Do not dismiss the Gaza genocide allegations

In response to Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer whom we^* know well from past campaigns we all cherish, we first note that his Haaretz piece, “Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza,” goes beyond strict legal arguments. He does not merely discuss the applicability of the crime of genocide to Israel’s current actions in Gaza. Mack’s piece is a multi-pronged political attack on a wide range of activists and experts, including “human rights activists, journalists, who may have honest intentions but are simply wrong.” We wish to address this political analysis and cast doubt on some of the claims put forward by Mack.

In mocking those accusing Israel of genocide as shallow or opportunistic “bandwagon” riders, Mack takes aim at UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese when he speaks of “UN rapporteurs busy publishing statements and tweets” (Albanese is distinctly active on the platform in her advocacy of human rights). However, leading scholars in the field disagree with him. The title of Israeli genocide and Holocaust scholar Raz Segal’s Jewish Currents piece, “A Textbook Case of Genocide,” speaks for itself. The exact same statement was expressed by the resigning Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Craig Mokhiber. Professor Omer Bartov, the Israeli-American scholar of Holocaust and genocide studies, has told MSNBC that “the possibility of genocide is staring us in the face” in Gaza, adding that “what we’re seeing now may become much worse.” 

A prime weakness in Mack’s rejection of the genocide allegation is that comments demonstrating “intent to destroy” Palestinians, “in whole or in part,” which are key to determining genocidal intent, were only made by lower-level Israeli politicians, rather than those “in the circle of decision-making in the war.” This assertion is patently false. Mack mentions just one call, that of Likud lawmaker Ariel Kallner, who tweeted on October 7: “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 48.” According to Mack, this statement “unfortunately [adds] fuel to the genocide charge,” but no more than that. This is a very partial description of relevant statements by Israeli officials. 

Rarely have Israeli leaders expressed such genocidal clarity. This began with what Mack conveniently ignores — the current siege on Gaza. Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated: “We are fighting human animals, and we will act accordingly,” and declared “a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything is closed.” Indeed, we are seeing hospitals shutting down in Gaza right now due to the lack of fuel to run their generators, which comes on top of the electricity supply having been cut off. While “665 trucks of food, water and medicine or medical supplies” have entered Gaza via Rafah altogether since October 21, we note that this is less than 5 percent of the bare minimum, considering the baseline of around 500 daily aid trucks prior to October 7.

Gallant is not the exception. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, echoed the message: “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water [in Gaza], there will only be destruction. You wanted hell; you will get hell.”

Vice News has reported that according to a cable sent by concerned U.S. officials to the White House, “The water shortage is threatening lives: Nitrates from Gaza’s groundwater are spreading waterborne disease right now that will likely poison many…In addition, an estimated 31,000 infants under 6 months old and 52,000 pregnant women are at risk of serious complications or death because they are drinking brackish water.”

As Raz Segal points out, the “complete siege” imposed by Gallant “explicitly indexes a plan to bring the siege to its final destination of systematic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza, by killing them, starving them and cutting off their water supplies.” 

Moreover, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently invoked several genocidal references. His citation of the Biblical verse, “Remember that which Amalek did to you,” constitutes evidence of genocidal intent, according to Kenneth Roth, former Director of Human Rights Watch, considering that the Israelites were ordered to “go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”

While Mack conveniently ignores all of the above, he does address Israel’s current bombings in Gaza, in which thousands of tons of explosives have already been dropped, leveling whole buildings and obliterating entire families and communities. Over 9,400 Palestinians, roughly half of them children, have been killed in this way in less than four weeks. Israel claims that each and every one of these bombings targets members of Hamas. However, Israeli Channel 13 reporter Zvi Yehezkeli stated, as to the bombing that killed the family of Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief, Wael Dahdouh, that “the target today was the family of the Al Jazeera correspondent.” If Israel targets specific civilians — or, worse than that, targets their families and kills many other civilians in doing so — the entire discourse on the so-called “military targets” of its bombings simply collapses.

While Mack briefly raises the possibility that Israeli bombings are disproportionate, we note that other grave offenses under international law — various war crimes or crimes against humanity — may apply and must be discussed by any writer who claims to stand for human rights. One example would be Israeli government officials currently planning and promoting the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza into Sinai, which, as noted by Omer Bartov, is often the first step in a genocide.

We are surprised that Mack, a human rights lawyer, relies on “close supervision” — by “the U.S. and German governments,” and also “Israeli coordination with France, Italy, Canada and the U.K.” — to reassure us that “none of these countries would greenlight a genocide of the people of Gaza.” Are we to assume powerful governments can be trusted more than human rights experts in the matter of human rights? One does not have to look far back to recall the blatantly illegal American invasion of Iraq in 2003, a clear violation of international law, which was based on a pack of lies as to the presence of weapons of mass destruction and brought about the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

We cannot ignore another glaring flaw in Mack’s piece. While he claims that allegations against Israel as to the bombing of the Al-Ahli hospital on October 17 have been “largely debunked,” what was largely debunked is actually Israeli claims as to complete Palestinian culpability. The New York Times has shown how Israel’s supposed evidence did not add up, and so have Forensic Architecture and Channel 4 News. His opinion piece is not a legal document, even though he is a lawyer. It is essentially a cherry-picked broadside against the fashionable bogeyman of “the global left.”

(*) The authors are Israeli human rights activists. The article was co-written with Israeli activists who have campaigned with Eitay Mack and wish to remain anonymous. Haaretz refused to publish this article.