Other Community Views:
Despite the two thousand rockets which Gazans have fired against Israeli civilians this month alone (July 2014), their war crimes are not yet on a scale to be considered actual genocide (though it may be attempted genocide).
(And Israel's defensive response, though causing collateral deaths, is not directed deliberately at civilians.)
No. Both the Israelis and the Palestinians are managing to survive.
Concerning Palestinian deaths:
In the Battle of Mogadishu (1993), between 1500 and 3000 Somalis died, including hundreds of civilians. How many Americans were killed? Eighteen. Did anyone accuse America of genocide for doing what it saw as necessary?During WW2, sixty-seven Japanese cities were carpet-bombed with incendiaries. 300,000 dead.
War reportage should not treat the casualty count as a moral scale in which (like golf) the higher the number, the lower is your rank. The fact that Japan suffered more than ten times the number of people killed than America did, does not change the war's moral barometer. America was fighting a just and necessary war against a heinous enemy.
In 2006, thousands of Hezbollah rockets rained down on us; the Iron Dome defense hadn't yet been perfected. Are you sad that now we, thank God, have an effective defense?
Now why don't you turn the question around and ask why is it that the terrorists in Gaza don't lay down their weapons, which place their own people in danger? They shot over 2500 rockets at us in one month alone (July 2014).
You should be aware that almost all of the Palestinian deaths occurred as collateral damage while Israel was trying to defend its populace against terrorist and rocket attacks, and terrorist tunnelers and the like. Israel targets military objectives, warning nearby civilians in advance through phone calls and leaflets, while Israel's terrorist enemies target civilianobjectives almost exclusively. As one witness said: "Israel uses its weapons to protect its women and children, while the cowardly Hamas uses women and children to protect its weapons" by forcibly putting people as a human shield near weapons caches and rocket launchers. Thus Israel faces an impossible situation in which the terrorists are just waiting for their own civilians to be unintentionally killed so that they can seize the opportunity to internationally bash Israel in the gullible U.N., the anti-Israel biased E.U., and the media. They shed false tears, which could have been prevented by laying down their Iran-supplied weapons and sitting down to negotiate. When Israeli civilians are killed, these same terrorists hand out candies and sing in the streets.
The Palestinian attacks violate one of the most basic rules of international humanitarian law, the rule of distinction. Article 48 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 states that "In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties in conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives; and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives."
Since the rockets Hamas aims at Israeli towns are launched into civilian enclaves, each of the 12,000 or so rockets that have come into Israel from Gaza since 2005 represents a war crime. Where is the outcry against Hamas? People are being duped by their insidious Propaganda.
And incidentally, where is your outcry concerning Muslims killing hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Syria? Or the fact that the last remaining Christians now have fled Mosul after Islamic State militants issued a medieval-style ultimatum threatening them with death if they stayed.
Certain facts you may not know:
1) Hamas's founding charter calls for the complete destruction of Israel.
2) Israel supplies Gaza with water, electricity, medicines and provisions. What does Hamas do? It even fires at the power station that supplies Gaza with electricity.
3) Hamas oppresses its own Palestinian population, treats women as inferior objects, and persecutes Christians while building an army of fighters dedicated to suicide and "holy" war.
4) Israel treats wounded Palestinians. All the time. A reporter writes: This week I saw a Palestinian girl from Gaza being evacuated in an IDF tank to a hospital in Israel. She and her mother were interviewed, from inside an Israeli hospital. They spoke of the fair treatment, the care they received, and described the soldiers who had saved them as "brave and fair." Their faces were covered, for fear of being harmed when they return to their homes in Gaza.
5) Hamas fired on the field hospital which Israel established in Shejaia, a facility which only treats wounded Palestinians. Hamas did this in retaliation for the IDF's attack on Wafa Hospital in the same neighborhood. The difference is that Wafa Hospital was used as a Hamas launching-pad for missiles aimed at us. We have publicized these launches on film; and we also have shown footage of them concealing stockpiles of missiles in U.N. schools. Whom did the U.N. speak out against? Israel, of course.
6) In recent years they have not built so much as a single bomb shelter in Gaza; shelters that could save the lives of many civilians. Instead, they built dozens of underground tunnels from which to attack Israel and try to destroy it.
7) During the first 10 days of the 2014 war, the IDF lost 10 soldiers. Some of them, like the three paratroopers, are dead because the Israeli Air Force refused to attack a specific target for fear of hurting civilians. Instead, the paratroopers entered a booby-trapped house and were blown up.
8) A significant number of the Palestinian casualties were caused by the Hamas itself, which summarily kills protesters who question their policies.
9) Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005. Israel gave peace a chance. Instead of peace, we were fired upon, massively, again and again. Hamas has refused to join any cease-fire Israel agreed to. Hamas seeks to wreak death, to terrorize, to continue to brainwash those whose brains are not already drenched with uncompromising hatred.
All of the above applies to Hizbollah and other terrorist organizations, in addition to Hamas.
See also:
NO. It does not in any way meet the definition of genocide. This statement is used for the hyperbole that comes naturally from the words "Holocaust" and "genocide" and lumping them together with "Jews". This is not to say that Israel may not liable for a different crime against the Palestinians, just not this one.
In order for a Holocaust or a genocide to occur, you must have two major elements. Having one or the other does not create a genocide. Having the first alone creates an ethnic conflict and having the second alone is massive civil strife or endemic killings.
The conflict started as soon as decolonization began in 1948. The genocide began in 1962, after the first military coup d'etat
The Sudanese Government
Genocide. Religious cleansing (genocide is always religious cleansing, religious cleansing isn't always genocide.) Assimilation. Integration. Accommodation. Religious federalism.
The Rwandan genocide in 1994.
The genocide of the Tutsis
The world largely dismissed the Rwandan genocide as 'tribal conflict' and didn't want to know about it till it was over.
One can find information on genocide in Sudan from the different sites such as the following; Insight on conflict, Genocide intervention, HelpSudan, and ABF American Bar Foundation.
Genocide is taking place.
military conflict between the army and guerrilla groups....Jp13
the civil war in Rwanda
Herbert Hirsch has written: 'Genocide and the politics of memory' -- subject(s): Genocide, Memory, Psychological aspects, Psychological aspects of Social conflict, Social aspects, Social aspects of Memory, Social conflict 'Anti-genocide' -- subject(s): Genocide, Public opinion, Government policy, Prevention, Citizen participation 'Learning to be militant' -- subject(s): Mexican Americans, Social conditions, Ethnic identity
Yes because they took land from Armenia.