Hamas Attacks, Israel Responds II

Trump's campaign is going on about a unified Reich, conservative pols are trying to or passing laws that make it criminal to help people get abortions. We are dangerously close, and the last thing that's needed is to get to that line because of some conflict thousands of miles away from the US.

If you care more about Gaza than the implications here in the US, fine. But don't be surprised if Biden loses and things get worse because to quote Bunk Moreland, you're giving a ******** when it ain't your turn to give a ********.

 

That's not what I actually said. What I actually said was 'by the definitions they use.'

With that in mind, here's how the US Holocaust Museum defines genocide:

Genocide is an internationally recognized crime where acts are committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. These acts fall into five categories:

1. Killing members of the group
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

​

This is substantially identical to the 1948 UN Convention, as I'm sure you recognize. Acts covered under 1-3 have occurred. Israeli government officials have spoken to intent. Intent can also be inferred by the choice to commit actions for which the officials were advised of the outcome in advance, and in fact which could have no other possible outcome, as the Nuremberg Tribunal (IMT/TMWC) explicitly did when finding people such as Julius Streicher guilty. If I point a loaded gun at you and fire point blank, my intent to wound you cannot reasonably be disputed, because no other outcome could have been expected.

 

I think I’m probably less supportive of Biden on this issue than you, but that’s quibbling at the margin, but this part nails it. If there’s any issue the world is facing that is LESS amenable to Manicheism, I don’t know what it is. But half the posts here are like that…the endless arguing about when to start the clock on tallying morality is pointless and depressing to me.

Everyone that picks their date is also picking what dates and events don’t matter.

 

That's where I can't agree, and that post attempted to outline why. Even if I am meant not to take officials at their own word, the fact that their decisions would *obviously* have genocidal effect, and that that was known beforehand, speaks to intent. They cannot say, for instance, "we didn't intend to cause a famine that would kill enormous numbers of Palestinians" when literally no one was disputing that sealing off Gaza from the rest of the world would cause a famine. (In fact, the most common response around this thread's predecessor was "meh, fuck 'em, they're brown and Muslim and terrorists from conception, so who cares?"

 

Honestly, I do care about a genocide more than I do about most domestic issues: as awful as the Trumpanzees' war on women is, I am more bothered by my money going to making sure all the babies in a NICU suffer a slow and agonizing death, or fatally punishing food aid workers for the horrible crime of providing food aid to the thousands of people bombed out of their homes. My complicity in murder bothers me more, yes.

 

Bootsy, let me lay out a hypothetical. Let’s say the German people in 1945 were 100% brainwashed and collectively decided to fight the Allies down to the last man, woman, and child.

Would the Allies have been wrong to genocide the German people?

Or let’s take Reconstruction…let’s say for the sake of argument that in 1871, Grant decided to launch a military campaign against the Klan, and let’s say the Klan had very widespread and fanatical support such that the only way to win the war would have been to genocide white southerners. Would that be wrong?

To me, it feels like you don’t entertain at all that the things Israel is doing that make it a genocide is reasonable in the sense that the choice is to genocide or be genocided. Wasn’t Hamas’ ultimate goal to genocide Israelis? I think it was. Given that context, could genocide be legitimate self defense?

There is a poster here so committed to nonviolence that I think he said he wouldn’t kill a home invader who was raping his wife. I respect his beliefs, but I can assure you almost nobody agrees with that.

 

Tyffanee, we’ve all seen the quotes from members of the Israeli govt advocating genocide in Gaza. I don’t think it’s the official Israeli position because if there’s an official position that has a longer time horizon than 24 hours, I haven’t seen it.

But there’s no doubt that some Israelis with govt positions have advocated genocide. Don’t piss on me and tell me it’s raining. I can tell the difference.

 

You realize that if Trump wins, he’d easily give Bibi the green light to torch Gaza, right?

but man, saying that about domestic issues that do affect us, goodness me.

 

Off topic, but am I losing my goddamn mind, or is it getting harder and harder for people to even agree on reality? It feels to me sometimes like I’m the guy in 1984, but I’m being fed bullshit from both sides (albeit one much more than the other.). It shouldn’t be this hard to maintain a foothold in reality.

 

Yeah, goodness you, I guess. To me, murder is worse than not murder.

 

This is pretty crazy indeed...I guess having a fascist government in place that will deny brown and black people like me our humanities is the price to pay to satisfy single issues voters. Not to mention setting women back to a second class citizen status and destroying the environment along the way.....
The most "ironic" part of it, the same fascist government will have no qualm wiping out Gaza, like some right wing members of the Bibi government have advocated (and some posters here as well).

 

I knew what? Because that’s exactly what looks like is happening, Hamas made a gamble at the expense of the people of Gaza and it’s paying off.

 

I unfortunately disagree, I have a feeling a lot of reactionary people are either going to vote third party or sit this one out. Hopefully not enough to affect the outcome.

 

You’re really dangling the worm for IM here.

 

True, but it’s as just as likely that the situation there will be worse rather than better.