Warren: ‘Ample Evidence’ Israel Committing Genocide
When does humanitarian catastrophe become something more?
POLITICO (“Elizabeth Warren says she believes Israel’s war in Gaza will legally be considered a genocide“):
Sen. Elizabeth Warren believes international officials could find that Israel’s assault on Gaza legally constitutes a genocide, she said during an event at a local mosque last week.
“If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so,” Warren (D-Mass.) said Friday while taking audience questions during an event at the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, Massachusetts. A video of Warren’s comments posted on X by a GBH News reporter began circulating Monday. Warren’s office confirmed the senator’s remarks to POLITICO.
The video is embedded here:
Warren was asked about a ruling from the International Court of Justice that found it was “plausible” Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza, and about her own opinion on the matter. A spokesperson for Warren said in a statement to POLITICO Monday that the senator “commented on the ongoing legal process at the International Court of Justice, not sharing her views on whether genocide is occurring in Gaza.”
Warren has faced pressure from her left flank since the start of the crisis in Gaza. The progressive senator initially voiced full-throated support for Israel in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. But as international criticism built over Israel’s military response, far-left groups began protesting outside of her offices and Cambridge home, calling on her to advocate for a lasting cease-fire in Gaza and to stop further U.S. military aid to Israel.
Warren has grown increasingly vocal in her criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration in recent months. In January, she floated the idea of imposing restrictions on military aid to Israel, saying on X that the U.S. “cannot write a blank check for a right-wing government that’s demonstrated an appalling disregard for Palestinian lives.” In the wake of the Israeli drone strikes that killed seven aid workers last week, including a U.S.-Canadian dual citizen, Warren told CNN that Congress “has a responsibility to act,” and “cannot approve the sale of arms to a country that is in violation” of U.S. laws, including laws surrounding access to humanitarian relief.
At the mosque, Warren said the focus on the war in Gaza should go beyond a “labels argument.”
“For me, it is far more important to say what Israel is doing is wrong. And it is wrong,” she said. “It is wrong to starve children within a civilian population in order to try to bend to your will. It is wrong to drop 2000-pound bombs, in densely populated civilian areas.”
Times of Israel (“US Sen. Warren: World Court has ‘ample evidence’ to find Israel guilty of genocide“) adds:
United States Sen. Elizabeth Warren believes Israel will be found guilty of genocide in the International Court of Justice, according to comments she made at a Boston mosque last week.
“If you want to do it as an application of law, I believe that they’ll find that it is genocide, and they have ample evidence to do so,” the Democratic senator could be seen saying in a video her staff posted to social media on Monday, in response to a question from the audience on whether she thinks “Israel is committing a genocide.”
[…]
Proceedings are ongoing in the ICJ, in The Hague, the Netherlands, to examine South Africa’s claim that Israel’s aerial and ground offensive in Gaza, launched after Hamas’s October 7 massacre, is aimed at bringing about “the destruction of the population” in the Palestinian enclave.
Israel rejects the accusations as false and libelous, saying it respects international law and has a right to defend itself after some 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border into Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 253 hostages amid wholesale acts of brutality and sexual assault.
Warren is a first-rate legal scholar, although one who specializes in bankruptcy law, not international humanitarian law. While I have substantial training in the latter, I’m by no means an expert and there’s frankly rather little precedent against which to judge this case.
The UN Office on Genocide Prevention provides this background:
Genocide was first recognised as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/96-I). It was codified as an independent crime in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the Genocide Convention). The Convention has been ratified by 153 States (as of April 2022). The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the Convention embodies principles that are part of general customary international law. This means that whether or not States have ratified the Genocide Convention, they are all bound as a matter of law by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. The ICJ has also stated that the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of international law (or ius cogens) and consequently, no derogation from it is allowed.
Israel is, in any case, a signatory to the convention (since March 1950), as is essentially every developed country on the planet save (for reasons I don’t know) Japan.
The definition of the crime of genocide as contained in Article II of the Genocide Convention was the result of a negotiating process and reflects the compromise reached among United Nations Member States in 1948 at the time of drafting the Convention. Genocide is defined in the same terms as in the Genocide Convention in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 6), as well as in the statutes of other international and hybrid jurisdictions. Many States have also criminalized genocide in their domestic law; others have yet to do so.
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.
They go on to emphasize that
The popular understanding of what constitutes genocide tends to be broader than the content of the norm under international law. [emphasis mine] Article II of the Genocide Convention contains a narrow definition of the crime of genocide, which includes two main elements:
- A mental element: the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”; and
- A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:
- 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
The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.
Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted – not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.”
The definition is incredibly unhelpful. It is impossible to wage a war and not “destroy, in whole or in part,” the adversary. It is inherent in the exercise. Hell, even if Israel were magically able to kill only Hamas fighters, leaving not a scratch—or even inflicting serious mental harm—on any other Palestinian, they would still be destroying part of a national group.
And, indeed, the Application from South Africa seems to demand that there be no killing at all.
. . . must cease forthwith any acts and measures in breach of those obligations, including such acts or measures which would be capable of killing or continuing to kill Palestinians, or causing or continuing to cause serious bodily or mental harm to Palestinians or deliberately inflicting on their group, or continuing to inflict on their group, conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part . . .
This is sheer lunacy. While Israel has quite possibly committed war crimes by insufficiently protecting Palestinian noncombatants—and in cutting off electricity, food, and fuel to the civilian population–there is simply no question that it has the right to use military force against Hamas fighters in the wake of the October 7 massacre. None.
Conducting a war in a densely populated urban setting has, predictably, led to a humanitarian disaster. The ICJ has summarized the extent of the horrors ably.
While it’s quite arguable that Israel could and should have taken additional steps to mitigate said disaster, it’s simply indisputable that, if it had the intent to wipe out the entire Palestinian population in Gaza, it could easily have done so long before now. They have reportedly killed some 30,000 people, some significant number of whom were Hamas fighters and thus legitimate military targets. There are some 600,000 people in Gaza. That’s a humanitarian nightmare and, again, quite possibly a basis for war crimes charges. Genocide, however, is an absurd claim.
I agree completely. The goal in war is to force an opposing force to surrender or withdraw. The goal of genocide is extermination of a people. The only party to the Gaza conflict which is committed to genocide is Hamas. They are also the ones who started this war and the ones hiding behind civilians whose lives they sacrifice for public relations. And I’ll repeat that one way to end the war quickly is for Hamas to come out of their tunnels and surrender.
‘Genocide’ is thrown around in order to subvert Israel’s founding story. Anti-semites are embedded in the anti-zionist ‘movement,’ and indeed it may be the other way around. At very least anti-zionists give cover to anti-semites. Lefties raised on the nonsense of BDS have made themselves allies of the worst people on earth – terrorists and Nazis.
Multiple senior members if the current Israeli government have been caught confessing that the ultimate goal is to force the civilian population of Gaza out of the area so that it can be resettled.
The continued portrayal of Israel as desiring to minimize civilian casualties or suffering is quickly reaching the point of being an intentionally bad faith argument.
This is misunderstanding the issue.
The Convention states:
In other words, genocide is characterized by the intent to destroy a certain national or ethnic group.
It doesn’t include, for instance, killing individual members of said group if they can be classified as combatants.
After all, in the latter case, they are killed for being combatants, not because they are members of a certain ethnic or racial group.
Irrelevant:
I don’t know if Israel is committing genocide, but it is indisputable (at least, if you are not quoting selectively from the Convention) that they are getting awfully close.
@Michael Reynolds:
This is called the guilt by association fallacy.
Like other logical fallacies, it is used by people who have run out of proper arguments.
BDS is a moral good. Israel is illegally occupying those areas and is giving loans and other aid to start businesses there. It is a good, non-violent way to make that more difficult. If any boycott is every justified, boycotting goods manufactured or developed in the occupied territories is certainly justified.
@drj:
Baloney. It’s called the ‘lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas,’ truism.
The Left has completely botched its handling of the issue. They could have been, and should have been supportive of Israel’s right to go after Hamas while remaining a voice for careful ROE to protect civilians. Instead they ran around screaming genocide and yelling, ‘from the river to the sea,’ without knowing what the fuck that meant, which resulted in Israel dismissing them entirely from consideration.
Foreign policy is not about parading your morality. It’s a deeper, more complicated, more morally gray problem. It involves trade-offs. It often involves getting along with people you may despise in service to a greater goal. (See: our good buddy Joe Stalin.) The world is not Vermont.
@drj:
I intentionally quoted the entirety of that portion of the Convention. But, again, there’s simply no way that one can fight a war against a national actor (an intentional act) and not kill part of the national group.
@Stormy Dragon:
As noted in the OP, there are reasonable arguments as to whether Israel is taking enough precaution. But they clearly have it in their power to be much more destructive than they’ve been.
@James Joyner: I think part of the problem is the word “genocide”. I think most people tend to think of the Holocaust or the many other cases where the intent was to literally kill off an ethnic or religious group. But in the way Warren was using it, i.e. the legal definition, it includes what the British did to the Irish, what the Chinese are doing to the Uighurs, or any of a thousand other such campaigns since the dawn of time.
It is the publicly stated position of at least two Israeli Cabinet Members to commit genocide by this definition, but the government as a whole has not stated it in those terms. However, it hasn’t acted against those cabinet ministers and its actions are compatible with making Gaza unlivable and eventually driving the majority of Gazans into Egypt. And of course in the West Bank, it continues its apartheid practices and systematically steals land from the inhabitants and gives it to Israelis, and also prevents any of the inhabitants but the Israelis from establishing any business beyond subsistence farming there.
@James Joyner:
What does this mean, though? Russia could nuke Europe. That it hasn’t done so does not indicate Putin is minimizing civilian deaths in his ongoing attempts to swallow Russia’s neighbors.
I suppose Charles Manson could have ordered more killings than he did. But that would be an odd and rather moot point of focus next to the pile of bloody bodies at the Polanski and La Bianca residences.
Anyhoo, are we any closer to passage of Ukraine aid this week?
@MarkedMan:
In this scenario, is Egypt supposed to be a potted plant? Egypt ain’t taking those people.
I do wonder what the endgame here is, since Hamas leadership is safe in Qatar and elsewhere, and it seems the Israeli war cabinet has given up on getting the hostages back.
@Michael Reynolds: It is quite possible for two bad actors to work toward the end that all the people on the other side die.
Currently, Bibi and his goons are having better luck doing achieving that goal.
The Washington Post has a very good op-ed today on this subject from a person who describes himself as “I covered the genocide in Bosnia for The Post, wrote a book about it, and reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, among other conflict-ridden countries. Also, my ancestors were key funders of Jewish emigration to British-controlled Palestine.”
His view: “Millions of Jews in America feel connected to Israel’s creation. Maybe our ancestors gave or raised money, maybe they went and fought, maybe they donated to Zionist organizations. What’s a Jew to do now? Everyone makes their own choices, but my experience of war crimes taught me that being Jewish means standing against any nation that commits war crimes.
Any.” (emphasis in original)
@James Joyner: they don’t necessarily need to be destructive if with just a few “oopsies” with aid workers resulting in those organizations pulling out from the area leading to even more food and medical shortages for the civilian population. Plus, it gives them a fig leaf to hide behind.
I think the term geniocide is used way too much and it has become a pejorative in a way. I think there is evidence that Israel has set a pretty low safety bar when it comes to collateral damage, but that is not genocide. However, the issue that clouds all of this was Israel’s decision to not allow food, water and medical supplies into Gaza. That seems like it should count as attempted genocide. They have partially caved and are allowing some aid to get through. We dont really know how many people have died from lack of food or medical aid. Then you have the World Kitchen people murdered, probably an accident but it sure aligns with their intent to not let aid in. Absent denying aid the claims of genocide are absurd, but they have in fact tried to cut off aid.
Steve
@DK:
The scenario I’ve heard is the US and the West forgiving vast sums of Egypt’s debt in return for allowing a refugee camp in its land
@DK:
But neither Russia nor Manson have been, so far as I’m aware, accused of genocide.
I’m quite certain that Russia has committed war crimes. Frustratingly, IHL doesn’t distinguish between acts committed in unjust wars and those committed in just wars. But I’m quite certain that Russia has repeatedly and intentionally targeted primarily civilian targets with the intention of terrorizing the civilian population. But it has never occurred to me that, monstrous as Putin’s crimes are, that this is an act of genocide.
@Moosebreath: It’s an interesting piece, although conflating war crimes and genocide is problematic. The bar for the second is far, far higher. Indeed, the piece cites Srebrenica as a modern example.
There’s simply nothing comparable going on in Gaza.
@James Joyner:
Again, the distinction is between proportionate killing to win a war and killing a bunch of people because they are Palestinian, Israeli, Irish, or whatever.
One is genocide, the other isn’t.
Relatedly, deliberately killing 5 or 10% of an ethnic group (because they are part of that group) is also genocide. Legally speaking, there can be genocide without attempts at total eradication.
@James Joyner:
Russia has absolutely been accused of genocide.
Elizabeth Warren knows better, or maybe I’m giving her too much redit.
I think we’re well on the way to ‘Genocide’ into
@steve:
I agree. I think we’re well on the way to turning ‘Genocide’ into a synonym for ‘homicide’ or the casualtites of modern ‘warfare.’
Elizabeth Warren knows better, or maybe I’m giving her too much reddit.
The fundamental issue is that a standard for genocide – no matter what it is – needs to be applied consistently. If what Israel is doing now is genocide (I don’t think it is), then apply that standard everywhere. You can’t apply it a la Carte to Israel and ignore the rest of the globe and then try to claim some kind of moral high ground.
And that’s always the problem – Israel is held to a standard of genocide – and many other things – that no one else is held to, not even Hamas, which is an undeniably genocidal organization. Yet Hamas is not treated as such.
There are so many examples around the globe where the genocidal intent is so much clearer than it is with Israel (and again, I don’t think Israel is attempting to commit genocide), yet it’s silence from the BDS crowd and the UN. Some of the more stupid ones have even been cheering on the Houthis for attacking civilian ships, seemingly ignorant of the things the Houthis have done that are far and away more genocidal than anything Israel has ever done.
Next door in Syria, the Assad regime and his coalition of Alwaties, Druze, Shiites, and Christians have butchered several hundred thousand in the civil war there (including with chemical weapons!), mainly Sunni’s, Kurds, Palestinians, and Turkmen.
I mean, I could spend 3000 words listing all the various conflicts that would fit the standard that’s been applied to Israel that so many are now vigorously defending as genocide. But what’s the point? No one is going to start caring about these conflicts for reasons that should be obvious.
@James Joyner:
Really? Even with Putin claiming Ukrainians have no identity and that Ukraine doesn’t exist? Hmm. I guess I thought it was a given that Putin’s warmongering was genocidal in nature, given his very ugly statements + the indiscriminate and vicious targeting of civilians.
@Andy:
You do realize that if we treated Netanyahu the way we treat Assad, we would currently be arming and training Palestinian militias to fight both the IDF and Hamas?
@Andy:
This is incredibly disingenuous.
Are we treating Israel like Syria? Giving them billions in military aid every year?
Do you really find it difficult to understand that people will be more pissed off about war crimes when it’s their government that’s providing money and diplomatic cover to the perpetrator?
Don’t be dishonest.
“I mean, I could spend 3000 words listing all the various conflicts that would fit the standard that’s been applied to Israel that so many are now vigorously defending as genocide. ”
Really? I think that having an area blockaded off and not allowing in food, water, fuel and medical aid while not allowing anyone to leave often leads to accusations of genocide. The Houthis were accused of that when they did the same thing. Granted, i think claims of genocide are usually overblown but it looks to me as though this is not something of which Israel is uniquely being accused.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/yemens-houthis-accused-of-committing-genocide-with-blockade-on-key-district/
Steve
@Andy:
Israel is a close ally. We hold Canada to high standards too, but Canada passes them.
@DK:
It would be a big ask of Egypt. Israel will never let the refugees back home, so you’re really asking Egypt to help with ethnic cleansing.
It’s only genocide if it’s from the genocide region in Bavaria, otherwise it’s sparkling deliberate mass death of civilian populations.
@drj:
Well, war crimes are not the same thing as genocide. Please pick which one you want to talk about.
How about an example to provide a contrast?
Let’s talk about the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen from 2015-2021, which also included a bunch of other Gulf States and African countries as participants. That also had direct participation by the US with aerial refueling tankers giving gas to their warplanes and intelligence support for targeting plus lots of US weapons transfers and various other kinds of support. That was six years of war. It included a blockade, lots of starving people, a lot of our Arab allies hitting targets they should not have hit – either because they didn’t listen to us, they were bad operators, or they didn’t care. And at the end of it, about 175k people were dead. Genocide or merely war crimes?
You talked about people being pissed off about war crimes “when it’s their government that’s providing money and diplomatic cover to the perpetrator.”
What about when their government not only provides money and weapons and diplomatic cover but also actively participates in the conflict? And what about when that government we’re supporting is the furthest thing you can get from a democracy as a medieval authoritarian state that doesn’t even recognize the most fundamental rights?
If what’s going on with Israel pissed people off, then what happened with the intervention in Yemen should have pissed people off 10x as much. But of course, it didn’t. Hardly anyone knew about it or cared.
You accuse me of being dishonest. Well, I don’t think so. What I think is dishonest are all the people attempting to claim some kind of moral high ground that Israel and the war in Gaza are somehow special and deserving of a greater level of attention and opprobrium (genocide!) than basically any other conflict on the planet. And while it’s always entertaining to read the rhetorical twists and justifications for this special treatment, it is very clearly and transparently bullshit.
Apply the same standard. If what Israel is doing in Gaza is genocide, then what Saudi and its allies, including the US, did in Yemen is, too, and the case there is far easier to make.
And, of course, if anyone really cared about genocide, they’d take a much harder line on China, but no one does because that has real personal costs, while Israel BDS does not.
You’ll note I’m not getting on a high horse here. My view is that genocide should be reserved for those really rare and terrible crimes and that it diminishes the term when people try to shoehorn it into the conflict in Gaza for what appear to be tactical, rhetorical, and political reasons. And yes, there is a limit to what I’m willing to do to stop China’s genocidal ambitions. I’m also a realist who understands there are tradeoffs and limits when dealing with other nations, and therefore, selective moral purity and making bold claims of moral principles that are impossible to meet is generally a pretty stupid way to conduct international relations.
@Gustopher:
So the “no genocide” standard only applies to “close allies.” Hence, the genocidal ambitions of others, like Hamas, China, etc., aren’t a major concern. Got it!
There were also claims that Saudi Arabia and the US were committing genocide in Yemen. When you combine killing lots of people with a blockade or not allowing aid to reach the affected population it gets called genocide. Certainly true that it didnt get as much press coverage, but Israel is perceived as much more important to the US so it always gets more coverage.
https://www.genocidewatch.com/single-post/genocide-emergency-saudi-arabia-and-the-war-in-yemen
Steve
@Andy:
Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution that sought to severely limit US involvement in this horrible war, remember? There was, in fact, plenty of opposition.
More importantly, such opposition was acceptable. No one would call you an anti-Semite if you opposed US involvement. Now compare that to Israel’s latest adventures in Gaza.
Well, if you claim to be the “only democracy in the Middle East,” greater scrutiny can be expected. Regardless of how much I disagree with it, the alliance with Saudi Arabia is at least clearly utilitarian in character. The alliance with Israel, in contrast, is supposed to be based on shared values.
It is disingenuous to pretend that this won’t make a difference.
You pretend (once again) that this is a ridiculous accusation, but back in January the International Court of Justice determined in an interim judgment that there is a plausible risk of Israel committing genocide in Gaza.
Maybe your view is on how genocide should be defined is different from how genocide is defined.
You can’t expect your views to have precedence over international humanitarian law as defined in relevant treaties and conventions.
@Michael Reynolds:
What’s the rest of the chant, Michael? You never complete it when you make the reference. Maybe it’s you who doesn’t know what the fuck it means. Or is your concern that if you quote the full chant, it would undermine your position?
It’s okay, trooper. We all struggle to avoid manichean tendencies every now and then. We are allowed a little hypocrisy every now and then.
It’s okay, bud. The rest of us around here will ignore the flea bites covering your body when the topic changes to something less contentious. Just scratch that itch, we will pretend we did not notice. In the future no one will remember you as a Good German; it seems likely the solution to Palestine will be final.
Too much? Did I cross the line? Maybe. But perhaps you should apply “never again” to someone outside of your own identity rather than expect others to ignore the parallels. Oh, pardon me, I mistyped that, ‘never again’.
@Kurtz:
From the river to the sea Palestine will be free. Hamas has made it abundantly crystal clear that “free” means “judenfrei.” My position is that judenfrei anything is unacceptable. Is it possible to have a slogan more explicitly genocidal than that?
Andy, have come around to my point of view, i.e. that Israel is just another Mid Eastern country like Egypt or Saudi Arabia, as bad as all of them, and that we should not be giving them any special status?
“Bulwark”
Emphasis from the original.
My emphasis, more at the linky.
@charontwo:
The original phrasings were explicitly Islamist or Pan-Arab and had less to do with freedom than genocide. The replacement of the previous religious nationalist phrasing with “Palestine will be free” is an attempt to break that link.
I missed the part wherein I defended Hamas. I never have. I never will.
But you know who has worked to empower Hamas? Netanyahu. He has done far more materially for Hamas than college kids chanting a slogan, Rashida Tlaib. Nor I when I made the decision to point out a peer’s rank hypocrisy. I’ve largely avoided commenting on this topic–I don’t like shit sandwiches. But I could no longer abide Michael’s double standards stand unchallenged any longer.
Indeed, you can directly trace almost all* of the key phrases in my reply to Michael’s use of them to criticize others. He is unhinged on this topic. As understandable as that may be, given the ubiquity of anti-semitism historically and its stubborn refusal to be put out to pasture. But that doesn’t justify empowering bigots who exploit that legacy to excuse treating other groups the way Jews have been treated.
While I’m at it, I would like to describe something that bothers me from time to time. Why is it that many Lefty Americans suddenly go right wing on this particular topic? Could it have anything to do with the legacy of American settlement of the West and the settler tactic used by Israel?
Perhaps; perhaps no. Hell, probably not. But I do wonder about it.
@Andy: We have more influence with our allies, or at least an obligation to distance ourselves.
That’s correct. And since it was Israel’s choice and nobody else’s to conduct such a war, it is 100% responsible for the humanitarian disaster that followed.
When the decision was accompanied by statements from senior Israeli ministers that all food, water, fuel and medicines would be cut off from Gaza because the inhabitants were “animals”, the genocidal intent is hard to ignore. Especially when other members of the government have openly declared that Gaza should be part of Israel, and Jewish investors like Jared Kushner have openly proposed exiling all the Palestinians to the Negev Desert so they can transform the country into Miami-on-the Mediterranean.
@James Joyner:
So, you are equating Hamas = Palestinians? Israel is not fighting Hamas, it is fighting Palestine?
Let’s be clear about this. It matters.
@Andy:
It did. Were you on vacation or something?
You misspelled “I wasn’t paying attention.”
If you don’t understand why Americans care more about Israel than about Yemen, I don’t have time to educate you.
@charontwo:
There is zero evidence that this forms part of the Israeli government’s vision of a “normalized equilibrium” in its region. All the available evidence, in the form of both words and deeds, totally contradicts the idea.
Writing commentary about what “Israel wants” and “Hamas wants” is bullshit disguised as analysis. Israel comprises numerous groups and individuals with all sorts of different agendas and visions. Ditto the occupied territories, in which Hamas is only one of numerous political groups.
@James Joyner: “But it has never occurred to me that, monstrous as Putin’s crimes are, that this is an act of genocide.”
Considering that the definition boils down to trying to destroy a group, Russia’s stated aims are quite clearly genocidal.
@Ken_L:
Oh please. Oct. 7 was planned and executed by Hamas, their choice. The country that would not respond to such an event by seeking to destroy the perps does not exist, could not exist and survive.
Hamas controls Gaza, not any other Palestinians. Hamas matters, only Hamas, so only Hamas and its allies/backers like Iran matter.
This became an “Ich oder du” situation on Oct.7, it should not surprise that Israelis are not suicidal.
@Barry:
Suppressing Ukrainian language and culture, forcing people to speak Russian, annexing Ukrainian territory, kidnapping children to Russia, declaring Ukraine part of Russia have a lot of resemblance to genocide.
@charontwo:
I am highlighting this because this perfectly illustrates how Israel backers want the rest of the world to look at the conflict. No attention must be paid to:
* Netanyahu deliberately building up Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah
* Israel’s illegal pre-war blockade of Gaza
* Israel’s illegal settlements on the West Bank
* Israel’s ongoing land theft and gross human rights violations on the West Bank
“Why won’t they let us live in peace?”
Truly, a mystery for the ages.
@drj:
All true and so what? Does not change or contradict anything I said.
So Netanyahu is a putz? Gee, I never realized.
So Netanyahu got played? Such a surprise.
@charontwo:
A bald assertion incapable of proof, but reminiscent of the excuses posed by every aggressor nation in history that someone else’s behavior left them with no choice but to invade another country.
The notion that Hamas represented an existential threat to Israel is transarent nonsense.
@charontwo:
No one is suggesting that Israel shouldn’t have responded. It’s more a matter of what that response should have been.
Petit-genocide was not an appropriate response. (Or sparkling deliberate mass killings of a civilian population, or multiple oopsies, or whatever the pro-Zionist crowd wants to label it as). Genocide, and genocide-lite, is seldom an appropriate response.
@Ken_L:
Hamas represented an existential threat to the status quo of Israelis mostly ignoring one third of the population in their country’s borders, because the oppression and subjugation didn’t affect the good people, it was contained over there.
It was willfully ignoring, and required a reach, but they did it until Hamas broke containment.
I think most peopler not aware that Armenians are again facing what is being called genocide by the Azerbaijan. They are being denied food, fuel and medical supplies. The Red Cross is denied access. AFAICT, the actual norm is that once you deny aid access in the form of food, fuel, medicine, water people almost always start to use the term genocide.
https://luskincenter.history.ucla.edu/event/atrocities-genocide-the-duty-to-prevent-and-to-punish-under-international-law-the-situation-of-nagorno-karabakh-artsakh/
Steve
@charontwo:
Not just a putz. Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, one who has funded and boosted Hamas in Gaza — while pushing Zionst settler terrorism in the West Bank — to stymie a negotiated, longterm peace. It’s all on record, yet Israel has returned this Hamas-fluffier to power again and again.
So it does not make sense to acknowledge Israel’s role in deliberately elevating Hamas, then also try to portray Israelis more of a super special unique victims than a backsliding and increasingly terrorist state reaping the consequences of its own stupid and amoral choices (including ignoring the advice of its friends and allies).
If we know Israel’s elected and longest-serving prime minister has helped enable and empower Hamas, then we know Israel is partially to blame for 7 Oct and the fallout. 1 + 1 still equals 2.
The main victims here, besides Palestinian children, are still the Israeli kibbutzim communities nearest Gaza — populated with socialists and liberals who have long opposed Netanyahu, were abandoned by their goverment before and on 7 Oct, and whose hostages are being abandoned again.
Israel more broadly is never going to be able to claim moral high ground as long it keeps violent, incompetent lunatics like Benjamin Netanyahu and Itamar Ben-Gvir in power. If Israel’s defenders here and elsewhere were serious people — if they really cared about Israelis and their security and well-being — they’d be spilling far more ink ripping those two than they do bashing American leftists and immature college students. Instead, we see the opposite. Which is telling.
It is incontrovertible that Israel is mowing down people when they think there may be a Hamas soldier in the midst. Note what I’m writing: “may”. That is the IDF is slaughtering thousands of people irrespective of the presence of the enemy. The shooting of people waving white flags, the beach shootings, the food dispersal fiasco, the hospital, the WCK killings, on and on, and this is what we know. Israel has a history of collective punishment, so why is it so hard to believe that Israel dos not care whether it kills innocent civilians? After all most of the Jewish population supports this. The proof is in the pudding, nearly 20,000 dead Palestinian women and children. And for those who argue Hamas is hiding among civilians, would that justify blowing the whole place up? In the past Israel has had a very effective targeting program, why the chose not do so here is very telling.
Super busy at work, so sorry for being late getting back to this. A couple of short replies:
@drj:
The point is it took years for opposition to develop to that intervention compared to mere weeks for Gaza. And that opposition only really developed after the Khashoggi murder – that was something that much more coverage and outrage than the war itself and was actually the thing that drove the resolution that Trump vetoed.
Even so, the level of the opposition, even with Khashoggi’s murder, never reached the level of the war in Gaza at the 2-3 month mark. It’s not even close.
Part of the problem is it’s not clear what’s being talked about because the terms keep changing. First it’s definitively genocide, then it’s purported warcrimes, now the evidence is “plausible” risk of genocide.
My view is quite simple – define genocide in a clear and incontrovertible way and then apply that standard to every country or group that meets it. To me, it is quite obvious neither of those things is being done. We have lot of cherry-picked rationales.
My personal view is that “genocide” ought to be reserved for the clear and incontrovertible worst cases – the Holocaust, the Circassian genocide, the Cambodian Genocide, the Holomodor, the Armenian Genocide, Rwandan Genocide, etc. My view is that if you have to make a complicated legal argument and make a bunch of questionable assumptions about intent, then it shouldn’t be genocide. People are free to disagree with that.
@MarkedMan:
To me, it’s the Israeli-haters that give Israeli special status because that is all they ever want to talk about. To me, it seems pretty strange to want to cut all aid off from Israel, but it’s perfectly fine to keep sending billions in weapons annually to Egypt, Saudi and the other Gulf States, Iraq, Jordan, and other governments that are generally terrible by most every metric we judge countries. Many people in this comment section here and in the past have explicitly said they hold Israel to a higher standard – aka – a special status – which is why they say they can single out Israel for criticism but not any of these other countries that are much worse.
So yes, I very much think Israel should be treated just like other countries, and it would be nice if the others would start doing that too.
@DrDaveT:
I was paying attention – professionally.
And you are not correct, the vast majority of Americans did not know anything about it and did not care. The level of attention of Gaza compared to Yemen is orders of magnitude in difference.
I looked through the OTB archives and while not a definitive search, there was one post in March of 2015 when the intervention began and not another one until over 3 years later in August 2018 by the late Doug Mataconis arguing that it was past time for it and US involvement to end.
Oh, I understand quite well when it comes to the average American. I have much less understanding for those who claim to be informed about these things and the activist community.
@drj:
I’m highlighting this because it perfectly illustrates how Israel hater want the rest of the world to look at the conflict. No attention must be paid to:
* Hamas took control of Gaza after the Palestinian elections, executing members of the opposition parties, and has ruled there with a bloody fist ever since.
* The fact that there have been no national Palestinian elections since 2006 because Hamas refuses to allow them and Hamas controls Gaza.
* Hamas is the de facto government of Gaza, and pretending otherwise is foolish nonsense.
* Despite being the de facto government of Gaza, Hamas is not much interested in governing, their primary goal is to kill Jews and destroy the state of Israel. The material conditions of the people of Gaza are secondary to that mission.
* Hamas’s constant attacks and infiltration by tunnels and other means, along with illegal arms transfers after Hamas seized control of Gaza (see the point about Hamas’ goals), were the reason for the blockade that you and so many others complain about. What is your alternative? Open borders? The one time Israel got lazy with its security and let its guard down, 10/7 happened. They won’t make that mistake again. When Hamas gets back in power (it’s a question of when now, not if), the border between Israel and Gaza will be sealed like never before. And let me guess, people will be outraged at this and expect Israel to be open to a statelet run by a genocidal death cult.
@Gustopher:
And we are still waiting for the magical response that you and so many others say that Israel should have taken, which would have resulted in Israel getting its hostages back and ensuring that Hamas would never be able to do something similar again.
@Kurtz:
This is exactly what I’m talking about.
You’re not stupid, but you are ignorant. You’ve just made my point that most of Israel’s critics are just flatly ignorant. If you think Hamas or the PA are even remotely interested in a ‘free’ Palestine, you just don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. There is only one democracy in the middle east and it is Israel. Every other country in the region is an authoritarian or absolute monarchical state. The nearest facsimile of a democratic state is Cyprus or Turkey. The only Arab’s in the ME ever to cast a free vote, are Israeli Arabs.
There is literally zero chance of a PA/Hamas Palestine being anything but a human rights horror show, a horror show you want to buy with the lives of Israeli Jews. Seriously, learn before opining, because you are living in a fantasy.
@Andy:
All those things you point out can be simplified:
Murc’s law, Israel version: Only Jews have agency.
See? Simple, no, all your points addressed.
Or, alternatively stated: “Look what you (i.e., Israel) made me do.”
@Michael Reynolds:
The slogan came in an earlier version that was more explicit than that toned-down word “free,” but even “free” means free of Jews, judenfrei – “from the water to the water,” updated to “from the river to the sea.”
@charontwo: I’m trying to stay out of these arguments because they get ugly really fast and do nobody any good. But for all the claims of genocide on one side and anti-Semitism on the other, I haven’t seen anything as ugly as your constantly putting Nazi (or pseudo-Nazi) terminology into the mouths of your political opponents.
Claiming that anyone who objects to Israel’s actions is the equivalent to the SS may make you feel good when you type it, but it degrades the conversation and in fact degrades this entire site.
@wr:
An interesting way to characterize Hamas. Clearly, you and I disagree about whether Hamas is less *genocidal or less *anti-Jewish than the 3rd Reich.
*(By aspiration, obviously Hamas lacks the same capability to effect its aspirations as the German state. But its ambitions, as stated, are similar.)
Do you have some examples of me hanging Germanic (not Yiddish) terminology on someone not deserving that?
And I do not think I am wrong about the history of that slogan, exactly what it meant when it was generated.
@charontwo:
I’m trying to stay out of these as well. Sort of, maybe.
But the history of that slogan is tied to Palestinians losing their land because of Zionist settlement and aggression. That’s just the fact. The Palestinians lost their land and the Zionists and then Israel took it from them. There’s no connection between that and the Nazi crusade to render Europe Judenfrei. In fact, the constant WW2 analogies in defense of killing civilians are equally dubious. Whatever the Allies did to the Germans was dwarfed by the Germans did to the Soviet Union and its citizens.
The real analogy for this conflict is with the French in Algeria. Look at the casualities for both sides there. That’s the actual conflict to compare Israel/Palestine to.
@Modulo Myself:
Yeah, I googled the slogan, so apparently the source I used was cherry picking or spinning or whatever, the slogan is a lot older than Hamas.
It might look that way, but I have not been defending killing noncombatants. I have just been observing that people get angry and fearful after terrorist events, and the reactions can and usually do get pretty over the top – so thus to be expected.
ETA: Urban warfare in populated areas always results in many noncombatant casualties, and I acknowledge Israel seems to be abusing the concept of “proportionate.”
@Modulo Myself:
That was then, historical, now is now. Now, the stated ambitions of Hamas, specifically Hamas (backed by Iran and others) are as I described.
@charontwo: You can justify your calling people Nazis and I’m sure you feel completely righteous in it. If you think that doing so advances a conversation or does anything besides shut down a rational discussion, you’re fooling yourself. But maybe you just feel like spewing hate for a while.
Thanks for dragging down the discourse a little more!
I’ve long refrained from commenting in IP posts (with the greatest difficulty, I might add, as I’ve been studying the IP conflict for about three decades), but here goes, albeit rather late in this particular post.
First, to return to the OP.
When to Refer to a Situation as Genocide
[…]
Crimes Against Humanity
War Crimes
Israel has long committed crimes against humanity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as well as a long history of war crimes in both Gaza and Lebanon.
The answer to the age-old query, “What comes first the chicken or the egg?” is obvious, of course: the egg. After an evolutionary process, the first anatomically modern chicken is hatched.
The evolutionary process in the IP conflict begins with the British mandate and the encouragement of Jewish immigration to an inhabited land, the Zionist project to create a Jewish national state in all of the Palestinian territory (including the Transjordan, which had never been considered part of the territory), the killing of Palestinians attempting return to their homes and farms after having been expelled by Zionist/Israeli forces or who had fled in fear, particularly after the Deir Yassin massacre – Plan Dalet and Unit 101.
Along the way there was the Military Occupation of Palestinian communities within Israel, and, of course, the decades-long Military Occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. Illegal annexations and settlements, settler violence against Palestinians, military “administrative” detentions of rock-throwing Davids, suspected terrorists (including peace activists, journalists, and NGO personnel) without charges or trials, prisoner abuse and torture, home demolitions and night raids, and military use of tanks and air bombings on various towns, villages, and refugee camps because, well, you know, Israeli security.
The result is resistance; protest marches, civil disobedience, uprisings, and, yes, terrorism; and the people who arose to organize and lead those activities. What the PLO/Fatah, Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and other groups have in common is resistence to the Zionist Project and to Israel’s process to fulfill it (in Lebanon, it has a great deal to do with Israel’s desire for the Litani River).
Hamas is not Al-Qaeda or ISIS; it has no interest in establishing a caliphate or a Pan-Arab state. Its only concerns are freeing the Palestinians from Israeli subjugation, which, in its mind, calls for the eradication of the Israeli state altogether. An understandable desire, but utterly irrational; it’s never gonna happen, nor should it.
Antisemitism among the Palestinians is difficult to ascertain, and it is wrong-headed to believe that it’s the core element behind the loathing of Israeli Jews. If Jews are the sole cause and instrument of your misery and loss, of the death of your loved ones and the destruction of your communities, of a cruel and brutal occupation and subjugation – just who are you going to fear and hate, to rebel against? Who is it that you want to be gone – not exteriminated, but just gone? As in, “leave us alone, leave us free to choose our own fate.”
Lastly, just to be clear, I condemn terrorist acts. Regardless of their purpose for the terrorists, the victims are innocent of any actions against the people on whose behalf the terrorism is committed. The problem is whether the victims supported the policies – therein lies the confusion and (mistaken) support of terrorist acts.
@Dawn:
Based on this post, you don’t comment enough as I would like, period.
@Kurtz:
Thank you. And an uptick for replying – I hadn’t expected one since I was late to the conversation!
@Dawn:
Haha. I came back here looking for something someone had posted and saw your comment. Figured I’d reply to show appreciation.
Hoping to see you more.