Genocide, a taboo word to describe the annihilation of Gaza?

It's a word that stirs up passions. It can shatter a conversation into a thousand pieces, or freeze it immediately. In mid-May, a high school student from Blois (Loir-et-Cher) used the term "genocide" in class to describe what the Israeli government is inflicting on the people of Gaza .

Élisabeth Badinter, visiting the school that bears her husband's name, immediately feels dizzy. "Do we let him talk?" she asks indignantly, according to Mag'Centre . The student retreats into silence. The debate will not take place, as the word is so taboo. "It was invented during the Second World War. It provokes extremely strong emotions and summons up enormous pain. It is the word that has been placed on the unspeakable, on the crime of crimes. It is strongly linked to the Holocaust , and also to the most monstrous, barbaric and cruel genocides known to history, such as that of the Armenians and that of the Tutsis in Rwanda . That is why there is modesty in using it," notes Roland Gori.

The essayist and psychoanalyst did not immediately raise it regarding the situation in Gaza. "There is a gap between the acceptance of this word, which for many means the organized will to annihilate an entire people, and its definition in international law, which retains "the intention to destroy, in whole or in part, a group", notably via "serious attack on physical or mental integrity" and "intentional infliction of conditions of life calculated to bring about its total or partial physical destruction". From this point of view, it seems obvious to me that the Israeli government, which bombs and starves the Gazans, is engaged in a genocidal process. And this is all the more so because it is struck by a lack of empathy and a form of dehumanization towards the Palestinians."

If views on the word are evolving, as evidenced by the columns signed by more and more personalities over the months, it is also because the nature of the conflict has evolved. In June 2024, the journalist and historian Didier Epelbaum estimated, in Marianne, that "one would have to be particularly credulous not to see that this accusation of genocide is part of the arsenal of Hamas and its allies, that it is a legal missile intended to explode the legitimacy of Israel."

He added that "this is the worst kind of war because Hamas is practicing the human shield strategy, prohibited by the Geneva Convention. On a scale never seen before." This idea that Israel, in retaliation for the massacres of October 7, 2023, was waging war with moderation and lamenting the so-called collateral victims, was, however, undermined as Benjamin Netanyahu continually announced new war objectives , destroying Gaza and its inhabitants more and more.

There is thus today both an injunction to use the word genocide, on the grounds that to refuse it would be to minimize or deny what is happening in Gaza, and an injunction not to use it, on the grounds that it would represent a distortion of reality, in addition to weakening the word. Or even to constitute an insult to the victims of the Holocaust. "The word 'genocide' causes a kind of psychological short-circuit in international public opinion, because it touches the backbone of human conscience: how could the descendants of the victims of the Holocaust commit one?" analyzes Vincent Lemire in l'Obs.

The historian adds: "Regarding Gaza, as a historian, I speak of a "war of eradication," in the etymological sense, because it is indeed a matter of "uprooting" a population, through bombing, hunger, thirst, or expulsion. It is a matter of eliminating the "Gaza problem," to use the semantics of Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli Finance Minister , and this plan dates back to the end of 2023."

As for Emmanuel Macron, he leaves it to "historians" to decide . One day. "This is problematic for two reasons: because the Israeli government massacres in proportion to what it can do compared to the United States first, and then to the rest of the world. Finally, because the 1948 Convention provides for both the repression of genocides, but also their prevention. Emmanuel Macron cannot ignore that international law requires the implementation of immediate measures both in the face of genocide, but also in the face of a risk of genocide," insists Roland Gori.

The question, ultimately, is therefore to act as quickly as possible, whatever the answer to what semantically divides us. Namely, whether there are different modalities of genocide of varying intensities and degrees, or just one, which refers to the worst of all. Two great Israeli historians, Amos Goldberg and Daniel Blatman, have an answer on the subject: "Gaza is not Auschwitz, but it is still a genocide."