A pro-Palestinian protest action briefly blocked all traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Wednesday morning.
Starting at about 7:45 a.m. Protesters stopped cars and stretched banners across the roadway denouncing Israel’s bombing of Rafah in the Gaza Strip and demanding that the U.S. stop arming Israel.
Northbound and southbound traffic on the bridge was at a standstill as of 8 a.m.
Look up the definition of genocide. Then stop using it as an argument. No one is committing genocide. The U.N. isn’t even declaring it a genocide. It’s a horrific territorial displacement war with a lot of nuance that goes back a LONG time, but by definition- it’s not genocide.
Israel is erasing any trace of Palestinean humanity and denies them any institutional political representation while destroying the local infrastructure and using any perceived or imagined association with the last remaining government as an excuse to murder them in the streets.
People’s collective understanding of the meaning of genocide must have kept up with the times.
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I said exactly what I said.
If we’re stretching the definition so far then there are a lot more ‘genocides’ ongoing in the world today, and many a lot worse than the one in Palestine. It’s weird that these people in SF (and on Lemmy) chose to focus on just the one
Show me the genocides where the US or other western countries are delivering billions and billions worth of weapons to the perpetrator.
Also the US, UK, and other countries argued at the ICJ for orders on the Myanmar genocide, arguing with the same arguments now brought forth by South Africa. Calling out the hypocricsy of the governments helping a genocide is absolutely justified.
Finally, you neither know if the people speaking out now, didn’t speak out earlier, nor is it any argument. A genocide is happening and it needs to be stopped. The West has the means to end it within a day. It is a moral obligation of any decent human being to demand an end to this genocide.
Well the Yemeni civil war comes to mind. 85.000 children dead from famine with the help of the US to starve them. If you claim “can’t know if these people on the GG bridge didn’t protest against that” I’ll call bullshit.
Finally, my point is not so much that US support for Israel can’t be criticized or that these bridge blocking bozo’s (sorry) are wrong, but that stretching up the definition of genocide to justify suddenly protesting now is something we should all push back on. It will just soften the public opinion to those that commit or are the victims of ‘real’ genocides
You say the definition of genocide was stretched, wrongfully assuming that the protestors wouldnt consider the Saudi and US war crimes in Yemen to amount to genocide. But most of them probably do.
You cannot hold the effectiveness of the US propaganda at propping up Saudi Arabia and silencing the voices about genocide in Yemen against the people who now protest for an end to the genocide in Palestine. If you want to condemn something, condemn how the US is acting.
If they buy into what you call US propaganda, while they literally have the entire internet at their fingertips, I certainly do hold that against them
It’s. It genocide by definition. Again, the U.N. will not even call it genocide. It’s a territorial dispute. And a long standing one with a shit load of nuance. I’m not defending anyone but empirical truth.
Frankly, you are not defending empirical truth, you are trying to have a linguistics debate. That’s not remotely the same thing.
But even in your linguistics debate, the statement “it’s not by definition a genocide” is not as clear cut as you are trying to make it.
Some excerpts taken from the (rather extensive) Wikipedia page regarding the Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza:
So in a lot of ways, it sure looks like a genocide. And it goes beyond just allegations.
Finally, I think this bit sums up it up nicely.
So if you are looking to die on the hill of your linguistics debate, you do you. But the actions taking place are unarguably morally wrong.
Their goal is not to eradicate the world of Palestinians and their culture. They could care less of their existence. It’s a territorial war. Period.
Always has been. You can spin it however you want. But as atrocious as it is- it’s not genocide.
By the way… “plausible” doesn’t mean…. “Run with it!”
Netanyahu has made it quite clear that his goal is the end of Palestine as a sovereign state. Quoted in the “Times of Israel” publication as saying:
Seeing as part of the definition of Genocide is to:
I would argue that falls under the definition as outlined by the 1948 Genocide Convention. Your focus on total eradication of people and culture is only a part of the definition of genocide. Also, they are certainly doing an unnecessary amount of eradication of Palestinians and their culture, regardless of if it is an “expressed intent”.
Lastly, “plausible” doesn’t mean “just run with it”, but I never said it did. Plausible means “plausible”. As in, your argument that it “definitely isn’t genocide” is directly contradicted by the ICJ ruling. People whose judgement the world put their faith in to make the distinction couldn’t definitively say it wasn’t occurring given the information they were given access to.
Edit: need to add some clarity. It’s not simply that Israel plans to end the nation state of Palestine. They are intending to end Palestinians as a National Group. This has been made clear by retorhic such as posted in this comment, as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s statement during an Oct. 13 press conference. In his statement, Herzog said, “It’s an entire nation that is out there that’s responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true,”.
Beyond that, according to Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University:
Between the denial of statehood and other political rights, and association with the last duly elected government as a blank check for murder, it sounds to me like israel’s dick will not go any deeper into America’s asshole. If they can take our money and do this to other people around the world in our name while we Americans work ourselves to death then our freedoms don’t mean a thing until Netanyahu is removed from power.
I’d imagine he doesn’t care if they leave Palestine , so long as he gets to have it- which means… he doesn’t care if they live or die so long as he get the land, which means……
IT’S NOT GENOCIDE.
I’m done arguing this with you.
It looks like you might be done arguing because you can’t quite reconcile your belief that it’s not a genocide with the fact that there’s a clear intention to eradicate Palestine as a nationality, which fits one of the definitions of genocide, right?
I’m done arguing because i don’t exercise futility. It’s a pointless debate. I don’t just make up the rules to things so they can fit my agenda because I have no agenda.
I’ve no dog in that race and therefore have no bias. And having no bias allowed me to see it objectively and without any manufactured emotional outrage.
It’s not genocide. By definition, or U.N. policy.
I that’s your definition of genocide, you’ll have to call every war a genocide
I thought it was Israel defending themselves against a terror attack. Apparently the goal posts have moved.
Who said that?
The U.N. cannot call it a genocide because first, the US is vetoing any decision in the security council against Israels actions and second, there is the ICJ as a court that is currently ruling, with the authority to do so, if it constitutes a genocide.
IF.
So it’s not a genocide… CURRENTLY. And yet- all the kids pile on the outrage when someone points this out.
That is unsound logic. It is perfectly normal for murder suspects to be held in jail until the final verdict is reached. In the same wake it is most certainly absurd to give a mass murder suspect access to weapons, and to let him continue commiting acts, until the court has reached his final verdict.
So you agree that it’s currently NOT genocide and that he term is being misused. That’s all I be been saying.
If a murder suspect is held, awaiting trial that doesn’t mean, that a murder didnt happen. Either a murde rhappened or not. The court is only deciding it after the fact. But saying it is currently not a genocide, until the court decided, is just absurd. By this logic there was no genocide in Armenia at the time it happened, or in Bosnia, or in Rwanda.
The fact that the ICJ ruled it plausible that there is a genocide commited, should ring the alarm bells of any lawful and moral people. Most certainly it means to not send further weapons to the suspect.
It doesn’t mean it did either and that’s why most reasonable people don’t call them a murderer.
Case close. We’re done here.
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No, I’m not.
Look up the definition of ignorant.
Perfectly fine rebuttal. I produce an argument that is based in reality, and empirical truth- and you respond with ad hominem.
It’s always good to know who’s not worth a discussion. Ignoring you now.
Stop excusing genocide, please
If they were committing genocide, and I were saying it’s okay for them to do so- I would be excusing it. Here I’m saying they’re not committing it/- officials won’t even call it genocide. And neither Biden or Trump are contributing to it.
Oh la-di-da. Who cares what “officials” call it? Do you have eyes, ears and brain? Most officials lie for a living. That’s the reason genocide is still happening, instead of Haag livestreams. You must be young or are tied to all of it somehow. Your last sentence prooves it. Just don’t, please
So when facts don’t align with what you want them to say, you just resort to- “but they always lie! Therefore I can make up the truth!”
Sorry to be the one to tell you, but just because they don’t always play by the rules, doesn’t mean you don’t have to either.
Truth is truth. Period. Sometimes a thing is just what it is- regardless of how you want it to be.
Tell that to your friends Hamass who are sacrificing Palestinians for their politics and for their Mullah masters sitting in Iran.
Are they not willing to just roll over and die for you? I wouldn’t either, you know? Especially if you just murdered my family while your friends watched for entertainment. Hamas is Made in Israel. New members each day I bet.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
I have yet to find anyone on Lemmy willing to have that kind of discussion. They will pretend to, sure, but when it comes to discussing things, they just close their eyes and repeat the same thing over and over again.
And, if you were to write a well thought out, detailed post, with fully verified information that took hours to research, supermod Jordan comes along and deletes it as “misinformation” and threatens to ban you, even though literally everything you said is easily verifiable with four seconds of searching.
Yep. Dare to disagree and if you’re lucky, you only get your comments removed- at worst you get banned.
The ICJ offered an initial finding, because researching and confirming genocide is a big step, that takes a lot of time, political will, and physical access to the area.
That said, it’s a really damning when you have to be reminded to not do acts that are genocidal.
And yet it did not actually order Israel to do anything that it was not already doing except submit a report by February 23rd.
Yes. This is normal in any legal case, not an exoneration of Israel and/or the IDF. Rwanda took 20 years to prosecute, Yugoslavia 16 years
Those were the criminal proceedings that took that long. The case against Israel right now is the application to institute proceedings. The Rwanda application was filed to the ICJ in 2002 and the final judgment was in 2006. The Yugoslav application was filed to the ICJ in 1993 and final judgment was in 2007.
You’re talking about the individual criminal proceedings of the special trial courts (the ICTR and the ICTY) against the perpetrators of charged crimes, which were mandated by the final judgments on the applications to institute proceedings.
The evidence in both of those cases, as far as my memory serves at this moment, included literal mass killings where civilians were lined up and shot, soldiers going door to door killing everyone inside houses, with a heavy helping of torture and mutilations. The stories were very real, as opposed to the allegations in South Africa’s application, which is loaded with innuendo, half truths, unverified stories from Qatari and Iranian media, and circular reasoning, a yes a helping of what appear to be very real war crimes. In Rwanda there were plenty of mutilated women and children there to say who did it. If the ICJ institutes proceedings against Israel at a special criminal tribunal, it will take decades to find and prosecute those responsible, and if Israel is telling the truth about what it has for intelligence, most of those proceedings are going to end in aquitals.
Either way, if South Africa’s claims were as clear cut and dry as the mob of this community believes they are, the ICJ could have granted any of the preliminary relief South Africa sought, but it didn’t. The UN isn’t going to open a new tribunal for isolated war crimes of invidiual soldiers as long as Israel is making good faith prosecutions on its own, and it is, as ICJ noted in its preliminary decision, denying South Africa’s proposed relief.
Of course, I guess since I’ve not included links to the the original legal decisions of the ICJ, the moderators might come along and delete this post for being disinformation if they can find an Al Jazeera link that implies in a few second something other than what I’ve said.
You’re correct throughout your post. We are at the super early phase, and the ICJ has elected to keep the case open because there’s credible allegations, along with a fuckload of disinformation.
I chose those two to highlight how long these proceedings and subsequent convictions take, hence my use of “prosecuted”. They are not the same severity nor wanton butchery, absolutely not. But international courts aren’t full of successful cases to draw parallels to - the situation in Ukraine or the Uyghurs resulted in condemnation but zero concrete action, and they’re much closer analogies to Palestine.
Thank you for the mature response. I’ve been thinking of those two analogies, also, though in my view the situation is Gaza is unprecedented and incomparable to anything the world has seen for two reasons: the tunnels and the martyrdom, which in large part are related.
The tunnels are the game changing factor, and precisely why the ground invasion was so foolish. The nightmare scenario of a 360 urban battlefield, where suddenly previously cleared buildings get used for ambushes that evaporate immediately, cannot be overstated enough. It restricts your preferred options, all the way through Nth preference, until you’re bringing the combat engineers with D9s in and leveling everything. All while your force is being attritted and even MBTs with cutting edge protections are getting knocked out with decent regularity.
It reduces your viable options to scorched earth, not participating, or a looooong siege of starvation. Which would be brutal but understandable as a part of war, and defendable in court if there wasn’t ~2 million civilians in the mix. But they’re there, and tend to feature as an afterthought behind the IDF protecting itself, and the IDF attacking targets.
Martyrdom is an optics problem but Palestinian youth have been throwing their lives away for decades. Fedayeen chose suicide bombings, Fatah less so, and now it’s suicidal attacks hoping for maximum damage. Driving a car over a checkpoint guard isn’t going to liberate your people. Neither would Oct7
I don’t see the tunnels as a threat for the kind of long term guerrilla warfare you’re suggesting, at least, not once Israel has finished bombing and clearing them, or flooding them, or filling them. And, I would say it’s because of those ~2,000,000 people that such an aggressive campaign against the tunnels and Hamas is necessary. The longer Hamas is able to stay combat capable holed up in tunnels, dragging it out, the more innocent Palestinian’s are going to die, which is absolutely fine by Hamas, but I think genuinely not fine by Israel and the world. Ending this as fast as reasonably possible, even if it’s at the expense of tens of thousands of additional dead civilians, is preferable to a slow, drawn out conflict, which would likely kill hundreds of thousands of people. For anyone following along, six figures > five figures.
With martyrdom, I’m not so much talking about the typical extreme Islamist suicide-bomber type of martyrdom, I’m talking about the Hamas-brand Martyrdom,™ where they block evacuation routes, tell people the evacuation calls and warning are hoaxes, and tell people to go stand on the roofs of their buildings to stop the IDF from bombing them, as well as when Hamas members and loyalists force their extended families and friends and neighbors to live above the tunnels, to have tunnels under their schools and hospitals, or even to huddle around them as literal human shields. Then, when they all get killed, Hamas comes to the international community all shocked Pikachu and says “how could the IDF do this?”
Indeed, October 7 was not going to liberate a single Palestinian person. I’m still waiting for one of the local Hamas supporters to explain to me what they thought was going to happen and how that attack wasn’t just handing to Israel the justification it needed to fully annex Gaza and destroy Hamas to the man; did they not trade any hope they had for statehood just to kill 1,200 civilians and first responders?
Yes sure. Imaging a meeting at work. All of your colleagues are there. Your boss calls you up:
“JustZ, I have reviewed the information given to me, about your conduct. I deem it plausible, that you have violated company policy. Pending further investigation i order you to abide by company policy and general law. Specifically i order you not to steal your coworkers food from the fridge. I further order you to not spread slanderous rumors about your colleagues sexual life, or any other rumors. I order you to not touch coworkers, in particular not their private parts.”
Do you think, anyone would think this a normal occurence and to not be the result of serious doubt in your behaviour?
Anybody who claims, that the prelimary measures ordered by the ICJ are not confirming, that their is serious doubt about Israels abidance by the genocide convention and that its current behaviour is considered to be fully inside the law should rethink their position. If you need help to assess the trial, the meaning and the implications. Here is in full the video recordings of the trial so far:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOW_1exsHE8 - South Africas arguments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6CEKVSjg7o - Israels defense
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1niAwMbBC6g - Decision by the court for preliminary measures.
I didn’t watch but read all the filings, as an attorney.
At this stage the only issue was: whether South Africa’s application states a plausible claim.
That means that the tribunal must presume everything in South Africa’s application is true. The most salacious claims in the application are attributed to “reports” and often lack sufficient detail to even ascertain the data and location. Others are reports of things that are wildly speculative and solely from the putative victim’s vantage.
There has been no evaluation of evidence of Israel’s actual conduct, no consideration of Israel’s claims of military targets, and no consideration of Israel’s claims of having warned people.
Only jurisdiction and plausibility. Plausibility ≠ probability. Your analogy is clumsy in light of the actual state of the pleadings and the standard of proof at this stage, which is “everything the complainant says is deemed true, hypothetically.”
So for your analogy, just add the word “hypothetically” before the word “plausible” and it’s less clumsy, more accurate.
If you really think that the highest court of the UN, with an international team of judges is unable to identify which evidence brought forth in a case is plausible, in the sense of worthy of consideration, then i am sorry for all of your clients.
The court has in its decision mentioned, which information it deemed relevant and worthy of emphasis. In particular they quoted Statements by the Israel president, prime minister, minister of defence and IDF, that give reason to investigate genocidal intent.
Also they specifically mentioned, that Israel warnings and designated safe zones are insufficient, as Israel has regularly (and this is undisputed) bombed the areas it priorly designated as “safe”.
“Go south” isn’t the same as “we guarantee your safe passage southward.”
Not telling someone that you wouldn’t kill them is no justification for killing them. But with your argument you shoudl realize that this is another reason, why Israel cannot and is not trusted by the ICJ to take proper measures to protect the civillians.
And in this case unlike in Ukraine and other wars there is an especially high responsibility for Israel, because they are de facto occupiers of Gaza, by controlling all the border crossings, the sea and the air.
Just saying “well there wasn’t a clear seperation between combatants and civillians” doesnt cut it, if you are the one who keeps the civillians from getting to safety.
Have you seen for yourself any of the evacuation notices and warning phone calls the IDF has made?
Keeps them from getting to safety? Isn’t it true that ~1.9 million people have evacuated and nearly ~1.9 million of them (~99.?%) are still alive, and that ~600,000 people could not or would not evacuate and nearly 600,000 of them (~99.?%) are still alive?
When also considering how flagrantly Hamas uses large groups of civilians as human shields, blocks routes, lies to people about where to go and what to do, and hides military assets under peoples’ houses, and if there were truly no regard for civilians, a widespread problem of safe zones and evac routes being wantonly blocked or targeted, and other such indiscriminate bombing, then why aren’t we here talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths? Why, given the fact that we’re talking about barely into five-figures after five months of war, is it not evidence of great care and precision?
I agree wholeheartedly that Israel as de facto sovereign of Gaza has a special duty to the people of Gaza. I don’t agree that such duty changes the rules of engagement in areas of operation during combat. Rather, I think the duty is one of irredentism and speaks mostly to Israel’s duty to rebuild the failed state next door and make it safe after Hamas is destroyed.
Hmmm look at this, Israel uses this term as part of their apartheid law!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_apartheid
It’s hilarious because they don’t even try to hide it. This is Israel that you defend so much, a G E N O C I D A L fucking A P A R T H E I D state.
I truly wonder for how long a nice person such as yourself would remain in denial
I think you know I’m being honest in my posts, calling it as I see it, and when I’ve gotten it wrong I admit it and correct it. I’ve said many times the sort of evidence that would convince me, and many times that there is zero doubt that the Israeli’s have committed a number of war crimes, maybe even enough to say it’s part of a culture and custom within the IDF that must be addressed by the ICJ. It’s still a democracy and it’s fighting against people that have literally zero understanding or respect for human rights.
Well, from observing you, it seems that you always call any and every news article or video or evidence that shows the IDF committing war crimes a “report”… and you somehow always think that calling it a “report” somehow would make it any less credible. I don’t think you exercise this same thing with other news you read… it seems like it’s only the news that have to do with Israel committing a televised genocide, one of the worst of our times.
You can say all these things about yourself but honestly it seems like me and many others have noticed the opposite and told you about it and you’re still in some kind of denial.
It’s so sad that you seem to base this view on them being a “democracy” when they have been so fucking undemocratic every single day. It’s so sad that you seem to brush over the crimes of the IDF no matter how they are presented to you.
Respect your view, but look: Israel is a democracy. That’s a settled fact of political science. Saying it’s not is the same as saying the earth is flat; actual, wilfull denial. Brushing over crimes? Like when I say “Israel has committed a bunch of war crimes and must be held responsible for them?”
Yes, “reports,” without more, are not credible, there’s just too much fake information and too much rushing to publish for reporters and readers to be so sloppy. Reports must name the witnesses, must say how many reports, must state the date and location.
Ethical journalism means getting three confirmatory sources before publishing based on anonymous sources. When based on a single, named source, the facts must be at least partially confirmed by another source, independently, and if any part of the report remains unconfirmed, the article must say “we were unable to independently verify X part of the report.”
Further, ethical journalism requires the reporter to seek and publish unedited comment from the involved parties. If you read an article and it does not include a statement from the IDF, even if the statement is “no comment,” it’s pretty much not credible reporting.
Look for this stuff when you read news about Gaza, epecially when the claim is one that is instantly outrageous or that makes you say “that’s unbelievable/unconscionable!”
So you agree then that it’s not genocide.
If you need to hang your argument so completely around “not adjudicated as genocide by the court” to feel like you’re winning internet arguments, you need to take a look at yourself dude
The situation for Palestinians is hugely fucked. Israel has the power to change that fact immediately AND continue to hunt down Al-Qassam/PIJ/Lions Den/etc as they have been doing for decades. The civilians need to feature as a restraint on the IDF and be protected from literally starving to death while aid trucks are denied entry at the border
I could care less about winning an argument. My problem is with people using the word to justify handing an election to a dictator that will destroy democracy in America.
Agreed, but that wasn’t part of this discussion here
So you are excusing genocide because you are afraid your team will lose in your country? lol how selfish is that?
There’s no genocide to excuse. Though I’m curious as to why no one has been crying about the genocide in Ukraine. Since the goals of both invading forces are essentially the same.
Sorry man, I just don’t fall into flavor-of-the-week outrage. Things are sometimes exactly what they are. Please, by all means though, continue to willfully misunderstand, and misappropriate the words of others as it suits whatever agenda you happen to be following at the time.
There is no genocide to excuse but also the russians are doing it too sooo
Okay… last time I’m going to dumb down what I’m saying so you can understand:
My point was that since the two wars are similar, and the reasons are similar- it’s strange that you’ve all chosen only the one to be outraged about.
Pay close attention to this part:
If there’s “genocide” happening in one- and very similar events are happening in the other… Then that one HAS to be genocide also….
But it isn’t.
because IT ISN’T.
it’s a genocide regardless of what the UN says.
ROFL! So some random person on the internet gets to dictate the rules of war- and labeling of acts of violence- regardless of what the people who CREATED the law say.
And how about you stop stalking me.
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I’m going to ask that you stop stalking me or I will have to report you to admins. This is your only warning.
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You first.
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So the onus is on others if you harass and annoy them enough- it’s on them to block you?
Do you lack self control? Can you not walk away when someone tells you they don’t want talk to you?
I DON’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU.
Outing my alt accounts? That HAS to be against the rules. Let’s see….
Fingers crossed!
Yes, genocide of Palestinians committed by Hamass who are sacrificing those poor people for a war they could not win for 75 years, and will not win for the next 750 years.
no. Israel is doing the killing
The war that they could have won which would have been the war to exile Hamas as traitors, they did not want to fight, because apparently the people there love Hamas, which is more popular in Gaza than ever, or at least it was until October 6, not sure about now.
One day you will make up and have to face the fact you’re playing semantic games with war crimes and atrocities.
If I’m lucky, it’ll be the same day you wake up and understand that there’s nuance to almost everything that exists- And that the manufactured outrage you are feeling over things happening in a country you didn’t give two shits about a year ago- have been playing out for nearly a century- and will continue to play out long past your time on this planet.
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Just read up on it for once… and yet and understand what genocide means while you’re at it. Having taken a quick trip through your comment history- I can see that you have absolutely nothing to offer of any value to any discussion I might find myself it.
So I’m going to block you so I don’t have to keep suffering second-hand embarrassment.
ok cool :) have a bad life.