[komali2]

I always think I've found the limit of people's ability to blame communism for every problem on earth, and I'm always surprised.

Was the current genocide in Palestine the fault of Communism also? Was 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, communism?

[throw-the-towel]

> Was the current genocide in Palestine the fault of Communism also?

Stalin had a crucial role in creating Israel, so, yes?

[elefanten]

That's a strawman caricature of the argument. States that are driven by free market allocation rather than central planning (because there's no _pure_ model of either/or) are much less likely to initiate major wars of conquest, such as the ongoing Ukraine war or a hypothetical invasion of Taiwan. That's just empirical fact at this point. There are counterexamples, but the propensity goes strongly in one direction.

Also, "current genocide in Palestine" is a provocative / activist assertion, not a correct consensus use of terminology. It would at least open to debate, for example, that the situation started with a "genocide in Israel". Clarity won't be achievable for a while on that one -- but you can certainly signal that you've pre-judged the situation or can't be objective about it, with phrasing like yours.

[voltaireodactyl]

(Edited: reconsidered exposing my own ignorance of history as soon as I pressed send)

[komali2]

> - but you can certainly signal that you've pre-judged the situation

I'm happy to listen to arguments that occupied Palestine was, at the same time as it was being occupied, also genociding the Israelis, however the case for Israelis genociding the Palestinians today is well argued: https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/10/Is... . This is separate from justification attempts. I believe there is no justification for genocide, others may disagree, however it would be very strange for someone to argue that Israel is not attempting to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians. That being the definition of genocide. I have looked at these arguments, listened to opposition to these arguments, and determined that Israel is indeed committing a genocide. I'm not sure how that's different from other things I've determined or why it specifically should be considered "pre-judging."

> States that are driven by free market allocation rather than central planning (because there's no _pure_ model of either/or) are much less likely to initiate major wars of conquest,

This doesn't make sense to me considering one of the largest drivers for global war and conflict has been the "free market" USA. When should we consider America having been a "free market" state? Is the 1800s too early? Do we count all the wars against native americans as one war of conquest, or each individual one as its own war? First Seminole, Black Hawk, Winnebago, etc. Then there's Mexican-American, the Opium wars (also participated in by Free Market Great Britain and France), the war against the Mormons, etc. Maybe America wasn't free market until the 20th century? Well, in that case, the Indian wars were still ongoing as late as the 1910s, there was the USA occupation of Veracruz, Haiti, Dominican Republic. There was American involvement in the Korean and Vietnam war though I can accept that those weren't necessarily "wars of conquest," though the USA framed it as a war of Free Market Capitalism vs Communism, in which case, the goal was to conquest communism. The USA also attempted to invade Cuba, did invade Grenada, bombed Libya, invaded Panama, then there's the Gulf war... which brings us to the 21st century. We have the 20 year war in Afghanistan, which was begun on a false premise of finding weapons of mass destruction, similar to the Iraq War, same time period.

Let's now go down the list of conquests and invasions by non-free market states.

Obviously, Nazi Germany, not having a free market, tops the list. Luckily it was defeated relatively quickly from a historical standpoint, so, very small time period to analyse, though I think you and I both agree that they wouldn't have stopped until total world domination.

We can look at the Soviets, and again, smaller time period, so we can be fair and compare their 20th century behavior to the Americans in the 20th century. They invaded Afghanistan (poor country can't catch a break from the commies or the capitalists!), was at least as involved in the Korean and the Vietnam war as the USA was, pressured the Polish border, the Finish border, and the Japanese border, which I would agree is a war of aggression. Invasion of Czechoslovakia, definitely a war of aggression. Further wars escape me - the Soviets never invaded Cuba nor American territory, so I think that's +1 war for America (ostensibly the Soviets were merely providing the means for Cubans to defend themselves from an apparently aggressive neighboring nation!). Am I missing any Soviet wars? Then the collapse into Russia, which, if we count them as the same country, I'm not sure - the notable difference between Russia and the Soviet Union was that Russia was seeking a more free market, globalist economy. Yes, it's certainly not as free market as the USA, but neither country are true free market economies, right? In any case, certainly late 20th century Russia had aggressive actions such as in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Chechnya (ostensibly started by their own struggle for independence but Russia's refusal to acknowledge that could perhaps be compared to Native American struggles to maintain independence). Invasion of Georgia, and of course invasion of Ukraine. You really think Russia is a centrally planned economy? I don't think corruption counts as central planning.

Then, the PRC, free market or no? In the beginning absolutely not, and this coincided with their most aggressive period, but as they split into a more free market economy, their wars of aggression cooled, unlike America's. Cold War meddling like the USA and Soviets, and then attacks on Taiwan (sort of a continuation of their own civil war, but not necessary and therefore imo aggression). Border disputes with India, invasion of Cambodia / Vietnam, invasion of Tibet, genocide against Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, and that's about it. Imperialist threats against Taiwan on a weekly basis into the 21st century, economic imperialist activity in Africa, global cultural imperialist and han supremacist activity, not much more than that.

By my eye, I'm not seeing evidence that a State economy being free market or centrally planned has any bearing on its aggression. We have centrally planned countries that tried to take over the whole world (nazi germany), aggressively tried to spread communism (soviet union, PRC), and push on borders (soviet union, PRC), and we have market economies that wiped out indigenous people, aggressively spread capitalism / resisted spread of communism, invaded countries outright, overthrew local governments, and so on.

> That's just empirical fact at this point. There are counterexamples, but the propensity goes strongly in one direction.

What are you looking at that I'm not?

[elefanten]

>it would be very strange for someone to argue that Israel is not attempting to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians

This line alone proves all my points on the topic. That you find it _unfathomable_ that Israel has goals other than the destruction of Palestine shows how one-sided your view on the subject is. There's nothing I can write in this forum that will change such a deeply warped perception, but I'll state for the record: no serious international observer believes that claim. Ironically, that claim is usually made much more convincingly in the other direction -- that various regional factions have sought the utter destruction of Israel -- but even that is considered an extreme view (of the present) by most experts.

>I have looked at these arguments, listened to opposition to these arguments, and determined that Israel is indeed committing a genocide.

Good for you, but there is a lot more information than you alone have processed, and much more information about the current conflict is not available and will not be for some time. So by declaring your personal "determination", you are really just declaring an amateurish opinion via malapropism.

>What are you looking at that I'm not?

The frame of reference (as the other poster indicated) is post-WW2. That's when the current international order was established and also when globalization kicked into high gear. Since then, world trade integrated free market economies simply haven't started wars of conquest designed to change the ownership of territory. Yes, there are wars of intervention, regime change, etc. which have almost exclusively been precipitated against regimes that are deeply hostile to and out of sync with the international order. I'm not saying those are all just, or harmless. But the scale of destruction caused by WW1&2-style total war / wars of conquest is incomparable to the expeditionary wars described above. Bound the claim correctly and it's very simply true: free market states in the current order don't start the most devastating and costly kinds of conflict, whereas authoritarian states still do, to devastating effect. Both kinds of states do other types of bad things, but that's a non-responsive non-sequitur to this particular point about the advantages of market steering vs. centralized steering.

[komali2]

I didn't say Israel doesn't have goals other than genocide. I said they're doing a genocide.

> no serious international observer believes that claim

Well, some would call this "appeal to authority fallacy," but, I'm not sure, would you call these people "unserious international observers?"

* Damien Short, professor of human rights at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, and co-director of the Human Rights Consortium. He and Haifa Rashed, also at the University of London, analyse a genocide of Palestinians by Israel: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642987.2012.73...

* John Docker, professor in the Humanities and Research Centre at Australian National University, has written extensively on Israel genocide against Palestine https://www.euppublishing.com/author/Docker%2C+John

* Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Professor of Politics at Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, has called what is happening to the Palestinians a genocide https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2024.2...

* The Center for Constitutional Rights, famed defenders of the Chicago 8, has denounced the genocide against the Palestinians https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2016/10/Ba...

* The national governments of South Africa, Algeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, the PRC, Colombia, Comoros, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Namibia, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Slovenia, Syria, Turkey, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe have accused Israel of committing genocide. Are nations not "serious international observers" if they're not big / American enough?

I barely scratched the surface. You can find some very highly qualified people, very serious people, arguing that what's happening in Palestine isn't a genocide, of course, but I think it's quite unfair to accuse me of being unserious or "having a deeply warped perception." I gave the no-genocide camp respect, I read the papers, I read the accusations of antisemitism, fake news, etc, and found them lacking, and I believe I am on the right side of history. You seem to be accusing me of being some kind of mindless holy warrior.

> that various regional factions have sought the utter destruction of Israel

I'm not arguing this one way or the other. I simply said before I don't believe there's any justification of genocide, and genocide is what Israel is doing do the Palestinians.

> much more information about the current conflict is not available and will not be for some time

Luckily, you don't need to wait for the complete eradication of a people to call it a genocide, you can do so while it's happening, and you observe the "destruction in part" of a people. This is actually a part of the legal definition of genocide, that it can be credibly applied during the events happening, you can see more in the original paper I linked on the subject.

> change the ownership of territory

If we're talking about the "new international order," isn't it a little naive to claim that wars that don't result in a 1800s British Colony output with a new national flag, aren't "wars of conquest?" From your perspective, were the communists aiming to lift the same national flag over a new communist government, doing wars of conquest? I would think you'd argue yes. I would argue the same for American intervention to establish puppet governments.

So far as I'm aware, WWI had very little to do with free market vs planned economy nations. And while Nazi germany was certainly a planned economy, it, quite famously, lost to another planned economy, allied with a market economy. Since then, what planned economy nations have started "the most devastating and costly kinds of conflict?" I'm gonna be honest, I simply don't accept that Russia is a planned economy lol. As I said, it's not as free market as the USA, but it's not communist, nor is the PRC. I don't see Venezuela or Cuba or Vietnam kicking off any wars recently either, so I just don't understand where your framing is coming from.

[avarun]

For anybody to take your comment seriously, you'd first have to actually explain how you get to your assumptions. Because most serious people reject your assumption that there's a genocide going on in Palestine right now.

[komali2]

Oh, well, that's pretty easy to explain. Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. Israel is intentionally destroying Palestinian people in part if not in whole.

Here's a good FAQ: https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/11/FA...

> In their public statements and speeches, Israeli officials have used dehumanizing language, describing Palestinians in Gaza as “human animals.” They have also been unequivocal in the goal of maximum harm, stating that the “emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy” using “fire of a magnitude that the enemy has not known.”

Here is a full legal analysis: https://ccrjustice.org/sites/default/files/attach/2023/10/Is...

Of course this is not the most systematized, industrialized genocides in human history; that would be the Holocaust. It is nonetheless a genocide.

[racional]

One can be reasonably serious as a person without being fully informed of the situation on the ground in the occupied territories (either in the current moment, or in the context of Israel's continuous efforts to dislodge and dehumanize the Palestinians since 1948). Or without being aware of the modern definition of the term "genocide" (per the very first line in the Wikipedia page, and its usage by the ICJ and countless legal and human rights organizations) to include the intentional destruction of target populations "in whole or in part".

Once one understands enough basic regional history to connect the dots, and is aware of the modern definition -- it's perfectly bloody obvious what's happening.