Israeli depravity

Kim Petersen

[A] coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. — Raphael Lemkin describes genocide ¹

South Africa took leadership among the world’s nations by filing a request for the application of the Genocide Conventionn against Israel with the International Court of Justice. On 20 April 2024, The Lancet published an article that cited a “not implausible … 186 000 or more” dead Palestinians following the Israeli massacres on Gaza after Hamas stepped up its 7 October 2023 resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression. It must be noted that a group living under the conditions of occupation and oppression has a right of resistance. But apparently not for the US government.

The US is Israel’s preeminent supplier of weapons. Since 7 October, the US has supplied Israel with F-15 jets, tank cartridges, explosive mortar cartridges, army vehicles, more than 10,000 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles. Obviously, the US is not a neutral party to the fighting between Israel and Palestine. In fact, the US’s involvement makes it a participant in a proxy war against the lightly armed Palestinian resistance, who have no fighter planes, no tanks, no Iron Dome.

Seeing an opportunity, US president Donald Trump declared that the US would take over the Gaza Strip. So said Trump during a White House press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Of note is that Trump's guest has an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes dating back to 8 October 2023.

Trump boasted, “We’ll own it … We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal … the Riviera of the Middle East.”

Trump stated that the Gaza Strip has been “a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades” and “an unlucky place for a long time.” Trump called on “countries of interest with humanitarian hearts” to build “various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”

Though the US will own it, according to Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that there was no plan to put American boots on the ground in Gaza and that the US would not pay for Gaza reconstruction. Ownership without investment.

One imagines that Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner, an investor who remarked in March 2024 that “Gaza’s waterfront property it could be very valuable,” must be rubbing his hands together with glee.

Of course, there was widespread consternation and condemnation of Trump’s plan to take over Gaza. It is blatantly illegal. There are several UN Security Council resolutions on the borders of Palestine, and UN Security Council resolutions are binding upon UN member states. Moreover, Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.”

Curiously, writer Pepe Escobar in an interview described Trump’s taking over Gaza as “transforming a genocide into an ethnic cleansing operation.” (around 15:30)

It seems that Escobar saw ethnic cleansing as diminishing the genocidal onslaught.

The UN Genocide Convention states in Article II that,

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.

Obviously, (b) and (c) would factor in when it comes to genocide.
Citing Trump’s figure of 1.8 million Palestinians to be transferred, whereas the Gaza population was given as 2.3 million prior to 7 October 2024, Escobar is among the analysts who have noted that the uncounted Palestinian population of 500 000 might portend a much higher fatality count that what is reported in the mass media.

Linguistic Accuracy

Previously, I wrote an article about an academic paper by public health researchers Rony Blum, Gregory H. Stanton, Shira Sagi and Elihu D. Richter. The researchers called for the expunging of the term “ethnic cleansing” from official use, declaring that it “bleaches the atrocities of genocide and its continuing use undermines the prevention of genocide.” Blum et al. noted, “The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is used as a euphemism for genocide despite it having no legal status.”

The researchers considered that mislabeling a genocide as ethnic cleansing might well provide cover for further killing. Consequently, they advocated linguistic accuracy so that agents of flagrant criminal actions will bear full culpability and responsibility. Blum et al. made a compelling case for ditching the term “ethnic cleansing” and calling genocide what it is. Given the abhorrence evoked by genocide, linguistic cleansing is required.

Arguably, of greater importance than linguistic accuracy though is the recognition and identification of the genocidaires. Blum et al. focused on countries outside their backyards and overlooked genocides perpetrated by their own countries. This is not only intellectually dishonest, but it detracts from the morality that implicitly underlies their position.

Ilan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, at first drew a distinction between genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Did Pappe fudge on the question of genocide?
Pappe writes, “Massacres accompany the operations [of ethnic cleansing], but where they occur they are not part of a genocidal plan: they are a key tactic to accelerate the flight of the population earmarked for expulsion. (p. 2) [italics added]