'I just find bombs, dead people... it's really scary' - British Palestinian girl in Gaza

Bernie Ecclestoned@sh.itjust.works to World News@lemmy.world – 512 points –
'I just find bombs, dead people... it's really scary'
bbc.co.uk
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If nothing else, this terrible unnecessary war has shown the West's cognitive dissonance.

Hardcore right wing people generally hate Jewish people, unless the Jewish people are fighting Muslim people, then it's "Jewish people have the right to self-determination!"

People on the left generally do not hate any specific ethnic group, however, we have a long history of criticizing Israel for their apartheid. Being met with the furor of everyone else calling us anti-semites is nothing new, but never has it come so forcefully from so many people all at once.

Moderates in the center aren't speaking out at all for fear of being called anti-semitic, maintaining international relations with a nuclear power, and secretly hoping that this takes attention away from the climate crisis so we can keep going business as usual in favor of the ruling class.

More important than the cognitive dissonance though, is the fact that everyone in the West believes their opinion is the best and will solve everything.

Yeah, after watching the siege of Mariupol and the destruction of civilian infrastructure by Putin, it's kinda hard to defend the same actions, whatever the provocation, by Bibi

If Putin did 1/100 of what Israel did/are doing right now, the war would have been terminated months ago.

OH and by the way, Russia is fighting a real army with logistic/intel support from the West.

Don't compare them to your shitty cowards which is also benefiting of logistic support.

Sorry, who are my shitty cowards?

not you, Bernie. I was talking about the shitty entity in the middle east who is killing childen, women behind their joystick.

Ah, Hamas and the IDF. Got it.

fuck it. RIGHT NOW I don't give a damn about what Hamas did or are going to do. Keep your fake humanist rhetoric or wisdom from book "oh but you fall in the trap of...", F U C K I T! They bombed one of the few fucking remaining hospitals in state. This is not an artillery margin error, this was dedicated!

Israel went far beyond the limit and they play straight, no Hamas masterplan or a six advanced moves. Israel does not care, they massacre plain straight and with a giant fuck off to the rest of the planet.

Just nope.

Apparently that hospital was a misfired rocket from Gaza... if that turns out to be true, I'll await your condemnation of whichever Islamist cunts did it

Even if it was fired from Gaza, they will again simply say that's Israel's fault. When you have already established the black-and-white narrative, everything goes.

RIGHT NOW I don't give a damn about what Hamas did or are going to do

Well something is wrong with you because you should. Hamas is controlling the whole Gaza and doesn't care about the future of their people.

The hospital too. There are video and photo evidence, it was not bombed by Israel.

Anti-semitic my ass. I know jewish people that are openly open about their retarded leaders.

Jewish people out of all people should understand why genocide is not acceptable. A bunch of old power hungry people are responsible for hundreds of thousands of people being killed or displaced. That's what God wants, amiright?

If it was genocide, why warn the people and offer humanitarian aid in the south of Gaza? Why no attacks on the Westbank? Why did they wait until Hamas attacked (again)? Why were Palestinians part of the population in Israel?

Israel certainly doesn't respect the border to Palestinian land, but to call it genocide sounds a lot like a propaganda tool. Especially when it comes from people who ignore that Palestinians and especially the Hamas and other extremist groups in Palestine declared they want a genocide on all Jews. And this even predates the separation.

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You are also called and Islamophobe if you aren't taking a stand against all of Israel in this.

It's fine.. when Russia does landgrabs and "settles" in parts of Ukraine it's called ethnic cleansing, genocide, illegal war, yada yada.

When Israel does it it's just a right to self determination and if you disagree with that then you must be an antisemite nazi.

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Maybe public opinion will change now that there's white victims of the genocide too

Who do you guys talk to? Nobody I know is supporting Israel in this. Most comments I read don't support them either.

I live in the southern USA, evangelical folks in my area are fully onboard with Israel support. Facebook links constantly, sign boards in front of churches, those annoying free newspapers they publish and leave in the driveway.

It's all anti Muslim and some really creepy genocide talk.

Well, in the defence of some evangelical communities, they're just out there hoping the rapture will happen in their lifetimes and doing what they can to speed up the process.

Some of them don't necessarily hate Muslims, they just want the world to end ASAP and believe supporting a militant Israel will speed up the process. And who knows, maybe they're right.

How is this defendable in any way?

I guess you could argue that being batshit crazy is moderately better than just being evil.

Admittedly it's not much of a defence.

It’s just my opinion, but I think batshit crazy is worse. At least evil people have convictions. You may not like their reasons, but it’s consistent. Crazy people are unpredictable and act erratically. They legit scare me.

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Wtf? Even lemmy was crazy to read just a few days ago. Deranged comments everywhere in support of Israel. Plus a lot of governments support them directly as well.

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Except most governments. They also fund humanitarian aid for the Palestinians on the down-low but publically they're supporting Israel. Just look at the US.

Bruh where have you been, I've seen the most sanguine comments being catapulted to the top of feeds. Although not as bad in Lemmy as i saw it on reddit.

Time.com, one of the most-read news sites on the planet, is supporting Israel unabashedly. "Nobody I know" isn't the same as "nobody".

Lemmy I've found to be better at condemning both Hamas and the IDF, bit try Reddit, FB, or X. Or people in real life.

I mean there are pretty... interesting protests all over the world.

Shout out to France and Germany, who casually banned peaceful demonstrations as if that's a normal thing to do in a democracy.

I thought France only allowed violent protests to begin with. :)

They banned groups giving out candy as a celebration of the Hamas attacks and kidnappings of Israelis and groups that openly support terrorist organisations like Hamas. Are you opposed to that? How do you think Germany should react to a group that's openly anti-semitic?

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and the voice of a british girl (i have nothing against her) seems to worth more than the victims. strange that you need a crying girl to measure a disaster when the victims are not white.

She's British Palestinian, it makes sense that a British citizen strikes a chord with the British media.

She’s British Palestinian, it makes sense that a British citizen strikes a chord with the British media.

No it is not. I have litterally zero relation with the middle east, arabs and co but I am disgusted deep to my guts by this fucking genocide that we, moreover, are imposed to support!

There's not better demonstration of racism and nastiest

That's just your opinion, not a fact though.

they are killing civilians in mass, where is the opinion? where's the link between a Hamas squad and 2 000 000 of civilians???

anyway. ..

2 000 000 of civilians

When did nearly every man, woman, and child in Gaza die?

Your opinion that non-british people would strike a chord with British people as well or better than a British person. As was previously noted: most people didn't give a shit about brown people dying until the headline said "British", and then suddenly it mattered.

People need to relate. It's easier for the West to relate to a british person than a Palestinian person. It's hard to relate to just Palestinian because a significant amount is a part of Hamas, and Hamas wants me dead because I am not Muslim. Hamas was democratically elected. That means a majority of Palestinians think their way is the right way. That little british-palestinian didn't vote for Hamas. I can relate to her. It's hard to relate to people that democratically elected a group that wants to kill me.

Correction, the election that gave Hamas power was 17 yrs ago, half the population of Gaza is under 18. Half the population of Gaza was not even born yet when the last election took place.

If memory serves, that's also around the time Netanyahu was funding Hamas. Your post blames children who couldn't vote for Hamas more than the PM of Israel who was funding them.

Hopefully this helps you relate more to the children and young adults in Palestine who had no say in their either.

If memory serves, that’s also around the time Netanyahu was funding Hamas. Your post blames children who couldn’t vote for Hamas more than the PM of Israel who was funding them.

I cannot believe how much international media has ignored this simple fact even though it was all over Israeli papers...

Yes, Bibi funded Hamas to increase their radicalization and make it possible to commit genocide.

It’s hard to relate to just Palestinian because a significant amount is a part of Hamas, and Hamas wants me dead because I am not Muslim.

Hmmm, why do you think a "significant" amount is Hamas and that Hamas is out to kill non-Muslims?

If it makes you feel any better, I'm an ex Muslim so most Muslim countries want me killed or stripped of my rights because it's not okay to de-convert.

Hamas was democratically elected

That's a gross simplification of what happened. Since half the people in Gaza are under 18, there are only few left of those 40% (a very tight election btw) adults who voted for Hamas in 2006. Hamas also then kicked out all the other Palestinian parties from Gaza, so not exactly "democratically elected".

The reason Hamas has support is because Israel is killing civilians and these civilians have no escape and no army except for Hamas militants. It's not because Hamas are "wonderful" or any shit like that.

That means a majority of Palestinians think their way is the right way.

Really bad conclusion. Even if you think Hamas was "democratically elected" (last election was 16 years ago... such democracy), how does that make you think the majority of Palestinians think this is the right way? Again, many parties were running (Palestine is not a two-party state), and Hamas got 40%. But you forget all the Palestinian diaspora outside Palestine and everyone who couldn't vote. That being said, this is really bad math since 40% isn't even majority and a lot of those who voted for this in 2006 are dead now because only 2.4% (or something) of the Gaza population makes it beyond the age of 65.

That little british-palestinian didn’t vote for Hamas.

Even if they did, would they deserve to die under the rubble of their own home? No, neither do the Palestinians. There is also a big chance this kid's parents supported Hamas since they live in Gaza and there are "options" in Gaza.

It’s hard to relate to people that democratically elected a group that wants to kill me.

Yeah, when you paint imaginary and generalized pictures of Palestinians in your head, it becomes hard to "relate" to them.

How the fuck can this happen? I mean seriously how can people justify these atrocities in the name of "pick your favourite god".

Feel very sad for this girl and for all civilians that want to just you know live their lives. And remember majority of Gaza is less than 18. Kids.

It's not a religious war, fyi

How so? Israel 'settles' there in what they call their holy land. Hamas yells Allah Akbar as they kill and take hostages. Are you trolling?

No, it has almost nothing to do with religion. The only part of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis that actually tangibly relates to a religious dispute, is the contesting claims over Jerusalem (because it's holy to both Judaism and Islam).

Literally the entire rest of the conflict is based on competing nationalist claims.

Yes, even though Hamas is yelling "Allahu-akbar". Believe it or not, they're not fighting because of their religion, they're fighting because of their political goals (namely in Hamas' case AFAIK the destruction of Israel). They do also happen to be religious, but the primary conflict is a political one.

Hamas's goals are both political and religious.

They're explicitly fighting to establish a Muslim theocracy, under sharia law.

It's not akin to something like the American revolution, where you had a number of religious people fighting to establish a secular country.

It's more like the Maccabean revolt against the Selucids, where the Jewish leaders were the priests, and ended with the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty where the high priest became king.

Would you really argue that the Maccabean revolt had nothing to do with religion?

That's fair. Religion can be a very important part of both identities.

However, I would like to stress that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not directly motivated by religious differences. As in, it's not a case of "their religion is different! GET EM!". The direct problem isn't that the other side has a different religion, it's that the other side essentially has competing land claims, and a competing nationalist vision.

Since religion is an important part of Hamas' identity (and possibly of some factions in Israel, I'd guess), that affects how each side frames the conflict, and what some of their means and ends are. But the key issues of the conflict have to do with things like land borders and economic conditions.

The direct problem isn't that the other side has a different religion, it's that the other side essentially has competing land claims, and a competing nationalist vision.

Right.

But those nationalist visions aren't entirely secular in origin. For both Hamas and religious zionists, they're rooted in their religion.

This isn't religiously motivated violence the same way that the Spanish Inquisition was. But religion is pretty deeply baked into the conflict, in some very important ways.

This isn't religiously motivated violence the same way that the Spanish Inquisition was. But religion is pretty deeply baked into the conflict, in some very important ways.

You know? I think that sums it up nicely.

They do not want to just destruct Israel, they want to kill all Jewish people and want a purely Muslim country. Anti-semitism in the area existed before Israel was created and is a reason why it was created in the first place.

It's just often ignored because Jews aren't a group that people sympathise with. There are also many more Muslim people and even hinting that you do not support everything Palestine does, as a Muslim or not, can make you a target for lots of hate. There are even people who will tell you that you "aren't a real Muslim" if you support a two-state-solution.

Religion is the coat of paint put on top of an occupation that is actually the root cause here.

Both the Zionists and the Jihadists claim to be inspired by their religion, but the actual cause of the decades-long conflict has little to do with religion and much more to do with decades of occupation and oppression.

It’s a race war if anything. Religion is used to fuel it. But Israel doesn’t care about its gods. It only cares about people within its tribe controlling its country. Eventually Israel will have to choose between being Jewish controlled and being democratic, even. Because demographics are trending against there being a Jewish majority forever. They will ditch democracy. I mean, they already have by deliberately disenfranchising millions of Arabs from it. An apartheid democracy isn’t a democracy, it’s an oligarchy. Anyway, no, it’s not about the Jewish god. If you think Judaism is a religion, straight up, you don’t understand it. The Arabs also cling to their religion because it’s the one thing no one can take away from them. It’s also very effective at controlling people.

Hamas is literally an offshoot of the Muslim brotherhood.

Fatah is reasonably secular. But Hamas is fighting a literal jihad against Jews. To Hamas, this is very much a religious war to establish a Muslim theocracracy over all of Israel.

You're still confusing the pretext with the actual reason. Hamas and the Zionists both say they are doing this for religious reasons, but the actual reasons are much more complex and almost entirely political and social. You're buying into the propaganda from both sides of you really think the root of this catastrophe is religion.

Hamas only exists because of the occupation and oppression caused by the state of Israel.

Hamas, as mentioned, is an offshoot of the Muslim brotherhood. The Muslim brotherhood still exists in Egypt, despite Egypt not oppressing Muslims. Hamas might not have split off into a separate organization, but they'd basically still exist without Israel.

More to the point, though, why Israel? Why did Jews want to establish a state in Israel? Are you really going to argue that had nothing to do with religion? The second intifada was literally caused by Ariel Sharon visiting the Al-Aqsa mosque. Clearly, that had nothing to do with religion either.

I'm not saying that the conflict is purely religious. It's a complex blend of religion and politics.

Arguing that religion has nothing to do with it is ridiculous.

Why did Jews settle in Israel?

There were many there already. It is their historical homeland of origin.

It has cultural significance as a past Jewish homeland.

And frankly I think being surrounded by enemies has been galvanizing for them, not a minus at all.

AND, here’s the main thing I think you are insisting on missing: it has religious significance too, which whips up certain people into a fervor.

Just because leaders manipulate people with religion doesn’t mean they are religiously motivated. Religion is for manipulating people. It has a great impact on certain people and situations, but it’s a tool. For example, if you want suicide bombers, it’s a tool for convincing them to die. This doesn’t mean religion is the reason you’re bombing. Religion is a how not a why (except for in the minds of some pawns, which I’ll allow is true).

Groups against Jews have existed in the area before Israel and Palestine were established.

People blissfully forget that when they believe defending yourself justifies all means.

Christian zionists maybe, but Jewish zionists are doing this because hamas murdered Israeli civilians in a terrorist attack. Nothing religious about revenge.

Holy land my ass. Where does it say it's okay to kill people in their holy texts? They literally have one commandment against murder (thou shall not kill. Anyone? Anyone?). Genocide much?

As far as Islam goes, murder is again a top sin. In the Qur'an. How can you justify killing people?

I do agree thought that this is about infighting in the region and religion is a pretext to justify atrocities.

They literally have one commandment against murder (thou shall not kill. Anyone? Anyone?). Genocide much?

It's better translated as "don't murder" than "don't kill" - it uses the Hebrew verb רצח which refers to immoral unlawful killings (i.e. murder), not killing in general.

In Judaism, for example, the rabbis ruled in the Babylonian Talmud that it's OK to kill someone who is actively trying to murder someone else.

As far as where in the Torah it says to kill people, there's a bunch of places. For example, here's one commandment from deuteronomy 21:

If a man has a wayward and rebellious son, who does not obey his father or his mother, and they chasten him, and [he still] does not listen to them, his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, and to the gate of his place. And they shall say to the elders of his city, "This son of ours is wayward and rebellious; he does not obey us; [he is] a glutton and a guzzler." And all the men of his city shall pelt him to death with stones, and he shall die. So shall you clear out the evil from among you, and all Israel will listen and fear.

Edit: As an aside, the rabbis weren't too keen on actually stoning kids, so they clarified the conditions to make it basically impossible to do.

The Biblical story of the battle of Jericho certainly seems to condone mass murder of civilians if they're of the wrong ethnicity. I'm less familiar with the Quran but I've read many times that it condones killing in certain contexts as well. All Abrahamic religions are rooted in barbarism.

What about "thou shall not kill". Also, there is pretty much historical consensus that all of the Jericho story was fucking made up and slotted into the Bible later. If anything, you should research how the Bible as put together - it's 90% bullshit

The Bible is highly inconsistent. If you want a justification for killing people, it's there. If you want a justification for condemning killers, it's there, too. Whether any part of it is historical is irrelevant; what matters is that people believe in it and use it to guide their actions (or at least rationalize them after the fact).

Abrahamic religions have always been extremist in their nature. If you read history before Christianity you could already see these people were batshit.

Bro. All major religions (except Hinduism/buddhism) are basically a rehash of the same shit the originated in the Sumner River Valley in Mesopotamia. They are all batshit insane - christians included - the only difference is the tech level.

It's not motivated by religion, it's motivated by real estate, Israel does business and has Allied with other Islamic nations and organizations.

I guess Israel stealing houses from Palestinian land is part of this so called religious war.

Do you think ruthlessly killing civillians is helping anyone to unsteal anything?

Bruh, you missed the point of this discussion

How so? If that's the main issue Palestinians have with Israel then they need to come up with a better plan than terrorism.

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Why is she there? Evacuate her!

Israel is sieging their side of the border, and Egypt said they wouldn't let foreign nationals out until Israel allows aid into Gaza, which hasn't happened.

Israeli missile blew up the Gaza side of the Egyptian border crossing and was not accessible.

Do they think God smiles when they destroy the only humanitarian corridor?

Problem solved, right? What do you do with the millions of people that are stuck in Gaza. You would think that jewish people out of all people would understand that genocide is not acceptable.

Poe's law in effect, I guess. I read this as sarcasm. Obviously it is inhumane to give her the choice between becoming a refugee and being bombed.

That’s like going to Camden for vacation and being surprised Picachu when you get mugged.

Mariam went to visit her family in Gaza before Saturday's surprise attack on Israel by Hamas.

How dare she go visit her family.

Didn’t they know not to be born as victims of Israeli crimes‽

There's something about this mentality that is so fucked that I can't even.

It's a place where people live. It's not like they just walk around for years waiting to be killed by Israeli rockets. They're not background actors in some episodic war movie or character actors in some horror version of Disney land.

Her family voted in a terrorist organization that decided it was a good idea to poke the bear by committing an act of terror.

Her family voted in Israel?

Damn well if they responsible for those genocidal fucks they should be held responsible.

Gaza is in the grip of terrorists who abuse population as their shield and keep drawing fire on them. As long as they are in power and the population is unable to get rid of them this is not a place for a child to go and visit relatives. Who allowed that to happen?

If Israel found an attack from Hamas at this point as hard to imagine as they claim to, why in the world would we expect civilians to be better informed.

Some people, obviously mistakenly, believed Hamas to have cooled down a little bit and to be genuinely interested in making the lives of civilians a little bit easier. The terrorist attacks of course illustrated forcefully that this was not the case, but it's hard to blame civilians for being surprised by this when Mossad apparently had no way of seeing it coming either.

It is not some new development that Hamas is a terrorist group that hides behind the population. It is also not new that they are not about to leave Gaza voluntarily so they will have to be forcefully removed at some point by someone. If you managed to get out of Gaza it is a grave mistake to go back there for a vacation. As long as it is a hideout for terrorists it will be a target of their victims.

It's easy to say this now, not so obvious a week ago.

Assuming you're right - why the hell was the IDF so goddamn unprepared?

This has been 75 years in the making. It was obvious a week ago, a year ago and a decade ago.

My guess is that IDF was not unprepared. They knew - politics took the wheel and they just ignored all the warnings.

Why should I know that? I'm not the care taker of Israel. They should not have left Gaza unwatched and allowed terrorists to cross into Israel. And her parents should not have sent a child into a Hamas lead city.

Hamas showed once again that they are terrorists who want Israel gone and the people of Gaza have to suffer for it because no one cared for removing Hamas or stopping them before they once again attacked Israel.

There are terrorists on both sides. It's easy for you to preach from your high horse. When was the last time you felt in danger of dying? What about the last time you didn't have clean water and food? Not being allowed to see your lover ones?

You fucking disconnected hypocrite.

It's also very easy for you to demand that the people of Israel should just accept getting attacked by Hamas once in a while while everyone pretends it's alright that Gaza is governed by terrorists who have made it their official goal to genocide the Jews. This conflict can only be solved with cooperation but that is not possible with Hamas.

You fucking disconnected hypocrite.

That does not make any sense but you can stuff that in your ass anyways.

How did Hamas get to be in power in Gaza? What about the people of Gaza? You don't hear anyone getting butthurt when people in Gaza arr routinely killed and starved to death. You don't hear it in the news.

Why would people in Gaza want to subject themselves to this death and destruction?

Pretending that somehow the lives of jewish people are more valuable that the lives of Palestinians is what makes you a hypocrite.

How did Hamas get to be in power in Gaza? What about the people of Gaza? You don’t hear anyone getting butthurt when people in Gaza arr routinely killed and starved to death. You don’t hear it in the news.

Why would people in Gaza want to subject themselves to this death and destruction?

Yes how come no one gives a shit about Hamas being in power there, causing nothing but death and misery for everyone in the area? Now that Israel got hit so hard that they decided to end Hamas in the most destructive way people suddenly care for the people living there.

Pretending that somehow the lives of jewish people are more valuable that the lives of Palestinians is what makes you a hypocrite.

I'm sorry if I made it look like I care more for one faction than the other, I honestly don't think the lives of the people of Gaza are worth less than those living in Israel. It is a horrible thing that Israel sees no other way to fight against Hamas but to hit Gaza harder and harder. Do you have a proposition on how Israel should react to the terrorist attack?

You need to understand that people in Gaza are desperate. Israel is not going to do the right thing. They have been committing war crimes for 75 years. Hamas is not going to do the right thing.

IMHO there need to be an outside peace keeping mission to mitigate this. Anything else is going to end up with a blood bath.

We think it's bad now? Wait until it escalates and the whole region blows up. What will Israel do when gets attacked by Hezbollah? How will Iran and Egypt react to what they see as meddling in the middle east by western powers? Europe is already not playing nice with Israel. US is going to need to soften their stance (and they have started to do already).

Israel attacking Gaza and blocking food and water (ie genocide) is as dumb as Hamas attacking Israel in the first place. This is what happens when you put political interest in front of what is good for your own people.

I am highly distressed by the fact that people are fucking dying as we speak and everyone seems to have one weird trick without understanding any history and without factoring in the context in tge region.

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Lol. You're new to the conflict in the area?

People that lose everything get radicalized and even if you manage to remove every single Hamas member from Gaza you'll be back to the same situation in no time.

There needs to be an international peace force in the area and both sides need to revisit if this stupid war is worth fighting.

People that lose everything get radicalized

If you think that's a good excuse for violence, why doesn't the same excuse apply for Israel and why it exists?

I agree. There needs to be an international peace force to dismantle Hamas and enable a peaceful coexistence between Israel and Gaza.

They also should dismantle the Israeli state

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Yes yes. Let's have israel liberate them /s

When they cut of water, power and supplies it's business even though the result is people dying and in effect genocide. When Hamas attacjs them it's terrorism. Killing innocent civilians ON ANY SIDE is terrorism.

Turns out living with terrorists that keep provoking attacks on you is a shit situation that you should escape from or call for international help to remove them. It is sad that innocent people of Gaza suffer and die and I wish that tragedy would not happen but that blood is solely on Hamas' hands - they fully knew what the reaction would be.

If you think living with terrorists is bad you should think about a fucking county that has power hungry terrorist leadership. You Israel is a terrorist state and them killing civilians in Gaza is no different than what Hamas is doing. You can pretend it's something else but this is genocide.

You throw that word around without knowing what it means.

Explain it to me you brainiac. Let's see if you can do mental gymnastics to justify what is happening.

Is wikipedia good enough for your Highness?

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people[a] in whole or in part. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: 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. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.[1][2]

Killing members of a group? Check. Serious bodily or mental harm? Check. Living conditions intended to destroy the group? Fucking check.

ANY of these == genocide. ANY

“acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

The intent "to destroy whole or in part" is not there. If Israel had the intent to eradicade the people of Gaza it could have easily done so for a long time. That is not "mental gymnastics" but a matter of intent, as stated in your definition. They take into account that many, many innocent people in Gaza are killed as collaterals in their fight to destroy Hamas, but Israel actually wanting to eradicate the populace would look very different. I'm open to change my view the coming weeks but I don't see Israel eradicating them. I also accept that you vehemently disagree with me on this.

On the other hand Hamas has put the intent of the complete destruction of Israel in its founding charter - one can easily claim that every attack on Israel by Hamas is an act of genocide.

I think the intent is there.

You cannot explain cutting off water and food supplies. You just can't. You don't cut off water without intent.

You don't box in civilians and destroy the only route they can take to get out of the region. It's not possible to do this without intent.

Vehemently disagreements can be healthy but not when people are fucking dying.

The total blockade of water and food is a very sharp sword that I hope will be lifted quickly as it was an overly brutal reaction to the attack. It could have been considered as an immense pressure to release the hostages from Gaza without boming the place but that did not manifest as Israel decided to attack anyways.

Do you think that Egypt is also complicit in the genocide against the people of Gaza, as they are also carrying the blockade?

The blockade as you call it is genocide.

Egypt has a long history in that area - look it up. History is there.

Shame about all the children who actually live there. Are those children not allowed to visit their relatives either?

Where did I mention people who live there? Gaza is in a terrible situation and people should leave until Hamas is removed. Visiting that powder keg is utterly irresponsible.

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