Social:Palestinian genocide accusation

Short description: Allegations pertaining to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict

"Stop the genocide, free Palestine" rally in Helsinki, Finland 21 October 2023.

The State of Israel has been accused of inciting or carrying out genocide against the Palestinians during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This accusation has been linked to the conceptualization of Israel as a settler colonial state. Those who believe Israel's actions constitute genocide typically point to the phenomena of anti-Palestinianism, Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism in Israeli society, and they cite the Nakba, the Sabra and Shatila massacre, the blockade of the Gaza Strip, the 2014 Gaza War and the 2023 Israel–Hamas war as instances of genocide.

International law and genocide scholars have accused Israeli officials of using dehumanising language. During the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, Israeli Holocaust historian Omer Bartov warned that statements made by high-ranking Israeli government officials "could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent".

On 29 December 2023, South Africa filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, alleging that Israel's conduct in Gaza during the 2023 war amounted to genocide. South Africa asked the ICJ to issue provisional measures, including ordering Israel to halt its military campaign in Gaza. The Israeli government agreed to defend itself at the ICJ proceedings, while also denouncing South Africa's actions as "disgraceful" and accusing it of abetting "the modern heirs of the Nazis". South Africa's case has been supported by a number of countries. On 26 January 2024, the ICJ issued a preliminary ruling finding that the claims in South Africa's filing were "plausible" and issued an order to Israel requiring them to take all measures within their power to prevent acts of genocide and to allow basic humanitarian services into Gaza.

Israel and the United States have rejected the assertion that Israel is engaging in genocide. While some scholars describe Palestinians as victims of genocide, others argue that they are not victims of genocide, but rather of ethnic cleansing, politicide, spaciocide, cultural genocide or similar. Critics of the accusation sometimes argue that the charge that Israel is committing genocide is an assertion commonly made by anti-Zionists with the aim of demonising Israel.

History

20th century

Nakba

The Nakba is the violent displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people, along with the destruction of their society, culture, identity, political rights, and national aspirations. The Nakba began during the 1948 Palestine war, and the term has been used to describe the the ongoing persecution and displacement of Palestinians by Israel throughout the Palestinian territories. Palestinians continued to be expelled, and more Palestinian towns and villages were destroyed, with new Israeli settlements established in their place.

During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, dozens of massacres targeting Arabs were conducted and about 400 Arab-majority towns and villages were depopulated; with many of these being either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jewish residents and given new Hebrew names. Approximately 750,000 Palestinian Arabs (about half of Palestine's Arab population) fled from their homes or were expelled by Zionist militias and later the Israeli army.

In 2010, historians Martin Shaw and Omer Bartov debated whether the 1948 Nakba should be regarded as a genocide, with Shaw arguing that it could and with Bartov disagreeing. 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." Several scholars have written that Palestinians suffered ethnic cleansing during the Nakba, but that they did not consider the event to have been genocide.

Naksa

Academic Clare Brandabur includes the 1967 Palestinian exodus (known as the Naksa) in the actions conducted by Israel that show a pattern that seeks the "destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group". The Naksa was the expulsion of around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians during and in the aftermath of the Six-Day War, including the razing of numerous Palestinian villages. In her article "Roadmap to Genocide", she argues that the sum of Israel's actions against Palestinians since the Nakba fit the definition of genocide as described by Lemkin in his book "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe".

Complicity in the Sabra and Shatila massacre

Memorial for the dead killed in the massacre in Sabra, South Beirut

In September 1982, between 460 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shia Muslims—were killed in Beirut's Sabra neighborhood and in the adjacent Shatila refugee camp during the Lebanese Civil War. The killings were carried out by the Lebanese Forces, one of the main Christian militias in Lebanon at the time. Between the evening of 16 September and the morning of 18 September, the Lebanese militia carried out the killings while the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had the Palestinian camp surrounded. The IDF had ordered the militia to clear out the fighters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from Sabra and Shatila as part of a larger Israeli maneuver into western Beirut. As the massacre unfolded, the IDF received reports of atrocities being committed, but did not take any action to stop it.

On 16 December 1982, the United Nations General Assembly condemned the Sabra and Shatila massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide. The voting record on section D of Resolution 37/123 was: yes: 123; no: 0; abstentions: 22; non-voting: 12. The delegate for Canada stated: "The term genocide cannot, in our view, be applied to this particular inhuman act". The delegate of Singapore – voting 'yes' – added: "My delegation regrets the use of the term 'an act of genocide' ... [as] the term 'genocide' is used to mean acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group." Canada and Singapore questioned whether the General Assembly was competent to determine whether such an event would constitute genocide. The Soviet Union, by contrast, asserted that: "The word for what Israel is doing on Lebanese soil is genocide. Its purpose is to destroy the Palestinians as a nation." The Nicaragua delegate asserted: "It is difficult to believe that a people that suffered so much from the Nazi policy of extermination in the middle of the twentieth century would use the same fascist, genocidal arguments and methods against other peoples." The United States commented that "While the criminality of the massacre was beyond question, it was a serious and reckless misuse of language to label this tragedy genocide as defined in the 1948 Convention". William Schabas, director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland, stated: "the term genocide ... had obviously been chosen to embarrass Israel rather than out of any concern with legal precision".

That same year an independent commission headed by Seán MacBride investigated reported violations of International Law by Israel and four of its six members concluded that "the deliberate destruction of the national and cultural rights and identity of the Palestinian people amount[ed] to genocide". In its conclusion, the commission recommended "that a competent international body be designed or established to clarify the conception of genocide in relation to Israeli policies and practices toward the Palestinian people". David Hirst believes that while the decision of the U.N. General Assembly could still be called biased, it was harder to say the same about the McBride Commission, as well as about individuals around the world, especially Jews, who shared the opinion of its four members.

The massacre was also investigated by the Israeli Kahan Commission. The commission concluded that although no Israelis were directly involved in the killings, a number of Israeli government ministers and military were indirectly responsible. They should have taken into account the sentiments of their Lebanese allies after their leader Bachir Gemayel had been assassinated along with 26 other Phalangists in a bomb attack 2 days earlier, and also have taken decisive action to stop the killings when the first information was received. The commission's findings were reluctantly accepted by the Israeli government, amid violent, rival, pro- and anti-government protests.

21st century

Blockade of Gaza

In 2005 and again in 2007, Israel imposed a blockade with the support of the Egyptian government on the movement of goods and people in and out 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". And in his 2017 book, Ten Myths About Israel, Pappé wrote "Israel’s claim that its actions since 2006 have been part of a self-defensive war against terror. I will venture to call … an incremental genocide of the people of Gaza." 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".

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. 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.

2021 Israel–Palestine crisis

During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, a video circulated on social media showing Israelis celebrating at the Western Wall, whilst a tree near the Al-Aqsa Mosque burns in the background. A large crowd of Israeli Jews gathered around a fire near the mosque on 10 May, chanting yimakh shemam, a Hebrew curse meaning "may their names be erased". IfNotNow co-founder and B'Tselem USA director Simone Zimmerman criticized them as exhibiting "genocidal animus towards Palestinians — emboldened and unfiltered". The Intercept described the video as "unsettling" and an example of "ultranationalist frenzy". Ayman Odeh, a member of the Knesset for the Joint List, said the video was "shocking".

In an opinion survey of American Jews, commissioned by the Jewish Electorate Institute following the 2021 crisis, 22 percent agreed that "Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians," and Arno Rosenfeld of The Forward argued that the poll may have underestimated the percentage of American Jews who have a critical view of Israel because it undercounted Secular Jews who tend to be less attached to Israel. Conversely, the accusation of genocide during this period was rejected as "ridiculous" and "baseless" by several Jewish and Israeli human rights lawyers, including some who had accused Israel of apartheid.

2023 Israel–Hamas war

Pro-Palestine march in Bristol, United Kingdom, 4 November 2023

Following the bombing of Gaza by Israel in, in response to Hamas attacks, concerns have arisen among Palestinians and international legal scholars about the potential genocide of Palestinians by Israeli forces. According to Time (magazine) , there is currently disagreement among scholars as to whether Israel's actions can be described as a genocide against the Palestinians. On 15 October, TWAILR published a statement signed by over 800 legal scholars, alarmed by this possibility, urged UN, including the UN Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, as well as the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to intervene and protect the Palestinian population. Additionally, 100 civil society organizations and six genocide scholars petitioned Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, to investigate new crimes in Palestinian territories and issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials. These actions were underscored by statements from lawyers and groups like the Center for Constitutional Rights and Defence for Children International, accusing the United States of complicity in these alleged crimes.

Stances of states:

  South Africa

  Countries that have supported South Africa's case

  Countries that have opposed South Africa's case

  Israel

United Nations experts, academics, and human rights organizations have further amplified these concerns. UN rapporteurs warned of the grave risk of genocide to Palestinians, and several Palestinian rights groups filed a lawsuit with the ICC, urging the body to investigate Israel for "apartheid" as well as "genocide" and issue arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. Ernesto Verdeja, a professor at the University of Notre Dame, told Time (magazine) on 14 November, that Israel's actions in Gaza were gravitating towards a "genocidal campaign", noting that "the response when you have a security crisis…can be one of ceasefire, negotiation, or it can be genocide." Victoria Sanford, professor of City University of New York, compared events in Gaza to the 1960–1996 killing and disappearance of 200,000 Mayans in Guatemala, today known as the Guatemalan genocide. David Simon, director for genocide studies at Yale University, stated that it was possible that a court could find the IDF guilty of committing an act of genocide, but added that "it's certainly not textbook in that connecting the intent to destroy ethnic group as such is difficult." Yale's Ben Kiernan opined that events did "not meet the very high threshold that is required to meet the legal definition of genocide." The Jewish Voice for Peace and FIDH have openly condemned the actions as genocidal. South Africa, supported by several countries, filed a case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, labeling Israel's conduct as genocide and requesting provisional measures to halt the military campaign in Gaza. This move was met with strong criticism from the Israeli government, but found support from some Israeli politicians, including Ofer Cassif.

Forcible population transfer

Protester holding "End Palestinian Genocide" sign in London in October 2023.

Israel's evacuation order was characterized as a forcible population transfer by Jan Egeland, the Norwegian former diplomat involved with the Oslo Accord. A "forcible transfer" is the forced relocation of a civilian population as part of an organized offense against it and is considered a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court. In an interview with the BBC, Egeland stated, "There are hundreds of thousands of people fleeing for their life — [that is] not something that should be called an evacuation. It is a forcible transfer of people from all of northern Gaza, which according to the Geneva Convention is a war crime." UN Special rapporteur Francesca Albanese warned of a mass ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and director of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies program at Stockton University, termed it a "textbook case of genocide." A leaked policy paper from the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence, a junior ministry that conducts research but does not set policy, suggested a permanent expulsion of the population of Gaza into Egypt, which has been described as an endorsement of ethnic cleansing; the Israeli government downplayed the report as a hypothetical "concept paper". Transfer is a topic of discussion and disagreement within Israel's government with some expressly calling for permanent expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.

Discourse

Conceptions of genocide

Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. According to Yair Auron, from 1948 to 2008, "researchers" did not analyze the Israel–Palestine conflict in terms of the concept of genocide, but discussion subsequently began. In 2017 Auron stated that he expected increasing discourse over time regarding the concept of a Palestinian genocide.

Raphael Lemkin

The term 'genocide' was coined in 1944 by a Jewish Polish legal scholar, Raphael Lemkin, who wrote that "the term does not necessarily signify mass killings".

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.

Genocide Convention

In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". The five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims must be targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.

In December 2023, South Africa became the first country to file a suit against Israel at the International Court of Justice, accusing the state of committing genocide in Gaza in violation of the Genocide Convention. South Africa stated that "acts and omissions by Israel… are genocidal in character, as they are committed with the requisite specific intent… to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a part of the broader Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group". Genocidal actions listed in the suit included the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza, the destruction of their homes, their expulsion and displacement, as well as the Israeli blockade on food, water and medical aid to the region. Additionally, South Africa noted the Israeli imposition of measures preventing Palestinian births through the destruction of essential health services vital for the survival of pregnant women and their babies. The suit read that all of such actions were "intended to bring about their [Palestinians] destruction as a group". South Africa also asserts that statements made by Israeli officials, such as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have displayed "genocidal intent". Several human rights organizations and other nations have supported South Africa in their suit.

Academic discourse

Pro-Palestinian protester in Columbus, Ohio, United States, 18 October 2023

In 2010, political science professor Martin Shaw argued that the elimination of the majority of Palestinian Arab society in Israel in 1948 constituted genocide. Shaw opined that the scope of genocide is not restricted to human annihilation, instead he recommends an "international historical perspective" that focuses on the aims of genocide and defines "genocidal violence" as widespread destructive measures aimed at civilians. With the broadened definition of genocide, Shaw contends that the 1948 Nakba was partially genocidal with regard to Palestinian society: with "specific genocidal thrusts developed situationally and incrementally, through local as well as national decisions ... a partly decentered, networked genocide, developing in interaction with the Palestinian and Arab enemy, in the context of war". Shaw further detailed this in 2013, in the context of arguments that since a relatively low number of Palestinian Arabs were killed in the Nakba compared to those expelled it could not be considered a genocide, where Shaw draws on Lemkin's definitions of societal destruction being the definition of genocide, which does not necessitate the annihilation of individuals in the group, and points to how this is the more common form of genocide observed in the literature.

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". In a separate publication, Rashed, Short, and John Docker argued that the conflict did not receive enough attention in the field of genocide studies, as the academic "field fears Zionist intimidation and ad hominem attack". The trio raised the possible argument of the ongoing "Zionist project as a structural settler-colonial genocide against the Palestinian people". The trio stated: "Discriminatory land and planning policies" could be viewed using the lens of a government repressing "minority rights" of Palestinian Israelis, but this "does not preclude individual victims experiencing this as genocidal". This conception has also been supported by other academics. Historian Lawrence Davidson, in his book about cultural genocide, included a chapter about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

In the context of the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the Israeli counterattacks, and the imposed complete blockade, which included the denial of water and food to the civilian population, Israeli historian Raz Segal described it as a "textbook case of genocide" and connected it to the Nakba, the expulsion of Palestinians during the establishment of Israel in 1948.

Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer who argued on behalf of Yesh Din that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, wrote in 2020 that Israel's policy against the Palestinians "doesn't even begin to meet the threshold of what genocide is" and that the accusation "cheapens the very important and grave concept of genocide".

British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, arguing that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank was "harsh, unjust, and oppressive", and that over 100 Palestinians were killed by Israeli settlers in both 2022 and 2023, stated that he did not consider it to be a genocide.

Omer Bartov wrote in November 2023 that he believes that "there is no proof that genocide is currently taking place in Gaza", noting the distinctions between ethnic cleansing and genocide. However he called for "stop[ping] Israel from letting its actions become a genocide" and said that "[...] we may be watching an ethnic cleansing operation that could quickly devolve into genocide".

Historians Norman J. W. Goda & Jeffrey C. Herf have rejected the accusation. In October 2023 they criticized historians Omer Bartov and Raz Segal for their statements on the matter.

Ronit Lentin wrote in 2010 that the 1948 Nakba was not "genocide", but ethnic cleansing or "spaciocide". Derek Penslar, a professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford, opined in 2013 that Palestinians suffered "ethnic cleansing" during the Nakba, but "not a genocide", as Penslar said that the latter "means that you wipe out a people"; Rashed, Short, and Docker wrote that "Penslar mistakenly interprets the concept of genocide."

Earlier, historian Ilan Pappé in 2006 and genocide scholar Mark Levene in 2007 both stated that the Nakba in 1948 was "ethnic cleansing", without stating that it was "genocide", with Levene stating that Pappé's research on the Nakba "demands the attention of readers and researchers engaged with the subject of genocide and its suboptimal variants", with the Nakba being "of ongoing relevance – just as much as the Armenian genocide". Pappé, however, would in 2006 and 2007 describe the killings of Palestinians by Israel in Gaza during 2006 as "genocide". Pappé in 2009 described the 2009 Gaza War as "genocide", decrying that the "genocidal operations" are being treated as "unconnected to anything that happened in the past and not associated with any ideology or system". Pappé in 2013 cited a speech by Israel's Prime Minister Shimon Peres that year as having failed to recognize the existence of Palestinians in the history of Israel, which to Pappé "is the point where ethnic cleansing becomes genocidal. When you are eliminated from the history book and the discourse of the top politicians".

Ian Lustick in 2006 described the Nakba as "the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and refusal to allow them to return", and stated that "It was a tragic and unjust and opportunistically accelerated unfolding of the logic of circumstances, not a genocidal campaign." Patrick Wolfe, in a 2006 article analyzing the relationship and differences between settler colonialism and genocide, discussed the example of Palestinians who "threw rocks [at Israelis] and died for their efforts", and further described Palestinians as becoming "more and more dispensable", with Gaza and the West Bank becoming increasingly like Indian reservations or even the like the Warsaw Ghetto.

Nur Masalha in 2012 argued that the Nakba was both "politicide" ("dissolution of the Palestinian people's existence as a legitimate social, political and economic entity") and "cultural genocide" ("destruction and elimination of the cultural pattern of a group, including language, local traditions, ... monuments, place names, landscape, historical records ... in brief, the shrines of the soul of a nation"), with strategies for "de-Arabisation of the land" including new Hebrew names for places replacing Palestinian names, and planting forests over destroyed Palestinian villages.

Yair Auron in 2017 analyzed the 1948 Nakba using the definition of genocide from the 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention (as any other definition would result in "complete chaos" according to Auron), concluding that "Israel committed ethnic cleansing but not a genocide", thus arguing that the underlying aim of the Nakba was not to kill Palestinians, but to "get rid of them, and in doing so, [the Israelis] commit massacres", noting the expulsion of people from over 400 villages. According to Auron, ethnic cleansing is one of the "elements of genocide", though "not an act of genocide". Auron differentiates massacres in genocides as being "part of the comprehensive plan", while massacres in ethnic cleansing are "localized and usually stem from hatred or vengeance". Auron noted that the claim that the 1948 Nakba was genocide has been increasingly advanced by Palestinians, and is also promoted by some European and North American scholars.

Auron argues that there are four main factors why he did not consider 1948 as a genocide against Palestinians: (1) the Arabs initiated the war, resulting in Israel experiencing "critical existential combat" for several weeks; (2) Israel had no "intention of annihilating" a social group; (3) generally, perpetrators of genocide have at least near-absolute force superiority, which Israel did not have; (4) despite "slurs", there was no "racist ideology" towards Palestinians, exemplified by Israeli groups like Hashomer living similarly to Bedouins.

Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg in 2018 described the Nakba as part of "the same modern and global history of genocide and ethnic cleansing" as the Holocaust; although the events differed in "degree of murderousness", they shared a "common global framework of violence created by strong nationalism combined with imperial and colonial ideology and policies", with the Nakba involving the attempt to "de-Arabize and ethnic-cleanse Palestine". Meanwhile, Alon Confino in 2018 contrasted the "genocide" of the Holocaust with the "ethnic cleansing" of the Nakba, describing the latter as aimed at "removing, not annihilating, an ethnic group". Jerome Slater in 2020 described the Nakba as "ethnic cleansing" due to the "forced expulsions" of Palestinians, but also said that "no genocide" occurred due to around 150,000 Palestinians remaining in Israel at the end of the war, who "were allowed to remain there".

Cary Nelson in 2019 stated that the notion of Israel having "engaged in genocide" was "unwarranted slander", and suggested that some people repeat it out of ignorance, just as those who repeated the blood libel about Jews poisoning the wells in Europe did. Nelson further described the accusation of Israel having "genocidal designs on Palestinians" as "false", and the accusation of Israel committing "incremental genocide" in Gaza as "malicious". Nelson described a phenomenon where academics "say publicly that Israel is a settler-colonialist, genocidal, racist, and apartheid state"; Nelson recommends that these allegations should be presented to higher education students "as debatable", instead of being "commonly" presented as facts.

In a 2019 interview, Benny Morris stated that in his view, what happened to Palestinians in 1948 was not a genocide. Morris had written in an earlier 2016 opinion article that the events of 1948 also did not amount to an ethnic cleansing.

Marouf Hasian Jr. in 2020 stated the Nakba exemplified a situation where "empowered decisions-makers are reluctant to call some historical incidents colonial genocides", while "many Palestinian and other Arab writers" have compared the Nakba to "colonial genocides". Hasian describes that some "Israelis worry that al-Nakba consciousness-raising threatens state legitimacy", while "many Israeli supporters" do not consider the Nakba as any form of genocide, instead arguing that there was "spontaneous Arab Palestinian fleeing that was based on calls from neighboring Arab nations". Hasian concludes that "public deliberation, and political events" caused "so many" people to attempt to separate the 1948 Nakba from "the 'real' genocides". Hasian further highlighted how restrictive "Auschwitz-centered, or Lemkin-like ways" of defining genocide was preventing consideration of the Nakba as genocide.

Stephen Sedley, writing in the London Review of Books, discussed a trip organized by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to Hebron to observe the Israeli army's treatment of Palestinian children, and wrote about how one of the first things they saw was graffiti on the door of a deserted Palestinian shop that said "Gas the Arabs". He remarked "Nobody, evidently, has a monopoly of genocidal abuse."

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

Legal discourse

There has been longstanding legal discourse on whether a case can be made that Israel has violated the Genocide Convention, with American human rights lawyer Francis Boyle, the professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law, first suggesting that such a case should be brought to bear in 1998. Boyle's argument is that Israel has "ruthlessly implemented a systematic and comprehensive military, political, and economic campaign with the intent to destroy in substantial part the national, ethnic, racial and different religious (Muslim & Christian) group" of Palestinians.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal, a 'citizens' tribunal', in 2013 found Israel guilty of genocide for actions taken over the previous 67 years, agreeing with the prosecution that the "harsh conditions of life were deliberately inflicted to destroy" Palestinians.

Since 2021, there has been an ongoing investigation of war crimes in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank conducted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). On November 9, Al Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, filed a lawsuit with the ICC, calling for the inclusion of Israeli crimes against humanity, namely apartheid and genocide, in their ongoing investigation and for the arrest of Benyamin Netanyahu, Isaac Herzog, Yoav Gallant and others suspected of committing these crimes.

On 9 November 2023, three Palestinian civil rights groups filed a lawsuit against Israel with the International Criminal Court. The groups charged Israel with war crimes, apartheid, and genocide, calling for the ICC to issue arrest warrants for significant Israeli officials. On November 13, Defence for Children International, Al-Haq, and Palestinians living in Gaza and the United States, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a lawsuit against Joe Biden, Antony Blinken, and Lloyd Austin for failure to prevent genocide, citing Israel's "mass killings," targeting of schools and hospitals, collective punishment, use of chemical weapons, forced expulsion, and blockage of food, water, electricity and other basic needs. The lawsuit seeks to enact an emergency order to end diplomatic and military aid to Israel for their international crimes. On November 22, Euro-Med Monitor urged the United Nations to constitute Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide, investigate crimes against humanity, and take action to prevent any more death or destruction. On December 22, Paula Gaviria Betancur, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs) warned that Israel's military operation in Gaza aimed to "deport the majority of the civilian population en masse" thus "repeating a long history of mass forced displacement of Palestinians by Israel".

On 29 December 2023, South Africa filed a case with the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocidal acts in Gaza. On 28 January 2024, a conference on resettling Gaza was attended by 11 cabinet ministers and 15 coalition members of the Israeli Knesset which, according to the Guardian "'appears to violate the international court of justice ruling last week that Israel must "take all measures within its power" to avoid acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, including the "prevention and punishment of genocidal rhetoric.'"

Political discourse

In late 2023, various global leaders and officials voiced their perspectives on the Israel-Gaza conflict, with many labeling Israel's actions in Gaza as "genocide." Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, Pakistani Foreign Minister Jalil Abbas Jilani, the Taliban, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro were among those who condemned Israel's actions. Palestinian-American U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib accused President Biden of supporting this "genocide," leading to a resolution for censure against her by the Republican caucus, sponsored by Marjorie Taylor Greene. On 4 November, Tlaib released a video in which she directly accused President Biden of supporting "the genocide of the Palestinian people". Craig Mokhiber from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights resigned, criticizing the organization for its response to the 2023 Israel–Hamas war. A day after Colombia withdrew its ambassador from Israel, President Gustavo Petro posted on X in Spanish: "It's called genocide, they do it to remove the Palestinian people from Gaza and take it over. The head of the state who carries out this genocide is a criminal against humanity. Their allies cannot talk about democracy." and leaders from Turkey, Brazil, and Syria also condemned Israel's actions.

Pro-Palestine demonstrator at a subway station in Toronto, Canada, 12 November 2023

The international response continued with various nations expressing strong condemnation. The Honduran ministry of foreign affairs stated "Honduras energetically condemns the genocide and serious violations of international humanitarian law that the civilian Palestinian population is suffering in the Gaza Strip". South Africa recalled its diplomatic mission from Israel and criticized Israel's ambassador for disparaging those "opposing the atrocities and genocide of the Israeli government". South African President Cyril Ramaphosa accused Israel of war crimes and acts "tantamount to genocide" in Gaza. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Al Sudani and Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi labeled the conflict a "genocide." Meanwhile, journalist Ishaan Tharoor highlighted that: "In protests around the world, in the corridors of the United Nations and in the angry chambers of social media, one word is getting louder and louder: genocide." with governments, UN rapporteurs, and scholars echoing this sentiment. The same month Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the UK Labour Party, called for an International Criminal Court investigation.

UN experts reported that "grave violations" committed by Israeli forces against the Palestinians of Gaza "point to a genocide in the making" and cited evidence including "increasing genocidal incitement, overt intent to 'destroy the Palestinian people under occupation', loud calls for a 'second Nakba' in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory, and the use of powerful weaponry with inherently indiscriminate impacts, resulting in a colossal death toll and destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure."

Contrasting these views, Israel's Ambassador to the Philippines , Ilan Fluss, denied allegations of genocide, asserting Israel's efforts to minimize civilian casualties and target Hamas members. The Kurdistan Communities Union chair Cemîl Bayik also urged Israel to change its approach. However, US national security advisor John Kirby stated that applying the term "genocide" to Israeli actions was "inappropriate," while emphasizing Hamas' stated intent "What Hamas wants, make no mistake about it, is genocide," explaining "They want to wipe Israel off the map".

Cultural discourse

Graffiti in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, calling for the gassing of Arabs, above a tag for the right-wing group the Jewish Defense League

Statements of genocidal intent have long been a feature of the Israeli cultural landscape, not least in the chant or slogan of "Death to Arabs" – a regular invocation at far-right Israeli protests and marches, such at the annual march marking "Jerusalem Day".

In 2023, several high-profile individuals and groups voiced strong opinions on the Israel-Gaza conflict, with some labelling Israel's actions as genocide. Writer Jazmine Hughes left The New York Times Magazine after signing an open letter condemning Israel's actions in Gaza calling them "an attempt to conduct genocide". Musician Macklemore expressed his view that the conflict is a genocide at a rally in Washington. Feminist scholars Angela Davis and Zillah Eisenstein, among nearly 150 other signatories, signed an open letter which reads "We will not be silent when the bells of genocide ring. Silence is complicity." Mexican actress Melissa Barrera was reportedly fired from "Scream VII" for social media posts supporting Palestine and labelling Israel's actions as "genocide and ethnic cleansing".

Russian-American author Masha Gessen when asked if what was happening in Gaza was a genocide said, "I think there are some fine distinctions between genocide and ethnic cleansing and I think that there are valid arguments for using both terms". When pressed further they stated, "it is at the very least ethnic cleansing". This was followed soon after controversy surrounding Gessen's reception of the Hannah Arendt Prize over remarks in a New Yorker article critical of Israeli actions in the strip in which Gessen compared them to an Eastern European ghetto "being liquidated" by the Nazis. In December 2023, Olly Alexander, set to represent the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2024, signed a letter by the LGBT association Voices4London accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians. This stance led to condemnation from the Israeli government and the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), who asked the BBC to disallow Alexander's Eurovision participation. However, the BBC declined Israel's request, choosing not to sever ties with Alexander over his political views.

Rhetoric

From Israeli officials

Protester in Berlin on November 4, 2023, holding a "Stop the Genocide in Gaza" sign.

There has been a history of a variety of figures both inciting and threatening a genocide, such as former Defense Minister Matan Vilnai in 2008, with his colleagues claiming that his statement that Palestinians risked experiencing a "Shoah" had not meant 'genocide'.

In a televised speech in late October 2023, Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israelis were "committed to completely eliminating this evil [of Hamas] from the world" and added: "You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember", referencing 1 Samuel 15:3 in the Hebrew Bible. Noah Lanard of Mother Jones describes these verses as among the most violent in the Bible and that they have a long history of being used by Jews on the far-right to justify killing Palestinians. Amalek was "the foe that God ordered the ancient Israelites to genocide", and scholars have described the verse as an instance of 'divinely mandated genocide'.

In the 2023 conflict, the call by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for a "complete siege" and the sentiment that: "We are fighting human animals and we will act accordingly", has been called out as expressing genocidal intent. Likewise with Ariel Kallner, a Knesset member for Likud, who said of the 2023 war: "Right now, one goal: Nakba. A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948", and Daniel Hagari, who said forces would turn Gaza into a "city of tents" and said Israel's "emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy" in the bombardment of Gaza. Amichay Eliyahu, a cabinet minister, and Tally Gotliv, a Likud parliament member, have both called for Israel to use nuclear weapons on Gaza, with Gotliv stating: "It’s time for a doomsday weapon. Not flattening a neighborhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza." Galit Distel-Atbaryan posted on X that Israelis should focus on: "Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth" and forcing the Gazans either into Egypt or to the death. It was such statements that led to Raz Segal's characterization of event in Gaza as a "textbook case of genocide", and he noted to Vox: "If this is not special intent to destroy, I don't know what is." According to analysis by Haaretz "Netanyahu is too scared of losing his base to disavow apocalyptic threats and conspiracy theories spouted by his government."

On 23 October 2023, Ramzy Baroud of Arab News compared the rhetoric from Israeli officials with the language used in Rwanda ahead of the Rwandan genocide. He referenced the similarity between the refrain by the Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) in Rwanda that Tutsis "are cockroaches. We will kill you" and a 1983 quote from former Israeli army chief of staff Rafael Eitan that Arabs are like "drugged cockroaches in a bottle". Chris McGreal of The Guardian , who won an Amnesty International Media Award for his reporting of the Rwandan genocide, also described the rhetoric against Palestinians as being "eerily familiar" to the rhetoric used against Tutsis.

On 14 November 2023, Israel's finance minister Bezalel Smotrich stated that he welcomed "the initiative of the voluntary emigration of Gaza Arabs to countries around the world," adding that "the State of Israel will no longer be able to accept the existence of an independent entity in Gaza." Critics, such as Palestinian National Initiative president Mustafa Barghouti, have likened the statement to a call for ethnic cleansing. The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Foreign affairs accused Israel of engaging in a "genocide" supported by Smotrich. Likud Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel wrote an op-ed in The Jerusalem Post saying that the international community should promote the "voluntary resettlement" of Palestinians in Gaza to sites around the globe. A survey by Channel 12 showed that 44 percent of the responders said they were in favor of a renewal of Jewish settlement in Gaza.

In November 2023, Israel's former justice minister, Ayelet Shaked, spoke of transforming Khan Younis into a soccer field with ‘the assistance of God and the IDF’. Shaked said Israel should take ‘take advantage of the destruction that we will wreak upon them’ in Gaza and pressure countries worldwide into accepting quotas of Gazan refugees, ranging from 20,000 to 50,000 per country. On 22 November 2023, Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech, said in a conference that "there is no escape from returning and fully controlling the Gaza Strip, full control that will include extensive and flourishing settlement in the entire strip. Not like the Gush Katif settlements that were concentrated in a few isolated areas, but settlement for the entire length and width of the strip."

In December 2023, David Azoulay, the head of the local council of the town of Metula, speaking to Israel's 103FM radio said the people of Gaza should be ordered to "go to the beaches" where the Israeli army would "load them up" on ships and "place them on Lebanon’s shores where there are enough refugee camps", that "the entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and levelled flat, just like in Auschwitz. Let it become a museum, showcasing the capabilities of the State of Israel and dissuading anyone from living in the Gaza Strip" and that "we should leave Gaza desolate and destroyed to serve as a museum, demonstrating the madness of the people who lived there". His statements were condemned by the Auschwitz Museum.

From American officials

In the Florida legislature, Democratic Representative Angie Nixon was talking in support of a resolution she sponsored calling for "de-escalation" and a ceasefire to end the killing of Palestinians. At some point she said "We are at 10,000 dead Palestinians. How many will be enough?", Republican Representative Michelle Salzman replied instantly "All of them," Nixon interrupted her speech saying "One of my colleagues just said 'All of them.' Wow." This remark has been characterised as an open call for genocide by some commentators. Nixon and the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called for her to be censured or to resign. CAIR-Florida Executive Director Imam Abdullah Jaber said in a statement: "This chilling call for genocide by an American lawmaker is the direct result of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by advocates of Israeli apartheid and their eager enablers in government and the media." US Congressman Max Miller, speaking at Fox News stated that Palestine is "about to get eviscerated... to turn that into a parking lot." He has previously called on the Biden administration "to get out of Israel's way and to let Israel do what it needs to do best". He said there should be "no rules of engagement" during Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Miller also questioned the accuracy of the Gaza Health Ministry's claim that 10,000 people have been killed in Gaza, saying that he believes many of those killed have been "Hamas terrorists", not innocent civilians, and said the United States does not "trust an entity that puts munitions in mosques, and churches and in hospitals." Ahmad Abuznaid, the executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USPCR) said that "There is a bipartisan effort to dehumanise the Palestinian people," referring especially to President Joe Biden voicing doubt over the accuracy of the Palestinian death count and attacks on Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for her criticism of Israel's military offensive. In October, Florida governor Ron DeSantis said "If you look at how [people in Gaza] behave, not all of them are Hamas, but they are all anti-Semitic" and called for a "swift and lethal response." Former Rep. Michele Bachmann appearing in December in The Charlie Kirk Show stated "So, it’s time that Gaza ends. The two million people who live there – they are clever assassins. They need to be removed from that land. That land needs to be turned into a national park. And since they’re the voluntary mercenaries for Iran, they need to be dropped on the doorstep of Iran. Let Iran deal with those people." She received a round of applause from the audience, while Kirk replied "I look at Israel and Israel says we never want another person into our country that doesn’t share our values," Kirk said. "They said they don’t want refugees. They don’t want any of these people. I want American immigration policy to be like that."

Many have argued that Palestinian plight in the face of genocide is being ignored owing to their race.

Responses to the accusation

The accusation of genocide has been largely rejected by Israelis, and contested by some scholars. Historian Simon Sebag Montefiore remarked that "Jews are now accused of the very crimes they themselves have suffered. Hence the constant claim of a 'genocide' when no genocide has taken place or been intended" adding that the word genocide "has now been so devalued by its metaphorical abuse that it has become meaningless." Some critics argue that the charge of Israel committing genocide, whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon, is a common assertion made by anti-Zionists, with the aim of demonizing Israel. According to sociologist David Hirsh the accusation of genocide against Israel, whether in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon, is commonly made by anti-Zionists. Hirsh says that despite the lack of evidence for genocide in Gaza, critics like Pappé persist in making these allegations, which serve to demonize Israel and portray it as uniquely evil and "oversimplify the complex dynamics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict". Hirsh continues that there has never been a genocide of Palestinians, and "Israel does not have gas chambers, concentration camps, or Einsatzgruppen. The total number of casualties on both sides during the conflict is proportionate to the routine murders committed by the Nazi regime every few minutes". Zionist history professor Robert S. Wistrich wrote that the genocide accusation is "purely fictional".

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the genocide accusation against Israel 'meritless'. US Representative Ritchie Torres of the Democratic Party has called the characterisation "blood libel." Conservative American radio talk show host Dennis Prager has said that characterising the conflict as a genocide against the Palestinians is antisemitic.

Despite most Israelis rejecting the accusation of genocide, some Israelis and many in the Jewish diaspora – including several Holocaust survivors – have protested against the Israeli government, claiming that such accusations are in fact true.

Victims

Israeli and Palestinian deaths preceding the Israel-Hamas war in 2023. Most were civilians.

Deaths

According to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 6,735 Palestinians had been killed from January 1, 2008, to October 6, 2023.

During the ongoing 2023 Israel–Hamas war, which began on October 7, 2023, a Reliefweb report released November 18, 2023, which labels Israel's actions in Gaza as a genocide, reported that 15,271 Palestinians in Gaza had been killed, 32,310 Palestinians had been injured, and an estimated 41,500 were unaccounted for. Multiple news and academic outlets have subsequently reported on updated figures, with at least 20,000 Palestinians having been killed in Gaza, an estimated 70% of whom were women and children. Per the Gaza Health Ministry and Government Information Office by 3 January 2024, over 22,300 people had been confirmed dead. About 7,000 people are missing, likely buried under the rubble. Over 52,000 have been wounded.

Displacement

In 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians – about half of prewar Mandatory Palestine's Arab population – fled from their homes or were expelled by Zionist militias and, later, the Israeli army during the 1948 Palestine war.

Since the beginning of the 2023 Israel–Hamas war, nearly 2 million people have been displaced within the Gaza Strip.

Alleged American complicity

Some commentators have accused Western media and governments of supporting genocide against Palestinians, especially those of the United States . Among other journalists and scholars, The Canada-based sociologist M. Muhannad Ayyash has accused the United States of complicity in the alleged genocide, in this case amidst the Israel–Hamas war in which the United States has provided significant aid to Israel.

Pro-Palestine rally in Austin, Texas, United States, 12 November 2023

On 13 October 2023, journalist Eric Levitz of The Intelligencer argued that governmental administrations of the United States, such as the Biden administration, have given approval to Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in the Israel–Hamas war, and the only military solution that can achieve Israel's security goals short of ethnic cleansing and genocide. On 19 October 2023, amid the war, lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights voiced their belief that Israel's actions were "calculated to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza", and warned the Biden administration that "U.S. officials… [could] be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel’s unfolding genocide, as well as for their complicity, by encouraging it and materially supporting it." On 1 November 2023, the Defence for Children International accused the United States of complicity with Israel's "crime of genocide." On 4 January 2024, the United States government acknowledged it was not conducting formal assessments of whether Israel was violating international humanitarian law.

In November 2023, president Joe Biden was nicknamed "Genocide Joe" by critics of his support for Israel. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, described by Israeli media outlet Ynet as "an exceptionally accomplished Israeli advocate", said "Israel's trying to defend itself against a genocidal terrorist threat. So if we're going to start using that word, fine, let's use it appropriately". On 13 November 2023, the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) sued Biden for allegedly failing in his duties, defined under national and international laws, to prevent Israel committing genocide in Gaza in the Israel–Hamas war. The complaint alleged that Israel's "mass killings", targeting of civilian infrastructure and forced expulsions amounted to genocide. The CCR stated: "As Israel’s closest ally and strongest supporter, being its biggest provider of military assistance by a large margin and with Israel being the largest cumulative recipient of US foreign assistance since World War II, the United States has the means available to have a deterrent effect on Israeli officials now pursuing genocidal acts against the Palestinian people in Gaza," the complaint argued. In a declaration in the lawsuit, genocide scholar William Schabas said that in his view there was a "serious risk of genocide" and that the US was "in breach of its obligation" under the 1948 Genocide Convention and international law.

The case Defense for Children International-Palestine et al v. Biden et al was dismissed on 31 January 2024. The judge said that the constitution limited his actions, that he would have preferred to have issued the injunction and urged President Biden to rethink U.S. policy, writing "it is plausible that Israel’s conduct amounts to genocide."

See also

• Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Israeli attack on Gaza
• Atrocity crime
• Demographics of the State of Palestine
• Demographic history of Palestine (region)
• Genocides in history (21st century)#Israel/Palestine
• Israel and apartheid
• Allegations of genocide of Ukrainians in the Russian invasion of Ukraine
• Allegations of genocide in the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel
• Ten stages of genocide

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• "Palestine refugees". https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees. 
• "Frequently asked questions" (in en). https://www.unrwa.org/who-we-are/frequently-asked-questions. 
• Usher, Graham (2006). "The wall and the dismemberment of Palestine". Race & Class (SAGE Publications) 47 (3): 9–30. doi:10.1177/0306396806061084. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0306396806061084. 
• Warf, C.; Charles, G. (2020). Clinical Care for Homeless, Runaway and Refugee Youth: Intervention Approaches, Education and Research Directions. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 978-3-030-40675-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=irzhDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA384. "By 1948, the majority of Palestinians, about 700,000 to 800,000 people from 500 to 600 villages, were displaced. They were either expelled or fled from their homes for fear of being killed, as had actually taken place in a number of villages." 

Further reading

• Abdo, D. N.; Masalha, N., eds (2018). An oral history of the Palestinian Nakba. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-786-99351-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=bf80EAAAQBAJ. 
• Template:Cite SSRN
• Fisk, B. N. (2019). "Canaanite genocide and Palestinian Nakba in conversation: A postcolonial exercise in bi-directional hermeneutics". Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies 18 (1): 21–49. doi:10.3366/hlps.2019.0201. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/hlps.2019.0201. 
• Roundtable in Journal of Genocide Research:
  • El-Affendi, Abdelwahab (18 January 2024). "The Futility of Genocide Studies After Gaza". Journal of Genocide Research: 1–7. doi:10.1080/14623528.2024.2305525. 
  • Levene, Mark (21 January 2024). "Gaza 2023: Words Matter, Lives Matter More". Journal of Genocide Research: 1–7. doi:10.1080/14623528.2024.2301866. 
  • Samudzi, Zoé (18 January 2024). ""We are Fighting Nazis": Genocidal Fashionings of Gaza(ns) After 7 October". Journal of Genocide Research: 1–9. doi:10.1080/14623528.2024.2305524. 
  • Shaw, Martin (3 January 2024). "Inescapably Genocidal". Journal of Genocide Research: 1–5. doi:10.1080/14623528.2023.2300555. 

External links

• UN panel discussion: 2023 War on Gaza: The Responsibility to Prevent Genocide