The Islamophobia split on the left.

[Flying Pig]

It is certainly possible to argue excessive force, but there is a vast gulf between that and what you are saying here. This is a plain accusation of genocide, couched in other terms. I find that disingenuous. Say what you mean.

J

I think that if you employ military force on an area filled entirely with people from a different ethnic group with a laughably small level of concern for whether you hit a military target or a civilian one, you're committing genocide. My point was that the term is controversial, not that I don't support it.

 

[Funky]

I think that if you employ military force on an area filled entirely with people from a different ethnic group with a laughably small level of concern for whether you hit a military target or a civilian one, you're committing genocide.

This is just wrong on so many levels. The Israeli government can and should be criticized harshly for many of its actions. But calling its policy genocide is not only a grotesque distortion of the facts, it makes an unseemly mockery of the victims of actual genocide.

 

[Arakhor]

Well, given that the definition of genocide is "the systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group", you can see from where that belief might arise.

 

[El_Machinae]

I actually find Israel to be uniquely frustrating on this topic. A major portion of their origin myths include their ancestors performing a mass genocide in order to claim their current lands. All modern evidence indicates that this story is not true. Despite this, they continue to teach their children to take pride in this mythical atrocity. How can you move forwards when you're teaching your children to be proud of such things? Everyone should seek to end the slander of their cultural ancestors.

I like a lot of Sam Harris's stuff. He has one trait that bugs me. It often confounds me. He's clever enough to acknowledge a really good criticism of one of his thesis points when he's in discussion (which is nice), but won't modify or update his points next time he presents, or even acknowledge his potential error. It's very frustrating, it makes it seem like 'this time' he's hoping no one notices his mistake and will just be convinced to accept his conclusions.

 

[Funky]

Well, given that the definition of genocide is "the systematic destruction of all or a significant part of a racial, ethnic, religious or national group", you can see from where that belief might arise.

No, I can't see that and I hope nobody else can either. If you believe that Israeli policy consists of the systematic destruction of the Palestinians, you honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[Arakhor]

So, the belief in a mythical promised land for the Jewish people is in no way connected with the illegal and continual colonisation of Palestine by Israeli settlers and that Israel, if left to its own devices, wouldn't seek to entirely occupy/control Gaza, the West Bank and other Palestinian-held land?

If people are arguing that Israel is actually the wounded party in this affair and they are 'forced' to take such actions against Palestine, it is hardly inconceivable that people in Palestine (or elsewhere) would believe that such was the goal of the Israeli government.

 

[Funky]

So, the belief in a mythical promised land for the Jewish people is in no way connected with the illegal and continual colonisation of Palestine by Israeli settlers and that Israel, if left to its own devices, wouldn't seek to entirely occupy/control Gaza, the West Bank and other Palestinian-held land?

Of course the Jewish religious beliefs have consequences and undoubtedly constitute an incentive among many Jewish settlers to illegally acquire more land in the region. That is a big problem, which I am the first to note and criticize. That does not suggest in the slightest that a political aim of Israel is to kill, let alone eradicate Palestinians.

 

[Arakhor]

I didn't say that the modern people of Israel all seek to expunge Palestinian culture from the world etc., or even that they would want their government to do so, as I'd hazard a guess that most normal people in the world don't want illegal or immoral actions undertaken in their names, but as I did say:

If people are arguing that Israel is actually the wounded party in this affair and they are 'forced' to take such actions against Palestine, it is hardly inconceivable that people in Palestine (or elsewhere) would believe that such was the goal of the Israeli government.

 

[Funky]

If people are arguing that Israel is actually the wounded party in this affair and they are 'forced' to take such actions against Palestine, it is hardly inconceivable that people in Palestine (or elsewhere) would believe that such was the goal of the Israeli government.

I haven't argued for either side of the conflict being the perpetrators or victims. The reality is a lot more complex than to allow such black and white perceptions. I was merely responding to the adbsurdity and obscenity of labeling Israel's policy as genocide.

 

[Flying Pig]

Care to explain that a bit more fully? What are the Israelis doing or not doing which makes their actions non-genocidal? Genocides don't need to be targeted at an entire ethnic group, remember; all that is required is that people are being killed purely for belonging to said ethnic group. To my mind whether that's the primary aim or 'collateral damage' through negligence makes little difference; it certainly doesn't make much to the people on the sharp end.

 

[luiz]

Certainly it's difficult to argue that Israel is not systematically killing people simply for being Palestinian; the difficult part is whether doing so through gross negligence is enough to constitute 'genocide'.

I think it's very easy to argue that Israel is not deliberately killing people simply for being Palestinian. See:

-Israel has the capacity to kill all Palestinians if it wanted to, but doesn't;
-The Palestinian population growth remains quite strong and Israel is not stopping it. In fact all Palestinians Israel killed in the recent conflicts have a negligible effect on the overall demographics, and compared to actual wars the conflict in Palestine is very low intensity.

What sort of genocide is that?

And no, I'm not Israeli, I'm not Jewish, I'm not Evangelical nor part of any pro-Israel lobby, in the US or otherwise. And I think anyone who accuses Israel of genocide is a raging anti-semite, or a raging illiterate.

 

[Arakhor]

-Israel has the capacity to kill all Palestinians if it wanted to, but doesn't

That's hardly much of an argument for anything. The world's powers have the ability to destroy the world several times over, but not doing so doesn't absolve them of any crimes they may instead be committing.

As an aside, genocide does not have to mean the death of human beings. It can mean the deliberate death of a culture, amongst others.

 

[luiz]

That's hardly much of an argument for anything. The world's powers have the ability to destroy the world several times over, but not doing so doesn't absolve them of any crimes they may instead be committing.

As an aside, genocide does not have to mean the death of human beings. It can mean the deliberate death of a culture, amongst others.

Of course it means a whole lot. Israel could very well destroy Palestine, but doesn't. Israel is not engaged in the sort of "war of destruction" against a population as the Germans were to the Jews or the Turks to the Armenians, to give two famous examples. To compare the very low intensity conflict that goes in Palestine to an actual genocide is in incredible bad faith. So incredible, in fact, that I question the character of the accusers. You're more likely to be killed as a regular Venezuelan in Venezuela than as a Palestinian in Israel-Palestine.

As for death of a culture... how is Israel destroying Palestinian culture? Is Arabic proficiency declining? Islam declining? Cuisine changing? What exactly is being destroyed there culturally speaking?

So the people are not dying (in fact they are growing much more than Israelis), culture is not declining... where is the genocide?

 

[Ajidica]

-Israel has the capacity to kill all Palestinians if it wanted to, but doesn't;

-The Ottoman Empire had the capacity to kill all Armenians if it wanted to, but it didn't.


Every sane person agrees the Holocaust was a genocide, but there are still Jews living in the world who possess a relatively strong and vibrant culture. I have seen arguments that the Holocaust was not a genocide due to the two criteria you put forward above.
NOTE: I am not saying you are a Holocaust denier, merely that the conditions you put forward as requirements for genocide have been used to deny the holocaust. Furthermore, I am not making any statements on whether or not the actions of the Israeli government toward Palestine constitutes genocide.

 

[luiz]

-The Ottoman Empire had the capacity to kill all Armenians if it wanted to, but it didn't.


Every sane person agrees the Holocaust was a genocide, but there are still Jews living in the world who possess a relatively strong and vibrant culture. I have seen arguments that the Holocaust was not a genocide due to the two criteria you put forward above.
NOTE: I am not saying you are a Holocaust denier, merely that the conditions you put forward as requirements for genocide have been used to deny the holocaust. Furthermore, I am not making any statements on whether or not the actions of the Israeli government toward Palestine constitutes genocide.

The Ottoman Empire actually did not have the capacity to kill all Armenians. Unlike Palestinians, who are all crowded up in a very compact and urbanized space, the Armenians were spread out over vast and sometimes very harsh terrain. Not only that, unlike Israel the Ottoman Empire was not an industrialized power and did not posses an air force capable of obliterating its enemies.

The Nazis were also very clearly out to destroy as many Jews as possible, preferably wiping them out from Europe. Israel has no such goal.

And of course you're only addressing one point I made. The main narrative here is that the conflict in Palestine is very low intensity; so much so that some countries which are not even at war with anyone have a higher violent death rate. Additionally, Israel is vastly more powerful than Palestine and could end the conflict forever if it was true that it is engaging in genocide. But reality is the Palestinian population is growing much faster than theirs (and the Arab Israeli population grows faster than both).

Which is why nobody on the mainstream will say that Israel is committing genocide. Only very deluded fringe radicals say that, and not rarely there is some antisemitism involved.

 

[Arakhor]

I think it's unhelpful to use the word genocide, as FP pointed out earlier, but that does not in any way excuse Israel's military and colonial attempts to annex the entirety of Palestine in defiance of international (and local!) opinion, nor should either side (especially not the vastly superior Israel) be claiming that they have 'no choice'.

 

[Funky]

I think it's unhelpful to use the word genocide

It isn't only unhelpful, it is downright lunacy and displays complete ignorance of both the term and the political situation in the Near East. No Israeli, not even the most raving fundamentalist, wants to kill Palestinians for the sake of killing Palestinians.

that does not in any way excuse Israel's military and colonial attempts to annex the entirety of Palestine in defiance of international (and local!) opinion, nor should either side (especially not the vastly superior Israel) be claiming that they have 'no choice'.

And even this is grossly overstating the situation. "Colonial attempts to annex the entirety of Palestine", really? No offense, but inform yourself before you utter such nonsense. Hell, you can check out this article on Wikipedia for starters.

Listen, as I said before, we must criticize Israel harshly and relentlessly for a a great number of charges in the past and in the present, in which it has violated both international law and human rights. But not only is it misleading and counter-productive to accuse Israel of having intentions it clearly does not hold. It is also intellectually dishonest to regard the country as the vile foe among peace-loving Palestinians who only want to defend their land. Palestine is currently governed by the democratically elected Hamas, whose charter contains such charming statements like that peace will not come "until Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!" Every bar and restaurant in Jerusalem, let alone the airport, has immense security checks, not for the fun of it, but because of the very real danger of Muslim suicide bombers who, unlike the Israelis, really do only want to kill Jews for the sake of being Jews.
Now, to say it again, this is not suggesting that Israel is the sole victim in this conflict or that their actions have always been purely for reasons of self-defense - they clearly haven't been. But please, let's keep things in relation, instead of focusing on one side and denying all the rest of the issue because it happens to correspond with our pre-conceived notions of political rightness.

 

[Flying Pig]

It isn't only unhelpful, it is downright lunacy and displays complete ignorance of both the term and the political situation in the Near East. No Israeli, not even the most raving fundamentalist, wants to kill Palestinians for the sake of killing Palestinians.

I don't think the intention actually matters all that much, given that the military (and therefore their political masters) are so callous about the use of force that it amounts to the same thing. Perhaps there's a different level of evil required from the people doing it, but I don't think it makes much difference to the Palestinians in question whether the Israelis are deliberately bombing civilians or just bombing so carelessly that they hit far more civilians than militants. I'm the first to acknowledge that military operations in hostile civilian areas with no clear divide between onlookers and enemy are horrendous, usually brutal and more likely than most to lead to serious foul-ups, but that doesn't excuse giving in to the natural tendency to stop caring about the civilians who hate you and help the enemy so much that you end up killing them.

 

[Funky]

I don't think the intention actually matters all that much, given that the military (and therefore their political masters) are so callous about the use of force that it amounts to the same thing. Perhaps there's a different level of evil required from the people doing it, but I don't think it makes much difference to the Palestinians in question whether the Israelis are deliberately bombing civilians or just bombing so carelessly that they hit far more civilians than militants.

The intention is all that matters. Take the World War II firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden. The goal of these air missions actually was to kill civilians by the hundreds of thousands. Or Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the goal really was to annihialte entire cities. Why don't we regard these examples (which are of scope and scale thousands of times worse than Israels entire history of targetted killing) as being cases of genocide? The reason is that the bigger intention was not to obliterate a race or a nation, it was to bring an end to wars with horrendous regimes. I say this as a point of comparison, not because I necessarily defend these acts of violence.

But even if intent didn't matter, you'd still have no case. Please show me the articles that report that Israel is constantly carelessly tossing bombs around, indifferent of the collateral damage. The Israeli military seeks to destroy military targets. As in every conflict this can lead to collateral damage. It should be noted that when armed Hamas forces hide in schools or use human shields as protection, it is they who are magnifying the likelyhood of collateral damage. If Israel had the means to kill only military targets there is no doubt they would use these means.
Compare that to the Palestinians, who have a shocking history of targeting non-combatants. Yet Israel is simply held to a different standard. While the Palestinians have shot rockets into residential areas, butchered Jewish teenagers, blown themselves up in buses and restaurants etc., the collateral damage done by the Israeli military when targeting military goals, which is often a result of the human shield practise, causes such outrage that people go so far as to call it genocide.

Maybe it's just me, but I find this double standard rather peculiar, to say the least.

 

[Flying Pig]

The intention is all that matters. Take the World War II firebombing of Hamburg and Dresden. The goal of these air missions actually was to kill civilians by the hundreds of thousands. Or Hiroshima and Nagasaki, where the goal really was to annihialte entire cities. Why don't we regard these examples (which are of scope and scale thousands of times worse than Israels entire history of targetted killing) as being cases of genocide? The reason is that the bigger intention was not to obliterate a race or a nation, it was to bring an end to wars with horrendous regimes. I say this as a point of comparison, not because I necessarily defend these acts of violence.

There is definitely a case to answer that both of those were war crimes. Certainly by modern standards they would be indefensible.

But even if intent didn't matter, you'd still have no case. Please show me the articles that report that Israel is constantly carelessly tossing bombs around, indifferent of the collateral damage. The Israeli military seeks to destroy military targets. As in every conflict this can lead to collateral damage. It should be noted that when armed Hamas forces hide in schools or use human shields as protection, it is they who are magnifying the likelyhood of collateral damage. If Israel had the means to kill only military targets there is no doubt they would use these means.

If the enemy are hiding in a school, you don't shoot at them. That's been part of the RoEs for every civilised military for decades now. Yes, that means you might get shot, but it also means you don't shoot civilians. Soldiers sign up to be shot at; civilians don't. There are certainly times in urban operations 'amongst the people' that you miss mortars, air strikes and artillery, but that's the price you pay for being a professional soldier and claiming to be the good guys.

I wasn't actually looking for those articles, but in the course of looking for a graphic I came across this:

"I'm not sure what the issue is. In 2006 and 2008, it was pretty clear the IDF's combined armed skills – their ability to integrate artillery and air power into ground campaigns – had atrophied since the withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. But I don't know whether the issue remains poor training, a lack of forward observers talking to the artillery batteries and aircraft, or commanders who just don't think avoiding civilian casualties is a priority."

"When a stray shell killed 23 Palestinian civilians, including nine children, in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza in November 2006, it was found it was caused by a faulty programming card in a counter-battery radar system, called Shilem, designed to track an enemy projectile's trajectory back to its point of origin and direct artillery fire back at that spot. The inquiry also found that the artillery crew had not recalibrated their weapons overnight and did not have spotters monitoring whether their fire was accurate, so 12 to 15 artillery shells were fired before it was realised they were hitting an apartment complex. It is not clear what changes the IDF made to its targeting methods as a result."

That sounds like callous negligence at best to me.

Compare that to the Palestinians, who have a shocking history of targeting non-combatants. Yet Israel is simply held to a different standard.

If you're going to portray yourself as a civilised country fighting against terrorists then I think you ought to be held to a different standard!

While the Palestinians have shot rockets into residential areas, butchered Jewish teenagers, blown themselves up in buses and restaurants etc., the collateral damage done by the Israeli military when targeting military goals, which is often a result of the human shield practise, causes such outrage that people go so far as to call it genocide.

It seems that the militants (I dislike the implication that all Palestinians are 'the enemy') are much more precise at targeting soldiers with their rockets, bombs and butcherings than the Israelis. 80% of the Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza were civilians, so that means that Israel kills four civilians every time it kills a soldier. Since 2009 (not counting Cast Lead) 58 Israelis have been killed by the violence in Gaza, of whom 42 were civilians, making 72%. During Cast Lead itself, 10 soldiers were killed for 3 civilians. So not only are the Israeli military doing worse for collateral damage than the 'terrorists' they oppose, they're also killing at a different order of magnitude.

EDIT: I didn't realise that Protective Edge is also a Gaza conflict - there we have 5 Israeli civilians killed for 66 soldiers.