00:00Israel launching strikes across the Gaza Strip, killing at least 31 people,
00:04pressing ahead with a major offensive in the territory.
00:08Leading genocide scholars, meanwhile, accuse Israel of genocide,
00:12allegations the government of Benjamin Netanyahu vehemently denies.
00:16Airstrikes and artillery shelling have echoed through Gaza City
00:19since Israel declared it a combat zone last week.
00:22On the city's outskirts and in the Jabalia refugee camp,
00:26residents have observed explosive-laden robots demolishing buildings.
00:31That issue of genocide is one that is echoing throughout media circles
00:36and, of course, humanitarian circles in the wake of what has continued to happen
00:40across the Gaza Strip in terms of the bombardment and, of course, the blockade
00:45and the obstruction of aid getting through to people in dire need.
00:51Joining us for Munich in Germany is Timothy Williams,
00:53vice-president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
00:57Thank you for joining us here in France 24.
01:00We appreciate your time.
01:01Genocide in Gaza is something that you have concluded with your colleagues
01:05that it is actually happening.
01:07How did you reach this definition, this decision?
01:11First of all, thank you very much for having me.
01:13So within the association, some of my esteemed colleagues write resolutions
01:20on areas of their expertise.
01:23And then the rest of the association weighs the evidence which is presented
01:26in these resolutions and then votes.
01:28And in this case, 86% of our voting members agreed with the evidence
01:34that the legal threshold of genocide has been reached, finding,
01:39and we adhere to the UN Convention on Genocide,
01:44finding that indeed Israel has the intent to destroy the national group
01:49of Palestinians in Gaza.
01:52Israel, on the other hand, would deny that they are doing this.
01:55Benjamin Etiyah on three separate occasions has denied that genocide is taking place.
01:59He's also denied that famine is taking place.
02:01What would you say to that?
02:05I mean, I would say that in cases of genocide,
02:07the perpetrators of genocide seldom admit that it's happening.
02:11It's not a crime that, I mean, it's a terrible crime,
02:15which is not admitted to.
02:16The evidence, to the contrary, is quite plain,
02:19particularly the starvation, which is part of also the resolution,
02:23as this is part of the third clause within Article 2 of the Genocide Convention,
02:29which says that deliberately inflicting on the target group conditions of life
02:33calculated to bring about its physical destruction is part of creating genocide.
02:38So the destruction of agricultural fields, of food warehouses, of bakeries,
02:44the denial of humanitarian aid, which is creating this starvation problem
02:49and killing thousands of people, this is part of the crime of genocide.
02:55It's not just the mass killing of over 59,000 people
02:59and the physical and psychological injury of many, many more.
03:04So it's the actual policy that is being imposed,
03:08that actual political and military policy that's being imposed,
03:12that gives it that definition.
03:13Is that what you're saying?
03:15Absolutely.
03:16So it's a mixture of policies and the actions which are taking place in Gaza.
03:23And so we can see that the consequence of that is the killing, the injury,
03:28the destruction of the fundamental infrastructure which is necessary for life.
03:32And this, within the Genocide Convention, has to be combined with an intent to destroy.
03:39And so this is typically within courts and tribunals,
03:44one of the most difficult parts of prosecuting genocide.
03:47But we have seen over the last now almost two years,
03:52senior politicians in Israel, senior military people,
03:57speaking about Palestinians in extremely dehumanizing ways,
04:01equating all Palestinians with terrorists,
04:04saying that they're all Hamas,
04:06and explicitly saying that they want to kill the entirety and eliminate Hamas.
04:12And all this together does suggest intent to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza.
04:18This also combined with the newest plans to force displacement of over 2 million people out of Gaza
04:28that Trump proposed and Netanyahu now endorses.
04:33So in terms of what Trump is doing with this new Gaza plan,
04:37which feels like something that revealed actually early in the year,
04:40creating this Trump Riviera,
04:41as you say, moving all the people out of the Gaza Strip to some other location,
04:46probably not of their choice with, say, $5,000 in their back pocket,
04:50perhaps as an incentive.
04:53You're saying that is actually sort of part and parcel
04:55of the genocidal effect, of the genocide philosophy?
04:59So it's not, I mean, the resolution doesn't claim that this is part of genocide,
05:04but I would say that this is a, this is my own analysis,
05:09it's not what was passed the resolution,
05:11but yes, I would say that that is,
05:13it's a continuation of this idea of trying to rid Gaza of Palestinians.
05:18And it's certainly illegal under international law to propose these things.
05:24And some people have called it ethnic cleansing.
05:29And it would be, it would,
05:31I think the reaction of the European governments to this
05:36was quite right to be shocked.
05:39And we can only hope that there'll be enough pressure mounting on Israel
05:43that plans such as this don't go forward.
05:45In July, the Israeli Human Rights Group, B'Tselem,
05:48and Physicians for Human Rights Israel called what is happening a genocide.
05:51You want to echo what they're saying, of course,
05:53but with a different philosophy and really analysing the situation.
05:56Some people might find it essentially very disturbing that people who will talk about the genocide
06:03that Jewish people went through, possible ancestors, possible relatives,
06:08are now actually carrying this out against another people.
06:12Some people might find that incredibly disturbing.
06:14What is your reaction?
06:17I mean, absolutely.
06:18I mean, there's absolutely no equation between what is happening in Gaza and the Holocaust.
06:23These are two very different cases.
06:25But, I mean, the historical legacy of the worst genocide of the 20th century,
06:31the Holocaust, doesn't sort of give a free pass to the Israeli nation
06:39to act beyond the realms of international law.
06:43And so international crimes, that's crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide,
06:48which are being committed by Israel, still need to be called out.
06:53And I think it is the historical legacy.
06:54Israelis might say that the Palestinians or Hamas are trying to commit genocide against them.
06:58What would you say to that?
07:01Right, I see.
07:02This is something which the resolution doesn't discuss.
07:04The resolution does condemn the Hamas attacks.
07:07The resolution itself focuses only on the ongoing action of Israel against Hamas.
07:12But, yeah, I can't really comment on that from the perspective of IACS,
07:17as we really were focusing on everything which has happened since the 7th October,
07:22while also strongly condemning and stating that it is international crimes that Hamas committed then.
07:27Indeed.
07:27No, there's no, obviously, there's no discussion of that at all.
07:31There's no denial of that at all.
07:33That wasn't a trustee on the 7th of October, 2023.
07:35We hear you clearly, Timothy Williams.
07:38Thank you very much indeed for joining us, Timothy Williams, from the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
07:46Thank you very much indeed for joining us.
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