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I like how those buzzwords are being thrown around casually: "Genocide", "Apartheid" ... It's hard to take your comments seriously. There is no genocide in Gaza

I like how those buzzwords are being thrown around casually: "Genocide", "Apartheid" ... It's hard to take your comments seriously. There is no genocide in Gaza, a genocide is a systematic annhiliation of a whole people. Read the UN ICJ definition of genocide, intent is a major part of it: >Under Article II, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group" If Israel wanted to conduct a genocide in gaza, i.e. had an "intent" - do you think it would have been a problem for it? Would it issue warnings before bombings? no. The only intent here, is to destroy hamas. the rest - a direct consequence of how they fight from within hospitals and civilian population. Second, "apartheid" - Israel has arab supreme judges and muslim parliament members, very very far from apartheid. Is it a perfect system? no. but no system is perfect, especially compared to the rest of the countries of the middle east.

xg15 6mo ago
Come on dude, there are enough, very public indicators that it indeed had that intent. The quotes from various government officials are well-known by now. > Second, "apartheid" - Israel has arab supreme judges and muslim parliament members, very very far from apartheid That term is in relation to Palestinians in the occupied territories, not in relation to Arab Israelis, and you know that. > The only intent here, is to destroy hamas. the rest - a direct consequence of how they fight from within hospitals and civilian population. That's why they're not letting in any shelter material more durable than a tent...
- Protostome 6mo ago
  Quotes are not intents. If someone would have advocated for peace and acted in aggression you wouldn't call them peaceful. You judge by actions, rather than words. and the actions are far from pointing out any intent for a genocide. Second, the occupied territories were Jordanian and Egyptian territories. Currently most of the territory is governed by the Palestinian Authority with Israeli security control. Palestinians have demonstrated very well that they are unable to prevent suicide bombings, stabbing, mass shootings, so Israel had no choice but to take care of the security itself. The purpose of the Oslo accords was to hand the control in the entire west bank to the Palestinians and establish a state in those territories. Right now, we are in a limbo state. This is not an apartheid, apartheid is a systemic racial separation in all levels of society. And finally, again, everything that went into Gaza was used for one purpose - fight and destroy Israel. Where did they get all this concrete to build tunnels? Where did they get all the chemicals and metals to build rocket and rocket fuel?
  - xg15 6mo ago
    Explain what "security control" means.
    - spwa4 6mo ago
      If you explain first what "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him" means, you know, in what is generally considered the constitution of Gaza. Could you please also expand on why this explicitly refers to Jews to be exterminated without limit, not Israeli. Oh AND explain how this is not apartheid or racism: "The sale of Palestinian land to Jews is punishable by death" (part of the PLO laws) I'll wait.
      - xg15 6mo ago
        We can agree that Hamas is bad - but Israel doesn't seem to make any difference between Hamas and the rest of the Palestinians. In fact, if I hear pro-Israel people talk, my impression is that there exists only Israel and Hamas - the latter the pure embodiment of evil - and nothing else. Are all 2 million Gazans Hamas? Israel also doesn't give any indication what would happen to Gaza (and the Gazans) once Hamas is gone. What about olive farmers in the West Bank that get their groves torched by settlers? What about people who are running modern universities in Ramallah or opening galleries and cinemas? (until the IDF raids them?) What about Palestinians who are active in Combatants for Peace or Standing Together? > Oh AND explain how this is not apartheid or racism: "The sale of Palestinian land to Jews is punishable by death" (part of the PLO laws) Ah yeah, like the "anti-white racism" in South Africa. The Israeli "civil administration" and the IDF have full control about land use in the West Bank. They can and do just grab areas that belong to Palestinians and declare them as "state land" or "military restricted areas", until mysteriously some settlement outpost pops up on them. Palestinians have no hope of ever getting that land back and have no other land to go to. The same is (in the West Bank) not true for Israelis.
      - toraway 6mo ago
        For the sake of argument, let's concede that every point you make is 100% true, it's apartheid and racism. How does that possibly make the act of keeping an ethnic minority of 1 million+ people with zero political agency confined in a walled-in ghetto that is routinely bombed into rubble, where the ability to import even basic humanitarian aid is entirely at the mercy of external security forces anything other than apartheid? It would be much easier to make your argument without absurd contortions of logic if Israel actually agreed to a two state solution and gave Palestinians true political agency and right to self-determination. Then they could get away with washing their hands of any culpability, instead of vaguely pointing to the Palestinian Authority which both de jure and de facto is missing most of the attributes of an actual state. First and foremost being controlling a border, instead of Israel's "security control" granting the IDF complete freedom of movement and power to block any goods from entering/exiting the occupied territories. The PA is closer to a city government with fewer powers than even a U.S. state, let alone an actual nation state. As long as that remains unchanged, Israel bears both legal and moral responsibility for the residents, and difficult to view the gross disparities between the rights of Israelis proper and those residing in the occupied areas as anything other than apartheid.

xg15 6mo ago

Come on dude, there are enough, very public indicators that it indeed had that intent. The quotes from various government officials are well-known by now. > Second, "apartheid" - Israel has arab supreme judges and muslim parliament members, very very far from apartheid That term is in relation to Palestinians in the occupied territories, not in relation to Arab Israelis, and you know that. > The only intent here, is to destroy hamas. the rest - a direct consequence of how they fight from within hospitals and civilian population. That's why they're not letting in any shelter material more durable than a tent...

Protostome 6mo ago
Quotes are not intents. If someone would have advocated for peace and acted in aggression you wouldn't call them peaceful. You judge by actions, rather than words. and the actions are far from pointing out any intent for a genocide. Second, the occupied territories were Jordanian and Egyptian territories. Currently most of the territory is governed by the Palestinian Authority with Israeli security control. Palestinians have demonstrated very well that they are unable to prevent suicide bombings, stabbing, mass shootings, so Israel had no choice but to take care of the security itself. The purpose of the Oslo accords was to hand the control in the entire west bank to the Palestinians and establish a state in those territories. Right now, we are in a limbo state. This is not an apartheid, apartheid is a systemic racial separation in all levels of society. And finally, again, everything that went into Gaza was used for one purpose - fight and destroy Israel. Where did they get all this concrete to build tunnels? Where did they get all the chemicals and metals to build rocket and rocket fuel?
- xg15 6mo ago
  Explain what "security control" means.
  - spwa4 6mo ago
    If you explain first what "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him" means, you know, in what is generally considered the constitution of Gaza. Could you please also expand on why this explicitly refers to Jews to be exterminated without limit, not Israeli. Oh AND explain how this is not apartheid or racism: "The sale of Palestinian land to Jews is punishable by death" (part of the PLO laws) I'll wait.
    - xg15 6mo ago
      We can agree that Hamas is bad - but Israel doesn't seem to make any difference between Hamas and the rest of the Palestinians. In fact, if I hear pro-Israel people talk, my impression is that there exists only Israel and Hamas - the latter the pure embodiment of evil - and nothing else. Are all 2 million Gazans Hamas? Israel also doesn't give any indication what would happen to Gaza (and the Gazans) once Hamas is gone. What about olive farmers in the West Bank that get their groves torched by settlers? What about people who are running modern universities in Ramallah or opening galleries and cinemas? (until the IDF raids them?) What about Palestinians who are active in Combatants for Peace or Standing Together? > Oh AND explain how this is not apartheid or racism: "The sale of Palestinian land to Jews is punishable by death" (part of the PLO laws) Ah yeah, like the "anti-white racism" in South Africa. The Israeli "civil administration" and the IDF have full control about land use in the West Bank. They can and do just grab areas that belong to Palestinians and declare them as "state land" or "military restricted areas", until mysteriously some settlement outpost pops up on them. Palestinians have no hope of ever getting that land back and have no other land to go to. The same is (in the West Bank) not true for Israelis.
    - toraway 6mo ago
      For the sake of argument, let's concede that every point you make is 100% true, it's apartheid and racism. How does that possibly make the act of keeping an ethnic minority of 1 million+ people with zero political agency confined in a walled-in ghetto that is routinely bombed into rubble, where the ability to import even basic humanitarian aid is entirely at the mercy of external security forces anything other than apartheid? It would be much easier to make your argument without absurd contortions of logic if Israel actually agreed to a two state solution and gave Palestinians true political agency and right to self-determination. Then they could get away with washing their hands of any culpability, instead of vaguely pointing to the Palestinian Authority which both de jure and de facto is missing most of the attributes of an actual state. First and foremost being controlling a border, instead of Israel's "security control" granting the IDF complete freedom of movement and power to block any goods from entering/exiting the occupied territories. The PA is closer to a city government with fewer powers than even a U.S. state, let alone an actual nation state. As long as that remains unchanged, Israel bears both legal and moral responsibility for the residents, and difficult to view the gross disparities between the rights of Israelis proper and those residing in the occupied areas as anything other than apartheid.