N'y a-t-il pas un génocide des Palestiniens ?
L'évocation diffamatoire d'un génocide travestis la réalité. Le génocide est un crime internationalement reconnu lorsque des actes sont commis dans l'intention dedétruire, en tout ou en partie, un groupe national, ethnique, racial ou religieux.Le nettoyage ethnique est la politique délibérée d'un groupe donné visant à éliminer, par des moyens violents et inspirant la terreur, la population civile d'un autre groupe ethnique ou religieux de certaines zones géographiques.
Les guerres d'Israël ont toutes été des guerres d'autodéfense, conformément au droit international. En outre, au cours des guerres ou d'autres opérations militaires, Israël a pris pour cible les installations et les infrastructures de combat (combattants armés, lance-roquettes, quartiers généraux des terroristes etc), en évitant autant que possible les civils. Le fait que des civils palestiniens soient tués au cours de ces opérations est une tragédie, mais comme l'intention n'est pas de tuer des civils mais de cibler le terrorisme, il ne s'agit en aucun cas d'un génocide ou d'un nettoyage ethnique.
Genocide and ethnic cleansing result in a significant decline of the population in a given geographic area. However, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, in 1948, the Palestinian population in today’s Israel, West Bank, and Gaza was 1.4 million, a total that, today, has grown to 5.5 million (approximately 2 million Arab citizens of Israel, 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank, and 778,000 Palestinians in Gaza). This growth belies any claims of genocide or ethnic cleansing against Palestinians. Hamas’ central military tactic is to use civilians as human shields. To that end, it has spent 16 years embedding its extensive terror infrastructure in and under mosques, schools, hospitals, and homes.
In contrast, Israel has gone to greater lengths to avoid Palestinian civilian casualties in wartime than any military in modern recorded history. Israel targets enemy military assets (armed combatants, rocket launchers, terrorist headquarters, etc.), not civilian populations. Palestinian civilian deaths during military operations are tragic, but, in fact, the ratio of Palestinian civilians to Hamas and Islamic Jihad combatants killed in Gaza is vastly lower than that achieved by any other in warfare.
Moreover, throughout the war, Israel has provided and facilitated the delivery of massive amounts humanitarian aid – food, water, medicine – to Palestinians in Gaza, whereas Hamas regularly diverts this aid, especially fuel, for its war effort. Israel has continued to do this even though Hamas continues to hold and torture Israeli hostages without allowing International Red Cross visits or adhering to any other principle of International Humanitarian Law.
It must be emphasized that Hamas initiated the current conflict and is thus fully responsible for every death, especially as its terrorist militants hide behind Gazans and Israeli hostages. And still, Israel has minimized civilian deaths in its just war of self-defence.
Contrary to these libelous accusations, the historical record shows that Israel consistently seeks peace with its neighbours. Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1979 in exchange for peace and has since also made peace with Jordan, the UAE, Sudan, and Morocco.
Conversely, Palestinians have regularly rejected peace. Under the Oslo Accords negotiated with the PLO (which became the “Palestinian Authority”) in the 1990s, Israel began withdrawing from six West Bank cities, only to suffer waves of Palestinian terrorism from 2000-2003, during which more than 1,000 innocents were murdered. In 2005, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza, and yet Hamas broke through Israel’s border on October 7, 2023, to commit the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust.
The current conflict and the reaction to it represents an existential threat not only to the existence of the world’s only Jewish state but also to Jews around the world. The Hamas charter and most Palestinian documents call for Israel’s annihilation “from the River to the Sea.” Chants to “Globalize the Intifada” also endorse the mass murder of Jews anywhere and everywhere. While many in Canada may not understand that much of the pro-Palestinian rhetoric against Israel they robotically repeat explicitly urges the murder of every Jew, those like Ayatollah Hassan Nasrallah, the head of Hezbollah (an Iranian proxy army, based in Lebanon), who said: “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice I do not say ‘the Israeli’,” are more forthcoming about their intentions.
Israel, like any country, is not perfect, but the apocalyptic call by too many Palestinians and their supporters for the ‘elimination of Jews’ (not “just” Israel’s destruction) is wholly unacceptable.