Genocide as the Solution to "Terrorism" in the Occupied
Territories?
Edward S. Herman
ZNet Commentary
http://www.zmag.org
Aug 11 2001
The word "genocide" is used very loosely and irresponsibly these
days; Sebastian Unger could see it in Kosovo by looking at the
body of one Albanian alleged to be a victim of Serb
paramilitaries ("A Different Kind of Killing," NYT Magazine, Feb.
27, 2000), and the Hague Tribunal has just found Bosnian Serb
General Radislav Krstic guilty of that crime for his alleged role
in the killing of Muslim soldiers in Srebrenica in 1995 (Muslim
women and children were admittedly not killed but expelled from
the town). The latter finding was grounded in part in the wording
of the 1948 Nuremberg Convention's definition of genocide,
according to which genocide is the attempt to eliminate a people
in whole or "in part." The last phrase leaves open the
possibility that killing one person with racist or political
motives could be interpreted as genocide--presumably as part of a
campaign, or demonstrating an intent, to kill them all (per
Sebastian Unger). Interestingly, the Hague Tribunal decision on
General Krstic cited as authority for its narrow definition of
genocide the UN's condemnation of the 1982 massacre of
Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila as genocide, a mass killing
carried out under the direction of Israel's current Prime
Minister, Ariel Sharon.
The word genocide is only meaningful, however, if applied to mass
killings that are part of a systematic program of eliminating an
identifiable ethnic, political, religious or racial group. Sadly,
this meaningful usage may have application to the escalating
violence in Israel's occupied territories, where the conditions
under which genocide occurs are frighteningly close to being met.
One condition is an extreme imbalance in the forces in conflict
that allows one party to kill easily and on a large scale without
threat of proportional retaliation. A second condition is that
the people of the militarily superior power feel themselves to be
special, superior, the chosen people, and those with whom they
are struggling are viewed as inferior, dangerous, and even
subhuman. A third condition is that the militarily dominant group
wants something from the weaker party that the weaker party is
not willing to grant, so that a conflict grows and feeds on
itself. A final condition is that no outside force exercises
constraint on the use of violence by the militarily superior
party, let alone furthers that violence by arms aid and
diplomatic support, so that the superior group is able to kill
essentially without limit.
The first condition is clearly and fully met in the current
struggle between Israel and the Palestinians in the occupied
territories. Israel has one of the strongest armies in the world,
a great air force, thousands of tanks, and the most up-to-date
weapons arsenal suitable for large-scale killing, even including
nuclear weapons. They have been armed to the teeth and trained by
the U.S. military establishment, and that establishment stands
behind the Israeli military in a solid alliance. On the other
side, the Palestinians have no air force or tanks, and have only
small arms--and stones--with which to contest a great military
power. Their external support from the nearby Arab countries is
almost entirely nominal, most of them dependent on U.S. aid and
other support which has neutralized them and prevented any real
solidarity with the Palestinians under siege.
The second condition is also fully met. The Jewish state has long
treated its Arab inhabitants as inferiors, with Jews the "chosen
people" now "redeeming the land" in accord with religious truths
(see Israel Shahak, Jewish History, Jewish Religion [Pluto,
1994]). In a 1934 book, Zionist leader Joachim Prinz even
congratulated Adolf Hitler for his building a state based on "the
principle of the purity of nation and race." The record of
denigration of the Palestinians by Israeli leaders as
"grasshoppers" and "terrorists" goes back a long way, as does
ruthless treatment of these inferiors and discussions of ways of
getting rid of them by pushing them out directly or doing this
indirectly by making their lives unbearable. Military superiority
has exacerbated the feeling of racist superiority and
ruthlessness. It may be recalled that the "liberal" Defense
Minister Yitzhak Rabin instructed the Israeli security forces
during Intifada 1 that they might enter Palestinian homes and
"break bones" of the residents without fear of punishment.
Things have worsened since then, and observers from abroad now
report regularly (mainly on e-mail and outside the mainstream
media) on how Israelis want more forcible action against the
"terrorists," widely refer to the Palestinians with angry
contempt as "animals," and how the police treat Palestinians with
the same spirit as the German Waffen SS treated Jews. U.S. Jewish
visitor Rebecca Elswit, recently watching the Jewish crowd crying
"death to the Arabs" as the police dragged terrified and bleeding
Arab children to paddy wagons, broke down and screamed at the
police as they twisted the arm of one child till it broke. She
was assured by one religious woman, however, that these were just
"animals" ("Who Are These People? My People?," July 31, 2001).
The third condition is also fully met. The Israelis want the
Palestinians to accept the settlers' gains in the occupied
territories, the Israeli takeover of much of East Jerusalem, its
road network that has helped make the residual occupied
territories a set of economically unviable and unconnected
bantustans, Israeli control of the water resources of the
occupied territories, and complete Israeli military domination in
the interest of "Israeli security." Having been ground down
steadily under Oslo and the "peace process" for years, the
Palestinians cannot buy this and must resist in the interest of
elementary justice, pride, economic needs, and their own minimal
"security" interests. As Israelis do not recognize these rights
of the grasshoppers, the grasshoppers' resistance is intolerable
and grasshoppers must be treated accordingly. This vicious circle
has as its limit genocide.
The fourth condition is the only one that is problematic and that
produces some vestige of hope, but even here the picture is
distressing. U.S. officials have given, and continue to give,
Israel essentially unconditional support for its long-term
process of ethnic cleansing and "redeeming the land." They have
accepted the Israeli designation of any Palestinian resistance as
"terrorism," given priority to Israeli "security," and ignored or
vetoed any application of international law to Israel's
misbehavior as an occupying power. They have also aided Israel
with loans and arms, and even in the midst of Intifada 2 engaged
in training programs that would help the Israelis control and
kill Palestinian resisters. They have made not the slightest
effort to bring justice to the region, so that in all respects
they have encouraged Israel's reliance on force and its efforts
to break the resistance in the occupied territories.
This has been reflected in mainstream media performance, which
has made Israel the victim and normalized its low-intensity
warfare and ethnic cleansing at Palestinian expense (see my
"Israel's Approved Ethnic Cleansing, Part 3," Z Magazine, June
2001). Israel's demolition of more than a thousand Palestinian
homes, large-scale land seizures, and huge road construction
program in the occupied territories, under the Oslo "peace
process," all in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, have
been invisible in the U.S. mainstream media, along with the
steady increase in brutalization, destruction of Palestinian
crops and olive trees, and closures that have made the indigenous
and victimized inhabitants desperate.
This has served to make Israel's still more extreme violence
under Intifada 2 appear reasonable and mere "retaliation." And if
the media can swallow and rationalize the shooting to kill of
hundreds of unarmed protestors, and the severe beating and
killing of many thousands of others, as well as the destruction
of roads, homes and other civilian structures, if and when Sharon
and his forces go further and attack with full force and kill as
he killed at Qibya and Sabra and Shatila, will the media not
continue to maintain that this is "retaliation" for "terrorism"
and that the Palestinians brought it on by not accepting the
reasonable offer of the "moderate" Barak?
Germany could operate an Auschwitz because the West did not give
high priority to what was happening to the marginalized Jewish
people in that era. Officials knew what was happening, and so did
the major news media, but they didn't choose to get people
aroused to such a cause. Today the facts seep out more easily,
but the dominant powers and their media are still doing a fine
job of keeping publicity regarding crimes against the
marginalized sufficiently low and in a sufficiently apologetic
frame to allow them to be carried out to frightening levels.
Today, Ariel Sharon, the butcher of Sabra and Shatila and Qibya,
has a relatively free hand to kill, thanks in good part to U.S.
policy and media collaboration. If, as seems very likely, he
unleashes the full force of the Israeli military machine on the
Palestinian people, U.S. officials and the U.S. mainstream media
will bear a heavy responsibility as facilitators of genocide.
