> In a related move, the platform’s editors recently voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the subject, adding it to their list of banned and partially banned sources.
Kinda surprising it didn't happen earlier. The ADL ruined their image when they stopped concerning themselves with defamation and started going after political opposition. Once you dip your toes into the nationalist politics cesspool, there really is no going back.
>> In a related move, the platform’s editors recently voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the subject, adding it to their list of banned and partially banned sources.
> Kinda surprising it didn't happen earlier. The ADL ruined their image when they stopped concerning themselves with defamation and started going after political opposition. Once you dip your toes into the nationalist politics cesspool, there really is no going back.
It's super clear that, on Wikipedia, "the rules of the game became the game." Content arguments are won through pretty biased debates behind the scenes on the "reliability" of sources.
They very much call out the unreliability of the ADL on the topic of modern Zionism and topics concerning the Israel-Palistine conflict. I think that is the proper path of caution to take, unless they prove to be as fickle about world politics as they are holding Israel accountable.
Whatever you perceive to be the process for debating these topics, I do not think the ADL (or similar organizations) has any relevant contributions to make on Wikipedia's presentation of world events. Allowing these borderline-lobbyist organizations to claim anything with impunity is how the Internet's encyclopedia becomes nobody's encyclopedia.
I seem to see about twenty stories about Israeli atrocities daily. Maybe they are not regarded as being as heinous as the KKK because if you read the details they actually not as heinous?
From the Leo Frank Wikipedia page [0]: "In modern times, despite strong evidence pointing to Frank's innocence, the case has become a modern focal point for neo-Nazis and anti-Semites. This is partly because it led to the creation of the Anti-Defamation League but also because it fed into anti-semitic conspiracy theories claiming Jewish control of the media. As a consequence, in recent years a number of websites have been established by white supremacists disputing the prevailing consensus of Frank's innocence."
United Nations agencies like UNRWA? As for the killing reports, it seems that Israel always kills civilians and particularly kids, they seem to like to spend their money in bombs directed at them because I never see reports of combatants being killed.
Individual combatants are rarely noteworthy enough to receive news attention. You do hear news articles when some higher-up is killed.
The deaths of children are more newsworthy, in themselves. You rarely hear their names, just the fact that it happened, because they are not otherwise notable as individuals.
Israel accuses the combatants of hiding among civilians, using them as human shields. If true, it would make the deaths of civilians inevitable. That is why hiding among non-combatants is a war crime.
You never see reports of ANY kind of military activity in Gaza. Even the blatantly obvious, the constant rocket launches, just never got reported. None of it.
And the Hezbollah situation is the same. Constant attacks by Hezbollah on Israeli civilians ... no mention anywhere.
Wikipedia is a good resource, but whether they themselves want to editorialize is up to them. I personally think that the Wikipedias opinions of world events is NOT NOTABLE.
Maybe so, but the world often does treat Wikipedia as a reliable source. The editorialization ends up influencing them. This is why you see such heated battles on the talk pages of Wikipedia - there are people actively fighting to take control of this tool. Wikipedia’s founder has been warning the world about increasing bias on Wikipedia for several years now (https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/).
'British Wikipedian, Stuart Marshall, made the final ruling in September, decisively supporting the [Gaza genocide] article’s inclusion. “Based on the strength of the arguments … and it’s not close … I discarded the argument that scholars haven’t reached a conclusion on whether the Gaza genocide is really taking place”, Marshall wrote in his decision. “The matter remains contested, but there’s a metric truckload of scholarly sources linked in this discussion that show a clear predominance of academics who say that it is.”'
From this, maybe it is clearer (but not shorter) to say: ‘It’s not close’ - The inclusion of "Gaza genocide" to Wikipedia's "List of genocides" ends editorial debate
Alt phrasing: Wikipedia's editorial debate ends with the inclusion of "Gaza genocide" to "List of genocides" page
(I'm trying to not repeat "Wikipedia" several times.)
Wikipedians were weighing the evidence on whether to call the Gaza thing a genocide or not. They decided to call it a genocide, as the academic evidence/consensus was so far in favor of that, that it wasn't even close.
It's not close. Israel is committing genocide concludes Wikipedia, ending debate.
First subject 'it' being the debate on genocide or not, second subject Israel.
It could have been written more clearly. Also the word genocide seems to suffering a bit from atrocity inflation a bit like grade inflation where everyone gets As. It used to be for wiping out an ethnic group, it now seems to apply to fighting terrorists with heavy civillian casualties.
The title of this HN article is ambiguous; I had to read the article to understand what the article is about. I suggest "Wikipedia adds Gaza to list of genocides".
Do you suppose experts will ever agree when they exist so close in time to the conflict and many have natural alignment biases?
The discussions there appear to follow objective analysis of events. Overwhelming civilian casualties and forced displacement. Casualty numbers are in constant flux but [as] independent [as possible] verification suggests they aren't trivial.
I won't pretend that Hamas et al haven't provoked a serious response, but Israel's solution being implemented seems pretty final.
> This editorial choice suggests Wikipedia editors have exceeded their proper role as documentarians and entered into political judgment
Wikipedia has mainly been edited as propaganda a tool for a long time. Though it's not so much propaganda for a particular organization or government (though a little bit of that happens), but the biases and opinions of its power users.
Everyone should read Wikipedia with skepticism. Just imagine it was written by an obnoxiously opinionated newspaper comment section poster, and you should be fine.
If other entries on the list had less scholarly consensus (even such widely accepted ones as the Darfur and Rohingya ones), this deserved to be on the list.
I guess that the list title could be considered misleading, if not all the entries are settled to be genocides; but on many widely accepted subjects you can find qualified experts with opposite views; universal consensus seems an excessive criterion.
That the conflict is ongoing is immaterial; if the facts already established provide enough evidence to qualify the situation, that's all you need.
And we should be glad when a situation is recognized while it's still ongoing, which is when it can still be stopped.
Non of these conflicts called genocides was instigated by those that allegedly are now the victims of genocide, however vindictive the response would be. There are hard facts that dispute these claims and in my opinion they cannot be seriously made.
Also Israel doesn't try to commit genocide. Words do mean something.
The result will be that more will just become numb to accusations of genocide, because it might just mean legitimate defense.
Do you know that it’s common for genocide to include acts that aim to destroy a nation or culture even when it’s by other methods other than killing all its people?
Maybe you don’t agree with this definition, but in a list of events that is generally mentioned as genocide we should not limit ourselves to the most narrow definition. That would sweep too many atrocious acts under the rug. The article on the genocide should make it clear what actually happened, meaning you shouldn’t think “every single person got murdered” if you read genocide in a title.
By the more broad definition of genocide there shouldn’t be much doubt about who started it. Israel is a religious colonial project that sought to displace non-Jewish people in that area from its inception. There’s not really any secret or controversy about this except by those who try to distort history. You’ll find many Israeli openly talking and writing about these goals. You’ll also find Jewish people, even ones living in Israel saying the state should never have existed to begin with for these reasons and others.
Yes, it’s more complicated than what can be summarised in a comment. There is blame on both sides. But throughout recent history only Israel has been in a position of power to solve the issue and yet they’ve repeatedly and wilfully sabotaged anything that could lead to either a two or a (fair) one state solution. Again: they’re talking openly about this and why they’re doing it: there’s too many Palestine people. They can’t be integrated into Isreal or be given too much power as an independent state because it would threaten Israel as a religious project whose only purpose is to create a state primarily for Jewish people.
The goal is explicitly to destroy Palestine and its people. It always has been, even if they don’t say so out loud when the audience is non-Jewish. Doesn’t mean they want to kill them all.
It’s kind of insane that we recognise religious ethnostates as a very, very bad idea for all other countries, yet give Israel a free pass.
No, words do mean something. Genocide is the ambition to eradicate and kill certain groups of people. Genocide isn't the only atrocity, so no need to put them all under the umbrella of the term. Genocide is certainly what some groups attempt to do to Jews.
> Israel is a religious colonial project that sought to displace non-Jewish people in that area from its inception.
Wrong. Different beliefs fare far better than in surrounding countries. Your statements are devoid of facts. Facts that are measurable.
> Yes, it’s more complicated than what can be summarised in a comment
You make wrong statements here. We can correct those in the context of your comment first before going deeper here.
> The goal is explicitly to destroy Palestine and its people.
Most genocides have conspirators that conspire the genocide into existence. The Gaza genocide is no exception. Both the ICC prosecution recommendation against Gallant and Netanyahu, as well as the ICJ genocide case against Israel, show genocidal intent among the Israeli ruling class, and to me at least (I‘m not a lawyer) it seems Israeli rulers have indeed conspired to commit a genocide.
So yes, you can claim this is a conspiracy theory, however, unlike flat earth 9/11 truthers, etc. this conspiracy theory is very plausible.
Please stay factual. That is not what the ICJ concluded and the ICC has not ruled anything either but has compromised itself with arrest warrants and questionable panels. Not that the surveillance conducted by the Israeli government is anything that should be supported, but that is not relevant to the determination of the war being genocide or not.
The war wasn't started by Israel and that should conclude investigations for Gaza at least.
I did stay factual. I made special care in writing “ICC prosecution recommendation” and “ICJ genocide case”. Both are factual, one being recommendation and the other being an ongoing case. Both have factual documents supporting the case, including allegations of conspiracy against the Israeli rulers.
Who started what does not matter, being rulers of a country who is victims of terrorism does not make it impossible to conspire to commit genocide. In fact indigenous resistance has been used as pretense for colonial genocide for centuries.
My point here is that allegations against Israeli rulers to commit genocide is very plausible. So much so that an international consensus has pretty much formed around it, including among genocide experts, and legal scholars of the world highest courts.
There is neither a ruling on genocide nor is there any form of consensus around it.
> indigenous resistance has been used as pretense for colonial genocide for centuries.
Just to reiterate, Israel is not a colonial state, so that doesn't apply here.
If Palestinians want their own state, they need to fix their relation to Israel, otherwise they will remain in a limbo. And it is not on Israel to fix their situation, at some point their situation is entirely self imposed.
> And it is not on Israel to fix their situation, at some point their situation is entirely self imposed.
This is factually untrue. All of Palestine (including East Jerusalem) is internationally recognized to be occupied territory. Occupiers have obligations under international law, this includes lifting the occupation, or according to the UN[1]
> The overarching principle is that an occupant does not acquire sovereignty over an occupied territory and therefore any occupation must only be a temporary situation.
Note that this is enlisted in the fourth Hague convention of 1907 which Israel is a party to. The occupation of Palestine is the longest occupation in the history of that agreement, beating the Turkeys occupation of Northern Cyprus by 7 years, and Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara by 8, but also is this occupation characterized serial violations of other parts of the agreement, most notably a policy of settlements (violating the prohibition of transfers of civilian populations) and the apartheid wall (violating measures to ensure restoration of civilian life, seizure of property, among others; and ruled a violation of international law in 2003, and ordered to be dismantled).
Unlike Israel, Palestine is under no such obligations as occupied peoples. International law does grant the Palestinian people the right to resistance (particularly to peaceful protests). Israel has consistently denied Palestinians any means of resisting peacefully, including protests, but most destructively, Palestinians have no political avenue for their resistance, leaving only armed, violent resistance. Israel’s own policy of not obeying international law has indeed ensured this reality.
Whether or not Israel is a colonial power is up for debate, but the debate is only about semantics. There is no doubt Israel is an occupying power. In my view, occupation is merely very concise legal term we apply to a subset of colonial conduct. Occupation is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for colonialism, but does grant international law the possibility to punish for some colonial behavior. In my books, 57 years of occupation counts as colonialism, and using resistance against said occupation to justify genocide is very similar to the rhetoric of 19th century colonial powers.
Israel is not party to the 4th Hague convention, but it is customary law, so that doesn't really matter. I should have been more precise, I meant Palestinians in Gaza, which isn't occupied. Or at least it wasn't until the attacks. Chances are that it will be again.
They do have the right to resist just as Israel did upon its founding. But the attacks in October are certainly not covered by international law. Israel doesn't justify genocide, because genocide is not what is happening. Neither legally nor otherwise. The resistance is of course used to justify security interests, but those don't qualify for genocide either.
Still, all that doesn't matter. They need to fix their relation to Israel, accept its existence. That can open the way for their own state and there are few alternatives.
Sorry, I meant the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949 which adopted the Hague Conference of 1907.
Israel signed and ratified the Geneva conventions (I - IV) in 1951 and Part I of the Hague convention in 1962. The relevant part is in article 42 of the Hague convention (Part IV; which Israel didn’t sign)
> Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.
> The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.
and in article 2 of the fourth Geneva convention (Which Israel did sign and ratify in 1951):
> The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Note that the fourth Geneva convention expands both the definition and the obligation of occupation from the Hague convention of 1907.
Look, I’m not doing primary research here, I’m simply following the sources cited in the secondary source which I provided you. I’m not an international humanitarian law expert, and I presume neither are you. There is pretty much a consensus among both experts and international organizations (including the UN) that Israel is in violation of agreements they have signed onto. You may deny the occupation of Gaza and justify Israel’s violation on those grounds (just as you deny the Gaza Genocide) but you are simply (and quite obviously) wrong on those ground. Legal experts have made the case pretty clear that all of Palestine, including Gaza and East Jerusalem have been under constant Israeli occupation since 1967. And have since continually neglected their obligations as an occupying power.
I disagree that there is a consensus about genocide at all. These are very selective experts and their argument is for the most part ridiculous, with few exceptions. It is those whose work lead to many resolutions against Israel which highlights their lacking perspective
If these people claim to champion the Palestinian cause, the people in Gaza are in peril even more.
And no, Gaza was left to its own devices in 2005. With devastating results because there was nobody that had the ability and will to form a state.
The Saudi crown prince calls it a genocide too while openly stating that this is due to populism. He has an excuse, which one have these special international lawyers you refer to?
What do you suppose will be the future for Palestinians now? They fare worse than before the attacks, what perspective do they have?
Again, calling it a genocide is counter factual, regardless of your law degree.
The cases in the ICJ didn't even call for a ceasefire, because they knew Israel has the right to defend itself. And recent events have show that it is necessary.
If champions of the Palestinians cause cannot come up with more than accusations against Israel, Palestinians don't have a lot to look forward to.
That is what you believe. But you must be aware of the minority opinion you hold, and how it counters opinion of experts, international humanitarian organizations, several governments, and a Saudi Prince. When the rest of the world talks about genocide, the Gaza genocide fits the definition.
The denial of the Gaza occupation is an even more extreme opinion of yours. Very few non-partisans, and even a diminishing number of Israeli institutions, deny that Gaza has been under continuous Israeli occupation since 1967. I’m not gonna try to convince you that you are wrong (you obviously are) but I just hope that you are aware of how fringe of an opinion you have here.
Instead I’m gonna do something different. And give you that the occupation was lifted in 2005 (and ignore that the West Bank and East Jerusalem are part of the state of Palestine; and the Israel still illegally occupies the Golan Heights from Syria and Lebanon). Now that constitutes almost 40 years of illegal occupation, over a land and people who many of which are still refugees from an ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948.
In 2005 the occupation ended, and was replaced by a seemingly colonial system where Israel controls 6 out of 7 border crossings fully (and the remaining one partially via Egypt), the population registry, the sea and the airspace, power and telecommunications infrastructure, maintains a no-go bufferzone inside the Palestinian territory where they regularly break up protests with live ammunition, where they regularly conduct air-strikes and military campaigns, etc. Surely you must realize the obligations of the occupier (sorry, blockader) here. That it isn’t just on the Palestinians to form a government and negotiate the end of the blockade, but primarily on Israel (as the party doing the blockade) to end it.
In international law this blockade is (correctly) called a manifestation of an ongoing occupation, and Israel has obligations as the occupier, obligations which they have neglected. But even if we give you that, the occupation ended in 2005, you must see that is not in the spirit of the law to replace the occupation with a different form of oppression, just so you can neglect your obligation. That is not how any legal framework works. You can’t just go around the law in this way.
EDIT: I also want to talk a little about your believe that just because the ICJ didn’t order a ceasefire in their initial preliminary ruling, that somehow it is ludicrous to entertain the plausibility of genocide after that. That is not the point of a preliminary ruling. The court also ordered Israel to protect Palestinians from genocide, to let in aid, etc. which Israel promptly violated. In April a second preliminary ruling ordered Israel to not invade Rafah, which was also almost immediately ignored by Israel. If you take the court at their word that Palestinians’ in Gaza’s rights to be protected from Genocide is at risk, and the following steps are needed to protect that right, and then Israel ignores and repeatedly violates those steps, surely you must at least suspect there might be a genocidal intent among some of Israel’s rulers, quite possibly a conspiracy to commit one even.
It has been bad for anything that comes even close the news cycle and topics around Israel are even worse here. Even historical events get hidden or reframed.
Technical articles are still good, but on history and political events, better refer to books or studies.
The behavior of the moderation is again atrocious. It was a short time, but former Wikipedia with anonymous contributors often was more reliable than the "corrected" version of today.
And to keep consistency with Wikipedia and the "one right opinion" people downvote this 100% correct comment. When asked later on why Harris lost they claim "the right is stupid"... Ignoring facts and opinions that conflict with your world-view is stupid.
People formed a narrative and are forcefully trying to make the bricks fit.
I do a lot. E.g. I was sure Harris would win by a landslide. Shows my news source bias (here, Reddit etc.).
This is a post about determining a specific narrative while conveniently ignoring facts that don't fit said narrative. Confirmation bias is a problem for everyone, both of us are subject to it.
> In a related move, the platform’s editors recently voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the subject, adding it to their list of banned and partially banned sources.
Kinda surprising it didn't happen earlier. The ADL ruined their image when they stopped concerning themselves with defamation and started going after political opposition. Once you dip your toes into the nationalist politics cesspool, there really is no going back.
>> In a related move, the platform’s editors recently voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the subject, adding it to their list of banned and partially banned sources.
> Kinda surprising it didn't happen earlier. The ADL ruined their image when they stopped concerning themselves with defamation and started going after political opposition. Once you dip your toes into the nationalist politics cesspool, there really is no going back.
Wikipedia still considers the ADL reliable for "going after political opposition" in the "nationalist politics cesspool": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Per....
It's super clear that, on Wikipedia, "the rules of the game became the game." Content arguments are won through pretty biased debates behind the scenes on the "reliability" of sources.
They very much call out the unreliability of the ADL on the topic of modern Zionism and topics concerning the Israel-Palistine conflict. I think that is the proper path of caution to take, unless they prove to be as fickle about world politics as they are holding Israel accountable.
Whatever you perceive to be the process for debating these topics, I do not think the ADL (or similar organizations) has any relevant contributions to make on Wikipedia's presentation of world events. Allowing these borderline-lobbyist organizations to claim anything with impunity is how the Internet's encyclopedia becomes nobody's encyclopedia.
Tell that to Elon.
This non sequitur is indicative of political derangement
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>...turn a blind eye to Jewish ones.
I seem to see about twenty stories about Israeli atrocities daily. Maybe they are not regarded as being as heinous as the KKK because if you read the details they actually not as heinous?
From the Leo Frank Wikipedia page [0]: "In modern times, despite strong evidence pointing to Frank's innocence, the case has become a modern focal point for neo-Nazis and anti-Semites. This is partly because it led to the creation of the Anti-Defamation League but also because it fed into anti-semitic conspiracy theories claiming Jewish control of the media. As a consequence, in recent years a number of websites have been established by white supremacists disputing the prevailing consensus of Frank's innocence."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Frank#Later_consensus:_a_m...
United Nations agencies like UNRWA? As for the killing reports, it seems that Israel always kills civilians and particularly kids, they seem to like to spend their money in bombs directed at them because I never see reports of combatants being killed.
Individual combatants are rarely noteworthy enough to receive news attention. You do hear news articles when some higher-up is killed.
The deaths of children are more newsworthy, in themselves. You rarely hear their names, just the fact that it happened, because they are not otherwise notable as individuals.
Israel accuses the combatants of hiding among civilians, using them as human shields. If true, it would make the deaths of civilians inevitable. That is why hiding among non-combatants is a war crime.
I was being ironic. Israel enemies just don't destroy it because they are unable to. Israel is forced to do what they are doing.
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You never see reports of ANY kind of military activity in Gaza. Even the blatantly obvious, the constant rocket launches, just never got reported. None of it.
And the Hezbollah situation is the same. Constant attacks by Hezbollah on Israeli civilians ... no mention anywhere.
Wikipedia is a good resource, but whether they themselves want to editorialize is up to them. I personally think that the Wikipedias opinions of world events is NOT NOTABLE.
Maybe so, but the world often does treat Wikipedia as a reliable source. The editorialization ends up influencing them. This is why you see such heated battles on the talk pages of Wikipedia - there are people actively fighting to take control of this tool. Wikipedia’s founder has been warning the world about increasing bias on Wikipedia for several years now (https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/).
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The title is utterly unparseable to me. What's the subject of the sentence?
'British Wikipedian, Stuart Marshall, made the final ruling in September, decisively supporting the [Gaza genocide] article’s inclusion. “Based on the strength of the arguments … and it’s not close … I discarded the argument that scholars haven’t reached a conclusion on whether the Gaza genocide is really taking place”, Marshall wrote in his decision. “The matter remains contested, but there’s a metric truckload of scholarly sources linked in this discussion that show a clear predominance of academics who say that it is.”'
From this, maybe it is clearer (but not shorter) to say: ‘It’s not close’ - The inclusion of "Gaza genocide" to Wikipedia's "List of genocides" ends editorial debate
Alt phrasing: Wikipedia's editorial debate ends with the inclusion of "Gaza genocide" to "List of genocides" page
(I'm trying to not repeat "Wikipedia" several times.)
Somewhat related Wikipedia article regarding parsing sentences: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence
[flagged]
"Israel committing genocide" concludes Wikipedia, ending debate
Wikipedians were weighing the evidence on whether to call the Gaza thing a genocide or not. They decided to call it a genocide, as the academic evidence/consensus was so far in favor of that, that it wasn't even close.
Two sentences.
It's not close. Israel is committing genocide concludes Wikipedia, ending debate.
First subject 'it' being the debate on genocide or not, second subject Israel.
It could have been written more clearly. Also the word genocide seems to suffering a bit from atrocity inflation a bit like grade inflation where everyone gets As. It used to be for wiping out an ethnic group, it now seems to apply to fighting terrorists with heavy civillian casualties.
The title of this HN article is ambiguous; I had to read the article to understand what the article is about. I suggest "Wikipedia adds Gaza to list of genocides".
This is better than my suggestions. It doesn't include the debate aspect though (...?)
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Do you suppose experts will ever agree when they exist so close in time to the conflict and many have natural alignment biases?
The discussions there appear to follow objective analysis of events. Overwhelming civilian casualties and forced displacement. Casualty numbers are in constant flux but [as] independent [as possible] verification suggests they aren't trivial.
I won't pretend that Hamas et al haven't provoked a serious response, but Israel's solution being implemented seems pretty final.
> This editorial choice suggests Wikipedia editors have exceeded their proper role as documentarians and entered into political judgment
Wikipedia has mainly been edited as propaganda a tool for a long time. Though it's not so much propaganda for a particular organization or government (though a little bit of that happens), but the biases and opinions of its power users.
Everyone should read Wikipedia with skepticism. Just imagine it was written by an obnoxiously opinionated newspaper comment section poster, and you should be fine.
> represents a concerning departure from encyclopedic neutrality
It has been departed from long time ago. Wikipedia has been very biased for years.
If other entries on the list had less scholarly consensus (even such widely accepted ones as the Darfur and Rohingya ones), this deserved to be on the list.
I guess that the list title could be considered misleading, if not all the entries are settled to be genocides; but on many widely accepted subjects you can find qualified experts with opposite views; universal consensus seems an excessive criterion.
That the conflict is ongoing is immaterial; if the facts already established provide enough evidence to qualify the situation, that's all you need.
And we should be glad when a situation is recognized while it's still ongoing, which is when it can still be stopped.
Non of these conflicts called genocides was instigated by those that allegedly are now the victims of genocide, however vindictive the response would be. There are hard facts that dispute these claims and in my opinion they cannot be seriously made.
Also Israel doesn't try to commit genocide. Words do mean something.
The result will be that more will just become numb to accusations of genocide, because it might just mean legitimate defense.
Do you know that it’s common for genocide to include acts that aim to destroy a nation or culture even when it’s by other methods other than killing all its people?
Maybe you don’t agree with this definition, but in a list of events that is generally mentioned as genocide we should not limit ourselves to the most narrow definition. That would sweep too many atrocious acts under the rug. The article on the genocide should make it clear what actually happened, meaning you shouldn’t think “every single person got murdered” if you read genocide in a title.
By the more broad definition of genocide there shouldn’t be much doubt about who started it. Israel is a religious colonial project that sought to displace non-Jewish people in that area from its inception. There’s not really any secret or controversy about this except by those who try to distort history. You’ll find many Israeli openly talking and writing about these goals. You’ll also find Jewish people, even ones living in Israel saying the state should never have existed to begin with for these reasons and others.
Yes, it’s more complicated than what can be summarised in a comment. There is blame on both sides. But throughout recent history only Israel has been in a position of power to solve the issue and yet they’ve repeatedly and wilfully sabotaged anything that could lead to either a two or a (fair) one state solution. Again: they’re talking openly about this and why they’re doing it: there’s too many Palestine people. They can’t be integrated into Isreal or be given too much power as an independent state because it would threaten Israel as a religious project whose only purpose is to create a state primarily for Jewish people.
The goal is explicitly to destroy Palestine and its people. It always has been, even if they don’t say so out loud when the audience is non-Jewish. Doesn’t mean they want to kill them all.
It’s kind of insane that we recognise religious ethnostates as a very, very bad idea for all other countries, yet give Israel a free pass.
No, words do mean something. Genocide is the ambition to eradicate and kill certain groups of people. Genocide isn't the only atrocity, so no need to put them all under the umbrella of the term. Genocide is certainly what some groups attempt to do to Jews.
> Israel is a religious colonial project that sought to displace non-Jewish people in that area from its inception.
Wrong. Different beliefs fare far better than in surrounding countries. Your statements are devoid of facts. Facts that are measurable.
> Yes, it’s more complicated than what can be summarised in a comment
You make wrong statements here. We can correct those in the context of your comment first before going deeper here.
> The goal is explicitly to destroy Palestine and its people.
That is a conspiracy theory.
Most genocides have conspirators that conspire the genocide into existence. The Gaza genocide is no exception. Both the ICC prosecution recommendation against Gallant and Netanyahu, as well as the ICJ genocide case against Israel, show genocidal intent among the Israeli ruling class, and to me at least (I‘m not a lawyer) it seems Israeli rulers have indeed conspired to commit a genocide.
So yes, you can claim this is a conspiracy theory, however, unlike flat earth 9/11 truthers, etc. this conspiracy theory is very plausible.
Please stay factual. That is not what the ICJ concluded and the ICC has not ruled anything either but has compromised itself with arrest warrants and questionable panels. Not that the surveillance conducted by the Israeli government is anything that should be supported, but that is not relevant to the determination of the war being genocide or not.
The war wasn't started by Israel and that should conclude investigations for Gaza at least.
I did stay factual. I made special care in writing “ICC prosecution recommendation” and “ICJ genocide case”. Both are factual, one being recommendation and the other being an ongoing case. Both have factual documents supporting the case, including allegations of conspiracy against the Israeli rulers.
Who started what does not matter, being rulers of a country who is victims of terrorism does not make it impossible to conspire to commit genocide. In fact indigenous resistance has been used as pretense for colonial genocide for centuries.
My point here is that allegations against Israeli rulers to commit genocide is very plausible. So much so that an international consensus has pretty much formed around it, including among genocide experts, and legal scholars of the world highest courts.
There is neither a ruling on genocide nor is there any form of consensus around it.
> indigenous resistance has been used as pretense for colonial genocide for centuries.
Just to reiterate, Israel is not a colonial state, so that doesn't apply here.
If Palestinians want their own state, they need to fix their relation to Israel, otherwise they will remain in a limbo. And it is not on Israel to fix their situation, at some point their situation is entirely self imposed.
You talked about being factual, but also claim:
> And it is not on Israel to fix their situation, at some point their situation is entirely self imposed.
This is factually untrue. All of Palestine (including East Jerusalem) is internationally recognized to be occupied territory. Occupiers have obligations under international law, this includes lifting the occupation, or according to the UN[1]
> The overarching principle is that an occupant does not acquire sovereignty over an occupied territory and therefore any occupation must only be a temporary situation.
Note that this is enlisted in the fourth Hague convention of 1907 which Israel is a party to. The occupation of Palestine is the longest occupation in the history of that agreement, beating the Turkeys occupation of Northern Cyprus by 7 years, and Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara by 8, but also is this occupation characterized serial violations of other parts of the agreement, most notably a policy of settlements (violating the prohibition of transfers of civilian populations) and the apartheid wall (violating measures to ensure restoration of civilian life, seizure of property, among others; and ruled a violation of international law in 2003, and ordered to be dismantled).
Unlike Israel, Palestine is under no such obligations as occupied peoples. International law does grant the Palestinian people the right to resistance (particularly to peaceful protests). Israel has consistently denied Palestinians any means of resisting peacefully, including protests, but most destructively, Palestinians have no political avenue for their resistance, leaving only armed, violent resistance. Israel’s own policy of not obeying international law has indeed ensured this reality.
Whether or not Israel is a colonial power is up for debate, but the debate is only about semantics. There is no doubt Israel is an occupying power. In my view, occupation is merely very concise legal term we apply to a subset of colonial conduct. Occupation is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for colonialism, but does grant international law the possibility to punish for some colonial behavior. In my books, 57 years of occupation counts as colonialism, and using resistance against said occupation to justify genocide is very similar to the rhetoric of 19th century colonial powers.
1: https://www.onlinelibrary.iihl.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/0...
Israel is not party to the 4th Hague convention, but it is customary law, so that doesn't really matter. I should have been more precise, I meant Palestinians in Gaza, which isn't occupied. Or at least it wasn't until the attacks. Chances are that it will be again.
They do have the right to resist just as Israel did upon its founding. But the attacks in October are certainly not covered by international law. Israel doesn't justify genocide, because genocide is not what is happening. Neither legally nor otherwise. The resistance is of course used to justify security interests, but those don't qualify for genocide either.
Still, all that doesn't matter. They need to fix their relation to Israel, accept its existence. That can open the way for their own state and there are few alternatives.
> Israel is not party to the 4th Hague convention
Sorry, I meant the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949 which adopted the Hague Conference of 1907.
Israel signed and ratified the Geneva conventions (I - IV) in 1951 and Part I of the Hague convention in 1962. The relevant part is in article 42 of the Hague convention (Part IV; which Israel didn’t sign)
> Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army.
> The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.
and in article 2 of the fourth Geneva convention (Which Israel did sign and ratify in 1951):
> The Convention shall also apply to all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.
Note that the fourth Geneva convention expands both the definition and the obligation of occupation from the Hague convention of 1907.
Look, I’m not doing primary research here, I’m simply following the sources cited in the secondary source which I provided you. I’m not an international humanitarian law expert, and I presume neither are you. There is pretty much a consensus among both experts and international organizations (including the UN) that Israel is in violation of agreements they have signed onto. You may deny the occupation of Gaza and justify Israel’s violation on those grounds (just as you deny the Gaza Genocide) but you are simply (and quite obviously) wrong on those ground. Legal experts have made the case pretty clear that all of Palestine, including Gaza and East Jerusalem have been under constant Israeli occupation since 1967. And have since continually neglected their obligations as an occupying power.
I disagree that there is a consensus about genocide at all. These are very selective experts and their argument is for the most part ridiculous, with few exceptions. It is those whose work lead to many resolutions against Israel which highlights their lacking perspective
If these people claim to champion the Palestinian cause, the people in Gaza are in peril even more.
And no, Gaza was left to its own devices in 2005. With devastating results because there was nobody that had the ability and will to form a state.
The Saudi crown prince calls it a genocide too while openly stating that this is due to populism. He has an excuse, which one have these special international lawyers you refer to?
What do you suppose will be the future for Palestinians now? They fare worse than before the attacks, what perspective do they have?
Again, calling it a genocide is counter factual, regardless of your law degree.
The cases in the ICJ didn't even call for a ceasefire, because they knew Israel has the right to defend itself. And recent events have show that it is necessary.
If champions of the Palestinians cause cannot come up with more than accusations against Israel, Palestinians don't have a lot to look forward to.
That is what you believe. But you must be aware of the minority opinion you hold, and how it counters opinion of experts, international humanitarian organizations, several governments, and a Saudi Prince. When the rest of the world talks about genocide, the Gaza genocide fits the definition.
The denial of the Gaza occupation is an even more extreme opinion of yours. Very few non-partisans, and even a diminishing number of Israeli institutions, deny that Gaza has been under continuous Israeli occupation since 1967. I’m not gonna try to convince you that you are wrong (you obviously are) but I just hope that you are aware of how fringe of an opinion you have here.
Instead I’m gonna do something different. And give you that the occupation was lifted in 2005 (and ignore that the West Bank and East Jerusalem are part of the state of Palestine; and the Israel still illegally occupies the Golan Heights from Syria and Lebanon). Now that constitutes almost 40 years of illegal occupation, over a land and people who many of which are still refugees from an ethnic cleansing campaign in 1948.
In 2005 the occupation ended, and was replaced by a seemingly colonial system where Israel controls 6 out of 7 border crossings fully (and the remaining one partially via Egypt), the population registry, the sea and the airspace, power and telecommunications infrastructure, maintains a no-go bufferzone inside the Palestinian territory where they regularly break up protests with live ammunition, where they regularly conduct air-strikes and military campaigns, etc. Surely you must realize the obligations of the occupier (sorry, blockader) here. That it isn’t just on the Palestinians to form a government and negotiate the end of the blockade, but primarily on Israel (as the party doing the blockade) to end it.
In international law this blockade is (correctly) called a manifestation of an ongoing occupation, and Israel has obligations as the occupier, obligations which they have neglected. But even if we give you that, the occupation ended in 2005, you must see that is not in the spirit of the law to replace the occupation with a different form of oppression, just so you can neglect your obligation. That is not how any legal framework works. You can’t just go around the law in this way.
EDIT: I also want to talk a little about your believe that just because the ICJ didn’t order a ceasefire in their initial preliminary ruling, that somehow it is ludicrous to entertain the plausibility of genocide after that. That is not the point of a preliminary ruling. The court also ordered Israel to protect Palestinians from genocide, to let in aid, etc. which Israel promptly violated. In April a second preliminary ruling ordered Israel to not invade Rafah, which was also almost immediately ignored by Israel. If you take the court at their word that Palestinians’ in Gaza’s rights to be protected from Genocide is at risk, and the following steps are needed to protect that right, and then Israel ignores and repeatedly violates those steps, surely you must at least suspect there might be a genocidal intent among some of Israel’s rulers, quite possibly a conspiracy to commit one even.
It has been bad for anything that comes even close the news cycle and topics around Israel are even worse here. Even historical events get hidden or reframed.
Technical articles are still good, but on history and political events, better refer to books or studies.
The behavior of the moderation is again atrocious. It was a short time, but former Wikipedia with anonymous contributors often was more reliable than the "corrected" version of today.
And to keep consistency with Wikipedia and the "one right opinion" people downvote this 100% correct comment. When asked later on why Harris lost they claim "the right is stupid"... Ignoring facts and opinions that conflict with your world-view is stupid.
People formed a narrative and are forcefully trying to make the bricks fit.
> People formed a narrative and are forcefully trying to make the bricks fit
It's healthy to wonder, from time to time, if it might be you that's doing such things
I do a lot. E.g. I was sure Harris would win by a landslide. Shows my news source bias (here, Reddit etc.).
This is a post about determining a specific narrative while conveniently ignoring facts that don't fit said narrative. Confirmation bias is a problem for everyone, both of us are subject to it.
> Confirmation bias is a problem for everyone, both of us are subject to it.
Yeah, of course (personally, some of my own ideas were not confirmed in the last year)
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