North Korea Implements Ebola Quarantine

By Eric Talmadge
From AP

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — North Korea announced Thursday it will quarantine foreigners entering the country for 21 days over fears of the spread of the Ebola virus, even though no cases of the disease have been reported anywhere in Asia, and very few foreigners are allowed to enter.

North Korea is always on guard against outside influences, but now that it perceives the deadly disease to be a threat, its anxiety has reached a new level. It has banned tourists, put business groups on hold and is looking even more suspiciously than usual at every foreign face coming across its borders.

Case in point: when a high-level delegation from Japan arrived in Pyongyang this week, two of the first people they met were dressed in full hazmat gear.

The steps also send a message to the North Korean people to be very afraid of the outside world and of outside influences.

An announcement distributed Thursday to diplomatic missions in Pyongyang said that, regardless of country or region of origin, all foreigners will be quarantined under medical observation for 21 days.

Foreigners from affected areas will be quarantined at one set of locations, while those from unaffected areas will be sent to other locations, including hotels. The staff of diplomatic missions and international organizations will be allowed to stay in their residences.

Tourist visits to North Korea were halted last week, so few were likely to still be in the country.

Most tourists do not stay for 21 days. It was unclear if they or others already in North Korea on shorter stays, for example on business, would have to remain for the quarantine period.

North Korea's frantic response to the Ebola outbreak, including the broad but so far poorly defined ban on foreign tourism, is also surprising because it admits so few foreigners at all. Other than diplomatic and government missions, it has virtually no contact with any of the countries that have been most affected in west Africa, though Africa is one of the places it has tried to develop good relations.

Kim Yong Nam, the head of North Korea's parliament, is now touring the continent, though not Ebola-impacted areas.

The strict measures shed some light on how the bureaucracy in North Korea tends to work, and on the isolated country's often-fearful views of the outside world in general.

Last week, after rumors began to circulate among the small foreign community in Pyongyang that draconian measures were in the offing, North Korea's state media announced that travelers and cargo would be subject to stricter monitoring at airports, seaports and railway border crossings.

Daily reports are being broadcast on television news and during evening programming to increase public awareness of the disease and its symptoms. North Korea's Korean Central Television aired a news story on Sunday that showed quarantine officials strengthening inspections of people and boats moving in and out of the port city of Nampo.

"Our army, which protects our borders, has a high responsibility to block the disease," Han Yong Sik, director of the Nampo inspection center, told the network. "We are strengthening quarantine education and thoroughly inspecting boats and planes to ensure that not even a single person carrying the disease enters our country."

So far, there has been no official statement in North Korea's English-language media outlining the tourism ban or other restrictions on travel. There was, and remains, little information about what groups are affected, whether travel out of North Korea will be stopped and under what conditions the restrictions would be lifted.

That, of course, has left potential travelers scratching their heads — and businesses bleeding money.

"It was poorly communicated," said a post Monday on the website of the Choson Exchange, a Singapore-based organization that specializes in promoting business and educational exchange with North Korea. "This didn't allow stakeholders time to prepare for it. For Choson Exchange, we could be seeing potentially tens of thousands of dollars of losses as we delay training programs, and possibly even more as this drags on.

"For businesspeople, a shutdown will likely hurt their investment plans or transactions."

Uri Tours, a U.S.-based travel agency that specializes in tours to North Korea, already had informed potential customers that tours have been halted, and that anyone coming to North Korea from certain areas may be quarantined.

The new quarantine announcement — though slim on details — suggests a much broader response. A copy of the document, dated Wednesday and issued by North Korea's Non-Standing National Emergency Prevention Committee, was obtained by The Associated Press.

More than 13,700 people have been sickened in the Ebola outbreak, and nearly 5,000 of them have died. Nearly all the cases are in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, though there were 20 in Nigeria, four in the U.S. and one each in Mali, Senegal and Spain.

Uri Tours says it believes the ban on tourists is just temporary — and is holding out hope that they may be able to return in December.

North Korea's reaction isn't unprecedented. It closed its borders for several months in 2003 during the scare over SARS.

But that was a much more obvious threat. SARS affected China, and Beijing is where most flights into Pyongyang originate. In the case of Ebola, North Korea's efforts to defend itself from what appears to be a tiny risk may end up alienating it from foreigners who have been willing to invest here.

"Overall, this episode seems to reflect two things. First, a callous attitude toward stakeholders in the country's development stemming from poor communications or the lack of will to communicate," said the Choson Exchange blog. "Second, that North Korea's 'fear of the foreign' outweighs their interest in whatever benefits foreign investment brings."

New Acting Zambian President First White Leader in Africa In Years

From BBC News

Zambian Acting President Guy Scott

Zambian Vice-President Guy Scott has been named acting leader following the death of President Michael Sata.

Presidential elections to choose a permanent successor will be held within 90 days, Defence Minister Edgar Lungu said.

Former Zambian President Michael Sata, recently died while in office.

Mr Scott, who is of Scottish descent, becomes Africa's first white head of state for many years.

Mr Sata died in the UK aged 77 after receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness.

He was being treated at London's King Edward VII hospital where he died on Tuesday night.

'Beloved comrade'

Mr Scott regularly stood in for the president at official events, but was never appointed acting president when Mr Sata was abroad - so this is his first time to officially lead the country.

Guy Scott

• Often disparagingly referred to as the "ceremonial vice-president"
• He was born in 1944 in what was then Northern Rhodesia after father emigrated from Glasgow to work as a doctor on the railways
• A Cambridge-trained economist, he entered politics in 1990 joining the MMD which won the first multiparty elections the next year
• As agricultural minister he oversaw the recovery from a devastating drought in 1992/93
• He joined Michael Sata's Patriotic Front (PF) in 2001
• Appointed vice-president in September 2011 after the PF's election victory
• As his parents were not born in Zambia, a constitutional clause requiring the president to be a "third generation" Zambian may nullify any attempt to run for president

In a brief televised address Mr Scott confirmed his appointment.

"The period of national mourning will start today. We will miss our beloved president and comrade," Reuters news agency quotes him as saying.

The president's death comes just days after Zambia celebrated the 50th anniversary of independence from the UK.

Cabinet secretary Roland Msiska said on national TV that President Sata's wife and son were at his bedside.

He is the second Zambian leader to die in office after Levy Mwanawasa in 2008.

Earlier this month reports in Zambia said that President Sata had gone abroad for a medical check-up amid persistent speculation that he was seriously ill.

He had rarely been seen in public since returning from the UN General Assembly last month, where he failed to make a scheduled speech.

After he left the country, Defence Minister Edgar Lungu was named as acting president.

Mr Scott is of Scottish descent and his parents were not born in Zambia, so he may not be able to run for president in January because of a constitutional clause.

Catalonian Referendum Canceled .. For Now

From AFP

Picture from Wikipedia.

Catalonia's President Artur Mas vowed Tuesday to press ahead with a vote on independence for the region on November 9, but under a different legal framework after Spanish authorities challenged the plan in the courts.

Catalan leaders agreed Monday that the non-binding vote they had called in the wake of Scotland's independence referendum could not go ahead in its current form.

The announcement, which exposed cracks within the pro-independence movement, was hailed as "excellent news" by Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who is fiercely opposed to a ballot on Catalonia breaking away from Spain.

But on Tuesday Mas vowed Catalonia will "go ahead" with a vote on November 9 under a different legal framework, to get around a ruling by Spain's Constitutional Court which suspended an earlier electoral decree.

"We will call the people to vote on November 9," Mas said. "There will be polling stations open, there will be ballot boxes, there will be voting papers."

But he added: "We will have to do it in a different form from what we had planned."

Mas admitted that divisions had opened up in the pro-independence movement, but insisted "the real adversary is still the Spanish state," which is fighting to block the vote.

Mas accepted that his earlier electoral decree was no longer valid since it was suspended automatically when the Constitutional Court agreed to consider an appeal by the national government.

But he said an alternative form of vote could be held under "pre-existing legal frameworks" in Catalonia which allow for "citizen participation."

During a meeting of pro-referendum parties on Monday, the Catalan government "determined that the vote can't take place," Joan Herrera, a leader of the small leftist Initiative for Catalonia Greens party, told reporters.

That meeting appeared to have brought to a head a rift between Mas, a moderate conservative nationalist, and the left-wing parties with whom he has joined forces in the regional parliament.

Mas said the issue might have to be settled by regional elections and that a vote on November 9 could be just one step towards that.

"Since the consensus is now broken... that is the definitive means to hold a consultation vote," he said.

"Although the consensus has cracked, I know full well that the real adversary is the Spanish state, which is doing everything possible to prevent the Catalan people from taking part in this consultation."

Spain ready 'to talk' 

The Catalan sovereignty drive has raised a tense standoff between Catalonia and Madrid. Rajoy has fiercely opposed all moves towards a referendum on independence, vowing to defend the unity of Spain as it recovers from years of economic crisis.

But he indicated on Tuesday that he was ready for talks on the issue.

"I think what we have to do is talk. There are of course many of us who sincerely want that," he said.

Catalans have been fired up by last month's independence referendum in Scotland, even though voters there rejected a separation from Britain.

Proud of their distinct language and culture, and accounting for nearly a fifth of Spain's output, Catalonia's 7.5 million inhabitants — 16 percent of the Spanish population — have long been an engine for Spain's economy.

But many Catalans say they resent the redistribution of their taxes to other parts of Spain and believe the region would be better off on its own.

Spain's recent economic crisis has increased unemployment and hardship in the region and swelled its debts, but in 2012 Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy rejected Mas's request for greater powers for Catalonia to tax and spend.

Catalonia formally adopted the status of a "nation" in a 2006 charter that increased its autonomy, but the Constitutional Court overruled that nationhood claim, fueling pro-independence feeling.

China, Now With World's Largest Economy

According to the IMF the People’s Republic of China has just surpassed the United States as the world’s largest economy. This represents the first time the United States has been unseated as the world’s supreme economic power since it attained the position by surpassing the United Kingdom in the late 19^th century. China’s economy has been growing at such an extraordinary rate over the last two decades that its supremacy as an economic world power was not only expected but was long ago foretold.

The significance of this crossover surpasses just China but speaks to Asia’s economic ascendancy as well.  Of the 6 largest economies in 1980 five were developed western states including four European nations (West Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy) and the United States. At number 2 Japan was the lone Asian entry on the list.

Fast forward 30 years and a major disparity between the past and present emerges.  Instead of the former European dominance the list now includes newcomers China, India and Russia in addition to holdovers Japan, Germany and the United States. Asian states now comprise half the list. As a Eurasian state Russia is usually considered to be European, however the majority of its landmass is located in Asia along with the vast oil and natural gas reserves which has propelled its economy since the fall of the Soviet Union. This leaves Germany as the lone European state, whose majority landmass is located on the continent, left.

But don’t start celebrating (or proclaiming Armageddon) just yet.

A nation’s economy is measured based on the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which attempts to ascertain the entire value of productivity produced by that state per annum. GDP can be measured in one of two ways, nominally or by a formula called Purchasing Power Parity (PPP).

The calculations used by the IMF to determine China’s new found economic supremacy was based on Purchasing Power Parity. By comparison, under nominal standards the World Bank lists China’s economy at a size of $9.2 trillion dollars, still far behind the United States' at $16.8 trillion. Considering the signs of a slowing economy, and strong indications that the country is on the precipice of a construction crisis, it will be awhile before the People’s Republic surpasses the United States in economic size if at all.

Considering the large disparity between these two metrics an important question emerges as to which calculation is more definitive and generates the most accurate picture. In order to make such a determination it is important to define the two standards.

Nominal GDP calculations are pretty straightforward. They add the value of everything produced within the state with the aggregate being the final calculation. In essence it’s just addition. Unlike estimating the nominal value of a state’s GDP, PPP accounts for price variations among economies and adjusts the aggregate calculation accordingly.

PPP is better explained through the Big Mac example. In country A, an individual might be able to buy a Big Mac for $5, however in country B that same Big Mac will cost the equivalent of $7 (the prices listed here are not actual McDonalds prices but are arbitrary numbers picked to illustrate a point). Citizens in B therefore have a greater purchasing power than in A since their $5 can buy an entire Big Mac while the people of A can only purchase 5/7 of a Big Mac when they pay the same value in their country.

PPP takes the price disparity into account and develops a formula where the value of all the Big Macs produced in country B is equal to that in Country A. So if A produces 10 Big Macs and B produces 9 Big Macs the nominal domestic product of A would be $50 and B would be $63. However under a PPP formula the value of all the Big Macs in both countries A and B would be altered to reflect parity, for the sake of this argument we’ll say $6. Therefore the GDP by PPP standards for all Big Macs produced in country A would be $60 and $54 in country B.

While the previous example may be over simplified it illustrates the important distinctions between nominal GDP and GDP by PPP. The application of PPP to GDP has a disparate effect in that it usually raises the value of productivity in developing nations and decreases it in developed states. A sizable number of economists and political scientists prefer PPP over nominal GDP as a more balanced approach to determining the full value of each state’s economy.

By applying PPP over nominal calculations economists negate the factors that contribute to the price disparity found in different states. While many factors contribute, the high cost of labor in the developed world is the primary force.

Relatively high costs of living, standard minimum wages, and a unionized workforce prevalent throughout the country, all add to the cost of American labor. That cost is then added on to the production value and subsequently the price of the product. The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that the average monthly wage for an American in 2009 was $3,263. 

Comparatively, developing nations rely on a large cheap labor force to cut manufacturing costs making them attractive destinations for industry. According to the ILO Chinese workers average a monthly income of $656.

This is not to say that the labor and products produced in developed nations are necessarily better than the labor and the same products produced in developing countries. In some cases the opposite may hold true. However, the professionalization of the labor force add to the cost and raising the production value of the same product in the developed world.

Even agricultural items are subject to similar valuations. A cow in the United States may produce the same milk as a cow in China, the extraction of the milk from the cow, the packaging of the milk for market consumption, and the administration of regulations over the process  requires a human element which generates higher labor costs and increases the value of the foodstuff.

Commercial prices offered to the public to buy the product are made on the basis of the product's production value. The production value is ascertained by calculating the total cost of production including labor. The price then fluctuates based on supply, demand, and profitability of the producer. 

Thus the production value of a product and the product’s market price are intertwined. By creating price equilibrium PPP negates the effects of the production value. In essence PPP undermines the very purpose behind calculating GDP, which is to calculate the true value of a state’s economy. On the other hand nominal GDP produces a more accurate picture of the true value of a state’s economy.

China’s economy might have surpassed the United States’ on some convoluted metric which skews results in favor of developing states, but the real coronation is still a ways away. For now the United States retains its crown.

A Nonexistent Palestinian Genocide

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas
addressing the United Nations General Assembly.
Picture from BBC News.

A few months ago Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations General Assembly and made the claim that Israel had committed a genocide during its latest military operation in the Gaza Strip.

Abbas stated “In this year, proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly as the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, Israel has chosen to make it a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people.” Later he thanked the international community for its support saying “all of these manifestations of true solidarity constituted an important message to those who were facing genocide in Gaza.”

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the Jewish state of Israel has been accused of committing genocide against the Palestinian population. From Asia to Europe people have taken to both print and digital publications offering opinion pieces alleging an Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people. But such uninformed accusations are not limited to random netizens and the random ignorant individual. President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and past Professor of Law at Yale and Columbia, Michael Ratner, is one of the most prominent people to subscribe to this theory. Even some Israeli Jews have accepted and propagated such an allegation.  

Accusations of a Palestinian genocide are of particular importance now considering Abbas’s attempts to gain admission to the International Criminal Court (ICC). As a super-national body the ICC has the jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute international crimes, including genocide, which occur in member states. If Palestine does gain admission to the ICC it will no doubt seek prosecution against Israel for genocide.

But all this begs the question, what is genocide?

Genocide is a crime and like all other crimes, both international and domestic, there is statutory language which legally defines it. Under the Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide the international community formulated the definition of the crime as follows:

State representatives at the Genocide Convention. From
United Nations Audiovisual Library.

“Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group: a) killing members of the group; b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

The language of the Genocide Convention was adopted verbatim into the Rome Statute, the organizing treaty which established the International Criminal Court, reaffirming the definition’s acceptance and validity.

In order to meet the legal requirements of the statute two elements need to be established: 1) the victimized group is a protected group under the statute’s definition; and 2) the perpetrating party must commit one of the listed acts with the intent to destroy the victimized group in whole or in part.

Whether or not the Palestinians are a protected group under the Genocide Convention is not at issue. Over the last half century the Palestinian people have molded a unique national identity without an independent national state, one which has been recognized by every government including Israel (although Israeli policy disputes the scope of that identity). Therefore the Palestinian people are a protected group as defined by international law.

Therefore, the issue raised is not one of identity but rather identifying whether the crimes conform to meet the definition of genocide. When the provisions of the Genocide Convention were being drafted, the intent of the drafters was to define the crime of all crimes. In other words, genocide was to be considered the most severe crime ever established. Therefore the convention’s writers set a high threshold 

Moving to the second element, the criminal provision provides that the perpetrating party must have the necessary mens rea, or intent, and must commit the necessary actus reus, or act to fit within the provided definition. To meet the statutory requirements of genocide it is not enough that an actor commit the aforementioned acts without intending to destroy a group in whole or in part. Alternatively, it is not enough that the actor have just the intent to commit the crime but not engage in any of the unlawful actions.

Intent

We now move to an analysis of the Palestinian situation in light of the established legal definition of genocide.

Proponents of the genocide theory point to statements made by individual Israelis and members of the Israeli legislature, the Knesset, as proof.  An example of which was a plan articulated in a post on Facebook by the Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, Moshe Feiglin. Through his post Feiglin called for Israel to conquer the entire Gaza Strip and eliminate the Palestinian population in the area.

The fact that Mr. Feiglin published such a plan in a Facebook post implies in of itself that his scheme did not have the support of the Israeli government. Had Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the rest of the Israeli cabinet supported such a plan there would have been no need for Feiglin to resort to Facebook to espouse his radical solution. Additionally, the fact that the Israeli government pursued a course of action contrary to Feiglin’s plan, e.g. by pulling IDF forces out of Gaza instead of reoccupying it, further shows the lack of support Feiglin’s idea had with Israeli policy makers.

Statements such as Feiglin’s don’t equate to government policy, but instead serve as an individual’s own opinion. Minus such assertions no evidence exists which points to the specific intent of the Israeli government to commit genocide. There has been no evidence to date which shows that the Israeli government has the specific intent to engage in any of the statutorily illegal acts with the objective of destroying the Palestinian people in whole or in part.

Admittedly it is difficult to ascertain an actor's true intent. Rarely will actors outwardly flaunt the fact that they intend on committing an international crime. When presented with this conundrum during the prosecution of Jean-Paul Akayesu, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) found that intent could be surmised through an analysis of the final results of the conflict considering factors such as a party's overall capability to commit the crime and the final casualty count. Which brings us to the numbers.

The Numbers

Even if we were to accept the claims that the Israeli government intended to destroy in whole or in part the Palestinian people, the claim still fails the second part of the test regarding the actual act of destruction.

Neither the literature of the Genocide Convention or the Rome Statute clearly defines what constitutes destruction in whole or in part. While it is reasonable to infer that destruction in whole would be the extermination of the entire population of a protected group, the term destruction in part is much more ambiguous. With little guidance we are left to discern a quantifiable qualification from what we have historically found to be genocide.

During the Holocaust, the Nazis were responsible for an estimated 5.9 million Jewish deaths. According to estimates by Lucy Dawidowicz and the Jewish virtual library, the worldwide Jewish population in 1939 was about 16.7 million and the total number of Jews living in Europe was 8.8 million. The deaths of over 5.9 million Jews represented 35% of the entire worldwide Jewish population and 67% of the Jewish population of Europe.

Past the immediate effects of the Holocaust on the Jewish population, the destructive nature of Nazi public policy is still being felt today. Whereas the total worldwide Jewish population was about 16.7 million in 1939, the worldwide Jewish population as of 2012 is estimated at 13.7 million, 82.2% of the population prior to the occurrence of the Holocaust. Furthermore the Jewish population of Europe as of 2012 is 1.4 million, a 16% remnant of European Jewry prior to World War 2.

While the breadth of the immediate destruction of the worldwide and European Jewish populations is evidence of the Nazi’s intent to destroy a protected group, the inability of the Jewish population to fully recover in the 70 years since the Holocaust speak to its long term effectiveness.  

Killing fields during the Khmer Rouge. Images from
the documentary "Killing Fields."

Further genocides accorded during the Khmer Rouge, the Cambodian government was responsible for the deaths of over 2 million people, approximately 25% of the entire country’s population according to estimates by Craig Etchenson. And in 1994 of the 1.1 million Tutsis residing in Rwanda the Rwandan Government estimates that approximately 795,000 Tutsis, representing 72.6% of the entire Rwandan Tutsi population, were killed during the country’s genocide.

As previously stated, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas claimed that Israel had conducted a genocide in the Gaza Strip through the recently concluded Operation Protective Edge (OPE). To ascertain the validity of that statement it is necessary to look at the population breakdown of the Palestinian people. As of 2012 the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics lists 11.6 million Palestinians worldwide, 4.8 million living in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 1.7 million living in the Gaza strip alone. 

According to Islamic Jihad, a militant group located in the Gaza Strip which is affiliated with Hamas, 2,143 (the number includes both militants and civilians) Palestinians were killed during the almost two month operation. The 2,143 killed represent 0.018% of the entire worldwide population of Palestinians, 0.045% of Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem, and 0.13% of Palestinians in Gaza.

Even if we were to limit the protected group to Palestinians living in Gaza, rather than the entire world population of Palestinians or just the Palestinians living in the “Occupied Territories” including the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, the 0.13% casualty ratio pales in comparison to the 72.6% of Tutsis killed in the Rwandan Genocide, 35% of Jews killed during the Holocaust, and 25% of Cambodians killed during the Khmer Rouge. Additionally the Palestinian casualties include both civilians and combatants, while the numbers from Rwanda, the Holocaust, and Khmer Rouge represent only civilian deaths.

An explosion from an Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip
during Operation Protective Edge. Photo from Reuters.

To lump the Palestinian deaths during Operation Protective Edge into the categorization of Genocide would in essence undermine the atrocity as a crime by devaluing the level and scope of the necessary elements. Lowering the legal standard would also open the door to including military operations within the meaning of the genocide convention.

The Palestinian death rate during Operation Protective Edge closely resembles the Iraqi death rate during the 2003 American led coalition invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. The Iraqi Central Organization for Statistics estimates that 37,344 Iraqis were killed during the invasion and occupation. In a country with a population estimated at 31.6 million people the number of deaths represent 0.12% of the population, only a hundredth of a percentage point lower than the 0.13% ratio during Operation Protective Edge.

Under a more expansive definition of genocide, the American led Operation Iraqi Freedom would fit within the elements of the crime of genocide. Such an expansive view undermines the purpose for codification of genocide as a crime as well as the intent of the convention’s drafters. The travaux preparatoires, the documents compiling the drafting history of the convention, show that the drafters of the Genocide Convention did not intend to extend the crime of genocide to include casualties of a protected group’s population resulting from military operations. It further establishes that the convention’s writers were focused on defining and establishing a crime of crimes, unquestionably implying that a high standard be set to meet the convention’s definition of destruction.

Considering the language of the Genocide Convention, the travaux preparatoires, and the casualty numbers from the recent Operation Protective Edge compared to those during internationally recognized genocides, in a light most beneficial to Mr. Abbas’s argument, the results show that the Palestinian deaths during Operation Protective Edge do not meet the statutory standards for the crime of genocide.  In fact it doesn’t even come close.

Abbas’s logic further fails when we consider his allegations of Israeli war crimes. In the past Abbas has accused the Israeli military of specifically targeting Palestinian civilians. Accepting his argument, such allegations imply and require an Israeli military which is highly efficient and effective. It follows that such an efficient and effective military, with complete military superiority over the combat zone, would have the capability to effectuate an assault which would yield a death toll high enough to meet the threshold requirements of the genocide convention. Yet the death toll from Israeli operation fails to meet that threshold.

Returning to the element of intent, under Abbas’s own assertions considering the military prowess of Israel, if Israel wanted to it could effectuate a genocide of the Palestinian population with little effort. The lack thereof serves as proof that Israel does not have the mens rea to commit genocide. In this case the evidence of the actor’s actions does not support the finding of intent. 

Ilan Pappe appearing on BBC News.

Abbas’s comments alleging a genocide perpetrated by Israel were not the first. In fact many have suggested that since its establishment Israel has engaged in a systemic policy to eradicate the Palestinian population. Ilan Pappe, an Israeli scholar, has alleged that Israel has been engaging in an “incremental genocide” against the Palestinian people. Such an allegation suggests that the Israeli government, since its inception in 1948, has slowly and systematically engaged in a policy to destroy the  Again we must look at the numbers.

According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics in 1948 there were 1.37 million Palestinians worldwide. As of 2012 that population has increased to 11.6 million, an overall increase close to eight times the population before the establishment of the state of Israel. This includes 1.4 million Palestinians within the 1949 Armistice Line (Israel proper), 2.7 million living in the West Bank (an estimated additional 400,000 in East Jerusalem), and 1.7 million living in the Gaza Strip. Looking just at Israel proper the Palestinian population within the Jewish state has exceeded the number of Palestinians worldwide prior to 1948. This evidence supports the very antithesis to Pappe’s argument. 

Instead of exhibiting any sign of destruction the Palestinian population has grown at an exponential rate in all relevant geographical categories. 

If we were to accept Pappe's argument there must be some evidence of the destruction of the protected group. That evidence would be a contracting population. However, as previously shown, the Palestinian population is not contracting but rather expanding. Even if we were to narrow the scope of our search to smaller increments of time Pappe's argument would require a dip in the Palestinian population similar to those seen in the Jewish, Tutsi and Cambodian populations. However, according the the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the Palestinian population has increased in every decade since 1948. 

A further flaw in Pappe's logic concerns a lack of correlation between the Palestinian growth rate and the growth rate of both the worldwide and Israeli Jewish population over the same period of time. Logically if a group was perpetrating the destruction of another protected group, it would follow that the perpetrating group's population would grow at a faster rate than the victimized group's population during the time of commission. 

Over the last 70 years the Jewish population has been unable to fully recover from the effects of the Holocaust, and has only reached 82.2% of the population, even though the atrocities of the Holocaust had ceased after 1945. Further the worldwide Jewish population in 1950 was 11,297,000 compared to 13,746,100 an increase of 21.7%.  Over the same period of time, the Palestinian population has grown from 1.37 million to 11.6 million an increase of 746.7% . Were a protracted campaign of genocide occurring the victimized group's population growth should not outpace the population growth of the perpetrating group as it has in this case. 

The continued existence of a Palestinian population in Gaza and elsewhere dismisses the possibility that Israel has attempted to destroy the whole of the protected group. Similarly, the growth and lack of contraction of the Palestinian population even in areas of Israeli sovereignty are irrefutable evidence that an Israeli policy seeking to destroy the Palestinian population in part does not exist. 

Considering Israel's sovereignty over areas with a Palestinian population of 6.2 million people, and its military effectiveness, the Israeli government has had the opportunity and the capability to commit a campaign of genocide. But when we include the actual numbers in the equation, the fact remains that there is no evidence that a genocide has taken place even in light of Israel's ability to do so. The existence of the Palestinian population in Gaza and elsewhere shows that there has not been a genocide 

In light of the evidence, acceptance of Mr. Abbas and Mr. Peppe's argument would mean that the highly efficient and effective Israeli military has carried out the least effective and least efficient genocide in human history. The numbers just don't add up. 

Why It Matters

A few months ago Al Jazeera posted an article on its English language website alleging that Jaffa, a predominantely Palestinian neighborhood in Tel Aviv, was undergoing an ethnic cleansing. The gist of the argument was that the current gentrification of the neighborhood was leading to higher housing prices which the economically poorer Palestinian population could not afford, leading them to leave the neighborhood. 

I responded by articulating the international legal standards for the crime of ethnic cleansing, and showed how the allegation that such a crime occurred in Jaffa in light of those standards was not only unsubstantiated but were frivolous and served no purpose other than to evoke irrational and emotional anti-Israeli sentiment. 

Genocide, like ethnic cleansing and apartheid, are terms which the world immediately equates with evil, even though the majority of people don't truly understand their definitions. These terms garner an emotional response and convey a wave of hatred towards the accused, usually lacking in any real objectivity. 

It's easy to just dismiss such comments like Abbas's as over dramatic and mere pandering. But it needs to be emphasized that genocide and ethnic cleansing are actual crimes, the performance of which can lead to prosecution and punishment. The danger over the use of these terms doesn't necessarily come from the partisan unsubstantiated accusation, but rather the wide and growing blind acceptance of them. 

It further explains Israel's reluctance to join or work with international organizations such as the International Criminal Court and United Nation task forces. With esteemed professionals like Michael Ratner disregarding the statutory language of the criminal provisions for a penumbra of justice, it stands to reason that were Israel to submit itself to international scrutiny it would not receive a fair and impartial critique of its actions. 

Unreasonable assertions of criminal activity only further isolate Israel from the rest of the international community by creating a double standard from which it will be judged. Instead of engaging the Israeli government regarding Palestinian issues the miss-use of these terms only serves to further entrench Israeli public opinion to the point where it has become intractable. 

This isn't to say that Israel is absolved of any and all wrong doing, as a proper investigation might reveal,  but regardless of the alleged crime the Jewish state deserves to be judged within the eyes of established international law not reactionary biased double standards. 

But all things considered the greatest injustice perpetrated by Mr. Abbas's unsubstantiated claim is the fact that this false allegation of genocide is being aimed at a people who have actually been victims of genocide, and a country created in the wake of that crime.