In short: Two wrongs do not make a right.
It is also worth noting that you are not portraying the matter fairly. You are transposing certain radical elements, i.e. those who actively defend Hamas, on to people who simply oppose the ethnic cleansing and genocide being perpetrated by Israel. I don't support Hamas, and I also don't support Israel.
Furthermore, you falsely assume that people are generally ignoring the evil actions perpetrated by Hamas, which is not the case. It is a false dichotomy to present the issue as supporting either Israel or Hamas. Hamas undeniably has engaged in terrorism, but that has no bearing on whether or not Israel is acting properly in response. The fact of the matter is that Israel hasn't merely been attacking Hamas targets that happen to also have civilians present, but rather that Israel is going beyond that to willfully engage in a near-indiscriminate extermination campaign against unjustifiable targets.
“The fact of the matter is that Israel hasn't merely been attacking Hamas targets that happen to also have civilians present, but rather that Israel is going beyond that to willfully engage in a near-indiscriminate extermination campaign against unjustifiable targets.”
Calling this “indiscriminate extermination” ignores Hamas using civilians as shields and demands an impossible standard of zero casualties. It also drains the word genocide of meaning. The Holocaust was genocide, the systematic extermination of Jews for existing. That is not what Israel is doing to Palestinians.
Israel does not merely target Hamas with incidental civilian deaths, they have been documented actively targeting civilians. This has been indisputably demonstrated at this point. Early on I was much more skeptical since it's similarly indisputable that Hamas does engage in terroristic behavior, but as time has gone on we've had report after report confirming that Israel isn't merely targeting Hamas.
> The moral difference is intent.
Hamas intends to eliminate Israel, Israel intends to eliminate Hamas (justifiable) and exterminate the Palestinians (unjustifiable) to continue their long-running expansion operation and further their grip on the region at the expense of the other native populations.
> Calling this “indiscriminate extermination” ignores Hamas using civilians as shields and demands an impossible standard of zero casualties.
1. I've already explicitly acknowledged the distinction between attacking Hamas, inadvertently harming civilians in the process, and the active slaying of the civilian population which is taking place. The former is regrettable but unavoidable, the latter is evil and it is what is also taking place.
2. I intentionally said "near-indiscriminate" rather than just "indiscriminate" for a reason. Unlike many people, yourself included, I don't view this conflict as a completely black-and-white matter. Israel is instrumentalizing their legitimate efforts in order to implement a wider effort to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
The crux of genocide is intent. Hamas openly declares its intent to erase Israel. Israel declares its intent to eliminate Hamas. If Israel’s goal was exterminating Palestinians, explain why it has repeatedly supported two-state proposals that Palestinian leadership rejected. Explain why over 20 percent of Israel’s citizens are Arab, voting in elections, serving in parliament, even sitting on the Supreme Court. That reality is incompatible with a state bent on extermination.
Your “near-indiscriminate” phrasing is just a rhetorical trick. If you admit it is not indiscriminate, then you acknowledge Israel is targeting Hamas, not carrying out genocide. Civilian deaths are tragic, but tragedy is not the same thing as a systematic plan to wipe out a people.
Israel drops leaflets, issues warnings, and opens corridors. Hamas embeds in schools, hospitals, and residential blocks. That doesn’t absolve Israel of responsibility when civilians die, but it does show intent matters.
It said that Israel has committed four acts of genocide:
Killing members of the group: Palestinians were killed in large numbers through direct attacks on civilians, protected persons, and vital civilian infrastructure, as well as by the deliberate creation of conditions that led to death.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm: Palestinians suffered torture, rape, sexual assault, forced displacement, and severe mistreatment in detention, alongside widespread attacks on civilians and the environment.
Inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy the group: Israel deliberately imposed inhumane living conditions in Gaza, including destruction of essential infrastructure, denial of medical care, forced displacement, blocking of food, water, fuel, and electricity, reproductive violence, and starvation as a method of warfare. Children were found to be particularly targeted.
Preventing births within the group: The attack on Gaza’s largest fertility clinic destroyed thousands of embryos, sperm samples, and eggs. Experts told the commission this would prevent thousands of Palestinian children from ever being born."
Same energy.
"We could have killed all the Jews in Germany yesterday, but we did not do it. The demonstrations in Franconia were, in general, disciplined, clear, and farsighted."
- Julius Streicher, in a speech the day after Kristallnacht.
"The behavior of the Führer and the Reich in these days of continuous Polish and English provocations were remarkable. No other nation would have been as patient. It would have done what the Führer finally did on 1 September much earlier."Relevant Nazi propaganda, as they engaged in similar atrocity justification & denial.
> assassinate my character
Irony.
Yeah, okay?
The documents presented here reveal an important, and, until now, unknown aspect of the efforts the Israeli government made to deflect criticism over human rights violations which were part of the occupation since the very beginning. The documents describe events that took place during the first decade of the occupation, but they echo a practice that is still in existence today – manipulative efforts to undermine the work of human rights organizations.