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Genocide, ‘the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part’.
Is Israel guilty of genocide against Palestinians?
It is not.
On October 7th 2023, it was Palestinian militants who crossed into Israel to massacre 1200 Jews and to take back with them 200 plus hostages.
The Palestinian attackers quickly returned to Gaza to seek shelter in their tunnels and hide behind their unarmed brothers and sisters.
It was a cowardly act but they reasoned — correctly — that the world would come to their assistance.
Israel’s expected retaliation was quick but indiscriminate. Shouldn’t a first world nation have known better?
Of course. And yet, 1200 Jews had died and 200 others were taken hostage.
Would that not stir enormous outrage in any nation?
Still, traumatized as it was, Israel should have asked for help in managing the crisis.
For Jews not to have differentiated between Palestinians who attacked them and those who were being used as human shields was a grave flaw.
And it became more and more evident as the number of the dead mounted.
They were the easy target.
Thirty plus thousand have been killed so far, the greatest number in any Arab Israeli combat.
It was easy to dehumanize them, easy to blame them, but the majority of those Palestinians shielding Hamas, had been indoctrinated into not recognizing the right of Israelis to a part of Palestine.
Palestine belongs to both Palestinians and Jews.
Over the…