2023-10-24 06:01:07
Los genocides They don’t start with bombs or machetes, they start with hate speech and calls to eradicate the enemy from the face of the earth. This is how it was in the Germany coconutbut also in Cambodia, Rwanda o Bosnia, infamous episodes in history whose echo resonates these days in the conflict between Israel and Hamas for almost three weeks. The islamist militia has a well-known history of antisemitism y demonization of the Jewish State, which helps explain the level of atrocities committed by its members in the attack on southern Israel that launched this war. Since then, Israeli leaders have embarked on a dangerous narrative that goes beyond Hamas and is not new either, a rhetoric described as “incitement to genocide” por la HIM and numerous international jurists. Its terrible consequences are being seen in Gaza.
“Gaza will never be what it was. We will remove everything”said the Israeli Defense Minister on October 9, Yoav Gallant, when announcing the “complete lockdown” of the Strip, deprived since then of agua, electricity, combustible and the entrance of foodsa hunger policy as a weapon of war towards more than two million people. That same day Gallant stated that his army faces “human animals” and will act “Without restrictions”, an apparent call to ignore the laws of war expressed in different words by a military spokesman days later. “We will put the emphasis on doing harmnot in being precise,” he stated. Daniel Hagari referring to the bombing campaign.
The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), as Israel calls the army body in charge of managing the occupation in West Bank, addressed the residents of Gaza on October 10. “Human animals must be treated accordingly. There will be no electricity or water, only destruction. You wanted hell, hell you will have”said the major general Ghassan Alian. As it is seen on the ground, Israel has blurred the line that should separate Hamas from the Gaza civiliansprotected – at least on paper – by the International human rightwhich has led the UN to brand its offensive as collective punishment.
Warnings about the risk of genocide
Statements like these, as well as their devastating expression in Gaza, led last week to 800 international jurists and academics in the field to sound the alarms for the “potential genocide” in the Strip, where Israel has also ordered more than a million people to leave their homes in the north of the enclave. “The language used by Israel’s political and military figures appears to reproduce the rhetoric and tropes associated with genocide and the incitement to genocide”the jurists wrote before also detailing the actions that, in their opinion, support the warning and calling on the community of nations to take measures to prevent the crime against humanity.
Article II of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as acts “perpetrated with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Acts that include the murder of group memberslos physical and mental damage waves deliberate imposition of conditions that make your unviable existence. “Israel’s invocation of self-defense “It does not neutralize the intentionality required for the crime of genocide,” he assures this newspaper. Marjorie Cohn, professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and former president of the National Guild of Jurists in the US. “The statements of Israeli leaders and the massive bombing of civilians in Gaza are evidence of genocidal intent and may constitute crimes against humanity.” The Jewish jurist adds that both actions of Hamas and Israel against civilians and their infrastructure “are considered war crimes.”
Battle of good against evil
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To cushion potential damage to Israel’s international reputation from its response in Gaza and, above all, to win the support of foreign leaders, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has gone out of its way to compare Hamas to the most heinous executioners of the West and the Jewish people. “Hamas are the new nazisHamas is the ISIS, in some cases worse than ISIS,” he said during the visit of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Nothing new for Netanyahu that, in the early stage of his career, he assiduously compared Yasser Arafat con Adolf Hitler.
And all of this covers Israel’s fight against the Palestinians, who live under military occupation for 56 yearsas a battle between good and evil, between the enlightened world and the supposed barbarism that lives outside its borders, a language taken from the neocon manual in the times of the invasion of Iraq. “We will win because our existence is at stake,” Netanyahu said on October 16 before the Israeli Knesset. The ongoing war “is a war between forces of light and the forces of darknessbetween humanity and world of beasts.”
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