Prefixed or Pre-fixed ‘Watches’…!

     How effortful it is to count how many organizations with names bearing the word and/or function of a ‘watch(dog)’ in today’s world! Mostly, they are prefixed, namely; having a prefix placed before watch to modify its meaning. You can read about United Nations Watch, Human Rights Watch, Genocide Watch, etc., all of which are concerned with monitoring and, hopefully, preventing (potential) cases of tribulations.

Thomas Friedman’s Animal Kingdom-based piece (New York Times, 2/2/24) triggered much debate. A well-prepared response was introduced by FAIR, while referring to the ten stages of genocide as articulated by a Western thinktank, Genocide Watch. Sometimes, it is useful to refer a person, be they biological or (il)legal, to their own benchmarks. After all, juding a person according to your own criteria would end up with both parties back to square one as neither appreciates the validity of the criteria of the other.

That told, this piece aims at applying the Western criteria of watching for genocides to what Israel has been doing in Gaza since October 7, 2023. For purposes of this article, the Zionist entity is called Israel to avoid falling afoul of my own starting-point suggestion: going for Western criteria till the end!

The beginning

In 1946, The United Nations General Assembly (A/RES/96-I) first recognised genocide as a crime under international law. Two years later, genocide was codified as an independent crime as per the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (or, the Genocide Convention). Until 2022, the Convention had been ratified by 153 states worldwide. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has repeatedly stated that the Convention embodies principles that are inseparable from the general customary international law. Accordingly, whether or not states have ratified the Genocide Convention, they are all legally bound by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. To the ICJ, the prohibition of genocide is a peremptory norm of international law from which no derogation is allowed.

Codification: what makes a genocide?

Article II of the Genocide Convention reads, “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Constituent elements of genocide

Pursuant to the same Article II, there are two main such elements, ‘(1) A mental element: the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”; and (2) A physical element, which includes the following five acts, enumerated exhaustively:

1. Killing members of the group.
2. Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.
3. Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.
4. Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.
5. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’

Having said that, it is of great importance to read the following long quotation from the United Nations elaboration on this issue:

The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element.

Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.”

Referring to those UN-observed criteria, what Israel is doing in Gaza involves (1) Killing members of the group ( Killing ‘members’, not ‘the members’, which is further affirmed by the embedded phrase ‘in whole or in part’), (2) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group ( Again, not all of them. Besides, the resulting such bodily and mental harm from constant bombadment and targeting of the world’s most densely populated strip cannot be denied or overestimated), (3) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part ( About 2 out of 2.3 million people are now forced into domestic displacement in Gaza), (4) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group ( The vicious circle of violence, deliberate targeting of clinics and hospitals, and starving even incubator babies into death stand as irrefutable proofs), and (5) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group ( Jaffa and Khaldoun are just the tip of the iceberg!). In UN words, a ‘geographically limited area’ is being heavily, unwarrantly, and inhumanely crushed, causing ‘substantial’ damage to every life aspect in the already beseiged enclave.

The other reference on genocide, for purposes of this article, is The Ten Stages of Genocide as developed in 1987 by Dr. Gregory Stanton, the founding president of Genocide Watch. To Dr. Stanton, the process of every genocide has predictable “stages”. He regrets using the term “stages” because it implies linearity, however. In fact, the processes of genocide operate simultaneously, hence his opting later on for “processes” instead of “stages”. Still, a logical order and correlation does exist behind these processes.

To Jean Piaget, cognitive processes are directly related to moral processes. Lawrence Kohlberg, a follower of Piaget’s theories, used moral dilemmas to reveal the fundamental processes of moral reasoning. James Fowler showed how Piaget’s cognitive stages inform stages of faith. Put plainly, what constitutes your faith affects your (moral) reasoning, which at times serve as ways and grounds of justifying your intentions and actions. Not far from this individual approach is the collective one addressed by anthropology, which looks for the fundamental structures in human societies and cultures. Victor Turner argued that rituals and symbols are keys to understanding social, political, psychological, and religious structures. On these and other sicentific contributions Dr. Stanton built his Ten Stage model, stressing that it is just ‘a model’ to which changes may well be introduced.

Before delving into the model and how it applies to Gaza War, here are some characteristics of the Ten Stage model:

1. Most of the names for the model processes end in the suffix “-ation”, which denotes processes.
2. It has been applied well to the American Genocide, the Combodian Genocide, the Rowandan Genocide, and, of course, the Holocaust.
3. It involves three warning levels: watch, warning, and emergency.
4. It works simultaneously, rather than linearly.
5. As a matter of criticism, some of the currently designated/missed spots under ‘watch, warning, and/or emergency’ worldwide do not stand factual, legal, and/or moral reasoning, according to the author.)

Model processes

1. The first process is Classification. It is the otherization process – when we classify the world into us versus them. ( The only two ‘states’ that Western media name-call with a religious indicator prefix are (1) the Jewish State (Israel), and (2) the Islamic State (Daesh)! More importantly, Israel has willfully and deliberately chosen to otherize the Palestinians, even those living as Israeli nationals within Israel, by medievalisticly locking itself into the 2018 Nation-State of the Jewish People – now part of the Basic Law of Israel. According to that law, only Jewish citizens have the right to determine the future of the Jewish State.) Therefore, the perpetration of the first process of genocide is validated.
2.  The second is Symbolization. This process involves name-calling, namely, classifying ‘others’ as, for example, Hutu and Tutsi, Turk and Armenian, Amaleks and Jews. Sometimes, the symbols used under this process are ethnic (Tutsi and Hutu) or physical (the deregatory referring to the Palestinian shal (scarf). ( It is now proven that as part of the Israeli educational curricula and religiously-imbued military doctrine, the so-called IDF personnel have been gathering, chanting, and celebrating killing of the Amalek; the Palestinians.) Therefore, the perpetration of the second process is validated.
3. The third is Discrimination. This process involves exercising practices and customs that prevent ‘others’ from exercising their full rights as citizens or as human beings. ( Only persons blinded to the truth would deny the broad-daylight fact of siege against Gaza and Gazans, and, to lesser extent, the West Bank.) Therefore, the perpetration of the third process is validated.
4.  The fourth is Dehumanization. This is when perpetrators liken their (potential) victims to rats, cockroaches, cancer, or disease. This is how eliminating the ‘dehumanized enemy’ helps ‘cleanse’ the society. Murder is thus justified. ( Yoav Gallant, the Israeli Defense Minister, is proven to have called the Palestinian ‘human animals’ and shall be ‘delt with as such’. This being the ‘official narrative’, one can wildly imagine what other narratives are!) Therefore, the perpetration of the fourth process is validated.
5. The fifth process is Organization, when hate groups, armies, and militias organize. ( Try to honestly asnwer the following questions: Is it not proven that mercinaries from several nationalities do fight with the so-called IDF? Is it not proven that extremist far-right Israeli groups do gather to perform rites and pressurize officials into even stricter statements and actions against the ‘others’? This process is being exercised on both official and non-official levels.) Therefore, the perpetration of the fifth process is validated.
6. The sixth is Polarization. This process involves alienating moderates who go for a different direction to that of the polarizing otherizers, especially where moderates belong to the perpetrators’ group. ( Again, try to figure out who is behind the pressing media stigmatization of ‘self-hating Jews’? Any Jew who objects to or criticizes Israeli plans and actions is unfairly attacked and slienced. Names inlcude Bernard Sanders and Noam Chomsky.) Therefore, the perpetration of the sixth process is validated.
7. The seventh process is Preparation. Accordingly to the Ten Stage model, this process invovles plans for killing and deportation. Necessary equipment and personnel are sourced. ( Israel has been, and still is, mobilizing full battalions, brigades, and divisions (including reserve units and volunteers) as well as economic resources to unleash unprecedentedly living hell against innocent indiscriminately targeted Gazans.) Therefore, the perpetration of the seventh process is validated.
8. The eighth process is Persecution. This process involves arresting and concentrating victims into prisons, ghettos, or concentration camps. Torture and murder are expected results. ( About 1400 administrative detainees are held in Israel. Administrative detention is the proregative of Israel. It means holding persons without trial AND without having committed an offense, on the grounds that he or she plans to break the law in the future. How weird it is for the presumably only democracy in the Middle East to play God and detain people on presumptive wrongdoing! How democratic! Some Palestinian detainees and prisoners lose their lives and are subject to postmortum organ thefts.) Therefore, the perpetration of the eighth process is validated.
9. The ninth process is Extermination. This is the direct act of genocide, namely; the intentional destruction, whether wholly partially, of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. ( If killing about 100,000 and arresting over 1,000,000 since 1984; and destroying hundreds of native villages and towns, do not mount to an act of genicide, what else could this be described?!) Therefore, the perpetration of the ninth process is validated.
10. The tenth is Denial. In fact, denying is a continuation of a genocide as it seeks to destroy the victim group both psychologically and culturally by even taking away the memory of the dead. ( Even cemeteries in Gaza have not been spared the atrocities of the Israeli war machine. Further, mass graves from the 1948 Nakba are discovered every now and then.) Therefore, the perpetration of the tenth process is validated.

Dr. Stanton has sought to alert governments and the international community to ward off any further genocide anywhere in the world. Ironically, an atrocious genocide is being executed in Palestine and the so-called free world is watching, even providing unconditional support to genocidaires.

The true Jewish, Christian, and Islamic faiths cannot preach exclusionary ideologies since they are divine by nature. What God gives cannot be harmful to His children. It is rather that some of those children who choose to alter and claim false divility to distorted versions of divine revelation to indoctrinate their followers, dehumanize their presumed opponents, and ensure a way of cherished chosenhood for purposes of continuity. Politicized faiths lead to politicide. The distorted faith here is Judaism, and the distorting ideology is Zionism. The resulting -cide is Ziocide – the deliberate forced displacement, cleasing, and attempted extermination against the Palestinian people.

Because of previous cases of impunities, denials will remain in play; and so shall genocides. The so-called free world has always been pressurizing Arab and Muslim states into introducing heaving changes to their primary and university education curricula to avoid graduating potential extremists and terrorists. A similar or even stronger effort must be seen with Israel if this region is meant to live in peace some day. Victimized Judaism must be saved from the tyranny of Zionism.

The ever-growing extremist Zionism is the field of forced escapism for Judaism. Zionism was not, is not, and shall never be inscribed as a ‘commandment’ on a ‘stone tablet’. Peace is only a two-way ticket to coexistence. Sophosticated militaries and technologies have never been, nor shall ever be, a guarantee of anything, let alone peaceful prosperous living. In conclusion, judging by both international law and Western criteria, Israel is up to its teeth in genocide.

How can this model be further developed by Al-Azhar Observatory for Combating Extremism should be addressed by another article. Until then the question remains, do all the prefixed ‘watches’ of this world are incapable of ending injustice and preventing ongoing and potential genocides? Or are they simply pre-fixed to assume lip service?!