- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- world@lemmy.world
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And here’s Habeck pretending that Israel isn’t committing a genocide. German regime is showing its true colors for all the world to see.
That’s a personal statement, not an official one. And not even of the foreign minister or chancellor, but of the one for economy and climate change.
The official position of Germany is that statements done by Ben-Gvir etc. regarding “depopulating Gaza” are unacceptable, which shouldn’t be too surprising that’s been the German position regarding Israeli settlements etc. for aeons. Say what you want about our foreign policy but it’s darn consistent.
Regarding the state calling what Israel is doing genocide: In my estimation, they’re waiting for the ICJ judgement as it’s a juridical, not political, matter. What is political is Germany being the good cop in regards to Israel, someone else needs to be the bad cop, South Africa is perfectly willing to do that, so what exactly are you complaining about.
Official Statement by Germany:
Den nun vor dem Internationalen Gerichtshof gegen Israel erhobenen Vorwurf des Völkermords weist die Bundesregierung aber entschieden und ausdrücklich zurück. Dieser Vorwurf entbehrt jeder Grundlage.
Translation:
The German government firmly and explicitly rejects the allegation of genocide, brought before the ICJ against Israel. This allegation is completely baseless.
Also:
Die Bundesregierung intendiert, in der Hauptverhandlung als Drittpartei zu intervenieren.
The German federal government intends to intervene during the main trial as a third party.
So, the official line is the same as what Habeck said in the clip. They’re also not waiting for a judgement, but supporting Israel directly before the court.
There’s a lot more in that statement if you know how to read diplomatic statements. They’re most of all interested in opposing political instrumentation while simultaneously acknowledging that different states have different evaluations [as to the legal situation] but they’re intervening on behalf of Israel [to oppose political instrumentalisation]. They’re saying that they reject the accusations, but not that they’re false, only that they’re baseless. Which is par for the course for defence attorneys, they always say that: “Prosecution, you don’t have evidence and your line of argument doesn’t make sense, no I don’t care where my client was Sunday 12:30pm”.
And truth be told if you hope that the ICJ will flat-out say that Israel is genocidal, no that won’t happen. Not because they’re partisan, but because the legal situation doesn’t allow it, it is not clear enough of a case. Best we’ll get is the court ruling that Israel shall put certain measures into place: Insist that the humanitarian aid Israel is giving is not close to enough to be, by itself, an argument against genocide, do more, your army is undisciplined AF, make sure that they actually follow the orders you give them.
The alternative to that kind of judgement would be saying “Israel is deliberately putting into place fig-leaf measures to evade prosecution” which is even harder to prove that genocide itself. You might’ve noticed that South Africa didn’t go for that line of reasoning, it’d indeed be a hail mary.
But if the ICJ says that Israel is genocidal, Germany will follow.
And truth be told if you hope that the ICJ will flat-out say that Israel is genocidal, no that won’t happen. Not because they’re partisan, but because the legal situation doesn’t allow it, it is not clear enough of a case.
This case is so 100% crystal clear, you’d have to deliberately twist your brain into a pretzel to believe otherwise. And if you think the judges will not be pressured by the governments that sent them, your pretzel brain probably went soggy. Try putting it in the toaster for a minute.
Is it clear that Israel is killing a fuckton of people? Yes. Could that end with the complete eradication of Palestinians from Gaza? Also yes.
And if you ask me that’s enough to call something a genocide. But my personal definition of the crime differs from that of the ICJ: In my mind, negligent genocide is genocide, while before the ICJ, you have to prove wilful intent, not mere negligence. And even if every Palestinian in Gaza gets killed and afterwards Israel sobers up, all Kahanites somehow emigrate to Mars or something and only mortally remorseful Labour Zionists are left – they’d still argue self-defence excess, not intent, as it was the Hamas attacks which whipped the country into that kind of frenzy. Because yes the Kahanites are out for genocide, but that’s not by far the majority of the Israeli population. That’d be even more wrong than claiming that Christo-Fascist Evangelicals are a majority in the US.
Attempting complete eradication is not necessary under UN definition, and in Srebrenica, 8000 people, far from all Bosnians, and not even the majority of people in Srebrenica, were killed, and that’s still an official court-approved genocide. The convention says “in whole or in part”, after all.
This is not negligence. This is obviously willful intent. They’re starving two million people. They know what the result of that is. They repeatedly bomb civilians. And they know they’re killing civilians. They know they’re not bombing military targets. They do this over and over. Repeatedly doing genocidal acts implies genocidal intent, you don’t have to go off of rhetoric.
The government of Israel are not liberal Zionists, so I don’t know why you bring that up even. It’s not genocide because not everyone in Israel wants genocide, just the far-right and the far-right government? What argument is that? That’s pretzel-brain speaking.
Also, most Israelis know what’s going on. Anyone who still supports this now after what has been going for over three months, while arguing self-defense, is either lying or completely delusional. Maybe they don’t like to think of themselves as genocidal maniacs, but they’re still supporting genocide and coming up with excuses why it’s okay this time. Liberal Zionists that don’t want this to stop immediately are still complicit. And again, that’s irrelevant when the far-right is in power. That’s still Israel, as a state, doing this and guilty of genocide.
This brings a very interesting perspective to the recent arrest of members of US Nazi band Hammerskins in Germany.
“South Africa is Hamas, South Africa did not give Israel a chance to meet up and chat about Gaza before suing for genocide, and actually the Israel Defense Forces is the most moral entity on Earth.”
Writing such polemic bullshit would be low for an opinion pice, but actually trying to pass this off as journalism devaluates any actual argument they are trying to make.
Why are people so afraid of actually arguing and dicussing facts and always resorting to parroting polarising bullshit that is an insult for journalism?
Oh, yeah. I forgot. Because tribalism feels good and thinking can be exhausting…
Wow, your quote is taken entirely out of context. Not even sure what you’re point is supposed to be…
That’s a direct quote representing the start of a piece of trash that isn’t even meeting basic standards of an opinion piece but isn’t even one. So what other context is there?
It was preceded by an “Isreal’s arguments were weak, South Afirca’s are great!!!”-statement (no details, reasons or anything given, because he’s seemingly not a journalist but a cheerleader for his team) and followed by:
“Aware of the global audience, Israel also sought to reinforce its claims of righteousness and self-defense in fighting the war in Gaza.”
So after a bullshit opinion without any agument, then some polemics we now escalate to questioning Isreal’s right to defend against a terror attack (guess that happens when you are a Hamas fanboy…).
Is that enough context? Or should we continue up to one of the highlights of this piece of bullshit were all arguments of Israel’s lawyers were called “supreme gaslighting”?
Or no, let’s read until the end, where after pages and pages of listing Isreal’s arguments (at one point calling the “a litany” even…) the author concludes that somewhow “during its presentation before the court, Israel made no arguments…”?
Yeah… I probably missed all context when I described it as “polarising bullshit and an insult to journalism”. Oh, wait… No, that’s actually a proper description of the whole article, not just that allegedly out-of-context quote.
Still ignoring context. But that’s fine, because any article critical is Israel is obviously written in bad faith, huh?
Whatever. If suggest touching grass, but that’d probably be toxic for the grass, and the environment is already messed up enough already…
So then tell me about that context…
“I don’t want to hear it, so you most be toxic” isn’t context. That’s just you being part of the team “Cheerleading for terrorism”.
Says the guy cheerleading genocide committed by an authoritarian regime. Why do you even care that I, a complete stranger, an critical of their actions? If you’re so confident in “your” conclusions, why would you be threatened by somebody whose life as literally no chance of affecting you?
As much as I want to believe words exist to knock some sense into you, I give up. (Anyone else wanna bet how long he sits and fumes about my refusal to abandon my beliefs to replace them with the party line? Probably spent the entire day between my response and his angrily trying to come up with the perfect rebuttal.)
Go ahead buddy, scream into the wind. You ain’t got anything to say worth listening for…
Says the guy cheerleading genocide committed by an authoritarian regime.
Problem is I didn’t. I called out bad journalism. Because bullshit narratives and tribalism make any actual discussion meaningless.
But then your see something that is seemingly criticising “your team” and instantly your delusions get triggered and you hallucinate how I “cheerlead for genocide” when I did actually not say anything other than that this report is polemic low quality bullshit.
Murdering children by the thousands is not self defense.
Bombing hospitals and refugee camps is not self defense.
Shooting shirtless Israeli hostages is not self defense.
Is there a limit for you? Can Israel kill as many people as it wants, bury as many babies in rubble as it wants, and its justified? Is there a line? If there is, I want you to put a hard number on it. Because I don’t think there is. I think Israel can expel all of Gaza’s citizens into neighboring countries and annex the territory, and you’ll still say its justified. I don’t think you have a limit.
There is a very clear and limit and number. It’s zero. Zero people should be bombed. Zero people would be bombed without a despicable terror attack against Israel (oh, wait… as I just learned in this very thread here this never actually happened and it was a legitimate military attack against military targets somehow…). Zero people would be bombed without Hamas using the population as human shields. Also zero people should have been killed on October 7. Zero rockets should be fired each day at Israel. And zero neighbouring countries or factions should cheer for a newe excuse to attack Israel.
Do you want to know another relevance regarding that number? If you have no ability to argue without questioning the general right of Israel to exist, without questioning any right of self defense, without questionings if Israel was actually attacked, and without falling back to a “oh, the evil Jews are plotting together with corrupt world leaders again…”-narratives, then you have zero valid arguments, because you are a fucking anti-semite.
And then you have zero legitimacy to argue
So, again. Slowly this time because you -probably intentionally, but I’m an optimist by heart- seemed to have missed it: This pile of shit is not journalism. It would be low effort even for an opinion piece, which it isn’t. It’s full of polemics, lies and can’t even manage too stay internally consistent (a “litany” of arguments is at the same time not existing, facts become claims when mentioned by Israel, while claims become facts when it’s against them…) or free of anti-semite narratives.
I know… in this world where arguing about people killing each other has become a team sport and everything needs to be black and white it’s nearly inconceivable but… Pause for a moment, take a deep breath and try to imagine just for one moment the following -nowadays neartly heretical- thought: Israel’s government can be a clownshow of genocidal morons, Hamas is the exact same, and at the same time 70%+ of the people arguing against Israel are still doing so not based on facts but on anti-semitic narratives. And those people need to called out on their bullshit. Because not doing it devaluates the actual discussion. If I can’t call out bullshit arguments as bullshit without being attacked for supporting a genocide, how is this or any discussion (or any court case) legitimate, if we all see clearly that it’s not about the arguments but a popularity contest between two teams.
Which is what I did. I called this trashy piece of non-journalism out. And for this I now have been called insane, toxic and a supporter of genocide. Because you are brain-washed into believing this is a team sport, so you happily accept anti-semites on your team that is obviously better than the enemy… Guess what. It’s not. You are both wrong.
Sorry to tell you, but team “I accept anti-semitism, lies and bullshit and ignore Hamas, because I’m pro-Palestine” is just as insane as team “Every crticism is anti-semitism, “targeted area bombing” and deportation plans aren’t crazy”.
