its not a genocide by any definition.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/02/26/israel-not-complying-wor...
https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/01/south-africas-genocide-...
This is false and shows a misunderstanding. Choose better information sources.
ICJ only decided whether it is plausible to allow South Africa to continue with this process on behalf of Gaza. It has nothing to do with the court's opinion on the plausibility of the -underlying- case but on the questioned legality of the process itself.
[1] https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240430-yes-it-is-genocid...
"In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly."
For whatever reason most people don't get that. I came to live in Germany around 15 years ago during the economic crisis and was pretty shocked that it was normal to say in public that Greeks are lazy. I couldn't understand the difference between that and "Jews are evil" and similar rhetoric that led to the Holocaust. And that in the country that should've learned something from the past. This time around I am not surprised they are fully behind this genocide simply because it's more convenient to look the other way.
Shame.
No, they had a very good reason: They hate Jews and do not believe Jews have any right to national sovereignty in their own land.
No - they just don't happen agree with them on the question of whose land it is.
You don't have to agree with their historical reading of the situation, of course. But it's really quite straightforward and simple, really. And if people are firing rockets at you -- it's probably best not to invent outlandish and unreal explanations for why they're doing so.
In any case -- pretending that the rest of the world obviously and unquestionably accepts the idea that this is all "Jewish land" (now or in 1947) -- or that if they don't, it's because the simply hate Jews, or won't accept the idea of Israel existing in any form -- definitely isn't helpful.
(And no, I'm not justifying or "explaining" the firing of rockets at anyone - please don't go there).
The court ruled that South Africa had plausible standing to bring a case defending Gazans, not that there was plausible genocide. Bringing wikipedia as a source about a very hot topic doesn't lend any support to your argument.
She very clearly stated, they didn't find or make any ruling on the plausibility of genocide, just that it was plausible that they might not be able to be protected in a case where a genocide were to happen.
They couldn't honestly claim there was any merit to the claim of genocide, but people were screaming for blood so they did this doublespeak thing where if you squint you can claim they 100% claim genocide is happening to mollify the anti-semites while not actually saying anything.
Essentially, she said, "we haven't found a genocide, but were a genocide to be attempted, it would be difficult to prevent" which is true in every single case of war, especially asymmetric warfare, where one side is much stronger than the other.
If someone were to bring a case against the US back in 2004 following the invasion of Iraq a similar finding would be totally within reason... but does anyone claim NATO committed genocide? No, but it's plausible that that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Iraqi right to be protected from genocide.
As I re-read this, I struggle to understand what this means; everything done during war time falls under the provisions of the Genocide Convention, that doesn't mean that genocide is happening, but rather again, that it's a war and people are being killed. Its kinda like calling an airstrike against a military target "premediated murder in the first degree" or calling all soldiers who have killed the enemy serial killers.
If you squint and remove all context the labels apply but they're meaningless under our current understanding of those words.
> I also never claimed that risk of losing your right to be protected from genocide is like getting your Nintendo Switch stolen, it was just a pointer for you to think about what it actually would mean.
"I never made the comparison, I just made the comparison because I was conducting a social experiment" Ok, I'll let you continue trying to figure out what you mean by that.
If we go back to your original comment, you also made a number of false statements in there:
> Israel is actively blocking delivery of food to the civilian population and has already in one case caused a massacre of people trying to get their hands on basic supplies.
This is totally false. Israel is not actively blocking delivery of food and the case of a massacre can be clearly seen in video to be caused by people trampling each other after attempting to rush at a platoon of soldiers.
> At the same time, a minister in the government is publicly calling for occupying Gaza and "motivating" civilians to "voluntarily" leave.
Would you care to explain what specifically is problematic about saying that terrorists should be encouraged to move their terror activities away from Israel? Or what is problematic about Israel governing an area that they've shown they can govern in a much more democratic and fair way than the currently elected suicidal death cult? Were you upset when the US occupied Germany for 11 years? and continued to have a large presence for the next 30 years?
> But speaking of holes, I guess I discounted the large void between your ears.
Insults are always used by those who know they've lost. Thank you for admitting defeat.
It's funny how I say "minister 'motivating' civilians" and you ask and replace civilians with terrorists. Wasn't there an old looney tunes cartoon with a not very bright character picking up a can of gasoline and blowing himself up after saying g-a-s what a strange way to write water? I guess he won at being stupid, which seems to be a common theme here. Congratulations on your victory.
By showing your inability to have a civil discussion you've proven you don't have a leg to stand on.
Is that what you believe?
That's a pretty grotesque thing to say, even if it's not really clear what it means.
Instead of failed attempts to cast insults and innuendos why don't you actually address the discussion.
Admit that you made a grotesque comparison in an attempt to prove your moral superiority but instead got caught in your own hubris. Admit that you're making up quotes left and right so you can try to salvage some part of your argument, admit that you're putting words in other peoples mouths so you can build up strawmen to attack. Admit that every time you're shown you're wrong you refuse to even acknowledge it and instead start hurling insults as if that will make people forget the preposterous arguments you attempted. Admit that not once in this entire discussion did you approach it with even an ounce of curiosity, and instead assumed malice at every step. Then we can continue to have some sort of civil discussion, otherwise you're tilting at windmills and it makes you look foolish.
You've broken nearly every hn guideline for good discussion and continue to fume, it might be time to step back and step away for a bit.
The last sentence really defines you. You feel mighty and powerful don't you, you know it's your time and nothing can stop you. Here's a song you can sing to celebrate this accomplishment:
I’m sorry you’re feeling so hurt and upset, hopefully you’ll heed my well intentioned advice and take a sabbatical from your culture war, just to recharge and gain perspective.
As long as we’re giving each other extra curricular activities I suggest you read this book: https://www.amazon.com/High-Conflict-Why-Get-Trapped/dp/1982...
I promise you it’ll make you a happier less brooding person.
As there doesn’t seem to be anything productive happening here, this my au revoir. I hope you find the internal peace you’re so sorely missing.
Also me: I am the world renowned expert on letting go
For the people that have trouble getting things, where it says "me" it's actually meant "you"
If you break the site guidelines like this again on HN, we will have to ban you, no matter how provocative someone else's comments are or you feel they are.
Absolutely no more of this, please.
If you break the site guidelines like this again on HN, we will have to ban you, no matter how provocative someone else's comments are or you feel they are.
Absolutely no more of this, please.
Seriously? You have been accusing me of anti-semitism but now you play straight into a harmful and anti-semitic conspiracy theory about George Soros, with hints to another very damaging and equally anti-semitic conspiracy theory about Cultural Marxism.
For what it is worth, George Soros does not fund any of the student movements responsible for the pro-Palestinian and anti-genocide encampments. One of the charities he helps fund has awarded grants to two student organization which the New York Post has claimed (but now proven) to be involved in the protests[1]. This is several degrees of separations, and the link is on flaky grounds.
Kapos’ interview above was excellent. He describes visiting another holocaust survivor [T=00:05:17] in Israel and being shocked at how racist she was:
> Yet she came back to Israel, and she was as racist as the rest of them, against the Palestinians.
> I think this has to do with the extreme propaganda, and the dehumanization. Zionism was a very unfortunate and sad development for the Jewish people. It broke a much longer tradition of always being on the side of the oppressed, not the oppressor. And the charitable nature of Judaism and the humanity they advocate, into a kind of exceptionalism and nationalism. And in practical terms the impossible project of taking over another people’s country.
> So when I visited them—that was my first brush of Zionism—I was completely shocked—despite their experiences during the Holocaust—they were racist, against the Palestinians. I couldn’t understand it, and I can’t understand it, but they were, and there is no denying it. And I found that racism was prevailing generally in Israel. And I turned strongly against that.
1: https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/may/02/fact-checking...
So what you are trying to claim is that the World Court never explicitly claimed, in direct words, that some of South Africa’s allegations for genocide was plausible, therefor the court never ruled that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, we have no authority claiming that Israel is committing genocide, and therefor, any claims of Israel committing genocide are unfounded.
First of all I want to address how weak this line of argument is. The ICJ is not the only authority which has claimed plausible genocide (yes, the ICJ did claim that; I’ll come back to that), second, we have plenty of evidence which indicts Israel for the crime of genocide, including, but not limited to South Africa’s filing at the ICJ (see sources on Wikipedia). Even if we take your or Joan Donoghue’s interpretation at face value, raxxorraxor’s claim that “the accusation is ridiculous and lacking any form of sincere analysis and judgement” is it self pretty much wrong.
Second, the court did rule that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide, by any reasonable interpretation of the ruling. Even though most people cite Article IV paragraph 54 (See [1]; quoted above) as the smoking gun (which it absolutely is) equally relevant is Article II Paragraphs 30-32 where the court decides it has jurisdiction over the case, citing Article IX of the Genocide Convention. The court would not have done that if it did not think it was plausible that Israel were violating the terms of the Genocide Convention. In other words, the court ruled that some of South Africa’s accusations were plausible. And put yet another way, the court decided that it is plausible that Israel is committing the crime of Genocide.
The problem with your interpretation, and your citing of Joan Donoghue’s answer in this context, is that she is actually answering a question relating to the provisional measures ordered by the court on January 26th 2024 (which is what Article IV is all about), and again on March 28th 2024. My personal opinion is that by answering the question this way she is actually being willfully misleading. It is beyond a doubt that the court decided that some of the accusations were plausible, her clarifying and stating that technically the court only decided on provisional measures, is obscuring the fact that it did rule to start investigating Israel for the crime of Genocide.
ICJ member often rules in alignment with their nation’s foreign policy, and Joan Donoghue has shown that to be the case under her presidency, I actually find it a miracle that the court ruled in favor of South Africa under her presidency. My personal belief is that the case against Israel is very obvious, and there was no way the court could rule any other way. This interview is she rectifying US foreign policy, and offering a plausible deniability to what the court actually ruled.
1: https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192...
Read Paragraph 62: "The Court is not called upon, for the purposes of its decision on the request for the indication of provisional measures, to establish the existence of breaches of obligations under the Genocide Convention, but to determine whether the circumstances require the indication of provisional measures for the protection of rights under that instrument."
The preservation of rights is a procedural matter for the court; they are measures to prevent prejudice against the case, and to prevent the irreparable harms claimed by the plaintiff. The facts under consideration there are viewed in the light favorable to the movant, because they are not in fact a disposition of the question. ["preservation of rights" filetype:pdf] is a good search here.
The ICJ did not in fact find that Israel had engaged in acts of genocide.
If you use a casual or non-legal definition of "genocide" --- "any campaign of ethnically targeted mass violence" seems like a reasonable one --- this is a live argument. But if you're going to cite chapter and verse from the decision and the Genocide Convention, I think you're clearly on the wrong side of the argument?
I—nor any uptread posts I read—claimed that the court found and ruled that Israel had engaged in Genocide. Merely that the court found it was plausible. I stand by these words, that the court did indeed find it plausible.
As I understand it everything in Article IV (including Paragraph 62) in the January 26 order was relating to the preliminary measures as requested by South Africa. Everything ruled there would be without prejudges with respect to the final ruling, as Article IV’s primary function is to prevent the Palestinian people from genocide (a function it has utterly failed at in my frank opinion).
Article II is, however, very relevant in the context of arguing whether the World Court finds the genocide accusation plausible. Article II is all about establishing jurisdiction, which it does by establishing that Article IX of the Genocide Convention applies. Article IX says:
> Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or for any of the other acts enumerated in article III, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
Article III of the Genocide convention lists every crime which is punishable by the convention, including (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; and (e) Complicity in genocide.
By establishing jurisdiction the case the court must find that Article IX applies, and to find that Article IX applies, it must show that it believes Israels conduct may be in violation of the genocide convention. Or as the ruling says (Paragraphs 19-20):
> To determine whether a dispute exists in the present case, the Court cannot limit itself to noting that one of the Parties maintains that the Convention applies, while the other denies it
> Since South Africa has invoked as the basis of the Court’s jurisdiction the compromissory clause of the Genocide Convention, the Court must also ascertain, at the present stage of the proceedings, whether it appears that the acts and omissions complained of by the Applicant are capable of falling within the scope of that convention ratione materiae.
In other words, if the court would not believe that Israel’s conduct (as described by South Africa) does not fall inside the Genocide Convention, then the court would reject the case on the grounds that it does not have jurisdiction.
Note, I think this was most of Israel’s legal defense, that it was trying to establish that their conduct does indeed not fall within the Genocide Convention.
The crucial finding (as my limited mind understands it) is then in Paragraph 30:
> In the Court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention.
To my ears, this sounds like—while the court hasn’t issued a final ruling—it does indeed find it plausible that Israel is committing a genocide.
EDIT: The only other reading I can entertain is that the court believes none of the accusations brought by South Africa which fall under Article III (a) of the Genocide Convention are plausible, and merely some of the accusations relating to Article III (b)-(e) apply. In which case, I stand corrected.
What you're reading about is the ICJ equivalent of a preliminary injunction. An injunction is a court order issued before the case is decided. Injunctions are based on balancing tests: some likelihood of irreparable harm must exist, and some likelihood that the movant will succeed at trial must exist. The more harm you demonstrate, the less likelihood you need to demonstrate, and vice versa.
Here, the harm South Africa is concerned about is of the gravest type possible.
Again: it is just not accurate to suggest that the ICJ has determined Israel has committed acts of genocide. It's "not even wrong"; the decision you're referring to is an interim provisional ruling.
I specifically said nobody is trying to argue that the court has ruled one way or the other. Merely that by accepting the case, the court did view some of the actions as capable of falling inside the Convention.
We are basically arguing over what the word plausible means here. I still stand by my words that the word applies to the courts believes as stated by the ruling.
If you do some reading on the "Plausibility" standard in the ICJ --- it's a recent development --- I think you're going to find it's a pretty low bar.
I guess I see one more scenario here, where the court did not find it plausible. That would be that the court found South Africa’s accusations to plausibly fall under the Genocide Convention, but did not look at the credibility of the accusations. However in the rulings of the preliminary measures, they do state that the risk of genocide inflicted on the Palestinian people was plausible, so frankly, I don’t think the court found the accusations implausible.
In any case, I guess if that is the case, I stand corrected, however given the mountain of evidence given by South Africa, and the fact the people don’t dispute the authenticity of those evidence, the fact that the court found the accusation plausibly fall under the Genocide Conention is almost identical to the statement that the court found the accusations plausible. The nuance here is so small that it is completely irrelevant.
I’m hardly the only one which has this reading of the court order[1]. Here is a human rights lawyer speaking with the Times[2] which describes the ruling as:
> Having the World Court say to the state of Israel that it is plausible that Israel is committing genocide will be heard by the rest of the international community, even if Netanyahu doesn’t want to hear it,
Like I said earlier we are actually arguing about the meaning of “plausible”. I’m using this word in a non-legal way while applying it to the legal definition of genocide. The ICJ on the other hand uses it in a legal way, for them plausibility has a legally defined meaning, and using it must meet some specific standard[3].
The conduct in question here is the general behavior of Israel in Gaza, which some of our ancestors say:
> Its not a genocide by any definition
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40268163
or:
> I would not agree this constitutes genocide.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40273408
they are talking about Israel’s general conduct.
South Africa brought in its case many examples of general conduct and accused them of violating the Genocide Convention. Israel—in its defense—did not deny this conduct, but rather stated they weren’t Genocidal, and didn’t violate the Convention, and therefore the Court had no jurisdiction over the case. The court ruled that these allegations “appear to be capable” of falling under the Convention. Meaning that the court thinks that the same conduct we are arguing whether constitutes a Genocide, the ICJ has said: “appears to be capable” of falling under the legal definition of Genocide.
When I, or the NPR, or the BBC[4] say the ICJ “decided there was a plausible case under the 1948 Genocide Convention,” we are using the world plausible in laypeople terms. So I stand by what I said. If we use the legal definition of Genocide, the ICJ has ruled the conduct of Israel in Gaza can plausibly be described as Genocide.
1: https://www.npr.org/2024/01/26/1227078791/icj-israel-genocid...
2: https://time.com/6588931/icj-ruling-israel-genocidal-acts-ga...
3: https://opiniojuris.org/2024/04/05/the-icjs-findings-on-plau...
What you're saying now is "because I got the injunction, I won the case". Obviously, no.
"Plausibility" at the ICJ is a technical term, part of a 3-part test to determine if any preliminary orders can be issued ("in preservation of rights") at all in a case:
"What is required is something more than assertion but less than proof; in other words, the party must show that there is at least a reasonable possibility that the right it claims exits as a matter of law and will be adjudged to apply to that party’s case".
Plausibility is virtually always established in these cases.
Now, look at what South Africa asked for as a preliminary measure, and look what they got.
Again, it is weird that we are still talking about this, because I quoted for you the numbered paragraph in the decision that repeats the point I am making.
Later
I'm noting that we are so far to the right margin on this very old, cursed thread that this post gets only 250px in my browser window. It's fine if we're not going to convince each other; we can just leave it here. We're probably the only two people reading this.
Go read up on ICJ preservation of rights process, though. It's fascinating. It's like a whole parallel law system, being worked out in our lifetimes.
If your arguments are strong, well-expressed, and calm, they'll do fine here, and there's no need to pick apart the people trying to rebut them. We know less than we think we do about people commenting here; I've spent 16 years watching people reach all sorts of weird conclusions about me. Let's not do that to someone else here. These threads are bad enough as it is.
The legal argument for genocide is strong. Not only by referring to the ICJ case, but also several legal experts who have conducted a thorough study in the subject.
I’m returning to this thread because of the publication today of a 100 page long report which the authors claim is “the most comprehensive legal analysis to ate of Israel’s military operation in Gaza since October 7, 2023.” This report is from legal experts exploring the legal argument of genocide, using the 1948 convention as the definition for genocide. The authors, comprise of independent human rights scholars and legal experts from University Network of Human Rights, Boston University School of Law, Cornell Law School, University of Pretoria, and Yale Law School. They conclude that: “srael has committed and continues to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.”
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b3538249d5abb21360e8...