Since the end of world war two and the discoveries of the Nazi holocaust, academics and ordinary citizens have asked the question how did this happen?”
Germany, a nation of culture and creativity, managed one of the worst abuses on their fellow man ever witnessed. Countless people have asked how could the nation that gave us so many great leaders, composers, writers, poets, philosophers, inventors, Kings like Fredrick the Great a compassionate and man who really cared for his people and their welfare. Composers like, Beethoven, Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Warner.
Poets and novelists like Goethe, Brothers Grimm, Annette von Droste-HΓΌlshoff.
Philosophers like Kant, Nietzsche, Karl Marx, Schopenhauer or inventors like Gutenberg who invented the printing press or Karl Benz who arguably invented the worlds finest automobile.
How did this nation so deep in culture and innovation succumb to the hate and fascism of the Austrian Corporal Adolf Hitler and the Nazi doctrine?
Well greater minds than I have attempted to answer that dichotomy and nobody has as yet managed to figure it all out. Man’s inherent evil played out over those years from 1933 to 1945. Today many are still feeling the effects of that horrific time.
There is some plausible deniability for the ordinary German citizens. They in the main did not know what was happening in their name. The camps were in restricted areas. Anyone nosing about would soon have found themselves on the other side of the barbed wire.
There were no journalists at the scene reporting on it. There was no internet, no mobile smartphones, no camera fitted drones, no way for the majority of the German population to be informed that a genocide was happening on German and Polish soil.
They did know that some of their neighbours, communists, homosexuals, freemasons, gypsies, and so-called subversives were ‘disappeared.’ They were allegedly sent to re-education camps. Some did return most did not. Nobody was made aware of the gas chambers or the mass graves in Poland, Ukraine and Russia.
The propaganda and state control were intense, as we know Goebels was a master of the craft. He completely controlled every radio broadcast every cinematic newsreel every word published in a newspaper. It was tightly controlled, nothing was allowed to seep out. When it did, the person hinting at such things rather quickly recanted or disappeared forever!
Indeed, nowadays although they would never admit it, our modern day western propagandists look upon the German midget as a hero of the art! A man to be admired for his ‘gift’ his use of film, media, printed word and radio was a master class in controlling and duping the masses and the world.
That is the only reasons that any excuse can be found for the German people. Most will not to have known what was being carried out in their name. There are some conflicting opinions on whether or not allied intelligence knew the extent of the slaughter. Is it because they did know and did nothing that lets them now turn a blind eye to Israel’s war crimes?
Here we are nearly 80 years after the end of that war and those revelations of the barbarity of fascism. The words that have been used so many times since 1945 “never again” are now superfluous. Israel the US along with the western nations have ensured that.
Today we do have Smartphones, Drones, 24×7 news, Journalists in Gaza reporting. Though the IsraeliΒ are killing them at a rapid rate.As of August 14, 2024, the Committee To Protect Journalists (CPJ) tell us that preliminary investigations showed at least 113 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since October last year. For context, a total of 69 journalists were killed in WWII, 63 in the Vietnam War both of which lasted several years.
Every day the entire world is able to watch as the Palestinian people are subjected to a US backed Israeli genocide. To date 15,000 children have been murdered. 41,000 civilians have been slaughtered by bomb and gun. It is estimated at least the same number again lie dead under the rubble. Can you imagine 30,000 innocent children killed and the western governments and their tame media tell us there is no genocide?
The western media that call themselves journalists should be ashamed that in the main they ignore this latest holocaust. Maybe because those being illegally murdered are brown and non Christian. Racism certainly plays a part. So does bribery and corruption. The Israeli lobby using US tax dollars own all the American politicians. Both houses of the Senate, the State legislatures all bribed through Aipac.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC /ΛeΙͺpΓ¦k/ AY-pak) is a pro-Israel lobbying group that advocates its policies to the legislative and executive branches of the United States.
Literally US tax payers money is laundered through Israel and ends up back in the US in the politicians and ‘journalists’ bank accounts. Anyone that speaks out about the Palestinian Genocide or the US corruption is immediately set upon in true fascist way. The anti-semite label is used against anyone that dares to raise even the slightest criticism of Israel’s war crimes, apartheid or genocide!
More and more the world is dividing into two camps the West and global south. Multipolar and Unipolar factions. In the north you have to believe in certain things, or you will be cancelled, deleted, fired, isolated, smeared and subject to possible arrest and imprisonment for ‘hate speech.’
It is now deemed as hate speech if you say Israel is committing a genocide! Nobody can change their sex. Transwomen are male. Transwomen should not be in women’s safe spaces, sports or bathrooms. All could get you arrested and possibly sent to prison. Indeed, this article although 100% factually true could be deemed by big brother to be inviting hate and I could possibly face arrest.
Our leaders of today do not like the truth.At the entrance to the Nazi death camps the inscription on the gates said, ‘Arbeit macht frei’ work makes you free.
Nowadays it seems “Truth gets you cancelled.” Unlike the German people in the 1940s, we have no excuses for allowing this present day holocaust to continue unabated. We see it all day every day and yet the world allows it to continue.
In the recent UK General Election 52% of those eligible to vote actually bothered to vote. It equates approximately to 22-23 million voters. The vast majority unwittingly voted to support the genocide. No party stood up and said Vote for us we oppose the genocide and Israel’s war crimes. The parties are all scared of and beholding to Tel Aviv. It is just a fact that by voting in July at the UK election you are now complicit in a genocide.
The same applies to every US citizen in November that votes for Trump, Harris or RFK all of them support the genocide or if you prefer denies there is even a genocide happening. That is how the politicians absolve themselves of any responsibility. It is not a genocide.It is self-defence against terrorists.
Think back to the lies and propaganda the Nazis used to sanitise their murdering of 6 million Jews, 300,000 gypsies, 270,000 Disabled persons 80-100,000 Freemasons, 3.3 million Russian POWs.
Then today think on the lies every newspaper, television news channel, radio station are telling you! Our western journalists are being directed to tell you to believe there is no genocide. If they don’t, they will be a target for the Israeli lobby. We have seen this week a comedian being cancelled for a joke! A concert pianist sacked for dedicating a piece to the suffering of the Palestinians!
The same journalists and outlets that tell you Scotland is too wee, too stupid, too poor to be independent. That tells you GERS is true. That giving away our electricity, oil and gas for nothing is a non story. The same ones that remained silent when Craig Murray was imprisoned for telling the truth. Not a single one spoke out. The same ones that were silent for years as Julian Assange rotted in prison.
The same ones that are telling you Russia, China and Iran are threats to world peace as US arms and agitates in Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. They are telling you there is no genocide! They lie about everything that might make you say, ‘Enough!’
First they came for the Palestinians and I said nothing….
I have never contributed an opinion on your site although i rely on the prisim discusions to inform me. In that regard i am never disappointed. I agree wholeheartedly with the comparisons you have made here. Now that sadly, Ian Lawson is no longer with us we still have yourself and wings to shine light into the dark spaces. All the best. In the words of john maclean. “Keep it going Lads. Keep it going.”.
Thank you Frank for your support and taking the bother to comment it is appreciated.
The truth of the matter is that the world is due another big slaughter.
Over the last few weeks the nuclear weapons store in Glen Douglas Scotland has been busy tooling up Royal Navy ships.
And in Europe the US has been tooling up Nato countries with nuclear weaponry as well
No doubt the Russians are doing the same putting their kit in place.
It is without all ready to rock and roll and with rumour that US and UK backed Ukraine is ready to hit a major Russian nuclear power station in a dirty bomb attack I think we might now all have the opportunity to stand tall.
Without doubt in any major conflagration UK cities and installations will be hit, as of course will Russian and US cities and installations.
Slaughter of many, and mass destruction is our way. Look at Germany after the war, look at Japan after the war. But they were the bad guys and we were the good guys.
And this time we will of course be the good guys again. How could we be anything less. And war is what we need. At a stroke it would restore Brittanic pride. And any losses we could celebrate for it is a price worth paying.
Trump says he wants peace. That no one wins. But he is wrong. We won the war and will do so again. Russia, China, Korea, Iran and others are our enemy. They are bad. We are good.
So there you have it. A succinct summary, sane and sensible as to why we need war. You know it makes sense. Why jaw jaw when you can war war.
Ukraine and indeed Palestine is letting us show the way.
Or am I sadly missing something Roddy?
This Tweet from John Mason MSP
If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they would have killed ten times as many.
β John Mason (@JohnMasonMSP) August 16, 2024
I find myself immediately able to enumerate a multitude of ways in which these words might illuminate the character of one who might so thoughtlessly issue them.
Is he a bit thick?
So stupid as not to be able to spot the logical flaw in a statement like this:
“My client has at this time killed only 2 people out of crowd of approximately 100 innocent bystanders, therefore they cannot be guilty of any unlawful killing as they have not (yet) killed the others”
Perhaps some of the TaSP crew might know him well enough to be able to comment on his character?
Up until now I hadn’t particularly noticed him as being especially more attention seeking or self-entitled than the rest of that bunch … but that is not a high bar to pass!
To be fair, aLurker, he was pointing out that the word, ‘genocide’ has a very particular meaning. What is happening in Gaza is a slaughter. Whatever the ICJ called it, it is not genocide. Whether that is because the West and the world is watching or because the Israelis have shown restraint to some extent, is not known, but i would think they have shown restraint. In excess of three million died in the Congo – again a horrible slaughter, but not a genocide.
The killing of the Armenians by the Turks was the first recognized genocide because it was intended to murder the entire population without restraint; the killing of the Jews and the Gypsies by the Nazis was genocide because extermination of the races was the intention; the British wipeout of all indigenous peoples in Tasmania was genocide – not one Aboriginal person survived. Again, Rwanda and the wipeout of the Tutsis was an attempted genocide. Throughout history, there have been genocides, such as isolated ones in the US where indigenous populations were totally destroyed. None of these were accidental overreach: they were intended to wipe out peoples.
Now, some might suspect that this is what Israel is embarked upon, but is the intention really to wipe out all Palestinians? A quarter of the citizens of Israel are of Palestinian origin. There are several millions of Gazan Palestinians, and while the numbers of dead is deplorable, most of them are still alive, albeit existing in a wretched state. More millions are settled throughout the Middle East, in Egypt, in Algeria, in Tunisia, in Libya, etc., and many have settled in the US, Britain, etc., in the West. All of their neighbours fear their entering their territory to start up a guerrilla war on their soil. I am not trying to minimise the loss of human life in Gaza, but we have to be very careful of the words we use and we have to be fair to both sides because Israel has been threatened, since its existence in 1948, with extermination by its Arab neighbours that is, with genocide, if we take that to be only Israelis as opposed to Jews.
Many of the problems in the West Bank can be put down to illegal settlements encroaching on Palestinian land, and even Netanyahu has condemned the encroachments and killing, but, again, rockets into Israel have never actually ceased throughout the Gaza campaign, so it must be the case that Hamas is still operating and regrouping in both populations. How and where? As we know from most guerrilla wars, fighters mix with the local populations where they get covert support. France’s ‘maquis’ during WW II came from local populations and were supported by them. Thousands of civilians in Vichy died in reprisals because they would not give up the fighters or because the fighters had gone to ground. We should know better these days, but we don’t. What we need to understand is that, if Israel is invaded, the population will also fight, and most younger, and even older, Israelis have had military training, including the women. Israel also has nuclear weapons, as has Russia.
You sound like an apologist for Zionism and its vile doctrine.
Do I? Well, I’m not and never have been. The word, ‘genocide’ is bandied about far too much nowadays and has lost its meaning. If anyone understands what genocide actually is, it’s the Jews, who were slaughtered on an industrial scale using industrial means, with the intent to destroy and eliminate an entire people. I ask again: would this have happened if Hamas had not carried out the October 7th attacks and gloried in killing people? What went before has never led to a conflict like this between Israel and the Palestinians. Never. Not even ion the various wars.
The slaughter in the camp in Lebanon was truly horrific, but it was mainly the persecuted Druze who carried that out, not the Israelis, although I have no doubt, the Israelis did little to prevent it. The way to avoid needless killing and deaths is to come to an agreement. No agreement can be reached unless Israel is recognized by all its Arab neighbours, unless Israel Proper is understood by the Palestinians to be impossible to reoccupy; and unless the Israelis recognize full autonomy for the Palestinians, with certain resource sharing, such as water.
The children of the Nazi death camps, traumatized beyond repair, went to Israel, most of them, after liberation of the camps, and they would have been in no mind to take no for an answer when they were promised their ancestral homeland by the British. They would have been parentless and without family, angry to the point of murderous rage. What has happened between Israelis and Palestinians since 1948 is horrendous and I have always condemned the expansion of the settlements because these are populated mainly by the Zionists from America and elsewhere. The wider Israeli population is not Zionist, but they fight for their right to exist in Israel.
We did enough damage in 1948 with the partition of the country along lines that were not the original ones intended to settle the question. As I said in another comment, Jewish DNA would undoubtedly prove that even the European Jews came from the Middle East originally. Most present-day Palestinians are ethnic Syrians, or other Arab ethnicities, which, in no way, negates their right to exist in Gaza and the West Bank. Both groups are Semitic.
Great reply Lorna.
Whilst I actually agree with the general points that you make there, the particular circumstances that apply in this example are very specific.
The terms that both the ICC and the ICJ are using are explicitly defined and anyone, including John Mason MSP can read them, as I have done.
The UN text explicitly says ‘in whole or in part’ i.e. the excuse that you were behaving genocidaly to only part of a defined population group cannot be used as an excuse that the slaughter is not a genocide.
The lawyers thought of that and put it in the definitions.
So if John Mason MSP chooses to use rhetorical casuistry over the literal meaning of a word, one wonders if he has to be pretty stupid for choosing that particular word, or is pretty stupid to not look it up first, or for not more carefully choosing his words in such a way as to include the meaning he prefers but exclude the UN meaning as used by their courts.
Anyhooo it seems like half the country is talking about it now and many people seem to be pretty clear he is a total roaster!!! π
Oh and for those who are not aware of a bit of Imperial History, the modern German state was just as reluctant to acknowledge their deliberate extermination of indigenous tribes in Africa as the modern Turkish state still is to acknowledge the genocide of Armenian peoples. (Or indeed the British state, or the United States of North America.)
Seems like a long running theme among the colonialist, settler or ‘Empire’ countries. π
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Nama_genocide
aLurker: I don’t know Mr Mason at all, so I won’t comment on his choice of wording, but I, personally, do not believe that we are witnessing genocide, but, rather, horrible slaughter. I take on board that even a portion of a population can be exterminated and that can still be genocide, but, again, the mindset for genocide would still have to be present and/or the utter recklessness displayed suggested that genocide was a probable outcome of that recklessness, which is where, I think the ICC and ICJ, are coming from, actually. Much the same applies to murder.
I do not believe, and have never believed, that Israel wants to exterminate the Palestinians or remove them permanently from Gaza. Now, I understand that some might think that is naive of me, but I think that Israel would like the Palestinians to accept Israel and accept autonomy up to the point where Israel has ultimate authority to intervene if Hamas or any other organization decides to try to invade or eliminate Israel and Israelis. I ask the question again: would Israel have invaded Gaza had Hamas not done what it did on October 7th? I think not.
What must also be considered is that Hamas knew what it was doing and it knew that its people would suffer terribly if Israel retaliated, which it was bound to do. Did it believe that Hezbollah and the Houthis, and, ultimately, Iran would attack Israel on behalf of then Palestinians? I think it did. Which is precisely why those Arab states that want no truck with the Palestinians have closed their borders to refugees. Take in the refugees and you import Hamas, so even the Arab states know that Hamas exists within the Palestinian population.
Also, Hamas attacked just as Israel was in the process of negotiating trade deals with Egypt and Saudi, and, since trade oils the wheels of diplomacy, Hamas must have viewed such a development with alarm. Although offering no comfort to the Palestinians, both Egypt and Saudi have refuted the trade deals. The plight of the genuinely innocent of Hamas membership or support Palestinian population is being brutalized because they are caught between, not two, but several, political stools, including those among them who are Hamas members or supporters, possibly members of their own families.
It is a very precarious situation, and I find the South African intervention and the ICJ ruling to be more harmful than anything else. If an end to hostilities can be effected through overt or covert diplomatic communications, then it can only be a good thing for the Palestinian civilians. One thing is certain: the Israelis are going to finish the job, although they will probably not be able to eliminate Hamas; their best hope is to cripple it so badly, it will have much less influence on the Gazans in future; and whoever was to replace Netanyahu would also continue the conflict against Hamas which is claiming so many Palestinian lives, so removing him would be pointless. Whoever that is could be a lot worse, just as someone a lot worse than Putin could arise in Russia.
I ask the question again: would Israel have invaded Gaza had Hamas not done what it did on October 7th? I think not.
Actually Lorna, the answer is Yes,the Israelis have been invading Palestinian land since 1948.They have been murdering and stealing Palestinian land and homes in the sane timeframe. Hampshire are not in the Westbank however the killing and stealing continues there unabated.
Although it’s neither profitable nor popular to say such things: it’s as well to remember that the US has form for participating in genocide, such as that unleashed on the indigenous American people. It’s also worth remembering that the Israelis have nowhere else to go (certainly not back to Europe), other than into neighbouring people’s territory. The shared behavioural pattern is stark! As for Ukraine: we might well be witnessing Western imperialism and its Grand Army’s final folly or, the opening shots of the first anti-imperialist world war.
Actually Carmen most Israelis have dual nationalities and passports. The largest number being American,hence the preponderance to use weapons at will and blast everything in site. For example Netanyahu was born in Poland not Israel. Many members of the IDF carrying out the war crimes have flown in specially to join in the slaughter. Early on in the conflict one of the Colonels of the IDF was a creature from Newton Mearns. Once this latest killing spree is over he no doubt will return to East Renfrewshire to live out his existence. It is reminiscent of the Nazis post WWII that happily resettled in US,Canada and UK. Their vile ways seeped into all societies encouraged I have to say by the ruling elite who don’t quite hold Hitler and Nazism in the same contempt as the rest of us.
I agree that war crimes must be prosecuted vigorously, Roddy. The rapes that have been perpetrated against Palestinian males in custody are appalling, although we should remember that female Palestinians held in custody have been raped routinely for decades and received little publicity or protest. Both males and females have died from ill-treatment. It also needs to be pointed out that many Israeli civilians and military personnel have protested ill-treat meant of prisoners.
As for most having dual passports, that is true, and it is also true that many are either of American or Russian origin, Polish or Eastern European, but many, many more were born there or were expelled from the neighbouring Arab states in pogroms. Some were even born in the pre 1948 Palestine and have nowhere else to go. Jews were to be found in all of the neighbouring Arab states in times past, long before the Romans expelled the Israelites. Also, Judaism and even Christianity were long-established in the Middle East before Islam, albeit not before the Arab peoples, and most Palestinians have Syrian and other Arab origins. What is now Gaza was populated by ethnic Greek and other allied peoples in antiquity.
Whatever, anyone anywhere who deliberately uses war as a cover for the most unspeakable atrocities needs to be pursued. The Israelis need to be pressured to provide cover for the Palestinian population when they forge a counter-offensive, and it has to be made clear to them that, after the conflict os over, the population will be returned to their homes, such as they are. On the other hand, the neighbouring Arab states need to be persuaded that recognition of Israel is the only thing that will stop the carnage, and that what is now Israel Proper will remain as a state. Iran is another question that the West has to face up to and settle eventually because Iran is almost certainly the catalyst for much of the unrest.
Here’s the thing Lorna I view what happened to my fellow Scots post Culloden as genocide yet Scots race still exists though much diminished in numbers. Our population should be around 20-25 million.If it were so we would most likely have been Independent by now or at least in a more equal status in this accursed union. Likewise I view the Famine as another Anglo genocide.
Let’s not play on words and definitions Israel is a rogue state a breaker of 64 UN resolutions a war criminal government a scourge on society. They only exist because another rogue state that flouts international law is the worlds bully and Israels sponsor and protector. Those two nations are THE threat tothe world not any other nation
I agree, Roddy, that it was intended to be a genocide of our Highland culture, if not of the actual people, but many were shipped to the Americas where they flourished. I’m sorry, because I would not like us to fall out over this, and, maybe I am being pedantic, but, to me, genocide must be used judiciously or it loses all its potency and horror. The Scots, as a whole, were not massacred after Culloden. The Irish potato famine is much more of a problem because, although they viewed us as lesser human beings, they viewed the Irish as non humans.
I also agree that Israel has flouted many UN resolutions, and war crimes have been done. However, pragmatically, few will ever be prosecuted. Hundreds of thousands of war criminals in the Congo, in Rwanda, in the Bosnian war were allowed to escape justice. If Israel is ever prosecuted, a few individuals will be the scapegoats. I wish with all my heart that it could be different, but it never is. If I had my way, I’d have the heads of the governments, of big businesses who make the profits of war, placed in an arena and forced to fight instead of mobilising armies. That would end wars almost overnight, when it is not they or their children who do the dying.
https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/what-is-genocide/
“What is genocide?
A Polish lawyer, Raphael Lemkin, first devised the concept of genocide in response to atrocities perpetrated against the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, which took place between 1915 and 1923.
On 11 December 1946 the General Assembly of the United Nations resolved that genocide was a crime under international law. This was approved and ratified as a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide on 9 December 1948. The Convention defines genocide as:
βany of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
killing members of the group
causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
A number of specific actions have been deemed to be punishable under the Convention. These are:
genocide
conspiracy to commit genocide
direct and public incitement to commit genocide
attempt to commit genocide
complicity in genocide
Actions do not need to lead to deaths to be considered to be acts of genocide β causing serious bodily or mental harm or the deprivation of resources such as clean water, food, shelter or medical services can be regarded as inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction. Causing serious bodily or mental harm includes the infliction of widespread torture, rape and sexual violence. It is also a criminal offence to plan or incite genocide β even before the killing starts. This recognises that genocide does not just happen. There is always a path that leads to genocide.
Genocide is a complex legal term, and a full criminal trial in an international court is necessary to determine what is and is not genocide. This is partly because genocide is not only the act of murdering or persecuting many people, but it is defined as a crime where there is intent to destroy a group β which is difficult to prove, particularly in retrospect.”
Take this example Lorna “Actions do not need to lead to deaths to be considered to be acts of genocide β causing serious bodily or mental harm or the deprivation of resources such as clean water, food, shelter or medical services can be regarded as inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction. Causing serious bodily or mental harm includes the infliction of widespread torture, rape and sexual violence. It is also a criminal offence to plan or incite genocide β even before the killing starts. This recognises that genocide does not just happen. There is always a path that leads to genocide.”
Lorna, don’t get tied up with thinking the genocide has only been happening since October 8th 2023, its been occurring since the Al Nakba in 1948, , when the refugees fleeing the Stern gangs and militias of Jewish fighters when the occupation began, didn’t allow refugees the right to return, yet it allows Ashkenazi jews the right to return to a nation where it doesn’t have any genetic links to.
The Zionazis are no better than German Nazis of WWII when getting rid of untermenschen, Grousebeater has a great article written by a former IDF Company commander of the IDF who fought in the Yom Kippur war, its well worth a read before anyone calls me an antisemite, it describes the use of language by Nazis in the run up to the Holocaust, and by the zionazi government of Israel and how similar it is when they used terms to dehumanise those they are against
https://grousebeater.wordpress.com/2024/08/18/the-idf-soldiers-tale/
What are we saying. Is it that it is not genocide until you kill the very last person.
If that’s the case Germany and Nazi’s failed in the 1930s. And as someone pointed out Palestine is no genocide either.
Folks are just playing with language and numbers when they indulge in this kind of debate.
One man’s slaughter is another man’s genocide. And with the way things are going we might only be at the start of the killing.
Slaughter seems to be the word that fits. It covers everything, and maybe that’s what John Mason meant.
But let’s not get hung up on it. We spend ever more on weaponry.supporting conflict around the world whilst we cut the winter heating allowance for pensioners.
And for the most part what do we do….??
No, Willie, that is the entirely wrong conclusion. Actual killing of all does not have to happen, but the intent to commit genocide must be present, just as the mens era (intent) for murder must be present. The Turks did not kill every Armenian, but they intended that no Armenian should survive. I was pointing out that the Israelis have a quarter of their population as Palestinians, and, more or less, they live peaceably together, with Palestinians being educated and even some in the Knesset and in the army. 40,000 dead Palestinians in Gaza is 40,000 too many, but it is not genocide. Had the surrounding Arab states given the Gazans refuge, Israel would have let them leave, but no Arab state wants them because they know that Hamas will create trouble for them, too. It is far more complicated than many seem to realize, although I believe that Israel could have done more to set up a holding area for the women and children.
Indeed, Roddy, those dual-nationals, having mentally dehumanised the Palestinians and Muslims generally, are fighting their own uniformed version of Holy war. I’m not too precious about the term “genocide”, but no matter what name you care to give it, the mass slaughter of of largely, unarmed civilians, along with the active withholding of food, water and medicines isn’t the outcome of some logistical screw-up on the part of the Israeli authorities, as numerous cargoes of essential, life-saving aid are detained and allowed to perish onboard trucks at the Egyptian border. Likewise, are those Israelis who hamper and destroy the small number of cargoes allowed into Gaza ever brought to book for their hateful, organised vandalism, which can only have one intention in mind? Debates regarding the precise UN definition and actuality of the term “genocide” are but propagandistic, conscience numbing ‘squirrels’, in my humble opinion.
Yes, Roddy, the israelis have been claiming land from the Palestinians for new settlements and I have always condemned that, as I have always condemned the killings. However, never before has the Israeli army actually obliterated huge parts of Gaza, nor killed as many Palestinians. This action was directly due to the Hamas incursion. This has not been a tit-for-tat conflict, but all-out war of such savagery that the whole world is shocked. I daresay the Hamas leaders are more shocked than most, because, a) they did not expect such a reaction, which is why they took the hostages; b) they thought that other Arab nations, notably Iran, which is not Arab, would come to their aid; and, c) because they thought the world would move against Israel. What they did not count on was the totally clinical and ruthless destruction of Gaza piece by piece, building by building because the Israelis had had enough. I make it my business to learn about both sides and I neither condone nor support either fully, but I do understand that there are two sides. No ceasefire is possible unless Israel is recognized by all the Arab nations, and no peace is possible until the Palestinians are an autonomous people within a region which must share essential resources like water. Both require to compromise. Sorry Roddy, can we just agree to disagree?