It's All About Intent - Was The Slaughter of Innocent Gazan Lives A Genocide or A War?

“The worst crime is not to commit murder, but to see it and do nothing.” - Jean-Paul Sartre

“The law is often powerless against power. It can name crimes, but it cannot always stop them. In that sense, legality becomes a mask that hides moral catastrophe.” - Hannah Arendt

“War is organized murder, and nothing else.” - Harry Patch

“The difference between war and genocide is not the body count, but the purpose behind it. One seeks victory, the other annihilation.” - Samantha Power

In order to differentiate between war and genocide, the law, that neutral judge of human suffering, depends on intent. According to the official definition, war seeks to achieve military or political goals, such as defeating the enemy's army, forcing a surrender, or capturing territory. Genocide, on the other hand, aims for something much more definitive: the deliberate destruction of a people as a whole. An entire national, ethnic, racial, or religious group is the target, not just soldiers or key locations. Erasure is the goal.

This is where the law's ruthless insufficiency is exposed. Even when a mountain of Palestinian bodies accumulates, even over 60,000 children, women, and elderly slaughtered as a result of acts that are obviously war crimes, this does not prove genocide. Even if you destroy entire neighbourhoods, destroy 100% of Gaza, kill 100s of thousands of civilians, and carry out atrocity after atrocity, it might not be considered genocide under the harsh rules of international law. Not unless that politicians and the military leaders intent can be proven. Not unless you can demonstrate that the murderers' goal was to completely wipe out a people, not just to terrorize or slaughter over 70,000 Palestinians. This is not just a legalistic point of contention. It is fundamental.

And to anyone looking out over the killing fields of Gaza, it is profoundly, deeply unsettling.