I am not quite sure I understand what you are saying. I listed 4 areas, Gaza, Cambodia, Bosnia and Sudan. Are you suggesting Genocide did not occur in these places, or that the term genocide is exclusive to WW2 ? This is a very difficult point for anyone to argue when viewing events as % total population re: Gaza and Genocide.
Disclaimer, and important to keep in mind, none of what follows justifies Israel's actions, nor is it a defense of Hamas. this is simply a question on the definition in context of "genocide".
i have 2 points:
1. i think there are a lot of criteria that need to be met to qualify something as a genocide, and i dont think that Gaza currently meets those criteria.
2. i think that genocide is being used for emotional effect, and not historical accuracy, when that's unnecessary. if you cant argue something is bad without exaggerating and using emotional arguments then its a bad argument, and bad arguments arent really needed in this case.
this is the aftermath of WW2 in which for almost 100 years people have been on the look out for "the next Holocaust", and a few have certainly met that standard. Sudan, Rwanda, Cambodia, Armenia, etc have all met that standard in my opinion.
we should also note that the calls of "genocide" predate this latest gazan war. israel was apparently guilty of genocide from 2007 retreat up until the 10-7 attacks. while the population nearly doubled. the people were starved to death, but doubled. the blockade let zero food through, but they doubled. they grow almost nothing, but it doubled, and they smashed the green houses they were left.
if we have to get into the weeds on specifics im happy to. i think there are 3 criteria that Gaza does not meet to qualify as a genocide, and they are deaths in proportion to population, lack of cultural destruction, and displacement.
1. lack of death compared to population seems self evident, even if we take Hamas #s of casualties as 100% accurate and do not control for the # of legitimate Hamas targets we have about 65k last i checked. in a population of over 2.1 million, accounts for about 3%. this is low even for a war of this size and scale, let alone a "genocide".
2. lack of cultural destruction, seems fairly self evident. outside of the overall destruction of the urban centers no specific cultural destruction has happened from what ive seen. they're not burning mosques specifically, etc. in fact that's been surgical, in order to not enflame the wider arab world into joining.
3. displacement. genocidal displacement is generally with the goal of permanence. either kill or run all of the people out of the country. so far from what ive seen the displacement has been in an attempt to clear urban areas without major loss of life in an effort to clear tunnels and infrastructure which is paramount to Hamas operations in the future. yes they happen to be in schools, hospitals, mosques, apartments, etc. and yes there are piles of rubble which make Dresden look like a 5 star hotel. but at the end of the war they'll likely be allowed to rebuild with foreign funding. And yes i understand memos have been drafted talking about exporting the population to some degree, but i think they're more think-tank pieces that would never actually work or be carried out. it would cause a scandal for the IDF they dont want in any way.
imagine if Hitler killed 3% of the jews, shuffled them into tents, then handed them back their stars of david and said move back into your old homes. its insane to think on. the african genocides are the real modern comparison, Hutu leaders had the explicit goal to kill all Tutsis in their nation. and rape all of the women to create a new generation of Hutu babies to entirely replace the culture. barbarism that even the SS might have turned their nose up at.
any specific questions tho im happy to answer.
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what i would say is: the legal definition of the term genocide is, in my opinion, wrong, as it does not fully convey the horror of WW2 the concentration camps and the rounding up of the jewish people throughout europe, and the conflict in Gaza is NO WHERE near that threshold.
However, what is occurring in Gaza does meet the legal definition threshold. The TLDR here is (a) genocide is not exclusive to WW2 and (b) If they dont like the definition they should update it to make it more restrictive.
that definition has been expanded to serve political goals. anything the UN creates is largely toilet paper, tbh.
same goes for every time i read a "such and such center from south africa says _____ is apartheid". thats fairly valid in Gaza, but i must have read that a dozen times in all sorts of inapplicable cases.
This post was edited by thesnipa on May 30 2025 11:39am