US and Israel "reach the breaking point" as invasion of Rafah begins and Netanyahu rejects ceasefire

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You can’t negotiate with Hamas in good faith and it’s insane to think otherwise. The only thing that can be done is to destroy them

That doesn't mean that everybody should turn a blind eye to Israel's war crimes.
Not everybody has lost his ability to be appalled like you obviously have.

https://twitter.com/social_brains/status/1782838329173766239?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw...

You think the United States committed genocide in World War 2?

And what are the sources on these numbers? I'm not convinced this "formula" is valid to begin with, but he doesn't even show his work...

[7,052,770]

You can’t negotiate with Hamas in good faith and it’s insane to think otherwise. The only thing that can be done is to destroy them

That doesn't mean that everybody should turn a blind eye to Israel's war crimes.
Not everybody has lost his ability to be appalled like you obviously have.

https://twitter.com/social_brains/status/1782838329173766239?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw...

You think the United States committed genocide in World War 2?

And what are the sources on these numbers? I'm not convinced this "formula" is valid to begin with, but he doesn't even show his work...

No but the point is that the relative civilian casualties in this war are comparable to the first ballot of Fallujah which shows how absurd it is to call what’s being done a war crime let alone a genocide

Why do you think anyone is going to be convinced by some chart with a completely made up formula (one whose algebraic validity I have doubts about), that doesn't even show the numbers it puts into that made up formula, and accuses America of committing genocide in WW2, a position you don't even hold yourself?

You really should remove that post altogether, because it's more likely to push people away from you than to bring doubters over to your sode.

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Since thinks that I, despite my degree in math (although I could just as validly say "despite being old enough to post on this forum") simply "don't even understand" 5th grade level math like percents, I'll point out some issues I take with OSR's chart:

• First and foremost, whether or not something is defined as "genocide" has never been defined as a ratio of military and civilian death rates. So even if this ratio were a useful tool in evaluating conflicts generally, it's NOT going to be the deciding factor in labeling something as a genocide or not. For reference, this has been the working definition of "genocide" from the UN. Note the lack of percents.
  

  In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group.

• The chart doesn't show its work for any of the conflicts listed, so how can we even verify the ratios it's claiming? It's not like I can easily look up the numbers and back into the ratios, because each bar is based on 4 values, and small changes to any 1 of those 4 might greatly impact how tall the bar is. So even if I tried to validate these bars, it would be very difficult to track down every discrepancy. In a world where this formula is valid, the chart is still a failure for not including numbers at the bottom to show its work.
• In modern conflicts (and arguably in earlier ones too), the line between who is a "militant" and who is a "civilian" is blurred. I don't trust the governments of Gaza or Israel to be honest in their numbers, and even if they do try to be totally honest, there are still going to be edge cases that they naturally tilt to their side. So even if this chart did show its work, we still wouldn't be able to trust any of the 4 numbers, much less this ratio, because it could be heavily skewed by a light agenda.
• With that in mind, it's easy to see what the agenda of this chart's creator is - it's pretty clearly anti-American propaganda. It includes the bombings of Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki, especially with Dresden and Hiroshima having really low bars, but then glosses over everything else that happened in WW2. It gives Nazi Germany, Japan, and the USSR, which we all agree had more than their fair share of atrocities, a couple of token bars, but (how conveniently!) all but one of those bars across all of those countries turns out NOT to be a genocide!
  
  • And just to remind everyone, OSR, who posted the chart, is one of the least likely people on this forum to ever post anti-American propaganda, so it's pretty clear that he didn't really even read the chart before posting it. Come on man, you've got to do better than that. You're so eager to grasp onto ANYTHING to defend Netanyahu despite everything that you'll throw America under the bus? (And as a further reminder, keep in mind that OSR has said that American schools should tell slanted versions of history where America is always the good guy, so if some high school showed this chart without the specific 2023-24 Gaza context, he'd probably throw a fit...)
• The formula only considers deaths, not wounded/injuries, even though the actual definition of "genocide" is not confined to deaths only.
• But OK, now that we've covered why the chart isn't a useful and practical way to compare different conflicts, and certainly not to evaluate whether something is or is not a genocide, is it mathematically valid in the first place? I would still say no.
  
  • Comparing multiples of percents doesn't really work when you have vast differences in possibly magntiudes. Like, a war where 75% of a military population is killed, and 50% of a civilian population is killed gets a value of 1.5. A war where 1% of a military population is killed and 0.75% of a civilian population is killed gets a value of 1.33. Is anyone seriously going to argue that the second case is MORE of a genocide than the first? Of course not. Because genocide isn't defined by this formula.
  • Think of a small scale war where a few civilians are killed and a few military are killed, low numbers all around, it wouldn't be that hard to get a value under 1. I checked to see if the Falklands War would get under 1, and the answer is no, but its value (5.67) is still a lot lower than a lot of the bars, and it's easy to see how a conflict like that could get there. (For example, did any soldiers die in the George Floyd protests? Dozens of civilians did...)
  • Also, think of the Holocaust, where 2/3 of Europe's Jewish population was killed. If Jews had formed a formal military force of 100,000 soldiers, 75,000 of which died, suddenly that conflict's ratio is 1.13, and the Holocaust wouldn't be a genocide anymore?? Of course not, you have to look at total numbers of deaths.
  • Imagine if Israel killed 100% of the civilians in Gaza, but a few militants escaped into Egypt, so it didn't quite get to 100%. Not a genocide anymore because the value is over 1? Give me a break. Imagine if Iran killed every Israeli except for a few commandos with extensive survival training...

All in all, the chart just isn't valid. Genocide has a definition, and it's not based on ratios. You can have non-genocides with a ratio under 1 if the definition isn't met, and pretty clear examples of genocide above 1 if there are a lot of militant deaths along with a lot of civilian deaths.

Note - I've never labeled the conflict in Gaza as a "genocide" (though I'm open to changing my mind on that if we get additional, reliable information). But it sure isn't because of this nonsense formula.