Evidence of Israel's genocidal intentions toward Gaza?

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I'm not sure the Israeli government necessarily has a coherent plan to do anything in particular. However:

1) There are certainly elements within the Israeli government, and within Israeli society as a whole, who do have genocidal intent, judging by their "Amalek" rhetoric -- which has been voiced by Netanyahu himself. Other Israelis seem to favor nonlethal ethnic cleansing (e.g. trying to convince Egypt to allow Gazans to move into the Sinai peninsula, and then forcibly moving them there). And still others are against all ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, that last faction seems to have gotten all too small these days.

2) The current war is very unusual, insofar as, unlike all of Israel's other wars, it has lasted longer than a week or two. As AsPartOfMe has confirmed, many Israelis believe that Netanyahu is deliberately prolonging the war as long as possible, just to keep himself in office and thereby keep himself out of legal trouble. While that, in itself, is not a specifically genocidal motive, it is certainly de facto genocidal, given how lopsided the war has been. Given that Israel has nearly all the firepower, and given Israel's destruction of so much civilian infrastructure, a plan to prolong the war as long as possible does add up to a "plan to wipe out the Palestinian race, but drag it out," as you put it.

Hamas attacked Israel in a particularly violent attack that included the vicious rape, torture, and murder of women and little girls of all ages. It is hardly rational to expect them to stand back and do nothing against such heinous acts of terrorism.

I do not for a second believe that the rape, torture, and murder of women and little girls is legitimate

Israel needs to keep at them until they have brought to justice every one of the Hamas terrorists.

Lol, imagine still believing this is an accurate assessment.

All the apples are bad, the whole f*****g barrel.

More left-wing than the most right-wing government they've had in decades doesn't mean much. The second most right-wing government they've had in decades would be more left-wing.

Not that right vs. left is decisive here, unless the left-wing parties are willing to repudiate the actions and policies of the current government there's no reason to trust them anymore than the ones currently in power. Left vs. right doesn't mean anything when they're in consensus on an issue.

Until Israel elects a government that demonstrates a consistent effort to engage with the Palestinians in good faith Israel should be sanctioned, not subsidized.

Okay, so because Netanyahu was "responsible" for Hamas being in power, its therefore fine that Hamas remains in power and repeats the same kind of atrocities as it did on 7 October over and over again in the future? As far as I'm concerned, Netanyahu's policies propping up Hamas and Israel's past policies toward it is irrelevant in this context.

The definition of genocide requires the planned destruction of a people group. If Israel really wanted to commit genocide, they could have decided not to ask people to evacuate and simply carpet bombed entire Gaza strip with 100 times more civilian casualties that what there is, and done it much faster. Israel may be guilty of other war crimes, such as disproportionate bombing and collective punishment but it may not necessarily be genocide. There has been a UN resolution passed on Friday that does call for more delivery of aid into Gaza and I hope it's implementation does help in avoiding a crisis, including a possible famine. I don't want to see more Gazan's die and suffer any more than you do, actually.

As for rhetoric of some individuals in the Israeli government, obviously it doesn't help much. As an atheist, I have personally criticised that particular story of the Amalek and King Saul in the Bible myself as possibly justifying genocide. However, the recitation of that particular Bible verse "remember The Amalek and what they did to you" has itself not historically been interpreted as a call to genocide. Jewish people have often used Amalek to refer to enemies of the Jews, for example, they also called nazis Amalek at one point. But if you want to talk about scriptural verses, there's actually an Islamic Hadith verse referenced in Hamas' original charter that calls for the genocide of all Jews:



https://sunnah.com/muslim:2922

Oh, and by the way, Hamas actually does appear to have genocidal intent, even if they aren't able to carry it out. They've called for the killing of all Jews, not just Israelis or "zionists" on multiple occasions.

No, but surely the IDF will be much better prepared next time Hamas tries to do anything remotely like it? The October 7 attack could have been largely prevented, or at least contained a lot sooner, had various intelligence reports been taken more seriously.

Of course I wouldn't expect them to "do nothing." But the IDF likes to claim that it is "the most moral army in the world." If it is going to make such a claim, it should at least avoid committing what are internationally recognized as war crimes.

Palestinian women and girls were also subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment by the IDF, such as they were denied menstruation pads, food and medicine, and were severely beaten, raped, assaulted, threatened with rape and sexual violence, and subjected to multiple forms of other sexual assaults.[22][23] Palestinian women and girls were also stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers.[24][25][26] OHCHR stated that Israeli troops had photographed female detainees in “degrading circumstances” and that the photos had been uploaded online.

Israel's extreme logistical advantages over Gaza are the most likely reason why Israel underestimated Hamas's capabilities in the first place. Israel's previous overconfidence doesn't negate those advantages, however.

Just how does denying them menstruation pads compare to rape and murder?

So it is all Israel's fault before they didn't have 100% intelligence about the terrorist plans and act to prevent them?

Suppose that Israel did have such intelligence about Hamas and did act to stop the terrorists. What should they have done? Lock them up and make themselves appear to be the aggressors?

Re-read the Wikipedia excerpt you quoted. It's not a very-well-organized paragraph, but it does specifically mention that Palestinian women and girls were "severely beaten" and "raped" (by Israeli soldiers). "Denying them menstruation pads" was just one of the many kinds of degrading treatment they were also subjected to.

What is your point here? Trying to deny or minimize the mistreatment of Palestinians?

And, while the Hamas killing of Israeli civilians should certainly be condemned, the number of civilians killed by Hamas was teeny tiny compared to the number of Gazan Palestinian civilians subsequently killed by the IDF.

At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped

100% intelligence was not necessary. Had the Israeli government just taken more seriously the reports they were already getting from their own lookouts for nearly a year, they could have been better prepared, e.g. by stationing more troops near the Gaza border.

Had they done this, they could have defended against the attack much more quickly, preventing many Israelis from getting killed, raped, or kidnapped. Had they done this, the IDF could easily have killed or captured most if not all of the attackers.


Just be better prepared and respond more quickly whenever an attack began.

From the article:

In other words Hamas is blame free -- it is all the fault of those despicable Israelis.

Right?

No, I wouldn't say that Hamas is "blame free." But Israel is not "blame free" either, and had alternatives to responding in the way that it did. Furthermore, Israel is by far the more powerful of the two entities and thus had more options.

Ask yourself this. If Hamas did not commit their violent, terrorist attack on the music festival, would Israel have been compelled to do what you blame them for?