War on Gaza: Researchers call on Holocaust remembrance centre to condemn genocidal language in Israel
A group of researchers studying the Holocaust called on the leadership of Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust memorial body, to condemn language in Israeli discourse that they say can be construed to be calling for genocide in Gaza against Palestinians.
"Due to the weight of the moral responsibility of modern Jewish history and existence, the study of which we dedicate our lives, we therefore call on Yad Vashem to voice an unequivocal moral voice as soon as possible condemning this discourse of extermination in the strongest possible terms,” the authors wrote.
In addition, they called for Yad Vashem to warn against actions that could be taken “in the spirit of this rhetoric”.
The letter comes as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is set to hold its first hearing of South Africa’s genocide case against Israel on Thursday.
The 84-page lawsuit cites comments by Israeli political leaders and well-known public figures who called for Israel to “erase” Gaza and compared Palestinians to “human animals”.
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In their letter, the researchers cited how Israeli officials and public personalities have made statements similar to those cited by South Africa in its case against Israel.
The South African lawsuit alleges that Israel is inflicting on Palestinians “conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”.
Israel has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians in its aerial bombing campaign and ground assault, with the majority killed being women and children, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Israel's military forces have targeted many types of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, residential neighbourhoods, ambulances, and mosques.
Israel has denied the allegations, which are particularly embarrassing for a country that was created in the aftermath of the WWII Holocaust. Israel is a signatory to the 1948 International Convention against Genocide.
The UN's Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court define genocide as acts "committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".
Yad Vashem has weighed into previous issues where the Jewish Holocaust has been utilised by Israeli officials. In October, the head of Yad Vashem condemned the wearing of a yellow star by Israel's diplomatic mission to the UN.
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