We Called It Genocide in Guatemala. Why Not in Gaza Too?

[Judi Lynn]

We Called It Genocide in Guatemala. Why Not in Gaza Too?

Even some critics of Israel bristled when its recent attacks on Gaza were called "genocidal." But a closer look reveals disturbing parallels with genocides past.

By Patricia Davis, October 7, 2014.

In Israel’s recent assault on Gaza, 70 percent of those killed were civilians.

Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has accused Israel of genocide. And he has company. The National Lawyers Guild, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the American Jurists Association, and other legal organizations have asked an International Criminal Court prosecutor to investigate Israel for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. A lawsuit filed in federal court in Buenos Aires also accuses Israel of genocide.

The accusation has outraged many. As historian Deborah Lipstadt puts it, “People might totally disagree with all aspects of Israeli policy towards the Palestinians—including those in Gaza—but to call this a genocide is to distort both what was done to Jews during World War II and what is being done to Palestinians today.” According to Lipstadt, “Calling what was done in Gaza a genocide is to use the Holocaust memory, symbolism, and imagery for political purposes.”

Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, is no proponent of the “g” word either. “What Israel is doing is bad enough,” he wrote, “without trying to fit it into a category which brings up memories of real genocides—the attempt of the Nazis to wipe out every Jew and every gay person and every gypsy, the attempt of American settlers to wipe out every Native American, etc.” But genocide does not require an attempt to eliminate an entire people. It requires an intent to destroy a population “in whole or in part.” And mass annihilations of the kind Lerner mentions are not the only genocides on record.

A more relevant comparison is the Guatemalan army’s genocide of Mayan indigenous people. For decades, Guatemala was engaged in a long, asymmetric war against a small guerrilla army that, like Hamas, never presented a serious threat to the ultimate power structure and emerged in response to inequality and dispossession. Last year a court in Guatemala ruled that former Guatemalan general Efraín Ríos Montt was responsible for genocide when the army he commanded killed 1,771 Ixil Mayans, wiping out 5.5 percent of the Ixil Maya population in 17 months.

More:
http://fpif.org/called-genocide-guatemala-gaza/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=called-genocide-guatemala-gaza

[gopiscrap]

1. No kidding. I totally agree.

Fucking Israel hides behind the US and pulls all sorts of criminal shit!

[elias7]

9. This vulgar and random statement is beneath you

If you want to have an intelligent discussion... Oh wait, nevermind.

[oberliner]

2. Guatemala

Working methodically across the Mayan region, the army and its paramilitary teams, including 'civil patrols' of forcibly conscripted local men, attacked 626 villages. Each community was rounded up, or seized when gathered already for a celebration or a market day. The villagers, if they didn't escape to become hunted refugees, were then brutally murdered; others were forced to watch, and sometimes to take part. Buildings were vandalised and demolished, and a 'scorched earth' policy applied: the killers destroyed crops, slaughtered livestock, fouled water supplies, and violated sacred places and cultural symbols.

Children were often beaten against walls, or thrown alive into pits where the bodies of adults were later thrown; they were also tortured and raped. Victims of all ages often had their limbs amputated, or were impaled and left to die slowly. Others were doused in petrol and set alight, or disembowelled while still alive. Yet others were shot repeatedly, or tortured and shut up alone to die in pain. The wombs of pregnant women were cut open. Women were routinely raped while being tortured. Women - now widows - who lived could scarcely survive the trauma: 'the presence of sexual violence in the social memory of the communities has become a source of collective shame'.

http://www.ppu.org.uk/genocide/g_guatemala1.html

[Judi Lynn]

4. Our own corporate media was more than willing to cover it all up for US American citizens.

They didn't want us to worry too much, while we financed this evil.

The last paragraph of your article is useful:

Throughout the period of the genocide, the USA continued to provide military support to the Guatemalan government, mainly in the form of arms and equipment. The infamous guerrilla training school, the School of the Americas in Georgia USA, continued to train Guatemalan officers notorious for human rights abuses; the CIA worked with Guatemalan intelligence officers, some of whom were on the CIA payroll despite known human rights violations. US involvement was understood to be strategic - or, put another way, indifferent to the fate of a bunch of Indians - in the wider context of the Cold War and anti-Communist action.

Words really fail to approach this subject successfully. Too hideous to adequately condemn.

[newfie11]

8. Thank you for adding this

Most Americans have no idea that we had any involvement in it.

[oberliner]

34. There is no comparison

It is shameful for those who know better to try to link the two.

[King_David]

36. +1

Shameful but not surprising.

[Scootaloo]

3. It's not genocide because calling it genocide hurts the feelings of syndicated pundits

[tech3149]

5. Why not indeed?

The standard argument seems to be that Palestinians and Israeli Jews have lived (no matter the conditions) side by side for decades. That is supposed to indicate that any aggression toward Palestinians could not be genocide. But does genocide need to be defined as an immediate, aggressive elimination of a people?
Could it not also be a prolonged systematic elimination not through just direct killing but elimination of life sustaining resources that have the same effect?
Why does a settler have a wonderful in ground swimming pool while his Arab neighbor have no or little access to clean drinking water?
The whole situation is beyond FUBAR but it was all engineered for at least the last century. The unintended consequences of short term thinking and the long term effects.
Some days I think we will never learn and that might be for the best.

[Jefferson23]

6. Recommend. Thank you, Judi Lynn. n/t

[MisterP]

7. Israel was actually deeply involved in Guatemala since Laugerud García

Ríos Montt's "hamlet resettlement" plan was modeled on the web of IDF-garrisoned villages and Palestinian informers and "assets" in the West Bank (1967) and then Lebanon (1982)

[Scuba]

10. K&R

[hack89]

11. There is a clue in your post

wiping out 5.5 percent of the Ixil Maya population in 17 months.

The Palestinian population has steadily grown and has never declined.

[DanTex]

12. The fact that Palestinian population has grown is irrelevant.

If anything, what matters is whether it has grown as much as it would have if not for Israeli policies. But even that isn't necessarily relevant. Here's a definition from Wiki:

Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide

The question is, has Israel been engaging in "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves."

[hack89]

13. War is tough on societies

especially when you are waging it from a small crowded urban enclave. Hamas feels obligated to liberate all of Palestine through violence. Israel, for some reason, is not willing to cooperate.

The Palestinians are not the first desperate people to place their hopes and future in the hands of leaders that will lead them to nothing but despair and destruction.

[DanTex]

14. Sure, but that has nothing to do with the "genocide" question.

The question is whether Israeli policy of the last 70 years, starting with the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba, continuing through occupation and settlements, punctuated with occasional military aggression, amounts to a long-term genocide of the Palestinians or not. It's basically a question of intent.

[hack89]

15. A slow motion conflict with low death tolls and an expanding population strains the definition

if you ask me.

There are mutual aggressors in this fight - the Palestinian intent in regards to Israel is not irrelevant.

[DanTex]

18. I tend to agree that "genocide" is too strong a term.

But I can see why a Palestinian person might see it differently.

[shira]

19. But that's the point. It's to slander, slime, & target Israel....

...like no other nation on the planet. No other nation causes "good people" to go all apeshit more than the Jewish state.

It's mass hate speech, unprecedented in its scale.

[DanTex]

20. Actually, it's a difference of opinion.

The author of this article is an expert on human rights, specifically in Guatemala. It's silly to accuse her of "hate speech" or trying to "slime Israel" just because you disagree with her argument.

[shira]

21. No it's not. Take the Lancet open letter for example...

It very explicitly justifies and defends Hamas terror and war crimes:

People in Gaza are resisting this aggression because they want a better and normal life and, even while crying in sorrow, pain, and terror, they reject a temporary truce that does not provide a real chance for a better future.

Those people in Gaza are Hamas.

Now find me one pro-Palestinian supporter of BDS, here or elsewhere, who says Israel is apartheid, commits genocide, etc....who has or will come out against such a statement. You won't find such an activist here.

Their intentions against Israel are not based on mere concern about innocent life. The intent is clearly malicious.

[DanTex]

22. Well, I don't see it that way. Another difference of opinion.

[shira]

23. Of course you don't. And you cannot justify your position. n/t

[DanTex]

24. Of course I can justify it. I already did, in fact.

This is a human rights expert, she makes a reasonable argument, and there's no basis whatsoever for the accusation of "hate speech" or "sliming Israel."

But, predictably you disagree with my justification. Like I said, another difference of opinion.

[shira]

25. A human rights expert who cannot condemn Hamas rockets, describing the terror org....

...Hamas, never presented a serious threat to the ultimate power structure and emerged in response to inequality and dispossession.

That's not why they emerged. Hamas wants all Jews dead and/or out of that region altogether. They try to kill Jews every opportunity they get. Kinda important stuff, rendering her comparison of Hamas to freedom fighters elsewhere as beyond absurd; insane actually. I'm not sure our 'expert human rights' advocate author is aware of what Hamas is all about, nor whether she cares. Later in the piece she repeats the lie that no evidence exists pointing to Hamas human shields.



It's shameful.

The article is wholesale propaganda, similar to the pro-terror letter the Lancet saw fit to publish. Absolving Hamas, going OTT regarding Israel...

Same shit, different day.

[DanTex]

26. The article isn't about Hamas.

Still, she is right that inequality and dispossession give rise to extremist groups like Hamas.

Your only argument is that everyone who disagrees with you is a hateful anti-semite. Not very persuasive. There are credible rebuttals to the "genocide" argument, but "anti-Israel bias" isn't one of them.

[shira]

27. It never is, is it? Israel's military response cannot be explained reasonably....

....without Hamas' murderous intent and actions. The only reason to keep Hamas out of it is to paint Israel as an irrational monster out to get innocents for no reason. Modern blood-libel.

You're backing the wrong horse.

Wrong side of history...

[DanTex]

28. Some articles are, just not this one.

Virtually everyone agrees (OK, everyone outside of right-wing think tanks) that the Israeli response in this instance was grossly disproportionate. Hamas is not an excuse for everything that Israel has done to Palestinian civilians, no matter how many times you or Bibi repeat the "human shields" mantra.

I'm not sure which "horse" you think I'm backing. Surely not the Hamas horse. But I'm pretty confident that Israel's systematic human rights violations aren't the "right side of history".

[shira]

29. When the civilian to combatant ratio is close to 1:1, which is better....

...than any other WESTERN military fighting in a war for the past century, how do you argue Israel's response to rockets on its own civilians is grossly disproportionate?

http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/10/08/new-research-casts-major-doubt-on-claim-that-vast-majority-of-gaza-casualties-were-civilians/

No other nation would respond in a more 'civil' manner if its civilians were under constant rocket bombardment.

[DanTex]

30. Israel's numbers, right?

I think the UN had the number at 7 in 10 being civilians. I guess it depends on who counts as a terrorist -- according to some, there is no such thing as an innocent civilian in Gaza. Still, the disproportionality I'm talking about is the fact that Israel killed 2000, mostly civilians, made many more homeless, destroyed infrastructure, hospitals, etc. in response to rocket attacks that killed I think 5 people. Rocket attacks, by the way, that didn't start until Israel decided to go around arresting people in the West Bank even when they knew that the teenagers they were supposedly trying to save were already dead, and their intelligence told them that Hamas didn't actually order the kidnappings.

More to the point, the strongest case for "genocide" would not be any individual military incursion, but the overall effect of Israeli policies, starting with the nakba, then the occupation and the settlements, along with the occasional military attacks. The question is whether this rises to the level where it could be called "incremental genocide" or not.

[shira]

31. Israel's numbers were accurate in 2008-09 against competing claims....

The ratio was 1:1 back then despite all the false claims of 7 or 8 of 10 being civilians.

The real question is why would anyone fall for the same bullshit again?

===============

Hamas was shooting rockets WELL before the teenagers were kidnapped, so you're wrong.

===============

Lastly, your explanation for incremental, slow-motion genocide is beyond absurd given the Palestinian growth rate since Israel's inception. It's a moronic argument.

[DanTex]

32. Well, we're gonna have to agree to disagree again.

I think the case for incremental genocide is plausible -- it's got nothing to do with population growth, but with what the Palestinian people have been subjected to. But I think we've been through this all before, and we're not going to come to an agreement.

[oberliner]

16. Israeli policy of the last 70 years?

Israel has not been in existence for 70 years.

The country recently celebrated its 66th birthday.

[DanTex]

17. 70 or so... you know what I meant.

[oberliner]

33. I do now

Interesting that you think that genocide was begun by the Jews who immigrated to Palestine just a year or so after genocide was committed against the Jews of Europe. And that the same term ought to be applied to both what happened to the Jews in Europe and what happened to the Palestinians.

[DanTex]

35. What I think is that it's debatable.

I think it's pretty hard to deny that ethnic cleansing has occurred, but genocide is different.

As the author of the OP points out, the term "genocide" isn't reserved for just the few most horrific crimes in history with millions of casualties like the Nazis, Khmer Rouge, etc.

Do you think the term should be off limits because of the genocide committed by the Nazis? I don't see any evidence whatsoever, for example, that the author of the OP is motivated by anything except for similarities she perceives between the situations in Guatemala and Palestine.

[oberliner]

37. I realize that you think that

The term should not be "off limits" because of the genocide committed by the Nazis. The term should certainly be applied where it is appropriate. I think that some people are desirous to apply the term to Israel even though it is not applicable because of the connection/relationship between the term and Nazi Germany. Surely you have read comments expressing sentiments linking the two (i.e. the oppressed have become the oppressors, etc.). I think any reasonable person who does not have an agenda would conclude that the term is not even remotely applicable in the case of Israel with respect to the Palestinians. And I actually would go so far as to suggest that this comparison with Guatemala emphasizes that point. That is to say, that those circumstances were so radically different as to render any comparison preposterous.

I don't think I am going to find agreement with you on this topic and I am happy to move on from it. Personally, I am not sure what the positive outcome would be of agreeing one way or another would be anyway. What would be the next step?

[DanTex]

38. What do you think motivated the author of this OP?

She served on a Guatamala human rights commission. Obviously she is aware of what happened there. She might be less informed about what happened in Gaza, but she is certainly an expert on human rights who understands the term "genocide" and doesn't use it lightly.

Some people would like to dismiss her article as anti-semitism. I don't think it's that simple. If it were only internet trolls, that would be different. I find it hard to believe that the worlds human rights community is really as biased against Israel as some people argue.

[King_David]

39. What do you think is the motivation for most of the hate toward Israel ?

It cuts all party lines, it interests the extreme right and left. It motivates those that can't bother with any other causes.
The UNHRC devotes most of it's time to it .
DU has it's own group.

The uninvolved are suddenly involved from Greta Berlin to David Duke to the people who used to Save the Wales. Homophobes and Bigots aplenty .

People who have never heard of Guatemala or Darfur or The Congo or Rwanda are all over the Jewish State like a cheap suit .

[DanTex]

40. There is bigotry and hate on both sides of this issue, but that's not what I'm discussing here.

I'm talking about this specific article. What do you think motivates the author? I don't see any signs that it's anti-semitism. She's an expert on human rights violations in Guatemala, she's not some internet troll, and she's not David Duke. Is it possible that she is just another bigot? Sure, same as anyone else. But it really seems that she is simply writing about parallels she sees between Palestine and Guatemala.

[King_David]

41. That was a very reasonable civil response to me,

Thanks . ( really)

[DanTex]

43. Thank you KD.

[shira]

42. There's no evidence she's a bigot. No one claims that here...

She's most likely compromised by her fringe leftwing anti-Israel politics, IMHO. Impervious to facts and reasoning like a religious fanatic.

[DanTex]

44. Honestly, I don't see that either.

I don't know if she's a fringe left-winger. Does your opinion of her also mean you think her assessment of human rights in Guatemala is also suspect? I don't think so.

[shira]

45. It's difficult being accepted among fellow leftists....

....unless a person demonstrates how hostile he/she is towards Israel. Hive mentality. Can't lose that leftist street cred, you know. Last thing a leftist needs is to be considered a lowly zionist apologist.

[DanTex]

46. There's no evidence of that either. To you, anyone with any concern about human rights is a

fringe left-winger. That's because you are passionately devoted to defending a systematic abuser of human rights. It's basically the only way that you can cope with the cognitive dissonance.

[shira]

47. There is if you read her piece. Her diatribe on America....

...mirrors that of the far left and isolationist right.

Do you ever get uncomfortable when your own rhetoric on foreign policy mirrors that of the extreme isolationist right?

[DanTex]

48. Wow. So now you're in favor of US backed death squads in Central America.

And you think the only people opposed to that are the "far left" and "isolationist right". OK then.

[shira]

49. I never said that. Battling straw men is your thing, right? n/t

[DanTex]

50. Yes, but you implied it. In the article she talks about US involvement in Guatemala,

and you claim this proves she is part of the fringe left. I guess to you the "fringe left" is anyone to the left of Ollie North.

[shira]

51. No I didn't. I recognize far left, isolationist right rhetoric.....

....on foreign policy when I see it. That's all I ever meant to say.

I wonder who counts as fringe left in your view, when it's folks like yourself who believe there are no Democrats in power who hold leftwing or liberal views on Israel.

[DanTex]

52. Yes, and to you rhetoric opposing US involvement in Central American atrocities is "far left".

That's my point exactly.

[shira]

54. Sigh. I don't support American atrocities anywhere....

However, I don't support anyone's anti-American advocacy either. There's a proper way to criticize America and then there's a loony way that no one takes seriously and is a waste of time to support.

[DanTex]

55. But that's the only possible interpretation of your accusation.

What would be the "proper way" to criticize American involvement with human rights violations in Central America? The fact that you think the people need to sugar-coat the actions of regimes that the US has supported is even more insight into your right-wing ideology.

[ZombieHorde]

53. The term "genocide" is all about propaganda.

If a many, many people are murdered, does it really matter if they all share one of many identities? I don't think so. The fact that people are being killed is what bothers me, but what bothers me is irrelevant to the situation.

Those who support Palestine will favor the "genocide" label more than those who support Israel, and both sides do this mostly for propaganda reasons.