First of all, what constitutes genocide is not defined by personal opinions or personal stories or by comparison with what has happened in the past, although the past has a lot to tell us about what a genocide looks like. What constitutes genocide from a legal point of view is established by Article Two of the Genocide Convention. It consists of a series of acts which are criminal in and of themselves, like acts of killing, acts of infliction of severe bodily or mental pain, the creation of conditions of life leading to the destruction of a group, the forced transfer of children, the prevention of births. These are acts of genocide recognised by the Genocide Convention. 

In order to have genocide, the critical element is the intent to destroy a group — in whole or in part — through even one of these acts. You could have, like happened in Australia or Canada, genocide implemented primarily, even though not only, through the transfer of children, so without killing. So, here’s the first issue, that a number of people dispute that the label ‘genocide’ can be affixed to what Israel is doing because Israel has only killed 45,000 people, as if it was normal, while it has destroyed the entirety of Gaza. 

Some people see the brutality of this and still defend it as ‘self-defence’. The point is that this extreme destruction, this violation of basic rules to protect civilians and civilian premises and civilian life in international law, has been completely levelled by the Israeli logic that everyone was killable, either as a terrorist or a human shield or as collateral damage, and everything was destroyable. And this is why, 402 days later, we have a Gaza that is no longer liveable. Gaza is destroyed. If this is not an ostentatious genocide, what else is it? 

We also need to understand the context in which this genocide is taking place. This is why I wrote the latter report [‘Genocide as Colonial Erasure’]. The acts of killing, rendering life impossible, forcibly displacing the Palestinians while bombing them north to south, west to east, forcing them to live in the most inhospitable places in Gaza after having destroyed everything that could allow them to access livelihood, after depriving them of water, food, medicine, fuel for over one year — one year! — and also arbitrarily arresting, depriving of liberty, torturing, raping, thousands of Palestinians. Do we see the reality? 

And the thing is that this didn’t start just one year ago. The Palestinians have been oppressed, repressed, mistreated, made the object of abuse, indignities, humiliation, and egregious violations of international law for decades. Israel does so in the pursuit of the realisation of a ‘Greater Israel’, a place for Jewish sovereignty only between the river and the sea. This is why I say that this is a genocide that is being conducted not just because of ideological hatred transformed into a political doctrine, as has happened through the dehumanisation of ‘the other’ in other genocides; this genocide has been committed because of the land, for the land. Israel wants the land without the Palestinians. And for the Palestinians, staying on the land is part of who they are as a people. This is why I call it genocide as colonial erasure.

The International Court of Justice has established what serious legal experts, scholars, and others have said for decades. Israel maintains an unlawful occupation in the occupied Palestinian territories, namely Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. It prevents Palestinians from realising their self-determination, meaning their right to exist as a people. It is tantamount to racial segregation and apartheid because it translates into and allows a continuous annexation of Palestinian land for the benefit of Jewish Israeli citizens only. This is why [per the ICJ’s ruling] the occupation must be dismantled totally and unequivocally and unconditionally before September 2025. So this means that the troops have to go, that the settlements have to be dismantled, that those Israeli citizens have to be returned to Israel unless they want to stay as Palestinian citizens. But the land is to be returned to the Palestinians. The resources cannot continue to be exploited by Israel. This is very clear, and this is the only way to secure a way forward. This is also, in my view, the beginning of the end, the real, concrete beginning of the end of Israel’s apartheid in the occupied Palestinian territory and beyond.

Because Israel maintains an occupation that translates into the oppression of the Palestinian people, Israel faces threats to its security emanating from the occupied Palestinian territories. But these are consequential from the oppression that Israel imposes upon those territories. And the only way to extinguish that security threat is to end the occupation. Israel has the right to defend itself within its territory from attacks upon its territory from other states. This is what would give Israel the right to use military force and to wage a war against another ‘country’. But the point is that Israel is attacking the people it has maintained under occupation. And violations of the right of self-determination [of the Palestinians] lead to resistance. The right to resist is to a people is what the right to self-defence is to a state, so there is an intimate conflict and conflation between two clashing interests. However, international law is clearly on the side of Palestinian self-determination. The right to resist, of course, has limitations. It cannot target civilians through killing and taking hostages. But what follows suit is that there should be justice, investigation, and prosecution over such acts, not a war of annihilation.

Well, first of all, let me tell you that I don’t think that one can call himself or herself a human rights lawyer if they don’t stand for human rights without political or ideological considerations. Saying that starvation is acceptable is simply betraying what international law stands for, which is ultimately the protection of civilians in situations of armed conflict, hostilities, crisis, etc. Here you have a foreign secretary who is denying that a genocide is ongoing, even where the International Court of Justice has recognised it. He needs to explain how he disqualifies that. But in any case, we will hear, I think, excuses. History will judge these people who have not done anything in their power to prevent atrocities. Meanwhile, in doing so, the UK is violating its obligations under international law not to aid and assist a state which is committing international wrongdoings. This is where we are. There are responsibilities; there might be complicity. This is why I encourage strategic litigation in this country to hold people accountable, but also to make sure — and this is the power of the people — to make sure that its elected leaders do not drag this country and its taxpayers into funding a war of annihilation.

We need to see the problem within our systems, which may seem to be on the periphery of international relations, but are still the centres of the Empire: a system that can control other people’s land, other people’s will, other people’s resources, and make their lives miserable. This is no longer happening only to the Global South; it is also happening to many of us in the Global North. It’s time to see that in the fragility and precariousness of many categories of people, from workers to the elderly, people with disabilities, LGBT people, and migrants. Human rights like freedom of expression and freedom of speech, as well as the right to be remunerated adequately, or the right to have adequate housing and healthcare: these are things that are becoming more and more violated, including in the Global North, and cannot be disconnected from the violations that people in the Global South suffer at the hands of a system which is very much Western-led. Palestine epitomises this system, the struggle of indigenous people, the struggle of victims of the enduring legacy of colonialism, including discrimination against refugees and migrants from the Global South, the struggle for environmental justice. This is why the struggle of Palestine is becoming a symbol of resistance across the world for many who want just to live in a more equal, fair, and non-discriminatory order.

I think that the United Nations played a role gradually, in the sense that there was debate brought about primarily by states in the Global South to abolish apartheid, but it was largely a reflex of the turmoil that was enveloping the world. The international anti-apartheid movement was a grassroots one, which was originated in this part of the world — in Britain and Ireland — but also soon became rooted in other parts of the West in order to resist through the economic disempowerment of the apartheid regime and help the South Africans liberate themselves from that repressive form of state. This shows that today, like in the past, what is needed is global action, global action in the new revitalised grassroots movement that exists. There is BDS, and there have been students’ protests and students’ actions to reestablish the core of international law, the core principles of international law. It continues, but much more needs to be done. Holding businesses accountable, pushing trade unions into action, holding political leaders — and fellow citizens who have been fighting as part of Israel’s apartheid regime, whether as part of the business enterprise or as soldiers — accountable. It’s time to push for accountability at the domestic level and not just internationally.

First of all, let me qualify the protests because people who were not there but read your article might get the wrong impression. There were about ten individuals shouting, with more flags than feet on the ground. They were not a real protest. They were nuisances. A tiny, tiny nuisances. But, I mean, it’s fair. Let them come. Let them cry out, ‘BAN FRAN’, while people are being slaughtered, with 17,000 children killed. Let them do whatever they like. Frankly, I don’t think this is important. I don’t think this is relevant. Also irrelevant is the fact that governments who are complicit with genocide attack me instead of dealing with their unmet legal obligations. I don’t want to entertain discussions concerning how insane these attacks are. They’re just yet another manifestation of how fierce the repression of Palestine, Palestinian identity, and Palestinian resistance to exist is, especially in Western societies.