Bald death tolls say nothing of whether or not something fits the statutory definition of genocide. People die in wars. Innocent people die in wars.
Hamas started a war on behalf of all these victims that they could not possibly win. The de facto government refuses to surrender or release hostages. They refuse to wear uniforms. They employ child soldiers. They build tunnels under dense population centers to use the population at large as human shields. They refuse to let their own families evacuate. They pay people to die as “martyrs.” That’s why there are 40,000 out of 5,000,000 Palestinians dead, 0.8%.
That death toll, in these circumstances, is not evidence of genocide, it is actually evidence that Israel is pretty careful and actually not trying to kill civilians. Any other Army in that region of the world would have murdered every man woman and child in Gaza after about the tenth suicide bombing, forty odd years ago. It’s 40,000 out of 5 million in the face of the fact that Israel could easily turn all of Gaza and all of the West Bank into a sheet of glass in three hours, and have not done so. They could have let no food or water into the country, no medicine into the country. But they have not done so. Rather, they have been consistently ramping up their capacity to inspect shipments going into Gaza since the war broke out. They could have not evacuated anyone. They could have not called anyone on the phone, they could have sent zero text messages, instead of the millions and millions of phone calls and texts that they’ve sent. These facts, obviously none of which are reported in the Qatari media you no doubt have been gorging on, fly in the face of your bullshit reasoning.
Then you have to wonder if the Palestine state will install another government similar to Hamas when Hamas is eradicated. As well it’s not true Hamas started this war on behalf of all the victims because the majority of Palestine voted in Hamas which ran on a destroy Israel agenda. It means the majority of the victims would have supported this war. Was their lives truly that bad if they are able to have and feed millions of children? That they were desperate to start this war? It does not make sense. There are western countries struggling to have more kids than older people and they were thriving.
I don’t wonder that. They aren’t able to feed millions and haven’t been since I’ve been alive. The only thing stopping Gaza from a calamitous famine has been and remains western charity. Gaza does not literally have the tools, resources, or skilled people needed to govern itself, or even to physically rebuild itself.
What I do wonder is, if the people of Gaza had to bear the actual price of its antisemitic terrorism–which has left it completely isolated, except from other far right religious dictatorships–would the people there allow Hamas to exist?
They only tolerate it, I believe, because they know no hope. It’s been so long since anyone there thrived, the only thing they have to celebrate is death and killing, martyrdom and terrorism. Hopeless as they may be right now, as you pointed out, they are, relatively, fed.
Ironically it’s in large part the charity that keeps this system in place.
