The current genocide in Gaza is, in some aspects, unprecedented. Modern technology has allowed the transmission of multiple war crimes, such as the murder of journalists, attacks on hospitals, and it is the first genocide in the world almost aired live, both by the executioners and the victims.
Every day we see videos of bombings, decapitated children, hospitals in ruins and Israeli soldiers record their crimes and put them up on the internet. This is almost exceptional, though something similar was done by the Sri Lankan government in 2009 against the Tamils,[1] but nobody called it a genocide then, although I think in the light of the Genocide Convention it could easily be described as a such. The Convention is clear about what constitutes genocide.
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.[2]
The current Zionist violence is nothing exceptional in the world, not even in the history of Israel itself. At the end of the second world war when films, articles, photos and more were released showing the Nazi barbarity against Jews, Gypsies, gays and left wingers, the Allies convened the Nuremberg Tribunal and tried some Nazis, but by no means all. It was not long before holocaust deniers came out saying it was all a montage. Germany banned holocaust denial and classified it as a criminal offence. Other countries just simply suppressed any debate on the Nazi holocaust. But not only did they refuse to debate deniers, they refused to discuss what had happened and who was responsible. Obviously, the members of the Nazi Party, but who else? In practice this lack of debate gave a clean slate to many companies, amongst them German companies such as Hugo Boss, Krupps and Siemens whose products are to be found in houses around the world. They weren’t just companies that collaborated with the Nazis, but rather many were companies belonging to Nazi militants.
They also avoided a debate on foreign companies. Coca Cola was the preferred drink of the Nazis. The company had factories in the country and produced publicity with swastikas, while the company’s boss in Germany, Max Keith was a Nazi collaborator. In fact, so close was the relationship that one of the company’s most well-known brands is Fanta, invented in Nazi Germany during the war and supplied to the Nazi army.[3] Neither did they speak of the role of IBM in the functioning of the camps were millions perished. At that time there was no computer.
However, another invention did exist: the IBM punch card and card sorting system—a precursor to the computer. IBM, primarily through its German subsidiary, made Hitler's program of Jewish destruction a technologic mission the company pursued with chilling success. IBM Germany, using its own staff and equipment, designed, executed, and supplied the indispensable technologic assistance Hitler's Third Reich needed to accomplish what had never been done before—the automation of human destruction. More than 2,000 such multi-machine sets were dispatched throughout Germany, and thousands more throughout German-dominated Europe.[4]
Of course, no IBM director was tried at Nuremberg. Companies such as Porsche, Siemens and Krupps reverted to being the powerful companies they were before the war.[5] And Hugo Boss who dressed the Nazis with those ever so elegant uniforms was never prosecuted. BMW, IG Farben (the supplier of Zyklon B gas), Porsche and other companies continued to function, although in the case of IG Farben it was broken up into various parts (Agfa, BASF, Bayer, Hoechst). They weren’t touched because they didn’t want to put capitalism in the dock. The high-ranking directors did not go to jail. They won’t want to put capitalism in the dock after Gaza. At least in Nuremberg some high ranking political and military Nazi leaders were tried.
It is not that they weren’t aware of what had happened. The Genocide Convention deals with complicity in genocide and also the actions of private individuals and not just state functionaries. But they didn’t really want to discuss the genocide of Jews and how it worked. This can be seen in later genocides. We were left with the image of a genocide Made in Hollywood. Public discourse did not delve further and we are also left with the image of war crimes from US cinema and some of the European imitations.
Recently a French journalist, Jean-Michel Aphatie, resigned from his post after comparing the French in Algeria to the Nazis. He stated.
Every year in France, we commemorate what happened in Oradour-sur-Glane – the massacre of an entire village. But we have committed hundreds of these, in Algeria. Are we aware of this?[6]
He was asked whether the French had behaved like the Nazis and he replied “The Nazis behaved like us.” It caused a scandal in France. But it has been calculated that up to 10 million people died during the French conquest and domination. As for the war of independence, the official figures in Algeria talk of 1.5 million people and the more conservative calculations throw up a figure of 350.000 to 400.000 and of that 150.000 were combatants with the rest being civilians.[7] Even were we to accept the lower figure, it is clear that we are talking about multiple war crimes, at least, and perhaps a genocide.
What is clear is that the French haven’t foggiest notion about their own past. But they are not alone, the British also see their empire through rose coloured glasses.[8] After the war the British Empire violently suppressed the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya (1952-61). There are no clear figures, official or otherwise on the wave of violence unleashed by the British in Kenya. Caroline Elkins, explains in her book Imperial Reckoning that as happened with the Jews, no one was interested in the fate of the Mau Mau and one of the few lawyers who was concerned about them calculates the dead in the hundreds of thousands, describing it as ethnic cleansing.[9] The genocide in Kenya included the mass deportation of 100,000 people and the imprisonment of between 160,000 and 300,000 people,[10] and in the “towns” the British organised they locked in almost 1.5 million people,[11] almost the entire Kikuyu population of Kenya, the ethnic group that rose up in the Mau Mau rebellion.
In 1965, Suharto took control of Indonesia, up to one million people were murdered in the coup d’etat. However, Suharto was one of the favoured children of the banks and western corporations. In 1975, he invaded East Timor murdering 200,000 people, a third of the population. Thatcher described him as a great friend. What was at stake were the natural resources of the country and it didn’t matter what he did. The World Bank described him as a model pupil.[12]
These are just a few examples, there are many more. An article that covered all of the genocides and war crimes of the 20th and 21st centuries would be never ending, it would become not a book but a whole library. The Nazi genocide wasn’t even the first one. Between 1904 and 1908 the Germans committed a genocide in Namibia with concentration camps and all. They murdered tens of thousands of people and in a macabre fashion sent their skulls to Germany. They never acknowledged their crimes.[13] It is a crime in Germany to deny the Jewish holocaust, but it is almost obligatory to deny or at least forget about the rest of the genocides and crimes.
Amongst those forgotten is the genocide in Congo where 10 million people were murdered in the rubber trade by Belgium, or the Armenian genocide in which between 600,000 and 1.5 million were murdered by the Turks. It is a criminal offence in Turkey to acknowledge this genocide.
So, returning to the headline question regarding how exceptional Israeli terror is, its war crimes and its genocide. The sad answer is that it is not one bit exceptional. It is shocking to listen to the tales, see the videos and photos of mangled children, listen to Israeli spokespersons describing Palestinians as Untermenshchen, rats and vermin, echoing the same language as Hitler and the Nazis.
There is not a single member of the Israeli cabinet or military high command who is not a war criminal or guilty of crimes against humanity. All of them are, without exception, and all deserve a Nuremberg style trial with the same consequences and sentences handed out against the Nazis, whether that be the gallows or a life sentence. But in a Nuremberg style trial we once again would face the same problem faced by the Allied prosecutors. Taking into account the weapons, political and logistical support that the Zionists have received from almost all European governments and companies, in addition to the support from the USA, the collaborators of the genocide in Gaza cannot be tried without putting capitalism in the dock.
What is happening in Palestine is horrific, heart breaking, but it is not exceptional, in the sense of something that is out of the ordinary for them, but rather it is an integral part of the European and Yankee policy in the Arab world and in particular in Palestine. There is no moral or judicial condemnation that does not include censure of the system that made it possible and necessary from their point of view. There will be no justice for Palestine without trying and imprisoning or hanging the material and intellectual authors of the genocide and their western accomplices. Though Biden, Harris, Trump, Starmer and Macron etc. are not properly speaking accomplices but rather direct participants in the genocide. The directors of the companies that supply Israel with weapons such as BAE, Boeing, Elbit, Ford amongst others,[14] are accomplices. And the banks that bought bonds are also accomplices, amongst them Goldman Sachs, BNP Paribas, Irish Central Bank and to no one’s surprise Germany’s Deutsche Bank.[15] They should be tried as such, as the modern Krupps.
In Nuremberg they didn’t want to put capitalism on trial and that is why capitalism repeated over and again the same genocidal policies. We don’t have the luxury of repeating that mistake. It is unlikely that the institutions, whether they be the International Criminal Court or another body such as the ICJ would judge the system, but we should at all times and not wait till the end of the genocide to point to the root problem. The liberation of Palestine goes through Jordan and the other Arab countries, but also through a defeat of imperialism and the capitalist system itself. The enemy of the Palestinians is the enemy of everyone and is also to be found everywhere, London, Paris, Dublin, Washington, Riyadh etc.
References
[3] See Chapter 13 Pendergrast, M. (2013) For God, Country & Coca Cola. New York. Basic Books.
[4] Black, E. (2002) IBM and the Holocaust. Washington D.C. Dialog Press. P.8
[5] Boston Review (22/03/2021) The Other Nuremberg Trials, Seventy-Five Years on. Erica X. Eisen.
[6] The Guardian, (09/03/2025) Journalist quits role after comparing French actions in Algeria to Nazi massacre.
[7] Vince, N. (2020) The Algerian War, The Algerian Revolution. London. Palgrave MacMillan. P.2
[8] The Independent (11/03/2020) Britain misses its empire more than other major post-colonial powers, poll finds. Andy Gregory. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-empire-colonialism-slavery-yougov-poll-nationalism-brexit-a9393486.html
[9] Elkins, C. (2005) Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya. New York. Henry Holt Press paras12.91
[10] Ibíd., para 6.10
[11] Ibíd.,para 6.11
[12] The Guardian (28/01/2008) Our model dictator. John Pilger.
[13] The Guardian (22/03/2023) ‘Most are unware’: film highlights Germany’s genocidal past in Namibia. Kate Connolly.
[14] AFSC (s/f) Companies Profiting from the Gaza Genocide.
[15] Pax for Peace (2025) Seven underwriters of “war bonds” instrumental in enabling Israel’s assault on Gaza, new research finds.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
I notice Gearoid excludes either by accidental or deliberate omission genocides such as Rwanda 1994; the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia 1975-79; Bosnia 1992-95; Saddam Hussein's Infal against the Kurds in the late 1980s plus the blood soaked dynasty of the Assads in Syria. Not to mention Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine (or to use his and Putin's euphemism "special military operation") and its wars in Chechnya. Could it be that there is not an obvious Western "imperialist and capitalist" figure to blame? All war crimes, crimes against humanity (including Gaza and the atrocities on 7 October which preceded it) and genocides are to judged and condemned without fear or favour. Tragically, too many on the left just like right wing Cold war hawks avert their gaze when it is their "side" that does evil.
ReplyDeleteBarry - you leave yourself open to the same charge of omission by not including the atrocities committed by Israel prior to October 7. It is not possible for writers to cover everything.
ReplyDeleteBut you are right - all war crimes and war criminals can be lumped together in the same typology.
I think what this piece and so many others do is to unpick the Western narrative that genocide and war crimes are only something that the other guy does. The West has a long bloody history. Its crimes in Gaza make Russia's crimes in Ukraine seem pale by comparison.
I think the death rate in the Russian invasion exceeds the toll in Gaza. The difference being that the Ukrainians are able to defend themselves, unlike the unfortunate Palestinians. Ukraine now faces an imposed settlement. Because of it's resistance it will survive as an independent state. The outlook for the Palestinians seems very dismal, unless there is a major change in the region.But might is right, as the Nazi dictaor said "who remembers the Armenians", who have recently seen yet another setback. Rather than see some progress, the various imperialists have returned to naked ruthlessness without even a pretence of embarrassement.
ReplyDeleteIf I am not mistaken the Russia-Ukraine war fatalities have been inflated by military deaths on both sides. Unless somebody produces reliable data showing otherwise, it looks to me as if the civilian deaths in Ukraine are low in comparison to those in Ukraine. There certainly has not been 17000 children murdered in Ukraine and Russia does not have a strategy of infanticide.
DeleteIt is not through the want of trying that Russia may not have matched Israel's kill rate in Gaza. Putin committed the supreme international crime of waging aggressive war in Ukraine and his crimes do not deserve any sort of relativisation or free pass which Gaeroid seemed to do before.
ReplyDeleteI think it is through the want of trying - for strategic purposes rather than ethical considerations.
DeleteHow else do we explain the relatively small child fatalities compared to over 17000 in Gaza unless we try to pretend that the Israelis are not deliberately targeting children and are just guilty of collateral damage? But even here the question leaps up as to why the Israelis make so many mistakes but not the Russians?
Putin is most likely aware that the West would exploit any war on children waged by him whereas the Israelis know the West will support and arm such a war.