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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

"People have somehow been convinced a small amount of civilians being killed relative to the whole population is somehow a “genocide”"

Per UN definition[1]:

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:

  - Killing members of the group;
  - 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;
  - Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
  - Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

If what is currently going on in Gaza isn't that then what is a genocide?

[1] https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

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A couple weeks or so ago after some UN official was in the news for resigning in protest over what was happening in Gaza and called it a genocide, NPR interviewed someone who has actually prosecuted genocide cases and asked him if the UN official was right.

According to the prosecutor he didn't think a case could be made. The key is that "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" part.

To prove that you need statements from officials that show they intended such destruction, and those need to be officials that also had the means to carry out or cause to be carried out that destruction. Prime ministers and generals, for example.

If someone is going after legitimate military targets but a lot of members of some national, ethnical, racial or religious group is getting killed as collateral damage that is not enough to support a genocide charge. You need to statement of intent.

He added that there is a genocide case that can be made in the region--against Hamas. They have stated their intent to wipe out a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, and thousands of their attacks on Israel over the last 20+ years have been directed at purely civilian targets.

> According to the prosecutor he didn't think a case could be made. The key is that "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such" part.

Moreno Ocampo, the former ICC prosecutor interviewed, actually said the opposite you're claiming. See https://www.aljazeera.com/program/upfront/2023/12/1/former-i...

That's a different prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, who was an ICC prosecutor. NPR talked to [1] David M. Crane, who is a founding chief prosecutor on the U.N. Special Court for Sierra Leone.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/21/1214341050/prosecutor-weighs-...

So in other words, even experts on this topic disagree. So I don't think one prosecutor saying "no, this isn't genocide" is definitive -- just like another saying "yes, this is genocide" isn't either.

Ultimately we may never know if Netanyahu has sat behind closed doors and has said things about his intentions in Palestine that would meet the UN definition of genocide. So we can only guess based on what we do know and have seen.

FWIW, to me, this feels pretty genocide-y. The funny thing about the bit you paraphrased from Crane:

> and those need to be officials that also had the means to carry out or cause to be carried out that destruction

... is that by this definition, I don't think we can classify Hamas as genocidal, as they don't seem to have the war capability to actually "carry out or cause to be carried out" a genocide upon Israel.

Surely there's a scale?

Technically, any "killing a member of a group" would be a genocide under this definition.

Even if someone commits a mass murder against a group, we typically call it mass murder or a hate crime -- not genocide.

So there has to be some idea of what genocide is -- what is the scale, what is the intent? Is it to wipe out a people? Or is it something else?

25,000 death is a lot. I'd say its a war crime. An atrocity, perhaps. But a genocide? Against a population of 2 million? Idk. Maybe?

It seems that we have no common definition of the word

There is a very high risk of famine[1] and there is already an extreme food shortage. If the Israelis don't allow more food to enter and open more borders/allow see access a famine is guaranteed. The UN resolution that passed yesterday should prevent that but we have to wait and see if Israel accepts it. IMO starving a population is a genocide.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67799527

For contrast is there a conflict where people have been killed that doesn't meet that definition of genocide?

Yes, any conflict where the aim is not to "destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".

Feel free to actually list a couple so we can dive into the specifics.

Feel free to do any of the work yourself also; This is a claim you are making isn't it?

Ok, here is a list of armed conflicts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflict... Some are conflicted as being power struggles between groups of certain ethnicities; not all involve ethnic cleansing.

Here's one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_drug_war that seems not to have any relation to genocide.

The target is Hamas. Some innocents are dying, but the intent isn’t to deliberately kill them. And there is no evidence any of those other criteria are even happening.

There is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fP-J8m-BF0 , NY Times: Visual Evidence Shows Israel Dropped Bombs Where It Ordered Gaza Civilians to Go

> Where It Ordered Gaza Civilians to Go

to be specific: actual content says Israel asked civilians to move to South Gaza, while claim is that they still targeted targets there.

So there are two explanations

1) Israel asked civilians to move south to be relatively safer, some important Hamas officers moved south along with them, and Israel targeted them.

2) The strikes weren't about Hamas officers, but just a deliberate killing of civilians.

If you're saying this is evidence of genocide, that means you're discounting (1) and assuming (2)? Why?

I'm not condoning (1), which suggests IDF is prioritizing its concerns (expediency etc) over civilian lives, but that clearly doesn't meet the definition of genocide.

> The target is Hamas

"Two Thirds of Gaza War Dead Are Women and Children"

-- https://press.un.org/en/2023/sc15503.doc.htm

that person didn't provide source of information. Likely this is data from local authorities, aka Hamas.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67347201

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestini...

Both of your links say that data came from Hamas:

"The Hamas-run health ministry is Gaza's official source for death numbers"

The article continues to explain that Gaza health ministry casualty counts for past conflicts have been confirmed after the fact by third party international organizations, like the WHO.

The records they release include names, genders, ages and ID numbers of deceased people. If you claim the data is fake then you should be able to identify some made-up deaths in it.

> past conflicts have been confirmed after the fact by third party international organizations, like the WHO.

This is not my reading that WHO or any other org confirmed anything. They say in 2014 both Israel and Palestinians agreed on number of casualties, but this time discrepancy is 10x.

> If you claim the data is fake then you should be able to identify some made-up deaths in it.

say they made up some ID, name, gender and age. How exactly I could identify this?

> Some innocents are dying

It is estimated that about 70% of killed people (which has gone over 20000 recently) are women and children. Those are not Hamas fighters. Even if you assume that every adult male that has been killed was a Hamas fighter (which is obviously not going to be the case), that is still 70% of people who are killed by IDF being innocent civilians.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-many-palestini...

> the intent isn’t to deliberately kill them. And there is no evidence any of those other criteria are even happening

On the contrary, even the mere evidence in form of public statements by the leaders of Israel strongly suggests intent to harm civilians. The statements suggest that they are pursuing revenge on the whole Gaza strip, and aiming to inflict as many casualties as they can get away with.

- Prime Minister Netanyahu pledged to reduce parts of Gaza “to rubble” and invoked the people of Amalek, the foe that God ordered the ancient Israelites to genocide in the Bible, in a recent speech. [1]

- Defense minister Yoav Gallant called for a “complete siege” on Gaza and stated that “we are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.” [1]

- Army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said forces would turn Gaza into a “city of tents” and admitted that Israel’s “emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy” in dropping hundreds of tons of bombs on Gaza. [1]

- Ariel Kallner, a member of parliament from Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote on X after the Hamas attack: “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join!” [2]

- Giora Eiland, a reservist major general and former head of the Israeli National Security Council, wrote in a popular Hebrew-language newspaper, “The State of Israel has no choice but to turn Gaza into a place that is temporarily or permanently impossible to live in.” Elsewhere, he specified that “Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf” and indeed that Israel must demand that “The entire population of Gaza will either move to Egypt or move to the Gulf.” Finally, he said that “Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” [2]

- “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”, IDF general Ghassan Aliyan [3]

- Revital Gotliv, a Parliament member from Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, called for Israel to use nuclear weapons in Gaza: “It’s time for a doomsday weapon. Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighborhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza.” [1]

- Galit Distel Atbaryan, also of Likud, posted on X in Hebrew that Israelis should invest their energy in one thing: “Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth” and forcing the “Gazan monsters” either to flee the strip to Egypt or to face their death. [1]

[1] https://www.vox.com/world-politics/2023/11/13/23954731/genoc...

[2] https://www.vox.com/world-politics/23933707/israel-palestine...

[3] https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/cogat-chief-add...

The Israelis admitted that they are fighting "human animals" (remember who else used dehumanization tactics in WWII?), and that their goal was "damage, not accuracy".

IDF doesn't have intent to destroy palestinian group, they have intent to destroy Hamas, so probably you only can call it genocide against Hamas.

Genocide was in Ukraine for example, when Russia targeted powerplants during winter, which didn't have any military value.

That is propaganda for the west. If it where the case they would not be dropping 2000 pound bombs on civilians [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fP-J8m-BF0 [NY Times: Visual Evidence Shows Israel Dropped Bombs Where It Ordered Gaza Civilians to Go ]

I don't think GBU-39 suggested by journalist to be used instead can target deep underground facilities.

Israel deliberately cut off power, water, and all crossings into Gaza for delivering food and aid. Even worse than what Russia did to the power plants. Literal collective punishment, another war crime to add to their list.

Israel cut power and water they provided before to the territory which attacked them. Sounds like many countries did such thing in the past.

> Sounds like many countries did such thing in the past.

Can you give a good, relevant example?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_over_Water_(Jordan_River)

I have supported Ukraine in the war for a long time but this claim I do not understand.

Surely a power plant has military value right? If you destroy the power plant, you impact the country's economic and manufacturing ability which would definitely impact the country's ability to wage war.

Obviously it also severely impacts civilians but many other "acceptable" actions in war do the same.

In my head I imagine a war between a military run off of portable gas generators and a military run off of power plants. The difference in capability between the two would be huge!

Is there something I'm missing here?

I’m guessing you haven’t served. The front line military brings its own power, exactly portable gas/diesel generators, to run everything. If there is a usable power line with a transformer to a usable voltage and it hasn’t been yet damaged in the fighting, it’s amazing, but also fragile.

A non trivial chunk of signal corps training is learning the ins and outs of standard generators, conventions and apparatus for distributing power, equipment for converting between various voltages used by equipment 1 to 80 years old, etc.

> with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group

What is your proof of the intent?

Hamas, on the other hand, make their genocidal intent very clear, every chance they get. "then what is a genocide?" That is.

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