MSA Student Would Prefer Second Holocaust

The end of WWII was supposed to have marked the end of that kind of colonial brutality.

Israel was launched after such conquest and territorial expansion was supposed to have been forbidden by mutual agreement and mutual cooperation. The whole point of the international institutions formed in the aftermath of WWII was to put an end to what had proved an insupportable mode of behavior in a world of modern weaponry and techniques of slaughter.

Israel has continued to expand, by force, its boundaries and the territory available to its immigrant population. This is current behavior. What nation states were doing in the centuries past and the decades leading up to WWII, Israel has been doing since its establishment and is doing now. The consequences of that were so strikingly horrible when wedded to industrial military power that the modern industrial nations willingly agreed to forswear their own ambitions, and band together to curb others', and prevent any more of that from happening - Israel being the solitary exception, for the past sixty years.

The tragedy unfolding so far, and the disaster approaching, have been recognized as the likely outcomes of such actions for generations. The lessons of WWI and WWII were hard, but not that subtle or difficult to learn. This is not the nationalism of an indigenous people, such as the Kurds, throwing off tyranny and establishing a nation in their homeland - this has been a colonial usurping of inhabited lands, a conquest by foreigners and a dispossession of natives. The strategies and tactics employed are familiar from history, the consequences are likely to be familiar as well.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

@Iceaura

You keep using 'supposed'. The UN is 'supposed', the world was 'supposed' but it hasn't because it cannot and never really intended to. The UN body is controlled by the security council which is generally very slow to act in intervening on other sovereign countries and specifically doesn't have the will to do so in regards to Israel. The UN was built to maintain the status quo of ruling nations and its naive to think they were 'supposed' to stop any atrocity from happening, to note they react pretty poorly on that account. The lessons of WW1 and WW2 were in reality not to wage war among the worlds great powers in the West but to do so everywhere else usually through proxy. The fact is that the world power is not that interested in intervening on Israel, like everyone else nations have an opinion but that never translates into anything more tangible than the usual rant you find here at sciforums. The only thing that power is 'supposed' to do is ensure its own survival. The world didn't intervene on China's encroachment of Tibet, nor Indonesia's genocide in East Timor, so tell me, why is this situation any more urgent? Why does everyone whine about the palestinians and ignore for example an even worse tragedy in the Sudan? All this when the Palestinians aren't even experiencing a genocide. You claim the world isn't reacting to the palestinian situation and ignore the fact that they don't react in a number of other similar or even worse situations.

There have been ample examples of things that were not 'supposed' to happen since WW2 and yet they do and as long as its not happening in the West those in power don't really seem too bothered about it.

I mean I fail to remember when this for example was being addressed across the boards in regards to the Sudan:

The New York Times (15 May 2004) said that many of the racist attitudes traditionally directed toward slaves have been redirected to the sedentary non-Arab, racist ideology plays an important part of the Genocide, the sharp distinctions between Arabs and Africans in the racially mixed Darfur region had not been drawn (as much) until the ideology of pan-Arabism that came out of the Libya made itself felt. Some of the nomadic sheiks of the region came to see themselves as the avatars of Arabism, the authentic representatives of their Bedouin origins. They foisted a racial label on a farming people whose way of life they simultaneously disdained and felt threatened by. Blacks in Sudan are seen as inferior to the Arabs, the Christian Science Monitor asserts that racism is at root of Sudan's Darfur crisis, that reluctance to call it genocide perpetuates hypocrisy in Afro-Arab relations, "Arab militias is the racist, fundamentalist, and undemocratic Sudanese state", those who call themselves Arabs point to Arab ancestors who arrived as traders both before and after the arrival of Islam, and who gradually converted local Sudanese to the Islamic faith. President Nimeiry of Sudan, said in 1969: "Sudan is the basis of the Arab thrust into the heart of Black Africa, the Arab civilizing mission." This genocide has been described as an example of Arab racism at its worst.

The Arab Gathering, a shadowy Nazi type brotherhood deeply embedded in the Bashir regime, preaches a doctrine of Arab supremacy and a Sudan "cleansed" of non-Arabs. Der Spiegel wrote that the Sudanese regime uses tribal conflicts and Arab racism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur

Now why is that?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Actually Bells it was recognized by the UN as a genocide, not only was it recognized it was anticipated. Dallaire showed evidence of this but because Rwanda Hutu government was on the security council at the time Dallaire's suggestions were ignored. They knew it was a genocide because it was happening before their very eyes, no Tutsi was to be spared.

If Israel were undergoing a genocide then explain why they haven't murdered the Palestinians who live in the West Bank or in Israel. Where are the mass graves? Gaza is on lock down but it doesn't amount to a genocide. Hutu's went into the Congo to kill Tutsis and it even threatened Burundi's Tutsi controlled government. Why hasn't Israel gone into the refugee camps and turned it into a mass grave? If it was genocide they wanted they have the means to accomplish it in the twinkling of an eye, yet they have not because that is not the intention. Control over the territory and its resources is the intention, to subdue Palestinians living within its borders and to drive the rest into neighboring countries is what they are doing. Genocide if used willy-nilly will soon lose all meaning. Jim Halper from MER describes the situation as this:

The first decade of the twenty-first century has so far seen the steady constricting and fragmentation of Palestinian territory through still more wholesale expropriation of Palestinian land, checkpoints and other physical restrictions on freedom of movement, settlement construction, more and more massive highways intended for Israeli settlers, control over natural resources and, most visibly of all, the erection of the separation barrier in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Since December 2000, according to the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, the settler population of the West Bank has grown by 86,000 and that of East Jerusalem by 50,000. Gaza was evacuated of settlers and soldiers in 2005, but Israel retains near complete control over egress and exit of people and goods to and from the coastal strip, regularly cuts supplies of fuel and other necessities to punish the residents and mounts military incursions at will. All the Palestinian territories are subject, to one degree or another, to the measures of house demolitions, “closures” that halt economic activity, administrative restrictions on movement, deportation, induced out-migration and much more.

http://www.merip.org/mero/mero091109.html

The only people who use the word Genocide in terms of the palestinians either have no idea what it means or are using hyperbole to highlight the plight.

Bells: Does not excuse it, does it? It didn't excuse the lack of action and recognition in Rwanda or Sudan. And it doesn't excuse it now.

What I highlight isn't 'excuse' but intent or lack of will (however you want to think of it). The truth is that they didn't care during Rwanda and they don't give enough of a toss about the Israeli-palestinian situation to do anything significant. Halper's article speaks well of what it is that the international community has not done and what it is very unlikely to do.

This interview with Dallaire expresses it all quite clearly

"Of the people who witnessed the genocide in Rwanda, one believes he could have stopped it. Romeo Dallaire was in command of the United Nations peacekeeping force when the killing started in 1994. In his memoir, Dallaire says the world didn't give him the troops to prevent an ethnically motivated slaughter, and he thinks the world is not much different today."

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-95627703.html

In this interview he has this to say:

"I blame the American leadership, which includes the Pentagon, in projecting itself as the world policeman one day and a recluse the next," Dallaire says.

"In fact, vulgarly stating in the General Assembly three weeks before the Rwandan genocide and civil war started, I mean, president Clinton saying in the General Assembly that through his Proposition 25 that Americans would go only if it was in their self-interest."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/dallaire/

 

Sorry Bells but you are wrong, it was being used DURING the event and as he evidence shows was anticipated BEFORE the event. Read Dallaires book, read the correspondence he had with Kofi Annan. The word genocide was used by the US in regards to the Sudan even when the UN did not use it but still there were no troops sent by the US. Using the word 'genocide' doesn't necessarily result in 'we will take action'.

As far as the Palestinians are concerned again I would like to know where are all these mass graves? Why are Palestinians allowed to live in Israel and the West Bank without being shot or hacked on sight and thrown into a pit?

Again you seem not to understand the difference between a fact and an excuse. The world isn't giving any excuses, the worlds nations all behave in a way that suits its own self-interest as Clinton said as much to the UN during the genocide in Rwanda.

Again like I said I don't remember thread after thread about the muslim genocide against black africans in the Sudan. Funny that. I guess they didn't have a good publicist. Meanwhile that was a genocide while the situation in Israel is not.

 

Well then you didn't read it carefully enough. He used the word on more than one occasion when discussing the ground situation with the UN. In the link I provided with his interview it says:

Dallaire's main line of communication with the world was through the department of Peacekeeping Operations at the UN in New York City. Before the war began, Dallaire asked for leave to take pre-emptive action against those he suspected of plotting the genocide. New York told him to back off."

Do you see where it says BEFORE THE WAR? Well yes not only did they know that there were arms being hidden which Dallaire was not allowed to confiscate from the Hutu's but when the massacre began before the very eyes of the UN he was not allowed to have the troops needed to intervene on the situation. The massacre was announced on the bloody radio for christs sake it wasn't a god damn secret. The UN were not sitting in some neighboring country when it all happened Bells they were ALREADY IN THE COUNTRY!! They were on the ground during the genocide not after. There were daily accounts of what was going on on the ground and yes the word 'genocide' was used. I suggest you go back and re-read his book. Or better yet just read this:




April 6, 1994

Rwandan President Habyarimana and the Burundian President are killed when Habyarimana's plane is shot down near Kigali Airport. Hutu extremists, suspecting that the Rwandan president is finally about to implement the Arusha Peace Accords, are believed to be behind the attack. The killings begin that night.

April 7, 1994

The Rwandan Armed Forces (FAR) and Hutu militia (the interahamwe) set up roadblocks and go from house to house killing Tutsis and moderate Hutu politicians. Thousands die on the first day. Some U.N. camps shelter civilians, but most of the U.N. peackeeping forces (UNAMIR--United Nations Assistance Mission in Rwanda) stand by while the slaughter goes on. They are forbidden to intervene, as this would breach their "monitoring" mandate.

On this day, ten Belgian soldiers with UNAMIR, assigned to guard the moderate Hutu Prime Minister, are tricked into giving up their weapons. They are tortured and murdered.

Also on this day, President Clinton issues a statement:

"... shocked and deeply saddened ... horrified that elements of the Rwandan security forces have sought out and murdered Rwandan officials ... extend my condolences ... condemn these actions and I call on all parties to cease any such actions immediately ..."

April 8, 1994

The Tutsi Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) launches a major offensive to end the killings and rescue 600 of its troops surrounded in Kigali. The troops had been based in the city as part of the Arusha Accords.
President Clinton speaks to the press about Rwanda--

"... I mention it only because there are a sizable number of Americans there and it is a very tense situation. And I just want to assure the families of those who are there that we are doing everything we possible can to be on top of the situation to take all the appropriate steps to try to assure the safety of our citizens there."

April 9-10, 1994

France and Belgium send troops to rescue their citizens. American civilians are also airlifted out. No Rwandans are rescued, not even Rwandans employed by Western governments in their embassies, consulates, etc.

April 11, 1994

The International Red Cross estimates that tens of thousands of Rwandans have been murdered.At the Don Bosco school, protected by Belgian UNAMIR soldiers, the number of civilians seeking refuge reaches 2,000. That afternoon, the U.N. soldiers are ordered to withdraw to the airport. Most of the civilians they abandon are killed.


April 14, 1994

One week after the murder of the ten Belgian soldiers, Belgium withdraws from UNAMIR.

April 21, 1994

The U.N. Security Council votes unanimously to withdraw most of the UNAMIR troops, cutting the force from 2,500 to 270.
The International Red Cross estimates that tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Rwandans are now dead.


April 28, 1994

State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelley is asked whether what is happening in Rwanda is a genocide. She responds,

"...the use of the term 'genocide' has a very precise legal meaning, although it's not strictly a legal determination. There are other factors in there as well."

However, a secret intelligence report by the State Department issued as early as the end of April calls the killings a genocide.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/evil/etc/slaughter.html

See the bottom sentence? That's the evidence that you are wrong and I don't know why you missed it because its in Dallaire's book.

There is a term called 'ethnic cleansing' and another called 'genocide'. They do not mean the same thing. The palestinians can claim ethnic cleansing because they are being displaced, removed from their land. To use the term 'genocide' you would have to show mass graves, you would have to show the large number of killings based on ethnicity. Now since you can go to Jerusalem and see Palestinians going to market and you can go to Tel aviv and find Palestinians at university and not laying dead in some mass grave then I would say you should show evidence of this 'mythical' genocide.

Apartheid in south africa was not a genocide and neither is the conflict in Israel.

Never seen a thread on the genocide in Sudan were the muslim majority were called 'nazi's' even when the term was being used by mainstream newspapers. Like I posted earlier:

"The Arab Gathering, a shadowy Nazi type brotherhood deeply embedded in the Bashir regime, preaches a doctrine of Arab supremacy and a Sudan "cleansed" of non-Arabs".

Like I say they didn't have good publicists. This use of the term genocide in terms of the Palestinians is absolutely incorrect.

Again. Where are the mass graves?


Definitions:

Ethnic cleansing: the mass expulsion and killing of one ethnic or religious group in an area by another ethnic or religious group in that area

Genocide: race murder, racial extermination, systematic killing of a racial or cultural group


So you see the palestinians are undergoing an 'ethnic cleansing' not a 'genocide'. If you want to use the term genocide then you will have to show evidence that palestinians are being systematically MURDERED, not dying from conflict engagement but dragged out of their homes and slaughtered in large numbers. You're a lawyer, you of all people should appreciate the significance and precision of a word and its meaning.

 

Bells what is it about the following that you don't understand?

State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelley is asked whether what is happening in Rwanda is a genocide. She responds,

"...the use of the term 'genocide' has a very precise legal meaning, although it's not strictly a legal determination. There are other factors in there as well."

HOWEVER, a secret intelligence report by the State Department issued as early as the end of April calls the killings a GENOCIDE.


Why are you arguing that no one was calling it a genocide within UN and government circles when I have already shown you evidence that they did consider it a genocide? And again Dallaire mentions this fact in his book.


Name a genocide that didn't result in mass graves? Notice that the first criteria for a genocide is killing members of the group. Not killing one or two of them because in that case everything from the aboriginals to slavery to blacks under jim crow would have been considered a genocide. The killing is specific. Its not killing those who are fighting you, it outright targeting and elimination of another group period. Its not being content to remove people from their land its making sure they don't live long enough to live anywhere. So now, if Israel is practicing genocide why are their Palestinians with Israeli pass

 

Meanwhile OPENLY they were discussing genocide which is what Dallaire's book is all about! Go back and read it!!! To KNOW it is a genocide and pretend it isn't is not the same as 'we didn't think of it as such at the time'. The Tutsi militia was not in the country at the time but holding out at the border in the Congo. So when Tutsi's and no other were being targeted and actually hacked to death in front of UN representatives what actually did they think they were watching? You basically are saying that the UN is too stupid to know what is going on even when they are looking at it and Dallaire is saying that they knew exactly what was going on. What are we to make of Dallaire's advance knowledge that the massacre was to take place, let the UN know it was going to take place and then the UN say 'do nothing' to prevent it? Yet you keep harping about that they didn't know it was a genocide or didn't call it a genocide when in fact we know that they had and did. So again I say GO BACK AND READ HIS BOOK!

Publicly dodging an issue is not the same as being without knowledge Bells. Just because they didn't tell mary joe and sue ellen it was a genocide didn't mean that they didn't know it to be just that.

As for the Sudan Colin Powell and the US government DID in fact call it a genocide it was the UN that didn't call it a genocide, so your wrong on that account too. But here I will help you:

While the United States government has described the conflict as genocide, the UN has not recognized the conflict as such. On 31 January 2005, the UN released a 176-page report saying that while there were mass murders and rapes of Darfurian civilians, they could not label the atrocities as "genocide" because "genocidal intent appears to be missing". Many activists, however, refer to the crisis in Darfur as genocide, including the Save Darfur Coalition, the Aegis Trust and the Genocide Intervention Network. These organizations point to statements by former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, referring to the conflict as genocide. Other activist organizations, such as Amnesty International, while calling for international intervention, avoid the use of the term genocide.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Darfur


Rwanda as I have shown evidence was a known genocide as it was anticipated and as it panned out despite your claim that they were not calling it a 'genocide' (when we know for a fact that they were

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

)

But getting back to the Palestinian situation, you still haven't provided any evidence that the Palestinians are being systematically murdered to the point of extinction. Removing a state title is not the same as group extinction.

By the way I don't call what is occurring in the middle east as a genocide because it isn't and you have yet to provide proof that it is. I have no 'personal reasons' Bells and for you presume that I do well speaks of what you have been like in this thread lately.

 

And it might help for you to watch this 1-9 (particularly part 6):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qfYicjZPQk

This is what its about land and resources, not the systematic killing of all palestinians

 

And isn't genocide always about land and resources and which race deserves them more? Trying to wipe out a nation is genocide, even in part. Thats what a demogrpahic threat is all about.

 

No its not. It wasn't in Germany nor was it in Rwanda nor Cambodia. Again the Israeli's are not killing large numbers of Palestinians, they are displacing them. There's a big difference. I know you find it important to characterize it as a genocide but that in itself doesn't make it one.

 

It doesn't take mass graves to make a genocide

Legal definition:

Which one does Israel not do?

 

We've been through that. Go back and look at my posts directed towards Bells. There is no systematic murdering of the palestinian people with the intent of extinguishing their entire population.

Again I ask show me genocide (the intentional killing of a group with the intent of annihilating them) that didn't amount to mass graves?

Also there is a set of criteria for it to be a genocide and it doesn't fit the criteria. You'll find the criteria in one of Bells post.

 

The word genocide was written in memos Bells. What is it you don't understand. As for your link why is it that the US didn't send in troops or demand that the UN do so when they had openly called the situation in Darfur a genocide?

You go back and read the bloody chapters. Dallaire had told them before hand that the genocide was going to happen it wasn't a bloody secret. Kofi Annan KNEW from the beginning of the massacre that it was a genocide and still wouldn't send in more troops.

The so called 'secret' memo was released four months after the event but was written DURING the massacre. Now you still want to say that because they didn't use the word publicly it wasn't used privately which, as I said, we know isn't true. At this point you don't even seem to know what you are arguing.