Is it Genocide?

Genocide. Many of us have heard this word thrown around a lot recently, mostly by pro-Palestine activists, yet almost not at all by the mainstream media. To their credit, they have used, albeit rarely, terms like “massacre” and “mass killing” in reference to the Israeli strikes on Gaza. While accurate, do those terms go far enough? Is it truly a genocide taking place in Occupied Palestine?

The Genocide Convention ratified by the UN in 1948 clearly defines genocide as follows:

“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 its physical 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.”

According to this accepted definition of genocide, its actually not much of a question if Israel is committing genocide. The definition clearly states that “any of the following acts…” qualify as genocide. There is no question that Israel has (a) killed Palestinians, a clearly defined national and ethnical group. There is no question from the images coming out of Gaza that Israel has (b) caused serious bodily and mental harm to Palestinians. There is also a case to be made for point (c) with the 16 year blockade of Gaza in which the exact caloric intake needed for survival by the Palestinians living there was calculated to determine the amount of food Israel would allow in. This point also shows the Israeli government’s genocidal intent existed long before the events of October 7th. Therefore, there is no question that Israel’s acts qualify as genocide.

Now, the issue become the qualifier of, “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” Any lawyer will tell you that intent is the hardest part of any case to try and prove. So while there is no question that Israel’s actions meet the definition of genocide, the true question becomes does their intention meet it? Is Israel’s intention truly to destroy, in part or in whole, the Palestinian people, specifically in Gaza? Let’s let them answer that.

Right away on October 7th, Israeli Knesset member of the ruling Likud party, Ariel Kallner, posted on X, formerly known as Twitter,

“Now there is only one goal: Nakba. A Nakba in Gaza that will dwarf the Nakba of 1948.”

Nakba is known to Palestinians as “the catastrophe” and is the recollection of the 750,000 Palestinians displaced and 15,000 Palestinians killed in the wake of Israel’s declaration of statehood in 1948. At the time of writing this article, the current Palestinian death toll is 15,093 with over a million Palestinians displaced in Gaza.

On October 8th, the Prime Minister and head of the Israeli government, Benjamin Netanyahu, said in a televised speech,

“We will turn Gaza into an island of ruins.”

October 9th, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a televised speech,

“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals, and we are acting accordingly.”

On October 10th, Israeli Military Spokesman Daniel Hagari stated that in the Israeli bombing of Gaza,

“the emphasis is on damage, not accuracy.”

Then the most damning of all the statements thus far, but most certainly not the last of its kind to come out of the Israeli government. On October 13th, Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog said at a televised international press conference,

“Its an entire nation who are responsible. This rhetoric about civilians supposedly not being involved is absolutely untrue… and we will fight until we break their backs.”

While intent may be the biggest hurdle in proving genocide, statements like these by top Israeli government officials seem to make their intent clear. You have the Israeli President stating that the “entire nation,” which we can assume means all Palestinians, are responsible. Then you have everyone from Knesset members to the Prime Minister himself saying, both before and after President Herzog’s statement, that they will take vengeance on and destroy “all those responsible.” It doesn’t take a high level of deduction to put together that their stated goal here is to destroy, in part or in whole, the Palestinian people.