Article II
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:
- Killing members of the group;
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
- Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Clear enough, right?
Under this definition Israel’s occupation and war of extermination is absolutely genocide, unquestionably. The goal is to kill, mutilate, and displace the Palestinian people. The goal is the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza, by any means necessary. Israel’s war on Gaza is genocide.
However, under this definition are the completely justified goals of Hamas also genocide? They intend to destroy the settler-colonial monstrosity that is Zionism and eradicate the nation state of Israel; Palestine from the river to the sea. That, technically, means they are committed with intent to destroy the national group of Israelis by displacement, death, or simply making them into Palestinians after destroying Israel’s government.
That doesn’t seem right to me. I am absolutely in solidarity with Hamas and Palestine in their struggle against the Zionist entity. An occupied people destroying their occupier’s government and settler identity can’t be considered genocide, because it creates this legal and ethical equivalency with the settlers.
And yet, technically, that seems to be the case. Am I wrong?
And, by pointing out this technicality, am I just a dog for Zionism?
It’s getting there that is the problem. There’s no peaceful way to implement a free Palestine and Hamas knows this.
Creating a Palestinian state necessarily requires killing or causing serious bodily/mental harm to settlers on a very large scale. The civilian death toll would be necessarily immense - and even the concept of “civilian” is complicated because the majority of Israel’s civilian population are IDF reservists and veterans, and civilian settlers have been deputized to murder Palestinians with the protection of active IDF.
Do I just accept “yeah, I support settler genocide” and deal with the baggage that necessarily has?
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Pretty sure “settler genocide” is genocide by settlers, not of settlers.
No, no, I’m definitely talking about genocide of settlers. I want to be perfectly clear.
My contention is that calling it “genocide” is, itself, creating an equivalency with genocide by settlers. That leads to absurdity like condemning Hamas’s goals of destroying the Zionist entity as “genocide” - I’m sure you’ve seen this before. When I encounter this I’m put into a position of either saying “well yeah but this is a good genocide tho” or just engaging in genocide denial (because it is, technically, a genocide). Either way, the discussion is over, the invocation of genocide terminates all critical thought.
A reservist or a veteran is still a civilian if they are unarmed. If you are advocating for the killing of civilians, or POWs for that matter, you are advocating for war crimes. Simple as that.
I mean you could advocate for a peaceful solution, thats still an option, as absurd as that might seem to you. My take is that both the Israel government and Hamas need to step off the extremism, start viewing the others not by their ethnicity or religion, but as humans. Start talking to each other, discard the idea of retaliation, and make compromises. This is anything but easy, idealistic even, but ultimately it is the only sustainable way for us to progress as a species.
many settlers are allowed to be and encouraged to be armed, with the zionist state even going as far as to purchase and distribute thousands of rifles to them. they then use these rifles to further encroach on palestinian villages and shoot them.
As it might “seem”? I try to live in the material world, and in this world there is clearly no peaceful solution.
The Palestinian Authority has been trying that for decades, it can’t work because settlers do not view colonized people as human equals that must be negotiated with. When Palestinians held peaceful marches, Israeli snipers blew their knees out. It’s not just idealistic, it’s cruel. By condemning Hamas, it seems that all I am doing is supporting Israel because Hamas is the only material force that is fighting for Gaza.
How many generations must live and die begging for peace from an occupying force that tortures them to death?
I am not saying that there willl be a peaceful solution, at least not in the short to medium term, I am saying that thats the only one one should be advocating for. You claim to be a realist, and that there can be no peaceful solution. I agree, but as a realist you also have to see that there can be no violent one either. No amount of violence is going to resolve this conflict. Both Hamas and the Israeli government will keep being armed by their respective allies, this conflict will likely drag on for decades, maybe centuries without any winner. Even if one state is abolished, partisan groups will keep fighting.
Violence pretty much seems inevitable at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that a violent “solution” is any more realistic than a peaceful one.
So violent solutions have worked in other settler colonies, what makes you so certain it can’t work here?
Peaceful coexistence is only possible after he Israeli state is destroyed. Surely you see that? Peace is not possible under settler colonialism
For the first point: Well, Hamas hasn’t been terribly successful so far in wiping out Israel. If anything is currently being destroyed, that would be Gaza City.
For the second point: No, I don’t think I agree. I believe that peace would be possible if Israel stopped discriminating against Palestinians, and if both sites agreed that both Muslims and Jews are allowed to practice their religion anywhere in Israel and Palestine. Additionaly, geographic areas that have been especially contested should be governed by both Israeli and Palestinian representatives. Any reference to ethnicity or religion would have to be removed from Israeli and Palestinian laws as well. It would also probably be a good Idea to mix school classes and to establish exchange programs between schools/universities in Palestine and Israel. Ultimately the underlying issue are the brain diseases called religion and nationalism. If the prevelance of both could be reduced in the population of both states, this would increase the likelyhood of peace. For that, less extremist governments and an overall better education system would certainly help.
Well no shit, but that isn’t happening lol
"Peace would be possible if they decided to have peace 😊 "
This is idealism and not based on material reality. Do you think settlers will ever choose to stop colonizing on their own? In every settler-colonial state in history the settlers were either forced to stop… or they succeeded in killing all the colonized.
Ah yes, but of course “Hamas is going to wipe out Israel and then everyone is going to live happily ever after 😊” is not a fantasy that’s completely detached from reality.
And yes, I do believe that Israels stance will change over time. Many young Israelis actually oppose the policies of their government. If this trend continues, they will be in the majority at some point. Same for Gaza, Hamas hasn’t been allowing elections since 2006, the younger generation of Gaza never got to choose their government and given the chance, they would likely vote for someone less extremist (as in the west bank).
Peace will indeed be possible as soon as both parties decide that that’s what they want. This might not be right now, but as an eventuality, this is way more realistic than any side eradicating the other.
Stances changing over time does absolutely nothing for the people dying and suffering in the meantime. Will Israel maybe liberalize in 40 years? Maybe. That’s about the equivalent of the Gaza life expectancy though!
Hamas hasn’t been allowing elections? That’s just a lie - the PLO doesn’t allow elections because Hamas doesn’t recognize them as the legitimate rulers of Palestine (and because the PLO knows Hamas would only win more power of there were elections)
Here is how Hamas might achieve peace - using violence they force Israel into a negotiated return of Palestinian land to Palestinians and to disband the government. The goal isn’t to just kill everyone after all.
That’s a lot more realistic than Israel just spontaneously deciding to give Palestinians rights. There’s no proof that Israelis are becoming more sympathetic to Palestinians over time, and in fact, they’re only getting worse. Get real.