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Patricia Sutherland's avatar

I do not know if what we are witnessing is legally considered genocide, but it is deeply tragic and horrifying on a human level and that should count for something. We are witnessing, though, Lemkin's idea of 'vandalism' - the destruction of a collective identity. This is happening through the bombing of Gaza's libraries, archives and universities, which house the collective knowledge, thoughts, writings, and poetry of its people, along with the destruction of centuries old mosques and architecture and, of course, the killing of Gaza's scholars, poets, writers, artists and all those that give expression to 'collective identity'. A recent Guardian article expressed it well: "...to void the architecture of belonging..." (Article title: 'What does it mean to erase a people - a nation, culture, identity? In Gaza, we are beginning to find out' by Nesrine Malik - also worth watching the 2012 documentary 'The Great Book Robbery')

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Ingamarie's avatar

What is happening in Gaza is clearly genocidal......and the longer it continues, the more clarity the world will have on the precise meaning of that word. This article brings up some interesting historical details that most of us had no knowledge of.......but what might be missing is the nature of the clear signals that a genocide may be in progress.

1. Collective punishment is against international law........it is central to this current conflict. Israel versus Hamas? Don't make me laugh.....its the Israeli army against the entire population of Gaza.

2. Indescriminate bombing of hospitals, schools, water and power supplies: Good heavens, there's a lot of Hamas fighters out there.........and they do seem to be gathered wherever essential services struggle to survive.

3. The Denial of Water, Food, Medicine...imagine boys and girls, Israel gets to inspect all trucks entering Gaza.

4. Reports of soldiers shooting rooms full of civilians including children.....its not just three Israelis, waving a white flag and speaking Hebrew that were mistaken for Hamas.

Genocidal campaigns violate all the limitations the Geneva conventions tried to put on War. Genocidal campaigns have to posit an absolute evil in order to commit the absolute evil of genocide.

And why the civilized world has been so timid to name what in this case in particular, is so openly obvious on the nightly news........is beyond me. Scared of setting a precedent that might tie our hands in the future? That's the only reason I can come up with.

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