What has Bernie Sanders said about this. Being Jewish or of Jewish descent , I’d be very keen to know his position on this.
We gave the civilians ample time to leave Gaza. These persons did not leave. It was their choice and our hand was forced.
The longer the assault on Gaza goes on the more likely a regional conflict becomes. Equally frightening is the thought that a protracted war would also be in Netanyahu’s interest.
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Anyone who runs is a VC. Anyone who stands still is a well-disciplined VC.
As a person at a tech start up I wondered for a while why we were bringing Venture Capital into things, but it eventually clicked 
Seems to me that that is more of a lawyer using fancy legal terms to repeat the narrative provided by the Israeli government.
The BBC Reporter also didn’t seem particular aggressive in her questioning, as the “get schooled” would suggest. If anything she seems to be noticeably talking in very particular terms that the lawyer then immediately twists.
I’m not going to pretend to be 100% knowledgeable about international law but I can speak to the genocide part of it as I studied the Rwandan Genocide in great details, particularly in relation to Western obligations. No one has declared Hamas’ attack on Israel as part of an attempt at genocide apart from Israel. No one has spoken of Israel’s attack on Hamas as an attempt at genocide apart from commenters and observers - mostly the general public.
All nations that are signed up to the UN Genocide Convention of 1948 are indeed obligated to stop any attempt at genocide but what happened in Israel can, in no meaningful way, be described as such. The crime of genocide is an attempt to destroy a group (religious, ethnic, racial or national) in whole or in part. A couple of hundred terrorists attacking and murdering civilians is a heinous crime and terrorist attack but it was not a genuine attempt to destroy the entire country, or part of it. It cannot, in any way, be considered an attempt at genocide. You can argue that, given the means, Hamas would love to commit genocide against Israel but that is not the question at hand. They don’t have the means and they have not tried so using the argument that attacking Gaza with missiles in order to kill Hamas is an obligation for Israel to stop genocide is a blatant misrepresentation of the law - which makes me question anything else she says (the parts I do not know about myself).
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Surely you can only perform genocide on people and not an organization (not religious obviously)?
I was trying to be sensitive and not term it as an attack on Palestinians. I’m not trying to stoke an argument about what is occurring in the Israeli reaction - just responding to that lawyer’s allegation that Israel’s reaction is part of an obligated response to an attempted genocide. That’s simply a total misrepresentation of the attack from Hamas and the Genocide Convention of 1948.
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Is this the gray” area of law that lawyers thrive in? I think it would be successfully argued, or to a level or reasonable doubt, that Hamas has genocidal intentions towards Israel.
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Im personally quite concerned with Iran in all this. I would say that they are quite easily one of the most prolific empires when it comes to wars and conflicts, partly due to the fact that they have been around for a while.
She’s trying to make it a grey area, and the language around genocide is pretty intentionally difficult to completely agree with or rule out. However simply having intentions to commit genocide is not enough to become something that obligates a response or can be considered a genocide. The mental element is the hardest part to actually prove.
https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
For context - as hundreds of thousands of Tutsi were being murdered by the ruling Hutu in Rwanda, in 1994, the UN met and debated the topic consistently and avoided using the word genocide. It wasn’t until 1998 that the UN officially considered it a genocide. In those three months 800,000 Tutsi had been killed and the objectives of the murders were being spelt out daily by the Rwandan government. The eradication of Tutsi was, without any doubt, the objective.
Nothing happening to the Israeli people, as awful as that terrorist attack was, can hit all of the points of what is considered genocide. Bringing that element into it really makes me believe that the argument from the lawyer is made in bad faith.
My personal reading would be that she’s trying to bait the reaction from the reporter of exactly what I just said - so that she can then accuse the BBC of being anti-Semitic to the general population, who have never studied genocide law, and therefore rule any reporting that could be considered an critical of Israel to be part of a larger anti-Semitic agenda.
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Ok, I’m thinking on the other side, that Israel can’t be committing genocide on Hamas, not the other way around.
Maybe. But this is going to be the standard defense that Israel would take.
She also refers to a clause wherein she said Israel were not obligated to provide electricity , water etc but they were required to ensure that those supplies reach people through a third party.
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Either way , the lawyer came prepared for the line of questioning that the BBC employed.
It might mean that the questions were given well in advance so that the lawyer could get those answers in order. Which possibly aligns with the BBC eventually following the British Govts stance at some point even if they claim to have some sympathy for Palestinians.
Is the goal of Hamas to destroy Israel, genuinely don’t know.
Yeah it’s their vision statement.
Naturally, it must be a narrative courtesy of the Israeli government. I’m sorry but I don’t think anyone can reasonably say that given the means, Hamas and most Palestinians would wipe Israel off the map without a second thought with as much unrestrained slaughter as possible thrown in. Genocide, genocidal intent, is there a quibble? Why are we holding Israel to a higher standard of morality and restraint? I’m genuinely curious? What is it about people in Western countries that makes them gloss over egregious and barbaric conduct by some and then go, ‘aha, got you!’ in the event that European or American strikes kill civilians. Very much the same thing happens in Ukraine and Syria; Putin bombs a hospital, Mada, some Ukrainian from WW2 with Nazi ties get greeted by the PM(?)… ‘Aha!!’. Assad aand Russian use chemical weapons in Syria but fuck all mention about it, a US drone misses a target and ‘AHA’. Utterly bemusing, very much media driven I’d imagine but the self loathing is weird and the same moral high standard/obligation is being demanded of Israel.
Anyway there was a media briefing with the raw footage taken by body cams from Hamas terrorists and first responders etc. These heinous crimes were celebrated by a large percentage of Palestinians, which is an inconvenient truth that is being glossed over. There has been a concerted drive to distance Hamas and Palestinians but the two are intertwined and while governmental/military institutions in a ‘normal’ country are easily identified, that is not so here. Hamas has willingly used the civilians under their control to hide behind and to recruit from. How would any military force confront them, how would the U.S or the UK or France? Seems like everyone is expecting Israel to turn the other cheek. Fuck that shit, I am looking at my son now and if anyone had done to him what has happened on the 07th in the name of whatever it is I’d have signed up immediately and I dare any one of you to look at your loved one, imagine them being raped, tortured, and mutilated and tell me you would not do the same.
It’s all a bit naff on here, all a bit evolved y’know. Like baristas tasting coffees or something… all a bit too deep for the rest of us, underlying flavour that normal people can’t taste unless they’ve been initiated. I’d like to know in what world what is in essence the government of a region can conduct an invasion, commit atrocities on an unprecedented scale, assimilate and hide themselves amongst a civilian population, bomb said population and prevent them from leaving themselves and then have everyone worldwide call for a ceasefire from the whirlwind that they themselves sowed.
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I keep seeing “HAMAS goal of destroying the State of Israel through Jihad (Islamic Holy War).”. Just not sure how accurate that is. If it is, then that’s without argument an attempt at genocide, even before this part of the conflict started.
I don’t think any country which had the armed power and the overwhelming advantage over the enemy would do anything other than what Israel are doing if something similar happened to them.
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