It is a war crime to hide in hospitals. It is also a war crime to attack them. And so the "human shields" discourse continues.. A little bit off-topic, but I'm becoming increasingly tired of the...
He pulled up an image that purportedly showed an entrance to a network of tunnels under Gaza that is used by Hamas in the grounds of the Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa bin Thani hospital, north of Gaza City.
Hamas fighters also opened fire on approaching Israeli ground troops - from inside the hospital, the spokesperson claimed.
"Today we will also release evidence that the Indonesian hospital is being used by Hamas to hide an underground command and control centre," Rear Admiral Hagari said.
It is a war crime to hide in hospitals. It is also a war crime to attack them. And so the "human shields" discourse continues..
A little bit off-topic, but I'm becoming increasingly tired of the online discussions about this conflict, however I still feel it's (of course?) important to know the facts. I rarely bother to engage in discussions about it anymore because it doesn't matter much what actually happens in the real world -- when talking about it on social media anyway.
I've just come to the conclusion that one side is awful and the other side is worse, and which is the former and which is the latter depends on the day.
I read on the Red Cross site that there are exceptions to war crime laws, so for example in this case if I understand it correctly, if one side is hiding in a hospital, attacking it is an...
I read on the Red Cross site that there are exceptions to war crime laws, so for example in this case if I understand it correctly, if one side is hiding in a hospital, attacking it is an exception according to international humanitarian law. The word war crime isn’t used in the article though. Here’s my source: https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protection-hospitals-during-armed-conflicts-what-law-says
Yep, this is exactly the thing most people overlook. You are required to not target civilians and hospitals unnecessarily. However, the use of human shields is not a cheat code to military legal...
Yep, this is exactly the thing most people overlook. You are required to not target civilians and hospitals unnecessarily. However, the use of human shields is not a cheat code to military legal invincibility - the use of these facilities for military purposes and hence targeting them for a legitimate military purpose renders the protection void.
Israel is actually showing a lot of restraint on certain things. For example, they know where Hamas' primary command bunker is, but haven't attacked it... because it's under Gaza's biggest hospital. They're not arbitrarily attacking civilian areas - if they were doing so, Gaza would be looking a lot more like post-WW2 France and Germany. There are bombings but they are being done selectively and with the minimal force necessary to accomplish the object; you can't collapse a tunnel 10 meters underground with a firecracker. If they really wanted to be 100% sure the tunnels were smoked out, there is a reliable way - MOAB. The main use of it by the US was taking out tunnel complexes in the wilds of Afghanistan, as its method of operation renders it particularly effective for that use. But it would also result in massive civilian casualties, so even though Israel could use it, and it would be the fastest and most effective way to accomplish their goals, they don't.
Yeah, I'm just tired. Hamas tortures and rapes. Israel razes hospitals and schools to get them. Extremists on both side dehumanise their opponent's victims. I don't know what else I can talk...
Yeah, I'm just tired. Hamas tortures and rapes. Israel razes hospitals and schools to get them. Extremists on both side dehumanise their opponent's victims. I don't know what else I can talk about. I'm just sad.
If a hospital/school/church etc are used for military popuses it's entirely legal to attack them. Those important locations have a "sanctity" due to their assumed neutrality. But if that...
If a hospital/school/church etc are used for military popuses it's entirely legal to attack them.
Those important locations have a "sanctity" due to their assumed neutrality. But if that neutrality is broken, their protection is also revoked.
It doesn’t help that any attempt at nuance, depending on the flavour, just gets picked up and amplified by cheerleaders on one side or the other who have no interest in said nuance.
It doesn’t help that any attempt at nuance, depending on the flavour, just gets picked up and amplified by cheerleaders on one side or the other who have no interest in said nuance.
IMO, even if this is true Israel has to go in the hard way: infantry on the ground. There is too much to lose and too little to gain; setting very bad president. edit: Palestine also doesn't have...
IMO, even if this is true Israel has to go in the hard way: infantry on the ground. There is too much to lose and too little to gain; setting very bad president.
edit: Palestine also doesn't have billions of dollars and years to build a new hospital; making reconstruction much more difficult.
No offense, but you shouldn't imagine a modern upscale medical facility when you think of a gazan hospital. They are, many times, little more than an office building with medical equipment. As to...
No offense, but you shouldn't imagine a modern upscale medical facility when you think of a gazan hospital. They are, many times, little more than an office building with medical equipment.
As to what you think Israel should do, why put hundreds of soldiers lives at the huge risk of enterting such a facility? Do you think the civilians in the hospital will just stand aside and let them go in to Hamas' lairs?
IDF has waited for a month for everyone to clear the area, anyone who decided to stay is at best not going to cooperate, at worst try to attack and block the troops.
Honestly, I don't think entertaining in by foot would lead to significantly fewer casualties.
"Clear the area"...and go where? In a space the size of detroit, where they are not allowed to leave. To refugee camps where they get bombed anyway? Israel is "warning" people to leave and not...
Exemplary
"Clear the area"...and go where? In a space the size of detroit, where they are not allowed to leave. To refugee camps where they get bombed anyway? Israel is "warning" people to leave and not even doing it in a language they understand half the time.
How do people still not understand that Gaza is an open air prison. Of the millions of people Israel is demanding "move" maybe a few hundred have been allowed out of the region. Most of those are foreign citizens and aid workers.
Imagine here in the US or any other country if a criminal were hiding in a neighborhood, so the government just leveled the entire neighborhood, wiping out literal generations of by-standers. And then their excuse was simply "If they got killed they were supporting terrorists."
This is blatant genocide. Defending Israel's actions is supporting genocide.
Describing the ongoing genocide differently might be a consideration if Israel wasn't still undertaking the extermination in Gaza, but no, pretending it's not genocide will help no one. I think...
Describing the ongoing genocide differently might be a consideration if Israel wasn't still undertaking the extermination in Gaza, but no, pretending it's not genocide will help no one.
I think you mean to say it's unhelpful for Israel to describe their actions in such an unflattering way that highlights their profound hypocrisy, but they're not the ones subject to genocide and apatheid. Rather, they have 100% of the power, so bear responsibility for what they're doing to Gazans.
It's not a question of "is it genocide". It is. But don't take my word for it, that's from the UN itself.
What's not helpful is treating Israel as if everything they do us justifiable.
I could not disagree more. Every time Hamas puts a rocket launcher beside a playground they make it a legitimate target. Every time they use a hospital for a headquarters or store munitions in a...
Rather, they have 100% of the power, so bear responsibility for what they're doing to Gazans.
I could not disagree more.
Every time Hamas puts a rocket launcher beside a playground they make it a legitimate target. Every time they use a hospital for a headquarters or store munitions in a mosque or school they make them legitimate targets. Every time they quarter their soldiers in a residential apartment building they make it a legitimate target. Every time they use an ambulance to transport their fighters they make it a legitimate target.
And if Israel fucks up and happens to blow up one of the above in error, guess whose tactics caused them to think it was a legitimate target?
I understand your perspective that we should be hesitant to overuse the term "genocide", but UN officials commented almost a month ago that this was at risk of becoming a mass ethnic cleansing if...
I understand your perspective that we should be hesitant to overuse the term "genocide", but UN officials commented almost a month ago that this was at risk of becoming a mass ethnic cleansing if there wasn't a ceasefire. They explicitly compared this to previous acts of mass ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa, except on a larger scale. There is obviously debate among historians among exactly where the line is between genocide and non-genocide, but it's not hard to find reputable historians who characterize this as a genocide. For instance, Raz Segal, an Israeli historian who directs a master's program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and has written multiple books on the Holocaust, called this a textbook case of genocide. While there are also historians who have said this doesn't count as a genocide, it's clear that this is far from a simple case where calling it a genocide is definitely inaccurate -- there is not a scholarly consensus that this is not a genocide.
Whether what Israel is doing to Palestinians "officially" counts as genocide or not, it's undeniable that their current crimes against Palestinians are dangerously close to becoming one at best. Many of the arguments against referring to this as a genocide are used by the politically motivated to deny the existence of other mass ethnic cleansings, like the Armenian genocide. In my personal opinion, arguing semantics with people who call the current atrocities Israel is committing against Palestinians a "genocide" is only productive if your goal is to downplay and avoid discussion of those atrocities.
I think we also should be mindful here of the different things that Israel is doing that are alleged to be genocide. The settlements are distinct from the current military campaign in Gaza. While...
I think we also should be mindful here of the different things that Israel is doing that are alleged to be genocide. The settlements are distinct from the current military campaign in Gaza. While your argument makes a lot of sense for the settlements being a case of ethnic cleansing, it isn't nearly as easy with Gaza.
You'd basically have to look at the decisions that Israeli commanders are making and state that "what they're doing shows that their intent is to indiscriminately kill Palestinians" - at the exclusion of the competing interpretation of "what they're doing shows that their intent is to eradicate Hamas". Notably, the latter could be completely reckless wrt. minimizing civilian casualties. Not protecting civilians while pursuing legitimate military targets is a war crime, not genocide.
As for ethnic cleansings being genocide or not, let's just say I'd rather you steal my home than murder me. I think there's a difference, and one is a worse act than the other, but that doesn't mean I want ethnic cleansings to be tolerated. If we don't differentiate, the logical conclusion is that if Israel wanted the West Bank, and was going to get it through displacement, they might as well start killing all the current residents they don't like, because it's the same crime anyway, right? If I nitpick the distinction, It's not because I want to reclassify ethnic cleansings from "bad" to "meh", but because I want the classifications to be "bad" and "worse" respectively.
The articles I linked (both the one from the UN and from Rez Sagal) are in regards to the current conflict in Gaza, not Israel's ongoing behavior in the West Bank. That Israel is also treating...
While your argument makes a lot of sense for the settlements being a case of ethnic cleansing, it isn't nearly as easy with Gaza.
The articles I linked (both the one from the UN and from Rez Sagal) are in regards to the current conflict in Gaza, not Israel's ongoing behavior in the West Bank. That Israel is also treating Palestinians in the West Bank the way they do makes the situation more egregious imo, but the sources I linked are talking specifically about the conflict in Gaza re: genocide/ethnic cleansing.
I agree that it's not nearly so easy with Gaza, which is probably why there is disagreement on the matter among historians. But it's also not so easy in the reverse -- it's not nearly so clear that it for sure isn't a genocide based on the current evidence. The part of genocide that's at issue here is intent, which is difficult to ascertain for certain when you can only infer from behavior. Hence, differing interpretations by different scholars.
As for ethnic cleansings being genocide or not, let's just say I'd rather you steal my home than murder me. I think there's a difference, and one is a worse act than the other, but that doesn't mean I want ethnic cleansings to be tolerated.
I'm not sure you're operating under the usual definition of "ethnic cleansing" -- it can and usually does absolutely include mass murder, just like a genocide. It's not defined as a separate crime from its constituent crimes by the UN, but in a UN Commission of Experts report on violations of international law in former Yugoslavia, they defined it as "… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas." They listed a number of acts that can be used as part of an ethnic cleansing, which includes "murder" as well as "confinement of population to ghetto areas" and "displacement and deportation of civilian population".
They also explicitly say these practices can "… constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention." There is not a clear distinction between ethnic cleansing and genocide as concepts (indeed, if we go by this definition than any genocide against an ethnic or religious group is by definition also an ethnic cleansing), and there's a huge amount of overlap in their definitions. Discriminating between them is difficult for this reason, and that's probably a large part of why the UN never codified ethnic cleansing as its own independent crime -- its factors are covered by genocide and other existing war crimes.
It's not because I want to reclassify ethnic cleansings from "bad" to "meh", but because I want the classifications to be "bad" and "worse" respectively.
I definitely understand that this is most often the intent that people here on Tildes have when they bring up semantic arguments about genocide. I don't think you or the vast majority of people here are actively trying to deny the atrocities happening to Palestinians right now. But over and over again in discussions of Palestine these arguments over the semantics of the word "genocide" are used to deflect from any discussion of Israel's actual horrific war crimes here. I think it's important to recognize when such discussions are actually helping the conversation and when they're just shifting it to an argument over definitions rather than a discussion of the things happening to Palestinians right now.
Sorry, where are you getting it that Israel is warning Gazans in Hebrew? When leaflets are dropped they are in Arabic, and every tweet released is also released in Arabic. The ones you see in...
Sorry, where are you getting it that Israel is warning Gazans in Hebrew? When leaflets are dropped they are in Arabic, and every tweet released is also released in Arabic. The ones you see in Hebrew are just what's given to the Israeli media.
Hamas is constantly lying about the state of the battlefield and telling people not to leave despite Israel's warning. They even blocked the road leading south until Israeli troops could get rid of it. You can continue to rely on the words of an organization that routinely lies, but there's drone footage of civilians being allowed to move now that the IDF has more control.
At every step of this conflict the army has slowed itself down despite constant calls to storm and raid Gaza with disregard precisely to minimize casualties. Recently, they have been stopping their attacks to let civilians flee in pre-determined hours.
Israel's treatment of Palestinians is abysmal and indefensible, but that doesn't mean you can just say things without any basis. You can say that you don't think the IDF has been doing enough to minimize casualties, but this isn't a very grounded way of doing so.
This simply isn't true. If you don't believe me, or the UN officials, then take it straight from the IDF: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hyqFFsRifFM&t=0s Is that the answer of someone who gives a...
At every step of this conflict the army has slowed itself down despite constant calls to storm and raid Gaza with disregard precisely to minimize casualties.
This simply isn't true.
If you don't believe me, or the UN officials, then take it straight from the IDF:
Is that the answer of someone who gives a flying shit about minimizing casulties or is even sure of his own intel? Even Wolf Blitzer is stunned into silence by the brazenness. Killing Gazans is the point of what's happening.
What, do you expect him to lie just as brazenly? He did admit it was them, he did give their reasons for the strike, he did acknowledge that they did it knowing the potential civilian cost. That...
What, do you expect him to lie just as brazenly? He did admit it was them, he did give their reasons for the strike, he did acknowledge that they did it knowing the potential civilian cost. That doesn't mean he doesn't give a shit. I mean, he also says that they try to minimize civilian casualties. What I'm hearing here is that this leader and whatever other Hamas targets were hit were this important that the IDF considers them, within the context of this conflict, broadly proportional to the incidental civilian casualties. I see no intention whatsoever there to just indiscriminately kill Gazans. I see maybe a disregard for civilians within the pursuit of eradicating Hamas. But that's not genocide, that'd just be a war crime.
This is a really amoral take, I honestly don't know how to respond other than to say that killing children and civilians is clearly wrong, even if there's a bad guy hiding behind them. Like, this...
This is a really amoral take, I honestly don't know how to respond other than to say that killing children and civilians is clearly wrong, even if there's a bad guy hiding behind them. Like, this "war" has people's moral compass spinning so hard, it's insane.
When you have people penned in an area, and you've been killing them so much that the average age is 18 years old, and you don't let them leave and let barely any aid in, turn off the power and water, bomb civilian centers killing hundreds, wiping out literal generations of families, just to get one guy who you can't even confirm was killed. That's genocidal. It's a giant ghetto.
I didn't get that at all. He is not a native English speaker and obviously he cannot share the sources of his intel because that would likely invalidate them for future use and may have other...
is even sure of his own intel?
I didn't get that at all. He is not a native English speaker and obviously he cannot share the sources of his intel because that would likely invalidate them for future use and may have other consequences as well, like endangering informants.
I agree that when Israel is hunting Hamas leaders, they don't seem to give a shit about civilians. I wish they didn't. But it seems like a double standard to only blame the people killing terrorists and not the actual people committing terror and hiding behind civilians.
Even if you are correct - that all civilians have already left - bombing a military hospital is still a dubious call. If they get there and Hamas does indeed try to fight back, Israel would then...
Even if you are correct - that all civilians have already left - bombing a military hospital is still a dubious call. If they get there and Hamas does indeed try to fight back, Israel would then have concrete evidence to justify further action.
Wow man, that source was terrifying! Please be careful, though. Evil acts committed by one side shouldn't justify evil acts committed by the other. If a choice is made for 'the lesser evil', it's...
Hamas forces used the abandoned areas of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, including the outpatients’ clinic area, to detain, interrogate, torture and otherwise ill-treat suspects, even as other parts of the hospital continued to function as a medical centre.
Wow man, that source was terrifying! Please be careful, though. Evil acts committed by one side shouldn't justify evil acts committed by the other. If a choice is made for 'the lesser evil', it's justification should be made crystal clear.
Just because it may be interesting and helpful, here is a military doctrine document on the actions permitted by a military when fighting human shields, and when a surrounding civilian population...
Just because it may be interesting and helpful, here is a military doctrine document on the actions permitted by a military when fighting human shields, and when a surrounding civilian population is considered a human shield.
(Edit: Here's the source: Article 57(3) of this particular version of the GC), but I'm somewhat certain that IHL has quite tight limits on what it mandates in terms of demanding parties suffer a...
If anything, strategically and tactically it's a worse call.
I can't seem to find the source I had for this (and I'm pretty sure it was the articles as hosted by the ICRC themselves)(Edit: Here's the source: Article 57(3) of this particular version of the GC), but I'm somewhat certain that IHL has quite tight limits on what it mandates in terms of demanding parties suffer a military disadvantage by following humanitarian protocol. In particular, I remember a section that said that the obligation is on a commander to choose among militarily comparable actions the one which minimizes civilian casualties. Granted, that section is probably surrounded by other rules on when a certain action is mandated or prohibited, but as a general principle it makes a lot of sense, because if the cost of following humanitarian law is too high militarily, no one will bother. (See also: Hamas. I'm sure they would love to be kinder to their own citizens, but they derive military advantages from breaking the rules, and no one has stopped them yet.)
It's safe to say that sending infantry into a close-quarters environment full of enemy fighters who fight by no rules and will happily suicide-bomb is not militarily comparable at all to just dropping a few bombs.
Relatedly, I think we (as in, internationally, the world) can't let Hamas and similar groups get away with using human shields, and basically militarizing humanitarian law to their advantage. Human shields are currently working in the military sense for Hamas: They're forcing Israel's hand in what to do and not to do. It scares me to think of the consequences if other actors look at this winning strategy and decide to emulate it. Frankly, I see the whole of IHL threatened by this. I don't want to live in a world where people's thoughts on IHL are summed up with "oh how naive we were, thinking we could regulate the suffering out of war."
It is a war crime to hide in hospitals. It is also a war crime to attack them. And so the "human shields" discourse continues..
A little bit off-topic, but I'm becoming increasingly tired of the online discussions about this conflict, however I still feel it's (of course?) important to know the facts. I rarely bother to engage in discussions about it anymore because it doesn't matter much what actually happens in the real world -- when talking about it on social media anyway.
I've just come to the conclusion that one side is awful and the other side is worse, and which is the former and which is the latter depends on the day.
I read on the Red Cross site that there are exceptions to war crime laws, so for example in this case if I understand it correctly, if one side is hiding in a hospital, attacking it is an exception according to international humanitarian law. The word war crime isn’t used in the article though. Here’s my source: https://www.icrc.org/en/document/protection-hospitals-during-armed-conflicts-what-law-says
Yep, this is exactly the thing most people overlook. You are required to not target civilians and hospitals unnecessarily. However, the use of human shields is not a cheat code to military legal invincibility - the use of these facilities for military purposes and hence targeting them for a legitimate military purpose renders the protection void.
Israel is actually showing a lot of restraint on certain things. For example, they know where Hamas' primary command bunker is, but haven't attacked it... because it's under Gaza's biggest hospital. They're not arbitrarily attacking civilian areas - if they were doing so, Gaza would be looking a lot more like post-WW2 France and Germany. There are bombings but they are being done selectively and with the minimal force necessary to accomplish the object; you can't collapse a tunnel 10 meters underground with a firecracker. If they really wanted to be 100% sure the tunnels were smoked out, there is a reliable way - MOAB. The main use of it by the US was taking out tunnel complexes in the wilds of Afghanistan, as its method of operation renders it particularly effective for that use. But it would also result in massive civilian casualties, so even though Israel could use it, and it would be the fastest and most effective way to accomplish their goals, they don't.
Yeah, I'm just tired. Hamas tortures and rapes. Israel razes hospitals and schools to get them. Extremists on both side dehumanise their opponent's victims. I don't know what else I can talk about. I'm just sad.
If a hospital/school/church etc are used for military popuses it's entirely legal to attack them.
Those important locations have a "sanctity" due to their assumed neutrality. But if that neutrality is broken, their protection is also revoked.
And it's the actual patients and doctors who suffer most
It doesn’t help that any attempt at nuance, depending on the flavour, just gets picked up and amplified by cheerleaders on one side or the other who have no interest in said nuance.
IMO, even if this is true Israel has to go in the hard way: infantry on the ground. There is too much to lose and too little to gain; setting very bad president.
edit: Palestine also doesn't have billions of dollars and years to build a new hospital; making reconstruction much more difficult.
No offense, but you shouldn't imagine a modern upscale medical facility when you think of a gazan hospital. They are, many times, little more than an office building with medical equipment.
As to what you think Israel should do, why put hundreds of soldiers lives at the huge risk of enterting such a facility? Do you think the civilians in the hospital will just stand aside and let them go in to Hamas' lairs?
IDF has waited for a month for everyone to clear the area, anyone who decided to stay is at best not going to cooperate, at worst try to attack and block the troops.
Honestly, I don't think entertaining in by foot would lead to significantly fewer casualties.
"Clear the area"...and go where? In a space the size of detroit, where they are not allowed to leave. To refugee camps where they get bombed anyway? Israel is "warning" people to leave and not even doing it in a language they understand half the time.
How do people still not understand that Gaza is an open air prison. Of the millions of people Israel is demanding "move" maybe a few hundred have been allowed out of the region. Most of those are foreign citizens and aid workers.
Imagine here in the US or any other country if a criminal were hiding in a neighborhood, so the government just leveled the entire neighborhood, wiping out literal generations of by-standers. And then their excuse was simply "If they got killed they were supporting terrorists."
This is blatant genocide. Defending Israel's actions is supporting genocide.
A previous comment of mine on why referring to the Israel/Palestine conflict as a genocide is inaccurate and unhelpful:
https://tildes.net/~news/1bkt/mitch_mcconnell_backs_joe_bidens_106bn_aid_request_for_israel_and_ukraine#comment-b04w
Describing the ongoing genocide differently might be a consideration if Israel wasn't still undertaking the extermination in Gaza, but no, pretending it's not genocide will help no one.
I think you mean to say it's unhelpful for Israel to describe their actions in such an unflattering way that highlights their profound hypocrisy, but they're not the ones subject to genocide and apatheid. Rather, they have 100% of the power, so bear responsibility for what they're doing to Gazans.
It's not a question of "is it genocide". It is. But don't take my word for it, that's from the UN itself.
What's not helpful is treating Israel as if everything they do us justifiable.
I could not disagree more.
Every time Hamas puts a rocket launcher beside a playground they make it a legitimate target. Every time they use a hospital for a headquarters or store munitions in a mosque or school they make them legitimate targets. Every time they quarter their soldiers in a residential apartment building they make it a legitimate target. Every time they use an ambulance to transport their fighters they make it a legitimate target.
And if Israel fucks up and happens to blow up one of the above in error, guess whose tactics caused them to think it was a legitimate target?
I understand your perspective that we should be hesitant to overuse the term "genocide", but UN officials commented almost a month ago that this was at risk of becoming a mass ethnic cleansing if there wasn't a ceasefire. They explicitly compared this to previous acts of mass ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, the 1948 Nakba and the 1967 Naksa, except on a larger scale. There is obviously debate among historians among exactly where the line is between genocide and non-genocide, but it's not hard to find reputable historians who characterize this as a genocide. For instance, Raz Segal, an Israeli historian who directs a master's program in Holocaust and Genocide Studies and has written multiple books on the Holocaust, called this a textbook case of genocide. While there are also historians who have said this doesn't count as a genocide, it's clear that this is far from a simple case where calling it a genocide is definitely inaccurate -- there is not a scholarly consensus that this is not a genocide.
Whether what Israel is doing to Palestinians "officially" counts as genocide or not, it's undeniable that their current crimes against Palestinians are dangerously close to becoming one at best. Many of the arguments against referring to this as a genocide are used by the politically motivated to deny the existence of other mass ethnic cleansings, like the Armenian genocide. In my personal opinion, arguing semantics with people who call the current atrocities Israel is committing against Palestinians a "genocide" is only productive if your goal is to downplay and avoid discussion of those atrocities.
I think we also should be mindful here of the different things that Israel is doing that are alleged to be genocide. The settlements are distinct from the current military campaign in Gaza. While your argument makes a lot of sense for the settlements being a case of ethnic cleansing, it isn't nearly as easy with Gaza.
You'd basically have to look at the decisions that Israeli commanders are making and state that "what they're doing shows that their intent is to indiscriminately kill Palestinians" - at the exclusion of the competing interpretation of "what they're doing shows that their intent is to eradicate Hamas". Notably, the latter could be completely reckless wrt. minimizing civilian casualties. Not protecting civilians while pursuing legitimate military targets is a war crime, not genocide.
As for ethnic cleansings being genocide or not, let's just say I'd rather you steal my home than murder me. I think there's a difference, and one is a worse act than the other, but that doesn't mean I want ethnic cleansings to be tolerated. If we don't differentiate, the logical conclusion is that if Israel wanted the West Bank, and was going to get it through displacement, they might as well start killing all the current residents they don't like, because it's the same crime anyway, right? If I nitpick the distinction, It's not because I want to reclassify ethnic cleansings from "bad" to "meh", but because I want the classifications to be "bad" and "worse" respectively.
The articles I linked (both the one from the UN and from Rez Sagal) are in regards to the current conflict in Gaza, not Israel's ongoing behavior in the West Bank. That Israel is also treating Palestinians in the West Bank the way they do makes the situation more egregious imo, but the sources I linked are talking specifically about the conflict in Gaza re: genocide/ethnic cleansing.
I agree that it's not nearly so easy with Gaza, which is probably why there is disagreement on the matter among historians. But it's also not so easy in the reverse -- it's not nearly so clear that it for sure isn't a genocide based on the current evidence. The part of genocide that's at issue here is intent, which is difficult to ascertain for certain when you can only infer from behavior. Hence, differing interpretations by different scholars.
I'm not sure you're operating under the usual definition of "ethnic cleansing" -- it can and usually does absolutely include mass murder, just like a genocide. It's not defined as a separate crime from its constituent crimes by the UN, but in a UN Commission of Experts report on violations of international law in former Yugoslavia, they defined it as "… a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas." They listed a number of acts that can be used as part of an ethnic cleansing, which includes "murder" as well as "confinement of population to ghetto areas" and "displacement and deportation of civilian population".
They also explicitly say these practices can "… constitute crimes against humanity and can be assimilated to specific war crimes. Furthermore, such acts could also fall within the meaning of the Genocide Convention." There is not a clear distinction between ethnic cleansing and genocide as concepts (indeed, if we go by this definition than any genocide against an ethnic or religious group is by definition also an ethnic cleansing), and there's a huge amount of overlap in their definitions. Discriminating between them is difficult for this reason, and that's probably a large part of why the UN never codified ethnic cleansing as its own independent crime -- its factors are covered by genocide and other existing war crimes.
I definitely understand that this is most often the intent that people here on Tildes have when they bring up semantic arguments about genocide. I don't think you or the vast majority of people here are actively trying to deny the atrocities happening to Palestinians right now. But over and over again in discussions of Palestine these arguments over the semantics of the word "genocide" are used to deflect from any discussion of Israel's actual horrific war crimes here. I think it's important to recognize when such discussions are actually helping the conversation and when they're just shifting it to an argument over definitions rather than a discussion of the things happening to Palestinians right now.
I was writing a rather (needlessly) wordy response echoing that very sentiment, that sometimes semantics do matter.
Thanks for saving me that.
Sorry, where are you getting it that Israel is warning Gazans in Hebrew? When leaflets are dropped they are in Arabic, and every tweet released is also released in Arabic. The ones you see in Hebrew are just what's given to the Israeli media.
Hamas is constantly lying about the state of the battlefield and telling people not to leave despite Israel's warning. They even blocked the road leading south until Israeli troops could get rid of it. You can continue to rely on the words of an organization that routinely lies, but there's drone footage of civilians being allowed to move now that the IDF has more control.
At every step of this conflict the army has slowed itself down despite constant calls to storm and raid Gaza with disregard precisely to minimize casualties. Recently, they have been stopping their attacks to let civilians flee in pre-determined hours.
Israel's treatment of Palestinians is abysmal and indefensible, but that doesn't mean you can just say things without any basis. You can say that you don't think the IDF has been doing enough to minimize casualties, but this isn't a very grounded way of doing so.
This simply isn't true.
If you don't believe me, or the UN officials, then take it straight from the IDF:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hyqFFsRifFM&t=0s
Is that the answer of someone who gives a flying shit about minimizing casulties or is even sure of his own intel? Even Wolf Blitzer is stunned into silence by the brazenness. Killing Gazans is the point of what's happening.
What, do you expect him to lie just as brazenly? He did admit it was them, he did give their reasons for the strike, he did acknowledge that they did it knowing the potential civilian cost. That doesn't mean he doesn't give a shit. I mean, he also says that they try to minimize civilian casualties. What I'm hearing here is that this leader and whatever other Hamas targets were hit were this important that the IDF considers them, within the context of this conflict, broadly proportional to the incidental civilian casualties. I see no intention whatsoever there to just indiscriminately kill Gazans. I see maybe a disregard for civilians within the pursuit of eradicating Hamas. But that's not genocide, that'd just be a war crime.
This is a really amoral take, I honestly don't know how to respond other than to say that killing children and civilians is clearly wrong, even if there's a bad guy hiding behind them. Like, this "war" has people's moral compass spinning so hard, it's insane.
When you have people penned in an area, and you've been killing them so much that the average age is 18 years old, and you don't let them leave and let barely any aid in, turn off the power and water, bomb civilian centers killing hundreds, wiping out literal generations of families, just to get one guy who you can't even confirm was killed. That's genocidal. It's a giant ghetto.
I didn't get that at all. He is not a native English speaker and obviously he cannot share the sources of his intel because that would likely invalidate them for future use and may have other consequences as well, like endangering informants.
I agree that when Israel is hunting Hamas leaders, they don't seem to give a shit about civilians. I wish they didn't. But it seems like a double standard to only blame the people killing terrorists and not the actual people committing terror and hiding behind civilians.
Even if you are correct - that all civilians have already left - bombing a military hospital is still a dubious call. If they get there and Hamas does indeed try to fight back, Israel would then have concrete evidence to justify further action.
Wow man, that source was terrifying! Please be careful, though. Evil acts committed by one side shouldn't justify evil acts committed by the other. If a choice is made for 'the lesser evil', it's justification should be made crystal clear.
Just because it may be interesting and helpful, here is a military doctrine document on the actions permitted by a military when fighting human shields, and when a surrounding civilian population is considered a human shield.
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/what-is-and-is-not-human-shielding/
I can't seem to find the source I had for this (and I'm pretty sure it was the articles as hosted by the ICRC themselves)(Edit: Here's the source: Article 57(3) of this particular version of the GC), but I'm somewhat certain that IHL has quite tight limits on what it mandates in terms of demanding parties suffer a military disadvantage by following humanitarian protocol. In particular, I remember a section that said that the obligation is on a commander to choose among militarily comparable actions the one which minimizes civilian casualties. Granted, that section is probably surrounded by other rules on when a certain action is mandated or prohibited, but as a general principle it makes a lot of sense, because if the cost of following humanitarian law is too high militarily, no one will bother. (See also: Hamas. I'm sure they would love to be kinder to their own citizens, but they derive military advantages from breaking the rules, and no one has stopped them yet.)It's safe to say that sending infantry into a close-quarters environment full of enemy fighters who fight by no rules and will happily suicide-bomb is not militarily comparable at all to just dropping a few bombs.
Relatedly, I think we (as in, internationally, the world) can't let Hamas and similar groups get away with using human shields, and basically militarizing humanitarian law to their advantage. Human shields are currently working in the military sense for Hamas: They're forcing Israel's hand in what to do and not to do. It scares me to think of the consequences if other actors look at this winning strategy and decide to emulate it. Frankly, I see the whole of IHL threatened by this. I don't want to live in a world where people's thoughts on IHL are summed up with "oh how naive we were, thinking we could regulate the suffering out of war."