BY DAVID MOSHMAN
Discussions about campus matters related to Gaza, including posts on this blog, have focused on free speech issues associated with campus protests. Let me shift the focus. Universities should indeed support freedom of speech, but their primary function is to seek and communicate the truth, including the truth about Gaza, and their primary concern should be protecting the freedom to teach and do research about Gaza.
On May 6, DePaul University adjunct instructor Anne d’Aquino, who was teaching Health 194: Human Pathogens and Defense, sent her students an email referring to current events in Gaza and offered, as an alternative to one of the class assignments, the option of writing about “the impact of genocide/ethnic cleansing on the health/biology of the people it impacts.” On May 8, following complaints about the “political” nature of the assignment, she was fired without due process.
On June 3, the Columbia Law Review published its latest issue online. Within hours the Review’s board of directors shut down its website in order to prevent access to the newly released issue because of an article by Rabea Eghbariah arguing that Israel is guilty of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and genocide. Access to the journal was restored on June 7.
On June 5, Israeli-American historian Raz Segal was offered the position of director of the University of Minnesota Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies after a careful national search following normal procedures. On June 10 he received a letter rescinding the offer after he was denounced as “politically extreme” for describing Israel’s actions in Gaza as “a textbook case of genocide.”
All these cases involve strong objections to claims that Israel is committing genocide. Such claims are often dismissed as “obscene” and antisemitic. Even if such claims are protected by the First Amendment or other norms of free speech, they are widely seen as controversial political rhetoric rather than legitimate academic judgments. Even if they are permitted in campus protests, perhaps they should not be permitted in teaching and research. Is there an academic basis for the claim that Israel is guilty of genocide?
The term genocide was introduced by Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 book, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Drawing on his many years of research on historical cases of group destruction, Lemkin defined genocide as “the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group.” Rather than use the term as a synonym for mass killing, he clarified that it “is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.”
In 1946 the United Nations General Assembly, drawing on Lemkin’s definition of genocide as group destruction, approved a resolution defining genocide as “a denial of the right of existence of entire human groups, as homicide is the denial of the right to live of individual human beings.” This was followed in 1948 by the adoption of the Genocide Convention, which remains definitive in international law.
Historians, sociologists, and other scholars of genocide have proposed alternative definitions. In my own work on the psychology of genocide, I have defined genocide as “an act or process of destruction aimed at an abstractly defined group of people,” adding that “the genocidal process may include deliberate acts of mass killing, but it may also consist, entirely or in part, of other actions undermining the biological, social, or cultural integrity of the victim group.”
Elimination of Palestinians has long been an active topic of discussion in Israel. In response to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, top Israeli officials announced and implemented plans for what amounts to genocide under any reasonable definition.
On October 9, Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant ordered “a complete siege” in Gaza: “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” He added, “Gaza won’t return to what it was before. We will eliminate everything.” He made clear that he had “removed every restriction” on Israeli forces.
On October 16, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu portrayed the conflict in an address to the Israeli Knesset as “a struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle.” On October 18 he affirmed: “We will not allow humanitarian assistance in the form of food and medicines from our territory to the Gaza strip.”
Meanwhile, Israeli President Isaac Herzog rejected any distinction between militants and civilians: “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. It’s not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not being involved. It’s absolutely not true.” Major General Ghassan Alian made clear that “there will only be destruction” in Gaza: “Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity and no water.” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces, explained Israel’s policy of “maximum damage”: “Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents. There will be no buildings.” Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Knesset, summed it up: “Now we all have one common goal—erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”
Since October 7, Israel has killed about 2 percent of the population of Gaza, including nearly 2 percent of the children. It has severely injured a much larger number, including tens of thousands of children. It has repeatedly attacked groups of civilians directly and often engaged in broad-ranging attacks without prior warning in densely populated residential neighborhoods. Even when civilians are warned to move, they are often attacked as they flee along routes they were told would be safe or later in what they were told would be safe areas.
In addition to mass killing, Israel has persistently undermined the biological conditions for life. In a matter of months, it displaced about 80 percent of Gaza’s population and destroyed most of their homes. It has destroyed bakeries, mills, greenhouses, and agricultural land, creating conditions of mass starvation. When others around the world have tried to get food to Gazans, Israel has persistently obstructed their efforts, often with deadly violence. In addition, Israel has destroyed most of Gaza’s hospitals, denied access to vital medical resources, and killed hundreds of medical personnel.
Israel has also severely damaged or destroyed hundreds of cultural institutions, including libraries, museums, archives, mosques, and churches. It has destroyed all of Gaza’s universities and has damaged or destroyed 80 percent of its schools.
It is certainly reasonable to conceptualize and refer to Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide. We must protect the academic freedom to do so in teaching and research.
David Moshman is professor emeritus of educational psychology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
It is not surprising that Mr. Moshman can summon rational insight into this problem which persists in institutional terms due to administrative capture by special interests. See https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2024/03/13/academic-freedom-is-not-an-academic-license/
Polemical nonsense. If Israel wanted to commit genocide in Gaza it has the capacity to kill hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. Even if we accept the Hamas claims of nearly 40,000 – which includes c 15,000 of their own combatants— that is in line with warfare, not genocide given what the Israelis could do if genocide were their aim.
As explained in the post, genocide is not mass killing. Whether something is genocide is not determined by the number of people killed or by the ratio of that number to the number who could have been killed.
Words have meanings. And the word “genocide” has a well-established and accepted meaning that is different from what Professor Moshman asserts in his article.
Certainly, one is free to redefine a word – or even make up a word – to comport with whatever opinion one holds at the time. But one should not expect others to suddenly buy into such an arbitrary academic creation and ignore that which is widely recognized by the masses.
It appears that Professor Moshman’s approach to the definition of “genocide” has much in common with Alice in Wonderland’s Humpty Dumpty who says, “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
In the real world, the word “genocide” is understood to require mass killings with an evil intent and is considered egregiously immoral. Thus, any use of that word to describe Israel’s actions as they fight proven savage terrorists is a convenient – but intellectually dishonest – way of casting Israel as an evil doer.
However, since Israel’s actions do not quite fit the widely accepted definition of genocide, critics of Israel who want to accuse Israel of genocide need a new watered down and expanded definition of that word in order to give their claim some color of legitimacy.
The problem, of course, is that the masses are not familiar with the Moshman definition or any other definition beyond what the dictionaries like Oxford describe and Section 1091 of Title 18, United States Code defines.
So using the new and unfamiliar Moshman definition of genocide to apply that word to Israel not only grossly deceives the public, but also, grossly libels Israel.
Other than Professor Moshman’s new personal definition of “genocide,” it appears that his article is largely a cut-and-paste rehash of misleading comments that he previously made on this blog, most of which were rebutted at the time.
See:
https://academeblog.org/2024/05/10/dispatch-from-portland-state-university/
As explained in the post, the definition of genocide as group destruction is not my “personal” definition, nor is it “new.” What you dismiss as an “arbitrary academic creation” is the core conceptualization underlying the original 1944 definition of genocide, the 1946 UN definition, the 1948 Genocide Convention, and subsequent research on genocide in history, sociology, law, psychology, and other fields.
Professor Moshman,
In the eighth paragraph of your article, you provide a definition of genocide and write “I have defined genocide as…”
This particular wording – I think you might agree – may lead a reader to assume that the “new” expansive definition of genocide – the one you espouse – is your very own personal one.
While the history of the term genocide and its “core conceptualization” may not be “new,” what is new, however – as far as the public at large is concerned – is any interpretation that does not now include both an evil intent and mass killings.
As documented in the post, the Gaza genocide has included both evil intent (see the three paragraphs of statements by Israeli leaders) and mass killings (including tens of thousands of civilians, many of them children).
The cherry picked comments of Israeli leaders immediately following the Oct 7th savagery is nothing more than emotional-hyperbolic-outrage, all quite understandable; and, in context, non probative of the required evil intent.
What counts here is that there is a war to eradicate evil and in this urban-terror-tunnel war, the IDF’s civilian to combatant death ratio is very close to 1:1.5. By stark contrast, the average civilian to combatant death ratio in most wars hovers around 1:9.
Considering the fact that this is an urban war where the enemy hides behind civilians, these numbers are a remarkable credit to the IDF and totally belie the specious notion that the IDF is committing genocide.
And finally, one has to question just what constitutes a Gazan civilian (besides children) considering the facts that hostages were held in so-called civilian homes and recent polls show overwhelming Gazan support for Hamas and its unspeakable terror of Oct 7th.
Editorial correction: Combatant to civilian ratio. Not civilian to Combatant as written.