This volume offers new directions in thinking about the 2023-2025 genocide in Gaza. Drawing on a range of perspectives–such as international law, anthropology, politics and international relations, Indigenous and settler colonial studies–the chapters reflect a collective affirmation of the continued utility and importance of the concept of genocide for making sense of Israel’s destruction of Gaza.
Far from solely an international crime, genocide is a concept with a generative intellectual history which the contributors of this volume augment. One chapter examines how the central, if not the most prominent, way in which Israel has justified genocidal attacks has been through the international legal figure of the ‘human shield’. Another chapter draws on ethnographic methods with Palestinian survivors, to map some of the direct and indirect mental health implications of the ongoing genocide in Gaza on children. A further chapter elucidates the characteristics of transnational constitution and complicity, by examining the ways in which the global arms trade and patterns of military collaboration have enabled the commission of genocide in Gaza. While numerous books aimed at a popular audiences, as well as academic articles, have examined Israel’s genocide, this study offers one of the first scholarly books of the subject. It provides a pedagogical tool for preventing revisionist and denial narratives seeking to justify Israel’s genocide.
This book will be a useful resource to students and scholars of genocide studies, international law and relations, Middle East studies, conflict studies, and all those who insist on viewing Gaza not solely as a site of devastation, but as a crucible of global moral and political reckoning.
