Middle East War Expands, page-1438

Having been bludgeoned for several decades by 'identity politics' of all sorts, I think that as a political concept ethnicity, whether racial, cultural or religious, or merely regional, is nothing more than a tool of the powerful to manipulate others into doing their will- which is usually murdering and stealing from other people. Conveniently, the world is not a homogenous place, so there is an 'identity' pretext available for killing anyone anywhere and stealing their wealth.

In that context, what does 'genocide' even mean anymore? The Nazis, no matter how you count the victims of 'the' Holocaust, notably failed to exterminate the Jews. If Hamas were to kill everyone in the State of Israel, they would not come close to exterminating the Jews, there are more Jews outside Israel than inside. Likewise, the people of Gaza may be slaughtered to the last infant, but Palestinian's, by descent, by self-identification, will persist, and anyway, they are simply a neighborhood of a much larger Arab/Muslim ethnicity which is in no danger of extinction, short of the nuclear war that kills us all.

I think that 'genocide' has become merely a distraction to keep people arguing about insoluble problems while ignoring the fundamental issues of class, greed, and capitalism that actually drive all these events.

If Israel does manage to drive the inhabitants of Gaza out, some remnants of them will land elsewhere, where some malign power will cultivate them, cultivate their grievances, and use them and the atrocities their people have suffered as a pretext for more theft and slaughter. It wouldn't surprise me if the west were to give them a state in, say, western Guyana...

Posted by: Honzo | Dec 31 2023 17:29 utc