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TheFreim | 5 months ago

>Israel targets Hamas while taking steps to limit civilian harm. Civilian deaths are tragic, but tragedy is not genocide.

Israel does not merely target Hamas with incidental civilian deaths, they have been documented actively targeting civilians. This has been indisputably demonstrated at this point. Early on I was much more skeptical since it's similarly indisputable that Hamas does engage in terroristic behavior, but as time has gone on we've had report after report confirming that Israel isn't merely targeting Hamas.

> The moral difference is intent.

Hamas intends to eliminate Israel, Israel intends to eliminate Hamas (justifiable) and exterminate the Palestinians (unjustifiable) to continue their long-running expansion operation and further their grip on the region at the expense of the other native populations.

> Calling this “indiscriminate extermination” ignores Hamas using civilians as shields and demands an impossible standard of zero casualties.

1. I've already explicitly acknowledged the distinction between attacking Hamas, inadvertently harming civilians in the process, and the active slaying of the civilian population which is taking place. The former is regrettable but unavoidable, the latter is evil and it is what is also taking place.

2. I intentionally said "near-indiscriminate" rather than just "indiscriminate" for a reason. Unlike many people, yourself included, I don't view this conflict as a completely black-and-white matter. Israel is instrumentalizing their legitimate efforts in order to implement a wider effort to ethnically cleanse Gaza.

discuss

order

revlolz|5 months ago

You keep saying it is “indisputably demonstrated” that Israel is targeting civilians, but you have yet to explain anything other than your feeling. If the evidence is so overwhelming, name the specific proof. “Reports” from Hamas-run ministries or partisan NGOs are not indisputable, they are contested like all wartime information. Overstating your case makes it weaker. UN councils with 50 some odd member states share this same bias.

The crux of genocide is intent. Hamas openly declares its intent to erase Israel. Israel declares its intent to eliminate Hamas. If Israel’s goal was exterminating Palestinians, explain why it has repeatedly supported two-state proposals that Palestinian leadership rejected. Explain why over 20 percent of Israel’s citizens are Arab, voting in elections, serving in parliament, even sitting on the Supreme Court. That reality is incompatible with a state bent on extermination.

Your “near-indiscriminate” phrasing is just a rhetorical trick. If you admit it is not indiscriminate, then you acknowledge Israel is targeting Hamas, not carrying out genocide. Civilian deaths are tragic, but tragedy is not the same thing as a systematic plan to wipe out a people.

Israel drops leaflets, issues warnings, and opens corridors. Hamas embeds in schools, hospitals, and residential blocks. That doesn’t absolve Israel of responsibility when civilians die, but it does show intent matters.

ignoramous|5 months ago

> That reality is incompatible with a state bent on extermination ... Civilian deaths are tragic, but tragedy is not the same thing as a systematic plan to wipe out a people.

Same energy.

  "We could have killed all the Jews in Germany yesterday, but we did not do it. The demonstrations in Franconia were, in general, disciplined, clear, and farsighted." 
  
  - Julius Streicher, in a speech the day after Kristallnacht.
> If Israel's goal was exterminating Palestinians, explain why it has repeatedly supported two-state proposals that Palestinian leadership rejected.

  "The behavior of the Führer and the Reich in these days of continuous Polish and English provocations were remarkable. No other nation would have been as patient. It would have done what the Führer finally did on 1 September much earlier."

zurfer|5 months ago

"The report concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza since 7 October 2023, covering the period from that date until 31 July 2025.

It said that Israel has committed four acts of genocide:

    Killing members of the group: Palestinians were killed in large numbers through direct attacks on civilians, protected persons, and vital civilian infrastructure, as well as by the deliberate creation of conditions that led to death.
     
    Causing serious bodily or mental harm: Palestinians suffered torture, rape, sexual assault, forced displacement, and severe mistreatment in detention, alongside widespread attacks on civilians and the environment.
     
    Inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy the group: Israel deliberately imposed inhumane living conditions in Gaza, including destruction of essential infrastructure, denial of medical care, forced displacement, blocking of food, water, fuel, and electricity, reproductive violence, and starvation as a method of warfare. Children were found to be particularly targeted.
     
    Preventing births within the group: The attack on Gaza’s largest fertility clinic destroyed thousands of embryos, sperm samples, and eggs. Experts told the commission this would prevent thousands of Palestinian children from ever being born."
Genocide can't be measured by intend, because we can't look into someone's head. It's measured by the actions that are taken. And while I do agree that Israels actions are a mixed bag, I feel too many lines are crossed to assume only good intend.

nakamoto_damacy|5 months ago

lol... genocide defenders get the last word.