Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
- 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;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Clear enough, right?
Under this definition Israel’s occupation and war of extermination is absolutely genocide, unquestionably. The goal is to kill, mutilate, and displace the Palestinian people. The goal is the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza, by any means necessary. Israel’s war on Gaza is genocide.
However, under this definition are the completely justified goals of Hamas also genocide? They intend to destroy the settler-colonial monstrosity that is Zionism and eradicate the nation state of Israel; Palestine from the river to the sea. That, technically, means they are committed with intent to destroy the national group of Israelis by displacement, death, or simply making them into Palestinians after destroying Israel’s government.
That doesn’t seem right to me. I am absolutely in solidarity with Hamas and Palestine in their struggle against the Zionist entity. An occupied people destroying their occupier’s government and settler identity can’t be considered genocide, because it creates this legal and ethical equivalency with the settlers.
And yet, technically, that seems to be the case. Am I wrong?
And, by pointing out this technicality, am I just a dog for Zionism?
Palestine is operating under Occupation Law so the rules are different for them. They are allowed to take up arms to liberate their country, and UN law also understands that in this endeavour civilian deaths will happen. The occupier is not allowed to bring their population to the territory they occupy.
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Oh wow, that’s a succinct way to put it. Appreciate the comment comrade.
Just look at the usage of the word over time. It really came into usage as a weapon against Yugoslavia. It’s social use is heavily anti-communist.
I’ve talked about this before. Aside from the nationalist motivations in coining ‘genocide’, it’s too broad and too disputed to be very useful, so I avoid it whenever possible. There have been and still are other ways one can discuss extermination.
What really made me question the usefulness of the term genocide when examining contemporary conflicts was reading that Milošević was posthumously exonerated for his alleged participation in genocide during the NATO invasion of Yugoslavia.
Even liberals cannot agree that genocide was the driving motivator for the conflict. However, the staunchest opponents to socialism – those hawks who eviscerated a multicultural nation in favor of replacing it with smaller ethnostates – are staunch in their support of the accusation.
It, ‘genocide’, is an easily weaponized thought-killer best reserved for discussion and examination of historical atrocities, imo. Hawks love comparing everything to the shoah. We see it weaponized against China, Yugoslavia, Russia, the USSR… hell, even the DPRK is regularly accused of having “genocidal” ambitions, somehow. Against Koreans? Who knows.
It’s no use arguing definitions without also discussing ideology. No one except logic-brained online dweebs treat dictionaries like the gospel.
Instead of abstracting away all context, you should be focusing in on it. Israel is a recent colonial invention, Palestine has centuries of history (and millenia more under different names). Isrealis are almost exclusively immigrants, Palestinians are indigenous. Israel is conquering territory, Palestine is being stolen from. Israelis live a life comparable to Western countries, Palestinians live in concentration camps. Violence between these two groups are not at all comparable even if the same words are being used to describe them.
No one except logic-brained online dweebs treat dictionaries like the gospel.
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Violence between these two groups are not at all comparable even if the same words are being used to describe them.
I definitely agree, but I actually do think words matter. Not dictionary definitions, necessarily, but the word “genocide” is a thought-terminating cliche that shuts down discussion. How many people have decided to condemn both sides because both want genocide? It’s nonsense, of course, the genocide of settlers is vastly different from the genocide by settlers, but once genocide is invoked the conversation is over.
I agree that words are important which is why you shouldn’t cede an inch on this topic - the removal of an occupying force isn’t genocide, it’s liberation. People who label the situation as a mutual genocide are using words not to describe reality, but to obfuscate it.
If someone brings it up, ask them what they think about the Irish War of Independence or the Haitian Revolution.
I have! However, I was convinced that’s distinctly different because the occupiers have a nation to go back to after the occupation is defeated. French slave owners in Haiti still got to keep their French national identity. British occupiers in Ireland still got to keep their British identity.
Israeli settlers, once the Zionist entity is defeated and Israel is dismantled, will have no national identity. They’ll just be Palestinians.
By the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, that’s genocide. And that can’t be right.
Netanyahu is from Philadelphia. He can easily go back there.
Isreali settlers can all trace their nationality to some other country since Israel didn’t exist until 1948. Netanyahu would be a American Palestinian for example. We could also come up with a new word to describe the settlers as a district group like we do with Afrikaners (Dutch South Africans).
Either way, Israel isn’t real and treating Israeli nationality as equivalent to Palestinians’ is a mistake. That’s like carving a chunk out of Mexico, calling it “Freeland”, then crying genocide against Freelandians when Mexico takes its land back.
A lot of Israeli settlers are from mixed national backgrounds, the only national identity they have is Israeli.
Though if Israel isn’t real then that kinda solves that problem; they’re not Israeli, they’re Zionist settlers and pretending they’re different because they drew some lines on a map and have a flag and use brutal violence to enforce apartheid.
I don’t know the answer but it could be that Zionism is not a nation, race, ethnicity, or religion?
Israel is Zionism. They’re inextricably linked.
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Sooner or later some loser is going to screenshot your reply and share it saying ‘TANKIE SAYS TERRORISTS NAPALMING BABIES IS GOOD NOW!!!’
well yeah, genocide is genocide, even if you think your flavor is justified. However, I don’t think abolishing Israel and replacing it with Palestine would qualify as genocide in and of itself. Hypothetically, if in that Palestinian state Jews were allowed to live unharmed, and to procreate, there’d be nothing genocidal about that.
Hypothetically, if in that Palestinian state Jews were allowed to live unharmed, and to procreate, there’d be nothing genocidal about that.
It’s getting there that is the problem. There’s no peaceful way to implement a free Palestine and Hamas knows this.
Creating a Palestinian state necessarily requires killing or causing serious bodily/mental harm to settlers on a very large scale. The civilian death toll would be necessarily immense - and even the concept of “civilian” is complicated because the majority of Israel’s civilian population are IDF reservists and veterans, and civilian settlers have been deputized to murder Palestinians with the protection of active IDF.
Do I just accept “yeah, I support settler genocide” and deal with the baggage that necessarily has?
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Pretty sure “settler genocide” is genocide by settlers, not of settlers.
No, no, I’m definitely talking about genocide of settlers. I want to be perfectly clear.
My contention is that calling it “genocide” is, itself, creating an equivalency with genocide by settlers. That leads to absurdity like condemning Hamas’s goals of destroying the Zionist entity as “genocide” - I’m sure you’ve seen this before. When I encounter this I’m put into a position of either saying “well yeah but this is a good genocide tho” or just engaging in genocide denial (because it is, technically, a genocide). Either way, the discussion is over, the invocation of genocide terminates all critical thought.
A reservist or a veteran is still a civilian if they are unarmed. If you are advocating for the killing of civilians, or POWs for that matter, you are advocating for war crimes. Simple as that.
I mean you could advocate for a peaceful solution, thats still an option, as absurd as that might seem to you. My take is that both the Israel government and Hamas need to step off the extremism, start viewing the others not by their ethnicity or religion, but as humans. Start talking to each other, discard the idea of retaliation, and make compromises. This is anything but easy, idealistic even, but ultimately it is the only sustainable way for us to progress as a species.
many settlers are allowed to be and encouraged to be armed, with the zionist state even going as far as to purchase and distribute thousands of rifles to them. they then use these rifles to further encroach on palestinian villages and shoot them.
I mean you could advocate for a peaceful solution, thats still an option, as absurd as that might seem to you.
As it might “seem”? I try to live in the material world, and in this world there is clearly no peaceful solution.
The Palestinian Authority has been trying that for decades, it can’t work because settlers do not view colonized people as human equals that must be negotiated with. When Palestinians held peaceful marches, Israeli snipers blew their knees out. It’s not just idealistic, it’s cruel. By condemning Hamas, it seems that all I am doing is supporting Israel because Hamas is the only material force that is fighting for Gaza.
How many generations must live and die begging for peace from an occupying force that tortures them to death?
I am not saying that there willl be a peaceful solution, at least not in the short to medium term, I am saying that thats the only one one should be advocating for. You claim to be a realist, and that there can be no peaceful solution. I agree, but as a realist you also have to see that there can be no violent one either. No amount of violence is going to resolve this conflict. Both Hamas and the Israeli government will keep being armed by their respective allies, this conflict will likely drag on for decades, maybe centuries without any winner. Even if one state is abolished, partisan groups will keep fighting.
Violence pretty much seems inevitable at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that a violent “solution” is any more realistic than a peaceful one.
So violent solutions have worked in other settler colonies, what makes you so certain it can’t work here?
Peaceful coexistence is only possible after he Israeli state is destroyed. Surely you see that? Peace is not possible under settler colonialism
For the first point: Well, Hamas hasn’t been terribly successful so far in wiping out Israel. If anything is currently being destroyed, that would be Gaza City.
For the second point: No, I don’t think I agree. I believe that peace would be possible if Israel stopped discriminating against Palestinians, and if both sites agreed that both Muslims and Jews are allowed to practice their religion anywhere in Israel and Palestine. Additionaly, geographic areas that have been especially contested should be governed by both Israeli and Palestinian representatives. Any reference to ethnicity or religion would have to be removed from Israeli and Palestinian laws as well. It would also probably be a good Idea to mix school classes and to establish exchange programs between schools/universities in Palestine and Israel. Ultimately the underlying issue are the brain diseases called religion and nationalism. If the prevelance of both could be reduced in the population of both states, this would increase the likelyhood of peace. For that, less extremist governments and an overall better education system would certainly help.
I believe that peace would be possible if Israel stopped discriminating against Palestinians
Well no shit, but that isn’t happening lol
"Peace would be possible if they decided to have peace 😊 "
This is idealism and not based on material reality. Do you think settlers will ever choose to stop colonizing on their own? In every settler-colonial state in history the settlers were either forced to stop… or they succeeded in killing all the colonized.
I read this piece earlier today which I thought articulated the meaning behind “from the river to the sea” quite well.
https://decolonizepalestine.com/myth/from-the-river-to-the-sea-is-a-call-to-genocide/
Thanks for this, but it sort of side-steps the question I have which is specifically about Hamas and the intent to destroy the Israeli national group through violence. Obviously a peaceful solution where the Zionist entity is dismantled isn’t genocide (well I’m sure disingenuous Zionists would claim it was, but lets ignore them), but Hamas recognizes that this is idealistic and that their freedom requires killing settlers. Obviously not all Israelis need to die, but genocide doesn’t actually require everyone to die. It just requires the end of the national identity.
It sure seems to fit the technical definition of genocide, and I don’t know what to do or think about that.
The convention about genocide don’t protect people that share a ideology (i.e. Zionism)
Also, the Hamas goals are not genocidal per se:
- The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means.
- Source: Hamas (May 2017) A Document of General Principles and Policies
Well also from the political document:
The Israeli entity is the plaything of the Zionist project and its base of aggression
The destruction of the Zionist project necessarily means the destruction of Israeli state. That means it is not just the destruction of a people that share an ideology, but also the destruction of a national identity. It could hypothetically be peaceful, but we all know it won’t be.
I guess you can sidestep this by not recognizing the existence of Israel as a legitimate nation-state?
I guess you can sidestep this by not recognizing the existence of Israel as a legitimate nation-state?
Nops :-( A state it’s a political construct, as national identity is a social construct. The recognition could be used against the state, but not against the national identity.
But what I was trying to point out was the false dichotomy presented: Israel is genocidal and so is Hamas.
Israel has the material conditions to commit genocide, Hamas does not. At most, Hamas could commit massacres in some settlements, which I don’t see it fits the definition of genocide.
If we ignore that fact, we can use the political program of Hamas, but it also don’t call for a genocide of jews or Israelians, even seems that they could reluctantly accept a 2-state solution.
genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to …
That’s a recipe for imprecise definitions: Base it on intent, when controversy is guaranteed. I don’t think there is a better way to go about, just that it shouldn’t come at a surprise.
Most groups with genocidal practice don’t bluntly declare their intent, or even cover up / deny their actions. For example Russia in Ukraine.
Hamas is upfront about their genocidal intents, e.g. their founding charter. They mostly just lack the means to follow through.
With Israel, as far as I know, such blunt declarations are missing. Intent has to be deferred, which opens it up for interpretation.
I mean, Israeli politicians and defense officials have been calling for mass death of the animals in Gaza. That sounds pretty genocidal.
You mean “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly”? That’s genocidal language, yes. But it remains up to interpretation (which is my main point) wether this in itself is their intent, or wether it’s a defensive reaction after being raided.
It also remains up to interpretation if their wrath is meant against a peoples, or combatants hiding among civilians.
The interesting question is not “Is it clear to me?”, but “Can I imagine someone else interpreting it differently?”. If alternative interpretations of intent are possible (which is usually the case), then the whole definition which hinges on intent is ambiguous.
If that is up to interpretation, then how isn’t Hamas also up to interpretation? Read their political document of you haven’t - they want to destroy the Zionist entity and create a free Palestine from the river to the sea. That isn’t inherently genocidal either.
If that is up to interpretation, then how isn’t Hamas also up to interpretation?
Yeah, I guess they are. I mean, obviously, people disagree over that. So yes, you’re right. It’s apparently all up for interpretation which confirms your title question.
Read their political document of you haven’t - they want to destroy the Zionist entity and create a free Palestine from the river to the sea. That isn’t inherently genocidal either.
I guess each side focuses on what fits to their narrative. If you’re up for an excercise, would you be willing to look into articles 7 and 13, and imagine what others see as clear evidence of genocidal intentions in there?
Anyone can imagine anything, but as you said, if things are up to interpretation then it’s not certain. Either there are concrete definitions for things or we’re all just floating in a obfuscated sea of nuance.
… for the record, 7 and 13 of… what? One of the different Geneva Conventions? There’s different ones yknow, the one I linked doesn’t go that high. Or the Hamas Political Document? Wish you’d just have linked to it lol
Right, I was referring to the Hamas founding charter without being explicit, sorry. Here is a version: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/hamas.asp
Likewise, when you said “Read their political document” you didn’t specify either which. So it just assumed / hoped we mean the same. If you had something else in mind, let me know.
Oh, no, I mean the modern political document that replaced the old one in 2017 they currently operate under. The founding document was definitely genocidal against Jews, but uh, life expectancies in Gaza are really fucking low. The people who wrote that original founding document probably aren’t alive, if that means anything to you.
