Ocasio-Cortez won't call Gaza war a genocide, another lying politician

@ArishMell Why are laws more important than what the people think? Laws are here to restrain and control us, not to serve us.

The Holocaust happened and then people, mainly Jews, felt the need to invent the word "genocide" and compel the UN to define it. Since then, we could argue that numerous genocides have happened. The language used is liberal, and you could apply it to almost any group who is attacked by another group. Intent is supposed to matter, but it probably rarely does. Israel is either deliberately killing large numbers of Palestinians, or they are calculating that one Hamas member or suspected Hamas member is worth the destruction of many other bodies and lives.

Israel did exist at one time, it was almost 2000 years ago. You could say that the expulsion from there was a genocide, but the time to act was then. I think the Jews going back there have tried to rewrite history, tried to regain what they think they have lost, at the expense of others. When the culture has been damaged, and people have come to be mixed and different to what they once were, it is not right to forcibly create an artificial environment for them to pretend it all never happened, while they still keep denying the truth God gave to them.

@badlands Laws to restrain and control are for that governmental aim in a totalitarian state. They should be to help and support, and frankly, to protect us from each others.

The name "Holocaust" was used by the Jews themselves to describe the Nazis' actions, which I would define that as genocide by the word itself. Look at the two root words.

On the other hand I would not call the Chinese government's suppression of the Uyghur's largely-Muslim culture "genocide" because it is not seeking to kill them all, but to force them to be officially-approved Chinese. That does not make it right - the gang who run the show in Beijing are still ruthless, cruel tyrants.

Israel has not set out to exterminate the Palestinians, as the Holocaust set out to exterminate the Jews, but is certainly guilty of mass-manslaughter on a huge scale.

Israel as a defined country did not exist 2000 years ago. I don't think any countries did in a formal manner as we would say now, and while the Jews and some of their Christian supporters may claim God "gave" the land to them, they were a nomadic tribal society that eventually found a territory they liked, and settled there. They "gave" that land to themselves.

The League of Nations forging a new, artificial "Israel" in what had been the British Protectorate of Palestine - which meant protection from Turkey's attempt to take over - was well-meaning but sowed the seeds of trouble, strife and bloodshed in later years.

I learnt only recently that it's not only Hamas who think the State of Israel should not exist. So do some Orthodox Jewish theologians, although their opinion is one of religion, not politics or territory.

Really the so-called "Two State Solution" - and moving Israel's capital back to Tel Aviv - is the only way that might let the two societies live in some sort of equanimity. Sadly the fighting and destruction now, after years of Hamas hurling missiles at Israel and Israeli "settlers" illegally but openly stealing more Palestinian land, even before the Hamas atrocity last October, have made that possibility ever more remote. Despite real efforts by mediators, the leaders (rulers?) of both factions are as hard-line as ever.

I am not swayed by romantic ideas invented millennia ago about gifts from God, though such claims are part of the problem. I want the two cultures to live side-by-side in the modern world, but at the moment the victims - all those the Arabs and Jews who do also want that - are ignored by the hard-liners wanting mutual destruction.


The news programme on the radio on Friday evening interviewed a spokeswoman for a group trying to take aid into Gaza. They are being blocked by the Israeli Police and Army. Significantly that group is not some governmental or UN body but is voluntary and composed of both Jews and Arabs.

@ArishMell And everybody sees the aid the raghead terrorists are pouring into gaza.

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@sunsporter1649 why do you support Israel?

@hippyjoe1955

@sunsporter1649 so you are not aware that most of the death and destruction on Oct 7 was caused by Israel? My sources are from Israeli media.

@ArishMell [quote]What Israel is doing in the Gaza strip is appalling and inexcusable, breaking one law after another although understandable; but where were the protests against Hamas - a brutal group with no legitimacy or scruples, and not even much real regard for their fellow-Palestinians?[/quote]

America isn't funding Hamas, we're funding Israel. That's what the protests are about. We could end the genocide by cutting off funding.

@ArishMell The UN says:

[i]In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:[/i]

[b]a. [/b]Killing members of the group;
[b]b. [/b]Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
[b]c. [/b] Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
[b]d.[/b] Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
[b]e.[/b] Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Not all of these acts need to exhibited, and it uses the words "in whole [i][b]or[/b][/i] in part." China and other places and peoples in the 21st century are committing genocide if this definition is true.

What do you think? I think once we start debating about whether something is or isn't a genocide, we may have gotten lost. Does the law inform every perception you have? What about right and wrong, according to you?

Israel existed 2000 years ago, until the majority of Jews were expelled, killed, or sold into slavery. Judah was in the south, but the land incorporating the Jews, in the north and south, was called greater Israel, "Eretz Yisrael Hashlema" in Hebrew. Jewish Coins found from the Simon ben Koseba era, the last era before most were expelled or sold by the Romans, have the writing "year two to the freedom of Israel." There were no more years after this, not until 1948. Hadrian and his men defeated the Jews and they were made to suffer.

Jewish independence, formed in a constitutional monarchy, did last for several hundred years. Prior to this, there was the patriarchal era and the period of Judges. We can see that there were repeated attempts at regaining independence over the years; hence, the expulsion in response to the final revolt. However, some Jews did remain in very small numbers, or returned after some years, or stayed in the region. In the early 20th century, most of the people living in Palestine were Muslim Arabs, and this is because it was conquered by Muslims, like most of the Middle East and North Africa was conquered by Muslims. Large numbers of Palestinian Muslims were there, with some Palestinian Christians, and they were not important to the incoming Jews.

The Arabs did have their own versions of nationalism after the Ottoman Empire collapsed, and the British toyed with that as well. Arabs and Jews were promised a state, in the same land, that land being Israel or greater Israel to the Jews. One of these groups, despite a genocide where significant numbers were killed, was more powerful, more rich, and had more friends. Western friends.

If the UN definition is to be applied, "genocide" is an accurate term to use. It isn't and never will be exclusive or rare.

@badlands All of those acts as defined there are wrong. The law needs be precise to work properly, but that does not excuse any unwarranted attack on any other person or community, or attempts to destroy others' countries .

By its invasion of the rest of Palestine, Israel has descended to the amorality of those who seek to destroy Israel, yet for all the shouting at Israel to stop, where were all the protests against the likes of Hamas and their backers?

@ArishMell the fact is that Israel has no legitimate claim to any of that land. It was taken by force of arms and should be returned to its rightful owners the Palestinians.

@ArishMell Where do we start? Are you willing to ask yourself why people don't protest about Hamas terrorists, or any other terrorists, who may all belong to the same religion?

Consider all of the following:

1. People are less inclined to protest or "speak out" when it's their own. Their own are here, among you.

2. There are those who believe [i]any[/i] response to Israel may be justified, and that "terrorism" is a reaction to an unjust occupation, or a natural consequence of it.

3. Prosteters who are non-Muslim tend to be of European origin, and they tend to care for liberal causes. Palestine is appealing to them for this reason.

Israel is the country with all the power, and that is very visible. It is a power unmistakably attached to European and American power, and what do Europeans and Americans see? Themselves.

Iran is irrelevant to them.

@badlands Israel's founders all claimed to be terrorists. Amazing how one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. There is no innocents in the Israeli/Palestine struggle. One can only look dispassionately and try to be fair. Israel is the occupying force.

@badlands I am not condoning anyone, though I do try to understand their motives.

Iran is actually all too relevant to what is happening in the whole region, even if not involved so much in Gaza as it is Yemen, where it is arming and backing the Houthis in attacking ships they (the Houthis) think somehow supporting Israel.

@hippyjoe1955 Children are innocent, and they are being killed in the thousands.

@badlands Just like on Oct. 7, eh?

@sunsporter1649 So it's okay for Israel to commit genocide because Hamas commits genocide? Is that your argument?

@BohemianBoo

@sunsporter1649

@hippyjoe1955 Yes, you're right.

@sunsporter1649 This image may be relevant if Israel was shooting the culprit, but it is not.

@BohemianBoo The "but do you condemn Hamas?" question arises from the media wanting to show it isn't antisemitic, like some have alleged. It has to say they have asked all the right questions, that it has tried to be fair. It's a pointless question. I wish we could be more honest.

@badlands I think it's more about distracting from the genocide. The media doesn't want to talk about Israel's war crimes, so they try to deflect to Hamas.