Human Rights?

The term “genocide” emerged in 1945, crafted to encapsulate the deliberate and systematic extermination of Jews by the Nazi regime in Germany. This precise term blends the Greek word for race or tribe (“geno”) with the Latin word for killing (“cide”), specifically to address the Holocaust’s orchestrated mass murder.

It gained legal traction at the Nuremberg Trials, where a youthful Benjamin Ferencz, aged just 27, served as chief prosecutor. Standing at a modest 5 feet 2 inches (barely 1.6 meters), this determined lawyer had to perch on a stack of books to peer over the lectern. Beyond introducing “genocide,” Ferencz and his team employed the phrase “crimes against humanity” to frame the 22 defendants – key architects of the Holocaust – not merely as war criminals but as perpetrators of a profound moral outrage. Unlike typical wartime casualties or collateral damage from soldier-on-soldier combat, the Holocaust targeted individuals for their race, religion, and beliefs.

The Nazi regime, including the German military and the SS, meticulously documented their atrocities, reporting to government bodies on the elimination of Jews, Gypsies, and enemies of the Reich. These detailed records, archived with chilling precision, later became damning evidence against surviving senior figures brought before the court as of June 2025, reflecting the enduring relevance of these trials in understanding historical accountability.

The aftermath of World War II, with its stark revelation of the systematic slaughter of approximately 13 million non-combatants – unmasked through the liberation of death camps, meticulous Nazi records, and the Nuremberg Trials – galvanised global action. Held before impartial judges as a criminal trial, not merely a war crimes proceeding, the Nuremberg Trials, led by figures like Benjamin Ferencz, spurred the newly formed United Nations to adopt the Declaration of Human Rights, presented to the General Assembly in Paris on December 10, 1948.

Building on Ferencz’s legacy, the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague has since addressed modern atrocities, last year hearing South Africa’s charges against Israel over the devastation in Gaza and the treatment of its Palestinian inhabitants.

Despite the universal endorsement of the Declaration, crimes against humanity persist. History bears witness to America’s use of Agent Orange in Vietnam, causing birth defects like spina bifida and limb deformities; Pol Pot’s murderous Killing Fields in Cambodia; China’s Cultural Revolution re-education camps; the Biafran conflict; Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine; and countless other post-colonial wars. The list grows relentlessly.

Most recently, the Gaza conflict has intensified. The devastation traces back to a horrific Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, targeting a kibbutz and music festival, killing around 1,200 Israelis and abducting 240 hostages. Yet, the plight of Palestinians often goes under-examined. Over 2.2 million people are confined to the Gaza Strip, a mere 365 square kilometres – the world’s most densely populated area – contrasting sharply with Perth’s 6,300 square kilometres housing a similar population. On the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Palestinians face settler intimidation, forced land seizures, and relentless security checks, with armed soldiers patrolling streets and rooftops, fostering a climate of surveillance and fear.

This frustration has deep roots, stemming from the 1948 Nakba, which displaced over 700,000 Palestinians, and the 1967 Six-Day War’s occupation of the West Bank. These events fueled decades of tension, including the suicide bombings of 1989 and the First and Second Intifadas (2002-2005), marking a cycle of violence that continues to shape the region.

The Hamas attack in October 2023, which triggered the current conflict, and the earlier suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians are unequivocally illegal under international law and justly condemned. Yet, the desperation driving such acts cannot be ignored. In Gaza, where over 2.2 million people rely on the outside world for all essentials – water, food, medical supplies – which we’ve seen can be abruptly cut off by Israel, life is suffocatingly oppressive. Similarly, Palestinians on the West Bank and East Jerusalem endure relentless harassment – security checks, settler intimidation – fueiling retaliatory violence as a grim outlet for their frustration.

News from the region highlights a devastating toll, predominantly on women and children. Amid relentless airstrikes reducing homes to rubble, starvation and disease from unsanitary conditions claim lives, with over a million people crammed into makeshift camps lacking sanitation. This echoes a dark precedent: at the Nuremberg Trials, defendants justified killing children by claiming they’d grow into enemies, and women for their capacity to bear them – a chilling rationale rooted in the Holocaust’s inhumanity.

The Declaration of Human Rights, born in 1948 as a rebuttal to the Nazi genocide of 13 million – targeting Jews and Gypsies for their marginalised identities, and homosexuals and disabled individuals for their ideologies – sought to end such atrocities. Yet, Palestinians remain marginalised, not only in Israel but also in Lebanon, Jordan, and Egypt, where refugee camps confine them to second-class status, denying work and stability, leaving them with no safe haven.

History’s repetition feels inevitable to those who overlook it, while those aware can only watch in stunned disbelief as patterns of persecution persist into June 2025.

 

Note: I originally published a slimmer version of this article on the old AIMN site.

 

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