Rights advocates in the United States are urging President Joe Biden to end his administration’s “complicity” in Israeli rights abuses after key members of Israel’s government backed the idea of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza.

Far-right Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich said this week that Israel should “encourage emigration” from the coastal enclave, home to an estimated 2.3 million Palestinians.

“If there are 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not two million Arabs, the entire discussion on the day after [the war ends] will be totally different,” Smotrich said on Sunday, calling for the “voluntary migration” of Palestinians.

A day later, Ben-Gvir, who oversees national security, made a similar appeal, saying it was “a correct, just, moral and humane solution”, Israeli media outlets reported.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Is it right to be morally outraged by an ongoing genocide, ethnic cleansing and domicide? Yes or no?

    The indisputable facts that Hamas has committed heinous terrorism and that the holocaust happened and was unimaginably awful doesn’t excuse the crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli government, so please pack your fucking whataboutism away.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It’s not whataboutism to demonstrate that an election-significant number of Democrats believe Hamas bullshit over reality, and that the number of people who believe that is enough to change Dem support from strong majority agreement with the President to disagreement.

      It’s also not whataboutism to point out that nearly a third of people polled have generally no opinion on such basic things as “did the Holocaust happen” or “was the Hamas terror attack a big deal” or “does Hamas target civilians.”

      War does indeed suck and you’re allowed to not like it and even use your irresponsibly inflammatory language, but it’s absurd to suggest these comments are whataboutism.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        It’s not whataboutism to demonstrate that an election-significant number of Democrats believe Hamas bullshit over reality

        Even if the pro-IDF propaganda piece you linked to had successfully demonstrated that, yes it would still be a whataboutism.

        What Americans believe has no bearing on whether the Israeli government should be allowed to systematically slaughter and demolish their way through Palestinians, including children, at a rate completely unheard of anywhere in the world in recent years.

        It’s also not whataboutism to point out that nearly a third of people polled have generally no opinion on such basic things as “did the Holocaust happen” or “was the Hamas terror attack a big deal” or “does Hamas target civilians.”

        Yes it is. That is by definition whataboutism. Maybe you need to look up what whataboutism is. While you’re at it, look up “bad faith arguments” and several logical fallacies.

        War does indeed suck

        And war crimes perpetrated against a mostly defenseless civilization population of over 50% children are much worse.

        you’re allowed to not like it

        Gee, thanks! So generous of you!

        irresponsibly accurate inflammatory language

        Fixed that for you

        it’s absurd to suggest these comments are whataboutism.

        Again, just Google it. You can also use a better search engine, but PLEASE look up the word you keep pretending you know the meaning of.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Even if the pro-IDF propaganda piece you linked to had successfully demonstrated that, yes it would still be whataboutism since what Americans believe has no bearing on whether the Israeli government should be allowed to systematically slaughter and demolish their way through Palestinians, including children, at a rate completely unheard of anywhere in the world in recent years.

          You do understand that you are literally expressing a thing that some Americans believe, yes? Like, you get that your position is an opinion, right?

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Yes, it is indeed an opinion that committing atrocities is a bad thing to do. Well done on finally getting something right.

            It’s a VERY popular opinion though, one shared by so many people that the world has decided that people are not allowed to do that bad thing.

            That the Israeli Apartheid regime is committing genocide, ethnic cleansing and domicide isn’t an opinion, though. It’s an objective fact by all definitions of all the words.

            A fact not changed by whether or not some misguided Americans think or pretend to think that the atrocities of Hamas are justified or that the holocaust didn’t happen.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yes, it is indeed an opinion that committing atrocities is a bad thing to do. Well done on finally getting something right.

              You’re not dumb. You know that people disagree with you on the atrocities you claim.

              For instance, it’s impossible to have an apartheid system against another country. Israel is, by definition, not an apartheid state.

              It’s hilarious to me that you’ll try to bring up the definitions of words after that - perhaps this is why your opinion is so extreme.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                You’re not dumb.

                Wow, you’ve already doubled the number of things you’ve been right about! At this rate we’ll only have to keep arguing a couple months more until you stop being an insincere moron!

                You know that people disagree with you on the atrocities you claim.

                I know that some people deny objective reality, yes, but that doesn’t make objective reality any less real or any more subjective.

                it’s impossible to have an apartheid system against another country.

                Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs living in Israel and Israel-occupied and/or -controlled Palestine are treated as, at best, second class citizens. Desmond Tutu agreed that Israel is an Apartheid state and he of all people should know.

                It’s hilarious to me that you’ll try to bring up the definitions of words after that

                I guess the truth sometimes looks like hilarious comedy to those who believe in ridiculous gaslighting such as that coming from Times of Israel, AIPAC and Faux News 🤷

                your opinion is so extreme.

                Yeah, it’s SO extreme to think that the lives of Palestinians matter! Such an audacious notion! 🙄

                • SCB@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs living in Israel and Israel-occupied and/or -controlled Palestine are treated as, at best, second class citizens

                  You went to all the effort to cite Tutu and yet provide no evidence for this, because they’re not, and they literally have representation in Israel’s government.

                  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    they literally have representation in Israel’s government.

                    Yeah, because everyone knows that having 1/12 of the knesset be Arabs means that there’s not systemic inequality and oppression of Arabs and other minority groups! 🤦

                    provide no evidence

                    here’s some evidence you’re gonna ignore or pretend to refute.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Nope, I’m not. Those comments mention things that have absolutely no bearing on the topic at hand but the one bringing them up tries to derail the discussion by insisting that they’re not only relevant but in fact crucial to the matter at hand.

            That’s textbook whataboutism.

    • TheSanSabaSongbird@lemdro.id
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      1 year ago

      That’s not whataboutism. Whataboutism is changing the subject to derail the conversation. This is simply addressing a different point of view in the same discussion.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        No. Mentioning the opinions of uninvolved people IS changing the subject of whether or not genocide is bad and should be stopped.

        A comparable if much lower stakes example would be if we were discussing whether or not it’s ok to say that Wings were better than The Beatles and then some rando chimes in to inform us that 10% of techno fans think that the world doesn’t need guitars.

        Fun had, let’s return to the actual: 10% of the respondents of a poll saying ANYTHING doesn’t make genocide more or less acceptable and bringing it up in spite of that is a whataboutism, a distraction and a very crass way to try to derail the conversation.