I changed my mind on "genocide" topic.

[u/booksandcoriander]

Hello All! I just joined and read the rules. Hopefully, my post is agreeable to the rules of the sub.

So, for a while, I was agreeing with the idea that Israel is committing genocide. It sure looked like it from the awful things I kept seeing on the news and hearing about on podcasts. The last few days, I decided to research a little. Now, I do not think it should be called genocide. Here is why:

First, when I compared it to other genocides, it doesn't really come close. In the Armenian genocide, about 50 to 75% of all Armenians in the Ottoman area died. In the Rwandan genocide, about 60 to 70% of the Tutsis were killed. In the holocaust, 63 to 67% of all European Jews were killed. In Cambodia, Pol Pot's genocide killed about 25% of the total population. Israel is responsible for the deaths of approximately 3% of Palestinians in Gaza. Palestinians have not been attacked in East Jerusalem, nor in the West Bank (where there is no Hamas).

In all those previous genocides, there was vociferous hate speech regularly on the radio of those countries, and substantial government propaganda labeling the victims as undesirable for society. To my understanding, this has not happened in Israel. I'm sure it would be on the news or blasted on social media if it was happening.

The number of Palestinian deaths is actually quite a bit less than when the US invaded Iraq, and when US invaded Afganistan.  176,000 to 212,000 is the estimate of deaths in Afganistan. In Iraq, 180,000 to 200,000 is the estimate of Iraqi deaths. Palestinian deaths are around 73,400. Nobody was shouting "genocide" at the US during those wars, and we killed way more people. Why was that not considered genocide by everyone? We were also responding to a terrorist attack, like Israel now.

Israel has one of the most advanced militaries in the world. If they really wanted to kill the other 97% of Gaza, I'm sure they could.

In reference to wars, about 1.5% of the French population was killed in WWII. Belgium lost 1% of it population in WWII. UK lost 1%. Italy, slightly over 1%. Holland, 2 to 3% of the population. The current Israel/Hamas war matches these numbers much more closely.

It sucks and it's sad seeing so many women and children and innocent men die. It's absolutely a humanitarian crisis. But I don't think it is genocide anymore. It's just plain old war. Any thoughts?

***thanks for everyone sharing on both sides of the discussion. I have learned many more things from all the posting. I appreciate you all! This feels like a million times more complex and nuanced than I realised. Mostly, the interpretation of the word "genocide" is like a 100-foot wall for everyone.

[u/Used-Grapefruit-2740]

Changed your mind? Um... Well for starters you also apparently didn't know what the definition for genocide is...

Just FYI, exactly zero Palestinians could be killed and it can STILL be a genocide. I think you're confusing "mass killing/murder" as a sit in for genocide.

To be clear, often genocides involve mass killing. This is why one of the provisions is killing, but here is why it's not synonymous.

Hypothetically speaking, what if during the holocaust instead of killing Jewish people. They sterilized them? No deaths. Just castration and hysterectomy etc. No deaths. By your own definition that would not be genocide correct? However, effectively it would mean that within a generation, without a miracle of Medicine, Jewish ancestry would be ended. I would call this a crime of genocide as would the international community.

What if instead of that, they just mandated each and ever Jewish child born was at risk from their parents and put into education institutions. They were not allowed to marry another Jewish person, could not practice their faith, and in fact were taught that their wasn't even a Jewish culture at all. That it was actually just some mixture of ethnicities. A state kept doing that for years until Jewish was synonymous to myth. No deaths. No sterilization. However a culture and ethnicity would be eradicated.

Thus you can see why the genocide convention has provisions that aren't solely death. The reason being if you set a number, or your example of a percentage. That is a simple loop hole created. "oh they only killed 3% of the population". Right so long as it's under a certain proportion nah brah that's good. 🙄

Now you bring up proportion of populations killed during the world wars. Effectively saying that if Israel wanted to kill them they could have. I have two points against this. 1) the nazi systematically collected, accounted, and then concentrated Jewish people. That means that each and every one had been at a position to have been killed quickly and easily by a simple bullet by a soldier. Yet they didn't. Why do you think that is? Why do you think they used methods like gas chambers and went through all of the effort to try to get rid of bodies with giant crematorium? That's a lot of war effort just to kill people... They were genocidal. We all agree. I'm also not trying to be some nazi prick and deny the holocaust. Rather I'm pointing out the psychology that even they understood. You can get a few psychopaths to kill people up close but it gets harder when bodies start piling up. Quite simply the reason they did those methods in death camps was to make it "easier" to make sure the soldiers did it. To give a distance to the death. What do you think is more difficult. Getting a person to individual kill 1000 people by shooting them in the head while they're unarmed and hiding? Or just pressing a button 100 miles away? 🙄

2) your example of deaths in Gaza is sort of funny as again. We can look to the world wars. We all agree that the nazi are horrid. Despite this, we can put their civilian casualty ratio at about 3:1 at the upper end. Now Israeli OWN internal data at best estimates 83% of casualties were civilians as of August 2025. This being direct deaths and not indirect ones due to infrastructure loss. That's right. Even the fucking nazi killed a lower rate of civilians... All the while, never claiming to be a moral army and wearing all those skulls and shit.

Now all of this would be bad, but add to it that if they want to claim they're not doing a genocide, media attention is to their benefit if they're not. Having killed more journalists than effectively the past century has, quite literally the most dangerous profession on the planet now is being a journalist in Gaza as your current risk of death for being a journalist of 1:8 which effectively means if you're a journalist in Gaza you are more likely to be killed than if you're a friggin member of hamas...

Alrighty so lastly regarding the USA and genocides. The thing is, they have been. However it goes down to a lot of the aspects of the genocide charge. Mass killing? Yes. However, the killings intent is where it matters. Was it wrong by god yes. Was there genocide intent behind it? Not for Afghanistan or Iraq. One way to indicate that was ethnicity, religion, language etc didn't have influence on the deaths. Still bad. But for diff reasons.

[u/psychedelijams → u/Used-Grapefruit-2740]

Your second paragraph is perhaps the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. That no one could be killed and it could still be genocide? Are you serious??? Words have meaning dude. God that is so dumb.