It may seem harsh to say, but there is a glaring dissonance to the charge that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. To wit: If the Israeli government’s intentions and actions are truly genocidal — if it is so malevolent that it is committed to the annihilation of Gazans — why hasn’t it been more methodical and vastly more deadly? Why not, say, hundreds of thousands of deaths, as opposed to the nearly 60,000 that Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatant and civilian deaths, has cited so far in nearly two years of war?
The answer, of course, is that Israel is manifestly not committing genocide, a legally specific and morally freighted term that is defined by the United Nations convention on genocide as the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
In response, Israel’s inveterate critics note the scale of destruction in Gaza. They also point to a handful of remarks by a few Israeli politicians dehumanizing Gazans and promising brutal retaliation. But furious comments in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities hardly amount to a Wannsee conference, and I am aware of no evidence of an Israeli plan to deliberately target and kill Gazan civilians.
But bungled humanitarian schemes or trigger-happy soldiers or strikes that hit the wrong target or politicians reaching for vengeful sound bites do not come close to adding up to genocide. They are war in its usual tragic dimensions.
What is unusual about Gaza is the cynical and criminal way Hamas has chosen to wage war. In Ukraine, when Russia attacks with missiles, drones or artillery, civilians go underground while the Ukrainian military stays aboveground to fight. In Gaza, it’s the reverse: Hamas hides and feeds and preserves itself in its vast warren of tunnels rather than open them to civilians for protection.
These tactics, which are war crimes in themselves, make it difficult for Israel to achieve its war aims: the return of its hostages and the elimination of Hamas as a military and political force so that Israel may never again be threatened with another Oct. 7. Those twin aims were and remain entirely justifiable — and would bring the killing in Gaza to an end if Hamas simply handed over the hostages and surrendered. Those are demands one almost never hears from Israel’s supposedly evenhanded accusers.
Some readers may say that even if the war in Gaza isn’t genocide, it has gone on too long and needs to end. That’s a fair point of view, shared by a majority of Israelis. So why does the argument over the word “genocide” matter? Two reasons.
First, while some pundits and scholars may sincerely believe the genocide charge, it is also used by anti-Zionists and antisemites to equate modern Israel with Nazi Germany. The effect is to license a new wave of Jew hatred, stirring enmity not only for the Israeli government but also for any Jew who supports Israel as a genocide supporter. It’s a tactic Israel haters have pursued for years with inflated or bogus charges of Israeli massacres or war crimes that, on close inspection, weren’t. The genocide charge is more of the same but with deadlier effects.
Second, if genocide — a word that was coined only in the 1940s — is to retain its status as a uniquely horrific crime, then the term can’t be promiscuously applied to any military situation we don’t like. Wars are awful enough. But the abuse of the term “genocide” runs the risk of ultimately blinding us to real ones when they unfold.
Pissrael is a Lebensraum project, i.e. Pissrael is very obviously committing a genocide. If you disagree, then you are also saying that neither the Holocaust, nor the German Lebensraum were genocides.
There are both extermination and stated intent in this case. Zionist leaders have also brought up the same inspiration as the NSDAP leadership for their genocidal projects.
You are extremely ignorant of what has been happening if you are asking that question. How many people do you think were killed by your precious genocidaires during the Nakba?
Resisting a genocide is not an atrocity.
Also, what you are saying here is that the resistance to nazi Germany was an atrocity.
The aim of Pissrael is literally settler-colonial genocide.
If that was an actual goal, Pissrael would negotiate instead of bombing the hostages.
Also, if you think that taking hostages is bad, then:
Nazi Germany also wanted its opposition to be eliminated as military and political forces.
They don't. You are just a genocide supporter.
2023 was already an incredibly deadly year for Palestinian children by October due to Pissraelis killing them.
The genocide - including the displacement and the killings - did not start in 2023. It sure as hell won't end if the resistance capitulates the way you want.
'Oh no, they are stirring hatred for Germans who support nazi Germany. The horror!'
Jewish people are no special fairies to be given a carte blanche to carry out a genocide. You are literally saying that a particular ethnic group is somehow superior and should be allowed to do what nazi Germany did to Jewish people, the Slavic people, the Roma, etc.