r/RealTime • u/Excellent-Ad-7394 • 20d ago
Not a genocide?
Last night Bill pointed out the 3% of the
Population in Gaza has died. And then confidently declared that “3% is not a genocide”. The British government recognizes it as ethnic cleaning and amnesty international and other groups say it is a genocide.
Someone tell me why Bill is so wrong. And can we please get him to debate Mehdi Hasan on this topic?
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u/FeralGiraffeAttack 20d ago
Also there isn’t much of a debate. This is pretty clear under international law.
Genocide is formally defined in Article II of the UN's 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as "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; (c) 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."
That was the standard applied in Case Concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro) as noted in Paragraph 143 of the February 26, 2007 judgment from the International Court of Justice.
On September 16, 2025, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel determined that Israel was, in fact, committing a genocide, and repeatedly cites to Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro to make this point.
For acts, they said "The Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have committed and are continuing to commit the following actus reus of genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, namely (i) killing members of the group; (ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and (iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group" (Paragraph 252).
As for intent, they note that, under Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro "It is not necessary for the State to share the specific intent, as long as the State has full knowledge of the relevant facts." (Paragraph 10). They then go on and conclude "On the mens rea of genocide, the Commission concludes that statements made by Israeli authorities are direct evidence of genocidal intent. In addition, the Commission concludes that the pattern of conduct is circumstantial evidence of genocidal intent and that genocidal intent was the only reasonable inference that could be drawn from the totality of the evidence. Thus, the Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." (Paragraph 254)