24A026 The G-Word by Jim Davies, 7/9/2024

I refer to Genocide. It's the mot du jour, highly fashionable when someone wishes to do what has been frowned upon (and in some countries, outright forbidden) for 80 years: to speak ill of Jews.

The Jewish State responded to the 10/7/23 attacks with an onslaught on Gaza, with the aim of killing or capturing the Hamas militants who carried out that undeclared act of war. According to Hamas, so far about 38,000 Gazans have been killed, which is 1.7% of its population, in a crowded urban area. Some care has been taken to attack only Hamas militants - the degree of care is disputed - but it seems likely that well over half that total were targeted Hamas people with the rest (perhaps 16,000) collateral civilians. 16K is 0.7% of the population.

As urban warfare goes, 0.7% is a most unusually low percentage. The Soviet assault on Berlin in 1945, for example, left about 10% of residents dead; 14 times greater. The Anglo-American raid on Dresden in 1945 probably killed 50%, or a rate more than 70 times greater.

Now, words have meanings, and if truth is to be communicated honestly they have to be used as correctly as possible. "Genocide" is nothing resembling what is going on in Gaza. Nothing. Genocide means, to try to kill everyone in a defined group, just because they belong to that group. Etymonline explains that it comes from the Greek "Genos," meaning race or kind, and "-cide" or killing; as in homicide, suicide, etc.

Thus, during WW1 Ottoman Turks systematically murdered about one million Armenians of the Christian religion, because they professed that religion. That was genocide.

During WW2 the German government murdered about six million Jews, because they belonged to that race and/or religion. That was genocide.

In Cambodia in the 1960s, Pol Pot's government murdered about a third of the population, because it declined to endorse his Communist program. That might also be called a genocide.

In Rwanda in 1994 with government prompting, members of the Hutu tribe slaughtered as many as a million of their Tutsi neighbors; just because they were Tutsi. That was genocide.

Gazan residents are nearly all Muslim, and have all nurtured a profound hatred of Jews, just like the German Nazis did; so it would be appropriate to call them all Nazis. Not all 2.3 million did any killing on 10/7, but they did all endorse Hamas' murders. If in retaliation the Jewish State had decided to kill them all, that too would have been a genocide, despite the culpability involved. It could have used a nuclear bomb or three on October 8th, and vaporized the lot of them. But it did no such thing; it declared war on only the prime culprits, and took reasonable care as above to avoid killing others. Accordingly, this is war, but not genocide. The G-word is being flagrantly mis-used.

The origin of the conflict was discussed in the ZGBlog Gaza, et cetera in January, but the point being made here is that the G-word doesn't apply. Such mis-use is nothing new for the fanatical Left, or for the college students nationwide who ought to know a great deal better but who follow its lead and cause mayhem, but it is new for Libertarians; yet some of them are using it in this context.

I'm aware of two. One is Chase Oliver, the Party's choice to run for President. He openly supports what he calls "Palestinians", meaning Gazans, and waves their flag; and he calls the war a genocide. He is highly culpable for doing so. He ought also (and incidentally) to know very well that before the State of Israel was founded, the term "Palestinian" applied to Jewish residents as well as Arabs; in fact the Jewish journal "Jerusalem Post" was then called "Palestine Post."

The other is Wes Bertrand, author of Complete Liberty and a former friend. I've told him we will communicate again on this subject only after he stops applying the G-word to the Gaza situation. As an author he should know better than most the correct meaning of the term, and the importance of using it to say only what it means.

It's entirely reasonable to oppose what the Israeli State is doing, if that is one's opinion. War is always a terrible thing. Bibi Netanyahu might be criticized for using too much force - but not for committing genocide, because he isn't. However, any who do so oblige themselves to suggest what he should have done instead, given the background.

That background is that for the past 80 years, these hate-filled Arabs have brought mayhem to the developing Jewish society by killing its members and any who support them, while many other fellow-Arab Muslims have reached accommodation with the newcomers. Except for Iran, all neighboring States have accepted that Israel is there to stay and are normalizing relations. Coralled in 2005 into the Gaza Strip, these unrepentant bigots elected Hamas to run the community, and ever since the latter has dispatched rockets at random towards Jewish homes and raised all children to hate everything Jewish. Then on 10/7, they got over the wall and murdered over 1,2oo at random in savage and cruel ways - men, women and even children. So what is Bibi supposed to do?

Again: if his war on Hamas is wrong, let his critics suggest an alternative.

I have one, of course: it is to dissolve the Israeli State because it should never have been set up; after making sure that all residents are free to equip their households with defensive weapons in case needed. Unfortunately, the chances of that taking place are slim, without at least a few years for all those residents to learn that if you want a State, you'll eventually get war.

In last week's ZGBlog I defined "fascism" as being equivalent to "government," and with 2,000 years of precedent that's correct. However a reader noted that Mussolini, who proudly led a Fascist Party with a capital "F", defined it as being an active partnership between state and business - the former being senior.

There's no conflict. In Musso's version, government was setting the rules for big business but not actually taking ownership title as Communists do. It was in control, wielding its punishment fasces.