Genocide Among Us By Curtis F.J. Doebbler

Genocide Among Us

By Curtis F.J. Doebbler

Al-Jazeerah, January 28, 2007

This week the international community is commemorating one genocide: the holocaust in which millions of Jews, political dissenters, Roma, and just about anyone who protested Nazi politics were brutally killed. This is an important and tragic event to remember, but even as the international community commemorates this tragic event, it is forgetting other genocides and even participating in contemporary genocide.

Perhaps instead of concentrating on our past mistakes, more attention should be paid to the mistakes we are making today. Evidently some of the victims of genocide in the holocaust have failed to learn the lessons of their past. And even Presidents of some of the most powerful countries in the world appear to be willing to undertake acts of genocide if its serves their political aims.

Recounting the tradition of genocide, its legal prohibition, and its application to contemporary events is a contribution to the commemoration of the holocaust that is more fitting that any wreaths or kind words about the victim who we failed to save then.

Genocidal Traditions

The history of genocide is a complex one. The man who coined the term in the mid-20th century, Raphael Lemkin saw genocide as “a coordinated plan aimed at destruction of the essential foundations of the life … so that these groups wither and die like plants that have suffered a blight … accomplished by the forced disintegration of political and social institutions, of the culture of the people, of their language, their national feelings and their religion … [or] … by wiping out all bases of personal security, liberty, health and dignity.” Lemkin added, that “[w]hen these means fail the machine gun can always be utilized as a last resort.”

Since the term was created it has grown to become both a larger than life term for applying to all acts of mass killing or extermination by some people.

If one views genocide in this broad manner it would apply to any mass killing or mass act of inhumane treatment against a group of people who should not be discriminated against. When he created the term to apply to these acts of extermination, for example, Lemkin was concerned for the massacre of Armenians as the Ottoman empire was coming to an end.

This broad term, however, would equally apply to the massacre of almost the entire native Indian populations in Mexico, central, and south America by Spanish conquerors. It would also apply to the slaughters conducted by slave trading western European and North American governments in Africa as they sought to exploit people whom they viewed as uncivilized.

A broad definition of genocide would also apply to perhaps the most successful act of mass murder and extermination of a people in relatively modern history: the slaughter of millions of Native Americans to create the United States of America. The United States slaughtered millions of these indigenous people using a combination brut force and lies. In cowardly acts of deception the United States even signed sacred peace treaties with the Native Americans and then violated these treaties—sometimes by merely slaughtering the Native Americans or more often by placing them in conditions that were calculated to ensure that all or most of them died.

The broad definition of genocide has been alleged to apply to the modern day treatment that some North American and European governments provide their indigenous citizens. It is alleged to apply to the treatment of Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Iran. The United States pressed for the prosecution of the former Iraqi President on charges of genocide, but we may never know if he was guilty of this crime because the United States silenced the him by summarily executing him after and unfair trial conducted after its illegal invasion of his country… all acts which themselves constitutes other very serious international crimes.

The American obsession with murdering Sunnis and Ba'ath party members in Iraq, Taliban in Afghanistan, and supporters of the elected Hamas government in Palestine might all constitute genocide if one takes a broad view of genocide.

The Legal Prohibition of Genocide

Stirred by the inhumanity of the mass killing and extermination of people, the international community adopted a legal definition of genocide about the same time as it created the United Nations. It was too late to apply this treaty to the World War II holocaust, however, because the Nüremberg trials were already underway.

Nevertheless, in 1948, the Convention on the Prohibition and Punishment of Genocide was adopted. Article II of this widely-ratified treaty defines genocide as both specific categories of acts and a specific intention. The prohibited acts include killing, inhumane treatment, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to destroy and group of people in whole or in part, preventing births through specific measures, and transferring children from one group of people to another by force.

The intention required to constitute genocide when these acts are committed by a person is the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

This legal definition has been adopted by the ad hoc international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and in the treaty creating the International Criminal Court. This definition has been applied by the two ad hoc international criminal tribunals.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was the first court to ever convict a person of genocide. This happened in the cases of Mr. Jean-Paul Akayesu, a former mayor of the city of Taba in Rwanda, and Mr. Jean Kambanda, the former Prime Minister of Rwanda.

Akayesu had encouraged others to kill or rape Tutsi Rwandan women and intended to participate in such acts. In this case, the Tribunal made it clear that genocide could take place even by acts that “may fall short of causing death.” The Tribunal also pointed out that intention could be presumed by acts that had a clear goal of destroying whole or part of a group.

Kambanda had pleaded guilty apparently accepting that his mere participation in cabinet meeting were the massacre of Tutsi Rwandans was sufficient to constitute genocide. The court made clear that intention could be extrapolated from the actions of the accused.

Rwanda Tribunal also convicted Mr. Alfred Musema of both the crime against humanity of extermination and the crime of genocide. The Tribunal found that Musema had both personally taken part in attacks against Tutsi Rwandans and had helped others kill Tutsi Rwandans by transporting them and telling them to kill others. His intention was show by the mere fact that his deeds contributed to the larger policy of killing Tutsi Rwandans.

And in 2005, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicted Mr. Vidoje Blagojevic guilty of complicity in genocide because he had killed and tortured numerous Bosnian Muslims.

There have also been domestic convictions for genocide. In 2003, a Rwandan court convicted about 100 people for participation in genocide. And in 2006, an Ethiopian military court found the country’s former ruler Lt. Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam guilty of genocide in absentia after a 12-year trial.

Some of these cases of genocide were committed in a very short period of time, others over years. Some of these case involved direct killings, others involved placing people in conditions of life tat would destroy them as a group. For example, genocide can be committed when a group is deliberately deprived of the resources needed to survive such as drinking water, food, clothing, shelter, and medical services.

When genocide has been considered such a terrible act and has been relatively well-defined, can it still be happening?

Palestine: A Case of Contemporary Genocide

No single example better exemplifies the international community’s failure to stop genocide then the case of Israel’s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian. This contemporary genocide has existed since and as long as the international crime of genocide has been defined.

The Palestinians owned approximately 94% of Palestine prior to in the creation of Israel in 1947. United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181(II) of 1947, however, gave Israel 54% of the land of Palestine. By the end of the 1948 war this had climbed to about 80%, approximately where it stands today.

Since 1967 Israel had confiscated since 1967 an estimated 60 per cent of the West Bank and an estimated 33 per cent of the Gaza Strip. Israel has also confiscated an estimated 33 per cent of the Palestinian land in Jerusalem for public, semi-public, and private use in order to create Israeli military zones, settlements, industrial areas, elaborate “bypass” roads and quarries, as well as to hold “State land” for exclusive Israeli use. While Israel withdrew its settlements in Gaza it often reoccupies territory in Gaza, and maintains about 200 settlements in the West Bank.

Israel’s intention in undertaking these acts appears clear.

Israel’s intention was illustrated long ago in quotes from its government officials starting with the first Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, who infamously told the Sunday Times on 16 June 1969 that “[t]here were no such thing as Palestinians.” Meir then in an attempt to justify her earlier statement told the New York Times on 14 January 1976 that she meant to say that “[t]here is no Palestine people. There are Palestinian refugees.” Both provide at least prima facie evidence of stated intention to destroy the Palestinians people, by pretending they just don’t exist. To follow the Israel intention from Meir’s statements through forty years of acts of illegal and oppressive occupation it is not too difficult to see that Israel believes that if Palestinians do not exist then they can be exterminated without violating any law.

To see this is Israel’s view one just has to recount how this state has maintained nearly forty years of occupation with inhumane results.

Israel has intentionally and directly killed thousands of Palestinians since the 1960’s. The regular reports about how many Palestinians have been killed by Israel aggression have been ongoing for forty years.

Israel has deliberately inflicted conditions of life on Palestinians calculated to destroy them at least in part. One only has to read the reports of human rights NGOs, or the United Nations human rights bodies to understand how Israel has intentionally caused serious bodily or mental harm to thousands of Palestinians through widespread beatings, torture, rape, arbitrary detention, and other acts, including the deliberate deprivation of resources needed for the group’s physical survival. The recent withholding of the vital customs taxes that Israel collected for, and then stole from, the Palestinians is an example of the latter. The frequent denial of access to medical services, including emergency resources; clean water; food; clothing; and shelter are also duly recorded by numerous sources.

Israel has also destroyed Palestinian civilian infrastructure, confiscated land, depleted water supplies, uprooted trees and vegetation, and dumped toxic waste and other pollutants on Palestinian land.

A 2000, UN Report documents how “children born to Arab parents in Jerusalem ... often cannot be registered and issued birth certificates if their parents do not have the necessary residency status.” It then estimates that “there are approximately 10,000 unregistered children in Jerusalem [alone] who will not be entitled to receive an identity card when they reach the age of 16" and that this "[l]ack of residency status also deprives them of health and social insurance and the right to enrol in municipal schools.”

Both direct and indirect these acts both constitute acts of genocide and by their continuation for such a long period of time are evidence of genocidal intention.

There are also numerous lesser acts that Israel has undertaken to destroy the people of Palestinian. The Spanish newspaper El Pais, for example, reported in 2002 on the Israeli destruction of Palestinian records in Ramallah as a “scientific and systematic destruction of all the archives and databases of the public administration.”

Israel has prevented the births of Palestinian children by arbitrarily arresting and thereby separating for long period of time Palestinian spouses and Israel has prevented children who are born from recognizing their adherence to the Palestinian people by repeatedly refusing to allow the registration of Palestinian births.

Moreover, Israel has demolished hundreds of Palestinian homes throughout Palestine as collective punishments of families and in intentional military actions. Since 1987 these violent demolitions have made more than an estimated 20,000 Palestinians homeless, including almost 10,000 children.

Israel has built a wall and numerous barriers that separate not only husbands and wives, but even children from their families. It has accomplished a similar de facto separation of children from their families by is arbitrary arrest of thousands of Palestinian men and women. And Israel has imposed by direct force or by through fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or other methods of coercion that force the fleeing of whole families, the indirect forcible transfer of children from Palestine.

And it should be remembered that many of these acts have been undertaken in violations of a long list of UN resolutions from both the Security Council and the General Assembly. Moreover some of the acts mentioned above have already been recognized to be illegal by decisions of the International Court of Justice.

It should also be remembered that genocide can be committed by acts that do not kill or cause the death of members of a group. Indirect or direct commission of the acts mentioned above when committed as part of a policy to destroy a group’s existence is genocide. And participation in genocide includes incitement, conspiracy, direct and public incitement, attempts to commit genocide, and complicity in genocide.

Most importantly we should remember that these acts of genocide by Israel against Palestinians are being carried out today, in clear view. Ironically, this week the world remembers one genocide, while another continues with the compliancy and collaboration of the international community. Shouldn’t we ask ourselves when will we ever learn from history?

Dr. Curtis F.J. Doebbler is an international human rights lawyer and professor of law at An-Najah National University in Nablus, Palestine.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

Apartheid Wall


The Israeli Land-Grab Apartheid Wall built inside the Palestinian territories, here separating Abu Dis from occupied East Jerusalem. (IPC, 7/4/04).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python. (Alquds,10/25/03).

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah's.

editor@aljazeerah.info