Lammy: Calling Israeli action a ‘genocide’ only undermines seriousness of that term

11 comments

1. Also calling any criticism of Israel antisemitic undermines the century’s of persecution Jews have experienced

2. So where does he place the line? Is there some specific number of deaths? Is there a percentage of the target population? Do you have to target them as individuals or does starvation count?

3. Is it a genocide though? The ICC doesn’t think it is. Is there a systematic and deliberate anhialation of the Palestinians? Can you show me the evidence of the system? Evidence of Netinyahu ordering the indiscriminate murder of ALL Palestinian? I don’t think people get how high the bar is for this.

   I think people are just using genocide to mean “lots of wat crimes”. I’m not sure it really matters if people aren’t using the word in the strict sense, but let’s not pretend it is uncontroversial. No doubt someone is going to try and convince me but what I want to know is why you know more about international law than the judges at the ICC.

   I’m willing to bet that Israel would be keen to ethnically cleanse Gaza by driving them into Egypt, but they haven’t (been able to) done that

   And I find the implication that if I don’t use a specific word I’m somehow downplaying Israel’s reckless, and racially tinged disregard for the lives of Gazans. It’s become a sort of loyalty test.

4. Calling Lammy intelligent only undermines the seriousness of that term.

5. Without taking a side here

   I still don’t understand how Isreal are the bad guys when Hamas, a known terrorist organisation, invaded Isreal, killed civilians, took civilian hostages and then killed them, and have said they want to destroy Isreal (which is genocide).

   I’ve never been very good with subtextual nuances. But on the face of it, surely the known terrorists are the bad guys here? They instigated and then got all pissed when Isreal retaliated.

   If another country invaded your country, would you not expect your government to fight back?

6. It’s silly to argue about anyway, as it doesn’t change the reality of what’s happening on the ground.

7. Genocide is described in the UN genocide convention article two as doing any ONE of the following genocidal acts “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”

   * Killing members of a group (the complete disregard for civilian deaths at best, and deliberate targetting at worst fits this)
   * Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group (see above, half of gaza are children so this is even easier to meet)
   * Imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group (deliberate air strikes on bakeries, hospitals, public infrastructure, IDF defence chief talking about denying food and water, laying siege to gaza. Even the US government has acknowledged aid has been blocked from entering the strip)
   * Preventing births in the group (via destruction of hospitals and preventing health care equipment and care workers from entering, or bombing workers when they do)
   * Forcibly transferring children out of the group (hardest one to meet, but Israel has been using arbitary detention on children for decades using terrorism powers, and not taking them to trial in order to keep them there longer than should be reasonably possible)

   You only need to meet ONE of these to be commiting a genocide

   Theres an incredibly strong case for this to be made.

   And case law for this already states that genocidal intent doesnt need to be drawn directly from an admission but circumstantial evidence, its not a crime of severity but of intent and it’s very hard to me to argue it doesnt satisfy these requirements.

   And regarding intent – Netyahu calling Palestinains the people of Amalek does this, calling them the one group God authorises to be wiped out completley, man woman and child in the Hebrew bible

8. People in parliament who have access to even more evidence of genocide that the average person should be held accountable for genocide denial.

   South Africa has 750 pages of evidence for genocide.

9. And very inconveniently makes perception of the continued genocide very morally repugnant I imagine.

   Sigh, I guess we’ll have to stick to calling it Israels campaign of mass murder, destruction, displacement and ethnic cleansing then?

10. Using Lammy’s criteria here (“when millions of people lost their lives in crisis”) would pretty much exclude every genocide of the post-WW2 era – Bosnia, the Rohingyas, Assyrians & Yazidis in IS-controlled Iraq and, in fact, one of the very examples he cites as a “real genocide”, Rwanda!

11. Wtf, I’m agreeing with Lammy. Are the cats lying with dogs now?

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