• Shadywack@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Are you fucking seriously going to try and split hairs over definitions (which you’re incorrect btw, genocide’s literal definition is the killing of a large group of people in an ethnicity with the goal of destroying that nation or group) so you can level the playing field of evil here??

    The prior comment remarked that Israel could have slaughtered everyone in Gaza but didn’t, and now you’re trying to redefine genocide so that Israel looks worse.

    Mental gymnastics aside, Hamas was fucking insane to go after children. Israel is fucking insane to go after Hamas with the human shields they have.

    No amount of hand wringing externally is going to defuse this. Hubris is going to make this worse though, that I do believe.

    • dx1@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This thread was about whether or not it’s “fair or accurate” to call them “genocidal”. The word, “literally” taken down to its roots, does mean “geno” (people) “cide” (killing), but actual definitions in use are more nuanced. From the UN “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”, for instance:

      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:

      (a) Killing members of the group;

      (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

      (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

      (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

      (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

      • Shadywack@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The UN’s historically been an apologist for atrocities whenever the power benefits afford the defense of the reprehensible. Pulling out a UN Convention definition when politically convenient is a disgrace, much like the UN’s history of confronting atrocities for the past 40 years.

        • dx1@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That’s basically an ad hominem. That’s a commonly accepted definition, address the content specifically if you have an issue with it.

        • dx1@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          That wasn’t my point either way - but, as a group, as a government, they plainly are.

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            They literally are not. What you’re missing is that shooting someone in combat scenarios is not “killing members of the group/causing serious bodily/mental harm to members of the group” as genocide is defined. Murdering them wholesale is. Intentionally starving them, as with the Holodomor, is.

            None of the rest is even arguably happening at all. There is no way to construe their relationship as genocidal.

            The reason why is right there in the opening: with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

            Are Israel’s policies discriminatory? Yes. Oppressive? Hell yes. Poorly conceived, authoritarian bullshit? I’m right there with you. Genocide? No.

            Things can be wrong and need changing without being literally the worst thing.

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Intentionally starving them

              None of the rest is even arguably happening

              they literally said they’re cutting off food.

              • SCB@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                No, they’re blockading food imports. By forming an absolute blockade, they prevent/significantly reduce weapons and personnel trafficking.

                If civilians start starving en masse, you will absolutely see international calls of genocide.i will be among the first to the podium on that one.

                • Sybil@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  you will absolutely see international calls of genocide.

                  we already are, and you’re saying it’s a lie. i have no reason to think you’ll ever change your tune.

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              What you’re missing is that shooting someone in combat scenarios

              this same reasoning would mean the nazis were justified in violently suppressing ghetto uprisings.