“Whoever kills a person, unless it is for manslaughter or for mischief in the land, it is as though he had killed all men. And whoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the lives of all men.”
—Holy Qur’an 5:32
To the Zionist State of Israel and the Western governments that back its war-making in Gaza and assaults in the occupied West Bank, the slaughter of tens of thousands of Palestinians is only collateral damage, stemming from self-defense.
However, for truth advocates, freedom-loving people and respecters of human rights worldwide, more are crying out: “We Charge Genocide!”
›According to the Gaza Health Ministry, by press time there were 34,835 Palestinians slain and counting. That number includes almost 15,000 children and 8,400 women. In addition, 8,000 are missing and presumed dead, whose graves are the concrete ruins of where they once lived.
As rivers of blood has been flowing since October 7, 2023, in defiance of global outcry to end the war, accusations of targeted destruction of Palestinian life abound. Many are calling out the shocking imagery as crimes against humanity and outright genocide.
“What is happening in Palestine becomes a test for the whole human family,” said the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam.
Minister Farrakhan addressed the crisis during February remarks in his annual Saviours’ Day address: “What Does Allah The Great Mahdi and The Great Messiah Have to Say About the War in the Middle East?”
“People do strange things when their hatred is so great of the people that they are killing,” explained the Minister. “Their intention was to cleanse Gaza of every Palestinian that live there and cleanse the West Bank and East Jerusalem so that Israel would not be bothered with Palestinians anymore,” he said.
The Minister said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had in mind a second Nakba (catastrophe) like the first one when nearly one million Palestinians were exiled at the creation of Israel in 1948 and described the current onslaught as a “genocidal act.”
His voice of warning comes as human rights defenders, international lawyers, and activists are charging Israel with violating international and human rights law. South Africa has an active case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague—the highest judicial body of the United Nations.
South Africa contends that the criteria constituting the crime of genocide outlined by The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide are overwhelmingly met in Gaza.
What is Genocide?
The word “genocide” was first coined by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin in 1944. It consists of the Greek prefix “genos,” meaning race or tribe, and the Latin suffix, “cide” meaning killing.
Genocide was first recognized as a crime under international law in 1946 by the United Nations General Assembly and codified as an independent crime in the 1948 “Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.”
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group.
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Under the convention the following acts shall be punishable:
Genocide.
Conspiracy to commit genocide.
Direct and public incitement to commit genocide.
Attempt to commit genocide.
Complicity in genocide.
The crime of genocide comprises two interconnected elements, the “act” and the “intent” behind its commission. Israel has both, “acts” and “stated intentions” to displace and eliminate the Palestinian people.
Numerous self-incriminating statements expressed from the most senior levels of Israel’s government, military, and leading politicians were genocidal in nature.
In the early weeks of the Gaza bombardments in October, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “this is a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.”
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, openly blamed all Palestinians for the Oct. 7 attack that killed 1,300 Israelis and abducted around 200.
“It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could’ve risen up, they could have fought against that evil regime,” Mr. Herzog said.
Adding to the rhetoric was the dehumanizing talk of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declaring, “we are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly,” or the Israeli Defense Forces Spokesperson Daniel Hagari saying, “the emphasis is on damage and not on accuracy.”
Not to mention Israeli Major Gen. Ghassan Alian, the coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), warning Gazans and Hamas that Israel intended to destroy Palestinian life in Gaza: “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water, there will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell.”
“Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of 1948,” proclaimed Ariel Kallner, a member of the Israeli parliament for Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Now six months into the war, these quotes bear witness to documented actions of mass killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and the total siege and closure creating conditions of life to bring about the physical destruction of the group—evidence of an unfolding crime of genocide.
U.S. complicity in Genocide
Legal experts have filed a case against the Biden administration, charging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken and of Defense Lloyd Austin for U.S. complicity in Israeli genocide of Palestinians.
They argue that the U.S. is violating its duties under international law to prevent and not be complicit in genocide. Throughout the war, Washington has supplied weapons and war-ware to the Zionist State.
Despite ongoing arms transfers, financial support, diplomatic cover at the UN, and bipartisan political support among lawmakers, the U.S. has maintained a “see no evil, hear no evil” posture toward Israel’s genocidal acts.
When asked by U.S. Senators in a hearing disrupted several times by anti-war activists accusing Israel of practicing indiscriminate bombing and genocide, Mr. Austin flatly denied claims of Israeli genocide.
“We don’t have any evidence of genocide being created” by Israel in Gaza, Austin told the Senate Armed Services Committee during a budget hearing on April 9.
Never again, however just for us
Genocide in the Palestinian context is particularly tragic because the offenders are from a people who themselves were victims of the atrocity. The Geneva Convention on Genocide was birthed into existence in response to the holocaust European Jews underwent in Nazi-controlled concentration camps.
In the aftermath of World War II and mitigating the Holocaust experience, the Jewish mantra “never again” became their clarion call against genocide.
However, the irony of current events is perhaps articulated best by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche who said: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
Some argue it is duplicitous to declare ‘never again’ but engage in genocide.
“For 75 years since 1948, Israel has instrumentalized two words, ‘never again’ to justify everything that it’s doing,” said Middle East Analyst Mouin Rabbani, in a recent interview with The Final Call.
“It has managed to transform the definition of never again, as applying exclusively to Israel,” he said. “That is no longer the case.”
The meaning of “never again” has been transformed to mean never again shall any people be the victims of genocide. Even if those seeking their destruction is Israel—many of whose people were victims of genocide themselves, reasoned Mr. Rabbani.
“The Palestinian intellectual Edward Said often referred to Palestinians as the ‘victims of the victims,’ and about the uniquely difficult situation, this put the Palestinians in because the Jews are the victims with a capital V,” Mr. Rabbani continued.
“So how can Israel possibly be guilty of crimes against the Palestinian people. That all changed today. Israel can no longer shield itself from accusations of crimes against the Palestinian people, by pointing a finger at the Nazis.”
Man’s inhumanity to man
There is a lengthy history of genocide on the earth. In the U.S. was the genocide against the Black once-slaves that included chattel slavery, systematic marginalization, injustice, domestic terrorism, extrajudicial killings by law enforcement and mass incarceration.
At the same time was the targeted killing and removal of the Indigenous populations of America. Minister Farrakhan pointed out the decades-old struggle against genocide and why an awareness of the Palestinian question and other global situations is important.
“To charge Israel with genocide and have the proof of their charge. South Africa stood up,” said Minister Farrakhan, “and took Israel to the International Court of Justice at The Hague.”
“Now, this may not mean anything to you. Here’s a book that Brother Malcolm (X) gave me to read when I first came in the Nation. The title of it is ‘We Charge Genocide.’ The brothers and sisters that put these charges together, they took it before the United Nations,” he said.
“They charged America with genocide of Black and Brown and Red people in this country,” explained the Minister. The World Body accepted the document, but never acted on it.
The Minister rhetorically asked what did the 1951 petition have to do with the Black, Brown and Red today? “Your extermination is being planned as well,” he said. “The government put a great hit on us in a vaccine and my voice was the voice that told you ‘Don’t take it! Don’t take it!’ They’re trying to kill us softly with a vaccine.”
“Four years ago, we were right here in Detroit and many of us got sick. And that same thing is happening now,” he said. “A blending of the virus, a blending of the flu vaccine, a blending of other things to make it more deadly. Many of our people died. And they promoted this vaccine.
They came to Black people and said, ‘A jab for a joint.’ They tried to give you drugs because you love drugs, but you are not wise to comfort yourself and your family and care for your lives properly. But I was on the wall talking to the world, ‘Don’t take the vaccine!’ Am I proven right?” said Min. Farrakhan.
“Here is what you’ve got to understand: Somebody stood up for you when you were ignorant and could not stand up for yourself. But we went out and your president said he was getting tired of us ‘because nothing was wrong with the vaccine.’ Is that right?” he continued. “But now they are finding all kinds of things in the bloodstream of those who took that vaccine.”
Fate of Israel
“Israel is in bad condition right now with God. And He showed me in the night what He hated about Israel,” said Minister Farrakhan. “Who gives you the right to take your life and make your life valuable and diminish the value of the lives of others?” he asked, and exhorted, “Every human being has value.”
He said the value of every human being is what God has placed within them when He made them after His own image and likeness.
“So, as they were minimizing Palestinian life, in the night He was showing me: With every life that they take, that they have diminished, they have diminished the value of their lives in My Sight,” said the Minister.
