Israel is Carrying Out a Genocide!
This is how we know
Let me start by saying that in Bosnia we have an informal movement to prevent future generations from using our suffering to cause suffering to others. It’s not that we do not trust our children. We’ve just seen it happen too many times. Never in Bosnia, and we want to make sure it never does. Again, NOT that we do not trust our younger generations, but we do want to leave this message just to be on the safe side.
You might have heard the line ‘Justice is our revenge’. It’s in the prayer for Srebrenica. It is featured all over. It means that as long as we get justice, that’s it. That’s all we want.
Another line used is ‘My suffering will go to my grave with me’. Meaning, it ends with me. We are leaving behind our lessons, and that is what we want to be remembered for. No one will inherit our suffering. No one has any responsibility to ‘avenge’ our suffering. No one has the right to use it as an excuse.
We feel it is a very important part of honoring us as victims.
I’ve heard people say that they’d rather be forgotten than remembered only to cause other innocent people the same kind of suffering. NOT that we want to be forgotten. We want to be remembered. But how we are remembered is VERY important.
Israeli officials have used the symbol of Holocaust victims at the UN. Considering how well-armed they are, this was already an insult to the memory of those victims. However, it goes much deeper. I’ll get to it.
I believe the first thing we must do is separate Zionism from Judaism. This collision is NOT uncommon. In fact, when I speak to Jews, it reminds me of the time Islamic fanatics came on stage and I had to explain to everyone how that is NOT what I believe in, that it is NOT my religion.
Hence, I will now write about Israel as a state for Zionists. And I’d like to send my deep love and gratitude to all the Jews who have drawn our attention to the very important difference.
It seems Zionism started with some good arguments, but even at the very beginning, there were a few things that seemed odd. Things like ‘Land without people, for people without land’. Palestinians were there. They could not have missed them. So why claim that there are ‘NO PEOPLE’ there? Secondly, if we assume that it was not so populated, was there enough space for all? This is a very important question to this day when Palestinians are forced out of their homes, either to let Zionist migrants move in or to be demolished for Zionist settlements.
While there are many, many questions about Zionism from the very beginning, even before the establishment of Israel, we need to focus on what is happening right now. Not because those things in the past are not important, they are vital, but because it’s got to the point that Zionism as a ‘religious’ organisation is questionable. I’m still trying to figure out how they can have the support of Christians and Muslims since both Christians and Muslims must believe in Jesus (especially Christians) and Zionists do NOT believe in Jesus. And, if it’s not a religious organisation, then we must examine its beliefs, aims, and objectives separately from any religion.
While those questions are vital, we have an even more pressing issue. Is Israel carrying out a genocide?
We’ll start with 10 stages of genocide. These are available all over the place, I got a copy from here.
1. CLASSIFICATION
2. SYMBOLIZATION
3. DISCRIMINATION
4. DEHUMANIZATION
5. ORGANIZATION
6. POLARIZATION
7. PREPARATION
8. PERSECUTION
9. EXTERMINATION
10. DENIAL
I will now go through each of these stages. I’ll try to focus on the situation as it is, without going too far into the past — it’s been 75 years and I am only writing an article.
Classification: When it comes to this region, we all know about Israelis and Palestinians. “Bipolar societies that lack mixed categories, such as Rwanda and Burundi, are the most likely to have genocide.” However, that is not conclusive.
In this case, it is without a doubt that Israel is the stronger, dominant side. As such, the article will focus on Israel and what it has been doing, whether or not it amounts to genocide.
After the research, I would define Israelis as: Citizens of Israel, i.e. full Israeli nationals, majority Jews, with some Christians and Muslims, though the rights of Israeli Jews are above the rights of Israeli non-Jews. Israel was created through a vote in the UN in 1948 on Palestinian historic territory. The state is highly militarised, well-founded, and well-connected politically to other states. Neighbouring countries have not welcomed the existence of Israel. However, the sentiment of some neighbouring countries seems to have changed.
My definition of Palestinians: People native to the land, historically and currently abused by the state of Israel, majority Muslims with some Christians and Jews. The rights of these groups are hard to judge because of Israeli oppression, which is more brutal towards Muslims but does not spear other religions. Considering that Muslims and Christians look for shelters together in churches that are more than 1000 years old, there is a sense of community between religions. One, because they do not seem to fear one another even when fear is all around them, in fact, they look for shelter with one another. And two, because the church survived for so long.
It is unclear how many Jews consider themselves Palestinians. Israelis often classify them as self-loathing Jews. This should be considered highly demeaning. In every war, there are members of one community who wish to be with the other. The important difference is to see whether that would put them at more or less risk. In the case of Palestinian Jews, it is clear that they are putting themselves in danger by being Palestinians.
To use an example from Bosnia, we had Muslims who sided with Serbs or Croat forces. However, we also had Serbs and Croats who sided with Bosnia and fought alongside Muslims. People Like Jovan Divjak could have had much better weapons if only he had chosen the Serbian side. Dragan Vikic wouldn’t be in court even now if he chose the stronger side. People with such strong principles are never a large group, but they are always remarkable.
In Bosnia, we’re still struggling to unite our nation, but that’s because of the Dayton Peace Agreement which created a system based on divisions, so our government officials must keep the people of Bosnia divided just to stay in power.
Hence, I prefer to call this stage ‘divisions’ rather than classification. Classification is normal in any society. The problem begins when these classifications become divisions. Especially if some groups enjoy more rights than others. Or, in extreme cases, where one group is denied rights.
In the case of Israel or occupied Palestinian territory, the division between these two groups is very clear. There are walls, fences, checkpoints, streets that only one group can use, medical facilities that do not welcome another group, and so on.
In addition to that, a significant number of Israeli civilians and officials express that they are superior, not only in the region but in the world. Hence, in addition to physical divisions, there are psychological divisions. While one group claiming superiority over another may not lead to murder, it has been noted in the past that it could. In short, there is a huge difference between ‘I see myself as above you, so I will distance myself from you’, and ‘I am superior to you, so only I should enjoy life and survive, you should suffer and die’.
Symbolisation: A popular tool used, at least before such technological developments, to mark individuals who would be targeted. I already mentioned the yellow star that Nazis forced Jews to wear. In Bosnia, in Prijedor, we had white armbands, which is why on the 31st of May we all wear white armbands.
We should note that symbols can also act as a way to identify with a group, and perhaps unite a group. Hence, like classification, symbols may not be a sign of genocide, it depends on how it’s used.
Israel has denied symbols of Palestine in the past. And, recently, workers from Gaza were made to wear blue tags.
Hence, we have Palestinians being denied the right to identity through symbols, as well as marking them with symbols by force that they do not associate with, to differentiate them from others.
There is also a small case of Israeli army symbols, such as the one in the photo below. The image is unclear and remains to be resolved.
Discrimination: Palestinians do not have equal rights and freedoms in any area of normal life. They do not enjoy equal freedom of movement, in fact, some have had their front gates welded shut because their house is on a street where Palestinians are not allowed to walk. Some streets can be used by Palestinians but not to drive.
They face water restrictions. In fact, according to a UN report, Israel has forbidden Palestinians from collecting rainwater, claiming that rain is the property of Israel.
Or their water wells are cemented.
Their house can be taken over by Israeli soldiers at any time. Or they can be held prisoners in their own homes.
Their homes can be given to settlers.
They can be imprisoned and treated very badly while in prison.
Children are not spared and are taken by the Israeli Army.
On 18th September 2023, Save the Children reported that A LEAST 38 Palestinian children had been murdered by Israeli forces in the West Bank since the start of the year, making it the deadliest year since records began.
Gaza is yet another story since it is a densely populated city between the sea and a wall. They have no right to a port, so even the sea is not an exit.
It seems discrimination against Palestinians started even before Israel was established. However, as stated earlier, I am trying to focus only on what is happening right now.
Dehumanisation: This is where things get serious. This part is about making your society comfortable with people being murdered. This is usually done by turning people into animals (so much for animal protection, right?), and propagating that they are a threat, that ‘we’ would be better off without them, and that causing them harm is fine.
Yet again, looking at history, dehumanisation of Palestinians seems to be going on for many years.
Israelis have been at this level for some time. In 2014 they watched the bombing of Gaza as if they were watching a movie.
Now, we have a significant number of civilians in Israel openly supporting the murder and forced displacement of Palestinians with ease as if it were nothing.
Children singing songs that speak of killing all.
Humiliating Palestinians.
Making fun of Palestinian suffering and murder.
A soldier throws a bomb at a house in honour of his daughter’s birthday.
Even supporting genocide such as this banner in Tel Aviv.
We can safely say that dehumanisation of Palestinians in Israel is very much complete and has been for some time.
It is worth noting that dehumanisation is never a one-way street. Those who dehumanise others dehumanised themselves too. As a result, those who try to speak up against dehumanisation end up being accused of treason.
However, is it only in Israel? Looking at Western media reports, and knowing what I know from the war in Bosnia, when 1000 murdered people gets more attention and sympathy than 10,000 murdered people, our scales are off, it is as simple as that. When we can excuse murder of children, there is something very wrong. However, I will say more about this in the ‘denial’ part.
Organisation: In the case of Israel, we are talking about state organised. The official, national army is deployed to carry out the killings. In some cases, the state tries to hide behind militia groups to provide the ever-so-important last stage: denial. However, denial in the case of Israel, as we shall see, goes to a level I have not seen before.
Polarisation: “Extremists drive the groups apart.” — Living apart is a way of life in the region.
“Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda.” — There is so much of this, even shown in previous images, that it has become common knowledge. We are all Hamas. Anyone in the world who supports Palestine has been called ‘Hamas’ or ‘Hamas supporter’. At the same time, Hamas must be eliminated.
“Laws may forbid intermarriage or social interaction.” — article: Israel renews racist marriage law. Article on how intermarriage is a problem in Israel.
“Extremist terrorism targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the center…” — The word terrorist is somewhat of a mystery now, however, we do see cases of moderates being silenced as shown above.
“The dominant group passes emergency laws or decrees that grants them total power over the targeted group.” — total power over targeted group is yet again a way of life, which can be seen from the level of discrimination. In this case ‘emergency’ is thrown into question. Is Israel constantly in a state of ‘emergency’? How? Why?
“The laws erode fundamental civil rights and liberties.” — such as to life, children, water, home — again, seen from discrimination.
“Targeted groups are disarmed to make them incapable of self-defense, and to ensure that the dominant group has total control.” — the people of Palestine have been disarmed for decades, and their right to self-defense is highly questionable, even if they use peaceful means.
Preparation: “They often use euphemisms to cloak their intentions, such as referring to their goals as “ethnic cleansing,” “purification,” or “counter-terrorism.” They build armies, buy weapons and train their troops and militias. They indoctrinate the populace with fear of the victim group. Leaders often claim that “if we don’t kill them, they will kill us,” disguising genocide as self-defense.” — Israeli officials, as well as other public figures warn that we are all in danger of Palestinians, and if they don’t ‘win the conflict’ we will all be next.
Persecution: “The victim group’s most basic human rights are systematically violated through extrajudicial killings, torture and forced displacement.” — Evidence of this already presented.
“Death lists are drawn up.” — We do not have ‘death lists’ as such, however, we do know that Israel has lists like no other nation before. They use phrases like ‘eliminate all’ very frequently, hence there is a need to question if some lists are ‘death lists’.
“Their property is often expropriated. Sometimes they are segregated into ghettoes, deported to concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. They are deliberately deprived of resources such as water or food in order to slowly destroy the group.” — Palestinians practically don’t have the right to property, or they do until it is ‘needed’ for settlements. Gaza is a closed space. The news of intentional water deprivation as well as other necessities is well known.
“Children are forcibly taken from their parents.” — Shown previously.
Extermination: Demolishing a highrise residential building with people still inside is never about looking for someone. The intent here is very clear — murder.
There are no buildings that are spared.
There are many stories of children being dug up from the rubble of their homes. I find those videos too sick. I am happy that children are being saved from being buried alive, but I can’t shake the horrific feeling I get when I realise that someone buried so many children alive.
It is worth noting that according to the Genocide Convention, genocide is defined as:
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:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
© 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.
Hence, genocide is not about killing every person, it is the intent to destroy in part or as a whole one group.
Denial: This is a vital step to get away with genocide, and to carry it out again. In the case of Israel, we get a motherload like I’ve never seen before, and I have seen some lies and tactics, but this goes beyond that. And it is a stage that is more about what’s going on outside the region where genocide is taking place. So, here, I will look at what’s going on in the world.
To understand this stage better I’ve decided to create categories:
1. Diverting attention — lately, using the events of 07th of October 2023. While the events that took place on that day are horrific and are very likely a war crime, so much has been made of this, that we need to question why.
The image shook me to my core because it clearly asks us to question our humanity. And I cannot say it’s far from the truth. There is something ‘fanatical’ about this ‘do you condemn Hamas’ as if nothing else exists. This topic has been so forced, that I feel I need to do a separate article. However, I’d have to research Hamas first, because I have not heard that much about them. I have heard that they are ‘partners’ with Israel, which I find shocking. I’ve heard that they wanted their civilians killed, almost like they asked Israel to carry out genocide, but then what are they fighting for? A piece of land for a grave? That’s two square meters, underground, surely we can give them that for free? One minute they have nothing, the next minute they have billions. In short, very few things about Hamas that I came across made any sense. To be honest, I have avoided reading their statements so that I can focus on Israel. As I said: Dominant side! However, in the world, the attention Hamas has received, the assumption that anyone who supports Palestine and the freedom of Palestine is Hamas, is worrying. It’s just crazy.
2. Pressure on individuals who are expressing an opinion different from what Israel would wish
We could expect this in Israel but in the UK and other parts of the world? That’s odd.
3. Anti-Semitism — like most people, I thought anti-Semitism is equal to anti-Jews. Through this research, I found out that Semites are Jews and Arabs. However, what is fascinating is that the word might not even mean Jews, only Zionists, since we seem to be perfectly comfortable demeaning Jews who are against Zionism.
All of these Jews and many, many more around the world are anti-Smites now. How on earth did that happen?
4. Holocaust — this is the biggest irony and the one that gets to me on a deep level (for reasons I stated at the very beginning of the article). The assumption is that Israel is the state of Holocaust survivors, while Holocaust survivors raise their voices, in the face of danger, against what Israel is doing. However, the worst part is (what I would call) the blind guilt, especially in Germany. It’s got to the point where I would like to ask Germany why they support Israel, what did we miss in our lessons about brutality? If there is something we need to add, improve, or fix, to make sure that no one is blinded by guilt again, we would really like to know what that is.
5. Lies — this is a typical, nothing new, except the scale. In the case of Israel, I feel like this category should also be split into further categories. I’m not sure how or why would anyone call Israel a democracy.
Lies about what happened:
So on and so on until no one knows what’s going on. Well, we must find out, justice depends on the truth, and too many people have been killed for us to just forget about it.
Hospitals are a fair military target. Again, no idea how or why this was taken at face value especially since there were numerous invites for the UN to come a look for themselves, and after the hospitals were bombed, Israeli soldiers invaded them.
It’s a religious war! What? Free free Palestine should be enough for anyone to realise that it has nothing to do with religion and everything to do with liberating a nation. Why does this nation need liberating? However, another thing that must be noted is how Israel is using fanaticism in other countries to make their case against Palestinians.
Then we have preventing the truth, such as being upset with Social Media and the Israeli lack of control over what is posted there.
Or killing and preventing journalists from doing their job.
Manipulating the truth, such as in the video about a woman who is talking about finding her son on the floor, killed by Israelis, she says she recognised his belt. In the translation, she apparently says that she supports Israelis and that Hamas is keeping them locked in. This could also be used as further evidence of dehumanisation. The grieving mother’s voice has not only been silenced but used to praise the killers. That is brutal.
They are all terrorists — I think this is where they crossed the line for most people in the world. We just cannot believe that someone like this girl in the photo below can be a terrorist. God forbid a world where people are so dehumanised that they would believe a child like this could be any kind of threat.
‘Israel has the right to defend itself’ — this is where a universal truth is used as a lie, and, as we have seen, it is not the first time that a genocidal group has used a ‘self-defense’ argument to hide what they are doing.
In short, the ‘lies’ is just too big to cover in one article.
6. Excuses! Oh dear… this is where I could not believe what I was reading and hearing from all kinds of individuals in our public life. ‘They voted, so bombing them was fine’ — this belief isn’t just dangerous, it is horrific, ‘1000s of children were used as human shields — it’s like saying: there is a very dangerous person hiding in a nursery, and we MUST kill him now, not because he’s a danger to the children, but because he’s a danger to people miles away from here, so we will have to bomb the nursery and kill all the children because killing this man is too important. Again, going back to dehumanisation. ‘Hamas tunnels are under the buildings’ — please do your research before falling for a line like this. Think it through. Does bombing the building affect the tunnels at all? Even if it did, what were the alternatives?
7. Double standards — Israel just get’s to ignore the Rule of Law, any Law
It is no wonder people think Israel is like a spoiled little brat who has grown into a sociopath
8. Assistance from leaders of other countries, especially from the US, and Germany has already been mentioned. It could be connected to ‘blind guilt’, but to be honest, it seems there is more.
The last one claims that Hamas is engaged in genocide. To go that far is really, truly nuts. This article popped up because I know about genocide, and as I was learning about Israel it seemed to match. So I dug deeper. And then I spent days putting together just enough to show my point.
And then if we look at so many people trying to tell the other side of the story, ignoring them must take serious effort from our leaders.
I would have to conclude that this is the longest ongoing genocide I’ve ever heard of. The preparation for it has been going on for so many decades, that I find it frightening that we have not prevented it, especially considering how much money is given to Israel. Questions are popping up all on their own.
At this point, we must wonder what the ICC has been doing all these years. I have not completed my research on this, however, this article suggests that ICC might have been compromised and has assisted in the genocide. If that is the case, we have serious issues we need to address.
I cannot tell why no country has invoked the Genocide Convention yet, if any will. I do not know if ICJ or ICC will do their job. As I said, I am looking into ICC to see what the heck has been going on there. The latest I heard is that ICC is taking it up again and that there are 100s of lawyers on the case.
It is a common belief that Israel exists as a Jewish state so that Jews could find refuge there in case of persecution. What we are seeing is the very opposite of that.
If you’ve read my previous articles, you know that I do not believe that any country should have a religion — I’ve explained earler. However, leaving that aside, we must consider a very rational argument: if you want to get rid of a group, force them all in one place. Luckily, we have not seen Jews being forced to move to Israel. I would have been very much against that. However, I never thought I’d be writing an article like this.
As for the argument ‘Jews being a majority and therefore safe’, again, I’m from Bosnia. Muslims were the majority. We were not safe. We are still not safe. Hence, it is time to look at Zionism for what it is, what it has become, and wonder about the effect that the state of Israel is having not just on the region, but on the world.
Just a reminder, this article is about Israel, so the focus is on Israel as a more dominant side in the conflict. And, upon examining it, it is no longer a conflict but a genocide. The other side could be examined like this, but honestly, I don’t think there is much to say or I would have come across it by now. War crime is a war crime. From my experience, even in the case of war crime, the whole group is NOT blamed or persecuted, let alone sentenced to death. At least, that’s the way it’s been in Bosnia. Some who carried out the murders during the war, are free, have been free, and might never face court.
Also, I’ve tried to use as few sources as possible. I’m unclear on copyrights, and even though this is a not-for-profit article, I figure using fewer sources might mean I have less to worry about. But most of these have been published by numerous news agencies, as well as individuals and freelance journalists.
I haven’t mentioned even 10% of what I have, let alone what is out there. So, this will keep growing, because here are a few things that must be mentioned. You can look at these as a preview for what’s to come:
And just today, the president of the US J. Biden posted a tweet about how Israelis and Palestinians would live in peace and harmony if it were not for… Guess? Come on, guess!