GERMAN satirist Kurt Tucholsky wrote, “The death of one man: this is a catastrophe. Hundreds of thousands of deaths: that is a statistic!” As abhorrent as the thought may be, the world we live in today is a living embodiment of this observation. The ruins of Gaza with thousands of unmarked graves and hundreds of wailing mothers are proof that the collective conscience of the world has taken a back seat, allowing murderers to reign supreme.
Not a day passes without the news cycle adding yet another statistic of death and destruction to the already extensively chronicled genocide of the people of Gaza, their bereavement eventually becoming nothing more than a footnote in history. For years, the world looked remorsefully at the plight of the Jews and their near extermination at the hands of Nazi Germany. The Holocaust was chronicled and remembered not just because it was a tragedy but because it was a tragedy which the world had vowed to learn from.
Such were the horrors of the Holocaust that Jewish Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin coined the word ‘genocide’ to give it a name. To him, this word loosely translated to the killing of a tribe/ race, which adequately described the conscious effort by a powerful force to erase a group of people from the face of the earth.
Yet in little over eight decades since, the world is witnessing another genocide — one which is being broadcast live. A genocide where the murderers can be clearly seen. A genocide where children are being made to starve. A genocide where the earth smells of blood and bones. A genocide where madness reigns supreme.
The thirst for Palestinian blood remains unquenched.
Unfortunately, much like the Holocaust, the world watches from the comfort of their homes, as Gazan homes are turned into graves, relegating their respective conscience to mere lip service. What is happening in Gaza and the rest of Palestine is not just a genocide, it is a conscious effort by the State of Israel to demons-trate the collective impotence of the rest of the world.
Over 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza, thousands of families wiped out as if they never existed. Yet the thirst for blood remains unquenched. There have been announcements that the oppressors wish to take over the whole of Gaza and that such takeover has already been set in motion. Stop for a moment and think: has there ever been an event in the world where genocide, mass murder and illegal confiscation were being announced from the global stage and nobody batted an eyelid?
The Holocaust is said to be the first genocide that the world had witnessed. Some claim that the killings of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda was the second widely accepted genocide. Unfortunately, it appears that we are witnessing the third widely accepted genocide. And what is markedly different this time is that unlike the civil war-like situation in Rwanda and the Nazi denials of extermination camps, the death of Gazans can be witnessed by all, but the world has chosen to look the other way.
In fact, the very same people whose brethren are being killed in Gaza are busy preparing red carpet receptions for the US president whose administration continues to aid and abet this genocide. It is ironic that it took Israel allegedly firing at a diplomatic mission in the West Bank for some of the nations of the world to take note and ask the Israeli authorities for an explanation.
If you go to the UN’s website, you will find hundreds of charters made to safeguard the rights of the people. Among them is the United Nations Genocide Convention of 1948, which came into effect in 1951. This charter defines the word ‘genocide’ as any action committed with the intention of destroying “a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. The definitions include, inter alia, killing, “causing serious mental or bodily harm
… imposing measures intended to
prevent births”, and taking calculated measures to adversely affect people’s conditions of life and bring about their physical destruction.
Unfortunately, despite the presence of such a convention and the declaration that people engaged in such genocide would be punished, the perpetrators of the Gazan genocide appear to be using the convention as a ‘to do’ list. They appear to be making sure that they religiously undertake each and every act which forms part of the definition of genocide, almost mocking the international community and its laws. At this point, the only usefulness of these international charters for the people of Gaza would be as fodder to keep their stoves heated.
The world has failed Gaza and it now waits for their wails to die down and for their bones to disappear so that a ‘riviera of the Middle East’ can be built over their graves.
The writer is a lawyer.
Published in Dawn, May 26th, 2025
