Talk:Gaza genocide/Archive 4

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Potential RfC on move to Gaza war crimes

Is it worth having an RfC on a move to Gaza war crimes?

[1] is akin to a summary of reliable sources, and is therefore used several times, including in the lead. It says 64% of scholars don't think a genocide is happening, but 91% think major war crimes are happening, including 41% that think they are akin to genocide. It can't be a coincidence articles such as Israeli war crimes, War crimes in the Israel–Hamas war, War crimes in the 2006 Lebanon War exist. COMMONNAME is the main criteria at title policy, there is also PRECISION and consistency.

In the presence of several commonnames, war crimes is more precise and consistent. Would it improve, worsen on simply change scope? Is it worth having an RfC? Tom B (talk) 20:05, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

The topic is "genocide" not "war crimes". Given that Israeli war crimes in the Israel–Hamas war already exists, your suggestion would largely make this topic redundant and completely change the scope of the article. CNC (talk) 20:14, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

thanks would it make sense to merge them? Tom B (talk) 20:26, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Based on a combined article size of 24,000 words, absolutely not. CNC (talk) 20:30, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

But it could be trimmed to 15,000 by using summary style? Tom B (talk) 20:36, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Genocide, along with war crimes and the crime of aggression, are a crime against humanity, the aggression article is currently missing but following the recent ICJ ruling, I expect it will appear in due course, for the hat trick. Selfstudier (talk) 20:40, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Gaza and Hamas aren't the same thing? Tom B (talk) 20:37, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, what? Selfstudier (talk) 20:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm not going to bother arguing here as to me it seems a waste of time. There is no need for an RfC on this, there was recently a requested move to the current title, and there is currently a move review. Of course Gaza and Hamas aren't the same thing, but the scope of content regarding war crimes in Gaza and the broader war would quite obviously overlap enormously. CNC (talk) 20:43, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

This would completely change the scope of the article. This article focuses on the accusation of genocide, so the title should reflect the focus on genocide in some manner. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 20:45, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Relevancy of Walberg's comments

This concerns the comments from U.S. politician Walberg in Gaza genocide § Rhetoric from U.S. politicians. Why are those included in this article? According to the text at the top of the article, This article is about genocide accusations against Israel. The comments don't mention Israel at all. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:21, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

GOP Rep. Tim Walberg suggests Gaza should be handled 'like Nagasaki and Hiroshima'

"In a statement, Walberg said he "used a metaphor to convey the need for both Israel and Ukraine to win their wars as swiftly as possible, without putting American troops in harm's way." Isn't genocidal incitement from representatives of Israel's principal ally relevant? Selfstudier (talk) 17:32, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

First of all, that context is absent from the article. Second, I think the question stands: is this article about U.S. politicians, or is it about genocide accusations against Israel? ☆ Bri (talk) 17:39, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

If a high-ranking politician within the country that continuously enables all of the atrocities performed by the Israeli government actively and enthusiastically encourages the use of nuclear weapons against civilian Palestinians, that certainly seems relevant in an article about an ongoing genocide, yes. David A (talk) 17:46, 2 August 2024 (UTC)

Strong agree. Dhantegge (talk) 06:36, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

What's up with the title?

If this article concerns a genocide allegation or accusation (which it explicitly does), wouldn't the correct title be "Gaza genocide allegation" or "Gaza genocide accusation"? The current title is misleading, it doesn't accurately represent the actual content of the article. Zohariko1234 (talk) 06:16, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Decided in an RM, see archive. Selfstudier (talk) 09:05, 4 August 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 August 2024

“On 7 October 2023, Hamas led an attack into Israel from Gaza,[46][47][48] resulting in at least 1,139[49][50][c] deaths, most of whom were civilians.[55]”

Should be changed to the below based on the same citation the original author/exitor used [55]

“On 7 October 2023, Hamas led an attack into Israel from Gaza,[46][47][48] The final death toll from the attack is now thought to be 695 Israeli civilians, including 36 children, as well as 373 security forces and 71 foreigners, giving a total of 1,139. [49][50][c] deaths,.[55] “ Acura12345 (talk) 18:39, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Due to lack of other qualified contributors' input, it's fair to say that this request is pretty much  Denied. This is not an article about the 10/7 attack, so we don't need to dive into the fine details. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 10:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Complicity: inconsistent formatting?

In the infobox, the title Complicity is centered and has a colon, where the other titles do not. Change to match the rest of the infobox?

Also, American/British/German/Romanian complicity all have sections under International complicity, but Australia does not. I think the paragraph titled Australian legal proceedings should go under International complicity and be called Australian complicity (in the same order that it appears in the infobox).

Also, I think it could be a good idea to have the country links in the Complicity section in the infobox link to the respective section under International complicity in the article.

Bitspectator (talk) 20:00, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

I partially completed this edit request except for moving the "Australian legal proceedings" section under the "International complicity" section because I am not sure if it would be better to write a new subsection for Australian complicity. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 03:46, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Edit request

Moved from WP:RFED Left guide (talk) 07:14, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Remove "the Israeli government has historically interpreted any criticism of its actions as antisemitism" from the last sentence of the last paragraph of the opening section.

This specific text should be removed, as it makes a poorly founded and sweeping statement via the wording of "any criticism", hence hurting the neutrality and quality of the page. None of the cited sources prove that the Israeli government claims "any criticism" of Israel is antisemitism.

Aside from the problematic wording of "any criticism", the text also links to another article on "Weaponization of antisemitism", which itself is a deeply contested and controversial discussion. The IHRA working definition of antisemitism has been widely adopted by numerous governments, academic institutions and NGOs and specifies instances where unfair criticisms of Israel, under certain circumstances, may be considered as antisemitic. The text in the article serves to directly dispute/discredit the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, which is inappropriate and biased for a Wikipedia article, particularly on such a contentious topic.

The text should instead mention the Israeli government's claims of antisemitism, while not claiming that it labels all criticisms as such. It is in fact incorrect to claim so, as numerous figures within the Israeli government itself, as well as prominent figures from Israeli society, are openly critical of Israel's current policies. Neutral Editor 645 (talk) 20:17, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

 Done: the reason is simply that both cited sources from the NBC News and the Guardian do not mention anything close to the history of Israel's weaponization of antisemitism. I am open to other editors to revert my removal as long as they can get another qualified source to back the claim. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 07:29, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Move review

Since the actual discussion is archived, watchers of this page might have missed the notice, but: Talk:Gaza genocide/Archive 2#Requested move 3 May 2024 was listed at Wikipedia:Move review on 22 July 2024. – Joe (talk) 12:14, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

This is still ongoing in case anyone is interested in participating. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:26, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

As in going nowhere? Selfstudier (talk) 17:28, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I mean, I would consider "no consensus" to be somewhere. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:30, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Jihad and Allahu Akbar

Rosenberg in The Atlantic compares the verses on Amalek with Allahu Akbar. But "Allahu Akbar" simply means "God is Great" - there is nothing violent in its meaning. I'm all in favor of comparative religion, but there is no comparison here at all.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 18:40, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

"Allahu Akbar" did not mean "God is Great" . It means "God is greatest." BlackOrchidd (talk) 12:04, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

It’s not our place to decide that. From what I’ve read, Amalek is often invoked in Jewish culture in the much the same way Allahu Akbar is in Islamic culture. BilledMammal (talk) 12:11, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

You would need to provide some pretty strong sources to make such an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim. I highly doubt Jews say the name of Amalek before every action they do. I highly doubt synangoues broadcast the name of Amalek >100 times a day, the way mosques broadcast Allahu Akbar.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 20:18, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Flagrant NPOV violation

It’s shocking to me that this move (which I did not even realise had been proposed) was approved. Wikipedia is seriously risking its credibility here. We as a community should not take a side either way and calling the article “Gaza genocide” is very clearly taking a side when that accusation is obviously disputed. Neither my personal opinion nor that of any editor should matter here—we need to find a neutral middle ground and this is not it. —mountainhead / ? 20:52, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Only about 40% of people voted for it, see [[2]], but the move was endorsed at move review as being at the closers's discretion. Hemiauchenia (talk) 01:35, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:Wikipedia is not a democracy. Whether the move is approved or not is based on valid arguments instead of number of votes on either side. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 02:06, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

My point is that if you had asked a dozen different admins to give their close of the discussion, I reckon a considerable number would have given a very different result from the current close. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:49, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

An admin can overturn a consensus if they see the previous conclusion is severely flawed. Unless you can give a sound argument to support overturning the previous consensus, admin shopping is much discouraged. -- Sameboat - 同舟 (talk · contri.) 03:23, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

It's highly unlikely you'll find another admin to overturn this[3]. If you think all these scholars are biased that very well may be so, but you have to bring something more to the table than a hunch. Jonathan f1 (talk) 22:37, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not asking for it to be overturned. My point is that the discussion could have reasonably been closed multiple ways. Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:22, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure why anyone would be shocked by anything, but if there is something to be shocked about, I think it is better to be shocked by "I did not even realise had been proposed". Increasing engagement in RFCs, RMs etc. about contentious issues should be solvable problem. Sean.hoyland (talk) 03:29, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Every genocide in history has been disputed. — Red XIV ^(talk) 16:02, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Haaretz propaganda

The following discussion 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.

---

Just fyi that Haaretz just dropped some propaganda about this article claiming that since its name change it "was regularly getting 55,000 views per day," which is a demonstrably false claim. Makeandtoss (talk) 14:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that is strange, I'm not sure where they could have deduced that number from. The rest of the article is the even handed reporting one would expect from Haaretz, so it's just a weird aberration in an otherwise good article. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 15:22, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm guessing they misread 55k in the past 30 days (which is what the system would have reported a couple of days ago) to mean 55k per day in the past 30 days, as opposed to 55k total. Seems like a pretty innocent error; I think calling it "propaganda" is a stretch. Levivich (talk) 16:13, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Apart from dropping a couple of gratuitous "Hamas-run"s in there. And misreporting that WP editors decided genocide was a fact. But OK, journalists. Selfstudier (talk) 17:30, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Half of MSM throws "Hamas-run"s in; a greater portion misreports what happens on WP. Journalism about any subject is mostly wrong. It's not propaganda, it's the Gell-Mann amnesia effect [4]. (And it's why I think it's so important to source articles to scholarship instead of journalism whenever possible.) Levivich (talk) 19:51, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

The article contains a graph attributed to "analyst Gil Feldman". A blue line, tagged "Gaza_genocide", rises up to 55,000. None of the legends says what timescale the figures represent. As you suggested, it's probably showing monthly page views. Misha Wolf (talk) 18:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

It looks to be the wmcloud tool for page views, and the x axis indicates what Levivich postulated, that in the previous month there were ~55k views for the article in total, and this was misread by the author of the article as meaning 55k per day. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 21:52, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Far-fetched to correctly read the view statistics of the former name and misread it for the new name; which is the central claim in that article that the name change amassed multitudes more page views; incompetent journalism at best, propagandistic one at worse. Either way, WP:NOTAFORUM, I only cited this here to bring attention to it. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:30, 9 August 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.

CITEREF error for "Jamshili2024"

Please provide a source for this shortened footnote in the "Works Cited" section of the article. The sfn template may get removed due to failure for verifiability of the source. Thank you, Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 05:34, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Typo for Jamshidi (t · c) buidhe 06:10, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

 Thank you very much! Cowboygilbert - (talk) ♥ 06:12, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Article bloating

We should not try to quote every single op-ed from someone with an academic position who expresses an opinion on this question. For example, Eva Illouz' work seems to have nothing to do with Israel, Palestine, or genocide. An entire paragraph with her incorrect assumptions about a subject she evidently does not know so much about is manifestly WP:UNDUE. (The Genocide Convention does not contain any exception, excuse, or mitigating circumstance so it is irrelevant who is at fault for the war). We should also be giving less weight to stuff published several months ago while the situation on the ground and legal developments continue to change. (t · c) buidhe 22:18, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

• Cdjp1 I'm referring to this edit. (t · c) buidhe 22:19, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

  Removed. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 11:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

Death toll

The sources used for the death toll in the article aren't all specifically about the Gaza genocide; some are about the war and don't even contain the word "genocide." I think we should base casualty counts on sources that are about the Gaza genocide specifically. Or in other words: in the WP:RSes that say it's a genocide, what do they say is the death toll of the genocide? Here are some sources in the article, mostly from JGR, and what they say about it (bold added):

Sources/quotes

Elyse Semerdjian [5] (17 Jul 2024) [6] in Journal of Genocide Research (JGR): Israel’s offensive in Gaza has claimed at least 37,000 lives; many thousands still lie uncounted under the rubble. In the aftermath of the 7 October attack, the complete blockade of Gaza sent the territory into a state of war-induced famine at unprecedented speed. The UN estimates that one million Palestinians are expected to face catastrophic famine by mid-July. The blockade, coupled with the destruction of 70 per cent of Gaza’s housing stock, all its universities, and most of its hospitals, markets, and schools, removed life-sustaining infrastructure from the strip. After bombing its schools and hospitals, and killing more UN personnel than in any other conflict since its creation, a pending Israeli bill has declared UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) – the primary agency supporting Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank –a terrorist organization. This disastrous legislation, if passed, will criminalize the most effective aid distributor in the Occupied Territories, removing a Palestinian lifeline. Gazification set the stage for genocide by attrition by mobilizing checkpoints, surveillance, and security to limit the physical mobility of Palestinians, denying access to land and resources that make life livable. Amos Goldberg (11 Jul 2024) [7] in Jacobin: As a historian, if you look at the overall picture, you have all the elements of genocide. There is clear intent: the president, the prime minister, the minister of defense, and many high-ranking military officers have expressed that very openly. We have seen countless incitements to turn Gaza into rubble, claims that there are no innocent people there, etc. Popular calls for the destruction of Gaza are heard from all quarters of society and the political leadership. A radical atmosphere of dehumanization of the Palestinians prevails in Israeli society to an extent that I can’t remember in my fifty-eight years of living here. The outcome is as would be expected: tens of thousands of innocent children, women, and men killed or injured, the almost-total destruction of infrastructure, intentional starvation and the blocking of humanitarian aid, mass graves of which we still don’t know the full extent, mass displacement, etc. There is also reliable testimony of summary executions, not to mention the numerous bombings of civilians in so-called “safe zones.” Gaza as we knew it does not exist anymore. Thus, the outcome fits perfectly with the intentions. To understand the full scale of this destruction and cruelty, I recommend reading Dr Lee Mordechai’s report, which is the most comprehensive and updated record of what has been happening in Gaza since October 7. For mass killings to be considered genocide it does not have to be a total annihilation ... Nimer Sultany (9 May 2024) [8] in JGR: When these considerations are applied to the case of Israel’s actions in Gaza, it is difficult to see how any of these six western states can deny the existence of a genocide given Israel’s pattern of conduct. On 13 October 2023, the World Health Organization urged Israel to rescind its mass evacuation orders and warned ... Despite these warnings, as of 22 April 2024, Israel killed 34,151 Palestinians in Gaza, including 14,685 children. With thousands more estimated to be buried under the rubble, these numbers are expected to be even more horrific when final numbers become available. Crucially, the deliberate nature of the targeting is clear in that, by 22 January, forty two per cent of the victims in Gaza were killed in Southern areas that Israel had declared as “safe.” Already on 29 October 2023 Save the Children declared that the “number of children reported killed in just three weeks in Gaza is more than the number killed in armed conflict globally – across more than 20 countries – over the course of a whole year, for the last three years.” On 10 November, the World Health Organization stated that a “child is killed on average every 10 min in the Gaza Strip.” Witnesses and doctors revealed that Israeli snipers and quadcopter drones targeted Palestinian children, with gunshots in the head. In addition to direct killing, the “serious bodily harm” that Israel inflicted on Gaza’s children is evident in the unprecedented numbers of amputations. The “serious mental harm” that Israel inflicted on Palestinian children was evident already in October 2023, and became even more evident in April 2024. In February 2024 UNICEF estimated that at least 17,000 children were left orphaned or separated from their parents. Finally, the destructive conditions that Israel inflicted are clear in the effect of starvation on children. This is illustrated not only in the 27 children who died by mid-April 2024, but also in the fact that “for many more, it may be too late to reverse the excruciating toll that starvation takes on small, growing bodies.” In light of these facts, it is unsurprising that UN officials have repeated for months that this is a “war on children” and on childhood, and that Gaza has become a “graveyard for children.” It follows that if these six western states were to deny that Israel has committed a genocide, they would exhibit double standards ... Maryam Jamshidi [9] (6 May 2024) [10] in JGR: The horror taking place in the Gaza Strip – which experienced aid officials have described as unlike anything they have ever witnessed – is unprecedented in the contemporary era. In a little over six months, Israel has killed well over 34,000 Palestinians based on conservative estimates, with thousands more under the rubble and unaccounted for. The daily death toll in Gaza is so high that Oxfam has described it as surpassing that of any major conflict in the twenty-first century. Gaza’s child population has been particularly impacted by Israel’s violence, with Save the Children reporting that children in Gaza have been killed and maimed at an “unprecedented” rate. Thanks to Israel’s total siege of the territory, mass starvation has already arrived and led to more death. Indeed, in its 28 March provisional measures order, the Court noted that “‘Palestinians in Gaza are enduring horrifying levels of hunger and suffering’” and that “[t]his is the highest number of people facing catastrophic hunger ever recorded by the Integrated Food Security Classification system – anywhere, any time.”} Taken together, these facts may be decisive in persuading the Court to do what it largely failed to do in the Bosnia and Croatia cases – conclude that widespread acts of genocide have occurred. Raz Segal and Luigi Daniele (5 Mar 2024) [11] in JGR: This marginalization and disavowal of Israeli mass violence against Palestinian civilians by Holocaust scholars before 7 October morphed thereafter in some cases into outright justification, even as Israel’s attack on Gaza killed Palestinians at an average rate that exceeds, according to Oxfam, the daily death toll of any other case of mass violence in the twenty-first century. Palestinian causalities so far include almost 28,000 fatalities – more than 12,500 children and youth among them – over 67,500 injured, and around 7,000 missing under the rubble and presumed dead. Scholars working, more broadly, in Holocaust and Genocide Studies took a different stance after 7 October, focusing on Israel’s extremely violent attack on Gaza, including the possibility of genocide.

Some are kind of outdated now, I'm not sure how recent they should be. Anyone else have any sources that should be added to this list, or think any of these should not be used a sources? Levivich (talk) 22:10, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Unless I’m missing some context, all of those are saying that this many people have died in the war - not that all are victims of genocide.

As sources need to directly support the claim made these sources are insufficient to support the claim currently in the article, that all casualties are victims of genocide.

As a general note, this means we are saying that indisputably legitimate military targets like Dief, a militant leader who planned the massacres on October 7, are victims of genocide. This is an WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim, and needs considerable evidence to support it - and such evidence appears to be unavailable. BilledMammal (talk) 22:27, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

"Genocide" is a legal term that has been increasingly used to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza as it kills more people, a figure nearing 40,000 and so on.

I think that's straightforward to do, it's not even necessary to specify a figure, all we need is the sources that say that what Israel is doing is a genocide (or genocidal) and there is a surfeit of those, that's why the title was changed. In fact every time Israel kills some more innocents (like today and every other day), that's just adding to it, the number doesn't matter, in fact I don't even care about the number, just the facts of what is being done will do perfectly well, and 10,000 will do as well as 40,000, the figure only needs to be "substantial". As for which ones of whatever number were legitimate targets, the court will have to figure that out at the end and I suspect it will actually make no difference in the final analysis.

As for the Deif distraction, it's not an extraordinary claim that 90 people were killed in the attempt. That seems indiscriminate to me. But I don't think Deif has anything to do with this. Selfstudier (talk) 22:46, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

That source also doesn’t say that they were all victims of genocide.

We need sources that directly support this claim - that say all casualties were victims - and these sources don’t appear to exist. BilledMammal (talk) 22:48, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Hey, I'm agreeing with you, the reality is much worse than 40,000 (or the figure yesterday or the figure tomorrow, it's the actions that are genocidal, the death toll is already genocidal). Experts were saying it was a genocide when the death toll was much less. Selfstudier (talk) 22:50, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, I misunderstood.

In that case, can we remove the death toll, and instead say that more than 40,000 have died in the war? BilledMammal (talk) 22:59, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Sure, what I'm saying is there needs to be less focus on a moving casualty figure and more on the actual facts supporting a genocide (the numbers already do). Selfstudier (talk) 23:03, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree - the exact number of victims isn’t overly relevant to whether it is a genocide. BilledMammal (talk) 00:45, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

This doesn't work this way. Genocide means destruction of a race or ethnic group (genus) – it does not mean the killing of defenceless people only. Yes, fighters and military people can also be victims of genocide. — kashmīrī ^TALK 23:49, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

Historically, it depends on the circumstances. The resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising were victims of genocide, the Soviet soldiers at the Battle of the Seelow Heights were not, despite the genocide of millions of Slavs under Generalplan Ost. The difference is in why they were targeted; in the uprising they were targeted because they were Jews, at Seelow Heights they were targeted because they were soldiers.

This isn’t something we as editors can work out, so we need to defer to reliable sources - and reliable sources don’t appear to say that all casualties in Gaza are victims of genocide. BilledMammal (talk) 00:29, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

In my view, it would never be the job of editors to decide which deaths were or weren't part of a genocide - this responsibility always falls to ereliable sources. Newimpartial (talk) 23:15, 5 August 2024 (UTC)

• Another source[12] (full text): "Specifically, Israel has committed genocidal acts of killing, causing serious harm to, and inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza, a protected group that forms a substantial part of the Palestinian people. Between October 7, 2023, and May 1, 2024, Israel has killed at least 34,568 Palestinians and injured 77,765 other Palestinians in Gaza. These figures in total comprise more than 5 percent of Gaza’s population,4 with over 2 percent of Gaza’s children killed or injured..." VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 06:56, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

This is the third time this relevant topic has been brought up, I can only hope user:Levivich won't interrupt it again. I can only repeat my questions and remarks which were ignored and dodged. Bosnian genocide also lists only civilians in the infobox (33,071), and not soldiers who died in battles (for example, Battle of Vozuća or Operation Tiger (1994)). We also don't consider Greek soldiers who died in the Greek invasion of Western Anatolia as part of the Greek genocide. There is a distinction between armed combatants fighting in a battle and unarmed civilians (or captured soldiers "hors de combat") who were targeted by deliberate killings. The most reasonable solution would be to narrow the scope only to civilians killed. When we have one controversial claim and one conservative, we should go with the conservative until reliable sources directly confirm the opposite. I cannot imagine how someone can seriously try to claim that Hamas militants who kidnapped Israeli civilians and kept them as hostages in basements cannot be subject to military engagement or they would be victims of genocide. That is unserious, and tantamount to claiming that Islamic State, Al-Qaeda and Boko Haram are victims of genocide because government military engaged them.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 16:23, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

Is it accurate to say that your proposal is that Wikipedia editors should decide how to count victims of genocide based on a decision procedure that seems reasonable to you? Sean.hoyland (talk) 16:48, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

That’s what we’re currently doing, by deciding that every casualty is a victim. BilledMammal (talk) 03:36, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't know whether that is the case or whether it's based on the law itself not distinguishing between combatants and non-combatants or whether there are source related reasons because I haven't looked in detail. And I'm not planning to look. I'm trying to understand 3E1I5S8B9RF7's argument and why they keep making it when it seems inconsistent with how content decisions should be made. Wikipedia editors obviously can't decide how to count victims of genocide based on local non-policy based rules and that is true regardless of combatant status. It's not really clear to me why there needs to be a number. Surely in terms of victimhood, a number can range from zero (not a genocide) to the total population (everyone is a victim of genocide including the survivors). Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:19, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

The law distinguishes by intent, but it’s not our place to interpret the law.

I think they keep making that argument because the same argument in the opposite direction also keeps being made - I don’t think it’s helpful to focus on just one "side".

Instead, I agree that I don’t think a number is necessary at the current time. BilledMammal (talk) 08:05, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

The total number killed in the war is relevant, regardless of how many of them are "victims of genocide". It is obvious that the casualty count includes some significant number of protected persons within it and that is all that need concern us here. Selfstudier (talk) 08:47, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, I mean a number of victims. The number killed in the war should be mentioned in the article.

With that said, protected persons are not necessarily victims of genocide - or even the victims of a war crime (at least not Israel’s war crime - possibly Hamas, for operating from civilian areas) BilledMammal (talk) 09:12, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

protected persons are not necessarily victims of genocide That will be determined eventually, that is merely an aspect of the South African case (and the ICC cases will further inform the situation). I don't see what Hamas has to do with this, crimes against humanity by another party are not an excuse for their commission. Selfstudier (talk) 09:28, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

@BilledMammal did you see this source that gives the genocide death toll? VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 19:49, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

There are several comical inconsistencies with this whole article and the way some users refuse to answer many questions in this topic which reveal contradictions. Wikipedia decided to call this "Gaza genocide" and it must thus now decide and extrapolate everything that goes along with this baggage. For instance, are Hamas militants a "protected group"? If fallen Hamas militants are included in the total death toll, would this be the first ever case in history where terrorists were victims of a genocide? Were Hamas perpetrators of Re'im music festival massacre that were killed by IDF forces also victims of genocide? And should we now make an article akin to "United States complicity in Gaza genocide" or "Australian complicity in Gaza genocide"? All these are questions that will face Wikipedia users sooner or later.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 17:44, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM (again). Find sources, answer ur own questions, and then comment on the basis of those sources. Selfstudier (talk) 17:52, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

Some experts are arguing that Israel's stated goal to "destroy Hamas includ[ing] both the extermination of its political and administrative leadership and the annihilation of its civilian police force and military wing" is the essential core of the genocide, because "one way to prove this second element of genocidal intent is through evidence that the protected group’s civilian leadership, as well as its military and law enforcement, have been targeted for elimination" (see the linked article for details—noting that the targeting of civilian organizations controlled by Hamas is illegal under international law) (t · c) buidhe 04:49, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

As A. Dirk Moses writes, "This ethnic definition of genocide is compounded by its conceptualization as an irrational hate crime: innocent, blameless victims are attacked for racial rather than political reasons–for who they are, not for what they (or members of their group) have done."[13] But this is a stereotype/popular view that is not reflected in the law—there is no legal requirement that the victims of genocide are "innocent, blameless", or even civilians. (t · c) buidhe 06:02, 9 August 2024 (UTC)

@3E1I5S8B9RF7, I hope buidhe's above reference answers your question "are Hamas militants a "protected group"".VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 11:55, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Hamas is attacked for what they have done on October 7, and thus by buidhe's own definition, they should not be regarded as victims of genocide.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 12:56, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

It's a misconception that genocide must be committed for no reason. National security is the motivating factor (not just an excuse) for most or all genocides, which are committed for an identifiable reason based on real actions of some people in the victim group, although usually exaggerated by the perpetrators. For example, you have written extensively about Stalinist deportations considered genocide by some. These deportations had an obvious instrumental motive of protecting the Soviet borders from further "treason" by people from these ethnic groups. Yet the collaboration of some/many Soviet Germans, Chechens, Meskhetian turks, Crimean tatars etc. is undeniable. Today few people outside from tankies would excuse these crimes on the basis that some of its victims were Nazi collaborators. The fact that Israeli leadership perceives its actions in Gaza to improve security and believes that the "elimination" (not merely defeat) of Hamas is "necessary" has no real bearing on the validity of the genocide charge, or arguably supports it. Especially considering that the entire Palestinian demographics is considered a "demographic threat" by many in Israel. (so were Armenians) (t · c) buidhe 14:17, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

@3E1I5S8B9RF7 most Hamas members didn't have prior knowledge nor partook in October 7. The ones that did were mostly killed on Israeli soil and not counted in GHM casualty lists.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 16:35, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

That’s a bizarre article - it conflates the leadership of Hamas with the Palestinian leadership generally.

However, unless I’ve overlooked something, it isn’t relevant to this discussion, as it doesn’t say that all casualties are victims. If I have missed something can you quote it? BilledMammal (talk) 14:24, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

I don't know how you get that interpretation from the article—it says clearly that the attempted destruction of Hamas' military and civilian organizations is a key part of the genocide. (t · c) buidhe 14:31, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

It says

According to some legal experts, one way to prove this second element of genocidal intent is through evidence that the protected group’s civilian leadership, as well as its military and law enforcement, have been targeted for elimination.

It then says that this means targeting Hamas is evidence of intent. However, this requires conflating Hamas, a non-protected group, with Palestinians, a protected group.

However, this is off topic, unless I did miss something and that article says that all casualties are victims? BilledMammal (talk) 14:38, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

I do not consider that your interpretation is plausible. Hamas is not a protected group, but Hamas members are Palestinians so they are part of a protected group. (t · c) buidhe 15:59, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

@BilledMammal you yourself have conflated Hamas with governance of Gaza and its various ministries, including the Health Ministry. The article says For instance, in a recent court filing, the Israeli government stated that its war goals in Gaza include not just “eradicating” Hamas’s military capacity but also its non-military, civilian institutions, which include the “Ministry of Health, Ministry of Economy, the Ministry of Welfare, the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Agriculture and the Government Information Office”. It likewise connects Israel's destruction of Hamas' police to looting of aid convoys, and thus causing Gaza Strip famine.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 16:40, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

That's right, it is the totality of Israeli acts that will decide the matter in the end and in this respect Israel is not only doing badly but digging a deeper hole daily:

Reflecting on Genocidal Intent in the ICJ Case "The desire to exterminate Hamas—in all its aspects—is part and parcel of Israel’s attempt to eradicate the Palestinian people, both as a factual and legal matter. Indeed, Israeli officials have long viewed the destruction of the Palestinian people’s political and military leadership as key to destroying the Palestinian people as a national group. (Kimmerling 10). Grappling with these realities head on cannot and should not be avoided by those seeking to hold Israel accountable for its genocide in Gaza."

and

We Charge Genocide: Redux "Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands intervened in the Myanmar case before the ICJ to advance a broad definition and lower threshold for determining genocide. They contended that since declarations of intent to commit genocide are rare, the Court should not solely focus on explicit statements or numbers killed, but reasonable inferences drawn from a pattern of conduct and factual evidence. Additionally, they maintained that genocidal actions can also include forced displacement from homes, deprivation of medical services, and the imposition of subsistence diets, if systematic. Yet, thus far, they have not sought to extend this reasoning to apply to Israel’s conduct in Palestine, and to intervene to support South Africa’s case at the ICJ." Selfstudier (talk) 17:01, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

BM, I can see why you want to hat this, but please don't bother, it is directly relevant both to the discussion and the article. Selfstudier (talk) 17:12, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

How is it relevant to the discussion? None of the sources provided discuss the number of victims? BilledMammal (talk) 17:36, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

We are discussing protected groups. The first source addresses that directly and is as well relevant to the article as it is yet another source stipulating that the events in Gaza are a genocide. And the second source says why only killings are not the end of it, which he have already discussed earlier. Selfstudier (talk) 17:45, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

We’re discussing the death toll. How are these sources relevant to determining the number of victims we should say there are? BilledMammal (talk) 17:50, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

Asked and answered. Selfstudier (talk) 17:55, 10 August 2024 (UTC)

The IHL is clear with regards to the status of a protected person: The Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols protect sick, wounded and shipwrecked people not taking part in hostilities, prisoners of war and other detainees, civilians and civilian objects. Armed combatants taking part in hostilities or terrorists cannot be considered protected persons. What user:Levivich and user:Selfstudier are advocating for is intellectual suicide. Just make a thought experiment: imagine if IDF soldiers see a Hamas group keeping 50 Israeli hostages in a storage in Gaza, and said Hamas militants are killing one hostage per minute. According to Levivich's and Selfstudier's logic, the IDF is not allowed to intervene and save the hostages nor harm Hamas militants because they are protected persons.
If Hamas shoots at IDF, the IDF is not allowed to shoot back because that would be "genocide". According to Levivich's and Selfstudier's logic, in the year 2033, Hamas members would be allowed to travel through Europe, have statues and monuments dedicated to fallen heroic Hamas members as victims of genocide in Vienna, Berlin, London, Paris and Rome, hold conferences about their heroic rapists and beheadings, to mark the tenth anniversary of Hamas victims of genocide. Absurd, isn't it? Levivich and Selfstudier exposed their utter bias and inability to remain neutral, objective and rational regarding this issue. Little of what their bias they try to present as neutral makes sense. I highly doubt they should be allowed to make contributions to articles related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Soviet deportations during WWII were brought up, but since the Nazi collaborators fled the area and none of them was left on Crimea or the Caucasus when the Red Army captured the territory, they only deported civilians and communists, and therefore nobody is seriously claiming that Nazi soldiers were included in the potential genocide of Crimean Tatars or Chechens. The analogy is thus unhelpful.--3E1I5S8B9RF7 (talk) 17:17, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

@3E1I5S8B9RF7: You are confusing the Geneva Conventions and the Genocide Convention. Yes, combatants can be subjected to genocide, too – unlike the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention is binding absolutely, making no exceptions as to the victims' profession, participation in hostilities, etc. — kashmīrī ^TALK 18:05, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

The Geneva Conventions, as well as IHL as a whole, are separate from the Genocide Convention. Protected persons under the Geneva Conventions are different to protected persons under the Genocide Convention, this is even detailed in the South Africa v Israel case, where Israel has argued that the correct laws to investigated under are IHL, due to the distinction in such laws between armed and unarmed combatants, and not the Genocide Convention. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 19:46, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

I will add that the "some experts" (one non-notable junior academic) being cited has since had an editor's note appended to their piece, reflecting an understanding that its conclusion is a fringe one that was being marketed too sweepingly in the title.

So we still have no real basis for turning the entire death toll of a war into that of a genocide. Hamas says venomous things about Israelis, is every Israeli soldier they kill the victim of a genocide? PrimaPrime (talk) 19:43, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

Hamas says venomous things about Israelis, is every Israeli soldier they kill the victim of a genocide? - Yes, possibly. Now, to the first part of your comment, which article are you referring to? As none of the ones so far linked in this discussion seem to conform to your description. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 21:36, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

This one.

So sure, I guess we could run with the WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim that practically any war with a sectarian dimension is a genocide at Hamas genocide against Israelis, currently a more balanced article than this one as it gives some weight to critics of the concept. Wikipedia might be worse off for it, to say nothing of the real world, but the important thing is that sectarians will have their moral trump card - until everyone else realizes the word has been devalued. PrimaPrime (talk) 04:56, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

You seem to imply that this article gives no space to counter-claims, which is patently false. The fact more weight is given to the claims, is due to the fact that the sources available for the claims are more comprehensive in their analyses. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 07:28, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Further to the article, we shall skip past the fact that the "editors note" you point to is just saying that the title changed and nothing in the body changed. So, if you do not like that article, I would point to those I have previously pointed to for justification of using the Gaza Health Ministry's victim numbers, and that is the multiple articles in the Journal of Genocide Research, including by leading genocide and holocaust scholars who use the victim numbers from the GHM in their articles while discussing and stating that what is currently occurring in Gaza is a genocide. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:46, 14 August 2024 (UTC)

Out of date women and children death toll.

This article uses out of date numbers of women and children death toll. The article states that “Most of the victims are civilians, including over 25,000 women and children” yet the UNOHCA revised their numbers and cut these estimates in half. Please see this Council on Foreign Relations article detailing the change: https://www.cfr.org/blog/un-halves-its-estimate-women-and-children-killed-gaza#:~:text=On%20May%206%2C%20the%20UN,4%2C959%20women%20and%207%2C797%20children. In short, the official number of women and children killed is much smaller than detailed in this Wikipedia article and this article should be updated to reflect that reality (changes from 25,000 women and children killed to 12,750 women and children killed). Hilbertshotel (talk) 12:24, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Not done. This has been discussed many times already. Selfstudier (talk) 12:31, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

@Hilbertshotel the article does not cite the UNOCHA for the number, but ultimately the Gaza Ministry of Health (GHM). When the UNOCHA adjusted their estimations, they adjusted them to be in line with the GHM due to assessing the GHM's methodology to be more appropriate/accurate. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 13:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I have changed it from a specific number claim to the lower bound percentage as confirmed by a secondary source going through the GHM data. This should be less contentious. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 13:56, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

RfC on page move moratorium

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 consensus against a moratorium on move discussions. C F A 💬 02:12, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

---

Megabytes of text have been written on this Talk in the last 30 days, with 87 distinct editors making a total of 917 edits. Arguments were traded, insults flew. Most of it was a discussion about the page title. I'm glad that Joe Roe has now skilfully closed the heated debate with an excellent summary.

As the new title needs to "settle in", I'd like to propose a temporary moratorium on further rename discussions. Please kindly indicate your preferences from among:

• A-6 – A six-month moratorium on page move requests
• A-12 – A 12-month moratorium on page move requests
• A-24 – A 24-month moratorium on page move requests
• B – No page move moratorium

Thank you. — kashmīrī ^TALK 12:51, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

B Unnecessary. Selfstudier (talk) 13:11, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

A-12: Unlikely that the situation on the ground will warrant a rename anytime sooner, while a moratorium will certainly save everyone's time. — kashmīrī ^TALK 13:22, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

A-24: Given the sheer massive amounts of controversy and conflict that this topic has generated, I do not think that we should revisit it any time soon. David A (talk) 14:43, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

B – WP:NO-PREEMPT. It's best we discuss this only if there are disruptive requests to move the article again. I think it's pretty common to close requests right away if there is no new information that would change the result anyway. FunLater (talk) 15:08, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

B considering that the RfC was relatively close after a very recent RfC with the opposite results, a variety of real-world factors and events could rapidly change in a way that would lead to a justified move. If someone proposes a bad move, we can deal with it through existing policy. Particularly opposed to A-24, as it could theoretically (despite the low risk) interfere with the time frame of ICJ or ICC decisions with significant impact on RS coverage. FortunateSons (talk) 15:21, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

B – I think this is more an argument for involved editors being more thoughtful and moving extensive discussions on topics that are getting away from strict relevance to the question under discussion to a different section of the talk page (or to user talk pages, as the case may be) than for foreclosing on certain types of discussions entirely because they're too "risky". Let's trust editors to be responsible and respond accordingly if they fail to do so, rather than tying their hands. Kinsio (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 19:29, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

B – No reason to treat this differently from any other contentious topic. Vegan416 (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

B. No moratorium is necessary, and I think it is generally a bad idea to push for one when the original move itself was extremely contentious. This is an article covering a situation that is ongoing and potentially still fast-moving, the title should be able to reflect that and we should not seek to tie our own hands. Domeditrix (talk) 14:14, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

A-24 per David A. Snokalok (talk) 16:54, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

B – Since this is still (slowly) occurring, as per the arguments of FunLater and Kinsio. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 20:42, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

B, per some editors above: why should we tie our own hands? We have strong policy that's carried us through the past ~20 years, no reason here to put all that on hold. Move requests can be handled normally. AviationFreak💬 13:44, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

B, extremely unnecessary to put a moratorium on moving a page's article. Auror Andrachome (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 22:30, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

B, I'm not seeing the need for this, honestly. Me Da Wikipedian (talk) 04:21, 6 August 2024 (UTC)

B? WP:NO-PREEMPT as per FunLater seems correct. Bluethricecreamman (talk) 06:35, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

• B, I'm not a fan on moratoriums on discussions. I think they fly in the face of WP:CCC. Most of us can identify when the relitigating of a subject has become disruptive, however naturally occurring discussions should not be limited because of the disruptive behaviour of a few. TarnishedPath^talk 08:33, 11 August 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.

The title

This tittle and some of the page content is more like propaganda. So I hope that this page should be written with no bias. This is a sensitive topic and should maintain accuracy. Thisasia  ^(Talk) 12:48, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion. The talk page is for improving the article, not for opinions. Looking forward to seeing some sources rather than opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 13:26, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

This is not opinion this is fact, I suppose Wikipedia shouldn't be a place for propaganda. This page have indirectly accused many people while fueling and promoting hatred to some certain groups.

This isn't promoting peace but rather sewing Discord and hatred from now on. Neither of this will help our society. Thisasia  ^(Talk) 13:39, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

That's another source free opinion. Selfstudier (talk) 14:01, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I have a question Thisasia. Did something specific, something you read for example, cause you to post this message? This kind of edit is exceptionally unusual for your account so I'm curious what caused it. Sean.hoyland (talk) 14:18, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

@Sean.hoyland Yea i don't usually edit on war topics and this is my first time. I have been paying very close attention to the war in Gaza. I'm not objecting the idea of the page itself, I just realized that some of the page content are fueling hatred full of accusations against some certain groups. Thisasia  ^(Talk) 14:30, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

And again since this is an accusation as per the page contents, i suppose the rightful tittle should be "Gaza Genocide Accusation" Thisasia  ^(Talk) 14:39, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

There is one like that already, the Palestinian genocide accusation. That apart, if you look in the archives, the title of this article was decided by consensus, read through it if you want to see how. Selfstudier (talk) 15:03, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the information provided, later i will request to merge this page with Palestinian genocide accusation Thisasia  ^(Talk) 15:17, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

They are different topics. Per WP:MERGEREASON merging should be avoided if "the topics are discrete subjects warranting their own articles, with each meeting the General Notability Guidelines". This is the case here. The gaza genocide refers to the genocide of the people of Gaza, whereas the Palestinian genocide accusation page is about the 'accusations' of genocide during the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a whole. Policy in this case would clearly disfavor a merge... Chuckstablers (talk) 22:41, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

See this RM where it was decided that gaza genocide was going to be the title. Chuckstablers (talk) 22:58, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

[citation needed] -- Cdjp1 (talk) 17:30, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

@Thisasia, @Guise and @mountainhead's opinions are welcome here, and their posts are exactly what this talk page is for. There is no policy or guideline requiring them to come up with the exact remedy for the problem they note. They're not even required to define the problem according to policy. Common sense is enough. IntrepidContributor (talk) 05:00, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

The current title poses a serious problem. The article clearly states that it is about "genocide accusations against Israel in the Israel-Hamas war". Consequently, calling the article "Gaza genocide" commits an ambiguity, not to say an inconsistency, between the title and the lead section, not complying with WP:PLA. To distinguish this article from the more general article Palestinian genocide accusation, simply choose the more precise title "Genocide accusations against Israel in the Israel-Hamas war". --Guise (talk) 16:21, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

The current title was agreed in May via an RM, It was moved from "Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza" so you would appear to be somewhat out of date with developments here. Selfstudier (talk) 16:26, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree with @Guise that "Genocide accusations against Israel in the Israel-Hamas war" is a clearer and more precise title. It better aligns with the terminology used by leading reliable sources and avoids issues with ambiguity and neutrality. I support this move. UnspokenPassion (talk) 18:02, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

You'd be better off discussing whether there was consensus for the title change. You can find the discussion on this here. -- Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 21:08, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

Citations and Update

We should attempt to add more citations, and update the death toll over time, since the brutal genocide and mass murder of Palestinians has not ended. BangladeshiEditorInSylhet (talk) 06:06, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

I support the adding of any citations, but the section on your user page saying "We can also remove Pro-Zionist statements on Wikipedia, The Pro-Zionist editing lowers the credibility of Wikipedia and makes it less reliable" leads me to seriously question your dedication to the maintaining of a politically neutral, factual encyclopedia. —mountainhead / ? 19:07, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Edit request

Moved from WP:RFED Left guide (talk) 21:39, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

I would like to request that under the ‘Victims’ subheading Mike Spagat is properly introduced with relevant qualifications. His name is brought up in the 3rd paragraph, 3rd sentence beginning with “Spagat analysed…” as a source but he has not been introduced (i am assuming he was introduced in a previous paragraph or sentence that has since been deleted). Chanticlaire701 (talk) 19:11, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

 Done: Done. Reason: Obvious correction per standard styles. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 21:53, 8 August 2024 (UTC)

Gideon Levy's analysis

@Buidhe:

Hello.

Is it really a good idea to remove the following text from this article? It seems to more properly explain the context for immediately preceding statistical opinion poll information in the sense that most Israeli citizens genuinely are not remotely well-informed about the ongoing atrocities performed by their government and military, as otherwise a reader of this article might get the false impression that 94% of Israeli citizens consciously and deliberately support genocide.

https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Gaza_genocide&diff=1241439417&oldid=1241344412

David A (talk) 05:28, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

David A I have my issues with the opinion polls; it doesn't seem like the source connects them to the "Gaza genocide" topic and if included they should probably be in another section. The quote from Levy also doesn't mention genocide so it may be more appropriate to include in another article. I definitely think there is room for a different article about Israeli perceptions of the war/genocide, but per WP:NOR this one needs to be based on sources that are explicitly about genocide. (t · c) buidhe 06:22, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, I think that the opinion polls should definitely be displayed in some prominent Wikipedia page about the Israeli government's war crimes, as they show the Israeli public support for the ongoing military campaign and the deliberate starvation of the Palestinians respectively, but you are much more experienced regarding writing this type of article than I am, if you wish to move the information elsewhere, but again, it seems highly relevant to prominently include somewhere. David A (talk) 07:29, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

I've replaced it with an English-language interview where Levy said much the same thing. Genocide is explicitly referenced. Andreas JN466 07:59, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for helping out. David A (talk) 08:30, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Academic dissent

Question: which, if any, major remaining scholars of genocide are still maintaining a dissenting or hold-out opinion on the genocide? Neier, Bartov, Goldberg and Schabas have now all come to a conclusion of genocide – several after the events of May – so who does that leave as undecided, non-committal or in outright dissent? Again, talking major scholars of genocide here, not the average Joe. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:58, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

This is just a list of prominent (living) scholars in genocide studies who I've come across in reading genocide scholarship more broadly, beyond the 4 you mentioned:

1. Mohamed Adhikari
2. Taner Akçam
3. Paul R. Bartrop
4. Yehuda Bauer
5. Donald Bloxham
6. Michael Berenbaum
7. Israel Charny

# Vahakn Dadrian – dead

1. Adam Jones
2. Steven T. Katz
3. Ben Kiernan
4. Shmuel Lederman
5. Mark Levene
6. A. Dirk Moses
7. Norman Naimark
8. Raz Segal
9. Timothy Snyder
10. David Stannard
11. Samuel Totten
12. Uğur Ümit Üngör
13. Ernesto Verdeja

I will note, for Katz, there's a near 0 chance he will declare this a genocide, as he holds the position that throughout history there has only been one true genocide, the Holocaust. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 18:05, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Strange position, and certainly fringe. Out of curiosity -are you saying that Timothy Snyder disputes the genocide allegation? I am familiar with Snyder from the media (listened to one or two of his lectures), but was not aware he weighed in on this. Jonathan f1 (talk) 19:04, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Their positions are not specified afaics (other than Katz), which was not what Iskandar was asking for. How are we deciding "prominent" anyway? Selfstudier (talk) 19:36, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

That's what I thought. I can't find any significant scholarly pushback against the genocide position. Most searches seem very one-sided. Jonathan f1 (talk) 20:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

As I stated this is simply a list of prominent scholars I have come across, that is, they have written multiple books and papers covering the topic of genocide, and in near all cases across different genocides. Out of the list multiple of them have provided comments/assessments (such as Bauer, Berenbaum, Charny, Jones, Kiernan, Lederman, Levene, Segal, Üngör, Verdeja), mainly calling it a genocide, some claiming it isn't. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 22:10, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

The request was specifically for dissent from what appears to be a consensus (ie that the IDF is either engaged in genocide or war crimes approaching that), not some random list of genocide scholars. Jonathan f1 (talk) 23:33, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

I think Cdjp1 partly answered y’alls question when he commented on Katz. Wafflefrites (talk) 05:17, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Ok, here’s the opinions with this list

1. Mohamed Adhikari – Signed the TWAILR declaration warning of potential genocide
2. Taner Akçam – Signed the TWAILR declaration warning of potential genocide
3. Omer Bartov – Genocide
4. Paul R. Bartrop
5. Yehuda Bauer – Not Genocide
6. Donald Bloxham
7. Michael Berenbaum – Not Genocide
8. Israel Charny – Not Genocide

# Vahakn Dadrian – dead

1. Christian Gerlach
2. Amos Goldberg – Genocide
3. Adam Jones – Genocide
4. Steven T. Katz
5. Ben Kiernan – Not Genocide
6. Shmuel Lederman – "Genocidal violence, not Genocide per se"
7. Mark Levene – Genocide
8. A. Dirk Moses – This is what I could find from Moses on Gaza: "Today, international law on genocide is working as it was designed to: allowing states to ruthlessly exterminate security threats while making it difficult to apply that law."
9. Norman Naimark
10. Aryeh Neier – Genocide
11. Raz Segal – Genocide
12. William Schabas – Genocide
13. Martin Shaw – Genocide
14. Timothy Snyder
15. David Stannard
16. Dan Stone
17. Scott Straus
18. Samuel Totten
19. Uğur Ümit Üngör – Genocide
20. Ernesto Verdeja – "moving toward a genocidal campaign." (from November)

-- Cdjp1 (talk) 17:35, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for putting this list together. If anybody is interested in splitting the list up and running down the missing ones, I'd be happy to chip in. Levivich (talk) 17:03, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Re Samuel Totten, see here Doesn't quite say it outright, pretty sure he's thinking it, tho. Selfstudier (talk) 17:37, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

While we could quote the article, we can't make any assessment for what he's "thinking" behind the article. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 09:30, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Of course, I do notice however that those against tend to say so directly. Selfstudier (talk) 09:39, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

One issue I've had with some experts who have said it is not genocide, is they specify not genocide per the UN convention, which is a different framework to what they normally employ in their work. But that is just the musings of one random editor.

For numbers, as per the list:

• Genocide = 9
• Not Genocide = 4
• Risk of genocide = 3
• Genocidal violence = 1
• Moses and Totten = 2
• No statement = 9

As is repeated across almost every discussion here, things change over time, so in the future I expect we may see comments from some of the others on the list, and we will see more academic work analysing Gaza as a case/potential case of genocide, from all different positions. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 10:56, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

One issue I have with your list is it seems tilted towards historians as opposed to international law experts. Some of them like Bauer and Michael Berenbaum are really only known for studying the Holocaust, so I doubt they can be considered experts on genocide in general. The only expert on international criminal law on your list is Schabas. (t · c) buidhe 14:06, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

As stated, this is a list of genocide scholars, that is those who have regularly published in the field of genocide studies, which stemmed primarily from the discipline of history, so having a over-representation of those who were trained as historians is not surprising. Genocide studies as a field is extremely critical of the legal definition both in it's ability to prosecute the crime of genocide, as well as a tool of analysis for determining cases of genocide. For a wider net of specialists and experts from a variety of fields see: Template:Expert opinions in the Gaza genocide debate -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:30, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Addendum, on Genocide studies as a field is extremely critical of the legal definition, you can see an example in the quote from Moses in the list above. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 14:32, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Dadrian has been dead for several years so he won't be producing any opinion. (t · c) buidhe 05:05, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Oops, Missed that, I'll strike it. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 09:25, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Should we add John Docker and Damien Short? Levivich (talk) 01:25, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Levivich while I do like their work in regards to the genocide, as that is not their primary training or work, I excluded them due to being peripheral contributors. Cdjp1 (talk) 07:54, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

@Cdjp1: I disagree, particularly on Short. He's authored or co-authored a number of books and papersthat have each received hundreds of Google Scholar cites, e.g. "Redefining genocide: Settler colonialism, social death and ecocide" (254 cites). Compare Short's cites with Verdeja, Lederman or Üngör, all of whom are on the list.

John Docker's work isn't as widely-cited as Short's, but still, Docker has publications in the field that are very much on point, e.g. the chapter he co-authored, "Chapter 1: Defining genocide" (93 cites) in Dan Stone's book The Historiography of Genocide (aside from Stone, the other authors of that book are familiar: Moses, Bergen, Jones, Kiernan, Straus, etc.; Docker's in good company there). Other examples: his book The Origins of Violence: History, Religion and Genocide (83 cites); "Genocide: Definitions, Questions, Settler-colonies" (66); "Raphael Lemkin's history of genocide and colonialism" (64); "Nakba memoricide: genocide studies and the Zionist/Israeli genocide of Palestine" (46). Full list here.

I know GScholar cites aren't the end-all and be-all, but it seems based on "how widely cited?" that Short and Docker are no more peripheral than Verdeja, Lederman, or Üngör (and Short in particular seems significantly less peripheral than the other four). Levivich (talk) 16:22, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Add him to the list. I was just providing my reasoning, which as I mentioned right near the beginning is based from what I've read within Genocide Studies, so hadn't checked things like the relative stats on GS, or similar databases. -- Cdjp1 (talk) 17:16, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

+Christian Gerlach, Dan Stone, and Scott Straus. (I assume we're not including the Holocaust specialists like Engel and Hayes?) Levivich (talk) 04:14, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Lead sentence

I have improved the lead sentence with the page title. "The first sentence should introduce the topic, and tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where. It should be in plain English. ... the page title should be the subject of the first sentence.." The previous version did not introduce or summarize the topic and was confusing to readers. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 19:17, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I reverted it. First, if you're going to change it to say in Wikivoice that Israel is engaged in an extermination campaign, you obviously need to get consensus on the talk page first before making such a significant change. Secondly, if you're going to do that, use an accurate edit summary/talk page post. Levivich (talk) 19:22, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

There is already a consensus that Israeli occupation forces are perpetrating a genocide in Gaza. Only Zionist religious fanatics and ultra-nationalists deny that a genocide is occurring. Over a month ago, the page title was moved from "Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza" to "Gaza genocide" by consensus.

At the wikipedia pages about all other genocides, the first sentence in the lead introduces the page topic.

What you have done here, is a disruptive edit in the lead sentence with a deceptive edit summary. There was no "POV change" as you claimed. Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 20:05, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I don’t really think “extermination campaign” should be used in th sentence because there is something called Extermination (crime). This article is about genocide accusations not extermination. the article title did leave out the accusations part which is causing confusion. At least one scholar who disagreed with the genocide label said it could be Extermination (crime), not the legal definition of genocide. There are also other non legal genocide definitions which makes it even more confusing what the article scope is about. Anyways, extermination and genocide are basically the same thing, except according to law extermination doesn’t require intent. Wafflefrites (talk) 21:02, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

The article scope is not confusing, the title is valid because it is used a lot in sources and then there is the accusation in court, and while it is possible to assess a genocide without a court decision, such a decision has not as yet been made, which does not mean that the article should be titled Gaza genocide (decision pending)). Selfstudier (talk) 09:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

The reason I said it was confusing is because I see other editors posting comments and questions about it in at least three threads:

Again, genocide or accused

What is the Gaza genocide?

Genocide or alleged genocide. It may not be confusing to you, but it does appear to be confusing to readers sometimes. Wafflefrites (talk) 14:37, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Uh huh, except that the confusion seems to be more along the lines of don't like the title, rather than trying to understand the WP:SCOPE. Selfstudier (talk) 15:18, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Your comment on July 4 was

Yea, people are assuming the title = fact, which of course, it doesn't. Selfstudier (talk) 23:35, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Wafflefrites (talk) 15:25, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Yep, about the size of it. Selfstudier (talk) 15:33, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

It seems to be two groups of people based on the comments in the talk page. The first group thinks the article is about allegations/accusations and they are wanting the title to reflect the allegations/accusations portion. The second group are people who do not think it’s accusations/allegations, and they want to change the scope of the article to reflect the current title and define Israel as committing genocide. It seems the second group is more confused or wanting to change the article scope rather than the first group wanting to make the article title more precise to clearly reflect the current scope Wafflefrites (talk) 16:53, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

If that's the case, then they cancel each other out and should just leave it the way it is. Maybe we should put a hidden note in the text explaining title/scope but I would wait for MR to conclude first. Selfstudier (talk) 18:26, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Helpful link to MR. I sense a new move request coming up. IntrepidContributor (talk) 04:51, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Well, there's also a group of editors, me included, who have observed the terms Gaza genocide, Genocide in Gaza, and similar being widely used in multiple reliable sources and who thus believe that the term merits a Wikipedia entry (without prejudice to future legal determination, etc.). — kashmīrī ^TALK 10:18, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

MR has now been concluded and the move endorsed. Selfstudier (talk) 17:00, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

I propose the folllowing statement to be inserted as the lead sentence of the page:

QUOTE

"Gaza genocide refers to the ongoing extermination campaign carried out by the state of Israel against the Palestinian people during its invasion and bombing of the Gaza Strip amid the Gaza War (2023–present)."

END QUOTE Shadowwarrior8 (talk) 21:19, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

And no one here is going to agree. There is no consensus whatsoever for this. --Rockstone^{Send me a message!} 02:30, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Can't state that as a fact and an opinion (or even several of them) would not be due for the lead. Selfstudier (talk) 10:29, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

University Network for Human Rights

According to a https://www.humanrightsnetwork.org/ this is a supervised student training project (which explains the absence of author names). I think this should at least be clarified in the text, and it should be placed in a less prominent position. Frankly, where it stands at the moment, I think it could be deleted without much impact on the flow and logical coherence of the article. --Andreas JN466 09:38, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

That's a part of the discussion at BU RFC above. Why delete it? Selfstudier (talk) 10:35, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

It makes the article assailable. And it doesn't say anything that stronger sources aren't saying as well. Incidentally, the German translation of this article was deleted yesterday, citing "egregious quality problems". (I argued against deletion.) This source didn't come up in that discussion but I recall it was found too weak in a previous discussion in German Wikipedia because of its lack of a named author. There is not much you can say in response to such criticism. Britannica or other scholars wouldn't prominently cite an undergraduate und graduate project, even if it was supervised and a joint project of leading universities. At least we need to identify it as what it was. Andreas JN466 09:39, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

The report itself, discussed by a qualified expert in the BU today, carries the UNHR name as well as the law schools. I find it difficult to imagine that those law schools would have permitted the use of their names, inclusive press releases, without a proper scrutiny of the material, which on the face of it, looks to be professionally prepared. The lack of named authors is because the material has in effect been endorsed by those institutions. OK, I can see why some might disapprove of James Cavallaro but he is an HR expert and they are camped out at Wesleyan, again, I don't think that would be allowed without a proper scrutiny. If their report were saying anything exceptional or out of line with other sourcing, that would be something else but it isn't and it is a convenient summary with many useful references. I don't mind if it is not in the lead but removing it altogether makes no sense at all.

I wouldn't pay too much attention to what German WP is doing either, tbh. The "Staatsräson" thing has the entire country behaving in a peculiar fashion as regards Israel (with the possible exception of the FO). Selfstudier (talk) 11:03, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Agreed on the peculiarity of German discourse. As someone in the Guardian put it the other day, Hannah Arendt wouldn't qualify for the Hannah Arendt Prize in Germany today; she'd be accused of antisemitism. ;)

I am actually considering starting an article on German anti-antisemitism because there has been substantial commentary that it's gone completely off the rails. (The German Wikipedia is not unaffected by this. Just look at the length of the antisemitism section in the German WP biography of de:Achille Mbembe ... bizarre.) As Buidhe once pointed out in a DYK even before the present Gaza war started, right-wing elements of German society have started using antisemitism charges as cover for anti-islamic sentiment, using the fact that the substantial muslim (mainly Turkish) minority in Germany has tended to take a dim view of civilian deaths in Gaza.

Still, all that said, I am wary of having the University Network for Human Rights report do any heavy lifting in this article. I don't see significant citations for this particular report in Google Scholar (the only good one is, as it happens, in another article on German anti-antisemitism, namely "Refusing Epistemic Violence: Guernica-Gaza and the ‘German Context’", Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, Volume 57, Issue 1; this is a Wikipedia Library link). It hasn't attracted press coverage either. (A 2019 University Network for Human Rights report on Yemen at least generated articles in Newsweek and the Washington Post.) Andreas JN466 14:02, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Selfstudier, that rationale does not address any of the many defects in that source. As has been said, why use a non-compliant self published source in a house organ when there are valid sources available on the matter? SPECIFICO talk 22:17, 24 August 2024 (UTC)

Referred to RSN for an opinion https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#https://www.humanrightsnetwork.org/about Selfstudier (talk) 09:12, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

OK, the feedback suggests that altho this source might well be considered reliable in ordinary circumstances, there is a concern that for this particular article, citing UNHR directly might subject the article to external criticism. I think the material directly cited to them should be replaced with other sourcing, if available. That does not mean that references to UNHR by other RS are affected, however. Selfstudier (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

I have removed three direct cites to UNHR. It doesn't affect the article at all and will perhaps put paid to the nonsensical objections in the ongoing RFC about BU, which has nothing directly to do with UNHR, if Susan Akhram wants to mention them, as an expert in her own right, she is entitled to do that. Selfstudier (talk) 16:59, 25 August 2024 (UTC)

Possible position from Denmark

I'm not sure whether this is the right place to place this information, but the table on the article page has a list of countries and their position on what happens in Palestine. Here is information regarding the position of the Danish government. I don't want to edit the article, as this is beyond my qualifications.

• Dagbladet Arbejderen, 2024, by ML, https://arbejderen.dk/indland/regeringen-afviser-borgerforslag-om-at-anerkende-risiko-for-folkedrab-i-gaza/ (in Danish)

First line in the article: The government refuses to comment on whether there is a risk that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

• Proposal by the public that mandates the parliament to initiate a discussion: https://www.borgerforslag.dk/se-og-stoet-forslag/?Id=FT-16712

• Response by the majority of the parliament - rejected the proposal: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20231/beslutningsforslag/b200/index.htm

Kimse84 (talk) 10:57, 24 August 2024 (UTC)