October 7, 2023 was a horrific day not only for the state of Israel, but the entire Jewish world. It was the day that Hamas terrorists entered Israel to kidnap, torture, murder, and decapitate civilians. These brutes did not hide their barbarism; they posted it on social media. You would think that any decent human being would speak out against such atrocities. Instead, anti-Semitism exploded worldwide in a way we have not seen since Nazi Germany. Hating on Jews in the guise of anti-Semitism has become en vogue, especially on the Far Left. There have been a litany of fallacious attacks on the credibility of Israel.
One such recent attack was Amnesty International (AI) releasing a 296-page report accusing Israel of genocide. Sadly, mainstream media outlets published it as if it were fact because it comes from a "human rights" organization. The report is nearly 300 pages long, so I am not going to sit here and refute the report point-by-point. It helps that I refuted this accusation of genocide last year. What I am going to do instead is provide a list of reasons why Amnesty International's charges are bogus so that you, the reader, have a concise list at the ready.
Israel does not have the intent or objective to commit genocide. From the beginning of the current war, the Israeli government has made it clear that aside from achieving the goal of rescuing the hostages, its target is not the Palestinian people, but eliminating the terrorist organization Hamas. On the occasion when an Israeli official made a callous remark, such as using nuclear weapons against Gazans, they were summarily disciplined.
As I explained last year, for the action to be considered genocide under international law, there needs to be intent to destroy the group as a group. That means genocide accusers would need to prove "Israel is killing Gazan civilians intentionally and simply because they're Palestinian, rather than as an unfortunate consequence of Israel's efforts to legally exercise its right of self-defense against Hamas." None of these genocide accusers can prove that Israel is willfully targeting civilians, which is the standard used in international law. AI is so frustrated that it cannot meet the standard laid out in the Genocide Convention of 1948 that it has the following to say in its report (AI, p. 101):
"...rulings on inferring intent can be read extremely narrowly, in a manner that would potentially preclude a state from having genocidal intent alongside one or more additional motives or goals in relation to the conduct of its military operations. As outlined below, Amnesty International considers this an overly cramped interpretation of international jurisprudence and one that would effectively preclude a finding of genocide in the context of an armed conflict."
In other words, AI knows that it does not have a legal leg to stand on when accusing Israel of genocide, particularly with proving intent beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. Former President of the International Court of Justice Joan Donoghue confirmed that the Court decided Israel's war against Gaza could not plausibly be considered genocide. That has not stopped AI from using this report as a guise to create its own definition of genocide to make Israel look like the bad guy. But let us continue with the exploration of the plausibility behind the genocide argument.
Israel has been and continues to be surrounded by Arab entities that want to wipe out Israel. AI states in its report (p. 202) that historical context is important. Let us examine that context for a moment. The Arab world's animus towards Israel predates the settlements or the Six-Day War of 1967. What happened in 1948 when Israel declared its independence? Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon pounced on Israel in the hopes of eliminating the nascent Jewish state. This has been an ongoing pattern since 1948: Arabs attack Israel with the hopes of eliminating Israel; Israel fights back; Israel subsequently wins the war; Arabs play victim; Rinse and repeat.
The latest war in Gaza is no exception. Since 1988, Hamas has been clear on its genocidal intent of wiping out the Zionist state (see original Hamas charter here). Israel had unilaterally withdrawn from Gaza in 2005. The only reason Israel implemented an economic blockade, which by the way the United Nations declared as legitimate self-defense, was to prevent an attack like October 7 from happening. But Israel was only able to hold off such carnage off for so long. Hamas carried out a mass attack with genocidal intent on October 7, 2023. This pogrom, which was the worst attack on Jews since World War II, is what instigated this current war. What is worst that Hamas leadership stated that it would like to carry out attacks similar to October 7 again until Hamas completes its goal of wiping the Jewish state off the map. Historically speaking, genocidal regimes have made their genocidal intents crystal clear. Hamas is no exception.
Given the genocidal threat to Israel's very existence, Israel is well within its right to eliminate Hamas and use military force to target military installations and players. As I detailed a couple of weeks ago, part of what makes this moral inversion more distasteful is that it is the Arab side that has projected its most perverse desires onto Israel, whether that is ethnic cleansing, colonization, and apartheid. Sadly, genocide is not an exception to that list. AI does not bother to examine Palestine's genocidal intent with a 300-page report. It opines that the only reasonable inference is that Israel's actions constitute genocide (AI, p. 204-5) when in fact Israel is acting in self-defense to ensure that Hamas never repeats the butchery it unleashed on October 7, 2023.
Israel is under great international scrutiny. The international community applies mythical double standards to Israel that it would not dare apply to other nation-states. Israel's actions are under a microscope. There have been 12 military conflicts between Israel and Hamas since 2005. There is no plausible way that anyone could hide a genocide that long, especially under such scrutiny. That brings me to my next point....
The Gazan population has been growing. To reiterate, if there were an actual genocide taking place in Gaza, Israel could not hide it. You would be able to tell from population statistics whether genocide were taking place. Looking at data from the United Nations and World Bank, the population of West Bank and Gaza has been growing since the 1950s. More recently, the CIA calculated that since the October 7 pogrom, the population in Gaza has grown over 2 percent. Even the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics has acknowledged that the number of Palestinians has grown by ninefold since 1948.
Whether it was the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, or the Armenian genocide, or the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge, one constant in genocides is that there is notable population decline of the target demographic. Part of genocide is systematically wiping out a group of people. The sheer ruthlessness and efficiency of genocide attributes to its abhorrence. Yet no such population decline among the Gazans is happening here, which would imply no genocide in Gaza.
Do not worry. There are more arguments to come in Part II.
No comments:
Post a Comment