With Gaza war, Israel has normalized genocide

To say that the world has failed the Palestinians for decades is an understated fact. To admit that it has turned its back on the people of Gaza is tantamount to complicity in an ongoing massacre, the crime of the century, which is yet to end. Now in its 14th month, Israel’s war on Gaza is an unrelenting nightmare that has all the characteristics of genocide, yet few officials or bodies have come out to label it as such.

Israel has denied that its war on Gaza is genocide. It has rejected accusations that it is using starvation as collective punishment, that it is deliberately targeting civilians and resorting to the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools and UN buildings, and that it is using banned weapons like white phosphorus.

But after more than 44,000 fatalities and countless injured and missing persons, several UN officials and human rights organizations have come out to accuse Israel of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and collective punishment against more than 2 million people, almost all of whom are now displaced.

The list of accusations is long. Israel has kidnapped doctors and nurses and some have died in Israeli detention centers in suspicious circumstances. There is mounting evidence that Israel uses torture, including rape, against men, women and children. Israel has killed more than 180 journalists and hundreds of doctors, academics and humanitarian workers.

Israel’s indifference to its obligations under the law is directly linked to the shameless support it receives from the US

Osama Al-Sharif

Still, Israel’s horrific onslaught continues unabated in an audacious challenge to the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, other areas of international humanitarian law, the laws of war, UN Security Council resolutions and the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling from January on Israel’s obligations toward the civilian population in Gaza. The list goes on and on.

According to the Genocide Convention, genocide is a crime that can take place in times of war as well as in times of peace. The definition contained in Article II of the convention describes genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.

Israel’s indifference to its obligations under the law is directly linked to the shameless support it receives from the US, which continues to supply Israel with lethal weapons while failing to hold it accountable to even its most basic responsibilities as an occupying power. There is no doubt that the US and other countries that continue to send weapons and munitions to Israel are directly complicit in the crimes being committed in Gaza.

A report published by a UN special committee last week said that Israel’s war conduct in Gaza “is consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” including mass civilian casualties and using starvation as a weapon. The report added: “Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population.”

Outspoken UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese has directly accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Last month, she presented a report titled “Genocide as colonial erasure,” which concluded that Israel’s genocide is founded on “ideological hatred” and “dehumanization,” and “enabled through the various organs of the state.” She recommended that Israel be unseated from the UN over its conduct. Naturally, she is accused by Israel and the US of antisemitism.

Human Rights Watch last week accused the Israeli authorities of causing the forced displacement of Palestinian people in Gaza to an extent that constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity. Israel’s response was that the organization was using rhetoric that is “completely false and detached from reality.”

In March, 12 of Israel’s most prominent human rights organizations signed an open letter accusing the country of failing to comply with the International Court of Justice’s provisional ruling that it should facilitate access to humanitarian aid in Gaza.

The persistent lack of accountability for Israeli violations, including attacks on civilians, has created a climate of impunity

Osama Al-Sharif

Organizations like the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UNICEF and the World Health Organization have repeatedly highlighted the dire humanitarian situation. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called for investigations into potential war crimes.

Even Pope Francis is reportedly calling for an investigation to determine if Israel’s attacks in Gaza constitute genocide, according to excerpts released on Sunday from an upcoming book ahead of the Catholic Church’s jubilee year in 2025.

When Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, asked the court in May to issue warrants to arrest Israeli leaders Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination, Israel and the US moved quickly to hinder the court’s compliance. Khan and the court’s judges were openly threatened by US lawmakers.

More than six months after Khan requested those warrants to be issued, the judges remain silent. Meanwhile, Khan, who also warned against the intimidation of court officials, now faces a probe into alleged sexual misconduct.

Soon after he was selected as the next majority leader of the US Senate, John Thune last week issued an outrageous and threatening statement: “If the ICC and its prosecutor do not reverse their outrageous and unlawful actions to pursue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, the Senate should immediately pass sanctions legislation, as the House has already done on a bipartisan basis.”

It is now a fact that Israel’s impunity for its crimes in Gaza and America’s complete and unconditional support of its genocide have become a litmus test of the validity of the rules-based order, the UN and all international conventions and laws.

Israel and the US are against any investigation into the Gaza war, now or ever. One wonders how Israel will manage the devastated Strip once the war ends. Will it allow independent journalists and human rights observers into Gaza? For how long does it believe it can deny access to both?

It is inconceivable that the world can return to business as usual once the war ends. The International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court will become symbols of a colossal miscarriage of justice. The UN, which Netanyahu has dubbed a “swamp of antisemitic bile,” will become irrelevant.

The persistent lack of accountability for Israeli violations, including attacks on civilians, destruction of infrastructure and the imposition of collective punishment, has created a climate of impunity. This emboldens Israel to carry out further violations as it undermines the rule of law.

What is perhaps the most horrifying reality is that Israel has managed to normalize the most heinous act by any state: genocide.

If Israel is allowed to get away with war crimes and genocide in Gaza, the rules-based order will become meaningless and void. What replaces it will be chaos and mayhem. Gaza is now the biggest challenge to the post-Second World War US-led order.

• Osama Al-Sharif is a journalist and political commentator based in Amman. X: @plato010