International Politics

[Neil]

2 minutes ago, Looother said:

 

I fear you are pointlessly attempting to engage a bigot in reasoned debate.

The prejudiced only see what they want to see to confirm their prejudices.

[Skip997]

3 hours ago, Looother said:

 

I fear you are pointlessly attempting to engage a bigot in reasoned debate.

The blind leading the blind 

[steviewevie]

which goes to show the whole use of genocide just becomes subjective so ultimately pointless.

[Looother]

7 hours ago, steviewevie said:

which goes to show the whole use of genocide just becomes subjective so ultimately pointless.

Which was the entire point of what has been a deliberate campaign to redefine and enfeeble the word. Genocide is and should be anything but a meaningless term, but it has been made, as you say, so "subjective it's ultimately pointless" by people with no respect for the word or its history throwing it around at anything they don't like very much. 

[steviewevie]

22 minutes ago, Looother said:

Which was the entire point of what has been a deliberate campaign to redefine and enfeeble the word. Genocide is and should be anything but a meaningless term, but it has been made, as you say, so "subjective it's ultimately pointless" by people with no respect for the word or its history throwing it around at anything they don't like very much. 

ok...but when you have what seems to be indiscriminate bombing of people and infrastructure including hospitals and shelters, the bombing and burning of refugee camps, the cutting off of essential supplies, and then people in Israeli govt justifying this by saying they are fighting human animals or the president saying an entire nation is responsible or Netanyahu referencing Amalek then you can see why people might at the least say Israel is committing genocidal acts even if not full genocides.

The problem is the definition is open to interpretation, not all genocides are the same, there of course have been many genocides throughout history including those committed by us, it is loaded against Israel because of how the term came to be defined originally, and the hardest part of any case is to prove intent...which is why sometimes maybe just easier to stick with war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Also, even if ICJ found Israel guilty of genocide, what then? A fine? Arrest the government? The main thing is finding a conclusion.

[Looother]

21 hours ago, steviewevie said:

ok...but when you have what seems to be indiscriminate bombing of people and infrastructure including hospitals and shelters, the bombing and burning of refugee camps, the cutting off of essential supplies, and then people in Israeli govt justifying this by saying they are fighting human animals or the president saying an entire nation is responsible or Netanyahu referencing Amalek then you can see why people might at the least say Israel is committing genocidal acts even if not full genocides.

The problem is the definition is open to interpretation, not all genocides are the same, there of course have been many genocides throughout history including those committed by us, it is loaded against Israel because of how the term came to be defined originally, and the hardest part of any case is to prove intent...which is why sometimes maybe just easier to stick with war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Also, even if ICJ found Israel guilty of genocide, what then? A fine? Arrest the government? The main thing is finding a conclusion.

 

Certainly the definition used by the UN, specifically the phrase "in whole or in part", allows people to throw it around too liberally. On Netanyahu referencing Amalek, I'd recommend this article in the Atlantic, published last January - his reference was clearly misinterpreted (he was referring to a section of Deuteronomy, while the mention of Amalek that would be problematic is from the book of Samuel, obviously a completely different part of the bible). He's said and done loads of awful things in his time, but that particular one is not among them. Obviously his government does, shamefully, contain Jewish supremacists who would clearly love to push the Palestinians out of the area completely, but their influence in Gaza appears to be minimal (their influence in the West Bank is much greater, with disastrous results).

 

 

[steviewevie]

50 minutes ago, Looother said:

 

Certainly the definition used by the UN, specifically the phrase "in whole or in part", allows people to throw it around too liberally. On Netanyahu referencing Amalek, I'd recommend this article in the Atlantic, published last January - his reference was clearly misinterpreted (he was referring to a section of Deuteronomy, while the mention of Amalek that would be problematic is from the book of Samuel, obviously a completely different part of the bible). He's said and done loads of awful things in his time, but that particular one is not among them. Obviously his government does, shamefully, contain Jewish supremacists who would clearly love to push the Palestinians out of the area completely, but their influence in Gaza appears to be minimal (their influence in the West Bank is much greater, with disastrous results).

 

 

The definition used by the UN is the definition...as coined by Raphael Lemkin.