Supporters and critics of Israel’s war against the civilians of Gaza keep arguing over whether the mass killings, famine, and ethnic cleansing amount to genocide. No doubt it does. But why are we arguing about semantics? Israel doesn’t dispute what it’s doing; they’re using the debate over the G-word as a distraction.
Evil Mofos
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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I actually do have doubt, mainly because I’m not convinced that genocide is a coherent or useful concept. It is basically impossible to prove beyond the doubt of those who do not already believe in it that the leaders of Country X were truly planning to completely eliminate a group as opposed to eliminating many members of it. But I agree with the point here. Even if it were somehow proved that, despite all indications to the contrary, Country X merely meant to kill a lot of Population Y, the dead Y-ans would be no less dead for it, and it would be no less a crime, if of course we think avoidable killings are a crime.
All these arguments over terminology are distractions from the main problem that, both historically and currently, there is too much death and destruction happening. Those who can envision a future with peace, security, and autonomy for everyone in the region must keep working at it, and not allow the terminology battles nor the ongoing violence to distract them.
I heard this afternoon that a couple of Israeli human rights groups denounced Usreal’s (“Usreal” because Israel would be impotent without the US) actions in Gaza as genocide. I think I also heard that Netanyahu, in response, denounced them as Antisemitic. 🙂
If they are /Israeli/ human rights groups that makes Netanyahu antisemitic too! Right?
He is certainly engaging in actions that are giving Judaism a bad name.