Thread by @PeterHarling

Genocide is a useful, frightening, and tricky word. Israelis have used it to define 7 October. Many others have described subsequent retaliations as such. Some experts concur, others disagree. It all depends on what one means by genocide. 🧵

As a legal term, its current usage is restrictive. Prosecuting a genocide requires, for instance, solid proof that orders were given specifically to eradicate a well-delineated group. That is why the massacre of some 8000 people in Srebrenica qualified.

In a legal framework, a genocide can only be determined in hindsight, once investigations have yielded such proof, possibly years after events happened. Relatively few formal determinations have been made and widely accepted internationally.

It is also important to note that this legal understanding, rooted in the 1948 Genocide Convention, doesn't apply retroactively. The Holocaust, therefore, could not be prosecuted as a genocide, although it did give rise to the legal denomination.

The word was coined in 1944, in relation to the Nazi genocide of the Polish people. Unlike its legal use today, the concept was relatively broad and forward-looking at the time. It aimed to call-out and deter any coordinated attempt to destroy a people.

The goal was to prevent, not just to prosecute. We thus had to recognize and name a certain kind of systematic violence for which we didn't yet have a word. This is why genocide is also used in looser ways, as a political and a historical term.

It is indeed, by nature, a very dynamic concept. It evolves with the times, the technologies, the context: the Holocaust, Rwanda, and Cambodia are striking for their differences at least as much as they are for what they have in common.

International and domestic politics naturally play a role in what is broadly accepted as a genocide. Our shifting understanding of history too: Imperialism and settler colonialism are increasingly associated with genocide of indigenous peoples.

Such characterizations may be controversial. But insisting on the strictest definitions completely misses the point: prevention, in a world of uncertainty. Insisting on the certainty of genocide means preventing none. That defeats the word's very purpose.

And this brings us to the Gaza war. If the goal is to identify intent and reduce risk, the best use of the word isn't the noun but the adjective: genocidal. That may describe the planned slaughter of whole families, children included, on 7 October, but not only.

For their part, prominent Israeli officials have made a string of genocidal statements: "human animals", "no civilians", "no innocents", "children of darkness", "wipe them off the surface of the earth", and so on. The list is rich, consistent, and ever growing.

Although carpet bombing may be understood otherwise, the unnecessary destruction of certain buildings is genocidal: Gaza's archives, its main library, its universities, its oldest mosque, even its beach resorts. These had social, not military value.

Israeli popular culture is also replete with genocidal themes: dehumanizing references to killing insects, mocking victims including dead babies, "blackface" TikTok contests, or singers and choirs explicitly and repeatedly calling for annihilation.

All this flagging is often ignored by external parties like Western governments or dominant media. It doesn't fit our counterterrorism narrative. It's written off as fringe. It's over the top, but explained away by post 7 October emotions.

If the topic is discussed at all, it is in relation to Palestinian slogans such as "from the river to the sea", which can mean any number of things, and is also used by Israelis. (This is also true of maps erasing the other, which parties at war use everywhere).

The danger inherent to this reaction is this: Expressing genocidal intent indeed doesn't mean much... until it blends in large-scale destruction, massive displacement, and elusive prospects of returns, reconstruction, and self-governance.

Regardless of the many other aspects of this war, the day after is one where this question will be posed: Was this a coordinated attempt to destroy Gazan society? Invoking Hamas' own atrocities and tactics will not make that question go away.

The only good answer starts now, which is why the concept of genocide is in fact so helpful. How this conflict goes down depends on its outcomes. Israel will go after every single person involved on 7 October. The nagging question concerns everyone else.

The prevalent Israeli narrative, today, is that everyone in Gaza was involved, that every form of retribution is legitimate, that total subjugation is the only way to guarantee "never again". That comes disturbingly close to the notion of genocide.

Of course, it's easy to reject such troublesome thinking and do nothing about it. The US will provide cover. The EU will cower. And for the West, it seems, the rest of the world doesn't count. That, again, is ever so sadly beside the point.

Both Israel and Palestine have a tragic history. Both have yet to figure out how to live with each other. Destruction just won't work. If you think about it, it never did, anywhere. The destroyed survive in part. They linger and they haunt.

That is why the outside world must care to tackle this taboo. Israel's future won't be secured by the obliteration of Palestinians, or vice versa. This war is all about obliteration, whatever you call it. Pretending that it isn't only invites the worst outcomes for everyone.