Unfortunately much of my professional career has been about exposure to actual or possible #genocide. And I have said many times that the careless, casual, and crafty ways in which partisan politicians, thoughtless activists, and for-hire lawyers use the label by dropping it here, there, and everywhere means that it's original meaning and purpose - to punish, deter, and prevent egregious crimes against humanity - has been lost. No wonder that no genocides have ever been prevented and the related area of international criminal law and justice is held in such contempt by perpetrators. The irony in this is that the punishment for acts of genocide or equally cruel constituent acts not classified as genocide - is exactly the same: long imprisonment in civilised law-abiding national and international jurisdictions. But the inadvertent effect of shouting genocide at the drop of a hat - admittedly in frustration by pained victims and their supporters - distracts attention from and paralyses constructive efforts to tackle egregious crimes against humanity and, where these are in the context of armed conflicts, to work on peace.
Jake Wallis Simons
The Telegraph
Summary:
The article examines how the legal term "genocide" has become politically weaponized, particularly in cases involving Israel. Following the October 7 massacre, genocide cases have been brought against Israel at the International Court of Justice, including by South Africa and other nations. The ICJ delivered a guilty verdict in Myanmar's genocide case last week, while judges finished hearing Israel's case on Thursday. The article traces genocide as a legal concept to Raphael Lemkin's 1944 book "Axis Rule in Occupied Europe," which described the Nazi extermination campaign. Since 1946, only five legally confirmed genocides have been recognized: the Holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and the Yazidis by Islamic State.
The article argues that UN bodies and NGOs have established bias against Israel, with examples including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports. One ICJ presiding judge, 84-year-old South African jurist Nawaf Salam, previously headed a UN Human Rights Council inquiry dismissed as laughable in 2014. In September, a commission member claimed social media bias favoring the "Jewish lobby." The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention accused Israel of genocide after October 7, when Hamas killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Of 2,000 secondary schools that marked Holocaust Memorial Day in 2023, 1,146 have endorsed claims about Israeli "genocide." The article contends that deploying genocide accusations against democracies while overlooking actual mass killings by authoritarian regimes like Iran reveals the term's political weaponization.
Quotes:
"The UN should know that replacing facts with feelings is a dangerous game"
"In terms of the word 'genocide', it's traditionally been a very technical legal term under the Geneva Convention. But for so many, the word is not just a technical legal term. It is a descriptor for an extreme level of devastation of a people. It's a heartfelt descriptor" - California state senator Scott Wiener
"Just 10 days – 10 days! – after October 7, the Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention accused Israel of 'genocide'"
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