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Comment by phantompeace | Hacker News Reader

Do not be so quick to excuse genocide, for people who far more qualified than yourself also agree with the rest of us (us being Humanity).

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holoc...

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Here’s a New York Times opinion piece (penned literally one week later) that comes the opposite conclusion. Unsurprisingly people disagree about this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/opinion/no-israel-is-not-...

The Fox News entertainer’s worthless opinion differs from the person who studies genocide? You don’t say. You going to tell us Netanyahu disagrees next too?

Did you read the article? Instead of making ad-hominen attacks, can you counter the arguments within?

> The first question the anti-Israel genocide chorus needs to answer is: Why isn’t the death count higher?

If it's a genocide, it's the most ineptly executed genocide ever. From the same entity that humiliated and defanged both Hezbollah and Iran in days.

It really doesn't fit. It does look like a war though. Yes wars are horrible, and lots of bad things happen in wars.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44695878

>> The first question the anti-Israel genocide chorus needs to answer is: Why isn’t the death count higher?

> If it's a genocide, it's the most ineptly executed genocide ever.

Not if the intent is to kill as many as possible in a way that's politically acceptable.

Being overly efficient in their genocide would make it hard for people like you to defend their actions.

If we assume GHM's data is accurate, Gaza's overall population slightly declined during the first several months of war, but increased since. Casualties have been around ~20k/yr (fighters included), compared to something like ~50k/yr births.

How can it be a "slow, sneaky genocide" if the population is increasing? Has any other group faced serious genocide accusations in relation to an increasing population?

That birth rate is not accurate since the war started. Also, death rate is not accurate either if 60k have died in less than two years.

And the lack of trust in Israel's government is due to how little effort they seem to put into distinguishing between civilian and enemy combatant while in control of all surrounding borders.

If things continue as they have, then the number of starvations is about to increase dramatically.

So those who point at the numbers to say it's not genocide have a point, but if deniable genocide is Israel's intent, then all they have to do is continue to withhold food and a lot of Gazans starve to death.

I wasn't assuming pre-war birth rates. [1] suggests 45~50k/yr; [2] suggests ~34k/yr. They're rough figures, ignoring seasonality etc, but it's clear that there are significantly more births than GHM-reported casualties.

There's certainly food insecurity but it would need to get way worse to make a dent in these numbers; so far it's about 100 reported deaths linked to malnutrition during the conflict.

[1] https://www.savethechildren.net/news/about-130-children-born...

[2] https://news.un.org/en/story/2025/07/1165471

It has to be the most ineptly executed genocide in history - or it’s not a genocide.

There are really only those two options.

I actually agree with this, which is why I don’t think Israel will let starvation happen in Gaza. They’ll do what they have to do, because the can’t afford to have their few remaining allies turn on them.

Time will tell. But they’re not that stupid. I don’t think they’re that evil too, but I don’t have to be right about that.

Are you telling me with a straight face that it’s a genocide because it doesn’t look like a genocide to trick people into believing it’s not a genocide?

I read the entire article and was unconvinced. For a genocide expert, he really didn’t lay out the argument well. And I think that’s because, at the end of the day, you can’t. The numbers don’t support it.

It would be very easy to change my entire opinion and convert me to your side - but I only respond to logical arguments made with factual data.

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