It’s a genocide

Not as long as you do genocide denial

• De-Gaza: A Year of Israel’s Genocide and the Collapse of World Order - Euro-Med Monitor Report see Chapter 2 and 3

On 26 January 2024, the ICJ said that it was plausible that Israel had breached the Genocide Convention. As an emergency measure, it ordered Israel ensure that its army refrained from genocidal acts against Palestinians.

The ICJ reported, as part of its decisions in March and May, that the situation in Gaza had deteriorated and that Israel had failed to abide by its order in January.

• Israel’s war on Gaza: What the international courts have said

So, when we look at the actions taken, the dropping of thousands and thousands of bombs in a couple of days, including phosphorus bombs, as we heard, on one of the most densely populated areas around the world, together with these proclamations of intent, this indeed constitutes genocidal killing, which is the first act, according to the convention, of genocide. And Israel, I must say, is also perpetrating act number two and three — that is, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and creating condition designed to bring about the destruction of the group by cutting off water, food, supply of energy, bombing hospitals, ordering the fast evictions of hospitals, which the World Health Organization has declared to be, quote, “a death sentence.” So, we’re seeing the combination of genocidal acts with special intent. This is indeed a textbook case of genocide.

• “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza

More than 800 scholars of international law and genocide have signed a public statement arguing that the Israeli military may be committing genocidal acts against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as the total siege and relentless airstrikes continue to inflict devastation on the occupied territory.

• 800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza

An independent United Nations expert warned Monday that “Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole” as Western governments, corporations, and other institutions keep up their support for the Israeli military, which stands accused of grave war crimes in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

• UN Expert Says Impunity for Israel Must End as ‘Genocidal Violence’ Spreads to West Bank

Our documentation encompasses over 500 incitements of violence and genocidal incitement, appearing in the forms of social media posts, television interviews, and official statements from Israeli politicians, army personnel, journalists, and other influential personalities.

• Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated

Others: AP News, Time, Reuters, Vox, CBC

What an insane statement completely dehumanizing the people of Gaza. No, enabling Israel to genocide Gaza is not a ‘necessary evil’ or for the ‘greater good’ to prevent a larger war. There is no justification for genocide. Ever. It’s so gross to see this kind of sentiment upvoted, especially on Lemmy.

Israel is escalating to continue it’s genocidal war. The US has enabled Israel for an entire year, which has galvanized Israel to expand it’s war without any repercussions. The US failing to reign Israel in is directly responsible for the escalation.

Israel ending it’s genocide in Gaza has been the one way to avoid regional escalations, and it’s the one thing Israel has repeatedly evaded.

For the past 12 months, the world has watched in horror as Israel has laid waste to Gaza in what Palestinians and many experts consider a genocidal military campaign—one of the most lethal and destructive bombing campaigns in history—armed and funded by the U.S. government.

This support for Israel violates both U.S. and international law. It also goes against the wishes of a majority of Americans. Polls consistently show that most Americans want a ceasefire in Gaza and to stop weapons transfers to Israel (including 77% of Democrats) amid the death and destruction.

Biden Can End His Failure in the Middle East—if He Listens to the American People

As president of the United States, Biden cannot afford to back Israel’s total freedom of action in Gaza. He cannot assume that Israeli aims fully coincide with those of the United States. As Biden himself had noted, this is the most extreme government in Israel’s history, with prominent Jewish supremacist ministers whose stated aims conflict with both U.S. interests and values and seek an opportunity to expel Palestinians from what they see as the land of Israel, including Gaza. And Netanyahu is known to have attempted over the years to draw the United States into a war with Iran, something that’s decidedly not in the United States’ interests

Biden’s dangerous stance on the war in Israel and Gaza

Plenty of officials and analysts suspect Netanyahu’s main motivation for staying in office is that he is hoping his far-right allies can help protect him from having to face charges ranging from fraud to bribery in multiple cases, including one in which he’s accused of inappropriately accepting gifts from wealthy businessmen. Netanyahu denies wrongdoing.

The US Is Dealing With an Israeli Leader Who’s Losing Control

Former Israeli PM ‘suspects’ Netanyahu wants to draw the US into conflict with Iran

Armed groups throughout the region, including Hezbollah, have long declared that their military actions are directly tied to the ongoing genocide of Gaza. Despite U.S. efforts to frame Lebanon as an isolated front, Hezbollah has made clear there will be no deescalation without a cease-fire in Gaza. Only an end to the assault on Gaza can prevent further escalation.

There Is Still a Way to Prevent a Regional Middle East War: a Cease-Fire in Gaza

And what that kid does is daily school shootings. Especially at the kindergarten and the Nurse’s Office

The acquisition of land through the ethnic cleansing of the native population is central to Zionist Settler Colonialism, this is no different

Strange how even the Israeli intelligence service disagree with you

By June 19, 2024, 37,396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The Ministry’s figures have been contested by the Israeli authorities, although they have been accepted as accurate by Israeli intelligence services, the UN, and WHO. These data are supported by independent analyses, comparing changes in the number of deaths of UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) staff with those reported by the Ministry, which found claims of data fabrication implausible.

In recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths. Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza. Using the 2022 Gaza Strip population estimate of 2 375 259, this would translate to 7·9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip. A report from Feb 7, 2024, at the time when the direct death toll was 28 000, estimated that without a ceasefire there would be between 58 260 deaths (without an epidemic or escalation) and 85 750 deaths (if both occurred) by Aug 6, 2024

• Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essential

If you consider international law definitions ‘very unique,’ sure lol

Do you support Apartheid or genocide? Israel is currently doing both. Pro-palestinian people support equal rights for both Israelis and Palestinians

From an economical standpoint, immigrants bring in more taxes and labor, which can go towards infrastructure and social infrastructure like education and housing

I agree with the views of Israeli Historians Ilan Pappe, Avi Schlaim that a One-State solution is the only permanent solution. I still support a Two-State solution in the meantime, as a foundation for Palestinian emancipation, but the on-the-ground reality of the settlements dividing the West Bank into hundreds of enclaves eats away at the viability of a permanent Two-State solution. Religion is not the primary element of the conflict, despite the religious ferver of many settlers and rhetoric of Israeli officials. The primary element is still the expulsion and domination of the native Palestinians through the use of Settlements and Apartheid. There cannot be a ‘democratic’ Jewish State (an ethnostate), without a Jewish majority, which presents what is called the ‘demographic problem.’ in the words of Ben-Gurion:

There can be no stable and strong Jewish State so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 percent. - Ben-Gurion in an address to the central committee of the Histadrut on 30 December 1947

I don’t believe the Israeli Government would ever agree to a One or Two State Solution, not unless there is enough internal secular and external international pressure.

• How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution

• ‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe

• One State Solution, Foreign Affairs

Claiming ancestral history does not justify ethnic cleansing, Settler Colonialism, or the existence of an ethnostate. ‘Transfer’ has always been fundamental to Zionism. Zionism is not Judaism, despite, as Israeli Adi Callai puts it, its weaponization of antisemitism. Jewish people have lived in historic Palestine for generations, despite the mass ethnic cleansing of Jewish people by the Romans during the Jewish-Roman Wars. Which is exactly why a Secular State, based on religious tolerance and equal rights, is the right way to end this conflict.

• Palestine A Four Thousand Year History - Nur Masalha

• The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948

• 10 myths of Israel by Ilan Pappe, summerized and full book

Oh my bad, I thought “I see an argument in favor of the settlements that I’m actually agreeing with” meant you agreed with the settlements.

My view on Zionism is that it is fundamentally a settler colonial ideology, one founded and currently engaged in ethnic cleansing. And that the Apartheid Regime needs to change into a Secular One-State with equal rights and right of return for everyone

Can I ask which part of the settlements you agree with?

I don’t know what constitutes leftist in Israel right now, but I do respect Ofer Cassif, Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Avi Schlaim, and any anti-zionist Israelis who are fighting for the equal rights of Palestinians.

I won’t ascribe these views as yours, but I will argue against them from a pro-palestinian standpoint.

Settlements and Security:

Israel does justify the settlements and military bases in the West Bank in the name of Security. However, the reality of the settlements on-the-ground has been the cause of violent resistance and a significant obstacle to peace, as it has been for decades.

This type of settlement, where the native population gets ‘Transferred’ to make room for the settlers, is a long standing practice. See: The Concept of Transfer 1882-1948, the Transfer Committee, and the JNF which led to Forced Displacement of 100,000 Palestinians throughout the mandate, before the mass ethnic cleansing campaign of 1948: Plan Dalet, Declassified Massacres of 1948, and Details of Plan C (May 1946) and Plan D (March 1948) . Further, declassified Israeli documents show that the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip were deliberately planned before being executed in 1967: Haaretz, Forward; while the peace process was exploited to continue de-facto annexation of the West Bank via Settlements (Oslo Accord Sources: MEE, NYT, Haaretz, AJ). The settlements are maintained through a violent apartheid that routinely employs violence towards Palestinians and denies human rights like water access, civil rights, etc. This kind of control gives rise to violent resistance to the Apartheid occupation, jeopardizing the safety of Israeli civilians.

The settlements represent land-grabbing, and land-grabbing and peace-making don’t go together, it is one or the other. By its actions, if not always in its rhetoric, Israel has opted for land-grabbing and as we speak Israel is expanding settlements. So, Israel has been systematically destroying the basis for a viable Palestinian state and this is the declared objective of the Likud and Netanyahu who used to pretend to accept a two-state solution. In the lead up to the last election, he said there will be no Palestinian state on his watch. The expansion of settlements and the wall mean that there cannot be a viable Palestinian state with territorial contiguity. The most that the Palestinians can hope for is Bantustans, a series of enclaves surrounded by Israeli settlements and Israeli military bases.

• Avi Shlaim

How Avi Shlaim moved from two-state solution to one-state solution

‘One state is a game changer’: A conversation with Ilan Pappe

State violence – official and otherwise – is part and parcel of Israel’s apartheid regime, which aims to create a Jewish-only space between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. The regime treats land as a resource designed to serve the Jewish public, and accordingly uses it almost exclusively to develop and expand existing Jewish residential communities and to build new ones. At the same time, the regime fragments Palestinian space, dispossesses Palestinians of their land and relegates them to living in small, over-populated enclaves.

The apartheid regime is based on organized, systemic violence against Palestinians, which is carried out by numerous agents: the government, the military, the Civil Administration, the Supreme Court, the Israel Police, the Israel Security Agency, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, and others. Settlers are another item on this list, and the state incorporates their violence into its own official acts of violence. Settler violence sometimes precedes instances of official violence by Israeli authorities, and at other times is incorporated into them. Like state violence, settler violence is organized, institutionalized, well-equipped and implemented in order to achieve a defined strategic goal.

• https://m.btselem.org/settler_violence

Civilian Deaths and Human Shields:

Israel does deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so: ‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy. When it comes to Israeli Soldiers and Civilians, there is also the use of the Hannibal Directive, which was also used on Oct 7th.

Hundreds of Genocide Scholars have described this ethnic cleansing campaign as genocide because of the deliberate targeting of children/civilians and expressed intent by Israeli officials: “A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza, 800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza , Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated.

On the subject of Human Shields, there are some independent reports for past conflicts of Hamas jeopardizing the safety of civilians via Rocket fire in dense urban areas, two instances during Oct 7th, but no independent verification since then so far. None of which absolve Israel of the crime of targeting civilians under international law:

• HRW on Laws-of-War Violations 2009

• Agency Demands Full Respect for the Sanctity of Its Premises in Gaza - July 2014

• HRW - Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel

Intentionally utilizing the presence of civilians or other protected persons to render certain areas immune from military attack is prohibited under international law. Amnesty International was not able to establish whether or not the fighters’ presence in the camps was intended to shield themselves from military attacks. However, under international humanitarian law, even if one party uses “human shields”, or is otherwise unlawfully endangering civilians, this does not absolve the opposing party from complying with its obligations to distinguish between military objectives and civilians or civilian objects, to refrain from carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks, and to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians and civilian objects.

• Israel/OPT: Israeli attacks targeting Hamas and other armed group fighters that killed scores of displaced civilians in Rafah should be investigated as war crimes

• HRW - Gaza: Unlawful Israeli Hospital Strikes Worsen Health Crisis

Additionally, there is extensive independent verification of Israel using Palestinians as Human Shields: IDF uses Human Shields, including Children (2013 Report), and in the latest war Israel “Systematically” Uses Gaza Children as Human Shields, Rights Group Finds

Considering the reality of the Apartheid and Occupation, I’d say some kind of violent retaliation was bound to happen. I don’t think the date itself is of any significance, more about the circumstances and opportunity. Although, you could also look into the how the security failure came to be to better understand why it happened then.

• https://theconversation.com/why-israels-intelligence-chiefs-failed-to-listen-to-october-7-warnings-and-the-lessons-to-be-learned-219346

The only way I see this conflict ending, after reading the works of Ilan Pappe and other Historians, is a Secular One-State solution where both Israelis and Palestinians have equal rights and Right of Return in the whole of Historical Palestine. That’s what I advocate for, at least

In terms of the reasons why they chose to attack, these are the three main reasons. Which you can find more about in the three different analysis articles below. In terms of the exact date, I’d say it was due to the shift in IDF forces in the region at that time.

First, the policies of the far-right Israeli government enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem led to a sense of desperation among Palestinians and growing demands for a reaction. At the same time, the rising tensions in the West Bank caused by these policies necessitated the shift of Israeli forces away from the south and into the north to guard the settlements. This gave Hamas both a justification and an opportunity to attack.

Second, the Hamas leadership felt compelled to act due to the acceleration of Arab-Israeli normalisation. In recent years, this process further diminished the significance of the Palestinian issue for Arab leaders who became less keen on pressuring Israel on this matter.

Third, Hamas was emboldened after it managed to repair its ties with Iran. In recent years, the movement had to reconsider the political position it assumed in the wake of the Arab Spring in 2011, in opposition to Iran and its ally, the Syrian regime.

• https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/10/11/analysis-why-did-hamas-attack-now-and-what-is-next

Before October 7, the group not only limited its own rocket attacks on Israel but also publicly punished those who instigated attacks within Gaza to break the fragile ceasefires. Hamas has let the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) fight Israel alone, not joining the fray between Israel and the PIJ in August 2022 or in May 2023.

At the same time, there was incendiary far-right political rhetoric and rising levels of violence against Palestinians. Both 2021 and 2022 set records as the deadliest years for Palestinians, as the Netanyahu government green-lit the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and settlers themselves conducted pogroms against Palestinians.

• https://www.csis.org/analysis/why-hamas-attacked-when-it-did

Israel’s focus on the West Bank may also have created an operational opportunity for Hamas. According to Uzi Ben Yitzhak, a retired Israeli general, the Israeli government has deployed most of the regular IDF forces to the West Bank to manage the situation there, leaving only a skeleton force at the Gaza border. The effort to secure permanent Israeli control over the West Bank, in this assessment, created conditions where a Hamas surprise attack could actually succeed.

• https://www.vox.com/2023/10/7/23907323/israel-war-hamas-attack-explained-southern-israel-gaza

Yeah, to me he comes off as someone who is angry at both parties, that they are effectively the same, and is lashing out at others as an outlet for that anger. As if he got black pilled by US foreign policy, as if voters have any realistic say on that.

His comments are rude, antagonistic, and unhelpful. The bipartisanship of US foreign policy (there are differences but it’s still bipartisan for the most part), deserves criticism and a discussion on how to realistically influence the Democratic party to change (we all know the Republican party would never be an avenue for change), but he’s not doing that.

Trump is obviously lying, as it always does. But idk, he may genuinely believe that despite all the evidence to the contrary. Hell, there are even some Palestinians that falsely believe trump would be better than Biden right now. That kind of mentality comes from desperation and despair. It certainly isn’t correct, but it does motivate me to advocate for pushing the democratic administration left and make Israel a partisan issue. Trump is currently running as if he’s the peace ticket, not because he actually is but because it’s a good way to grab votes. The Democrats need to be the genuine peace ticket, for their own benefit and the relief of Palestinians trying to survive this genocide

This is his thread, hopefully he reads it and agrees.

The two-party system in the US has always been terrible. FPTP makes us focus on voting against the opposition instead of voting for what best represents our interest like a Ranked Voting system. During elections are one of the few times where public pressure can push our representatives toward policies that reflect the will of their constituents. The sentiment that demanding more from your representatives is tantamount to voting for the opposition, is a reactionary position. Americans aren’t used to even Democrats changing their policies in response to public pressure. The overt fascism of the Republican party during this election cycle has galvanized the Democratic party to be more representative, and hopefully that continues on issues like Palestine and Immigration. Those will be critical for some of the critical swing states

Biden is certainly complicit in this genocide. While finally putting a ceasefire through the UN Security Council, the US repeatedly veto’d previous ceasefire proposals. For the last ten months the US has regularly supplied Israel with Military Aid and Weapons, knowing full well that they will be used in Gaza. Biden has signed off on all of this. He personally considers himself a Zionist, and has been for a long time. Ethnic Cleansing or Transfer of native Palestinian people, is central to Zionism. Seen repeatedly in the West Bank and previous wars on Gaza. Biden has not pressured Israel to accept the ceasefire, regardless of how many war crimes they regularly commit.

None of that means vote Trump, Trump’s support for Israel will always be way stronger than Biden’s. He would certainly accelerate the genocide. I was still an advocate for Biden, and now Harris, for all the other reasons why their Democratic administration would be magnitudes better on most domestic and foreign policy. Showing support for them and also to the anti-genocide protestors aren’t antithetical either. Harris has a great opportunity to move to the left on Israel and gain huge support in critical States for the election.