Is Israel justified with what they are doing?
Serious question:
People are calling what Israel is doing a genocide and the Israeli government an apartheid regime.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, genocide is "the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group."
Israel is currently at war with Hamas, and the Iran-backed terrorist group has used some very questionable tactics in the war started over the October 7th attacks in 2023.
Legal scholars and governments say that a genocide needs a dolus specialis, or specific intent. With Israel, there is no real intent other than removing a terroristic group from the West Bank after the very same group attacked Israel, unprovoked. Israel has allowed some humanitarian aid, issued evacuation warnings before attacks, and is also not only targetting civilian infrastructure. It just so happens that Hamas is hiding amongst civilian infrastructure. (https://verdict.justia.com/2024/02/22/the-world-court-lacks-any-plausible-basis-for-directing-provisional-measures-against-israel-under-the-genocide-convention)
Urban warfare against Hamas is a big reason for most of the destruction. The West Bank is very tightly packed, dense city buildings. It is almost impossible not to cause civilian casualties, especially taking into account the use of tunnels under civilian infrastructure. Would you consider the Battle of Leningrad or of Stalingrad as "genocides" just because of the civilian death toll?
Now, onto the Apartheid scope.
Arab citizens in Israel have legal rights and voting rights. Compare this to Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa. Jewish people and others discriminated against in the Nuremburg Laws were not given any voting rights, and many basic human rights were stripped away from them as well. In South Africa, the white minority government was extremely toxic and racist to the black population of their nation, resulting in them being completely barred from any voting rights whatsoever.
In Israel, the conflict is mainly seen as national security rather than a racially based one. Israel is waging war with Hamas over being attacked on 10/7/23. The war is also to get back the hostages taken by Hamas and to try and defeat the terrorist group as a whole.
So... why do people really still think that Israel is the worst of the worst! The new Nazi regime! "They go through the Holocaust then wage their own!"