• underisk@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Where do you think it falls short in the definition of genocide: “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.”?

    • doingless@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      1.5% of the population has been killed. That’s a lot but 2% of the US died in the civil war, and far higher numbers. I know the wars are very different but larger numbers have also died in the current Ukraine war.

      If they’re trying to eliminate them as a people they need to pick up the pace. Also, my family was displaced from their land in the 1900s and had to seek asylum in the US. Nobody called it a genocide but also everyone was mostly white.

      • underisk@lemmy.ml
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        10 months ago

        The criteria for genocide is not “kill a percentage of a population larger than the percentage that died in the US Civil War”. There’s no minimum requirement for per-capita death. It’s about intent and action. They are trying to kill or displace everyone in Gaza. How good they are at it isn’t relevant, it is still genocide.

      • livus@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        @doingless

        1.5% of the population has been killed. That’s a lot but 2% of the US died in the civil war

        The American Civil War ran from Apr 1861 – 9 Apr 1865. Four years

        The Gaza genocide hasn’t even been going for 6 months and it’s already racked up 3/4 of the deaths of the entire US Civil War. If it runs for 4 years at the present rate it will kill 12% of the population and half of those are children.

      • jordanlund@lemmy.worldM
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        10 months ago

        The UN Convention on Genocide defines it like this:

        https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml

        "a) Killing members of the group;

        b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

        c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

        d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

        e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

        So, point for point, the only one Israel hasn’t done in Gaza is “e”. But to be clear, you don’t have to hit all 5 to be a genocide, just one is enough. Russia is hitting all 5 in Ukraine.