aleph

These are valid points, but I still think what sets apart the current situation from Iraq is 1) the scale and 2) the intent.

With regards to #1, bear in mind that those figures for Iraq are calculated over a period of fourteen years as opposed to just six months in Gaza. For the latter, the daily death rate is four times higher. Similarly, the fact that most of Northern Gaza is now an uninhabitable pile of rubble dwarfs even the destruction that occurred in Iraq. With regards to the genocidal language, the comment from Rumsfeld is a far cry from Isaac Herzog saying “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible,” for October 7th or Yoav Gallant saying "We are fighting human animals."

As for #2, the vast majority of Palestinians are have been displaced southwards and are now basically trapped in Rafah with nowhere to go. The equivalent in Irag would have been for US to build a wall around Baghdad and prevented any women and children from leaving while they carried out their bombing campaigns. Also, the steps that Israel have taken to block humanitarian aid from getting to desperate and starving people sets the behavior apart from the US in Iraq. There's also the sense of "collective punishment" in Gaza that wasn't present in Iraq.

Again, I am still somewhat in two minds about use of the word, but I think there are still distinct differences that makes the current situation what the ICJ terms a "plausible genocide".

FWIW, I have also been personally deliberating over whether Israel's actions in Gaza are technically a Genocide as opposed to, say, ethnic cleansing (which it undeniably is, and has been for decades).

However, I can understand why the term is in widespread use at the moment regarding Gaza:

• The sheer scale of civilian deaths.
• Cutting off water, electricity and aid to civilian areas.
• Indiscriminate carpet bombing of civilian areas.
• Wholesale destruction of public infrastructure.
• Genocidal and dehumanizing language being used by Israeli government officials specifically towards the civilian population.

With Genocide, there has to be a discernable intent on wiping out the people themselves, not just their government.

Clearly the US wanted to remove Hussein and his Ba'ath Party government, not wipe out literally anyone who was in favor of him.

The 2003 US-Iraq war was awful for multiple reasons, but it wasn't a genocide.

That's a good point but that's always been the case, more or less, regarding the economy. I think there's a bit more to it than that this time around.

Biden's administration has been landed not just with the post-COVID situation regarding the economy and immigration but also having to prop up Israel's most bloodthirsty rampage in decades.

And Trump is ... /*gestures broadly/ ... well, you know.

Yes that's true to a large extent, but a President does have some executive power in terms of leverage and how they choose to engage diplomatically with Israel:

• Reagan famously threatened to cut off aid funding during the Lebanon War, which lead to a withdrawal of Israeli troops.

• Obama was very critical of settlements in the West Bank and his administration chose not to veto the UN resolution condemning then.

• Trump's administration was very supportive of Israel, officially recognized Jerusalem as it's capital, and also brokered the Abraham Accords.

So yeah, you're right in that the US government as whole has more or less guaranteed to ultimately support Israel no matter what, the President can still have an effect by themselves.

The bottom line is "they both suck", according to the majority of poll respondents.

AFAIK, they have the lowest approval ratings ever for an incumbent US president and his opponent on the run up to an election.

It's not a zero sum game - you can simultaneously be against both Trump and Biden regarding their Israel policy.

That said, I do agree that a lot of people don't realize that Trump is even more hawkish in his support for Israel than Biden is, and actively contributed to the rising tensions between Israel and Hamas during his administration. So when it comes to Israel, as surprising as it might be to some, Biden is in fact the lesser of two evils there.

With Pixel Material You icons.

That's why Niagara introduced pop-up folders a while back.

I access about 80% of my daily apps through these instead of scrolling down the entire list.

Yeah, it's sad how such a promising idea essentially got killed because the poor choice of name stuck.

"Reform Police Funding" or "Budget Reallocation" would have been a lot less controversial.

The right-wing weaponized it and most news outlets did nothing to push back against them.

There were various reports of "huge crime spikes" in certain cities following announcements by local politicians that the local PD were going to be defunded, but in most cases that never even happened, and in some cases the spending on police even went up by a couple of percent.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/defunding-claims-police-funding-increased-us-cities/story?id=91511971

This is essentially what the Defund The Police idea was all about before it got killed politically. Instead of putting additional $millions per year into the local PD, spend that money on additional outreach programs and first-responders with counseling training instead of having armed cops showing up on every scene.