How the term “genocide” is misused in the Israel-Hamas war
Read all our coverage of the war between Israel and Hamas Protesters and commentators in the West use the term too. “It is now clear that Israel is engaging in a genocide of the Palestinian people," argued M. Muhannad Ayyash, a professor of sociology at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Canada.
Craig Mokhiber, director of the New York office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, wrote on October 28th that “This is a text-book case of genocide." Israel has both denied genocide and accused Hamas of the crime. Gilad Erdan, Israel’s permanent representative to the UN, said on October 26th that “This is not a war with the Palestinians. Israel is at war with the genocidal Hamas terrorist organisation." What exactly is genocide, and how, if at all, is the term applicable to the current conflict? In December 1948, in the aftermath of the second world war, the UN adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The convention defines a genocide as acts intended “to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Contrary to the common understanding of the term, the UN says not only killing counts. “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction" does too, as does inflicting “serious bodily or mental harm", “measures intended to prevent births", and “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group".
Categorising atrocities as genocide has legal implications. The International Criminal Court is able to indict someone for the crime, for example. Interpretations of the convention differ because it is so broadly framed.
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