DARFUR AND GENOCIDE: WHAT ARE THE FACTS?
St.Louis Jewishlight.com, MO
03526495108.php
Aug 29 2007
JEWISH LIGHT EDITORIAL
The issue of the grave humanitarian crisis facing the people of the
Darfur region of the Sudan, the accuracy of the number of victims
and the appropriate meaning of the term "genocide" have been in the
headlines recently, and some clarification is in order. Related to
these issues is the news that Israel will no longer allow Sudanese
migrants who enter its territory illegally to stay, and that it
would institute a mandatory deportation policy. Each of these issues
deserves discussion.
– Regarding the estimated number of Darfurians killed and displaced,
a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times chided advocates on behalf
of the Darfur victims for using inflated numbers for those killed.
The piece, by Time magazine Africa writer Sam Dealey points out that
while advocacy groups have been saying 400,000 Darfurians have been
killed, the actual number is closer to 200,000. The writer indicated
that whether 200,000 or 400,000 have been killed, along with the
nearly 2 million who have been driven from their homes, it is still
appropriate to refer to what is happening in Darfur and in the refugee
camps in Chad as a "genocide."
– The term "genocide" was coined by the Polish-Jewish lawyer and
Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 book Axis Rule in
Europe. Lemkin played a major role in the introduction of the Genocide
Convention by the United Nations at its first session on Dec. 11,
1946, when it adopted Resolution 96, which condemned genocide as a
crime in international law. The term "genocide" is defined as actions
in which "their inherent intention is to destroy, wholly or partially,
a national, ethnic, racial or religious group per se," and includes
such actions as "the killing of persons belonging to the group;
the causing of grievous bodily or spiritual harm to members of the
group; deliberately enforcing on the group living conditions which
could lead to its complete or partial extermination; the enforcement
of measures designed to prevent birth among the group; the forcible
removal of children from one group to another."
– The term "genocide" became the focus of a major controversy recently,
when Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation
League, reversed himself on whether it was appropriate to describe
the massacre of l.l million Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire
in 1915-1918 as a "genocide." Foxman had fired ADL’s Boston-based
New England Region director for having denounced that position in
an interview with the Boston Globe. In what was described by the
JTA as a "dramatic reversal," Foxman issued an official national ADL
statement using the term "genocide" to describe the Armenian massacre,
Foxman said he had consulted with his "friend and mentor" Elie Wiesel,
the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, who supported
using the term. Foxman indicated that on further reflection he agreed
with the view of Henry Morganthau, Sr.
that the Armenian massacres would have been called "genocide" if the
word had been in use at that time.
All of the verbal gymnastics and gyrations over the term "genocide"
are unseemly in view of the fact that the mass murders continue in
Darfur, and international action is still urgently needed to stop the
bloodbath, regardless of whether official action is taken by the UN
to label it a "genocide," which common sense indicates it is.
Regarding the controversy in Israel on the deportation of Darfurian
refugees coming in from Egypt, the Israeli public is understandably
conflicted. On the one hand, the already weakened government of Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert fears being overwhelmed by masses of refugees.
The Olmert government did decide to grant asylum to about 500 refugees
from the Darfur genocide who had crossed over into Israel from Egypt
in recent months. Olmert’s government was fearful that thousands of
Sudanese migrants who had illegally entered Israel to seek work would
attempt to gain permanent residence because of the crisis. A first
group of about 50 deportees was sent back into Egyptian territory
last weekend.
Indeed, during the term of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin
it was decided to allow into Israel a number of Vietnamese boat
people for the very reason that human rights groups are pressing for
admission of the Sudanese refugees. Israel had also taken in Bosnian
Muslim refugees during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. While
Israel certainly has an historic and moral obligation to do what it
can to help bring relief to refugees from Darfur, so do the Arab and
Muslim nations in the region, including Egypt, which has thus far
refused to take them in, following the past practice of Arab nations
refusing to absorb refugee populations, including the Palestinians.
While Israel has an obligation to do its share, it is unreasonable to
expect the small and overwhelmed Jewish State to be the sole refuge
for refugees from Darfur.
EDITORIAL
DEFINITION OF GENOCIDE
Darfur and Genocide: What Are the Facts?
JEWISH LIGHT EDITORIAL
The issue of the grave humanitarian crisis facing the people of the
Darfur region of the Sudan, the accuracy of the number of victims
and the appropriate meaning of the term "genocide" have been in the
headlines recently, and some clarification is in order. Related to
these issues is the news that Israel will no longer allow Sudanese
migrants who enter its territory illegally to stay, and that it
would institute a mandatory deportation policy. Each of these issues
deserves discussion.
– Regarding the estimated number of Darfurians killed and displaced,
a recent op-ed piece in The New York Times chided advocates on behalf
of the Darfur victims for using inflated numbers for those killed.
The piece, by Time magazine Africa writer Sam Dealey points out that
while advocacy groups have been saying 400,000 Darfurians have been
killed, the actual number is closer to 200,000. The writer indicated
that whether 200,000 or 400,000 have been killed, along with the
nearly 2 million who have been driven from their homes, it is still
appropriate to refer to what is happening in Darfur and in the refugee
camps in Chad as a "genocide."
– The term "genocide" was coined by the Polish-Jewish lawyer and
Holocaust survivor Raphael Lemkin in his 1944 book Axis Rule in
Europe. Lemkin played a major role in the introduction of the Genocide
Convention by the United Nations at its first session on Dec. 11,
1946, when it adopted Resolution 96, which condemned genocide as a
crime in international law. The term "genocide" is defined as actions
in which "their inherent intention is to destroy, wholly or partially,
a national, ethnic, racial or religious group per se," and includes
such actions as "the killing of persons belonging to the group;
the causing of grievous bodily or spiritual harm to members of the
group; deliberately enforcing on the group living conditions which
could lead to its complete or partial extermination; the enforcement
of measures designed to prevent birth among the group; the forcible
removal of children from one group to another."
– The term "genocide" became the focus of a major controversy recently,
when Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation
League, reversed himself on whether it was appropriate to describe
the massacre of l.l million Armenians by the Turkish Ottoman Empire
in 1915-1918 as a "genocide." Foxman had fired ADL’s Boston-based
New England Region director for having denounced that position in an
interview with the Boston Globe. In what was described by the JTA as a
"dramatic reversal," Foxman issued an official national ADL statement
using the term "genocide" to describe the Armenian massacre, Foxman
said he had consulted with his "friend and mentor" Elie Wiesel, the
Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, who supported using
the term. Foxman indicated that on further reflection he agreed with
the view of Henry Morganthau, Sr. that the Armenian massacres would
have been called "genocide" if the word had been in use at that time.
All of the verbal gymnastics and gyrations over the term "genocide"
are unseemly in view of the fact that the mass murders continue in
Darfur, and international action is still urgently needed to stop the
bloodbath, regardless of whether official action is taken by the UN
to label it a "genocide," which common sense indicates it is.
Regarding the controversy in Israel on the deportation of Darfurian
refugees coming in from Egypt, the Israeli public is understandably
conflicted. On the one hand, the already weakened government of Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert fears being overwhelmed by masses of refugees.
The Olmert government did decide to grant asylum to about 500 refugees
from the Darfur genocide who had crossed over into Israel from Egypt
in recent months. Olmert’s government was fearful that thousands of
Sudanese migrants who had illegally entered Israel to seek work would
attempt to gain permanent residence because of the crisis. A first
group of about 50 deportees was sent back into Egyptian territory
last weekend.
Indeed, during the term of the late Prime Minister Menachem Begin
it was decided to allow into Israel a number of Vietnamese boat
people for the very reason that human rights groups are pressing for
admission of the Sudanese refugees. Israel had also taken in Bosnian
Muslim refugees during the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. While
Israel certainly has an historic and moral obligation to do what it
can to help bring relief to refugees from Darfur, so do the Arab and
Muslim nations in the region, including Egypt, which has thus far
refused to take them in, following the past practice of Arab nations
refusing to absorb refugee populations, including the Palestinians.
While Israel has an obligation to do its share, it is unreasonable to
expect the small and overwhelmed Jewish State to be the sole refuge
for refugees from Darfur.