Francesca Albanese
First of all, what constitutes genocide is not defined by personal opinions or personal stories or by comparison with what has happened in the past, although the past has a lot to tell us about what a genocide looks like. What constitutes genocide from a legal point of view is established by Article II of the Genocide Convention. It consists of a series of acts which are criminal in and of themselves, like acts of killing, acts of infliction of severe bodily or mental pain, the creation of conditions of life leading to the destruction of a group, the forced transfer of children, the prevention of births. These are acts of genocide recognized by the Genocide Convention.
Gaza is destroyed. If this is not an ostentatious genocide, what else is it?
In order to have genocide, the critical element is the intent to destroy a group — in whole or in part — through even one of these acts. You could have, like happened in Australia or Canada, genocide implemented primarily, even though not only, through the transfer of children, so without killing. So here’s the first issue: that a number of people dispute that the label “genocide” can be affixed to what Israel is doing because Israel has only killed 45,000 people, as if it were normal, while it has destroyed the entirety of Gaza.
Some people see the brutality of this and still defend it as “self-defense.” The point is that this extreme destruction, this violation of basic rules to protect civilians and civilian premises and civilian life in international law, has been completely leveled by the Israeli logic that everyone was killable, either as a terrorist or a human shield or as collateral damage, and everything was destroyable. And this is why, 402 days later, we have a Gaza that is no longer livable. Gaza is destroyed. If this is not an ostentatious genocide, what else is…
Auteur: Francesca Albanese
