Question

Israel continues a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Lebanese people. Stay aware.

Answer 1

This sensitive topic is passionately opposed or defended depending on where you lie politically and morally. Genocide is a large claim to attribute to the actions of a country and one that is divisive, especially among world leaders and leading professionals in the law. According to an article by TIME, there are differences in opinions on this matter.  

"Raz Segal, the program director of genocide studies at Stockton University, concretely says it is a 'textbook case of genocide.' Segal believes that Israeli forces are completing three genocidal acts, including, 'killing, causing serious bodily harm, and measures calculated to bring about the destruction of the group.' He points to the mass levels of destruction and total siege of basic necessities—like water, food, fuel, and medical supplies—as evidence."

Another section of the article reads:

"David Simon, director of the genocide studies program at Yale University, says that Israel has only explicitly said they want to exterminate Hamas, and has not directly stated intent to 'destroy a religious, ethnic or racial group.' Simon says it's possible a court could conclude that either Hamas or some elements of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) could be found guilty of committing an act of genocide, but 'it's certainly not textbook in that connecting the intent to destroy ethnic group as such is difficult.'"

U.S. Sec. Def. Lloyd Austin has also made a statement to Reuters.

"The United States does not have evidence that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza as it carries out its war against Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a Senate hearing on Tuesday.

'We don't have evidence of that,' Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee."

This paints an array of different opinions among scholars and government officials. The opinion that would initiate change would be that of a court of law that would therein persecute Israel for any crimes they have committed. While some may claim that the facts point to genocide, the divisiveness of the topic would label this claim as an opinion.

“US Has No Evidence of Unfolding Genocide in Gaza: Pentagon | Reuters.” Reuters.Com, 9 Apr. 2024, www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-has-no-evidence-unfolding-genocide-gaza-pentagon-2024-04-09/ 

Burga, Solcyré. “Is What’s Happening in Gaza a Genocide? Experts Weigh In  .” Time, Time, 14 Nov. 2023, time.com/6334409/is-whats-happening-gaza-genocide-experts/.

Comments

This factcheck was super helpful and detailed, and actually helped me learn a bit about the topic. I liked how you remained unbiased and simply explained how there are different perspectives and what they are.

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True -- there are a lot of opinions on this matter. I noticed that the fact-check left out the UN committees and experts. They often provide insight on this since they are on the ground. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/14/united-nations-special-committee-israel-gaza-genocide

A UN special committee has said that Israeli policies and practices in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide”.

The committee, set up in 1968 to monitor the Israeli occupation, also said in its annual report that there were serious concerns that Israel was “using starvation as a weapon of war” in the 13-month-old conflict, and was running an “apartheid system” in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

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This claim is detail-oriented and relies on facts to support the claim of their argument. I appreciate your work on selecting multiple pieces of evidence, and putting it all into a cohesive argument. Also, I appreciated how nuanced it is with you including pieces of details that would support Isreal committing genocide and details that would support it not being. Lastly, it is commendable that you removed personal bias from the matter but instead provided details of different perspectives on the matter.

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That is an excellent fact check for a sensitive, controversial topic. I like how you quoted knowledgeable experts and credible officials. From my perspective, the definition of genocide is the intentional extermination of a particular ethnic or racial group. It is hard to determine what is "intentional" unless it is explicitly revealed. This difficulty is similar to what makes libel lawsuits so complicated. Thus, it is not possible to declare if the war is genocidal, as civilians suffer in every war. I take it to be similar to the United States atom bombing Japan in the second World War. On the one hand, the United States was targeting city infrastructure. On the hand, many civilians including women and children perished. Good fact check, and I like how you used APA to cite your sources.