Leaders | Show trial

Charging Israel with genocide makes a mockery of the ICJ

And it diverts attention from the real humanitarian crisis in Gaza

Protestors attend a pro-Palestinian Cape Town, a city in South Africa.
Photograph: Panos

GENOCIDE IS A uniquely horrific crime. Not because it is the bloodiest: Stalin and Mao killed many more people in gulags and famines than the nearly 6m Jews murdered by the Nazis. But the Holocaust was seen as so monstrous that the UN adopted the Genocide Convention, promising never again to allow an attempt to wipe out a group of people, or part of one, simply because of their nationality, race, religion or ethnicity.

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This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Show trial”

From the January 20th 2024 edition

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