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[Navi Pillay, Chris Sidoti, Irene Kahn] Israel’s Genocide in Gaza: The UN Report
In mid-September, the UN issued a report stating that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the charge. Genocide is the crime of crimes. It is a highly charged and loaded word. To verify it requires clear and unambiguous evidence. The term was coined by the Polish Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin. Genocide combines the Greek prefix “genos” (race, tribe) with the Latin suffix “cide” (killing). Lemkin was aware of the Armenian genocide carried out by the Turks earlier in the 20th century. During the Holocaust, he lost many family members. Lemkin and others were responsible for the Genocide Convention, which was passed unanimously by the UN in 1948. In addition to the recently released UN report, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International Association of Genocide Scholars, as well as two prominent Israeli rights organizations, B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, declared that Israel’s military actions in Gaza constitute genocide.