Content Advisory

Prelude to Genocide

The harrowing images of death, destruction, and human suffering in Gaza since October 7 is a fitting tribute to the victims, witnesses, and experts that the Anadolu Ajansı has gathered in this volume, vividly memorializing these grim events. In the past two years, Israel’s relentless attacks have assaulted the moral sensibilities of persons of conscience throughout the world. In the process, it has illuminated the tragic experiences of the long-victimized 2.3 million Palestinian residents living together in the overcrowded, impoverished conditions of the Gaza Strip. A grotesque feature of these events comes with the awareness that more than 75% of the Gazan population were refugees since 1948 (or descendants of refugees) forced by Israeli militias to flee from their homes and villages in what became Israel in 1948. The collective trauma of this massive, forced expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians has been memorialized by Palestinians as ‘the Nakba,’ (translated as catastrophe), solemnly observed each year.

Unlike natural disasters such as earthquakes or hurricanes, the horrifying carnage in Gaza is a product of deliberate human design by the leaders of Israel. As such, these bloody attacks, carried out with the explicitly stated intentions of Israeli political leaders and military commanders, seemed to objective observers to be both vindictive and territorially rapacious. These individuals, who induced the government of Israel to these dark undertakings, are -without serious question- the most notorious perpetrators of the international crimes graphically depicted and commented upon throughout this volume. However, they rarely implement the policies they propose; these bloody tasks are delegated to nameless subordinates who remain unknown unless identified by journalists, photographers, and investigators as personally responsible for participating in documented atrocities.

The existential identification of perpetrators is not to be confused with legal, moral, and political modes of identification, each of which can be rationalized, making the subject-matter of perpetrators almost inevitably controversial and seem arbitrary. The range of criminality is considerable even if genocide is put to one side temporarily, although most genocide experts by now believe that the elements of this crime of crimes are sufficiently present, even if not in a definite form to justify treating illegally complicit enablers as perpetrators. As the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, emphasized in his Statement, recommending that the empowered judges of the ICC sub-chamber of judges issue arrest warrants for two Israeli leaders: Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant. The ICC Prosecutor of these high-profile perpetrators were accused of a series of international crimes, including Crimes Against Humanity, but not genocide. The statement of the Prosecutor set forth the following enumerated crimes as the basis of issuing arrest warrants for these two mentioned Israeli leaders on the ground that it is ‘reasonable’ to believe that the evidence available links their leadership to the following crimes:

‘Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare as a war crime contrary to article 8, 2-b (xxv) of the Statute;

Willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health contrary to article 8, 2-a (iii), or cruel treatment as a war crime contrary to article 8, 2-c (i);

Willful killing contrary to article 8, 2-a (i), or Murder as a war crime contrary to article 8, 2-c (i);

Intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population as a war crime contrary to articles 8, 2-b (i), or 8, 2-e (i);

Extermination and/or murder contrary to articles 7, 1-b and 7, 1-a, including in the context of deaths caused by starvation, as a crime against humanity;

Persecution as a crime against humanity contrary to article 7, 1-h;

Other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity contrary to article 7, 1-k.’

(References to Rome Statute that provides the legal framework within which the ICC works)

The relevant conclusion here is that even if it is granted that it is the plausibility of the genocide allegation that accounts for the intensity of controversy generated by Israel’s behavior in Gaza, there are also sufficient other serious international crimes present to identify perpetrators whose actions justify ICC arrest warrants. Even if the ICC itself refrain from issuing arrest warrants, the Prosecutor’s statement makes the case that these individuals have engaged in behavior that makes their identification as perpetrators appropriate. This is where the images of atrocity provide sufficient evidence, as reinforced by journalists, photographers, and documentary filmmakers who have witnessed and helped chronicle these incidents, to draw the central conclusion that Israel’s leaders (possibly among others) should be viewed as perpetrators. For instance, IDF snipers and their commanding officers that lethally target properly identified journalists are never punished, or even disciplined, for such acts of murder and their coverup.

There is a neglected subsidiary question. The ICC Prosecutor’s statement also recommended that arrest warrants be issued for three Hamas leaders for which there seemed to him ‘reasonable’ grounds for believing that they were responsible for planning the October 7 attack, which was widely reported as carried out in ways that resulted in war crimes and crimes against humanity. Were these Hamas leaders Perpetrators in the same sense as the Israeli leaders even if it is granted that what Hamas is alleged to have done on October 7 is consistent with independent accounts? In my judgement, it is a political and moral mistake to have merged the two sets of incriminating allegations. What makes reasonable the legal process against Israeli leaders is their genocidal language articulated at the outset of their response to the October 7 attack, the prolonged nature of their devastating attacks on civilian population and vital infrastructure of Gaza, and the growing suspicion that Israel was not primarily motivated by the announced goal of destroying Hamas but seized the occasion to expand the territorial sovereignty of Israel in ways that will incorporate occupied Palestine into sovereign Israel.

This analysis does not question the possible validity of arrest warrants issued for Hamas leaders for alleged crimes committed as part of the October 7 attacks, but it does recommend a prior international investigation to establish what actually happened and what extenuating circumstances might have existed. Most of all, it questions the equivalence implied by the merger of the two sets of allegations, viewing the genocidal context of the Israeli two-year-long assault as creating a distinctive call for accountability—one given far greater political weight when considering that Gaza is not a foreign state but land seized by Israel in the 1967 War and administered as Occupied Palestinian Territory ever since, supposedly within the framework of the Fourth Geneva Convention governing belligerent occupation.

Israel has continuously defied these legal constraints on its occupation over the course of 57 years, establishing a harsh and discriminatory regime of control that has been condemned in a series of independent reports by respected international human rights organizations (including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, as well as Israel’s own B’Tselem) as constituting the international crime of apartheid. Additionally, Israel has been widely characterized by a group of UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteurs—who are independent human rights experts—as a post-colonial example of ‘settler colonialism.’ The most relevant and convincing rationale for this delegitimizing status is the array of official and informal Israeli efforts to make Palestinians feel like persecuted strangers in their own homeland. This has left Palestinians with a stark choice: submit to Israel’s apartheid rule or seek refuge in a neighboring country, holding onto the dream of exercising their internationally recognized right of return.

Under these circumstances, the Hamas attack should be treated as a justifiable form of the right of resistance that immunizes armed struggle by an oppressed people from legal accountability. Hamas would still be accountable for international crimes if such allegations are professionally documented by impartial evidence and verified by an internationally appointed investigative commission. If such a process takes place, it might then become acceptable to recommend arrest warrants not only for Israeli leaders—for their roles in inciting violent resistance—but also for Hamas leaders for authorizing and committing prohibited acts of resistance, including hostage-taking.

Considering these events from the viewpoint of ICC practice toward perpetrators, it seems convincing to conclude that October 7 should have received entirely separate treatment from the Israeli assault that followed, with both Israeli and Hamas leaders potentially subject to arrest warrants. The retaliatory assault initiated by Israel on October 8-9 should focus on whether Israeli leaders are identifiable perpetrators to be held accountable, given their own expressions of dehumanizing and extremist intentions and the ongoing, unprecedented devastation of all aspects of Palestinian viability in Gaza—a destruction that poses a mounting threat to the collective and individual survival of all Gazans. Possessing such evidence, there is no acceptable excuse for delaying a maximum effort to proceed coercively—through legal and political means—to discredit and hold accountable Israeli perpetrators. Such legal action need not await an ICJ decision on genocide, however important that decision may be for the development of international law.

It should be noted that U.S. President Joe Biden was outraged by the ICC’s treatment of Israel’s retaliatory violence as equivalent to the terrorist attack by Hamas. This reaction reverses the pictorial narrative that emerges from a perusal of this volume, which leaves the reader with the strong impression that it is Israel’s crimes that have been principally responsible for the human suffering and the genocidal intensification of political violence. This context highlights the error of the ICC Prosecutor in placing the allegations against Hamas on the same level as those against Israel and its complicit aiders and abettors.

The Relevance of Complicity

There are perpetrators beyond the three identified in the still unresolved ICC drama prompted by the proposed arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. Other sovereign governments have facilitated Israel’s actions by providing indispensable material and symbolic support. Many government officials outside of Israel—as well as certain international institutions, such as the European Commission—knowingly and openly offered complicit support to Israel over the past two years, despite having access to incriminating evidence and numerous witnesses, including journalists on the ground in Gaza. This should have provided full awareness of the criminal—and quite possibly genocidal—character of the Gaza assault. Such individuals are certainly Perpetrators in the realistic sense of engaging in actions that contribute to the commission of international crimes.

The identification of Israel’s leaders as primary Perpetrators cannot be disconnected from these secondary Perpetrators whose complicity by way of aiding and abetting facilitates the underlying pattern of criminality. It can be said from the outlook of street protests, there is no doubt that a strong consensus of activists and civil society experts regard the political leaders of the US, Germany, France, and the UK as Perpetrators of genocide from political and moral perspectives with more doubts surrounding whether such individuals should be treated as legal Perpetrators.

The identification of Israel’s leaders as primary perpetrators cannot be disconnected from these secondary perpetrators, whose complicity—through aiding and abetting—facilitates the underlying pattern of criminality. From the perspective of street protests, there is little doubt that a strong consensus among activists and civil society experts regards the political leaders of the U.S., Germany, France, and the UK as perpetrators of genocide in political and moral terms, though it is doubtful whether these individuals should also be treated as legal perpetrators.

The symbolic capstone of U.S. complicity in the crimes against the Palestinian people was the formal invitation and institutional welcome extended to Benjamin Netanyahu during a celebratory event in Washington on July 24, 2024, highlighted by an invited speech delivered to a joint session of the U.S. Congress, honoring the Prime Minister of Israel—depicted in this volume as the prime Perpetrator. Should the leaders of the two Congressional chambers who issued the invitation not also be treated as perpetrators, despite their distance from the direct implementation of Israel’s criminal policies?

At the same time, the motivation to hold individuals internationally accountable for crimes associated with governments and intergovernmental actors appears predominantly symbolic—aimed at encouraging the repudiation of certain patterns of behavior—and only secondarily focused on punishing individuals for their wrongdoing. The Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Trials after World War II chose to limit the accountability of perpetrators to surviving political and military leaders over whom they had custody, and in secondary prosecutions targeting those substantively engaged in wrongdoing, rather than those who merely framed or implemented broad policy directives. In essence, ideological supporters of German racism or Japanese imperial policies were not formally treated as perpetrators. The practical justification for limiting accountability in this way was to avoid criminalizing the entire nation of Germany or Japan—an outcome the victors believed would complicate the transition from war to peace. Such reasoning supports the argument for placing strong limits on the legal identification of perpetrators.

A Concluding Remark

It is my hope that the publication of this volume of chilling images of atrocity and suffering will strengthen the struggle of the residents of Occupied Palestine to survive and, at the very least, exercise their right of self-determination. I also hope that such imagery will help people everywhere make use of this compelling evidence to identify and discredit the perpetrators of Israel’s integrated criminal assault, without being distracted by individual atrocity incidents—however horrifying they may be—or by false narratives of self-defense and security.

It is equally important to grasp the genocidal context of Israel’s response, even in the absence of a formal legal finding to that effect. Political and moral perceptions—shaping the most reliable public discourse—reached this conclusion months ago. When the International Court of Justice (ICJ) eventually delivers its ruling on whether the crime of genocide is attributable to Israel, it will shape how legal proceedings move forward against individuals confirmed as perpetrators. Given the urgency and magnitude of the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, there is every reason not to wait for the slow processes of the ICJ. We already possess the evidence needed for a responsible campaign against both primary and secondary perpetrators, and to support the expectation that they will not be replaced by individuals who continue to endorse Israel’s policies of the past two years. We should also remember that the Genocide Convention is concerned not only with punishment but with prevention and the prohibition of incitement to commit genocide—a responsibility that extends beyond governments and the UN to people the world over.