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Palestinian genocide accusation

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Genocide against Palestinians is a characterization of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict which argues that Israel has carried out and/or is carrying out some kind of genocide against the Palestinian population, sometimes related to the view that Israel is a settler colonial state.[1][2] The view also includes the belief that the system with which Israel governs the Palestinians is one of racial segregation and apartheid.[3]

Events

Nakba

Main article: Nakba

In 2010, historians Martin Shaw and Omer Bartov carried out a debate regarding whether the 1948 Nakba should be regarded as a genocide, with Shaw arguing that it could and with Bartov disagreeing.[4][5][6] The former Deputy Secretary General of the Muslim Council of Britain, Daud Abdullah, has stated that "Given the declared intent of the Zionist leaders, this wholesale destruction and depopulation of Palestinian villages fit[s] easily with the definition of genocide as cited in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."[7]

Blockade of Gaza

Main article: Blockade of the Gaza Strip

Israeli New Historian Ilan Pappé has argued that genocide "is the only appropriate way to describe what the Israeli army is doing in the Gaza Strip".[8][9][10] In an article written in 2023 in the International Journal of Human Rights, Mohammed Nijim voiced his belief “that Israeli policies that were enacted after the introduction of the Blockade of the Gaza Strip amount[ed] to slow-motion genocide".[11]

2014 Gaza War

Main article: 2014 Gaza War

The 2014 Gaza War, also referred to as Operation Protective Edge, was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip. Al-Haq, a Palestinian Human Rights organization, concluded in a report that serious violations of international law were committed in the course of the 2014 Israeli offensive against Gaza. The organization, along with other Palestinian human rights organizations the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and Addameer, submitted a legal file to the International Criminal Court encouraging it to begin an investigation and prosecution into the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed during the course of Israel’s 2014 Gaza offensive. The crime of genocide was referenced as an Israeli crime by these groups.[12] Additionally, dozens of Holocaust survivors, along with hundreds of descendants of Holocaust survivors and victims, accused Israel of “genocide” for the deaths of more than 2,000 Palestinians in Gaza during the 2014 Gaza War.[12]

2023 Israel–Hamas war

Main article: 2023 Israel–Hamas war

The 2023 Israel–Hamas war began when militants invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip on 7 October 2023,[13] and continued with an Israeli counteroffensive.[14] Israel formally declared war on Hamas a day later. Many Palestinians have expressed sadness for the kidnapped and killed Israelis; however, they have also expressed deep concern that this violence would be used to justify genocide by Israel against Palestinians.[15][16] Israel may employ the Dahiya doctrine espoused since 2008, of leveling buildings and neighborhoods.[17][18][19]

Conceptions of genocide

 
One of several Jewish demonstrators who attended a protest over the ongoing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The term genocide was coined in 1944 by a Jewish Polish legal scholar, Raphael Lemkin, who explained that for him “the term does not necessarily signify mass killings”.[12]

More often [genocide] refers to a coordinated plan aimed at destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups so that these groups wither and die like plants that have suffered a blight. The end may be accomplished by the forced disintegration of political and social institutions, of the culture of the people, of their language, their national feelings and their religion. It may be accomplished by wiping out all basis of personal security, liberty, health and dignity. When these means fail the machine gun can always be utilized as a last resort. Genocide is directed against a national group as an entity and the attack on individuals is only secondary to the annihilation of the national group to which they belong.[12]

It has been claimed by many analysts that Israel has violated various acts of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, including: killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.[12] Haifa Rashed and Damien Short have voiced their belief that Lemkin's original concept of genocide can be used to analyze "the historical and continuing, cultural and physical, destructive social and political relations involved in the Israel/Palestine conflict".[20] In a separate publication, Rashed, Short, and John Docker argued that the conflict did not receive enough attention in the field of genocide studies.[21] Historian Lawrence Davidson, in his book about cultural genocide, included a chapter about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[22] Nicolás Maduro, the President of Venezuela since 2013, said in October 2023 that he interpreted a statement from the United Nations as a warning "about the genocide that has begun against the Palestinian people in Gaza," adding that “We have witnessed in the past massacres and brutal atrocities against the Palestinian people”.[23] In an opinion survey commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute following the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, 34% agreed that "Israel's treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States," 25% agreed that "Israel is an apartheid state" and 22% agreed that "Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians." The percentages were higher among younger voters, of whom more than a third agreed that Israel is an apartheid state.[24]

Conceptions of apartheid

Main article: Israel and apartheid

Between 2020 and 2021, Israeli human rights NGOs such as Yesh Din and B'Tselem issued reports that concluded that Israel were inflicting a system of apartheid on Palestine.[25][26][27][28] In April 2021, Human Rights Watch became the first major international human rights body to state that Israel had implemented an apartheid system onto Israel.[28][29] Amnesty International distributed a report with similar findings and conclusions on 1 February 2022.

Public analysis

Legal aspects

In 1998, American human rights lawyer Francis Boyle, the professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, suggested bringing a case against Israel for violating the Genocide Convention.[8][30][31]

Political discourse

Both Israel and Palestine frequently accuse the other of planning a scheme of genocide.[32]

See also

References

  1. ^ Short, Haifa Rashed, Damien (2014). "Genocide and settler colonialism: can a Lemkin-inspired genocide perspective aid our understanding of the Palestinian situation?". New Directions in the Sociology of Human Rights. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-53994-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  2. ^ Short 2016, p. 10.
  3. ^ "Israel committing 'genocide' against Palestinian people". Mehr News. 10 October 2023. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
  4. ^ Shaw, Martin; Bartov, Omer (2010). "The question of genocide in Palestine, 1948: an exchange between Martin Shaw and Omer Bartov". Journal of Genocide Research. 12 (3–4): 243–259. doi:10.1080/14623528.2010.529698.
  5. ^ Martin, Shaw (2010). "Palestine in an International Historical Perspective on Genocide". Holy Land Studies. 9 (1): 1–24. doi:10.3366/hls.2010.0001.
  6. ^ Shaw, Martin (2013). "Palestine and Genocide: An International Historical Perspective Revisited". Holy Land Studies. 12 (1): 1–7. doi:10.3366/hls.2013.0056.
  7. ^ Abdullah, Daud (2019). "A century of cultural genocide in Palestine". Cultural Genocide. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-21410-0.
  8. ^ a b Lendman, Steve (2010). "Israel's Slow-Motion Genocide in Occupied Palestine". The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction. Palgrave Macmillan US: 29–38. doi:10.1057/9780230107922_2.
  9. ^ Pappe, Ilan (2010). "Genocide in Gaza". The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction. Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 201–205. ISBN 978-0-230-10792-2.
  10. ^ Polya, Gideon (2010). "Ongoing Palestinian Genocide". The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction. Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 39–42. ISBN 978-0-230-10792-2.
  11. ^ Nijim, Mohammed (2023). "Genocide in Palestine: Gaza as a case study". The International Journal of Human Rights. 27 (1): 165–200. doi:10.1080/13642987.2022.2065261.
  12. ^ a b c d e "The Genocide of the Palestinian People: An International Law and Human Rights Perspective" (PDF). Center for Constitutional Rights. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
  13. ^ Erlanger, Steven (7 October 2023). "An Attack From Gaza and an Israeli Declaration of War. Now What?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 7 October 2023. Retrieved 11 October 2023.
  14. ^ George, Susannah; Dadouch, Sarah; Parker, Claire; Rubin, Shira (9 October 2023). "Israel formally declares war against Hamas as more than 1,000 killed on both sides". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
  15. ^ "Palestinian Americans, Dismayed by Violence, Say Historical Context Is Being Overlooked". The New York Times. 12 October 2023. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
  16. ^ "Palestinian UN envoy accuses Israel of 'genocidal' campaign against Gaza". Reuters News. 11 October 2023. Retrieved 13 October 2023.
  17. ^ Gjevori, Elis (May 14, 2021). "Israel's 'Dahiya Doctrine,' a plan for mass civilian deaths in Gaza". Israel's Dahiya Doctrine; a plan for mass civilian deaths in Gaza. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  18. ^ Monks, Kieron (October 10, 2023). "The controversial military doctrines Israel could already be using in Gaza". inews.co.uk. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  19. ^ "Israel at War: A Scripps News special report". Scripps News. October 12, 2023. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  20. ^ Rashed, Haifa; Short, Damien (2012). "Genocide and settler colonialism: can a Lemkin-inspired genocide perspective aid our understanding of the Palestinian situation?". The International Journal of Human Rights. 16 (8): 1142–1169. doi:10.1080/13642987.2012.735494.
  21. ^ Rashed, Haifa; Short, Damien; Docker, John (2014). "Nakba Memoricide: Genocide Studies and the Zionist/Israeli Genocide of Palestine". Holy Land Studies. 13 (1): 1–23. doi:10.3366/hls.2014.0076. ISSN 1474-9475.
  22. ^ Davidson, Lawrence (2012). "Israel and Palestinian Cultural Genocide". Cultural Genocide. Rutgers University Press. pp. 65–88. ISBN 978-0-8135-5344-3.
  23. ^ "Israel committing 'genocide' against Palestinian people". Mehr News. 10 October 2023. Retrieved 12 October 2023.
  24. ^ "Israel 'is an apartheid state,' a quarter of U.S. Jews say in new poll". Haaretz.
  25. ^ "A regime of Jewish supremacy from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is apartheid". B'Tselem. 12 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2021. A regime that uses laws, practices and organized violence to cement the supremacy of one group over another is an apartheid regime. Israeli apartheid, which promotes the supremacy of Jews over Palestinians, was not born in one day or of a single speech. It is a process that has gradually grown more institutionalized and explicit, with mechanisms introduced over time in law and practice to promote Jewish supremacy. These accumulated measures, their pervasiveness in legislation and political practice, and the public and judicial support they receive – all form the basis for our conclusion that the bar for labeling the Israeli regime as apartheid has been met.
  26. ^ Michael Sfard 'The Occupation of the West Bank and the Crime of Apartheid: Legal Opinion,' Yesh Din 9 July 2020.
  27. ^ Michael Sfard, Israeli progressives have started to talk about 'apartheid' The Guardian 3 June 2021.
  28. ^ a b Sfard, Michael (2021-06-03). "Why Israeli progressives have started to talk about 'apartheid'". The Guardian.
  29. ^ Holmes, Oliver (2021-04-27). "Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, rights group says". The Guardian.
  30. ^ Boyle, Francis A. (2000). "Palestine: Sue Israel for Genocide before the International Court of Justice!". Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. 20 (1): 161–166. doi:10.1080/13602000050008979.
  31. ^ Boyle, Francis A. (2010). "Israel's Crimes against Palestinians: War Crimes, Crimes against Humanity, Genocide". The Plight of the Palestinians: A Long History of Destruction. Palgrave Macmillan US. pp. 259–262. ISBN 978-0-230-10792-2.
  32. ^ Short 2016, p. 70.
  • Short, Damien (2016). Redefining Genocide: Settler Colonialism, Social Death and Ecocide. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84813-546-8.
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