War crimes, ethnic cleansing, genocidal intent ... genocide?

The G-word is increasingly starting to be mentioned with regard to the Israel-Hamas conflict. Allegations of genocide, "the crime of all crimes", should, of course, be made sparingly, otherwise we risk cheapening the memory of genocides past, as the anti-Defamation League points out. 

Palestine's envoy to the UN has accused Israel of genocide, as has Iran and Iraq (perhaps predictably). But so has Colombia, Honduras and South Africa. Three Palestinian human rights groups have asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Israel for possible genocide. (Israel is not a member of the International Criminal Court, and does not recognize its jurisdiction, which is a whole other problem.) 

Not to be outdone, Israel also accuses Hamas of being genocidal, and indeed Hamas's founding charter explicitly commits it to obliterating Israel.

As Israel's actions tip from a legal right to respond to armed provocation into a punitive expedition intended to rid itself of the whole Palestinian Arab problem, lines are starting to be crossed. Hamas' initial attack, killing 1,200 innocent civilians (the updated lower victim count) was, of course, entirely unjustifiable and a war crime in and of itself, even given the decades of Israeli provocations. But Israel's indiscriminate bombardment of Gaza has now taken over 11,000 lives and counting, of which a small but unknown number may be Hamas militants (genuine targets), the rest being civilians just as innocent as the original Israeli victims. In addition, Israel is accused of using starvation and the cutting off of humanitarian supplies as a weapon, not to mention the levelling of residential neighbourhoods, hospitals and refugee camps, and the enforcement of mass migration.

So, war crimes for sure, but genocide? A New York Times opinion piece by a respected scholar of genocide suggests that the line has not been crossed yet, but it could easily happen without more intervention from Western nations and from influential Jewish organizations.

Many of the pronouncements made by various Israeli leaders and generals have definitely indicated genocidal intent, but that is not the same as actual genocide, says the worthy professor. It may have even slipped into an ethnic cleansing operation, one that could easily morph into genocide, but it has not done so yet. 

Ethnic cleansing, incidentally, has not yet been recognized as a crime in its own right under international law, but it differs from genocide in that it aims to remove a population from a territory, often violently, whereas genocide aims to completely destroy that population, wherever it is. You might think that we are entering into semantics and niceties here, but words matter, espe

cially when we are considering international law. 

You'd also think that Jews of all people would be wary of straying too far towards genocide, or even to pronouncements of genocidal intent, but that does not seem to be the case.

UPDATE

South Africa has somewhat upset the apple cart - and the equanimity of many Western nations - by taking Israel to the International Court of Justice, arguing that its bombing campaign and seige in Palestine is "genocidal in character" and violates the 1948 Genocide Convention.

Now, the ICJ is not a particularly effective legal remedy, and its rulings are regularly ignored by nations that object to their findings. But it will, nevertheless, be an interesting intellectual exercise if nothing else, and South Africa is probably saying out loud what a lot of other countries really think, but don't have the chutzpah to admit publicly.

It will be hard for Canada, the US and others, who have been doggedly supporting Israel even as its actions become less and less defensible, to continue to support it in the international court, particularly given their previous stances on situations like Myanmar, Syria, Iran and Russia.