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Gaza: Genocide or Not?

Posted on 15/09/25 in Politics

There is debate about whether the Israeli Defence Forces’ pounding of Gaza should be counted as a genocide or not. A lot hangs on it, not least in the articulation of Israel’s national narrative and its place as a democracy. The case against Israel gets stronger by the day.

By now, when due consideration is given to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s clear policy to sustain the war, eschewing all options for peace, even a temporary one, and effectively condemning the hostages to their grim fate, it is hard to see what legitimate military, diplomatic or political purposes the IDF’s pounding is serving. The distribution of food aid by quasi-gangster groups seems to add misery, not nutrition. The Supreme Court, hardly Netanyahu’s ally in normal circumstances, appears paralysed or supine. Add in some of the statements from members of the war cabinet, such as Bezalel Smotrich or Itamar Ben-Gvir, and it is hard not to draw the conclusion that the government’s aim is to take over the remaining slivers of Palestinian territory in Gaza and the West Bank, and maybe even Southern Lebanon as well, cleansing at least Gaza of the remaining population.

One minor caveat is that Netanyahu seems to have no agenda of any kind, genocidal or not, beyond remaining in power for as long as possible, despite his responsibility for the massive failure of the government to protect Israeli citizens from Hamas terrorists in October 2023. Presumably this is partly in order to delay the unrelated court cases against him. Delay, deflect, promise, procrastinate: all characteristic of the Netanyahu bad faith playbook. But that this appalling man chooses to preside over genocide for selfish rather than ideological reasons doesn’t make it any less of a genocide.

It is certainly true that the original atrocity by Hamas in 2023, an orgy of murder, sexual violence and kidnapping, was horrific and disgusting, and demanded a strong Israeli response. The outburst of joy on the Western left in the first few days after the attack was unforgiveable. Hamas, if it cared a jot for those who elected it to government, should have factored the effect of the inevitable retaliation on the people of Gaza into its planning. It does not seem to have done.

Yet at some point – we can debate exactly when the lines were crossed – retaliation became disproportionate, and then disproportion shaded into crimes against humanity, and now those crimes are on any sensible measure adding up to genocide.

After all, the Chinese government likes to dabble in genocidal pursuits, but nothing it has done in recent years is anything like as murderous as Israel’s actions in Gaza.

There’s probably not a great deal that Britain or the EU can do about this immediately in practical terms, while Trump has Netanyahu’s back. In particular, stopping Israel will involve not only deterring its government (possible, if unlikely), but also taking on the fanatical and racist settler movement (and no likely force has the stomach for that). Diplomatic attempts will only draw Trump’s ire, and at the moment he holds most of the cards.

But part of the essential process of dismantling the Western alliance and disentangling Europe from America must be to insert and increase distance from Israel and America. At some point, not necessarily now, we must use the appropriate words to describe Israeli war crimes and support the probably futile attempts to bring Netanyahu and his war cabinet to justice. It is hard to see who a sensible Palestinian interlocutor might be, but hopefully diplomatic channels are open with Qatar and other Arab states. Yet they may not be interested in talking – the EU is such a peripheral player – and may prefer the promise of American arms and trade deals.