Tlaib: Congress “Can No Longer Deny” Israeli Genocide After Amnesty Report
Tlaib: Congress “Can No Longer Deny” Israeli Genocide After Amnesty Report
Advocates are reigniting calls for an arms embargo on Israel after landmark findings that Israel is committing genocide.
“My colleagues can no longer deny that this is genocide,” said Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan). “We must follow our own U.S. laws. We need an Arms Embargo now.”
On Thursday, Amnesty released a sprawling report determining that Israel’s assault of Gaza amounts to genocide, citing Israel’s relentless attacks, blocking of humanitarian aid, targeting of health and other basic infrastructure, forced displacement of 90 percent of Gaza’s population, and more.
Amnesty is the first major international humanitarian organization to outright label Israel’s actions as a genocide. The group was also one of the first major human rights organizations to label Israel’s violent occupation and oppression of Palestine as apartheid, back in 2022.
The human rights group, one of the largest in the world, specifically called out the U.S. as a major collaborator in the genocide due to the Biden administration’s policy of sending Israel weapons with zero red lines. Just last week, despite Israel’s clear, ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza, reports emerged of the Biden administration advancing yet another sale of weapons to Israel worth $680 million.
They CAN and will ignore it
They can make it illegal to acknowledge it, even. Label any recognition a form of antisemitism. Accuse any reporter or activist of siding with The Terrorists.
Easy to forget that Tlaib has already been censured for saying exactly this a year ago.
Wrong. They will assist while denying that’s it’s happening.
watch them.
Too many Democratic politicians are deciding to go with, "What are you going to do? Vote for a Republican?"
This is incredibly short-sighted and ethically wrong, but it seems we have reached that point. Difficult time to be a regular person in the US.
Centrists & Conservatives: Hold my beer.
.. eh, fuck it, AIPAC will just buy me a new one.
Here is the link to the Amnesty Report:
some rare lemmy Ws happening in this thread, nice one ❤️
Bankrupt Israel!
How do you imagine that working exactly?
Amnesty International is not the determination of genocide, the ICC is. Though the court has expressed that conditions point to genocide, they haven't said that it has definitely happened. Not trying to be contray here, just trying to explain as I understand it
No, the ICC does not dictate if the United States formally recognizes a genocide. In fact, there is no singular domestic source for recognition of a genocide. See the Armenian Genocide for an example. US recognition of the Armenian Genocide was codified by US House and Senate resolutions in 2019, but even then the White House under the first Trump administration rejected the resolutions and declined to recognize it as a genocide.
This article in particular relates to Rep Tlaib hoping that the Amnesty International report will lead to her colleagues accepting this as a genocide, resulting in a change of policy and an arms embargo. I'm sure she would also like for there to be a formal recognition through a House resolution, but that is not necessary for arms supply policy to change.
ETA: The ICC was established to prosecute war crimes, including genocide, but is not the arbiter of whether the United States and its Congressional representatives recognize actions as genocide or not, which is the subject of this article.
There is no official body to decide which official body gets to be the official body that decides if a genocide is going on.
Maybe we should focus less on whether it's "official" and more on stopping it, regardless of how it's labeled.
You're in denial. Here's a list of resources to understand how it's a genocide. You're also mistaking the ICC, which prosecutes people, with the ICJ, which prosecutes Countries.
“Here in Deir al-Balah, it’s like an apocalypse. There is no room for you to pitch a tent; you have to set it up near the coast… You have to protect your children from insects, from the heat, and there is no clean water, no toilets, all while the bombing never stops. You feel like you are subhuman here.”
- Mohammed, a 42-year-old father of three, speaking in June 2024 about his experience of displacement from Rafah to Deir al-Balah governorate
Israel's Genocide on Occupied Palestine
- De-Gaza: A Year of Israel’s Genocide and the Collapse of World Order - Euro-Med Monitor Report see Chapter 2 and 3
On 26 January 2024, the ICJ said that it was plausible that Israel had breached the Genocide Convention. As an emergency measure, it ordered Israel ensure that its army refrained from genocidal acts against Palestinians.
The ICJ reported, as part of its decisions in March and May, that the situation in Gaza had deteriorated and that Israel had failed to abide by its order in January.
So, when we look at the actions taken, the dropping of thousands and thousands of bombs in a couple of days, including phosphorus bombs, as we heard, on one of the most densely populated areas around the world, together with these proclamations of intent, this indeed constitutes genocidal killing, which is the first act, according to the convention, of genocide. And Israel, I must say, is also perpetrating act number two and three — that is, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and creating condition designed to bring about the destruction of the group by cutting off water, food, supply of energy, bombing hospitals, ordering the fast evictions of hospitals, which the World Health Organization has declared to be, quote, “a death sentence.” So, we’re seeing the combination of genocidal acts with special intent. This is indeed a textbook case of genocide.
More than 800 scholars of international law and genocide have signed a public statement arguing that the Israeli military may be committing genocidal acts against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as the total siege and relentless airstrikes continue to inflict devastation on the occupied territory.
An independent United Nations expert warned Monday that "Israel's genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole" as Western governments, corporations, and other institutions keep up their support for the Israeli military, which stands accused of grave war crimes in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
Our documentation encompasses over 500 incitements of violence and genocidal incitement, appearing in the forms of social media posts, television interviews, and official statements from Israeli politicians, army personnel, journalists, and other influential personalities.
I, Lee Mordechai, a historian by profession and an Israeli citizen, bear witness in this document to the situation in Gaza as events are unfolding. The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza. I explain why I chose to use the term below. Israel’s campaign is ostensibly its reaction to the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7, 2023, in which war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed within the context of the longstanding conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that can be dated back to 1917 or 1948 (or other dates). In all cases, historical grievances and atrocities do not justify additional atrocities in the present. Therefore, I consider Israel’s response to Hamas’ actions on Oct. 7 utterly disproportionate and criminal.
Deliberate Attacks on Civilians
Israel deliberately targets civilian areas. From in general with the Dahiya Doctrine to multiple systems deployed in Gaza to do so:
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The Dahiya Doctrine & Israel’s Use of Disproportionate Force
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‘A mass assassination factory’: Inside Israel’s calculated bombing of Gaza
Israel also targets Israeli Soldiers and Civilians to prevent them being leveraged as hostages, known as the Hannibal Directive. Which was also used on Oct 7th.
There are many. The court currently investigating crimes of genocide is the ICJ, not the ICC.
And the judges at the ICJ do look at the reports of orgs like Amnisty in their consideration.