Genocide

Abstract

The claim that Israel has, is or intends to commit genocide upon the Palestinian population across the Middle East is one of the most incendiary charges that can be made of the Jewish state. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the UN in 1948, defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such.” Genocide should be distinguished from both ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’—the former focuses on violence against individuals as individuals rather than group identity; the latter generally refers to forced expulsion from an area, invariably accompanied by violence, but without the aim of destroying the group as such. While the founding of the State of Israel was not a direct consequence of the Holocuast, the history of Israel is necessarily entwined with that of the Shoah. This gives accusations of genocide aimed at Israel—whereby the victims (or descendants) of the most extreme genocide in history are portrayed as perpetrators—an aggravating factor which goes beyond the routine hyperbole that characterises much political discourse, particularly online.