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Alonso Gurmendi Profile picture
@Alonso_GD
Nov 12, 2024 • 19 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
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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 Image
This connection to colonialism is what informs her latest conclusion that colonial genocide does not need to take the form of "mass killing" Image
.@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". Image
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"... Image
...military use of civilian objects... Image
...proportionality... Image
... evauations... Image
... and the protection of hospitals Image
.@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". Image
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. Image
Image
In terms of the totality of the group, Israel is turning Gaza into an "unliveable" geography, not just fighting a war. Image
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 Image
Image
.@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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More from @Alonso_GD

Alonso Gurmendi Profile picture
Sep 12
This is what I call “legal vulturing”. Salo loiters above the text looking for anything he can slap a red underline and claim “he is the only one who noticed”. It’s bad faith work that deserves no serious engagement. So let me treat this like the piece of disinformation it is 🧵 Image
Salo claims there is a secret paragraph 141 that scholars ignore on purpose to deny Israel a right to self defence. But article 141 is part of a subsection of the Opinion dealing specifically with self-defence. It goes from §138 to §142.
As Salo shows, in §139, the ICJ concludes that art. 51 of the UN Charter, which sets out the right of self defence, is not applicable to Israel’s actions in Palestine because

1) the threat it claims is not imputable to a state and article 51 only applies between states Image
Read 10 tweets
Alonso Gurmendi Profile picture
Sep 11
So far I’ve seen the ongoing collapse of US hegemony as a protracted process of imperial decline, driven by a rally-to-the-flag retreat from the world known as “MAGA”. But now I’m wondering if that rally to the flag will actually lead to a much more violent and sudden process
The US has a heavily armed population which lacks access to mental healthcare and social safety nets. Increasingly, the random and senseless school shooting is being overshadowed by the targeted political assassination as the go-to “exhaust vent” of these social processes
Obviously, this is terrible. A Democratic representative, a healthcare CEO, a conservative commentator and the attempted assassination of the current president can’t be dismissed anymore as fluke accidents. Arguably, some are choosing to do this instead of mass shootings
Read 6 tweets
Alonso Gurmendi Profile picture
Sep 6
The IDF’s new international hasbara law excuse to justify imposing conditions of life that make civilian life in Gaza impossible seems to be that the military advantage of destroying a camera justifies the “incidental” civilian harm of dozens of homes destroyed
Imagine for a second this logic replayed for residential buildings in Tel Aviv. There’s security cameras managed by the city hall on top of the building and a Palestinian group is planning to attack the city. Thus, so the IDF does not use it, they blow up the whole building
It would be deemed one of the worst terrorist attacks in Israel’s history. An act of “barbarism” that should be condemned again and again. The logic behind it “oh but we wanted to make average Israelis turn on the IDF so we need to pummel Tel Aviv” would be deemed insane
Read 9 tweets
Alonso Gurmendi Profile picture
Aug 27
I’ve been thinking a lot about this tweet and how it perverts decolonial epistemology in service of coloniality. It argues that there is a parallel “non-Eurocentric” history of indigeneity where Jews worldwide are the colonised “natives” of (somehow) 8th C BCE Arab “colonisers”
But this is a manipulation. The very concept of indigeneity and nativeness emerged because of notions that can’t be simply transposed to every single defeated / expelled people in history. The Gauls were not “indigenous” to the Roman “colonisers”
Indigeneity emerges from oppressive racist discourses proper to European modernity, not as vindications by the colonised. The Inca and the Haudenosaunee did not want to be “Indians”. The Herero and the Zulu did not want to be “Natives”
Read 15 tweets
Alonso Gurmendi Profile picture
Aug 25
This works only if you draw an artificial line between Iron Age Israelites and 20th century Zionist Jews and not between those who lived in what is today Palestine in ancient times and those who live there today.
“Name 3 ancient Israelis” is just as much a “gotcha” if you don’t
We get that when we say Ancient Egyptians there’s been a lot of changes since the Pharaohs. Hellenisation, Arabization, etc. We are able to recognise these differences and changes over time. It’s the same with the original inhabitants of what is today Israel-Palestine
You could tell the history of the Canaanite people, how some Canaanite tribes became the Israelites, and how over time, just like the Ancient Egyptians, they Hellenized and Arabized until they got to be modern-day Muslim and Christian Palestinians and the Old Yishuv
Read 4 tweets
Alonso Gurmendi Profile picture
Aug 23
This kinds of argument is why it is important to understand Israel as a colonial endeavour. There is a reason why the demographics of the area look like this and it is not because of any kind of “Palestinian apartheid” 🧵
Gaza’s current form is the direct result of the Zionist plan to “cleanse” the land of Palestinians. Hundreds of thousands of people were forcefully expelled to Gaza from other parts of Palestine. After Egypt’s intervention, an armistice line separated Gaza from Israel
But these hundreds of thousands of refugees were living sometimes a couple of kilometres away from their old homes and the area was sparsely populated and not under clear Zionist control, so often they could simply walk into Israel and tend their crops or recover lost property
Read 17 tweets

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