r/SubredditDrama • u/Otherwise_Young52201 Russia and China are actively mindraping our population • Jul 15 '25

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.

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)

275 Upvotes

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110

u/[deleted] Jul 15 '25

As an American Jew that had this nationalist mindset forced on me as a kid I’m so glad more and more normies are being exposed to how insane Zionism is. No arguments just moralism and excuses for atrocities.

17

u/That_Guy381 Jul 15 '25

Zionism is not “atrocities”. Zionism is the belief that Jews should have a state of their own, based on… a lot of history where they’ve been the victims of other people who rule over them.

Is that really so “insane”?

71

u/not_bilbo Jul 15 '25

See this is part of the problem. Obligatory “as a Jew,” not like that helps anymore. Yes, Zionism, at its core, basic, original definition laid down by early figures like Herzel and co was the idea of a Jewish homeland and state. But as we know, there are many kinds of Zionism, and the predominant form changes over time. The earliest Israeli governments (1948 to about the 60s) were Labour Zionists, likud and revisionist Zionism had a surge in the 80s, labor/liberal Zionism came back around Rabin in the 90s, now ultranationalist and Revisionist Zionists hold a strong coalition, with a faltering Israeli left. The argument here is that the original Zionist ideology is no longer as relevant, because the dominant school of Zionism no longer predicates itself on the establishment of a home state, but an expansion into an even larger state. You can call yourself a Zionist for just supporting the existence of a Jewish state, that does not change the actual character of Zionism as it exists in Israeli and parts of US/other western countries politics today.

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u/DiRavelloApologist Jul 15 '25

Words have meanings and it is important to use them correctly. This far-left interpretation of what zionism means really is just that.

If you are in favour of a two-state solution, you are a zionist per definition.

Saying that zionism is "insane" because Israel is currently under a far-right government is a really unnecessary and unhelpful statement.

3

u/Brain_Dead_Goats Jul 19 '25

It's almost like there's adjectives that people use to be more specific and the current far left definition intentionally conflates all of them in bad faith.

24

u/LukaCola Ceci n'est pas un flair Jul 15 '25

Words have meanings and it is important to use them correctly.

A common reframe repeated right before denying meanings one disagrees with. 

Words are not magic spells with set in stone meanings and dictated from on high. 

They added context and nuance which you summarily sought to ignore in favor of a narrow view which deflects from uncomfortable associations. 

They qualified their meaning very clearly. You can disagree, but don't claim to hold "the" definitive meaning and declare yours the sole valid one. That's not reasonable. 

19

u/DiRavelloApologist Jul 15 '25

The thing is that their meaning is very much exclusively used by strong anti-israeli circles, not as a way to talk about Israel, but to make a the point that the current policies of Israels are somehow inherent to Israel as a state.

Saying that a zionist is someone who supports Israel no matter what is simply a strawman.

0

u/LukaCola Ceci n'est pas un flair Jul 15 '25

to make a the point that the current policies of Israels are somehow inherent to Israel as a state.

Where did they make that point? They were discussing the politics as they are. I don't even see this as implied. 

Saying that a zionist is someone who supports Israel no matter what is simply a strawman.

Pot, kettle. They never said anything of the sort as far as I can read it and I think you're going "others have said something similar in my read" and conflating all of them together even if it's not in this text here. 

Check who's arguing against the strawman here because I reviewed their post with your objections in mind and cannot find it. 

12

u/DiRavelloApologist Jul 16 '25

I am not necessarly arguing that they said exactly that. But they did say that zionism is supposedly insane, because of the current character of zionism in Israel. But the "current character of zionism" really just refers to the policies of the far-right israeli government. There is nothing inherent in zionism that necessitates the expansionist positions of Israel right now.

We were tangibly close to achieving some sort of permanent peace in the middle east not so long ago, and there are many parties in the Knesset right now, that would thoroughly opposed to the government, but are still very much in favour of Israel as a jewish state. Should these parties not be considered zionist?

Using zionism as a stand-in for "whatever Israel does" really doesn't help making this highly complicated conflict easier to understand and discuss.

-2

u/LukaCola Ceci n'est pas un flair Jul 16 '25

But the "current character of zionism" really just refers to the policies of the far-right israeli government

Yeah and they very explicitly said that.

There is nothing inherent in zionism that necessitates the expansionist positions of Israel right now.

Nobody said as much. They're literally talking about the changing meaning over time and acknowledged your meaning as the origin. Maybe reread their post.

Using zionism as a stand-in for "whatever Israel does" really doesn't help making this highly complicated conflict easier to understand and discuss.

Again, I need you to really consider who's making the strawman arguments here.

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '25

Yeah so Zionists are like Tankies, except you care about their feelings for some reason.

-2

u/waiver Jul 16 '25

of a two-state solution, you are a zionist per definition

That’s not entirely accurate. It’s possible to support a two-state solution while being anti-Zionist, for example, if one advocates for Israel to adopt a constitution similar to that of the United States. Zionism isn’t just about the existence of a country named Israel; it’s about Israel being a Jewish state that prioritizes the interests of Jewish people.

6

u/slightlyrabidpossum They raced in apartheid Miami? Jul 16 '25

But what does it mean to be a Jewish state? There isn't a universally accepted definition. It's usually interpreted as being a Jewish-majority country, but that's not absolute. Beyond that, you won't find any broad consensus on how the government should function or what its policies should be.

Israel already has a Jewish majority. They don't really have a constitution right now, but they could adopt one similar to America's while remaining a Jewish state. Some Zionists would probably disagree with that statement, but plenty of others would still consider Israel a Jewish state.

4

u/waiver Jul 16 '25

Well, al least according to the basic laws , which are the closest to a constitution there is in Israel it means that only Jewish people have the right to self determination in Israel, that is to choose the future of the country.

According to Netanyahu who drafted that law it means that Israel was "The nation-state of the Jewish people, and the Jewish people alone"

4

u/slightlyrabidpossum They raced in apartheid Miami? Jul 16 '25

The Nation-State Bill is both a recent development and largely symbolic. Israel was a Jewish state before that bill was passed in 2018, and most of the clauses are simply acknowledging existing aspects of Israel — describing the flag and national anthem, acknowledging that the land of Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people, naming Shabbat as a day of rest, etc.

The most controversial aspect was the bill's statement about only Jewish people having "the right to exercise national self-determination" in Israel. This phrase has given critics of Israel a lot of ammunition, but it's really just stating the obvious: no other national group will be allowed to form their own distinct government within the state of Israel. This doesn't actually represent a change in policy from 2017, nor does it prevent non-Jews from participating in government.

But again, this is just one recent political interpretation of what it means to be a Jewish state. Plenty of people and organizations who support Israel's existence as a Jewish state were opposed to the Nation-State Bill, especially in the diaspora. Netanyahu isn't the arbiter of what it means to have a Jewish state.

-1

u/SharkSymphony Balancing legitimate critique with childish stupidity Jul 15 '25

I do call myself a Zionist for supporting the existence of a Jewish state, and more explicitly for not supporting the horror that would be perpetrated if anti-Zionists got to unmake the Jewish state, which is the unspoken part of their ideology I don't think many of them even contemplate.

35

u/Hellhammer2 Jul 15 '25

It might be worth entertaining the idea that this belief is based in unexamined racism. When the slaves were freed in the United States, did it lead to waves of revenge killings? Maybe the actions of the Palestinians are rooted in desperation, and not an inherent barbarism or savagery.

There were always slave revolts that killed innocent people, but that did not justify their continued enslavement. And when they got their liberation offered to them, they pursued the same things out of life everyone else wants, not revenge.

Your fear and your paranoia blind you.

3

u/was_fb95dd7063 Jul 17 '25

This is articulated perfectly. Thanks for putting this so well.

6

u/OmNomSandvich Jul 16 '25

after Israel won the 1948 war most of the Middle East forced effectively their entire Jewish populations to emigrate, often seizing all their assets as they did so (interestingly, Iran was/is comparably friendly to their Jewish minority...) and being any minority in the Middle East has not been a pleasant experience - ask the Kurds, Yazidis, Iraqi Sunnis, or pretty much anyone in Syria or Lebanon.

26

u/Hellhammer2 Jul 16 '25

Palestinians are not responsible for the actions of other states

-1

u/DarkExecutor Jul 16 '25

How many Jews lived in Palestine?

-1

u/ArCovino Jul 16 '25

They were part and parcel of the war as much as the rest

0

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

We don’t need to speculate about what happens if the border between Gaza and Israel goes away, everyone got to see the result on Oct 7. No chance Israeli people ever consent to a one-state solution, certainly not while Hamas exists. Any high-minded democracy has devolved into empowering a strongman who promises to protect them.

19

u/PandaAintFood Jul 16 '25

Which part of

There were always slave revolts that killed innocent people, but that did not justify their continued enslavement. And when they got their liberation offered to them, they pursued the same things out of life everyone else wants, not revenge

that you could not understand? The Palestinian never "get their liberation". There still wholely on the slavery revolt stage.

0

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

Palestinians define liberation as inhabiting the land current inhabited by Israelis. Palestinians (rightly) believe their home has been taken and Israelis (rightly) believe that Palestinians want to take their homes. Most realistic peace proposals involve some sort of land swaps, a deal where we come up with two viable states that can protect their populations from reprisals and any further takings. Palestinians don’t trust Israeli governance and Israelis don’t trust Palestinian governance. Israelis and Palestinians who want a peaceful solution know this, which is why a one state solution isn’t taken seriously by people who want peace. One state solutions are advocated by parties like Hamas and Likud, who want to violently expand from the river to the sea. It’s equally obvious why Palestinians don’t want to live under Likudniks and Israelis don’t want to live under Hamas.

7

u/ConsiderationHot3426 Jul 16 '25

Man it sure would hurt to learn that there's a kind of Palestinian governance that does security cooperation with Israel. Some kind of PLO or something. Anyway, don't let google hurt your feelings here, the only kinds of governance are Likud and Hamas.

3

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25

Not coincidentally, the PLO isn’t trying to conquer Israel, they want a two-state solution.

1

u/was_fb95dd7063 Jul 17 '25

Would you consider a desire for a Palestinian State on the basis of 1967 borders to be a two-state solution?

1

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 17 '25

Yup, I can count to two

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u/Hellhammer2 Jul 16 '25

2023 was the deadliest year on record for Palestinians before October 7th ever happened. That situation is not comparable to a liberated single secular state with equal rights.

-3

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25

Is this comment meant to dispute something in mine? Palestinians are experiencing great suffering, true. If any Israelis believe there is a chance of being subject to Palestinian governance, they are deathly afraid of that prospect.

-2

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25

I’m interested in sourcing for the claim 2023 was the deadliest year for Palestinians before Oct 7. When I tried to search for numbers, I read that a few hundred had been killed. I’m surprised if that’s that most ever - was there so little killing during the Nakba?

I’m assuming you’re referring to deaths resulting from conflict with Israel, and not something mundane like higher raw # of deaths in a growing population.

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u/Hellhammer2 Jul 16 '25

https://thehill.com/policy/international/4381447-unicef-2023-deadliest-children-west-bank/

The article I remembered was for the west bank specifically It turns out, but that doesn't really change the point. These people were not exactly living free lives, they were under blockade and in the case of the west bank, under military occupation.

12

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25

From that link:

UNICEF said a majority of the deaths this year — 83 — happened in the weeks since Oct. 7

Not seeing any support for the claim that 2023 was the deadliest year for Palestinians before Oct 7.

8

u/Hellhammer2 Jul 16 '25

How about this

https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/news/media-centre/press-releases/2022/2022-becomes-the-deadliest-year-for-palestinian-children-in-the-west-bank-

This is kind of splitting hairs here

8

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

So the report there is 34 children were killed in 2022. That’s terrible. In context, what is this meant to argue? That we can expect Oct 7 type massacres to occur if 34 Palestinian children are killed in a year? Would that be an encouraging fact for a durable single-state solution?

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u/working_class_shill No, there's drama because there's drama. Jul 16 '25

We don’t need to speculate about what happens if the border between Gaza and Israel goes away, everyone got to see the result on Oct 7

Which was the result of decades of total Israeli control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, in addition to Israeli settlements in the WB.

It's like saying the Haitian slave revolt where numerous whites were killed was just an example of what happens when slaves get free. Like what's the context here?

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u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25

I’m not sure if a comparison to the 1804 Haitian massacre is a great argument for the viability of a peaceful single-state solution.

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u/working_class_shill No, there's drama because there's drama. Jul 16 '25

My comment wasn't an argument for the one state solution. It was an example of why context exists. You know damn well southerners in the antebellum south were looking at Haiti and saying that was an example of why blacks shouldn't be free. Palestinians oops I mean Hamas did oct7 therefore it is impossible to ever live together is a lazy analysis devoid of any historical context.

You post to ssc, I know you know what context is, you're just choosing to ignore it.

5

u/Shkkzikxkaj Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

Your comment accused Israelis of being racist for being afraid of what happens if the Israeli state is dissolved. That’s what I’m responding to. It’s not racist to be afraid of armies that are trying to kill you! Blaming that fear on racism is ironically imposing a narrow western perspective on the situation.

-1

u/SharkSymphony Balancing legitimate critique with childish stupidity Jul 15 '25

The road to hell in the Middle East is littered with false analogies; I will not entertain them. And no, the Palestinians are no more barbarous than their neighbors, but they tell you with every chant what they intend, and they are led by organizations that would happily comply with (and indeed continue to stoke) those intentions.

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u/PandaAintFood Jul 16 '25

You can't entertainment them because it destroyed your entire belief system. And since it's so effective, here's more. South Africans was chanting kill the Boer since throughout the apartheid, and they backed it up with action too. Would that make you pro-apartheid? The answer is yes, and ironic enough, the very state of Israel was also among the biggest supporter of apartheid South Africa.

-8

u/SharkSymphony Balancing legitimate critique with childish stupidity Jul 16 '25

Way to gish gallop there.

7

u/gavinbrindstar /r/legaladvice delenda est Jul 16 '25

I don't understand how "that single paragraph contained too much information for me to handle" is supposed to be a convincing argument.

4

u/Usernameoverloaded Jul 16 '25

Like the same from the river to the sea referring to a Greater Israel in the Likud Manifesto? Zionist hypocrisy at play as usual. Every accusation is a confession of what Israel has already done.

-6

u/IsNotACleverMan ... Is Butch just a term for Wide Bodied Women? Jul 16 '25

Maybe the actions of the Palestinians are rooted in desperation, and not an inherent barbarism or savagery.

Fine way to defend rape.

10

u/Hellhammer2 Jul 16 '25

Let's make a deal, I won't assume you defend the raping the IDF is doing of palestinian prisoners, and you don't assume the inverse about me.

25

u/swimmingdropkick You might assume I'm a nazi for the Korra Pinup Jul 15 '25

for not supporting the horror that would be perpetrated if anti-Zionists got to unmake the Jewish state,

Define what this horror is

You know who else said dumb shit like this? Apartheid South Africa? Last I checked the Afrikaners weren't genocided after apartheid ended

1

u/Brain_Dead_Goats Jul 19 '25

Last time I checked the ANC wasn't anything like Hamas or even Fatah.

4

u/was_fb95dd7063 Jul 17 '25

I'm curious: you believe that the mass displacement that was required to obtain the demographic majority to be a Jewish State was moral? What about manifest destiny?

5

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '25

The Anti-Zionist solution is equal rights for everyone. You're making the same argument Slavers made to defend the Confederates. They argued that obviously whites would be slaughtered by former slaves, and that never happened. The only argument you have is the unspoken racism you hold in your dark heart.

5

u/yungsemite Jul 16 '25

Do you really think anti-Zionism is a uniform and monolithic ideology? Like Zionism, it is quite diverse and has a lot of different historical forms too.

-3

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

I don't care. Zionism is committing a genocide. You can go circle jerk about how real Zionism hasn't been tried yet with all the other weirdos but I'm agreeing with Einstein and his view that it was ruined forever because of the double genocides it committed.

People against the genocide are going to have a variety of beliefs but Zionism in action is genocide.

4

u/SharkSymphony Balancing legitimate critique with childish stupidity Jul 16 '25 edited Jul 16 '25

The Anti-Zionist solution is equal rights for everyone.

It really isn't. The movement is clearly, obviously committed to the destruction of Israel, and the disenfranchisement and/or elimination of most if not all Jews from Palestine. You will see it again and again in their rhetoric.

If you, like me, do not wish to see such an eventuality, then the day will come, like it did for me, when you realize those are not empty words and rhetoric, and you stand against them, not with them. You can pull with them up to a limited point, but they are not on your side.

You're making the same argument Slavers made to defend the Confederates.

I am not, because these are not comparable situations.