Hide behind the poll: is Israel committing a genocide against Palestine?

[Wiswylfen]

Let me get this straight.

Israel is a nuclear-armed state with one of the strongest armies in the region. They have uncontested air superiority and the IDF is making steady advances.

Gaza is a densely-populated area smaller than New York crammed full of Civilians. Most buildings and infrastructure are poorly constructed.

Israel has a goal of complete extermination of Gazans. In the six months in which all of the above have been true, they have "only" managed to kill 1-2% of the Palestinian population.

Pretty bad attempt at a genocide, ngl.

What an argument. "It's not a genocide because not enough people are dead."

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Let me get this straight.

Israel is a nuclear-armed state with one of the strongest armies in the region. They have uncontested air superiority and the IDF is making steady advances.

Gaza is a densely-populated area smaller than New York crammed full of Civilians. Most buildings and infrastructure are poorly constructed.

Israel has a goal of complete extermination of Gazans. In the six months in which all of the above have been true, they have "only" managed to kill 1-2% of the Palestinian population.

Pretty bad attempt at a genocide, ngl.

What an argument. "It's not a genocide because not enough people are dead."

Yes? 9/11 wasn't a genocide even though it killed a lot of people.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Of course not, for the reasons others have already stated and many many more reasons as well.

People are hiding behind the poll by saying "Yes" because they hate Israel and will agree with literally any statement that is anti-Israel as long as they feel like they have social permission to agree with it.  So they won't agree with a poll that says "Hamas was right" because there is not social permission for that -- despite the best efforts of many on the left, Hamas is still seen as a disgusting, appalling, monstrous terrorist group by most decent people.  But they will agree with a poll that says "Israel is committing genocide" because there are no social consequences for agreeing with such a statement.

As per usual with the left, what we are saying is a malicious redefinition of the term "genocide" to fit whatever they can accuse Israel of doing.  It's a pattern I've analyzed many times before, where you have a scale of "definition" and "what's actually happening" where definition is at 9 and what's actually happening is at 1.  But then you keep lying and exaggerating about what's actually happening to inch it along that scale, get it to maybe a 3 or a 4.  And then you keep redefining "definition" to get it down from 9 to 7, then 6, then 5.  And before you know it, you can make the case that "definition" = "what's actually happening".  But it's based entirely on you lying about both things.

I really wish someone would coin a term for this phenomenon/technique because we keep seeing it again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Let me get this straight.

Israel is a nuclear-armed state with one of the strongest armies in the region. They have uncontested air superiority and the IDF is making steady advances.

Gaza is a densely-populated area smaller than New York crammed full of Civilians. Most buildings and infrastructure are poorly constructed.

Israel has a goal of complete extermination of Gazans. In the six months in which all of the above have been true, they have "only" managed to kill 1-2% of the Palestinian population.

Pretty bad attempt at a genocide, ngl.

What an argument. "It's not a genocide because not enough people are dead."

It's not a genocide because Israel is not engaging in the planned destruction of a racial, national, or ethnic group.

The fact that they could have trivially engaged in such a destruction, but have not done so, is tautological evidence that they are not.

On the contrary, although many Gazans have died in the war (as happens in pretty much all wars), the rate at which Gazans are dying has slowed down dramatically.  To the point that now people aren't even trying to claim that Israel's genocidal aim is to bomb/murder all the Gazans.  Instead as we see in this thread, people are trying to claim that Israel's plan is to starve the Gazans to death by denying them aid.

We could make the exact same argument to disprove this by pointing out that Israel is allowing aid into Gaza, and also not preventing other countries from building their own apparatus for aid, such as the pier Joe Biden built.  I could also disprove this by pointing to the recent poll that showed ~90% of Gazans say they have access to food.  But what's the point?  In two months, all the famine talk will be completely forgotten as the situation on the ground stabilizes further and aid distribution continues to improve... and people will move on to some other reason they claim Israel is "committing genocide", probably by once again changing the definition of genocide to match whatever new allegation they've settled on.

[Wiswylfen]

Let me get this straight.

Israel is a nuclear-armed state with one of the strongest armies in the region. They have uncontested air superiority and the IDF is making steady advances.

Gaza is a densely-populated area smaller than New York crammed full of Civilians. Most buildings and infrastructure are poorly constructed.

Israel has a goal of complete extermination of Gazans. In the six months in which all of the above have been true, they have "only" managed to kill 1-2% of the Palestinian population.

Pretty bad attempt at a genocide, ngl.

What an argument. "It's not a genocide because not enough people are dead."

Yes? 9/11 wasn't a genocide even though it killed a lot of people.

Absolutely amazing stuff. Whether or not something is a genocide has very little to do with the number of people killed.

[afleitch]

Let me get this straight.

Israel is a nuclear-armed state with one of the strongest armies in the region. They have uncontested air superiority and the IDF is making steady advances.

Gaza is a densely-populated area smaller than New York crammed full of Civilians. Most buildings and infrastructure are poorly constructed.

Israel has a goal of complete extermination of Gazans. In the six months in which all of the above have been true, they have "only" managed to kill 1-2% of the Palestinian population.

Pretty bad attempt at a genocide, ngl.

By that definition there was no genocide in Bosnia.

The most liberal number of those killed was 33,000. Representing about 0.8% of the total 1992 population.

[GeneralMacArthur]

Let me get this straight.

Israel is a nuclear-armed state with one of the strongest armies in the region. They have uncontested air superiority and the IDF is making steady advances.

Gaza is a densely-populated area smaller than New York crammed full of Civilians. Most buildings and infrastructure are poorly constructed.

Israel has a goal of complete extermination of Gazans. In the six months in which all of the above have been true, they have "only" managed to kill 1-2% of the Palestinian population.

Pretty bad attempt at a genocide, ngl.

By that definition there was no genocide in Bosnia.

The most liberal number of those killed was 33,000. Representing about 0.8% of the total 1992 population.

The difference is that Milosevic was engaged in the planned destruction of a racial, national or ethnic group.  And Israel is not.  Milosevic would have continued on his plan of destroying the Muslims of Bosnia had NATO not intervened to stop it, so the fact that he didn't end up killing that many is not a good argument.

[morgieb]

Voted "neutral, lean no", but I can see an argument that they're comitting genocide too. Would probably be inclined to say yes to the idea that they're guilty of ethnic cleansing.

I don't think the war started as a genocidal one, but as Antonio said there's enough ambiguity about their goals and there's enough concerning statements from the Israeli leadership that I can't completely rule out genocide either. And o/c withholding life-saving aid is certainly a war crime.

[GeneralMacArthur]

withholding life-saving aid is certainly a war crime.

good thing they are not doing this then

[GoTfan]

I would say not. Genocide is a very loaded term that's thrown round way too loosely by everyone in the world these days. Applying a strict academic standard to a monstrous crime feels inhuman to me as well though.

Previous genocides have been for the express purpose of wiping an ethnic group off the face of the planet. If Israel wanted to do this with the Palestinian people they could, make no mistake. That said, they are going way too far and have a goal that is way too open-ended, and some of the statements that have been made by key members of the government-such as "There are no innocent people in Gaza"-are extremely alarming and should be taken deadly seriously.

Of course not, for the reasons others have already stated and many many more reasons as well.

People are hiding behind the poll by saying "Yes" because they hate Israel and will agree with literally any statement that is anti-Israel as long as they feel like they have social permission to agree with it.  So they won't agree with a poll that says "Hamas was right" because there is not social permission for that -- despite the best efforts of many on the left, Hamas is still seen as a disgusting, appalling, monstrous terrorist group by most decent people.  But they will agree with a poll that says "Israel is committing genocide" because there are no social consequences for agreeing with such a statement.

As per usual with the left, what we are saying is a malicious redefinition of the term "genocide" to fit whatever they can accuse Israel of doing.  It's a pattern I've analyzed many times before, where you have a scale of "definition" and "what's actually happening" where definition is at 9 and what's actually happening is at 1.  But then you keep lying and exaggerating about what's actually happening to inch it along that scale, get it to maybe a 3 or a 4.  And then you keep redefining "definition" to get it down from 9 to 7, then 6, then 5.  And before you know it, you can make the case that "definition" = "what's actually happening".  But it's based entirely on you lying about both things.

I really wish someone would coin a term for this phenomenon/technique because we keep seeing it again and again and again and again and again and again and again.

I'm on the left. I don't hate Israel and have indeed argued against this being called a genocide, yet you've tried to characterise me as a terrorist sympathiser and tried to equate mental illness with criticism of Israel, while I've had Vosem label me a slavery supporter and a Nazi.

You're once again trying to find as much straw as you possibly can to make your argument, which is not the first time you've done so on any issue. You are so caught up in this pathological hatred on anyone slightly to your left that you cannot engage with people more progressive than you in good faith because you immediately assume the worst and try to characterise them as being evil and horrible.

And yes, I can say this because I have engaged fairly reasonably with other pro-Israel posters and while we may not see fully eye to eye, we can at least have a respectable discussion. I'll once again signal out Ray Goldfield who I don't 100% agree with on Israel, but who is at least willing to hear me out. Considering the scraps the two of us had during the Corbyn years, I'd say that I've evolved and matured slightly.

I'll be the first to start talking with you when you're ready to argue your position in good faith and not immediately assume that me and people like me are terrorist sympathisers, and I hope we can talk like adults soon.