Senior ministers concerned about effects of Occupied Territories Bill.

Not at all. Your fake internet outrage is wasted on me I'm afraid.

As I said at the start of this thread, I have sympathy for the victims on BOTH sides, but I feel no obligation or responsibility for the conflict and it's not something Ireland should be getting involved in frankly.

I also know my history, and neither side are innocent in this conflict.

Actually, having a bunch of virtue signalling idiots distracting busy traffic on a motorway on a road that regularly sees accidents does concern me.

Another question I'd ask is whether they got or need Garda approval to stand on bridges/overpasses waving at traffic? I know they're normally accompanied by Gardai when holding up the traffic in Cork at the weekend.

What exactly do they think they're achieving with it, or all these marches at the weekends. Do they think the Israelis care? Do they think the Palestinians feel "seen" and cared about, or that either side even know about what's going on here?

Also, if you read history you'll know that neither side are innocent victims (aside from the civilians caught up in the middle). That aside it's feck all to do with Ireland and we would be far better focusing on and highlighting our own problems if some people need a "cause" to shout about.

No, intent is not sufficient to establish responsiblity for genocide. Intent is necessary, but not in itself sufficient. You also need acts.

Here's the full definition from the Convention (emphasis added:

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about itsphysical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Since the proceedings here are against the state of Israel, we're looking at the acts and the intent not of Ben Gvir, or of Smotrich, or of Netenyahu, or of the IDF, but of the State of Israel itself.

How do we attribute either acts or intent to a state? The principles of state responsibility (for all purposes, not just for the purposes of the Genocide Convention) are well-established. Here's a quote from the International Law Commission's Report on the Responsiblity of States:

4. The conduct of any State organ shall be considered an act of that State under international law, whether the organ exercises legislative, executive, judicial or any other functions, whatever position it holds in the organization of the State, and whatever its character as an organ of the central Governmentor of a territorial unit of the State.

An organ includes any person or entity which has that status in accordance with the internal law of the State.

5. The conduct of a person or entity which is not an organ of the State under article 4 but which is empowered by the law of that State to exercise elements of the governmental authority shall be considered an act of the State under international law, provided the person or entity is acting in that capacity in the particular instance.

So, as to the present proceedings:

Acts of the IDF will certainly be attributed to the State of Israel. Israel will deny that the IDF has perpetrated any the acts that can consitute genocide; South Africa and others will argue that they have; the Court will decide, on the evidence before it whether they have or not. I doubt that Israel will waste much time arguing that it is not responsible for the acts of the IDF; if the IDF has commited any of the listed acts, Israel is certainly responsible for that, and it would look pretty desperate if it argued that it wasn't.

So we turn then to the question of intent; does the State of Israel have the necessary intent? As you can see from the quote above, international responsibilty can be imputed to a state on the basis of acts (and "acts" here includes saying things) done by a person who is an "organ of the state" (e.g. the President, a governor, an ambassador, a judge — someone who in themselves embodies some aspect of the state or some aspect of state power/authority) or by a person who is not an organ but who, under law of the state, exercises elements of governmental authority.

Israeli cabinet ministers are arguably organs of the state since, in Israeli, the cabinet collectively exercises the supreme executive authority. The counter-argument would be that the cabinet collectively is a state organ, but cabinet ministers individually are not. But, if cabinet ministers individually are not state organs, they are still people for whom the state is responsible under article 5 because they certainly exercise "elements of governmental authority".

Plus, it will be argued that the utterances of cabinet ministers regarding actions of the government can be taken as indicating the mind not just of those individual ministers but of the cabinet in which they participate, unless the state decisively repudiates them, and the cabinet is an organ. To be honest, I think Israel's position on the intent issue would be much stronger if Ben Gvir, etc, has been immediately fired when they made the comments in question. When the defence forces of any state are controlled and directed by a government which includes men who express views like this, I wouldn't bet money on a court holding that those views are not to be imputed to the state.

Because you're not so completely lacking in self-respect as to think that "no worse than Hamas" is an acceptable standard to which to hold youself?

Yo're entitled to be as indifferent as you want to the violence, suffering, oppression and injustice that others suffer. What you are not entilted to do is to demand that others feel equally indifferent. Your indifference is not a basis for criticising actions taken by those who are not indifferent.

And, of course, if you truly are indifferent to the suffering of others then you cannot possibly criticise Hamas for what they are doing; by your lights, the suffering they inflict is of no moral weight.

All of which makes me wonder why you would bother to participate in the thread at all? I can't avoid the suspicion that you are not as indifferent as you claim (which, if so, would be to your credit).

All these situations are different, obviously. One thing that leaps out is that, of all the countries involved in all the situations, Israel is the only one that is considered a democracy, and we may be more sensitive about democracies perpertrating atrocities.

But there are other differences also. In the Iran-Iraq war, European governments did apply arms embargos; they continue to arm Israel. In the Syrian war there were also embargos and sanctions, and the US did intervene militarily to create/support safe zones; nothing like that has happened here. UN and AU troops did intervene in the Darfur genocide — up to 25,000 troops were deployed to create safe zones and provide shelter and food aid; there has been no analogous action in Gaza. Etc, etc. So if people in Europe seem more exercised about Gaza than about the other situations you mention, it may be that they are angry that the international community in general, and their own governments in particular, are doing less about Gaza than they did about those other situations.

But the net point is that you can't credibly rebut opposition to an atrocity by pointing to another atrocity that encountered less opposition; in fact you have to be pretty desparate to take this line. The implicit argument, essentially, is that complete indifference to all atrocities is a more morally praiseworthy stance that objecting to some atrocities. You only have to say that out loud to realise what a deeply, deeply unattractive position it is.

So because Israel is a democracy we shouldn't show support for it? I'm not sure I understand that logic to be honest…

The logic is that we hold democracies to the standards that they profess.

Perhaps you can argue that we shouldn't. But, in my observation, we often do. And that would explain why people are more upset about atrocities perpetrated by Israel than atrocities perpetrated by, say, Assad's Syria.