The Genocidal Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Experts typically characterise the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a land conflict. Two nations are competing over claims over a plot of land. One side has a huge power differential in their favour, but both peoples are competing, nevertheless. Factions on both sides seek exclusive claim to the land at the expense of the other. Prima facie, this characterisation is accurate. The problematic Oslo Accords suggests the heart of the dispute is that neither can agree on a settlement tackling who gets what in the land of Palestine - فِلَسْطِينَ‎,, or the land of Israel - אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל‎.

However, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict makes no sense as a land conflict. There is nothing remarkable about the land itself. It's not clear whether either population can sustain itself based on the contents of the land alone. There're no precious economic resources at stake. It carries little geopolitical significance unlike Crimea, or the Strait of Hormuz. Even the nearby Suez Canal is firmly under the grasp of Egypt. Neither the Yishuv, ,ישוב, nor Palestinians had a defined territory when the conflict emerged pre-WW2. However, Jerusalem is a bey important Holy Site for four Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and the Bahá'í faith. A Jewish presence in Jerusalem has always been prevalent even when under Islamic control.

Instead, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a clash of civilisations, or an ethno-cultural clash. Zionism is a nationalistic movement originating in Europe seeing the Jews as a nation in need of a homeland. For the Islamic World, Zionism is an intrusion of centuries of Islamic control over the Holy Land and Jerusalem which was presided by the Ottoman Empire, the Umayyad Caliphate, and the Abbasid Caliphate beforehand. After the fall of the Ottoman's Empire after WWI, the British Empire established an imperial and colonial regime called the Palestinian Mandate, with the blessing of the League of Nations, which outright advocated for Zionism under the Balfour declaration. Zionism is like a disease infecting the purity and sanctity of the Holy Land no longer exclusively controlled by Islam.

Palestinian nationalism arose as a counter to the rise of Zionism in Palestine. The Ottoman Empire's collapse further fuelled Arab nationalist ambitions, however the Sykes-Picot Agreement split both the Islamic and Arab world into two between the French and British Empires. Consequently, Syria (which Palestinians initially identified with) and Palestine faced different fates so an Arab nationalism unique to the land of Palestine was made conscious. However, many Zionists have conceived the Palestinians as Arab invaders from the conquests at the founding of Islam. The Jews are deemed the rightful bearers of the land occupied by Arab colonialists and imperialists.

None of this sounds like a land conflict. Rather, it sounds like an ethno-cultural conflict between the Judaic culture of the Jews and Arab/Islamic culture of the Palestinians. With the death of Egyptian pan-Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, جمال عبد الناصر, Islamism rather than Arab socialism became the dominant political strain in the Arab world. This is partly evident in Fatah's, a secularist Arab socialist party, lack of popularity in comparison to the Islamist Hamas. Not only are Hamas Islamist, but they are also an Islamic fundamentalist organisation using Islamism as a means of enforcing coercive control over Palestinians in Gaza.

The Logic of the Conflict

There are five means of resolving this conflict. The first two involve peaceful settlements so Israelis and Palestinians can live together. The following three are completely unacceptable both legally and morally. However, as we'll see, the first two aren't gaining enough traction for a just peace of some kind. They are as follows:

1. The Two State Solution (2SS) - Both share the land through partitioning accepting the difference between the two nations is profound enough that politics separation, not unity, is the way forward. Only Fatah have shown consistent support for the 2SS out of all the major players within the conflict. Netanyahu's Likud which has dominated Israeli politics for decades is against the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.
2. The Binational State - Both would share the land under a single political entity. There are many institutional arrangements advocated including a unitary binational state, a confederation, or a federation. Some of these are also compatible with the 2SS as well. However, most supporters of a binational state are anti-Zionists and advocates for decolonising Palestine, i.e. remove Zionism from the picture without forcefully removing or killing Jews. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians show much support for it.
3. Apartheid - This is the current status quo as recently mentioned in the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), §223-9 (cf. President Salam's Declaration §14-30. The Crime of Apartheid is a peremptory norm in international law which naturally the Palestinians find intolerable. Israelis also find apartheid intolerable though for numerous and different reasons. Some are motivated by the unjust oppression in the Occupation and see the Occupation as an existential threat to Israel as a secular liberal Jewish democracy. The primary motivating factor, though, is that apartheid denies Jews exclusive access and sovereign claim over the entire Land of Israel, אֶרֶץ יִשְׂרָאֵל‎, which is distinct from the legally defined State of Israel, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, denying Jews access to the territories of Judaea and Samaria, i.e. the West Bank, where Judaeans and Israelites primarily lived in ancient times.
4. Ethnic Cleansing - Given the long-term unfeasibility of apartheid for all actors involved, supremacists Zionists will advocate for ethnic cleansing of Judea and Samaria. Given the security threat posed by Gaza after Hamas' genocidal massacre on October 7th, Gaza has also become a target for ethnic cleansing. Palestinians must be forcefully removed so they no longer pose a security threat and deny access to Jewish sacred sites. Even though Palestinians lack the capability of ethnically cleansing Israel of Jews, some figures especially in organisations like Hamas do seek a Jew-free Palestine. Neither people are budging from the land, and foreign governments have thwarted Israel's attempt at ethnically cleansing Gazans.
5. Genocide - If one cannot force your enemy to leave, the alternative is either annihilating them outright or creating conditions so inhospitable that living in the land would cause the destruction of said group. Hamas' attack on October 7th turned the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a genocidal one. Genocidal sentiment has been advocated by both sides. However, Israel capacity for committing acts of genocide is far superior than the Palestinians. This asymmetry in capabilities is not a satisfactory reason for thinking the Palestinians, or segments of their society, cannot be genocidal in nature.

Why October 7th was a genocide

Hamas and other militant forces invaded Israeli territory using multiple points of entry. They committed 7,000 militants to this operation constituting about 14% of the military might of Hamas and its militant allies within Palestine. Such a large percentage of the force signifies that Hamas' attack was not intended merely as a strike against Israeli military outposts near Gaza. It was a major operation with plans in place for what the militants should do in the vent of succeeding the first part of their mission entering Israel proper.

Massacres were deliberate with the primary objective involving the killing as many civilians as possible. However, such massacres were not just about killing civilians. There was a sadism and brutality suggesting the killings were deemed acts of destruction by the perpetrators. The Lemkin Institute for the Prevention of Genocide noted that Hamas utilised inversion rituals, such as killing children in front of family member; and desecration rituals, such as killing who families en masse, setting fires to homes with people inside them, desecrating dead bodies, and parading the corpse of Shani Louk in Gaza. These indicate that genocidal massacres took place on October 7th. It also notes how Hamas operatives utilised videos as a means of showcasing the crimes with the aim of inflicting terror on the population. Such tactics were used by IS militants who committed genocide against the Yazidis in Syria and Iraq.

Furthermore, Hamas launched hundreds of missiles aimed at civilian populations throughout the country. The attack was meticulously calculated attacking the core of the Jewish psyche - the fear of being annihilated. Attacking on Yom Kippur signified that the destruction and desecration of Jewish symbology was an important feature of the crime. It would also have highlighted the same fears Israelis faced when Nasser's Egypt and Assad's Syria attacked Israel in 1967 on Yom Kippur.

Hamas' ultimate goal was inflicting genocidal terror on the entire population of Israel via committing genocidal massacres on a sacred day for the Jews. The attack was of not just Jews but the Jewish identity itself. Even, though, Hamas lacked the capability for committing a genocide in full, the hope was that Jews in Israel would be mentally harmed by the deliberate triggering of Jewish trauma regards genocide and persecution. Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas primarily responsible for the attack, spent years studying Jewish psychology while remaining a prisoner in Israel. This component of the crime was an act of genocidal terror.

Hamas' attack demonstrated the following patterns as shown in Lemkin's Institute's 10 Patterns of Genocide:

1. Gender Neutral Mass Murder - see above
2. Mass rape/Widespread Sexualised Violence - plenty of evidence of widespread sexual violence and mass rape.
3. Gross Human Right Violations and Mass Cultural Destruction - desecrating Jews on Yom Kippur, a Jewish holiday, effectively desecrating the holiday itself in the process.
4. Appropriation of Biological Resources - the taking of hostages and using the as human shields
5. Denial of an Identity - refusing to accept the legitimacy and existence of a Jewish nation while calling for the destruction of said entity

Why Israel's war in Gaza is a genocide

Has Israel taken enough action to prevent alleged incitement to genocide?

In January, the ICJ ordered Israel to prevent public statements inciting genocide - critics say it’s not doing enough.

BBC NewsNatalie Merzougui & Maria Rashed BBC News Arabic

In response, Israel has conducted the following acts within Gaza which constitute acts of genocide:

1. The destruction of the ecosphere within Gaza which allows it to sustain life.
2. The widespread destruction of cultural artefacts of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
3. The artificially induced imposition of famine onto the people of Gaza.
4. The continual bombing within humanitarian safe zones inflicting mental harm to the group which help bring about its destruction.

There are numerous examples of genocidal incitement from key Israeli figures such as Bezelal Smotrich, Itamir Ben-Gvir, Nissim Vaturi, and many other senior figures in government and within the military. South Africa has listed many such examples in its case against the State of Israel on the issue of genocide in Gaza.

Israel's war abides by the following of the 10 Patterns of Genocide:

1. Gender Neutral Mass Murder - 41, 431 have been killed through bombing campaigns, massacres and other acts which involve blatant war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are numerous reports of IDF soldiers having orders to shoot everything on sight breaking the customary international humanitarian law applied in combat situations.
2. Gross Human Right Violations and Mass Cultural Destruction - Israel's bombing campaign has destroyed many sites of cultural importance including universities, mosques, museums, etc. Videos of IDF destroying cultural artefacts and religious literature including the Qur'an flood the airways.
3. Man-Made Famine/Blockade - Israel blockaded all humanitarian aid at the onset of the war. Even though aid has been allowed in, it has been insufficient for stopping the conditions of famine arising. Israel has also failed in establishing infrastructure and institutions which would facilitate feeding Gazans and given them the necessary care they need.
4. Environmental Despoliation - See above
5. Denial and Prevention of an Identity - There have been repeated attempts at denying the Palestinian national identity consistent with the crimes of apartheid.

Israel is committing acts of genocide within Gaza. It is imperative that a ceasefire is implemented straight away. The genocide inflicted by Hamas does not justify acts of genocide in self-defence. These actions profoundly detriment Israel's legitimacy which breeds genocidal anti-Zionism as we've seen frequently online.

Even if we remain unconvinced that the specific intent for destroying the Palestinians exists, a requirement for establishing the crime of genocide, what is undeniable is the vast amounts of genocidal rhetoric by Israeli officials and acts which would surely be grave crimes against humanity have occurred. For instance, the Sde Teiman detention camp is not a prison but a camp in which severe human right abuses have occurred within its walls. Both sides to varying degrees deny the identity of the other. When we see extremists like Smotrich and Ben-Gvir talk about killing 2 million Gazans, they are expressing the next logical step in which the conflict will go. They cannot be dismissed as the crazy rants of marginalised figures in the Israeli government.

Conclusion

The purpose of this article is showcasing how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is genocidal. Even if you don't think any acts of genocide have occurred, it is clear that genocide is becoming the lens in which the future evolution of the conflict must be look at. For whatever reasons, the peaceful and other appalling acts are not satisfactorily resolving the conflict. Logically, therefore, destroying the other before they destroy you has become the mantra of the conflict since October 7th. Defeating your opponent is not the same as destroying, though. Hamas must be defeated so that it can be dissolved. Destroying the organisation is an impossible aim without committing acts of genocide or war crimes or crimes against humanity against the Palestinians in the process.

Likewise, those that seek the destruction of Israel are expressing genocidal intent in the world context we live in. There's no peaceful means of dissolving Israel, and its destruction will involve the mass killing of Jews at the minimum. Rather than using genocide as a means of chastising Israelis and Palestinians, we should use this fact as a means of telling us what's necessary in making either the 2ss or binational state workable. The next New Realist article on this subject matter will address that issue.

*Added a paragraph about the use of genocidal terror on October 7th.