Genocide Clearly Identifiable in Gaza – Albanese
"U.N. special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who made a flying visit to Auckland and New Zealand’s capital Wellington this week, told Consortium News genocide occurred when there was an intent to destroy a group of people, identified as a religious, ethnic, national or racial group, in full or in part.
“There are a number of acts [that] constitute genocide,” she said.
“For example, the act of killing of the members of the group, the severe physical and psychological harm inflicted to the members of the group or the creation of circumstances that might lead to the destruction of the group, in full or in part. These are the three cases that are clearly identifiable in the case of Gaza and there has been a clear and declared intent.”
She said there was an obligation on Western states, including New Zealand, to speak out against genocide and believed the word should be used repeatedly in the media.
“I think that the word should be used because the 1948 Genocide Convention poses an obligation to prevent it, when there is a risk of genocide being committed and member states have to intervene and have to stop atrocities and crimes that may amount to genocide.”
“The media have notoriously played a role in certain contexts in not being accurate and probably either underestimating the risk or even amplifying, in certain contexts, genocidal calls and incitement to genocide.”
Her position is reflected widely among those in legal and academic circles specialising in international humanitarian law.
Israeli associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University in the U.S., Raz Segal, said both the intent of Israel and the dynamics of violence make Israel’s onslaught in Gaza “a textbook case of genocide”.
He told U.K. media commentator Owen Jones on Nov. 22:
“If you take all the elements of intent, dehumanising language, portraying Palestinians as a whole as enemies, human animals – think about the discourse of human shields, which is incredibly important to note here Palestinians are humanised only as they appear as human shields, which is of course incredibly dehumanising – when you take all of this together, with the dynamics of violence, what we see on the ground is very clear… the killing is genocidal.”
Segal said with the siege, bombing and displacement of residents, Israel had created the conditions calculated to bring about the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza." (Mick Hall)
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