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Comment by runarberg | Hacker News Reader

I think the root of our disagreement is in Israel’s motivation. We will see when the ICJ rules whether Israel’s intention is merely counter terrorism or—as it is accused of—to destroy Palestinians in whole or in part. In the latter case (which is what I believe) the motivation is indeed hard to defend.

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When you think about this, remember that there are 2.2MM Palestinians in the Gaza Strip alone, and almost 5MM total. 24,000 is a terrible toll, and I think much of it is reckless and probably criminal, but it isn't a dent in the Palestinian population. There's no way to write that without sounding soulless, as if people were scoring tokens on some sort of strategy game we're all playing. But it's deeply relevant to the formal notion of a "genocide", which is what we're talking about when we talk about the ICJ.

Yemen and Syria are instructive comparisons here, and I'll note that while everyone was pretty grossed out at Saudi Arabia bombing Yemen (which had more to do with how we felt about Saudi Arabia than a genuine concern for Yemenis, who, like Palestinians, are for the most part victimized by the combatants on "their side), you didn't see much talk about Yemeni genocide.

Further arguing against a finding of genocidal intent on Israel's part is the provocation they responded to, which, again, is among the worst in modern history: a truly, deliberately vile attack done at breathtaking scale.

Like I said, we will see when the ICJ rules on the matter, which probably won’t be for another decade. However if the court rules in favor of provisional measures (which will probably be in the coming weeks) you must at least see how I’m justified in believing the genocidal intent. And even if it isn’t, the very fact that these serious charges are being pressed, means that many legal experts think there is a probably cause for concern.

The other points raised here are irrelevant. I’ve said before in this thread—and other threads—that there is no justification to genocide. So however heinously Israel was provoked, the genocidal conduct afterwards speaks for it self. This was explicitly stated in the oral arguments by South Africa.

As for the numbers, that also is irrelevant to the question of genocide. The convention states “in whole or in part”. South Africa argued that Palestinians of Gaza constitutes a group, and that Israels conduct in Gaza violates annex (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to the members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; of Article II of the Genocide Convention.

In comparison the Army of Republika Srpska was convicted of Genocide for killing 8,372 victims out of a population of 1.2 million living in territories controlled by the perpetrators. The total number didn’t matter, what mattered was the intent to destroy Muslim Bosniaks living in Srpska as a group.

I don't think you need the ICJ ruling to press a case that Israel is perpetrating a genocide, because there is a colloquial meaning to the word that covers any mass killing that targets a specific ethnicity. That isn't the legal definition, but legal definitions aren't the only ones that matter --- especially in international law, where the legal definition doesn't much matter at all, since international law is largely performative, a vehicle for mobilizing diplomacy and little else.

I would just caution that the colloquial meaning of "genocide" covers a lot of other terrible events in recent history that people don't single out as genocidal, and Israelis are, with very good reason, especially alert to the multiplicity of different standards here. They're largely (leaving out goblins like Ben Gvir) convinced they have no intention of displacing all the Palestinians, let alone killing them all.

I agree that Serbia perpetrated a genocide that killed far fewer people than Israel did. We killed more than 3 times as many civilians as the IDF in Gaza in our doomed Afghanistan invasion, and not only did very few normal people call it a genocide, but they got angry when we abruptly left. And I again urge you to check out the numbers on Syria and Yemen, two other conflicts Iran helped instigate.

The world is messy and usually pretty horrible. I'm not trying to persuade you of anything, but I think it's helpful to know what another perspective on this might be.

> They're largely (leaving out goblins like Ben Gvir) convinced they have no intention of displacing all the Palestinians, let alone killing them all.

Some IDF soldiers made TikToks addressing Netanyahu, starting their intent to complete "Occupation, Expulsion, Settlement". There are dozens of them bragging about how many houses they are blowing up, while they do it with wired explosives. Right now, the last "functioning" hospital in Gaza is under attack, while Israeli youth make fun of "killing Palestines" (most of them can't even pronounce "Palestinian" apparently) in live video chats. Some dude on Israeli TV saying "I'll be honest, I don't care about the war crimes, I just want to see buildings destroyed, mooooore buildings" etc. and everyone laughs.

[edit: And the line that "there are no innocent people in Gaza" is still being repeated by all sorts of people, including military. Here's for example Lt. Col. Oren Schindler in a radio interview: "We need need to make sure that wherever the IDF meets Gaza, there is devastation. Nothing less, nothing more. Where Battalion 74 was - it happened. I can garuantee you that devastation, nothing less, in every place we were, there was only sand left, and houses on the ground. Because in every home, unfortunately I learned that in Gaza there is no innocence."

One might say this proves they don't want to kill innocent people, but Hamas forces them to, etc. but given the context and the actions, I'll just note that this is true about any atrocity. Look any of them up, from the most obvious to the most obscure ones, and you'll find someone painting the it as either a.) doing good or b.) doing bad because bad people forced them to or c.) doing bad for good reasons or a good goal that sanctifies the bad deeds. I doubt "genocide lawyers" would weigh such lip service much, if at all.]

Yes, there were also thousands of people in Israel chanting "Bibi, Bibi, you can't hide, you're committing genocide". But they sure are in the extreme minority.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/13/it-is-a-time-o...

> “Most Israelis don’t know much about Palestinians. They think they are terrorists, all of them, or vague images with no names, no faces, no family, no homes, no hopes,” Baruchin said. “What I am trying to do in my posts is present Palestinians as human beings.”

> Ten days after that Facebook message, he was fired from his teaching job in Petach Tikvah municipality. Less than a month later he was in a high-security jail, detained to give police more time to investigate critical views he had never tried to hide.

Netanyahu has historically low approval, and most observers expect him to get booted as soon as the Gaza war winds down (sooner, if he can't wind it down expeditiously). When that happens, there's a nonzero chance he's going to end up in prison. It is not at all reasonable to suggest that his opponents are an "extreme minority".

People who are calling out the genocidal speech by hundreds and thousands of high-ranking "trolls" and the genocidal actions by the IDF are in the extreme minority.

As exemplified by a teacher put into solitary confinement for posting about innocent deaths in Gaza and suggesting having empathy for those.

Can you show me some, who aren't getting smeared and persecuted for it? I am not aware of a single one.

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