What is genocide?

Today's a good day to remember just what is and what is not genocide. Like many technical terms, 'genocide' has a fairly well defined meaning, in this case agreed on by the signatories of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment 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, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

In other words, the sort of thing the Turks did to the Armenians in 1916 and the sort of thing the Germans did to the Jews in the early 1940s.

While I disagree with many of the actions taken by the IDF (including incursions into Palestinian territories, wilful destruction of infrastructure, internment etc. Jenin was an atrocity), I do not accept that what is happening there is genocide. Israeli state policy is not the destruction of the Palestinian people. This isn't my opinion but the judgement of the United Nations and of the recognised expert human rights lawyer, Geoffrey Robertson QC.

That's why I'm pretty unhappy about the Ajuntament of Ciempozuelos in Madrid choosing to mark today as a memorial for the 'Palestinian Genocide'. The dull-witted sensationalism of taking a memorial for the Jewish holocaust and attempting to turn it against other Jews is, frankly, pathetic. And it stinks of anti-Semitism.

I'm actually not amazed by the small-mindedness of the Ajuntament's Socialist government. Anyone who's had experience with these toe-rags before will be well aware that there are few more self-important, arrogant, vile, idle, corrupt or pompous officials than those who work in Spain's town halls. Over the last few years, this Ajuntament has apparently been ratcheting up the anti-Israeli rhetoric without any trouble from the PSOE's national leadership… so this year, they decided to take it one step further. Well done, dick-heads.

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It's not just the PSOE who can be dick-heads, though. In 2007, General Franco is still the honorary mayor 'in perpetuum' of Salamanca. The PSOE opposition in the city has tried to get this changed but the PP have blocked their attempts, preferring to honour the dead fascist dictator. It's kind of sad, really, that one of the great university cities of Europe honours a man whose buddies used to shout things like "Death to intelligence and long live death!" at world famous philosophers. But that's Salamanca for you.

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January 27, 2007 | Filed Under PP, Politics, Spain 

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