And one side started it by killing 1,200 civilians and kidnapping 250. Which doesn't justify genocide. But it does factor into the response when one side is governed by a death cult that has no problem letting scores of their own civilians die if it furthers their cause.

October 7th was genocide, though. You cannot possibly in good faith argue that what Israel is doing is genocide but what Hamas did wasn't.

Also, to be perfectly honest, we've seen 4x as many people killed in Sudan as in Gaza in the same timeframe, including entire cities being wiped out by gunmen filming themselves literally going door to door and shooting people begging for their lives, lying on the ground or in hospital beds. 6,000 people were killed over a single weekend in el-Fasher and barely a peep from the media.

What Israel is doing in Gaza is more similar to what Russia did to Grozny during the 2nd Chechen war than it is to most of the events historically termed "genocides". Which, to be extremely clear, is not at all a sympathetic comparison. The conduct of the Russians was incredibly brutal and disgusting and unjustified (then and now). I would not want to be compared to them.

But, like, you do have to have standards for what words mean. If the low-tech butchers of the RSF have killed hundreds of thousands in the same timeframe, it's not crazy to be more cautious with the "genocide" label.

And the other side just. won’t. stop. attacking.

That’s really the problem, innit? Palestine can’t stop poking, Israel overreact. 20 GOTO 10.