Israel: When the Drums of War Have Reached a Fever Pitch

[IFR]

This has been an educational discussion. The issue at hand is upsetting, regardless of one's perspective, and it's difficult to refrain from allowing anger, frustration and other emotions to dilute the information content of one's statement.

Most conversations on this topic fall apart pretty rapidly. But I think this discussion has maintained, for the most part, a fair and respectful tone that is incredibly helpful for people who know little about the issue to actually learn something.

Thank you, everyone. It has given me a lot to think about.

[Fragile Bird]

43 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

There weren't, not sure what you're going on about. The point is that the Arab states completely ethnically cleansed those ancient Jewish communities in modern times.

I’m “going on” about what I quoted.

ie: for clarification, your saying 3000 years of Arab Muslim governments pushing out Jews.

Or are you going to tell me that there were 1) Muslims around, 3000 years ago, and 2) Arabs around, 3000 years ago? Eta and before you get on my back, while there were Arabic people, there were no “Arab governments” pushing out Jews 3000 years ago.

[Bael's Bastard]

8 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I’m “going on” about what I quoted.

ie: for clarification, your saying 3000 years of Arab Muslim governments pushing out Jews.

Or are you going to tell me that there were ) Muslims around, 3000 years ago, and 2) Arabs around, 3000 years ago? 

No, I am saying the Arab states TODAY ethnically cleansed nearly 1 million Jews from the Jewish communities that HAD existed in those lands for nearly 3,000 years.

Nobody claimed Muslims existed 3,000 years ago or that any of these countries were Muslim or Arab until the second half of the 1st millennium CE.

[TrueMetis]

57 minutes ago, Fez said:

I don't know the full details of those, but if folks would read the fucking thing I posted, #5 on the UN code's list is:

So it seems like it would apply.

You said yourself genocide is "killing full stop. Nothing else." But also that arguably wouldn't apply. Maybe, if you don't know the full details of the residential schools you should defer to someone who does, instead of just assuming I didn't read five lines.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

No, it doesn't. Genocide is a very specific thing, and that's what makes it so galling when people throw the term around; especially as an accusation against one of the groups of people has literally experienced it.

Why did you just re-post the exact same definition I used? The following definitions apply to the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinians:

 

Quote

1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and

2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

Killing members of the group*

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part**

* Albeit individual members of the group and not necessarily everyone in it.

** The settlement building, the decreasing land available for use by an increasing population, displacement of people from their homelands into smaller and smaller parcels of land and the gradually increasing inability of the Palestinians to have a reasonable quality of life all constitute an attempt to bring about the destruction of Palestinian society and rendering any future Palestinian state untenable, possibly in the hope that by making life in the Occupied Territories so miserable that Palestinians will be forced to abandon it and Israel can simply take over the land without any fuss.

Saying that it's only genocide when people are murdered en masse is a repudiation of the declaration of Myanmar's actions against the Rohingya as genocide because Myanmar was happier to force them to flee as to kill them, or that China's actions against the Uighur are not genocide because they're happier to forcibly re-educate and sterilise them as kill them (and, to be clear, Israel's actions are not on that level).

What you seem to be saying here is, "Genocide doesn't count when Israel does it because reasons," which does not fly.

And yes, there are Palestinian supporters who are very happy to massively brush over various Arab attacks on Israel as an attempted genocide against the Israeli people as well, or to disregard Hamas's threats against Israel, which are equally disingenuous things to do.

Quote

Genocide is killing, full stop. Nothing else. Also, it's killing with a plan to kill, not killing through inaction; again as per the UN.

The definition you posted does not say this, at all.

Most people would agree the consequences of the Great Irish Famine was a genocide against the Irish people by the British. The fact that the British did not pre-plan it (not being in control of germ warfare to destroy crops) and did not walk around killing Irish people themselves but instead simply insisted on "letting nature take its course" when they could have easily intervened to stop it and save lives, does not make it less of a crime against humanity.

[SerTarod]

1 hour ago, Bael's Bastard said:

The ancient diasporas (originally created by Assyrian and Babylonian enslavement and transfer) that were all driven out in recent decades by Arab states, nearly 1 million that hadn't already been forced to convert, killed, or driven out in recent centuries, most of whom ended up back in Israel.

Meaning Jews as an ethnic group are indigenous to the land of Israel/Palestine. That does not confer rights to displace or harm others, nor was displacement and harm to others a goal of Zionism and the establishment of Israel.

Israel has done plenty of fucked up shit over the decades, but its attempts to genuinely make peace with Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states, and the costant rejection and vitriol in response, is well documented.

Thank you for the considered response.

 

a casual reading of your earlier posts gives the implications what I and others misunderstood you to type.

[SerTarod]

59 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

3000 years is about how old those ancient communities are. But they were ethnically cleansed by Arab states after the Holocaust. 

Jews are an indigenous Canaanite people/culture as any scholar of the ancient Levant will tell you. You are confusing a legend with no evidence to documented contemporary history.

again, thank you for clarifying. 

 

a lesson for all of us (me) maybe that in typing slower, with better comprehension of the message, peace may be possible. 

[Fez]

5 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Why did you just re-post the exact same definition I used? The following definitions apply to the Israeli government's treatment of the Palestinians:

Because you misconstrued at best, or lied at worst, about what the definition actually says.

I agree that the definition isn't entirely consistent, but it is what is and that's what the law is. So by saying something else you are making up an international law that doesn't exist, so that you can condemn Israel for breaking it. And if you don't think that's antisemitism I don't know what to say. Many of the underlying actions Israel has done, like allowing the settlements at all, are terrible. I agree we should condemn them for those actions. But by making up a law that doesn't exist, the next logical step is that you want to make up a punishment for it. And the last time people started making up punishments for Jews it didn't end so well.

The law is what the law is. If you don't like it, make a push to change it through the recognized channels. But you can't just make it up as go along.

[polishgenius]

I'd argue that, really, arguing whether Israel is guilty of genocide or 'just' ethnic cleansing is somewhat getting sidetracked from the point which is that there's a war crime happening.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

I think everyone has agreed Israeli government actions (excessive bombings and targeting of civilian houses / facilities) is not a good thing, and Israeli government inaction when it comes to the settlers is also a bad thing.

 

Does it really matter to those calling it Genocide if we don't call it genocide as its not strictly legally genocide as stated by the UN?

I mean its still a really bad thing making the living conditions in Gaza intolerable.  Language matters especially when trying to find a workable solution when both sides mistrust the other sides intentions.

 

Arguing over the exact meaning of a word is unhelpful when everyone agrees that the things happened which prompts the use of that word by some.

[Fez]

19 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

I'd argue that, really, arguing whether Israel is guilty of genocide or 'just' ethnic cleansing is somewhat getting sidetracked from the point which is that there's a war crime happening.

I disagree, strongly. To take a domestic US example (in the inverse), would you have been okay if Derek Chauvin was acquitted on the murder charges and only convicted on second-degree manslaughter? Manslaughter still acknowledges that Floyd was killed by Chauvin after all, isn't anything beyond that just getting sidetracked?

If the answer's no, then you understand that differences in the law actually are very important. And that goes for international law as well. There are specific procedures related to genocide in regards to the International Criminal Court.

[polishgenius]

4 minutes ago, Fez said:

I disagree, strongly. To take a domestic US example (in the inverse), would you have been okay if Derek Chauvin was acquitted on the murder charges and only convicted on second-degree manslaughter? Manslaughter still acknowledges that Floyd was killed by Chauvin after all, isn't anything beyond that just getting sidetracked?

If the answer's no, then you understand that differences in the law actually are very important. And that goes for international law as well. There are specific procedures related to genocide in regards to the International Criminal Court.

 

Fair point

[mormont]

1 hour ago, Fez said:

No, according to the UN, like I just posted:

Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group

Genocide is killing, full stop. Nothing else. Also, it's killing with a plan to kill, not killing through inaction; again as per the UN.

I think you and I may differently understand what 'colonisation, imprisonment and making their life non-tenable' involves, then. Certainly, Palestinians have died as a result of Israel destroying vital infrastructure, seizing water resources, restricting the importation of medicines, etc. and these things meet the definition as I understand it.

1 hour ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Israel has done plenty of fucked up shit over the decades, but its attempts to genuinely make peace with Palestinian Arabs and the Arab states, and the costant rejection and vitriol in response, is well documented.

It's unarguable that Israel has made peace with Arab states and this, I'd say, has been a hard road that ultimately required good faith on all sides but does overall reflect better on Israel than on the other parties.

However, as for making peace with the Palestinians, it's well documented that there have been offers but it's also well documented that in almost all cases these offers were made in the knowledge that the Palestinians would not or could not agree to them. I don't think it's fair to say that Israel has always been genuinely trying to make peace in these offers. They have often been made for other reasons.

[Fury Resurrected]

2 hours ago, TrueMetis said:

Always a sort of interesting twist on the whole thing isn't it. They're committing genocide to reclaim their ancestral homeland... which according to their origin story they claimed via genocide in the first place.

At least they're consistent?

Yeah no, fuck that. By this definition you could argue that the residential schools weren't an attempt at genocide in Canada. They were. Cultural destruction is genocide, full stop.

I think your last paragraph and it’s application to the United States and Canada is EXACTLY why that definition is written that way.

[Zorral]

13 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

if I was Jewish, I would be a hard liner too.

Many Jewish people, both inside Israel and everywhere else, are anything but hard liners, who oppose Netanyahu, his corrupt cronies and the hold the ultra orthodox have on governing -- as it seems in Israel the ultra orthodox kinda function like various (other) special interest groups do here in elections and policies, up to and into the White House, with politicians and government policies.  And just like here in the US, those in opposition are hamstrung at every turn in countering these special interests and replacing their agendas with more fair, compassionate and honest agendas.  For just another, among many, instance, See: Miami/Florida and Cuba

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

39 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I think your last paragraph and it’s application to the United States and Canada is EXACTLY why that definition is written that way.

An interesting theory, that the definition of the word was politically influenced.

[TrueMetis]

42 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

I think your last paragraph and it’s application to the United States and Canada is EXACTLY why that definition is written that way.

I for one find the idea that the UN deliberately defined genocide narrowly such that it wouldn't apply to the colonizer nations that hold the bulk of power in the UN to be a shocking one.

[DireWolfSpirit]

This is what I was thinking about earlier when I posted the similarities were greater than usually acknowledged.

These Jews and Arabs are to great extent from the same pool of Canaanites and more alike than any sort of separate people's.

https://english.tau.ac.il/news/canaanites

This study suggests there is a deep genetic connection of many Jewish groups today across the Diaspora and many Arab groups to this part of the world thousands of years ago,” said Prof. Reich, a Harvard University geneticist and one of the world’s top experts in the study of ancient DNA, speaking to Haaretz.

 

[polishgenius]

25 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

This is what I was thinking about earlier when I posted the similarities were greater than usually acknowledged.

These Jews and Arabs are to great extent from the same pool of Canaanites and more alike than any sort of separate people's.

 

 

I'm not really sure what it is you're trying to get across here to be honest. Many of history's worst conflicts and atrocities have happened between people who came from the same 'pool of' somepeople from somewhere. In any case being extra-bewildered that they're fighting coz they're more genetically similar than people from further away suggests that atrocity is more understandable if those fighting are more distantly separate genetically, which I am 100% isn't the message you're trying to get across but kinda comes implicit in the premise.

[Zorral]

Cain and Abel -- the first civil war?