Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions prohibits ethnic cleansing:
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive.
Any coerced transfer of Palestinians to the Sinai or Jordan or wherever would be a prima facie violation of this statute.
I know the response from many would be, "war crimes aren't real," and as much as I disagree with that viewpoint, let's set it aside. The real significance here is that if the United States and Israel openly commit ethnic cleansing, that act would be the official abandonment of the postwar moral consensus that has ruled the institutions of the First World for almost 80 years. The secular religion of the United States defines Hitler as Satan and the Geneva Conventions as its commandments. To flout those commandments would be publicly discarding the standard that makes Hitler into Satan.
Yes, US proxies have violated the Geneva Conventions several times and gotten away with it if they were valuable enough. But the fallout of this decision would be far bigger than that. Popes have gotten away with all kinds of degeneracy and graft behind the scenes, but a Pope has never publicly broken the commandments against adultery or theft and told everyone to just get over it.
The natural response would be, "well if you can get away with it, how come Satan can't?" And the emperor has no clothes.
Israel wants all the land between the Nile and the Euphrates rivers, settling Palestinians in any territory therein will just be setting the stage for further annexation when Mossad-backed insurgents take potshots across the newly drawn borders.
Don’t worry. They’ll bring them all to Western nations.
Not to Europe, they're not.
They want the land because their evil Zionist cult prophecy says it's their God-given right to have it.
And everywhere else.
From the Nile to the Euphrates? Why did they give the Sinai back to Egypt?
I always wondered that myself.
Because they couldn't keep it anyway.
OK, so they want to conquer all the lands between the Nile and the Euphrates, and they couldn't even keep the Sinai (even though they defeated Egypt in every military encounter)?
Sounds like "Russher is losing to Ukraine but it will soon be in Madrid if we don't sink all our wealth in waging war on it."
Its different to attack withdrawing waterless forces with aircraft in the sinai vs hold it with ground troops, especially when Egyptians were about to mount a full counter attack from the west bank of the suez. Israel couldn't project power through the Sinai so better give it up to secure peace on that border.
Can you understand the difference between the two military operations? Attacking versus holding and occupying? Or are you just trolling like usual.
The difference between attack and defense is clear to even someone of my limited abilities. I'm pointing out that Egypt was unable to reconquer the Sinai in 1973. And if you can't even hold the Sinai, and don't want to, the insane claims here about Jewish conspiracies don't make any sense.
So why did Israel give it up? Charity? Lol.
Obviously not. Realpolitik. They wanted peace with Egypt more than the Sinai.
I'm sure the Israeli occupation of Kuwait will start any minute now.
I just wish I didn't have to care about what's happening in the sandbox.
sadly american conservatives are going on 100 years+ of being aspirationally Jewish
It's cute, but the US doesn't care about the Geneva Conventions and never cared about them. There is no 'moral consensus'. There is only empty rhetoric that aims to cover Realpolitik and great power interests.
I do believe no one in the US knows the Geneva Conventions, and that the only commandment of the secular religion of the US is "obey us".
I agree with you that it's a bad idea (and it's not going to happen), but I'm less optimistic than you about great powers ever facing consequences for their actions. Remember when the US blew up European energy infrastructure and faced zero condemnation, let alone real pushback?
The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
The point, which you missed as usual, is that said cover will be completely blown. There won't even be a fig leaf left. You may not think this is a big deal, but it is.
Let me put it this way: everyone in the US knows that Hitler bad. Everyone knows Hitler bad because he did ethnic cleansing. The US might do ethnic cleansing. The US is now like Hitler.
I admire your optimism. They have a whole forest of fig leaves to use. "The Palestinian people have suffered tremendously because the actions of a terrorist few. In order to improve their lives, we will temporarily bring them over to housing constructed with US humanitarian assistance, in order that Gaza might be rebuilt and they might be able to resume their lives in their homeland in peace and prosperity."
Though as I said, it ain't happening.
So did Ataturk. So did their ally Aliyev. So did the post-WW2 governments in Eastern Europe, even before communists took over. Hitler isn't bad because he committed ethnic cleansing, or because he committed genocide, Hitler is bad because they say he's bad. They could equally well say that he's good for being a pioneer in combating climate change. They will simply not say that the US is bad, and that will take care of it. Just like Al Qaeda being bad for being terrorists does not extend to the US being bad for blowing up Nord Stream, or for that matter Al Qeada being bad when they fight US opponents.
Sometimes, this changes multiple times in a decade. Stalin was bad until June 22, 1941, then he was good Uncle Joe, and then he switched back to being bad when the Cold War started. Did Uncle Joe's character change? No. It was in their interests to say that he was bad, good and then bad again... so he was!
By the way, I'm not sure where that aggressive tone is coming from. I don't disagree with you that this is a bad thing, only about your optimism that great powers would face consequences. I have never, ever seen them face consequences for any of their acts, and I don't expect that to start because logic dictates that it should. They are above logic.
OK, if this isn't such a big deal to the international order as you suggest, then there should be a few examples of a First World country getting away with ethnic cleansing, right?
There are of course examples during wars and afterwards, but I'm guessing that you mean under normal circumstances. I submit that they didn't because they do not need to. It is not in their interests (or at least of that of the corrupt elites). And as far as I know, ethnic cleansing is very rare in peacetime anyway, even in non-First World countries.
Most first world countries committed their ethnic cleansings centuries ago. The reason why Europe was such a nice place to live, was because all the war, ethnic cleansings and forced assimilations had made it a mostly homogeneous place.
They can get away with wars of aggression. They can get away with bombing civilians and burning people alive. Why is it so difficult to believe that they could get away with ethnic cleansing?
Just any postwar example. Under any circumstances.
We are talking about the postwar period...
Occasionally your perspective and reasoning is so obtuse that I wonder if you're disingenuous. Same thing with Giz.
In this case my OP is super clear that the issue isn't the actual violation because the conventions have been ignored many times, but then you restated the same point as a rebuttal.
Technically, the Czech Republic was a first-world country, and it did expel its German population in a very brutal fashion that even Churchill criticized. Poles were expelled from the Baltic states and from fake Ukraine. But these are not a great examples because they came right after the war.
I know. If you ethnically cleanse your country so that it's a nice, stable, homogeneous place, then you don't need to do it in the postwar period. That is what I meant.
I did not find your counterargument to be terribly persuasive. You say that this would undermine the 'order' because other countries could point to the US and engage in the same thing. Leaving aside that they do not need the good example of the US to follow - e.g. Azerbaijan is ethnically cleansing and murdering Armenians.... we can look at other cases to see if countries successfully use US behavior to justify their own actions. Can Russia say that they get to blow up European infrastructure because the US does it? No, because Russher bad.
Also, your argument is that "if the most powerful country in the world can do X, then weaker countries can do the same". Weaker countries are already doing X. And it hardly follows from the fact that the most powerful country of the world being able to get away with X that weaker countries could also do that (though they are).
I wish you were right. But I'm afraid that you're not.
Russia justifies its own actions with the failings of the US all the time. Putin referred to the treatment of J6ers and asked how the US has any right to speak about treatment of dissidents. Let me guess, you think this doesn't really matter and Putin is just yapping on TV to pass the time?
Weaker countries are doing more of X in direct proportion to the weakening of the US reputation. Azerbaijan would not have made the same moves in the 90s. The US messing around in Iraq and Afghanistan made it easier for Russia to move into Crimea and Ukraine.
The most important effect of this, though, is on the status of Israel and Jews since both are the direct beneficiaries of the Holocaust-derived postwar morality. You already saw how worldwide trends turned sharply against Israel after Oct 7th. If ethnic cleansing takes place, you are looking at the same movement, except exponentially more powerful.
I bet that has happened in the past, but in a time when people were more willing to install an anti-pope in response.
All I know is, we're gonna be seeing Gazans in train cars, and.. well. That's gonna be media gold for 80-100 years. Prepare for a new genre in every entertainment form.
They'll make Trump the new Hitler whether it ends up better for the Gazans or not. If they stay in Gaza, the Israelis are just gonna start mass killing them again in 5-10 years same way they've been doing it for decades. It is better to move them out, since glassing Israel probably isn't an option.
But man, that is gonna be a torturous legacy. Despite the truth of it (More Arab lives saved than if they stay in Gaza). It's gonna be Trump is Hitler. America is somehow 4th Reich, even though we're doing Israel's bidding, because the left-owned arts, don't care about actual definitions.
And now you know why the system started to back off the woke shit.
John XII
The last thing he heard was the woman's husband yelling "YIPPIE KI YAY".
There's a reason I specified "publicly," but yes. John XII's fate should give pause to anyone contemplating turning Gaza into Sarasota.
When has that ever stopped us
Except Palestinians aren’t an ethnic group.
They are a political/militaristic group akin to ISIS or the Taliban. They comprised of multiple Middle Eastern ethnic groups (Trans-Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians, Iraqis, etc.).
Article 4 does not distinguish between a monoethnic mass or a group of ethnicities.
The whole "Palestinians don't really exist" thing, while true in some respects, is irrelevant here.
Fuck off, JIDF.
Palestinians are literally an ideology. Arabs are the ethnic group.
Agreed.
Except Palestinians are also Egyptians (like head of the PLO Yasser Arafat was). Egyptians are their own ethnic group that were culturally genocided through Islamic Arabic colonialism.
Well, if they're just Egyptians then it just so happens to be that they have a country that can take them that the US is in steady relations with...
... whom also didn't lose any foreign aid recently.
He's no more Egyptian than immigrants to Europe are European. He was born in Egypt to Palestinian parents. That is, if you consider Palestine a real place. It's more real than Ukraine, though that's not saying much.
Correct, but by that metric, Arafat most certainly isn't Egyptian.
Ethnicity = your culture/ideology.
Race = genetics.
Ethnicity is your culture, your very extended kin group, your culture, and your language. ideology is irrelevant.
Race is an abstract political concept crossing all known cultural, genetic, ethnic, religious, linguistic, geographic, and political boundaries. It also crosses multiple genetic boundaries like phenotype. The only known common factor in race is observable physical similarities, and is exclusively defined culturally.
Race, as it is normally used, has more in common with ideology than it does anything else. Even religion is more well defined.
Biological race could be used, but never is, because no one sorts themselves by phenotype.
"because golden retrievers can reproduce with poodles and they both like frisbee and tug-of-war, dog breed basically means nothing"
Quit acting like a leftist and muddying useful, descriptive words because they give you the ick.
Race is observable physically, it is observable statistically, it is observable genetically, it is observable in basically every meaningful measurable way through both individuals and populations.
But I suppose, if you'd prefer, we could just start referring to groups of humans as being different breeds. Unless you also think that dog breeding is a meaningless concept.
Race is less clear and objective than dog breeds, and dog breeds are explicitly attribute and behavior selected. Race isn't, because there wasn't any intentional selection pressure in the first place.
Even if you were to argue for the existence of breeds, American White, American Black, West African Black, English White, Welsh White would all be different breeds.
I don't really care what they are, I don't want to be involved with them or their problems.
Now do Israelis.
between the middle east and Ukraine, i think the geneva convention is seen like more of a checklist by some modern countries.
i do agree that grabbing that achievement directly instead of by proxy would be quite a change in tone on the global arena
Given all that shit they pulled, cooperating with israel, UNRWA and the US federal government to keep a forever war burning hot, I think it's quite fair to revoke their 'protected person' status. They have cooperated with warhawks in israel to prevent any kind of peaceful settlement before, which is why I'm not surprised. The dream of a palestinian state is dead, and its because they sold out.
Maybe put them in egypt, let them fight it out.
Under Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions, they are protected persons.
Whether they deserve revocation is not the problem. Personally I would love it if they weren't there anymore, but there is no provision in the conventions to revoke someone's protections. If the First World allows this, they will have sanctioned ethnic cleansing.
Did they apply the same protections to children they took hostage?
Seems like this time the goal is to have an Israeli proxy violate them and deal with any fallout.
Don't care. FAFO. They bet their country on a one day killing spree and lost.
I don't care what happens to them, I just don't want to pay for it and I don't want them coming here.
Can someone show me any evidence that the US is planning on a genocide? See, I haven't seen any evidence that the US has even committed to sending US troops into Gaza, just CNN saying he didn't say that US troops would be sent.
Once again, it sounds to me like the real plan is to turn Gaza into a tourist trap. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets a Trump Tower. Sounds like he's a real-estate mogal who intends to actually develop real estate. If you send them all into bombed out rubble, that's not a real solution which will continue to support Hamas' development.
I've heard nothing to suggest Arabs will not be allowed in Gaza going forwards (Arabs are allowed in Israel already), or after the development starts taking place.
When directly asked: "Palestinians will also live there".
These seem to be people unfamiliar with the concept of 'Muslim'.
Listen, I don't want Islam in my country either. However, that doesn't mean they can't build Tourism. Qatar and Saudi Arabia have objectively excellent Tourist Traps.
Not to mention it sounds like Trump (I get the feeling that perhaps not even the US) is going to develop it, and the man knows how to make a Tourist Trap
So turn Gaza into Gaz-a-lago?
Unironically yes.
I'd think of Turkey. People whom I know hate Islam and perhaps Muslims go there on a yearly basis...
It might be what he thinks, but it's pretty delusional.
Yee of little orange faith
Trump isn't all-knowing. There were people here who backed Dr. Oz as somehow a great candidate because Trump said so. Turns out, there was no brilliant plan, there was no 913-dimensional chess... they got burned, because the basis for backing Dr. Oz was "I saw this guy on TV. I have the best TV's."
I agree, but I think he seems to understand peace and real estate