24 No. 76 JUSTICE he accusation since October 7, 2023, that Israel pursues genocide in the Gaza Strip, is a rhetorical weapon of war aimed at the delegitimization and destruction of the Jewish State. Genocide denotes the deliberate destruction of an entire people in whole or in part based on ethnicity, religion, nationality, or race. A genocidal state is anathema, along with those who support it. Fifteen years ago, Columbia anthropologist Mahmood Mamdani, the father of New York’s current mayor and no friend of Israel, wrote that genocide is “a label to be stuck on your worst enemy, a perverse version of the Nobel Prize, part of a rhetorical arsenal that helps you vilify your adversaries…”1 I discuss the genocide accusation from three interlocking angles, the historical, the contemporary ideological, and that of false expertise. Historical Aspects Genocide accusations against Israel have a long history. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) came into its own under Yasser Arafat after the Arab defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War. It styled itself as a national liberation movement fighting colonialism. But the PLO was also a conglomeration of terror groups. It rejected UN Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967, which called for a compromise peace between Israel and the Arab states. Israel’s destruction was preferable. Although the PLO’s attacks on civilians caused fear, they also caused outrage, and they could not destroy Israel. The Israelis also retaliated against PLO bases, mostly in Lebanon. The PLO needed to undermine Israel’s right to exist and to legitimize its own terrorism. The PLO Charter maintained that Israel was colonialist, racist, and fascist. This gained allies in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Founded in 1961, the NAM included Middle Eastern, African, Latin American, and Asian states, most recently liberated from colonial rule. They supported what they called revolutionary violence to overthrow colonial systems. In the 1970s the NAM critiqued colonial remnants, chief among them South African Apartheid and the existence of Israel. The NAM had ideological friends in the communist world, and by 1974 they had a majority in the United Nations General Assembly. At the General Assembly’s 1974 session the PLO was invited, against all established procedure, to become a participating observer. Lost in the outrage by several delegations was that the genocide charge now became central. The PLO aimed to show that what the West called terror was legitimate resistance, because Israel aimed not to live in peace but to destroy the Palestinians as a group. The Arab states joined in; it cost nothing and the Palestine issue was popular in their countries. Many subSaharan African states joined in as well. In his (in)famous November General Assembly speech, Arafat claimed that the Zionists “see in the Palestinian child, in the Palestinian tree, an enemy that should be exterminated…” Martyrs lost, he said, were “offered in sacrifice, all in an effort to resist the imminent threat of liquidation…”2 PLO political chief Faruq al-Qaddumi, invoked similar rhetoric. “The combat was forced on us,” he insisted, because despite appeals for coexistence, “we have been met with death and extermination…” He continued: “We shall not lay down our rifles of revolution. We shall use them to reject death and destruction of our people, who have been exposed to the danger of extermination.”3 Many delegations took up this thread. Mauritania attributed to Theodor Herzl and contemporary Israelis The Genocide Accusation Against Israel: Three Critical Aspects Norman J.W. Goda 1. Mahmood Mamdani, “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency,” 29 LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS (2007). 2. G.A. Res. A/PV.2282, ¶¶ 50-51, 2282nd Plenary Meeting (Nov. 13, 1974). UN GAOR, 29th Sess., 2282nd plenary meeting, ¶¶ 50–51, U.N. Doc. A/PV.2282 (Nov. 13, 1974). 3. G.A. Res. A/PV.2296, ¶¶ 264-66, 2296th Plenary Meeting (Nov. 22, 1974). UN GAOR, 29th Sess., 2296th plenary meeting, ¶¶ 264–266, U.N. Doc. A/PV.2296 (Nov. 22, 1974). T
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