Even Once Reluctant Scholars Now Agree on Israel's Gaza Assault: It's a Genocide | Common Dreams
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/30176680
Julia Conley
May 15, 2025"Melanie O'Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told NRC that #Israel's deliberate blockade on "food, water, shelter, and sanitation" convinced her the #Netanyahu government was carrying out a #genocide, while Segal pointed to "openly genocidal statements" by #Israeli leaders.
"But for all it is about the sum of what would apply separately as 'ordinary' war crimes," NRC reported. "The picture as a whole makes it a genocide. That is how the term is meant, says [British professor Martin] Shaw: 'holistic.'""
https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-is-committing-genocide-in-gazaOpen linkView original on lemmy.ml
9 replies
It's so discouraging that the big controversy isn't what's happening, but what to call it. We can't defeat colonialism with semantics.
The attack on Gaza needs to stop, IDFAF if they call it a pumkin pie, just stop the goddamn pie.
Yes yes, but in their defense Israel is a democracy, and Gaza is inhabited mostly by Muslims. So it's all good.
/s
Let's continue the discussion a little longer, so that they can then say that it WAS genocide!
"It's too late now. Never again, though... for realsies this time"
In their defence, there is no defined point. There are people out there that are so anti-assumption that it can take them a while. They will eventually reach a point like, "Well if there were defined conditions, surely they have been met by now." Basically it must be so full-scale that there can be no room left for doubt.
Unfortunately, such input is typically too little too late; it's just agreeing with the obvious because it's already so obvious.
Where something is considered genocide? That's simply not true.
The nebulous term is "intent". That's not something that's always clear. Especially early on in the war the argument was that the intent was to destroy Hamas and rescue the hostages. That wouldn't be a genocide. But given what several cabinet ministers have now been publicly saying, we can determine that the intent is present.
It turns out that "group" can only mean Jews.
Ah... ** this ** is what finally convinced her. Fuck you, Melanie, you ignoramus.