and most of the google earth images are at least a year old.
Every single university ChatGPT lists as the top 5 in gaza are gone. And you can see from the historical images that these were very nice, well-groomed campuses. All of the greenery is gone. I had heard it beforehand, but this process of self-discovery with google earth hit a little bit different
jfengel 14 hours ago [-]
Israel repeatedly accuses Hamas of using such sites as bases for rocket attacks. They claim that Hamas does this precisely to encourage posts like yours: blaming Israel for Hamas' violations of international law.
I cannot validate Israel's accusations, nor can I refute them. I just think it's important to mention them, because if they were true, it changes the interpretation of those facts considerably.
Unfortunately, confirmation of such things is practically impossible, in a self-fulfilling way. At least one side is willing to go to great lengths to deny their own violations. It's entirely possible that it's both.
9 hours ago [-]
snypher 2 days ago [-]
Genocide is not just about the people.
'Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by means such as "the disintegration of [its] political and social institutions, of [its] culture, language, national feelings, religion, and [its] economic existence".'
Listening to interviews of the people from the west who have been to Gaza (doctors and nurses) I think it has been pretty clear what kind of violence is being perpetrated towards the civilian population. Things I found especially disturbing was Nick Maynard accusation of using teenagers as target practice, and Anthony Aguilar's description of the absolute horror of the GHF relief sites.
But these are just a few of many. There have been more stories of children shot in the head or chest than I can count, and when the stories of snipers shooting children started to fizzle out, it was instead drones that did the shooting.
Together with the absolutely abhorrent things said by Israeli ministers and parliament members I have had no doubt that this has been a genocide for quite some time.
The hardest thing to accept has been the complicit western media. On one side they have reported about killings, but then promptly reported the Israeli spokesperson's response to the accusations despite them being caught lying over and over again. Like the massacre of the ambulance drivers that first was not communicated with cogat. When it was shown to be communicated to cogat, they did not have their emergency lights and sirens on. When films surfaced of them with their lights and sirens on it was going to be "investigated". That led nowhere, despite the soldiers actively trying to hide their tracks by burying all the victims - some with ther frikken hands tied.
This pattern has repeated itself over and over and over, yet news outlets like the BBC or CNN seem to say to themselves "ah, but this time they are telling the truth".
My own government have been more preoccupied with hiding it's own cowardice than with standing up for any kind of principles. They believe in nothing and I have nothing but contempt for them.
abdusco 2 days ago [-]
Everything Israel says is taken at face value and parroted by the western media, but anything Palestinians say is scrutinized and cast doubt and smeared as "Hamas lies".
The only way that neither side can object is from international journalists. Guess what, they're not allowed in, lest the truth comes out.
7402 2 days ago [-]
I don't know what you're reading, but on HN, almost nothing Israel says is taken at face value, everything Israel says is scrutinized and cast doubt upon. I don't see a lot of questioning of statements derived from Palestinians, Hamas, or Al Jazeera.
jjani 2 days ago [-]
Almost no post on HN related to Israel remains unflagged.
7402 2 days ago [-]
Well this one isn't.
People flag articles because they disagree with them, but also because they just think the discussion may descend into uninformative yelling. My point concerned the discussions that do appear, rather than which articles make it through unflagged, but even there it appears they don't support the narrative of "only good things about Israel appear in the media."
There's a relevant discussion in this recent post from a couple weeks ago:
"We want to give the topic of Israel and Gaza fair exposure, as it's obviously an important story and it would feel wrong to pretend it's not happening.
At the same time, every time we have one of these stories on the front page, it turns in to a hellish flamewar, we have to spend all day moderating it..."
jjani 2 days ago [-]
Correct, this one is a very rare exception. There's indeed multiple reasons that it happens. But it does happen to the huge majority of them.
jjani 2 days ago [-]
They are allowed in, after which they're summarily executed by the IDF.
idiomat9000 2 days ago [-]
because they do? its encouraged in the quoran aftrr all?
"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day"
"Nothing in nationalism is more significant or deeper than in the case when an enemy should tread Moslem land. Resisting and quelling the enemy becomes the individual duty of every Moslem [sic], male or female"
"Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight."
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1 days ago [-]
I mean, they all sound pretty indoctrinated to me. If I had been born in a war torn country I can imagine finding those fairy tales quite aluring. Religion here is the pretext neighbors use to justify their anger.
tguvot 1 days ago [-]
for the past two years the
Hamas leadership had been talking about implementing "the
last promise" (alwaed al'akhir) – a divine promise regarding
the end of days, when all human beings will accept Islam.
Sinwar and his circle ascribed an extreme and literal meaning
to the notion of "the promise,
" a belief that pervaded all their
messages: in speeches, sermons, lectures in schools and
universities. The cardinal theme was the implementation of the
last promise, which included the forced conversion of all
heretics to Islam, or their killing.
I have no issue with countries fighting Hamas. I have issues with countries sending bombs somwhere where the median age is less than 20 years old. In the USA half of the population wouldn't even have the right to drink but here they are deemed too radicalized already to deserve carpet bombings.
My take is that if a 100th of the war budget of Israel had been allocated to building schools and peace propaganda in palestine none of these decades of violence would have happened.
The only situation where bombs defeat a radicalized population is when they eradicate said population, and that sounds like a genocide to me. See Vietnam for a concrete example.
breppp 1 days ago [-]
> My take is that if a 100th of the war budget of Israel had been allocated to building schools and peace propaganda in palestine none of these decades of violence would have happened
The UN has invested around a billion yearly in UNRWA, an agency whose half of budget (twice than what you propose) is supposed to educate Palestinian children for peace, mainly using funds contributed by the west.
UNRWA however has removed the holocaust from its human rights curriculum, has many Hamas members on its payroll, including some teachers who held hostages and regularly talks about Jihad and martyrdom in its curriculum.
So, yeah peace education? that works less when you are under a control of an islamist terror organization or ran by the local population that does not have fully bought to your peace idea yet
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 1 days ago [-]
Thank you I didn't know that. I'm inclined to think it was already too late by that time. I still believe what I said above.
tguvot 17 hours ago [-]
this is the atlantic article from 1961 about unrwa camps. journalist went to visit them in lebanon, gaza and then went to visit arabs that remained in israel.
there are many interesting things in this article, but one of the most interesting it's that back than in unrwa schools was taught that all land was stolen and that they will liberate it by force.
Last 5 years and especially last 3 years have been historical milestone for the developed world, and not in a good way. It spirals into something indistinguishable.
silverliver 1 days ago [-]
What was allowed to happen in Palestine has set a new standard for the value of human life and morals. It was not only set for the Palestinians but also for the other side and everyone else.
Perhaps this is no consolation to the victims, but the pendulum will continue to swing both ways as it always has. These monsters and their offspring will reap what they sowed. Humanity too will reap this reward.
thrance 2 days ago [-]
Nothing of the sort, imperialism and colonialism were hallmarks of the developed world. I think it's a good sign, actually, that this time, a significant part of the population saw through all the bullshit and propaganda we've been bombarded with in the last few years.
tguvot 2 days ago [-]
per a couple of articles [0][1]
- only 28% percent of members voted
- virtual discussion for resolution prior to voting was cancelled
- didn't allow dissenting opinions published on list serve
- The association has recently expanded its membership and there are little qualifications to become a member. The association had been mostly made up of scholars, but now includes figures like activists and artists,
- if somebody reads actual resolution, it reads like fine collection of tiktok videos.
Very interesting that you’re mixing two sources: one partially reputable and one entirely unreliable for this news.
And then you don’t make a distinction of which claim comes from where. The first claim comes from BBC, all the rest come from the second source. And best part? actual source for this is just one member saying stuff.
EvgeniyZh 2 days ago [-]
Well the whole discussion is under an article by the source entirely unreliable for this news.
thejazzman 2 days ago [-]
aljazeera is unreliable??
euLh7SM5HDFY 2 days ago [-]
That "for this news" qualifier is important. I trust their reporting on most topics, but hating Israel is probably only thing that Muslim countries have in common and it will have an impact no matter how much they claim independence from Qatar government.
Still, I guess any source is better than Israel paid "There is no famine in Gaza" ads, that YouTube displays between investment scams.
peterashford 2 days ago [-]
Citation required
mikrotikker 2 days ago [-]
This seems to happen a lot from what I've seen. When I saw Al Jazeera I already knew it would be biased.
Mars008 2 days ago [-]
Do you know any unbiased source? Any of these: BBC, NY Time, WSJ, CNN, MSN, The Guardian, NewsMax, MSDN...
porridgeraisin 2 days ago [-]
There is no such thing. Everything is biased. In fact I don't know why so many people have an expectation for such things as "unbiased", "independent" anything to even exist. It is a lucky anomaly if you come across one.
pas 1 days ago [-]
anyone wondering, here's the actual resolution (which is basically a list of links)
it doesn't seem like something that people need to vote on, there's no weighing of evidence, it's on the level of a beginner Wikipedia page
tguvot 13 hours ago [-]
You might be the only one who bothered to look at actual resolution
xyzal 2 days ago [-]
I can't understand just how is Israel able to deliver precision strikes in Iran basically landing explosives to key personnel bedrooms (which is impressive!), but w.r.t. Hamas -- allegedly a weaker adversary -- it just isn't possible! We have to end 60k people first.
Does anyone have some rational explanation?
omnimus 2 days ago [-]
If you look at the NY Times video shared above - the strikes are very precise. First they hit viewpoint/staircase favorited by journalists. Then 10min later they hit exactly the same spot with two separate strikes in a row.
There aren't many other rational explanations than that this is intended? Targeting journalists and then their rescue parties… oof
justacomment1 2 days ago [-]
They have access through software companies who actually provide security. Almost all western companies depend on security solutions (ex: endpoint & SOC providers, that means every electronic device including IoTs has some tracking enabled) provided by Israel founded companies. And we all know Israel seems to be not following rules, even though these security companies have some restrictions on access to customers data, there is no one stopping them from accessing these data in the name of support. Many security companies depend on Israel based employees. And often these employees are drop outs from high rank military intelligence or some family member in a high rank military positions. So if a supply chain has US companies, they have access to the companies data.
I am definitely guessing a lot. But the kind of intel they have makes me think they are illegally accessing these data somehow.
If this is true, think twice before using second hand devices. You might be mistaken for someone and unnecessarily targeted.
Note that you can’t basically avoid these companies. They codified using one of these companies in some US regulations. There are no alternatives between. Even though the companies themselves mention they are US based, most of critical technical stuff happens directly from Israel. There are basically no alternatives. They make rules, US follows.
emchammer 2 days ago [-]
Could you provide a reference for the Israeli company in US regulations?
justacomment2 2 days ago [-]
Compliance is driven by federal and state data protection laws (like HIPAA for healthcare or CCPA in California), industry standards (like NIST and CMMC). All companies are bound to follow these standards which is expected.
Like I mentioned these security companies identify themselves as US based, but all technical work is based in Israel. Like front office is US.
All I am saying is I am suspecting information leaks out of offices in Israel. Again this is suspicion. One of the theories on why Israel has all the intel it needs. Some information access illegally using some backdoor. Backdoor could be as simple as direct access through an existing employee who might be linked to Israel military intel.
salawat 2 days ago [-]
Section, man. Citation. Or give a name to search.
justacomment2 2 days ago [-]
I already mentioned the standards that companies are supposed to follow for various reasons. Exact reason on why companies are supposed to follow these standards is immaterial. The point I am making is that these standards are not wrong, but all operations are based out of Israel and only front office and token work is being done with in US. When you have access to these critical security systems out in a country which uses questionable means for end goals, don’t you question how it gains abnormal amount of leverage against the worlds only super power.
For this reason, there is high probability that there is some level of misuse of the US data at these locations. Especially if the personal has links to Israel military in someway or other.
In Iran they mostly blew up stuff that's fixed in place, like the nuclear reactor.
Most stuff in Gaza that was fixed in place has been destroyed already.
dlubarov 2 days ago [-]
A few thoughts,
- We don't really know the civilian casualty ratio for Gaza, but in seems somewhere in the normal range for urban wars (e.g. based on some losses Hamas admitted early in the conflict). The Iran strikes also harmed civilians, e.g. from a collapsed building in Nobonyad Square. If Israel had to repeat things 10,000x, we might have seen many collapsed buildings and it might start to resemble Gaza.
- Intelligence gathering methods that work for a few high-profile targets might not scale to a war against tens of thousands of combatants.
- Israel had the element of surprise against Iran, so the relevant targets were mostly not in bunkers/tunnels. They never did against Hamas.
DeepSeaTortoise 2 days ago [-]
Compare it to the 2022 Ukraine war. For more than a year almost all the fighting happened in densely populated areas, with many such shorter phases before and since.
And Soviet-stock bombs just aren't as precise and unguided rocket artillery even more so.
Yet after more than 3 years the number of civilian deaths and injured COMBINED just barely surpassed 50k recently.
dlubarov 2 days ago [-]
Ukraine goes out of its way to evacuate civilians, who can flee to safer parts of their vast country, or to other countries which have collectively accepted something like 7 million Ukrainian refugees.
Gazans have none of that - they’re trapped in a tiny territory, no states are taking significant numbers of Gazan refugees, and Hamas isn’t doing anything for civilian safety.
Any differences in Israeli vs Russian military tactics are rather secondary to these fundamental differences in civilian exposure.
idiomat9000 2 days ago [-]
Wtf are you smoking? Mariupol alone had that in months?
bartoszcki 2 days ago [-]
13,883 civilians died in Ukraine as a result of Russian invasion between 24 Feb. 2022 and 31 July 2025 according to United Nations. It's really easy to Google it.
mopsi 2 days ago [-]
The very same UN stresses that these numbers severely undercount due to lack of access to occupied territories and mostly reflect deaths in free Ukraine. The figures from the areas where most of the fighting has taken place remain unknown. Realistic estimates go far beyond the death toll in Gaza; people illegally conscripted from the occupied territories into the Russian armed forces alone add several tens of thousands more deaths.
tguvot 2 days ago [-]
On 11 April, Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko stated that over 10,000 civilians had died in the Russian siege of Mariupol.[323] On 12 April, city officials reported that up to 20,000 civilians had been killed.[323] (this is 1 month into siege) On the same day, the Mayor of the city reported that about 21,000 civilians had been killed.[324] An updated Ukrainian death toll the following month put the number of civilians killed at at least 22,000.[325]
On August 29, President of Mariupol Television, volunteer and civil activist Mykola Osychenko said to Dnipro TV that, according to the insider information, 87,000 deaths have been currently documented in morgues in Mariupol. Besides, 26,750 bodies are buried in mass graves, and many more are buried in the yards of the apartment blocks and private houses, or still under the rubble.[326]
In early November, Ukraine stated that at least 25,000 civilians had been killed in Mariupol.[46][47] In late December, based on the discovery of 10,300 new mass graves, the Associated Press estimated that the true death toll may be up to three times that figure.[327] The Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimates of the total death toll resulting from the siege range from 27,000 to 88,000 fatalities, most of them civilians.[49]
just to put things into perspective, this siege lasted less than 3 months
Sure it would be best to build the tunnels away from civilian infrastructure but there's barely any away-from-civilian-infrastructure places in the Gaza Strip.
What would be even better, IMHO, is if Israel just stopped murdering Gazans.
bjoli 2 days ago [-]
The tunnels are on a depth of 18-25 meters. Apart from the 2000lb bombs, there is nothing that will destroy a reinforced tunnel that deep. If even that. It will however destroy sewage and water infrastructure.
One of those bunker busters will also do immense damage to surrounding structures. Gaza is one of the more densely populated areas on earth. You don't use 2000lb bombs without causing a lot of death and damage outside of the thing you a re targeting.
Not only that, every time hospital attacks were justified bt "Hamas underground conplexes" the evidence has been lacklustre or even completely absent. They demolished the only specialist cancer hospital in Gaza claiming it was used as a command central for Hamas. But still no evidence has been provided. The only thing we DO know is that the IDF had used the hospital as a base before denolishibg it.
While I don't doubt that there are examples of Hamas using civilian infrastructure (and this v.civilians) as shields, the Israeli usage of the term is a poor excuse for indescriminate bombing of apartment buildings, schools and hospitals.
2 days ago [-]
blks 2 days ago [-]
Interesting way of shifting blame of creating thousands of corpses from military and political leadership to “international community”.
tsoukase 2 days ago [-]
Israel with the support of literally all of the West cannot cope with a bunch of poor muslims. I cannot understand it, outside of conspiracy. The same holds for any distant war between the USA and some medieval counties in the last 30 years. If I were in charge, I would obliterate the enemy with any means.
Leaked ‘Gaza Riviera’ plan dismissed as ‘insane’ attempt to cover ethnic cleansing
jjani 2 days ago [-]
Aaand it's flagged/removed.
2 days ago [-]
doka_smoka 2 days ago [-]
The overton window is shifting thank Jesus. We are on the brink of awakening.
puregene 2 days ago [-]
[dead]
CommanderData 3 days ago [-]
[flagged]
joshcsimmons 3 days ago [-]
Crazy how vehemently people seek to suppress this information.
ignoramous 1 days ago [-]
Ethno-religious extremists with better PR.
AtlasBarfed 3 days ago [-]
[flagged]
bergeyboy 3 days ago [-]
What world do you live in
throw310822 3 days ago [-]
Wow wow. What an incredible list of dehumanizing genocidal statements. Let me unpack them one by one:
> Is Israel doing genocide? Probably. Does the Palestinian leadership (hamas) want them to do this? Yep.
So from the start you claim that the Palestinian leadership wants its own people genocided (and themselves killed in the process). Who knows why? They must be rabid beasts, these victims. Better put them out of their pain, eh?
> Who cares more about killing less "civilians"? The effed up thing is it's probably Israel.
And how do you even know? Most of the killing of civilians, also in percentage to the total, has been done by Israel. Is it again because the others are rabid animals? Also, thanks for those scare quotes around "civilians". Wink wink.
> The Arab world doesn't want to deal with Palestinians.
The Arab world is either corrupt by US money or has a gun pointed to its head, both by Israel and by its unwavering supporter, financer and protector, the US. This has been made extremely clear multiple times (hundreds of thousands/ millions dead).
> Palestinian leadership ... only care about maintaining Mafia level control over Gaza.
Again, because they are rabid animals, right? They do not care about freedom, their land, the oppression, being shot at, bombed...
> Palestinians have not been allowed to have an economy in 74 years, live off of international aid, and yer have increased their population by a factor of ten. The only reason you do that is to raise cannon fodder.
So these animals are guilty of multiplying, their numbers prove their intentions, is this what you mean? The fact itself that they are born proves that they're evil.
> Everyone wants the Palestinians to get their own State
Not at all, everyone says this to buy time. In fact Israel abhors the idea (threatens everyone who proposes to recognize Palestine), not because of bs security concerns but because it means putting a fixed border and an end to their expansion. The US does what Israel demands- we've seen very clearly in the past two years that their leverage with Israel is zero, while Israel basically controls most US representatives. Europe is more or less in the same position, subordinate to both Israel and the US. The "peace process" for the two states solution is just a facade. It's a process that should go on forever without reaching its goal, keeping the pretense of legality while Israel colonises the West Bank and now Gaza.
> But if the Palestinians have a state, and provoke a war, then Israel can use even more unrestrained violence against them
Uh? And why? This is a total non-sequitur. Also, why would they provoke a war after reaching their goal of having a state? Again these animals..
> If Israel had used unrestrained carpet bombing like we did to Dresden in world war II, postage stamp sized Gaza would have been completely razed in a month.
In fact Israel has dropped more bombs on Gaza than were dropped on Dresden, causing a similar level of destruction and deaths. It just did it in slow motion. The limit to Israel's actions is not its morality or its military means, it's the international opinion.
> Maybe a Palestinian state run by Hamas and populated by people that have only been raised to hate and die
Again, because differently from you and me, these people don't love life, their spouses, their children, their land.. they're rabid animals, will just bite anything that gets near them, wanting to be shot. This is what you think and you've said multiple times in different ways in your post. Horrific, shameful.
abdusco 3 days ago [-]
> The limit to Israel's actions is not its morality or its military means, it's the international opinion.
And they're trying their best to silence the Gazan voice by not letting in any international journalists, labeling every journalist as Hamas, killing them all, one camera at a time. Or five.
AtlasBarfed 2 days ago [-]
I agree. It is dehumanizing. Neither side views the others as humans. Neither side will engage in good faith negotiation. Both leaderships want it this way, yep I'll repeat that:
BOTH LEADERSHIPS WANT IT THIS WAY.
At a minimum, both keep power this way. #1 priority of crazy authoritarians: maintain power.
There is no humanitarianism. Humanitarianism is a secular idea. These are two religious extremist regimes. There are no secular priorities by either government. Only religious extremist views. Neither side will negotiate or coexist in a secular peace.
Yes, Hamas will happily throw away massive numbers of its people if it thinks its winning. That's the entire strategy. Yes, they get paid to do that by various states like Iran and the UAE. That's the only money that comes into the palestinian territories: humanitarian aid (which is funneled/controlled by the PA or Hamas) and military aid, which gets funneled to Hamas (I admittedly know less about how the PA works, I think they are the same just not as bad) and they use to maintain authoritarian control over Gaza.
The military aid enables Hamas to keep power, and it only comes if they keep poking Israel.
Is it cruel of me to point out that expanding your population by 10x when they are virtually entirely dependent on external aid is absolutely crazy? And yes, sorry, the only reason I can think of other than incredible stupidity is for cannon fodder.
Why wouldn't a two state solution work? Well it would be a three state solution if we're serious, no way the PA in West Bank shares power with Hamas in Gaza. No effing way. And yes, they would still launch rockets at Israel. Because, again, that's what Hamas leadership gets paid to do, and having a state won't change that. If you think otherwise, I'm sorry, I think you are naive.
And yes, Israel/Netanyahu will look for ANY provocation to loose the barrage. Here, I'll give you a conspiracy theory: they'll false flag if they have to. Pay some group to start the war. I think there's a conspiracy theory they rigged this provocation. I'll give you that, sure! What would having a state matter?
Look, the Palestinians are in a really really bad situation in terms of power dynamics. Only in modern (secular) international politics do the Palestinians even get to voice an opinion. Go ahead and argue about books or historical rights or atrocities. It won't change anything, Israel has a military that can wipe you out, and even if it seems like this is unrestrained: it isn't.
Egypt will never let Palestinians into Sinai. Jordan will never again take them, Kuwait kicked theirs out, no Arab state will take them. They need to figure out a way to survive in Gaza. They are grossly outgunned, and only modern (secular) international relations prevents Israel from doing what the Mongols did to Baghdad.
The oil is going to get less important with alt energy and EVs. Global warming is coming. THE MONEY WILL DRY UP. International attention will return to the apathy in line with the Tigray war and Azerbaijan-Armenia and Turkey-Kurds, and whatever else is going on in the world.
When that happens, aid stops, food stops, gun shipments stop. Either Israel annihilates the Palestinians then, or they starve. Pick one!
Hamas needs to step down and surrender and accept any peace they can get. Yes Israel builds settlements and encroaches. Beg Egypt to once again take over administration of Gaza (they won't ...) Beg someone to do it, get Hamas out of power. Only way a two state solution works is if someone Israel trusts just a bit takes over Gaza for a decade on a path to independence.
If Hamas cared about its people, its children, its wives, it would step down. Right? Because they are humanitarians? Find some Arab country that will accept their surrender and provide sanctuary? Because the united Sunni brothers would do that for humanitarianism? You and I both know that will never happen.
The people in control will risk total destruction over the surrender of any power, money, or control.
HDThoreaun 3 days ago [-]
> why would they provoke a war after reaching their goal of having a state?
Because having their own state isnt their goal, the destruction of zionism is.
> The limit to Israel's actions is not its morality or its military means, it's the international opinion.
Israel has nukes and is self sufficient. International opinion only limits them until they decide dealing with the palestinians is more important, at which point they can team up with china. Really the only limit to Israels actions are what the israeli people will vote for.
I dont really get your obsession with the rabid animal theme. We know that israel cares more about civilians than the palestinian government because israel was content to let the palestinians chill until oct 7th while hamas spent the previous two decades bombarding tel aviv. Hamas has mafia level control over gaza. Thats just a fact, why does that make us racist for pointing out? They use human shields, it is obvious that they do not care about their populace. We dont have to be racist to point out that hamas fucking sucks and has done nothing but make life worse for everyone in gaza. That doesnt make the israeli government good, its just a reminder that things will probably continue to be terrible in the region
cholantesh 2 days ago [-]
>They use human shields
Israel's definition of human shields is placing military infrastructure adjacent to civilian infrastructure. Literally no international body agrees with this, but ignoring that, the IDF is itself guilty of this because many of its installations, including Hakirya, are surrounded by residential buildings. The Lehi also fired rockets from and cached ammo within schools and synagogues - this is commemorated by plaques in the affected buildings. There is also copious video evidence of them taking human shields by the much narrower, much more widely accepted definition of human shielding wherein civilians are coerced into entering combat zones under the thread of violence.
HDThoreaun 2 days ago [-]
1. The israeli government sucks
2. The IDF doesnt need to use human shields because hamas/iran dont have accurate missles. Even if the IDF did operate out of apartment buildings like hamas it wouldnt be evidence that the gov doesnt care about the populace because their enemies cant hit them anyway
Seriously, how many israeli civilians have been killed by military strikes aimed at legitimate targets?
cholantesh 2 days ago [-]
>The IDF doesn't need to human shields
And yet they still do, by their own definition and the one that is actually in wide use.
>Seriously, how many israeli civilians have been killed by military strikes aimed at legitimate targets?
Far fewer than the number of Palestinians killed by the IDF 'mistakenly' turning a hospital to rubble with journalists in the vicinity. What are you even trying to argue?
HDThoreaun 2 days ago [-]
< What are you even trying to argue?
The israeli govenrment is far less cavalier with their civilians lives than hamas is. As you pointed out they are not just sticking them in the line of fire like hamas is
throw310822 2 days ago [-]
> Because having their own state isnt their goal, the destruction of zionism is
Oh of course, these are not people- they don't want their own good, they want to destroy others. Is this what you mean?
> israel was content to let the palestinians chill until oct 7th while hamas spent the previous two decades bombarding tel aviv
You obviously don't know that Israel bombarded Gaza killing 1800 people in 2008/9, 430 people between 2010 and 2104, 2270 people in 2015, plus 800 more between 2016 to 2023? This 4 times the victims of October 7- and we don't count the blockade and the wrecked economy.
> We dont have to be racist to point out that hamas fucking sucks and has done nothing but make life worse for everyone in gaza
Yes of course, blame the victims. No, Israel has imprisoned 2 million people inside Gaza for 20 years and periodically bombed them, and this is an unimaginable crime, orders of magnitude worse than Hamas ever did. Frankly, October 7 was horrible but nothing in comparison, plus it was obviously needed to bring the necessary attention to the situation. Fucking sucks, but hey, that's something Israel brought upon itself thanks to its criminal behaviour and the complicity of the West.
idiomat9000 1 days ago [-]
They did, every chance they got? Ntifadas, suicide bombings , 7 October , on and on.
Only exception was when the west bank was part of the Palestinian state and ghaza part of Egypt for 30 years. They where "peaceful" under islamic rule, though still warring against Israel.
Peace = Colonializing the world for the faith. Its very medieval and very real .
idiomat9000 2 days ago [-]
The nazis just wanted Lebensraum , why can you not accept those goals.
HDThoreaun 2 days ago [-]
What is the point of acting like Hamas has not constantly, from its inception, called for the utter destruction of israel? You are not tricking anyone here, they werent trying to hide it or anything. I agree the palestinians have been horribly oppressed by the Israelis, but sometimes people deserve to be oppressed. Sucks for all the kids born in gaza but its not israels fault their society has called for genocide of jews for like 80 years now. I feel way worse for Palestinians in the west bank than those in gaza. The west bankers truly got fucked by israel, the gazans largely deserve what they got. You dont get to constantly launch rockets at their biggest city and then claim you want peace.
thunky 2 days ago [-]
Where do you get your news? They've really done a number on you.
throw310822 2 days ago [-]
> What is the point of acting like Hamas has not constantly, from its inception, called for the utter destruction of israel?
What is the point of acting like Israel doesn't have the means of wiping Hamas 100 times over? You know, even if you don't like the goals of Hamas (which is not monolithic, it has even accepted Palestine in the 1967 borders, offered 10-year truces, etc)- if you give people what is fair, and cooperate, and let them have a life with hopes and future- you will get peace in return- with or without Hamas.
And the bottom off this idea of "Hamas wants to destroy Israel" there is always the idea that Palestinians are rabid animals, more interested in destroying the others than in their own happiness. This is stupid and racist.
> You dont get to constantly launch rockets at their biggest city and then claim you want peace.
Well, you don't get to take someone's land, enforce apartheid, close 2 million people in a cage and claim you want peace either. You take the rockets, ffs, in fact you deserve much bigger ones.
HDThoreaun 2 days ago [-]
> Well, you don't get to take someone's land, enforce apartheid, close 2 million people in a cage and claim you want peace either.
The palestinains started pretty much every war. Israel won them. If the palestinians didnt want to be stuck in gaza they shouldnt have started and lost all those wars. Now they have to live with the consequences. To be clear I dont think gazans are wrong for being pissed about their situation. I do think theyre wrong for doing absolutely nothing to improve it though. I think theyre wrong for starting wars they cant win and then complaining when they dont win them.
> the idea that Palestinians are rabid animals, more interested in destroying the others than in their own happiness.
Maybe if they stopped devoting all their resources to destroying israel and invested in themselves people wouldnt think this(to be clear I dont, although I do think Hamas leadership largely does thinks this). The bottom of the idea that hamas wants to destroy israel is hamas, repeatedly saying they want to destroy israel. Why shouldnt I trust what they constantly say?
> What is the point of acting like Israel doesn't have the means of wiping Hamas 100 times over?
Who is acting like this? Israel shown restraint which hamas has never done. You are right, they could kill every single person in gaza quite easily, they dont want to. The same cant be said for hamas and how they feel about israelis.
> Well, you don't get to take someone's land, enforce apartheid, close 2 million people in a cage and claim you want peace either.
Why not? Why should Israel, with the power to wipe palestine off the map, settle for anything less? The problem with hamas launching rockets is that they cant back it up when israel correctly sees that as a declaration of war.
> You take the rockets, ffs, in fact you deserve much bigger ones.
And this mentality is why the israelis have decided a genocide is their best option
cholantesh 2 days ago [-]
>The palestinains started pretty much every war.
The Palestinians didn't start the 'war of Independence' in which the precursors of the most moral army in human existence prosecuted what widely fit the rubric war crimes on a massive scale. They didn't start the 1967 war, that was Israel. They didn't occupy South Lebanon or the Golan Heights. They didn't assassinate multiple government officials in Lebanon and Iran and the prime minister of Yemen. They weren't the party who broke dozens of internationally brokered ceazefires by raiding cities in Palestinian territories. This is such an egregious misunderstanding it's hard to blame it on simple ignorance.
HDThoreaun 2 days ago [-]
> The Palestinians didn't start the 'war of Independence'
yes they did. The jews were ready to accept the UN plan.
> They didn't start the 1967 war, that was Israel.
Youre right about this one
> They didn't occupy South Lebanon
This was in direct response to attacks from hezbollah
> or the Golan Heights.
Agreed israel did syria very dirty
> They didn't assassinate multiple government officials in Lebanon and Iran
By government officials you mean terrorists who directly contributed to ki9lling israeli civilians
> They weren't the party who broke dozens of internationally brokered ceasefires
Yes the palestinians absolutely did this
jehejej 2 days ago [-]
The median age in Gaza is 19 years old, you're a deranged genocidal clown and probably a bot.
HDThoreaun 3 days ago [-]
Yea I agree a 2 state solution is probably the worst thing that could happen for the palestinian populace right now because within a year it would lead to dresden levels of destruction and an actual full throated genocide of all the palestinians when the state inevitably starts lobbing rockets at tel aviv and jerusalem. Even if the vast majority of palestinians dont want that they wouldnt be able to stop iranian backed terrorists from doing it and thats all the excuse israel needs to annihilate a sovereign palestine.
cholantesh 2 days ago [-]
But not because Israel has demonstrated repeatedly within the past year alone that it doesn't particularly care about the sovereignty of even recognized states? Odd.
pinewurst 2 days ago [-]
A Palestinian state would _never_ lob rockets at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. Some "faction" would do it, allowing the state deniability.
HDThoreaun 2 days ago [-]
I dont think it matters, Israel can still claim they have the right to topple the entire state since it cant guarantee israeli safety and no one would stop them. US has plenty of experience with this.
joduplessis 3 days ago [-]
No shit, Sherlock.
anal_reactor 3 days ago [-]
One aspect of this whole thing that doesn't get discussed enough is how Israel specifically arguing that genocide is okay when acting in situation of perceived danger puts into question the moral consensus we have regarding the Holocaust. As in, if it's justified for Israel to commit genocide in the face of perceived danger, then why exactly wasn't same thing justified for nazi Germany?
Well, my personal opinion is obviously that both situations are abhorrent, but what I'm trying to point out the PR damage that Israel is doing to itself. I see two reasons why Israel might be okay with that:
1. They focus on short-term gains and they're acting irrationally
2. They know they'll always have US support because US needs them to do shady stuff in Middle East while at the same time they know that Arabs will always hate them anyway, so there's not much point trying to be the good guys. They don't care what Europe thinks because Europe won't be politically influential in foreseeable future anyway. By committing the genocide they confirm they're ready to do real dirty jobs, which is the core reason behind the US support in the first place.
I have a feeling that the part of Israel's wrath is that this whole war pretty much voided painstaking process of normalizing relations with Arabs. Therefore they thought "you know what, fuck this shit, if we can't have you like us we'll have you fear us". And that's how we ended up with a democratic country committing genocide.
The saddest thing is that the whole idea "it's 21st century, we won't do comically evil shit anymore" turned out to be a mirage, and as a species collectively we're not that far from ancient rulers massacring entire cities just for shits and giggles.
calf 2 days ago [-]
I read Scott Aaronson's blog posts this week and he makes a seemingly similar argument, behind his tendency for heated rhetoric.
If the international community will barely lift a finger to resolve the I/P issue, then it is predictable and rational for Israel to take matters in their own hands and use violence (implemented as a "preemptive war") to "solve" their national security threat problem. It's a type of political realism argument to support this outcome. No appeal to a country being enlightened or democratic, etc., will work.
2 days ago [-]
HDThoreaun 15 hours ago [-]
> if it's justified for Israel to commit genocide in the face of perceived danger, then why exactly wasn't same thing justified for nazi Germany?
The jews in nazi germany were not threatening to annihilate the state and all the aryans. The palestinian leadership is threatening to do that to the zionists. The jews were not a perceived danger to the germans. Whether that makes genocide justified is certainly up for debate but it is very different from the justification for the holocaust.
anramon 2 days ago [-]
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Mars008 2 days ago [-]
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daft_pink 3 days ago [-]
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peterashford 2 days ago [-]
The guy who coined the term, drafted the UN convention on Genocide. It includes the Definition of genocide:
Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as:
... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2
Israel is doing (a), (b), (c), (e) and arguably (d).
It is genocide. By definition. A definition written by a Jew and a Zionist, too, if that matters.
daft_pink 2 days ago [-]
If you apply the definition of genocide this way then many wars are a genocide and you are changing the definition to render it almost meaningless. The point of this resolution WAS NOT to declare every war a genocide and therefore there must be intent to destroy a people BECAUSE of their identity.
The wording "in part" was intended to capture situations where the group is attacked within the area where the perpetrator exercises power or control. For example, the Nazis couldn't exterminate Jews everywhere, but they targeted those within occupied Europe, where they exercised control.
Israel is specifically targeting Gaza in response to acts of war perpetrated by the Gazan government, Hamas. Hamas has refused to surrender, continued to fight, and the war continues. Palestinians who are citizens of Israel or part of the West Bank are not being targeted thus the war is clearly not targeting Palestinians because of their identity.
You can't start a war and then hide behind your identity and claim it's a genocide.
peterashford 1 days ago [-]
Palestinians on the West bank have been targeted. And clearly because of their identity.
And, yes, I will absolutely give you that Israel had a right to respond to October 7. But they have gone beyond all proportionality and that's why people have gone from talking about this as a just war, to talking about it being a genocide.
When all the leading scholars of Genocide call it a Genocide, when the UN declares it's a Genocide, it's a Genocide.
And BTW, GAZA did not declare war on Israel. Hamas committed a terrorist act against Israel but Israel's response kills all Gazans indiscriminately. Which is collective punishment, also a war crime.
daft_pink 2 days ago [-]
I just want to say that death and war are horrible things and there is nothing wrong with wanting them to end or trying to end them. War is totally horrific.
At the same time, I just think we have this habit as a society of creating a charged label, and then using these charged labels to argue against our political opponents as a way to brand them as illegitimate, dangerous or beyond the bounds of acceptable debate.
Some examples of this is how the terrorism label became a charged label after 9/11 and was used to delegimatize all kinds or protest or political organizing, or how we have expanded the definition of racism beyond overt racism to systemic racism, which many democrats used to label every major republican a racist and casts arguments about policy as a form of personally being a bigot.
By recognizing that people we disagree with are not the second coming of hitler or bin Laden, we make space for constructive debate and real solutions instead of shutting down debate, viewing people we disagree with as pure evil and not addressing the root causes.
peterashford 1 days ago [-]
I agree with your sentiment. However I also believe that this is a Genocide. I'm not just using the word as a rhetorical cudgel.
egisspegis 2 days ago [-]
So is Ukraine committing genocide on russians?
The intent needs to be there too. Otherwise it's just a war.
tpm 2 days ago [-]
Yes, the intent is there in case of Israel. For example, purposely (not incidentally) destroying all life supporting infrastructure even if it does not have any military significance (like drinking water supply) clearly demonstrates intent to depopulate.
incrudible 2 days ago [-]
You say it's purposeful, they say it's incidental. Israel still supplies Gaza with water, albeit at a substantially reduced rate. Roughly 40% of the water infrastructure remains operational[1]. Therefore, your maximalist claim of "destroying all life supporting infrastructure" is false.
Russia has hit plenty of life-supporting infrastructure in the affected areas of Ukraine and millions have been displaced. Will you therefore admit a genocide committed by Russia?
> over 85% of water and sanitation facilities are now completely or partially out of service
I don't even think I have to add anything to that. Either they incidentally destroyed that much, which means they are not discriminating between civilian and military facilities, which means they are deliberately commiting massive war crimes against civilians, or they deliberately destroyed that much, which means deliberate genocide.
> Will you therefore admit a genocide committed by Russia?
Russia is without a doubt commiting genocide, trying to destroy the Ukrainian nation. This is openly admitted by Putin in that he says there is no such nation. Luckily it is not entirely successful yet, but in annexed territories it is absolutely exterminating any mention of Ukrainian nationhood and ethnicity.
Israel is much more successful, both now and in the long term.
incrudible 2 days ago [-]
Hamas does not discriminate between civilian and military facilities in their operations. If there are militants near a piece of civilian infrastructure, should that give them legal immunity from being targeted, in your opinion? If so, how do you think that would affect the strategy of said militants?
At least you're consistent in regards to Ukraine. Now let's take it one step further: Most of the infrastructure of Raqqa was destroyed in the war against ISIS[1]. Did the coalition therefore commit a genocide and/or massive war crimes?
At this point deflecting to Hamas is pretty poor and worn out strategy, I think Israeli propaganda should pivot to something else, like [0].
Anyway for the sake of clarity:
> If there are militants near a piece of civilian infrastructure
1) Of course we would have to believe the attackers it's the case. But we can't believe them, can we? I could search for facts supporing my view, but these are not isolated incidents, it's a sustained campaign.
3) You still should not destroy the civilian infrastructure. I mean it's not that hard to understand: you should not kill civilians. Most people do understand that. Israeli army certainly understands that, it just chose to kill civilians and destroy their infrastructure.
I have no trouble believing that there are militants using every piece of available civilian infrastructure so that people like you get to shout "war crime" whenever the IDF calls them on their tactic. This is the only effective weapon that Hamas has.
Without ascribing further motivations, I don't see a difference to what's happening in Gaza and to what happened in Raqqa. If the motivation of Netanyahu is to "depopulate" Gaza, one must also ask why Hamas is doing everything to allow this to continue.
There is no question that civilians will die if they're caught up in urban warfare. Israel issues evacuation orders and designates zones where strikes are rare exceptions, with the knowledge that the enemy will take full advantage of this. If you're gonna set a standard beyond that, who can be expected to follow it?
tpm 2 days ago [-]
I'm sorry you feel the need to defend mass murdering of civilians, but I can't help you.
incrudible 22 hours ago [-]
You're in the easy position where nothing you have to decide is of any consequence. How would you have Israel deal with the situation? How would you have the coalition deal with ISIS? Disengage and leave the turf to the militants? Then say so and own it, with all the consequences.
tpm 15 hours ago [-]
Yes, I'm in the easy position of not perpetrating a genocide. I got into the position by not perpetrating a genocide. It's a good position to be in, I can recommend it to everyone. Whole humanity will be better off when everybody is in my position.
I would have Israel deal with the situation by, I think you can guess by now. And I'm pretty sure if Israel had a better leader, it would be in a better position too. But it is what it is, the trauma caused by pogroms and the holocaust is now propagated further upon the Palestinians and will cause much suffering now and in the future. And then the Israelis can look back and see clearly they chose the wrong leaders and the wrong way to deal with the situation, and it can't be undone now.
peterashford 1 days ago [-]
No.
The text is " a national, ethnical, racial or religious group"
Ukraine is not killing Russians because they are Russian, Ukraine is killing Russians because Ukraine is being invaded.
bjoli 2 days ago [-]
Genocidal intent is not hard to find. Neither among Israeli politicians, military personnel, or on social media.
Even before the whole GHF setup, which is just organized cruelty to starve a population.
2 days ago [-]
2 days ago [-]
spwa4 2 days ago [-]
> Genocidal intent is not hard to find
Especially easy to find among Hamas, or PA, or a whole bunch of other Palestinian organisations even when it comes to their own people.
Palestinian organizations have committed genocide, no need to change definitions or laws, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Israel and maybe Saudi Arabia too. In most of those places they have a reputation for disgusting cruelty (e.g. using snipers against school children in Lebanon)
In other words: they are not the good guys.
bjoli 2 days ago [-]
Why are you conflating Palestinian civilians with the likes of Hamas and pflp?
idiomat9000 2 days ago [-]
Because they are 50-50 one and the same according to eu surveys?
bjoli 2 days ago [-]
What do you mean?
idiomat9000 1 days ago [-]
The eu did surveys in ghaza that showed that 60% support hamas and its islamo supremacist goals. They really want to kill those jews badly, the only thing they dislike about hamas is that it is not winning.
bjoli 1 days ago [-]
Support for Hamas has generally been in the mid-30s, but that is also skewed by the fact that Hamas also provides things like health care and food for poor. But why do you think it matters? Israeli support for the genocide in Gaza is more than double that. Should we destroy 80% of civilian Israeli infrastructure, starve the population and stop baby formula from getting into the country, have the worlds most moral snipers shoot Israeli children, and then set up a faux humanitarian organisation that shoots at hungry people?
spwa4 2 days ago [-]
So what you're saying is that boycotting is totally immoral? After all, that's reacting against Israeli civilians, which is not okay according to you.
Or more to the point, why do we always judge Israel and Palestine with 2 different measures? Either Israel as a people and as a country are innocent and "it's only the government", hence boycotts are immoral. XOR people and government are both the same and boycotting every Palestinian everywhere on the planet is normal. Oh and accept that half the people just attack/boycott/refuse to serve or sell anything to all muslims, not just Palestinians, focusing especially on kids and other weak muslims, "because of the situation in Israel". Perhaps even have crowds chanting "gas all muslims" near mosques. And, of course, any kind of public success for Muslims must be brutally attacked, people, spectators, business partners, ... [1] After all, par for the course for Jews ...
Not that anyone on the planet will be surprised that arguments only apply when making Jews evil, not to anyone else (more general any group we don't like, gypsies, the mentally ill, especially against mentally ill children, ...)
Boycotts are fine. Bringing economic pressure on people who's behaviour you want to alter is quite acceptable and normal. Its just killing and displacing them which is the issue.
You might notice that everyone condemned Hamas's Oct 7 attack.
spwa4 1 days ago [-]
> You might notice that everyone condemned Hamas's Oct 7 attack.
Did they boycott Palestinians after that? Did they boycott Palestinians when they were using aid to execute constant rocket attacks against Israeli civilians?
bjoli 2 days ago [-]
I never said that, and you are welcome to explain why you think i did.
Coincidentally, regarding that: I think that argument fails . Israel and Palestine are not comparable. Israel is the oppressor. The Goliath. Israel is, just like apartheid south Africa was, a settler colonial project. Considering the amount of time Israel has spent thwarting democratic process in Palestine, resistance movements are not very surprising. Heck, even Hamas was helped from the start by Israel as a means to split the struggle for Palestinian independence. The divide has been very practical for Israel indeed: every time discussions have come up, the official response has been "who should we even negotiate with?".
Support from Hamas has only grown because Fatah has been looked upon as weak because of their many concessions towards Israel that never went anywhere (Fatah being corrupt and incompetent has also played a role, of course)
A large chunk of the world officially boycotted SA apartheid. Sadly our governments do not take their responsibility today, which means people take it into their own hands. That makes for an arbitrary and very uneven form of mob justice.
spwa4 1 days ago [-]
Can you answer the real question? How do we force Palestinians to accept peace with Israel?
Because none of this explains how you decide on boycotts, and how you intend to achieve peace. If there's one thing all muslim countries have in common, it's oppression. None respect human rights (even Morocco and Turkey, both in some ways more liberal than many European countries, have laws against freedom of religion). Half of them are attacking others. Morocco oppresses Western Sahara, as well as it's own religious minorities. Turkey oppresses Kurds, both inside and outside Turkey. Turkey oppresses religious minorities, also inside and outside Turkey. Both countries, of course, are the "goliaths" in those conflicts. Palestine oppresses religious minorities. Of course, hamas goes further and apparently oppresses most families mafia-style, massacres gay people, oppresses religious minorities (though both PA and hamas have exterminated Palestinian Jews, Shi'a and Druze (yes, they existed), and 90%+ of Palestian Christians)
Obviously this argument cannot justify a boycott against Israel and not against, frankly, every muslim state on the planet.
And those are the very mildest of muslim countries.
Plus, I feel you're not arguing in good faith. I feel like this is like those old cold-war "You have freedom in the Soviet Union" discussions where every discussion goes into total absurdity in an attempt to talk up socialism despite everyone in the room knowing full well that in reality, first, that nobody's free in a socialist country, two, that those discussion have one, and only one, purpose: to prevent reactions to Soviet invasions.
This discussion for you seems to have ONE purpose only: to justify and amplify muslim violence against Israel. Otherwise: answer this question: HOW do we force Palestinians to accept peace with Israel.
peterashford 1 days ago [-]
You don't force Palestinians to accept peace with Israel.
Force is the root of the problem. Israel will only accept a peace that it defines and that is why it will never have peace. You can't make peace in bad faith
spwa4 1 days ago [-]
> You don't force Palestinians to accept peace with Israel.
See this is what I mean. The whole discussion is about ONE thing: allowing Palestinians to use whatever violence they want, including mass murder, to "win" (between quotes because the worst thing that could happen to Palestinians is that they win this conflict, as that will immediately cause all their allies to turn to enemies)
Because the other interpretation of this statement is obviously not what you mean. Or do you accept there will be war, and it looks like Palestinians will lose, with whatever consequences that brings, probably leaving?
Palestinians and their allies want war, nothing else. Hell, Palestinian allies, including "supporters" in the west, want war with Israel even more than the Palestinians themselves want it. Btw: allies, not just idiots in the west, but allies like Russia, Iran, China and Qatar, each of them oppressive hellholes that massacre their own population. That alone should tell you that the Palestinians are the wrong side to support.
tpm 1 days ago [-]
> How do we force Palestinians to accept peace with Israel?
A good start would be Israel respecting the borders of the Palestinian state, for example, Israeli settlers and occupation forces leaving Area C:
If that is a good start, then how do you explain hamas' immediate reaction to Israel respecting Gaza borders in 2006, which they then respected until about a month after Oct 7, 2023.
You see, hamas' reaction was to immediately commit a massacre on Palestinian civilians, and then to start building a rocket arsenal and attacking Israeli civilians with them. So recent history teaches: if Israel were to take your advice, the conflict would become worse. A LOT worse. Immediately.
I'd ask you why this won't just occur again? But hamas has already publicly declared (shouted, in fact) they will go on another massacre and rebuild rockets "the second" this conflict ends. So I feel like that clears up the question.
The fact of the matter is that Palestinians, especially their billionaire "leaders" get a LOT of money, but only if this conflict continues. Until you change that, best of luck. Oh and changing that has a slight problem: neither Gaza nor WB have the slightest chance of making it economically on their own. Despite hamas and PA stealing over 90% of aid, the average income in Gaza and WB is a LOT higher than in Jordan or (especially) Egypt. This is because of aid. Unemployment benefits in Gaza are higher than hospital director wages in Egypt. War pays well for Palestinians, and for "Palestinians" (both hamas and PA give Palestinian passports to whoever asks, in fact, regularly to people who never asked. Last year, suddenly, everyone with an address in the old city in Jerusalem got a Palestinian passport in the mail. And even the muslims (who are pre-civil-war Syrians, whose families got massacred by Palestinians) didn't want them). In fact it pays orders of magnitude more than what they'd make otherwise. And before you say "but people die". Yes, people die. But if you go and actually look at even the claimed hamas-sourced numbers, you'll quickly conclude that less people die in this conflict than in traffic accidents, on average.
To make matters worse, Palestine, both Gaza and WB, are a gateway to immigrating to Europe. You live in, say, Jordan or you're poor in Saudi Arabia. That's a terrible life. So you "immigrate" to WB (Gaza if you're Egyptian). Once you're physically there you get a (bad) apartment and a passport, and in Gaza a job offer to work for Hamas (as cannon fodder, of course, but still). Once you have that passport even the Israeli government will help you get into Europe, assuming you don't go too far in your hamas job. That's how they constantly replenish their population (same way Russia does it: attract immigrants from even worse places, send them to die fighting their "enemy").
bjoli 23 hours ago [-]
Israel did not respect Gaza borders. The occupation just continued in another form. This might not be your view, but it has never been a controversial view.
Comparing the economies of Egypt and the west bank is pointless and you know it. The Egypt pound has been devalued to hell and back. It has lost something like 6x in value to the US dollar in 20 years.
The WTO has consistently highlighted the Israeli control over the west bank as the main roadblock to Palestinian economic development and independence.
Regarding the Gazan health ministry, those numbers are confirmed deaths from armed conflict. It does NOT include starved children, or cancer patients who died from the lack of care. Nor does it include people under rubble. It should be considered as the lower bound of deaths.
What we will have to look at afterwards is excess deaths.
tpm 1 days ago [-]
> The fact of the matter is that Palestinians, especially their billionnaire "leaders" get a LOT of money
That is quite simply complete bullshit. What is worse is that you are arguing in bad faith.
The facts are as follows:
1) There is an ongoing long-term occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel.
2) Occupation is an act of war. Israel is waging war on Palestine. It is breaking agreements it is a part of.
3) Of course the aim of Israel is to absorb more-or-less all Palestinian territory into Israel proper.
I don't really care about your deflections to Hamas or corruption or whatever, not only because those are the usual talking points of Israeli propaganda and I have seen them repeated about million times, but also because if Israel respected the territorial integrity of Palestine, these would be matters of internal Palestinian politics, and any aggression out of Palestine towards Israel would correctly mean Israel is the victim and Palestine is the aggressor.
But when Israel is occupying most of the Palestinian territory, with the intent to keep it and settle their population there, and all of this are acts of violence, you can't in good faith argue the Palestinians don't have the right to retaliate with force. Note that I don't support Hamas or any form of violence against civilians in any way (I have to mentions this because otherwise I will be wrongly accused of being a Hamas supporter), but until you face the fact that Israel is mass murdering and displacing civilians and taking their real estate and occupying it, we can't really move on.
spwa4 22 hours ago [-]
This sounds like an argument, but it's in bad faith. People keep making these arguments about how Israel does this and that and that means we should attack Israel, including Israeli civilians ... but of course, pretty much the entire muslim world is guilty of exactly these "acts of war", but of course you're saying that doesn't justify any reaction, especially not against civilians of those countries. It only justifies a reaction against Jews, not actually based on these arguments.
But let's examine your conditions, because they are SO badly chosen that EVEN Palestine satisfies all 3 of your conditions:
> 1) There is an ongoing long-term occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel.
Yep, Gaza is militarily occupied by hamas. They supposedly "won" an election, but then massacred everyone in the state. Even today hamas makes no attempt, other than with guns, to justify their position in Gaza. That's occupation.
> 2) Occupation is an act of war. Israel is waging war on Palestine. It is breaking agreements it is a part of.
Well, I don't think any sane person will argue hamas' purpose is anything other than self-enrichment through war.
> 3) Of course the aim of Israel is to absorb more-or-less all Palestinian territory into Israel proper.
Actually, it still isn't. Or at least, they haven't publicly declared this, and even the most right-wing members of parliament haven't gone there. So I don't even think this is actually true. Again, however, hamas has not only declared they intend to conquer all of Israel, they've publicly declared they will hunt down and kill every last Israeli (they of course used a certain religious word), anywhere on the planet. So they go quite a bit further than merely this.
I would like to remind you that these arguments are supposedly what you use to justify isolating Israeli civilians, even outside of Israel, even non-Israeli Jewish organizations are getting attacked by these demonstrations (e.g. a WW2 memorial in the Netherlands). So let's now see you agree to boycott Palestinians. After all, you're not a racist, and these reasons really are why you're suggesting a boycott, right? Since the very same facts certainly apply to Palestinians boycotting them is justified, right?
In fact they trivially apply to Turkey, Azerbaijan, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and even Morocco (to name one conflict zone: Western Sahara), and let's just be honest: it applies to essentially all muslim countries. All are militarily occupying territory.
So let's just boycott all muslims! After all, reasons 1, 2 AND 3 justify it!
Frankly, if you know any amount of history you must know that the Ottoman empire is not called an empire because of the favorite headdress of the caliph. It was a central group, in a single central city that militarily occupied anything they possibly could, like the Romans did. They even "exported" slaves from all their conquered territories, which was a ridiculous 80%-90% of their economy. That territory is what makes up muslim countries today, so of course everything is still mostly militarily occupied.
This is what I find so baffling about the whole Palestinian conflict. You are complaining "in the name of freedom" that a region in an empire revolted ... and that it won! Because in reality it is of course Israel that freed itself from muslim occupation (islam, the country, "not" the religion, between quotes because every muslim insists there's no difference) , not any kind of conquest. And you are doing this in the name of freedom? Seriously?
This really reminds me of the arguments everyone kept making defending Soviet Union behavior during the cold war. There were supposed rules and moral principles and "rational arguments" and ... proving the Soviet Union was good and an unfair victim ... and then their tanks rolled into Vienna (and 100 other places), DESPITE things like gulags and the holodomor and ... being well known to the people making these arguments.
tpm 21 hours ago [-]
I'm sorry but completely ignoring what I wrote is no way to conduct a discussion. In fact the only reason you wrote any of this is to escape the real topic of this conversation (and not only in the interaction with me, but with every other participant). By not showing effort to engage you are instead showing your disrespect towards us.
spwa4 3 hours ago [-]
Your GP post says 3 conditions justify reacting against civilians of that country and even group. I point out that Palestinians satisfy all 3 conditions, as do all muslims, and that you're a racist. That for you those 3 conditions only justify anything if used against Jews, that you'd come up with some excuse to not apply them to anyone else.
And here we are. Some excuse, with accusation, to do exactly what I predicted.
vFunct 2 days ago [-]
So you're saying Israel is committing genocide because they are a foreign invasion force of European Jews that have the stated intent of eliminating Palestinians people from the land they're trying to take through a war they started in 1948?
And that Hamas are the good guys because they have a right to kill the foreign invaders trying to steal their land?
Is that the correct summary of Israel's genocidal intent?
bjoli 1 days ago [-]
Haha, what? If you want a constructive debate then don't be silly.
2 days ago [-]
belZaah 2 days ago [-]
Hm, by that definition Hamas has been trying to commit genocide on the Jews since day one?
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe 2 days ago [-]
Yes, but the aim of Israel does not seem to eradicate Hamas but eradicate the entire population around it.
peterashford 1 days ago [-]
And if Israel were only starving Hamas, and sniping Hamas kids, I'd have a lot more sympathy for it.
2 days ago [-]
cmurf 2 days ago [-]
“acts committed with intent” Both need to be proven.
The relevant case law is Prosecutor v. Bagilishema (2001).
Genocide therefore invites analysis under two headings: the prohibited underlying acts and the specific genocidal intent or dolus specialis.
Meanwhile there’s an undenied genocide happening in Ukraine that Russia boasts about committing. And on-going in Darfur 15 years after the international community declared one there.
incrudible 2 days ago [-]
Then why is this selectively applied to Israel? Turkey is doing (a), (b), (c) to Kurds right now, where are the scholars? It is such an open ended definition that it could be applied to almost any conflict.
disgruntledphd2 2 days ago [-]
I don't think it's just Israel, this gets called out pretty regularly if you pay attention. Like, a whole new term "ethnic cleansing" was invented in the 1990s to justify inaction during the collapse of Yugoslavia.
I care more about what's happening in Israel/Palestine (the West Bank is basically another war zone) because I'm irish and what's happening in Israel/Palestine is incredibly reminiscent of what happened to irish catholics from about 1600-1900, and also because I know a _lot_ of Israeli citizens (and many of them hang out here) so I'm hopeful that speaking out will make a difference.
But honestly, this has been getting worse since the 90s and at this point, I can't see any peace process ever happening. Like, either all the Israelis kill the Palestinians or vice versa (or climate change makes the region uninhabitable). It's profoundly depressing, particularly given that the reason there are laws against genocide is because of what happened to Jewish people (and slavs and gay people etc) during WW2.
bevr1337 3 days ago [-]
That doesn't seem to be the case. The UN has a legal definition of genocide, and the assertion is that the criteria are met. So what's the change in definition?
idiomat9000 2 days ago [-]
Ah, the un where the muslim brotherhood aka qtar aka hamas sits on the Human Rights Council ..
cherry_tree 2 days ago [-]
>passed a resolution on Monday, stating that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza fulfill the definition of genocide set out in the 1948 United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
It says they used a 1948 definition of genocide, so I’m a bit confused by your sentiment that this is due to shifting definitions.
alkyon 3 days ago [-]
I don't think it's really about applying a definition A to a definition B incorrectly, but rather about expanding or restricting the meaning of a given definition.
Is the Gaza genocide on the same level as what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto, certainly not.
However, it is already surpassing Kosovo/Bosnian War genocide by a huge margin.
daft_pink 2 days ago [-]
Genocide generally means to try and eliminate a group. It’s not about the total quantity of people killed. When the US went to war with Nazi Germany, they weren’t committing a genocide on Germans or genocide against Japanese people when they attacked Japan.
The Warsaw Ghetto specifically targeted Jews and not other Polish people. Kosovo/Bosnia sought to create ethnically pure territories.
You can’t start a war from a homogenous country on a country that will crush you militarily, start losing brutally, refuse to surrender or give up, continue to fight, and then hide behind the word genocide as though the other country doesn’t have the right to continue fighting until you lose.
cholantesh 2 days ago [-]
Does the other country have the right to wantonly flout international law and the social conventions it claims to be a standard bearer for at every turn while doing so?
bsaul 2 days ago [-]
Israel has no perfectly moral solution to hamas in gaza. they chose to err on the side of making sure october 7 never happens again. I don’t blame them for that.
cholantesh 2 days ago [-]
Maybe they should have erred on the size of not doing everything they could to ensure Hamas' birth and continued existence.
bsaul 1 days ago [-]
They probably played a dangerous game in the past with hamas, indeed. Much like the US with the iranian mollah, or with the taliban in afghanistan.
Yet, now that they've decided to stop this game and finally deal with hamas once and for all, i'm certainly not going to blame them.
vFunct 2 days ago [-]
Isn't the moral solution be to surrender and go back home to Europe where they came from instead of trying to invade Palestine to steal their land?
European Jews do not have the right to steal Palestinian land.
Why can't Israel simply surrender and admit defeat in the war that they started? They never got the Palestinians to surrender. I don't see any signed surrender documents? Israelis have always existed in a war zone of their own creation, with every home required to have a bomb shelter.
Right now it appears that Israel is headed towards defeat, with more nations recognizing the existence of Palestine.
bsaul 1 days ago [-]
You don't seem to know a lot about the history of jews and israelis... They have nowhere else to go.
Jews have spent 2000 years running away from people who wanted to kill them, and now they've decided to stop.
HDThoreaun 15 hours ago [-]
most of the jews in israel are sephardic, theyre from the middle east and were kicked out by racist regimes so they fled to israel. The mindset you are espousing about palestinians not surrendering will end very badly for the palestinians. They can not win a war against israel, the more they fight the worse things get for them. Pushing them to fight more only does them a disservice.
alkyon 2 days ago [-]
Comparing US war against Nazi Germany with war crimes Israel is now committing in Gaza is kind of dumb. You don't really know what you're talking about -- genocide is by definition mass slaughter of people based on their ethnic origin and this is exactly what is happening in Gaza now.
> Genocide generally means to try and eliminate a group. It’s not about the total quantity of people killed.
To be exact, it's an effort to destroy a group as a whole, or a _part_ of it:
"The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as any of five 'acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group'".
You can commit genocide even if you don't intend to eliminate the whole group as it was the case with Nazi Germany 'final solution' or 'Vernichtung' policies towards the Jews. Nanjing Massacre by Japanese is a textbook example of genocide, but the Japanese didn't intend to eliminate the Chinese population as a whole - they targeted a part of it and it is still genocide.
Out of 2 million population of Gaza Strip 62,000 were already killed, of these 80% civilians and 30% children (18,500 children!). Add to this intentional starving of Gaza, banning and murdering journalists. If this doesn't conform to the definition of genocide then I don't know what does.
Edit: typos
bsaul 2 days ago [-]
the legal definition is so broad, it’s just dumb. Someone giving a punch in a bar fills their definition, if you take it in its extensive meaning.
cholantesh 2 days ago [-]
This is quite literally the opposite of what legal scholars maintain: that the definition is so particular as to allow perpetrators to escape culpability, as in the case of Srebenica.
Sporktacular 3 days ago [-]
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Mk2000 2 days ago [-]
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bjoli 2 days ago [-]
Al Jazeera English isn't half bad, actually. There have been a lot of estimations about it's reliability, and it usually scores high. It has a "left" bias by an American perspective, but the facts are usually facts
Editorial bias towards Qatar, yes. But generally considered to be factual (2 uncorrected factual errors in the last 9 years).
2 days ago [-]
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SilverElfin 2 days ago [-]
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jehejej 2 days ago [-]
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EvgeniyZh 2 days ago [-]
It is not hard to separate military-purpose infrastructure from civilian one. It is hard only in a sense that it'd be immediately destroyed and all the combatants would be killed.
In fact "hiding among civilians" is an excuse for collateral civilian damage, international law allows attacks that harm civilians in order to achieve military goals.
By the way, did you know that Geneva convention don't apply if you're fighting someone who haven't signed it and also doesn't "accepts and applies the provisions" [1]
Green account with random set of letters for a name calling someone a bot, how ironic
You think academics that study genocides for a living don't know the stats and facts? Bit rich, but also on brand for atrocity deniers. In the future, you may find yourself in the company of Holocaust truthers, who are scoffed at every which where they go.
One does not have to kill the entire group for it to become a genocide. What happened in Srebrenica, where "only" 8,000 men were killed, was recognized as a genocide by the ICT for former Yugoslavia. The United States acknowledged in March 2023 that what Myanmar does to the Rohingyas is a genocide, even if most of them were "only" expelled and even if "only" 10,000 were killed according to the State Department. Those examples are very different from the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide, when there was an attempt to kill all or almost all of the group's members, but they are still a genocide. Israelis and many others mistakenly think that all genocides have to look like the Holocaust but this is not true.
a) i was replying to parent about population decline in gaza
b) according to news, they accept anybody into "group" and not only academics who study genocide
ciconia 2 days ago [-]
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slavak 2 days ago [-]
I don't know what Israeli media you're consuming, but as an Israeli, that is quite far from the truth, maybe with the exception of some specific pro-government propaganda networks.
While I do wish the mainstream media in Israel dedicated more time to the human rights situation in Gaza, their coverage is far from how you presented it.
lifestyleguru 2 days ago [-]
The "moral superiority" is a hell of a drug. I encountered this attitude a lot in Germany. Anyway it feels that words simply lost any meaning in this conflict, because the pressure of infrastructure and real estate investors is immense.
DataDaemon 3 days ago [-]
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artninja1988 3 days ago [-]
Hope people will vouch for it to stay up
Sporktacular 3 days ago [-]
No matter how civilised the discourse, for some it's too much. Is there a way to take away the veto of any 10 people who don't like what they see?
Sporktacular 3 days ago [-]
Ah, this comment was apparently too much too. All, very quickly as well. The threshold for taking down a post should be higher.
Seriously, do the people doing this think they're doing Israel any favours? Everyone knows about the Hasbara farms by now.
mongol 3 days ago [-]
Yep, flagged now. Edit: Not by me
already 3 days ago [-]
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hellgas00 3 days ago [-]
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jehejej 3 days ago [-]
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novateg 3 days ago [-]
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genocidal 3 days ago [-]
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HDThoreaun 3 days ago [-]
> One could say that it actually liberates the part of the population that doesn't support terrorism.
But the genocide here includes the gazans that do not support terrorism. In fact the terrorists are basically the only group in gaza that are immune to the genocide because they control the government and are able to monopolize food distribution. We have seen over and over and over again that counter terrorism only has two ways to succeed. Either the population has to willingly install a government that can counter the terrorists or the counter terrorism group has to kill every single person in the region. Everyone can see which option israel is going for here
genocidal 3 days ago [-]
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ath3nd 1 days ago [-]
Israel is committing a genocide to the Palestinian population.
And of course, for the one of us who have been paying attention, it's been clear that Israel has been committing a genocide for quite some time. Hence the UN case and the warrant for arrest of the war criminal and genocider Netanyahu roughly 1 year ago.
> Either the population has to willingly install a government that can counter the terrorists or
Words words words. Not gonna help Netanyahu in prison nor the IDF war criminals when they are tried in the Hague for genocide and crimes against mankind.
genocidal 3 days ago [-]
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YeGoblynQueenne 2 days ago [-]
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Sporktacular 2 days ago [-]
It was flagged 20 minutes into being posted, and was respectful until that time. Really, stop lying.
YeGoblynQueenne 2 days ago [-]
Excuse me? I'm lying about what? Almost all the comments that are from 1 day ago are flagged or downvoted to grey.
If that is how you want to treat this subject then go to 4chan or some other toxic cesspit of the internets. HN is not the place.
2 days ago [-]
georgemcbay 2 days ago [-]
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thomassmith65 2 days ago [-]
That has it backwards.
The advent of social media brought press freedom to millions who previously had no voice, including dumbasses.
While the dumbasses incessantly complain about internet censorship, the internet nevertheless lets them spread their dumb views far wider than was possible ever before.
This freedom for dumbasses to promote supposed 'uncomfortable truths' was a big reason behind the resurgence of authoritarianism.
ETH_start 2 days ago [-]
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stopthebullshit 3 days ago [-]
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andag 3 days ago [-]
Account created 9 minutes ago...
ae4tae4 3 days ago [-]
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strathmeyer 3 days ago [-]
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omikun 3 days ago [-]
Terrorism like Israel killing tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians or the US killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? Or do you just mean the violence committed by brown people against their oppressors?
Yes that's your reallity which is obviously different from mine.
One can list 70 years of "one time lone IDF soldier" war crimes. But I wouldn't waste time because you believe what you want to believe. Nothing can't change youe bias. You do not consider Pelastinians as humans.
hereme888 2 days ago [-]
"Palestinians" don't exist, because there is no "Palestine" nor has such a country ever existed.
Ironically, I love Gazans more than Hamas. Israel and Trump also want better for them than Hamas. The goal is to free them from their terror and rebuild the area so they can be prosperous and thrive in freedom. But if your idea is to maintain a terrorist-controlled society, you are the one who doesn't love Gazans.
2 days ago [-]
ignoramous 2 days ago [-]
> FAFO
Quite inspired by Goebbels, are we?
The Jews are responsible for the war. The treatment they receive from us is hardly unjust. They have deserved it all.
Was there a threshold as to why it wasn't one last month, for example.
mongol 3 days ago [-]
The resolution is an outcome of a process descibed in this organization's bylaws. Quoting:
ARTICLE 6. Resolutions
A. Resolutions committing the Association to a stand on a public issue require a two-thirds majority of those voting at the biennial business meeting or by e-mail ballot. For a proposed resolution to pass, voting must have been undertaken by a quorum of more than 20% (20% plus 1) of paid up IAGS members at the time of the vote.
B. Resolutions directly related to genocide or other mass atrocities, including early warning signs thereof, may be proposed by any member in good standing.
C. Proposed resolutions shall first be submitted to the Resolutions Committee appointed by the President and the Executive Board for review of their linguistic clarity and historical and factual accuracy. The standard of review shall be that of an article for the IAGS journal. The Resolutions Committee will recommend to the Executive Board and Advisory Boardwhether the Resolution should be forwarded to the IAGS membership for a vote.
D. After consulting with the Advisory Board, the Executive Board shall decide whether or not the proposed resolution will be submitted to the IAGS membership for a vote within two weeks of submission by the Resolutions Committee. Resolutions must be circulated by the Executive Board to the IAGS membership at least thirty days before the close of voting by IAGS members. E-mail voting shall begin as soon as the resolution is submitted to the membership by the Executive Board and close at the end of thirty days of voting. Votes will be submitted and counted by the Secretary/Treasurer of the IAGS, and after verification by the Executive Board, results of the voting will be announced to the members of the IAGS.
Sporktacular 3 days ago [-]
Ah, got it. Thanks.
7433678532901 1 days ago [-]
Well, if the Al-Qaida outlet says so, HNers will swallow it.
BergAndCo 1 days ago [-]
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SAI_Peregrinus 2 days ago [-]
Why wouldn't they? Nobody is stopping them, and it benefits them to remove a traditional enemy population. The sorts of people who seek to lead nations tend to only have performative ethics: if it benefits them to appear ethical, they'll behave ethically.
Rendered at 09:37:16 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
- Use ChatGPT to get a list of landmarks in Gaza (historical, religious, medical, educational...)
- Find the wikipedia for a landmark (hit or miss), and copy the coordinates from the upper right hand corner
- Open "Google Earth" and paste the coordinates
- Use the "Show historical imagery" button to compare the 2023 image to the most recent
You'll see with your own eyes that the majority of all notable landmarks are just about destroyed, obviously targeted, and most of the google earth images are at least a year old.
Every single university ChatGPT lists as the top 5 in gaza are gone. And you can see from the historical images that these were very nice, well-groomed campuses. All of the greenery is gone. I had heard it beforehand, but this process of self-discovery with google earth hit a little bit different
I cannot validate Israel's accusations, nor can I refute them. I just think it's important to mention them, because if they were true, it changes the interpretation of those facts considerably.
Unfortunately, confirmation of such things is practically impossible, in a self-fulfilling way. At least one side is willing to go to great lengths to deny their own violations. It's entirely possible that it's both.
'Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by means such as "the disintegration of [its] political and social institutions, of [its] culture, language, national feelings, religion, and [its] economic existence".'
But these are just a few of many. There have been more stories of children shot in the head or chest than I can count, and when the stories of snipers shooting children started to fizzle out, it was instead drones that did the shooting.
Together with the absolutely abhorrent things said by Israeli ministers and parliament members I have had no doubt that this has been a genocide for quite some time.
The hardest thing to accept has been the complicit western media. On one side they have reported about killings, but then promptly reported the Israeli spokesperson's response to the accusations despite them being caught lying over and over again. Like the massacre of the ambulance drivers that first was not communicated with cogat. When it was shown to be communicated to cogat, they did not have their emergency lights and sirens on. When films surfaced of them with their lights and sirens on it was going to be "investigated". That led nowhere, despite the soldiers actively trying to hide their tracks by burying all the victims - some with ther frikken hands tied.
This pattern has repeated itself over and over and over, yet news outlets like the BBC or CNN seem to say to themselves "ah, but this time they are telling the truth".
My own government have been more preoccupied with hiding it's own cowardice than with standing up for any kind of principles. They believe in nothing and I have nothing but contempt for them.
The only way that neither side can object is from international journalists. Guess what, they're not allowed in, lest the truth comes out.
People flag articles because they disagree with them, but also because they just think the discussion may descend into uninformative yelling. My point concerned the discussions that do appear, rather than which articles make it through unflagged, but even there it appears they don't support the narrative of "only good things about Israel appear in the media."
There's a relevant discussion in this recent post from a couple weeks ago:
Ask HN: Are we allowed to discuss Israel on HN? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44947788
"We want to give the topic of Israel and Gaza fair exposure, as it's obviously an important story and it would feel wrong to pretend it's not happening. At the same time, every time we have one of these stories on the front page, it turns in to a hellish flamewar, we have to spend all day moderating it..."
"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day"
"Nothing in nationalism is more significant or deeper than in the case when an enemy should tread Moslem land. Resisting and quelling the enemy becomes the individual duty of every Moslem [sic], male or female"
"Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight."
https://judaic.arizona.edu/sites/judaic.arizona.edu/files/20...
My take is that if a 100th of the war budget of Israel had been allocated to building schools and peace propaganda in palestine none of these decades of violence would have happened.
The only situation where bombs defeat a radicalized population is when they eradicate said population, and that sounds like a genocide to me. See Vietnam for a concrete example.
The UN has invested around a billion yearly in UNRWA, an agency whose half of budget (twice than what you propose) is supposed to educate Palestinian children for peace, mainly using funds contributed by the west.
UNRWA however has removed the holocaust from its human rights curriculum, has many Hamas members on its payroll, including some teachers who held hostages and regularly talks about Jihad and martyrdom in its curriculum.
So, yeah peace education? that works less when you are under a control of an islamist terror organization or ran by the local population that does not have fully bought to your peace idea yet
there are many interesting things in this article, but one of the most interesting it's that back than in unrwa schools was taught that all land was stolen and that they will liberate it by force.
https://cdn.theatlantic.com/media/archives/1961/10/208-4/132...
Perhaps this is no consolation to the victims, but the pendulum will continue to swing both ways as it always has. These monsters and their offspring will reap what they sowed. Humanity too will reap this reward.
- only 28% percent of members voted
- virtual discussion for resolution prior to voting was cancelled
- didn't allow dissenting opinions published on list serve
- The association has recently expanded its membership and there are little qualifications to become a member. The association had been mostly made up of scholars, but now includes figures like activists and artists,
- if somebody reads actual resolution, it reads like fine collection of tiktok videos.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
[1] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-september-02-2025/#li...
And then you don’t make a distinction of which claim comes from where. The first claim comes from BBC, all the rest come from the second source. And best part? actual source for this is just one member saying stuff.
Still, I guess any source is better than Israel paid "There is no famine in Gaza" ads, that YouTube displays between investment scams.
https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS...
it doesn't seem like something that people need to vote on, there's no weighing of evidence, it's on the level of a beginner Wikipedia page
Does anyone have some rational explanation?
There aren't many other rational explanations than that this is intended? Targeting journalists and then their rescue parties… oof
If this is true, think twice before using second hand devices. You might be mistaken for someone and unnecessarily targeted.
Note that you can’t basically avoid these companies. They codified using one of these companies in some US regulations. There are no alternatives between. Even though the companies themselves mention they are US based, most of critical technical stuff happens directly from Israel. There are basically no alternatives. They make rules, US follows.
Like I mentioned these security companies identify themselves as US based, but all technical work is based in Israel. Like front office is US.
All I am saying is I am suspecting information leaks out of offices in Israel. Again this is suspicion. One of the theories on why Israel has all the intel it needs. Some information access illegally using some backdoor. Backdoor could be as simple as direct access through an existing employee who might be linked to Israel military intel.
Starting point for your research into some US regulations for Defense contracts. https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/10/15/2024-22...
Most stuff in Gaza that was fixed in place has been destroyed already.
- We don't really know the civilian casualty ratio for Gaza, but in seems somewhere in the normal range for urban wars (e.g. based on some losses Hamas admitted early in the conflict). The Iran strikes also harmed civilians, e.g. from a collapsed building in Nobonyad Square. If Israel had to repeat things 10,000x, we might have seen many collapsed buildings and it might start to resemble Gaza.
- Intelligence gathering methods that work for a few high-profile targets might not scale to a war against tens of thousands of combatants.
- Israel had the element of surprise against Iran, so the relevant targets were mostly not in bunkers/tunnels. They never did against Hamas.
And Soviet-stock bombs just aren't as precise and unguided rocket artillery even more so.
Yet after more than 3 years the number of civilian deaths and injured COMBINED just barely surpassed 50k recently.
Gazans have none of that - they’re trapped in a tiny territory, no states are taking significant numbers of Gazan refugees, and Hamas isn’t doing anything for civilian safety.
Any differences in Israeli vs Russian military tactics are rather secondary to these fundamental differences in civilian exposure.
On August 29, President of Mariupol Television, volunteer and civil activist Mykola Osychenko said to Dnipro TV that, according to the insider information, 87,000 deaths have been currently documented in morgues in Mariupol. Besides, 26,750 bodies are buried in mass graves, and many more are buried in the yards of the apartment blocks and private houses, or still under the rubble.[326]
In early November, Ukraine stated that at least 25,000 civilians had been killed in Mariupol.[46][47] In late December, based on the discovery of 10,300 new mass graves, the Associated Press estimated that the true death toll may be up to three times that figure.[327] The Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimates of the total death toll resulting from the siege range from 27,000 to 88,000 fatalities, most of them civilians.[49]
just to put things into perspective, this siege lasted less than 3 months
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Mariupol
What would be even better, IMHO, is if Israel just stopped murdering Gazans.
One of those bunker busters will also do immense damage to surrounding structures. Gaza is one of the more densely populated areas on earth. You don't use 2000lb bombs without causing a lot of death and damage outside of the thing you a re targeting.
Not only that, every time hospital attacks were justified bt "Hamas underground conplexes" the evidence has been lacklustre or even completely absent. They demolished the only specialist cancer hospital in Gaza claiming it was used as a command central for Hamas. But still no evidence has been provided. The only thing we DO know is that the IDF had used the hospital as a base before denolishibg it.
While I don't doubt that there are examples of Hamas using civilian infrastructure (and this v.civilians) as shields, the Israeli usage of the term is a poor excuse for indescriminate bombing of apartment buildings, schools and hospitals.
Leaked ‘Gaza Riviera’ plan dismissed as ‘insane’ attempt to cover ethnic cleansing
> Is Israel doing genocide? Probably. Does the Palestinian leadership (hamas) want them to do this? Yep.
So from the start you claim that the Palestinian leadership wants its own people genocided (and themselves killed in the process). Who knows why? They must be rabid beasts, these victims. Better put them out of their pain, eh?
> Who cares more about killing less "civilians"? The effed up thing is it's probably Israel.
And how do you even know? Most of the killing of civilians, also in percentage to the total, has been done by Israel. Is it again because the others are rabid animals? Also, thanks for those scare quotes around "civilians". Wink wink.
> The Arab world doesn't want to deal with Palestinians.
The Arab world is either corrupt by US money or has a gun pointed to its head, both by Israel and by its unwavering supporter, financer and protector, the US. This has been made extremely clear multiple times (hundreds of thousands/ millions dead).
> Palestinian leadership ... only care about maintaining Mafia level control over Gaza.
Again, because they are rabid animals, right? They do not care about freedom, their land, the oppression, being shot at, bombed...
> Palestinians have not been allowed to have an economy in 74 years, live off of international aid, and yer have increased their population by a factor of ten. The only reason you do that is to raise cannon fodder.
So these animals are guilty of multiplying, their numbers prove their intentions, is this what you mean? The fact itself that they are born proves that they're evil.
> Everyone wants the Palestinians to get their own State
Not at all, everyone says this to buy time. In fact Israel abhors the idea (threatens everyone who proposes to recognize Palestine), not because of bs security concerns but because it means putting a fixed border and an end to their expansion. The US does what Israel demands- we've seen very clearly in the past two years that their leverage with Israel is zero, while Israel basically controls most US representatives. Europe is more or less in the same position, subordinate to both Israel and the US. The "peace process" for the two states solution is just a facade. It's a process that should go on forever without reaching its goal, keeping the pretense of legality while Israel colonises the West Bank and now Gaza.
> But if the Palestinians have a state, and provoke a war, then Israel can use even more unrestrained violence against them
Uh? And why? This is a total non-sequitur. Also, why would they provoke a war after reaching their goal of having a state? Again these animals..
> If Israel had used unrestrained carpet bombing like we did to Dresden in world war II, postage stamp sized Gaza would have been completely razed in a month.
In fact Israel has dropped more bombs on Gaza than were dropped on Dresden, causing a similar level of destruction and deaths. It just did it in slow motion. The limit to Israel's actions is not its morality or its military means, it's the international opinion.
> Maybe a Palestinian state run by Hamas and populated by people that have only been raised to hate and die
Again, because differently from you and me, these people don't love life, their spouses, their children, their land.. they're rabid animals, will just bite anything that gets near them, wanting to be shot. This is what you think and you've said multiple times in different ways in your post. Horrific, shameful.
And they're trying their best to silence the Gazan voice by not letting in any international journalists, labeling every journalist as Hamas, killing them all, one camera at a time. Or five.
BOTH LEADERSHIPS WANT IT THIS WAY.
At a minimum, both keep power this way. #1 priority of crazy authoritarians: maintain power.
There is no humanitarianism. Humanitarianism is a secular idea. These are two religious extremist regimes. There are no secular priorities by either government. Only religious extremist views. Neither side will negotiate or coexist in a secular peace.
Yes, Hamas will happily throw away massive numbers of its people if it thinks its winning. That's the entire strategy. Yes, they get paid to do that by various states like Iran and the UAE. That's the only money that comes into the palestinian territories: humanitarian aid (which is funneled/controlled by the PA or Hamas) and military aid, which gets funneled to Hamas (I admittedly know less about how the PA works, I think they are the same just not as bad) and they use to maintain authoritarian control over Gaza.
The military aid enables Hamas to keep power, and it only comes if they keep poking Israel.
Is it cruel of me to point out that expanding your population by 10x when they are virtually entirely dependent on external aid is absolutely crazy? And yes, sorry, the only reason I can think of other than incredible stupidity is for cannon fodder.
Why wouldn't a two state solution work? Well it would be a three state solution if we're serious, no way the PA in West Bank shares power with Hamas in Gaza. No effing way. And yes, they would still launch rockets at Israel. Because, again, that's what Hamas leadership gets paid to do, and having a state won't change that. If you think otherwise, I'm sorry, I think you are naive.
And yes, Israel/Netanyahu will look for ANY provocation to loose the barrage. Here, I'll give you a conspiracy theory: they'll false flag if they have to. Pay some group to start the war. I think there's a conspiracy theory they rigged this provocation. I'll give you that, sure! What would having a state matter?
Look, the Palestinians are in a really really bad situation in terms of power dynamics. Only in modern (secular) international politics do the Palestinians even get to voice an opinion. Go ahead and argue about books or historical rights or atrocities. It won't change anything, Israel has a military that can wipe you out, and even if it seems like this is unrestrained: it isn't.
Egypt will never let Palestinians into Sinai. Jordan will never again take them, Kuwait kicked theirs out, no Arab state will take them. They need to figure out a way to survive in Gaza. They are grossly outgunned, and only modern (secular) international relations prevents Israel from doing what the Mongols did to Baghdad.
The oil is going to get less important with alt energy and EVs. Global warming is coming. THE MONEY WILL DRY UP. International attention will return to the apathy in line with the Tigray war and Azerbaijan-Armenia and Turkey-Kurds, and whatever else is going on in the world.
When that happens, aid stops, food stops, gun shipments stop. Either Israel annihilates the Palestinians then, or they starve. Pick one!
Hamas needs to step down and surrender and accept any peace they can get. Yes Israel builds settlements and encroaches. Beg Egypt to once again take over administration of Gaza (they won't ...) Beg someone to do it, get Hamas out of power. Only way a two state solution works is if someone Israel trusts just a bit takes over Gaza for a decade on a path to independence.
If Hamas cared about its people, its children, its wives, it would step down. Right? Because they are humanitarians? Find some Arab country that will accept their surrender and provide sanctuary? Because the united Sunni brothers would do that for humanitarianism? You and I both know that will never happen.
The people in control will risk total destruction over the surrender of any power, money, or control.
Because having their own state isnt their goal, the destruction of zionism is.
> The limit to Israel's actions is not its morality or its military means, it's the international opinion.
Israel has nukes and is self sufficient. International opinion only limits them until they decide dealing with the palestinians is more important, at which point they can team up with china. Really the only limit to Israels actions are what the israeli people will vote for.
I dont really get your obsession with the rabid animal theme. We know that israel cares more about civilians than the palestinian government because israel was content to let the palestinians chill until oct 7th while hamas spent the previous two decades bombarding tel aviv. Hamas has mafia level control over gaza. Thats just a fact, why does that make us racist for pointing out? They use human shields, it is obvious that they do not care about their populace. We dont have to be racist to point out that hamas fucking sucks and has done nothing but make life worse for everyone in gaza. That doesnt make the israeli government good, its just a reminder that things will probably continue to be terrible in the region
Israel's definition of human shields is placing military infrastructure adjacent to civilian infrastructure. Literally no international body agrees with this, but ignoring that, the IDF is itself guilty of this because many of its installations, including Hakirya, are surrounded by residential buildings. The Lehi also fired rockets from and cached ammo within schools and synagogues - this is commemorated by plaques in the affected buildings. There is also copious video evidence of them taking human shields by the much narrower, much more widely accepted definition of human shielding wherein civilians are coerced into entering combat zones under the thread of violence.
2. The IDF doesnt need to use human shields because hamas/iran dont have accurate missles. Even if the IDF did operate out of apartment buildings like hamas it wouldnt be evidence that the gov doesnt care about the populace because their enemies cant hit them anyway
Seriously, how many israeli civilians have been killed by military strikes aimed at legitimate targets?
And yet they still do, by their own definition and the one that is actually in wide use.
>Seriously, how many israeli civilians have been killed by military strikes aimed at legitimate targets?
Far fewer than the number of Palestinians killed by the IDF 'mistakenly' turning a hospital to rubble with journalists in the vicinity. What are you even trying to argue?
The israeli govenrment is far less cavalier with their civilians lives than hamas is. As you pointed out they are not just sticking them in the line of fire like hamas is
Oh of course, these are not people- they don't want their own good, they want to destroy others. Is this what you mean?
> israel was content to let the palestinians chill until oct 7th while hamas spent the previous two decades bombarding tel aviv
You obviously don't know that Israel bombarded Gaza killing 1800 people in 2008/9, 430 people between 2010 and 2104, 2270 people in 2015, plus 800 more between 2016 to 2023? This 4 times the victims of October 7- and we don't count the blockade and the wrecked economy.
> We dont have to be racist to point out that hamas fucking sucks and has done nothing but make life worse for everyone in gaza
Yes of course, blame the victims. No, Israel has imprisoned 2 million people inside Gaza for 20 years and periodically bombed them, and this is an unimaginable crime, orders of magnitude worse than Hamas ever did. Frankly, October 7 was horrible but nothing in comparison, plus it was obviously needed to bring the necessary attention to the situation. Fucking sucks, but hey, that's something Israel brought upon itself thanks to its criminal behaviour and the complicity of the West.
Only exception was when the west bank was part of the Palestinian state and ghaza part of Egypt for 30 years. They where "peaceful" under islamic rule, though still warring against Israel.
Peace = Colonializing the world for the faith. Its very medieval and very real .
What is the point of acting like Israel doesn't have the means of wiping Hamas 100 times over? You know, even if you don't like the goals of Hamas (which is not monolithic, it has even accepted Palestine in the 1967 borders, offered 10-year truces, etc)- if you give people what is fair, and cooperate, and let them have a life with hopes and future- you will get peace in return- with or without Hamas.
And the bottom off this idea of "Hamas wants to destroy Israel" there is always the idea that Palestinians are rabid animals, more interested in destroying the others than in their own happiness. This is stupid and racist.
> You dont get to constantly launch rockets at their biggest city and then claim you want peace.
Well, you don't get to take someone's land, enforce apartheid, close 2 million people in a cage and claim you want peace either. You take the rockets, ffs, in fact you deserve much bigger ones.
The palestinains started pretty much every war. Israel won them. If the palestinians didnt want to be stuck in gaza they shouldnt have started and lost all those wars. Now they have to live with the consequences. To be clear I dont think gazans are wrong for being pissed about their situation. I do think theyre wrong for doing absolutely nothing to improve it though. I think theyre wrong for starting wars they cant win and then complaining when they dont win them.
> the idea that Palestinians are rabid animals, more interested in destroying the others than in their own happiness.
Maybe if they stopped devoting all their resources to destroying israel and invested in themselves people wouldnt think this(to be clear I dont, although I do think Hamas leadership largely does thinks this). The bottom of the idea that hamas wants to destroy israel is hamas, repeatedly saying they want to destroy israel. Why shouldnt I trust what they constantly say?
> What is the point of acting like Israel doesn't have the means of wiping Hamas 100 times over?
Who is acting like this? Israel shown restraint which hamas has never done. You are right, they could kill every single person in gaza quite easily, they dont want to. The same cant be said for hamas and how they feel about israelis.
> Well, you don't get to take someone's land, enforce apartheid, close 2 million people in a cage and claim you want peace either.
Why not? Why should Israel, with the power to wipe palestine off the map, settle for anything less? The problem with hamas launching rockets is that they cant back it up when israel correctly sees that as a declaration of war.
> You take the rockets, ffs, in fact you deserve much bigger ones.
And this mentality is why the israelis have decided a genocide is their best option
The Palestinians didn't start the 'war of Independence' in which the precursors of the most moral army in human existence prosecuted what widely fit the rubric war crimes on a massive scale. They didn't start the 1967 war, that was Israel. They didn't occupy South Lebanon or the Golan Heights. They didn't assassinate multiple government officials in Lebanon and Iran and the prime minister of Yemen. They weren't the party who broke dozens of internationally brokered ceazefires by raiding cities in Palestinian territories. This is such an egregious misunderstanding it's hard to blame it on simple ignorance.
yes they did. The jews were ready to accept the UN plan.
> They didn't start the 1967 war, that was Israel.
Youre right about this one
> They didn't occupy South Lebanon
This was in direct response to attacks from hezbollah
> or the Golan Heights.
Agreed israel did syria very dirty
> They didn't assassinate multiple government officials in Lebanon and Iran
By government officials you mean terrorists who directly contributed to ki9lling israeli civilians
> They weren't the party who broke dozens of internationally brokered ceasefires
Yes the palestinians absolutely did this
Well, my personal opinion is obviously that both situations are abhorrent, but what I'm trying to point out the PR damage that Israel is doing to itself. I see two reasons why Israel might be okay with that:
1. They focus on short-term gains and they're acting irrationally
2. They know they'll always have US support because US needs them to do shady stuff in Middle East while at the same time they know that Arabs will always hate them anyway, so there's not much point trying to be the good guys. They don't care what Europe thinks because Europe won't be politically influential in foreseeable future anyway. By committing the genocide they confirm they're ready to do real dirty jobs, which is the core reason behind the US support in the first place.
I have a feeling that the part of Israel's wrath is that this whole war pretty much voided painstaking process of normalizing relations with Arabs. Therefore they thought "you know what, fuck this shit, if we can't have you like us we'll have you fear us". And that's how we ended up with a democratic country committing genocide.
The saddest thing is that the whole idea "it's 21st century, we won't do comically evil shit anymore" turned out to be a mirage, and as a species collectively we're not that far from ancient rulers massacring entire cities just for shits and giggles.
If the international community will barely lift a finger to resolve the I/P issue, then it is predictable and rational for Israel to take matters in their own hands and use violence (implemented as a "preemptive war") to "solve" their national security threat problem. It's a type of political realism argument to support this outcome. No appeal to a country being enlightened or democratic, etc., will work.
The jews in nazi germany were not threatening to annihilate the state and all the aryans. The palestinian leadership is threatening to do that to the zionists. The jews were not a perceived danger to the germans. Whether that makes genocide justified is certainly up for debate but it is very different from the justification for the holocaust.
Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as:
— Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2Israel is doing (a), (b), (c), (e) and arguably (d).
It is genocide. By definition. A definition written by a Jew and a Zionist, too, if that matters.
The wording "in part" was intended to capture situations where the group is attacked within the area where the perpetrator exercises power or control. For example, the Nazis couldn't exterminate Jews everywhere, but they targeted those within occupied Europe, where they exercised control.
Israel is specifically targeting Gaza in response to acts of war perpetrated by the Gazan government, Hamas. Hamas has refused to surrender, continued to fight, and the war continues. Palestinians who are citizens of Israel or part of the West Bank are not being targeted thus the war is clearly not targeting Palestinians because of their identity.
You can't start a war and then hide behind your identity and claim it's a genocide.
And, yes, I will absolutely give you that Israel had a right to respond to October 7. But they have gone beyond all proportionality and that's why people have gone from talking about this as a just war, to talking about it being a genocide.
When all the leading scholars of Genocide call it a Genocide, when the UN declares it's a Genocide, it's a Genocide.
And BTW, GAZA did not declare war on Israel. Hamas committed a terrorist act against Israel but Israel's response kills all Gazans indiscriminately. Which is collective punishment, also a war crime.
At the same time, I just think we have this habit as a society of creating a charged label, and then using these charged labels to argue against our political opponents as a way to brand them as illegitimate, dangerous or beyond the bounds of acceptable debate.
Some examples of this is how the terrorism label became a charged label after 9/11 and was used to delegimatize all kinds or protest or political organizing, or how we have expanded the definition of racism beyond overt racism to systemic racism, which many democrats used to label every major republican a racist and casts arguments about policy as a form of personally being a bigot.
By recognizing that people we disagree with are not the second coming of hitler or bin Laden, we make space for constructive debate and real solutions instead of shutting down debate, viewing people we disagree with as pure evil and not addressing the root causes.
The intent needs to be there too. Otherwise it's just a war.
Russia has hit plenty of life-supporting infrastructure in the affected areas of Ukraine and millions have been displaced. Will you therefore admit a genocide committed by Russia?
[1] https://water.fanack.com/water-situation-in-gaza-current-ove...
> over 85% of water and sanitation facilities are now completely or partially out of service
I don't even think I have to add anything to that. Either they incidentally destroyed that much, which means they are not discriminating between civilian and military facilities, which means they are deliberately commiting massive war crimes against civilians, or they deliberately destroyed that much, which means deliberate genocide.
> Will you therefore admit a genocide committed by Russia?
Russia is without a doubt commiting genocide, trying to destroy the Ukrainian nation. This is openly admitted by Putin in that he says there is no such nation. Luckily it is not entirely successful yet, but in annexed territories it is absolutely exterminating any mention of Ukrainian nationhood and ethnicity.
Israel is much more successful, both now and in the long term.
At least you're consistent in regards to Ukraine. Now let's take it one step further: Most of the infrastructure of Raqqa was destroyed in the war against ISIS[1]. Did the coalition therefore commit a genocide and/or massive war crimes?
[1] https://time.com/5563553/mosul-raqqa-ruins-after-the-war-of-...
> If there are militants near a piece of civilian infrastructure
1) Of course we would have to believe the attackers it's the case. But we can't believe them, can we? I could search for facts supporing my view, but these are not isolated incidents, it's a sustained campaign.
2) There seem to be militants everywhere, according to the total devastation: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/18/a-visual-guide...
3) You still should not destroy the civilian infrastructure. I mean it's not that hard to understand: you should not kill civilians. Most people do understand that. Israeli army certainly understands that, it just chose to kill civilians and destroy their infrastructure.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
I have no trouble believing that there are militants using every piece of available civilian infrastructure so that people like you get to shout "war crime" whenever the IDF calls them on their tactic. This is the only effective weapon that Hamas has.
Without ascribing further motivations, I don't see a difference to what's happening in Gaza and to what happened in Raqqa. If the motivation of Netanyahu is to "depopulate" Gaza, one must also ask why Hamas is doing everything to allow this to continue.
There is no question that civilians will die if they're caught up in urban warfare. Israel issues evacuation orders and designates zones where strikes are rare exceptions, with the knowledge that the enemy will take full advantage of this. If you're gonna set a standard beyond that, who can be expected to follow it?
I would have Israel deal with the situation by, I think you can guess by now. And I'm pretty sure if Israel had a better leader, it would be in a better position too. But it is what it is, the trauma caused by pogroms and the holocaust is now propagated further upon the Palestinians and will cause much suffering now and in the future. And then the Israelis can look back and see clearly they chose the wrong leaders and the wrong way to deal with the situation, and it can't be undone now.
The text is " a national, ethnical, racial or religious group"
Ukraine is not killing Russians because they are Russian, Ukraine is killing Russians because Ukraine is being invaded.
Even before the whole GHF setup, which is just organized cruelty to starve a population.
Especially easy to find among Hamas, or PA, or a whole bunch of other Palestinian organisations even when it comes to their own people.
Palestinian organizations have committed genocide, no need to change definitions or laws, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Israel and maybe Saudi Arabia too. In most of those places they have a reputation for disgusting cruelty (e.g. using snipers against school children in Lebanon)
In other words: they are not the good guys.
Or more to the point, why do we always judge Israel and Palestine with 2 different measures? Either Israel as a people and as a country are innocent and "it's only the government", hence boycotts are immoral. XOR people and government are both the same and boycotting every Palestinian everywhere on the planet is normal. Oh and accept that half the people just attack/boycott/refuse to serve or sell anything to all muslims, not just Palestinians, focusing especially on kids and other weak muslims, "because of the situation in Israel". Perhaps even have crowds chanting "gas all muslims" near mosques. And, of course, any kind of public success for Muslims must be brutally attacked, people, spectators, business partners, ... [1] After all, par for the course for Jews ...
Not that anyone on the planet will be surprised that arguments only apply when making Jews evil, not to anyone else (more general any group we don't like, gypsies, the mentally ill, especially against mentally ill children, ...)
[1] https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/09/01/pro-palestinian-protes...
You might notice that everyone condemned Hamas's Oct 7 attack.
Did they boycott Palestinians after that? Did they boycott Palestinians when they were using aid to execute constant rocket attacks against Israeli civilians?
Coincidentally, regarding that: I think that argument fails . Israel and Palestine are not comparable. Israel is the oppressor. The Goliath. Israel is, just like apartheid south Africa was, a settler colonial project. Considering the amount of time Israel has spent thwarting democratic process in Palestine, resistance movements are not very surprising. Heck, even Hamas was helped from the start by Israel as a means to split the struggle for Palestinian independence. The divide has been very practical for Israel indeed: every time discussions have come up, the official response has been "who should we even negotiate with?".
Support from Hamas has only grown because Fatah has been looked upon as weak because of their many concessions towards Israel that never went anywhere (Fatah being corrupt and incompetent has also played a role, of course)
A large chunk of the world officially boycotted SA apartheid. Sadly our governments do not take their responsibility today, which means people take it into their own hands. That makes for an arbitrary and very uneven form of mob justice.
Because none of this explains how you decide on boycotts, and how you intend to achieve peace. If there's one thing all muslim countries have in common, it's oppression. None respect human rights (even Morocco and Turkey, both in some ways more liberal than many European countries, have laws against freedom of religion). Half of them are attacking others. Morocco oppresses Western Sahara, as well as it's own religious minorities. Turkey oppresses Kurds, both inside and outside Turkey. Turkey oppresses religious minorities, also inside and outside Turkey. Both countries, of course, are the "goliaths" in those conflicts. Palestine oppresses religious minorities. Of course, hamas goes further and apparently oppresses most families mafia-style, massacres gay people, oppresses religious minorities (though both PA and hamas have exterminated Palestinian Jews, Shi'a and Druze (yes, they existed), and 90%+ of Palestian Christians)
Obviously this argument cannot justify a boycott against Israel and not against, frankly, every muslim state on the planet.
And those are the very mildest of muslim countries.
Plus, I feel you're not arguing in good faith. I feel like this is like those old cold-war "You have freedom in the Soviet Union" discussions where every discussion goes into total absurdity in an attempt to talk up socialism despite everyone in the room knowing full well that in reality, first, that nobody's free in a socialist country, two, that those discussion have one, and only one, purpose: to prevent reactions to Soviet invasions.
This discussion for you seems to have ONE purpose only: to justify and amplify muslim violence against Israel. Otherwise: answer this question: HOW do we force Palestinians to accept peace with Israel.
Force is the root of the problem. Israel will only accept a peace that it defines and that is why it will never have peace. You can't make peace in bad faith
See this is what I mean. The whole discussion is about ONE thing: allowing Palestinians to use whatever violence they want, including mass murder, to "win" (between quotes because the worst thing that could happen to Palestinians is that they win this conflict, as that will immediately cause all their allies to turn to enemies)
Because the other interpretation of this statement is obviously not what you mean. Or do you accept there will be war, and it looks like Palestinians will lose, with whatever consequences that brings, probably leaving?
Palestinians and their allies want war, nothing else. Hell, Palestinian allies, including "supporters" in the west, want war with Israel even more than the Palestinians themselves want it. Btw: allies, not just idiots in the west, but allies like Russia, Iran, China and Qatar, each of them oppressive hellholes that massacre their own population. That alone should tell you that the Palestinians are the wrong side to support.
A good start would be Israel respecting the borders of the Palestinian state, for example, Israeli settlers and occupation forces leaving Area C:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_C
You see, hamas' reaction was to immediately commit a massacre on Palestinian civilians, and then to start building a rocket arsenal and attacking Israeli civilians with them. So recent history teaches: if Israel were to take your advice, the conflict would become worse. A LOT worse. Immediately.
I'd ask you why this won't just occur again? But hamas has already publicly declared (shouted, in fact) they will go on another massacre and rebuild rockets "the second" this conflict ends. So I feel like that clears up the question.
The fact of the matter is that Palestinians, especially their billionaire "leaders" get a LOT of money, but only if this conflict continues. Until you change that, best of luck. Oh and changing that has a slight problem: neither Gaza nor WB have the slightest chance of making it economically on their own. Despite hamas and PA stealing over 90% of aid, the average income in Gaza and WB is a LOT higher than in Jordan or (especially) Egypt. This is because of aid. Unemployment benefits in Gaza are higher than hospital director wages in Egypt. War pays well for Palestinians, and for "Palestinians" (both hamas and PA give Palestinian passports to whoever asks, in fact, regularly to people who never asked. Last year, suddenly, everyone with an address in the old city in Jerusalem got a Palestinian passport in the mail. And even the muslims (who are pre-civil-war Syrians, whose families got massacred by Palestinians) didn't want them). In fact it pays orders of magnitude more than what they'd make otherwise. And before you say "but people die". Yes, people die. But if you go and actually look at even the claimed hamas-sourced numbers, you'll quickly conclude that less people die in this conflict than in traffic accidents, on average.
To make matters worse, Palestine, both Gaza and WB, are a gateway to immigrating to Europe. You live in, say, Jordan or you're poor in Saudi Arabia. That's a terrible life. So you "immigrate" to WB (Gaza if you're Egyptian). Once you're physically there you get a (bad) apartment and a passport, and in Gaza a job offer to work for Hamas (as cannon fodder, of course, but still). Once you have that passport even the Israeli government will help you get into Europe, assuming you don't go too far in your hamas job. That's how they constantly replenish their population (same way Russia does it: attract immigrants from even worse places, send them to die fighting their "enemy").
Comparing the economies of Egypt and the west bank is pointless and you know it. The Egypt pound has been devalued to hell and back. It has lost something like 6x in value to the US dollar in 20 years.
The WTO has consistently highlighted the Israeli control over the west bank as the main roadblock to Palestinian economic development and independence.
Regarding the Gazan health ministry, those numbers are confirmed deaths from armed conflict. It does NOT include starved children, or cancer patients who died from the lack of care. Nor does it include people under rubble. It should be considered as the lower bound of deaths.
What we will have to look at afterwards is excess deaths.
That is quite simply complete bullshit. What is worse is that you are arguing in bad faith.
The facts are as follows:
1) There is an ongoing long-term occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel.
2) Occupation is an act of war. Israel is waging war on Palestine. It is breaking agreements it is a part of.
3) Of course the aim of Israel is to absorb more-or-less all Palestinian territory into Israel proper.
I don't really care about your deflections to Hamas or corruption or whatever, not only because those are the usual talking points of Israeli propaganda and I have seen them repeated about million times, but also because if Israel respected the territorial integrity of Palestine, these would be matters of internal Palestinian politics, and any aggression out of Palestine towards Israel would correctly mean Israel is the victim and Palestine is the aggressor.
But when Israel is occupying most of the Palestinian territory, with the intent to keep it and settle their population there, and all of this are acts of violence, you can't in good faith argue the Palestinians don't have the right to retaliate with force. Note that I don't support Hamas or any form of violence against civilians in any way (I have to mentions this because otherwise I will be wrongly accused of being a Hamas supporter), but until you face the fact that Israel is mass murdering and displacing civilians and taking their real estate and occupying it, we can't really move on.
But let's examine your conditions, because they are SO badly chosen that EVEN Palestine satisfies all 3 of your conditions:
> 1) There is an ongoing long-term occupation of Palestinian territories by Israel.
Yep, Gaza is militarily occupied by hamas. They supposedly "won" an election, but then massacred everyone in the state. Even today hamas makes no attempt, other than with guns, to justify their position in Gaza. That's occupation.
> 2) Occupation is an act of war. Israel is waging war on Palestine. It is breaking agreements it is a part of.
Well, I don't think any sane person will argue hamas' purpose is anything other than self-enrichment through war.
> 3) Of course the aim of Israel is to absorb more-or-less all Palestinian territory into Israel proper.
Actually, it still isn't. Or at least, they haven't publicly declared this, and even the most right-wing members of parliament haven't gone there. So I don't even think this is actually true. Again, however, hamas has not only declared they intend to conquer all of Israel, they've publicly declared they will hunt down and kill every last Israeli (they of course used a certain religious word), anywhere on the planet. So they go quite a bit further than merely this.
I would like to remind you that these arguments are supposedly what you use to justify isolating Israeli civilians, even outside of Israel, even non-Israeli Jewish organizations are getting attacked by these demonstrations (e.g. a WW2 memorial in the Netherlands). So let's now see you agree to boycott Palestinians. After all, you're not a racist, and these reasons really are why you're suggesting a boycott, right? Since the very same facts certainly apply to Palestinians boycotting them is justified, right?
In fact they trivially apply to Turkey, Azerbaijan, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and even Morocco (to name one conflict zone: Western Sahara), and let's just be honest: it applies to essentially all muslim countries. All are militarily occupying territory.
So let's just boycott all muslims! After all, reasons 1, 2 AND 3 justify it!
Frankly, if you know any amount of history you must know that the Ottoman empire is not called an empire because of the favorite headdress of the caliph. It was a central group, in a single central city that militarily occupied anything they possibly could, like the Romans did. They even "exported" slaves from all their conquered territories, which was a ridiculous 80%-90% of their economy. That territory is what makes up muslim countries today, so of course everything is still mostly militarily occupied.
This is what I find so baffling about the whole Palestinian conflict. You are complaining "in the name of freedom" that a region in an empire revolted ... and that it won! Because in reality it is of course Israel that freed itself from muslim occupation (islam, the country, "not" the religion, between quotes because every muslim insists there's no difference) , not any kind of conquest. And you are doing this in the name of freedom? Seriously?
This really reminds me of the arguments everyone kept making defending Soviet Union behavior during the cold war. There were supposed rules and moral principles and "rational arguments" and ... proving the Soviet Union was good and an unfair victim ... and then their tanks rolled into Vienna (and 100 other places), DESPITE things like gulags and the holodomor and ... being well known to the people making these arguments.
And here we are. Some excuse, with accusation, to do exactly what I predicted.
And that Hamas are the good guys because they have a right to kill the foreign invaders trying to steal their land?
Is that the correct summary of Israel's genocidal intent?
The relevant case law is Prosecutor v. Bagilishema (2001).
Genocide therefore invites analysis under two headings: the prohibited underlying acts and the specific genocidal intent or dolus specialis.
Meanwhile there’s an undenied genocide happening in Ukraine that Russia boasts about committing. And on-going in Darfur 15 years after the international community declared one there.
I care more about what's happening in Israel/Palestine (the West Bank is basically another war zone) because I'm irish and what's happening in Israel/Palestine is incredibly reminiscent of what happened to irish catholics from about 1600-1900, and also because I know a _lot_ of Israeli citizens (and many of them hang out here) so I'm hopeful that speaking out will make a difference.
But honestly, this has been getting worse since the 90s and at this point, I can't see any peace process ever happening. Like, either all the Israelis kill the Palestinians or vice versa (or climate change makes the region uninhabitable). It's profoundly depressing, particularly given that the reason there are laws against genocide is because of what happened to Jewish people (and slavs and gay people etc) during WW2.
It says they used a 1948 definition of genocide, so I’m a bit confused by your sentiment that this is due to shifting definitions.
Is the Gaza genocide on the same level as what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto, certainly not. However, it is already surpassing Kosovo/Bosnian War genocide by a huge margin.
The Warsaw Ghetto specifically targeted Jews and not other Polish people. Kosovo/Bosnia sought to create ethnically pure territories.
You can’t start a war from a homogenous country on a country that will crush you militarily, start losing brutally, refuse to surrender or give up, continue to fight, and then hide behind the word genocide as though the other country doesn’t have the right to continue fighting until you lose.
Yet, now that they've decided to stop this game and finally deal with hamas once and for all, i'm certainly not going to blame them.
European Jews do not have the right to steal Palestinian land.
Why can't Israel simply surrender and admit defeat in the war that they started? They never got the Palestinians to surrender. I don't see any signed surrender documents? Israelis have always existed in a war zone of their own creation, with every home required to have a bomb shelter.
Right now it appears that Israel is headed towards defeat, with more nations recognizing the existence of Palestine.
Jews have spent 2000 years running away from people who wanted to kill them, and now they've decided to stop.
> Genocide generally means to try and eliminate a group. It’s not about the total quantity of people killed.
To be exact, it's an effort to destroy a group as a whole, or a _part_ of it:
"The 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as any of five 'acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group'".
https://web.archive.org/web/20230927024940/https://www.un.or... (Legal definition of genocide by United Nations)
You can commit genocide even if you don't intend to eliminate the whole group as it was the case with Nazi Germany 'final solution' or 'Vernichtung' policies towards the Jews. Nanjing Massacre by Japanese is a textbook example of genocide, but the Japanese didn't intend to eliminate the Chinese population as a whole - they targeted a part of it and it is still genocide.
Out of 2 million population of Gaza Strip 62,000 were already killed, of these 80% civilians and 30% children (18,500 children!). Add to this intentional starving of Gaza, banning and murdering journalists. If this doesn't conform to the definition of genocide then I don't know what does.
Edit: typos
Editorial bias towards Qatar, yes. But generally considered to be factual (2 uncorrected factual errors in the last 9 years).
In fact "hiding among civilians" is an excuse for collateral civilian damage, international law allows attacks that harm civilians in order to achieve military goals.
By the way, did you know that Geneva convention don't apply if you're fighting someone who haven't signed it and also doesn't "accepts and applies the provisions" [1]
Green account with random set of letters for a name calling someone a bot, how ironic
[1] https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gci-1949/arti...
4000 deliveries in march of this year. 50000 pregnant woman [1]
50,000 births by july of last year [2]
latest official (by hamas) death toll is 63000 [3]
so, if you go by numbers, population probably grown last year. or over last 2 years
[0] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/1/gaza-population-fall...
[1] https://www.savethechildren.net/news/about-130-children-born...
[2] https://www.savethechildren.net/news/women-self-inducing-lab...
[3] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/gaza-health-ministry-says...
b) according to news, they accept anybody into "group" and not only academics who study genocide
While I do wish the mainstream media in Israel dedicated more time to the human rights situation in Gaza, their coverage is far from how you presented it.
Seriously, do the people doing this think they're doing Israel any favours? Everyone knows about the Hasbara farms by now.
But the genocide here includes the gazans that do not support terrorism. In fact the terrorists are basically the only group in gaza that are immune to the genocide because they control the government and are able to monopolize food distribution. We have seen over and over and over again that counter terrorism only has two ways to succeed. Either the population has to willingly install a government that can counter the terrorists or the counter terrorism group has to kill every single person in the region. Everyone can see which option israel is going for here
There is a wiki page about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_genocide
Scholars' association agrees (those are experts in genocide) https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/israel-is-committing-ge...
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o
And of course, for the one of us who have been paying attention, it's been clear that Israel has been committing a genocide for quite some time. Hence the UN case and the warrant for arrest of the war criminal and genocider Netanyahu roughly 1 year ago.
https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/11/1157286
> Either the population has to willingly install a government that can counter the terrorists or
Words words words. Not gonna help Netanyahu in prison nor the IDF war criminals when they are tried in the Hague for genocide and crimes against mankind.
If that is how you want to treat this subject then go to 4chan or some other toxic cesspit of the internets. HN is not the place.
The advent of social media brought press freedom to millions who previously had no voice, including dumbasses.
While the dumbasses incessantly complain about internet censorship, the internet nevertheless lets them spread their dumb views far wider than was possible ever before.
This freedom for dumbasses to promote supposed 'uncomfortable truths' was a big reason behind the resurgence of authoritarianism.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/01/israel-committ...
Or the financial times, if you prefer:
https://www.ft.com/content/470b61ff-aa1c-487f-a9ae-477b5c142...
> In first, two major Israeli human rights groups accuse Israel of ‘genocide’ in Gaza
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-first-two-major-israeli-hum...
One can list 70 years of "one time lone IDF soldier" war crimes. But I wouldn't waste time because you believe what you want to believe. Nothing can't change youe bias. You do not consider Pelastinians as humans.
Ironically, I love Gazans more than Hamas. Israel and Trump also want better for them than Hamas. The goal is to free them from their terror and rebuild the area so they can be prosperous and thrive in freedom. But if your idea is to maintain a terrorist-controlled society, you are the one who doesn't love Gazans.
Quite inspired by Goebbels, are we?
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-quot-th...ARTICLE 6. Resolutions A. Resolutions committing the Association to a stand on a public issue require a two-thirds majority of those voting at the biennial business meeting or by e-mail ballot. For a proposed resolution to pass, voting must have been undertaken by a quorum of more than 20% (20% plus 1) of paid up IAGS members at the time of the vote.
B. Resolutions directly related to genocide or other mass atrocities, including early warning signs thereof, may be proposed by any member in good standing.
C. Proposed resolutions shall first be submitted to the Resolutions Committee appointed by the President and the Executive Board for review of their linguistic clarity and historical and factual accuracy. The standard of review shall be that of an article for the IAGS journal. The Resolutions Committee will recommend to the Executive Board and Advisory Boardwhether the Resolution should be forwarded to the IAGS membership for a vote.
D. After consulting with the Advisory Board, the Executive Board shall decide whether or not the proposed resolution will be submitted to the IAGS membership for a vote within two weeks of submission by the Resolutions Committee. Resolutions must be circulated by the Executive Board to the IAGS membership at least thirty days before the close of voting by IAGS members. E-mail voting shall begin as soon as the resolution is submitted to the membership by the Executive Board and close at the end of thirty days of voting. Votes will be submitted and counted by the Secretary/Treasurer of the IAGS, and after verification by the Executive Board, results of the voting will be announced to the members of the IAGS.