Comment by Cyph0n
5 days ago
I understand we won’t come to an agreement here, but I wanted to respond to two of your points:
1. Re: the term genocide, do you know why Palestinians have been insisting on this specific word to be used? Because genocidal intent was clearly communicated from virtually day 1, and was backed by actions to prove this intent. Cabinet members were calling Palestinians “human animals” and “amalek” for God’s sake - and that’s not even close to the worst of it! Palestinians didn’t just wake up one day and say “well, it’s arbitrarily a genocide, and we want everyone to call it that”. And South Africa rightfully pursued a case at the ICJ. Firstly, because they recognized the shared suffering from their experience with apartheid, but most importantly, because they saw that there was a mountain of incontrovertible legal evidence to support their case.
1. Re: Ukraine, you simply cannot make that argument in good faith. Russia’s goals in Ukraine are in direct opposition to Israel’s goals in Gaza and the West Bank.
Russia ultimately wants to annex Ukraine to expand its influence and reinstate its past glory with the USSR. This requires that it absorb Ukrainians into Russia proper. Russia uses the shared culture and language as a justification in its propaganda, but I think there is a kernel of truth there when it comes to Russia’s motivations, particularly in eastern Ukraine. Given all this, genocide is a non-starter for Russia - how can you claim annexation when you are also working to genocide the local population?
On the other hand, Israel wants to cleanse the land of its people - in fact, the absolute last thing it wants to do is absorb Palestinians into Israel proper. From day 1, its intentions were crystal clear: Palestinians as a racial/ethnic group cannot remain in Gaza. They used all tools at their disposal in pursuit of this goal, including mass starvation, collective punishment, mass bombardment, forced relocation, and so on. Taken together with the statements made by top gov officials, this constitutes genocide.
This is all setting aside that Ukraine is a fully sovereign nation with an equipped and supported conventional military fighting a conventional war against a nation state aggressor.
Let me say first of all: super chill response and I really appreciate that.
On point (1), I've got reason to question the claims of genocidal intent that get bandied about in these kinds of conversations. Yair Rosenberg wrote a piece for The Atlantic debunking one of the most frequently cited "amalek" claims. It's easy to find people on either side of the conflict espousing genocidal views, but harder to map specific actions to realistically genocidal intent (especially when the views are ascribed to people with no decisionmaking authority over how the campaign is being waged).
I hate having to be so hedgy but I'll do it anyways: none of that is to say that the Gaza campaign was waged ethically or with meaningful concern for civilian life, and I fervently hope many of its architects end up imprisoned for their roles in it. But that's a cards-on-the-table statement, not a clinical assessment.
On point (2) about Ukraine: Russian decisionmakers at the highest level have repudiated the existence of Ukrainian ethnicity; Russia has deliberately --- in ways I don't think map cleanly to how the IAF has prosecuted the war in Gaza --- targeted civilian populations (Bucha is an obvious example), and, most damningly, Russia embarked on a campaign of family separation and coerced adoption with the specific intent of disrupting Ukraining ethnicity.
You point out that Israel wants to "cleanse" the land (call it Greater Israel, from the Jordan river and including the Gaza strip) of Palestinians. I'm not as sure about that, but I can stipulate to it. That by itself does not constitute genocide!† (Ethnic cleansing? A crime against humanity? Very possibly!) Genocide as a concept does not encompass any link between blood and soil.
It really pisses Palestinian advocates off to hear this, and I get why, but there is by rights already a Palestinian state in the Levant: it's called Jordan, where Palestinians have, at multiple points over the last 50 years, made up a majority of the resident population. Similarly, if we're doing comparative statecraft, Assadist Syria successfully cleansed itself of its concentrated Palestinian population, over just the last 10-15 years. See how often you see Palestinian advocates make claims about Yarmouk camp, though. You start to understand why advocates for Israel (I am not one of those) are jaded about this whole thing.
† You get a similar thing about "apartheid", a term I'm more comfortable using with Israel, from people who correctly observe that Israeli Arab citizens, of whom there are a great many, have vastly more rights than black Africans had under apartheid, to the point where the term makes more sense applied to other larger, more salient ethnic divides elsewhere in the world. But like, preemptively: I'm with you, it's effectively an apartheid system in the West Bank.
This is the kind of discussion that I feel would be better to have in-person; I am not a great writer :)
Re: Israel & the term genocide, if you closely look at the combination of:
(1) the words that came/are coming out of the mouths of Israeli cabinet members, Knesset members, and the Israeli media (especially in Hebrew!)
(2) the policies enacted on the ground in Gaza and the West Bank
(3) the actions taken by the IDF in Gaza since Oct 7 (I won't enumerate them here)
(4) the clear cut plans for a "greater Israel"
(5) the extra-territorial conflicts & attacks (esp. the 12 day war and Qatar strike), and the ground invasions in Lebanon & Syria, the latter under the guise of "minority protection" (a tale as old as time)
You must conclude that Israel is at the very least committing war crimes, and is the least rational actor in the Middle East. Palestinians, their allies, and (at the nation state level) South Africa & observers took it a step further and argued that the sum of the above constitutes genocide.
> Russian decisionmakers at the highest level have repudiated the existence of Ukrainian ethnicity
What Russia is doing here - and what it did with the USSR - may constitute "cultural genocide", but this is not legally defined. Keep in mind that Israel also denies the existence of Palestinians and reduces them instead to "Arabs".
> in ways I don't think map cleanly to how the IAF has prosecuted the war in Gaza
Three questions that I find helpful when comparing the two situations generally:
1. Does Hamas have an air force or access to air defense systems? If not, does that make it easier or harder for mass killing to take place when compared to the situation in Ukraine?
2. Does Russia regularly level entire buildings - with civilians present - in exchange for so-called "high-value targets"? All AI-driven btw, giving us a glimpse into the future of warfare.
3. Does Russia control the entire border of Ukraine? And has it ever enforced a total blockade on all goods entering Ukraine?
> but there is by rights already a Palestinian state in the Levant: it's called Jordan, where Palestinians have, at multiple points over the last 50 years, made up a majority of the resident population.
It pisses off advocates because it actually ties back into how Israel erases the Palestinian national identity, and is a common hasbara talking point :)
From day 1, Jordan has been a malicious actor of sorts in opposition to the Palestinian national movement. The West Bank post-partition was supposed to be given to a Palestinian ("Arab") state, but Jordan invaded under the guise of protection, which was a valid excuse, but also an excellent opportunity to establish Transjordan. The Jordanians held control until 1967. In 1967, many Palestinians were forced to relocate to Jordan in a second Nakba (called the Naksa[1]). Soon after this, the PLO escalated its fight against the Jordanian monarchy, culminating in Black September. Today, there are a large number of self-described (very important!) Jordanian-Palestinians residing in Jordan, but they still have ties to Palestine, and claim it as their homeland even after multiple rounds of expulsion. In other words, even in Jordan, there still is a separate Palestinian national identity that lives on.
As far as the camps go in Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, that's a separate topic of discussion. A big part of the continued existence of these refugee camps in Arab countries throughout modern history is the optimism of Palestinians & the host Arab states that a solution will be reached soon.
> from people who correctly observe that Israeli Arab citizens, of whom there are a great many, have vastly more rights than black Africans had under apartheid
South African apartheid is the model, but not the only form. I believe that there is sufficient evidence for the argument that Israeli Arab citizens do indeed live under apartheid, mainly due to the ethno-religious nature of citizenship in Israel proper.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naksa
I think you're doing great, but I'll keep my response brief to avoid dragging you into a longer thread.
* I agree, Israel appears to me to be guilty of war crimes; quite a great many.
* We disagree about the black-letter genocidal intent Russia has exhibited in Ukraine. Organized mass kidnapping and coerced adoption of children is a per se genocidal action under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
* The US outclasses almost every armed service in the world to the same extent Israel outclassed Hamas (which no longer exists as a military force). That doesn't make US involvement in any given armed conflict genocidal or immoral.
* If your point was simply that Israel is capable of putting into practice genocidal intent, of course, I agree with that. They have a mechanical advantage in doing that, to the point where they shoulder additional burdens to avoid genocidal outcomes, and I preemptively agree they haven't satisfied those obligations. But flip it: Hamas has essentially no capability to successfully commit a genocide of Israelis. And yet their attack, under the Convention, was more clearly genocidal.
* I agree with you about the governance of Jordan! I think all the surrounding states share significant moral burden with regards to the Palestinian people,and launder it through Arab enmity towards Israel and Jewish ethnicity.
* I want to be very clear: I also believe the Palestinians have a moral claim to Gaza and the West Bank, and that there is no practical resolution to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict that won't involve two states on land Israel now controls. When I bring up the Jordan thing, I'm making a broader claim about the sustainability of Palestinian ethnic identity, not the "Palestinians should be remigrated into Jordan" argument the neo-Kahanists make. Kahanism is vile.