So I read the International Association of Genocide Scholars resolution.

I found it interesting. And not in a good way for the IAGS.

First, it misstated the ICJ’s “plausibility” determination saying it was “plausible genocide,” which is not true. The ICJ said that Palestinians plausibly have rights to protection under the Genocide Convention. The President of the ICJ who wrote it clarified this at a later time. (It was also the correct determination).

Second, it cites Amnesty, B’tselem, etc. who are expressly expanded upon the legal analysis required.

Third, it assumes without justification that no combatants have been harmed in the war.

Fourth, and finally, this is a big one: It never acknowledges that Hamas exists as a combatant party in this space to understand its conduct and what informs us under the law. Meaning, it assumes without justification that there are no legitimate military targets in Gaza knowing that Hamas embeds within civilian and humanitarian infrastructure. You can find it here: genocidescholars.org/wp-content/upl…

Fascinating. I’m an attorney practicing law in this area so I have some thoughts on the @btselem report.

Let’s start by the fact that they openly admit to broadening the required definition of genocide as codified by Art. II of the Genocide Convention which defines genocide as “any of the following acts with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group, as such:…”

There’s a few parts to this that we should parse through. Genocide requires for intent: (1) The intent to destroy; (2) Intent to destroy a group (in whole or in part); (3) Intent to destroy a protected group (national, ethnical, racial, or religious); and (4) Intent to destroy a protected group through a defined act.

This intent requirement is known as dolus specialis (specific intent). Requiring that you establish this intent to a very high threshold. Meaning the actors acted with the intent to destroy a protected group, as such, through a defined act, and there be no other reasonable explanation for their actions.

Other reasonable explanations in a conflict such as this one where a hostile party embeds under and within civilian infrastructure causing the protections to be negated in hospitals (see GCIV 19), for example, and other civilian areas (see GCIV 28 & API 51(7)).

@btselem openly admits to not using the law, saying it’s “too narrow” to assess. That’s wrong and incoherent.

We need to stop doing this.

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Next, let’s lay out the acts of genocide (remembering that they require the requisite intent).

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

You’ll notice that “displacement” is not a defined act. @btselem doesn’t even try to place it into an accurate area from what I read.

Now, one could make a logical argument that it falls into Art. II(c), but that would be hard to do. There’s a reason why other crimes exist such as the crime against humanity of deportation. But that’s also not happening.

One could argue that there’s real legal issues with the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank as we’ve seen from the violence. I would argue Israel has an absolute obligation to prevent and punish these acts. But they’re not inherently genocidal. B’tselem doesn’t even offer a point to make the required connection here.

Also, the connection to the war in Gaza to the West Bank is nefarious in nature. They’re trying to make an assumption to a legal conclusion of “in whole” without the basis of actual evidence.

This argument fails for many reasons, this being one of them.

Here’s the thing, this is objectively false under the law. For this to be true Israel would have to have the intent, and even to infer intent you have to meet certain prongs given to us by ICTY.

@academic_la acts as if he knows what he’s talking about. He portrays himself as an expert.

He’s not.

When I had a conversation with him and recited the Genocide Convention’s Art. II he immediately berated me and tried to demean me. It’s because he didn’t know what the intent required for genocide was.

We also know that there isn’t indiscriminate bombings of hospitals. We know Hamas has weaponized them (Palestinians are telling us this). GCIV 19 applies here, and from what we can tell, Israel has followed the requirements of it. We also know that Hamas has weaponized the totality of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure for the purpose of fighting war, boobytrapping much of it. Again, Palestinians are the ones telling us this.

There’s no starvation in Gaza, we know enough calories have entered the Gaza Strip to sustain the population for at least one more month. We also know that Israel’s obligations can cease under GCIV 23, when a combatant party (Hamas) diverts the aid from civilians. Again, Palestinians are telling us that Hamas is doing this. We also know that Israel is working to establish a new (and larger) humanitarian zone with the intent to bring aid to civilians under the obligations of GCIV 23, and to provide a humanitarian zone in compliance with GCIV 14 & 15.

We also have zero evidence of plans for ethnic cleansing. Moreover, ethnic cleansing ≠ genocide. The legal concept of ethnic cleansing is poorly defined but largely requires making a geographic place ethnically homogenous. Israel isn’t doing that. Palestinians should be permitted to leave Gaza if they choose, but they shouldn’t be forced. Israel does plan to permit Palestinians to leave if they so choose, it has as of yet no plan to mandate Palestinians leave (aka expulsion).

Next, the IDF has referred to the Military Advocate General (MAG) the killing of aid workers. This implies that the independent observer found potential criminality. Referral to the MAG is a good sign that Israel intends to comply with the law of armed conflict/IHL. Now, Israel was caught blindly accepting the narrative it was told by the soldiers who committed the violation. This suggests that Israel had a looser investigatory presence. It doing more is a good thing.

Now, to discuss the conflict a bit more, as of today we know that the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health has reported 52,245 deaths in Gaza since the start of the war. Of that we expect 9,700 to be natural deaths (which Hamas has quietly started to admit). Leaving us with about 42,500 violent deaths from the war. Of this we know almost 23,000 deaths are combatants (as corroborated by the Biden admin). Leaving us with about 19,600 civilian deaths from the violence killed by both Israel and Hamas (we know deaths attributable to Hamas are in the death toll).

This would defeat three of the four ICTY prongs for inference to the dolus specialis level of intent. (Scale of atrocities, systemic targeting of protected groups, and evidence of conscious planning).

We do actually have to assess everything, not just appeal to our emotions in order to be accepted on social media.

Basically, this post by @academic_la should indicate that he’s not an expert on the law. Or really an expert on actual warfare except historical battles.

He’s doing this to be accepted by those who want to lead us back to the gas chambers, and cheerled the most recent genocide of Jews committed by Hamas on October 7, 2023. It’s funny because @academic_la unblocked me to comment and then blocked me again.

But since he commented I guess here’s more time to give another assessment to try to infer intent (back to scale): if we know that about 19,700 civilians have been killed by the violence by either Hamas or Israel (so far, surely this will increase), and we know that the population pre-war was 2,230,000 people, we see that 0.88% of the pre-war population has been killed and are civilians.

That’s not a large enough scale to infer intent.

Further, we know (per the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health) that about 5,500 births happen in Gaza per month. Or, a total of about 100,000 new births in Gaza.

100,000 new lives > 52,245 total reported deaths.

Again, defeating the inference to intent under the prongs for ICTY.

Facts (and law), they matter, not our emotions to be accepted by those who want to kill us.

So I read through the article and still can't believe it was published.

It's quite alarming at various points in degrading what the law actually says. Here, Alonso argues that a dolus eventualis intent is acceptable, when the law as written is dolus specialis.

🧵 Further, the law as we know it and have always known it is admittedly in the opposite of what Alonso is saying here. Judge Nolte is correct in what he wrote here in relation to the intent for genocide. This is unquestionably true.

Alonso's trying to shift that to find intent that he admits does not actually exist.

This is morally depraved, abhorrent, reprehensible, disgusting, and every single adjective you can think of.

Following the ICTY prongs (which is what the ICJ did):

1. Statements indicating genocidal intent in context (Hitler said the ultimate goal was to remove the Jews altogether, Goebbels sold the war as one against Jews directly)

2. The scale of atrocities committed (Jews are still a smaller population today than in 1941. 6,000,000 were systematically murdered)

3. Systematic targeting of a protected group (Jews were systematically targeted through Nuremberg laws and then deported to extermination camps where they were gassed. Jews are protected as a religious group)

4. Evidence that the commission of the genocidal actus reus was consciously planned (the Wannsee Conference happened)

Every single prong for inference from ICTY is easily met for the Nazis. But we don’t actually need the prongs as the Nazis recorded themselves committing the crime of genocide. They explicitly had a planning meeting to do so. What Dunkelberg is doing here is trying to conflate those with Israel, so let’s do ourselves a favor. Prongs are listed above.

1. Netanyahu’s “Amalek” statement is cited as genocidal intent, yet it’s also the same phrase on The Hague’s Holocaust monument (and its name), Herzog’s statement about fighting “human animals” is used as a genocidal intent, yet he was explicit in saying it was about Hamas (they’re not a protected group) and saying civilians must be protected, Gallant’s “siege” remark is used as evidence of genocidal intent, yet his statement was explicit to Gaza CITY not the Gaza STRIP, he gave civilians a month to evacuate. Prong 1 likely fails.

2. To determine scale we can see that the human toll (today at 44,875 total reported deaths including combatants) is less than population grown (~5,500/month per Doctors Without Borders, so ~77,000 since the start of the war). Death is not required for genocide. However, here we can use it for inference. Further, destruction in Gaza cannot (at this point) be determinative of intent as we know Hamas as a combatant party uses human shielding, we have years of evidence of this and they openly admit it. Prong 2 fails.

3. It’s curious that evidence suggests about 19,000 combatants killed in the war so far with a total of 44,875 total reported deaths so systematic targeting of a protected group is likely not happening. Again, with prong 2 we have knowledge of human shielding. The intent must be to target Palestinians as a protected group (which, by the way, the ICJ’s “plausible” determination was that Palestinian are protected as at least a national group, which I agree with). So, prong 3 fails.

4. There is zero evidence of planning for a genocide. With aid entering Gaza and recorded calories entering in excess of what’s necessary to sustain life, as well as steps taken to admit where a problem in a strike has occurred and taking responsibility for harm, this prong fails, too.

I find this historically, and legally, illiterate.

The only time Jews didn’t live in the West Bank (Occupied Palestinian Territory) was 1948-67 when Jews were ethnically cleansed by Jordan and Jordan annexed the territory.

At no point was it Palestinian territory.
🧵

https://twitter.com/adhaque110/status/1853412206752256479

Now, I agree that it *should* become sovereign Palestinian territory. But if our entire premise of disagreement is that Palestinians want a “right of return” wouldn’t it also make sense that Palestinians must accept Jews as Palestinian citizens?

It's time to analyze the latest Harvard/HarrisX poll!

First up: American voters still believe (by a big majority) that a ceasefire should only happen under the conditions Israel has set for winning the war. Which is that the hostages are all released and Hamas leaves power. Next up: Voters agree with Netanyahu in not trusting the Palestinian Authority. I found this to be surprising. They would *prefer* Israel administer the Gaza Strip than the Palestinian Authority, but would prefer over that a new authority administered by Arab states.

Thread incoming, but @KarimKhanQC's response to the amici curiae leaves a lot to be desired.

Notably, he lied. The claim that OTP "engaged with the relevant actors in good faith" is false. The day he announced requests OTP was due to arrive in Israel to engage with Israel.

🧵 "On May 20, the same day International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan made a surprise request for warrants to arrest the leaders of Israel and Hamas involved in the Gaza conflict, he suddenly cancelled a sensitive mission to collect evidence in the region, eight people with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters."
reuters.com/world/middle-e…

TLDR: Not once does @bartov_omer establish the intent requirement, nor does he have evidence of genocidal intent.

He uses a few conversations with people who were there, who stipulate they acted to protect civilians, to establish genocidal intent.

That's not how that works.

https://twitter.com/bartov_omer/status/1823323580450390409

Here's an important quote:

"Knowing that I had previously warned of genocide, the students were especially keen to show me that they were humane, that they were not murderers. They had no doubt that the IDF was, in fact, the most moral army in the world. But they were also convinced that any damage done to the people and buildings in Gaza was totally justified, that it was all the fault of Hamas using them as human shields."

Here we go again: The dissent by Judge Sebutinde is incredible and eviscerates the @CIJ_ICJ as applying standards never applied to any other states party. I'm going to highlight a few parts because they are quite notable.

Notable, she again calls out the ICJ for hypocrisy.
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https://twitter.com/ElliotMalin/status/1794041368794587537

Judge Sebutinde notes that the @CIJ_ICJ advisory opinion lacks balance and impartiality (not surprising since the President of the Court is the former Lebanese ambassador who bashed Israel every day).

Without balance, the court cannot render an effective opinion. It's lacking.

I have a lot of thoughts, so please bear with me.

Early on the Jewish community was thrilled with @JoeBiden's response. That quickly dissipated.

By mid-January, the admin had become outright hostile. But it wasn't just Israel, it was antisemitism.
🧵
cnn.com/2024/06/23/pol… I work closely with some of the top Jewish political donors in the country. Getting them to open their wallets for Democrats this cycle has been painstakingly difficult. There are very few that they are thrilled to give to these days.

Biden is not one of them.

The dissent by Judge Sebutinde is incredible and eviscerates the @CIJ_ICJ as applying standards never applied to any other states party. I'm going to highlight a few parts because they're quite notable.

We're going to start with the final paragraph.

icj-cij.org/sites/default/…
That final paragraph is a HOLY SHIT moment on the objectivity and fairness of the court.

Notably, Israel was not given time to respond and WAS NOT ABLE TO ENGAGE COUNSEL. Further, it was required to respond during a religious observance.

This is not done to other states.

@_bilaire Alright, this might be a bit of a thread for which I apologize. But I am actually qualified to discuss the differences here and what is and isn't genocide.

Gencoide is a specific intent crime under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
🧵 @_bilaire Art. II of the Convention defines genocide as: "an act with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group."

Intent is the operative word. You must actually intend to commit genocide, so you must know the actors thoughts.