Personally, I take pride in the ruins of Gaza, and every newborn, even 80 years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did.
– May Golan, Israeli Minister of Social Equality & Women’s Advancement
According to the Genocide Convention: Article 2 of the Genocide Convention defines genocide as any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group:
a) Killing members of the group;
b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c) Deliberately imposing living conditions calculated to bring about the physical destruction, in whole or in part, of the group;
d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 2 Article 3 defines crimes punishable under the Convention as:
a) Genocide;
b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
d) Attempt to commit genocide;
e) Complicity in genocide.
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Article 3 This Convention was adopted to criminalize acts similar to the Armenian Genocide and the Holocaust. The first draft of the Convention included political killings, but the Soviet Union and some other countries refused to accept that actions against groups with similar political beliefs or social status would constitute genocide, so these provisions were subsequently removed in a political and diplomatic compromise. According to the Convention, genocide is defined as “the deliberate attempt to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.” The Convention recognizes several acts as genocide, such as imposing control over births and forcibly transferring children, and considers complicity, attempt, or incitement to commit it as criminal offenses. May Golan’s statements are seen as evidence of deliberate destruction and killing in Gaza and can be used as part of the evidence presented to the International Criminal Court(ICC). It is worth mentioning that one legal loophole to evade charges of violating the Genocide Convention is labeling the opposing party as terrorists. In other words, by labeling the opposing party as terrorists and stripping them of their group identity, states evade crimes and accusations related to the extermination of the opposing group. Charges such as terrorist labeling of Hamas, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and the IRGC can open the door to the commission of genocide-related crimes and absolve the perpetrator from charges. Hence, there is considerable effort by Israeli lobbyists, especially in the United States, to pass terrorism-related charges for warring nations to legally absolve themselves of the aforementioned crimes. If the charge of genocide is proven in the international court, according to Article (e) of the above-mentioned convention, the United States will be recognized as an accomplice in genocide.
