In February 2024, this article outlined the key points of debate within the scholarly community about how to understand what was unfolding in Gaza. Even at that time, many had already begun using the “Genocide” label. Their ranks have grown in the months that have passed, with even Jewish and Israeli scholars now calling Gaza a genocide.
Some Israeli scholars who call Gaza a genocide include:
- Omer Bartov, Dean’s Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Brown University
- Lee Mordechai, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Raz Segal – Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Stockton University
- Amos Goldberg, Professor of Holocaust History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Ilan Pappe, University of Exeter
- Avi Shlaim, University of Oxford
Why does the “Genocide” label matter?
While war is undertaken between two military forces, a genocide is an attempt to destroy of a group of people. Calling Gaza a genocide implies that Israel is not just trying to destroy Hamas, Israel is in fact trying to destroy the civilian population of Gaza.
The definition of genocide does not require a particular number of people to be killed. It doesn’t require gas chambers like those used by the Nazis. That’s why the Srebrenica massacre was called a genocide, even though “only” 8000 people were killed. It’s why the Rwanda Genocide was a genocide even though there were no gas chambers or any special strategy beyond the inciting of one ethnic group against another ethnic group.
Here’s the definition of Genocide from the UN Website; key sections of the definition are below.
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:
- Killing members of the group; 60-70% of the people killed by Israel since October 7th have been women, children and the elderly. Typically, war deaths have a high percentage of deaths among men of fighting age, but deaths in Gaza reflect the demographic makeup of the overall population.
- Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Israel has done this by blocking the entry of food, fuel and medicine, and by bombing civilian infrastructure such as sanitation plants, schools, factories, universities and hospitals, making life unlivable.
- Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Israel has done this by blocking the entry of food, fuel and medicine, and by bombing civilian infrastructure such as sanitation plants, schools, factories, universities and hospitals, making life unlivable.