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Israeli Historian: This Is Exactly What Genocide Looks Like [1]

['Amos Goldberg', 'Shawn Fain', 'Brent Cebul', 'Lily Geismer', 'Isabella Weber', 'Jared Abbott', 'Madeleine Hall', 'Nancy Fraser', 'Priti Gulati Cox', 'Stan Cox']

Date: 2025-02

Amos Goldberg

I wrote an article in Hebrew titled “Yes, It Is a Genocide” in a magazine called Sicha Mekommit, which means Local Call. It was then translated into English and circulated widely.

I acknowledge that this is a serious allegation, and I don’t take it lightly. It was very difficult for me to write this article, because it is also about my people and my society. As a part of this society, I also bare responsibility for what is happening. The magnitude of the atrocities and destruction in Israel on October 7 were unprecedented. It took me some time to be able to digest what was happening and to be able to articulate what I saw unfolding in front of my eyes. But once you see what is happening, you cannot be silent anymore. Even if it is agonizing and painful for me, my readers, or Israeli society, the debate must start somewhere.

I acknowledge that this is a serious allegation, and I don’t take it lightly.

There are various definitions of genocide but only one is globally accepted and that is the Genocide Convention’s [The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide], which was adopted by the UN in December 1948. It’s a legal definition, but still vague and open to interpretation, which is why it was and still is criticized. The convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such. The intent to annihilate is crucial — though it does not have to be full annihilation; it can be “in whole or in part.”

The definition has been criticized for its omission of other categories, such as political groups, which the Soviet Union opposed. By the same token, the convention does not specify “cultural genocide,” because the US feared being accused of committing genocide against its own indigenous population. Including cultural aspects in the conventions was very important for the Polish-Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term “genocide” and lobbied for it in the UN, but he was forced to compromise in order to get the convention approved.

Ultimately, the definition put forward by the convention was the outcome of a certain political and historical moment in the UN, when the Global South had very few representatives and the US and USSR dominated. Nevertheless, most scholars refer to this definition when they speak about genocide today. Many coined additional terms like democide, ethnocide, politicide, etc. (which are not legal anyhow) or turned away from definitions all together. But the basic widely accepted definition is the legal one from the convention.

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[1] Url: https://jacobin.com/2024/07/amos-goldberg-genocide-gaza-israel

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