Except we don't go in to stop genocide. If we refers the the USA then we've technically caused far more genocide than they've ostensibly gone in to stop. Half of south/central America( who can forget plunging a country into bloody civil war for over 4 decades over bananas?),east Timor/Singapore(gave certain factions the weapons for genocide for free to expidite the ethnic cleaning of ),the Dominican republic, the middle east in general(the iraq/iran war, Israel's genocide is sponsored partially by American weapons given away to them by the government)
Given the US track record of not giving a shit about how horrible a dictator is as long as he's useful it's not surprising that most countries would be wary of the US having any power over them.
A few Sources. You can look up the rest if bored since i don't think listing everything is necessary for the point.
http://www.cracked.com/article_15967_awful-truth-behind-5-items-probably-on-your-grocery-list.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history#East_Timor_under_Indonesian_occupation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran–Iraq_war
:this is4u:
You know what, Khajit... fuck you. I have family in Israel and have personally stood at the borders between Israel and the West Bank. Genocide is the systematic execution of an entire race/ethnic group, not a territorial conflict between two peoples claiming the same land. Are there Palestinian refugee camps? Yes, there are. But they exist because the various Palestinian 'governments' haven't taken care of their people. Twice now, they've had offers for full statehood, and 98% of the land they requested, and they've turned it down? Why? Because they'd rather be martyrs (at least, their leaders do).
Are there Israeli strikes into the West Bank and Gaza? Yes, but always, ALWAYS in retaliation for bombs in cafes or rockets/mortars being sent over the border. It's NOT fucking death camps, it's NOT fucking mass shootings and mass graves, and unlike the Palestinians, Israeli soldiers actually *try* not to hit civilians, risking their own lives to do so.
Call it a vastly uneven war if you must, but it is NOT fucking genocide.
For those of you who don't know the basics of the Arab-Israeli conflict in a nutshell, here it is:
1. Roughly two thousand years ago, the Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, marking the end of the ancient Kingdom of Israel. Jews left en masse in what is known as the Diaspora. For the next couple millenia, the region is ruled by a number of different empires, mainly Muslim. The Crusades come and go. Eventually, it ends up under the control of England.
2. 1948 - after the Holocaust there is a massive push by the Jews of the world for the establishment of a new homeland so that it can never happen again. The newly formed United Nations gets on board with it and creates the partition plan, creating both Israeli and Arab states within British Palestine. This is the last time the UN would be of any fucking help to Israel. Note that the Jewish areas were a *lot* smaller than what they are today.
3. The Jews are on board with the plan, and are fine with the Palestinians having their own areas. The Palestinians, and every other arab nation surrounding them, are not, and attempt to "push the Jews into the sea."
4. After a very bloody war, Israel emerges as a survivor. The post-1948 borders look like Israel today, minus the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. Post-war, an influx of massive amounts of Jewish immigrants and money create a boom, and Israel does rather well over the next decade and a half.
5. 1967 - Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon are sick of Israel's presence and band together once again to "push the Jews into the sea." Israel gets wind of their sneak attack, set to go on the Jewish high holiday of Yom Kippur, and pre-empts them by attacking just as they start to roll their forces. In a battle that is still studied today, the Israeli Air Force completely destroys the integrated air defenses of their neighbors and is able to provide unchallenged air cover to their ground forces. The Israeli Army, in turn, pushes all the way to the Jordan River and takes the entire Sinai Peninsula from Egypt.
6. Israel negotiates peace treaties with its surrounding neighbors in exchange for the land they just took from them. Strangely enough, Egypt does not want the Gaza strip back, and Jordan is very quick to offer everything west of the Jordan River.
7. It quickly becomes apparent why such massive concessions were made. The Palestinians living in these regions were a large collective pain in the ass to the Egyptians and Jordanians respectively. A young Arafat, eventual leader of the PLO, had even tried to kill King Hussein of Jordan.
8. Israel is now faced with a very difficult problem. The charter of the country is to be both a Jewish state, and a democratic state.
The Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza would potentially out number Israeli Jews. If Israel formally annexed the West Bank and Gaza, they would become citizens, and Israel would no longer be a Jewish state.
If they denied them the right to vote to keep Israel a Jewish state, it would no longer be a free and democratic state. Neither option would work... it was a perfect example of a Catch 22.
At the same time, Israel could not just give up the West Bank. It happens to be some of the most fertile land in the world, and Israel was already tiny... they needed every last inch of land they could get. Furthermore, without the West Bank, Israel loses most of its access to the Jordan River, pretty much the only supply of fresh water in the region.
To compound the problem, a large number of Jewish cultural sites and religious sites are located in the West Bank... and Orthodox Jews were quickly settling the region in order to lay claim to it.
There was hope initially that the Palestinians would leave, not wanting to be surrounded by Jews. Obviously that didn't happen.
So bottom line, the Israeli government has two chunks of land that it can't afford to give up, but also can't afford to keep. The general consensus within the majority of the Israeli populace is that they want to be able to give the Palestinians their own state, but they can't do so honorably until the bombings stop. Doing otherwise would make them lose face, and say to the world that terrorism works.
By the same token, they can't, and won't simply attack and force the Palestinians out. And, unlike the Germans and so many others have done to us, we will NOT try to wipe them out.
Again, Khajit, it's not genocide. Fuck you for even implying that.
The major sticking point is Jerusalem. Twice now, the Israelis have offered almost everything the Palestinians wanted except the city, and the deals have fallen through. That being said, they will not give portions of the city up... before 1967, Israelis had to endure part of Jerusalem being under Arab rule, and it was *not* a good situation. Jews attempting to go to holy sites were routinely shot at. Given the blood that was spilled re-taking the city, it's not an option for negotiation.
So that's where we stand. It's a political struggle for land and statehood. Not persecution and genocide. At least equal amounts of blood have been spilled on both sides.
