Israeli rightists are trying to reframe a Gaza population transfer as a 'moral act'

stopthatgirl7@kbin.social to News@lemmy.world – 159 points –
haaretz.com

The idea of expelling Arabs to other countries was once linked to Meir Kahane and other far-right radicals, and thus considered anathema by most Israelis. Now, to the delight of right-wingers, the idea is gaining traction as a ‘moral' solution to the war.

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No, this is called ethnic cleansing. Not genocide. It is to prevent genocide.

EDIT: for those downvoting me, please do not downvote for the reasons as if I support this. I am simply pointing out on incorrect usage of the words, and their logic without supporting it.

It's genocide in the same way the Armenian genocide is a genocide. When you forcibly move millions of people from one place to another a lot of them die. Think trail of tears.

Arguably, some ethnic cleansings are genocides too. But not all of them.

Outside of a UN tribunal, that's a distinction without a difference.

One is killing people, another is moving them to different place. I feel there is difference.

Not quite. According to the UN there are five genocidal acts:

killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.

It doesn't have to kill them, but to destroy a group of people (their identity) via forced relocation would be one of them.

Yes, genocide can be done together with ethnic cleansing, more over, arguably any genocide IS ethnic cleansing. However, not every ethnic cleansing is genocide. Removal of Jewish settlement from Gaza Strip when Gaza Strip was given autonomy is an example of ethnic cleansing without genocide.

You keep making this stupid argument that “not every ethic cleansing is a genocide”, which acknowledges that some are, and failing to argue why this one is not.

It did not happen yet. How can I argue one way or another?

And yet here you are, doing exactly that. You literally said calling it a genocide was incorrect.

I am arguing that what they suggest is ethnic cleansing. Whether it will be a genocide as well I do not know, but they do NOT suggest genocide.

Russia was moving Ukrainian children into Russia, that's a component of genocide. German Jews were forced into ghettos, then into concentration camps. The ghettos didn't "prevent" genocide, they facilitated it.

The United Nations first defined genocide in 1948 in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The treaty outlines five acts that can constitute genocide if they are done “with the intent to destroy an ethnic, national, racial or religious group”:

  1. Killing members of the group

  2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm

  3. Deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction in whole or in part

  4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births

  5. Forcibly transferring children

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/whats-the-difference-between-genocide-and-ethnic-cleansing

They both serve the purpose of erasing the identity of a people. The methods and means are common between the two: you destroy their homes, you force them to move, you starve them, you kill the ones who don't comply, and you leave the weak and struggling to die. The distinction you're making matters in a UN court, where Genocide has a legal definition and legal consequences, whereas Ethnic Cleansing does not. But that doesn't make ethnic cleansing some preferable alternative to genocide.

If you told a civilian in Gaza "you're not being genocided, you're being ethnically cleansed!" Do you think that would change their understanding of the situation much?

It’s not an incorrect usage though, so for the crime of being both wrong AND a useless pedant, you get downvoted!