NN: War Crimes and Genocide

Legal, linguistic, moral, and military considerations

This is part of the sprawling No Nichols complex of posts analyzing the rhetoric and reasoning behind certain sorts of support for Israel.

1

In tangling with Tom and his fans on Twitter and Bluesky one focus has been language and its use around war crimes and genocide. Here I’ll tie together and supplement some different posts on the matters. The three prior posts most relevant would be:

• No Magic Words on how to see language in general

• Offense or Defense, Thing or Term? on the current conflict and our words and ideas about genocide and self-defense

• Think About the Thing Not the Term on language, Gaza, genocide, and concentration camps

This post also deals with these things in its first and fifth recordings. Below are several tweets, a quiz, a refined version of this thread, a voice recording, and the video that sparked it.

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Here’s why at the moment I’ll argue about war crimes but not about genocide. It includes our legal definition of the crime of genocide from the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and draws on the legal definitions of war crimes.

3

More on war crimes:

4

On genocide and misusing words:

5

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being a yawn and 10 being oh my God that’s the biggest of big deals, please rank the following:

1. Spilling a cup of coffee on your pants

2. Stubbing your toe really hard

3. Thousands of people dying gruesome deaths

4. Some stranger on the internet using a word wrong

I’m guessing that you ranked the gruesome deaths higher than the stupid stranger’s word use. But an oddity of our psychology is that we can very easily end up focusing on the stupid stranger instead of the gruesome deaths. Especially when the stupid stranger seems to disagree with us about the gruesome deaths.

Now please judge whether each of the following statements is true or false:

1. You ate breakfast today

2. You have gray hair

3. You smoke cigarettes

4. The side you support in current bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians has committed war crimes

6

No matter how much you support your side in the present bloodshed between Israelis and Palestinians it’s a factual question whether your side has committed war crimes. And the answer to that question is that yes they have.

Are you able to acknowledge that? Or are you like the folks I see online, both on my side and on the opposing side, who insist on hurting their credibility and therefore their side by arguing that no, their side would never and has never committed a single war crime?

In arguments there are two different issues in play that seem to make us go absolutely cross-eyed. One is who’s right and who’s wrong in the argument as a whole. Which party to the argument, and in this case which party to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is right?

The issue of who is right is always in play and is usually the main thing we feel. But you know what else is in play? All the particular things actually said during the argument.

You think the other person is wrong about the thing you’re arguing about. You might also think they’re being insincere, they’re trying to trick you or trap you, they’re wrong on issues beyond the present argument, they’re evil or stupid on the whole, etc. And you might be right about some or all of those things. But you know what? Chances are still good that at least some particular things they say during the argument will be true. And if they affirm a true thing they will be right. While if you deny that true thing you will be wrong. Right?

Despite being wrong in the argument, and maybe more broadly wrong and bad and stupid and whatever else, still they are correct when they affirm a true thing. And despite being right in the argument, and right and smart and good in general, still when you deny a true thing you are wrong. Which makes you look at least a little less good and smart and right, in the argument and in general. It gives your opponent and any onlookers at least a little reason to think it’s your opponent who is better and smarter in general and is right in that particular argument.

If you are too reactive or uncritical in fighting everything your opponent says you will look less right, and will be less right, even if in fact your side in the overall argument is right, and you are in fact the more good/right/smart/sexy person.

So returning to war crimes. To say your side committed war crimes feels like saying your side is bad and wrong. Maybe it also feels like saying the other side is right and good. But it doesn’t mean those things. It means something else. And that something else is true.

Maybe the fact that your side committed war crimes serves the other person’s broader argument that your side is bad and wrong. Maybe it serves their overall position of support for their side. But you know what else serves those things? When somebody arguing against them says something false.

The statement that your side committed no war crimes is false. As is the statement that the other side committed no war crimes! Despite how very many facts are disputed, with or without decent reasons, there are a few central undisputed facts, and they include war crimes by both sides. And no additional facts ever keep a war crime from being a war crime. Maybe other facts make it understandable or justified or even good. But they never make it not-a-war-crime.

Denying food or other essentials to civilians is a war crime. And Israel has absolutely openly done that. Taking hostages is a war crime. And Hamas has absolutely openly done that. So whichever team you’re on here, if you deny that your team has committed war crimes you are incorrect. On at least this one point you assert a false belief, a wrong answer, a bad stance. At least this once you must be either reacting without reasoning, or reasoning poorly, or denying undeniable facts. And if you’re doing at least one of those things in at least this one spot, then chances are good you also do so elsewhere. At least that’s the inference opponents and onlookers tend to draw. Which does not move them toward seeing you positively, or thinking that you’re right in the argument, or thinking that your broader political or intellectual teams are right.

So admit that your team committed war crimes. If you think those war crimes were overall morally good, or you think the other side’s war crimes were much worse, or have some other sort of broader justification or affirmation, then by all means have that discussion. But to the simple direct question of whether your team committed any war crimes, the simple true answer is yes. And the false answer of no is not only false but is also damaging to perceptions of you, and of your stance in the argument, and of your team or teams more broadly.

7

This closing recording references the video below it:

Thank you for your interest friends and enemies and internet strangers.