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A significant number of non-combatants have been killed in every single war that has had a significant number of casualties. Ever. The fantastical utopian war

A significant number of non-combatants have been killed in every single war that has had a significant number of casualties. Ever. The fantastical utopian war is Israel is expected to wage, where only militants get killed doesn’t exist. The closest thing in history we have to that is Israel’s beeper operation against Hezbollah, but that is a one-off that isn’t easily repeated.

defrost 8mo ago
That's one single criteria, another is the espression of intent, there are more. See, for example: By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on X that Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ~ I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. Israel born, Zionist raised, Jewish, former IDF soldier, Genocide Scholar, Holocaust historian Omer Bartov https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holoc... And there are others, equally qalified, that hold the same opinion. You might want to take it up them given your narrow focused single topic account dedicated to just opinionating "Gaza is not a genocide". I suspect you'd not even acknowledge it's genocide adjcent and argue all wars carry the same elements despite evidence to the contrary. I personally see little chance of an interesting thoughtful discussion developing here.
- tguvot 8mo ago
  "army ordered civilians to evacuate from warzone so it's genocide" is not as great argument as you think. if army had prevented civilians to leave city and then bombed it to the ground, you would have something to talk about.
  - ceejayoz 8mo ago
    > "army ordered civilians to evacuate from warzone so it's genocide" is not as great argument as you think The trick, though, was to keep doing it, over and over, expanding the area each time, so people never stop having to evacuate, or give up and stay in place to die. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c299pl8j8w7o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c299pl8j8w7o "More than three-quarters of Gaza's territory have been designated as evacuation zones by the Israeli military since the war against Hamas began in October, an analysis by BBC Arabic has found." At a certain point, it becomes plain old ethnic cleansing.
    - tguvot 8mo ago
      so not genocide ? "doing it over and over again", you mean war moves around and not restricted to same 1 square kilometer. and what kind of ethnic cleansing it is, if all population remains in gaza. the trick is, to shift goalposts. if you bomb city with population: genocide. if you order people to evacuate it's ethnic cleansing. if you want to see how ethnic cleansing actually looks, i'll suggest to take a look at what azeri did a while ago.
      - ceejayoz 8mo ago
        There's no single agreed upon definition. Many of them include ethnic cleansing as a form, using wording like "the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions > if you want to see how ethnic cleansing actually looks, i'll suggest to take a look at what azeri did a while ago. Gaza saw 90% displaced, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Nagorno-Karabakh_Armenians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Nagorno-Karabakh_... says 99%. With 288 deaths, versus at least 60k in Gaza. I'm inclined to see them both as ethnic cleansing? And shitty?

defrost 8mo ago

That's one single criteria, another is the espression of intent, there are more. See, for example: By May 2024, the Israel Defense Forces had ordered about one million Palestinians sheltering in Rafah — the southernmost and last remaining relatively undamaged city of the Gaza Strip — to move to the beach area of the Mawasi, where there was little to no shelter. The army then proceeded to destroy much of Rafah, a feat mostly accomplished by August. At that point it appeared no longer possible to deny that the pattern of I.D.F. operations was consistent with the statements denoting genocidal intent made by Israeli leaders in the days after the Hamas attack. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised that the enemy would pay a “huge price” for the attack and that the I.D.F. would turn parts of Gaza, where Hamas was operating, “into rubble,” and he called on “the residents of Gaza” to “leave now because we will operate forcefully everywhere.” Mr. Netanyahu had urged his citizens to remember “what Amalek did to you,” a quote many interpreted as a reference to the demand in a biblical passage calling for the Israelites to “kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings” of their ancient enemy. Government and military officials said they were fighting “human animals” and, later, called for “total annihilation.” Nissim Vaturi, the deputy speaker of Parliament, said on X that Israel’s task must be “erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.” Israel’s actions could be understood only as the implementation of the expressed intent to make the Gaza Strip uninhabitable for its Palestinian population. I believe the goal was — and remains today — to force the population to leave the Strip altogether or, considering that it has nowhere to go, to debilitate the enclave through bombings and severe deprivation of food, clean water, sanitation and medical aid to such an extent that it is impossible for Palestinians in Gaza to maintain or reconstitute their existence as a group. My inescapable conclusion has become that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people. Having grown up in a Zionist home, lived the first half of my life in Israel, served in the I.D.F. as a soldier and officer and spent most of my career researching and writing on war crimes and the Holocaust, this was a painful conclusion to reach, and one that I resisted as long as I could. But I have been teaching classes on genocide for a quarter of a century. I can recognize one when I see one. This is not just my conclusion. A growing number of experts in genocide studies and international law have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza can only be defined as genocide. So has Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and Amnesty International. South Africa has brought a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice. ~ I’m a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It. Israel born, Zionist raised, Jewish, former IDF soldier, Genocide Scholar, Holocaust historian Omer Bartov https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holocaust-genocide-palestinians.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/opinion/israel-gaza-holoc... And there are others, equally qalified, that hold the same opinion. You might want to take it up them given your narrow focused single topic account dedicated to just opinionating "Gaza is not a genocide". I suspect you'd not even acknowledge it's genocide adjcent and argue all wars carry the same elements despite evidence to the contrary. I personally see little chance of an interesting thoughtful discussion developing here.

tguvot 8mo ago
"army ordered civilians to evacuate from warzone so it's genocide" is not as great argument as you think. if army had prevented civilians to leave city and then bombed it to the ground, you would have something to talk about.
- ceejayoz 8mo ago
  > "army ordered civilians to evacuate from warzone so it's genocide" is not as great argument as you think The trick, though, was to keep doing it, over and over, expanding the area each time, so people never stop having to evacuate, or give up and stay in place to die. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c299pl8j8w7o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c299pl8j8w7o "More than three-quarters of Gaza's territory have been designated as evacuation zones by the Israeli military since the war against Hamas began in October, an analysis by BBC Arabic has found." At a certain point, it becomes plain old ethnic cleansing.
  - tguvot 8mo ago
    so not genocide ? "doing it over and over again", you mean war moves around and not restricted to same 1 square kilometer. and what kind of ethnic cleansing it is, if all population remains in gaza. the trick is, to shift goalposts. if you bomb city with population: genocide. if you order people to evacuate it's ethnic cleansing. if you want to see how ethnic cleansing actually looks, i'll suggest to take a look at what azeri did a while ago.
    - ceejayoz 8mo ago
      There's no single agreed upon definition. Many of them include ethnic cleansing as a form, using wording like "the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_definitions > if you want to see how ethnic cleansing actually looks, i'll suggest to take a look at what azeri did a while ago. Gaza saw 90% displaced, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Nagorno-Karabakh_Armenians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Nagorno-Karabakh_... says 99%. With 288 deaths, versus at least 60k in Gaza. I'm inclined to see them both as ethnic cleansing? And shitty?