United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect
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Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect

Article II

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;
  • 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

Clear enough, right?

Under this definition Israel’s occupation and war of extermination is absolutely genocide, unquestionably. The goal is to kill, mutilate, and displace the Palestinian people. The goal is the total ethnic cleansing of Gaza, by any means necessary. Israel’s war on Gaza is genocide.

However, under this definition are the completely justified goals of Hamas also genocide? They intend to destroy the settler-colonial monstrosity that is Zionism and eradicate the nation state of Israel; Palestine from the river to the sea. That, technically, means they are committed with intent to destroy the national group of Israelis by displacement, death, or simply making them into Palestinians after destroying Israel’s government.

That doesn’t seem right to me. I am absolutely in solidarity with Hamas and Palestine in their struggle against the Zionist entity. An occupied people destroying their occupier’s government and settler identity can’t be considered genocide, because it creates this legal and ethical equivalency with the settlers.

And yet, technically, that seems to be the case. Am I wrong?

And, by pointing out this technicality, am I just a dog for Zionism?

  • carlesmu
    5·
    9 months ago

    The convention about genocide don’t protect people that share a ideology (i.e. Zionism)

    Also, the Hamas goals are not genocidal per se:

    1. The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is a Palestinian Islamic national liberation and resistance movement. Its goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project. Its frame of reference is Islam, which determines its principles, objectives and means.
    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.mlOP
      6·
      9 months ago

      Well also from the political document:

      The Israeli entity is the plaything of the Zionist project and its base of aggression

      The destruction of the Zionist project necessarily means the destruction of Israeli state. That means it is not just the destruction of a people that share an ideology, but also the destruction of a national identity. It could hypothetically be peaceful, but we all know it won’t be.

      I guess you can sidestep this by not recognizing the existence of Israel as a legitimate nation-state?

      • carlesmu
        5·
        9 months ago

        I guess you can sidestep this by not recognizing the existence of Israel as a legitimate nation-state?

        Nops :-( A state it’s a political construct, as national identity is a social construct. The recognition could be used against the state, but not against the national identity.

        But what I was trying to point out was the false dichotomy presented: Israel is genocidal and so is Hamas.

        Israel has the material conditions to commit genocide, Hamas does not. At most, Hamas could commit massacres in some settlements, which I don’t see it fits the definition of genocide.

        If we ignore that fact, we can use the political program of Hamas, but it also don’t call for a genocide of jews or Israelians, even seems that they could reluctantly accept a 2-state solution.