Words have consequences. This phrase, or versions of it, has been around for a long time, and is apposite to Israel's current military actions in Gaza. The word 'genocide' courses through writing and discussion, and a UN Commission of Inquiry has concluded that Israel has committed genocide. In return Israel has furiously rejected the claim.
Many are not concerned with the legal basis for the Commission's claim. For them it is only necessary to see the footage, and to conclude that Israel's aim is to wipe out wholesale the Palestinians still alive in Gaza, by direct or indirect means. Powerful rhetoric drives in from pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian commentators, each attempting to persuade us of the justification of their position. The noise in the echo chambers becomes so loud that it is virtually impossible to see through to a dispassionate analysis.
The definition of genocide, taken from the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is as follows (and I will deal below with the highlighted words and phrases);
'In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
1. Killing members of the group;
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part;
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.'
The Commission considers that the first four tests have been met. There appears to be a consensus that the fifth test has not been met, and pro-Israel commentators reference by comparison Russia's alleged displacement of Ukrainian children as evidence that Israel has not strictly committed genocide, notwithstanding the 'any' in the introductory paragraph of the definition.
Israel's defence centres not on the actions themselves but on what has been and continues to be its intent. That intent, put plainly, is to eliminate Hamas as a military and political force in order to (it hopes, irrevocably) end Hamas's threat to Israel out of Hamas's desire to eliminate Israel as a Jewish state. Israel points to the dreadful events of October 7th 2023 and Hamas's subsequent hostage-taking, as justification for a retribution that will settle matters once and for all.
So how does one square the actions of the Israeli military under Government direction with its avowed intent? Frustratingly for those who see only in primary colours, there is a nuance revolving around means to an end. Israel will say that destruction of Gazan infrastructure and deaths of Gazan citizens are unavoidable collateral damage. It will point to its instructions for Gazans to leave areas that are about to be attacked; it will point to Hamas using the remaining hostages as human shields. And it will argue thus that such pain and suffering as it has inflicted is a necessary bi-product of achieving its objectives and not an objective in itself - consequently the war is just, and the intentionality tests have not been met. No genocide, and further than this an argument that to suggest that genocide is happening amounts to anti-Jewish hatred.
This takes us to the issue of proportionality, that if one accepts Israel's right to take military action against Hamas in order to defend itself against Hamas's ultimate threat, then how much damage/destruction can it inflict and still be justified in its actions?
Opinion necessarily divides. There are those who will say that enough has been done now to degrade Hamas and put back its threats for years if not decades, and that at minimum there must be meaningful negotiations for at least a ceasefire and release of the remaining hostages, dead or alive. The loved ones of those hostages will understandably be firmly in this camp. On the opposite side, the current Israeli Government will assert that 'finishing the job' militarily is the only way of getting the hostages back. What finishing the job means I am not sure, and forgive me for a momentary flight of imagination in conceiving endgame hand to hand fighting in Gaza City between the IDF and the last Hamas fighters, with the remaining hostages finally delivered all dead.
The Israeli Government official statement of its intent, the official position if you like, is clear. But the UN Commission has examined words of leading Israeli politicians, and believes that there is enough evidence that Israel's true intent is more aggressive than the official line. The Commission's report cites such statements as Netanyahu's promise of 'mighty vengeance', Defence Minister Yoav Gallant's claim that Israel is 'fighting human animals, and we act accordingly', and President Herzog's assertion that 'it's an entire nation out there that is responsible' for Hamas's October 7th attack. Add to this claims from elements in Israeli society that Jews alone have the historical right to Gaza, and you have a cloudier position, although the UN Commission has felt clear enough that 'genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference' that could be concluded from the pattern of behaviour by Israel's security forces.
This will rumble on, and we will all have to make up our own minds on Israel's actions, but if the dominant noise of views in the court of public opinion comes from those of flimsy engagement with the detail, than that would be sad.
The writer is a historian and former Managing Partner of a City law firm