Palestinian officials are accusing Israeli forces of carrying out “execution-style” killings in Gaza after the discovery of a mass grave containing at least 30 decomposing bodies. Some of the victims were blindfolded with their hands tied behind their backs with zip ties. The bodies were found on the grounds of a school in Beit Lahia. Al Jazeera spoke to one man who helped discover the bodies.
Palestinian man: “Inside the schoolyard, we were shocked to find the dead bodies. Those are Palestinian civilians, blindfolded and handcuffed at the back. The dead bodies were kept inside black plastic bags.”
The discovery of the mass grave comes as the death toll in Gaza has topped 27,000. At least another 66,000 have been injured. The group Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor is now estimating that more than 25,000 Palestinian children have lost one or both parents in Gaza over the past four months.
Democracy Now have a left-wing bias, but are a factual source. . That said, I’m not here to defend them - nor do I have much interest in this particular article or event.
I was asking about the broader situation, action, policy and rhetoric. My views are based more on the history of the situation, the casualty counts, reporting from the likes of AP and Reuters, UN oversight, and significantly, the words of the Israeli leadership themselves. If nothing else, when a political leader tells you they want to exterminate a group they’ve been keeping in brutal conditions, then kills tens of thousands of them, I tend to believe them.
I’m not going to call you a genocide denier, but I will ask you - are you denying the genocide, and if so, on what grounds. If you have any thoughts on the differentiation from the Nazis of that era, I’d like to hear those too.
By this point honestly I don’t know. The quality of information that gets to the public, the bias and propaganda from both sides, even the mass bot account in lemmy.world that downvote everything not anti Israeli tells me there is alot of information missing.
Are we looking at individuals actions, groups of people, or a systematic process? The amount of suppressed information and incorrect reporting makes the latter appear to be all there is, but the reality is somewhere in the range.
Could it be a genocide - yes. Are there massive questions that need to be asked - absolutely. Have both sides committed crimes against humanity - very likely. Is it enough for media to be screaming genocide, make a biased article to inflame the masses without checking the facts - no.
What definition of genocide are you using? There’s no way to credibly dispute the fact that Israel’s actions comfortably meet both the UN and dictionary definitions.
Do you have any thoughts on my question about the meaningful differentiation between Novemberpogrome-era Nazi Germany and modern Israel?
UN definition
The key difference being we are seeing incidents of killing of civilians - either in conflict (expected) or execution (not expectedin conflict). What we aren’t seeing is a focused attempt at destroying the entire group - 10 here, mostly men, building destroyed there - or clear instructions to destroy the group. Quality reporting is showing individual incidents, mass propaganda and biased articles are calling it genocide.
No sorry, I cant comment on the difference as that wasn’t my area of study - mine was surface level Syria, Ukraine, Rwanda and War crime definitions, causes and responses. Id be limited to what the other poster said - one spoke German.
Here’s the full UN definition:
A major portion of the Palestinian territory has been flattened, and supplies to rebuild have been blocked, people can’t return, and are kept in concentration camp conditions. Israel have killed more civilians than the total number of Hamas members in existence, and are showing no signs of “progress” - let alone slowing down. There’s also the small fact that they funded the rise of Hamas over the secular moderates - seemingly to create the pretext for the genocide they’re now committing. Tens of thousands of dead isn’t isolated incidents - particularly when they’re just stating their genocidal intent. Here’s some relevant quotes… I can provide admission that they were funding Hamas too if you’d like.
Prime Minister Netanyahu
and
and
“Defence” minister Galant
Kallner…
Atbaryan…
Halevi…
If someone tells you they want to commit a genocide before killing tens of thousands of civilians in a few months while subjugating the entire population they’ve said they want to exterminate, I think it’s safe to believe them.
I don’t deny that a genocide was attempted on 10/7. I also believe that Israel has the right to ensure it’s security, especially if the Palestinian public refuses to do so themselves. You might say “But Palestinians have no responsibility to do so” and you’d be wrong. 80 years of terrorism against the Israeli people means that Palestinians have a responsibility to stop the violence.
Until they do, Israel must take actions to defend itself. If you have suggestions for how this should be done, I’m all ears.
Are Palestinians entitled to defend themselves?
Is this defending themselves?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks
Yeah, that’s a list of Palestinians attacking invaders/colonizers in Palestine. Palestinians defending themselves in Palestine is unambiguously self defense. The tactics aren’t preferable, but I’m in no position to tell any person suffering under a brutal occupation that their fight for self determination is in some way invalid.
Cool, you say that Israel is colonizers and Palestine is defending themselves.
I’ll say that Gazans are terrorists and Israel is ensuring it’s security. Israelis defending themselves after an invasion of their country is unambiguously self-defense. Their tactics aren’t preferable, but I’m in no position to tell someone who is under attack how to defend themselves.
Unfortunately none of this solves problems for actual civilians in the conflict.
Here’s the problem… For the past several decades or so, Israel has blockaded Gaza and the West Bank from getting any kind of support from the outside.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_the_Gaza_Strip
They don’t have the material or the personnel to do ANYTHING about the violence being enacted against the Israelis and that’s BY THE DESIGN of the Israelis.
So what do you expect the Palestinians to do? Israeli policies have been crushing them for decades, they don’t have the capacity to throw out Hamas because Israel actively prevents them from having the capacity. Sooo? Obtain weapons illegally? Now in the eyes of Israel they ARE Hamas and they get attacked too.
It gets even worse, because it means they don’t have great access to information either.
There was a video soon after Oct 7 that showed Palestinians celebrating in the streets. They hadn’t been told about the civilian deaths or kidnappings though, only that a prison had been liberated. And that context wasn’t shown alongside their celebrations when Israelis saw it.
The suppression of information has led to misunderstandings that perpetuate the hate and the war. Just as Netanyahu wants, I suspect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks
Israel fully withdrew from Gaza and displaced Israelis that had been living in Gaza since the 1940s because of two decades of terror bombings of busses in Israel.
I vehemently oppose the use of violence to achieve political goals in all forms.
I would suggest educating yourself on this conflict and the historical reasons for the state of the conflict today.
Nobody cares what happened in the 1940s, we’re talking about the abuses heaped on Gaza within living memory.
Unfortunate to not care about Israeli civilians being displaced, how am I supposed to care about Palestinians being displaced then?
When the Israeli civilians are engaging in UN declared illegal occupations, it’s hard to have sympathy.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law_and_Israeli_settlements#:~:text=Since the occupation of the,validity and pose a serious
Pretty sure it’s illegal to slaughter thousands of civilians on 10/7. Hard to have sympathy.
Oh, it absolutely is, I’m not justifying murdering people.
Kicking people out of settlements they are occupying illegally because they have a delusional belief that God gave it to them? No sympathy there.
You got your sides mixed up, it’s been 80 years of terrorism, subjugation, blockades, land grabs, against the Palestinian people, and the Palestinians have a right to ensure their security. Have you considered why Israel needs to ‘defend itself’? Why do you think Palestinian people have been fighting for 80 years?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks
TL:DR: Israel isn’t defending itself by committing a genocide against a population they’ve subjugated.
There are a series of issues with this…
Genocide isn’t an act of defence - it’s an attempt to completely exterminate a group of people, and is the greatest act of aggression a group could possibly commit.
The response we’re seeing is in no way proportionate, and causing a completely unacceptable level of civilian casualties (10k+ children alone in response to 1,200 total killed according to Israeli counts).
Israel have killed more Palestinians than the total number of Hamas members in existence with zero indication of progress, and no sign of stopping.
Israel have maintained Palestine in conditions described by the UN as an open air concentration camp, and have placed severe apartheid restrictions on Palestinians for years.
Israel have killed orders of magnitude more Palestinians than Hamas have killed Israelis.
Israel funded the rise of Hamas (who were no less violent then) over the secular moderates - as confirmed by both IDF leadership at the time she Arafat. I see no reason for them to do this other than to manufacture pretext for the genocide while maintaining US support.
Palestinians seem to have a lot more to “defend themselves” against - between the numbers killed and displaced and the very restrictive living conditions they’re subjected to.
Israeli leadership have said pretty plainly and repeatedly that they intend to exterminate Palestinians - if all Palestinians were to lay down arms and submit to the apartheid conditions, movement restrictions, and conditions we’ve seen over the past decade, the well funded nuclear power with modern military simply won’t stop.
What makes Israel’s actions self-defence while Hamas’s lesser actions are not?
I would call this genocide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Palestinian_suicide_attacks
I’m sure you’d call Hamas’s actions a genocide, but based on what definition or metric?
No differences between Israel and the Nazis?
No difference between Israel’s self-defence and Hamas’s attacks?
Godwin’s law states that you have lost the argument/credibility.
Your inability to point to a meaningful distinction between those you’re supporting and literal Nazis or provide a consistent definition of genocide (because you can’t manufacture one that describes Hamas without admitting Israel is committing one) says far more than Godwin’s law ever will.
Your inability to form any argument besides a comparison to Nazis says far more about your reasons for advocating for genocide of Israelis.
Still waiting on that definition of genocide or a meaningful distinction from the Nazis.
Meanwhile, I don’t need to make an argument - I’ll just let the Israeli leadership do that for me…
Prime Minister Netanyahu
and
and
“Defence” minister Galant
Kallner…
Atbaryan…
Halevi…