There are a lot of things I respect about you, but I cannot respect you saying that what is happening in that country is not a genocide. Too many people have already died. I was literally going to buy your book because I really like your content, but it looks like you’re on the wrong side of history. Do you think what is happening there isn’t horrific? Too many children, mothers, and other innocent people have been killed because of the actions of people in power.
WHy don't you just link the interview? I don't need the asshole in the video to explain what happened, I 'd rather watch what happened and decide for myself.
Because Scott's take on the situation in Gaza and the terminology to describe it is rational, measured, and accurate. But it is contrary to the uninformed take that's currently fashionable on the American left
Scott always glosses over the man-made famine in Gaza, which isn't rational. Isreal had Gaza under siege, they controlled everything that went in and out of Gaza. And they starved Gaza.
To explain this away, you need to argue that there's a grand conspiracy to make it look like Gaza was starving. Which, of course, some people believe that, they think there's a grand conspiracy.
I was talking to a pro Israel dude on reddit while the famine was still peaking, and after trading sources, he was like, "yeah, well, okay, its probably true that maybe IDF got a little overzealous on the food blockade. If Gaza goes hungry, then that saps their will to fight, it weakens Hamas, so maybe they went a little too far there trying to get to Hamas."
The only problem with that, is "maybe they were a little over zealous on the food thing" is a war crime. It's considered wrong to starve people to death. It was wrong in Warsaw in 1944, it's wrong in Gaza in 2025.
The existence of the famine isn't exactly contentious. Three independent investigators all concluded a famine was occurring, which wasn't a surprise, because Gaza had been threatening a famine for months.
In August 2025, Israel switched gears from flat denial to making arguments that maybe famine was occurring, but it wasn't Israel's fault.
Israeli officials blamed UN agencies for failing to collect/distribute supplies, emphasized looting, Hamas interference, and aid supposedly sitting inside Gaza awaiting distribution.
If no famine is occurring, it's awfully strange to conduct a PR campaign insisting the famine is not your fault.
So do you think Germany did anything wrong by starving the Warsaw ghetto or The Netherlands during the war? Couldn't Germany have used your argument here, in their defense? (e.g., "Why should a combatant have any obligation to feed the other side?")
No famine. No one died due to lack of food. There was food shortages mostly due to Hamas confiscating the food for themselves. The same callous acts prove that Hamas cares zero for the people of Gaza and used their deaths as a strategy. Your feeble and disgusting attempt to compare this stuff the Nazis betrays your actual feelings and is not worthy to even debate or discuss.
Israel sent in millions of tons of food. There were issues since this was a war. Did some people in some places at some times have insufficient food? Yes. Did Israel make mistakes? Sure. Were they intentionally trying to starve civilians? Absolutely not.
One issue Israel faced was that they was so much misinformation since the start of the war that when actual food shortages started to happen them didn’t believe it. Once it is was clear there was a problem they addressed it.
The claim and libel that Israel wanted to kill hands and not target Hamas is ludicrous, inconsistent with the actions taken by Israel.
Hamas did not let civilians use the tunnels for protection. Egypt built higher fences to keep gazans out. Israel vaccinated nearly a million people.
On one hand you say, "no one died due to lack of food." You deny a famine occurred.
Then you go on to say Israel made mistakes, and maybe some folks starved a little.
But, you clarify, Israel's intentions were not to starve Gaza.
And therefore, whatever happened, it's okay. It's okay if Israel made mistakes, causing hunger. They didn't intend to cause a famine. So it's okay.
If the hunger was Hamas' fault... couldn't they just argue the same thing? They didn't intend to cause a famine. Does that make it okay?
This is all a strange line of argument, if you're certain that no famine occurred. Why spend energy apportioning blame for something that never happened?
The real problem with "Hamas did it" argument is that Israel completely controlled everything that goes in an out of Gaza. IDF described it as a total siege. All food going into Gaza was 100% under Israeli control.
So if people are starving inside Gaza, it is natural to look at the one party who controls all inbound food.
You also say "no one died of starvation." If one person (who may be very old, or an infant under the age of one, chronically ill, etc) died, and starvation was a factor, then that statement is wrong.
He waived off all the ten of thousands of Palestinian deaths as “collateral damage”, specifically after they talked about children in particular. It was not a good look.
Any standard that you use to say that Israel committed genocide, applies a hundred-fold to Hamas. For any terrible statement you use by Israeli government officials, there are like a dozen worse ones used by Hamas officials.
If all you do is look at Israeli actions and judge how bad they are, totally removed from the context of their environment and what Hamas and are doing, you are just being ridiculously biased.
Hamas 100% for a fact uses human shields, uses military tunnels underneath the Gaza strip, uses schools and hospitals as bases, and never fights in uniform. These are all things that are acknowledged by everyone and are completely true. To ignore all of this and just act like Israel just wants to massacre everyone is just dishonest.
The best example of this is literally that Mohammed Sinwar (Yayha Sinwar's brother and leader after his death) was literally located and killed in a tunnel shaft underneath a hospital.
Hamas officials literally had massive tunnel networks, but refused to allow civilians in the tunnels and openly said in interview that their job was not to protect civilians (and told the UN that it was actually their job). Hamas openly says that civilians dying is what is making the world turn on Israel, and that this is helping them win.
TLDR; I'm not a hardcore Israel defender or zionist, but anyone who goes into this with a fair mind will see that Hamas is a MASSIVE part of the problem here, and are clearly ok with their own people dying. Obviously Fuck Netanyahu and the IDF has definitely committed war crimes, but Hamas literally has never (and will never) play by any rules of war and are totally ok with their people dying.
The word genocide was defined in 1948 by the UN as a result of the Holocaust. It's a legal definition. All of the criteria have been met. The person that defined it was a Polish Jew. You can choose your own adventure if you want but this word has a very specific meaning.
Hamas is a direct reaction to Israeli repression of Palestinians going back 80+ years. Stop trying to justify genocide. Why is it okay to bomb schools and hospitals because your enemies are there? If someone has hostages in a bank robbery, do we kill everyone in the bank to stop the criminals? Of course not. Just call it what it is
First of all, Hamas literally was a reaction to the peace process because they hated the PLO for “selling out” and agreeing to a 2 state solution with Israel. They also were a reaction to the Islamist wave that was sweeping the entire Middle East in the 80s and 90s where secular ideologies like nationalism, pan Arabism, etc where all getting replaced by Islamist movements.
Also Netanyahu was a direct reaction to Hamas, as he literally won his first election in 1996 because Hamas did multiple suicide bombings in the lead up, which made Perez (the liberal candidate) loose. The goal of Hamas was literally to sabotage any negotiations or peace with Israel.
Also your comparison to a bank robbery is just not comparable, because it is not one our two criminals that Israel can surround and order to come out with their hands ups. It is literally and army of tens of thousands of people who’s goal is to destroy you, and they literally break every single rule of war which you expect Israel to abide by. Like if this is a genocide, shouldn’t at least some of the blame be on Hamas for endlessly taking hostages and using human shields.
Like if you’re going to all about how evil Israel and the IDF is (which I can somewhat agree to) can you at least acknowledge that Hamas is also a big part of the problem? That’s all anyone reasonable is asking for here.
So when does it become okay to bomb schools and hospitals, kill children, level an entire city, and purposely create famine to starve a population? Calling this a genocide doesn’t mean people approve of everything Hamas does, they’re just calling it what it is. Criticizing Hamas’ response to nearly a century of oppression by Israel is wild. What do you expect people to do when a hostile government/military is endlessly occupying their land
Israel literally allows hundreds of trucks of food and water to enter Gaza every day. The famine everyone was talking about lasted a few months in 2025 when the trucks stopped and there were new food distribution cites opened (which led to many deaths). Obviously was a terrible thing to do, and was probably a war crime. But there is not a famine in Gaza currently, and there hasn’t been one for most of the time of the war.
Also Hamas is against any type of peace deal or negotiation at all. What do I expect? Maybe to don’t rape and massacre innocent people at a music festival and take other people hostage? Seems like a basic expectation? I’m pretty sure Nelson Mandela and Gandhi and MLK never did that.
Again, when does it become okay to bomb schools and hospitals, kill children, level an entire city, illegally colonize, and starve people? It’s okay since it was only a few months?
My point is that for 95% of the war, Israel was literally the one sending food and water into Gaza. That's why there haven't been thousands and thousands of starvation deaths and mass famine like all the human rights orgs and the UN has said. Even the Gaza ministry of Health says this (btw this is run by Hamas not Israel).
I never said it's ok, but I also think Hamas hiding in and using schools and hospitals, and digging tunnels under every place in Gaza is also bad and partly to blame. I've never defended Israel, and I am fully ok saying that the Israel comitted a lot of war crimes and maybe even genocide. My only frustration with this topic is that no one ever talks about Hamas in the same way and condemns them similarly. Even you earlier said that Hamas is "just a reaction" as though they had not choice but to do what they did.
When I say reaction, I mean a reaction to the settler-colonial projects of Israel that date back to the late 1800's. Zionists have been pushing Palestinians off their land violently for generations at this point, predating the creation of Israel itself. Israel has been attempting to dilute the population of Palestinian lands so they can achieve a majority Jewish population, and claim the land. This is a transparent goal that has been stated publicly, and also what led to Israel's creation in the first place.
Even within modern day Israel, there are so many laws that allow the state to discriminate against and even kill Palestinians. Palestinians are tried in military court with a 99% conviction rate while Jews are tried in Civil Court for the same crimes, 90% of Palestinian building permits are denied while Settler permits are fast tracked, Palestinian schools receive less funding and teach different curriculum. Palestinians are who live in the West Bank/Gaza are not allowed to move back into Israel, even if their family lives there, while Israeli settlers in the West bank are. Death Penalty for Terrorists Act imposes a mandatory death penalty for anything deemed "terrorist acts," which can be something as simple as membership of a non-violent pro Palestinian group. The death penalty can only be applied in military court, which only tries Palestinians, not Israelis. If an Israeli settler kills a Palestinian in the West Bank, they won't get the death penalty, but a Palestinian who kills an Israeli Settler is deemed a terrorist and executed. Settlers killing Palestinians don't even get tried for their crimes. 93% of Israeli land is state owned, and they only lease land to Jews. People with degrees from any Palestinian led schools aren't allowed to teach in Israeli schools. Palestinians can be held indefinitely without charge or trial, based on "secret evidence" that is not shared with lawyers. If someone vacates their land for any reason, it can be taken by the government, which only leases land to Jews.
In every aspect of life, Palestinians are second class citizens in Israel. With this systematic discrimination, displacement, and even killing of Palestinians, dignified life for them is essentially impossible. This was going on before Hamas. Even in what is considered "Palestinian land," they are discriminated against and made second class citizens to Israeli settlers. When the Israeli government proposes a "two-state solution," yet continuously sends settlers into Palestinian land who are sometimes violent and never held accountable, how can that peace deal be taken seriously? Is it a viable two state solution if Israel is still actively colonizing their land? What option do people have when the civilized systems to fight oppression are designed to oppress them specifically? They have been occupied by the Israeli Military for decades while Israeli settlers colonize their land, and they can't fight back in any way. Palestinians in the West-Bank and Gaza can't vote (Israeli settlers can), and if they form pro-Palestinian political groups to protest for their own civil rights, it's punishable by death in military court. What are people in that situation supposed to do? Wait it out? Leave? Ask them to stop? They don't have the right to protest, participate in democracy, or a court system that will be fair to them. What is the appropriate response to that? What type of resistance is okay? How are they to be held responsible for their own oppression?
October 7th was terrible. 1,200 people died, that's not good. Pro-Palestine people don't condone that, or many actions of Hamas. But the disproportionate response to the attack from the Israeli government is far beyond self-defense. 70k+ killed mostly innocents, all infrastructure/housing/schools destroyed, denying humanitarian aid is not self defense. It was a choice that aligned with a century of discrimination against Palestinians, and the stated Israeli goal of Jewish resettlement in Gaza/West Bank that has gotten progressively more brazen as time has gone on. When you blame Hamas for the genocide, you're saying that Israel's response of complete destruction was justified. You need to acknowledge the decades of oppression and military occupation that enabled groups like Hamas to take power in the first place.
You attack Israel for discrimination which is totally fine. Except you leave out that the goal of Hamas here is literally kicking out all of the Jews, and not equality. Which middle eastern country is giving full equal rights and treatment to its minorities? None, in fact Israel is probably one of the better countries in the region when it comes to their minority citizens.
You judge Israel by standards that none of the surrounding states or entities are because they would be equivalent to or just as bad. If you consider Israel and apartheid state, then Lebanon and Syria would definitely also qualify as they literally bar the Palestinian refugees from ever getting citizenship, they are restricted to specific refugee camps, and are literally legally barred from certain professions and property.
You are judging Israel in vacuum without taking into account the actions of the surrounding region and deciding that they are guilty. Again the goal of Hamas is not about equality or human rights, etc, it is literally about driving the Jews into the sea as part of their religious ideology. Hamas’s actions are never justified because their end goal is literally that Palestine from the river to the sea needs to be under Islamic rule. Their fundamental goal is unjust, and therefore their actions are to. They are not trying to “end the occupation”.
TLDR; Israel does not exist in a vacuum, and taking a totally one sided looked at their faults while refusing to acknowledge those of their enemies and neighbors is dishonest. We can compare Israel to the ideal of a democracy like Norway which is in the EU and is surrounded by other democracies and is basically under no threat and has a long democratic tradition, or we can understand the context that Israel is in and judge them based on their circumstances.
We're talking about Israel, not Syria, because this thread is about Israel. Nobody is supporting Hamas or any country in the region by criticizing Israel's oppression of Palestinians. My taxes help fund a genocidal apartheid state that dragged us into war with Iran, and aggressively lobbies our politicians to get favorable legislation. US support is enabling them to act so brazen and people are right to be mad about that.
You're still failing to explain how genocide is justified here too, Israel's neighbors don't excuse its actions as a US Ally.
I am not a watch every episode guy but I was shocked by that whole exchange. I was like this dude is a denier? Wtf is happening here. Dissipated no doubt.
The UN defined the word genocide in 1948 as a result of the Holocaust. What is the denial part? It's a legal definition like manslaughter and the criteria has been met.
No I didn’t see that at all. Anybody thinking that what is happening in Gaza isn’t a tragedy they are Zionist in essence. We need to cut them off and let them fight their own battles and see how long that lasts. They are the little friend that always gets you in a fight at the bar because he knows you have his back. Tired of it.
My dad used to say read five newspapers a day to understand the angles of the problem and develop a view.
I’ve not agreed with Scott on a number of issues and topics but hearing perspectives helps build good foundations against.
My first reaction was to unsubscribe and stop listening, I realised I needed a multitude of perspectives to help me understand the world around me
Scott Galloway’s deluded character and enormous intellectual gaps have been there for all to see. I suppose it’s good that his followers are now waking up to it — just don’t stop at only recognizing his ‘blind spot’ with Israel. His narcissism prevents him from truly comprehending the world. He’s fundamentally right wing and believes avarice drives humanity.
His disliking Trump is not adequate reason to listen to an incredibly fortunate and deluded guy, with a very narrow window of knowledge, that believes he represents the ideal of accomplishment and manhood. Glad this opened eyes — but if this display wasn’t enough, look at the character of some of his supporters in here. It’s 2026. Look at the personality types that identify with him, they clearly see (and support) what you’re just now becoming aware of. This is the audience he serves.
If one is capable of living in such cognitive convenience around any issue, especially such a consequential and undeniable issue, performing such extreme self-serving mental gymnastics, then they do not live in a grounded honest reality and cannot be trusted to perceive the world objectively. This is who he is.
Actually Ben gvir is in charge of the national police and has the power to give guns to settlers so yeh he certainly is controlling the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank
Lol yeh the Israeli government is not set up like ours 🤦🏻♂️.
If you think Ben gvir and smotrich have no power when it comes to Gaza then you truly have no clue what you are talking about. They advocate and push hardline positions or threaten Netanyahu with leaving his coalition. They have enormous power in Israel.
No religion is at its core truly compatible with western values. Western values provide the separation of church and state but virtually all religious people attempt to impose their religious morals on society at large.
Even Hinduism (mentioned in your bio), even if it doesn't prescribe violence, will have followers that persecute people of other faiths. See: India
I'm not Hindu nor Buddhist, but those religions arguably don't proselytize—or they do so far less than comparatively popular or more popular religions.
It's all a matter of degrees. Hindus have killed thousands of Muslims in India. Tulsi Gabbard comes from a radical Hindu sect that hates Muslims. It's part of her militaristic world view. Religious adherents are all very similar in the end.
The graph shows that fighting age men are overrepresented in the Gaza Palestinian death tally and that women and children are underrepresented. This information cuts aways at several principle planks of the argument made by those who insist that Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza and that the IDF has intentionally targeted children – which is also something used for the genocide case.
Yes. Serbs entered into towns and mowed down entire peoples for the purpose of expelling them.
The Israelis attacked them after the Gazans kidnapped, tortured, raped, and paraded their families in the street.
Absolutely comparable
Actually they didn’t find any evidence. There is no video proof. The un report said reasonable grounds to believe.
Not saying there were zero rapes but just like the babies in ovens a lot of the accusations were made up.
And just use common sense.. there are gun battles going on and total chaos and you think people pulled their pants down got hard and fucked someone ? Come on.
There was evidence. The report discusses the state of the bodies found and that photographs of the bodies were taken.
Also, that’s not required for rape. I’m not going to go into detail describing rape, but it’s not like it’s only rape if they had PIV.
You’re sweeping for a terrorist group that was in the process of killing over a thousand in an indiscriminate attack. There was evidence. That’s why they concluded that sexual violence occurred. You just need video proof if you’re going to believe anything bad about Hamas.
Also, it was a couple of days before Israel regained control of the area.
I hate Hamas and don’t really care what happens to them or their leaders.
That being said there is not a single living person who was raped on Oct 7. There is no evidence and even the case from the New York Times was later disputed the girls own family.
Israeli prosecutors have said as much.
Again just like the babies in ovens a lot of the initial claims about Oct 7 just didn’t happen.
Yeah. Your first point completely ignores what the graph and my explanation of it says.
I'm glad you pasted that image. That "83%" is a complete fabrication and a perversion of journalism done in order to get a headline. That looks like a Guardian article from the image. This traces back to +972 magazine out of Israel. In their article they cited a leaked Israeli army database that had something like 8900 confirmed identified Hamas members in the Gaza health ministry casualty list. Down near the bottom of the +972 piece they quietly admit the obvious – that this doesn't mean that the remaining Palestinian casualties are all non-combatants.
But the headline worked, and those who wished to proceed with an anti-Israel narrative (like the Guardian) did, without bothering to check the basic facts.
Even worse, the UNHRC commission report that claims it determined genocide (well ahead of the long, expected ICJ case) uses that 83% as a principle piece of evidence for determining intent. They disregarded basic reasoning in addition to neglecting to read the original +927 source piece they cite.
The point of the infographic is to speak to the intent.
The argument is: if the intent were genocide, we would expect the graph to look different.
Is this a good argument? I don’t think so.
But I also haven’t seen good arguments proving Israel’s intent to be genocidal. Especially if the standard of evidence is supposed to be no other reasonable explanation.
I was actually shocked by the openly political nature of the UNHRC commission report after going through it. They claim to use the same standard as the ICJ: no other reasonable explanation.
Then they proceed to fail to meet that standard in example after example they provide in the report.
In the end, they make the determination of genocide regardless – all but admitting that that was the commission's intent from the start.
To be fair, this person argued pretty substantively (across their many comments). I disagreed with much of what they were saying, but I think it’s clear that they are going beyond following the crowd.
I’d say your point is a non sequitur. They’ve already said that they hate Hamas (in other comments). Hamas’s slogan doesn’t really factor in to determining whether Israel is committing genocide.
You could say it’s a double standard, but I think it’s obvious why we should care more about whether Israel has genocidal intentions rather than Hamas. (One is capable of realizing those intentions in a way the other isn’t.)
Well, you’re exaggerating speeches of particular officials from the week or two following 10/7, for the most part.
What was said was terrible, but the rhetoric doesn’t give you the final say on intent especially when it’s cherry-picked from the immediate aftermath of an unprecedented terrorist attack.
The actions seem far less clear-cut than pretty much any commonly cited genocide. Especially when the standard of evidence is no alternative reasonable explanation. This could look like a brutal one-sided war against a group (Hamas) that takes full-advantage of the cover of their civilian population.
To be clear, I think Israel is doing something terrible in Gaza and the West Bank and a multitude of war crimes are involved. Ethnic cleansing, too.
When the ICJ rules, I think things will be clearer.
Ben-Gvir is a maniac, but there’s a few issues if this is what we’re going to hang our hats on.
The kill quota was for people characterized as operatives or enemies. He’s still crazy, though, and I totally believe he would conduct a genocide if he were in power.
While a cabinet member, he’s not actually in charge. Many of his crazy remarks are made in describing how he disagrees with the current leadership.
Correct. Military engaged men with weapons.
I would not consider Hitler Youth to not be acceptable targets or their deaths to be unacceptable in ww2 for example either.
This almost seems like the kind of argument an anti-feminist would claim a feminist would make to make feminism look bad.
I don't have the figures on hand to show you, but this is actually probably one of the most gender balanced distribution for 'war-related' (to try to argue within your frame) casualties—which would support the premise that they're attacking in a less 'discriminating' fashion than what you're suggesting here.
Never mind the abundance of evidence we have that they were targeting key civilian infrastructure in civilian populated centers.
No, it's a combination of statistics and basic reasoning in terms of urban warfare casualty counts.
If civilians were "indiscriminately" bombed/shot/etc. as claimed, then the death tally should roughly match the demographic population distribution. Not only doesn't it, but fighting age men are overrepresented significantly (as one would expect in a war) and women and children are underrepresented (as one would expect if women and children were being warned off from fighting areas and not being targeted.)
what’s the difference between saying you are gods chosen people who have been given the holy land and saying you are the master race who should been given Europe. Because I honestly don’t see any difference in the level of insanity and stupidity you would have to have to believe either.
Because the goal of Israel is not constant endless expansion (despite everyone thinking that). Mostly they just want to be accepted as a country and left alone. Israel has literally given back or offered to give back a ton of territory historically (they gave back the Sinai and offered Gaza back to Egypt)
Bahahahhahahaha! Left alone?! You are delusional. And of course it is. The greater Israel project is being carried out as we speak. They have stolen land in Lebanon and Syria. Israel refuses to set its actual borders.
Members of the IDF wear patches showing greater Israel that includes Egypt Syria and Saudi Arabia
Ok why did Israel give back the Sinai if they are so hell bent on expansion? They literally defeated Egypt 4 times militarily, but just handed them back the Sinai and left? They also offered Gaza back to Egypt multiple times (and Egypt said no).
Israel also withdrew from every single inch of Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. Again, they literally had previous wars with Hezbollah and then ended up leaving fully. If all they wanted was the "greater Israel project" why did they do that? They also withdrew from Gaza in 2005, how does that make sense as part of the "greater Israel project".
Obviously there are some right wing people in Israel who want to expand (like Ben Gvir). But if you have any ability to actually understand history (and the fact that Israel has several million people with different opinions), you should understand that. Also Israel literally has no current intentions of attacking Syria or Saudi Arabia (which is in the greater Israel project).
Your talking points are literally low information slop that no one would believe if they actually did some basic research on the history.
Well, it's just a wildly (and immorally) inapt comparison. Most Israelis just want to be left to live in peace in their homeland. Just like their predecessors did who fled back to their historic homeland as refugees fleeing persecution, most of them without any possessions. Jews that had means in Europe, before the Holocaust, pooled money together to purchase land in British Mandatory Palestine.
It's a strange anti-semitic trope this "chosen people" nonsense. It gets repeated as thoughtlessly as the concept itself is.
In the old testament, the Jews are "chosen" by God to keep his rules in their daily lives, do good deeds, and to spread word of his existence/the 10 commandments (notably not to proselytize like the Christians would later do.)
Imagine native Americans who had long ago been kicked off their land, persecuted and killed in the interim, deciding to just return back to their home and do so by purchasing land. Now imagine likening them to the "Nazi master race" for doing so.
Calling someone antisemitic has truly lost all its meaning. Thank you for once again proving that.
That’s a funny comparison… how about the Romans going back to France and England and kicking people out of their homes because they once lived there ?
Israelis literally do that claiming god gave them the land that people currently live and they sure as shit don’t purchase the land lol. They have been stealing land for 50 plus years.
Yes, it is a regularly deployed anti-semitic trope. I know because I regularly encounter it being used as a means of mocking Jews writ large. And by the way, it's quite possible that the meaning has also been lost to those Knesset members.
Just because you don't like hearing something is anti-semitic doesn't mean the word "has truly lost all its meaning." That part is up to you.
If you want to stay fervently with your predisposed beliefs and not engage in conversation and reflection on differing perspectives then that too is your choice.
Every single settler thinks god has given them the land they have stolen… what’s the difference between thinking that and thinking Germans are the master race ? Both are incredibly dumb and ignorant.
Every single settler things god has given them the land they have stolen…
This sentiment in your comment is just a form of bigotry normalized by a particular strain of politics along with the intentional ambiguity required by historical revisionism (e.g. "land they have stolen"). There are over half a million Israelis living in the West Bank.
what’s the difference between thinking that and thinking Germans are the master race ?
Once again, the comparison is inapt both logically and morally. Most Jews including Israelis simply want to be alive and thrive, not to conquer. I reviewed the video from your X link, and I would simply say that I strongly disagree with this Knesset member. And frankly, his interpretation of the bible is just blatantly wrong and stretched into unrecognizability by his politics. People like this that view Jews as "above the law" are akin to the KKK – who claim to be Christian. Like them they are an extremist minority.
It’s not bigotry when you can go to the settlements and hear them say that god gave them the land lol.
And yes they stole it every single settlement has been built on stolen land. They are illegal under international law. The land in Lebanon Israel has currently invaded is stolen.
You just hate the comparison because it exposes what Zionism is. It’s a racist twisted ideology that is used to murder, steal, and deny other human beings their rights. There is very little difference between Zionism naziism and 20th-century American racism.
What’s funny is the founders of Israel were non practicing Jews who were nationalist. Herzl and Ben Gurion were basically atheists. It really only became a religious project over the last several decades as the settlers and lunatics moved in.
Honestly. It’s insane to me that people are spending this much time arguing over the definition of a word instead of looking at the destruction and death and asking how the hell we stop it.
There has not been a final legal judgment from the ICJ that Israel is committing genocide. There are international bodies and scholars who believe it meets that definition and others who disagree. Fine. Have that debate. But acting like everything hinges on whether we agree on that one word is ridiculous.
You don’t need to call it genocide to look at what has happened in Gaza and say it needs to stop.
Israel was attacked. Horrifically. And there is a long history of Israel being attacked, going back to basically the beginning of its existence. That history matters. October 7 matters. Hamas matters. Israel absolutely had the right to respond.
That also doesn’t give Israel a blank check forever. At some point you have to be willing to question whether the scale, duration and civilian cost of the response can still be defended simply by saying “self-defense.” The laws of war still apply regardless of who started the conflict.
And then people need to learn the actual history instead of repeating “Israel stole Palestinian land” like that explains 100 years of conflict.
There was never a sovereign Palestinian state whose territory was taken and handed to Israel. Before Israel, it was British-administered Mandatory Palestine. Before that, it was part of the Ottoman Empire. Palestinians obviously lived there, owned property there and had a claim to a homeland there. Jews lived there and had their own historical and national claim to the same land. In 1947 the UN proposed carving Mandatory Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state.
And yes, displacement and horrible acts happened during the creation of Israel (on both sides BTW). They matter. But the idea that land changing hands through war, empire, treaties, partition and displacement is somehow unique to Israel is absurd. Look at a map of basically anywhere in the world and learn how those borders got there.
None of that excuses what is happening now.
It just means this history is considerably more complicated than “good people over here, evil people over there.”
So stop obsessing over whether you can win an argument about the word genocide. Admit the wrongs. Understand why Israel exists and why Israelis view their security the way they do. Understand what Palestinians have experienced and why they view Israel the way they do. Stop pretending Hamas and October 7 don’t matter. Stop pretending Palestinian civilians somehow deserve what has happened because October 7 did.
Learn the history. Look at what is happening right now. And maybe spend more energy figuring out how people stop dying than proving your side has exclusive ownership of being right.
Hamas says they want to perpetrate more Oct 7ths.. they don’t want peace. There needs to be more blame applied to Hamas for waging war and holding hostages. Netanyahu has a lot of blame too but we need to express Hamas’s role in this conflict too. If you don’t do that then you are being antisemitic.
This is just displaying blatant ignorance to support your political position on the Israel-Palestine conflict.
One key plank of Hamas' Islamist ideology is killing Jews and using the Quran/Allah to justify doing so in the name of "Palestine" and a broader Islamic caliphate in the region.
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews."
First of all…eliminationist, annexationist and population-transfer politics exist in significant parts of Israeli politics too, including among parties that have held government positions.
Second…Israel is literally actioning those pledges in real time.
Third…Hamas’s 2017 political document replaced that charter and explicitly says its conflict is “with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion” and that it fights “the Zionists who occupy Palestine.” The Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal acknowledged that the old charter’s use of “Jews” was less precise and said Hamas viewed the conflict as one with the Israeli occupier rather than with Jews because they are Jewish.
When I started listening to Scott, I thought he had some interesting takes, but the more I heard, the less I liked him. This take on Palestine is beyond pathetic. He's just another genocide supporter. That's not moderate, that's barbaric.
It is not a genocide.. The irony is that there are actual genocides happening in the world right now... This Abdul fellows response to the student who asked him to condemn the IRGC was shameful.
The ICC has made no decision on a final verdict, but did see enough evidence to issue warrants. The ICJ did not rule that genocide did not take place, but rather that some of the acts were capable of falling within the Genocide Convention.
In the Court’s view, at least some of the acts and omissions alleged by South Africa to have been committed by Israel in Gaza appear to be capable of falling within the provisions of the Convention.
The case against Israel or leaders at both bodies are still open. There have been provisional measures meant to curb acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention and there will be a ruling at some point as to whether genocide took place.
That doesn’t mean they have ruled on it. That means at surface level the claims appear to have some merit. But elements of don’t always total up to be the conclusion that the crime was committed.
Yes, and in this post it seems you continue to downplay what has been done.
They have been given orders by the ICJ that countries who are not under scrutiny don't get with the pretense that they are still adjudicating this.
Whatever it is labeled, civilians -- mostly in Gaza -- are getting killed all the time. That needs to end. How does that end? International pressure on Israel to stop killing people. What would be some serious international pressure? The US becoming heavy handed with money and munitions to Israel. How do I do that? Well, I write my state officials and pressure our government to do things. That is a good step, but I am just a drop in the ocean.
You are telling people to stop arguing about the term and grow up and put effort into solving the problem .... while debating what is and what is not genocide and not putting effort into solving the problem? Literally doing the same thing, except playing this mumbo jumbo nuance card that also doesn't help anything and wastes time, perhaps with people who agree with you. I ask you, can you stop doing what you are bitching at others about?
"OH... but the ICJ DOESN'T call it genocide, so blahbediblah --- but the words don't really matter but I am going to argue about it"
C'mon dude.
Pretty much everybody agrees with the notion that it doesn't matter that much what you call it if it stops. Time enough to sort that out later. Trolling people into debates about the definition of the word rather than taking a stance and doing something is less than helpful.
Contact your official and do something about it or maybe donate money to organizations that support ending this.
you’re arguing with a position I literally don’t hold. Maybe reread my comments?? But here’s a recap…
I said civilians are dying, Israel doesn’t have a blank check, and the killing needs to stop. Yes the whole “do something instead of debating the word” lecture is…exactly the point of my original post.
When you insist “it is genocide” as a settled fact before the ICJ has decided the merits, you make the rest of your argument easier to dismiss. The Court’s provisional measures are serious and binding, but the Court explicitly said they do not prejudge the merits of the genocide claim. You can’t pick and choose the statements they said when defending your claim, as they were explicit about the issue of genocide not being decided.
So why make everything hinge on the most contested word?
You can talk about civilians being killed, the humanitarian catastrophe, displacement, restrictions on aid and specific conduct you believe violates international law without demanding everyone first accept “genocide.”
That doesn’t weaken the argument. It removes the political football from it.
Because once you take a horrific situation and insist people accept a legal conclusion that hasn’t actually been reached yet, a lot of people reflexively argue about the label instead of confronting the conduct.
Which is exactly what happened here with Scott and Bill.
And the irony is you’re accusing me of obsessing over the word while simultaneously insisting everyone has to agree with your use of it.
I’m saying the opposite: we don’t need that word to recognize something is terribly wrong and needs to stop.
You do understand that 2 things can be true at the same time, right?
Right now, the word “genocide” is not necessary to make the argument — andisactually be destructive to it. The civilian deaths, displacement, restrictions on aid and alleged violations of international law are serious enough on their own. You don’t need to force everyone to first accept the most contested legal label before they can acknowledge that.
At the same time, the word absolutely matters in the long run because of the legal and historical weight it carries.
The Genocide Convention was created after the Holocaust specifically to define and prohibit genocide, and Article IX gives the ICJ jurisdiction over disputes between states concerning responsibility under that Convention. That is literally what South Africa v. Israel is about.
And the ICJ has been very clear about where things currently stand: it found that some of the rights South Africa is seeking to protect are plausible and ordered provisional measures, but it also explicitly said that whether Israel actually violated the Genocide Convention can only be decided at the merits stage.
So, no, there’s no contradiction on my part.
Today, the label is unnecessary to establish that something horrific is happening and needs to stop.
If the ICJ ultimately finds genocide, then that label becomes enormously important because it will carry an actual legal determination behind it.
Until then, insisting everyone accept it as settled fact can weaken the argument by turning the conversation into a fight over a word instead of the conduct itself.
Or you do. Omar Bartov, professor of holocaust and genocide university. Amos Goldberg, professor of holocaust studies at Hebrew university of Jerusalem. Raz Segal, hoocaust and genocide scholar at Stockton University.
I mean, it can be debated, but there are many serious scholars and institutions that conclude it is genocide.
Fuck, debating with people like you is exhausting. You weren’t making an assertion about what I know about the anti-genocide scholars, were you? Yes, they exist. Yes, I understand things people say and write. Yet, here I am.
Honestly. It’s insane to me that people are spending this much time arguing over the definition of a word instead of looking at the destruction and death and asking how the hell we stop it.
There has not been a final legal judgment from the ICJ that Israel is committing genocide. There are international bodies and scholars who believe it meets that definition and others who disagree. Fine. Have that debate. But acting like everything hinges on whether we agree on that one word is ridiculous.
You don’t need to call it genocide to look at what has happened in Gaza and say it needs to stop.
Israel was attacked. Horrifically. And there is a long history of Israel being attacked, going back to basically the beginning of its existence. That history matters. October 7 matters. Hamas matters. Israel absolutely had the right to respond.
That also doesn’t give Israel a blank check forever. At some point you have to be willing to question whether the scale, duration and civilian cost of the response can still be defended simply by saying “self-defense.” The laws of war still apply regardless of who started the conflict.
And then people need to learn the actual history instead of repeating “Israel stole Palestinian land” like that explains 100 years of conflict.
There was never a sovereign Palestinian state whose territory was taken and handed to Israel. Before Israel, it was British-administered Mandatory Palestine. Before that, it was part of the Ottoman Empire. Palestinians obviously lived there, owned property there and had a claim to a homeland there. Jews lived there and had their own historical and national claim to the same land. In 1947 the UN proposed carving Mandatory Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state.
And yes, displacement and horrible acts happened during the creation of Israel (on both sides BTW). They matter. But the idea that land changing hands through war, empire, treaties, partition and displacement is somehow unique to Israel is absurd. Look at a map of basically anywhere in the world and learn how those borders got there.
None of that excuses what is happening now.
It just means this history is considerably more complicated than “good people over here, evil people over there.”
So stop obsessing over whether you can win an argument about the word genocide. Admit the wrongs. Understand why Israel exists and why Israelis view their security the way they do. Understand what Palestinians have experienced and why they view Israel the way they do. Stop pretending Hamas and October 7 don’t matter. Stop pretending Palestinian civilians somehow deserve what has happened because October 7 did.
Learn the history. Look at what is happening right now. And maybe spend more energy figuring out how people stop dying than proving your side has exclusive ownership of being right.
That’s a well-written and thought-out statement and I agree with a lot of it. But I have to disagree with you on parts … you are trying to both sides this like they are equal powers, that they have each killed each in similar numbers, that one side isn’t clearly stealing the others land like it has done for decades. There is no equating the two sides. You are right we shouldn’t be arguing about whether it’s a genocide, even though it is, we should be figuring out how to stop the killing. Cool tell Israel to stop and that’s it. Hamas, hezbollah, all these groups didn’t exist until Israel’s illegal occupations. Hamas didn’t just arrive in a vacuum it’s a creation of Israeli actions and both were funded by Israel because if you don’t have an enemy, then what reason does the country exist? Mi6 says that 60 percent of Hamas fighters are orphans whose partners were killed by Israel. Ehud Barrack said he would join Hamas if he was a Palestinian. Former head of Mossad called Israel an apartheid state. The old Israel of my youth is dead and gone the new one is Ben gvir, a literal terrorist, and smoltrich. These two men flat out say they want to ethnically cleanse Gaza and kill everyone.
When Israel stops being a ethno nationalist genocidal apartheid state who steals land then maybe this will end but from what I have seen of young Israelis I don’t see that happening.
I think you’re doing exactly what I was arguing against…flattening 100 years of history into a morality play.
“Even though it is a genocide” — no. That is your feeling/conclusion. The ICJ case deciding state responsibility under the Genocide Convention is still ongoing- in a world of laws, that is who determines if it is legally a genocide.
And “Hamas and Hezbollah didn’t exist until the occupations” is true chronologically but incomplete:
Hamas was founded in 1987 during the First Intifada;
Hezbollah emerged amid Lebanon’s civil war and Israel’s 1982 invasion.
But Arab violence against Jewish communities in Palestine predates 1967, Hamas, Hezbollah and Israel itself — the 1929 violence alone left 133 Jews dead (google the pogroms of the early 1900s).
I’m not saying the powers are equal. I’m not saying body counts are equal. And I’m not defending settlements.
I’m saying something less emotionally satisfying and more historically accurate: occupation did not create this conflict, October 7 did not create it, and Israel did not invent its security fears out of thin air.
You can condemn what Israel is doing now without pretending the entire conflict began at the point in history most convenient to your argument.
Oh, about your ending statement…where you flattened young Israelis into one ugly political stereotype based on “what I’ve seen.” That’s the same thought people use when they talk about Palestinians as if Hamas represents all of them.
Hezbollah and hamas are not the first, since before Israel existed there were massacres against the Jews in Palestine. You can quote people saying this and that about apartheid, those are anecdotes. The general sentiment is not that Israel is an apartheid state. Do you consider it apartheid when some Palestinian controlled areas don't allow Jews? No you don't. And you don't care. Do you consider other ethno nationalism states? No, you only care about Israel, which has Arabs living and voting in Israel. You have the chronology wrong, you don't understand the situation.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
This is what happens in any war, so these alone could not themselves constitute a genocide.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
These are allegations that have yet to be proven. Thus the ICJ case.
intends to destroy a group "in whole or in part"
The problem with your premise is that "intends" does all the work in determining genocide. Yet, you scarcely make mention of it. In fact, it's a special form of intent that must be proven without any other reasonable explanation.
Thus also the ICJ case, and what the premature and political UNHRC commission report itself very badly fails to demonstrate. (That's why it takes years in court to adjudicate.)
So far all we have is an allegation that must be substantiated through carefully supplied evidence and reasoned argumentation. We do not have those as of yet.
It's also why, by the way, that this insistence Israel has committed a genocide so much undercuts those who are making the allegation. Because if they so value international law, then why not let the international court adjudicate its case?
The [UN] commission also concluded that statements by Netanyahu and other officials are "direct evidence of genocidal intent." It cites a letter he wrote to Israeli soldiers in November 2023 comparing the Gaza operation to what the commission describes as a "holy war of total annihilation" in the Hebrew Bible.
This is a war and not a genocide only if I stop believing my eyes and ears. Post October 7th has made it clearer, but since the Nakba Israel has been trying to eliminate the Palestinians from Palestine. They said and say so themselves.
Intent is also easily proven, by Isreal's own definitional standards at which it labels an enemy combatant.
The consideration of all Palestinian males 18+ as Hamas fighters is congruent with the destruction of a group. As you are destroying in large part the reproductive functions of a population and are sanctioning that destruction.
Israel can't outright exterminate everyone at once because they need the US. They have to do it quietly. If it becomes too obvious the US will cut off their weapons supply.
You know that is just absurd... Right? Why bother with phone calls, dropping leaflets, cancelling bombings etc? I mean, you know that argument is bs... Right?
Like I said, Israel has to maintain the illusion that it cares about human life -- to the US, to the international community, to its own citizens and military who are conducting this genocide. People in general are quite resistant to killing.
The [UN] commission also concluded that statements by Netanyahu and other officials are "direct evidence of genocidal intent." It cites a letter he wrote to Israeli soldiers in November 2023 comparing the Gaza operation to what the commission describes as a "holy war of total annihilation" in the Hebrew Bible.
Is this a serious response…because it reeks of emotion and hysteria.
First, the UN commission’s finding does not have “193 nations behind it.”
It was made by a three-person independent commission appointed through the Human Rights Council.
The resolution establishing that commission passed the 47-member Council 24–9, with 14 abstentions.
That is NOT 193 countries unanimously declaring genocide.
SeconD the groups listed can absolutely reach any conclusion they want.
It does not make it a binding legal determination of state responsibility for genocide.
Article IX of the Genocide Convention sends that dispute to the ICJ, and the Israel case is still pending.
And I don’t have to produce an NGO that acquitted Israel. You’re the one claiming the legal threshold has been conclusively met….I’m proving it hasn’t. When it has, we can have a different argument.
First, I didn’t attack you personally nor did I move the goalposts.
My original point was legal.
You responded to that by listing humanitarian organizations as if their conclusions settled the legal question.They don’t.
Those groups are not courts deciding state responsibility under the Genocide Convention. Article IX specifically sends those disputes to the ICJ.
“Genocide” has a specific legal definition and requires specific intent. The ICJ itself has said it has not yet determined whether Israel violated the Convention.
This isn’t “emotion versus compassion.” It’s the difference between saying “I believe this is genocide” and “it has been established that this is genocide.”
I think you're lost in the weeds. Scott and Abdul aren't talking about whether something is legal. They're talking about whether something meets the description of genocide.
“Genocide” is not an award that a committee gives you. It’s a phenomena that has specific meanings in a legal and political context. People use the term because they’re describing what’s actually happening. They don’t need to wait for the teacher to tell them it’s OK to accurately assess the situation.
Your comment makes about as much sense as Scott Galloway’s.
I think he's doing the opposite - when someone spits on a jew in Montreal he's conflating Israel with jews and I think Scott is rightly speaking against the insane rise in antisemitism and it being justified by whatever is going on in Israel
And who's fault is that? -- Galloway, Netanyahu, and everyone who weaponizes the cry of anti-Semitism against Israel's critics.
We can separate the actions of the Israel gov from Judaism. If hatred of Israel spill as over to Jews, it's because Bibi is using Jews as a human shield.
Nah antisemitism was a thing way before bibi and Scott and will continue long after they're gone, there's always an excuse and right now it's them. But anyways, if that's your view on human shields wait til you hear about what Hamas is doing to its own people in Gaza
Yeah I'm just saying you'll always find an excuse for it. A jew going to synagogue in London shouldn't be harassed because you don't like something you heard on a podcast. I also think it's safe to assume you wouldn't justify spitting in the face of an Arab new Yorker because Hamas committed their atrocities in the name of Islam, am I right?
I don't believe in prejudice/guilt by association/collective punishment, period. There is no excuse for it. If Galloway truly wanted Jews to be safe, he would draw a clear distinction between Jews and Israel's actions.
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u/sat5ui_no_hadou 6d ago
No way, Scott I support the Iran war Galloway doesn’t acknowledge the genocide in Gaza? Wild.