{"id":283631,"date":"2024-12-30T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2024-12-30T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=283631"},"modified":"2024-12-25T07:13:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-25T07:13:52","slug":"another-expert-report-finds-israel-is-committing-genocide-the-west-yawns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2024\/12\/another-expert-report-finds-israel-is-committing-genocide-the-west-yawns\/","title":{"rendered":"Another Expert Report Finds Israel Is Committing Genocide–The West Yawns"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, and Medecins Sans Frontieres are all agreed. But the Gaza genocide is now just another routine news item, buried on the inside pages.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

25 Dec 2024\u00a0<\/em>– Three separate reports published this month by leading international human rights and medical groups have detailed the same horrifying story: that Israel is well advanced in its genocide of the Palestinian population in Gaza.<\/p>\n

Or, to be more accurate, they have confirmed what was already patently clear: that, for the past 14 months, Israel has been slaughtering<\/a> tens of thousands of Palestinians with indiscriminate munitions, while at the same time gradually starving the survivors to death and denying them access to medical care.<\/p>\n

Genocides can happen with gas chambers. Or with machetes. Or they can be carried out with 2,000lb bombs and aid blockades. Genocides rarely look the same. But they are all designed to arrive at the same endpoint: the elimination of a people.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) agree that Israel is striving for extermination. It has not hidden its intent, and that intent is confirmed by its actions on the ground.<\/p>\n

Only the wilfully blind, which includes western politicians and their media, are still in denial. But worse than denial, they continue to actively collude in this, the ultimate crime against humanity, by supplying Israel with the weapons, intelligence and diplomatic cover it needs for the extermination.<\/p>\n

Last week, MSF issued its report<\/a>, titled Life in the Death Trap That is Gaza<\/em>, concluding that Israel was intentionally \u201cunravelling the fabric of society\u201d.<\/p>\n

The medical charity observed: \u201cThe violence unleashed by Israeli forces has caused physical and mental damage on a scale that would overwhelm any functioning health system, let alone one already decimated by a crushing offensive and a 17-year-long blockade [by Israel].\u201d<\/p>\n

MSF added: \u201cEven if the offensive ended today, its long-term impact would be unprecedented, given the scale of the destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebuilding the society and dealing with the health consequences will \u201cspan generations\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Intention proven<\/strong><\/h3>\n

MSF\u2019s findings followed hot on the heels of an 185-page report<\/a> by Human Rights Watch, which concluded that Israel was committing \u201cacts of genocide\u201d.<\/p>\n

The organisation limited its focus to one Israeli policy: its systematic effort to deprive the population of access to water \u2013 a clear measure of intentionality, the critical yardstick for judging whether mass killing has crossed into genocide.<\/p>\n

At a news conference, Lama Fakih, HRW\u2019s Middle East director, said their research<\/a> had proved Israel was \u201cintentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza by denying them the water that they need to survive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Israel had done so in four coordinated moves. It had blocked pipelines supplying water from outside Gaza. It had then cut off power to run the pumps that Gaza\u2019s own supplies from wells and desalination plants depended on.<\/p>\n

Next, it had destroyed the solar panels that were the backup to deal with such power cuts. And finally, it had killed crews trying to repair the supply system and aid agency staff trying to bring in water supplies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a comprehensive policy preventing people from getting any water,\u201d HRW\u2019s acting Israel and Palestine director, Bill Van Esveld, concluded. He added that the group had made \u201ca very clear finding of extermination\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Pattern of conduct\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

HRW echoed a much wider-ranging report by Amnesty International, the world\u2019s best-known international human rights organisation.<\/p>\n

In a 296-page report<\/a> published in early December, Amnesty concluded that Israel had been \u201cbrazenly, continuously\u201d committing genocide in Gaza \u2013 or \u201cunleashing hell\u201d as the organisation phrased it more graphically.<\/p>\n

The period of Amnesty\u2019s research ended in July, five months ago. Since then, Israel has further intensified its destruction of northern Gaza to drive out the population.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Amnesty described a \u201cpattern of conduct\u201d in which Israel had deliberately obstructed aid and power supplies, and detonated so much explosive power on the tiny enclave \u2013 equivalent to more than two nuclear bombs \u2013 that water, sanitation, food and healthcare systems had collapsed.<\/p>\n

The scale of the attack, it noted, had caused death and destruction at a speed and level unmatched in any other 21st-century conflict.<\/p>\n

Budour Hassan, Amnesty\u2019s researcher for Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, said Israel\u2019s actions went beyond the individual war crimes associated with conflicts: \u201cThis is something deeper<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agreeing with major Holocaust and genocide scholars, Amnesty concluded that the high bar needed to prove genocidal intent in law was crossed last May when Israel began destroying Rafah, the area in southern Gaza that it had herded Palestinian civilians into as a supposedly \u201csafe zone\u201d.<\/p>\n

Israel had been warned not to attack Rafah by the world\u2019s highest court, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but went ahead anyway.<\/p>\n

\u2018Mass denial\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

For some time, leading Holocaust and genocide scholars \u2013 among them Israelis \u2013 have been speaking up to warn not only that a genocide is unfolding, but that it is nearing completion.<\/p>\n

Last week, Omer Bartov<\/a> even managed to get his message out on CNN. He told Christiane Amanpour<\/a> that Israel was carrying out \u201ca war of annihilation\u201d on the Gaza Strip. \u201cWhat the IDF [Israeli military] is doing there is destroying Gaza,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n