BadEmpanada made a video arguing that the term “genocide” should be done away with because of how much it muddies the waters (as an example he compared the Srebrenica Massacre, declared a genocide in court, versus comparable massacres elsewhere in Bosnia that weren’t). It also overlaps with a bunch of other legal terms like crimes against humanity, so it ends up diminishing atrocities that come close but for one reason or another aren’t considered one.
Honestly I agree. “Genocide” requires intent, and just like with individual level crimes proving “intent” makes things way more difficult even when the perpetrator keeps shouting “Mass murder is my intent!”
Intent shouldn’t matter. Whether you intended to kill hundreds of thousands of civilians or if they actually were incidental in your quest to “destroy Hamas” doesn’t fucking matter, you killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, that should be the crime in itself.
