Oct 29, 2024
Genocide as Colonial Erasure
(w/ 🕯️🗽🕊️ Francesca Albanese)
TranscriptChris Hedges
The latest United Nations report by Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, argues that the violence unleashed against the Palestinians after October 7 is not happening in a vacuum, but is part of a long-term intentional, systematic, State-organized forced displacement and replacement of the Palestinians. The report details how the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian is accelerating, in large part because of the complicity and indifference of the international community. The report, released Monday, argues that, if not halted, the mass slaughter and displacement in Gaza of its 2.3 million residents, tactics increasingly being replicated in the occupied West Bank, jeopardizes the very existence of the Palestinian people in Palestine. It concludes with an urgent appeal to Member States in the United Nations to intervene before Palestinians, especially those in northern Gaza, which Israel appears intent on fully depopulating and annexing, are driven from their homeland. This intervention must, the report states, include a full arms embargo and sanctions against Israel until the mass killing of Palestinians is halted, a permanent ceasefire is in place and Israeli occupation forces and Jewish colonists withdraw from occupied Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Absent this, the report recommends that Israel be formally recognized as an apartheid state and persistent violator of international law, reactivating the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid to address the situation in Palestine and potentially suspend Israel’s membership in the United Nations. Joining me to discuss her report is Francesca Albanese.
Francesca, the report is devastating, as is, of course, every daily report out of Gaza and the West Bank, you do a lot of research out of the West Bank as well. I want to begin with kind of the broader implications of Israel's genocide, which is at the conclusion of your report, before we go into the specifics, which is at the front of your report, you note in the report that since your last report, and despite the International Court of Justice interventions, genocidal acts have, in your words, proliferated. Nearly a year of scorched earth assault has led to the calculated destruction of Gaza. The human material and environmental cost is unquantifiable. In essence, what you're saying is that as horrible as things were, it is steadily getting worse and worse for the Palestinians. So let's talk a little bit about the trajectory. You were one of the first official investigators, and of course, we should be clear, you're banned from working in the occupied territories by the Israeli government, but I believe you were one of the first to raise the issue of genocide, which is now, of course, not disputable, but let's talk a little bit about, globally, the trajectory over the last, now it's more than a year, what's been happening?
Francesca Albanese
Thank you, Chris, yeah, as it often happens, genocide is not an act. It's a process. It's a very complex crime to identify. But it has a collective dimension and it builds on. It's made of criminal acts. But what keeps everything together is the intent to destroy through this criminal act, a group in whole or in part. And this is what we have seen happening in Gaza as of the beginning of October. As I've said it's October 9, where things became undeniably genocidal, where there was a genocidal intent expressed. The word "Amalek," in my view, is the most telling of all, because Amalek is a biblical term that has been evoked primarily by Netanyahu, but then by others. And by the soldiers who have been acting as willful executioners of that plan, that call Amalek, which in the Bible is go and destroy the Amalek, the mother, the suckling, the donkey, the camel, everything. And this is what has been happening in Gaza, the acts of killing, the mass killing, the infliction of psychological and physical torture, the devastation, the creation of conditions of life that would not allow the people in Gaza to live, from the destruction of hospitals, the mass force displacement and the mass homelessness while people were being bombed daily, and the starvation. How can we read these acts in isolation? We need to take a step back, look at the whole and see what has [been] happening as there is no other reasonable inference that can be, that can be drawn, even without looking at the intent, as expressed by the use of the word Amalek, which is like chop the tall trees in in Rwanda, this is the term that has marked this genocide.
Chris Hedges
So Francesca, you make the point that in order to categorize what's happening as genocide, there are innumerable factors, mass killing, extermination, or an act of extermination, in and of itself, doesn't necessarily constitute genocide. You write in the report that the destruction of Gaza has raised allegations of what you call domicide, herbicide, scholasticide, meticide, cultural genocide and ecocide, and then you note, nearly 40 million tons of debris, including unexploded ordnance and human remains, contaminate the ecosystem. Over 140 waste sites and 340,000 tons of waste, untreated wastewater and sewage overflow contribute to the spread of diseases such as hepatitis A, respiratory infections, diarrhea and skin diseases. As Israeli leaders promised, Gaza has been made unfit for human life. So all of these, we're going to talk about in detail. You document what's happening in detail, but just talk about the complete eradication that raises what's happening to the Palestinians to the level of genocide.
Francesca Albanese
Absolutely, in fact, what constitutes genocide is a specific number of criminal acts, like I mentioned, acts of killing members of the group, when the group is identified through four main criterias: ethnical, racial, national or religious and the group is targeted as such, this is the critical element. And then there are, as I was saying, acts of killing, infliction of severe bodily or mental harm, the creation of conditions of life that will lead to the destruction of the group. And then there are other two crimes that I'm not saying are not present or have not occurred in Gaza; simply, I've not had the elements to investigate that, although one regrettably so, the prevention of birth, I do think that this is an area that urges ad hoc investigation, because the way Israel has steadily, even before October 2023, targeted children is revealing of an animus or a mindset to target the Palestinians from the very, very early age. And this is demonstrated by the numbers of children arrested and detained, brutalized, tormented, tortured in some instances, although the threshold for torture for children is lower than for adults. And the killings, the extrajudicial killings of children hit in the head and torso, these are elements that have always been there, Chris. How come we have not seen it? We have not seen what was happening, the trajectory we were describing before. But again, what is relevant in order to establish that there is genocide, is not just the intent, behind these crimes, enunciated at Article Two of the Genocide Convention, is the overall intent, specific intent, to destroy the people, the group as a whole, or in part as such. And what is the group here? It's the Palestinians as such, the Amalek, the monsters, the human animals. This derogatory language, this dehumanizing language, has prepared the spirit of those who have ordered planned and executed the genocide. And look, it's not an easy task to establish genocidal intent, although, as I already wrote in my first report, it's impossible to deny it when it's so ostentatious as in the evidence of it is so ostentatious as in the case of Gaza. But there are three elements that I write about in the in the report, even when the direct evidence of intent, like a plan in which Israeli leaders have written, yes, we want to genocide the Palestinians. Let this aside. I do believe that there is a direct intent, but let's assume that there is not. When direct intent is unavailable, then intent should be, or must be, drawn from inference, and only reasonable inference says that the jurisprudence. But we have to consider these elements, that while recognizing the possible composite nature of genocide, the fact that one war crime or one crime against humanity might also constitute an act of genocide, and this is pretty obvious. I mean, often genocides have happened in the context of civil strife, like it was in former Yugoslavia, but even the genocide of the Jewish people and Romani Sinti, in a way, happen in the context of war. However, the compartmentalization of the conduct into desperate acts without capturing the broader context, is extremely dangerous. It's nonsensical. You cannot look for the genocidal intent with a magnifier. You need to take a step back and look at the overall, what I say, totality of the conduct, all the acts, the scale and nature of them, the knowledge of what these acts would have resulted into, in the totality of the territory against the totality of the people. And again, doing otherwise, and we can elaborate on that, but doing otherwise would verify that clear obligation in the Genocide Convention to prevent, to prevent genocide when intent manifests itself. When the word "Amalek" was used that was already a sign, it was not captured. But then, on the 26th of January, International Court of Justice identified the plausibility of risk for the rights protected under the Genocide Convention for the Palestinian people, the plausibility that acts of genocide were being committed. So why was it not stopped then and, as of then, the acts have continued, have multiplied and you know what Chris? My report only covers facts until September 2024, but just in the last three, four weeks, the crimes that have been committed against the Palestinians, the burning people alive, the bombing camps, refugee camps, and schools and UNRWA premises. And going home by home in northern Gaza, while the population is continuously exposed to the threat of starvation. What can it be? What can it be? So again, Israel continues to commit acts of genocide in Gaza, and the risk of this metastasizing to other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory is very real.
Chris Hedges
Well you make that point, and you spend time talking about the conditions in the West Bank, which are, of course, becoming worse and worse. I was in the West Bank in July. You raised a very important point, that none of it is new. What's new is the scale. So in 2000, the cartoonist Joe Sacco, who wrote "Palestine" and "Footnotes in Gaza" and I took my vacation time to do it from the New York Times, went to Khan Yunis and wrote what we called "A Gaza Diary" for Harper's Magazine. And just wrote, day by day, what life was like. The settlers were still there at Netzarim. And while we were in the camp, I speak Arabic, I heard through the loudspeakers, "taeal, taeal" which means come, come. As the kids, the young boys, 10, 11, 12 were coming out of school, on their way home from school, and then the Israelis began, through the loudspeakers on their jeeps, using curse words, even [inaudible] and these horrible terms, the kids naturally picked up rocks and they shot them. They were like mice enticed into a trap. That article—and we had their names, the times they were shot, I mean, it was incontrovertible—led to my being told by the newspaper that I would no longer cover the Middle East. I would no longer be allowed to report out of the Middle East. So what we're talking about is scale, and I think you capture that in the intent has always been there, but the scale is unlike anything we have seen. I think you even argue greater than the Nakba. That's the first point I wanted to make. The second point when you talk about dehumanization and Amalek, that's what I saw in Bosnia, where the Serbs referred to all the Bosniaks as Ustaše. And to be fair, a lot of the Bosniaks referred to the Serbs as Chetniks. These are World War II terms, when the Ustaše were allied with the Nazis, and the Chetniks were Serbian nationalists who were fighting the Ustaše, separate from Tito's partisans. So I want to ask you about that, because essentially, these historical terms are used, and of course, the Israelis have referred to—is also in your report— referred to the Palestinians as Nazis, but, they historicize it. And I just want to ask you about that. That was true in Bosnia and that's true in the apartheid state of Israel.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah, look, just for the sake of clarity regarding intent, and sorry to be the picky lawyer, but what I do say that has always been there is the potential to commit the genocide. Because the Greater Israel plan, that has always been there, making the whole land of Palestine a land for the Jewish people only had an eliminatory component for the Palestinians, because, as I write in the report, and I think this will resonate very strongly with all indigenous people, for the indigenous people, the land is not a place where they live, it's who they are. It's part of the identity and this continuous uprooting of the Palestinians en masse in big events in 1947, '49, in 1967 and now as of 2023, these are instances where Israel seizes the opportunity to forcibly displace the Palestinians using very destructive means. But never the violence has been so acute and in a way, intentionally, deliberately eliminatory, as in this case. So it's like the genocidal intent has been dormant in the veins of the system, but then the opportunity, the capacity, the circumstances that developed after October 7 have been such to prompt this genocide. And you know, while there have been these massive instances of forced displacement, forced displacement is [inaudible] genocide, but again, it might be part of a genocidal conduct. Palestinians have been uprooted all the time, even individuals after individuals, family after family, and Israel has tried to take as much land as possible, inch by inch, home by home, dune by dune. And again, this is why in the report I describe that in this case, genocide is a means to an end. The end is the realization of Greater Israel. They openly talk about removing the Palestinians from Palestine. They can go to Jordan. They can go to Egypt. There are over 20 Muslim countries. This is so racist. How can we even entertain such an argument without really stopping it and blaming those who use it, accusing those who use it of racism? But so, yeah, it has always been there, and things have escalated at the time Israel found that they were ready, but then they did it. Yeah, I think it's been quite deliberate, certainly Netanyahu's mindset and the way they have presented and projected the Palestinians throughout the whole history of Israel, Nurit Peled, whom I often quote, talks of the quote, unquote, Nazification of the Palestinians. So yes, there is this dehistoricization of the Holocaust. The Palestinians are blamed for the Holocaust. They're called Nazis. But also look at the language that Israeli leaders, military, political and religious leaders have used after October 7: We are fighting for the civilization, for Western civilization, against the barbarians. We are the light. We are the people of light, and these are the people of darkness. This language is not new. This is been used over and over in other settler colonial contexts and genocide in order to justify the crimes, the counter insurgency, the counter-terrorism, or the self-defense against these monsters. So this is the reality of how I see it.
Chris Hedges
You write that jurisprudence had broadly focused on determining intent through what you call acts of targeting the very foundation of the group, including the imposition of living conditions leading to what you call slow death and the destruction of the spirit, of the will to live and of life itself. In other words, intent to destroy is assessed holistically and in totality. I want to ask about journalists. It's not in your report, although I know you have spoken out about Israel's attack on journalists and they just condemned I think it's six reporters for Al Jazeera, Palestinian reporters for Al Jazeera who are some of the last. The Committee to Protect Journalists is talking about 128 killings of journalists in Lebanon, West Bank and Israel. I think the Palestinian figures are higher, 177. I was a war correspondent, it's unlike anything I saw in El Salvador, I think we lost 22 journalists. Or Sarajevo was, again, a few dozen. This assault on journalism is unprecedented. And just before we go on, I know you've spoken about it. I want you to... because, as you said, by condemning these Al Jazeera reporters as members of Hamas, you've essentially delivered them a death sentence.
Francesca Albanese
Absolutely. You see, there is this concept that everyone labeled or qualified as a terrorist by Israel deserves to die. But this is so dehumanizing, not only because, again, it builds on a racist presumption of guilt on side of Palestinians. The Palestinians are so naturally terrorist that it almost goes unquestioned when Israel says, Oh, these, are Hamas affiliates or terrorists themselves. But also, where is the presumption of innocence? Where is the principle that everyone, including alleged criminals, alleged perpetrators, are entitled to justice. You see, all these has been eroded, erased by Israel, which has transformed, I often say, in a world without civilians. It's the light against the dark, it's good people against evil. And this is how Israel is justifying the mass killing of the Palestinians, the destruction of what remains of Palestine its people. You know, this is not just the conflict during which most journalists have been killed. This is also the conflict in which the highest number of UN officials have been killed, the highest number of UN premises have been targeted, the highest number of hospitals have been targeted. All universities have been destroyed, and never a population has gone starving so fast. Never has such a high number of people have starved at such a speed. This has been concluded by the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. And the Commission of Inquiry in June this year, said, never a population or never a people, a number of people of disproportion, has been displaced at such a speed before. And sorry, no, sorry, I need to, I need to rephrase. This is not what they say. They say that this has been one of the fastest forced displacement of history meaning the people from northern Gaza into southern Gaza, while both the north and south were being bombed in the early months of the genocide last year. And the media. You know, it's interesting, I was rereading [Albert] Camus recently, and I found this quote, which is very telling. It says that the journalists are the historian of the instant, and as such, they should look at the facts, report on the facts. Of course, they can analyze at their own interpretation, but they need to report on the facts in their nudity, as they appear. And this has not been done. It's not uncommon that in the context of a genocide, the media contribute to play a critical and criminal role. This has been ascertained by international tribunals in the case of former Yugoslavia, in the case of Rwanda. But what is unique here is that this is not just the Israeli media who have amplified genocidal statements, genocidal calls, which have provided a platform to rapists, Israeli soldiers who had **** Palestinians, to go and show and rant about their right to **** Palestinians. It's not just that, and there have been critical voices among Israeli journalists. I mean, 972 does incredible work. Haaretz as well, has very good journalists, and they are honest about what's happening. In the West, the mainstream media has replicated and amplified the lies we have heard. And I said, sometimes I look at politicians and journalists who have repeated lies, the story of the beheaded babies, the Israeli babies from October 7 is not true. Does it take away the crimes that Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups have indeed committed against Israeli civilians, killing or brutalizing or taking them hostages? Of course not. But what's the need to talk about mass ****? There is no evidence of ****, which doesn't mean that **** didn't occur, but there is no evidence. So why people, Western leaders, talk of these videos, of these pictures. President Biden said that he had seen the picture of the beheaded babies, and what did he see? I'm not saying they didn't see, that he invented it, but again, where is the evidence and why [inaudible] there are countries like my own country in Italy, where they are continuing to relaunch these lies. Why? Why has Western media been so complicit with the genocidal mindset? Why it has covered up and why it has further dehumanized the Palestinians? And here, I think we are finally put in our... as really as [inaudible] in front of a mirror as a society, this is who we are: extremely racist toward the Palestinians. This is not something unique to the Palestinians. I think that people in the Global South are generally perceived as less worthy by some people in the West?
Chris Hedges
I mean, it fits the racialized stereotype, which is not challenged by the dominant society. So I want to ask, before we get into the specifics in your report, you write, perpetrators of genocide almost always allege their actions were taken pursuant to an ongoing military conflict. Yet genocide may be a means for achieving military objectives just as readily as military conflict may be a means for instigating a genocidal plan. And then you write genocidal intent may exist simultaneously with other ulterior motives. One of the mantras, certainly within the US press, the US media landscape, is Israel's right to defend itself. Israel's right to defend itself. As if that precludes the possibility of genocide, and you make that distinction in your report, that it doesn't.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah, there are three layers that need to be understood here. The first is that even when a state has the right to defend itself from an attack or a serious threat of an attack, it cannot commit genocide. And the fact that the court, the International Court of Justice, the supreme organ of the United Nations, had already identified this possibility, this likelihood, should have put Israel on notice. [It] did put Israel on notice, and should have been an alarm for the entire international community, which should have not acted business as usual as of them, and instead, this has not happened. But also, I say in the report, people tend to confuse motives with intent. The intent is the determination, it's when an individual, or here, I mean in the report, I'm talking of state responsibility, because this is critical, and I would be very happy to to unpack that later, but it's the determination to destroy a group in all or in part, and the masterminds behind it might have the most desperate sorry, might have different motives. Might want to do that to stay in power. Might want to do that because this is seen as a way to liberate the hostages, or might want to do that because they feel entitled to eradicate a political entity or its armed wing. But motives are irrelevant in international criminal law. In the case of genocide, we need to look at the intent, what eventually has manifested, like mens rea, like the mind that want to destroy it. This is why we need to be very, very clear, because I hear people saying no, but Israel doesn't want to commit to genocide, they want to liberate the hostages as if it was another intent that could be inferred? No, no, it's not. First of all, as you know, from the report, as you have read it, I debunk both the argument that it was even a motive, the liberation of the hostages. This is a mantra or a refrain that has helped Israel continue to fan the flames of attack against Gaza. So I debunk that and debunk the argument of eradicating Hamas. But let's spend a word on self-defense because, as you rightly point out, and it's shocking for me to see that, but member states continue to talk about the right of self-defense as if it was an existential... as if Israel was facing an existential threat that legitimated like wholesome war against another people. There is no self-defense that Israel can invoke against the people it maintains under occupation because, look, the only context in which a state can invoke self-defense is when it's attacked by another state or the use of force is authorized by the Security Council. There is no Security Council resolution authorizing Israel to wage a war. But why so? Because Israel cannot wage a war against the population it maintains under occupation, because this population has the right to resist an unlawful occupation. Now, when I say that, I infuriate many because they say, Oh, you see, she's justifying violence. No, I'm just saying what international law says, because, again, the states have the right to defend themselves, and so have the people, especially people whose right of self-determination has not yet materialized, and therefore there would be a conflict within international law itself if self-defense took precedence over the right of self-determination. The only way for Israel to protect itself, which is its sacrosanct right, is to withdraw from what remains of historical Palestine. Withdraw the occupation, withdraw the settlements, withdraw its exploitation of Palestinians resources, as it has been ordered by the International Court of Justice in July this year, and then stop practicing apartheid against the Palestinians, including those with Israeli citizenship.
Chris Hedges
You talk about one of the tactics being the humiliation and degradation of Palestinians. You write, prisoners stripped and sadistically tortured en masse, bodies of adults and children piled up and decomposing in the street, survivors forced to eat animal food and grass and drink sea water or even sewage, the maiming of thousands, including young children left limbless before they could even crawl, the destruction of homes and violation of intimate life, having absolutely nothing to return to, mass graves and the exhumation and relocation of bodies are specific desecrating acts, which themselves can suggest genocidal intent, combined, these acts go far beyond what international jurisprudence recognize as steps in the process of destruction of the group. And then you add the pain and loss will impact generations to come.
Francesca Albanese
Yes, absolutely.
Chris Hedges
I mean that issue of trauma, and it's just sustained trauma. When I covered Sarajevo, we lasted as functional journalists about three weeks, and then we had to get out and recover before we came back in. The Palestinians can't get out. I can't even begin to imagine and especially the effects on children. What, week after week, month after month, this is doing, I mean, it's almost inconceivable in terms of the trauma that they're enduring.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah. But look, I don't mind to say that this genocide has affected everyone who was looking at it from near and far. Of course, nothing can compare to the Palestinians who have experienced it firsthand, the survivors, or the Palestinians who have watched it broadcast from afar, the Palestinians in exile. Because I think it's a very effective image that of a people as a body. You chop a limb in a body, the entire body suffers. And so for people who have been really victimized for 75 years, and for whom the Nakba, the catastrophe, has never ended. This is not an instance of the past, it has been continuous, ongoing. How much they have suffered, it's undescribable, because it's true, the Palestinians are killed, they are blamed and they're smeared. This poses a question to all of us as societies that have let it happen. Because, Chris, I mean, here we cannot play with words. Those who didn't do anything to prevent this from happening, where either the monsters committed it or the monsters who enabled it. And again, there is something... It's, again, looking at the violence that has been unleashed under our watch against the Palestinians, I don't think that we can, again, I often refer to this as a monstrosity, but also the bureaucrats who have justified it. What have we become as a society? What have we become? Watching the killing, the butchering of 17,000 children. Again, I think something inside me broke at some point this year. I thought I've become desensitized, but I've not. I'm not clearly. I mean, as I hear you, reading parts of the report, I think, oh, my god, yeah, I mean, tears come to my eyes, and I'm the one who wrote that report. Look, we have forced the Palestinians to... we have abandoned the Palestinians in an inferno that was a charge before told. And yeah, Palestinians will bear the scars, will carry the scars, will carry the scars of this, and will carry the shame. This should have not happened, especially because of what the West is, how it has affirmed itself internationally for its soft power and its cradle in human rights and in an international law based order, we have lost our credibility. But we shouldn't have let it happen, especially because we failed to prevent and the genocide in Rwanda, in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And more than anything else, we are the ones who have perpetrated genocides against colonial people and even against our own people because the Jewish people who were killed, were exterminated, were genocided during the Holocaust, were our people. So again, this shows us that we have not improved at all from where we were 80, 90 years ago, and all the more now we have let it happen with an international legal framework, which was perfectly fine to identify and stop it.
Chris Hedges
Well, I think of all of the Holocaust studies programs which exist in almost every university, and I watch what's happening in Gaza, and my only conclusion is that they've learned nothing.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah, I agree with you. But you know, Chris, I realized this this year, there is such a disconnect among people, including my generation. I mean, I grew up... this is why I mean, now it pained me a lot when they started accusing me of antisemitism. It's something so revolting. Antisemitism is revolting, and so be accused of antisemitism makes no sense whatsoever for who I am, but especially because I grew up with this profound immersion in what the Holocaust had been. Because this was part of my upbringing, from school, but also from my family. I mean, I grew up in a family who educated me to basic values. And the thing is that I realized that we have confused the whole or we have reduced the Holocaust to the experience of the concentration camps or the concentration comes, but, in fact, the Holocaust, it was a culmination of it. The genocide was a culmination of a process that had started with the normalization of the demonization of the Jewish people. The fact that they could be kicked out of professions and their homes and every space that had they had called life simply because they were Jewish. And we, if we don't understand the racial element that characterized, the racial discrimination that characterized what we have done to the Jewish people, we cannot understand what is still to be addressed and to be eradicated in our societies, which is racism, it's still there.
Chris Hedges
Well also, as Primo Levi pointed out that the real evil is not external, it's within us. We can all, as as Levi writes, become Chaim Rumkowski, the Jewish head of the Łódź ghetto, who worked in service with the Nazis. I want to get into some of the specifics, because you lay it out and it is hard to read. It's just devastating, but I think people need to hear. It. Let's begin with Gaza. You write, in recent months, 83% of food aid was prevented from entering Gaza and the civilian police in Rafah were repeatedly targeted in pairing distribution. By repeatedly targeted, let's be clear, they were shot by the Israelis. At least 34 deaths from malnutrition were recorded by 14 September 2024. At the time of writing, Prime Minister Netanyahu was evaluating a plan to block all food supplies to Northern Gaza, which, of course, has come to fruition, proposed by advisor Giora Eiland, who previously endorsed introducing epidemics as a military tactic, the killing of civilian police and clan leadership providing security for food distribution, further compounded the crisis in Gaza. This is a targeted destruction of the remnants of any kind of civil administration.
Francesca Albanese
Yes, yes. In the last months we have seen and we continue to see the destruction of any remnants of life in in Gaza, where the possibility to continue to live, to have life in Gaza. Again, I think that what I tried to do in the report, because I am very limited in terms of word count, so I could only write 10,000 words. And so I had to provide a bird's eye picture. But I I looked at patterns, at the massacres that have been committed, and food is one of the most telling stories. You can have various stories, various ways to tell this genocide, but the way food has been destroyed in Gaza. Gaza had, as you know because you have been there, farmland, which was cultivated with love and care by Gaza farmers. And it had boats to fish despite Israeli restrictions in accessing the sea, this has been destroyed. Bakeries and other areas where food could be produced have been targeted. Humanitarian aid has been denied, and when it has been approved, it has been extremely limited, and even when it entered, it was targeted, so people were meant to be starved. Then, I don't know if you remember this video that was circulated in February by the Israeli army, around the time of the flour massacre, where Palestinians were gathering to collect bags of flour and the Israeli army targeted the crowds. There was this video which was circulated that depicted, it was very interesting the way the video portrayed the Palestinians as small, black points, they look like ants, and even I felt like there is something wrong with it. It was meant to elicit a sort of disgust toward the Palestinians. It's been brutal, this has been brutal. Again, I let the dust settle and we will have the full picture of what Israel has done, and the Israelis will be shamed forever. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm concerned. I'm very concerned with Israelis as well, because I do believe that they are victims of some sort, especially... and I don't want to justify, someone who cannot justify what they have done but they've been indoctrinated for decades to see the Palestinians as the enemy, the ones who had caused their extermination. And this is a fact that the Jewish people are traumatized because they've been persecuted for centuries, and the Holocaust was the culmination of that persecution. So there is something that probably it's an intergenerational trauma that has changed the way these people function and see the world. So they are prone to see an existential threat outside for them, I don't blame them for this. I blame Israeli governments, who have, as Nurit Peled says, contributed to dehumanize the Palestinians through school programs, through media narratives, through the political discourse, and they don't see the Palestinians as human. This is why they can kill women and children and elderly persons with no spite.
Chris Hedges
Well, Ilan Pappé wrote a book about that process of indoctrination several years ago. I want to talk about, as you do in the report, the Israeli torture camps. You write, thousands have disappeared. Many, after being detained in appalling conditions, often bound to beds, blindfolded and in diapers, deprived of medical treatment, subject to unsanitary conditions, starvation, torturous cuffing, severe beatings, electrocution and sexual assault by both humans and animals. At least 48 detainees have died in custody, and of course, as we speak, thousands, certainly hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians are being detained and subject to these conditions in northern Gaza, especially in Jabalia.
Francesca Albanese
Yes, we have seen in the last hours new trucks of the Israeli army loaded with half-naked Palestinians, a scene that we had seen already earlier this year, Palestinian men of different ages. You know, when it comes to arrest and detention, which is a topic that has been very dear to me as a lawyer, as I was there in Palestine. And it was shocking to me, this the easiness that Israelis had to arrest and detain Palestinians, but really for things that were basic instances of life. And this is why, when I became a special rapporteur, my second report was about arrest and detention. I've spoken of a mass incarceration governance. So it was already there, and it was quite prosecutorial toward the Palestinians. So arrest and detentions were used in a criminal way, as in a widespread and systematically arbitrary fashion before October. What has happened after October 2023, it's incredibly telling of the destructive intent that Israel has had. Because look, let's assume for a second that Israel had the right to conduct a war in Gaza and well, there are rules, including wars, and so people cannot be killed if they do not pose an imminent threat. If there is a suspicion of crimes, they have to be investigated and prosecuted before being deprived of their freedom. This doesn't apply to the Palestinians, but let's [inaudible] admit that Israel had the right to arrest all those who had been arrested in Gaza and have been detained in appalling, appalling conditions. But what about the Palestinians in the West Bank? What did they have to do with what happened in Gaza? This is why I say, we need to look at the totality of conduct against the totality of the people. Because there was no Hamas military commander in the West Bank fighting the Israelis. Of course, there was also armed resistance, but because there is an unlawful, protracted occupation will generate resistance. The thing is that most of the Palestinians who were being arrested and detained, including children, and put in despicable, despicable conditions, much worse than what it was already pretty horrific for [inaudible] were from the West Bank. So this is why I say, look, there is no justification. And another thing that struck me is that I started receiving reports from individuals of instances of torture and abuses, serious abuses in detention as early as January and, together with other special rapporteurs, I investigated a number of these cases, but then as of February and March, reports started to be circulated by UNRWA, and then PCATI (Public Committee Against Torture in Israel), an Israeli organization, and then B’Tselem, which unveiled the system of the torture network that that exists in Israel. And then remember one of the lawyers who had interviewed Palestinians who had been released from arrests and detention told me, I've never seen I mean, it's very humiliating for a Palestinian, like in general, there is a cultural element, to talk about ****. And this time it was no, it was different. They were really desperate to tell what they had endured, and denouncing **** as it had been used against them and others. So it has broken the taboo that you cannot talk about **** because it's been used in a widespread and systemic fashion.
Chris Hedges
That was true in Bosnia too, Srebrenica. I want to talk about the West Bank. You talk about, you call it, the risk of genocide in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. The devastation inflicted on Gaza is now metastasizing to the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. In December 2023, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant predicted that when what the IDF did in Gaza becomes clear, that will be projected on Judea and Samaria, that's a settlers term for the West Bank. Between the seventh of October 2023 and September 2024, Israeli forces carried out more than 5,505 raids. Violent settlers supported by Israeli forces and officials conducted 1,084 attacks killing over 692 Palestinians, 10 times the previous 14 years. Annual average of 69 fatalities and injuring 5,199 people. The pattern of targeting children is shocking. Since the seventh of October, 169 Palestinian children have been killed, nearly 80% of whom were shot in the head or torso. This represents a 250% increase on the previous nine months, totaling more than 20% of the children killed in the West Bank since 2000. Echoing the brutality that swept Gaza, Palestinians in the West Bank have been subjected to appalling detention practices following orders by National Security Minister Ben-Gvir, a mass arrest campaign led to the detention of tens of thousands, with 9,400 currently detained. As in Gaza, many are academics, students, lawyers, journalists and human rights defenders designated as terrorists or national security threats. Leaked videos and interviews with prison officials revealed intentional and systematic abuse and brutality, degradation, torture and even ****. At least 12 detainees from the West Bank died as a result of torture and denial of medical care. I want to ask about the West Bank, because I think it's often overlooked. I was just in Ramallah and visiting my friend, the novelist Atef Abu Saif, in July, and the day before I got there, the Israelis had come in to Ramallah, which is technically part of the—I think it's now 19% of the West Bank that the Palestinians under Oslo are supposedly allowed to administer without Israeli occupation or interference—and they had come in and burned the money transfer shops, the shops by which Palestinians received money from abroad. And when I left Atef and I came in through the King Hussein Bridge in Jordan, I asked him, for those of us on the outside, what's the most important thing, other than speaking out, that we can do, materially, to help? And he said, food and clothing. So I'd like you to speak about the West Bank and what's happening, because I think it's often overlooked, and as your report makes very clear, all of the tactics that are familiar in Gaza are being accelerated on the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank.
Francesca Albanese
Absolutely, I think that it's important to bear in mind that while our eyes have been fixated with no result, I mean, nothing has stopped the genocide, but have been fixated on Gaza, the situation in the West Bank has deteriorated dramatically. And it's clear from the facts that I reported, that you kindly read, what has happened is that before October 7, what I thought might happen was a total collapse of the possibility of the Palestinians to live in the West Bank and therefore to explode against the occupation. I don't think that the Palestinians had the capacity to initiate another Intifada because of the matrix of control, because of the tight level of oppression over them.
Chris Hedges
Let me just interrupt Francesca, because for people who don't understand, what Israel has done in the West Bank is encircle completely through settlements, closed military zones, special roads, all this kind of... They've encircled Palestinian enclaves, essentially cutting themselves... and when you say they can't resist the same way, unlike Gaza, which is contiguous, what they've created in the West Bank are kind of completely surrounded Bantustan, and they can choke it off. So for me to go from the King Hussein Bridge, from Jordan up to Ramallah, it should take an hour. It takes four hours because you can't move. There's constant Israeli checkpoints. And those checkpoints, people are terrified, because they're flying checkpoints,they're not permanent, they just suddenly appear, and then people are hauled from their cars and they disappear and etc. So, when you talk about the inability of the Palestinians to build any kind of resistance, I think that's an important point.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah and look, in my personality report on arbitrary arrest and detention, I said the overall Occupied Palestinian Territory is like a panopticon, a prison controlled from outside and from within, and it does very much the aesthetics and the features of a large prison, it's not just Gaza. So for those who have less experience than us in Palestine, the Occupied Palestinian Territory is totally fragmented. Yes, there is Gaza [which] was being isolated, but it's a contiguous area, like Chris was saying, and then the West Bank is an area fully controlled, fully controlled by the Israelis, because even in the areas, the Palestinian Authority has authority only in towns and cities. But even there, the Israelis conduct military operations and raids all the time. And outside of these areas, the Israeli army is ever present, and the settlers are the ones who control and who determine the security needs for the settlers and also the army in the areas. There are red lines that Palestinians, of course, cannot see, cannot know of, but if they're crossed, the settlers would call the army, and the army would arrest the Palestinians for simply walking on their land, land that the settlers think is theirs by divine decree. And you know this land, imagine for the Palestinians, why, the reason why, Chris, you call it bantustans, is that, yes, the Palestinians lived in these pockets of land that are separated from each other, from areas. The land controlled directly by settlers and soldiers, 400 kilometers of segregated roads, meaning roads that the Palestinians cannot even get into, and on the roads that they can use, there are more than 500 fixed checkpoints, and then hundreds of flying checkpoints. And then there is digital surveillance and gates, again, the aesthetic of the prison. And then there is also another part of control. The Israelis cannot do anything from building a house, going to a university, traveling...
Chris Hedges
You mean the Palestinians. Palestinians cannot. You said the Israelis cannot, the Palestinians cannot.
Francesca Albanese
Thank you. And on top of this, there is another layer of oppression and physical and mental restriction, because the Palestinians cannot do anything without the Army's authorization. They cannot build their home. They cannot get married. They cannot have a wedding or organize a vigil. They cannot open a business. They cannot travel abroad. They cannot change residents without the Army's authorization. And the Army doesn't give permits. For example, of all the building permits that Palestinians apply for, 1% is authorized. The rest is denied, which means that the Palestinians often build, for example, without permits. And this leads to demolition. Israel has demolished, until October 2023, 60,000 civilian infrastructures outside situation of conflict, meaning it doesn't account for the homes destroyed in Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2023. There had been five major wars against Gaza before October 7, so the situation was devastating. And in West Bank, it was close to explode, because since this new government coalition came on board, they have advanced the annexation of what remains of Palestinian land and annexation meaning acquiring, I mean claiming title over the land that is not yours through the use of force, which is prohibited. So Israel, with this coalition government has advanced annexation of Palestinian land and forced displacement of the Palestinians, further repression of Palestinians. 460 Palestinians had been killed in the 16 months prior to October 7. I have been a special rapporteur. 460 Palestinians and 60 Israelis. So this is why the situation was untenable, and in the West Bank is the settler colonial frontier, it's where...
Chris Hedges
700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank.
Francesca Albanese
Correct and this is something that your audience needs to think about. The reason why there is so much insecurity and so much violence in the occupied Palestinian territory, and for the Palestinians, if I had to point to one element, is the colonies. Israel has built 300 colonies, 300 settlements, [inaudible] which are illegal under international law. They constitute a war crime in and of itself, and now they are home to 300,000 settlers, Jewish Israelis, who live in occupied land. So they are part of a criminal endeavor. And therefore, you know, the situation was already worth investigation and prosecution by the International Criminal Court and others before October 7, but Israel has benefited and profited from an impunity that has intoxicated it, intoxicated its officials, and unfortunately, intoxicated its society, convincing them that they could really treat the Palestinians as disposable.
Chris Hedges
I want to close by talking about, which is in your report, the signs of permanent annexation by Israel in both Gaza, in the West Bank, but in particularly in Gaza. You write, according to satellite imagery and other sources, Israeli soldiers have built roads and military bases in over 26% of Gaza, suggesting the aim of a permanent presence. The Israeli military expanded the buffer zone along the Gaza perimeter to 16% of the territory, flattening homes, apartment blocks and agricultural farms by August 2024. Repeated evacuation orders over approximately 84% of Gaza had corralled the majority of the population into a shrinking, unsafe humanitarian zone covering 12.6% of a territory now reconfigured in preparation for annexation. In early September, two Israeli ministers openly called for conquest and annexation of significant areas of Gaza. I mean, we're seeing it as we speak. In northern Gaza, the effort to drive the last 400,000 Palestinians in northern Gaza out through starvation and brutal attacks on densely populated areas, but you raise, in the report, the signs that they are already beginning a process of annexation in which Palestinians will not return.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah, this is what's happening. But as I was adding the final touches to the report, I wrote about the plan that you evoked, [inaudible] plan to reconquest Gaza. This is not new. I mean, since the very beginning, soldiers have been on record saying we are here to destroy this place and occupy and resettle. So the idea that Gaza was theirs and had to be sort of the object of a reconquista has had a phenomenal impact on the mindset of the Israelis. The point is that Gaza is home, or was home, to 2.3 million Palestinians, and they have nowhere else to go. Actually, 75% of them are not even from Gaza. This is why I hit the roof when I hear people talking about Ghazzawi because they are not Ghazzawi. 75% of them are refugees from modern day Israel and have their family properties mostly in the area of South Israel, Beersheba and, in fact, the kibbutz who have been attacked. Now, I don't think that there is this is the story of that place. So the idea that this can be resolved by kicking out the Palestinians from what remains of Palestine is brutal. But also, again, it comes to mind who, how do you say in Italian, who seeds winds, harvests storm. And this is what Israel is doing.
Chris Hedges
Taken it from the Bible, seeds the wind, reaps the whirlwind. I want to close by asking, it's a legal point you make towards the end of your report. The ongoing genocide is doubtlessly the consequence of the exceptional status and protracted impunity that has been afforded to Israel. Israel has systematically and flagrantly violated international law, including UN Security Council resolutions, International Court of Justice orders. This has emboldened Israel's hubris and defiance of international law, as the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has warned, if we do not demonstrate our willingness to apply the law equally, if it is seen as applied selectively, we will be creating the conditions of its complete collapse. This is the true risk we face at this perilous moment. Talk about that.
Francesca Albanese
Yeah. I think we are already in that uncharted territory. The system that has been built after the Second World War, has been put on a test in Gaza, and it has miserably failed from a humanitarian, political and legal point of view, because nothing has been enough. Nothing has been sufficient to prevent and stop acts of genocide, and even as we speak, these acts continue. But it seems to me, and these are news of the past days, that the sense of impunity and Israel's hubris is not limited to Israel. I mean, even the United States has threatened to defund the United Nations if it takes, the general assembly takes, steps against Israel, because there is, finally, a discussion about suspending Israel from its membership to the General Assembly, but again, not because there are no other states committing violations of international law. But hey, here, first of all, we have a history of a state committing, persevering in violating international law through and through which led me to describe Israel as a persistent violator of international law. Therefore it is to be treated as South Africa was treated at the time of apartheid, but also Israel has committed violations, including preventing the realization of the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people, which is the right to exist as a people. You see the trajectory of the genocide as I say, this has been the dormant gene of the colonial project that Israel has enforced in Palestine, bringing it to its most extreme consequences. Therefore, I do believe that the international community is living in a face of schizophrenia, or probably we are already past that point. Part of the international community has accepted that the system can be sacrificed, that the system which was conceived and devised to protect us all, and it has protected us all, particularly in the West, not the rest, but as in the Global North, have benefited from it. And we will miss human rights very much and the United Nations system very much, multilateralism very much when they will not be there anymore. And now the uncharted territory I was talking about is that we don't know what's going to be next. We have failed the Palestinians, but we have also failed the the humanity that has mobilized to stop the genocide in Gaza. We have seen a critical shock in western democracies that have turned more more aggressive toward their own citizens, toward those protesting against the genocide, whose fundamental freedoms, like freedom of expression and freedom of association, have been curtailed. So you see, I think that there is much more in this moment that we are risking then the already unbearable, unbearable price that the Palestinians are paying. And this is something that should worry all of us, that should make all of us, including those who are completely indifferent to the fate of the Palestinians or the Israelis, and should move them into sacrificing a little bit of their comfort and taking action so that an entire people doesn't have to sacrifice everything they have.
Chris Hedges
Thank you. That was UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese on her latest report on the Occupied Territories. I want to thank Diego [Ramos] Max [Jones], Sofia [Menemenlis] and Thomas [Hedges], who produce the show. You can find me at ChrisHedges.Substack.com.
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/genocide-as-colonial-erasure-w-francesca
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