• Victor Villas@lemmy.ca
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    2 months ago

    “40,000 dead civilians” doesn’t define a genocide.

    What is the criteria then to tell if Israel is committing genocide to Palestinians?

    • DarthJon@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Have you not been following the news on this? There is an actual definition of genocide in international law. "The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. "

      South Africa will not be able to make their case, which is probably why they asked for an extension on the date to provide evidence. No rational person can conclude from the facts that Israel has demonstrated the intent to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part.

      • Victor Villas@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        So your criteria is a court conviction? I guess that’s one way to answer, but I was more asking what’s your criteria, meaning what’s the criteria you’d personally use to think whether such court decision would be fair or not.

        demonstrated the intent to destroy the Palestinian people

        If that’s what you mean as your answer, then I kinda agree. That’s about what I would use to define genocide.

        • DarthJon@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          That’s the definition of a genocide. The evidence has to support the conclusion that Israel has demonstrated intent to destroy the Palestinian people, and the evidence clearly doesn’t show that. Here are a few key data points:

          1. Even if we take the estimated death toll at face value, every military expert who has looked at the numbers has concluded that the civilian-to-combatant ratio is among the lowest (and possibly THE lowest) in the history of urban warfare. This suggests that the IDF has actually done a very good job of minimizing civilian casualties.
          2. Even if we take the estimated death toll at face value, it represents maybe 1-2% of the entire Palestinian population. If Israel intended to destroy the Palestinian people, you would expect the death toll to be much higher.
          3. The pace of civilian death slowed dramatically over the course of the war in Gaza as the IDF moved into different phases of the war. If Israel intended to destroy the Palestinian people, you would expect the pace of civilian death to remain constant and not diminish over time.
          • Victor Villas@lemmy.ca
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            2 months ago

            If Israel intended to destroy the Palestinian people, you would expect the death toll to be much higher.

            Would I? I don’t know if I would. It’s a big percentage to accomplish in a single campaign, and if you think about the compounding effect of the war on the lives of the remaining 98% it’s still a pretty strong result. For example the UN reported that Gaza now has the biggest cohort of child amputees in modern history. Crippling a generation economically with sanctions and literally with shrapnel is a very powerful genocide tool, and so is claiming land - expanding the largest West Bank land grab in 30 years.

            you would expect the pace of civilian death to remain constant and not diminish over time.

            Again, I don’t think I would. Maybe we have different visions of what an effective genocide strategy looks like in the XXI century.

            • DarthJon@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              A single campaign? It’s a war in a small, densely populated urban environment. If any other country executed this war, the death toll would be 10x higher. All the things you mentioned are horrible effects of war. That doesn’t make it a genocide. It isn’t even close to a genocide. The best way to avoid those terrible effects of war is to not start war in the first place by, for example, invading a sovereign nation and undertaking an orgiastic barbaric murder spree.

      • CanadianCorhen@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        I wish Lemmy had some of the tools I had in Reddit, so I could mark you as “pro-extermination”