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How the term “genocide” is misused in the Israel-Hamas war
(www.economist.com)
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--https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml
Colloquially, it's genocide, but legally it does not appear to be. And that's a problem if you're trying to charge Israel with genocide in a court of law. Inevitably it's going to be found to not be genocide and that's one more thing Israel can point to. Crimes against humanity would probably been a better route.
It's going to be hard, if not impossible to show in court that Israel, as a policy, is deliberately targeting Palestinians. Showing Isael's actions is resulting in shit tons of civilian casualties seems pretty easy. Maybe there's super secret documents that show it's a deliberate act, but I highly doubt they'd be that dumb if genocide is their intention.
I really recommend watching the case presented by South Africa earlier this week establishing that intent. De jure, there is clearly a case to be made.
I mean, deliberately cutting off millions of people from almost all forms of food/water supply could definitely be seen as intent.
Although I can agree with you on the legal challenge, The Economist are journalists. Journalists are supposed to investigate.
Instead, they take Israeli stance at the face value and claim it's not genocide.
South Africa proved intent with a whole bunch of quotes from many government and military figures with Israel and the IDF. Netanyahu himself referred to the biblical story of the Ameleks who were wiped out by the Hebrews.