What does genocide mean? Up till the Israel-Hamas conflict, there was not a scintilla of doubt that it simply means “the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular nation or ethnic group”, according to the OED. Merriam-Webster defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group.” So, does the unremitting toll of Gazans – 23,000 killed since October 7, 2023 and rising daily – fall within the ambit of the foregoing definitions, or do we need further incontrovertible evidence before the West will agree to call a spade a spade, especially in the corridors of Washington? After all, the 1948 Genocide Convention makes no bones about what constitutes genocide. So, why is the West so coy about labelling Israel’s action in Gaza as genocide? At home, this issue has split the staff of Australian Broadcasting Corporation into two camps, but ABC boss David Anderson is insistent that "when it comes to the use of those terms - genocide and apartheid - the ABC won't report using them ourselves. What we do is report other people using them." So there.
Before Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 barbarism which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 Israelis, the world was never polarised on what genocide means, as in the Holocaust; in Pol Pot’s Cambodia in the 70’s; in the Rawandan massacre of Tutsis by Hutus; in Serbia’s ethnic cleansing of Muslims; in Myanmar’s persecution of the Rohingya. How, then, does the current toll of Gazans not be labelled as genocide? Is there a different yardstick or shades of grey to the word which preclude the West and some sections of their media from seeing genocide for what it is? Or are there political agendas and bias that prevent the West from calling the carnage in Gaza a genocide?
Of course, it is axiomatic that language is always in flux as seen in the meanings of many English words which have undergone amelioration or pejoration; broadening or narrowing or shifting over the course of time. Still, the reluctance of the West, including its media, to call the current attacks on Gazans a genocide can only mean one thing: the blood spilt in Gaza is seen through a different lens, a lens which simply devalues and dehumanises the lives of Palestinians. Witness this: While, the IDF claims their military onslaughts are not aimed at civilians per se, the fact is that they are undeniably bearing the brunt of IDF’s firepower, if not punished for their alleged support of Hamas. Though Israel claims that Hamas fighters are embedded within the civilian population, it is a poor excuse for the horrendous collateral damage that the IDF has wreaked to date. The collateral damage seen in Gaza is unparalleled to the extent that it makes nonsense of the expression as the world once understood. The optics is hard to wish away: First, the incontestable statistics of Gazans – young and old, women, babes in arms, and children – injured and killed, and mounting by the hour. Even if Hamas fighters were the ultimate targets, the large number of innocents killed cannot justify the IDF’s actions of rooting out Hamas. Besides the daily death toll, Gazans experience privation of medicine, food, and water – all controlled by Israel – which allows only a trickle to flow into Gaza. No life can be sustained in this way for long. From the air, death rains relentlessly on Gazans from the seemingly wanton aerial bombardment of their homes, refugee camps, and even hospitals, the latter unable to operate without electricity and medicine. As a result, thousands are left to die while the fortunate ones are operated on without anaesthesia. Under the mountains of suffocating rubble, thousands die a slow lingering death with no hope of being extricated, with only their muffled screams to rend the air and torture the living. And now famine, starvation, and diseases are set to ravage the land. Finally, the forced evacuations of Gazans on foot – a donkey as transport is a luxury – from north to south in quick time only to have the process reversed in a ludicrously short time add to their immense suffering. Despite the narrative being controlled by Israel, the collateral damage inflicted on Gazans is unspeakable, unsurpassed in the annals of modern history. Indeed, the world sans the West sees it for what it is: genocide. This has actuated South Africa, a country with a geo-politically neutral record, to file a case of genocide with the World Court against Israel, and to cut off all ties with Tel Aviv. This unprecedented action speaks for itself: genocide by whatever name is still genocide. This word must not take on any political overtones to hew to the agenda of the West, particularly that of the US.
The arbitrary shifting of the semantic goal-post will come home to roost for the West. First, the moral authority of the United States has been irreparably undermined in this Middle-East conflict, not to mention its self-appointed role as global sheriff. Indeed, President Biden cuts a pathetic figure urging the IDF to exercise humanitarian restraint in a namby-pamby fashion that recalls vividly what native Americans were wont to describe their dealings with European settlers in the 1800’s: “White men speak with fork tongue.” It is clear to the world that only the US has the economic and military leverage to restrain Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu from grinding Gazans to dust, yet all it does is to bleat like a lost lamb about the humanitarian crisis, of course, merely as a sop to the world. At the same time, the US continues to provide Israel with funds and munitions to prosecute the war in Gaza. Furthermore, the West, too, can no longer accuse other countries of genocide in the future, and the world can expect China to cock a snook at the West for accusing it of genocide of Uighurs in Xinjiang, for example. Because of the West’s reluctance to label Israel’s onslaught on Gaza as a genocide, it leaves the rest of the world with only one impression: The West has arrogated to itself the role of sole arbiter of what constitutes genocide and what does not. This reeks of double-standard indeed. Who then can trust the West in future to exercise impartiality in matters of life and death?
And if the West intends to expunge temporarily genocide from its lexicon and gloss over what seems the undeniable, then the world needs to coin a new word to capture what is taking place in Gaza without fear or favour, without playing politics with what is patently an unmitigated carnage of humans, no more, no less. Palestinians, too, have blood coursing through their veins like the rest of humanity. All told, Gazans have become sheer pawns in a semantic game that surreptitiously aims to subvert the world to see that some people can be regarded as less human than others. If the genocide in Gaza is not called out, this crime against humanity will pass as a mere footnote in history. That is the high price the world has to pay for condoning this semantic legerdemain by the West.
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