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Israeli forces kill, wound Palestinians waiting for food aid in Gaza
(www.aljazeera.com)
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this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2024
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While I appreciate your thoughtful response, I disagree with the fact that we need to wait for 17million Palestinians murdered before we can liken the current genocide to the Holocaust.
The way I see it, the Holocaust was/is attributed to the systematic cleansing and expulsion of an ethnic group at a mass scale and not measured by the number of murdered people (not death, murder because that’s what it is).
You can call it whatever you want, but at the end of the day what is happening in Palestine is an ethnic cleansing at a mass scale similar to the Holocaust.
The comment I replied to said:
30,000 people have died. 17 million people died in the holocaust. That is not on the same level and it is not on the same scale. 30,000 is a significantly smaller number than 17 million.
If you support the Palestinian cause, pretending otherwise is a home goal.
I get that it feels right, because people are understandably angry about all this, but it's not a winning argument. Quite the opposite. If you're provably exaggerating the scale of what's happening, it allows supporters of Israel's far right government to sow doubt and claim you might also be exaggerating about the very very real war crimes and ethnic cleansing they are engaged in.
I feel like you and I are NOT on the same page, as a matter of fact, I feel like we are arguing to different points.
You seem like you are gatekeeping the definition of the Holocaust based on number of murdered casualties, I argue that the act of ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people is comparable to the Holocaust.
Please don’t create another straw man to argue over, the number of casualties was never the point, rather the act itself.
Your comment above:
Maybe you misunderstood my criticism, but I wasn't disputing that what was happening was genocide or ethnic cleansing. I was disputing the level or scale of what was happening. Clearly what is happening in Gaza (and the West Bank) is on a smaller scale. 17 million vs. 30,000 in Gaza.
This doesn't make what is happening ok. It just means that it is on a smaller scale than the holocaust.
This is not another argument. The number of casualties was my argument from the beginning. The number of casualties may not have been your point, but it was mine when you said that what was happening was on the same level or scale as the holocaust.
This is also not a strawman argument. I am literally adressing something you said in your comment.
On a more general note, this is why comparisons to the Nazis or the Holocaust are rarely helpful, and partly why Godwin's law is a thing.
For example, just because someone isn't Adolf Hitler or a Nazi, doesn't mean they're not a fascist. Calling someone like Ben Gvir or Smotrich a Nazi might feel good, but it allows them to say "Aha! But I don't believe x, y, z. Also, the Nazis hated Jews. I'm a Jew. So you're wrong." It undermines your argument, even if they are quite similar to Nazis. Call them a fascist or racial supremacist, based on things that they actually said and did, and it's far harder to deny.
I have much respect that you are willing to engage in a civilized argument.
Now that you have pointed out what I have posted, I understand that I wasn’t being explicit enough in my definition and argument so I’ll do that here:
When I said Holocaust level, I didn’t mean it in the sense of the total amount of victims, but rather the act itself (systematic cleansing and expulsion of an ethnic race).
I hope you and I are now on the same page.
The other key distinction, of course, being that in the Holocaust, the Nazis were not striking military targets in the course of killing Jews. They were just lining up civilians and shooting them into mass graves, that is before that sort of up close violence affected the morale of the Nazis and they invented the gas chambers and death camps instead.
There is literally none of that going on in Gaza. There's also the fact that for virtually all of these airstrikes there is a legit military target, being the tunnels underneath the cities.
I agree that the victims of the holocaust are 17 million by many estimates, but did you notice how the wikipedia page of it only mentions 6 million Jewish deaths under the Holocaust definition as an event?
Curious to know what you think about that because it irks me. I don't see how all those dead Polish people aren't part of the tally.
Ethnic cleansing = 1% of the ethnic population dead?
Not doing a very good job are they?
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal such as deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction.
Capturing 78% of Palestine in 1948, followed by colonizing and taking control of 60-88% of the West Bank for a total of 91-97% of all of Historic Palestine; dispossessing millions of Palestinians while violently maintaining an apartheid under permanent occupation isn't doing a good job to you?
Unfortunately, we can't go back in time. Second-guessing Israel's creation and settlement by Jews does literally nothing to address the current problem.
October 7 changed the calculus: the tunnels have to be destroyed now and Hamas cannot continue to remain in charge. It is Hamas who built the tunnels under people's homes and it is Hamas who encourages people to ignore their own safety and stay in harm's way so that they can be killed as proud Martyrs.™
Hamas should surrender right now and bring the violence to an end but it won't. The West certainly isn't going to demand a ceasefire, that's a courtesy we might extend to a state power in a political settlement of the war, but not to literal terrorists that only recently stopped using suicide bombers.
The death toll is horrifying but I blame Hamas for these numbers. It's why they built the tunnels under people's houses in the first place, it's called using human shields. Then, Hamas acts all shocked Pikachu, "why would the IDF do this?!," which is called lawfare.
That article you linked to about Hamas tunnels is wtitten by a guy namrd John Spencer. Same said guy said elsewhere that the IDF is takinh more measures than the US in Iraq and Afghanistan to protect civilians. Just for reference so that you know that what you consider "unbiased recognized law" is just yet another staunch pro Zionist writer.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2024/02/01/west-point-urban-warfare-expert-idf-implemented-more-measures-to-prevent-civilian-casualties-than-any-other-military-in-history/
Seems like almost any opinion you hsve echos that guy's opinion. :/
Are you John Spencer?
He even loves Bibi.
You have been tricked, my bud.
I think it's absolutely naive to think that Israeli oppression of Palestinians would end by anyone surrendering.
So the whole "Lawfare" hinges on the premise of human shields. In bad faith of course, as it ignores all IDF use of Human shields and assumes all Hamas as a given despite any verified evidence. This also ignores the history behind the occupation, the daily violence needed to maintain the occupation, the conditions in Gaza before Oct 7th, and any comprehensive historical analysis of the development/actions of Hamas and other Armed resistance groups.
When it comes to human shields, the only independent verification back in 2014 (Amnesty link) is of Weapons (not rockets) hidden at a vacant school, situated btwn 2 UNRWA schools housing displaced people, by a Palestinian armed group.
The Guardian journalists had encountered a couple individuals in 2014 too.
HRW on Laws-of-War Violations 2009
Amnesty on Hamas War Crimes 2023
Yet none of those come remotely close to making hospitals and schools bombing targets. Even if all the IDF claims were true, that does not exempt those hospitals and schools as protected under international law.
While we're on the subject, let's look at how the IDF uses Human Shields including Children (2013 Report)
This kind of apologia for Israel, where you blame the violence imposed on the Palestinians by their occupiers to be the fault of the Palestinians, shows you don't genuinely care about resolving the conflict or bringing an end to the violence. Whether you know it or not; you're justifing the brutal occupation, the apartheid, the martial law, the military courts, the theft and extortion of water, the exploitation of Palestinians as a workforce without rights, the settler violence, the deprivation of human rights for Palestinians, the destruction of schools, the destruction of hospitals, the destruction of homes, the starvation of children, the execution of women and children, the inhuman torture and abuse of Palestinians and yes even children in Israeli prisons. You don't see Palestinians as human when you justify all this. If you do see palestinians as human, the same as Israelis or anyone else. It's completely clear that this shit is completely unacceptable, yet it's been the reality for decades and decades. I don't know if it's intentional or out of ignorance, but I hope it's simply out of ignorance.
The IDF uses one or two people as human shields. There's literally like 25 reports of it, ever. It was made illegal and people were prosecuted for it.
Hamas used human shields 3,500 people at a time, building tunnels under their houses, forcing people to stay, convincing people evacuation orders are a hoax. There is zero denying this. There are five hundred miles of tunnels in an area 25 miles wide.
No, I did not ignore all the times the IDF have used human shields. It's just not even remotely comparable to using the entire population of major cities as human shields.
Also, re: the ridiculous claim that Israel is an apartheid regime, totally ignores all reason. South Africa apartheid was a system of minority rule. When it's a system of majority rule, it's called democracy. I could understand if you said Israel has some apartheid like policies, but you lose all credibility and reveal yourself as a know-nothing when you say it's literally apartheid. Like, for fucks sake guy, a Palestinian Arab sits on the Israeli supreme Court. You think there were any Afrikans on the South Africa Supreme Court during Apartheid? Ha.
Straight up untrue. You are at best being willfully ignorant at this point. Even after it was ruled illegal it was still used in subsequent wars like Cast Lead and up to present day with little to no consequences. Since April 2004, DCI-Palestine has documented 26 cases involving Palestinian children being used as human shields by the Israeli army. Nineteen of the 20 cases have occurred after the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled the practice to be illegal in October 2005.
Use of Human Shields by Israeli Forces
Israeli Veterans describe how they used human shields
In the line of fire: In Gaza, anyone can wind up a 'human shield'
The existence of the tunnels and that Hamas told residents to stay put after Israel ordered the evacuation are true, yeah. Not forcing people to stay. That's not how human shields work. You're comparing real coerced human shields to this made up third definition.
"Now, what we claim is that there is a third kind of human shield," Gordon told CBC News. "That is the human shield that does not volunteer and is not coerced, but just by being where they are, they become human shields. Or more precisely, I would say they're framed as human shields. "In the Gaza Strip, for example, if the Hamas tunnels are a legitimate military target, and the tunnels span 700 kilometres, then they are under the whole Gaza Strip. So anyone above them becomes a human shield. And so you are casting or framing the whole civilian population almost as human shields.
"When Israel bombs a mosque or a school or an apartment building and kills civilians, it blames Hamas for using human shields. And yet Israel's military command centre is in central Tel Aviv, and its Southern Command centre is in the centre of Beersheba," he said. "And when Hamas bombs these cities, no one in the Western media says that the Israeli civilians around these centres are human shields.
By that made up third definition, you're also saying that the IDF is using every Israeli near their command centers as human shields. And then using that to justify them as legitimate targets. When you apply the same standards, it becomes quite clear how blatant the double standards are. This entire human shields argument by the IDF is to legitimatize all Palestinians in Gaza as legitimate targets. Israeli officials have said this on record.
Do you somehow think that if there was a single Black person on the South African Supreme Court, making a white majority of 14/15, that would somehow make South Africa not an Apartheid State? Despite the apartheid policies on-the-ground? What if they expelled 80% the black population into bantustans (to ensure a white majority) so they didn't need to include them as part of their South African population demographics? With a white majority population, they would have a stable basis for a white democratic state. Well, now in that case, I suppose it's actually a democracy instead of an apartheid state. After all, they would have a Black judge on the Supreme Court and the remaining 20% non-whites could still vote democraticly like the rest of the population. You can ignore the bantustans, they're simply occupied disputed territories with stateless people. /s
This makes it extremely obvious you don't know much about Apartheid South Africa. What you're referencing is Petty Apartheid. Which is much less present in Israel than it was in South Africa. There is much more of what is considered Grand Apartheid. Less so for Arab Israelis in Israel proper, much more so within the Occupied Palestinian Territories. This is extensively detailed in the UN, HRW, and Amnesty hundred page reports on how Israel is an apartheid state. Again, you are being willfully ignorant by refusing to engage and take these reports seriously. Israel never needed Petty Apartheid to function as a democratic ethnostate. The majority needed for it was ensured by the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 and the Military Law that governed the Palestinians within Israel until 1967.
Ben-Gurion in an address to the central committee of the Histadrut on 30 December 1947:
Addressing the Mapai Council, Ben-Gurion declared:
As you noticed, @JustZ@lemmy.world just skipped over your entire explanation and now claims that you are defending Hamas. Classic.
Bro seriously in here defending Hamas building terror tunnels under everyone's houses and you're comparing it to Israel...checks notes...merely having military bases? Israel is a legitimate state. It is allowed to have military bases. Gaza is not.
What conclusion can be drawn from your hypocrisy other than that you just don't like Jews?
Gaza is forfeit now and it's because of the tunnels and it because it has no ability to govern itself.
Your human shield and apartheid analysis are nonsense. There's a huge difference between a minority group controlling the majority in all things, without consent, as compared to a majority group, duly enacting laws that discriminate against minority. Discrimination is not great, but in a democracy that can be fixed.
You let me know when Hamas and their backwards ass culture does anything to stop discrimination. Actually, if you ask them to, they'll will probably stone you to death as an infidel.
Why not? Don't Palestinians have the right to self determination and a state?
Then why has Israel not managed to "fix" this? Maybe because no Palestinians are allowed to vote and rarely ever to Palestinian and non-Jewish Israelis make it to a high political position?
Do you have any proof of this?
Hamas does all kinds of shit, but I've never heard of them stoning anyone.
You seem to be lumping a bunch of Islamophobic stereotypes into one then projecting it on Hamas. Why?
What right do I have to tell people how to fight back against their occupiers? I wouldn't to Jewish people in the Nazi Ghettos fighting back either. I disagree with plenty that Hamas has done, and I criticize them for it. They've done war crimes, that's unacceptable. That doesn't change the fact that they have the right by international law to fight back against their occupiers.
You're conflation between anti-Zionism / criticisms of the State of Israel and genuine antisemitism, is in itself very antisemitic. You're attributing the actions of Israel as representative of all Jewish people, which is really fucked up. Israel doesn't even represent all Israelis, and nowhere near all Jewish people. Just because Israel claims otherwise doesn't make it true. Do you think B'TSelem and Jewish Voice for Peace are antisemitic too?
I'm advocating for equal rights for both Israelis and Palestinians,.You are literally advocating for the destruction of the entirety of Gaza, including at best the expulsion of millions of Palestinians and at worst their execution for being 'terrorists.' You are exactly the same kind of person who would've supported Nazi Germany in the 1930's and the forced transfer of millions of Jewish people because it's an act of 'self-defence.'
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/index.php/content/en/article/deceiving-the-public
You've grossly overdramatized and exaggerated what I've actually said.
Hamas also thinks their position is a moral one. Does that make them Nazi propogandists too? When they cast east Germany as victims of foreign aggression, they were actually lying. Don't have to lie to say literal terrorists are in charge of Gaza, and Gaza is not a sovereign state.
And yes, saying Israel is an apartheid state is an anti Jewish statement. You want to say it's like apartheid, fine, but apartheid means something very different, and is in and of itself a crime against humanity. Not all discrimination by the state is a crime against humanity, though. The thing that makes apartheid a crime against humanity is that it is a system of minority control over the unconsenting majority.
Saying Israel is literally an apartheid state is to treat it as inferior; it is to say that, when other states do it, it's a matter of local custom or just a different culture doing things differently; but when it's Israel it's a war crime.
Apartheid is a system of minority rule. Israel is it not a system of minority rule. It is not an apartheid state. It's guilty of barbaric, racial discrimination, for sure. In no way is it literally apartheid, and I think you'll find that there's not very many serious people who say that it is, not in foreign service and not in law, anyway, which is what we're talking about, here.
I'm advocating for equal rights of Palestinians, too, just that I realize that Gaza has no government and no capacity to rebuild itself since the tunnels were so extensive. It's sad that Hamas put them under the highest density neighborhoods in Gaza and then encouraged people not to evacuate after using them for decades to indiscriminately target Israeli civilians, but hey that's the strategy the people in charge of Gaza have chosen.
There's a right enshrined in international law to disguise soldiers as civilians so they can more easily violate international law? Haven't heard of that one but you're the expert. ✅
Meanwhile in Occupied Palestinian Territories:
Citation please?
Making up your own definition of apartheid doesn't make it true dude.
Why don't you just read the actual reports?
Either the Amnesty, the HRW, or the B'TSelem report. If you're so confident that it's not apartheid, then why don't you go through these reports and debunk them yourself. If you are actually right like you believe, and facts are on your side, then you have nothing to fear. B'TSelem even has a quick explainer. If you find reading too monotonous, then maybe watch this video or this video or even this video first. And if you're still in disbelief, then go back to the reports.
It's so extensively documented. If you seriously engage with even just a single one of these links, even starting from the basis that it's all lies and you work to debunk each one, you might start to recognize the gravity of the situation in Palestine. And more importantly, how it got like this. I dare say, you might even start to empathize with palestinians. Please dude, if you genuinely give a single shit about equal rights and ending the violence. Read these reports, watch these videos.
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Yeah actually though it's you, Amnesty, HRW, and B'Tselem who have made up a new definition of apartheid that only applies to Jews.
Maybe your problem is that you believe reports from anyone who makes them. Anyone can make a report.
Why not check the peer reviewed law review articles on this subject, see how ridiculous everyone in the actual world of law finds these one-sided and biased reports. Because, once again, apartheid is a system of a minority control over the majority, the literal opposite of democracy. Israel is a democracy, period. It cannot also be an apartheid regime such as South Africa was, unless you redefine the word, which, again, is racist, and it is what you're doing.
So far in denial you think the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (Apartheid Convention) and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Rome Statute are all antisemitic. That human rights organizations are antisemitic, even the Jewish Israeli ones. That the UN is antisemitic. That the ICJ is antisemitic. Huh, maybe it's not just anyone making these reports. Maybe there's exhaustive evidence that's independently verified and upheld to international standards of law.
"Why don't you ignore all that and listen to just state propaganda instead?' No shit State department propaganda defends and justifies the position of State Department actions. That's the entire purpose of manufacturing consent. We've also defended our use of nuclear bombs on dense population centers, carpet bombing Vietnamese villagers, use of chemical weapons like agent orange, our invasion and terrorism of Iraq and Afghanistan, WMDs in iraq. It's almost like US propaganda has reliably lied about and also justified the actions of the state.
You're incredibly gullible. You're too scared to click on any of those links, you'd rather stick to your safety net of denial. You don't care about Apartheid, if you did you'd learn about the definitions in international law and take those reports seriously. Because they are made by human rights organizations that do highly credible work and are recognized internationally for it.
Nah buddy, you're putting words in my mouth that I never said.
Then read the reports, because that is effectively what you're saying when you ignore them and also promote articles by people literally working for the US State Department
People working for it, but not the Secretary, not the Deputy Secretary. There are 80,000 people working for the State Department.
Although I think you will find if you actually look at what people have said, they are saying Israel is like apartheid, not that it is apartheid.
Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank are not citizens of Israel. Why is it a crime against humanity for Israel to grant lesser rights to non citizens? Literally every other country does that, too. But the only time anyone calls it apartheid is when it involves Israel.
And it's never to argue about any specific policy that Israel has toward non-citizens, it's just to say "Israel is evil and Hamas is justified in targeting Israeli civilians." Hmmm.
I have looked at what these organizations have said and why. Israel is guilty of the crime of Apartheid by the international standards of law. The reasons why are laid out. I've provided plenty of sources to show how exactly that is the case. You choose not to read the reports. You choose not to even watch the videos, which are much easier to digest. You have made the decision to be willfully ignorant. It's on you to take that next step. Everyone is susceptible to propaganda, that includes you, that includes me. That's why I look for independent reporting, and the works of multiple historians. That's why I look into what sources they use and why.
I've looked at the NATO documents and what they claim. They use nearly exclusively military Israeli sources, which have an extensive track record of lying and fabrication. Yet NATO documents take them at face value. Other documents they use can even show contradictions to what the NATO documents claim with those sources. Those are the reasons I don't consider it a credible source.
Yeah, it doesn't feel good to second guess your own biases. I had a difficult time finding out all the terrible shit the US has done and continues to do on foreign policy. I still did it, because I'd rather have the full story. Even if it means coming to terms that the country I'm a citizen of (US) has done abhorrent war crimes.
You genuinely want to believe Israel is a real democracy. That's why you're so against seriously considering these sources and reports on how Israel is guilty of Apartheid. Because you can't have a democracy and an Apartheid, if you have an Apartheid then you don't have a real democracy. There is nothing more I can do for you other than point you to books by new Historians on the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Like this guy?
Like John Spencer? Who gets his research reviewed and rwferenced and looked at by Bibi? You think that this guy is telling you the truth and isn't a propaganda arm of Israel???
If you discard Al Jazeera for being funded by Qatar, then be fair and discard John Spencer for being a literal propaganda pusher.
I see the denial is kicking in even stronger. The uglier Israel's crimes are, the more pathetic your excuses and analysis.
That dude's denial runs so deep. I'm just glad there are others like you that debunk the Israeli propaganda and dehumanization of Palestinians.
Thanks. Admittedly this person just drives me up the wall /: they don't like it when I respond and has said they tried to block me... I offered help to show them how and I'm still unblocked so I will continue to challenge their crap