Is it Genocide? : Gaza, Ukraine, and Other Crimes Against Humanity

In the context of the current war, the question "Is the Israeli state effecting genocide in Gaza?" suggests a threshold legal excursus, a definitional contestation, or a cry of moral outrage. This article does not take any of those paths. It lives the pain of the unethical deaths of tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, while beginning the longer-term task of seeking a way beyond deploying the concept of "genocide" as a performative gesture of shock and horror. The article argues that the meaning of genocide is being emptied out by an unsettling of the grounding conditions of political debate and the relativization of political language. While the evidence is strong that crimes against humanity are being perpetrated in Gaza, both by the Israeli state in its attack upon civilians and by Hamas in holding hostages, the provisional ruling by the International Court of Justice that there is a case to be answered is the most resolute that we can be at this point. Clearly, the war has to stop. In the meantime, the article suggests an alternative way of naming the horror.