29.05.25
Editorial Note
The Dutch newspaper NRC conducted research into the question of whether Israel is perpetuating genocide in Gaza. NRC interviewed seven genocide experts from six different countries about their views and those of their colleagues.
The researchers were Dr. Shmuel Lederman, Israeli researcher at the Open University of Israel, Department of History, Philosophy and Judaic Studies; Dirk Moses, Australian professor at the City University of New York and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research; Prof. Melanie O’Brien, Australian lawyer, researcher at the University of Western Australia and chair of the International Association of Genocide Scholars; Prof. Raz Segal, Israeli genocide researcher at Stockton University in New Jersey, USA; Martin Shaw: British professor at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals, emeritus professor at the University of Sussex and author of the book What Is Genocide?; Ugur Ümit Üngör, Dutch professor at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies; Dr. Iva Vukusic, Croatian genocide researcher at Utrecht University
The NRC found that the leading genocide researchers were “surprisingly unanimous: the Netanyahu cabinet, they say, is in that process – according to the majority even in the final stages. That is why most researchers no longer just speak of ‘genocidal violence’, but of ‘genocide.’”
The Israeli researcher Raz Segal told NRC, “Can I name someone whose work I respect who does not think it is genocide? No, there is no counterargument that considers all the evidence.”
The Israeli researcher Shmuel Lederman was one of the scientists who previously rejected the genocide label but have since changed his mind.
Turkish-Dutch Ugur Ümit Üngör, speaks of “genocidal violence.” Genocide “remains a loaded term, because of its intertwining with the Holocaust.” There are “certainly still scientists who say it is not genocide,” says Üngör. “But I don’t know them.”
NRC stated it also scoured the most “authoritative scientific journal in the field, the Journal of Genocide Research. In the past year and a half, it collected more than 25 articles on the genocide question in Gaza, from scientists inside and outside genocide studies. Some problematize the term, others analyze genocidal statements by the Israeli government and army or argue from a legal perspective why the ICJ will or will not reach a conviction.”
NCR continued, “since 1948 there has been a legal definition of genocide that all major powers could live: ‘acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, religious or racial group as such.’ Specifically: • ‘killing members of the group • causing serious physical or mental harm to members of the group • deliberately imposing on the group conditions of life aimed at its physical destruction in whole or in part • taking measures intended to prevent births within the group • forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
For NRC, it is a “compromise. Especially because of the elusive phrase ‘with the intent’. Because how do you prove that?”
According to NRC, the genocide concept has “always been contested. After its legal anchoring, a separate scientific field emerged, initially mainly focusing on research into the Holocaust. But slowly, genocide studies grew into a much broader interdisciplinary field of research, with sociologists, political scientists and lawyers, among others, who use their own methods and concepts. And while Holocaust historians insisted that the Shoah was unique—the ‘archetypal’ genocide—in the 1990s, others began to draw comparisons with Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and even pre-World War II genocides. Painful, some historians found.”
For the many researchers NRC spoke to, “the Israeli response to the ICJ’s interim judgment in January 2024 played a key role. In order to prevent genocide, “Israel had to allow emergency aid and stop the inflammatory, dehumanizing language about Palestinians. But the Netanyahu cabinet changed nothing.” For Lederman, “At first he was against the genocide label, but after the verdict, the closing of the Rafah border crossing and the calculation from an urgent letter from 99 American health workers that the actual death toll in Gaza had already exceeded 100,000, he was convinced.”
NRC stated that for Melanie O’Brien, “the decisive factor was the deliberate withholding of food, water, shelter and sanitation.” For Segal, it was the “‘openly genocidal statements’ of Israeli leaders. But for all of them, it is the sum of what, taken separately, would count as ‘ordinary’ war crimes.”
For Üngör, the “gap between Holocaust historians and their colleagues who view genocides in a broader context is shrinking as Israeli violence continues.” Only small Holocaust centers in the US, “funded by Americans who want to uphold the uniqueness of the Shoah, there is an increasing number of Holocaust researchers who do openly speak of genocide. The American Debórah Dwork and the Israelis Amos Goldberg and Omer Bartov, for example.”
According to the NRC, “an unprecedentedly high number of women and children die,” which Shmuel Lederman calls “foreseeable consequences.” This, according to Lederman, “is where the genocide lies.”
NRC stated, “Scientists sometimes find that accusing Israel of genocide is not helpful to their careers. The accusation of anti-Semitism lies close to the surface. For example, after protests, Segal’s appointment as head of the genocide center at the University of Minnesota was withdrawn. And Harvard experienced so much pressure to silence ‘anti-Israel’ voices that it fired two heads of its Middle East center. Segal, who is Jewish himself, says that he is regularly accused of anti-Semitism.”
NRC mentions that Holocaust researcher Omer Bartov resigned from the journal Yad Vashem Studies, affiliated with Yad Vashem, after twenty years. In his resignation letter, he accused the editorial board of acting as if the “extraordinary carnage by Israeli troops, including the killing and maiming of thousands of children, is either none of its business or perfectly justified will leave a stain on the journal and on Yad Vashem for generations to come.”
However, the NRC’s anti-Israel bias is apparent. For example, its recent two-day coverage of the war in Gaza includes the following, “Yaqeen Hammad, 11-year-old Instagram influencer from Gaza, killed by Israeli shelling”; “At least 81 dead in Gaza from Israeli attacks since Monday morning”; “Chancellor Merz condemns Israeli actions”; “Chancellor Merz speaks out for the first time against Israeli violence in Gaza”; “‘Israel wants to occupy 75 percent of Gaza within two months”; “At least 20 dead in overnight Israeli attack on school sheltering refugees.”
Not surprisingly, both Iranian media and Qatari-linked media reported the NCR genocide interview. Melanie O’Brien posted a link on her university’s website to the Qatari-linked article.
NRC has an anti-Israel history. An article published on November 13, 2023, titled “Diplomatic memo from Dutch embassy: Israel uses ‘disproportionate force,'” stated that in the War in Gaza – according to a confidential memo from the Dutch Defense Attaché in Tel Aviv – the Israeli army has “the intention to deliberately cause massive destruction to infrastructure and civilian centers.” According to the NRC, this “strategy” explains the “high number of deaths” among the civilian population. NRC stated that Israel uses “disproportionate force” in Gaza, which, “according to critics, constitutes a violation of international treaties and the laws of war.”
The Dutch government issued a statement responding to this NRC report, stating, “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken note of the article published in the Dutch newspaper NRC, on November 13th, about Israel. The article is based on parts of a confidential report from the Embassy. It provides a selective and incomplete picture that does not reflect the Dutch policy in any way. Our colleagues at Embassies must be able to do their work properly, professionally and with integrity. They have the full support of the Ministry. It is utterly unacceptable that they are hindered in their work due to such reporting in the media.”
The accusations against Israel of conducting genocide against the people in Gaza are false on many levels.
First, the definition of genocide states that there must be a special intent, “dolus specialis” to kill a specific group. After the savage Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, the IDF decided to neutralize its military arm, the Qassem Brigades. This was and still is the proclaimed goal and intention of Israel. However, as IAM repeatedly emphasized, Hamas and its partner Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with the help of Iranian Revolutionary Guards, managed to build an extensive tunnel system located under private homes as well as public spaces, hospitals, mosques, schools, parks, etc. According to West Point Academy experts, the Gaza tunnel systems – unparalleled in the modern history of urban warfare – provided the militants a perfect opportunity to embed within the civilian population. This extreme embedding forced the IDF to operate in a situation where total avoidance of hitting civilians is impossible. Even so, the IDF did its best to warn civilians to move away from areas of operation. This factor alone indicates that there is no intent to exterminate civilians, as the genocide definition states.
Second, the Health Ministry, under orders from Hamas, bundles the number of terrorists and civilians killed, so the number of some 50,000 killed became widely accepted of a population of two and a half million. The IDF and a number of statistical studies suggest that about 38 percent of the fatalities were combat-related. The British-based Henry Jackson Society noted that the Ministry of Health inflates the numbers by adding death from natural causes. Still, even if accepting the higher numbers provided by the Hamas-controlled Ministry, this does not square with the definition of genocide as a very significant number of the 2,500,000 Gaza population.
Third, charges that Israel is trying to starve the population of Gaza are false. Since the beginning of the war, with brief exceptions, Israel has allowed the delivery of food. Here again, Hamas is to be blamed for food problems. It has been documented that Hamas militants have commandeered food trucks and sold the content on the black market.
Arthur Lemkin, the Polish Jewish legal scholar who coined the name genocide and whose work led to the adoption of the 1948 Genocide Convention, was devasted by the murder of his six million Jews in the Holocaust, including most of his own family. In Poland alone, only some 250,000 Jews survived out of a population of 3,500,000.
It is especially disheartening that Israeli scholars – who are intimately aware of the history and the moral weight of the Holocaust – should collaborate with the Dutch NRC platform for anti-Israel narratives. As Jews and Israelis, their involvement risks lending legitimacy to what many consider the modern-day blood libel against the Jewish state, a nation that provided a home to many survivors of the Nazi genocide.
REFERENCES
Researchers from Israel, the Netherlands, the US, the UK, Australia, Croatia and Canada say Israel’s conduct meets the legal threshold of genocide
By Sondos Asem
Published date: 17 May 2025 17:17 BST |
A growing number of the world’s leading genocide scholars believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide, according to an investigation by Dutch newspaper NRC.
The paper interviewed seven renowned genocide and Holocaust researchers* from six countries – including Israel – all of whom described the Israeli campaign in Gaza as genocidal. Many said their peers in the field share this assessment.
“Can I name someone whose work I respect who does not think it is genocide? No, there is no counterargument that takes into account all the evidence,” Israeli researcher Raz Segal told NRC.
Professor Ugur Umit Ungor of the University of Amsterdam and NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies said that while there are certainly researchers who say it is not genocide, “I don’t know them”.
The Dutch paper reviewed 25 recent academic articles published in the Journal of Genocide Research, the field’s leading journal, and found that “all eight academics from the field of genocide studies see genocide or at least genocidal violence in Gaza”.
“And that is remarkable for a field in which there is no clarity about what genocide itself exactly is,” it noted.
Leading human rights organisations have also reached the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. In December 2024, Amnesty International became the first major organisation to conclude that Israel had committed genocide during its war on Gaza, while Human Rights Watch more conservatively concluded that “genocidal acts” had been committed.
Francesca Albanese, the UN’s top expert on Palestine, authored two reports last year suggesting that genocide was taking place in Gaza.
Genocide studies as a discipline does not treat the issue as a binary, the NRC report said. Rather than asking whether genocide has happened or not, scholars see it as a gradual process.
Ungor compares it to a “dimmer switch” rather than an on-off light.
“Contrary to public opinion, leading genocide researchers are surprisingly unanimous: the Netanyahu government, they say, is in that process – according to the majority, even in its final stages,” the investigation concluded. “That is why most researchers no longer speak only of ‘genocidal violence’, but of ‘genocide’.”
Since Israel’s devastating onslaught on Gaza in October 2023, at least 53,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 15,000 children.
The World Health Organisation reported this week that 57 children have died of malnutrition since Israel’s total ban on humanitarian aid, in effect since 2 March.
The WHO predicts that nearly 71,000 children under the age of five will suffer acute malnutrition over the next 11 months if the ban on aid continues.
Meanwhile, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a global network of UN agencies and humanitarian groups, reported last week that nearly half a million people in Gaza, or 22 percent of the population, are expected to face “catastrophic” hunger from May to September.
‘It happens because it happens’
The report noted that even researchers who had previously hesitated to use the term have since changed their position, such as Shmuel Lederman of the Open University of Israel.
It also referred to the opinion of Canadian international law scholar William Schabas that Israel is committing genocide, although he is considered otherwise conservative with respect to genocide labelling.
In an interview with Middle East Eye last month, Schabas said Israel’s campaign in Gaza was “absolutely” a genocide.
“There’s nothing comparable in recent history,” said Schabas. “The borders are closed, the people have nowhere to go, and they’re destroying have made life essentially impossible in Gaza.
“We see that combined with the ambition, expressed sometimes very openly by both Trump and Netanyahu, and by the Israelis, to reconfigure Gaza as some sort of eastern Mediterranean Riviera.”
Israel’s inaction following the January 2024 interim ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) was a decisive factor in leading many scholars to conclude that its conduct in Gaza amounts to genocide, NRC reported.
The legally binding ruling ordered Israel to take immediate steps to prevent genocide by allowing aid into Gaza and stopping dehumanising rhetoric that incited the extermination of Palestinians.
Lederman initially opposed the use of the genocide label. However, following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s dismissal of the ICJ’s ruling, the continued closure of land crossings to Gaza and a letter by 99 US health workers stating that the death toll in Gaza exceeded 100,000, he was convinced that Israel’s actions do in fact constitute genocide.
Meanwhile, Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, told NRC that Israel’s deliberate denial of food, water, shelter and sanitation was the key factor in her determination that the military campaign was a genocide.
For all scholars interviewed by NRC, what ultimately influenced their assessment was a holistic view of the situation, the totality of the conduct and the sum of all war crimes viewed together.
The scholars also refuted claims in western public debate that Israel’s military campaign is solely aimed at defeating Hamas, that there is no explicit plan to annihilate the population, that the entire Gaza population has not been killed, that the situation is unlike the Holocaust or that a legal ruling has yet to be issued.
They argued that these points reflect fundamental misunderstandings of how genocide is defined under international law.
The Genocide Convention is a treaty on the prevention and punishment of genocide, rather than waiting for it to fully unfold. The treaty also refers to the partial or complete destruction of a group, not solely its total eradication. For example, the killing of 8,000 Bosniak men in Srebrenica in 1995 is legally recognised as genocide, despite being smaller in scale than the Holocaust.
O’Brien noted that genocide is not dependent on judicial confirmation to be real. “It happens because it happens.”
*The scientists interviewed by NRC are:
Shmuel Lederman: Israeli researcher at the Open University of Israel
Anthony Dirk Moses: Australian professor at the City University of New York and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research
Melanie O’Brien: Australian lawyer, researcher at the University of Western Australia and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars
Raz Segal: Israeli genocide researcher at Stockton University in New Jersey, US
Martin Shaw: British professor at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals, emeritus professor at the University of Sussex and author of the book What Is Genocide?
Ugur Umit Ungor: Dutch professor at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Iva Vukusic: Croatian genocide researcher at Utrecht University
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Top genocide scholars unanimous that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: Dutch investigation
Press/Media: Press / Media
Description
Researchers from Israel, the Netherlands, the US, the UK, Australia, Croatia and Canada say Israel’s conduct meets the legal threshold of genocide
| Period | 17 May 2025 |
|---|
Media contributions
1
Media contributions
Title Top genocide scholars unanimous that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza: Dutch investigation
Degree of recognition InternationalMedia name/outlet Middle East Eye Media type Web Date 17/05/25 Description Researchers from Israel, the Netherlands, the US, the UK, Australia, Croatia and Canada say Israel’s conduct meets the legal threshold of genocide
Producer/Author Sondos Asem
Persons Melanie O’Brien
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https://www.facebook.com/groups/628101398076856/posts/1726759091544409/
Seven renowned scientists almost unanimous: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
GENOCIDE STUDIES
NRC spoke to seven renowned genocide researchers about Gaza. They are not nearly as divided as public opinion: without exception, they qualify the Israeli actions as ‘genocidal’. And according to them, almost all their colleagues agree with this.
Authors
Kasper van Laarhoven
Eva Peek
Derk Walters
Published on May 14, 2025
A quarter of the babies in the Gaza Strip are acutely malnourished, and Israel refuses to allow thousands of trucks with emergency aid. The military shoots anyone who enters the buffer zone, bombs hospitals and tent camps. For the umpteenth time, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is ordering many Gazans to leave their homes, while his Minister of Finance announces that Gaza will be “completely destroyed” within a few months and his party member Moshe Saada calls for the starvation and expulsion of all Gazans. Israel has already killed at least 53,000 Palestinians, including at least 15,000 children.
Is Israel committing genocide here?
The conclusion that this is the case is no longer reserved for activists. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) considers it “plausible”. And where human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese previously spoke of genocide, the director of the NIOD now also speaks of “genocidal violence”. Other NIOD researchers had already spoken out.
At the same time, it remains a loaded term, because of its intertwining with the Holocaust. In their editorials, newspapers cautiously dance around the concept. On social media, it is also referred to as “g3n0c1d3”, because some tech companies are banning the word. The foreign affairs spokesperson of the German CDU party told NRC that he “does not believe in the theory of genocide”.
But in addition to being a subject of social debate, genocide is also a subject of science. And that field of research, genocide studies, does not see it as a yes/no question, but as a process. Not a light switch, but a “dimmer”, in the words of professor of Holocaust and genocide studies Ugur Ümit Üngör of the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD.
The scientific field of genocide studies does not see it as a yes/no question, but as a process.
And unlike public opinion, the leading genocide researchers are surprisingly unanimous: the Netanyahu cabinet, they say, is in that process – according to the majority even in the final stages. That is why most researchers no longer just speak of ‘genocidal violence’, but of ‘genocide’.
NRC asked seven genocide experts from six different countries about their own views and those of their colleagues. “Can I name someone whose work I respect who does not think it is genocide? No, there is no counterargument that takes into account all the evidence,” says Israeli researcher Raz Segal. There are certainly still scientists who say it is not genocide, says Üngör. “But I don’t know them.” There are, however, scientists who previously rejected the genocide label, but have since changed their minds, such as Shmuel Lederman of the Open University of Israel.
NRC also scoured the most authoritative scientific journal in the field, the Journal of Genocide Research. In the past year and a half, it collected more than 25 articles on the genocide question in Gaza, from scientists inside and outside genocide studies. Some problematize the term, others analyze genocidal statements by the Israeli government and army or argue from a legal perspective why the ICJ will or will not reach a conviction.
But here too it is striking: the majority and all eight academics from the field of genocide studies see genocide or at least genocidal violence in Gaza. And that is remarkable for a field in which there is no clarity about what genocide itself exactly is.
Refining and deleting
The term was coined by the Polish-Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin in 1944. He combined the ancient Greek ‘genos’ (people) and Latin ‘caedere’ (dead). Since the 1930s he had been looking for a way to draw attention to the destruction of a group, shocked by the impunity of the Armenian genocide. In the Shoah, 49 of his family members were murdered.
It took until after the war before his proposals were heard – at the then newly founded UN. Years of refining and deleting followed. The Americans, Russians, French and British tried to ensure that their crimes – mass executions of Stalin’s political opponents, atomic bombs on Japan, racist laws in the US, violence in the European colonies – could not be considered genocide.
And so Lemkin had to watch as world powers curtailed his ideal. However flawed, since 1948 there has been a legal definition of genocide that all major powers could live: ‘acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, religious or racial group as such’.
Specifically:
• ‘killing members of the group
• causing serious physical or mental harm to members of the group
• deliberately imposing on the group conditions of life aimed at its physical destruction in whole or in part
• taking measures intended to prevent births within the group
• forcibly transferring children of the group to another group’
A milestone for Lemkin, and a stripped-down compromise. Especially because of the elusive phrase ‘with the intent’. Because how do you prove that?
No clear agreement
Since then, the concept has always been contested. After its legal anchoring, a separate scientific field emerged, initially mainly focusing on research into the Holocaust. But slowly, genocide studies grew into a much broader interdisciplinary field of research, with sociologists, political scientists and lawyers, among others, who use their own methods and concepts. And while Holocaust historians insisted that the Shoah was unique—the “archetypal” genocide—in the 1990s, others began to draw comparisons with Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and even pre-World War II genocides. Painful, some historians found.
For Üngör, the field, like other sciences, is always in flux. The concept of genocide, he says, is sharpened by new cases. Like China’s large-scale internment of Uighurs, “gives impetus to understanding cultural genocide.” And like Rwanda, genocide is a process—a spectrum—with some experts already seeing the contours of the coming mass murder clearly in 1993.
And yet. Despite all this internal disagreement, the majority of genocide scholars agree, say those interviewed: in Gaza, Israel is engaged in genocide.
Some were quick to draw that conclusion. Like, six days after the Hamas attack of October 7, Raz Segal, an Israeli genocide researcher (Stockton University) and the renowned British specialist Martin Shaw. Albeit with different reasoning – Shaw also considers the Hamas attack to be genocidal.
Others were initially more cautious. The Canadian international lawyer William Schabas, for example, a somewhat conservative authority in his field, drew the conclusion last year after Israeli leaders called for a halt to water, food and electricity for Gaza. Professor Dirk Moses of the City University of New York (CUNY) speaks of a “mix of genocidal and military logic”.
For many researchers NRC spoke to, the Israeli response to the ICJ’s interim judgment in January 2024 played a key role. In order to prevent genocide, Israel had to allow emergency aid and stop the inflammatory, dehumanizing language about Palestinians. But the Netanyahu cabinet changed nothing.
For Lederman, a university lecturer at the Open University of Israel, it was a pile-up. At first he was against the genocide label, but after the verdict, the closing of the Rafah border crossing and the calculation from an urgent letter from 99 American health workers that the actual death toll in Gaza had already exceeded 100,000, he was convinced.
For Melanie O’Brien, president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the decisive factor was the deliberate withholding of food, water, shelter and sanitation; for Segal, it was the “openly genocidal statements” of Israeli leaders. But for all of them, it is the sum of what, taken separately, would count as ‘ordinary’ war crimes. The picture as a whole makes it genocide. That is also the intention of the term, says Shaw: “holistic”.
The gap between Holocaust historians and their colleagues who view genocides in a broader context is shrinking as Israeli violence continues, says Üngör. In contrast to small Holocaust centres in the US, funded by Americans who, according to the UvA professor, want to uphold the uniqueness of the Shoah, there is an increasing number of Holocaust researchers who do openly speak of genocide. The American Debórah Dwork and the Israelis Amos Goldberg and Omer Bartov, for example. And that, says Üngör, is not easy. “Certainly with a view to the continuity of your funding.”
Counterarguments
In the Western public debate, the same arguments are often raised against the conclusion that Israel is committing genocide. A few examples: it is a military war to destroy Hamas, there is no clear extermination plan, not all Gazans have been murdered yet, it does not resemble the Holocaust, the court has not yet ruled.
These are misunderstandings and simplifications, say the genocide experts.
For example, the treaty text speaks of “complete or partial” destruction. Should the number of victims approach the six million of the Holocaust? No, the murder of eight thousand men in Srebrenica is also considered genocide. And, says O’Brien, genocide does not happen because a court determines it to be so. “It happens because it happens.”
And does a plan have to be written down, such as – most notoriously – the Final Solution minutes of the Nazi Wannsee Conference? No. Over the past thirty years, the Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals and the ICJ have built up a series of jurisprudence in which they have further developed the concept. For example, in early 2007 the ICJ ruled that, in the absence of direct evidence, you can infer intent from a “pattern of behavior.” If it can reasonably be concluded from the scale, nature and intensity of the violence that the aim is to (partially) destroy a group, then that is sufficient evidence.
Does this also mean that the ICJ will ultimately rule that Israel is guilty of genocide? No, as long as she uses the light switch definition, that chance is “fifty-fifty,” estimates Moses, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research. There is a legal and a social-scientific reality.
According to him, the Israeli violence in Gaza does support a theory that has been dormant in the research field for some time: the absolute distinction between military and genocidal objectives is sometimes untenable. The world powers cobbled this artificial distinction into the treaty in 1948, but in practice they often get mixed up.
Behind the Israeli policy, says the Australian, there is “a dual intention.” For example, the emergency aid blockade, the destruction of hospitals and the starvation of Gazans serve two purposes: they hit Hamas, but clearly also (and especially) the civilian population. Not as unintentional collateral damage, but deliberately.
Another example: the Israeli use of artificial intelligence to locate possible Hamas militants using telephone data. The technology is so crude and is deployed with such limited human control that an airstrike quickly results in the deaths of dozens or even – in one case reconstructed by The New York Times – 125 residents.
According to an intelligence source from +972 Magazine, the AI program locates potential targets more easily at home than during combat. And so, the Israeli media outlet writes, the army hopes to increase the success rate by bombing private homes in particular. Preferably at night. The inevitable and accepted consequence, says Moses: an unprecedentedly high number of women and children die. Shmuel Lederman calls the latter “foreseeable consequences”. And that, says Lederman, is where the genocide lies. After all: you accept the population-destroying impact of your actions, even without that being your main goal.
Tense academic debate
Although cautious genocide researchers now also believe that Israel’s actions in Gaza are genocidal, the debate is very tense. Scientists sometimes find that accusing Israel of genocide is not helpful to their careers. The accusation of anti-Semitism lies close to the surface.
For example, after protests, Segal’s appointment as head of the genocide center at the University of Minnesota was withdrawn. And Harvard experienced so much pressure to silence “anti-Israel” voices that it fired two heads of its Middle East center.
Segal, who is Jewish himself, says that he is regularly accused of anti-Semitism. “Israeli and German scientists in particular use that to attack their colleagues.” The accusation of anti-Semitism, O’Brien also says, has a chilling effect on freedom of expression about Israel’s behavior. “Scientists are less willing to speak openly about what is happening.”
Scientists sometimes find that accusing Israel of genocide is not helpful to their careers
The discussions lead to deep frustrations. Holocaust researcher Bartov resigned after twenty years from Yad Vashem Studies, the magazine affiliated with the eponymous museum in Jerusalem, out of dissatisfaction with his fellow editors, who act as if the “massacre by Israeli troops, the killing and mutilation of thousands of children, does not concern them or is completely justified,” the magazine Jewish Currents quotes his letter of resignation.
A German authority in the field who wishes to remain anonymous calls the subject “poisoned” in his country; you are, he says, immediately branded an anti-Semite if you even mention “possible genocide.” If these acts concerned a country other than Israel, he says, all Germans would immediately sound the alarm and speak of genocidal violence, as happened in the Russian mass murder in the Ukrainian city of Butja. But now, he says, it remains completely silent.
According to Dirk Moses, the research field is in crisis as long as it does not challenge the artificial distinction between genocidal and military objectives. Then it makes the mass murder of Palestinians possibly in the name of self-defense against Hamas, he says. As far as he is concerned, that is certainly the case with that part of Holocaust studies that defends Israeli actions in those terms. “Then parts of the field of research are actually dead – not only conceptually incoherent, but complicit.”
Endless pleading
Professor Shaw calls it disappointing that even serious newspapers are not prepared to “address the issue directly”. At the same time, many experts express frustration about the importance that politics and the media, including NRC, attach to the genocide question in Gaza. Why endlessly plead about the precise term, when people are now being murdered, driven away, starved, and entire cities destroyed? What Gazan cares whether she dies in a bombardment that is considered ethnic cleansing, is deprived of food in a crime against humanity, loses parents in a war crime or suffocates under the rubble during a genocide? Doesn’t that distract from the question that should really be discussed: what to do? Legally speaking, it does matter whether it is genocide or not, says O’Brien. “We have a genocide treaty that obliges signatories to prevent genocide. That obligation already comes into effect when there is a risk of genocide. There is no such thing for other crimes.”
According to the experts, the obsession with the term certainly also has everything to do with the sanctification of the concept of genocide, of its status as a ‘crime of crimes’, the ultimate evil. That is not necessarily justified, they say. War crimes and crimes against humanity are just as horrific for the victim – and are punished just as severely. With life imprisonment.
But genocide has always been a morally loaded concept, Shaw emphasizes. “It is not like war: that can in principle be legitimate. Genocide is not. Genocide is a category that encompasses the monumental evil of the attempt to destroy civilian populations, societies and groups.” And the call for action is therefore always inherent in the concept itself.
Researchers
Who did NRC speak to?
Shmuel Lederman: Israeli researcher at the Open University of Israel
Dirk Moses: Australian professor at the City University of New York and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Genocide Research
Melanie O’Brien: Australian lawyer, researcher at the University of Western Australia and chair of the International Association of Genocide Scholars
Raz Segal: Israeli genocide researcher at Stockton University in New Jersey, USA
Martin Shaw: British professor at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals, emeritus professor at the University of Sussex and author of the book What Is Genocide?
Ugur Ümit Üngör: Dutch professor at the University of Amsterdam and the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Iva Vukusic: Croatian genocide researcher at Utrecht University
NRC also spoke to three scientists from related disciplines in the Netherlands and abroad.
https://www.nrc.nl/…/zeven-gerenommeerde-wetenschappers...
Seven renowned scientists almost unanimous: Israel commits genocide in Gaza
Zeven gerenommeerde wetenschappers vrijwel eensgezind: Israël pleegt in Gaza genocide
GENOCIDESTUDIES NRC sprak zeven gerenommeerde genocide-onderzoekers over Gaza. Zij zijn lang niet zo verdeeld als de publieke opinie: zonder uitzondering kwalificeren ze de Israëlische acties als ‘genocidaal’. En volgens hen zijn nagenoeg al hun collega’s het daarmee eens.
Auteurs
Kasper van Laarhoven
Eva Peek
Derk Walters
Gepubliceerd op 14 mei 2025
Leestijd 9 minuten
Een kwart van de baby’s in de Gazastrook is acuut ondervoed, en Israël weigert duizenden vrachtwagens met noodhulp toe te laten. De krijgsmacht beschiet iedereen die zich in de bufferzone begeeft, bombardeert ziekenhuizen en tentenkampen. Voor de zoveelste keer geeft de regering van premier Benjamin Netanyahu vele Gazanen het bevel om hun verblijfplaats te verlaten, terwijl zijn minister van Financiën aankondigt dat Gaza binnen een paar maanden „volledig vernietigd” is en zijn partijgenoot Moshe Saada oproept tot uithongering en verdrijving van alle Gazanen. Israël heeft al zeker 53.000 Palestijnen gedood, onder wie ten minste 15.000 kinderen.
Pleegt Israël hier genocide?
De conclusie dat dit het geval is, is inmiddels niet meer aan activisten voorbehouden. Het Internationaal Gerechtshof (ICJ) acht het „plausibel”. En waar eerder mensenrechtenorganisaties als Amnesty International en Human Rights Watch en VN-rapporteur Francesca Albanese al van genocide spraken, spreekt inmiddels ook de directeur van het NIOD van „genocidaal geweld”. Andere NIOD-onderzoekers hadden zich al uitgesproken.
Tegelijk blijft het een beladen term, vanwege de verwevenheid met de Holocaust. In hun hoofdredactionele commentaren dansen kranten voorzichtig om het begrip heen. Op sociale media wordt ook wel van “g3n0c1d3” gesproken, omdat sommige techbedrijven het woord in de ban doen. Tegen NRC zei de buitenlandwoordvoerder van de Duitse CDU-partij dat hij „niet in de theorie van een genocide” gelooft.
Maar behalve van maatschappelijk debat is genocide ook onderwerp van de wetenschap. En dat onderzoeksveld, genocidestudies, ziet het niet als een ja/nee-vraag, maar als een proces. Geen lichtknopje, maar een „dimmer”, in de woorden van hoogleraar Holocaust- en genocidestudies Ugur Ümit Üngör van de Universiteit van Amsterdam en het NIOD.
Het wetenschappelijke onderzoeksveld genocidestudies ziet het niet als een ja/nee-vraag, maar als een proces
En anders dan de publieke opinie zijn de toonaangevende genocideonderzoekers verrassend eensgezind: het kabinet-Netanyahu, zeggen zij, zít in dat proces – volgens de meerderheid zelfs in het eindstadium. Daarom spreken de meeste onderzoekers niet langer alleen van ‘genocidaal geweld’, maar van ‘genocide’.
NRC bevroeg zeven genocide-experts uit zes verschillende landen naar hun eigen opvattingen en die van hun collega’s. „Of ik iemand kan noemen wiens werk ik respecteer die het geen genocide vindt? Nee, er is geen tegenargument dat ál het bewijsmateriaal in acht neemt,” zegt de Israëlische onderzoeker Raz Segal. Wetenschappers die zeggen dat het geen genocide is, zijn er vast nog wel, zegt Üngör. „Maar ik ken ze niet.” Wel zijn er wetenschappers die eerder het genocidelabel verwierpen, maar inmiddels van mening zijn veranderd, zoals Shmuel Lederman van de Open Universiteit van Israël.
Ook ploos NRC het meest gezaghebbende wetenschappelijke tijdschrift in het veld uit, het Journal of Genocide Research. Dat verzamelde in de afgelopen anderhalf jaar ruim 25 artikelen over de genocidevraag in Gaza, van wetenschappers binnen en buiten genocidestudies. Sommigen problematiseren de term, anderen analyseren genocidale uitspraken van Israëls regering en leger of beargumenteren vanuit een juridisch perspectief waarom het ICJ wel of niet tot een veroordeling zal komen.
Maar ook hier valt op: de meerderheid en álle acht academici uit het veld van genocidestudies zien genocide of ten minste genocidaal geweld in Gaza. En dat is bijzonder voor een veld waarin geen eenduidigheid bestaat over wat genocide zélf precies is.
Schaven en schrappen
De term is gemunt door de Pools-Joodse jurist Raphael Lemkin in 1944. Hij trok het Oudgriekse ‘genos’ (volk) en Latijnse ‘caedere’ (doden) samen. Sinds de jaren dertig zocht hij naar een manier om de vernietiging van een groep onder de aandacht te brengen, geschokt door de straffeloosheid van de Armeense genocide. In de Shoah werden 49 van zijn familieleden vermoord.
Het duurde tot na de oorlog voordat zijn voorstellen gehoor vonden – bij de toen net opgerichte VN. Jaren van schaven en schrappen volgden. De Amerikanen, Russen, Fransen en Britten probeerden ervoor te zorgen dat hún wandaden – massaexecuties van Stalins politieke tegenstanders, atoombommen op Japan, racistische wetten in de VS, geweld in de Europese koloniën – in elk geval niet als genocide konden gelden.
En dus moest Lemkin toekijken terwijl wereldmachten zijn ideaal insnoerden. Hoe gemankeerd ook, sinds 1948 ligt er een juridische definitie van genocide waarmee alle grootmachten konden leven: ‘handelingen gepleegd met de bedoeling om een nationale, etnische, godsdienstige groep, dan wel een groep behorende tot een bepaald ras, geheel of gedeeltelijk als zodanig te vernietigen’. Specifiek:
• ‘het doden van leden van de groep
• het toebrengen van ernstig lichamelijk of geestelijk letsel aan leden van de groep
• het opzettelijk aan de groep opleggen van levensvoorwaarden die gericht zijn op haar gehele of gedeeltelijke lichamelijke vernietiging
• het nemen van maatregelen bedoeld om geboorten binnen de groep te voorkomen
• het gewelddadig overbrengen van kinderen van de groep naar een andere groep’
Een mijlpaal voor Lemkin, én een uitgekleed compromis. Vooral door de ongrijpbare frase ‘met de bedoeling’. Want hoe bewijs je dat?
Geen eenduidige overeenkomst
Sindsdien is het begrip altijd betwist. Na de juridische verankering ontstond er een apart wetenschappelijk veld, met aanvankelijk vooral onderzoek naar de Holocaust. Maar langzaam groeide genocidestudies uit tot een veel breder interdisciplinair onderzoeksgebied, met onder anderen sociologen, politicologen en juristen die hun eigen methodes en concepten hanteren. En waar de Holocaust-historici eraan vasthielden dat de Shoah uniek was – de ‘archetypische’ genocide – begonnen de anderen in de jaren negentig vergelijkingen te maken met Rwanda, Bosnië-Herzegovina en zelfs genocides van vóór de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Pijnlijk, vonden sommige historici.
Wat Üngör betreft is het veld, net als andere wetenschappen, altijd in beweging. Het genocidebegrip, zegt hij, wordt aangescherpt door nieuwe casussen. Zoals China’s grootschalige internering van Oeigoeren „een impuls geeft aan het begrijpen van culturele genocide”. En zoals Rwanda leerde dat genocide een proces – een spectrum – is, waarbij sommige experts in 1993 de contouren van de aanstaande massamoord al scherp zagen.
En toch. Ondanks al deze interne onenigheid is de meerderheid van de genocidewetenschappers het eens, zeggen de geïnterviewden: in Gaza is Israël bezig met genocide.
Sommigen trokken die conclusie al snel. Zoals, zes dagen na de Hamas-aanval van 7 oktober, Raz Segal, een Israëlische genocideonderzoeker (Stockton University) en de vermaarde Britse specialist Martin Shaw. Zij het met verschillende redeneringen – Shaw beschouwt de aanval van Hamas ook als genocidaal.
Anderen waren aanvankelijk voorzichtiger. De Canadese internationaal jurist William Schabas bijvoorbeeld, een ietwat behoudende autoriteit in zijn vakgebied, trok vorig jaar de conclusie nadat Israëlische leiders hadden opgeroepen tot het stopzetten van water, voedsel en elektriciteit voor Gaza. Hoogleraar Dirk Moses van de City University of New York (CUNY) spreekt van een „mix van genocidale en militaire logica”.
Voor veel onderzoekers die NRC sprak, speelde de Israëlische reactie op het tussenvonnis van het ICJ in januari 2024 een sleutelrol. Om genocide te voorkomen, moest Israël van het Gerechtshof noodhulp toelaten en ophouden met de opruiende, ontmenselijkende taal over Palestijnen. Maar het kabinet-Netanyahu veranderde niets.
Voor Lederman, universitair docent aan de Open Universiteit van Israël, was het een opeenstapeling. Eerst was hij tegen het genocidelabel, maar na het vonnis, het sluiten van de Rafah-grensovergang en de berekening uit een brandbrief van 99 Amerikaanse zorgmedewerkers dat het daadwerkelijke dodental in Gaza de honderdduizend al had gepasseerd, was hij overtuigd.
Voor Melanie O’Brien, voorzitter van de International Association of Genocide Scholars, gaf het opzettelijk onthouden van voedsel water, onderdak en sanitaire voorzieningen de doorslag, voor Segal de „openlijk genocidale uitspraken” van Israëlische leiders. Maar voor allemaal gaat het om de optelsom van wat los van elkaar zou gelden als ‘gewone’ oorlogsmisdaden. Het plaatje als geheel maakt het tot een genocide. Zo is het begrip ook bedoeld, zegt Shaw: „holistisch”.
De kloof tussen Holocaust-historici en hun collega’s die genocides in breder verband bekijken slinkt met het aanhoudende Israëlische geweld, zegt Üngör . Tegenover kleine Holocaustcentra in de VS, gefinancierd door Amerikanen die volgens de UvA-hoogleraar de uniciteit van de Shoah hoog willen houden, staat een toenemend aantal Holocaust-onderzoekers die wél openlijk van genocide spreken. De Amerikaanse Debórah Dwork en de Israëliërs Amos Goldberg en Omer Bartov bijvoorbeeld. En dat, zegt Üngör, is niet makkelijk. „Zeker met het oog op de continuïteit van je financiering.”
Tegenargumenten
In het westerse publiek debat klinken vaak dezelfde argumenten tegen de conclusie dat Israël genocide pleegt. Een greep: het is een militaire oorlog om Hamas te vernietigen, er ligt geen duidelijk uitroeiingsplan, nog niet alle Gazanen zijn vermoord, het lijkt niet op de Holocaust, de rechter heeft nog niet geoordeeld.
Dat zijn misverstanden en simplificaties, zeggen de genocide-experts. Zo spreekt de verdragstekst van „geheel of gedeeltelijk” vernietigen. Moet het aantal slachtoffers de zes miljoen van de Holocaust benaderen? Nee, ook de moord op achtduizend mannen in Srebrenica geldt als een genocide. En, zegt O’Brien, een genocide gebeurt niet omdat een rechtbank dat vaststelt. „Het gebeurt omdat het gebeurt.”
En moet er een plan op papier staan, zoals – meest berucht – de Endlösung-notulen van de Wannseeconferentie van de nazi’s? Nee. De afgelopen dertig jaar bouwden de Rwanda- en Joegoslaviëtribunalen en het ICJ in een reeks uitspraken jurisprudentie op, waarmee ze het begrip verder ontwikkelden. Zo oordeelde het ICJ begin 2007 dat je, bij gebrek aan direct bewijs, intentie kunt afleiden uit een „gedragspatroon”. Als er uit de schaal, aard en intensiteit van het geweld redelijkerwijs kan worden geconcludeerd dat het doel is om een groep (deels) te vernietigen, dan is dat voldoende bewijs.
Betekent dit dan ook dat het ICJ uiteindelijk sowieso zal oordelen dat Israël zich schuldig maakt aan genocide? Nee, zolang ze de lichtknop-definitie hanteert, is die kans „fifty-fifty”, schat Journal of Genocide Research-hoofdredacteur Moses in. Er is een juridische en een sociaal-wetenschappelijke werkelijkheid.
Het Israëlische geweld in Gaza onderschrijft volgens hem wel een theorie die in het onderzoeksveld al langer sluimert: het absolute onderscheid tussen militaire en genocidale doelen is soms onhoudbaar. Dat kunstmatige onderscheid frommelden de wereldmachten in 1948 het verdrag in, maar in de praktijk lopen ze vaak door elkaar.
Achter het Israëlische beleid, zegt de Australiër, schuilt „een dubbele intentie”. Zo dienen de noodhulpblokkade, de vernietiging van ziekenhuizen en het uithongeren van de Gazanen twee doelen: ze raken Hamas, maar overduidelijk ook (en vooral) de burgerbevolking. Niet als onopzettelijke nevenschade, maar doelbewust.
Ander voorbeeld: de Israëlische inzet van kunstmatige intelligentie om met behulp van telefoongegevens mogelijke Hamas-militanten te lokaliseren. Die techniek is dusdanig grof en wordt met zulke beperkte menselijke controle ingezet dat een luchtaanval al snel samengaat met de dood van tientallen of zelfs – in één door The New York Times gereconstrueerd geval – 125 omwonenden.
Volgens een inlichtingenbron van +972 Magazine lokaliseert het AI-programma potentiële doelwitten makkelijker thuis dan tijdens de strijd. En dus, schrijft het Israëlische medium, hoopt het leger de succesgraad op te schroeven door met name privéwoningen te bombarderen. Het liefst ’s nachts. Het onvermijdelijke en door Israël geaccepteerde gevolg, zegt Moses: een ongekend hoog aantal vrouwen en kinderen komt om. Dat laatste noemt Shmuel Lederman „voorzienbare gevolgen”. En dáárin, zegt Lederman, zit de genocide. Immers: je accepteert de volk-vernietigende impact van je daden, ook zonder dat dat je hoofddoel is.
Gespannen academisch debat
Hoewel dus inmiddels ook voorzichtige genocide-onderzoekers van mening zijn dat de daden van Israël in Gaza genocidaal zijn, staat er flinke spanning op het debat. Wetenschappers ervaren soms dat het voor hun carrières niet bevorderlijk is om Israël van genocide te beschuldigen. Het antisemitismeverwijt ligt dicht onder de oppervlakte.
Zo werd na protesten Segals benoeming tot hoofd van het genocidecentrum van de University of Minnesota ingetrokken. En Harvard ervoer zo veel druk om ‘anti-Israëlische’ stemmen het zwijgen op te leggen dat ze twee hoofden van haar Midden-Oostencentrum ontsloeg.
Segal, zelf Joods, zegt dat hem geregeld antisemitisme verweten wordt. „Vooral Israëlische en Duitse wetenschappers gebruiken dat om hun collega’s aan te vallen.” Het antisemitismeverwijt, zegt ook O’Brien, heeft een chilling effect op de vrije meningsuiting over Israëls gedrag. „Wetenschappers zijn minder bereid om openlijk te spreken over wat er gebeurt.”
Wetenschappers ervaren soms dat het voor hun carrières niet bevorderlijk is om Israël van genocide te beschuldigen
De discussies leiden tot diepe frustraties. Holocaust-onderzoeker Bartov stapte na twintig jaar op bij Yad Vashem Studies, het aan het gelijknamige museum in Jeruzalem verbonden tijdschrift, uit onvrede met zijn collega-redacteuren, die doen alsof de „slachting door Israëlische troepen, het doden en verminken van duizenden kinderen, hen niet aangaat of volkomen gerechtvaardigd is”, zo citeert het blad Jewish Currents zijn ontslagbrief.
Een Duitse autoriteit in het veld die anoniem wil blijven, noemt het onderwerp „vergiftigd” in zijn land; je wordt, zegt hij, direct voor antisemiet uitgemaakt als je ook maar van ‘mogelijke genocide’ rept. Betroffen deze daden een ander land dan Israël, zegt hij, dan zouden alle Duitsers direct alarm slaan en spreken van genocidaal geweld, zoals gebeurde bij de Russische massamoord in de Oekraïense stad Boetsja. Maar nu, zegt hij, blijft het muisstil.
Volgens Dirk Moses verkeert het onderzoeksveld in crisis zolang het het kunstmatige onderscheid tussen genocidale en militaire doelen niet bestrijdt. Dan maakt het de massamoord op Palestijnen mogelijk in naam van zelfverdediging tegen Hamas, zegt hij. Dat is wat hem betreft zeker het geval met dat deel van Holocaust-studies dat de Israëlische acties in die termen verdedigt. „Dan zijn delen van het onderzoeksveld eigenlijk dood – niet alleen conceptueel onsamenhangend, maar medeplichtig.”
Eindeloos soebatten
Hoogleraar Shaw noemt het teleurstellend dat zelfs serieuze kranten niet bereid zijn om „de kwestie rechtstreeks te adresseren”. Tegelijkertijd uiten veel experts frustratie over het belang dat politiek en media, ook NRC, hechten aan de genocidevraag in Gaza. Waarom eindeloos soebatten over de precieze term, terwijl mensen nú worden vermoord, verjaagd, uitgehongerd, en hele steden vernietigd? Welke Gazaan kan het wat schelen of ze omkomt bij een bombardement dat geldt als etnische zuivering, geen voedsel krijgt in een misdaad tegen de menselijkheid, ouders verliest in een oorlogsmisdaad of onder het puin stikt tijdens een genocide? Leidt dat niet af van de vraag waarover het écht zou moeten gaan: wat te doen?
Juridisch gezien maakt het wel degelijk uit of het genocide is of niet, zegt O’Brien. „We hebben een genocideverdrag dat ondertekenaars verplicht om genocide te voorkomen. Die verplichting treedt al in werking bij een risico op genocide. Zoiets bestaat niet voor andere misdaden.”
De obsessie met de term heeft volgens de experts zeker ook alles te maken met de heiligverklaring van het genocidebegrip, van de status als ‘misdaad der misdaden’, het ultieme kwaad. Dat is niet per se terecht, zeggen ze. Oorlogsmisdaden en misdaden tegen de menselijkheid zijn voor het slachtoffer even gruwelijk – en worden even zwaar bestraft. Met levenslang.
Maar genocide is altijd een moreel beladen begrip geweest, benadrukt Shaw. „Het is niet zoals oorlog: die kan in principe legitiem zijn. Genocide niet. Genocide is een categorie die het monumentale kwaad omvat van de poging om burgerbevolkingen, samenlevingen en groepen te vernietigen.” En de roep om actie ligt daarom altijd in het begrip zelf besloten.
Onderzoekers Wie heeft NRC gesproken?
Shmuel Lederman: Israëlische onderzoeker aan de Open Universiteit van Israël
Dirk Moses: Australische hoogleraar aan de City University of New York en hoofdredacteur van de Journal of Genocide Research
Melanie O’Brien: Australische jurist, onderzoeker aan de University of Western Australia en voorzitter van de International Association of Genocide Scholars
Raz Segal: Israëlische genocide-onderzoeker aan de Stockton University in New Jersey, VS
Martin Shaw: Britse hoogleraar aan het Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals, emeritus hoogleraar aan de University of Sussex en auteur van onder meer het boek What Is Genocide?
Ugur Ümit Üngör: Nederlandse hoogleraar aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam en het NIOD Instituut voor Oorlogs-, Holocaust- en Genocidestudies
Iva Vukusic: Kroatische genocide-onderzoeker aan de Universiteit Utrecht
Ook sprak NRC met drie wetenschappers in binnen- en buitenland uit aanpalende vakgebieden.
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https://www.netherlandsandyou.nl/web/israel/w/reaction-to-article-in-dutch-newspaper-nrc
Reaction to article in Dutch newspaper NRC
News item | 16-11-2023 | 13:55
The embassy has received many questions about the NRC article published on November 13th. We want to stress that the article provides a selective and incomplete picture of our internal report. The response of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is as follows:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has taken note of the article published in the Dutch newspaper NRC, on November 13th, about Israel.
The article is based on parts of a confidential report from the Embassy. It provides a selective and incomplete picture that does not reflect the Dutch policy in any way. Our collegues at Embassies must be able to do their work properly, professionally and with integrity. They have the full support of the Ministry.
It is utterly unacceptable that they are hindered in their work due to such reporting in the media.
Palestinian refugees on the move in 1948Can anything deserving of the name of a humanistic experiment in “communal living” take place after the experimenters have violently expelled the indigenous tillers of the soil? The Findhorn Foundation needs to answer this question unambiguously.
Kark’s words were acted upon – Arakib Village was demolished more than 30 timesKark is an active participant in the programme of the Israeli State to concentrate the Negev Bedouin in restricted zones and deliver their lands to exclusively Jewish ownership and use. According to the 
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