Genocide, denial, and Gaza

Genocide denial is deeply rooted in socio-political, and historical complexities and manifests in many forms across instances like the Armenian, Holocaust, Roman, Rwandan, Bangladesh, and Rohingya genocides, to name a few.  The genocide unfolding in Gaza is live streamed before the world and yet its continuance is being vehemently denied by Israel and its allies.

Gregory Stanton, founder and President of Genocide Watch, argues that genocide is a complex process that unfolds across ten predictable but non-linear stages (often occurring simultaneously), where preventive actions at any stage can halt its progression. Even though argued as "the final stage" of genocide, "denial" is a continuous process that happens before, during, and after persecution. Understanding it is essential as it indicates that more atrocities will continue.

Genocide denialism has a deep-rooted connection with the narratives of groups that justify harmful beliefs, perpetuates prejudices, distorts historical facts, and misrepresents social realities. Stanley Cohen, sociologist and criminologist,  argues that "the social conditions that give rise to atrocities merge into the official techniques for denying these realities—not just to observers, but even to the perpetrators themselves." This denial includes outright rejection of information, disputing the significance of events, minimising responsibility, shifting blame to victims, moral disengagement to justify dehumanisation, and fostering belligerent violence in disguise of defense.

The textbook example of the above is unfolding in the context of Gaza. Denial is exhibited in the Israeli government's use of jargon of International Humanitarian Law to justify genocide, as identified by Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. Concepts such as "human shields", "collateral damage" and "proportionality" are distorted and misused to justify actions in Gaza. Articles 48 and 52 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions mandate attacks to be limited to military targets. Specific military advantage must be weighed against foreseeable civilian harms. Article 51(5)(b) emphasises proportionality, disallowing attacks where civilian harm is excessive relative to military advantage. By accusing Palestinian armed groups of using civilians as human shields, Israel justified disproportionate killings and infrastructure destruction. The concept of collateral damage was misused to justify indiscriminate attacks as intentional harms. By twisting legal language, Israel blurred the distinction between civilians and combatants, portraying the entire population as legitimate military targets, and proceeded to obliterate the people of Gaza.

Following the US university protests, the US House of Representatives has gone on to pass a bill that would expand the federal definition of antisemitism potentially curtailing freedom of speech. The recent amendment to the State Department Foreign Operations and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2025 prohibits US officials from using agency funding to cite any casualty figures provided by the Gaza Ministry of Health, which is often the sole source of information about the situation on the ground in Gaza. Hence, it can be argued that Israel's biggest ally, the US, has further institutionalised the genocide denial in the context of Gaza.

While the internet makes literal denial tough, in many instances, it intensifies the process.  Big data regimes create filter bubbles, isolating individuals in ideological echo chambers, and reinforcing biases, particularly evident in narratives about Palestine. Tech companies wield immense control over content dissemination, potentially prioritising propaganda aligned with certain ideologies, leading to censorship of dissenting opinions and news, threatening freedom of speech. Among tech giants, Meta has been accused of censoring Palestinian voices through arbitrary content removal, suspension of accounts, and restriction of certain accounts' reaches and visibilities, without explanation or notification (i.e., shadow banning).

Genocide denialism constitutes a form of dehumanisation and oppression by creating conditions that coerce the narratives into silence. Questioning genocide denialism is crucial as it upholds the dominant group's narrative, affects the oppressed, and hinders both genocide prevention and justice for the victims. In Palestine, denial of genocide perpetuates systematic inequality and historical oppression through settler colonialism, continuing intergenerational discrimination since 1948.

The writer is an LLM candidate, University of Dhaka.