Top UN legal investigators conclude Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza

Wonder why this made the frontpage when other political articles die.

Has the rules around political non technical articles changed? Can we get an Epstein thread for the frontpage sometime this week?

For me, this is meaningful because for the first time a legitimate international body is calling this a genocide.

Previously, it’s been activists and claims that this might be genocide. I haven’t read the report yet. But I will, and I intend to leave my mind open as to whether this raises the profile of this war in my mind relative to domestic issues.

Go read this UNHCR report. All the evidence is just circular references to other bodies who reference each other. The most damning thing they could pin on Israel was that "Israel admits 83% of the casualties are civilians". That idea was because Israel could name 17% of the casualties in Hamas registers as members of the organization. But assuming that every other casualty is a civilian is quite a stretch. For one thing, Israel doesn't know the name of every militant it kills while he's aiming an RPG at them. For another, there are many other militant organizations in the strip, notably the Islamic Jihad. For a third, typically 75% - 90% of the casualties of war are civilians by the UN's own numbers.

Pages 51-54 contain a list of on-the-record quotes from the government itself. Those, at least, are not in contention.

And they are interpreted in the fashion most damning to Israel, whereas much worse on-the-record quotes from other bodies, notably those bodies which have demonstrated intent to destroy Israel, are interpreted more favourably.

When you control the food and water supply for two million people, and turn that off for months until they are starved and malnourished -- then your words indicating this is deliberate, given it could only be deliberate anyway, are interpreted differently, yes.

When you're imprisoned inside a walled high-security island and your greatest military capability is to kill 100s of people outside of it, your words indicating a desire to eradicate one of the most militarised, highly-financed and capable states in the world -- do carry a different significance.

One group has the capability to entirely destroy the other, is actively engaged in that pursuit, and its most senior political figures have indicated their intent to do so.

Another group has almost no military capabilities, insofar as they exist, they are presently engaged in a fight for their survival -- and otherwise, their entire civilian population is presently being decimated with their children being mass starved, and a very large percentage of their entire population dead or injured.

If you think words are to be interpted absent this context, then I cannot imagine you're very sincere in this.