A pro-Palestinian protest action briefly blocked all traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco Wednesday morning.
Starting at about 7:45 a.m. Protesters stopped cars and stretched banners across the roadway denouncing Israel’s bombing of Rafah in the Gaza Strip and demanding that the U.S. stop arming Israel.
Northbound and southbound traffic on the bridge was at a standstill as of 8 a.m.
Israel is erasing any trace of Palestinean humanity and denies them any institutional political representation while destroying the local infrastructure and using any perceived or imagined association with the last remaining government as an excuse to murder them in the streets.
People’s collective understanding of the meaning of genocide must have kept up with the times.
Are you saying “change the meaning to fit the narrative”??
I said exactly what I said.
If we’re stretching the definition so far then there are a lot more ‘genocides’ ongoing in the world today, and many a lot worse than the one in Palestine. It’s weird that these people in SF (and on Lemmy) chose to focus on just the one
Show me the genocides where the US or other western countries are delivering billions and billions worth of weapons to the perpetrator.
Also the US, UK, and other countries argued at the ICJ for orders on the Myanmar genocide, arguing with the same arguments now brought forth by South Africa. Calling out the hypocricsy of the governments helping a genocide is absolutely justified.
Finally, you neither know if the people speaking out now, didn’t speak out earlier, nor is it any argument. A genocide is happening and it needs to be stopped. The West has the means to end it within a day. It is a moral obligation of any decent human being to demand an end to this genocide.
Well the Yemeni civil war comes to mind. 85.000 children dead from famine with the help of the US to starve them. If you claim “can’t know if these people on the GG bridge didn’t protest against that” I’ll call bullshit.
Finally, my point is not so much that US support for Israel can’t be criticized or that these bridge blocking bozo’s (sorry) are wrong, but that stretching up the definition of genocide to justify suddenly protesting now is something we should all push back on. It will just soften the public opinion to those that commit or are the victims of ‘real’ genocides
You say the definition of genocide was stretched, wrongfully assuming that the protestors wouldnt consider the Saudi and US war crimes in Yemen to amount to genocide. But most of them probably do.
You cannot hold the effectiveness of the US propaganda at propping up Saudi Arabia and silencing the voices about genocide in Yemen against the people who now protest for an end to the genocide in Palestine. If you want to condemn something, condemn how the US is acting.
If they buy into what you call US propaganda, while they literally have the entire internet at their fingertips, I certainly do hold that against them
It’s. It genocide by definition. Again, the U.N. will not even call it genocide. It’s a territorial dispute. And a long standing one with a shit load of nuance. I’m not defending anyone but empirical truth.
Frankly, you are not defending empirical truth, you are trying to have a linguistics debate. That’s not remotely the same thing.
But even in your linguistics debate, the statement “it’s not by definition a genocide” is not as clear cut as you are trying to make it.
Some excerpts taken from the (rather extensive) Wikipedia page regarding the Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza:
So in a lot of ways, it sure looks like a genocide. And it goes beyond just allegations.
Finally, I think this bit sums up it up nicely.
So if you are looking to die on the hill of your linguistics debate, you do you. But the actions taking place are unarguably morally wrong.
Their goal is not to eradicate the world of Palestinians and their culture. They could care less of their existence. It’s a territorial war. Period.
Always has been. You can spin it however you want. But as atrocious as it is- it’s not genocide.
By the way… “plausible” doesn’t mean…. “Run with it!”
Netanyahu has made it quite clear that his goal is the end of Palestine as a sovereign state. Quoted in the “Times of Israel” publication as saying:
Seeing as part of the definition of Genocide is to:
I would argue that falls under the definition as outlined by the 1948 Genocide Convention. Your focus on total eradication of people and culture is only a part of the definition of genocide. Also, they are certainly doing an unnecessary amount of eradication of Palestinians and their culture, regardless of if it is an “expressed intent”.
Lastly, “plausible” doesn’t mean “just run with it”, but I never said it did. Plausible means “plausible”. As in, your argument that it “definitely isn’t genocide” is directly contradicted by the ICJ ruling. People whose judgement the world put their faith in to make the distinction couldn’t definitively say it wasn’t occurring given the information they were given access to.
Edit: need to add some clarity. It’s not simply that Israel plans to end the nation state of Palestine. They are intending to end Palestinians as a National Group. This has been made clear by retorhic such as posted in this comment, as well as Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s statement during an Oct. 13 press conference. In his statement, Herzog said, “It’s an entire nation that is out there that’s responsible. It’s not true, this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true,”.
Beyond that, according to Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University:
Between the denial of statehood and other political rights, and association with the last duly elected government as a blank check for murder, it sounds to me like israel’s dick will not go any deeper into America’s asshole. If they can take our money and do this to other people around the world in our name while we Americans work ourselves to death then our freedoms don’t mean a thing until Netanyahu is removed from power.
I’d imagine he doesn’t care if they leave Palestine , so long as he gets to have it- which means… he doesn’t care if they live or die so long as he get the land, which means……
IT’S NOT GENOCIDE.
I’m done arguing this with you.
It looks like you might be done arguing because you can’t quite reconcile your belief that it’s not a genocide with the fact that there’s a clear intention to eradicate Palestine as a nationality, which fits one of the definitions of genocide, right?
I’m done arguing because i don’t exercise futility. It’s a pointless debate. I don’t just make up the rules to things so they can fit my agenda because I have no agenda.
I’ve no dog in that race and therefore have no bias. And having no bias allowed me to see it objectively and without any manufactured emotional outrage.
It’s not genocide. By definition, or U.N. policy.
But that’s exactly what you are doing. I presented the definition of Genocide (as outlined in the 1948 Genocide Convention), I also provided evidence that they are targeting Palestinians based on their Nationality, and that they are completing three genocidal acts, including, “killing, causing serious bodily harm, and measures calculated to bring about the destruction of the group.”
Though if you need a more express proof than Netanyahu’s statements to show they are committing their atrocities based on Nationality, here is another fun quote from Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s statement during an Oct. 13 press conference. In his statement, Herzog said,
So let’s just highlight in bold what Isreal has done that checks the genocide defintion boxes:
Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; © Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. — Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2[7]
You didn’t contest that they were committing large scale atrocities such as “Killing members of the group based on their affiliation”, that they were “Causing serious bodily and mental harm to members of the group”, and that they were “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. Nor did you contest the fact that they were targeting these actions based on national affiliation. So we have agreed that Israel sure has committed alot of the acts that define genocide, but to fit your agenda, you keep just repeating “IT’S NOT GENOCIDE”, as if putting it all in caps makes less boxes be checked.
I that’s your definition of genocide, you’ll have to call every war a genocide
Well, technically it’s the definition of Genocide as outlined in the 1948 Genocide Convention, but I am willing to accept their definition.
Regardless, you can’t think of (or even imagine) a war that wasn’t fought to completely eradicate, in whole or in part, of a group based on a nationality, ethnicity, race or religion?
I thought it was Israel defending themselves against a terror attack. Apparently the goal posts have moved.
Who said that?
The U.N. cannot call it a genocide because first, the US is vetoing any decision in the security council against Israels actions and second, there is the ICJ as a court that is currently ruling, with the authority to do so, if it constitutes a genocide.
IF.
So it’s not a genocide… CURRENTLY. And yet- all the kids pile on the outrage when someone points this out.
That is unsound logic. It is perfectly normal for murder suspects to be held in jail until the final verdict is reached. In the same wake it is most certainly absurd to give a mass murder suspect access to weapons, and to let him continue commiting acts, until the court has reached his final verdict.
So you agree that it’s currently NOT genocide and that he term is being misused. That’s all I be been saying.
If a murder suspect is held, awaiting trial that doesn’t mean, that a murder didnt happen. Either a murde rhappened or not. The court is only deciding it after the fact. But saying it is currently not a genocide, until the court decided, is just absurd. By this logic there was no genocide in Armenia at the time it happened, or in Bosnia, or in Rwanda.
The fact that the ICJ ruled it plausible that there is a genocide commited, should ring the alarm bells of any lawful and moral people. Most certainly it means to not send further weapons to the suspect.
It doesn’t mean it did either and that’s why most reasonable people don’t call them a murderer.
Case close. We’re done here.
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No, I’m not.