You know? Honestly, genocide doesn't actually exactly fit with what Israel is doing. Mass murder of civilians, starvation, attacks on journalists and aid workers, denial of medical care, theft of people's homes and theft of their property... they're doing virtually every type of war crime, now including the use of chemical weapons apparently, but (edit: ~~they're not literally trying to exterminate the Palestinians as a genotype~~ I misunderstood genocide) they could claim without obviously being full of shit that they're not trying to destroy the nation of Palestine completely. I think they are trying to, but it's not as clear-as-day as lot of their crimes which are on video and in the present/past, instead of the future.

Almost any type of war crime case could have been mounted against them, and it would have been a more solid case at the ICJ. There wouldn't have been room for all this semantic wiggling in the press over whether it's actually genocide, or merely mass murder and war criminality.

It almost makes me think that there was some sort of deliberate effort to bring over-the-top charges that would leave that wiggle room, instead of more conservative charges. Prosecutors will sometimes do this when they want to kill a case without showing any appearance of other than a vigorous prosecution. You bring murder 1 when you can't prove it, and give the defense something to work with, instead of charging second-degree murder and having a slam dunk.

I have no reason to think they might have done that, but I do wonder about it.

[–] freagle@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 10 months ago (7 children)

You really need to look up the legal definition of genocide. No. I will not provide a link. Put as much effort into research as you put into writing from the perspective of ignorance. I'll get you started. Genocide is not defined as the intent to exterminate a genotype.

[+] mozz@mbin.grits.dev -14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (6 children)

I'm gonna look past your totally unnecessary hostility and just say I looked it up and you're 100% right. Trying to eradicate Palestine as a nation is genocide, even if they don't literally kill all the ethnic Palestinians. And yeah, that undercuts what I was saying a little bit... IDK, maybe you could argue that by couching it in terms that could be debated instead of "simpler" war crimes they were still trying to overcharge the offense, but it's a lot shakier.

(Edit: Actually, wait, no. It's debatable on the world stage whether they're literally trying to eradicate the nation of Palestine. They can claim that they're "only reacting to terrorism" or etc. I think that's bullshit and they are trying to eradicate Palestine, but I still think that charging them with the simple war crimes that no one can with a straight face deny that they're doing would still be a much stronger case.)

I think the hostility is especially silly since on this topic I'm obviously on your side and opposed to the slaughter of Palestinians by the Israelis.

[–] BartsBigBugBag@lemmy.tf 7 points 10 months ago

You don’t have to try to eradicate an entire nation to commit genocide, either. There’s a convention on this thing, you know..

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