In the current South African lawsuit against Israel.
1,000
3.00@stardust Where's the evidence of a specific intent to destroy the Palestinian people? They gave evacuation warnings to reduce civilian deaths, allow aid in, and just agreed to a ceasefire. I don't see evidence of dolus specialis, genocidal intent.
Amnesty, HRW, and Ireland admitted this much and want the ICJ to overturn precedent because there is not enough evidence of genocidal intent.
@nathanwei I think the fact that Yoav Gallant called Palestinians "human animals", Netanyahu described the Palestinian people as "Amalek", over 80% of the dead are civilians, 90% of Gazans have been displaced, and that...
Israelis raped an innocent Palestinian prisoner to death with a metal rod, and were made public heroes for it
is as clear of genocidal intent as you're going to get. Do you want Netanyahu to stream himself personally eating a Palestinian baby?
@stardust He referred to Hamas as "human animals". The biblical Amalek analogy is literally used for every group of people that fights the Jews, including for instance the Nazis and Germans in WWII. That doesn't mean that there was a serious plan to genocide the Germans. Nakam failed for a reason.
The Sde Teiman issue is neither here nor there. Even if we grant that what you say is true, that Israel put a metal rod up a detained suspected terrorist's ass until he bled to death, that's definitely not genocide. I heard reports about the metal rod, I am not familiar with the details of the story, but I didn't hear anything about anyone dying from it. It's not like random Palestinians were sent to Sde Teiman. Genocide has to be against civilians. Do you think if the US had waterboarded, tortured, and killed suspected terrorists in Guantanamo that this would be genocide? No. Not even if some of those suspected terrorists turned out to be innocent civilians. The intent matters. Even if for some reason you assume that the Sde Teiman inmates are "civilians", clearly Israel did not think so.
These are not evidence of genocidal intent. Look Israel just agreed to a negotiated ceasefire. I don't see any evidence that Israel has a specific intent to destroy the Palestinian people.
@nathanwei If the US raped a prisoner to death with a metal rod in one of many concentration camps, it came out to the public, and the public's and notable politicians' reactions weren't that of abject horror but rather to venerate the torturers, then that would be pretty good evidence of genocide, actually. Shows you've dehumanized the Palestinian people so much that most of Israel doesn't even see them as human anymore.
And sorry, your Nazi example proves my point. The Palestinian people are not Nazis. And we're not buying this "oh it was Hamas" BS anymore. I'm sure when Israel bombed all those refugee camps where they killed hundreds of children that they were just "going after Hamas".
@stardust Can you be more specific about which bombing of refugee camps you are talking about? Or are you just gesticulating towards your personal impression of the war in general? Could you give a date or something? My understanding is that the ratio of combatants to civilians killed has been better than other modern urban conflicts.
@Tumbles https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/01/middleeast/israeli-airstrike-rafah-refugee-camp-intl-latam/index.html
https://www.middleeasteye.net/live/gaza-live-beirut-flights-cancelled-fears-israeli-attack-grow
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israeli-airstrikes-gaza-refugee-camp-cease-fire-talks-grind-on/
They bomb schools too https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/12/16/israel-bombs-another-un-run-school-in-gaza-without-warning-killing-20
And Churches. An enemy of the Church is an enemy of mine.
My understanding is that the ratio of combatants to civilians killed has been better than other modern urban conflicts.
Estimates range from 58.5% civilians (IDF fraud numbers) to 93.5% civilians (Euro-Med Monitor), with most non-partisan estimates ranging in the 80s. For reference:
Oct 7th attack: 67% civilians (yes, Hamas was more proportionate than Israel!)
Russia-Ukraine conflict: 26% civilians
Vietnam war: 46% civilians
Average urban conflict: 49.5% civilians excluding unknowns. 70% civilians assuming all unknowns are civilians (still better than Israel!)
The 80-90% figure you've got in your head is specifically when explosives are indiscriminately used in civilian areas without any regard for the sanctity of human life and God's creation. Wait, 80-90%? Those numbers seem to match a certain country very closely...
Bosnian war: 40% civilians
NATO intervention in Serbia: 50% civilians (NOTE: NATO claimed 1:10. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Even the "Western" Israel can't claim numbers better than 1.4:1, because we would all see through their lie)
World War fucking II: 67% civilians... yeah.
@stardust I appreciate you laying out some stats, but it's pretty clear you're playing fast and loose at best with the distinction between dense urban warfare and other warfare. It doesn't hurt to include numbers from other random wars for reference, but you do not distinguish seem to distinguish between them. For example, you wouldn't compare the Gaza situation to the entire Russia/Ukraine war, you would compare it to instances of bombing fully populated cities. I'm sure you're well aware of the arguments that Hamas' tactics make avoiding civilian casualties more difficult than other conflicts; the fact you completely glossed over this in your explanation is a massive red flag.
If bombing a city normally results in 90% civilian casualties, and the numbers eventually shake out to something like 70%, that would seem to be evidence against the war being genocidal in nature. My understanding of the conflict is heavily colored by the impression that Hamas acts in a way to intentionally maximize civilian Palestinian deaths. That doesn't mean Israel gets a pass to do whatever they like, but I'm simply unwilling to trust an analysis that doesn't address this fairly unique aspect of the conflict. It's particularly distasteful you would say Hamas is 'more proportionate', when Hamas' civilian killings are generally the result of specifically targeting civilians, from the planning stage to the execution of the attack. An inability to talk around these distinctions makes you sound completely unhinged to anyone who doesn't already share your view.
@Tumbles So I don't know if you're acting in bad faith or if your reading comprehension just took a miss. It's right there in the highlighted blue text. In case you still can't see it, that's the part under the "Vietnam war" bar. In case you still can't see it
Average urban conflict: 49.5% civilians excluding unknowns. 70% civilians assuming all unknowns are civilians (still better than Israel!)
Top 3 cities excluding unknowns is around 2/3 civilians excluding unknowns, and if you assume all unknowns are civilians only then does it reach 82%, or around Israeli numbers.
If bombing a city normally results in 90% civilian casualties
It doesn't. Read what I wrote instead of scrambling to defend Israel. Indiscriminate bombing with no regard for human life.
the numbers eventually shake out to something like 70%
They don't.
My understanding of the conflict is heavily colored by the impression that Hamas acts in a way to intentionally maximize civilian Palestinian deaths
It's a shame that Israel's military doctrine makes it so easy.
That doesn't mean Israel gets a pass to do whatever they like
What don't they get a pass to do, Tumbles? Will you name one thing, or when faced with specific examples like Israel bombing refugee camps and schools will you spur up justifications?
It's particularly distasteful you would say Hamas is 'more proportionate', when Hamas' civilian killings are generally the result of specifically targeting civilians, from the planning stage to the execution of the attack.
You're so close to getting it. Yes. Hamas doesn't care about killing Israeli civilians. In a terrorist attack where you claim they "targeted civilians" (I don't think this is true; I think they were simply killing everyone they saw) their civilian to combatant ratio was half that of Israel's. Sorry, numbers don't lie.
1) Hamas targets civilians
2) They managed to kill twice as many civilians as militants! Wow, isn't that horrible?
3) Israel kills around 5 civilians for every 1 militant
4) Really scratching my head about this one... how do we defend Israel?
It's particularly distasteful that you won't condemn a rogue state that's killed more than 45000 Palestinians, the overwhelming majority of whom are civilians, almost half of whom are children, that glorifies rape and more rape and what's that? More rape. Would you like some sodomy with that rape?
@stardust No, celebrating the torture of prisoners is not genocide. The word genocide has a very specific meaning. Sodomy and rape are not genocide. If you want to talk about alleged war crimes it’s another discussion.
@nathanwei I'm going to assume you didn't read what I wrote. Can you steelman the point you think I was trying to make? Quick listening check.
@stardust You completely handwave it again.... By pointing out AI was involved? And exclaiming that some Israelis 'glorified rape'? This is what I would consider failing to engage
@Tumbles What Mr Blank Space does not understand is that glorifying rape of suspected terrorists is not genocide.
@Tumbles So, because it's the second time now I know you're acting in bad faith and it's not just that you can't read. Likewise, this will be my last response unless you respond with something with real substance/that isn't pure sophistry.
You claim that I'm "handwaving" by "pointing out AI was involved". This is a, you know, literally impossible conclusion to draw if you read the actual article. Let's read the article instead of picking at the headline.
> Two sources said that during the early weeks of the war they were permitted to kill 15 or 20 civilians during airstrikes on low-ranking militants. Attacks on such targets were typically carried out using unguided munitions known as “dumb bombs”, the sources said, destroying entire homes and killing all their occupants.
> “We were constantly being pressured: ‘Bring us more targets.’ They really shouted at us,” said one intelligence officer. “We were told: now we have to fuck up Hamas, no matter what the cost. Whatever you can, you bomb.”
> When it came to targeting low-ranking Hamas and PIJ suspects, they said, the preference was to attack when they were believed to be at home. “We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” one said. “It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
> “There were regulations, but they were just very lenient,” another added. “We’ve killed people with collateral damage in the high double digits, if not low triple digits. These are things that haven’t happened before.” There appears to have been significant fluctuations in the figure that military commanders would tolerate at different stages of the war.
> Experts in international humanitarian law who spoke to the Guardian expressed alarm at accounts of the IDF accepting and pre-authorising collateral damage ratios as high as 20 civilians, particularly for lower-ranking militants. They said militaries must assess proportionality for each individual strike. [...] An international law expert at the US state department said they had “never remotely heard of a one to 15 ratio being deemed acceptable, especially for lower-level combatants. There’s a lot of leeway, but that strikes me as extreme”.
Yeah. I literally don't know how you read the article (spoiler: you didn't) and took away that the point I'm making is "it's AI!! it's AI!!" Or, maybe it's the fact that even if Hamas doesn't really care about Palestinian lives, it's superfluous because there's pretty much no way to given Israeli military doctrine?
I will note that you also didn't respond to any of my refutations of your other points -- because you know you were just completely 100% wrong on the facts of the matter. But you will "handwave it again" rather than acknowledging even one point.
@nathanwei Once again, not the point I was making. But I know you don't care, because IDF defenders in 2025 do not care about Life or Truth, only defending the regime. The fact that you will repeat this lie and don't even know what point I was trying to make (Spoiler: it's not "rape = genocide lol") betrays your, you may say, willingness to consider new information!
@nathanwei I would suspect an upward trend given that more international bodies would be able to enter soon hopefully and will start auditing the situation, given that they were blocked beforehand.
@nathanwei eh, if they didn't let facts get in their way before they're not going to start now. This is a market on how biased the ICJ is, not on what the facts on the ground are
Not sure which way this cuts - on the one hand it's yet more evidence of ICJ corruption/anti Israel connections, otoh I guess this means he's out?
@ShakedKoplewitz I don't understand the "icj corruption" angle?
On the other hand, "anti-israel", possible since he probably lived through Israel's past attacks on lebanon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern_Lebanon
Might also be worth noting that the judge is not a fan of hezbollah they aren't necessarily fans of his either, but i'm not well read on that specifically.
It might be good for Israel given that the next person taking over his role in the ICJ is very pro-israel: https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1878924090926354609
@Ammar I think having the judge at Israel's trial also be a senior politician from a country whose de facto military is, while the trial is ongoing, bombing Israeli civilians, is a pretty damn huge conflict of interest (even if he's from the opposite party).
@ShakedKoplewitz calling hezbollah the de facto military of lebanon is a stretch even though they're likely bigger than lebanon's actual military, and it also comes off disingenuous in this conversation's context because it implies Judge Nawaf Salam has some authority over them.
If you were to get any of Lebanon's judges to replace Nawaf Salam in the ICJ, that wont change much. They're anti-israel bias, specially after the number of Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel in the last year, will exist throughout the entire country.
@Ammar Yes, obviously you shouldn't have any lebanese politician judging Israel while Lebanon is actively bombing Israel, how is this even a question. This would be like putting Japanese politicians in charge of a war crimes tribunal of american soldiers in the middle of WW2. Which party they're in or their exact control over it isn't super relevant. The court is being run by politicians from a hostile nation and is used as a tool to advance their war aims.
Also, seems disingenuous to say this is about "lebanese civilians murdered by Israel". Lebanon started an unprovoked war with Israel by shooting tens of thousands of missiles at israeli civilian targets, and Israel was both remarkably restrained in its response all things considered.
@Ammar The Lebanese juge holds a "Western European and others" seat so it's likely that a European judge will get the seat instead.
@ShakedKoplewitz I didn't say it's "about lebanese civilians murdered by Israel", I said all Lebanese judges will have an "anti-israel bias, specially after the number of Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel in the last year". Why else do you think these judges might have an anti-israel bias?
Also, are you intentionally conflating Hezbollah with all of Lebanon? Do you also conflating the actions of Hilltop Youth, Lehava, and Amana as all of Israel? That would be anti-semitic.
@ShakedKoplewitz @Ammar Oh no what is this thread? Salam is anti Hezbollah but is also unfriendly to Israel. In general you expect justices from the Arab world to be more unfriendly to Israel.