The difference between Holocaust denial and Gaza Genocide denial is that Holocaust denial is illegal or a criminal offence in many countries, and is, for the most part, the preserve of marginalised kooks and conspiracy theorists.
No self-respecting journalist considers Holocaust denial a legitimate point of view, and no serious media organisation argues that impartiality requires it to provide Holocaust denial with a platform in any serious discussion about Germany’s extermination of Europe’s Jews during World War Two – let alone equal time, or beginning and ending every such discussion with “Germany said”.
Gaza Genocide denial, by contrast, is a well-organised and orchestrated global campaign sponsored, funded, and avidly promoted – without any hindrance whatsoever – by the regime perpetrating the genocide.
In many states, Gaza Genocide denial counts among its champions elected and other senior officials, influential lobbies and powerful organisations. Its messages are amplified by an international network of conspiracy theorists, fanatic ideologues and hired hands.
Serious media organisations not only consider it a journalistic requirement to give Gaza Genocide denial a platform and equal time, but they also routinely communicate Israel’s talking points to their audiences. The BBC’s compulsive resort to “Israel says” is a case in point.
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In many of the same states that have criminalised Holocaust denial, it is opposition to, rather than open denial of, the Gaza Genocide that is criminalised and punished. People have been fired from jobs, lost business, forfeited careers and educational opportunities, and literally been imprisoned for speaking out against it.
This repression is happening during the Gaza Genocide, when such voices are most urgently needed to influence governments that, under the 1948 Genocide Convention, are obligated not only to punish but also to prevent genocide.
Denial as policy
Ironically, one of the main agitators against opponents of the Gaza Genocide, Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the far-right and anti-Palestinian Anti-Defamation League, claimed in a recent New York Times interview that he was unfamiliar with the formal legal definition of genocide. It is easier to deny something with a straight face, it seems, if you claim you don’t know what it is because it hasn’t been placed in front of your mug.
More broadly, questions have been raised as to whether it is legitimate to speak of the Gaza Genocide in view of the reality that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has not yet issued a formal ruling on the matter.
While true that the ICJ has not yet ruled, every leading human rights organisation has concluded that Israel is perpetrating a genocide
While it is indeed correct that the ICJ has not yet ruled, and is not expected to do so for at least another two to three years, every leading human rights organisation – Palestinian, international and now also Israeli – has already concluded that Israel is perpetrating a genocide.
A growing consensus of genocide and Holocaust scholars, including many of the leading lights of these fields, has reached the same conclusion.
Most recently, on 31 August, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) adopted a resolution declaring that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza “meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948)”.
The Hasbara Symphony Orchestra was, needless to say, up in arms, making various spurious allegations about process and participation.
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In fact, as might be expected on such a sensitive topic, the IAGS had acted strictly by the book, with the head of its resolutions committee describing the process as “one of the smoothest ones in light of numerous UN and NGO reports that support the conclusion”.
At a more formal level, a growing number of governments – many of them signatories to the 1948 Genocide Convention – have publicly characterised Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, including South Africa, Brazil, Namibia, Bolivia, Spain, Jordan and Turkey.
Legal ruling
The ICJ itself has already ruled, on multiple occasions, that Israel must implement a series of measures to ensure it is not violating its obligations under the Genocide Convention. Israel has dismissed these instructions out of hand and categorically refused to implement even one of them.
It is now widely considered a foregone conclusion that the ICJ will rule either that Israel’s entire Gaza campaign constitutes genocide, or that specific acts and policies Israel has pursued in the context of its military campaign qualify as genocide under the Genocide Convention.
In a 30 August interview with the European Center for Populism Studies, Professor William Schabas, one of the world’s foremost authorities on genocide, characterised South Africa’s application before the ICJ as “arguably the strongest case of genocide ever brought before the Court”.
On this basis, he pointed out that the United States, Germany – which in an earlier genocide killed members of his family – and other states risk legal liability as “accomplices to genocide”.
Given these realities, it is perfectly reasonable to use the label Gaza Genocide, and to treat the possibility that the ICJ will rule in a denialist Israel’s favour as vanishingly small.
Naming genocide
It is one thing to consider the ICJ’s verdict the definitive ruling on the matter, but quite another to dismiss the existing consensus among specialists as irrelevant because it precedes an ICJ ruling. This is particularly true given that the Genocide Convention obligates states not only to punish but, more importantly, to prevent genocide.
Why Gaza genocide denial should be criminalised worldwide
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As for those who observe that consensus is not infallible and will therefore await the ICJ’s ruling, they can confidently be relied upon to respond to any ICJ verdict that Israel is guilty of genocide with the observation that court rulings are not infallible either.
There are numerous cases of genocide that have not been confirmed as such by a court of law, either because they were perpetrated before genocide was defined as a crime, or because no verdict has yet been issued. The Armenian and Rohingya genocides come to mind.
It is worth recalling that it was commonplace to refer to the Rwanda genocide and the genocide of the Yazidis before a definitive court verdict was available. The suggestion that it should have been impermissible to do so beforehand is rightly considered laughable.
Genocide is indeed a legal term, but as with other crimes that stick out like a sore thumb, it is perfectly legitimate to characterise them before the conclusion of legal proceedings. And that is precisely what is rapidly becoming the norm, all the more urgent given the recent fad among Israel and its flunkies – vile and bizarre in equal measure – of examining children starved to death by its murderous siege for pre-existing medical conditions.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
