Genocide

Criminal misuse of the ultimate horror

Homs, Syria (above). Death and destruction by the hands of the Assad regime. Civilian casualties sought and obtained by the thousands. Murder on a mass scale.  A showcase for the evil of man towards man. But one thing it was not: Genocide.  There was no attempt to eliminate an entire ethnic or other human grouping, 

Assad’s motives - and those of the Russians and Iranians that supported him - were simple. To remove those trying to remove him from power. No anti-Sunni racism was involved. None. Assad's wife is a Sunni after all.  When a white Russian and a fatwa-issuing non-Alawite Persian wanted to help him, he had no problem whatsoever accepting their aid. 

What is genocide? It is the attempt (entirely or partially successful) to destroy an entire group of humanity. The endless misuse of this term to describe any death of any civilian in any conflict  is destroying the awful meaning of the term. Please join me in condemning those who do so as the power of language is preserved by its correct usage.

The unfortunate use of genocide and Holocaust terminology by both sides in the Ukraine conflict, despite the undoubted daily war crimes being committed by Russia, is equally misplaced (as it stands).  There is no evidence that Russia is trying to wipe out the entire Ukrainian people (they claim that they are Russians after all!) and clearly Russia saying that the Jewish leader of Ukraine is a neo-Nazi is totally insulting nonsense of the first degree.

And then we come to Israel and the Palestinians. President Abbas famously claimed in front of the Germany’s Chancellor Scholtz that his people had suffered “50 Holocausts”. What a mendacious claim. Just look at the graphic. While the European population of Europe plummeted in the face of the Nazi Holocaust/genocide and the once-sizeable Jewish population of the Arab world has tumbled towards near-total extinction in the light of the ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Arab governments, the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza has rocketed upwards.

Meanwhile the ever increasing professional, educational and economic success of Israel's 20% Arab minority since 1948  (with population growth to match) is a wonderful miracle to be celebrated.

And now we are told that a genocide is being committed in Gaza. To counter that, supporters of Israel are maintaining that there was a genocide on October 7th. Let’s examine these claims. Article II of the Genocide Convention contains the following narrow definition:

1. A mental element: the "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such"; and

2. A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

   • Killing members of the group

   • Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

   • Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

   • Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

   • Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Now let me quote from the UN Office of Genocide Prevention which provides a commentary on the above legal provisions (https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml):

“The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.

Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.”

Dealing first with the October 7th terrorist attacks, it could be argued that the “mental element” of genocide is present in that the Hamas charter calls for the elimination of all Jews. But even if we are to accept this, it is wholly clear that the physical element is absent as the 1200 murdered that day was not - in the legal sense - “substantial”. As painful as the events were, it constituted a tiny proportion of the Jewish people, albeit a much more substantial percentage on a per capita basis than the number of Americans murdered on 9/11. It may have been that if Hamas had been given the opportunity, they would have gone onto commit genocide, but in the event that didn’t happen. It is insufficient to say that someone intends to commit genocide. They must actually engage in decimating swathes of the target population. Conclusion: No genocide was committed.

As for Gaza, the claims of genocide are even more laughable. Again the “substantial” element is entirely missing. In addition, even if we are to believe the figures coming from the “Hamas health ministry” as entirely impartial and accurate (and why wouldn’t you?!), we know that a substantial proportion of the dead are terrorist fighters.  Of the civilians, many have been killed by misfired Hamas / PIJ rockets and - when attempting to flee - by Hamas itself. 

Whatever the tragic figure of civilians killed by Israeli bombs, we can say with certainty that the mental element of genocide is entirely absent.  There was and there is no "intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Put simply, there is no deliberate targeting of civilians. There is no government policy to do so and there is no evidence that it is happening on the ground.

If Israel were deliberately targeting civilians, why has it given evacuation orders? Why has it provided a safe zone by the South Western coast? Why has it dropped leaflets and sent text messages pleading for the civilians to evacuate? Has Israel told the Gazan governing authorities to hide their weapons and military bases in hospitals, schools and mosques? Has it asked Hamas to use civilians as human shields while walking in the open air? And so on and so forth. If Israel wanted to murder the entire Gazan population it could have done so on October 8th. It didn’t. It won’t. If it is found in hindsight that there are examples of trigger-happy Israeli soldiers who have committed individual war crimes, then that needs to be dealt with on an individual legal basis. But there is no government policy at all of murder. Conclusion: No genocide is being committed.

Further afield, the same misuses of this term are multiplying. To be clear, there is no genocide in Armenia/Azerbeijan, there is no genocide in Pakistan/Afghanistan and there is no genocide in Yemen. Even in Xingjiang, there is insufficient evidence (to put it mildly) that China is MURDERING/ELIMINATING an entire group in the physical sense. To quote the office of Genocide Prevention again, “Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group.”  Quite simply, there is no genocide that I am aware of anywhere in the world today. 

Don’t get me wrong. There is evil in this world. A great deal of it. But genocide? No. None. Genocide - thankfully - is extremely rare. The ridiculous modern use of this term - the ultimate evil -  to politically point score is worse than inaccurate. It is removing from the term all meaning. 

There are sacred places, sacred objects and sacred festivals. Genocide is a sacred word reserved for the worst atrocities of mankind. As a qualified lawyer and as a seeker of the truth, the intentional misuse of the word "genocide" and "Holocaust" (by Mahmood Abbas, by Putin's Russia, by the Ukrainian government and by every social media commentator with a keyboard) is a moral disgrace.

Civilian deaths everywhere are worthy of condemnation, even more so where they are deliberate. But the only genocide happening now is that being committed on the English language. Soon it will be no more as a means of comprehensible, intellectual communication.