Is Israel Committing Genocide?

Before 1948, there was no name available for what the Nazi's did to the Jewish people so the United Nations gathered together the top Jewish lawyers from the newly created Israel and arrived at what they called the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2.

The Covention officially defined genocide as any of five acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group and these five acts were: 'killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly'.

As the Covention was written by Jews and as a way of describing what the Nazi's had tragically done to them, it is incredible, given its history, that it is the same people who stand today accussed of Genocide themselves but after rising Global voices about the widespread death and destruction of Palestine by the Israeli military, South Africa has launched a case against Israel at the UN’s international court of justice accusing the state of committing genocide in Gaza.  

Israel responded to the allegations 'with disgust' but of the five acts, it is hard for anyone to defend Israel's actions which seem to tick many of the five boxes.

Killing members of the group. The death toll today stands at 21,000 thousand Palestinian civilians, over half women and children but the death toll is expected to be much higher due to many bodies buried beneath the rubble of their homes and other buildings. Undoubtedly this ticks the box for the first of the acts.

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group. This definition relates to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment and  Amnesty International have reported that since hostilities began in October, 2,200 Palestinian men, women and children have been held in administrative detention, without charge or trial. They have shown videos of prisoners being severely beaten and humiliating Palestinians while detaining them blind-folded, stripped, with their hands tied. Hard to state this is anything other than bodily and mental harm being imposed.

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction. This is to create circumstances that do not support prolonged life, identified in the Convention as 'subjecting a group of people to a subsistence diet, systematic expulsion from homes and the reduction of essential medical services below minimum requirement. As Israel did not allow aid into Gaza and have attacked aide convoys when they did arrive, have bombed every Gaza hospital so there is no Health Service in the strip and people are dying from starvation and disease as the utilities have been bomb damaged and Gazan's have been ordered to leave their homes en-mass and cross the country, the third box of the Convention is proven.

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group has not been identified so we are unable to accuse Israel of this one.

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Although Israel has been forcing the movement of the citizens of Gaza around the 21 mile strip and have then bombed the area they have deemed as safe so as whole families have been forced out of their homes and forcibly transferring them to other parts of Israel, there is no evidence that they have been transferring Gaza children especially so this one is not completely provable.

The first three key definitions of Genocide are completely viable so as only one of the five key attributes need to be proven to allow an accusation of Genocide, with three of the definitions being wholly provable, what Israel is perpetrating against the Gazan's is Genocide and it was correct that the South Africans have launched this case against the Israeli Government.