Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza • Hacker News Board

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#951

Post by pxc » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 1:38 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #842

pxc wrote: post #226

Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts, but in the era of anti-BDS regulation and other measures aimed specifically at curtailing practical freedom of speech surrounding this conflict, can we really comment freely on this without anonymity? The vast majority (38/50) of US states have passed some form of anti-BDS legislation. We can also expect corporate retaliation against employees who speak about this…

> Comments on this post are disabled for new accounts I put that restriction on the thread when I started to notice brand new accounts showing up to post abusively (call them trolls if you like). There's no intention to prevent legit anonymous comments, but we have to do what we can to protect this place from complete conflagration. I'll turn that restriction off now.

Thanks. I appreciate both your response and the difficulty of moderating discussions on this topic.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#952

Post by dotancohen » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 1:39 AM UTC

bko wrote: post #852

Cornbilly wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current US administration also derives a lot of its support from evangelical Christians, who have a belief that Israel must exist in order for Jesus to return to earth. Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen…

I don't think you have to be an evangelical Christian to belief that Israel should exist. I think a lot of people not heavily invested in politics or world affairs simply see Israel as more of a Western country aligned with their values and beliefs and want them to exist. > Which I’m sure he’d be a fan of all the lying and killing that was done to make that happen… I'm not sure if Israel ceased to exist there would b…

If Israel ceased to exist, Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed Shii will come in and slaughter Sunni Hamas. Iran funds Hamas not out of love for Hamas, but out of spite for the Jewish state.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#953

Post by cookiengineer » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 3:55 AM UTC

Jgoauh wrote: post #834

Jgoauh wrote: post #758

i'm ashamed of how long it took, i don't even know what words to use to explain that life matters, that all lives have the same value, and that death is bad

its crazy the number of people downvoting me for this, sadly i will not compromise on my beliefs

There's still humans using this platform, but always keep in mind that the bots will do everything they're programmed to do to fvck up your life.

AIMS and Team Jorge at work, again, they never miss an opportunity to ragebait the internet.

Stay safe.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#954

Post by scrubs » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 5:42 AM UTC

dotancohen wrote: post #949

stanfordkid wrote: post #945

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common framing by neo-liberal / centrist folks: That the US/West is intelligently and methodologically utilizing Israel for some tactical geopolitical advantage / force projection. It may have played out that way in the past... but at this point Israel is lobbying the US gov't heavily and has bought out most politicians via AIPAC. The myth of Israel being a "bastion" between the west and terrorist Arabs is…

> They bombed the shit out of Lebanon and who would've thunk it Hezbollah popped up. You state that as if you are unaware of the cross border attacks originating in Lebanon. How about "Armed groups in Lebanon bomb the shit out of Israeli citizens, and who would've thunk it the Israeli armed forces struck back".

Having watched Israel deal with their neighbors since the 80s, I am generally inclined to give the benefit of doubt to Israel.

However over the last 5 years my attitude has changed. Israel and the Palestinians (focus esp on Palestinian kids) are two screwed over peoples screwing themselves over from a place of stubbornness, reprisal.

Who's right depends on how far you wanna go back in tit for tat, which is rhetorically arbitrary.

The US stance should be:

- Israel will recognize Palestine as a state and Israel stay the hell out their business. Israel will remove their camps from palestine.

- Palestine gets the control they want/need and with it commeasurate accountability.

Therefore,

- US support is withdrawn until two state done

Palestine needs to:

- provide governance for their citizens without playing footsies with terrorists. It's time for them to put up or shut up.

From a US standpoint and as a US citizen I'm pissed at the idiocy we've done to the middle east. I'm also sick and tired of having entanglements from Israel or oil. We've got to get our act together and focus.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#955

Post by grafmax » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 9:58 AM UTC

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #883

perfmode wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the deliberate creation of unlivable conditions on the ground and the absence of any viable plan for restoring Palestinian life and sovereignty, the civilian population of Gaza faces two primary and foreseeable outcomes: Mass mortality from non-combat causes: The synergistic crisis of famine, disease, and healthcare collapse makes widespread death from starvation, dehydration, and preventable illness a mathemat…

And do you think we defeated the nazis by leaving their food intact? By leaving their bomb factories intact? Did we refuse to invade their cities in case the innocent nazi citizens got killed? War is war. I don’t see a single person in that territory that opposes the war. They simply want the other side to surrender because they are losing a war they started.

No all war doesn’t constitute genocide. Nor is genocide justifiable if you think it’s effective. Mass murdering children crosses a fundamental moral line. Children are innocent. Israel has lost any moral basis for its war through its dark, “ends justifies the means” reasoning.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#956

Post by grafmax » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 10:03 AM UTC

brainwad wrote: post #707

kharak wrote: post #697

Every time I've looked into the arguments for this being a genocide, I saw, at best, a description of urban warfare. Maybe I am wrong. If anyone is still reading this thread, could you write what you believe will happen after Israel won the war?

I more or less agree with you (if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper), but the report does have some specific examples of things that seem to go beyond "just" urban warfare. For example, Israel denied shipments of baby milk powder, which can serve no legitimate military purpose (except trying to prosecute the war via starvation of babie…

> if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper

Genocide means trying to killing the group in whole or in part. Trying to kill the group everywhere isn’t necessary for it to be genocide.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#957

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 10:09 AM UTC

brainwad wrote: post #707

kharak wrote: post #697

Every time I've looked into the arguments for this being a genocide, I saw, at best, a description of urban warfare. Maybe I am wrong. If anyone is still reading this thread, could you write what you believe will happen after Israel won the war?

I more or less agree with you (if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper), but the report does have some specific examples of things that seem to go beyond "just" urban warfare. For example, Israel denied shipments of baby milk powder, which can serve no legitimate military purpose (except trying to prosecute the war via starvation of babie…

> if it were a _genocide_, you'd expect Israel to be equally targeting Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel proper

Genocide does not require equal effort in all areas subject to the perpetrators influence; both the required intent and the required actions that define genocide can coincide with taking opportunistic advantage of available political pretexts to try to retain support of, say, a third-party country with a UNSC veto that uses that veto to protect the perpetrator from consequences, but might not do so in the absence of some kind of palatable pretext for a sufficient segment of the third-party state’s population.

Genocide requires particular kinds of evil, it doesn't require stupid.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#958

Post by eclat » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 10:30 AM UTC

boxerab wrote: post #939

From John Spencer, a retired United States Army officer, researcher of urban warfare, and author. > The U.N. Genocide Report Against Israel Is an Assault on Critical Thinking https://freebeacon.com/israel/the-u-n-genocide-report-agains...

It is indeed. The arguments are so poor and obviously ideological. To give one example, it would necessarily imply that every war is an example of genocide.

Experts aren’t taking it seriously, but then again the UN has not been a serious organisation for as long as I can remember. Some serious scrutiny needs to be made of that organisation.

Genocide is a very particular crime, I’m not sure what the obsession with it is. It’s evident that there are examples of war crimes.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#959

Post by Aerbil313 » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 6:59 PM UTC

MangoToupe wrote: post #80

I'm afraid the latest spate of "recognizing the state of Palestine" is not, in fact, a sign of coming relief for the people there, but rather a spigot to relieve domestic pressure to engage in substantive actions (sanctions, pressuring the US and other suppliers of arms to engage in sanctions, let alone sending peacekeepers or no-fly zones). Regardless of how much you're personally invested in the topic, this should…

The reason the US will never go against Israel is the enormous leverage Israel has over the US administration: through the AIPAC, a money laundering operation disguised as political lobbying, a steady flow of money is ensured from the US Treasury to Israel govt. and right back to the Congress. Check the amount your Senator receives from AIPAC here: https://www.trackaipac.com/congress

From AIPAC themselves: (https://www.aipacpac.org/)

> Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.

> %98 of AIPAC-backed candidates won their general elections.

> $70M contributed through AIPAC to support pro-Israel candidates.

> We helped defeat 24 candidates who would have undermined the US-Israel relationship.

Democracy anybody?

Now imagine Russia had a similar organization, what would the reaction be? Yet when it's Israel, it's somehow fine.

From Wikipedia: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIPAC)

> AIPAC was founded in 1954 by Isaiah L. Kenen, a lobbyist for the Israeli government, partly to counter negative international reactions to Israel's Qibya massacre of Palestinian villagers that year.

Re: Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

#960

Post by Aerbil313 » Fri, Sep 19, 2025, 7:26 PM UTC

ponector wrote: post #795

FridayoLeary wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets address the elephant in the room. First of all, to be fair no one is ok with russia bombing hospitals. It's just that at this stage sanctions have been maxed out. Now from watching the coverage of this war you can't help but come to the conclusion that there's an organised but invisible movement opposing the war. The various humanitarian bodies and news outlets like al jazeera and bbc all quote each other in a s…

>> It's just that at this stage sanctions have been maxed out. That is not true. Political will to introduce sanctions is maxed out. And current US administration has even less interest in doing so than previous. >>But my point is what is the historic motivation for the anti israel movements? It's definitely not out of great sympathy for the palestinians although that's definitely why most Westerners are pro palestin…

It's common knowledge among people living in Arab countries that most Muslim countries' presidents are a sockpuppet from either the US or Russia. The exceptions are so few they can be counted on one hand. Mohamed Morsi was widely mourned in my not-even-Arab Muslim country when he died 5 years ago, as one of the few democratically elected presidents in the Islamic world. He was overthrown by the 2013 military coup d'état[1]. Currently, the dictator Sisi rules over Egypt, who is not opening the border for Palestinians. US does this regularly. See the US involvement in regime changes around the world[2].

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Egyptian_coup_d%27%C3%A9t...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...