I’ve been trying to convince my parents that this is absofuckinglutely genocide. It has not gone well. They are convinced that Israel is simply defending themselves, and all the civilian casualties are just how war is.
You could make the comparison with Russia’s actions towards Ukraine. Is it “just war” when Russia intentionally bombs children’s schools and hospitals? Most countries are civilized enough to only target military targets during a war. It’s also worth pointing out that modern missiles do not “accidentally” hit the wrong target, that’s about as likely as shooting a gun and “accidentally” hitting your friend standing behind you.
The reason you can’t convice them is they aren’t actually wrong. Social media, the internet and the media in general (because the former is part of it nowadays) have done a good job polarizing people and pushing to them to one extreme or another on a purely black and white scheme. But neither is fitting reality.
So let’s start simple: I don’t know were you live but if tomorrow a neighbouring country attacks you and kills thousands (or to keep the picture straight and adapt to most country sizes several tens of thousands) of civilians, just to make a statement of how they hate you and want you gone, you would be invading that neighbour the next day. And you would do so with full international support. And yes, civilian collateral damages would happen, because that’s indeed war. Why is Israel’s right to defend themselves in exactly the same way questioned? A huge part of that is sadly indeed antisemites jumping the chance to amplify messages on the internet.
Now for the complicated details: Are there some insanely nationalistic assholes in Israel, too, that manage to sound genocidal on a similiar level as their Hamas counterparts? Sure. Should you criticise Israel for this and call them to clearly denounce those lunatics? Of course. And should you clearly remind Israel to not get carried away and try to prevent civilian losses as much as possible? Yes, of course you should. Guess who does this? The countries supporting Israel. In fact given how the US avoids speaking about their own mistakes, Biden’s call to “not make the same mistakes we did after 9/11” was actually historic. And do you know who barely mention the civilians vs. Hamas fighters issue? Those loudly talking about Israel’s genocide in Palestina. As none of them is actually honest. They are the other side of a black/white spectrum where there is no middle-ground of Israel being allowed to defend themselves. “Genocide” is just a buzz word for them, when the actual message is “Israel has not right to defend itself” and to add the silent part “because they don’t have a right to exist in the first place”.
So the actual reality (for everyone reasonable) is: Israel has indeed a right to defend itself against a massive and uncalled for attack. Any yes, there will be a lot of civilian casualties involved. You can make every point that they ned to do more to reduce those. You can make any point about there being some lunatics who actually love to see to those civilians die an denounce those (something that also happened multiple times when the Israel government clearly spoke out against comments of some of their more extremist members). You can in this regards clearly criticise this US decision and indeed demand that there needs to be clear restrictions even more now, to only give them access to stuff that can be effective with less risk of civilian damages. But you can only make those points if you start in reality: Israel got attacked, Isreal has the right to defend themselves by fighting Hamas waging a constant war of terror against them. Then and only then you can start giving them advise how to handle the situation in the best possible way.
You cannot however make this a happy black and white picture where on one side there are those supporting Israel unquestioned and on the other side there are those speaking out against the intended genocide Israel is commiting (as that also denies that Israel actually got attacked, denies their right to defend themselves by fighting Hamas -unavoidable civilian casualties sadly included- and in the end often implictly denies their right to exist). If you start at “this is only happening because Israel wants a genocide against Palestinian people”, then you already left reality a long time ago.
If those are the only two positions in a completely polarized discussion, not only is everyone wrong, you are even sitting on the side further away from the middle-ground reality.
You have some seriously warped perspective. Israel is indeed committing actual genocide and ethic cleansing. They want to destroy Palestine and relocate what people are left, if any, into other countries. They have been creating illegal settlements for many many years if you want some context for this strategy.
Israel is not “defending” itself. For example, sniping innocent doctors and patients and destroying a hospital is not self defense. The al shifa hospital also has not been found to be a Hamas base… 15 guns and a tunnel are not a military base. If it was, this still would not justify those actions. The scale of this “defense” is really disgusting, especially when Israel has been oppressing the people of Palestine for many decades.
I’ve been trying to convince my parents that this is absofuckinglutely genocide. It has not gone well. They are convinced that Israel is simply defending themselves, and all the civilian casualties are just how war is.
You could make the comparison with Russia’s actions towards Ukraine. Is it “just war” when Russia intentionally bombs children’s schools and hospitals? Most countries are civilized enough to only target military targets during a war. It’s also worth pointing out that modern missiles do not “accidentally” hit the wrong target, that’s about as likely as shooting a gun and “accidentally” hitting your friend standing behind you.
Some estimates say over one million Iraqis were killed during the American invasion and occupation.
Unpopular opinion here incoming but:
The reason you can’t convice them is they aren’t actually wrong. Social media, the internet and the media in general (because the former is part of it nowadays) have done a good job polarizing people and pushing to them to one extreme or another on a purely black and white scheme. But neither is fitting reality.
So let’s start simple: I don’t know were you live but if tomorrow a neighbouring country attacks you and kills thousands (or to keep the picture straight and adapt to most country sizes several tens of thousands) of civilians, just to make a statement of how they hate you and want you gone, you would be invading that neighbour the next day. And you would do so with full international support. And yes, civilian collateral damages would happen, because that’s indeed war. Why is Israel’s right to defend themselves in exactly the same way questioned? A huge part of that is sadly indeed antisemites jumping the chance to amplify messages on the internet.
Now for the complicated details: Are there some insanely nationalistic assholes in Israel, too, that manage to sound genocidal on a similiar level as their Hamas counterparts? Sure. Should you criticise Israel for this and call them to clearly denounce those lunatics? Of course. And should you clearly remind Israel to not get carried away and try to prevent civilian losses as much as possible? Yes, of course you should. Guess who does this? The countries supporting Israel. In fact given how the US avoids speaking about their own mistakes, Biden’s call to “not make the same mistakes we did after 9/11” was actually historic. And do you know who barely mention the civilians vs. Hamas fighters issue? Those loudly talking about Israel’s genocide in Palestina. As none of them is actually honest. They are the other side of a black/white spectrum where there is no middle-ground of Israel being allowed to defend themselves. “Genocide” is just a buzz word for them, when the actual message is “Israel has not right to defend itself” and to add the silent part “because they don’t have a right to exist in the first place”.
So the actual reality (for everyone reasonable) is: Israel has indeed a right to defend itself against a massive and uncalled for attack. Any yes, there will be a lot of civilian casualties involved. You can make every point that they ned to do more to reduce those. You can make any point about there being some lunatics who actually love to see to those civilians die an denounce those (something that also happened multiple times when the Israel government clearly spoke out against comments of some of their more extremist members). You can in this regards clearly criticise this US decision and indeed demand that there needs to be clear restrictions even more now, to only give them access to stuff that can be effective with less risk of civilian damages. But you can only make those points if you start in reality: Israel got attacked, Isreal has the right to defend themselves by fighting Hamas waging a constant war of terror against them. Then and only then you can start giving them advise how to handle the situation in the best possible way.
You cannot however make this a happy black and white picture where on one side there are those supporting Israel unquestioned and on the other side there are those speaking out against the intended genocide Israel is commiting (as that also denies that Israel actually got attacked, denies their right to defend themselves by fighting Hamas -unavoidable civilian casualties sadly included- and in the end often implictly denies their right to exist). If you start at “this is only happening because Israel wants a genocide against Palestinian people”, then you already left reality a long time ago.
If those are the only two positions in a completely polarized discussion, not only is everyone wrong, you are even sitting on the side further away from the middle-ground reality.
You have some seriously warped perspective. Israel is indeed committing actual genocide and ethic cleansing. They want to destroy Palestine and relocate what people are left, if any, into other countries. They have been creating illegal settlements for many many years if you want some context for this strategy.
Israel is not “defending” itself. For example, sniping innocent doctors and patients and destroying a hospital is not self defense. The al shifa hospital also has not been found to be a Hamas base… 15 guns and a tunnel are not a military base. If it was, this still would not justify those actions. The scale of this “defense” is really disgusting, especially when Israel has been oppressing the people of Palestine for many decades.