Ending Israel's Genocide in Palestine

On 5 December 2024, Amnesty International released a report which concluded that the Israeli state is committing genocide in Gaza in the strict legal sense of the term.[1] On 19 December 2024, Human Rights Watch released a report on the Israeli state’s intentional deprivation of access to water, a necessity of life, from the population of Gaza, and concluded that this amounts to an act of genocide.[2] These reports reinforce the opinions of dozens of Holocaust and genocide scholars, the South African government’s testimony before the International Court of Justice, the court’s own rulings, and ‘overwhelming evidence – photos, videos, and eyewitness accounts – documenting the destruction of essential conditions for life’.[3]

In fact, what we are seeing in Gaza today is the inevitable consequence of the model of European colonialism chosen by the original Zionists: not just occupying a colony and dominating it, not even the apartheid form of settler-colonialism that needed the indigenous people’s labour, but the model of settler-colonialism that wanted the land without the people, as in the Americas and Australia. Their plan to create an ethno-religious Jewish state in a land where only 8 percent of the population was Jewish in 1914 required 92 percent of Palestinians to be removed from their land.[4]

Raphael Lemkin, the Holocaust survivor who lost 49 members of his family in the Nazi genocide and who coined the term ‘genocide,’ had studied the phenomenon historically, and found that settler-colonialism which engaged in what was then called forced displacement and is now called ethnic cleansing inevitably entailed genocide. Because how do you clear the land of the people living in it? As he knew from experience, by massacres and the threat of massacres, by taking away people’s homes and livelihoods and herding them into ghettos, by subjecting them to conditions that make life impossible, and finally by killing all those who remain: exactly what has been happening in Palestine since 1948.[5]

Despite references to the so-called ‘two-state solution,’ it was evident from the beginning that the Israeli state had no intention of allowing a Palestinian state to be established on even a small fraction of Palestinian territory. The intention of establishing the Israeli state over the entirety of Palestine has been expressed openly in recent years, with Benjamin Netanyahu displaying a map of the region in the UN in September 2023 with no vestige of Palestine.[6] The ‘two-state solution’ has finally been laid to rest by Israel’s Knesset voting overwhelmingly to reject Palestinian statehood on 18 July 2024, making it clear that so long as the Israeli state exists, there will be no Palestinian state.[7] Indeed, according to Finance Minister Belazel Smotrich, the Israeli state should encompass not just Palestine but also extend into Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.[8]

Given that around 95 percent of the land controlled by Israel has been acquired through the forcible expulsion of the original Palestinian population, it is not surprising that it rejects both international law and UN principles, which would rule out such a course of action. The participation and complicity of Western nations in these violations ensured the descent of ethnic cleansing into genocide. For example, while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza after the Hamas attack of 7 October 2023 was targeting civilians and slaughtering thousands of children, these leaders and the mainstream media justified it by citing ‘Israel’s right to defend itself,’ trying to provide credibility to a flagrant lie. In any case, ‘To suggest that the thief has any kind of “right” to “defend” stolen property is ludicrous. The right belongs to the person fighting for its return, as the Palestinians have been doing every day since 1948. Beyond the 5-6 percent the Zionist land purchasing agencies actually bought before 1948, the Israelis are living on and in stolen property. They will defend it but they have no “right” to defend what by any legal, moral, historical or cultural measure belongs to someone else.’[9]

So long as the Israeli state exists, its genocide in Palestine will continue, and so will its bombing and occupation of neighbouring states like Lebanon and Syria. The war with Hamas will also continue, because resistance to genocide is inevitable, and if non-violent resistance is crushed, it will be violent. Israel has murdered peaceful demonstrators in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza,[10] and Zionists in powerful positions in other countries have tried to shut down the non-violent BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.[11] They have arrested and beaten peaceful pro-Palestine demonstrators including Jews, and punished people expressing support for Palestine by taking away their jobs or university places. In their zeal to crush non-violent support for Palestine, Zionists have teamed up with neo-Nazis like the AfD in Germany, putting Jews in greater danger of their antisemitic violence.

Israel has never been a democracy; no ethno-religious or ethnic state – whether Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist or other – can be a democracy, because those who don’t belong to the dominant group will not have equal rights; at best it will be an apartheid state, at worst a genocidal one. In the past, however, Jewish citizens of Israel have enjoyed a fair range of democratic rights, but these have been drastically eroded as Israel descended from apartheid to genocide. Ofer Cassif, the only Jewish Member of the Knesset from the left-wing Hadash Party, says, ‘alongside genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, atrocities, occupation, and persecution of Palestinians in their territories, there’s also fascism growing stronger in Israel by legislation and by the persecution of citizens, arresting people, beating people, etc. Israel is on the verge of a full-fledged fascist regime.’[12] The Israeli state has become a menace even to its own Jewish citizens.

The solution proposed by the One Democratic State Initiative (ODSI) is a democratic, inclusive Palestinian state in the whole of Palestine, ‘from the river to the sea,’ in which all citizens would have equal rights regardless of ethnic or religious identity.[13] They answer the question of why it should be called ‘Palestine’ by saying, ‘For the same reason why Theodor Herzl, Arthur Balfour, the World Zionist Organization, the British Mandate and the League of Nations called it Palestine, why the “Jewish Agency for Israel” was originally called the “Jewish Agency for Palestine”, why they considered naming the Jewish state “Palestine” (and only dropped it in anticipation of partition), and why Shimon Perez and Golda Meir held Palestinian citizenship: Because “Palestine” has been the land’s name for over 2500 years. Unlike the Hebrew word “Israel”, which is exclusive to Judaism and therefore exclusive of non-Jews, “Palestine” refers, not to an Arabic or Islamic identity, but to the geographical area where a democratic state can treat all its citizens equally, regardless of how they choose to identify.’

Wouldn’t this mean the ethnic cleansing or genocide of Israeli Jews? Not at all. ‘Although there is no universal consensus on the conditions that define one’s belonging to a society, the principles of jus soli (“right of soil”, the right of an individual born in a territory to be a citizen of its state) and jus sanguinis (“right of blood”, the right of an individual to hold their parents’ citizenship) are commonly applied… In accordance with the above, …Palestinian citizenship will be extended to all native Palestinians, including all who were expelled over the past century and their descendants. Citizenship will also be extended to all who were born in Palestine and who wish to become citizens of the new democratic Palestinian state… At no point shall religious, ethnic, cultural or other identity be a criterion for granting or denying citizenship or residency.’ In other words, Israeli Jews who were born in Palestine, or have parents who were born in Palestine, would have the right to be citizens of the new democratic state on the basis of equal rights.

Doesn’t the state of Israel have the right to exist? ‘The Zionist project has disregarded the basic democratic rights of the (Jewish and non-Jewish) population of Palestine by effecting, with essential British colonial help, the mass immigration of non-Palestinians to Palestine prior to 1948 and by establishing a “state exclusive to Jews” in Palestine in 1948 with no democratic mandate to do so. The continued existence of a state exclusive to Jews rather than a democratic state of all its citizens means that the trampling of these democratic human rights is ongoing and is therefore not “right”. A transition to a democratic state of all its citizens would right this century-old wrong and would be a historic step in achieving just and lasting peace in Palestine and the Middle East.’

Is the establishment of a democratic state in place of Israel antisemitic? ‘Claiming that a democratic solution is antisemitic implies that Judaism is antidemocratic, and that is antisemitic… Zionism has used Judaism to justify its settler colonial project… and has effectively conflated Judaism and Jewishness with colonialism in the eyes of Jews and non-Jews alike. It is noteworthy that although Zionism is the only ideology to have succeeded at establishing a state for one identity over others in Palestine, the ODS solution does not single it out as the sole ideology to aim at doing so, and is also opposed to the creation of a state exclusive to Arabs, Muslims, or any other identity.’  

Indeed, none of what has been suggested above is antisemitic according to the definition proposed by hundreds of Jewish scholars in the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism, provided ‘the same norms of debate that apply to other states and to other conflicts over national self-determination apply in the case of Israel and Palestine.’[14] Thus, for example, one would have to apply the same norms of debate that apply to Ukraine’s struggle against Russia for self-determination to Palestine’s struggle against Israel for self-determination.

ODSI suggests that supporters of Palestine carry on doing what they have been doing – taking part in demonstrations, educating themselves and others about what has been happening in Palestine for over a century, participating in the BDS movement, and so on – but, in addition, emphasising that One Democratic State is the goal, and coordinating our efforts with others who share that goal.[15]

Ending Israel’s genocide in Palestine is a priority right now. 153 countries have ratified the Genocide Convention but it is considered to be binding even on those countries which have not done so, and political leaders in all of them are under an obligation to prevent Israel from committing genocide by cutting off all relations with Israel and imposing full sanctions on it, and punish all those involved in it, from the Israeli political leadership down to every soldier. Failing this, they would be guilty of complicity with genocide, which is also a crime under the Genocide Convention. We, the peoples of these countries, who have been watching in anguish the carnage which Holocaust survivor Gabor Maté compared to Auschwitz,[16] are under an obligation to put maximum pressure on our political leaders to abide by the Genocide Convention. The Indian National Congress government of newly-independent India made absolutely the correct decision when it voted against the partition of Palestine and establishment of Israel in November 1947, and India should reclaim that moral high ground. 

(This article was published by The India Forum on 29 December 2024, and is available at https://www.theindiaforum.in/politics/ending-israels-genocide-palestine  

 

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Notes

 

[1] Amnesty International, 2024, ‘Amnesty International investigation concludes Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.’ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/

[2] Human Rights Watch, 2024, ‘Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water.’ https://www.hrw.org/report/2024/12/19/extermination-and-acts-genocide/israel-deliberately-depriving-palestinians-gaza

[3] Kaushik Jayaram and Melissa Munro, 2024, ‘Genocide in Gaza: Revenge, retribution, or a means to an end?’ The India Forum. https://www.theindiaforum.in/politics/genocide-gaza-revenge-retribution-or-means-end

[4] Interactive Encyclopedia of the Palestine Question, ‘Demography and the Palestine Question (I).’ https://www.palquest.org/en/highlight/294/demography-and-palestine-question-i ; Rohini Hensman, 2023, ‘Palestine and Israel: Political, Legal and Moral Issues,’ The India Forum. https://www.theindiaforum.in/history/palestine-and-israel-historical-legal-and-moral-issues

[5] Rohini Hensman, 2023, ‘South Africa is Right to Invoke the Genocide Convention Against Israel’s War on Gaza,’ Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2023/12/biden-administration-israel-gaza-war-ethnic-cleansing-genocide-convention

[6] Brett Wilkins, 2023, ‘Netanyahu shows map of “New Middle East – without Palestine – to UN General Assembly’. https://www.commondreams.org/news/netanyahu-map

[7] Al Jazeera, 2024, ‘Israel’s Knesset votes to reject Palestinian statehood.’ https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/18/israels-knesset-votes-to-reject-palestinian-statehood 

[8] The New Arab, 2024, ‘Israel’s Smotrich calls for Israeli conquest of Middle East “bit by bit” from Jerusalem to Damascus.’ https://www.newarab.com/news/smotrich-calls-bit-bit-israeli-expansion-damascus

[9] Jeremy Salt, 2024, ‘Not October 7 or any other date – This is all about 1948 now,’ Palestine Chronicle. https://www.palestinechronicle.com/not-october-7-or-any-other-date-this-is-all-about-1948-now/

[10] UN Human Rights Council, 2019, ‘Report of the international commission of inquiry on the protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.’ https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/Documents/HRBodies/HRCouncil/CoIOPT/A_HRC_40_74.pdf

[11] BDS movement, ‘What is BDS?’ https://bdsmovement.net/what-is-bds

[12] Ofer Cassif, interviewed by Marcus Barnett, 2024, ‘Anti-Zionist Israeli MP: “I Will Never Surrender,”’ Tribune. https://tribunemag.co.uk/2024/11/anti-zionist-israeli-mp-i-will-never-surrender

[13] One Democratic State Initiative, ‘One Democratic Palestine, From the River to the Sea.’ (The quotations that follow are from this url: https://odsi.co/en/#faqR )

[14] The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism. https://jerusalemdeclaration.org/

[15] ODSI, ‘A call to Action’. https://odsi.co/en/call-to-action/

[16] Gabor Maté, ‘It’s like we’re watching Auschwitz on TikTok,’ Middle East Eye. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFOTBAiTHZA

Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism and Women in Sri Lanka

Introduction

Myth and reality are intertwined in accounts of how Buddhism was brought to Sri Lanka. According to the Mahavamsa, a 6^th century CE epic, the Buddha himself visited Lanka on three occasions, but this myth has effectively been demolished by scholars.[1] There is more evidence for the story that in the third century BCE, when Ashoka ruled India, he sent his son Mahinda, a Buddhist monk, on a mission to the Sinhalese king Devanampiya Tissa, who ruled from his capital Anuradhapura. Mahinda converted Devanampiya Tissa and his cabinet of ministers, at least one of whom became a monk following the ten precepts required for ordination. Subsequently the king set up a series of shrines and monasteries presided over by various orders of monks (bhikkhus) throughout his kingdom, and a section of the population became male and female lay devotees (upasakas and upasikas). Mahinda’s sister Sanghamitta, a Buddhist nun, also came over, bringing with her a branch of the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha attained enlightenment, which was planted in Anuradhapura. Subsequently, more saplings were planted throughout the country. She also set up an order of nuns (bhikkhunis). Mahinda and Sanghamitta are believed to have lived in Lanka until they died there.[2]

The reality was more complicated. Buddhism had already come to South India and Sri Lanka before Devanampiya Tissa was converted, albeit without setting up any bhikkhu sangha (order). There is even evidence that Mahinda himself spent time in modern-day Tamil Nadu, where he preached the Dhamma, and then came to Anuradhapura via Jaffna. Thus Buddhism was as much a Tamil religion as a Sinhalese one, with some of the major contributions made to Buddhist thought and learning, including five epics, being by Tamil monks. There were strong links between Buddhists in South India and Buddhists in Lanka, and several viharas (temples or monasteries) in Tamil Nadu and the Jaffna peninsula. While Theravada Buddhism was dominant, some Mahayana Buddhists also came over from Tamil Nadu and established themselves in Lanka. Around the beginning of the 7^th century CE, when Vaishnavism and Saivism regained prominence in Tamil Nadu and Buddhism and Jainism came under attack from Brahminism, it was mainly Theravada Buddhists who fled to Sri Lanka and settled there.[3]

A Woman's Place: The Struggle for Employment in the Bombay Pharmaceutical Industry

If labour history earlier tended to ignore women workers on the one hand[2] and Third World workers on the other,[3] the point where these two streams of ignorance converged was the history of trade union organisation among Third World women workers. More recently, there has been a growing body of literature on ways in which women workers in the Third World have organised themselves in order to struggle for basic rights;[4] however, compared with the total volume of literature on trade unionism, this still remains a very small proportion.

This paper is a contribution to redressing the balance by providing an account of the struggle of women workers in the pharmaceutical industry in Bombay against the marriage bar – a struggle which made history by challenging norms which had hitherto been taken for granted. Demands for equal pay, maternity leave and workplace creches were also fought and won. However the outcome, paradoxically, was declining employment for women in the organised sector[5] of this industry: the consequence of a complex interaction between employers and unions where each learned from the other and from their own successes and failures.

Journey Without a Destination: Is there a solution for Sri Lankan refugees? (Chapters 6 and 7 and Bibliography)

 

Chapter 6: Tamil Eelam: the only solution, or part of the problem?

There were some Tamil refugees – not many, but a few – who felt that the only solution to the problem of decades of discrimination against and persecution of Tamils was the creation of a separate Tamil state: 

Are there any prospects for a positive change in the future?

 

• If there is a separate homeland. Before the British came, we were separate, and we were united only because of their regime. So it’s better for us to live separately… Most Sinhalese don’t like the idea of a separate state, but at the same time they won’t give any equal opportunities or rights to the Tamils either. 

You think most Sinhalese people are like that?

 

Yes. The government last year promised to give some devolution of power, but it is in writing only – in practice they don’t give it… they won’t ever give equal opportunities. 

So you think the only solution is to have a separate Tamil state?

 

Yes. Then we can be good neighbours. Otherwise Sinhalese and Tamils will always be fighting. But we can be friendly neighbours if we have a separate state.