Humanity as the Standard: Ushering in a New Wave of Global Policy and Response to Gaza

TORONTO —  The world is watching in anguish. Humanity, regardless of identity or religion, is tormented watching the live aerial bombardment, the mass killing of thousands, the widespread destruction of homes and civilian infrastructure, and the starvation resulting from a manmade famine imposed on the Palestinian people. As this unabating devastation continues to afflict the population, it cannot be clearer that this is a major international humanitarian crisis.

Many of us find ourselves at a crossroads as recognized international institutions, including the International Court of Justice, United Nations Special Rapporteurs and Independent Experts, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), among others, invoke a lexicon of terminology and principles of international law originally developed to define the Holocaust in the 1940s to now assess the current situation in Gaza.

The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, a division of the Zoryan Institute (The Institute), acknowledges that recent criticisms of the state of Israel and its actions are often conflated with antisemitism. As Jewish people view Israel as the bulwark of Zionism, any criticism of Israel is conflated with the self-determination of Jewish people, fostering a rise in antisemitism. Accordingly, The Institute unequivocally condemns the global surge in antisemitism since 2023, and for this purpose, makes a clear distinction between Judaism as a religion, Jews as a people and their self-determination, and Israel as a state.

That said, The Institute also affirms that Palestinian self-determination must be recognized as an equal and inalienable human right under international law. This right is grounded in a strong collective identity shaped by culture, a historical connection to the land, and decades of displacement, independent from other Arab governments and states. Despite this, Israel has consistently refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of Palestinian claims to self-determination and dignity.

While The Institute does not presume to dictate the means of resolution between Israelis and Palestinians in which both rights to self-determination are recognized, it maintains that any meaningful resolution will require moving beyond the binary framework that continues to dominate discourse. As Mai Al-Nakib writes in the Zoryan Institute’s academic journal Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies (Vol. 14:⅔, 2005), there exists a “treacherous logic that presently divides not only Palestine and Israel but the entire global order into East/West, terrorism/democracy, evil/good, among other familiars.” A more humane future must emerge from this impasse. The global community must strive for a deeper, more empathetic understanding rooted in imagination and guided by a prevailing commitment to universal human rights.

Accordingly, the Institute believes this moment should usher in a new wave of global policy and response. Not only have certain states failed to transcend their rhetoric into enforceable action to end this carnage, but some have been actively engaged in perpetuating violence in the region. The Institute, therefore, calls for major powers actively supporting the Israeli government’s actions in Gaza to end their support politically, militarily and economically, as such conduct is complicity in the crime of genocide. Professor William Schabas, a renowned expert in international law on genocide and a member of the Board of Directors of the IIGHRS, was asked in a recent interview about the support provided by third-party states to Israel, including countries such as the United States, Germany, and Canada. In response, Professor Schabas stated:

“Given the ICJ’s clarification that states party to the Genocide Convention have obligations both to prevent genocide and to avoid complicity [ … ] the Genocide Convention specifies explicitly in Article 3 that you violate the Genocide Convention by being complicit, by being an accomplice to genocide.”

The Institute asserts that failure to uphold these obligations risks emboldening future perpetrators and reinforcing a dangerous cycle of impunity and denial, already evident in the government of Israel’s ongoing lack of accountability in its violation of the Genocide Convention.

As an academic institute dedicated to educating and raising awareness of human rights, we are fully committed to advancing global justice, guided by the fundamental principle of our shared humanity. In view of this commitment, The Institute expresses its support for the International Association of Genocide Scholars’ (IAGS) recent resolution which declares the Hamas-led attack of 7 October 2023 an international crime, and that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in Article II of the United Nations Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948).

The International Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies
(A Division of the Zoryan Institute)