cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30176680

Julia Conley
May 15, 2025

"Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told NRC that #Israel’s deliberate blockade on “food, water, shelter, and sanitation” convinced her the #Netanyahu government was carrying out a #genocide, while Segal pointed to “openly genocidal statements” by #Israeli leaders.

“But for all it is about the sum of what would apply separately as ‘ordinary’ war crimes,” NRC reported. “The picture as a whole makes it a genocide. That is how the term is meant, says [British professor Martin] Shaw: ‘holistic.’”"

  • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Yes yes, but in their defense Israel is a democracy, and Gaza is inhabited mostly by Muslims. So it’s all good.
    /s

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    It’s so discouraging that the big controversy isn’t what’s happening, but what to call it. We can’t defeat colonialism with semantics.

    The attack on Gaza needs to stop, IDFAF if they call it a pumkin pie, just stop the goddamn pie.

  • saltesc@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    In their defence, there is no defined point. There are people out there that are so anti-assumption that it can take them a while. They will eventually reach a point like, “Well if there were defined conditions, surely they have been met by now.” Basically it must be so full-scale that there can be no room left for doubt.

    Unfortunately, such input is typically too little too late; it’s just agreeing with the obvious because it’s already so obvious.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      13 hours ago

      In their defence, there is no defined point

      Where something is considered genocide? That’s simply not true.

      any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

      • (a) Killing members of the group;
      • (b) 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;
      • (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
      • (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

      — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2

      • The nebulous term is “intent”. That’s not something that’s always clear. Especially early on in the war the argument was that the intent was to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages. That wouldn’t be a genocide. But given what several cabinet ministers have now been publicly saying, we can determine that the intent is present.