When events blow up in other countries, we are all bombarded with words and ideas we haven’t generally thought about very much. (I initially used the word “information” in the previous sentence, but then I realized that is not exactly what’s happening. “Information” implies understanding and utility, and I’m not sure how much of that we are getting. We’re getting factoids without an interpretive framework.)
So what do we do with all of the factoids we’re getting? We have to figure out a way to understand it, and that involves effort.
Sorry, but them’s the facts.
In pursuit of this goal, I want to talk about International Law today – specifically, the terms of international law that are being used right now to discuss what’s going on in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. This will help us understand how the experts use the terms and thus will help us use the terms properly.
This discussion will assume that you all know the general outline of events leading up to the current conflict: the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the succession of wars over how the territory was divided between Israel and the Palestinians, the quest for a Palestinian state, the multiple wars that have broken out over the decades, the apparently permanent “refugee camps” where displaced Palestinians have lived for generations, and the intentional placement of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
A lot of what I’m talking about here was framed by one of my favorite podcasts, Crooked Media’s Pod Save the World. I have mentioned this podcast many times in the course of writing these essays, but that’s because it’s just so darn good. Here’s this week’s episode. I recommend listening to it. In particular, you should listen to Tommy’s interview with MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin, who was based in Gaza for a few years. He has a deep understanding of what’s going on there, and I learned a lot from listening to him.
The terms I’m going to talk about today are the following:
War crimes
The concept of war crimes developed at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century with the adoption of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. Various “Geneva Conventions” (which have been ratified by all Member States of the United Nations) and subsequent Protocols (which have not been as widely accepted) accept a list of actions as “war crimes – specifically, crimes that can be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (also located at The Hague) which was created in 2002. War crimes as defined in the statute that established the International Criminal Court include the following:
Grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, such as:
a. Willful killing, or causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health
b. Torture or inhumane treatment
c. Unlawful wanton destruction or appropriation of property
d. Forcing a prisoner of war to serve in the forces of a hostile power
e. Depriving a prisoner of war of a fair trial
f. Unlawful deportation, confinement or transfer
g. Taking hostages
h. Directing attacks against
i. Directing attacks against humanitarian workers or UN peacekeepers
j. Killing a surrendered combatant
k. Misusing a flag of truce, a flag or uniform of the enemy
l. Settlement of occupied territory
m. Deportation of inhabitants of occupied territory
n. Using poison weapons
o. Using civilians as shields
p. Using child soldiers
q. Firing upon a Combat Medic with clear insignia.
The following acts as part of a non-international conflict:
a. Murder, cruel or degrading treatment and torture
b. Directing attacks against civilians, humanitarian workers or UN peacekeepers
The following acts as part of an international conflict:
a. Taking hostages
b. Summary execution
c. Pillage
d. Rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution or forced pregnancy
I’ll leave it to you to decide for yourself if war crimes have been committed in the course of the current conflict.
NOTE: The War Crimes statutes do not recognize a “but they did it first” exemption.
Ethnic cleansing
This is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, or religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Although not specifically defined a crime against international law, it is recognized as a crime against humanity under the statutes of the International Criminal Court. In the past decade, charges of ethnic cleansing have been made in Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Burma, India, Syria, Central African Republic, Russia, Suria, China, Ethiopia, Ukraine, and Azerbaijan.
Genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people in whole or in part. In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.” The five acts were : killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.
Genocide never begins with simply annihilating the defined group. It evolves over time. There are 10 stages in the evolution of a genocide; we should be particularly aware of the first four steps:
Classification (in which people are divided into “us and them”)
Symbolization – when symbols may be forced upon members of pariah groups. (Like Stars of David during the Third Reich, for example)
Discrimination – laws or cultural power that excludes groups from full civil rights. (like segregation or apartheid laws or denial of voting rights)
Dehumanization – one group denies the humanity of the other group (members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insets, or diseases.
Humanitarian Pause vs. Ceasefire
This gets into squishier areas of policy. In the Pod Save the World episode, the hosts distinguished between a “humanitarian pause,” which could last for as little as a few hours or as long as a few weeks, and a “ceasefire,” which implies negotiations between the warring parties. At this point, the demands for a ceasefire are really directed only at Israel, as Hamas and its loosely allied groups in Gaza and the West Bank are not credible negotiating partners. Israel resists a unilateral ceasefire, for reasons that make sense to them. A humanitarian pause (to allow for civilians, foreign nationals, and people who are in need of medical care to leave Gaza) is something that both sides could potentially support.
Abraham Accords
The Abraham Accords consist of a number of bilateral agreements on the normalization of relations between Israel and several of its Arab-state neighbors. This set of agreements, undertaken by TFG in 2020, was focused on relations among states in the Middle East and specifically not as a substitute for Israeli-Palestinian peace. The Palestinians, as non-State actors in the region, were not party to these accords.
Two-state solution
The conflict between Israel and its Palestinian population has been going on since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Solutions have sometimes focused on a one-state solution (in which Jews, Arabs, and Palestinian Christians live safely and amicably in a country that accords them equal rights and protection of the law) and at other times on a two-state solution (in which an independent State of Palestine exists alongside the State of Israel).
President Biden has stated that the only solution he sees in the region is the two-state option, and the podcast hosts talk about this a little.
Along with everyone else, I’m struggling to understand what’s going on in that part of the world. One thing I know, however — anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are not the answer. They fall into the wannabe genocide categories listed above, and we need to avoid that. I also know that any perspective that has you cheering for innocent deaths on either side of this conflict is morally reprehensible.
Karen, thank you for a clear, well written article. What I can’t get my head around are the suggestions for a “pause” or “negotiations” after thousands of lives have been lost and changed forever. It seems crazy to me that people want to talk now……where were all the talkers before?
I just don’t get it.
I well remember standing in Lafayette Park and listening to Jimmy Carter, Sadat and Began signing the Camp David Accords and thinking that we had taken a huge step toward peace in the middle East - NOT! This whole "action" makes me sick, and has sent me multiple times to Wikipedia to remind myself of what happened and when and sometimes the why, as well.
There are no easy answers here and there will be many more losers than winners, and we will someday conclude that both sides are committing war crimes. When there are two groups and each is sworn to eliminate the other, it makes the finding of common ground awfully difficult. I hope that the international community will be able to find a way to force a ceasefire and realistic negotiations. But there will havve to be significant accommodations made all around. I just hope it does not cause a WWIII.