Genocide. Genocide. Genocide.

For two years this word has been taboo as we’ve watched Israel carrying out its atrocities in Gaza. Most of us have avoided using it for fear of….what?  Yes, we’ve rightly considered ‘genocide’ a powerful, extreme word, largely associated with the horrors of the Holocaust and Rwanda: a word that mustn’t be used lightly, without proper investigation of the true facts. But let’s be honest. We’ve also been terrified to call out the blatant killing of civilians and ethnic cleansing in Gaza for what it is, because in all likelihood we’d be accused of antisemitism or supporting Hamas terrorism. 

But on Tuesday this week things changed. The United Nations’ Human Rights Council published a report by an Independent International Commission of Inquiry into Israel’s actions in Gaza. It concluded that “Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The Commission of Inquiry urges Israel and all States to fulfil their legal obligations under international law to end the genocide and punish those responsible for it.” 

Suddenly ‘genocide’ in Gaza is no longer the subject of conjecture and hypothesis. it brings us back to facts, using international law and carefully-researched evidence as the yardstick.

More specifically, the Commission, which has been investigating the events on and since 7 October 2023 for the last two years, concludes that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births.”

“The Commission finds that Israel is responsible for the genocide in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, Chair of the Commission, who headed the tribunal into the Rwanda Genocide. “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.” At the report’s announcement Judge Pillay also called the findings “a moral outrage and a legal emergency”.

Defending the Report against an intense backlash from Israel, Pillay and her colleagues have been quick to point out that, far from being pro-Hamas, the Commission took a strong stance against Hamas on 10th October 2023, denouncing Hamas atrocities against Israel as war crimes. They also stress that “explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities and the pattern of conduct of the Israeli security forces indicate that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group.” In other words, key evidence of Israel’s intentions of genocide has come from the blatant words and actions of Israel’s leadership itself.

As a result of the UN’s findings, the language of media reports has started changing, with the Report on Genocide dominating Tuesday morning’s news programmes – alongside the stepped-up bombing of Gaza City. A detailed account of the report by the BBC’s Jeremy Bowen was headlined “a blunt indictment of Israel’s actions in Gaza”. Channel 4 News’s Lindsey Hilsum tweeted, “Many concluded long ago that Israel is committing genocide. Now a UN Commission has laid out evidence leading to the same conclusion”. Elsewhere in her substack she points out that a growing number of genocide scholars had previously come to the same conclusions as the UN commission. 

And now politicians, led by the Lib Dems, have started boldly using the G-word too. Asked about the report on Tuesday’s Channel 4 News, Ed Davey accepted the word wholeheartedly, linking it to his decision to boycott Trump’s royal banquet. And on Instagram we see him firmly asserting “I say with them [the UN Commission] there IS a genocide.”

Could this be the start of a more courageous Lib Dem assertion of our vision for peace, human rights and the rule of law in the Middle East? In the month when Britain and our European allies are likely to recognise Palestine for the first time, we shouldn’t be afraid of honouring Britain’s historic debt to the Palestinian people, and promoting their statehood – all topics which will be widely discussed and debated at this weekend’s Party Conference.

We are right to be careful in the use of language in these charged times, when society is so divided and social media has enabled unlimited thoughtless, damaging talk. Yet our reluctance to condemn Israel’s destruction of Gaza has arguably allowed Netanyahu’s regime to normalise unspeakable atrocities and war crimes that our Government now barely seems to notice. The UN Commission has produced a considered, authoritative report. Now is surely the time for Lib Dems to confidently endorse its call for “all states to fulfil their legal obligations under international law”.

* Judi Conner is a former journalist, a member in North Norfolk and a committee member of Lib Dem Friends of Palestine.