Yes, the intent is there in case of Israel. For example, purposely (not incidentally) destroying all life supporting infrastructure even if it does not have any military significance (like drinking water supply) clearly demonstrates intent to depopulate.
You say it's purposeful, they say it's incidental. Israel still supplies Gaza with water, albeit at a substantially reduced rate. Roughly 40% of the water infrastructure remains operational[1]. Therefore, your maximalist claim of "destroying all life supporting infrastructure" is false.
Russia has hit plenty of life-supporting infrastructure in the affected areas of Ukraine and millions have been displaced. Will you therefore admit a genocide committed by Russia?
> over 85% of water and sanitation facilities are now completely or partially out of service
I don't even think I have to add anything to that. Either they incidentally destroyed that much, which means they are not discriminating between civilian and military facilities, which means they are deliberately commiting massive war crimes against civilians, or they deliberately destroyed that much, which means deliberate genocide.
> Will you therefore admit a genocide committed by Russia?
Russia is without a doubt commiting genocide, trying to destroy the Ukrainian nation. This is openly admitted by Putin in that he says there is no such nation. Luckily it is not entirely successful yet, but in annexed territories it is absolutely exterminating any mention of Ukrainian nationhood and ethnicity.
Israel is much more successful, both now and in the long term.
Hamas does not discriminate between civilian and military facilities in their operations. If there are militants near a piece of civilian infrastructure, should that give them legal immunity from being targeted, in your opinion? If so, how do you think that would affect the strategy of said militants?
At least you're consistent in regards to Ukraine. Now let's take it one step further: Most of the infrastructure of Raqqa was destroyed in the war against ISIS[1]. Did the coalition therefore commit a genocide and/or massive war crimes?
At this point deflecting to Hamas is pretty poor and worn out strategy, I think Israeli propaganda should pivot to something else, like [0].
Anyway for the sake of clarity:
> If there are militants near a piece of civilian infrastructure
1) Of course we would have to believe the attackers it's the case. But we can't believe them, can we? I could search for facts supporing my view, but these are not isolated incidents, it's a sustained campaign.
3) You still should not destroy the civilian infrastructure. I mean it's not that hard to understand: you should not kill civilians. Most people do understand that. Israeli army certainly understands that, it just chose to kill civilians and destroy their infrastructure.
I have no trouble believing that there are militants using every piece of available civilian infrastructure so that people like you get to shout "war crime" whenever the IDF calls them on their tactic. This is the only effective weapon that Hamas has.
Without ascribing further motivations, I don't see a difference to what's happening in Gaza and to what happened in Raqqa. If the motivation of Netanyahu is to "depopulate" Gaza, one must also ask why Hamas is doing everything to allow this to continue.
There is no question that civilians will die if they're caught up in urban warfare. Israel issues evacuation orders and designates zones where strikes are rare exceptions, with the knowledge that the enemy will take full advantage of this. If you're gonna set a standard beyond that, who can be expected to follow it?
Especially easy to find among Hamas, or PA, or a whole bunch of other Palestinian organisations even when it comes to their own people.
Palestinian organizations have committed genocide, no need to change definitions or laws, in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Israel and maybe Saudi Arabia too. In most of those places they have a reputation for disgusting cruelty (e.g. using snipers against school children in Lebanon)
So what you're saying is that boycotting is totally immoral? After all, that's reacting against Israeli civilians, which is not okay according to you.
Or more to the point, why do we always judge Israel and Palestine with 2 different measures? Either Israel as a people and as a country are innocent and "it's only the government", hence boycotts are immoral. XOR people and government are both the same and boycotting every Palestinian everywhere on the planet is normal. Oh and accept that half the people just attack/boycott/refuse to serve or sell anything to all muslims, not just Palestinians, focusing especially on kids and other weak muslims, "because of the situation in Israel". Perhaps even have crowds chanting "gas all muslims" near mosques. And, of course, any kind of public success for Muslims must be brutally attacked, people, spectators, business partners, ... [1] After all, par for the course for Jews ...
Not that anyone on the planet will be surprised that arguments only apply when making Jews evil, not to anyone else (more general any group we don't like, gypsies, the mentally ill, especially against mentally ill children, ...)
Boycotts are fine. Bringing economic pressure on people who's behaviour you want to alter is quite acceptable and normal. Its just killing and displacing them which is the issue.
You might notice that everyone condemned Hamas's Oct 7 attack.
> You might notice that everyone condemned Hamas's Oct 7 attack.
Did they boycott Palestinians after that? Did they boycott Palestinians when they were using aid to execute constant rocket attacks against Israeli civilians?
I never said that, and you are welcome to explain why you think i did.
Coincidentally, regarding that: I think that argument fails . Israel and Palestine are not comparable. Israel is the oppressor. The Goliath. Israel is, just like apartheid south Africa was, a settler colonial project. Considering the amount of time Israel has spent thwarting democratic process in Palestine, resistance movements are not very surprising. Heck, even Hamas was helped from the start by Israel as a means to split the struggle for Palestinian independence. The divide has been very practical for Israel indeed: every time discussions have come up, the official response has been "who should we even negotiate with?".
Support from Hamas has only grown because Fatah has been looked upon as weak because of their many concessions towards Israel that never went anywhere (Fatah being corrupt and incompetent has also played a role, of course)
A large chunk of the world officially boycotted SA apartheid. Sadly our governments do not take their responsibility today, which means people take it into their own hands. That makes for an arbitrary and very uneven form of mob justice.
Can you answer the real question? How do we force Palestinians to accept peace with Israel?
Because none of this explains how you decide on boycotts, and how you intend to achieve peace. If there's one thing all muslim countries have in common, it's oppression. None respect human rights (even Morocco and Turkey, both in some ways more liberal than many European countries, have laws against freedom of religion). Half of them are attacking others. Morocco oppresses Western Sahara, as well as it's own religious minorities. Turkey oppresses Kurds, both inside and outside Turkey. Turkey oppresses religious minorities, also inside and outside Turkey. Both countries, of course, are the "goliaths" in those conflicts. Palestine oppresses religious minorities. Of course, hamas goes further and apparently oppresses most families mafia-style, massacres gay people, oppresses religious minorities (though both PA and hamas have exterminated Palestinian Jews, Shi'a and Druze (yes, they existed), and 90%+ of Palestian Christians)
Obviously this argument cannot justify a boycott against Israel and not against, frankly, every muslim state on the planet.
And those are the very mildest of muslim countries.
Plus, I feel you're not arguing in good faith. I feel like this is like those old cold-war "You have freedom in the Soviet Union" discussions where every discussion goes into total absurdity in an attempt to talk up socialism despite everyone in the room knowing full well that in reality, first, that nobody's free in a socialist country, two, that those discussion have one, and only one, purpose: to prevent reactions to Soviet invasions.
This discussion for you seems to have ONE purpose only: to justify and amplify muslim violence against Israel. Otherwise: answer this question: HOW do we force Palestinians to accept peace with Israel.
The eu did surveys in ghaza that showed that 60% support hamas and its islamo supremacist goals. They really want to kill those jews badly, the only thing they dislike about hamas is that it is not winning.
So you're saying Israel is committing genocide because they are a foreign invasion force of European Jews that have the stated intent of eliminating Palestinians people from the land they're trying to take through a war they started in 1948?
And that Hamas are the good guys because they have a right to kill the foreign invaders trying to steal their land?
Is that the correct summary of Israel's genocidal intent?
This is emphasized by the fact that both Israel and Russia are accused of genocide in their attacks, and both bibi and vlad are wanted for war crimes, which tracks, because both have an "ends justify means" attitude.