I find this take not credible. The key quotation the article centers on. It's weird that they make this claim but then say "but hey it's really not our place"
> “As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group’. The government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent.” <
Of course its also weird that they would throw water on the scholarly and international consensus that Israel is conducting a genocide.
> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with
intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group <
Beyond the effect of Israel's actions there is a question of intent. To illustrate these are statements of the Israeli government:
\* Bezalel Smotrich, Finance Minister: "“There is no such thing as a Palestinian nation. There is no Palestinian history. There is no Palestinian language,” (1)
\* Official Israeli Twitter accounts: "there are no innocent civilians” (2).
\* Itamar Ben-Givir, national security minister, conditionally returning to government in exchange for the complete eradication of Palestinians from Gaza (3)
\* Amichai Eliyahu, Heritage minister: "the government is racing toward erasing Gaza. Thank God we are erasing this evil. All of Gaza will be Jewish." (4)
It was perhaps put best in a review of the worst opinion pieces of 2024 from the podcast "If Books Could Kill." The hosts reviewed a think piece saying "the war in Gaza might not technically be genocide" but the hosts point out: Maybe so, but if not than its this other thing that's bad and should be stopped. To intellec...
4 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 21.4 ms ] threadhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n14/david-renton/short-c...
https://archive.ph/ulxAw
https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS...
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/11/un-special-c...
These are the articles defining genocide: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-...
> In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Beyond the effect of Israel's actions there is a question of intent. To illustrate these are statements of the Israeli government: (1) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/no-such-thing-as-palestin...(2) https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/israel-posts-video...
(3) https://www.timesofisrael.com/ben-gvir-says-hell-return-to-g...
(4) https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hk00mgaypll
It was perhaps put best in a review of the worst opinion pieces of 2024 from the podcast "If Books Could Kill." The hosts reviewed a think piece saying "the war in Gaza might not technically be genocide" but the hosts point out: Maybe so, but if not than its this other thing that's bad and should be stopped. To intellec...