Scrutable

IvanV wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 12:36 pm whether it is legally a genocide or not is a distraction from the reality of what you see.

It is one of the gravest accusations you can make. If it's not relevant and is just a distraction why do people make it given the lack of evidence that it's true? They must think the accusation meaningful or particularly impactful in some way, otherwise they'd use some other more accurate description.

And why does this matter? Because it has real world implications for Jews. The narrative that there's a genocide happening is pouring fuel on antisemitism around the world. At the extreme end are things like Manchester and Bondi, but I also saw this post from a Jewish friend yesterday which shows how normalised this is becoming:

Last night I went to see some stand up comedy in north London. Us audience had our bags searched, our bodies patted down and we were scanned with metal detectors. There was a considerable police presence outside. Why? The comedian was Israeli-Jewish. I’m not sure many people realise how normalised this has become at any Jewish cultural event: the extraordinary security at venues, most locations kept secret until only just prior to the event itself, and how multiple police have to attend in case of protestors, or terror attacks. The comedian himself spoke of threats he’s had (a couple of his shows got cancelled after protestors shut them down). I took my elderly parents to the show and they were both so worried about the risks. We just wanted to laugh at some goddamn jokes for f.cks sake. I’m really f.cking sick of this sh.t.

"Rather than criticising Israel’s reaction to the horrific 7 October 2023 attacks, what would you do when faced with an enemy on your doorstep who launches completely indiscriminate attacks on you from positions embedded within their own civilian population and clearly stating in their founding charter (which you can easily find online) that you must all be killed. How would you protect your citizens from this?"

to start: abandon the settlements and hang netanyahu from a lampost

Tristan wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 1:14 pm

IvanV wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 12:36 pm whether it is legally a genocide or not is a distraction from the reality of what you see.

It is one of the gravest accusations you can make. If it's not relevant and is just a distraction why do people make it given the lack of evidence that it's true? They must think the accusation meaningful or particularly impactful in some way, otherwise they'd use some other more accurate description.

And why does this matter? Because it has real world implications for Jews. The narrative that there's a genocide happening is pouring fuel on antisemitism around the world. At the extreme end are things like Manchester and Bondi, but I also saw this post from a Jewish friend yesterday which shows how normalised this is becoming:

Last night I went to see some stand up comedy in north London. Us audience had our bags searched, our bodies patted down and we were scanned with metal detectors. There was a considerable police presence outside. Why? The comedian was Israeli-Jewish. I’m not sure many people realise how normalised this has become at any Jewish cultural event: the extraordinary security at venues, most locations kept secret until only just prior to the event itself, and how multiple police have to attend in case of protestors, or terror attacks. The comedian himself spoke of threats he’s had (a couple of his shows got cancelled after protestors shut them down). I took my elderly parents to the show and they were both so worried about the risks. We just wanted to laugh at some goddamn jokes for f.cks sake. I’m really f.cking sick of this sh.t.

So, saying that I am morally and ethically shocked by the facts of what has happened in Gaza is one of the gravest accusations that can be made? For that is all I said. I think you read something more into what I said, than what I actually said.

What I am saying is that the division into genocides and non-genocides is not the same as the division into things that is morally acceptable and morally unacceptable. There are plenty of wars where what goes on is morally unacceptable, yet they are not genocides. Probably most of them. The current war in eastern DRC, for example, is not a genocide, but what the belligerent parties are doing is quite morally unacceptable. The current war in Somalia is not a genocide, but what al-Shabab is doing is morally unacceptable. Mr Trump has tried to say that certain conflicts in the Sahel are genocide against Christians, as justification for his bombing of some specific insurgent group in Nigeria. But he is wrong that it is genocide, albeit correct that what those insurgents are doing is morally unacceptable. This is why I say that it is a distraction to argue about whether it is a genocide. What matters is whether it is morally and ethically acceptable.

Why other people call it a genocide isn't my business. But I'll give my opinions on perhaps why they do it, and I would be interested in other opinions.

I did try to suggest one reason why other people might call it a genocide, namely that it bears parallels to what has been "successfully" labelled as the "Armenian genocide" ("successful" at least in the sense that's what it's called in WIkipedia, and some countries have even passed laws calling it that officially), even though I pointed out that in fact those events are not a genocide according to many of the same understandable reasons that are being given for why what is going on in Palestine are not a genocide. Mr Trump's lazy labelling of certain things as genocides - like him saying there is a genocide against whites in South African - doesn't help.

But thinking about it, probably the main reason they do it is that they are so morally and ethically shocked by what has actually happened, that they think it ought to be able to be given a legal label that defines it as illegal. For, after all, the point of the law is to try and prevent what is antisocial. So we can perhaps understand why they might think when we see something so very anti-social that we ought to be able to find a law that labels it as a terrible crime. But the world and the law are rarely that simple. The reality of rules is that are only ever partially successful at drawing lines between what is and what is not antisocial.

As I said on this forum after the Manchester attacks, it is an error to equate an entire people with what authority figures do. People shocked by what is happening in Gaza mistakenly equate all Jews with what is happening there, and so perpetrate these actions against random Jews. At the same time we unfortunately see it in the other direction - well you can read what Isaac Herzog said - and the allegation made by the ex-Shin Bet chief that "most Israelis" think like that too. Maybe he is wrong, but I think it unlikely he would have said that unless it was at least a reasonably common sentiment.

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that people make those mistakes and take terrorist actions against random Jews. Unfortunately, I'm not surprised that the West Bank and Gaza Palestinians take terrorist actions against Israel. I don't think there is anything to be done to stop these things entirely, since there are always extremists who will take extreme actions in furtherance of their extreme causes.

But they are likely to happen much less often if there were a degree of morality and fairness - rather than nitpicking legality widely perceived as unfair and immoral - in what the Israeli government does towards the Palestinians. Terrorism is easier to manage when it is limited to extremists with extreme aims. When it is pursued on behalf of some festering massive injustice which non-violent means are failing to address, like when the IRA was bombing Great Britain, it is much harder to address. Thus we no longer see those IRA terrorist actions in Great Britain, because the massive festering injustice was addressed - according to the majority - and the remaining much more limited actions are extreme actions by extremists. Northern Irish society remains riven, and as injustices are centuries old it will take time to heal that.

There was a time you could take an aeroplane from an airport without being patted down by metal detectors, etc. There are people looking into the contents of your handbags when you go into all kinds of theatres and concert halls in London: it started as looking for bombs, etc, though it seems they mainly carry on today to check if you are taking food and drink in. There are schools that have metal detectors in the entrances to locate knives. We are living in a world which is just now becoming much more conflicted, and the number of places people get patted down by metal detectors is only going to be going up just now.

I had an hour, so I used it:

Thanks Ivan for taking the trouble to respond at length. However, I think that we have reached the end of the road as it seems to me that your position is based on your belief and not on anything as inconvenient as facts (or indeed taking my arguments in good faith). You leave me with nowhere to go. This is rather a pity. (N.B. I had written most of this before I saw your latest post, but it doesn't add anything to the issue, sadly).

Tristan, again, summarises your problem elegantly in the post above.

Arguments starting with “Most people can see” and then attributing malign motives to anyone who isn’t in the group of “most people” are futile to engage with. You appear to have already decided that my motives are suspect and/or that I am incapable of seeing what others can and you have discounted (or not even read) any evidence I mentioned.

Otherwise you would not have erroneously stated that I haven’t seen “No Other Land” despite me explicitly stating that I had and describing the factual historical flaws that reduce its evidential value. You would also have noted that I explicitly acknowledged shameful behaviour, but noted that the editorial decisions amplified the bad conduct on one side only. This is not good faith arguing in my opinion.

As for Fishnut’s posts, I have had a look and see that only one side of a nasty war is documented. So, of course, it looks bad, immoral, and beyond the pale. I also explicitly stated that “It would be a rare war where there weren’t individual cases of actions that should be investigated and, if required, prosecuted. However, if these have occurred (which I suspect they have like in every other war I have looked at) you cannot generalise unless there is evidence of a pattern ordered from the top-down”. If you can name me a single war when there are no documented instances of individual units committing acts that could plausibly be called war crimes, (or making catastrophic errors of judgment in good faith but that resulted in the death of civilians) then I am all ears. In terms of the top-down pattern, this is at the heart of the ICJ case, and until a judgment is pronounced on the existence (or otherwise) of a dolus specialis relating to genocide, your opinion is unfounded.

I’m disappointed in how you have taken the Herzog quote and then paraphrased his rebuttal as a reverse-ferret. I’ve looked at the whole speech, and he qualified his remarks later in the same speech by saying: “Israel abides by international law, operates by international law. Every operation is secured and covered and reviewed legally.” and “There is no excuse to murdering innocent civilians in any way in any context. And believe me, Israel will operate and always operate according to the international rules. And we do the same in this battle, too.”. It seems obvious to me that if the meaning of his earlier words was that literally all Palestinians were Hamas, then the second two quotes would not need to have been made as they would be pointless. I do think that it was reasonable for him to identify the dilemma of identifying who are Hamas and who not, when Hamas do not wear uniforms when engaging in attacks, that many apparent civilians were filmed openly being involved or cheering on the abductions and murders, and that many stood by as a whole infrastructure for terror was built under their hospitals and schools. Stating therefore that this indicates a dolus specialis for genocide of the Palestinan people seems rather far-fetched to me, but we must see what the ICJ says.

The touching faith in the UN’s figures, when the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator can utter such an egregious lie without consequence, and Somalia can be nominated to chair the Security Council, is not warranted by the evidence that contradicts them. I have already provided evidence that the IPC stats mentioned in the OCHA report are clearly bogus, (which casts considerable doubt on how much of the rest can be trusted) but you haven’t addressed that either. You also have discounted anything I wrote on proportionality and not addressed the cited views of legal or military experts on the legality or proportionality of Israel’s actions, preferring instead your opinion (conveniently echoed by “most people”).

I would perhaps have tried to engage more seriously if your second post did not both bring in another historical example with no meaningful parallel (Northern Ireland) or contain such grotesque distortions of regional history both in the longer time period or more recently. There is so much error that, until you read a decent history (such as Jerusalem:The Biography), there is no point. I also cannot reconcile your statement, “I would realise that the outrageous actions of 7 October 2023 are on a scale that reflects the equally outrageous growing repression of the Palestinian people since the Oslo Accords” with the facts of what happened on 7 October (as documented by the attackers themselves and livestreamed) and the recent history. I don’t think I have anymore to say to someone who believes this statement which I find abhorrent.

noggins wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 4:12 pm "Rather than criticising Israel’s reaction to the horrific 7 October 2023 attacks, what would you do when faced with an enemy on your doorstep who launches completely indiscriminate attacks on you from positions embedded within their own civilian population and clearly stating in their founding charter (which you can easily find online) that you must all be killed. How would you protect your citizens from this?"

to start: abandon the settlements and hang netanyahu from a lampost

I’d kind of understand “well, I wouldn’t start from here” type responses, but that’s not really what you and Ivan have done.

Si_B asked a very specific question related to what the reaction would be to the October 7th massacre. It seems both your answers are essentially “give the attackers some of their demands” with no consideration of what you’d do with Hamas themselves.

Can I infer that you’d leave Hamas in place?

Imagine a world in which it would have been possible for Israel to kill every member of Hamas who had been involved in planning and/or execution of October 7th, without any civilian casualties or widespread damage. Would you have supported such an action and if not, why not?

Note I say “some” of Hamas’ demands above. Let’s not forget that Hamas ultimately wants to see the destruction of Israel. In fact, given people’s regular use of the term genocide if we were to compare the genocidal INTENT of Hamas and Israel it would be clear that Hamas has a much stronger genocidal intent than Israel. Luckily they don’t have the capability to carry it out at scale.

Si_B wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 4:55 pm I also cannot reconcile your statement, “I would realise that the outrageous actions of 7 October 2023 are on a scale that reflects the equally outrageous growing repression of the Palestinian people since the Oslo Accords” with the facts of what happened on 7 October (as documented by the attackers themselves and livestreamed) and the recent history. I don’t think I have anymore to say to someone who believes this statement which I find abhorrent.

This jumped out at me, specifically from someone who seems to talk so much about morality as Ivan does. I’m not sure I’ll take lessons on morality from someone who pretty much said “they had it coming” about October 7th.

Tristan wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 5:01 pm Si_B asked a very specific question related to what the reaction would be to the October 7th massacre. It seems both your answers are essentially “give the attackers some of their demands” with no consideration of what you’d do with Hamas themselves.

Can I infer that you’d leave Hamas in place?

Hamas are de facto in control in Gaza, and no one has any power to alter that. There is no one else you can negotiate with.

It is common to say, we don't give into the demands of terrorists. But when people make reasonable demands, and it is the only just way of proceeding, you have to. As with the negotiations with the IRA.

IvanV wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 5:11 pm

Tristan wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 5:01 pm Si_B asked a very specific question related to what the reaction would be to the October 7th massacre. It seems both your answers are essentially “give the attackers some of their demands” with no consideration of what you’d do with Hamas themselves.

Can I infer that you’d leave Hamas in place?

Hamas are de facto in control in Gaza, and no one has any power to alter that. There is no one else you can negotiate with.

It is common to say, we don't give into the demands of terrorists. But when people make reasonable demands, and it is the only just way of proceeding, you have to. As with the negotiations with the IRA.

So we get paragraph after paragraph of text on the awfulness of Israel, but when Hamas, an organisation that would absolutely do genocide if they could, we get:

“ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what you gonna do?”

And sorry, but in what world are Hamas’ demands or aims reasonable?

You’re equating them with an organisation who, as awful as the IRA were, were never anywhere near as bad as Hamas.

IvanV wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 4:51 pm
There was a time you could take an aeroplane from an airport without being patted down by metal detectors, etc. There are people looking into the contents of your handbags when you go into all kinds of theatres and concert halls in London: it started as looking for bombs, etc, though it seems they mainly carry on today to check if you are taking food and drink in. There are schools that have metal detectors in the entrances to locate knives. We are living in a world which is just now becoming much more conflicted, and the number of places people get patted down by metal detectors is only going to be going up just now.

No, this is a specific issue. The security needed at events, gigs, schools etc. that are Jewish is on another level to the general security we now see in public spaces. Are you downplaying it deliberately?

Tristan wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 5:07 pm I’m not sure I’ll take lessons on morality from someone who pretty much said “they had it coming” about October 7th.

Ultimately it is a factual observation that there is extensive moral repugnance to what has happened in Gaza. If you think what has happened in Gaza is morally acceptable, I won't be taking lessons in morality from you.

But you made a category error in giving a reason as to why you won't take morality lessons from me. "They had it coming" is not a moral point, nor a defence of the outrage. It is an observation that if you increasingly repress a people, the likelihood of an outrage in response to that repression grows. If you can't see that what was going on between the Oslo accords and a couple of years ago was a ever tighter repression, in contradiction to the promise of a better future in those accords, then you had your eyes closed.

It is a common observation that the cleverest people are the cleverest at self-justifying why they are still right regardless of the growing evidence against their position. I have read a great deal of history of Israel and Palestine, and will be pleased to read more. If you want to read a book on why people work so hard to defend such increasingly indefensible positions to themselves, then the classic text is The Folly of Fools: The Logic of Deceit and Self-Deception in Human Life. And unfortunately the author is a quite appalling piece of work, who would doubtless be utterly cancelled if he were an artist, but his academic work is great.

I would also recommend Alex de Waal's book The real politics of the Horn of Africa: Money, war and the business of power, for an explanation - not an excuse for, but an explanation - of why many outrages are committed in less secure parts of the world these days. Although its case studies are Horn of Africa, the analysis operates anywhere. Wars tend to result when actors misjudge their opponents when committing such outrages. So in the analytic framework of that book, the Oct 7 outrage would be an example of a very bad misjudgment. This, again, is not to justify any such outrage, but to analyse why they occur.

Tristan wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 5:27 pm So we get paragraph after paragraph of text on the awfulness of Israel, but when Hamas, an organisation that would absolutely do genocide if they could, we get:

“ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ what you gonna do?”

And sorry, but in what world are Hamas’ demands or aims reasonable?

You’re equating them with an organisation who, as awful as the IRA were, were never anywhere near as bad as Hamas.

Hamas are indeed an appalling infliction on the people of Gaza, and sadly for a period they were actually helped to cement themselves in place by the Israelis themselves, as it helped serve their own no-agreement-is-possible agenda. But we have seen Hamas have survived even this most destructive ever war. So they aren't going away. They are the only potential counter-party for negotiations. So, much as I would wish it otherwise, what else can you do? They are a fact.

It's like Putin is a fact, if you want to talk about Ukraine. Or the Chinese Communist Party is a fact if you want to talk about Taiwan.

Even if all of Hamas are tomorrow suddenly incapacitated by something like the Pagers Plot, after some appalling internecine struggle they will be replaced by something similar, maybe worse even. Such are the regimes that you get in poverty-stricken insecure places, as that Alex de Waal book documents. Only security and economic growth present the potential for more reasonable rulers.

Hamas' stated demands and aims are, as you say, unreasonable. But Hamas did, somewhat remarkably and rather to my surprise, managed to produce all the living and all but one of the dead hostages (more than I thought practically possible given the level of destruction in Gaza), in return for the current very dodgy ceasefire. So it seems they are capable of behaving in remarkable approximation to a reasonable demand, when they want something in return for it.

But counterparty's demands are always initially unreasonable, because that's how it always is at the start of a negotiation to end a war, short of a complete defeat and terms being dictated. Netanyahu's insistences are also unreasonable. That's where negotiations start from.

Putin is obviously not going to stop the Ukrainian war, short of his own very unreasonable demands, that in reality amount to an ability to grab more of Ukraine at his later convenience, because it so much serves his purpose of remaining in complete control in Russia. The advantages to him of stopping the war are small, short of some new and very terrible impositions from external powers.

In such fashion we have to analyse what can practically be achieved between Israel and the Palestinians. Israel is in as strong a position now has it has ever been in, and must be in as good a position to get a fair and reasonable outcome to be accepted by the Palestinians as at any previous time.

Tristan wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 5:01 pm

noggins wrote: Tue Dec 30, 2025 4:12 pm "Rather than criticising Israel’s reaction to the horrific 7 October 2023 attacks, what would you do when faced with an enemy on your doorstep who launches completely indiscriminate attacks on you from positions embedded within their own civilian population and clearly stating in their founding charter (which you can easily find online) that you must all be killed. How would you protect your citizens from this?"

to start: abandon the settlements and hang netanyahu from a lampost

I’d kind of understand “well, I wouldn’t start from here” type responses, but that’s not really what you and Ivan have done.

Si_B asked a very specific question related to what the reaction would be to the October 7th massacre. It seems both your answers are essentially “give the attackers some of their demands” with no consideration of what you’d do with Hamas themselves.

Can I infer that you’d leave Hamas in place?

Imagine a world in which it would have been possible for Israel to kill every member of Hamas who had been involved in planning and/or execution of October 7th, without any civilian casualties or widespread damage. Would you have supported such an action and if not, why not?

Note I say “some” of Hamas’ demands above. Let’s not forget that Hamas ultimately wants to see the destruction of Israel. In fact, given people’s regular use of the term genocide if we were to compare the genocidal INTENT of Hamas and Israel it would be clear that Hamas has a much stronger genocidal intent than Israel. Luckily they don’t have the capability to carry it out at scale.

Yes, there no other actions possible between Israel's current actions and giving in to Hamas.

Yes, I fully support the magical destruction of vile people with no collaterall damage.
Similarly I support voodoo working on Putin and me winning the euromillions.

Give the Palestinians their state and if that state then goes to war with Israel, then flatten it.