In 2020, the online news organization The Intercept revealed that HRW’s then-Executive Director, Ken Roth, accepted a $470,000 donation from a Saudi billionaire based on the condition that HRW would not use the money to protect the rights of the persecuted LGBTQ-plus community in the Middle East. 

Roth was compelled to return the donation after The Intercept report.

    • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      It’s them inappropriately defining this as genocide or whatever other buzzwords will generate outrage. This is clearly about defense for Israel and not eliminating an ethnic group.

          • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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”.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

            Sure sounds like what they’re doing to Palestinians in Gaza to me. Or do you think they’re going to let the innocent people they didn’t murder come back now that they’re occupying it?

            You know, because Israel is famous for giving Palestinians their homes and their land back.

            What is being done in Gaza is genocide.

            • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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              1 year ago

              The “genocide” debate here is activists trying to seize the high ground after Hamas’s hideous acts. Their hope, after an assault of such barbarity, is to label the response “genocidal” and hope that people chase that shiny lure instead of remembering why this war happened at all.

                • Rapidcreek@reddthat.com
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                  1 year ago

                  Quite the strawman. People deploying the word “genocide” are either ignorant of what the word means or are intentionally misusing it for political purposes because they would otherwise be faced with having to discuss why this war began at all. Word play debates do little to alleviate people’s suffering. Denial of the other side’s humanity & dueling victimhood, eliminate empathy. We’ve had FEW cases of legal genocide since 1948, the question is how do these debates help long term?

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    You were the one who said they were doing it to stop Hamas. So were the 5000+ children part of Hamas or not?

                    Also, ‘legal genocide’ is weaseling out of this. Trump didn’t ‘legally’ commit rape against E. Jean Carroll. He still raped her.

            • BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Or do you think they’re going to let the innocent people they didn’t murder come back now that they’re occupying it?

              Given than this hasn’t happened yet, it feels a little premature to go tossing around words like genocide.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                How long do we have to wait for them not to let Palestinians back into Gaza before we can call it genocide?

                Seems like the people who say it’s too early to talk about gun legislation in America every time there’s a mass shooting.

              • gedaliyah@lemmy.worldOPM
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                1 year ago

                It seems like most people claiming Israel wants to reoccupy Gaza genuinely don’t realize that Israel voluntarily disengaged in 2005, closed the existing settlements, and withdrew all military. Or that part of the reason that Hamas was able to execute the deadliest terrorist attack in Israel’s history was due to Israel’s willingness to ease border restrictions.

            • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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              1 year ago

              Israel is neither trying to destroy Arabs nor Muslims, What they are doing is defending themselves against a hostile nation that declared war on them by slaughtering their civilians. Sometimes keeping themselves safe means annexing land, and a genocide this does not make.

              Israel’s intent is not to destroy any group, if that were their intent, they would have done it by now. They certainly have the capability. Their intent is to keep themselves safe from people who are trying to kill them and refuse to surrender.

              • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Palestinians are a specific ethnic group. Interesting that you aren’t acknowledging that. And the majority of Palestinians that have been murdered were not part of Hamas.

                As far as calling Gaza or Palestine a nation, that’s laughable. When has Israel ever acknowledged their sovereignty?

                • DarkGamer@kbin.social
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                  1 year ago

                  Palestinians are a specific ethnic group.

                  No, Palestinians are Arabs.

                  And the majority of Palestinians that have been murdered were not part of Hamas.

                  Collateral damage is not genocide.

                  As far as calling Gaza or Palestine a nation, that’s laughable. When has Israel ever acknowledged their sovereignty?

                  Look up the definition of nation, I’ll wait. You seem to have it confused with statehood.

                  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    Nation:

                    A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country.

                    When has Palestine been organized under a single independent government?

                    Also, ‘Arab’ is as much a single ethnic group as ‘European.’ Or even ‘Jewish.’

                    Spain didn’t expel, murder and forcibly convert the Ashkenazi Jews. Because there weren’t any in Spain. It expelled, murdered and forcibly converted the Sephardic Jews. It was still genocide. I’m sure you’ll find that most Jews would agree on that point.