History says that the genocide in Gaza will be recognized – possibly | Genocide

In the past 20 months, I have often wondered: how long does it take to recognize crimes against humanity?

In Gaza, one might think that the genocidal intention of the Israeli military campaign and the extent of the tragedy are obvious. And yet, the genocide continues. For what?

It turns out that the world has a lamentable record when it comes to recognizing – and acting against – crimes against humanity during their commitment.

Take, for example, the case of genocides in the colonial era.

Between 1904 and 1908, the German settlers massacred 65,000 people Herero and 10,000 Nama in Namibia in what is often considered the first genocide of the 20th century. This extermination campaign was Germany’s response to a tribal uprising against the colonial crisis in Aboriginal land.

The atrocities of this period were described as “a long nightmare of suffering, bloodshed, tears, humiliation and death”. Oral testimonies of survivors were recorded and published in a document from the British government known as Blue Book in 1918. At the time, it was “rare documentation of African voices describing the meeting of African communities with colonial power”.

But in 1926, all the copies of the blue book were destroyed in order to ensure that the African perspective of the genocide “would no longer be found and preserved in a written form”.

Germany officially recognized the massacre as a genocide and apologized until 2021.

A similar scheme took place during the Maji Maji uprising in current Tanzania in 1905, which was launched by German attempts to force the native population to grow cotton. The response of the burned earth in Germany killed around 300,000 people. The rebels were hanged publicly and some of their skulls and bones were sent to Germany to be used in pseudoscientific experiences intended to “prove” European racial superiority.

Apologies for these atrocities only came in 2023 when the German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke to the Maji Maji Memorial in Songaa, in southern Tanzania.

Even in the years preceding the holocaust, little has been done to protect the Jewish people fleeing persecution.

After the Nazi climb in power in 1933, the Jews in Germany were subject to an increasing number of laws stripping them of their rights, as well as organized pogroms. Long before the start of the Second World War, many German Jews had already started to flee. However, while many host countries were well aware of the rise of anti -Semitism under the Adolf Hitler regime, they maintained highly restrictive immigration policies.

In the United Kingdom, an increasing tide of government policies has shaped by anti-Semitism. The authorities applied strict immigration controls and refused to devote significant resources to provide a shelter or humanitarian aid to Jewish refugees. The United States has also maintained restrictive quotas and systematically refused visa requests from German Jews, citing what contemporary officials have described as an “anti-Alien climate” in the congress and “popular opposition to the prospect of a flood of new Jewish arrivals”.

Today, apartheid in South Africa evokes a condemnation close to the universe. But that was not always the case.

The United Kingdom’s relationship with apartheid in South Africa is revealing. Historians have shown that successive work and conservative governments between 1960 and 1994 – prioritizing colonial links in southern Africa and economic interests – have repeatedly refused to impose economic sanctions on the apartheid regime.

The story throws a light as hard on President Ronald Reagan and Henry Kissinger.

Reagan’s policy in “constructive commitment” and the opposition to sanctions were motivated by the desire to undermine the African National Congress (ANC), which its administration considered to be aligned with communism. After receiving the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize, Archbishop Desmond Tutu described Reagan’s approach as “immoral, evil and totally non -Christian”.

Kissinger, as American Secretary of State under President Gerald Ford, gave prestige and legitimacy to the apartheid regime with a visit to South Africa in 1976 – only three months after the massacre of Soweto, when the security forces shot down unarmed students protesting against the forced use of Afrikaans as a means of education. According to the apparently, neither apartheid nor the massacre were discussed during its visit.

In 1994, more than 800,000 Moderate Tutsis and Hutus were killed in Rwanda for 100 days. Sexual violence has been systematically used as a weapon of war, with around 250,000 raped women. Hutu Militias would have released Hospitals AIDS to form “rape squads” to infect Tutsi women.

Despite the warnings of human rights groups, the United Nations and diplomats that the genocide was imminent, the world has done nothing. The UN Peace Soldiers withdrew. France and Belgium have sent troops – not to protect the Rwandans, but to evacuate their own nationals. US officials have even avoided using the word “genocide”.

It was not until 1998 that the American president Bill Clinton presented official apology during a visit to Kigali: “We did not act quickly enough after the start of the murder … We did not immediately call these crimes by their legitimate name: the genocide.”

Given this story, it is difficult to hope for the hope of the situation in Gaza. But as with other crimes against humanity, a day of calculation can come.

What Israel has achieved in Gaza is a real -time genocide – the one in difficulty, documented and archived in unprecedented details.

Fire of elite shooters killing Palestinian children. The assassination of poets. The bombing of hospitals and schools. The destruction of universities. The targeted murder of journalists. Each act has been captured and cataloged.

Israeli politicians have made public statements indicating that the campaign objective is ethnic cleaning. Videos show Israeli soldiers who plunder Palestinian houses and boast of destruction.

Human rights groups have meticulously documented these crimes. And an increasing number of governments take measures, diplomatic reprimands for the taxation of sanctions.

There is a saying in Hindi and Ourdou: Der Aaye, Durust Aaye. It is often translated by: “Better late than never”. But as a colleague explained, the expression comes from the Persian, and a more precise translation would be: “What happens late is fair and fair.”

Justice for Palestine could arrive late. But when this is the case, whether it is correct. And it’s just.

The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.