UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, International Criminal Court Prosecutor, International Court of Justice President: Investigate the Possibility that Israel is Committing the Crime of Genocide Against the Indigenous Palestinian People.
Elisha Yered took the murder weapon from the murderer, Yechiel Indore, and buried it outside their settlement. After both were arrested and interrogated, Yered took the Shin Bet to the spot where the weapon was buried and they retrieved it. His explanation was that he wanted to be sure that no Palestinians took the weapon, so he hid it. The police and Shin Bet seemed to be satisfied with this cock and bull story and have not charged him as an accessory to murder… Yered is also the settler taunting the Dawabshe family in the video above. I’m profiling him because he is an exemplar of the most violent and homicidal of the Hilltop Youth, the sharp spear of the settler vigilante militias. He and his fellow terrorists are also photogenic and eager to exploit Israeli media to spread their genocidal message. The TV news shows reciprocate by featuring them regularly.
Wayne State’s Student Senate released a letter of support for Palestinian students on Tuesday, after sending the statement to a committee for revisions in July… [The] Senate condemned the attacks against Palestinians by the Isreali government, using footnotes to attribute the words “genocide” and “apartheid,”
… [student senator Zaynah] Jadallah said the majority of Senate’s discourse around the statement revolved around the terms used to reference the attacks.
“They were just afraid of using the word ‘genocide’ and then even ‘apartheid’ and ‘occupation’ but I explained to them… these two words have been used scholarly and worldwide (everywhere) from Amnesty International (to the) United Nations,” Jadallah said. “So it’s not like we’re the first people to accuse the Israeli occupation of these crimes.”
… Students for Justice in Palestine Co-President Aya Mohammad said the university could be doing more to support Palestinian students through this difficult time.
… “We want the WSU population to recognize the genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli apartheid government. The Palestinian people have been suffering from this ongoing genocide for more than 70 years, while the world is watching in silence, and our U.S. tax money is paying for the weapons being used.”
As Wayne State University’s student governing body, we are responsible for representing students’ voices on matters that impact our community. Per our mission statement, we are committed to providing representation and advocacy for all by bridging the gap between students, faculty, staff, and administration. Student Senate is focused on the student experience first, ensuring inclusivity and equity for our peers… As a student body, we strongly condemn the genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli apartheid government.
Sarah Ihmoud: “BDS is one such opportunity for feminist praxis. As Israel’s ongoing settler project remains an enactment of genocidal violence against an indigenous people, through technologies of war, capture, and militarized dispossession… Feminist organizing in Palestine has been deeply invested in dismantling structures of settler colonialism and apartheid that place women and queer folk disproportionately in marginal positions. Like in other colonial and genocidal contexts, Israel has targeted the bodies and sexualities of Palestinian women, as symbolic peripheries of the Palestinian nation.”
Dr. Port: Yeah, it’s not the first time. So for those of you who can’t see, um, Dan has written, “You say never again, but Germany supports Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people. How do you reconcile that hypocrisy?” I would say this, I used to be, I used to react to the Germans say, very allegedly to this claim that the Israelis were committing genocide in Israel. The more I did research and the more I learned about the UN genocide convention, I certainly can see why some people would make the case. And I’m not going to comment on that whether or not I do think it’s, um, it’s genocide. Um, but it is certainly a legitimate, um, question is, is it hypocrisy? Well, you know, I, I think, um, it’s not something that I Iooked at. I focused on Cambodia, on Bosnia, and Rwanda and I think it would be very interesting for someone to examine how Germans, uh, talk about it. Yeah, obviously work has been done on this and you know, Dirk Moses with this German catechism that he published, which led to a major debate has brought this topic out into the open. I, l, l think there’s a lot to be. So there is a hypocrisy. Well, you know Germans are in a very difficult position there and you can imagine, you can imagine what it would be like for the Germans to accuse Israelis of genocide, and l think we have to have an understanding for, for the past and for the, the difficult situation you know they face.”
[Dr. Port] displayed bravery in going out of script and expressing his thoughts on a challenging topic — is Israel committing genocide against the Palestinian people? My observation is that he was slightly equivocal, wanting to let the audience know that, by UN Genocide Convention, Article II, the charge is true but not willing to state his agreement. The question remains bogged in debate and polemical exercises that resolve nothing. Genocide never receives agreement until the deadly crime has culminated Then comes the usual soul searching, accusations, recriminations, and a chorus of, “Who can predict the future,” followed by “never again,” and followed by a genocide happening again.
One day young Jews will demand that the Nakba be named and consecrated inside liberal American Jewish entities that armed the ethnic cleansing, and denied it. They will demand the inclusion of Palestinians who describe the Nakba as a “genocide.”
Sarah Ihmoud: My question is my first question, why has holocaust and genocide studies been so reluctant to call what is happening in Palestine a genocide? And what do you see as the intellectual and ethical task of scholars of mass violence in this moment?
Raz Segal: Actually, I think that I see significant change in the treatment of Israeli state violence. Apartheid policies and settler colonialism within Holocaust and Genocide Studies. This change has taken a long time and many- I think- will continue to push back, but our conversation today, for instance, organized by a center in this field of study, seems to me a part of this shift.
There’s also clear indications of this shift in scholarly journals and Holocaust and Genocide Studies. I can mention here two book forms published in recent years in the Journal of Genocide Research; one on the co-edited volume by Dr. Amos Goldberg and Dr. Bashir Bashir on the intertwined histories and memories of the Holocaust and the Nakaba, and another one- Dr. Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian’s last book on the Structural Everyday Brutalities of Israeli authorities against Palestinian children and youth, which she calls dechilding.
I think it was very significant that in both forms, in the Journal of Genocide Research, we saw multiple perspectives that demonstrate the great extent to which discussions about Israel, about Palestine, offer opportunities to delve into key issues in questions in holocaust and genocide studies.
… And with Palestinians- as a group that has faced and is facing the longest ever experience of forced displacement, the refusal of return to their villages, their towns, their cities, their homeland- Palestinian history is indeed central, I think, in holocaust and genocide studies, and becoming more and more so.
Finally, I want to mention that the fact that some institutes of global holocaust memory- and I’m thinking particularly here about the International Holocaust Rememberence Alliance, the IHRA- that these institutes have weaponized the discourse around antisemitism to shift the focus of the struggle against antisemitism away from Jews around the world, and only on to Israel. This effort, I think, has backfired and actually contributed to the centering of Israel and Palestine in holocaust and genocide studies.
Date and time Sat, February 18, 2023, 3:00 PM – 5:30 PM MST
Location 5615 14 Avenue Southwest Calgary, AB T3H 2E8 Canada
About this event 2 hours 30 minutes
Outcomes From the Fundraising
• Book: Palestine, Lost in a two state Solution by Colonial Practice of Forced Displacement, Genocide, Apartheid, Torture, Occupation, Physical and Sexual Abuse of Palestinian children.
• Creation of mini-Videos (1-3 min for social media) of the 22 book chapters
• 30-minute digital exhibition by picture / Videos from the information provided by the book.
• Conference after publishing the book
• Apply to Calgary Board of Education to include this book in the curriculum for high school
• Possibly a Board game on Apartheid and Genocide on Palestine, possibly
“Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crimes” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” chants from demonstrators outside of the Kamala Harris speech here in Ann Arbor, Michigan pic.twitter.com/WDQlQAthRM
