This page has archives. Sections older than60 days may be auto-archived byLowercase sigmabot III.
You are an administrator, so you may disregard the message below
You are seeing this because of the limitations of {{If extended confirmed}} and {{If admin}}You can hide this message box by adding the following to a new line of yourcommon.css page:
.ECR-edit-request-warning{display:none;}
Stop: You may only use this page to create an edit request
You are not anextended-confirmed user, soyou must not edit or discuss this topic anywhere on Wikipedia except to make anedit request. (Additional details are in the message box just below this one.)
The following restrictions apply to everyone editing this article:
All participants in formal discussions (RfCs,RMs, etc) within the area of conflict are urged to keep their comments concise, and are limited to 1,000 words per discussion. Citations and quotations (whether from sources, Wikipedia articles, Wikipedia discussions, or elsewhere) do not count toward the word limit.
You must be logged-in andextended-confirmed to edit or discuss this topic on any page (except formaking edit requests, provided they are not disruptive)
You may not make more than 1 revert within 24 hours (except inlimited circumstances)
This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel is aformer featured article. Please see the links under Article milestones below for its original nomination page (for older articles, checkthe nomination archive) and why it was removed.
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Israel, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofIsrael on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.IsraelWikipedia:WikiProject IsraelTemplate:WikiProject IsraelIsrael-related
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Jewish history, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofJewish history on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.Jewish historyWikipedia:WikiProject Jewish historyTemplate:WikiProject Jewish historyJewish history-related
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Palestine, a team effort dedicated to building and maintaining comprehensive, informative and balanced articles related to the geographicPalestine region, thePalestinian people and theState of Palestine on Wikipedia. Join us by visitingthe project page, where you can add your name to thelist of members where you can contribute to thediscussions.PalestineWikipedia:WikiProject PalestineTemplate:WikiProject PalestinePalestine-related
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Judaism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofJudaism-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.JudaismWikipedia:WikiProject JudaismTemplate:WikiProject JudaismJudaism
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Countries, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofcountries on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.CountriesWikipedia:WikiProject CountriesTemplate:WikiProject Countriescountry
This article is within the scope ofWikiProject Asia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage ofAsia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can jointhe discussion and see a list of open tasks.AsiaWikipedia:WikiProject AsiaTemplate:WikiProject AsiaAsia
This article is within the scope of theWikiProject Western Asia, which collaborates on articles related toWestern Asia. To participate, you can edit this article or visit theproject page for more details.Western AsiaWikipedia:WikiProject Western AsiaTemplate:WikiProject Western AsiaWestern Asia
This article iswritten inBritish English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour,travelled,centre,defence,artefact,analyse) and some terms may be different or absent from othervarieties of English. According to therelevant style guide, this should not be changed withoutbroad consensus.
This article has been viewed enough times to make it onto theall-time Top 100 list. It has had 74 million views since December 2007.
This article has been viewed enough times in a single year to make it into theTop 50 Report annual list. This happened in2023, when it received 13,344,140 views.
This article has been viewed enough times in a single week to appear in theTop 25 Report14 times. The weeks in which this happened:
Why is Jerusalem listed as Israel's capital in the infobox?
Israel declares Jerusalem to be its capital, and has its seat of government there. However, the lack of international recognition is notable, hence the subtext was added "(limited recognition)" as the result ofthis RfC. For further information seeStatus of Jerusalem.
The RfC on this article established the current wording, which remains consensus here. The other RfC you reference dealt with a specific sentence in a different article and does not apply to this lead section.Triggerhippie4 (talk)17:22, 25 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Do not confuse neutrality with giving undue weight to fringe or minority views. After an RFC that lasted several weeks, consensus was reached to state in Wikipedia’s voice that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. This decision will of course remain contested, but that is not unusual — nearly every major topic on Wikipedia is. The claim that this only applies to one article carries no weightCinaroot (talk)16:55, 26 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The RfC means that we can mention the genocide in wikivoice sitewide (seethis section of the Gaza genocide talk page for clarification)—this is why the main page now includes it in ongoing. Also see the FAQ on that same page:
The term "Gaza Genocide" is supported by a sufficient number of reliable sources. It is the consensus, not an opinion, that it is a genocide.
You might not be aware. But its decided on a recent RFCTalk:Gaza_genocide#RfC_on_first_sentence to use Wiki-voice to report on Gaza genocide. It ran for months and over 93 people participated. And we must respect that recent RFC.
You may look atGaza genocide FAQ : It states "It isthe consensus, not an opinion, that it is a genocide."
When discussion hasended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
After two months ofdiscussion - consensus was reached to phrase the opening in Wikipedia’s voice that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. SeeGaza genocide
Should similar wording be applied to this article?
Current lede : Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism—along with accusations that it has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza—from human rights organisations and UN officials.
Proposed : Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and its occupation of the Palestinian territories has drawn sustained international criticism; experts, human-rights organisations and UN officials have described them as war crimes and crimes against humanity.Cinaroot (talk)05:54, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Update Per GothicGolem29’s feedback, we can use also use the wording below. This does not change the scope of the RfC—it remains focused on whether to state in Wikipedia’s voice that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
"Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war. Israeli actions toward Palestinians—including its occupation of the Palestinian territories—have drawn sustained international criticism; human-rights organisations and UN officials have described Israel’s conduct as war crimes and crimes against humanity."Cinaroot (talk)05:06, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Clarity needed. Is this the proposal for an addition or the reworking of extant sentences/paras. And where and how exactly (text) are these proposed to be added/changed.Gotitbro (talk)06:43, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support the Gaza genocide RfC established that we talk about the genocide in wikivoice so this change makes sense as this also applies to other articlesLaura240406 (talk)13:16, 4 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose I am neutral to leaning oppose on the first part as the genocide allegations are contentious but what swings me fully to oppose is changing allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity to specfically be about the occupation. That is not an improvement it is better to state the full allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity more generally than specfically mention the occupation.GothicGolem29(Talk)01:11, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Its actually attributed to experts, human rights org and UN officials an i have used the word `described them as` - i think thats very neutral representation. If others oppose to that part - can be rewritten.Cinaroot (talk)02:16, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even when you atribute it to those orgs experts and officials having the text be just about the occupution is going backwards from the text mentioning the general allegations which will cover more of the allegations than just the ones about the occupation.GothicGolem29(Talk)18:29, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point. I don't mind changing to this.
Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza. Israeli actions toward Palestinians—including its occupation of the Palestinian territories—have drawn sustained international criticism; human-rights organisations and UN officials have described Israel’s conduct as war crimes and crimes against humanity.Cinaroot (talk)04:57, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for adding an alternate proposal.I am assuming the Gaza is a typo given your official alternate statement above so on this alternate proposal I would beVery weak oppose as I cannot support given my concerns on including the contentious Genocide allegations in Wikivoice but given all my other concerns are alleviated and given the relatively recent RFC consensus on another page that has not been overturned it is is only a very weak oppose.GothicGolem29(Talk)13:13, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose Not in wikivoice. The ICJ hasn't even ruled that Israel committed genocide during the Gaza war, so it is not up to wikipedia editors in the I-P editing area to rule in wikivoice that Israel has committed genocide.Wafflefrites (talk)03:56, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The ICJ has not ruled anything yet, and the current sentence more accurately describes the situation than the proposed one. Also, the proposed sentence implies that all of Israel's actions against Palestinians constitute genocide, a claim that was determined to not have consensus atPalestinian genocide accusation.Nehushtani (talk)06:46, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There was no consensus for a page move because it discussed genocide allegations from different times. Here it says `genocide against Palestinians in Gaza`, which is accurate and supported by the RFC from the Gaza genocide.Cinaroot (talk)06:51, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the conclusion of the Gaza genocide RfC to state the genocide in Wikivoice. There is a strong consensus amongst experts that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Wikipedia does not require a ruling from the ICJ to call something a genocide (see e.g.Rohingya genocide) but instead reflects what RS say.EvansHallBear (talk)07:05, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. The proposed wording is editorial and too far from NPOV, afounding pillar of Wikipedia. It does not even mention, for instance, that genocide accusations (which should be mentioned) draw their fair share of criticism too. AlsoProcedural oppose because the proposition does not mention if this wording should be introduced in lead or body. The "current" wording already mentions genocide.Place Clichy (talk)13:37, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Reply - note that it is already clear this is for the lead. Because the text that's quoted and being discussed here is from the lead (it took me 10 seconds to verify). So that's what would be replaced. And there's a discussion immediately above titled "...lede" -Darouet (talk)02:07, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Then that is definitely not language suitable for a lead sentence perall that Wikipedia stands for. The current phrasing seen in the article (3rd paragraph of the introduction) is: "Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained internationalcriticism, along with accusations from human rights organisations and UN officials that it has committedwar crimes, crimes against humanity, andgenocide against the Palestinians during the Gaza war." This sentence clearly attributes the accusations, which are sustained but still controversial. It is much better than unattributed "Israel is comitting genocide" in wikivoice. One may compare how the introduction of articleRwanda mentions genocide, as that country is probably defined by genocide at a whole other level.
Also, I don't really get why we would use harsher wording for the present-day Gaza horrors than for the Nakba 2 sentences prior to that, which is IMHO far worse in terms of genocide, if things can be compared.Place Clichy (talk)16:21, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - the current wording is clearer. The proposed wording makes the genocide and the occupation sound like two related but distinct things, but the genocide stems from the occupation practices and is an aspect of the occupation that has received particular criticism - the current wording better reflects that relationship. Also agree with some of the other oppose votes that the ICJ hasn't made a ruling on the genocide yet, so it is probably worth being careful what is given due prominence in the lead and what isn't.NHCLS (talk)20:10, 5 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - There is insufficient evidence to substantiate the assertion that Israel has committed genocide. Given the ongoing and highly contested nature of this issue, introducing language referring to genocide in the article at this stage would likely be perceived as a politically driven action.BassiStone (talk)15:40, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is insufficient evidence to substantiate the assertion that Israel has committed genocide - This is not the consensus of Wikipedia editors.See here.
introducing language referring to genocide in the article at this stage would likely be perceived as a politically driven action - There is no policy basis for avoiding making changes that could be perceived as politically driven.Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk)15:56, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
On your first point my response is - Argumentum ad populum.
On your second point - You are correct but it's misapplied, since if this is a genocide in Gaza or not is not yet a settled matter. Objectivity and Neutrality. The article must maintain an objective, neutral tone, providing balanced coverage of the topic and avoiding advocacy or politically charged language.BassiStone (talk)16:37, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
if this is a genocide in Gaza or not is not yet a settled matter - I defer again to the RfC which addresses all your arguments. If you disagree with that RfC, then please open a new discussion to challenge its findings rather than relitigating the argument here.
I would argue that your reasoning misapplies key terms and relies on circular logic, compounded by an argumentum ad populum. The claim that Israel is committing genocide because it has been concluded that Israel committed genocide presupposes the very point in question. Given that credible sources disagree and the issue remains actively debated globally, Wikipedia editors cannot act as arbiters of truth. Our task is to follow reliable sources and represent only what can be verifiably established, that is our foremost principle.
The burden of evidence here lay with the one who wants to add genocide to the Israel article on Wikipedia, Big claims require big evidence, not just a small selection Wikipedia editors with no more of a leg to stand on then the quality of sources they've used.BassiStone (talk)22:03, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The opinions of Wikipedia editors are irrelevant. We follow the sources. And there are a significant number of sources that reject that Israel's actions constitute genocide.SuperPianoMan9167 (talk)16:55, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, since when did this contentious topic stop being contentious? If we decided that everyone agrees there's a genocide and that everyone else is not reliable then I suggest to make a larger move altogether and completely remove this from the contentious topic area - changing every article about the topic accordingly. We should make an RFC about the entire wiki, not on a slow item by item list.Bar Harel (talk)22:34, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support: There is an academic consensus that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. On top of that, there has already been an RfC for theGaza genocide article, where the community consensus came out to be in favor of stating the genocide to be in wikivoice. —EarthDude (Talk)21:02, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support saying Israel has committed genocide in wikivoice, but open to different wordings. Theoverwhelming majority of scholarly sources affirm that Israel has committed genocide. Over the course of months an enormous amount of sources have been compiled (Template:Expert opinions in the Gaza genocide debate) and it is an utter violation ofWP:FALSEBALANCE to give equal weight to "Israel has committed genocide" vs "Israel has not committed genocide".VR(Pleaseping on reply)02:18, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:Vice regent Comment: that table is just a collection of WP editor selections, not a particularly significant percentage of the voiced views and not representative of anything in particular. Also, some voices got listed multiple times so folks may misunderstand how many are present. See also the RFC atGaza genocide about saying there is no cWP:CONSENSUS on saying there is expert consensushere CheersMarkbassett (talk)19:10, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mark, it's a bit disingenuous to refer to the template asjust a collection of WP editor selections, not a particularly significant percentage of the voiced views and not representative of anything in particular. We have a pretty good reason to think it represents a good survey of the evidence: namely that reliable sources have said so.
Writting in theForward, Shira Klein, chair of history at Chapman University, said that
The attacks by the ADL and Congress on Wikipedia purport to protect Jews, but in fact have nothing to do with antisemitism, and everything to do with controlling the narrative about Israel. But Wikipedia’s processes around that narrative are admirable in their strenuous research. Wikipedians, for instance, compiled a meticulous survey of more than 200 statements by experts — scholars, human rights agencies, international courts and more — on whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. No academic has curated such a thorough list, certainly not the ADL, which continues to deny a growing consensus among experts that Israel is committing genocide. — Shira Klein[1]
Which would be an issue if anyone proposed including the template in the article. ThankfullyWP:NOR saysThis policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards.CamAnders (talk)10:46, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's OK to postWP:SYNTH andWP:OR on talk pages, but it's still SYNTH and OR. Some Wikipedia editors put together a list of sources. That's OK, but the list not a reliable source, and it shouldn't be treated as fact, not even in this discussion. For example, it's unclear according to which criteria the list was assembled. Were there criteria for inclusion or exclusion? Did someone perform a thorough meta-analysis of certain journals and other works? If so, which ones? And so on. Since this is Wikipedia, it's reasonable to assume that the list grew "organically", without a clear strategy and without clear criteria. Basically, whenever people happened to find a source they deemed useful, they added it to the list... Given these issues, the purported percentages of opinions for and against the classification as genocide are not very meaningful. —Chrisahn (talk)00:11, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
For myself, as I focus on articles published in academic literature, its searching through academic databases and repositories for ["gaza"+"genocide"], ["palestine"+"genocide"], and ["israel"+"genocide"] (across multiple languages) post October 2023, and then manually checking the items for weight of publication outlet and whether it actually is discussing the question of whether there is a genocide. Beyond the current list I have a log of ~400 other items to work through from 2024 to September 2025. The list is for use in discussion on Wikipedia, to make it easier for editors to access statements and sources that are relevant to the sorts of discussions that regularly occur atTalk:Gaza genocide. The list has also been referenced by multiple external outlets. --Cdjp1 (talk)20:15, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As a note on the languages I have conducted the searches in: English, German, Dutch, French, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Polish, and Japanese. --Cdjp1 (talk)20:17, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This method is likely to be biased towards works that accuse Israel of genocide. For example, it may ignore sources by military historians that compare the Gaza war to other wars. Such sources may not mention the word "genocide", but they may find that the war is similar to others in certain aspects, e.g. thecivilian casualty ratio, which is relevant for the question whether a war should be called a genocide. Another example: Scholars of international law who analyze the Gaza war may come to the conclusion that Israel's actions are within the limits of these laws. Such works would be very relevant for the questions we're discussing, but your method will ignore them in case they don't use the word "genocide". —Chrisahn (talk)22:00, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In assessing whether something is a case of genocide, it is somewhat important for the individuals engaging in the assessment to use the word "genocide". The issue with your suggestion is that we would have to assume they hold a position of "not a genocide" as opposed to not taking a position, or even possibly viewing it as a case of genocide just that such assessment is not the focus of their current article. I do not want to guess at the positions of academics and put words in their mouths as have so many others with regards to this issue. The method used works it does not require us to guess what position the individual has, as they will be explicit in it, whether that be yes, no, or neutral. --Cdjp1 (talk)22:30, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There may well be cases that are unclear, but if a source says "overall, Israel's actions in the conflict are within the limits of international law", that would certainly be relevant and should be counted as "not a genocide", and yet your method completely ignores it.
This is actually a common mistake that I've seen before in Wikipedia discussions. People often argue that "to find out whether many sources say X, just search for sources that contain the word X". Of course, that ignores all sources that use different words but may be highly relevant.
For example, if we want to find out whether the Hiroshima bombing is considered an act of genocide, we could search for works that contain the words "Hiroshima" and "genocide", and I bet we would find quite a few. But we would miss all the sources that say things like "the bombing was justified", "the bombing was not a war crime" or "the bombing ultimately saved many lives", and so on.
In conclusion: Methods like that are flawed. They produce biased results. And we don't even know how biased, because we don't know which sources we are excluding. Maybe the bias is rather small, maybe it's huge. But we can be sure there is a bias. —Chrisahn (talk)01:35, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to have gone from arguing againstWP:SYNTH to engaging in a rather risky form of it:combin[ing] different parts of one source to state or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by the source.WillowCity(talk)01:41, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Giventhese linked statistics of scholarly opinions, the frequency of reliable academic sources that consider Israel's current actions justified (here just 4%) seem comparatively very limited, but feel free to add them if you find them. Many editors, with very different viewpoints regarding this topic area, have contributed to the list in question.David A (talk)04:04, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an interesting discussion.
Cdjp1:In assessing whether something is a case of genocide, it is somewhat important for the individuals engaging in the assessment to use the word "genocide" - I agree with this.
Chrisahn:If a source says "Israel's actions in the conflict are within the limits of international law", it's highly relevant to the debate whether Israel is committing genocide - But I also agree with this.
I think thatChrisahn's criticism is valid. This is a methodological limitation of the list that affects its accuracy. It also seems plausible at face value that this word search (Gaza/Palestine + Genocide) would bias in favor of claims denying a genocide occurred because it excludes articles saying Israel didn't violate international law, didn't commit war crimes, etc.
However,David A raises a good point that scholarly opinion statistics such as the one he linked, as well as theIAGS being 86% of voters in favor of there being a genocide as well asother sources, strongly imply there is scholarly consensus. So the findings of the list align with other statistics about consensus.
Here are some conclusions I'm making based on this discussion:
Chrisahn raises a good concern about methodological criticisms in the list that slightly undermine its findings and probably imply a genocide-affirmation bias.
However, we are not including the % of experts concluding there is/isn't genocide from the list in articles. It is simply one source in addition to many others that support the presence of consensus/Wikivoice on Gaza genocide in talk page discussions.
So the list should serve as a general guide for claiming there is or isn't consensus so long as we keep the bias in mind.
However, the list is so overwhelmingly affirmative (and aligns with statistics about consensus) there is a genocide that I don't think it's plausibleChrisahn's concerns would make enough of a difference that the list, should all bias hypothetically be removed, wouldnot affirm that there is a genocide.
Therefore I think the list is due in this discussion, but I do think we should A) keep in mind possible genocide-affirming bias in its findings and B) explore options to expand the search criteria so that we can alleviate this bias and improve the list's veracity.
How I collect sources is not the only way sources are added to the list. The 22 others who have also added sources to the list will be using methods that are not the same as mine, and if anyone has concerns about items missing from the list, as I have repeatedly stated and requested,provide help by contributing to the Template. --Cdjp1 (talk)23:27, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I imagine it would not be hard to craft search criteria that captures recent scholarship on Israel's (non)compliance with IL. And I think the fact that itwould be so easy should encourage anyone so inclined to search out those articles and add them to the list--I think that would be more productive than debating methodology.WillowCity(talk)03:57, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, and no, as that is additional effort that I don't care for. Items will be added when I have reviewed them. Most can easily be found with the simple instructions I have detailed, and using any academic library, or public repository/speacialised search engine, such as JSTOR or Google Scholar. As I stated, this is just how I am grabbing entries to include, as Alexandraaaacs1989 pointed out I'm not the only one adding to the Template, and anyone can add material. So should you wish to add material please do, I have repeatedly asked people across multiple discussions to contribute to the Template so it is more comprehensive in what it captures, but unfortunately there are only a tiny handful of us who have decided to actually put the effort in. --Cdjp1 (talk)09:12, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support, per Laura240406, TheSilksongPikmin, and EvansHallBear. It doesn't do to have inconsistency in framing across articles. We are well beyond mere "accusations", as the current framing would have it, and have reached the stage wherecommissions of inquiry are making findings, where scholarly opinion is overwhelming, where NGOs in Israel, Palestine and abroad have reached the same conclusion. Time to call aWP:SPADE a spade.WillowCity(talk)02:20, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I also just want to expand on my above comment, to emphasize that we should not adopt a "Palestine exception" to WP's coverage of genocide. Why should Israel be given preferential treatment over the governments of (e.g.)Myanmar orSudan orTurkey orSerbia? These are also cases where culpable state parties (and, sometimes, their allies) deny responsibility (or the occurrence of genocide, as the case may be), where the weight of scholarly opinion is one-sided... I have yet to be persuaded that we should depart from this practice here, or that the practice should be revised merely to validate the Palestine exception.WillowCity(talk)17:42, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Many of these sources are wholly unreliable. There were some who decided it was genocide within 2-3 weeks of the October 7 attacks. And others who subsequently said it started on October 7. By no stretch of the imagination can such be considered credible or reliable, as they had already made up their mind and were confirming their own biases. ←Metallurgist (talk)23:20, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is a source less reliable because they correctly identified something before others? Many of the signs were certainly there quite early on, if you consider (e.g.)this Analysis Framework from the Office of the UN Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide.WillowCity(talk)02:44, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. In my view, an apparent scholarly consensus or statements from human rights organizations do not clear the very high bar needed for Wikivoice. In particular, finding statements which support this characterization ignores the fact that many non-ideological groups have not formed a verdict and thus would not outright deny that Israel is committing a genocide. Those groups should also be considered in claims of broad consensus. For example, in this case neither the ICC or ICJ - currently considered the central legal authorities on such matters - have directly accused Israel's government of genocide/failing to prevent a genocide as they have in previous cases like Rwanda and Srebrenica (ICJ merely made the verdict that Gaza's Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide). Most of the world's governments likewise have not accused Israel of genocide, and many outright deny it.Michaelas10 (talk)02:52, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We are not reopening the debate over whether the Gaza genocide should appear in Wikipedia’s voice — that issue was settled in a recent, well-attended RfC. Even after Jimbo’s statement, theconsensus remains not to revisit that discussion, as editors spent months carefully reaching it.Cinaroot (talk)03:01, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Even if that close means that discussion cannot be revisited on the Gaza genocide page(which I have my doubts unless there is a moratorium) it would not mean editors cannot reference it here and given this RFC is about including it in Wikivoice on this page I would have been surprised if points on that did not come up.GothicGolem29(Talk)03:36, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The main subject (perpetrator ) here is Israel — so if a local RfC on the Gaza genocide concluded that Israel committed genocide, that determination applies in this article as well. While it may be true that a local consensus in one place or time doesn’t override another elsewhere, that principle doesn’t apply in this case. Because it make no sense.Cinaroot (talk)04:45, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. If consensus is found here to not include genocide as it is contentious or the kind of reasoning we are discussing(a preety big if ) that could possibly apply that consensus to this page as a consensus for this page. And in my view certainly the discussion can and will be reopened on this page given the proposal regardless of the final outcome.GothicGolem29(Talk)12:50, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The lack of ICJ ruling was discussed several times in prior Gaza genocide RfCs, most thoroughlyhere. In summary, Wikipedia is not bound by the decision of the ICJ but by what RS say. Requiring an ICJ ruling would mean that we couldn't, for example, call theCambodian genocide a genocide in Wikivoice which is patently absurd.EvansHallBear (talk)06:39, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are several crucial differences. For the Cambodia genocide: (1) the ICC had no jurisdiction as it can only prosecute crimes committed after 2002, (2) ICJ can only adjudicate state-backed litigation, and none was pursued for the Cambodia genocide - unlike here, (3) that said, itwas ultimately adjudicated by the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), which convicted Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphân of genocide in 2018 and is also authoritative. No adjudication applies here. For the Rohingya genocide there are widespread governmental accusations of genocide and I would argue clearer scholarly consensus.Michaelas10 (talk)10:53, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Governments are not reliable sources that Wikipedia relies on when evaluating if something is a genocide. What evidence do you have for "clearer scholarly consensus"?Katzrockso (talk)00:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose - PerUser:Michaelas10, apparent consensus among scholars and human rights organizations do not merit the descriptor "Genocide". Wikivoicing "Genocide" as in the proposed lead is a case of blatantWP:POVPUSH. Especially when no legally definitive answer exists as to whether the occurrences constitute a genocide.Kvinnen (talk)
Ifconsensus among scholars and human rights organizations [does] not merit the descriptor "Genocide" then what does? In any case, theGaza genocide RfC has made Wikipedia's position on this issue clear, so whether or not it should be called a genocide is not being discussed here, but rather whether this fact belongs in the lede.wound theology◈10:42, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I mean this is aCTOP - some might call it mother of all CTOP. I think it sucks world don't care about other genocide that happened in Africa etc.. - i do not know why. Maybe there is racial biasCinaroot (talk)08:49, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support forconsistency across articles. The RfC has already done most of the work in determining that the overwhelming majority of reliable sources do think genocide is happening, to the point that any denial isfringe. I don't think this discussion on whether the Gaza genocide is actually a genocide needs revisiting, as the comments on Jimbo's comment on theGaza genocide talk page make it quite clear that they think the RfC is quite valid. Now consensus can change, including both academic and wikipedia consensus, but it has not done so yet and it would too soon for such a change to happen anyway, academia doesn't move so quick and this case isn't an exception.User:Easternsaharareview andthis10:38, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that claims of consensus about a hot, contentious issue should not simply rest on who was willing to speak out. In this case, there appears to be a large 'silent contingent' of courts, governments, and even scholars that has not received due attention in previous discussions and claims of consensus. Some of them (e.g., ICJ) are yet to make a determination, while others have implicitly rejected the genocide label. I understand this was already discussed ad-nauseum, but I still think it warrants more reflection.Michaelas10 (talk)15:06, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong oppose and there also should be a revisit to the supposed "consensus" which was weak and not well supported by the broad community on theGaza genocide page (which should also have its article title renamed), evenuser:Jimbo Wales had to get involved here and suggest "bold" and "immediate" action to remedy this clear and blatant violation of NPOV. Let us not extend the errors of one article to yet another article. Instead, we should do the work of reversing that error both at its origin and on all articles where it is present.Iljhgtn (talk)13:58, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The opinions of editors as to whether Israel's actions constitute genocide are irrelevant. Incorrect. The opinion of editors as to whetherreliable sources indicate that Israel's actions constitute genocide are relevant. Whether something iscontroversial or not is determined with regard to reliable sources, not the opinion of editors (see the table of sources in the section#Comment: Academic consensus about genocide in Gaza.TucanHolmes (talk)09:50, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Re:Whether something is controversial or not is determined with regard to reliable sources, not the opinion of editors -- This seems to run contrary toWP:CT, which this page is a part of. That Wikipedia rule seems to affirm that this topic is indeed controversial. (By saying, asWP:CT does, that "Not all topics that are controversial have been designated as contentious topics", the implicit implication (not guaranteed logically, but implied) is that all contentious topics are inherently controversial. That is, while being controversial isn't a sufficient condition for CT status, it is a necessary condition for CT status.) So, this may be a situation where the particular issue simply cannot be decided by "editor consensus". And, to be clear, I think the Arbitration Committee made their CT designation correctly.Coining (talk)14:43, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Coining, I'm sorry but that is the most extraordinarywikilawyering I have seen. CT is explicitly about what is controversial among editors, not sources, and it is clearly not intended to be invoked on content disputes.Kowal2701 (talk)18:54, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think you may be missing my point, which was not to say that @TucanHolmes violated any policy, but rather to say that it's hard to square the notion of a topic being deemed contentious if it's actually not a controversial one.Coining (talk)19:48, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you want to show it’s "seriously contested", the best way would probably be to list recent high quality sources by subject matter experts that contest itKowal2701 (talk)16:55, 13 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose: Doing so is to take a side in a discussion, and that goes against NPOV, regardless of any RFC. Besides, it would be more stuff to clean up when the WMF decides that this blatant POV pushing has gone too far.Cambalachero (talk)15:04, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am not arguing against your oppose(I myself am very weak opposed to one proposal and fully to the other) but the WMF is not going to step in as these things are fully decided by the community and have been for a while.GothicGolem29(Talk)15:26, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In normal circumstances, no, but don't forget the real world where Wikipedia is in. Have you forgotten Ed Martin's attempts to revoke the WMF's tax-excempt status? He basically claims that the NPOV is just a facade, that Wikipedia is strongly biased, and as such it can not be considered educative for the purposes of IRS law. That was on April 24. Since then, a RFC stated those things in wikivoice, it was listed among the "ongoing" items of In The News (meaning, a permanent presence on Wikipedia's main page), and expanded into other pages as in this proposal. Even Jimbo Wales himself (as well as Larry Langer) had to politely point that this was wrong: the discussion was closed in a couple of days and he was dragged to the administrator's noticeboard for it. Jimbo. Freakin'. Wales. And this is not a minor dispute that may go unnoticed, it is the highest controversy in the world as of now, and the most obvious place to check if we want to test if Wikipedia is as "neutral" as it claims to be. If Martin wants to keep pressing his proposal and revoke the WMF tax-excempt status by pointing that it is blatantly biased, all those things give him all the proofs he may need on a silver platter. So don't get surprised if Jimbo, the WMF or whoever is in charge decides that enough is enough, and enforce neutrality by force if needed be. Wikipedia's very survival may be hanging in the balance.Cambalachero (talk)16:17, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not to comment in this on the merits of the RfC, but it's our role to earnestly pursue NPOV in good faith. If outside forces don't like how that ends up, then [strong language withheld] them.WP:NOTCENSOREDPlaceholderer (talk)16:31, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the WMF intervened against the communities that in itself would seriously harm Wiki as many would be very upset at such an intervention. So I do not agree they will do that as a survival strategy as as a surival strategy it would not work given it would cause great harm to Wiki(plus as pointed out below Wiki is not censored.)GothicGolem29(Talk)17:04, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I support this change principle but I'm not a fan of the provided wording, especially given that the consensus for genocide in Wikivoice is atGaza Genocide and notPalestinian Genocide. Propose alternate wording:
Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories has drawn sustained international criticism. Experts, human-rights organisations and UN officials have described Israel's actions as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Following theOctober 7 Attacks in 2023, Israel began committinggenocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
My goal with this wording is to emphasize the historical criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, which should be given weight to avoid recency bias, before moving on to provide enough detail to more precisely define the genocide's periodization.🌸wasianpower🌸 (talk • contribs)16:33, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Neither is theGuatemalan genocide, and yet it plainly states in WikiVoice what occurred.
Let me echo and quote what @JasonMacker said on theGaza genocide talk page and reiterate thatlegal opinion is not the same aspersonal opinion. The difference is thatlegal opinion is arrived at after consulting all available evidence using arobust theoretical framework for interpreting data and drawing conclusions, whereaspersonal opinion is not reached with the same scrutiny. In this sense, the scholarly consensus doesn't come from a bunch of experts going "we think so", but from extremely meticulous work analyzing intent from civilian and military deaths, the nature of military engagements, public statements, and more.
In spite of my first sentence, I also take issue with your labeling of the topic as "non-scientific". This isn't an obscure branch of philosophy, there is directly observable phenomena with which we can hypothesize, create theories, and draw conclusions from. I also take issue with your implication that scientific findings should not be treated as authoritative when they encompass topics that aren't strictly scientific. Interdisciplinary fields like psychology, linguistics, sociology, economics, and public policy rely on a healthy mixture of the sciences and humanities to theory craft and test hypotheses. You sayWP:FALSEBALANCE describes "science vs. non-science", but this is a deeply troubling understanding of the policy. Science and non-science are constantly working hand-in-hand. It is whenconsensus truth andminority opinions are weighed equally that creates a false balance.Cadenrock1 (talk)17:12, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To say this is not a "scientific" topic is a misread of what the field of study that deals with this topic is. Genocide studies is an interdisciplinary field that is primarily empirical. It draws from the social sciences. While there aren't experiments in a lab, the field is rigorous and evidence-based. For these reasons, to dismiss it as "not science" is just wrong.JasonMacker (talk)17:49, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's it, it's a topic of social sciences. Those do not have the precision and accuracy of hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, among others), can not make hypotheses, experiments or predictions, and their findings are nowhere near that authoritative.Cambalachero (talk)18:28, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - a lot of the opposing votes are based on the question of whether Israel is committing a genocide but theGaza genocide RfC concluded that Israel is committing a genocide so this is the basis of this RfC. Arguing that Israel isn't committing a genocide or that it violates NPOV to say that they do is against the consensus on the Gaza genocide and not a valid argument in this RfC.Laura240406 (talk)16:47, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That's not what the RfC concluded. The RfC concluded that the statement of genocide in the lead ofGaza genocide should be inwikivoice instead of attributed. The opinion of Wikipedia editors as to whether Israel's actions constitute genocide or not are irrelevant.SuperPianoMan9167 (talk)16:52, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It does not work like that. Your statement could be applied to any "dispute" (e.g. flat earth, creationism); just because something is politically salient doesn't mean the facts change or the opinion of experts is suddenly less relevant. Wikipedia has a hierarchy of reliable sources, and if reliable sources "take a side", then Wikipedia will absolutely do so as well, by its very mission; seeWP:FALSEBALANCE.TucanHolmes (talk)10:00, 12 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, and otherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context concerning established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world.
Oppose for being less informative. Name-checking "genocide" is less helpful here than giving, in ~the same number of words, the fuller weight of what's behind the label. The second iteration is substantially less helpful along these lines. (Though "academia" should definitely be added alongside human rights orgs and the UN)Placeholderer (talk)16:48, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think many/most comments regardingthe RfC about the first sentence ofGaza genocide miss the point of that RfC. Just because it's more appropriate to start the Gaza genocide article withThe Gaza genocide is doesn't mean it is never appropriate anywhere else to mention who's calling it a genocide. Attribution isn't some mark of shame; it's clear writing, except where it's clunky or redundant, which it clearly isn't here sincewe're attributing in this passage even under the proposalsPlaceholderer (talk)17:11, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A big problem here is that this RfC (and the preceding discussion) has skipped a step. We've gone straight to arguing whether or not the change is acceptable under NPOV. What should have been sought to argue instead is whether or not the change is an improvement to the text. For the reasons I've said, I think this change is not an improvement to the text. I don't want to go allWP:1AM, butI shake my cane at this thread and what I see as its frameworkPlaceholderer (talk)09:53, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support in line with the main article. We don't need a RfC to apply what is already supported by a RfC consensus, nor do we need to rediscuss what has been discussed ad nauseam.M.Bitton (talk)17:00, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia does not decide if Israel is committing genocide. Sources do that. We should mention the sources so that it is clear that scholars, not Wikipedia, have made the conclusion.SuperPianoMan9167 (talk)17:15, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but the former is just user error, and the latter is something that is just not an issue. Wikipedia should not concern itself with online PR-backlash if they haven't done anything wrong; the article mentions and cites the sources, why does it have to name them at the start, when other consensus-based articles do not do that?TheSilksongPikmin (talk |contribs)19:15, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not when one has nothing but hot air to present. Thank you for confirming that this is nothing but an attempt at keeping consensus-dodging content.M.Bitton (talk)17:29, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Wouldn't it be helpful to clarify that this statement is based on the scholarly consensus? Without attribution, it looks as ifWikipedia has decided that Israel is committing genocide (and indeed, a lot of press coverage has focused on that aspect).SuperPianoMan9167 (talk)17:17, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The "The Holocaust" article does not start with the many, many, possible citations, for example. When there is a consensus on something by experts, we can just say it without having to cite in the beginning. The article later on does mention the scholarly consensus, and at no point does Wikipedia itself claim it's a genocide withWP:OR-like claims.TheSilksongPikmin (talk |contribs)19:11, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV does not mean "not taking sides in a dispute" and there is near-unanimous consensus that we "take sides" in some disputes (i.e., reflect scholarly consensus and common sense.) We don't describe themoon landing orEarth's shape as disputed, despite a very vocal minority.wound theology◈17:30, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV does not mean "not taking sides in a dispute"
Um, what? Are we looking at the same policy? The nutshell summary of NPOV literally saysArticles must nottake sides, but shouldexplain the sides, fairly and without editorialbias. This applies to both what you say and how you say it.
Conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, speculative history, or plausible but unaccepted theories should not be legitimized through comparison to accepted academic scholarship. We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, and otherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context concerning established scholarship and the beliefs of the wider world.wound theology◈18:41, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Key parts inWP:FALSEBALANCE (emphasis mine):We do not take a stand on these issues as encyclopedia writers, for or against; we merely omit this information where including it would unduly legitimize it, andotherwise include and describe these ideas in their proper context concerning established scholarship and thebeliefs of the wider world.SuperPianoMan9167 (talk)19:44, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The classification of the war in Gaza as a genocide is a subjective manner and should be treated as such.
The uncompromising, contentious local consensus at Gaza Genocide does not mean that one side "won" and it must now cascade across Wikipedia. Numerical head counts of everyone calling themselves a genocide expert is original research. 20% is not "fringe," if reputable scholars are asserting a minority opinion, it is not automatically fringe for being a minority. What real life source claims there is an unquestionable consensus?
The comparison to holocaust denial is unreasonable. The Holocaust has been established in court beyond reasonable debate.
Conversely, on Gaza, the ICJ never issued a ruling. Many countries don't recognize it as such. And numerous credible scholars do not deem it so, or may be waiting for better evidence of A) intent and B) effect to unfold. In which case, the supposed consensus is improper, as it is simply too soon to say–– just as it is apparently too soon to call the massacres in Sudan as a genocide in wikivoice, or Mariupol.Scharb (talk)19:48, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support wiki voicing genocide, not necessarily this specific wording the vast majority of scholarly sources available agree, so WP should follow them. Opposes on those grounds have already been rejected by consensus and are not policy based. (t ·c)buidhe17:44, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose per Iljhgtn, Katzrockso. The Gaza "genocide" RfC process was flawed. RS do not unequivocally or overwhelmingly support its conclusion.Dr Fell (talk)18:20, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Obvious canvassing by users violating policy and treating wikipedia as a battleground. There's a "side" that is trying to deem the other "fringe" on a subjective matter in order to delete their views, instead of just telling the truth that there are credible sources that say there is no consensus ('Le Monde: Is there a genocide in Gaza? Why legal experts are split'), few definitive sources say there IS a consensus, and Wikipedians compiling their own evidence of a consensus ("X# of sources say Y" is fine for persuasive essays, not an encyclopedia) must be dismissed as original research.Scharb (talk)20:17, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There is not a consensus amonglegal experts, just like there is not a conensus amongcountries; there are other things to take into account here (partisanship, politics, legal technicalities and so on). There is conensus amongacademic scholars on the topic: Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide.wound theology◈14:55, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per the academic consensus (WP:BESTSOURCES). The argument that we need the result of the ICJ case for this, while it may seem sensible, isn't supported by any policy, and this is not the topic forWP:IAR. The sentence should make clear this is only during the Gaza war. Mention of opposing POVs (not just "Israel denies it") should immediately follow the sentence to maintain NPOV.Kowal2701 (talk)20:22, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose, not because of any objection to stating the currentGaza genocide in wikivoice, but due to the fact that this wording implies that Israel has been committed genocide in Gaza since before October 7th, which is not something we should state in wikivoice. I would therefore have no objections against Wasianpower's alternate wording.QuicoleJR (talk)21:55, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose – The proposal failsWP:NPOV,WP:V, andWP:RS standards, and misapplies the result of the Gaza genocide RfC. That local consensus does not automatically extend to unrelated pages, particularly one about a state, where a much higher level of neutrality and contextual balance is required. Each article must reach its own consensus based on its own scope and sourcing (WP:LOCALCONSENSUS).Michael Boutboul (talk)22:06, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Each article is rightly held to a high standard of NPOV. In the RfC you reference above, the community reached an interpretation of the NPOV policy which you may contest, but which was definitely backed by a rough consensus. That interpretation of policy (correctly, in my opinion) allows us to state, in WV, that genocide is occurring. The proposal certainly does not fail WP:V or WP:RS, it is impeccably well-sourced from an RS perspective, and that suffices to establish verifiability.WillowCity(talk)02:52, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose There is a working group located atWikipedia:Genocide where we are creating a new policy to determine when something can be called a "genocide" in wikivoice. No conflicts should be called a "genocide" until this new policy is established. Jimmy Walessupports this group and is also working on new NPOV policies.LDW5432 (talk)00:02, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No conflicts should be called a "genocide" until this new policy is established setting aside the fact that the Gaza genocide is already described as such in wp voice, can you please point to the policy that supports your claim?M.Bitton (talk)00:44, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"No conflicts should be called a "genocide" until this new policy is established."
The people editingWikipedia:Genocide are{{brainstorming}} some text thatmay lead to aWP:PROPOSAL for a guideline or policy, on an unknown time scale (months?), thatmight be accepted in an RfC, typically on a month time scale.Guidelines and policies are descriptive, not prescriptive:Policy and guideline pages are living documents that attempt to describe the actual practice of experienced editors. This case will likely provide input to help draft WP:GENOCIDE rather than vice versa.Boud (talk) 11:50, 7 November 2025 (UTC)(minor clarificationBoud (talk)11:52, 7 November 2025 (UTC))[reply]
Support: This is in line with what was decided in the previous RfC. Also, please see the graphs regarding scholarly assessments that VR posted above.David A (talk)08:54, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. By the way, there is another aspect of the graph that seems to be getting little attention - half the scholars already claimed there was or likely was a genocide already in October 2023.That is absurd, and should immediately call for more scrutiny of the supposed scholarly consensus (e.g., who counts as a scholar, what grounds did they make the October 2023 determination on, how should we weight scholarship in this case relative to courts and governments, etc.)Michaelas10 (talk)21:34, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support wikivoicing genocide, not necessarily this specific wording: As per buidhe and the FAQ answer atTalk:Gaza genocide that links to the RfC,The term "Gaza Genocide" is supported by a sufficient number of reliable sources. It is theconsensus, not an opinion, that it is a genocide.Boud (talk)11:31, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose This clearly violatesWP:NPOV. This is probably the most high profile case of opinion being stated as fact. Even many of the arguments in favor of using the Wikivoice try to use the opinions of experts as evidence, but even those are just that, opinions. This is against the black letter and the spirit of NPOV. Generally, the standard protocol is that when we are citing opinion rather than fact, we must use attribution rather than wikivoice. The fact that this conversation and similar ones have been this contentious highlights that wikivoice is inappropriate here. Additionally, by using wikivoice, Wikipedia is actively taking a side in the Israel-Gaza dispute. That was never supposed to be our role. Our role is to provide a neutral, verifiable, encyclopedia that simply informs the reader of all of the facts. This necessitates us not taking sides on a regional dispute.Gjb0zWxOb (talk)16:40, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose TheGaza genocide article is a disaster of NPOV and a source of public embarrassment to the encyclopedia. It reads like it was written by a committee of the most hostile anti-Israel academics available. The nomination would cause the related shortcomings of balance and readability to metastasize to this article. I would suggest waiting until the concerns raised by @Jimbo Wales and @Larry Sanger inTalk:Gaza genocide are satisfactorily addressed before using it as a model for this article.Tioaeu8943 (talk)20:30, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support per Vice Regent and the massive amount of data and text at the Gaza genocide RFC. Many the opposes here aren't rooted in data/facts and seemingly misunderstand NPOV. The community put it's blood, sweat, and tears into that extremely well-attended RFC and came out of the other side with a consensus. Trying to create the reverse consensus here with less people makes no sense! The facts are not different!Parabolist (talk)21:19, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's an idiom, man. BATTLEGROUND is about treating discussions as 'winnable' and team based, but consensus-building is argumentative! It's definitionally about people who believe different things having a (hopefully) healthy debate about what we should include. That's what happened there, and that's what I'm talking about.Parabolist (talk)21:32, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think one assumption you and other people in this RfC are making is that the previous RfC represents the full consensus of the community. I would argue it represents the consensus of people who were interested in and actively edited the article "Gaza Genocide", and not the whole community. A large number of the 'support' votes there seem to assume this issue is obvious and does not require a high evidentiary bar, contrary to NPOV. Just a few examples:"This is really approaching "the sky is blue" territory with Benjamin Netanyahu openly announcing plans about the full military occupation of the entire Gaza Strip and the forced displacement of most of the population. Wikipedia can not engage in genocide denial...""..the consensus is so obvious""..the veracity of genocide accusation is not in doubt therefore attribution is no longer necessary..""...there is indeed harm in sitting on this a moment longer than necessary, never mind another 2-3 months when there is already consensus. To do so would not only amount to gross negligence and irresponsibility due to consequences in the real world.." These are just from a quick glance. Among the comments who did justify their support, they were overwhelmingly focused on the supposed scholarly consensus and UN Commission of Inquiry findings - ignoring dissenting voices as 'fringe' and in particular dismissing lack of court verdicts (including ICC and ICJ) as irrelevant and disagreeing governments as 'biased'. So I disagree that you can simply point to said RfC to justify making further changes - it was flawed, to say the least.Michaelas10 (talk)21:50, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The purpose of the consensus is to produce a neutral article, and it failed. That a great effort went into it is unfortunate, and beside the point.Tioaeu8943 (talk)02:34, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. There is large agreement amongst scholars that it is a genocide. Carriyng out a genocide against the indengious palestinian population is obviously notable and must be included. --Supreme Deliciousness (talk)04:42, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose on several grounds. First, per NPOV we don't engage in disputes. This is clearly a dispute among many people about what to call this. As such, when we refer to it in Wiki-voice we are violating NPOV by picking a side in the dispute. Second, based on information above there is not a consensus among various sources that this is a genocide. If we go by the chart to scholars then even now we have 1/5 don't agree this is a genocide. That is more than sufficient to say this is a contested claim. Add to that the fact that "genocide" doesn't have a hard and fast definition. Also, a point raised above is that some sources said this was a Genocide right form the time Israel was attacked. It was argued that those were just sources that were foretelling the future. Alternatively, they are sources that have already made up their minds thus should be discounted. Ultimately, decades from now the world may look back on this as a Genocide. However, in the hear and now NPOV says we don't pick sides and thus we should not call it Genocide.Springee (talk)15:56, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Springee, how small in your opinion would the minority view have to be to for it not to be "seriously contested"? (it’s more like 80% to 15% going off the above chart)Kowal2701 (talk)16:05, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As noted above, about 30% had made up their minds well before any reasonable view was claiming this was a genocide. Also, when it comes to applying that label we need to be extra cautious. There are clearly well reasoned sources that oppose the label. We shouldn't be picking sides which is exactly what putting this is wiki voice is doing. If this were a question about keeping the material in or out I would side with keeping it in. However, that isn't the question at hand. The article and readers don't suffer because we chose to not put this into Wikivoice. Wikipedia should always be slow about these things. If we are 5 years late to the party that's better than being early and wrong. We are meant to be the caboose of history, not the engine.Springee (talk)16:21, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
about 30% had made up their minds well before any reasonable view was claiming this was a genocide. A very rough count shows ~400 sources say this is a genocide and ~80 deny it. The first 30% of the "yes" sources (the 120th "yes" source) was on or before September 2024. By that time Israel had killed ~40,000 Palestinians (exceeding the death toll of theYazidi genocide andRohingya genocide). Springee has no reasonable grounds for automatically dismissing all sources that made an affirmative genocide determination before September 2024.VR(Pleaseping on reply)04:05, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I certainly do have reasonable grounds. I'm basing my claim on the charts above. It shows about 30% saying this was genocide in November of 2023. Note that the number was near 50% in October 2023. I certainly would dismiss those sources as putting a cart before the horse at that time. If the chart is wrong it should be deleted. Please note I didn't say September of 2024 and I'm not sure where you picked up that date.Springee (talk)05:38, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not conceding, but are you saying that we should dismiss the sources aggreeing with the genocide claim in 10 an 11/2023? which are like.. 9? I'm not sure i'm getting your ultimate point —🧀Cheesedealer!!!⚟16:44, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If you look at my arguments you will see that I, like many others, disagree for reasons that are not limited to the chart. That said, if the chart is wrong or misleading perhaps it should be deleted or corrected. The problem is it doesn't show absolute values, just 100%.Springee (talk)19:28, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In{{Expert opinions in the Gaza genocide debate}} I count 7 sources in Oct 2023, 21 in Nov 2023, making just 4% out of about 717 sources in total. If we decided that genocide cannot happen on a scale of less then two months (dubious, since theRwandan genocide lasted 13 days per the current Wikipedia lead), i.e. if we arbitrarily dismissed those 4%, then that wouldn't affect the statistics significantly (it would likely slightly increase the fraction stating genocide).Boud (talk)18:45, 9 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support. If I was writing an encyclopedia, I would not call it genocide - indeed I would follow Christian Gerlach's lead and abandon the term "genocide" altogether. But Wikipedia has made its bed, in the immediate sense by the Gaza genocide RfC and in the broader sense by deciding to blindly follow academic's politics while denying that they have them (there was the utterly absurd claim made recently that academics in multiple different fields and countries can't all be biased the same way on average!) and now it must lie in it by plastering "commited genocide" and "denied genocide" on every relevant article, e.g. most living Israelis with articles.--Eldomtom2 (talk)02:23, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And what if you were writing a rules-based encyclopedia that happened to have precisely the same policies and guidelines as this one with respect to scholarly sources etc. What would you do then?Sean.hoyland (talk)02:59, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. I don't think the Gaza Genocide RfC should be binding here. This is a general article on Israel, and it should take into account opinions beyond academia, especially since academia is at least perceived as having an anti-Israel bias (for example,Harvard's Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias) The idea that there is an academic consensus should explicitly cited, not implied by Wikivoice. The primary source given isTemplate:Expert opinions in the Gaza genocide debate which is aWP:SYNTH of academic sources. If it can't be used in the article, it can't be used to justify Wikivoice. It is easy to find sources in reliable, non-academic sources that the war in Gaza isn't genocidal (The New York Times, for example, is willing to run a piece called "No, Israel Is Not Committing Genocide in Gaza"). The debate exists, and the text should reflect that.Phirazo (talk)14:52, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As I read it, this means that in 2006, @Phirazo's user page had an infobox that read "This user is the owner of multiple Wikipedia accounts in a manner permitted bypolicy." (That policy link is now preservedhere.) Why is that a basis for questioning their participation in this discussion, especially as it is something from 19 years ago?Coining (talk)20:45, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
not having edited in more than a year, and having your last 50 edits go back to 2009 just seemed suspicious. I was just asking the user to clarify, I don't want to regurgitate the same comment over and over again, so I'll tell the user to read over the discussion to see that other people have already responded to most of their claims.User:Easternsaharareview andthis21:33, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm demonstrating that thereis a dispute in main stream sources. If there is a academic consensus here, that should cited. PerWP:NPOV, "Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them."Phirazo (talk)22:10, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. No ICJ ruling; many (most?) of the entries inthis table are non-experts (Sociology PHD student , Professor of Comparative Literature, etc.); even according to this list there is a sizable minority who disagrees with the characterisation.Alaexis¿question?22:37, 14 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:V saysThe reliability of a source depends on context... information that is not related to the principal topics of the publication may not be reliable; editors should cite sources focused on the topic at hand where possible
Oppose For a variety of reasons, includingWP:NPOV concerns and the points made byAlaexis (talk) andIljhgtn (talk), but mostly because I cannot square the notion that there is a Wikipedia consensus with the range of views expressed on this page (let alone in the outside world). There simply is no consensus, and I hope any admin closing this RfC doesn't robotically apply a former RfC given thatWP:CONSENSUSCANCHANGE.Coining (talk)01:37, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"range of views expressed on this page (let alone in the outside world)" - when it comes toWP:DUE, neither the opinions of wikipedians, nor outside world are relevant. (The policy literally says "The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is irrelevant and should not be considered.") Instead, we only consider reliable sources, which overwhelmingly agree that Israel is committing genocide.VR(Pleaseping on reply)06:05, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A newer RfC has now closed and was not able to find a consensus amongst experts that a genocide has occurred in Gaza. So, we cannot conclude thatreliable sources... overwhelmingly agree that Israel is committing genocide.Coining (talk)19:27, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like the problem was that "experts" is vague, and due to different definitions there was no consensus among legal scholars but there was consensus among scholars of genocide. --Beland (talk)19:16, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That depends on whether you are asking "did Israel commit genocide" or "can Israel be held legally responsible for committing genocide", which can have different answers. --Beland (talk)02:57, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Many users have objected that "only" 80-90% of scholars accept the existence of Gaza genocide. So what percentage of consensus is necessary before wikipedia states something in its own voice? Wikipedia has been blaming humans forclimate change – in its own voice – since at least 2006[8]. Back then, only about 75% of scientists agreed to that[9]. In 2007-2008, two studies came out showing 84% of scientists blamed humans for climate change, and it wouldn't be later until the consensus reached >99%.VR(Pleaseping on reply)06:05, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Where does the 80-90% percentage come from? If it's from thesame table then we should ignore it until it it's cleaned up. I've already mentioned such experts as a Sociology PHD student and Professor of Comparative Literature but there are many many more: Distinguished Professor of Arts at the Social Justice Institute, Cross-cultural psychoanalyst, Doctoral candidate in Gender Studies, Professor of global mobilities, borders, and gender, Professor of American Indian Studies, Film studies scholar, etc.).Alaexis¿question?15:48, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Expanding on the "with the exception of the Journal of Genocide Research". Two articles in apeer-reviewed journal that literally specializes in genocide said:
"By the end of 2024, when Amnesty International published a comprehensively evidenced and legally argued case, the consensus that Israel was committing genocide was becoming overwhelming."
"There is an increasing legal consensus that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza...this consensus is emerging because the evidence is overwhelming".
Oppose - and Invalid RFC Oppose perWP:WIKIVOICE, but also this RFC has a false premise so is invalid at "After two months ofdiscussion - consensus was reached to phrase the opening in Wikipedia’s voice that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians." In correction, the close of the linked RFC did *not* make the determination stated, the close only stated that the first four words ofGaza genocide should be "The Gaza genocide is" and left anything more to further discussion. See alsothere is no WP consensus about saying there is consensus.
Using WIKIVOICE otherwise fails bullets inWP:WIKIVOICE - it may be generally failing NPOV or UNDUE for the article Israel, but in the WIKIVOICE policy I note
As the closer of that RFC, it was pretty clear to me that a supermajority of participants supported Option 1 because they believe reliable sources support the idea there is an academic consensus that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. No exact wording was provided outside the first four words, but the RFC was indeed about whether to call this a genocide in wikivoice, and the answer was "yes". The winning view was that neutrality was satisfied by also presenting notable viewpoints that disagree with this academic consensus.
The '"Consensus there is genocide" in lead' RFC seemed to fail because there was support for an academic consensus among scholars of genocide, but not a legal consensus. That is compatible with the result of the RFC that I closed. --Beland (talk)20:27, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The winning view was that neutrality was satisfied by also presenting notable viewpoints that disagree with this academic consensus. Those viewpoints are conspicuously absent from the lead ofGaza genocide and are dismissed as obviously wrong later in the article.SuperPianoMan9167 (talk)22:00, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In my view the current characterization of opposing viewpoints doesn't contradict what he said, but even if it does, I think how we present the opposing view should be best left to discussion inTalk:Gaza genocide. As forWP:NOTVOTE, it's mainly about people who say "support" or "oppose" without giving policy-based reasons (polling is not a substitute for discussion) not being considered. I don't think he was claiming it was a poll, he was simply saying there was consensus in the discussion supporting Option 1.Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk)23:14, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Whether you think of an RFC as an enlightened poll or a non-numerical weighing of arguments, that RFC closed as an endorsement of describing Gaza as a genocide in wikivoice. Anyone is free to agree with the minority in that RFC and argue that based on reliable sources and NPOV, theIsrael article should not be aligned withGaza genocide. But I don't think the idea that the premise of this RFC is invalid is a fact-based argument. --Beland (talk)00:34, 20 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Weak support. Calling it a genocide in wiki voice wasallowed by the previous consensus, notrequired. The particular proposed wording isn't great - probably should be two separate sentences. That said, any hedging on the wording is essentially a statement that the two positions are equally credible. My opinion is that a truly neutral point of view needs to emphasize that they are not, and the current state of the lead fails at this.casualdejekyll21:29, 18 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support general proposal, agnostic on specific wording As EvansHallBear and others have exaustively demonstated, there is a firm and still growing consensus among scholars that Israel's actions in Gaza constistute a genocide. Wikipedia can, and in by policy must, reflect that point. Unfortunate as it is,many readers do not read past the lead so making sure the lead is able toestablish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies is incredibly important. We cannot do that if we fail to mention Israel's ongoing genocide.
That being said, I might preferTemplate:Gaza genocide consensus sentence and a seperate sentence about the occupation. I feel perhaps the occupation and the current genocide in Gaza are independantly important things for readers to know.
Oppose. The main supporting argument seems to be that there is something like "scientific evidence" for a genocide, but that assessment is based on a misunderstanding of how social sciences work. Mainly due to the complexity of their subjects, they require individual judgments to a much larger extent than sciences like physics or chemistry. For example, there are many differentgenocide definitions. Each of them comprises several criteria, and none of these criteria are measurable in the way that physical properties are measurable. Ultimately, individual opinions are involved in all judgments regarding history and politics. That's the main reason why there is disagreement among social scientists about the question whether Israel's actions against Gaza constitute genocide or not. And while judgments by historians and other social scientists are important, they are not based on empirical data and statistical analysis like the findings of other sciences. They are not entirely different from judgments by politicians. In a nutshell: There is disagreement among social scientists regarding this issue, there are arguments for and against, and they all involve a good deal of personal opinion. We should not state them as fact. —Chrisahn (talk)23:34, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Mixed support.No wiki formatting I agree with including the notion of genocide in the lead, for consistency purposes. I link here to atemplate on the position of various experts. However, I agree with various editors that the proposed text is not satisfactory. Criticism from the international community has not been because of the occupation and this proposed lead opens the question on when the genocide started. I think that the proposed alternative by @User:wasianpower is decent.
Oppose change, support current lead-I personally believe that Israel is guilty of genocide, but this is still very much under dispute, and we should not say so in Wikipedia voice. I see nothing wrong with the current version and no compelling reason to change it.Display name 99 (talk)18:04, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support change with a qualifier perWP:NPOV. The current wording... along with accusations from human rights organisations and UN officials that it has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinians during the Gaza war is too weak given the scholarship. It's not just "accusations" from "human rights organisations and UN officials". There should also be a qualifier such as "some scholars disagree".
I'd suggest the following sentence, similar to the one fromGaza genocide
There is increasing scholarly consensus that Israel has committed genocide against the Palestinians during the Gaza war, though some scholars challenge it.
Although legal scholars and commentators were slow to recognize the severity and urgency of the situation, this article sought to show that there is an emerging consensus that Israel's actions in Gaza are not another instance of armed conflict but instead amount to genocide
Roughly since mid-2024, there seems to have emerged a broad agreement among genocide scholars—at least those who have expressed their views on the matter—that this is indeed the case ... What followed seems to be a similar broad agreement emerging among legal scholars that this is indeed a genocide, and even those who are still hesitating find the genocide charges much more convincing.
By the end of 2024, when Amnesty International published a comprehensively evidenced and legally argued case,17 the consensus that Israel was committing genocide was becoming overwhelming
Trachtenberg testified to a consensus opinion among historians of genocide that what is happening in Gaza can indeed be called a genocide, largely because the intent to cause death on a massive scale has been so clear in the statements of Israeli officials
The opposition is political, as there is consensus amongst the international human rights legal community, many other legal and political experts, including many Holocaust scholars, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Your link shows that the Journal of Genocide Research was accused of "Holocaust Minimization, Anti-Israel Themes, and Antisemitism" by one scholar (Israel Charney), and that "Those whom Charney accused issued a rebuttal; 60 scholars signed the rebuttal."IOHANNVSVERVS (talk)13:41, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Charny's article is actually a perfect example ofWP:FRINGE. In their response to Charny,Amos Goldberg,Raz Segal,Martin Shaw, andA. Dirk Moses (those criticized/accused by Charny) write that his article "refers to JGR authors as “hate-mongering genocide scholars,” and compares the president of theInternational Network of Genocide Scholars (INoGS) to the Ugandan dictator,Idi Amin".[1] They point out among other absurdities that "Charny in effect suggests that Segal is a Holocaust denier", and conclude that Charny's article is "based on distortions, misquotations, and falsifications of our work", making it "unworthy of scholarly consideration."IOHANNVSVERVS (talk)14:35, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Masha Gessen (The New Yorker) is therebecause of the quote. Read the quote again please.Barry Trachtenberg is an expert and he testified inDefense for Children International – Palestine v. Biden:Trachtenberg testified to a consensus opinion among historians of genocide that what is happening in Gaza can indeed be called a genocide, largely because the intent to cause death on a massive scale has been so clear in the statements of Israeli officials
Academic sources are usually regarded as reliable in Wikipedia. Journal of Genocide Research is in top quartile in History and Law[10]. It's not apredatory journal. If you have more concerns, you can ask inWP:RSN. Many academic journals may also have a Westerncentric or Eurocentric bias, but it's not Wikipedia job to reject those sources. If journal sources are rejected with random and inconsistent criteria, there may beWikipedia:Civil POV pushing concerns.
No high quality sources have been provided that would conflict the above sources. My suggestion also includes a qualifier "though some scholars challenge it" perWP:NPOVBogazicili (talk)20:46, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Opposefor being less informative. Name-checking "genocide" is less helpful here than giving … the fuller weight of what's behind the label. The second iteration is substantially less helpful along these lines, perPlaceholderer. The new text being presented is too blunt and fails to give historical context. I could probably supportWasianpower’s alternative suggestionIsrael's occupation of the Palestinian territories has drawn sustained international criticism. Experts, human-rights organisations and UN officials have described Israel's actions as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Following theOctober 7 Attacks in 2023, Israel began committinggenocide against Palestinians in Gaza. His stated aim wasto emphasize the historical criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians, which should be given weight to avoid recency bias, which is apt on the country article.Pincrete (talk)08:11, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This doesn't seem like an Oppose? Maybe it's because the RfC starter,Cinaroot, used specific wording, instead of asking if we should simply strengthen the current wording.
I also support this proposal and adding October 7. Both October 7 and Gaza Genocide is in introduction chapter inRoutledge Handbook on Palestine, which is a recent overviewWP:Secondary source. Although the title says Palestine, it covers Israel too.
We can also say "... Following the October 7 Attacks in 2023, Israel began committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, according to an increasing scholarly consensus, though some scholars challenge it. ..."Bogazicili (talk)20:55, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support in the sense that the proposed wording change is closer to NPOV in that it better reflects scholarly consensus. Having said that I take Pincrete's point (just above) and do prefer the wording put forward by Wasianpower quoted by Pincrete. The RfC proposed wording lacks context and information. So, while the RfC proposed change is better than what we've got it falls short of what it should be.DeCausa (talk)08:28, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Support because as others have noted we already have existing consensus elsewhere on-wiki that the off-wiki consensus is that a genocide is occurring, and while of course articles can be independent and consensus is not a sledgehammer, we are re-litigating arguments we have already had and a conclusion we've already come to. If nothing else this is confusing for the reader, and it imo creates NPOV issues by presenting the same information with vastly different levels of certainty depending on the subject of the article. We've already discussed and resolved many of the objections the oppose !votes have raised: We do not wait for an ICJ ruling to label, i.e., the Rohingya genocide or the Armenian genocide; we follow the scholarly and expert consensus. Applying a different, unprecedented standard exclusively to Israel is a form of WP:UNDUE weight, elevating the political stance of a few governments over the methodological conclusions of subject-matter experts. Wikipedia isWP:NOTCENSORED which is especially important in a CTOP like this one – when a preponderance of RS make a determination, no matter if we agree or disagree with the information, we have a duty to the reader to present it.Smallangryplanet (talk)12:19, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Starting a section to try to prompt discussion around whether or not the proposed change, NPOV-compliant or not, is an improvement.As I've commented, I don't think it is. Almost all of this discussion so far has been aroundWP:5P2; this has meant, I think, not addressingWP:5P1.
I don't want to bludgeon, so I probably won't say much more than I've already argued, but the dynamic of "This change follows NPOV so it's good!" vs. "This change doesn't follow NPOV so it's bad!" has been frustrating to me. So, regardless of whether or not the proposals are NPOV-compliant, do they actually make the article better? A penny for your thoughtsPlaceholderer (talk)21:33, 7 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I dispute that saying less information in the same amount of words is clearer.The status quo attribution is not non-neutral. Due weight is a non-issue here—no one's disputing the genocide's mention in the intro.
If we do this change, we might as well changeA United Nations Special Committee, multiple governments, and various experts and human rights organisations have concluded that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people due to the harm and loss of life inflicted on civilians during the Gaza War in the body toIsrael is committing genocide against the Palestinian people due to the harm and loss of life inflicted on civilians during the Gaza War, since at least that's fewer words. The point is to be informative, not to shove our editorial decisions down people's throats.
I want to reiterate that the change to the first sentenceGaza genocide is absolutely not comparable to this change. That sentence was changed from
According to a United Nations special committee and commission of inquiry, Amnesty International, Médecins Sans Frontières, B'Tselem, Physicians for Human Rights–Israel, International Federation for Human Rights, numerous genocide studies and international law scholars (including the International Association of Genocide Scholars), and many other experts, Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians during its ongoing blockade, invasion, and bombing of the Gaza Strip.
to
TheGaza genocide is the ongoing, intentional, and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel during the Gaza war.
That former sentence ishideous and is aridiculous first sentence when there's consensus that we can write "The Gaza genocide is".
The change here, meanwhile, is from
Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism—along with accusations that it has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza—from human rights organisations and UN officials.
to (using the updated proposal)
Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza war. Israeli actions toward Palestinians—including its occupation of the Palestinian territories—have drawn sustained international criticism; human-rights organisations and UN officials have described Israel’s conduct as war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Actually, not only is it less informative with the same number of words—it's less informative withmore words, or at least more text. Why are we excluding genocide from the attribution when it would befar easier to find a scholarly consensus thatwar crimes have been committed (it's a much lower bar)? Why not just come down and sayIsrael is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza? (Hopefully that's more clearly weird). Why not censor everywhere all mention of who are the ones calling it a genocide—our readers can all just take our word for it!
User:Placeholderer - In this case, I voiced inpast TALK at Gaza genocide (which closed against using wikivoice) that attributing (to UN Commission, etcetera) was objective facts which were moreWP:DUE byWP:WEIGHT of coverage, and also just stylistically better. "I'd say give emphasis to objective facts, avoidWP:SENSATIONAL outcries ofWP:LABEL that have no specific meaning or weight usingWP:WIKIVOICE to proclaim something." Stylistically I think using WIKIVOICE and voicing a judgement with pejorative comes off as a bit of a rant or bias, especially if a conclusion is stated before evidence instead of as a summary at the end of evidence, so for exampleWP:PSEUDOSCIENCE often goes astray.
TheIsrael article would present more reputably as a process if it were to work on the body and go from that, not just jamming a RFC to do a LEAD proclamation. The body for example could (IMHO should) add a subsection under Government and politics "4.3.3 Accusations of genocide" specific to this topic. The only immediate outcome from that would be to divide ibn two the lead sentence "Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism, along with accusations from human rights organisations..". Them it would be "Israel's practices in its occupation of the Palestinian territories have drawn sustained international criticism." as a sentence separate from "Human rights organisations and UN officials have said that Israel has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide against the Palestinians during the Gaza war." CheersMarkbassett (talk)20:36, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Academic consensus about genocide in Gaza
I'm putting this here for reference. This is a compilation of hundreds of articles that shows the vast majority of experts emphatically call Israel's actionsgenocide.
Scholarly and expert opinions on the Gaza genocide
Various scholars, most of whom in relevant fields.
TWAILR (Third World Approaches to International Law Review)
"We are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." "The Palestinian population of Gaza appears to be presently subjected by the Israeli forces and authorities to widespread killing, bodily and mental harm, and unviable conditions of life – against a backdrop of Israeli statements which evidence signs of intent to physically destroy the population."
"'We are sounding the alarm: There is an ongoing campaign by Israel resulting in crimes against humanity in Gaza. Considering statements made by Israeli political leaders and their allies, accompanied by military action in Gaza and escalation of arrests and killing in the West Bank, there is also a risk of genocide against the Palestinian People,' the experts said."
Maybe
Yes
Albanese, Alsalem, and Mofokeng later changed their public opinions to yes in March 2024, February 2025, and January 2025 respectively, see below
"Katherine Gallagher, senior attorney with CCR and a legal representative for victims in the pending ICC investigation in Palestine, told The Intercept. 'U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel's unfolding genocide, as well as for their complicity, by encouraging it and materially supporting it.'"
Yes
Yes
There is then also the CCR's full44-page briefing declaring it genocide and naming the US as a complicit party (not in article).
"As the Israeli genocide in Gaza unfolds and global public awareness is becoming increasingly acute, it is becoming clearer that the myths surrounding the colonial conflict in Palestine serve not as guides to understanding, but as barriers. These myths, perpetuated by pro-Israel propagandists, Western powers, and Arab regimes have had dire consequences – ones measured in lost lives, crushed hopes, and a perpetually destabilised region." "Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza serves as a tacit admission of Israel's fragility".
"Today, more than ever, we need to reaffirm, without any caveats, the right of Jews to live in Israel and to defend themselves against those who deny Israel and Jews the right to exist. We deplore the humanitarian catastrophe of the Palestinian people in Gaza and note that it derives directly from the use of civilians as human shields by the Hamas. We, the scholars of the Holocaust assembled in Prague at the Lessons & Legacies conference, as well as other Holocaust scholars and persons devoted to Holocaust memory, unequivocally condemn the politics of terror pursued by Hamas and denounce the forces of global antisemitism."
"The contention that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza in retribution for Hamas' October 7 massacres is a false claim not founded in international law."
"Israel has no greater ambition than to coexist with the Palestinians as peaceful neighbors; [The genocide claims] 'threaten future attempts to identify, prevent, and prosecute that crime. It is equally damaging to the legitimacy of Holocaust and Genocide Studies as a field when such false claims are presented in the guise of scholarly expertise.'"
"the Israeli state is employing its extensive and advanced military capacity to inflict violence on Palestinian peoples on such a scale that it is accurate to frame it as the annihilation phase of genocide." "Israel's announcement of a state of 'total siege' of Gaza, cutting off water, food, electricity and medical supplies, amounted to a clear statement of intent to commit genocide against the Palestinian people by 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part' (Genocide Convention 1948, Article 2)."
"The mere fact that Israel and the Palestinians have been waging a bloody war between them for four generations, and they are both committing war crimes and hair-raising acts of violence, still does not mean that a genocide began in Gaza in October 2023."
Maybe
No
Later joined Goldberg in saying it is a case of genocide.
[By denying their historical connection with Palestine and by attributing a genocidal intention to those who built a state to protect themselves from any genocidal recurrence, Didier Fassin reactivates a classic anti-Semitic gesture that always proceeds by inversion: accusing the Jews of being guilty of what one is preparing to do or fantasizes about doing to them.] [And yet, one must choose sides on the question of whether or not one recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist. If one recognizes it, then the massacre of civilians, intentionally targeted on its sovereign territory, gives it the right not only to defend itself, but to take the necessary measures to ensure that this can never happen again, and therefore to eliminate Hamas, whose program this is.]
[The Hamas massacre with the declared intention of eliminating Jewish life in general has prompted Israel to strike back. How this retaliation, which is justified in principle, is carried out is the subject of controversial debate; principles of proportionality, the prevention of civilian casualties and the waging of a war with the prospect of future peace must be the guiding principles. Despite all the concern for the fate of the Palestinian population, however, the standards of judgement slip completely when genocidal intentions are attributed to Israel's actions.]
"Euro-Med Monitor renewed its calls on all countries across the world to take decisive action to end the Israeli genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip, citing their legal obligations to stop this horrifying crime against humanity."
"Verdeja says Israel's actions in Gaza are moving toward a 'genocidal campaign'. While he notes that it is clear Israeli forces intend to destroy Hamas, 'the response when you have a security crisis ... can be one of ceasefire, negotiation, or it can be genocide.'"
"City University of New York professor Victoria Sanford compares what's happening in Gaza to the killing or disappearance of more than 200,000 Mayans in Guatemala from 1960 to 1996, known as the Guatemalan genocide"
"Israel has only explicitly said they want to exterminate Hamas, and has not directly stated intent to 'destroy a religious, ethnic or racial group'. Simon says it's possible a court could conclude that either Hamas or some elements of the Israel Defense Force (IDF) could be found guilty of committing an act of genocide, but 'it's certainly not textbook in that connecting the intent to destroy ethnic group as such is difficult.'"
"Israel's retaliatory bombing of Gaza, however indiscriminate, and its current ground attacks, despite the numerous civilian casualties they are causing among Gaza's Palestinian population, do not meet the very high threshold that is required to meet the legal definition of genocide."
"Some may claim that the invocation of genocide, especially in Gaza, is fraught. But does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it? This logic contributes to the politics of denial. When it comes to Gaza, there is a sense of moral hypocrisy that undergirds Western epistemological approaches, one which mutes the ability to name the violence inflicted upon Palestinians." "If the international community takes its crimes seriously, then the discussion about the unfolding genocide in Gaza is not a matter of mere semantics." "Numerous statements made by top Israeli politicians affirm their intentions. There is a forming consensus among leading scholars in the field of genocide studies that 'these statements could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent,' as Omer Bartov, an authority in the field, writes."
"It's not an easy case because you have to have that smoking gun. So, you know, I respectfully disagree with his [Mokhiber's] approach on this. If you look at both parties in this tragedy that is unfolding, the prime minister of Israel has to specifically state that, I intend to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinian people. And I would suggest, respectfully, that that has not been said. Now, they have a long-term problem politically, practically and legally related to their treatment of the Palestinians. But I would beg to differ. I don't think one would categorize that as genocide."
"The left that expresses these ideas have no intellectual knowledge of international laws making clear distinctions between different ways of killings" "Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza that entails urban house-to-house fighting that regrettably creates many civilian casualties, as in other wars of this type".
"Une situation humanitaire même effrayante ne suffit pas à définir un génocide" ["Even a frightening humanitarian situation is not enough to define genocide."]
"Charging Israel With Genocide in Gaza Is Inflammatory and Dangerous. Historians must be guided by the facts, not political agendas. But when Omer Bartov in The New York Times charged Israel with 'verging' into genocide and ethnic cleansing, he grounded his argument in assertions, not evidence."
"The siege of Gaza itself, that is extermination or persecution as a crime against humanity, and it's a form of genocide... Inflicting conditions to destroy the group, that itself is a genocide. So creating a siege itself is a genocide, and that is very clear, that Israel want the siege is very clear. And the intentions to destroy the people, many officers from the Israel government are expressing genocidal intentions. That's why it's easy to say — under reasonable basis to believe — Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza."
Professor of global studies, specialising in Latin America, has written/contributed multiple books on Jewish history and culture
Trans-Cultural Studies
"1923 年の関東大震災・朝鮮人虐殺から 100 年が経過した。私が関わっているジェノサイド・奴隷制研究会は数年前から 2023 年を照準に定めて準備を進め、2023 年 6 月に調布の「せんがわ劇場」で「死者たちの夏 2023」と題し 3 日間、音楽会と朗読会を催した。プロの音楽家と俳優によって、音楽会ではイディッシュソングから朝鮮歌謡、南米の抵抗歌が演奏され、朗読会ではホロコースト、朝鮮人虐殺、カリブ・南米・アフリカの虐殺に関するテキストが朗読された。しかし2023 年 10 月 7 日以降、イスラエルによってガザ地区で大量殺戮が公然と行われ、改めてジェノサイドが過去の出来事ではないことを思い知らされた。" ["It's been 100 years since the Great Kanto Earthquake and the massacre of Koreans in 1923. The Genocide and Slavery Research Group, which I'm involved with, has been preparing for 2023 for several years. In June 2023, we held a three-day concert and reading event titled "Summer of the Dead 2023" at the Sengawa Theater in Chofu. Professional musicians and actors performed Yiddish songs, Korean folk songs, and South American resistance songs at the concert, while the reading featured texts on the Holocaust, the massacre of Koreans, and massacres in the Caribbean, South America, and Africa. However, since October 7, 2023, Israel has openly committed mass murder in the Gaza Strip, reminding us once again that genocide is no longer a thing of the past."]
"'The intent that we have observed is extensive and it comes from all quarters of the Israeli state,' said Anisha Patel, a legal researcher with the group Law for Palestine — which provides legal analysis on international law as it relates to Palestinians."
"We, scholars of the Holocaust, genocide, and mass violence, feel compelled to warn of the danger of genocide in Israel's attack on Gaza." "Moreover, dozens of statements of Israeli leaders, ministers in the war cabinet, and senior army officers since 7 October—that is, people with command authority—suggest an 'intent to destroy' Palestinians 'as such,' in the language of the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
"Beaucoup de chercheurs en France et en Europe se refusent à parler de génocide et évoquent, au mieux, le terme de nettoyage ethnique. Faut-il leur rappeler que de nombreux génocides ont été perpétrés dans la continuation du nettoyage ethnique et lorsque celui-ci a été rendu impossible ? Combien de cases faudra-il cocher avant que les puissances occidentales se décident à réagir fermement et que les intellectuels se saisissent vraiment de ce sujet ?" ["Many researchers in France and Europe refuse to talk about genocide and, at best, use the term ethnic cleansing. Should we remind them that many genocides have been perpetrated in the continuation of ethnic cleansing and when it has been made impossible? How many boxes will have to be ticked before Western powers decide to react firmly and intellectuals really take up this subject?"]
Professor of criminal law and head of the Department of Foreign and International Criminal Law
Hard to group into a clear category
"Bartov chooses his words carefully. He warns of possibly impending genocide without claiming it is happening already. Some statements of certain Israeli policymakers are indeed worrisome. Yet, while they may be relevant for proving the necessary specific intent, they cannot automatically be attributed to the persons who are taking the military decisions."
No
Yes
Ambos updated his opinion to "likely" in June 2025
"The Lemkin Institute believes that Israel's retaliation against Palestinians amounts not only to war crimes and crimes against humanity, but also to genocide"
"Undoubtedly, the State of Israel is an Occupying Power and subject to the law of the Geneva Conventions in the manner of its treatment of the Palestinian people. In relation to international positive law (the Geneva Conventions, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, etc.) and the morality central to the jus gentium, the State of Israel is by no means to be excepted in the way it decides to conduct itself vis-à-vis the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, including Gaza. The Palestinians throughout the Occupied Territories are entitled as a matter of jus gentium to the full protection the international community of nations can muster on those grounds. Thus, Louis Rene Beres (1989, 29) is entirely correct to remind that, the Genocide Convention, along with other 'human rights "regime"' treaties and declarations, 'represents the end of the idea of absolute sovereignty concerning non-intervention when human rights are in grievous jeopardy.' And, this certainly applies in the case of Israel's war being waged against the Palestinian people in Gaza (with spillover effects in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as the IDF supports settler Israelis in their hostile acts of dispossession and displacement of the Palestinians in those quarters)."
"There is no single statistic that better illustrates the genocide than the deaths of mothers and their newborns... maternal, and perinatal mortality are subject to an exponential increase that will not only cancel out the improvements of the past decades but also undoubtedly position Gaza as the most dangerous place in the world to give birth. "
"urging governments across the globe to formally support South Africa's International Court of Justice case against Israel, accusing the government of genocidal violence in Gaza.",
"Sfard said he was stunned by the speed with which incitement to genocide and other extreme speech had been normalised in Israel." "The gap between that and the freedom and impunity for those who advocate all kinds of things – ethnic cleansing, killing civilians, bombarding civilian areas, and even genocide – doesn't square up, and that's something for the authorities to explain."
"For the record, I believed Israel was guilty of serious war crimes--but not genocide—during the first two months of the war, even though there was growing evidence of what Bartov has called 'genocidal intent' on the part of Israeli leaders. But it became clear to me after the 24-30 November 2023 truce ended and Israel went back on the offensive, that Israeli leaders were in fact seeking to physically destroy a substantial portion of Gaza’s Palestinian population."
"Before October's escalation of violence, the effect of the Israeli siege of Gaza had already been described as a 'slow-motion genocide'." "We situate this violence in relation to the definition of genocide as described in Article 2 of the Genocide Convention, focusing on physical elements including killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, creating life-threatening conditions, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children." "As public health and humanitarian professionals, we the authors state emphatically that the grave risk of genocide against the Palestinian people warrants immediate—and now overdue—action."
"In view of the attorney general's failure to enforce the law or any accountability in the Huwwara case, it is no surprise that Israeli officials and politicians took advantage of the climate, following the Hamas attack, in order to incite deadly harm against the entire civilian population in Gaza." "Given that senior members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and those in the parliament have explicitly supported violence, terrorism and genocide against the Palestinians, any criminal proceedings initiated against them would be seen across the political spectrum in Israel as an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government."
"The word genocide is used willy-nilly by people all over the world, but genocide, as it has evolved since 1948 when the genocide convention was first adopted by the UN General Assembly, is a legal concept. And whatever else Israel is doing, and has done, it is not intending to destroy the Palestinian people; either on the West Bank or in Gaza"
"Nous nous opposons aux graves violations par Israël des droits humains et de la liberté académique des Palestiniens, à la guerre génocidaire en cours à Gaza ainsi qu'aux arrestations et détentions arbitraires en particulier celles subies par les étudiants et le personnel palestinien dans les universités de Cisjordanie." ["We oppose Israel's grave violations of Palestinian human rights and academic freedom, the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza, and arbitrary arrests and detentions, particularly those suffered by Palestinian students and staff in West Bank universities."]
"Professor Francis Boyle, who won the first case ever under the genocide convention at the ICJ for the republic of Bosnia Herzegovina against Yugoslavia, said he is confident South Africa will win an order against Israel to cease and desist from committing all acts of genocide against the Palestinians. He told ITV News: 'When I submitted my case, I had to work on it on my own. South Africa has an impressive team of experts who have managed to put together the most comprehensive and impeccable application.'"
Yes
No
News article is in the article, but Boyle is not mentioned.
Legal Consultant in Public International Law, with a focus on armed conflict
EJIL:Talk! – Blog of theEuropean Journal of International Law
"Despite having been firmly established in international law for three quarters of a century, the definition and requisite elements of the international crime of genocide appear to have been misunderstood or, in some cases, deliberately misapplied, seemingly by both scholars and laypersons." "Labelling Israel's military operation against Hamas as an act of genocide may threaten to undo 75 years of work to prevent and punish the commission of genocide, by diluting and diminishing the effect of the Genocide Convention."
"but is usually very difficult to prove" "The destruction of the group must be the sole aim of the perpetrator" "under international law, there is a right to self-defence"
"That is a claim that is very difficult to prove, because you have to prove that Israel is acting with the specific purpose of exterminating the Palestinians."
"I think there's not much question that the level of killing, the level of deprivation is sufficient to meet that predicate part of the crime of genocide." "This is all genocidal intent. [South Africa] also kind of worked backwards from the acts on the ground to say that, because Israel is bombing so indiscriminately, because it's using these massive 2,000-pound bombs in heavily populated areas, that this also shows an indifference to Palestinian civilian life, which itself is indicative of genocidal intent."
"Although the high number of civilian deaths and the enormous material damage are horrific, they do not necessarily prove an intent to commit genocide. For example, the repeated calls for the civilian population to leave certain parts of the area or the observance of the obligation to warn and set a deadline before withdrawing protection from a civilian hospital because it is being used outside its humanitarian purpose to commit acts harmful to the enemy speak against such an intent."
"I believe that the reaction that the Israeli army had in Gaza - undoubtedly disproportionate in terms of international law - cannot be considered as genocide, but it can certainly be considered as a war crime or as a crime against humanity"
"Al Mezan, Al-Haq, and PCHR reiterate that the Palestinian people in Gaza are facing an ongoing genocide. Israel’s actions in Gaza—encompassing killings, causing severe bodily or mental harm, deliberately imposing conditions of life aimed at physical destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group—constitute genocidal acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention. These acts are committed with the intent to destroy, either wholly or in part, the Palestinian population in Gaza. This intent is substantiated by statements from official Israeli sources and individuals expressing the clear intention to carry out such destruction."
"But while it's easy to second-guess the actions of Israeli forces, there is no evidence that they have engaged in a deliberate campaign to 'destroy, in whole or in part,' the Palestinian people — which is what 'genocide' means in international law. Awful as the civilian deaths in Gaza have been, they still constitute less than 1 percent of the territory's population. If Israel, with all the firepower at its disposal, had been trying to commit mass murder, the death toll would have been higher by orders of magnitude." "That's why the charge of genocide has been rejected not only by the United States but also by Canada, Britain and Germany, among others."
"If the (televised) Syrian genocide was the first internationally tolerated series of atrocities, then the recent genocidal violence in Gaza is the first with active input from the 'international community.'" "One maxim it should state is: if a series of actions approach genocide sufficiently to occasion a debate on whether they are genocide or not, then they are evil enough to be denounced without ifs or buts."
"All that said, if the utterance of genocide too obviously sticks in the craw for those like Illouz, who might read an inherent dissonance in the implication of a post-Holocaust state committing the act – arguably the ultimate Jewish taboo – there might be other routes by which we could overcome a semantic disagreement." "The reality of the situation, whatever nomenclature genocide scholars may consider most appropriate – genocide, genocidal warfare, permanent security, urbicide, social death –the Israeli state this time has dissolved any remaining vestige (if ever there was one) of moral unassailability and given other (liberal or illiberal) states who might have their own unfinished reckonings with communal adversaries the respectability of open season to do their worst."
"Luego de rechazar cualquier discurso de odio o discriminación, llamaron a los universitarios de todo el país a apoyar diversas acciones, entre ellas sumarse al exhorto que lanzaron mas de mil 600 académicos de todo el continente a los gobiernos progresistas de América Latina para que actúen de forma conjunta contra el 'genocidio' y presionen por un alto al fuego inmediato." ["After rejecting any hate speech or discrimination, they called on university students throughout the country to support various actions, including joining the exhortation launched by more than 1,600 academics from all over the continent to the progressive governments of Latin America to act together against the 'genocide' and press for an immediate ceasefire."]
"Israel did not commit genocide, the number of civilians who were killed is proportional to the number of combatants, it is lower than any war in modern history. Israel is trying its best to preserve civilian life, whereas Hamas is doing its best to take civilian lives."
"in light of the sheer scale of the killing of children specifically, we submit that it is not unreasonable to at least consider the possibility of special intent as inferred from the objective circumstances (targeting of civilian objects where children and women would typically or likely be present) in light of the history of targeting children in Palestine by Israeli forces"
"The aim of genocide is to destroy, certainly, but also to is erase the very fabric of the group's existence, their history, their culture, and in many ways, their very soul. We see these criteria in Israel's war on Gaza — a systematic attempt to destroy the Palestinian population."
Sociologist specialising in antisemitism, and editor ofK.
K. Jews, Europe and the XXIst century.
"'Apartheid', 'genocide' and others when applied to Israel are being stretched to such an extent that their descriptive meaning becomes blurred or even annulled, while their emotive meaning is preserved."
"The good news was the International Court of Justice did not effectively order us to wait to be tortured and murdered, by demanding a halt to the Gaza War. That is certainly good – but only in the twisted world where the ICJ is putting Israel, not Hamas, on trial for the absolutely absurd charge of genocide."
"this is a genocide. And if people went to Gaza, they would see for themselves that it goes even beyond that, because of the way people are killed, the way everything is being destroyed, how people are being pushed to the limit. Gazans die many times a day in different ways. No one in Gaza knows if they'll still be alive in an hour."
"The dynamic of violence since 7 October then is not a qualitative transmutation, but a corollary of the path-dependent history of the conflict: asymmetrical power relations, and annihilatory attitudes towards civilians." "It is also evident to most observers that the Israeli reaction is unmistakably counter-genocidal in terms of the quantity, quality, and dynamic of mass violence. Even if we disregard the quantitative dimension of the ongoing death toll, an analysis of the qualitative elements of the violence indicates a complex process of destruction."
"Die Kolonisierenden setzen die fortgeschrittensten Tötungstechniken gegen eine weit unterlegene Militär-macht ein und gehen zu einem genozidalen Massaker mit dem Ziel über, den Eingeborenen eine Lektion zu erteilen, "die sie nie vergessen werden"" ["The colonizers use the most advanced killing techniques against a vastly inferior military power and resort to a genocidal massacre with the aim of teaching the natives a lesson "they will never forget.""]
"On Nov. 13 the Center for Constitutional Rights filed suit in U.S. federal court against the president, secretary of state and secretary of defense on behalf of two Palestinian organizations and eight Palestinians, some in the U.S. and some in Palestine, to challenge the U.S. government's aiding and abetting of genocide and demand that it work to prevent genocide and comply with its legal obligations under international law."
"Israel is fighting back legitimately in Self-Defense in Response and in Self-Defense against Future Genocidal Attacks that Employ Citizens as Human Shields. The Geneva Conventions specifically outlaw use of human shields and justify fighting back in response. Self-Defense does not include genocidal intent."
"Indeed, for 40 years now, Israel has been regularly accused of committing genocide by its ideological opponents. But apart from thunderous declarations, no evidence of genocide has ever been produced. Today, of course, it's being brought up again, mostly by people who have no particular expertise in the field."
"The IDF campaign has left much of Gaza in ruins, displacing people and creating a massive refugee and humanitarian crisis. However, the use of excessive force stems from an aversion to [Israeli military] casualties, not genocidal intent. If the massive assault on Gaza is not genocide, it may constitute a war crime, although that will be hard to prove.
Zena Agha; James Esson; Mark Griffiths; Mikko Joronen
5 February 2024
Doctoral candidate in Human Geography; Professor of Geography; Political geographer specialising in military ecologies; Associate Professor of Regional Studies
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers
"This would make impossible the idea that the 7 October Hamas attack sarrived without context and would counter the indifferent or silencing responses that facilitate a genocide in Gaza."
"Trachtenberg testified to a consensus opinion among historians of genocide that what is happening in Gaza can indeed be called a genocide, largely because the intent to cause death on a massive scale has been so clear in the statements of Israeli officials. 'We are watching the genocide unfold as we speak,' he said. 'We are in this incredibly unique position where we can intervene to stop it, using the mechanisms of international law that are available to us.'"
"By early October, an ongoing campaign of genocidal violence had intensified in Palestine, killing thousands and laying claim to the lifeworlds of millions. Most among them were refugees several times over, who had already watched each generation before them dispossessed."
"It should be noted that genocide is an incredibly difficult crime to prove. Genocide refers to any of a series of acts – such as the killing or the transfer of children—undertaken with 'intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.' Historically, courts have struggled to prove the relevant intent, which is not just murder but a concerted policy to destroy a people as a whole. For South Africa to win this case, it will need to find and provide evidence that the Israeli government's intent was not merely to prevent attacks such as those of October 7 or to degrade the capability of Hamas, but rather to annihilate the Palestinian people as a whole."
"It is a similar exercise that I want to propose here about the arguments used by those who have championed the right of Israel to defend itself at whatever cost for Palestinian civilians and have attacked those who have alerted the world to the risk of a genocide being perpetrated in Gaza" "As the destruction of public infrastructures, including hospitals and schools, and the tally of civilian casualties, mostly children and women, increased in Gaza on a scale never seen before in Palestine, the qualification of the war crimes committed by Israel as possibly a genocide by scholars, lawyers, experts from international organizations and even governments has generated hostile reactions in Israel and among supporters of the Israeli politics of retaliation, mostly in Western countries." "The critics of this qualification, many of them academics, maintained that a state created for a people victim of the quintessential genocide could not be suspected of committing a similar crime" "Alerting to the prospect of a genocide being perpetrated in Gaza is stigmatized as an unconscious desire to have a genocide perpetrated against the Jews."
"All these cases together with people's lack of access to food, medicine, water, etc. indicate the occurrence of genocide according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG), on 9 December 1948."
"The genocide in Gaza continues unbated after the ruling and the Israeli government — by virtue of unconditional Western support — does not show any restraint whatever in the wake of the ruling."
"Just two months after this special issue was finalized Israel launched its catastrophic, genocidal assault on Gaza." "As this timely and crucially important volume demonstrates Israel's genocide of the Palestinians is bound both to the logic of settler colonialism and to the necessity of its abolition." "What we are witnessing now, not only in Gaza but across historic Palestine is the denouement in Israel's genocide of the indigenous Palestinians...a second Nakba and as Knesset member Arial Kallner demanded one that dwarfs the Nakba of 1948."
"I imagine most of us who have been watching the genocide unfold on our screens day after day, while one national, and then international institution after the other has so blatantly and brazenly upheld its bias in favour of Israel in ways that has shown Empire's full nudity to the world. And yet, watching the ICJ this morning in its hallowed halls I WANT TO believe that law can save Gaza. That 'legal order' can be restored against the genocidal chaos."
"Israel has clearly stated that it is in a war of defense against Hamas, not against the Palestinian people. Its actions and official statements clearly indicate that there is no basis to accuse it of attempting to commit a genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza."
Professor, Director of Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies
ICC Forum
"Is a genocide unfolding right before our eyes, eight decades after the world declared 'Never Again!' following the Holocaust? Seventy-five years, almost to the precise date, after the Convention to Prevent and Punish the Crime of Genocide? Yes, it is."
"This pattern is quite extraordinary because the states supporting Israel, above all the United States, have claimed the high moral and legal ground for themselves and have long lectured the states of the Global South about the importance of the rule of law, human rights, and respect for international law. This is instead of urging compliance with international law and morality by both sides in the face of the most transparent genocide in all of human history. In the numerous pre-Gaza genocides, the existential horrors that occurred were largely known after the fact and through statistics and abstractions, occasionally vivified by the tales told by survivors. The events, although historically reconstructed, were not as immediately real as these events in Gaza with the daily reports from journalists on the scene for more than three months."
"Michael Fakhri says denial of food is war crime and constitutes 'a situation of genocide'" "In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide."
"Israel's assault on Gaza appears to include both acts and intent stated in the definition of genocide.", "President Biden, do not let the United States go down in history as the enabler of genocide"
"It is this racism and dehumanization that has made possible Israel’s killing of at least 35,000 Palestinians and counting, the displacement and starvation of nearly the whole population of over 2 million people in Gaza, and the complete devastation of its infrastructure… Now more than ever, the US government has wholeheartedly adopted Israel and its lobby’s agenda of criminalizing and smearing Palestine solidarity in an effort to give cover to and justify the genocide."
"一方，今日，ユダヤ人国家であるイスラエルは，戦争を遂行している現ネタニヤフ政権がそれ自体として，パレスチナ人の大量虐殺，殲滅，すなわち民族皆殺し＝ジェノサイドと見做していい戦争行為を行っている。" ["Meanwhile, today, the Jewish state of Israel, under the current Netanyahu administration, is waging a war that can be considered genocide, the massacre and annihilation of Palestinians."]
"The very different ways in which Holocaust scholars, on the one hand, and those working in Genocide Studies, on the other, have responded to the unfolding mass violence in Israel and Palestine after 7 October point to an unprecedented crisis in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. We argue that the crisis stems from the significant evidence for genocide in Israel's attack on Gaza, which has exposed the exceptional status accorded to Israel as a foundational element in the field, that is, the idea that Israel, the state of Holocaust survivors, can never perpetrate genocide."
"By almost every measure, this is one of the greatest man-made public health catastrophes of our age. It is, as many experts have now declared, a genocide."
"This is not just the result of growing international outrage and diplomatic opposition to the genocide. There's simply nothing left in Gaza for Israel to destroy, and nowhere left for its military to go."
"The scale of violence of the recent Israeli war has already exceeded the initial stages of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and is becoming an immense ethnic cleansing comparable with the Armenian case. In light of the bellicose discriminatory discourses of the Israeli leaders, systematic destruction of civilian targets, forced starvation, and rapidly deteriorating hygiene conditions in Gaza, there are ample grounds to believe that the war on Gaza will develop into a full-fledged genocide if unchecked."
"These facts demonstrate a pattern of behaviour giving rise not only to specific violations of IHL and of crimes against humanity but also, when taken together with the evidence of genocidal intent in statements by senior Israeli officials cited by the ICJ in its Provisional Order, a serious risk of genocide. That risk relates in particular to the Genocide Convention Article II (a) 'killing members of the group'; (b) 'causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group'; and (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or part". "In light of the infant and maternal mortality rates and the destruction of Gaza's healthcare system described above, these facts may also give rise to violations of Article II(d), i.e. 'imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group'."
"Of course this is not a genocide. It is absolutely clear. But it doesn't mean that I justify what Israel does in Gaza. I think the killing that we cause there is what is called in academic language mass atrocities crimes. But obviously all comparisons to genocide are baseless."
"Este viernes, Docentes con Palestina ha convocado concentraciones a mediodía en todos los centros de enseñanza de Galicia en solidaridad con el pueblo palestino, para alertar una vez más del genocidio y para que el alumnado educado en el siglo XXI sea consciente de que está viviendo en directo uno de los peores horrores que han ocurrido en la historia de la raza humana." ["This Friday, Teachers with Palestine has called for midday rallies in all educational centres in Galicia in solidarity with the Palestinian people, to warn once again of the genocide and so that students educated in the 21st century are aware that they are living in directly one of the worst horrors that have occurred in the history of the human race."] "'Explicar que ahora mismo está ocurriendo un genocidio y exigir su final es difícil, pero es una tarea absolutamente pedagógica', sostiene." ["'Explaining that a genocide is happening right now and demanding its end is difficult, but it is an absolutely pedagogical task,' he maintains."]
"No. There is no genocidal intent on the Israeli side. Some members of the Israeli government want to drive the Palestinians out of Gaza and relocate them. But fortunately, they are not the decisive force in government."
"Israel's conduct in Gaza, and the US's active legal support for it, forces us to grapple with the seemingly unthinkable: a perfectly legal genocide, that is a genocide legitimized via a permissive interpretation of IHL." "By turning to Gaza, I show that Israel has mobilized a deeply permissive account of IHL to justify its use of starvation as a tool of genocide." "Notably absent from Power's statement was the stance for which she became famous: moral condemnation of a US administration that responds to genocide by rendering 'the bloodshed two sided and inevitable, not genocidal.'"
"Genocidal pressures were building up against the Palestinians well before the siege of Gaza that began in the wake of the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. In Israel it is now perfectly normal to call for genocide against the Palestinians; whereas to the contrary, it is looked upon as treason to defend Palestinian life."
Literary critic, philosopher, and historian specialising in genocide
Law for Palestine
"The genocide of Gaza, a region with a history of remarkable artistic and intellectual creativity that spans centuries, is therefore harming humanity collectively. Meanwhile, Zionism's aggressively escalating settler colonialism is disgracing Israel's own position in history."
"Last month, our organisation, Law for Palestine, made the first in a series of submissions to the ICC, characterising the crime of genocide committed by Israeli leaders against the Palestinian people. The 200-page document, drafted by 30 lawyers and legal researchers from across the world and reviewed by more than 15 experts, makes a compelling case for the genocidal intent as well as for the prosecutorial policy that the court has followed in other cases." "We also refer to the database we have put together of more than 500 instances of Israeli incitement to genocide as additional proof. While the statements form a substantial part of the intent component of the crime of genocide, the submission goes beyond and highlights the various actions and official policies that additionally prove intent."
"To me, it's very unlikely that the ICJ will give Israel a total clean bill of health. I think the evidence is already pretty well established that there have been instances in which, even representatives of the Israeli government have made statements that are incitement to genocide. I think there’s also significant amount of evidence already established that the Israeli military campaign [00:17:00] creates a risk of genocide occurring." "So, the short answer, I think, to your question is that it's a bit more hypothetical, because I think the more likely result is that the ICJ will find violations, although I also think the ICJ probably will not find that Israel committed genocide."
"The court decided that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide and that South Africa had the right to present that claim in the court. It then looked at the facts as well. But it did not decide – and this is something where I'm correcting what's often said in the media – it didn't decide that the claim of genocide was plausible. It did emphasize in the order that there was a risk of irreparable harm to the Palestinian right to be protected from genocide. But the shorthand that often appears, which is that there's a plausible case of genocide, isn't what the court decided."
"それにもかかわらず欧米諸国の政府や大手メディアはイスラエルの閣僚や高官から発せられるパレスティナ人の非人間化や悪魔化、民族浄化やジェノサイドを示唆する発言を無視している。" ["Yet Western governments and mainstream media outlets ignore statements from Israeli ministers and officials that dehumanize and demonize Palestinians, and suggest ethnic cleansing and genocide."]
"That application was preceded by weeks of public debate and insistence by Palestinians and others – including genocide scholars – that Israel was either already committing genocide against the residents of Gaza or risked committing genocide [...] The law of genocide often tells us to disregard what our eyes leave little doubt is happening. This creates a profound disconnect between the legal definition of genocide and popular and historical experiences and understandings of the term. By situating the catastrophe in Gaza both within Israel's long history of eliminationist violence towards Palestinians and fine-tuned legal arguments, South Africa has brought the law into line with the historical reality and lived-experiences of the victims of genocide, forcing a dialectical conversation between two, often, opposing planes – the law on genocide and thereality of genocide."
Research Fellow, Social Scientists' Association in Colombo
Polity
"The campus protests opposing active genocide in Gaza are relevant here not because they anticipate a 'multipolar world'. Rather, it is because they reveal the specific outlines of an alternative order within the historical centre of imperialism."
"Legal discourse needs to match the reality of horror to maintain its relevance. Although legal scholars and commentators were slow to recognize the severity and urgency of the situation, this article sought to show that there is an emerging consensus that Israel's actions in Gaza are not another instance of armed conflict but instead amount to genocide. This genocide is committed against an integral component of the Palestinian people, a protected group under the Genocide Convention. The preceding discussion shows that obstacles facing a legal determination of genocide (namely, assessing the credibility of military logic and the existence of genocidal intent) are not insurmountable. The emerging consensus described here may not be overwhelming and will have to face opposition and potential judicial disagreement. Yet an overwhelming body of evidence supports it and a consistency in the application of standards requires it."
"Israel's constant attack on the civilian population in Gaza claiming mostly the death of children and women and its repeatedly non-acceptance of calls for ceasefire from the General Assembly and other global civil societies is a clear proof of its 'intent to destroy' the people in Gaza and their next generation... This state of mind fulfils the criterion ofmens rea as represented by the word 'intent to destroy' to constitute genocide according to the Genocide Convention, 1948."
"La introducción al texto presentado por los catedráticos enumera cinco peticiones dirigidas al rector de la UCM: una condena 'clara y explícita' de la destrucción deliberada de las universidades palestinas y el ataque a profesores, estudiantes y personal universitario; la petición de alto al fuego 'inmediato y permanente'; la cancelación de toda colaboración con universidades israelís 'que se relacionen con el genocidio de Gaza'; financiar programas para acoger a estudiantes y maestros palestinos; y la cancelación de toda colaboración con empresas o instituciones 'que otorguen un apoyo directo o al genocidio en Gaza'." ["The introduction to the text presented by the professors lists five requests addressed to the rector of the UCM: a 'clear and explicit' condemnation of the deliberate destruction of Palestinian universities and the attack on professors, students and university staff; the request for an 'immediate and permanent' ceasefire; the cancellation of all collaboration with Israeli universities 'that are related to the genocide in Gaza'; funding programmes to welcome Palestinian students and teachers; and the cancellation of any collaboration with companies or institutions 'that provide direct support or genocide in Gaza'."]
"This paper traces the continuity of Israel's settler colonial policies and practices of massacre and genocide, beginning with the 1948 Nakba, continuing up to today's Genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. It argues that genocide is a fundamental feature of the structure of settler colonialism. It is a process and not an event. Since 1947, Israel's settler colonialism has been accompanied by unrelenting military, juridical, geographical, economic, ideological, psychological, and cultural violence against Indigenous Palestinians."
"What we see now are massacres which are part of the genocidal impulse, namely to kill people in order to downsize the number of people living in Gaza"
"Among the worst reactions to October 7th has been the grotesque misuse of the concept of genocide. It is now constantly asserted that Jews are not victims but perpetrators, that it is Israel not Hamas which is guilty of committing this terrible crime. This charge is fundamentally antisemitic but also involves a grave inversion of values and meaning."
"I ultimately do not see sufficient grounds for genocide if one takes the legal term seriously." "Even if individual actions by the Israeli armed forces can be described as war crimes, they do not [necessarily - added by me] at the same time constitute genocide."
"«Certain statements by Israeli politicians were genocidal». There was talk of extermination. «But the actions of the Israeli army are, in my opinion, directed against Hamas and not against the entire population»" "He does not believe that the International Court of Justice will find a generational[sic]intent to commit genocide in the South Africa v. Israel case."
"A fierce military response facing unprecedented challenges in the history of warfare – because of a highly densely populated urban area, an underground city built below a civilian population – has become in the eyes of many a bona fide case of genocide" "Jews, Zionists and moderate people from all political parties and religions have watched the campus protests unfold in amazement, unable to believe the unselfconscious double standards, the baselessness of the historical parallels" "these protests give me no choice but to ask myself if, after all, something like the phantasmagoric irrationality of antisemitism is at work here."
"Will we continue to allow the same kind of forces that once endorsed US segregation and South African apartheid to determine our future and collective professional identity, or will we instead refuse ongoing complicity with the violence in Gaza and demand that our field use its authority to insist on an end to support for Israeli occupation and genocide?"
Professor of Development Studies and International Relations
The Gaza Catastrophe: The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective
"One of the worst flaws in Hamas's miscalculation is that it disregarded the fact that Israel was led by the most far-right government in its history, including people who openly advocate the expulsion of the Palestinians from their historical land ― a gang of anti-Palestinian racists who would not hesitate to seize any suitable opportunity to launch a genocidal war on the Strip and reoccupy it permanently."
Professor of social welfare; Professor of social work
Aotearoa New Zealand Social Work
"Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the most-read article published in 2023 was a special editorial on Justice for Palestine included in issue four (Ballantyne et al., 2023). This was a statement by editorial collective members on the situation in Palestine. In the context of the genocide, we were all witnessing on our television screens and the silence of the IFSW on this matter, we felt compelled to comment. Since that editorial was published in December 2023, the horrifying death toll has not stopped climbing, and despite the statements made by the International Criminal Court to halt the ground invasion of Rafah, Israel continues its assault on Gaza and the West Bank unabated. The editorial collective continues to express our utmost solidarity with the Palestinian people and our deep concern for the future prospects of an international rules-based order that respects all peoples' human rights, including the right to self-determination."
"To effectively argue that the U.S. must cease its complicity with Israeli genocide, one must be able to persuasively demonstrate that genocide, in its strictest legal sense, is being committed and that U.S. complicity with, and failure to prevent, genocide violates international law. This essay will sketch out a path towards effectively making that case."
Professor of Public International Law and European Integration
Diplomatija i bezbednost
"Regarding the third hypothesis, it seems to us that by analyzing the content of the statements of certain senior Israeli military and political officials, we can come to the conclusion that these statements can be qualified as incitement to genocide. Given that the International Court of Justice issued an order on temporary measures based on South Africa's lawsuit against Israel for violating the UN Convention on Genocide, additional grounds for suspicion that genocide is being carried out in Gaza, or at least intended to be carried out against the Palestinian people, are confirmed."
"this research will also contribute to the related field of the social sciences as being the first clear example of genocide acts perpetuated by Israel so far in one of the whole Palestine territory like the Gaza Strip." "At first, it will not be wrong to claim that the Palestinian cause regarding recent Israeli Gaza assaults is a trickling genocide, slow but relentless."
"Israel's genocide in Gaza has shone a spotlight on the deep dysfunctionality of the EU as a collective political bloc and its unwillingness to hold its 'friend and ally' to account for one of the most egregious, catastrophic and barbaric events in recent history."
Tensões Mundiais - Edição Extraordinária: Genocídio do Povo Palestino
"Os indícios mais remotos da solução genocida aplicada pelo sionismo podem ser encontrados nos planos pré-estatais de "transferência populacional" e nas doutrinas de segurança, prescrevendo retaliações desproporcionais para conformar os “nativos” com a colonização. Os civis como alvo ou objetivo dos ataques nos aproxima dos atos genocidas de intencionalmente destruir uma parte ou o todo da população visada e criar condi-ções de vida que impossibilitem sua reprodução." ["The earliest evidence of the genocidal solution applied by Zionism can be found in pre-state "population transfer" plans and security doctrines, which prescribed disproportionate retaliation to conform the "natives" to colonization. Civilians as targets or objectives of attacks brings us closer to the genocidal acts of intentionally destroying part or all of the targeted population and creating living conditions that make their reproduction impossible."]
"Conditions for the emergence of a Jewish genocidal mindset in Israel evolved gradually since the 1970s." "Positioned at the core of rural Palestinian life, these settlements serve as intellectual incubators and experimental laboratories of genocidal politics, chief of which is ethnic cleansing." "By and large, though the IDF avoids drafting the most radical and violent members of Hardal, given the growing size of this demographic within the army, including among the officers' corps and the growing number of soldiers who sympathize or directly belong to these genocidal circles especially on the field level, their influence is growing." "A decade later, and in the context of the current war in Gaza, the rhetoric of a genocidal Jewish Holy War is being pushed into the mainstream like never before and is featured in many of its ground operations, especially among the ranks of the more popular infantry and armoured divisions."
Q: "For all of the condemnation of Israel's actions, there is also strong opposition to Israel's actions being labeled a genocide. Where does that pushback come from?".
A: "The opposition is political, as there is consensus amongst the international human rights legal community, many other legal and political experts, including many Holocaust scholars, that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza."
Obligations of Third States and Corporations to Prevent and Punish Genocide in Gaza
"Arms, weapons, ammunition, vehicles, and other military supplies, including parts, technology, and fuel, are essential for the activities of the Israeli air force, ground forces, and navy and, therefore, make an essential contribution to violations of international humanitarian law and genocidal acts against the Palestinians in Gaza. Dozens of companies domiciled in Third States (especially in the US and Germany) are currently providing Israel with weapons and other military equipment used in its Gaza in operations that allegedly amount to genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and other violations of international human rights and humanitarian law."
Maybe
No
Says that "genocidal acts" are being committed, but that operations "allegedly amount to genocide".
"Hamas has embedded itself in the civilian population of Gaza, and its extensive network of tunnels provides its combatants the ability to move around quickly. Even if Israel's bombers were intent on minimizing harm to civilians, they would have had difficulty doing so in their effort to destroy Hamas. And yet, even believing this, I am now persuaded that Israel is engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. What has changed my mind is its sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory."
Yes
No
Comments about how these actions are "indicative of genocide" are already in article attributed to Neier viathis CNN interview
"'Given the extent of the war crimes and the military operations carried out by the Israeli army on the ground, this situation can be considered genocide according to a growing number of international lawyers,' Jacquet said."
Professor in Interculturality and the Arab-Islamic World
Mañé, Ferrer & Swartz: Revista Internacional de Educación y Análisis Social Crítico
"El ataque de Hamas el 7 de octubre se convirtió en un casus bellipara el gobierno israelí y su ejército de ocupación, pero la descomunal violencia ejercida sobre Gaza y sobre toda su población debe estudiarseen el contexto de acción de una ideología fundamentalistanacionalista y religiosa, denominada neosionismo. Consideramos la guerra genocida sobre Gaza como última consecuencia práctica de dicha ideología." ["The Hamas attack on October 7 became a casus belli for the Israeli government and its occupying army, but the massive violence inflicted on Gaza and its entire population must be viewed within the context of a fundamentalist, nationalist, and religious ideology known as neo-Zionism. We view the genocidal war on Gaza as the ultimate practical consequence of this ideology."]
"US president Joe Biden, along with British foreign secretary David Cameron, were also isolated in their backing for Israel's genocidal offensive in Rafah."
"I firmly believed, and continue to do so, that the Israelis had every right to retaliate against Hamas and to free those Israelis being held hostage by Hamas." "Under the cover of the Israel-Hamas war, Israeli 'settlers' on the West Bank are attacking Palestinian villages, forcibly removing the occupants from their homes and land, beating them (and in certain cases killing them), and stealing said land. And those Israeli thugs are doing so while under the protection and support of the Israeli army and police." "It is crystal clear that both Hamas and the Israelis have already perpetrated, at the least, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Various others have also accused both Hamas and the Israelis of genocide. An international court will adjudicate this."
Professor of social work;Professor of social work;Professor of social work;Professor of social work];Organizer;Professor of social work
Abolitionist Perspectives in Social Work
"Since October 7, 2023, the world has witnessed Israel's unrelenting mass assault against the people of Gaza, killing more than 37,000 Palestinians. The response to this genocide in most sectors of professional society has largely been one of denial and suppression of solidarity with Palestine, unveiling extremes of the longstanding Palestine exception in progressive politics. This article contextualizes the social work profession's response to Israel's ongoing genocide of Palestinian people after October 7, 2023, including responses from schools of social work, social work agencies and organizations, and academic journals."
"'The enormous amount of evidence I have seen, much of it referenced later in this document, has been enough for me to believe that Israel is currently committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza,' Mr Mordechai said in the introduction to a report he published."
"A majority of Middle East scholars see Israeli motives in Gaza to be about forcing Palestinians out [57%]" "How would you define Israel's current military actions in Gaza? Response: Major war crimes akin to genocide (41%), Genocide (34%), Major war crimes but not akin to genocide (16%), Unjustified actions but not major war crimes (4%), Justified actions under the right to self-defense (4%)".
"He emphasised that, despite Israel's own repetition of genocidal intent, 'Western leaders are guilty of viewing Palestine and Israel through the prejudiced prism of a merciless Palestinian terrorists against the gentle Jewish victims who are desperately maintaining the only democracy in the Middle East.'"
"Después de ocho meses de genocidio en Gaza y más de 37.000 muertos palestinos, son cada vez más las voces que llaman al boicot académico a las universidades israelíes." ["After eight months of genocide in Gaza and more than 37,000 Palestinian deaths, there are more and more voices calling for an academic boycott of Israeli universities."] "Existen ya diversos casos particulares de represión directa desde las universidades contra profesorado crítico con el genocidio." ["There are already several particular cases of direct repression from universities against professors critical of the genocide."] "Al contrario, las universidades israelíes han sido una fuerza activa en la legitimación y mantenimiento de un sistema de segregación que ha sido considerado equivalente al apartheid sudafricano. Ahora mismo son colaboradores necesarios en el genocidio en curso." ["On the contrary, Israeli universities have been an active force in legitimizing and maintaining a system of segregation that has been considered equivalent to South African apartheid. Right now they are necessary collaborators in the ongoing genocide."]
"The genocide in Gaza is an opportunity for Canada to change that. A majority of Canadians may want to see a ceasefire in Gaza, but are they or their political representatives prepared to condemn the genocide?"
"Just as the Armenian genocide was one of the 20th century's earliest, the massacre in Gaza could prove to be the first this century. But defining genocide is not easy... Though most debates on the classification of events as genocide revolve around intent, perpetrators rarely declare their aims. Yet Israeli government figures have made many statements that suggest deliberate ethnic cleansing... Documenting the methodology will take time, but the intention to annihilate is clear from Israel's actions."
Likely
No
Lists similarities between the Armenian genocide and the "potential" Gaza genocide
"In my view, the criteria for genocide are not fulfilled, because the intention to commit genocide is not the only plausible motive for the use of violence. Israel justifies its attacks in the Gaza Strip with the right to self-defense and with the aim of freeing the hostages. This is permitted under international law, albeit perhaps within narrower limits than Israel is currently exercising."
"You can't destroy the entire educational system in Gaza and then expect to have normal academic exchanges. Any university, institution or individual who partners with Israel at this time should be considered complicit in the genocide"
Trajectories of Declining and Destructive Capitalism
"The Israeli genocide of Palestinians is the most open, widely exposed genocide ever occurring as it is unfolding. You can read some of the evidence even in mainstream media, while the appropriate noun is avoided, armaments to Israel continue, and any humanity of Palestinians a minor footnote to the 'Enlightenment' we are supposed to be living through."
"We declare that Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza. We call upon the international community to prioritise the delivery of humanitarian aid by land by any means necessary, end Israel's siege, and establish a ceasefire."
"By comparing contemporary examples of starvation warfare in Artsakh and Gaza, I seek to reintroduce the concept of genocide by attrition formulated by Raphael Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (1944). Helen Fein's 1997 essay 'Genocide by Attrition, 1939–1993: The Warsaw Ghetto, Cambodia, and Sudan', gave formal nomenclature to this genocidal tool." "The carceral conditions produced by the 2006 enclosure of the Gaza Strip could be calledGazification. Land and territory are not only bifurcated with a discrete line separating two parts, but are fractured several times over through the creation of physical and digital checkpoints, 'safe zones', and border inspections designed to make life suffocatingly unlivable. In order to survive, superfluous beings who resist these necropolitical forces live fugitive lives.Gazification should, therefore, be understood as an instrument of genocide by attrition that predates Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7."
"the moment Israel invokes international law to frame everything above ground in Gaza as a potential shield, it operationalizes the law itself as a tool legitimizing genocide. It's hard to overstate the frightening consequences of this maneuver. If the international legal apparatus can be used to justify acts that can destroy a people, 'in whole or in part', then the rules-based order created in the aftermath of World War II to regulate war according to humanitarian principles becomes a tool for its own undoing."
Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching, Department of International Studies; researches and lectures in the fields of International Law and Political Economy
"Even if unintended, imagining the 'day after', as I do, can displace focus from an ongoing genocide, making liberation appear as aesthetic or talking point, a violent and vulgar move since Palestinians are being butchered in real-time."
Sociologist specialising in Arab and Muslim Worlds
Contretemps: revue de critique communiste
"La guerre génocidaire qui les décime est ainsi réduite dans le discours dominant à une « guerre contre le Hamas »." ["The genocidal war that is decimating them is thus reduced in the dominant discourse to a "war against Hamas"."]
"Israel's supporters are now quaking in their boots since the ICC seems to have come off its leash, its Prosecutor having requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his fellow genocidaire, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant."
"Unburdened by the exigencies of criminal law, the South African legal team threaded a story of settler-colonialism and apartheid into their plea to halt an ongoing genocide."
"This moment stands apart from the anti-war movement of 2003: opposition to Israel's genocidal violence seems to be on the rise seven months into the war, while the 2003 movement deflated rapidly after the Coalition's invasion."
"In the debate about the war in Gaza, international lawyers should join their voices with the global anti-war campaign by giving technical arguments against the murderous and genocidal conduct of the war."
"Each image is a stark reminder of the profound failings of international institutions in preventing and halting Israel's genocidal campaign against Palestinians.", "The ICJ case brought by South Africa against Israel demonstrates the symbolic power of law in exposing colonial genocide and Western complicity."
"Most importantly, what is the cost of genocide? Are we ready to accept the implications of a Palestinian statehood that reproduces and crystalises the Israeli precedent of genocide as the price of sovereignty?"
"Confronting the suffering of Palestinian people would require a reckoning with the fact that the erasure of the Jewish people from German identity is not merely historical, but materialises concretely in the genocidal violence that we see today in Gaza."
"Palestinian steadfastness in the face of Israel's genocidal war in the Gaza Strip has opened a chasm of outrage between the states arming the Zionist regime and their enraged populaces."
"And yet, a century on, it remains the language of our time too. In December 2023, a full two months into the Gaza genocide, Israeli president Herzog said: 'it's a war that is intended, really, truly, to save western civilisation, to save the values of western civilisation'."
"And yet, a century on, it remains the language of our time too. In December 2023, a full two months into the Gaza genocide, Israeli president Herzog said: 'it's a war that is intended, really, truly, to save western civilisation, to save the values of western civilisation'."
"The success of South Africa's case going forward may well hinge on its ability to hold the Court's attention on the broader context of colonialism and apartheid that are the conditions of possibility for the ongoing genocide in Gaza."
"Yet the atrocities in Gaza have exposed extraordinary violence against and dehumanisation of the Palestinian people. The first genocide where victims are broadcasting their destruction in real time, someone said."
"Israel's ruling coalition has repeatedly declared in statements and in their charter that it intends to conquer and colonize all of historic Palestine from the river to the sea. So, its aim in this war is to destroy Gaza, create an enormous humanitarian crisis and drive people into Washington’s two client states, Jordan and Egypt… Only the American ruling elite and its allies deny Israel’s genocidal aims."
Postdoctoral researcher in Politics, Philosophy, and Religion
SEPAD: Sectarianism, Proxies and De-sectarianisation
"I have listened to academics in these different disciplines explore sovereignty, and after much reflection on the current genocide in Gaza, I am now convinced that sovereignty, in itself, is a concept weaponized to order and maintain European and Western hegemony over the global majority."
"The Law for Palestine project, a UK based human rights organization has so far documented over 500 statements made by Israeli officials which could potentially amount to incitement of genocide, which is prohibited under international law." "Are these individuals advocating for nuclear war or inciting? Is calling for the use of nuclear weapons, the same as calling for genocide?"
Khalid Dader; Wassim Ghantous; Danna Masad; Mikko Joronen; Kirsi Pauliina Kallio; James Riding; Joni Vainikka
2 August 2024
Doctoral candidate in Geography; Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Business and Management; Architect and Doctoral candidate in Geography; Associate Professor of Regional Studies; Professor of environmental pedagogy; Senior Lecturer in Geography; Post-doctoral researcher in Geography
Fennia: International Journal of Geography
"Instead, we urgently call on the global community to respond to end the genocidal violence, support the rebuilding of Gaza and restore the right to life and education for its people."
"Like anti-antisemitism, anti-colonialism too, instead of unsettling the purity of Western conscience, becomes a powerful tool for generating a perfect logos of absolute humanity that condemns its enemies as evil and unleashes holy wars. This is a danger that should be considered in countering the Israeli genocide narrative with a Palestinian genocide, or by depicting the Hamas attacks on 7 October as a ghetto uprising instead of as a pogrom." "ongoing exterminatory violence by Israel in Gaza"
Professor of Curriculum Studies, interest in Decolonial Studies
Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy
"Drawing on Edward Said's critique of complicit intellectuals, it highlights the failure of many self-proclaimed critical, anti-racist, and decolonial scholars to take a principled stance on Palestine, especially in light of the ongoing genocide in Gaza."
"This brings me to the comparisons between two recent cases: the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Notwithstanding the vastly different histories leading up to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, they both share an important similarity: the allegations of genocide against Russia and Israel." "If Israel was using self-defence as its mode of reasoning, Russia was protecting the populations in Donetsk People's Republic, Luhansk People's Republic and Ukraine from violations of the 1948 Genocide Convention. Russian actions rendered immaterial whether Ukraine was in fact committing acts of genocide or not, as do Israeli arguments of self-defence. Russian and Israeli 'responsibility to protect' those in its (former) colonies was a strategy of empire that is not unknown."
Lecturer in Gender and War Studies; Associate Professor in Political Science and International Studies
The British Journal of Politics and International Relations
"At the time of writing in June 2024, Israel has been continuing its assault on Gaza for 8 months, with over 36,731 Palestinian civilians killed and 83,530 injured so far (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2024) in actions that likely amount to genocide, as Israel has defied the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ’s) ruling to prevent genocide from occurring (Human Rights Watch, 2024)."
"'The case for the US's complicity in genocide is very strong,' said Dr Shahd Hammouri, lecturer in international law at the University of Kent and the author of Shipments of Death. 'It's providing material support, without which the genocide and other illegalities are not possible. The question of complicity for the other countries will rely on assessment of how substantial their material support has been.'"
"Israel and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been accused of 'massacring' Palestinian civilians, even attempting a 'genocide' on the Palestinian population in Gaza, as stated in a Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor posting on 16 May 2024, and reposted that same day by Relief Web, a news service provided by the UN office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Such accusations lack factual foundation about how the war against Hamas has been conducted." "But there is no evidence whatsoever of any deliberate Israeli policy or plan to kill civilian Palestinians in Gaza that would remotely warrant terms like 'massacre' or 'genocide'."
United Nations Special Rapporteur for freedom of expression and opinion
Global threats to freedom of expression arising from the conflict in Gaza – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan (A/79/319)
"The genocide in Gaza, the violation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian Territory and the failure of Israel to respect its international legal obligations, including the occupation of Palestinian territory, are matters of global public interest. There is no scope for restricting freedom of expression on such matters."
"The feminist truism that women are always raped in war is relied upon to confirm that mass rapes took place on October 7—a weaponization of feminism designed to shut down questions about evidence and the deliberate circulation of false narratives about rape, and, importantly, to legitimize Israeli state violence and genocide in Gaza."
"自己防衛と称するイスラエルに武器や資金の援助をすること自体がジェノサイドに間接的に関与することであり、反ユダヤ主義の負の遺産を何ら関係のないアラブ系の人びとに転嫁しているだけにすぎない。" ["Providing weapons and financial support to Israel in the name of self-defense is itself an indirect contribution to genocide, and the negative legacy of anti-Semitism is being passed on to Arabs who have nothing to do with it."]
"Palestinian victims have faced double standards and unnecessary procedural hurdles at the ICC, leading to a 'state of exception' where standard legal procedures are either suspended or circumvented... The present proceedings are taking place against the backdrop of the severe impact of the ongoing genocide on Palestinian lives."
Distinguished Professor of Arts at the Social Justice Institute, Extraordinary Professor in the Women's and Gender Studies Department
The Public Source
"I agree that the framework of liberal humanitarianism is not needed as cover for Israel's heinous acts of violence in this instance, nor in the genocide on Gaza. Instead, I think the right to maim is functioning as South African Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi explained, in the testimony he delivered at the International Court of Justice hearings in January, where he stated that Israel will maim 'what it cannot destroy.'"
"In the midst of an unimaginable humanitarian crisis in Palestine and the international outcry against Israel’s continuing genocide, the Supreme Court’s failure to ensure that the Indian government halts its military aid to Israel and complies with its commitments under international law, will have serious repercussions in this war and its devastation that continues unabated"
"Frequently invoking Jewish scriptures as a moral source for claims of just war in Gaza, Netanyahu proclaimed '[n]ow go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.' Such genocidal language is further intensified by his Manichean framing of good and evil warfare."
"These are not just distractions, but part of a broader dehumanization process—a kind of moral gymnastics used to legitimize what is essentially a live-streamed genocide."
"While the scale and nature of the ongoing Israeli assault against the Palestinians vary by area, the totality of the Israeli acts of destruction directed against the totality of the Palestinian people, with the aim of conquering the totality of the land of Palestine, is clearly identifiable. Patterns of violence against the group as a whole warrant the application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) in order to cease, prevent and punish genocide in the whole of the occupied Palestinian territory"
"The only normative definition we have, codified at the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948, accurately describes the current situation in Palestine ... describes exactly what is happening in Gaza today"[238]
"While being proud of presumably having learnt lessons from its history well, Germany is caught in an unresolvable dilemma that is exposed by supporting every new step of Israel's genocide, ethnic cleansing, colonisation, and invasion of sovereign countries."
"The conference took place in the midst of an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, in which the Israeli Occupation Forces have killed over 25,000 Palestinians and where 90% of Gaza’s population has been displaced"
"Lorsqu'il lui est demandé si un génocide est en cours, selon les définitions du droit international, Marie Lamensch, coordonnatrice de projets à l'Institut montréalais d'études sur le génocide et les droits de la personne de l'Université Concordia, à Montréal, répond qu'il faudra encore des années pour déterminer si c'est le cas ou non. Même les plus grands experts juristes le disent, ajoute-t-elle : ils veulent attendre tous les éléments de preuve avant de se prononcer de façon définitive. Car la preuve d'un génocide est complexe, et pour obtenir une condamnation, il faut notamment démontrer devant la Cour l'« intention » précise de le commettre." "When asked whether genocide is occurring, as defined by international law, Marie Lamensch, project coordinator at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University in Montreal, says it will take years to determine whether or not that is the case. Even the greatest legal experts say so, she adds: they want to wait for all the evidence before making a definitive decision. Because proving genocide is complex, and to obtain a conviction, it is necessary to demonstrate before the Court the precise 'intention' to commit it."
Professor of global mobilities, borders, and gender
Gender, Place & Culture. A Journal of Feminist Geography
"... and many supposedly decolonial and intersectional feminists have appeared incapable of connecting the realities of Gaza genocide to their previous analyses, at least in public. Above quote from Al Jazeera journalist Maram Humaid's New Year's essay, written amid genocide in Gaza sets the scene in clear terms."
"Not only do the genocide and occupation persist, but there has been no meaningful effort to halt Israel’s actions. This failure to enforce international law had eroded global stability and emboldened authoritarian regimes."
"The so-called Westphalian system has been inveterately depicted and legally defined in the UN Charter as one of 'equal' 'sovereign' 'states.' Against the black letter of positive international law, the Palestinian Genocide has made evident the material reality of the formally liberal (based on the sovereign liberty of states) and democratic (obeying the equal value of the will of each state) international legal order: this is not an order of equals, neither of sovereigns nor states. Rather, as the images of decapitated boys and girls and remains of bodies show up again and again for twelve months on the screens of mobile phones, computers, and televisions, the international legal system has revealed its true core: a colonial order before our very eyes —an order of unequal subjects; sovereigns and colonized; and of states, empires, settlers, and colonies."
"This article addresses the ongoing genocide in Gaza and argues that it must be understood in a larger historical context of settler colonialism. While Israel has always sought the completion of its settler-colonial project, I argue that the current genocide seeks immediate results of dispossession and annexation.", "I argue that Israel's approach before 7th October constituted slow-motion genocide and after that date its approach marked an accelerated form of genocide."
Film studies scholar, with an extensive history of writing on Israel-Palestine
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication
"The essay advances that the step-change from the decades of 'good-old ethnic cleansing' to a new level of criminality and depravity—genocide—was not a simple issue of turning up the volume; it required a mindset which sees genocide not only as an 'option', but one perceiving it as the only option."
"This is Israel's genocide, of course, but it is also the latest genocide in the long litany of dispossession, violence, and murder that has made, and consistently remakes global capitalism."
"What is happening in Gaza is a genocide, in my opinion, because the level and pace of indiscriminate killing, destruction, mass expulsion, displacement, deliberate famine, executions, the wiping out of universities, cultural and religious institutions, the crushing of elites (including the killing of journalists), and the sweeping dehumanization of the Palestinians create an overall picture of genocide, of the intentional and conscious shattering of Palestinian existence in Gaza. Palestinian Gaza, as a geographical, political, cultural, and human entity no longer exists. Genocide is the deliberate destruction of a collective or part of it, not of all of its individual members – and that is what is happening in Gaza today."
"What is a day after when you have destroyed more than 70 percent of Gaza and rendered most people homeless and five percent of the population has been killed?... Where is justice, and accountability for the mass atrocities and likely genocide that we saw in Gaza?"
"Unequivocally, Israelis have no interest in committing genocide, and talk of genocide in the sense of a systematic extermination of millions is antisemitic propaganda."
"The days are largely gone when Israel pretended to be investigating its own atrocities or claimed its latest attack on a school or a hospital or the UN was really the work of Hamas. It just kills away. Meanwhile its supporters in the US and Europe mobilise the law against those determined to oppose the realisation in real time of the genocidal plan against which the ICJ has warned. University departments are coerced or naively fooled into debating the evils of anti-Semitism, a term that the supporters of Zionism have successfully distorted to embrace any criticism of Israel, even it would seem a genocidal Israel."
Senior Consultant and graduate teaching assistant; Senior Officer at ASEAN and graduate teaching assistant
14th Annual Symposium of the Consortium for Asian and African Studies
"This study highlights the multifaceted impacts of the genocide on Gaza's educational landscape, including the destruction of schools and universities, the displacement of students and educators, and the psychological toll on the youth."
Professor in Political science, specialization in "comparative genocide studies and gender and international relations"; author of genocide textbook[258]
"Any early hesitation I had about applying the 'genocide' label to the Israeli attack on Gaza has dissipated over the past year of human slaughter and the obliteration of homes, infrastructure, and communities"
"In retrospect, our analysis rested on an emotional denial of the very possibility. It was inconceivable. We still think that as a matter of positive law and international jurisprudence, the likelihood that the ICJ would eventually decide that genocide was committed is quite low. But with each day bringing additional evidence, we feel compelled to accept that the law as it is falls short of the law as it should be. Indeed, genocide scholars have long since observed that the legal definition of genocide is narrower than the socio-historical understanding of the concept, a point that is said to have been reenforced by the debate surrounding Israel’s war in Gaza."
"Aber: Die Anzeichen für einen Genozid verdichten sich. Zumindest das Risiko eines Genozids, von dem auch der IGH spricht, würde ich hier als gegeben ansehen." ["But: the signs of genocide are increasing. I would consider the risk of genocide, which the ICJ also speaks about, to be seen here."]
"Alarms have been sounded around the world with respect to analyses of the crimes unfolding in Gaza constituting genocide, with a clear trajectory that mirrors historical cases of ethnic cleansing and systemic extermination, as a continuation of decades of occupation, rampant settler colonialism, and the implementation of an apartheid regime" "These are but a handful of over hundreds of documented cases of public incitement and weaponization of genocidal language"
"Le résultat est un nombre considérable de crimes de guerre, crimes contre l'humanité et actes potentiellement génocidaires commis en majorité par l'armée israélienne" ["The consequence is an impressive number of war crimes, crimes against humanity and potentially genocidal acts committed mainly by Israeli army"]
"Ce qui se passe en Palestine – et à Gaza en particulier – est un acte qui va au-delà de la destruction physique et qui s'apparente bel et bien à un génocide culturel. Le musellement des voix créatives palestiniennes s'intègre à une politique générale visant à briser également les Palestiniens sur le plan psychique et émotionnel et s'inscrit dans un processus colonial de destruction qui suppose l'annihilation de l'identité palestinienne. En coupant le peuple palestinien de sa propre culture, en tentant de rompre les liens entre son passé et son présent, Israël cherche à effacer tous ses horizons et à le déposséder de son avenir, tout en créant de nouveaux traumatismes qui perdureront sur des générations" ["What is happening in Palestine—and in Gaza in particular—is an act that goes beyond physical destruction and truly amounts to cultural genocide. The silencing of Palestinian creative voices is part of a general policy aimed at also breaking Palestinians psychologically and emotionally and is part of a colonial process of destruction that presupposes the annihilation of Palestinian identity. By cutting the Palestinian people off from their own culture, by attempting to sever the ties between their past and present, Israel seeks to erase all their horizons and dispossess them of their future, while creating new traumas that will last for generations."]
"The developments in this report lead the Special Committee to conclude that the policies and practices of Israel during the reporting period are consistent with the characteristics of genocide."
"Lorsque toute campagne violente devient génocide, la spécificité de ce crime n'est plus visible et on nie la volonté de le distinguer, ayant justement conduit à l'adoption de la Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide." ["When any violent campaign becomes genocide, the specificity of this crime is no longer visible, and the desire to distinguish it, which led to the adoption of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, is denied."]
"In April, as Israel's longstanding genocide against the Palestinian people continued to intensify, protests against the carnage reached the halls of universities, first in the United States and then around the world."
"Ongoing reporting accentuates the distinctly gendered nature of the genocide.", "In this gender update, I argue that when placed in the context of the broader settler-colonial strategy of the Israeli state towards Palestine (Abdo, 2024), the attack on social reproduction can be understood as a means of ethnic cleansing and genocide."
"中東紛争の歴史的背景の複雑さにもかかわらず，そして，10 月 7 日のハマスの攻撃で犠牲になったイスラエルの子どもたちと心身両面で傷ついた子どもたちへの継続的な心理サポートの必要性を心に刻んだとしても，ISSOP が声明で述べているように，パレスチナで 1.3 万人を超える子どもたちの命を奪うことは，私たち社会を形作るあらゆる道徳的倫理的枠組みに反している．私たち小児科医は，この大虐殺を止めなければならない．" ["Despite the complex historical background of the Middle East conflict, and mindful of the need for ongoing psychological support for the Israeli children killed and those physically and mentally injured in the Hamas attack on October 7, as ISSOP stated in its statement, the taking of the lives of over 13,000 Palestinian children violates every moral and ethical framework that shapes our society. We, as pediatricians, must stop this genocide."]
"Mais la réponse à cette question dépend d'une enquête pénale, qui permettrait de prouver non seulement les actes posés (meurtres, destructions, famine, privation de secours) mais aussi l'intention derrière ces actes, au-delà des chiffres qui eux-mêmes ne sont pas suffisants pour démontrer celle-ci." ["But the answer to this question depends on a criminal investigation, which would make it possible to prove not only the acts committed (murders, destruction, famine, deprivation of aid) but also the intention behind these acts, beyond the figures which themselves are not sufficient to demonstrate it."]
"The dire situation in the Gaza Strip requires a firm stand from the international community, as what is happening to the Palestinian people is nothing short of genocide."
Professor of Genders and Sexualities, specialising in feminism and decolonialism
Ethnic Studies Pedagogies
"I chronicled my teaching of a course called "Palestine Studies 1 – History, Land, Resistance, and Justice" at New Mexico State University (NMSU) in 2024 while the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza was happening in real-time with unending brutality and horror."
"In recent months, ECCHR has been conducting independent research and analysis on the topic of genocide, and analyzing this against the available information and evidence relating to Israel's actions in Gaza (see Question 6). This process has led us to the conclusion that there is a legally sound argument that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza."
"אולם עד כמה שאני יודע לא היתה ואין גם היום תוכנית או כוונה לבצע השמדת עם." ["However, as far as I know, there was no plan or intention to carry out genocide, and there still is none today."]
Professor of psychology; Psychologist; Adjunct professor of humanities, specialising in history
Malala, Revista Internacional de Estudos Sobre O Oriente Médio E Mundo Muçulmano
"In any case, it is also possible to derive from her reflections the long duration of the physical and mental damage caused to the Palestinian population by the Zionist colonial project, which invites us to expand the spatio-temporal limits of genocide. Gaza is the first case of an apartheid regime that resorted to the "crime of crimes" as the ultimate inhumane act to maintain racial domination."
Professor of international law and international relations
Revista española de derecho internacional
"En el caso de Gaza, Israel ha demostrado, y publicitado como grandes logros alcanzados, que tecnológicamente puede acabar con los lideres de Hamas sin causar bajas civiles significativas, sin embargo, ha preferido el exterminio de la población gazatí que sustenta el liderazgo de Hamás o que sustentará otro liderazgo similar (genocidio del grupo por liderazgo)." ["In the case of Gaza, Israel has demonstrated, and publicized as major achievements, that it can technologically eliminate Hamas leaders without causing significant civilian casualties. However, it has preferred the extermination of the Gazan population that supports Hamas's leadership or that will support another similar leadership (genocide of the group by leadership)."]
"The article explores the notion of stunned languaging in the construction of poetic cries as a genre of grief in times of unspeakability while witnessing the online streaming of the Gaza Genocide.", "The war on the language of truth-telling started with ahistorical reporting, casting doubts on the numbers of the dead on the Palestinian side, the insistence on using the passive voice when reporting on the murdering of the Palestinians, the hostilities towards the term 'genocide', and the labelling of any criticism of Israel as 'antisemitic'."
"This paper investigates international expert perceptions on the applicability of the concept of the Responsibility to Protect to what has been qualified as a 'slow-motion genocide' unfolding in the Gaza Strip following the 2023 military operation conducted by Israel resulting from the Hamas October 7th attacks against Israeli civilians.", "While some commit to using the term 'genocide', such as Shaw who noted the situation in Gaza is 'inescapably genocidal', others prefer to refer to 'genocidal violence' (pre-empting criticism that the situation does not present all the characteristics of a genocide), speak of 'genocidal intent' or call for going beyond the debates on terminology to protect the people of Gaza before the situation worsens further."
No
Does not take a position, discusses the assessment of others within the framework of the Responsibility to Protect
"As shown throughout the report, by applying humanitarian terms to its practice of forcibly transferring Palestinians, without any legal basis and in a manner that breaches international law, and labelling areas as 'safe zones' despite being constantly attacked and lacking in all essentials for survival, Israel argues that it is acting in accordance with its legal obligations when in fact it is providing further evidence of its genocidal intent as it uses these measures to commit and contribute to the genocidal acts of killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and creation of conditions calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza."
"When Ukrainians sought the right to join the NATO, that is against Russian national security, they
received all political, military, and sociocultural support from European and American authorities and populations, yet the Palestinian genocide was totally ignored."
Researcher specialising in public law at theKohelet Policy Forum (conservative, libertarian think-tank in Israel)
San Diego International Law Journal
"While reasonable legal debates exist over the scope of permissible siege tactics, conflating lawful military strategy with allegations of war crimes or genocide risks eroding the credibility of international legal institutions."
"I make these statements as classes across the nation begin to assess the Israeli slaughter of thousands of innocent Palestinians and the incredible failure of media to cover this obvious act of genocide."
UN Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
"For well over a year into the genocide, Israel’s blatant assault on the right to health in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territory is plumbing new depths of impunity"
"The enormity of the slaughter in Gaza, together with the enormity of US military aid to enable it, more than justifies the prominence we now give to resisting US-backed Israel's genocide.", "This misrepresents Palestinian allies as simply pro-Hamas, not as resisters to US-backed Israeli genocide.", "In a second oversimplification, Smith pleas for remembering "the suffering of all parties," but fails to see that doing so requires our giving an asymmetrical preference to Gazans suffering genocidal assault."
"ההגדרה הראויה לזוועות שמחוללת ישראל בעזה היא סוגיה שנתונה כבר יותר משנה בדיון בין חוקרים, משפטנים, פעילים פוליטיים, עיתונאים ואחרים — דיון שרוב הישראלים לא נחשפים אליו." [A comparative examination of the events of the past year, as we will present below, leads to the painful conclusion that Israel is indeed committing genocide in Gaza.]
"As we assume our responsibility to guide this journal and impact our fields, we would be remiss to ignore the glaring epicenter of the prevailing global order's efforts to reproduce itself: the State of Israel's ongoing campaign of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and its gradual expansion into the West Bank."
Lecturer in history, specialising in Jewish history and antisemitism
Ritsumeikan Journal of Language and Culture
"この論理を現在まともに受け入れることは難しい。なぜなら建国当時，実際に迫害を受けるユダヤ人の文字通りの避難所として必要とされた小国イスラエルは，いまや世界第四位の軍事力を誇る強国へ，それも，他国への軍事侵攻や占領地への入植をはじめとする国際法違反，国内ならびに占領地におけるパレスチナ人の人権侵害，そして「ジェノサイド」―2023 年 10 月から現在（2024 年 5 月）まで続くイスラエルによるガザ攻撃をこのように呼ばないことは難しい―を公然と行って憚らない異様な強大国へと成長してしまったからである。" ["This logic is difficult to accept today, since at the time of its founding, the small state of Israel was needed as a literal refuge for persecuted Jews. It has now grown into a powerful nation boasting the fourth-largest military power in the world, and an unusually powerful nation that is not afraid to openly commit violations of international law, including military invasions of other countries and settlements in occupied territories, violations of the human rights of Palestinians both at home and in the occupied territories, and "genocide"—it is difficult not to call the Israeli attacks on Gaza, which have been ongoing since October 2023 and continue to this day (May 2024), a "genocide.""]
Primary care physician and public health specialist
International Journal of Health Policy Management
"At a protest calling attention to the ongoing genocide in Gaza and ending Canada's complicity in Israel's genocide of the Palestinian people, there was a sign that read "Peace is the white man's word, liberation is ours.""
"In Rwanda, in Nazi Germany, in the Former Yugoslavia, in Brazil, in the US, and also in Israel, genocidal logics are consistently explained through the paradigm of modernity/coloniality. To empty these genocides from their political and historical context in a pointless search for pure hatred as the only reasonable explanation for the systematic killing of thousands, sometimes millions, of people, seems completely ahistorical and frankly gaslighting."
"It appears impossible not to connect the genocidal discourse, widespread among Israeli politicians and military commanders, and Israel's aggressive and devastating operations in Gaza, with no clear aim other than destruction itself."
"The false charge of genocide in Gaza has emptied the word of its meaning. If we have reached the point that "genocide" is nothing more than a weapon for antisemites to use against the Jews, we might as well retire the word."
"Despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza, these Arab nations have not taken meaningful steps to facilitate the entry of aid into the region, even as their citizens protest the trucks loaded with supplies headed for the Israeli occupation crossing through Jordan. However, these protests have had no tangible impact on the situation." "Compounding these failures, international organizations have similarly neglected to take a meaningful stand against this genocide."
"Although he indignantly resisted the charge that it meant a call for genocide when South Africa brought a case against him at the International Court of Justice, there is little to support his protestations in the continuing actions of the IDF."
Assistant professor of comparative politics and international relations
Debating American Primacy in the Middle East
"Today, in the shadow of genocide in Gaza, Palestine may also become – paradoxically – a conduit to anti-American and pro-authoritarian sentiment both in the region and in the global North."
Lecturer in Cultural Studies, focusing on war and technology
AI, Sacred Violence, and War—The Case of Gaza
"While Israel's claims this is part of the "war on terror" and portrays it as "a battle between good and evil," it is just colonial conquest after all (Bekiroglu 2023,p.cxxi;Abujidi 2014). The goal is the occupation of Gaza (Benn 2024). The strategy is genocide."
"In this reflective piece, we look at developments within universities and intellectual circles at the core of the 'liberal order' amidst an ongoing genocide."
"'Israel's attacks on Palestinian women are part of a systematic genocide strategy,' said Alsalem on Sunday. 'When looking at Israel's actions overall, it is clear that targeting the reproductive capacity of Palestinians in particular serves this purpose.'"
"This article addresses the ongoing genocidal war and extended blockade of Gaza that has been in effect since 2007, framing it as a manifestation of colonial violence against space and a collective punishment."
"For some, amongst whom I count myself, the largely unopposed live-streaming of genocidal violence in Gaza signifies a moment of rupture both for international law and for global politics as any hegemonic pretence of universalism and equality is openly abandoned", "Notably, at least a part of this block understand Gaza to be a crisis not because they ignore structural harm, but precisely because they deem the unfolding genocide to be symptomatic of longer-term maladies of global politics and of international law."
"The eliminatory logic of settler-colonialism, decades of active colonization, as well as the imposition of an apartheid-like regime, have necessitated escalating violence to suppress resistance, coupled with the dehumanization of Palestinians and growing indifference to their lives." "The most violent eliminatory expressions have historically emerged during periods when the Zionist settler community felt existentially threatened, and on two occasions, in 1948 and in 2023–2024, this anxiety has led to the mainstreaming of the genocidal imagination. The Hamas attack on 7 October 2023 acted as the missing element for the perfect storm. The mass murder of Israeli civilians reignited deep-seated traumas of annihilation, which were further instrumentalized by political forces with long-standing eliminatory agendas. This convergence of factors resulted in unprecedented levels of revengeful sentiment, enabling genocidal rhetoric to quickly enter the mainstream, adopted by radio broadcasters, journalists, politicians, and even the President of Israel."
Nicola Pratt; Afaf Jabiri; Ashjan Ajour; Hala Shoman; Maryam Aldossari; Sara Ababneh
6 February 2025
Political scientist; Senior Lecturer of Development Studies; Sociologist; PhD researcher in Sociology; Senior lecturer in Human Resource Management; Political scientist and lecturer in International Relations
"Bearing witness to the genocide in Gaza and the broader Palestinian struggle requires feminists, particularly in the West, to speak out, take action, and challenge the systems that perpetuate oppression and dispossession."
"Even with the current suspension in fighting in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, ignited by the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks against Israel on October 7th, 2023 and Israel's subsequent retaliation against the Palestinian territories beginning in late October 2023, scholars, human rights activists, and international lawyers continue to raise questions about whether the human rights atrocities and attacks on civilian life in Gaza satisfy the legal and conceptual criteria associated with the crime of genocide."
"A failure to acknowledge more fully the impact of direct violence in Gaza by the Israeli military, as sanctioned by the State of Israel, has arguably delayed meaningful global efforts to prevent further death and destruction; this situation, in our opinion, has been to the dereliction of our collective responsibility to prevent what we believe to be genocide."
"The point of engaging in genocide studies and of taking the Holocaust seriously is to ensure that such things never happen again to anyone and that such acts are not justifiable for any reason—whether self-defence, supreme emergency, or otherwise. Given the emphasis of the Commission on the skills to detect and prevent crimes against humanity and genocide, the failure to consider Israeli state potential for both undermines their claim to care for the victims of atrocities and to uphold the "healing ethos" central to the practice of medicine by legitimating the resulting injuries and deaths."
"It's rather strange after genocide has been committed against a population to say that the way to deal with the resulting circumstance is to remove all the people. So Mr. Trump would obviously not acknowledge that genocide has been committed, but that is the factual situation."
"A growing body of evidence of both intent and effect now lends even greater weight to accusations that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people." "Failure to uphold international legal protections and associated political commitments—most urgently in the form of action to prevent genocide—and to safeguard a minimum commitment to health and humanitarian caregiving in situations of armed conflict and genocide, will have profoundly negative consequences that extend far beyond the ongoing genocide in occupied Palestine, with widespread ramifications for people the world over."
"But a year later, after the horrific and inexcusable Hamas massacres of 7 October 2023, the extreme right-wing government of Prime Minister Netanyahu has engaged in what now, in the opinion of many (and in my own judgment), has metastasized into genocide."
Professor of politics and director of the Middle Eastern Studies program
New Lines Magazine
"In many respects, U.S. support for Israel's genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza is even less forgivable than these earlier cases, since the extent of the killing is so well-known. Rather than being relegated to the back pages of major newspapers, as some of these other tragedies were, on-screen images of the Gaza genocide have been readily available to Americans."
"Hamas's use of civilian buildings transformed those sites into 'military objectives'. The civilians killed were not targets but 'incidental deaths. [...] What I can say is that the systems and processes that the I.D.F. implemented are very similar to what we would implement in a similar battle space."
"This essay seeks answers to these questions by arguing that today’s genocide in Gaza is rooted in the state-building project of Zionism itself, and that this genocidal violence reflects a pattern of atrocities perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians over decades."
Associate Researcher in the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics; Head of the FES regional project for peace and security in the Middle East
Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik
—
No
Doesn't take a position, but covers some of the published research, and looks at Germany's response to various aspects of the War and accusations of Genocide.
"A destructive force is now eroding the entire edifice of international law built up since the Second World War and a force that is now facilitating the horror of genocide in Palestine."
Author and journalist, focus on race and colonialism
Informed Comment
"We are at a moment right now where people are asking themselves why can't the Democratic Party defend this assault on democracy . . . and I would submit to you that if you can't draw the line at genocide, you probably can't draw the line at democracy."
Karen Wells; Susana Cortés-Morales; James Esson; Deirdre Horgan; Fikile Nxumalo; Ann Phoenix; Pauliina Rautio; Rachel Rosen
20 February 2024
Children's Geographies
"The USA continues to supply Israel with military aid of USD 14.3 billion and has authorised the emergency sale of USD 147.5 million of military equipment to continue its genocidal war, bypassing Congress in the process"
"This article maps out the Gaza genocidal rhetoric onto a genealogy of European-American imaginative re-makings of the geography of Palestine. This tradition, rooted in nineteenth-century visions of ethnically cleansing and repurposing the land according to colonial and theological worldviews"
"What has been happening in Gaza since October 9, 2023, indicates an Israeli will to make the environmental damage in Gaza long-term, widespread and severe (the discourse of turning Gaza into an unlivable area or an area of epidemics and disease), which falls within the definition of the crime of genocide in the sense of murder and forced displacement, but also in the sense of environmental destruction and the slow pace of extermination."
"In light of the above, especially the genocidal Israeli-American statements calling for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, this article maps out this recent genocidal mrhetoric onto a genealogy of European-American imaginative re-makings of the geography of Palestine.", "Banking on this matrimony between both traditions, Netanyahu has further attempted to sell the genocidal destruction of Gaza as "a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.""
"This paper addresses the coverage by habitual Western legacy media of the 2023/24 Israeli genocidal war against Gaza.", "Tragic accounts of death, in fact, distort the political responsibility of the parties involved in the killing, including those third parties complicit in the genocidal actions."
"The first part discusses the Jewish supremacism at the heart of Israeli settler colonialism, focusing on Israel's genocide in Gaza since October 2023. It traces how genocidal rhetoric by state leaders, articulated in the language of Jewish supremacy, shaped the dynamics of violence on the ground, as documented by Israeli soldiers and officers in Gaza who described their own crimes in videos they recorded and uploaded to social media."
Center for Antisemitism and Racism Studies Working Papers
"So unterstützen 32 Staaten und zwei Staatengruppen die unerhörte Anschuldigung Südafrikas, das von der Hamas angegriffene und sich dann gegen die Angreifer verteidigende Israel betreibe Völkermord an den Palästinensern." ["Thus, 32 states and two groups of states support South Africa's outrageous accusation that Israel, which was attacked by Hamas and then defended itself against the attackers, is committing genocide against the Palestinians."]
Bilal Hamamra; Fayez Mahamid; Dana Bdier; Mai Atiya
26 February 2025
Professor of Literature; Psychologist; Researcher in Mental Health specialising in Gender and Trauma; PhD student in educational and psychological counseling
Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health
"Thematic content analysis of the interview transcripts led to the identification of five main themes: [...] and (5) survival coping employed by Gazans following the on-going genocide against the Gaza Strip."
"Since October 2023, the US-led Western imperial alliance has not only refused to stop the genocidal onslaught, but has provided military, economic, and diplomatic support that is essential to Israel’s ability to carry out its genocidal operation. The USA sees Israel as a critical imperial outpost, which secures Western imperial interests in the region and indeed beyond, and no price including the genocide of non-Western people like the Palestinians is considered too high for achieving that goal."
Professor of Public Policy; Scholar of Internationalisation; Associate Professor of Public Policy
Higher Education
"Given the enormity of the destruction of higher education in Gaza since October 2023, understanding past trends in aid flows to higher education in Palestine and the types of aid provided by donors presents a cautionary tale for what may be coming once the conflict and genocide in Gaza end."
Researcher in development policy and postcolonial studies
PROKLA. Zeitschrift für Kritische Sozialwissenschaft
"In diesem Zusammenhang drückt sich der Genozid in Gaza sowohl in einer gewaltsamen Massenvertreibung als auch in der in-tentionalen, systematischen und groß-flächigen Zerstörung von Wohnraum, sozialer Infrastruktur, Landwirtschaft und Ökosystemen sowie des Gesundheits- und Bildungswesens aus." ["In this context, the genocide in Gaza is expressed both in a violent mass displacement and in the intentional, systematic and large-scale destruction of housing, social infrastructure, agriculture and ecosystems, as well as the health and education systems."]
"In summary, it is possible that genocide is occurring in Gaza, and this should be questioned, investigated, and responded to through a precisely enunciated precautionary principle."
"Based on an analysis of various reports from international institutions, Israel's actions against Palestinians show strong indications of serious violations of international law, especially in the context of genocide and war crimes."
"From the foregoing, we infer that Israel not only treated the lives of the population in the Gaza Strip with disdain, but also deliberately inflicted the greatest possible harm on civilians to commit genocide, which led to the exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis that provoked widespread condemnation from the international community."
"Yes, this horrendous murdering of innocent civilians is not the same as previous Israeli assaults on the people of Gaza. This is ethnic cleansing and genocide."
Yes
No
Additional source:[358],Book that the podcast discusses
Sarah Cathryn Majed Dweik Bernardita M. Yunis Varas
1 March 2025
Graduate Assistant in Communication Arts and Sciences Doctoral candidate in Communication in Rhetoric and Culture
Transnational Feminist Rhetorical Studies
"Since October 2023, we have entered a new era of Palestinian-experienced violence as the most documented genocide in history unfolds through news and Palestinian accounts on X (formerly Twitter) tweets, Instagram posts and reels, and TikTok videos."
Senior lecturer in political science and Indigenous studies
Native American and Indigenous Studies
"While transnational Indigenous solidarities with Palestine are not new, they have grown to become more prominent on both national and international stages across the world as Israel's genocide in Gaza has intensified."
"As Israel's genocidal war on the Palestinians in Gaza expanded to Lebanon with the complicity and support of many of the world's great powers, I found myself passing over books that failed to offer me a route into thinking about the great brutality of the period through which we are living."
Christian Relief, Development, and Advocacy: The Journal of the Accord Network
"Since October 7, 2023, Christian responses to the genocide in Gaza and the broader reality of Palestine and the Middle East have varied widely, reflecting a spectrum of theological and political perspectives."
"Over the last year we have witnessed a genocide unfold. Homes, hospitals, schools, every single university and essential infrastructure in Gaza – the very fabric of life – have been destroyed."
"our organization ... filed a 172-page legal brief to the International Criminal Court urging it to investigate former President Joe Biden, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for aiding and abetting war crimes, crimes against humanity, starvation, and genocide against Palestinians in Gaza."
Hirsh labels the conflict in Gaza “an absolute tragedy,” recognizes that many children have died in it, and says it is legitimate to question Israel’s strategy in the wake of October 7. But, he insists, there is a “huge difference” between the tragic deaths of children in war and “children who are murdered deliberately in a campaign to eradicate a particular kind of people defined by their killers.”
"I see the argument on the other side, and there are some public statements by Israeli officials that are, as we say in the law, bad facts on the side of the Israeli's defense. But I don't think that the conduct fits the definition of conduct intended to destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part. Could that change in the future? Of course, it's possible for it to change. It's not some immutable fact, I'm just describing the way I see it now."
"Since 7 October 2023, the systematic bombing and burning of women, children and men, old and young, universities, schools, libraries, books, museums, heritage sites, homes, streets, neighbourhoods, trees, cats, birds, dogs, hospitals or the educational and health infrastructures in Gaza78 – alongside the relentless terrorization and deprivation of over two million people – have made two words increasingly unavoidable in planetary memory and discussions: genocide and scholasticide (destruction of knowledge or educational infrastructure)."
Idhamsyah Eka Putra Muhammad Abdan Shadiqi Ana Figueiredo
9 March 2025
Lecturer in Psychology Lecturer in Psychology Professor in Social Sciences
Social and Personality Psychology Compass
"In the case of Israel, we argue that both competitive victimhood and perpetual ingroup victimhood orientation lead people to deny the mass atrocities and ongoing genocide, while justifying Israel's actions by blaming the outgroup."
Muhammad Naveed Noor Sujith Kumar Prankumar Mohammed Alkhaldi Irene Torres
10 March 2025
Professor of Health Policy and Systems Research Senior Research Associate at the Kirby Institute Assistant Professor in Public Health Member of the Expert Advisory Group of the Health Systems in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings Thematic Working Group of Health Systems Global, and a member of the International Council of the Global Society on Migration, Ethnicity, Race and Health.
Medicine, Conflict and Survival
"The published literature signalled a deep concern about fatalities, the destruction of infrastructure and the health and humanitarian crises in Gaza among the authors [...] Consistent with the ICJ rulings, the UNCHR.s special report, and Human
Rights Watch reports, almost a quarter of the articles claimed that Israel was committing 'genocidal acts' in Gaza."
No
Does not take a position, but discusses some of the literature published.
"The Commission finds that the ISF intentionally attacked and destroyed the Basma IVF clinic which was the main fertility centre in Gaza. The ISF destroyed all of the reproductive material that was stored for the future conception of Palestinians. The Commission did not find any evidence that this IVF clinic was a legitimate military target at the time that it was attacked by the ISF. The Commission concludes that the destruction of the Basma IVF clinic was a measure intended to prevent births among Palestinians in Gaza, which is a genocidal act under the Rome Statute and Genocide Convention. The Commission also concludes that this was done with the intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, in whole or in part, and that this is the only inference that could reasonably be drawn from the acts in question"
"[Israel] doesn't understand its own annihilation practices as genocidal. It cannot. It saves that word for its own history but it will not accept a comparative genocide framework or understand its own actions as technically genocidal according to the Genocide Convention which it is." (46:13)
"The systematic nature of the current actions against the people of Gaza can be clearly observed in the political agendas, media, and speeches of high-ranking Israeli political and military officials, which is not commonly seen in other cases of genocide or crimes against humanity."
"We are expected to shut up, pipe down, and toe a line that is increasingly clearly drawn by an administration in lockstep with external funders and political forces—from the US and elsewhere—desperate to prevent the global condemnation of Israel's genocidal violence in Palestine from becoming a common-sensically held value of political action and universal public revulsion."
Journal of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association
"I argue that Israel's genocidal project, hypervisible now in the intensification of warfare against the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip, but also unfolding across occupied Palestinian territory since the 1948 Nakba, should be understood centrally as reproductive genocide, a systematic assault on Palestinian reproductive health, and an attempt to prevent the reproduction of present and future generations of Palestinian lives."
Hala Shoman; Ashjan Ajour; Sara Ababneh; Afaf Jabiri;Nicola Pratt; Jemima Repo; Maryam Aldossari;
20 March 2025
PhD researcher in Sociology; Sociologist; Political scientist and lecturer in International Relations; Senior Lecturer of Development Studies; Political scientist; Reader in Political and Feminist Theory; Senior lecturer in Human Resource Management
Gender, Work & Organization
"In the case of Palestine, Israel's genocidal acts extend beyond immediate physical destruction, into deeply personal realms of health, bodily autonomy, and dignity, affecting every aspect of Palestinian life.", "Addressing the genocide in Palestine requires reclaiming feminism's transformative potential by bridging the gap between theory and practice. Silence in the face of atrocities is not neutrality—it is complicity."
"WILPF calls upon all relevant bodies in the United Nations and all Member States, to do everything in their power, immediately, so that Israel stops its genocidal operations, and to protect the people of Palestine."
"Gazze'de günümüzde yaşanan soykırım, Hannah Arendt'in 20. yüzyıl-da Nazi partisinin antisemitik politika izleyerek Yahudilere uzun bir dönem çeşitli işkence ve zulümleri ifade eden kötülük kuramından yararlanılarak açıklanabilir." [The genocide taking place in Gaza today can be explained by using Hannah Arendt's theory of evil, which describes the long-term torture and oppression of Jews by the Nazi party following anti-Semitic policies in the 20th century.]
"Genocide manifests itself not only in the creation of 'kill zones', where soldiers indiscriminately shoot Palestinians and in the use of lethal force against non-military targets such as hospitals and schools but also in the systematic destruction of Gaza's entire intellectual, cultural, and civic infrastructure. This calculated erosion seeks to eliminate the very fabric of Gaza's society, extending beyond physical violence to the obliteration of its historical and cultural identity."
"This essay explores the concept of scholasticide—the systematic destruction of educational institutions and targeting of academics—as a dimension of genocide, particularly in the context of the ongoing war in Gaza. It situates scholasticide within the broader framework of cultural genocide."
Lecturer in International Relations, with a research focus on Mass Atrocities
Cooperation and Conflict
"But the problem is deeper than this: it is not simply that key Western states are 'standing idly by', but rather that these states are directly aiding and abetting genocidal violence."
Maybe
No
Says that genocidal violence is occurring, and compares the facilitating actions of third-states to their actions in other cases of genocide, but does not state outright that it is a case of genocide.
"This official silence around Palestine is even more striking because Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims—as well as those from other faiths, including Jewish anti-Zionists who support Palestinian solidarity and freedom—have been urgently protesting and encamping across US (and western European) campuses for months in an effort to break the institutional silence about the genocide.", "Both the genocidal violence to which Palestinians are being subjected in the twenty-first century and the way in which Palestine is denied as a major moral question in the West are out of sync with how US academic institutions, let alone the US government, like to represent themselves as liberal."
Professor of Media & Communication; MSc International Relations student atLSE
Journal of Applied Journalism & Media Studies
"These findings were discussed against the broader context of 'orientalizing' Arab/Muslim tropes, Israeli culpability and power asymmetries inherent in the Palestinian struggle against colonization, occupation and ongoing genocide."
"The age pattern associated with genocide is the closest to the observed death rates due to the war, especially below the age of 40 years." "Of particular concern is the similitude between the age schedule of relative risks in the first 3 months of the current war and the UN IGME schedule of excess deaths reflecting genocide. This highlights the importance of the International Court of Justice’s request for the indication of measures from Israel to fulfil their obligations under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide."
"In fact, genocide, by design, is un-survivable, leaving behind an unfathomable mental health impact with untold consequences on Gaza’s survivors—especially the children among them—for years to come. In March 2024, five months into the accelerated genocide that began in October 2023 and continues until today, Save the Children reported that the prolonged and frequent exposure of children to traumatic events and harsh living conditions in Gaza had resulted in a mental health crisis."
Emna Ennouri; Mohamed Boussarsar; Chourouk Ben Mahfoudh; Khamis Elessi; Helmi Ben Saad
14 April 2025
Doctor and Assistant professor in Intensive Care; Head of the Medical Intensive Care Unit and Professor; Medical biologist; Neurorehabilitiation and Pain Medicine consultant and Associate Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine; Professor of Physiology
International Journal of Health Policy Management
"The 2023-2024 Gaza Genocide has generated notable scholarly discourse, influenced by various historical, political, and social contexts. These academic writings, rooted in the longstanding "war of words," illustrate how language serves as a potent weapon in conflicts."
"Epitomized by South Africa’s claim before the ICJ, and more recently (as of December 2024) by Amnesty International’s reporting, the primary determinant is "intent," which is demonstrated by a combination of statements by responsible Israeli officials and acts of mass violence by the Israeli armed forces that go "beyond military objectives, aiming instead at the wholesale depopulation of Gaza through extreme violence and forced displacement.""
"At the same time, we have also been struck by the level of resistance that we have experienced from relatives, friends and even colleagues when we have initiated discussions about the impact of this genocide not only on Palestinians, but on all of us."
"Israel's political and military leaders bear the direct and most extensive responsibility for Israel's subsequent actions. I am uninterested in scholastic disputation over whether Israel’s policies include genocide, though much of what has transpired is eminently consistent with genocide through direct killing and "deliberately inflicting on the [victim] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part," as the 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines it."
"Now, though, due to the Houthis' defiance of Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip, the STC doesn't dare say anything against any pro-Palestinian statements from their population"
Bilal Hamamra; Fayez Mahamid; Asala Mayaleh; Dana Bdier
15 April 2025
Professor of Literature; Lecturer in Counselling and Psychology, fellow in international development; Instructor in applied linguistics; Researcher in Mental Health specialising in Gender and Trauma
OMEGA - Journal of Death and Dying
"Through qualitative interviews with 30 refugees from Rafah camp, thematic content analysis identified five key themes: constant fear of death, enduring grief, living under genocide's shadow, resilience through coping mechanisms, and sustaining love and legacy despite loss."
Assistant Professor in Foreign Policy; Professor of International Relations
FWU Journal of Social Sciences
"The international society regardless of ample evidence of genocide, has failed to act conclusively, manipulated by international power dynamics and 'false equivalencies' that abstruse the disproportionate suffering wreaked on Palestinians as compared to ventures taken by Hamas."
Q: "Do you classify what's happening in Gaza as a genocide?"
A: "I do, yes, no question. In this particular instance, if you're attacked personally in the domestic sense or in any other, you're entitled to defend yourself but only up to a point.If you're attacked with somebody holding a wooden spoon, you can't use a machinegun to kill them...This has gone far beyond self-defence."
"Today, seventeen years into an air, sea, and land blockade--and almost one year of genocidal warfare (at the time of writing)--we are on the cusp of both a potential return of settlers to Gaza city and the near total decimation of its once vibrant example of Indigenous urbanism."
Clinical Psychologist Psychologist and director of the Alan Flisher Centre for Public Mental Health
International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare
"Yet, invoking both resilience and steadfastness may inadvertently serve the purpose of absolving the guilt of outsiders who are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause but feel profound helplessness while watching the genocide take place. The people of Gaza have been annihilated by starvation, the risk of infectious diseases, the destruction of their built environment and the total destruction of their cultural and religious heritage, and yet no government or state has intervened."
"Israel's deadly 2023 military assault on Gaza – recognised as genocide by humanitarian organisations – is at the heart of this article.", "The live streaming of the genocide has brought us all into a terrible, intimate witnessing of Israel's brutality and from the perspectives of those being targeted."
"To our knowledge, [genocidal] intent has never before been so clearly articulated... The likelihood that the state of Israel may be responsible for committing genocide is greater now than ever."
"How can we archive against genocide in Gaza and its extension elsewhere in Palestine and surrounding countries like Lebanon in this urgent moment while avoiding the pitfalls of white guilt and paternalistic benevolence?"
"I (believing that genocides are highly variable events, historical in the strong sense of the term), emphasised a distinctive concatenation of the long structure of conflict in Palestine, which over a decade earlier I had been one of the first to discuss in a genocide frame. In this contribution, I discuss why I initially saw (and still see) Israel's post-2023 campaign as genocidal"
"Israël voert een lelijke en vuile oorlog in Gaza, maar geen genocide en hopelijk ook geen etnische zuivering" ["Israel is waging an ugly and dirty war in Gaza, but not genocide and hopefully no ethnic cleansing"]
"The nature of atrocities in Gaza—which expansive evidence suggests amount to genocide—is dramatically fuelling a movement for a more principled and just rules-based international order."
"What we are witnessing today is not new. It is the continuation of decades of suffering, oppression, and genocide that began long before many of us were even born."
"Group analytic discussions of 'chosen trauma' and the 'soldier matrix' are evaluated as analytical resources exploring subjective states enabling the current Israeli state genocide of Palestinians in Gaza."
Associate Researcher in the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics at the Freie Universität Berlin; Associate Researcher at the INTERACT Center for Interdisciplinary Peace and Conflict Research
Professor of Political Science and International Relations
Genocide in Gaza: Voices of Global Conscience
"Today, with this genocide, not only are Gazans being uprooted from their homes and lands, but Israel is also severing itself from the conscience of humanity."
"Genocide Watch has concluded that Israel has committed all five acts of genocide enumerated in the Genocide Convention. Israel’s war and destruction of the Palestinian population of Gaza exemplifies all ten stages of genocide."
Professor of Arabic and Affiliate of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
Memory Studies
"The deterioration of Palestinians' humanitarian rights and living conditions over the years preceding the genocidal Gaza War are symptomatic of a crisis that began back in 1948."
Ola H. Abuward; Chiara Fiscone; Nermin M. Abulibda; Ala’ Mustafa; Guido Veronese
6 May 2025
Lecturer in public health; ;Doctoral student in social sciences specialising in education Lecturer in public health; ;Doctoral student in clinical psychology Clinical Psychologist specialising in war trauma
International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare
"The findings, derived from thematic content analysis, highlight five main themes: unprecedented violence and genocide, deliberate attempts to make Gaza unlivable, devastating impacts on families and communities, early psychological responses and daily acts of resistance for survival."
"With the ever-increasing expansion of destructive military capacity, the deeper ideological penetration of social order, and the envelopment of micro-level solidarities, contemporary warfare is becoming more detached, dehumanizing, dispassionate, destructive, and ultimately genocidal. In this context, war and genocide can become indistinguishable, and Gaza might be a reliable indicator for what many future violent conflicts could look like."
"The Gazan genocide (what else can one call this?) could be seen as the natural outcome of the postcolonial legacy of the supremacist European settler colonial project: a land without people, supposedly, for a people without land. Terra nullius, ironically, perpetrated by the government of a people who endured the purest example genocide when six million Jews perished in the Holocaust."
No evidence has been seen that a genocide is occurring in Gaza or that women and children were targeted by the IDF, UK government lawyers have claimed, as a high court case opened into the handling of arms exports controls to Israel.
"Als een hele bevolking toegang tot voedsel wordt ontzegd, is dat potentieel genocidaal." ["If an entire population is denied access to food, that is potentially genocidal."]
"The ISA therefore calls for: An end to the genocide in Gaza and the escalating violence in the West Bank, and a complete end to Israel's military occupation and all colonial practices in these territories"
"NRC sprak zeven gerenommeerde genocide-onderzoekers over Gaza. Zij zijn lang niet zo verdeeld als de publieke opinie: zonder uitzondering kwalificeren ze de Israëlische acties als 'genocidaal'. En volgens hen zijn nagenoeg al hun collega's het daarmee eens." ["NRC spoke to seven renowned genocide researchers about Gaza. They are not nearly as divided as public opinion: without exception, they qualify the Israeli actions as 'genocidal.' And according to them, almost all their colleagues agree with that."]
"Last month the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern 'that Israel appears to be inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group in Gaza.' These carefully weighed words evoke the Genocide Convention: Article 2(c) prohibits 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part'. Here again, Israel has done its sums, tested its policies and made clear that its permanent security overrides all other obligations. It can have no doubt about the outcomes of its actions. It may do just enough to keep most Palestinians alive. Whether this prevents the destruction of Palestinians in Gaza as a group is another matter."
Clinical professor of law in Human Rights; LAW clinical professor of law and director of LAW's International Human Rights Clinic; Professor of law and Senior Clinical Supervisor at the University Network for Human Rights; Professor of law and executive director of the University Network for Human Rights
"The significance of Israel's apartheid has been overshadowed by its genocidal assault on Gaza. But the two are inextricably linked. The same racial hatred fuels apartheid as much as it does genocide."
"The soldiery is clearly not misinterpreting: government ministers and spokespersons could not be more explicit in routinely proclaiming their genocidal determination.", "The genocidal policy was previously about ensuring the slow death of a whole population – it was 'Gazafication', genocide by attrition. Now there is unmistakable incitement and wrathful urgency."
"They outlined the extent of the destruction – which at that time included 'the killing of over 2,400 Palestinians … the injuring of over 10,000 Palestinians, the deliberate displacement of more than half a million Palestinians … the destruction of 60,000 residential units' and so on.Footnote6 This was just over a week into the genocide. How many times multiplied is the destruction now?"
"Si les Etats occidentaux sont réticents à reconnaître qu'un génocide est perpétré à Gaza, cela tient à l'assistance qu'ils continuent d'apporter à Israël, mais aussi à la nature spécifique de ce génocide." [Western States are reluctant to acknowledge that a genocide is being committed in Gaza. This reluctance is due in part to the fact that they keep providing aid to Israel. It is also grounded in the specific nature of this genocide.]
"On the exit to the Offer Prison, near Ramallah, on the first day of the release of Palestinian political hostages and prisoners as a part of the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel that paused one phase of the Gaza genocide (8 October 2023–19 January 2025), people noticed a large parting banner prepared by the Security Services written in three languages, with a differentiated final word. The message read: "The eternal nation does not forget. I will pursue my enemies and overtake them." The English word "overtake” appears in Hebrew as "I will get them" (asigam), and it evokes Psalm 18: 28: "I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them; neither did I turn back till they were consumed." In Arabic, the word used is abidahum, meaning "I will extinct them.""
"The post-October 2023 Israeli genocidal war on Gaza demonstrates that "Mowing the Lawn" may have established the (im)moral groundwork for its unfolding."
"The ongoing genocide in Gaza, which has killed nearly 54,000 Palestinians, along with various plans to expel the remaining survivors, has one primary goal: to safeguard the Jewish settler-colony of Israel by restoring the lost Jewish demographic majority, which had been achieved through mass killings and expulsions since 1948."
"The Israeli government’s plan to demolish what remains of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure and concentrate the Palestinian population into a tiny area would amount to an abhorrent escalation of its ongoing crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and acts of genocide"
"Serious violations of international law are being committed and are further threatened by Israel in the oPt. First, genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza or, at a minimum, there is a serious risk of genocide occurring. The limited aid now allowed into Gaza, after an 11-week blockade on food, medical supplies and the essentials of human existence, remains gravely insufficient to address the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. Israel continues simultaneously to escalate its military operations in Gaza, while senior Israeli Ministers have expressed their intention to “take control of all the territory of the [Gaza] Strip” and “conquer, cleanse and stay – until Hamas is destroyed”, further stating “what remains of the Strip is also being wiped out.”"
"I am not against using the word genocide to describe Israel's massive, indiscriminate, and deadly military attack on Gaza. At the time of finalizing this article, more than 52,000 Palestinians have been killed, many more lie still unrecovered under the debris of their bombed houses, and yet even more are under threat of starvation due to an Israeli-made famine. Raz Segal, associate
professor of Holocaust and Genocide studies and professor in the study of modern genocide, was but the first academic to analyze the situation as one of genocide. And the words of public Israelis like Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu8 leave little room to doubt the definition when it comes to "[intent] to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic or religious group.""
Maybe
No
Won't use the word genocide as she believes it limits the scope, assessment, and understanding of the situation in Palestine to the current Gaza war, but agrees that senior political and military officials show the intent necessary for genocide.
"These harrowing genocide statistics are only partially able to account for, let alone convey, a devastation which is incalculable, and which will continue to produce injuries (both physical and psychic) and deaths for years to come."
"The extermination of Palestinians perpetrated by Israel is allowed, cheered, fueled, armed, financed, and supported by those geographer Linda Quiquivix refers to as the heirs of 'Columbus and Them.' More than five hundred years of genocide. The 'problem from hell' is not an aberration but a structural feature of empires and settler countries founded by Columbus and Them."
Editorial board for the Journal of Community Systems for Health
Journal of Community Systems for Health
"What is now increasingly characterised as a genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli state in Gaza (and increasingly in the West Bank), represents not only a political and military crisis but an unprecedented humanitarian and public health catastrophe."
His weekly column that is syndicated to multiple sites
"But over the last few months, as I was looking at the unfolding horror that's taking place in Gaza... I could not but come to the dreadfully sad conclusion that what Israel is committing is nothing but genocide."
Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"Environmental destruction, including ecocide and pollution, intensifies the crisis as marine ecosystems suffer from overfishing and contamination, while land degradation accelerates due to habitat and biodiversity loss from bombardment and toxic munitions. The war, rooted in Israeli apartheid policies and genocidal practices, has fueled violence and lawlessness, further weakening governance and institutions. International cooperation remains hindered, leaving Gaza isolated and fragmented, making sustainable recovery increasingly challenging. Despite these immense challenges, the resilience of Gazans stands as a testament to their determination to resist and rebuild. The book underscores the urgent need for global intervention to address the humanitarian catastrophe, hold those responsible accountable for genocide and crimes against humanity, and pave the way for a sustainable and just future for Gaza and beyond."
Doctor and medical researcher; Doctor of internal medicine; Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"Neglecting them all from enjoying their health rights falls within the acts of genocide committed by the occupation against civilians in the Gaza Strip."
Research Fellow at the Tampere Institute of Advanced Study, focusing on resilience in higher education in war- and conflict-affected contexts; Researcher focusing on violence in crises; Researcher in educational technology; Assistant professor of computer science; Associate professor in networking
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"This study, set against the backdrop of the recent genocide in Gaza (October 2023–January 2025), investigates the motivations driving university students, graduates and academics to independently enroll in an initiative offering free access to onlinecourses through platforms such as Coursera, edX and DataCamp."
Assistant professor of social sciences; Professor of economics; Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"This chapter examines the gendered impact of the recent genocidal war on Gaza, highlighting how these hostilities have severely hindered progress toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 5 (SDG 5), focused on gender equality." "The gendered nature of the genocide is evident (Repo 2024), as women face
not only the physical toll of violence but also the psychological and societal consequences of losing their families, homes, and livelihoods."
Abdo Hassoun; Mariam Fayad; Nida Wasim; Khansa Irfan; Rima Kashash; Khaled Abu Ali; Mones Abu Obayd Allah; Chantal Youssef
30 May 2025
Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability; Engineer and humanitarian worker; Public health professional researching clinical and public health; Resident doctor; Professor of global and community health; Doctor of public health; Professional specialising in humanitarian logistics, health, and emergency response; Doctor specialising in geriatric medicine and internal medicine
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"This chapter examines the devastating impact of the recent genocidal war on Gaza, focusing on the physical, emotional, and societal consequences of widespread destruction of homes, communities, and critical infrastructure."
Abdo Hassoun; Samer Abuzerr; Monica Trif; Zuhaib Bhat; Dalal Iriqat; Rana Muhammad Aadil; Bayan Arouri
30 May 2025
Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability; Assistant professor of public health; Biotechnology project manager; Associate professor of veterinary science and animal husbandry; Associate professor of diplomacy; Associate professor of food science; Doctoral researcher in violence and peace practices
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"Despite numerous United Nations (UN) resolutions and global calls to stop this genocide, these measures remain unfulfilled. This failure exacerbates immense suffering and undermines trust in international governance systems intended to safeguard human rights and uphold justice, further endangering one of the world’s most vulnerable populations." "Addressing the deep-seated impacts of
war, displacement, systemic inequality, and genocide in Gaza requires combined international interventions that prioritize humanitarian support, accountability, and institutional reform."
Professor of environmental engineering, specialising in water management; Research assistant in environmental geoscience; Professor specialising in rural development and political ecology
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"The decades-long siege and the ongoing Israeli genocidal war in Gaza provide a clear and tragic illustration of how conflict renders the achievement of SDG 6 nearly impossible, turning water from a life-sustaining resource into a tool of control and deprivation." "The first step in addressing Gaza's water crisis is to stop Israel's ongoing genocidal war."
Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability; President of the Environment Friends (PhD in Social Sciences and Sustainability); Professor in food biotechnology; ; Associate professor of diplomacy; ; Consultant in International Health & Nutrition with World Bank Group; Professor of economics
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"The situation had already been described as "slow-motion genocide" due to the nature of Israeli state control over the Palestinian population. [...] Many scholars, activists, and nongovernmental organizations and agencies have called for a ceasefire in order to prevent acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza."
Researcher in agricultural science and food technology; Doctoral researcher in circular economics; R&D engineer in biotechnology; Lecturer in microbiology and food processing; ; Doctoral candidate in business administration; Lecturer in environmental science and ecotoxicology; Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"Finally, it is clear that achieving SDG 14 in Gaza remains unfeasible in the aftermath of the recent genocidal war."
Mohammed Migdad; Abdalrahman Migdad; Isra Migdad; Abdo Hassoun
30 May 2025
Professor of economics; Assistant professor of economics; ; Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"Even before this recent genocidal war, many economic indicators showed degraded economic situation in Gaza due to the long-standing blockade, political division since 2007, and repeated military assaults on the Strip." "Ending the genocide and the humanitarian crisis is fundamental to any hope for sustainable development in Gaza. This includes creating a framework that fosters long-term economic empowerment and job opportunities for all."
Assistant professor of public health; Assistant professor of biology and biotechnology; Food science professional; Associate professor of veterinary science and animal husbandry; Doctoral candidate in sociology; Doctoral candidate in business administration; Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"Recent studies report an even higher mortality rate in the Gaza Strip, underscoring the devastating human toll of this genocidal war." "Since the first day of the genocide, electricity was deliberately cut off under the orders of Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant." "Prior to the recent war on Gaza, fishing was restricted to within three nautical miles under strict limitations, but during this genocidal war, venturing into the sea meant facing imminent danger, as Israeli naval forces targeted anyone attempting to fish."
Human rights educator and activist; Associate professor of diplomacy; Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"Therefore, it is crucial to recognize that the social and economic disparities in Gaza result from systemic barriers compounded by the strategy of collective punishment; a component of genocide aimed at dismantling the foundations of Gazan society." "Persons with disabilities and medically vulnerable Palestinians in a region experiencing genocide, occupation, and a long-standing siege are at a higher risk of dying due to both sudden acts of violence and the ongoing, slower harm caused by these condition."
Professor of agricultural technology specialising in sustainability; Lecturer in food sustainability; Professor of food science and technology
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
"This Israeli genocidal war has severely disrupted consumption and production systems in Gaza, leading to unsustainable practices that hinder long-term development and environmental stability."
Humanitarian worker and adjunct professor of peace studies
War on Gaza: Consequences on Sustainability and Global Security
" But that promise is in peril, as the genocide in Gaza has put a spotlight on global double-standards—the international community, primarily the Global North and Western states, advocate for universal human rights, while all-too-often ignoring Gaza's suffering."
"The ongoing genocide in Gaza has served as the ultimate litmus test for Western humanitarianism and its liberal pretensions, one it has failed catastrophically."
"Thousands of students across the United States participated in campus protests, building occupations, and encampments during their Spring 2024 semesters. This was done in response to the US-backed Israeli Genocide in Gaza, Palestine, that began in October 2023."
Assistant Professor of Sociology; Associate Professor of Global Studies
Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography
"In contrast to a liberal humanitarian conception of children as apolitical, innocent victims, and to the Israeli state's view of Palestinian children as undesirable and threatening, Palestinian children develop an oppositional consciousness (Katz 2004) that informs a
politics of resistance and survival in the face of settler colonial violence and genocide."
Imperialism Unveiled: Modes of War and Colonization on the 21st Century Geopolitical Chessboard
"Today, the fear of communism has shifted toward cultural differences, included in the dominant narrative as precursors to potential acts of terrorism, thus masking the real projects of extermination or colonization, and deploying racisms on multiple scales that erode communal networks and undermine the trust and solidarity that have taken so long to manifest in a blatant genocide like that of Gaza."
Chairperson, South African Association of Jewish Mental Health and Allied Practitioners
South African Medical Journal CORRESPONDENCE
"Without evidence, the authors label Israel's response a 'modern-day genocide', a term with specific legal meaning and one without any ruling or determination from an international judicial body. The International Court of Justice did not conclude that Israel had committed genocide."
Professor of Paediatric Surgery; Various other medical practitioners and professors
South African Medical Journal CORRESPONDENCE
"Indeed, Holocaust survivors and their descendants can be found at the forefront of global protests against the current genocide in Gaza.", "We are not alone in arguing that the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza have crossed a line of genocide. There are numerous scholars of genocide, history, politics and Jewish studies, many of whom are Israeli Jews, who have come to the conclusion that Israel is responsible for a genocide in Gaza."
"The Czech stance has not changed after the International Court of Justice issued an order for Israel to take steps to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza in January 2024, when it requested Israel to halt its military offensive in Rafah and secure the unhindered provision of humanitarian aid in May 2024 or after it put out an advisory opinion qualifying Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory as unlawful. The contracting parties, such as Czechia, had the obligation to prevent acts of genocide and to differentiate between Israel in its 1967 borders and the occupied territories. The Czech government did not openly acknowledge that these facts have legal consequences."
"And in fact, genocide charges against Israel litter the records of the United Nations throughout Israel’s existence, from 1948 to the present. [...] All such accusations are false."
Survey Manager (SOEP-Core and IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees in Germany) German Socio-Economic Panel study
The Annual Review of Criminal Justice Studies
"Furthermore, Israel's occupation and current genocide in Gaza made Israel the main root cause of the dire situation of Palestinian women.", "However, beginning with Hamas' strike against Israel on October 7 th , 2023 and continuing during the resulting genocide by Israel against the Palestinians, IDF soldiers started to post uncensored and unequivocal photos and videos of the war crimes they committed in Gaza and later Lebanon and Syria."
"To sum up: While it was relatively easy to dismiss (as indeed done by one of the authors here) the genocide claim in the first few months of this Gaza war invoking the high threshold of the intent to destroy, this becomes more difficult with each day this war continues in this brutal and disproportionate manner. Put differently, on the whole, the dynamics of the conflict now speak more in favour of genocide than against it"
"Those who accuse Israel of genocide also conveniently ignore the definition of genocide, as recognised in international law. This requires the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such. Attributing such intent to Israel, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is the modern version of the ancient blood libel that Jews gleefully kill Christian children for their blood."
Rafeef Ziadah; Christian Henderson; Omar Jabary Salamanca; Sharri Plonski; Charmaine Chua; Riya Al Sanah; Elia El Khazen
4 June 2025
Lecturer in Politics and Public Policy; Scholar of political economy and development in the Middle East; Urban geographer; Senior lecturer in international politics; Assistant Professor of Global Studies; Campaign and communication coordinator at the Palestine NGO Network; Organizer and a researcher at Disrupt Power
Lecturer in French Literature and Linguistics; Associate professor in English Literature and Linguistics
Langues & Cultures
"Cet article propose une lecture du génocide de Gaza à travers la philosophie de Nietzsche, en mobilisant des concepts clés comme le nihilisme, la volonté de puissance, le Surhomme et l'éternel retour." ["This article offers a reading of the Gaza genocide through Nietzsche's philosophy, mobilizing key concepts such as nihilism, the will to power, the Superman, and the eternal return."]
"Israel's assault on Gaza is now widely recognised as genocidal, yet the Responsibility to Protect (r2p) has had little impact on debates over how the international community might respond to protect Palestinian civilians." "Despite the well-documented mass atrocities, now routinely portrayed as genocide, having continued for over 500 days" "We are, therefore, currently faced with the bizarre spectacle of the United States, a current member of the 'Group of Friends of the Responsibility to Protect', actively and publicly embracing genocide and ethnic cleansing as a policy position."
"Applying the legal definitions of genocide as found in the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, I would determine that what is happening in Gaza constitutes genocide"
"have indicated that Israel's conduct may amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide." "What sets the international response apart, as I previously noted, is the apparent hypocrisy of many Western states, as 'yesterday's proponents of the "responsibility to protect" doctrine are today's biggest supporters of Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza'."
"The litany of international crimes committed by Israel in Gaza bear the hallmarks of genocide: displacement and ethnic cleansing of large swathes of Gaza, deliberately targeting civilians, creating conditions incompatible with life, forcibly transferring the population and starvation as collective punishment."
Postdoctoral researcher in law, with a focus on antisemitism
K. Jews, Europe, the XXIst century
"there is ample evidence that some Israeli politicians have repeatedly engaged in incitement to genocide since 7 October, even if a direct connection between far-right rhetoric and actions on the ground has yet to be shown"
"Israel is waging what I think looks like a genocidal campaign in the Gaza Strip with a version of it also in the West Bank. You have the entire destruction of the built environment, of agriculture, of everything which makes human life possible with the intention to deport."
Yes
No
Moses criticizes the UNGC definition of genocide and argues for a "broader" definition that aligns with Lemkin's definition. 2023:[504][505]; 2024[506]; 2025:[507]
"Communications from academic institutions that gesture toward inclusivity—while avoiding explicit reference to the genocide—exemplify what Mbembe (2001) describes as the necropolitical consolidation of colonial power through silence, a pattern evident in other settler-colonial contexts."
"When we enter into disingenuous antisemitism debates, we are allowing the story to shift away from what really matters and what really matters is genocide and the global indifference to Palestinian death."
"The systematic and relentless slaughter of Palestinians that began after the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, and continues apace to this day, marks the culmination of generations of genocidal violence, which eminent Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has called an incremental genocide."
"Depuis le 7 octobre 2023 et le début de la guerre d’anéantissement israélienne contre Gaza, le spectre à la fois lexical et juridique du génocide plane sur le territoire de la bande et sur le peuple palestinien." ["Since October 7, 2023, and the beginning of Israel's war of annihilation against Gaza, the lexical and legal specter of genocide has loomed over the Strip and the Palestinian people."], "Dans ce premier billet, je décris la façon dont les mots pour dire les événements actuels à Gaza me semblent s’inscrire dans les manières de dire les génocidesaux XXe et XXIe siècle ; dans le second, je détaillerai les différents items et j’essaierai d’analyser leur fonction et leur place dans les discours sur la guerre contre Gaza." ["In this first post, I describe how the words used to describe current events in Gaza seem to me to be part of the ways in which genocides have been described in the 20th and 21st centuries; in the second, I will detail the different items and attempt to analyze their function and place in discourses on the war against Gaza."]
Emergency medicine physician with a PhD in Bioethics; Historian and Lecturer in interdisciplinary race, gender, and postcolonial studies; Holocaust scholar
"State-sanctioned policies and acts that aim to destroy any of these components and/or sever its links to the group as such, coupled with the intention to destroy said group, constitutes genocide. Particularly in Gaza, Israel-sanctioned policies and acts that exert exactly that kind of destruction are evident."
"As far as I know, Israel is not genocidal. While I deeply, deeply deplore the killing of so many in Gaza's civil population, their death has explanations other than genocide."
"Genocide not only seeks to eradicate a group of people but also erases their future by destroying their ability to reproduce and have children... Beyond these direct violations, people in Gaza have also had the right to have children taken away from them through the obstacles created by the genocide that mean they cannot become pregnant or sustain a pregnancy."
"C'est un mot de propagande que j'évite à cause de la connotation qu'il traîne, à cause du souvenir historique, à cause de la mauvaise foi de beaucoup de ceux qui l'utilisent. Il y a des ministres qui ont exprimé des pulsions génocidaires, cela est évident. Mais il n'y a jamais eu de décision du gouvernement d'Israël d'éliminer les Gazaouis." ["It's a propaganda word that I avoid because of the connotation it carries, because of historical memory, because of the bad faith of many of those who use it. There are ministers who have expressed genocidal impulses, that's obvious. But there has never been a decision by the Israeli government to eliminate the Gazans."]
"I’m not a genocide researcher, but together with Dror Ze’evi, I wrote a book about the Turkish genocide against Armenians, Greeks, and Syrians between 1894 and 1924. I know what a genocide looks like. A genocide must be organized by the state, systematic, and targeted. There must be the intention to actually destroy a people. None of that exists regarding the Palestinians, except perhaps in a few Israeli ministers. The Israeli airstrikes target Hamas fighters. It’s known that they hide among civilian infrastructure, which is why other people are killed as well, something that is even allowed under international law. The question of proportionality then arises."
"We spoke about the current genocidal war in Gaza, the solidarity protests and fundraising efforts taking place in Idleb, as well as the larger significance of Gaza and Palestine for Syrian revolutionaries."
"This article considers the role of international law in countering the dehumanisation of Palestinians in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza. "
"5.FAILURE OF GENOCIDE PREVENTION: BEYOND SREBRENICA One of the biggest problems of genocide prevention is the failure to detect “red flags” and the unwillingness to call the events by their true names. Especially in the case of Gaza, evidence and facts are dismissed as politically motivated and anti-Semitic, while many Jews themselves oppose and protest the actions of the State of Israel.39 The inefficiency of the UN system leaves tragic results, which we saw in Srebrenica. Unfortunately, this paralysis and unwillingness to act only emboldens those who violate the basic norms of international law."
No
He doesn't explicitly call Gaza a genocide, but includes Gaza in a subsection on the failure to prevent genocide.
"The silence of so many of our medical institutions in the face of this genocide reflects a profound failure to uphold the ethical principles these institutions claim to espouse and seek to instil in their members."
"In the Gaza case, while numerous human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, documented patterns of mass targeting and civilian harm, the application of the genocide label remained controversial and heavily politicized."
—
No
Doesn't take a position on the allegation of genocide, but details issues in using the term, and issues in the UN's ability to respond to such allegations.
"Il n'y a pas d'intention génocidaire mais il n'y a pas non plus d'effet génocidaire. [...] Cette affaire de génocide est en train de composer une tambouille qui nous fabrique la machine antisémite la plus diabolique que j'ai vue dans ma vie d'homme." ["There is no genocidal intent, but there is also no genocidal effect.[...]This genocide affair is in the process of composing a mess that is creating the most diabolical anti-Semitic machine that I have seen in my life as a man."]
Researcher Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute; Senior Researcher (LLM) Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute
International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies
"The healthcare system has emerged as a principal target in the ongoing Israeli military operations in Gaza, with numerous international organizations and legal scholars characterizing these actions as bearing genocidal implications" "Theblockadesof the Lachin Corridorand the Gaza serve as a stark illustration of this evolving reality. No longer can starvation, the denial of healthcare, or engineered deprivation be dismissed as mere side effects of war; rather, they have become intentional instruments of destruction, capable of satisfying Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention."
"I originally resisted the idea that what the Israelis were up to in Gaza was genocide, rather than just mass murder or a terrible unforgivable slaughter. Now we have it from the mouths of many of their senior politicians that this is indeed their intention."
Research associate specialising in Semitic languages and cultures; Professor of Public Health; Principal researcher specialising in political science
Gender & Adolescence: Global Evidence
"The ongoing genocide in Gaza has forever altered the lives of those who live there on account of the humanitarian blockade and indiscriminate bombing campaigns."
"The ongoing genocidal war has led to a significant rise in preterm births. Stress and trauma experienced by pregnant women, associated with limited access to healthcare and essential supplies, have contributed to this increase."
"This article argues that reprocide must be understood as a distinct strategy within the broader framework of Israeli settler-colonial genocide.", "The following sections trace how reprocide functions as both a genocidal mechanism and a colonial logic aimed at eradicating Palestinian futurity."
"We would also like to dedicate this work to the souls of the martyrs of Palestine in general and the martyrs of the recent Genocide on Gaza in particular, and to all prisoners and wounded."
"We argue that academic discourse must resist impulses to balance that can distract and detract from the violence of Israel's apartheid and genocidal acts."
Director of English Studies; Assistant professor of Media
Perspectives on Global Development and Technology
"Utilizing hi-tech weapons in state terror strikes is largely pointless and ineffective as a form of vengeance for the destruction, genocide, and forced relocation of Gazans."
Doctoral student in criminology; Associate professor in criminology
Criminological Encounters
"Prior to this, the unfolding genocidal violence occurring in Palestine – which is just the latest volley in an ethnic cleansing campaign Palestinians have endured since the Nakba and founding of Israel in 1948 (El-Kurd, 2025) – prompted and continues to prompt massive demonstrations across the world calling for the liberation of Palestine."
"over a month since the introduction of its militarized aid distribution system, Israel has continued to use starvation of civilians as a weapon of war against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and to deliberately impose conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction as part of its ongoing genocide."
Former UK government lawyer, specialising in human rights
The Face (secondhand reporting on public statement)
"On 5th July, Crosland was arrested on for holding a sign that read “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” at a protest organised by Defend Our Juries."
"Dans un contexte de conflit, parler de génocide n'est pas approprié. Le génocide, c'est une attaque contre une population civile qui vise à la détruire comme telle et qui est indépendante du conflit armé." ["In a context of conflict, talking about genocide is not appropriate. Genocide is an attack against a civilian population aimed at destroying it as such and which is independent of the armed conflict."]
"This steady shift of the acceptable has resulted in criminal policies and practices of forcible displacement, mass suffering and genocide, all conducted under passive acquiescence or active complicity of powerful countries. "
"Le risque de purification ethnique est réel — certains membres du cabinet israéliens y songent ouvertement. Mais de génocide, point. ["The risk of ethnic cleansing is real—some members of the Israeli cabinet are openly considering it. But not genocide."]
"I will argue in this talk that the war on Gaza is a continuation of the Israeli colonial project in the Occupied Palestinian territories in which there is a passage from spacio-cide (targeting land for the purpose of rendering it unlivable to foster the inevitable 'voluntary' transfer of the Palestinian population) to genocide."
"This paper examines the vital role of Palestinian women in resistance during the 2023 Gaza genocide, focusing on their embodied resilience in the face of colonial violence."
"Finally also it is genocide. It is part of the existing ongoing process of intending to inflict on the Palestinian people conditions of life calculated to destroy them in whole or in part." (4:06)
Associate professor of political science; Graduate in political science
Revista Integración y Cooperación Internacional
"Adicionalmente, las declaraciones de altos funcionarios del gobierno de Israel respecto al pueblo palestino, así como las dificultades que tienen los gazatíes para acceder a los servicios básicos y la ayuda humanitaria producto del bloqueo israelí, son indicios para pensar en la posibilidad de que en Gaza se estarían cometiendo actos que entran en contradicción con la Convención sobre Genocidio, principalmente los mencionados en los incisos a, b y c de su Artículo II." ["Furthermore, statements by senior Israeli government officials regarding the Palestinian people, as well as the difficulties Gazans face in accessing basic services and humanitarian aid as a result of the Israeli blockade, are indications that acts that contradict the Genocide Convention, primarily those mentioned in Article II, paragraphs a, b, and c, may be taking place in Gaza."]
"There is no evidence to suggest a systematic Israeli policy of targeting or massacring civilians... those who accuse Israel of genocide erroneously suggest that most civilian casualties in Gaza were entirely unjustified from a military standpoint... A detailed statistical analysis shows that the frequently cited claim that 70% of war casualties are women and children is incorrect, even according to the GMOH's own data – and was false from the very beginning of the war. ... Finally, we feel compelled to express our deep concern about the widespread use of the term "genocide" by certain parties we have reviewed. ... the term "genocide" will lose its profound legal and emotional weight, becoming a political tool."
"While a transnational feminist approach has criticized every other form of nationalism, the question of Palestine, its history of colonization, and the entanglement of feminism and Zionism remains to be explored further from a transnational perspective since the genocide in Gaza."
"I have now moved to a position where I believe that we're now witnessing a genocide taking place before our eyes. I was very reluctant to go there because the threshold has to be very high. There has to be specific intent for genocide, but what we're now seeing is genocidal behaviour."
Hiba Zafran; Brenda L. Beagan, Dominique Shephard, Heidi Lauckner, Karen Whalley Hammell, Katie Lee Bunting, Marie-Lyne Grenier,
Pier-Luc Turcotte, Sara Abdo, and Tal Jarus
9 July 2025
Occupational therapist and psychotherapist; Various other professionals/researchers in occupational therapy.
Canadian Journal of Occupational Therapy
"Our aim in this commentary is to urge conversation and action within the profession about our role in responding to global conflicts currently taking place, with a particular focus on the genocide of Palestinians."
"This is not a term we use lightly. Our decision to describe what's happening in Gaza as a 'genocide' is based on nearly two years of extensive, firsthand information from our teams, who are witnessing massive levels of death and destruction by Israeli forces, a campaign of ethnic cleansing and the almost total dismantling of the health care system."
"The response to this genocide shouldn't be to allow more food into Gaza so that Palestinians can be saved from starving but killed by Israeli bombing. Rather, it should be to undo the system of control and killing that Israel has forced on Palestinians, and to hold those responsible for it accountable."
Letter from 16 Israeli legal scholars condemning Israeli plan to "concentrate" Palestinians in Rafah
Just Security
"Additionally, the concentration of civilians under extreme density and existing humanitarian conditions may be interpreted as the deliberate infliction on the group of conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, a conduct which falls under the prohibition of genocide. Several ministers and MKs have made statements that may be interpreted as expressing such intent. The plan also appears to contradict the ICJ's provisional measures in the South Africa v Israel case concerning possible violations of the Genocide Convention, particularly those relating to living conditions in Gaza and Rafah."
Maybe
No
Shany was a no in 2024; Benvenisti defended Israel in ICJ genocide case[568]
"Forcibly relocating a population is prohibited, even in war. It is also a crime against humanity and could even amount, under certain circumstances, to genocide."
"The regime of occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and now genocide has eroded Israel’s moral capital, and opposition has not only grown, but has begun to make itself felt in a new generation of progressive activists and politicians."
Assistant Professor of Communication and Adjunct Lecturer of Anthropology; Professor of Bilingual Education; Assistant Professor of Raciolinguistic justice
Journal of Critical Study of Communication and Disability
"The US-funded, Israeli-conducted genocide in Gaza has been a mass disabling event, with tens of thousands of amputees, severe health and nutrition crises, and in-tense psychological trauma for every resident. "Israel's genocidal war [is] a cause of disability. The weapons of war injure bodies, break bones, burst eardrums, and blind eyes""
Mann: "I am becoming increasingly convinced that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza." Dill: "I can imagine the ICJ ultimately ruling: Yes, it is genocide. What is happening in Gaza isn't all that far off from the historical archetype of genocide."
"The most plausible explanation of current Israeli policy is that its object is to induce Palestinians as an ethnic group to leave the Gaza Strip for other countries by bombing, shooting and starving them if they remain. A court would be likely to regard that as genocide."
Likely
Yes
2025: Maybe[580] 2024: signed the "Lawyers letter" to Rishi Sunak that argues it is genocide.
"Starting a genocide against the Palestinians was a political decision. The allusion to October 7 is propaganda, an effective mechanism that resonates in Europe, not because of the history of Palestine, but because Jews were victims of antisemitism on that continent, and thus countries like Germany are somehow cleansed of their guilt."
"Happy days for Jew-haters came last week with a gargantuan op-ed in the New York Times—3,620 words in length—denouncing Israel's war in Gaza with the damning title: 'I'm a Genocide Scholar. I Know It When I See It'...The op-ed is utter nonsense."
"The terms of the war that began with those horrific events have been dictated by the conditions imposed by Hamas, which uses Palestinian civilians as shields for their military operations. Spuriously charging Israel with genocide does not change this incontrovertible fact."
"This article uses the ongoing genocidal violence in Gaza to argue that 'preventing births' should be decoupled from an attachment to conflict-related sexual and gender-based violence which, despite some limited advances to include men and boys within its purview, remains overwhelmingly dedicated to advancing the rights of women and girls in war."
"the pressure is not enough on the Israeli government to stop the genocide and the starvation and the operations that the government, that the army takes in the Gaza Strip."
"There are numerous other comparisons that can be made: the genocidal responses to the original violence, the religious zealotry involved, the proposed solution being the displacement of the remaining population, etc."
"Proving incitement to genocide in a court of law is even more difficult...There are other more accurate descriptions of what has been taking place in Gaza, including: 'massacre'...'mass killing'...'ethnic cleansing'...One can argue about whether genocide is happening in Gaza, but the debate at this point in time seems academic."
"Actors such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, as well the European Union and others bear direct and ongoing responsibility for the current genocide in Gaza. Their continued military, logistical, economic, financial, and diplomatic support sustains Israel’s machinery of destruction and international crimes."
"My Jewish identity is inextricably tied to my parents' experience in Europe, and the fate of my family in the European Holocaust. [...] When I hear Palestinians today speaking about the loss in their families, it is immediately familiar – the loss of homes, and the almost complete annihilation of individual families – that is the language I grew up hearing, and that is how I initially recognized, on a visceral level, before the academic scholarship, that we are witnessing a genocide. Today, it is the Palestinians who face the extermination we endured."
"While it's really slow and frustrating, one of the benefits of [the ICJ's deliberate pace] is that when the court, almost inevitably I think at this point, finds that Israel has been committing genocide, we will be able to say that there is no doubting this conclusion."
"Soufi said that using the word 'genocide' was 'not at all premature, because the 1948 Convention requires states to prevent genocide, and you cannot prevent what you refuse to name.'"
"the establishment of the material facts must clearly reveal the existence of an intention to 'subject the group' to living conditions intended to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." "The ultra-focus on genocide has an unfortunate political objective, as it restricts the issue of prosecution to a very narrow framework."
"We do not need to prove that a genocide has taken place in order to act. We are at a historic moment where it is necessary not to recognize genocide itself – that time will come – but rather the risk of genocide, which triggers specific and imperative obligations."
"An examination of Israel's policy in the Gaza Strip and its horrific outcomes, together with statements by senior Israeli politicians and military commanders about the goals of the attack, leads to the unequivocal conclusion that Israel is taking coordinated, deliberate action to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip. In other words: Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip."
"Today, PHRI is releasing a position paper that documents this assault for what it is: a deliberate, cumulative dismantling of Gaza’s health system, and with it, its people’s ability to survive. This amounts to genocide."
"Q: Why is that not genocide? A: The prime minister, defense minister, the chief of staff saying, our fight is not with the people of Gaza. It is with Hamas. And all the mountain of evidence of what Israel is doing to preserve infrastructure, civilian life, to provide services - both medical. I mean, the number of field hospitals, the number of water pipes, the amount of aid. All of these things are contradictions."
"Since the 7 October massacre, Israeli officials and their accomplices have justified genocidal violence against Palestinians by equating Hamas with Nazism, instrumentalizing the memory of the Holocaust to advance, rather than prevent, mass violence. Meanwhile, too many governments materially support the genocide in Gaza while silencing protest."
"The author outlines Israel's deliberate targeting of civilians, including those in evacuation zones and humanitarian aid queues, and the blockade policies that have created unlivable conditions for the population. Citing acts such as the indiscriminate destruction of civilian infrastructure, obstruction of humanitarian aid, use of starvation as a method of warfare, and explicit genocidal rhetoric by Israeli officials, the article establishes both the actus reus and mens rea of genocide. The persistent disregard for the principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity under IHL, other contemporary examples reinforce the conclusion that Israel’s actions represent a systematic campaign aimed at the destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza. As such, these acts amount to war crimes, grave breaches of IHL and finally the crime of genocide"
"If besieging a civilian population and weaponizing hunger against them, systematically destroying their food infrastructure and healthcare system, shooting at them at militarized aid distribution sites, and otherwise deliberately producing the conditions for mass starvation is acceptable, and carried out by a government that has made abundantly clear that its goal is ethnic cleansing and genocide, then the entire infrastructure of human rights, humanitarian law, and even just basic global norms have become meaningless."
"This feature article presents a poignant reflection on the deeply altered reality for Palestinian Christians in Gaza during Christmas amidst the ongoing Israeli bombardment and genocide."
"To challenge this selective silence, we issued an open letter urging professional and academic associations in the fields of health care, public health, and the social sciences to publicly recognise the genocide in Gaza and to revise their official positions accordingly"
Doctoral candidate in applied linguistics; Research and professor of internationalisation
Journal of Global Higher Education
"The genocide and scholasticide in Gaza have been a global affair, from international support for Israel, on one side, to a growing global movement against the genocide, much of it spearheaded by university students, on the other."
"A growing consensus of Israeli and international human-rights organizations, editorial boards, Israeli Holocaust historians and former attorneys-general, as well as Canadian figures like Roméo Dallaire have all come to the same conclusion: What is happening in Gaza is a genocide."
"Donors' stance on Palestinian aid amidst Israel's genocide in Gaza turned into a choreographed diplomatic performance, a public relations exercise by foreign ministers and spokespersons."
Talmon has been accused of a conflict of interest due to his involvement in theRohingya genocide case giving him an interest in promoting a narrow definition of genocide:[626]
"Israel's intent to destroy Palestinian life in Gaza now seems undeniable. At a minimum, Israel's actions are having a genocidal impact on Palestinians in Gaza. Because this impact is foreseeable (there have been countless warnings), one can reasonably infer genocidal intent from Israel's conduct in Gaza."
"Disgracefully, all of this is being done to cover up one of the greatest crimes of this century, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, a crime in which Columbia's leadership is now fully complicit."
"Let us begin with the fallacious claim that Israel is engaged in genocide in Gaza — a claim long made by Iran and its proxies but now echoed on an almost daily basis by left-wing politicians, as well as a growing number of right-wing populists [...] The war in Gaza is brutal, ... But one cannot call this nasty war genocide. [...] Accusing Israel of genocide and recognising a non-existent state are the luxury beliefs of western foreign policy, elicited in response to misleading photographs on front pages and fake fatality statistics, and utterly divorced from strategic reality."
Federica Cavazzoni; Guido Veronese; Mona Ameen Nofal; Rozyan AbuHawila; Cindy Sousa; Giorgia Fasola; Elena Lambardi di San Miniato; Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
1 August 2025
PhD Clinical Psychology, Research fellow in Human Sciences & Education; Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology; Research assistant in Human Sciences & Education; Community Mental Health Professional; Professor of Social Work; Research fellow in Human Sciences & Education; Research assistant in Psychology; Professor of law, specialising in trauma, state crimes, genocide, gender violence and surveillance
Feminism & Psychology
"Writing this work has helped us try to make sense of this unbelievable violence and brutality, to piece together parts of ourselves in the face of the vision of scattered body parts of the colonized on Gaza’s soil (i.e., Ashla’a; Shalhoub-Kevorkian, 2024), of the cruel dismemberment of genocide and ongoing historical uprooting, continuing to seek hope, life, and continuity."
"The destruction of Gaza, including the killing of thousands of children and the restriction on humanitarian aid is undeniable. The incitement for genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Israeli public sphere — from the government, in the pro-government media, and in everyday speech is also undeniable."
"As illuminated during the ongoing genocide, this fusion is catastrophic for the subjected and dominated Palestinian populations along with others viewed as enemies of the state."
Donatella della Porta; Laura Mendoza Sandoval; Martín Portos Garcia; Federica Stagni
4 August 2025
Sociologist and political scientist; Doctoral candidate in Sociology and Political Science; Senior Assistant Professor of Political Science; Doctoral candidate in Political Science and Sociology
South European Society and Politics
"Future analyses should unpack how racism and white supremacy influence mobilisations around 'distant conflicts', and also how the genocide in Gaza is embedded in the development of capitalism, patriarchy, colonialism and racism."
"Genocide: Nowhere is this clearer than in Palestine, were Israel government no longer hides its intention to physically displace Gaza's population to neighbouring countries while Israeli tech firms monetize tools of repression honed in the strip and the West Bank."
"The narratives dehumanising Muslims in Britain echo the dehumanisation of Gazans who were subjected to genocide for nearly 10 months in the summer of 2024."
"In my opinion, there is sufficient evidence to conclude that Israel's deadly military campaign in Gaza has, for many months now, crossed the high threshold of genocide."
"Highlighting their lack of access to shelter, healthcare, food, water, and education, each child described how their most basic human rights have been stripped from them and their families by Israel's genocide."
"Israel's warfare tactics, therefore, meet the threshold of genocide. In particular, this threshold is met through the deliberate imposition of conditions of life incompatible with human survival."
"I would say it's reasonably arguable that Israel's actions amount to genocide – and this argument has strengthened the longer the conflict has gone on."
"As we wait its judgement, I would argue there are other, less contested terms to describe the types of crimes that many agree are being committed in Gaza."
"There are strong indications that the ICJ acted outside the scope of its authority by adopting a very vague but progressive interpretation of the Genocide Convention combined with a novel application of Article 41 of the ICJ Statute, which allowed the ICJ to adopt specific interim measures in the first, second and third orders."
"The intent is evident in the scale and nature of the assault. Genocide is not just a legal term; it is a process. That process is now underway in Gaza."
"This study aims to raise the voice of innocent Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip under the current genocide and underline the coping strategies and mechanisms they have developed."
"In the current genocide on Gaza, the deliberate targeting of hospitals and clinics, universities, medical professionals, teachers, and academics has intended to decapitate the Palestinian polity."
"אני ראיתי מאות סרטונים שחיילים צילמו את עצמם והעלו לאינטרנט. בלי סוף מעשים לא תקינים יש שם. שום מעשה שהוא ממשפחת הג'נוסייד. ראיתי הרבה מאוד מעשים שלא הולמים את ערכי צה"ל"." ["I have seen hundreds of videos that soldiers filmed themselves and uploaded to the Internet. There are endless improper acts there. No act that is in the family of genocide. I have seen many acts that are not in keeping with the values of the IDF."]
No
No
Kasher has been criticised for years for repeatedly publishing opinions justify the killing of civilians.
"we're seeing on a daily basis the atrocities that are happening in Gaza. And it's clear that there's a genocide taking place there as well. When you add all of the various incidents happening on a daily basis together, to me the only logical conclusion is that yes, the Israelis are intent on destroying the Palestinians in Gaza."
"That explanation has much going for it, but it fails to account for the all-consuming eclipse of Palestinian injuries, and the ferocity with which punishment is meted out on those who dissent from the Israeli state, its military campaigns, its occupation, and the genocidal animus on full display since 7 October."
"I'm not focused on whether it's a war crime or a crime against humanity or a genocide, which is a distraction from the real issue. It is utterly appalling and unjustifiable, and it should not be happening."
Computer scientist; Professor of Philosophical Ethics
Self-published
"Assuming Hypothesis 5.1, assuming Hypothesis 1.1, and assuming Claim 1.5 we propose that one may conclude (given the analysis in [10]) from the absence of intentional tribocide that Israel has not been perpetrating genocide in Gaza during 2023/2024."
"Based on information in the public domain as of August 2025, Israel's actions in relation to Gaza since 7 October 2023 strongly suggest that the situation has come to fit within the definition of genocide under Article II of the 1948 Convention."
Professor of Practice in Human Rights and International Law
International Journal of Transitional Justice
"Moreover, I also argue that the genocide in Gaza not only exemplifies the validity of these lines of critique, it is the synecdoche of the darkside of human rights – the repression of the Palestine question is foundational to the post-war human rights regime and offers a possible explanation for why the default response has been to double down on received approaches."
"In Gaza, Israel is perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity of a gravity equivalent to genocide. These include starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, inhumane acts, and extermination. There is, at minimum, a serious risk that this conduct also entails genocide, meaning that third-party states have an urgent obligation to employ all reasonably available means to prevent it, including by cutting off military and dual-use supplies. In the longer term, although uncertain, the probability is growing that the ICJ will reach a final determination of genocide in the case South Africa brought against Israel."
"There is a serious risk that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Israel is visibly inflicting conditions of life on Palestinians in Gaza that are calculated to bring about their displacement and very plausibly also their (partial) destruction as a group."
"The assessment might vary depending on whether we assess individual responsibility or state responsibility. Having in mind statements of some politicians who treated the whole Gaza population as the target, I would not exclude genocidal intent, but I would be very cautious to assign this intent to all Israeli people involved in the operation. "
"there is not sufficient evidence publicly available to support the claim that the operations conducted by the Israel Defence Forces in, and around, Gaza are the result of a 'specific intent' of the persons who ultimately lead those forces 'to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, as such'."
"Yes. As of February 2025, the only reasonable inference from the cumulative evidence is that Israel's conduct in Gaza constitutes genocide, understood as the intentional destruction of a protected group in whole or in part."
"When it becomes a more expansive policy undertaken with the intent 'to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,' it becomes genocide. Multiple senior Israeli officials have openly expressed such intent... Although signs of the coming horrors were clear within months of the war's onset, many governments averted their eyes... Now, they are failing in their duty to prevent and stop a genocide."
Associate Professor of Global Health and Vice-Director of the Human Rights Centre; Anesthesiologist; plastic and reconstructive surgeon; Historian, specialising in Israel-Palestine
"Although this thesis centres its attention on the Mandate period (1920-–1948) and the early years of the Israeli occupation, its findings provide a framework for understanding contemporary Israeli carceral regime across occupied Palestine, particularly in light of the current, and ongoing, genocide in Gaza, much of which has taken place within settler spaces of captivity."
"I don’t think that saying that this is not a genocide is letting down the entire field of Holocaust studies. I can name many, many Holocaust historians who do not believe that this is a genocide. Is it the deliberate attempt to destroy an entire people in whole or in part? No, it’s simply not. It just isn’t."
Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education
"The dehumanising, racist logics that can fuel a genocide can also be used within a supposed 'liberal' framework, steering global humanitarianism away from its self-declared moral responsibility."
"The intricacies of the legal arguments in the case must not distract us from the wider question of the role of the arms trade with Israel in facilitating not only its genocidal war on Gaza, but also its occupation of Palestinian land and system of apartheid rule, and the demands of a two-way arms embargo."
"Israel's ongoing genocidal campaign in Gaza may be the most thoroughly documented atrocity in recent history, measured both by the sheer volume of evidence and the speed of its circulation."
Assistant Professor in Management; Assistant Professor of Criminology
Organization
"Students also sought expressions of solidarity from their universities, including public condemnation of the genocide in Gaza and affirmation of the rights of Palestinians to resist occupation and apartheid—rights grounded in international law (Moses, 2017)."
"There are massive war crimes in Gaza, committed by the IDF, including hunger policies and the intentional shooting of civilians. However, this is still not a "genocide" as all anti-Semites from Australia to Germany and New York City claim."
"The large-scale displacement, enforced containment and planned expulsion of the current genocide marks the culmination of this nexus, which has always been central to the settler colonial scheme in Palestine."
"Up until this point, Netanyahu has calculated that for his political position, it is more important to continue with the genocide than to bring about the release of the [captives]."
Mery Diaz; Antonia R.G. Alvarez; Sarah Mountz; Kelly F. Jackson; Sam Harrell; Mimi E. Kim; E. Goldblatt Hyatt
25 August 2025
Clinical Social Worker, Professor of Social Work; Assistant Professor of Social Work; Associate Professor of Social Welfare; Associate Professor of Social Work; Assistant Professor of Social Work; Assistant Professor of Social Work; Associate Professor of Professional Practice for Reproductive Justice
Affilia
"We come to you, our readers and supporters in the social work feminist community, to acknowledge that Affilia has been complicit in the ongoing genocide unfolding in Gaza since October 2023."
"This is a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on on the ground in Gaza is genocide," the association's president, Melanie O'Brien, a professor of international law at the University of Western Australia who specialises in genocide, told Reuters."
Yes
Yes
In June 2025, the president of this organisation, Melanie O'Brien, stated that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Of 500 members, 140 (28%) participated in the vote and 120 (86%) supported the statement.[699] The 28% participation rate "is within the usual range of votes received for a resolution, which falls between 25 and 34%"[700]
"Recently, WHO has coordinated EMTs in response to the earthquake in Myanmar; the ongoing genocide, widespread displacement, and famine in Sudan; and the ongoing genocide in Palestine, among several other crises."
Professor of law, specialising in public international law
International Law and Architecture
"The rubble is not just materially and numerically significant; it also signifies the trauma of occupation and genocide, that which cannot be captured in the horrific numbers."
"Few if any of us will ever meet Benjamin Netanyahu, Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, or others of that ilk who have organised the aberrant architecture of genocide and encouraged the climate of death, maiming, starvation and destruction that is Gaza today."
"Like in Gaza, the violence unleashed by the United States on Iraq and the region is incommensurable, obscene, unspeakable. The impunity of those responsible for the latter—Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Bolton, Bremer, and let us remember Biden, and many more—is astonishing. More than two decades later, there is still no accountability, any mention of reparation, or any efforts toward some form of justice for the victims. Far from it, the United States is pursuing its "war on terror" in Gaza, arming, funding, and enabling Israel's genocide."
"This dynamic fosters a "moral hazard" whereby Israel can act with impunity, knowing that American support is virtually guaranteed. Recent events, such as Israel's ongoing genocide in Gaza, resulting in massive civilian casualties, have further exposed this problem."
"These testimonies reflect the crushing sense of hopelessness that pervades the lives of many disabled children whose aspirations have been torn apart by the genocide."
"Caught amid the long working-out of crises as yet unresolved—those posed by a multi-decade decline in the rate of profit; advancing technologies against human creativity; the reorganization of borders' porosity to people, money, and commodities
with daily, deadly effects; rising fascism; climate catastrophe; and much more than a year of aided genocide in Gaza—it might be wishful to think of the present as an interregnum out of which something new could arrive."
"Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel said in a new report today. The Commission urges Israel and all States to fulfil their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it."
"Our conclusion is stark: Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza... These are not the accidents of war. They are acts calculated to bring about the destruction of a people."
Graduate Assistant in Communication Arts and Sciences
Communication Education
"The 2023–2025 ongoing, accelerated genocide in Gaza prompted all sectors of society to rise in opposition to the Zionist settler colonization of Palestine."
"The scholars who utterly reject the indictment of Israel's actions as a genocide despite numerous declarations by Israeli politicians to spare no Palestinians in Gaza as well as widespread evidence of genocidal measures on the ground are often those who demand to view the Holocaust as a historical event that cannot and should not be compared to the crimes of colonial and postcolonial societies."
"The current conflict between Israel and Hamas was triggered on 7 October 2023, when Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups launched coordinated attacks across southern Israel. In response to the attacks, Israel has waged a total and genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza strip, with large military operations now having extended to the West Bank and into neighboring Lebanon."
"Much of the critical political conceptualization of Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza has pointed towards an historical unprecedentedness. As many genocide and legal scholars, historians, and others have observed, annihilatory intent has rarely been more explicit than the repeated comments made by Israeli leadership in the progression of the state's aggression from the days after 7 October 2023, to the 16 May 2025 announcement of Operation Gideon Chariots, the expansion of the Israeli military campaign in the Gaza Strip, to the present."
"In the wake of Israel’s most recent campaign of genocidal, settler-colonial violence against Palestinians in Gaza, a number of prominent Israeli liberal academics, public intellectuals, and human rights lawyers have sought to sidestep the term genocide."
"Palestinian dispossession and death as a result of Zionism reveal a genocidal economy, which is embedded in the geopolitics of racism and white supremacy that dispossesses Palestinian humanity, even of newborn babies. This economy’s codes, technologies, aesthetics, and visuality enable the ongoing genocide and its ontological consumption."
"Roughly since mid-2024, there seems to have emerged a broad agreement among genocide scholars – at least those who have expressed their views on the matter – that this is indeed the case.", "Where does this analysis leave us as to the issues at stake? On the one hand, at exactly the same place: as I mentioned above, the consensus that did exist as to how to respond to 7 October was already genocidal, and once no limits were placed on Israel it relatively quickly led to what amount to a genocide in Gaza."
"Israel's genocidal policy is not an aberration; rather, it is a more extreme expression of a policy that has long sought to diminish and disable Gaza through a variety of measures because Gaza is the fulcrum of a Palestinian state and without Gaza, a Palestinian state is not possible.", "Hence, the refusal by most Israelis to acknowledge the genocide of Gaza's people – representing a philosophical distance that separates Jews from Palestinians (and Palestinians from humankind?) – is not surprising."
"The genocide commenced immediately after Hamas’s attack—the initial public statements by senior Israeli officials perfectly, indeed eerily, foreshadowed what would unfold in the next two years—but it was necessarily calibrated to take account of the response abroad. If Israel didn’t outright nuke Gaza, that's because, functioning as Israel must within the constraints, albeit feeble, imposed by the vicissitudes of international public opinion, it couldn't. But even as Israel's overarching objective was not to annihilate but rather to ethnically cleanse Gazans, it was also prepared to kill off as many civilians and pulverize as much infrastructure as was politically feasible in order to 'persuade' the population to leave or 'persuade' the international community to take it in. This is not idle speculation, it’s a fait accompli: Israel has already committed genocide in Gaza."
Mohammed Y. Khanji; Naomi Green; Nadia Khan; Shehla Imtiaz-Umer; Mohammed Ejaz Faizur Rahman; Peter Hopkins; Tarek Younis; Yasmin Kader
22 September 2025
Consultant Cardiologist; Sociologist; Palliative Medicine Consultant; GP Principal; Doctor; Professor of Social Geography; Cultural and Critical Clinical Psychologist; Policy officer for Equity and Inclusion
Medicine, Conflict and Survival
"The Israeli government has publicly expressed genocidal intent and has conducted systematic attacks on the civilian population of Gaza and wider Palestinian territories against a backdrop of decades of illegal, ongoing and expanding occupation, racial segregation and apartheid"
"The purpose of this article is to analyze the collapse of the international humanitarian system through the Gaza lens during the Israeli genocidal war that began on October 7, 2023."
"Furthermore, I posit that religious practices and the transcendental meaning which they unveil might serve to motivate collective decolonial political praxis and thus offer a means of addressing an ongoing crisis in global thought exemplified by Israel’s genocide in Gaza"
"The ongoing blockade and genocide imposed by the Israeli State on Palestinians in Gaza begets the question of life: who, how, and where does one deserve to live?"
Post-doctoral researcher in Political Ecology; International Development Consultant and Post-doctoral researcher in International Studies
The Journal of Peasant Studies
"This phenomenon occurs in violent cycles that dismantle territorial relations, involving measures such as siege and military invasions that have escalated to the level of genocide."
Pharmacist; Global Health Researcher; Researcher in Public Health specialising in Humanitarian responses; Doctor in Trauma and Orthopaedics; Doctor in Extreme Medicine; Pharmacist and Medical Translator; Human rights lawyer and Professor of Health Policy; Physician and Medical Journalist; Doctor and Public Health Researcher; Pharmacist and Professor in Pharmaceutical Public Health
"The blockade, a policy enacted by the Israeli Government, severely restricted the entry of medicines to Gaza, and arbitrary rejections, prolonged inspections, and so-called dual use designations delayed access to medicines. These practices reflect the weaponisation of access to medicines in violation of International Humanitarian Law and form part of genocide."
Medical doctor and fellow in General Practice and Primary Care
Longitudinal and Life Course Studies
"Tragically as I write my latest editorial, the genocide in Gaza (United Nations (OHCHR), 2024) marches on at an almost unrelenting pace, with not only bombs and bullets targeting the civilian population. 'The risk of starvation is everywhere in Gaza. This is a direct result of the Israeli Government's policy of blocking humanitarian aid' (United Nations [OHCHR], 2025a)."
"India too is more than complicit – not just by its silence on the genocide, but by the close economic links being forged, the supply of labour to replace Palestinian labour, and the Indian IT industry’s links with the Israeli defence system."
"The genocide in Gaza has given rise to the strongest condemnation of the Western world since the mid-20th century when formerly colonized nations were fighting for national self-determination."
"the Gaza genocide is not an exception in Israel's colonial history. It is part of a continuum that reappears in new forms each time, while displaying striking similarities with other colonial contexts."
"The genocide in Gaza cannot be understood as an isolated or exceptional event. Scholars such as Abdo and Ayyash underscore that it is embedded within a larger structure of genocide intrinsic to Zionist settler colonialism."
(And note that most of the opinions that do explicitly deny genocide are published as opinion pieces, often in Israeli or explicitly Zionist publications.)wound theology◈16:16, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: I found this 19 Sep 2025 article in theJournal of Genocide Research titled "Introduction: Gaza and the Problems of Genocide Studies" published here:https://doi.org/10.1080/14623528.2025.2558401, which is aWP:SECONDARY source, written byA. Dirk Moses, who is listed in the chart above.
In Moses' new article, he calls it a "debate":
In his introductory paragraphs, he writes that his article "aims to take stock of, and to intervene in, thedebate about Gaza, genocide, and Genocide Studies...There are various aspects to thedebate that we cannot treat comprehensively here, but they are united by a single issue: theseeming impossibility of reaching consensus on the basic unit of analysis: genocide."
He later writes, "Finally, I am conscious that the people who matter when it comes to stopping the violence and to making public determinations of genocide are states and the judges at the ICJ, ICC, and other international tribunals."
One academic saying it's difficult to reach consensus should be considered in thetotality of evidence one way or another regarding claims on the presence or absence of academic consensusif and only if anew RfC is opened relitigating the issue of whether there is consensus, but it is not appropriate to relitigate that question here perWP:CON.Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk)19:37, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is an RFC on if the current wording on this page should be changed to put genocide in wikivoice. Therefore this is absolutely an appropriate place to discuss what academics are saying and if it is disputed or if there is a consensus.GothicGolem29(Talk)19:47, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
WP:LOCALCONSENSUS saysConsensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale
The consensus was not among a limited group of editors. It was in thehighest-visibility article on the topic, took place over multiple months (i.e.not atone place and time), and had several dozen contributors chime in.
Therefore, this is a matter of attempting to override a previous RfC about this exact same question whichwas thecommunity consensus on a wider scale referred to inWP:LOCALCONSENSUS. So the logic should be the other way around:this is the local consensus, not the other RfC. If we are going to relitigate the question of whether there is academic consensus there is genocide in Gaza, then this should be discussed on the articleabout genocide in Gaza—not on the article about the country of Israel which is only tangentially related in its discussion of the topic.
Wikivoice concerns debated here should therefore be for reasons other than doubts about the presence of academic consensus.
I was just questioning whether there actually is an academic consensus, as there is a recent scholarly, secondary source explicitly saying that there is not and since there is a thread on the wiki talk page titled "Comment: Academic consensus about genocide in Gaza." I didn’t say anything about overriding any RFC.Wafflefrites (talk)20:25, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a conversation among a limited group of editors it is an RFC(and has been noted on the Gaza genocide page.) This has and will draw in a large number of people to discuss therefore it does not fall under that category and is not local consensus nor is it attempting to overturn the Gaza genocide page consensus as only an RFC on that page can do that.GothicGolem29(Talk)20:43, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You raise a good point about this not being a limited group of editors. I was mainly responding to the allegation theother RfC was a local consensus by saying this consensus is more local consensus than the RfC if we had to compare, but I think you're right to point out that this is probably not an actual local consensus for the reason you provided.
That said, I do think that relitigating the question of whether there is academic consensus on a page other thanTalk:Gaza genocide is still suboptimal for the reasons I provided in bullet point #2 above: namely thatrelitigating this question in every Gaza genocide-related page because of the notion that we cannot generalize RfCs at all beyond an individual page is a huge time sink and much less ideal than keeping discussions about meta discussions related to the Gaza genocide onTalk:Gaza genocide alone. Otherwise, every time we try to use Wikivoice to allege genocide we would need to open a new RfC.Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk)21:22, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just wanted to point out that we are not trying to “use Wikivoice to allege genocide”. What this RFC is trying to do is to use Wikivoice tostate there is genocide orthere was a genocide that occurred. Not even the majority of reliable English language news sources are doing that. The news sources typically will use the word “alleged” and attribute who/what group is saying that Israel committed genocide.Wafflefrites (talk)22:10, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Just wanted to point out that we are not trying to “use Wikivoice to allege genocide”. What this RFC is trying to do is to use Wikivoice tostate there is genocide orthere was a genocide that occurred. - The reason why we concluded Wikivoice can allege genocide is because there was consensus there was a genocide. It doesn't make sense that we can use Wikivoice to allege genocide because there is a genocide but then also not claim there is a genocide.
The news sources typically will use the word “alleged” and attribute who/what group is saying that Israel committed genocide. - Respectfully, news sources are not genocide experts so their opinions are not relevant.Alexandraaaacs1989 (talk)22:21, 8 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This is Original Research. Doing a head-count of self-proclaimed genocide scholars is original research. You must find reliable sources that state something along the lines of, "the consensus of genocide scholars is that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza." And there must be a lack of RS that state it in the more neutral terms on the current wording.
However,Britannica phrases it as such:Some opponents of the war lodged accusations of genocide against Israel as the war moved to the southern half of the Gaza Strip. Such a description is properly encyclopedic, and should be given extra weight, yet certain editors in this thread have accused this characterization of being "fringe."Scharb (talk)15:32, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
There are further issues with the chart, such as the lack of counting sources which have taken a neutral position instead of actively supporting or denying genocide claims.Scharb (talk)20:42, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
According toacademic consensus, claims that there academic consensus on X require sources that explicitly say so, "there is academic consensus on X", not rounding 10, 20 or even 100 references that say X and then claim "there is consensus!". That template has a big piece of work to be made, but it meansnothing.Cambalachero (talk)19:14, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So, the answer is "I refuse to answer because there was an earlier discussion". TLDR, so tell me, did someone raise this specific point? Which was the reason given to dismiss it?Cambalachero (talk)00:46, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I am coming late to this discussion, sorry. It seems to me that there is a basic construct at issue that actually not been proven: the allegation of genocide having taken place, and the issue of colonialism. There are at least 2 sides to these 2 questions. Instead of making a definitive statement that says it did happen, it would be better to say, in my humble viewpoint, that "During the war between Gaza and Israel allegations have been made that genocide may have happened." After that beginning then you can present both comments with sources who said yes and who said no and let the readers make up their own mind. Since Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral, wouldn't that be a more even handed way to present the article???Imgeller (talk)01:09, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The fact of the matter is that there is already consensus on Wikipedia from from the prior RfC. There's no need to synthesize data here because we already have reached that conclusion a fair bit of time ago. I put this here as reference material that shows the vast majority of academic sources are in agreement that Israel's actions constitute genocide. Your other concerns were sufficiently adressed by Alexandraaacs1989.wound theology◈01:35, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@SuperPianoMan9167 wikipedia needs to get its facts straight. It would be really weird if we affirmedArmenian genocide at its own article, but then atTurkey we pretended it may not have happened. So yes, either Gaza genocide happened or it didn't, and every en.wiki article must be consistent.VR(Pleaseping on reply)06:11, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, it can suggest how things should be handled here but it doesn't dictate and this RfC which does have good participation will dictate what happens in this article.Springee (talk)11:26, 11 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Comment for the closer: the point is being made repeatedly on this page, but just so no one is led off course by the above discussion, I want to state clearly:this is not an RfC on whether Israel has committed/is committing genocide.
What the closer should determine: based on the weight of arguments presented on this page, should the commission of genocide by Israel be noted in the lede ofthis article?
What the closershould not determine: Whether we can state in Wikivoice that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza. Not only has this already been determined (in a much more clearly-defined RfC), this was absolutely not the question that was put to !voters in this RfC, and I (along with others, presumably) would have spent more of my limited words arguing different points if I understood that the outcome of the previous RfC was being put into question.WP:FORUMSHOP applies.WillowCity(talk)18:36, 15 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And OP contextualized that heading as follows:After two months of discussion -consensus was reached to phrase the opening in Wikipedia’s voice that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians. See Gaza genocide. Should similar wording be appliedto this article? Nothing about this puts the prior RfC in question. This is an RfC about the State of Israel, not in an article about the genocide, which is the vastly more logical place for the question to be settled (if it can even reasonably be called a "question", given the weight of scholarly opinion). It would be like having an RfC aboutWP:VOICE for the Armenian genocide onTalk:Turkey.WillowCity(talk)03:41, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looking over the prior RfC and closing it seems like it was in that gray area where it could have been reasonably closed as no consensus or as it was ultimately closed. This one, which is basically asking the same question, is about 50/50 with reasoned arguments on both sides. If this is closed as no consensus, yes, that means we would have a split in how the topic is presented.Springee (talk)13:13, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Your concerns about the last RfC ought to have been brought to the Administrator's Noticeboard:WP:CLOSECHALLENGE. This is actually way worse thanWP:FORUMSHOP; this is not just starting a new RfC on a different talk page to get a different outcome, it's hijacking someone else's RfC and reframing it in a way that denies other editors a chance to know the case they have to meet.a split in how the topic is presented is not an outcome that could arise from this RfC, as it was presented to commenters; this would be a totally unreasonable outcome.WillowCity(talk)14:03, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that close was reasonable so it's not likely to get overturned. But this RfC has had strong participation and is reaching a different outcome with a similar question. This is kind of the issue with not having a central editor at Wikipedia. The process can result in conflicting closes. Let me ask this, had this RfC come first and closed first (presumable with a no-consensus) would you argue that the other RfC shouldn't have run? It seems like some sort of above article level RfC is needed but I'm not sure how that would operate within Wikipedia's rules.Springee (talk)14:49, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
To be clear, the RfC asks if similar wording should be applied to this article. It doesn't say editors are required to accept that the other RfC was correct (basic rule of Wikipedia and citing other wiki articles). It does suggest that harmonizing the two articles is a reason to change the wording here but editors don't agree. Also, the previous close was done on 21 Sept. Above a paper by Moses from 19 September is introduced and it states this is a debate. That summation of the debate among scholars wasn't available for the last discussion and could have been sufficient to tip the scales to no-consensus.Springee (talk)14:59, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll answer both of your comments here.
WillowCity's reply
Re: the first comment, I take your point, but to answer your question: no, if this RfC had come first and had been closed with no consensus, my position would be different. The previous RfC was not a "no-consensus" close, it was closed with consensus to state genocide in WV. If an RfC about whether to mention the genocide in the lead of the Israel article was closed without consensus, I would not see that as prejudicing the question of whether we can state in WV that genocide is occurring. Furthermore, the structure of the previous RfC, and its location on the genocide page, are far more appropriate than this RfC (and this page) for arguing theWP:VOICE question.
Further, I think it's premature to say that this RfC is"reaching a different outcome"; this isWP:NOTAVOTE and at least personally, I find the denialist argument unpersuasive. And while the question may besimilar, it is certainly not thesame.
Fundamentally, it's a matter ofWP:CONLEVEL: editors on this article ("A group of editors") cannot opt-out of NPOV (as correctly interpreted in the prior RfC) in relation to the article on Israel (or any other article).
To your second point, I think this is not a fair reading of OP's RfC. OP was asking about thelead, and that was the subject of OP's RfC. It was not a larger question aboutWP:VOICE. Regarding the Moses article, I echo the comments of @Alexandraaaacs1989, above, and further don't accept that this article would be as determinative as you suggest.
Before I begin, I'm worried I may exceed the 1000 word limit and/or beWP:BLUDGEONing the discussion. If I am doing so, please let me know.
I dispute your statement for multiple reasons:
Reasons
editors on this article ("A group of editors") cannot opt-out of NPOV Editors onthat article are opting-out of NPOV by stating a controversial conclusion in wikivoice.WP:VOICE says:Avoid statingopinions asfacts. Usually, articles will contain information about the significantopinions that have been expressed about their subjects. However, these opinions should not be stated in Wikipedia's voice. Rather, they should beattributed in the text to particular sources, or where justified, described as widespread views, etc. For example, an article should not state thatgenocide is an evil action but may state that genocide has been described by John So-and-so as the epitome of human evil. Legal opinions are still opinions. As I haveargued before, any statement of a person or group's motivations that isn't made directly by that person or group is fundamentally an opinion that can be challenged.
Further, I think it's premature to say that this RfC is "reaching a different outcome"; this isWP:NOTAVOTE: the Gaza genocide RfC's closing statement saysOption 1 was favored in more than a 2:1 ratio, and this determined the outcome., so it was a vote.
OP was asking about thelead, and that was the subject of OP's RfC. It was not a larger question aboutWP:VOICE. People are treating the Gaza genocide RfC as if it answered a larger question about WP:VOICE; seethis comment,this comment,this comment,this comment, etc.
If this is better placed atWP:AN, please let me know.
I would also note, parenthetically, that of the 23 sources cited in the above table dated post-September 19, only 1/23 (Blackford, a philosopher and literary critic) rejected the genocide characterization. I would say 96% agreement among these sources does not bode well for the idea of a changing consensus.WillowCity(talk)16:19, 16 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:WillowCity That table is only a collection of whatever WP editor(s) chose to list. It simply doesn't have all items produced for a period. (When I previously googled, I easily found others not contained in the table.) See also the RFC atGaza genocide about saying there is no cWP:CONSENSUS on saying there is expert consensushere Cheers
It isn't original research. It is a list of almost all reliable available research that isn't referenced directly anywhere within any Wikipedia article. It is strictly used for Wikipedia editors to get as comprehensive an overview as possible regarding this situation. Engaging in unspecified supposed reliability concerns against its veracity or debating semantics do not in any way diminish the accuracy of that overview.David A (talk)07:53, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That seems to be grasping at straws semantics and wikilawyering again, given that the vast majority of the sources explicitly state a specific conclusion, and, again, that also refers to references within the actual article texts as far as I am aware, not talk page arguments.David A (talk)08:02, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You're absolutely correct, becauseWP:NOR explicitly says:This policy does not apply totalk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboards.WillowCity(talk)12:44, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This policy does not apply to talk pages and other pages which evaluate article content and sources, such as deletion discussions or policy noticeboardsCamAnders (talk)13:22, 19 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
User:David A That wouldn't help. I can believe that "pro-human rights, pro-Zionism, and academically neutral editors have added" - but such ad hoc participation with such biases just are not going to be "comprehensive" nor reliable. A list of hundreds made by a relatively few WP editors is just not representative or keeping up with the thousands of scholars and their published items. It's not just that it's missing a bit or theUser:SuperPianoMan9167 complaint of beingWP:OR instead ofWP:V multiple academic bodies or such saing there is consensus, it's that this is simply clever tech with a collection and it is seductively misleading to think good or complete data just because it can make a pretty graph. Just look at the template TALK threads.
There is no defined focus or method -- I asked what it constituted or how generatedhere because I simply googled and found items of that month missing, and there just is no declared focus or method captured here. Others also asked 'criteria for inclusion' or 'what experts count', or 'personal confusion', plus questioning the count as some experts are 'names that appear more than once' and other times a multiple authored item only has one list entry.
Current talk is now showing two other editors offering missing items - one gave part of his find, 18 articles circa 2024 in foreign language sources, another 10 circa mid-2025 -- so it's repeatedly and easily being shown as incomplete.
Multiple cleanup threads in past and current TALK calling for cleanup in one fashion or another such as 'What experts count', 'People that may not belong' or 'A. Dirk Moses' position is incorrectly summarised.
So - I could google generally or I could search academic indices which already capture all academic works, or I could google signatories of the hundreds of signatories and always find missing items ... For example from Scholar for Truth Elliot Malin - missing Dec 2023 Nevada Independent "misuse of the term to describe what Israel is doing to Palestinians "; Eli Rosenbaum -May 2024 Jewish Insider; Jeffrey Mausner - Co-Author of The Big Lie of Genocide and Gaza (Aug 11, 2024 Daily News); Brian L. Cox - Why International Law Debunks "Genocide" Claims In Gaza; Avraham Russell Sharlev (2026 Cambridge Press) Hamas’ October 7th Genocide: Legal Analysis and the Weaponisation of Reverse Accusations– A Study in Modern Genocide Recognition and Denial; Alan Dershowitz - (Nov 2024 book) The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies and How to Refute Them ... But that's chasing going down a rabbithole of thousands of items with more coming in than being handled, and still not representing what seems the majority which are giving neither answer. CheersMarkbassett (talk)17:17, 21 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the phrasing of the RFC I would also like to reiterate WillowCity's point that the question is not about whether or not Israel has committed genocide and that I did not provide my answers answering the question of genocide. Additionally, I agree with this RfC being kind of strange with the way it is being started.Chefs-kiss (talk)14:08, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Cite error:There are<ref group=lower-alpha> tags or{{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a{{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or{{notelist}} template (see thehelp page).
level-3 vital article is ratedB-class on Wikipedia'scontent assessment scale.
The redirectIsraël has been listed atredirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets theredirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect atWikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2025 October 4 § Israël until a consensus is reached.A1Cafel (talk)03:36, 4 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Already done byTriggerhippie4 inSpecial:Diff/1320544054.SuperPianoMan9167 (talk)14:04, 10 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
LikeAlexandraaaacs1989 (talk)03:17, 6 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
.svg)
