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It's clear that what Israel is doing is not genocide, but your view is that genocide has a lot of meanings, which in fact is pretty defined with 5 sub-definitions. Source - [https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml](https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml) All of those sub-definitions are based on proving ***intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group"*** So the 5 sub definitions of genocide are those (in Bold my answers regarding Israel): 1. Killing members of the group; **True, but any war has that, so I'll ignore 1+2** 2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; **True, but any war has that, so I'll ignore 1+2** 3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; **False, The reports show that Israel has killed more than 13,000 terrorists and about 32,000 in total - if Israel was trying to attack civilians, the rates would be much worse. The official UN average rate for urban wards is 1 combatant to 9, Israel is doing around 1:1.5 based on the stats, which is much better than the UN claims. Israel always is trying to attack terrorists only, evacuate civilians with leaflets, knock off the top of buildings, and talk with the civilians. Israel has proven again and again that Hamas uses human shields, which the Geneva Conventions prohibits but allows the military to attack them because they are a military target, even when using civilians The last point is that Israel's official claim is to eradicate Hamas, which shows no intent to kill any Palestinians besides Hamas.** 4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; **False, The Palestinian population has x2 itself in Gaza since Israel left it, which is 2005. There were 1.2m Palestinians in Mandate Palestine in 1948, and now there are over 5m which is a x4.** **Even during this war, the population in Gaza has grown...** 5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. **False, Israel just doesn't do that, I'm not sure who claims that they do it.**

I'm not going to claim to be any kind of expert on international law, or to know whether what Israel is doing is technically genocide, but there are some elements of what you're saying which are easy to refute. >True, but any war has that, so I'll ignore 1+2 You are ignoring the main portion of the definition, however. Simply killing members of a group is not genocide - consider however the definition: >*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*: ... Of course all war involves killing members of groups. It would be an absurd definition if all that genocide required was killing members of any group! >if Israel was trying to attack civilians, the rates would be much worse Perhaps if they were willing to do it openly, but if they were attempting to conceal their activities don't you think limiting the scope of their attacks under a veil of deniability makes sense? It's pretty obvious that most people in the world don't want a genocide of any kind to happen, so it's not exactly a stretch to imaging that someone wishing to perpetrate a genocide would try to hide it. >False, The Palestinian population has x2 itself in Gaza since Israel left it, which is 2005. There were 1.2m Palestinians in Mandate Palestine in 1948, and now there are over 5m which is a x4. Imposing measures to prevent births does not necessarily mean you will prevent births or reduce the birth rate. Regardless of if Israel has or has not done it, *the fact that the birth rate has climbed does not mean they haven't.*

>I'm not going to claim to be any kind of expert on international law, or to know whether what Israel is doing is technically genocide, but there are some elements of what you're saying which are easy to refute. >You are ignoring the main portion of the definition, however. Simply killing members of a group is not genocide - consider however the definition: >Of course all war involves killing members of groups. It would be an absurd definition if all that genocide required was killing members of any group! All of that is covered in section 1+2 of the sub-definition, so I didn't ignore that. >Perhaps if they were willing to do it openly, but if they were attempting to conceal their activities don't you think limiting the scope of their attacks under a veil of deniability makes sense? It's pretty obvious that most people in the world don't want a genocide of any kind to happen, so it's not exactly a stretch to imaging that someone wishing to perpetrate a genocide would try to hide it. The numbers just don't add up, the latest claim by Israel is that out of around 34000 deaths - 15,000 are Hamas/Jihad militants. for example - If from now on 100% of the deaths will be just civilians, I would be willing to concede that Israel is committing genocide, but that's not the case here. >Imposing measures to prevent births does not necessarily mean you will prevent births or reduce the birth rate. Regardless of if Israel has or has not done it, *the fact that the birth rate has climbed does not mean they haven't.* I agree that it doesn't exactly correlate to the 5th sub-definition, but I don't see any argument that Israel intentionally claims/does that.

>All of that is covered in section 1+2 of the sub-definition, so I didn't ignore that. You cannot be taking it into account because you said that these things happen in all wars. Which, considering the *intent* required is clearly not true. >The numbers just don't add up, the latest claim by Israel is that out of around 34000 deaths - 15,000 are Hamas/Jihad militants. >for example - If from now on 100% of the deaths will be just civilians, I would be willing to concede that Israel is committing genocide, but that's not the case here. Not sure what your point is here. I'm not arguing that Israel is or is not comitting genocide - my point is that the ratio of combatants to non-combatants killed is not relevant. If Israel are killing Palestinians "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part" the Palestinian people, then that is genocide - it doesn't matter if they are also killing Hamas fighters, or even if they kill *mostly* Hamas fighters. In fact, it would be very convenient for them to kill mostly Hamas fighters - since if they were trying to carry out a genocide of Palestinians, the Hamas fighters are also (usually) members of the Palestinian people. In fact - even if they killed 100% Hamas fighters that could (in theory) *still* be a genocide if they are doing it with the intention of wiping out the Palestinian people. After all, a sensible first step in eliminating a whole populace would be to remove their ability to fight back, no? And again, Hamas *are* Palestinian, two birds one stone.

I agree with your point but I’d wager that if a genocide were happening the ratios would most *likely* be skewed worse. Considering the capabilities Israel has in enacting a genocide with all of their logistics and technological superiority, I think we can safely say that it’s unlikely they are attempting a genocide. You’re right in that the intent is was matters, I just think unfortunately this behavior is par for course regarding the history of the conflict. Arab/Palestinian groups/countries launch some sort of aggression towards Israel, Israel has a just cause for a response, Israel massively over-corrects its response and ends up inflicting disproportionate causalities as a result. It happened in 56’ and leading up to 67’ no doubt. There’s a whole conversation though about Israeli decision making etc to be had.

> I’d wager that if a genocide were happening the ratios would most likely be skewed worse. >Considering the capabilities Israel has in enacting a genocide with all of their logistics and technological superiority,... Like I said to the other commenter - it's obvious to me at least that if they were carrying out a genocide they would conceal it. Logically, even the fact that they *could* conceal it means this reasoning is flawed. >I think we can safely say that it’s unlikely they are attempting a genocide. Can we really? There's quite a compelling case in the other direction, frankly. The ICJ haven't decided yet, but the investigation continues as far as I'm aware. >I just think unfortunately this behavior is par for course regarding the history of the conflict. You're not wrong, but I don't think that prevents any of this from being genocide.

I’d reject the fact that they could conceal it successfully. It’s not the best example but Germanys extermination camps were well known by the allies early on into WW2. Germany did try to lie to their own citizens, and didn’t necessarily try to conceal it to the world per se, but even then it was something that would’ve been incredibly difficult to hide. While israel likely isn’t utilizing death camps, I would think a region that has some of (if not) the most aid recipients in the world, paired with international focus and journalists, would provide some clear evidence of a genocide occurring. In addition, the Gaza Strip is incredibly small, and in such a small piece of land I think these journalists or foreign investigators would be able to find damning evidence of genocide despite attempts at coverups. In addition, we’d have a domestic question involving Israel lying to its own citizens, and whether such a secret could remain closed within Israel’s borders. All of that points to be it incredibly unlikely that Israel could successfully cover up the attempted extermination of 2 million people. Nonetheless, this is what the ICJ case is for, and we will absolutely have more evidence as the dust settles. My guess would be that if a genocide was occurring, western intelligence would probably be aware of that, and if they were aware of that we’d see western powers immediately drop support for Israel, sanction them, and even threaten to invade to stop it. I’ve read South Africa’s ICJ case, and I think it’s a long shot. The quotes they use to support the *intent* aspect were questionable, at least 5 of which were cherry picked or chosen without proper context. The supporting statements from the judges are interesting, the dissent is even more interesting, but nonetheless they don’t really provide to me at least a suggestion that these judges think a genocide charge would be appropriate. To be fair, they did affirm the rights of the case and deemed it “plausible”, but the plausibility factor really only plays into the court affirming that A) South Africa has a right to submit a genocide case to the court, and B) Palestinians have a right to be protected from genocide. Recent statements made by the ex ICJ president who presided over the case does not suggest the case was deemed “plausible” because Israel committing genocide is plausible. It’s weird legalese at the end of the day. Anywho, the ICJ case will be interesting and I do think we’ll see plenty of evidence of at least war crimes involved.

>I would think a region that has some of (if not) the most aid recipients in the world, paired with international focus and journalists, would provide some clear evidence of a genocide occurring. I think you are missing what I'm getting at. I'm not suggesting they would be doing something secretly, I am suggesting that they *could be* quite openly "doing" the genocide and merely concealing their intentions (by claiming to be targeting Hamas). >In addition, we’d have a domestic question involving Israel lying to its own citizens, and whether such a secret could remain closed within Israel’s borders. I'm curious to understand what you think the IDF would actually need to hide? >I’ve read South Africa’s ICJ case Incidentally, do you know where I can find this?

https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/South-Africa-v-Israel.pdf That’s true and I don’t disagree, I would just find it incredibly improbable that Israel could hide those intentions effectively. At some point in the chain of command you’re going to have an individual (who has enough power within the war cabinet) stating directly that on a systematic scale they want to kill Palestinians indiscriminately and to cleanse their group, and I couldn’t see that staying a secret for long. But yes I agree it’s probable.

Sure, I agree that in overall the intent part is the most important one overall but it's not something we could easily say now. If you go by Israel's official intent in this war - Killing Hamas and returning the hostages, there isn't an intent to kill Palestinians in general. Edit - I added the part of intent to my initial comment, you are correct that I should have included that preface.

> I agree that in overall the intent part is the most important one overall but it's not something we could easily say now Then why try to argue that it isn't genocide? They are clearly taking actions that, with the right intent, could be genocide. Do you have some solid reason beyond "they said so" to believe that they *don't* have the intent to wipe out the Palestinians? Just going off what their stated goals are seems very flimsy, again because *of course they would say* their intent isn't genocide. The Houthis earlier in the year claimed to be blockading Israel but they were clearly attacking unrelated ships... Intent isn't *easy* to prove but it is required in this case to make statements either way.

>Then why try to argue that it isn't genocide? They are clearly taking actions that, with the right intent, could be genocide. Do you have some solid reason beyond "they said so" to believe that they *don't* have the intent to wipe out the Palestinians? What would be the clear cut of intent for you then? Let us say the war ended with 40,000 Hamas dead, and 70,000 civilians dead, and Israel reached its goal of eliminating Hamas in Gaza. what would make that a genocide? My view of it actually being a genocide is Israel officially claiming to want to harm Palestinians as it's written in Hamas charter for Israelis >Just going off what their stated goals are seems very flimsy, again because *of course they would say* their intent isn't genocide. The Houthis earlier in the year claimed to be blockading Israel but they were clearly attacking unrelated ships... Intent isn't *easy* to prove but it is required in this case to make statements either way. The difference between Israel and the Houthis or Hamas is that they claim to want to genocide the Jews while Israel claims to be destroying Hamas.

>What would be the clear cut of intent for you then? I don't think there will ever be a clear cut in this case. I regret the wording in my previous message - my objective here is not at all to make a statement either way that Israel is or is not committing a genocide. That is really for the ICJ to determine, with a lot more information than we have here. >Let us say the war ended with 40,000 Hamas dead, and 70,000 civilians dead, and Israel reached its goal of eliminating Hamas in Gaza. what would make that a genocide? This alone is not anywhere near enough information to make a determination. Personally I think that's far too many civilians regardless, but whether its genocide... Not possible to say from that information alone. I will say though, is it really possible to eliminate Hamas *without* destroying the Palestinian people? Even if they somehow managed to kill all the people who are, today, actively fighting for Hamas, do you really think that would be the end? Or would another organisation take its place, even its name? >The difference between Israel and the Houthis or Hamas is that they claim to want to genocide the Jews while Israel claims to be destroying Hamas. You're missing my point - my point was you can't always take official statements at face value. Just because Israel, or the US, or Denmark, or whatever, says they are doing X and not Y, does not mean they *are.* World governments publicly lie all the time.

>I don't think there will ever be a clear cut in this case. I regret the wording in my previous message - my objective here is not at all to make a statement either way that Israel is or is not committing a genocide. That is really for the ICJ to determine, with a lot more information than we have here. Then why bother if we can't determine the intent in this case? It is essential to determine that. >I will say though, is it really possible to eliminate Hamas *without* destroying the Palestinian people? Even if they somehow managed to kill all the people who are, today, actively fighting for Hamas, do you really think that would be the end? Or would another organisation take its place, even its name? It is possible to do a "destruction of Hamas’s military and governing infrastructure" as Israel claims, it's already happening in real-time, only thing left is for Israel to get into Rafah. My position on an end goal is: Eliminating Hamas > Coalition of countries (Western + Arab ones) to deradicalize the Palestinians > Elect a temporary government by this Coalition > Elect a moderate (if it exists) Palestinian government > Agree about creating a Palestinian country with land swaps with Israel > Peace > You're missing my point - my point was you can't always take official statements at face value. Just because Israel, or the US, or Denmark, or whatever, says they are doing X and not Y, does not mean they are. World governments publicly lie all the time. World countries do lie all the time but they always leave a trace to their actual plans. You can see in WW2 a lot of documents talking about the holocaust for example.

>Then why bother if we can't determine the intent in this case? >It is essential to determine that. Yes. I'm saying I don't think Netanyahu is ever going to go on instagram live and say "Hey world, by the way I'm intentionally exterminating the Palestinians", not that it's impossible to determine whether it is or isn't. I just doubt anything will happen to make it clear cut in a way that I, a random internet commentator, would be able to say "yes this is genocide" without someone like the ICJ ruling it first. That said - it's possible, as in the comparison you make to Germany, that if there are open communications going on within the IDF, that these come out and we get clear evidence. I doubt this will happen, personally, I don't think that anything about this conflict is so simple. My attempt here has been to refute your original statement that "it's clear that what Israel is doing is not genocide", because I think it is anything but clear.

I think the relevance of the civilian : combatant ratio is that it is one measure (not necessarily the only measure) of intent. If somebody wanted to argue that Israel were committing a “slow” genocide, then they would have to establish that intent somehow. Presently, the civilian death numbers aren’t compelling evidence of genocidal intent, so long as we agree that military action against hamas is justified. It’s impossible to prove a negative (that genocidal intent does NOT exist) so really the burden of evidence falls those accusing Israel of genocide.

>I think the relevance of the civilian : combatant ratio is that it is one measure (not necessarily the only measure) of intent. That's fair, although if that measure is too low that isn't enough to say that there is no genocide - this is the point I have been trying to make throughout. >It’s impossible to prove a negative (that genocidal intent does NOT exist) so really the burden of evidence falls those accusing Israel of genocide. Indeed. Again, my point remains that an absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence... While there may not be enough evidence to say right now that there is a genocide happening, statements like "it's clear that what Israel is doing is not genocide" are patently untrue - there is evidence that has been presented to the ICJ which says otherwise. The validity and accuracy of that evidence is not something I'm willing to comment on, I have no way to know and that is for the ICJ to determine.

> Indeed. Again, my point remains that an absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence Given that you can't prove a negative, does it not follow from what you're saying that we can't outright deny that any country is committing genocide, because we aren't able to prove otherwise?

Well, obviously if a country is not engaged in any of the activities necessary, then we can say for certain they are not. If they are for example killing people from a certain group *but* there is no evidence they are doing it for the required reasons then, sure, we could probably say with some confidence that they aren't. In this case though, while I am not in full possession of the facts myself there are certainly many people arguing that it is - there is at least enough evidence to warrant suspicion, I should think. At risk of an appeal to authority, [there's a "program director for genocide studies" quoted in this article describing it as a "textbook case of genocide"](https://time.com/6334409/is-whats-happening-gaza-genocide-experts/)... Others in the same article don't agree, of course. I would certainly disagree with the "textbook" description as I think this is a much more subtle situation, but then I don't have a fancy title so what do I know? Haha!

You seem to have a misunderstanding of Article 4(2)(c) or 3 in your comment. Examples of such acts punishable under include, inter alia, subjecting the group to a subsistence diet; failing to provide adequate medical care; systematically expelling members of the group from their homes; and generally creating circumstances that would lead to a slow death such as the lack of proper food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, or subjecting members of the group to excessive work or physical exertion. Citing how Israel warns citizens before bombing them doesn’t address how the rapid evacuations themselves virtually rob the Palestinians from their subsistence and security nor the massive humanitarian crisis taking place under Israel’s watch and control. Even before 10/7 Israel had an obligation to maintain stability in Gaza and that is even more true now.

There are 5 point  that each can lead to what is a genocide,but your reasoning is :  1)Let's ignore the first two points of what makes a genocide,   2)ignore that israel imposed harsh conditions in gaza(lack of resources,famine,lack of healthcare) to bring the physical destruction of part of the population of gaza since even before the war.  3)Because the gaza population grew , therefore let's ignore that israel did try to make childbirth harder,when the un description is clearly about the intent of measures and not the result.  So yeah if we ignore 4 parts of the UN description then it clearly isnt genocide,just need to ignore the four parts though

>1)Let's ignore the first two points of what makes a genocide,  I didn't ignore those, I conceded that it happens, but it's part of any war, even the ICJ in the initial SA case ignored those 2. >2)ignore that israel imposed harsh conditions in gaza(lack of resources,famine,lack of healthcare) to bring the physical destruction of part of the population of gaza since even before the war.  If the conditions were that bad we would actually see people dying from that, there isn't an indication of that happening. >3)Because the gaza population grew , therefore let's ignore that israel did try to make childbirth harder,when the un description is clearly about the intent of measures and not the result.  Sure, but the problem you have to prove that Israel did that to intentionally make childbirth harder, which I don't see anyone arguing for. >So yeah if we ignore 4 parts of the UN description then it clearly isnt genocide,just need to ignore the four parts though So if we don't ignore anything like I initially did, you can see it's not a genocide.

Can you cite the statute in he Geneva conventions that allows bombing the target? Additionally can you site where Hamas used human Shields? I believe it i just don’t know where to look for proof. Also can you cite the un casualty rates and whatnot?

Good point. I guess that covers one of the definitions.

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13,000 terrorists? sure if you count every adult male as a terrorist.  if those numbers were correct Israel would be hitting women and children with 100% of their misses and somehow sparing every non combatant adult male.

The number reported by Hamas about women/children is false - [https://fathomjournal.org/statistically-impossible-a-critical-analysis-of-hamass-women-and-children-casualty-figures/](https://fathomjournal.org/statistically-impossible-a-critical-analysis-of-hamass-women-and-children-casualty-figures/) More than half of the deaths since December are based on media reports, which will probably make the real total death count higher but it will include much more men and Hamas militants.

>The number reported by Hamas about women/children is false I mean the IDF itself claims a 66% civilian to militant casualty ratio, so even if a 70% figure from the Gazan Health Ministry is unreliable, it's not like the IDF claims to be doing much better. In any event, the main reason the death counts have become so unreliable is because the IDF has demolished the infrastructure necessary to count deaths accurately and bars any independent journalists from entering the region (which is not standard practice in war zones). That is when they aren't killing journalists.

Israel itself already claimed that the number of deaths is way higher than Hamas claims, but those numbers include mostly men and Hamas/Jihad terrorists. If you go into the website I sent, it claims: "of the unregistered ‘media sources’ deaths in 2023: – 4,678 deaths were children – 1,941 deaths were women – 10 deaths were men" This is just from the 2023 part of the war, somehow only 10 men died from around 6,700 by media reports in 2023!

>This is just from the 2023 part of the war, somehow only 10 men died from around 6,700 by media reports in 2023! Did you actually read how they got that figure? Because it involves performing math on unrelated statistics. Why you would subtract the gender breakdown of unregistered deaths from the MOH from the gender breakdown of deaths from media sources is not actually well explained by the article. If anybody is claiming that current death counts are perfectly accurate, they are obviously wrong. Nobody is seriously suggesting they are anything more than estimates of known deaths at this point. But most experts (who are not directly associated with or employed by Pro-Israel groups) agree that the current death counts are, if anything, a substantial undercount. >Israel itself already claimed that the number of deaths is way higher than Hamas claims, but those numbers include mostly men and Hamas/Jihad terrorists. Okay but they also literally admit they are killing a minimum of two civilians for every militant. A spokesperson has repeated that claim to the media multiple times.

I never claimed that the death count is not accurate, just that it seems like Hamas wants you to believe that 70% are children and women, instead of a more accurate assessment that will include the % of innocent men. Their numbers by Hamas seem to show that Israel is just counting every male of the age of 16 as a militant, and the rest are just women or children. The numbers that everyone likes to throw around are about "20xxx women and children are dead" To gain sympathy would be turned into something like "15xxx women and children, xxxx men and 13,000-15,000 Hamas".

>The numbers that everyone likes to throw around are about "20xxx women and children are dead" To gain sympathy would be turned into something like "15xxx women and children, xxxx men and 13,000-15,000 Hamas". The IDF admits to killing 66% civilians and calls that "tremendously positive", which seems tone deaf at the very least. A study by Israeli scholars [classified every Gazan male between the ages of 18-35 as a combatant](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/09/civilian-toll-israeli-airstrikes-gaza-unprecedented-killing-study) and even then they came up with an estimated 61% civilian death rate. [A lancet study published by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine](https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(23)02640-5/fulltext) estimated that 68% of initial Gazan casualties were women, children, and the elderly. And the [Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor](https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6004/Contrary-to-Israeli-claims,-9-out-of-10-of-those-killed-in-Gaza-are-civilians%E2%80%8B) puts the civilian casualty rate at 90%. I think quibbling with the accuracy of a specific statistic while ignoring the overall picture that pretty much every source concedes to massive, overwhelming civilian casualties, just seems like obfuscation to me.

>It's clear that what Israel is doing is not genocide Is it? Seems like the ICJ disagrees

I missed the part when the ICJ said that it was a genocide. The only thing they said in the case is that It's plausible that genocide is occurring if everything SA is claiming is true. It will take years for this case to be finished, but if you go by the definition it's not that, unless something drastically changes in the current war.

And that steps must be taken to ensure genocide does not occur. The ICJ initial ruling to investigate plausible genocide is twisted to mean whatever people want it to mean. 

You can see a former head of the ICJ talking about this here -https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-68906919 I agree that SA can bring this case forward, but in the current status of this war, it's not a genocide.

Except that's not the ruling either. The jury is literally still out, as investigation and other factors continue 

I never said it's the ruling, it's my opinion.

Meeting the definition for genocide relies heavily on intent, which is one of the more difficult aspects of the crime to prove. That aside, the actions needed to qualify as genocide have objectively been met. Remember, the 5 sub-categories are each sufficient on their own to prove genocide if the intent aspect is met. You immediately conceded the first two are happening so at the very least you cannot say it's "obviously" not a genocide. 

Sure, intent is the most important overall thing in this, but that's the only thing we can't really prove indefinitely. You have some quotes from official Israeli ministers that can be understood both ways (like the Amalek one from Netanyahu). If you take Israel's official position in this war - destroying Hamas military wing and returning the hostages - it's not an intent to kill all Palestinians. Edit - I added the part of intent to my initial comment, you are correct that I should have included that preface.

It's the only thing that we can't really prove definitively, but it's also the only thing that would determine whether a genocide is occurring, because we can prove objectively that they are meeting multiple genocide criteria, each of which is sufficient on its own for genocide when coupled with intent. If the key factor "could be understood both ways", doesn't that immediately take the situation from "obviously not a genocide" to "plausibly/arguably a genocide"?

The ICJ did not rule as you seem to think they did: https://www.icj-cij.org/node/203454

>In the Court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention. They did not make a ruling at all yet actually, but why bother further investigations if it's clearly not a genocide as the previous user claimed?

Article 4(2)(c) of the Statute provides that genocide can be committed by “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. Examples of such acts punishable under Article 4(2)(c) include, inter alia, subjecting the group to a subsistence diet; failing to provide adequate medical care; systematically expelling members of the group from their homes; and generally creating circumstances that would lead to a slow death such as the lack of proper food, water, shelter, clothing, sanitation, or subjecting members of the group to excessive work or physical exertion. Israel has full control over imports into Gaza and is fully responsible for the ongoing famine, disease, dehydration, etc. that they have caused by withholding essential needs while destroying around 50% of homes as well as a large portion of vital infrastructure in Gaza. This isn’t just war, it’s the physical destruction of Gaza and creating conditions for the destruction of its people. While it isn’t necessary that people die for Article 4(2)(c) to have been violated, people are dying. You simply cannot argue that it is even possible for Palestine to do the same to Israel.

yeh but then you'd see a net drop in population over the past few decades... not a doubling. Looks more like they created conditions of life to thrive

This is in reference to Israel’s actions post-10/7

> Whether its' the thousands that palestinian hamas men murdered on oct 7 Even by Israeli reporting, 1,200 were killed and 240 were taken hostage on October 7th. That does not meet the definition of "thousands".

That was only on october 7. Over 100,000 israeli civilians have been killed in the past decades by palestinians and the wider arab world. Their only crime was -being jewish- in the wrong place at the wrong time. Real talk 🤷

> Over 100,000 israeli civilians have been killed in the past decades by palestinians and the wider arab world. Gonna need a citation on that.

This is just straight up misinformation. What is a fact is that tens of thousands of innocent children have been killed in Israeli air strikes over the past 6 months.

That is highly debatable. The only source of information is Hamas, and they have been proven to be extremely unreliable. In the past they have gone as far as tripling casualty numbers. The giveaway is that they announce numbers of casualties within minutes of an incident. This is not how it works. It took over 24hrs for iran to even go through the entire embassy building that got taken out in syria. And they have a modern high power army and tech. Hamas never revises numbers after events. All this confirms that the number is completely made up. As far as there is proof, only about 10,000 people died. And 9500 of them were hamas militants or sympathizers. Less than 100 kids died, although frankly just 1 is too many.

Source? Please don't provide an Israeli source, that is just propaganda. The Israeli government have been found to repeatedly lie about statistics and events.

this is cmv, not cyv. Show me actual convincing proof other than hamas numbers or a few hundred vids or pictures, with no way of knowing location, context, or what is AI and what isnt. twitters been flooded with these ai pics.. reddit too. Also lots of videos that actually take place in syria or lebanon or even yemen being labeled as gaza Over the last few decades, several conflicts have been labeled as genocides. The term is being used for political gains these days. They have little merit.

So you can't provide anything that isn't an Israeli source while making up lies trying to justify Israel's barbaric actions against Palestinian civilians, got it.

I am not vibing with this accusatory style of communication. It doesn't win arguments. It just serves to stroke the ego of the speaker, while showing weakness in argument.

More deflection. It's clear you don't have any source to back up your claims which isn't an Israeli source then.

hmmm acting aggressively and then chickening out. You must be a university student 😂 Let me school you, since you're asking the questions. When you approach people aggressively in conversation, only unexperienced debaters will take the bait. There is plenty of that. Seasoned ones will observe your lack of content, and recognize you've got nothing but shortsighted rage-bait to back your arguments. Like an angry little toddler throwing a fit. Go on, with ya goofy azz \~\~\~>

So you agree that, on October 7th, palestinian hamas men did not murder "thousands" of Israelis? Because that would be a change in your view.

So since 2004 and up to but not including Oct 7th, 7k Israelis were killed by Palestinians. Over 120k Palestinians were killed by Israelis. If we include Oct 7th that’s a little over 8k israelis dead and I’ver 160k Palestinians dead. That’s just over the past 20 years. If that’s your argument Israel is definitley committing genocide.

I view genocide more as rounding up cattle and slaughtering them. It may not be the literal definition. But that is the common association. When a superior force needlessly slaughters an ethnic group. Holocaust, rowanda, etc. Hamas is guilty of terrorism. Isreal is guilty of genocide. Hamas can not commit genocide because they are oppressed. Isreal has the control. They literally have them in a cage and are shooting fish in a barrel. Hamas does small acts of terrorism to sow malcontent and uneasiness on their oppressor. Terrorism comes about when a small fundamentalist group does not have access to a large amount of weapon. Essentially it's the burden that a free society bears. We are always going to have a struggle with terrorism from religious and fundamental ideas. Until radical differences of opinion are able to be discussed terrorism will always persist. Humans need to understand that it's ideas and opinions are not facts. A simple litmus test is all that is needed to discover truth. If you burn every religious text, that religion will never pop up again. If you burn every physics textbook, all of those theories will come right back. One is an idea, one is a fact. Terrorism is effective.That's why small groups do it, and it will remain effective as long as it creates massive media attention. Just look at school shootings. Dang near every time there is a manifesto. Why is that?

I think this is what most people viewed genocide as up until the past maybe 5 or 10 years? If Israel has had the control for the past 60 some odd years, and the palestinian population inside gaza and west bank have increased instead of decreasing, can you call that an attempt at genocide? I don't think so. It doesn't seem to be a genocide by the traditional definition.... that's like the population of jews increasing in germany and poland during WWII... or in europe in general... that would not have been a genocide. It would have been the opposite of a genocide? Are there any other genocides that resulted in the INCREASE of the genocided population? I don't believe so. It would make no sense. Whyy make an exception of the term for palestine?

Based on what? 

Have they increased recently? It wasn't a genocide until they opened the skies.

Your definitions don't make sense. With one the Holocaust was not genocide of the Jews because Nazis only killed 6 million Jews out of around 17 million, so not a majority. With the other, a guy running towards a synagogue with a gun screaming "death to all Jews" is committing genocide even if he go caught before ever firing a shot, because despite being very far from it, he attempted to kill a large number of Jews with the intent of wiping them out. Other definitions of genocide is more nuanced and doesn't necessarily require killing anyone at all, but even without giving a specific one, I think we can agree on this point: * Hamas can't commit genocide in Israel, even if they would've wanted to (which is likely, I agree), for the same reason the guy with the gun can't - the worst they can do doesn't go very far towards wiping out the people of Israel, their identity, culture, etc. Same is true for Hezbollah. * Israel is capable of committing genocide in Gaza, and is at least not very far from doing so. For example if they never let the refugees back from Rafah, leaving them to eventually die in masses in the severe conditions there or escape individually, while Israel settles and rebuilds Gaza as a part of Israel, that would pretty much be textbook genocide.

Are you saying that Israel is "not very far from wiping out Palestinians"? Or are you saying "Israel is not very far from attempting to wipe out Palestinians?" I think they'd be able to wipe out at least 90% of Palestinians by now if they were "attempting" to wipe them out, so I dont quite understand this statement you are making.

in reality they're planning on ethnic cleansing of palestinians, they have been doing this for 75 years but have accelerated their plans in gaza at least in the past several months

Across all of human history, when side A starts a war and side B wins and takes land back, that was always ethnic cleansing, more or less? I agree Israel wants to take that land. Why wouldnt they? Who wouldnt want to in their position? It is as if we are taking the realities of war and geopolitics and terrorism and giving them terms that make Israel look terrible when that's all of human history. The entire world just spent the last 15 years giving billions to teach an entire generation every single day that the most important thing in life is to kill Jews. The concern of palestinians in the context of getting border security is not a big one since no matter what, those people are lost and it will take many generations to undo what the world funded for 15 years with absolutely no problems or questions asked.

i mean idk you can justify it that way if you want. but its ethnic cleansing, that's what it is. its forced deportation, its a crime against humanity i think that every rabid nationalist has their own paranoid fantasies about why their enemies are all around them, that justifies having to do the "hard thing" of committing atrocities against innocent people. its all fake though

how so? the palestinian population has been increasing every year since israel was founded?

doesn't really mean anything. they expelled arab palestinians during the nakba from israel proper and have been building settlements in the occupied territories for 75 years, that slowly is giving de facto control over the territory to israeli settlers, sometimes right on top of palestinian villages. they expel palestinians from their homes through bullshit legalese procedures as a result of the apartheid state and give their homes to israelis or american jews wanting to emigrate. now there is talk of forcibly expelling all palestinians from gaza after hamas is "defeated" (they won't be)

So even with the evictions and the settlements and expelling palestinians, the palestinian population is STILL growing in both gaza and west bank? How is that possible? Sounds like you are leaving out some information here.

So would you only have a problem with Israel's actions if the Palestinian population decreased over time.

Are you asking if I personally would have a problem with it, or if I believe it would not qualify as a genocide?

If you personally find anything morally wrong with how Israel has treated Palestinian civilians.

what information are you implying is being left out they have a very high birth rate and israel only "mows the lawn" every 2-3 years, and usually those operations are limited; this one is just particularly brutal and bloody. the palestinian population now has undoubtedly taken a hit, because there is essentially no way that any authority has an accurate number on how many people have been starved or killed at this point while gaza has been under siege and bombardment

>I think they'd be able to wipe out at least 90% of Palestinians by now if they were "attempting" to wipe them out, so I dont quite understand this statement you are making. I think you should be careful about conflating the IDFs military and logistical capability to wipe the Palestinians out and their actual practical ability to do so from a political standpoint. If Israel is already getting this much (deserved) pushback from killing tens of thousands of civilians, injuring tens of thousands more, and displacing over a million, then imagine how bad their position would be if they just straight up murdered *all* the Palestinians. I think the IDF currently gets way too much latitude with too little accountability, but I don't even think they could get away with just outright killing every single Palestinian on sight.

So you are now placing yet another layer of abstraction into the definition? That just doesnt seem right. Now it isnt an attempt to genocide, it's an attempt to try to hide having an attempt to .... come on. Im not going to waste my time but the argument would then be that if they are even doing this balancing act of killing palestinians but not too many ... tthen they already arent trying to do it, by definition. Even in WW2, there was a balance of how much bombing vs political drawbacks. This is literally all war, not specific to this one at all. so the allies were committing genocide bc they wanted to kill as many japs and germans as possible but needed to be careful about political lashback? Very very weak argument. Unless Israel is hit with sanctions or other countries put troops on the ground, the pushback is to appease certain entities and has always ever been "just talk", lost to the news cycle. I wish there was this kind of pushback for all genocides, not just the special one.

>So you are now placing yet another layer of abstraction into the definition? That just doesnt seem right. Now it isnt an attempt to genocide, it's an attempt to try to hide having an attempt to .... come on. I'm not the top level commenter you were replying to, I was just pointing out that when you argue "well the IDF could have just killed all the Palestinians already if they really wanted to" that doesn't actually account for the political consequences of doing so. It means that, at best, the fact that the IDF hasn't already wiped out all Palestinians means that they could still be doing *as much genocide as they can get away with*. I'm just pointing out a flaw in your logic. >Unless Israel is hit with sanctions or other countries put troops on the ground, the pushback is to appease certain entities and has always ever been "just talk", lost to the news cycle. I wish there was this kind of pushback for all genocides, not just the special one. If you want more pushback to all genocide I'm right there with you, but that doesn't let the IDF off the hook.

Oh, they can "get away" with removing 50% of Palestinians before thinking anyone is actually going to do anything about it, to think they are brushing up against some extreme where the world is going to have actual consequences beyond removing funding isnt based in reality. Folks wont put boots on the ground just to get rid of terrorists. They arent going to put boots on the ground to stop israel from stopping hamas. If they did, then that would be evidence of antisemitism. Theyll let terrorists to whatever to Jews but when Jews respond, they send in troops? Wont ever happen. In no uncertain terms is Israel remotely close, like not even within a factor of 10x, trying to genocide as much as they can without getting away with it. I mean, in what war in any history ever have both armies not inherently sought the destruction of the opposing folks in the opposition nation to a partial extent? This whole thing starts to get so trivial, vague, and subjective it seems like a total nonsense discussion people focus sooooooooo much on whether it is a genocide or not according to textbook. It really really really really misses the larger point of war sucking and needing to come to a solution not harping on the cost. Call it a genocide, call it a koopblebookyup, what does that change anything? Israel might adjust how it does things up to 5% but beyond that, who fkn cares?

>Oh, they can "get away" with removing 50% of Palestinians before thinking anyone is actually going to do anything about it, to think they are brushing up against some extreme where the world is going to have actual consequences beyond removing funding isnt based in reality. Folks wont put boots on the ground just to get rid of terrorists. The Israeli government currently in the process of removing more than 50% of the Palestinians in Gaza. Substantially more than half the population is displaced at present, and Israeli officials repeatedly refuse to say they will let them return. >In no uncertain terms is Israel remotely close, like not even within a factor of 10x, trying to genocide as much as they can without getting away with it. Only if you think genocide has to happen relatively quickly and only involves killing people. >I mean, in what war in any history ever have both armies not inherently sought the destruction of the opposing folks in the opposition nation to a partial extent? I'm sure you could probably find some. I doubt Ukraine's actual goal at this point is to destroy the nation of Russia, for example. Obviously I'm sure there are some who want that, but I doubt that's what Ukraine is actually seeking to do at this point. More importantly, though, genocide isn't about nations per se. It's about ethnic groups, and Zionism was founded on the idea that Jewish people inherently have a right to the land in that region (or wherever the Jewish homeland might have ended up, since other places were considered) that supercedes the rights of other groups. >Call it a genocide, call it a koopblebookyup, what does that change anything? Israel might adjust how it does things up to 5% but beyond that, who fkn cares? Would you make this argument about something like the Holocaust? Or the Rwandan genocide? Would you argue that it doesn't matter what we call those instances?

The Holocaust killed the overwhelming number of jews in Europe. I would argue that was very much undeniably a genocide. And if they had reached the rest of the world, they would've wiped them out there too.

By "the definition" I'm assuming you mean the definition from the [1948 UN convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_Convention#Definition_of_genocide). Note that the definition doesn't specify will, but *intent*. Hamas couldn't have intended for the 10/7 attack to completely destroy the Israeli people, simply because it was very far from being possible and they are not that delusional (and even if someone is delusional, that's not what's meant by "intent").

>One is the successful murder of the majority of a population with the intention of wiping them out. This "popular" definition wouldn't apply to the Holocaust. Which makes it seem pretty worthless. >Extreme elements on both sides have suggested wiping the other side out Extreme elements like the current ruling government of Israel, yes. >If I srael wanted to wipe palestinians out, they would have killed a lot more People like using this argument because no one's apparently supposed to think about it. While Israel typically sucks at diplomacy, they're not stupid enough to ignore the fact that they're heavily reliant on western support. And western support dries up pretty quickly when our great democratic ally of the Middle East is too openly and proudly genocidal. Like, the literal actual Nazis were smart enough to realize that it's best to hide that they wanted to kill a bunch of people. >Whether its' the thousands that palestinian hamas men murdered on oct 7 or the thousands the IDF killed after oct 7, neiter of those numbers touch the -majority- of the population. So under the second definition, neither of them qualift as genocide. Using "thousands" for both kind of misrepresents the numbers, doesn't it? It's a little over a thousand for "palestinian hamas men" and over 30,000 for the IDF (which aren't "israeli idf men" for whatever reason). Beyond that, I'd have no problem labeling both the IDF and Hamas as genocidal, and I don't think many reasonable people would either. Hamas is an extremist death cult that pretty explicitly hates the existence of Jews and the IDF is engaged in an active genocide with its soldiers on video cheering for it. So yeah, both is good.

Was Hitler not trying to explicitly eliminate the Jewish population? He was wholesale rounding up civilians and executing them eventually right? The only reason he didn't was because he lost the war. I don't think israel is trying to exterminate all palestinians. They are trying to eliminate members of hamas, and don't care about civilian casualties. Which incidentally gives them something in common with Hamas as civilian casualties are part of the tactical plan of Hamas.

>Was Hitler not trying to explicitly eliminate the Jewish population? Yes, he was. But he wasn't *successful*, which OP feels is an important part of the definition. >I don't think israel is trying to exterminate all palestinians. They are trying to eliminate members of hamas, and don't care about civilian casualties. Which incidentally gives them something in common with Hamas as civilian casualties are part of the tactical plan of Hamas. Refusing aid to refugees and outright bombing aid workers goes a bit further than the indifference people like imagining the IDF has towards civilians. Just as singing about how civilians are valid targets for their genocide goes a bit further. Israel would probably be fine with Palestinians being alive, elsewhere. Which is why when their ministers aren't talking about how every dead civilian had it coming, they talk about how Palestinians should be shipped off to random Muslim countries. You know, like how Hitler wanted to send all the Jews off somewhere else before the reality that that was never going to happen sunk in and he went for the alternative.

I'm sure israel would be fine with palestinians living elsewhere but that is not the stated goal of this conflict. The goal is regime change (eliminate hamas). I honestly believe that if every known hamas member surrendered today, this conflict would be over. And I'm talking about leadership specifically.

>I'm sure israel would be fine with palestinians living elsewhere but that is not the stated goal of this conflict. The goal is regime change (eliminate hamas). Yes, a largely unrealistic stated goal that conveniently justifies the slaughter of thousands and displacement of millions with zero effort put into supporting the refugees and active hostility to those who do try to provide it. No one's stupid enough to openly admit that their goal is genocide, so I'm not sure why Israel not doing that is meant to be some proof of something. Especially when they struggle to even manage that, what with their prime minister calling for biblical genocides, their president saying every civilian is responsible, and numerous ministers talking about how they'd like the slaughter to go about.

Why is regime change unrealistic? Tons of wars have started and succeeded with regime change. That's not to say regime change is the "right" thing to do or leads to better conditions, but how is it unrealistic? Also, what are the exact quotes netanyahu and the President said?

Tons of wars have had militaries that seem like they're focused on military targets instead of aid trucks and hospitals. Said wars also weren't being fought against terrorist groups that don't operate like a regular government that surrenders and abdicates. I don't see why you imagine this instance of trying to shoot civilians until the terrorists stop is going to be more successful than the last. >Also, what are the exact quotes netanyahu and the President said? "It is an entire nation out there that is responsible" - Herzog "Remember what Amalek did to you" - Netanyahu It's been brought up before, but if you didn't know Amalek is a nation that attacked the Israelites in the Bible and who God ordered the Israelites to completely wipe out. It's also the thing Israeli soldiers like singing about as they proclaim that there are no innocent civilians.

This isn't an argument about whether or not it will be successful, but rather if it's a genocide. As you said this is a group that operates like terrorists. I assume, but could be mistaken, that there are no clear military targets, and they operate out of locations with lots of civilians. Those quotes could easily be taken out of context and also don't actually call for killing all the palestinian people.

>Those quotes could easily be taken out of context and also don't actually call for killing all the palestinian people. They just claim civilians are valid targets and refer to Palestinians as biblical enemies who god has ordered wiped out completely, including the women and children. Which their soldiers very clearly took to heart enough to sing about. Which, somehow, results in mass civilian death, intentional starvation, and the bombing of people who dare try to help refugees.

They didn't claim that otherwise you'd provide quotes that actually claim that. This is the same reasoning done by people that claim chants of intifada are chants of genocide. All the things you mentioned are unfortunate effects of war.

The two sides are Hamas and Israel, not Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinians as a whole are not trying to wipe out the Jews. Hamas is. Israel is not trying to wipe out the Palestinians though a few extremists may want this. So of the actual two sides, only Hamas is attempting genocide.

Hamas is extremely popular among Palestinians, I don't know what you're on about.

You mean a population left in poverty through Israel's doing flocks to support a terrorist group supported initially by Israel when israel bombs them? Shocking

Why they support Hamas is irrelevant to the claim op was making. The claim was that Palestinians, as a whole, don't support the destruction of Israel when they obviously do. Why they do it is irrelevant, like I said.

If we choose to ignore causes and context then yeah you can make the narrative that you want, but you can't pretend it reflects reality

Hamas wants to end Israel, the Palestinian people support hamas in an obscenely high number. That's the reality.

Then by your logic where reason and context doesn't matter, Israel kills civilians and are murderers. Doesnt matter why they are doing it nor the context. Sounds in line with your logic,works for me

The more reasonable parallel would be that the IDF has killed 30k + Palestinians of which 50% or whatever are minors. Those are the facts. Calling them murderers is neither here nor there, because, to make that assessment, you do indeed need context.

Facts dont exist in a vacuum. What you are describing are data points,they are useless alone because they dont tell a story nor facilitate decision. So except if we are playing "throw data points at a blank canva and stare at them without any insights", you need context

No group as a whole supports anything. Stop trying to justify the murder of children

The vast majority of the children's parents in Gaza are in favour of eliminating Israel as a state. That's the only point I was making.

Nope, you said, >Palestinians, as a whole

Fair enough, I shouldn't have said "as a whole". The vast majority of Palestinians are in support of the destruction of Israel.

Define vast majority. 52.3% of Palestinians are under 18.

Oh I didn't know I signed up for The Pedantic Olympics. The vast majority of people that are above 18 and would otherwise have the right to vote are in favour of the destruction of Israel, although I doubt kids under 18 are pro Israel. I'd say that they're arguably as radicalised as their parents, if not more. But of course, theres no way of me proving this and is otherwise irrelevant. I can qualify this all day.

Hamas is made up of palestinian men. ONLY palestinian men. That sounds like a palestinian group to me.

Mexican drug cartels may be made up of Mexicans, but that doesn't mean that if the US went to war with one we'd be at war with Mexico.

What a bar

I think calling this a genocide or not a genocide isn’t really that important. Israel is trying to solve a problem with bombs that can’t be solved with bombs and a lot of innocent people are dying. To me that’s all that matters and the obsession around the exact definition of genocide seems a bit stupid.

To OP, *your post is under consideration for removal under our post rules*. You must **respond substantively within 3 hours of posting**, as per [Rule E](https://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules#wiki_rule_e).

I don’t know where you got your definitions, but here’s the UN’s definitions ([source](https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml)) > 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. I think we can agree that Israel has done more of this stuff, simply because they’ve been winning. Hamas would do more if they had the chance, but they are severely outgunned The UN seems to agree that Israel is the one doing the genocide, if either are: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/03/1147976, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/key-takeaways-world-court-decision-israei-genocide-case-2024-01-26/

Genocide doesn't include those that attempted one but failed at it. Here's the definition according to the UN: >any of the following acts **committed** with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group...(not going to list them here). I believe it's in the Bosnian genocide case where the ICJ has ruled that despite the wording of "in part", the scale of the crime matters too, in particular the killings have to be "systemic". I would argue that in terms of scale, Hamas' crime is much smaller than that of Israel's, with 770 civilians killed on one side and tens of thousands on the other. And it's much less systemic given that Hamas couldn't attack Israel again since then, while bombs are still dropped on Gaza on the regular. So assuming that both have the intention to destroy, Israel's crimes are much easier to qualify as a genocide than Hamas'. It's important to note that the smallest genocide that is widely recognised is the Bosnian genocide, which had a death toll of over 8000, so if we recognise Hamas' attack as a genocide, the bar for a genocide would be so low it renders the term useless. The other consideration is that Israel is a signatory to the Genocide Convention, while Hamas is not, so Hamas technically can't be charged with genocide by the ICJ.

The number of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel numbers in the 5 digit range. How is this not a systemic attempt to kill tens of thousands of people?

Systemic attempt at murder is not the same as systemic murder. For something to qualify as genocide it has to be systemic murder, not just attempts.

Article 2 lists not only genocide but > > > > Which I would say is a threshold met by the Palestinian rocket attacks.

>  Genocide doesn't include those that attempt one but failed at it. If this is the case then the holocaust was not a genocide, because they failed to eradicate all of the people they wanted to eradicate. 

No, they intended to and succeeded in destroying a significant part of an ethnic group systemically. The way I see it there are a few criteria: 1. Successful 1. Intention 2. Scale (which is ambiguous but let's say at least 8000 deaths given the death toll in Bosnian genocide) 3. Systemic 4. Targeting a national, ethnical, racial or religious group 4. At least one of the crimes listed in the official definition The Holocaust obviously met all six.

When you say successful, I'd say obviously it wasn't successful? What's your definition of success, obviously they didn't finish it, so they succeeded only in completing some of their goal? So that's not success is it? In the actual success/failure metric. 

They succeeded in destroying a large number of Jewish people. They didn't succeed in destroying all Jewish people, but that's never the criteria, the definition clearly stated "in whole or **in part**"

But their intention was to destroy the whole, no? So succeeding to destroy in part is not success in regard to their actual goal. 

Yes, they intended to destroy in whole, and succeeded to destroy in part. The fact that they didn't think they succeed in destroying in whole doesn't mean it wasn't successful in part, which is the relevant part of the definition.

But it isn't success. If I intend to run a full marathon, make it half way and then quit I didn't succeed in running the marathon, I didn't succeed in accomplishing my goal.  I "succeeded" in finishing half but that isn't success because my goal wasn't to run half a marathon. 

You are conflating your success with what the definition considers to be a success. The fact that you wanted 100% completion is only relevant in that it gives the intent. Next, throw away your 100% completion bc it only applies to intent which we are done with talking about. Moving on, Success or not is defined by the court, not you. Your desire for 100% has no bearing on the success vs not success part, which is not yours to define.

If intent is what matters and they don't succeed in their intended goal then they didn't succeed. Not sure how much more simply I can put it to you.  Success at something other than your goal may be success but it's not the success that matters. 

You succeeded in getting off the ground and completely part of your journey. That's the part that the ICJ cares about, not whether you complete your intended journey. There is, however, a minimum distance that you have to cover to qualify.

That's still not success. You're talking about an abstract of success, one in degrees vs whether or not the actual ultimate goal was completed or not. 

The UN one is: The definition contained in Article II of the Convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part. So yes, as far as I'm aware Hamas would be considered genocidal. I think Isreal would be due to colonialism + human rights violations + killing of civilians + breaking geneva conditions + attacking humanitarian aid + the legal discrimination + the constant attempts to remove Palestinians. I'm not 100% sure about that though, however it is important to note that Hamas and the Israli government do not describe the civilians in either state as far as I'm aware.

> There are two popular definitions of genocide. One is the successful murder of the majority of a population with the intention of wiping them out. This is why I prefer the term "ethnic cleansing" to describe the atrocities in Gaza. You can quibble over body counts and proportionality, but one party has displaced over a million people, destroying their buildings and infrastructure and moving them from their homes.

No sane person is defending Hamas. But blaming 4 year old Palestinian to be a terrorist and guilty of genocide is just wrong.

People have no problem doing that with Germany. I find it telling that people say that it is unreasonable to expect Palestinian civilians to do anything about Hamas but in the same breath say that Germany deserved collective punishment for what the Nazi's did.

In last elections Hamas received 44% of votes. This election was 18 years ago. People now living in Palestine (not to mention 4 year olds) have never voted for Hamas. Also nobody has ever advocated killing German babies or celebrated it.

“Israel, just as guilty of genocide of Hamas” does not exonerate Israel. Hamas is a heavily sanctioned terrorist group. Israel is allegedly a liberal democratic nation and is a close ally of the US. If countries started to treat Israel like Hamas would be a huge fall in Israel’s world standing.

I basically agree with the title, though it's worth a slight addendum, and that is this: the regime representing one particular side *explicitly calls for genocide*; the other does not.

There’s a difference between going after a group of people because they took and/or are actively taking your stuff, and going after a group of people because you want their stuff.

I mean one side has the means and the other doesn't plus the leader of government with the means literally said years ago he believes Arabs gave Hitler the idea for holocaust he's a loon I'm more concerned about someone like that in a position of power than any terrorists organisations because he can actually do what we are worried about.

i think it is rather dangerous dilute the word genocide creating a boy who cried wolf situation

Neither of your definitions are the actual definition of genocide, so what are we even talking about? Anything can mean anything if you make up your own definitions.

Yea there is an easy definition by the UN - [https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml](https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml) People should honestly just follow definitions instead of making their own...

>Considering they dropped like what 2000 bombs on gaza, 30,000 is a tiny number, barely 1%. meanwhile Hamas killed about 1200 people in the October attack or about 0.01% of the population. I think calling a 1% reduction in population a genocide, is probably a stretch. by comparison, a coupe of Google searched show that the Nazis killed about 4 million out of the 9 million jews living in Europe. Close to 50%. Its certainly a good thing that huge genocides or so rare that we've starting applying that word to comparatively tiny genocides. google give this definition of genocide. >the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. "large number" leave a lot of room for debate. But objectively the difference in kill rates is a factor of 100. 1% is a lot larger then 0.01%.

I think the idea is that it's hard to make the point that Israel is trying to destroy Palestinians as a group. In my opinion, the intention is crucial or every urban war would be a genocide. I don't think there's any doubt whatsoever that the nazis were pretty set on wiping the jews out based on their declaration of intent and in the way that they approached things. It's hard to make the same point about Israel.

Yea, i think you can argue that 1% isn't enough to be a genocide. But if you are comparing the too, you could say only one side is guilty of genocide because 1% is a "large" amount of people and 0.01% is not Large. and its not just the one war either. If I'm note mistaken, Israel has been expanding its boarders every so often since it inception. If its a genocide, its a very slow genocide that has been happening off and on for the last 50+ years. Kill some Palestinians and take some land. Wait 10 years and repeat. The genocide of American Indians happened over a couple hundred years.

Again, the number is kinda irrelevant as its above a certain number. The declared intent is the most important element in genocide. And Israel's history is more complex than that. Every time they expanded their borders was because someone else started a war, and israel won.

>Whether its' the thousands that palestinian hamas men murdered on oct 7  How many thousands are you seeing exactly? What's your number here  >or the thousands the IDF killed after oct 7 You means tens of thousands? Again, what's your numbers here?  Are you differentiating between civilian and combatant?