"Article II: 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..." — Definition of genocide, The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, December 9, 1948.
Their genocidal aim, clear to the Hamas terrorists, was to murder Jews; others, such as Asians and Muslims, were also murdered. What is illuminating is how easily the civilized world, in this instance, accepted that as well as the abduction of 250 hostages. Those who slaughter and take hostages should be the subject of disgrace and condemnation. Instead, frequently, they were celebrated.
Israel, of necessity, responded to this massacre. Israel's goals, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts "the Churchill of the Middle East," are "returning hostages from Gaza, eliminating Hamas' military and governing capabilities, ensuring that Gaza will not constitute a threat against Israel and also returning displaced Israeli residents securely to their homes in both the south and the north." Israel's goal is not to destroy the Palestinians, Arabs or Gazan civilians.
The situation of displaced Gazans -- temporary evacuations are allowed by Geneva IV, Article 49 -- is certainly unfortunate; however, the main problem is the aggressive nature of Iran's and Hamas's totalitarian regimes. That is what has led to the October 7 massacre and is the seminal reason for the war and the Gazan casualties.
"Israel Implemented More Measures to Prevent Civilian Casualties Than Any Other Nation in History"; "Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare: Why Will No One Admit it?" — John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point; Newsweek, January 31, 2024, and March 25, 2024.
It is, in fact, Iran and Hamas that should be on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"Hamas is a religious movement, and they are a raging religious movement against Israel. The mainstream media cannot say this because they are afraid to ignite a religious war. And what I say, it already is. They want to annihilate the Jewish people because they are Jewish people, because they are a Jewish state." — Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Sheikh Hassan Yousef, Fox News, October 23, 2023.
Their genocidal aim, clear to the Hamas terrorists, was to murder Jews; others, such as Asians and Muslims, were also murdered. What is illuminating is how easily the civilized world, in this instance, accepted that as well as the abduction of 250 hostages. Those who slaughter and take hostages should be the subject of disgrace and condemnation. Instead, frequently, they were celebrated.
The official definition of genocide, as determined by the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner on December 9, 1948, reads:
Article IIIn 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.
The Iran-backed, officially designated terrorist group Hamas -- along with other groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- on October 7, 2023, committed genocide in Israel.
Jews were murdered because they were the Jews. Israelis were murdered because they were Israelis. People were murdered because they were presumed to be the Jews or Israeli sympathizers with Jews. The decision to invade, murder, torture and kidnap was made by the Hamas leadership and reportedly "managed and planned" by Iran's Quds Force.
Hamas terrorists and Gazan civilians massacred approximately 1,200 people in southern Israel. Near the Gaza border, at the Supernova music festival alone, at least 260 people were murdered, with some women raped before being tortured and slaughtered.
Captured Hamas members, under interrogation, said about their actions in Israeli communities:
"The plan was to go from home to home, from room to room, to throw grenades and kill everyone, including women and children"; "Hamas ordered us to crush their heads and cut them off, [and] to cut their legs";
"Hamas's orders were to kill young men" and to "kidnap the elderly, women and children".
Many of those hostages, taken against Article 34 of Geneva IV, are still in the hands of Hamas.
One of the Hamas terrorists (according to the laws of war, they are called "combatants"), called his parents after having murdered 10 Jews in Kibbutz Mefalsim near the Gaza border: "Look how many I killed with my own hands! Your son killed Jews!... Mom, your son is a hero!"
There are many reports like that. Their genocidal aim, clear to the Hamas terrorists, was to murder Jews; others, such as Asians and Muslims, were also murdered. What is illuminating is how easily the civilized world, in this instance, accepted that as well as the abduction of 250 hostages.
Those who slaughter and take hostages should be the subject of disgrace and condemnation.
Instead, frequently, they were celebrated.
Israel, of necessity, responded to this massacre. Israel's goals, according to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called by Andrew Roberts "the Churchill of the Middle East," are "returning hostages from Gaza, eliminating Hamas' military and governing capabilities, ensuring that Gaza will not constitute a threat against Israel and also returning displaced Israeli residents securely to their homes in both the south and the north."
Israel's goal is not to destroy the Palestinians, Arabs or Gazan civilians. Unfortunately, there are innocent victims in every war. If Hamas chooses to fight in dense urban areas, among its own civilians, there will be even more civilian casualties. Israel, which always goes out of its out of its way to prevent civilian casualties among its opponents, is always nevertheless blamed for them -- by Hamas, by European officials, and by the "progressive" and often racist media (the "genocide" libel).
This 8 page article ends with these words and a link to the Gatestone website:
Iran and Hamas have both repeatedly announced that they would like to destroy Israel as a state. Hamas, while openly asserting that it is a jihadist organization, plays a game of being a victim. Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of another Hamas co-founder, Sheikh Hassan Yousef, denounced the terrorist organization in an address at the UN on November 20, 2023:
"Today I can speak on the authority of [myself, having once been] a Palestinian child, someone who grew up in that culture...We're talking about a religious group that does not believe in political borders and wants to annihilate an entire race in order to build an Islamic state. I don't know what else can be said about this – and I don't know why it is not obvious to everybody.
"I was born at the heart of Hamas leadership... and I know them very well. They don't care for the Palestinian people... Hamas is not a national movement. Hamas is a religious movement with a goal to establish an Islamic state...
They don't care for nationalism. Actually, they are against nationalism. But that's my understanding that they are using the Palestinian cause only to achieve their goals, so the long-term goal... [is] transforming the Middle East and the world into an Islamic state.... Iran is the real master in this picture.... Hamas does not serve the Palestinian people, Hamas serves Iran. Those are the masters of Hamas. So their lie about nationalism, that they are a national movement... They are using Palestinian people as a human shield."
A later report said of Yousef:
"The son of a Hamas founder said the terrorist group is even more dangerous than ISIS on Monday, adding that the mainstream media is afraid to call it a genocidal religious movement for fear of igniting a full-on religious war."
Yousef remarked in a Fox News interview:
"Hamas is a religious movement, and they are a raging religious movement against Israel. The mainstream media cannot say this because they are afraid to ignite a religious war. And what I say, it already is. They want to annihilate the Jewish people because they are Jewish people, because they are a Jewish state."
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Dawid Bunikowski holds a PhD from Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland (2009), and resides in North Karelia, eastern Finland. He was granted the academic title of Docent by the University of Lapland (Finland) on the request of the Arctic Centre (2022). He has published internationally, and been invited to lecture at European and non-European universities.
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Pictured: Naama Levy, an Israeli woman abducted and taken to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023, when she was 19 years old. She is still being held hostage by Hamas. (Image source: Hamas).
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