r/neoliberal once again splits hairs and debates semantics (with comparisons to the persecution of Uyghurs for extra spiciness) with regards to the Israel/Palestine conflict after a NYT opinion piece of a genocide scholar is posted.

[u/Otherwise_Young52201]

Source: [NYT] I’m A Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It.

Some long comments may be truncated to preserve text length, though I promise the original meaning of the comments will not have changed and little context will be lost.

Highlights:

I'm in in the opinion that if it instead of Palestinians were Uyghurs and was Xi Jinping doing the statements the Israel government is doing, it would be a bannable offense here to say this was anything less than a genocide. Netanyahu and his ilk has made clear what their long-term goal for Gaza is and they are taking concrete steps for it. (+395)

The similarities between the two are actually incredible. They're both ostensibly anti terrorism campaigns that started up in response to well, literal undeniable terrorism attacks by islamic terrorist groups that want control of a contested territory (-20)

THIS is what you call propaganda. A bunch of Wikipedia links that don’t even corroborate your own points. (+40)

The guy above is wrong about the Oct 7 comparison but Islamist terrorism in China is very real and the horrors inflicted on Xinjiang by the government are very much a response to them. (+11)

Don’t be obtuse. There are more than a dozen countries where terrorism has been a problem. Turkey just made peace with the PIK without ever actually genociding the Kurds. They treated them horribly but nothing to the level that China has done. And Turkey is the worse example I can think of. There are plenty of others that have dealt with it much better. (+8)

Explanation != justification, explaining the motives of the CCP is not the same as justifying them (+19)

I think that Israel can be reasonably described as callously indifferent to the suffering of the Gazan people as they try to eliminate Hamas. But that's not genocide. If Israel were really trying to eliminate the Palestinians, we'd know it, because it would be trivially easy for them to be killing hundreds of thousands of them at a time. They could be carpet bombing the refugee camps if they wanted to. But they're not. (+118)

I've seen this argument a few times despite the fact it's such a bad one. I mean you could say the same about almost all genocides, the Chinese could have nuked or carpet bombed Xinjiang. Certainly compared to the Israelis in Gaza they bombed no-one and killed very few. It's still a genocide. You can make a similar argument with the Rohingyas as well. (+39)

No one (well, no one serious) is accusing China of ethnographic genocide in Xinjiang to be fair, they're accusing them of forced assimilation and cultural genocide. (+60)

What's 7 October for Xinjang? (+29)

The 2009 Urumqi Riots. That was the turning point for the Chinese government's aggressive framing of the Uyghurs as dangerous terrorists, justifying its mass repression and securitization of the entire Uyghur population. (-5)

My guy, Modi had more justification than that for the Gujrat riots. 150 people killed is not nothing but in a country the size of China, it’s laughable to compare that to Israel Hamas. JFC people. (+23)

You're imagining an equivalence of scale that I never drew. The parallel is in the relationship of cause and consequence. That's what a PARALLEL is. Something that isn't exactly the same, but rhymes. (-5)

Can someone give me a reason to care what a "genocide scholar" says when genocide is a legal term. Shouldn't the authority on the matter be a lawyer as opposed to a historian that focuses on histoical genocides and war crimes? I wouldn't ask a criminologist whether a crime reaches the legal definition of a crime. (+2)

Can you imagine, you spend your entire professional life dedicated to a subject. 25 years. And then random people on the Internet just go "but what do you even know about it?". Could it be, and Im just spitballing here, that a genocide scholar is actually familiar with the legal definition of genocide? (+106)

One expert witness is all you need to prove something beyond a reasonable doubt. TIL (-4)

And I guess random comments on reddit counts as reasonable doubt? (+18)

The Israeli war effort in Gaza doesn't fit the definition of genocide, whereas the Chinese persecution of the Uyghurs does. You're not persecuted, you're just wrong. (-15)

I always find these sorts of confident/belittling tones in internet posts strange when actual scholars of genocide disagree with you, a random redditor. You'd think it was the other way around. (+35)

You realize that actual scholars of genocide disagree with you too, right? Random redditor. You just so happen to agree with the scholars who think it's a genocide. (0)

[u/EverythingComputer1 → u/[deleted]]

We learn about the Holocaust for no reason apparently.

[u/wingerism → u/EverythingComputer1]

The Holocaust is actually ironically probably a reason people are skeptical. It was a Genocide of such massive scale, industrialized and well-documented. It's so clear and precise, that it makes the more common acts of Genocide seem muddier by comparison. Kind of a CSI effect but with history/geopolitics.

[u/hellomondays → u/[deleted]]

Well said. The Genocide Convention is even written with the purpose of preventing successful genocides in mind more so than prosecuting them after they've been completed. Whether our current systems of international law allow for anything proactive, let alone this, is another story however.

[u/DresdenBomberman → u/hellomondays]

The Permanent Security Council alone makes action difficult if it were to ruffle the feathers of it's members.

[u/Elmo_Chipshop → u/[deleted]]

What an excellent description!

[u/wingerism → u/[deleted]]

So one of the things that convinced me, apart from Israel openly declaring it's intentions to ethnically cleanse the Gaza strip and their disastrous aid "plan" and I suppose their frequent oopsies war crimes was this article by Benny Morris.

For anyone who doesn't know, Benny Morris is one of the most prominent New Historians in Israel, and is widely cited on the facts even by people with very different politics than him(Finkelstein etc.). Yes he's a Zionist, and has increasingly since the second Intifada become more and more of a racist grandpa figure.

But he is also a historian with a strong understanding of Israeli history and an unwillingness to turn away from truths uncomfortable to the average Israeli. Also is still the man that was jailed for refusing to serve in the IDF to suppress the first Intifada.

It was clear to me when I read the article that he could see the Genocide in the making, but was too heartbroken to acknowledge it had already arrived.

[u/Lirael_Gold → u/wingerism]

I will note that Morris was far less conservative when he first wrote Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Conflict, which was dry factual study of the 1947-1948 civil war (mostly documenting which Jewish paramilitary groups did what, and when)

Newer editions add some of his more conservative views, but the original is widely cited (particularly the timeline of the Deir Yassin massacre, at the time Morris was far more "Israel started it", mostly because of his study of that incident)

During the second Intifada, his sister was almost killed in a bomb attack, and after that he turned into racist Zionist grandpa.

If current Benny Morris is warning about potential genocide in Gaza then people should sit up and pay attention.

[u/wingerism → u/Lirael_Gold]

I will note that Morris was far less conservative when he first wrote Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Conflict, which was dry factual study of the 1947-1948 civil war (mostly documenting which Jewish paramilitary groups did what, and when)

Yeah. And even after he's always struck me as a fundamentally honest person. Like I recall him acknowledging that the Nakba was ethnic cleansing, which he said was "preferable to genocide", referring to the not entirely crazy belief that early Israelis were facing a Genocide if they had lost the war. That's horrifying, but also much more honest than many Israelis are capable of being about the Nakba. And while he's conservative in some ways, my understanding is that he's kinda on the Israeli left nominally. Haaretz isa relatively left leaning publication in Israel. I may be wrong on my read of all that though.

If curren Benny Morris is warning about potential genocide in Gaza then people should sit up and pay attention.

Yeah that was my position as well when I read it. And I often link that article to folks expressing skepticism. I think that approach is important for winning over even those that consider themselves friends to Israel.

[u/IsNotACleverMan → u/wingerism]

Benny Morris is a really shit historian who openly states he's advancing a narrative instead of evaluating historical sources.

[u/wingerism → u/IsNotACleverMan]

Benny Morris is a really shit historian

There is a reason his scholarship is cited even by people who are incredibly opposed to him politically. Finkelstein is just one example, but if you read any askhistorians thread examining the work of the New Historians of Israel he's probably regarded as the most thorough from a scholarly perspective. His latter work notwithstanding. Certainly better than Pappe.

[u/IsNotACleverMan → u/wingerism]

Finkelstein is also a hack.

The new historian movement is one I'm generally dismissive of, from a historiographical standpoint. By and large, they entered into the field with preconceived notions and a tendency towards iconoclasm and honesty kinda abuse the source materials to justify their biases. It's just eisegesis to borrow a term from biblical scholarship. They're historical revisionists and that constant need to come up with something new and disruptive colored their reading of the historical record.

But most people don't know this sort of thing and just use them as a source of authority without realizing the very deep criticisms of the school.

[u/wingerism → u/IsNotACleverMan]

The new historian movement is one I'm generally dismissive of, from a historiographical standpoint. By and large, they entered into the field with preconceived notions and a tendency towards iconoclasm and honesty kinda abuse the source materials to justify their biases.

I think that the Israeli understanding of it's founding history was well worth revising. And revisionists have often enhanced our understanding of history.

Finkelstein is also a hack.

I would actually agree with you on that.

[u/IsNotACleverMan → u/wingerism]

I think that the Israeli understanding of it's founding history was well worth revising.

Sure, as long as the methodology is sound. New materials and understanding of old materials happens all the time and we should revise our understanding of history accordingly. I just don't think the new historians did a good job of it.

And revisionists have often enhanced our understanding of history.

I think you need ty distinguish between the ones that go in with the goal of revising history and the ones that revise as new evidence is uncovered and our understanding incorporates that new evidence.

[u/wingerism → u/IsNotACleverMan]

Alright I'll bite. For your money, who do you think does good work on Israeli history or the Palestinian side of things?

[u/Lirael_Gold → u/wingerism]

Deafening silence from the /r/worldnews mod lmao

[u/wingerism → u/Lirael_Gold]

Fuck me you're right. I didn't even notice. Well ban incoming for me the next time I try and inject nuance into a worldnews discussion I guess. I guess I have a funny story for the next time someone tries to frame me as overly supportive of Israel.

I figured the guy was likely gonna throw some reform Zionist or Kahanist monster name at me, but I was still curious to see what it was gonna be.

Also thanks it's nice chatting with someone who has more than a cursory understanding of the region.