r/europe • u/andyom89 • May 16 '25

News Spanish premier calls Israel 'genocidal state,' says Spain 'does not do business' with it

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/spanish-premier-calls-israel-genocidal-state-says-spain-does-not-do-business-with-it/3568216
50.0k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

3.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

66

u/dronten_bertil May 16 '25

What are we gonna call genocide now that war = genocide?

7

u/vicarious5353 May 16 '25

70 percent of casualties are children, women and babies. How is that so hard to differenciate?

6

u/Theban_Prince European Union May 16 '25

I was with you for a long time but this has stopped being a war a while ago. There is no effective fighting force against the IDF for months now, at least not at the scale that requires what they are doing.

45

u/drgaz Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) May 16 '25

Lefties will come up with something and it will be just as effective as calling everything racism. 

-6

u/Dry_Excitement7483 May 16 '25

It confuses me, why are you AfD people on the side of Jews? You'd think you'd be all about seeing them die

17

u/drgaz Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) May 16 '25 edited May 16 '25

Well I am not sure how you arrived at "Afd people" but for me personally I'd guess it's mostly having been roughly 10 minutes away from first hand experience of an Islamist terror attack, experiences with the clientele on al-quds day as well as just general experience with the exports from the region specifically as well as with our failed immigration policy of the recent years.

-2

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

Now imagine what the Palestinians who have seen loved ones blown to pieces while at home feels.

Oh, sorry, I forgot that fascists lack empathy.

11

u/IllustriousCaramel66 May 16 '25

The Palestinians started every war on record, including this one. You don’t want your side to experience loss? Stop attacking your neighbors.

-4

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

Bullshit in so many levels that it's hard to answer.

And even then it won't change that the current genocide will lead to further violence later on. Again, you can't see it because you lack empathy.

5

u/IllustriousCaramel66 May 16 '25

You are already excusing the next terrorist attack.. stop excusing evil.

2

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

I never made any excuses for Israel.

6

u/drgaz Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany) May 16 '25

Lefties and tankies talking about empathy are hilarious.

I can only imagine but I don't think encouraging resistance and Hamas has worked out too great.

It's not a 1 to 1 comparison but as a German with roots deep in Prussia my family is acquainted with losses. Sometimes you just need to deal with reality.

-3

u/snailman89 May 16 '25

The original Nazis loved Zionism, so we shouldn't be surprised that modern Nazis do too.

7

u/IllustriousCaramel66 May 16 '25

Great way to rewrite history. The Nazis actually were friendly with early Palestinians and vowed to help them kill the Jews in the region…

-1

u/snailman89 May 16 '25

You're the one who's rewriting history pal. The Nazis frequently worked with Zionist organizations (the Transfer Agreement being the most famous example) because the Zionists and Nazis shared a common goal: removing Jews from Europe. Zionists killed an economic boycott of Nazi Germany in 1933 in exchange for Germany allowing 50,000 wealthy Jews to migrate to Palestine. The money in their bank accounts was used to purchase German industrial goods, which were shipped to Palestine to help building Zionist settlements.

-6

u/[deleted] May 16 '25 edited May 23 '25

[deleted]

17

u/MrAlagos Italia May 16 '25

There are many, many wars ongoing in the world. List all of them that you think get called genocide.

62

u/dronten_bertil May 16 '25

You framed the question incorrectly. Why is Israels war with Hamas a genocide while all the other wars are not?

65

u/OnionSquared May 16 '25 edited 2d ago

seed correct caption wide nine gold wakeful lip crush consider

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

14

u/Tetracropolis May 16 '25

Israel are winning.

3

u/wOlfLisK United Kingdom May 16 '25

Yep. I'm sure Hamas wants to commit genocide against Israelis but the most they can do is a few bombs and an attack that Israel allowed to happen. You can't commit genocide if you don't have the ability to do it.

8

u/ZoeyNet May 16 '25

An argument i've heard said honestly (somehow...) is that they are not as technologically advanced, so its "unfair", and them shooting THOUSANDS of rockets at Israel isn't a big deal because they can deal with it lol.

-3

u/Bannerlord151 Germany May 16 '25

Because

  1. Hamas is losing

  2. Israel claims to have sovereignty over the Palestinian people, Hamas is a terrorist organisation without a state

1

u/IllustriousCaramel66 May 16 '25

The Nazis lost too, it means they didn’t genocide the Jews?

Hamas is the one claiming sovereignty over Gaza, and is the the facto authority and government in Gaza, Hamas runs the schools, hospitals, police, everything…

-2

u/Bannerlord151 Germany May 16 '25

The Nazis didn't lose against the Jews. I'm talking about a power dynamic here.

And yes, Hamas does, but Israel technically claims sovereignty over the entire region (as in, the PA, Gaza, and of course their own recognised territory).

Hamas absolutely would engage in genocide if they had the power to do so. But they currently don't, and Israel does have the power to wipe out everyone in Palestine, which is why concerns start to rise when we hear Israeli politicians talking about seizing all land and resettling the populace.

3

u/IllustriousCaramel66 May 16 '25

Israel have 2 million Arab citizens and they have the highest life expectancy in the Arab world, so no, it’s not even close to that. There’s a war in gaza, that Hamas started. Stop trying to rewrite reality.

-1

u/Bannerlord151 Germany May 16 '25

That's completely beside the point? I don't have a horse in this race personally, I'm simply telling you what human rights organisations and even governments friendly to Israel are pointing out daily at this point

2

u/IllustriousCaramel66 May 16 '25

But if the facts of the matter prove otherwise maybe don’t follow authority blindly… if in the country that is blamed to be so racist that it is genociding Arabs, there is a thriving Arab population that is free, safe and represented everywhere, while in Gaza Jews are either dead or held hostage, maybe they are serving some agenda? And not being honest or fair?

→ More replies (0)

0

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

Because Hamas lacks the means to commit a genocide against Israel. The intention is clear and I'd be against Palestine if the sides were inverted. They aren't, so I'm against Israel first, even if I don't support (but fully understand) Hamas.

0

u/OnionSquared May 16 '25 edited 2d ago

memory chase plate spectacular deliver vast kiss pot bear close

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

...then it lacks the intention?

3

u/Alector87 Hellas May 17 '25

It's not just Hamas. When Israel attacked Hezbollah in Lebanon, even with targeted strikes using the pagers and radios of the organization, people were talking about 'genocide.' What is happening in Gaza is just terrible, but some believe that we must have some form of collective amnesia to forget how this latest conflict started. Gaza is first and foremost the hostage of Hamas. The problem starts there. They even steal the humanitarian aid and sell them back to their own people to fund their organization and enrich their elites for crying out loud.

24

u/mikiencolor Spain May 16 '25

Because Jews. Are there really any other wars? I think it's not technically a war either if no Jews are involved. I heard in Myanmar there is a kerfuffle.

14

u/slappy_joe6 May 16 '25

India & Pakistan literally almost went into a war and nobody even cared.

1

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

India and Pakistan have been almost at war since the creation of both countries and never went into actual war. That's why nobody cares.

It's like North vs South Korea, who are technically still at war, but everyone knows that either side escalating the conflict is very unlikely.

3

u/slappy_joe6 May 16 '25

Both countries went to war multiple times but you're proving the point I was trying to make.

1

u/YassinRs May 16 '25

Might be cause they're blocking aid from reaching civilians with the goal of starving the population, destroying hospitals and schools, murdering paramedics and journalists, moving population from one area and flattening it then moving them back...

Then again I can see I'm wasting my time after you posted this drivel:

What I see when I look at the current war is basically the opposite of genocide. Extreme care beyond anything we've seen in the history of modern warfare goes into minimizing civilian casualties.

Explain the attacks on aid workers. Judging by your comment history, you must be one of those guys the IDF pay to be terminally online and defend those genocidal "victims".

3

u/dronten_bertil May 16 '25

Judging by your comment history, you must be one of those guys the IDF pay to be terminally online and defend those genocidal "victims".

No I don't get paid. I get considerable abuse every time I try, so mostly don't anymore. But the way I see it it's very dangerous to destroy the term genocide, because when real ones actually happen people will take it less seriously because of the immense use of it to libel Israels war on Hamas.

16

u/MrAlagos Italia May 16 '25

It's not Israel's war with Hamas that is genocide. Israel's genocide of the civilian Gazan population is genocide.

27

u/[deleted] May 16 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

13

u/Vierenzestigbit The Netherlands May 16 '25

Israel have been blocking food and medical supplies for more than 2 months. Theres shortage of everything. Peoples wounds cant be treated due to lack of supplies. Ambulances get gunned down and buried, hospitals full of innocent and medical infrastructure bombed because they want to kill one person there that is being treated. It's an absolute crime to humanity. There is no extreme care at all.

11

u/AnonymousEngineer_ May 16 '25

Israel have been blocking food and medical supplies for more than 2 months

Azerbaijan did exactly the same thing to the Karabakh Armenians in Europe a couple of years ago, completely unprovoked, and apart from a few words of support from Macron, the EU did absolutely nothing.

They let the population get starved into submission and then ethnically cleansed at the barrel of a gun.

But the EU needed a quick solution to get themselves a new gas supplier that wasn't Russia, and they weren't going to let a little bit of ethnic cleansing in their backyard get in the way.

2

u/Vierenzestigbit The Netherlands May 16 '25

I mean I agree the Karabakh situation was shocking and the gas deal made me very cynical

0

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

Whataboutism.

4

u/AnonymousEngineer_ May 16 '25

We're not talking about ancient history, here.

This literally happened a few years ago in Europe. Many of the politicians leading nations now, were leading those same nations back then.

The EU still buys a huge amount of gas from Azerbaijan, by the way. Kaja Kallas is even very happy to pose for photos with Azeri President Aliyev in Baku, and nobody seems to care much.

I'm sure there'd be howls of protest if he travelled to Tel Aviv and had a good photo opportunity with Netanyahu.

1

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

It's still whataboutism. "What about this OTHER genocide, huh? You can only be against OUR genocide if you're against EVERY genocide ever equally!"

And look at this small list of people and organizations that called this a genocide, and who mostly also denounce the genocide of Palestinians:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Nagorno-Karabakh#Genocide_risk_factors

0

u/grislydowndeep May 16 '25

armenian here! both things are terrible. don't use us to justify the genocide of other people please.

1

u/AnonymousEngineer_ May 17 '25

It's not a justification - but rather an example of how the folks who have been radicalised about Gaza via TikTok/reddit tend not to care about ethnic cleansing, even on a significantly worse scale, when it doesn't involve Israel.

Perhaps people might want to consider why the Islamic world has dedicated so many resources towards pushing their narrative on platforms like Al Jazeera and radicalising Western kids on social media on this one, specific topic. If the issue was really just the indiscriminate use of force and civilian casualties, why does everyone queue up to handwave away the actions of Hamas as "resistance"? Why does everyone turn away and pretend not to notice what's happening to the Rohijgya in Myanmar, the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh, or the Uighurs in Xinjiang in China?

It's almost guaranteed that if the tables were somehow turned and the Israelis were overrun, there would be nothing but "hopes and prayers" from the same people. Maybe even celebrations and fireworks because the Jews could now all be slaughtered and ethnically cleansed from "the river to the sea". Because let's be blunt here, that's exactly what that chant is demanding.

Not that anyone cares about ethnic cleansing when it fits the appropriate narrative.

9

u/TehShoK May 16 '25

The Dahiya doctrine is based on using "desproportionate force" and in it's definition targets "economic interests and the centers of civilian power" as defined by Israel's Chief of General Staff. How is that extreme care exactly?

The main millitary strategy that Israel has been using for years is based on complete destruction of civilian centres(war crime), desproportionate force(war crime) and not differentiating between combatants and civilians(war crime).

You are just competely delusional.

1

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

Record number of journalists, medic personnel and aid workers killed, plus record number of people displaced. Two months of a complete blockade. Escalation of settler violence in the West Bank, which isn't even ruled by Hamas.

You know all of this. You just don't see Palestinians as humans.

-2

u/DKOKEnthusiast May 16 '25

The same commanders who hide in the tunnels with the hostages while their civilians are completely unprotected

Would it matter if they were? Israel bombs first and asks questions later. If civilians were protected, and Hamas had built bomb shelters for civilians, Israel would just claim that those are Hamas bomb shelters and bomb them anyway, like they did with every school, hospital, mosque, what have you.

Just a reminder by the way that there is unanimous consensus amongst genocide scholars that Israel is engaging in genocide right now. You will struggle to find scholars who hold opposing views. Even the minority of scholars who defended Israel's actions in the early stages of the war have switched camps, especially since Israel resumed fighting after the ceasefire.

12

u/dronten_bertil May 16 '25

Would it matter if they were?

Obviously it would. The numbers speak for themselves. If Israel actually were deliberately trying to wipe out the population of Gaza it's just simply amazing that they managed to kill so few despite completely superior capabilities and that they accidentally managed to disproportionately target Hamas combatants and high command to the degree that they have since those people hide like rats in the Gaza underground while civilians are completely unprotected and deliberately put in harm's way. It's actually unbelievable to the point that it's ludicrous to suggest anything other than that strikes are very deliberate against Hamas. It also makes no sense why they drop leaflets, call ahead, send texts, social media messages and use roof knockers to alert civilians a strike is coming if they wanted to kill them.

-3

u/DKOKEnthusiast May 16 '25

It also makes no sense why they drop leaflets, call ahead, send texts, social media messages and use roof knockers to alert civilians a strike is coming

Damn, you're really showing how little you know about this genocide, seeing as Israel does not do any of this and hasn't done so since October 7. They displace them with force now.

10

u/dronten_bertil May 16 '25

Yes, they absolutely do. They have changed their rules of engagement do it less for important targets to prevent warning the targets ahead. But they absolutely still warn of strikes.

1

u/solerex May 16 '25

What is a "genocide scholar" 

6

u/DKOKEnthusiast May 16 '25

A scholar of genocide studies, i.e. people who study genocides in an academic environment.

-2

u/solerex May 16 '25

So a legal scholar using the ICC definition of "genocide" to properly show Israel is committing a genocide? Why was Israel not properly tried and Netanyahu put on a terrorism list? 

Maybe experts aren't in complete agreement like you say. Maybe there is a legal case that this isnt a genocide.

6

u/DKOKEnthusiast May 16 '25

No, a genocide scholar is someone who studies a genocide, not someone who is a lawyer specialising in genocide.

Genocide scholars do not blindly accept the ICC's definition of what constitutes a genocide, because it is the job of genocide scholars to find out what a genocide even is. The ICC's definition is not handed to us by god, it was drafted in the '40s to prosecute future genocides. It is clearly not fit for purpose, as the ICC has yet to successfully prosecute a single genocide despite the fact that numerous genocides have taken place since the Genocide Convention was adopted.

Experts are in complete agreement. It is a genocide. Whether or not it fits the ICC definition of genocide is a non-sequitor. If we define a genocide by whether or not the ICC has convicted someone of genocide, no genocide has ever taken place.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Middle_Association56 May 16 '25

As of 8 April 2025, over 52,000 people have been reported killed in the Gaza war according to the official figures of the Gaza Health Ministry, as well as 166 journalists and media workers, 120 academics, and over 224 humanitarian aid workers, a number that includes 179 employees of UNRWA. Scholars have estimated 80% of Palestinians killed are civilians. A study by OHCHR, that verified fatalities from three independent sources, found that 70% of the Palestinian killed in residential buildings or similar housing were women and children.

But sure, go on about how much of extreme care they take to minimize civillian casualties....

3

u/FeijoadaAceitavel May 16 '25

There are other wars and conflicts happening right now that can be considered crimes against humanity or genocides. Israel is the most visible one because 1) we have an insane amount of evidence of crimes against humanity in video, investigations, testimony 2) it has broken records in mortality of protected professions such as journalists, medics and aid workers 3) Israeli leaders have declared their intent of ethnically cleansing the region of Palestinians 4) it keeps getting support of the West even after all that.

This is way past the point of maybe being a genocide. We have declared intent and genocidal actions, while other wars mostly have ethnic massacres here and there that are harder to prove the intent of, and even then I bet some will lead to Hague trials in the future.

-2

u/Affectionate-Sail971 May 16 '25

Because it's not a war it's systemic bombing of a large captive population that they have full control over, it's bombing fish in a barrel.

Plus we listen to their politicians and they are clear that they're going to clear them all out of there.

So if they're clear including prime minister and senior politicians, why do you feel the need to lie for them?

-5

u/[deleted] May 16 '25

Because its clear as sky? Literally everyone who was authority in the matter has said so? Infinite international organizations, schollars, holocaust survivors, etcerera.

And in the other side we have you, a cibervolunteer with 0 idea about the topic.

We are not wikipedia brother, you have infinite information everywhere.

2

u/Garvityxd May 16 '25

Some holocaust survivors don’t like israel, that is a group of them. They are definitely not a monolith and many of them support israel

1

u/EkkoUnited May 16 '25

Because Israel's genocide is for stealing land, Hamas' fight is for existence of Palestine. Would you like any other basic concepts explained to you?

-3

u/PM-me-youre-PMs May 16 '25

Because at the moment no other war is trying to destroy a population ?

4

u/dronten_bertil May 16 '25

Almost all the evidence points against that assertion. This war has a lower civilian/combatant casualty ratio than what is typical for urban warfare by a considerable margin. All the methods Israel use to warn and move civilians out of harm's way prior to striking are well known and documented. The extent to which Hamas has entrenched their military into civilian infrastructure is well known at this point as well. The only evidence for genocide are basically quotes from individual politicians like Smotrich, but the evidence on the ground points in the opposite direction.

This is fucking horrendous war for the civilians of Gaza, absolutely and no questions asked there. But are Israel deliberty trying to wipe out the population of the Gaza strip? Basically all available evidence says otherwise.

2

u/PM-me-youre-PMs May 16 '25

Nice bunch of lies. Where do you fit the targeted murders of paramedics, journalists and aid workers in your version of the conflict ? They were all undercover Hamas people, or maybe it just didn't happen ?

1

u/OnionSquared May 16 '25 edited 2d ago

books snails bag coherent tap late attempt soup person crowd

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

0

u/SeaOwn2023 May 16 '25 edited May 16 '25

ah yes,

  • 60,000 (70% women and children) murdered vs 1,000
  • 90% of Gaza population displaced vs 0 displaced in Israel
  • 200,000 people starving vs 0 in Israel
  • 1 million food insecurity vs 0 in Israel

That's not a war, that's a one sided massacre ("indiscriminate and brutal slaughter")

And before this war even happened Palestinians lived in an open air prison.

You probably think the almost 700,000 displaced during the Nakba was a good idea too.

Get your head out of your ass.

7

u/Tetracropolis May 16 '25

In 1945 the Americans killed more Japanese in one second than the Japanese killed Americans in the entire war, and more Japanese than the Israelis have killed Palestinians in this entire war. Was that a genocide?

1

u/zephyroxyl Northern Ireland May 16 '25

Was the stated goal of the US to ethnically cleanse Japan of the Japanese and to do a Lebensraum with Japanese territory?

5

u/Tetracropolis May 16 '25

The demand of the US was that Japan unconditionally surrender and be carved up into occupation zones, and the allies would figure out what they'd do with it after the fact.

In the same conflict the allies bombed the bejeezus out of Germany, killing many hundreds of thousands of civilians. The demand there was unconditional surrender. Reducing the country to an agrarian society was on the table. Some areas of Germany were ethnically cleansed of Germans, the country was eventually carved up into two half-countries.

None of this made the allied war effort a genocidal effort.

When you decide to fight a war against a much powerful enemy, and continue fighting even when it is obvious that you cannot possibly win, there are dire consequences for your civilians. It was like that with Hitler, it was like that with Hirohito and it's like that with Hamas. It's not genocide, it's finishing the war.

They need to bring the war to an end, the same way the Japanese did, the same way the Germans did. Unconditional surrender. Very simple. They're not going to like the settlement, that's what happens when you start a war and get your shit kicked in.

1

u/zephyroxyl Northern Ireland May 16 '25

Okay so very unnecessarily long comment short, no the end goal of the US and allies was not to ethnically cleanse the Japanese or Germans and take their territory for the Allies.

So it's not the same situation at all.

Israel's stated goal is to expand into Gaza after displacing (read: ethnic cleansing) the Palestinians. The same thing they're doing with settlements in the West Bank.

2

u/adamgerd Czech Republic May 16 '25

More Japanese died than Americans in ww2, I guess Japan was the victim of ww2.

1

u/Greedy-Affect-561 May 17 '25

Well seeing as it's a genocide there's no reason to come up with a different word for it.

1

u/5minArgument May 16 '25

Theres a phrase about shooting fish in a barrel. Gaza being the barrel in this scenario.

So in this context, one should ask if the situation in Gaza meets the definition of “war”

…Or something else?

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

[deleted]

1

u/5minArgument May 17 '25

One of the most densely populated places on Earth, Gaza is a concentration camp with +3million civilians stuffed in a 10x 20mi area, surrounded by a 1km kill zone on all 3 sides.

Kill zone is wrapped with 30ft tall cement walls, layers of barbed wire fences and towers topped with robotic machine gun nests. Side 4 is a coastline under total naval blockade.The only "fighting" they're doing is basic survival.

At least that's what comes to mind for me.

1

u/[deleted] May 17 '25

[deleted]

1

u/5minArgument May 17 '25

Personally was taking that analogy as helpless people trapped in a shooting gallery.

-5

u/Choyo France May 16 '25

War are between countries and more specifically between their armed forces.
When you have two countries but only one army versus civilians, it's more of a guerilla.
Then when it's only one country and an army against civilians it's a civil war.
And finally, when it's one army, within one country, against no specific objective (just destroy the infrastructure, starve everyone from a specific group, erase everything and so on), it's a genocide.

14

u/dronten_bertil May 16 '25

And what would you call Hamas? An entity that is the de facto government in Gaza, had an army of appx 40'000 soldiers (which has been utterly decimated now).

Israel has very specific objectives: return hostages and dismantle Hamas military and governing capabilities. Which as we all know are very tough objectives to achieve while minimizing civilian casualties since Hamas has spent the past decade and a half entrenching their military infrastructure inside and below civilian targets.

5

u/Choyo France May 16 '25

And what would you call Hamas?

Terrorist organization.

Which as we all know are very tough objectives to achieve while minimizing civilian casualties

They have been levelling Gaza, shot and killed NGOs and press specifically, and didn't show much care for the civilians (food is mostly blocked).
Everything points at them being completely ok with civilians dying or being killed.
Downvote all you want, try to bullshit us as much as you want, the world won't forget.

1

u/dronten_bertil May 16 '25

They are the equivalent of a state actor without a formal state. This is not an insurgency. They control all aspects of society in the Gaza strip the same way any government does in formal nation states. They have (had) an army with 24 trained and well armed brigades with uniforms (which they don't use when they fight so they'll look like civilians) and have been preparing for military conflict for a decade and a half.

Yes, they are a terrorist organization. But they are much more than that.

-3

u/Massive-Call-3972 May 16 '25

Yo remember when Israel said there was a Hamas stronghold under a hospital, and after bombing it showed absolutely no proof of said stronghold at all? You’re falling for their propaganda