Palestinian Reverend Munther Isaac to U.S. Faith Leaders: If You Are Silent, You Approve of Genocide

[Uncle Joe]

Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's war on Gaza, according to the official death toll, though the true casualty figure is likely far higher with thousands of the dead unaccounted for. Meanwhile, Israeli forces have raided towns and villages across the occupied West Bank, and settlers under military protection have repeatedly stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in recent days. This all comes as the State Department on Tuesday announced the approval of $20 billion in new arms sales to Israel, including scores of fighter jets. We speak with the Reverend Munther Isaac, pastor at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, who joins us in our New York studio for an in-depth conversation. He is in the United States on a speaking tour to encourage faith leaders to oppose U.S. support for Israel's onslaught. "We're still calling for a ceasefire, and it feels like we're still calling for the world to humanize the people of Gaza, to humanize Palestinians," says Isaac. "If you're silent, knowing how your money is being spent, that means you approve."

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[The Magistrate]

1. If they Want A Ceasefire, Hamas And Iran Is Who They Should Address Their Pleas To

Bean-breeze in a wimple, that's all this is.

[Jim_S]

2. A Sugestion

There is much to learn about the history of how this genocide became what it is today. I knew there was more to what the corporate lame-stream media feed us so I sought knowledgeable voices. Might I recommend the same? Here are two books, one by an Israeli and one by a Palestinian. Both are greatly respected and have amazingly similar observations.
Ilan Pappe: ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’ (Israeli)
Rashid Khalidi: ‘The Hundred Years War on Palestine’ (Palestinian)
Enjoy.

[The Magistrate]

3. Ah, My Ignorance Is Legend....

Happy you have heard of it, it's the one thing people here agree on, that I haven't the vaguest idea what's really going on, and the history behind it.

Still, Hamas could end the current bout of killing in an hour, by freeing captives and coming out hands up in surrender. That they don't is a measure of how little regard they have for the people of Gaza. Who are in an unfortunate plight: each combatant considers its interests advanced by actions that will kill and maim them.


"Don't try and teach Grandma to suck eggs."

[Butterflylady]

4. Wow, that's all.

I'm just floored with your response to 4 day old twins death.

[The Magistrate]

5. The Problem Is The Posture Of Humanitarian Concern

When what is actually pressed for is partisan advantage in the contest of propagandas.

Hamas committed an act of war; Israel is replying in kind, and has a great deal more capability in that line.

Best not to have attacked in the first place.

Stupid to think baiting your stronger foe into a red rage was a good idea.

Not one bomb would have dropped on Gaza, not one person there killed or maimed, if not for the spree of sadistic murder, torture, rape, and kidnapping Hamas decided to indulge its fanatics in on October 7th last year.

That's a flat fact. The discomfort this causes some is not a refutation of it. A good thirty or forty thousands of people would be today going about their lives, save for that stubborn fact.

What has Hamas achieved that is worth those lives?

[Jim_S]

6. What Hamas did was horrific. What Israel is doing is Genocide.

Both are unacceptable.
Have you noticed that Nut-n-Yahoo keeps ‘moving the goat posts’ at virtually every negotiation? He does not want this to end because then he will be pushed out of office and face legal problems, and potential jail time. And I do not want to support his acts of genocide with my tax dollars.

[The Magistrate]

7. Hamas Certainly Wants No End To the Killing

Hamas wants Israel to stop shooting while Hamas remains a coherent armed body capable of governance in Gaza and further attacks on Israel.

That's not how this will end.

This pretense Netanyahu is the sole obstacle to peace, that all would be kumbaya around the campfire were it not for him, is dishonest, and anyone with even a cursory understanding of the situation knows that is so. It's getting to be reminiscent of Republicans braying about Soros being at the root of every progressive organization and behind every progessive elected official --- same tune, different key


“Snowball! He has been here! I can smell him distinctly!”

[Jim_S]

8. We agree

It will not end when Nut-n-Yahoo is in jail. The majority of Israelis approve of what they are doing. It will only end when the US stops supporting with our weaponry and money. Israel has the right to defend itself but not to commit genocide

[The Magistrate]

9. I Have In Courtesy Ignored Your Genocidal Babble, Sir

It is the preserve of the ignorant, the idiotic, and the zealous 'Anti-Zionist' hatemonger, and I do not exempt persons in judicial robes, and certainly not UN officials. I do give members of this forum the benefit of doubt in each degree, but I can be convinced I ought not.


"The problem with arguing by hyperbole is that exaggerations employed for rhetorical effect come, with repetition, to appear to their utter as facts, which must then require exaggeration for effect, and so on and on it goes till the rhetoric flies up its own fundament crying up a paper cut thumb as a slit throat."

[Jim_S]

10. Do us both a favor and

Use your favorite search engine to look up the UN definition of genocide.

[The Magistrate]

11. Actions Undertaken With The Aim To Destroy In Whole Or In Part A Group

The 'in part' is a bit sloppy, I've seen people try and argue that makes killing even one person 'genocide', one person being 'part of' a group.

It's the 'with the aim of destroying' part trips you up. Without the intent to exterminate, the crime of genocide does not occur. You have to prove intent; your conviction Israel intends exterminating Palestinian Arabs is not evidence Israel is engaged in genocide. It is nowhere stated in law that 'killing lots of people' constitutes genocide.

Verdicts of guilty on charges of genocide handed down by the tribunals concerned with the fighting in the former Yugoslavia involved persons giving, or acting on, orders of the 'round up and shoot every male of military age in the town' sort.

Your cry of genocide here says a good deal more about you than it does about the actions of Israel's military in Gaza.


"Area radical passionate advocate for what he imagines international law says."

[Jim_S]

12. Thanks :-/

Sadly, an act of genocide is an ‘after-the-fact’ adjudication. So, until then, I guess we’ll just have to discuss how one can interpret words in one's favor. (You do realize that any single act in the UN definition is enough for prosecution.) Your statements are revelatory and disturbing. Thanks for the kind conversation.

One more thing: I strongly suggest that you read one of the two books I mentioned earlier in this discussion. It would be better if you read both but I think you would appreciate the points made in both books.

[The Magistrate]

13. Clearly, You Do Not Understand The Elements Of the Charge You Love So Much To Lay

It's common enough: people often seem to imagine their own moral sense and the law to be identical. For better or worse, there is often little overlap between the two.


"War is cruelty, it cannot be refined."

[The Magistrate]

15. Look, On The Off Chance You're A Decent Fella I'll Give You This

Stripped of moral and political pretensions, your position amounts to 'That doesn't look like a fair fight to me!'

That's a genuine feeling, and I agree, it's not a fair fight. Wars never are. The whole aim of strategy and tactics is to make the fight as unfair as possible in your own favor.

This fight ought never to have been started, but once fights are started, they go on till one or both of the parties are finished. On a playground, fighters can readily be separated, but with two full-fledged participants in a war, one of them a military power of the first rank, that's just not practical. The thing will go on till the weaker concedes defeat, or the stronger is satisfied it has attained its goals and declares victory. One need not approve of reality to recognize it, and reality doesn't care what view you may take of it.


"If you're in a fair fight, you fucked up."

[ancianita]

16. Thank you, sir.

This is the best explanation I've read of intent. Hamas and Hezbollah's charters both put their extermination intent in writing. If any entities are guilty of conspiracy to commit genocide -- or genocide -- it is Hezbollah and Hamas, now labeled as international terrorists.

None of Iran's terrorist military proxies want a two-state solution. They never have.
I love Pres. Joe Biden, but am fairly certain he won't be able to end this eternal jihad. At best he will secure for Israel only a temporary cessation of hostilities while jihadis re-arm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calls_for_the_destruction_of_Israel

Anti-Zionist calls often involve the use of strong language, genocidal threats,[5][6] or declarations aiming at the complete eradication of Israel. Such expressions may be manifested in official statements, speeches, charters, or public discourse, reflecting a position that denies the legitimacy of Israel's existence and seeks its destruction through various means, including military or other forms of political and ideological action.[7][6]

The history of calls for the destruction of Israel is rooted in the prelude to its establishment. Leaders such as Azzam Pasha of the Arab League warned of a "war of extermination" in the event that a Jewish state was established, although the interpretation of this quotation is disputed. Prior to the 1967 Six Day War, there was a nearly unanimous consensus among Arab nations aimed at the obliteration of Israel.[8] Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser reiterated calls for the annulment of Israel's existence in the lead-up to the war.

Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei has called for the Israeli state to be abolished and replaced with a single state that gives equal voting rights to Muslims, Christians and Jews.[9][10] Khamenei has stressed the removal of Israel does not mean the removal of Jewish people.[11] Islamist Palestinian organizations like Hamas[12] and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad[12] consistently promote the goal of Israel's elimination, as evidenced by their charters, statements, and actions, such as the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel.[13] Instances of media and propaganda within Palestinian discourse also contribute to expressions advocating for the destruction of Israel. The political slogan "From the river to the sea"[14] has been linked to demands for a Palestinian state and the removal of a majority of its Jewish population, with ongoing debates about its implications and potential classification as antisemitic or hate speech.[15][16][17]

[lapucelle]

17. People need to read the entire statute, not simply the parts that tend to confirm biases.

According to Article 2 of the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines genocide as

Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/genocide


Genocide is a crime of specific intent.

Genocidal intent requires that acts must be committed against members of a group specifically because they belong to that group

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/genocide

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Very early on, Hamas had it within its power to release the hostages and surrender or arrange for safe passage to any one of the of the terrorist supporting or terrorist adjacent countries in the region. Had they done that, there would be no war.

And if Israel truly had genocidal intent against the Palestinian people, wouldn't they begin by expelling the 2,100,000 Palestinian/Arab citizens of Israel, including the one who sits on the Supreme Court and those who sit in the Knesset?

The narrative doesn't track.


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NSC’s John Kirby: "Israel isn’t trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel isn’t trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So if we’re going to start using that word, Fine. Let’s use it appropriately.”

Link to tweet

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ICJ “didn't decide claim of genocide was plausible” nor “that there's a plausible case of genocide”

[lapucelle]

18. The US Department of State's position is that what Hamas did was horrific AND genocidal,

and that what Israel is doing is fighting a war to survive Hamas's genocidal designs against Israel specifically and Jews in general.

NSC’s John Kirby: "Israel isn’t trying to wipe the Palestinian people off the map. Israel isn’t trying to wipe Gaza off the map. Israel is trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So if we’re going to start using that word, Fine. Let’s use it appropriately.”

Link to tweet