The genocide convention

Words is what we do here, Miss Kincaid. - Law & Order, Censure

Imagine for a moment a legal system with only one defined crime: intentional murder. It's not difficult to see the problems such a system would create. Many crimes aside from intentional murder seriously affect people's lives; this would create pressure to extend the definition of murder. Victims of crashes caused by drunk drivers could argue those who victimized them intended to kill and had simply selected their target at random. 

 

The natural human tendency to demand precise definitions for the offences we commit, while pursuing expanded definitions of the offences others commit against us, would make this problem impossible for a legal system to manage. Worse, a vague and broad criminal law would intersect with the difficulties of determining what really happened in a crime or tragedy. Because of this, almost every legal code defines a large number of offences with explicit definitions and punishments varying according to the severity of the offence.

 

Unfortunately, we only have one law that applies to the conflict between the State of Israel and Hamas: the genocide convention. Genocide already has a vague definition in the public mind, bringing up visions of raised machetes and gas chambers. This makes it a factually ambiguous but emotionally explosive charge. The incomplete definitions in the genocide convention, combined with the limits of what we know about the situation in Gaza, make it possible for the Israeli government and their supporters to indignantly deny the charge of genocide made by people and governments horrified by the situation in Gaza. And from their own points of view, each side can make, or deny, the accusation with complete sincerity.  

 

Looking at  the situation now, with close to a million Palestinian civilians in Rafah awaiting an attack after six months of bombing and destruction, all hospitals in Gaza out of action, and famine likely, the accusation of genocide seems to make sense. Pull back to the atrocities of October 7, and justifying the war in Gaza as self defence looks far more plausible. To extend the frame farther in space and time, from Gaza to the whole of Southwest Asia, encompassing the history of conflict and coexistence between Jewish and Arab communities over the past century and beyond provides endless duelling maps, pamphlets, and recitations of tragedy and grievance, but little or no useful guidance for anyone today.

But the Israelis and Palestinians have more than a past; they also have a future, and while people can only learn from the past, they can shape the future. In particular, over the next few months, Israel faces a critical choice. Voices on the far right, both within Israel and outside it, argue in favour of expelling the Palestinians from Gaza in order to permit Jewish settlement. These proposals evoke the famous epigram by the diplomat Talleyrand: It was worse than a crime, it was a blunder. Actual moves to expel the Palestinians, as opposed to military action aimed at destroying Hamas, would count as both.

 

The genocide convention does not simply target the crime of attempting to murder an entire group of people. It also applies to attempt to destroy them peoples to eliminate what makes it possible for them to live as a coherent nation or cultural group.In many cases, and certainly in the case of the Palestinians, this would include separating a people from their land base. This would violate every one of the moral tenets which make up the foundation of our civilization. The obscene attempts to sell this as a "humanitarian" program simply recall the actions of an abuser who, not content with harming other people, also insists on validation and acceptance. 

 

Aside from the horrendous immorality of ethnic cleansing, both diplomatic signals and popular sentiment strongly suggest many more countries than South Africa would see the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, or of Gaza and the West Bank, as genocide. The consequences of this for Israel could well include a cycle of international isolation, polarization, and radicalization leading to serious fractures, both in Israel and in the Jewish diaspora.

At this point, the advocates and defenders of Israeli policies can reasonably argue against the charge of genocide, but a great many voices have called, and continue to call, for ethnic cleansing that meets the definition of genocide. If their numbers and influence grow, the government of Israel may go down a road their country cannot return from.