🧵 Exploring why Israel's actions in Gaza meet the definition of genocide. We'll examine the "ten stages of genocide" to show how they apply in this context, along with insights from numerous genocide scholars who now argue that Israel is committing the "crime of crimes."
In 1996, the founding president of Genocide Watch, Gregory Stanton, created a list of 8 stages (since updated to include 10 stages) according to which genocides generally unfold. The key takeaway is that genocides are part of a larger process. 
Stage 1: Classification - which is at the center of the process of genocide, is simply the division of groups into "us and them". This stage shouldn't need any further explanation in the context of Israel/Palestine...
Stage 2: Symbolization - a pattern of using symbols to represent and deepen the classifications of stage 1. This stage includes seperate national and religious symbols, e.g. the Israeli flag with the Star of David and the Palestinian flag.
Stage 3: Discrimination - e.g. by not according full rights or citizenship to the oppressed group. See the reports from Amnesty and HRW (who define Israel as an apartheid state) or the ICJ verdict that Israel discriminates Palestinians on religious, racial and ethnic grounds.
Stage 4: Dehumanization - the process of treating a people as less than human, e.g. Israel claim to be fighting 'human animals' or being engaged in a fight between 'humanity and the law of the jungle'.
Stage 5: Organization - seen for instance through Israel's systematic destruction of Gaza's health care system and cultural heritage, and their systematic usage of starvation (blocking aid) as a weapon of war.
Stage 6: Polarization - in order to drive the groups apart even further, the perpetrators target more moderate voices (e.g. anti war protesters) and extremist views are brought to the forefront (e.g. Smotrich and Ben Gvir) that undermine the chances for peace.
Stage 7: Preparation - leaders plan for a "final solution" 👇, cloak their intentions by referring to actions as "counter-terrorism", induce fear in their own population by claiming "if we don't kill them, they will kill us", thereby claiming self defense. Sound familiar?
Stage 8: Persecution - extrajudicial killings, torture, forced displacement, segregation into ghettos, deprivation of food and water, massacres etc. At this stage, the perpetrators watch for international actors response in order to gauge if "they can get away with genocide".
Stage 9: Extermination - as in the daily mass killings we now see. By July, The Lancet conservatively estimated total deaths in Gaza to 186 000. For destruction of cultural and religious property - see stage 5 ☝️. For militias sponsored by the state - look at West Bank settlers.
Stage 10: Denial - Perpetrators deny any wrongdoing and blame the victims ("they're all Hamas or human shields"). But 70 % of victims are women & children - and most men are NOT Hamas fighters. And Israel questions the Gaza death toll- when it's likely grossly underestimated.
(13/12/97) Thinking of genocide as a larger process, we should note that already in 1997, International Law expert Francis Boyle encouraged Palestinians to institute legal proceedings against Israel before the ICJ for violating the Genocide Convention. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…
(25/8/16) And The Center for Constitutional Rights, long before October 7, detailed how scholars have debated for a long time whether Israel has committed a form of "slow-motion" or "incremental" genocide against the Palestinians.
I'm bringing this history up not to *prove* that Israel has been guilty of genocide for a long time (I happen to believe they haven't been), but to show how serious people even long *before* October 7th were beginning to frame their actions in such terms.
(13/10/23) But today, many very prominent experts accuse Israel of committing genocide. Israeli historian Raz Segal, an Associate Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, defined Israel's actions in Gaza as "a textbook case of genocide" jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-cas…
(15/10/23) Over 800 scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies and genocide studies signed a public statement warning of the possibility of genocide being perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip twailr.com/public-stateme…
(16/11/23) UN experts warned the international community that Israel's actions "point to a genocide in the making". ohchr.org/en/press-relea…
(29/12/24) The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention goes through how genocidal intent can be shown to have permeated most of Israel - from top officials down to the general population. They conclude that Israel is guilty of genocide.
(18/4/24) Amos Goldberg - Holocaust and genocide researcher at the Hebrew University - says Israel is committing genocide and illustrates how 'self-defense' is almost always invoked in genocides. thepalestineproject.medium.com/yes-it-is-geno…
(15/5/24) University Network for Human Rights says that "we conclude that Israel’s actions in and regarding Gaza since October 7, 2023, violate the Genocide Convention".
(28/5/24) Human Rights Watch Co-founder Aryeh Neier says Israel is committing genocide specifically because of the deliberate blocking of aid into the Gaza Strip. huffpost.com/entry/human-ri…
(13/8/24) Omer Bartov, Israeli-American Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, says that "at least since the attack by the IDF on Rafah on 6 May 2024 [...] Israel was engaged in systematic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocidal action" theguardian.com/world/article/…
(2/11/24) Save the children notes how "casualties have escalated from including children, to mostly women and children and, as in this latest attack, to mostly children" and stresses that "all states have a legal obligation to prevent the crime of genocide".
Genocide is only one part of a longer process, and it's chilling to see how Israel's war on the Palestinians fits perfectly into 'the ten stages of genocide.' We are witnessing, step by step, the systematic erasure of a people, their identity, and their history. It has to stop.
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