For once, I agree with Mehdi. It IS "fascinating how Gaza has exposed the intellectual emptiness and ignorance and dishonesty of our 'public intellectuals'" ... but not in the way he suggests. In fact, MEHDI's commentary on Gaza has been little more than intellectual emptiness & ignorance & dishonesty for quite some time. This is but one illustrative example. Of COURSE the "definition of genocide doesn’t revolve around percentages killed." But that isn't the main point of historian Simon Schama's post. If you trace back the actual 🧵 rather than just the screenshot Mehdi posts (at least have the sand to tag quote @simon_schama ffs), you see Simon is responding to tbh what amounts to a pretty lame question: "So is it only a Genocide if those on the recieving end are Jewish?" Simon says no & points to other potential or actual genocides - only 1 of which entailed "those on the receiving end" being Jewish (the Holocaust, obviously). In doing so, yes Simon cites to proportions of the population killed for each. And no, "the definition of genocide doesn’t revolve around percentages killed" - as Mehdi points out below. But, of course that's not ALL Simon says. Here's another point he makes that Mehdi simply (conveniently?) ignores: "Of course there has been atrocious brutality and tragedy, during the war, not least because Hamas fought it in a densely populated civilian area." THEN he says "but this is not a genocide" & presents a comparison of proportions of populations killed. Now, if you combine Simon's observation quoted immediately above WITH the proportional comparisons, THIS is pretty compelling evidence of the decisive element in ANY genocide inquiry: intent. Because let's be honest. If @Israel intended to destroy the Palestinian population, in whole OR in part, @IDF has the capacity to do so - and it could have been done by October 8, 2023. But IF we take the percentage of the population in #Gaza reportedly killed as empirically accurate, and IF we account for the fact that this total figure doesn't differentiate between #Hamas militants & civilians not taking direct part in hostilities, and we ACCOUNT (as Simon does in his post) for the fact that Hamas deliberately hides & fights among its own civilian population, a CUMULATIVE casualty rate of 4.55% is pretty fucking compelling evidence that 🇮🇱 intends to destroy Hamas - in whole, if necessary - rather than the Palestinian population as such. Now, I've been at this long enough to project what the most common response is: "But wait! Genocide doesn't require destruction of the whole population. Just intent to destroy the group in whole OR in part!!" As popular as this point is, it's actually SUCH an intellectually empty & ignorant counter-argument. While technically true, it doesn't establish that the intent of @netanyahu et al is to destroy the Palestinian population even IN PART. And last I checked (like, 1 second ago - when I attached a screenshot of an excerpt the Genocide Convention), that is a required component of gEnOcIdE. So, to sum up: 🇮🇱 COULD destroy the Palestinian population IN WHOLE if that were the ACTUAL intent. A CUMULATIVE casualty rate of 4.55% is spectacularly low, in the grand scheme, considering that Hamas deliberately hides & fights among its own civilian population. In fact, it's so low it suggests the intent is NOT to destroy the Palestinian population, in whole OR in part. And the proportional comparison Simon Schama presents merely provides historical context for that conclusion & clearly wasn't meant - based on an holistic reading - to suggest that the "definition of genocide" revolves "around percentages killed." So, Mehdi IS right that it is "fascinating how Gaza has exposed the intellectual emptiness and ignorance and dishonesty of our 'public intellectuals.'" But misrepresentating Simon's points about the Gaza "genocide" is an example of all three - just like most of Mehdi's commentary on Gaza. #poeticirony #legaldisinformation