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There was significant reader reaction to my recent column “Defining ‘genocide’ isn’t easy.”
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Here are my responses to some of the questions it raised.
Question: If there is video of the leadership of the government of Israel calling for or inciting genocide against the Palestinians, how is it possible that Israel is not committing genocide?
Answer: This raises an important point and merits a clear distinction. What qualifies as “incitement to genocide” is open to interpretation and is not the same as the act of genocide. While political speech may raise suspicions about the motives of the speaker, it does not in and of itself prove that a genocide is occurring.
To be sure, Israel is responsible for the actions of its people, especially its political leaders. Inciting genocide is a crime under international law and Israel has a duty to address the actions of its citizens. Failing to do so is negligence.
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But while individual members of the Israeli government may appear to incite genocide, that does not prove Israel is perpetrating an actual genocide.
That doesn’t mean that incendiary comments about the Palestinians shouldn’t be challenged.
The Israeli government should hold its people – and especially its leaders – to account for what they say and do, with the provision that what is “accountable” when it comes to advocating genocide is a legal question, open to interpretation.
Question: Why is Hamas blamed for the atrocities of Oct. 7 when whatever crimes may have occurred, were committed by Palestinians resisting Israeli oppression?
Answer: First, given the evidence of murder, rape, torture and kidnapping, the inferred claim that Hamas did nothing wrong is highly suspect,
Second, even assuming these atrocities were committed by individual Palestinians and not by Hamas, the Hamas government is still responsible for the actions of its people, as the governing body in Gaza.
If Hamas is a legitimate government, as its supporters claim, then it is responsible for those it governs.
It’s also hard to see how this argument in any way benefits the pro-Palestinian position.
Question: Why is the conflict described as a war between Israelis and Palestinians, instead of between Israel and Hamas, a designated terrorist group by Canada and other countries, with the stated goal of committing genocide against the Jews?
Answer: Both Israelis and Palestinians are misusing the term “genocide” in different contexts, without providing sufficient evidence in either case that a genocide is actually occurring.
Question: People who change the definitions of words are trying to manipulate the conflict, why should anyone care about your definition?
Answer: It isn’t my definition, it’s the definition of the United Nations which describes genocide as, “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
“Killing members of the group;
“Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
“Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
“Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
“Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
Genocide is thus a crime with a specific meaning as defined by the United Nations.
In a practical sense, only the UN’s definition is relevant because other definitions are not actionable.
Genocide became internationally relevant in 1948 when 153 nations agreed to the UN’s “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
The word “genocide” was coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944 in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, both in the context of the Nazis’ policy of exterminating the Jewish people during the Holocaust as well as previous organized campaigns aimed at the destruction of particular groups.
That is why it is important to define genocide and why its definition should be specific, and widely agreed upon, in considering issues such as the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas.
– Vezina is the CEO of Prepared Canada Corp, teaches Disaster and Emergency Management at York University and is the author of Continuity 101. He can be reached at info@prepared.ca.
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