I don’t expect anyone who reads my blog posts to remember what I say, since even I don’t. After all, I started this blog on November 15, 2022, almost four years ago, which makes this blog post #1,398.

But I got a number of comments on my recent posting about those who conflate Israel, Zionism and Jews, and the dangers this conflation brings about, and I appreciate them, as I always do. But in addition, I got one question from my old friend and consistent reader, whom I will refer to as Charles from Charleston (both because that is his name, and that is where he lives), who has been wondering about why so many otherwise seemingly intelligent people are so quick to say that Israel has been and still is engaged in genocide and, in the usual conflation, anyone who supports Israel, or is Jewish, somehow becomes complicit in that genocide. He cannot conclude that Israel is committing genocide, although he says that perhaps Israel is engaging in, or have engaged in, war crimes. And then he says if any group is committing genocide, isn’t it the Palestinians?

He thinks that I have written about this subject and asked me if I could say something more. I probably have written about the subject, and could guess what I said but, without looking back to figure out what I have said previously, let’s give the topic a quick look.

Let’s start with my conclusion. My conclusion is that I don’t really know. And the reason I don’t know is that I don’t really know what the definition of he word genocide is. After all, it is just a word. And I don’t know what the definition of genocide is because it started with one loose definition, has been refined by international convention, and seems to be changing constantly, often to fit the viewpoints of the individuals or groups throwing the term about.

Just like I believe that the word “Zionist” should be discarded because it has become a flashpoint and everyone defines it differently, I think the same about “genocide”. I think that the word should be dropped for the most part in discussing the current situation.

Raphael Lemkin coined the term in a 1944 book, talking about the Nazis and their continuing extermination of the Jews. He gave previous examples from ancient and medieval history, and referred to the treatment of Armenians by Turkey during World War I. Scholars have fought over the proper definition of the word since Lemkin’s first use of the term.

The Palestinians maintain that everything they are doing is defensive, even when they are starting what might seem to be a new attack on Israel, they say is it just the next element of a fight that started during the British occupation before Israel was created, and that they are just trying to get back the land that was taken from them. The most violent of the Palestinian groups, such as Hamas, have as part of their charters and programs, the extermination of the State of Israel, which they deem to be an illegitimate body. You may (and probably do) disagree with Hamas on this point, but Hamas’ belief that Israel should disappear as an entity and that Palestinians should have the right of return to what is now Israel is not a statement of genocide unless it also includes killing the Israeli Jews, or destroying their culture. It isn’t good, but it isn’t genocide. Even the attack of October 7, 2023, evil as it was, is not genocide, unless it was the start of a program to exterminate all the Jews of Israel, rather than a despicable act of war.  Even if Hamas succeeded in taking Israel over and expelling the Jews, I don’t think that would fit the definition (at least the original definition) of genocide.

To me, genocide involves having an intentional program to kill a defined group of people and/or to completely destroy their culture. And the program has to be put into action.

What about the Israelis? I think that the actual position of the current Israeli government is hard to discern, and maybe there is no actual position, but you can make the argument that the plan is to vastly limit the Arab populations of Gaza and the West Bank and put both areas under Israeli control. That, too, bad as it may be, probably does not constitute genocide. If on the other hand, the Israeli position is to kill Palestinians and wipe out Palestinian culture, that may be a different story. A lot of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and some are still being killed today, most of those being civilian and many being children. But if the intent is to get the Palestinians to move elsewhere to reduce the numbers in Gaza, but not to kill them outright, I think you have a terrible policy, but I don’t think you have genocide.

Clearly, however, both among Israeli Jews and Palestinians, you have high level officials who would appear to welcome genocide, but it was from Pal Joey that I learned that “you can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking”.

There is of course a pending case in the International Court of Justice where Israel has been accused of genocide. The Court has not reached a final conclusion, and may never be able to, but said that there is imminent danger of extreme harm to Palestinians, and instructed Israel, in several separate paragraphs, to make sure that genocide does not occur (those paragraphs have little, if any, authority; they are statements of the obvious). The Court relies on the 1948 Genocide Convention in defining genocide. The problem here is that the convention’s definition of genocide is itself hard to understand; the elements of genocide under the convention may be clear, but their limits or extent are not, because all of the precise definitions (including killing members, causing serious bodily or mental harm to members, destoying a society, and so forth) only become genocide if “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. So you have to first describe the group, you have to decide what “destroy” means, what “in whole or in part” means, you have to find “intent”, and you have to find that individuals are not being attacked or killed because of anything they have done, but randomly, because they are members of this group. Not easy to do this.

As I understand it, in Turkey, the Armenians (old, young, men, women, children) were killed just because they were Armenians. That was a genocide, as was the killing of Jews (and members of other groups such as the Roma) simply because they were members of a particular group. You could say the same about the Tutsi in Rwanda and, on a smaller scale, perhaps Muslims in Srebenica. Perhaps.

But, under the definition written in the Genocide Convention, I don’t think you could in good faith find Israel of its enemies guilty of genocide.  That is perhaps why the ICJ wrote their interim decision the way they did. But I should add that proponents of finding Israel guilty of genocide, recognizing the difficulty of tailoring a guilty verdict to meet that definition, are proposing that the Court drop the requirement of “intent” in the definition of genocide and move to a weaker standard.

I am going to stop here with the following disclaimer. People have devoted their lives to defining genocide and deciding whether particular activities relate to genocide, they have written briefs to courts and judicial decisions, they have written erudite law review articles and treatises, and books, and PhD dissertations. I have done none of that. Nor have the great majority of folks who are throwing the term around to define the actions of people or groups they strongly disagree with.

So my particular responses, like almost everyone else, are not to be relied on. And this is why, just as Zionism, it is hard to grasp the meaning of the word genocide as used in casual conversation. They are both inflammatory terms that only cause trouble and invite more conflict. They should both be discarded.