None of this changes the fact that it’s an urban war where Israel is not committing anything recognizable as genocide except in the eyes of people who accused Israel of genocide before October 7 happened and who excuse Hamas’s atrocities as “resistance.”
Bolded (added) is part of why no matter how atrocious and horrendous Israeli's war crimes have been I still can't get on board the "genocide" train. I saw people claiming that Israel was committing genocide on October 10th; these people had nothing to say about the Hamas attack. The "genocide" label has always struck me as a combination of good faith outrage over the brutality of the war and bad faith shock-value agenda-pushing by people who want to delegitimize dissenting opinions.
And on the subject of the "resistance" - I was on a university campus yesterday for a conference and had to walk around a Gaza protest. It wasn't as anti-semitic as I expected (no calls to globalize the Intifada, in English at least) but they did parrot the "resistance under occupation is always justified" line that was featured on flyers plastered around campus, which any discerning person should recognize as apologia for October 7. They also chanted "no peace on stolen land," which seems difficult to reconcile with calls for peace and ceasefire.
I have a colleague, whose family is Arab/Palestinian, who has been calling this apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide for years.
A couple days after the attack, she shared a social media post absolving Hamas of their atrocities because of Israel's prior actions. I lost a lot of respect for her after that.
Many of the same people wailing about Israel's alleged genocide also want everyone to forget about October 7 and began gaslighting everyone the very second Israel began to fight back.
I'm immediately skeptical of the morals and intentions of anyone trying to minimize loss of life in this conflict.