Kindly refrain from putting such stupid words in my mouth, and keep them in your own, where it seems they rightly belong, thank you.

You asked about Israel and Hamas, then instantly conflated this particular conflict with a broader conflict to come between Israel and Iran, which are not the same thing. That’s beyond moving the goal posts, we’re no longer even discussing the same events. You’re also conflating Israel with Jews as a whole here. Calling for the state of Israel to no longer exist and calling for all Jewish residents within its borders to be either killed or displaced are two rather distinct things.

I know of no definition in which a single attack in isolation, or merely killing civilians during a war, is considered to constitute genocide. Even if this were the case, the civilian casualties in the many conflicts between Israel, Hamas, and more or less all of Israel’s neighbors in the region have been decidedly lopsided. Israel suffers far fewer civilian deaths than those they inflict on others, so even if we were to entertain the notion that Hamas’ resistance to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories constitutes a genocide and we accept that the Iranian regime is in some major capacity responsible for such actions because they provide funding and support to Hamas (which, lol, even Israeli media admits Israel did, too), just going by the casualties, we’d have to conclude that Israel is either a decidedly more genocidal regime, better at genocide, or both.

Israel continues to interfere in the affairs of other sovereign nations, support settlers stealing other peoples’ land and is actively engaging in a brutal genocide. If the Israeli state were to be dismantled and Israel ceased to exist as a nation, I could only say that it’s past time for it to happen. And before you put more hysterical words in my mouth, note well: Israel no longer existing as a sovereign theocratic ethnostate and the Jews who currently live in the region being in any way harmed are two entirely separate things. Calling for a particular state to no longer exist is not a call for genocide, in and of itself.

Tl;dr: Get lost with your hasbara attempts, they’re woefully transparent.

What makes the Israel-Hamas war a genocide and for example, the Vietnam war not be considered a genocide?

Because Vietnam was a war of ideologies, not a land grab intended to wipe out the current occupants so they could be entirely replaced by a “superior, chosen” people not of the ethnicity of the current residents.

This is such a mindblowingly stupid attempt at a gotcha question. Ffs, you literally had over a million Vietnamese fighting on the same side as the US in the ARVN during the course of the war. The belligerent parties in a conflict both being composed of largely the same peoples fighting each other tends to preclude it being described as a genocide.

There’s also another category, “I can leave, but I don’t want to leave behind people important to me that would be at significantly more risk than I am.” I’ve got the work experience to head off to any of several fairly comfortable and stable countries on a skilled work visa, and hope that, if push comes to shove, none of my debts I currently have in the US would become obstacles to my permanently settling there. I can more or less fluently speak Spanish and Portuguese, and I can get by fine in French. Within a couple more years, I’ll have a degree from a European university completed, and I continue to study other languages, with varying degrees of success.

I’m still hanging around, waiting for my sister-in-law to finish up her degree in another two years so that the three of us could all get out at once, as, despite being a naturalized citizen for more than 20 years, I wouldn’t put it past ICE and the current administration to target her just for having darker skin and a slight accent to her English. I’d rather be here where I can watch out for her and raise hell ASAP if something were to happen, than be posted up in a new flat in France or something, and suddenly realize I can’t get in contact with her at all.

There’s also the simple fact that, for those who don’t have the means to legally obtain a visa, I’m unaware of any nation that has started accepting asylum cases from the US on the grounds of the current administration’s actions and policies. Yeah, I could walk to the border with Canada, or overstay on a tourist trip in Europe, but then you face the very real possibility of being caught and sent back, straight into the hands of the very people you are trying to escape, clearly marking yourself out as a dissident of some form. This is leaving aside all the issues you would face as an undocumented immigrant in a foreign nation. I sure don’t have the funds to just show up in Ireland or Portugal and be able to get myself somewhere to stay indefinitely, clothe and feed myself, even assuming I find work within the first few months. I don’t know anyone there that could help me land on my feet.

Getting out, and more importantly, being able to assure you can stay out, is not as simple a task as people who haven’t seriously looked into it might think.

Hey, if they want to put themselves through looking at me in the nude, they can inflict that pain on themselves. I’d be more worried about them tracking everything else someone does day to day, and who could get their hands on that data.