Talk:Gaza genocide

RfC about starvation estimate

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a consensus to exclude the estimate from the infobox. Editors generally agreed that the statistic is too extraordinary to justify its inclusion on the basis of the sources available in an infobox, whose purpose is to summarize key facts and is a notoriously poor means of conveying anything requiring explanation. (non-admin closure) —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 02:45, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

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Should the 62,413 estimate for starvation deaths be included in the info box or not? Originalcola (talk) 21:29, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• No - it's an WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim, since health officials reported 38 starvations [15] for a similar time period. The 62,413 estimate would imply that health authorities undercounted by an absurd factor. That aside, the sources just don't pass WP:SCHOLARSHIP. The closest we have is this paper, but it's written by an anthropologist and doesn't actually discuss whether the methodology is valid. It also appears to have no citations, and the group that published it doesn't appear to do any of the vetting that WP:SCHOLARSHIP requires. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 21:52, 9 December 2024 (UTC)
• No per xDanielx. This wild and exaggeratory guesstimate comes nowhere close to passing muster. That said, the "38" count is surely also too low and shouldn't be in the infobox either, since no other body of work is backing it up (and it's too old to bother with, regarding an ongoing conflict of this magnitude; months might as well be decades when it comes to such coverage).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:15, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• No because it is not being widely reported by other secondary sources. In addition, estimates can be off and variable. For example in the 2024 famine in Sudan infobox, the Wikipedia editors just reported the starvation deaths count from one news source, but estimates published vary from “hundreds each day” to 2.5 million (briefly mentioned by Time here and reported by MEE here) Wafflefrites (talk) 23:26, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

• No- My opinion is the same as xDanielx for rationale behind disputing paper. The letter itself isn’t exactly a reliable source (being self-published and non-independent) for such an extraordinary claim. I felt like an estimate shouldn’t be included in the infobox unless its reliability is very strong, and this clearly isn't it. The MJ article adds no analysis or commentary, so it fails to be more than churnalism restating the paper. Originalcola (talk) 00:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
• No. A PDF not published in an academic journal doesn't meet WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Because there's no peer review, the letter and document cited for the death toll should be treated as WP:PREPRINTs. Since the claim isn't supported by reliable sources, it shouldn't be in the infobox stated as fact. The MJ article, at best, would make this estimate WP:DUE with attribution in the body, not in the main infobox with WikiVoice. Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 07:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• No this number is at best extraordinary and at worst implausible, and the sourcing is not even close to strong enough for sucha claim, per the arguments above.:FortunateSons (talk) 10:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
• Yes but attributed We should make it clear it's an estimate but the other arguments for exclusion are non-persuasive. Simonm223 (talk) 14:34, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  It seems hard to explain the source of this estimate (a joint letter from American physicians and nurses who had been operating in Gaza) without the content becoming too large for the infobox format.

  If we did include it, we should also include the 38 figure from health officials, and let the reader decide what to make of the massive difference. Omitting that information would seem like a major NPOV issue. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 19:00, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• No, but can be later in the article with attribution It is just not good enough for the lead. It is in the right ballpark as far as I can see for the 'natural' deaths from disease, lack of medicine, destroyed hospitals etc rather than those directly killed, but this document just has a ? for all those and says almost of these died from famine! NadVolum (talk) 16:07, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
• No Available excess death projections do not include estimates for malnutrition/starvation because the aid restrictions leading to famine like conditions were not present when those studies were done, this newer study must be viewed as a first attempt at estimating excess deaths from this cause. I consider the report to be RS, but because it is the only such report so far, we should refrain from stating/implying it as a fact until additional RS become available. Selfstudier (talk) 16:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  That's why I support attribution and clarification it's an estimate. We shouldn't be stating these are the death toll in wiki voice but we should include the estimate. Simonm223 (talk) 17:04, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• Yes but with attribution Abo Yemen✉ 17:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
• No. I originally found the report (due to Glenn Greenwald mentioning it in his YouTube channel, if I remember correctly), but despite really wanting the mass-killing of children to end, and also agreeing about that given the systematic killings of doctors and other healthcare workers, this deliberately makes it very hard to count the number of victims, after reading all of the arguments from both Wikipedia administrators and regular experienced members, I agree with Selfstudier about that it is likely not sufficiently verifiable information to state as a properly encyclopaedic infobox fact. It would feel intellectually dishonest for me to claim otherwise. I definitely think that we should add estimated death tolls from diseases and starvation to the infoboxes, both here and the main Israel-Hamas War article, if we find something more reliable and official though. David A (talk) 19:47, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  Never mind. I abstain from my vote, as I also in good conscience do not want to do anything that might contribute to more innocent people being killed due to the full horror of the situation being officially severely understated. David A (talk) 06:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

• No - as stated above, it's an WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim. Putting nonsense in the Infobox is extremely misleading, which I thought Wikipedia is supposed to avoid. However, the entire premise of the article is misleading, so what's a little starvation compared to a whole genocide? DaringDonna (talk) 20:23, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Starving isn't quite the same as deaths from famine. The number of 'natural' deaths as they call them due to the war is about the same as the number of their 'martyrs' killed directly, and the main reason they die is because they are not recovering from illnesses or injury as they normally would because they do not have enough food. It is not just 'a little starvation'. Plus if the current business of supplies not going in continues it could go into full blown famine extremely quickly. NadVolum (talk) 22:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, at this point there is even a 297 page report from Amnesty filled with evidence for that this is an actual blatantly obvious genocide/ethnic cleansing. Incredulity is not a valid counterpoint to that. David A (talk) 06:29, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree there is a terrible war going on. And I have no doubt Amnesty has put together a book chronicling just how terrible this war is, substituting the word genocide for war, just as the word militant is a substitute for terrorist. This war would end immediately if Hamas released the hostages and surrendered. Israel did not start this war, and it is not committing genocide, no matter how long Amnesty's report might be. If there was a genocide going on, and a famine about to break out, why doesn't Egypt allow the civilians to come in where they can be protected and fed? If it were really a genocide, Israel would chase the Palestinians into Egypt to kill them, no? But no one believes that, do they? The premise of this entire article, and many others on Wikipedia, has ruined the trustworthiness and usefulness of this experiment in crowd sourcing and democratizing knowledge. It has proven an utter, and dangerous failure. It reminds one of Orwell's 1984, where black is white and 2+2=5. DaringDonna (talk) 19:34, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

If I must choose between a random person on the internet and Amnesty International, that's not really a contest, sorry. Selfstudier (talk) 19:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry but an individual editor's personal opinion regarding an assumed methodology by Amnesty International is not something we should entertain for editorial decisions. I will say this: unless the Amnesty report includes estimates for deaths by starvation it's not apropos to this discussion although it is certainly apropos this overall topic. I would caution @DaringDonna to respect WP:NOTFORUM but I would also suggest @NadVolum raise the Amnesty report in threads where it is planned as a citation. Simonm223 (talk) 20:11, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The Euro-Med estimate of about 51,000 'natural' deaths by late June is what I find reasonable and they have people on the ground, they didn'ty give an error estimate but it is probably quite wide. I haven't discussed the Amnesty report. Expecting Egypt to assist Israel with clearing Gaza of its population is to expect it to help with genocide. If anyone should be looking after the civilians it is Israel by providing safe spaces in Israel, they would be perfectly withn their rights to search them before admitting them into camps. The civilians in Gaza are not Hamas they have just as much right to life as the people in Israel. NadVolum (talk) 00:21, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that it would be useful if you add the Euro-Med estimate instead in that case, especially if they have far more recent updated numbers available. It has been almost half a year since then after all. David A (talk) 05:54, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

That report was About 10 percent of the Gaza Strip’s population killed, injured, or missing due to the Israeli genocide. The last hospital in Northern Gaza was destroyed a week ago so I don't expect we'll get any good figures from there. And with the Israeli soldiers letting aid lorries be openly looted by gangs in front of them but shooting any police I don't suppose there is much hope for the people there. The Israel-Hamas War One Year Later: Mass Violence and Palestinian Dispossession thinks it likely the Netanyahu coalition will continue in power till 2026 and Trump will support them like Biden has and Israel will be able to complete the removal of Palestinians from the occupied territories and Europe will eventually support America in recognizing the territory as Israels. NadVolum (talk) 10:38, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Is this actually relevant to the RfC? WP:NOTFORUM Chess (talk) (please mention me on reply) 17:45, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I was asked where I got the 51,000 from and I believe this RfC is about the starvation figures. The second cite has references to a few different estimates for the deaths at the very beginning including that one and its conclusion section calls the whole business in Gaza genocide. It also has cites which are about genocide. NadVolum (talk) 19:13, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, we definitely do need good estimates for victims of starvation and preventable diseases, but the source that I found earlier was very unfortunately likely not sufficiently reliable. David A (talk) 07:30, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

• No per XDanielx. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:41, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
• No per Selfstudier. This is an extraordinary claim so needs exceptionally good sourcing. I don't think we need scholarship standard peer reviewed sourcing for an on-going situation, but for something so at odds with other reports we can't put this in an infobox. It looks like consensus is against inclusion, but if that changes I think it'd be essential it's clearly labelled something like "estimate per Gaza Healthcare Letters and placed next to the reported number (currently 38). In general, the Costs of War project might be considered reliable enough to mention in the body with attribution because they're based at a university, but I find them very un-impressive. Their report, authored by an assistant professor in Anthropology, says that "There were 62,413 additional deaths from starvation", citing a source (the doctors' letter) that clearly doesn't say that but rather says that this is an estimate. Having looked at their earlier reports on Syria and Iraq, their methodology seems to be to try to find the highest number in the public sphere and simplify it into meaninglessness. If we mention the doctors' letter in the body, we need to give their methodology, which is to extrapolate deaths by the number of people estimated to be experiencing famine, per a very rough formula developed by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. BobFromBrockley (talk) 14:11, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Infobox

This article is about allegations and arguments about whether Israel's attacks on Gaza since 10/7/23 can be called a genocide. The infobox is about a genocide—so it corresponds to a topic different from its article, and it non-neutrally takes a side in the dispute described in the article. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 23:45, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Would you like the infobox to be changed or removed? By dispute, do you mean anything short of unanimity? Bitspectator ⛩️ 00:01, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, the article is about accusations and arguments, not a genocide. I'd say the infobox should be removed, since it does not correspond to the article topic. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:56, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

One of the arguments includes deaths and injuries and other things mentioned in the infobox. Things like death toll is also mentioned in secondary sources [16]. I don't think your suggestion has any basis in Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines. Bogazicili (talk) 16:24, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Unless the infobox is naming the death toll of the accusation(s), it does not correspond to the article's topic. From MOS:Infoboxes: An infobox ... summarizes key facts about the page's subject. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 18:00, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The article WP:SCOPE includes the title as well as the first sentence(s). Idk what naming the death toll means, all of those killed in Gaza (at a minimum) are subject of the Genocide accusation. Selfstudier (talk) 18:15, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

No, Israel is subject of the genocide accusation. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:54, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, Israel is subject to genocide accusations. Which is why the genocide infobox is appropriate on this page. Simonm223 (talk) 20:13, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

How? Genocide accusations are not a genocide. The infobox and article describe completely different phenomena. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 20:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I get that you just want to ignore the scope but that's not going to fly. This is just a variant on discussions we have had already. Selfstudier (talk) 21:07, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I don’t know what you mean about ignoring the scope, but please don’t uncharitably read my intentions. How is the alleged genocide itself in the scope of this article? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 21:28, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

but please don’t uncharitably read my intentions End of conversation, bfn. Selfstudier (talk) 23:18, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Selfstudier has announced his departure! All others are encouraged to fill the Selfstudier-shaped hole in the discussion. ꧁Zanahary꧂ 00:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Looking at the infobox it directly includes Genocide under Attack Type. There's also the inclusion of a victims section separate to injured or dead, which includes buildings and homes despite it not being mentioned outside the infobox and lead. It also lists multiple sources that don't actually allege that these actions constitute part of a genocide(eg.[[17]]) , which is odd considering that there are probably sources that can be found that do so.

I think it needs to be trimmed down a lot because, as of now, it's bloated and contains way too much info. Originalcola (talk) 03:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Not sure about removing the infobox, I think we should just change the title back to the more appropriately qualified Allegations of Israeli genocide in Gaza as it was before. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 19:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Spinning up for another round -- Cdjp1 (talk) 19:12, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not proposing a title change. While it would be unusual for an infobox title to diverge from the article title, we're already in unusual territory with a title that diverges from the actual scope (as reflected in the first sentence). — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 21:39, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

WP:SCOPE is title + first sentence(s) so no contradiction there.The title together with the lead section (ideally, the introductory sentence or at least the introductory paragraph) of an article should make clear what the scope of the article is. Selfstudier (talk) 22:09, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Since sourcing since the last round has only served to demonstrate an increasing consensus among the experts, that can't go anywhere. Selfstudier (talk) 19:26, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s just not happening. But you just reminded me that Transgender genocide was used by some Move voters to argue for this new title. I’m sure if we had an infobox for the transgender genocide on that article we’d see the issue? ꧁Zanahary꧂ 19:42, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Remove ICC from article?

Considering that genocide hasn't actually been alleged for the warrants, I believe this part of the article to be WP:UNDUE (and arguably synth, with the exception of the Just Security article, which is probably just undue). I have removed those sections and am starting this discussion in the spirit of WP:BRD. FortunateSons (talk) 08:47, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier the more limited addition is good, thank you. However, the Amnesty additon to the lead is undue IMO, as I don't see the significance for it being placed in this part of the lead, compared to other organisations. Could you elaborate why you think that is? FortunateSons (talk) 10:28, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Would have thought that was obvious, it's Amnesty not just any old NGO, for example:

Why Amnesty International and other experts say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza "They’re part of a growing list of genocide scholars and international law experts now using that word to describe Israel's actions. And while Amnesty International was the first nongovernmental organization to call it genocide, other groups such as Human Rights Watch and the Israeli group B’tselem have meticulously documented the country’s alleged war crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war, committing torture and sodomy in Israeli prisons, deliberate attacks on civilians, among other charges."

Amnesty International Accuses Israel of Genocide in Gaza "the first of its kind by a major human rights organization" Selfstudier (talk) 10:49, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course, I'm just not sure whether or not Amnesty has a unique rank compared to HRW et al, meaning that we will either end up with a list or later removal if they should join the claim. It just seems like a case of recency bias to me, better suited to the body (or a lower part of the lead, if you want to change the structure). FortunateSons (talk) 10:55, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I am still checking if other ngos have called it genocide or whether Amnesty is the only one of the majors. If the other principal NGOs get on board later on, then we can change it to "major ngoss" or something of that sort, there are many ngos so just saying ngos is not particularly informative. Recent or not, it is significant. Selfstudier (talk) 11:02, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I think just keeping it as is was would be better, but this is okay FortunateSons (talk) 12:21, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Afaics, besides Amnesty, only the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDE) has called it a genocide, they are a federation of hros and ngos, so I tweaked it a little. Selfstudier (talk) 13:36, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier, are you aware of the new HRW report?It’s your edit, so do you mind switching that to this now, based on the HRW statement? I think either “major rights organisations” or “major NGOs” work here FortunateSons (talk) 07:23, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Let's wait a bit for the RS to settle down, glancing through the reports so far, HRW has not quite actually just called the whole thing a genocide but has said that an act of genocide was committed (assume Article II of convention but focused on water deprivation) and then separately of crime of humanity of extermination (what Dief was accused of by the ICC but not Netanyahu/Gallant).

The CNN report says "HRW says Israel’s actions amount to acts of genocide under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC)" which is of interest as it links the ICC directly but it doesn't tie Amnesty and HRW together specifically. What I am looking for is RS saying something like major hr orgs/ngo or similar have ...., have you seen any such? Selfstudier (talk) 11:15, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed on the content, HRW is significantly more measured.

Not perfect, but Spiegel [18], Guardian [19] and FT [20] mention them in context of each other? FortunateSons (talk) 11:25, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Got JPost [21], this should work? FortunateSons (talk) 11:30, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

That's Reuters, not quite, that's talking about the use of the word genocide for both but then specifies Amnesty separately (which is I think actually an accurate way of expressing it). Selfstudier (talk) 11:42, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Now we have AP saying "The rights group was the latest among a growing number of critics to accuse Israel of genocidal acts in its war in Gaza", that seems like another useful statement.

"Genocidal acts" rather than "genocide" may be a way around the conundrum but I also think we now have enough rs for "a growing number" or some such. Let's do the body first and then see. Selfstudier (talk) 11:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, thanks FortunateSons (talk) 12:07, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

I'd say Amnesty International is due in the lead, per NYT source. Its report is also a WP:Secondary. It's good to have secondary sources in the lead.

Description of Amnesty International from A Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics and International Relations (4 ed.) in Amnesty International entry: Widely respected, and awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1977, its monitoring of human rights issues through Amnesty International Reports has provided information widely used by policy makers and political scientists. Bogazicili (talk) 16:20, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course the amnesty report should be in the lede. Simonm223 (talk) 20:15, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Revert re weaponization of antisemitism

@Bobfrombrockley: Time ref says "That’s woefully misguided—and dangerous. Indeed, the blanket assertion by pro-Israel advocates is intended as a political cudgel: weaponizing antisemitism to shield Israel from criticism of its attack on Gaza, which has left at least 35,000 Palestinians dead in the in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, wounded tens of thousands more, and forcibly displaced nearly 2 million Palestinians who now face famine conditions. The conditions in Gaza are such that many scholars have said that the situation amounts to a genocide. Ultimately, the weaponization of antisemitism intensifies the discrimination and exclusion against vulnerable communities in the U.S.—including Jews." ?

Kindly self revert. Selfstudier (talk) 23:26, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

The preceding sentence is "As Gaza solidarity encampments take root at dozens of campuses across the U.S., many Democratic and Republican lawmakers—in addition to President Joe Biden—have accused protestors and colleges of rampant antisemitism." Segal does not call the genocide allegation antisemitic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:47, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I mean Segal does not say the lawmakers who make the antisemitism allegation call the genocide allegation antisemitic. His point is about anti-Israel protest in general being called antisemitic, not about the genocide allegation being called that. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:49, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Pardon? "Indeed, the blanket assertion by pro-Israel advocates is intended as a political cudgel: weaponizing antisemitism to shield Israel from criticism of its attack on Gaza, which has left at least 35,000 Palestinians dead in the in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack, wounded tens of thousands more, and forcibly displaced nearly 2 million Palestinians who now face famine conditions. The conditions in Gaza are such that many scholars have said that the situation amounts to a genocide."

How can this be read as anything other other than what was in the article before your revert? Viz, " While Israel's supporters say that accusing Israel of genocide is antisemitic others argue that this is a weaponization of antisemitism, intended to shield Israel from such allegations.

I will rearrange things so that a) the weaponization assertions are in the body and b) There is an appropriate summary in the lead. Selfstudier (talk) 03:00, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Segal says blanket accusations of antisemitism in general are shields for criticism of genocide. He doesn’t say the use of the term genocide is called antisemitic. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:08, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way, I really don't think this belongs in the lead at all. It's not in the body. Segal would be a strong source if he said this, but our other sources are weak.

I would move it to the body, but I'm not sure which section it fits in. BobFromBrockley (talk) 23:50, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

This passage doesn't explicitly state that "Israel's supporters say that accusing Israel of genocide is antisemetic" and, perhaps more importantly, there actually isn't a section or any content on the "weaponization of antisemitism" outside the lead. Originalcola (talk) 03:00, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Both versions of the sentence try to give some kind of balance between the two arguments but there isn't any sort of pro-Israeli argument included in the article,(not arguing for inclusion of this either way) which makes the inclusion of this sentence in the lead look odd. Originalcola (talk) 03:02, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Replied above already. Selfstudier (talk) 03:03, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Fair, but it shouldn't be included in the lead until it's included in the main body of the article. Originalcola (talk) 03:20, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

This report [22] has something which might be relevant 'David Mencer, an Israeli government spokesman, has told Sky News that Amnesty's claim of genocide against Israel is "a classic example of antisemitism" and "Holocaust inversion"'. NadVolum (talk) 22:35, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Agree. BobFromBrockley (talk) 00:35, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

This idea that sources must explicitly call the genocide ruling "antisemitic" is twaddle lacks any basis, that's not necessary at all, all that is required is evidence to show that antisemitism is weaponized in the context of the Gaza events. If anyone want's clarity on Raz Segal views see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c1Bj6OOwQI (or, together with Adam Horowitz, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYDulaqTPSE) and there is plenty more sourcing available, which I will be adding in due course to make it clear that this is not just a passing fad or something of that sort but something important, ongoing and real. Selfstudier (talk) 13:00, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

If our claim is that some have said that "accusations of antisemitism are weaponised in the context of the Gaza events" then of course Segal is an excellent source. But the claim was "calling the genocide allegation antisemitic is to weaponise antisemitism then we need someone who says that. This article is about the genocide allegation; we have other articles on the Gaza events in general where we can add such information if due. BobFromBrockley (talk) 17:50, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I already changed the Guardian ref, they called the court antisemitic and others have called the judges antisemitic, etcetera, slicing and dicing is not going to get away from these facts, which are straightforward examples of weaponized antisemitism wrt to the Gaza genocide, however that may be referred to. Selfstudier (talk) 17:59, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, Selfstudier, I don’t think “twaddle” is acceptable language among editors. You can say I’m wrong without insulting me. BobFromBrockley (talk) 18:28, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Struck and replaced with "lacks any basis", trust that's better. Selfstudier (talk) 18:39, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:14, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I don’t understand the removal of Matthew Bolton for having nothing to do with antisemitism. The book is called “Antisemitism in Online Communication: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Hate Speech in the Twenty-First Century” and the chapter is about the debate over whether the genocide accusation is antisemitic. It couldn’t be more relevant to the section, is peer reviewed, and is based in serious research (in contrast to the op eds we cite now). BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:18, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The quote "The claim that Israel has, is or intends to commit genocide upon the Palestinian population across the Middle East is one of the most incendiary charges that can be made of the Jewish state" doesn't even mention antisemitism. Selfstudier (talk) 19:29, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think, given the context, that it's reasonable to assume this is referring to antisemitism. I can see just lines above you saying: This idea that sources must explicitly call the genocide ruling "antisemitic" lacks any basis, that's not necessary at all, all that is required is evidence to show that antisemitism is weaponized in the context of the Gaza events. Originalcola (talk) 00:30, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Evidence, not assumption. In any case a different quote has now been provided so this is moot. Selfstudier (talk) 09:41, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

revert of revision 1262894317 without any explanation

Earlier today I made an edit, adding several sources, including Amnesty Israel, criticizing the methodology of the latest Amnesty International report.

I see now that my edit has been reverted by @Cdjp1, without providing any explanation, and I would like to understand the reason why. DancingOwl (talk) 18:39, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Multiple sources did not support the statement you had written, many were poor quality, and the grammar and sentence structure of the statements (not to mention their formatting) were sub-par, so a reversion was the easiest action. As an example, the Fox News article that mentions the ASU professor does not support the statement that he believes Amnesty "made up" a definition for genocide, but instead he believed the evidence for potential genocide as presented by Amnesty, did not meet the the requisite bar for a determination of the crime of genocide. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:44, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

You are right about the Fox News article - it needs to be replaced by a link to his opinion column in WSJ, where he explicitly talks about "bogus genocide definition".

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/amnesty-international-responds-on-genocide-israel-gaza-49a972b5#:~:text=Amnesty%20International%E2%80%99s%20report,disprove%20such%20intent.

I've double-checked the other 3 sources, and they all talk about Amnesty redefining genocide.

Before I make a revert and replace the link, any other suggestions as to how this edit can be improved? DancingOwl (talk) 19:19, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Amnesty Israel, Honest reporting and Fox, just make sure we keep "vexatious". Selfstudier (talk) 19:31, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

can you elaborate? DancingOwl (talk) 07:11, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The opinion one and Honest Reporting should go. What does Fox add? Also it would be much better to at least give the reason Amnesty Israel gave for alleging the grounds were changed. NadVolum (talk) 20:04, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

While Fox is not reliable for facts here, I don't see the issue with citing them for an attributed statement by a law professor. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 21:53, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

As previously stated, the Fox article did not contain the statement added to the article. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 22:03, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

That law professor is a senior member of Foundation for Defense of Democracies which I think should be mentioned if he is mentioned. NadVolum (talk) 22:18, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Fox can't be used (see the closing statement of the RfC). M.Bitton (talk) 23:09, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I would have thought politics for Fox as far as RS is concerned would mean American politics. It does seem very political in America though, so I suppose this does come under that. NadVolum (talk) 23:32, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

It's only for an expert quote though, Fox isn't the source of any interpretation or factual claims. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 18:26, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

As has been repeatedly stated, the core issue with the Fox piece was that the quote did not appear in the Fox article. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 19:51, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

1. Amnesty Israel didn't claim the definition was changed, but that the conclusions of the report were "predetermined" ("From the outset, the report was referred to in international correspondence as the ‘genocide report’, even when the research was still in its initial stages”) and that their own analysis did not find that Israel’s actions met the definition of genocide

2. Why do you think that Honest Reporting and prof. Orde Kittrie's opinion piece shouldn't be mentioned? DancingOwl (talk) 07:24, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

According to the opinion I linked above, AI "quickly rejected the report, arguing that there was insufficient evidence of "special intent"". The court will decide that, apart from which scholars and others may still argue, and do argue, a genocide independently of whether the convention high bar for intent is met. AI was also at odds with its parent over their apartheid report so this is nothing new for them, at least they admit there are serious crimes being committed in Gaza and this admission should be included. As for Honest Reporting, "an Israeli media advocacy group. A pro-Israel media watchdog, it describes its mission as "combat[ting] ideological prejudice in journalism and the media, as it impacts Israel", a bit beyond mere bias, that. The prof is OK for his attributed opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 10:54, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

1. I agree that the "insufficient evidence" part is less relevant here - the key part is their claim about "predetermined conclusion".

2. Regarding Honest Reporting - as you said it yourself, "bias≠unreliability", and the fact that their are a pro-Israel media watchdog makes them WP:PARTISAN, but doesn't automatically disqualify them, unless, of course, there is evidence that they published misleading and/or false information. DancingOwl (talk) 11:12, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Trafficking in falsehoods == unreliable. M.Bitton (talk) 11:17, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

A single instance, in which an involved party criticized by HR made some accusations against them is hardly a conclusive evidence indicating unreliability. DancingOwl (talk) 12:19, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

AI say they were not involved with the report so Idk how they can say that the conclusions were predetermined, that's also a pretty extraordinary claim, is anyone else saying that?

If HR was at RSN right now, I would argue that extreme bias affects reliability, an argument I have made before and have no issue with making again, essentially it's an independence argument, the level of independence from the topic the source is covering, if you are consistently taking a side and in this case, admitting that's what you do, then how can you be considered reliable? Selfstudier (talk) 11:29, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

1. According to the "Haaretz" article, while not directly involved in report preparation, AI have been be exposed to internal correspondence about it:

"From the outset, the report was referred to in internal correspondence as the 'genocide report,' even when research was still in its initial stages," the Jewish employees reveal.
"This is a strong indication of bias and also a factor that can cause additional bias: imagine how difficult it is for a researcher to work for months on a report titled 'genocide report' and then to have to conclude that it is 'only' about crimes against humanity. Predetermined conclusions of this kind are not typical of other Amnesty International investigations."

2. I partially agree with you - an extreme bias/partisanship definitely CAN affect reliability, which means that partisan sources should be treated with more a priori suspicion than non-partisan ones, but, still, unreliability cannot be directly deduced from partisanship alone.

Also, if we decide to exclude partisan sources, this should be equally applied to both sides and, in case of Gaza war, this would mean that extremely partisan sources, such as Middle East Eye, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor or Francesca P. Albanese, just to name a few, shouldn't be used either. DancingOwl (talk) 13:40, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I just explained that I am not basing the claim on partisanship alone. Selfstudier (talk) 14:02, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Then, perhaps, I misunderstood your argument.

You said "if you are consistently taking a side and in this case, admitting that's what you do, then how can you be considered reliable" - this sounds like a description of partisan advocacy.

Did you mean something beyond that? DancingOwl (talk) 16:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The part I quoted from Wikipedia:Reliable_sources#Biased_or_opinionated_sources "the level of independence from the topic the source is covering". Selfstudier (talk) 16:40, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

So you're saying bias implies non-independence? This seems like a novel argument which doesn't reflect how the relevant policies are normally applied.

We should certainly be careful about any statements in wikivoice based on biased sources like HR, but the material in question were appropriately attributed. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 18:56, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

So you're saying bias implies non-independence? Where did I say that? Selfstudier (talk) 18:59, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

essentially it's an independence argument. If that's not what you meant, can you clarify what the argument is exactly? — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 23:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Take HR to RSN and I'll explain it there (again). Selfstudier (talk) 10:16, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

If you will read it what was said was it once again trafficked in falsehoods. Not just once. These various pressure groups need careful treatment and need to earn a reputation as reliable since they have no real oversight. As to Orde Kittrie as the article said he is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Another Israeli pressure group. He is a professor of law but his connection to that needs to be made clear. Lawyers tend to just argue their case and his bias is manifest. Anyway don't we need a clear statement about what the case is? NadVolum (talk) 12:51, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

1. The word "again" refers to HR repeating the same claim about Yousef Masoud, not to some separate incident. Also, see HR's response to NYT accusations. I do agree with your general attitude towards pressure groups though.

2. I have no objection to mentioning Kittrie's affiliation with FDD. DancingOwl (talk) 13:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

As we now have a better source on Kittrie, I've added him as an example of the claim. I referred to him using his signature in the cited article, that is as a senior fellow of the FDD. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:17, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the fact that he's also a legal expert - a professor of law, whose research focuses on international law - is also an important detail that should be mentioned. DancingOwl (talk) 16:10, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I see that, once again, you made several changes to my edit, without bothering to provide any explanation:

- First of all, the word "falsely" you added before the description of the claims made by Ostrovsky and Kittrie is a gross violation on NPOV - the opposite point of view is already reported in the next sentence, and adding your personal opinion about Ostrovsky/Kittrie claim is absolutely out of place

- Second, replacing the word "experts" with "professionals", when describing Ostrovsky/Kittrie claim, whereas the opposite side is describe as "experts" is another violation of NPOV. We are describing a controversy among legal experts and should provide a neutral balanced report of the claims made by both sides, without trying to inject own own personal views in the description.

I'm reverting those two changes you made and I kindly ask you that if you have any objections to the way my edits are phrased to first discuss this here. DancingOwl (talk) 11:19, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Short explainers were given, your choice not to read them is not my problem. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 13:04, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The only explainer I see is "not how you format" DancingOwl (talk) 13:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The J7 can't be included, per all the articles I've looked at from the Algemeiner, ADL, and the J7 member groups, as none of them state that the preliminary ruling was antisemitic, but that it would be used as justification by antisemites. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 13:14, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Not sure I understand how J7 are related to this discussion. DancingOwl (talk) 13:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Think it was meant for the antisemitism section, I already removed J7 anyway. Selfstudier (talk) 14:00, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier: please format the sources you add, bare URLs are very much below standard. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:03, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I was distracted before I ran Refill, done now. Selfstudier (talk) 15:06, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Merci beaucoup -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:12, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

J7, citing the ADL's publication of their statement, was in the reversion. Since I've now got round to digging through them specifically, I thought it pertinent to report what I'd found. So, while the Declassified UK article makes the claim of the J7 supporting the accusation that the ICJ prelim ruling was antisemitic, I believe that is (at least by the letter of the source) wrong. You could use a variety of other points the J7 make against the ICJ prelim ruling, such as claims of ideological capture, believing propaganda, etc. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:01, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

My apologies, I got myself mixed up between reversions that had been made, you are correct DancingOwl, the J7 matter is not relevant to this section. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:11, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Why would we treat Honest Reporting as a reliable source for... anything? They're an advocacy group, not a news organization.

The fact that they accused journalists of "coordination with the terrorists" despite later saying they "had no evidence for the allegation" is atrocious behavior. Such careless misinformation even "led two Israeli politicians to threaten that these journalists be killed". Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 18:06, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly reliable for its own positions, which was how it was being used (with attribution).

In the incident you refer to, HW was position a question, not making a claim. It's not so relevant since we would never use a question in a source to back a wiki statement. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 19:06, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, but why would their position be due for inclusion at all?

They aren't subject matter experts, they aren't exceptionally notable, & their article doesn't actually make any independently salient refutations of Amnesty International. It either repeats Amnesty Israel's position, repeats what unreliable sources like NGO Monitor says, or simply expresses outrage that Israel is accused of genocide at all.

Their inclusion among those who appose the report's findings doesn't materially add anything more then if we were to cite some dude off the street for their opinion on the matter. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 20:02, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

You could say the same about AI themselves; both are NGOs staffed by mostly non-experts.

I'm not adamant about including HW in particular, but NPOV requires us to represent this viewpoint in some form or another. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 23:50, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

No, I don't think I could say the same about Amnesty International, as unlike Honest Reporting, Amnesty is a widely respected human rights organization cited globally.

I'm in no way against including those disputing/critical of Amnesty's report, but that issue seems to've already been properly covered above with Orde Kittrie's article & Amnesty Israel's position.

I'm just against adding Honest Reporting specifically as their inclusion wouldn't benefit the article. They don't bring much original, meaningful criticisms of the report themselves, so their inclusion would feel like we were scrounging around for anyone with dissenting positions on the matter, something I know isn't true. _{(Hope that makes sense)} Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 00:33, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

And I've just removed th opinion piece with Arsen Ostrovsky. It is an opinion piece, he hasn't the reputation of Orde, and he's an avowed Zionist rather than just some legal expert. Please try and find a better citation rather than just trying to stuff the article with this sort of ... stuff. NadVolum (talk) 13:10, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

As far as I see, opinion pieces are commonly used as sources, with attribution, and the fact that he's "an avowed Zionist" in and by itself is not a sufficient reason for dismissal, but you are right about the prominence part, so I have not objection to the removal.

I do want to add back the previously removed mention of the Amnesty Israel response - do you have any suggestions/comments, before I make the edit? DancingOwl (talk) 13:30, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think we have to consider what is due criticism here, particularly when we have AI's former chair saying "Amnesty Israel finds itself in the awkward position of being neither a source of legal expertise, nor providing a diverse human rights perspective of Israelis and Palestinians. It is just another place for Israeli Jews to express themselves." (among other things) and Amnesty itself saying "its Israeli branch is 'undergoing deep internal divisions,' with a series of resignations amid accusations that Palestinians in the group had been silenced. Those accusations are 'unacceptable and will be handled through Amnesty’s international democratic processes'".

It seems to me that an Israeli denial, even if proforma for virtually every accusation levelled at it, is due but the opinions of sundry nonnotables with clearly contradicted "vexatious" opinions are not. Selfstudier (talk) 13:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

1. I don't see how this criticism is relevant to the core claim made by Amnesty Israel that conclusions of the report were "predetermined" ("From the outset, the report was referred to in international correspondence as the ‘genocide report’, even when the research was still in its initial stages”). Regardless of the internal controversies within Amnesty Israel, this is a factual statement that provides important context about the report.

2. I also don't agree with the "clearly contradicted" part - after all, even the experts quoted in "The Journal" piece admit that “the test that the Court has developed is what is sometimes referred to as ‘the only reasonable inference test’” and that Amnesty interpretation is based on "ICJ dissenting view ... that this standard of only a genocidal inference is unrealistic", so the criticism of Amnesty's definition by Kittrie and others clearly has some merits. So, we have two opposing views expressed by experts in the relevant field, and the NPOV principle dictates that both perspectives must be represented. DancingOwl (talk) 15:29, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

All the RS I have seen do not describe the predetermined thing as AI's core claim, instead they refer to the intent matter, that is, a legal issue rather than some random opinion.

The Journal piece is a factchecker and kinda points up the absence of them in the criticism.

Both perspectives can be represented by Israel and Kittrie, I don't object to either of those. Selfstudier (talk) 15:34, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

1. In both "Haaretz" and "Times of Israel" reports, the words "predetermined conclusions" appear in the headline:

2. I thought your remark about "opinions of sundry nonnotables" referred to Kittrie - glad that we agree his opinion should be represented.

3. The criticism voiced by Amnesty Israel is substantially different from Kittrie's - he's talking about legal definition, while AI voice criticism about the process that lead to report's conclusions - both aspects need to be addressed in the article. DancingOwl (talk) 15:53, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

WP:HEADLINES are not RS. To reiterate, I don't think AI is due to begin with and even if they were, it would only be wrt factual/legal issues and not wrt some process they were not even involved in.

It's a bit like IBM announcing a new corporate policy and some employees at the Nepal branch disagreeing. In the same way, we do not need to note AI endorsing previous findings already made by Amnesty, it's not due. Selfstudier (talk) 16:21, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

If we go with your IBM metaphor, the more precise description would be "IBM announcing a new corporate policy in Nepal and majority of employees at the Nepal branch disagreeing."

To take another, much closer example, consider the way Amnesty's 2022 report on alleged placement of Ukrainian forces in civilian areas is described in the Criticism of Amnesty International article, in particular the part about response of Amnesty International in Ukraine. DancingOwl (talk) 16:54, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Suggest wait for other editors to comment. Selfstudier (talk) 16:58, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the predetermined is pretty content-free and not WP:DUE but I'm happy for a little bit about it to be in if AI really thinks that is a good argument. The business about them changing the definiton is as far as I can make out the main one. Considering the Rohingya case though I can see why Israel might have a bit of contempt for the ICJ. The whole of WW2 would fit inside that no problem and the result will just be a page in Wikipedia. NadVolum (talk) 17:46, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The "Haaretz" article elaborates what they meant by "predetermined":

"From the outset, the report was referred to in internal correspondence as the 'genocide report,' even when research was still in its initial stages," the Jewish employees reveal.
"This is a strong indication of bias and also a factor that can cause additional bias: imagine how difficult it is for a researcher to work for months on a report titled 'genocide report' and then to have to conclude that it is 'only' about crimes against humanity. Predetermined conclusions of this kind are not typical of other Amnesty International investigations."

I agree that the claim about changed definition is the most substantial one, but the "predetermined conclusion" claim provides important context about what could have led the authors of the report to seek alternative definitions of genocide and, as experts cited in "The Journal" piece admit, adopt "dissenting ICJ view" instead of the "standard of only a genocidal inference". DancingOwl (talk) 07:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Well they are a human rights organisation and that's the allegation they were investigating. And you agree it is not primary - and I don't see non-Israeli papers considering it of interest. So perhaps it could be given its due space which isn't much. There's an Irish expression for what they're doing 'putting on the poor mouth', and it isn't appropriate afer tens of thousands of people have been killed. NadVolum (talk) 12:08, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

The discussion about reasonable inference has been ongoing for some time, https://www.ejiltalk.org/karadzics-genocidal-intent-as-the-only-reasonable-inference/ and has absolutely nothing to do with alternative definitions of genocide. It's right there in the Amnesty report (p.105). Selfstudier (talk) 12:19, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say that the discussion is new - the ICJ dissenting opinion mentioned previously is just one example of such discussion. However, this doesn't change the fact that, by Amnesty's own admission, the test they are suggesting to use for determining whether genocide had been committed is different from the standard of proof adopted in the past by the ICJ majority. DancingOwl (talk) 15:00, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Nope, they are making a legal argument "And so Amnesty International is setting out a path for how you can, in fact, arrive at a finding of genocide while still adhering to the language of the Genocide Convention and the court’s own test for establishing genocidal intent." <- Secondary source (Becker), no editor OR here. Selfstudier (talk) 15:04, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

This is Becker's interpretation, and on the other hand, Kittrie describes this line of argument as "bogus genocide definition", Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany - as "attempt to move the normative goalposts regarding these evidentiary standards" and Stefan Talmon says the following:

"...if Amnesty International says I am now examining whether Israel has committed genocide, then I must, in all honesty, base my decision on the current legal situation. I cannot first draw up my own rules of evidence and then apply them to the Israel-Gaza case. But that is what the organization did. Amnesty International's work in this respect was legally sloppy and not entirely honest."

DancingOwl (talk) 15:33, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

To reiterate, none of this is new https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/20/magazine/genocide-definition.html Selfstudier (talk) 15:40, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Think of it this way, why are so many experts saying it is genocide when they know about the inference thing already? Selfstudier (talk) 15:56, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Talmon addresses this point exactly when he says, before the quote above, that the legal debate regarding relaxation of the standard of proof is entirely legitimate, in and by itself, but when examining whether Israel has committed genocide, the decision must be based on the current legal situation.

The experts you refer to conflate those two discussions, and Talmon criticises this by saying "I cannot first draw up my own rules of evidence and then apply them to the Israel-Gaza case. DancingOwl (talk) 16:14, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Makes no difference, this is just a reflection of the discussion that's already been had, there is a minority position and a majority position and the sources you give are in the minority position, all the top experts don't agree with it. Selfstudier (talk) 16:29, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what are you basing you claims about majority/minority positions on.

The current legal standard is the majority ICJ position and the view that Amnesty are promoting is based on ICJ dissenting opinion.

And someone like the former Chair of the UN Human Rights Committee Yuval Shani that I quoted above definitely counts as "top expert", so your claim about "all the top experts" is factually incorrect. DancingOwl (talk) 16:41, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Not sure what are you basing you claims about majority/minority positions on Like I said, the discussion has already been had when we established the article title. In terms of the article here there is a consensus to call it a genocide based on expert sourcing. That consensus is unlikely to alter regardless of what ultimately happens in court just as Israel would in all likelihood dispute the result if it went against them.

If you want to analyze only the legal positions, then South Africa's genocide case against Israel is a better place for that. Selfstudier (talk) 16:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not contesting article's title and/or experts' opinions it's based on.

My comments refer exclusively to Amnesty's report that framed genocide claim as a legal position, and to the responses of different legal experts to report's conclusions/methodology. DancingOwl (talk) 17:01, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

And I said that if you only want to discuss the legal positions, then there is a better article to do that in. Amnesty is just another expert source, a pretty good one, reliable for facts and attributable for opinion. They say it is a genocide, that a few lawyers disagree is hardly a surprise. Selfstudier (talk) 17:06, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Here is just security hot off the press https://www.justsecurity.org/105629/amnesty-international-gaza-genocide-report/

Re Talmon, "Unsurprisingly, the report has received criticism from a variety of sources. One line of criticism alleges that the report applies “an alternative test not based on the established jurisprudence of the ICJ.” This criticism reflects a misunderstanding...."

Amnesty International could have taken a different approach. Amnesty could have applied the lower standards of proof commonly applied by international fact-finding missions and commissions of inquiry, such as "reasonable grounds" or "balance of probabilities." The report more than satisfies these standards. Alternatively, Amnesty could have limited itself to finding that there is a serious risk that Israel is committing genocide. Such a serious risk triggers the legal obligation of all States Parties to the Genocide Convention to prevent genocide in Gaza (which the report also urges). The report more than satisfies this standard. The legal duty of all States to prevent genocide in Gaza is clearly engaged. Instead, Amnesty chose to hold itself to the highest standard of proof known to public international law. This choice likely reflects Amnesty’s confidence in its evidence and legal analysis, as well as its understanding of the gravity of its accusation." Selfstudier (talk) 17:14, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what we are arguing about :)

We have established that there is a debate among legal experts about the validity of Amnesty's approach and this debate is currently reflected in the article.

As far as I'm concerned, we have reached a reasonable balance - I would prefer to have Amnesty Israel position mentioned as well, because controversy within Amnesty sounds like an important part of the context, but if everyone else thinks it's undue, I won't insist. DancingOwl (talk) 17:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure what we are arguing about We are arguing about your assertion that Amnesty is making stuff up. They're not. Selfstudier (talk) 17:27, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

This is not my assertion, but assertion of several legal experts, quoted above - I just wanted to make sure that their point of view is reflected in a balanced way in the article, as per NPOV principle. DancingOwl (talk) 17:36, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I saw your edit, I will remedy the overstating of a minority viewpoint in due course. Selfstudier (talk) 17:41, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I would really appreciate it, if you could provide evidence from RS, showing that this is, indeed, a minority viewpoint among legal experts commenting on Amnesty's report, before "remedying" anything. DancingOwl (talk) 21:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't require your permission to edit. Selfstudier (talk) 22:25, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I didn't say you need my permission, but I do think that making veiled threats to "in due course" make changes you clearly expect to lack consensus is not the most good-faith way to proceed. DancingOwl (talk) 05:40, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, saying that I will edit is a veiled threat and not the most good-faith way to proceed?

In what world? Selfstudier (talk) 09:43, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

In a world where we are having a discussion about an issue that we view differently, and then, instead of trying to reach a consensus, you just say that, despite this disagreement, you intend to make some changes "in due course", which I hear as "when I feel like it, regardless of what you think about it".

If I misinterpreted your intention, feel free to correct me, and I'll be more than happy to take it back. DancingOwl (talk) 10:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I see that you removed the "former Chair of United Nations Human Rights Committee" before Yuval Shani's name, dismissing it as "puffery".

I believe this detail is significant as an indication of his notability. Furthermore, he is also a law professor and a former Dean of the Law Faculty at Hebrew University, not merely a 'rights lawyer,' as you chose to describe him, so your - rather petty, I must say - attempt to somehow downplay his expert opinion is really regrettable. DancingOwl (talk) 21:39, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I provided the wikilink that you omitted, not only is that a better indicator of notability, all relevant info is at the wikilink including the "when" of "former", see MOS:RELTIME. I have no objection to changing rights lawyer to law professor if you prefer. Selfstudier (talk) 22:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

The wikilink was already there, but it was broken due to me misspelling his name - thanks for fixing that.

MOS:RELTIME refers to events, not people's positions.

Similarly, MOS:PUFFERY is absolutely irrelevant characterization for a factual statement stating person's former title. DancingOwl (talk) 05:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Since you are a relatively new editor, I will just overlook the fact that you seem to be unfamiliar with WP practices in this respect. We don't puff up descriptors with titles and what not (we are not writing a CV) because this detail is significant as an indication of his notability. So we say historian, academic, lawyer, professor and so on, nothing more. Just look at a few articles to see this is the case. Selfstudier (talk) 09:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

This is a fair point, though I must say that this standard doesn't seem to be applied consistently.

Even in this article, additional bio details are provided for some experts - for example:

- Michael Fakhri is described as "law professor and United Nations special rapporteur on the right to food"

- Devi Sridhar - as "the chair of global health at the University of Edinburgh"

In any case - point noted, always happy to learn and improve. DancingOwl (talk) 10:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

doesn't seem to be applied consistently True but those are good examples of unnecessary puffing up imo, it just leads to competitive padding of descriptors as editors unnecessarily try to make one source look better than another.

For example, at International Criminal Court investigation in Palestine, reverted commentary originally introduced by a sock, goes "Michael Waltz, set to become US national security adviser under President-elect Donald Trump", "US defense lawyer and professor Alan Dershowitz" and "Canadian politician and human rights advocate Irwin Cotler" while Kahn is "merely" an ICC prosecutor (rather than international criminal law and international human rights law specialist, former Special Adviser and Head of the United Nations Investigative Team to promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Daesh/ISIL in Iraq (UNITAD)). Selfstudier (talk) 11:32, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, genocide is not an "allegation", but a conclusion about a pattern of action and, more importantly, the intention behind this pattern of action. Starting with the conclusion before the pattern of actions has been properly investigated is exactly the "predetermined conclusion" Amnesty Israel are talking about.

Also, note that Amnesty Israel are not disputing the claim that war crimes had been committed, but only whether those crimes cross the genocide threshold or not, and their criticism against Amnesty International is that the conclusion that the threshold has, indeed, been crossed was predetermined in advance. So I don't see what "isn't appropriate" with their claims per se, which in no way justify Israel, but only criticize the way the report's authors conducted their investigation.

Finally, I don't see how the fact that non-Israeli (or, non-Jewish) papers are not "considering it of interest" is relevant here - "Haaretz" is considered to be a reliable source, and in any other circumstances interest or lack thereof from other papers wouldn't have been brought up as a relevant consideration, so it's not clear why this case should be treated any differently. DancingOwl (talk) 14:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

If you think it's relevant, then take it to RSN for an opinion. My position is simple, it's undue and AI's opinions in general are only due to the extent that other mainstream independent RS have reported them. Selfstudier (talk) 14:59, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm pretty certain that covering that and not covering the main point about the change in definition would be undue. NadVolum (talk) 15:15, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

A thing that strikes me as peculiar is if AI were involved from the earliest - why did they not suggest a better name if they thought it was so prejudical? NadVolum (talk) 15:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

They weren't involved, it's just internal gossipy stuff according to some AI members. Selfstudier (talk) 15:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

References

Ireland to intervene

Apologies if this was discussed already but I couldn't find it. Ireland is intervening in the case and asking for the definition of genocide to be made less narrow. Andre🚐 22:15, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Similar to when Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Britain and the Maldives intervened in the genocide case against Myanmar, arguing that the current requirement for proving specific special intent was to stringent and hampered the application of the law. Seeing more countries lend their weight behind the criticisms of the Genocide Convention that genocide scholars and legal experts/scholars have been making for decades. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 22:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Maybe it is similar. I don't know enough about Myanmar. The Rohingya genocide article says it was described as a "textbook example." So that doesn't really square with the idea that they're having trouble proving that case. I wouldn't want to wade into something I'm not familiar with without doing the proper research. But for this article given that we mention stuff like the German lawsuit and the Australian legal proceedings, and the South African thing is discussed, the Irish intervention seemed like it will probably have relevance to the article, though it's still recent. Andre🚐 01:59, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

textbook example much as how multiple sources, including leading experts in the field have called Gaza a "textbook case". The aforementioned group of countries wanted to step in, as they were worried of seeing results in the court case similar if not worse than the ICTFY, which set some rather interesting precedents, such as people being able to be victims of genocide, when the genocide in question was ruled not to have occurred. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 02:17, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Just as a further note of interest, most of the countries that have intervened in the Myanmar case to make it "easier" to ascertain specific special intent, have provided a variety of statements indicating the exact opposite in regards to the Israel case. While this has been pointed to in some relevant sources that we cite for other information in this article, this note I don't believe merits inclusion. Maybe it could be included in another article, but someone else would need to pursue such an action if they so desired. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:56, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Complicity

I like to check every once in a while this article about this very serious topic, to see what aberration will I find this time. Last time it was an accussation that my country, Romania, was supposedly complicit in a genocide in the Gaza Strip. Now I found that "European Union states" are complicit. The only source for this was an Amnesty International report concluding Israel was committing genocide [23]. It barely discusses complicity by other states, mentioning the word once: "States that continue to transfer arms to Israel [...] are at risk of becoming complicit in genocide". It's not even a direct accussation, it is not elaborated on, it does not appeal to other authors and experts, it is not the focus of the report.

Handing over accussations of complicity in genocide to countries and even cabinets, which carry the names of individuals (WP:BLP), is a pretty serious issue. This is exactly the kind of thing I'd expect to see on an infobox cited with 10 sources. Can we really not put some more effort in such an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim such as that the United States, the United Kingdom or Germany may be supposedly complicit in genocide in 2024? I am not asking for them to be removed, I am not even tagging the infobox, but I am asking for some professionalism. Stop pointing fingers while empty-handed. This is a highly watched article, put some actual effort in pushing your case, and if you can't, remove it. Super Ψ Dro 01:22, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Though I would really rather have the mentioned cabinets removed. It is practically reducing the complicity accussation from an entire country to a reduced number of individuals. Individuals who have nowhere as near of a level of attributed responsability as Netanyahu or Gallant. Now that, that should be very heavily sourced before even being proposed for inclusion. Super Ψ Dro 01:30, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Have you read Gaza_genocide#International_complicity? Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:49, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes. There is nothing about the European Union there. Super Ψ Dro 01:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Okay. I didn't say that there was. Bitspectator ⛩️ 01:53, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Did you even read what I wrote before replying? This is the edit that prompted my comment [24]. Super Ψ Dro 01:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that edit before I left my comment. I agreed with it, so didn't revert it. I asked you whether you read Gaza_genocide#International_complicity mostly because you said:

Can we really not put some more effort in such an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim such as that the United States, the United Kingdom or Germany may be supposedly complicit in genocide in 2024?

There are multiple sections on this subject with dozens of sources at Gaza_genocide#International_complicity. There's no acknowledgement of that in your first comment. Bitspectator ⛩️ 02:01, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The sources should be in the infobox in the first place. That something is mentioned in the article doesn't mean it should be mentioned in the infobox. Let us see the sources, and then we can judge their value and the weight of their claim and whether it should be included in the infobox. And if editors find the listed supposedly complicit countries next to six academic sources for each, maybe they'll think twice before adding a random country to the list again.

Actually, this whole segment of the infobox is quite exceptional for Wikipedia practices. We have an entire article on Germany and the Armenian genocide which argues some level of complicity, but Armenian genocide's infobox does not have such a segment called "Potential complicity". The case on the direct perpetrator of this hasn't even ended, and we are quick to jump and list countries and people that have allegedly helped them commit genocide as a certain fact. Super Ψ Dro 11:37, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Essentially, this all comes under the heading of "third states" responsibilty, required by the convention to actively (within reason) prevent genocide. If they do not, then they may be complicit, it's not that complicated. Sourcing is not that difficult to locate. Selfstudier (talk) 11:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The burden on reading and citing sources is not on me, given my apparent position. Super Ψ Dro 12:04, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Super Dro that the EU as a whole aren't complicit simply on the vague say-so of Amnesty, and it's a stretch to even say that the source supports the statement in the article. Actually, I've been recently thinking that Amnesty and other orgs who appear to have taken up a political cause for activism on the conflict, presumably in some small part also to raise more money for their orgs by talking up a cause celebre, should be considered advocacy org think tanks or advocacy charities with a bias that should generally be attributed as treated as WP:RSOPINION when they are weighing in like this without any real new substance in their report. Similar to how we use SPLC or the ADL but don't treat them as similar to more neutral sources like reputable news or academic sources. Anyway, unless there are better sources I'd say remove this. Andre🚐 02:04, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

AI recent RFC is green, need to distinguish between factual reporting, which AI is very good at and when they are engaged in advocacy. Attacks on Amnesty reliability are rarely made based on the evidence, appear to have taken up a political cause for activism on the conflict being more the usual thing. Selfstudier (talk) 11:36, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

• I was writing a comment justifying why in the end I was going to tag the potential complicity segment of the infobox as undue, but Elshad has removed it [25]. I expect that to be reverted, so I will continue.

Reading the United Kingdom subsection, there is not one single source that is directly accussing the UK of genocide complicity. The entire subsection is lawyers, NGOs and human rights groups saying the UK may risk being complicit, or individuals who are actually not making use of the word genocide.

Regarding Germany, there is Lena Obermaier writing for a socialist magazine, not very solid. Then there is a mention of German lawyers sueing Scholz and his cabinet, and Nicaragua's sue against Germany. This is at least something more than the UK, but they are ongoing cases without a resolution. The subsection completely lacks academic sources.

Why should we list these two countries and their governments as supposedly complicit in the infobox, when their respective subsections lack accussations with certainty? I don't see credible sources arguing in long papers why these two countries may, in fact, be complicit, nor do I see direct accussations from international organizations. The infobox uses the wording "Potential complicity", but having countries listed on the top of the article under such a segment has its obvious effect on readers. Considering the claims have a weak substantiation in the article, I do not think allowing this effect is appropriate. Super Ψ Dro 12:01, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

By the way, the section on the genocidal actions is titled "Alleged genocidal actions", and that of complicity, "International complicity", treating it as uncontroversial fact. I have renamed it to "Alleged international complicity". I am open to other titles such as "Discussion on international complicity" or other alternatives, which do not treat complicity as an already certain fact. Super Ψ Dro 12:06, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Smallangryplanet, I reverted you, and invite you to discuss here the header of the complicity section. As I said, I am open to discuss alternatives to "alleged", but considering the name of the second section of the article, I don't think it should keep the header I changed. Super Ψ Dro 00:27, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The section is about factual complicity in alleged genocide, and there is consensus that referring to it as "Gaza Genocide" does not have to include "alleged", but at any rate the complicity component is not alleged. I also removed some of the text that referred to alleged or unconfirmed complicity, making the header "International complicity" accurate. Smallangryplanet (talk) 11:12, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

The section is about factual complicity in alleged genocide this implies that whether there is a genocide is the only controversial part, and that if we consider there to be a genocide, we must necessarily also consider the perpetrator to have accomplices, for which there is no reason. The section is filled with hypothethical language, at least for the UK and Germany, that Israel has accomplices in genocide is not uncontroversial fact. Nicaragua has started an ICJ case against Germany on the topic of facilitating genocide, your interpretation presents the ongoing case as having a verdict already. Complicity in genocide seems to be a defined thing in international law. Does any help provided to Israel's war effort fall within this legal space? I doubt sources say this. Super Ψ Dro 11:33, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Selfstudier, thanks for the header rename, it's an improvement. Super Ψ Dro 12:11, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think @Selfstudier's header rename resolves this portion of the dispute. Thanks for that! Smallangryplanet (talk) 17:18, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

There are sources for this. Besides Amnesty International link:

• “A failure by states such as Germany, the UK and the US to reassess how they are providing support to Israel provides grounds to question whether those states are violating the obligation to prevent genocide or could even at some point be considered complicit in acts of genocide or other violations of international law,” Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin who has previously worked at the ICJ

  [26]

• [27]

• The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk State complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, UN experts said today, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately.
  In line with recent calls from the Human Rights Council and the independent UN experts to States to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel, arms manufacturers supplying Israel – including BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh, Rheinmetall AG, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp – should also end transfers, even if they are executed under existing export licenses.

  [28]

• WP:DUE: We don't have any WP:Tertiary sources about this yet, but complicity is mentioned pretty early in this WP:Secondary source. page 4:

  Genocide cannot be justified under any circumstances, including purported self-defence.32 Complicity is expressly prohibited, giving rise to obligations for third states.33

"Potential complicity" already avoids saying these states are complicit in Wikivoice Bogazicili (talk) 19:26, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the only case in which a country should be presented as complicit in genocide is if there is consensus on sources, not if it's only "potential". This is a pretty low threshold in which we could theorically put many countries. No other country is treated at Israel's level regarding engagement in genocide among sources, to my knowledge at least. The sources you listed use wording "could", "may" and "risk", without direct accussations. I am not sure but I doubt this article was moved to its current title based on sources with such wording. Super Ψ Dro 00:27, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think America will ever have a consensus in its newspapers that they are helping with genocide! NadVolum (talk) 13:47, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

You can think whatever you wish. We don't need to use American media to talk about the actions of the United States anyway. I don't get your point. Super Ψ Dro 15:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Super Dromaeosaurus, we do not require there to be consensus among sources to add content in Wikipedia (unless it is WP:FRINGE). Maybe you are confusing this with WP:Consensus, which is the decision-making process in Wikipedia. The relevant policies here are WP:V, WP:DUE, and WP:NPOV overall. WP:V is satisfied. The sources above are reliable (and these are the best type of sources available at this time I believe. I don't think there are any peer-reviewed, review articles that are published on non-predatory high impact journals yet). Here's another source, a journal article:

Thus, the failure to issue the second and third measures requested by South Africa is baffling, particularly in light of the continued supply of more deadly arms shipments to Israel from states with strong financial, military, and political links with Israel, chief amongst them the US, despite the UNSC ceasefire resolution 2728.Footnote166 When analysing the commission of genocide in Gaza, the reasonable conclusion is that the US is a major enabler and partner in crime to Israel.Footnote167 In the words of a leading Israeli commentator: “without arms and ammunition from the US, we would have had to resort to fighting with sticks and stones long ago.”Footnote168 In light of the reservations that the US attached to its ratification of the Convention,Footnote169 requiring its consent to allow ICJ jurisdiction,Footnote170 this importance is heightened in the proceedings that Nicaragua instituted in the ICJ against another state, Germany, in relation to its complicity in Israeli genocide.Footnote171 Moreover, even after the second ICJ provisional measures, the UK announced that it will continue to licence arms’ exports to Israel.Footnote172 Continued arms supply and the suspension of financial support to UNRWA clearly illustrate these states’ failure to discharge their duty to prevent.Footnote173

Argument for WP:DUE is above. The wording is neutral ("potential complicity"). We are not saying these are definitely complicit. We are following the sources. Overall WP:NPOV is satisfied.

Unless a valid argument (based on sources and/or Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines) is provided, I'm going to restore this material. Given the above source I'll only add US, Germany and UK. Bogazicili (talk) 16:07, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

We need a consensus among sources for WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims such as that these three countries are complicit in genocide. You are proposing to restore a disputed exceptional claim that isn't even presented as certain. I will tag the content upon restoration. Super Ψ Dro 16:26, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the argument that supplying arms may make you complicit is WP:EXCEPTIONAL. Also, if you go to the policy you cited, none of the bullet points seem to apply. This has been covered by "multiple mainstream sources". Complicity is in secondary sources. Is the prevailing view that none of these countries are complicit?

The only appropriate tag would be {{Template:Better source needed}}, requesting a secondary source for the countries mentioned. But this is a recent and ongoing event, so it'll take time for those type of sources to emerge. Bogazicili (talk) 16:46, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Super Dromaeosaurus, please explain the relevance tag you put.[29] Complicity is in secondary sources, so it is relevant. See above. Provide a valid argument based on sources and/or Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines please. Bogazicili (talk) 19:21, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Complicity is nowhere. I am disputing the existence of consensus among sources that Israel has accomplices in genocide, and I am disputing the relevance of adding specific countries to the infobox when the accussations are only potential and non-direct. Super Ψ Dro 19:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I do believe the claim that the US, UK and Germany are complicit in a genocide in the Gaza Strip is an exceptional claim. Is the prevailing view that none of these countries are complicit? yes, most of the sources I've seen here use language employing "could"s, "may"s and "risk"s. Super Ψ Dro 19:26, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

What do you mean Complicity is nowhere?

Complicity is mentioned in this WP:Secondary source:page 4. There's obviously another ICJ case against Germany.

Are there any sources that say these countries are definitely not or unlikely to be complicit? Bogazicili (talk) 19:29, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Am I missing something? This is all page 4 says: Complicity is expressly prohibited, giving rise to obligations for third states. No third states that may have violated these obligations are mentioned. That an ICJ case against Germany is currently open does not increase the argument's strength a lot in particular, as obviously we don't know what will the veredict be yet. The ICJ hasn't made any pre-veredict comments either, as, if I am not wrong, has happened with South Africa's case.

I doubt such sources exist. I am not disputing the existence of allegations against these countries. I am disputing whether they're relevant enough to specifically mention them in the infobox. I propose to mention the existence of allegations of complicity by third states in the Accused parameters, as a fourth bullet point. But the mention of specific countries sets a pretty low bar that can be exploited to include random countries, so long as one source establishes concern on a risk of complicity over a country that is otherwise undiscussed in this regard among reliable sources. Because one source would not suffice, in my opinion, to give credit to an exceptional claim such as genocide complicity. Super Ψ Dro 19:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

There is not one source. Multiple sources are there.

Super Dromaeosaurus, are you disputing WP:DUE, or WP:V (based on WP:Exceptional, or both? Bogazicili (talk) 19:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I've already expressed what do I disagree with. Listing individual countries. I think it sets a bad precedent because it lowers the bar for inclusion of complicity allegations. What criteria would you set, Bogazicili, to avoid the inclusion of fringe claims in this part of the infobox by other users who may be incited by seeing three countries already listed? Super Ψ Dro 20:05, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm not asking your personal opinion. I'm asking you to reference a specific Wikipedia policy. I need a blue wikilink in your response. If the concern is about DUE, I can direct you to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard.

Note that Wikipedia is not a discussion forum. Bogazicili (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

You seem to be either attempting to disregard my argument based on a lack of appeal to a specific Wikipedia rule, or attempting to get me to cite a specific Wikipedia rule and then state it does not support my point. You have an editor who has expressed a concern, and even a proposed solution; if you are unable to discuss that concern or a potential middle ground, you should disengage from the discussion.

I have not expressed any personal opinion, nor engaged in a forum discussion. Super Ψ Dro 20:26, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

This is the personal opinion part: Listing individual countries. I think it sets a bad precedent because it lowers the bar for inclusion of complicity allegations.

Unless a valid rationale is provided, I'm going to remove the tag. You added the tag, so you need to provide the valid reasoning. Your personal opinion about setting a bad precedent is not a valid reason.

This isn't the Wikipedia:Village pump Bogazicili (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I recommend other users to express their opinion on this dispute, as discussion with this user is completely unfruitful.

Obviously, if I find myself in disagreement with a bunch, I will back down and accept the current text and my tag's removal, as, for all those wanting blue links, a WP:CONSENSUS will have formed against my position. So, do you think it is warranted to mention specifically these three countries as complicit? Based on what, these specific three? Why not previous inclusions like Australia, "European Union states" or Romania? Maybe because these three are more often mentioned in secondary sources? May we reflect this with some heavy citing, discouraging any users from potentially adding any other fringe claim again along these currently lightly-cited (previously uncited) ones? Or will I come back to this page in some months, and see that Hungary is complicit of genocide in the Gaza Strip [30]? Sorry for the rhetorical tone, but I think it gets my point across. Super Ψ Dro 20:51, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

To the contrary I find an accusation of those three countries in particular being complicit in a genocide to not be extraordinary in the least considering their various histories - however an historical record of participation in genocide isn't what's needed here. What is needed is reliable secondary sources which, per @Bogazicili, have been provided. Simonm223 (talk) 19:31, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

To appeal to the past, and link the Holocaust, as evidence of something happening in the present, is a pretty weak argument unworthy of consideration. Super Ψ Dro 19:46, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I also linked to the Trail of Tears and the Bengal Famine because my point is that complicity in genocide is not, exactly, extraordinary for any of these countries, all three of which have committed at least one, if not more than one genocide. See also: 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic and Irish Potato Famine. Simonm223 (talk) 20:11, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

My dispute, specifically, is that you are describing complicity per WP:EXTRAORDINARY. Of course reliable sources should provided for complicity in this event which is increasingly being described in reliable secondary sources as a genocide. However it's not extraordinary for the USA to be involved in a genocide. They do so often enough in other theaters. Simonm223 (talk) 20:13, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

One way of looking at this is whether it would be possible to create, for example, an article US complicity in Gaza genocide, looking at the refs in the article, there is at least enough for a stub and there exist I think, other sources in addition, like the one I gave above already, or This legal view

"In light of the above, Israel might be committing the international crime of genocide, by killing civilians in Gaza; deliberately inflicting serious bodily and mental harm; and imposing conditions of life to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza. However, the US has continuously supported Israel’s war efforts via diplomatic and military assistance, with knowledge of a plausible genocide being committed in the territory since at least January 2024. This may render the US internationally responsible for not merely failing to prevent genocide but also being an accomplice to the crime of genocide in Gaza."

Accusation of course but if the sources are there to back it up, then we should show that, I am not that fond of infoboxes because they frequently produce tedious disputes, but as long as we make clear that it is still an accusation and show proper sourcing, I don't see a problem. Selfstudier (talk) 15:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

The Irish potato famine was not a genocide. The article you link makes it clear that the vast majority of historians reject this view, and so should not be linked here. Jonathan f1 (talk) 17:16, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Another WP:Secondary source which discusses complicity: Gaza and the matter of genocide: Q&A on the law and recent developments Bogazicili (talk) 16:09, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Airwars report

Airwars have released their report on Gaza: Patterns of harm analysis: Gaza, October 2023 -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:31, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Any other possible reason requirement for genocide

This article does not say what the Israeli branch of Amnesty is disputing with Amnesty International. As far as I can see Amnesty International is saying they believe genocidal intent is evident but is calling on the ICJ to clear up exactly what does establishing intent mean - they say a narrow reading would mean it cannot be established if the aggressors just say they have another reason whatever else they say or happens. Is this actually the dispute or how can it be phrased? see MacRedmond, David (11 December 2024). "Why is Israel accusing Amnesty International of inventing its own definition of genocide?". TheJournal.ie. Archived from the original on 11 December 2024. Retrieved 12 December 2024. NadVolum (talk) 13:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think Becker explains it well, the formal issue will be argued and decided in court. Selfstudier (talk) 16:06, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Note that this issue is not specific to just Israel:[31]

DER SPIEGEL: You have consistently been an advocate of a narrow interpretation of the term "genocide." When you represented the country of Myanmar before the ICJ, you also presented arguments for why the country is not committing genocide against the Muslim Rohingya minority. As such, your argument that the manner in which Israel is conducting the war in the Gaza Strip could constitute genocide is surprising.
Schabas: International law is constantly evolving. It’s not just about what is in international treaties, but also about the legal interpretations expressed by states in their official statements over the years. That is what courts look at. In the early 2000s, the judges at the Yugoslavia tribunal and the ICJ, for example, chose a narrow interpretation – rooted in the Convention’s drafting process. I thought to myself: Okay, this Convention will never lead to convictions. But it seems that countries are no longer following this narrow interpretation. In the case of Myanmar and others, they have shown that they are now interpreting genocide more broadly. I believe it is likely that the judges will be carried along in the wave of broader interpretation.

Not sure if the above also needs to be added into the article to explain the definition issue. Bogazicili (talk) 16:32, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it should. It explains a lot about what the article is about. NadVolum (talk) 20:21, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

There is now more information on this.

European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights:

The question of the threshold for establishing specific intent is subject to ongoing debate, and some states have cautioned against a narrow interpretation that is impossible to meet. The narrow approach would require that genocidal intent be the “only reasonable inference” from the situation at hand. However, many states support the broader interpretation of the ICJ in Croatia v. Serbia, which emphasised the importance of reasonableness in the Court’s reasoning, and highlighted that the “only reasonable inference” test should only be used when drawing an inference from a pattern of conduct, not where other methods of inference are also present.
In The Gambia v. Myanmar, a group of states (Germany, Canada, Denmark, Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) argued in favor of a balanced approach, in line with the ICJ’s interpretation in Croatia v. Serbia. This aligns with South Africa’s construction of Israel’s genocidal intent before the ICJ. Yet, Germany has now indicated that it will intervene in support of Israel in the current proceedings at the ICJ. It is difficult to see how Germany could do so without arguing for a narrow interpretation of specific intent, which would mean backtracking on its previous position. If the ICJ accepts and adopts the position of the group of states construction in The Gambia v. Myanmar, it would become binding and preclude Germany from arguing for a narrow interpretation

I think something about this is definitely DUE in the article. Bogazicili (talk) 15:56, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, we should be clear about it, this refers mainly to the South Africa's genocide case against Israel and the arguments being or that will be made there. Also see #German law professor opinions below and the discussion around Amnesty legal argument. Selfstudier (talk) 16:08, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Indeed it is about the legal case, so can be added into this section: Gaza_genocide#Legal_proceedings. Maybe a sentence about this since it is mentioned in a secondary source. Bogazicili (talk) 16:13, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

@AndreJustAndre: this is the interesting note on the position of these countries I mentioned in the Ireland to intervene section. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:20, 20 December 2024 (UTC)

Non-noteworthy opinion

I support NadVolum’s edit removing non-noteworthy opinion. I think there are still a few more such that could also be beneficially removed. I see Jonathan Cook in Middle East Eye (three op eds), Owen Jones, Seraj Assi in Jacobin, Rob Ferguson in the SWP’s magazine, Tony Lerman in Declassified. I’ve removed a couple of these and they’ve returned with no edit summary explanation. I think non-noteworthy opinion devalues the scholarly and other RS content we otherwise lean on here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 19:13, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

If they have WP articles, they are notable. They may not be expert for the context, Anthony Lerman is, so this list is based on what, exactly? Selfstudier (talk) 19:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

And I also felt as well as not saying much and it being an opinion piece and he's not notable since Arsen Ostrovsky is a Senior Fellow Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, which was not noted in the inclusion, his contribution fell under Well he would, wouldn't he?. Which while not a policy did seem like padding compared to the rest. NadVolum (talk) 20:08, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Being notable enough to have a WP page doesn’t make someone noteworthy in this article. I agree Lerman is more relevant than the others on my list, particularly on the topic of antisemitism. But he’s here in an unreliable/fringe source. Given the vast (probably excessive) number of references here, I would have thought we’d want stronger not weaker sources. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:42, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

And that what Lerman says about the two examples mentioned is clearly factually incorrect shows why Declassified is not an RS. BobFromBrockley (talk) 07:50, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I would note that Boulton is non notable (no wl), a recent PHD and that the book being cited is "A Guide to Identifying Antisemitism Online". Selfstudier (talk) 09:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

Bolton doesn't have a WP article (nor do many of the people we cite in this article) but he's a heavily published scholar of antisemitism BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:20, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

This RSN suggests that Declassified is an RS. Israeli officials commenting on the genocide accusations apparently can't help themselves but accuse all and sundry of antisemitism, whether it has anything to do with Jews or not. Here's Ben Gvir "The decision of the antisemitic court in The Hague proves what was already known: This court does not seek justice, but rather the persecution of Jewish people". OK then. Selfstudier (talk) 09:23, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @Selfstudier that Anthony Lerman's inclusion is due as a subject matter expert, but I also agree that citations to Owen Jones, Seraj Assi, Jonathan Cook, & the like aren't necessary.

However, I see no issue with some staying in the "Further Reading" section. Butterscotch Beluga (talk) 21:36, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Short description (again)

Regarding this edit with no description: I have gone ahead and reverted it. Per the previous discussion on this talk page, I gave other editors ample time to express their objections to my short description proposal. As I mentioned before, a short description of "Accusation of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza" is ambiguous (is the accusation being leveled against Palestinians?). In contrast, the short description "Characterization of Israeli mass killings in Gaza" is far less ambiguous and is a description of this article's content. Again, if anyone has comments/concerns/thoughts on this issue, feel free to raise them here. JasonMacker (talk) 23:24, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

@JasonMacker: How about "Accusation of genocide [or genocidal acts] perpetrated [by Israel] against Palestinians in Gaza"? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:56, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

...why? What's wrong with characterization? I don't understand the motivation here. Can you first explain what your problem is with the current short description? JasonMacker (talk) 04:12, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Reverts re critiques of Fassin and UK Labour MPs

A few of my edits reverted in this diff with which I disagree.

1. Why do we need details of the UK Labour Party disciplining "several" (our citations indicate three) MPs and candidates "for comments they made against Israel"? Andy McDonald (politician) did not mention genocide in the comments (which involved the "river to sea" phrase) for which he had the whip removed (it was later returned when an investigation found he hadn't broken any rules. Nor did Graham Jones (he said British people shouldn't be allowed to serve in the IDF or any foreign army) or Azhar Ali (he said October 7 was a false flag). Moreover, that all happened when Labour was in opposition, so completely irrelevant to UK complicity. I'm sure we have an article where this belongs, but this isn't it.
2. Illouz seems inappropriate to cite here considering how her opinion has changed in the months since this first interview - I don't see why that's a reason to remove her opinion. She is as least as qualified as Fassin to comment on this topic; if she changed her position on Fassin we can say that rather than remove her because of that.
3. Bruttmann may be the only one of the three critics cited to question Fassin's expertise, but nonetheless he does exactly that, so I don't understand the grounds for removing that.

BobFromBrockley (talk) 11:17, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

1. 100% agree, also neither the BBC or Guardian article mentions genocide nor suggests complicity in any kind of Israeli actions(criminal or otherwise) as a result of doing this.

2. I don't know what they're referencing in terms of her opinion changing, but you could do that, although that might be putting undue weight on one opinion.

3. Looking at the edit summary you've linked and the article now that seems to still be in the article, it hasn't been removed.

@Cdjp1 Pinging editor who reverted Originalcola (talk) 01:21, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

1. Removed the note, there is one instance of a Labour MP being disciplined for calling Gaza a genocide, but probably undue for even a note.

2. Per the expert opinions list, Illouz has released a couple of pieces since her initial one, each time moving towards a position that this is more likely a case of genocide (stating there is clear incitement from some political figures and sections of Israeli society, stating the requisite intent may be there)

-- Cdjp1 (talk) 08:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. Osamor wasn’t disciplined for calling it a genocide (I believe many Labour MPs have) but for the apparent Holocaust analogy. Does Illouz speak about Fassin in her other texts? BobFromBrockley (talk) 09:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Improper attackt types in Infobox

Multiple attack types are either making statements that go beyond what we should say in our own voice (genocide, without alleged), not part of the standard genocide terms (ethic cleansing, torture, sexual violence) or are not appropriate in this case (targeted killings). It should be trimmed down to those that are actually broadly alleged, that being mass murder, collective punishment, bombardment and starvation as method of war. Anything else is undue. In addition, the source about rapes doesn't actually make the claim and is therefore synth. FortunateSons (talk) 10:09, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I see no issue with this change. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Great, thank you. Just FYI, I'll wait a bit for others to respond, just because this change was reverted before. FortunateSons (talk) 10:46, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Genocide is also alleged by multiple reliable sources, and I would consider removal of that highly problematic.

However that entire field needs a note such as "The following are alleged:" Bogazicili (talk) 14:46, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I think genocide can stay as an allegation, even if it’s technically tautological (after all, any genocide would include the attack type genocide). However, it seems to be commonly done on similar articles, so no serious objection from my end to keeping this one as well. Do you mind the removal of the other ones as well, or are you ok with those? FortunateSons (talk) 15:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't know yet, I have to review the sources. Did you review the sources and find out that other types are not mentioned? Bogazicili (talk) 15:24, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I support the changes as well. 3Kingdoms (talk) 15:42, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

It’s a bit of both; sources primarily discuss actions that have or are likely to cause significant causalities, and don’t generally discuss torture, targeted killings etc. as acts of genocide. Even sources that do mention those (example: Albanese) do so as a minor point to draw a general picture of mistreatment (for torture) or the possibility of it counting as either an action or an indication of intent (for cleansing). Those topics have a place in other articles, or potentially in the body, but according to my reading of the sources, they aren’t due for the Infobox. FortunateSons (talk) 15:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Pings: @Ecpiandy for reversion, @Smallangryplanet for potential synth. FortunateSons (talk) 11:19, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Potential synth? My edit is sadly abundantly supported by RS. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding. What do you mean? Smallangryplanet (talk) 19:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I have had the same issue in the past, don’t worry; the issue isn’t the occurrence of sexual violence, the synth/potential coatrack issue would be that the source doesn’t claim that it’s genocidal. (unless I missed that?). FortunateSons (talk) 19:32, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I can add some other sources that do, if that would help? Smallangryplanet (talk) 19:44, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I still think it’s undue for the lead, but yes, that fixes the synth issue for the body, thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 19:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah sorry I'm confused again (it's been a long week already...) I thought this was about the infobox itself, not the lead or body? Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:00, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s maybe poor phrasing: there are two separate issues: which content should be in the infobox, and that there was a sourcing problem within the infobox. This solves issue two for your content, so it can definitely stay (in my opinion), it’s just a question regarding whether or not it’s due for the lead or just the body. FortunateSons (talk) 21:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Ah, okay, that makes sense - thank you for clarifying. I think it can go in the infobox + body, I'll make that edit. I don't want to set precedent for it never being in the lead, so I'll say here that I think there could come a time where it is due for the lead, even if we leave it out for now, and this conversation shouldn't be used as evidence or justification for not adding it there in future. Smallangryplanet (talk) 21:51, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course, thank you; for example, if it’s widely analysed or shown to be sufficiently widespread, it will be obviously due for the lead/infobox FortunateSons (talk) 21:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't really think these changes make sense. Genocide is generally regarded to be inclusive of and built upon "lesser" acts of group-directed violence. Removing mentions of torture and sexual violence is not in line with the way that other genocides are covered on-wiki or with the broad consensus in the field. I'd consider Yazidi genocide a strong contemporary and comparable example that demonstrates this point. A close reading of certain wiki policies may provide some justification for your edits, but I think they ultimately buck common sense and the broader mainstream scholarly understanding of genocide. I think that rather than trying to remove this material, we should focus on finding a better source and/or a larger number of sources that explicitly connect institutional sexual violence and torture to the allegations of genocide. If those sources aren't available now, they will likely emerge as we begin to gather a more historical view of these events. Unbandito (talk) 16:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s a good contemporary example, but it’s not comparable: during the Yazidi genocide (and similar contemporary cases, potentially even including Ukraine), torture and sexual violence were one of the primary means of perpetuating the crime, which is not the case here: during the Israel-Hamas war, it seems like (based on current sourcing and reporting) that both sexual violence and torture are relatively rare, affecting a significantly smaller part of the population compared to the other alleged actions. It’s possible that later sourcing will broadly connect those acts to the allegations of genocide, but for now, this isn’t the case, both due to a lack of sources and because of the limited evidence that there is special intent to destroy (compared to the “normal” justification for such acts, as seen during the American war on terror). If this becomes a majority view in a month or a year, I’ll support its inclusion, but this isn’t the case for now. FortunateSons (talk) 17:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Genocide is a crime against humanity is a war crime so yes, I think "built upon" is as good a way to express it as any. The special intent thing is theoretically applicable at ICJ level but won't impact on whether others call it a genocide so that's something of a red herring. It's not difficult to find sources that connect crimes "while Amnesty International was the first nongovernmental organization to call it genocide, other groups such as Human Rights Watch and the Israeli group B’tselem have meticulously documented the country’s alleged war crimes, including using starvation as a weapon of war, committing torture and sodomy in Israeli prisons, deliberate attacks on civilians, among other charges." Selfstudier (talk) 17:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, and I’m not opposed to mentioning them in the body for context, they’re just undue for the lead. For example, we don’t mention them in the box for the Holocaust, Armenian genocide or Unit 731, despite known occurrences and a likely higher frequency. There is just a lack of strong sourcing for “torture/rape as means of (allegedly) committing genocide” instead of “torture/rape while (allegedly) committing genocide” for this case, and as long as it isn’t broadly discussed, it’s not due here. FortunateSons (talk) 17:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Amnesty's recent investigation, which concluded that Israel is committing genocide, explicitly links Israel's practice of incommunicado detention, torture and sexual violence in prisons to its conclusion that a genocide is taking place. From section 7.1.4 on page 233:

As another indication of intent, Israel was responsible, during the nine-month period under review, for a pattern of incommunicado detention, torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment (ill-treatment), including sexual violence, of Palestinians from Gaza, according to documentation by Amnesty International and other organizations. Genocidal intent may be inferred from evidence of “other culpable acts systematically directed against the same group.”961 This pattern of incommunicado detention, torture and other ill-treatment underscores the systematic dehumanization and mental and physical abuse of Palestinians in Gaza and may also be taken into account with a view to inferring genocidal intent from pattern of conduct.

IMO this should be more than enough to justify inclusion of the material at any level in the article. Unbandito (talk) 02:55, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Actually no, but this is a common misconception: this specifically cannot, because that would be the wrong section. This source would be potentially due for genocidal intent, and attack type is part of the act category. This of course isn’t a problem for the body, but it is for the infobox. To stick with the obvious example, Antisemitism isn’t listed as an attack type for the holocaust, despite the fact that the widespread beliefs and actions by German and other citizens and officials can obviously be used as an indicator for intent. FortunateSons (talk) 06:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Amnesty is saying that the pattern of abuses (an action or attack type) is evidence of genocidal intent because that pattern fulfills the criteria by which genocide is defined. In plain language, the abuses in Israeli prisons are both a part of the genocide, and support the assertion that genocide is taking place. I don't think the distinction you're making makes sense. Moreover, I think you'd be hard pressed to find any example in history where a source asserts that a genocide is taking/has taken place and yet the contemporary mass detentions, torture and sexual abuse of members of the targeted group by the same perpetrators should be treated separately from the overall genocide. That strikes me as an inherently absurd position. Unbandito (talk) 14:49, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Unbandito, great find. This can be used as a source for multiple attack types. "Rape" should be changed to "sexual violence". Bogazicili (talk) 15:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I think there won’t be a clear consensus for any of the options here; does anyone mind if we just do this as an RFC? FortunateSons (talk) 12:44, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

You started this discussion on 17 December 2024. Today is 18 December 2024. We are still going over the sources. See WP:RFCBEFORE. Bogazicili (talk) 15:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I’m happy to wait, just pre-empting what I think is likely end. FortunateSons (talk) 16:42, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Since 'type' is an optional field, if there is an RFC, perhaps one of the options should be to leave it blank and cover things in the article body. Sean.hoyland (talk) 15:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Nice catch, thanks FortunateSons (talk) 16:43, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

German law professor opinions

I have taken the time to write up the expert options of the missing German legal scholars from the list of experts. This is a selection of a few relevant legal scholars from the German-speaking world, which I originally added to the template for expert opinions and which are due to be added to the relevant section of the article. fixed per Selfstudier As I have a conflict of interest for at least one, but don’t want to disclose which, please treat this edit request as if I have a COI for any person or institution mentioned.

In December 2023, Kai Ambos, a professor of international and criminal law in Göttingen and judge at the Kosovo Special Tribunal, warned that potentially genocidal statements by politicians, while potentially beneficial for proving specific intent, could not necessarily be applied to the evaluation of military decisions. [32] In January 2024, Christian Walter, a professor of Public Law and Public International Law at the LMU, argued in the Verfassungsblog that the extent of harm to both civilians and infrastructure weren’t conclusive, and that attempts to evacuate civilians were an indication against genocidal intent. [33]. Matthias Goldmann, a professor of international law, stated in April that there a conviction before the ICJ was uncertain and that there was no “smoking gun” proving the special intent. [34]

Marco Sassoli and Oliver Diggelmann, professors of international law in Gevena and Zurich, argued in May that while some statements by politicians may be genocidal, the same did not apply to the actions of the Israeli military; Diggelmann believes that a conviction for genocide is unlikely.[35] Andreas Müller, a professor of international law in Basel, stated the the term genocide was being used as a term of criticism instead of according to its legal definition, and added that “there was no sufficient ground of genocide if one takes the legal term seriously”.[36] Daniel-Erasmus Khan, professor of international law at the University of the Bundeswehr in Munich, stated in June that there was no clear evidence of a special intent among Israeli leadership.[37] FortunateSons (talk) 20:44, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Courtesy ping for @Cdjp1 due to the talk page discussion. We weren’t sure if I should name the universities; for now, I just left the ones from Munich, as there are two different ones. FortunateSons (talk) 20:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Just add them as "No" to the Template:Expert opinions in the Gaza genocide debate. Selfstudier (talk) 20:58, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I phrased that poorly: they are on the list, they are missing from the article.FortunateSons (talk) 20:59, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Am I misunderstanding? You want these two no's added to the list of expert opinions, right? Selfstudier (talk) 21:00, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

No, sorry: those are people already on the list (or technically originally on the list, those professors are among the ones the list started with), that haven’t made their way into the “Academic and legal discourse” section FortunateSons (talk) 21:03, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, crossed wires, what's the point in adding these two specifically to the article? Selfstudier (talk) 21:02, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

To cover the relevant expert opinions from the German-speaking legal world (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). I would have just added them myself, but that would be against policy, so I need someone else to review them and (or not do) that :) FortunateSons (talk) 21:04, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes but then we would have to add all the yes's as well, there are a lot.

I actually want the template to be on the article page, if someone can figure out how to do that, I tried and couldn't. Much easier. Selfstudier (talk) 21:07, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure, this sounds like a generally good idea and has already been partially done; I just don’t have the time, so I picked out the significant ones (recognised/well-respected professors cited within decent sources, therefore broadly due) within my field that I originally added to the list and wrote something up after a six month delay FortunateSons (talk) 21:11, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

.... [internal screaming] ....

It's possible to do that, but we'd have to re-work it, both in formatting, and what specific sort of columns and quotes from the sources we want. I would offer to start on that work, but despite my self-hatred, I am in my end of year draw down, so you'd need someone else to do all the discussion and selection work. I can still step in one decided for the markup so it can be easily included as a template. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 21:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I'm not sure that this thread is really a topic for a COI edit request (i.e. the template at the top of the thread). COI edit requests are to ask an uninvolved editor to review the suggested edit with a view to installing it within the article.

Given the topic at hand I think it would be more appropriate if consensus was to be achieved at the talk page, or if the matter was referred to WP:RFC or WP:3O.

I'm therefore going to decline the COI edit request, but I am doing so purely for the procedural reason set out above and entirely without prejudice. Axad12 (talk) 03:14, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that is fair. Thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 06:47, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I support this proposal, but for now, I would really appreciate that this content would be added to the relevant section, unless there is an issue with the specific content. No objection to it and all other statements by legal/genocide/etc. scholars being removed and replaced with the template later, of course. I can try to make it longer or shorter, but I feel like 7 significant professors split into 2 paragraphs is appropriate? FortunateSons (talk) 09:27, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I oppose this because why? Choosing German speaking professors is just synth unless there is some specific reason to do with genocide reported in RS that means that the category of German speaking law professors has some special significance over some other arbitrary group of law professors. What will we do next? Scandinavian law professors, professors that can speak two languages, one legged professors with a view on genocide law? Selfstudier (talk) 09:57, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

We already have American ones as well, and adding the Scandinavian/Francophone/Arabic perspective is a worthy endeavor, I just don't speak the languages and have limited knowledge of the legal system, unlike with German. The relevant policy-based reason would be the avoidance of systemic bias towards english language and their legal systems. German legal scholars are a significant part of the discourse on international (humanitarian) law and are therefore due. FortunateSons (talk) 10:03, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It's called "International" law for a reason? The main point being made by these two professors afaics is about genocidal intent, there is a section about intent in the article (and more about it in the South Africa case article and even an article on genocidal intent), included there is "In the ICJ's Rohingya genocide case, several states (including the UK and Germany) supported a looser standard of evidence for supporting genocidal intent than the ICJ has used in the past—which is often the most difficult part of proving genocide in a court of law" so that is a relevant point. Now if you could find a source saying most/some/many/nearly all/whatever German speaking lawyers (or any other group) say (whatever they say), then adding that would be fine. Otherwise we are just making a list. Selfstudier (talk) 10:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

International law perspectives vary significantly within and between countries; to the best of my knowledge, no such source exist, as it doesn't for most other places and disciplines.

Quite frankly, there is no policy basis for excluding significant views because they are German, and the article already includes a plethora of significant views by professors from English-speaking countries (including less well-known ones), so there is no basis for excluding RS-published views by professors either. The only issue that makes this a question for this thread (instead of a direct edit) is that I might unduely weigh some of the views within my edit request compared to others; do you feel that this is the case?

PS: the number of professors is 7 ;)FortunateSons (talk) 10:26, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

no policy basis for excluding significant views because they are German Please, no straw men, no-one suggested that.

German or German speaking? And up above you said "German-speaking legal world (Germany, Austria and Switzerland)". A list of German/speaking lawyers that you have located with an opinion on genocide in Gaza without any RS that otherwise connects them together, is just a synthesis/OR. Nothing preventing you making an actual list article of such lawyers if you like but we already have a template that lists all lawyers, you could put a little German/Swiss/US flag next to each one perhaps? Selfstudier (talk) 11:18, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

German-speaking, defined as them teaching at a faculty in such a country. It's not really a strawman, unless you support removing the American and British professors from the article; we should cover important non-english perspectives. It's less synth and more of a summary, but I'm happy to write a full paragraph for each, if you believe it to be due. Nevertheless, my tone was too harsh, my apologies.

Not that it matters, but they are a plethora of others with statements (and even more if you don't limit yourself to media coverage or comperable editorial control, which I have), but most of those are straightforwardly undue. I have just noticed that this might be an unclear if one is unfamiliar with the discipline: this is a whose-who of known names/faculties within german, austrian and swiss international law scholarship, excluding those for whom I counldn't locate a useful statements. Stylistically, I think grouping by language or region is probably most intutive, but sorting by time might be an interesting option too, if you prefer this compared to my grouping. FortunateSons (talk) 11:34, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I could for example go through all the opinions (regardless of nationality) and specify which advocate for this or that point but then that would be OR.

At some point, we will reach a level of RS that is more analytic of all the different opinions out there and just summarizes them and then that is not OR because an RS is doing that and not me.

See the difference? The RS is doing the grouping, if we do grouping, whether by time, nationality or any other basis, then we are just making a list with some inclusion criteria.

The fact that there are 7 (or any other number of) lawyers in some list is irrelevant, the only thing that is relevant is the purpose of the list and what the criteria are for being in it.

Leaving aside lists, I am still stuck on the question of why 7 (or any other number based on whatever OR criteria) legal opinions should be included in the article. You argue dueness, so then why are 7 German speaking legal opinions due for this article? Your saying that it's a bias not to include them is also OR unless there are RS saying that. Are there? Selfstudier (talk) 11:59, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

You could, but saying “Professor A and Professor B argue that C [Source for A][Source for B]” wouldn’t be synth, right? Systemic bias is generally not a question of RS, but of editorial discretion, so there obviously aren’t. In this case, the proposed text is significantly shorter “per Professor (particularly accounting for their reputation)” than existing coverage in the relevant sections, and therefore due. Particularly Ambos (highly relevant past academic and judicial experience) and Walter (article in one of the foremost “new” legal publications) as well as arguably Khan, Goldmann and Müller are rather significant voices even by themselves, and the sourcing is more than sufficient for a longer paragraph each. I acknowledge the problem with the way I structured them together, that’s a good point and may actually be Synth. Would writing a separate paragraph per prof fix the issue for you? If you want to cut down on the actual number, it would be quite helpful if you told me which of the 7 I selected are particularly interesting/useful/encyclopaedic? FortunateSons (talk) 12:33, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Systemic bias is generally not a question of RS, but of editorial discretion, so there obviously aren’t This is false, we have an article on systemic bias and there are plenty of RS about bias in the media. There may well be the bias you describe but if no RS speak about it, it's irrelevant.

It's not me that has to tell you or for you to decide which, it's for RS to do that so first some RS says Ambos (we'll use them for example) is a top drawer lawyer/expert/whatever, so far so good. Then dueness, we need some RS to say that Ambos opinion is worth more than some other lawyer/expert opinion so that we should include their opinion in preference to some other. Or another possibility, Ambos himself analyzes the opinions of other lawyers or the state of play in general wrt some legal points, then that might be useful.

But just you saying he's a great lawyer and we should include him because he is, that's not enough.

That's just for one lawyer, and if some or all of the remainder are just saying the same thing, why do we need them? Unless an RS is saying these 7 lawyers all say x. Selfstudier (talk) 12:46, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense, thanks; so if I provide a one or multiple high-quality sources per expert, you’re fine with inclusion of their opinion? FortunateSons (talk) 13:22, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Not what I said, why are they due? Anyway, hopefully now it is not a problem, the "template" (ie a list) is now in the article so you can just include them there if they are not already included. In case it is not clear, I am also suggesting that we apply the same logic to other expert opinions that are in the article, that is just being an expert and having an opinion is not by itself sufficient for inclusion in the article, they can however be included in the template/list. Selfstudier (talk) 13:28, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

They are all already in the list, thanks. Just a quick request for clarification: does this apply to all expert opinions in your view? Or should we have a section with some of the most significant views in full text? FortunateSons (talk) 13:31, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

That's what I was trying to explain above, there needs to be something more than just being an expert and having a view on the South Africa case. If there isn't anything more, then I think being in the list is sufficient. Which ones merit inclusion in the article is something we could discuss case by case.

For example the sentence "The opinions many scholars of Holocaust and genocide studies (HGS) expressed in late 2023 were discordant with others in the field as well as experts in other academic fields: they did not condemn Israeli violence despite the far larger loss of Palestinian life in the war." is a useful sentence, it generalizes the opinions of expert without naming them.

The sentence "In November 2024, Bartov called recent operations in Jabalia "blatantly genocidal"." is not so useful, it is simply a quote about some incidents from one expert whose view is included in the list. Selfstudier (talk) 13:50, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that makes sense, thanks FortunateSons (talk) 16:46, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding Ambos (as an example); for Israel + genocide:

1. Large public broadcaster citing him for genocide
2. Opinion-Article in large newspaper
3. Interview in respected newspaper
4. Article in (left-leaning) journal by respected foundation
5. Background for Nicaragua vs. Germany

General indication of significance regarding Israel & International law:

1. Large public broadcaster citing him for ICC
2. One of the largest legal newspapers in Germany citing him for the ICC
3. Newspaper of record interviewing him for Israeli war crimes 1
4. Newspaper of record interviewing him for Israeli war crimes 2
5. Pleathora of highly relevant publications in significant journal

Do you agree that this is sufficient for inclusion? FortunateSons (talk) 09:54, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

If all those do is cite him for his opinion, no. Better would be other experts citing him. Do any of them contain meta material? Selfstudier (talk) 10:29, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I’ll look into that. Just to be clear, that standard would exclude almost all currently cited experts in the article, right? Not opposed to such a standard, just want to keep it consistent FortunateSons (talk) 10:43, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I already said we should be consistent and look at them case by case. Selfstudier (talk) 10:46, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course, I’m referring in this case to using this as a localcon for the removal of other experts, not objecting to the standard per se; in the interest of transparency, I plan to turn this into an RfC and therefore need an RfCbefore (such as this discussion), and “cited by other experts” a nice addition to the positions I had in mind (those being “1. RS, 2. expert, 3. expert cited by media, peer reviewed or comparable, and now 4. expert cited by experts) for having someone in the article proper and not just in the list FortunateSons (talk) 10:55, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

What I want to avoid is turning the thing into a list of experts with an opinion (because we already have such a list). Selfstudier (talk) 10:49, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Not trying to be awkward here, I would like to include him. For instance, he has a well cited piece on intent to destroy that could go in a section devoted to that. Selfstudier (talk) 10:45, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

I know, I don’t think you’re acting in any sort of bad faith/obstructionist manner here, don’t worry. The article is a good catch, I read it about a year ago and totally forgot it; I’m not sure where and for what to cite it without it becoming SYNTH, do you have a suggestion? FortunateSons (talk) 10:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, RFC is a possibility of course but I would try and edit the article a bit first and see what happens with that. If you think an opinion that is in the article doesn't really belong there on the basis that it is only an opinion of one expert and nothing more, I would support that.

As for Ambos, there is a discussion on the page here at #Any other possible reason requirement for genocide and there is Gaza genocide#Genocidal intent and genocidal rhetoric at the article but since the rhetoric is also to do with the intent, we can just title it as that.

Now Idk whether that material should be first done in detail at the case article and then summarized here or vice versa, if it doesn't matter that much, we can do it here. Selfstudier (talk) 11:34, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s reasonable, I’ll think about the placement/use as well, thank you! FortunateSons (talk) 12:26, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

Btw, I am not endorsing the current content of the article, which I don't agree with in many respects but one thing at a time. Selfstudier (talk) 12:52, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, I got the template to sit in the article without messing everything up (I think). By direct copy. I put it at the intro to Academic and legal discourse section.Selfstudier (talk) 13:11, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It works for me, considering that I’m on mobile, that is quite impressive. What do you think about removing the notes section? FortunateSons (talk) 13:24, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Why did you put that template into the article? It was intended as a separate page, to be linked in the talk page I think? Bogazicili (talk) 13:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Per discussion above, things have moved on from the debate over the article title, now we are instead trying to analyze what exactly the expert opinions are saying and which of them merit direct inclusion in the article. It is also convenient to have direct access to that material in the article. Selfstudier (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

It might be too long and not formatted for inclusion in the actual article page. It has external links and lengthy quotes for example. Bogazicili (talk) 14:07, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

An alternative is just to make a list article and reference that as a main. The template is not useful as is unless you happen to know where it is. Selfstudier (talk) 14:16, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

A list article may work, but please do not add that template into article page again. The lengthy quotes could be problematic due to WP:Copyright and Wikipedia:Non-free content Bogazicili (talk) 14:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Such problems are fixable. At any rate, the existing template is not so useful. Selfstudier (talk) 14:25, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

FortunateSons, English-language sources are preferred in English-language Wikipedia. See: Wikipedia:Verifiability#Non-English_sources.

Foreign language sources are allowed too, but I think your proposal may be too much, with 2 paragraphs. Should we give the same space to Arabic scholars for example? A lot of your sources seem dated too. I would recommend you to condense your proposal. Instead of saying what everyone thinks individually with lengthy separate sentences, you can summarize such as "several German scholars thought ...". See: WP:Summary Bogazicili (talk) 14:17, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I can condense it down somewhat, if there is appetite for that. And yes, we should absolutely have 2 paragraphs for Arabic legal scholars as well, that’s a significant perspective FortunateSons (talk) 16:40, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

The article prose is getting close to 14k words. See Wikipedia:Article size. Bogazicili (talk) 16:43, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

So a separate article for expert opinions might be the solution? FortunateSons (talk) 16:57, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I put in a link to the "template disguised as an article" so at least there's that. Selfstudier (talk) 17:02, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s definitely a good addition no matter what FortunateSons (talk) 17:04, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

That apart I still hold to the idea I outlined above, if there is support for doing it. Selfstudier (talk) 17:04, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I don’t have the time for a project of this size, but I think it’s a good idea; I did most of the German translations, so feel free to ping me if there is an issue FortunateSons (talk) 17:08, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I support the inclusion.3Kingdoms (talk) 17:12, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Right, I meant going through on the article and trying to focus on what opinions are the most important/relevant/useful. Selfstudier (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, that too, I agree FortunateSons (talk) 17:17, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

@David A did you read this section before your revert? Which of the policy interpretations do you agree with? FortunateSons (talk) 23:42, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

No, I did not see this beforehand. I would appreciate if you summarise the relevant justifications for your removals of information. David A (talk) 21:59, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Sure. Per this discussion, there is (maybe) a local consensus that even a notable expert cited by media is not necessarily due for this article. A person notable for reasons outside of her field, working for a arguably barely notable (or at least non-major) advocacy organisation is maybe due for the list of experts, but not for the article as a whole. Do you disagree with either of those assessments? FortunateSons (talk) 23:31, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The second removal appears to be an earlier version of the first or at least includes some of it. Leaving aside the issue of whether L4P is RS itself or for opinions given there, we discussed above the merits of dealing with intent more generally, for instance the opening paras of the section do not address intent at all. Rhetoric is evidence of intent, Idk that 500 statements is any different to 100 or 1000, again we want to deal with that issue as generally as possible. Maybe we can focus for now on the introductory sentences and maybe that will tell us what of the other sentences are most relevant/due? Selfstudier (talk) 11:07, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I think there is significant overlap. I have no hard preference on the structure, just concerns about the quality (and consistency) of this article, so your suggestion works for me. Would just describing the standard/definition from a general source be synth, or is that allowed? FortunateSons (talk) 11:54, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, I think that it is hard to become officially specialised in the academic field of collecting and counting genocidal statements by people in positions of power, so as long as the sources and research are reliable, I think that the information should be kept here. David A (talk) 18:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

the academic field of collecting and counting genocidal statements by people in positions of power lol, is not an academic field, nevertheless, material such as Van Hout, T., Velásquez, L., Vingerhoets, N., Steele, M., Cay, B. N., van Heuvel, L., Christiano, A., Lychnara, J., Glenn, J., Pastor, M., Kayacılar, G., Mardones Alarcon, C., & Tibbs, A. (2024). Claiming genocidal intent: A discourse analysis of South Africa’s ICJ case against Israel. Diggit Magazine. https://www.diggitmagazine.com/articles/claiming-genocidal-intent-discourse-analysis-south-africa-s-icj-case-against-israel is helpful, is it not? More helpful than a count? Selfstudier (talk) 18:36, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, I think a count is a clearly understood illustration that these genocidal intent statements are not aberrations, but rather commonplace occurrences, so wouldn't it be better to include both? David A (talk) 17:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, just to clarify, I was using gallows humour mild sarcasm when I said "academic field". I apologise if this caused confusion. David A (talk) 09:12, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

No, but you can have sufficient expertise and renown in relate fields, which is lacking here as well FortunateSons (talk) 20:42, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

What related fields? It seems like an unrealistic demand here. David A (talk) 17:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I would take this claim a lot more seriously if it came from renown professors of law/genocide studies (comparable to the ones above) than from activists, for example. Because collecting and counting genocidal statements by people in positions of power requires them to have expertise in, among other things, being able to distinguish those from grandiose statements made in war, statements advocating for the commission of other non-genocidal crimes such as extermination, ethnic cleansing, collective punishment or the targeting of civilians, or other political statements, that, abhorrent as they may be, do not constitute an intent to destroy (even based on the less stringent requirements of one among multiple motives). FortunateSons (talk) 18:14, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

This legal view for example says "In the case of Gaza, it remains to be seen whether this intent will be found in the case brought by South Africa, which has cited dozens of statements made by high-level government officials in support of its case against Israel (pp.59-67)"

This is not to say that the L4P database, that includes other things besides these statements (see https://roadtogenocide.law4palestine.org/) is of no value, only that a narrow focus on a list (basically) of such statements is of lesser value in the overall context.

As well, L4P is not that bad of a source and deserves an article perhaps, furthermore, when compared to individual statements in the article from such as Kontorovich, I'd be looking to remove the latter rather than it. Selfstudier (talk) 18:23, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I don’t, for example, disagree with citing your ejil source in place of L4P, but disagree strongly with the use of L4P, a mostly unknown source with what is at best a highly partisan leaning and at worst no significant expertise. I believe that everything of value can either be sourced elsewhere or shouldn’t be used. On the other hand, Kontorovich can at least be considered an expert writing in large (not necessarily equalling good) national media, which is due based on our current standard. I have no objections to him being cut at a later point based on an altered generalised standard, but based on this discussion, we do need an RfC. FortunateSons (talk) 18:34, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

I haven't removed Kontorovich, makes no difference to me, the value of that opinion is obvious to any reader simply by reading the article.

Although I did remove the other piece as undue/duplicative, see L4P Board of trustees, no comparison really. Selfstudier (talk) 18:44, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

The board of trustees is pretty good, and it’s quite possible that they will develop into a renown (and reliable) activist organisation in a few years.

While you’re definitely aware of this, it’s important to generally note that trustees usually don’t control content, and that even an impressive board of trustees would not directly impact reliability. No disagreement on the value of the opinion, but if what I consider reasonable would impact what is due, many of our articles would appear very differently than they do now FortunateSons (talk) 20:44, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

Settler Colonialism

This motive appears to be in a violation of Wikipedia:No original research policy. The fact that Settler colonialism is included in this article's infobox implies that its one of the main motives behind the alleged genocide in Gaza Strip by Israel. However, I have examined two sources cited (other two sources are broken), and none of them support this claim (none of the texts use the term "settler colonialism"). What should be done about it? SolxrgashiUnited (talk) 16:36, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

I was able to access the abstracts of all four papers at least. Here's the relevant links:

[38]

[39]

[40]

[41]

I have not had a chance to read the papers as of yet - and if they aren't open access I'll probably only have the abstracts but if others have better access this might speed along validation of the information. Simonm223 (talk) 16:46, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

• In "Screaming, Silence and Mass Violence" we have the following Comparing and contextualizing Israeli violence and Palestinian suffering not only lend themselves to moral clarity, but also to intellectual consistency. If it is the body count, then next-door Syria or Iraq should be a concern too; if it is racism, then Darfur should not be forgotten; if it is the urgency, then Nagorno-Karabagh should not be ignored; if it is settler colonialism, then the Uyghurs should be included. In fact, to characterize Israel as the “last bastion of colonialism” turns a blind eye to Turkish-nationalist settlerism in emptied Armenian villages, or the Arabization policies of Kurdish regions in Iraq and Syria in the 1970s – which uprooted hundreds of thousands. One could even ask if there is a colonial gaze in not focusing on the next-door Arab lives as grievable; in other words, do the Israeli nation-state boundaries ironically function as a type of moral boundary? If “decolonial” means all human lives are fundamentally equal, then holding a settler colony’s perpetrators to higher standards of scrutiny, or its victims to more compassion is hardly decolonial. - While this is apologia for Israel's colonialism rather than criticism of it, it certainly admits to it. Simonm223 (talk) 16:48, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
• I only have the abstract of "Gaza as Twilight of Israel Exceptionalism: Holocaust and Genocide Studies from Unprecedented Crisis to Unprecedented Change" but I will say that what I can read of it establishes that Russia escalated from colonialism to genocide before going on to use the measures of this progression to argue that Israel reached the stage of genocide before October 2023. While this abstract does not say "Israel is a settler colonial state" it would not surprise me if the full text supports the statement of settler colonialism even if it then suggests that genocide is something beyond settler colonialism. I would suggest someone with full article text should conduct an additional review.Simonm223 (talk) 16:52, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
• I only have the abstract of "Gaza as a Laboratory 2.0" but the text available to me makes no overt or oblique reference to colonialism. Again recommend someone with full article text should conduct an additional review. Unlike the above I suspect this may not be an appropriate reference. Simonm223 (talk) 16:54, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

  @Simonm223 in have access to all of these, I'll post the relevant quotes later when I have time. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:57, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

  Ok:

  Gaza as a Laboratory 2.0, pp. 1-2 Al-Arouri not only emphasized Israel’s abovementioned actions in Al-Aqsa, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank, but also placed it in the context of Israel’s Finance Minister and head of the far-right Jewish Zionist party Bezalel Smotrich’s “Decisive Plan” from 2017. According to this plan, Israel should make clear that there is “room for only one expression of national self-determination west of the Jordan River: that of the Jewish nation.” Israel should apply full sovereignty over this entire area, establish new cities and settlements throughout the West Bank and bring in hundreds of thousands of additional settlers. The Palestinians will thus have to “shelve” their dreams of self-determination, as Smotrich put it, and will basically have two options: they could either accept Jewish rule or leave.4 Al-Arouri noted that Smotrich, being responsible for West Bank along with Israel’s Defense Minister, was now in a position to implement his plan, and was planning to transfer “at least one million settlers to the West Bank.” Essentially, argued Al-Arouri, this government “says you either accept being our slaves, or we will uproot you from this land"5

  Inescapably Genocidal, p. 1 Later, 55 “scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence” felt “compelled” to warn of the danger of genocide in Israel’s counterattack. While “deeply saddened and concerned” by both Hamas’ atrocities and the death and destruction which Israel had caused, their statement focused on the latter, itemizing it together with “dozens” of statements by Israeli leaders that indicated genocidal intent. Referencing a longer history, they argued that we should place it within the context of Israeli settler colonialism, Israeli military occupation violence against Palestinians since 1967, the sixteen-year siege on the Gaza Strip since 2007, and the rise to power in Israel in the last year of a government made up of politicians who speak proudly about Jewish supremacy and exclusionary nationalism. The statement concluded by calling on governments to uphold their obligations under the Genocide Convention.

  Gaza as Twilight, p. 4 This weaponization of the Holocaust, as Zoé Samudzi has discussed in this forum, erases Israeli history and turns the world upside down: a powerless people, forcibly displaced and attacked under decades of Israeli settler colonialism, military occupation, and siege become the worst perpetrators in modern imagination. This image then casts the settler colonial state in its current form, armed with nuclear weapons and backed by its western allies, as the ultimate victim.20

  p. 5 Nazism and what we now call the Holocaust were imagined on a hierarchy as more terrible than genocide, which placed Israel on another imagined hierarchy as more moral than any other state in the world. This gave rise to a common view in Israel and the west that the Israeli army is the most moral in the world, so that from Israel’s establishment in May 1948, it became unimaginable that it would perpetrate any crime under international law, let alone genocide.21 Maintaining this foundational image of Israel required the denial of the Nakba, which also stemmed from the broader impetus to deny the nature of the Israeli state as a settler colonial project.

  -- Cdjp1 (talk) 11:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

  Thanks. That clarifies these sources are appropriate for indicating "settler colonialism" in the infobox. Simonm223 (talk) 12:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

  Of these three, only the second one says that settler colonialism is part of the motive for the genocide in Gaza. The first doesn’t mention the term and is about Israeli actions in the West Bank and Jerusalem. The third says Israel is settler colonial and that’s it committing genocide, but doesn’t attribute the latter to the former. These two citations should be removed here. BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:59, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

  Lederman (Gaza as a Laboratory 2.0) links it explicitly on page 5, where he highlights the views of the settlers who formerly lived in Gaza post the first incursion in the 2000s. I've removed Segal & Daniele, added Abdo and Segal. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:31, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

  Sorry, my comment isn't the clearest. Lederman links the desires and political pressure of the former settlers of Gaza, to engage again in settler colonialism throughout the Gaza strip to recent actions by Israel through 2023, and to the Israeli assault on Gaza post-October 7. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:48, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

• I only have the abstract of "Inescapably Genocidal" but the text available to me explicitly quotes Raz Segal, "Statement of Scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies on Mass Violence In Israel and Palestine since 7 October" which, in the quoted text, describes Israel as being explicitly settler-colonial. As such it not only supports the characterization but provides with a full citation for another reliable source that is explicit on this topic. The full bibliographical detail for the Statement of Scholars is:

Raz Segal, "Statement of Scholars in Holocaust and Genocide Studies on Mass Violence in Israel and Palestine since 7 October," Contending Modernities, December 9, 2023. https://contendingmodernities.nd.edu/global-currents/statement-of-scholars-7-october." Simonm223 (talk) 17:00, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Just added an additional source into the article. Bogazicili (talk) 17:09, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Potential source

Putting this here for review: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/dec/20/genocide-definition-mass-violence-scholars-gaza BobFromBrockley (talk) 03:51, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

That is an annoying piece, as while Gaza has forced the relative fields to confront the question of Israel-Palestine, all these issues existed for decades prior, with authors highlighting the fear the field seemed to have to place Israel-Palestine under their analytical purview. But, that's an annoyance beyond the question of the Wiki article. We cite the majority of pieces the Guardian article highlights, and discuss many of the same points. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:09, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

It is interesting that some people seem to have questioned even the Holocaust:

“There was already a controversy in the aftermath of the Holocaust – everybody was like, ‘Where’s Hitler’s order?’ And there was no order,” Hirsch said.

I now think saying a sentence or 2 about the interpretation of Genocide Convention with non-news sources, and how it relates to this case with sources like the one above can be done in Gaza_genocide#Legal_definition_of_genocide. Bogazicili (talk) 14:09, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

"seem to have questioned even the Holocaust" I have heard people dismiss the Holocaust as mostly a topic relevant to the Hollywood hype machine and its propaganda films rather than an actual genocide for the last 30 years of my life. What else is new? Nearly every article which I have encountered on the Wannsee Conference has noted that the participants did not include the actual leadership of the Nazi Party, that the decisions taken used vague phrases and euphemisms for the goals of the project, and that the approval by their superiors was mostly an unstated assumption.Dimadick (talk) 14:42, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

The only thing there is that there are a bunch of genocide scholars (in the US presumably) hiding in the closet but we can't really say anything about their views until they come out. Selfstudier (talk) 15:13, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I see no problem though with saying with attribution that many scholars are holding back from expressing an opinion because they fear the consequences for themselves. Overall it seems a good introduction to the problem and suitable for citing in the article. NadVolum (talk) 19:44, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

I added it into the Holocaust and genocide studies section with a refname "Split" since it might be used at other points in the article as well. Selfstudier (talk) 12:16, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

"Attack type" in the infobox is inconsistent.

Currently, the "attack type" section of the infobox is as follows:

Genocide (accused), collective punishment, mass murder, ethnic cleansing, forced displacement, bombardment, targeted killings, starvation as method of war, torture, rape

The issue is that there is a parenthetical note of "(accused)" only for genocide, and not the other attack types. Why? Surely, the other attack types are also accusations, so why is there an inconsistency? Why single out genocide specifically as an accusation? I think that the parenthetical should be removed. It doesn't serve any purpose. JasonMacker (talk) 23:34, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s part of a broader issue with the attack type category used in this case, see the discussion above :) FortunateSons (talk) 09:35, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Request from WP:Requests for page protection/Edit: Historian Lee Mordechai as a source

In response to Special:Diff/1265157503 by Ján Kepler. Favonian (talk) 12:07, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Having read the Haaretz long-read [42] about Mr Morderchai's reports on the war (paywall free article), I feel like it could be used in the article. They mention genocide specifically in the article (at the end), the only downside is it's paywalled. It'd be nice if there was a paragraph or a few sentences about Mr Mordechai's reports in the article. Thanks, Ján Kepler (talk) 11:52, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

Not done, the author has no expertise in this area nor is he a journalist.

From the Haaretz article, the sentence "....articles by six leading Israeli authorities, who have already stated that in their view Israel is perpetrating genocide: Holocaust and genocide expert Omer Bartov; Holocaust researcher Daniel Blatman (who wrote that what Israel is doing in Gaza is somewhere between ethnic cleansing and genocide); historian Amos Goldberg; Holocaust scholar Raz Segal; international law expert Itamar Mann; and historian Adam Raz." might be useful somehwere. Selfstudier (talk) 13:11, 25 December 2024 (UTC)