what makes this genocide so different, so special?
[Image deleted. There are enough images burning our retinas. I choose writing.]
Well we have got to the point now that the word genocide is being used widely, though not by anyone who has power in this crisis. We have the South African government beginning to make the case this week at the International Court of Justice (predictably accused of “blood libel” by Israel). We know that the best part of the non-western world sees this clearly and has done since the genocide began. Or, as I prefer to see it, since an ongoing slow genocide wound up to warp speed in October.
There are several reasons why this genocide is different, so special.
Gideon Levy is an Israeli journalist who has called out his own government and society for decades, at great risk to himself. He pointed out in 2015,
“there was never an occupation in which the occupier presented himself as the victim. Not only the victim, the only victim around.”
Replace ‘occupation’ today with ‘genocide’ for an update.
“in genocides in the past there is often a debate later on about how much people knew at the time… and whether this mass slaughter could have been stopped sooner.”
This time, we know already, in huge detail. And the South African submission to the ICJ reads so horrifically it feels as if it were a distant historical disaster we could chew over after the event and not our daily intake of news.
Thirdly, this is a genocide funded by the most powerful countries in the world, armed by us, egged on and given moral justification by us. (By which I mean directly funded: for years we have sold arms to anyone who wanted, for any purpose) We are not even hand wringing. We are condemning and silencing those who demur. Nothing to see here.
“We are not seeing any acts that constitute genocide. That is a determination by the State Department." Matthew Miller, State Department spokesperson, 3rd January 2024
The tectonic plates of world opinion seem to be shifting slowly against this orthodoxy. But not fast enough to save the people of Gaza. And that is what Israel is relying on. My husband thinks there will never be a reckoning. I do. And I hope it comes in time. Which is why I write and march.