Epigenetic Legacies of Genocide
New Research on the Science of Prosocial Action
On December 29, 2023 the South African government filed a case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague, accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians. In its complaint, South Africa requested that the ICJ order Israel to immediately cease its onslaught against Gaza. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to the racist system of apartheid in South Africa.
A long and deep history burnishes the link between South Africa and Palestine. The African National Congress (ANC), South Africa’s ruling party, originated in 1912 as a liberation movement that fought apartheid from the 1940’s onward. Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s first post-apartheid president, was a vocal supporter of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Days after Mandela’s release from prison in 1990, Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), stood with other world leaders and embraced Mandela, kissing him on both cheeks. Months later, Mandela reciprocated by attending a summit in Algiers wearing the keffiyeh, a Palestinian scarf that symbolizes resistance to Israeli occupation. Many South Africans today feel that Palestinians’ struggle against Israel’s colonialism and apartheid mirrors their own struggle for the right to self-determination.
You might say that people who have suffered under an apartheid system, whether in South Africa, the United States, or Palestine, readily recognize such a system when it occurs in another country.
In its application to the ICJ, South Africa said, “The acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”
The International Criminal Court can prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression. It also has the ability to detain war criminals in the Hague until they can serve out their sentences in one of the countries designated to carry those sentences out.
The United Nations General Assembly established the Genocide Convention in December of 1948 to signify the international community’s commitment to the phrase “Never Again” and in response to the atrocities committed against Jews, Poles, Romani, and disabled people in World War II.
That the Convention would preside over a genocide perpetrated by the very people whose suffering catalyzed its charter is deeply disturbing and almost impossible to metabolize.
This column will home in on the first three clauses of the Genocide Convention and explore surprising new research on the multigenerational effects of genocide.
Article I:
The first article of the Genocide Convention states,
“The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.”
Translation: Article 1 obliges all contracting parties, which is to say 153 states or countries, to prevent genocide—in this case, perpetrated by Israel—against the Palestinian people. The term “prevent” is vital, and signifies the need to stop genocide before it occurs as well as to punish it once it has occurred.
Article II:
The term genocide refers to any of the following acts committed (in this case, by the state of Israel) with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, including:
Killing members of the group
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part (including by starvation)
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group
Here, the key word is intent. Before we get down to Israel’s actions and whether they constitute genocide, let’s address the issue of “intent” to destroy, often the hardest element of genocide to prove.
I’m going to borrow from my piece from two weeks ago, “My Stance on the Israel-Palestine Conflict.”
Craig Mokhiber, United Nations Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, resigned in October over what he termed a “textbook case of genocide.” In his resignation letter to the High Commissioner of the U.N., he wrote:
“As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules. This is a text-book case of genocide.”
One of the problems with establishing the commission of genocide is that doing so often occurs after the fact, and precludes the possibility of preventing it.
Many scholars, activists, and leaders believe that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian people, and furthermore, that the world can’t afford to wait—indeed, is committed not to wait—until Israel has accomplished it to bring charges.
Let’s consider the actions of genocide and the intention to commit genocide.
The Actions of Genocide:
According to an article by NPR and corroborated by multiple other outlets, the Israeli military campaign in Gaza now stands among the deadliest and most destructive in history.
In just over two months, the offensive has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. It has killed more civilians than the U.S.-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Islamic State group.
Major General Ghassan Alian, in charge of administering the siege of Gaza before and during the war, cut off food, water, and fuel, and denied medical care to civilians.
Human Rights Watch recently accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war in Gaza.
Omar Shakir, HW Director for Israel and Palestine, stated, “Look, I think there are about five pieces of very damning evidence that led to this conclusion. One is two plus months of blocking entry of food and water. Second is the blocking of all but a trickle of humanitarian aid from entering into Gaza. Putting it all together, you reach the clear conclusion that the Israeli government is using starvation as a weapon of war, which is an abhorrent war crime.”
The Intentions of Genocide:
Omer Bartov is a renowned historian, professor, and one of the world’s leading scholars of geocide. Bartov said in December,
“The fact of the matter is, of course, that the use of dehumanizing language is one of the first signs of a potential genocide. The Hutu called the Tutsi "cockroaches"; the Nazis called the Jews "vermin." Nor have Israeli political leaders and military leaders confined themselves to calling Hamas members "human animals," but have repeatedly spoken in ways that dehumanize, and indicate a desire by some to destroy Gaza and even remove its population as a whole.”
Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right minister of the police, recently stated, "Encouraging the residents of Gaza to emigrate is a solution we must advance.” Whether forced or voluntary, deportation is a removal of children and civilians to another group of people, which meets the definition of genocide.
On January 2 of 2024, the Times of Israel reported that two of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right partners endorsed the rebuilding of settlements in the Gaza Strip. They also called for the encouraging of “voluntary emigration” of Palestinians.
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich presented the migration of Palestinian civilians as a solution to the long-running conflict and as a pre-requisite to the safety and stability Israel desires. The war presents an “opportunity to concentrate on encouraging the migration of the residents of Gaza,” Ben Gvir told reporters and members of his far-right Otzma Yehudit party, calling such a policy “a correct, just, moral and humane solution.”
“The ‘correct solution’ to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to encourage the voluntary migration of Gaza’s residents to countries that will agree to take in the refugees,” Smotrich told members of his Religious Zionism party, predicting that “Israel will permanently control the territory of the Gaza Strip,” including through the establishment of settlements.
Netanyahu’s cabinet has publicly stated that they are in talks with other countries who they hope will agree to receive Palestinian refugees.
In the Jerusalem Post, Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel of the far-right Likud party wrote of the possibility of advancing the “voluntary resettlement of Palestinians in Gaza, for humanitarian reasons, outside of the Strip.”
It must be said: The humanitarian reasons Gamilel refers to point directly to Israel’s refusal to admit food, water, fuel, medical care, and aid to Gaza.
On New Year’s Day, Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Lieberman called for Israel to reoccupy southern Lebanon, saying that the country must “pay in territory” for damage caused by Hezbollah strikes on Israel’s northern towns. Lieberman stated that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) should “close off” a section of southern Lebanon and push Hezbollah north of the Litani River, even if it means occupying (!) the area for the next fifty years.
And that’s just the plans for so-called “voluntary” emigration. Let’s talk about the plans for destruction.
Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said that it was "an option" to "nuke Gaza."
Israel President Isaac Herzog said, “There are no innocent civilians in Gaza.”
Israel Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says there is “No such thing as Palestinians, because there is no such thing as the Palestinian people.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel; we are fighting human animals.”
An Israeli lawmaker from Netanyahu’s Likud party, Galit Distel Atbaryan, wrote on social media, “Erase Gaza from the face of the earth. Let the Gazan monsters rush to the southern border and flee into Egypt, or die.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently said, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you.” He refers to the Old Testament passage in which God commands King Saul, in the first Book of Samuel, to kill every person in Amalek, a rival nation. Samuel commands Saul, “Attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.” And that, indeed, is what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.
Another Likud MP, Boaz Bismuth, is quoted as evoking the biblical massacre of the Amalek nation, enemies of ancient Israel. “It is forbidden to take mercy on the cruel, there’s no place for any humanitarian gestures,” he said with reference to Gaza, then added the biblical reference: “The memory of Amalek must be erased.”
MP Yitzhak Kroizer said in a radio interview: “The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and for all of them there is but one sentence, and that is death.”
Tally Gotliv, from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, demanded the prime minister use a nuclear bomb on Gaza for “strategic deterrence,” saying, “Before we consider inserting ground troops, doomsday weapon.”
Journalist Zvi Yehezkeli said on Channel 13: “[We] should have killed many times 20,000 people, [we] should have begun with a blow of 100,000.”
And on December 17th, the Jerusalem Post featured an article that quoted David Azoulai, head of Israel’s Metula Council, who said: “The entire Gaza Strip should be emptied and leveled flat, just like in Auschwitz. Let it become a museum, showcasing the capabilities of the state of Israel and dissuading anyone from living in the Gaza Strip. This is what must be done to give them a visual representation.
Other high-ranking Israeli officials have also made public statements, expressing their goal of depriving Gaza of access to food, water and fuel.
And Mother Jones reported recently that forty-seven percent of Israeli Jews said in a poll conducted last month that Israel should “not at all” consider the “suffering of the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza” in its next phase of fighting.
And on January 3, 2024, a group of prominent Israelis accused the country’s judicial authorities of ignoring “extensive and blatant” incitement to genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza by influential public figures.
In a letter to the attorney general and state prosecutors, they demanded action to stop the normalisation of language that breaks both Israeli and international law.
“For the first time that we can remember, the explicit calls to commit atrocious crimes, as stated, against millions of civilians have turned into a legitimate and regular part of Israeli discourse,” they write. “Today, calls of these types are an everyday matter in Israel.”
Signatories to the letter included one of Israel’s top scientists, academics, former diplomats, former members of the Knesset, journalists, and activists. Represented by the human rights lawyer Michael Sfard, their 11-page letter contains multiple examples of “the discourse of annihilation, expulsion and revenge”.
The list of elite Israelis who have incited war crimes includes cabinet ministers and Knesset members, former top military officials, academics, media figures, social media influencers, and celebrities.
In tandem with their incitement to genocide, Israel’s government has been cracking down on Israeli citizens who they interpret as dissenting with their views or as “supporting Hamas.” By late November, authorities had opened 269 investigations and filed 86 indictments.
“The gap between that and the freedom and impunity for those who advocate all kinds of things—ethnic cleansing, killing civilians, bombarding civilian areas, and even genocide—doesn’t square up,” said Sfard, “and that’s something for the authorities to explain.”
Article III:
The convention states,
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
I’ve highlighted complicity in genocide. On November 1, 2023, the Defence for Children International accused the United States of complicity with Israel's "crime of genocide." That was well before President Biden went over the approval of Congress to send two tranches of aid to Israel. Other countries and signatories to the Genocide Convention will follow the DCI.
One note: A key issue with the U.N. General Assembly and the International Criminal Court is since its inception in 2002, the court has tried heads of state and other parties to genocide after a genocide has occurred, which does not take action to pevent it. Such heads of state include Saddam Hussein, Liberian President Charles Taylor, Kosovar President Hashim Thaci, and others. Former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic was tried for crimes of genocide, but died in jail before he could be convicted.
It's easy to understand that preventing genocide saves lives.
And that is essential: Israel has killed over 21,000 Palestinian civilians in less than three months, nearly half of them children. A comparable amount of U.S. deaths is 2.5 million people. And Israel has caused the displacement of 1.8 million Palestinians. These numbers, if we can even pause to take them in, are shocking and devastating.
In December of 2023, the United Nations concluded that “genocide is already happening in Gaza.”
But that’s not all; doing so can preserve or salvage relationships between groups of people many generations into the future.
The Social Legacy of Genocide:
An emerging body of research, still controversial but documented in highly respected journals, examines the epigenetic legacy of trauma—the way, in the words of scientists Rachel Yehuda and Amy Lehrner, it gets under the skin of future generations. The field of epigenetics explores how trauma orchestrates variations not in the DNA or genetic code, but in gene expression or suppression that can echo for multiple generations.
One of the most striking new findings in epigenetics pertains to prosocial qualities like empathy that are biologically derived and, it seems, transmissible.
Humans and other mammals have a built-in capacity for empathy: We feel the emotions—joy, fear, anger, sadness, pain—of others. Seeing someone in pain triggers an empathic response that we process through our own pain system. This response is wired into us; it’s part of what it means to be connected. But what happens to that response when we ourselves are the instruments of someone else’s pain, or when they become the agents of our suffering?
Emerging research suggests that collective traumas such as enslavement, genocide, land theft, famine, and ongoing racial oppression have transgenerational effects that are not just biological, but social.
Emilie Caspar and a team of researchers at the Moral and Social Brain Lab in Belgium conducted a study of former genocide perpetrators and survivors in Rwanda and their children. Both perpetrators and survivors experienced a reduced neural response to the pain of the other group; the same attenuation in empathy occurred in the group members’ offspring. The higher the number of stressors participants experienced, the lower their response to others’ pain—remarkably, even to the pain of children in their own social group. Notably, the decision to pursue reconciliation efforts correlated strongly with a higher neural empathic response to pain.
And in a follow-up study, Caspar’s team examined prosocial behavior, the kind of actions that help others. They studies the same groups of people in Rwanda: genocide perpetrators, genocide survivors, and their children. They found that survivors and their children selected former perpetrators (and their children) less often for their prosocial intentions than they did members of their own group. Furthermore, selecting perpetrators created a cognitive conflict. The researchers found a similar bias in the children of both survivors and former perpetrators, mirroring that of their parents.
As the world attempts to prevent Israel’s genocide of Palestinians (and, we can hope, other genocides), one thing is clear: Acting early, and with conviction, will not only save countless lives.
It may help to preserve the chances for a peaceful coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.
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If you’ve missed my other pieces on the conflict, check out the following:
My stance on the Israel-Palestine Conflict
A “Talking Points” guide to the Israel-Palestine Conflict
An article about the children of Gaza
A stunning interview on Israel-Palestine with Gabor and Hannah Mate
A piece on Israel’s indiscriminate destruction of Palestine’s olive trees
A column on the making of refugees
Sources:
On December 29, 2023 the South African government filed a case: Ioanes, E. (2023, December 31). South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, explained. Vox. https://www.vox.com/world-politics/24019720/south-africa-israel-genocide-case-gaza-hamas-palestinians
Months later, Mandela reciprocated that support by attending: Dall, N. (n.d.). Unpack the past: When Nelson Mandela wore the Palestinian keffiyeh. Al Jazeera. Retrieved January 2, 2024, from https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/12/5/unpack-the-past-mandela-the-keffiyeh-and-south-africas-palestine-embrace
Article 1 of the Genocide Convention obliges all contracting parties: South Africa Files Genocide Case Against Israel at International Court of Justice. (n.d.). Democracy Now! Retrieved January 2, 2024, from https://www.democracynow.org/2024/1/2/south_africa_israel_genocide_icj
In December, Bartov said: Bartov, O. (2023, December 6). Massacre doesn’t justify massacre: Israel, Gaza and war crimes. Haaretz. https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-12-06/ty-article-opinion/.premium/massacre-doesnt-justify-massacre-israel-gaza-and-war-crimes/0000018c-3585-d55e-adbf-7fd7c8900000
And on January 3, 2024, a group of prominent Israelis accused the country’s judicial authorities: Graham-Harrison, E., & Kierszenbaum, Q. (2024, January 3). Israeli public figures accuse judiciary of ignoring incitement to genocide in Gaza. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/03/israeli-public-figures-accuse-judiciary-of-ignoring-incitement-to-genocide-in-gaza
Times of Israel reported that two of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right partners endorsed: Sokol, S. (n.d.). Far-right ministers call to ‘resettle’ Gaza’s Palestinians, build settlements in Strip. Retrieved January 2, 2024, from https://www.timesofisrael.com/ministers-call-for-resettling-gazas-palestinians-building-settlements-in-strip/
Emilie Caspar and a team of researchers at the Moral and Social Brain Lab in Belgium conducted a study: Caspar, E. A., Pech, G. P., Gishoma, D., & Kanazayire, C. (2023). On the impact of the genocide on the intergroup empathy bias between former perpetrators, survivors, and their children in Rwanda. The American psychologist, 78(7), 825–841. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001066
And in a follow-up study, Caspar’s team examined prosocial behavior: Pech, G. P., Gishoma, D., & Caspar, E. A. (2023). A novel electroencephalography-based paradigm to measure intergroup prosociality: An intergenerational study in the aftermath of the genocide against Tutsis in Rwanda. Journal of experimental psychology. General, 10.1037/xge0001480. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0001480
What Israel is doing is horrifying, even more so because they are doing what was done to THEM and the Holocaust is within living memory.
Again, another excellent article. Thank you for educating me and hopefully others.