Back In mid-January, Mara Kronenfeld was googling the name of the nonprofit she runs, which raises money in the US on behalf of the leading humanitarian aid provider in Gaza. Atop the search results for her organization—UNRWA USA, partner to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)—she saw a surprising ad. It read like a promo from the UN agency, but the link directed to an Israeli government website. Kronenfeld says she had found the beginnings of a months-long online advertising campaign by Israel to discredit and defund UNRWA.
After seeing the ads—paid for by the Israeli Government Advertising Agency, according to details shown when clicking on the menu button beside them—Kronenfeld and her staff of seven quickly appealed to Google for help fighting what they viewed as a misinformation campaign. What has happened since shows the delicate relationship Google has kept with its advertising client, Israel, and the limits of the company’s policing of alleged misinformation in ads.
Several current and former Google employees tell WIRED the anti-UNRWA campaign is just one volley of ads that Israel has orchestrated in recent months that have drawn complaints both inside and outside of the company. The ads about UNRWA and another campaign targeting the Middle East have not been previously reported.
It’s arguable whether there’s a genocide taking place. If Israel really wanted to eliminate everyone—civilians and Hamas alike—they’d have already done so, and from an operational point of view, it would be much easier and take less effort than targeted attacks. Using the word ‘genocide’ so easily really takes away the weight of the term unnecessarily. When a real genocide does occur somewhere in the world, everyone will be less attentive to it.
I love it when I know from the first sentence that there’s some awful apologia coming up… 🤦
That’s a CHILD’S definition of genocide.
The ACTUAL definition from the convention itself is thus, first paragraph bolding mine:
Fixed It for you.
Your own link states that “in part” definitions may lead to highly subjective conclusions.
By this measure, the death penalty in the US would be considered genocide “in part” (especially if the judge, jurors, or clerks are mostly white and the executed person is of color, so as to establish that a “group” is targeting another group). A person acting in self-defense with a resulting death to the aggressor may also fall into the genocide criteria.
If Israel is only intent on destroying the Hamas terrorist organization (it is technically a political party, but they broadened their horizons on October 7th, I guess…), and not the whole Gazan/Palestinian population, could it really still be labeled as genocide? As I said, some people will even say a single death may be genocide “in part,” so this widening of the definition just weakens the term, unfortunately.
Yes, if you redefine the death penalty into being genocide, it is genocide, and if you shift the narrative onto a fictional, you can make it not be about genocide.
Brilliant points …
Yeah, that part means that you don’t have to kill every single Palestinian in order for your deliberate eradicative campaign to be a genocide. It doesn’t mean “killing any part of a people is genocide” 🤦
Nope. Of COURSE not. I’m almost completely convinced that you’re arguing in bad faith. That or you’re extremely literal-minded AND not too smart… These are not difficult concepts for most people to understand and differentiate once it’s pointed out to them.
Yeah, that’s a negative. They’re trying to kill or displace away from the area every single Gazan and they’re already at over 90% displacement.
No, it’s a terrorist organization masquerading as a government. Critical infrastructure such as schools and hospitals are de facto run by UNRWA, not Hamas.
That IS their actual target. Your Hasbara hypothetical isn’t helpful.
In that purely hypothetical scenario, whether it’s still a genocide would depend on a number of factors, including whether or not they take great care to avoid civilian casualties and only target known Hamas targets. They don’t, never have, and never will.
Nobody not arguing in bad faith, profoundly confused/ignorant, or colossally dense. Since I gave you the definition, it’s either bad faith or stupidity in your case.
No, it’s not a widening. It’s a specifying that you don’t have to successfully eliminate everyone for it to be a genocide. A distinction that most adults not arguing in bad faith have no trouble comprehending.
Israel has been and still is targeting civilians, children, aid workers, hospitals, Refugee camps, ect. They have been explicit in their genocidal intent and actions. Hundreds of genocide scholars has recognized it as a genocide.
Repeated evacuation orders, where somehow millions of people are supposed to evacuate in a mere 24 hours with no cell service, electricity, food, or water, is blatant ethnic cleansing
Israel has repeatedly bombed evacuation routes, places outside the evacuation zones, and ‘safe’ zones
Considered ‘safer zones’ by Israel, since a Safe Zone has an international definition that Israel fails to meet.
Israel deliberately targets civilian areas as Power Targets:
On top of the use of Lavender and Where’s Daddy which intentionally bomb whole families and civilians
Israel has repeatedly refused any permanent ceasefire, and continues to prolong the talks by rejecting even the US/UN ceasefire and continually add unacceptable terms to prolong the ongoing genocide.
Hundreds of Genocide Scholars have described this ethnic cleansing campaign as genocide because of the deliberate targeting of children/civilians and expressed intent by Israeli officials.
“A Textbook Case of Genocide”: Israeli Holocaust Scholar Raz Segal Decries Israel’s Assault on Gaza
800+ Legal Scholars Say Israel May Be Perpetrating ‘Crime of Genocide’ in Gaza
Law for Palestine Releases Database with 500+ Instances of Israeli Incitement to Genocide – Continuously Updated
AP News, Time, Reuters, Vox, CBC
It’s only arguable if you’re arguing for genocide.
I thought our society had moved beyond viewing the world in such a dogmatic way. It’s like you’re saying, “Agree with me, or you’re a heathen!”
Fuck off with false equivalence you friend of butchers.
It’s literally a by the books genocide so, in this particular cases, yes, trying to pretend it’s not is basically defending genocide.
Yeah, no, sorry bud, it’s genocide. Just because it’s not overt genocide does not mean it’s not a thing. It’s not just happening in Gaza, it’s happening in the West Bank, here is Stephen Colbert talking about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqK3_n6pdDY
Just because they have more of an excuse in Gaza to do it much more flagrantly doesn’t mean it isn’t happening throughout Israel. Covert genocide, it’s a thing.