Genocide is a crime: on Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the criminalization of those who oppose it

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

Israel’s war on Gaza has continued unabated for many months, killing over 60,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom are women and children. In addition to the widescale killing and maiming of Palestinian civilians, Israel has pursued a deliberate policy of starvation, aimed at causing a famine among the Palestinian population, and undertaken a systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure, including educational and medical facilities. The ruling by the International Court of Justice in 2024, based on likelihood of a genocide taking place, was not adhered to by Israel. But it jumpstarted a public discussion on Israel’s actions, including major reports by the UN special rapporteur, Amnesty International and HRW that confirm the charge of genocide. However, only limited attention was given to the fact that genocide is not only a moral breach, but a crime – one with perpetrators, victims, accessories, witnesses, methods of forensic investigation and enforcement. This roundtable seeks to begin a criminological conversation on Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the myriad crimes involved, the means used to perpetrate them and our discipline’s response to its unfolding.

We then discuss the criminalization of those who oppose Israel’s genocide. States parties to the UN 1948 Genocide Convention have a legal obligation to prevent and punish acts of genocide. However, over the last two years we witnessed instead the spectre of state repression of voices against the Israeli genocide worldwide. This included the criminalization of protests, firing and ‘cancelling’ individual scholars and activists, violent police dispersion of students’ encampments, and blocking experts from public speaking, among others. Our discussion will discuss these and other methods of policing that jeopardize genocide prevention to inquire how we, as criminologists, can best address genocide and other mass atrocity crimes.

Subtopic

• Topic 2: Types of Offending / Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes (Atrocity Crimes and Transitional Justice WG)

Chair

• Mattias De Backer, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Discussants

• Lior Volinz, Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana

• Brunilda Pali, University of Amsterdam

• Iva Ramus Cvetkovic, Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law Ljubljana

• Marijke Van Buggenhout, Vrije Universiteit Brussel