On September 8, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich visited New Delhi and signed a bilateral investment treaty with the Indian government. Smotrich was welcomed in New Delhi visit barely a week after the International Association of Genocide Scholars said that Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
An ultranationalist, Smotrich is one of two Israeli ministers against whom Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom have issued sanctions for his incitement to violence against Palestinians.
In India, too, progressive parties and organisations opposed Smotrich’s visit. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) said it was “shameful” that the Indian government had “signed agreements with the Israeli government at a time when the people of Gaza are being massacred every day”.
Asaduddin Owaisi, and member of Parliament and president of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, posted on X criticising the signing of bilateral agreements “when Israel is overseeing genocide, ethnic cleansing & famine of Gaza”.
The Bharatiya Janata Party government has not overturned India’s 1988 recognition of the Palestine State and supports the two-state solution for the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, when it comes to Gaza, the BJP-led central government conveniently calls for humanitarian aid without condemning the genocidal attack against Gaza’s civilian population.
The Indian government’s invitation to Smotrich and the signing of the trade agreement occurred as the Israeli government was committing genocide in Gaza.
India’s statement following the signing of the bilateral agreement makes no mention of Israel’s assault on Gaza, instead pointing out the “shared value of civilizational ethos of two countries which contributed to the global peace”.
Ten days after Smotrich visited India, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Palestinian Occupied Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, concluded that Israel had committed genocide in the Gaza Strip as defined under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
The Genocide Convention emerged from the Holocaust against Jews in Europe under the Nazis between 1941-1945. The Nuremberg trials against Nazi crimes led to the emergence of two new legal concepts, “crimes against humanity” and “genocide”, which have now become part of international law. Legal scholars consider genocide as “the crime of crimes”.
Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer of Jewish origin, had coined the term genocide to deal with the Nazi crimes.
The UN General Assembly’s first human rights treaty, the Genocide Convention, adopted in 1948, defined genocide as a crime committed with the intent to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part. The Genocide Convention obligates all states to take steps to prevent the Commission of genocide.
In its findings published on September 16, the UN Inquiry Commission concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces continue to commit genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on four grounds:
(i) killing members of the group
(ii) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(iii) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(iv) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group
On the question of intent to commit genocide, the Commission, based on statements made by Israeli authorities, concluded that the “Israeli authorities and Israeli security continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip”.
The Inquiry Commission identified the Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defence minister Yoav Gallant as persons inciting the acts of genocide. The report includes Smotrich’s name as a potential person inciting acts of genocide.
Following the publication of the UN Commission of Inquiry report, Smotrich said the Gaza Strip could be a “real estate bonanza”. “We’ve done the demolition phase... Now we need to build,” the BBC quoted him as saying.
Smotrich’s statement is a clear incitement with the intent to destroy the Palestinians as a group. It would make him potentially liable to be tried for committing genocide under the Genocide Convention.
In its report, the Commission of Inquiry reminded the international community that under the Genocide Convention, all countries have an immediate obligation to “prevent and punish the crime of genocide”, employing all measures at their disposal. If they do not, it says, they could be complicit.
The Indian government’s invitation to Smotrich is a low point in Indian foreign policy. The Indian government is condoning genocide and, in some eyes, even complicit in the genocide.
DJ Ravindran is a member of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination. Views expressed are personal.
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