In celebration of @FranceskAlbs recent standing ovations at both LSE and SOAS, let me highlight the main contributions her Reports have made to the way we understand the genocide of the Palestnian people in Gaza 🧵
.@FranceskAlbs' first and perhaps most important contribution is to put the issue of settler-colonialism front and centre of the discussion of genocide. In essence, genocide is not an accident, but a feature of colonialism; and it is not a rare find in colonial societies
This connection to colonialism is what informs her latest conclusion that colonial genocide does not need to take the form of "mass killing"
.@FranceskAlbs has also advanced the theory of "humanitarian camouflage" - That, as she puts it, Israel's use of int'l legal terminology as been strategically deployed "in such a permissive manner as to gut those concepts of their normativ content".
In other words, Israel's IHL rhetoric advances rather than constrains Israel's abbility to commit genocide. Take for example the rhetoric surrouding "human shields"...
...military use of civilian objects...
...proportionality...
... evauations...
... and the protection of hospitals
.@FranceskAlbs has then pointed out that, in the context of this humanitarian camouflage, Israel's genocidal intent needs to be discerned from what she calls a "totality triple lens".
This means that analysing Israel's actions with regards to Palestinians as a people through the lens of its "humanitarian camouflage" might lead us to believe that no genocide is taking place, rather a normal war...
...Or that looking at Israel's actions with regards to Palestinian land might lead us to believe there's no genocide taking place, rather a military occupation for security reasons...
...Or that looking at Israel's rationalisation of its conduct might lead us to believe there's no genocide taking place, rather an argument for self-defence under international law...
But when one looks at the totality of Israel's actions, through a triple lens, focused on its plans for the land, its attack on Palestinians as a group and its rationalisation of its conduct, the inescapable conclusion of this collective evaluation is indeed genocide
In terms of the totality of the land, Israel's actions are tied to the establishment of a Greater Israel, a colonial and inevitably genocidal plan - not simply a military occupation.
In terms of the totality of the group, Israel is turning Gaza into an "unliveable" geography, not just fighting a war.
In terms of the totality of conduct, Israel's purported objectives (defeating Hamas and rescuing the hostages) do not preclude the finding of genocidal intent, given that much of what is done in Gaza is not in line with these objectives
.@FranceskAlbs deserves much credit for making these connections: the relationship between colonialism and genocide, between humanitarian law and genocide, and between decontextualised legal analysis and genocide.
Yesterday she described herself as a chronicler of genocide. While this is definitely one of her great roles, I think she is more than that. She is showing us how to engage with a colonial, racist and warmongering international law in anticolonial, antiracist and peaceful ways
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Guys it’s very important for you to understand: I’ve never in my life claimed to be normal. I’m weird af. I care about things you’ve never even heard of in your life. Don’t even get me started on Star Wars continuity errors or the llama on Troy
This article concludes that Israel’s plans to “concentrate” Palestinians in Gaza is a war crime & a crime against humanity. It also very relevant and arguably marks a turning point in how Israel’s actions in Gaza can be discussed.
Because it is authored by Prof. Eyal Benvenisti, who literally represented Israel before the ICJ
Prof. Benvenisti actually surprised many by joining Israel’s legal team. He has been one of the highest authorities in the law of occupation in decades and until recently held the Whewhell Chair of Int’l Law at Cambridge - one of the most respected positions in the field
First, Israel ordered the starvation and displacement of 1000s of Palestinians. Then, it used this displacement as an excuse for disproportionately bombing whoever remained in whatever areas they deemed bombable. Eventually, this turned into official “death zones” 🧵
Invisible lines in the sand where anyone trapped in them (even people waving white flags and Israeli hostages) were seem as targets. These zones emptied large portions of Gaza, that were then systematically demolished to create “buffer zones” and prevent people from returning
Then these death zones were turned into death traps. Israel placed food in the middle and forced Palestinians to traverse the death zones to get to food. Whoever made it was screened to see if they were sent to a torture camp, shot “in their direction” or displaced again
I think Ahmed misunderstands my point. Nothing in my tweet defends Iran’s atrocious human rights record or justifies/minimises 7/10. What it does is break the actual simplistic narrative of the Middle East, that he supports, that ontologically Israel is good and Iran is evil
The more complex reality is that the brutalities Israel has subjected Palestinians to are always held at a different standard than the atrocities committed by Iran against its own population. Something @afalkhatib himself does, as shown by his recent @jubileemedia
In other words, @afalkhatib can’t really show that I minimise atrocities. In fact, I would gladly join him in condemning Iran’s violations against Iranian women, their support of armed groups that directly target civilians, and the authoritarianism of its government.
See for instance his postcolonial analysis of the Rwandan Genocide, where he dissassembles the argument that Hutus simply hated Tutsis and reframes it as a result of Belgium’s colonial policies
Then of course is his excellent Neither Settler nor Native, an exploration of how the nation state is inherently a colonial entity that creates “permanent minorities”
When the story of the Israeli genocide of Palestinians is told, it will tell the story of how it cut electricity, food and water from the “human animals” and how Israelis mocked the starving thirsty children with videos of running water taps and lit lightbulbs 🧵
It will tell the story of how Israel used unreliable technology and massive collateral damage - bombs “focused on destruction, not accuracy” - to bomb sleeping children next to their sleeping parents, accused by some algorithm of being Hamas
It will tell how families were forced to flee their refuges once, twice, three even four times, fleeing due to evacuation orders that made no arrangements for them and pushed them into areas that were then bombed by the IDF in a perverse theatricality of insincere “humanity”