Today is the anniversary of the adoption of the UN Genocide Convention. Seventy-six years later, we are witnessing a genocide in our times.
In the 1940s, Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the word “genocide” to serve as an emergency alarm to mobilize the world to prevent an irrevocable loss to humanity. Lemkin, a Holocaust survivor, advocated for the Genocide Convention.
Last week, Amnesty International released a report concluding that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. It examined more than 200 interviews with people on the ground, photographic and satellite imagery, 100 statements by Israeli authorities, and verified reports. It reviewed jurisprudence from international courts and consulted international law experts.
Intent to destroy a distinct group of people is the hardest requirement in the Genocide Convention to prove. Amnesty determined Israel met this criteria in statements by state officials and its conduct over decades.
Direct statements by Israeli officials have called for indiscriminate attacks, the annihilation of the Gaza Strip, denial of humanitarian aid, forcible transfers of civilians and Israeli settlement expansion into Gaza.
Patterns of conduct show an unprecedented scale and speed in the killing of civilians and the destruction of civilian infrastructure. Explosives that impact wide areas have been dropped on densely populated neighborhoods, hardly a precise targeting of Hamas militants. Amnesty examined 15 airstrikes, a fraction of the attacks, and found no legitimate military targets. Cultural property and agricultural land have been destroyed. Evidence of an unlivable, razed urban landscape is plain to see in aerial and satellite imagery. These actions against non-military targets show acts of genocide.
Amnesty’s report is not slander against Israel. It is a measured analysis and critique of a state’s policies and actions. It is a call for Israel to be treated as the recognized state that it is in the international community. Even a state built on past traumas, which has also experienced recent trauma, has no excuse to inflict further crimes against humanity.
Israel wants people to focus on its right to self-defense. Amnesty has condemned the killing of civilians in southern Israel on Oct. 7 last year and the taking of hostages as war crimes and violations of international law. What is missing, though, is context. Israel has unlawfully occupied the Palestinian Territories for 57 years, illegally blockaded Gaza for 17 years and has maintained an apartheid system. Israel’s impunity and dehumanization of the Palestinians have paved the path to genocide.
Nations are obligated to respond to the alarm of genocide. No country has failed more grandly than my own, the US. Rather than stopping the inhumanity, it has provided a stream of weapons and diplomatic cover. Americans must push Washington to change course.
Taiwan must also play a part, even as a non-member of the UN. Taiwan is engaged with many global issues. However, rather than express concern for the decimation of Gaza to its Israeli counterparts, Taiwanese officials have kept quiet and have deepened ties. This year, Taiwan signed technology, trade and cultural agreements with Israel while echoing Israel’s messages that it is the leader of freedom and democracy in its region. Would Taiwan look back with regret that it failed to join the global outcry to stop a genocide? It is not too late to live up to its image as a country that speaks up for human rights.
Read Amnesty’s report on amnesty.org, sign the petition and ask your government representatives to speak up. Lemkin’s alarm has been sounded. It is our duty to heed this historic call.
Laura Moye is a volunteer Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories coordinator of Amnesty International Taiwan based in Taichung.
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