this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2024
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I can't take seriously any media outlet that uses the term "genocide" willy-nilly. Israel is probably committing war crimes and deserves to be censured for it, but genocide has a very specific and narrow definition, for good reason. We don't call the bombings of Dresden or Hiroshima genocides. The battle of Cannae was not a genocide, but the siege of Carthage could perhaps be considered one.
Genocide isn't particularly narrowly defined, though. It's the intentional destruction of a people - that is, an ethnicity or culture - in whole, or in part.
The reasons for wanting to do so aren't really a consideration, nor is the percentage of the part.
And here's the thing, you have the IDF indiscriminately attacking civilians, forcing them to flee, and threatening to carpet bomb them if they don't while members of the ruling coalition in Israel go out there on television declaring that Israel must gas the Palestinians and "erase Gaza", while calling Palestinians animals and vermin.
And Gaza is home to a significant fraction of Palestinians. It's not the equivalent to Deaden or Hiroshima just from a population breakdown perspective.
But also, you're begging the question with respect to those cities, so you can fuck right off and suck on a tailpipe.
Nor is the requirement that it be by killing them.
For example China's 're-education' of Uighers might be genocide. Because it seems they're trying to eliminate Uigher identity.
Exactly, that's a key thing people don't get, trying to eliminate a culture/people via re-education can be just as genocidal as outright killing them.
If people got that I think reconciliation here would be easier. Residential schools without dead children is just as much an act of genocide.
People are dumb, they get hung up on strict definitions.