Often the murder of people begins with the murder of language. The process that led to the Holocaust began with an attack on words. Deportations to concentration camps were called “relocation”, gas chambers were called “showers” and the diabolical project to destroy the entire nation was called the “final solution”. Euphemisms that emptied language of meaning were key to making the unthinkable possible.

In response to this attempt to neutralize language, Raphael Lemkin suggested that a new term was needed to describe this crime. The term he suggested was “genocide”. Therefore, it is shocking that from the horrors that led to the creation of that term, today we witness cynical attempts to pervert its meaning. The recent application to the International Court of Justice alleging genocide by Israel is one example.

The crimes committed by Hamas on October 7, including the murder, torture, rape and mutilation of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of more than 240 hostages, were acts in furtherance of a genocidal agenda. However, Hamas was not charged.

Dealing with the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza is fraught with dilemmas. In the 16 years since Hamas took control, it has created a horrific reality. Hospitals are not hospitals, schools are not schools and mosques are not mosques, they serve as camouflage. Terrorists emerge from tunnels under children’s beds and find refuge in hospitals; Gunmen shoot from schools and videos of crying babies are released to lure Israeli forces into deadly traps.

Under these appalling conditions, Israel is working extremely hard to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians. These efforts include messages and phone calls urging them to evacuate areas and end attacks where innocents are likely to be present.

South Africa’s desire to file a genocide case against Israel has little to do with the suffering of the Palestinians. In 2007, South Africa invited a Hamas delegation for an official visit and hosted several Hamas terrorist leaders. On October 8, the day after the massacre in Israel, South African leaders expressed solidarity with senior Hamas leaders.

Far from humanitarian reasons, the South African initiative is a brazen attempt to weaponize the term coined to describe the worst crime committed against the Jewish people and use it against them to deprive them of their ability to defend themselves.

75 years after the adoption of genocide, there are still Holocaust survivors. One of them, Yaffa Adar, was kidnapped on October 7 and spent 49 days in captivity. After all that happened in the Holocaust and at the hands of Hamas, it is hard to imagine that we have to witness a grotesque attempt to turn the very crime of genocide into a weapon. (OR)