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On September 1, The International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) based in The Hague, Netherlands, passed a resolution that "legal criteria have been met to establish Israel is committing genocide in Gaza".

- BY VIJAYA CHANDRASOMA

Israel’s conduct also meets the legal definition as laid out in the 1948 United Nations convention on genocide, which was adopted following the mass murder of Jews by Nazi Germany. The convention defines genocide as “crimes committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”.

The IAGS recognize that while the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage, was itself a war crime, “Israel’s response has not only been directed towards Hamas but has targeted Gaza’s entire (Palestinian) population”.

The IAGS note statements made by Israeli leaders, notably Prime Minister Netanyahu dehumanizing Palestinians in Gaza, “characterizing them all as the enemy”, with threats to “flatten Gaza and turn it into hell”. In fact, Netanyahu, in a recent interview with Fox News, stated that he intends to take full control of Gaza City immediately.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry has denied charges of genocide, stating that the IAGS report was based on lies and propaganda spread by Hamas and poor research, calling it an “embarrassment to the legal profession”; that Israel’s actions are justified as a means of self-defense, and Israel itself was the victim of genocide.

Since the end of World War II, Western Powers, notably the United Kingdom and the United States of America, have been rewriting history, using various artifices like the Balfour Declaration, the Nakba (catastrophe) of 1948, and a series of one-sided wars, which have led to the displacement and dispossession of millions of Palestinian people, and the creation of the land of Israel.

The ownership of this land is based on a divine promise made a few thousand years ago. Questions then arose about the identity of the God who made the promise, to which tribe/ethnic or religious group the promise was made, and even where the Promised Land was to be located.