A Brief Guide to Israel’s Cultural Genocide

PALESTINE - ISRAEL, 2 Sep 2024

The Wire | Jewish Voice for Peace - TRANSCEND Media Service

Gaza Aug 2024 – Jewish Voice for Peace

28 Aug 2024 – Since its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza began, the Israeli military has destroyed hundreds of historical and religious sites, and centers of culture and learning like libraries, archives, and museums.

Here’s a brief guide to Israel’s cultural genocide in Gaza:

1. Great Omari Mosque: Gaza’s oldest mosque and the second-oldest mosque in all of Palestine, the Great Omari Mosque dates back 1,400 years. It was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in December. In an instant, a place representing centuries of history — and housing dozens of rare books and priceless manuscripts — was reduced to rubble.
2. Church of Saint Porphyrius: This Greek Orthodox church was originally constructed in the 5th century, and its current structure was built in the 12th century. It is the oldest church in Gaza and is considered to be one of the oldest churches in the world. In the early weeks of the genocide, Israel bombed the compound where the church is located, causing a roof to collapse and killing over a dozen people sheltering inside.
3. Qasr el-Basha: Constructed in the 13th century, Pasha’s Palace was converted into a museum in 2010, housing precious antiquities like ceramics that dated back hundreds of years. It was all but reduced to rubble in an Israeli airstrike in December.
4. Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center: A hub for artistic life in Gaza, the center housed a library and theater and hosted art exhibitions and film screenings. It was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in November.
5. Central Archives of Gaza: Left in ruins after an Israeli airstrike in December, the archives housed historical documents dating back more than a century.

What is cultural genocide? 

The United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was drafted in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust. It defines genocide as “physical acts,” such as killings or measures intended to prevent births, which are carried out with “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

When Jewish lawyer Raphael Lemkin first coined the term “genocide” in 1944, he described it as a “synchronized attack on different aspects of life.” Because genocide was aimed at the destruction of an entire people, it naturally includes attempts to destroy the targeted group’s cultural heritage, thereby erasing their very existence: from the destruction of national monuments like museums and libraries to laws banning the use of indigenous languages.

And yet, the U.N Genocide Convention that was adopted in 1951 does not address cultural genocide. The United States, with its mind on its own cultural genocide being carried out against the indigenous peoples of America, joined former empires like the U.K. and France in opposing any references to cultural genocide in the Convention.

Is Israel committing cultural genocide in Gaza?

We know that Israel’s assault on Gaza is textbook genocide. From the beginning, Israeli officials made their genocidal intent abundantly clear, and the Israeli government has carried out “physical acts” to put that intent into action: indiscriminately slaughtering tens of thousands of Palestinians, reducing entire cities to rubble and razing farms and orchards, and systematically destroying hospitals and other critical infrastructure essential for life.

At the same time that it has made Gaza unlivable, the Israeli government has intentionally targeted historical, religious, and archaeological sites, archives, libraries, museums, and centers for art and culture — in addition to destroying every single one of Gaza’s universities.

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We should understand these attacks on Palestinian heritage as evidence of Israel’s intent to completely annihilate Palestinian life in Gaza.

In South Africa’s genocide case against Israel, they make note of Israel’s attacks on  “centres of Palestinian learning and culture,” and call on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) “to protect against further, severe and irreparable harm to the rights including the heritage of the Palestinian people under the genocide convention.”

A land without a people?

Israel’s genocide in Gaza is the latest in what is a century-old war against Palestinians and Palestinian life — a war of annihilation in which attacks on Palestinian culture, heritage, and national identity have played a central role.

Successive Israeli governments have attempted to erase Palestinian existence and oppress expressions of Palestinian identity, from building Israeli universities on the ruins of ethnically-cleansed Palestinian towns and villages to criminalizing the Palestinian flag.

This is textbook cultural genocide, and it’s a core component of Israeli settler colonialism. Erasing Palestinian culture and history makes it that much easier for the Israeli government to lay claim to Palestinians’ homes and land and deny Palestinians’ historical connection and rights to that land.

Supporters of Israel have long denied the mass displacement and slaughter of Palestinians by claiming that Palestine never existed — that it was a “land without a people for a people without a land,” and that only after it was colonized did settlers “make the desert bloom.” The destruction and erasure of Palestinian culture and history is key to how Israel has carried out and justified its colonization of Palestinian land.

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