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Culture War Roundup for the week of March 23, 2026

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I agree with the definitions you have described as genocide. The systematic killing of another group due to the it ethnicity is genocide.

Apartheid is a little stretching. One group has more rights than another group.

I agree with the definitions you have described as genocide. The systematic killing of another group due to the it ethnicity is genocide.

Ok, so under your definition of "genocide," it doesn't matter if a group (or part of a group) flees? Any time (1) some number people are killed; and (2) the killing was motivated significantly by the ethnicity of those people, then it's "genocide" under your definition?

Apartheid is a little stretching. One group has more rights than another group.

Ok, so any time there is a country where one group has more rights than another group, it's "apartheid"? Do I understand you correctly?

Also, can you give a few specific examples of people "insist[ing] Jews have never done anything bad"?

The obvious example of this: “ Also, can you give a few specific examples of people "insist[ing] Jews have never done anything bad"?”

Would be you yourself. You are being highly critical and sarcastic about me staying Jews did genocide. There has long been a taboo that any criticism of Jews is antisemtic in America.

Why is it so hard for you to call the Nakba a genocide? For the most part I am a supporter of the Nakba.

The obvious example of this: “ Also, can you give a few specific examples of people "insist[ing] Jews have never done anything bad"?”

Would be you yourself.

Ok, please quote me where I "insist[ed] Jews have never done anything bad"

Why is it so hard for you to call the Nakba a genocide?

Umm, because it wasn't? Let's break it down:

(1) The Arabs attempted to slaughter and chase out all the Jews in British Mandatory Palestine.

(2) As part of that attempt, many Arabs fled due to the ongoing war to other parts of what had been the Ottoman Empire, e.g. Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

(3) The attempt failed (a disaster for the Arabs) and the Jews successfully set up a state (Israel);

(4) The Jews (now Israelis) correctly realized that to (somewhat) secure their safety they had to (a) bar the return of Arabs who had fled; and (b) eject a subset of the Arabs who had stayed from certain key areas. The remaining Arabs were allowed to stay.

(5) At no time did the Jews attempt to wipe out the Arab population of the area wholesale, and in fact to this day Israel has a significant Arab minority.

So at worst, this was a limited ethnic cleansing.

That being said, you are free to define the word "genocide" any way you like for purposes of discussion. Which brings me back to my questions.

(1) So under your definition of "genocide," it doesn't matter if a group (or part of a group) flees? Any time (1) some number people are killed; and (2) the killing was motivated significantly by the ethnicity of those people, then it's "genocide" under your definition?

(2) Ok, so any time there is a country where one group has more rights than another group, it's "apartheid"? Do I understand you correctly?

Because the thing is, there's no point in arguing over whether the labels "genocide" or "apartheid" apply unless we understand what those words mean.

So I would appreciate answers to my questions so I can confirm what you mean by the words "genocide" and "apartheid."

Also, as mentioned above, please quote me where I "insist[ed] Jews have never done anything bad

They literally killed a minimum of 2% of the population in those areas. Poisoned drinking water. The Jews killed enough civilians until the rest left.

You denying a genocide is what I’m talking about “Jews can do no wrong”. And I’m not even calling this genocide wrong. Groups have interests. Killing the tribe next door is something every civilization has done.

Ok I’ll play - so what do you consider a genocide? 10% of civilian population murdered? 50%? 75%?

This is a bit like the old joke: “ I asked a women if she would have sex with me for a $1 million and she said yes. I then asked her if she would go to bed with me for $100 and she said “What do you think I’m a whore”? We’ve established what you are now we are just quibbling over price.

I assume you would consider the Holocausts as a genocide. High end figures said 67% of European Jews died. But if the Jews would have just left then no genocide.

If we are doing official UN definitions: “Genocide is the deliberate, systematic destruction—in whole or in part—of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, according to the UN Genocide Convention. It involves specific acts committed with the intent to destroy the group, such as killing members, causing serious harm, or creating conditions leading to their physical destruction.”

If we call killing 2% of a population genocide then it seems like we have to create a new word for the kind of genocide that kills 67%, for the sake of clarity.

It’s like murder. A person kills one person is a murderer. A contract killer who killed 30 people over the years is also a murderer.

You can call both the Nakba and the Holocausts as genocide but conclude the Holocausts as worse.

So how low a percentage of a group can be destroyed before it's no longer an attempted genocide?

I don’t know. I also don’t think it’s necessarily a %. If the US killed 2% of the Iraqi civilian population or we could use Japan with nukes I don’t think I would call it a genocide. In the case of the Nakob the purpose of civilian deaths was to get the civilians to leave. So not purely military/political control. In the case of Japan we didn’t drop bombs on civilian populations with the goal of replacing Japanese people. The goal was to get them to militarily surrender. So 2% with geographic removal seems like genocide to me.

So with the Nakob it feels like genocide to me because it seems like their undocumented evidence that Israel was willing to kill as many civilians as possible until they removed themselves from their land.

I guess it’s a fair question that you can argue well you have to kill x% of a group to call it a capital letter GENOCIDE instead of something like cultural genocide but I think it’s also fair to put the Nakob in the category of genocide. It was still state led violence and murder against civilian population for specifically demographic change. Germans didn’t want to live with Jews; Jews didn’t want to live with Arabs.