Do you use the debate on the use of the word and the appropriateness of the concept of “genocide” to describe Gaza’s horror and devastation? It serves to bring the end of the criminal massacre of Gaza closer, the release of the last hostage skeletal skeletal sent to Mondovisiona by Hamas, to improve only by a core the world on the ugliness of which the pityless obstinacy of Netanyahu has opened a gash, amplifying the sense of horror that is becoming for many habit, if it has ever been more? The question is all in all simple, the answer very complicated, because it is reasonably varies according to the level of the – ethical, communicative, legal, emotional, historical, plans that are not always easily distinguishable – and of the geographical and cultural place in which it takes place. Because one thing is that you talk about it in Israel, and more is that it happens in Europe or the United States; One thing is that it discusss it in academic, intellectual or international law environments that perhaps also exercise a function of international jurisdiction, and more is whether the discussion inflames the local or virtual bars of the world, our so -called West and our country in particular.

Genocide for Israeli NGOs

In Israel, recently, two important Israeli NGOs have adopted, on the basis of documented research, the definition of genocide as happened, is happening, and probably, dramatically will continue to succeed Gaza. One of the two, Btselem, is one of the most important, solid and authoritative pacifist realities of the Jewish state, and probably his position has played an important role in bringing one of the most well -known writers in the world, David Grossman, to speak to Francesca Caferri di Repubblica: “I want to talk as a person who did what he could not to call Israel as a genocidal state. that is happening before my eyes. The relevance of the position of Btselem, for David Grossman, can perhaps be testified by a support letter that the writer had sent to the association, now 13 years ago. Within a society closed in fear and in the idea that only the greatest military force and its systematic brutal use is the only hope for the future, in which the long hegemony of Netanyahu has gradually consolidated the irritation of those who believe in international law and human rights, and that after the massacre of 7 October 2023 he saw these tendencies strengthened by the desire to “be welcomed in the majority” Grossman), these positions are germs of hope and resistance that must obviously be cultivated, appreciated, defended. The courage to call what his country does to Gaza with the most dishonorable name among the various dishonorable names that crimes against humanity have, of course he will not convince those who are convinced that he is false, and that it is still the right thing: but perhaps he will help to move some consciousness, dozens or hundreds of righteous, who perhaps will find the courage to speak, to convince others. And maybe so some life will be saved, at least this. It’s not much, but that’s what you can.

Polarizations

All different becomes the discussion if we go out of that field of blood which is Gaza, and we return to our western democratic world in shreds. Here, to simplify, the debate is the son of many more or less ancient polarizations, more or less ideological. To simplify we could say that at an extreme of the debate there are those who consider Israel Tout Court, always, without too many historical subtleties and without looking at the evolution of the story, a criminal state, and on the other end there are those who consider it regardless of a perfectly democratic state, which has the sole fault of wanting to survive, and that if he kills tens of thousands of people, But the moral weight of those dead is all in the Hamas account. It is a brutal simplification, but it serves to circumscribe the extreme poles and the playing field, if you can talk about playing: the shades in the middle are many, of course, but the trend of these sad times to polarize everything, makes the weight on the total public opinion of these opposing extremisms quite significant. And in short, for those who think that Israel is a foundingly illegitimate and criminal state, the 60 thousand deaths of Gaza and destruction and hunger are only a confirmation, which sometimes slips into the “we had told you, woke up late”. Obviously, the massacre of Gaza and the practice of illegal and violent colonization of the West Bank are, for this vision, perfectly consistent and in continuity with the whole history of Israel, and with its foundation considered radically abusive. But the biggest problem, in a situation like this, is on the other side of the field. From there, the denial mechanism can take offensive forms, for third parties who feel empathy and pain, but also for the defenders of Israel who would declare themselves capable of distinguishing the truth from the false. Prince’s topic of these apologettes is that every story that comes from Gaza is exclusively the daughter of Hamas’ propaganda. Do the Palestinians die in the queue for the food? Hamas kills them. The numbers of the dead? Hamas swells them. The reasons for the conflict? If Hamas melted the conflict would end immediately. All without cracks, in a metaphysics of justification that does not want to do any account – to keep silent about much more – with what Israel has become, on its social composition, on its millennial and violent conservatism that has progressively innervated the streets and buildings of power. Obviously, in the face of those who say “genocide” there are two hypotheses: either it has always been anti -Semitic, or granted good faith, believes in Hamas’ lies that would even convince David Grossman.

The story is not written while happening

This, schematized and simplified, is not even a debate on genocide, on the precision of the historical and political category: finally it is the usual provincial debate that reads and folds the tragedies of others through the lenses that lead to the declaration of their identity. Nobody is needed, over there, but perhaps looked at with these eyes can help some of us understand who we are, and to decide what we want to be. Maybe, in Italy and in the world, becoming aware of the tragedy by freeing himself of polarization, he will bring more people to the square, more newspapers and means of communication to tell for what can be what happens. And finally the rulers to make decisions.

The most relevant level of the debate on genocide, of course, is the historical and legal one. It is always said, and not wrongly, that the story is never written while it happens. But it is certainly true that more and more the possibility of collecting and accumulating direct data, passing them into more consolidated scientific methodological paths than in the past centuries, has gradually made greater historicization even with a lower detachment of time. The word of the historians, the decisive and imposing position of Omer Bartov’s position, for example, marks a before and after in this debate. To those who contest the late choice, it could be replied that each genocide is recognized as such also on the basis of its duration and the mass of deaths it generates. It is terrible, and does not diminish the suffering of a single person, of a single family, but how all crimes defines themselves on the basis of criteria as objective as possible, and beyond the psychological and personal issues – recalled and admitted by both Grossman and Bartov – the theme of the baroque insistence of the Israeli government, which has not feared also to pass for the hungry of the population, cannot be considered irrelevant to the end of the end of the end of the population A definition that is and remains essentially legal. Yes, lastly there would be precisely the law, international justice: which we leave in the end, but it should be the beginning. Because the word genocide was conceived essentially as a legal category, as the most serious of crimes typified by international criminal law. The Shoah is the prototype of the genocide, the most organized and systematized in history, and many of those who defend Israel from the accusation seem to be unable to understand that the fact that Israel is possibly committing a genocide does not mean affirming, from the historical point of view, that it is the same as the Shoah. But in short, this is a matter for historians.

For jurists, the issue would be to be able to process Netanyahu, and to be able to understand how much he voluntarily and maliciously and his teammates, and the headlines, have darkly accepted that the consequence of their choices led to the massive death of the inhabitants of Gaza. It was also to fight the terrorists, of a Hamas evidently now reduced to the street for anyone who has a sense of reality, and evidently hardly offensive for many and many years, a court would like to be able to judge how much Netanyahu and his travel companions to the hell of others have accepted that ten thousand or thirty thousand deaths Gazawi were not a great problem, in the hope that a day would Egypt and the survivors escaped in a new large refugee camp in Sinai. Genocide? Ethnic cleaning? Both things? Something else? It would be nice that a third judge pronounced himself, a recognized international criminal court. This thing, however, will never happen: and this is the true and dramatic limit of this debate, and its helpless goal.