this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 3 points 8 months ago (5 children)

It is bad in Gaza and I agree with Bernie that Biden should stop funding Israel however the hyperbole of "genocide" is devaluing the word.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 15 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

I'm gonna trust the UN officials who say this is ethnic cleansing, over your infographic.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

You did not read your own link. They did not call it service cleansing (yet).

A UN human rights expert warned today that Palestinians are in grave danger of mass ethnic cleansing

I agree with the expert though. There is no need to invade Rafah, to expel Palestinians, or even eradicate Hamas (since it is impossible). To do so will justify calling it ethnic cleansing and indeed that does seem to be Likud's aim.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 11 points 8 months ago

It's ~~simple arithmetic~~ cherry-picked data built to mislead.

FTFY

[–] knightly@pawb.social 11 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Yeah I would call myself a Zionist because it merely means I think they deserve to live in that area. Not exclusively like "from the river to the sea" or anything. A two state solution is Zionist.

[–] knightly@pawb.social 7 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Do you think everyone is entitled to found a country and start conquering the inhabited territories outside their borders or would you be satisfied with a secular one-state solution that grants freedom of movement and religion to both diasporas?

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Outside their borders? Do you mean the 1948 borders when Israel was attacked by several Arab countries?

Not everyone. The one group which was hounded and exterminated throughout history and gets woven into conspiracy theories to this day.

Nobody credible is arguing for a single state. Two state is the best hope, although there are plenty of Arabs living in Israel.

Israel is largely secular although Likud are doing their best to undermine that progress. Palestinians are largely religious extremists.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I would call myself a Zionist because it merely means I think they deserve to live in that area

Actual Zionists will vehemently disagree with you about this. Zionists believes that they are entitled to a Jewish state in that specific location, not simply entitled to "live in that area". Most Zionists would even tell you that a 2-state solution that does not give them control of Jerusalem, specifically, is not legitimate.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Sorry, I meant I support their claim to statehood.

As for animosity towards a 2SS, that is mainly the Likud party who only scraped into power after 5 failed elections. Bibi has two prosecutions for corruption pending. He is not popular.

[–] TheDankHold@kbin.social 11 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Interesting that the chart starts in 1948. It seems to miss that immediately prior 80% of Palestinians were forcibly removed from their lands and/or massacres by Zionist settler militias.

Next you’ll tell me that the population swap between Greece and Turkey was a genocide too, considering how you count the migrations of Jews that occurred after Zionists murdered and purged as many Arabs as they could from Palestine.

The conflict has existed longer than the Israeli state and ignoring that time period only obfuscates the reality of the situation.

[–] i_ben_fine@lemmy.one 10 points 8 months ago

genocide denial is why I'm not voting for Biden.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

For a more informative explanation of this chart, and what's right, and what's wrong:

  • After the 6 Day War in 1967, when Israel attacked 3 of its neighboring countries, those countries and other states either allied to them or sympathetic, DID actively persecute and expel large parts of their Jewish populations, and seized their homes and valuables. That WAS ethnic cleansing.
  • In the 1948 Palestine War, Israel violently displaced 750,000 Palestinians, which was more than half of the population, and the military and settler militias killed many thousands more. That was ALSO ethnic cleansing. This is completely erased by this chart.
  • In the 2023-2024 Israel-Gaza conflict, Israel has displaced over half of Palestinians in Gaza, destroyed their homes and livelihoods, and targeted essential infrastructure like water and power, and denied food entry, in order to make Gaza unlivable. This is ALSO ethnic cleansing. This is also completely erased by this chart.

The chart is inherently biased by another key point, which is that ethnic cleansing is not based on national borders. A UN commission of experts on humanitarian law violations defines Ethnic Cleansing as: "...a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas."

The Commission of Experts also stated that the coercive practices used to remove the civilian population can include: murder, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, extrajudicial executions, rape and sexual assaults, severe physical injury to civilians, confinement of civilian population in ghetto areas, forcible removal, displacement and deportation of civilian population, deliberate military attacks or threats of attacks on civilians and civilian areas, use of civilians as human shields, destruction of property, robbery of personal property, attacks on hospitals, medical personnel, and locations with the Red Cross/Red Crescent emblem, among others.

The UN themselves has identified Israel's action in Gaza in 2023-2024 as an ethnic cleansing.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

After the 6 Day War in 1967, when Israel attacked 3 of its neighboring countries,

Am a noob in this but, going by Wikipedia, only Egypt was attacked and that was after they blocked Israeli shipping in the South. Syria and Jordan attacked in solidarity with Egypt.

Re 1948, yes it does seem deliberately misleading by the table to leave it out, I acknowledge that.

Re the current war: it started off as legitimate retaliation although in retrospect I think it was futile. Israel should have sucked it up and fixed their lax border patrol.

If Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse they could have been more efficient but that would have turned the world against them. The mission creep (whether intended or not) suited Likud.

Unfortunately I hear that even a change of government in Israel would not change the current trajectory. Other nations withholding arms/funding is essential now but this call was hobbled at the start by not even acknowledging the horror of Oct 7 (at least in a call for a ceasefire presented to the Australian Parliament). Israel was called genocidal from the outset, before they even retaliated. That did not help and would have lost support for the resolution from the Left in Israel.

The resolution notably does not specifically condemn Hamas for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack — nor does it mention Hamas by name at all — a line the U.S. had said was necessary... The resolution also doesn't affirm Israel's right to self-defense or mention rocket attacks by Hamas and other militant groups on Israel.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago (2 children)

If Israel wanted to ethnically cleanse they could have been more efficient

This argument keeps getting thrown around, as though doing "only some" ethnic cleansing is not still ethnic cleansing or something. China could also exterminate all Uyghurs in Xinjiang at once if they wanted, but that doesn't make their genocide of Uyghurs any less of a genocide either. Israeli government officials have said in plain terms that they think Palestinians should be moved to the Sinai desert or that other nations should let them take refuge (from Israel) in their states. That is literally advocating ethnic cleansing.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Oct 7 was also "some ethnic cleansing". Hamas didn't even pretend otherwise.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Sure. But what's your point? Are you saying that makes it more okay for Israel to do it to Palestinians? Otherwise, it just seems like 'whataboutism'.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Point is: hypocrisy does not help conflict resolution.

The global Left refusing to call that genocide (even inventing conspiracies about IDF killing its own people on the day) helped escalate it. It made even moderate Israelis cheer on the retribution which ended up wildly disproportionate and counterproductive.

You seem stuck on seeing any criticism of the Palestinian side as unbridled support for Likud's agenda.

[–] sqgl@beehaw.org 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

The Sinai option is recent. At this point in time semantics don't matter. I agree it is ethnic cleansing now. This is what you get when two right wing groups fight.

The excuse of stopping another Oct 7 is weak. A competent government would not have let it happen in the first place. Preventing a repeat would not be difficult. Eliminating Hamas is fantasy as is eliminating the state of Israel.

It would help if the global Left would drop the inflammatory "river to the sea" mantra and instead concentrate on a 2SS.