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Topic: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war (Read 857 times)

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #25 –
The U.N. Court made a good decision. Finally, when Israelis are committing genocide, it is legal to say that they are committing genocide. And it's confirmed yet again that part of the rules of war is proportionality.

But the court did not rule Israel to stop.[1] When the other party is not a recognised country, then the perpetrators can argue more liberties for themselves, just like USA did in war against Afghanistan, explicitly refusing to abide by Geneva Conventions. 
1 To stop the war, that is. The court ruled Israel to abstain from genocide.↵

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #26 –
Is Hamas a race or ethnicity? Against whom is the IDF "committing" genocide?

It's both interesting and not surprising that members of the UN aid organization dealing with Palestinian "refugees" participated in Hamas's October attack on Israel...

BTW: Has the UN Court you tout had anything to say about Ukraine? Yemen? Etc.?
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #27 –
Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
Is Hamas a race or ethnicity?
The genocide is perpetrated against civilian population, those who are not Hamas. That this is so, was established by the court.

Once you get on board with the facts on the ground and basics of law,... Yeah, not going to happen. Let's not get our hopes up.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #28 –
Quote from: OakdaleFTL on
Is Hamas a race or ethnicity? Against whom is the IDF "committing" genocide?

Genocide is a crime of intent.

Quote
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: 

(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. 

The Israeli government, and by extension IDF, is probably not committing genocide. That there is even an uncertainty, a "probably" in that sentence, is in itself pretty damning. However, while what they are doing, which definitely includes (a) and (b), and possibly (c) and (d) as well, the issue lies with the why.

There are people connected to the current government who have expressed genocidal ideas, and the way the invasion of Gaza is executed could be those ideas put into action. However, If the Israeli intent is to destroy, in whole or in part, the Gazans, they are not behaving in a manner consistent with that. There is an ongoing war, and Israeli actions are more consistent with waging that war. The only way this could be a genocide is if their planning has been to commit it under the cover of that war. Unlikely, but not impossible. However, there are pretty blatant cases of Israeli forces committing war crimes, that are unlikely to be prosecuted by Israeli courts.

Likewise, Hamas has some extremely genocidal ideas, and their behaviour on 7 October is very consistent with a genocide. If the Israeli government had been even more incompetent this massacre could continue Rwanda-style. However, there are other technical reasons why this may not be a genocide either.

Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel

Meanwhile, the genocide case against Putin and Lvova-Belova for kidnapping Ukrainian children is more straight-forward. Russia has committed a number of atrocities that would be war crimes or crimes against humanity, like Bucha. However they are not genocides. The kidnappings could be, category (e) above, but again it depends on intent. If the intent wasn't genocidal, it can still be a crime against humanity, article 7(1)(d).