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On September 05 2026 03:51 Jankisa wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2026 02:10 dyhb wrote:On September 05 2026 01:33 Jankisa wrote:On September 04 2026 23:40 dyhb wrote:On September 04 2026 20:05 Jankisa wrote:On September 04 2026 03:49 dyhb wrote:On September 04 2026 03:39 WombaT wrote:On September 04 2026 03:10 dyhb wrote:On September 04 2026 02:39 Nebuchad wrote:On September 04 2026 02:12 dyhb wrote:
[quote]I get that Wehrmacht might be doing some land war in Asia type role, but according to the genocide-proponents in these spaces, it's the IDF actually going in there and doing the genociding. You think good people at the IDF can remain good and remain part of the IDF despite participating in a genocide? I'm talking about people who can't say they were just responsible for bringing in the general's coffee. There is no such thing as good people dyhb, that's an empty concept. There are good and bad actions. Anybody can do good actions and bad actions, or both. You'll probably do both in your life. But you do touch on a concept that is interesting in terms of colonialism, which is shame. The argument that people felt forced to keep going all-in on colonialism because if they did otherwise, it would demonstrate that what they had done up until now was a bunch of bad actions, and that they were "bad people" for doing them, has been made in anthropology. I don't know if it is true but it is, at the very least, interesting. You don't have to endorse the concept to know what somebody means when he says "There are undoubtedly good people in the IDF, at various levels of seniority." I would think good people would quit and become a whistleblower. But I'm looking into his why. There’s all sorts of reasons why one wouldn’t do that. Perhaps one thinks quitting will just see a monster replace you, perhaps you think you can ride out the political epoch and be in situ when something better arrives. You can be a decent person without being self-sacrificing, the latter is pretty rare indeed and is quite the high bar I think it's tough to be a good and decent person in that situation, no doubt. I just think you surrender both if you knowingly continue in your role when you know that is going on. You are a coward, a participant in war crimes, and potentially liable like all the "just following orders" lower-level people at Nuremberg. That's my bar for good people in the IDF: if it's a genocide and you know it, get out and become a whistleblower, or history ought not and likely will not judge you a good person. Assuming you can't stop it or wear a wire to become a better witness. In a hypothetical where you were an Israeli citizen who got drafted (let's say late 2010s) and then became a professional after doing the mandatory service, would you still be on board with being in IDF as of August 2026? The hypothetical would have to include whether internal IDF conversations, decisions, information, and policy exposed a deliberate plan of genocide. I don’t think that the people higher up and internal to the organization are in the same doubt as I am as an outside observer of scattered quotes by politicians and military personnel. I would hope for the courage to resign and whistleblow in the case of genocide, which would doubtless be the correct action. So your moral stance would be based only on intent, the exact same wording that this thread has been about for the last few pages, this is your exact line? I mean, seems like a very convenient cop out, but that's really nothing new from your side. For me, who was ostensibly more pro-Israel then pro-Palestine up to about a few weeks after October 7th I would have no hesitation resigning even if I had to face the military courts for it. If the organization I work for opens the war with statements of total siege, stopping any supplies for a population of 2+ million most of them children and then proceeds to indiscriminately bomb this area for 2 weeks killing tens of thousands of civilians saying they won't stop, I'm pretty confident that would make me quit. You wouldn't seek to lower civilian casualties in a war, or you don't understand that intending to cause more civilian casualties by design precludes that? You seem to be back in a loop, question was very simple but as usual you are being evasive. This is not a debate, I asked you a question, I even offered an example of an answer. You can choose to answer the question or not. The short answer is to ask better hypotheticals.
The longer answer starts by acknowledging that it *matters* whether Israel is committing a genocide. It changes things if a career military officer inducted in the late 2010s learns about it. There's nothing to do but quit and whistle-blow if politicians or senior IDF officers are deliberately aiming at increased Palestinian civilian casualties. There's plenty to do within the organization regarding reducing civilian death in urban warfare if there is no intention to eliminate the Palestinian people.
I restate and clarify to leave only the purposefully obtuse people in the dark.
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On September 05 2026 01:33 Jankisa wrote:Show nested quote +On September 04 2026 23:40 dyhb wrote:On September 04 2026 20:05 Jankisa wrote:On September 04 2026 03:49 dyhb wrote:On September 04 2026 03:39 WombaT wrote:On September 04 2026 03:10 dyhb wrote:On September 04 2026 02:39 Nebuchad wrote:On September 04 2026 02:12 dyhb wrote:On September 04 2026 00:52 WombaT wrote:On September 03 2026 23:43 dyhb wrote:
[quote]I don't know how there can be good people at the IDF at various levels of seniority if they're the executors of a genocide. Surely, you're only talking about the lower limits of seniority. Anybody at higher levels of seniority with IDF internal knowledge would know that their commands must have been given with intent to genocide a group, and thus automatically not be a good person.
One of the consequences of the intent part of genocide is complicity at the (very least) mid-level and the top. Not just unknowing participant in a war crime (ie given bad intel that was misrepresented to them), but remaining part of an organization that is intentionally committing a genocide. I don't think you can really talk about the good people in the IDF unless you're specifically excluding many many levels of seniority from your statement. I’d disagree, institutions will always have decent people in them unless completely subsumed by some ideology over an extended period of time. Even the Wehrmacht despite Nazism taking hold had some honourable and relatively humanitarian men right up to the upper echelons I get that Wehrmacht might be doing some land war in Asia type role, but according to the genocide-proponents in these spaces, it's the IDF actually going in there and doing the genociding. You think good people at the IDF can remain good and remain part of the IDF despite participating in a genocide? I'm talking about people who can't say they were just responsible for bringing in the general's coffee. There is no such thing as good people dyhb, that's an empty concept. There are good and bad actions. Anybody can do good actions and bad actions, or both. You'll probably do both in your life. But you do touch on a concept that is interesting in terms of colonialism, which is shame. The argument that people felt forced to keep going all-in on colonialism because if they did otherwise, it would demonstrate that what they had done up until now was a bunch of bad actions, and that they were "bad people" for doing them, has been made in anthropology. I don't know if it is true but it is, at the very least, interesting. You don't have to endorse the concept to know what somebody means when he says "There are undoubtedly good people in the IDF, at various levels of seniority." I would think good people would quit and become a whistleblower. But I'm looking into his why. There’s all sorts of reasons why one wouldn’t do that. Perhaps one thinks quitting will just see a monster replace you, perhaps you think you can ride out the political epoch and be in situ when something better arrives. You can be a decent person without being self-sacrificing, the latter is pretty rare indeed and is quite the high bar I think it's tough to be a good and decent person in that situation, no doubt. I just think you surrender both if you knowingly continue in your role when you know that is going on. You are a coward, a participant in war crimes, and potentially liable like all the "just following orders" lower-level people at Nuremberg. That's my bar for good people in the IDF: if it's a genocide and you know it, get out and become a whistleblower, or history ought not and likely will not judge you a good person. Assuming you can't stop it or wear a wire to become a better witness. In a hypothetical where you were an Israeli citizen who got drafted (let's say late 2010s) and then became a professional after doing the mandatory service, would you still be on board with being in IDF as of August 2026? The hypothetical would have to include whether internal IDF conversations, decisions, information, and policy exposed a deliberate plan of genocide. I don’t think that the people higher up and internal to the organization are in the same doubt as I am as an outside observer of scattered quotes by politicians and military personnel. I would hope for the courage to resign and whistleblow in the case of genocide, which would doubtless be the correct action. So your moral stance would be based only on intent, the exact same wording that this thread has been about for the last few pages, this is your exact line? I mean, seems like a very convenient cop out, but that's really nothing new from your side. For me, who was ostensibly more pro-Israel then pro-Palestine up to about a few weeks after October 7th I would have no hesitation resigning even if I had to face the military courts for it. If the organization I work for opens the war with statements of total siege, stopping any supplies for a population of 2+ million most of them children and then proceeds to indiscriminately bomb this area for 2 weeks killing tens of thousands of civilians saying they won't stop, I'm pretty confident that would make me quit.
Keep in mind that if you were in the IDF, you would have grown up in a society in which hatred towards Palestinians is extremely normalized. We have similar mechanisms towards muslims in the West but I think it's fair to say nowhere near at the level that they do. In your hypothetical I hope I would be the guy who resigns but I certainly can't guarantee it.
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I don't quite understand why people get so hung up on the word "genocide". There can be mass murder without it being genocide. There can also be genocide without anyone being killed.
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On September 05 2026 16:04 maybenexttime wrote:
I don't quite understand why people get so hung up on the word "genocide". There can be mass murder without it being genocide. There can also be genocide without anyone being killed.
I think it’s a bit of a last frontier standing between people and complete indifference. When i was a kid, there were many such lines ; torture for example was just something that was universally seen as absolutely barbaric and unworthy of a civilized society.
Bush administration and their allies blew up one by one all those lines; the only thing that still shocks people is the notion of genocide. Mass murders, indiscriminate bombings, war crimes, all those things are fair play in the mentality of many, many westerners.
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United Kingdom10016 Posts
The main issue I have with all the discussion around a specific disputed genocide is that there is necessarily a degree of arbitrariness to it.
I mean how many people do you have to kill to make a genocide? Do we draw a line, where as long as you stay just the right side of the line its not genocide?
Is there a point where killing one extra person makes it a genocide? It seems petty but logically the only possible answer to this question is yes, unless you treat the number of deaths as irrelevant to the question of genocide.
Is there a moral difference difference between no genocide and genocide if the difference is a very small number of deaths to stay the right side of the line? If not, does genocide say anything at all about the morality of a war?
What does it say about the usefulness of the term genocide if distilling a bunch of ideas into this one word loses both the logical and the moral underpinnings that made those ideas relevant in the first place?
In Israel's case we can say for sure there's some genocidal intent but does that translate fully into the rules used for the war, how much of it is just personal opinion?
Then again there is also definite genocidal intent on the part of Hamas, but they don't have the capability to carry out such a thing. Does genocidal intent going one way 'cancel out' or justify genocidal intent being reciprocated?
For me the question of a specific disputed genocide is only interesting after you have answered all these much more interesting questions.
They aren't rhetorical questions either, I'd actually like to see people answer them.
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On September 05 2026 17:43 Jockmcplop wrote:
The main issue I have with all the discussion around a specific disputed genocide is that there is necessarily a degree of arbitrariness to it.
I mean how many people do you have to kill to make a genocide? Do we draw a line, where as long as you stay just the right side of the line its not genocide?
Is there a point where killing one extra person makes it a genocide? It seems petty but logically the only possible answer to this question is yes, unless you treat the number of deaths as irrelevant to the question of genocide.
Is there a moral difference difference between no genocide and genocide if the difference is a very small number of deaths to stay the right side of the line? If not, does genocide say anything at all about the morality of a war?
What does it say about the usefulness of the term genocide if distilling a bunch of ideas into this one word loses both the logical and the moral underpinnings that made those ideas relevant in the first place?
In Israel's case we can say for sure there's some genocidal intent but does that translate fully into the rules used for the war, how much of it is just personal opinion?
Then again there is also definite genocidal intent on the part of Hamas, but they don't have the capability to carry out such a thing. Does genocidal intent going one way 'cancel out' or justify genocidal intent being reciprocated?
For me the question of a specific disputed genocide is only interesting after you have answered all these much more interesting questions.
They aren't rhetorical questions either, I'd actually like to see people answer them.
I think it matters a lot.
It's pretty clear it comes down to intent and while I have been doing the arguments for genocide (while playing the devils advocate) I agree that it's actually very important.
It's not about the number of deaths at all, it's about if you want to destroy a people.
Lets go back a bit in time.
In ancient times if you were fighting a war you could be pretty sure that if you lost a war you could be pretty sure you would be killed and your family would be carried of as slaves.
Even the mongols were almost as bad. They demanded surrender and if you did it was basically 50-50 if you all died. Many cities surrendered either way because if you fought back it was 100% that you died.
It kept getting better and better and we went from a fairly standard "surrender the castle and live" to rules of war where you are even allowed to put up a good fight but once you've realised you lost you can surrender and you should be spared.
Along with that we have gotten a whole slew of other rules on how to conduct warfare in a "civil" way.
The problem is that Hamas have never played by these rules. In fact the primary strategy has often been to do insignificant attacks, get a disproportionate response (because you are hiding with civilians) and then go "look at what they are doing to us!" to the rest of the world.
Hamas will never surrender because of their people suffering and will always disregards the rules of warfare.
Thing is when we humans think and write about warfare we inherently assume that the winning side is going to occupy the enemy territory in order to force victory. If the IDF were indeed occupying Gaza and Hamas fought as an insurgency there would be *a lot* of shit they could justifiably do in order to wipe Hamas out if they refused to surrender.
However Israeli politicians have stated that the goal is the destruction of Hamas but are not very interested in a ground occupation and decades of rebuilding and COIN operations. But they still task IDF to achieve the primary goal. It's like hiring builders to renovate your apartment but only allowing them to use hammers. It's going to be messy. And it's going to look like what we have today.
It's also going to fail. And at that point you have two options. Call it (like they have done in the past) and be content with having degraded Hamas military capabilities but not defeated the organisation. Or escalate to ground invasion.
But there is a third option. If Israel (either leadership or a plurality of the nation as a whole) starts thinking that "What if there were no Palestinians in Gaza, wouldn't that solve our problem?" is actually a good idea, and preferable to the two above. Then that's a pretty huge ethical shift. And once that is when it crosses the line to genocide.
I think it's a very important distintction.
Is this entire situation caused by idiot immoral politicians that have set war goals that the IDF cannot achieve with their current allowed options.
Or is it because of idiot immoral politicians that see this as an opportunity to genocide the Palestinian population in Gaza
and steal their land?
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On September 06 2026 03:36 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 05 2026 17:43 Jockmcplop wrote:
The main issue I have with all the discussion around a specific disputed genocide is that there is necessarily a degree of arbitrariness to it.
I mean how many people do you have to kill to make a genocide? Do we draw a line, where as long as you stay just the right side of the line its not genocide?
Is there a point where killing one extra person makes it a genocide? It seems petty but logically the only possible answer to this question is yes, unless you treat the number of deaths as irrelevant to the question of genocide.
Is there a moral difference difference between no genocide and genocide if the difference is a very small number of deaths to stay the right side of the line? If not, does genocide say anything at all about the morality of a war?
What does it say about the usefulness of the term genocide if distilling a bunch of ideas into this one word loses both the logical and the moral underpinnings that made those ideas relevant in the first place?
In Israel's case we can say for sure there's some genocidal intent but does that translate fully into the rules used for the war, how much of it is just personal opinion?
Then again there is also definite genocidal intent on the part of Hamas, but they don't have the capability to carry out such a thing. Does genocidal intent going one way 'cancel out' or justify genocidal intent being reciprocated?
For me the question of a specific disputed genocide is only interesting after you have answered all these much more interesting questions.
They aren't rhetorical questions either, I'd actually like to see people answer them. I think it matters a lot. It's pretty clear it comes down to intent and while I have been doing the arguments for genocide (while playing the devils advocate) I agree that it's actually very important. It's not about the number of deaths at all, it's about if you want to destroy a people. Lets go back a bit in time. In ancient times if you were fighting a war you could be pretty sure that if you lost a war you could be pretty sure you would be killed and your family would be carried of as slaves. Even the mongols were almost as bad. They demanded surrender and if you did it was basically 50-50 if you all died. Many cities surrendered either way because if you fought back it was 100% that you died. It kept getting better and better and we went from a fairly standard "surrender the castle and live" to rules of war where you are even allowed to put up a good fight but once you've realised you lost you can surrender and you should be spared. Along with that we have gotten a whole slew of other rules on how to conduct warfare in a "civil" way. The problem is that Hamas have never played by these rules. In fact the primary strategy has often been to do insignificant attacks, get a disproportionate response (because you are hiding with civilians) and then go "look at what they are doing to us!" to the rest of the world. Hamas will never surrender because of their people suffering and will always disregards the rules of warfare. Thing is when we humans think and write about warfare we inherently assume that the winning side is going to occupy the enemy territory in order to force victory. If the IDF were indeed occupying Gaza and Hamas fought as an insurgency there would be *a lot* of shit they could justifiably do in order to wipe Hamas out if they refused to surrender. However Israeli politicians have stated that the goal is the destruction of Hamas but are not very interested in a ground occupation and decades of rebuilding and COIN operations. But they still task IDF to achieve the primary goal. It's like hiring builders to renovate your apartment but only allowing them to use hammers. It's going to be messy. And it's going to look like what we have today. It's also going to fail. And at that point you have two options. Call it (like they have done in the past) and be content with having degraded Hamas military capabilities but not defeated the organisation. Or escalate to ground invasion. But there is a third option. If Israel (either leadership or a plurality of the nation as a whole) starts thinking that "What if there were no Palestinians in Gaza, wouldn't that solve our problem?" is actually a good idea, and preferable to the two above. Then that's a pretty huge ethical shift. And once that is when it crosses the line to genocide. I think it's a very important distintction. Is this entire situation caused by idiot immoral politicians that have set war goals that the IDF cannot achieve with their current allowed options. Or is it because of idiot immoral politicians that see this as an opportunity to genocide the Palestinian population in Gaza and steal their land?
The main element that's missing from your analysis of warfare through time is simply colonialism. Those rules on how to fare war in a civilized way, we developed in order to settle conflicts between groups of humans, and for a lot of history what we meant by humans was just some specific types of Europeans, and then at some point we expanded that to (most) white people. When subhumans "wage war" against humans, we have not typically applied the same rules, have we. If you participate in a slave revolt and you lose, the expected result is not that you'll get mercy and go along your way.
So when you start from that premise in order to assert that "the problem is that Hamas has never played by these rules"... That is too one-sided a statement for me. Israel doesn't either. Their logic and their argumentation has always been more in line with colonialism than with european civility, very openly at the start, when colonialism was fashionable and it was okay in civil society to state that you were doing a colonialism, you would get zionists who openly talked about colonizing Palestine as well; to a lot less openly today now that we've recognized the humanity of non-Europeans and that their exploitation and mistreatment are viewed less favorably.
We can also observe the same thing in the rhetoric around the conflict, specifically in how that rhetoric is... well, dated. Israel is the beacon of civilization in a sea of barbarians. If we don't oppress them, they'll wipe us out because they're savages, unlike us the moral ones. They hate us because they hate us, as a sheltered European who only gets to deal with other Europeans you don't understand what it's like to be faced with these monsters who can't wait to be martyred for their religion. That's a textbook colonial worldview, there's no transposition necessary at all.
Another angle to get to the same conclusion is... just look at what peace is? Peace is control over palestinian lives in the West Bank, a good year is only hundreds of them being killed by the IDF, a bad year is a thousand+ dead, while settlers continue to take more and more of their land away despite everyone's awareness that this is 100% illegal under international law. Talk about "civil" war, we don't even have a "civil" peace... But none of that is an act of war, the act of war is when the oppressed group reacts against their mistreatment. We've had a ceasefire for a while now, and since that ceasefire Israel has killed more Palestinians than there are Israelis who died on october 7th; that's just a blip, that's not something that we, or Palestinians, are meant to have a reaction to. There is an unbalance there that only works in colonial understandings of the world.
I think you have ample evidence to get to a conclusion on your question of genocidal intent vs incompetence. We have statements from the majority of the Knesset that are consistent with wanting to wipe Palestinians out (https://tl.net/forum/general/573090-things-arent-peaceful-in-palestine?page=322#6428). We have direct support from the government and army for illegal settling of palestinian land. We have the more extreme rightwingers in important positions in government who talk about killing more Palestinians every other day and are never reprimanded for it. We have Netanyahu tirelessly throughout his life making it very clear that the thing he wants Israel to do is to ethnically cleanse Palestine, painting a very consistent picture from his rhetoric of younger years to the Yitzhak Rabin incitement to his actions today. We have a pattern of behavior that is now being repeated in Lebanon... One of these explanations follows naturally from the history of the region, behaviors that we see in the real world, and ideology of the people involved. The other simply does not.
It's also worth keeping in mind that far right people typically work in idealistic terms. They don't necessarily want ethnic cleansing or genocide, what they want is a world in which they don't have to perceive the people they hate, and it just so happens that the way to get that world to materialize is to remove those people. Is someone who wants to see Jews in Palestine rather than Palestinians expressing support for ethnic cleansing? On paper, not really. In terms of enacting politics that are connected with that wish, very much so, yes.
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I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit.
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On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit.
I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past.
And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine.
I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss.
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On September 07 2026 23:38 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit. I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past. And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine. I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss.
That's a disappointing answer. You brought up the rules of war in order to make a point, I mention that bringing up the rules of war fails to take colonialism into account. You question whether this comes from intent or incompetence, I make a case for why it's fairly clear which one of the two is more likely. It's a very direct response to what you said. I make a calm case in a post that took me like 1h30 to write, that reads in a similar tone to what you wrote, but now it's a "rant" for no reason at all (other than possibly projection, if maybe the post got you a little mad).
I agree that it is quintessentially leftist though, in that it is factually correct, and the facts are on the far left nowadays.
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On September 07 2026 23:44 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2026 23:38 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit. I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past. And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine. I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss. That's a disappointing answer. You brought up the rules of war in order to make a point, I mention that bringing up the rules of war fails to take colonialism into account. You question whether this comes from intent or incompetence, I make a case for why it's fairly clear which one of the two is more likely. It's a very direct response to what you said. I make a calm case in a post that took me like 1h30 to write, that reads in a similar tone to what you wrote, but now it's a "rant" for no reason at all (other than possibly projection, if maybe the post got you a little mad). I agree that it is quintessentially leftist though, in that it is factually correct, and the facts are on the far left nowadays.
I've read your post twice now and I still don't quite understand where you want to go with it.
Are we giving the poor oppressed brown people a free card for breaking the rules of war? I mean sure OK. That doesn't change the fact that it's damn near impossible to defeat an enemy hiding with civilians and using human shields with air power and it's going to be damn messy, like what we are seeing today. I wasn't making a value judgement.
Did I give the impression of me thinking that Israel are the stalwart defenders of civilisation? Everyone arguing about if it's genocide or warcrimes we are talking about. Not if it's genocide or A-OK.
Are you saying Israel has been genociding Palestinians since it's foundation?
The country was founded on ethnic cleansing but the population metrics in the actual territories since 1948 seems to indicatie that there has in fact not been a genocide.
Which is why I think it's kind of important if that has changed after October 7th.
As for the evidence of intent. It's up to everyone to decide for themselves. I'm on the fence leaning no but if you care to look you might have noticed I've spent the last couple of pages arguing for why it is genocide.
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On September 07 2026 23:44 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2026 23:38 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit. I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past. And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine. I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss. That's a disappointing answer. You brought up the rules of war in order to make a point, I mention that bringing up the rules of war fails to take colonialism into account. You question whether this comes from intent or incompetence, I make a case for why it's fairly clear which one of the two is more likely. It's a very direct response to what you said. I make a calm case in a post that took me like 1h30 to write, that reads in a similar tone to what you wrote, but now it's a "rant" for no reason at all (other than possibly projection, if maybe the post got you a little mad). I agree that it is quintessentially leftist though, in that it is factually correct, and the facts are on the far left nowadays.
If you start from the premise that any "colonialism" is basically genocide, then you don't need the post-October 7 actions for anything except to jump up and down and yell "you see, I was right!" Which, to be fair, is about what your post says, regardless of how long it took you to write it. It doesn't use Israel's post-October 7 behaviour to determine if their intent is to genocide Palestina, it's to point to their history as a nation and say that their intent is to genocide Palestina. That doesn't track, because On October 6, I don't think you would've made a case for Israel committing genocide in Palestina. You'd say they were treating Palestinians inhumanely, the neo-colonialism is wrong, the West Bank settlers are stealing land, Netanyahu is a corrupt fascist engaging in cronyist government, but I don't think you'd mention genocide.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and perhaps you're right that now that Israel is committing the most atrocious of warcrimes, it brings their whole history into perspective, but I don't think that holds and you're going to have to do a lot better to make that argument.
As for the rules of war, the Geneva convention is not just about white people, and post-dates the abolishment of slavery by roughly a hundred years, so no, it wouldn't have covered how a slave revolt was dealt with. But it did cover how the US engaged in Korea, and even Vietnam. To a great extent it even covered Afghanistan and Iraq, although things like depleted uranium bullets, cluster bombs, drone strikes and white phosphorus are awful, they are not as awful as a lot of things that are explicitly banned in the various treaties we have to determine what the rules of war are. And it wasn't just the US either, their allies conducted themselves in a similar fashion. Hell, so did the USSR in the various wars it fought (e.g. Afghanistan). Genocides, when they happened in the second half of the 20th century were a lot less about colonialism and a lot more about neighbours just really really really hating each others' guts in places like former Yugoslavia, Rwanda or Sudan.
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On September 07 2026 23:38 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit. I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past. And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine. I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss.
I really fail how "the main element that is missing from your analysis" can be constituted as a rant about you.
I feel like you got offended because the crux of your post seems to be "Hamas made Israel be evil" which was then challenged by "maybe Israel is inherently an evil colonialist project".
I personally don't agree with either of those takes, but there is plenty of good analysis in Nebu's post that you skipped over to, well, rant against his "it's colonialism" take.
You did, however, completely lose me with: "Are we giving the poor oppressed brown people a free card for breaking the rules of war?".
That is basically just a straight up jingoistic "we'll beat them down and when they strike back we'll beat them down 3 times as hard" bullshit that leads to this shit.
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On September 08 2026 02:59 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 07 2026 23:44 Nebuchad wrote:On September 07 2026 23:38 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit. I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past. And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine. I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss. That's a disappointing answer. You brought up the rules of war in order to make a point, I mention that bringing up the rules of war fails to take colonialism into account. You question whether this comes from intent or incompetence, I make a case for why it's fairly clear which one of the two is more likely. It's a very direct response to what you said. I make a calm case in a post that took me like 1h30 to write, that reads in a similar tone to what you wrote, but now it's a "rant" for no reason at all (other than possibly projection, if maybe the post got you a little mad). I agree that it is quintessentially leftist though, in that it is factually correct, and the facts are on the far left nowadays. I've read your post twice now and I still don't quite understand where you want to go with it. Are we giving the poor oppressed brown people a free card for breaking the rules of war? I mean sure OK. That doesn't change the fact that it's damn near impossible to defeat an enemy hiding with civilians and using human shields with air power and it's going to be damn messy, like what we are seeing today. I wasn't making a value judgement. Did I give the impression of me thinking that Israel are the stalwart defenders of civilisation? Everyone arguing about if it's genocide or warcrimes we are talking about. Not if it's genocide or A-OK. Are you saying Israel has been genociding Palestinians since it's foundation? The country was founded on ethnic cleansing but the population metrics in the actual territories since 1948 seems to indicatie that there has in fact not been a genocide. Which is why I think it's kind of important if that has changed after October 7th. As for the evidence of intent. It's up to everyone to decide for themselves. I'm on the fence leaning no but if you care to look you might have noticed I've spent the last couple of pages arguing for why it is genocide.
So, when you do a whole development on the rules of war and then you say the problem is that Hamas never respects them, the impression that it gives the reader is that you're making a distinction there: unlike Hamas, Israel respects (or at least wants to respect) those rules. Because if that's not what we're trying to say, and we agree with the statement that Israel also consistently breaks the rules of war and has done so long before Hamas existed because this is a colonial context, then it doesn't really make a lot of sense to portray "the problem" with regard to the rules of war as being that Hamas is breaking them. The problem would be that the rules of war don't apply to this context at all, and then they would be a weird thing to bring up.
If that's not what you meant to do, well great! I thought it was weird that you would do it, precisely because I'm the only person who reads every non-Premo post in this thread and I don't see you in the same way as I see "the usual suspects", as Jankisa would put it. I'm just reacting to what's written.
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On September 08 2026 03:13 Acrofales wrote:
If you start from the premise that any "colonialism" is basically genocide, then you don't need the post-October 7 actions for anything except to jump up and down and yell "you see, I was right!" Which, to be fair, is about what your post says, regardless of how long it took you to write it. It doesn't use Israel's post-October 7 behaviour to determine if their intent is to genocide Palestina, it's to point to their history as a nation and say that their intent is to genocide Palestina. That doesn't track, because On October 6, I don't think you would've made a case for Israel committing genocide in Palestina. You'd say they were treating Palestinians inhumanely, the neo-colonialism is wrong, the West Bank settlers are stealing land, Netanyahu is a corrupt fascist engaging in cronyist government, but I don't think you'd mention genocide.
Of course, hindsight is a wonderful thing, and perhaps you're right that now that Israel is committing the most atrocious of warcrimes, it brings their whole history into perspective, but I don't think that holds and you're going to have to do a lot better to make that argument.
As for the rules of war, the Geneva convention is not just about white people, and post-dates the abolishment of slavery by roughly a hundred years, so no, it wouldn't have covered how a slave revolt was dealt with. But it did cover how the US engaged in Korea, and even Vietnam. To a great extent it even covered Afghanistan and Iraq, although things like depleted uranium bullets, cluster bombs, drone strikes and white phosphorus are awful, they are not as awful as a lot of things that are explicitly banned in the various treaties we have to determine what the rules of war are. And it wasn't just the US either, their allies conducted themselves in a similar fashion. Hell, so did the USSR in the various wars it fought (e.g. Afghanistan). Genocides, when they happened in the second half of the 20th century were a lot less about colonialism and a lot more about neighbours just really really really hating each others' guts in places like former Yugoslavia, Rwanda or Sudan.
Damn the Geneva convention was in 1949 and the example that I wanted to bring up was the colonial repression of Madagascar, which was in 1947. Missed it by two years :/ Regardless I'm sure you'll agree that we had civility in war between white people long before the Geneva convention, and that's what Cuddly was refering to.
As for the link between colonialism and genocide, well, I didn't say or mean that, obviously. I guess it can be argued that colonialism necessarily includes a form of cultural genocide, but I don't think that's connected to what we're saying here. We'd also have to distinguish between settler colonialism and exploitative colonialism, and so on. Seems like a lot of effort for not a lot of benefit.
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On September 08 2026 04:14 Nebuchad wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2026 02:59 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:44 Nebuchad wrote:On September 07 2026 23:38 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit. I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past. And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine. I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss. That's a disappointing answer. You brought up the rules of war in order to make a point, I mention that bringing up the rules of war fails to take colonialism into account. You question whether this comes from intent or incompetence, I make a case for why it's fairly clear which one of the two is more likely. It's a very direct response to what you said. I make a calm case in a post that took me like 1h30 to write, that reads in a similar tone to what you wrote, but now it's a "rant" for no reason at all (other than possibly projection, if maybe the post got you a little mad). I agree that it is quintessentially leftist though, in that it is factually correct, and the facts are on the far left nowadays. I've read your post twice now and I still don't quite understand where you want to go with it. Are we giving the poor oppressed brown people a free card for breaking the rules of war? I mean sure OK. That doesn't change the fact that it's damn near impossible to defeat an enemy hiding with civilians and using human shields with air power and it's going to be damn messy, like what we are seeing today. I wasn't making a value judgement. Did I give the impression of me thinking that Israel are the stalwart defenders of civilisation? Everyone arguing about if it's genocide or warcrimes we are talking about. Not if it's genocide or A-OK. Are you saying Israel has been genociding Palestinians since it's foundation? The country was founded on ethnic cleansing but the population metrics in the actual territories since 1948 seems to indicatie that there has in fact not been a genocide. Which is why I think it's kind of important if that has changed after October 7th. As for the evidence of intent. It's up to everyone to decide for themselves. I'm on the fence leaning no but if you care to look you might have noticed I've spent the last couple of pages arguing for why it is genocide. So, when you do a whole development on the rules of war and then you say the problem is that Hamas never respects them, the impression that it gives the reader is that you're making a distinction there: unlike Hamas, Israel respects (or at least wants to respect) those rules. Because if that's not what we're trying to say, and we agree with the statement that Israel also consistently breaks the rules of war and has done so long before Hamas existed because this is a colonial context, then it doesn't really make a lot of sense to portray "the problem" with regard to the rules of war as being that Hamas is breaking them. The problem would be that the rules of war don't apply to this context at all, and then they would be a weird thing to bring up. If that's not what you meant to do, well great! I thought it was weird that you would do it, precisely because I'm the only person who reads every non-Premo post in this thread and I don't see you in the same way as I see "the usual suspects", as Jankisa would put it. I'm just reacting to what's written.
Fair feedback if my points didn't come across as I wanted it too.
I had three:
1. Historically if you didn't surrender (straight away) you got killed to the last man (sometimes women or child). Or at best driven away. Mostly we have moved beyond that. So if Israel has decided to take a step back into the past that's kind of a big deal.
2. Hamas doesn't follow the rules of war. It's impossible to destroy them using mostly your air force since they don't and they don't care about civilian casualties so they will never surrender. Arguably based on the past they see it as an advantage.
If you tried destroying them without a ground invasion you would end up with Gaza as it looks today. Which is also against the rules of war. Because the IDF is using the wrong tool (hammer instead of a screwdriver) but are still forced to try by political leadership.
3. Ergo it doesn't have to be genocidal intent to end up in the current scenario. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence (although I'm sure Bibbi and his ilk has plenty of malice as well).
Doesn't mean it can't be attempted genocide, but it doesn't have to be.
I dislike both sides equally when it comes to this conflict and I'm jaded enough to believe they could successfully stumble into the current situation.
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On September 08 2026 05:31 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2026 04:14 Nebuchad wrote:On September 08 2026 02:59 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:44 Nebuchad wrote:On September 07 2026 23:38 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit. I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past. And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine. I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss. That's a disappointing answer. You brought up the rules of war in order to make a point, I mention that bringing up the rules of war fails to take colonialism into account. You question whether this comes from intent or incompetence, I make a case for why it's fairly clear which one of the two is more likely. It's a very direct response to what you said. I make a calm case in a post that took me like 1h30 to write, that reads in a similar tone to what you wrote, but now it's a "rant" for no reason at all (other than possibly projection, if maybe the post got you a little mad). I agree that it is quintessentially leftist though, in that it is factually correct, and the facts are on the far left nowadays. I've read your post twice now and I still don't quite understand where you want to go with it. Are we giving the poor oppressed brown people a free card for breaking the rules of war? I mean sure OK. That doesn't change the fact that it's damn near impossible to defeat an enemy hiding with civilians and using human shields with air power and it's going to be damn messy, like what we are seeing today. I wasn't making a value judgement. Did I give the impression of me thinking that Israel are the stalwart defenders of civilisation? Everyone arguing about if it's genocide or warcrimes we are talking about. Not if it's genocide or A-OK. Are you saying Israel has been genociding Palestinians since it's foundation? The country was founded on ethnic cleansing but the population metrics in the actual territories since 1948 seems to indicatie that there has in fact not been a genocide. Which is why I think it's kind of important if that has changed after October 7th. As for the evidence of intent. It's up to everyone to decide for themselves. I'm on the fence leaning no but if you care to look you might have noticed I've spent the last couple of pages arguing for why it is genocide. So, when you do a whole development on the rules of war and then you say the problem is that Hamas never respects them, the impression that it gives the reader is that you're making a distinction there: unlike Hamas, Israel respects (or at least wants to respect) those rules. Because if that's not what we're trying to say, and we agree with the statement that Israel also consistently breaks the rules of war and has done so long before Hamas existed because this is a colonial context, then it doesn't really make a lot of sense to portray "the problem" with regard to the rules of war as being that Hamas is breaking them. The problem would be that the rules of war don't apply to this context at all, and then they would be a weird thing to bring up. If that's not what you meant to do, well great! I thought it was weird that you would do it, precisely because I'm the only person who reads every non-Premo post in this thread and I don't see you in the same way as I see "the usual suspects", as Jankisa would put it. I'm just reacting to what's written. Fair feedback if my points didn't come across as I wanted it too. I had three: 1. Historically if you didn't surrender (straight away) you got killed to the last man (sometimes women or child). Or at best driven away. Mostly we have moved beyond that. So if Israel has decided to take a step back into the past that's kind of a big deal. 2. Hamas doesn't follow the rules of war. It's impossible to destroy them using mostly your air force since they don't and they don't care about civilian casualties so they will never surrender. Arguably based on the past they see it as an advantage. If you tried destroying them without a ground invasion you would end up with Gaza as it looks today. Which is also against the rules of war. Because the IDF is using the wrong tool (hammer instead of a screwdriver) but are still forced to try by political leadership. 3. Ergo it doesn't have to be genocidal intent to end up in the current scenario. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence (although I'm sure Bibbi and his ilk has plenty of malice as well). Doesn't mean it can't be attempted genocide, but it doesn't have to be. I dislike both sides equally when it comes to this conflict and I'm jaded enough to believe they could successfully stumble into the current situation.
Okay, in that case I'm mostly fine with what you're saying. I guess it's pretty obvious to me that Israel hasn't really moved beyond that past given their actions and words. But I get the impression that you draw a clear line between ethnic cleansing and genocide, because I think I remember you saying that there's evidence (or a good likelihood maybe idk) that their goal is ethnic cleansing. Which I'm sympathetic to btw, I did that two years ago as well I was careful to call it an ethnic cleansing and not a genocide; until some kind soul somewhere pointed out to me that this distinction is not as valid as I thought it was.
So there's a good chance that we're describing the same reality and understanding it in a similar way, but you'll have it fall under ethnic cleansing instead of genocide. Which, you know, I'm not bothered enough by it to debate that. I posted about this distinction a few posts back and I'm fine if you disagree.
When it comes to the far right I generally expect both incompetence and malice tbh. There is a consistency between the ideology of Netanyahu/most of his ministers and the actions that his government does, so it's a hard sell for me to believe that incompetence is the only thing at play. Incompetence is doing a lot of heavy lifting for malice.
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United Kingdom10016 Posts
On September 08 2026 05:31 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On September 08 2026 04:14 Nebuchad wrote:On September 08 2026 02:59 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:44 Nebuchad wrote:On September 07 2026 23:38 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:On September 07 2026 23:08 Jankisa wrote:
I'd love for someone to try to dispute what Nebu wrote here, but knowing the usual suspects I have a feeling this will be left with no attempt at rebuking it, because it deals with facts instead of semantics and bullshit. I mean I state that I think it's actually important if Israel as a country (and not just a vocal minority of it) has started considering genocide as the preferred solution, compared to their behaviour in the past. And he opens up with a rant about me not considering colonialism in the first line. It's the most quintessentially leftist post I could imagine. I did read it but if that is his take on me thinking that maybe it's important if Israel has gone from generally horrible to Genghis Khan I don't think there is much to discuss. That's a disappointing answer. You brought up the rules of war in order to make a point, I mention that bringing up the rules of war fails to take colonialism into account. You question whether this comes from intent or incompetence, I make a case for why it's fairly clear which one of the two is more likely. It's a very direct response to what you said. I make a calm case in a post that took me like 1h30 to write, that reads in a similar tone to what you wrote, but now it's a "rant" for no reason at all (other than possibly projection, if maybe the post got you a little mad). I agree that it is quintessentially leftist though, in that it is factually correct, and the facts are on the far left nowadays. I've read your post twice now and I still don't quite understand where you want to go with it. Are we giving the poor oppressed brown people a free card for breaking the rules of war? I mean sure OK. That doesn't change the fact that it's damn near impossible to defeat an enemy hiding with civilians and using human shields with air power and it's going to be damn messy, like what we are seeing today. I wasn't making a value judgement. Did I give the impression of me thinking that Israel are the stalwart defenders of civilisation? Everyone arguing about if it's genocide or warcrimes we are talking about. Not if it's genocide or A-OK. Are you saying Israel has been genociding Palestinians since it's foundation? The country was founded on ethnic cleansing but the population metrics in the actual territories since 1948 seems to indicatie that there has in fact not been a genocide. Which is why I think it's kind of important if that has changed after October 7th. As for the evidence of intent. It's up to everyone to decide for themselves. I'm on the fence leaning no but if you care to look you might have noticed I've spent the last couple of pages arguing for why it is genocide. So, when you do a whole development on the rules of war and then you say the problem is that Hamas never respects them, the impression that it gives the reader is that you're making a distinction there: unlike Hamas, Israel respects (or at least wants to respect) those rules. Because if that's not what we're trying to say, and we agree with the statement that Israel also consistently breaks the rules of war and has done so long before Hamas existed because this is a colonial context, then it doesn't really make a lot of sense to portray "the problem" with regard to the rules of war as being that Hamas is breaking them. The problem would be that the rules of war don't apply to this context at all, and then they would be a weird thing to bring up. If that's not what you meant to do, well great! I thought it was weird that you would do it, precisely because I'm the only person who reads every non-Premo post in this thread and I don't see you in the same way as I see "the usual suspects", as Jankisa would put it. I'm just reacting to what's written. 3. Ergo it doesn't have to be genocidal intent to end up in the current scenario. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence (although I'm sure Bibbi and his ilk has plenty of malice as well).
Doesn't mean it can't be attempted genocide, but it doesn't have to be.
I dislike both sides equally when it comes to this conflict and I'm jaded enough to believe they could successfully stumble into the current situation.
This is only true in the absence of proof of malice.
You don't have to guess about this, just look at what people have said.
Netenyahu with his Amalek statements and his letter to IDF soldier invoking 'the biblical concept of total destruction'
Gallant and his 'human animals' speech about denying Palestinians food, water and electricity
Herzog talking about how there is no differentiation between Palestinian civilians and Hamas
Dichter's 'Gaza Nakba 2023'
The malice is clear to see and they want everyone to see it, while simultaneously denying it.
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We already have words for bitter wars. Genocide isn't something revealed by "Woah, these guys really hate Hamas" or "Can you believe that Hamas abused corpses, and Gallant has the gall to call them animals?"
Same recycling the old, debunked misrepresentations to pad out the bad evidence ie rememeber amalek, the nonexistence of 'total destruction' in a letter, herzog explicitly civilians bear part of the blame for Hamas while still being protected as civilians by the laws of war in the same answer etc.
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United Kingdom10016 Posts
On September 08 2026 12:20 dyhb wrote:
We already have words for bitter wars. Genocide isn't something revealed by "Woah, these guys really hate Hamas" or "Can you believe that Hamas abused corpses, and Gallant has the gall to call them animals?"
Same recycling the old, debunked misrepresentations to pad out the bad evidence ie rememeber amalek, the nonexistence of 'total destruction' in a letter, herzog explicitly civilians bear part of the blame for Hamas while still being protected as civilians by the laws of war in the same answer etc.
Talk about misrepresentations.
LOL
He said this to excuse war crimes being committed against the civilian population, it wasn't even about Hamas it was about Palestinians.
Seems like a strange thing for you want to try and twist in order to justify it.
Genuine question: Why do you want to justify that?
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EPT
