Many politicians and analysts in Europe and Portugal accuse Israel of committing intentional genocide in Palestine. These opinions are expressed at a kind of "little kids' table" and are far from reflecting the truth. The genocide appears to have occurred in Israel after all. Legal scholars, international experts, and organizations argue that the October 7, 2023 massacre in Israel meets the definition of genocide established by the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
Organizations like Genocide Watch issued emergency alerts classifying the attacks as genocidal massacres. Several U.S. and Israeli officials have similarly declared the acts to be genocide rather than standard terrorism. Also an open letter signed by over 240 international legal experts stated that the mass killings, widespread torture, sexual violence, and abductions constituted the crime of genocide. They also point to Hamas's foundational texts, such as its 1988 charter, and statements from its leadership that explicitly call for the elimination of Israel and the killing of Jews.
Under international law, genocide does not require trying to kill an entire population. Legal analysts argue that attempting to systematically eradicate the Jewish and Israeli populations within the targeted "Gaza envelope" communities fulfills the criterion of destroying a group "in part".
United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee repeatedly maintains its claim that Israel could have completed a genocide in a matter of hours if that had been its intention. "There’s no genocide for the simple reason that if it were genocide Israel could have accomplished that in about two and a half hours."
Technically, the ambassador is correct about Israel's raw military destructive capacity. The Gaza Strip is a small, densely populated area, and the Jewish state possesses advanced modern weaponry, air superiority, and heavy artillery that using total, unrestricted force could inflict catastrophic loss of life in a very short time.
Hamas attempted to commit as many assassinations as possible on October 7th. It failed to do more. And it became historically responsible for yet another genocide committed against Jews, mirroring countless others that have occurred throughout the centuries and everywhere, including in Lisbon.
