Every once in awhile I like to steal a comment from another blog that I think is well-written and on-point.
Now that the Gaza incursion may be winding down a tad I will probably stop monitoring Daily Kos, but in the mean time you run across the occasional gem.
The burden is not on the accused (11+ / 0-)For those of you who care to dig out the context of this comment, I will leave that entirely to you.
If law is the issue, the burden is not on the accused to prove they are innocent. It is on the accuser to prove guilt.
On the silly genocide questions, it boils down to this: Are Israel's actions taken with "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group."
That's where you lose those who think accusations of genocide are an absurd hyperbole. Yes, Israel is waging war against Hamas and they have killed far too many civilians. But are their intent really to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnical, racial, or relgiious group?
That's what you have failed to prove. Most normal people look at the situation and see the following facts:
1) Israel has the firepower to kill off all the Paelstinians if they want to, but they haven't.
2) Their target is Hamas. If they were targeting a religious or ethnic or national group simply for being part of that group, they would also be in the West Bank and they would be killing them off by the tens of thousands. They have not.
3) The enemy they are fighting is an internationally-recognized terrorist group that targets civilians. Oh, and also that calls for actual genocide in their charter (intent to destroy, in whole -not just in part - a national or religious group).
4) Many Gazan civilians have been killed in this war. Far, far too many.
I know you look at 4 and find it de facto evidence of an intent to destroy a a national, religion, or ethnic group - but the evidence doesn't rise to that. The fact of 4 does not outweigh the fact of 1, 2, and 3 or the fact that the intent of the Israelis is not proven simply by the outcome.
I know that's a difficult concept for some of those who want to stop the bloodshed to exist to accept, but simply calling it genocide doesn't make it so.
Oh, one more thing, with the way you want to define the presence of civilian deaths as ipso facto genocide, I think some of the anti-Hamas folks on this site take issue with the fact that the accusation only seems to be hurled at those Hamas targets, but is rarely if ever hurled at Hamas, at the US when they kill civilians, Syria (who seems to be engaged in an actual genocide), or any other people. Just Hamas' enemy.
Why is that? I took the time to answer your question honestly and at face value, I hope you will give me the same courtesy.
by dcg2 on Sun Aug 10, 2014 at 02:50:35 PM PDT
Simply follow the link if you care to.
The Islamic State is also seeking to carry out genocide, but all we hear in response, at Daily Kos, is occasional whimpers and sniffles, when they're not outright supporting them or blaming us for their savagery.
ReplyDeleteExamples can be found in my last diary there, in which a 'Kossack' told me that the phrase 'Western Civilization' is a racist, right-wing term. I shit you not.